Good day, dear reader! As promised, here is the second entry to the 3-part series blog on how to create a good real estate agent’s business plan. If you haven’t read the first article, click here. Now let’s get on with the second set of tips.

1. List your #1 SMART goal

A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. An example of a good SMART real estate agent’s business goal will be “Build a new real estate website in the next 3 months.”

This goal is Specific - clear and short, Measurable - has a target that indicates success, Attainable - challenging but can be done, Relevant - needed for a real estate business’s success, and Time-bound - has a deadline. When you’re done making a SMART goal, make a plan on how to achieve it.

You should have 1 SMART goal at a time. Focus on accomplishing it first before moving to another SMART goal. This keeps you motivated and less stressed because too many goals are overwhelming and signs of progress are hard to track.

2. Find your reasons for real estate success

Having reasons for achieving real estate success is very important. They are your major drive for working hard in the business. Although it’s common to say you’re just in it for the money, you must have a reason that’s better or more than that.

If you let money be your only motivation for real estate success, there’s a high chance you’ll abandon ship and settle for another venture once you realize the profits aren’t what you expect. A noble reason is also good, like helping out clients get the dream house of their budget.

These noble reasons can help you make good SMART goals, a good executive summary, and a mission statement. Remember to be honest to yourself as well when defining your “Whys?”. The more honest you are in your reasons, the more clients will trust and help you in achieving real estate success.

3. Calculate your income and expenses last year

Before making any business plans, review your income and expenses from last year first. This is an important step for both rookie and veteran real estate agents. You will spend money on advertising, gas to move around, mobile phone plans, internet, etc. in your real estate business journey.

Failure to calculate your previous year’s income and expenses will make it hard to make budget cuts for your current year’s business plans. That then only means two things - you’ll overspend mindlessly or incur financial losses. Collect all the receipts from last year’s expenses like food, bills, and other essential expenditures and compute everything based on your earnings.

4. Branding

Branding involves the specification of which market you’re going to do business in and it leads to the creation of good executive summaries and mission statements. To establish your business’s brand, you must first answer questions like: 

• Which market will you focus on, buyers or sellers?
• Which specific neighborhood/area will you represent?
• Which are your specific price points? 
• What are the occupations of the clients you intend to represent?
• Which property types will you represent?

The more specific your brand is, the easier it is for you to connect to clients. Branding is also important because you can find and pick a niche market where there is less competition.

5. Play with numbers

Numbers are the fun part of creating your real estate business plan because you can experiment and adjust with the number of houses and people you intended to represent to achieve a real estate business goal or commission quota.

For example, if you aim to meet 46 clients in a week, you can make a plan of meeting 2 clients every weekday of the month. You can also make plans for closing a specific number of deals in a given timeframe to create urgency in sales to make yourself perform better in the business and earn more commissions than those without a business plan.

It doesn’t matter if you fail to meet the quota or don’t have enough time to fulfill the business goal, you can just adjust the numerical goals after Q1, Q2, or after the year depending on your initial business plans. Playing with numbers shows your current capacities and limits so that your next business plan will be more accurate and achievable.

Stay tuned for the final entry!

Before making any plans, be sure to learn first about everything you need to know about real estate. Start here:

• 7 Books to Read Before Getting Started In Real Estate
• Real Estate Agent Tips: How to Become a Neighborhood Expert
• How to Build a Real Estate Portfolio from Scratch
• The Different Types of Real Estate Investments You Can Make
• 10 Things That Real Estate Agents Should Master