Oh these famous words.  You might have heard this from other real estate professionals in your area.  Maybe, these words even crept into the back of your mind when you didn’t quite hit your goals for the month.  It almost makes you think that you should go back to the “old ways” because the blog is just taking up too much of your time.

I have heard this from agents all over the country.  From many in the market in which we operate, Long Beach, and even throughout the many cities in which we have had the pleasure of teaching Internet marketing.  The general consensus is that blogging “sounds nice” and “I see how it could work” but…I just don’t have the time.   So instead of going over a detailed blog on time blocking and time management, I thought I might bring up some of the other common tasks that we, as real estate professionals, tend to make time for you and you can decide if you REALLY do have time to blog.

  • Open House

    • Time: 5 hours each open house
    • Tasks: Setting up and picking up signs for 1-2 hours.  Waiting at open house hoping that people will come by.  A good open house can return 20-30 people through a day and hopefully you pick up 2-6 contacts
    • Benefits: It’s free  to host and just takes an initial investment in signs.  Using your own signs at least “brands” you as the local agent.  Putting out a good number of signs (12-16) could mean an initial start bill of $800 or more.
    • Negatives: You often get “skunked”.  No one shows up because there was something else better to do around town.  5 hours wasted with no contacts.  You have to be present to convert because that is the only way you get the leads.

  • Cold Calling

    • Time: 3-4 Hours daily
    • Tasks: Grab a phone book or list of numbers from your favorite title officer and and start calling. A good cold caller will make 100-300+ calls a day and hopefully get a return of 20 contacts.
    • Benefits: Only cost is the cost of the call so if it’s local, it’s probably free.
    • Negatives: Dealing with people that have no interest in speaking with you. There is no leverage as your skill on the phone is the one that counts.

  • Door Knocking

    • Time: 3-4 hours daily
    • Tasks: Walking from door to door in a focused neighborhood to find out who has a need for real estate help.
    • Benefits: A great free task.  You are only out your time that you spend and you are able to put your “face” in the neighborhood so they know who their local help is.
    • Negatives: Takes a long time to build up awareness that you are there to help.   Time consuming task that you can’t delegate. 

So is your blog really taking too much time? Blogging and working on your real estate website are some of the tasks that can leverage your time the most.  An average blog post of 250-400 words only takes about 30 minutes (depending on how fast you type :) ).

Your blog posts and web pages live on long after you hit the “publish” button.  They live on as long as you pay your server bill, but your impression from a cold call lasts about as long as it took you to hang up the phone. 

So how does blogging compare?

  • Open House- Even on a blog’s worst day it still pulls a few visitors through the door and you didn’t have to great anybody or put out any signs!
  • Cold Calling - Don’t have to deal with anyone that is angry on your blog.  The worst you might encounter would be an angry comment and you can easily delete that.
  • Door Knocking- I haven’t seen any bloggers wear their shoes thin.  In fact bloggers are able to get their “face” out in the neighborhood by just putting their picture in the bio section of their blog.

Maybe, just maybe, you do have time to blog.  Compared with some of the traditional tasks of real estate professionals it takes less time and lives on long past that initial impression.  Focusing on your blog and real estate website may sometimes feel like it takes “too much time” but remember the benefits you get day in and day out.

To your success online.

If you want to jump start your success in blogging, use try our real estate blogging system.  No guessing involved, just practical information to make sure you succeed from the time you start.

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