5 Areas You Must Stay Focused On In Your Business
It’s easy in real estate investing to focus on the big areas and lose sight of those little areas that make the difference. Everyone loves to focus on finding and managing properties, but without giving due attention to those more mundane aspects of a business, you won’t last long. For a business to succeed you need to devote enough time to these smaller aspects and work towards success in the long term.
Knowing the numbers, where your business stands and what your long-term goals are, is vital to long-term survival, especially in a competitive market. These days there are a heap of numbers and statistics you need to be aware of which are changing constantly. For your business to reach the next level and avoid stagnation, you must give due attention to these five areas.
- Marketing. Can be one of the most expensive and time-consuming areas in running a business. If you don’t do it right you can end up spending money inefficiently, without getting results. Before starting any new marketing campaign, you need to be properly organized. You have to know what areas are drawing the most leads, where the money is going and whether it’s even making a difference. It’s easy to get caught up with this and think you’re being productive, when really you are only being busy. There’s a difference. By knowing costs, sales volume and open rates, you’ll be able to change and improve your marketing over time.
- Networking. Is one of those areas that for most people, you either hate it or love it. Whatever your own feelings are about it, you can’t deny that it is a very important aspect of any business. Good networking not only helps you build more sales leads but also puts you in contact with other people in the business, that can be of help further down the road. It does no good to show up at conventions or meetings and never make any real connections. Just as in marketing, you need to organize yourself. Keep a notepad, both physical and online, and note down the name, contact details and summary of the conversation of every person you meet through business. After a few months of this, you should be able to tell what events are giving you the most benefit and which are a waste of time. The more contacts you build the more people you’ll be able to reach out to when you need a favor. For instance, a chance meeting with another investor from a different state, could lead to a partnership or sale if you meet someone who’s looking for a property in this person’s area. Good networking is a numbers game so get those contacts, do a follow-up and see where it takes you.
- Income Generation. Getting a fat check at the end of closing is a great feeling but it’s important to know how you got there. As a business owner, you need to know where every dollar is coming and going from. Otherwise, you won’t be able to plan adequately for the future. Having a firm grasp of how you got from a prospect to a closing sale, will give you a much broader scope of your business plan and what areas you can change or improve.
- Expenses. Just as a restaurant owner must stay on top of their rent, food costs, labor and utility bills, so must you as an investor. If you don’t keep track of your expenses, even the small ones, you can lose sight of what your net income really stands at. Keep a spreadsheet of all your outgoing costs, be they marketing, maintenance or rehab carrying costs so that you know how every dollar is being spent. Having a clear picture of your expenses will allow you to cut costs and improve your bottom line.
- Lead Generation. To make the most of your leads you need to know where they’re coming from and what difference they are making. Start by making a list of every contact and mark down how many of them responded and lead to sales. By looking more closely at the numbers and how you generated certain leads you’ll be better able to understand what works and what doesn’t. make a note of what the overriding theme was in each contact that turned into a sale, what was it that drew them to you and closed the deal, how can you replicate that in the future? Increasing your lead generation by just a few percentage points can have a huge impact on your business.
Technology today has made it easier than ever to stay on top of these areas. Whether you wish to hire extra people to handle these areas or not, you should still stay plugged into each part so you can get a full picture of your operations. Give these five areas the right attention and you will see guaranteed results.