The first rule of developing a real estate business plan is to remember that the devil is in the details. This means that overlooking the small things in plans and schemes will cause problems later on.
Creating a business career plan will help you reach your personal and professional goals. But where do you start, how, and why?
The ‘why’ is obvious – there is no such thing as a regular paycheque in this profession; you will not be paid simply for showing up for work. Your ability to earn an income rests on your ability to successfully negotiate an agreement of purchase and sale.
There are four steps to developing your personalized business plan: assess your income needs, convert income needs to sales goals, translate prospecting initiatives to sales goals, and create an action plan.
Step 1: Assess your income needs
Make a listing of your living and business expenses to determine how much income you will need to generate annually. Living expenses include items such as housing (rent/mortgage, heating, hydro, water), food, clothing, and medical/health coverage. Business expenses include items such as registration/continuing education fees, transportation, advertising/self-promotion, professional development courses, and income taxes.
Step 2: Convert income needs to sales goals
This step can be tricky. As you are new to the profession, you may find it difficult to estimate how many properties you will need to sell in one year to meet your financial goal. Do your research. Seek advice from colleagues and your office manager. Review the plethora of reports on real estate trends published by banks, other financial institutions, and brokerages. Finally, start with a conservative goal and be realistic.
Step 3: Translate prospecting initiatives into sales goals
Determine what methods you will use to locate potential buyers and sellers. You will also need to determine what level of activity or work initiative will result in a sale.
How you prospect is crucial as it will determine whether you make a living. Therefore, select a prospecting method that works for you. Prospecting examples include working your personal contacts, working another salesperson’s open house, and cold calling. Be careful with cold calling, however. Real estate brokerages engaged in cold calling (or telemarketing) are required under federal law to register with the National Do Not Call List. For more information, go to https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/index-eng.
Step 4: Create an action plan
Create a detailed list of items you must do every day, and do them. Your action plan will keep you focused on primary money-making activities that will put you face-to-face with potential buyers and sellers.
When creating your action plan, consider the following:
- how much money you need to make
- types of properties you sell (commission per property)
- types of prospecting you do
- how many hours a day you work
- how many days a week you work (including weekends)
Next Step
You also need to develop a career plan. We will review how to develop a career plan in a future blog.
For More Information
For more information on business plans and how to successfully transition to the world of real estate trading from the classroom, please consult our A Mentoring Kit for New Salespeople: Training For Success at
http://www.oreacollegestore.com/ShowItem.aspx?ItemID=LT-PB-MentoringKit&Design=false&CurrentTab=divCatLearningTools. This is a valuable resource for both brokers and salespeople.
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Tell us about your career plan, specifically what works and what you had to change. Such information is invaluable to your colleagues, especially a new salesperson.
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