Real Estate Agent

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🎁 Give Your Agents the Gift of a Business Plan

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The most successful agents have an executable plan for their business. As leaders, we often overlook that an agent’s livelihood is a business inside a business or, in most cases, a brokerage. Just because we have a plan for the overall business and assist them in setting goals, that doesn’t mean that they know how to achieve those goals. 
By helping your agents to develop their own personal business plan it not only helps them take ownership of their work and efforts, it aids them in having clarity on exactly how to accomplish the goals they need to hit in order to reach their personal success and maintain the overall health of the team or brokerage. 
Set up a workshop with your agents with a clear outline on how to develop a business plan and watch them flourish as they achieve their goals with ease in the new year. 

Below is our guide to creating a business plan for your real estate business for you to add your own tools and inspiration to!

🎁 Step One: Use a goal calculator like this one from our pals at SISU to help you determine exactly the effort needed on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in order to reach your goals. 

🎁 Step Two: Map out the specifics as to how you want to go about doing the things prescribed on the calculator and break it down by each month and week. Remember, there are many ways to achieve your goals and using a variety of tools will help you get there!

Questions to ask yourself to aid you in completing Step Two:

  • How many hours do I need to set aside for prospecting each day? Each week?
  • How much vacation time will I take this year? Factor this into your plan.
  • How many open houses do I want to commit to doing each month?
  • What is my social media strategy?
    • Where will I post my content and how often?
  • How many listings vs buyers do I want to work with?
  • What is my niche and what are the necessary steps to improve my visibility with this audience?
  • What community events should I plan to attend or sponsor this year?
  • What networking events do I need to attend?
  • What promotional materials should I be utilizing?
    • How often do I send them and how much do I budget for them?
  • Where are my boundaries going to be for my personal and family time?
  • Where does my self-care fit into my business?
    • Exercise, rest, and play should all be factored in

🎁 Step Three: Put your plan down on paper by mapping out in writing what is necessary for you to do each quarter, month, and week in order for you to reach your goals.

Do this in such a way that your actions are specific and measurable so that you can hold yourself accountable and your mentor or coach can assist you.

Be sure to break everything down into as small of pieces as possible. We all know that quote about eating an elephant! (And where the heck did that come from?!) If you are just looking at “I need to sell 25 homes next year” without small steps in between, your plan will not motivate you or help hold you accountable for the items you need to accomplish.

🎁 Step Four: Don’t put this plan away! Creating the plan is to use it regularly, not to think about it once. Revisit this weekly to ensure that you are following the steps that you laid out in order to reach your goals. Add to your task lists and calendars the items that you have prescribed yourself so that you are setting yourself up for success in actually accomplishing them.

Below are additional resources that aid in making business plans for you to use. This is YOUR business and there’s not a one-size-fits-all recipe for success, so take the information above, from the links below, and anything else you can find and put together what works best for you and your real estate business. 

You’ve got this!

Follow Up Boss Goal Setting and Reporting
Tom Ferry’s Business Plan Writing Workbook
NAR’s Guidance on Writing Business Plans for Realtors
Brian Icenhower’s Real Estate Plan Template

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⚖️ Five Ways to Improve Your Life and Work Balance During the Holidays

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‘Tis the season to be jolly, but for real estate professionals, the holiday season often brings a flurry of activity that can make achieving work-life balance seem like a distant dream. Fear not, though, as we’ve curated a list of five ways for you to navigate this festive season without sacrificing your well-deserved downtime.

📆 Prioritize and Plan Ahead
The holiday season can be unpredictable as there are events popping up from all corners of your life, but with careful planning, you can stay one step ahead. By taking the time to create a detailed schedule of the season you can better prepare for your events and reduce scrambling for last-minute gifts and pot-luck contributions. Make sure you add personal and downtime during this season, if you push too hard it could lead to exhaustion or illness!
Take stock of your projects and tasks due during this time and make sure that you have prioritized them properly to ensure that you aren’t waiting until the last minute as staying on schedule will reduce your stress.

⚠️ Set Boundaries and Communicate
Communicating effectively is going to be on any list of helpful tips we send to you, but this is especially important for setting clear boundaries with clients and team members about your availability during the holidays. Make it known when you’ll be taking time off and establish expectations for response times. This proactive communication not only manages expectations but also fosters understanding, which promotes a healthier work environment, encouraging others to do the same.

💻 Leverage Technology to Streamline Processes
Make the most of technology to streamline your processes and save time during the holidays. Shore up your Follow Up Boss Systems (have you taken our FREE Building FUB Course yet?), automate email responses and as many routine tasks as you can. By embracing technology, you can maintain a strong online presence and keep your business running smoothly, allowing more time for holiday festivities and rest after a long year.

🤝 Delegate and Collaborate
You don’t have to do it all alone and attempting to do so is a sure-fire way to lead to burnout. Delegate tasks where you can or hire additional support during peak periods during busy seasons or times when you’re taking time off. By collaborating with others to share the workload you can divide and conquer to ensure everyone gets some well-deserved time off. A collaborative approach not only lightens the load but also creates a supportive network within your organization.

💆‍♀️ Practice Self-Care and Enjoy the Festivities
Yes, this is the season of giving to others, but by prioritizing your well-being during the holidays you will not only feel better, but you will have the foundation to show up in better ways for those you love…and your clients too! Schedule regular breaks throughout the week to recharge, whether it’s a short walk, meditation, or a festive coffee break. Take advantage of downtime to immerse yourself in the holiday spirit by attending local events, spending quality time with loved ones, and embracing the joy of the season as time away from your business, even in short bursts, allows you to come back with fresh ideas and the energy to tackle the next big thing.

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🔏 Strategies for Teams to Create a Killer Closing Process

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Setting up a closing process can be transformative to your business. It will help you retain agents, be able to handle more transactions, and increase repeat clients due to the ease of the process. This week, we held a webinar with the Closing Wizards over at Open to Close where Andrew and I discussed the mindset and strategies to use to create a closing process, and below are some of the takeaways. The full recording is below for your viewing pleasure.

🧐 Assess your Current Closing Process

  • Take stock of what you are currently doing to establish a baseline. 
  • Using feedback from your clients, agents, and Transaction Coordinators (if you have them) take stock of where your friction points are.
  • Questions to ask might be: Where does the work pile up? At which points do your clients have lots of questions? What are items that are regularly missed? Are there any commonalities for transactions that fall out of contract? And can we be proactive in preventing them during the closing process?
  • Another great source of information is your closing attorney. Meet with them regularly to discuss how the closings are going with your clients and get information about ways you can improve the process or coach your agents to approach the closing process or contract differently.

📐 Solve for Friction

  • Take the answers to the questions above and begin solving each one and documenting the new SOP for which the process should be executed.
  • If your clients are sending in questions at a certain point, send a proactive email educating them on what to expect at that point in the process and why it is important.
  • If items are regularly missed, set automatic reminders for that item to be completed or the information gathered from the client.
  • Coach your agents at a high level on the contract and any other items that your closing attorney recommends based on their experience with them. 
  • Introduce your newly licensed agents to the closing process so that they understand their role along with what the Transaction Coordinator and Attorney’s office are responsible for.

📋 Establish Clear Lines on Who Does What

  • Having a written checklist that denotes what the agent is responsible for and what the Transaction Coordinator’s responsibilities is going to be a great resource for you. It will create a repeatable process and each person will know their role and feel secure that the other is doing their part.
  • Remind your agents that, even though they have assistance, as the license holder they are ultimately responsible for the collection of those items and the satisfaction of the client. They still need to be very involved with the process and communicate with all parties at a high level.

🤝 Create a Team Culture

  • Be proactive in cultivating a team culture between your agents and operations staff. Ensure that each role understands the experience of the other parties to create empathy so that you can avoid any Us vs Them mentalities.
  • Coach your agents and staff on how best to interact with different personalities. Often we find that those crush it in an admin role communicate and like to receive information differently than those who excel in outside sales. The more we learn about how one another operate, the smoother the behind-the-scenes transactions will go.
  • Offer opportunities for Sales and Operations to have social interactions with one another. The more we see one another with similar items of interest and cultivate relationships between the different legs of the organization, the better our systems will run.
  • Ensure that the each party is on the same playing field. A Transaction Coordinator is not above the Agent on the organizational chart and vice versa. The agent could not produce as much as they do without the operational support and the operations staff wouldn’t have a career without the agent. Seeing this as a partnership also helps to foster strong positive relationships.

🧰 Utilize Tools to Create Efficiencies

  • Use software (cough, Follow Up Boss, cough,) and other tools that will allow you to communicate at a very high level internally which will both save time and create a seamless experience for everyone involved: Transaction Coordinator, Agent, and Client.
  • Utilize Custom Fields within your CRM so that you can scale to other types of business and other geographic areas with ease.
  • Automate, but keep the human element. There are certain points in the process where it is acceptable to have an automated email and those that require a phone call or other personal communication. Determine which are which and automate what you can so that you can focus on serving the client at a high level.
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📋 Your Guide to Year-End Reviews with Agents

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It feels a bit too early to be talking about the end of year, doesn’t it? November is here, whether it feels like it or not, and if you want your next year to be better than your this year, setting aside time for those year-end reviews should be on your to-do list!
Annual reviews not only show that you are engaged with your agents, it shows that you care about their development and are committed to their success. 

📆 Make Them Easily Accessible

  • For ease of scheduling, use Calendly, Sign Up Genius, or any similar tool to show times that you are available to meet for the review. Back-and-forth regarding “What about this time?” begins the entire transaction with some frustration. 
  • Block off ample time within your calendar to accomplish this so that those you meet with will have no challenge finding a spot to work for them and, if possible, provide a variety of morning and afternoon times across several days. You can always fill those times with other things once everyone reserves their spot.
  • It’s ideal to meet in person, but the increased demands of the holidays may make it more difficult if going into the office isn’t part of their normal routine. Meeting via video chat can be just as effective, and they will appreciate your flexibility! 

📝 Have a Plan

  • Annual reviews aren’t a time to wing it. Develop a general strategy on how you want to approach the reviews as a whole this year and plan your questions and action items to discuss around it. Do you want to focus on personal development? Increasing production? Building a business plan for the next year? 
  • Know your numbers. Gather their annual goal vs what was actually accomplished, and any other metrics necessary to analyze their performance over the current year and predict their output to set their goal for the upcoming year. 
  • Ensure when you meet that the goal is theirs and not your office or company goal. If they are intrinsically motivated to achieve something, it will be much easier to do. Of course, give them your perspective as to whether their goal is not high enough or unrealistic based on your experience with them, but ultimately it needs to be their own.

 🫀 Get Human

  • This is a great opportunity to discuss how they felt about the past year and the things that they are excited about or apprehensive of in the upcoming year.
  • If they are open to it, discuss any personal life challenges that may have stood in the way of them achieving their professional goals and if there are any known big events scheduled or anticipated in the upcoming year so that you can help them plan accordingly.

 📐 Be Specific with Your Coaching

  • If their goal is to accomplish more in the upcoming year, they need your guidance on how to get there. Advising them to work harder not only isn’t motivating, but it’s not going to help them get where they want to go.
  • Offer them specific items to do and strategies they can use to achieve their new goals and help them make a concrete plan to get there. Remember, if they knew what to do they would have done it already. Keep it simple and specific so it is easier to execute.

 🪴 Celebrate Their Growth

  • Celebrate not only their transactional accomplishments but also their growth over the previous year. Are they approaching their work in a more proactive and less reactive way? Have they developed systems to complete their work in less time?

 ✅ Make a Plan for Accountability

  • Discussing goals and the specific way to achieve them isn’t going to take one conversation. Make a commitment during this meeting on how frequently you will meet during the upcoming year and what means they will use to hold themselves accountable for the actions it takes to reach their goals.
  • Follow through with your commitment by scheduling pre-planned meetings and accountability check-ins so you can uphold your part of the deal.
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🚢 Navigating Industry Changes and Challenges

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Whether it’s a DOJ ruling, industry changes, market shifts, companies getting acquired, or some other news that seemingly has an uncertain outcome, the real estate industry is always changing and presenting us with new challenges. It reminds me of the saying, “A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor,” and underlines the fact that those who choose to navigate changes and challenges to make the best of it will strengthen their business and be able to stay out at sea to face future storms.  

Whatever the wild world of real estate throws our way, we are committed to
supporting and helping you to build the business of your dreams.

Here are some strategies to face news head-on with your clients and agents so that you remain the steady beacon of leadership through whatever the industry throws your way.

📱 Prompt and Transparent Communication

  • Act swiftly to communicate the situation to your team and clients. A delay in communication can lead to speculation and increased anxiety so it’s always best to face it head-on while acknowledging that you may not have all the information just yet.
  • Be transparent and honest about what is happening by sharing all available facts, even if you perceive them to be unfavorable. Never downplay or sugar-coat the issue at hand.

🫡 Take Responsibility Where Necessary

  • Own up to any mistakes or challenges immediately as this demonstrates both maturity and integrity.
  • Clearly outline the company’s commitment to addressing the issue and preventing similar challenges in the future, if applicable.

🥰 Show Empathy

  • Understand and acknowledge the concerns and frustrations of your clients.
  • Express empathy for any negative impacts that the situation may have caused them.

📝 Provide Solutions and Action Plans

  • Present concrete steps that the company is taking to resolve the issue and prevent its recurrence and explain how these actions will benefit team members and clients.
  • Offer a timeline for when clients can expect to see improvements or resolution

📈 Regular Updates

  • Keep your agents and clients informed about progress and developments through regular updates. One announcement is never enough and you need to keep the conversation going as long as it takes.
  • Even if there isn’t any significant news to report, a simple message acknowledging the ongoing commitment to resolution can be reassuring

👩‍🏫 Learn from the Experience

  • Conduct a thorough post-incident analysis to understand what went wrong, and how you can prevent it from happening in the future or how you can strengthen your business from similar things happening moving forward if the challenge was completely out of your control.
  • Share the lessons learned with your clients to demonstrate a commitment to improvement and transparency.
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Five Ways to Support Your Team in Q4 

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Last week we discussed ways to set your team up for success in Q4. If you missed it, you can read it here. This week we want to talk about supporting your team as this is not only a great way to love your people, but it’s a great retention effort as well. Here are some ways to support them during this time, while employing the tools we shared last week to structure their business (and yours!) for success in the new year.

🗣️ Clear Communication. With so much going on this time of year having clear communication is extra important. Avoid last-minute changes and allow additional planning time for any events. Ensure that your team knows the goals, objectives and priorities and regularly share and re-share the updates and expectations so that they have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Provide a platform for them to ask questions and seek clarification to stay ahead of any bumps in the road.

📆 Flexible Scheduling. Life-work balance is incredibly hard to find this time of year with so many having both personal and professional obligations and fun events. Allowing flexibility in work hours or remote work options will better assist team members in finding a way to make things work and reduce stress.

🧰 Resource Allocation. Assess your current workload and allocate your resources so that your team has the necessary tools, equipment, and personnel to meet the demands of the season. If necessary, consider temporary staff or outsourcing to ease the workload.

🧘‍♂️ Team Well-being. Our people are being pulled in a variety of ways both personally and professionally to celebrate holidays, travel, and attend school functions, and that can lead to a lot of additional stress. Simultaneously, more than you might think may be suffering from some form of seasonal affective challenge, whether it be the actual weather that bums them out or a personal history that makes the holidays hard, this time of year doesn’t leave everyone on your team feeling their best, whether they show it or not. Being aware of this will go a long way, but encouraging breaks, reminding them to recharge and take time for themselves, or offering a wellness program for stress management or mental health support will aid them in coping with the increased demands.

🏆 Recognition and Awards. Have you ever been Jelly-of-the-Month-Clubbed? I have, and failing to be properly recognized for your hard work and dedication sure makes it easy to hand in your notice the Monday after the Holiday party. It’s not about the amount, it’s not about the shape or size of the award…it’s about how you make that person FEEL. Avoid giving out participation awards or awards to your entire organization, if everyone receives one it becomes diluted. Find other meaningful ways to show your appreciation for those who do not receive an award. Make efforts to show your appreciation to your team year-round, as the excitement of the annual awards ceremony doesn’t last long. If you didn’t do a great job of this last year, make a plan to recognize and appreciate your team throughout the year in 2024 to keep morale high. You can even make a smart list in Follow Up Boss to reach out to everyone on your team in a personal way so that no one falls through the cracks! (Reply to this post and I’ll show you how!)

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Five Ways to Master Q4 Prep for the New Year 🎆

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Fourth quarter of the year is here, and with it comes so many things to wrap up and plan for while simultaneously experiencing a landslide of holidays and events until the end of the year. Use our guide below to help you approach this quarter with a solid plan and a sense of calm to prep yourself and your team to turn 2024 into your best year yet!

📈 Take an honest look at your 2023 goals. Did you adjust them properly to the current market conditions, or were you overly optimistic that things would go back to the way they were? Make any adjustments needed in your 2024 goal setting based on your predictions vs performance of the year so far.

👩‍🏫 Re-Train your team on the basics. If you’re a professional, you don’t start practicing free throws when the season starts, you master that in the off-season. Revisit and re-train your team on the basics so they are educated, confident, and ready to hit the ground running in the new year. Better yet, don’t stop training on the basics throughout the year and see how much better your team performs!

📊 Work with your team on THEIR goals. I hate to break it to you, but no one cares about your company goal. “But if YOU sell more houses to get us to that goal, you’ll make more money too!” Nope…still don’t care. Of COURSE, have a company goal. That’s necessary to any business plan! But what your team cares about is their bank account, their family and loved ones being taken care of, the food on their table, and if they can afford to go on that family vacation or not. Make your goal-setting conversations about building their book of business and accomplishing their personal goals. Keep the focus on them throughout the year and you will find that investment in them personally will pay off for you professionally. 

🔎 Inspect your marketing. What marketing efforts or campaigns generated the most business for you last year? Look at reporting on what your results were so that you can lean into the messaging that resonated with your audience and do less of the things that didn’t. Keep varying your message, but double down on the types of things that were a hit.

📱 Dig into your outbound communications. Your 2023 goal has already been pre-determined by the efforts you put in earlier in the year. Sure, you may get someone who registers in your database, answers their phone, and writes a contract that will close before December 31, but you can’t count on those bluebirds to get you to the finish line. The real estate cycle from new lead to closing is anywhere from 90 days to nearly a year, depending on your local market and efforts. I’m not saying to abandon your 2023 efforts, but if you dig into your database of leads now, you will not only make up some ground to hit your 2023 goal, but you will be laying a super strong foundation of business for the first half of 2024. Educate and remind your team of this sales cycle and help them see the vision of putting in the work now to reward their future selves. The work you do today will pay you in 90-120 days from now, dig in and reward your future self!

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✈️ Getting the Most Out of Attending a Real Estate Conference ✈️

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Real estate conferences are always a good time and can be a transformative experience. You meet dynamic, like-minded people, get motivation and ideas from the industry’s best thinkers and speakers, and walk away with a real shot in your arm, ready to tackle your business in a whole new way. But…after a week or so, many of us tend to slip back into the behaviors and patterns we lived in before the conference, and other than riding that high for a short period, nothing changed at all. 

Here are some strategies to use to ensure that the next time you attend a conference (cough, like FUBCON, cough,) you know you’re going to maximize your time, money, and energy and implement lasting positive changes to your business when you get home.

🏅 Set Your Goals
Think about the conference before you go and define your objectives. What are your goals in attending? Expanding your network, learning more about a specific topic, finding a new partner for a business opportunity, recruiting others to join your cause, or finding potential clients are all things you can accomplish while you’re there. By defining these goals specifically, “I am going to learn how to connect everything in my business to my Follow Up Boss account,” or “I am going to find another team to partner with and grow my business,” you will know exactly what you want to do and be much more likely to accomplish them. 

🗓️ Plan Your Schedule
Look ahead at the agenda for the conference and make a plan as to what you want to attend and create a personalized schedule. Knowing where you want to be and when in advance will cut down on your game-time decision-making and reduce stress when you’re in an unfamiliar place and time zone. Be sure to also leave some wiggle room for breaks, meals, and spontaneous networking opportunities. You wouldn’t want to miss out on meeting someone fantastic if you are always rushing to the next event.

🤝 Be Prepared to Network
Can you describe who you are and what your business is within a few strong sentences? Prepare your elevator pitch in advance so that you can easily deliver it on the spot. Use any available event apps, Facebook Groups, or other social media to connect with people you want to meet before the conference begins. Having the initial formalities out of the way will make your in-person meetings more productive. Being approachable is also important, you never know who you will run into at the breakfast buffet or standing in line so keep your phone in your pocket and be open to chatting up strangers in any setting, opportunities abound if you are looking for them! 

👩‍🏫 Attend Diverse Sessions and All Exhibits
A real estate conference is not the time to stick to your comfort zone. Of course, hit up the sessions most important to you, but take the opportunity to attend sessions and meet exhibitors that you are less familiar with or think you may not be interested in. Your perception of those topics or vendors may change and you may find just the thing that your business is missing!

📝 Take Notes and Ask Questions
Be sure to take notes and truly engage (where appropriate!) with those presenting. If it’s not welcomed during their presentation, stick around afterward to ask clarifying questions. The presenters, I am sure, are eager to share more and get to know the pain points in your business so that they can help. Taking notes may not seem like the cool thing to do, but our brains can only retain so much information. Documenting your notes and takeaways will be a valuable resource that you can use long after the conference is over.

✅ Decide Which Items You’re Going to Implement
Using your notes, decide which items you want to implement and make a list of what you want to implement when you get back. We suggest keeping a list either in the very beginning or end of your notes and jumping there as soon as you have an a-ha moment. Keep this running list during the conference and then revisit it when you get back. Some things you may add out of excitement and decide not to pursue, but having an easy-to-find list will be helpful in your next step.

🏗️ Make a Plan to Implement
Using the list you created during the conference, order these items as to which are going to move the needle the most for your business and start with those items first. If you have a team, delegate what you can to others to champion so you’re not doing it all yourself, and assign some rough deadlines on when you want to have these items implemented. Then go back and fill in the individual steps to complete each item to make smaller deadlines, giving you a solid plan to implement the things that you learned.

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🛠️ Recruiting Tools You Can Use 🛠️

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In a shifting or uncertain market, your recruiting efforts are more important than ever before. Having a system to attract, nurture, and follow up with recruiting leads is essential for converting those leads into producing agents. 

In this week’s newsletter, we share with you tools and strategies to build this system out within your Follow Up Boss account or, if you want the white-glove treatment with additional tools, we will be happy to do it for you!

Watch the replay and use the links below to get all the goodies. 
This webinar was so much fun! It was jam-packed with actionable items to help you up your recruiting game and we discussed ways to set up a solid recruiting system within your Follow Up Boss Account.

Use the links below to grab all the free resources we mentioned! 
🔗 Amplified Solutions Recruiting Guide 
🔗 Free resources for you to brand as your own 
🔗 Amplified Solutions YouTube with all the DIY videos you can handle
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