In my previous article, What's your Escape Plan?, I shared with you where to begin the framework for an escape plan so that you could step away from your business, or radically change the day to day management of it. This article is the work you would do next to reach that ideal.

As you clarify the components of your end result, the next step is to make the shifts from where you are now. Planning from the end, rather than from where you are today brings a different flavor to your choices and implementation. Instead of waiting for certain things to happen like when you can afford buy equipment, or seek help from a virtual assistant or outsource other parts of your business, you can be proactive and budget and plan in the implementation of the actions and tools gradually, starting with the items that will give you the most leverage and payoff for time and money spent. Beginning even with baby steps makes a difference if you are consistent and know where you are going.

Perhaps this will be a 5 year plan. Or whatever other horizon you choose to make the escape a reality. The third installment in this series will focus on your next 12 months, but it is important to do this work first so there will be relevance in your yearly goal.

For bridging the gap, the two most important factors to address are, not surprisingly, time and money! You have as much time as Bill Gates! How many hours are you currently working? How many hours would you be working if this was ideal? The old 80/20 Rules that says 20% of your actions give you 80% of your results is a good place to start to determine what you should do more of (you know…the dollar productive activities) and what you should outsource or hire help for. You cannot increase your results without shifting the investment of your precious time. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you've got (or less as the expectations and market conditions shift).

There is so much to do in a real estate practice! You could stay busy and never get it all done and not even have significant results to show for your busyness! Good time management can make a huge impact on the bottom line. If you aren't good at this, get a coach or some other support to make it work.

Eventually, if you plan to sell your business, there will be members of your team that can handle almost everything. You must think like a person owning a business, not as the only asset of the business! Show Me The Money, Honey! For money, there are two questions:

1. What is the gap between where my production now and what it will need to be to generate the savings for financial independence?

2. What level of production does my business need to generate to be saleable? To bridge the gap, plan from your ideal result. There are other agents who are making whatever your ideal is…so you know it is possible. Between time management and lead generation, you can bridge the gap towards the ideal and where you'll have a business that you can sell.

Ask yourself this powerful question: “If my business were operating at its ideal, where would the bottlenecks be?” For instance, if you need to triple the amount of business you are presently doing to get to where you want to be:

• What areas would breakdown or be insufficient?

• Do you have sufficient technology & systems to generate/handle three times as many leads?

• Could you handle 3x the paperwork?

• What would you need to add in terms of clerical assistance, website SEO, marketing support?

• What would you need to stop doing?

• What would you need to add in the way of systems to create a high level of customer care and satisfaction?

• What other bottlenecks would be created? Armed with the answers to these questions, you can now assess what components, budget, staff and systems are going to need to be added to support your goal. Most people cannot just implement and add everything immediately.

Your goal, once you've identified the elements, is to design a simple, timed plan to build your new foundation. You probably know, the higher the building … the deeper the foundation must be. The same principle applies to your business. If you plan to do 12 deals a year, you can probably do that without much in place. If you want to do 100 deals each year, on the other hand, you better have some systems in place to provide the structure so you have a life and a lot of happy clients! To create a business that is saleable, it must be profitable, with systems in place that are replicatable.

Are you ready to commit to creating and implementing your escape plan, or are you going to rely on hope and chance? Set aside an afternoon to work on your business rather than in it and you'll be glad you did!

Published: September 13, 2010

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Joeann Fossland ePRO, GRI, MCC, PMN, SRS is a dynamic, international speaker and business coach. She personally coaches a small number of extraordinary agents who want to leverage their production results and have a life they love! She was recognized as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Real Estate in 2008 by Stephan Swanapoel. Subscribe to her free Tuesday Tips, attend Fossland's Forums, free monthly tele-seminars, and find out about classes delivered by email and personal coaching by visiting Joeann.com or email her at . You can also connect at Facebook and Twitter.