Use the Tortoise and the Hare to Change your Mindset

No doubt you have heard the story about the Tortoise and the Hare. A wonderful fable from most of our childhoods. But have you ever pondered the lesson of that book and how it pertains to real estate sales?  

Who are you, the Tortoise or the Hare?

Did you start out one and then morph in to another? I identify with being a Tortoise now but it was not always that way. In the beginning, I would run crazy with every lead I could. Saturday, Sundays, 8pm, 7am—it did not matter. I ran with them all. I took calls at 9:30pm and answered emails at midnight.  

But all that comes at a price, a price that if I could go back and change, I would. In fact, when I see agents now saying I negotiated a deal at midnight with pride I actually get a chill up my spine. It brings back many horrific memories of a time gone by. 

At the end of it all, sure, I made a ton of money, but man I was totally burnt out. I remember being at my daughter’s dance recital and walking out to take a call. I also remember being at my son’s basketball game and stepping out to talk to a new lead. I will never get those memories back with them, and I can’t honestly tell you if I actually converted those calls into sales, that is how important and impactful they were. 

So the Hare was beaten, tired and miserable. The Hare, with the help of his coach at the time, developed a plan that would turn the Hare into a Tortoise. And since you know the story you know who wins. Right? 

Switching Teams

Over the next several months, I started to leave my phone in the car for events. Yes, I know, it was an addiction and I was tweaking. First thing I did was check it when I got in the car. But it was a step in the right direction. Funny thing is, I did not miss anything. Everybody still replied or answered the call when I returned their call. 

The next thing I did was to start shutting the phone off at 7pm NO MATTER WHAT. I created a message that said I will return calls at 9am. Ironically people respected it. I can’t say that I can put a finger on missing one sale. And if I did miss a sale because I was with my family, then it probably is not anyone I wanted to work with anyways. 

The next step was to start focusing all of my energy on listings. By focusing all my energy on listings, it creates a level of control and control is freedom. Having buyers call you, call anyone that will listen and make you jump through hoops was not my idea of a good time. Matter of fact it always seemed that at 4pm on a Friday when you had no appointments and planned to spend some time with your family, someone called and HAD TO see it tonight a 6. I am sure you know the drill…. And the pain. 

But by focusing my energy on sellers I was able to control when our appointment was. I was able to put systems in place to ensure they were staying abreast of the situation. I was able to leverage services to schedule showings and chase feedback as well, which took a huge amount of time off of my shoulders. And since I was in charge of the areas or people I prospected, I could increase my sales price just by focusing my efforts in other areas. 

I was not dependent and hostage to whatever the big Z or RDC sent. If someone called me on my listing, then it was a buyer in the price range I wanted to work with. So that is another place that I gained control. And again, Control is Power. 

Adjusting Focus

I also focused heavily on the management level of my business. This is the level that creates business plans, goals and action plans. I was now armed with exactly how many calls I needed to make, how many appointments I needed and so on. Now I just needed to execute the plan and track it.  

All this allowed me to gain a laser focus and it put me into a high yield zone. I only did high yield activities. And when you do only high yield activities, you create high yield income. So my income stayed the same and some times higher, yet I was working less and there was less stress in my life. I was spending more time with my family and I was able to arrange my schedule and conduct business from our summer camp. I would rather wake to a cup of coffee on the lake then to a buyer chirping any day of the week.  

I say all this as a caution to agents that are running crazy and being taken advantage of or basically abused by buyers who really do not care about you. Take back control and build your business where YOU are in control. 

When I was growing my business, there were no tools for automation. Matter of fact the big Z did not even exist. (Oh boy, I feel like a relic now.) Within this group, there has been several companies and systems that can actually automate a large portion of your business which can help control the clients and response time so Burn Out may not come as easy as it did back in the day. There has been lots of concepts shared like Riley, Call Action and recently Agent Legend.  

These tools rock. I would suggest you start to utilize them and become the Tortoise of Technology in other parts of your life. You will then become unstoppable and live your wildest dreams.