A few years ago, my entire focus was to build my real estate sales business. I put building my business as my top priority. It came before just about everything else in my life. If a client wanted me to show them homes and I had something planned with my family, the showing won.
It finally got so bad that I decided to control my schedule or get out of the business. This decision came at the time when I decided to completely re-invent my business. I was determined to get prospects to chase me, instead of me chasing them. I was also determined to make my clients adapt to my schedule instead of me adapting to their schedule. Finally, I was determined to create balance in my schedule.
It was a tough battle, but I ultimately won.
When I plan my work week now, I purposely plan balance into my schedule. This isn’t always easy. Some weeks, I work more than others. I try and counter this the following week by working less. When you plan your week or day, do you add in non-work activities? Do you block your time for fun, family and your own personal time? I hope you do. Life becomes so much more fulfilling when you are able split your time accordingly. Below, I have summarized a day from last week. You can see what I mean about creating balance in your schedule…
4:30 am – Write two blog posts and a marketing email to send out to my database
7:00 am – Take my daughter to school
7:45 am – Gym – lift weights and run 3 miles
9:00 am – Home office – email, fax and phone calls
10:00 am – Prepare new lead generation advertisement to test
12:00 noon – Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
2:00 pm – Interview one of our investor club members in New Mexico over the phone. Record interview to use in future marketing.
3:00 pm – Interview another investor club member from Iowa over the phone. Record interview to use in future marketing.
4:00 pm – Family time. Play with kids, homework with kids, dinner and more
8:00 pm – Kids to bed. Read a little
9:00 pm – Fall asleep exhausted…
I honestly try and follow a similar schedule from day to day. In this particular day, I worked about 7 hours. My time was focused 90% on marketing and 10% on follow up activities. I was able to spend around 2.5 hours at the gym and at Jiu-Jitsu. This is fun for me. I also spent the evening with my family. Finally, I got about 30 minutes of self-education time in before bed. I didn’t take any calls for work, or check my email during my family time. It was 100% family time. Now, if I were still selling homes, I would probably have used my afternoon phone interview times to meet with clients. However, I would never ever miss the time dedicated to marketing.
In my day above, you can see that the first 2.5 hours were dedicated to marketing. This is locked in stone on most days. This is the most important thing we can do as business owners. Since it’s the most important thing we can do, it goes first in my schedule – everyday. The early hours are extremely effective because I have ZERO interruptions.
Now, I realize my schedule may not be appropriate for you. However, you should challenge your self to create balance in your day. You should also make sure you devote at least some time to marketing. If you don’t market today, you won’t have any income tomorrow!
Gotta run! Today’s Jiu-Jitsu class starts in a about 30 minutes…
