Archive for Business planning
Three Strategies to Get Your Agents to Create Business Plans
Posted by: | CommentsIn November and December, I’m focusing on business planning, to help you and your agents get a great business plan for next year. Look for checklists, processes, and systems ready to use, too.
I know it’s a lot of work to get your agents to commit to paper on anything. And, from working with thousands of agents on business planning over the years, I know the challenges. But, for us managers, the huge pay-off comes not from what’s on paper, what, what’s in the head. When we use a good business planning process we literally teach agents how to think through their businesses.
Three Huge Stealth Strategies
1. Take Away Commitment Phobia
It’s estimated we are told ‘no’ 148,000 times prior to age eighteen. No wonder we don’t want to commit to try anything! I know from teaching adults to play the piano, that adults are conditioned not to try anything new for fear of not being perfect. To many, writing a business plan means planning to fail—and then getting punished for it.
So, the first time you introduce business planning, take away the old downside of goal setting (not reaching it and getting punished), and help your agents move in incremental steps forward—a step at a time, with lots of positive reinforcement along the way. You have to create a safe haven for first-time planners.
2. Eat the Elephant a Bite at a Time
One of the agents in an office where I just did a small group coaching series told me he put a picture of an elephant on the wall, and then literally divided the elephant into bite-sized pieces, with an action step listed on each bite. What a wonderful visual! For many of your agents, planning is just the most overwhelming process they could envision. So, simply start with one or two areas. Personally, I start with 2-3 areas in the Review. See my next blog for an example of this.
3. Make it Really Easy to Start
Have a great business planning system to provide your agents. (Never just ask them to make a business plan without a system to follow, because you’ll get all kinds of formats). Don’t overwhelm your agents with too many planning pages to start. Customize your package with each agent. If you can get each agent to look at 1-3 areas of his business, and plan change strategies for a better year in that area, you’ll have started the process—a process that will continue, grow, and reap big benefits by year three.
We Do What We See, Not What We are Told
Do you have a business plan? If not, why should your agents be interested ? Making your ‘stealth’ approach work means you must lead by example. Doing so creates a synergy between your plan and all the agents’ plans, and builds a strength that perseveres even in the toughest market.
What should be in an agent’s business planning system? Click here to see a ‘flow chart’.
Complimentary Webinar for Managers
If you’re stumped as to how to get your agents to create business plans, you need to attend this webinar. If you want more teamwork and loyalty, you need to tune in. I’ll show you how I got 100% of my agents to write good business plans, and how I used those plans to coach and consult all year, building my office to #1 in a 19 office company–the strongest company at that time in the Northwest.
Managers: Get Every Agent to Build a Business Plan–and Build a Great office Plan
When: Dec. 1
Time: 1-2 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Space is limited, so register now. Click here to register.
Can You Pass the Business Plan Exam?
Posted by: | CommentsIn these posts, I’m focusing on business planning, so you will have the information to create a great plan for 2012. Watch for ready to use checklists, systems, and processes, too. Check out Up and Running in 30 Days, for your agents, too.
What should a business plan do for you? Appease your owner? (I’ve been there, so I know….) Or, should it actually provide you specific, day-to-day guidance about what to do to make your business thrive? If you’re a practical person like me, you don’t like to do ‘busy work’. You and I believe, then, that a business plan should have a practical application for every day of your business.
Take this quick ‘exam’ to see how your business plan stacks up: (and give it to your agents so they can check their plans, too).
1. By going through your process of business planning, you get the ‘vision’ and mission principles to make the positioning, marketing, hiring, and termination decisions right for your particular business. T F
Got that vision? Few business plans start with vision. This causes huge problems when real estate professionals try to implement—such as implementing a marketing plan. A potential coaching client told me she ‘wasn’t very good at marketing’, and wondered how to get better. You can’t become a great marketer unless you have a very clear vision of who you are and where you expect your journey to take you. It all starts with a crystal clear idea of your vision, mission, and positioning in the market. Your business plan should contain these very important statements. Then, when you design an institutional marketing plan, you’ll be able execute your thoughts and feelings visually.
If your vision and mission aren’t well defined in your business plan, you simply have no solid foundation to make those tough leadership decisions.
2. Your business plan starts with reviewing and researching the past year in all your business areas. T F
Have you really reviewed your situation? If your planning ‘template’ doesn’t lead you through the analysis of key business statistics, you simply don’t know what happened. So, you can’t possibly make decisions for next year, because you don’t know whether to do it, stop doing it, or start doing something differently!
Example: In your office, what percent of your listings sold within normal market time? What was the percent of list price to sale price? Few business planning templates ask you to grab these statistics and analyze them. Yet, these are the statistics that directly point you to your strategies and tactics for the coming year.
3. Does your business plan have an ‘action plan’ area, so you can translate your yearly and monthly goals into daily actions—and actually schedule these actions? T F
No action plan means you just wasted a lot of time: I have seen so many business plans that only played on the ‘results’ playing field. Writing down the results you want are great, but if your plan doesn’t get down to where the rubber meets the road, (what you need to do daily), you simply are doing an exercise. In other words, you have to get past the ‘what’ and get to the ‘how’ and ‘how much’.
For example: You may say you want to increase your ‘sold’ listings by 25% in the coming year. How are you going to do that? Here are some possibilities for your action plan:
Through recruiting: Hire 12 listing agents that have demonstrated they list properties that sell quickly. That’s 1 per month. That’s 5 interviews per month. That’s 100 recruiting calls per month. Now, you can break that into weeks and days.
Through training: After researching each agent’s numbers of listings and listings to sold ratios, you are going to create and implement a high accountability training program to teach your agents the skills of successful listing. You will put your training series, which will be a series of four classes, presented 3 times a year, on a training calendar to hold yourself accountable to do them. (And, a calendar is a great recruiting tool).
4. Does your plan consist of integrated, ready-to-follow systems so you can delegate?
T F
Ever thought your systems WERE your plan? Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited, says that a business plan consists of the integration of your systems. Most managers and agents feel they are working too many hours. They want to be able to delegate specific duties. But, without systems and processes in place, delegation is impossible.
Is your Business Salable?
Pretend you wanted to sell me your business. I walk into your office. What systems do I see? What systems can I buy from you, so I don’t have to ‘reinvent the wheel’? What systems do you have that integrate and reflect your values in the overall way you do your business? If you don’t have systems in place that I can readily take over, I might as well start my own company!
How did you do on the ‘exam’? Here’s your opportunity to think through your business at a much deeper, more meaningful level. Doing so will re-motivate you, re-ignite your passion, and provide you some solid answers for next year.
Click here for an overview of what a leadership planning system should contain.
Complimentary Webinar for Managers
If you’re stumped as to how to get your agents to create business plans, you need to attend this webinar. If you want more teamwork and loyalty, you need to tune in. I’ll show you how I got 100% of my agents to write good business plans, and how I used those plans to coach and consult all year, building my office to #1 in a 19 office company–the strongest company at that time in the Northwest.
Managers: Get Every Agent to Build a Business Plan–and Build a Great office Plan
When: Dec. 1
Time: 1-2 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Space is limited, so register now. Click here to register.
Free webinar for your agents: I’ve got a free webinar, too, for your agents: On Nov. 29, I’ll show your agents how to create a great plan, and how to put the three major trends of next year into their plans. Register your agents now. Space is limited.
Are You Making These 5 Planning Mistakes?
Posted by: | CommentsDuring November and December, I’m writing business planning blogs to help you create great plans with your agents. Check these blogs, too, for checklists, processes, and systems ready to use. For your agents: Check out Up and Running in 30 Days, my blog for your associates.
As you make your business plan, avoid the common mistakes that many real estate professionals make. Here they are:
MISTAKE #1
Betting on a business plan that’s only about 1/4 of a plan. Many of us write down our goals. Yet, that’s not a business plan. That’s just one part of the business plan. There are six parts to a real business plan:
a. Your vision-what do you have as an “end in mind”?
b. Your review-what happened last year?
c. Your mission-what are you about?
d. Your goals-expressed in the best terms for profitability today
e. Your action plan in each of 6 areas.
f. A method to measure your results.
Which parts do you include? What would your outcomes be if you thought through your business, covering all the bases?
Click here to see the ‘flow chart’ of a manager’s business planning system (excerpted from The Business Planning System for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder).
MISTAKE #2
Ignoring the importance of ‘revenue units’ (sales and listings sold). Unfortunately, when we write our goals, we like to use those great million dollar numbers and measurements like market share. Yet, setting goals for revenue units assures that you keep your eye “on the ball”-homes sold, which make you money. There’s another huge benefit to focusing on revenue units: You can then integrate your agents’ plans with your office plan.
MISTAKE #3
Not doing a thorough review (or not doing a review at all). Looking back on your last year is so important, because it gives you the “hints” you need to write your best action plan for the next year. I think it also solves the problem of the manager trying to figure out what to do next.
For example: It’s amazing that brokers don’t know one of their most important numbers for profitability: percent of listings taken to listings sold. You may be wasting many dollars in marketing homes that won’t sell-no matter what you do. Also, your agents become unmotivated and depressed when their listings don’t sell. Knowing this ratio gives you direction for your training and coaching for the coming year. Create a higher ratio and you’ll be able to use it to recruit, too.
MISTAKE #4
Writing the plan ‘in a vacuum.’ Almost always, brokers sit down to torture themselves by writing a business plan in a room with the doors shut and no windows. But, they don’t know yet what their agents want to accomplish for the next year. The right way to plan is this: First, help each of your agents create a business plan. The sum of your agents’ goals should form the foundation for your goals. After all, your agents’ efforts should be reflected in your revenue unit goals, shouldn’t they? Yet, very few brokers even help their agents write business plans. So, they can’t really get good projections of what they think their agents will produce in the next year.
If you do assist your agents in their planning processes, you will have a much better foundation for a realistic business plan of your own. (That also means you should be consulting your agents on their business plans in November, so you’ll have all their plans together as you start creating your office plan).
MISTAKE #5
Not creating specific action plans in each of the action plan areas. Michael Gerber, a spectacular “guru” for small businesses, says “the integration of your systems is your business plan.”
In other words, if you have a real business plan, I should be able to read it, come into your office on any day, and see how you’re carrying out your business plan in recruiting, selecting, training, coaching, and marketing. You would be able to delegate many of your duties, too, because you had specific action plans for each of these areas. You would be able to measure your progress at any given point. Further, if you have created action plans that are systems, someone would be willing to buy your company from you, giving you a very attractive price! (That’s what Gerber terms “franchising.”)
Get Ahead of the Curve
If you don’t have a business plan, there’s still time to get one done. Just by thinking through your business, you’ll be ahead of 95% of your competing brokers! If you want to make more money, gain time, delegate more to others, open another office, or create an office that’s saleable, it all starts with thinking through your business, getting it down on paper, and attaching systems to each of your action plan areas. Now, you’ve got something you can run, you can delegate, and you can sell.
FREE Managers’ Business Planning Webinar
If you’re stumped as to how to get your agents to create business plans, you need to attend this webinar. If you want more teamwork and loyalty, you need to tune in. I’ll show you how I got 100% of my agents to write good business plans, and how I used those plans to coach and consult all year, building my office to #1 in a 19 office company–the strongest company at that time in the Northwest.
Complimentary Webinar
Managers: Get Every Agent to Build a Business Plan–and Build a Great office Plan
When: Dec. 1
Time: 1-2 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Space is limited, so register now. Click here to register.
Free webinar for your agents: I’ve got a free webinar, too, for your agents: On Nov. 29, I’ll show your agents how to create a great plan, and how to put the three major trends of next year into their plans. Register your agents now. Space is limited.
Business Planning: Review your Systems BEFORE You Create That Plan
Posted by: | CommentsIn these posts in November and December, I’ll be featuring business planning strategies. Watch for checklists, processes, and systems--ready to use, too. I want to help you create a great business plan for next year!
See my systems checklist in the body of this blog.
Michael Gerber, the small business guru, stated that, “The integration of your systems is your business plan.” Wow! So, if I came to your office and asked to see your systems, what would you show me?
Are you trying to run your office (and probably sell real estate, too), without systems? Most managers are. That’s costing you lots of time, money, and frustration. So, now’s a great time to get those systems in place, so you can have an integrated, workable business plan. Here’s the process:
1. Create systems to manage processes through change
2. Choose methods (including technology) to manage these systems
Let’s talk about the systems first. Good agents today have systems for each process they manage. For example, an agent has a listing process system, which includes the materials, packages, and checklists to manage the process. With those systems, agents can not only the manage the process, they can delegate the right activities to their assistants.
See Up and Running in 30 Days, my blog for agents, for a blog directed to them about their systems. Why not subscribe your agents to this blog. I’ll provide coaching and training for them to save you time and be more profitable.
Don’t want to forget to invite you and your agents to a free business planning webinar for your agents, Nov. 29, 1-2 PM PST.
Systems: The Agent’s—and Yours
Think about the systems, processes, and checklists you, as manager, recommend that your agent create to accomplish the critical tasks, or activities, in his business. Now, compare that with the tasks you, as manager, have to accomplish in your position as “people” manager. Work from the tasks to systems to manage these tasks. To prioritize the systems you want to develop, first:
1. List the tasks you do as manager. Now, list the parallel the tasks agents do.
An example: A critical task an agent does is lead generate. Good agents have systematized that process into a marketing plan, complete with specific tactics, dates, and budget. Managers must lead generate, too. They lead generate for agents.
Does your prospecting (recruiting) plan for agents resemble that of your best agent’s marketing plan? Is it as systematized? Does it have the materials, time frames, budgets, and delegations that good agents have in their plans?
2. Now, prioritize your tasks as they relate to accomplishing your main objectives. What are the most important tasks you do as manager to assure your office makes a profit?
An example: If recruiting is very important to reaching your objective, how complete is your recruiting system? How organized is it? Who is involved with you in your recruiting plan? How well are you delegating the systems?
Your Job Description Gives you ‘Hints’ about Systems you Need
Developing systems first requires that you’ve prioritized your job description. Then, you must either create or purchase systems to manage these processes. One reason managers haven’t systematized their work is that managers have few resources for systems organization. To actually systematize their work, they must create these systems from scratch. Given the myriad of activities managers must accomplish, that’s a daunting assignment. Instead, many managers stay in “crisis” management, which admittedly takes up a lot of the day, but doesn’t allow the manager to move ahead as a leader.
In contrast, agents have many resources for systems organization, both purchased and exchanged with other agents. First, there are many more agents than managers, and agents coming into the business each day. So, there is a larger market, and need, for agents’ systems. In addition, agents have led the way in organizing their businesses to delegate to assistants. It’s become ‘the thing’ to do.
Managers know they need systems. Learning how to systematize your business with technology supporting your goals is challenging and rewarding. Doing so will help you step into the twenty-first century with confidence and enthusiasm.
Click here for a list of systems I believe managers need to grow their offices, save time, and create a consistent culture they can count on (and hand over management to someone else when they want to!).
Planning: There’s a systems planner for you in your owners’ planning system, The Business Planning System for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder.
FREE Managers’ Business Planning Webinar
If you’re stumped as to how to get your agents to create business plans, you need to attend this webinar. If you want more teamwork and loyalty, you need to tune in. I’ll show you how I got 100% of my agents to write good business plans, and how I used those plans to coach and consult all year, building my office to #1 in a 19 office company–the strongest company at that time in the Northwest.
Managers: Get Every Agent to Build a Business Plan–and Build a Great office Plan
When: Dec. 1
Time: 1-2 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Space is limited, so register now. Click here to register.
You the Business Planning Coach: 3 Areas to Look at in your Agents’ Business Plans
Posted by: | CommentsIn these posts in November and December, I’ll be featuring business planning strategies. Watch for checklists, processes, and systems--ready to use, too. I want to help you create a great business plan for next year!
This post’s ‘gift’ is my after sale survey. See the link in the body of the blog.
I hope you are coaching your agents through the business planning process. Here are three areas of their plans that you should help them look at, that, with small adjustments, can pay huge dividends.
1. Where’s the money been going? It makes sense that the money agnets invest in theircareers should be giving thempay-offs equal to their investments. Unfortunately, many agents don’t know where they spent the bulk of their money last year. As you coach each agent, have them go back over the past four months.
Add up the moneys they’ve spent to generate business in each of their ‘target markets’–those identifiable groups of people that they build programs around to get business (geographical farm, first-time buyers, etc.) Where are they spending most of your money? Are they getting a good enough ‘return on their investment’? They will use this analysis to build their budget for next year, too.
From working with agents in my business planning course, I’ve observed that many agents don’t build a business plan around their best source of business: ‘sold’ customers and clients. Marketing surveys show that it costs six to nine times as much to get a new customer as to keep an old one. So, if agents spend more money on their best source, and less on theirother sources, they’ll optimize their investments.
2. What are their ‘success’ ratios? Most agents don’t know this one: What are their ratios of listings taken to listings sold? How many of their sellers are they making happy? How many of those sellers are so delighted with the service that they will refer more people to the agent? In my opinion, a good agent should target a 80-90% success ratio in this area.
Why? We all know we need to promote ourselves. The most successful, believable promotions are based on our success records–what we’ve done, not promises. If you have a sign on your desk that says “If you don’t list, you don’t last”–tear it up. Instead, put up a sign that reads, “If your listings don’t sell, you don’t last. Small adjustments, big dividends. (Plus you’ll save lots of marketing dollars.)
3. How ‘delighted’ are those customers? Most so-called ‘business plans’ in real estate merely are goal-setting grids. Focusing only on the ends suggests that the ends justify the means. However, the consumer sure doesn’t think so! These goal setting grids alone lead agents to miss the point of the decade: Top-flight customer service begets more business. That is, not just what you do, but how you do it.
What level of customer service are your agents providing? Is it just good enough to get through the transaction? Or, is it so great that your customers and clients are thoroughly delighted? (Delighted consumers refer business to you–less cost and more effort equals big pay-offs, right?) What can agents build into their business plans to assure that the are regularly delighting those they work with?
One of the agents in featured in many of my books, Rick Franz, now provides surveys weekly during the time he works with buyers and sellers. He wants clients to know he cares how they feel about the service, and that he’s dedicated to providing the best service they’ve ever had. Pretty competitive, yes?
Click here to get my after sale survey, one of the dozens of strategies ready to use in my business planning system for real estate professionals.
I’ve just started using a new online survey service. Check out zoomerang. It is easy to use and looks very professional.
Although there are dozens of areas to scope in your plan, just taking one hour out of your day now to assess these three areas–and plan adjustments–will assure your agents make more money this year–and create better, more pleasant long-term careers.
FREE Managers’ Business Planning Webinar
If you’re stumped as to how to get your agents to create business plans, you need to attend this webinar. If you want more teamwork and loyalty, you need to tune in. I’ll show you how I got 100% of my agents to write good business plans, and how I used those plans to coach and consult all year, building my office to #1 in a 19 office company–the strongest company at that time in the Northwest.
What: Managers: Get Every Agent to Build a Business Plan–and Build a Great office Plan
When: Dec. 1
Time: 1-2 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Space is limited, so register now. Click here to register.
Business Planning: How to Fire Up You and Your Agents
Posted by: | CommentsNote: Through November and December, I’m going to help you with your 2012 business plans. You’ll find free documents from my business planning system for owners and an invitation to a complimentary webinar. Why not subscribe and be sure not to miss a thing?
In an earlier blog, we discussed why most busienss plans fail to inspire. I named 3 components of a real business plan that put the inspiration and motivation into a business plan: Vision, Review, and Mission. In this blog, we’ll discuss the first component–vision.
Is your business plan missing vision? Below is an explanation of why having a vision is so important to the success of your business plan. In fact, I believe the lack of vision in a plan leads to a demotivating and certainly uninspiring plan.
For you managers: I think helping your agents create an inspiring and motivating plan will remove their reticence at doing a plan.
Why Vision is Important
A few years ago, business professors, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, studied very successful companies to find out the differences between ‘stunning’ (high profits and highly regarded), and other like companies who were almost as profitable, but not so successful). They published the results in the best business book I’ve ever read, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.
What did they find was the common difference between the highly profitable and merely very successful?
A common vision and values shared by every person in the company.
Porras and Collins’ conclusion was that the desire for profits isn’t the main driver for profits. The focused and tenacious vision, shared by all in the company, was the biggest determinant for profits.
Components of Vision
Your vision is made up of your core ideology and your envisioned future. 
As you can see from the chart on the right, excerpted from my business planning system, your core ideology is made up of your core values and core purpose. If you look at your life, you’ll see that the things that inspire and motivate you are the things that adhere to your belief system. That’s what this part of the vision statement says about you.
Your envisioned future is made from a vivid description of this future, and BHAGs—big hairy, audacious goals. Those are goals five years out, that you really don’t think you can attain.
The Power of BHAGs
Surprisingly, as Porras and Collins found, when companies stated these goals, they actually attained them in three years! (Inspirational goals that are congruent with your core values and core ideology are powerful motivators!).
What Vision Does for Companies
Here’s Porras and Collins’s function of a vision statement:
Provides guidance about what core to preserve and what future to progress toward. Made up of core ideology and envisioned future.
Here’s an example of a vision of one of the book’s stand-out companies:
Our basic principles have endured intact since our founders conceived them. We distinguish between core values and practices; the core values don’t change, but the practices might. We’ve also remained clear that profit – as important as it is – is not why the Hewlett-Packard Company exists; it exists for more fundamental reasons.”
- John Young, former CEO, Hewlett-Packard
How to Construct your Vision
How do you want to see yourself in this business? How do you want people to talk about you and your business after you retire? What values are most important to you? What ideology do you follow in your business?
Managers’ exercise. To figure out what your core values are, imagine that you are opening an office on Mars. You can only take three agents with you on your spaceship. Name those three agents. What are the core values of these agents? Who in your office doesn’t exhibit those values? Why is he/she still with you?
Looking back: Imagine you are at your own memorial, watching from above. What are others saying about you? What’s most memorable about you?
Voicing those BHAGs
What is a great goal you would love to accomplish in your business, but really don’t feel it’s possible for you within five years? Write it right now.
Why We Don’t Reach Those Lofty Goals
Is that goal that’s been eluding you congruent with your core values? What I mean by that is, does that goal feel comfortable to you? For instance, if that goal is that you’ll make two million dollars, and you don’t like the feeling of that much money, because your values are aligned differently, you just aren’t going to reach that goal. That, I believe is the reason many of us don’t reach some of our goals. Those goals aren’t in alignment with our core values.
Here’s what great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said about goal-value alignment:
You can’t consistently perform in a manner that is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
Fnding your Alive, Powerful Motivation
In my business planning system, I also provide another method to check your motivation.
Click here to get this document.
I’m convinced that we reach or don’t reach our goals based on the intensity of our desire, driven not by cold numbers, but by the warm emotion of aligned values and inspiring goals. Yogi Berra said it well:
Life is like baseball; it’s 95% mental and the other half is physical.
Substantial Savings
Want the whole planning system at a substantial savings? In November, I’m knocking $25 off the regular price ($99.95) for the leader’s planning system, Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder. With dozens of tips on business planning, and all the customized planning pages you’ll need, this system is a treasure trove of how to run your business more profitably. I also coach you on 2 audio CDs, to give you insights into planning strategically.
Click here to find out more.
Why You Can’t Get your Agents to Plan–and What to Do About It
Posted by: | Comments
Note: Through November and December, I’m going to help you with your 2012 business plans. You’ll find free documents from my business planning system for owners and an invitation to a complimentary webinar. Why not subscribe and be sure not to miss a thing?
Let’s get real. Your agents aren’t motivated to build that business plan–and we aren’t either. We know we’re supposed to write business plans. Yet, if your agents are like 95% of real estate professionals, doing that seems just like an exercise in futility. Most business plans don’t inspire.
Leaving out the ‘Magic’?
There are components left out of most plans—components that put the inspiration and motivation into your plan and your agents’ plans. I’ll give you specific guidance for you to put that magic into business plans, so you and your agents are inspired every day—not only to complete the plan, but to use it as a very personalized and specific guide to your success.
Why Are Most Business Plans Useless?
Unfortunately, when most people write business plans, all they do is fill in some blanks with ‘guess numbers’. The problem here is that numbers in blanks aren’t inspiring. They aren’t motivating. They don’t call out and suggest to you that you should look at those numbers once in awhile!
What Really Motivates Us?
If numbers inspired us, we’d all be gazillionaires selling real estate. After all, we say we want to sell more homes than the average agent. We want to make more money than the average agent. You know the drill, and I’ve heard it from hundreds of agents hundreds of times. Yet, if numbers and money were motivators, our results would be different than they are. The fact is that money, in itself, is not a motivator. It’s
what we want to do with the money
And that’s as individual as we are. Martin Luther King didn’t say, “I have a business plan.” He said, “I have a dream”. You must include the ‘dream’ part of your future in your business plans to make that plan useful to you. That means, you as a business consultant, need to include the three ‘missing’ parts of business plans that I describe below.
Building the ‘Why’ Into your Business Plans
That’s the motivator. In other words, we have to have a big ‘why’. Most business plans don’t build in the ‘why’. That’s why they fall flat, and leave us cold. That’s why agents don’t want to go through the exercise of creating them. Managers always commiserate that they can’t get their agents to write business plans. You wouldn’t want to write a plan, either, if you know it wouldn’t help you with your business the next year.
The Tools to Find that ‘Why’
Most people think of business plans as projections of numbers. But, that’s not all there is to a real strategic plan. There are three parts of a business plan that provide that inspiration, that motivation, and that ‘why’. And, those are the parts of the planning process that are most frequently left out:
- Your vision—why you’re in this business; how you see yourself after you retire
- Your review—what happened in your business that will make an impact on your business in the future
- Your mission—who are you in the business
In the next few blogs, I’ll show you how to create these parts of your business plan and get your agents to plan, so you give yourself the inspiration and motivation you need to create and implement your plan.
Substantial Savings
Want the whole planning system at a substantial savings? In November, I’m knocking $25 off the regular price ($99.95) for the leader’s planning system, Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder. With dozens of tips on business planning, and all the customized planning pages you’ll need, this system is a treasure trove of how to run your business more profitably. I also coach you on 2 audio CDs, to give you insights into planning strategically.
Click here to find out more.
Are You Sure That Agent is Really your Best Producer?
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Are you sure he (or she) is really your best producer?
We managers are frequently asked to ‘quartile’ our team, or evaluate our team members–to somehow rate the salespeople with us. Usually, we just start with the highest producer and work downward. But, is your highest producer your best producer?
‘Weigh’ Your Team Members Using your Values
When I was teaching CRB (Council of Real Estate Brokerage Management) courses nationally, I frequently heard the comment, “My top agent is not a team player.” Brokers complained their top agent didn’t represent the best in the company. So, the question is, “Is that really your top agent? Maybe not.
Your mission should define your rating system. Bring out your vision or your mission statement. What values do you hold dear? Do you say that your salespeople are ‘team players’? Do they provide exceptional customer service? Have they committed to a long-term career? Is one of your values that each member is contributive?
Develop a Weighing System for Accurate Evaluation
Let’s say that your five top values are:
Production
Team player
Customer Service
Longevity
Company contribution
Assign a range of 1 to 4 points to each value (4 is the highest score). Finally, score each agent in each of the five areas. Now, list your agents, starting with the highest cumulative score.
Why Values-Based Ratings are Important
Your values define you and your company, both within and with your clients. When you tout the ‘highest producer’ you are inadvertently endorsing that set of values as the values most important to you. Unfortunately, what we wish for we frequently get! In this day in age where the consumer is wary of ‘salespeople’, it’s time to define, rate, and reward your salespeople with the values you treasure. You’ll change the culture of your company for the better, and start hiring to the profile you really want.
Question: What do you think are the reasons managers ‘elevate’ someone as a top producer, even though he/she doesn’t represent the stated vision and values of the company?
Do you know what your prioritized vision and values really are? It’s a very important component of your business plan. Find out more in Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder. This program is endorsed and recommended by the Council of Real Estate Brokers (CRB). Click here to find out more.
Moving from Crisis Management: How to Grow your Business
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Real estate owners and managers; Do you feel like you have climbed to the top of the management mountain each day, or are you struggling in the mud flats?
If you’re trying to grow your real estate office, you’re most likely struggling to step to the next level. You want to get loose of some of the day-to-day concerns you handle. You want to delegate more, so you can do the pro-active things you know will give you that ‘quantum leap’.
Is Selling Real Estate Holding You Back?
For example, one of my Leadership Mastery coaching clients sells real estate. He sells a lot of real estate, and he’s really good at it. He also owns a real estate office with 20 people. To move his company to the next level, he knows he needs to step into the arena of “pro-active people development” (recruit, select, train, coach). He has to stop focusing his management time on reactive crisis management. To change his focus, though, he has to sell less—and delegate more. I need to provide him the tools, guidance, and support he needs to have confidence in his ‘next level’ business plan.
The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Leap to the Next Higher Level
There’s one concept that will do more than any other to take you out of ‘crisis management’ and into business management. It will enable you to create a business that’s truly saleable. It will solve your problem of being really good at what you do, and your fear, that, if you stop doing it, everything will fall apart!
Systematize Your Business
This concept is systemization. To move to that next level, you must have systems, operations, and checklists in place. Why? So you can delegate many of those present level responsibilities to someone else. But, you say, you’ll just hire someone and have that person create the systems. Oh, sure. McDonald’s does it that way. They just hire someone from out of the blue, and say, ‘create me a system to be more McDonald-like’. No, they don’t, and you can’t either. You must create a system for what you want done. Then, you hire the talent, and then you teach and coach them to the system! Now, you have delegated the job the way you want it done.
A Stunning Concept: Your Systems Make Up Your Business Plan
For years, my business planning resources for agents and managers have taken them past the numbers to help them create the related, systematic actions they need to take each day to reach their goals. (See The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional and Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Leader). Then, I read a concept that sums up my approach.
Gerber: A Management Consultant Master
This concept is from Michael Gerber, the small business guru and author of the famous books, The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited. (I highly recommend you read both of these). He says,
the integration of your systems is your business plan
What he means by that statement: As you think through how you’re going to act each day, you’re going to create systems and processes, including your operational checklists—so you can follow the plan.
People Development Systems is Key to Attaining Next Level Goals
You may have systems in the financial/technical arena. You may have systems in the operational area. But, do you have systems in the most important area for your growth? You need “people development Sytems.” These systems put down in black and white how you’ll recruit, how you’ll select, how you orientate, how you’ll train, how you’ll coach.
Want a list of systems you need? Click here.
Creating Systems: The First Step in Growing Your Business to Sell
In our coaching programs, we help agents and leadership analyze the systems they have in place, and prioritize the systems they want to get up and running. We integrate this concept of systematization into their business plans. There’s a huge bonus in creating a business plan based on the integration of your systems. One of our biggest concerns in our industry is time management. Creating systems that are delegatable takes us out of the ‘crisis management’ realm and put us into the pro-active, business-building arena. Why not make your business plan systematized and executable?
The easy way to get leadership systems: Want leadership actions you can put immediately into practice with confidence? Take a look at my subscription series for anyone who wants to step further into leadership: 365 Leadership. You’ll get one leadership action per month that you can put to work in your real estate office. Read what attendees are saying about the program at 365 Leadership. Join us. It’s profitable and it’s fun–and it’s very affordable!
How to Lose $10,000 a Month with your Hiring Practices
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It’s estimated that an agent who fails in six months costs a broker between $10,000 and $30,000! So, if you’re hiring only one a month who fails, you’re easily losing $10,000 each month!
Do you know how much poor hiring practices cost you? Most brokers don’t realize they are doing irreparable damage to their companies by hiring those who aren’t going to go right to work—and keeping those who won’t work. Here are the 3 biggest consequences to poor selection I see.
1. Stops you from hiring great producers.
Likes attract. How can brokers hope to hire that great producer when they have more than 10% of their office as non-producers? I can see it now. “Sure, I’ll come to your office. I’m a top producer, and I just love to be dragged down by those non-producers. It will be my pleasure to waste my time with them.” Not.
2. Kills your recruiting message.
Do you have a training program? Do you use it to recruit? Here’s the real message: “We have a training program. All our new agents go through it. We don’t get any results from the program, so it really doesn’t work. But, join us.” You can’t possibly show how successful your training program makes your agents because your training program can’t possibly get results—poor people in and no actions and accountability required.
3. De-motivates your agents to provide referrals to you.
Your outcomes and hiring practices speak more loudly than you could possible speak. Why would one of your good agents possibly refer someone to you when your good agent doesn’t see those you hired starting right out and making money fast?
This Market Won’t Cover Up an Inadequate Selection Process
In a fast market, ‘accidental sales’ buoyed poor agents and made them look as though they were actually selling enough real estate to be a ‘median’ agent. When the market left, so did the agents’ ‘mirage’ of decent production. Now, brokers need to hire with purpose (using a stringent, professional interview process). Then, they need to put agents right to work with a proven start-up plan.
Please Tell Me What You Think
What do you think a non-productive agent costs the company? In my next blog, I’ll give you some line items that will probably double what you think a bad hire costs. Let’s see what you think first. Poor hiring practices really, really hurts brokers—both financially and emotionally.