Business is the greatest sport in the world.

March, 2024 | Thought Provoker

Every day is Super Bowl, and it’s time for you to play. You’ll never work a day in your life when you love what you do. Beware the business that is tactically excellent yet strategically negligent.

The Strategic Sprint

The best strategies always have a name. Our favourite is KJT. Keep Josh Talking. Everything that isn’t me talking, I’m not allowed to do. It brings focus and clarity. Another client has a project called Hubba Bubba, just like bubble gum, which represents their growth ambitions and market size when you blow a bubble.

Whatever it is, there are five great strategic questions to ask:

1. Who do we intend to be?

The number one in each of our chosen markets. It’s clear and precise. What’s your chosen market? And what’s it going to take to make it happen?

2. Where are we going?

If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived? Be specific on your mission, simple things like 1000 sales and 2000 properties under management. It might be smaller than that - 30 sales per annum - or meet all 100 landlords I manage.

3. How are we going to get there?

How can you make your ten-year plan happen in the next six months? When the goal is clear, there are no distractions. Is it a system or a person? Systems help to scale and minimise error, whilst people allow you to scale service and usage of those systems. Open up your constraints so you can serve more customers more often.

4. Who do we need on our team?

You either build talent, or you buy it. Merger and Acquisition, or Talent Development Squad? Both create the greats. One is slow going but carefully protects culture; the other brings with it scale, size and learned history to overcome. What one hire would change your business? And just how quickly could you gain momentum?

5. What skills do we need to possess?

It’s a skill set to have a mindset. Attitude is a skill. Skills need to be developed and you can never get tired of training the core skills on what it takes to become a great real estate agent.

The corporate athlete plans on a 44-week, ten-month year How many weeks in a year? 52. How many months? 12.

That’s the answer that the astute business operator works with. Between natural disasters like floods, fires, elections, geo-political events and holidays, we work on a 44-week, ten-month year. Think if you want to write $20m, that’s $2m a month. We compress 52 weeks into those 44 weeks. It begs the question whether you chase time or result. We always chase results. You can have as much time off as you need as long as the results happen.

The move to systems orientation.

Systems are teachable. They minimise errors. They ensure consistent customer service.

There are four essential systems to teach:

1. Forms

They capture information in the right order. Our three favourite forms are an agency agreement, a management authority and sales advice.

2. Checklists

They make sure you do things in the right order and that everything gets done. They minimise risk and show the way. We love the sales file checklist, including the just-listed and sold checklists.

3. Visuals

They tell the story of 1000 words, condense information and make it easy to understand.

4. Dialogues

They speed up the conversation and improve the conversion. Would you like to see it again? A simple, straight-to-the-point question to ask when doing buyer callbacks.

Growth of micro-skills

The better you get, the less you remember you already know. To rapidly grow talent, think about the use of a job scorecard. Measured out of 12, just how good is your new recruit at the essentials?

Think how well they can do:

- An open house?

- An open house callback?

- Take an offer from a buyer?

Imagine if you trained those micro-skills. Once you’ve trained one, another two hundred will emerge. Everyone across your organisation needs a job scorecard.

Activities, outcomes or results?

- I did a call sesh.

- I called 100 people.

Our industry loves to talk about activity.

But none of it matters if you’re not getting the outcomes.

- I booked a MAP.

- I booked 2 BAPs.

None of that matters if you don’t get results.

- I signed up a listing.

- I made an unconditional sale.

Be careful what you celebrate in your business. No more chasing activity for activity’s sake, or outcomes where the clients cancel. All that matters is the results we get on the board. Focus your organisation on that one number that guarantees success. It might be 100 opens every Saturday, or less than 28 days on the market.

Getting to the horizon

Imagine you see a setting sun. You run another 100 meters towards it. You still can’t touch the sun, and you’re no closer. The distance between you and the sun is filled with anxiety. It’s not until you look back to where you came from that you realise how far you’ve come. That’s the nature of ambition; it always makes you anxious, but frequently checking in on your progress brings immense relief.

Know the formula

Business has three essential questions:

How do we generate our leads?

Win our listings?

And sell our listings?

How well can your people answer those questions?

And whilst we’re on it, do you have your fees clearly spelled out on a rate card that your team can quickly access? What do we charge around here for property management? Sales? Etc.

The power of good, clean data.

You can have 1000 market appraisals, but how many of them have the bed, bath, and car data attached? That’s critical if you want to do more powerful searches, especially around the 4040.

Data is a daily thing. The little shortcuts always bring you undone.

Clarity of goals and the balanced scorecard.

We love an achievements list of all the great things that have happened to you this year. Write five more things on that list every week. At the end of the year, you’ll have over 250 achievements. How many of those would you like to achieve again? That’s the power of recurring goals. Last year, I focused on my health; would I like to do that again this year?

Help your people to turn their wants and desires into needs. Let those needs become a burning desire, and you’ll see your people thrive. Everyone should have an achievements and goals list on their mobile phone.

Power of training to evolve your beliefs.

What got you here won’t get you there. What happens if I train them and they leave? What happens if you don’t train them and they stay? Business is always about evolution and revolutions. Train, and do it often.

Live the planned life.

Know the numbers.

Your people need to know the brand uplift stories.

How many sales per annum?

How many properties under management?

Add them up.

Now double it.

That’s the number of customers you’ve successfully served within the last 12 months.

Add every year you’ve traded and the number of customers you’ve served.

What’s your highest sale price?

Lowest sale price?

Now that’s a story.

We’ve successfully helped over X number of clients with their residential property needs over the last 12 months. We’ve had the chance to sell properties anywhere between $X and $Y. We’ve been trusted at all price ranges. More customers are turning to us than ever before and we’d love the chance to serve you. Would you let me do that for you?

Do the numbers

Four sales a month requires five listings if you have an 80% clearance rate. You’ll need eight listings if you’re at a 50% clearance rate.

You need to get five listings; you’ll need to go to at least seven listing appointments (LAPS) per month. That’s an incredibly high strike rate of 71%. What’s yours? The better the conversion, the more listings you’ll win.

To get 7 LAPS, how many market appraisals do you need to get? This is wildly dependent upon your lead source. Let’s assume 3 MAPs for every LAP, so that’s 21 MAPs per month.

21 MAPS + 7 LAPs = 28 appointments / 20 work days = 1.5 appointments per day.

Call it two appointments per day every business day.

Now that’s the focus. Work a 44-week year — plan eight weeks of holidays. Work hard when you work and holiday well when you holiday.

You’ll judge your life based on your experiences and the people you get to share them with. It’s time to get strategic, chase your dreams, and make more of the great stuff happen.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Josh Phegan is the internationally renowned go-to speaker, trainer and coach for high-performance real estate agents and agencies. He is the number one preferred trainer for Australia’s top 100 agents and top 50 women in real estate.

In 2023 he’s the drawcard speaker at over 200 events in the UAE, UK, New Zealand and Australia.

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