Increasing Productivity
Good morning, Shana Acquisto broker of Acquisto real estate, and we’re here. Ah, I’m here to talk about productivity. You guys are probably all just maxed out with your time. Your kids are going back to school. You’re busy again and you must think, Gosh, how can I be more productive? Actually, I can’t. I’m pretty productive now. Well, I think that you could add.
Or make some changes and actually be more productive than you are right now. So we talk a lot about what is the number one productivity killer. You guys know what that is. We talk about it a lot, and it’s. This. It’s all of your devices. And that is something that we all struggle with. I don’t think we really know when to turn that thing off. But we need to be present and intentional or you’re going to sell yourself short. And I believe that when you do that, you actually take a step backwards.
So there’s a lot of areas there that we could improve on and actually maximize time and increase productivity. So it’s not just scrolling through social media, you think about your devices. We have the watches now that tell us when to stand up and breathe. We have some tips coming in now. We have a voice memo, text coming in and you know, we never want to miss an opportunity. But guys, you have to learn how to shut this stuff off.
And it was a real eye-opener for me. This past week when a couple of weeks ago when we most of us went to Montana and a lot of you, you know, we talked in the beginning of the week that, hey, when we’re doing events or we’re doing things together, please turn your phones off. And you guys all did a wonderful job of doing that. And I saw that you were extremely present in that moment.
You know, whether it was, you know, dancing around in the kitchen or cooking together or whatever it was, you were present in that moment you were interacting. You learned so much about one another. And I feel like coming back, it did help us become more productive.
Ok, so I’m going to give you a scenario here, and I want you to think about this and really think about how you would handle it. Ok, so the scenario is that you have landed an amazing client. An amazing client. And you guys are out looking at properties, so they have two other friends that are amazing clients and they’re with you also looking at homes and they’re going to looking to buy.
So that’s three different transactions that you have. There’s a lot on on the line here. Your watch is beeping, your cell phone’s beeping and you know you’re driving and it’s coming in through your purse and you’re just super distracted nonstop. And your clients are probably like, wow, she’s really busy.
And the reason that you’re so distracted by this is you have a client or you’re expecting a call from a past client who has this another, say it’s a celebrity client that they want to refer to you. And this is someone that refers lots of business to you. So, gosh, you can’t miss it either.
So you’re juggling all these things at once, trying to to help these three potential great clients. And you don’t want to miss an opportunity because when you miss this person, it’s days before you ever hear from him again.
Ok, so what do you do? What do you do in that situation, do you did your current clients for the new ones? Or do you let that new opportunity go away and hope that in a few days they will call you back and you get them back on the line? That’s really tough. Ok. And this is what I want to say to you. We have these great tools within our company that you can utilize.
We have someone that will answer the phone all the time. Ok, so you have your your phone, you could turn it down, turn it to airplane mode, do not disturb and be present in that moment and utilize your resources to have that call not missed. Ok, so I want to remind you guys of these things, because if you’re distracted and they think and I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it where people are distracted and I think, gosh, they are not paying attention to me at all.
And you never want your client to feel like that. So think about that and think about how you can be more present in that moment, because if they think you’re too busy and you’re not going to pay attention to them, they’re going to go somewhere else. I don’t care who they are. They may have, you know, done five or six transactions with you. Does it matter? Everybody lives in the present and how they feel in the present matters.
Ok, so what do you do? Well, I have some tips, and these are my personal tips. You can tweak them or you can come up with your own tips. But the point of this is so you can start thinking about, how you can be more present and intentional and be more productive. Ok, so this is, you know, I’m not going to lie, this was really hard for me. So years and years ago, Mike and I went on a cruise and we went on on this cruise with our family and our phones didn’t work on this boat.
And I felt so, so much anxiety that we had to put our phones away because Mike and I are both gone. What in the world are we going to do because, you know, if you missed that whole week of working, it takes, you know, three times that to to make up for it. So I totally get it. So I understand this was very, very hard for me.
Very, very hard. Once I trained myself to do this and I’m still it’s a work in progress, but once I trained myself to do this, I immediately boosted my productivity and I felt more present and everything was more clear and more aware, and I was energized. You know, we get beat down with our jobs. So it’s really important to take the time and you know, and do this. You can’t be connected 100 percent of the time.
Ok, so these are in no particular order, but here are my things that I do. Carve out time to read or listen to a podcast. Ok. Not a huge fan of reading, honestly. And I have been a part of the book club for many, many years, and I think I’ve read a handful of books in the book club.
All the way through. But what I learned from that book club years and years ago is that when I’m reading, I’m engaged, and if it’s something that really is getting my attention, I am focused on it and I am forgetting about all these other things that I have going on. And I think it just it stimulates your brain and it helps you gain perspective. So and if you’re listening to a podcast, it could be something real estate related and you’re learning, so that’s’s one of my items that I suggest. The other one, I think you all probably all do this.
Sing in the car or dance in the kitchen, my kids will tell you that mom will just start dancing in the kitchen and she’s crazy? Yeah, I do, because it’s just useless nonsense. It’s good for your mood, so you should do this sometimes. Just be a little crazy. All right. Here’s a big one that I have to think about every day is put your device in. I’m I’m not just saying your phone, I’m thinking, I’m talking about your iPads, your watches, any of your smart devices.
Put them in airplane mode or Do Not Disturb. I’ve started doing that all the time. You still see things come in, but it’s not distracting you and it’s not always in your ear. Because when we hear something immediately, we think we have to respond like firemen. So put it in airplane mode, do not disturb, so phone calls, I think, are the biggest distraction to our day.
Honestly, they really are. And practice keeping airplane mode on on for a small, regular part of your schedule every day from one to two. I’m put my phone on airplane mode. I’m going to have lunch, I’m going to dance in the kitchen, whatever it is, right? But just schedule time for that. It’s OK. An hour, it’s going to be fine, I promise you. And you’re going to be happy that you did. All right. So another one is use timer software, OK? This is ironically one of the best ways to unplug. Is to download the software to help realize how over connected that you really are.
So if you have an iPhone, there is a monitor on there or a a timer that shows you how much screen time you’ve used. Right? And that’s an eye-opener. When you see that you’re like, Holy cow, I’ve spent four hours doing this. That’s crazy. So I think that that’s really, really something you should have. So you’re aware. Of what’s going on. Right? So, you know, we also use I don’t know if you guys use this, but I use my fitness pal to track like meals and food.
And it’s the same thing. If you do that, it holds you accountable. If you do the timer software, it hold you accountable. So this is a new one that you know, I don’t I have it done, but I started doing and I’ve started doing this within the last couple of months. But it’s put your phone in grayscale. So they’ve come up with a way for you to put your phone in this grey scale mode. So it’s just black and white. And the reason that this came about is to make these devices less and less addictive.
Ok. And it reduces your poor habit form. I mean, we have all four these bad habits of, you know, getting distracted by social media or whatever it is. So we’re in the age of digital aid. So the grayscale mode, so I know how to do it on the iPhone, but I think if you check in your settings, there’s a way for you to do that. So that’s my suggestion.
And the big one, the big one that I think we all kind of we we take for granted on one hand and then we don’t utilize it to the Max, on the other hand. And it’s the systems and tools that we already have in place. Mike has spent so long years putting together a system and a process for us to use. And it truly is amazing. And the fact that we don’t have to do it.
So much of the admin work and. You know, things like that. I love it marketing. I mean, we all do our own little marketing, but our branding is all you know. Meghan can 100 percent take care of that for us. Right? So we already have all these things in place.
This allows us to keep everything running smoothly and allows you to take any downtime. So if you want to take an hour off or you want to go to your your kid’s game or you want to do something that you have the time to do it. And this is a true, true thing when you take the time for yourself. 100 percent. You’re more productive, think about how many vacations that you may have taken this year. We’ve been in and out of town a lot and I feel like we’ve been very productive.
It is good for you. You have to take that time when you are stressed out. Everyone feels it right. So I recently saw a stat that the average outside sales rep spends only 22 percent of his time actually selling and being client facing twenty two percent. Oh, my gosh. So the rest was all admin, marketing, branding, you know, whatever it may be. But just like business related. Well, you have somebody to take care of all that for you so you can focus on the market. You can focus on building your business, things that matter, interacting with your clients.
It matters. You know, I I posted earlier a Labor Day post that I thought was super funny from one of my past clients. He bought it nine years ago, and we stay in touch all the time. And as of a couple of months ago, he referred another client to me, refers clients to me all the time. And this guy totally beat me up in the beginning. I want to discount. I want this and I tell them this.
I want a discount. You know, I know exactly where I want to live, where the home is going to be located, exactly what I want. No, he didn’t. He didn’t. Everybody thinks that right. But when it comes down to it, that’s not the case that I stuck through it and I helped him and I told him, You know, I would appreciate if you appreciate what I did for you, how you can thank me because he always said, I don’t know how I could ever thank you.
Well, refer people to me. Not only helped me, but you’re helping your your friends out any deaths, right? So your family, your work family, your client and your bottom line, I promise. Well, thank you for it. So Shannon’s tips of the day?
Episode Links
iPhone, iPads, Mike Acquisto , Shana Acquisto , TNT
