Training Article - Hiring An Assistant, Helpful Tips, When To Hire, & More!

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In this article we are going to discuss the following questions and more.

When is the 'right time' to hire an assistant for your real estate business?
What skills and qualities should you be looking for?
What should your goal be?

Why Hire An Assistant?

An assistant is a very important addition to any real estate business and the right assistant can make a huge difference in your success as a real estate agent!

A good assistant will allow you you to focus more of your time and effort on the important tasks, like getting new listing and sales!

The Two (2) Most Important Goals In Having An Assistant Should Be:

Goal #1: The assistant should be doing many of the "low payoff" activities that you do, like general office management, word processing, fielding your phone calls, etc.

Your time is better spent on other things, "high payoff" things like brining in more business, servicing your clients and improving your own sales skills.

• The hourly wage that you will pay an assistant is really a Great Deal when you consider the how much more money you WILL make by spending more of your time on the more important things!

• A good real estate assistant is truly worth every penny.. and then some!

Over time your assistant should be performing the bulk of the "low payoff" tasks so you can focus more energy on the high payoff ones.

A good assistant will also give you the extra time you need to invest in more training, improving your skills, going to agent seminars, etc...

Goal #2: A good assistant should be able to do some of the things that your own skills are lacking in.

This way the skills of both you and your assistant will be better used and you be more efficient as a team... A good assistant not only saves you time but can help you with some of the thing that you cannot do yourself.

For example; If you are not the best with computers, maybe it's best to hire an assistant who can help you with this stuff and who can use the "software titles" that you use in your business, i.e. TopProducer, PowerPoint, Word, etc...

What To Look For When Hiring An Assistant:

1. Hire an assistant based on their skills, experience, and work ethic - as you would any employee. Keep this process professional and "business like", your not looking for a friend, your looking for an employee.

2. Look for someone who enjoys doing "paperwork". This is one the first tasks that you should be "giving to" your assistant, so you can focus on other things.

3. Look for someone with good "office skills", including but not limited to: work processing, phone skills, faxing, making copies, etc.

4. Look for someone who has a strong work ethic. You will find yourself "depending" on your assistant. So you need someone you can trust, someone who will get the job done and on time!

5. Look for someone who is a good 'follower", someone who can take instruction well and do the tasks that are assigned to them. You are the "leader" and a good assistant will be your "follower".

When To Hire An Assistant:

1. As far as "when in your career", there is no real answer to this. It depends on so many factors, however, you should always be "evaluating" your business and your need for extra help.

If you are going to hire and assistant you should know when the time is right.
If you find yourself needing extra help it's already too late! Hire before you're in a crisis!

2. Whenever possible, hire an assistant during the slow time of the year.

Too often, real estate agents will hire an assistant when they are too busy to train them and deal with the "learning curve" of both parties involved - You and your assistant won't be working to "full effectiveness" right way, that takes time.

By hiring during a "slow time" you will be able to invest the time needed to train your assistant and to get used to it yourself --- both of you need some time to adjust and get working to "full efficiency"! This will produce a quality assistant who will perform well when your business get back to "full force".

Training Article Summary

Hiring an assistant is not something to take "lightly", its one of the most important 'business decisions' that you will make, but when done right, it will bring your business the success you want!

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