Marco Island REALTORS®, Alan and Linda Sandlin, remain in the State’s Top 10 and the Nation’s Top 100 Re/MAX agents, while they trek ever westward, remotely combining business and pleasure from the road! “Staying out of their own way,” framing business plans that embrace their passion, vision and burgeoning technology, comprise their success and make them formidable “Virtual Rainmakers.” Here’s how they do it…
Dear Michael,
As an agent, starting out in 1982, I was doing conventionally well without all the wonderful things everyone now has and uses. My business grew because I was dedicated to knowledge, expertise and service to the customer. Those factors haven’t changed; the way in which we continue to achieve these goals has changed for the better, by readily embracing modern business technology, which, in essence, gives us freedom to more efficiently work the business and enjoy life.
In the mid-90s my husband, Alan, joined me in the real estate business so we could share a career. Two heads were better than one, in our case, because creating a business together merged the best of our individual passions and talents.
Our Five-Year Plans
We came up with (3) five-year-plans, that we maintained, adhered to —and tweaked, when necessary— to this very day.
We were young and enthusiastic so the goal of our first five years was to work as hard as we could to see what we could accomplish. Our second five-year plan qualified us as “Rainmakers” in Howard Brinton’s plan - those people who come up with the ideas, create the systems, make things happen. During this time, we also drew heavily on your own “80/20″ principle, to concentrate on working that 80% core value of our business, including the hiring of other people to do those dollar productive tasks that distract business owners from concentrating on what they do best—which should not include adding toner to the printer or filling the soap dispenser in the restroom!
We are now in our third five-year plan. Living in Marco Island is, indeed, living in paradise; but our love for travel and new experiences become realities; adventures really, because of the business choices we made.
Our Formula for Success
We re-evaluate our business plan each year. In our original vision we thought that we’d probably be looking to retire about now in order to travel and have some down time. What we’ve experienced is that we love the business, want to continue to work it, and still find time to travel.
A major part of that scenario is owed to (my own) acceptance of hiring virtual assistants and to literally carving out periods of time away from the office to re-charge, strategize new ideas and plans and continue to operate our business remotely while enjoying the dreams of our life in traveling.
In fact, as Alan points out, when we’re working from our motor coach, we are one-hundred-percent totally focused on a particular client or project at a time. The atmosphere of freedom more closely allows our expertise to flow, without the day-to-day distractions of being available at or through our office.
What Actually Is A VA?
In some folks’ minds, at least in the past, a VA was someone who couldn’t really compete in the real working world. As we all know, this is nowhere near who and what they are. VAs represent the best of their areas of specialization, often coming from high-powered executive jobs in the corporate and marketing world and/or true entrepreneurs who are independently running their own businesses. When our first marketing manager started her own internet marketing business, we learned first hand that she didn’t have to actually be in the office to do the things she was doing for us, and inadvertently, became our first VA.
Today, our team consists of a full-time listings manager; a full-time closings manager and one in-house marketing manager. In addition, we have several marketing VAs, a communication manager, a weekend manager, a couple of part-time staffers and six partner/buyer specialists. Real estate will always be a hands-on business. But, here again, and with the help of your principles (especially your Mr. Internet’s Online Dominance Training Program), we have hired people to cover our absences, including weekends, so we are not working eighty hours a week and, literally, stop talking about real estate after 8PM!
As Alan says time and time again, “How do you know what you want to be, where you want to go and how to get there if you don’t have a vision? If you don’t know where you want to go, you’re probably not going to get there!” Your message rings true one-hundred-percent of the time. Thank you, Michael.
Sincerely,
Alan and Linda Sandlin
The Sandlin Team has taken virtual assistance one step further by taking their show on the road for four months in a business-equipped motor coach! Ninety-percent of the time they utilize a standard air card, with no transmission problems at all. The remaining ten-percent of the time they may be so remote that they forego communication. They call that “vacation.”
Contact Alan and Linda at:
The Sandlin Team
Re/Max Results Realty
847 N. Collier Blvd.
Marco Island, FL 34145
Direct – 239-389-3200
Toll free – 800-423-2962ext. 3200
Or
Visit their award-winning site at www.MarcoRealtySource.com
