You’re listening to episode number 24 of the Women Rocking Real Estate Podcast, I’m your host Jen Percival and thanks for tuning in this week. So before we jump into today’s episode, I’m going to be completely honest and let ya’ll know that was a complete mess last week. I consider myself I pretty strong woman, I’ve been through a lot in my life and I normally can handle things in stride. But let me tell you, I came undone. Like couldn’t function, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus. I also couldn’t get off the internet and social media and all it was doing was sending me further into a tailspin.

I felt so much pressure to work and continue to show up for you ladies on this podcast and on my morning motivation series on instagram, but I was paralyzed and I honestly I just couldn’t get my shit together.

This whole pandemic has really triggered me for a few reasons and I realized I really needed some time to just take care of myself. I’ve had a number of health scares in my life, I have asthma and can struggle to breathe even when I just get a cold and I had a boyfriend die when I was in my 20s from pneumonia after getting the flu. So this virus has me just a little nervous.

Anyway, I decided last week to give myself a break and I made an effort to do everything I could to get my head screwed on properly again. That meant not working at all, it meant just spending quality time with my kids, it meant having hot tubs with aromatherapy, it meant meditating and it meant getting off social media, off the internet and off the news. It also meant consuming more wine than is probably healthy, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I also really thrive on relationships, so I scheduled wine dates by video with lots of friends and by Sunday I was feeling a bit better. But for me, I’ve never idled well. If I’m not busy, I’m bored. So I woke up on Monday morning this week and decided to slowly immerse myself back into work and I have to say it has been so nice to have that as a distraction and to feel like I’ve got some purpose again! I’m trying to view the silver lining of this time we all have on our hands, as an opportunity to get all the things done, that I can never find the time for.

I know how stressed many of you are. There is so much uncertainty right now and there’s a lot of fear and it can make you feel paralyzed. We don’t have control over what is going to happen, but we do have control over how we choose to respond to it. We do have control over our thoughts and our actions and we can choose to have thoughts that will paralyze us or we can choose to have thoughts that will support us moving forward and continuing to take consistent action.

Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, but you can decide today that whenever this shit show passes, and I promise you it will pass, that you’re going to be more ready than you ever were to take on the real estate world.

The universe certainly likes to test us every once in a while just to see how serious we really are about the paths we’ve chosen in life. And if this is the path you’re serious about and you want to build a career in real estate, then this is the time to face all your fears and rise.

Because there is also a huge opportunity here. A lot of agents will likely get out of the business. This will prove to be too difficult for them and they will give up. Which means that for a short period of time, there will likely be less competition. The longer this goes on, the more will leave the profession….but here’s the thing. People are always going to need to move. For a variety of reasons, people will always be buying and selling real estate. Although this has been catastrophic for a lot of small businesses in particular, there are a lot of businesses that are booming as a result of the situation.

So your job is to be ready to serve those people. Instead of viewing this time only in a negative light, try to find the positives. Never before and hopefully never again will the entire world be brought to their knees and have to stop living life the way we’ve always known to. We are all forced to slow down and just spend time with our immediate families. There is a gift in that. I always believe that everything happens for a reason and that we need to learn the lessons to enlighten and evolve ourselves. So what are the lessons here?

If you can find a way to embrace the lessons, you’ll start to feel a new sense of hope. Now is the time to show yourself what you’re really made of. Are you going to give up or are you going to do whatever you need to do to get through this period, but push forward building your future real estate career. It’s always about building your future business….how often have you heard me say that. It’s about building your future business when times are shit, but even when times are great, you always need to be focused on building your business in the future. That is how you will not only survive in this business, but thrive.

So when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Take your time to just be and grieve, but wake up one morning soon and decide that today you’re going to start fighting for your career again.

Once you’ve committed to that path of action, what do you do? I’m going to give you 3 tips to stay focused and productive while you’re in self-isolation and social distancing – however long that may last.

Stop all self-promotion for the time being. The world is still in shock and any type of self promotion could risk coming across as insensitive. In fact be very careful about all your social media posts right now. People are watching how businesses respond to this situation and they are forming very strong reactions. It is NOT business as usual right now. Like it or not, you are being judged in some cases it’s subconcious, but you’re being judged. So posting frivolous content that isn’t providing relevant value can come across as out of touch with reality. Air on the side of caution, you’re much better to go silent than to post something that could be perceived as off-putting. This whole situation is kinda like politics and religion….tread very carefully.

2. Start using this time to get all your ducks in a row. I said this last week, but I’m gonna say it again. This is your golden opportunity to get everything done that you have never prioritized. When I got into real estate right after the market crashed in Oct 2008, the industry was completely dead for 6 months. There was absolutely nothing going on, but that didn’t stop me from working. I might not have been doing any activities around buying and selling homes, but I was still working like crazy. I used that time to create all of the marketing and advertising we’d be doing for the next year and when the market started rebounding, we took off. We had primed the pump so to speak and in the last 6 months of that first year, we hit top 2% of Realtors in Canada.

Now it wasn’t all sunshine and roses after that. Just as I thought I had my feet back under me, I got divorced and was right back to a very precarious financial situation, only this time completely on my own with two little kids.

My point here is that we have choices in life. We can let our circumstances get the better of us and knock us down, or we can face it all and get back up.

So like I said last week, use this time to your advantage. Set your days up with as much structure as you possibly can. Having 4 kids at home with us certainly makes it difficult, but as of this week, they have got rigid structure too and that allows us all to be more productive.

I’ve got a posted schedule and they all rotate through different stations throughout the day. They have workbooks we ordered online, we subscribed to an online learning portal, we have a paint station where we got these cool paint by number canvas boards that my youngest and my oldest can do, we have a huge puzzle they’re working on, a reading nook and then of course there’s outdoor activities to get them outside for exercise and fresh air. Breakfast is set, lunch is set, family walk is set. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing and when and 3 days in it’s working pretty well. Talk to me next week though.

Obviously this kind of schedule doesn’t work if you’ve got really little kids, but the point is to do whatever you can to have some structure to your days to allow you to focus and be productive when you can.

So what should you focus on when you are being productive? Number 1 is to come up with a plan of how you can provide value and serve your audience during these circumstances. Spend some time brainstorming what people care about right now and how you can help them. People care about the real estate market, they want to know what’s happening, so what are some creative and helpful ways that you could provide that information and your insights on the market? Writing content is one way, but consider creating videos – maybe a weekly Facebook live if you’re courageous, but even a recorded video that you put on your website and then direct your social media followers to watch on your website. That is a great strategy to both serve your audience with valuable content and also drive traffic to your website where you can start creating custom audiences to re-target with affordable google and Facebook ads in the future. You have to build up your traffic to be able to use those amazing tools, so now is the time to do that. By the way, if you haven’t taken my free online marketing masterclass I’ve decided to run it daily at 1pm while all of this is going on. So if you’re looking for something to do and want to learn my 5 step formula for online marketing, you can register for the class on my website at womenrockingrealestate.com.

So focus on giving your audience deep and localized insights on the market right now. Although people might not be selling right this minute, they may need to shortly, so give them tips on how they can use this time to get their home ready to sell if they need to. Really think through what information people may need right now and then come up with ways to deliver that information through social media, your website and newsletters. But remember, the content must sit on your website – don’t make the mistake of distributing that info directly on your social media. You must drive that traffic to your website and you need to have a Facebook pixel and google tag installed on there to start marketing yourself online properly. Again, I highly recommend you attend the free masterclass I have if you don’t understand how to do it all properly.

So to quickly recap what you need to stop and start doing:

Stop all self-promotion and advertising right now. I’m not suggesting you do this for long, but right now is not the time. Give things a couple weeks to settle down and you can resume again.

Start providing value to your audience by creating content that they care about. Give your knowledge and insights away freely and get creative with how you deliver that content using both written articles, infographics and video.

Stop consuming too much news and stop spending too much time scrolling through social media.

Start creating structure to your days with dedicated time without distractions so you can be productive. Create a plan of what you’re going to accomplish during this time and use this time to get everything done that you’ve never had the time to do. Focus on building your future business.

Stop providing content on social media alone and start putting that content on your website instead. Your social media platforms should only be used to drive traffic to your website where they can get your valuable information.

Start focusing on the positive and use this time as a gift. Decide that you’re not going anywhere and that when this shit storm passes, you’ll be the most prepared you’ve ever been to take your real estate career to the next level.

That’s it for today ladies, I will see you here next week on Monday (hopefully). Stay healthy, keep your distance and remember as always, the more you learn, the more you’ll earn.

Until next time.