Take Flight Weekly | Jim Miller

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result” - Albert EinsteinA business plan is just a document that collects all of you thoughts about the commitment you are making to yourself for a period of time or a project. You would not expect an athlete or and athletic team to take the field or court without a game plan.You wouldn’t expect a movie director to film a movie without a script,To use a “Take Flight” metaphor, you would not expect a pilot to take off without a very detailed flight plan.A vision without a plan to execute, is a fantasy. You will not get there.

You are on this MMPT or you are listening to this PODCAST because you have either committed to building a relationship based business or maybe you have not quite yet fully committed but you are intrigued. I’m not going to address those that are focused on a transactional based business because they have already tuned me out. Today is the day that you need to recommit and/or make that decision to play the long game of real estate brokerage. Committing to the time, the processes and elite level effort are the pillars of building a relationship based business. It’s time to make a decision, though. No need to waste your time on the rest of this course if you are not going to go all in on creating, maintaining and compounding relationships with your sphere and your clients.

Now remember this, you cannot automate thoughtfulness but you can remind yourself to be thoughtful and this is what this strategy will do for you. You’ve got to look at your TOP 100 like a big tray of batteries. Batteries have a charge level. They are most effective when they are fully charged. Your TOP 100 is the same way. The way you keep them fully charged is to stay in touch with them, consistently over the life of your business. When their charge is low, they are at severe risk of using another broker when they do their next real estate transaction. You cannot do this by memory, you have to have a process. Use the process/strategy I’ve discussed today and your TOP 100 will produce in a big way for you.

Successful brokers realize that their job over the life of their brokerage career is to “Collect and Compound” relationships. What that means is that they know that the key to their success is is finding and taking good care of their clients and identify influencers that will act as advocates for their business. As you build a strong database, you are building sales people for your business. A strong database of happy clients is the only thing that has equity, the only thing that has value that you can sell at some point. Building a relationship based business is not for the faint of heart. It takes vision. It takes time. It takes patience but the future results are well worth the time.

Again though research, I realized that 100 clients was the maximum that I could manage properly. This didn’t mean I marketed to only 100 clients, I just marketed differently to separate and unique segments within my database. I called my “vital few” my TOP 100 and segmented that group into separate and defined categories (Platinum clients, Gold clients and Silver clients and then contacts 101+ were my Fringe contacts). You’ve probably seen other categorization concepts using letters like A+, A, B etc). I named my categories after the American Express card types. I don’t remember the reason but at that time, I just felt the words carried more weight than the lettering system. Also, I wanted to create my own theme. Let me just take a minute and define each one of these terms and categories I created for my database.

So Jim, where do I start? How do I TAKE OFF?. Well, during the next several episodes we are going to talk about the 3rd Engine of Take Flight, RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT. It joins MINDSET and PRODUCTIVITY as the 3 foundational principles needed to get your business off the ground. If you can master these 3 areas, you are 90% there. So, we need to begin at the beginning with an exercise that every broker needs to do at least once and maintain it over the lifecycle of their business. This exercise is to identify all of your past clients and create a list if you don’t have one. If you do have a list or a functioning database, it’s time to do an audit of your list. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your business is, you need to do this audit at least once a year.

Within TAKE FLIGHT, there are 3 foundational principles, MINDSET, PRODUCTIVITY and RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT. We’ve given you a broad overview of the first 2 principles in the over the last 6 weeks.My advice to you, is to over the next 2 weeks is to listen to all 6 of these EPISODES again and really study them. You can find them on SOUNDCLOUD, APPLE PODCASTS searchable under ASK JIM MILLER. Do a full audit on what you need to change or improve over the coming months to create momentum in your business. Maybe you’ve had some good habits, routines and rituals in the past but you’ve gotten off track. Pick them back up and reapply them to your life and business. Mastering the content in Sessions 1-6 will have you ready to get your business off the ground, I promise, so “Fasten Your Seatbelts”. When we resume, I will guide you through the steps needed to get you to your destination.

Productivity is about energy, focus and processes. We all have the same 1440 minutes in a day. Take care of your bodies, hydrate, get good sleep and take care of your spirit. Take more breaks throughout the day. Value each minute: Time is the most precious currency we have. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Don’t let people steal your time. It’s important that you keep things in perspective and give yourself time to rest and relax. By doing this, you are ensuring that you don’t crash and burn.

Modern aircraft are equipped with sophisticated automation and technology that allows the pilot to focus on multiple aspects of the flight without having to worry about flying the aircraft manually. In the world of real estate brokerage, brokers have and are still struggling to find the right technology to track their clients, transactions, their habits, their tasks, their goals and their progress. We all have grand intentions to do big things but life does get in the way. We lose our flow and find it difficult to regain our momentum. We’re all human and this is going to happen to us consistently over the course of our lives and careers. If is imperative that we implement a tracking system to monitor our progress. I’ve got to be honest, I’ve struggled to find a software program that has moved the needle for me, that is always front of mind and easy to use. I just didn’t find that solution….….until the last few months.

When you think about the traditional real estate coaching or sales training, your expectations might be that you will add a bunch of new processes, lead gen ideas, time management ideas, etc. The idea is justified but in TAKE FLIGHT we start by ridding your mind, your environment and your business of what is not working. For use another metaphor, would you fully irrigate or add seeds to a garden before making sure all the weeds are gone? No, so to TAKE FLIGHT, you have to start by weeding and pruning. This is the only way you have a shot of success. Unfortunately, we don’t get taught this. We get sold the shiny objects that are just noise and in many cases, take our time, take our focus and take our energy with no results. Without doubt, some of the best success stories I’ve witnessed have come from when brokers have removed from their life and business what does work for them or serve them