Hey everybody, coming to you live with a thought of the week. I don’t know if you follow Joe Polish. If you don’t, check him out, he’s a really smart influencer. Today I read an email from him that was all about the idea that if we solve one critical problem, sometimes a number of other problems will fall into place. Meaning what can we solve that will have a ripple or domino effect?

Solve One Problem to Solve a Hundred Problems

I thought I would share this with us today because I know in a lot of our real estate practices and businesses it’s often overwhelming all the hats that we wear. We don’t always realize that there’s a couple of key activities that if we could solve that problem, a lot of other things would start to fall into place. So, this idea of “solve one problem, solve a hundred” could be answered in a few different ways depending on your situation, your circumstance, your business.

For me, that one problem I’m working on now is I want to solve is systems, processes, standards, operating procedures. By that I mean when we develop really strong, repeatable, predictable, and understandable processes and systems, what does that allow us to do for our business? Think about it. It allows us to scale, to bring in, and recruit new people. We can reduce our onboarding time. We can create more consistent results and delivery of our value proposition to our clients. It allows us to create a more scalable business because when we do that we’re allowed to open up and have somebody else step into a role, a position, a job, a leadership function, and not have to relearn it from the beginning.

Define Your Core Processes

We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re following a checklist, a series of systems for the major functions of your business. Every business probably has anywhere from 10 to 15 core processes, core functions. Try to understand those and systematize them into a checklist, a sequential order, a chronological order of when it needs to get done. This could be from how do you find a new listing prospect? How do you process a new listing and get it live? How do you negotiate, and process, and manage a transaction? What’s the process for hiring a new agent if you’re running a new team? What is the process for closing out a transaction? What is the process for conducting a marketing campaign, both at an individual property level, or for let’s say a listing prospecting campaign in the spring when you’re trying to build your listing inventory?

All these things are the central functions of a real estate agent or a team. How many of you guys have these systematized or written down in an understandable and repeatable format? That’s the message today. What is the one thing can you solve that will actually solve 100 things, or 10 things, or 20 things? Find those critical bottlenecks. Those things in your business and life, where if you address and solve them, it opens up a ripple effect to a lot of other solutions falling into place.

That’s all I’ve got guys, have an awesome day! Remember to focus on your results, focus on your vision, and make sure you always show up and play all out.