What you truly value places you in one of these four quadrants.
Employee:
It isn't money that is the
driving force for employees, it is security. The security of a pay check.
However, of the four quadrants the least secure is the employee. They do not
own their job, are at the mercy of the employer, and could be terminated for
any number of reasons, fair or unfair.
Self Employed:
It isn't money that is the
driving force for Self Employed, it is control. The Self Employed are by nature
perfectionists, no one can do it as well as they. They are the ultimate control
freaks. When they hire employees, they do not try to hire someone who would be
capable of taking over and running the business. They fear that someone might
take what they know, and go in business competing with them. Long hours await
them there. Where the business owns them, rather than owning the business, is
the norm.
Business Owner:
It isn't money that is their
driving force, though normally they make much more than either of our two on
the left side of the quadrant. Their driving force is systems. What they are
most interested in is creating systems that will run their businesses when they
aren't there. When the Business Owner hires employees, he/she will try to hire
someone who is smarter in an area. The Business Owner needs employees who can
be trusted to do what they are hired to do, can run the systems they have been
hired to run. This way, the Business Owner can step away and start up something
else.
There is a story of a town
that needed water. The townspeople took bids on someone to bring water up over
the big hill between the river and town. One guy took the bid to carry water in
buckets, he started right away, hired several others to help carry buckets and
immediately they had a business carrying water. His competitor seemed to
disappear for a year as he got bids from engineers and construction firms to
build a pipeline and aqueduct. He allowed his competitor to carry water
until he opened the pipe and started collecting his checks. The one who had
been carrying it had to find another job. That is the difference between
self-employed and business owner. The self employed water carrier laughed at
his competitor for losing out on all the business and money, until the business
owner's system took all the business away.
Investor:
Investors make money with money.
They do not have to work, because their money is working for them. The
"I" quadrant is the playground of the rich. Regardless of which
quadrant people make their money, if they hope someday to be rich, they
ultimately must come to the "I" quadrant. It is there that money
becomes converted to wealth.
When I read this book I
finally understood what made me tick. I was a passionate Self Employed
person, the product of several generations of Self Employed people. So
relinquishing control is why I could never actually become
"Interdependent." I was always grabbing things back from those I was
trying to train, because I knew I could do it better and quicker myself. Does
that sound familiar to you? Fortunately, after reading this book, I took a
position managing 15 different new home sales representatives in 20 communities
over 7 counties. It quickly became clear that I couldn't be in every location
at every minute. I had to force myself to learn to develop systems, train my
people on the systems, and empower them to succeed. It was painful at first,
but it truly works.
Are you, as a REALTOR or
other commissioned sales person, trying to do it all? Or are you becoming
Interdependent and using a team of some sort to make you better?
I was speaking with an agent with
another firm over lunch the other day. She told me what she had planned to do
over the next couple of days. She had to go to a sign company to design and
order signs, she needed to pick up those signs and place several of them at a
large commercial property, along with several other projects. None of the items
on her “to-do” were face-to-face with a client. She estimated these tasks would
take her around 12 hours to complete. Even if you consider her productive time
at a very low value of $500/hour, that is $6,000 in time lost. How much is
your time worth to you?
How can you as an Agent
operate as a Business Owner and not be consumed as a Self Employed?
What we offer our agents are
systems. Our agent can take advantage of any that fit their business model and
ignore those that don't.
At RE/MAX Ability Plus we realize
that we work FOR our agents. This mindset allows our agents to focus their
time on productive activities and provide services to better their business.
Systems they take advantage of:
1. A full-time marketing
department to assist with all their marketing needs.
2. A wide array of automated
systems that will send clients follow up cards, emails, gifts, etc.
3. An in-house courier that will
deliver anything (earnest money, for example), whenever, wherever they need it
delivered.
4. A completely integrated
paperless system, so that they don’t have to run around to chase paperwork or
signatures.
5. A showing agent program. They
can hire an experienced agent to show properties for them, go to a closing, do
an open house, etc. for only $40/hour.
6. A fully mobile Intranet
platform to give them full access to everything at their fingertips.
Dozens and dozens of systems
well beyond these, creating a smorgasbord of opportunities for agents to move
away from the time-controlling and income-restricting Self Employed quadrant
and into the life changing Business Owner quadrant.
What quadrant are you? If not the
Business Owner, how do you plan to make that jump?
More time, more money await. Start
making a life instead of simply making a living.
