Why a Vacation Should Be in Your Business Plan

Green Group Real Estate Careers Podcast

If you’ve begun working on your 2017 business plan, you should be sure that you time block for your vacation. Here’s how best to do that.
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I was in a class last week where we were teaching productivity and life balance to a group of about 31 high-performing real estate agents, and one of the biggest challenges that they told us they were facing was their ability to unplug and be present while on vacation.
Well, it’s the time of the year when we’re working on our business plans, and an often-overlooked portion of most agents’ business plans are their vacation plans.

The first pieces that we at the Green Group go through when working on our business plans are growth and time blocking.

When it comes to growth, we ask ourselves how we’re going to grow personally and professionally in 2017. Which books are we going to read? Which classes are we going to take?

As far as time blocking goes, the first thing that we’ll time block for is events. These are important to get down first because they’re immovable dates that are set in stone with others.

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Don’t let this business pull you around by the nose!

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Secondly, we’ll time block for our vacations. I think that a lot of real estate agents don’t schedule their vacations and leave it up for fate to decide whether they’ll get to take them. This may be for a few different reasons. First, because the income of a real estate agent is variable based on productivity and production, they may not be confident that they’ll have earned a vacation at a specific time of year.

The second reason concerns a bigger issue: a real estate agent doesn’t know where their business is coming from. Because so many real estate agents believe that their business comes in randomly, they’re not sure when they can make plans. When an agent takes a proactive, intentional approach to getting their business, however, they can schedule two weeks of vacation, knowing that they will have created enough business because they have a plan and strategy to get there.

So, as you’re designing your business plan for 2017, I encourage you to take the time to ask yourself and your family which days you’ll need to take off for the year. Don’t let this business pull you around by the nose; choose how you’re going to live your life.

If you have any other questions about time blocking for a vacation or detailing a business plan for next year, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I’d be happy to help you!