There are a fair number of
‘Agent Productivity’ software programs and services available that enable
the user to create ‘Activity Plans’, or ‘Campaigns’. These Plans have
several tremendous benefits, and if you are using one of those programs
(listed below), and you have not yet seriously looked into using the
activity plan capability in them, you are missing out on an incredibly
valuable tool that you already own. For those of you that are using,
or plan to use them, the following information will help in the
development of them.
I created "Activity Plans'
in Real Estate specific software when I was an agent, when the software
became available in 1989, when we were all still using DOS! Since 1996,
I've worked with many agents/teams around the country expanding/developing
'Activity Plans' in Agent Office and a few in 'Top Producer'. I have
witnessed, through first hand use, and through my clients, the value in
using them.
In this article, we are
going to focus on Listing & Sales Transaction Management. At least as
important, is using activity plans to get business. Lead generation
and follow-up plans. A good deal of this article applies to them as well.
In this article we’ll
discuss:
-
What are
‘Activity Plans’?
-
What are the benefits to
using them?
-
How do you create them?
-
To-do’s, and Not
to-do’s!
What are ‘Activity Plans’?
Some of the Real Estate
specific tools available with which to use them are; Agent Office, Top
Producer, Active Agent for Outlook, Respond, REST, 360 Agent, and Goldmine
(with the Real Estate Specific add-on).
In all of these programs,
the user can add a task to their calendar one at a time. Most licensees
sit down when they get a listing, and do just that, and it takes a
significant amount of time. Because it does, only a small percentage of
the tasks that are actually performed during the process, will make it to
the calendar. Using activity plans, you create a ‘template’ group of
tasks, which can be assigned to a contact, or subject property, all at
once, and they will appear on your calendar, on the dates when you need to
accomplish them.
By tasks, I mean things
such as; Enter into MLS; Write thank you note; Introduction call from
assistant; Change contact category to ‘Seller-Active’; Obtain association
docs, Mail ‘Client Listing Report’ etc.
What are the benefits to using them?
1) Far and away the
biggest benefit is the reduction of stress you will see in your business
life. Why?
Why is this business so
stressful? Did you ever sit down and really evaluate why it is?
There are a myriad of tasks involved in getting a home sold, and then
taking it to settlement. What is one of, if not the biggest reason for your
stress, is that you have those hundreds and hundreds of details constantly
floating around in your head. When you are in the middle of the listing,
or the sale, where are those tasks? They, and the resulting need for
decisions about when to accomplish them, are bouncing around in your head.
Tasks + Decisions = Stress!
Having an automated to-do
list for all your transactions takes all of the repetitive tasks out of
your head, and puts them on your calendar, on the day that you need to do
them! Because you decided once, when you created the plan, when you want
to do the tasks, the number of decisions you have to make are also reduced
tremendously. Things no longer fall through the cracks. Your mind is more
clear and less stressed, and you literally do away with dozens of decisions
every day.
It is not possible to
appreciate how much of a difference this makes, until you do it! It’s like
telling a seller how complicated Real Estate is. They can’t comprehend it
until they do it.
Even if you have someone doing your transaction management, how much do
they do? They don't do everything you need to accomplish throughout
your listing, or your side of the sales transaction.
2)
I know some of you are sitting there thinking, ‘I use comprehensive
lists!!!
I congratulate you on
being that well organized! It’s more than most. I guarantee you though,
after having helped many licensees move from ‘paper to plan’, that many of
the tasks you do for a listing or sale, are not on those lists. And even
if they were…
-
No detail should be on a
paper list.
-
Paper lists get lost.
-
Paper lists can only be
in one file, or on one desk, at a time.
-
Those same details, when
in 'the plan', can be viewed by anyone at any time, without having to
waste time locating it. No more – “OK, who has the Oak Lane file?
-
No more walking to
someone else's desk or file cabinet.
-
No more need for sticky
notes, voice mails, etc.
One of the goals with
activity plans is to have every single detail (to-do, letter, call)
in the plan, anticipating the day when you either hire an assistant, or
have to replace one. Every detail that is 'in someone's head' becomes a
potentially overlooked detail, a liability, and part of a learning curve,
for the new assistant, or replacement. This translates to a loss of time
to you, in that you have to communicate that detail to the new assistant,
and/or do the backpedaling for them, because they missed it.
No activity plan can hope
to take every detail into account. Every transaction is unique. That said,
a good activity plan can take the vast majority of the transaction's
details into account, as the vast majority of transactions are the same to
a great extent for almost every transaction. More often than not,
the assistant takes care of the plan items, and the agent takes care of the
unique items.
3)
Speaking of assistants; if you have an assistant – how long did it take to
train them? How many hours did you lose in productive listing and selling
time? What if they quit next month? You have to start all over again. If
you have activity plans in place, their transition and learning curve will
be a very small percentage of what you just went through.
I
was with a client the other day that proudly displayed his ‘Operations
Manual’, which was what his assistant was supposed to use to do their job.
If you’ve ever written an ‘Operations Manual’ you know that the day after
you get it done, it’s well on it’s way to becoming obsolete.
Some of the above mentioned software programs enable you to have 'Notes' in
each task, which you can use to describe click-by-click, how to edit the
letter for that activity; how to print the report in that activity; what
that activity is telling them to do, why they are doing that
activity, and so on. They can be used as a “Dynamic Operations Manual”.
This eliminates a tremendous amount of training time.
The difference is that with a paper operations manual, it inevitably
becomes useless, because it is not kept current. Using the activity plans,
and the notes in the activities, means you can edit/change/update that
particular activity on the fly, and it’s automatically incorporated into
any future ‘launch’ of that plan. It’s extremely easy, and therefore
likely, that the plans will be kept up to date.
4) If the licensee
wants to walk out of the office and review the progress of a transaction,
it can be printed out, and every detail is in the report. Nothing is in
anyone's head. Nothing is on a separate paper list.
5) If you do not have an
assistant, and you ask someone to step in for you for a day, 2, or more;
everything is there. All in one place.
How do you create them?
The first step is deciding
what plans you need. For transaction management, I suggest you start with
the following:
Residential Listing Plan,
Listing Price Adjustment Plan, Your Seller Closing Plan, Your Buyer Closing
Plan, Both Sides Closing Plan.
Let’s talk about the
timing of when to launch plans. There are effectively 3 dates. The
listing date, the date of the executory agreement of sale (the day the
contingency clock starts ticking), and the closing/settlement date.
Different programs work differently, with regards to the way you tell the
activities which of those dates to use. As the plans I am most familiar
with are in Agent Office, I’ll use them as an example.
The
following plans are to be launched when you have a listing:
The
following plans are to be launched when you are responsible for the
Seller’s side only:
-
‘Seller from Contract
Date’ – launch date is the date of the ‘Executory Agreement of Sale’.
This date will vary from market to market. Some markets must take
‘Attorney review’ periods into account. The important issue is that the
launch date should be the date when ‘the clock starts ticking’, the date
from which contingencies will start.
How many days do you typically allow for the home
inspection and other contingencies? They're not always the same, which is
problematic for standardized activity plans. There are 2 ways to deal with
it. You can use the number of days for the contingencies in the plan,
which are most common in your transactions. Then, after launching the
plan, you can change the contingency activities to the correct number of
days, one by one, if they differ from what is in the standard plan. The
other way to deal with it is to use the 'Copy Plan' button to copy your
original plan, and modify it to use a different number of days for the
contingencies. Simply name the new plan accordingly. In other words, this
plan could be the standard, and the other one could be 'Seller from
contract date-15' - meaning it has 15 day contingencies in it.
The
following plans are to be launched when you are responsible for the Buyer’s
side only:
The
following plans are to be launched when you are responsible for both the
Buyer’s, and the Seller’s side of the transaction:
The next step is creating
the list of tasks. This is the most difficult part, in that it takes a
good deal of time. But that time is an investment, which saves far more in
the future, than the original cost.
·
If you have
a list that you use in your listing presentation, use that as a start. Now
sit down and try to remember all the paperwork, all the letters, all the
phone calls, and all the to-do’s that are accomplished through the listing
or sale, and add them to the list.
·
Next,
combine them all, and put them in the order in which you want them appear
on your calendar.
·
Now go down
the list and decide how many days after the listing date, after the AOS
date, or before the closing date, you want that task to appear on your
calendar.
· You
won’t remember all of the things you need to do for each transaction, but
that’s OK. Just do the best you can with all the plans.
NOTE: Do not
attempt to complete ‘Notes’ in the activities the first time around. If you
complete these plans without the notes, you should be very proud of
yourself. You’ll be in a small and accomplished group. If you try to do
the notes at the same time, you’ll never make it to that group. It will
double or triple the time it takes to create the plans. After you’ve used
the plans a few times, and have refined them, then you can start adding the
notes.
When you have them all
done, as complete as you can get from memory, start launching them. The
first few times you use them, you’ll realize that there are tasks missing
as you go through that listing, or that sale. Just add them to the plans as
you go, and they will automatically become a part of the future ‘launches’!
To-do’s, and Not to-do’s!
Efficiency is obviously
the desired end result - BUT - with regards to 'combining activities', I
would say be cautious. There are different qualifications to use when
deciding whether or not to combine them.
Keep in mind that
'Activity Plans' should always be constructed with the long term goal in
mind that they will be used by other members of a team, whether you have
one now or not.
·
If the
activities will always be accomplished together, whether you are
interrupted or not, then you may want to combine them. i.e.; Erect
Yard Sign/ Affix Lockbox. If they are always done together, then
make them one activity. If not, then don't. That sounds obvious, but note
that I said 'May'.
· Why
May?. Some of these programs provide a ‘Client Listing Report’ to be
printed/e-mailed. This report includes all the activities form the plan;
letters sent; phone calls made; notes on the transaction; showings; etc.
If you are sending out a 'Client Listing Report', to the Seller/s, then you
want that report to be as long as possible, to give the Seller/s the
perception that you are doing a lot of work for them. Combining
activities shortens the list, and lessens the perception. A few extra
clicks to complete the activities is a small price to pay to strengthen
that perception.
·
In some
offices, a listing file cannot be submitted to the front office unless it
'complete'. If that is the case in your office, then there is no need to
have each form being submitted as a separate activity. Unless, once
again, you want the Seller/s to be impressed with that long list.
·
If your
office does not mandate a complete file, then they should be separate
activities. One of the points of the plans is to not let things fall
through the cracks. Separate activities ensure that. What takes more time;
backpedaling when a form is forgotten, or a couple extra clicks to complete
the activity?
·
Print out
the plans, and use them in your presentations to the buyers and
sellers.
In 10 years, I’ve never
seen anyone start using activity plans, and continue using them for a
while, so that they became comfortable with them, and then stop.
Using activity plans is a
little like using a computer. You may have fought them in the beginning,
and they may still drive you crazy from time to time, but you can’t imagine
going back to the way it was before them! Invest the time in your
business, to run it like a business. The investment will pay off.
