Welcome back from our late August, early September “No Fly Zone.” It’s time to get to work and it is a perfect time to focus on your TAKE OFF. Yes, TAKE OFF means that your prep work around MINDSET and PRODUCTIVITY have been installed, you’ve identified your first FLIGHT so you now you know where you are going, you’re excited and now it’s time to get to work getting this business off the ground. Again, the goal is to get to 35,000 feet where you can pull back the engines, execute your business and enjoy a productive and profitable flow in your business. So, what does “flying at 35,000 feet" mean really? It means that you have installed the processes, the systems, the habits, the routines, the boundaries and the rules needed to support your goals. They become natural in your day and your business and they are the reason that you are hitting your goals, living your vision, becoming the person you want to be and living the way you want to live. Once you hit 35,000 feet, you’ll actually enjoy your life a lot more and your profit per hour worked will skyrocket. Trust me, being at 35,000 feet is much more peaceful than always being in the grind of TAKEOFF.
To get there, you’ve got to put in the work. For your FLIGHT, the highest fuel consumption (your energy and focus) per mile traveled (income) is during the climb to 35,000 feet. Once an aircraft hits 35,000 feet, it uses less fuel per mile traveled because the engines are operating at max efficiency (systems are in place and being executed on consistently) creating a cruising speed (flow in your business). At 35,000 feet, there is less drag on the aircraft due to the angle of the aircraft. As the fuel burns off, there is less weight inside the aircraft requiring less power to maintain the desired speed and altitude. Knowing this, you need to realize that you cannot skip TAKE OFF. Hope is not an action plan. Asking the universe to give you money and success without the effort is not an action plan. Knowing where you want to go, getting excited about it, putting in the years of hard work is what creates the results. This is how you become an Elite Level Producer (ELP).
So Jim, where do I start? How do I TAKE OFF? Well, during the next several episodes we are going to talk about the 3rd Engine of Take Flight, RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT. It joins MINDSET and PRODUCTIVITY as the 3 foundational principles needed to get your business off the ground. If you can master these 3 areas, you are 90% there. So, we need to begin at the beginning with an exercise that every broker needs to do at least once and maintain it over the lifecycle of their business. This exercise is to identify all of your past clients and create a list if you don’t have one. If you do have a list or a functioning database, it’s time to do an audit of your list. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your business is, you need to do this audit at least once a year. So, here is your homework for this week…ready?
- Create an Excel spreadsheet or Google doc and simply name it “Client List"
- Create some simple columns “Category”, “Last Name”, “First Name”, “Address”, “City”, “State”, “Zip”, “Email Address #1”, “Email Address #2”, “Mobile #1”, “Mobile #2”, “Birthday #1”, “Birthday #2”, “Transaction Anniversary” and last but least, “Lead Source", …these are the basic fields needed to build a productive RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT process.
- Review your transactions over the last 5 years and make sure all of your clients/transactions are entered into your database. Note: If it is a past client that you do not want to work with again, leave it off. I want you to focus on filling in all of the fields except for “Category” and “Lead Source”. We will get to those in future episodes.
- IF you are newer to this business, you still need to go through this process. I started in 2009 with 11 people. If you’ve already got a robust database and relationship management system, you still need to do an audit and make sure all of your recent transactions and prospects are updated. You may also decide to “prune” some of your contacts. This is encouraged.
- You can search MLS with your ID number for your closed buyside transactions and a separate search for listing side transactions. Go through your sphere and make sure all of your clients and referral sources are added.
Team, when I started my growth path back in 2009, this exercise is what started the process of me doubling my business 4 times in 5 years and took me from unemployed essentially to a $37M business. Managing a list has helped me build 3 separate successful businesses as a broker, leader, and coach. Do not skip it. This spreadsheet will be the basis for other projects I will have you do over the coming months. I would anticipate that you should spend 15 minutes for initial set up of your spreadsheet or doc and 10 minutes per client, less if you already have the information. For those of you that are just doing maintenance work, you’re way ahead of the game. Honestly, if you are serious about this, you’ll make it happen quickly, blocking out time to complete this list quickly.
Again, just a reminder you cannot get to 35,000 feet without the hard work of the CLIMB. It takes effort, it takes consistency and it takes focus on your vision. I will not sell you instant success or “3 easy payments of $49.95.” For those of you flying at 35,000 feet, you know what I am talking about. It feels so rewarding seeing the fruits of your labor. If you stick with me over the next 3 months, you will not recognize your business or your life this time next year. So, go look yourself in the mirror, make yourself a promise to play big, put your big person pants on and let’s get to work.
