Hi. Good morning. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing well. It's Good. It's November. My god. I know. And it's Friday. And it's Friday. It's it's, things are cooking. I feel like we just were in January, and now we are approaching the holidays. Yeah. Yeah. Larry, have you seen how many, like, holiday commercials are out there? Like, they completely skip over Thanksgiving. What's up with that? You know, I I I realized I had a bin with holiday decorations that I never made it to my attic. I keep telling myself I'm gonna put it in the attic, you know, the following in. The year rolls around, and now I don't gotta bring it down. Now now you're now you're too close to meeting it again, so you gotta you gotta roll it over. That's funny. Alright, man. Well, let's go ahead and get started. So, my name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty. I'm joined by Lewis Fuhrman, our my co VP. And each Friday, we are, Real Estate First Friday is really the the concept of this is to help you guys think about how to analyze your business, how to think through situations. Sometimes we'll go into actionable items that you can walk away and do. We'll do that today. And sometimes we want you to think about things to analyze your business to help you start to gain the vision of how, as an entrepreneur, you should analyze your business. And so we're gonna kinda do two of those pieces today. We're gonna talk about the business plan that you do for twenty twenty five and the key pieces of your business that you inspect to figure out what is working in your business and what's not and kinda develop your twenty twenty five plan. So the ending of twenty twenty four and every year, is a great time to do that. And particularly around this November time frame is when you would traditionally see real estate transactions starting to slow down, which gives you the ability to free your time up to kind of analyze what worked for you in the, you know, in the year and and what did not and what you plan on carrying over into the following year. So with that being said, kinda, what are your thoughts as before we get started? Yeah. So this this is definitely the time of the year where we probably see the majority of the business planning preparations taking place. You know, we always recommend that throughout the year, you're gonna have your checkpoints. Right? Like, you're gonna have different moments throughout the year where you're gonna tweak, evaluate your businesses, making sure that it's, you know, moving accordingly. We have that whole, saying where it's like, don't just hit play, forget about it, eight months roll around, and you never really tweaked it or touched it. But this is the time of the year despite that where we typically see the most level of evaluations happening with with your businesses. And it really doesn't matter how big your production levels are, how big of a business operations you are operating. Like, you need to have a moment carved out, and it's highly recommended during this time because of volume and production and just inherently the time of the year that we're in to take a moment and really evaluate your business. And oftentimes, the question becomes, well, what are the areas to evaluate? Like, what are these things? And I think for today's call, or for today's real estate First Friday, it's it's this notion of understanding where our lead sources are coming from. You know, we've just gone through a whole year where we've had, you know, closings happening. And have we had an opportunity to really evaluate where where are my leads coming from? Where are the sources of my leads? Because without knowing that, it's really hard to throw more ammunition into a certain arena or category to figure out what's working or what's not. Do I have a diversified portfolio of lead sources? Am I very much just tackling one lead source? So I think one of the themes for today's call is really figuring out, like, how do we evaluate that category, or how do we evaluate that side of our business practices as we're going into this time of the year where it's so important for us to evaluate our business models. Yeah. That's right. And I think what most people do is, they are looking at their year and they're like, man, I I sold x amount of houses. You know, I'm excited that I maybe hit a new record or I stayed you know, whatever that looks like. And that's kinda how they talk about it. And then when you really go back and you look at it, you say, okay. Well, what was the most effective thing that you did this year? They'll be like, well, you know, and they don't really know how to pinpoint it. And so to your point is understanding, you know, where your lead sources are coming from, meaning, like, where's your business getting from, where's your you know, the conversations happening from. And then two, which ones of those are most effective, which then allows you to say, hey. Okay. I have been doing this work over here. It really hasn't produced as much fruit as I when I really go back and I look at it. This particular area has. So next year, I wanna trim a little bit of this side that wasn't working quite as, you know, as efficiently and I'm gonna expand on the side that I was having success in in the last year in that process. So so now you have to figure out how to identify that. And so I will tell you every year in November is when I go through and I kinda do like a spend audit. I look at okay. Let me look at all the things I'm spending money on into my business and figure out what's still worth it and what's not. Or or what do I need to do more of in that sense? So I I will start that same mindset with spending. And usually, that can be connected to a lead source as well too. But I'll look at the kinda like the supporting pieces. Okay. The CRM that I'm using, do I am I happy with that? Is it does it make sense for me? Okay. Cool. This other software that does x, is it really is, you know, that I am I getting the benefit that I intended to get when I first started? You know, I I kinda do that audit first. And then that helps me either free up dollars or I say, hey. Everything is exactly where it is. But I like to start there because if there's dollars I can free up, then I wanna know in the next step when I start taking a look at where my business actually what what business I closed, where it came from, I wanna then move those dollars over there. So we start by saying, hey. Let's take a look at our financial picture. Let's see everything that I spent money on. That could have been, hey. I spent money on signs. I spent money on, you know, open house Mhmm. You know, I don't know, mimosas. You know, whatever that is for you on mailers, on digital ads. Like, I'm gonna look at that whole makeup and say, okay. What do I want to continue to spend on? Do I wanna spend more in any one of these particular areas, or do I need to pull anything back because something specifically just didn't work and that's usually on the support side. Like, hey, I thought I was gonna get this software that this AI writing software that helps me write descriptions. I ended up not ever using it. I'm spending fifty bucks a month and so I'm gonna eliminate that piece. And so that's kinda how we start that that first step. Yeah. Yeah. So so definitely the very, very, very first step is making sure you have a mechanism, like, to track this data. You know, a lot of times we I I hear the stories that we don't. Like, you ask somebody the question, like, hey. Where is the predominant lead sources coming from? And it's very hard sometimes for an agent to answer that question because they don't really keep track of the data. So really step one is making sure that you are tracking this data and whatever CRM that you're using, you know, make sure that you are indicating where is the lead source coming from. The same way you include your clients and customers, you know, date of birth and anniversary dates or whatever inner information you wanna understand from your customer. Make sure you are indicating what is that lead source or where that lead came from. So when it comes time for this time of the year or throughout the year and you need to quickly generate a report, you can easily click two or three buttons and you can immediately get the data. Now once you have this data, it goes back to what what Matt was saying. Right? You gotta review the data, understand where are the primary areas that you are focusing on during the year. There is a natural correlation with the area for lead sources relative to how much dollars you are spending in a lead source. As Matt mentioned, the example, you know, what is my open house budget? You know, what is my PPC budget? You know, what is my auditioning for the next listing, you know, passing out door hanger budget? You know, what is my Zillow, premier agent budget or portal budget? Like, what are our budgets? And those things do kinda go hand in hand. But then when you get to that place of understanding your data and and and figuring out the first thing to look for is, do I have a diversified portfolio of of lead sources? You know, that would be my very first recommendation. Like, you don't wanna be caught up in a world where you are so dependent on one type of category. Because if things shift in the industry that now will hinder that specific category, it's gonna dramatically affect your business because you put all your eggs in one basket. You know, we always talk through, like, you you we always hear it like an investment books. Right? Have a diversified portfolio in of investments. The same thing applies to lead sources. You wanna have a diversified portfolio of ways that you acquire leads. So that's the very first thing to look at. You know, what is my lead sources? Am I you know? And and and and I guess one of the steps too is identifying what are lead sources. Right? You know, we have referral based business. You know, we have open house based business. We have portal based business. We have PPC based business. Like, outline what are the lead sources that, you know, you see existing out there, and then identify which ones are the ones that you wanna implement in your business and whether you are even implementing it. It's funny. I was speaking to the a an agent the other day, and he's like, yeah. You know, I love doing open houses. I I do open houses frequently. I've had a handful of open houses throughout the year. And then when he ran through this this this, process or this homework assignment, which is kinda what led us to have this call here today, he figured out he only had, like, one lead that closed from an open house because he only really hosted three open houses throughout the year. He really didn't maximize his efforts on open houses. But those three that he did, like, for whatever reason, stood out to him so grand, very similar to my example where I still have a bin from Christmas. Like, the year blows by, you think, like, Christmas was the other day. And this agent's like, man, I just had an open house the other day, and it really happened, like, four or five months ago. And he's had multiple listings since then, and he never had another open house. Like, time just blows by us. And that was a pure indication to him. Like, man, I really gotta create a mechanism, a system to ensure that I am tackling these lead sources appropriately because I want more of my market share of leads coming from this specific category. The same could be said with spend. You know? Do I have a consistent spend if I do wanna, you know, have PPC lead sources, or am I kind of on and off? You know? Do am I really focusing in on certain categories equally throughout the year or or appropriately to maximize those those that diversification of portfolio? Yeah. And it's it's funny that you say that because, you know, the the this is the the dissolution of how much effort or how much time you're spending on something can happen when you're like, hey. I I come in every single day. I check the computer. I speak with clients, and that kind of comes mundane. You do it every single day, so you don't necessarily realize how much energy you're putting on it. But then you go out there, you do that open house at one time, and you put out the signs, and you doorknob the neighborhood, and you get yourself beforehand, and you promote. And it feels like because there was so many different pieces that you don't normally do, it stands out to your point. And so it feels like something bigger than what it actually is. And particularly if you got any level of business from it. Hey. I you spoke with multiple clients. I ended up getting additional closing from it. Now it feels like this grandiose so thing. So to your point, it could have been one particular thing. It feels so big. But when you really go back and you analyze your efforts, you recognize that it's really a small portion of it. So let's take a let's take a look at, let's say, how to kinda analyze the the next piece. So we talked about the starting point and saying, hey. First, you gotta have these mechanisms put in place. You gotta go back and gotta do a spend analysis. You gotta see where you're spending your money, you know, and what makes sense to continue to spend or what makes sense to eliminate. But now let's efforts. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Where where you're putting efforts. So let's go to the second spot and say, okay. Well, let's look at the success or failure rate. Right? The next step of that is where out of the business let's say I closed ten houses this year. Where did those ten houses, those conversions come from? Like, did it come from a Google PPC? Did it come from an open house? Was it a referral? Like, where did the actual business that transacted, where did that come from? And that is gonna be probably the truth serum right there. Right? Because you could be spending money on Google PPC, and you can be having tons of conversations, and you can be getting close and never really converting, but you're staying kinda busy. And then the reality is is that this friend that you knew, you know, bought a house with you because they knew that you were in real estate. And this person over here ended up being extension of you know? And before you know it, you recognize that all the efforts that you were putting out there to maybe gather outside business, that's not really where the source of your business is coming from. It may have come from your sphere or may have come from your mailers or may have come, you know, from a very small area of your business. And so again, this analysis where you go back and say, okay. I've got ten closings this year. I'm physically gonna write down where each one of these came from, the the business that actually closed. And that is gonna give you that, I get true serum like we said on where you should expand in that next year. So if you say hey I'm I'm spending money on Google PPC and maybe I don't necessarily want to eliminate that but real the reality is is that my actual closings came from people who already knew me. Maybe they found me on social media. Maybe it was a friend who whatever that looks like. That is where you want to expand going into the new year. So it doesn't necessarily mean you always wanna give up on the other efforts that you're doing. You may need to tweak them. You may need to say, okay. This is I'm spending the money over here. I'm not being as effective, so I need to do some things differently if I wanna continue to have this diversified portfolio or this attempt and diversified portfolio. But the reality is is that here's where my business is coming from, so I need to expand here because this is what's working for me right now. And so it gives you kind of that next layer. So you've got your spend analysis on, like, hey. Here's what's working or not. Here's where if I had some additional dollars that I was able to save, now I'm gonna try to figure out where that's going to go, and then that's gonna go off that truth serum of, like, where did your actual closings come from? Yeah. I love I love how you say that. Right? Like, it's it's like two steps. Right? It's like expanding and implementing new things if we recognize that portfolio is not diversified. And that expansion concept is such a great point, and you really can't understand it unless you are seeing your business in real time. Like, if you reflect back and you say, man, like, all of my list all of all of my business came from referrals from my intimate sphere who basically expanded to a new sphere, then you kinda look gotta look back at your business. Well, what did I do to create that? And if you're telling yourself, man, it kinda just happened organically, I think that's an indication of, well, what if I'm purposeful with it? Can I expand that much more in that space? Because apparently, I have really good reach inside of my sphere. Like, I'm recognizing that this is possibly an untapped area where I can expand that much deeper within this category. What are my purposeful approaches for me planning my sphere into a new or my flag into a new sphere to allow those efforts to compound outside of my immediate expansion? You know, apparently, these people exist. People are spreading great word about me. People are doing it without any efforts from me having to to push it. Like, let's create a plan now to expand that. Like, maybe I did ten deals this year. My goal for next year is to double up on that. But in addition to that, I also wanna implement these other things in these other areas because I could do it side by side with each other. And some of these things have an overlap. Right? Like, for example, you know, we can have open houses as a category. What what happens? You do an open house. You build a new relationship. That relationship close. That relationship then falls into this sphere category, which then has this purposeful approach. But but for this one action, they would have never made it into this category. So you have to have these systems all around to keep the wheel spinning, adequately and accordingly. Yeah. That's, that's a great way to break it down. I love the way you kind of always your analytical mind is always, like, you have these buckets, and so you you kinda trace it. And I'm a little bit more of, like, I guess, eccentric in that, you know, like, that's a that's a great balance between us. It's why we worked so well together currently and when we were running a real estate, team together. But, you know, so one one of the thing that I kinda want to expand upon and it's something that you said, which is okay. So let's say that you've you identify this area. We're gonna go with the sphere because that's just what we have been talking about. And so you recognize, hey. The majority of my business came from my sphere. And so you're thinking, okay. Well, then what do I then do to try to amplify that? Well, you you can say, I and I don't wanna give up on these other lead sources because I am getting some. Maybe I only closed one or two out of my ten closings. You know, six came from my sphere, two came from referral, and maybe two are from Google PPC or whatever. Right? So you've still got a a kind of a a multiple areas where it's coming from. So then you say, okay. Well, listen. If people love me and they trust me and that's the biggest part that I'm resonating with with with most people, then what I wanna do is I wanna amplify that by maybe going to where my sphere sees me on social media and say, hey, guys. I'm so excited that I was able to close x amount of deals this year with my friends and family. You know, if you've got someone who's interested, like, you wanna try to poke and get that going, the new people who are coming inside your ecosystem, maybe the one or two that you go close from the your Google PPC, you wanna reach out to them and say, hey. It was such a great, you know, time working with you. It was a true honor and a pleasure. I'm so excited to have, you know, had a successful transaction with you if you know anybody. And so prompt them to follow the actions that you're getting your most amount of business from because that's what's kind of happening for you. Like, that is a way to start pulling it towards one, like, I guess, more efficient funnel. Getting people to interact with you and see you that way, inspiring those referrals if that's where the majority of your business is coming from. Now let's say, again, you don't want to eliminate all the other sources and just say, hey. Referrals are working for me, so I'm just gonna go all in and cut everything else out. You never wanna pigeon your hole to one particular strategy to that degree because, like you said, any market shift happens if that's your only line in the in the water, then, you know, you can it it can go dry on you very quickly. So, again, it's just about analyzing your business to figure out what's working best for you, where can you allocate some resources to be maybe a more efficient spend than maybe what you currently are doing right now. And then how do you expand upon the things that are working and do less of what's not working or understand that what you're doing over there is not working and tweak it so that it can become more efficient. Yeah. Now in theory, that's very simple to just say as I said it. Right? Oh, you said it in thirty seconds. That's no problem. But when you actually go back and you have to start analyzing your business, you're like, well, this closing technically came from this person, but the origin of this person was, you know, it takes a little while to really find the threads of your business, those invisible threads that really make it work. And that is where the exercise comes in. So if you're planning your twenty twenty five and you're thinking about your numbers, okay. Hey. I got three closings from open houses this year and I did ten open houses. That means that I'm basically if I wanna expand that number to nine closings next year from open houses, I need to do thirty open houses. Well, I don't have thirty listings to do it, so I'm gonna have to develop a strategy to ask people in the surrounding areas if I can do their open you know, you're gonna have to backwards math it. And when you do that, that is when you start to take control of your business. That's when you start to have object I mean, you know, targets that are not like, hey, I kinda feel like doing this today. I don't really like, you're coming up with the plan. Hey, I need to do thirty open houses so I can get nine closings from those open houses if I'm just following my historical data. I don't have thirty houses, so I need to call five agents a week to get my one open you know, like, everything starts to reveal itself when you start to analyze your business and then it comes up with this business plan. And so you know when you're on track, you know when you're not hitting it, and at least whether you decide to do that or not, at least it's a decision you're consciously making versus not understanding those decisions. Correct. Correct. That that is probably by far the biggest takeaway to this, making sure you are in control of your business. Like, don't just, you know, sling around all day just figuring out, like, hey. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that and really not have a purposeful approach. Like, you keep hearing us say this, like, week after week. Like, make sure you have an organized and purposeful approach in your business practices. And it starts with understanding your business and understanding this category because it's really hard to implement a plan unless you understand what's even in existence to even implement. Like, you have to understand where things are coming from. And, you know, again, guys, like, take the time. Look at your business practices. Figure out where needs expansion, where needs implementation. You know, another example is this notion of of the open house. Like, what if, you know, you guys love doing open houses. Right? And and you guys are finding success in it in it. Evaluate that category. Evaluate whether or not we are maximizing the efforts within that category. Do we have a purpose full approach for the open house? Are there ways that we can extract even more juice from the open house? You know, we talk about this notion of if you're gonna be at the open house, might as well capitalize your efforts while you're there. Go audition for that next listing. Do the door hangers. Pass around, like, get there maybe an hour earlier. You're already having to drive the distance to get to this location. Like, are you capitalizing the efforts? But it takes that moment to sit down to review and outline your business practices and outline how are we what is being done? Like, are we falling in in in luxe lane, or are we doing something purposeful to acquire it? Are my referrals coming to me just luckily, they're coming to me, or am I doing something to spark it and engage it? And if you have a lot of business that are coming through even after we recognize it, that it's coming without a very much purposeful approach or something there. Like, there is something there that is working. Like, figure out how you can expand on it so you can grow that side of your business. So, you know, one one question I wanna ask is, you know, in your business and, like, so when you when you are thinking you went for a long time that you are seeing your VP of growth here and you were kinda look at, okay, where are people finding value inside the LPT model? What what did you use to analyze, like, hey. This approach works with big teams because they generally have this, you know, in common. Or, this approach usually works with single agent. Like, what did you use and analyze the kinda like, that same concept we're talking about here, like, what where did you implement that inside of your business? Like, what threads did you use to say, hey. This is a as an approach that's working or maybe this events are working or, like, what did you use to to analyze that? Yeah. So so there, I think it's twofold. You know? Number one is, you know, what is the the forum of how the message is being delivered? And then the second piece is whether or not the messaging is working appropriately. And I guess this can also apply in in in real estate. You know? What is the forum of me trying to acquire a customer? And those forums are some of the examples that we included here today, the the sphere of influence, the open houses, etcetera. And then the second the second part of that is is the messaging landing. Right? Like, I've recognized that this is one of our forums, sphere of influence. Now how am I creating that message inside of the arena to determine whether or not it's working or not? You know, open houses, a category. You know, am I doing the appropriate actions inside of the open house to capitalize on that opportunity? And you gave some examples on the sphere one. Right? You know, how am I staying in front of my sphere? What are the things that I'm doing to continuously create that message inside of that sphere so to allow the fan club to grow? Right? Because if you have that fan club, it's gonna inspire ins, leads or inspire rec referrals, and they're gonna go out there and take those approaches. So going back to what to to the to the initial question, it's you know, I always kind of outlined it in those two categories. You know? What is the forum of how the messaging is being delivered, and then whether or not the messaging is landing. And at all times, those two areas are constantly being evaluated. You know, am I, you know, getting in front of enough people? Is there enough people there for me to create the messaging? And then if so, is the messaging landing appropriately with the audience to determine whether it's working? So zooming out here for today's purposes, you know, am I in front of or am I creating enough opportunities to have a message disseminated amongst somebody else? And then secondly, is my messaging ultimately landing, or are my actions ultimately being done appropriately to make that work? That's perfect, man. I love I love the way that you break that down. And, you know, I've watched you adjust, and I've watched you kind of analyze those pieces as we are creating our reports, and you're figuring out, hey. Here's what worked well for us. Here's what we're gonna do differently for next quarter. Here's what we felt, you know, really resonated with this group of people, so we're gonna expand here. This messaging didn't quite work over here, so we're gonna shrink that. We're gonna replace that with x. And so that's why I kind of asked it that way because I've seen you go through that process. Apply that same ideology not to just real estate, but to other areas of your business that you're that you're tracking. So, okay, guys. Well, we are gonna cut it here. I hope you guys, enjoyed it today. I hope that you guys are preparing for twenty twenty five. You know, twenty twenty four for a lot of people has been a very difficult year, and some some people had a fantastic year. But for most people, you know, there's less transactions overall by a significant number, which generally means that most people are doing less business. And so if you're in that scenario, do not just let twenty twenty five come and you're just gonna try to, you know, do more of the same or just try really hard or be a little bit more, you know, of whatever like, go in with a plan. We always talk about these purposeful approaches. We always talk about these, you know, organized approaches. This is what it is. This is how you've you've you've fish that out. You start with understanding what's working in your business and what's not. What's efficient spend is happening inside your business and what's inefficient. That's gonna give you your base layer blueprint. From there, you're then going to say, okay, here's for twenty twenty five, what I plan to expand upon, the things that worked well in my business now. And here's the things that I plan on cutting out, the things that are not working well. Then once you've kinda got that, then you can say, here's a total number of sales that I wanna have. I've seen where my business where my business came from this year. Here's the efforts that produced it. So if this reproduced, you know, ten open houses, we produced three sales, and I wanna move that number to nine. Now I know I need to do thirty open houses to get that nine. Right? It's just about understanding where your business is and how much it takes of your efforts to create the results that you want. And then from there, it's just decisions on whether you feel like doing it or not. I would recommend you having a goal and and, you know, accomplishing that goal. But at the end of the day, your version of success is up to you. So if three houses a year is your version of success, well, then understand what your plan is to make that happen. If thirty houses a year version of success, the same exact exercise happens for you to understand how to make that happen. Do not leave it up to chance because when you do that, your business controls you. You are not in control of your business. And as an entrepreneur, that's one of the most difficult things to deal with. So I hope that makes sense for you guys. Looking forward to seeing you guys into your business planning sessions. I know we're doing a a few of those in the month of, the end of November and December. So, be prepared to, you know, kinda hit the ground running with this ideology, this concept, and this analysis on your business, and we will see you Monday for motivational Monday. Have a great weekend, guys.