Monday Morning Match is a quick post – maybe a quote, inspirational story or idea – intended to spark some motivation inside each of you so your week gets off to a fantastic start on Monday morning.
It’s Time to Roll Your Coins
Do you keep a change jar in your house? Maybe it’s on your dresser or in your closet or wherever you undress at the end of the day, but it seems that most people have a place to collect all the leftover change that you accumulate each day.
Some days there might be nothing but other days it’s a mixture of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Other days, if you’re like me, it will be paper clips, golf tees, golf ball markers and other assorted items that end up in my pocket throughout the day. Today, as I dumped out my coin jar to wrapped some loose change for spending money on spring break, I found 3 driving range tokens, 2 batting cage tokens, a token from Chuck E. Cheese’s and various foreign coins from Canada, Spain, Greece and some Ukrainian nation. 
I even found a guitar pick which wouldn’t be so strange but I don’t even play the guitar!
After sorting through the pile to assign each coin into their various categories, I then had to count them out and insert them into the coin wrappers in order to bring them to my bank for cash. Pennies here, nickels there. Dimes here, quarters there. I even had 5 half dollars and for some reason I ended up with 13 gold $1 coins. (I think maybe when I was last in Chicago I had to buy a subway ticket and only had a $20 bill?)
I knew the huge German beer stein I collect my coins in was extremely heavy and when I dumped out the coins it was a rather large pile of currency. I just didn’t know how much it was. So I started sorting.
By the time you could finally see my carpet again, I had rolled up close to $100 dollars in coins that will be spent on food, snacks and beer on our drive down to South Florida next week. (Don’t worry, the beer will be purchased once we’re done driving for the day). And while it was always my money to begin with, it sometimes seems like found money they way you find cash in a coat pocket or old purse you haven’t used in a while.
It All Adds Up
What’s the little things that, if you add them together, could really add up?
- Just Listed or Just Sold cards might seem like pennies but after a while, they might have an impact.
- Weekly or bi-weekly conversations with your current clients to keep them updated on what’s happening in the market and with their competition?
- Hand written notes?
- New blog posts about local events or areas of interests or answering frequently asked questions from home buyers or home sellers?
- Phone calls or “pop-bys” to past clients?
- Knocking on the door at the new For Sale By Owner or the recently expired listing?
I know that waiting for business to come to you is easier. Waiting is always easier than exerting the effort to go to something. It’s like waiting until the check gets direct deposited into your account so you can get cash from the ATM machine.
But as you know in real estate, we only earn a paycheck when something closes, which won’t happen until you sell something which can’t occur until you have a client. I’m pretty sure you won’t get any new clients until you’ve had an appointment but in order to schedule an appointment, you’re going to need to talk to people.
Do you have any coin jars within your reach?
- Your data base and sphere of influence?
- All your past clients?
- Open house visitors? For Sale by Owners? Expired listings?
- Social media connections and contacts?
I can almost guarantee you that there’s more money sitting in those jars that you can imagine.
What are you waiting for? Start building relationships, solving problems and having fun.
It won’t cost you much. Just a little spare change.
Photo Credit: Derek Gavey
Photo Credit: Sean Carpenter via Camera+