CR Magazine – Autumn 2018

Managing Broker
HOW TO SET
REALISTIC GOALS
AND EXPECTATIONS
FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Author: Mike McElroy, Center Coast Realty
Real estate agents, particularly ones new to the industry, love to
set big audacious goals without putting together a roadmap to
accomplish them. They often want the result of hitting a goal...but
the real question is, do they want the result more than the time,
energy and money they’re going to have to trade in order to get it?
Problem is, it’s impossible to know the answer to that question
without doing some further analysis. When a bright-eyed, bushytailed
agent comes to you with an ambitious goal, you don’t want
be the manager who tells them they can’t do it. As a coach, you
want to empower your agents to push themselves. So, take a
As a coach, you
want to empower
your agents to
push themselves.
positive approach, like, “Awesome! While that may be a lot more
than a typical first-year broker makes, it’s definitely possible, so
let’s talk about what you need to do to make it happen.”
Then, map out exactly what steps the agent will need to take to
hit that goal. There’s a simple process you can follow, with two
possible results:
1. When you’re done, the broker will have a clear, actionable
path to follow to hit their goals and take steps to follow it, or
2. The broker sees how much work it will take to realize their
goal and adjusts their expectations accordingly.
You can now re-work this path to lead to their new goals.
Set big goals.
Start by setting a big goal for the end of the calendar year. One
goal for the year is preferable, and I would suggest no more
than three. More importantly, your goals need to be SMART —
you’ve probably heard this acronym before. It stands for Specific,
Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Why are SMART goals important? Because if your goal isn’t
SMART, there’s no way to tell if you actually accomplished it! Or,
it might be the wrong goal — one that doesn’t lead to real success.
Here’s an example of a goal that is not SMART: “I want to focus
more on social media.” Have you heard that one before? Let’s see
how it holds up to the SMART goal test:
• Is it specific? Is it measurable? No.
• Is it achievable? Is it relevant? There’s no way to tell.
• Is it time-bound? Sure isn’t.
Now here’s a SMART goal for a REALTOR ® that meets all the
criteria: “I will increase my listing presentation closing ratio from
40 percent in 2018 to 60 percent in 2019.”
For the rest of our example, let’s use a simpler SMART goal:
“I want to earn $ 150,000 after expenses in 2019.” This is a big goal,
especially for a new agent. While a goal like this can potentially
lead to frustration and burnout if not planned and worked for
properly, it can also lead to, well, $ 150k in earnings.
24 Chicago REALTOR ® Magazine