Property Agents (known as Property Salespersons in Singapore) are always busy.
Either negotiating, or handling marketing, or submit paperwork, or travel here and there to meet clients, or coordinating things (not sure what, just “things”).
Out of 7 days in a week, we hear some property agents being “busy” all 7 days, which is quite absurd.
Everybody has 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week. Nobody gets a second more.
How do others achieve more with the same amount of time?
Simple — Planning and Delegating (or “outsourcing”).
Learning how to schedule work is both “art and science”. There are already many tools available for daily scheduling and planning and preparing to-do lists, and so on.
But there are still many people who ignore such tools, and prefer to “do it when they feel like it”, or “keep it flexible”.
Things that can scheduled are the things that get done!
Just 15-20 mins (the night before and/or the morning itself) of planning and scheduling will help to get more work done and let you feel more productive at the end of the day.
Okay, sometimes we are really “short of time”, being over-loaded with urgent matters (all at one time).
It is important to get things settled as quickly as possible (since they are all urgent), but once there’s an opportunity to take a break and reflect, we must refer back to the hectic schedule and ask, how did it become this way?
Prioritise Your Priority!
By delegating work (or outsourcing to a Personal Assistant), property agents can free up a big chunk of time that’s used for paperwork and marketing. These are usually very simple and straightforward jobs which can be taught to an assistant easily.
Let’s imagine a scenario — today, you (as a property agent) have 3 viewing appointments, 2 on-site work jobs to coordinate, 2 cobroke agents to meet, and 1 contract to prepare.
Let’s recap the tasks
- 3 viewing appointments – 1 is in town, 1 is near home, 1 is near office
- 2 on-site work jobs – 1 is to check on progress by contractor, 1 is to visit a Tenant to follow up on a house complaint
- 2 cobroke agents – 1 is stationed in office whole day, 1 is running around whole day
- 1 contract (paperwork) – need to be sent out by today lunch time
What would you do? How would you plan the schedule for today?
Without prior planning, you would probably be spending lots of time travel from point A to point B, then point C, back to point A, and then to point D.
Here is an example of how proper planning could be done
- Paperwork – get assistant to follow up via standard template, blanks can be filled in by clients themselves as they go through the contract
- Identify locations that are already confirmed, and choose to either keep them tight (for nearby locations) or keep them wide (for further locations) – somewhat like a zone strategy.
- Viewings appointments are the easiest to schedule and confirm.
- The 2 on-site work jobs should be slot into free time in between the viewing appointments
- Meeting with the 2 cobroke agents can be fixed at the viewing locations OR work job locations OR during lunch break.
Scheduling the day in this manner means your locations get fixed, and time on site is kept “multi-purposeful” (either waiting for viewing client, or cobroke agent, or inspecting work, or having lunch).
If it so happens that all tasks are completed before end of work day, this is the best time to follow up on the outstanding paperwork contract, and check back on what needs to be amended or re-negotiated.
Fridays are the most important
As we go through the entire work week, there will certainly be tasks that were missed out or jobs delayed, or meetings postponed.
Friday is the best day to “catch back” all the missed appointments and re-set yourself for the weekend (be it for work or leisure weekend).
By purposely leaving Fridays open, you can also catch up on admin paperwork tasks or hold meetings with your team-mates / assistant to review the week and start some forward planning for the coming week / month.