Yes, Your Agents Need a Business Plan, Too

As a knowledgeable broker, you’ve hopefully been writing your own business plan every year. You have seen the benefits of planning out your growth goals and “knowing your numbers”. However, are your agents taking the time to do the same? As a coach and the leader of your team, you can stimulate growth and inspire your agents by sitting down with them to write their own business plans. Even the most experienced agents can benefit from this exercise and once they see its power, they will be convinced of how necessary it really is in their business. Here are some helpful strategies to take when appealing to your agents to write a business plan.

Why Do Agents Need A Business Plan?

At the end of the day, real estate agents are independent small business owners. As you know, any business without a sense of direction and goals will struggle to grow. In fact, in a Harvard Business Review report, it states that those “who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve business viability than the otherwise identical non-planning entrepreneurs.” If you want to build a formidable team of agents that come to you for guidance, but are otherwise self-sufficient and successful, steer them toward developing a plan that outlines a path to reach those goals.

Easy Ways To Empower Agents To Write Their Business Plan

Once you have convinced an agent of the overwhelming value of a business plan, you may still need to give them an extra nudge to actually sit down and write it. Often, this challenge can be overcome with these five steps:

1. Lead By Example: Sometimes a simple example is enough to light the fire of inspiration. Sit down and show agents your process of writing your business plan and how you use it to achieve your goals.
2. Give Them A Template: If you don’t already have one, a quick search online will yield a never-ending library of easy-to-use business plan templates to alleviate some of the learning curves for your agents. Even better: create a template for them based on your own business plan, this will help them align their goals, with yours.
3. Give Them A Sense Of Urgency: Six months in, is too late to begin writing a business plan. Insist on your agents developing an initial business plan when they join your team, followed by annual plans each October-December, to ensure they start off the new year with a bang. Better yet, schedule a group planning day for the office
4. Check-In Throughout The Year For Progress Reports: With the endless surprises, curve balls, and distractions that life brings, it can be easy to get off-track throughout the year. Much like a New Year’s Resolution, it can be common for agents to stray from their business plan goals. Holding regular meetings to check in with them and hold them accountable for their production is a great way to counteract this challenge.

The bottom line is that working with each agent in your team is time well spent for both the agents, and for you the broker. Often you may find that working through this valuable exercise will increase your own motivation and spark further inspiration for your own business plans. Not to mention the obvious fact that the more success that your agents achieve, the more you will experience as their broker.

Brokers that have joined the Weichert Franchise have seen first-hand how empowering their agents with training, processes, and resources like business plans can be instrumental in their own growth. Having clear-cut goals, partnered with a proven system designed to achieve them is what allows Weichert brokers and their agents to do more. For additional information on how to further develop your real estate business, visit www.weichertfranchise.com.