What does clarity mean to you?
It’s something we hear a lot about in real estate. I know I mention it regularly with my coaching clients and others I work with. And I do that because I think it’s a vitally important concept. Until we have clarity in our lives, our teams, and our businesses, it can be extremely difficult to make effective choices and experience progress.
But do we understand what clarity is, or more importantly, how we recognize a state of clarity when it happens? Perhaps it’s one of those things we just intuitively know. We have a sense of being able to see clearly, of seeing things as they are, like cleaning a dirty window and peering through.
Did you know that this definition of the word — clearness, more or less — is not its full original meaning? The original Latin term, claritas, also referred to a state of brightness and splendor. I think this can help us understand the true value of clarity in our businesses. Real clarity is not simply being able to see things as they are, even though that is incredibly valuable in itself. Clarity is a spotlight shining on needed changes.
There are many sources of clarity, but one of the strongest that I know of is information. In real estate, it can be easy to rely on truisms and intuition about “the market” or other trends. And while, like a detective who breaks a case by following a hunch, you may sometimes be correct, looking at real data paints a much clearer picture that leads to informed choices and replicable results.
Say your team has a goal of closing 50 transactions this year. You know the activities that will lead to this outcome — prospecting, nurturing leads, etc. — but how many of those things do you need to plan to do? For how long? “Working until the goal is reached” isn’t really a plan, because it doesn’t contain metrics or benchmarks. But if you have data about the number of new leads that typically result in a closing, then you can create something actionable. For example, if you know that you close an average of one deal for every 25 leads generated, then you know your team needs about 25 leads every week to meet your goal. And the more detailed information you have, the more detailed a plan you can make.
In other words, the more clarity you will have.
So ask yourself: What kind of information in your business is missing from your team? Where would you shine a spotlight if you had one? Chances are, data will give you the clarity you’re looking for.
Verl Workman is the founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems, a real estate consulting company that specializes in performance coaching and building highly effective teams. Talk to a WSS business analyst to learn more about how real estate coaching can help you
