This time of year brings to mind how important it is to make time for my family. Prioritizing personal time is difficult in real estate: the hours are long, the work comes in waves, and every new thing feels like it needs to be taken care of immediately or you’ll be leaving money on the table. Finding harmony between your real estate business and your personal life can be harder than getting to a high GCI.
In 2014, the National Association of REALTORS® found that 87% of REALTORS® don’t make it to five years in the industry before leaving for other pastures. While I’m certain that many things lead an agent to quit in their first five years, I know that personal life issues can make even the highest-performing agents reconsider their careers.
So, how do you do both? How can you have a rock star real estate career and a fulfilling personal life? I know one surefire way: build a real estate team that systematizes your efforts and frees up time and energy for the other pursuits in your life. I’m grateful for the amazing team of individuals who help focus my professional load so I can focus on the important things, including my family.
We can do better
Teams are a great solution to building harmony between your professional and personal lives. Even so, a recent national study commissioned by Workman Success Systems and carried out by the Center for Generational Kinetics, found that only 55% of real estate professionals found that their team had the impact on their personal life they were looking for. That’s too low—almost half of all teams haven’t figured out the right way of doing things.
Our national study also found that only 56% of teams have systems in place for any task that gets repeated more than three times. I can’t help but see a correlation between these two statistics: if a team systematizes their time-intensive tasks, they’ll free up more time. A robust and satisfying personal life might be just a few systems away for those teams.
As you take inventory of the things you’re grateful for this year, I hope you also recognize the importance of prioritizing your personal life. If you belong to a team and still feel overextended, make a goal to be grateful for time-saving systems next year. If you don’t have a team yet, I can promise you that you’re missing out on huge dividends of time, energy and success that come from teaming up with the right people. Check out our team study (https://bit.ly/3T4RrTl) for further insights on teams in real estate—and show gratitude this season for the things that matter most.
Verl Workman is the founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems, a real estate consulting company that specializes in performance coaching and building highly effective teams. Get free access to some of the very same tools and resources he has used to create success in his clients’ businesses.
