Business Planning & Goal Setting · Birdsong × Linney
Start with what you keep. Work backwards to Monday morning. The numbers below are the workshop example — replace them with yours and watch line 6 change.
What you want to bring home after taxes this year. Real number, not a brave one.
Pre-tax profit your business must produce: $150,000
Profit isn't GCI. Every GCI dollar loses a slice to cost of sale (splits to specialists, referral fees, client concessions — it scales with every deal) and a slice to overhead (lead gen, salaries, tech, office, insurance — it runs whether you close or not). Pick a model, then tune the sliders to your reality.
You keep 70¢ of every GCI dollar → GCI needed: $214,286
Last 12 months of closed GCI ÷ sides — gross, before any splits (splits already live in cost of sale above). The book, not the number in your head.
GCI ÷ per-side = 22 sides this year. Not “as many as possible” — this many.
You can't do a closing — only the activities that cause one. Use your ratios, or start here and tighten with real data.
A contact attempt is a dial, text, DM, or door — most don't become conversations. Warm sphere runs ~3 attempts per conversation; cold can run 10+.
06 · The one number
10
Real conversations a week. That's the whole plan — a $120,000 take-home is 10 two-way conversations about real estate, every week. Everything else on the to-do list is somebody else's emergency.
To get them: 46 contact attempts a week — 10 a day in your morning block, five days a week.
Run lean: 10/wk · Run the MREA team model: 17/wk — leverage costs conversations before it buys you time.