Get the full list of numbers you should track in your real estate business and let those numbers guide you in setting your goals.
It’s that time of year again that you either love or dread: business planning and goal setting for the next year. In this episode we dive into the real down and dirty on exactly WHAT numbers you should track and how you would use those numbers to impact your future business. We are covering some of our favorite tracking creations like the career overview and transaction comparison sheet plus some of the tracking tools we’ve learned from others over the years. What do you need in your business plan? We will tell you! How can you keep track of your business budget? We’ve discussing that too! How do you keep track of your marketing dollars and decide if they are working? The answer is in this episode too! You know we love using data with our clients and if you want to treat your business like a business then you need to be using data to do that too! Let’s get ready for next year the best way we know how: by reviewing what worked and what didn’t this year.
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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.
Alissa
Hey friends in today’s episode, we talk about number tracking. And we wanted to give you some free resources to help you do the same thing. So you can go to hustle humbly podcast.com/track. And you can get your own copy of Katie’s overview, as well as a list of things that you could be tracking. So go to hustle humbly podcast.com/track Enjoy the episode. I feel like if there was negative feedback, they probably wouldn’t tell me.
Katy
And then I put a column at the end called Big Picture.
Alissa
If you hired you to run your business, right, would you fire you, right? Great, you can afford your house. The conversations were going better and better. And then like it just started producing better result love it. Really, we’ve been on the market for 300 days and you never had a buyer. Hi, y’all. Welcome to hustle humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie. And we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market. We
Katy
work for two different companies where we should be competitors. But we have chosen community over competition. The goal of our podcasts is to encourage you to find your own way in business. So stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi, Alisa. Hey, Katie. Welcome to Episode 226. We’re into the month of December.
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh, where did 2023 go? I know, I really feel that way.
Katy
I keep seeing all this stuff about 2024. I’m like, Y’all, that’s gotta be two years from now. I know, like I can’t even believe any of it. When you stop and think about the beginning, ish of COVID and 2020. And they’re like, this will probably last like a year. And you were like, That’s so long. And now you’re like so far behind it.
Speaker 1
I know. It’s like a It’s almost a distant memory, the time just keeps moving just keeps on moving.
Katy
So glad we’re on the other side of that. And it’s the end of the year. So today, we’re going to talk about number tracking, okay, and goal setting purpose all about the data. You know how I feel about data, you love data, I love data. It’s probably why I like that part of the real estate process, though, like the Market Report and setting a price and like looking at what’s happening and like trying to interpret data, right? So you shouldn’t just be interpreting data for your clients, you shouldn’t be interpreting data for yourself. Correct? Because you’re a business. Yeah. And that’s kind of the bottom line of this, though. It’s the perfect time of year for you to take a beat before it’s, you know, you’ve had your Thanksgiving. You have a minute here where it’s kind of back to work for a week ish, maybe two, and then you’re going to check out for the holidays. But now’s the time. Yeah, check your numbers, make a business plan.
Unknown Speaker
Do those things. It is time.
Katy
When do you check your numbers? After my Well, I’m
Alissa
tracking them throughout the year just keeping a tally. But after I have my last closing of the year, I do my chart.
Katy
Okay. Right. Sometimes that’s on December 30. Yeah, sometime
Alissa
could be like, usually that little lull between Christmas and New Year, I like to do my chart.
Katy
That’s when the chart comes out. I love to look at your chart me to tell the people what’s on your chart.
Alissa
Every year I put a chart of my transactions where they came from. So I have how many listings and how many were buyers. And then I have a little graph that shows if it was from a repeat client referral, open house, right? From church, like wherever it was from Yeah, I just like to track it that way.
Katy
What’s your feedback when you post that?
Alissa
I feel like it is I only get positive feedback. But I feel like if there was negative feedback, they probably wouldn’t tell me.
Katy
I feel like it’s so amazing to see. I love that you share where it came from. It wasn’t just like I had 90 transactions this year. You’re like No, thank you church here. These came from you. Thank you other agents, they these came from meat like it’s more of a overview of your business. Yeah.
Alissa
And it just sort of helps me know where my efforts are working and where they’re not working right. And where to put my energy. So it just helps me to see. Okay,
Katy
is there anything else you track though? That’s just where it came from? And the number of transactions? Are you tracking the
Alissa
average sale price or I’m not tracking that but I do like to go into MLS and just look at it because it’ll show you they’re like this is how much was your average listing. So it’s almost like I don’t have to track that because I can access those kinds of numbers so quickly.
Katy
Right? But even looking at it to me is tracking it. Oh, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like I say, you don’t have to put it on a separate spreadsheet, right. But what are you following up with? Like, really? Okay. Yeah, so I see the Okay, I have this one. Alright. You know, I like to make a document that Yeah. Specifically, I like to make spreadsheet. Yeah, those are my favorite spreadsheet. And I have one that I made a couple of years ago, it just got to the point where my career had been long enough that I couldn’t quite remember, like what had happened when, and it became necessary. This is my Katie’s career overview tracking chart. I love this. Okay, it’s got literally, every year it’s just by year. And then the number of transactions I closed what the average sales price was, I want to do this the total volume I sold the total commissions I made, like, gross. And then I put a column at the end called Big Picture. Because it’s not fair to compare one year to the next, if you had a baby one year, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, it’s just not fair. Or if the market crashed for some reason. It’s just not fair to be like, every year has to be better. That’s that doesn’t make sense. Correct. Okay. So I put big picture in the column. And these are the kinds of stuff things I put in the big picture. I put when I got married, I put when the local market softened, like after the crash, which wasn’t really for us until like 2009. And that’s also when Ainsley was born at the very end of the year. I put the next year when the oil spill happened, Deepwater Horizon because it affected our market. Yeah, I put when the flood happened here. Yeah. You know, like, you can’t just be like, Oh, 26 happened
Unknown Speaker
this year. You have to
Katy
know, the bigger picture. I love this big picture includes you, but also your market, your market, not the national market. Your market? Yeah. So like this year, you could put rates jumped to eight. This
Alissa
affects the big talk right here. That was the big thing, right. So I
Katy
am obsessed with this chart. It is so interesting to see that in 2006, when I had my first transactions, there were 16 of them. My average sales price was $129,000. Gosh, wow. Okay, so let’s go down. I didn’t finish. Like it’s this is an older version. But in 2021, my average sales price was 336. Oh, y’all, that’s three times as much. Yeah. And I did 20 transactions then. But think about right. What is that number? If you look at the actual, like sales price, three times 20 to be more like 60 versus 16. You know, when they adjust for inflation or like overtime, they’re like, back in the day, this building costs $1 million. Today, that would be 16. You know what I mean? Yeah, that’s what you have to do. When your career is long, like you’re gonna over time. I just love looking at that and being like, wow, yeah, the price of
Alissa
houses shortage change. It really puts things into perspective. You have to have perspective on
Katy
your business. Is it growing? Is it plateaued? Is it declining? Where do you want it to be? What like, maybe I didn’t need to close as many transactions because now houses are at a different value. Yeah. Anyway, I really liked that one. That’s one of the things I track and I like looking at that is a more big picture. All right, what what are some things do you think people are missing when they track like what are some what are some things that you do that you feel like maybe other agents don’t necessarily do?
Alissa
I think it is very important to track your money. Oh, yes. That is still on my desk. Okay, good. There’s your business budget you’re so good at the business budget.
Katy
So tracking how you spend your money Yes. Okay. Because if you don’t know where your leads came from, and you’re putting marketing dollars out there whether it’s just take a Popeye to your database or put a park bench on the side of the road like if you can’t attribute actual dollars made in your business to that activity why keep throwing money at it right? It doesn’t make any sense like
Alissa
I like when I see that my waiter like the food delivery service Yes, I like when that number is high. Right? Okay, because that means I have sent food to like all these different families and people Yeah, and that is one of my goals that I want my marketing dollars to be directly impacting the relationships I have with people. Okay,
Katy
so you check your waiter balance. Yeah. What else? Are there any other places you go to check that?
Alissa
Well, I do have a business account. Okay. So anything that is real estate related is going to come from that account, right? So things that I might look at is how much I paid the cleaning lady. Okay? How many times did I say, Hey, don’t even worry about that. I’m going to have my cleaning lady come handle that for you. Yeah. Or having someone’s grass cut, you know, things like that. So it’s, it’s really just tracking but I like that each. So each quarter, I print out just my transaction, and then they categorize them. So I kind of see how things are looking. You
Katy
do your own account, like your mom helps you with your accounting. Like, do you use QuickBooks like was it oh,
Alissa
I have a bookkeeper. Okay. She also managed it’s not my mom. My mom manages all of my commission checks. Okay,
Speaker 2
why knew that? Yes. She they’re like, why is your mom involved?
Unknown Speaker
My mom is a CPA. Good.
Unknown Speaker
This is an important detail.
Alissa
My mother is a CPA, I gotta check. Well, I don’t know what to do help me. And she keeps track of where I am on my plan. Okay, let me know, oh, this bunch more and you jumped to the next level? Or? Yes, your tax check was correct. Because like my office has a program that can put the taxes just double check. She’s just double checking everything. So she just double checks that for me, okay. She said doing your bookkeeping. No, no, she’s not. I have a bookkeeper who also helps me with my cabin. Oh, so she tracks my cabin and sends me a monthly cabin report. Okay. And I just quarterly send her like I categorize it quickly. And then I just send her everything. And she sends me a balance sheet and a profit loss statement when you
Katy
categorize it? What prote? Like, what system are you using to excel,
Alissa
you’re just like spreadsheet, it’s just a spreadsheet, I go into Chase app or, and I download the transactions for the quarter. And then you can like categorize them by like, you know who it went to? Yeah, payee. And then I just kind of make some notes for her. And then she puts them all into QuickBooks and makes everything pretty, but I do like going through each transaction. That’s how you’re tracking. I do look at them all once a quarter. So you don’t want it to be super automated already in QuickBooks. I want to see it you want to see it. And I find mistakes every now and then. Right? Sometimes I’m like, Why was my business card use that target? Like I didn’t? Because I accidentally use the ringtone and it wasn’t like stolen. Well, I have found fraudulent things on there. Yeah. And I’m like, Wait, what is this and I’m like googling like what it is. And so there have been times where I have caught some like miscellaneous things. I heard one time that the people, the smartest scammers instead of getting someone’s card and like splurging, they just use it like every other week, because people never catch it. Right? They’re not looking and they don’t realize 20 bucks here. 20 bucks there. You’re like, yes, that was me that yeah, like it very well. That’s what made me go there. So Right. And so I like to, and it takes me honestly, it takes me about 30 minutes to a quarter, once a quarter long to look at each thing. And most of it is like listing photos listing photos cleaning lady list, you know, most of it is repetitive, repetitive. And so I it’s very quick, every now and then I’ll have to do a little research and like the other one time, I was like, What is this? And I like go look for it. And it was something I had done. It was just the way that they took payment was through something I didn’t recognize the name of Yeah, so. But yeah, it doesn’t take very long, right. And I always feel better when you look at it. And it kind of goes back to to like if you hired you to run your business, right? Would you fire you? Right? Are you proud of the way that you’re managing your business? And so I always feel like a good business owner. I’m so responsible, so responsible, I should do it more than once a quarter. There I peek in there and like right, but I’m not like digging in deep well, at
Katy
least you’re digging in deep at some point three, four times a year is better than most people are doing. Yeah, I would say you know your your whole C suite right. So your your CMO, you got to do marketing, you’re your CFO gotta do your financial, you’re the CEO gotta do all that. Like you’re doing the operations. You’re the whole thing, right? Like, yeah, you have to, you have to touch each part of your business. So I think that’s awesome that you do it that way. I have a business budget that I look at every month. It’s like I because I want to make sure did I cross it out that I paid and the biggest thing I’m looking at is what are the yearly fees that are gonna pop up? Yeah, they come so often in real estate there. Not all in December or January summer in June or in November, like, do I have a year subscription to Canva? Which I do, like, I don’t want all of a sudden $120 to pop up and I just wasn’t even expecting it or more like MLS fees like it’s 400 bucks like, yeah, all of a sudden in June, I was like, Oh, I forgot. That’s when this happens. Right? So I keep the yearly stuff on the bottom of my business budget. Okay. Did with the month that it happens? Right. Okay. So mostly, I printed up every single month. I do the monthly ones in case something changed. I do like the as needed things that are let me see. Let me see you go take a look. That one’s just a blank. But yeah, you know, when you get the vibe? Oh, I see. I see. So at the top of this spreadsheet, it’s all of the monthly charges that are consistent, right? So every month I pay for Supra Yes, right? Yes. And then the second section is as needed. Maybe I’m just buying client gifts this month. Or maybe I’m just buying supplies or whatever. Then the bottom section is yearly. And the very bottom is the income section. Because we’re not just tracking what’s going out what is coming in. Yeah. And the date. So I can be like, these are the dates things are due. These are the dates. I have closings.
Unknown Speaker
It works. Yeah, just simple. Yeah.
Katy
But you need a budget, you need to know like, what are your reoccurring? Are you paying for the park bench every two months? Like, is it working? Where are you tracking it? And is it working? Right? Okay, so the budget, check, we got that everyone needs a budget, right. The next thing that I want to talk about is my closed transaction spreadsheet. And this is a lot like your chart, right? Yeah. So it’s just the spreadsheet version of your chart? Yes. On this document, I am putting the clients name. There is a column that says buyer or seller, okay. There is the origin. So where did they come from? Phone call open house? Did they come from a website or wherever? Then there is the date it was received. Okay. Okay. So on my intake form, when I take in a new client and ask them their whole questionnaire, I have a date. It’s got a date on it. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn’t know a date you came in? Because the next column is closed date? Like, does this type of online lead take two years to close? Does a referral take three months? Like kind of, because let’s just say you’re strapped for cash, or you’re ready to like ramp up your business? Go back and look? Well, which leads turn the fastest, right? Oh, well, it’s always referral. So let me go talk to my database and see if anyone has a referral. Yeah, right. So date received close date, sale price, the Commission amount. All right. So like, I’m tracking what I made. Yeah. And the percentage so I can see like, any trends locally in the in the percentages, okay. Right, or just know my average. So I can work on my bid, because Next up will be your business plan. And I need these numbers to do that. I do put notes at the end of this, which would have if it was referral, who it came from? Yeah. Okay. Because then I want to think back. Well, where did they come from? Like, what’s the train the train, the next section of this is where all of the leads came from? So look, I’m telling you where each one came from, but then I’m just doing a grand total down below past client Aid website, one referral, 11? Like, I’m totally just like your chart, I’m totaling them out. Yeah. And I’m giving them $1 value, because if any of these were some type of paid advertising, I need to know my return on investment. Yeah, the only way I can know my return on investment is to then the next section is marketing dollar spent. So I had like my website on here, it was 35 bucks a month, it collected leads, that was $420 a year if one of those turns then that’s not back. Right. It was, I don’t know if it was pot buys or referrals. And I spent $10,000 over the course of the year going back to my databases house. Well, I only close two referrals. That wasn’t that was 10,000 total. That’s a wash. That’s no return on my investment. Right? Yeah, you gotta track it, you gotta track how you’re spending the money. And if it’s returning, the bottom of this is for my personal, like brain? Well, a couple of it’s for business plan, average sales price, so it’s doing the math, I’m like setting up that you know, formula. And then however many transactions I had total volume, but here’s the section that I need for my mindset. I break them down into first, second, third and fourth quarter, just the number of transactions and the percentage of my overall year that that was okay. Okay, so like first quarter 13%. Second quarter. 43rd. Quarter 37. Yeah, quarter 10. That way when I get slow in the first quarter, which I will Yep. and are like, Oh, this is normal. I’ll be like, This is normal, y’all. You cannot expect that if you want to close 24 transactions in a year. It’s literally two every month it might be for one month and one the net. Cyclical know the cycle. This cycle repeats, you know, there are changes but it repeats. So that’s the transaction comparison. Some love that I’ve had this one, I don’t even. I’ve had it since the very beginning. Yeah, and I should go get you my folder and show you i It’s a single sheet of paper I’ve been in this 18 years, I have them all printed, so I can just
Alissa
flip, flip, flip, flip. And I think this is so great, especially all of our new agent listeners, if you can start tracking things now. So I have my chart, but I would love to go back and like make some of these things for my year over a year. Well, it’s like, it’s gonna take me a long time. daunting because I have to go back 12 years, right? I wish I would have done things like this from the very beginning, you still go back and do it. But um, it’s going to take a minute, right? But those of you who are new track it now. So you can really see your progress. Get
Katy
in the habit, right. And having that tracking over time can show you in black and white, you are growing, maybe you don’t feel that way, because it’s getting easier. And so you’re like, I don’t look at the numbers, right? Look at the numbers. All right, what’s next on your tracking? Are you ready for my next thing? Yeah. Okay, so now I take my close transaction that we just did the transaction comparison. And I do my business plan. Okay. I like to do the business plan in December. But don’t fret, you can do it in January, you can do it in February, you can do it whenever you want. But I go and get all of the all of that data that I tracked makes it so easy to do this, I learned this particular form of a business plan from the 100 days to greatness. Okay, from Brian Buffini. And it just goes over what is your income objective for the year and you have to plug in your average sales price which see I have Yeah, you have that you have to plug in your average commission per sale? Well, I have that I know the numbers you have to put in, though, how many buyers you close last year and how many sellers? But here’s where it gets tricky. You’re going to need to know how many buyers and sellers you worked with. They didn’t all close, right? How do you track the number of buyer appointments you went on? Like what is the method, my method was always I always use my folder. So I always had them sign their agency disclosure, and those are all in a folder. So at the end of the year, I could just go pull and be like, oh, yeah, we never actually closed on anything. Yeah. So then I know how many appointments I went on versus how many sales I had. Oh, I love that. And you have to know that because when you do this, this version, the business plan, it’s going to tell you how many buyer appointments you need every month to make your goal. So if your goal is 10 transactions, but you only close 50% of the buyers, you went to you need to meet 20 buyers that year, you do not like him hurt so
Alissa
and I feel like for example, this year, I had so many buyer consultations that did not result in a sale, which is fine, right? I did a lot of educating this year. I did a lot of explaining like, Hey, before we start shopping, you really need to talk to the lender about that monthly note. Yeah, I had a client recently that was like, Hey, we just we really want a bigger yard. We think we want to upgrade and I’m like, Okay, wonderful. And I’m thinking to myself, they only bought their house recently, like in the last two, three years, pretty recent. So I thought, I wonder if they watch the news. People know? And I said, Yeah, so we had a consultation, and I said, so look, when you bought what was your interest rate? It was really good. And they were like, Oh, 3.2 and I was like, yeah, so have you checked them out lately? No. I said, Okay, well, look, they’re, they’re higher. You know, they just hit eight last week, and they were kind of like, okay, and again, they didn’t quite understand the ramifications are right. They were like, okay, and I was like, What do you think? Because they have said, we know, we’ve been kind of browsing online. I said, Great. When you’re browsing online, what kind of price point are you looking in? Well, some of the houses we’ve seen that we like are like 425 400 I’m like, okay, great. The house that they bought with me was like 275. So they’ve had some promotions at work. They’re ready getting ready for their second home. Okay. So I was like, Okay, great. You know, they’re like, Yeah, I mean, we feel so comfortable with our monthly note right now we feel like we could, I bet you do. I said let’s just talk with the lender. Let’s just go chat, you know, so and again, all of this is time education consulting. They were shocked at the monthly note they were probably like we couldn’t even afford our current house. They said honestly, we would feel better at like 353 30 Right, which is not a big change, which is not a huge change because there they are because the house has increased in value from when they were probably the same house. I’m like great you can afford your house. Yes, you could afford your house either fate and I said y’all I’m not truck because Tanner’s like Alyssa You know, it is your job to sell houses, right? You can’t.
Unknown Speaker
I bet I know. I know. And I sugarcoat this,
Alissa
I said, and I told them, I said, it is my job to sell houses. And they were like, No, this exercise was very eye opening to us, right? Like, we didn’t even think about it. And they were like, and you know, they ended up just extending their patio and getting a sunshade like, well, now they’re good for the next few years, make it work for a bit. So I’ve done a lot of that this year.
Katy
Hi, Friends, we owe you a huge debt of gratitude. And we wanted to say thank you for writing reviews for the show. And why do we want to say thank you? It is because
Alissa
of the number of reviews that we have that Jenna Kutcher reached out to us to be on the podcast.
Katy
That’s right. So your reviews not only help other people know what the podcast is about, and if they should listen, and if it would be good for them. It also helps the guests that we want to bring you to give you more value, realize we’re a show worth coming on. Yes,
Alissa
the reviews give us credibility and allows us to bring these people on. So a huge thank you to everyone that has left us a review. Yes, thank
Katy
you so much. Keep bringing on those reviews. Okay,
Alissa
a lot of times people reach out and are just like, they’re just they didn’t realize and nobody knows. Yeah. And I even told them, like, we could certainly do it. Like, I don’t think I would have trouble selling your house right where it is. And I think that you would come out, okay, I just wonder if you’re going to find something that you’d be happy with. And so I’ve did a lot that’s like, lately, people have been asking me, how’s business? Are you busy? And I’m like, I feel like I am very busy. I just don’t know that I’m being super productive. While you’re being productive, you’re just not producing Rosings. Right? If you look at the income, it doesn’t look as productive as some of the other years. But if you look at my Trello, for instance, a lot of people in there, I wanted to talk about Trello. Okay, because it has helped me so much this year with tracking things. Every time someone reaches out and says, I think this I think I want to do that. Immediately. The first thing I do is open Trello to make sure I have them. Yeah, top of mind, right? You do not want to forget these people, especially in the beginning stages when they’re really hesitant time. Yeah, you’re gonna have to follow up here. My Trello has never been this long. You know,
Katy
this is a very good real life. Explanation of pent up demand. Yes, you have yourself a lot of pent up demand I do the entire market has a lot of pent up demand. These people still want to buy a house. Yes, that’s what they’re saying. If the rate, and when the rate goes down, it’s gonna be madness. There’ll be floodgates, and we’ll go back to the multiple offer, you know, and it’s not going to take a 3% interest rate, it might just be in the 60s. Yeah. And then it’s all of a sudden hurry. Yes.
Alissa
And so Trello has been extremely helpful for me tracking how many people I have that have said maybe maybe that I need to keep up with. Yeah, and not forget about Yeah, even if that’s just like once a month checking in to that they know that I’m here, right? Also the number of people that have reached out and said, Hey, we think we might want to sell but we’ve just heard it’s not the right time. They’re in there. So I have this extremely long list. But then if you look at the pending column, it’s very short right? Now, if you look at the active listing column is longer than it’s ever been. Because they’re not selling there. I’m getting new listings pretty often, but they’re just sort of building up. So I’m like, okay, so it Trello gives me a good visual of what is actually going on. It’s an overview of the market. Yeah. And if you’re a new listener, if you Google allegiance, Trello or Trello, hustle home Trello hustle, huddling. We have it on YouTube, and you can just go look and see like how I have mine set up. And so, beat Trello just allows my brain to see a snapshot of how I’m doing in my business right now. Yeah. And I am thankful that when all the madness was happening the last two years, I was like stopping you know, in the movies, when you’re frozen and everything around you isn’t moving. Fast forward. That’s sort of how I felt at one point. And I just had this revelation of like, Alyssa, because my dad is a real estate appraiser. And he’s always said you’ve never been through a tough market. You need to be careful. You’ve never you know, you’ve you’ve had this successful career. That’s wonderful. Make sure you’re always like, say there and he’s always been that way. You know, he’s seen all the markets. Yeah. And so I think that that really made me go I need to be hoarding right now. Because I want to prepare as if we’re gonna go through You’re like the worst recession ever. Yeah. And I don’t think we’re going through that, though. But I’m thankful that because of looking ahead, I’m not operating from a place of like, desperation and fear, where I’m like telling those clients, well, maybe we should just try to sell your house and, and we should try to find something for 350. Maybe like, No, I’m not trying to like force it. And I think that they appreciate that, because you’ll still be here when the market turns, yes. And they’ll still be in your pipeline. Yes. And they’ll all of a sudden, be ready, ready, they’ll all be ready, and there’ll be educated, right. And they will understand the importance of
Unknown Speaker
it, they needed to be educated.
Alissa
So Trello has been very helpful for tracking all of that as well.
Katy
Yeah, you know, I have my, my weekly activity sheet, which is really just my planner page, single page. And it has the week there on the side that I can write down whatever my appointments are. And on the other side, it has like my kind of warm leads at the top, yeah, then it’s got the pendings in the middle and the listings at the bottom. And it is it’s my snapshot of the mark. It’s just my paper version of your Trello board. It’s like, oh, this is what’s going on having
Alissa
everything in one place for a quick snapshot. To do that. We think especially when you’re slower, you think, Well, I don’t have that much business. So I don’t need to track all this. I’m telling you, as you will never get to the point of being busy if you aren’t remembering all these tiny, little things. The first time I ever really started tracking was in 2011. Okay, I was a new realtor, you’re brand new, I’m brand new. I had not much of a database. I was still working on putting it together so that Connie could send out my announcement cards. And I just thought I don’t even have anything to track. And I was doing phone duty, like, as much as I could because I was in the office. So I was always signing up. I’ll just answer the phone if it rings. Well, I thought I had listened to something that was talking about tracking. And I thought Yeah, I probably need like, you think phone duties now I’m thinking you know, I’ve had a few things. But I started tracking every time I got a name and a phone number. I love that. So it was like if I had a name and a phone number that you went on a list love it. I that list got up to like 55 Wow. And I couldn’t believe it. Like I was like, I didn’t even realize how many connections I were making. And I was sort of like writing them off quickly. Like, oh, well, that conversation didn’t go really well. So. But when I actually wrote down their name and number I was like, I would just call them hey, we spoke on the phone the other day. And all of a sudden through following up on these people that otherwise I would have counted as losses. The thing is that we trust our brain to remember what’s important. No, you will not Oh, remember, like you. You just can’t trust your brain. It has to be written down somewhere. Yep. And then once I started tracking it, I was like, determined to get more I can do this. Yeah, I was like, I wanted to do it more. Right. I was motivated because I was after months of sitting in this little room with the phone all of a sudden I had a goal to like, right, get it even longer. And then because I was more motivated and enthusiastic. The conversations were going better and better. And then like it just started producing better result. Love
Katy
it. I love it. Nothing ever went wrong from tracking something in your business.
Alissa
No. And I think that it was the perfect example of before I was doing that before I was writing down the names. I was just focused on the sale. Right? Well will will this lead me to a closing? Oh, that conversation didn’t go well? Well, well, what about this person? Did they want to see the how well and but then when I started tracking I was focused on the process. Yeah. And I was like, Okay, if I can just keep following up and then the sales happened, right. And we just did an episode on this obsess over this over outcome. So we’ll share that again on Instagram. Yeah, I don’t remember the number of it was probably recently. Yeah. But that would be a great one to go listen to if you’re struggling with being so focused on the actual sale. Right. And in all reality, I wouldn’t mind taking a minute to talk about the fact that we’re in December six months ago, I must have taken a lot of new listings at one time. Okay. Tell us more because I have some that are coming up for expiration, and I haven’t had that happen in a few years. Wow. Oh, yeah. I mean, I it’s happening. I have a guy that we’re gonna go ahead and withdraw his listing next Monday. And he said he did tell and I, he said that, you know, it was listed with the agent before me. Okay, well, you maybe it’s him or the house or Yeah, right, we’re right. And so when I pulled it up, it was reaching like 300 Something days on market. So he was saying, look, the goal is to like pull it all over the winter, when the winter is over refresh the landskap. I’ll finish painting the upstairs. We can relist it after the 90 day mark, where you get a freshie? Yes. So in our MLS after 90 days off market, it appears as a new
Katy
zero days on the market hero days on market. Here’s the problem. And I would tell this to all the people who are HUD on calling an expired, you inherit those days on the market. Yeah, unless it’s been 90 days. So if it was listed by another agent for 200 days, and then you list it, it’s gonna say 201 Yeah, um, you not not zero,
Alissa
correct. And I just told him, I said, Listen, I just I understand. And I think that that’s a probably a good plan. Yeah. And to be honest with you, I said, I appreciate that I’ve always been able to talk with you honestly. And frankly, so I’m going to let you know, when you when we withdraw, you are going to have things mailed to your house, your phone is going to start ringing, there are agents who pay for expireds and withdrawals. I know that we will be in touch during this time. But I would just ask that if something changes or if you were ever unhappy with how I was handling the transaction, I said I would love to continue to market the property. But if you decide to go another direction, will you let me know? And what do you say? Absolutely. Right. And he was like an honestly, Alyssa. It’s nothing that you’ve done you right? He was like, this market is tough. It’s a luxury price point. I have every intention of relisting with you in the spring.
Speaker 1
And he was like, but I understand. Thanks for letting me know that. And I think we’re also just not having that conversation. Well, we like to hide. Yeah, and not tell people the trade secrets. And I’m like, because we were embarrassed that agents do that. It’s but I will give you a hot tip. I’m
Katy
sure we’ve already talked about sport before, but I want the listeners to hear it. Make sure that in the public remarks of your listing and the realtor remarks you put in all bold seller withdrawing listing to relist with agent and spring. Yes. Like don’t contact agent for more questions. Please don’t contact seller. Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s going to happen. But at least you might avoid some of the calls. If you’re like, Please don’t Don’t bother these poor consumers. They’re not happy the market is aggravating
Alissa
ones are the ones that call and say they have a buyer. Oh, yeah. We’ve been on the market for 300 days and you never had a buyer. I don’t like Aladdin. Yeah, it’s just relax. No, thank
Unknown Speaker
you. But that’s
Alissa
happening. Like I’m starting to have some listings that are about to roll off. And some of them I agree, need to just take a ride. I’m ready to like, I have to I have done everything I can and you have done everything you can and maybe it’s time for a reset. Yeah, it happens. It does happen.
Katy
I’m sorry. It’s okay. It’s happening. It’ll happen more. Alright, I have one last number tracking thing I want to talk about. Okay, we’ve talked about on the show before. I heard on a Jenna Kutcher gold digger episode back in 2020. I think because it’s the first time I did it. She has a numbers note. Oh, the numbers node happens on January 1. So coming soon, y’all. And on. I’ve started doing it also on July 1. So halfway through the year, I put a calendar event in my phone that says numbers note. And then I go pop onto my google doc where I have the numbers and I record things that are rolling totals, that you would not be able to go back and say, Well, how many Instagram followers did I have? In 2021? Who knows? Who knows? But if you’re working on something that is growing like a community Facebook group, or like something that the number is getting bigger your email list your database member like jot it down. Yeah, this is how many I have one January one, what is it going to look like on December 31? Like what’s next? You’re gonna it’s a great way to track those things that you can’t really track if you’re not looking at them regularly. Yeah, regularly. So email subscribers database if you want to follow like your Instagram or Facebook likes or followers or if you’ve got a group that’s growing. If you have a YouTube channel, how many subscribers does it have? How many views are you getting? You know, stuff like that? Do you want to track your savings account? Maybe your retirement I
Alissa
have a column for things that are growing my balances on my mortgages. yours are decreasing. Yeah. I love that to watching them go down. Yeah. Or maybe you just do your net worth. Yeah. Right. Like, what have it all calculated that way. Love that. I love that. So
Katy
the numbers note is so nice because you can see your progress. Yeah, on those kind of intangible things, maybe you’re putting a lot of effort into your social media? Well, then what’s what’s happening there? How
Unknown Speaker
are you tracking it?
Unknown Speaker
How are you tracking it?
Alissa
How do you track your social media, there’s things in Instagram and Facebook that show you how to track it too.
Katy
Yeah, you can go look at and I’m not great at that. You can go look at your professional dashboard. If you’re a creator, or a business account, which I recommend a creator account, I love it. And then you can see how many people looked at a post or you know, responded to a poll or whatever, you know, your impressions. Actually, at this earring, I’ll be done with my experiment, but I’m doing a 30 day reals personal shell I saw that’s also I’m hosting one reel per day, okay, for 30 days. At this recording, I’m on day 18. Awesome. So I’m getting close to the end. And you can go to that professional dashboard. And it’ll tell you like, what percentage your impressions and your like, interactions engagement have increased? And it’s like over 100% increase. So I’ll look at that for sure. But if you’re doing something like that, then track it. And then I just use my numbers note for all the other things. Yeah. Like, you know, how many podcast downloads, like we’re tracking other stuff, too? Sure. You can track anything. If you want to know the health of your business, you have to know the data, you have to know the numbers, right? Your business will live and die by numbers. Yeah. And you shut your business. Why are you even here? Why are you here? Okay, anything else that we should track. And I would say all of this was very, kind of black and white and like going to look at the you’re going to take this though and inform your goals for next year. You can’t just say, well, I sold five houses this year, but I’m going to sell 50 Next year, like that is not, that’s just a pipe dream. Like we want a goal that’s based in reality. So like, let’s look at the data. Maybe you have a plan to change what you did in your business. And that’s how you’re gonna get to 10 transactions next year, right? Or 15, or whatever it is. can’t just pick a number out of the sky. No, you got to know where they came from before. Oh, well, you got two referrals this year. But you want to close 10 referrals next year? Well, how are you going to reach out to these like, what are you going to do different? Yeah, that’s the other thing. You can’t just pick numbers. I love to track numbers. Speaking
Alissa
of you can’t just pick numbers. And this is sort of a side tangent. But even when you are speaking to your clients about data, I always tell people don’t say, I think your house is worth this. No, I think this needs to be done. I think that it’s never your opinion or what you think, right? Based on the market data, it shows that your house would be priced here, based on what I’m seeing working with buyers, painting is necessary. These are the things that buyers are complaining about right now. I’m always speaking from a place of experience. And even if you are a new agent with little experience, you are still in your office, going to meetings, talking to other agents hearing what they’re saying you can easily say, based on what I’m seeing in the market, right? Buyers do care how old the roof is, right? You know, it’s never I think this is going to bother buyers. No, no, because then they’re going to be I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard sellers say, Well, we talked to another agent, but she just didn’t like our house. Or she just didn’t think that this was going to it’s like what would How is she even speaking to them? Right?
Katy
She didn’t think we could sell our house. Yeah, well, what price you can sell everything at the right price. There is a price you can sell anything. Yeah. Okay. I love that. I love that advice. Are you ready for the toast? Yeah. Okay. Today’s toast comes from Jennifer McKinnon, who is an Alabama to Mandy St. Sandy, Tennessee, right? Yeah, they’re both in the hustle homely community. Oh, and Jennifer said shout out to Mandy Street. We spoke on the phone for over an hour today and she just oozed value. Oh, I feel competent. And like I have a great action plan in place. Thank you both us as well for the amazing community. It’s truly a special place. So sweet. So they are in community and they found each other there. And if you want to be in community to find some other sweet hustle humbly listeners, you can go to hustle humbly podcast.com/membership per pay. And cheers to Mandy. And thank you to Jennifer. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
this was good. This was great. Okay, bye y’all. Bye.
Unknown Speaker
Go record some data.
Alissa
Hey friends. Don’t forget Get that we do have those free resources for you. If you love today’s episode, go to hustle humbly podcast.com/track To get your own list of things to be tracking as well as Katie’s overview. Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast.
Katy
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to rate this podcast.com/hustle humbly and leave us a review or like this video. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell for notifications.
Alissa
If you have an episode topic or someone you’d like to toast on the show. Please email us at tea at hustle humbly podcast.com Find us on social media at hustle humbly podcast don’t forget to find all the free resources at hustle humbly podcast.com/resources See you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
