I hope you’ve been enjoying some quality family Christmas time, making memories with the loved ones you are able to see, and replenishing yourself for the projects of Q1 2021.
I love the magic that Christmas brings, but also the quiet space from the march of a typical week. These final few days of the year and the first week of the new year offer us the time to pause for reflection and design, with intention. I hope you look back on your 2020, and despite all the challenges of the year, you can acknowledge all of the incremental progress that has been made on your journey in property investing. It is important to think about the past year intelligently because past performance is the best predictor of the future.
Reflection is one of the most important things an action oriented entrepreneur can do – why is it so important to reflect and acknowledge progress? We tend to unconsciously discount the progress we have made and be painfully conscious of the shortcomings in the immediate future.
If that sounds like you, then this quote may be helpful, “Things are never as bad or as good as they seem”. It’s been attributed to a few different people so not sure who originally said it.
So, this instructional post is building on a mini tradition for me to share at this time of year – and it contains absolute gold for you, if you choose to invest the time to work through the following 6 sections and answer the questions for yourself and your own last 12 months in property.
This intelligent reflection forms the most important part of the year end review – a powerful way to reconcile the last 12 months and transition into planning the next 12. In my questionable opinion it’s essential to punctuate this time of year with such a process. I am starting this exercise myself now and it forms the first part of the overall review and goal setting process that I invest significant time in over the final week of the year, and first week of the new year. I will follow up this with my summary on the goal setting process next week.
Happy New Year when it comes, and wishing you health, wealth and happiness in 2021!
Below are the 6 phases of the intelligent reflection process with all the questions for you to answer.
PART 1 – GRATITUDE REFLECTION
*What new capabilities did I master?
*What behaviours really caused me to win?
*What are my personal current strengths?
*What are the business’ current strengths?
*What were your biggest accomplishments this last year?
*What marketing or business development won this year?
*What was the best thing your property business created for you?
*What was the most extraordinary value or customer experience that you created? (who did we really move the dial for?)
PART 2 – CONSTRUCTIVE REFLECTION
*What were the most important lessons learned?
*What were your weak points, what do you need to improve?
*Are there any threats to your business or market?
*Any missed opportunities?
*What are the current weaknesses of your business?
*Were there any ways to improve customer service in the last year?
PART 3 – GETTING REAL
*Specific metrics for your business this last year (what was it you were focussing on? What were you trying to grow? What were the conversion rates you were trying to improve?)
*Products/services I sold in 2020?
*2020 gross revenue?
*2020 Expenses?
*Split expenses into 3 categories- what percentages were:
Marketing _
Operations _
Income/Salaries/dividends _
*2020 net profit
PART 4 – MEASUREMENT (need to compare year on year, power of measurement)
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your:
[assess all those that are relevant to your property business. NB, even if you don’t think you are marketing there is a good chance you are ie your version of lead generation may be networking to identify potential JV partners]
*Lead Gen –
*Lead conversion –
*Customer fulfilment (following through on the promise)-
*Human resources (are they the best people in their roles)-
*Financial Systems (how clear on numbers month on month)-
*Market research –
*Satisfaction of the people in the business –
*Satisfaction with your work life balance –
PART 5 – LETTER TO YOURSELF
Write a letter to yourself (having reflected on each section). Write it as if you’ve gone back in time and are writing the letter on 1st Jan 2020 explaining the bumps, scrapes, wisdom to come (and wow there were many unexpected bumps due to covid). So to give you some guidance notes, you could be writing to yourself about what you will face (in the year that was), where you will despair, where you will draw strength, what beliefs will be tested, what capabilities will be gained, don’t forget all the good stuff to come.
Why do this? This exercise helps you examine the past with a present perspective. It works on the idea of reconciling expectations from a year ago with where you really are today. Essentially, this puts a proverbial ‘bow’ on the last 12 months and who we have become.
PART 6 – NAME IT
What single word would put a name to your 2020? (look to be constructive with this).
See you next week with part 2 on the goal setting process.