If you’ve been in the industry for a while and have not yet become a top performing agent (in your market), then it’s time to take stock and understand why that is the case and work out what you are going to do about it.

The first thing you need to do to move the needle in your real estate career is to conduct a strategic review of your whole operation.

This sounds ominous but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve created a strategic review program called FEES. FEES equals Feedback, Evidence, Education and Self-belief.  These are the key components to turning your business around.

• Feedback:

  • What do your customers think of your service today?
  • Where do you need to improve?

• Evidence:

  • What do you measure?
  • What goals have you set?
  • How are you performing against your goals?
  • What would your personal best goals look like?

• Education:

  • What do I need to learn to be better than the leading agents in my market?

• Self-belief:

  • What is my purpose?
  • What is my value proposition?

Most agents think that the worst thing you can do is waste a day not talking to potential new customers. It’s true that every listing that you don’t try to win is a lost opportunity in terms of revenue and success marketing. However, several other things happen if you talk to a customer, and you don’t have a service that is better than your competitors:

• You are unlikely to win the business anyway
• You let your competitors promote the fact that they regularly win listings against you
• You let your potential vendors create a story that you were not as good as other agents in your area; or worse still
• You win the listing and then fail to sell the property which creates a really negative situation for your brand.

Conducting a strategic review of your business gives you the greatest chance of success. The order of the strategic review is deliberate.  You have to follow the steps in order:

• Collect the data
• Make decisions about your business
• Improve your service; then
• Go hit the streets

Strategic Review Summary:

• You can’t just try to compete by doing the same as everyone else
• Conducting a strategic review of your business is critical to achieving your goals
• FEES equals Feedback, Evidence, Education and Self-belief
• Speaking to customers before you have a service that is better than your competitors’ hands them ammunition to use against you and leads to a greater risk of poor word of mouth and negative reviews