Ep030: Don’t Fight the Flow – There is a Rhythm to the Real Estate Business

Chris: Hi everyone and welcome back to the Connect Practice, track and Grow podcast. This is part six of our 12-part series called Protecting the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs and this one’s titled Don’t Fight the Flow. There’s a Rhythm to Our Business. I’m Chris McAllister and as always, I’m joined here by my podcast partner, Laci LeBlanc. Good morning, Laci, good morning.

And today we’re diving into a topic that I believe is crucial for every real estate professional who wants to build a sustainable and fulfilling career, and that’s understanding and leveraging the natural rhythm of the real estate business. Real estate is a dynamic industry. It’s full of opportunities and, God knows, it’s full of challenges, and there’s a certain ebb and flow throughout the year. But there’s one thing I’ve learned from you know, gosh, 23 years at this now it’s that trying to fight the natural seasonality of the market can be exhausting and, quite frankly, counterproductive, and I’ve learned that we need to recognize and embrace these natural seasonal cycles and use them to our advantage to achieve professional success and personal fulfillment, and it’s that personal fulfillment piece that is so critical to protecting the goose that lays the golden eggs. So we’re going to talk about how to work with the natural seasons of real estate, how to plan your year around these cycles and how to ensure that you’re not just surviving but thriving in this business year after year. So, whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, I think this episode will give you the tools and insights you need to maximize your opportunities and maintain the balance that keeps you at your best. So let’s get into it.

So one thing I wanted to start with I created this framework for myself because real estate’s like anything else in my life. Once I got started in it, I was all in. It was like being shot out of a cannon. I like to say so. When I get started on something like this, I tend to become fixated and it becomes very hard for me to stop or slow down or even just take a day off and I end up getting tired or I end up getting burned out and I start to become, you know, just basically ineffective and not that pleasant to get along with. So I’m the guy that has to finish what I start, whether for good or bad. And when I put something on the calendar, it’s really hard for me to remove it or delete it, and I’m sure that you know there’s a clinical name for that, but the truth is I am a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.

Laci: You know that’s a really good way to say Puritan work ethic or whatever we normally call it. I think that’s a really good point say Puritan work ethic or whatever we normally call it.

I think that’s a really good point. I mean, a lot of people are like this, I think, and we embrace these natural rhythms in every other aspect of our life. When you think about parenting and like the natural rhythms of your children, and like school and summer break and winter break and fall break and holidays, and when you think about like just life in general with your family, you know during the holiday season there are certain expectations that you know your productivity it’s just different, right, you spend X hours doing Christmas shopping versus X hours doing, you know, yard maintenance that you do in the fall. Like there are natural rhythms to your life that we just naturally embrace but when it comes to work, we’re so hesitant to adjust our productivity or our schedule or our expectations for ourselves and I think that’s you know. Again, it’s been instilled in us like our Puritan work ethic, but it’s not always the best strategy.

Chris: I love that quote because I think it absolutely describes my personality to a T, and I was listening to a podcast. I just heard this. In the last few days it was Morgan Housel that said this quote, and I had to get the Google machine out, of course. And it turns out that the guy who wrote Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda he actually made this statement about how he channels his anxiety into creative and productive work. And it’s funny how he channels his anxiety into creative and productive work. And it’s funny.

I don’t want to make this all about me, but I have this phobia of being up against a deadline or having my back against the wall, and I think it’s why, you know, I look at people who you know carry at least visibly zero anxiety, but then when they come up on a deadline, like the papers due tomorrow or the projects due tomorrow, whatever they just stay up all night and do whatever they have to do to get it done. To me that is just the scariest thing in the world and I just refuse to allow myself to get into that position. So you know, consequently, the downside, of course, is I’m constantly looking at a to-do list or trying to figure out did I do anything worthwhile today, et cetera. So enough about my clinical proclivities. How’s that?

Laci: Yeah, Some of us are very comfortable in that deadline state, so I think it that’s just another testament to harnessing how you work and what the what the season calls for in your life and business. But what’s?

Chris: cool is, you know, I this whole thing about the seasonality of the real estate business has really helped me cope. So you know, if I’m bad now, I’m 100 million times better than I was 20 years ago. So how’s that for an introduction? So anyway, I want to start off a little bit by talking about the work itself. So you know, work is work, it’s what we have to do. It’s not necessarily the fun part, you know. To some degree it’s the fun part because you’re interacting with people, you know you’re solving problems and so forth. But there there’s the actual work itself. And in this, when we say the work, it’s actually in the business of helping somebody buy a house or helping somebody sell a house, and there are times when we have to take the business that we’ve worked so hard to generate.

As it comes, spring is a prime example in real estate. If we’ve done everything that we’re supposed to do throughout the year, we should have a marked increase in incoming opportunity. Basically, march, april, may, june, july it just happens every year the weather changes. April, may, june, july. It just happens. Every year the weather changes. People get outside, they start looking at driving by and seeing for sales signs, they start going to open houses and so forth and the business, the work, the people inquiring, you know, the people that are ready to do something just naturally increases. You know it’s rewarding work that has to be done and in best case it’s with people we want to work with and we’d be a fool to pass that up right. It’s like retail at Christmas. You know you’re going to put the hours in. If you work in retail at Christmas, you know it’s not a 40 hour a week situation in retail at Christmas and it’s not a 40-hour-a-week situation in real estate in the spring.

If there’s a balance to the year, there’s little balance during the peak time and I’ve yet to meet a successful real estate professional who doesn’t have the capacity to work hard and stay focused for extended periods of time. Working hard comes with the territory. It’s that time when you’ve got to sort of reach down and find that Puritan work ethic or that anxiety or back against the wall, whatever works for you, because there’s work to be done and you got to do it. You know I’ve talked for years about, you know, the four freedoms of the real estate professional freedom of money, freedom of purpose, freedom of relationship, freedom of time and on a practical, day-to-day level, freedom of time. And on a practical, day-to-day level, freedom of time has everything to do with balancing the need to seize opportunities to come your way along with the need to take care of yourself.

So, just thinking about that balance piece, you still have to be in control of your time, even if you’re spending much more time on work versus personal things. And getting control of your time is not easy. It takes effort and it takes absolute self-confidence in the value that you bring to the market. You know, as a real estate professional, you shouldn’t look at your practice any different than your doctor does, your lawyer does, your accountant does right. You know you’ve got to act like a professional and we’ve talked about this before. You’ve got to set boundaries. I think that was episode one of this series.

Laci: Yeah, so I work with a lot of financial professionals in addition to real estate, and one of the things that one of them talks about is what you said, which is, when an opportunity comes up, you want to have the resources, and in the financial professionals case, he’s talking about cash on hand right, but you want to have the resources. And in the financial professionals case, he’s talking about, you know, cash on hand, right, but you want to have the resources to take advantage of it. But that also goes for time, talent, treasure, you know the whole nine. And I like to ask like I asked myself every once in a while, because I get some pretty great opportunities that come my way, both inside of work and outside of work but if somebody came up to me and said, hey, I want to send you and your family on a 10 day vacation, right, like, could you do that? Do I have the resources to do that? Right, and in this case, it’s not, you know, money or it’s time, it’s.

You know, do I have the structure in place so that I can step away from my business for 10 days? You know, do I have the structure in place so that I can step away from my business for 10 days. You know, do I have the, you know, the resources to be able to take advantage of this opportunity? And that can come, you know, go for an investment or whatever. But I just that’s kind of how I keep myself from going over the top right, from saying yes to too many things. You know, if the answer is, oh, I couldn’t possibly take 10 days off of work, then I’m doing something wrong. You know what I mean.

So I think that’s a really important point is you want to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way, and there has to be some space, you know, in what you’re currently doing to do that.

Chris: Yeah, but those. The issue becomes if you can take 10 days off of work anytime during the year.

I would say spring, summer is no time for a real estate professional to be planning 10 days off. I think you interrupt the flow of the market and you damage your opportunity. But that doesn’t mean that there are not other times of the year that you know you absolutely want to plan years in advance that you’re going to take those 10 day breaks and you know sometimes that’s frustrating, that we want to do what we want to do when we want to do it. But the reality is you know we’re in business for ourselves. We’ve got responsibilities to ourselves, our families and our clients, and when they’re ready to buy which every single year, like clockwork, is spring and summer we need to be there for them. So I’ve worked on this for a long time and I know exactly when myself and our agents need to be in the business, when they need to be taking some time off and when they need to be working on the business. Because when we talk about spring and summer, that’s no time to be planning either, right? That’s no time to build the car. That’s the time to be out there racing the car. So those three things time in time on and time off that’s what really makes up the seasonality of the business. So let’s talk about the holidays and long weekends.

So if you’re struggling to take time off, my advice is start with holidays and long weekends. And a holiday or a vacation should not be something that you have to earn and reward yourself with. You know, for a full-time, all-in professional time off is necessary just to operate at a peak state, right? If you don’t take time to rest, rejuvenate, focus on your family and do something outside of real estate, I guarantee you at some point you’ll burn out, you’ll lose interest and you’ll start making mistakes and God forbid get sick. So I hear time and time again from agents and we’re just finishing up Labor Day weekend, right, and you know, I know that there’s agents out there that you know thought they were getting a leg up on the rest of us lazy people by trying to get out and make something happen this weekend. And you know, I just think that’s just a mistake. They’re on call over the holiday weekend because you know they think they’re going to get ahead of us slackers instead of taking the time off that they absolutely have to take to. You know, rejuvenate, rest, feel better and all that.

And I used to be the same way. I, you know, but I realized, you know, fairly early on that the random showings and appointments that I would take on a weekend, like we just had, rarely came to anything and if anything, they were just transactions I was hoping to, you know, walk into versus, you know, actually intentionally forging a relationship, if that makes sense. So my first piece of advice is I want you to go to your calendar. You know maybe you need to start with a paper calendar. You know, hopefully you’re using your calendar on your phone or Outlook or whatever. But I want you to mark off every national holiday on your calendar as a free day for the rest of your life. Don’t just mark the holiday, you know. Mark the weekend that surrounds it, you know.

Start with the big six national holidays Christmas Day, new Year’s Day, memorial Day, fourth of July, labor Day and Thanksgiving. You know, start easy when you get to the advanced level, then we can start looking at Columbus Day and President’s Day and some of those other ones. Okay, but start with those and do everything you can to force a long weekend. You know I want this for myself, but I want it for the team too. You know I want this for myself, but I want it for the team too, you know. So you know, my first impulse last week was to find a way to not be open on the Friday before Labor Day weekend, but we compromised and closed at noon for everybody. But that’s the place to start. You know, take the time, plan your time. You know your very best clients are taking off weekends and holidays and they’re the ones that are going to absolutely understand that you are too, and, honestly, if they don’t understand that, maybe they should be released back to the market and go find another agent.

Laci: Yeah, I mean, I think it says a lot about a person to take off this time. You know, and it doesn’t matter what you do with it, right, you can sit in your bed and rot, as the kids say these days, but most people assume that you’re going to spend it doing something with your family or your partner or your pet, or and isn’t that the type of person you want to be in business with? Really like a person who has other relationships and cares about other people and has people in their life like that?

just means a well-rounded person a person who can sustain other relationships in their life because they’re a nice, kind, thoughtful, considerate human being, so that they have something they want to do on this time. That everybody normally takes off Like what kind of person? Just if you’re just married to your work, I guess, and for some people, like you said, they probably appreciate that. But most customers I feel like, want a rounded person to communicate.

Chris: I think the real estate professionals that have been in this the longest and are the most successful and do the best jobs for their clients. They are well-rounded and attractive, right, and I think they become attractive because you know they are just succeeding people who are succeeding.

Laci: Exactly that to me. When you can take off, you know those times to do whatever you want to do, then that says to me that you’re successful at what you’re doing right, so that there’s just another level of trust that I think that’s that you get when you start to, because you can afford to do it. You’re obviously successful at what you do, and that’s the person I want to be in business with. That’s the person I want to walk me through this process as someone who’s successful enough that they don’t, you know, have to work 24 hours a day seven days a week, 365.

Chris: And it’s also interesting too, because these are the people who don’t even don’t post on social media at all. Right, when they’re off, because they’re off. And it cracks me up when you see people who you know struggle with taking time off or whatever and they’re posting from wherever it is they’re supposed to be vacationing that hey, I still got my laptop. I don’t want you to think I’ve disappeared off the face of the earth Not that I haven’t been that person, but I do find it a little sad. So this all in season, right? Spring and summer. And spring and summer are, without a doubt, the prime season for real estate. You know, if you’re a referral base, if you have a referral based business, if that’s your business model, like it is at our company, you will produce. When you work by referral, you do start to level off the peaks and valleys of incoming opportunity, there’s no question. And the plus side to that is when other people are just dead, maybe in November and December you’ve still got good work to do with people that you want to work with. So your referral-based business will produce significant, steady income throughout the year. But it still peaks in spring and summer and this is the time when you have the opportunity to grow your business and harvest those additional financial rewards and also put some money away for the future, because every new relationship that you enter into obviously that’s another addition to your database, that’s another whole set of opportunities for years and years to come. You know, not only does your past client activity heat up with the change in the weather, but so do your incoming referrals. You know client activity and customer activity both go up when the weather gets warm. You know, in Ohio, you know, I tell my sellers that I want them to get their house on the market right around Valentine’s Day. That way, when those first few new buyers of the year start to dust off their realtorcom and Zillow apps, that you know their property is ready and waiting. And even if the winter has been really harsh, anytime there’s a glimmer of warmer weather, even for a few hours on a Thursday afternoon. That leads to a dramatic increase in activity starting in March.

And the seasonality in Florida is very similar. The off season tends to be the summer, but that time when the snowbirds are down there from, you know, even November, january, february, all the way through till May, that’s all in time down in Florida as well. So when you’re in spring and summer, you’ve got to be committed to doing the work right. So you know you know you’re going to be working late at least a couple of nights a week. You know you’re probably going to be working at least one day each weekend. You know the business is there, the clients need our help. It’s what we signed up for and I just don’t want people to like balance is a wonderful thing, but in practice, sometimes that balance isn’t just over the course of a day or week. In this case, it’s over the course of the of the year.

Laci: Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think it is tough with this business, right, because so many other things slow down in the summer, especially if you’re a parent and you have kids and so many other things change. But yeah, that’s one of the I feel like it could be. The biggest mistake you make is slowing down in the time of the year when.

Chris: If you slow down in the spring, you can write off your year. If you don’t have 60, even 70% of your year in, you’re playing what you want to make for the year in by, I’d say, the end of June. The chances of you making that up July through December are not very good at all. If you’re not making that, if you’re not hitting those numbers in spring and summer, I’m sorry to tell you you’re just likely not going to hit those numbers Now. Having said that, you know latter half of February, march and April prime time. But there are still breaks, right, there are still weekends. There are still places in the year, in the all-in part of the year, where things naturally slow down.

And, significantly, there’s a pause in activity during Easter and spring break and your clients are taking a break, and I think you should be prepared to take a break too. Maybe it’s not 10 days, but maybe it’s a long weekend and maybe you do get to take the kids to Disney World that week. Just make sure you’re doing it the same week that the rest of your community is taking it and don’t apologize for it. Let them know what’s happening. But there are still places where it’s quote safe for you to take some time off and enjoy that part of the year too. When you look at the money coming into a traditional brokerage, mayune and july are the busiest months out of the year, you know. So again, just like february, march, april, may, june and july, you’re going to be putting in the time, you’re going to be busy and you’re going to be enjoying it. Right, because you’re going to be making things happen and, let’s face it, you’re going to make a lot of money. But again, there’s breaks there too. Right? Why would you not take Memorial Day weekend off? You know, I think you should take it off. I want you to enjoy it.

June tends to slow down every year for a few days around graduation, party season and Father’s Day. In fact, that period, that week or two period in June, is just the saddest time in the year for a real estate professional, because you’re on a high, because you’ve had such a great March, april, may, and then all of a sudden it’s like the rug got pulled out from under you and it happens every single year. That graduation, father’s Day season there is a lull in the real estate business. So if you can swing it, it’s a great time to take a weekend or two off. And every year you get past Father’s Day and it just gets hot again and business just picks up like somebody flips a switch and suddenly it’s middle of June and you’re off to the races.

Laci: July critical Go ahead as far as the business activities that sustain your business and build referrals and kind of help you to stay active throughout the rest of the year can probably feel like they probably fall behind. Right, you probably fall behind on pop buys and you know notes and things like that. So I just wanted to point out that it’s a really good. It’s really great for business when you have those tools automated and happening kind of in the background. Some of them you have to do yourself, but some of the stuff can be done for you by your broker or you know, if you just get it on automation yourself and then you don’t maybe have to worry quite so much about missing those referral building activities during that time, because I imagine those are the first things that fall by the wayside when you get there, you’re absolutely right and I’m glad you brought that up.

Chris: You know, I started when I met the feeding company and had a coach and was. You know? And we still work by referral. You know, the first thing they teach you is that you want to get a monthly item of value out to your past clients and you know referral partners and you dig in and you do that two, three, four months and then poof every time. If you do the work, it happens you get busy and by the third, fourth or fifth month you’re so busy that the first thing that falls by the wayside is getting out your item of value.

And that’s exactly why that monthly item of value we ours Roost Ramblings is why we make sure as a brokerage that happens. It goes out from each agent every single. I think we do it nine, 10 times a year now, but every single month without fail, and the agent doesn’t have to lift a finger. And thank you for bringing that up and I guess we are patting ourselves on the back here, but that one service alone that we provide is the thing that really keeps our agents productive throughout the year, because they have things happen not just in spring and summer. They have things happen from within their database 12 months out of the year, and then that’s because we’re able to help them stay top of mind with everybody they’ve ever sold a house to everybody whoever you know is a qualified referral source. They get something in the mail every single year, regardless of how busy they are, so thank you for mentioning that.

Laci: Yeah, I just, I know overwhelm well and I know, you know that it can be really difficult to get those. You know, especially when you’re you own your own business, like there are things you have to stay on top of your payroll, you know you have to stay on top of your accounting reports, you have to stay on top of certain things, but those, those business building activities that are going to sustain you throughout the leaner months are it’s just so imperative to do them during the busy time, to do them during the busy time.

Chris: Yeah, exactly, and you’re going to need and for most of us we need some help getting that done. So July is interesting, right, you know July is really transitional, but if you can swing it, july is still a great time to take a week or two off. You know at least 4th of July, and figure out where 4th of July falls. I think for us this year it was Thursday, so we made sure that. You know we closed the offices on Thursday, friday, saturday and Sunday, I think, if I remember what happened just last month, but and also remember too if you’re going to squeeze in some time off, you know 4th of July, the week 4th of July and the week after are still some of the most popular weeks for summer vacations for your clients. So you know I’m not saying that this isn’t a great time to get a few days with your family and you know, you know, get a little rejuvenation. And July, like I said, is interesting.

A lot of business happens in a short time between the 4th of July and the last week of month, and by a lot of business I mean you tend to put quite a few things under contract because it’s the end of that quote season and people are starting to think about school starting again in August and they sort of have a deadline in their minds that they want to get things done. So July a lot can happen in July. You can put a lot of property under contract in July, but the reality by the end of July things start to slow down as people and your clients squeeze in that last bit of vacation before school starts again. And then you get to August and August is what I call the mid-year recovery month. So there’s still business to be had in August, but in reality it’s one of the slowest months of the year for placing houses under contract and securing new business. It’s true, it’s not that realtors aren’t super busy in August. They are, but realtors are super busy getting everything they put under contract May, june, july, may June and July to the closing table and actually getting those transactions completed and getting paid. It is, without a doubt, the biggest month for closings of the entire year and it happened to us again this year.

Things were a little softer for us this year, as I think they have for most realtors and companies I’ve talked to, but I have to tell you we had the best August we have had since 2021. And it came out of the blue and we smashed everything we had done in any other month for the last two or three years. And it was massive. And our agents were focused and busy, you know, getting things to the closing table, taking care of their clients, but what they were not busy doing was putting new properties under contract or listing new properties for sale. It was all about customer service and contract management. It was getting people over the line, getting them to the closing table.

So August is a tough month, but it’s tough in a different way. It’s tough in a different way and if you’re, you know, organized or you have the help you need, and so forth, august is, at least mentally, in August, you know you’ve done it. You’re crossing the T’s, you’re dotting the I’s and you’re going to the bank. So I love August, but it really is the peak month of the brokerage year.

Laci: I love that. I feel like now that I think, now that we’re having this conversation, I was thinking, like you know, parenting everything slows down in the summer, but it’s actually perfect for parents especially and I say this because I know a lot of real estate professionals who are parents or grandparents even but, like, with my kids being home over the summer, I wasn’t running around to sports practices or drop off or pick up, or I forgot my lunchbox. I have to leave in the middle of the day or appointments. It was the perfect time for me to be focusing on my business in the summer and to contribute more time to it, while also still spending more time with my family, probably. But then August, when my kids go back to school, I feel like you can just wrap up all the loose ends that are. So August is like the perfect. It’s like a fresh start in the fall, right before the fall, as opposed to the spring. So I think that’s it sounds delightful, like. I feel like if you can actually implement this, then it’s really.

Chris: It’s not an easy month, but it’s a different month and by the time you get to Labor Day, right, which is always that first weekend in September you’ve experienced a lot of closure. You know you’ve gone through the all in season. You put your money in the bank for the year. Everything else is going to be a bonus and hopefully you feel good about you know everything you’ve accomplished. So you know this is a time that you can go ahead and take a week off and you can do what needs to be done remotely, right, you can get things to the closing table.

You know, when you’re half a continent away, you can’t show a house half a continent away, right, but you can still, you know, get things to the closing table. You can still send attachments, you can still use the phone. You can still get some things done and it’s still a good time to, you know, plan that little bit of time off and it’s the perfect time around Labor Day. You know I hope for everybody that you know that is listening or we work with. I hope you really did find some time to not just, you know, take a break this past Labor Day weekend but, you know, maybe toast yourself to an all-in season. Well done, all right. So that brings us to what I call the on-the-business season.

Laci: This is my favorite.

Chris: This is September and it just coincides with back to school, which is my favorite season of new beginnings, right? It seems like we get two chances every year for new beginnings you get New Year’s and you get back to school, which is my favorite season of new beginnings, right, it seems like we get two chances every year for new beginnings you get New Year’s and you get back to school. I usually make the most of back to school, even more so than New Year’s, personally. So, on the business, you know we’re talking about really September, October, so you’re still going to be enjoying a steady stream of referrals over the next few months, but the fact is that it’s also time that you look back on what happened in the spring and summer with the critical eye. Right, you want to do what you know they call in coach and experience transformer. Right, you want to sit down and consciously think about what worked, what didn’t work, what goals did you meet, where did you fall short? You know, basically do a post-mortem and a critical analysis of how the all-in season went. And while September is still, you know, kind of busy and October is a little bit like August because there’s still quite a few closings, you know now through roughly November, is where you’ve got to start taking the lessons you learned from this past year’s all in season and figuring out what your business plan and what your goals are and what your processes are going to be when you go into the next all in season. So for us, you know we’re just getting into the on-the-business season. In fact, today, September 3rd, is the first day of the on-the-business season, so you can put that on your calendar. It’s a thing now. Think about what just went down, Think about what worked well, what didn’t go well. And all of this is in service to getting your plans in place between now and the end of November for how you’re going to run your business beginning Valentine’s Day of 2025.

And don’t just focus on I want you to focus on developing new capabilities and obviously, with all the changes going on with NAR right now and so forth, we’re all gonna need some new capabilities as we navigate what’s going on here in the messy middle of the post-NAR settlement. But I want you to focus on capability. I want you to focus on new marketing ideas. I want you to think about what your advertising is going to look like. Your financial goals, of course, but again, I need you to create space to reflect on and make plans to improve your business.

There’s things to do, but the pace is less frenzied than spring and summer. This is when all the conventions are right, Whether it’s the National Association of Realtors or RE-MAX or whatever. This is when they have those conventions and the reason is clear. It’s a less frenzied time. They know that by you know, putting on one of these giant parties, that they’re not taking you away. Well, they’re taking you away from your business, but at the right time of the year and for the right reasons. You don’t see these conventions scheduled in the middle of April, May, June or even July. You start to see them in the fall, as people start to think about and make plans for next year.

Laci: Yeah, this is my favorite time. I mean, obviously, as a marketer, I’d love to see the numbers about what worked and what didn’t, but it’s also about what worked personally and what didn’t. Right, so you don’t want to continue doing any marketing activity that didn’t yield any results right.

And sometimes that’s anecdotal. And sometimes you have a solid, you know, roi, a solid number that you can look at, but in the same way you don’t want to continue any you know personal business. Actually, you don’t want to continue working your business or running your business in a way that didn’t yield results for you.

So it’s you know, as much feeling as it is seeing, but I, you know you don’t want to keep doing things that didn’t yield and you don’t want to stop doing things that did. So taking a minute just to figure that out, for yourself and for your business, it’s huge.

Chris: It’s a good time to do a start, stop and continue inventory, right. Just take a sheet of paper and make three columns on the sheet of paper. The first column is start, the second column is stop and the third column is continue. Right, and think about it in terms of every aspect of your life and every aspect of your business, and the things to stop are probably the easiest things to put down because they’re the things that are bugging the crap out of you right now. So start with the center column. What do you want to stop? Right? You know what’s going well that you want to take into next year and the you know the rest of your career. Put that in the far right column. You know, that’s the continue. And then think of all the things that you need to do differently to to get to where you’re, you know, towards your bigger future. And that goes in the left column and that’s the start column.

Laci: So yeah, I think this is where the coaching and the more you know we use the word touchy feely because that’s how other people who aren’t used to coaching and you know personal development maybe see it. But I think this is where it’s really integral, because even if you sit down to do it, if you don’t have the tools, I mean that’s so simple start, stop, continue. That’s super simple. But it’s a tool that not everybody just naturally knows right. That’s not something you could necessarily come up with on your own. So I think that’s a really good.

This is a really good time to implement some of the coaching or start some coaching or just listen in on some podcasts like this one where you get these kind of coaching tips and tools, because I don’t think that comes naturally to most people. But I also think that just doing the activity itself, even if you do a start, stop, continue, even if you don’t start, stop or continue anything right away just having that clarity into what you want Maybe you can’t stop doing it right away because you don’t have anybody else to do it Right, but having that clarity into, like, what’s annoying you or what’s not getting done because it’s not really in your unique ability or your skillset, and speaking that into existence puts you on the right path, even if you can’t stop doing it right away to find somebody else to do it or to automate it or to figure out a way around it.

But if you don’t take that minute and write that down or think that through or say it, out loud, then you know it’s constantly just in your mind, on your you know, in the back of your mind or looking over your shoulder or hanging over your head.

Chris: Yeah, I mean you could keep a start, stop and continue journal throughout the year, but it’s September, October that you can really go back and look at that and put plans in place. To what’s the word I’m looking for? Not manifest, but maybe it is. You want to make a plan?

Laci: I’m convinced there’s more manifesting than any of us want to admit. But you can start talking. Once you vocalize it for yourself, then it’s naturally going to start. You’re going to start looking for it or you’re going to start talking about it, and that’s really what manifestation is right. It’s just speaking it out so that other people know about it and chances are you’re going to run into somebody who can help you with that or you’re going to, you know, figure out a way. But if you again, if you don’t take that time to clarify it in your own mind, then it’s all just a jumbled mess for another year else they are too busy.

Chris: March, april, may, june and July. The difference is. The best among us recognize that when the frenzy subsides and the day-to-day onslaught starts to slow down, they have to have the mindset that allows them to reposition their thoughts, their priorities, how they structure their week, and use that as a time, literally to get ready for next year. You know, you could call it the off season, right, in football or baseball. I guess I’m not a big sports guy, but maybe that’s the metaphor. You know you still got to go to practice every day. There’s still going to be some things to do and maybe some contract negotiations, right. But this is the time that you watch the game films. This is the time that you know, figure out what you’re going to do different. Maybe it’s some physical rehab that you have to do. Whatever it is, that’s what September, october, november is all about, and that rolls us right into the holidays. So the holiday season in the USA starts with Halloween, although I have to admit I bought pumpkin beer and pumpkin coffee this past weekend. But again, the holiday season in the USA starts with Halloween and it spills like a hangover into the first week of January. It happens this way every single year and, from a working by referral perspective, though, the holidays are the most important time of the year. This is the time when you make up a heck of a lot of ground from a relationship point of view, right. This is the time when making calls, writing notes, cards, giving gifts, popeyes, going to parties, visiting with people in your database should be the most natural things to do in the entire world, because that’s what the holidays are all about. It’s about interaction with friends and family and other people and expressing gratitude, so it is very busy. It is a super busy time for those of us who work by referral, just like it’s a busy time for everybody. The difference is it’s a busy time about you know really nurturing relationships, versus the busy time of you know getting people under contract in the spring, or you know reviewing the game film, so to speak, in the off season.

The holidays matter, and you’ve got a plan for the holidays, right the agents that approach the holiday season with a plan and a sense of purpose. You know your goal should be that you are going to contact every single person in your database at least once during October, november and December, and you know you want to do this from a place of authenticity. No-transcript holiday season. This isn’t just about you know your item of value going out or roost ramblings going out. This is about you know belly to belly, face to face. You know it’s contact. You’re expected to go to parties. You’re expected to do pop buys. You’re expected to write Christmas cards. You know the seeds you plant and the referrals you earn during November and December. They’ll not just create, you know, closings in business for the rest of your life, but every single year I saw this happen for myself. If I went into November, december intentionally with a plan, I had extra business in January and February that other agents could only dream about.

So the holidays are an all-in season for those of us who work by referral, but in a completely different way than spring and summer. So I would say that every part of the year it’s hard to say that any part of the year is more critical than any other part of the year, but the fact is, if you miss any part of the year, it makes the rest of the year’s priorities that much harder to meet, and then we have the year end recovery right. So once again, you know, pat yourself on the back. You’ve done great work the past three, four months September, october, november, december. It’s time to celebrate. Take some time for yourself, your family, get ready for the new year. You know Christmas and New Year’s should be an absolutely guilt-free opportunity to enjoy yourself, surrender to your success, revel in your accomplishments, have a glass of champagne and really take a moment to enjoy what you’ve accomplished. Because I’m here to tell you spring and summer are going to be right around the corner and we’re going to start all over again.

Laci: Yeah, I think this is. If it were me, it would be welcome news. It would offer the structure. You know this whole conversation would offer the structure. I’m sure that it sounds right on point to people who have been in this business for a while. It just really puts when you work for yourself, when you’re when you own your own business, when you’re a real estate agent or you’re working with a broker. You know it can be hard to lay out that structure like you would at a corporate job. Right, they determine everything for you if you’re working at a job, but if you own your own business, if you run your own business day to day, then being able to implement kind of a structure and have an outline for what your day, week, month and year looks like has got to be super helpful.

Chris: All right. As we wrap up today’s episode, I want to leave you with this thought Success in real estate isn’t just about being relentless in your pursuit of deals. It’s about understanding the rhythm of our business and knowing when to push hard and when to pull back. By embracing the natural flow of the market, you can align your energy with the opportunities that come your way, ensuring that you’re not just working hard but you’re working smart. And you got to remember keep in mind the goal is to create a business that supports a life worth living. This means you got to recognize when it’s time to go all in and when it’s time to step back, recharge and prepare for the next wave of opportunity.

So next time we get together, we’re going to dive into a concept that’s closely related to everything we’ve talked about today. We’re going to dive into a concept that’s closely related to everything we’ve talked about today, and it’s something that I think is super important in an always on world. You know that we live in today, with our phones and social media and everything else. So the next episode, we’re going to talk about JOMO, or the joy of missing out. So mark your. You can mark your calendar, but I don’t know what date it’s coming. So be sure you follow us on whatever your preferred podcast platform is, and by doing that you won’t miss any episodes. And you’ll certainly be able to listen to the Joy of Missing Out when that comes out as episode seven, anything else, lacey.

Laci: No, I look forward to the next few conversations that we’re going to have are really, I think, the heart of protecting the ghost. That lays the golden eggs as much as any of the stuff we’ve already talked about, so I’m excited for folks to hear about it.

Chris: Well said. If today’s episode resonated with you and you’re looking for a brokerage that truly understands the importance of work-life balance, while also offering you the support you need to excel in your career, then Roost Real Estate might be the perfect fit for you. At Roost, we’re not just about closing deals. We’re about creating a business worth having and a life worth living. We believe in working smarter, not harder, and we support our agents with the tools, the training and culture that allows them to thrive both professionally and personally.

If you’re ready to take your real estate career to the next level, where you can grow your business while also enjoying the freedom to live your life on your terms, we’d love to talk to you about joining our team. Visit our website or reach out to us directly to learn more about the opportunities available at ROOST Real Estate Company. Let’s make the most of the natural rhythm of this business together. We’re excited to see what you can achieve and what we can achieve together.