Map Your Business Journey

What if I told you there is a map out there specifically for your business? A playbook to tell you everything you need to do this year to make your business the success you want it to be. 

This week we have Tammy Schnieder Co-founder of The Marketing Animals here to discuss with us business plans and how to create a map for your business. Tammy shares how to break down your goals and how to better track your progress throughout the year. The map to your business is out there and it start with you!

You can listen to all episodes of Agent Vs Lender on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you love Agent Vs Lender follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram for all bonus content. 

Transcript

Ron Pippin: 0:07

Welcome to another episode of agent versus lender. And today I have with me Tammy Schneider. She is the co founder and partner of mortgage marketing animals and the freedom Club, which is a coaching and mentoring. She has a big group of coaching and mentoring that have loan officers, real estate agents, so people within our within our industry, and she's personally my coach as well. So I'm, I'm happy to have her here today. She also owns she's a partner in a mortgage company. And so she walks doesn't just talk the talk, but she walks the walk as well. So welcome, Tammy, I'm happy to have you here today.

Tammy Schneider: 1:00

Thank you, Ron. It's so great to be here. I love being able to help people. And so, being a guest on here was like right up my alley. So thank you for having me.

Ron Pippin: 1:11

Awesome. Thanks so much, Tammy. Well, let's, um, let's, I guess let's just jump right into it.

Tammy Schneider: 1:17

Sure.

Ron Pippin: 1:18

So over the last, at the end of the year, we always talk about business plans. And we talk about planning for this next year. And, you know, to be quite honest, Tammy has been after me to get my business plan done. And so we finally are, are through that process. And so we thought maybe that might be a good a good topic that we could discuss today. So, Tammy, what's up? You know, I'm gonna turn some time over to you. And let's store wherever you want to start.

Tammy Schneider: 1:49

Okay, well, first, let's talk about the importance of having a business plan. First, I have found that if you don't know where you're going just like directions, if you don't know where you're going, if you don't have a map, if you don't know how you're going to get, how are you going to get wherever you are going. And so that's what a business plan kind of does for you. It allows you to say, this is what I did last year, this is where all that business came from. This is what I'm going to do this coming year. And this is how I'm going to accomplish it. So what I like to do is take people through, it's a very easy, and actually I will provide this for you Ron to be able to give to your real estate agents so that they can do it themselves. But I have a spreadsheet. It's a simple one page business plan. I have found if you make things too complicated, you look at it and you're like, oh, let me do that later. Oh, I think I'll work on that later. Oh, ye. And so if you can make it as easy as possible, then one, you're more likely to fill it out. And two, you're more likely to accomplish what you're looking to accomplish. So let's jump right in. I'm going to show and share my screen with you guys so that I can walk you through this. And then I will provide this to you. And I'm going to try and be as explicit I guess as possible in explaining this because I realize some people will be driving as they listen to it, and not everyone will be able to see this. So

Ron Pippin: 3:23

yeah, so I appreciate that. Because, yeah, for those of you that, that are listening to this and not watching this on YouTube. Yeah, I think I think Tammy does a great job of explaining and will and didn't, she just said that she'll she'll provide this. So just just contact me and we'll get this over to you.

Tammy Schneider: 3:41

Perfect. So the first thing in any business plan is to know where you are today, what's happening currently in your business. So there's a spot on this form to fill out what happened to you in 2020. So how many listings did you have in 2020? How many bind side sales? Did you have? What did your comp plan look like? Are you at 1% 2% 3%? If you kind of get a smattering all over the place. What's your average on there? What's your average sale price, so that you can kind of calculate what your income is, what your income for last year was? How many referral partners or business partners? Do you have that refer business to you? Do you work with CPAs, financial planners, builders, attorneys, etc. partner up with real estate I mean, other loan officers? How many partners do you have? And then how many staff members do you have? So that's what happened in 2020. And then where do you want to be in 2021? Do you want to increase those numbers? Do you want to get out of the listing side and go more to the buy side do you want to get out of the buy side To go more to the listing side, do you want to increase what your average comp amount was? Do you want to increase your average sales price or average listing price? So do you want to increase how many people you're in business with your partners with, so it gives you an idea of what we're going to be shooting for, for 2021. Then the next thing you're going to do is sit down and figure out five business goals that you want to accomplish for the entire year. Remember, this is a one year plan. So give yourself grace, that you're not going to accomplish it all in one month, it's a year plan. So maybe you do want to get out of the buy side and get into nothing. But listings, you got a year to make that happen. Maybe you want to start your own brokerage, and opening up your own company. Maybe you're a listing agent now, and you want to hire three or four buyer's agents under you so that you can stop showing homes. So there's a lot of things that you could do, maybe you don't have a CRM, and you need to get a CRM built into your business. Maybe you don't have a marketing plan, and you want to develop a marketing plan. So there's a lot of business goals that could go underneath those. So pick out your top five, if you and Ron were having a conversation December 31 of this year. And he said, it's been quite the year hasn't it? What happens to you to make you have such an amazing year, you'd be able to say I accomplished A, B, C, D, E, and F. So pick out your top five business goals that you want to accomplish. Then I also like to throw in their personal things. Because our lives are so intermeshed and intertwined with each other, we don't just live at work, and then go home, and nothing's going on there. So pick five top goals that you would LOVE, LOVE LOVE to accomplish by the end of the year. Some people are like, their health goals, I want to lose weight, I want to go to the gym, I want to stop drinking or smoking or something like that, perhaps are more personal level, like I want to learn a second language, perhaps it's I want to get out of debt or pay off a home or buy a second home. I want to take more vacations, I don't want to work weekends anymore. So there's a lot of things that you can have as personal goals in there. So I want you to get five business goals, five personal goals. And now

Ron Pippin: 7:47

choose just five mean five, five, is it just so that we're not overwhelmed trying to do too many things at one time?

Tammy Schneider: 7:55

Yes, I have found that if you try and do way too many things that our brains weren't created for that. Our brains if you think back into the very simplest of simple back in caveman days, we didn't have that much stuff we had to do, honestly, we had to go out and hunt. We had to go out and gather stuff together. And then we cleaned all that kind of stuff and and there wasn't a lot to do. So our brains were really made to be problem solvers. But if you have 5000 problems at one time that you're trying to solve, our brain gets kind of like overwhelmed and overloaded. So a great exercise that I like to do, Ron, and I think you and I have done this a couple times is a brain dump. So maybe you do have a lot of stuff that you want to get done. Sit down for 15 minutes, you need 15 minutes and a timer and a white piece of paper. And that's it, turn off your phone, turn off your computer, turn off the TV, turn everything off. And it's just you and this list, and you just start dumping everything out of your brain, dump it out, dump it out, dump it out, just write write, write, write, write the first 10 minutes, you may be writing a lot by the end of this at at minute 15 you're going to be struggling with like what else? Oh, yeah, I do want to change the oil in the car. Oh, yeah, I do want to, you know, wash out the filters in the pool. So, but just get everything out of your head. Now this document is going to be your new brain, so don't lose it. I had someone who got it, the whole thing filled out and they did it in their jacuzzi, and then they dropped the list in the jacuzzi. It's like, no, so they had to do it all over again. So don't drop your list anywhere. But since this is going to be your brain. I would take a couple photos of it. I would make a couple copies of it and have someone trusted, help you hold on to this. Put a copy in your nightstand put a copy in your desk, put a copy in your car, carry one with you so you can add that If you want to, but but once your brains not busy trying to remember all the things you have to do, it frees it up to solve problems. So that's why I like five of each.

Ron Pippin: 10:13

And Tammy, that that reminds me, sometimes I will, I will carry a little notebook with me. And so when something comes to my mind, I'll write it in there. And then at the end of the day, I write down everything that I have to do for the next day so that I have some kind of plan. Otherwise, I'm just when I get in, I'm just, I'm just scattered with trying to put out whatever fire comes comes through. But I find that if I have a list, and this is a little more along the same line, just just condensed into one day, if I have that list in front of me, and if I kind of prioritize and say I just have to do one thing or two things, if I get one or two things off that list, then I've had a successful day. And then they can they can roll over as long as that's not something that's, that's really urgent that day. But But then I just, I feel like, oh, I've accomplished something.

Tammy Schneider: 11:07

Yes.

Ron Pippin: 11:08

But don't have that lesson, I'm not crossing something off, I get to the end of the day go, what did I really do?

Tammy Schneider: 11:15

I love that. And the reason I pick five large goals is because we're going to be breaking them down into smaller goals. So let's say you don't have a CRM, that's not a like, Hey, I'm going to put that on my list. And I'll be able to cross it off tomorrow kind of item to do, is it No, it's not, that may take a long time to do. And so let's use that as our example for what we're going to be doing now. Okay, so building out a CRM. So if you don't have one, they're awesome. For being able to help keep track of business coming in the door, we call those leads, referrals. So being able to keep track of all these names, and you're paying a lot of money to bring leads in the door, keep track of them, so that you can keep in touch with them, then we need to be able to keep up with in touch with people we've done business with in the past our past clients, we need to be able to keep in touch with people that perhaps want to buy something in the future, they're just not ready to today. So I call those a prospect or any incubating kind of person. So they're going to but some people aren't ready like today to buy a house tomorrow, they gotta save more money up, they've got a rental apartment, that they've got to wait for six or eight months for it to be finished. So there's could be lots of reasons why they're not ready today to get that home. But when they're when they are ready, we want them to use us because we've invested some time in them already. So this CRM can help you do that keeps track of all kinds of stuff. So if you don't have a CRM in place, first, I would choose one, there are a lot of them out there. So I would choose a great CRM. And then what I would do is I would take my business and divide it up into four sections, we just talked about a couple of them. So leads, prospects, current clients, people you're in a contract with, right this moment, past clients, so those could be four categories right there. And then I would take each of those categories and put them in each quarter. And so first quarter, wherever your biggest problem is, maybe you're having a problem keeping track of all your leads work on that the first quarter, let's get that problem solved with what emails are going to go out what text message,

Ron Pippin: 13:48

so to me, so for those that are listening in if they if you already have a CRM, this may not it may seem like this doesn't apply to you, but it actually does. It's, it's she just using this as an example. So you may have, you may have something else on your plate, but she's just going through the steps of what to do to break it down. So just use the steps that she's talking about, and break this down whatever your big goal is, and just break it down into different steps.

Tammy Schneider: 14:23

Yeah, I just take everything and try and divide it down into quarters. So let's say one of your goals was to hire four new buying agents underneath you. So if you divided that into a quarterly goal, it would be I'm going to hire one by side agent every single quarter. So once a quarter I'll be bringing on a by a buyer's agent. If you want to open your own business, how do you divide that into quarterly things? Well, you got to take the test to become a broker first. So when do you want to do that by so just you know break it down into big chunks of, Hey, I got to find space for that, I'm going to have to hire three or four agents to come in and work for me, I'm going to have to get all my licenses and all of my business stuff all set up. So when you know what all of those things are, then you can divide them out into quarterly goals from there. So just take every single one of your large business goals and say, How can I make that happen by dividing it up quarterly, and making that happen? So we in our business, in the mortgage business, we do sales activities every single day. And perhaps you as a real estate agent, know that you need to be doing some sales activities every day, you just haven't planned for it. So first, what you could do is decide who would make good people for me to call. So well, if if we called professionals like CPAs, financial planners, etc. That could be a group of people that they could call people that they're currently showing homes to or in their pipeline right now, that could be a great group of people to call their past database, that could be a great group of people to call builders would be a great group of people to maybe call on circle of influence people maybe that they've been to they went to college with or that they worked with in the past, or that they know from church or their kids, schools, parents, etc. So just knowing Okay, here's these groups of people I'm going to call, what I'm going to do is divide that up into quarters again. And so first quarter, let me get my database in order. second base, let me get my list of CPAs and financial planners, etc. In order, third quarter, let me do my in process people I'm currently working with and taking out to show houses. So it's just being able to know what you're looking to accomplish, and then being able to chunk it down into little bite sized pieces for yourself. So let's take a personal goal and do something like that with the personal goals, let's say by the end of the year, you want to be going to the gym five times a week, right now, you're lucky if you go once. But you really, really, really want to make it five times. So what you could do as a quarterly goal is that each quarter, you just add one day. So right now I'm going one day, a month, you're allowed to be an overachiever. So if you want to go more than that have added, but your minimum requirement is going one day, a week, then the next quarter, you could add the second day and just get yourself into the habit of that, then the next quarter, three days a week, then the next quarter, four days a week. And so it's being able to add things to your plate that I hate this word, hate it, hate it, hate it, I tell all my clients don't don't use this word realistically. Because what we can accomplished is pretty doggone amazing when we put our minds to it. With that being said, though, it's kind of hard to go from never working out to committing for the rest of your life to working out five days a week. And so that's why is

Ron Pippin: 18:35

that's that's got to be one of the most difficult things I mean, working out is on top of just about everybody's plan. But making that a reality, especially when you say hey, I'm going to do it every single day and you haven't been to the gym, you haven't darkened the door and a year or two or ever. It's an overwhelming task. And so this is I love that you're using this as a as an example. Because it's, it's, it's a really good thing for all of us to break down into bite tight bite sized chunks so we can make that a reality.

Tammy Schneider: 19:10

And maybe you want to lose weight. You could divide that up into quarterly goals as well. You know, I got to use for lose 40 pounds each quarter. I'm gonna lose 10 so now you don't have this huge elephant in the room where it's like, oh my gosh, how am I ever going to lose 40 pounds, you don't have to lose 40 pounds, you've got to lose 10 that's it 10 now, what do you need to do to make that happen? Again, it can go back to bite sized chunks. It's not. I'm gonna use my magic word that I don't like it's unrealistic to say I eat like crap today and tomorrow. I'm never eating junk food again. I'm never eating sugar. Again. I'm never eating fried foods. Again. I'm never eating breads. Again. That's a very hard change. Most people Do not stick to their new year's resolutions. So if we took a poll, I bet if we said, Hey, everyone listening to our podcast today, how many of you have already broken your New Year's resolution? I would guess that 80%. Have you already broken their new year's resolution?

Ron Pippin: 20:21

That would not surprise me at all?

Tammy Schneider: 20:23

Yes. It's because the, the, the goal was too lofty. And so I like to set goals that are extremely doable, and increase them often. Then to set a really high goal. The moment you don't make it, your brain starts being very mean to you and telling you, you suck. Oh, sorry. I hope I can say that on here. I'm sorry.

Ron Pippin: 20:58

You're fine. I've had I've had people say much worse. So,

Tammy Schneider: 21:01

okay. You You're a failure. See, I knew you couldn't do it. See, this is heartbreak. We're so mean to ourselves. It's not even funny. It's not even funny. So I'd rather have you say, Oh, my gosh, my goal was go to the gym twice this week, I did it, yay. And you do that for two months or three months, and you give yourself a win, win, you give yourself a win, it's so much easier to keep producing and keep moving forward than it is. How many of us have done this, hey, I'm going to be really good eating this week. And then Wednesday gets here and we have dessert. It was like well, oh my gosh, I might as well eat like crap for the rest of the week. And then come Monday, I'm gonna start all over again. What was wrong with just starting all over again? Wednesday, after the piece of dessert was done. Why couldn't you just start Thursday? It's because we let ourselves down. And now it's like, well, let me go and do. I'll start again, Monday. No, no, no, no. So that's why I like little tiny goals that you can chunk this down into. So we're gonna have five big goals, business, five big goals personal, then we're going to take each of those and chunk them down into what are the things I need to do quarterly to make that happen, then the final piece of this, go ahead,

Ron Pippin: 22:24

tell me that so that one of the things that that I find that I have an issue with is when I do let myself down, and I say, Oh, I'm just gonna, I'm just not gonna do it anymore. Or I'm just, I'm just gonna start next month, is that if you put that that restart date that, that, you know, you reboot date out too far, then oftentimes, it just doesn't happen.

Tammy Schneider: 22:48

Right?

Ron Pippin: 22:48

That's a really good point that you made is like, soon as you just as soon as you mess up, it's just like, we're all gonna mess up. Just Just start later that day or the next day, and just start over. It's no big deal. It's like rebooting your computer. Don't Don't wait three months to reboot your computer computer if you need it. Now, just reboot it now.

Tammy Schneider: 23:12

Exactly, exactly. And then the final piece of this was all right, now we've got that our big goals, our quarterly goals. Now what's one, maybe two things that you can commit to on a weekly basis. So again, don't overwhelm yourself with 9000 things every week, I commit to doing like, again, back to my own coaching students and group, we have four days out of the week that you have to commit to selling for my clients. I'm like, I only want you to commit for this first quarter to one of those days, pick one of those days that you commit to selling. And then next quarter, we're going to add on another day. And then the next quarter we're going to add on another day. So instead of committing to all four days of Hey, I've got a call perfectly, I've got to do all my tasks perfectly every single day, every single week. It's like no, what am I going to commit to one time every week, there's a lot of stuff that can be here, perhaps you've wanted to get into video that might be one of your top business goals is to start a pot, your own podcast, or to maybe start incurring and putting video into your your messages and into your marketing etc. And so maybe what you can do is I commit to 130 second video, and it doesn't even have to be real estate related. It can be anything I just want to get myself to shoot a video every single week. So you could do something like that to get your it's building habit building habit building habit. So is there something a one or two things that you want to commit to weekly to do and then is there one or two Things that you want to commit to monthly to, like, perhaps you want to host a luncheon, learn, maybe teach a class once a month. So maybe hosting a happy hour or, or doing a zoom meeting or something like that for clients or hope, hosting maybe a first time homebuyer seminar or something like that. So just one thing that you want to commit to doing every single month, what are the things that are at the top of the page, and I find it to be very important, so I put it on here. But if you don't want to, you don't have to, is committed to a word or a phrase every year and changing it every single year. So I can people use all the happy words peace, joy, love, happiness, etc. commitment, persistence, consistency, forgiveness, I mean, there's all kinds of words that you get to have but but pick a word that that you want to commit to this year, and have that be your word of the year. And then if we go down to the very bottom down here, there's a little mini schedule that you can put on there, I've had one of my clients said, Hey, by the end of the year, I want to commit to living by my calendar, I don't want to fly by the seat of my pants, I want to know what my calendar looks like. So for that, it's like, Alright, maybe the first quarter, you map out just one day, one hour of your day is I will always do this during this hour, every single day, then the rest of the day, it's yours, then the next quarter, you add another hour, then the next quarter, you add another hour, then the next quarter, you add an hour hour and you keep adding to it until you've built it in so that your whole day is mapped out and planned. So I did put a little schedule in there that you guys can kind of like play with and see if there's anything that that works for you, at the very bottom of the business plan is what is something that you're currently doing in your business that you don't really particularly care for. And you would love to not be doing that by the end of the year. Let's say that you're a buyer's agent. And you would rather not show houses anymore, you'd like to move into the listing agent side of it. Maybe you're the one having to type up all the contracts and all the addendums and all that paperwork and stuff like that. And you don't want to do that anymore. You want to have an assistant do that. So pick out one thing, that by the end of the year, you want to commit to having figured out a way to get that off your plate.

Ron Pippin: 27:50

You know what I've talked to her agents just recently. It's really funny that this what is one thing to stop doing? It seems to come up quite a bit. And as I've talked to agents, I've had multiple people say I hate doing this, and I hate doing this. And I hate doing this. And so we end up talking about the circles. And it's Yeah, I'm not gonna go over that right now. But so if anybody wants to know what the circles are, call me. So we start going over that and talking about the things that you that you like that make you money and that and you're good at and that you're good at. And so we talk about that. And it's it's it's amazing how people can connect with that. But it's hard to give up. So for instance, I, I was I don't know if I'm gonna go over some of the things that I've done. But so some of the things that I've done, were really hard for me to give up. And it's sometimes it took me several years to give up this one thing to stop doing. So sometimes it's really hard. It's hard to change our habits. It's it's hard to change how we do business. But in the long run, giving up those things frees up our time to do either more activities that make us money, or more and more time with our family.

Tammy Schneider: 29:15

Yes, well, what I have found is that sometimes people have a hard time giving up or giving something to someone else. Something they're already not doing. Like our you know, one of my things is that you should be writing notes every day to people that you come across. I'm like have your assistant write it if you can't do it. And I have Oh, I never have someone else write my notes. Why not? You're already not doing it. So and then the other thing is everything and I do mean just about everything, everything, everything. Everything can be done by someone else. You are not the one on Earth, the only one on Earth. That can do that. You're not, I'm sorry to burst your bubbles, but you're not. And so it if you don't, this goes back to something you don't like doing, okay? Now, if you love doing that activity, you don't need to give something up, even if other people are telling you, hey, that's not a really good use of your time, but I love doing it. So I'm going to do it. But if you're doing something currently that you don't like doing, I promise you, someone else can do it, I promise. And so it goes back to your Why don't you feel like you can let go? Is it? Do you feel like you're the only one who can do that? The answer to that? No. I don't have anybody right now that could do that for me. Okay, well, there's a solution for that, let's find somebody, let's hire someone, there are people out there that you could train, how to do what you want them to do. And so Dream Big here to not just on the things you want to accomplish, but I would dream big on the things that you don't want to be doing as well. So if there's something that you've felt like, I really don't like doing that, but I have to do it, I'm the only one I own the business. I'm the main bread, I'm this I'm that I have to do it. No, you don't know you don't. And Ron can really help you be able to structure that out and what that might look like. And then the final piece that's on here is I want you to pick one piece, not 1000s. One, is there one piece of technology that you've really wanted to implement into your business, and you just haven't taken the time to do that. So is there a phone system or a text messaging system? Or that CRM that we chatted about? Or something that would help you stay in touch with your database? Is there something for your car, like a mileage thing, and there it can be all kinds of stuff, video cameras, I mean, just the sky's the limit what this technology could be. So pick out one piece of technology that you'd like to implement into your business by the end of the year. And so I think that kind of covers how to get yourself an instant business plan that you can stick to, I have seen 20 page business plans. And when I go back and say, Hey, what did you get done on it? It was hardly anything. These though, I have seen people fill these out, put them in the drawer, and we look at them next year. And they hit all their goals because it was so specific and so concise. And so I would highly encourage you guys to get this from Ron and to fill it out and maybe even sit down sometimes a second set of eyes is great. Maybe even sit down with him and go over it. I've taken him through it a dozen times. Yes, Ron?

Ron Pippin: 32:54

Yeah, we've gone through this many times. And last year, last year, I sat down with multiple agents, and we did this I'm happy to help people with this if if they want some help with it. Perfect.

Tammy Schneider: 33:08

What anything else you want to cover? Ron?

Ron Pippin: 33:11

No, I think that, you know, I just sat back and let you talk because because I didn't have a lot to add. It's like I'm in all of the things that that Tammy can come up with and Tammy can help me with. So I appreciate the Tammy business plan is like one of the most important things you can do. And and even though she had to it was like pulling teeth to get her to get me to do it. I knew it was important. And and so I'm grateful for her to that she was able to, to pull that out of me after after a while. So I appreciate that, Tammy,

Tammy Schneider: 33:48

my pleasure. My pleasure. So I will get this over to you guys and let you take it from there.

Ron Pippin: 33:57

Okay, sounds good. Again, we appreciate Tammy Schneider with us today. And if there's anything that me or my team can help you with, you can reach us at 801-628-7667. And that will bring to close another episode of agent versus lender.