As real estate agents, your independent business management includes managing your finances. Today, we’re sharing tips for better business planning. As we approach the beginning of a new financial year, we hope this assists you with positioning yourself for optimal success in 2023 and beyond.

Overcoming Avoidance

One of the most common pitfalls realtors face is avoiding business planning. Naturally, many of us strongly dislike this task, so it’s an easy target for procrastination. There tends to be a sense that we can work hard enough to overshoot any hypothetical targets, and that this hard work will subvert the need for clarity, streamlined systems, structure, and strategies for the year.

The reality, though, is that without this structure, it’s unlikely that any agent will be able to close enough transactions to even meet goals, let alone exceed them.

The solution is pushing through for 2023 by creating a business plan that is engaging, suits your personal work style, and gives you an impressive return on your invested time. Once your mind has made the association between planning and the exciting results that follow, you’ll find this portion of your work becomes easier with each passing year.

Analyze 2022

Execute an impartial year-end review of 2022. Analyze your total transactions, deduct your expenses, and take note of the remaining budget. Try to create a clear view of the tactics that worked, those that didn’t, and which made for happier clients despite a neutral effect on this year’s profits. (Over time, happier clients will yield more referrals, so this category is highly important.)

Additionally, any agent can benefit by searching for techniques to add in the new year to fill out gaps in marketing, client follow-up, clarity of communication within a team, and effectiveness of techniques employed in the previous year.

Give Yourself Space to Dream Big

Before you create a defined business plan, give yourself time and space to reconnect with your dreams. It’s easy to get bogged down in daily duties and forget the larger goals that brought us to our real estate business to begin with! This year, make it a goal to journal, make a vision board, meditate, or collaborate with a teammate to reconnect with the biggest business dreams you have for yourself.

Focus on what you want for yourself and make clear documentation of your goals. Refer back to your notes, vision board, or recorded affirmation repeatedly throughout the year. Any time you face challenges, bring yourself back to the why behind your efforts!

Create or Revise Your Strategic Plan

Your strategic plan is a living document that you will continually update throughout the year based on the information you gain as you navigate the realities of the market. Still, your strategic plan should hold goals that challenge you to do as much as possible at any given time.

Are you meeting or exceeding your targets? Update your strategic plan to contain even bigger goals! Keep yourself on a trajectory to having achieved incredible things by 2025.

Create or Revise Your Business Plan

In order to be successful, we recommend dedicating at least one full day to thoughtfully researching and writing a detailed plan. Your business plan should be profitable, scalable, flexible, and sharable. If your plan is only intelligible to you, it won’t be useful in bringing your team on board.

Remember: your business plan is a reflection of your ability to conceptualize a path to success for you and everyone who works for you. You are responsible for bringing your staff alongside you as you guide your assistants and agents through 2023 and beyond.

Launch Into Action Through Implementation

One final pitfall remains. We have seen agents get so wrapped up in planning that they have trouble moving into the implementation phase. Alternatively, agents create an excellent business plan, but lose focus as quickly as many of us dismiss our New Year’s resolutions. Before long, it’s business as usual, with no adherence to the pathway to success they worked so hard to conceptualize.

The willpower to create a plan is one thing, but the discipline required to follow the plan day after day is something altogether different. Every day, you’ll have to refocus on your plan, your goals, and communication within your team.

If you are a solo agent, communicate with your clients, your network, and other professionals working with you on a property. Inspectors, stagers, landscapers, and repair workers are all examples of personnel with whom you’ll need to communicate frequently.  

Accept Critical Feedback

Once you’ve communicated your plan and your goals to your team, solicit feedback on your process and your progress. If an astute team member recognizes that you’re drifting from your course, approach critical feedback with gratitude. Recognize that the team member who brings this to your attention is intelligent, focused, and dedicated to helping your entire team succeed this year.

The Takeaway

We encourage you to approach this difficult part of running your own business with enthusiasm and optimism. Without taking this step, you are likely to miss out on strategies that could propel you into a level of professional success of which you have previously only dared to dream.

We believe in your ability to tap into the continually expanding market for every level of real estate in Middle Tennessee. Whether you are focused on condominiums, single-family properties, commercial leasing, or open lots ripe with opportunity, this year has the potential to be your best yet!