Archive for systems
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.
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.
Coaching the Coach: When to Start Your Start-Up Program for your New Agents
Posted by: | CommentsThis month, I’m doing complimentary coaching for both those agents in Up and Running in 30 Days, and their coaches. In this blog, I want to give you some tips from the discussion we coaches had in the first tele-conference call. These this are concerned with the most important variable which will determine the new agent’s success:
When to start the program to assure highest pay-off
We’ll also provide some tips on how to coordinate the program with your orientation. You do have an orientation program, don’t you? If you need one, check out my orientation and operations checklists and manual template.
When to Start Your Agents in Their Busienss-Getting Program
First, let me ask you: What does your new agent do the first week he/she is in the business? The second week? The third week? Go to your staff and find out exactly what the activity plan is for that new agent. Here’s the critical question:
When does your new agent start lead generating regularly?
Ask your new agents who have been in the business 6 months, “What could I have done differently to help you get a better start?”
Why is that important? Because, until that agent is lead generating the agent isn’t in the business!
Surprising truth: In a survey of hundreds of agents under three months in the business, the majority of agents told me they expected a sale in month one! So, how does your start-up program coordinate with that expectation? Are you spending too much time orientating them? Are they spending too much time in training class? In getting ready to get ready? I’ll bet you’re shocked at what you found when you actually laid out their activity program for that first month.
Note: In Managers: Putting Up and Running to Work, I have a flow chart of when you should have your agents into various aspects of their career start.
Big Principle: The Longer You Put Off Starting the Up and Running Program, The More Apt the Agent is to Fail.
Why? They get poor habits from just ‘hanging out’ in the office. They start doing business supporting activities to take up their day. They create the business of a failed agent.
Coordinating your Program with your Orientation
Do you have a tight, precise Orientation process? That’s so important to implement the first week that agent is in the business. Get all the ‘housekeeping’ out of the way. Be sure your agent checks off those tasks, and provides the checklist to staff. Don’t allow that new agent to drift without focus, or that agent will become increasingly non-focused.
When to Start the Up and Running Program
In week two. Why? Because, if your new agent expects a sale fast (and they do, whether they tell you or not), they must start lead generating NOW.
A Great Idea from One of the Up and Running Tele-Conference Attendees
Sometimes things just don’t get started on the right foot. If that’s the case in some of your Up and Running implementations, it’s okay to ‘re-set’ the clock. Why? It’s important that your agents feel energetic and optimistic about doing the program. They must have recognition, appreciation, and ‘wins’ to keep going.
What did you learn when you analyzed your ‘start-up’ program for your new agents? What are you changing? Let me know. Thanks for your dedication to helping agents get the start they need to succeed.
This is the resource package I’m referring to. It will greatly shorten your timeframe in hiring and getting that agent started. It will increase your production and profits, which makes it much easier for you to recruiting successfully. Check it out: The Manager’s Up and Running Coaching System.
Free bonus: When you order it, you will receive 2 customizable flyers for promoting the program both inside your company and to recruits.
Coaching your New Agent: Conquering the ‘Focus’ Challenge
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I did the first of a series of complimentary coaching calls for those managers who are using the Up and Running in 30 Days start-up plan for their new agents. This is a very aggressive program, to get the agents a sale in 30 days (rather than the 3-6 months it takes most new agents.) The coaches have received their coaching resource guide, so they already have some guidance in implementing the program. We had a great discussion on the recent call. I want to share some of the discussion we had on the call, to help you as you coach your new agents to much faster success.
Biggest Challenges for the Coaches
The coaches on the call told me their biggest challenges were
Keeping the agent focused on the important activities
Getting the time to coach the agents frequently and regularly
So, in this blog, I’ll tackle that first concern—keeping your new agents focused.
Up and Running Gives you Two Keys to Keeping your Agents Focused
1, The Daily and Weekly Schedule. Have your new agent analyze his/her daily schedule at the end of the week. There is an exercise in Up and Running to reveal to the agent the priorities he/she needs to arrange in order to create a successful business. Unfortunately, most agents arrange their priorities to protect themselves from starting the business! Teaching your agent how to ‘self-manage’ by analyzing that past week is huge to set them on the road to successful sales.
Tip: Use this scheduling strategy with your experienced agents. Most agents have never created a weekly schedule, and don’t analyze their past week with the priorities explained in Up and Running.
2. Business-Producing vs. Business-Supporting Activities. Keep reiterating to your agents the difference between business producing and business-supporting activities. Up and Running teaches agents to put all their business activities into one of these groups. It’s one of the most important concepts an agent can grasp—and few agents have ever been taught this fundamental and very important concept.
Tip: You know your agent has struggles with time management. Help them analyze their activities and schedule their activities to do more business-producing activities. Their time management challenges will shrink, and their incomes will sky-rocket.
Invitation: If you’re using Up and Running in 30 Days with your new agents, and didn’t receive an invitation to be on our tele-conference calls, email me at Carla@carlacross.com and I’ll add you to the invitation list.
Next blog: I’ll discuss when to start Up and Running, and how to assure your new agent has a complete track to run on—so he/she gets that sale fast, which is yours and his/her goal! I’ll also discuss how frequently and consistently you must coach that new agent to assure he/she adheres to the Up and Running activities and goals.
This is the resource package I’m referring to. It will greatly shorten your timeframe in hiring and getting that agent started. It will increase your production and profits, which makes it much easier for you to recruiting successfully. Check it out: The Manager’s Up and Running Coaching System.
Free bonus: When you order it, you will receive 2 customizable flyers to promote the program inside your office, and promote it to recruits. Training is the name of the recruiting game in this decade! Get onboard.
How to Organize that Clutter for more Profits
Posted by: | Comments
Envision your real estate office. If I walked into it, could I see processes and systems your agents use in providing top quality customer service? Could I see your checklists, posted, so that I knew you followed a regular, proven procedure for each group of activities? Could I see pre-made, ready to use, presentations for buyers and sellers? Could I see binders labeled with each subject (like ‘listing process’), and filled with ‘how-tos’ for assistants (or you) inside? Or, would I see stacks of disorganized papers?
There are two reasons to organize. The first is that it provides much better customer service. If I’m the consumer today, I want to know that you are trustworthy—that you’re good for your word. If I can see that you have systems, I know that you will have a much better chance of keeping your word to me. I’m using the word “see”, because we believe what we see, not what we hear.
The second reason is that it provides you much better time management. The agent’s biggest challenge is to find a way to make the same amount of money and quit working 24/7. Creating systems will take a long way toward that goal.
Take system inventory now. Click here for a list of the systems managers need.
How to begin. Real estate professionals are doers. We talk our way through processes. We dread organizing things, and frankly, we’re not good at it. So, how do we begin? First, find your organizational resources. Here are three: Other managers who already have systems and who are willing to share, great assistants who are good at organizing, and professionals who sell these packages. You’ll probably want a combination of all three. I know it’s wonderful to think that you can hire an assistant and expect that assistant to organize from the ground up.
But, my experience is that you will have to be involved in the process, and you will have to buy ready-made systems to help that assistant get a clue about what you want.
Start with one at a time. Make a list and prioritize it for the systems you need first. Put a date to start, and a date for completion (I know, there’s that organization again!). You’ll find that the first is the hardest, and then, it starts to actually get easy! It’s a skill like anything else. Bottom line: Systematization allows you to actually run a business, not just run after buyers and sellers.
Leadership already systemized! 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!
Moving from Crisis Management: How to Grow your Business
Posted by: | Comments
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!