« | Home | »

Planning Your Commercial Real Estate Excellence for 2012

By Jim Gillespie | January 4, 2012

Once again we’re at the beginning of a new year, which means for a lot of us it’s time to set new goals. If you’ve already set your goals for the new year and have determined the game plan you need to be working to achieve those goals, congratulations! This article will then help you to make sure that your goals and the game plan you’ve designed will have you achieve everything that you want to this year. But if you haven’t yet set your goals for the year and you haven’t determined the game plan you need to be working to achieve those goals, this article will help you to do this.

With this in mind, what are you really going to do differently this year? I’m asking this because so many agents often begin the new year feeling excited about all the possibilities that they can create for themselves with a fresh, full calendar year ahead of them. But in the end, how many agents will really accomplish throughout the year what they originally setout to do in January? Oftentimes agents can have the best of intentions every new year of accomplishing some exciting new goals, but by the time the end of the year rolls around they then feel disappointed with their results.

If you’d like to know the reason for this, it sometimes lies in the unrealistic goals that agents can set for themselves at the beginning of the year, and at other times it can lie in the flawed game plans that they utilize throughout the year when working towards accomplishing these goals. For example, an agent who made $100,000.00 this past year might set an income goal of $250,000.00 for the new year. But keep in mind that the sum total of all the best the agent could bring to the table throughout the past year had them earn and get paid a total of $100,000.00 in commissions. So do they really now know what they have to do differently this year to make the jump from $100,000.00 to $250,000.00 in commission income? And if they do know, why didn’t they just apply this information to their real estate business this past year?

Setting goals at the beginning of the year can be a great experience for all of us, but it’s how we’re going to get those goals accomplished that represents the real meat and potatoes that will either lead us towards accomplishing those goals, or feeling disappointed.

So with this in mind I’m asking you:

1) What are your goals in your real estate business for the coming year?

2) What specifically is your game plan of activities that you’re going to do to make these goals a reality by December 31st?

And…

3) What do you have to do differently than what you did last year, in order to achieve your new goals this year?

And finally, one activity that’s extremely important to incorporate into your game plan for the coming year is feedback. You need to check in with how you’re doing throughout the year to determine if you’re on track or off track in accomplishing your goals. And if you’re off track, you need to make modifications to your game plan to still ensure that you’ll successfully achieve your goals by December 31st.

As an example of this, experts say that a jet flying from New York to Los Angeles is off track from reaching it’s final destination approximately 98% of the time. But the continued monitoring of the flight path and correction through both the jet’s inertial guidance system and the pilot’s actions will ensure the jet’s timely arrival in Los Angeles.

With real estate agents, however, this is often not the case. One’s ideal goals for the year can be created in January, but the "flight path" of the agent throughout the year can oftentimes be completely off track from accomplishing these goals. The agent can be thinking thoughts like, "As long as I’m feeling really busy, I must be on track towards accomplishing my goals for the year." This is similar to the pilot of the commercial airliner thinking, "As long as I’m up here right now flying this aircraft, I must be on track towards arriving at my desired destination on time."

But alas, in both situations, achieving the desired goal in a timely manner does not result from just being busy doing activities, it comes from doing the right activities at the right time, and in the right sequence.

With this in mind, see if the following has ever applied to you:

You set your goals for your real estate business in January and feel enthusiastic about accomplishing them. You feel extremely busy throughout the year, but you recognize you’re falling behind in achieving your income goals the deeper you’re getting into the year. Then around September or so, you start thinking something similar to, "If I can just find, negotiate, and close both sides of a $30,000,000.00 transaction by the end of the year, I’ll meet my income goal."

Similar to the airline pilot and the inertial guidance system within the plane itself, you need to monitor your success throughout the year to make sure you’re on track. Set a reminder at the end of every month in your contact management program to check in and see how you’re doing. Are you on track towards achieving your income goals for the year, or are you falling behind? And if you’re falling behind, immediately go and get some help from someone. Sit down and talk with a top producing agent, your manager, or hire a real estate coach. Because right now you’re risking throwing your income goals for the year completely out the window if you don’t.

You may have noticed something in our industry over the years. Our industry has its share of people with very big egos. I deal with this constantly with brokers who produce great results in their business through working with me, but more than anything they really want to return to having no one advising them on running their real estate business. But trying to do it all alone in this business on an ongoing basis can be a very costly decision. As Albert Einstein once said, "We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." And if you’re constantly trying to solve your business development problems with the same mind that created them…your own mind…you could be in for a very long and frustrating year.

So check in with yourself once a month to see how you’re doing in accomplishing the goals you’ve created for yourself this year. And if you find yourself falling behind in accomplishing these goals, stop everything you’re doing and find someone who can give you the help and direction you need to get back on track and make these goals happen for you.

__________________

If you’re interested in becoming much more effective at doing your commercial real estate prospecting in 2012, click here for my prospecting scripts and special report titled, "How to Explode Your Real Estate Prospecting Now!"

__________________

If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"My work with Jim has helped me to fine tune and systematize my marketing program, and produce more leads for my business with far greater ease."

Ian Bertolina
Bertolina Commercial Real Estate Services

 

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.


Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »