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Do you want more time, energy and money? Of course you do! Do you have tasks that are costing you that time, energy and that money you desire? Chances are you definitely do, and there is only one way you can actually improve your life and business — it’s a little tool called leverage.
Leverage allows for higher quality work and more time for new projects, which in turn helps you build a better client experience, get more referrals and have a life outside of your business.
Leverage gives you the ability to be two or three people at once — only better than that. Everyone wins. Are you interested? If so, this article will give you three ways to add leverage into your business and life as a busy agent.
1. Clarity
Leverage is the one of the most important tools you can bring to your business and your life. To implement this tool, it is important to start with strategy and clarity. Before you started your business, you had to know where you wanted to go with it. It’s no different when you begin implementing plans into your business.
Leverage goes wrong when you lack strategy. If you start handing things off to people who do not care or who do not know what your standards for success are, they will fail. It may take a while for everything to crumble, but it inevitably will.
Which is why once you have clarity and strategy, it is so important to learn what tasks you and others care about the most, which leads me into my next section.
2. The GENIUS Method
Following this method will help you find extra money, energy and time in your life and business. It allows you to bring your natural gifts to the world, while learning to leverage your time and only focus on the tasks that make you happy.
You need to use the GENIUS model to identify exactly what tasks you need to leverage next and what leveraging is worth to the business in time and money. It stands for and is comprised of the following elements:
- Genius: These are the tasks that make you happy, energized and excited. You can complete these tasks faster than those who aren’t interested in them. This is your talent, and you get results when doing these tasks. These are tasks you should not leverage off — they’re what you should focus on instead.
- Excellent: These are tasks that you enjoy doing and are good at, but they do not fulfill you like your Genius tasks do.
- Neutral: You only want to perform these tasks when absolutely necessary. These are fillers, not important projects. You only complete these tasks because you know they need to be done.
- Involving others: You want someone else to do these tasks for you, but you can’t help but micromanage. You only trust your abilities with these tasks, not your team’s. These tasks are setting you back.
- Underachieving: These are tasks that you aren’t good at but that you might not even realize that you’re failing at. You can’t know what you don’t know. The key is to pinpoint what tasks are draining your time and energy.
- Stop: These tasks often turn into train wrecks when they’re handled by you. These items drain you, and to avoid that feeling, you avoid the tasks themselves and let them boil over. Stop hurting yourself and your business.
In order to find out your “Genius” and “Excellent” areas, keep track of all the regular activities you do in a week. You may not realize how many different types of activities are demanding your time and energy.
Once you have a list of these activities, categorize them according to the GENIUS model categories listed above. You can include both personal and business tasks. Anything that comes after the “Excellent” category should be leveraged off of your plate to someone else through delegating.
3. Accountability
Once you’ve nailed down what tasks you’re responsible for, you need to make sure you’re accountable. This means you need to be willing to view your strengths, weaknesses, and have the capability to leverage the “Genius” of others to improve your own skills in your role.
The more you utilize the “Genius” of others, the more deals you will do and the happier you will be.
As an agent, you are risking your own time, money and energy when you operate below the industry capabilities. Often, as an individual sales agent, you may not even be conscious of the losses operating below capability is costing you, because what do you have to compare to?
Accountability comes in the form of your metrics and tracked results. It is also a part of a personal mindset to take responsibility for your results, celebrate your wins, course-correct when needed and see the results that empower everyone with the ability to seek the resources they need to do what they want.
It is a risk to leverage. I hope this article built your confidence and flipped the script on leveraging help. What takes 10 years to create and perfect takes only two years to replicate and implement with the expertise that created it.
Do the math on that in your business. Your competition is not getting ahead on its own. They are on the golf course because they have help doing the very things keeping you in the office.
Kathleen Black is the CEO of Kathleen Black Coaching and Consulting in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Connect with her on Instagram at @kathleenblackcoaching or through her website ItTakesa.Team.
