The Virtual Assistant industry is all the rage lately but how many of you have thought about it only to conclude, why would I pay someone to do something I'm perfectly capable of doing myself?  After all, I've been a real estate agent for _____ (fill in the blank) years and I've managed just fine without one all this time.

Well, if you're anything like me, you only have 24 hours each day to accomplish all the tasks you need to do in order to stay on track to achieving your 2008 goals.  (And if you haven't set your goals for 2008, look back at my post on Setting Goals to give yourself a good boost to get started!)  During that 24 hours, you have to sleep, eat, do at least some personal grooming (so as not to offend, you know?), pay bills, maybe go on a bank run if it was a good week.  Lots to do and you haven't even gotten started on business tasks yet!  Let's use this as an example...

You have to meet some buyers at 10:00 a.m. to start showing them 4 properties this morning.  You know exactly what the buyers are looking for; they've looked at the property stats online and really liked the ones you're set to show them so this should be a breeze! It's 10:00 a.m. and here they come.  They take 20 minutes to go through the first property before deciding they don't like it.  And you spend 10 minutes outside talking about what they didn't like about the property.  Off you go to the next showing.  It takes you 15 minutes to get to this one.  It takes them 25 minutes to go through this one before deciding they don't like it.  And you spend 10 minutes outside talking about what they didn't like about the property. Off you go to the next showing.  It takes you only 10 minutes to get to this house but the couple does not pull in right behind you.  You wait another 20 minutes for them to show up because it turns out they took a wrong turn somewhere.  After a 10 minute perusal, they decide they don't like this property either.  5 minutes outside discussing it tells you why.  In the 15 minute drive to the next property (carefully checking your rear-view mirror to ensure the couple is still behind you), your cell rings.  They need to stop for gas.  After a 15 minute detour, you arrive at the property.  Another 20 minute look-though and they tell you they don't like it.  Outside, you talk for another 10 minutes to find out why.  So now, after 3 hours, you realize that the buyers don't want a bungalow, they want a split-level.  But you have to meet another client at 1:30 to have some amendments signed.

At 9:30 this morning, a contract came in that needs to go to the appropriate parties.  It has been sitting in your mail slot but you don't know it because you didn't go to the office before heading to your first showing.  If you were using a Virtual Assistant, the fax could have been routed to an internet-based fax service so your VA would receive it and send it on to where it needed to be.  Not only that, all those leads that have been coming into your e-mail all morning could have been sent initial response e-mails and have already been placed on drip e-mail campaigns.

Now, of course, the contract could possibly wait until 2:30 or 3 when you get back into the office.  And the leads could wait until after you get back in and settled to be responded to.  But why should those things have to wait?  Why stress yourself even more about all the administrative and marketing tasks that need to be done when someone else can handle them for you?  We all have our specialties.  All of this could be accomplished while you were out doing what you do best - getting in front of the clients showing and (hopefully) selling properties!  Our speciality is marketing through lead management and listing coordination.  So, instead of rushing back to the office to get administrative and marketing tasks completed, you could be poolside, enjoying a nice cool lemonade - depending upon where you live - or, on the other side of the weather, snuggled up with a loved one in front of a nice warm fire sipping hot chocolate!  That sounds much better, doesn't it?

(Oh, and if you've figured out a way to get more than 24 hours out of your day, please do let me know how you've done it!) 

~Renae - Marketing 4 Realtors - www.marketing4realtors.biz

Market 4 Real!