As we close out a great year let’s start thinking of what we can do better at and what do we need to implement.

1. Get a pencil and paper.
2. Write down everything you feel you can do better at.
   1. Cold calling
   2. Listings procedure
   3. Maintaining an organized database
   4. Asking for referrals
   5. Client interaction
   6. Business 2 Business interaction
      1. Supporting local business
   7. Expenses
   8. Social Media
3. Write down everything you did right and feel confident in – your wins
   1. How many listings are you closing this year
      1. How did you get those listings
   2. How many buyers did you help achieve their real estate dream?
      1. How did you get those buyers
   3. You stayed consistent with your marketing
      1. local
      2. Internet

Now, let’s compare these two lists and let’s stop and be thankful for the wins and think about how to then how can you modify the things you can do better in.

We have to remember we are coming off a couple of years of amazing momentum, so by putting certain areas of your business on the back burner is fine – you have to focus on the wins, but now you need to put a plan into place so that you are the first person any buyer or seller thinks of when the times comes, so what will you do in the new year that will set you up for success?

Here are some tips:

1. Create a monthly newsletter
2. Create a past client system
3. Create a social media strategy
4. Commit to batch your tasks as much as possible

Not only do you need to focus on the business, but you must focus on the personal things in your life as well so you have a balance.

While talking to a client this past week she mentioned she finds it hard to relax and take time for herself.  So, I mentioned to her that she just needs to focus on one quarter at a time.

Set a goal for the business and your personal life each quarter.

Something like:

Go out to eat alone – this will help you build your confidence. Get to know you and spend time with YOU!

1. Treat yourself to a massage
2. Get together with your people for a day out. Go hiking, Do some yoga together, take a day trip, etc.

Business:

1. Review your expenses and eliminate programs you’re not using.
2. Organize your database
3. Organize your computer files –
4. Clean your inbox

These are just some ideas so make a list of personal and business goals that you know you can obtain in that quarter.  Then focus on that one goal and then when the quarter is over set another for the new quarter.

You will find this helps you achieve those larger milestones and you will feel you accomplished more and by the end of the year you have accomplished at least 4 goals for personal and business.

My personal goal for the first quarter of the year is to start back to my cross-stitching.  I have an idea of what I want to create so it might take the first quarter to get it organized, but by the second quarter I will be ready to start the project

My business goal for the first quarter is to look at my systems to eliminate the programs I am not using.  This will set me up for a solid focus on the programs I do use and discover what else they can do for my business.

If you are struggling with organization, setting goals for your personal or business, please reach out.  We are a fabulous resource to help get you going in the right direction.

In closing……

• Schedule Your Work Hours and Your Off Hours
• Time Blocking – schedule time to answer emails and return phone calls so you aren’t stopping every few minutes and find yourself unable to complete any other work
• Streamline your record-keeping system and don’t have files and contacts in multiple places (such as just use Dropbox, OneNote, Google Drive or CRM)
• Create process checklists to guide you through activities such as listing a home, closing a deal, or running an open house
• Get rid of clutter such as all unnecessary papers (old contracts, expired listings, etc.) – make sure they are backed up online and organized by year, month, client name, etc.

Episode 13 – Real Estate Tools That Help You Shift in Today’s Housing Market.mp3

Welcome to the Unstoppable Real Estate Agents podcast. I’m your host and real estate productivity expert Kim Hughes. Join me as we focus on real strategies and implement real solutions designed for you to achieve major success in your business and life while getting you organized.

Hi everybody, it’s Kim Hughes today I want to talk to you about how the market is shifting and how most agents are looking at their business trying to figure out what they can do during this time to better themselves and their business tools for the new year and then going forward just completely. So, some of the conversations that I’ve been having with my clients is shifting through, you know, going crazy with not having time to market a listing to now we have time, and we need to improve our listing procedure. But you also need to look at all the tools in your business, and some of these tools for new agents they may not even have because they’ve been in the business where they didn’t have to have one, you know? We’ve been in bidding wars and before you could get it on the MLS it was sold, et cetera. So, these are some of the tools that I’m going to recommend that we take advantage of right now while the market is still kind of you know, leveraging out and we’re in the holiday season, so these could be some things that you could be doing to fill in that time, but also, to prepare yourself for the new year by already having the tools in place and being the one out the door with everything ready to go.

So, the first thing I want to kind of talk about is how do you market yourself now? You know you’ve really never had to do that, so now we’ve got to kind of look at that and say if I need to market myself to compete for a listing or compete to have a buyer, what do I do? So, the first thing I’m going to tell you is you’ve got to have your prelisting package. And I’m not going to go into great detail on any of these, because they’re on my website and you can also go back to past podcast and listen to them. I think the first one I had was on prelisting packages. So, create your prelisting package. Then I want you to create your listing presentation and then I want you to create a buyer presentation, or buyer package and have in there everything that you need so that when you get that call from a seller, you’re ready to go. Make sure your branding is in there. Make sure you have your content correct, your links etcetera. Because what you want to do is when you’re creating these presentations and packages is you want those links to be in there so they can just click on the link once you e-mail it to them, but you also want it in a printable format as well as on your, you know to open it up on your laptop or you knowkim@kimhughes.com your tablet, whatever you may use, so you want it in a PDF, you want to print it, and then you want to be able to open it and show the slide presentation as you’re sitting there talking to the clients. So, make sure you look at that before you start creating them. How do you accomplish that? And I’m going to recommend PowerPoint, you know. Microsoft PowerPoint is the best one to do it with. OK, so you’ve got all your presentations. You’ve got your prelisting package. You’ve got your buyer package ready.

Now what we want to do is – one thing that you can definitely implement in January is go back to your 2022 clients, buyers and sellers, and send them their settlement statement. This is a very powerful first touch for the first of the year. I have clients that do this and they 9 times out of 10 will get a referral just based on them doing that. And how much the client has appreciated them taking the time to resend it to them, so they don’t have to go look for it. So, if you need a settlement statement package, I have one on my website at kimhughes.com. If you can’t find it, just e-mail me at kim@kimhughes.com and I’ll get you the information on it. But we have to remember that we are building relationships, so that’s the key to this business. It’s not just jumping out there and posting, you know a little motivational thing. Or, you know, calling cold calling 25 calls a week and all that stuff. This is where you can take the time right now. And build those relationships that you’ve created over the last year, or maybe even the last couple of years that you really haven’t taken the time nor had the time to do so kind of plan out what you want to do with each contact type that you have in your database and that would be of course your past clients and create a campaign or a system of what you’re going to do to stay in touch with them. Because that’s where the meat of your business is and what we want to hear you say is a majority of my business comes from past clients, referrals, et cetera and so keep that in mind when you’re sitting there talking, you know, thinking through what you want to do for your past client system. That can be one of the most powerful tools that you have in your arsenal.

OK, the other thing that you can do is just reach out, make a phone call, and just say Merry Christmas, happy Holidays, Happy New Year. Anything you need that I can help you with? You know especially with these ‘22 clients. And even go back to ‘21 or even ‘20 and start reaching out to those people and talking to them. And you know, maybe you just do it right after New Year’s or the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so that’s something else that you can do and get very organized. And then look at your database as you’re doing this and organize that database. Your CRM system is your lifeline, so you need to have that in perfect condition at all times, so you know it’s not the most favorite thing to do, but it’s the most important thing to do, so keep that in mind when you’re looking at your CRM is you want to create contact types so that when you get a lead, a referral, you get an e-mail from somebody or a direct message you know what to do with them in your database so that they know exactly what action plan they’re going on and what drip campaign they’re going to get. And make sure you have a really good CRM and you know we work with a lot of them. So, the CRM’s that we recommend you know, of course, it depends on everybody, so just kind of do your own research. But if you need some help, just reach out and we’ll be able to talk to you about that.

Now a couple of other things that I was just talking to a client this morning with their end-of-the-year call, and we were talking about. She said that she had had her best year yet and she’s been in the business several years and I asked her, you know, well, what did you do that was different this year from the years prior she said by implementing the tools and the tools were the presentations, the packages, having a good CRM system that is organized and stays organized. But she also does pop-by. She does one every quarter. And she said it usually takes her a day. Maybe, you know, depending on you know what she’s planning, who she’s planning to pop-by with, but she orders her pop-by, has them delivered to her at her office, and then she and her husband go out and deliver them so they do so many homes a day. She said it usually takes a couple of days to do it. But it’s the best return of investment because she says she always walks away with one or two referrals. So, keep that in mind, it might take a little bit of effort to put it in place, but once you have it in place and you have a system for it, then it should work like clockwork, and then you will see the return of investment. The other thing that we talked about was sending an anniversary card, so now would be a good time to start getting ready to send out anniversary cards from ‘21, ‘20 or ‘22 or and ’22 and then make sure you have those ready to go out and put them in a little file system for each month so that if you do them now, then you just put them in the little file system and then when it comes that month when come March comes around, you just walk over, pick them up, take them and put them in the mail. So, you’re doing a bulk system here, so keep that in mind that that’s a really good thing to do. So, get all your anniversary cards, your birthday cards ready, you know and then look at your social media.

OK, so we want to make sure when you look at your social media, look at your profiles. Make sure everything is updated. If I go to your profile and I don’t know that you’re a realtor how am I going to know to call you to list my home or help me buy a home? So, make sure you have your profiles all updated. Make sure that you have a strategy in place to be consistent with your social media, but also again, you want an engagement. You don’t want to just throw stuff out there, you want engagement. So some of the things that you can do of course is put your listings, put your solds, put your testimonials, a link to your newsletter. What else can we do? Videos if you go around your neighborhood or maybe around your communities and take videos and then put those on your social media, that would be great even with you may be hanging out with the kids, husband whatever you do in your spare time. Take get that videotaped and put it out there. They don’t have to be professional; they don’t even have to be that long. They could be maybe. Two to three minutes if that you know. So don’t be afraid of it. Just get out there and do it OK and I am my worst enemy because I’m always critiquing myself on video. But you know, it’s one of those things where it’s the message that you’re delivering it’s not who you, what you look like. And then, you know, take a look at your website, see what you need to do there too. It you know it doesn’t hurt to look at what other people are doing in the industry on what they’re doing with their websites, so you know, kind of. If somebody, if I was a realtor and you came to my website and you’ve got some ideas to build your own, then I would take that as a compliment. So don’t worry about you. Know what Joe Realtors doing. Just worry about what you want to do. But you could get an idea like he may have his market stats on his website, then you. Oh that’s a great idea. I’ll do that myself, so you know, don’t steal the idea. Don’t steal the copy, but you can definitely look at the idea and then go from there. There, so these are just some of the things that you can be working on right now that I think would help you fill in the gaps from being so busy to now. Kind of just sitting there thinking Oh my gosh, what am I going to do so kind of put a strategy in place? Do is start creating your systems? Create your go-list. Get things. Ready and start working on them now. So then when 2023 rolls around you’re ready. You go, you’re not going backward. You’re going forward. So I hope this has helped you out a lot. I would love to hear your comments and if you need any help with anything that we’ve discussed please reach out to me Kim at KimHughes.com and we can talk about how we can help you get ready for 2023.

Thank you so much for tuning in and if you know someone and I bet you do, who would appreciate this podcast, please share it with them. As a reminder, this podcast can be delivered directly to your favorite device by using the subscribe links. You can find in the show notes below or over at unstoppablerealestateagents.com.
Remember, it takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. Have a great day.