As a real estate professional, you know that your business is only as good as the planning you put into it. So, when you’re heading into a busy selling season, here are five real estate business strategies you can do right now to be ready for summer.
1. Automate Everything You Can
The more that you can get off your plate, the better. One of the best ways to do this is to automate repetitive processes. Do you send out birthday greetings to your center of influence? Consider using a service like SendOutCards.com. Take the time to set this up now, and your clients will receive that personal touch during the summer, even while you’re busy helping your buyers find homes and shepherding your transactions through the purchase process.
Other ways to automate your business include using social media aggregate services like Hootsuite.com or Buffer.com to schedule your social media posts ahead of time. This way you don't need to constantly log into your accounts and set up your ongoing social media posts. You can also put communications like newsletters and email updates on autopilot using an email autoresponder such as Mail Chimp or Constant Contact.
2. Enlist Help
Whether you’ve got a team, a support system through your brokerage, or operate as a “lone wolf,” now is the time to think about where you can use help in your business. Evaluate the tasks that you delegate to see if there are any others you can add to the list, and get creative about who can help. Children and teens are always great help when it comes to preparing mailings, hanging door hangers, and putting up signs. You should also consider sites like Elance.com and Fiverr.com for activities like data entry, flyer and mailer design, blog writing, or even creation of property videos to kick your listing marketing up a notch.
3. Concentrate Your Efforts
During the heat of the summer real estate market, connecting with people to keep your business growing can be difficult. Consider ways that you can spend time with as many of your contacts as possible. Summer could be just the time to schedule an office open house or even a casual happy hour to catch clients in a festive mood and spend time with as many in your center of influence as possible.
4. Plan Ahead Down to the Smallest Details
As you prepare for the summer, taking the time to plan even the smallest details can help relieve stress and help assure that you’re moving towards your business goals. This spring, as you’re going through your day-to-day work , try to remain conscious of every time you’re not sure what you need to do next. Creating plans and processes to handle these situations now will make you more efficient, and free you up when your workload is heavier and critical tasks are at hand. For example, consider the questions you receive on a regular basis. Finding resources or creating ready-made answers in the form of a flyer or pre-written email can help you to deal with these common issues quickly and efficiently.
5. Measure and Eliminate Unproductive Activities
Finally, now is a great time to take a look at the effectiveness of your current business efforts. Do you know how current activities are contributing to your business? Consider measuring the effectiveness of ads, emails, and other communications by creating a specific action you’d like people to take based on the communication. Give a special offer designed for each method of communication and record the number of results that you receive from each. Once you’ve recorded the results for a while, consider cutting activities that are not showing results and increasing those that show their worth.
