This episode is about planning–and yes I know that its almost February and the reason I am releasing this episode on planning is that 1. most of us dont develop a good plan and 2. If we do develop a plan by Jan 18—we have already fallen out of our plan guidelines. So this episode is about either revising and refining your 2014 plan or if you have not thought about how to attack 2014—-maybe this will help.
If you decide to turn off this episode because you have planning already done or completely worked out–please send me an email and tell me that I am wasting your time with this kind of content and I will stick to just interviewing people.
OK–so lets get started with planning for our ideal year. My personal mantra is Earn More and Work Less–
I did an earlier episode called I Dare You and in that episode I dared you to think differently and do things differently—all that was high level stuff. In this episode I am going get into the nitty gritty and hopefully help you get a SMART plan laid out. If you have have not heard of a SMART plan that is an anachronym. Here is how is goes S stands for specific, M stands for measurable, A stands for achievable, R stands for relevant and T stands for timely.
Most of us set goals —If we do set goals that are just that–things we would like to achieve but, if we can set SMART goals there is an accountability factor there because, they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant to our business and life and most of all timely. We have a timeline component baked in.
OK—lets get going. We want to get all our goals down so we can start running in 2014. As I did this episode it made me wonder how other people plan and set goals for the new year. We will get tips from super succesful people in the online world. I would like you to begin working on your plan and then put it in action.
Goal setting tip #1–Get very specific. Now all of us have heard this before and thats because its so important. Now before I get into the specifics I would like you to do a quick excersice. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one half write down the stuff that wasnt working for you last year. On the other side write down the things that did work. Now you dont have to do this right now –you can wait until this episode is over but, when you do it–I want you to do a full brain dump. Empty out the hard drive which is your brain and write it all down. Dont worry at this point whether what your writing down is useful or not—just get it all down. I want you to really focus on what worked for you, what you loved about last year, what your clients loved and most importantly—what made you money—-we gotta get that cash right?
And then—lets go the other way. Write down what didnt work for you. What got you frustrated, what are the things that you just struggled with, what are those things that you failed at? Most importantly—ask What are the things that you should stop doing in your business? What are those things that you can outsource or pass off to others in your team or even to a virtual assistant? Are you focusing on daily dollar activities or are you killing time on small stuff? Many times in my interviews we discuss this kind of thing. And if you can look at the ROI on your daily activities. If it takes you half a day to clean your house–that might be a waste of your time and talent. Because you could hire someone for $100 dollars to do that for you and use that time in your farm, cold calling or holding an open house. And If you got one deal out of that –your return might be 10,000 dollars. So trading 100 bucks for 10,000 bucks is a no brainer–at least for me and at the end of the day—the person you hired to clean your house is going to do a much better job than you. Any how—I dont want to get sidetracked but, focusing on daily dollar productive activties and always focusing on your ROI of how you spend your time will transform your business and life in the long run. Its not easy when you are starting out but, if you can bake this into your mindset I promise that you will wonder why you didnt do it earlier and why others can see the forest for the trees kind of thing.
Right now lets focus on enhancing and optimizing the items that are working for us right now. There are so many people that can benefit from your knowledge and skills but, you are just not reaching them right now. Can you prioritize the items that is working for you right now? As we go through this—-Lets try to keep all of our goals on one sheet of paper—remember we are creating SMART goals for 2014. Lots of times when I help people with their businesses I ask them if they have goals. They proudly say “Yes I do and they are all written down”. I ask them if they will share them with me and lots of times I get the Super Star answer—-“Sure–would you like to see my 1 year, 3 year or 5 year goals?” That kind of answer makes me laugh because–you really cant plan out that far. The world will be so different 3 or 5 years from now that those goals especially business goals will be obsolete 5 years from now. Did you know that the Ipad 5 years ago didn’t exist? And for those of you listening well after this recording was produced–right now it is January 2014—-So–what kind of technology will exist 5 years from now? What will the market look like 5 years from now—my point is—as far as business goes–don’t bother with 3 or 5 year goals. Focus on specific and measureable goals. So I usually ask to see a persons 1 year goals as well as, their quarterly goals.
For me—my goals start with my money goals. I write down how much money I want to earn then I create what I call funnels. For me I do coaching, investing and I will soon have products on this site. So I will write down how much money I want to make from each of these funnels. I focus on the funnel approach because I am looking for scale. I cant make all my money from coaching because I only have so much time. I cant make all my money from investing because I only have so much money to invest. So I try to optimize all my funnels to fit within how much time I want to work and how much money I have to invest. I then–break it down quarterly. I put a timeline to it. This is important especially in real estate because if you wanted to make 100 grand or 200 or 300 grand you cant just take 100 grand and divide it by 12 because you would fall off course after month 1 (January). You know that you are going to sell more houses in spring and summer than you will in October or November. So as you are doing your planning be thoughtful to look at the seasonality of your business.
Remember–we are creating SMART goals so remember the A stands for achievable. I love big goals and the power of thinking big but, I want you to think about where you are now. Do you have a team in place? Do you have a list that you can market to? Do you have all the skills in place i.e. coach, web tools, drip campaigns, auto dialers etc. to go out and have a goal of 500K this year? So as you create these goals keep in mind the infrastructure and capital that you will need to get you to your goal. I would rather you have a goal of 50K and achieve it than a goal of 350K and fall way short. I want you to stretch yourself and challenge yourself but, I want you to reach your goals because when you are able to plan and execute to a set of goals that is empowering—-your mindset and life will change to a mindset of abundance and you will feel like Superman or Wonderwoman when you achieve what you set out to achieve.
After your money goals–think about some of the things that you have been meaning to do but, just havent implemented a system for–things like sending out hand written notes or busting out 100 cold calls per day or working on your farm more intensely. I want you to think about how you can connect with your clients more. Its those intimate connections that will propel your business in the future. What are some of the things you can do to connect with your clients and prospects more? Can you do a blog or podcast? Can you create 2 minute videos? Can you reach out and just do something nice for someone? All those little things don’t necessarily always have to be about getting a good outcome for you—if you can do something nice for someone else you begin to build brand equity for your brand as well as, your company brand. OK–I’m off that soapbox.
I know that getting your goals on paper and we have talked about some granular stuff; I want to about these 3 things as you work through the process– Write it Down, Break it Down, Take it Down.
Once you have your big goal–write it down—it needs to be on paper. Once you have it on paper—Break it down–take that 1 big goal and break it down into smaller more specific tasks and then Take it down. Take massive action towards each of those manageable tasks and take them down like a Louisiana cop takes down some foul mouthed drunk on New Years Eve. Boom–no talking –all action–bust out that baton and go ape on your goals—just like Cletus in the Dukes of Hazard says—cuff em and stuff em. Thats the kind of action I want you to take on your goals.
I hope this helps you plan out your year and get it off to a good start. Do me a favor—-please reach out to me and let me know if this kind of planning content is good for you and your business or a waste of time—would you like to hear more actionable content like this or just stick with interviewing people. I love feedback and I try to email everyone back that reaches out to me so—my direct email is toby@superagentslive.com–send me an email—tell me what I am doing right and what things I could do better. If you do enjoy the show please tell a friend and more importantly at least for now is go to itunes and subscribe and leave a rating and review. Until next time–Im Toby Salgado and I personally thank you for listening to super agents live.
