To succeed in your career, you need to first start with life planning. Where do you want to be two, five and 10 years from now? What do you want to be doing? You need to arm yourself with a clear strategy for growth and allow yourself the time to be still, dream and refocus for the year ahead.
As leaders, we are responsible for setting the tone, vision and pace for our success. It’s vital to build a business that you actually love — an endeavor that fuels a top 1 percent life you can enjoy.
These next four points will help you and your team reflect on all the accomplishments you’ve had and all that you’ve worked together to overcome thus far in 2020.
Harnessing the power of virtual meetings
Instead of looking at the negative side of things and seeing Zoom as an awful thing we’re all tired of at this point, we can try to look at our 2020 meetings from a positive perspective. Virtual meetings kept our teams connected. They kept us in each other’s lives during one of the most isolating times in our lives.
We were able to have weekly — or even daily — team meetings. With virtual meetings, you were able to use check-ins as a way to nurture certain aspects of your team’s jobs, ensuring your team members knew they could come to you for guidance.
These meetings helped us make sure that nothing fell through the cracks — that we were all on the same page and had our game faces on while we navigated an uncertain future.
Having a strategic model
As I’ve mentioned in an Inman article before, teams who had implemented a strategic model came out of the other side of this year with nothing less than a successful road ahead.
Having a strategic model in place means that you account for what your future needs might be — like, more time, more relief and the possibility of bringing someone onboard who can oversee certain parts of your business as you work to grow it.
As a result of this, you’ll gain clarity and strategy — two things you’ll absolutely need when elevating your existing business and creating one that’s designed for growth.
Celebrating successes — now more than ever
If 2020 taught us anything, it was how to slow down and celebrate the small things! As I mentioned in this Inman article, fear ruins creativity. On the other hand, celebration and encouragement helps it grow.
My advice to team leaders is to continue to look for opportunities to celebrate strong performances and celebrate team wins. Not only will this motivate your agents to excel in their daily work, they’ll also appreciate knowing that they are a part of a team that knows how to emerge a winner — even in tumultuous times.
Creating a performance environment
This means designing an environment that’s conducive to success — one that helps boost your agents’ performance. As teams have learned this year, it’s important to foster a culture that supports and nurtures agents’ capabilities and leads to results for your business.
As I’ve said before, “a team is like a house; the job and purpose of a strong team is to support and predict success.” Agents who show up with their best selves at work become better at it. It’s as simple as that.
Especially in the world of real estate, so much of our ability to do good business is wrapped up in our ability to be personable, passionate, optimistic, flexible and genuinely care. And it can be hard to be all of those things when you’re bogged down by negativity.
So, despite the uncertain times, seek out ways to cultivate daily gratitude for those things — both big and small — that are going right in your life. Not only will it help you keep your head up as we weather the storm that we’re all experiencing, but it will also leave you a better person and a better entrepreneur once the blue skies do return.
Kathleen Black is the CEO of Kathleen Black Coaching and Consulting in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Connect with her on Instagram at @kathleenblackcoaching or through her website ItTakesa.Team.
