What’s the ONE Thing we can do to build our business such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? That’s the Focusing Question Gary Keller asked himself when he set out to build his real estate company Keller Williams.
The answer was to think big.
Read part 1 of Gary’s personal account on founding Keller Williams – the largest real estate franchise in North America.
Building a business can be overwhelming. Thinking about everything that goes into it is daunting and making a list might actually talk some out of it. It’s a lot. A lot to think about, and a lot to do. The Focusing Question serves as a powerful way to calm your nerves and successfully guide you in launching any business.
When I started my real estate company, Keller Williams, I asked this question: What’s the ONE Thing we can do to build our business such that by doing it everything else will either be easier or unnecessary?
After much research, the one concept that stood out the most was vision. This was best exemplified for me by the story of Disneyland and Disneyworld. After opening Disneyland in California in 1955 on 160 acres, Walt realized he had thought too small. As a result, when he was done parceling together Disneyworld it totaled 30,000 acres.
After hearing this story I vowed from that day on that for my business vision, my ONE Thing would be to think big. “Think Big” became a mantra I continually repeat, not only to myself, but to all I do business with.
Armed with this vision, I asked the question: What’s the ONE Thing we can do to build our business as big as possible such that by doing it everything else we might do will either be easier or unnecessary? The answer was people. Our research revealed nothing correlates more to profitability than the number of associates in a real estate sales firm. Long before Chris Anderson wrote about “the long tail” in the technology industry, we discovered this was true for our sales business. A lot of people over the years have wanted to make profitability about quality versus quantity, but in the end, the numbers in our industry just don’t back this up. And since the numbers don’t lie, our ONE Thing to build a big real estate business became to focus on recruiting real estate associates to our firm.
As agents began to join us, I asked the question: What’s the ONE Thing we can do to help our associates build their businesses such that by doing it everything else we might do will either be easier or unnecessary? Research proved that the number ONE Thing for every real estate salesperson is lead generation, for without customers they would have no business. They could be the best service providers in the world, but without someone to provide real estate services to they would starve. So our answer became helping our real estate associates lead generate.
Challenged by this answer, I then asked the question: What’s the ONE Thing we can do to help our associates lead generate such that by doing it everything else we might do will either be easier or unnecessary? Research revealed we only had two options. We could do the lead generation for them and give them leads, or we could teach them how to lead generate for themselves. In other words, we faced the proverbial “give a fish” or “teach to fish” question. Since the very best in our industry know the only way to succeed to their highest potential is to lead generate for themselves, we made education our ONE Thing to develop our associates.
– Gary Keller
Want to hear how education + number of associates leads to the largest real estate company in North America? Tune in next time for part 2 of Gary’s “big business” blog post. And, be sure to share your big ideas below.
Original Source: http://www.the1thing.com/gary-keller/one-thing-gary-builds-a-business-part-1