40. The Strategic Pivot Framework

Have you ever started a new project with excitement, only to realize halfway through that you’re not even sure what “success” means for you? This morning, I found myself re-examining the way I set expectations—not just for big goals, but for every experiment and new lead generation method I launch.

Lately, I’ve noticed how transformative it can be to get super specific about your expected outcomes. For me, it started with a wild challenge: 30 open houses in 30 days. I didn’t just want “more leads”—I wanted three new names per event and, by the end, a crystal clear sense of what was working (and why). Reflecting back, those moments taught me that vague goals are often why we feel stuck or uncertain about when to pivot.

In today’s episode of The Work From Anywhere Agent, I’m sharing my simple, honest model for deciding when to make a change in your business. We’ll talk about creating powerful baselines, checking your real estate strategies for effectiveness, and—crucially—how to be kind to yourself when things don’t pan out as planned. If you ever question whether you’re missing something or if you’re just a tweak or two away from real momentum, this one’s for you.

Curious to swap stories, compare notes, or just get support for that next experiment? Drop into our Business Systems for Realtors Facebook group to join the conversation. I’d love to hear what you’re working on, what’s working—and what you’ve realized it’s time to pivot from.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Mental Model for Pivoting
• 0:32 Setting Clear Expected Outcomes
• 1:45 30 Open Houses Challenge
• 3:39 Evaluating Results and Activities
• 6:47 Making Tweaks and Improvements
• 8:44 Facing Resistance with Honesty
• 10:00 The Complete Pivot Framework

Transcript

Alexa: 0:00

Today we're talking about when to pivot right, like we think about the market shifts, we think about growing a business, we think about all these things and it comes down to sometimes things just don't work out the way that we intend for them to, and so, as we're going into this, I started building this sort of mental model, if you will, that I go through every single time that I need to decide whether or not it's time to pivot. So whenever I start a new project, a new experiment, a new anything, I always start with what is my expected outcome. This is really important because a lot of times, agents come into something and I see it all the time with agents who are looking to use Orbit, agents who want to take on a new lead generation method, whatever it is. We look at like what is the expected expected outcome, and not just saying like I want more leads, but focusing on when I go into this new method, I'm looking for this many leads. So, for example, when I first got into the business, somebody told me I should go do open houses and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that. And so what I did was this is crazy at this point and I don't think I would ever do this again, but it was a great experiment is I did 30 open houses in 30 days, and so they weren't huge, epic open houses, but I decided that when I was going to do this, my goal was to get anywhere from two to four names added to my database for those 30 days, and so there were some Saturdays and Sundays that I did two open houses. I would do an 11 o'clock and I would do like a two o'clock, or I would do a 10 o'clock and a one o'clock and they'd be two one hour open houses.

Alexa: 1:28

And what I found in doing that was a couple of things. First, I really got good at being able to have conversations off the cuff with buyers and because of the facts that I started doing open houses in the same areas, people started to recognize that I was doing a lot of open houses. And I have to tell you somebody just reached out who has been on my drip campaign for almost nine years at this point and he has a $1.3 million property that he's looking to sell, and he reached out to me because I met him at one of those open houses, continued to nurture him, continued to keep him in the database. He's been on my Real Scout nurture campaign and he just basically reached out and said hey, I'm moving to central Florida and I need to sell my house, and so I have a listing appointment set with him on Friday. Now that's not the only one, but what I found is that experiment got me so good at having conversations with people that that was sort of an unexpected outcome. Right when I went into it, my expected outcome was 30 open houses in 30 days. I needed two to four people, so really the goal was three, right, but if I had two someday and four other days, I was okay with that right. So and we're talking about I did a lot of twilight open houses from like five to 7pm or six to 8pm, so that I could make sure I got those open houses in Right. And so I'm using this as an example. Right, this model works for anything.

Alexa: 2:52

Then, the intention here is that whatever you go into, you have to be so incredibly clear about what your expected outcome is, because if you're not clear about what success looks like, you're never going to know if you're actually being successful. And I know that sounds so obvious and so basic, but so many people start new things and they're like well, I just hope it works, okay. But how will you know if it works? You know what? If the goal is 10 leads, okay, well. If you get 11 leads, that's successful, right. If you get nine leads, okay, well then maybe you just need to let it run a little bit longer. So a lot of these things where we think that things are not working. It comes down to the fact that we either, a had no clear expectation of what we were looking for or, b we had unrealistic expectations of what things were going to look like. So the first thing is like setting that expected outcome.

Alexa: 3:43

Then, as you go through and you do the activity, at the end of your experiment so typically I do this for a set time period seven days, 21 days, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever that timeframe is I make sure that on a weekly basis, I stay consistent to that one or two activities to make sure that I can really focus on whatever the goal is right. So at the end of it, I'm going to look back and say what was the result? Did I hit the result? Okay, great. If I hit the result, then I know that it worked and that's something I'm going to keep doing If I fell short of the results. The very first thing that I go back and look at is the activities. Right, if I knew, going into again, using the 30 open houses of 30 days and so looking at, okay, well, if I add three people to my database every single time I do an open house in 30 days, I should have 90 names in my database, okay, so of those 90 names, I expected that about 10% of them were going to end up purchasing property within the next 18 months or so, and so my immediate goal was 90 names in the database, and then I had to make sure I kept nurturing them, right? But if I didn't hit that 90 names, then I have to look at the activity. Number one did I not do enough open houses? Number two did I not promote them? All of those things, right. And so, by the way, I ended up blowing past that number. That was a challenge that my coach made me do, because at the time I didn't have anybody in my pipeline and so from that I got so good at just the conversations with buyers and talking to the neighbors and all of that sort of stuff. So it ended up blowing past that goal and understanding that, going in with a plan, I knew exactly how I was going to be successful, and it didn't feel overwhelming because I knew exactly what I needed to do every single time and it was realistic.

Alexa: 5:29

So often we come into things with unrealistic expectations. I'm going to be the exception, right, I'm going to have 20 people come to every open house that I do. Okay, well, that's not realistic, because we all know that there's open houses that nobody comes to sometimes, right? So you sit there for two hours and maybe you have one weird creepy neighbor that comes over and they don't sign in, and so now you have zero, right? So then sometimes you have 10 people, and so those are things that you can't really predict. But if you can set a baseline expectation, you can check in throughout the process, Throughout those 30 days. You can check in after five open houses and say, how am I doing? Okay, well, if I'm not hitting the number, then I need to change something, right, and so that is really where it comes down to is being able to pivot faster.

Alexa: 6:17

But it starts with knowing what the expected outcome is actually going to be and then when you get to the end of whatever your challenge is so, and I'm going to keep and then, when you get to the end of whatever your challenge is, so and I'm going to keep reiterating this that expected outcome needs to come with a deadline In the next 30 days, in the next 60 days, in the next 90 days, in the next five or three or seven days, whatever that number ends up being. We need to just be clear about what exactly it is right. So, expected outcome deadline Get to the deadline and you're like great, you know, I hit it or I missed it. If you miss it, then you go back to the activity first. If you did the activity but you still missed the result, then something else is broken. Whether it's the marketing or the scripting or your follow-up sequences, there's something in there that's broken.

Alexa: 7:01

And so we get really, really granular about how we're sort of critiquing our expected outcome or plan. From there. Then we can start making tweaks, then we start making changes. Right, we go, okay, well, either A, this worked and now I want to do more of it, instead of just saying, okay, well, let's just keep doing it. Then we say can we actually make this convert better? Can we actually get more people into our open houses. And so you start making these 1% improvements and truly, this is how you stay motivated when things get really tough, because you're focusing on this one thing at a time and you know that it's going to get you closer to your goals.

Alexa: 7:41

But you have to have a baseline to work off of, and so we're like, okay, well, I'm not going to do anything until I know that it's going to work. Well, you're not going to know if it's going to work until you actually start doing the activities to start building a baseline. And then, as you start getting to the end of your experiment, now it's time for a new experiment, and that's where that improvement comes in. Or that's where it's time to go back and say, hey, listen, I have to be really honest with myself. I can't be mad at myself for not getting the results that I wanted when I didn't actually do the work.

Alexa: 8:13

Ok, well, that's a work ethic thing, and so, if anything, if we want to be really honest, that's an integrity thing too, because if we said that we're going to do something and we said that this is what we wanted, and then we just didn't do the activities, we really have to have a hard look at ourselves in the mirror and say, like, ok, well, where am I holding myself back, right? And so when I start calling out integrity, this is where a lot of people, their nervous systems are going to start freaking out and they're going to be like, no, I'm someone who has integrity, and I'm not saying that you don't. What I'm saying is there's something inside of you that's holding you back from whatever that activity is. And so then that's where the emotional and spiritual and trauma work comes in, to say, like, why am I fighting this so much when I know this is good for me? Like, why am I so resistant to doing this one thing? And that is where the work really lies, right?

Alexa: 9:03

So this process of pivoting is about being so brutally honest with ourselves, but doing it in a way that's not critical, in a way that's empowering right, and not trying to accomplish the whole world at one time, really focusing on, like, the one thing, what is the one experiment that I want to do? Having the really clear expected outcome, having the really clear timeline Once we get to the end, making sure, obviously, that we're fulfilling the activities that we said we were going to do. We tweak and we pivot along the way to stay on track for that one commitment and then, at the end of that commitment, then we go back, we reflect and we look at our progress. How did we do? If we hit it, then great, continue and now start a new experiment. That's how you stay motivated.

Alexa: 9:48

If you fell short of it, then A, like I said, go back into the activity piece. If we fell short of the activity, we got some work to do there. If we did the activity but still didn't get the result, then we know that there is a systems issue or a leverage issue, and that's where we get into this. And so I hope that this was helpful today. I hope that when you're going through and you're thinking about this, that voice in the back of your head does not come across as trying to insult you or criticize you, but instead says okay, listen, the negative thoughts, the negative comments are not helpful, but what is helpful is getting clarity and deciding that we're going to start the experiment. So, with that in mind, please make sure that you join us in our Facebook discussion, in the Business Systems for Realtors Facebook group, and I will see you in the next episode.