5 Ways Real Estate Teams Can Automate and Streamline Daily Tasks

What does it take to lead a productive real estate team? Apparently, it's a lot of work.

For one, you need to navigate rapidly changing market demands and ever-growing client expectations. You also have to manage complex schedules. Plus, there's the task of overcoming intense competition.

Yet, as a real estate team entrepreneur, you also have to ensure that your employees have all the necessary conditions for a healthy work-life balance. Achieving this goal can be next to impossible, as most real estate agents work at least 40 hours per week. Some have to clock in up to double that time during peak sales seasons.

Fortunately, there are effective strategies to do more work with less time.

Here's an overview of the best ways real estate teams can automate and streamline daily tasks. Let's get into it.

Collecting Data

What's the best way to make smart business decisions? You'll want to develop a data-based strategy.

Essentially, the only way you can identify the best workflow-optimization tactics for your real estate team is to know exactly how they spend their workdays.

So, before exploring automation or streamlining, collect data about your employees' typical workday.

Use time tracking software to get a rough estimate of how much time workers spend on each task. Also, ask your team about their daily work routines to identify potential opportunities for systematization.

Hopefully, this simple tactic will help you form a better idea of how team members spend their workweek. Moreover, it might provide you with ideas on where to focus your automation and streamlining efforts to increase output without upping work hours.

Identifying Time-Wasters

The second step toward embracing automation and maximizing productivity is to study the data you've collected.

Ideally, you should set aside a longer period for tracking (90 days or more would be ideal) to ensure you're getting a solid amount of information that won't be warped by seasonal trends.

Then, go through each documented task. Decide whether it's worth the time your team is dedicating to it.

If you find that your employees are doing a great job managing their time, then that's great. However, if their workdays are eaten up by obvious time-wasters, you'll have to do some optimization.

For instance, data suggests that most people only spend around four hours actively working at their jobs. The rest of the typical eight-hour workday is spent on time-wasters or preparation for challenging or creative work.

What's interesting about real estate teams is that they have to deal with a lot of time-wasters at work. These include nurturing low-quality leads, showing properties to the wrong people, administrative tasks, travel, excessive phone calls and emails, or advertising properties without the necessary tools or skills.

Automating Low-ROI Tasks

One of the easiest ways to streamline daily tasks is to use automation for work that yields a low ROI.

Of course, these are just a few suggestions on how to help your team work more efficiently. But if you feel like your employees are spending their time on other work tasks that are not as important to your bottom line (or that they're doing a lot of repetitive work), then do your best to come up with solutions.

You might be able to find ready-made solutions that do a great job. Or you might have to create custom automations with Zapier or IFTTT to reach your desired outcomes.

Utilizing Advanced Automation Solutions

Once you've covered the basics, it's time to look into more advanced solutions to optimize your team's workflow.

Ultimately, just because a work task is complex doesn't mean that it can't be automated (or at least simplified).

For instance, most people expect brands to provide next-level customer service. But let's face it — hiring a great customer service team is expensive, even if you outsource the task.

So, instead of risking the possibility of your prospects' calls not being answered, you can look toward advanced AI-powered solutions instead. For example, Rosie is a 24/7 answering service for realtors and agents that can answer questions about your listings, all the while taking messages from interested leads.

Or, how about using self-scheduling tools to make listing showings easier to handle? You Can Book Me is an app that lets you streamline your calendar. That way, your team can focus on sales instead of wasting time on scheduling tasks.

It's also possible to optimize your workflow with triggers or automations. For example, Dotloop is an automation solution that optimizes transaction management by making it easier to handle, create, sign, share, and store documents.

Additionally, it's worth noting that many of your prospects will begin their shopping journeys with a Google search. So, on top of having a high-ranking website, you also need to ensure that your digital presence performs in a way that establishes your authority and builds trust.

With an AI-powered website builder, you can easily create a beautiful real estate website where you can show off your listings, capture leads, and even publish SEO content. That way, you won't just make it easier for qualified leads to discover your brand and offer. You'll also leave a more positive initial impression, maximizing conversions without spending a fortune on a real estate site.

Onboarding Checklists and Resources

Finally, don't forget that a growing business requires an effective strategy for onboarding new hires.

Ultimately, it's inevitable that you'll have to bring on more people, especially if you're successful with the tactics above. So, don't let your team's productivity drop due to poor training.

Instead, create checklists and resources that new employees can use when learning the ropes of the business. Also, use existing communication channels, like Slack, to design an automatic (and enjoyable) onboarding experience that will set your team up for success.

Final Thoughts

Automation and workflow optimization may seem like complex tasks. But they don't have to be.

By implementing the tactics and tools explored in this article, you're guaranteed to see significant productivity gains. Of course, don't let yourself stop once you've tried all of the strategies described above.

Instead, track your real estate team's performance and do your best to continually optimize their workflows. That way, you'll help them get more things done without upping their work hours. Plus, you'll successfully free up some of their energy for high-value tasks, ultimately boosting your bottom line.