Right from the day we’re born, we give meaning to measurements, keeping track of pretty much everything we do and achieve.
We measure birth weight and height. We note dates and milestones.
Even our life expectancy is measured, along with averages that allow us to compare how we ‘measure up’ in relation to others
In the news we hear of average household numbers, average mortgage values, the average cost of raising children and more.
It’s no different when it comes to work, where everything revolves around numbers.
The ‘money’ we earn is a scoreboard of the countless of activities and the measurements we apply to help us achieve our desired result.
And if you’re looking to improve that scoreboard, this measuring can be used to your advantage.
How we measure in real estate
In real estate we measure all sorts of things – from average sale and rental prices to annual gross commission income, and the fees we charge.
We even measure customer satisfaction via Google reviews, net promoter scores, and referral business.
In fact, the list of things that can potentially be measured is this industry is almost endless, which is a challenge in itself.
But if you’re looking to take your career to the next stage, there are a series of key performance indicators you should be measuring on a regular basis.
What are your key measurements?
Depending on what field of real estate you’re in, there are key measurements which allow you to set and achieve goals, and track your progress compared to your previous results.
I like to call this reverse engineering and in sales it works like this…
You set a GCI goal, work backwards to establish the number of properties that need to be sold based on the average value for your area, then extrapolate that to determine how many listing appointments will yield that volume.
The key number you’re after here is the volume of listing appointments you need to undertake each week.
Then you can also continue to work backwards to understand the activities required to hit that target, such as flyers you need to deliver and calls you need to make.
While that’s an example of the main metric of sales, it’s no different in other arenas of real estate.
In property management, rental arrears and outstanding maintenance requests might be the key metrics you look at.
For administrators, it could be the number of inbound calls, files processed or the response times you average for support tickets.
All are meaningful and provide invaluable business insights, but to get started, pick the one or two relevant metrics that are likely to have the greatest impact and generate the best results for your specific area of expertise.
It’s all about the scoreboard
When you break your year, month and week down into key activities and measurements, you set yourself a scoreboard that you can aim for and achieve.
And when you focus on that scoreboard, those big overall goals are much easier to attain.
After all, what gets measured gets done. It’s a universal principle. But remember this, it shouldn’t be overly complicated.
As best-selling author and execution specialist Chris McChesney famously wrote: “Execution doesn’t like complexity.
The two best friends of execution are simplicity and transparency”.
So as you review the numbers you currently clock and the metrics you plan to achieve moving forward, aim for simplicity.
Find the measurement, do the activities to meet it, see it as a scoreboard and then watch what happens to your overall results.
