How-To: Real Estate

Self-Evaluation

Tracking Your Progress Through Business Activities 

When you are first starting out as a real estate agent there isn’t always an easy way to see if you are making progress in your business. It is one of those jobs where you are going to see the payoff of your effort weeks or even months down the road. You might not have any new sales under your belt, but this does not mean that you are not making any progress with your business activities. So how can you track your progress? How can you tell if you’re meeting your goals? A great way to start is to set a meeting with your real estate mentor or with your managing broker to have a conversation about the business activities you have been completing daily. This blog is a great way to organize your thoughts before that meeting. If you don’t feel like you have a set mentor within your brokerage or if you’d like to self-evaluate your business activities, then you are in the right place.

As a business professional, no matter what field you are in, you need the ability to track your progress and measure your results. You can do this by keeping diligent records as you accomplish your business activities. At the beginning of each week before you plan out your next activities, record the results of the previous week.

Consistently record the following statistics weekly:

• Number of phone calls to your sphere of influence?
• Number of phone calls to prospective leads?
• Number of prospecting email correspondence?
• Number of meetings with prospective buyers?
• Number of meetings with prospective sellers?
• Number of listing appointments?
• Number of buyer interviews?
• Number of properties shown?
• Number of listing agreements acquired?
• Number of offers submitted on behalf of buyer clients?
• Number of new contacts added to my database?
• Number of cold calls to FISBOS or expired listings?
• Number of transactions closed?

Consistently record the following additional questions monthly:

• Have I created my monthly newsletter and sent it to the database?
• Have I met with my mentor or broker this month?
• Have I made any progress on my required continued education courses?
• Have I tried mastering a new real estate-related skill?
• Have I networked with any real estate-related businesses this month?
• Have I followed up with any previous clients?
• Have I door-knocked any neighborhood my client is particularly interested in?
• Have I spent time or money on any new marketing outlets?
• Have I hosted any open houses this month?
• Have I attempted to engage in any community activities?

Compare your numbers with your business plan and determine if you are ahead or behind your goals. Remember that when you are new to anything, there is naturally going to be a learning curve. You will get better as you gain more experience. Try to keep an abundance mindset. Keep telling yourself that you will continue to create opportunities for yourself to be successful. There are going to be people telling you “No” before you are going to finally hear that beautiful “Yes!”

In addition to these records, continue to track your expenses and review them on a weekly basis. This will ensure you stay on track and help you develop patterns for yourself to forecast in the future. You should compare your projected budget to what you are spending so that you can determine if you are spending money too quickly.

After a few weeks of tracking your progress, call your mentor or managing broker to go over your numbers and discuss your strengths and weaknesses. Be open to suggestions and expect to evolve your strategies over time. As an entrepreneur, you will be constantly developing systems for yourself as you grow and gain experience.

I hope this helped you organize yourself and assist you in holding yourself accountable. Keep at it! Real estate can be so rewarding. Be sure to check back on the Career Corner for more business planning lessons and follow us on our Facebook Page for updates on new posts. You got this!