Think about what you do in a day. Now, consider how much of what you do is directly related to your skills, personality, and connections. How much of what you do makes you money? If you find that you are spending much of your time on tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming, and unprofitable, it may be time to hire a real estate assistant.
Why hire a real estate assistant?
A real estate assistant can help with a wide variety of duties, freeing you up for the things that only you can do, like prospecting, listing appointments, client relations, and networking. In addition, when you are spending less time on administrative tasks, you have more time for additional training, associational work, and other strategic initiatives that can help you build your reputation in the industry.
Types of Real Estate Assistants
The specific duties your real estate assistant will undertake can vary, depending on what you need the most help with. In addition, there are different types of assistants to fit your budget and your personal preference.
Administrative Assistant
An administrative assistant will typically undertake standard tasks around the office like file management, supply ordering, document preparation, correspondence management, and other duties as assigned. In order to get the most out of working with your administrative assistant, look for additional special skills like the following:
- Social Media Management: You may want to include social media management in your position description. While you will still need to handle social media posts that call for a personal touch, an admin with social media management skills can create simple posts or links to your content along with captions in order to ensure you are posting consistently across your platforms.
- Graphic Design: Choose an admin with graphic design skills on platforms like Snappa, Canva, or Poster My Wall. This will allow the assistant to create custom graphics for social media, flyers, brochures, postcards, business cards, and other promotional materials.
- Content Creation: An assistant with a background as an English major or teacher may be able to help with content creation, including turning your bullet points into blog posts or prewriting social media captions, as well as copy-editing all of your correspondence and promotional materials.
- Bookkeeping and Finance: If you find an assistant with a background in bookkeeping you may be able to turn over records management through a software platform like Quickbooks to your assistant, ensuring that your financial records are always up to date.
Virtual Assistant
If, like many real estate agents, you work from home or have limited desk privileges at your office, you may find that a virtual assistant makes more sense than an on-site administrative assistant. Virtual assistants are often less expensive than in-person assistants and frequently work as freelancers. This means that a virtual assistant is an independent contractor, not an employee, simplifying the tax implications of hiring an assistant.
Showing Assistant
If you do a great deal of work with buyers, you may find that hiring an administrative assistant with a valid real estate license gives you even more bang for your buck. A new real estate agent or one who is looking to transition from part-time to full-time may be grateful for the opportunity to learn from you while developing experience with CRM and MLS platforms, operations, and marketing along with real-life client experience.
What do you need to do before you hire a real estate assistant?
One of the most important things for you to do before you hire your assistant is to put in place clear systems and processes. This ensures that you know what you need your assistant to do and know how to communicate the proper way to do it.
Take a look at your calendar or task management platform to see how you spend the majority of your time and formulate your job description and interview questions around the most time-consuming tasks on your list.
When is the right time to hire?
You may be struggling with the timing for your hire, especially if your budget is tight. However, a great assistant can free you up to make more phone calls, more listing appointments, and to optimize the time you spend on profit-generating activities. That extra time may well be enough to more than pay for your assistant over the course of a year.
If you are still concerned about budgeting for your assistant, consider one of the following options:
- Co-hire with another real estate agent
- Hire on a part-time basis at first, then transition to full-time
- Structure pay as base salary plus a percentage of each commission
How do you find a reliable real estate assistant?
There are many platforms in place to help you find a reliable real estate assistant. Before you begin, you may want to create a dedicated email address in order to better organize inquiries and resumes. While you can post your job on a job site like Indeed or Monster or on a forum like Craigslist, you might want to consider one of the following strategies first:
- Ask friends, family members, and colleagues for personal recommendations
- Post the job description on your personal Facebook page and ask for recommendations
- Join a freelancer platform like Upwork or Guru to find qualified, highly recommended virtual assistants
- Check with your broker or a friendly lender, title officer, or other related colleague
Once you have gathered some inquiries, plan your hiring process, including the questions you will ask. Be sure to review the laws and policies regarding fair hiring practices in order to ensure that your questions are appropriate.
You may also want to formulate a small task list in order to test the skills of your interviewees. This can include:
- A timed typing test
- A brief research and writing test
- A spreadsheet test
- A test for the various social media platforms you use.
In no way should these tasks constitute free work from the applicant. They should simply allow you to see how adept the potential assistant is at basic functions of the job.
Most importantly, remember that you are not hiring an underling or a go-fer. Ideally, a skilled assistant is a valuable part of your team and can make everything you do easier and better. Optimize the hiring and onboarding process in order to ensure that your new employee becomes a great teammate as well.
When you work with team coaching experts like Goodfellow Coaching & Consulting, we can help you develop an action plan when hiring a real estate assistant. Want to know how well your real estate business is really performing? Give our Business Evaluation Quiz a try. It will help you analyze every pillar of your business.