Do You Work

Do You Work For Your Company Or Vice Versa?

by Steven Morris

Do you own a “real” real estate business? By a real business I mean, do you have a working business plan, budget, forecast, organizational chart, functional systems or an operations manual for every aspect and person in your company? Most real estate brokers don't have a working business plan. If they do have one, they wrote it sometime ago, with a flowery and empty mission statement, placed it in a drawer somewhere and never looked at it again. You have invested a great deal of money in your business. However, you have to ask yourself, "Would I invest in the stock of a company on Wall Street that didn't have a solid business plan and profit projections?" In fact, you are probably investing a great deal of money in a company without those things. It's your own company! A real business can operate without the presence of the owner(s) i.e.: the shareholders. Is your company like that? Your company should be creating profits and working within its own systems with you merely being the overseer. Your real estate business should be working for you and not you merely working for your real estate business.

I have found that most real estate brokers had an entrepreneurial inspiration at one point as a salesperson and decided to start their own company. The real estate office they left as a salesperson to start their own company was ill managed to not run like a business at all. So therefore the new real estate company broker / owner tends to operate their company in the same ill managed and ill run business manner as their previous broker. A basis of any well-developed business is a business plan. It must truly be a working plan and reviewed on a regular basis. It must include your vision for the future of your company including the mission statement and the process of how you will achieve your vision. It must have a working budget, an income forecast, strategic and tactical objectives and milestones to achieve and when to achieve them.

There are stages that most businesses real estate or not, go through. Some are newly developed businesses, some are intermediately developed businesses, and some are fully develop businesses. One would think that any business goes through all three stages to become a successful, going concern, profitable business. In reality 50% of new businesses fail and most businesses stay either newly developed or intermediately developed and never reach a fully developed stage creating the failure. Fully developed businesses generally start from day one as fully developed. The reason for this is that they are well-planned, well thought out, strategically and tactically efficient.

You may ask, "Why do I need such an elaborate plan when it's just me and my four agents?" The answer is that you really don't if that's the extent of where your vision ends. But you’re an entrepreneur! You had a great vision and a lust for great success when you conceived your company! If you want your company to grow you must have a plan to grow into. When you start (or restart) your company you need to plan to have a CEO, vice president's, managers, clerical staff, efficient systems and many productive salespersons. This organizational chart should be part of your plan even if you are the one filling the role for each one of these positions. Every aspect of your job should be documented in an operations manual so that one day you can replace yourself in that specific position. As you grow and find less time to do a good job in each of these positions you need to replace yourself with someone who can function directly out of your own operation manual.

Ultimately you are an entrepreneur but you're probably filling the role of a middle manager in your company. Most of us entrepreneurs enjoy creating the vision but get very disappointed working in the day-to-day of our businesses. You must revisit the entrepreneur in you on a regular basis by revisiting your business plan on a regular basis. You must make sure that you are on track to your milestones and goals. You must stay accountable to your position as the entrepreneur in your real estate company. You were the inspiration for making your company exist. You must continue to plan, adjust your plan, innovate, inspire yourself, renew your lust for entrepreneurial success and inspire the people in your company if you truly want to own a “real” real estate business.

To help solve problems like these and to gain more knowledge of growing your real estate company in recruiting, agent production and retention consider purchasing Steven’s CD sets and having him personally work with you.

Steven Morris is a real estate broker, sales management consultant and coach with 30 years of experience and can be reached at 888-326-3949 or SMorris@MorrisWilliams.net