Yes, There’s Still Time to Make 2025 Your Best Year Ever But in Real Estate
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Good years don’t just happen. They are the result of strategic planning and relentless execution. This article provides a framework for turning the year of your dreams into reality.
Get real and stop playing
Having your best year starts with you. Are you honest with yourself about the effort you put into your business, or do you blame the market for your reduced productivity? Do you wait for your prospects to reach you or do you initiate value-driven conversations?
Success in real estate begins with accepting personal responsibility for your success or struggle in this business.
It’s okay if you’ve been in a period of struggle or yearned for the business relief we’ve seen during the pandemic years. It is NOT okay to live there. If things are going to change, you have to change. You have to do the hard things – the things you know you have to do but don’t want to do.
Most people don’t need to be taught; they need to be reminded. Let this be your reminder that everything you want in your business is right on the other side of suppressing your discomfort or discomfort and doing certain tasks. I’ve found it helpful to identify and practice what I call the “hard three.”
What three tasks do you know will grow your business but are difficult or uncomfortable? A few examples of this for multiple agents are:
- Cold calling
- Follow up with cold leads
- Shooting video
- Post regularly on social media
- Attending a networking event
The list goes on, and it’s different for everyone. But the key is to identify the three activities that you know will be most profitable for your business that you find difficult to do. If you will identify these “hard three” and act on them every day for the next few months, your business will respond, and you will set the stage for your best year ever.
Need more tough love to get you going? Check out this article that shares 7 brutally honest facts you need to hear right now.
Create a daily action plan
Having a goal for this year is necessary, but without a daily action plan, your goal is just a dream. One of the frameworks I like to use is what I call the 5-4-3-2-1 success plan. This plan involves identifying the five activities of your business that you will do on a regular basis.
This is an example of this strategy:
- 5 – Discussions about buildings per day
- 4 – Conversations with people from your sphere of influence per day
- 3 – Handwritten notes per day
- 2 – Coffee or lunch appointment with someone from the sphere of influence every week
- 1 – Unsolicited video CMA per day
The important thing is that the results are easy to track and not difficult. If you are in a period of building momentum, you may need to do the 10-8-6-4-2 system. Whatever you decide to do, consistency is what leads to success.
Expand your reach
If you are going to have a growing business, you must have a growing website. If I was able to review your database by understanding the number of leads that flow in each week and the connections that come from people on the database, I feel confident that I can predict the type of year you will have.
Do you have programs that bring new leads to your business on a regular basis? Do you have a systematic way of increasing the leads you generate? If you answered yes to these two questions, you are headed in the right direction.
Leads can come from paid lead sources or organic lead generation techniques such as local farming, hosting open houses, or creating online content. Whatever it looks like to you, focusing on expanding your reach is an important part of building a business that has the potential to surpass any previous levels of success.
If you’re not sure how to make a trail, check out this article on 24 different ways to make a trail.
Minimize your gatherings
You only have so much time. As mentioned above, increasing your reach by growing your website is important, but the people and places you focus on will determine the results you get.
One of the best ways to ensure success is to narrow your circles or areas of focus. Put differently, focus on devoting your time to a few areas of influence and to people who increase your ability to continuously improve your business and life instead of spreading yourself thin.
The three areas I suggest you use this to include are your prospects, the way you run a business, and the people you spend time with. When it comes to your prospects, identifying potential buys or sells in the near future and focusing on them creates an opportunity to build momentum in your business.
You must systematically generate new leads for your business and grow those leads. But I suggest compiling and focusing most of your attention on the following 10 list of buyers and sellers and the MVP list of people who are most likely to refer business to you. This list provides the ability to retain the most valuable opportunities and referral partners and focus your attention.
I did this on a whiteboard in my office, but most of the agents I work with now use a spreadsheet. The important thing is to review this list every day and focus your efforts to stay in constant contact with this group.
The second area you should cut back on is where you spend in regards to your finances. This is not just about reducing wasteful spending; it’s about focusing your spending on the most productive areas for your money.
But let’s start by eliminating your wasteful spending. Most of us have ongoing services we pay for that we don’t even realize. Rocket Money has a tool that reveals all your ongoing subscriptions, and allows you to cancel the ones you no longer use with a simple click on the dashboard they provide.
Many agents have areas where they spend money in their business that are just not productive. Maybe it’s a lead service, a tool you’ve never used or a social media company that isn’t getting you results. However, if you delve deeper into where your leads and business come from, you can find specific areas that generate the majority of your business. In this case, eliminating inefficiencies and redeploying capital to efficient strategies can also lead to growth.
The last place is to reduce the people you spend time with. Focus on spending more time with the leaders and less time with the needy. Surround yourself with less people who pressure you and more with those who encourage you. When it comes to people, quality time spent with a select few who inspire you to be a better version of you is more important than a lot of time with the masses.
By focusing on a few impactful things and surrounding yourself with the best people, you will see a big change in your business and life.
Have a season of great action
There is a reason that rocket ships have booster engines attached to their side during takeoff. More power is needed during launch to get started, but when the rocket reaches a certain speed and altitude, the rocket boosters come off because they are no longer needed. It’s the same as building momentum in your business.
In order to reach the level of business you want, there will need to be a period of great action. You won’t have to work at this level forever, but to bring your business to a new level, it will require more effort.
Depending on the level of success you want to achieve it can be a month or three months. Whatever it is for you, decide to go all in on that season. Make more calls than you’ve ever made. Host more open houses than ever before. Bring more value to the marketplace than you’ve ever delivered.
January is over; Are you on your way to having your best year yet? If not, get into the game. There is business to be done, and someone is going to have their best year ever. Why not?
Jimmy Burgess is a real estate agent and national team builder with Real Brokerage in northwest Florida, serving the 30A, Destin, and Panama City Beach markets. Connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
