The holidays are upon us once again and unlike prior years we are not necessarily focusing on the splendor that was commercial real estate over the past 12 months. Many commercial real estate professionals are rather looking for opportunities in what has been a slow year of activity.
The ideas of “doing the same thing” or “all will work out” have faded along with market velocity. Crafting a vision for 2015 seems more like a daydream, if not nightmare, to many. How can you plan for September of 2015, when you don’t even know if you will close a deal in before March?
Take these four simple steps
- Complete a comprehensive review of 2014. What went well, what could you improve upon?
- Focus on short term strategic plans. Annual goals are still valid, but activities require more focus.
- Take a proactive look at every aspect of your personal brokerage business, including your operational, financial, marketing and personnel plans
- Do not simply focus on your pipeline. Income is created by performance, and performance is best supported by planning.
What creates your pipeline is activity and what create the activities are your plans. This includes your operational plan, your marketing plan, your financial plan and even your human relations plan. Whether you work by yourself, or you work with a team of 50 brokers, you need to account for each of these.
Keys to any business planning are your goals, the metrics to reach these goal and the resources to support these metrics.
For example, your financial plan may call for a Gross Brokerage Commission Income of $100,000 in the first quarter, but your metrics will define when and how you are going to reach these goals and the resources will define the time and the cost. Your marketing plan may include a robust online marketing platform or a simply post card campaign. Your human resource plan may and should consist of a personal investment (education, training or coaching) and certainly a personal savings plan.
You have two choices in 2015:
A) Take the same approach and chase deals
B) Plan for success and lay a foundation for the long term
by creating short term strategic plans.
Now implementing the plan; that’s an entirely different blog topic.
