Do You Want to Grow in 2015?

Are you gearing up for property management growth in 2015? Is that a hell yes I hear? Great, because I am too and I want to help you get ready for a massively successful year.

To boost the chances of a successful year, it’s essential now to take stock of where you are at and make your game plan so you can hit the ground prepared, armed and running. Any successful plan takes just that, planning and unfortunately no one is going to do it for you – it’s up to you!

So how do you best plan and prepare for property management growth in 2015? Well, I’ve put together 10 key questions to ask yourself that will help you to develop your action plan. I am currently working through these questions and more with several of my new business coaching clients and it’s really helped them to make things feel super clear for the year ahead.

1. What is your big picture growth goal for 2015? Is that goal a Gross or Net figure?
2. Based on the above, what is your monthly new business target?
3. How many leads do you need per month to put in my funnel to ensure you hit your target based on your current conversion rate?
4. Where will you source leads from?
5. How will you database manage your leads and contacts?
6. What time will you allocate each week to prospecting activities?
7. What tools, marketing and resources will you use when communicating with your database? (Click here for a free copy of ideas for your listing kit?
8. What are your actual points of difference over your competition?
9. How will you track your progress? And how often?
10. What extra skills, training, coaching, support or resources to I need to achieve all of the above?

What to do now? Make an appointment with yourself (or your team) to sit down and work through these question points. Get real and be honest with yourself, and don’t be afraid to ask for help or guidance!

Signing off from blog world for 2014, I’ll be coming to you with more blogs, ideas, assistance and training in 2015! Thank you for reading!

Hermione Gardiner

Building a Budget for a Profitable Department

Profit, Profit, Profit! 

• What was your profit last calendar year? 
• What is your target next year? 
• How are you tracking? 
• Do you have a growth plan? 
• Do you have a budget? 
• Do you split your profit centers?

These are questions and conversations that I hear being asked in offices and at real estate events. Do you have the answers?

Why are you in business? As an entrepreneur, it may be to, make money.  Whilst there are other benefits to having your own business, this is the bottom line.  In basic terms, making money maps back to having a profitable business.


So how do we build a profitable business?

Current position

In building a business, you must start with a clear outline of the current position.  My number one rule is that you MUST split out the various business units. i.e if you have a property management department and a sales department these should be separate cost centers.

Separating the businesses provides a clearer picture of the financial position of the property management department.  Simply all income and expenditure for that department are allocated. In the case of operational costs these are proportioned for the department. The key is accurate allocation - Start by mapping last financial year and identifying your true department profit.

Planning

All building is done with a great plan. Create a plan to build a profitable business by setting your targets for the year first. Do you want to increase profit, $ or %? Or decrease expenses.

To achieve these targets you will need to look at planning for both the direct financial aspect of the business as well as the non financial actions that must be taken to reach the goal.



Budget

• Financial planning is in the form of a budget.
• A budget identified income and expenditure predictions and the projection of profit.

Business Plan

• To achieve the financial targets there will be clear actions that must be taken. What are these actions? 
• A simplistic approach is to create projects. Using growth as an example, what needs to be done in order to grow the income of the business? 
• One aim may be to increase the number of properties under management. Great, how do we do that? What actions are needed? 
• What resources? 
• What materials? 
• A project plan will assist in creating this strategy, but of course it is the execution that is fundamental.

Next week we take look at Execution and Accountability and its role in building a budget for a profitable department.

Fiona Blayney