The phrase “trust the process” has been thrown around a lot lately. It’s most closely associated with the Philadelphia 76ers right now and its rebuilding process. It’s a good mantra to detach yourself from the outcome but focus on the work necessary to get the desire outcome. Keep the faith, so to speak. Well, my mantra for this year is “work the process”. The critical component of the process is doing the work. You can’t trust the process if you don’t work. And if the whole point is to focus on the work component, let’s call it out directly. The process works because you do.

Although I’m pretty content with how 2017 went, I do find that I’m lacking some systems and structure to move my business forward. There’s plenty to work on every day and I sense I’m getting pulled too often into fire fighting or whack-a-mole mode. I want to revisit J Scott‘s talk at the SF Bay Summit back in October on building a scalable system and focusing on high value activities later, but for now here are my 2018 goals and schedule structure. I hope you’ll do me a favor and hold me accountable.

Professional Goals
  • Help 10 people move into a new home or purchase investment properties – the goal for 2nd half of last year was 5 and we technically did that, except the deals closed were all in the commercial space.
  • Meet 52 new contacts – the goal last year was 26 for the 2nd half and although I didn’t keep hard track I do believe I hit that. I often planned to go to meetup events but bc I was busy or traffic sucks I end up skipping. I need to plan out my days to just work remotely closer to the meetup venues.
  • Break ground and finish Glendora Public Market (Project Simon) – I had aimed to start it last year but leasing delays we’re pushed back to this year.
  • Finish Project Gruber – 3 unit PUD
  • Start Project Stuart – This awkwardly sized corner commercial lot that we don’t know what to do with. Stuart is villain in the 2nd Die Hard movie btw.
  • Double my email list from around 250 to 500
  • Create lead capture page
  • Improve website SEO
  • Marketing
    • 1 monthly mail campaign
    • Launch Facebook ad
    • 1 drip email campaign
Personal
  • Read 12 books – reading continues to be a big emphasis for me. I didn’t hit my goal last year, partially due to terrible habit of starting books, not finishing them, and then start another new one. I probably started 12 books, but only finish maybe 5 of them haha.
  • DAILY exercise – I don’t care if it’s just dropping to the floor for 20 push ups. Too often I’m just heads down working and then ignore working out.
  • Volunteer 100 hours
  • 1 quality blog post a week
  • Eliminate unnecessary use of the word “just” – I’ve found myself using this word in emails or conversations to downplay my tone, as in “just wanted to follow up.” The word doesn’t add any value. It means the same if I don’t use the word. I also shouldn’t try to make myself feel inferior or as if the recipient is doing me a favor by answering… the whole reason I’m sending a follow up email is bc you ignored it or too busy to respond. There’s no reason I should feel bad.
Schedules

There are different main categories I can work on each day, but I find jumping between tasks makes me lose focus as I reset. For 2018 I’m going to work on one main thing each day of the week similar to Gary Keller’s The ONE Thing style.

Marketing Monday – Working on various marketing campaigns

Touch Base Tuesday – No no, nothing inappropriate like Harvey Weinstein! Tuesdays shall be the day I focus on contacting my customer base, seeing what I can help with and gather referral leads

Writing Wednesday – Dedicated to writing on the blog and marketing content

Transaction Thursday – Looking at new listings and analyzing potential deals

Follow up Friday – More of a miscellaneous day catching up on different things that might’ve fallen through the cracks.

You might think the following is ridiculous but I really do believe in the power of routines and habits. I’m going to give this a try for at least 3 months.