To achieve success in your business, setting goals is crucial. Whether you’re a seasoned real estate professional or just starting, goal setting is an essential practice. However, many people fall into the trap of creating vague, general targets at the beginning of the year and then forgetting about them a few months in.

Setting achievable goals within a realistic time frame is a continual process that requires regular review throughout the year. This helps you keep track of your progress and ensures that your goals remain at the forefront of your mind. But, how can you set goals that you will actually achieve?

Today, we’ll guide you through the process of setting effective goals and how CircleCloser can help you achieve them.

Why goals are essential for success

Goals give you something to strive for. When you are just starting in real estate, you know that you want to succeed, but you’re not sure how to get there. At first, you may have a general idea of what you want to achieve in your first year. However, if you don’t make it a specific goal and don’t create a plan to achieve it within that time frame, it will be difficult, if not nearly impossible to do so. Goals are your target. They give you something to aim for. 

As you continue to gain experience in your real estate career, you will set goals to help you achieve.  The ones you set when you are first starting will be much different from the ones you set five to ten years into your career. For example, when you’re first starting your real estate career, your focus may be to grow your network. After all, you likely do not have a huge database. As you gain more experience and close more deals your database will grow. In time, while you will still want to add people to your database, your focus will shift to closing more deals. 

Each year, you will create goals that correspond to what you want to achieve for your business that year. Additionally, as you review them throughout the year, you may wish to add or make notes for goals to create in the year ahead.

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are targets that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. They give you the clarity you need to know what you need to achieve in the year ahead. Not all goals are SMART. That is why it’s important to set aside time to create them.

Specific

This means detailed. The more detail you can include, the better. List exactly what you want to achieve and spare no detail.  For example, don’t just say that you want to build your database. Specify exactly how large you would like to grow your database. Say “I would like to increase my database by 25% by the end of 2024”. See the difference? The first is very general. How will you know you’ve achieved it? If you grow your database by one person, technically you achieved your goal, but that may not be what you had in mind. The more specific you can be when creating your goals, the more targeted you can be in the process of achieving them.

Measurable

This brings us to two metrics. Measurable goals are those that you can measure. Measurement allows you to see how close you are to achieving your goal. It also allows you to see how far away you are from achieving your goals, which is important if something happens that leads you off track. Measuring your progress allows you to always know where you stand so that you can take the appropriate actions to stay on course.

When your goals are measurable, it is easy to track your numbers and keep track of where you are in terms of achieving your goal. As you’re creating your targets, It’s important to consider whether or not it is a measurable goal. For example, Getting fit isn’t measurable. However, saying you wish to lose 10 pounds or run a 5K in 25 minutes or less are measurable goals.

Achievable

Of course, you want to knock it out of the park each year. Although your goals should be ambitious, They should also be based on what you can feasibly achieve in the year ahead. Be sure to consider your skills, experience, and anticipated market conditions as you create your goals. For example, It may be difficult to double or triple your business during your second year in real estate. This may be a morphing five or ten-year goal. For the year ahead, review your numbers in the last few months and the anticipated state of the market in the year ahead. It may be more achievable to increase sales by 25% over the next twelve months.

Realistic

Similarly, your goals should be realistic and consider your knowledge, time, and the resources available to you. This is where you have to be honest with yourself. What can you realistically achieve given your skills and abilities right now? Another thing to keep in mind is the size of your database. If you are just starting, Your database may not be large enough Yet to help you achieve ambitious goals. However, the longer you are in business, the larger your database will grow. If you have a specific goal in mind that you may not be able to achieve just yet, make note of it for the future. Just because a goal isn’t realistic right now doesn’t mean that it won’t be realistic in the future.

Time-based

Deadlines keep you on track. Putting a deadline on your goal will help you stay focused. Although many of the goals you set will have a deadline of the end of the year next year, some you may wish to achieve throughout the year. How long will you need to achieve each of the targets that you set? As you set your goals, think about a realistic timeline. Although you may be able to achieve some things within the first few months of the year, other goals may take more time.

If you have larger goals, Setting milestones throughout the year will help you stay on track. Milestones also serve as checkpoints to make sure that you are on track to achieve your goal within the time frame that you have set. 

CircleCloser can help you achieve your 2024 goals

Do you have ambitious goals for the year ahead? We can help you set, track, and achieve them. CircleCloser has the tools you need to set SMART goals for your business. We also make it easy to review your goals and check your progress throughout the year. Growing your real estate business has always been challenging and more fun. Click here to learn more.