Outsourcing is difficult.
Managing remote teams are tricky. It’s easy to fall short of your goals, even if you feel like you’re doing everything right. Hiring your first Virtual Assistant (or your next one) is a daunting task.
In today’s post, We’ll be going over some key criteria to keep in mind whether you’re just hiring your first Real Estate Virtual Assistant, or whenever you’re adding to your off-site workforce.
Outsource existing tasks you already know well.
While a company like ours is an expert at many of the common tasks found in real estate companies, everyone still does these tasks slightly differently. If your plan is to outsource something new to you & your business, you’re VA has probably already performed that task.
If it is your first time outsourcing, start by delegating something that’s already going on in your day-to-day operations, something you know well & can describe in elaborate detail to any new employee (in-person or otherwise). This will help you learn what it’s like managing a virtual team by delegating tasks with which you have intimate familiarity… making your job of training & monitoring someone who is off-site much easier.
Have a Clear Goal in Mind
One of the most obvious & easy issues to avoid is clearly setting out your goals and expectations before you hire a Virtual Assistant.
In the same way that you had set out specific expectations, quotas, rules, values, and other core company objectives & guidelines for a local employee, you need to do the same for your Virtual Assistant.
The simple way to do this is to focus on the details of your successful outcome and plan backward from the end game.
How to choose the right Real Estate Virtual Assistant.
While this isn’t simple, the basics are the same across the board. You need to classify if you’re going to be starting with an Admin Task, or a Voice Task. Usually, going for a VA who can do an Admin Task is the more difficult hurdle.
Hire a Virtual Assistant who is a good culture fit.
You can’t just hire a VA because they are good for the task-list at hand. If things go well, you’re going to be working closely with this person. It’s important that you can get along. When we hire VAs for ourselves, their interview process is two phased. Phase One consists of the basics: questions about their similar past experiences, job qualifications, and skill levels with a variety of common tasks & tools. Phase Two, however, is what has made us the masters of managing real estate VAs: the culture-fit test.
While your company culture is unique, and therefore cannot follow the recipe from anyone else… the basic idea is simple. You need to ask questions to determine if this is the kind of person you can work with! If you’re fastidious & detail oriented, but your VA is big picture & entrepreneurial, or if you’re artistic & creative, but your VA is strictly “by the book,” then while you might get short-term results, the long-term relationship is doomed to fail.
Be careful to keep your outsourcing & insourcing compatible
Believe it or not, we’ve lost clients who were 100% satisfied & getting excellent results using our VAs.
You not only need to hire the right VA for the right task, but you also need to be sure your local operations are prepared to harmonize with your off-site teams. You need to set up an outsourcing effort that is compatible with your core business.
AFTER Your VA Has Started Work
Even though your VA might have some experience doing real estate virtual assistant tasks, they haven’t had experience doing these tasks in your business. You need to set aside an incubation period to train the VA regularly in the beginning to make sure they get acquainted with your culture & core values. Don’t just put the VA to work, help them understand the “why” and “how” of their job so they feel committed and aligned to your goals. Have the VA create these processes in writing to refer back to.
The biggest success factor for long-term VA success seems to be a good culture fit from the beginning. By taking extra care in who you hire to be sure your VAs is not only technically capable, but also aligned with you & your company’s core values. They need to not only buy into the job, but to your grander mission, so they will be truly excited to work for you and help you achieve your business objectives for years to come.
It is essential for any business to leverage its resources, especially where time is money, hiring a Virtual Assistant may be exactly what your business needs. If you would like to have a discussion and find out what a Virtual Assistant can do for you, call us today for your no-obligation consultation and let us share with you how you can work less and earn more.