Finish Your Year Before It Begins Archives - Wade Webb Real Estate Coaching

Critical Year End Analysis For Real Estate Agents

Wade Webb on November 30, 2022

Learn the critical year end analysis for real estate agents you need to consider…

As we head into the final month of 2022, for most of us, there will be some “downtime”. Downtime driven by both the holiday season, as well as a general slowdown of activity, especially after the first two weeks of December. This is an ideal time to start planning for 2023. I have honed a process for preparing for the New Year. There are 3 reviews you need to complete before you can set a path for growth of your real estate biz in 2023. The three reviews include your transaction history, your prospecting efforts, and your personal marketing efforts.

Review Your Real Estate Business Transaction History

Where do we start? We start with the past, we start with the review of what you’ve done financially, the actual transactions that you’ve completed, and all the elements associated with those opportunities. Once you understand where you are, you can identify where you are going.

Ask yourself, what was your average deal size last year, the year before that, the year since then? What clients did you work with? Which clients were the most attractive to you, both now and in the future? What were the average size deal with those clients provided for you?

Where did you get those clients? What was the source? Was it a prospect call? Was it a website, off a lead, a company referral? Was it the same clients? Where were those clients and opportunities located? What market are you best to focus on moving forward? What product type have you really been successful for in the past and what product type is best for you moving forward?

Review Your Prospecting Efforts as a REALTOR

What was your financial goal for net income goal for 2022? Money that you take home for you and your family. That’s something we really care about. What did you achieve, and what was the goal? Hopefully, it was greater than your goal. If it was less than your goal, maybe you set too high of a goal. I love goals that push you but be careful, so they don’t demotivate. How many exclusives did you secure?

How many listings you got went to closings? You want to explore that. Make sure you understand some of the ratios financially of your meetings, to listings, listings, to close. Look at the numbers. Look back on your efforts last year and see where those are. Define your average gross commission income. What was your average net commission per closing? Of the listings/representations/assignments you secured, how many were unsuccessful?

When it comes to your clients, think about your top five clients. When I say top five, people go, “Okay so these five made the most money for me, they’re my top five.” Fine. That’s how you want to define top five, look at it that way. Some say, “No, top five really means those that provided me, and will provide me the greatest opportunities moving forward.” In 2022, this may have been one deal, but it’s going to lead to more deals down the road.

That’s going to be a top client for you, or a client that always gives you multiple opportunities. Same client opportunities or refers you. All they did is one or two deals with you maybe historically, yet they’re one of your raving fans. Therefore, they’re your top client. Identify your five top clients based on your parameters. Finally look at your prospecting efforts. Prospecting is a disciplined act of asking for business.

Think about what you did to specifically ask for business. Look back at some of the quantitative, and qualitative aspects of your prospecting. How many prospecting meetings did you hold in 2022? How many calls to you attempt vs. complete, and how many prospect letters (not emails) did you send?

Review Your Personal Marketing Efforts

Prospecting is hard enough when folks know you, or at least heard of your company. Prospecting without a personal presence is downright difficult. Your personal marketing efforts will reflect strongly on you prospecting results. I always focus on three elements of presence, or personal marketing.

Personal, Physical, and Digital. Upon your review of your personal marketing efforts in 2022, ask yourself how many personal meetings did you have from a marketing perspective? These are meetings to get to know people. These are not prospecting meetings. These are relationship building opportunities.

Maybe it was going to a conference, or going for a drink with the guys, or whatever it might be. How many personal marketing meetings did you hold? Look back at your calendar. This is vital to growing in 2023. Physical marketing efforts consist of tangible items you have mailed, gifted, or sent. From the physical side, mailing side, how many times did you mail out? How many times did you send out post cards, or flyers.

How many gifts did you send, or articles you shared. Again, look at your calendar, look at your marketing efforts, look at your budget, look at your expenses. Lastly, think about the digital side. Yes, the tweeting, the blogging, the LinkedIn groups, Facebook interactions, that you participate in. Just because you’re a member of a LinkedIn group, and you never participate that does not count. That’s probably 95% of folks out there. Think about the digital efforts. What did you do digitally? Even e-mail blasts, and newsletters.

As noted, the first step in any process of change is always the biggest. Reviewing your transactional history, prospecting efforts and personal marketing activities will take you some time. Potentially several days. But don’t forget you will have several days of “downtime” in the weeks ahead.

You can either review and then implement change, or simply do what you have always done in the past. You know, and we know that positive change, and income growth, are not products of simply doing the same thing year after year.

Commit to making 2023 your best year as a REALTOR ever. I dare you!

Strength and courage,
Wade

Realtors© Finish Your 2022 Strong

Wade Webb on September 21, 2022

Realtors© want to know how to finish your 2022 strong?

I don’t know about you but the first 6 months of the year and then my summer seemed to just fly by, and I cannot believe it is September 2022 already. The landscape of real estate looks a lot different now for a lot of us and I am sure we are all asking the question to ourselves, NOW WHAT? We are beginning the last quarter of the year and for real estate sales professionals there are only two outcomes for us all. Will you finish in the red, or finish in the black? Will you finish strong, or will you miss your targets and goals? Winning near the end of a game, final quarter or the year is a trait of all the best salespeople I’ve ever met. Closing out strong is primarily the effect of a consistent quarter, there are still a handful of things you can do to strike off checkboxes in the win column to finish Q4 and your 2022 strong.

1. Be Active – There’s no substitute for being pleasantly persistent and respectfully blunt. Get out there and be straightforward. Acting and getting after it is a choice and work on the high-quality leads and not the low-quality leads. Ask yourself “If you were me, would you forecast this listing or buyer prospect to buy or sell this month or in the next 90 days?” Remember, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Being direct will help you get real with your buying and selling customers and align yourself with the true sales cycle. It might also enable you to pull out a quick win.

2. Be Relational – For more than two decades now I have heard from thousands of top producing agents and almost 60% of their business comes from repeat and referral business. Focusing first on the people we already know, like and trust is working effectively and efficiently in this business. If you don’t have enough people that know, like and trust you then get out there and “S.T.P. – See the People” If you have a list of relationships in place that have not “felt the love” then get out there and see them and find ways to add value to them. Give them a call, email, text, handwritten note, small gift or even a coffee and just watch and see what happens with your last quarter.

3. Be Face to Face – Sales is a contact sport, and we need to be belly to belly. Anyone of us making a large buying decision needs to know the person we deal with is someone we like and can trust. The only way we can sense if we like or trust someone is meeting them in person. Commit to the final quarter on sales activities that are primarily face to face and belly to belly activities like Open house, door to door, kiosk, networking, office duty, coffee, lunch, pop by, volunteer, client appreciation event or convention. This is a relationships business so get out there to create and deepen those relationships.

4. Stack-Rank Your Leads – We will never be able to manufacture more time, but we can manufacture more focus. I recommend looking at your pipeline and grading each opportunity on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being “highly closeable by the end of the quarter.” Then, focus your closing efforts on the 3’s and 4’s ONLY. You don’t have time to waste. If you don’t have enough 3 and 4 prospects in the funnel then act and increase your marketing plan and daily prospecting, lead generation with planned marketing, activities that bring the level 3 and 4 prospects into your pipeline to finish Q3 strong.

5. Purge Your People – Almost every sales pro has them. They’re those big opportunities in the pipeline you’ve been working for months. The one deal that constantly disrupts your focus or the need to act. The buyer or seller who is the time and energy vampire, but you let them suck the life out of you because you don’t have anyone else to work with. Every time you think about punting them, you get a glimmer of hope from them. It’s time……Remove them!! They don’t deserve to be on your radar right now. Coming clean with yourself will open new vistas and invigorate you to add more productive opportunities to your pipeline.

6. Start Planning for 2023 – How much revenue do you plan to book in Q1 2023? Exactly how many new deals do you need to earn that amount? Knowing exactly what you plan to earn acts like a magnet to attract business your way. Having this exact number also allows you to project your required activities into month one of the new quarters. If you’re accurately measuring your deal metrics, you’ll be able to predict with some certainty how many calls, emails, appointments, presentations, or opportunities you’ll need to make it rain. Ask for a review by management. Knowing your numbers is one thing, but to positively affect the business, it’s equally vital to understand your “why”, purpose and goals and have someone hold you accountable to them.

Bonus Tips: What NOT to Do in the last Quarter Of 2022

1. Don’t Work with Any Clients Just to Make your Numbers – Any client outside of your ideal customer profile will complicate servicing, produce a higher likelihood of churn or failure, and ultimately cost you more time and resources than it will be worth. Instead, focus on filling the pipeline with high quality leads for next quarter. It’s never too early to start filling the funnel.

2. Never Give Away More Than You Should – It’s just not worth it. You only have one reputation for your brand and offering, treat it respectfully. Concessions can quickly become a crutch that hides other issues. Sell on value, not on price. Don’t cut your commissions, offer cash backs or any other silly incentives just to get something before the year is done.

The key to closing out your quarter strong is to keep up the momentum that got you to where you are now. If you’re struggling to meet your numbers, it’s a time to embrace new sales insights and start building effective rhythm. Take the last-minute shots on goal listed above but remember to always be thinking about the bigger picture: Your reputation is the product of your past actions. Sales that allow you to produce predictable revenue are the future. Finish the last quarter and your year strong. I dare you!!

Strength and courage,
Wade

Finish Your Year Before It Begins

Wade Webb on November 14, 2018

Jim Rohn, the legendary business philosopher always said to “Finish your week before it begins.” He meant that we take control of our schedule and real estate business and plan for the week ahead before it even happens. If we don’t take control then someone else or something else always does!

So when the year begins to wind down you should not wait until the very end to start planning for next year. This means having a crystal clear understanding of the successes and challenges of your current year, how it impacts your upcoming year, and developing a vision of what you want to accomplish, and how. Many agents aim for nothing every year and most hit it with amazing accuracy!! I believe you should always start working on your next year strategy months in advance of the new year. This awards you enough time to make an impact on your final quarter, and lay the groundwork for making sure your next fiscal year starts off on a solid footing.

For agents who want to achieve greatness, push the envelope, and grow their business through market share, market penetration, paying down debt, increasing sales, profits and cash flow, I urge you to get going now! The way I see things is, if your business isn’t growing, pushing the envelope, thriving, and maximizing profit, then all you’re really doing is suffering a slow death. Believe me, your competition is fighting the fight every day, and they didn’t wake up in the morning and say “Gosh, golly, I hope I stay even in 2019.” They want to eat your lunch, take your business, absorb your market share and steal your customers away.

Some people might ask me if they should start planning by looking at their competition, and I say NO. Why focus on the competition, instead of focusing on yourself? When it comes to my business, I don’t care what others do. I care about what I do. Recognize your competition for what and who they are, and then put your best foot forward by pushing the envelope in your business. You should approach the new year as if you are going to battle, and for that you should develop a strategic plan.

Business Plan – a written document that describes in detail how a business, usually a new one, is going to achieve its goals. A business plan lays out a written plan from a marketing, financial and operational viewpoint.

FACT: LESS THAN 3% OF REAL ESTATE AGENTS HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN

FACT: ESTIMATED 3% OF REAL ESTATE AGENTS IN NORTH AMERICA DOING 97% OF BUSINESS

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Writing a business plan may seem a daunting task as there are so many moving parts and concepts to address. Take it one step at a time and be sure to schedule regular review (quarterly, semi-annually, or annually) of your plan to be sure you are on track to meet your goals. It is that time of year again when we begin to build our plan for 2019 so let’s look at the key areas of the agent’s solid business plan.

Business Plan for the Successful REALTOR©

Step 1) “Success and history always leaves us clues.” I began by looking back to identify the clues that have been left for us and the business. I would look at the real estate market first and search for the following clues.

What have the number of sales been doing the last year? 2-5 years? Up? Down?

What have the number of listings been doing the last year? 2-5 years? Up? Down?

What have the average and median prices been doing?

What price ranges are experiencing more activity? Less activity?

What neighborhoods or areas are experiencing more activity? Less Activity?

What property types are selling more? Less?

What buyer types are buying more?

Where are the buyers coming from? Local? Next state or province? Over Seas?

Imagine the targeted and strategic plan you would be able to build for you and your real estate business with this kind of information?

Now you are not just winging it. You really know where and what to focus on.

Step 2) Looking At The Present State of Your Real Estate Business

What have my sales been doing? Up? Down?

What have my listings been doing? Up? Down?

What is my average price? Can I raise my average selling price?

What is my Gross Commission Income doing?

What is my average deal worth?

Where are my listings and sales coming from? Sources of business?

What types of buyers do I represent?

Where are the buyers coming from? Local? Out of area?

What are my pending sales?

What do I have for potential buyers and sellers?

Strategic Business Planning for Your Real Estate Business

What if you took the time to really track and measure and reflect on your business at a deeper level and see your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities?

Step 3) Activity Plans – Take the time to lay out your activity plan calendar a year in advance. Focus on the activities you know you are good at and you see a return on your invested time and money. I am guessing for most agents it would be your sphere of influence, referrals and face to face or voice to voice activities.

Step 4) Budgeting – Profit is the goal in business. Knowing what your personal life and your business world cost you monthly is so important. Expense management is just as important as your income and earnings. Have a clear picture of your expenses and measure all of them for their return on investment or if they can be reduced in any way.

Step 5) Goals – If your “Why” is big enough the “how” will take care of itself. What is your purpose? Vision? Values? Mission Statement? Taking the time to know what it is you want and why you want it is a game changer for us all. Nothing gives me more joy than impacting and improving people’s lives personally and professionally every day.

In my own real estate business, taking the time over the last 25 years to create a business plan has been so incredibly beneficial for me and I know it will for you as well.

In today’s post I have given you a brief business plan overview. To help you get going with your own plan I put together a Step-by-Step Real Estate Business Plan Workbook you can download for free by clicking the link below.

Click here to download the new 2019 business plan PDF….

Strength and courage,
Wade

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