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Starting up and building a real estate business can turn into an exhausting event. As you take on more business your administrative duties increase and you have to spend more time operating your business. This leaves less time for you to find new customers and generate new revenue.
One of the keys in operating a successful business is to leverage other people’s time. Although there may be many reasons why you have not hired a personal assistant in the past, you know you need to find a solution in order to grow. Wouldn’t in be nice to have a personal assistant ready to work for you at any time and only when you need them. Welcome to the virtual assistant, a newly created professional practice that provides solutions to small businesses and real estate professionals.
Hiring an Entrepreneur
A virtual assistant is a entrepreneur that owns and operates their own business, so they can relate to the needs of a business owner. Since the virtual assistant and self-employed, you only get billed for the work hours used for the tasks. Most of the virtual assistant practices are dependent on a steady incoming workflow from their clients which could create a perfect relationship for a busy real estate agent.
A virtual assistant provides many advantages over hiring an employee. When you hire a virtual assistant you don’t have to take on the extra hassles associated with the traditional employee. You don’t have to pay payroll tax, employee insurance, vacation pay, medical or dental. You also do not have to provide the office assistant with office real estate or equipment. You are not liable for virtual assistant as you would be with an employee.
If you have tried using a temp employment agency for your real estate practice, you have most likely encountered a few problems. The labor you have received from a temp agency may not have the particular experience needed for your situation. Because the temps are transient, it takes time for them to get associated with your company and to learn your industry. With a virtual assistant, they are experienced in adapting each of their clients’ business models.
Is a Virtual Assistant Practical?
More and more real estate agents are beginning to use the Internet to help promote and administer their business. For this reason it is important to find a virtual assistant practice that is familiar with Internet marketing and current technologies. The hourly fee for hiring a virtual assistant is anywhere from $30-$100 depending on their specialty
A virtual assistant is already trained to use many different types of computer software. For a real estate agent, a virtual assistant can do basic word processing, appointment scheduling, calendar maintenance, correspondence, mailing campaigns, and database management. Some of the high end virtual assistant practices can design websites and implement strategic Internet marketing compaigns.
Your virtual assistant may not even live in the same city your real estate practice because the work is done remotely. Projects can be communicated through phone, fax, courier, e-mail, or file transfer over the Internet. A good virtual assistant is even able to log into your computer remotely as if they are really there on your computer. They can use web-based communication tools like instant messengers and Internet phones for convenient communication.
The virtual assistant revolution
Although the concept of a virtual assistant has been around for some time, it only began gaining popularity since the late 90s after mass layoffs North America. Overall the trend for tele communicating is growing rapidly due to the changing economy and the growing awareness for environmental concerns. Whether your speaker in the real estate industry or your real estate agent, a virtual assistant can help you free up more time so that you can do what you do best.
Wouldn’t it be nice if every day you open your business and the phones kept ringing off the hook with clients wanting to do business with you? Unfortunately this is not the case and if you want business, you’re going to have to go out there and get it. One of the best methods for obtaining new leads is by cold calling.
Most small business people though would rather clean a bathroom all day long than to do cold calling. If you’re ready to face your fears though, the following are tips for effective cold calling and will hopefully turn a possibly dreadful experience into a successful one.
#1 Make a Goal
As with anything else that you would like success in, you need to make a goal of the outlook you wish to achieve. And in most cases a cold call is not meant to make the sale but rather to set up an appointment or to send information with your sales pitch. So if your goal is to set up an appointment, you need to arrange your script so that you get that appointment.
#2 Know your Target
Before you do your cold calling, make sure you know your target audience. Try to find out what their title is and what their position entitles, information about their company, and which department they work for. Any information you can find about your target will be a huge advantage when the time comes to talk to them.
#3 Opening Statement
Preparing an opening statement gives you a chance to put your foot in the door at the beginning of the call. It allows you to give a personal feel rather than something read off a script. First impressions mean everything and you only have a few seconds to get off on a good start. A good opening statement may include a greeting, an introduction, a personal reference to prospect, the benefits of your product or service, and a transition to an open ended question or dialogue.
#4 Sound Real
This is a good time to make the point that you should not be sounding like you’re reading off a script. You should take as much consideration as possible in sounding sincere and unique when making your call. If you’re like me, then you don’t like getting those random calls from telemarketing companies that sound like they’re reading off a script as fast as they can, so that they can get on to the next call.
#5 Create a Script
While keeping the last tip in mind, it is time to create a winning script. Without giving too much detail, lay out the benefits of your product or service and reasons why your prospect should buy. Think about possible objections your prospect may have and prepare answers for those questions. And remember, a script is not something to read from, but rather and organizational structure so that you do not get lost in your call.
#6 Ally with the Gatekeeper
A gatekeeper is the person you need to go through in order to talk to the decision maker. The gatekeeper can be more of an asset than you think. They know the decision maker more than you do and may have some handy information that could help you out. They may know if the decision maker is having a bad day, or when the best time to call them is. So be friendly to the gatekeeper and don’t be afraid to ask them questions.
#7 Ask for an Appointment
Your purpose for the cold call should be to make an appointment with your prospect. Try to give the prospect some flexibility for appointment times, while still maintaining control of the call. Try to ask for a 20 minute appointment and let the prospect know that you will be brief. This gives you a better chance of getting the appointment, while telling the prospect that you value their time.
#8 The Gift of Giving
You would be amazed of what could be accomplished when giving to someone. Think about giving a small gift prior to making your call or going to your appointment. By giving valuable information or a tangible object, you leave the prospect feeling obligated to give something in return.
#9 Cold Call in Morning
Many decision makers arrive at their company early, and leave their company late. Doing your cold calls in the morning is your best chance to reach the decision-maker. They are likely to be more energized, and not feel so overloaded with work as they would be in the afternoon.
#10 Practice and Persist
As with anything else, practice makes perfect. Just keep practicing and as time goes, it will come more naturally. If you don’t get a positive result the first time you call, make sure that you keep calling. Don’t call too frequently though, try once a week. A trust factor has to build between you and the prospect before sale can be made. 80% of new sales come after the fifth contact with the prospect, so don’t give up!
Evidently I’ve been living under a rock. Recently, I stumbled across the small business solution that turned my overwhelming to-do list into something manageable. It’s called Virtual Assistance, and it has freed me from the burden of what would otherwise be time-consuming busywork. Simply put, a Virtual Assistant is an off-site employee who provides web or administrative support services, conducting nearly all transactions electronically.
Not only was I surprised to discover this neat lifesaver, I was even more amazed to find that it has it’s own association: The International Virtual Assistants Association (www.ivaa.org). The IVAA website is a great place to find what will most certainly be an indispensable resource for you: Your own Virtual Assistant. Below are the top seven reasons to hire a VA:
1. They are all business. Your Virtual Assistant will support your needs, not the other way around. Since they bill their hours for the work they accomplish – some in increments as small as five minutes – you are not paying for personal phone calls, late arrivals, childcare crises, or sick time. If you detest the forced socialization of a corporate workplace, or listening to the humdrum minutiae of your co-worker’s life story, a virtual staff solves that problem.
2. You’re in control. Your working relationship is based upon a contractual agreement whereby you state in no uncertain terms what you expect. They either do it or they don’t. If you want a web designer who uses Dreamweaver instead of hand-coding HTML, then you specify that. Or, you can entirely defer to your Virtual Assistant’s expertise and focus your energy elsewhere.
3. Professional rapport. Your Virtual Assistant is in the entrepreneurial boat, too. They work at home, market their services, prospect for clients, and provide a service just like you do. It’s a great way to add to your network base, as they may have found ways to solve problems you never even thought of. Often they have their own network of resources that they utilize for printing, document processing and promotion. Tapping into their resources doubles your own.
4. Cost savings. You can hire a VA from anywhere on Earth. It’s as competitive an industry as any other, and you can expect a wide range of fees for various services offered. If you like the fees for web design, but think a particular service is too expensive for document editing or proofreading, you can hire multiple VA’s to do different tasks to keep your own costs low. You are not under any obligation whatsoever, except, of course, to pay your bill.
5. Pride in their work. If you are hiring a VA for tasks such as web design, you can easily preview their work. Often the VA service will place testimonials on their site or examples of web pages they have designed. Examine their portfolio pages to determine the depth of their skills and experience.
6. Virtual freedom. No on-site employees means no liability, no worker’s comp insurance, and no payroll taxes to calculate. Everyone is an independent contractor. You can utilize a virtual assistant for either ongoing work or on a per-project basis.
7. No strangers in the house. If you have a home office, hiring employees to work on-site could be intrusive. If you have children at home, or a spouse who works odd hours, or you just don’t care to open up your private space to others, a virtual assistant is ideal. Most likely, your VA will never darken your doorstep.
When you hire your Virtual Assistant, be sure to ask them to furnish a detailed list of the types of services for which you will be billed. Some VA’s will charge to accept your phone calls, read your email instructions, or the time it takes to download a file. There should be no surprises if you have good communication with your VA. Remember, you cannot see your potential VA to evaluate their credibility, nor they you. Consider several exploratory conversations prior to signing on the dotted line. This will ensure that you and your Virtual Assistant will have a productive partnership.
Author: Laura Gillson is a speaker, author and educator specializing in disability awareness, advocacy, accessibility and assistive technology. For corporate, community or caregiver training, visit Eloquent Insights at http://www.eloquentinsights.com. |
Many people who start businesses believe they can wear every hat required and grow their business on their own. The problem is that every business gets to a point when in order to truly blossom the owners need to start handing off those hats. The best place to start is by partnering with a Virtual Assistant.
Many people don’t realize all of the things a Virtual Assistant can truly do for their business and many others still hold the belief that they require a physical presence to truly be able to assist you. This just is not true. A Virtual Assistant can do absolutely anything an in-house assistant can do and so much more. Here are just a few of the main areas where a Virtual Assistant can help your growing business:
Word processing, Formatting, Editing and Proofreading
Letters, reports, training manuals, contracts, proposals, business plans, and progress reports … the list goes on – anything you need typed, formatted, edited or proofread, a VA can assist you with. No task is too big or too small. Whenever you need a second set of eyes to ensure that your document is the best it can be, your VA is there to assist you. VAs have the skills to format your document and give it the finishing touches it requires for the professional image you want to portray.
Transcription
Whether hand-written or recorded, meeting minutes, voice mail messages, phone conversations, lengthy reports, and notes from focus groups – whatever you need, the document is sure to be delivered efficiently.
Project Assistance
A VA is there to assist you to meet all your deadlines and targets. They can handle any organizational tasks required to get your projects done effectively and efficiently.
Internet Research
Want a list of your competitors or potential clients? Want some research done on a new product or service you would like to offer? Want some ideas for promotions? A VA can find the information you need when you need it.
Database Management
Wish you had time to keep track of your client list, the people you meet at various networking functions, or a list of your products and services? A VA can develop and maintain a list of any data you keep track of.
Mass Mailings
Whether by “snail mail”, e-mail or fax broadcast, your VA can assist you to get the data to your target.
E-Mail and Voice Mail Management
Going out of town and wish you had someone who could respond to your e-mails and voice mails? Maybe you require someone to maintain your informational e-mail and send out information packages to people inquiring at your Web site. We can sort through the junk so you only have to deal with the important matters.
Specialized Services
Many Virtual Assistants offer their own specialized services including Web design, desktop publishing, event planning, human resources assistance and bookkeeping. Finding a VA who meets your demands as a business owner has never been so easy.
As you can see a Virtual Assistant can truly do anything an in-house employee can do, but unlike an employee, as a fellow business owner, they also have a personal stake in your business success. They can help your business blossom into the beautiful flower it is meant to become.
About the author: |
Is your “to do” list longer than your arm? Are you so busy taking care of the urgent that you never get to the important? Do you consider the thought of getting some help but then think “I can’t afford it” or “No one can do it as well as I can”?
If so, you’ve got a lot in common with most other small business owners.
Owning your own business is a great achievement and requires you to wear a lot of hats: owner, marketer, finance manager, widget maker/service provider, etc. Wearing all these hats eventually leads to a state of burnout or overwhelm and the love, the passion for what made you start your own business in the first place drowns in all the details.
If you want to grow your business AND maintain your sanity, there are two things you need to accept:
1. It’s not just okay to delegate, it’s essential to your survival.
2. A virtual assistant or online business manager (whichever description you prefer) is an investment in your business – not just an expense.
Consider the following scenario:
You own a small business as a marketing guru who makes $150/hour. Your website crashes and you spend the next five hours calling your webmaster, testing different links, doing what you can to get it back up and running. The five hours that you just spent fixing your website COST you $750.
If you had a virtual assistant whom you pay $50 an hour and she solved the problem in four hours (she would be 100% focused on this task and has likely encountered similar issues with other clients), the cost would be $200.
The word “cost” is based on a simple premise. If you are fixing your website, you are not making money. You could otherwise be engaged in billable tasks or you could have completed the new client proposal that brings you a $10,000 client – neither of which is possible if you are fixing the website.
Make sense?
Over the next week, keep a time log and track everything you do. Then sit down and make a list of all those tasks that you either shouldn’t be doing (not worth your time given the sacrifice) or hate doing. Here are a few things that immediately come to mind:
* Maintaining your website
* Bookkeeping – both invoicing clients and paying bills, providing accountant with data, reconciling bank statements, preparing your expense reports, etc.
* Submitting articles to article sites
* Research competition
* Maintaining your mailing lists – online and offline
* Coordinate vendor activities
* Reminding you about birthdays, arranging for cards and gifts to be sent
* Spending hours on the phone with any type of support vendor (Microsoft and Comcast pop into my head here)
* Create and distribute prospect letters
* Handling all your travel arrangements – business and personal
* Scheduling meetings, conference calls, etc.
* Providing you with website and sales reports
* Designing presentations for client meetings (e.g., formatting in PowerPoint)
* Ordering office supplies, promotional items
* Placing advertising – online and offline
* Managing client mailings – promotional, holiday, sales, etc.
* The list goes on. . .
Each person’s list will be unique to him. You may love the clarity of mind you get stuffing envelopes but run at the thought of reconciling your checking account.
And don’t stop at the above. What are those personal things that you’re doing that you could contract out so you can focus on growing your business? A teenager would be great for any of the following:
* Grocery shopping
* Housekeeping
* Laundry assistance
* Mowing the lawn
Don’t think you can afford an assistant?
The first thing to remember is that virtual assistants charge you only for the time they are ACTUALLY WORKING on YOUR projects and you will most likely not need someone full time.
You would pay a traditional employee a salary, sick time, vacation time, holiday time, provide a desk and office space, pay for training, pay payroll taxes, provide software and equipment and do all this for someone who likely considers what you are offering as a J O B that he needs to go to every day.
With a virtual assistant, you are paying an independent contractor who owns her own business and charges only for time she works on your projects, has her own office and equipment, pays her own taxes, is already trained in multiple software applications and who loves what she does.
Virtual assistants are self-motivated and focused on getting things done FOR YOU. This will greatly free up your time to focus on marketing your business, attending to your larger clients and generally growing your business.
Given the above can you afford NOT to hire an assistant?
The key is to start at a level where you feel comfortable: both financially and delegation-wise. Anything that you can give to someone else will give you more time to do what you do best and grow your business!
Ready! Set! Start your Time Log!
Send an email with “Time Log” in the subject line to info@online-biz-coach.com to receive your free Time Log. Online Business Manager & Entrepreneur, Sandra Martini, publishes the 'Effective Entrepreneur' weekly e-zine. She also coaches small business owners to more efficiently manage their businesses while increasing profits and having fun. Sandra's coaching programs are available via teleconferencing, emails and telephone calls. For more information or to sign-up for ‘Effective Entrepreneur’, visit http://www.online-biz-coach.com today. |
