Need Workflow Optimization and Delegation tips? Retail broker
Hi everyone, I work as a retail broker and I honestly always feel swamped. I’ve been working 12+ hr days most days and I have completely sacrificed everything in my life for this job over the past 3 years. 

I know that some of my tasks could be more efficient, but I don’t know where to start. We have an intern who is very quick learning- but new to the industry, (and doesn’t have a license) so I don’t know what to delegate to them. 

If any of you have struggled with this before- what has helped you the most? What is a trick or tip or software you wish you had been using earlier?
[{"id": "ipbop4z", "text": "Work with people who make money and cut out the losers. Retail brokers tend to have a million listings and a lot of them are trash. \n\nDon\u2019t work harder, work smarter. Cut out the shit that is a waste of time. You can\u2019t make money in the ghetto.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ipc3rpr", "text": "Pay attention to the little things that take up a lot of time, document how you handle them (Loom, Slab, Google docs &amp; screenshots, etc...), delegate to someone else.\n\nDon't delegate your high, dollar productive tasks.\n\nCreate email templates for common responses (follow up, scheduling, thank you's, etc...) and, if possible, pick times of day when you check email, and stay out of the inbox outside of those times.\n\nSet up a document/file management system (I like Hazel), to make de-cluttering and organizing near automatic.\n\nSpeaking from experience, 80% of what you're spending time on isn't highest and best use of your time.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ipc8evz", "text": "If you are three years in, working 12 hour days, and feel swamped all the time, you are 100% doing something wrong. At that point you should be making enough to have a full time assistant, if not a full time junior agent. Don't mean this in a cruel way, but you definitely need to reevaluate. What does your standard day look like?", "replies": [{"id": "ipf97zi", "text": "I\u2019m seven years into a brokerage career having worked at multiple top tier firms, started at Marcus and now at CBRE.  \n\nYou are absolutely wrong. He gave a little detail in a generally poor description of his current situation, however if you\u2019re a retail broker in commercial real estate there\u2019s no way in hell that you\u2019ve been able to break into the industry and start building a team without prior experience.\n\nKid, whoever you are, you\u2019re doing fine.  Breaking into CRE is a brutal head fuck.  Keep pushing.  Eliminate the tasks that do not generate income.  Create easily repeatable marketing practices for getting your name out there. And be sharp son.  \n\nHow many cold calls did you make today?", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ipd9wx4", "text": "Where you work? I do retail", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ipf78lw", "text": "I can help you. Themarktomas@gmail.com  I work with top producers and automate their processes. Save you a ton of time cheaply.  I\u2019m very good at what I do.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ipfj8dt", "text": "Ugh. Interns put you in a rough spot. Are you sharing the intern? I'm assuming this intern ends in Dec so any time invested in them will need to be repeated with the next hire. \n\nThis is why interns end up getting grunt work that can be done by a high school student. \n\nFigure out what their skill set is. Can they help you identify cold calling leads? Can they put together marketing materials? Can they organize files on your computer or office you keep putting off since it is a half day project? Can they pull rent and sales comps. \n\nDump as much work on them as they can competently do and save you some time after factoring in your review of their work to ensure it is to your expectations.\n\nPersonal work process changes include blocking out your schedule and prioritize focusing on calls that generate business. I did commercial real estate sales and spent 5 hours making calls starting my day on the west coast and started calling the east coast then lunch break, followed by 2 hours working on offering memorandums, then follow up emails and calls, and finally closing out my day with more work on offering memorandums or pitch books for clients on a typical 12 hour day. Most important was making all those calls and responding to emails to generate new business. Next was maintaining and executing on existing business. Finally was reading business articles to identify sales transactions to use as a excuse to talk to clients about or identify potential new clients.\n\nI worked with a company that had their own custom built database that could filter variables such as . I'm seeing more recently that companies are using Salesforce, but depending on your employment agreement I would try to keep your contacts in your own personal database to be able to keep them outside of your current company. Key variables to track are conversation notes, last call, last call connection, properties owned, loan maturity (for sales and refinance business).", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]