Welcome back to your Business Plan! How did you do writing your Situation Analysis and Mission Statement? Did you write down everything that affects your real estate career? It's important to do this because we're going to take some of those things that were written in Situation Analysis and drop them down to our Objectives (Goals) section.

Remember, the components of the Business Plan are Situation Analysis, Mission Statement, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics (SMOST).

Last week we covered Situation Analysis and Mission Statement.

Now the fun part-Objectives!

Objectives are your goals. Remember I said it was important to write down everything that affected your real estate life. Well, here's where we bring it down from Situation Analysis to Objectives. Perhaps you said you were disorganized. An objective now would become:

I will take a Time Management course by December 31, 2010.

Your goals should not be ambiguous [I'll try to get organized]. They need to be specific, with a time or date attached. With this example, it will be very clear by January 1, 2011, if you've met this goal.

Objectives will always have the amount of money you want to make, the number of listings you want to take, and the number of sales you want to make. Objectives will also contain any number of goals from the Situation Analysis section, and can also contain personal goals (I will take a two-week vacation before the end of the first quarter of 2010).

Here's an example of what the Objectives section of your Business Plan might look like:

OBJECTIVES:

1. I will make $75,000 from listings and sales during 2010.
2. I will take 15 listings during 2010.
3. I will make 15 sales that will settle during 2010.
4. I will take a computer course focusing on Contact Management during the first half of 2010.
5. I will take my family on a 2-week vacation before October 1, 2010.

Each one of these Objectives (Goals) is measurable and has a time line. You should visit your Business Plan at least once a month to see if you are on target with your Goals and Objectives.

Once you write down how much money you want to make, then you need to determine how you will arrive at the number of listings and sales you need to make to accomplish the "money" goal. To do this, it will be necessary for you to determine what your (or your office's) average commission per transaction is. If, for example, your average commission is $3000, then to make $75,000 you will need 25 transactions. ($75,000 divided by $3000 = 25 transactions).

You must also decide how many of the 25 transactions will be listings and how many will be sales. If you say that you're going to take 12 listings, then ask yourself, "Will all 12 listings sell?" Perhaps you will need to take 15 listings, knowing that only 12 of the listings will sell. If 12 listings sell, and your average commission is $3000, then you now have $36,000 towards your goal. That leaves $39,000 to earn through sales. $39,000 divided by $3000 average commission means you need to make 13 sales.

I hope you now have the idea of how to work the Objectives section.

Now, let's determine how you're going to get those listings and sales. This is called the Strategies and Tactics section of your Business Plan.

Strategies tell us "how" we're going to do something.

Tactics tell us "who" is going to help, and "when" will it be done.

So let's look at listings. How are you going to get those 12 or 15 listings you need? Here are some ideas:

1. Work the Expireds and Withdrawns from the MLS.
2. Call For Sale By Owners.
3. Run an ad in the local papers saying you need listings.
4. Choose a community and actively "farm" it.
5. Talk to your Broker to see if he can give you some leads.
6. Send out a letter to all your friends asking for their help in identifying potential Sellers.
7. Solicit leads from other out-of-area REALTORS^® who may have friends in your service area. Offer to pay a referral fee.
8. Send out a mailing to the community in which you would like to have a listing, offering a free Market Analysis.
9. Leave your business card everywhere you can and perhaps someone who is thinking about selling their house will pick up your card.
10. Send out "Just Listed" or "Just Sold" cards when you list and eventually sell a property.
11. Hold a Seminar "How To Sell Your House."

Put your thinking cap on; I'm sure you can come up with some more ideas.

How are we going to get our Buyers? Many of the ideas on how to get listings are the same ideas we can use to get Buyers. But here are a few more ideas to add to your list on how to get Buyers:

1. Open Houses.
2. Ads in the local papers.
3. Ads in out-of-area papers saying why buying in Sussex County is a good thing to do.
4. Phone Duty at the office.
5. Letters to past Buyers asking them if they know of anyone else who would like to buy in Sussex County.
6. Hold a Home Buyer's Seminar.
7. Teach a real estate class at your local college.

Tactics will look at each one of these ideas and ask, then answer, "Who is going to help us? What are they going to do?" and "When will they do it?" Here's an example:

Strategy is to hold an Open House.

Tactics:

• Who will send out the invitations and when will they be sent?
• Who will put the ad in the paper? and when?
• Who will put up the signs? and when?
• Who will let other REALTORS^® know about the Open House? and When?
• Who will prepare the paperwork (comps, registration form, etc.) for the Open House? and when?

Needless to say, you will need to have a calendar handy when you do your Strategies and Tactics so you can map out all the "Whens" on your daily schedule.

Putting a Business Plan together can be hard work, but if you plan your work, and work your plan, success will come your way faster.

Good luck with your Plan.

That's it for now. See you next week!

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