Whether you are a sales manager, principal or you own your business – do you know exactly what the vital numbers are that really drive your business, so that you can grow the way you want to in 2014?
Something interesting I’ve consistently found when coaching people in our industry is that many salespeople are not clear about the targets they must reach to achieve the success they want – whether it’s listings, sales or income. This actually scares me, because if you want your business to thrive and keep growing to new heights then you must have very specific numbers in mind for you and your team to achieve.
Some of the best principals that I get the opportunity to work with regularly meet with all the salespeople within their team to discuss these numbers. Together they specify what they want to be earning this year. From that figure they can identify the numbers to create what we call a group target. Across the group they pinpoint their sales, listing and income targets and therefore can compare their target versus results.
Some of these businesses begin to look a bit like the stock market – they may have big screen TVs in the office that display their core numbers and KPI measurements as they come in, feeding directly from their database or online, automatically updating in real time. It is exciting and it allows their team to track and really think about those numbers. It can become a great team focus too.
There are simple metrics within your business to focus on to achieve growth. I think about listings, sales and income. I look at properties currently under management, property management fees generated, the total amount of fees or income that’s produced between sales and property management, and the number of staff required to deliver results.
I then create what I call a stretch target. If your business is currently doing 200 transactions per year, what would the business need to look like in five years for you to be at 600 transactions? You then must investigate which markets you need to be in for you to achieve these 600 transactions. If you’re in a small market that only does 300 transactions, then you’d need 200% market share, without any competition. So your business plan needs to be built on understanding the marketplace that you’re actually operating in and what the size of the opportunity is.
Then you could examine your property management business. If you have only 100 properties under management, how could you achieve 1,000 properties in five years? One of our clients in Sydney has a great new Business Development Manager that has generated over 120 new managements on a net level over the past 12 months. That effectively means that no matter how many property managements they lost because the owners decide to sell or maybe move, this firm recovered all of those and secured an extra 120 properties under management. Impressive!
Your own numbers can help you think strategically to ensure you are working to the full potential in the marketplace, e.g. if you’re going to be making more sales, you’ll need more salespeople to drive forward.
In his book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, author Verne Harnish nails down the concept of understanding the ‘Big Three’ inside your business. As a business owner, you must know your ‘Big Three’ and make decisions about what you’re going to do.
What are the ‘Big Three’ for you? Mine are pretty simple; I must make sure that at all times I’m delivering exceptional content and value onstage, plus I need to ensure that we’re growing the Josh Phegan brand in new marketplaces. My third focus is to ensure that I’m giving very clear direction about our business objectives and how our products and services involve all of the people that work in our business.
As a principal, your ‘Big Three’ might include your training aims, retention and recruitment; or perhaps building a business that doesn’t need you to be actively listing and selling. Be clear about what counts to make better decisions around what you’re doing, your people and your plan to achieve your vision. Ultimately it’s your view of the future and then being able to work back to choose your options for creating growth that will transform your business – and your life.