This week I’ve been juggling quite a few different parts of my life, and it got me thinking about how I can achieve more in each area without having to wait for someone to invent a time machine. The answer is to be found in others – using other people’s time and expertise to advance my own goals. I do this on house refurbishment projects – while technically I could clean, decorate and fix stuff, it doesn’t make sense as it’d take me months to finish each house and the jobs wouldn’t be done to a professional level. They’d be ok, but because these aren’t the things that I do all day ever day, I’m not an expert at them. So I employ cleaners, decorators, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, plasterers, loads of lovely people who help me to provide expert overall services to my clients and allow me to complete many more properties than I could alone.
And I feel that asking for expert help when selling your house is something every owner needs to do so that they stand at least half a chance of getting it sold quickly and moving on without being stressed out to the max. You’re probably going to employ an estate agent and a solicitor to take care of those details for you, but who have you got casting an objective, professional, impersonal eye over your property before it hits the market to make sure you stand the best chance of selling quickly and for the price you want? Are you spending your valuable time trying to sort out presentation issues or maintenance items?
When you’re trying to sell a house, you’re most likely trying to fit this disruptive, stressful activity around all the other things that fill up your life already – your family and your job may start to suffer, and you’ll probably be waving goodbye to your social life. Better to ask for help – get an expert to give you a straight-forward, no-nonsense list of improvements that should be made to the house so it beats the competition. And use that expert’s tried and tested list of contacts to get the work done, while you carry on doing what you’re expert at.
When it comes to thinking about how much you’ll pay for this expert help, think about it this way: what value would you put on an hour of your own time? An hour spent with your children, partner or friends, or an hour working at your own job. Do you really want to be spending those valuable hours cleaning, or trying to fix the leaky tap? Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. Plus the experts are likely to get it done in half the time it’ll take you. Trust me – I’m a control freak and even I have realised I can’t do it all!! And remember this one truth: there will always be more money, but you can never have more time.
Go easy on yourself, and ask for help – you’ll be very glad you did.