With summer behind us, the New Year is approaching quickly. Make sure your office is ready for 2014 by following the tips below:

Create an Annual Business Plan

Having an Annual Business Plan allows you to focus on what creating primary goals and focus areas for upcoming year.

A basic Annual Business Plan should have the following:

• A mission statement that spells out your company purpose for 2014.
• Goals that your office will strive to achieve (i.e., market share, new technologies)
• Plans for additional recruitment of agents
• Plans for retention of current agents
• A master calendar with all of the events, sessions and meetings your office is planning on.

Take the business plan you've created and use it as a foundation for choosing the direction of your brokerage in 2014.

Have a Budget

This isn't just about looking at your financial statements (although those are very important). Take time to look at your other metrics:

• How many listings did your office sign?
• How many of those sold? Expired?
• How many transactions were completed?
• What was the average net to the office per transaction?

Use the above information to budget your expected listing inventory and transaction figures for the upcoming year. Review these reports monthly to accurately project your position and future growth.

Review Office Procedures

Look at each task performed in your office and ask yourself if there's more efficient way of conducting business. Keeping paper files? Go paperless. Manually tracking leads? Implement an automated distribution list.

Get an expert opinion – click here and take a look at our Leader of the Pack S.W.O.T. Analysis.

Let us know the different ways you're preparing your office for 2014 by leaving a comment below.

To View the original article, visit the Lone Wolf blog.