Being a real estate agent or working at a real estate agency is a 24/7 job. If you’re working on a commission, there’s no one there to push you towards working harder. You get what you earn, which is a great incentive but can also become a huge burden.
Even some of the most competent and the most ambitious real estate agents fall into a trap of overworking themselves. Instead of capitalizing on these positive character traits, they work themselves into failure, never really getting to capitalize on their full potential.
One of the ways to avoid this would be to find some competent help. Now, while a lot of people benefit from hiring assistants, there are general assistants, and then there are specialists. Real estate assistants are specialized in real estate tasks. Often, these are the people who aspire to, one day, become real estate agents themselves, which is why they use this opportunity to gain some initial experience and make some contacts.
As a real estate agent, you can use this aspiration to your own advantage. In the 21st century, you can even hire them virtually instead of going the old-school route. Here’s how hiring virtual real estate assistants can help you grow your business.
What Does a Virtual Real Estate Assistant Do?
A virtual real estate assistant acts as a personal assistant in the real estate industry. This means that other than just managing your schedule, they’re performing specific tasks that are supposed to help you run your real estate business. They’re confirming appointments with buyers and sellers, managing your social media presence, responding to emails, etc.
In other words, they’re doing all the tasks that don’t have to be done by you. Closing sales, talking to buyers and sellers about the specifics of the job, and similar tasks are things that have to be done by you. However, if you’re distracted by having to respond to emails (which is a task that you could have easily entrusted to someone else), you’re not going to utilize your schedule in the best way. All in all, the job of a virtual real estate assistant is to alleviate the pressure on this end.
Also, keep in mind that the term assistant is similar to the term advisor – it can mean a number of things. It’s up to you to decide which tasks they’ll perform. This is why every relationship with an assistant is customizable.
The best way to explain how this works would be to say that you’re not really assigning core tasks. Instead, you’re assigning chores so that you can tend to core tasks yourself.
Another way to figure out why you need a virtual real estate assistant would be to try and calculate how many calls, follow-ups, and emails you would have to handle on your own. Then, try to convert this in time. Now, be honest – how much else would you get to do in this time?
Is It a Good ROI?
The big question that everyone’s asking is whether hiring a virtual real estate assistant is a worthwhile investment (does it give a good ROI). You can start with the last point we made in the previous section in order to figure this one out – how much time would you spend on these tasks that you can easily delegate to the assistant? Once you have the figure, you need to multiply it by the value of your own time.
Keep in mind that real estate agents sometimes don’t get paid by the hour, which makes this calculation somewhat more difficult. While the commission for a sale can be broken down to how many hours it took you to close the sale, even this will vary from one deal to another. Averages are often misleading, seeing as how the average for this industry is $30.28 per hour, but the truth is that there are a lot of those who get paid more, as well as those who are paid less.
From this point, the equation would be quite simple – the time it takes you (hours) X your hourly rate. However, in reality, it’s not that simple. You see, having to tend to these tasks will not only take your time but also distract you from your core tasks. What do you think? Would you be more “in the game” after 4 hours of cold calling and answering emails, or if you could just get straight into this big meeting? The quality of your work gets affected, as well.
Lastly, bear in mind that keeping a healthy work-life balance gets a lot simpler when you have an assistant. Overall, this too needs to be considered when calculating the ROI.
Manage Your Expectations
You need to be realistic and understand that the person that you’re hiring has their own limitations. You want someone who can handle your marketing, handle your transactions, help with the outreach, do your own personal chores and virtually work for peanuts. This is not going to happen.
Keep in mind that while a personal assistant can handle your marketing, they’re not a marketing expert. If they did have this skill set, they would work as a marketing expert and get paid far more than they would earn as a personal assistant. They can also monitor your transactions, but they’re not a professional bookkeeper or a professional accountant. Even with the right accounting software, the results would never be quite the same. Lastly, if they could negotiate with the clients and close the deal autonomously, what would they need you for?
In order to understand the value that you’re getting from a personal assistant, you need to understand what it is that a personal assistant does. Also, it’s quite important that you have a list of their tasks in advance. This way, during the recruitment process, you can tell them exactly what’s expected of them, to which they can either agree or decline. Moreover, once you put it all on paper, if you’re realistic, you’ll be able to recognize when they’re given too many responsibilities.
By clearly defining not just tasks but also outcomes that you expect, you can start off your collaboration on the right foot. You can also establish a collaboration that makes sense in the long run.
Virtual Real Estate Assistant Vs Virtual Assistant
Now, having a personal assistant and having a virtual real estate assistant are not one and the same. Sure, you can have your virtual real estate assistant call your dentist, order your spouse some flowers on her birthday, or do similar menial tasks, but this is not an efficient use of their time. You see, the problem with a lot of real estate agents who look for personal assistants lies in the fact that they sometimes overlook the perks of hiring a pro.
A real estate assistant can research your local real estate market and provide you with their finds. Usually, these are aspiring real estate experts themselves, which means that they have the highest interest (and motivation) in learning the ropes. Why not use this motivation to your own advantage?
One of the fears when hiring a real estate assistant is that, eventually, they’ll become a competition. However, this is a completely wrong way of looking at things. First of all, not everyone doing the same business as you are competitors. Some of these people are potential allies and partners.
Second, you need to understand that a virtual assistant doesn’t even have to live in the same region as you. Seeing as how this industry is highly location-based (for obvious reasons), once they break away from you, there’s no chance that you’ll be competing for the slice of the same pie. Sure, you’ll find yourself in need of replacing a capable employee. However, this holds true in virtually every industry. This is one more thing that makes a virtual real estate assistant superior to local hire.
Focus on Growing Your Revenue
The biggest advantage of having a virtual real estate assistant lies in using their talents to grow your revenue and using their labor to free up some of your own time so that you can do the same. We’ve already mentioned that they can be entrusted with the research. However, while they’re doing the email management and managing your social media, you can get so much done.
Previously, we’ve talked about comparing the cost of your own hour and benefiting from eliminating some of the time that goes on these menial tasks (like data entry). Still, by leveraging their presence (and their work) so that you can grow your revenue, you can make the expansion of your enterprise exponential. This means that the expansion of your business might achieve a snowball effect at one point, after which any questions regarding the ROI would be answered.
Soon, you might want to hire more than one real estate virtual assistant. An administrative assistant, transaction coordinator, and real estate ISA are just some of the virtual assistant types that fit quite well in this niche.
In Conclusion
It’s not just about hiring an assistant. It’s also about hiring the right person for the job. This means that even after you figure out where this assistant is supposed to fit in the larger scheme of things, you need to approach your hiring process very carefully. The vetting process itself can make or break this effort, so make sure to put as much thought here as possible.
