YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL

You do all you can do. You go as far as you can go. You get all the results you can get, and when you can’t go any further, you look for help. This help should come in the form of a talented person. People are always asking me when or how they’ll know when it is time to hire their first person. I tell them that it is like knowing when to hire a contractor or a maid. We could easily do most of the work that needs to be done around the house, but at a certain point in our lives we realize that our time could be better spent on other things. We start to look for help at home in a very natural way. When you don’t have anyone to do that work for you, it is like a second job. On Thursday nights, you are a housekeeper. On Saturdays, you’re the lawn man. And so on . . . In other words, if you don’t have a maid, you are one.

 If you don’t have a lawn man, you are one. And in business, if you don’t have an assistant, you are one! At the beginning of your real estate career, you are a lead generator, a showing agent, a seller listing agent, a bookkeeper, a runner, a call coordinator, and many other things all in one. When you aren’t having fun or when you are feeling overwhelmed is the time to find someone to help with your “other” jobs. You don’t have enough arms and legs to do everything all the time. In fact, at some point, everyone should aspire to have assistance just to avoid burning out. And the leverage that hiring someone can bring to your business is the fastest, surest way to continue up the path to becoming a Millionaire Real Estate Agent.

We’ve identified three key aspects of your Organizational Model that can make a big difference in your chances for success. The first area is about acknowledging when you need help and then seeking the right kind of help. No matter what you might think, the first person you hire should always be an administrative assistant. Second, you need to hire T-A-L-E-N-T. Hiring talent is the key to gaining leverage in your business life. Lastly, you’ll have to learn to train and consult with your staff. There is no point in hiring talent if you don’t plan to teach them how to do their jobs well and challenge them to grow and learn. Let’s take a quick tour of the key areas of focus in your Organizational Model.

Adding staff members is just one of the three ways you can add leverage to your sales business. Besides people leverage, you could also turn to systems or tools. While traditional thinking would have you put systems in place to push you further along, we’ve discovered a problem with that thinking. Designing and implementing systems takes more time than you think and very specific skills. For most real estate agents, trying to put multiple systems in place by yourself will actually reduce productivity. Creating effective systems can be as complicated as it is time-consuming, and many agents quickly become frustrated. Frustration then leads to poor systems or no systems at all. What we’ve learned is that the best way to put systems in place is to hire a person with the skills to document and later implement your systems. I realize this may sound crazy.

 I mean, why hire someone to document something you know and do so well? Actually, on this point I may know you better than you know yourself. Despite my best efforts working with hundreds and hundreds of real estate agents over the years, only a handful managed successfully to document their systems without outside help. At first, I thought the agents who didn’t document their systems were the oddballs. Now I know the truth—the agents who did document their systems were! So I’ve learned my lesson: hiring a person, specifically administrative help, comes before the full development of systems and tools.