Crushing the Competition: 18 Minutes a Day

 

Hey guys, Carmen here, your real estate partner-in-crime, back with another episode of, Why I Day Drink! 

I've got something super cool I wanted to share with y'all today, and it only takes 18 minutes!! Even *I* can focus for 18 minutes (most days). Not sure if you're anything like me, but I've always joked and said I've got an attention span of a gnat. I can tune out in a heartbeat -- my brain is like a window with 20 different tabs open, and any given topic can trigger a thought to something else. Hey, at least I'm not in denial. 

Guys, I like my sandbox to be big.  And I need the ability to go from project to project when the excitement wanes - and it always does. In the DISC world, I'm an off the charts "I", a pretty damn high "S", coupled with a contradictory high-D (ISD). At my core, I'm a People person. And my baseline personality is to have lots of stuff going on at any given time. 

 If I ever crossed off every item on my To Do List (just kidding, that's not even possible), I wouldn't know what to do with myself. New problems, new fires to put out, new obstacles to crush mean that I'm doing something right. 

After all, new obstacles help us grow. 

They test our [mental] strength, they push us outside of comfort zone. Obstacles facilitate the development of our resilience, adaptability, and problem-solving skills. They also help to foster our emotional intelligence and self-awareness. 

The 100 Hour Rule

Hey now, that's only 18 minutes a day. 

What can you get done in 18 minutes?  

For as much as Real Estate changes, the foundation, the reasons WHY people buy or sell real estate hasn't changed at all. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

I was in a training the other day and the speaker before me was talking about "learning to dance" - and relating that to the world of sales and real estate. He asked, "How do you know which style of dance to do?" "By whatever song is playing."

Which is so true, yeah? If every lead,  prospect, customer/client you talk to is a piece of music, how you deal with them is dependent upon which song they're playing (first time home buyer, for sale by owner, upsize, downsize, need to sell before they buy, renter, etc). There is no one size fits all in real estate. 

My tagline in real estate has always been: real estate | real people. Real Estate is - and always will be - relational. It's emotional. It's about the human connection. It's why a bot is not taking over this industry any time soon. If for no other reason than 'a bot can't smell cat pee'. 

Knowing your client, knowing what song is playing, is key to [your] success. It's learning, and sometimes re-learning, the basics. True selling is serving and solving -- solving a need or want. The word sell comes form an Old English word sellan, to give. To guide, to come alongside, to advise, and to counsel. Providing value is the highest form of selling, and should be the foundation. 

After all, iron sharpens irons. 

Essentially, the 100 Hour Rule suggests that if you spend 100 hours doing something, you'll become better than most at it. Seems pretty simplistic, but there's actually quite a bit of evidence to support the idea.

[The 100 Hour Rule] was first introduced by author and entrepreneur, Josh Kaufman. He argued that it takes roughly 20 hours of practice to become proficient in a new skill, but to truly master a skill, it takes around 10,000 hours of practice. While 10,000 hours may seem like an impossible goal, Kaufman broke it down into more manageable chunks by suggesting that 100 hours is a good starting point. Thanks, Josh! 

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. 

So, what does this mean for real estate sales agents? It means that if you want to improve your skills and become more successful, you need to put in the time and effort. You won't become a top-performing anything overnight, but if you consistently work at it for 100 hours, you'll be well on your way, and better than probably 95% of the people doing it. 

The difference between a professional and an amateur.

It's also important to note these 100 hours do not need to be consecutive. You can spread them out over weeks, months, or even days .... 18 minutes. 

I'll drink to that!

/Carm