How does an agent spend their time?

The truth is that many agents can be undisciplined and unmotivated given each agent is generally autonomous and even if they are employees of an agency, they effectively run their own business – it’s not always an easy transition to make if they are used to being told what they need to do at their previous job.

I must admit, I’ve always been a pretty good ‘self-starter’ and no-one is harder on me than I am on myself.

Last week, I started explaining a typical week in my life and how I spend my time.

I broke down a typical Monday for me and now I’ll move on to…

Tuesday

I’m always up early on a Tuesday, usually around 4:30 AM but today I am a little more tired than normal and must admit that I hit ‘snooze’ a few times on my alarm.

Another early morning coffee and I’m in front of my computer at home by 5:10 AM, editing a few appraisal reports that Simon and I have prepared for some prospective sellers, writing and editing two new advertisements for brand new listings that will go live online this morning and preparing a report for one of our sellers on a property that they are considering buying and wanted me to look at before they made an offer.

It’s quite a lot of work to do this morning and I haven’t moved from my computer for a little more than 4 hours but it has been a reasonably productive morning.

A quick shower and a bite to eat and then I’m off to the office where I have a series of regular weekly meetings…firstly with my personal team where we’ll go through each one of our listings and discuss where things are at with each one…looking at having an open discussion about what we need to do in order to obtain a sale or discussing how a current sale is progressing.

I then meet the other sales agents in our office, and we have a general discussion about the market, what’s happening in the industry and how we can benefit from each other’s ideas and grow our respective businesses.

After this, I meet with our admin department to chat about anything that might be an issue here and then our Property Management department to see how things are travelling there.

As soon as our meetings are done, I have two listing appointments in the afternoon and then I catch up with my team (on the phone) to discuss any inspections we might have had that day and contact these sellers to update them on what’s happening.

In between appointments, I’m usually contacting our sellers for an update and working out a time it suits them to run an open home for the forthcoming Saturday.

Late at night, I try to fit in another game of indoor cricket before I come home, have a quick dip in the pool and a shower and hit the hay, usually around midnight again.

Wednesday

Again, I’m always up early on a Wednesday, usually around 4:00 AM and this is the time that I write this blog.

I then lock in any open homes that I haven’t been able to confirm with our sellers for the previous few days and then complete any market reports, e-mails and outstanding phone calls that I haven’t been able to get to over the previous couple of days.

One of my team monitors my e-mails so if there is anything that is urgent, I have it attended to pretty quickly when it comes in.

I have another listing appointment around lunch time and spend a couple of hours calling our sellers to keep them updated on what’s happening.

At 3:00 PM, I pick up my little girl from school (a regular on a Wednesday), spend a couple of hours with her and then take her to swimming lessons.

After this, I have a meeting scheduled with one of our sellers for a catchup before I head home (do a weekly shop on the way home) and have some valuable family time…as well as a glass of wine to unwind!

Tonight, I’m in bed at 10:00 PM which is pretty early for me.

Thursday

Thursdays are generally a little less hectic than earlier in the week for me. I’m usually still up pretty early and answering e-mails, writing adverts, preparing reports etc – this week, I’m up at 5:30 AM and working until 8:00 AM before I spend an hour or so playing with my little one-year old boy. I’m then on the road all day for a series of listing appointments, inspections and shooting a property video with constant phone calls in between appointments.

If I have a gap between appointments (today I do have a 45-minute gap to fill, I’ll often find a nice shady spot to park my car on the side of the road and catch up on calls.

This has caused me some drama in the past as I’ve learned that it does look a little suspicious when someone parks their car on the side of the road or in a quiet street and just sits there.

I’ve had the Police called on me a few times and I’ve been challenged by a neighbour as to why I am parked there on the side of the road…and this happened to me today!

I usually try to go nowhere near a place where kids will be as I understand why parents would be concerned.

If I think I may have a gap in my day and I’ll be parking somewhere, I try to take my sign-written car so it’s pretty obvious who I am and what I’m doing although I’m still approached by concerned people from time to time.

I’m home at 5:00 PM for dinner with my family and then out again for a late-night appointment at 8:00 PM before I get home, watch a little TV to unwind hit the bed around 10:30 PM.

Next week, I’ll describe how I normally spend the last three days of my week and give you an insight into how a busy agent handles their weekends.

Hopefully this blog doesn’t bore you to tears but as I discussed last week, there are some people that have an incorrect idea of what some agents do with their days so hopefully this sheds a little light into how we spend our time.

We’d like to take this opportunity to remember the men and women that have fought and defended our country and please take some time to reflect on this tomorrow (being ANZAC Day).

Many of us (including me) had our Grandfathers fight in the war and luckily enough, they were able to come home alive.

I’ve mentioned before that one of my Grandfathers had his best mate shot and killed right next to him and he held him in his arms as he died…I cannot even begin to imagine what this must have been like!

These men and women made the ultimate sacrifice for us so please remember them tomorrow!

If you’re going to the Dawn Service in Brisbane City, I hope to see you there!

Until next week, Happy Listing & Happy Selling!