Real Estate SEO Blogs by Key Yessaad

One of the basic truths of Real Estate Brokerages is that many do not act following Business Procedures; in fact many re-invent the wheel every time they hire a new Administrator or Business Manager. These Offices are lacking two fundamentals business anchors – a lack of a Binder of Procedures and Poor Delegation. Successful Brokerages have fine tuned these ideas and act according to Plans not Whimsy – today I wish to share a simple idea: Develop A Binder of Procedures.

When Brokers, Managers, and Owners step back just a bit and observe they will notice that nearly 95% of all their procedures repeat in a predictable pattern; yet because they know these procedures so well they fail to break them down and write them into a Binder of Procedures for each task. This simple Binder would help in the event an administrator is sick or leaves unexpectedly; but it also has many more benefits – let me share a couple:

1. Writing a Procedure makes you smarter – the act of putting pen to paper for a particular task helps you know it more intimately as well as help you teach it to others. Relying on your memory alone will get you in trouble. Our Military and all its power and intellect uses these simple ideas to reinforce absorption and reduce errors.

2. These Binders help managers assess Time Management of Staff a lot more accurately and in fact may realize that they have placed too much of a burden on some individuals. When spelling out a task time emerges and one can then work more efficiently. Managers need to be able to place themselves in the shoes of their Staff.

3. Binders are more flexible than Books – with a Binder you can insert procedures in the right section and then categorize them. Yes at first it will feel like a daunting task to put the binder together; so go slowly and add a task a week. Really spell it out and ask yourself: “Can someone new follow all these steps and perform the task required?”

4. Once you have a good working Binders make duplicates for safe keeping and to hand to other Departments if appropriate. You will be amazed once you have this Binder how insightful it can be; in fact you will be able to pluck out useless procedures or redundant processes and then “the hunt for efficiency” can truly begin.

Here are some tasks you should think about adding to your Binder of Procedures:

. How to add a listing to the MLS?

. How to update the Price of a Listing to the MLS?

. How to add a Listing to the Website?

. How to Deposit Escrow Checks?

. How to close out a Deal in our system?

. How to perform a Monthly Listings Inventory?

. How to Reconcile Bank Statements?

. Ordering Marketing Materials and List of Vendors.

etc… My Philosophy is simple: “If it is part of our Business and is a Procedure we add it to the Binder.”

A good Binder of Procedures should be divided into 4 or 5 sections each specific to a department. Each Section would have 20 to 30 tasks written in large font and clearly spelled out with lots of space for easy read. Use tabs to clearly identify the various Sections and make sure you have an electronic version of the Binder so you can update tasks as time requires changes.

A reviewed and updated Binder of Procedures will make your staff smarter and more collaborative; it will also bring out the best in them and allow them to think clearly; but best of all if will help you get out of a jam if something unexpected happened – and in business the unexpected happens often.

Happy Blogging – Key Yessaad, Real Estate SEO Trainer