One of the most common questions asked by people thinking about a career in real estate is: What is a typical real estate agent’s day like?  I smile at this because one of the reasons I love real estate is typical days are rare. Every day brings new challenges, opportunities, and adventures!

With that in mind here are seven activities that can be part of an agent’s day:

• Lead Generation and Business Building

If a business isn’t growing – it’s dying! Lead generation and business building are a crucial activity and can be done in a variety of methods, including reaching out to your sphere of influence, open houses, around listings sales, geographic farming, FSBOs (For Sale by Owners), expired listings, social media marketing, and many more. Overall, you must focus on reaching out to new and existing clients to talk about real estate. This is proactive and the one activity the successful agents all do consistently.

• Talk to Active Clients

Buyers and sellers under contract should be communicated with on a regular basis by providing feedback and updates on what is being done to sell or find their home. They need to know what you are doing for them and they need to feel that you are looking after their needs.

• Lead Follow-up or Processing

After you generate a lead you need to follow-up, qualify the lead, and determine urgency.  Then, you must to devise an action plan and implement it: technology helps but to be successful you need face-to-face and voice-to-voice communication.

• Marketing and Advertising

Marketing and advertising strategies should be analysed daily to determine if they are effective. Are they developing leads? Are they helping reach the set goals?

• Paperwork and Accounting

Staying on top of regulated paperwork and accounting can be a challenge, especially when there are a variety of projects on the go. My suggestion is to do a little each day or dedicate a set time at the beginning or end of the week to get it done.

• Buyer Seller Presentations

Set appointments to meet with potential clients, discuss their needs and plans as well as solutions for problems and finally determine if working together will be a good fit.  Note, REALTORS   need a strong presentation to be able to clearly and effectively communicate their business value package.

• Continuing Education

Real estate is a rapidly changing world, there are always new technologies to consider, evolving business models, changing dynamics and economies so it is best to ensure you are a leader in the industry by taking courses and learning new methods.

Overall, a typical day in real estate is hard to define but a solid business plan will help.  Break your goals down into daily, weekly and monthly activities and hold yourself to them.  Do this success in real estate is all but a guarantee.

—

David Armstrong

Broker, CENTURY 21 John DeVries Ltd. (Ottawa, ON)