Benjamin Franklin advised to “make your list for the next day on the night before leaving work.”

Agent Sundii C. Jones understands this secret to effective time management. Each night she makes a prioritized list of things to be done for the next day, and then doesn’t let anything distract her from completing this list early the next morning.

Prioritizing your tasks and getting them done early is a huge step toward accomplishing your goals.

Successful agents control their time and limit or eliminate distractions from themselves and others. Use this secret to plan each day’s task list and reach your goals this year…

Here’s Sundii’s description…

“Doing the FIRST things FIRST! I love getting to know people on a deeper level. When I say “how are you today”? I mean it! But…..sometimes it backfires.

People want to tell you how they are doing when you didn’t ask, or don’t have time to listen to personal issues.

How do you balance?

I make a list of things as they come up through out the day. If they are things that don’t get taken care of that day they go on the top of the list for the next day. At night I go over the list and number them in priority.

The following morning BEFORE anyone else gets in or the phone starts ringing, I complete my list at a break neck, marathon pace. By 10am I’m ready for everyone else knowing the most important things for the day are completed!”

What are your goals for 2009? Is it to double your production? Reduce the number of hours you work? Or just to stay in business?

It’s that time of year again, where everyone makes lofty resolutions and goals… and then forgets about them before the month is out. This is the quickest way to the poor house in real estate, especially in today’s environment.

Back in 1958, a Harvard study of graduates revealed that only 3% had written goals. After twenty years they interviewed the same people and discovered that the 3% with written goals were worth more financially than the other 97% COMBINED!

It’s amazing that, in spite of such proof, most people don’t first write down their goals. What’s more, most people don’t tell others about their goals–another crucial step to achieving your goals. Sharing your goals with others creates a deep commitment that motivates you to follow through.

But after this goal-setting groundwork is established, the main question I hear from agents is: “How do I know what to work on each day, week, and month to accomplish these goals?” It’s easy to get lost in the process just trying to keep up with each transaction.

The greatest tool you could ever use to achieve your goals is a strategic plan, where you break down your goals into actionable steps and in the process create a…

Step-by-Step

ROADMAP to Success

I’m not talking about creating a business plan. A strategic plan is about taking a good look at your business and what you want to achieve, and then identifying Strategies and Action Steps that will take you where you want to be.

Here are three steps to take your abstract goals and get RESULTS in 2009…

STEP 1: Identify Your MAJOR OUTCOMES

Trying to schedule what needs to be done each week is difficult if you don’t know the major outcomes you want to see happen this next year. And everyone has different priorities for their business (and life).

Ask yourself two questions: 1) “What am I committed to achieve in my practice?” And, 2) “What are the most direct, immediate, effective things I can do to reach these goals?” Where are the opportunities in the market that will help you achieve your goals?

If the year is off to a sluggish start, it’s probably because your answers to these questions aren’t clear. Writing down the specific OUTCOMES you want to achieve will help you prioritize your time.

• What exact income do you want this year?
• What new markets or opportunities will you go after?
• What new systems do you want to implement?
• What skills do you want to acquire or improve?
• How big do you want to grow your house list (SOI)?

In my own business each year I identify 4 or 5 major outcomes, and then assign a specific revenue or numeric goal for each outcome. The more detailed the better as it allows me to track my efforts and be accountable to an exact goal.

STEP 2: Prioritize Your STRATEGIES

Next, organize and prioritize the strategies you will use to reach each Major Outcome.

This may surprise you but I take out a pencil and a sheet of paper, write the name of each major outcome at the top of the paper, and then list out all the things I need to accomplish to bring it about. These are the exact strategies I will use to accomplish these outcomes.

Then, narrow and PRIORITIZE this list of strategies by asking yourself:

• “What strategies can I use that will make the biggest impact?”
• “Where could I best spend my time/money/energy to produce the greatest results?”
• “What are the 20% of activities that will produce 80% of the results?”

When I was 27 I worked directly with some of the wealthiest, most successful businessmen in the world. One day driving in a car with one of my bosses (who ultimately became a mentor) he said to me…

“The difference between those who succeed in this world and those who fail is…the people who succeed know how to differentiate the important from the unimportant as it relates to their goals – then establish and aggressively execute on the most important tasks. That’s why they achieve so much.”

So what are your major business “outcomes” or goals for 2009? And have you taken time to break down those outcomes into Strategies you’ll use to reach them…then Action Steps to achieve each strategy?

Here’s a simple framework that will help you. I’ve created a one-page Strategic Planning sheet you can print out to use not just for your business goals but also your personal goals for 2009 and beyond.

Download it as a pdf by clicking here.

If you want to identify the strategies to accomplish your income goals, you can first identify and list where the MAJORITY of your business came from the last year. Focus on making those sources grow. Then, list out your projected sources of business this next year. Cut down this list and prioritize in order of the impact each strategy will make to your bottom line.

STEP 3: Identify Your ACTION STEPS

I next take out a sheet of paper and list out the Action Steps needed to accomplish each individual Strategy (from Step 2 above). Do you see what I’m doing here? I’m breaking down the prioritized list of strategies into smaller tasks, or “action steps”… creating a “roadmap” to success that will simplify your life and multiply your effectiveness. Again, you want to prioritize your Action Steps by the most effective, direct way to achieving your strategy.

By the end you’ll have just a few pages revealing the specific tasks to be completed to accomplish your goals. And you can start putting these tasks into your normal monthly and weekly schedule to get yourself on track today.

The only thing left is to measure your accomplishment of your goals. Every 6 months, examine your goals to see what you achieved and what still remains. If necessary, take the simple “goal setting system” I’ve outlined here and make a revised plan for the second half of the year.

If you follow this easy formula, I know you’ll have the direction you need to achieve your goals for this year (and each year hereafter).

My warmest wishes for your success in 2009.

How would you like to double (or even triple) your hourly income in real estate in the next 3 months – spending less time and effort than you’re spending right now?

That means…

If you make $40 per hour right now (about $80,000 a year), that would go to $80 per hour ($160,000 per year)…or even $120 per hour ($320,000 per year).

If you make $200 per hour right now (about $400,000 per year), that would go to $400 per hour – or $800,000 per year.

Does this sound like an impossible task for you? It’s not once you understand how to maximize the efficiency of your marketing and service delivery.

See…the amount of money you make is directly related to how efficiently you can attract new prospects…capture them as clients…and close a transaction – thereby getting paid your commission.

I call this process “THROUGHPUT.”

How does throughput work?

Picture the revenue of your real estate practice as water flowing through a pipe. To maximize the flow of water (i.e. your commission revenue) you can do TWO things:

First, you can increase the WIDTH of the pipe, thus allowing more VOLUME of water flowing through, and…

Second, you can increase the SPEED in which the water flows through the pipe.

Volume and Speed – that’s the secret. Make sense?

The larger the volume and the greater the speed – the more money you make.

So how do we maximize revenue throughput in your practice?

FIRST, to increase the VOLUME of revenue you need to have MORE quality marketing “systems” working to bring you clients.

Marketing “systems” are proven, predictable ways of bringing you prospects and clients without you having to spend your valuable time finding, sorting and sifting them.

Remember…your job is to do the highest paying tasks: Working with clients, closing deals, and making money.

The more marketing “systems” working for you, the more client flow…and the more money you make.

Problem is…most agents’ marketing doesn’t work – because they don’t understand how to create marketing “systems” that helps them leverage their success:

1. Selection of a motivated market, powerful message, and efficient medium, AND creating automated systems to sort and sift leads so they’re pre-qualified before you speak with them,
2. Establishing a depth of relationship whereby you become the automatic choice whenever they think real estate, and,
3. Creating self-serving, motivating reasons (irresistible offers) to act on your behalf in ALL of your marketing.

Which brings me to…

SECOND, to increase the SPEED of revenue, you need marketing systems that work efficiently.

I’ll bet you spend a lot of time and money marketing your services. And I’ll also bet a good portion of that time and money is wasted. So anything new that requires you to spend money on your business is met with a skeptical eye.

But the problem you’re facing is NOT that you are spending too much money or time…

It’s That You’re Getting NO RESULTS!

If you knew for every dollar you spent in marketing you got back $3 dollars…or $5 dollars…or even $20 dollars, you’d spend marketing money hand-over-fist, wouldn’t you?

You’d spend as much as possible because it’s multiplying your investment.

So the real problem you’re facing is not the amount of money or time you’re spending…it’s the return you’re NOT getting on your hard-earned investment (time and money).

This is what I mean by efficiency.

An efficient marketing system will produce a strong, fast return on your time or money (like water flowing fast through a pipe)…and a poor marketing system will produce a lousy return.

The problem with most agents:

• They have TOO FEW systems (poor volume)

• producing TOO LITTLE business (poor efficiency)

The reason? They simply don’t know the difference between an effective marketing system and an ineffective marketing system. They blindly follow the advice their trainer or broker or “coach” tells them…

And the worst advice you will ever get…is BAD advice.

Well, that won’t be you any longer…

How to Evaluate and Select ONLY the MOST Efficient Marketing Systems in Your Real Estate Practice…Thereby Maximizing Your Throughput of Revenue and Profits…

Let’s look at 2 examples of marketing efficiency.

The first is what I call “The Dumbest Strategic Mistake” (so you know what to avoid), and the second is “Smart, Effective Marketing.”

The Dumbest Strategic Mistake:

The other day one of our new Service For Life!^® agents (www.serviceforlife.com) called me out of frustration. She was really upset because she was in the process of creating her “house list” and relationship marketing system when her broker laid into her saying…

“Quit messing with gimmicks. The ONLY way to build your business is to walk neighborhoods and cold call. Everything else is a waste of time and money…”

Hey…I understand the idea of not wanting to spend any money to get clients – especially if you have no money!

But this ‘dinosaur’ wanted her to sort through the no-call lists for any poor slob who hasn’t registered yet, and start cold calling and walking neighborhoods hat-in-hand looking for business.

Listen…thinking that there is “no cost” to cold prospecting is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. In fact, cold prospecting is one of the MOST EXPENSIVE (least efficient!) way to generate clients – not just from the emotional drain, but financially too!

Want proof? OK, let’s do the math.

If you want to be an “above average” agent, your time should be worth at least $100 per hour (and there’s no better time to begin valuing your time than NOW, don’t you think?).

And if you’re an “average” cold-prospecting agent, you’ll get ONE client for about every 100 calls you make (not to mention the mind-numbing humiliation and rejection you’ll endure in the process).

And don’t forget the “no-call” lists you’ll have to sort through in the process – more time and aggravation.

OK…let’s see…if you spend an average of 4 minutes per call (many will be longer), then it will take you, statistically, about 400 minutes to call 100 people to get ONE client (that’s if you close 100% of them – which we all know won’t happen).

Divide 400 minutes by 60 minutes per hour, and it took you 6.67 hours of direct-abusive cold prospecting to get ONE client.

Multiply 6.67 hours by what your time SHOULD be worth ($100 per hour at least), and it cost you $667 to generate ONE client – not including the emotional drain.

Did You Know You’re Paying $667 For Every
Client You Generate Cold Prospecting?

At first glance you don’t think you’re paying anything because there’s no money flowing out of your pocket, right?

No so. Just because you’re not spending money doesn’t mean it’s not costing you a bundle.

You’re paying through the nose in LOST BUSINESS – what you could be making with an EFFECTIVE marketing system…a system that attracts clients automatically while you spend your time doing the most productive things: working with clients, closing deals, and getting paid.

We all get paid by the hour. And the question is: How much money do you make with your time?

But wait. You may be paying much more than $667 per client cold prospecting. For example, one of our Service For Life!^® agents (a subscriber for more than 8 years now), Linda Fogarty from Tinley Park, IL now makes nearly $300 per hour.

This means…if she wanted to subject herself to such torture…cold prospecting would cost her over $2,000 per sale!

And if you walk neighborhoods, it’s gets much worse, because it’ll take you almost 8 minutes per “call.”

The moral of the story?

The More You Value Your Time,
the More UN-Profitable Manual Prospecting Becomes!

Let’s take a look at how to generate clients for a fraction of that cost – more money in your pocket – by using…

Smart, Effective Marketing:

Do you remember the simple “Critical Mass™” calculation I covered in this past real estate marketing article?

We learned, for example, that a “house list” of 280 people who own their home 7 years on average, will produce 42 transactions each and every year (280/7=42). The % of those YOU receive depends on how well you’ve nurtured these folks.

A house list of 500 produces 71 transactions per year on average.

Are you following me?

So let’s test the efficiency of marketing to a “house list” with a proven prospecting, stay-in-contact, and referral producing marketing system like Service For Life!^®.

Let’s Look At Your CLIENT GENERATION COST…

The less you spend (in time and money – and hassle!) to generate a client, the more commission you put into your pocket, right?

Let’s try an easy analysis…

You’ll spend about $.85 per month per issue of Service For Life!^® you’ll send to these 280 people. That means you’ll spend $238.00 printing and mailing each issue each month.

So how do you calculate your COST PER CLIENT GENERATED?

Well, first and foremost, it DEPENDS on your Personal Market Share™ percentage. Personal Market Share™ is: How predisposed are your prospects or clients to doing business with you? In other words, how good is the quality of your list?

Let’s work some easy numbers.

If you harvest a measly 20% Market Share of these folks each year, that means…

1. You’ll spend $2,856 for the entire year sending 280 issues per month (to make 3,360 impressions)…
2. If you harvest 20% of the 42 transactions, that means you’ll get 8 deals from the list.
3. DO THE MATH: $2,856 divided by 8 transactions means you’ll spend $357 per client (NOT $667 to $2,000! as you would from cold prospecting – not to mention the torture and rejection you’d save yourself in the process!). You’ll also make between $32,000 and $96,000 in commissions, depending on the price of homes you sell – not a bad return on $2,856, don’t you think?

But wait!

WHAT IF…because of your relationship marketing systems (i.e. Service For Life!^®), you harvest 40% of these folks? Then your cost to generate the client just dropped to $178 per client ($2,856 divided by 16 transactions).

And if you harvest 50% of these folks, then your cost of sale just dropped to $136 per client.

And that’s against a commission of $4,000…$8,000…$12,000 or more!

Do the math yourself and see. Have fun with it. This is why I say you can make your success in real estate a Mathematical Certainty!

But hold your horses…

There are 2 more important points you need to know about all this…

ONE…the numbers I mentioned here DO NOT include the referrals these folks could be sending you. Our Service For Life!^® clients report getting as much as 30% referrals from their house lists – which means you’d get up to 12 additional transactions per year from these folks…

the LONGER you make contact, bring value, deepen the relationship over time…the MORE RESPONSIVE your list becomes. This means your Personal Market Share™ may start out at 10 or 20%…but over time it grows and grows.

That’s how our agents go from harvesting almost none of their house list (when they start)…to getting 20%…40%…even 80% or more of these deals.

It’s how you carve out your own Personal Market Share™ and build a consistent, ever-growing income in real estate.

And the bigger your House List grows…and the more responsive they become, the more your income grows and grows (like the snowball rolling downhill I talked about in this past real estate marketing article).

And yet there’s another way to look at your marketing efficiency:

Let’s look at your BREAK EVEN…

Take your monthly investment to send a monthly direct-response newsletter like Service For Life!^® and multiply it by 12 to get your annual investment.

Next, divide that amount by your average commission.

In our example, your annual cost to send 280 issues each month is $2,856. And if your average net commission is $5,000, then you need just .57 of ONE transaction to pay for your contact program ALL YEAR!

Your break-even is about ½ of one transaction!

Think about that. You need only ONE transaction out of 42 (that will occur) to double your investment. Try to get that, in the stock market. Heck…try to get that with any other form of prospecting or marketing!

Does all this make sense to you?

Ask any long-term top producer where they get their business, and they’ll tell you it’s from: referral, word of mouth and repeat business.

Ask any “coach” worth his or her salt what’s the best way to grow your business – and they’ll tell you: referrals, word of mouth, and repeat business.

Not having a regular contact system to your clients, farm, sphere of influence and nurturing new business from referrals, word of mouth and repeat business (especially in a tough market!) is like playing baseball without using your arms!

So the next time you strategize your prospecting and client-generating systems for the year, don’t forget to think about the marketing efficiency of the systems you choose.

It can mean the difference between making $7 per hour…or $700!

I feel like the luckiest guy on earth. Why do I feel so fortunate?

Because I am one out of a million people who had an opportunity to work and learn directly from 2 of the smartest, most successful businessmen on the planet.

Like the TV show “The Apprentice,” at the tender age of 27, I was selected to work with “Donald Trump-quality” businesspeople as my mentors.

But instead of being just an “apprentice” for 6 months or a year…I spent 5 years learning and growing with them while I built one of their companies.

The ‘secrets’ these folks taught me have been largely responsible for the success I’ve been able to achieve in my life and career – not just material success, but emotional as well. And I am eternally grateful to them for the experience.

That’s good news for you. Because today I want to share with you one of the most important lessons I ever learned about ‘success’ from my mentors, and that is…

DISCRIMINATION Is the

Secret to Your Success!

No…I’m not talking about age or racial or sexual discrimination. I’m talking about something completely different. Let me explain…

If ever a kid could have a dream job, I had it.

At the tender age of 27…barely out of graduate business school…I got to work directly with 2 of the most interesting and successful people in the world.

I won’t mention names…but we owned a major NBA sports team, theme parks, huge residential developments, high-rise buildings, TV stations, custom subdivisions…just to name a few.

My initial project was to run one of their companies…a high-profile community icon with 235 employees, 8 departments, millions in revenue and…

Losing Money Hand Over Fist!

I’m proud to say we quickly got things turned-around and created the greatest revenue and profit growth in the history of the company (a story for another time).

But the process was tough…and enlightening.

I remember one day driving in a car with one of our principals (my boss). I don’t know if he realized the importance of what he said…or whether he knew it would become a mantra for my success…but it was life-changing to me – and still is. He said…

“The Difference Between People Who Succeed and People

Who Fail is that People Who Succeed Learn How to

DISCRIMINATE Between the Important and the

UN-Important as it Relates to Their Goals”

When you’re trying to get everything you can out of all you’ve got, you can’t afford the luxury of ineffectiveness.

So you need to DISCRIMINATE: Identify and prioritize the most effective ways…and only the most effective ways…to accomplish your goals. This is the only way to maximize your earnings for every hour you work.

Think about the shortest, most direct way you can succeed in real estate. You can advertise. You can network. You can farm. You can cold prospect. But the question you need to constantly ask yourself every minute of every day is…

What Are the FEW Activities I Do In my Business

That Produce The Greatest RESULTS For Me?

Discriminate and handle what you do best and what brings the most value to your business. Then find either SYSTEMS or PEOPLE to handle the other things in your business…things they do best.

In economics it’s called “The Law of Comparative Advantage.”

What’s your highest Comparative Advantage in your business? What are the one or two things that you do so well, it brings the most value to your business?

What is your job?

If you’re like most agents, your focus should be on working with clients and closing deals – creating throughput in your business.

If you want to work your highest Comparative Advantage, then you need to find SYSTEMS or PEOPLE to handle the other things: prospecting, lead qualifying, listing management, escrow coordinating, busy-work, etc.

And the ONE system you must have nailed-down up front is prospecting.

Because if you don’t have a system – you ARE the system. And that’s not working your highest Comparative Advantage.

Does this make sense?

You can be busy as a one-armed wallpaper hanger, but not make any money. That’s because you’re busy…

Doing All The Wrong Things!

It’s the difference between being efficient…and being effective: Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.

So how do you start becoming more effective in your business?

By creating a HABIT of recognizing and understanding the most effective activities in your business – then putting everything of a lower priority aside for either systems or other people to handle.

I once read that creating a good habit takes regular reinforcement for 60 days. Today I want you to start cultivating a new habit. At least 6 times a day (starting when you wake in the morning), I want you to ask yourself…

“What are the FEW activities I do that produce the

GREATEST RESULT for every hour and

dollar invested into my business?”

Then focus your time and energy only on those items (and start looking for systems and people to handle the other less valuable tasks).

Do this for the next 60 days, and the “habit” of working effectively will be ingrained into your mind and psyche. It’s not going to be easy to break your old habit patterns at first. You’ll regularly find yourself regressing back into old habits. But don’t quit…

I’m certain…master this habit and you’ll quickly increase your profits in real estate…and slash your stress and work effort by multiples!

Just try it and see.