How to Hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant to Help Grow Your Business
Swamped at work, learn how to hire a real estate virtual assistant to get help.
Real estate is a highly competitive, growth-oriented, and fast-evolving sphere where a deal closure may take the sweat out of you.
But since closing a deal is the end goal of a business, you tend to overlook the means to this end. This often results in a messy state of affairs, slowed growth in the long run, and reduced earnings and revenue.
In other words, the job of a real estate professional can be both grueling and overwhelming at the same time because there are multiple tasks to be handled and processes to be streamlined.
To cut down on costs, things may soon spiral out of control when you try to manage everything independently. It is manageable until your business is on a small scale. But once it starts clocking growth, you may need someone to look after your day-to-day affairs. And this is while you focus on closing deals.
Who could this “someone” be?
By “someone,” we normally mean an office assistant in the above context. But you may shirk as this option could be expensive.
So how about hiring a real estate virtual assistant? This trend is catching up fast as it is cost-effective and offers potential opportunities for growing your business.
How does hiring a real estate virtual assistant help in augmenting your business?
This article will guide you on what to look for in a real estate virtual assistant (VA) and how to hire one. So let us break down the questions one by one and try to find answers to them.
Who is a real estate virtual assistant, and why do you need one?
A VA works as an admin and is highly skilled at their job. They are less expensive than full-time employees as they charge hourly.
Some tasks that you may assign to a VA are the following:
Managing your Email
Having someone to sort out the emails that keep accumulating in your inbox and segregating the important ones from the pile of junk is an effective way of streamlining the communication process.
A VA can also send follow-up emails from time to time, which is essential for keeping the business prospects alive and converting leads into clients.
Managing your schedule
You may have many meetings to attend or calls to take daily. But in this hectic schedule, you may skip some critical commitments as you do not have a properly planned itinerary.
So to keep up with your ever-changing schedule, you can hire a VA who can help keep track of these things on the calendar.
Giving you reminders from time to time eliminates your chances of missing out on indispensable business opportunities while also allowing you the scope to concentrate on expanding your business.
Managing daily paperwork
A real estate job entails a lot of paperwork. So if you have to look through all the documents, contracts, and agreements yourself, you may be hard-pressed for time.
But if you hire a VA, they can take care of the paperwork, making it easier for you to gather your efforts around business expansion.
Updating databases
A VA can help update your property databases, improving your chances of getting a higher number of leads.
Researching real estate
The real estate business requires a lot of research because you may have to answer thousands of queries from your customers. But if you try to do the research yourself, it may consume your entire time, leaving you with no opportunity to grow your business.
So you may hire a VA who can help find answers to your clients’ questions, like how you plan to advertise your client’s property. Or if you have a property that suits your client’s requirements. Your VA may conduct thorough research regarding the property location, connectivity, amenities, and other features.
They may even analyze competitor businesses, market trends, and other valuable details to find satisfactory answers to the questions posed by your clients. This arrangement can prove highly beneficial to you as you will have access to all kinds of information without spending hours doing the research yourself.
Having a social media presence is the key to growing your business nowadays. Customers may reach out to you with questions on social media. A VA can help answer those queries on your behalf by keeping an eye on your social media account.
There also may be several groups on social media that list properties for sales/lease. So by staying active on these platforms, your VA can establish a connection with prospective customers, improve your visibility, and strengthen your presence.
Creating content to boost your online presence
Content creation is an essential part of digital marketing today. Posting powerful and engaging blogs can help drive traffic to your website.
Suppose you hire a VA with good writing skills and an affinity for research. In that case, you can utilize them to craft meaningful blog posts, boosting your credibility and improving your business prospects.
How to hire a real estate virtual assistant in 5 steps
Hiring a virtual assistant (VA) for your real estate business can be a great way to free up some of your time and allow you to focus on more important tasks. But how do you go about finding and hiring the right VA for your business?
Here are five steps that will help make the process easier:
- Define your needs. The first step is to take a look at your business and decide what tasks you need help with. This will help you narrow down the type of VA you need to be looking for. For example, if you need help with social media marketing, you’ll want to find a Real Estate Virtual Assistant who specializes in that area.
- Do your research. Once you know what type of help you need, it’s time to start your VA search. A good place to start is by asking for recommendations from other real estate professionals or business owners who use Real Estate Virtual Assistant services. You can also check out online job boards or VA directories.
- Screen potential candidates. Once you’ve found a few VAs that looks promising, it’s time to start screening them. This is where you’ll want to ask lots of questions about their experience, skills, and availability. You can also request samples of their work or ask for references from past clients.
- Make your decision. After you’ve interviewed and screened a few VAs, it’s time to make your final decision. Choose the VA that you feel is the best fit for your business needs and budget.
- Get started! Now that you’ve found and hired your Real Estate Virtual Assistant, it’s time to get started working together. Be sure to communicate your expectations and goals clearly from the start. Once you have a good working relationship established, you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of having a Real Estate Virtual Assistant on your team!
What are the benefits of hiring a VA?
Lower overhead costs: Hiring a full-time employee requires a long-drawn screening process and the need to train them on the job once they are selected.
Both these exercises involve high costs to the company. On the other hand, A VA requires no training as they are highly experienced in real estate.
Moreover, if you select your VA based on some unique skills, you can assign those specific skill-based jobs to them, eliminating the need for any training.
Hiring a VA can also reduce your infrastructural costs like those on electricity and others like renting office space, etc., as they can work from home.
There are also no salaries to be paid out. VAs work on an hourly basis or task-wise. So they only charge for those number of hours or tasks, reducing your overhead costs significantly.
There is also another way of lowering costs if you can hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant from countries like the Philippines, etc., with low salaries. You can assign them non-client-facing roles, and you are good to go.
Maintain work-life balance: As your VA takes up all your data entry and bookkeeping jobs, you have a lot more time at your disposal to give to yourself and your family.
This puts you in a better mental space and relieves you of stress making you more productive. So if you have been procrastinating on things you love doing, it is time for you to take them up now.
What are the things you should look for in a VA?
Knowing what you need from your VA is essential to choosing the right person for the role. Depending on how much work you need to delegate to your VA, you can hire a part-time or a full-time professional.
Next, you need to decide where to hire your VA from. You can either outsource them from a VA agency or you may directly recruit independent VAs from freelancer platforms like these independent VAs for example.
When you opt for an agency, you must let them know your needs thoroughly so that they can guide you through the process. Before selecting your VA, you must have an open discussion on the tasks you require them to do, whether a client-facing or a non-client-facing role, etc.
Communication helps in building trust and lays the foundation for a long-term relationship. You must make sure there is a contractual agreement between you and the Real Estate Virtual Assistant. This helps protect the VA against professional malpractices, saving you from the risk of data leaks. Data pilferage can be detrimental to the reputation of your company.
Attending to customer feedback and answering the phone are integral to their job profile. Since your clientele may be spread across the globe, you may hire VAs based on those places to cater to their specific time zones. This will help in providing 24/7 customer service to your clients.
Hiring a VA comes with a lot of responsibilities. But they are worth investing in as they help simplify your job a great deal with their domain-specific skills, technical expertise, and sound knowledge.
SalesBlink
The power of marketing campaigns is immense. They can either make or mar your business prospects. So designing effective sales strategies is an absolute must as it can soon catapult you to the big league.
In this age of automation, you can leverage tools like SalesBlink to get where you desire to. SalesBlink is a platform that allows you to create personalized sales campaigns using its drag and drop functionality. Its cool and innovative features also help you automate follow-ups and close deals at a supersonic speed.
Also, You don’t have to buy a separate Email Verification Tool and a LinkedIn Outreach Tool when you have SalesBlink. Apart from prospecting, SalesBlink takes you through outreach and closing rather effortlessly. It also has an in-built CRM and lets you build a sales pipeline.
So you can ask your Real Estate Virtual Assistant to capitalize on this marketing tool to build effective sales outreach programs for your company. These engaging campaigns can help in augmenting sales and increase your business productivity.
Conclusion about Real Estate Virtual Assistant
Task delegation is important for business success. Nobody can shoulder all the responsibilities and execute them to perfection.
In real estate especially, where the demand is very high and the number of dos and don’ts too many, managing everything yourself may soon get on your nerves.
And this may hamper your chances of growing your business in the long run.
Having a Real Estate Virtual Assistant can come in handy in these circumstances as they can take over all the mundane and routine tasks, leaving you with more time for other jobs. Outsourcing is a great way to get more done.
Furthermore, they can also help increase your sales outreach significantly and lower expenditures.
General FAQs about Real Estate Virtual Assistant
1. What are the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant for my real estate business?
Hiring a virtual assistant can be a great way to free up some of your time and allow you to focus on more important tasks. VA services can also help you save money on overhead costs, such as office space and equipment.
How do I know if a virtual assistant is right for my business?
The best way to know if a VA is right for your business is to define your needs and then do your research. Once you’ve found a few VAs that look promising, interview and screen them to find the best fit for your business.
How much does it cost to hire a virtual assistant?
The cost of hiring a VA will vary depending on their experience, skills, and availability. Be sure to discuss pricing with potential candidates before making your final decision.
How do I get started working with my virtual assistant?
Once you’ve found and hired your VA, be sure to communicate your expectations and goals clearly from the start. Once you have a good working relationship established, you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of having a VA on your team!