Management Article

More Money in Less Time
- By John Spalding

Many of us realize that effective time planning and management are essential. Still many of us do not incorporate good time management techniques into our daily schedule.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the essential elements of effective time management and to provide some insight into where and why time is misspent

It is important in utilizing time management principals that we under-stand certain basic components.

The first component is realistic identification of productive and nonproductive tasks. Most lists are either dishonest or wrong.

The second component of the system is a written plan. Planning without writing is daydreaming and will not support your goals. The form of such a plan is not important; however, it must contain a daily schedule for listing appointments and activities.

The third component of the system is a clear understanding of the terms related to time.

What is time planning? Time planning involves recording what you are going to do each day, week, and month. It is essential that you spend at least one-half hour each day making a daily work plan. The plan must establish a priority ranking.

What is time management? Time management is carrying out minute-to minute and hour-to-hour planned activities.

How do we know what to do? The only effective way is to have a set of written goals and a step-by-step list of written objectives or activities which will accomplish the goals. Goals are long-range, direct results of primary and secondary objectives. Objectives are short-range activities.

A written statement noting goals and objectives is the cornerstone of a good time management system. To achieve a goal, clearly write it down, list the sort-range objectives of attaining it, and make a commitment to do objectives.

We are in fact, the sum of commitments we have either kept or broken. Commitments must be specific, actionable and contained in time. For instance,“I’ll make five cold calls by 10 o’clock.”

Most time management systems break down at this point. To avoid this, you must recognize that you get what you want in life as a direct function of the price you are willing to pay. The price is keeping your commitments. You can always recognize a true commitment by the result. If you made five cold calls by 10 o’clock, you had a commitment. If you did not make the five calls,you did not have a commitment. In other words, a commitment is not a commitment when it is made. It is only a commitment when it is kept.

We know a time management system must incorporate things to do, written down in a priority-listed, daily planner, and that we must be committed to our plans. Seems simple doesn’t it? Many of us have done these things and obtained a certain level of success. The question is how can we earn more money in the same amount of time or the same amount of money in less time.

The key to doing this in realestate is contacting people. You mustbe committed to a consistent, methodical basis with continuous follow-up. The best tool to insure more contact with people is to identify those tasks which lead to such contact.

Next, use your time management system to analyze the exact amount of time you spend doing those activities each week. If you are not spending enough time in people contact work, you can change your objectives and activities to bring them more in line with your goals.

People contact is the basis for success in real estate. So let’s define basic categories of activities as they relate to such contact. These categories include:

I=intermediately productive time
P=productive time
N=non-productive time
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Intermediately productive time (I-time) is that time spent making a direct contribution toward face-to-face contact in a selling situation with a client.

Productive time (P-time) is that time spent in face-to-face contact in a selling situation with a client.

Non-produc-tive time (N-time) is time spent doing everything else. This does not mean that nonproductive activities are not important. In fact, nonproductive activities may be crucial and take precedence over I and P items; however, no matter how pressing or important N items are they will never directly lead you into people contact.

It is essential to the success of your sales effort that you carefully identify I, P, and N activities. This will enable you to properly evaluate the use of your time and make appropriate changes. Here is a list which will keep you in the sales (people contact) business:

You can possibly think of more I and N items, however, there may not be any significant need to add to the P items. The secret in making the above list work for you is to increase P-time by every possible means. This means increasing the I-time. You can always control your I-time items, whereas you may not be able to go out and have a showing, listing, and closing appointments every day. And what is the only source of I-time? You guessed it, N-time.

It is not suggested that you consistently miss sales meetings to do your farming nor that training sessions and other functions are not important; however, you can control your I-time. The more I-time you put in, the more P-time you will create. Only productive time will put more money in your bank account.

Analyze your working daytime and activities for a one week period .Unless you are among the top 5 percent of salesmen, less than 20 percent of your time will be P-time and more than 60 percent of your time will be N-time.

If 60 percent or more of your working day time is nonproductive, you are out of control as a salesman. One of the features of the analysis of P, I, and N-time is to let you know when you’re out of control so you can get back in command. There is only one source of productive time and that’s intermediately productive time. Get back into control by blocking out one 8-hour day per week and devoting it solely to I-time activities, or if you’re not going to do I-time activities, simply take the day off. Either way your relative production will increase. Obviously, some of your I-time days will get out of control and result in non productive activities. The key is to recognize when it happens, so you get back in-control.

The key to effectiveness as a salesman is to control your time and channel it into productive face-to-face selling situations with clients. This means making a commitment to an effective time planning and management system which will enable you to spend more time prospecting. Prospecting is simply building a relationship with people. It is not getting a sale. Make every contact a win for the prospect and yourself, regardless of the outcome.

Now, make a commitment to yourself. Immediately after you stop reading this article, get out some paper. List you rgoals in priority. Identify objectives and activities that will help attain those goals. Copy those objectives and activities into your time planner. Identify al lyour activities as P, I, or N and accurately keep track of how much time you spend in each area. Keep yourself in control by spending more time in I activities. Block out an I-time day each week.

Above all, remember that if you want to be a successful real estate salesman, you must make a commitment to continuous prospecting. If you are not prospecting, you are not working and you don’t need a time management system. If you want to prospect more to earn more, rely on the fact that prospecting of any kind does work. Get involved in a time management system that enables you to do more prospecting and order more deposit slips to take your cash to the bank.

his material is protected by copyrights and my not be used without permission of Quantum Management Systems and Doug Yeaman

Quantum Management Systems

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