Is there really any point to having a marketing plan?
Having been around this see-saw industry for just a few years less than blogger extraordinaire, Lenn Harley, I have seen more failed attempts at developing a meaningful, achievable and profitable plan than not. New and experienced agents, with the encouragement of their broker, start each year with a laundry list of all the proactive steps, mailings, networking ideas, calls, web sites, lead generation contracts, farming and the myriad of other ways to generate business. Plan lengths I have seen have varied from one page, to, literally, more than 75 pages.
Too often, however, well-intentioned brokers and agents get so caught up in developing the plan and systems to implement, that they lose sight of what is most important – doing the actual business of real estate – working with buyers and sellers. In their technologically sophisticated, erudite projections, they move away from the basics, immerse themselves in tracking all the required plan steps, input hundreds and thousands of data items in expensive industry software and, oftentimes, just barely make ends meet - if they do meet - after staff, marketing and overhead expenses are factored in.
There are many reasons that more than 90% of the agents leave this business every four or five years, but mostly, it’s because they have more expenses than clients. It really is true that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, but – there is a balance. Yes, you have to have a plan and, just as important, a budget that you will stick to. I will never forget a conversation I had with a high income earner and successful agent back in 1990. Every January, he would take his wife to their favorite restaurant to celebrate his success for the previous year. After dessert, he would pull out a small notepad and write down three things: the amount of money he wanted to earn, the number listings he needed to take and, the number of buyers he wanted to work with over the next year. Those were his goals.
He then took a second sheet of paper and wrote down the steps he would take – every day – to meet his goals. That was his business plan. To this day, he continues to average between $175,000 to $200,000 per year, has one part-time assistant to do the paperwork, no expensive software (just uses Excel to track his business and expenses), no buyer/seller lead generation contracts, no team or other significant overhead expenses and, is very content with his business and income generated.
There are truly as many different ways to do this business as there are Realtors. You have to decide what the nature of your business will be and what level of consistent daily effort you are willing to put into it to succeed. So, do you really need to have a marketing plan? I think if you have measureable goals, a budget, personal discipline and a commitment to consistently apply yourself daily - in prospecting and providing quality service - the rest will follow.
What do you do best that helps you to succeed? If you have a marketing plan, what are the three most important elements? What is the best advice you could give someone just starting the business?
Dave Rosenmarkle
Broker Owner
Highland Realty
Arlington, VA
703-538-2566
www.HighlandAgents.com
davidrose@mris.com
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