Why Good Real Estate Agent Business Plans Are Rare

by Rich Levin

I’ve worked with thousands of Real Estate Agents across the country and one thing stands out, year after year: business plans are extremely important.  Agents who follow through on their business plan earn far more, often $100,000 more than those who don’t.  The biggest problem is that it’s tough to follow through on a bad plan.

First, we have to clarify how you know that it’s a good plan.  A plan that will motivate you, the Agent, to follow through all year long and exceed your goals.

The business plan must make sense.  When you’re creating your plan, make sure you understand how it all works together.  You’ll experience a sense of confidence and excitement as you are building your plan.

You’ll be working with this plan from the day it’s created throughout the entire year. Working the plan must keep you constantly focused and motivated.  The plan can’t be confusing, boring, or burn you out.

It must be simple to understand and easy to follow.

Daily routines and systems are crucial.  A good plan has routines and systems that are simple, clear, easy to follow, and-here’s the key-that bring results quickly and continuously.

A great business plan can be tailored to the Agent who prospects a lot, or for the Agent who works their Spheres of Influence a lot, or the one who gets lots of leads from Internet Marketing.  It should even work for you if you haven’t yet found your best source of leads.

It should also work despite your team conditions–if you’re alone or working with assistants–and current production level.

So now, let’s get to the HOW.

A great Real Estate Business Plan is built around these 4 Key Skills:

1. Goals and Progress
2. Tactical Skills
3. Routines and Systems
4. Motivation and Attitude

It looks like this:

Goals and Progress: Set annual goals in Sales, Listings, Income, and New Clients.  The first three are broken down into monthly goals.  The fourth is broken down into a weekly goal.  The progress in all four are reviewed and updated daily and weekly. (See Routines and Systems below)

Tactical Skills: After evaluating the full range of skills necessary for success in Real Estate, your plan should focus on and works your strengths.  The key categories are lead management, presentations, marketing, sales skills, and service.  Time management and organization are completely handled with Routines and Systems.  Build a strategy that takes advantage of your strengths and attacks any weaknesses that are holding you back.

Routines and Systems: This is the most important skill set.  All organizational problems are solved with Routines and Systems.  Create a daily and weekly routine that keeps you mindful of your goals and progress while you take specific, planned actions.  Those two, looking at progress and taking action, work hand in hand.  When the right things are measured and progress is reviewed daily, you’ll get the feedback necessary to understand what is working and what needs attention.

Here’s the daily cycle: record and look at results, think, take action, make decisions.  This is the key daily routine that creates success beyond your expectations.  It’s simple to put in place and takes less than ten minutes a day to accomplish.  Please, don’t confuse simple with easy.  Routines and Systems, as simple as they may be, are often difficult to keep consistently.  Exceptional success is only achieved with consistency.

Motivation and Attitude: Great Agents are continuously learning and practicing the skills that create and strengthen positivity.  We all fall into negative self-talk from time to time.  An Agent who has the skills and strategies to overcome negativity can move on and get back to productive work, instead of getting stuck in a downward, negative cycle that can destroy focus and self-confidence.

Think of motivation and attitude like a muscle that needs to be constantly trained and strengthened so that, when needed, you’ll be able to handle the strain and stress that come with a highly successful Real Estate career.

With a plan built on the 4 Skill Sets, by the end of 2015 you won’t just be selling and earning far more than past years.  You’ll actually be stronger, more confident, and more secure–personally and professionally.  I see it happen every year with my Clients.

Here are a few warnings:  This type of plan isn’t developed in one session.  It takes weeks.  Then it’s applied in your business over the course of the entire year.

I also don’t recommend doing it alone.  Intelligent guidance, compassionate encouragement, and comfortable reminders go a long way in creating a wise and powerful plan, and making sure you stick to it and adjust it when needed.

Work with your coach, trainer, manager, or other Real Estate business leader to build and implement a plan based on these fundamentals.  It will be hard at first, easier over time, and worth every moment of your effort.

Recommended Resources:
★ Real Estate Grad School – Live coaching, webinars, online courses, workbooks and resource materials.