What is Your Time Worth? (Part 2)

Here are 3 tips to making the most of your time and ensuring you pay yourself as high a rate as possible.

Make sure that whatever you do, you’re the only one in the world who can do it.
I make cold calls every day. I get in touch with new people, get to know them and their property, and build relationships with them. This CANNOT be outsourced. I have to be the one talking to them. I have to be the one with in-depth knowledge of their property. I have to be the one riding the property, updating the client, fielding interest from buyers, etc. That’s what I do. I’m in the relationship business. But I don’t have to make the flyer for their property. I don’t have to do mailings to potential buyers. I don’t have to get the property on our website. I must ENSURE that those things are being done. And I must also review anything I receive with a critical eye. But while all that is happening, I am busy sourcing new business and strengthening relationships.

Consider hiring a virtual assistant.
This is an idea that took some getting used to for me. I first became comfortable with virtual assistants after reading Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Work Week. I liked the idea but didn’t know what I would outsource to a VA or whether I could effectively work with someone I would never see in person. I quickly discovered I absolutely loved my VA. I used to spend hours finding land parcels and combing databases for names, addresses and phone numbers. Now, the VA does that for me. I used to spend tedious minutes and hours managing my database and setting up tasks to call prospects and follow up with them. Now, the VA does that for me. I also assign many other tasks to my VA and he provides quality work and very timely responses. And I pay him $10/hour. To put that in perspective, if I worked for 10 hours a day researching phone numbers, I would be paying myself $100/day. In a month, I would make $2000, and in a year I would make $24,000. My time is worth more than $24,000/year. So, I pay the VA to find those numbers for me and spend my time calling new prospects and driving more business.

Automate.
This is another one that will take some time and experimentation. With all of the technology available today, many tasks can be set up and then put on autopilot. This will provide an infinite level of return on your time, because once you set it up, you will never (well, almost never) have to do it again! I have set up searches on several popular land marketing websites to alert me when a new property is listed. That way I get an email about a new property, rather than searching every day. I also have several Google Alerts set up so that I get news about certain counties or businesses whenever something new hits the internet. I even have most of my social media pages set up to automatically tweet, post, mention, thank, and respond to much of my activity. This allows me to be very active on a number of marketing and engagement channels while still spending my most important asset (my time) doing the most important thing (driving business).

All brokers have a limited number of hours in the day. So, let’s put those hours to the best possible use and not waste them by paying ourselves a low rate. Whenever we can spend a reasonable amount of money to save an appreciable amount of time, we should do so. We should also spend time up front to outsource and automate as many processes as possible. Then, we can spend every important hour making calls, having meetings, getting listings, managing deals, and the most important task of all: cashing commission checks.

Did you miss the first article? Read What is Your Time Worth? (Part 1).