Maximize Your Efficiency as a Real Estate Agent: Outsource These 15 Tasks to a Virtual Assistant
Many Real Estate Virtual Assistant choose to enter the industry because they want to work more efficiently. To achieve this, one option is to employ a virtual assistant for tasks that support and expand the business, but do not necessitate a real estate license or specialized abilities.
Appropriate time for Real Estate Virtual Assistant can be challenging. If you are a newer agent, you may not have enough business to keep the assistant busy, and it would not be worth the cost. Delaying the hiring of an assistant may result in wasting time on tasks that could be delegated, which would not be a cost-effective use of your resources.
In this article, we will only be discussing virtual assistants, not inside sales agents (ISAs), who are licensed real estate professionals. Virtual assistants are not as specialized and cannot prepare contracts or work closely on transactions, but they are easier to hire and more affordable, making them accessible to many agents.
First Step: Keep Track of How Much Time You Spend on These 15 Tasks
To figure out if you're ready to hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, try tracking how much time you spend on certain tasks for a week or two (or even a month, if you can). You can use a time-tracking app that works on your phone and computer, such as RescueTime, Toggle, or Clockify. These are some popular options that you might find helpful.
Managing Your Calendar: Being a real estate agent means having a busy schedule. With the help of virtual assistants, agents can easily schedule meetings with clients, final walkthroughs, and closings without the worry of double booking.
2. Scheduling Assistance: While managing your calendar is important, an agent's schedule also includes tasks and events that they do not need to attend in person. For example, a listing agent might schedule home showings, ensuring everyone has enough time to view the property and that the sellers are able to vacate the property during the showing. Additionally, an agent who offers services like inspections or repair work might benefit from assistance with scheduling these events to save time and effort.
3. Responding to Emails: Virtual assistants can help you manage some of your emails by filtering out non-essential messages and answering them on your behalf. However, there are certain transaction-related emails that only you are qualified to handle.
4. Updating Your Website: Many entrepreneurs struggle with keeping their websites updated, especially real estate agents who need to provide accurate market data, new listings, and blog posts on a regular basis. If you find that updating your website takes up a lot of time, a virtual assistant might be a valuable investment.
5. Bookkeeping: As a real estate agent, you handle multiple accounts, so it is important to have someone keeping track of them. With the help of a virtual assistant, you can avoid paying for subscriptions or services that you no longer use and late fees for missed payments. A virtual assistant can also help you track expenses and mileage for tax purposes if needed.
6. Social Media Management: Social media has become an integral aspect of a real estate agent's daily activities. While some real estate agents possess the ability to craft compelling posts on Facebook and Instagram, others may find it challenging to fully leverage their social media presence. If you are having difficulty, having a virtual assistant manage your social media accounts can benefit you, especially if they have specialized experience.
7. Listing Marketing: From scheduling appointments for cleaning and staging, to booking photographers, writing descriptions, and uploading information to the MLS, website, and social media, these are all crucial business activities that can be handled by someone else, and possibly even handled better. To assess the amount of time spent on these activities, try tracking one listing and giving it your full attention.
8. Market Trend Research: Real estate agents are often asked to provide accurate answers about average days on the market, median prices, and other data in their area of expertise. By having a virtual assistant keep track of this information and make it readily available, you can ensure that the best and most recent answers are always at your fingertips.
9. Client Feedback and Reviews: After a successful home sale, most agents would appreciate a positive review from their clients. However, finding the time to seek out clients and request testimonials can be a challenge. A virtual assistant can handle this task for you. Make a list of your recent transactions, assess who has provided feedback, and who hasn't. Determine how many times you would like your assistant to reach out to clients, and you will have a good idea of the time that can be allotted to this task.
10. Email Campaign Creation: Once your customer relationship management (CRM) system is organized, you can use it for nurturing activities that help with long-term lead generation. A virtual assistant with experience in creating and running email campaigns can get the foundation started for you, handle the basics, and even follow up with clients and pass them on to you when necessary. This can involve creating segments based on your criteria, writing emails, putting campaigns into software, ensuring they are sent without issue, and more.
11. Marketing Materials Preparation: A Real Estate Virtual Assistant with design or writing skills can help you create marketing materials like listing flyers, direct mail pieces, and social media posts. Although finding an assistant with these specific skills can be challenging, outsourcing this task can save you time and ensure your marketing materials look professional.
12. Travel Planning: Before the pandemic, many real estate agents attended conferences to learn about the industry and find new tools. A virtual assistant can simplify and streamline your travel planning process by assisting with tasks such as booking flights and hotels.
13. Closing and Seasonal Gift Arrangement: If you like to give gifts to your buyers and sellers on special occasions such as closing or holidays, a virtual assistant can help. They can handle everything from finding the gifts to arranging for delivery. However, if you want to personally deliver the gifts to build face-to-face relationships with clients, you can do that as well.
14. Data Entry and Organization: Virtual assistants can help with basic tasks like organizing your customer information and making sure it's up-to-date. They can categorize clients into groups like buyers, sellers, and homeowners, and eliminate any duplicates in your database. Although a virtual assistant cannot communicate directly with clients due to licensing restrictions, they can still help keep your customer information organized, even if it's not perfect.
15. Data Organization: A virtual assistant can help keep your customer information organized by performing tasks such as updating their contact information, categorizing them into different groups, and eliminating duplicates in your database. However, virtual assistants cannot communicate directly with clients due to licensing restrictions.
In Step 2, you will be evaluating if getting a virtual assistant is the right solution for your time management problem or if there might be a better option. Hiring a virtual assistant can be time-consuming and stressful, and there's also the risk of having to find a new one if they leave. So, consider if there are any other alternatives to hiring a human that might work better for you.
Take a look at the tasks you need help with and see if there are any automated solutions for them. Research what these solutions are and how much they cost. If the solution will save you time and is more affordable than hiring an assistant, you can try it out for a few months to see if it's working well for you.
In Step 3, you will determine the total time opportunity cost by eliminating the tasks you have already handled and evaluating the remaining tasks. Research the virtual assistant rates for these tasks and be ready to make budgeting decisions.
In Step 4, you will consider your budget by estimating how much time an assistant will save you and how much it will cost to hire one. Think about the additional transactions you could close each month with the saved time and the impact it will have on your business in the short term and long term. If hiring a virtual assistant will help improve your work-life balance, then that's all you need to know!
