Jess Lenouvel

Does this sound familiar?

“I’m not on track to complete any of the big goals I planned for this year.”

How about this?

“I’m not sure what I need to focus on or what I need to be working on.”

Many real estate agents feel this way at some point as they scale their businesses.
But there’s one tool you can use to overcome the uncertainty:

Intentional goal setting. 

Start by envisioning your long-term goals. 

Paint a clear picture of where you ultimately want to be in ten years. 

Then, the real magic happens when you break your 10-year goal down into smaller, more manageable goals – 3-year, 1-year, and quarterly increments.

This way, you have clear, actionable steps that move you closer to making that 10-year vision a reality. 

So, step away from uncertainty and gain clarity over your real estate goals with a definitive and effective plan for success.

Here’s how!

Setting Long-Term Goals As A Real Estate Agent

I’ve seen far too many agents who only focus on the now and neglect future goals. 

Realtors get trapped in a cycle of always chasing after the next deal – instead of planning long-term. 

This kind of short-term thinking can make it nearly impossible to reach your vision. 

If you don’t have a map for where you want to go, how can you possibly expect to get there? 

This is why you need clarity in your vision. 

Ask yourself, where do you see your business 10 years from now?

By having the vision piece clear, you can set actionable goals to hit your 10-year targets.

That vision of what you want your life to look like ten years from now drives how you set your goals. 

Your goals then drive all of your planning. 

Once you’ve planned how you’ll reach your goals, your planning dictates your resources and how they get allocated. 

Then, the resources you allocate drive your execution. 

Do you need to outsource certain things? Get more training for yourself? How are you going to use your time?

Finally, your execution will always directly influence your results. 

The key to all of this comes back to: Do you really know what you want?

Do you know where you want to be ten years from now?

So many agents are short-sighted in their thinking. It’s time to think beyond what you want to achieve this year. 

Instead, start thinking about what you’re building towards with your long-term vision. 

Is what you’re doing pushing you closer or further away from that ultimate dream?

Breaking Down Your 10-Year Vision

Once you’re clear on where you want your real estate business to be in ten years, don’t get distracted by shiny things along the way. 

You need a clear path that leads you to your 10-year vision. Then, you must rigorously follow it without veering off track. 

Start by breaking that 10-year vision down into three-year increments. 

Identify the priorities that need to happen to reach that first three-year milestone.

Then put tasks in place to reach that goal.

These three-year milestones become your map to reach your final destination. 

To gain clarity on your 3-year targets, there are a few things you want to consider:

Your Finances

By the end of your first three-year milestone, where do you want to be from a revenue standpoint? 

What’s your profit? 

How much do you have in savings? 

Do you have passive income streams built out?

Think of your finances as a whole – not just your business, but your whole life.

How are you building your business to support the lifestyle you want?

Your Team Structure

You can’t be a solo agent forever if you want to build a 7-figure real estate business. 

“Trying to” will only lead to burnout. 

So, in three years, are you still a solo agent? 

If not, how are you going to build a real estate team? 

Additionally, part of creating your team structure comes from deciding if you thrive in a more visionary or operational role. 

Think about how you want to fit into your team. 

Do you prefer to be knee-deep in operations or are you a visionary who loves coming up with ideas and planning for the future?

Having a clear understanding of this will help you build a high-performing team that keeps you in your zone of genius! 

Your Time Off

Finally, consider how much time you want to spend working. 

Clarity in terms of money and finances is one thing. 

But it’s important to remember not to get so caught up in hitting your revenue milestone that you forget to take time off. 

How much do you want to be working per week? 

Are you working a full 8-hour day or a 3-hour day?

How much vacation time do you have without your phone or laptop, completely off the grid?

Considering these factors – your work hours, daily schedule, and vacation time – is crucial. 

They’re just as important as financial goals in creating a balanced and sustainable business.

Which brings us to this important reminder:

Your Goals Can’t Just Be Monetary 

Success in real estate involves more than just financial gains. 

I firmly believe that people who allow their work to bleed into their personal lives have a lower chance of being successful. 

Instead, you put yourself at a higher risk of burnout. 

The reality is it’s not all about the grind 24/7.

Instead, set boundaries on your work hours and use your limited time to work on the most needle-moving tasks. 

Then, you’ll have more energy to actually move closer to your goals for your real estate business. 

So, how does limiting your work hours factor into your 3-year plan?

Create Your Ideal Schedule

As a real estate agent, when setting your 3-year goals, think about your ideal schedule. 

Map out an entire week of what your ideal day should look like in three years. 

Do you want to be able to drop off and pick up your kids from school every day – and do super focused work in between?

Do you want to have someone else running the day-to-day of your operations?

Do you want to divide your weekly workload into types of tasks that you can focus on each day? 

Mapping out your ideal week helps you visualize and work towards a business that lets you put your life first. 

These set the foundation of your 3-year plan for your real estate business. 

With them, you can craft the building blocks to make your 3-year plan a reality. 

Then, you’ll have deeper clarity to gauge whether you’re on track to reach your 10-year goals.

Planning Your Annual Goals As A Realtor

Now that you have your 3-year real estate business goals planned, it’s time to plan your annual goals.

Just like your 10-year plan, your 3-year plan also gets broken down into thirds – which become your 1-year goals.

Your 1-year goals should be mainly focused on where you want your revenue, profit, and personal pay to be. 

How many transactions do you need to hit those targets?

How do you plan to find the leads you need to fulfill your money goal?

Really think about what exactly you need to be focused on in the next year for you to reach your 3 and 10-year goals. 

Then, identify what your annual goals should look like. 

Achieve Your Goals By Setting Quarterly Rocks 

The next step is to set your quarterly rocks in your 90-day plans. 

The Quarterly Rocks Analogy was created by Gino Wickman to symbolize the importance of prioritizing your 90-day goals. 

It works like this:

Imagine you have an empty jar, and this jar is one specific size. 

Many realtors get distracted from their main goals by falling into the shiny object syndrome. When this happens, you throw sand and pebbles into your jar. 

Meanwhile, the rocks are the pieces of your business that absolutely have to get done this quarter.

But if your jar is already too full of sand and pebbles, you won’t have room to squeeze your rocks in. 

When you’re planning your quarterly goals, your major business priorities HAVE to come first. 

Anything else not directly related to those priorities is secondary. 

This keeps you focused firmly on track to achieving your vision. 

How to Plan Your Quarterly Goals

The first step to planning your real estate quarterly goals is knowing what your rocks are. 

What do you NEED to prioritize this quarter to reach your money goals? 

Decide what your major projects are for the next 90 days, then break them down into daily tasks. 

For most real estate agents, this comes down to knowing where there’s the most opportunity. 

Where do you want your income to be and what does that look like in terms of transactions?

Get really specific here. Analyze your market and the average sale price of properties in your area. Find the exact number of transactions you’ll need to meet your money goal. 

Now, figure out where those transactions will come from. 

This can normally be broken down into referrals, new clients, repeats, and people in your audience who are already warm to hot. 

Here’s how to audit your lead sources to discover where you have the most opportunity:

Auditing Your Lead Sources

Most realtors are only marketing toward the 3% of people who are ready to buy or sell their homes now. 

However, by only marketing to this small percentage of leads, you’re ignoring the rest of your lead sources.

Most real estate opportunities lie in targeting people in the information-gathering stage (approximately 17% of your audience) or leads who are even earlier in the process, in the problem-aware stage (approximately 20% of your audience). 

Identify where the majority of your opportunity is coming from before setting your quarterly goals.

This way, you know where to aim your focus to keep the needle moving forward. 

To help you narrow this down, do a simple audit of the four main lead sources:

1. Referrals

Everyone always thinks referrals are the easiest way to generate new business. 

However, it takes work to keep your referral database warm.

If you haven’t been maintaining your database, it’s going to be hard to earn transactions through referrals. 

2. New Clients

New clients are the ones who found you from organic social media, paid traffic, free downloads or trainings you offer, and communities that you join. 

How good are you at taking these people from completely cold to hot?

Your lead generation strategy is a huge part of how well you convert new clients. 

Ask yourself: how many people are finding you on a regular basis and how many of those people do you actually convert?

Rate yourself on how well your lead generation works at bringing you new leads.

Many agents struggle with converting new clients because they aren’t bringing in enough people. 

The top of their funnel is broken. 

Think of it this way: If you want 20 extra deals a year from now with new clients alone, you have to bring in about a thousand new people into your audience every year. 

Can your lead generation systems handle that? 

3. Repeats

Look at the people you’ve worked with before. 

It’s crucial that you maintain that database – especially if the market has changed. 

This can be as simple as becoming Facebook friends with every single person you’ve ever worked with. 

The goal is to keep them warm to you so when the time comes 3-7 years from now and they’re ready to buy or sell again, you’ll already be top of mind. 

As you audit your repeat clients, take the time to also look at how well you’re maintaining these relationships in an automated way. 

Rate yourself on this as well. 

Even sending regular emails to keep them updated on your business and your services can have an impact on your number of repeat clients. 

By keeping your clients warm and up-to-date, you foster long-term loyalty.

4. Warm to Hot Leads

Your warm-to-hot leads are the ones who are already in your audience. 

They are the ones who have been following you for a while but haven’t needed your services yet.

With these leads, your goal is to advance them down the customer’s journey so that they go from curious about your services to realizing they need your services – and sending an inquiry. 

Can you easily take them from where they are in your nurture system and get them to become a client?

With these four lead sources in mind, rate yourself from 1 to 10 on how good you are at converting within each source.

Out of your referrals, new clients, repeats, and warm-to-hot leads, where are you receiving the most sales? Which ones are you underleveraging?

Maybe you realize you’ve already got some inbound leads from social media, even while just posting a couple of times a week. Time to amp up your visibility there and create a 90-day content strategy!

Maybe you realize you’ve got a strong client experience and have gotten a couple of referrals, but you could be even better at maintaining your database and systemizing your follow-up. You might decide to prioritize these projects to get more referrals. 

When you understand how you rank in your lead sources, you can better plan for your money goals.

Then you can set your quarterly rocks and the daily tasks that need to happen for you to make your real estate goals a reality.

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As a real estate agent, it’s always tempting to put all of your focus into chasing the next deal and landing the next sale. 

But when you get intentional with your long-term vision and set clear goals to follow along the way, you’ll have a clear path to creating a real estate business that works for you.

If you need help creating your long-term marketing goals, apply to join us in The Listings Lab.

Our program has helped hundreds of real estate agents create a roadmap to achieve their goals without hustling or working 60-hour weeks.

We give you the step-by-step framework to create a sustainable, profitable real estate business aligned with your ultimate life vision. 

Book a FREE call with our team to see if The Listings Lab is right for you. 

Have you ever felt hesitant to set up systems for your real estate business? 

You’re constantly busy, so when you think about building a whole system out from scratch, you might think to yourself:

“It’ll be faster to do it manually this one time.”

That might seem like the best and quickest solution at the moment but…

One time turns into twice.

Then, it’s once a month.

Then weekly.

Until suddenly, you’re stuck in a cycle doing the same tasks manually over and over. 

All this time, you could have had automated systems to save you countless hours of work. 

By working without the proper real estate systems in place, you become the bottleneck of your business.

Systems exist to simplify your processes, save you time, and allow your business to grow with ease. 

When you’re stuck spending time and energy on low-value tasks, you can’t focus on scaling your business. 

Today, I want to show you how building your systems NOW sets you up for long-term success.

So, let’s get into it, shall we?

8 Basic Systems For Real Estate Agents 

A system is made up of the tools and processes that you use for different parts of your business.

Think of them as the bricks your business’s foundation is built on. 

As your business grows, it will need to scale its operations to meet increasing demands.

When you have the right systems in place, that growth becomes so much easier.

Here are 8 basic real estate systems for realtors:

• Marketing Systems
  Your marketing system encompasses the strategies and processes you use to reach and engage your target audience.

  This would include your processes for planning and scheduling social media posts, email campaigns, and ads. 
  

• Client Generation Systems
  A client generation system helps you expand your audience and increase sales.

  The best client generation systems use automations and funnels to ensure a steady stream of leads. 
  

• Onboarding Client Systems
  What do you do when you take on a client?

  Your onboarding system will make sure every new client you sign receives the same top-notch experience from the start. 
  

• Offboarding Client Systems
  Just as your onboarding systems are for when you take on a client, offboarding systems are for when your contract has ended.

  This keeps clients happy and encourages repeats and referrals. 
  

• Contract-To-Close
  Think of all the tasks you do repeatedly, from signing contracts to closing deals, including transaction management.

  90% of contract-to-close can be automated.

  This saves time and money and lessens the amount of inefficiency in your processes.
  

• Nurture Systems
  Your nurture systems cover your database and referral network.

  Keep in touch with your past clients and prospects without constant manual effort. 
  

• Team Training Systems
  Your team training systems would include your standard operating procedures and FAQs.

  This way, your team knows where to go to find information without constantly asking you questions.
  

• Financial Tracking Systems
  Insufficient financial tracking is often the primary source of poor business performance and decision-making.

  You should be able to look at your numbers, know your burn rate, and see your expenses at a glance without pouring over spreadsheets.

  Quick access to your finances helps you make fast and informed business decisions. 
  

Signs You Need To Fix Your Real Estate Systems

Agents often come to me telling me they already have a system in place. When I press them further, they tell me they have a checklist for the tasks they need to complete.

Checklists are NOT systems.

And they’re certainly not scaleable! Checklists lack sophistication and automation, requiring you to do a lot of manual labor. 

But all of that manual work will eventually lead you to crumble under stress and overwhelm. 

Efficient real estate systems and processes are the backbone of running a successful business. 

But how do you know when your systems need fixing?

Here are 3 signs to look out for:

1. Things Are Falling Through The Cracks

A huge systems red flag is if you’re noticing frequent and recurring mistakes.

Maybe emails aren’t getting responded to, social content isn’t getting posted, or invoices aren’t being sent on time.

These things start out small, but they add up to become big issues. 

Mistakes made because of human error or forgetfulness need to be automated.

It’s time to look into real estate automation tools to seal up the cracks and make sure nothing gets missed. 

2. You Are Constantly Jumping In To Fix Things

How many times a day do your team members message you to ask questions?

If your answer is too many times, it’s time to take a closer look at your systems. 

Frequent interruptions from team members keep you from focusing on high-level tasks as CEO.

3. You basically become the administrator of your team. 

Your productivity drops drastically because every detail of every task comes through you. 

Instead, set up systems and processes that allow your team to be resourceful and help your business run more smoothly.

Ready to step away from being an administrator and become a CEO?

Check out this blog: How Real Estate Team Leaders Can Master Delegation And Step Into Their CEO Shoes

4. Your Business Can’t Run Without You.

The real test of a successful business is if it can run without you. 

A well-structured business should have the right systems and processes in place to function efficiently without you always being around. 

It should be self-sustaining with room to grow and scale.

If you can’t step away without everything falling apart, your systems need some serious work. 

What Should You Include In Your Real Estate Systems? 

There are four major elements of any real estate system.

Whether your goal is to generate leads or train team members, each of your systems needs to have a clear outcome, standard operating procedures, and a connection to your next system.

1. A Clear Outcome – Each of your systems should have one specific goal you want to achieve. 

This clarity helps your processes stay focused and efficient. 

2. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) – SOPs are the guidelines for any process you must complete in your real estate business. 

Their main goal is to get information out of your brain and into the hands of your team.

This creates consistency and quality throughout all of your services and operations.

3. Automations – Automations are key to handling repetitive tasks and decreasing the chance of human error. 

Anything from sending follow-up emails to updating client records can be automated.

This allows you and your team to focus on more strategic tasks to grow your business. 

4. A Connection to the Next System – Your real estate systems don’t exist in isolation. Everything should be connected. 

For example, after your client generation system captures a lead, it should seamlessly transition into your client nurture system.

This continuous flow and connection will make your business scalable and self-sufficient.

By incorporating these four elements, you’ll create robust real estate systems that drive efficiency, maintain quality, and support sustainable business growth.

A 4-Step Process for Creating Systems

If the idea of creating systems for your real estate business seems overwhelming, think of it this way…

Imagine you’re in a helicopter, looking down at a vast river system. From up high, you see countless rivers twisting, merging, and breaking off again, forming an intricate network that appears incredibly complex.

However, if you zoom in and focus on just one small part of the system – imagine yourself sitting on a riverbank – you’ll see that it’s simply one river flowing in front of you. It’s much easier to understand and navigate when you break it down into smaller, manageable pieces.

Creating systems for your business works the same way.

Instead of trying to tackle the entire system at once, focus on building one piece at a time.

Gradually, as you develop and implement each component, they’ll come together to form a complete, interconnected system that helps your business run smoothly.

To get you started, here is our 4-step process for creating real estate systems:

Step 1: Decide What You Need Systems For

Start with a task audit. What things do you need and want systems for? 

Think of your lowest-value tasks first. 

Are you still manually sending emails to schedule meetings? Or maybe your admin is inputting client information one by one into your CRM?

By auditing your tasks, you’ll be able to see where systems can save you the most time and effort.

Step 2: Go Through the Individual Steps Of The Process

Break down each step of the process you want to systematize. 

What are you currently doing and how are you doing it?

This detailed look will help you see what can be improved or automated.

Now is also a good time to start drafting an SOP for this process. 

Step 3: Eliminate, Automate, Delegate

After you’ve analyzed your process, ask yourself three questions:

• What can be eliminated?
  
• What can be automated?
  
• What can be delegated?
  

If there’s any part of your process that isn’t necessary or doesn’t bring in any real value, eliminate it. 

Then decide what parts need to be automated or delegated. 

Always prioritize automation over delegating. If a piece of tech can do it for you, automate it and save the higher-level tasks for your admin. 

Thinking of hiring your first admin? 

Check out this blog on hiring a real estate administrative assistant: Want To Hire A Real Estate Administrative Assistant? Here’s What You Need To Know

Step 4: Build Your System

Now that you have the final steps of your process, it’s time to build the system itself. 

Create your automations and make sure triggers are in place to notify your team whenever they need to step in. 

Double-check to make sure each step flows smoothly into the next. 

Then, finalize your SOP and make sure your team understands each part of the process.

Remember, it’s easiest to start with only what you need systematized first. Don’t try to build your entire river system in one shot. 

Is Your Real Estate System Successful?

Now that you’ve built your real estate systems and processes, are they successful?

The goal of each system is to create efficiency for you and your team and ultimately allow you to scale. 

If your systems are successful, they should cover these four factors:

Everything Is Connected

Systems don’t live in a silo. 

Each system within your business has a specific outcome, but they should all be working together. 

Everything should be connected. 

Your marketing system should be connected to your nurture system which is connected to your onboarding, contract-to-close, and offboarding systems.

Everything should flow from beginning to end. 

This connection between your systems is how no part of your process is forgotten and allows you to grow. 

It’s Scale-able 

If your goal is to scale your 6-figure business to 7-figures, you need a system that can handle that workload without breaking. 

Ask yourself: If someone dropped a hundred clients on you, what would happen?

Would your systems be able to handle it?

A sign of a good system lies in its scalability. 

Even if you receive a hundred new clients tomorrow, your systems should still be able to operate perfectly. 

If there’s any part that would break under that pressure, that’s what you need to focus on fixing. 

It Leverages Automation

The idea behind creating successful systems is that there should be as little human or manual input as possible. 

This is why you should be leveraging automation wherever you can! 

Automation is key to reducing human error and increasing efficiency. 

As long as you have a team member occasionally checking in to make sure your automations are running properly, they’re very reliable. 

I recommend using an automation tool like Zapier. It uses ‘zaps’ to connect your real estate tools and systems to each other, minimizing the need for manual intervention.

With routine tasks handled automatically, you can focus on more strategic activities that need a personal touch.

It Expands Your Capacity & Reduces Overhead Costs

The more you scale, the more moving parts there are to your real estate processes.

Most agents make the mistake of hiring more people to manage this complexity.

But what if you could build better systems and save instead? 

With the right systems and automations, you can reduce your overhead costs and prevent over-hiring.

A good real estate administrative assistant costs around $30-40/hour. 

It’s more cost-efficient to spend $400/year for Zapier to automate your manual tasks and hire only one admin.

Even if you still hired two admins, they would have significantly more hours to focus on advancing projects instead of getting bogged down by routine tasks.

How much more would be accomplished if you systematized and automated as much as possible in your business?

What kind of projects would you be able to move forward with or complete?

Systems create efficiency and efficiency is key to creating more with less time. 

If you take the time to invest in building a system, the capacity for your output goes up drastically. 

You and your team would gain more time, and you’ll be able to push forward on your goals. 

Pro Tip: When You Build a System, USE IT!

Building a system is just the first step. 

Now, you actually have to USE it. 

Whether it’s checking tasks in Airtable or managing clients in Follow Up Boss, you really have to live in your systems. 

Otherwise, you’ll be back at square one and steps in your processes might be forgotten. 

Get in the habit of checking your systems. At the same time, check in with your team to make sure they understand why the system is important. 

When a team member goes rogue and stops using your systems, they’re just creating more work for someone else. 

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It’s up to you to reiterate how following the systems will make their lives easier so you can all maintain efficiency and achieve success. 

When you’re doing everything manually, you’re relying on your own motivation to get things done every day.

And no one is motivated every single day. 

It’s time to stop relying on discipline and start relying on well-oiled systems.

With well-designed and automated systems, you know you can feel good about what’s getting done – even on the days when you need a break. 

When you join our 7-Figure Agent Collective program, we teach you how to leverage a team and proven systems to scale your business to 7-figures.

Are you ready to win back your time by building robust real estate systems and a powerhouse team? 

Click HERE to schedule a call with our team to learn more about how we can help you get there.