Real estate professionals don't have the luxury of hours to spend business planning. But, all of us know we should do it: make a business plan. In fact, with things changing so fast, it's more important than ever.
Having helped thousands of managers, owners, and agents create plans, I've found an easy method to make that plan in no time. In fact, my internationally published book on business planning sprang from my need (sometimes even desperation!) to get the agents in my real estate office to write a practical plan.
Here are the first two steps. I'll give you the other two steps in a later blog (so you have time to work on these first two steps).
1. Gather and analyze the important numbers. Gather last year's numbers so you can analyze them quickly.
For owners/managers, these numbers should include the results that most greatly impact on your profitability: (You may have some other favorites. Feel free to analyze them):
• Number of recruits
• Net number of agents (how good were your recruiting and retention efforts?)
• Number of listings taken
• Number of listings sold
• Ratio of listings taken to listings sold
• Number of sales
• Balance/ratio of number of sales to listings sold
• Expenses (what's higher than your budget for the year? What's out of balance with your income and profitability? What can you change?)
For agents: Analyze
• Best sources of leads/worst sources
• Most money spent/least money
• Listings sold vs. sales
• Listings taken vs. listings sold
Ask yourself: Have I been spending time and money on my best pay-offs-or doing the activities that ‘hide me' from actually interacting with potential buyers and sellers?
Cross's ‘Spring Ahead' Action Planning Approach
Just with that first step, you almost have the action part of your business plan done! I call this the ‘spring ahead' approach. You analyze what happened, and immediately start writing your next year's action plan.
For owners/managers, it helps you decide on
Your recruiting plan for next year
Your retention plan for next year
Your training plan for listings next year
Your coaching plan for each agent (balance of listings sold and sales?) (productivity)
For agents, it helps you decide on where to spend your time and money next year-with greatest confidence. (and what not to do just because some 'guru' suggests it....)
2. Impact. What did you do differently last year that positively impacted your results? What did you differently that negatively impacted your results?
Answering these impact questions gives you great hints as to the action steps you should take next year. This really helps you when you go to all those ‘guru' seminars that tell you what to do and when to do it. Instead of trying everything, now you can put those suggestions into context for what you want to accomplish.
In my next blog, I'll give you the next two steps.
Make it Easy on Yourself to Get it Done
Grab a planning system that has the ‘flow chart' of thinking through your plan done for you. Use the ‘templates' that make covering the right bases a sure thing. Don't try to reinvent the wheel! That will take you too much time, and you may miss an important piece of information to spring ahead to your action plan.
Resources for You
Join me on Oct. 29 for my webinar for NAR's Learning Library: Not Your Grammy's Business Plan. I take you through these four steps, and, if you're watching it ‘live', I'll provide you some detailed planning pages from my planning resources. Or, you can 'tune in' and watch the recorded version later.
For a comprehensive business planning system, with fill-in forms for each part of your plan, plus audio coaching from me, see The Business Planning System for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder at www.carlacross.com.
Forms, process and audio coaching for analyzing and planning available for agents, too. See The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional.
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