Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Building A Champion Business By Pausing

Provided By Realty Times



eing able to build a Champion's Business takes focus, skill, and determination. It takes the desire to move, change, test, adjust, and then change again. One of the ingredients that most Agents fail to execute is the ability to regularly pause. The ability to pause, evaluate, ponder, meditate, and clarify at regular intervals will move you from a good business to a Champion Business. The pause helps you learn and invest what you have learned into your future success account.

Pause at the end of each day to reflect on what went right. If you had to rate the day one to ten, how would it rate? Why did you rate it there? What could have been improved on? What are you most proud of for the day? What are the priorities for tomorrow? I typically spend thirty minutes at the end of the day reviewing the day and learning from the day. Too often, we continue on daily without pausing, pondering, and evaluating, so we make the same or similar mistakes repeatedly over time.... warning!!At the end of the week, take an hour to pause. A week is a pretty good chronicle of time that has gone by. Evaluate the prospecting numbers, leads generated, and appointments booked. What did you learn this week? What would you change? How should next week be approached? What priorities didn't get accomplished that need to be moved to next week? How's your energy level and reserve? How's your attitude at the end of the week? If you have staff, evaluate their performance as well.

Pause at the end of the month for two hours. Invest those two hours in your future wealth, growth, and happiness. Besides the previous questions for the day and the week evaluation, review your leads in your database. Did you miss calling anyone? Is there someone you should call earlier than scheduled? Too often, Agents call someone they have as a lead just after they have made a decision to commit to someone else, or they have bought and sold using someone else. By taking a few minutes to review the leads monthly, you will catch oversight that will cost you thousands. Even today, I review leads in our database quarterly and always catch opportunities about to be lost. My sales manager at Real Estate Champions is required to review calls and leads weekly and monthly.

At the end of the month review your prospecting leads, appointments, and overall numbers for your business. You also want to review the numbers on your market trends report. We must already know where the marketplace is heading in real time, rather than reaction time.

The break at the end of the quarter should be a half day to give you the opportunity to repeat all the steps I have given you thus far on a large, deeper, more focused time frame. When you get to the quarter evaluation, I really believe that it needs to be conducted off site. This time is of paramount importance and needs your full attention without the distractions of being in your office. If you feel you need to be in the office because of the availability of your data to analyze, then come in 4 hours before your normal day would begin, or stay in the evening and evaluate. Again, evaluating the marketplace for the quarter is an integral part of the quarter pause.
The pause at six months should be around a full day. Six months is a significant amount of time. I know Agents who have been way behind initially, but caught up to their goal in the last six months through making the right adjustments. I know others who were way ahead of their goal, but they didn't take the time to review and weren't paying attention. They missed the mark on their one-year objectives.

The pause at the end of the year should be from three days to a week. I personally prefer a week. The final week of the year has developed into my favorite week of the year. It is the time I hit the rewind button for the whole year and replay the tape. I immerse myself in questions and evaluation to guarantee the mistakes remain in the past and the victories flow into the future. I check my business plan, business vision, and values, systems, lead generation source, and conversion. I check my mental state and commitment level to my goals for the next year. This week isn't to build a business plan for the next year. In fact, if you are doing that in this week, you are too late. Your business plan for the new year needs to be constructed no later than the end of October of the preceding year. To decide a week before the new year to build your business plan is too late.

Take the above steps to execute pausing at regular intervals into your business. You will see how this exercise helps you move your business from a good business to a Champion's Business.

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