Friends, this is it. It’s the end of the year. What? I know what you’re thinking. “Lins, it hasn’t even snowed yet. We’re nowhere near the end of the year.” Hear me out.
The indisputable law of real estate is that our actions today will garner results in roughly ninety days. Three months. One quarter. We’re about to hit the end of the year, folks. So buckle up.
I know you didn’t get your real estate license to take it for a test drive. You didn’t slog through your ninety hours of prelicensing education and pull several all-nighters to pass three finals, a state, and a national exam. You didn’t tell your friends and family that you were going to be a real estate agent only to have to tell them at next year’s family picnic that things didn’t work out. That’s not you.
What you DID do was cast a vision for what this career might look like. You’ll be successful, growth-minded, and focused on the future. You’ll be helping so many families achieve their real estate goals and establish a foundation for legacy and generational wealth. This is your path, and you have to do the work to get there.
Let’s all make a plan. A pinky promise if you will, to double down on our fourth quarter of 2024 so that we can hit the 2025 year hard and fast and with a solid pipeline. Below is a recipe for next year’s success… all you need to do is follow it.
STEP ONE: MAKE A PLAN FOR MASTERY
Mastery in this industry can seem complicated, especially for those of us running a solo business and wearing all of the hats. Simplified, you need to master five categories in your business. If you measure yourself in these five categories and you’re unable to score 10/10, make a learning plan now.
- Goal Setting
- Lead Generation
- Appointments
- Service
- Financials
Do you have a 4-1-1 and do you stick to it? Not to be mistaken for a task list, your 4-1-1 is a powerful tool that enables you to take sips from the firehose instead of getting pounded in the face by it. Simply, the 4-1-1 is a blueprint for your annual goals and it breaks those goals down into monthly and then weekly tasks and action items. Those weekly actions must feed back up to your annual goals. This is NOT a to-do list, it is an goal list. This list should included both your professional as well as your personal goals. Remember, you could be crushing it in business but if you’re failing in your personal life, it’s pointless.
The glorious thing about a 4-1-1 isn’t just that it keeps us on task, it’s a measuring tool as well. Nearly everything in your business is quantifiable, so if you’re not garnering the results you expect, you can use your 4-1-1 to find the gaps in your business early so you don’t find yourself behind the 8-ball in the ninth inning.
Master your Time Management and Your 4-1-1 and you’re well on your way to a successful career.
You can make lists and dabble with your website all day long, but if you’re not actually going out and getting the business to work in, you’re going to run out of business and eventually (or perpetually) be out of money. Learn what works best for you, set goals to do those things, and don’t sell yourself short. If Lead Generation isn’t already a daily habit for you, you’ve not mastered it. Master your Lead Generation. Grow Your Database. Connect With Your Market. Generate Your Leads.
Once you have a lead, you need to convert that lead to an appointment and then host a successful appointment and convert that prospect to a signed client. Know your value. Know your conversations. Handle those objections and win the appointment. If you’re new to appointments or if you’ve been on hundreds, it’s never too late to improve your skills. Make a plan to connect with a business partner or a trusted member of your sphere to practice your buyer and seller appointments. Define Your Value.
SERVICE
An expert real estate professional is a master of customer service, and you’re no different. Outside of the bare minimum standard of practice, what is your 10+ commitment to your clients? How do you deliver the best care and service to the people who are trusting you with one of the most important financial decisions of their lives? What makes you stand out as the best person to hire for a real estate purchase or sale? Check out Win With Sellers and Win With Buyers. Both have outstanding classes focused on providing the best customer service.
FINANCIALS
If you aren’t right with your money, your life and business won’t be sustainable. Track your income. Track your spending. Know when to pump the brakes and when to hit the gas on your spending and investing. Check out Getting Financially Fit on KW Connect.
STEP TWO: SET ATTAINABLE LEAD GENERATION GOALS
If you aren’t already positive how many leads you need to receive in order to convert the number of leads you need to appointments and how many appointments you need to have in order to hit your financial goals, you are 100% selling yourself short. A fresh agent might not have the history of metrics to measure themselves, however there are quite a few models anyone can follow to get started. The first thing you need to know if you don’t already is what your annual appointment goal is. This isn’t throwing spaghetti against the wall, folks. You need to know exactly how many appointments you need to go on in order to convert the number of people you need to convert to get the number of units closed you need to close to make your financial goal for the year. If you don’t have an updated Economic Plan, do that now. Watch Your Business Plan to learn more, or better yet, set up a 30 minute appointment with me to go over it together! Schedule your Business Plan Consultation with me here.
Once you have a solid business plan, you’ll know how many appointments you need to go on every month, and subsequently you’ll understand how many you’ll need to go on every week. Take your monthly goal, divide it by four, and multiply that by 1.5. This is the number of appointments you’ll want to focus on setting every week to hit your annual goal. For instance, if my monthly goal is five appointments, I’ll divide that by four (1.25) and multiply that by 1.5 (1.87). Rounding up, I have to focus on setting two appointments a week in order to ensure I go on at least five a month. Fun fact, I know the conversion for set to held is much higher than 62%, so if I maintain this pace I’ll not only hit my financial goals, I will CRUSH them.
Knowing how many appointments I need to set now, I’ll need to decide how to frame up my weekly and daily lead generation goals. If I intend to connect with at least fifteen people a day and over the next couple of months I find that I’m not setting the two appointments a week I planned to set, there’s a gap I need to fill before I fall behind. This is why visiting your 4-1-1 frequently is so powerfully important. If I realize that my action plan isn’t lining up with the results I want in March, I’ll have plenty of runway to adjust my action plan and stay on target.
STEP THREE: FIND YOUR ACCOUNTABILITY VILLAGE
Nobody succeeds alone. Nobody. You’ll need both personal and professional accountability to be successful, and there’s no way around it. Your 4-1-1 is an excellent self-accountability tool, however we’re 65% more likely to actually hit those goals if we make those commitments to somebody else. Verbalizing your dreams somehow makes them feel more real, resulting in an attachment to a vision that is harder to shake or write off. Additionally, most of us are adverse to telling folks that we failed to meet our goals or let ourselves down. If you aren’t already in an accountability group, join one. If you don’t have a trusted business partner, get one. If you don’t already have personal relationships with people who are committed to seeing you succeed, go find your village.
YOU’VE GOT THIS
Like you, I don’t want to start the year next year feeling like I’m late to the party. I’m gearing up for my best year ever, and you are too! You’ve got this. We’ve got this.
Go crush it.
-Coach Lins
