The 7 Tasks Realtors Should Stop Doing Themselves

DC HELPERS ORIGINAL · REALTOR GROWTH SERIES · SEASON 1, EPISODE 2

Previously, in Episode 1: Michael spent a whole week busy and still didn’t make his calls. On Sunday afternoon, a message from a buyer named Sarah landed in his inbox. He meant to answer it on Monday.

Sunday, 9:10 p.m.

That night Michael did something he hadn’t done in months. He planned his week, and not the way he usually did. He didn’t start with showings or paperwork. He started with growth: the past clients he still owed a call, the leads waiting for a follow-up, the referral partners he hadn’t talked to since summer.

He wrote it all on one page and left it next to his laptop. For the first time in weeks he went to bed feeling like he was ahead of his business instead of chasing it.

Monday, 8:02 a.m.

The coffee was still hot when the first text came in. A client needed to move a showing. Nothing complicated, two minutes at most. Then the lender asked for an updated document, and while he was looking for it, three new emails arrived.

None of them seemed important enough to steal the morning. Together, they did. By lunch every name on his page was still waiting, and Michael hadn’t wasted a single minute. He had been busy the whole time, which was exactly the problem.

Seven tasks, one person

That afternoon he tried something new. Every time a request came in, he wrote down what kind of work it was. By three o’clock the same seven tasks kept showing up, just with different clients attached:

1. Scheduling showings and appointments, and rescheduling them when plans change.
2. Managing his calendar so nothing overlapped.
3. Updating the CRM after every call, text and showing.
4. Collecting documents from buyers, sellers and lenders.
5. Coordinating transactions with title, inspectors and the other agent.
6. Sorting email to find the few messages that actually needed him.
7. Entering new leads from his website and the portals.

None of the seven was dangerous on its own. Every transaction depends on them. The real problem was that Michael had been treating all seven as if they needed a licensed realtor, and while he handled them, the work only he could do kept getting pushed to tomorrow: the conversations, the follow-ups, the relationships that bring the next deal.

The agents who seemed to have more time hadn’t found more hours. They had simply stopped doing these seven things themselves.

Monday, 5:48 p.m.

By the end of the day the documents were in, the calendar was clean and the transactions were moving. Michael opened his inbox one last time before heading home, mostly out of habit.

Halfway down the screen, buried between a title company update and a newsletter, was a subject line he recognized: “Question about the property on Maple Street.” It had arrived the afternoon before. For a second he was sure he had already answered it. He opened the thread. He hadn’t.

Sarah’s question was simple. She wanted to know if the house had any issues with insurance, because her lender had mentioned the area. Michael knew exactly who to ask: Marcus, the insurance agent he sent most of his buyers to. He typed a quick reply, promised to get her an answer, and left Marcus a voicemail on his way to the car.

Sarah had waited more than a day for a two-minute answer. Suddenly the seven tasks felt a lot more expensive.

Up next. Sarah writes back faster than Michael expects. Whether he sees it in time is another story. Episode 3, The Follow-Up Gap, is now available. Meanwhile, see what was happening on the other end of that voicemail in the Insurance Growth Series, Episode 1.