What If…
I know. I understand, the depth, breadth and pain, depends on your local market place. Wherever you are, It’s been a damn long slough.
Do you think we’re on the road to recovery? I wish we were. I hope we are. I fear we are not, and I need a Plan B.
5 reasons “Plan B” goes into effect tomorrow.
- The unfelt effect of shadow inventory is coming.
- Then, there’s all those people who haven’t been making their mortgage payments. Instead, they’ve been living rent free and spending their money on other things, which is temporarily boosting the economy. I’m not making a judgement about that, I’m wondering what happens when the banks catch up and all these people have to start paying rent? What effect will that have on the economy, consumer confidence, consumer spending, etc.
- While mortgage rates remain low, qualifying fire-hoops for people and properties to jump through remain hot and high. I don’t see these turning favorable anytime soon do you?
- The Tax Credit pushed future qualified buyers into the present, now the pool of future qualified buyers is half empty.
- Sales Units/Volume are not rising in tandem with historical summer selling patterns.
The pie is smaller and it’s not growing this year. Period.
What’s your Plan B.
My Plan B
I remind myself, the only things we can control are our actions and attitudes. We can’t control the actions and attitudes of others. At our team meeting tomorrow, here’s what I’m sharing.
- Evaluate our marketing/business expense. Stop spending superstitiously. If marketing and promotional campaigns aren’t generating verifiable referrals, prospects or suspects, stop it now.
- Evaluate personal spending and consciously categorize everything: I Want. ~vs~ I Need. Nice To Have. ~vs~ Mission Critical. Investment. ~vs~ Expense.
- Keep our heads up, our minds open,our attitudes confident and our work-ethic strong-like-bull. Remember, whining, fear, anxiety, anger and negativity repel opportunity. In troubled times, leadership, confidence, humor and showing up, attracts opportunity.
- Refocus on high leverage activities. Shift time and effort from chasing strangers to in-person and on-purpose contact and conversation with people who already know and trust you.
- To help stay focused, use this Checklist Daily.
Success, Grace and Speed
As you know, there are only so many things you can do to position yourself for success. If the market continues to change and we don’t, bad things happen. Anyway you slice it up, the sooner we get started, doing the right things, with the right people, the faster we’ll find success or simple survival.
Today we’re talking about it. Tomorrow, we’ll start to do Plan B things in earnest.
How about you? What’s Your “Plan B”
What do you think will happen in your local market? Do you have a Plan B. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking and especially, what you’l be doing different.
Thanks for reading. Cheers.
Genuine Chris Johnson
June 21, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Shiver me timbers! Some brilliance here!
Work, repetition, effort. Whoda thunk it.
Ken Brand
June 21, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Thanks Chris, this is not time to think we’ve made it and or summer will save us. Only we can save ourselves. If we start today, we have a chance, if not, RIP.
Cheers to sweat soaked, action oriented, achievers. AKA as 2011 survivors.
Erica Ramus
June 21, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Now you’re scaring me.
Ken Brand
June 21, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Yeah, I’m scaring myself. Reality check, if summer slips away and it sucks, it’s too late to adjust for winter. I can hear the Jungle Drums.
BawldGuy
June 21, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Ken, the more you write, the more I think we’re cousins. 🙂
Plan B at my place began in the 1st quarter of last year, a six month plan just now about to have its rubber hit the asphalt. Fear? If one’s not at least jittery by now, they’re either blissfully ignorant or naive beyond help. Sorry if that sounds mean spirited, as it’s not my intention. Most of the RE online world writes now about the upward movement in prices. They’re what I call the SLCs — SilverLiningChasers. They refuse to believe their lyin’ eyes and ears. 🙂
My firm’s Plan B demonstrates the built-in advantage I have over my house-agent peers. I’m returning to my local market in San Diego after over six years away so as to convince investment property owners to Get Outa Dodge while the gettin’ is still good. This will not only serve the firm’s revenue stream well, but put many local investors on much higher/safer ground when the tide goes against them here, as it surely will. Where’s the advantage? I can empirically demonstrate to investors they’re far better off moving their equity(s) to regions offering demonstrably superior performance — read: CASH FLOW. In other words, I can create business where none existed, AND bring real measurable value to the table while doing so.
Also, The Boss, by the end of the year, may have the only retail operation around that’ll be debt free. I’ve shown her the real estate template which she’s now implementing as quickly as is safe. By next year’s 1st quarter she’ll be funding all operations via profits — what a concept. The income will grow more slowly, but the flexibility will skyrocket.
There are other things I’m doing on the real estate brokerage side, but this ain’t the place. Those without Plan B’s ready to implement, or for that matter, already in execution, will surely be among the group who’ll soon be wondering, “What happened?!”
Ken Brand
June 21, 2010 at 8:28 pm
BG – I’ve been playing in pretty cool, but shoes keep droppen, and the noise down the hallway keeps getting louder, and schriller.
Time to make a quick run to the John, lace’em up tight, and hit the field running. I’m not worried or scared, I’m concerned and on high-alert, with my head and my business plan on a swivel.
It really is Go time my friend(s).
Matt Stigliano
June 21, 2010 at 8:30 pm
@kenbrand – The usual kudos to you for a great article. That goes without saying (even thought I just said it). Love the plan, love the idea of preparing (if you’re wrong you’ll be even more prepared), and knowing your wordsmithery, I have to say this is one of your most easy to follow and understand posts ever. Having said that, don’t make it a habit, I relish in reading your more weighty mind-bending posts.
What I love the most? The daily checklist. I’ve never seen one that actually accounts for activities outside of the human realm (ie the internet/social media). To me, this is a good concrete example of how all of those things (face to face and keyboard to keyboard) can be used to reach the goals. I know you wouldn’t waste paper on them otherwise. I do have one change to suggest: under Facebook you can create a “# of mobsters gunned down or vegetables raised _______________” – print this in red ink.
Although I try to avoid too much negative thinking, as some may see this, I think this is just smart business. Plan for the worst and you’ll be prepared for everything else.
Ken Brand
June 21, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Thanks Matt, you make me smile and laugh and think.
One of my biggest flaws and thing I enjoy the most, is the odd ball way I explain things. I know it’s often hard to read and sometimes the dots don’ts all zen-up and connect, but you know how its i, you gotta say it like you feel it. Some of those weird ones took hours to write them weird like that. In this particular case, I wrote it fast because I wanted to get it out there now, as I was preparing to share the same at tomorrows team meeting.
And you’re exactly right, like everything else in real estate, things are rarely, really about the thing there’re about, it’s about the impact on all the other things that orbit around the thing. It’s Gestalt stuff. Which is to say, it doesn’t matter if good or bad things happen, if you double your efforts and have a Plan B, you’re prepared and positioned to make things happen.
Cheers Matt.
Susie Blackmon
June 22, 2010 at 5:44 am
Being forever the optimist, I enjoy and appreciate every new day, even now! However, your ‘concerns’ are right on, IMHO, and I ‘hear’ there could be a food shortage in the near future to deal with, so it’s not all about the realtors and real estate… it could be about more important things, like survival. I’m working on Plan B already, recently making my escape out of Aaaargh, NC to horse country (Ocala) in Florida, where there is life and vitality; albeit, not in the RE industry at the moment. Scary times but exciting times. Maybe this bloodletting will, organically, RTB in real estate. In the meantime, just let me find an RV to survive in, which should be exciting in hurricane alley.
Love your writing, Ken.
Ken Brand
June 22, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Thanks Susie. I think I can deal with a choppy real estate market, a food shortage sounds like a recipe for chaos. Let’s hope not. In any event, keep the faith and what ever you do, tie the RV down tight. Cheers.
Doug Francis
June 22, 2010 at 3:58 pm
It is an interesting market as I see so many agents stretched thin… with low numbers and slugging it out to stay in business. The reality is that your plan-B is going to be the new game plan for a while.
Humor, personally, is how I get through things but this recession has given me little to laugh at. And I really have to work at remaining positive!
Dunes
June 22, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Just in case anyone feels it’s relevant..
“Visits to websites in the real estate category during May were down 24.3 percent from a year ago — the 12th consecutive month of year-over-year traffic declines dating to June 2009, the report said.”
inman.com/news/2010/06/22/social-networking-sites-gobble-more-traffic