Doug Edgrinton started in real estate when he was 18 years old, it became a family business after he said he wanted to flip houses. They started in their hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. After years of hard work, they were consistently hitting 100 transactions per year. But they seemed stuck at that number. After restructuring their real estate company and following the advice listed below, they grew that number to 227 per year, then 385, and now are exceeding 490 transactions per year.
Strategies for Growth
Hiring the right people has been essential to Edrington’s success. When he interviews people, he is looking for leaders, and so asks questions starting with understanding their childhood to gain a better understanding of the potential employee’s mindset. He also asks about their early ideas or memories of money. Edrington talks about understanding the relationship between work and profit early on. His father was a car salesman, and so when they wanted to buy something expensive, he simply stated that they would need to sell more cars, so he understands very clearly that relationship as his way of viewing money. As he grew older, he learned better to balance that hard work with enjoying life.
Classroom, Practice, Performance
Edrington emphasizes the need to be continuously learning and practicing, and also the importance of separating those areas from performance. He considers his classroom learning theories and concepts, reading books from experts, and even watching Youtube videos as part of his business management. He suggests that you learn and understand as much as possible about everything and anything related to your business. As you learn new information, it is important to practice utilizing it before attempting to insert it into your performance. Practicing can include things like roleplaying, videotaping yourself to see and hear how you speak, and experimenting with new ideas and strategies on how to communicate, make sales, or market yourself. Only after new ideas are learned and practiced should you apply them to your work in real time. Don’t practice on your performance, and don’t practice on your paycheck.
Learn How to Say No
In Edrington’s own words, “you don’t have to please the world.” Understanding how to say no and also when to say no is an important part of the sales process. This is one of the hardest theories to put into practice, because at times it can feel like you might be missing an opportunity if you say no. However, it’s important to remember that saying no to something that might be time consuming or not beneficial opens up room for new and better opportunities.
Time Blocking
Time management and scheduling are also essential to Edrington’s success. He says on Monday-Thursday, if it’s not on the schedule it doesn’t exist. He details out exactly what and when he needs to do things for the first four days of the week. That way Friday-Sunday are for freedom or catch-up. Nothing reoccurring goes on the schedule so that those days become flex days. Sometimes those days might be used to reschedule meetings that were cancelled, or to work on things that didn’t get finished earlier in the week, and if everything was completed between Monday and Thursday, those days can be for family or personal time.
Divide and Conquer
Edrington speaks to the need for differentiation. He even uses different facebook pages for different needs. They have one page just for houses that are for sale in the area, and then separate pages for content marketing and lead generation. This way, he brings people in through the houses, and they become clients, and then they are drawn to the culture pages. He uses the content marketing pages to very clearly share their culture so that anyone who visits the page. That way, be it potential clients or potential employees, they know exactly what they are getting into. Don’t waste time trying to attract people that do not fit into the culture of your company.
Advice for Under-performers
Decide whether or not this is what you really want to be doing. Be honest with yourself about your goals and the lifestyle you want to live. Then, work on visualizing the work and what happens when you do the work. Picture yourself succeeding only. Don’t even worry about how you are going to get there at first, focus on visualizing success, and then go do the work that needs to be done.
Advice for Successful Performers
It’s all about structure. You need to learn to prioritize and learn to delegate in order to reach the next level of success. Reaching the next level does not always mean doing more work. Think about your goals and try to find ways to achieve them specifically instead of trying to do everything and be everywhere at once. Also make sure that you are getting what you are worth. You are valuable and need to understand that. On a similar note, don’t try to use money to fix everything just because you are successful. Sometimes working on relationships with clients is more valuable than sending them a gift card.
