Stop making resolutions and take control of your day, your business, your income, and your life.
As Og Mandino wrote in The Greatest Salesman in the World, “My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible. All are of no value unless they are followed by action.”
Business plans, goals and resolutions have no value unless followed by action.
We are salespeople, and salespeople love to set goals and make resolutions. I believe in the process and practice of goal-setting and building effective, well thought-out business plans.
The challenge is that we don’t take the time to deeply think through where we are and what it’s going to take to get us to the next level.
Building an effective business plan is much easier when you track your activities, production, lead sources and conversions. Once you know your numbers, you can decide where you’re going to ramp up and improve, and where you’re going to remove non-performing activities.
Track everything so you can set your goals and make decisions based on data instead of your gut. Our clients are coached and given systems to track every critical item in their business. We believe that which gets measured gets done correctly.
Here are a few things that should be tracked in every business:
- Leads and source, first contact date, next contact date, and conversion time
- Income from each lead source
- What lead was assigned to which agent and the conversion rates by agent and lead
- Cost per lead
- Cost per conversion
- Cost to take a listing, including marketing, signs, time, lockboxes, etc.
- Number of days lead is in the system from lead date to conversion
If you’re not tracking at this level, start by creating a simple spreadsheet or Google Drive spreadsheet where your team can track the critical numbers.
Create a priority list and do the most important things first.
We use a simple process called “agile project management” that allows us to prioritize projects and tasks by number, then sort by highest priority to lowest. Once an idea is launched into a project, a “sprint” is created with all the tasks and accountability of who will do each task.
Share your dreams and goals with others and be willing to be held accountable. Accountability is love. If you care about someone enough to hold them accountable, you begin to discover what it means to be a true leader. The desire to be held accountable is more challenging, but when you submit and execute, you can begin to build a business that serves you as well as your family.
There are a lot of key elements to a great business plan, and I’m happy to share that plan as well as a video on how to complete it. Go to www.workmansuccess.com/RISbusinessplan to download a copy. Now’s the time to get your business in order and push yourself to double your business in 2016.
Verl Workman is the founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems, an international speaking, consulting and coaching company that specializes in performance coaching and building successful power agents and teams.
For more information, visit www.verlworkman.com.
