FOR MANAGERS
Sales Meeting Tool Kit
Time is money: Look to the clock
Editor’s note:Each month we bring you information you can use to run a successful business, avoid legal pitfalls, and help you and your staff boost sales. Clip or photocopy this information to share it with your salespeople in your weekly sales meeting.
Juggling priorities? Missing deadlines? Generally falling behind on projects?
If you, your sales associates, or employees are finding that you can’t fit your workload into your regular workweek, maybe revisiting the fundamentals of time management would help.
Even the most sophisticated of us, however successful, need to take a fresh look from time to time at the building blocks of effective time management.
So we asked real estate guru Floyd Wickman, head of Floyd Wickman Courses International and developer of the popular “Sweathogs” training for real estate professionals, to put together a quick primer on time management basics. Here are Wickman’s 10 steps for making your workload easier eight days a week.
Floyd Wickman is the founder of Floyd Wickman Courses International, one of the most popular training companies in the real estate industry. For more information, call 800/548-7733 or visit www.floydwickman.com.
10 steps for making your workload easier eight days a week
1. Create a management plan for your business and your life. As real estate professionals, you need to know what you want to get out of your life and business. After you identify your aspirations, you can work on a daily routine that helps you drive toward those dreams. A good way to do this is to create a 52 week-at-a-glance schedule of activities.
2. Finish what you start. If you have a habit of not completing tasks, take a closer look at what’s causing you to backslide. It may be a motivational issue that can be cured by promising yourself a reward—a positive reinforcement--for completing that pesky project.
3. Make daily and weekly “to do” lists. Make a list of things to do and prioritize them according to what’s most important to you. Then commit the lists to writing rather than to memory.
4.Complete at least three items on the “to do” list. Start with the most important task, the one that takes you closest to your goals, then take on the next most important.
5. Revise your task lists. Reexamine your priorities two or three times a year, then revise or eliminate tasks as necessary.
6. Start work early. You’ll be amazed at how much more you’ll accomplish if you start work just an hour early every day.
7. Plan the day in advance. If you plan tomorrow the night before, you’ll be more productive.
8. Just say no.Playing Helpful Helen or Tom Terrific for your colleagues by doing their work when you should be doing yours helps neither you nor them.
9. Control time. Create a personal space—a work-only zone--to work without interruptions. Stop having meetings without specific objectives, cut out the small talk, and keep moving forward.
10. Use downtime. If you spend time driving in your car, listen to learning cassettes to sharpen your sales skills.
