You would be hard pressed to find a real estate professional who doesn’t use and love email. It is the way business is done quickly and efficiently…or is it?
The majority of the industry works 8 hours a day, Monday thru Friday with one 2 week vacation a year.
An average day of a real estate professional looks something like the 7 items below;
- Check Email Start of Day
- Check technology platforms for needs; properties for sale or for lease, comps, prospects, etc.
- Call clients, vendors, or partners on current properties/deals
- Meet with clients or partners; execute agreements, negotiate, updating
- Prospecting for new clients; cold calls, mail
- Check Email End of Day
- Networking Event
Now, for those of us who work 9-5 with holidays and a 2 week vacation, we have 1,860 hours a year to close real estate transactions.
Let’s break down an average day again in more detail on how you can optimize efficiency.
- Checking Email
- “On average real estate professionals spend an average of 3.2 hours a day on work email? That’s 514 hours a year or almost 30% of golden deal hours” says Bob McComb Commercial Real Estate trainer, Expert Coach. That is almost a third of your time spent on one to one, or one to many communications, where all the knowledge or know how for actually communicating is within the brain of the professional using it.
- Check technology platforms for need
- On average most real estate professionals log into 9 different platforms every day. Assuming 20 minutes per platform, an average 3 hours a day is lost checking/updating multiple platforms
Before checking in with clients, vendors or partners, you have already spent 90% of your allotted hours!
It’s no small wonder that the Commercial real estate industry is slow to adopt technology. Time is the one thing we can’t make more of and clearly, it’s in scarce supply. So how do we close 30% more business this year?
- To solve the inefficiency in email:
- Studies have shown that checking your email on a set schedule improves your productivity tenfold, by removing interruptions to other tasks.
- Use technologies like Digsy.ai to consolidate and streamline your email and contacts into one, simple to use dashboard. This will then combine the workflow from Checking email and calling clients, vendors and partners. There are many other Client Relationship
Management tools available, depending on your needs, however, when it comes to simplicity, Digsy.ai takes the prize.
- Checking technology platforms for needs:
- Eliminate redundant workflow or platforms. Ensure your notifications and alerts from systems you use are set up in a way to eliminate your need to constantly search for or update systems.
- Technology like CRECollaborative; a 2.0 Technology Market Network, will take your data and connect you to all your platforms, allowing you a single point of entry, or source of truth.
- Call clients, vendors, and partners:
- If you maintain constant contact via phone and email, you can shorten the time needed to meet with clients, vendors, and partners in person. Your fingers can walk much faster than you can. Having a good system in place by phone is essential.
- Technology like AgileCRM allows you to telephone your contacts, note their files, and schedule future events, all while managing the transaction pipeline related to the call.
- Meet with clients, vendors, and partners:
- The more hands you shake, the more business you close. Spending time with your contacts is unavoidable. How do you optimize the time needed to prepare for and have these meetings?
- If you have followed the two suggestions above, your meetings and data you need has already been streamlined for you into a simple dashboard that syncs with your calendar.
- Prospecting for new clients, cold calls, mailers:
- Nothing will replace a business letter with your business card, a handwritten note and envelope. This is the most effective way to get your brand in someone’s hands and on their desk.
- Technology like ProspectNow, provides a wealth of information on potential clients and property owners that you can use to prospect. Digsy can also provide you tenant & buyer leads you to represent.
- Check Email
- Make a point to clear out your end of day emails, so you can prioritize any issues for the next day. Also, check off that the day’s needs have been met.
- Using “swipe to schedule” Features within email lets you have an email redelivered to you the following morning instead of handling the issue at that moment. Additionally, using a service like Boomerang lets you schedule emails to send later, and or helps remind you to follow up on messages that don’t get a reply.
- Networking
- Shake hands, collect cards, be memorable. Business opportunities are uncovered when you network
- Dropping those cards on a desk or signing up for LinkedIn, never to be heard from again makes the endeavor of networking useless. By using CamCard you can quickly enter cards, group them, and have access to those contacts as you nurture the relationship.
You may have noticed that many of these workflows cross into one another… If your systems don’t communicate, you can’t optimize your business.
To take a free technology toolbox assessment use CRECO.ai’s Business Assessment for a no obligation consultation click here.
Written by;
By Andreas Senie
Founder, Business Development Leader, and CRETechnophile
203-414-0294 | Andreas@CRECollaborative.com