How to be a happy Realtor - Time management and balancing your life

This week I had an interesting conversation with an agent in my office who has been in the business for just about one year. The agent had just closed on a difficult transaction and our conversation turned to customer service and making sure that clients are happy after the transaction closes. This particular agent consistently goes above and beyond the call of duty in communicating to clients. A characteristic that is admirable, but if not managed, will lead to burn out and excessive stress.

I took the opportunity to share with the agent some of my thoughts on time management, and so I thought I would share them here too.

First of all, I think it is important to always establish expectations at the outset of a relationship. Let the client know what days and hours you work, in what time frame you will return calls and emails, then, adhere to that schdule. I learned very early in my career that people would treat me the way I trained them to treat me. If I answered my phone at 9:00 at night, that would be when they would call me. Don't let your clients steal your personal time. You need that time to be better able to serve them when you are working.

Organization is the key to time management. Any successful agent I have ever known has had solid systems in place for staying organized. Using a contact management program such as Outlook, is a great way to stay on top of your time. Personally, if I think there is a chance that I will need to schedule an appointment when returning a phone call, I will not make the call until I have my calendar in front of me. All of my emails, contacts and tasks are in one place. I don't know how I ever managed without the systems I have now.

Finally, I can't stress enough how important it is to create balance in your life. An agent who worked for me several years ago had an amazing year, was the top agent in the office and was simply setting the real estate world on fire. However, the time the agent was spending in the office was taking a toll on his personal life and relationship with his family. At the end of the year, the agent came to me with a business plan that floored me. The agent was actually planning on scaling back is business, letting his personal assitant go and spending more time with family. Six months later the agent shared with me that he was happier than he had ever been, by cutting costs, he was taking more money home and his wife was expecting a baby. And the best part is that he actually did more business because he was happier!

A true success story of how balance in your life can make you BETTER at what you do and HAPPIER! Embrace it!

Ten Commandments of Leadership

Yesterday morning I attended a leadership breakfast for leaders of loacal Realtor associations from all over the state. The keynote speaker was current National Association of Realtors Chairman Elect, Dick Gaylord. Mr. Gaylord will be installed as NAR Chariman in November.



Mr. Gaylord closed by reading the Ten Commandments of Leadership. After the meeting, I asked him to email it to me so I could share it with you, the readers of my blog.



Ten Commandments of Leadership


1. People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered (including me). Love them anyway.


2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.


3. If you are successful. You win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.


4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.


5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.


6. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the littlest people with the littlest ideas. Think big anyway.


7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.


8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.


9. People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them. Help them anyway.


10. Give the world the best you have and you will not be thanked. Give the best you have anyway.

Ten things every Realtor should know

Recently I had the opportunity to address a group of Realtors who were joining the Arlington Board of Realtors and attending the board orientation.

I had been covering an article from last January's Texas Realtor magazine that discussed professional etiquette. I will cover that in a future blog entry, but for today I wanted something new. So, last night I created the ten things every Realtor should know. I will publish the full list today and in future entries expand on each one.

This is my list, I am sure that there are many other things agents should know. Email me your suggestions on things to add to the list.
1. Be courteous to your fellow agents.
2. Learn something new every day (focus on technology).
3. You choose your attitude every morning!
4. There are many free resources for you – use them! (see below)
5. Communication with your clients should be #1.
6. Accept that you don’t have total control.
7. Discipline = success
8. Continue to learn
9. Wherever you are, be there – the multi-tasking myth
10. Get involved and stay longer

Resources –
www.agentbrain.blogspot.com
www.recenter.tamu.edu
www.rismedia.com
www.texasrealtors.com
www.realtor.org

Barnett Shale meeting toughts

This morning the Arlington Board of Realtors hosted a meeting of over 250 Realtors from all over the metroplex for a meeting on the Barnett Shale. The speaker panel consisted of TAR Chairman Avis Wukash, TAR attorneys Ron Walker, and Bill Jones, a broker from Temple who sits on the Broker-Lawyer Committee.

Here are a few things that I learned:

1. If nothing is stated to the contrary, mineral rights automatically convey when the TREC 1-4 family contract is used.

2. Agents who address the issue of mineral rights in the special provisions paragraph of the contract are treading on thin ice. Ron Walker stated that the only thing that can be written in this paragraph is something that is either a "business detail" OR a "factual statement". Anything else must be written by an attorney.

3. Title companies are now beginning to see documentation at closing from lenders that asks about mineral rights leases. Be sure to watch for this and if you come across it, read it carefully and make sure your buyers understand this.

4. There are provisions in the listing agreement (Paragraph 12, letter D and paragraph 13, letter D) that discuss the sellers representation and disclosure of "leases". According to Ron Walker, this is a generic enough statement that mineral rights leases can be included in this verbiage. BE SURE THAT YOUR SELLERS UNDERSTAND THAT THEY NEED TO TELL YOU IF THEY SIGN A MINERAL RIGHTS LEASE DURING THE TERM OF YOUR LISTING. They also need to know that if they have signed a lease already, that must be disclosed too.

5. In the MLS, if you note that mineral rights do not convey, remember to add it to the contract too!

My final thought on all of this is to keep in perspective the dollars that we are talking about. A friend of mine who is an oil and gas attorney recently sold his home and the buyer wanted the mineral rights. He added up what he thought he might get for his standard lot in Arlington and decided that it would probably be about 2-3 thousand dollars over the life of any gas drilling that occurred in his neighborhood. I think that the impression that people have is that they are going to get rich on their mineral rights and the reality is that in many cases, it is simply not worth the fight!

As a result of today's meeting, I am certain that our TAR leadership has a new understanding of the issue and will be working hard to help create some tools that will make the issue easier for us to deal with. I expect that I will hear more about this next week at th TAR convention in Galveston.

Dining with royalty

Tonight my wife and I had the pleasure of dining with the TAR President, Avis Wukash, former TAR Vice President of Legal Affairs, Ron Walker, and TAR Secretary Treasurer and TREC Broker - Lawyer Committee member Bill Jones. President of the Board of the Arlington Board of Realtors, Larry Johnson and wife, Tommye.

The topic of discussion was the current issue of mineral rights and the Barnett Shale.

There are many issues related to this specific topic effecting all of us in the north Texas region at this time. Seems everyone has different opinions on how things will shake out, but as REALTORS, we need some guidance.

Tomorrow's meeting will help us move in a direction, but I doubt that we will come away with definitive answers. I will let you know what I hear tomorrow as well as next week at the state TAR meetings on this topic.