It comes to us all, at some point in time. Some sooner than others. Some of us resist, kicking and screaming. "I want control, my clients want me to be handling their sale" etc.
Yes, I am referring to that point in time where the agent gets too busy and starts to spend his waking hours trying to keep up with the business they have generated. Then what happens? Lead generation goes down the tubes and then your business follows. This leads to a roller coaster cycle of ups and downs.
This can only be broken by Leverage, (what our company calls one of the three L's.)- having someone do some of the things you can delegate. You can use an assistant, virtual or actual, you can have affiliates do some of your chores, ie title company, mortgage company, even a starving agent in your office.
Why am I bringing this up? First, because I had a conversation with a colleague agent of about 1 years experience who has been successful and is looking for a way to leverage. Second, because I have been without an assistant for almost a year after I had one for 3. It was a tough year, I had to work extra hard to get control of my systems and there was so much busy stuff that when I got half busy I was frantic and burning out.
I have had a full time assistant in place for 2 weeks and already my life is back. It was so good this week that I set up my buyers agent this weekend with 3 clients and went home to spend it with my family. I actually got to feel that I was not doing enough business and that I should, start calling more of my sphere.
Next week I am starting on more lead generation, fsbos and expireds, because I have new responsibilities. But you know what. I would rather make more calls than go back to filling in data sheets and uploading photos.
For those of you who have misgivings about having an assistant, I have heard most of them. Here is my take on a few of them- I need to give credit to Keller Williams because I have learnt most of them from some training or other and if it were not for becoming a student of the "model" I would never have had the confidence of the ability to do this..
"I want control of my business". Learn to delegate and you will get more control of what matters, your life.
"No one can do it better than me". Actually, if you train the right person correctly, they will do it better than you and your clients will appreciate your brand even more. Does an attorney do all the paperwork? or a doctor? No. then why would you?
I don't want the responsibility of an assistant. Yes that is your choice, I guess you are not serious in building your business. Hire the right assistant and train with good systems and you will have a good base with which to build your business.
I don't have the systems. Well all systems have to be built, or borrowed. But if you hire a good assistant, then one of their tasks will be to make systems. Keller Williams has all of the systems too.
So it all comes down to a final biggie:- How do I make a good hire. This is not easy. I have had luck and I have half followed our systems. I have had 4 assistants in 3 years, too many!
However, I took my recent hire through what KW calls Recruit Select. This is a very intense process of personality testing, followed by discussion, checking references three deep, then another test and lengthy discussion about the results, Only then we discussed the position. I will admit, I am not a process kind of person and I was tempted to shortcut the process, but I stuck to it. I had never done it before, I went into the interview after studying the methods before hand. I felt I was doing overkill for an assistant, but my team leader reminded me the cost of making a bad hire. Infact he consulted me when the tests didn't come in exactly to the model.
The result, I have hired an extremely capable assistant. We learned a huge amount about each other in the process. So she must have felt the job was right for her. Now it is up to me to keep the hopper filled!!!!!
Question to non KWers. I mentioned the 3 L's, one of which is Leverage. What are the other 2?
Guy
http://www.realestateguy.net/
Guy Lofts CRS Real Estate Guy in Madison, Wisconsin
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Great post. I have spoke with a lot of agents that seem to have a challenge finding good talent in an admin role. The key is to not hire someone that is interested in real estate sales, because guess what, they will leave and become a real estate sales agent.