Focus, Focus, Focus
The Starting Place
You’ve likely heard that “location, location, location” is the key to success in selling real estate. People look for where they want to live first as that location is a crucial component of their lifestyle. It’s where successful homebuying starts.
In thinking about success in life and business, I’ll offer that the starting place for you and your business to achieve even more success is focus, focus, focus.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let’s take a trip. Where do you want to go? You can go anywhere you want from anywhere in the world.
Ok, I’ll choose. Let’s say we are in Houston, Texas, and we want to go to Paris, France. Ahh, Paris! What do we need to know about getting to Paris? Do we need to know what the weather is like, how do we speak French to communicate with the people there, how much money we’ll need, and what the culture is?
Yes, we probably want to know all that, and we would want to know what COVID-19 regulations are. But what have we forgotten? We’ve failed to determine how we are getting there. And to that, you might say, “Well, that is silly. We are in Houston, and we will fly to Paris.” But wait, could we get there another way? Yes. We could take a ship. It might take a long time, but we could. We could fly to another country first and then travel by train to Paris. There are many ways to get there. Remember what I stated above, “You can go anywhere you want from anywhere in the world.”
The Point
The point is that we need to determine how we are going to get there before we decide what we are doing there! But there’s something else that we must do before we determine how we will travel to our desired location. We must determine our starting place.
In the scenario of being in Houston and going to Paris, we’d need to know that we are leaving from Houston and how we want to get to Paris. Most likely, we’d decide to fly; then we can begin to decide on the details.
Like our Paris scenario, we tend to speed ahead when we are setting goals as well. We focus on the achievement versus where we are starting; we focus on the future, not the present. It’s great to envision arriving at our destination, the future, but we must also know our starting position to be truly successful in our journey.
So often we say to ourselves, I’m going to sell three homes next month. And that would be great, right? What if you are still taking real estate classes and haven’t passed the state licensing exam? And if you were licensed, the odds are that selling three homes next month isn’t going to happen because a typical sales cycle is three to four months. And oh, by the way, selling real estate without a license is a no, no, no.
We must focus on where we are in order to take the best course of action to reach our desired destination.
Powerful People Practices™
In last month’s column, I mentioned that in my work as an accredited and certified coach, I’ve discovered what I call Powerful People Practices™. When honed and consistently applied, these are practices that can significantly increase productivity, help create progress, and boost profitability.
And the first Powerful People Practice™ is:
We change our focus.
In your setting and achievement of your goals this year, I encourage you to change your focus from one that has you already at your destination to one that assesses the location from where you are starting. Then set the course to reach those goals through focused action.
Look at where you are in your business (How many leads did you generate in 2020? How many homes did you sell in 2020? What did you earn?). Then look at where you want to go (How many leads do you need to generate in 2021? How many homes do you want to sell in 2021? What do you want to earn?).
Focus on where you are, focus on what you want to achieve, and then take focused action that will get you there – focus, focus, focus.
About Christy Stratton
Christy Stratton is an accredited and certified coach, professional speaker, instructor, and radio show host. Join Christy here each month as she shares thought-provoking, motivational, and educational tips and information about transforming you and your business with Powerful People Practices™ that directly impact your bottom line.
You can find out more about Christy and her programs at https://christymendelow.com. And you can follow her on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/PowerfulPeoplePracticess, on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/coachchristymendelow/, and @ Twitter https://twitter.com/CoachCStratton, or call 281-944-8043.
