Written by John McTavish – Specialist Real Estate Business Coach

Here’s a quick test to diagnose the problem.  Take your yearly rent and multiply it by 20. Now compare that figure to your gross income. If the income is greater you have an expense problem. If the income is less then you have a production problem.  Now this might not be a perfect analysis 100% of the time and its always wise to get an outside expert in to help if you’re losing money but you would be amazed how accurate this rule of thumb is.  And while we are on the subject of profitability did you know that the majority of real estate business owners who concentrate on controlling costs go out of business WHY? – because what we focus on is what gets our time and energy and so by focusing on NOT spending money the business spirals down and down until there is nothing left.  Smart owners focus their attention on their team and making sure the attitude in the organisation is positive and happy.

A good business coach can show you how to make this happen while putting into place procedures which automatically restrict expenditure to predetermined levels. Take the temperature of your business right now.  Is it a happy place to be – are your people smiling all the time and giving generously to all around them.  If not then maybe you need to take a quick look in the mirror. Without exception every problem I have seen in the hundreds of offices I have worked comes down to leadership.  

“It’s not what’s happening – it’s what you do that counts”

In a tough market like we are currently experiencing it’s all the more important to have a clear strategy for success. These are my 5 clever strategies to making a huge gain against your competitors in a tough market.

1.       Get up early and get started. Increase our work rate and your work effectiveness by at least 20% to gain an immediate advantage over your competition. This has a compounding effect over time. If I ran a mile each day and you ate a Pizza, by the end of the year we would be 365 miles apart and 365 pizzas apart. One of us would also have a 10 to 15 year life expectancy over the other – one of us would look far better as well. Start now it’s never too late.

2.       Have a Plan. Start the day with a plan to get in front of the money. Prioritise your focus on the Dollar Productive Activity first -leave ‘busy stuff’ to last.

3.       Get Tough- to survive in a tough market you need to get tough! Harden up and make some tough decisions to ensure your survival. If it’s a cost you don’t need, then get rid of it now! Avoid emotional attachments – just make the call and act on the decision that is required.

4.       Review everything – what was relevant a year ago, a month ago, or a week ago may not be now. Be prepared to change and despite all your beliefs calling you back into your old comfort zone, be prepared to change direction to one that meets the current climate.

5.       Don’t listen to anybody else! In a tough market there are more doomsayers preaching the sky is falling than positive people looking for the raft of opportunities that are right there in front of them. Work out who you are talking to and stick with the positive group. Divorce the others and no matter what, stick to your new plan and don’t deviate from it, no matter how hard others try to influence you.

‘It’s not the strongest or the most intelligent that survive, but the most adaptive to change’

-Charles Darwin

Coaching and mentoring is the growth industry of the century. More and more people are recognising the value of having someone to guide them through both the tough times and the good times – to maximise the advantages each situation offers.

There are a number of benefits in having a coach or mentor to guide you through the various stages of your career development. Average performance should not be acceptable. Assistance may be required to achieve above average performance.

It’s important to be able to have someone to bounce ideas off – especially in a business environment. It is not always possible to be open and honest with a colleague about what you are thinking – the things that you would like to try, but aren’t sure whether they’d work; your reasoning for whether they might be successful or not. To have an ‘independent’ sounding board whom you trust and who will be honest with you, can be the difference between a good idea and an amazing business activity/strategy.

If it’s good enough for athletes to have coaches (even “specialist high performance coaches”), then it should be good enough for people in a real estate business to have a coach or mentor to ensure performance levels are high.

Business coaching is an effective way to surpass current levels of performance and productivity.

The challenges faced by real estate businesses in terms of operating effectively in an increasingly competitive environment means there is an opportunity for some agents to step “up to the next level” and achieve much better results than their competitors.

For the proper growth and development of any organisation, it is necessary to have a management team that is up-to-date with recent trends and who have beliefs, values, attitudes, motivation and thoughts that drive them to excel and, more importantly, enables them to inspire their teams to excel.

Business coaching & mentoring provides the perfect platform for developing personal skills and behaviors that are necessary for implementing organisational changes and initiating the learning process.

If you always do, what you’ve always done – your results should be easy to predict.
Business coaching or mentoring should be available at all levels of any organisation. Sometimes it is an informal process, but it is most effective if it is managed and controlled, monitored and supported by management.

The purpose is to improve the performance of those being coached/mentored. The challenge is achieving this outcome with minimal disruption to the business operations. However, if the result is an increase in the business profitability (through more listings, sales & managements) then it should be seen as a worthwhile use of time to develop the team members to achieve these goals.

Grand finals and championships are not won without time devoted to the training & development of all members of the team.

Real estate agents are not the best at sharing their “secrets of success” with their colleagues. They operate in a competitive marketplace. They have set targets, and sometimes these targets over-ride all other purpose in their lives. The need to achieve those targets is often at the expense of quality time with family & friends, or involvement in sport or leisure activities. Their life balance is “out of whack”, in pursuit of their work related targets and goals.

What is required at all levels of any business operation is an understanding of the organisation’s current position and its future growth patterns. Apart from effecting educational development and experience, coaching also provides objective feedback and acts as a critical tool for successfully engineering organisational change.

In adapting to the rapidly shifting marketplace, businesses often need to modify or change their approach to capture a larger slice of the market in which they operate. However, this is often difficult to implement as people and organisations are naturally resistant to change. Business coaching has become a very effective tool for initiating productive changes in individuals, teams, and systems by enabling leaders, managers, and employees to uncover potential that might otherwise go untapped.

To be able to do this is not an easy thing to do in the beginning. The value of the changes need to be recognised first, and then “buy-in” will occur. This shift in attitude and approach can be quite infectious and profitable for all concerned.

“Steady as she goes” is not a good approach in today’s rapidly moving and technologically advancing business environment.

There is a growing recognition that profits, productivity, and customer satisfaction are the outcomes of performance rather than the cause. Coaching programs can focus on leadership issues, cultural factors and the learning and development practices that drive performance. Performance will drive productivity and customer satisfaction, which then permits repeat business and profitability levels to increase.

Everyone’s a winner!

The goal of coaching is not to be an alternative vehicle of managerial control. It should concentrate on empowering and delegating to create a culture of responsibility and self-generated, commitment-based actions.

Coaching is certainly more than just a technique. It involves viewing the business from a different perspective, working through relationships, dialogue and feedback to harness future potential and growth. It provides businesses with the ability to modify current work practices and communications. Coaching has become an important differentiation mechanism for modifying or creating an effective work environment that is more adaptable to change and growth.

Coaching allows managers to more effectively confront challenges and motivate others to achieve the business and personal goals. It creates awareness among managers that they can transform or create a culture that is more receptive to change and open to new possibilities.

Managers (as coaches/mentors) learn to increase their own self-awareness to

• decide when and how to take action
• find creative solutions
• consider opinions and feedback from fellow employees
• set targets
• make appropriate requests
• decrease hostility
• reduce stress and negative emotions in the workplace

Managers who are involved in the coaching process get a clear idea about their own commitments, as well as those of the organisation. They learn how to generate and maintain effective relationships, which in turn increases the levels of trust and accountability in the organisation.

A coached manager’s understanding of organisational and interpersonal dynamics is increased considerably, which in turn empowers them (and others) to achieve the identified business objectives. They learn how to take calculated risks for producing results aligned with the business vision. They learn to develop the right kind of unity and team spirit that will allow powerful work relationships to develop and that, in turn, will help achieve extraordinary results.

There can be no real justification for a business not wanting to improve the performance of the team members – from receptionist to accounts/admin staff to property & sales teams to principals. The level of training and development that occurs is a reflection of the commitment of that business to being the best they can be – and better than their competition.

Go for Gold in an Olympic year!

Tony Rowe is General Manager of Corum Training, a specialist provider of training to the property sector in NSW. Corum Training has fully qualified trainers with extensive knowledge, expertise & experience in the delivery of assessment & training services in real estate across Australia and New Zealand.

Tony can be contacted on 1300 793 723 or www.corumtraining.com.au

If the answer is none, then there is some work to do. And it’s never too late to start.

If you retire at 60, you will have worked for approximately 40 years. With the ongoing improvements of modern medicine, if you are currently in this working age zone, you could easily now live to 100. That means you will need enough income to pay for another 40 years after you stop working?

Oh – by the way, if you want to pay for those medical advances, those 40 years of retirement could well be more expensive than the working years.

So what can you do to create a passive income – that will endure beyond your ability to work?

Or create an income that exceeds your ‘working income’ allowing you to retire early?

Or create a passive income that will be a legacy for your grandchildren and their children.

A great book to read as an introduction to this concept is ‘The Richest man in Babylon’ by George Glasson, if you want a copy the easiest way to get one is to you can order it through my Life Coach website at www.grantthorpe.com just look under my recommended reading list.

The Richest Man in Babylon is about the lessons of putting your money to work for you and how to ensure it is invested wisely.

But most importantly for this discussion its about being able to start with very little and still make a success of creating a passive income for the future.

I have said before – that you can have anything you want in life if you are prepared to pay the price. And to start creating a passive income for the future, will require some sacrifice right now.

But that’s still better than 40 years of so called retirement, which really is, having to work until you die because you didn’t plan better.

It’s said that most people ‘will’ themselves to death because they run out of money to fund a decent life!

In George Glasson’s book ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ he talks about the rules of money and I like them. First you shape your life to live off 70% of your income, guilt free. You use 20% of your income to repay debt. No more, no less.

And you religiously save 10% of everything you earn.

This 10% is the part that you use to start creating a passive income. As a side note it’s surprising how you won’t miss it if you skim it off right at the time of earning it.

Invest it wisely to go to work for you each and every day. Apart for the actual investment strategy, the power of compounding interest will also do its trick here and you will be very surprised how interest paid on interest over time will affect the value of your investment.

So how can you get started? Well first you need to understand that this is a long term project, but you can start right now, by setting up the model I have just discussed. Putting away that 10% of all you earn to start the passive income stream.

Is the one thing that can fund your personal dreams -also the one thing that is currently getting in the way of you creating a wonderful life for yourself.

Today we have just touched the surface of this topic. I can tell you though, that it’s a lot easier to create than you think. You may just need some assistance along the way.

It’s all about Standards and Extras!

Standards are what we know we should get and what we expect.

Extras are things that surprise us; sometimes I refer to it as ‘unexpected service’.

So how does it work, well it either falls into a Positive, Neutral or Negative experience. And what can affect the perception of the experience is the way it’s been communicated to them?

Let’s take the first time you take your car in for a service. As it’s the ‘first time’, the car dealer decides to valet your car for you. You are really impressed, (positive) however the next time you take the car in, it doesn’t get a valet (negative). Your expectation was that it was to be cleaned, simply because it wasn’t communicated to you the first time that the valet was a bonus or an unexpected service.

To make sure you get value from your ‘unexpected service’ your clients need to clearly know what the standard service is first.

An Extra well communicated = Positive.

A Standard = Neutral

An Extra not performed = Neutral

A standard not performed = Negative

And in the case of the title of this article, if everyone puts a chocolate on your pillow, quite simply today, it’s not enough!

And worse still, what happens if the chocolate isn’t there?

Robert Kiyosaki, in his book ‘The Cash Flow Quadrant’ says that “To be defined as a business owner you should be able to go away for a year and when you come back the business is performing better than when you left”

If this is not the case, for you then you are probably stuck working in your business not on it, and that’s a scary place to be.

A business is really just cash flow; it’s what you do with the money that will make you truly wealthy. If your business has just created a ‘job’ for you then it’s unlikely to be able to supply enough cash flow to invest in wealth creation. Worse still you will be so busy working in your business that you won’t even have the time to ‘invest if you did have the money.

For a plan to double or triple ‘your’ income go to here