This post was last updated Dec. 19, 2022.
There are many ways to be successful, and while the most successful real estate agents don’t do things exactly the same way, most top producers share similarities and habits that allows them to be at the top.
These seven practices will help you leverage your time to grow your business like top producers do.
1. They grow themselves
Top producers focus daily on growing their knowledge of how to be the very best version of themselves. They constantly search for new ways to conduct business with a focus on working better and growing faster. They tend to be early adopters who identify innovative ideas and test them to see how they work.
Agents who listen to podcasts, participate in training, read books and watch YouTube videos about best practices benefit from the wisdom and experience of other people, and top producers use those ideas to grow themselves consistently.
As things begin to reopen following COVID, real estate conferences will provide excellent opportunities to network and learn new ways to improve your business from other agents. Nothing replaces time spent with other agents who are looking for ways to grow their business. Top producers search out mastermind groups where ideas are plentiful.
Be aware, too, that accountability plays a vital part in growth, and those agents who seek mentors and coaches will likely see the best gains because they’ve surrounded themselves with people who have accomplished what they hope to do themselves.
2. They use the hot-sheet
Top producers live by the hot-sheet, and it should be an essential part of every agent’s daily activity. Top producers notice the new listings coming on the market, and they also watch the homes that are going pending and the sales data of the homes that have closed. This data gives them the opportunity to stay on top of any trends or shifts in the market.
But the primary use of the hot-sheet is to send new listings out to prospects who are ready to buy. Top producers keep their hottest buyers informed about new properties, price changes on homes that meet their search criteria, and how recent sales might impact their home values.
Top producers who utilize the hot-sheet to provide timely details about relevant properties for their prospects build deeper relationships. It also provides the opportunity for one transaction to lead to a lifetime client.
3. They create and modify systems
Time is often the most significant challenge you’ll face in your work, and the top agents constantly seek ways to systemize their activity. By creating and consistently modifying those processes, top producers make better use of their time by looking for ways to do more work with less effort.
There are countless tools available to help us streamline things like sending handwritten communications and staying in touch with your top prospects. The agents who leverage those tools will likely see growth in their businesses as a result.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the enormous amount of systems your business needs. Make a list of the tasks you repeat, and put one system per month in place.
Maybe this month, it’s a checklist for closing out a listing. Next month, maybe you create a pre-listing packet. Perhaps the third month, you implement an automated past-client follow-up system.
If you just focus on one system per month, you will have a more efficient business poised for more growth and less work at the end of a year.
4. They send out CMAs
Top producers send out CMAs daily to various people: past clients, listing prospects, people within their sphere of influence or people in their database. Specifically, video CMAs allow you to stay in touch with your top prospects and give them information about the value of their homes in the current market.
Each 5- to 10-minute video takes about 30 minutes to create as you walk the prospect through recent activity, comparable homes in their area, and estimated closing costs to help them truly understand the potential value of selling their homes.
Agents who send one of these each day will stay top-of-mind for their prospects. And when those owners decide to sell, they’ll have an opportunity to list these properties.
5. They make outbound calls
Real estate revolves around conversations, so though you can use texts, emails or other forms of outreach, there must be a phone conversation before any transactions happen.
Top producers don’t wait for things to come to them. Instead, they initiate conversations with past clients, people in their sphere of influence and their current prospects. They also use techniques, such as circle prospecting, to connect with the people in the area they are farming. No matter who they call, rest assured that top producers have real estate-related conversations every day.
The lesson is that if you want to have more closings, simply have more real estate conversations.
6. They add to their databases
Your database is the lifeblood of your real estate business. Your ability to add to it and then effectively communicate with the people in it will determine your future success.
Top producers add new people to their database daily, but having an extensive database isn’t their only focus. They also purposefully communicate with their database to build rapport with the people in it.
Top producers add people to their database through several strategies, including open house attendees, farming efforts, circle prospecting conversations, door-knocking, online lead generation, or simply meeting people in the community. No matter which strategy you use, consistently adding to databases is a daily practice for top producers.
Once you’ve added people to the list, use weekly communications to help them begin to know, like and trust you on a deeper level. The more personalized your outreach is, the more likely you are to build relationships with your database.
The key is to systemize the outreach so that you’re consistently connecting and providing value, which will lead to more business.
7. They use to-do lists
Top producers stay in charge of their day by ensuring that they engage in the right activity instead of doing things that won’t grow their businesses.
They create to-do lists before leaving the office each day or before they go to bed each night. They wake up in the morning with a plan for how they will grow their business that day.
To grow your business, adopt the practices that top producers use to maximize their time and make the most of their efforts. This list has seven activities to make it easier for you to implement one a day over the next week into your business. By doing so, your business will look more and more like the top producers in real estate, and soon after, your results too.
Jimmy Burgess is the CEO for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Beach Properties of Florida in Northwest Florida. Connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
