Why Giving More Effort Matters

The Orange Stack
Jun 11, 2018
3 min read

Selling houses is not for the fainthearted. It takes a certain amount of skills yes, but what beats everything is what has been called hustle, the grind or a strong work ethic. All these point to one single thing: effort. Effort is what differentiates those who are grinding and those who are not, those who are hustling and those who are getting by, those who have a strong work ethic and those with a poor one. Getting ahead of the pack is a matter of outrunning the rest of the pack. While today’s society glorifies shortcuts and working smart, successful people know that plain old effort is what pays. So, what can you do to make sure you are outworking everyone else? Read on to find out.

Effort Overcomes Conditions

There is one thing that real estate agents fall for and that is market conditions. They look at the market forecast, and this informs how much effort they put in. If the market outlook looks good, they double down, if not, they take their foot off the gas, waiting for the market to pick up. In other cases, you will find agents tied down by their lack of skill or experience. While these can be considered legitimate reasons to tweak your strategy, they should never be the reason you stop pilling on the effort. Whether you have the skill and experience or not or whether the market outlook looks this way or that, effort has the potential to overcome every hurdle you face on your journey to success.

Stop Complaining

Do you know who is not working hard? Agents that complain the most. These are agents who have a reason for every challenge they are facing. Whether it is the market conditions or the fed rate or any other subjective thing, they know how to line up the complaints. Agents focused on winning know complaining never changed the weather. They get up each day, line up their calls and hit the road running. They have no time to focus on these sideshows. The interesting thing about complaining is that it serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you complain, the more the things you are complaining about affect you negatively. So, stop complaining and start putting in more effort.

Do the Work

How many calls did you make today? 5? 10? 20? 100? In real estate currency, calls are what equate to effort. Shuffling paperwork does not count. Neither does posting content to your special media profiles. In real estate, the only thing that moves the needle is making calls and getting listings. If you are not getting more listing, showing more homes and closing more deals, all you are doing is keeping busy, not working. Effort is all about focusing on those things that have a direct impact on your definition of success and for most real estate agents, that is the number of homes listed and sold.

If you feel like your business has not been doing well lately, put in more effort. This does not have to mean working late nights or even working weekends. It does mean that you measure your time working based on your productivity. How many calls did you make during your office hours? How many of those calls resulted in a positive response? How can you increase the effectiveness of your calls? How can you make more calls? All these questions can help focus your efforts, so you accomplish more than the average real estate agent in your area.