As the months continue to fly by, soon we will be celebrating a new year. Real estate has been the topic of more media coverage than we can even begin to discuss and the "poor housing market" has been blamed for all sorts of troubles in the financial world. In the end though, 2007 has been a pretty good year. There are companies and agents across the country having a phenomenal year, sales are up and business is good!

Not the case for you? Remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper? The ant toiled away preparing for the time when survival mattered most, while the grasshopper lazed away the warm months doing nothing. I can't help but feel that based on the chatter I hear from some agents that we have a lot of grasshoppers out there! While the boom times are fun, the winter market isn't the same as an easy, hot spring market. In order for your business to thrive over the long cold months ahead, you need to lay the groundwork now.

The good news is it's not too late to make the changes needed. No matter how bad it is for you, it is never too late. Here is a step by step approach to taking your business to the next level this winter:

1. Get a plan! Having a written (yes, written) plan for your business is critical. If you don't have your plan written, how will you know what to do next?

2. Your plan should include the basic activities first, spending money on flashy ads last. Set goals for how much business you want to do. Figure out how many appointments you need to do that business, then how many leads you need to get those appointments, then what activities you will do to generate those leads.

3. The basics are talking to people and going on appointments!

4. Block out your schedule. Set time for appointments. Set time for prospecting. Set time for family. Above all else, set the time and use it as you have planned. Time management is the most crucial skill of all!

5. Start your plan with the easiest activity of all to generate business -- the open house. There are four Sundays a month, why not do four open houses? Yes, they really do work, but it takes more than sticking a sign in the yard and waiting for someone to show up.

6. Next, schedule time to make phone calls. Call to invite people to your open house, call people from your database of past clients, follow up on all of those leads you accumulated and did nothing with, work your SOI for referrals.

7. Now that you have hot prospects, set an appointment with them. Make sure thought that you appointment is during one of the times you blocked out for appointments, not during any other time. See Step 4 for clarification.

8. Each week, take a look at your plan and measure your activities against it. Did you accomplish your goals for the week. If not, double up on them this week and make sure you don't miss them again.

9. After reviewing your plan, adjust as needed to ensure continued success into the spring, summer, fall and next winter. You'll still be here then, right? If you aren't sure, go back to step one and implement this plan now!

Does any of this advice sound new to you? Probably not. Then why aren't you doing it?

It is time to do the back to the basics approach that always works in real estate. Why? Because that is how the top agents in our marketplace got to where they are. They know that sitting back and waiting for the business to come to them (being a grasshopper) only leads to one thing -- and that is lots of time off from real estate because you have no one to do business with -- great for those of you who are financially secure.

For the rest of you, take some lessons from the ant, stop waiting for success to come to you, go out and do the basics and set the stage now for 2008 to be YOUR best year ever!