Activating Your 2024 Business Plan with 4 Disciplines
Andy Nazaroff [00:00:00]:
I have been talking to all of the teams that are in my schedule and with coaching at Tom Ferry and hopefully give you a little bit of inspiration, motivation that would launch your 2024 with some activation here. Guys, it’s realtors. New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow is real estate. New Year’s Day. That doesn’t mean you guys can go out and have reasons to party and start slow tomorrow. This is it, 2024. Your New Year’s Day is now.
Andy Nazaroff [00:00:41]:
It’s happening. It’s launching right now. Typically, unless you’re doing a cash transaction that’s going to close like that, that which you do here forward isn’t going to close or renew until 2024. So I’m hoping that at a minimum, where you’re at today, you’ve got your business plan in place. You’ve got your goals in place. You’ve got maybe your vision board up. You know where your business is going to come from. You’ve done your KPIs, your key performance indicators, and you’ve seen, okay, if this is how many closings I want to have, this is where my days and my weeks need to look like in order to be able to get there.
Andy Nazaroff [00:01:19]:
If you haven’t, today’s the day. Today’s the day you got to set that intention and create that plan. But I want to ask you guys some questions. When I present, when I talk like this, guys, when I do a coaching call with a group of 50 to 80 agents, it’s interactive. I know it might be a little crazy to do interactive, but I wanted to challenge you guys to do a little bit of for those of you that are in the Provident room, that’s going to be a little challenging. Maybe you can have one person put some answers up there. But I want you guys to open up the chat in your zoom and I want to challenge you to answer this question. When it comes to your goal, your intention for your business for 2024, what are some of the top impediments for you? What are some of the things that, you know, get in the way are going to get in the way? Like, your awareness right now needs to escalate.
Andy Nazaroff [00:02:11]:
It needs to increase. What gets in the way of you hitting your goal in 2024? Put it in the chat. I’ll read it out. I’ll give you guys some props and put it on the recording. So what are some of the things that are going to get in the way of you accomplishing your goals in 2024? Whoever is over there at Team Provident, put it in the chat for that keyboard. Consistency. Lack of consistency. Yes, Jose.
Andy Nazaroff [00:02:42]:
Consistency in my schedule. Agreed. Sophia, keep going. What are some of the things that are your personal impediments? It’s kind of like own your stuff right now, right? Own it. What is your impediments? Not doing what I’m supposed to do. Yeah, that would definitely get in the way. Your mindset after your 2023 performance, maybe 2023 performance was off compared to prior years, and your mindset is in a funk. Okay, mindset’s off.
Andy Nazaroff [00:03:15]:
Give me one more. One more. What is your impediment? Top impediment. Distractions. Finally, somebody said it. Thank you, Sarah. 100% agree. So why don’t you guys write down one word that would encompass all of which you guys just wrote down and maybe then some one word that is everybody’s impediment to their goals regardless of the year.
Andy Nazaroff [00:03:42]:
You ready? One word. Whirlwind. The Whirlwind. It’s your Whirlwind is different from my Whirlwind, but every one of us has a Whirlwind. A Whirlwind is Jose, the agent on the other side of the transaction not getting back to you. The Whirlwind is your buyer that will not make a decision. The Whirlwind is you spending way too much time working on that flyer, one flyer for your open house this weekend instead of doing lead gen time. Whirlwind is the agents that won’t leave you alone when all you want to do is prospect.
Andy Nazaroff [00:04:15]:
Whirlwind is your technology that won’t work today, and you just wanted to sit down and work in your CRM, and things aren’t working. The Internet’s down, whatever it might be. All of those things are the whirlwind. And I want to argue, guys, that your number one offense to your Whirlwind, oh, let me just tell you bad news, by the way. Whirlwind never goes away. No matter how good you are, no matter what you implement in today’s conversation, your Whirlwind is never going to go away. However, we can apply some tactics. We can apply some offense to make the Whirlwind dissipate.
Andy Nazaroff [00:04:49]:
Instead of making it feel like it’s engulfing you make it dissipate. Your Whirlwind is the thing that at the end of your day, you go home and you’re like, what the heck did I do all day? I was busy. I was slammed. I burned the candle at both ends. But you sit down at the end of the day and you’re like, but did I actually move the needle? Did I actually do something that made a difference? The Whirlwind is always there two things, though, that can help you dissipate your Whirlwind, not make it. It’s never going to go away, but I want to make it decrease. I want to help you see above that marine layer and be able to go, wow, I know where I’m going. I know where I’m at.
Andy Nazaroff [00:05:27]:
I know what it took to win the day. Number one. It’s called metacognition. The number one thing you need to do to go after your Whirlwind is be self aware, starting with the things that you may just have typed down in the chat. What are the things that are in your way going to get in your way of you accomplishing your goals? Start with don’t just say it’s. Distraction. What are the things that distract you? Get aware of them. That whole act, metacognition, that act of being self aware is our own teaching tool.
Andy Nazaroff [00:05:57]:
When we’re aware of our triggers, when we’re aware of our distractions, when we’re aware of the people that are our distractions, or the technology things that mess us up, we can actually begin to dissipate or eliminate them. Number two, the best tactic to your Whirlwind are these four disciplines that I’m going to give you today. And if you’re taking notes, I hope you are. If you took a piece of paper or maybe it’s your iPad or just on the left hand margin, I want you to write these four words down and just kind of space them out so you can put notes around them and jot down some thoughts for you. The first word I want you to write down is the word focus. The second word write down the word leverage. The third word is the word engagement. Engagement.
Andy Nazaroff [00:06:55]:
And the fourth word is the word accountability. So many years, one of my mentors introduced me to these four words, and they’re from a book called the Four Disciplines of Execution unbelievable sales, Management, Philosophy. The challenge is, the book is written for business in general. The book isn’t just a theory. The book is an actual practice that the authors of The Four Disciplines of Execution had been implementing for nearly two decades before they wrote the book. And they were finding that there were common practices and very successful businesses that helped them get out of the Whirlwind despite the Whirlwind still happening, helped them move the needle, stay consistent with focus, leverage, engagement, and accountability. And here’s how we could unpack it for the real estate industry. And the guy that mentored me on it said, andy, you got to read this book.
Andy Nazaroff [00:07:48]:
And then three months later, he called me and said, did you read the book? And it’s kind of one of those things. Like, on my shelf back here, there’s, like, 37 books I haven’t read yet. But it was one of those book books on the shelf. And I’m like, Dan, I haven’t read it yet. And he’s like, if you don’t read it, I’m not talking to you again. So I read the book, and it changed my mindset about leadership. I saw how he used these four Disciplines and his brokerage of 1600 agents and his 40, some managers and offices, and how he helped them measure what matters and report back and accelerate their results as a company. And I want to give you those four words to apply them right now and activate them from your goals into your New Year’s Day.
Andy Nazaroff [00:08:34]:
Okay? So discipline number one, guys, is the discipline of focus. And I want you to put in the chat right now. What is it that you’re focused on accomplishing in your business in 2024? What are you focused on accomplishing in your business in 2024? Put in the chat, by the way, your answer is going to inspire somebody else’s, and somebody else’s answer is going to inspire you. So whoever is our team provident transcriber, please type it in. That’d be awesome. But what is your focus of a goal in 2024? Go ahead. I’ll wait. Your focus is consistency.
Andy Nazaroff [00:09:22]:
Is that what I’m reading? Okay, keep going. What are you focused on accomplishing in your business in 2024? Come on, guys. Better follow up. Consistency. Not stopping your day to day tasks too soon, sticking to your schedule. Okay, so stop where you are. This typically happens with this question. What I want you to write down under the word focus is, my focus has got to be that which is wildly important.
Andy Nazaroff [00:10:08]:
The things that you’re actually writing down are ways that you accomplish that which is wildly important. What are you shooting for in 2024? What really matters? What is it that you need to do that funds your great life? You’re not working to live. You are working to fund a great life. You don’t live to work either. You work to fund a great life. So what great life are you trying to fund? Really? Specifically, guys, your focus is from X to Y. By when my focus is this is how many homes I’m going to sell by the end of 2024 or November 30 of 2024. Get crystal clear.
Andy Nazaroff [00:10:51]:
My focus isn’t just here. It’s also visual my focus. I have the number of homes that I’m going to sell up and visual. I have the things that’s going to fund, the places I’m going to go, the things I’m going to acquire, the things I’m going to do up. In visual, my focus is the number of homes. My secondary focus is the things that that funds. Are you guys with me on this? Try not to focus on more than two things. In the book, the author actually unpacks, and I’ve seen this over the last decade.
Andy Nazaroff [00:11:27]:
They unpack the law of diminishing return. When you try to focus on too many things and you’ve got too many projects going on, you don’t get that much done. There’s studies on this. They say when you get four to six things in your focus, you get two things done. And when you get six to ten things in your focus, you get one thing done. So guess what? Focus on no more than two things. You’ll get two things done, but make those two things the most wildly important thing that you want that funds the other things in your life. Your consistency, the things that you guys wrote down.
Andy Nazaroff [00:12:04]:
Come on. Dorian Gray’s. Assistant Get out of the way there. The things that you write down, stick into your schedule, consistency, better follow up, et cetera. All of those things are important, but they’re not your primary focus because they aren’t the meaningful target. What are you focused on now? Once you establish that, which you’re focused on the number of homes that you’re going to sell in 2024. In most of our mind’s eyes, guys, watch it’s like the crest, the summit of a mountain. Whether you’ve done one of those major, major mountain or the 14K climbs, if you haven’t done something like that, standing at base camp looking up is what it looks like right now for you and your goal.
Andy Nazaroff [00:12:46]:
Oh my gosh. You might have 25 5100 homes on your focus for 2024. And right now there’s no way you’re going to do that in one day, one week, or one month. So how do you do it? You go to discipline number two and you apply some leverage. I like the actual analogy that the goal that you have is more like a 4000 pound boulder. Just imagine team Provident right there in the middle of that room. Imagine a two ton boulder sitting right there in the middle of that room. Who’s the strongest person in the room? So nobody.
Andy Nazaroff [00:13:26]:
Who’s the strongest person in the room? You guys looking at each other? Whoever the strongest person in the room is, no matter how much strength they have, no matter how much leverage they have, no matter how low they get, can they move that 4000 pound boulder across the room by themselves? No. But what would happen, guys, if we applied some leverage by grabbing a strong wedge in a really strong bar and pulling down on that bar? What does this leverage represent in your business? And this is the part I really need to help you unpack. You’ve got to figure this part out for yourself. It starts with one primary action. Our business of real estate is really easy to track. Our business of real estate is easy to see. Where are the leverage points? Because we can have a linear consumer flow. We have a linear process where we talk to somebody, we generate a lead, they go into our CRM.
Andy Nazaroff [00:14:25]:
We nurture that lead. And over time, when we nurture it, it then converts into an appointment set, then appointment met, then contract, and then closing. Right. Well, which one of those key things in the linear process of a consumer lifecycle is the most leverage? Some would say, well, it’s just my lead generation time. I need to be more consistent about my lead gen time. You don’t get paid for time. The number one most influencing and predictive lead measure in the lifecycle of our consumer is new appointments met. So if you want to really go after leverage in your business, how many new appointments met do you need per week to get your closing? Hey guys, if your focus over here is 25 transactions in 2024 and you need to do two new appointments a week, what else matters? How do you win the day? How do you win the week? Did I set an appointment? Did I go on two new appointments this week? You might have had the s hitting the fan in terms of busyness and chaos and disruption, but you still got your two new appointments a week.
Andy Nazaroff [00:15:36]:
You won the week. But the ultimate question here is where do you find your new appointment number? And when it comes to leverage the thing, the challenge that I’ve seen over the seven, eight years that I’ve been coaching and the 25 years that I’ve been in the business, the number one challenge I see when it comes to this piece is we just write down that I need X number of new appointments and we don’t go into our schedule and get the leverage in our schedule. In other words, if your goal is three or four new appointments a week, where are they going to come from? And let’s just say for the sake of conversation, that you dissect that they’re coming from four different lead sources. You’ve got online leads, you’ve got past clients in sphere. You got open houses and maybe geographic farming. So my question is, where would I see those four lead generation activities inside your calendar? Don’t just write lead gen from nine to eleven. Get strategic about it. You’re doing Zillow lead follow up from nine to 930.
Andy Nazaroff [00:16:43]:
You’re doing past clients in sphere from 930 to 1030. You’re doing other activities from 1030 to whatever lead source it is for open houses. You start on a Monday and researching, which house am I going to hold open this week. On Wednesday, you do something on social. That’s going to be for that open house. Thursday afternoon, you’re knocking doors and inviting all the neighbors to the open house. Friday, you’re doing another thing for social, and Saturday you do the open house. That’s being strategic.
Andy Nazaroff [00:17:07]:
Well, why not right now, go block out how many open houses you’re going to do in 2024. And if you don’t have a listing to hold open, who on your team can you hold open? Who else in the marketplace can you hold open? Your leverage is more than just an appointment. How many appointments do you need? Where are they going to come from? Get that reversed engineered into your schedule so we have your focus, we have your leverage. Now, what discipline? Number three is the discipline of engagement. How many of you have a professional sports team that you like to go see? I know my good friend who’s not on this call. Matt Farnham is all about the Las Vegas Knights. Shauna, is it up here in your head because you have, like, Padre colors on a Dodger hat? I’ve never seen that. I’m a Raiders fan, but I also have a Raiders hat in blue.
Andy Nazaroff [00:18:19]:
Red. All right, cool, cool. Love the pro Raiders Raiders fan, by the way. Go Vegas. Great arena, great new stadium. Allegiance Stadium. Unbelievable stadium, right? Imagine going to your favorite team, your favorite team’s arena. The vibe, everything.
Andy Nazaroff [00:18:41]:
And the scoreboard doesn’t work. And you go to your friends, hey, who’s winning? They’re like, I don’t know, I think we’re winning. Look, because you see cheering on the field. No, I don’t think that’s because we’re winning. I think we just made a good play. Hey guys, watch. Most of you are running your business. Just like that, you’re running your business and you don’t know whether or not you’re winning.
Andy Nazaroff [00:19:11]:
At any given point in time, you’re running your business and you couldn’t see what’s your score matter of fact, your only definition of score is how much money is in my bank account and do I have enough to pay my bills this month? That’s not winning, that’s barely getting by. So the principle of engagement says this you’ve got to have a compelling scoreboard that in 5 seconds or less tells you whether or not you’re winning. And that scoreboard shouldn’t focus on more than three things because too much data like consider your Raiders and your football score. You can see home team versus visitors. You can see how much time is left, what quarter we’re in, and what yard line we’re on in the down. That’s it. Simple. But the best part is I could look up and be really familiar in 5 seconds or less know whether or not I’m winning.
Andy Nazaroff [00:20:03]:
Right. The second thing though is those three things that you want to track. Guys, write this down. What’s your goal for the year and what percentage are you at? My goal is 25 transactions and currently I’m at zero. Number two, how many new appointments a week do you need and how many did you do in the last seven days? Tracking those two things every week for at least 90 day increments will show you your trends, will show you your inconsistencies, will show you when you’ve been lazy, will you see three weeks in a row that you’ve been off course on your new appointments? Met you’re going to get to work and make an adjustment. Just starts with your goal, what percentage you’re at, then it’s new appointments and how did I do in the last seven days. So if your new appointments goal is two, did you get your two in the last seven days? And you’re tracking that every single week. It’s a simple Google sheet, guys.
Andy Nazaroff [00:21:04]:
You could even go so much further as to make your new appointments number red or green. So in 5 seconds or less you can see whether or not you’re winning. And if it’s red, you got too many reds on there. You’ve not been winning. The third thing to track though is not quantifiable. The third thing to track is what are you committed to doing this week to improve your scoreboard? What are you committed to doing this week that would have the biggest impact on your scoreboard, your appointments, your closings, whatever it might be improving over the course of time. It’s not necessarily that you’re going to find a closing this week, but you could find new appointments or you could be taking all of the contacts out of here and putting them in your CRM and actually working your soi this year. Your commitment, though, is like the team on the field running plays that work because the scoreboard might be a great scoreboard, but it still shows you haven’t been winning.
Andy Nazaroff [00:22:06]:
So if you aren’t winning, what adjustments are you making? And the real power in a scoreboard is, am I changing plays? Am I making new commitments? Am I connecting the master classes like this that give me ideas and inspiration to change the plays so I can have better commitments and make more adjustments on my scoreboard? I’ve seen commitments on teams that I coach that are, that are weak sauce, like do more follow up. Congratulations, you’re just going to get rewarded for nothing because that’s very, very general. I see great commitments on there that say, I’m adding 25 names from my phone to my Soi this week or I’m going to take my lead follow up number that’s at 252 and reduce it down to 75 in my filters. What commitments you make makes all the difference in improving your scoreboard. So we got your focus, right? We got your leverage, we have your engagement. And if you can picture these three disciplines up on the wall, the discipline of focus says we got to focus on the wildly important goal, no more than two things, and we got to have it up and visual and see it all the time. Discipline number two says we’re going to act on the lead measures, the things that move the needle, the things that really are the wedge with the downward pressure that caused the buller to move across the room. In our business, that’s new appointments met can’t say that any faster.
Andy Nazaroff [00:23:30]:
Discipline number three is the discipline of engagement says we have a compelling scoreboard and we see it up in visual all the time. And in 5 seconds or less, I can know whether or not I’m winning. Discipline number four, the discipline of accountability encompasses all three of those. Matter of fact, those three disciplines don’t work unless you have accountability. Now, how many of you know that accountability doesn’t work that well if it’s just you to you? We’re really good at giving ourself excuses. Matter of fact, we’re really good at buying into our own BS excuses. We’re salespeople. We’re really good at excuses.
Andy Nazaroff [00:24:12]:
How many of you know that accountability isn’t as powerful if it’s just you with somebody else because you flake on each other, you give each other excuses. You have inconsistencies in when you meet. The best accountability is in small groups of five to eight. And accountability guys, is not a one on one with your manager. That’s where ideas and inspiration and change to your commitments gets improved. Accountability isn’t you to your coach. The best accountability is you amongst your peers. And if you can consider that the number one thing that would impact your results in 2024 is getting into a small group of like minded people similar production people.
Andy Nazaroff [00:25:03]:
Five to eight people that meet at least once a week longer than that is too long because it’s like a pilot being talking to air traffic control. What’s the heading I need to be on? At what altitude? If you’ve been off by a couple of degrees and it’s been two, three, four weeks, you’re way off course. When you’re doing these accountability meetings, you have the scoreboard up in Visual. Maybe you bring your score, maybe you bring your sheet, maybe you bring a snapshot of it. Or maybe you share your screen on a zoom call and you simply check in. Here’s the deal. You check in on your three things. On your score, you say, my goal is this my current progress, my goal is 25.
Andy Nazaroff [00:25:43]:
I’m currently at zero. Hey, right now, especially through the holidays, you need to hear yourself say that you’re at zero to light a fire under yourself for your legion. My goal is 25. Currently, I’m at zero. I have a new appointment number every week that I have to hit it’s two. The last seven days I did this, last week, I committed to you guys that I was going to do this. Here’s how I did. Here’s my commitment for the next seven days.
Andy Nazaroff [00:26:08]:
Next, the rule. When you’re doing accountability, I’m going to tell you this rule and you’re never going to forget it. And it’s meant to be. A little tongue in cheek for a reason. The rule is no polishing a turd. Look, if you had a week that looked like a turd, it stunk like a turd. Whatever it was, call it call it out. Don’t not show up because you had a crappy week.
Andy Nazaroff [00:26:35]:
Don’t emotionally justify your crappy week. Own it. Hey, guys, I had a bad week. I was inconsistent. I didn’t get it done. I’m just going to own it. I’m going to get back on track this week. Somebody in that circle, somebody in that accountability group is going to reach out to you and say, hey, I’m here for you.
Andy Nazaroff [00:26:57]:
If there’s anything you need, I got you. Isn’t that what you want? Accountability happens when you’re in a group of your peers five to eight, and you guys are accountable to one another, and then there for each other to encourage, to lift each other up and just be real and watch. What happens as a result of keeping you on focus, acting on your lead measures, staying engaged in your score, and being accountable to one another. That’s how you get out of the whirlwind. All right, guys, I hope that inspires you. I hope that launches your new year. Happy New Year. See you guys next time.
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