Moving on to Chapter 3 in our Attributes of a Successful Real Estate Agent series we'll take a look at adopting an everlearning mindset.

Lifelong learning is the idea that you are never finished educating yourself and growing. A very significant trait that is possessed by successful business people is that they are ever-learners.  They possess a type of curiosity about life in general, which of course extends to their business life.  

The pursuit of knowledge is easier than it has ever been before, as technological advances can relay information instantaneously to our fingertips. It’s a modern-day privilege to take this convenience and utilize it in productive ways.

Learning can take on many forms; from learning new software or skills in your job to getting new certification or training. Listening to podcasts, taking online classes, teaching new skills to someone else. Simply reading books are all a way to continue to educate yourself throughout your life.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in 1 year and underestimate what we can do in 5.

To continue our discussion on planning for profit from my last blog, I want to reemphasize how successful people are planners who set goals and then design and implement tactics to reach those goals.  

If you want to have a thriving business practice, you must first build a business plan. It means being focused on the big picture. Once you've got your big picture, you can then itemize the steps that will enable you to achieve your goals.

Having a plan provides a gauge for you to measure your activities against what you want to achieve for the year.  You need to have a roadmap and feel like you’re moving towards your goals.  But how can you do that if you don’t have any goals in the first place?  Or if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want?

You have to start out by writing it out.  Having it 'in your head' is overrated and will get you nowhere.

I want to encourage you to put pen to paper and write out your goals with timelines and action items attached.  

What to Include In Your Plan

Let’s talk about what you should be thinking about in addition to just saying ‘I want to gross $400k this year (as an example)

PLANNING FOR PROFIT

Continuing with our series on 'Attributes of a Successful Real Estate Agent", one of the most important attributes of successful real estate agents is that they are planners.

Let’s start off with a discussion on planning for profit.

I firmly believe that planning is the most important first step to operating a successful real estate business. How do you know where to go unless you have a roadmap of sorts to follow? What is your vision? What does your business look like? What are your goals? If you don’t have the answers to those questions, then you are just haphazardly winging it and hoping for the best.

As my friend, Ben Franklin says, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

We all want to be great salespeople, but we also should want to be great business people. It all starts with having a plan.

Maintain a Positive Attitude

Failure is Not an Option

Have you heard of the saying ‘we all fall down, but we only fail when we don’t get back up’?  It’s so true!  

Welcome to the human race.  Nobody does everything, all the time, perfectly and successfully.  We learn through trial and error and having the willingness to try.  

It's been my life story to try different ideas and ways of doing things even at the expense of the naysayers that criticize and put me down for daring to do something different.  Wanna know what kept me going?  Someone told me once that those that don’t do anything, never fail!  Wow!  That gave me the courage to ignore people that aren’t supportive.  Leave them in the dust.  In fact, I feel sorry for them.  Why?  Because they play it safe, and never venture out to try and discover new things.