Are you still following your 2010 business plan?

It’s the beginning of February.  Are you still following your 2010 business plan?  Do you have a 2010 business plan?

If not, it’s definitely not too late to make one.  Our businesses are only as good as our execution, but successful execution comes from a solid foundation.  Before we start doing things, we need to know that we’re doing the right things.  And that comes from knowing what success looks like, and writing a quick plan for how we will get there.

For example, the purpose for your marketing strategy should be to directly support your business goals.  You can start with fundamental questions like:

• Why are you in business in the first place?
• What value and/or service do you provide to your customers?
• How do you define success in your business?
• What do you want your business to look like five years from now?

The answers to these questions will largely define what you want to do with your marketing as well.  For example, you’re in the business of helping people buy and sell homes, and let’s say you have an objective of helping customers sell 200 homes this year.  Your objective of selling 200 homes will define the content you publish on the Web, it will define how and where you publish that content, and will define how you work with your promotional partners to not only meet more home sellers, but help their homes get sold quicker.

But when you think about objectives for your business, you ideally should be thinking about personal objectives as well.  This includes questions like:

• What kind of work/life balance would you like to achieve?
• How many hours do you want to work each week?
• Do you want to work weekends?
• Do you want to create a business you can sell down the road?
• When do you want to retire?  How do you want to retire?

In your business, you may feel that some of these questions or opportunities are impossible.  In real estate, you can’t possibly get away with taking the weekends off.  Can you?

Of course you can!  If you make it a goal, you can do it!

Staci Dancey, a market-leading real estate agent in the Southern California market, earns an income in excess of $600,000 each year.  She regularly works just four days a week – Monday through Thursday, and always takes the weekend off.

Countless real estate agents and brokers work just 40-45 hours per week, yet earn a high, six-figure income.  They can do this because they have a plan, built on what they determined success in their business should look like.

If they can do it, why can’t you?

This is exactly why setting your personal and professional goals up front are so important.  If you have a clear understanding of what success looks like, and what business goals you want to achieve, you can build a business and marketing plan in support of that.