A career in real estate can be a lucrative profession. One transaction can yield large pay-outs in commissions.
The key to becoming a successful real estate agent is productivity. You must be able to optimize your available time for tasks that will help you generate income for your business.
The problem is realtors always have many things to do. You have to find a way to de-clutter your schedule. One of the best strategies to improve productivity is to outsource a number of real estate tasks. The question is: Which tasks should you prioritise?
Why You Should Outsource Tasks In Real Estate
What is a typical day for you like? Is your itinerary booked solid that you seldom have lunch or take coffee breaks? If so, how are your efforts contributing to the size of your bank account?
If you are putting in long hours at work and have barely anything to show for it, you might be running your career as well as your health to the ground. Yes, all it takes is one sale. However, getting a property deal done is not easy.
The size of the investment is considerable. Investing in real estate is not a decision that can be made by the buyer in one afternoon. Likewise, you have to qualify the seller and the property.
Is the title clean? Are there plenty of repairs that have to be done? Is the asking price of the seller comparable with other properties within the area?
With all the things that you have to attend, you will have to learn how to prioritise tasks in real estate in order to become productive. If you have 20 tasks lined up in a typical 8-hour work day, you will hardly get anything done. The mathematics will not be in your favour.
The best thing for you to do is to outsource some of those tasks. This way, you can allocate more time, energy, and focus on the things that have to be done. These are the specific tasks that will build up your bank account.
How To Prioritise Real Estate Tasks For Outsourcing
Off the bat, it may seem automatic that when it comes to outsourcing real estate tasks, you should start out with administrative functions. After all, tasks such as email filtering, calendar management, and appointment setting do take precious time away from your daily schedule.
However, outsourcing administrative functions by themselves will not maximise your level of productivity. Business conditions change; sometimes on a day-by-day basis, you may need immediate assistance on some tasks more than others.
Productivity comes down to a simple matter of economics: “How do I allocate my resources?” Hiring an agency or a Virtual Assistant is adding another resource to your organization. If you want to maximise their value, you should know how to prioritise real estate tasks for outsourcing.
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Determine the Immediate Needs of Your Business
Before you begin the process of outsourcing real estate tasks, analyse your business and determine its immediate needs. Some questions you may need to answer include:
- Do I need to streamline costs?
- Do I need more marketing and promotional work?
- Do I need to update my CRM?
- Have I been negligent in building up my leads list?
- Is the number of delinquent tenants on the properties I manage growing?
- When was the last time I followed up on prospects?
Just like other industries, conditions in real estate can change. Not every month can be bullish. You will have sluggish periods where it can be difficult to close a deal.
These down periods are ideal for fortifying your business. You can address the flaws and weaknesses in your organization.
For example, if you want to streamline costs, you can realign your workforce and delegate more tasks to virtual assistants. These tasks may include marketing work plus a few administrative functions.
If you are renting out a few properties, you can have your Virtual Assistant manage tasks that are outside your core competency such as following up on delayed rental payment, qualifying prospective tenants, and reviewing leasing agreements.
A business review is a good place to start when it comes to identifying real estate tasks that need to be prioritised and outsourced.
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Identify Prospects Who Are Moving Along the Sales Funnel
Having prospects moving down your sales funnel is like having big fishes caught in your net. You just have to find a way to reel them in. Sometimes they can be heavy where a bit more work needs to be done to firm up the deal.
If you are close to converting prospects into paying clients, you should prioritise the real estate tasks needed to get the deal done.
What real estate tasks are these?
- Following up on the sales contract review.
- Doing follow-up calls to the prospect to build on the relationship and maintain interest.
- Running email campaigns.
- Responding to prospect enquiries.
- Checking up on the status and legality of the property title.
- Having repairs on the property done on schedule.
- Assisting a potential buyer in having his/her loan approved.
- Rounding up all documents needed to finalise the sale.
- Having a real estate lawyer review contracts.
How do you know which prospects are moving further along the sales funnel? Your real estate virtual assistant can probably help you with this. This is why one of the real estate tasks that you should prioritise is updating the CRM or Client Relationship Management database.
An updated CRM will show you the status of your prospects. You will know which ones have expressed the greatest interest. You can see which prospects are near the end of the sales funnel.
From there, you can proceed to create a plan of action to convert these prospects into buyers of property.
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Schedule Projects by Deadlines or Timelines
How fast you can close a deal in real estate will depend on timelines or deadlines.
For example, in some states, there is a grace period for reviewing contracts and validating titles. You have to be aware of these time periods and factor them in your own scheduling of real estate tasks to outsource.
Other examples would be property viewings and auctions. Busy prospects will only be able to allow specific times during the week to view properties in your listing or attend auctions. A real estate VA can have as many prospects accommodated in your schedule.
A signed sales contract brings you closer to a completed deal. This particular prospect has grown from “warm” to “white hot”. You have to make sure that all tasks relevant to finalising the contract and having the deal push through are prioritised and managed efficiently by your real estate VA.
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Outsource Non-Essential Real Estate Tasks
Administrative functions are an example of non-essential real estate tasks but they are not the only ones. Generally, non-essential tasks are those that are not directly related to the main enterprise of your business. Likewise, these tasks can be synonymous with those that do not fall under your core competencies.
Non-essential tasks can be technical in nature. They require a more specialised skill set. Here are examples of technical skills needed in real estate that you should outsource:
- Digital Marketing
- Website Development and Management
- Human Resources
- Accounting
- Market Research
- Content Writing
- Telemarketing
- Email Marketing
- Graphic Design
Even if you do have the skill set to handle any one of these tasks, you should still outsource it. Your time is precious. How you manage it will determine your level of productivity. It is always best to dedicate your available time in the day to the key functions of your business.
Conclusion
Outsourcing is simply the process of delegating tasks to a qualified third-party service provider. It is not a new concept. Outsourcing has been around for decades. It started out as a cost-saving strategy.
As the world became more connected through the Internet and digital technology, outsourcing became an important component in business development. Done properly, outsourcing can help you reduce costs and generate revenue.
You can contract the services of outsourcing companies or remote workers such as virtual assistants. Many real estate agencies and agents have outsourced work to virtual assistants with great success.
Kindly go back to our definition of outsourcing. The keyword is “qualified”. You can easily find virtual assistants who are very familiar with real estate either because they have had direct experience with it or have handled clients in the industry.
If you have an experienced virtual assistant in your corner, you can delegate a good number of real estate tasks that will greatly de-clutter your schedule.
You will be surprised that you have more productive time on activities that directly relate to the business of real estate. You will also have time for regular lunch and an occasional cup of coffee.