Each year real estate agents go through the exercise of defining their goals for the coming year. How those goals are formed can determine whether they feel they had a successful year or a year in which they feel they came up short.
Unfortunately, when defining goals, most agents do not take the time to look at their business or how they conducted business. Although it’s important to analyze their budgets, expenses or profit margins, most don’t take the time to do that. Instead, they opt to pull a random number out of the clear blue sky.
For example, ask virtually any new agent how much they want to make their first year in the business, and their response will most likely be $100,000. Without having sold a single property or knowing very little about the business, they honestly believe they can earn six figures immediately.
Experienced agents are not much better. If they did $5 million in volume this year, they want to make $10 million next year. There is no rhyme or reason for doubling their volume, except that “it sounds good.” It’s almost like it’s a reflex response. After all, isn’t the goal to do more than the previous year?
With this flawed logic, agents can stress themselves out for no real reason. Why not take the time to think about your life, your business and integrate the two. For instance, consider:
- How much money do you spend each year?
- Beyond your regular expenses, what do you need money to do this year?
- How much profit do you want to make from your business?
Once you have the answers to these three simple questions, then you can determine the level of volume you want or need to achieve. When you know your numbers, you can set income or volume goals to meet your lifestyle.
If each year your plan is to double what you did the previous year, the question becomes when is enough, enough? It’s a question many agents can’t answer because they are constantly chasing more as though “more” is validation that they are a successful agent.
The job comes with enough stress — our clients, appraisers, home inspectors and lenders, just to name a few. Agents don’t need to add to that stress by pulling random numbers out of the sky and labeling them goals.
Real estate is a profession where you can decide how much or how little you want to earn. How much time you want to spend on your business and what activities you want to do and when. We can set healthy boundaries and achieve work-life balance.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t be ambitious or set high goals. It simply means know your numbers. Know what you need to earn, know when enough is enough — and live your best life. The only person you need to impress is yourself because no one else matters.
Candy Miles Crocker is the founder of Real Life Real Estate Training. Candy is also an active Realtor in Washington, D.C., and holds licenses in three jurisdictions.
Are you ready for what the industry holds in 2020? Inman Connect New York is your key to unlocking opportunity in a changing market. At Connect you will gain insight into the future, discover new strategies and network with real estate’s best and brightest to accelerate your business. Create your 2020 success story at Inman Connect New York, January 28-31, 2019.
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