Six Tips For Writing A Real Estate Franchise Business Plan

If you think writing an annual business plan is a waste of time, think again. If you don’t know where you are going, you can’t possibly plot a solid course to get there. Then you are left meandering trying to find the best way forward, instead of having a focused plan of attack. While you might think you have it all figured out in your head, the act of writing it down can actually help you think things through and flush out the necessary details.

A typical real estate business plan will formally state your business goals, strategy, and the operational structure of your brokerage. This can sound time consuming if you haven’t done one before, but in reality, it is a helpful exercise. There are even many online business plan templates available to help and if you are part of a franchise system, like Weichert, not only do you get help creating a business plan to identify your goals, but you get the added benefits of plugging into a time tested blueprint to help you define the activities needed to reach your goals. What is most important, however, is that creating the plan takes you through a comprehensive thought process that involves every area of your current and future business. When you are done with a good business plan, you will fully understand the path you are taking, and how you expect to achieve it from both an operational and a financial standpoint. You’ll understand the challenges you are likely to face and some strategies for minimizing risks. You’ll define your relationships with your partners and investors.  You’ll sketch out your real estate brokerage marketing plans and understand the unique challenges of your local market. You’ll set some yearly goals around sales targets and revenue and set a basic plan that will allow you to get there. Ideally, you’ll want to review the plan regularly to confirm you are on track. This also allows you to react if you aren’t.

Best of all, you’ll have a document you can reference at any time or show future stakeholders that gives a great overview of your business. Here are a few tips for making this process easier from the real estate business coaches at Weichert^®:

Creating Your Real Estate Business Plan

1. You don’t have to start from scratch: There is no reason to re-invent the wheel. There are many templates out there. Find one that fits your style. If you are part of a franchise, like Weichert, you’ll have even more resources at your fingertips, including a template to follow and coaching on strategies and costs of tools and lead generation that is consistent with the best practices in the industry.
2. Introduce your business: Include a complete and comprehensive description of your brokerage, from identifying your products/services, the nature of your market, and your operational approach to challenges and risks you are facing. Include a management section with information about key management roles and define what each role is expected to accomplish.
3. Define your customers: The key here is to avoid the temptation to say “well, everybody!”. Is your market primarily retirement age buyers and sellers?  Are your clients urban or rural? Is relocation an important part of your offering? As a successful broker, you have a good understanding of your local market, but a franchise opportunity can bring you new lead opportunities and strategies. It is worth taking the time to define your typical customers and especially any groups you want to focus on, instead of everyone.
4. Marketing: Your new business plan should reflect all new real estate marketing tools and strategies you utilize. When you are part of a franchise, this can be quite extensive. Weichert for instance, provides comprehensive training and tools in marketing best practices that can help streamline your day to day activities and improve the visibility of your brokerage to both buyers/sellers as well as recruits.
5. Financial Position:  Documenting your financial position, assumptions, and necessary cash flow is essential whether you are applying for a business loan, have investors, or are using your own investment capital. Include an analysis of all costs related to the business, including commissions, rent, fees, marketing costs, salaries and other overhead. We call this knowing your company dollar. You should also forecast the increased revenue you expect to achieve by reaching your goals over a given time period.  A business coach can help you with benchmarks and strategies to help you meet them to ensure a sustainable, profitable business.
6. Get an independent review: Even if you’ve reviewed your franchise business plan over and over, it’s always recommended getting a fresh set of eyes on it to ensure that all your bases are sufficiently covered and that the information is relevant, clear and concise.  A business coach can be invaluable in helping with this.

Take the Time, Do the Plan

The development of a good business plan is a rewarding exercise. The work is its own reward, we promise! And if you’ve chosen a partner like Weichert, you’ll have expert advice and a business coach to support you every step of the way.  If you are a growth-minded broker looking for ways to make your brokerage more productive and get to the next level of results, talk to the Weichert franchise team today.

Visit https://www.weichertfranchise.com for more information.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/six-tips-writing-real-estate-franchise-business-plan/

Focus On The Willing (Let Go Of The Rest)

In any brokerage, there are team members who embrace, new ideas, new tools, new strategies with enthusiasm and energy. You know who they are: the people you go to when you want to bounce a new idea off someone or discuss a change you want to make. They will take the time to listen and give you good, constructive feedback. They are the people who support what you are trying to accomplish and get in the boat with you so you can all reach the end goal together. These are “the willing” and the people you can build a successful business around.

Then there are the “unwilling”. Those who react adversely to anything requiring a change to the status quo or the way they like to do things. These are the people who always want to follow a different path than the one you are forging and create distractions within your office and among “the willing”. As a broker you need to ask yourself: How much time and energy am I spending trying to convince, cajole, motivate, and oversee the implementation of my business strategies with those who are less than flexible and unwilling to change the way they do things?

The Willing Will Enhance Your Agency Culture

As a broker, you’re running at light speed, trying to give all aspects of your business the attention it needs. We understand this, we’ve been there. Managing change is one of the central activities you have and is essential to your continued growth as a brokerage. The problem is that it’s easy to get caught up spending too much time trying to convince the naysayers in your organization to follow the systems and plans you set forth. Negative people are like an anchor, draining your enthusiasm as well as your time. Instead, filter these people out from your agent team over time and seek to surround yourself with positive, energetic people who share your goals and vision.
Here’s a few things to consider:

1. Create And Communicate A Mission and A Vision – Sometimes this is all it takes to change the unwilling to the willing. People need perspective on what they are doing and a reason why. Even if they disagree, when they see you have a clear strategy and a destination, they might be much more “willing” to at least try it.
2. Involve The Team In Planning Your Initiatives – Where possible, be collaborative and get them vested in any initiatives by soliciting and incorporating their ideas and allow them to be part of the solution. When people are invested in the plan, they are more apt to want to see it succeed. Showing your willingness to implement and credit other people’s ideas and feedback is one of the most powerful things you can do to create positive energy inside your team.
3. Let The Willing Be Your Ambassadors –Rather than allowing the negative players drain your energy, work through the willing and hold their example up for everyone to see. Let them act as examples and even coaches for those who are slower to get on board.
4. Be Willing To Let Go Of The Chronically Unwilling – There will occasionally be those in your organization whose attitude may work to undermine your leadership. If they cannot be coached, ultimately both you and they will be better off with an amicable parting of the ways.

Attracting the Willing To Your Agency

Remember, positivity attracts positivity. Your ability to focus on The Willing and celebrate their success will create a positive, supportive culture inside your agency. This in turn will become the word on the street for you, which will help you attract other like-minded agents. Who doesn’t want to be on the cool team?  It is also incumbent on you to sustain that positivity by feeding it. Walk the walk. Talk the talk. Provide the enthusiasm and energy for your team to feed on. One of things we focus on in the Weichert^® System is training and coaching offices on the importance of building and maintaining this positive culture to attract and retain new agents. Your ability to understand these behaviors and implement them in your brokerage will go a long way toward building the kind of willing team and workplace that gets results.

For more information on how you can partner with Weichert Franchise, visit https://www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/focus-willing-let-go-rest/

Making Great Customer Service A Full-Time Gig

If you ask 10 brokers what great customer service is, you’ll get 10 different answers.  But they’ll all tell you that they provide “great” customer service.

What does good customer service really mean and how does it impact your business?

Here’s a few thoughts on this:

1. Speak your customer’s language and be responsive. With so many ways to communicate these days, it’s no surprise that it’s no longer a one-size fits all world in how best to communicate and follow up with customers. Find out how each of your customers like to communicate with you and use that method. If they like texting, text them. If they don’t like texting, don’t text them, call or email them. No matter how you stay in touch, make sure you always return calls and inquiries quickly. If you don’t respond, the next guy will.
2. Be a resource. Offer information, assistance and guidance – even if there’s nothing in it for you in the near term. Not only does it position you as a knowledgeable, trusted resource, but people will remember you and your efforts will pay you back in dividends.
3. Make it personal. In the age of digital and online options in real estate, is important more than ever before to bring that personal touch to the real estate process. Practice your hellos and goodbyes and include as many opportunities as possible in your prospecting activities for personal connections. Digital is convenient, but it doesn’t replace a handshake, making eye contact or that personal touch.
4. Stay top of mind. Staying in touch is everything in real estate marketing. Don’t just focus on the hot prospects. Nurture all your contacts – you never know when they or a friend or family member will need your services. The more you stay in touch, the more likely you’ll be the one they call when they need real estate help.
5. Exceed your clients’ expectations. Let’s face it, when it comes to service, how often to you get more than you expect? Most people are content to put in a minimum amount of effort to get a job done. And when someone goes above and beyond, you remember the experience and recount it to your friends and family. Don’t be content to just check the boxes. Provide your clients with memorable experiences and be the one that they talk about.

Creating Memorable Experiences

In some brokerages, customer service often takes a back seat to sales. Yet the truth is that a consistent focus on building a relationship with both clients and potential clients brings significant rewards in the long term:

• Builds a positive brand reputation for you
• Fosters word-of-mouth recommendations
• Brings business right to your doorstep.

In most cases, lackluster customer service doesn’t necessarily mean clients are treated badly. It could mean greater focus is placed on keeping business and sales ticking over as quickly as possible and Customer Service takes a back seat as a result.  There are lots of reasons this can happen:

• Agents lack the time to provide any extra service or information.
• Closing Sales is a natural priority and they only focus on hot prospects
• They don’t have an efficient way to maintain touch points with potentially hundreds of buyers/sellers.

The most successful brokers and agents we see, however, have found a way to balance the customer service elements through a combination of the right processes, tools and technology. When you add a great brand name to the equation, everything works together. Now you can be both effective, and efficient, which makes clients feel special and you exceptional.

The Weichert® brand is known for its systems and tools that build business while fostering satisfying customer experiences. If you are a growth-minded broker looking for ways to make your brokerage more productive and get to the next level of results, talk to the Weichert franchise team today.  Visit our website at https://www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/making-great-customer-service-full-time-gig/

Yes, Culture Does Matter. And It Starts With You

Is your real estate agency growing? Chances are, you’re focused on issues related to commissions, marketing/advertising, agent training and inventory, all of which affect your ability to recruit and keep good real estate agents. But one thing brokers often forget to invest in is the culture within their brokerage and how it affects both agent retention, real estate agent recruiting and productivity.

What keeps agents with an organization? Money is often named as a key motivator for retention. However, at the end of the day, it comes down to much more than that.  Feeling like they are part of something bigger than themselves, creating a positive environment that is both supportive and respectful and fostering a management team that is engaged and interested in the growth and success of its agents—just to name a few.  Money will work for a little while, but to retain people long-term, it’s important to pay attention to the culture you are creating for your office. When agents are motivated and happy, it extends to the experience their clients have, too.  And that’s good for business.

What Makes For Great Brokerage Culture?

Workplace culture is essentially the personality of your business: the environment, attitude, expectations, and ethics that you want to foster to achieve your business goals. While successful brokerages vary on the details, they all have one thing in common: a supportive and positive company culture.  And the more unique you make it, the harder it will be to find it somewhere else.

In a positive company culture, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and teamwork are encouraged. And while all brokers aren’t Tony Robbins, you don’t have to be in order to make your business a place good agents want to be. When we coach our Weichert® franchise brokers, these are some of the things we help them focus on:

1. Training. Being able to offer courses, tips, best practices, or insights from your years of experience are enthusiastically welcomed, especially for new or younger agents.
2. People first. Recognizing achievements as well as celebrating the small personal milestones of folks in your brokerage helps to create a feeling that you are a team that cares about each other beyond the job. These personal relationships create the glue that keeps your team together.
3. Communication. Don’t hide in your ivory tower, communicate the business of your agency often, in both individual and group settings. Open communication is the heart of an empowered agent team. If they know where you are headed, they may just be able to help you get there.
4. Support. Even when you’re too busy to help, don’t ever make your agents feel that their requests are unimportant. Find the time to follow up with them, and make it clear that their success is your priority. In fact, it should be if you want to be successful.
5. Make it Fun. Just because it’s work, doesn’t mean your agents need to feel negative about doing it. Find ways to get people involved and encourage them to do the things they need to do to get the job done.

Your business benefits from the passion, productivity, and loyalty that results from the consistent application of these principles.

Creating a positive, fun and productive workplace doesn’t just happen by chance. There are many things a broker can do to foster a great environment that will create the kind of buzz that brings agents to your door.

If you have a vision for your success that includes listening, learning, and working differently than your competitors, you just might be next Weichert Franchise success story. Contact our team to learn more, visit https://www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/yes-culture-matter-starts/