Sales vs. Admin: Maximizing Your Team's Time

Make sure everyone on your team spends their time for highest and best use for increased productivity. Being a flexible industry is great, because there are many benefits to having a flexible schedule; however the downside is that the flexibility of your schedule can turn into non-dollar-producing activities fast, and a false sense of working with no income.

You have to have face-to-face appointments in your calendar, or you will not be writing contacts to list or buy homes—and (let’s face it), that’s when we as REALTORS® are actually earning income. So, we must manage our time and be disciplined, or we will go through days and weeks with no or little income.

Making it happen on purpose will ensure a full pipeline of leads and a hyper-focus on sales activities, versus “busy work” or admin work that is not dollar-producing.

Practice these habits to show your team members how to maximize their days and weeks for the highest income-producing activities, and they will increase production and start growing their income and producing for your team. Some team leaders need to follow these suggestions, too, to ensure you are maximizing your time for the highest and best use: sales calls and appointments that convert into actual commissions earned.

Track your time.
Look at your last month of appointments on your work calendar. How many hours a week were you on face-to-face appointments? How many of the 40 hours in that work week did you spend on sales calls or appointments, versus administrative busy work?

Want to double your income? Double the amount of appointments you go on.

Time-block your schedule.
Plan your work, and then work your plan. Pre-plan your calls and fill your calendar with appointments to generate listings or sales. Schedule yourself time with your mobile phone (moneymaker) and plan to make outgoing calls. You will be proactively scheduling yourself for the highest and best use of your time: sales functions!

Time-block all of your appointments (see below for my Timeblocking Sheet), including business and personal. This way, what you are doing during that time is exactly what you are doing. You are dedicated and disciplined to doing what you scheduled to do during that time. Schedule your time to call FSBOs or expired leads, make follow-up calls to prospective buyers and sellers on your pipeline sheet, call your sphere to thank them for referrals this past year, call your existing clients, and even for your personal workout and family time. When you plan this time, you are in control of your schedule and your time. You are dictating what and when you are doing it—not being reactive and responding to every crisis of the day or week. (Much better and more productive use of your time for sure! You will love this!)

No distractions.
Nothing interrupts the dollar-producing time. Turn off the notifications for social media or your email. Do not answer incoming calls (unless an emergency or new business). Make sure you give yourself that full hour or two hours to kill it doing that one task you said you wanted to get done. You will love the results. I guarantee it!

Delegate admin work.
If it’s not over $100/hour work, delegate it to someone on your team who is support staff—whose job is to help and support you. You cannot control everything; let go of the admin work and focus only on the dollar-producing activities that are going to help you list or sell a house. Take the time to show someone how to do what admin work you are doing, so that you can leverage your time to be on more appointments or make more sales calls.

Accountability track for results.
Whatever is tracked and measured improves. What is tracked, measured and reported to another person exponentially improves. So, reporting your results to another person will help to exponentially improve your results and performance.

Making sure team members who are in a listing and sales function are maximizing their days and focusing their hours on dollar-producing activities that will bring about new listings and sales is so important. Being on-purpose with a strategy and plan for making the best and highest use of your time will pay huge dividends to your and your team members’ monthly results! Everyone will be focused on sales functions, instead of busy work. It is a great habit to get everyone on your team following a system of success that will ensure their calendar is full of appointments every week. When this happens, you are a listing and selling machine, and your team is operating at high level of success for everyone!

For a FREE copy of my Exclusive Timeblocking Sheet and Prospecting 101 – Who to Call Outline, please CLICK HERE. Have a wildly successful listing and sales week!

Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour. For more information, please contact coaching@sherrijohnson.com or 844-989-2600 (toll free) or visit www.sherrijohnson.com.