Halfway through the month and not halfway to your goal? Why don’t you just make up for it next month, right?
Wrong!
Conventional wisdom in business and in the real estate industry has it all wrong. You see, conventional wisdom says that if you have a bad January, you can make up for it next month, or if you have a bad first quarter, you can make up for it next quarter.
The flaw in this age-old concept is that there is just simply not enough urgency to hit your goals. If the urgency is low one month, the likelihood of you “picking it up” the next month is also low.
Knowing this to be true in my last 17-plus years of not only selling real estate, but also training and coaching Realtors, I have always had a plan to increase my urgency in the last half of every month.
If you were to survey our associates, they would tell you “Jeff always talks about the last half of the month being better than the first half.” That’s because it was embedded in me since Day 1 that once you get to the middle of the month, if you are not on track for your goals, you need to turn up the intensity. Hence the term, “midway mayday.”
You may have also heard of a similar concept such as the “15th protocol” or even a “bi-weekly business plan.” The idea is simple: You take your written pending sales goal for each month and cut it in half.
You can also use the midway mayday for other activities such as monthly contacts, appointments gone on, offers written, listings taken, etc., but my favorite is pending sales.
By the way, for this reason, we suggest picking an even number for a goal, so that it always works out to an even number each month. So if I have a goal to write 48 sales this year, then my monthly goal is four, and by the 15th of the month, I need to have written two to be on track.
So here’s how midway mayday works: In the scenario above, I have a goal to pend four sales per month, which means I need two to be on track by the 15th. If I am at two by the 15th, nothing changes for me.
My schedule and my activities during the last half of the month stay the same (almost as a reward) but if I am at one or below at the 15th of the month, my midway mayday kicks in (which should feel a bit like a penalty).
My midway mayday consists of pre-arranged activities that I agreed to as part of my annual business plan.
There are three to five things that I must do to get back on track with my goals. Now, there is no guarantee that these activities will get me back on track for my monthly goal, but they will definitely put me in a better position or an increased likelihood that I’ll get back on track with my pending goal for that month.
Below is an example of some things that I have included as “penalties” or activities that I have implemented in the last half of the month when I am not on track by the 15th:
- Evening call sessions
- Coming in 30-60 min earlier
- Adding in open houses
- Doubling up on skill practice
- Door-knocking
- Calling/texting “old” leads
- Database day(s)
- Coffee dates with people in database
- Adding in a blitz day or two
- Mass text and email campaign action
- Hybrid farm calls to your neighborhood
- Increased social media posting and asking for business
- Visit three to four expireds and FSBOs each day at their home
I could continue, but you get the idea.
So in 2020, and maybe even perhaps the next decade, consider implementing the midway mayday strategy for every month you are not on track for whatever monthly goals that you set by the 15th of each month.
No more of that “well, I didn’t have a good month, but I’ll make up for it next month” because the reality is, that might happen once or twice in the calendar year, but history tells us that we will not make up for it in most cases, or we will simply run out of time to do so.
Let’s have an awesome 2020 and, more importantly, a strong second half of the month.
Jeff Glover is a Realtor with Jeff Glover & Associates in Michigan.
Are you ready for what the industry holds in 2020? Inman Connect New York is your key to unlocking opportunity in a changing market. At Connect you will gain insight into the future, discover new strategies and network with real estate’s best and brightest to accelerate your business. Create your 2020 success story at Inman Connect New York, January 28-31, 2019.
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