We’ve discussed the importance of replacing old undesirable habits with new more productive habits.  The habit of “drilling down by focusing your efforts one inch wide and a mile deep,” along with the concept of ISIT, is a critical step to realizing your potential.  Consider professions like medicine where most practicing doctors have become specialists.  This narrow focus allows a doctor to develop the highest level of competence.  That’s the benefit.  This type of intense focus leads to great success.  For example, if you needed heart surgery, compare the quality of care you’d get from a cardiologist with the care that you’d get from a general surgeon.  The general surgeon has nowhere near the experience or level of skill with heart issues that the cardiologist does.

Now apply the drilling down principle to real estate.  Consider the following flaws to the approaches used by most agents that violate the concept of “an inch wide and a mile deep.”

1. Instead of focusing on very specific neighborhoods or types of businesses, an agent chooses to take listings all over town.  The agent that focuses on one neighborhood or development, is able to give a much higher level of service because he knows everything about that market, while the agent that’s spending their time all over knows just a little bit about everything and can’t compete with the specialist in that one neighborhood.
2. An agent is contacted by 50 buyers and tries to juggle them all instead of selecting the best and spending quality time with just a few buyers (80/20 rule). Most agents try to handle too many clients because they fear the one that they give up is the one that will buy.  The limited amount of quality time that the agent with too many buyers can spend preparing and representing a buyer is insufficient to provide the high level of service that results in success.  Consider the agent that chooses buyers very carefully.  Not only is he able to provide a high level of service, this agent also becomes high skilled at selecting the right buyers.
3. Most agents spend their time completing as many tasks as possible in any given day without regard to which tasks are more important.  These agents typically will spend a great deal of time on less important tasks because they are easier to get done and check off the list.  At the end of the day, the tasks that don’t get done are usually the high priority tasks.  The successful agent will prioritize their daily to-do’s and complete the most important money making tasks, such as prospecting, first.  Like the other agents, the successful agent usually has tasks that weren’t completed at the end of the day, but these tasks were less important and the income reflects the same.

Keep in mind that we start everyday with personal and professional responsibilities that take us in the wrong direction, a mile wide (FORBES goals).  Being accountable for responsibilities in a variety of areas is a daunting task.  You become highly inefficient when you also go a mile wide in one area of your life, such as your business.  By nature we all try to cover as much ground as possible without taking adequate time to plan our activities.  Whether it’s your farm, your clients, your prospecting, or your personal life, learn to focus on the most important “inch wide” and then go down a “mile deep.”