Vital Signs for a Healthy Business Part 2

Vital signs (often shortened to just vitals) are a group of the 4 to 6 most important signs that indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions. Pulse, blood pressure, temperature, respiration rate are a few of these “vital signs” for life.

Appointments Set - Obviously, we all know that this is where the magic happens.  If we’re not getting face to face with people, it will be a challenge to sell anything.  Again, this all comes down to your annual sales goal.  If we take an agent looking to sell 24 homes in a year, we want to break down how many will be a seller side, how many a buyer side.  Let’s say 60% seller and 40% buyer. This would suggest we’d be setting a goal to close 15 listings (rounded up).  Ask yourself, how many listing appointments do you need to go on to get 15 to list with you?  If you are closing 50% of the listings you go out on you’d be setting a goal for 30 listing appointments. If you are closing 70%, you would be looking at approximately 21 appointments. As you see, when you have higher skills through practice and role-play, you can work less and make more!!  I always suggest adding in 10% for fall out (or what you know to be your true #’s or typical for your market). So, if you wish to close 15 listings, I would establish a goal for 17 to be safe. You can work the numbers the same for your buyer sides.  The key to this vital sign is to know the exact amount of appointments you will go on each week, month and year to meet/exceed your goals. The example used here if you are targeting 17 listing appointments breaks down to 1 appointment every 21 days.  (perspective) If you have any challenges with the math, I would reach out to your broker/manager or someone that can help you break down these details with you.

Written Contracts - Listings Taken/Buyer Agreements Signed -  I’d like to suggest a minimum standard here of 50%. What this means is for every appointment you go on, you generate a written contract at least 1 out of 2 times.  Again, this is a MINIMUM, not a goal.  The goal, with time, practice and as your skills increase, would be to get into the 80-90% range.  The reason I don’t say 90+ is the more you do this you will find you are going to turn business down. Not everything will make sense for you to pursue or always meet your business standards.

Contracts Executed - This is always a great feeling!  Making deals happen and helping your clients win in Real Estate.  It’s always good for at least one good fist pump.  Contacts written is just as it sounds, you wrote the contract, took the listing, a buyer rep agreement, or wrote an offer.  The contract executed is when you sold that listing or the offer is accepted as a result of your amazing negotiation skills.  What we’re looking for here is what percentage of what you are writing converts into an executed contract?  If we’re taking listings and they aren’t selling, why?  Is it the price? Condition? Location? Or all the above?  Are we writing offers that aren’t competitive? Why? Are you having a hard time carefronting the buyer and laying out the hard core facts of what it will take to get their offer accepted? Or could it be other skills that are getting in the way of you getting more deals executed?  This is the part of our business where a solid diagnosis can allow us to have more success.  Unfortunately, we often can’t see what is getting in our way and how a 3rd party can bring perspective to what we may have a blind spot around.

Closed Sales - As it relates to our goals, this is how many homes we are going to sell this year. Funny that this comes at the end as it’s really where it all starts. When I am coaching a client, we use this number to back into the other vitals we’ve gone over today.  I realize for some of us; all the “numbers” can be overwhelming and for others, it comes naturally.  Here’s what I want to emphasize if you don’t know your numbers it’s likely you will miss them 100% of the time.  That reminds me of a quote I saw years ago on a Michael Jordan poster.  MJ is standing on the free throw line, and the captions says “You will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”  I added and “if you don’t have a target.”

Wrap up:

All this is designed to bring you a more peaceful approach to your year. Notice I said “peaceful” I know first hand there is nothing more stressful, frustrating and disempowering than to go out there everyday not really knowing if what you’re doing will work. Just as we opened with here...as it related to our health or vital signs indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions.  These areas we covered in this episode are your “business life-sustaining functions.  If you don’t have this figured out yet, don’t go another day without knowing.  If you were walking around with a life threatening condition, you wouldn’t just keep walking around with it. You would get to a doctor. You deserve to have a plan, work your plan and have a thriving business each year!