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Measure twice, Cut once...A Master Craftsman's Guide to Professional Sales

By
Managing Real Estate Broker with Howard Hanna Real Estate Services

Measure twive, cut once...that was always the advice I heard when ever I tried to build something. And it is very good advive for almost anything we do in life. Loosly interpreted it says to me, "think carefully before you make an important decision that might be hard or even impossible to change." You could also interpret to say "If you want to know what to do next, measure for what you want to accomplish."

We do that all the time in our business, in fact that is something I bore you all with the most...Goals and Measures.

The First Quarter results are now in and you need to know how you did so far this year, so that you'll know what to do next. Here in Central PA quarterly sales results historically run in a normal bell curve for the year: Q1 20%, Q2 30%, Q3 30%, Q4 20%.  How does your firast quarter hold up to that curve based on your goals for the year? With the Tax incentive program inserted into the beautiful spring we have been having here, your results might just be closer to 23% or 24% of your yearly goal.

So as you meaure twivce, look at what you did to get where you are now, and what you could do to get where you want to be. If your year is falling short, what can you do this summer that you haven't done - or haven't done well? Did you have an effective plan to get listings from FSBOS, Expireds, your farm? Did you have an effective plan to get those listings sold with Open Houses, neighborhood marketing, social networking, and immediately responding to inquiries?

Now's a good time to take a good look at all you do and see if there's something missing from your list, something ineffective you could improve or drop, and what did work well you should do more often.

Make your list and if you like share it with me and I'll give it a seond look!

Go and make it a great day,

Jim

Tom Priester
Paradise Sharks - Jupiter, FL
Paradise Sharks

Jim, following that old carpentry adage is truly a good rule for anything we do. Very good post.

May 19, 2010 12:37 AM
Michael J. Perry
KW Elite - Lancaster, PA
Lancaster, PA Relo Specialist

Jim, This year's first quarter was beefer because of the tax incentives where we pushed home sales forward ! I once monitored 250 Century 21 offices in PA.(and about 4,000 agents) and for a 9 year period they did 15.3% of their annual income in the first quarter !

May 19, 2010 01:55 AM
Jim Gainer
Howard Hanna Real Estate Services - Hershey, PA

Tom, glad you liked it. I initially thought the analogy might be too far out there, theat was my childhood as the son of a very skilled mechanic and carpenter.

 

Michael, thanks for the numbers from your organization. I was also figuring lower than the 20% our local MLS runs at. Much like yours I'll bet ours is much steeper this time of year. I have seen some business planning models look more like 15, 35, 40 10. But that curve always makes me think I should quit working in November because the market slows. And I never liked that kind of thinking. I believe the market is what you make it to be for yourself...good or bad.

Thanks

Jim

May 21, 2010 01:26 AM