ForeclosuresMass - ForeclosuresMass Monthly - Feature Article - How Green Light Realty Exploded Profits by Documenting Business Systems (September 2008)

If you have a real estate business, you're probably already familiar with the "E-Myth" theory of business put forth by Michael Gerber. In his bestselling book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, Gerber explains why entrepreneurs need to systematize their businesses. Without documented systems, according to Gerber, you can't grow your business or make the kind of profits that build real wealth. And, without systems, you can't explain what you do to others, leaving you a virtual slave to your own business.

I met E-myth coach David Hilton at a ForeclosuresMass Turning the Key Event after reading Gerber's book and decided to enroll in the coaching program offered by FCM.

I wanted coaching for one simple reason: to systematize my company's approach to getting short sales approved for our clients instead of starting from scratch for every single deal.

Now, before you dismiss business coaching as a lot of hand holding and paying someone to listen to your troubles every month, let me just say that when you work with Hilton, nothing is further from the truth. Hilton's mission is to help entrepreneurs create business systems that produce consistent results through a series of well-defined steps, three of which I describe below.

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A business flow chart is not an org chart. Instead, it's an illustration of how the systems work in your business. This exercise proved quite insightful for Green Light Realty because we were able to see, for the first time, how each area of the business produced a result which then impacted another area. This chart produced a number of real "ah ha" moments.

My team and I then took each "oval" on the chart and turned it into a system and then began documenting - or writing out - these systems for each oval.

This sounds very fundamental, but it really forced all of us to think things through, to question why we were doing things the way we do, and to actually put our systems on paper. Trust me - this is an exercise that will never get done unless you have someone, like a coach, riding your tail.

Result: All systems for each area of the business are now fully documented or are in progress.

The second coaching assignment revolved around creating a one-page business plan and a mission statement - only the mission statement had to show that we understood our customers' wants and needs. We worked on several exercises where we learned to determine what our customers want and why they would want to do business with us.

Again, this ended up being an insightful exercise. We realized that our marketing focused on our company - and how great we are - rather than how we can specifically help clients. We ended up completely rewriting our marketing materials, ramping up our direct mail campaigns and rewriting letter copy as well as developing a new website.

Result: Significantly more leads! The number of leads we used to get pales in comparison to what we generate now. On top of that, we now have agents who want to work for us - because they noticed the difference in our marketing efforts. We are now able to provide our sales agents with qualified leads consistently.

This is another business fundamental, but as any entrepreneur will tell you, few do it - including myself. Now, however, we know down to the envelope how many mail pieces we send out. We use various versions of the same direct mail letter and then track responses per letter - including the number of calls each one generates. For each deal, we know down to the penny where each one came from.

Result: More leads and lower costs. Because we know which marketing techniques work, and which don't, we're no longer wasting marketing dollars.

The goal of using Hilton as a business coach was to help systematize the business and to close more short sale deals for our clients. As a result of implementing the steps outlined above, we now close short sales 93% of the time - something we couldn't even imagine before. Our sales agents now have a system that ensures their success.

Even better, the business is now immune to the decline in the market. Due to Hilton's coaching and our work, we have a system that can sell properties in any kind of market. The more the market declines, the more short sales are needed. Thanks to our business systems, our agents can handle more work - which means greater profits.

Another benefit of coaching, which I hadn't expected, is that it has helped us anticipate the market correction and how we'll transition into regular sales. We're already planning for the correction.

Working with David Hilton has completely changed how I view what I and my business can achieve. The "systematize your business" approach works with virtually any type of business and the entire strategic coaching process gives you the blueprint for having a successful business.

Don Armstrong is the CEO of Green Light Realty, an innovative real estate firm which specializes in getting short sales approved throughout Massachusetts. The company is currently recruiting qualified agents/brokers. Don can be reached by phone at 781-233-9939 x 21 or via the company's website at www.GreenLight-Realty.com or www.NoEquityNoWorry.com

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