Show Me the Money! Restructure Your Time to Focus on the Highest-Paying Actions
Mon, Jan 19, 2015
In the real estate process, there are four stages that every agent goes through to earn a commission. Actually, these are the same four stages that every professional goes through with his/her clients, whether we’re talking about a doctor, a consultant, an insurance salesman, or a yoga teacher.
Those four stages are:
- Finding prospects
- Converting those prospects into clients
- Providing exceptional service so they become happy, lifelong clients
- Leveraging each customer’s satisfaction so they will give you their repeat business and refer you to others
The four stages are set in stone — they cannot be cured with a magic marketing formula. But what can be changed is how you approach each step and how much time you devote to it.
A Typical Agent’s Time Breakdown
Here is how the average agent spends his/her time addressing these four stages:
| ACTIVITY | % OF TIME SPENT |
| Finding Prospects | 85% |
| Converting Prospects to Clients | 10% |
| Servicing Clients | 5% |
| Leveraging Clients’ Satisfaction | 0% |
The typical agent uses the majority of their time to go fishing in a vast ocean for a few teeny tiny fish. They spend 85% of their time being rejected by hundreds of prospects in order to convince one to take a chance on them. Not only is the Finding Prospects stage highly labour-intensive, but it’s also frustrating, humiliating, and most importantly, ineffective.
The activities of finding and converting prospects are the lowest paying parts of an agent’s job. Think of these as the investment stages of the customer life cycle. You only start to make money once you move to the later stages and your service results in the sale or purchase of a home. When you spend so much time in the early investment stages, there’s simply not enough left to devote to the real moneymaking activities.
My Time Breakdown
| ACTIVITY | % OF TIME SPENT |
| Finding Prospects | 10% |
| Converting Prospects to Clients | 10% |
| Servicing Clients | 40% |
| Leveraging Clients’ Satisfaction | 40% |
How Reverse Prospecting Works
To use reverse prospecting successfully, you’ll need to use two tools:
- Direct response lead generators: classified ads, editorial-style ads, USP ads, signs, flyers, etc. (both online-web and offline-print) that compel prospects to call you
- Automated hotline system/website system: systems that automatically answer prospect inquiries and supply information, then sift and sort out your best prospects
JOIN MY FREE WEEKLY TRAINING PROGRAM
Do you want to test drive my ideas and systems absolutely free? This free introduction to Craig Proctor Systems includes live weekly webinars, a monthly newsletter and priority invitations to free half day training events around the country. With these free training tools, you will learn;
- Reverse Prospecting – a highly effective lead generation that gets qualified prospects to hunt you down rather than the other way around.
- More effective Lead Conversion
- Prospect Presentation systems that will change the way you do business.