For those of you conducting a lease purchase business (or any other business), the first thing for you to do each morning is to check your goals. How many calls are you to make, how many contacts, articles, etc. Your goals will depend on where you are in your business - just starting, in business for a year, two years, etc.

The next thing to do for those in lease purchasing or any other business is to check your calendar for the day, and to check your tickler file. Depending on what is on your calendar and in your tickler file will determine what else you will be doing for the day. Let's assume you don't have any appointments scheduled. Your tickler file is empty, other than for your To Do list.

Next you check any e-mail you have received and answer it. Answer any snail mail from the previous day. For those of you operating a lease purchase business, next, be sure you have enough newspapers with sellers to call, otherwise go through the next one in your stack. The same goes for your FSBO sites on line (if you already have a list to call from fine, if not, go to the FSBO sites and pull down the information you need to make calls). Once this is done, start calling (be sure to follow your script and leave the appropriate message).

After you are done calling, send out any follow up information you need to. Be sure after calling to update your databases.

Next you want to do some reading in your area, both on and off-line. Don't forget you can do some of this during your lunch break. Also be sure to visit on-line groups that relate to your business.

Be sure to check e-mail again in the afternoon and respond if necessary.

At the end of the day, straighten out your desk, do your To Do list for the next day, check your tickler file, and add any appointments to your calendar.

Depending upon when your mail is delivered, you will need to deal with this also. Open and respond to any snail mail, or put it in mail folders to deal with later or the next day. If you use a mail box you will need to schedule this in during the day. Decide if you need to go daily or a couple times a week.

In addition, for accounting and deposits, I do this on a weekly basis, however, others might feel more comfortable dealing with it daily.

Also for those of you with merchant accounts, it is best to run your credit cards in batches and then batch out at the end of the day.

For items purchased that I e-mail out, I do that during down times, after work hours, lunch time, break times. For items that need to be mailed, I schedule two post office runs each week. You waste too much time going every day. For those of you running a mail order business, you might want to look into services that come to your home for pick-up or use a service that goes to the post office for you.

For those of you in the lease purchase business, the above is just part of what you need to do each day. What I mean is if you are in the middle of a deal you will also have to schedule time for credit checks, showing the property, and calls from tenant buyers. With good time management and organization skills it can be done. We do it every day, plus a whole lot more. While some days we might concentrate on coaching or consulting, other days we will concentrate on writing or research. However, we get it all done with time to spare, How? Organization and time management....plus a lot of years of practice.

So, don't get discouraged, persevere and some day you will be in the same place we are.

Copyright 2002 DeFiore Enterprises