Bernice Ross
Business success is determined as much by what you don’t do as by what you decide to do.
One way to increase your profit is to do more business. On the other hand, you can also increase your profit by cutting expenses or avoiding activities that waste your time.
Most Realtors and investors focus primarily on profits – how many more leads they can generate, how many more doors can they acquire or how can they raise the rents.
What typically gets put on the back burner is how expenses and what they’re choosing not to do can cost them way more money in ways they don’t realize.
Increase Profit by Doing More Business
The first step is to increase the number of quality conversations you have each week
Nothing replaces direct contact. If you’re an agent, that means scheduling face-to-face meetings as soon as possible after acquiring a lead. In fact, NAR statistics show that the agent who has the first face-to-face meeting with a seller gets the listing up to 75 percent-80 percent of the time.
If you’re an investor, it means speaking to brokers, lenders, partners and property managers regularly. Revenue starts with contact, especially when it’s face-to-face.
Second, you can raise your average transaction value: You don’t always need more deals, but better deals. That can mean moving up in price range, handling larger assets or structuring higher-margin opportunities.
A small shift in average deal size often produces more profit as opposed to doubling your efforts on less expensive properties.
Repeat and referral systems are also your friend. Every closed transaction should plant seeds for the next one. A past client who refers one person per year changes your business permanently. Investors who communicate consistently with their clients often attract additional capital. In other words, relationships scale more efficiently than advertising.
And in uncertain times like this, it pays to add one complementary revenue stream.
Agents might add investor representation, relocation or a new niche. An investor might add property management or focusing on properties where the owners are willing to provide seller financing. mortgage. Investors might add a management arm or a small lending component.
You don’t need five new ventures, but rather only one addition that works to increase stability and margin.
Increase Profit by Cutting Waste
Sometimes the fastest way to increase your income has nothing to do with adding something new, but tightening or becoming efficient at what you’re already doing.
First, stop doing low-value tasks yourself. You might pride yourself on handling everything, but that habit can severely handicap the income you can earn. When you spend hours on tasks someone else can complete competently, you shrink your earning capacity.
The reason? You have less time to spend working in your business as opposed to running errands and doing tasks that eat up your valuable time.
While learning to delegate may be difficult, the amount of time it frees up to grow your business and to have more quality time with your loved ones is well worth it
Next, stop chasing unqualified prospects. Time spent trying to convince someone who will never act drains energy and momentum. Be willing to say “no” sooner. One strategy that has worked for me for decades is to ask, “Who’s closest to the money?” That’s where you put your primary focus.
Avoid allowing the psychic vampires who suck your time (and money) to sneak into your calendar. Profit grows when your time aligns with people who take action, whether it’s in a deal or even how long you must wait for a contractor to do an inspection or fix a problem.
Back to our uncertain moment: Reduce your emotional reactivity. Blaming the market, lenders, other agents or tenants consumes mental bandwidth. That energy could go toward problem-solving. Emotional discipline keeps negotiations clean and relationships intact. Long-term income depends on reputation more than on any single transaction.
Lastly, stop waiting for perfect conditions. Perfectionism disguises itself as caution. Markets are never fully stable, and every deal has flaws. The question is how much effort do you put into feeling more confident enough to act. Thoughtful action beats prolonged hesitation.
Here’s the most important point. You can grow your business from both directions at once. Add one meaningful revenue activity and remove one consistent drain. You don’t need a dramatic overhaul but just changing a few simple things that can make a big difference.
Profit can grow from both expansion and cutting back. The professionals who last have learned to do both.
Bernice Ross is a nationally syndicated columnist, author, trainer and speaker on real estate topics. She can be reached at bernice@realestatecoach.com.
