Many real estate agents want to grow their businesses, but they often hesitate when it comes to hiring help.
Here are some of their common concerns and why they’re harmful to their desired growth:
1. Fear of the unknown
This one is the biggest fears most new entrepreneurs have and it’s understandable. We are all afraid of the unknown, but if we want to elevate our business, we need to overcome these fears.
You might be thinking:
- What if I don’t have enough funds to pay the salary?
- What if I don’t have sales next month?
- How do successful real estate agents deal with that?
They evaluate their budget and have predictive models for their businesses. Besides, they know that by hiring help, they actually free up their time for money-making activities.
So by delegating prospecting or marketing tasks to someone who is already trained for that, you’ll start making more money by concentrating on your clients, new leads, etc. So you’ll end up increasing your income and all the worries about not being able to pay your employee will disappear. It’s totally worth it!
2. Not knowing how and what to delegate
The answer is simple! You should only be engaging in income-producing activities: networking, building relationships, working with your clients, attending listing appointments, negotiating contracts. All the menial non-income-producing, other tasks should be delegated to your assistant.
It is a good idea to have a SOP (standard operating procedures) manual for your business, where everything is spelled out and in case your current assistant leaves, a replacement can be easily trained and be onboarded. Some agents already have it ready before they hire an assistant, and some build one up together with their assistant.
3. No infrastructure to onboard an assistant
When you hire an assistant, you also need to provide infrastructure for your employee. Computer, work station, internet connection, etc. Some agents are mobile and don’t even have an office space and work from home. So, bringing an employee creates a challenge.
The best way to go about doing it is to hire a virtual assistant, who already has all the necessary equipment and infrastructure. There are a few really good companies who provide already trained virtual assistants who are ready to start with minimum downtime for onboarding.
4. Wrong mindset
What’s a liability? Something that takes money out of your pocket without adding value, right?
Successful entrepreneurs treat their assistants as assets, not liabilities, because they know the value of leverage. By delegating tasks, you’re saving your priceless time and redirecting it into the money-making activities that will give you more profit in the future.
When you pay your assistant $10 an hour and your rate is $100 an hour, you are saving $90 an hour.
5. Working in the business instead of on the business
A lot of agents get consumed in the work of taking care of their clients that they stop noticing that at some point they only work in their businesses instead of working on building and growing their business.
A lot of people never make the mental transition from that of an employee or self-employed statuses to a business owner. When a business is working for them instead of them working to run the business, that’s when the growth and proper alignment happens.
To make the leap into the business owner mindset, the agent must learn how to delegate and prioritize because operating a company is a different skill than selling homes.
By actually hiring an assistant who will take on some of the tasks, the agent starts the process of actually building a business that can run without the owner’s involvement some day — or at least go on vacation and not have to worry about the operations and closings.
Pavel Stepanov is the CEO of Virtudesk – Real Estate Virtual Assistants based in the Philippines and Designated Broker at Nexus Realty International