EPISODE 40

7 Tips To Get More Consistency In Your Real Estate Biz

In this week’s episode, Jennifer shares 7 tips to help you achieve more consistent results in your real estate business in 2021.

Listen Now:

Show Notes:

  • Enter the contest to win one of my Planned with Purpose™ real estate planners by downloading & posting this Instagram Story Template.
  • Learn more about my ATTRACT™ coaching program for women in real estate here.
  • Learn more about EXP Realty here.
  • Purchase my Planned with Purpose™ real estate planner here.
     

Check out these episodes:

  • Episode 9 – Money Mindset & Money Management in Real Estate
  • Episode 15 – The Key to a Fulfilling Real Estate Career
  • Episode 37 – My Secret Goal Setting System & Productivity Plan

Episode Transcript:

Well hello there and Happy New Year to everyone that’s tuning in. I hope that you had a safe and healthy holiday. Although we did not spend time with our families like we normally do, we absolutely made the best of it and spent some real quality time together as a family. My daughter turned 14 just before Christmas and it has been so interesting to see how our family time has transitioned over the last few years. My kids are now 15, 14, 12 and 8 and we’re seeing glimpses of the future where the older ones are slowly becoming adults and you sort of hang out with them in a different way. We spent many of our evenings over the holidays playing card games that I actually enjoy – not like crazy 8s or go fish. And like their sense of humour is changing and becoming more sophisticated and they can banter with us. Even my 8 year old was able to keep up. Anyway it’s kinda cool and it was a great relaxing holiday up at the cottage and I’m feeling hopeful for 2021. I’m certainly not going to make any proclamations that this will be the best year ever, but I’m hopeful that there is an end in sight for the pandemic and that by the end of this year at least, we’ll all be making our way back to more normalcy.

Alright, I actually had a totally different topic planned for this episode but when starting to plan for 2021, I asked agents what the number one thing they wanted for their business this year. If they could have one thing in their business, what would it be? Well the most common thing I heard about was Consistency so I decided to change up today’s episode and make it about that.. Lack of consistency is so common amongst realtors, so in today’s episode we’re going to talk about consistency and the 10 things you can start doing TODAY to achieve more consistent results in 2021. Now I’m going to be giving something away at the end of this episode, so stick around and listen to the whole thing to learn more and get in on the give-away.

Tip #1 – Change your perspective.

The first thing I want you to do, is to change your perspective on consistency. How you view consistency in your business, has a very direct impact on how you tackle it and how you perceive your results. For starters, the very nature of real estate is inconsistent, so if you’re expecting or hoping it can become something it’s not capable of being, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Real estate is seasonal, it’s cyclical, it ebbs and flows and it’s very often unpredictable. You’re never going to be able to change the forces that make it inconsistent, so you’ve got to learn how to better manage the inconsistency, so that it doesn’t FEEL so inconsistent and so that it doesn’t have such variable affects on your life. Does that make sense? So the first thing is to normalize the inconsistency a little and to plan for it. That means getting into really good money management habits. If you haven’t read the book Profit First by Michael Michaelowitz, go grab a copy and put it into practice in your business. You’ll be so happy you did.

The other really important piece around changing your perspective on consistency is remembering that in order to get consistent results, you need to take consistent ACTION. Everyone always wants the results and so that’s naturally what they focus on. But the results you see are just an outcome. They are just the effect of your actions. So the most important thing you can do next year, is to switch all of your attention and energy to taking consistent action. When you do that, the results will come. So if we know that it’s all about taking consistent action, how do we start doing that?

Tip #2 – Master your Mindset.

I’ve talked in detail about this in a few different past episodes, but if you don’t intentionally do the work to remove limiting beliefs that you have, you will really struggle with taking consistent action. You will repeatedly get in your own way with distraction, overwhelm, procrastination, avoidance, overworking or perfectionism. In neuro-psychology, when you have a thought that is repeated over and over again with an emotion attached to it, your brain automates that thought as a belief and it gets stored in the subconscious part of the brain. 80-90% of the decisions that you make and the actions that you take are made from beliefs that you’re not even conscious of. And guess what comes from those decisions and actions? Your Results. 

Let me give you an example of how this plays out. Let’s say you have an underlying subconscious belief that wanting money is bad. Somewhere along the way you learned that wanting money makes you less than and that you shouldn’t be driven by making money and that you should instead be motivated by other more, honourable virtuous, things. When you have that thought repeated over time and it’s combined with feeling guilt or shame, your brain automates it as a belief and stores it in the subconscious part of your brain. Well 80-90% of the decisions that you make and the actions that you take are dictated by that belief without your knowledge. So how do you think that’s going to impact your results? If you fundamentally believe that you shouldn’t want money and that you’re a bad person if you do, how do you think that’s going to affect your consistency in making money? You’re going to avoid taking consistent action and instead get easily distracted, procrastinate, etc. Your results come from your actions. Your actions come from your decisions. Your decisions come from your beliefs. Your beliefs come from your thoughts. If you want consistent results, it starts with your thoughts and beliefs, then you need to make consistent decisions and take consistent actions.

Tip #3 – Make a decision & commit to it.

So step number 3 is to make a decision that you’re going to take more consistent action this year. Decide that you’re going to tackle this head on and create a whole new version of yourself, one that takes consistent action. Make a decision that those old stories about why you’re not consistent, are going to change. Decide today and commit to taking consistent action.

Tip #4 – Prioritize where to focus first.

So now that you’ve changed your perspective on consistency, recognized the role that your mindset plays and made a decision to take consistent action this year, the next thing I recommend you do, is determine what season you’re in. When it comes to most businesses, there are different seasons that you go through when starting, growing and scaling your business. In my real estate coaching program the 4 seasons are  1) Attract 2) Convert 3) Retain and 4) Scale. When looking at getting more consistent results, you have to look at where you’re currently struggling with consistency.  So let’s go through each of them quickly:

So in season 1 you are focusing on ATTRACTING business to you, this season is all about lead generation and creating consistent, predictable lead flow. This season includes all of the activities that you do to grow who you know and attract new business to you and includes all of your networking, marketing, advertising and prospecting activities.

Season 2 is Convert and includes all of the activities that you need to do to convert those leads into clients. Things like building authority, influencing, negotiating, selling, decision making coaching and your buyer & listing presentations. It’s all the work you do, to convince people to want to work with you, as their realtor.

Season 3 is Retain and it includes everything under the umbrella of keeping clients and getting repeats and referrals. So once someone decides to work with you, everything that you do from that point on, falls into Season 3. This would include everything from client communication to how you market properties to client satisfaction to keeping in touch after the sale. Are they thrilled with your service and would they use you again and refer you to their friends and family?

Season 4 is Automate and it includes all of the things you can do in your business to automate, optimize and leverage people, systems & processes. 

So if you want to see more consistent results, which season do you need to focus on first? If you don’t have consistent lead flow, then you shouldn’t be focusing your energy and time into building a new CRM system right? The key here is to look at your business and figure out where the sinkhole is. Where are people falling off? If you don’t have consistent lead flow, you’re in season 1 and need to focus on taking consistent action around ATTRACTing business. 

If you do have consistent leads, but you’re struggling to turn them into clients, then you’re in Season 2 and need to focus on taking consistent action around your conversion activities.  

Let’s say you’re attracting clients consistently and you’re converting them consistently, but you’re losing some in the process of buying and selling, some aren’t thrilled with you after the sale and they’re not using you again or referring people to you….well then you’re in Season 3 and need to focus your attention on getting more consistent in your actions around retaining clients.

What if you’re doing all 3 great? You’re attracting consistent leads, you’re converting most and most are thrilled with your service? Well then you’re in season 4 and this is where things shift and you need to start looking at scaling, automating and optimizing your business, so that you can stop working so much and start enjoying your life a little more.

So just to summarize, step 4 is to figure out which season you’re in: AttractConvertRetain or Scale and to focus on taking consistent action in that area this year, so that you can start to see more consistent results. Create a plan, work the plan and stick with it.

Ok just to recap where we are at. In order to get more consistent results this year:

Tip 1 was to CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE

Tip 2 was to MASTER YOUR MINDSET

Tip 3 was to MAKE A DECISION & COMMIT TO IT

Tip 4 was to PRIORITIZE WHERE TO FOCUS FIRST

TIP #5 – GET INTO ROUTINES & HABITS

Alright moving along, tip #5 to get more consistent results in your real estate business is to get into routines & habits. When you’re just flying by the seat of your pants with no structure to your days, it’s pretty hard to be productive and take consistent action. That consistency starts with consistent routines and habits.  When you repeat things over and over it creates a habit, which creates a neural network in your brain and it becomes automated. The more you can automate routines and habits, the more you’ll automate taking action and getting results. For me personally, the most effective strategy around this, is to create routines and habits around planning my time. I have my morning routine which I talked about in a recent podcast and uses the acronym BEGIN – brain priming beliefs, exercise, gratitude, intention setting and nurturing. Then I block 3 hours off in my morning to work ON my business. I focus first on completing my Big 3 tasks for the day. 

This is the single most important step you can take, to start seeing more consistent results in your business. You have to prioritize taking these 3 actions consistently every single day and when you do this consistently over time, you’ll be blown away by how much you accomplish and the outcome…..will be more consistent results.

If you need a refresher on this strategy, I dedicated an entire episode to the process and it’s called My Secret Goal Setting System & Productivity Plan. Also in case you’re interested I also have a custom real estate business planner that was designed for realtors to follow this method step by step. You can purchase it from my website at womenrockingrealestate.com and go to the shop tab.

TIP #6 – GET ACCOUNTABLE & LEVEL UP 

Moving along…tip 6 is to get accountable and level up. We are all human beings and like it or not, we tend to be much more productive and consistent when we are accountable to someone. When left to our own devices, we tend to get on our devices and start scrolling through Instagram mindlessly, instead of focusing on the actions we need to take, to get the results we want. This is why the structure of the working world is organized the way it is folks. If everyone in the world was just left on their own to do their work, without having a boss or anyone to oversee them and check on their progress how much do you think would get done? Like nada, zilch, nothing. The world would be a complete fricking disaster.

So why do we think we can somehow do it on our own? We can’t, so don’t be hard on yourself for not being able to be super consistent and focused and have clarity and direction and direction all the time. You’re human. But do be hard on yourself for not doing something about it ok? Find someone to hold you accountable. Whether it be your broker, an accountability pod or a coach, decide today that you are going to treat your business like a business and get accountable. Now in order for this to actually work, you have to actually care what the person you’re being accountable to thinks of you. This doesn’t work with a friend where you get together once a month to laugh that neither of you did what you said you were going to do and you order a drink instead. Although those meetings are fun too, if you really want to start seeing consistency in your business, get serious about your accountability partner. You want to feel like you don’t want to disappoint them or feel embarrassed at your next meeting. Instead you want to impress them. This is where I find accountability pods are super effective. In my small-group coaching program, you’re not just accountable to me, but also to the other women in your pod. Do you see how that is more effective?

Alright before I move on to the last tip, I also just want to add that another really effective strategy to get more consistent results, is to Level up and surround yourself with people who have already gotten to where you want to go. So try to hang around people who have done better than you and learn from them. If you’re new, start on a team or hire a mentor who earns a small share of your commissions or invest in a coach. Don’t expect to get that kind of mentorship for free, but if you are lucky enough to get it, make sure you practice good karma and be willing to give back and help someone get to where you are. If you’re always looking to get things for free, just be aware of the energy that’s attracting to you. If you’re not willing to invest in someone who’s helping you, why should someone invest in you to help them?

There is so much free content on the internet, a lot of it crap, but you can find some really awesome, high-quality content out there. I learned so much about online marketing on blogs, YouTube and Podcasts, but I start to feel really guilty and uncomfortable if I’m taking more than I’m giving, so I always try to be mindful about that and if I’m getting a lot of value from someone, I will always give back and support their business somehow. 

TIP #7 – FOCUS ON YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS 

Ok the last tip I’ll share to start seeing more consistent results, is to focus spending more of your time on your genius zone activities and automating, delegating or eliminating the rest. As we know, it’s taking consistent action that gets us consistent results and we are MUCH more likely to take consistent actions that are easy and that we enjoy. So the more time you can spend doing the things that come easily to you and that don’t really feel like work, the better.  For everything else, look into whether you can automate it, delegate it or eliminate it. You might not be able to delegate it right away, but at least have an exit strategy. I created a whole podcast episode teaching how to identify and prioritize these tasks, so go back and listen to that episode if you want to learn more. I’ll link to it in the show notes.

Alright just to recap 7 tips for getting more consistency in your real estate business,

Tip 1 was to CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE and recognize that a) some inconsistency is both normal and to be expected in real estate, so plan for it and b) to remember that in order to see consistent results, you need to focus your attention on taking consistent actions.

Tip 2 was to MASTER YOUR MINDSET and recognize that if you don’t change your thoughts and beliefs that support the results you’re trying to achieve, you won’t make the decisions or take the actions you need to get those results.

Tip 3 was to MAKE A DECISION & COMMIT TO IT. That’s the first step is to decide you’re going to take more consistent actions this year.

Tip 4 was to PRIORITIZE WHERE TO FOCUS FIRST by identifying which season your business is in. Are you in season 1 – ATTRACT, season 2 – CONVERT, season 3 – RETAIN or season 4 – SCALE? Determine where the sinkhole is and prioritize your consistency in taking action on the activities that fall in that season.

TIP #5 was to GET INTO ROUTINES & HABITS so that you take action on autopilot consistently. Have a morning routine and then block time every day in your calendar to work ON your business and tackle your Big 3 tasks.

Tip #6 was to GET ACCOUNTABLE & LEVEL UP. Find a team, mentor, coach or an accountability pod and make sure it’s people that you respect and admire and want to impress.

Lastly, TIP #7 was to FOCUS ON YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS and spend as much of your time taking action on things that come easily to you and you enjoy. For everything else, work towards automating, delegating or eliminating them.

I promise if you put these 7 strategies into place for 2021, you will start to see more consistency in your business. But remember, it’s consistent action over time. When you start getting consistency in the ATTRACT season, you don’t just stop there. You then start taking actions to improve your consistency in the CONVERT season and then the RETAIN season and finally the Scale and then you retire. Just kidding….well kind of. The point is that there is always going to be stuff to improve in your business and it kind of transitions from a priority of growing your business to a priority of growing your time off to enjoy life as much as possible. The goal here is not to hustle till you drop. There’s a bigger and better end goal ladies.

Alright before I sign off, I promised you I’d be giving something away at the end of this episode. You know the one thing I hate about this podcast, is that there is like no interaction with my listeners. I really wish you all could leave comments and ask questions, so that I could engage with you more and get to know you all better. Alas there is no way to do that, so I have to get creative. I would love to hear from you about what season you’re going to be focusing on taking consistent action this year….Attracting, Converting, Retaining or Scaling? Putting it out there is your first step of being held accountable and I’m going to sweeten the pie and give away one of my Real Estate Business Planners for free. All you have to do to enter is download the Instagram Story Template in the show notes, make sure you’re following me on Instagram @women_rocking_real_estate and and post it to your story tagging me.

On January 11th I will select the winner and ship you your free planner! Even if you don’t want the planner or already have one, I still want you to DECIDE what you’re going to focus on this year, commit to it and share it with me on Instagram.

Alright ladies, that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this episode and remember the more you learn, the more you’ll earn.

Until next time.

Jennifer Percival