This past August I was presented with an opportunity to enroll in a 12 week real estate sales coaching course. I had met with a top real estate agent who I had a lucky mutual connection with and they highly recommended that I, along with the other two co-founders at my company take up coaching with this coach up in Canada that had been coaching her for the past two years. The agent giving the recommendation was a veteran in real estate with decades of experience and ran the number one sales team for one of the largest real estate companies in Massachusetts. Someone you want to take advice from. Not only that, but she claimed that the coach had easily made her over one million dollars in just those two years working with him.
Sounds like a recommendation you have to follow through with, right? Well, like any time someone tells you to do something that you know you should be doing, but aren’t, your brain starts to come up with excuses. “I’m not ready for that yet”. “I’m sure he’s too expensive for me”. “It’s probably some sort of pyramid scheme.” The mental excuses started to pile up. That was until I remembered a lesson I had learned from a big inspiration of mine in the world of business. It was that as a business owner, investing in yourself will benefit you far more than any investment in stocks, real estate or anything else. Remembering this, on top of the fact that another real estate mentor of mine had preached coaching to me in the past, made the decision pretty easy once I was invited to a free mastermind event put on by the coach and given the opportunity to book a call with their sales rep. However I will say, I found out during the mastermind that it would cost $5,000 for the program they were promoting and that immediately brought the excuse voice right back into my head. I quickly went to my motto for when I know I should do something but hesitate – “Just do it.” Thanks Nike.
Last month I finished the coaching program and I’m very glad I didn’t give in to any of my excuses. I was ready for it, it wasn’t too expensive for me and it definitely wasn’t just some weird pyramid scheme. Not only was I ready for it, but it was the perfect time to take the course since I was just starting my transition from full time leasing specialist to property sales specialist. The course was built for agents new or experienced and provided a full overview of building your own real estate business from start to finish. Not only was it not too expensive for me, but before the course was even over, I used a marketing method I learned in the course to make my money back and then some. And once again, it didn’t end up being a pyramid scheme. The course was overall fantastic and I believe it gave me the tools and confidence to crush it in my first full year in sales and long after. So much so that I ignored the little voice in my head once again and committed to continued coaching with the same company.
With all that being said, I would like to share my three main takeaways from this 12 week, $5,000 coaching course. Enjoy!
#1 – The Ultimate Time Management Calendar
Within the first week of the course, one of the coaches taught everyone something that I personally felt was worth the full price of admission – How to manage your time in a way that prevents procrastination and gives you the best shot at hitting your goals. This is done by using an online calendar, which for most people will be google calendar or apple calendar (the calendar app on your Iphone/macbook). There are 6 simple to follow rules of the calendar:
- Organize your activities into three specific categories and prioritize them in the following order: Personal Activities, Friends, Family and Community, and Work Tasks. Personal activities are the number one priority because you must take care of yourself first if you want to take care of others.
- Input your recurring events into your calendar and add tasks/events as they come up. There should be no empty space on your calendar.
- For work tasks, they should each be 15-60 minute chunks. On the task you should detail a number to achieve since all goals should be measurable (eg. 100 cold calls). Set 10 minute reminders on each task so you know when to move on to the next one.
- Everything on the calendar is movable but not removable. Work and life can get hectic and so your schedule should be flexible, however when you need to prioritize another event, your original event should never be removed.
- Never move a task from one week to the next. Yes, everything is movable, however to prevent major procrastination, you cannot just keep pushing those annoying tasks along. Move things around so you can be flexible and accommodate clients, however make sure to get all your weekly tasks done that week, not the next one (or next after that).
- When you are doing a task, only do that task! Don’t check your email. Don’t go on your phone. Solely work on that task. Book in time on your calendar to check your email or have a social media break. If it’s really that important, they will call you.
After building a calendar the same day as learning of this and sticking to that calendar in the 4+ months since, I can confidently say this way of managing time has been a game changer for me. As someone who is easily distracted and working a job where new tasks are constantly coming up as your many clients pull you in every direction, having a structured schedule that I can be disciplined with and stick to has made me incredibly more productive. Not only have I been able to stay consistent with completing my daily and weekly measurable task for work, but I have used the calendar’s 3rd and 4th rules to be consistent in the gym. I’ve successfully gone to the gym 5 days a week for the past 4 months after not being able to string together a solid month in the gym since practically High School! If you have the self-discipline to stick to your calendar and follow these rules, I promise you won’t recognize yourself after a month.
#2- “Dare to Suck”
This lesson for me wasn’t a focus of the course. There wasn’t a dedicated class for it or a homework assignment. It was just a phrase that a couple of the coaches repeated on occasion. Regardless, it really stuck with me.
“Dare to suck.” – Definitely nothing poetic, but the coaches always brought it out when they knew us students were feeling overwhelmed or nervous. Feelings that are unavoidable when trying out new skills. It’s so easy to get caught up in wanting to be great at everything that we don’t allow ourselves to start new endeavors as a beginner. Unless you have some god-given talent it’s extremely unlikely that you have started off great at anything in your life. The same goes for everyone and yet we are all so hard on ourselves when it comes to trying something new and failing.
I loved this simple phrase from the moment I first heard it because it reminds you that the important part of starting something new isn’t about being good. It’s about improving.You have to start somewhere and if you don’t allow yourself to be terrible at the beginning, then you will never give yourself the opportunity to improve. You can’t become great if you never improve.
To me, this phrase is to be used just like my favorite phrase, “Just do it”. When you hesitate to start, get in your head and start to make excuses when you try something new, just remember – “Dare to suck”.
#3 – Daily Sphere of Influence Messages
Something simple from the course that very quickly had a big impact on me was the homework assignment we were assigned on just the second day of class. A basic, seemingly easy task: Text 5 people in your contacts. However, it was actually a bit more than that. They wanted us to start a daily task of texting 5 people from your contacts. Furthermore, you had to start at “A” in your contacts list and go to “Z”. Without skipping anyone.
I gave up. Yep. Couldn’t do it. Immediately after my zoom coaching class I was pumping with adrenaline from the high energy coach enthusiastically challenging everyone to commit to this, knowing many people wouldn’t and even stating so. Believing I was coachable and pretty fearless, I was actually pretty excited for the challenge. That was, until I saw my first five contacts. Four of the five were girls from my hometown who I hadn’t spoken to since high school and had actually rarely spoken to at all. The same voice that told me this course would be a waste got back in my head. “Who randomly texts people they aren’t close with?”, “They are going to think I’m trying to take them on a date”, “This task is useless for me since I want to work with landlords – not kids I went to school with”. I got so discouraged that I layed in bed and stopped working altogether. I even thought the course was going to end up being a waste of time and money because I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do the work they assigned and it wouldn’t be helpful for “the type of real estate I wanted to do”.
Of course, the voice in my head was wrong again. The next morning I channeled my inner Nike athlete once again and “just did it”. I felt amazing after completing the 5 texts. My stomach was still churning with angst from reaching out to those girls…but I had done it. I was so proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone and I realized that although the contacts in my phone weren’t my desired clients for real estate, texting everyone in my contacts would give me the daily opportunity to do two things – Get out of my comfort zone and work on my personal relationships.
Same as the calendar, I have kept up with my daily texts since they were first assigned to me. I am currently on the letter “W” and will be looping back to “A” in less than a week. I’ve had some amazing conversations. Some with people I rarely ever talked to in person. I’ve continually gotten out of my comfort zone and pushed myself to not care if someone thinks I’m odd for trying to spark a conversation out of the blue. You’d be surprised just how happy you can make someone simply by reaching out to check in. Or just how many people you forgot you cared about when you failed to maintain the relationship.
These five daily texts are something I personally challenge you to do. Even if it’s just one person a day instead of five. Most of you won’t. Maybe none of you will. But I do know that if you do, you won’t regret it.
Final Thoughts
It was extremely difficult to choose these 3 takeaways and honestly, it’s because I had closer to 10 main takeaways. The course was nearly 50 days of classes with ancillary events and lessons which honestly made the learning process similar to drinking water from a fire hose. I’m still skimming through my notes and implementing new tactics and lessons almost daily. Yes, I hesitated to consider a coaching course, but I know that I will never hesitate to recommend coaching to anyone looking to grow in any area of their life. Why try to figure things out yourself when you can have someone who’s already done it successfully give you their playbook? Just make sure you aren’t joining some pyramid scheme…
Author
Evan Bilton
Written: 01/18/2024
Contact Information
Evan@realty20.com
