Setting SMART professional goals for 2016

Larissa Gardner
3 min read

There’s no better time to take stock of your professional performance and company’s progress over the past 12 months, than by setting goals for 2016 at the start of your working year.

Setting meaningful goals for your career is very important. Without them you have no accomplishments to strive for, no way of evaluating your performance down the track and no clear priorities or direction for the year ahead.

Making professional goals will help give your everyday tasks as well as both short and long term goals more meaning, drive motivation and clarify your purpose as an agent.

Remember to be SMART when setting goals

One proven goal setting method is S.M.A.R.T. Here’s an outline of the steps you need to check off to set yourself up for success in 2016:

Specific– It’s all well and good to say ‘I will get more business in 2016’, but it isn’t a very specific statement or easily achievable goal. Many agents often make the mistake of setting too vague and very broad goals that are impossible to achieve and measure. Make sure you write down your specific goals so you can easily review them. For example, if one of your goals is to ‘get more business’ what specific areas do you want to improve and see grow? Do you want more clients, more leads, more online enquiries, less passed in properties, more frequent commissions, more auctions, more referrals, more sales, more listings or more buyers? Choose the areas you want to improve upon and note them down to set separate specific goals.

Measurable– If you’re unable to measure or quantify a goal, how will you know whether or not you’ve achieved it? For instance, if you set out with the goal ‘I want to set up a good and respected agent blog in 2016’ it’s difficult to measure ‘good’ and ‘respectable’. So it’s important to clearly define the parameters of each of your goals so that you can measure your results and track your performance as you work your way towards the final goal. Better goals for an agent blog could be something like ‘I will see a 100 per cent increase in newsletter subscriptions by mid 2016’ or ‘I will have x number of unique visitors to my blog page by the end of the month’.

Attainable and Realistic– When setting professional goals, it’s important to push and stretch yourself to achieve bigger and better things. However, you need to ensure your goals are not too big and complex for someone with your resources and capabilities. If you set unattainable and unrealistic goals, you will easily lose motivation, feel defeated and fail to see your goals through. While the goal ‘I will have as many Twitter followers as Kanye West by mid 2016’ is specific and measurable, it’s not remotely attainable in the Australian real estate space. Based on the number of new Twitter followers you got last quarter you may set a more realistic goal to ‘have a 25 per cent increase in Twitter followers in the first quarter of 2016’.

Time-sensitive– One of the most important features of any goal is that it has a reasonable deadline. Having a clear timeframe mapped out provides you with focus and a sense of urgency to get moving and make it happen. A couple of good examples of time-sensitive goals could be ‘I will contact x amount of people per week’, ‘I will add x number of new listings to the company website each month’, ‘I will close 40 sales by July 2016’ or ‘I will write a minimum of four blog entries each month’. Setting a time-frame for a goal also allows you to set up time to review your progress and decide if you need to extend your original deadline or determine what you need to do differently to meet the goal on time.

Taking the time to set your goals and frequently evaluating your progress will help to make it easier to stay motivated and reach your desired results for 2016 and beyond. For more secrets to success in real estate take a look at four things successful agents do every morning

Larissa Gardner
Larissa Gardner is the Marketing Manager at arguably Australia’s best looking real estate website homely.com.au. With a superb devotion to product innovation, user-centred design and innovative marketing platforms for real estate agents, homely.com.au helps millions of Australians find their next home.

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