Becoming A High Performing Team

Complete the six steps below to measure and assess how your business is performing.
Complete this on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, annually) to see how you are doing.   

Step 1: Generate a Baseline Set of Numbers  

Sometimes you have financial information and stats coming from everywhere, yet it’s still hard to reconcile them and get a clear picture. So, the first step in becoming a high performing agency is to get an accurate benchmark from which to measure improvement.

Download the baseline templates (by clicking here). 

Enter the following values. For the period (we suggest last 12 months):

• What was your total income? Ignore one-off income (such as, project managing property improvements).  
• How many units did you have at the start of the period? How many at the end (segment managed, let only if desired)?  
• How many clients/landlords did you have at the start and at the end?  
• How many clients/landlords and associated units did you acquire during the period?  
• How many clients/landlords and associated units did you lose during the period?  
• (If you would like assistance in pulling performance figures together, the LoftyWorks team would be happy to help).   

This will generate a simplified model for your agency and a revenue target incorporating four of the drivers described previously.  

Step 2: Set your Target for 2024  

Using the data generated, you next have to set a target in terms of performance, based on your previous experience. It might only be a small % increase that you anticipate for 2024. Enter what you feel is achievable.  

The secret to becoming a high-performance agency is through measurement, tracking and delivery of previous targets set. A positive feedback cycle, can be hugely rewarding for everyone involved. So, this process shouldn’t be a one-off. It should become the annual ‘stock take’ and a chance to determine your forecasting accuracy every year.  

High performance comes from setting realistic targets and from a sense of achievement in delivering what you set out to do.  

Setting unachievable targets is just kidding yourself and will demotivate you and your staff. So pick targets that require the business to improve but are not fictional. You can also set ‘stretch’ targets if you want to push the business harder. Stretch targets should always be defined alongside the considered, expected target for the year.  

Step 3: Assess the How 

This is undoubtedly the most intensive step. We need to generate a long list of ideas covering all the ideas and possibilities for how to reduce churn, cut landlord compensation, increase fees etc.

Use our brainstorming starter list below, making sure you tailor and personalise it to the specifics of your agency:

Step 4: Decide and Prioritise What to Change  

Once you have freely brainstormed and exhausted your teams’ ideas, next prioritise them. With the day-to-day hustle of lettings it will be hard to do more than 2-3 initiatives in parallel. So prioritise as you see fit and work through them sequentially during the year. 
 
Initiatives will require investment in terms of hard £££, but also time and effort. Put a budget behind each initiative based on the potential for moving the needle and achieving the targets set.  

Step 5: Implement  

Make someone in the team responsible for project management and tracking progress on individual targets. Set monthly update meetings to plan and track the work required and raise visibility of the work being undertaken. Take time to celebrate success.  

Step 6: Re-Measure  

As well as team implementation, ensure someone is tasked with tracking and re-measuring factors from Step 1. This should be performed regularly (ideally monthly) but could be done on a quarterly basis.   

A further refinement is to develop what’s called a Balanced Score-Card. This summarises the change and tracks progress.  

Have a simple 1 pager which your team refers to every month, summarising and tracking progress during the year. Colour code the column “Score” to highlight best performance. You can also assign a % for individuals involved and incentivise with bonuses for achieving the targeted growth.  

Further Advice and Help?  

The LoftyWorks team works with many agents across the UK, helping them achieve better performance, reduce risk and add profit to their portfolios.  

Why not arrange a chat with our team to discuss your agency needs?