7:00 am: In the office already. I make it a point to come in an hour earlier everyday to stay abreast of industry news. I check the real estate section in the Gulf news for a local update, and the New York Times for international flash news.
8:00 am: Grab my morning coffee and check my e-mails and my voice mail. Generate the list of prospects I need to call today and pin down my notes for my morning huddle.
8:30 am: Team morning huddle meeting with the senior sales manager. We discuss our to-do lists for the day and our progress towards the departmental monthly target. So far, So good! It takes a lot of planning, patience, people skills and resilience to succeed as a real estate agent and I have reservoirs of all these traits.
9:30 am: Back in my office. Initiate my scheduled calls for today. I finally have a general idea about who my main targeted decision makers are for most of the financial consulting firms. I have invested so much time this month to compile this list; it’s such a relief to witness its completion at last.
11:00 am: Pop into a colleague’s office to find out the latest news he has about the market, trade leases, sale comparables, current tenants… this guy knows it all. My job isn’t all about viewing properties, I’m also involved in listing and advertising these properties, drawing up legal agreements between the buyers and sellers, advising on listings prices for sellers and arranging for financing for buyers. I need to know the market really well to perform all these functions and that only comes through a lot of reading, talking to people, research and experience.
12:00 pm: Time for lunch. I am meeting up with a prospective client in a Chinese restaurant. It’s a5 minute walk from the office, but I wish it wasn’t so hot!
1:00 pm: Meeting wrapped up. It was a rather laid back lunch. We discussed general market conditions, his needs, his budget, and our suggested options in brief. I will draft a proposal and pay him a formal visit next Tuesday
2:00 pm: Back in my office. Another good30 minutes at least to reply to my e-mails and my voice mail
2:30 pm: Time to call my list of contractors. I set up appointments to go around the new projects on Monday to take a look at the location and construction schemes.
3:30 pm: I make use of the upcoming2 hours to draft my proposal for Tuesday’s meeting. If I get the client’s approval for this project, my commission is going to jump off the ceiling. Speaking of which, I need to check with the accounting department why the unreasonable delay in commission distribution this month!
5:30 pm: Proposal ready. Down to accounting and they assure me everything will be ready tomorrow morning. I am definitely buying the karaoke tool kit from Virgin Megastore this month!
6:00 pm: Back to my office. Final check up on my e-mails before heading out. It was a quiet day today, and I just love the fact that I had the chance to stay in the office and complete a lot of necessary and urgent strategizing, research and paperwork. These days, I rarely do, with most days being spent scouting properties at various stages of development and/or taking customers to scout them. Some sales on good days especially when the client is in town only briefly and is serious, happen so quickly I wonder what hit me! But normally a sale requires many visits to the property and numerous visits to other similar properties for benchmarking and comparative purposes and many hours in the office showing maps, pictures and plans of different projects before a final decision can be reached. Thank God we have virtual tours these days of many properties – saves a lot of time visiting properties the client has no interest in.
7:00 pm: Time for movies. I’ve been waiting impatiently to watch the new3D movie By Brendan Frasier “A journey to the Center of the earth”. Loved it!
10:30 pm: Back home. Have a shower, a light salad and get ready to start reading Robin Sharma’s “Greatness Guide”. Barely made it to the10th page and fell asleep right there on my couch.
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