The New Year is here, complete with 12 new months, 52 new weeks, and 365 brand new days to use wisely in your pursuit of a better life and a more prosperous future. One of the oldest and most common ways to begin our 12-month journey around the sun is to formulate some New Year’s Resolutions. We love this New Year’s tradition at Allison James Estates & Homes, and firmly believe that by focusing on a few important areas of your personal life and business practice you will be well on your way to achieving a $100 million year in real estate sales and the best New Year ever!
Actually, the practice of making a mental, verbal, or even written resolution to change or improve an undesirable trait or behavior can be traced back to the 18th Century B.C. when the ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each new year to return borrowed objects and pay old debts. Modern day resolutions include getting more exercise, eating healthier food, or even squeezing in an extra hour of each day for reading. However, New Year resolutions are also a great way to improve your professional goals as well! To help get you started, we have assembled a few New Year’s Resolution ideas your real estate career.
Resolve To Be Positive
There is no other way to put it: Your attitude will make or break you. Period. A positive attitude will adjust your perspective so that you see opportunities and overcome obstacles. In fact, a positive attitude can influence every single decision in every aspect of your life and can give you the confidence to grow your real estate business into a multi-million dollar practice. That’s why we always like to include a positive attitude as the first area of focus for any New Year’s Resolution.
Resolve To Evaluate Last Year’s Real Estate Efforts
Spending some time taking a close look at your business performance last year is a great way to begin the New Year. Take a look at last year’s goals, and determine how close you came to reaching them. Go back to the basics of your business by asking yourself:
- Why Did I Become A Real Estate Professional? This is a great question to help you get back to your roots and re-focus yourself on the reason you chose the real estate profession. The next step is to do everything you can to make sure your business goals support these personal goals.
- What Do I Have To Do To Reach My Goals? Nobody is perfect, and we all can improve our personal and professional achievements. Take some time to honestly evaluate your business practices during the past year. Some areas you can focus on might include financial tracking, marketing, time management, and networking. How can you improve your daily, weekly, and yearly practices to improve upon these areas?
- Have I Done All I Can To Reach My Target Niche? Every market is different, and within each market you will find several client niches. Some target niches might include first-time homebuyers, second-home buyers, or even Spanish speaking buyers. The key is to examine if your target niche is profitable for your business, and if you doing everything you can to reach this target group.
Third – Resolve To Improve Your Marketing Efforts
Another really great real estate resolution is to focus the next 12 months on improving your marketing efforts.
If you want to make effective changes in your marketing effectiveness in 2017, ask yourself:
- Is my website all it can be? Did you know that more than 200 million people went to real estate website last year, to look for real estate agents? That’s the equivalent of nearly every adult resident living in the United States looking for real estate websites. Really evaluate your website and determine if it is actually hurting your branding rather than improving it. Resolve to create a website that offers stellar user experience for your clients and associates. Look to see that your website doesn’t have too many links in the navigation, the inability to showcase great listing photos, or showcases irrelevant information that may “bounce” visitors away. Resolve to create a gorgeous, fully optimized site that is full of useful information for your audience, and that keeps your clients coming back for more!
- Are there other ways I can market myself? Taking inventory of your tactics will help you see if there are new opportunities for your marketing efforts. For example, are you using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress that lets you create blog posts and great landing pages that will improve your visibility during Internet searches and provide valuable information for your audience? In addition, think about implementing an automatic email platform, an easy-to-use customer relationship management (CRM) database, social media automation tool, or Internet content aggregator to gather information that is relevant to your clients and that is brand neutral. These are just a couple of the technologies that are available to real estate professionals. There are tons of great apps and tools that are now available to the real estate professional.
Fourth- Resolve Improve Networking
Keeping on top of relationships is one of the best ways to succeed in a “word-of-mouth” industry like real estate. Have you been nurturing your relationships and becoming the “go-to” source for information and knowledge? Here are some questions to ask yourself as you enter 2017:
- Am I doing a good job maintaining my relationships with my business associates? The Allison James Estates & Homes family is a treasure chest of resources for your business. Make a point to extend your name and exchange information throughout the Allison James Estates & Homes network, and engage in some of our world-class training programs during 2017.
- Have I done everything I can to propagate my name throughout relevant networking groups? A great resolution for you this year is to establish new professional groups and setting attendance goals for each month. Resolve to expand your sphere of influence in 2017 by participating in online groups and in person meetings. Linkedin is a great place to start joining groups and meeting new real estate professionals.
- Have I done a good job reaching out to past clients? In real estate, your past clients are one of the best sources for new referrals. Resolve to implement a client-focused multi touch-program that will keep past relationships warm!
Founded in 2008, Allison James Estates and Homes (AJI) is ranked one of the top 20 real estate brokerage firms in the nation that uses a new business model based on cutting edge technology and remote agent representation. Every Allison James agent keeps 100 percent of their sales commission in exchange for a flat monthly fee. Headquartered in Carlsbad, CA, Allison James employs more than 1200 licensed real estate agents in 16 states. Since it founding, Allison James has experienced exponential year-over-year growth in both velocity and volume. In 2015, Allison James posted 9,600 completed real estate transactions valued at $2.8 billion.
