Can you spare 14 minutes and 24 seconds?
That’s 1% of the 1,440 minutes you get every day, so don’t say “no.” There is literally NO-ONE who can’t find an extra 14:24 in their day.
Most people toss more time 🕘 into the garbage 🗑️ before breakfast. 🍳
If you’re willing to dedicate 14:24 every day to a specific task, it can change your life. But you’ll need to read this entire article to fully understand why.
That’ll take 2-3 minutes.
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Most Real Estate agents have the ‘Salesperson’ mindset. They’re better at reacting than they are at planning.
Why yes! I AM speaking directly to you!
Don’t feel bad! Like a bloodhound, you’ve got the instincts to sniff out a deal and pursue it. Your instincts and quick reaction time are good things!
But, if you depend solely on your instincts, you could spend way too much time chasing your tail.
Yes, you need to rely on your instincts, AND you need to purposely schedule time to Follow-Up.
I call these scheduled times “Appointments with Yourself.”
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For example, you’ve got several good prospects in your pipeline. You’ve worked hard to get them, but you often forget to Follow-Up when you know you should. 😳
So, here’s a strategy to ensure you never neglect The Follow-Up:
Schedule 1% of your daily time (let’s round it up to 15 minutes) for an Appointment with Yourself to Follow-Up with your prospects and clients, every morning, Monday to Friday.
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Here are the two crucial steps you must incorporate to ensure success:
1. Commit to honoring every appointment 100% of the time. That means you show up on time every day, just as you would if you had a daily 15-minute appointment with your #1 Referral Source.
If you can honor an Appointment with Your #1 Referral Source, you can honor an Appointment with Yourself. Right?
But Ted! How am I going to follow-up with ALL my prospects in 15 minutes?
You’re not. But when you do this every day, and you’ve got a good system (keep reading), you’re going to develop a habit of using your limited time wisely. For most agents, 15 minutes every day is enough.
“Here’s my list. Who needs a follow-up TODAY, and who can wait until another day?”
Consistency is the key to keeping your prospects and clients top-of-mind, which is the real purpose of this system.
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2. Book a “buffer time” of 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after every Appointment with Yourself, and for every Appointment with Someone Else for that matter.
This ensures that you will show up and begin your appointment on time, even if stuff happens, as it always does.
If you’re running a bit late on a previous appointment, you can simply use up your “before” buffer to complete that task and still begin your Follow-Up appointment on time.
Conversely, if your Follow-Up appointment takes a bit longer than 15 minutes, it’s no big deal. Just use up your “after” buffer time.
But, Ted! Now you’re saying this is a 45-minute appointment?
No. Your buffer time is neither an extension of your appointment nor is it “sit around and do nothing” time.
Before and after your appointments, your scheduled buffer time is when you do regular stuff like checking and responding to messages.
It’s important to honor your appointment start and end time as much as possible to develop a habit. Building in a buffer just makes this easier.
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You still think 15 minutes isn’t enough time?
If you go for several days in a row without doing any follow-up, you’re right.
Consistency is the key. Commit to 15 minutes every day, Monday to Friday, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you become a master at short, concentrated, scheduled Appointments with Yourself. 🤩
Of course, you also need a good system to keep you organized, so check out the Ridiculously Uncomplicated Follow-Up System (RUFUS) to avoid chasing your tail.
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At the beginning of this article, I said that your willingness to dedicate 14:24 of time every day could be life-changing.
Perhaps you’re rolling your eyes 🙄 and thinking:
That’s a massive overstatement, Ted!
Wrong!
When you see for yourself the huge positive difference this simple system has on The Follow-Up, I guarantee you will start incorporating Appointments with Yourself into other areas of neglect in both your business and personal life.
You are developing a critically important life skill and HABIT that every business person who wants to be successful needs.
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Take it one step at a time. Making important changes is a process. For now, just commit to 14:24 every day. Use it for The Follow-Up or for a different task that you know you’ve been neglecting.
Start tomorrow morning. Write an Appointment with Yourself into your schedule and be sure to honor it. Remember: Every journey begins with a single step. 🚶
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This article was inspired by Module #4 – The Follow-Up – part of the Agent Skills Master’s Program. If you like these short articles, imagine what you’ll get out of the entire course!
