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Why Real Estate Agents Need Virtual Assistants

why real estate agents need a virtual assistant

As a real estate agent, you know what it means to be busy. If you’re like most real estate agents focused on building their businesses, you’re probably working more than 40 hours a week to manage your transactions and keep up with your marketing strategies. But if your business has been growing well, you’re likely having to close more and more transactions every month, which is draining you of time and energy. 

You know you should work hard as a real estate agent. But what if you just can’t handle the extra hours? There’s no question that your family and personal life are more important than your business. Plus, the added stress of missing appointments and calls or struggling to manage multiple transactions at a time can reduce both your quality of life and your physical and mental health.

If you’re running out of time for important things because of how busy you are, it’s probably time to look into hiring a Canadian virtual assistant for your real estate business. A virtual assistant can help you pursue a well-managed schedule and keep on track so that you can grow your business and build a healthier, happier life.

Why You Need To Hire a Virtual Assistant

There are two main motivations for hiring virtual assistants: 

  1. To save you time and money.
  2. To perform specialized tasks.

Saving Time and Money

If you’re finding that your business is overwhelming you, but you know you can’t afford to pay a salaried employee, a virtual assistant is what you need. Virtual assistants are independent contractors who work from home to help small or medium-sized businesses perform tasks and increase revenue.

Virtual assistants can save time and money for you by performing important tasks from their own homes. Most charge by the hour or by the project, keeping your overhead costs lower.

Here’s a great way to know if you can afford a virtual assistant:

  1. Calculate how much your virtual assistant will cost each month. 
  2. Consider if you can exceed the income you spend paying a virtual assistant with the income they will help you earn.
  3. Determine if you have enough liquidity to spend at least a few weeks getting a virtual assistant hired and trained before they start making you money.

If you believe the amount you will earn with a virtual assistant’s help will exceed what you’ll spend in payment, you’re ready to hire. 

Performing Specialized Tasks

You’re a real estate agent. You likely don’t have training in social media, editing videos, writing blogs, or other technical marketing strategies. And even if you are great at transaction management, it may not be the part of your job you really enjoy. 

If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed with tasks you don’t know how to do well or don’t want to invest your time and energy in, a virtual assistant can help. Some common tasks virtual assistants like to help with include: 

  • Coordinating transactions
  • Updating and maintaining a CRM
  • Preparing listing presentations 
  • Managing bookkeeping
  • Gathering feedback from clients
  • Scheduling showings with clients and photographers
  • Writing blogs
  • Cold calling
  • Transcribing important meetings
  • Creating and editing videos
  • Scheduling meetings
  • Planning travel

Most of these tasks are mundane and boring for the average real estate agent. If you want to delegate these tasks without having to hire an official employee, finding a virtual assistant is a perfect place to start. Once you’ve hired them, you can focus your energy on following leads and engaging with clients so you can close more transactions.

How To Work With Your Virtual Assistant

There’s a pretty simple process to finding the perfect virtual assistant to fit your needs. However, once you’ve hired an assistant, you should keep a few things in mind to make sure you work together well:

  • Find a professional. You want to make sure you hire someone professional who can quickly learn your processes so that you don’t have to waste your time micromanaging an inefficient worker. Obviously, they won’t be an expert on your business immediately, but they should have training in the tasks you hire them for and be ready to learn how your business works so that they can help you succeed.
  • Create SOPs and rules. Creating SOPs (standard operating procedures) and rules as the groundwork is essential to a good working relationship. Many virtual assistants have been trained by others who might not follow the same method of cold calling, transaction management, or appointment scheduling that you want to employ. Make sure you have rules in place so that your assistant knows what you need in your business.
  • Be compassionate. As in any employer-employee relationship, you will run into issues with your virtual assistant at some point. You may find that they make a mistake, need time off, or can’t cover all the tasks you wanted them to. Make sure you understand that your virtual assistant is a real person with real needs. You may need to hire another assistant to help cover additional tasks–you can’t expect one person to do everything alone (after all, that’s why you hired a helper for yourself in the first place).

Picking the Perfect Real Estate Assistant

The perfect virtual assistant will come with a few important qualities and benefits:

  • Time management skills
  • Professional training
  • Passion for the job
  • Strong communication skills

While most will claim to hold these qualities, it can be difficult to test a virtual assistant before you hire them to ensure that they truly carry the qualities you’re asking for. If you’re just not sure how to find a high-quality virtual assistant who fits your needs, we can help.

real-estate-agent-meeting-coupleAt Virtual Assistant Canada, we vet every real estate virtual assistant on our team to ensure they have received high-quality training and can get the job done. Our virtual assistants are trained deeply in office administration, bookkeeping services, data entry, personal and executive assistance, social media management, email management, appointment management, and more! 

When you hire one of our virtual assistants, you can know you’ll be working with an intelligent, professional individual dedicated to serving your business well. If you’re looking for help to find and hire the perfect virtual assistant for your real estate business, reach out to us today for a free consultation. We’ll get you set up with the perfect assistant right away.

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