A FOCUS Strategy for Estate Agents

A FOCUS Strategy for Estate Agents Image

I have a coaching client at the moment – a very successful four office owner from Kent – who can’t wait to use the techniques and strategies I’m sharing with him in his business.

There’s just one problem – he wants to do them all.  Right now.

As estate agents, we like shiny new things, right? I certainly do.  The latest tech, the hot new trend, the newest style website. We want them all, and we want them now.

It’s not our fault; we’re made that way. 

 We’re salespeople,  and that means we love the thrill of the deal, and the roller coaster ride that goes along with it. After all, who in their right mind would run a business where we do all the work months (or longer) before we take a single penny from our clients, and where even then, only around 75% of deals will come off??

So if you want to implement all your new ideas, immediately, you’re not alone.  Trouble is, you can’t. Well, not successfully, at least.  You’ll get overwhelmed, frustrated and burned out before you’ve managed to implement everything. I know this, because I’ve been there, lots of times.  I too felt overwhelm at all the exciting new ideas I wanted to apply to my business, and ended up with a lot of half-baked, half-finished, poorly-executed initiatives, most of which just didn’t work.

Then someone told me about this acronym:

F – follow

O – one

C – course

U – until

S – successful

It made a lot of sense.  So I reined in all but one of my ideas, putting all the rest of them on a list called ‘Backburner’. Then, I divided up the campaign or project into several smaller steps, and put them in the best order for implementation.  I printed out a calendar and wrote each step on a date that represented a realistic timeframe to get it done, and a final delivery date for the entire project.

Then I worked on it until it was finished. Without looking at any of the other shiny ideas on my Backburner list.

And it worked!

My tactic was to work on each project first thing every morning, for at least an hour or two, before opening any email or switching the phone on.  Perhaps you’d prefer saving a couple of hours at the end of each day, or taking a whole day every week to work on your current project, maybe from home, to avoid work distractions.  Whatever works for you is fine, just so long as you actually set aside the time to do it. Otherwise, as we both know, it will become sidelined amongst all the detritus of your working day.

Are you going to try it? Let me know in the comments; I’d love to hear from you.

What to read next: Is Your Diary Running Your Business? 

What to do next: Do you get my Supertips? They’re jam-packed full of great tips and marketing strategies just like this one, and best still – they’re free! Get yours here -> www.samashdown.co.uk/samsupertips

Speak to Sam: If you’d like to know how I think you could improve your marketing, just answer a few short questions here and I’ll tell you if and how you could be more effective.

Sam Ashdown

Sam is an industry-renowned marketing strategist to estate agents. She helps agents grow and flourish, using her unique smart marketing techniques and strategies. Sam works with agents throughout the UK to help them gain more valuations, win more instructions and sell more properties.

You May Also Enjoy

Breaking News

Prime London property stock falls 3.4% in Q3

The latest Prime Central London Stock Index by Benham and Reeves has revealed that the number of properties listed for sale at £2m or above fell by -3.4% during the third quarter of 2026, leaving 3,778 prime homes on the market. While Kensington, Notting Hill and Chelsea recorded modest increases in available stock, several established prime…
Read More →
Estate Agent Talk

When a chain breaks: how bridging can keep a sale moving

Every agent knows the call. A buyer further down the chain has pulled out or their mortgage has stalled, and a sale you have worked on for months is about to fall apart. Often the person caught in the middle could still buy if they did not have to wait for their own sale. That…
Read More →
Breaking News

Four in ten homes see asking price reduced

More than four in ten homes currently listed for sale across England have already seen their asking price reduced, according to the latest market analysis by eXp UK, with the number of reduced properties climbing by 3.6% since August. eXp UK analysed property listings across England to establish how many have undergone an asking-price reduction.…
Read More →
Breaking News

Breaking Property News 19/10/26

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.   Last week Sourced Living began rolling out Genifea across its branches, the platform’s first commercial CRM integration. By Author Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR Andrew Stanton spoke to founder Pragati Dhingra about what the Genifea platform actually does, where AI fits in an estate agency,…
Read More →
Breaking News

Mixed signals in UK construction as contract awards rise, but starts fall

Detailed planning approvals declined 16% against the preceding three months and fell 28% lower than last year, a warning sign for future work. Main contract awards dropped 19% against the last three months but climbed 25% year-on-year, a sign that major schemes are being committed. Project starts took the steepest fall, declining 26% against the…
Read More →
Estate Agent Talk

Estate Agents Brace for Rising Compliance Costs

Nearly two-thirds of compliance leaders in estate agencies and property firms expect budgets to increase amid growing pressures Just 6% expect cuts, down from 31% last year, while 63% now work weekly overtime on AML The majority of senior compliance professionals in UK property firms and estate agents expect their budgets and teams to grow…
Read More →