Episode Transcript
Another episode in the agent mind podcast. Today's episode is going to be about business planning, but not business planning in the like traditional sense where we're going to talk about, my goal for my gross commission is X amount of dollars. So I'm going to work backwards from there and I need to have X amount of conversations to get X amount of appointments to get X amount of broker engagements signed to get X amount of closings.
We're not going to talk about that. Hopefully if you've already done that, hopefully you have an idea of what you need to do, um, basically, as far as how to get business, how to maintain business, how to keep your pipeline going. That's not what today is going to be about.
Today's going to be about when we go into a new year. [00:01:00] It's just, it's just common, just something common that happens to many, many people. Many of us, especially real estate agents. We go into the new year, brand new year, fresh start. We make resolutions. We said, this year is going to be the year we're going to do this.
I'm going to start pod. I'm going to start posting on social media every week. I'm going to start doing this, doing that, whatever it is, whatever you made promises to yourself. And, and you can admit it to yourself. You don't have to, you don't have to post it anywhere, but who out there just think there's just a rhetorical question who out there has.
Already kind of dropped their New Year's resolutions. It could be working out. This is when, so the first week of the year is when, uh, gym memberships skyrocket. And then over the next few weeks, the, the, the gyms get less and less busy. If you go to the gym, you've seen it. I'm sure you might even stay away for the first, for the month of January, but people tend to drop off.
So the point is. So do you have a plan in place so that you [00:02:00] make sure that you can stick to your plan, stick to your goals, stick to your New Year's resolution? I'm not a big fan of the word resolution. It's like, it's just the stuff that we know we need to do and the promises we make to ourselves. Like we tend to make more bigger promises to ourselves at the beginning of the year.
So are you, what plan do you have in place to stick to those things? So when we're going to talk about business plan today, business planning, that's what I'm talking about.
Let me put a little plug in here. If you, um, are interested in, in having a chat, um, I, I love to, to, you know, have book calls, book, zoom calls, book, phone calls. I love to chat with people, especially people outside of my market, people inside my market too. Uh, we're all doing a little bit different things. So if you want to reach out, um, and just talk a little bit more, ask some more questions about anything I say on the podcast, shoot me an email.
Uh, my email address is. TJ McGraw, T J M C G R a w at the agent [00:03:00] mind. com. We're looking for people to partner with us. We're looking for, um, people who want a little more coaching or people who just want a little, little more guidance, a little bit of direction, like, you know, with no conversation doesn't cost anything.
All right. So as I said before, we're talking about business planning. And it's not the numbers, crunch and business planning. It's more of like an action plan, business action plan. Let's put it that way. So here's a couple of things you're going to need. If you, if you want to follow this exactly how I am describing it, hopefully I'll give some pretty good details.
Um, if not, you can always reach out to me and ask me for more details. Um, I don't think I mentioned, I Facebook group. There's a Facebook group, the agent mind, go check it out. Join that ask questions in there. Um, if you need clarification on the, I'm kind of, I peruse that all the time. So, um, here it is business planning.
So a couple of things you're going to [00:04:00] need, like I said, if you're going to follow it to a T you don't have to follow it to a T you can take bits and pieces if you want, but what I recommend is two things, a journal of some kind blank lined pages. Um, if you're using a journal that is like already like pre has like preset things that you fill out.
That's great. Whatever works for you. Just make it make sure you're doing a journal Like and when I talk about journal, I say I always I was kind of add this disclaimer on I'm not talking about a diary with the little lock and and you know You tell your your feelings and all that stuff. That's not what this journal is about.
This is a business journal You're gonna have some personal goals in there because it's really hard especially as real estate agents in this business. It's hard to kind of Separate, um, business from personal, nor do I think that you should or have to, or even think in terms like that, they're separated because if you truly love doing what you're doing.
Then it's going to intertwine with your personal stuff. Plus you have to, you know, plan your [00:05:00] personal stuff. You have to schedule your personal stuff in between your business stuff and vice versa. So, um, having a journal, um, to, to really focus in on your plans on your goals is a pretty important, pretty key.
So in the journal, you're going to, a couple of things that I do in my journal, just briefly, um, gratitude, everyday gratitude, of course. Uh, you want to kind of plan out your day. I write a, a note from my future self. So an exercise I recommend doing for everyone is, is just taking a few minutes, go for a walk in the woods, go for a walk down in your neighborhood.
Some place quiet, put on some soft, um, easy music. That's not like too distracting. Something without words is probably better. And really think about like what you want your future self to be, like, what, what kind of person is that? What do they do? What are they achieved? What are they done? Um, what are the, what are they, what are they doing to contribute back to the [00:06:00] community?
How much money are they making? All that kind of stuff. Like what, what kind of car they drive? You can get really deep in it. The more details, the better, but you kind of want to really focus on like what kind of person you, your future self is going to be. And then every day in your journal, you're going to write down a little note from your future self.
So you're kind of keeping that conversation going every single day. You're thinking of, okay, my future self is this kind of person. So what is my future self? What would my future self say to me right now? Maybe it's words of encouragement. Maybe it's a kick in the butt. Whatever it is. I find it helpful It's uh, if you start doing this it feels really weird at first, but I reckon highly recommend doing that stuff It's pretty it's pretty cool over if you do it over the course of a few months How like really amazing you can like kind of train your subconscious mind You can change your you can change like the chemistry in your mind the how your brain fires But, um, I don't want to go down that, that rabbit hole.
We can totally get off on a side tangent talking about that. We're not going to do that right [00:07:00] now. Um, so getting back to the journals in the journal, like I said, gratitude, a note from your future self. You want to, um, nod to your goal. Like, what are you doing that today? In that it was a daily journal. So you're going to, what do you need to do today to move the needle in your business?
And then I would do like a rough schedule and my schedule lives in Google. Google, um, Google calendar. That's where my schedule lives. Like all this stuff is in there, everything's in there, but when it comes to, um, you know, so it's something, my journal, I, I write down like a rough schedule, so I just do like hours seven to 6 PM, 7 PM.
And I just write down all this stuff that I kind of need to do like meetings. So I'm, so I'm reminded of it. Cause I'm, this is like a living document. And then in there, just like some, who do I have to follow up with? Who do I have to call today? Who do I have to, uh, what do I have to do? Um, and then kind of what are the goals I'm working on?
Um, that's like the daily stuff that goes in the journal. Also, um, I highly recommend reading the 12 week year. It's an [00:08:00] amazing book. That's how I organize my. my time. Um, we, of course, as y'all know, I'm a coach with agent rise coaching. That's how we organize ourselves as, as coaches. And we try to get, get all of our coaching clients onto that 12 week year mindset.
It's amazing. That's all I'm gonna say about it. Go read the book. It's fantastic. But that's how we set up. I set up a 12 week year. So my, my journal is for 12 weeks, basically a quarter at a time, but I don't think too much beyond that. It's like, what do I do? What am I doing the 12 weeks? What are the three things I need to get done in my business?
For the three things I need to get done in my personal life. I got to lose a little weight. So that's in there. Um, I got, I just started a couple new things in business so that those are in there. YouTube is something that has been, um, I've been resisting limiting beliefs around that for the longest time.
That's getting popped off a little bit. I'm starting to find my, my YouTube legs with that finally. Um, so that's a lot of that stuff is in there. So [00:09:00] really you're just looking for like three, three big things in business. And then you're going to, you're going to, uh, you know, make your, make your goals from there.
So, um, use a journal, however it works for you. I can tell you exactly how I do it. It doesn't work for everybody. Everybody's different. So you, but the point is to start using a journal to keep track of your days, keep track of your goals, keep track of your 12 week goals and keep track of your, your, I put my vision board right inside the first couple of pages of my journal.
However you make a vision board, you could write things, draw things. I, um, print pictures off the internet, make them small, paste them in there, and then I write little notes next to them. Um, and it's something that I look at every day. So beyond that, here's where, here's where it really gets into. This is something I really, I just started and it's amazing.
It is absolutely amazing. I've been doing it for a little while and it is just like, it's like the, the missing piece that has been, um, eluding me. And here, here's what I'm gonna tell you. So the second thing you need to get is one is that journal. The second thing is get a [00:10:00] desktop calendar. One of the big ones.
You're not going to put it on your desktop. You're just going to hang it on the wall in front of you or keep putting it in a place that you see every day. And what you're going to do is you're going to map out your social media posts on a big desktop calendar. So don't get crazy. Like you don't have to post every day in social media.
You just don't have to do it three times a week at the most is really all you have to do. One of the posts you want to make it as. Hey, like a subtle brag. Hey, look at me. I'm a realtor doing realtor stuff. Um, but like kind of in the community, like, uh, um, and not be like, Oh, just so listening. Like you can post those as well, but like, you don't want to your friends and this is on your personal page.
You don't want your, your friends and family to get like fatigue over like, okay, we get it. You closing a lot, a lot of deals. Like, great. They'll start to like not pay attention. It'll just be like white noise after a while. So, but he posts things like, um, if you got a great. [00:11:00] Uh, roofer, or I did this with my photographer, like we're out at a listing and I'm like, this guy's amazing.
His name's Tyler Willis, by the way, he's, he's a amazing, absolutely amazing drone photographer. Great guy. Anyways, I'm like, this is Tyler Willis. You got to know him. If any pictures takes all the pictures from my listings, he's amazing. So what I'm doing there is, yeah, I'm giving props to Tyler because he is amazing and he's a great photographer.
But I'm also letting everybody know that I have a listing and there's a new listing coming up, but I didn't say I have a new listing. I didn't say like, I'm selling, I'm looking at me. I'm selling all this real estate. I'm like giving props to somebody else. And because of that, I'm telling everybody that I'm reminding everybody that I'm a real estate agent.
Um, you do that with like, I've done it with my closing attorney with, um, if you go to a coffee shop. This is a, this is a good one. The coffee shop or a restaurant. Let's just say it's a coffee shop. Even if it's a Starbucks. All right. Like, Hey, this is, I love coming to here [00:12:00] to this, you know, bean, hot bean coffee.
Uh, anytime I have out of town clients, like we always stop here or I, I bring all my clients here to, to, for strategy sessions on. What we're going to do to get into a house, like things like that. And then you're giving props to the business, but you're also like, and you know, that's why I like these guys because they helped me in my business and I'm a realtor real estate agent.
So think in terms of that, if you want more ideas, reach out. Well, I got, I got a ton of them. But, um, so that's like the first kind of post you want to do. The second kind of post you want to do is just a like, Hey, this, I'm a real human being. I do real human being stuff. I have friends and family. I go out to concerts.
I enjoy hobbies. I'm proud of my kids. I'm proud of my dogs. I love walking my dog. I like running. I've, if you look at my Facebook, there's a lot of running pictures. Um, and there's a lot of golf pictures, even [00:13:00] though I am absolutely horrible at golf. I'm have not even broken a hundred yet. If you know anything about golf, you know, that's horrible.
It's a horrible golfer, but I love doing, I love getting out there and it's just, it's a fun, really fun, um, way to get, you know, just to get outside and, and, um, you know, be horrible at something. It's always good to be horrible at something because eventually you'll get better. So anytime you start something, anyway, I've been horrible for a while, but that's enough about golf.
Anyways, the point is like show. Show that you're human, you have a personality, make jokes, whatever the case may be. It's just like the normal stuff you would think about posting online. Some people go political, some people go deep political, and they attract like people that have the same political mindset they do, the same way of thinking they do.
But I, I don't go too political. I'm, it's just, I don't know, it's just not in my nature. The third post you want to make is ask a question that gets engagement. You know, ask a question like, um, [00:14:00] you know, who, who prefers, this is a, this is a silly one. What's coming to mind? Like who puts, how do you put the toilet paper roll on?
Is it, is it, you know, feed from the back or does it feed from the front? You know what I mean? Is it a, is it goatee or is it a mullet? What is it when you, when you put the toilet paper roll on and then you'll get a bunch of few, because a lot of people will have, it's like an easy topic. That people have strong opinions about things like that.
Just, just questions that like are designed to get engagement and that's it. You'll get engagement, you'll get likes, you'll get, um, you'll be reminding people that you're the more engagement you get on those, the more likes you get on like the, the, the hobby, proud of your family posts, and then the more engagement you get with the, with the questions, then the more your stuff's going to be put in front of people and.
That's the, the post where you're subtle brag about you being a realtor. Those are going to get in front of people more often. So here's where the rubber meets the road for me. Um, you know, as part, as agent rise, part of the agent rise coaching, [00:15:00] like the foundation of agent rise coaching. Which is the foundation of a business is three pillars.
So the three pillar plan is a chase pillar where you're going after business. There's your sphere, sphere of influence pillar, where your people that know, like, and trust you already, and then there's an attraction pillar. So those three pillars together combined make up the foundation of your business.
Now, what you do inside those pillars, it's up to you, but we, we, you've heard the term time blocking, which you should absolutely time block. You need time every day to be making your calls, prospecting, doing whatever it is to get business. You have to have conversations with people, believe it or not, you have to talk to people to get real estate business.
It's just, there's no way around it. Don't kid yourself any longer. If you're out there thinking you can do it without talking to people, making phone calls. So you have to make phone calls to some degree. That should be like time blocked every day. And then, uh, making content [00:16:00] should be also time blocked every day.
A hundred minutes of, of reaching out and a hundred minutes of content creation. And when I say reaching out, so if you might be, um, text messaging, uh, or, or on Facebook, direct messaging, people, all that stuff, reach cut, making phone calls, following up with people that like reaching out phone calls, prospecting a hundred minutes a day, it's about two hours.
And then content creation, another two hours, another a hundred minutes a day. So that's four hours a day. Of that's a pretty light, light day. It's a half of, of official, you know, work day. And when I say content creating, I don't mean necessarily, you're always like doing YouTube videos and YouTube creating content, YouTube videos.
That's not what I mean. It could be your, um, creating your newsletter to send to your sphere. You're, um, putting together. Your, um, if, if you [00:17:00] farm a neighborhoods, like you're putting together your postcards or your letters, or you're doing your buyer letters, um, you know, I have a buyer letter creating content is just putting together information that you can pass on.
That's not picking up the phone, saying an email. Or a text message and things like that. Maybe email, maybe you're putting together like an email campaign for your, for your CRM. I could see that perhaps, um, as content creation, but it's loose. Like as long as you're creating something, you're being a creator, you're giving yourself time and space to be a creator a hundred minutes a day, then you're good to go.
Deal, you will see the needle move on that for sure. So all that stuff is planned. So day blocking, I'm sorry, time blocking the turns into day blocking, which I'm going to come back to. But first I want to talk about a concept that I've kind of really, I don't know if somebody said this before, I just kind of came up with it.
I don't know if I heard it somewhere. I don't recall hearing it somewhere, but it just kind of clicked and made sense to me, weak [00:18:00] blocking. So, and here it is because agent rise coaching, the three pillars. Chase Pillar, Sphere, and Attraction Pillar. Um, you're going to take four weeks of the month. So you're planning for 12 weeks, right?
You're going to take four of those weeks at a time. And week one, maybe it's week one you're doing your Chase Pillar. You're working on your Chase Pillar. So, Monday. On the rest of the hours that you're working or in the, in that a hundred minutes of content creation, you're putting together your mailing campaign, the, the letters that you're going to mail to your farm, or if you mail to a specific, if you, if you mail to expireds or you're going to put that stuff together, or if you, if you're a for sale by owner and expired, that's your chase pillar, then you're going to go over your, your, your content.
You're going to make your. You're going to update your information that you're the value that you're bringing to, to [00:19:00] see them. You're going to, um, put together, uh, you know, a better packet or whatever it is. You're going to make a video about selling your house on your own and what to look out for, or, you know, why your house didn't sell, um, things like that.
If you're working with expired, uh, it could be short form video, long form video. It could just be Facebook posts. It doesn't matter. The next week may it's your sphere, so you're working on sphere of influence. So you're putting your newsletter together. You're, um, finding the articles and maybe you have a newsletter, uh, like a, you know, a newsletter that's done for you, but, you know, you want to make it your own.
So you do the. The graphics and you put the articles in that you want the information that you want your QR codes or whatever to Send them to your funnel, whatever it is You're doing all that stuff you're working in yours for you're planning an event maybe or you're you're um putting together um holiday cards Um, we sent we're getting ready to send out packets of packets of [00:20:00] wildflower seeds in a in this card It's like happy spring.
Here's some flowers and brighten your day or whatever the case may be Um, we, we do that every spring, try to do something in the summer, of course, in the fall, it's usually like a pie party. Um, and then we send out, we send out, um, new year's, happy new year's cards. Um, just cause I've worked with being in Atlanta, there's so many different.
Religions and people that, you know, they follow something different. So, um, in order to kind of keep it, you know, across the board, we send out happy New Year's, New Year's cards. Um, so, but you get the point, like you're working in your sphere. And then the third week you're going to be working in your attraction pillar.
So you're planning your Monday. Maybe you, um, plan for scripts or you plan for ideas for videos. Tuesday, you finalize the scripts. Wednesday, you make the thumbnail Thursday, you record the videos because you have it all planned out. So it should be easy to just turn your phone on, turn a camera on, record the video, and then [00:21:00] maybe Friday is you get, you go out and get B roll.
Um, and then you send it off to your Friday and then you send it off all the stuff to your editor or you edit yourself, whatever the case may be. And then you're publishing. And then that just every, every four weeks, or that's, that's your week. You do take care of the whole month in that one week. When it comes to YouTube, you can't do that all in one day, so you gotta kind of plan it out over the course of a week.
So week blocking is amazing. And then I, I was talking about day blocking a little bit ago, I said to get back to it. That's what I mean by by day blocking now. So it's like day one of your attraction. You know, your, your, if YouTube is your attraction pillar, day one is coming up with ideas and creating outlines.
That's your day block. So day, day two block is, um, might be creating the scripts. Now you're taking from the outline to the script and you're fact checking all your information, whatever, whatever. Another day, you're getting B roll another day. You're, you got to set aside a day to record and you can, if [00:22:00] you, if you're planning it like this, you can record for YouTube videos in two hours.
Absolutely. It's. Totally possible, especially if you get one of those teleprompter apps for your phone. It's amazing. You can definitely do it and it just makes it get into a rhythm and do it. So basically that's it. That's the business. That's the plan. The action plan for your business is have a journal, do it every day and get yourself a big desktop calendar and just day, week block.
Every, every day should have, you know, what you're going to do for your a hundred hours, a hundred minutes of content creation, and it should have your, your social media posts planned out, um, all that stuff. Oh, the fourth week, fourth week is catch up. So anything you didn't get done in the previous three weeks, you're catching up in that fourth week.
If you're all caught up, it's a great time to, to, um, make some shorts. Um, make some reels, [00:23:00] get a, do a little extra social media stuff. Maybe it's going out, getting all your game B roll. If you have, if you have great ideas of what you're going to do for the next week, you like getting ahead on your, uh, for next week of your, of your, your YouTube, whatever the case may be, whatever your attraction pillar is, just using that time to like catch up and get in and plan for the next The next month, getting it in that week, you're going to fill out the, the following month for your, all your social media posts and your week blocks, your day blocks, all that stuff.
So I hope that helps. I hope that makes sense. I hope that helps. If it doesn't make sense, reach out. I love to explain it further. It is amazing. It's absolutely worked for me having it out there in front of my face. I'm using those, that system between the journal and the desktop calendar and just put it all out there.
You know, the desktop calendar is not, I'm going to say this before we sign off here, but the desktop calendar is not a place to put your schedule. Like [00:24:00] seven o'clock meeting or nine, nine o'clock. Listing appointment, uh, 1130 AM showing houses. That's not what that's for. It's just to have a plan. So when you're in those moments, we all get there.
Uh, what do I need to do today? What should I be doing right now? You look up and it's right in your face. This huge desktop calendar hanging on the wall. It says exactly what you need to post on social media. It says exactly what you should be doing for your a hundred hours of content. And there'll be no question.
If you follow that, you're going to get busy. You're going to fill up the other spots with, with, uh, appointments and just operating your business and. It'll all come together. So take care of the big rocks first, all of those things. And then all the other stuff is going to fall into place and you'll be busy, busy, and you won't know, you'll never know.
You'll never be worried about what to do in a day ever again. Um, to follow that system. I hope that helps [00:25:00] until next time you'll get it. You're so big desktop calendar.
