QUICKSTART YOUR SELLING BUSINESS FOR THE NEW YEAR

Quickstart your Selling Business for the New Year

You’ve had a break and now you have a chance to bring those New Year’s Resolutions to life.

Despite what you achieved last year we now start this year at zero again.
Sure, you bring the skills, business momentum and contacts, forward into the new business year, but the results start from scratch again. If you are looking to move your Sales Business to a new level this year then here are some tips that can help.

1. Get clear on how you are going to run your business and leave room for those other people and things in your life that are important.
Perhaps you need to do a Business Plan this year. Before you do a Business Plan do a Life Plan. Take a look at how you (and your partner) want your life to look in a few years. Use the circle below to help you look at the things which are important to you and plan your Business to Fund it.

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2. Make Your Plan Simple
Even though you know that to grow your business you will need to work hard and maintain a real focus on your business don’t forget to plan time off first. Then simply look build an activity plan that has you talking with lots of people.
Once you have worked out how much you need to make to achieve your goals for the year it’s pretty easy to work out how many sales you need. The trick though is in knowing how many listings you will need! Once you and your manager have that sorted now create a plan to make that happen.

3. Make all Tasks into Appointments and put them in your diary
And I mean all tasks. Plan your time off with partner and family first, and your own time (Golf, fishing etc). Block off your Holiday times and check you have a time to maintain your fitness and body weight etc.

Then Plan your work schedule
Put these essential Tasks in as Appointments for each week

Prospecting Calls
Vendor feedback calls
Vendor Review Meetings
Marketing Preparation
Meeting an Advocate
Time in Focus/Farm area
Open Home Follow-up calls
Fixed office times such as Sales meeting

What’s left is time to

Talk with people
Follow up Prospective vendors
Follow up Buyers
Listing Presentations
Show homes
Close Sales
Negotiate

4. Go to work to work
Yes let the under achievers visit the office. Go in to get done what you need to do in the office and then GET OUT. When you have your times off scheduled it makes it easy to focus on the Dollar Productive Tasks, and ignore the antics and time wasting behaviours of the Office drones. And dress and speak like you are at work.

5. Become an Expert at something
To grow your business faster grab an area that interests you and become an expert at it. Stop trying to be all things to all people. Create an edge for yourself and have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
It might be that you develop an expertise in
Apartments
Sub-divisions
Auctions
Auctioneering
A specific geographic area
Project marketing
Etc
Do the homework and become an expert – give people a reason to deal with you.

6 Prospect like your life depends on it
This Business depends not only on your skills but the Number of people who know you and what you do – and that they know you do it well. So well, that they will always use you and they are happy to refer their friends to you. Set up a schedule that has you talking with at least
100 people a week and aim for double that

7 Create your own Network
Set up your own coffee, breakfast or lunch club with people who are in positions of influence to refer business to you. Set up a schedule of monthly functions and spend time networking out of the office. E.g. Don’t play golf on your day off with colleagues, play with people who can refer you business.

8 Ask for Help or get a Coach
You’ve got a manager so go ask them to help you – that is their job!Ask them to be your Coach and plan with you how you can be kept Accountable to your Plan. Set up regular meetings with your manager and get them to keep you focused on useful and productive tasks.

9 Know How to Close the Sale
Learn to read buying signals and develop scripts that will help you uncover the secrets of Closing the sale. Make sure you learn the secrets of the Sales process and how to lead a buyer to a happy purchase.

10 Become an Expert Marketer
Become an expert in identifying and communicating with market segments.
Become a great advertisement writer or delegate it to a marketing department or expert.
Know how to promote Property like an expert – collect Vendor Contributions so your Vendor can compete for the most avid buyers – the ones who will pay the most.

11 Become an expert in Negotiation
This is what the vendor really pays you for. Understand the rules of Negotiation and how to apply them as a facilitator between the 2 negotiating parties.

So the menu is not large – just seize one option at a time and out it in place. Your success will now depend on how disciplined you are in applying your focus on these key tasks and how well you do them.

So go to work, have fun and make money.

IAN KEIGHTLEY