Are you planning for next year?Are you planning for next year?
Adam Small (00:03): Hello, welcome back to the Real Estate Marketing Minute, powered by Agent Sauce. Thanksgiving's over and as we sit here recovering from our food comas, we're staring down a new year. And with a new year comes a new opportunity to grow our business. And if we want to grow our business, we need a business plan, a marketing plan to help us grow our business. So, you know, how are we gonna put together a marketing plan for next year, a business plan to help us grow our business, make sure that we stay on target, and that we're showing improvement. You know, it's always a difficult thing because it can seem very overwhelming. So a good way to start pulling together that business plan and that marketing plan, is to list the activities that you've done in the past year, and then identify whether or not those activities worked for you. (00:51): If they worked for you, great. Put themin the next business plan and then start figuring out, you know, are there things that I can do to make them work even better for me? You know? And then if they didn't work for you, identify why they didn't work for you. And if it's something that you can overcome, you know, by putting a little more effort into it, maybe, or retargeting the, uh, refocusing the target of your plan, whatever it may be, then keep it in there and improve upon it. Or say, Hey, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm throwing this out because it's not working for me. And that's, you know, somewhere where you've gotta come in and you've gotta be kind of honest with yourself and you've gotta say, Hey, listen, you know, this is a great product or service or activity to do, but it's not working for me. And the reason it's not working for me is because I'm just not doing it. I don't have enough time to do it. I don't have the priority in my schedule of things to, to the, the time to make it a priority in my schedule of things. You know, whatever that reason may be. It's not working. Don't be afraid to throw it out. Of course, if you throw it out, make sure you put something in there that is gonna work for you, that you think may work for you, that you're gonna put your time and your effort into in order to make it work. Because you can't just stop marketing all together, otherwise you end up in this famine phase of your business cycle, which is never good because the famine phase you have, you know, your money's dwindling and your time and it can cause panic and all that stuff. (02:23): And that's the whole point of the plan to prevent the famine phase, right? The feast and famine cycle there, right? So, um, look at the things that you've done in the last year and keep the good ones, throw out the bad ones. And then, you know, you wanna make sure you're also doing some of the basics, doing the things that you should be doing every day, every week, every month, you know, and those are things like sending out a, a communication to your sphere on a regular basis, you know, a monthly newsletter, keeping them informed about, you know, the market, that sort of thing. Uh, asking for testimonials every time you work with somebody following up and asking for referrals with your sellers and your buyers. And then, you know, figuring out what it is that you're doing to demonstrate the value that you bring to a client. We all know that a real estate agent doesn't really sell a house that they own. It's not their product. It's not their, um, you know, item that you're selling. It's your knowledge, it's your experience. That's where your value is. And, and you know, the better you can convey your knowledge and experience, whether it be in a listing meeting, uh, or a, uh, you know, presentation that you're doing, uh, just running into somebody casually, the better you're gonna grow your business. So if you have that message that demonstrates your value down succinctly, then you're gonna do better. So look at those things, you know, what did you do last year to demonstrate your va
