If you’re under a year in the business: How good is your start-up business plan?
I’ve just published the 5th edition of Up and Running in 30 Days. In it, I’ve included lots of up-to-the-minute updates. You can read some of them, in these blogs.
Click here to see the updates in my fifth edition of Up and Running in 30 Days.
Below is an excerpt from the newest edition of the book.
Check these lists against the start-up plan you’re using to launch your business. {You DO have a proven start-up plan, don’t you?}
Critical Analysis: How Good Is That Start-Up Plan?
You know what your training will do for you. So I hope you {the new agents} are convinced you also need to implement a business start-up plan to put all that information in perspective. But watch out—there are more poor ones than good ones out there. As a CRB (Certified Real Estate Broker) instructor for 12 years, I taught thousands of owners and managers nationally. I saw plenty of poor plans managers shared with me. (These were the plans they were giving their agents, too.) Here are some commonalities of them:
- They are laundry lists of busywork activities interspersed with activities that actually make you money, so the agent doesn’t get any evaluative perspective to self-manage.
- They do not prioritize lead-generating activities, so the agent thinks all types of lead generation have equal payoffs.
- They do not have methods of setting goals, keeping track of results, and analyzing results to make changes quickly. (Up and Running provides sales ratios so you learn how many specific actions it takes to get the results you want.)
- They do incorrectly prioritize actions. For example, as a high priority, they direct the new agent to “see all the inventory” before doing anything else. The rationale is that it’s very important to see all the inventory to build a knowledge base. It is important, but only as it relates to working with buyers and sellers. (It’s the means, not the end.) But new agents don’t want to do the high-rejection, high-risk activities such as talking to people. So they gladly see all the inventory until it becomes their job descriptions!
- They do include plenty of “busywork” as equal priority to lead generating—such as a broker having an agent visit a title company to learn how it operates. This keeps the agent busy and out of the broker’s hair! Also, the new agent loves the broker for a while, because the broker isn’t asking the new agent to do those high-rejection activities—those activities that lead to a sale!
Bottom line: No would-be successful agent in his right mind would continue doing this type of plan any longer than he had to, because the successful agent recognizes the plan is a poor one.
* Big Idea: Be very critical before you commit to any start-up plan. It is prioritizing your mind! The start-up plan you may love because it keeps you out of sales activities isn’t the plan that is going to love you back (get you the sales you want). What you do every day becomes your job description.
An Effective Start-Up Plan
Here are the six attributes of an effective business start-up plan:
- Does not give equal weight to all activities
- Provides an organized activities schedule with certain activities prioritized first because they lead to a sale (in Up and Running, these are called “business-producing” activities)
- Includes an organized activities schedule with certain activities prioritized second—and explaining why (In Up and Running, these are called “business-supporting” activities)
- Provides a road map for a continuing plan (remember that “plan for life”?)
- Builds in the “why” of the plan structure, so you learn to self-manage
- Has a method to measure and make adjustments in your plan as you progress
- Has a coaching component, so someone can coach you effectively to the plan
Take a look at the business start-up plan thousands of new agents use and thousands of seasoned agents use to re-generate careers.
