Commercial Real Estate Agents – Delegate Time Wasting Issues to Get Some Real Control

In commercial real estate brokerage, you can waste a lot of time if you are not careful with what you do daily with your diary and client contact.  As you get busier as an agent, it is easy to get ‘lost in the pressures of the day’. 

Over time, that diversion will impact your commissions and listing growth.  The message here is that we should always ‘stay on track’.

One of the biggest frustrations I find in our industry is unnecessary meetings to discuss mundane things or with people who really do not count in the business equation. While you may be part of a busy brokerage, I hope that the team leader is smart enough to move weekly team meetings away from the ‘core business time’ when you should be talking with clients and prospects.

Focus your prospecting time, and don’t let meetings upset your day plan or client focus.  The same should be said about meetings with clients; do them later in the day when your new business focus has been attended to.

Administrative Team Support

Delegate the time-wasting things that you really shouldn’t be involved in.  You are the fee and commission earner; you can’t earn money by pushing papers around the office for low-priority issues.  Get the support team to work with you where you need to get ordinary things under control.  The administrative team should be able to look after things such as:

• Arranging for signboards to be placed
• Placing advertisements in the newspapers and online
• Processing the leases and contracts into the brokerage system
• Taking calls of a general nature
• Compiling marketing brochures and mailouts

So, what’s the ‘core message’ here?  Protect your time comprehensively and completely; delegate as much ‘general stuff’ as possible.  Take control of your diary, and don’t let others book you up for anything without an excellent reason; set the rule that a meeting with you is not booked until the reason is qualified and justified.

Set Time and Task Rules

Let’s set some rules for that:

1. Know what’s really important. There will be two or three very important things in your diary. Don’t let others move those essential things. Make your time decisions well in advance and stick to your priorities.
2. Put clients and new business at the top of your list – Where does the business come from? When you really understand the facts of our industry, you will want to be out of the door and in your market talking to the right people as much as possible.
3. Keep your current deals moving – You can keep your commission income and listings moving ahead by keeping notes and raising diary alerts. With all of the business tools that we have at our disposal today there is really no reason not to be in control.
4. Take plenty of notes—Take plenty of notes during your conversations and telephone calls so you can attend to general matters later. The note-taking process will also help you when it comes to deal momentum and client updates.

If you really want to build a top-performing commercial real estate business, look at your time commitments and set some rules. Build your real estate momentum through directed effort; only you can do that.