3 Commitments to Make in 2014

Do your business plans fizzle halfway through the year? Are you struggling to achieve the sales goals you set? Here are three easy commitments you can follow all year to get the business results you want.

Amid all of the business planning confusion that comes with the start of a new year, it is important to pick a few things that we can actually commit to and then implement.

My role as a speaker and trainer gives me a front row seat to witness amazing success stories from agents and brokers from all over the country. But I also witness many people trying to do too much because they want so badly to succeed, which, in the end, turns out to be a waste of time and a poor investment.

With that being said, I want to give real estate professionals three very easy things to incorporate in your business plan in 2014. These commitments are easy to follow and are sure to bring you results. Are you ready? OK, let’s do this.

1. Know Your Ratios – I had the opportunity about a month ago to speak at an event with around 1,500 people in attendance. I asked the audience one very simple question: “How many of you could tell me right now what your ratios are for your business?”

The response was what every speaker dreams of: the sound of crickets. Obviously, I’m being sarcastic, but it made a very unfortunate point that most real estate pros have no idea how many buyers they need to meet with to create a sale. Nor do they know how many sellers they need to provide with a market analysis before they’ll see real results at a closing table.

So do me a favor – or, better put, do yourself a favor and review your calendar from 2013 and tally how many listing appointments you went to. Then look up how many listings you actually sold – not listed, but sold. If you went on 24 listing appointment and sold 12 listings, you know that your closing percentage is 50 percent.

Why is that important? Because now you can justify your 2014 goals.

It’s not enough to tell me that you want to sell 20 listings this year if you can’t explain to me what it is going to take to get there. In the case of my example, you would need 40 listing appointments (with a 50 percent closing ratio) to get to 20 in the next 12 months. This means that over a 50 week period (assuming you take a couple of weeks vacation this year) you would need to generate 0.8 new listing appointments a week to hit your goal (40 new appointments divided by 50 weeks worked = 0.8 per week). It’s always best to round up, so your goal would be one new listing appointment per week in 2014.

This now gives you focus on what you actually want to accomplish each week, so you can direct your energy in that direction and avoid creating what I call “busyness.”

Now do the same math for your buyer appointments and post your appointment goals in a place that you see them every day. This will help you focus on creating real business.

2. Outsource Your Marketing – Make 2014 the year that you stop acting like all other unproductive agents and only market when your business is slow. Have a marketing plan and follow it. I am a big believer that if you’re not doing something to create business for yourself every day, it’s only a matter of time before you will go out of business.

What many top producers have in common is that they have several different marketing channels to bring them business, but they outsource them to virtual assistants and others so that leads are being generated whether they are at the office or on vacation.

This is the key to any great business. Ask yourself this question: “Have I been more interested in creating a job than I have been in building a career?” You are the CEO, not an employee. Act like it.

3. Get Out Of Your Way – There are more than 7 billion people on Earth, and only one of them can truly stop you from getting what you want this year: you. The third commitment I want you to make this year is to get out of your way once and for all.

Technology isn’t what derails your progress (no more than spoons make people fat). And people don’t drive you crazy because nobody can drive you crazy unless you give them the keys.

In 2014, let’s all make a decision to rid ourselves of limiting narratives and learn to defeat the negative voice inside of our heads. This is the year that we stop accepting excuses and commit to achieving results.

Article curated from Realtor Magazine