Have you found yourself going to too many different directions? Do you have some significant time management challenges? In this world of lightning change, salespeople can struggle just to stay even–much less get ahead. The ability to organize these changes seems daunting. But, the need is greater than the risk. If we can’t manage the day-to-day business through systems, we’re caught forever in ‘crisis’ management. Here’s how to organize, systematize, and automate our jobs so we can manage change—rather than having change manage us.

You as a System

I want you quit thinking of yourself as a creative individual, and, for a moment, consider that you can organize what you do just like software organizes tasks (well, almost!). In other words, you can systematize YOU, to some extent.

Choose or create systems—then harness technology. First, create your systems. Then, choose the technology to run those systems. You’ll spend less money and utilize your technological investments better if you’ve organized your business systematically first. Then, you’ll know exactly what systems you want to automate. In Up and Running in 30 Days, I’ve provided a Technology Planner, to help you prioritize your needs.

Five Steps to Systematize Your Business

1. First, itemize the tasks you do each day.

2. Prioritize your tasks as they relate to accomplishing your main objectives. What are the most important tasks you do to assure you make money consistently? (Up and Running provides lots of guidance on prioritization.)

3. Organize your high-priority tasks into systems–or purchase systems.

Should you create your own system, or buy one? Smart agents buy systems, if they’re available. An example is a listing presentation. Even though an agent could create a system, time spent on creation isn’t worth the price paid in ‘down sales time’ profitability. Don’t be a creator unless you just can’t find a good system.

4. Choose your technology to support the systems you already have in place. Let’s say you now how a manually-created listing system. You’ve decided who you will involve in the plan; you’ve decided which tasks you can delegate. Now, you’re ready to choose technology to automate your system. Because you know what you want this technology to accomplish, you can make a good choice. You can easily customize the software to meet your needs–because you already have a system in place.

5. Package your systems so you can promote your exceptional business organization to buyers and sellers. For example: If you’ve never worked with a particular buyer or seller before, that buyer can’t know if you’ll communicate regularly. Show the buyer your process/system for communicating regularly, so he can start trusting you as the professional you know you are. Remember, we believe what we see, not what we hear.

Start with just one series of tasks and get that systematized. Soon, you’ll be running your business much more like a business.

Questions: If you’re wondering whether systems are worth investing time and money in, think about the top agents you know. Do they operate without systems? Could they?

What systems do you have? What systems do you need?

What to Measure

Of course, you’ll want to measure the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Use this form to do that.

Your Time Management

Agents say time management is their biggest challenge. And, it all comes down to prioritizing your activities. Here’s the question: Are you spending more of your time in

Business-producing activities (lead generation, interviewing/qualifying, showing, selling, listing, listing sells)

or

Business-supporting activities (everything else)

In my business start-up plan for new agents, Up and Running in 30 Days, I break all real estate activities into the 2 categories above to create a business start-up plan for success. Why? To give new agents a precise, correct model for a successful business.

Creatures of Habit

We are creatures of habit. Without a different model, we tend to do whatever group of activities which appeal to us because they’re easy and don’t take us out of our comfort zone. Unfortunately, then, we create a business activity plan that leads us to failure, not success.

How to Analyze your Time Management

How do you know which ‘business plan’ you’re following? (because you’re following one, whether you’ve written it down or not!)? Simply look at your schedule for the last 2-3 weeks. Put your activities into the two columns above. How many business-producing activities did you do? Is your activity schedule highly ‘tilted’ toward business supporting activities? Why? What do you want to change?

Note: There are many more analysis tools in this month’s featured resource, The On Track to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent.

This comprehensive resource is like having your own consultant 24/7. In each section, you have the opportunity to analyze your strengths and challenges and make a specific plan to improve. In addition, there’s a 30-day regeneration plan. See more at The On Track to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent.

1. Do the work.
2. Don’t argue.
3. Don’t make excuses for not doing your start-up plan.
4. Don’t tell the manager you’ve been in the business two weeks and you have a better way.
5. Do thank your manager frequently.
6. Do tell other agents that you appreciate your manager’s efforts.
7. Do tell other new agents you meet in other companies that you have a great manager.
8. Don’t bug other people in the office to find another answer because you didn’t like your manager’s answer.
9. Don’t change the Up and Running plan because you “don’t like it”. (You just don’t like lead generating, do you?)10. Don’t miss a coaching appointment!

I’d love to hear what you think of my ‘ten commandments.’ Are there others you think are important?

Managers: Why not make your own ten commandments and discuss them in your interview process. Then, turn the tables and ask the agent about his expectations of you and the office.

Agents: Before you hire on, get in writing exactly what your manager is going to do to assure your success, so you won’t have disappointments later. Getting agreement on what we both expect before we decide to work together is key to a happy partnership. The only surprises I want you and your agent to have after you start working together are good ones!

Side note: Managers: My belief is that you owe it to your agents to coach each one, regularly and professionally, in starting his or her business. That shows your 100% commitment to each person’s success.

Know Your Business

Do you know where the majority of your business came from last year? Do you know what percent (or even how many) of your marketing dollars you spent in creating that business? Some agents know the answer to the first question. Very few agents know the answer to the second. A few months ago, I was a speaker at a large regional company convention on business planning. I found that about half the agents could answer the first question. They knew their best source of business was referrals. However, only one out of 400 knew what percent of his total marketing budget he had spent generating this best source!  Why? Agents take referrals for granted. They don’t build a marketing plan around this best source, so they have no way of allocating marketing dollars or measuring results. Their approach to their best source seems to be, when you’ve been in the business for awhile, you get referrals, don’t you?

 Are you Mining Referrals or Just Waiting for Them?

Assuming that referrals automatically come to you as a result of being in the business for awhile is a costly mistake. Smart salespeople in other fields today know that planned, purposeful business networking for referrals is the best way to increase your business at small cost. No matter how many referrals you get now, here’s how to increase that goldmine. An added bonus: Your business experiences will be less stressful, for you’ll be working more with people who know you’re wonderful–or have heard you’re wonderful. Here’s how to systematize your ‘goldmine’ to assure that getting referrals is not just a great idea–it’s a major part of your business plan.

Two of the Six Goldmine ‘Moves’

1. Find out where your business came from last year. This is a very important, though usually left out, part of your business planning process. My new business planning program, Beyond the Basics of Business Planning, has a system for analyzing your best sources of business (as well as analyzing all of the most critical areas of your business) . 

After discovering where your best sources of business were last year, add the number of marketing dollars you spent on each source of business. Compare sources with outlay of marketing dollars. Are you allocating more of your marketing dollars to your proven sources? What’s your return on your marketing investments? Are you, as many agents, spending too many marketing dollars chasing the wrong sources of sources of business?

According to marketing research companies, it costs five times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one! But, you say, why should you spend marketing money on people who won’t buy another home from you, or list their home, for another five-fifteen years? Because you’re not after just the sale. You’re after referrals.(insert figure here)

2. Start thinking of your best source of business as a “target market”. Who gives you referrals? Your most important source are old customers and clients. Your second source, in that same category, are people who know and trust you. Have you ever thought about these two groups as a specific “target market”? Looking at them that way changes your whole view on their importance to growing your business.

A word of caution about concentrating on getting referrals as merely tactical moves. It’s bigger than that.  To grow your goldmine with referrals, you must integrate this referral concept into your business plan. This is a specific market, one that’s much more important than for-sale-by-owners, first-time buyers, or other markets. Why?

What insights did you get reading this blog? How much money did you spend on your best source of business last year? What changes are you going to make?

1. Get you to top performance fast. As a top producing agent, I learned how to put together and implement a start-up plan that worked. Then, I proved this plan works for others, as I used it to coach hun­dreds of new agents to success fast. Many of the new agents I hired and coached achieved top 10 percent status their first year in our company, which consisted of 400 agents, including those who had fifteen years’ or more experience.

Question: If you’re struggling, is your business plan helping you fail?

2.    Provide a top flight “performance plan.” More than experience and background has gone into crafting your start-up plan. I really learned how to craft a good performance plan as a musician and musical performance coach. (I started teaching piano at age 16, and taught private and group piano and ~ ute lessons in colleges for sev­eral years.) To learn to do something, you must have a structure that helps you perform correctly from the start. It must give you your next steps—in the right order. It must challenge you at the right times. It must teach you the principles so you can “go on auto” yourself.

*Big Idea: This performance plan is the basis for your career success— forever.

3.  Helps you consistently get better results. As a musician, I know that in order to get great performance fast, I need a way to measure what I’m doing and make adjustments. In music, we listen to our perfor­mances, usually with our coach, and evaluate to make adjustments. Then, we play it again with the bene~ ts of our evaluations. That’s how we get higher performance.

As a real estate coach, that’s what I do with my clients: help them look at their performances and make adjustments for higher performance results. So, another big differ­ence in this resource is that I’ve built in the measurement tools you’ll need to analyze your progress and adjust your activities to get the results you want. I haven’t just given you activity plans. I’ve given you the means to measure your results. I’ve given you the analysis tools to make adjustments. I’ve given you all the tools you need to become a master at self-management.

*Big Idea: Measuring what you do frequently propels you to higher results.

4. Get you a sale in 30 days. When do you expect to make your first sale (or a sale, if you’re slumping)? If you’re like the majority of new agents, you expect to make a sale in your first 30 days in the business. I discovered those expecta­tions when I did a survey of hundreds of agents who had under three months in the business. (The results of that survey are in Become Tomorrow’s Mega-Agent Today! ) How­ever, most new agents don’t achieve that goal. In fact, about half the new agents who start their careers in any year leave the business that same year! Not only do they not make a sale fast, they don’t make enough sales to stay in the business.

So, if making a sale your first month is your expectation, you need a start-up plan that gets you into the sales game fast and has you talking with (and working with) many people Protect you from adopting the habits of failure. As a new agent, I honestly didn’t know why I was succeeding, but as I began observ­ing the activities of low-producing agents, I noticed they spent most of their time previewing properties to “know the inventory.” They also spent a signi~ cant amount of time in class learning interesting things. They also spent less time on the job (National Association of REALTORS^® statistics show successful agents spend many more hours on the job). In contrast, my primary priority was finding and showing homes to buyers. I, too, viewed plenty of homes—but took genuine buyers with me to see them.

Contrasts of Low-Producing vs. High-Producing Agents

I started contrasting the low-producing agents’ plans with mine (although low-producing agents say they have no plan; what they did last week was their plan). My plan was to find and show people homes. Sell as fast as you can! I finally fig­ured out that most new agents avoid the actions that require sales skills. They avoid rejection. They naturally do the activities that are easy: preview homes and sit in class!

*Big Idea: Slow starters do activities that allow them to avoid rejection, but also have a low fi nancial payoff . If you want to start fast, you need a fast start-up plan.

These principles are the foundation of Up and Running in 30 Days. Or, if you’re an experienced agent looking for a shot in the arm (or a kick in the pants), take a look at the On Track to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent. Either program will get your priorities right and put you back on the track to your goals.

New agents need to be focused on business development—not training

Another stunning finding from the research was that 62% of the new agents expected to get a check in their first sixty days in the business!  They expect to hit the ground running.

To do this, the new agent’s focus needs to be on business development, not on training. Normally, companies put the new agent into a ‘curriculum based’ program to tell them everything they’ll ever need to know about real estate. Unfortunately, the new agent thinks that all that knowledge equals success in real estate. That’s wrong.

Creating Success, not Useless Knowledge

New agents create early success when they focus on a business start-up plan that contained heavy business-producing activities. If you’re a new agent, you have to develop the mental toughness to ignore information that’s not critical to your business production. If you don’t, your money will run out before you learn everything! (Give it up; you’ll never know everything!)

Your expectations may vary from your manager’s expectations of you.

If the new agent expects high earnings fast, what did his manager expect from him?  71% of the new agent respondents from the survey didn’t know.  They hadn’t asked, and the manager, in the interview, had not volunteered to share any management expectations.

No News is Good News?

71% of the respondents didn’t know even the minimum expectations of their managers–the minimum production standards they would have to meet to have their contracts renewed the second year (or  to be retained during any start-up period). To assure that the new agent and manager see ‘eye to eye’, both parties need to agree on mutual expectations in writing prior to hiring on.

Not only getting the ‘what’ in writing, but the ‘how’. Even agreeing on minimum activity and production standards doesn’t assure that the new agent will meet his goals with the full support of his/her manager. The new agent needs to see the ‘how’—exactly how that manager will coach the new agent to quick success. If you’re a new agent, you need to see the exact business activity plan* that you will be coached to. You also need proof that the plan has worked with others in the past to deliver the results you expect of yourself your first month, quarter, and year in the business.

Matching expectations assures no surprises and gets planned results. Take the wishing out of business expectations. Both new agent and manager need to get expectations in writing, agree on a business start-up plan, and start working together with mutual accountability to partner in great results. Your manager must be accountable to coaching you on a regular basis with a proven business start-up plan. You, the new agent, must be accountable to do the activities in the plan. Together, you will achieve your mutual goals.

Do YOU have a start-up plan?

If you’re under 2 years in the business, I’ll bet you don’t have a business start-up plan. Yet, you need one! Check out Up and Running in 30 Days. I promise you’ll get your business on track to exceptional success, as have thousands of other new agents who follow the plan.

What’s In a Lead Generation Plan

You’re either a new agent, or you want to re-generate your business. You’re wondering just how to do it. You know you have to lead generate to jump-start your business. Specifically,you’re wondering how much lead generation you must do to reach those goals.

Although people lead generate in various ways,  there are some proven numbers associated with lead generation which help you plan and track those leads.

Success by the Numbers

 I set the expectations for the Up and Running in 30 Days business start-up program based on my experience on the number of contacts it takes to get a lead, then a sale. But, it also depends on several variables, as explained in Up and Running:

1. Type of contact–how warm or cold is it?

How much trust has been established? The warmer the contact, the more trust is already there. So, it takes less contacts in a ‘warm’ target market (like people you know or past clients) to convert to a lead, than to a ‘cold contact’. For example, the Internet marketing companies say it takes 200 contacts to equal one sale.

2. The agent’s sales skill, competency, and tenacity.

How good are you at opening sales conversations? How good are you at finding out needs? Asking insightful questions? Listening? Guiding the conversation with focus toward a goal of moving the sales process forward? The better you are at sales skills, the easier you’ll find it to sell–and the better your lead and conversion ratios.

3. The market–buyers and sellers are more hesitant to ‘turn themselves in’ today.

Sales skills come back into play here. It’s not a market where people just fall all over themselves to buy and sell real estate. You have to have skills, tenacity, and competency.

How can you tell the numbers it takes?

Track your numbers for each target market and track your conversion rates. Now you know the specific work it takes for you to generate a lead, create an interview, work with buyers and sellers, and get sales results. Armed with those numbers, you can customize a program like Up and Running.

The problem: Most agents work way too few lead generation numbers and sources. In fact, they have so few, it’s impossible to extrapolate ratios. That’s why Up and Running and the four -week regeneration plan in the On Track to Success in 30 Days System (for seasoned agents) have such big numbers–it’s an insurance plan.

Getting to the Finish Line

Grab your tenacity, get armed with your business generation plan, and get started. Set your goals and keep your accomplishments. Analyze them. Work your best sources of business with consistency. Polish your sales skills. Now, you’ve positioned yourself for success!

If you’re unsure whether you will reach your goals, (or even make enough money to stay in the business), ask yourself these 10 questions: 

1.  Do I have a ‘start-up’ plan—a plan that tells me what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and why to do it? (Or, do I just come to the office and ‘go with the flow’)

2. Am I waiting for someone to tell me what to do each day, or do I have focus and purpose with my plan? (it doesn’t work to ask your manager what to do each day, and, as a newer agent just told me, your manager answers, “Mail some postcards.” You wouldn’t expect a Starbucks franchise to ‘guide’ the new franchisee that way, and you’re not going to get a business start with that kind of  piecemeal ‘advice’!)

3. Do I have a daily schedule that is prioritized with the business actions most important to me to assure I make money? (If you’re just relying on your office for its floor time and meeting schedule, you aren’t in the business!)

4. Do I know the best methods of lead generation—and how to implement them? (You can’t wait for ‘training’ that starts in 3 months to start your business!)

5. Do I know the numbers? (how many contacts does it take to get a lead, how many leads to get an appointment, how many appointments to get a listing, showing, how many showings to get a sale, how many marketable listings will sell) (If you don’t, you are destined to be an ‘on accident’ agent—only selling someone something when the stars are aligned).

6. Do I know how long it will take to get a sale? To get a listing? To get a listing sold? (so you can project your income) (New agents tend to wait, and wait, and wait, to get into the business ‘stream’, thinking that there is no time frame to buyers’ decisions—wrong!)

7. Do I have a method of setting goals and tracking accomplishments in the areas above—so I can analyze my specific strengths and challenges in this business? (Most agents never track what they do, so they don’t know what worked—or why what they’re doing isn’t working).

8. Do I have a budget so I know how much money I should be spending in marketing myself/marketing my listings?

9. Do I have someone to talk to regularly, to coach me, to keep me on track, and to help me if I fall off my start-up plan (to keep me from failing)?

10. Do I have a method to keep myself motivated and inspired to keep on keeping on (like a coach or your manager)? 

If you can’t answer the questions above with authority and confidence, you need much more business direction than you’re getting now. It’s time for you to get serious about real estate as a business, and grasp a start-up plan and the support you need to assure your success.

 Resource: See Up and Running in 30 Days, www.carlacross.com. It’s a comprehensive new agent start-up plan with enough training to get you into the field, and focused, starting with your first week in the business. It answers all the questions above. Most people would call it a ‘business plan’, but it’s not. It’s specially created as the appropriate ‘start-up plan’ for the new agent, just as all successful franchises provide their start-up plans for their new franchisees.

Managers: My survey of hundreds of agents under 3 months in the business showed that the majority expected a sale their first month in the business. Guess in what month they are mentally and emotionally out of the business? Month two.

Especially in a challenging market, it’s your job to provide them a comprehensive start-up plan and coach them to it, to assure your investment in them pays off—and their investments in themselves pay off, too.

Most agents tell me they did not receive a job description when they started in the business (or in the interview). If not, why not? In my last blog, I discussed the fallacy that agents should start out as ‘independent’ business people. Now, I don’t mean they shouldn’t take responsibility for their actions and success. I mean that we shouldn’t abdicate our responsibility to teach, train, and coach them so they become great salespeople (so they can become independnet).  Besides not having skills they need to succeed, they usually don’t even know what the job is!

Poor Job Descriptions Abound

As I teach management courses nationally, and speak nationally, I see many examples of poorly thought-out job descriptions and activity plans. What do you think is a poor job description? Take a look here.  ( a preview is to the right).

Why do you think I regard it as a poor job description? It’s not:

Prioritized

Some of the activities don’t result in success

My conclusion: This job description was written by an academic who had never been successful in real estate!

Abdicating  Leadership Responsibilities

Part of that abdication of management responsibility, I believe, is managers not providing a prioritized job description to agents. Notice I said ‘prioritized’.  Which activities should the agent start with? Which are important to be successful? Which are less important?

Before I share my job description with you, please write the job description you believe is the one you follow. Is it helping your hurting you prioritize your most important activities?

My Prioritized Job Description

Now, take a look at the prioritized job description I developed as a foundation for the new agent’s start-up plan,  Up and Running in 30 Days. How does yours differ? What does your job description say about what you think is important? Are you gaining as much success as you should? What does your job description and business plan have to do with those results?

For a printable copy, click here. 

Get that job description refined. Talk to other agents to assure it’s the job description that reflects how you want to work. Compare that job description to what you actually do every day. How close can you come to your job description in your everyday execution? Now, you’re getting much more effective and efficient.

Getting the guidance you need to succeed: If you’re a new agent (under 1 year), you need Up and Running in 30 Days. If you’re a seasoned agent, you need The On Track to Success in 30 Days System. Why not assure you have a better year in 2012?

1. You don’t have a sales history to review (a large part of the business planning process). You don’t have a frame of reference.

2. You don’t have a need to think out 3-5 years.

3. You don’t have a need to make complex marketing plans.

What you do need: A prioritized business start-up plan. If you don’t have that, you will do meaningless activities like:

• get organized–all day
• attend classes–all day
• preview properties–all week
• observe others–all week
• do research and follow-up

A friend of mine observes that agents who fall into this action plan seem to be “getting ready to get ready”.

The very dangerous thing about agents creating a daily plan without good business-start-up principles, is that they create habits of failure. In effect, they created their own start-up plan—one that assures low production.

Dump that Long-Term Plan and Look at your Start-Up Plan–If You Have One Why not rate your plan now to see which path you are on? Simply add up the number of hours you spent last week in the activities above. Now, add up the sales producing activities (lead generation, showings, listing presentations, sales, and listings gained). Which of the categories has the larger time block?  What does that tell you about the job description you have created? Is it a job description that leads to sales?

Attributes of an Effective Business Start-up System

So, then, what is an effective business start-up plan? And, what else do you need? An effective business start-up plan has these attributes:

1. An organized activity schedule that has certain activities prioritized first, so you can manage your time effectively—throughout your career

2. A schedule that has certain activities scheduled secondarily—and why—so you don’t teach yourself to be a failed agent

3. A road-map for a continuing plan, so you can continue growing your business to the next level. (These are all attributes of Up and Running in 30 Days, the new agent’s business start-up plan).

Plan must be integrated with training and coaching. But, that’s not all you need. You need integrated programs with a skilled coaching professional (it can be your manager, or an outside coach), to help you implement successfully.

When to Switch to a Bigger Business Planning Process

1. When you’ve completed 8-12 transactions in a year (now you know how to organize and implement your prioritized day-to-day activities)

2. When you have a track record so you can review your previous year to see patterns and make changes

New Business Planning Series

If you’re unsure how to start your plan, if you don’t see the benefit of planning, I’ve got some answers for you.  I’ve been working on business planning for years……and I’ve just come up with a series that I think answers questions like, “How do I get started? How do I know what numbers to put in? How can I make my plan useful?  How will I know that it works?”

I call this big program Come See 2012: Beyond the Basics of Business Planning. In it, I’ve created 2 webinars to walk you right through the planning process. I’ve made it simple and straightforward–but not so simple it won’t work!  Along with that, I’ve provided the most updated versions of my planning documents–15 of them!

In addition, I’ve added several bonuses:

• From the Coach: 53 Pointers for your Business Plan
• Biggest Marketing Dos and Don’ts
• Especially for teams: How to use the planning process to teamify and inspire

All for a VERY affordable price of $79. Why not let me walk you through the process, provide inspiration, and confidence that your plan will work to give you a great 2012? Click here for more information and purchase.