Summer is here! For many real estate agents, summer can be a challenge. There are often more pulls on your time, because there are a lot of people buying and selling houses than in the winter, your kids aren’t in school, and you want to relax and spend time with your family. The result is that a lot of agents let their businesses sit and put off things like lead generation and follow up, maintaining your sphere, and marketing.

The problem is that, if you do that, when fall rolls around your business is not where you’d like it to be. To help you out, here are some tips for how real estate agents can make the most of their summer, both personally and professionally.

Summer as a Real Estate Agent: Protect Your Personal and Family Time

There’s no getting around it, summer is the time for vacations, enjoying the warm weather, and spending quality time with families, even for real estate agents. Here are some tips for balancing that with your business:

• Make the weekends JUST about client meetings and showings – If you’re working in residential real estate, then there is no avoiding meeting with clients on the weekends. But one thing you can do to salvage some of your weekend time for friends and family is to make sure that meeting with clients is all you have to do. Complete other tasks like lead generation, filing documents, checking voicemails, and carrying out your marketing strategies during the week.
• Put boundaries on your time – Many agents block out one of the weekend days for personal and family time. They only make appointments on that day if it is very very necessary. Also, if you’re kid has a sports game or you have a family get together, treat that like an appointment on your calendar.
• Set clear expectations with clients – As with most things in life, communication is key. Be direct and upfront with your clients about when you work and don’t work. The vast majority of people are understanding when it comes to balancing work with your personal life.

Summer as a Real Estate Agent: Give Yourself Some Structure

Despite all the warm weather, pool parties, BBQs, fishing and camping trips, outdoor concerts, and whatever else you like to do during the summer, you still need to focus on your business. And I don’t just mean servicing your existing clients; that’s a no brainer. You need to be actively working on developing new business.

When there are a lot of pulls on your time, like there is in the summer months, having a structured environment where someone holds you accountable and you have set times to do specific tasks is key. That’s why I always recommend that real estate agents do some type of coaching or training program during this time of year.

For example, at Smart Coaching and Training, we’re about to roll out a summer program for real estate agents and ISAs that will offer structured classes and accountability. The goal of this program is to make it simple for you to continue sharpening your skills and filling your pipeline, while still having time to enjoy all the summer fun with your family.

That way, you can enter the fall market with a fat pipeline full of closings AND a summer full of memories.

Stay tuned for more information on our summer training program!