Real Estate Business Planning: 6 KEYS to Yearly Planning For Real Estate Agents
6 keys to planning your year!
If you're a solo real estate agent and business planning has just failed you, It's complicated, It's overwhelming. It's a day, it's two days, it's three days away from your business and from your life. And you come away with this stack of things that you never look at again, this for you!
1. Aim Direction, Not Destination
Some big problems with goal setting is we have a tendency that when we're about to hit our goal, we let up on it or we hit the goal and we're kind of like, well, what now? I hit it. What am I supposed to do?
It can be unsatisfying. Maybe in that moment for a split second, you rejoice, you're enjoying it. But then the next day you're kind of like, “Oh, I guess I need some new goals ” and you're kind of right back to where you started. Where am I supposed to go now? Or maybe worst of all, you don't hit your goal, and it's super demotivating.
So there are just some inherent problems with focusing on the destination instead of making the direction you're focused. Don't get too worried about the specifics of things. Just think about an aim, a direction that you want to go.
2. See The Light
If you have a goal that is so giant, that's so big that your runway, your tunnel, it's so deep and it's so dark that you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Most days, the majority of the time you're going to be questioning in your head…
Is this worth it?
Can I get there?
What's going on?
I like to set goals where I can always see the light at the end of the tunnel, resulting in quick, early, and usually easy wets. You don't want it to always be super easy. You want to be able to stretch and do some things there, but you also want to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
3. Top-down Priorities and Middle-out Scheduling
“The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
As you're going through your business planning and your goal setting for this year, are you focused on data, on metrics, on numbers on dollars? Or are you focused on the people and the moments, in time with them and what you can do to better yourself.
With top-down priorities, we start with people at the top. We focus on personal things and then projects are at the very bottom. So as you go through and you're planning out your year, who are the people that you want to focus on and the next year? Where are the things that you want to get better at? Who do you need to become in order to achieve the goals that you're setting out to?
And then finally plug in the projects after all those other things.
4. Get Momentum and Keep Momentum
We like to have 2 plans for everything. One plan for getting momentum, another plan for how do we keep that momentum once we get it.
It's really hard to get momentum.
It's really easy to lose momentum.
And the reason why most real estate agents are on this roller coaster, or what feels like a roller coaster of production, is because we do these things. We ramp up, we do what we have to do to get momentum going. So we're posting a lot, we're calling a lot, we're making all the contacts, we're having the conversations, we're doing all of our lead follow-up. But those activities are not sustainable once we do have appointments, once we do have clients.
If we're packing all of these lead generation marketing, business development activities into our day, and now we actually have a client or we have a transaction that we have to manage, we can't maintain that. So have two plans as you go throughout your year.
You don't have to do this, but if you want to level out your production and be able to keep momentum, do it so you can get off this roller coaster ride. Have a plan on what you need to do to get momentum. Most of us have that, but do you have a plan in order to keep momentum once you get momentum?
5. Structure and Flow
I've talked about this a lot. If you've watched any of my videos, you've probably heard me talk about this.
I believe as a real estate agent, we have to operate with complete structure in our day. We can't just be really random about what we do. We can't just wake up and go, well, what should I do today?
By the way, if you're doing that, if one of the first thoughts of your day is what should I do today? I can promise you that you're going to have a super unproductive day. So you have to operate from structure.
And at the same time, you have to be willing to completely go with the flow. And there's a dichotomy to that. There's a yin and yang. You have to be 100% structured and also be able to go with the flow. A lot of agents aren't structured, they go with the flow and they're bouncing around pin bowling.
If they're not working with the clients that they have, then they're pin bowling and bouncing around from idea to idea, strategy to strategy, webinar to masterclass, downloading PDFs over here, and watching YouTube videos over there. But if you operate with complete structure, you may make the mistake of a client contacting you or a lead asking you for information, and you may become annoyed or frustrated as a result.
Now, some of you might be laughing, but for some of you, I know you feel this way. You're like, “I'm working on this project right now; leave me alone.” However, those clients, leads, and people are what make up your business or will make you successful.
So yes, you're operating from structure, but once a lead contact you, a prospect contacts you, it's time to focus on them and be able to go with the flow.
6. Ignore the Peripheral
Like a horse at a racetrack, they have those blinders on. Once you have your plan for the year, once you have your goals set and maybe it's just an action plan for 90 days, that's why I actually encouraged not planning for the entire year, just the short little sprints, because remember, we want to be able to see the light once you know what you want to accomplish and you know what you have to do to accomplish those things it's time to ignore everything else that's trying to distract you from the outside.
Another way that I say that is focused on the now, not next. So many of us are going around gathering and collecting. We're basically hoarders of ideas, and we're thinking, "Oh, that's a nice idea, once I get to this level, I'll implement that. Once this happens, then I can do this thing.”
Well, that's what's coming next. And if you're not doing what you need to do now, you're never going to get to the next. And you're always going to feel stuck. You're always going to feel frustrated. So once you know, ignore the peripheral focus on the now not the next.
Here’s 4 things you can do right now:
1. LEADS (GET TO 6 FIGURES): PROGRAMS & COURSES
2. LEVEL UP (GET 6 FIGURES+ ): COACHING
3. LEVEL UP ACCELERATOR: ONE DAY DEEP DIVE
4. LEVERAGE (TIME BACK FOR 6+, 7 FIGURES): LET DARIN DO IT