Owning a business carries many responsibilities. One responsibility many leaders give little consideration to is Results Control.
We can take responsibility for the direction in which we take our businesses, or we can blame the market. Most blame the market.
If you have been in business for 20 years or more, you have experienced every real estate market there ever was and ever will be. Markets are cyclical. Stick around long enough and you will experience every cycle.
The fact that you have experienced every cycle should buoy you with confidence – you are still in business so you must be doing something right. But business should be about more than just survival. It should be about PROSPERITY AND GROWTH, despite the market of the day.
This is where the Elements of Control are important.
1. Planning
High profit is achieved through consistent results. Consistent results begin with planning. Begin by thinking how much profit you want. How many sales per month do you need if you are to achieve that profit? How many listings? And how many winning salespeople must you have if you are to list that many properties?
How will you market for those listings?
How will you attract winners?
What hiring and selection methods will you use?
Our best offices hold annual and monthly planning meetings and dynamic sales meetings and training meetings weekly.
Results don’t happen: they are planned.
2. Training and Coaching
When leaders blame the market for their poor results, I ask them if they think TEAM COMPETENCE could also affect results.
Is it not true that you can sell anything if it’s priced right? Therefore, the market is not to blame if we are not making sales – we either do not have enough listings, our listings are overpriced, or a combination of the two.
These are all COMPETENCE ISSUES, not market issues.
Leaders are responsible for the competence of their teams.
Training and coaching are essential leader duties. Work with each team member one-on-one, and with the team as a whole.
Each salesperson should sit with you for goal setting sessions, planning sessions, and a review of the last week and the month’s, actions. You are each salesperson’s coach.
3. Course Correction
You cannot correct a course if you haven’t first charted one. Course correction can only occur if there is a plan.
Course correction occurs during your one-on-one meetings, when you review each salesperson’s actions for the past week, and the past month. Salespeople whose actions are low are headed for slumps unless they lift their action levels. If the leader knows the actions are low, the leader can ask the salesperson to lift the action level now, before it turns into a slump.
“That’s easier said than done!” you say? “You can’t get salespeople to do the right actions”. Since when did Sales become a democracy? What would you do if your receptionist refused to answer the phones? So let me get this straight: receptionists have to do the actions they are paid to do or they will be fired. But salespeople?
There should be no choice. Do what you are paid to do or leave. So if a salesperson will not do the actions required to produce results, you must remove that person from your team and replace them with somebody who WILL do the actions.
Course correction also occurs during sales meetings. This weekly meeting is an opportunity for the leader to see if the office is lagging behind target and to set team actions to rectify the problem.
Sales meetings should not be procedural meetings. They are RESULTS MEETINGS where actions are set to keep the agency on course for its planned results.
If you plan, train and correct, you have control. Don’t leave it to chance and then blame the market – take control.
Lead your team toward the planned results of your choice. You are the leader. Know where you want your business to go, and lead it to that destination.