I have known the importance of setting goals: annually, quarterly, monthly, and weekly. After all, I used to be part of corporate America where numbers ruled supreme.
Each year, Cameron Dunlap also reminds his students, myself included, the importance of setting goals. So, before the calendar year started, I had set up a “2015 Performance Target versus Actual” tracking system in a shared drive with our coach. Believe it or not, this was the first year I have actually chosen to keep track of the numbers for our own business – primarily because, over the last few years, the nature of our investment business evolved to where it makes good sense to do so.
Initially, I thought it would be a lot of fun. I set up annual targets, which I thought were quite conservative, and broke them into quarterly targets. Actual performance was kept track of on weekly and monthly bases.
Now, the reality check. At the end of the first quarter, the actual numbers were far short of the target. I thought, “I still have the rest of the year to make up the shortage.” While each subsequent quarter saw improvements, they were still far short of the targets. (The fourth-quarter numbers are yet to be finalized as of December 31, 2015.) The numbers don’t lie and they are brutally honest.
Some key lessons I learned this year are as follows.
- Make offers, offers, and more offers. No offers, no deals; no deals, no closings; no closings, no cash.
- Take the lead on making offers. In other words, use partners sparingly and only when their expertise, which you do not possess, will help make a deal come to life.
- BEFORE partnering with someone on deals, however, work with an experienced real-estate attorney, who has a reputation for getting things done in a timely manner, and have him/her spell out the profit split in writing. That attorney should be able to suggest various “deal scenarios” that should be considered in a partnership agreement.
Now, for the New Year: To remain conservative, I decided to keep the 2016 targets essentially the same as this year’s. Now that I have my own real-estate broker’s license as of fourth quarter 2015 and am running our own company, I no longer have any strings attached with anyone – just the way I like it. As in personal life, it feels fantastic to be free and independent in business as well. I guess I was born to be free in every aspect of my life.
The year 2015 taught me many lessons as to what I needed to get done to improve our business performance. Right before the Thanksgiving holidays, everything – and I mean everything – began to fall into place. What I used to preach in corporate America, I now get to implement in our own company. That is, serving the needs of our clients is the only way to build a solid foundation for the future of our company. Things are already starting to take shape. Exciting times are ahead.
By this time next year, ceteris paribus, I expect that reviewing the performance numbers will be a truly pleasurable experience.
Happy investing!
