Doing More with Less

DOING MORE WITH LESS

“Right Sizing”

Story of the forest fire in the Black Hills

I.                    Know your balance sheet.

A.     Use your past 3 years tax returns to begin with

B.     Don’t for get the dollars your paid your company in looking at GCI

C.     Get yourself up on Quick Book

D.     The 50% Rule in Real Estate – 50% your business, 50% for you!

II.                 Don’t Confuse the Business with Yourself – you make money and spend it.

A.     Make a Business Budget- How will you run your business on 50% of GCI

B.     Make a Personal Budget – How will you run your household on the other

III.               IOU Dearly

“When you Output Exceeds Your Input,

Your Upkeep will be Your Downfall.”

IV.              Reserves

A.     Cash in Bank – how much must you have to run your business

One month, three months, or six months –Cash is King

B.     How liquid are your assets

V.                 Inventory

A.     What is good inventory I have now? Any energy vampires?

B.     What is the saleable inventory I should go after?

C.     There is not a seller or a buyer market. It is the market.

VI.              What you need to know!

A.     What is my cost of taking each listing to closing?

B.     What is my cost of taking each buyer to closing?

C.     What is my hourly rate?

GCI $100,000/3000 hrs = $33/hr

GCI $500,000/3000 hrs = $166/hr

D.     Know your market – stats on unit sales, average sales price, days on

market, months supply, value ranges selling, areas selling, etc

E.      What are the percentages of where your of source of income comes?

VII.            Cutting Expense

A. Fixed expenses – leases, taxes, insurance, telephone, etc

      Rework lease with landlord or cars; insurance deductables; types of

      phones with long distance & line charges, take each line by line

B. Variable – staffing, advertising, education, vechiles, etc

      1. Staffing –Question to ask, “If I had to rehire knowing what I know      

          would I rehire?” If not – bye bye. “Who is the most cross trained or

           willing to cross train?” If they say “It’s not my job.” Show the door.

          Build on a core group. Capable of learning. Incredible flexibility.

If some one specializes – cut to half time so they    

          can work for someone else.

      2. Advertising – I use 1 to 5 ratio. If you spend $1000 in advertising it

          should generate $5000 in GCI. If you advertise and it is not generating

          the proper GCI – get aggressive and cut.

      3. Keep asking the question – “Did I cut enough?”

VIII.         Managing your business Week to Week

Some business look at there business on a year to year budgeting. Better business look at their budgets on a month to month. The most effective businesses in these hard economic times are looking at their businesses every week. 9AM on Monday, What sales happened last week,? What listings happened last week? How many new customers did we get last week? Etc

Then – What is the plan this week? Who is going to buy this week? Who is most likely to sell this week? What do we have to do this week to make this one better than last? What are you committing to do this week?

If you concentrate on yourself 80% of the time on what you need, you will lose.

If you concentrate on what your client needs 80% of the time, you will win.

REAL ESTATE IS PERSONAL!