Your Business Is Only as Healthy as You Are

Many real estate professionals have trouble prioritizing fitness within their already busy schedules. Maybe that’s because fitness, while a worthy personal goal, is thought of as a competing interest that takes time away from their business. Who has time to fit in a 30-minute workout when you’re working more than eight hours a day doing listing appointments, showings, marketing, and the like?

What you have to start thinking about is how fitness actually relates to your business and can improve your bottom line. Presentation matters in real estate, and we’re talking about more than how you deliver data to your clients. How you present yourself matters just as much, and fitness can greatly improve your image.

It’s much more than how you look; it’s a matter of energy levels. If you can’t bring it with your attitude and enthusiasm, your productivity will falter. People with healthier eating habits are 25 percent more likely to display high performance on the job, and people who exercise at least 30 minutes three times a week see a 15 percent performance bump, surveys show.

It’s also a matter of confidence. It’s not hard to see how fitness can be a self-esteem booster. When you’re actively working to improve how you look and feel, you paint a better picture of yourself for the outside world. And it’s not just an issue of how you feel about yourself; it’s also about how others perceive you. Selling anything — especially a big purchase like a home — is largely an issue of selling yourself as a competent salesperson.

Self-assurance sparks sales. Regimented exercise trickles down to improve yours, from your posture to your speech and the energy you give off. And we all know that confidence is key to a sale. When it’s apparent that your health and fitness matter to you, clients notice and find it inspiring. That positive perception is vastly useful when it comes to building a relationship for a sale.

Workouts Practitioners Should Focus On

How can real estate professionals work exercise into a busy schedule? It’s a two-part process: Find the time, then develop an effective routine. Some have the zeal to get up at the crack of dawn and get in a workout before the day starts. For others, their energy peaks toward the end of the day, so they’d rather save the workout for after work. The point is to do what’s best for you.

Once you find time for fitness, it’s all a matter of developing an effective full-body regimen. Here are four areas to focus on:

1. Strengthen your base. A home is only as good as the solid foundation that can bear its load. If you’re on your feet all day, make sure your base is up to the task. Perform lower-body exercises like a bodyweight squat or lunge. Both help increase the mobility of the ankles, knees, and hips, and maintain the stability of the torso. Try doing squats while filling up at the gas pump.
2. Train up top. The upper body is best worked out with pushing or pulling motions. Classic pushups are a good bet here, though some people find them to be too challenging, especially if they’re new to exercising. In that case, place your hands on a desk or bench and do an elevated pushup, which shifts your bodyweight toward your feet and makes it easier to get in more reps. Shoulders and arms play a big part in the presentation of the property, so getting them in game shape can improve the overall demonstration.
3. Craft your core. This section is the central connection between the upper and lower body, meaning it’s what’s holding you together during a particularly long showing day. If you need to hit your torso and hips, one great workout is the trunk rotation. Lay on your back, and put your arms out in a T to provide yourself with stability. Then, raise your legs to a 90-degree angle and move them to the left and then the right, back and forth. The key is to make the motion by twisting your torso, not moving your legs. This causes tension all throughout your core.
4. Keep upright. Finally, you need an activity that forces you to work on your balance and stability. This kind of ties everything together, especially if you don’t want to tip over and fall going up or down a flight of stairs. Balance exercises can be low intensity, like yoga or single-leg balance challenges, or on the higher-intensity end like circuits of skipping, shuffling, or sprinting.

In the end, there’s an equation to all of this. Working out each part of your body equals improved fitness, which bolsters energy, confidence, and positive client perception. All of that equals a sale — call it the math of healthy realty. The bottom line: If you can learn how to fit exercise into your day, you’ll be fitting more commissions into your bank account.