5 Questions to Ask Yourself for a Successful 2014

"What's written is real, what's planned is possible," says real estate coach, author and speaker Mike Lindstrom. According to Lindstrom, too many agents only talk about what they want to do when it comes to marketing their business without investing time into setting specific goals and plans to achieve those goals.

To help agents get started crafting a plan for success in the new year, he recommends that every agent asks themselves five questions:

1. What is my purpose?
2. What is my outcome?
3. What is my business plan?
4. What can I do this year to invest in myself?
5. What can I do to change my mindset?

Lindstrom was one expert selected to provide one-on-one training sessions to the winners of the 2013 HomeFinder.com Agent Makeover Sweepstakes. For more from Lindstrom on goal setting for 2014, read the transcript on the next page.

One of the single biggest challenges I find in coaching when I'm working with real estate professionals is how do you cross that barrier into the land of social media? To overcome these challenges with social media and marketing, you have to invest time, invest money. Part of that becomes training. You can't rely on your company or your broker anymore. Go to these other marketing companies. Go find somebody--a coach that's going to really help you really get to that next level.

Five questions that every real estate agent should ask themselves every year when you think about planning:

1. What is my purpose? Why am I doing this? It's one thing that a lot of people lose track of--why am I doing what I'm doing?

2. What is my outcome? At the end of the day, when I'm thinking about my goals, what is it that I want specifically in the next year, in my business? A lot of agents kind of gloss over that.

3. What is my business plan? What's written is real, what's planned is possible. A lot of agents talk about what's in their mind, what they want to do with marketing, and what they want to do in the new social media era, but they don't actually take the time to invest. So sit down and think about what it is specifically and measure what it is that [you want to] do.

4. What can I do this year to invest in myself? How can I take time out of my schedule, my life, every week, every month to get to the next level? If you're not investing in yourself, you're not really getting to the next level.

5. What can I do to change my mindset? Beliefs are always changing--not only in the culture and in the real estate market. How can I change my beliefs to influence my behavior at the end of the day to really change the outcome?