Voices: The Importance of Real Estate Business Planning

The end of the year is an ideal time for me to look back at what I accomplished during the past 12 months, and to look forward to what I want to do next. Last year, 2016, was no exception, but I realized that I needed to make bigger changes: My life had become chaotic and my agents were looking to me for guidance.

I needed to stop second-guessing myself and making impulsive decisions. I was running a real business — a multimillion-dollar business — and I couldn’t wing it anymore. My operations were in great shape, as were my agents and staff, but that came with a really big responsibility. I’m no longer accountable for just my own livelihood, but others’ as well, so I’d better know my stuff.

I wanted a clearer path to success, and I needed to create a road map — a how-to guide — not only for myself, but for everyone else in my company. And it had to start with me.

There’s a purpose to having a plan

As a business leader I think it’s crucial to have both long- and short-term goals. If you want people to follow you, you must be the example. Up to this point, I’d never really taken the time to ask my agents and staff what their goals were. Working constantly with Zillow Group and being around other successful owners in the industry made me question my own lack of a plan. It just dawned on me, “We’ve never had a plan.”

I think everyone really wanted a plan, but nobody said it out loud. I felt them look to me as if they were wondering, “What is she doing?' I realized it was time to figure out what I want, what my agents want and what my staff wants.

I had to quantify my time and resources, reassess and possibly reassign everyone’s responsibilities, and then start implementing. I looked at a lot of business plans because I didn’t know how to begin putting one together. I found the Zillow Group Real Estate Business Plan template on the Premier Agent Resource Center and it became the foundation of my own plan.

It’s easier than you think to get started

I did a lot of reading, researching, networking with other business owners like myself, speaking to Zillow Group and brainstorming with my husband, who’s our broker. There was a lot of discussion with staff, my general manager Erick and all my agents. I also did a lot of writing because I truly believe in writing down your goals and, most importantly, executing every day the things that will help you attain your desired result.

I knew there must be a way to measure our efforts; before I created my business plan, we simply didn’t know. There has to be data to draw from. Your expenses are really the most important thing: Costs must be justifiable, but sometimes you’ll make a mistake in your spending choices. When you have everything in print and can see the results of where you put your money, you’re less likely to make the same mistake in the future.

Put your plan into action

After I completed my business plan, I wanted to share it with my team. To be honest, I didn’t think they’d be open to it. I assumed that since my own agents were used to seeing me on a day-to-day basis, they didn’t need me. It was a lack of leadership on my part. I was surprised when some of them came to me asking to sit down and go over their goals together.

I also assumed that real estate was a side job for some of them and that when I put the idea of a business plan out there, I was going to have to push for it and say, “Let’s do this.” But they were just so excited and started sharing with each other what we wanted to accomplish in 2017! They told me, “We’ve been thinking about this! We didn’t know it was something you could help us with.”

A plan makes everything more possible

With a plan, everything about your business becomes visible, and it provides clarity because the data is all there. Then I help them relate the data to their own personal goals — to show them, for example, “You didn’t keep your pipeline filled in Q4, so now you’re struggling in Q1.” Just having that information readily available allows everyone to make more informed decisions.

A business plan allows me to find down time and plan out into the future.  I have everything in one snapshot — the ability to look at my plan at a glance and say, “This is what I’ve done and what I’m going to do. These are things I shouldn’t be doing.”

Among the goals I’ve included in my plan is to have 25 agents by 2017. I started 2016 with five agents — one of them was full-time — and so far, I have nine. In less than a month I’ll have a total of 13! And my sales goal is $100 million, minimum. Quantifying your goal is really crazy and scary because you realize, “Oh my gosh: It’s attainable.”

Why don’t some agents have a plan?

I can understand why many agents don’t put together a business plan. When you write something down, it makes you accountable to do the required work. That can be overwhelming, but if you have the time, do it!

You might also lack guidance or simply not know where to begin. A lot of times, the barrier to action is the inability to visualize the future — or the path to it — and you can completely lose sight of the bigger goal. Success is like a destination: It feels so far away that you’ll never get there; but then you do and you realize it wasn’t that far.

Anyone from a solo agent to a business owner like myself — with agents and staff — can use the business plan template and get organized. My goal in presenting the business plan was to remind my agents that they are their own boss and this is their business — and then offer them a guide to what needs to be done to run a thriving real estate company.

Having a plan makes all the difference

The plan makes my agents more committed and increases their involvement in all aspects of the business. It also has a broader effect giving us more focus to achieve our goals, whether that means providing world-class service to our clients, making more time for ourselves and our families, or achieving financial freedom.

The whole beauty of owning your own business is that you get to do what you want. I didn’t take the time to organize and lead my agents, but now I’m ready to bring it out in them. They’re remarkable agents. They’re smart go-getters. We want to have fun with this.

I understand my responsibility now; I didn’t before. I was just going through the motions and wondering if the ad hoc decision making and uncertainty would ever end. Building that map for myself — not just in my brain, but on paper — made everything more manageable.