The Secret to Being More Profitable

How often do we hear how busy peoples' lives are? Whether it's a question about how someone's weekend was or how their work day is going, we hear busy and are supposed to assume it's a good thing. Maybe I missed the memo, but I am not sure when we started to value how little time we have.

I look around our industry and I see a lot of hard working, talented professionals. The ones that are leading this industry are the ones that aren't keeping busy, but are staying productive. Our clients, our colleagues and our brokers don't care how busy we are – it's all about the bottom line. How many contracts did you get signed? How many closed deals? Did you get the top dollar for your client? How much money did you make?

We don't get perfect attendance awards anymore. We don't get a pat on the back for working 16 hour days. We get rewarded for results. Our goal should be to get the same job done in a more efficient way whenever possible. No client wants to hear how busy you've been. They want to know whether you're doing your job.

Technology has brought about a wave of services, software and applications that can automate the tasks that used to keep us busy. Whether that's prospecting through SEO and lead generation tools, marketing tools for emails and lead follow-up, document management and electronic signature for contracts, or accounting software to automatically cut checks and track the business of your business, all of these tools can save us time.

Maybe it's only 10 minutes per deal, or maybe it's five hours that you would have spent manually following up or processing information at the close of a deal. It all adds up. Each tool you use can save you, your team and/or your staff time. After implementing, these systems will add hours of time back into your day. What would you do with an extra two hours a day?