Discussion on delegating non-dollar-producing tasks to support staff to maximize time spent on high-value activities in real estate (prospecting, presentations, price reductions). John describes hiring Mimi initially part-time then full-time, delegating almost all administrative and personal tasks, and later hiring a field coordinator to handle errands and team member support so agents can focus on revenue-generating work.
How about some specifics around? And I didn't know Mimi was your first hire. Some specifics around how division of labor, you know, how what you put on your admin, what you focused on, how did you divide the world? I remember when it was tni, it was anything that generated marketing or sales. Everything else I didn't care what happened to. But how'd you treat it, Mimi?
Was it 20 hours a week or 30 hours a week? Yeah, I hired her part time, which. Shame on me. I said, mimi, I'm gonna hire you 20 hours a week. Well, that literally made it, what, a week, two weeks. And then you came on full time. And basically I took everything off my plate. When I say everything. She didn't cut my grass, but, I mean, it was literally like bills, dry cleaning, you name it. Everything that I could possibly take off except getting on the phones, shaking babies, and kissing hands and just being out there. And that's what we did. And she took everything off the plate. I knew I started reading more and getting more in the real estate business and realizing that this was a contact sport that, you know, I'm not supposed to be James Bond 007, that, you know, I ought to be James Bond 0014, twice as good as 007, and be out there, you know, letting people know, hey, I'm in real estate. One of my biggest challenges was everyone knew me for the car business. Everyone knew, go to talk to Thomas about buying a car. I mean, 13 until 32 years of age, and that's what they know you for. And you're on TV commercials, and, you know, you're in the newspaper and on the radio, they heard all that. And so for me to disassociate myself was extremely difficult. Also to have the pride and get rid of the ego that I just lost everything and had to start all over again. That was very tough. But it's such an awesome feeling now. So, you know, I took everything off that I possibly could. Anything I wrote down my whole day and what it looked like and took everything off except just really doing the three Cs. Creating, converting, and closing, prospecting presentations and price reductions. The three Ps, that's all that I did and realized that my dollar producing activities, that's where I needed to be. And we've just continued to do that. That at a higher level. In fact, I was sharing with Lars last night. We hired a field coordinator for our team, and all she does now is literally she services and takes care of all of our team members as well. As she delivers all of our listing packets to the door before we go on the appointment. But she takes Brian's dogs. She takes them and walks them. She picks up dry cleaning, she goes to the grocery store. She. You name it. If somebody needs a check deposited and instead of that agent leaving the office, they can make a few extra phone calls and make a few extra thousand dollars while we send our field coordinator to go deposit that check. And so we've really started dialing in on what our time is worth and where we need to best use that time.
Yeah, that's a big. That's a takeaway for me. I mean, it's funny, you know, someone can disappear for the day for a couple hours and they're just not committed to the.
And they're not now. They don't have an excuse. I was sharing with Lars last night. They can't come to me and say, well, you know, I've got to run to Jiffy Lube and get my oil changed. No, you don't give your car to Emily. She'll drive it over there. I have her insured to the nth degree. I mean, she is very insured. She's very trustworthy. Everybody loves her. I mean, she's sharp, she's good as gold. So, you know, there's no excuses on why you can't be doing the three C's and the three P's of relationship estate. And they're doing a disservice to their families, their teammates, their friends, their. I mean, everybody by not their clients, by not being there, focusing on business. I mean, you can get lost out there picking up your dry cleaning and going to the grocery store.
And I think a big takeaway there is that you need to have those conversations with your people about their time and really unpack. I think that's where as team leaders we feel like there's, you know, well, I can't really get into it with them, like what they. But you've got to be able to dissect their day and see what they're doing with their day. It's funny that I hired Tia and within two weeks I hired her part time. Within two weeks she told me that she had to come on full time. And as entrepreneurs, we're just like, nah, you can definitely do it in 20 hours a week. And it's like a 60 hour week job.
Same thing.
It's so good. What were you going to say, John?
Prospecting is first, presentations obviously are second. And then price reductions. Creating, converting and closing are the three Cs and if you just focus on those six things and leverage everything else out. Everything. I mean, anything you can think of. And I told Lars when it happened for me last year, I don't know everybody have DirecTV across the country. I'm sure y' all do. Y' all know what it is. Time Warner, you know how they'll call. Like, you'll call and your TV goes out and they'll say, we'll be there between 8 and 12 and 12 and 4. Well, that happened to me. And they showed up. It was 8 and 12. They show up at 11:58am they were there for like two or three hours. And so I told the team, I'm like, I need to be there just in case they show up, you know. And next thing you know, 8:00am to 2:00pm, 3:00', clock, I'm sitting there and I sat there and said to myself, I'm sitting here all day. I just did a disservice to them. I just did a disservice to the clients. I'm sitting here at the house. Why am I doing this? So then I went to Mimi and I said, mimi, what if we could hire somebody that could sit there and wait for DirecTV and let me be in the office or let me be doing higher dollar producing activities and same thing with the other team members. So we just said, let's just hire this one person that can take all that off of us so that we can do the higher DPAs.
