I don’t want to alarm you, but we are nearing the end of the first quarter of 2017. Are you following a plan that you devised in late 2016, or early January 2017? Put another way, what’s your plan?
Pittard works with some highly profitable real estate businesses. Several make over $1 million profit just from their residential sales departments.
In many of these businesses, the owner does not list or sell. Some have a huge rental department, but neither the sales department nor the rental department occupies a large amount of the business owner’s time. These owners are running businesses, not departments.
This level of control didn’t just happen. It was planned. Success is deliberate.
A question I often ask business owners is, “Where are you taking your business?” Many don’t know. No, let’s make that most – most don’t know.
Failing to plan
I don’t know whether the problem with business owners failing to plan is that they don’t know how, or whether they just think it’s too hard, or whether they just get caught up in the day-to-day grind of business to stop and think, to plan their business success.
But the results are the same: these companies struggle and drift. I have seen this phenomenon in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia. Aversion to planning appears to be everywhere I’ve done business.
In 2016 Pittard introduced the Present Condition Analysis. For existing clients and new clients alike, a Pittard consultant visits the agency and with the leader determines where the agency is now – it’s profit, quality of people, performance of people, attitudes of people, stumbling blocks to higher profit.
Once we determine the present condition of the agency, we set actions designed to take the agency to a profit determined by the leader. It’s interesting that often we need to talk up these profit expectations.
Don’t fall into the trap of believing that a real estate business is hard to make profitable, or that success depends on the market booming. Like any great business, it can make huge profits IF you install systems, devise plans, and then lead the agency up toward higher profit.
I will never say that this is easy, but it is simple. All businesses have a success formula. Once you know the formula, you can plan to make high profits a reality.
Know where you are now, and where you want to go.
What’s your plan?