RECOMMENDED READING: December 2024
At f8, we are dedicated to your success and our mission is to help you grow your business by helping you multiply your listings. By leveraging highly effective marketing strategies to showcase your properties, we can help you sell your listings faster and attract more seller clients. With these goals in mind, December is the ideal moment to create your 1-2-3 Business Plan for the year ahead.
STEP 1: Determine Your Goal for How Many Listings You Will Sell
Review the number of listings you sold over the past 2 to 3 years
Start your planning by looking back to see how you performed in recent years. While past sales are not necessarily an indication of future performance, your prior track record provides a starting point for what you can expect to produce in the coming year.
Determine how many potential listings are available to you
Next, look at the market and determine how many potential listings are available to you. For example, if you have a farm, you would determine the average annual turnover rate in your farm and how many homes are in the farm to determine the total listings available to you.
Determine how many listing agreements you are targeting
Somewhere between your past performance and the total potential listing available to you lies how many listing agreements you are targeting to close. This number of listings is your sales goal. In general, set a sales goal that is achievable, but that leaves room for you to stretch.
Determine the economics of your sales goal
Determine the economics of those sales by calculating your expected commission after fees/splits per listing. This is your revenue. Then determine your average expense per listing for everything from home preparation to marketing. This is your cost of goods sold. Then determine the rest of your expenses each year for your car, association dues, prospecting costs, etc. This is your overhead. Your annual profit is your revenue minus cost of goods sold, multiplied by total listings sold, minus your overhead.
STEP 2: Develop a Prospecting Plan to Achieve Your Sales Goal
Review your past prospecting performance
Determine which prospecting methods yielded the best results for you. Assess your strengths and weaknesses and lean into your strengths. If you are a budding influencer, lean into social media. If you are methodical and knowledgeable about a certain market area, lean into farming. If you get most of your business from your sphere, lean into referrals. The list of prospecting methods is long, but find your groove and commit to it.
Create a prospecting plan including what it will cost
Once you determine your preferred prospecting method(s), determine how much that prospecting will cost you. Remember to factor in both your hard money costs, but also the opportunity cost of your time. Determining costs is easy for things like paying a portal for leads, but more difficult for things like the opportunity cost of your time spent networking with your sphere of influence versus other activities.
Set a budget and fund your prospecting plan
If your prospecting plan requires hard money, then you need to figure out where that money is going to come from. Be cautious about using projected sales in the future to fund your prospecting plan. Ideally, you will save enough from prior years to have a good portion of your prospecting budget in hand at the start of the year.
STEP 3: Stick to Your Plan Long Enough for it to Succeed
Be consistent with your prospecting plan
Whatever methods you choose for your prospecting plan, they will need time to pay dividends. If you do not see results immediately, it may be easy to give up and look for another way to generate sales. But remember that you chose those methods for good reasons and any prospecting method needs consistency to work.
Find a mentor to keep you accountable and motivated
Sticking to a plan is tough for even the most persistent agent. A mentor can not only help you create your business plan, they can also help to keep you motivated. Whether the mentor is your broker, a team member, or someone from your personal life, regular check-ins with your mentor will help keep you accountable to your business plan.
Course correct but don’t abandon ship
Review your performance on a monthly basis. If you have a mentor, be sure to include them in your monthly review. Assess what is working, what is not working, and make adjustments as needed. Be sure that you are only course correcting and not abandoning ship.
To summarize, the 1-2-3 Business Plan for 2025 revolves around these three key steps:
1) Set a clear, realistic sales goal for the number of listings you want to sell.
2) Develop a focused and consistent prospecting plan to generate leads and secure listings.
3) Stick to the plan with persistence and accountability to ensure long-term success.
By following these three steps, you will create a plan for success in 2025. From everyone here at f8 we wish you the best of luck and much success in the coming year!
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