5 Productivity Tips for Real Estate Agents

We all have 24 hours in a day. So why does it feel like you could use a few extra numbers on the clock? It all comes down to productivity and managing your time wisely.

Being productive has a lot of meanings in the real estate marketing world. On a given day you could be calling clients, writing blogs for your real estate website, posting your listings on social media, or all of the above. No matter what your day-to-day tasks look like, every agent could benefit from better time management. We're going through our top five tips for making your hours count.

1. Focus and Simplify Your Strategy

When you've got a full plate and a full email inbox, simplifying your strategy can feel like a glass of fresh water. Part of simplifying is starting off with a great Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and website, but simplifying what you do every day in a more straightforward sense is also a must. Write down what you want to accomplish in a day, a week, and a month, and schedule it in the calendar of your choice. Holding yourself accountable with reminders and pre-scheduled blocks of time takes away any guesswork and keeps you on task.

Another part of simplifying is not wasting time on clients that aren't responsive or aren't bringing in enough revenue. This might sound like a no-brainer, but it's necessary to reduce your effort on leads that aren't going anywhere.

2. Utilize a CRM

Keeping your customers in an organized system saves you time and gives you large-scale insights on your success rate and other metrics.

Integrating a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system like Contactually, Follow Up Boss, IXACT Contact, and others with your IDX website's property search forms the complete package to help you manage your interactions and relationships with customers.

Focus on the individual, not the group. Use a CRM to narrow your view and do one thing at a time. You can get more tasks done if you go through them methodically and individually. While multitasking has long been praised as a positive, the American Psychological Association explains that "Doing more than one task at a time, especially more than one complex task, takes a toll on productivity." Even though it is tempting to address several leads at once, know that concentrating on them one-by-one leads to higher productivity levels.

3. Automate Your Lead Nurturing Process

Automation has many benefits, but the main one is freeing up precious time for you to convert leads. Get your leads to follow your calls-to-action by setting up drip campaigns that email them strategic messages depending on how they found you, what properties/locations they are interested in, or other specific characteristics. Read our blog, "How to Leverage Automation for Lead Nurturing," for a deeper explanation.

4. Get Rid of Distractions

It might be tempting to take quick breaks by checking social media or reading the news, but we recommend that you remove these time-sucking distractions from your work day.

Make things easier for you before you get trapped in infinite scroll mode and remove apps from your work phone, use browser extensions to block the social sites you waste the most time on, and be strict with yourself on how much time a day you want to dedicate to distractions.

5. Stay Ahead of the Game

We mentioned this in tip #1, but planning your process is the cornerstone on which productivity is built.

Start by evaluating your productivity strengths and weaknesses. Are you great at planning but bad at execution? Time for calendar reminders. Are you great at getting leads but not following up? Use marketing automation to remind you to get out there and contact them.

Finding the gaps in your process and planning solutions before they happen can save you a literal headache. To be proactive instead of reactive and stay ahead of the game you should research the latest trends, create a plan for generating leads, and try out apps to make your process flow more smoothly.

You're already on the right track for staying ahead of the curve. After all, you now have five excellent productivity tips in your toolkit! Good luck being the most productive version of yourself that you can be.

To view the original article, visit the WolfNet blog.