Small creative shifts can help build wealth

Josh Linkner’s directive to Realtors® was clear: Stop waiting for the perfect plan. Start testing small creative ideas that can grow your business and build wealth over time.

During the closing session of Florida Realtors®’ Wealth Building Summit, the entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author urged real estate professionals to question familiar routines, try unexpected approaches and adjust quickly when something doesn’t work. He framed creativity as a way to create more opportunity within a business and expand the wealth it can produce.

“We can no longer simply rely on the models of the past and expect the same outcome,” Linkner said.

Creativity doesn’t have to mean reinventing an entire business. Linkner said it can take the form of small changes in how Realtors serve customers, get deals done, pursue listings or recruit talent.

“The research is clear: If you are breathing, you are creative,” Linkner said.

Four ways to think differently

Linkner offered four principles Realtors can put to work:

• Start before you’re ready. Waiting for a perfect plan or ideal connections can allow an opportunity to slip away. Begin, then figure it out and adjust as you go.
• Break it to fix it. Don’t wait until a process stops working before reconsidering it. Linkner recommended a “judo flip”: Look at how something has traditionally been done, then ask what the opposite approach might look like.
• Seek the unexpected. Keep a “to-test list” alongside the usual to-do list. Write down ideas, including unusual ones, and regularly choose one to try. Before settling for options A, B or C, look for what Linkner calls “option X.”
• Fall seven times, stand eight. Treat a setback as a chance to learn, adjust and try again. “Confidence is knowing how to bounce back,” Linkner said.

Small changes can add up

Linkner pointed to the Savannah Bananas as an example. The organization transformed a struggling minor-league baseball team by rethinking familiar traditions and making the fan experience more entertaining. Its success didn’t come from one enormous breakthrough, he said, but from many small creative decisions.

For Realtors, he said, the same principle means focusing closely on the experience created for customers. Small, low-cost experiments can show whether a new approach works before it is used more widely.

“The best innovators are the best experimenters. The best Realtors are the best experimenters,” Linkner said.

Periods of change may be uncomfortable, but they also create openings for people willing to adapt.

“More often than not, wealth is created in periods of change, and no one can argue we’re not in a period of change,” Linkner said.

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