Earlier this week we initiated our 5-part series on Making 2017 Your Best CRE Year Yet. I shared with you how, in our now 9th year of working with over 1,000 commercial real estate professionals in our coaching programs, we have honed a process for preparing for the New Year. The process can be defined as having 5 specific steps. These steps include:
- Review
- Reflection
- Restriction
- Reposition
- Reaffirmation
In the first part of this series, we outlined Step 1- The Review. There are 3 reviews you need to complete before you can set a path for growth in 2017. As I noted, this is the biggest step. The three reviews include your transaction history, your prospecting efforts, and your personal marketing efforts.
[Tweet “The first step to goal setting is the review.”]
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.
Step 2 addresses your Reflection on all the aspects discovered during your comprehensive Review. If you’ve read, and then performed step 1, the Review, you should be thinking to yourself “Hey, I am starting to see what I need to work on in 2017!” Well, good! We’re moving forward, we’re making progress, but we’re not quite there yet. Before we can move to setting new goals, we need to think more from a reflection stand point, and by reflection, I mean I want you to reflect on your findings. You need to look back at your review.
[Tweet “Reflection is a critical step to your growth.”]
Step 2 is a critical step to your growth. Your reflection will be complete when you answer 4 critical questions.
1) What met or exceeded your expectations for 2016?
Don’t go negative on me here, keep it positive. Maybe it was the way you utilized your time or how you dedicated specific time allocations towards your prospecting efforts or towards building your team. Perhaps you invest in yourself, via training, designations, or coaching. Did you focus on the size and types of deals you wanted to work on, or the clients you wanted to connect with? There’s no limit here to what it could be. Ideally write down 5 items that met or exceeded your expectations.
2) What did not meet, or exceed your expectations.
Do not focus on the “why”. Not yet. Look, this is more from an opportunity stand point. We don’t believe in negative opportunities. Where can we adjust if we need to. What could you have done better, where did you fall short of a goal? Again, ideally list 5 items that did not meet your expectations.
3) What were your 3 most productive activities?
Think about what you did every day and what were truly the most productive activities you performed. List 3 things you can say without a doubt, “If I continue to do these three things, it will continue to grow my business and propel me forward.” Where was your time best utilized? Where did you spend the time where you were just in the zone? Are there times you were doing things that maybe you didn’t like to do, but they were very productive for you? Prospecting calls are most often listed in this category.
4) What were your 3 least productive activities?
Think of the opposite. This is where most tend to say, “Yep, I know what I was doing was unproductive.” Great! Identify it, but limit it to 3. Don’t write a list of ten. This is just for your eyes, no one else’s. List your 3 most unproductive activities in 2016.
This concludes the second step of the 5-step process towards Making 2017 Your Best CRE Year Yet. You now have reviewed what you did in 2016 and have reflected on what it meant. In the 3rd step we are going to help you identify the “why”. Why do these things happen? What is restricting us from growing, not meeting our goals, not meeting our expectations? In Step 3, we will explore Restrictions. This is essential for us to break through these restrictions so we can grow to our fullest potential.
Get the step-by-step proven methodology, workbook, and success plan template to make 2017 your best CRE year yet now!
