Get Your Numbers Together

It’s no secret I have a passion for numbers, which makes right about now one of my favourite times of year.

As we move from one financial year into the next, it’s numbers that allow us to reflect on what we’ve achieved over the year just gone and what we can attain in the 12 months ahead.

We get to measure how the reality stacked up against our goals. We get to see where there’s room for improvement. Numbers give us the opportunity to discover the things we can tweak, and the activities that worked.

Yep, right about now I’m in numerical heaven. Because the numbers of the year just gone allow us to predict the future ahead.

Numbers never lie

The great thing about numbers is they paint a picture far more telling than words. They don’t lie. They’re not malleable. They transcend excuses. They don’t even need much of an explanation. They simply are what they are.

That’s why they’re so powerful. They either indicate you’ve hit the target you hoped for or you didn’t, and then they provide a whole range of clues as to why that was the case.

Numbers allow you to measure

As I alluded to above, numbers allow you to measure. And what you can measure, you can manage.

They empower you to set milestones in the form of KPIs and check along the way whether you’re reaching that goal.

And when you measure across a range of KPIs you get a really good indicator of exactly what’s happening. You can specifically tell what activities are working in your favour and those that aren’t.

Numbers allow you to predict

There may not be a crystal ball in real estate, but numbers would have to be the closest thing to it.

They allow you to predict exactly where you will be in three, six or 12 months time when you employ them to ‘reverse engineer’ the outcome you’re after.

And here, I will quickly recap one of my favourite examples:

So you want to write $500,000 CGI. Based on your existing numbers you know your average sales commission if $15,000 per sale.

That means you need to sell 33 properties to achieve $500,000.

Based on your existing numbers and the nature of real estate, you know that at least a couple of those sales will fall through, so you actually need to list 35 properties.

And to list a property, you might need to conduct five appraisals.

Therefore, in order to sell 33 properties per year, you need to conduct 175 appraisals, or about 15 each month.

So now we have the key metric we need to reach - 175 appraisals for $500,000 GCI. The question then becomes how many people do we need to contact in order to get called in?

Numbers allow you to refine

When you use numbers in the way that’s set out above, it allows you to refine. You can take a good hard look at any area of that reverse engineered goal and see specifically what might need to be tweaked or refined to get there sooner.

For example, monitoring your numbers might see you discover that when you letterbox drop your appraisal numbers pick up, or that you’re getting the appraisals but only one in 10 results in a listing.

Each of these scenarios offers a clue into what’s working and what’s not and what needs to be refined.

Numbers hold you accountable

Perhaps one of the best things about numbers is that they hold you accountable. You set the number you want to attain. You use numbers to work out how you’ll achieve that. If you don’t reach the goal, chances are something’s gone awry.

And most likely it was because you didn’t follow through with the required action…You didn’t do the necessary volume of activity that was needed to get those 15 appraisals a month.

Numbers are invaluable

Yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: In our business numbers are invaluable. Simple numbers like our appraisal to list ratios, buyer numbers, commission fees, website views, and many others all tell an important story that we should be listening to.

These numbers and the statistics that they represent help us to predict the future. And because of the certainty they reveal, we have the extraordinary opportunity to fashion that future into the success we desire.

It's a new financial year, so take a good hard look at your numbers and your KPIs. Now is the time to set the metrics that allow us to achieve our end of year goals.

About the Author

Manos Findikakis is the CEO of Agents’Agency, Australia’s first multi-brand real estate network, ‘the only fully integrated solution for you and your people to create an unforgettable experience.’

For all enquiries and more information on how the Agents’Agency can help you take your career to the next level, click here to get in touch.