Five F’*k Ups I’ve Made Which Might Help Estate Agents
It was my little girl’s fifth birthday party on Saturday.
Lots of kids singing Frozen songs, jam sandwiches, Wotsits and making tea for mums and dads who all seemed pretty glad that their kids were being entertained for a couple of hours.
We had family down from London so the entire weekend was a busy one.
I always enjoy visitors to our house but I also really enjoy waving them adios and getting back to normal.
I always find birthdays a great time to reflect on how life’s going and indeed so far gone. My 45th is coming up later this month.
So I did a bit of reflection yesterday evening as I drove to Birmingham for a training course.
During the three and a half hour journey it came to me that I’ve learned from my mistakes a lot more than my successes.
Below are five that sprung to mind – after that I was ‘reflected’ out and just wanted to listen to a blast of the Wu Tang Clan to wake me up on the M40.
Here they are and hopefully there might be something among them that helps you avoid making these mistakes.
And if like that smug shite Robbie Williams you’re someone who declares ‘I’ve no regrets’ (eejit) I wouldn’t bother reading on. Cheers.
Going Cheap – Whenever a project hasn’t gone well it seems that common thread was that I tried to do things on the cheap. Employing a web designer whose quote was cheapest but ended up costing me more is one example. The flipside is not charging my worth on projects at the start of my career. The cheap end of any market is THE worst place to have a stall.
Facebook – Both cock up and now opportunity. I wished I embraced the power of Facebook advertising earlier – it’s an absolute winner! But it’s never too late and today’s course I’m on in Birmingham is actually on this topic. If I knew how powerful Facebook is and will continue to be I’d have put a chunk of my money on buying its shares when it originally floated on the stock market. They were undervalued.
Caring – Not in the sense of wishing I’d been a cold hearted bastard. Not at all. I still care deeply for people I care about and always try to do the right thing. But for too many years I cared what people, who didn’t even really matter to me, thought about me. Now I’m in a phase of my life where as long as I’m being honest and myself I couldn’t give a flying, sitting, jumping or even somersaulting fuck what anyone thinks. The people who don’t like your style / tone will never be clients / friends anyway so why worry?
Use Dropbox – Or any other cloud storage device for that matter. I learned the hard way when a laptop broke and wiped out around a year’s worth of articles. Technology can make a positive difference in so many areas.
Wasting Time – This is the big one and the area which I’m currently a little obsessed about. I wasted most of my time between 20 – 39 years-old if I’m brutally honest. Drinking too much, planning too little and ‘dabbling’ rather than committing fully.
It may be the early rumblings of my mid life crisis but I now really get how precious time is. My focus is now fully on the things that really matter – my family and friends, growing my business, doing the best I can for my clients and looking after my health.
The rest is all side dressing. Now before starting any project or piece of work the question I ask myself is simple – If I do this is it going to get closer to my goals?
And I’ve also began using a technique of blocking out 90 minutes a day to spend exclusively on things that can win me more clients or sell more of my services and products.
I’d love to know what have been your biggest cock ups.
Thanks for reading and here’s to your next instruction.
Jerry
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