Jack Daly, a highly-respected speaker and best-selling author, is credited with sharing a very simple, yet profound statement; “If you don’t have an assistant, you are one”. You may not think of yourself as “an assistant”, but if you are performing any tasks that are not your most productive, then you are trading time for money. That’s not why you became a commercial real estate professional. If you want to trade time for money, go get a salaried job.
Think of all the tasks you perform throughout your day and, be honest, is every single one a top-production task? Are a majority top-production tasks, heck is half of what you do non production tasks?
When we surveyed some 400 commercial real estate professionals, the vast majority stated they are their own sales, marketing, operations and financing departments.
This is common in any initial stage of an entrepreneurial profession, but not practical if you want to start consistently earning serious commissions and fees while having a life outside of work. Regardless if you are new to the business or a seasoned veteran, there is a simple exercise to release you from your “I must do everything” mindset.
We call this exercise your “Inventory of Responsibilities”. This is a tool we use with our coaching clients. It’s rather straight-forward but very impactful.
3 Steps to Administrative Freedom:
1) List everything you are currently doing.
I mean everything, from the most mundane to the most productive. List everything you do and track it. Ideally complete this exercise over one full week, but at a minimum 3 business days.
2) Identify the impact of these tasks to your bottom line.
All the inventoried responsibilities you should have listed have some impact to your bottom line, but specific activities certainly have a greater impact than others. Rate each listed activity “low, medium or high”. Your rating parameters are up to you.
3) Designate who is best to perform these tasks.
This is the tricky part. Don’t assume you should be the only one who handles high-impact activities. First, you may not be the best at some of these. For example, you may currently be a very poor presenter. This might need to be delegated to someone else on your team. Be very careful not to allocate responsibilities to yourself that you know you shouldn’t be doing.
Ultimately, this is just the first step to administrative freedom. By the way, if you don’t have anyone to delegate to, just put “NOT ME” for now. We will expand on this.
