On the Market, On the Minute: Prioritizing Time to Make More Real Estate Sales

In the fast-paced world of commercial real estate, timing is crucial. The difference between successfully closing a sale and missing a valuable opportunity often depends on how effectively agents manage their time and take action.

Now is the time to reflect on your current practices as an agent and consider ways to improve. You are empowered to focus on critical areas for enhancement.

As a local real estate agent, you are also responsible for your progress, professional branding, listing growth, and commission outcomes. To grow your real estate business, it’s essential to focus on improving your efforts and using your time more effectively.

Every agent has the opportunity to enhance their time management skills to their advantage. Remember, your real estate future is in your hands, and challenging yourself is a valuable practice.

Time is Leverage for Agents

As the property market becomes increasingly dynamic, agents must leverage the power of time to enhance their sales strategies, improve client communication, and boost listing growth. I want to share ideas and explore time management techniques in commercial real estate, focusing on practical insights to optimise every minute for maximum success.

It’s important to remember that your real estate skills and market presence are essential for helping clients navigate their property opportunities and challenges. Approaching the property market with this mindset will allow you to discover more listings and generate additional transactions.

Engaging with many people is key to uncovering listings or closing deals. That’s why maintaining a robust contact list is crucial for your success.

Importance of Time Management in Real Estate

Time is a finite resource, particularly in commercial real estate sales and leasing, where a sense of urgency is crucial. However, let’s be realistic from the start; working 12 hours a day solely on your real estate business is not feasible.

It would be best if you had breaks, and using those breaks effectively, along with a solid plan of action, will help create consistency over the long term. It’s also important to prioritise personal time, family life, health, and personal development. Ultimately, it’s all about finding balance.

Let’s get better results from the productive use of time. Effective time management can help agents achieve the following benefits:

• Increased productivity
• More good quality listings
• Greater commissions per transaction
• Growth of market share
• More enquiry on better listings
• Comprehensive marketing
• Higher client satisfaction
• Faster sales cycles
• Better work-life balance for real estate agents

Our clients also want results promptly, so the listing and marketing process becomes crucial at the agent level. Your current position in the industry directly results from your efforts and focus. Your service and strategies come into that. Can you improve those things?

Agent Time – The Improvements

So, if you want the coming months and years in the industry to be better for you as an agent, you must lift and/or change the focus of your real estate day activities. It would be best to optimise your diary as the key to agent improvement and results.

Reflect on your progress in the past six months regarding market share, listings, and commissions. Could you have achieved better results? Do you want the next 12 months to be different? It’s time to evaluate how you utilize your time and, in that context, how you develop and enhance your brand as an agent.

Property Specialisation

Specialisation is a good thing. Split your property market into a primary zone of activity and a secondary zone of activity. This lets you concentrate your efforts on buildings, clients, and activities. It also allows you to monitor market trends and sales and leasing activity results.

Keep things simple as you strive to improve your market share and transaction results. Develop a plan around that and track your activity numbers each day. We always prefer simplicity when it comes to agent activity, market coverage, and client engagement.

Agents Understanding Client Expectations

Real estate buyers and sellers expect prompt responses and swift action from the agents they work with. Delays can derail negotiations or lead to missed opportunities. Agents can ensure they meet and exceed client expectations by efficiently managing time in property follow-up, direct marketing, and transaction momentum. Deliver what clients want and be the best local agent.

On a typical agent day, plenty of distractions and impositions exist regarding time and tasks. Even the best real estate agent with reasonable diary control will experience time pressure. So, it would help if you had a base plan to handle the daily pressures. That is why I recommend you focus on a 50/50 focus for your real estate day.

Control and devote 50% of your real estate day to prospecting and marketing, mainly talking to new people. You can dedicate the remaining 50% to the pressures and variables of the working day, listings, clients, negotiations, and marketing.

Capitalising on Market Trends

The real estate market is ever-evolving, with trends that require timely action. Agents who are quick to adapt to these changes are often the ones who close the most deals. Timing is crucial, whether it’s a buyer’s market, a seller’s market, or somewhere in between.

Practical Strategies for Better Time Management

Prioritising Tasks Efficiently

Not all real estate tasks are equal. Prioritisation ensures the most important tasks get the attention they deserve, giving you a sense of control and efficiency in your work.

• Establish a Daily Task List: Begin each day with a well-defined plan, jotted down in a diary on your desk. Rank tasks based on urgency and importance. Tick off those tasks as you move through them.
• Use the Eisenhower Box: Divide tasks into four categories—urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not necessary, and neither urgent nor essential—to better allocate time.
• Leverage Technology: Utilise tools like CRM systems to keep track of contacts and deadlines.
• Track your Numbers: The number of outgoing calls, meetings, presentations, and conversions of both exclusive and open listings influence every aspect of the prospecting process. Each agent should check and tally those numbers each week. It is a personal process for all of us. Watch the numbers improve.
• Remove Hurdles: If something is not worth doing or taking on, then don’t. You always have choices, so protect your time and your focus as an agent. Choose the better locations, properties, listings, and transactions.

Streamlining Communications

Effective communication with clients, colleagues, and potential buyers is crucial. However, it can also be a significant time drain if not appropriately managed. How often do you talk to your prospects and clients now?

The frequency of contact and conversations is essential. You should speak with any prospect or client you deem worthy of your real estate services at least once every 90 days. Think also about these other things.

• Quick Email Responses: Set aside specific times during the day to address emails rather than reacting to them as they come in.
• Use Messaging Apps: Platforms like WhatsApp or Slack can facilitate quicker communication than traditional emails.
• Automate Responses: For frequently asked questions or common inquiries, use automated responses to save time, making you more productive and efficient in your daily tasks.
• Market Updates: Share facts about how the market changes and comment on what you see locally within sales and leasing activity. Show your database that you are a source of information.

Real-World Time Management Tactics

Delegating Effectively

One of the most challenging yet effective time management tactics is delegation. Real estate agents should not hesitate to delegate tasks that others can perform, relieving them of unnecessary burdens and allowing them to focus on what truly matters.

• Administrative Work: Consider hiring an assistant to handle paperwork, scheduling, and other administrative tasks.
• Marketing Efforts: Outsource photography, graphic design, or social media management to focus on client engagement and sales.
• Using Transaction Coordinators: These professionals can handle the details of closing deals, ensuring everything is in order while freeing agents to attend to pressing tasks.

Time-Sensitive Marketing Approaches

Marketing in real estate must be timely to reach potential buyers at the right moment. Ultimately, you want your clients to remember you when they are ready to transact in sales or leasing activity. That is where the frequency of contact and relevance in the process are essential.

Top of Mind

To achieve that top-of-mind process, regular contact must occur productively and directly. Think about these strategies.

• Targeted Email Campaigns: Schedule emails to coincide with specific market activities or seasonal trends.
• Social Media Posts: Market on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook during off-peak times to extend engagement.
• Virtual Tours: Offer potential buyers the chance to view properties anytime through videos and virtual tours, saving travel and meeting time.

A Personal Agent Anecdote

We all make mistakes in the property industry, and we can learn from them. We can also learn from others in our location and those who specialise in our class of property or client base. Watch others and decide how to improve your activities based on their strengths and weaknesses. Strive to enhance your activities and eliminate any shortcomings in skills or prospecting. Build on the skills that you have now.

As a real estate agent, I once missed a prime deal because I wasn’t quick enough to reply to a client’s inquiry. This experience taught me the importance of immediate communication, prompting me to adopt an “email check at set times” strategy, which significantly boosted my responsiveness without feeling overwhelmed.

Regular Client Contact

When you have or are growing a client base as an agent, you must regularly connect with that base through consistent, professional, and industry-relevant strategies. Build your brand through that constant contact approach and improve things over time.

Many agents struggle with the changes and pressures of the property market; it is an everyday fact of the business. The market will change several times throughout the year, and we, as real estate agents specialising in commercial property, must move with those changes and stay ahead of the trends and changes.

Think about real estate change and what is happening in your market now. What are the trigger points for people? How can you help them? There are always people to help and work with in commercial property investment sales, leasing, and property management.

The property market does not disappear; it simply changes, and your ability as an agent to work with that change is fundamentally important as you grow your market share in your client base. Get involved with your real estate market regularly and continuously through deliberate and direct effort. Self-improvement is important.

Conclusion About Agent Time

Effective time management is essential for successful real estate sales. Agents can improve sales performance and enhance client interactions by prioritising tasks, streamlining communication, delegating responsibilities, and implementing timely marketing strategies.

“Time is money,” and every minute in the real estate industry is crucial. As agents, we must work with that challenge. Are you ready to transform how you manage your time for better results in the marketplace?

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

By implementing these strategies and continually improving your methods, you can optimise the invaluable time resources and achieve significant success in commercial real estate.