3 Ways How Real Estate Brokers Manage the Busy Season

There is a thing in real estate called spring fever. Spring fever typically happens sometime in early to mid-May and runs till mid-to-late June, and it usually lasts about four to five weeks. Quite frankly, it is the killer of real estate agent, team leader, and brokerage owners’ businesses — entire career aspirations.

What happens is you see an entirely different shift in all of their behaviors. It doesn’t matter if you’re an agent, a brokerage owner, or a team leader — anyone in those three categories goes through different levels of spring fever. And spring fever that happens in this one magic month towards the end of spring is culminated from a time management problem, really, from a tactical point of view.

You have graduations coming up, vacations taken in June erroneously — which should always be taken in July and August. You have kids’ school schedules shifting dramatically from school to summer. You have different activities they’re going into, childcare issues. All of those things change at the same time while business is now flooding in.

Because in May and June you’re writing and closing contracts, whereas in July and August you’re typically just closing. So what happens is they all get so amazingly busy they make rash decisions, and they give up on their goals, their dreams, any efforts they’re trying to make to generate business.

They cut costs because they don’t have time for it anyway. What ends up happening is they make these heightened decisions, and the anxiety that runs through people is contagious. It spreads. Their leadership teams feel the anxiety. The agents feel the anxiety.

Everyone’s going to be acting like they’re overworked. They’re going to come into the office — everyone on the team, everyone in the leadership team — and they’re going to feel it. So many people leave companies at this time. So many people want to get fired. So many people make pay changes, because no one had the conversation about spring fever.

They have to realize this will end. Right now we struck oil, and we have to hurry up and get buckets. It won’t be like this forever, and maybe next year we’ll make these changes. But right now we’ve got to deal with it. So we have to frame the mindset to calm the organization. If you don’t do this, people are making huge career decisions and hiring and firing decisions.

It’s the worst time to hire and fire. You have no time to deal with the drama from the fallout, to deal with a proper hiring process right now. It’s spring fever time. It’s like an accountant in March or April taking a bunch of vacations, or firing somebody, or hiring someone new. You don’t do it then. I don’t think real estate agents understand that May and June is the witching hour. It’s the time where they have to be focused.

Here’s how you focus. It comes down to time management. Because what every person does when spring fever happens is they start problem-solving with operations. They become operations experts. Their whole calendar every week during spring is dealing with business that has already come in. They’re just solving problems in closings, solving problems with their efficiency, solving problems with their onboarding, solving problems with their personnel. All they’re doing is putting out fires, and they completely lose track of anything that has to do with their goals — which is growth.

So we talk about a concept called big rocks, and big rocks is something that every person needs to remember. It was developed by Stephen Covey, the godfather of productivity and time management. I recommend everyone go on YouTube and search “Stephen Covey big rocks.” What you’ll see is a video that was originally black and white, about 10 minutes long, where he explains the big rocks concept. Your homework, whoever’s watching this, is to watch that video. I don’t know how you’re in business without having watched it. It’s probably the most important video for real estate time management on the planet.

I want to know what your big rocks are, and those need to be in your calendar. For an agent, that’s lead generation, listing appointments, negotiating contracts, and possibly showing buyers if you’re still doing it. For a team leader, it’s listing appointments and — most importantly — recruiting. It’s never been an easier time to recruit. You can go into your MLS database and find the agents that don’t have a lot pending right now — those are your targets. They’re the only ones looking to make changes. The high producers are very hard to connect with right now because everyone’s got spring fever.

For broker-owners, recruiting is number one. Recruiting talent for your leadership team to solve all those problems you’ve got with your overworked leadership team. You have to be in relationship-building mode when you’re a leader of a team or a broker — because through recruiting and relationship building with people outside your organization, that’s how you’re going to meet talent.

So those big rocks need to be in our calendars as non-negotiables. What I do with the people I’m coaching is I say, “Let’s look at your calendar this week.” And they all say, “I have no time.” Everyone says they have no time. But time management is a skill development. The most successful people in this industry have time management challenges too. It takes a good coach or a good leader to sit down and say, “What are the things you’re supposed to be doing that are the most important to you?” Those should be growth activities — things that move you toward your goals. And then I ask: where do those show up in your calendar every single day?

Everything else — let the fires burn. Don’t fall back into operations. Let your team handle what they’re supposed to handle. If they fail, they’ll become coachable. If you take this time — which is the most productive time to focus on operations — you’re going over a school of fish in the spring with no poles in the water. We have to develop the skill to continue to grow even when you’re busy.

People want to achieve big dreams and big goals. But they don’t realize they have to change themselves to get there. You’re asking yourself to become a different person. It’s not just knowledge of what to do. You’re going to have to develop a skill set. You’re going to have to change who you are to become that person. And the only way to do that is to actually continue to grow and focus on your big rocks through the busy season. Then you’ll see where the leaks are outside of the big rocks. Then you’ll know what to fix.

Stephen Covey explains it with two large glass cylinders. One he fills with sand first — that sand represents all your operational tasks. Then he tries to add the big rocks: lead generation, listing appointments, prospecting. They don’t fit. But in the second cylinder, he puts the big rocks in first, and the sand fills in around them. Everything fits.

That’s what happens if you let all your operational stuff fill your calendar by default — like you wake up every morning and respond to all of your emails, all of your texts, and handle every problem as it comes in. You get through your day and feel like you worked hard. But you did nothing on your goals. You just dealt with other people’s problems.

A leader handles their calendar by design, not default. They put the big rocks in first, let the fires burn around them, and then the sand fits around the big rocks. Everything gets done. It’s a much more highly efficient approach, because a lot of those fires solve themselves, or can be handled at different times with different senses of urgency.

That takes real self-discipline — to not answer the phone when a seller who has a closing today is calling, and you’re focused on making your five lead generation calls. To finish those calls first, then call them back. That takes discipline. But here’s how I know it’s possible for every one of you: would you answer that phone call if you were in a listing appointment? No. You would not. So it’s possible.

If you want to grow to a high level of service, you’re going to have to learn discipline along the way. That’s why something like 20% of agents do 80–90% of the business. They’ve learned business habits. They’ve developed business acumen. The rest are followers.

So you have to have these skill sets, and they’re hard to develop. That’s why, as a leader, the first thing you have to do is set the stage. Name it. Tell your people: this is spring fever. This is the time where we finally get to test our leadership abilities. We have to continue to grow through this and develop the skills and habits around it.

Tell your team: your goals from January still matter. We are going to stay focused on them. Please don’t make big changes right now. The change needs to come from within. We’ll revisit structure and systems in the off-season. This is the challenge — it’s hard, but it’s how you respond to it that matters.

Usually, we’re asking questions and using self-discovery to coach. This is one of those times you stop and take 10 minutes and set the frame. Explain what the issue is. Normalize it. Tell them: we see this across the country at every level of production. What you’re experiencing is normal. And then ask them to go spread that message to their people.

They spread good medicine — not anxiety medicine. You tell them, they go to their people and repeat it. Maybe they even share the Stephen Covey Big Rocks video. That’s what needs to happen — it needs to spread the good message that it’s okay, here’s what you can do to solve the problem, and we’re all in this together.

Because if you take your big rocks, if you stay on your goals, if you grow through this season — this is our chance to operate at this level all year long. An agent who sells 15 transactions a year is not the same agent who sells 35. They have to be completely different people. They have to learn different habits, different skill sets.

So I hope this helps frame the conversation to stop the madness that happens every spring. I don’t think you can share this enough. It’s hard, but you have to stay on your goals. This is your challenge. Please spread the word.