“You may delay, but time will not.” (Ben Franklin) from the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

 

Procrastination is an all too common human tendency. The ability to convince ourselves that we’ll get to something later is way too easy and all too convenient. Unfortunately, so is the resulting cases of “coulda, woulda, shouldas” that tend to follow. You coulda taken the time to call that expired listing and you woulda gone and knocked on the door of that FSBO, ‘cause you know that you shoulda been doing more prospecting all along.

 

Procrastination is one of the biggest issues that I have to face every day. It is just so easy to convince myself that sitting here writing a blog post is a better use f my time than prospecting – or at least it feels better. And at the end of each day, there are things that I can look back and say to myself,” I shoulda gotten to that, maybe tomorrow.”  I’m gonna work on that tomorrow.

 

Some of the biggest regrets that many people have revolve around things they put off doing – visiting that sick relative or friend before they passed away or perhaps not taking some action to stop or prevent some neglect or abuse before it was too late. Many people look back over their lives and feel regret for not having been more generous or more involved with charitable works. Some feel remorse for relationships gone bad that might have been saved by timely action. Because of a fifty year celebration that I missed, I recently learned how many of my old classmates from high school are already gone and regretted not having made the effort to stay in touch somehow.

Time marches on with our without us in tow. Things don’t stop happening just because you hesitate or delay; they just happen without you. Potential clients will buy goods or services from someone else, whether you call on them or not. Not calling just assures you another coulda, woulda, shoulda moment. So don’t delay. Make the calls today and you’ll always have plenty of things to do tomorrow. And in your personal life, don’t wait to call that old friend or relative until you get word that it’s too late. You can’t really talk to a memory – call today.

All we have is time...use it wisely...

“All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.” (Baltasar Gracian), from my favorite source for quotes – the Jack’s Winning Words Blog. Good advice to keep in mind as we start a new business year. As Realtors, we generally all have access to most of the same tools and services that we might use in our business. Some of the things that we could use might cost too much right now, so we don’t use them. Other things that are available just might be effective in a particular market. Some agents face competition from huge teams with star Realtors at the top, while others toil away in little backwater areas without a lot of competition. Each Realtor’s situation will be a little different.

However, what we all share and what is the same for us all is time – the limited amount in each day and the amount given to each person. It’s how we each chose to use what time we have that sets up apart. If you look at the lives of enough successful people in the field of real estate or any other field, you will eventually notice something that they have in common – they all have developed systems or work habits that make the best use of the time that they have. That is a key part of their successes, along with such things as having clear and well-defined goals and the self-discipline to put into daily practice the things that they know they need to do to meet those goals.

It is that commitment to the best daily use of time, through the implementation of systems and practices that differentiates the truly successful from the wanta-bes. I find that I have the intellect to understand what I need to do, but not necessarily the will to commit to actually doing those things – I’m still a wanta-be. I plan to work hard this year to change that shortcoming in my own personality.

The main shortcoming that I need to work on is my aversion to prospecting, when that involves cold calling. I like doing mailings and working on my Web presence and I actually enjoy talking to people once I’ve met them; however, making cold calls on people that I’ve not met is something that just scares the bejesus out of me and I can’t force myself to do it. I suppose it’s that old fear of rejection thing, since cold calling offers such a high probability of being turned down. I’m also not comfortable with using scripts when making calls. They always sound artificial to me.

I’ve just mailed my latest newsletter to the 500+ people on my mailing list and in that letter I told everyone that I’d be calling them to see how they like the newsletter and to make sure that they still want to receive it. That exercise should help, since I have some relationship (or had) with everyone on that list. At least I can convince myself that these are not cold-calls, but rather friendly follow-ups after years of sending newsletters. For me it’s a start and good use of my time.

Another lost weekend...

I created the post below on Monday night, September 7th, after having devoted yet another holiday weekend to the real estate business instead of to family and friends and enjoying the moment. I suppose it was cathartic at the time; but I did not post it then, because I was already down enough about working through the weekend. The real message here is to try harder to achieve some balance in life between work and family, between the reason you think you are working and taking time to actually enjoy those reasons. I need to do better at that.

There was a 1945 film called The Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman and based upon a best selling novel about the travails of an alcoholic who goes on weekend binges. I suppose that if someone wanted to they could write a novel called Another Lost Weekend about a workaholic Realtor spending yet another holiday weekend away from friends and family while trying to sell a house. How sad. I just spent another of those lost weekends trying to cement a deal and I’ve started to regret it. I regret not spending more time with my wife, not getting away somewhere for the last weekend of summer, not taking some time to enjoy the fruits of the labor that seem so all consuming at times. We are in a crazy business and if one doesn’t try awfully hard to avoid it, the business can consume all of the time that we have. You have to step back every now and then and ask yourself what you are working all those hours for, if you never take any time off to enjoy life?

I have a very understanding and very long-suffering wife who puts up with me and my crazy schedule more than she should have to. Not everyone has that level of spousal cooperation and understanding and I suspect that there are many divorces that can be laid at the doorstep of being overwhelmed by the time demands of the business. Like a black hole, the real estate business sucks up whatever time there is with something to do. If you let it, it will literally consume 24 hours in every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. If traded stories with old, retired (burned out) realtors who reported leaving their families on Christmas day to go show a house. That’s just crazy! Yet it happens.

So I just lost another Labor Day weekend working on a deal. Was it worth it? If it closes I’ll make some money 20-30 days from now, but I won’t ever get the three days that I just lost back. I’ll never get to go on that picnic that I didn’t go on or play with my grandchildren at the park or just sit and relax on my front porch. I’ve lost that and that’s just sad. It’s weekends like this that make me stop and think about whether what I’m doing is really worth it – not just the money aspect, but the quality of life aspect, too. I do enjoy many things in the business, just not lost weekends.

What you do...

“Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” (Lou Holtz) from the Jack’s Winning Words blog. I agree with Jack that Lou Holtz is a great motivational speaker and coach. In these tough times this saying of Lou’s is especially true. Most Realtors have some abilities, but many have not been motivated to apply their abilities in this tough market and even more have done so with a negative attitude and thus not done well.

I’ll certainly admit that these are tough times and I sometimes have difficulty getting myself motivated. I am thankful that I have one character flaw that seems to help during times like this – I hate to do a poor job. If I’m going to do something I really put my best effort into it, because I just can’t stand myself if a do a half-a** job on anything. Early on in my real estate career that trait was a constant source of frustration for me, because it seemed that there were always things left undone at the end of each day. I had to learn that real estate is a job that can consume all of the time that you can give it, and then some.

There is always one more thing that you could do in real estate – one more flyer you could print and deliver, one more client you could call, one more letter to a FSBO you could write and mail, always something. The key it turned out is understanding how to prioritize things and how to just let go of some things (generally the really low priority things that I didn’t get around to). That’s still tough for me and something that I don’t do well.

So, maybe to Lou’s advice above I would add – Good time management is how efficiently you do it. Now, excuse me; I think I can still deliver one more set of flyers today, if I hurry.

Living more fully in the moment…

“Yesterday is a cancelled check; Tomorrow is a Promissory Note; Today is the only cash you have—so spend it wisely,” from the Jack’s Winning Words Blog. That is a phrase that Jack remembers his mom using when he was a child. It speaks to the wise use of time and of focusing upon the time you have each day, instead of agonizing over the past or fretting about the future. Certainly we all need to remember and learn from the past and plan for the future; however, becoming obsessed with either leaves us little time for energy to live for today.

I find this to be a daily struggle – not so much worrying about the past or future, but the part about using my time wisely today, each day. In real estate there are a thousand things that you could be doing, a few hundred things that you should be doing and a few things that you must do consistently to be successful. I read somewhere recently that as we get older we are more easily distracted and that may be a contributing factor to my penchant for letting too many of the things that I could be doing get in the way of the few things that I should be doing.

I spend way too much time on this Blog, for instance, and not nearly enough time making calls to prospects. Why? Because I enjoy this and I have a natural aversion to making calls, especially cold calls or unexpected calls to people. If they call me I usually do very well and I enjoy the conversations, it’s just the act of picking up the phone and calling someone that I know isn’t sitting there just waiting for me to call that somehow is a daunting task for me.

So, am I going to stop Blogging and become a phone cold-calling machine – not likely. I have resolved to start making calls to my prospects, a few initially and hopefully many more as I gain confidence; however, that is not ever likely to become as natural a part of my makeup as it is for me to sit here Blogging away about a great variety of topics. I enjoy working on my Web sites too, because they represent a similar, passive and disconnected method of communicating, as are the newsletters and postcards that I send out.

However, as I opined in entries in this Blog earlier this week, real estate transactions are not impersonal and disconnected (except for investor transactions). They are usually highly emotional events that invite and require very personal involvement on the part of the Realtor. I enjoy that part, too. Somehow I’ve got to figure out how to better bridge the gaps between those two aspects of the business more often and more consistently. Perhaps the secret lies in those unmade phone calls. We shall see.