The Real Estate Agent’s Year-End Review Checklist

With the end of the year fast approaching, it’s time to take a look back with The Real Estate Agent’s Year-End Review Checklist.

If you’re like most agents, you get so busy with your day-to-day workload that you rarely have a moment to pause and reflect on the performance of your business. But this reflection is critical to the growth of your business. You need to know what worked and what didn’t over the past year. These insights will help you craft a plan to be more effective in the coming year. And there may be a few things you need to correct immediately. Inconsistencies with agent branding almost always come up in year-end reviews; these inconsistencies can be confusing and distracting to your prospective clients, so some basic editing for consistency can easily clean up your brand image!

Of course all this reflection and correction takes time! And, as we said, you’re already swamped with day-to-day real estate business. And we’re sure the holiday season takes up a fair bit of your time and energy as well.

That’s why we have a real estate agent’s year-end review checklist. This checklist guides you quickly and easily through a review of the current year so you can clearly see what’s working and what’s not. With this checklist, you’ll be able to enter the New Year stronger than ever.

The Real Estate Agent’s Year-End Review Checklist

This checklist will cover 5 key areas of your real estate business. If you’ve read our post on The Ultimate Real Estate Agent Business Plan, these categories will look familiar!

1. Branding
2. Marketing
3. Finance
4. Operations
5. Creating a plan for the New Year

Let’s get to it!

1. Branding

There are three potential issues with your real estate branding:

1. No branding. If you haven’t ever created a branding plan, make this the year you start branding yourself and your business to gain market recognition.
2. Outdated or ineffective branding. Maybe it’s been 5 years since your last brand review. Or maybe your brand isn’t appealing to your target market. Take a look at your current branding and ask yourself if it’s conveying the right message.
3. Inconsistent branding. So many agents suffer from inconsistent branding. It’s natural; your brand evolves over time, but not necessarily across all platforms simultaneously. So you end up with one logo on Insta and another on your website. One profile photo on Facebook and a different photo on LinkedIn. Get all your profiles to reflect the same brand to dramatically increase brand awareness.

Here’s your checklist to address these issues as needed:

• Understand your niche and make sure your imagery appeals to that demographic.
• Have a profile on all major social platforms:
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube (optional, but a great idea; while technically a search engine and not a social media site, it’s similar enough to include in this section)
  • Pinterest (like YouTube, this is optional, but a great idea, and it’s technically a search engine)
• Update your profile photo across all platforms
• Audit your website, social media profiles, and marketing materials for consistency in:
  • colors
  • fonts
  • taglines
  • logos
  • photos

2. Marketing

Many agents are unsure about the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. This lack of clarity results in overspending on marketing areas that don’t generate enough leads to justify the expense, and underspending on marketing areas that could produce far more leads.

As part of the real estate agent’s year-end review, you should audit your marketing activities to see where your ad dollars are best spent. And there are a few other quick things you can do to have your marketing ready to roll for the New Year.

Here’s your year-end marketing checklist:

• Track your ROI for each marketing activity. Simply divide the amount of income earned from each lead source by the amount spent on each lead source. If you haven’t been tracking this information, commit to tracking it in the New Year. You can use the trackers in The Ultimate Real Estate Agent Business Plan, buy a tracking template online for $5, or create your own.
• Collect reviews and testimonials to publish on your website and social media platforms.
• Publish a “thank you” post across all platforms. Something like, With 2020 coming to a close, I want to personally thank all the buyers and sellers who trusted me to represent them this year. It’s been my great pleasure to be able to work with you, and I’m excited to see what’s in store for you in the coming year! Tag all your clients and share a few photos if you’ve been given permission by the clients to do so. Depending on your market and niche, you may even want to take out an ad in the local newspaper or print real estate publications with this message.

3. Finance

Ok, so you probably have a ballpark estimate of how much money you made this year. But do you know your profit (ie the amount earned after expenses have been deducted)? Too many agents lose track of their expenses. So while they make a respectable income, they may not be maximizing their profit.

To make sure you have a firm grasp on your finances, here’s a quick to-do list:

• Total your income
• Total your expenses
• Calculate your profit (income minus expenses)

And yes, The Ultimate Real Estate Agent Business Plan includes worksheets for your finances if you need a template to follow.

4. Operations

“Operations” simply means the way you conduct business day-to-day. The way you follow up with leads, continue to stay top-of-mind with former clients, and manage your personnel all fall into the operations category.

Here are the items to complete as part of your real estate agent’s year-end review:

• Review the performance of your team. Are all positions justified? Is it time to add to your team?
• Revisit your lead follow-up plan. Are you following up 5-7 times with each lead? If not, you’ll want to update your lead follow-up plan.
• Ask yourself how many times you reached out to past clients this year. Is this enough “touches” or do you need to create a plan to reach this group more consistently to increase repeat and referral business?
• Consider adding a new service to your real estate business. Services like property tax appeals and property management diversify your income and grow your business.

Again, these items are all addressed in The Ultimate Real Estate Agent Business Plan.

5. Your Plan for the New Year

When planning for the New Year, it’s best to start with your goal for the year. Most agents start the year with a goal like “I want to generate $100K in revenue.” This is certainly achievable, but you’re far more likely to hit your goal if you focus on leading indicators (like the amount of work you put in) instead of lagging indicators (like the financial results). In our New Year Resolutions for Real Estate Agents post, we talk about how to set goals you’ll be motivated to achieve. And that’s what the New Year is all about: finding fresh motivation to be better in the coming year than you were in the previous year.

Here are the questions to ask yourself as you plan for the New Year

• What is my goal for the new year?
• Does my branding need to be refreshed?
• What changes do I need to make changes to my marketing plan?
• How will my budget change in the coming year?
• What changes do I need to make to my lead follow-up plan and/or former client follow-up plan?
• Will I make any personnel changes, and if so, what needs to change?

If this is the first time you’re planning out these aspects of your business, consider writing a complete business plan. Your business plan will give you direction and focus over the coming years. And if you already have a business plan, but need a simple real estate agent year-end review checklist, you can get one online for under $10.

Here’s to your business and your best year yet…cheers!