Delegating

As I get busier and busier with Real Estate I find that I am more frequently in a position where I need to be two different places at the same time and also need to be working on something else simultaneously. My wife and I talk about how I need to work on time management but I am starting to think that is a red herring. I manage my time pretty well, I just try to cram too many things in each day. The problem is I try to cram too many things in EVERY day. Spacing them out would just mean I was that much more behind. The obvious answer is to delegate some of the tasks away. I can give her some of the tasks, I have some folks at my office that could do some and I could even hire a part time assistant.

My problem is that I am not a very good "delegator". I want to do it. When I delegate I wonder if the person will do the task as well as I would. I also wonder if I am being a burden on them. Both of these "wonders" make it very difficult to assign tasks. I need to get better at it though. You reach a point where taking on more work without more hands is detrimental, both to the hands and to the work.

For those of you in a position like mine, pass along some tips to make delegation easier and how I might be able to better manage having assistance.

Great Idea

At yesterday's sales meeting we came up with a great idea that every one of you needs to do. Get a flash drive and mark it "sales pictures." Then, over the next year or so, take pictures of cool stuff about your house.

• In the spring, take pictures of everything in bloom
• In the winter, take a snowy picture
• In the fall, take pictures of the kids playing in the leaves (just take it so you can't really see their faces)
• If your neighborhood has a cookout, take a picture of the party
• If you and your neighbors get together on 4th of July and shoot fireworks together, get pictures of that
• If one window in your house has an amazing view of the sunset, take some pictures of that
• If your back deck is perfect for entertaining and you have a party, take a picture of the party
• If your neighbors do up the lights for Christmas, take some of those pictures

Whatever is unique about your home and the way you live in it, take pictures. Put them on that flash drive and save it till you are ready to list. Those pictures are marketing GOLD. A good Realtor will integrate them into the marketing in order to not only sell the house itself but to sell the way the house is a HOME. It won't take you long, just don't lose the flash drive!! If you don't think you will ever sell the house, do it anyway. EVERY home will eventually be sold.

If you want to chat about selling your home or just get a check up on value, let me know.

Conventional Wisdom

I have been leading a series of discussions on Wednesday nights with the college kids about "conventional wisdom" type sayings and their validity. Specifically we have been looking at those sayings through the lens of scripture and seeing if they are fact or crap. It has been some good discussion of late.

Our topics have included:
"God will never give you more than you can handle"
"Everything happens for a reason"
"He's in a better place now" (after someone dies)

The main point of doing these discussions is to get the college students to challenge "conventional wisdom". Sometimes that which is commonly accepted is a bigger pile of manure than we might think. In other words, just because "everyone" believes it, doesn't make it true.

If you are a Christian, I challenge you to do a little digging into these commonly accepted tenets. You might be surprised at how easy it is to provide a valid challenge to them.

If you are not a Christian and someone delivers one of these "wise" sayings to you, I ask you to be polite and thank them for the encouragement. Often people say things like these because there is nothing else to say. They feel that it would be rude to say nothing, so they fall back on "conventional wisdom" that seems to be profound.

Whether you are a Christian or not, I ask you to consider the words you say to people when THEY are in crisis. What you think could be profound may actually prove to be an annoyance or possibly even offensive (think about "he's in a better place"--a spouse passes away unexpectedly, wasn't sick or anything, maybe a car crash, does the surviving spouse really think that the dead spouse is in a better place than right there with his or her family watching their kids grow up--doubt it).

Hope all is well for you. Would love to hear your thoughts on these sayings and any others that I could maybe use for my class.