What’s the difference between internal accountability and external accountability? Understanding the answer will change how you think, what you do daily, and how quickly you find the success you desire.
Spoiler alert: When you practice internal accountability at the same level as you’re already executing your external accountability, you will gain clarity and lose stress. How can that be? Let’s dive in and figure this out!
Ever wondered why it is that your mobile phone bill is always paid, and you always have gas in your car and food to eat? Those are examples of external accountability — something bad will happen if you don’t cover those items. You’d never miss those payments, would you? Even in the tightest month, you always find a way to pay those bills. That’s because if you don’t, you’ll feel the nearly immediate consequences.
Internal accountability
Everyone says they have a goal of saving more money or paying off consumer debt, and yet, for most people, it’s a struggle to move the needle on those goals. This is because nothing immediately bad happens to you if you don’t do it. You could go years without increasing your savings.
What would happen if you were sent a bill to pay money into your savings and, if you didn’t do it, you’d lose your real estate license?
To accomplish those goals that are more elusive, you must start practicing internal accountability as seriously as your external accountability.
Take for example the average agent who must earn $5,000 per month to cover their part of the household bills. Everyone who survives more than 12 months in real estate figures out how to do that.
That same agent knows that they must earn $15,000 per month to meet or exceed their goals — above and beyond paying the bills.
The magic happens when that agent takes the $15,000 as seriously as they do the $5,000 that’s required just to pay their basic bills. In other words, that $15,000 has to be made every month, no matter what, just as surely as the ‘survival’ money was made. That’s the leap of accountability. It is how you meet and exceed your goals. Of course, adjust accordingly using your own financial situation.
It takes work
We work a lot in coaching on this very technique. Most commissioned sales agents, when asked about their savings plans, will state that they save whatever is left at the end of the month. Sometimes they will count on saving money from ‘an extra deal’, or ‘the next big commission check’. That is not a plan.
Business maturity and financial security both come from identifying specific goals, then having an actual plan to execute. Once the internal accountability is identified, you can know if you’re on track ahead or behind, and you’ll know what areas you need help with. Most commonly, this is in the area of lead generation.
If you are doing one transaction per month, covering all of your required bills (external accountability stuff), but you’re not moving the needle, you’ll likely need three transactions per month. So the next question is, how do you increase your sales volume so you have enough to not just keep the lights on, but to have the life of your dreams?
Tim and Julie Harris host a podcast for Realtors called Real Estate Coaching Radio. They’ve been professional real estate coaches for more than 20 years, helping agents succeed in many different market conditions.
