SANTO DOMINGO – Despite remaining active throughout the year, some real estate agents end the period feeling exhausted, frustrated, and with unmet goals. Ariel Grasso, team leader at RE/MAX Metropolitana, believes this situation is not related to a lack of talent or a poor market, but rather to the absence of strategic planning.
The broker argues that many professionals confuse being busy with being productive . He explains that calls, property visits, and meetings fill their daily schedules, but without a structure that allows them to turn that effort into concrete results.
“Most people improvise their year. They react month by month without a roadmap,” he says, describing a common practice within the real estate business.
Analyze the year with numbers, not with perceptions
Grasso warns that one of the most frequent mistakes is trying to plan a new year without objectively reviewing the previous one. From his point of view, the analysis should be based on data, not feelings.
It explains that this process involves evaluating how many closings were completed, the type of transactions carried out, the average value per operation, and the actual origin of the clients.
He adds that identifying which prospecting sources worked and which didn't yield results is crucial for making sound decisions. Without that information, he asserts, any future planning lacks foundation.
This exercise, he explains, allows you to project the following year more realistically and avoid expectations that later generate frustration.
Clear goals and financial order
Once the starting point has been defined, the real estate advisor indicates that the next step is to establish clear goals that are not limited solely to billing.
It states that a business plan should include income, expenses, investment, net profit, and savings capacity. It warns that many businesses generate good income but fail to capitalize on it due to a lack of financial organization.
For Grasso, managing real estate activity as a business involves making conscious financial decisions and measuring the impact of each move.
The mathematics of the real estate business
Another key point he emphasizes is the importance of understanding the mathematics of real estate. He explains that there's a well-known statistic in the industry: around 40 qualified conversations typically lead to a closing.
According to their analysis, expecting to close deals with only a few monthly conversations is unrealistic. In most cases, they assert, the problem isn't closing deals, but rather the number of leads generated.
When an agent doesn't get results, he points out, the review should start with the daily schedule and the time actually spent generating opportunities.
From prospecting to daily action
The broker also warns that relying on a single source of clients limits growth. He explains that an effective business plan should identify the sources used in the previous year, strengthen those that yielded results, and add new ones.
He mentions that the personal database, recommendations, open houses, working with other agents, and digital advertising require specific planning and constant monitoring.
Finally, he emphasizes that no plan works if it isn't translated into concrete actions. Converting annual objectives into monthly, weekly, and daily goals allows you to measure progress and make adjustments in time.
For Grasso, the difference between a busy agent and a productive one lies in ceasing to improvise and starting to manage the business with structure and follow-up. “When you start measuring, the results come. Not by magic, but by mathematics,” he concludes.
