There are billions of dollars pouring into our industry today– investment bankers and venture capitalists alike have caught the real estate bug. Those firms are filled with smart, aggressive, and impatient people hell-bent on creating disruption in every sector they enter.
Contrast the profile of the venture capitalist– well-capitalized, innovation-driven, movers and shakers– with the standard profile of our industry– certainty-driven, tradition-driven, locally-focused managers.
To survive for the long haul, the real estate industry needs to borrow some of the competitive spirit these well-financed disruptors bring to the table. They don’t worry about tradition or one person losing their job. They look at the best ways to make real estate work for consumers and then go for it.
Does your organization conduct a strategic planning session every year?
What types of conclusions come out of it?
An impactful strategic plan should:
- Truly move the needle in terms of improved customer satisfaction, process efficiency, service excellence, and training participation and effectiveness every year.
- Bring new, out of the box ideas to the table to explore and seriously consider.
- Deliver tangible, measurable benchmarks that measure the effectiveness of the organization.
- Provide a feedback loop for leadership to revisit those benchmarks frequently and course correct as needed in real-time.
If the outcomes of your strategic planning process are not as nimble or thought-provoking as what I describe here, it may be time for you to look at the process differently at its core. Gone are the days of “forced family fun” where you sit around and talk about what could be and then afterward simply return to business as usual. We are not going to survive without taking a hard look at the underlying purpose of our organizations and thinking about the incoming competition in a much broader context than ever before.
In the WAV Group Agile Strategic Planning processes, we help companies decide to open up new divisions, fundamentally shift their marketing focus, change their business models, create opportunities for mergers and other types of partnerships, and overhaul the way they engage their members with the services they offer. We bring diversity to the thought pool from both in and outside of the industry, informing new programs and engaging new ways to manage serving the needs of REALTORS®. 
Two decades of research remind us we share the same end goal. If the programs and companies you offer don’t meet the ever-changing needs of consumers, you’re not going to be around for long.
WAV Group helps your organization look deeper to find its future path. I formerly worked as SVP of Strategic Planning for a Fortune 100 company. I learned from the best and brightest and bring to real estate those disciplines that have been perfected by the most powerful companies in America to help all of us think bigger! I have facilitated strategic plans for many of the nation’s largest brokerages, MLSs, and venture-funded start-ups.
I would love to help you identify the ways to take your company to brave new horizons that will ensure the real estate industry and your organization thrive for the long haul.
Learn more about our Agile Strategic Planning Process.
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