Everyone will be familiar with this well-known maxim yet the majority actually choose to ignore it.

I have recently completed a series of presentations at Propertymark regional conferences and have been speaking about my ten P’s for business success, the overarching P being Planning.

In rooms across the country I would estimate, on a show of hands, that no more than 5% of the delegates attending had a business plan for 2024 and even less for 2025!

2025 has, of course, already started for estate agency businesses – transactions being agreed now are unlikely to produce revenue until the end of the first quarter of next year and so waking up and smelling the coffee should, in reality, have happened weeks ago but, in my opinion, it is always good to plan even if one is coming late to the party.

A plan provides direction for the business. After all, a person going nowhere usually gets there – I liken not having a plan to being asked to complete a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle but not being shown the picture on the box – very difficult to complete.

Armed with the picture (your plan) you can work out what goes where, when and how.

Keeping your plan under review is like using the sat-nav in your car. Your sat-nav is constantly monitoring your journey and enables immediate corrections to be made if you go off course. It doesn’t wait for you to be in Bristol when travelling from London to Glasgow to tell you, you made a wrong turn!

Look at what is happening in the world in which you operate – the next year will see the Renters Rights and Employee Rights Acts come into play – both of these are going to significantly change the landscape for agents.

Upfront material information provides fantastic opportunities to lock in clients, get conveyancers involved early, use reservation agreements, reduce aborts, speed up transactions etc but it will need a plan and action to achieve.

The Labour government has said it will look to introduce the recommendations from Lord Best in his ROPA report – what will you do to ensure you comply and what could you do now to gain a commercial advantage?

Change is always un-nerving. Five hundred years ago, Machiavelli in his epic book The Prince said: “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

Quite frankly, change is happening with or without you, whether you embrace it or not.

As always, there will be those who get ahead and build themselves fantastic businesses and create new and value add services, the majority will simply get dragged along and spend half their time moaning about it and a few (and this may be many more than expected) will simply say “WTF was that” as they head rapidly for the exit or dole queue.

Remember James Baker, the former US Secretary of State’s famous words – Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

Michael S Day is the managing director at Integra Property Services