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Have you ever left a conference, a coaching call, a sales meeting, or maybe even listened to a podcast and thought, that's it.
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Tomorrow I'm changing everything.
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You're fired up.
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Tomorrow morning, you're getting up early.
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You're making your calls.
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You're cleaning up your CRM.
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You're time blocking.
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You're finally gonna start doing that thing you've been putting off for six months.
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And Monday?
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You're fantastic.
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Tuesday, still pretty good.
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Wednesday gets a little shaky.
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Then Thursday comes along, you've got an inspection problem.
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A buyer who suddenly wants to see six houses.
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A seller who thinks their estimate should determine their listing price.
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47 emails waiting for you.
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And there goes the plan.
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We've all done it.
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I've done it.
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And there's nothing wrong with getting motivated.
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I love leaving a great coaching session with something I want to implement.
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But somewhere along the way, I learned something that's become a pretty important philosophy in my business.
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Systems outlive motivation.
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Because motivation might get you started.
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A system is what's going to keep you going.
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And that's what I want to talk about today.
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Welcome back to Agent Performance Coaching for Real Estate Agents.
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I'm Ken Gould.
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I'm a working real estate agent, boots on the ground, doing the real work of real estate.
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Also a real estate performance coach and a small business owner.
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And if you listened last week, you know what we're doing here.
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We're trying to make this business simpler.
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Not easier, simpler.
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There's a difference.
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Last week I challenged you with the idea that maybe you don't need more leads.
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Maybe you've already got opportunities around you, and the bigger issue is what are you doing with them?
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So naturally, how do we make sure we actually do something with them?
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That's where systems come in.
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When I say systems, I can almost hear some of you thinking, oh great, Ken's gonna tell me I need another CRM.
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Nope, I'm not gonna do that.
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Actually, please don't buy anything after listening to this episode, okay?
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I don't want you to do that.
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I'm serious.
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A system doesn't have to be technology, it doesn't have to be automation, it doesn't have to involve AI.
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Although, you'll learn from me as we get into this deeper, AI is my best friend, and I encourage you to embrace AI.
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Anyway, it can literally be a checklist on a piece of paper.
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To me, a system is simply when this happens, I already know what happens next.
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That's it.
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Someone becomes a lead.
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What happens next?
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I take a listing, what happens next?
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Somebody comes through my open house, what happens next?
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A seller tells me, we're probably six months away, what happens next?
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If every one of those situations requires you to stop and figure out what you're supposed to do, you don't have a system yet.
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Something I've learned from years of coaching.
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I've been fortunate over the years to be coached by some really good people.
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Mentors, coaches, you name it.
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And one of the things coaching reinforced for me is that we tend to make success much more complicated than it needs to be.
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It's rarely, hey Ken, here's this incredible secret nobody knows in real estate.
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Usually it's Ken, you know what you're supposed to do.
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Are you doing it?
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Big difference.
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And now that I coach agents myself, I see exactly the same thing.
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Most agents I work with aren't lacking information.
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In fact, they usually have too much information.
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They've got scripts, they've got training, they've got a CRM, they've watched YouTube, they've been to conferences, they've downloaded like 15 or 20 PDFs.
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They know 47 ways to generate leads.
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Information isn't usually the problem.
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It's implementation.
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And good coaching, at least the way I believe in coaching, isn't always giving somebody something else to do.
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Sometimes it's helping them identify a few things they should already be doing and getting them to do those things consistently.
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Here's what I've seen over and over.
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The plan isn't a problem.
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We build a business plan, it looks fantastic.
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We decide we're gonna make X number of contacts, we're gonna call our database, we're gonna hold open houses, we're gonna follow up, maybe we're gonna work expireds.
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Whatever your lead generation or your lead generation spokes are, then two weeks later it's not working.
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Well, how many times did you actually do it?
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That's the question.
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Because sometimes we're judging a system we haven't actually executed long enough to know whether it works or not.
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Consistency gives the system a chance to work.
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Now, you think about it, there are agents all over the place.
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Some are making a fortune in expireds, others are making a fortune in per sale by owners, others are doing probate, others are doing new construction.
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The list goes on.
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We know all of these sources or methodologies, if you will, on how to generate business in your real estate business work.
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It's identifying what resonates with you and how you want to operate your business and then making it not boring.
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The magic of boring.
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This may not be very sexy, but a successful real estate business can get a little boring.
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I think my coach calls it repetitious boredom.
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And I mean that in the best possible way.
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You know when you're doing Monday, you know what you're doing Tuesday, you know where leads go, you know when follow-up happens, you know how much you launch at a listing, you know what happens after an open house, you know when your seller hears from you.
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The less drama, less figuring things out, less, oh crap, I forgot to do that.
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That's actually a good thing.
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Predictability creates freedom.
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That's something I don't think agents understand early enough in their careers.
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Let's talk about the daily minimum.
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It's another concept I've learned through coaching and I've used with agents I've coached myself.
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Sometimes we make the daily goal so big that the minute the day gets disrupted, we do nothing.
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So instead, establish a daily minimum.
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I like to call them daily minimum standards.
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You know, those non-negotiables in your business.
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What's the minimum standard that happens even on a bad day?
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Maybe your perfect day is 50 contacts.
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That's great.
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But what happens when the morning blows up?
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Do you make zero?
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Or do you have a minimum standard that says, regardless of what happens today, I'm doing this?
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Maybe that's 10 conversations, maybe that's five conversations, maybe it's five follow-ups, maybe it's 30 minutes worth of call, lead generation, and lead follow-up.
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The exact number isn't my point.
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The point is have a floor, because your floor is what protects your consistency, and over time, consistency compounds.
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Now I want to say stop negotiating with yourself.
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This is one of the biggest things a system does for me.
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It removes decisions because we're really good at negotiating with ourselves.
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I'll make those calls after lunch, then lunch happens.
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Well, I've got an appointment at two, I'll do them afterward, then it's 4 30.
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I'll hit it really hard tomorrow.
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Sound familiar?
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Guilty as charged here myself.
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I've certainly done it.
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The system says this is when I do this.
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Period.
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I'm not asking myself if I feel like it.
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And let's talk about our calendar.
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Our calendar tells the truth.
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Here's an exercise.
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Tell me your priorities.
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Now show me your calendar.
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Those two things should match.
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If you tell me lead generation is the most important thing in your business, but I look at a week and there's no protected time for lead generation in your calendar, then it's not actually a priority yet.
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It's an intention.
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And intentions are great, but intentions don't create closings.
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Activity does.
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Now I want to say systematize the repeatable, right?
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Personalize the relationship.
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Now, here's where I want to be careful.
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I don't want systems turning into a robot.
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This is still a relationship business.
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It always has been, it always will be.
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And AI is never going to take that away from you.
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AI can help you do a much better job, and they can take a lot off of your plate so you can dive into those relationships like nobody else can.
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I actually think good systems allow you to become a more personal with your clients, not less personal.
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Your CRM can remind you to call someone, but you have the conversation.
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Your systems can remind you that a past client bought their house three years ago, but you know what's happening in their life.
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Your process makes sure your seller gets an update every week.
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But you have the conversation.
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So here's one phrase I want you to remember.
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Systematize the repeatable, personalize the relationship.
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That's the balance.
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Your business needs to survive real life.
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This has become increasingly important to me personally.
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I sell real estate, I coach, I'm involved in another business, I travel, and believe it or not, I occasionally want a life outside of work.
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Don't we all?
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I don't want to build a business that only works when I'm sitting behind a desk 12 hours a day.
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And I don't want that for agents either, especially the agents I coach.
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But here's the catch.
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Freedom without systems becomes chaos.
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If I want freedom to travel, if I want freedom to step away, if I want other people to help me, then I have to create repeatable processes.
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Otherwise, everything lives in my head.
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And if everything lives in my head, I can't delegate anything.
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Now this is where technology gets really interesting.
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AI is becoming a huge part of how I operate my businesses.
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I use ChatGPT, I use Claude, I use Grok, I have a Grok bot.
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I've built AI into different parts of what I do, and we're absolutely going to get into that on this podcast.
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But here's something important.
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Don't automate chaos.
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If you don't know what your process is, throwing AI at it isn't isn't necessarily gonna fix it.
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It could actually make it worse.
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So first, what are you trying to accomplish?
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Then, what is the process?
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Then, can technology make this faster, easier, or better?
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That's the order.
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And we're gonna spend uh time on an entire episode actually on that very soon.
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So here's three places to start.
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So if you're listening to me right now thinking, okay, Ken, where do I start?
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Don't try to systematize your entire business.
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Start with three areas.
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Let's make this simple and make this doable.
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Number one is lead generation.
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Where is your next conversation coming from?
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What are your two or three primary lead generation spokes or sources?
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And what are you doing consistently with them?
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Not occasionally, consistently.
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Number two, follow-up.
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Someone raises their hand, now what?
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Call, text, email?
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When do you contact them again?
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Where are they tracked?
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What happens if they don't answer?
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Have a process.
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And number three, the client experience.
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Someone hires you now what?
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For a seller, how often are you communicating?
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How are you reporting activity?
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What happens after a showing?
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For a buyer, well, what's the process from consultation through closing?
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Your client shouldn't receive a completely different experience depending upon how busy you happen to be that week.
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So, this week's challenge, I'm not going to give you 17 things to do, I'm giving you one.
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Find one area of your business where you're currently relying on memory, motivation, or I'll get to it.
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Pick one, just one, and create the simplest possible system.
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It literally can be every Monday morning I do X.
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That's a system.
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Start here.
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Because there's another side to this.
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I can give you the best system in the world, your coach can give you a great plan, your CRM can remind you, your calendar can beep, AI can help you, your assistant can put it directly in front of you.
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But eventually, somebody still has to do the work.
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And that brings us to something that has become one of the guiding philosophies of my business.
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Do what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it at the highest level.
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I often hear myself saying that to myself or other agents I work with or I coach because that's what my coach instilled in my head.
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Those aren't my words.
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Those are borrowed, they're adopted.
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That's next Wednesday's call, because that's where systems meet discipline.
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So this week, keep it simple, don't rebuild your business, don't buy another piece of software, don't create a 47-step checklist, find one place where you're relying on memory, motivation, or good intentions, and put a simple system around it.
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Remember, systems outlive motivation.
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And systematize the repeatable, personalize the relationship.
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If this gave you something useful today, follow the podcast and come back next week, next Wednesday.
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And before you go, you know the question what are you going to do differently this week?
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I'll see you next Wednesday.