The Morning Routine That Turns Agents Into Top Producers

By Chris Craddock

Chris Craddock is a seasoned Realtor, real estate investor, and entrepreneur with over two decades of industry expertise since 2001.

You can be busy from the moment you wake up and still not move your business an inch. I lived in that trap for years. Back in high school, I was always the last one to go to bed, and somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that was when I did my best work.

I just spent the weekend with a couple of my old high school mentors, and we got to talking about how much my schedule has flipped. These days, I’m the first one up. One thing more than one mentor has told me over the years stuck with me: almost nobody who is massively successful stays up late and sleeps in. Maybe a rock star can pull it off, but that’s not our job in real estate.

Busy doesn’t mean you’re productive. Here’s the trap with being a good salesperson. We are really good at selling ourselves on our own BS. I used to tell myself I was more creative at night, that I had fewer distractions, that I had too much going on during the day. It sounded reasonable every time I said it. When I actually looked at what I was getting done, though, I was never as productive as I wanted to be.

When I started waking up early, everything I cared about most began to get taken care of. Working out got easier because it happened in the morning instead of getting pushed to before lunch, then after lunch, then after the kids went to bed, then to tomorrow.

I’m a Christian, so I read my Bible first thing because that relationship matters to me. I play pickleball every morning because I love it. By the time I sit down to work, I’ve already prepared for the day, and I’m ready to go.

Treat your business like a sport. One of the agents on our team came to me recently after hearing me speak on stage. She laughed and said she’s heard me say the same things in our team huddles a hundred times, but this was the first time she actually listened.

She was an all-American in field hockey, and she told me something that stuck with me. If she had treated field hockey the way she was treating her real estate business, she never would have made all-American.

Think about how she used to run her days. Roll out of bed, roll into the office, figure out what to do once she got there, and then play whack-a-mole with whatever came at her. Now think about how she used to prepare for a game. She hydrated the night before, woke up early, went over the game plan, stretched, and got a sweat going before the whistle ever blew, so she was ready the second it did.

Why intention separates top producers. So she started running her business the same way. She showed up early, got herself ready, and organized her call list so she knew exactly who she was calling and what she was doing before the day got loud. Here’s the part that gets me. This is someone who once had to borrow $75 from her sister just to buy running shoes and borrow money to fix her car. Today, she consistently closes between 60 and 80 transactions a year.

She’s in the top 1% and makes more than many professional athletes. None of that happened because she found a secret. It happened because she started treating her business with intention, by design instead of by default, the same way she treated her sport.

If you’ve been running around all day, busy but never productive, the fix is simpler than you think. Get the most important things in place first thing in the morning, knock those out first because that’s the work that actually grows your business, and watch how the rest of your day falls into line.

Book a Call with us, email us at ChrisCraddock@ChrisCraddockLeadership.com, or visit chriscraddockleadership.com. We’d love to help you build a day that turns you into a top producer.