The top real estate agents haven’t fumbled their way into success. Often, they’ve structured their development by creating a business action plan that lets them identify goals and work out the strategies they’ll use in order to reach them. Here are a few tips to create a business action plan for your own real estate practice.

Determine your objectives

In order to create a point of focus for your business, determine what your objectives will be. They should be tasks that are significant enough to work towards over the year. Ideally it’s also an objective that you can receive feedback on as you’re working towards your goal, which lets you know if you’re on the right track. Your objectives should be used as a point of reference if you feel like you’re getting off-track.

Don’t be afraid to incorporate personal goals while setting your business objectives as well. If you’re saving up for a vacation or large purchase, setting a financial achievement for your business can help you stay motivated. Or perhaps you want to improve your public speaking abilities. This could be worked into the objective of heightening brand awareness.

Identify strategies

Once you’ve nailed down your main objectives, determine what tactics you’ll use to accomplish them. Identify what your strengths are and play on them to get you closer to your goal. Write down all the strategies that you’ll use in order to accomplish your objective. For example, heightening brand awareness might mean a multi-pronged approach through direct mail, community sponsorship, phone calls, social media, and advertisements.

Gap analysis

Assess what resources you’ll need to achieve your objective. Resources can come in several forms, from finances to time to manpower or physical materials. For example, do you have enough time in your current schedule to dedicate to increasing cold calls? If you want to reach a wider audience or a different demographic, will you need help translating your promotional materials?

Assess the risks

On the journey towards your objective, what risks or challenges do you foresee getting in the way? Identifying roadblocks ahead of time allows you to better plan for when the issues arise. Or perhaps you can create an alternate solution so that you aren’t derailed. Be honest with yourself and understand your circumstances and limitations.