I readily admit that operating a real estate brokerage company in today’s fast paced, high tech competitive environment is a difficult time and energy consuming task. Planning or implementing for the next day becomes a low priority since we are caught up in solving the issues of today. We become mired in one crisis after another and when we head home at the end of the day the list of “to dos” remains incomplete only to grow longer the following day. It is a difficult task to look into the future and create and dream. In fact, the process of future looking over time becomes an uncomfortable task because we have re-programmed our brains to think very short term. Next week can be an eternity away.

The instructor I had years ago while learning to ski continuously reminded all of his students to no look down at the tips of the skis. Why? Because when you concentrate on the end of your skis you fall…and often. You need to look into the distance to see where you want to go because if you look over the tips of your skis you are already past the point of where your eyes communicated to your brain which was to communicate to the muscular system about what to do. Not unusual. The same thing happened to all of us in drivers education when, due to lack of confidence and a new experience we concentrated on the road immediately in front of the hood. Not a horrible approach but ultimately very dangerous in the left hand lane of the freeway of life.

The difficulty we have in looking at and beyond the horizon is that we are not comfortable with this approach. It is not something we do regularly. In our business we become the doctor of the day going from one examining room to another until we see all the patients we can in a day.

So, as the year 2005 continues to unfold the challenge becomes not what we are doing for today or even the year but to look toward the horizon. Seek and dream where we want to go by 2010 or beyond. It is not too late to dream and it is not too late to establish long-range goals.

OK….so you say that there are too many unpredictable things between now and 2010. Interest rates will fluctuate, agents will come and go, technology will change and capital will be harder to come by and the margins are shrinking. What business won’t have these issues? In January of 1961 John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address to the nation, shared his dream that the United States would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. In August of 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to land on the moon. In between those years our country spent most of the time fighting the Vietnam War, suffered an assassination and had domestic upheaval and riots. We saw the arrival of The Beatles, had Haight-Ashbury and interest rates were double today’s. The fact is that Kennedy painted a vision. He had a dream (as did another American later in the decade). The strategies followed the vision. He clearly communicated the dream and America achieved it.

Looking to the end of the decade that we are now nearly half through may we all challenge ourselves to dream. Create the vision of what we as brokers are going to look like in 5 years. (This is not a reference to our personal weight change or graying scalps) What kind of company are we going to have? What will we look like as a delivery system of real estate services? Perhaps of equal importance is to ask ourselves if we have the right people on board to drive us to achieve the vision we see.

Some points to ponder along the way:

• Increase your per person productivity by 50%.
• Seek and secure 75% customer repeat business.
• Increase your sales volume by 200%
• Double my net operating income margin.
• Reduce agent turnover to less than 10% per year
• Move away from brick and mortar expense by 25%

Whatever the vision you create, share it with all within your company. Communicate the dream. Reinforce the dream with your agents and staff. Had Kennedy not communicated his vision to the world would we have made it? Perhaps but clearly he let the operations people put various strategies into place and remained at a higher level reinforcing the dream. He did not tell them how to get there.

Allow yourself the time and find the environment in which to create. Look beyond the tips of the skis. After a while you will find that you can go faster, turn quicker and avoid hazards along the way. Confidence grows and you will achieve some intrinsic values as well: You will have fun! You will get to watch people raise their own performance bar and together all within your company will be challenged. Sounds like there is very little downside! It is never too late. Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying: “If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree I would spend 6 hours sharpening my ax”.

Happy Planning.