I remember my teachers and professors telling me how important it is to know and understand where we came from.  The old adage, ‘history repeats itself,’ has some merit but can also be devastating if not challenged.  Let me explain…

In business we tend to look back the previous year and use it as a benchmark for future sales projections as well as hot and cold trends.  There is definitely some valuable lessons in this data.  You have to make sure it doesn’t have an effect on your drive and motivation to be on top of your game 12 months a year.  I have two examples for you:

A very good client of mine owns a computer business in which the ‘industry’ will tell you that business will always slow down in the summer.  The ‘industry’ will tell you that people are on vacation because kids are out of school, people aren’t thinking about expanding business during the summer months, etc.

Well, my client decided to stop paying attention to history and figure out how to do more business by getting more referrals leading to getting more clients as well as getting repeat business out of past clients.  He put a few guerrilla marketing tactics in place and low and behold his business has double during the summer months while also cutting expenses by 40%.  That’s what I am talking about!

Forget the fact that history tells you business will slow in the summer.  Go buck the trend and rewrite the history books.  That is what true pioneers do.

Too many times we use history as a crutch to explain why we aren’t doing more business or why business is slow.  That is a wealth vampire and should be warded off by driving a stake though its heart.  Winners find ways to win.  Wealthy people find ways to attract wealth through opportunities.  These people don’t let history dictate what will happen in their businesses.  You can’t either.

So, if I were to go back to history class today in my industry I have a feeling I would get an ‘F’ because I have bucked the trends and made my own ‘history’ book.  I wonder how many people could pass my history test?

How many times have you heard someone say, “You need to write down your goals,” in order to truly achieve the?  If it is anywhere near the amount of times I have heard it then you probably have lost track just like me.

The one step many goal-writing proponents forget to talk about is how to create goals that can truly be reached.  One of my personal mentors, Bill Glazer, tells a story about his management mentor (Vince Zirpoli) and how he helped make the practice of creating goals easy.  Simply put he said, you need to have S.M.A.R.T. goals:

-          Specific

-          Measurable

-          Attainable

-          Relevant

-          Time Bound

If you use this easy to follow system it will make it easier to actually make things happen in your business and personal life.  Let’s go through an example:

Let’s say you are a real estate professional who sells residential homes and you want to increase you business from the previous year in which you sold 50 homes at an average commission of $5,000 for $250,000 in total gross revenue.  You would like add $100,000 in gross revenue during the upcoming calendar year.  How will we accomplish this?

Specific – Increase revenue from $250,000 to $350,000

Measurable – With average commissions of $5,000 per home sold you will need to sell 20 more homes.  The previous year my clients came from 5 different sources (mortgage professional, attorney, advertising, open houses & past client referrals), so you would need 4 additional clients from each referral source.  Adding new sources of referrals will decrease the number of clients needed from each source.

Attainable – After breaking down the sources there are a number of different ways to get those extra clients from each source.

-          Find 1 or 2 more mortgage professionals and attorneys that could refer you clients

-          Test other media outlets that could bring in advertising leads that can be converted to clients

-          Do more open houses of your own or for other real estate professionals

-          Market more to your client base giving them more incentives to refer you more clients

-          Identify additional sources to finding more clients like home buyer workshops, accountants, financial planners, for sale by owner conversions, etc.

The short list above is easily attainable by doing more networking.

Relevant – All the opportunities listed are relevant given the current market.  The marketing messages can be crafted to fit the landscape of the current market as well.

Time Bound – 70 homes sold in a 12 month period, which averages out to roughly 6 homes per month.  You could set a 90 day window to find the extra sources of referrals as well as identifying more from the sources that are already working.

What do you think about that?  A little better than, “I want to increase my business by 20%,” which is much more vague with no plan of accomplishment.

Once you have done this exercise the key to truly making it a reality is to share it with your staff, business partner, etc. so you are then held accountable for making it happen.

This mindset will help you get more clients by getting more referrals and getting them more often.  Always pay attention to opportunities as you never know where the next great source of referrals will come from.

Start creating S.M.A.R.T. goals for yourself and remember to always go back and review them to make sure you are on track.  Time to stop reading and get S.M.A.R.T.