Tips For Hiring A Real Estate Virtual Assistant

Most producing agents struggle when their business reaches a certain level, and starts plateauing. They can’t figure out how to scale. This is when they need to hire a real estate virtual assistant.

For many agents at this point in their career, hiring an assistant can potentially double their gross commission income (GCI) for the next year.

In this article, I am going to walk you through my strategy for finding, hiring, and managing a real estate virtual assistant who can help you scale your business.

Getting Started

Before you even think about hiring anyone, you need to figure out which tasks they can do that will actually help you move the ball forward. This is not always easy. Sometimes you might not even realize just how much time you’re wasting on mundane tasks that can easily be taken off your plate.

This is why taking an hour or two to really go through your day-to-day activity to find your pain points is crucial to the hiring process. You can start by actually logging your time for one week and then breaking it up into essential tasks that only you can do, and tasks that can be delegated to a savvy real estate virtual assistant (VA).

Now that you know where all those hours disappear to, you can start to put together a job description and time commitment for a virtual assistant.

Of course, you have two goals here. First, to free up some of your time to focus on high-level tasks that have a big impact on your bottom line, and second but equally important, tasks you can assign to a VA that you can’t find time for today.

Next, put together a dream list of tasks that you have thought about doing but haven’t been able to find the time for.

Here are some tasks a real estate virtual assistant could do for you:

• Targeted engagement on social media to build followers
• Editing long YouTube videos into smaller videos and posting on YouTube
• Designing more attractive posts for social media
• Making custom real estate infographics
• Asking listing agents or buyer agents for feedback
• Designing and sending holiday cards, birthday cards, and so on
• Researching more affordable vendors for marketing materials
• Designing more attractive listing presentations
• Designing more attractive buyer presentations
• Website maintenance
• Scheduling blog posts
• Keeping your calendar up to date
• Screen incoming emails and calls
• Finding social media accounts of leads
• Researching leads on social media
• Entering open house leads into a customer relationship management (CRM) tool
• Posting ads on Craigslist

Obviously, this list is just a starting point. I am sure you can come up with 500 more tasks that would fit into a “nice if I had the time” category. Now make a plan to delegate them to your real estate virtual assistant.

The Hiring Process

Posting Jobs vs Searching Resumes

There are two ways you can use Indeed to find virtual assistant candidates. You can search through resumes looking for great candidates, or post a job.

Writing Your Job Description

Whether you decide to search resumes or post a job, you will need to write up a clear, and hopefully compelling job description. You can get started by writing up a bulleted list of the tasks you want your VA to do. Once you have that done, write up a quick, friendly, introduction to you and your company.

Deciding on a Salary

Before posting your job ad, search for keywords like “real estate” or “administrative assistant” or any specific skill you need, like “social media” or “Photoshop.” If you take the time to find people with the skills you want, you’ll have a much better idea of what salary to offer.

IMPORTANT: If you absolutely need someone with specific skills, make sure you say they must have those skills to apply. If you don’t, you will get flooded with resumes!

Vetting Candidates

While making a hiring decision based on IQ is probably not a great idea, DISC assessments can be useful if you want to hire a customer-facing assistant.

IQ, DISC Assessment & ID Score

Worker Skills

Next, check out their “Worker Skills” section, where candidates rank their skills in different software or tasks.

Making the Offer

While you don’t have to, sending your new hire an official offer letter and onboarding document will help them feel like they made the right choice. Make sure to spell out salary, tasks, payment, and hours worked.

Onboarding & Training A Real Estate Virtual Assistant

Once you have a new hire ready to go, you should start your onboarding process by giving them a (paid) crash course in the real estate sales process. There are plenty of great videos online that explain the process in plain English.

You should also set clear expectations and key performance indicators (KPIs) to make sure those expectations are met. For example, if you have someone running your Instagram account, you might set the number of new followers or posts per day as KPIs.

Time Tracking

While freelancer sites like Upwork offer time tracking services, you might want to consider using KPIs instead. Time tracking software sends the signal that you don’t trust them to work hard. Not exactly a great way to start a working relationship.

Settle on the number of hours they should work per week, then set ambitious but realistic KPIs and have weekly meetings to see how they’re doing.

Remember to Make Your VA Feel Like a Part of the Team

While many of the tasks you assign your new assistant might seem low priority, remember that this is a serious job for them. That said, you are responsible for setting the tone for your new hire, so make sure to offer some fun things to do instead of just grilling them about performance on every call. Ask about their family, send gifts during the holidays, and treat them like the important part of your team that they are.

Make sure they have a voice at weekly team meetings, and remember to include them in the fun stuff too. Making them feel like part of the team instead of a hired hand is important.