One of the most difficult tasks in life is
defining your purpose. The pay-off of having clarity of purpose is enormous.
There is a direct correlation between clarity of purpose and success.
The more clarity you have in your business, the more profit you will
make, and the time spent in business mode will be reduced. Now clarity
is a big concern with the top agents across North America, because people
with clarity achieve more even though they work fewer hours.The most
successful people spend time thinking, evaluating, and re-evaluating
their progress. In order to be successful, you will need to spend a minimum
of half an hour planning and evaluating daily. Good agents should evaluate
where their business is coming from and the trends in their market. Why
not know the trends in the market so your labor will be fruitful? Why
not know where you business comes from exactly, so you can put your labor
there?
Far too often I see the market adjusting and agents not adjusting with
it. If the high end is not selling, why list lots of homes in the high
end? Always move the bulk of your listings to where the market is most
active. This adjustment will provide you an opportunity to move the product
quickly and effectively with little time, money, and energy invested.
You want to have inventory in all price ranges and all areas you work,
but you want the bulk of it in the hot selling pocket. Having inventory
in all price ranges enables you to track the market better and react
quickly to changes, but you do not want too many listings in a market
segment that is not moving.
If you wish to create clarity in your business of real estate sales,
you need to determine your area of competitive advantage or expertise.
Is it buyers or sellers? Is it expireds, FSBO’s, investment property,
or new construction? What is your area of excellence? What is your competitive
advantage? If you do not have one, I would suggest you work on one or
two areas in real estate that you enjoy in order to create an area of
excellence. You need an area or two that you do better than most of your
competitors. You need to develop something that will differentiate you
from the competition.
Once you have decided what your area of excellence is, you need to determine
the one or two skills that will translate into success in that area of
excellence. As an example, in my career I worked expireds very heavily.
I did 60% to 70% of my business from expireds. The areas or disciplines
I needed for success in expireds were a strong command of scripts and
dialogues (sales skills) and solid evaluating and qualifying skills.
These sales skills enabled me to set a few appointments daily with people
who needed my services. The evaluating and qualifying allowed me to cancel
the unmotivated, overpriced, and overly confrontational people before
I invested the time to do a presentation with them. What are the skills
you need in your area of excellence to achieve massive success in real
estate? Once you identify these skills, then dedicate yourself daily
to improve the skills in those areas. Set specific goals to improve these
disciplines or skills.
Ultimately success comes from proper planning. You need to plan for
success daily. You must reserve a half-hour to one hour daily for planning.
When you are in your half-hour to one hour daily planning block evaluating
your skills, you need to determine where you can improve? Evaluate your
staff, if you have them. What are the skills they need for you to increase
your business by 20%? Sometimes the difference in how you handle and
coach our staff can increase our business dramatically. Clearly define
their roles so you and your staff know how they are going to help you
achieve success. Too often they are thrown into the firestorm without
clear direction and the guidance to improve and prosper.
One of the most crucial functions of the planning time is future forecasting,
which is spending time viewing the future of your life and your business.
In my initial coaching sessions with clients we spend a lot of time looking
down the road three to five years. Most of my clients had never looked
further than this year, if at all, prior to working with Real Estate
Champions. It is hard to achieve clarity when you first view things on
a daily, weekly, or even yearly basis. You have to view long term then
work backwards. You must work to craft the vision for your life and your
business.
It is vital to decide what your business or life will look like in the
future. If you do not make that decision, you are just making it up as
you go along. Success does not follow people who make it up as they go.
Success looks at your long term plan. Success says that looks good, you
have thought this decision out well. I will follow you. Success is not
acquired, it is attracted. The only people who attract success have thought
it out well. Have you ever noticed that some people make success look
so easy? These people attract it at every turn. The truth is they have
worked diligently at planning and attracting success. You did not see
them up late thinking, planning, then writing out their plan of success.
You only watched them collect the fruits of their labor.
The long-term plan will act as a target or a magnet. You will be drawn
to it. Creating the plan is not enough. You need to clarify it and work
backwards to the present day. You need to create the steps for you to
get from where you are today to where you want to be in the future.
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