When your financial rewards are performance based, you are confronted with a major challenge – How do you lift and sustain your performance levels?
As a real estate professional, you have to contend with variables such as increasing competition for listings, margin squeeze, unrealistic reserve prices and mounting pressure to work around the clock and more. Yet, whilst they are valid concerns these issues are business issues and not true performance issues.
End Goals v Performance Goals
When setting goals many miss the fundamental distinction between End Goals and Performance Goals.
End Goals are the outcomes or results you achieve from doing something, for example sales turnover, commission fees, clearance rates, profit margin are all End Goals. They are measured ex post facto (after the fact). They are also known as lag indicators. End Goals are the rewards or the carrots that motivate you to achieve them.
Performance Goals, on the other hand, are the drivers that get you the results. For example, property listings, outbound calls, open days, number of prospects, word or mouth referrals. This is where the hard yards are done. Your performance incentive schemes must incorporate these measures to encourage the right behaviour. Measurement of these lead indicators will give you predictive measures of future success. Success is the cumulative effect of doing the little things day-by-day.
“Performance Goals are the cause,
End Goals are the effect.”
Lead and Lag indicators form an integral part of what Harvard academics, Kaplan and Norton, call a Balanced Scorecard. Many of the larger real estate franchise groups use Balanced Scorecard measures, as do large corporations. They are equally applicable to small firms and are essential to driving performance to higher levels.
What drives Performance?
So, if performance drives results, what drives performance?
Two things drive performance:
– Skill (the learned knowledge of how to do a task), and
– Behaviour (the making of a conscious/subconscious choice)
To determine which you are dealing with ask yourself the question – Does this person know how or what to do? If the answer is yes, then as they have the skill and it’s likely to be a behavioural issue. If they answer no, then a training solution may be appropriate. With a well-trained sales professional I’d be betting on behaviours most of the time.
Behaviour is about choice. Given the circumstances, what choice did you make? Ok, so sometimes you make a good choice and sometimes you don’t. I’ll leave it for you to judge what is good and bad. In the process consider:
- Did I make a conscious choice? and
- Do I accept the consequences of my choices?
The one unescapable fact of life is that you will make mistakes and that’s ok. Just learn your lessons and don’t make them twice! Having said that, there does come a time where if you have a performer that just doesn’t cut it, then this is a great model to manage a poor performer.
I’ll assume you know what it takes to be successful. So, we have the skills. Let’s explore your behaviour. Aha, let me get this clear, you know what you need to do but you didn’t do it? Houston, we have a problem! What we may have here is a self-defeating behaviour. Short of surgical removing your frontal lobes what I’d suggest is that we explore what choice you made. By merely raising it to your conscious awareness we now empower you to, you guessed it, make a choice.
The Secrets to my Success
We enact our behaviour. Often we do so subconsciously. That’s why I emphasise making conscious choices to start. Most of us can relate to making the same mistakes. You know the one – the negative patterns we fall for over and over again. We repeat these behaviours because we have relegated them into our subconscious – the realm of our autopilot.
Yes, behaviours do run in patterns because you have essentially programmed them into your subconscious.
Now, for the good news!
These behavioural patterns apply to your positive behaviours too! You have your own unique DNA formula for your successes in life. Just as you repeat the same negative behaviours that cause you dysfunctional, the opposite is also true. You repeat your successful choices, as subconscious patterns, too.
Isn’t it about time you balanced the ledger and paid attention to the good decisions you are making? If you can unlock and understand what works for you, imagine what you may begin to achieve in your life. You can have anything.
I encourage you to read up on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) for it is the study of how to unlock your patterns of success. It is the basis of Anthony Robbins works a well as most personal development gurus. It is a must read topic.
Most business coaches rely upon a key principal of performance measurement. And to let you in on there secret, here it is:
“The very act of measuring something focuses
your energy and attention on it. You cannot help
but improve your performance.”
When you have clearly set goals, objective performance measures, regular performance reviews and take consistent actions to towards your goals you have an empowered model for sustainable performance improvement.
I’ll leave with these words of wisdom – if you accept that the universal Law of Abundance does prevail and you can have anything you want, there is really only one question to ask yourself – what do you want?
About the author
Dennis Roberts is a personal coach, small business mentor and founder of CoachPRO – The Coaching Professionals. His work has won critical acclaim in both the academic and business communities. Visit www.coachpro.com.au