Why You Should Hire A Virtual Assistant In CRE Brokerage
- grant8925
- Mar 10, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 29, 2023
It's the age-old lesson you've learned the hard way in the world of commission-based income:
Brokerage is ALL about time management.
In your early years as an agent, you sharpen street smarts.
You learn which relationships to develop. You make mistakes and chase empty leads.
And you lose more deals than you'd like. But you slowly find a niche.
What type of sales should I target? Small buildings or large buildings? Institutional owners or mom-and-pops? Big brands or small brands?
Am I comfortable with smaller commissions that trickle in to pay the bills?
Or is it the whale I'm after?
But one thing is for sure, once you find your groove, it's CRITICAL that you invest your time wisely.
How much time to spend prospecting?
Or canvassing real estate?
How about cold calling?
How to prioritize time amongst listings?
How you organize your day is THE number one precursor to success.
What if you freed up 30-40% of your work week and didn't miss a beat on sales?
Better yet, what if you freed up that time AND increased sales?
BrokerPros, this is possible.
Most agents are unaware of a widely accessible, powerful resource which can free up time and allow you to focus on the most important selling activities.
It's a secret perhaps some have discovered in the post-COVID virtual era.
Enter stage left: the virtual assistant (VA).
how can a virtual assistant help a cre agent?
Depending on the size of your brokerage, you may work on a team or small pod.
Perhaps you have support staff to aid in day-to-day business functions.
However, many CRE agents are individual operations. There's only so much help one can reasonably expect from the company's marketing or admin departments.
As a result (and sadly) agents spend WAY too much time on tasks that are not the highest OR best use of their time.
It's time to outsource and automate, BrokerPros!
And a huge component of automation is building a rock star squad around you.
Part admin, part marketing associate, part inside sales agent, hiring a virtual assistant puts you in the fast lane to closing more deals.
Consider your strengths. Some of which I assume include networking and dealmaking.
Wouldn't it make sense to spend more time on each of those?
Stop getting bogged down by repetitive and manual tasks that can be outsourced!
Limit your interaction with a screen and instead talk to more PEOPLE.
Many workflows agents perform each day can, and should be, delegated unless they require:
Your strategic vision
Your in-person presence
The sound of your voice
When evaluating how to share your workload with a VA, a solid first step is to identify repetition in your day.
Next, consider the urgency and importance of each task as it relates to your business. What needs to be addressed ASAP? What can wait?
When you have identified repetition, importance, and urgency, all it takes is creating a process to pass off to your VA. You can pre-enroll here for Mastering CRE Lead Generation which provides step by step instruction on this part.
P.S. An added benefit of outsourcing is saying GOODBYE to projects or tasks that you dread doing each week! See ya' later monotonous list building!
Let's explore the multitude of ways a VA can help your business… and why you should hire one today.
you deserve an inside sales agent
In other industries, account executives and sales reps are supported by inside sales agents whose primary focus is to generate leads. Their secondary responsibility is to qualify opportunities to a stage where they can be passed off to the more senior salesperson.
Why shouldn't commercial real estate agents also have this luxury? Share the love, right?
BrokerPros, you deserve help in the biz dev department.
And a VA can function as an inside sales agent in several different ways to help you build a monster pipeline.
Prospecting and New Business Research
Daily prospecting sets the foundation for a healthy pipeline. And it likely consumes a larger part of your day than you're aware of:
Building lists for outreach
Identifying decision makers
Gathering contact data
Time to outsource each of these manual processes.
For example, engage a VA to research LinkedIn Sales Navigator leads. It's easy to train them to flag high-growth companies in your asset class for buyer/tenant rep.
The VA can uncover new deals while you're in meetings!
Email Marketing and Lead Generation
It's imperative that your tech stack include marketing automation software to run email sequences… and VAs are well equipped to manage drip email campaigns.
VAs can flag, prioritize, and draft replies from your email campaigns... this is one of the ways a VA can qualify new business.
Matter of fact, most early-stage qualifying can be performed by virtual assistants (when the communication does not require your voice, vision, or is urgent).
Doing so is as simple as providing a few templates and qualifying questions for them to reference when drafting responses.
In time, your VA can regularly qualify new business over email and setup introductory calls for you.
Account Management
Dealmaking in CRE is a marathon, not a sprint.
It helps to onboard support managing your accounts along the way:
Monitoring your CRM and nurturing leads
Scheduling reminders for leads that haven't been contacted recently
Crafting follow ups to stale leads stored neatly in your draft folder ready for send (response templates come in handy here, too)
ATTENTION:
VAs can also draft activity/seller reports for your listings. This painful process can be automated by combining data enriched information from your CRM, outsourced Google research, and some VA elbow grease.
We'll dig into this process in the course which you can pre-enroll for here.
Data Entry
Friends, stop losing time on data entry!
Inputting contacts or opportunities to your CRM, uploading discovery call notes to CRM, or enriching existing CRM contacts with demographic and business information. These are all easily passed off to a VA.
And remember: quality data leads to closing more deals.
VA Marketing 101
Sales and marketing go hand in hand, and as a commercial real estate agent, your success largely depends on the imagination of your marketing mind.
HOWEVER…you may be unconsciously repeating many marketing workflows which are not the highest or best use of your time.
Web, Graphics, & Design
Much of CRE marketing is process driven and repetitive.
For example, how many times have you revised the same listing template or pitch book?
Please stop editing and formatting new information on the same old templates!
Each marketing function below has a high potential for automation:
Tour book creation for buyers and tenants
Modifying maps and floor plans
Editing signage
Listing presentations for sellers or landlords
Updating online listings and web resources
You'd be surprised how quickly a VA can deliver on each of these tasks.
Administrative Assistance
The most surefire way to take weight off your back is in the admin department.
Inbox Management and Communications
Every agent's favorite compulsive habit: the inbox.
Ladies and gentlemen. Surrender to the impulse to constantly check and respond to email.
More importantly, allow someone else to respond to low level importance emails.
Consider for a moment the amount of time you've spent responding to inquiries for asking rents/prices, (ex. "What's the ask?").
It's VERY easy to create a system whereby a VA can draft responses, as well as label, and folder communication from your listings, buyers, tenants etc.
Once set up, you can still check your inbox throughout the day, but now, emails will be drafted for send or any last-minute customization you wish to make.
The best agents are able to access information quickly…and this is done through a squeaky-clean inbox.
Outsourcing your inbox in and of itself can save you several hours per week.
Document Management
Job description numero uno for a VA: handling the entire Microsoft Office suite.
Formatting proposals or letters of intent
Redlining that never ends
Editing spreadsheets
VA to the rescue!
Calendar and Appointment Setting
Don't you feel as though you are endlessly coordinating with a contractor for an inspection…or a vendor, expediter, attorney, etc.?
BrokerPros, the back and forth is a major drain on valuable energy.
Scheduling and managing invites define VA wheelhouse (you should also be leveraging calendar automation widgets).
The Space Between
There are a million small details in between which require attention to keep your brokerage career fluid.
Conference registration? VA.
Managing work trips, travel, and accommodations? VA.
Annoyingly adding sales or lease comparables to your personal database? VA.
Setting up continuing education and license renewal? VA
Where Can I Find The Right VA? How Much Do They Cost?
VAs are advertised by job function, skill set, hourly rate, location, time zone, job success rate, English level, etc.
It's easy to slice and dice qualifications to your preference…or post a job listing for a specific project or an ongoing role.
A reasonable range for an experienced VA is around $10 - $20 / hour. This pricing depends on level of experience but is primarily based on location.
Agents can find much success with international VAs proficient in English to keep costs low. The dollar translates quite well to other economies where outsourced roles are common…so the VA is making a good wage in their country. It feels good to help them out with bonuses and extra income for a job well done, too!
As you can imagine, a U.S. based VA is costlier but is accompanied by the benefit of more culturally-specific business acumen.
Interesting in engaging a VA? Check out Mastering CRE Lead Generation for hiring best practices and recommendations on where to find the best virtual assistants.
Moving Into Action
As an agent, exponential pipeline growth is achieved through:
Deepened relationships
Software implementation
Efficient, outsourced manual labor
So, BrokerPros, don't procrastinate on hiring your VA!
Even if onboarding an assistant reduces your workload in just one of the functional areas above (admin, marketing, or inside sales) that is a major WIN.
And don't forget…
Develop a relationship with your VA.
Clearly communicate deadlines and expectations.
Take the time to provide feedback on a job well done.
Learn to surrender some control.
They can become an incredibly valuable asset and the MVP of your team.
Interested in applying these concepts to your business?
Sign up today for the exclusive course: Mastering CRE Lead Generation
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