The #1 enemy of most real estate brokers today is procrastination.
While most real estate brokers do not lack creativity, customer service or drive, many of them do lack the ability to get things done. This is not just specific to real estate brokers. Almost every professional in every field suffers from some level of procrastination.
I’m not referring to the type of procrastination where you put off a task until tomorrow that should be done today. I am talking about the kind of procrastination that limits your ability to start and complete critical business-building systems.
For example: Over the past couple of years in many markets, brokers have been experiencing strong shifts in inventory. Many have realized that they need to shift their focus or move their lead generation boat into waters with more fish. Even though they know they should be shifting their focus or implementing a new system – or changing the way they do business – they don’t. The reason they don’t is because they never press the NOW button. They live in a world where they put critical business-building action steps into the LATER category.
Think about your own business. What button do you press more often, the NOW button or the LATER button? In my coaching practice, I hear from brokers all the time about how they thought of making a change in their business but they just kept putting if off. Sometimes it is a matter of not having the right chunk of time to devote to the change, it takes too much research, or sometimes that research sends them down another rabbit hole. Sometimes because there isn’t enough knowledge of the change’s scope, even starting can seem overwhelming.
But in real estate, if you want to build or expand your business – or improve your business systems – you have to learn to press the NOW button and take the plunge!
We all have things that we would rather not do. We all put off tasks and projects. The key to learning how to press the NOW button more often is to begin by pressing the NOW button for shorter periods of time. Imagine you are at home in the kitchen and there is a pile of dishes or a basket of laundry that needs to be dealt with. You know you don’t have the time to finish the entire task but what about pressing the NOW button for sixty seconds? You can get a lot done in a minute!
What I do on a daily basis with the projects that I have in my business and personal life is to make sure I press the NOW button even if it’s just for a short period of time.
Here’s what that looks like for me: I put together a list of all the projects I need to complete. If I have twenty minutes available, I look at my list and my rule is that I choose four items that I can give five minutes to. Maybe that’s five minutes devoted to an important email that I need to send, or an article or research project I am working on. While some people might think it better to take the twenty minutes to tackle one project to completion, I may not be in the mood to spend twenty minutes on one item. But by starting – which is always the hardest thing to do – I quickly realize that the projects I keep putting into the LATER category are not that difficult. By tackling your LATER button items in shorter spurts of time, you will soon realize that everything you have been putting off can easily be tackled.
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