Create an End of Year Ramp Up Plan

As we enter the last two weeks of the year, you may feel you are at an impasse - faced with the age old question: “should I wind down and relax in order to recharge, or will I be missing out on business opportunities if I shutter my operations?” Some people are of the mind that, since the holiday season does not offer the same opportunities available during the rest of the year, you’re better off waiting for the January thaw before you continue your operations. However, just like your personal health, your business’s well-being may be negatively impacted if you allow yourself to be lured into a holiday daze. Granted, your prospecting response rate may be different during the end of the year than at other times, but following up and prospecting aren’t the only actions that positively impact your business. So, take advantage of the strategies below to create an end of year ramp up plan that will help you hit the ground running for 2022! 

Figure Out your Conversion Rates

In the world of business and entrepreneurship, keeping track of certain statistics and figures are a necessity. As your business matures, you need to make it a point to track your conversion rates, as well as tracking all the sources of potential new business you have the opportunity to take advantage of. Because of the length of time home buyers and sellers spend in the informative phase and the different moving parts that need to be considered in a real estate transaction, it can be difficult to feel like you’re making progress when you follow up. That is why you need to keep track of the conversion you’ve experienced throughout the course of your business. As an end of year review, calculate your conversions by tracking what percentage of “cold” prospects you were able to connect with, and by tracking which of those prospects moved further along in your business pipeline. Do the same for your referrals, and all other prospect sources you have. By reviewing these conversion rates, you’ll be able to get a general idea of how many prospects you’ll need to reach out to before you get the yes you’re looking for. Make sure you are honest with yourself in this review, and see if there are different tactics or strategies you can implement in order to boost your conversion in the year ahead. 

Establish Your Active Lead Cap

Going hand in hand with conversion, it is important to know the limits of your bandwidth. In biology, there exists the concept of carrying capacity: the maximum number of organisms that can be supported by an ecosystem. Taking this line of reasoning and applying it to your business, you should take it upon yourself to calculate the maximum number of leads you can properly follow up with (support) in the ecosystem that is your business. We find it best to establish your active lead cap by setting very specific criteria you will adhere to for disqualifying prospects. As a rule of thumb, you should plan to follow up with cold prospects with 8-10 calls over the course of two weeks, while supplementing those calls with text messages and emails. Then, you should transition prospects into a longer term nurture campaign with less regular calls and emails. You need to be stringent when establishing your disqualification criteria - removing someone from your followup plans too soon often leads to missing out on helping the client transact when they are actually ready to move forward. 

By establishing your active lead cap and setting disqualification criteria, you’ll enable yourself to get more out of your prospecting, which in turn should result in higher conversion rates. Taking a bit of your holiday downtime to follow these tips can have a lasting beneficial impact on your business, which is a present you should definitely give yourself.