Your Authority Is Only As Good As Your Systems

I’m on my realtor’s email list—not the kind where they send you articles about painting your porch, but one with listings in my price range and the features I’m searching for.

If you think about it from a realtor’s perspective, this is an easy and focused way to stay in touch with their potential buyers.

We tell them what we want, they program it in (they all use the MLS in some form) and even if we hear from them three times a day, it’s welcomed information that gets them closer to a sale.

So when my realtor moved to another agency (remember realtors run their own businesses, no matter their agency affiliation), I figured the emails might look a little different.

Instead, they just stopped coming.

So I checked in (question: how likely are your clients to check in if they suddenly stopped hearing from you?).

He said they had problems with their system and he’d get it fixed. I wasn’t terribly worried about it, but I didn’t like feeling disconnected to what was happening in my local market.

After a month with no change, I reached out again—he seemed as frustrated as I was and an hour later, I was back in his old system.

His new agency was still fumbling and rather than lose a client, he took matters into his own hands.

Which leads me to my point: your authority is only as good as your systems.

And when they break—which let’s face it they will at some point—your authority and your revenue may well be on the line.

Oh and by systems, I don’t just mean the electronic kind—any procedures you follow that touch your sales, marketing and serving of clients fall into this bucket.

Your systems either contribute to your authority or take away from it.

So think about every organized effort you make on behalf of your business and ask yourself a few questions:

Does this system match both my brand of authority AND how my clients/audience want to work with me? Take a simple thing like calendar software. It’s mostly a no-brainer to choose one, but if you don’t program it correctly and manage the underlying schedule accordingly, you’ll have some explaining to do when you have to rebook appointments.

Do I have an early warning system in place so when this thing malfunctions, I will know about it? My realtor already knew he had a problem, which reinforced his authority in my mind. But not all systems are quite so obvious—it’s pretty easy to miss a problem in automated email sequences for example, which is why you want to ask yourself the next question.

How will I test or confirm that my systems are operational AND consistent with my authority? This is a tougher one because we don’t always know what we don’t know. Pulling in specialists helps especially on continuing to evolve your systems: I use my VA to be on the look-out for things that don’t make sense and we both bring in periodic experts whose brain we pick for ideas.

Clients and buyers equate the smooth operation of your business to an enjoyable experience working with you.

Which means that any touch points where you can eliminate friction for your sweet-spot will make you an even more attractive choice.

p.s. Like what you see here? Head on up to that orange bar to sign up pronto and I’ll deliver my weekly insights directly to your in-box.