KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The 20% Rule for Maximum Real Estate Productivity

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Summary:This episode introduces the "20% Rule," a time management and productivity strategy for real estate agents. The host explains how dedicating just 20% of your time to the most impactful, income-producing activities can lead to disproportionate results. The discussion is tactical, providing a clear framework for agents to identify their most valuable tasks, eliminate time-wasting activities, and focus on high-leverage actions like lead generation and client follow-up. It's a clear, actionable episode focused on optimizing an agent's daily routine.

You're probably like, Chris, that is like the most basic information that I have ever heard in my life. You're saying, hey, find things you're successful at and do more of it. I get it. But let me ask this question. How often do you boil down the things that you're successful at? How often do you break it down? So you say, oh, wow, I get all of my business here. I get most of my business here.

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Saferight. Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast.

I'm your host Chris Craddick, and I am excited today to talk about a bunch of things, but we always start by understanding that we are going to build wealth. Wealth is when your money works harder than you work, and we've got to be good at what we do so that we can get our money that then can turn into more money and time, freedom. And that's whatever we want to get into real estate for, for freedom, financial gain, and flexibility. And the problem is, if you want all of it all at once, you'll get none of it, but if you slowly but surely grow into the things that you want,

then you can win. So what does that look like? Today we're going to talk about productivity hacks to be able to do way more work and way less time. So number one, and this is a big one, understand the power of a morning routine. Know that your morning will set you up for the whole rest the day. There was the book, Make Your Bed by the Navy Admiral. And he just said that if you start off with a simple active discipline, the next active discipline becomes easier, easier, easier, all the way down until you get to the point that you're doing the right thing over and over again. And you're training yourself to do that. And so having a morning routine, a lot of people wake up when they wake up and they deal with the stuff that comes at them, right? A morning routine says,

No, no, no, I've got a plan for my dad, right? Here's my plan. For me, I wake up, I read my Bible, I work on my goals, I think through the things I need to think through for the day, I go work out, all the different pieces so that I can get through what I'm doing. And then I start making my calls. And again, my calls are not a response to the emails I get. I'm not a response to all the other things.

It's the stuff that I know will make me successful. So I call it my success list. a to-do list because all things on your to-do list are created equally. Taking out the trash is equal to closing a deal. Well, there's a different financial benefit for taking out the trash than there is for closing a deal. So you've got to understand that that will kill you if you treat everything the same. It's called the 80-20 rule or the Pareto principle. 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. So you want to be able to work on that 20% of your effort. And if you want to double your income, you figure out what that 20% of your effort is,

and then you do more of that. So think about it, 80-20. You know, you hold five fingers up, five fingers. That's how many days you have to work, normal work days. And then you look at those work days and you say, okay, one, two, three, four, all right, 20% is just one. So one day a week provides 80% of your income. So let's make the math simple.

let's say you make $100,000 a year. That means 20%, 20%, one day equals 80,000. So if you want to double your income, then all of a sudden you do two days of whatever it was that you were doing, will double, well not quite double, but it'll get you close to doubling your income because you're doing those things. And if you think about it, I can almost promise you in real estate, there are the same things bring you more income.

but for whatever reason we try other things. I was just talking to a friend who owns a business, and he gets all of his business through referral right now. And so he was on the phone with a SEO company. And he said, this SEO company guarantees me that I'll be in the top three. So I should do this. And I don't pay any money unless I'm in the top three. And I said, what's their name?

And he told me their name. And I googled their name. And I'm like, they're not in the first. top three. And he's like, oh, I guess that's telling. I'm like, it's absolutely telling. And you're not doing stuff to supercharge your sphere of influence. So why are you going outside of that? Why don't you double down on the things that's working here? And then you'll double your income there. That was the whole idea is start. And here's the other. So productivity hack one, morning routine. productivity hack to figure out what your 20% is.

What is it that brings you your business? If you're sphere of income based, sphere of influence base, which is your sphere of income as well, if you're sphere of influence based, then you need to say, okay, well, how do I get deals from my SOI? How do I get deals from my sphere of influence? And what you end up doing is saying, okay, these are the things that I do to get,

get deals from my sphere of influence, how do I do more of that? And so how do you do this? You write down where all of the deals came from that you've gotten in the last six months, right? And it's not easy enough to just say, okay, this is from my SOI, this is for my sphere of influence. You have to say, where did it come from? And then you'll recognize, oh, dang, I got four deals from church. or I got four deals from the kids soccer field and then a couple one-offs from here, there, and other places. I was talking to somebody in the grocery store that I hadn't seen in 10 years and that turned into a deal.

Well, that's a one-off, right? Like, what is the one-offs and where can you get more of them? And then all of a sudden you're like, okay. So the soccer field is where I get a lot of deals. Well, what can I do to do more of that? Well, that means like I somehow have influence in where my kids are playing sports. So double down on that. Be more involved there.

Figure out a way that you can, you know, instead of dropping your kid off at sports, go and hang out at practice and talk to parents. Start looking at ways that you can do that or replicate that. Maybe you drop one kid off and go hang out at another kid's practice. well then start hanging out there you look for where the deals come from and I'm telling you we over categorize the reality is they're in please if you're taking notes and I'll tell you I think one of the keys all successful people that I know take notes if you're taking notes right there are riches in the niches right and so if you boil it down to a smaller subset of where your deals come

from you will find that there are riches in the niches so that's what you absolutely need to do is figure out where that is right then next if the 80 20 rule is right like again you're making 80,000 dollars from one day of work if you make 100,000 dollars a year then you start saying okay so now I've maxed out that part of my sphere of influence right the soccer field how do I max out more of the sphere of influence before you start spending money on paid advertising, right? So then you say, okay, well, here's what I'm good at. I'm good at being with people. Well, how do you be with more people? You start setting up events for events a year. If you want, I mean, this is a game plan, right? If your SOI is your deal, then you do four events a year.

And every single day, you set up the event you're going to do for that quarter. Right. So let's say you're renting out a movie theater and you're going to get the big blockbuster movie here in the next couple months. So you rent out a movie theater. You go through everybody that you know in your sphere of influence. I call it my wedding list. Like if you were to get married next weekend and you wanted to have a massive wedding and everybody that you would consider yourself good friends with or decent friends with or people that you like, you would invite to the wedding because money was no object. those are the people that you need to invite. And the whole idea behind it is you call them and here's your script,

hey, we're renting out a movie theater next month. And on this date, we're buying out the theater for this movie. Mention the movie that is the movie. And then just say, hey, we'd love for you to come on us. Now, if they don't, if they're not free or they don't want to come, what they think of is, man, this person just gave me a gift. and the universe is out of balance when somebody gives you something and you don't give something back to them. And so that just makes them want to give you referrals, want to help you all of that.

So those are the things that you're looking at there. Now, what if your production mainly comes, so that's if it comes from SOI, what if it mainly comes from marketing, right? What if it mainly comes from your buying leads? Well, look at wherever you're buying leads, sink, boomtown, realtor.com, Zillow, whatever it is that you're buying leads from, and just say, okay, well, I've got a 10% conversion rate. It costs me X dollars to do this. So if I were to spend, let's say you have a 10% conversion rate and you spend $10,000 a month or $5,000 a month or $2,000 a month, whatever it is, look at how many those convert and as long as it is profitable for you, then you just up your spend by just a little bit.

That's it. You just up it. You just turn the dial and you spend just a little bit more time in that. So you look at the things where you are getting the most bang for your buck, and then you just start turning the dial on those things. That's how we become more productive. You look at where you're getting results. But here's the problem. Here's why we don't.

And you're probably like, Chris, that is like the most basic information that I have ever heard in my life. You're saying, hey, find things you're successful at and do more of it. I get it. But let me ask this question. How often do you boil down the things that you're successful at? How often do you break it down? So you say, oh, wow, I get all of my business here. I get most of my business here.

This is where it comes from. And then you say, okay, let me cut out these things and spend more time on these things. It doesn't happen very often. It's so interesting because I coach a lot of agents, a lot of agents. And what they say over and over and over to me is, hey, Things are good. I'm working really hard. And I say, where's your business coming from?

And they'll tell me. And I'll say, what percentage? And they don't know their percentage. And then I say, in a lot of times, it's sphere of influence, right? Or online leads, right? And so let's just pretend it's sphere of influence. And this is the conversation that I have. Okay, it's sphere of influence.

Okay, cool. So where do you get your deals from your sphere of influence? Oh, just being out and about, okay. well where like break it down like break down all of your deals in the last six months and then they start breaking it down and then they start understanding that there are patterns and i'm just telling you this if you understand this this is all about the productivity hacks if you want to double your income you've got to recognize patterns i love pickleball like my wife makes fun of me because she says it's not a real sport but i love it and so here's the deal and all the pickle all you pickle

haters go, go suck it. It is an awesome sport. But here's the deal. And pickleball, like, this is what I started to think about this in life. It started from pickleball, right? There are certain patterns in pickleball where if you're ready for it, you will capitalize on it and you will win. Here's one of the things. When you're standing like at the net, it's called the kitchen line, when you're standing there, if you go across the court at a strong angle with the ball, the person that you hit the ball to is oftentimes if they're not prepared for it or not great, they're going to hit the ball up for the person right in front of them and that person just has to be ready to slam the ball down. So when you recognize that pattern, you're ready for it and then boom,

game, right? It's almost like a cheat code. Well, the same thing is true in business. When you can start recognizing patterns, okay, when I'm on the field, on the sidelines, this happens. Here was one of the patterns for me and my wife. This was from our sphere of influence. We recognized that whenever we had people over for dinner, like couples one-on-one, we almost always got a referral from them. Almost always. Like it was crazy. Like they almost always sent us a referral. They're like, holy crap, why did that take so many years in the business before we recognize we host somebody for dinner and a referral comes from that. If your average commission is 10 grand, ours is a little bit higher here in the DC area. And so ours is like 15, 20, right? Like, I should be having like eight

dinners a night. Like it's that is, if that's the pattern, you recognize like this is how it rolls. And so you start looking at the patterns and then you say, okay, now I can do more of what's working. But I just thought I was getting referrals. But I didn't recognize having people over for dinner equals a referral, right? It's crazy. It's crazy. So the next piece that I'll say is time blocking your day. And I call it your 211, right?

What is your 211? So at the beginning of your day, you need to. And this should be early because, I mean, there is just study after study that says, if you do things in the morning, you'll have more willpower. So here's the first two. It's prospecting.

your first two hours or your first two hours the day that you're working, you're prospecting, you're bringing in leads. People that are not leads, making them leads. These are not people that have already raised their hand and said, I'm wanting to buy or sell. Or these are people that are saying, I'm just in the universe somewhere and you're bringing them in. So two hours bringing in leads. Now, here's the thing. How often have you ever had a one shot, one kill? Somebody says, think about some of my house in 45 days and you're like sweet let's keep talking about it all right i'm sending you the listing agreement let's let's sign it doesn't really happen very often i've had like maybe two of those happen in my whole career and we've sold now like somewhere between three and

four thousand houses it doesn't happen very often so what is the thing that does happen to help you get there somebody says oh i'm interested then you have a follow up conversation and then or you you set the appointment right then and there if they're like interested sometime in the next 60 to 90 days you set your appointment you get it done and then you go meet with them but then what happens when you go on an appointment and they're not ready to sign yet right you've got follow up and so what happens is you're you bring everybody in that's your two hours every day then you're one hour every day so it's three hours of talking to people minimum and it's If you don't have three hours of talking to people on your schedule, you're probably not talking

to enough people. And my guess is, just going to say it, you're probably not making much money. That's just it. If you want to make more money, talk to more people. So two hours, bringing them in, one hour pushing them through the pipeline. And what happens is, and I promise you, if you've been in business very long, you felt this feeling before where you're like, I've got like so many people that are ready to. write an offer. I've got so many people that are going to do this, but you don't have any business.

And the reason why is you have a clogged pipe, right? Think about a plumber. The plumber is just like, okay, we got to snake the pipe. We've got to get through this. We've got to make this happen. And what the way Hugh act as the plumber to get rid of the clog is you spend an hour every day pushing people through. If I was in my office, I'd pull out my Newton's crick. Every day I do this, right? Every day I take the Newton's Cradle, what you know, it's like the five balls there or six ball, whatever it is, and you take one from the end and let it go, and I go, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. But then here's the thing. After a while, it stops. And so what you've got to recognize is our job, I see my job in life is to add energy to the people in my world. Your job is to add energy to the people in your world and the people

in your world or the client. Because if you don't add energy, it requires somebody else or something else to add energy. And maybe they're super motivated on their own. But I'll tell you, adding momentum, adding urgency, adding energy is how we win. That's how we do it. Right. That's how we went. So with that said, what do we do to add energy? We call them. If they're ready to go, we find a reason to call. Never. Please never ever. ever, ever, ever say you're circling back or you're checking in. If you say you're checking in, just punch yourself in the throat and stop. Don't, don't ever do that.

Like, nobody wants to be checked in with it. I don't want it. Don't ever call me and check in with me. Like, I don't ever want that. No client wants that. They don't want that. What they want is you to, when you call them, they want you to add value to their life. Right.

How do you add value to their life? What you do is you call them in. If they're buyers, say, hey, the interest rates have come down. Hey, did you see that property on one, two, three, Main Street? I know it may not be the perfect fit for you, but man, did you see that kitchen? It is gorgeous. Hey, did you see this? Whatever, whatever is.

Or if they're a seller, hey, I just wanted to let you know. I was just looking at Redfin Data Center and it looks like prices are creeping up or or it looks like days on market are starting to get a little bit longer. If we're going to do this, we probably should do this sooner rather than later, whatever it is, right? Or I was looking at how to his data. I was looking at keeping current matters. And you're calling to add some sort of value to them, something that they wouldn't know. Because if they hang up and just say, okay, they just called to check it.

Now, here's the deal. Calling to say, hey, I'm checking in. It's better than not calling at all 100%. But calling to check in is so much worse than actually calling in adding value. You want them to hang up and think, I am glad that person called me. I am glad they added value to my life. I am glad they helped me. So that is the key.

So productivity hack one, morning routine. Productivity hack two, the Pareto principle. Where do your deals come from? Boil it down, not into big subcategories like sphere of influence and online marketing and referrals from attorneys or something like that. Boil it down to where does my business come from? does it come from the soccer field does it come from whatever it is the band parents does it come from my poet softball team where do your referrals come from and then do more of that and then last is make

sure that every day you have the things that are most important time block two hours and I'm just telling you I beg and plead with you two hours for prospecting one hour for follow-up and one hour the last one I didn't talk about was for admin. Admin is not dollar productive, but it is $100% dollar destructive if you don't do it. So whatever you do, do not skip admin, but also don't make admin longer, longer than the other stuff. If your admin is as long as your follow-up or as as long as you're talking to people, then you have your priorities way out of whack, and I could promise you. Like, this isn't even a question. It's a pattern in life, right? If you're not making enough money, it means you're not talking to enough people and you're probably doing

more thinking than you are doing. It just always is the case. Talk to more people and then do the admin to deal with the people in that order. Bigger than smaller, right? That's the funnel. Okay, that's the deal. Hey, if I can help anybody, please reach out to me at Crowd Rock is my Instagram. I'm happy to help. Also, I am offering a free coaching call for anybody that wants to just talk about leveling up their business. So if anybody's interested in a free coaching call, let me know I'm also going to do a 90-day ramp up for anybody that wants to ramp their business as we're going into summer 90 days and we're going to do a ramp there. So please reach out if I can serve you in any of those ways. And also finally, if you are interested in the agent investor piece and are interested in

gain, our network, global agent investor network, definitely reach. out again via Instagram and I will absolutely personally have a phone call with you about how we can partner together and grow up there. And the next few hours, get out there, talk to people, make business happen, build well. And thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real Estate. Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conversations from Chris, Jeff and other uncommon real estate industry leaders. If you love this podcast, please write us a review and to fast track your real estate career go to chriscratic.com.