Take A Look Back Before You Look Forward

The New Year typically represents a time for reflection, goals and waiting for the change in calendar. It is a good time to do the things with your family and friends that you may have put off because of your busy schedule. If you are like most people, you are excited about the New Year, and all the possibilities it can bring. From a business perspective, this is the perfect time to take a look back at the last twelve months and see what worked, what didn’t and what you would like to change in the year ahead.

Before you set any goals and make plans moving forward, it is important to look back. The first thing you will notice is that a lot has probably changed from this time last year. Between changes in the market and changes in your business, how you invested and maybe even thought about the business is different from where you were last year. Change is a good thing for any business, as long as it is productive change. If you make change just for change sake, you may end up right back where you started if you are not careful. By looking back to where you were last year, you can get an idea of what was successful and what parts of the business you really enjoyed.

On the flip side, you also need to reflect on any mistakes you have made in the last year. As you may have found out not every deal will go the way you planned. For almost every investor, there will be missteps with marketing, planning, dealing with team members and networking. This is in addition to the decisions you make during each deal you were involved in. If you don’t reflect and admit your mistakes, you will be doomed to make them again. Inevitably, at some point in the future, you will be faced with a similar scenario that you may have gotten in trouble with in the past. If you learn from your mistakes, you will not make them again. However, if you fail to acknowledge them, you will surely face the same fate in the future.

In addition to any positive or negatives, you should take an in-depth look at how you ran your business. It is easy to work just enough to make us feel like we are really putting the work in, but deep down you know the difference. If you really did everything possible to make changes or implement new strategies, you should focus on why they didn’t work instead of the effort you put in. In most cases, it is the implementation of the changes and not the change itself. You may want to close an extra deal a month, but getting there is a different story. It is easy for one day to run into the next without taking pause to evaluate how you are doing things. Every new marketing strategy you try or networking group you attend should be recorded so you can track the results. If you did not do this over the course of the year, take time now to look back on everything you did for your business and what you would want done differently.

During the lull before the end of the year, you should look back on your accounting and where your money really went. If you don’t know all of your expenses, it is difficult to run a successful business. Ideally, every expense has been recorded. All you should need to do is find them to review. Everything from the interest rate on any credit cards to the amount you pay to get the driveway plowed should be looked at to see if there is a cheaper alternative. If you can shave off even a hundred dollars a month, it can be your start to a new roof on a property or a new direct marketing campaign. If you are like most inefficient businesses, you are probably throwing money out of the window without even knowing it.

One of the best things about the real estate business is that you can run it any way you like. You are the CEO, CFO and director of marketing all rolled up in one and are the final decision maker with everything you do. If you didn’t like the way something was done last year you can change it. The only way to know what works and what didn’t is to look back on your last year and draw a line in the sand between what stays and what doesn’t. Making these changes is never easy but sometimes they are what needs to be done.

The New Year is often filled with promises to change things we don’t like or to do things differently, but that usually fizzles out with the first sign of resistance. You shouldn’t need a change in the calendar to make the changes you see fit. Every few months you should take a day to look at your business and evaluate what works and what doesn’t. If you do this every so often, you can make changes when you want to, as opposed to when you need to. Before you look at what goals you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve them, take the time to look back on what you have done and where you were this time last year.