Why business planning matters
Quick…which would you rather do: Business planning or stick a fork in your eye. Come on now. I know a bunch of you had to hesitate for just a minute. The reality for most of us is that we gravitate to what we like and we don our invisibility cloaks to hide from the things we don’t.
This “do what’s fun” approach wouldn’t be so harmful if what we always wanted to do were more in alignment with what really needs to get done. Remember the saying “Successful people do what unsuccessful people aren’t willing to”? There’s a very good reason it doesn’t say “Successful people always do what’s the most fun”.
Generically speaking, planning is one of those things that correlates very well with success. While it’s awfully easy to find people who don’t reach their potential and who never plan anything, it’s nearly impossible to find people in any field of endeavor who have become the very best at what they do and who have done so in the absence of a coherent and well-thought-out plan.
Now, don’t misunderstand…planning doesn’t have to be a month-long endeavor, the by products of which are reams of documented goal sheets, charts, metrics, and to-do lists. To have planned anything just means that you’ve invested some quiet time to consider what it is you want to accomplish and what’s the surest path to get you there.
I will say this though: I know from experience that investing a little more time on the front end of any process worthy of planning typically pays off many times over. Why do you think carpenters say “measure twice, cut once”.
Planning in the real estate business typically centers around either an income goal or an intermediate metric that correlates very well with income (like listings taken or pending volume or contracts written).
But for most agents, that’s the easy part. Knowing how much money you want to make is probably top-of-mind for you. It’s charting a course that will predictably get you there that can be elusive.
While this article doesn’t aim to tell you what specifically needs to be in your business plan, I do want to share with you a tactic that I’ve found universal success with. That tactic could be thought of as relative specificity. But that sounds a little highfalutin (yes, that’s a real word), so I’m just gonna call it Planning Rule #1.
The rule is simply this. When you struggle with anything at all, get more specific. What? Don’t believe that’s a real nugget of wisdom? Let me prove it to you by way of an example.
An agent has a goal to earn $12,000 in the next 3 months and she’ll do this by doubling her listing inventory, with an emphasis on well-priced homes. But 2 months into the plan, she’s no further along than where she started. Fortunately for her, she remembers Planning Rule #1.
Rather than trying to go straight to doubling her listing inventory, she gets more specific. Her new action goal is to speak with 20 people per day and for 5 of those to be new people she has never met. To meet the 5 new people, she’ll attend at least two networking events per week and will canvass local businesses in the area to meet small business owners.
Now, by using the power of specificity, what she’s effectively done is drive action. If she’s chosen the right actions (and trust me, she has), results will follow. And if she feels lost, she can re-apply the rule and get even more specific. She can list every networking opportunity she can find and put them on her calendar. She can also list the businesses in the order that she’ll visit them along with the approximate dates and times.
Try it out. Anytime you feel yourself stuck in a rut or uncertain about the path ahead, get more specific and drill down until you arrive at an action that ultimately supports your big goals.
Just remember not to call it the rule of relative specificity. Trust me…people will laugh at you.
