Are Your Real Estate Goals SMART?

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Ok, so you know you need to set goals for your business. But now you may be wondering, how do you set your goals?

Firstly, there are two types of goals. Defined goals and undefined goals.

What’s the difference? Undefined goals can lead you down the garden path and leave you feeling unsuccessful, having not made any realistic progress towards where you want to be.

Defined goals, on the other hand, guide you towards actionable steps to take and metrics to measure and push your own progress - integral to achieving the objectives of your business plan.

With defined, strong and well set goals you can constantly keep on top of your performance to see whether you are on track to meet your objectives. Without this, it as though you are traveling to a destination without a map.

So when it comes to achieving your goals, making them specific can make all the difference. Once you have set your sights on a particular outcome, broken it down into its components, it’s now time to get your goals right.

How can you do this? The simplest method is to follow the SMART goal methodology. SMART goals are:

• S - Specific
• M - Measurable
• A - Achievable
• R - Relevant
• T - Time Limited

Suggested reading: Top KPIs for real estate agents

Specific

Are you setting a "defined" end-point or target? Closed units, volume, income?

For example, one agent’s goal could be to close 50 deals at an average price of $400,000 with an average commission of 2.75% and receive $550,000 GCI by focusing on a relationship-based strategy.

Action step: look at your goals and try to work out: what is the main result or action that this goal is based on?

Measurable

Can your defined goal be measured with tangible results? Can you track the results?

A few examples include the number of appointments completed, contracts signed, deals closed, commissions received and income sourced.

Transaction management platforms, such as SkySlope or dotloop for teams, make it easy to track results by providing real-time visibility into your team’s productivity.

Action step: put a number, figure or % next to your goals to help ensure they are measurable.

Achievable

Is your defined goal achievable?

You may be thinking, “Anything is possible. Think big and have stretch goals!” But, in this instance, “achievable” means ensuring the necessary time, money, resources and technology are readily available to you.

Zipi, one of dotloop’s newest integration partners, offers a helpful tool for creating achievable goals by displaying powerful insights via interactive dashboards, business reports, commission profiles and financial forecasts.

Action step: evaluate your goals and implement tools and procedures in place to make sure your goals are achievable.

Relevant

Do your goals align with your business goals, or will they distract you and throw you off course?

What works for one real estate team may not work for yours. If you don’t know anything about Facebook ads, for instance, don’t spend exorbitant amounts of money on them. Instead, hire an expert who understands the social advertising space.

Action step: check that your goals are appropriate and relevant to your cause before embarking on them.

Timed

Your goal must be measurable over a period of time.

Set a deadline; otherwise, it will be extremely difficult to reverse-engineer your SMART goal into specific, time-sensitive and measurable metrics.

While you may set a goal to close 1 million transactions and make $1 billion, it’s not a SMART goal until you set time parameters.

Will you set out to accomplish that goal in one year, five years, a lifetime? Deadlines help shape the activities and results required to achieve your goals.

Action step: Set a realistic (see achievable above) timeframe in which to accomplish each goal.

Take the next step

Set SMART and grow your business by tracking what’s working, what’s not and making any necessary adjustments along the way.

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