The Essentials of Real-Estate Success, Part 3 Processes/Practices
by Doug Walker
Based on The Essentials of Success™ from A-Ha Performance: Building and Managing a Self-Motivated Workforce by Douglas Walker with Steven Sorkin
Sometimes success comes because we see an opportunity and strategically pursue it. We plan our work; work our plan. We create our own disciplined process and stay with it. Undeniably, strategic approaches have a good track record. But what if we’re just not strategic kind of people? Keep reading because we’ll focus in this piece on the Essential for Success™ that is our Process or Practices but we’ll discover that many non-strategic people have found enormous success too. How do they do it?
A number of years ago I was retained to consult with a company that was grossing about $28 million annually. The two owners had been written up as entrepreneurs of the year and now wanted to figure out how to become a $100 million company.
I started the engagement with something called the Seven-S assessment, a way to identify current realities in seven components of an organization:
1. Shared Vision
2. Strategy
3. Skills
4. Staffing
5. Systems
6. Synergies
7. Style
I asked what their vision was. “What would this company look like as a $100 mill. Company?”
“It would be bringing in $100 million dollars/year. Other than that, we’re not quite sure.”
“Well what’s your Strategy for getting to that $100 million dollars?”
“We’ll need to sell more and acquire some other companies.”
“Successful acquisitions are very difficult to pull off. The failure rate is over 75%. Do you have the Skill sets among your current Staff to profitably acquire and integrate other companies? And with current revenue at $28 million, your organization’s sales skills are strong enough for that level, but do you think you have the sales Skills to increase revenue to $100 million?”
“We don’t really have expertise in acquisitions and our sales people are working pretty flat out to keep us at the level we are now, so probably we’d need to improve that skill set.”
“How would your business Systems have to change in order to support that increase of business?”
“Don’t know.”
“You have 2 divisions in your company now, each in a different location and each focused on a different offering. Are there practices in place that maximize the Synergistic sharing of information and insights between those divisions?”
“Not really. The 2 divisions each function like autonomous companies.”
“Have you given any thought to the Style of your company, or companies if that’s really the more accurate picture, and how that’s going to change as you grow?”
“Nope.”
I was puzzled. How did these two guys get to be entrepreneurs of the year when it appeared they had no strategic bone in either of their bodies? I asked. (Asking, by the way, is a really good thing to do when you’re curious about something.) “How did you guys build your company?”
The story boiled down to luck. They were both working together on some minor projects when they learned that a company they knew and had worked with was going to shut down a $7 million dollar division for some reason. These guys managed to buy it at fire sale pricing. Then they heard that another company was going to cut-loose a $21 mill. division in another location… they managed to buy that, too. They had not built their company from scratch. They were in the right place at the right time and noticed an opportunity.
So what was I going to do to help them? They were successful, not strategically, but serendipitously. It contradicted my assumption at that point that success was the result of skillful strategizing.
That evening I put my pondering around what seemed like a paradox on hold and turned on the TV. Some successful rock band was being interviewed. The interviewer said, “Your accomplishment must be beyond your wildest dreams (Vision or Shared Vision).”
“What dreams?” said one. “We were just playing at a bar when in walked some guy with a big ol’ cigar. He heard us play, then came up to us and asked, ‘How would you boys like to be stars?’ We said, ‘What the hell?’ We didn’t have anything better to do.”
That’s when the A-ha came to me. There are 2 ways success comes; Strategically and opportunistically.
Some of us are strategic, like sharks; we pursue goals. Others of us are more leek eels, we wait in the rocks for something to swim by. There are successful sharks and eels in the ocean so both approaches must be valid.
How do we create the practices that maximize our success?
1. Determine our basic success style; Strategic? Opportunistic?
2. Ask our selves; “If I’m basically a strategic kind of person, could I increase my effectiveness by adding some Opportunistic practices… and if I’m basically an opportunistic kind of person, could I increase my effectiveness by adding some Strategic practices.”
3. Strategic:
- Set goals – what do you want?
i. 2 years out
ii. 1 year
iii. 6 months
iv. This month
v. Today
- Identify where you are relative to those goals – what have you got?
- Create “to do lists” to meet today’s goals. (Success IS, to some extent, a numbers game… make those calls.)
- Review what you did at the end of your day – what am I doing?
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your activity and your skills – how is it working?
- Figure out and implement improvements – make a plan for more effective doing as well as for developing and improving skills.
- Implement the new plan
4. Opportunistic:
- Be aware of what you want
- Talk to a lot of people – Participate in associations and events
- Give great service - Think ETS2
i. Eager to Serve
ii. Excited to Share
- Be real nice – Say “yes” as much as possible
- Notice the opportunity in every situation
- Be prepared to act in a principled way on that opportunity
- Synergize with others
Please let me know how you use these ideas. If you implement them on your own, or are already utilizing them, I’d love to learn how they’re working for you. Feedback is a wonderful thing.
Remember, doing doesn’t make the difference… effective doing does.
Doug Walker
A-ha! Performance
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