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Warm weather means that the busiest time in real estate is approaching! Get yourself organized now, instead of feeling overwhelmed down the line.
Branding & Design Industry Insights
The real estate industry changes and grows with the season. If you’re not giving your processes and work spaces a thorough spring cleaning and review, there are likely some professional opportunities falling through the cracks. Giving your real estate business a spring cleaning can shed light on what areas need improvement and where you could streamline processes.
We’ll look at each area of your real estate business that could use some sprucing up and help you create a personalized spring cleaning checklist.
Client Cleanup
Let’s get one thing out of the way: your listings may be the first places in need of a spring cleaning. A clean property is just as (if not more) important as staging. Turn out that the more cluttered a space is, the less comfortable visitors feel and the more difficult it is for them to see themselves living there.
You may be dealing with sellers who are reluctant to clean up before selling or perhaps just have different ideas of what “clean ” looks like. Take action by starting with a few smart and professional tips that will help them see the light.
Be Honest Right Off the Bat
If you’ve been telling clients that you love their home, then pushing them to give it a deep clean when potential buyers take a look, you can find yourself in a sticky place. Be upfront with sellers as soon as you see the home. If it needs some cleaning up or reorganizing, get specific about what needs to be done and put a plan in place as soon as possible. Emphasize the payoff for them in the long run including the number of interested buyers and a possibly higher selling price. Remind clients that it’s also beneficial for them to have less “stuff” before making a big move.
Hire a Professional
Real estate agents may have to call in professional cleaners or organizers in an emergency. These services can cost anywhere from $20 – $100 an hour. Considering you may see many homes in need of a refresh throughout your career, it’s recommended to build a solid professional relationship with a cleaning company that you can rely on. They’ll expect your call for a good spring cleaning when warm weather comes around.
Now let’s talk about you, the agent.
Cleaning Out Your WorkSpace
Realtors work in several locations throughout the day. It’s not just the office you’ll have to refresh. Your car, desk, and at home work area can probably use a dusting. It’s easy to let coffee cups pile up around your desk or throw a printed presentation in the back seat of your car and ‘get back to it later’. It’s good advice to regularly clean these spaces, it’s great advice to develop new habits that prevent clutter.
If you commonly find yourself with documents you’re working on all over your workspace, find a spot where you place documents that you’re still working on. Make sure to clean your spaces of takeout cups and containers daily, not when it becomes overwhelming.
Digital DeCluttering
Cleaning up the digital side of your business really comes down to having the right systems in place. Trouble with a client that texts you at 3 a.m. on a Sunday? Automatic replies should be put in place. Always losing contact specs of verbal referrals? Create a Google doc or note on your phone where you regularly record that data immediately. There is a solution to every digital clutter challenge.
Your Real Estate Website
If you’re doing something right, your business should evolve and grow every year. Maybe you’ve updated your mission, made your brand more eye-catching, or brought on some new team members. Either way, your website should reflect new significant changes.
Your site is your digital ‘face’ and where many of your future and past clients go to get more information about you and your team. Wouldn’t you want your website to accurately and positively reflect your work?
AgentFire clients can always reach out to our support team for help with making updates and design changes to their real estate websites. Luckily for you, we’re constantly updating our library of marketing tools and addons to be in line with industry and client demand.
Pesky Emails
The biggest clutter creators in most agents’ digital world are emails. We all know how to put our emails in separate folders, but it’s as if they fill up overnight!
We suggest the one-touch technique. You don’t have to respond to every single email, but make sure that you’ve taken action with it in some way. For example, even if you can tell from a headline that you’re not interested in a certain promotion, don’t just leave it there. Delete it, archive it, or at the very least, mark it as read. This way, you don’t miss any important emails in a pile of junk you’ve been ignoring.
Household Decluttering
Organization in your living space greatly affects the quality of your attention and work (even if you don’t work from home). Your home is meant to be your resting place to unwind and find peace between stressful work hours. Most would agree that a cluttered space is chronically difficult to rest in.
The areas where you sleep and relax with loved ones are especially high priorities.
Keep Work Out of Relax Space
It starts with a laptop on the bed or a business call during movie night. Before you know it, you’ve colonized your entire home as your workspace and it’s more tempting than ever to reach for your email on a Saturday night with the family.
Rest is just essential to ongoing productivity as work. As much as we’d love to believe that we’re “machines”, we’re human – and humans can’t run at 100% all day, every day with great results. If needed, carve out a small work area in your home and try to keep work activities restricted to that area.
If You’re Not Using it, Throw It Out
There’s something cleansing about giving away or throwing away things that you no longer use. If there are objects around the house that you haven’t used in years because you’re waiting for the right occasion or aren’t sure what to do with them, consider finding them another home. That fondue maker isn’t becoming more useful or valuable as the years go by.
Gretchen Rubin, author of Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter and Organize to Make More Room for Happiness, has a key piece of organizational advice. It’s called the “ex test”. Would you feel uncomfortable if you ran into your ex-partner wearing the clothes in your closet? If something in your closet makes you cringe at the thought of wearing it in front of an ex, it’s time to say goodbye.
Wrapping Up…
Spring cleaning is a must for most real estate businesses. Even if you do your best to maintain tight systems and organizational practices, it can’t hurt to take a bird’s eye view of your business and tighten up where necessary. Considering your real estate business is always growing and changing with you, there are always elements that could use a little spring cleaning.
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