This week, our guest at the Agent First Summit was Joseph Gonzales. Joseph helps thousands of real estate agents leverage working with virtual assistants to grow their businesses seamlessly.
Our Agent First Summits happen every Tuesday morning! It’s a perk for all our real estate team members and their guests. To get an invitation, RSVP here: Save Your Seat!
In this session, Joseph answers all questions about hiring virtual assistants (VAs) and working with virtual assistants to really get our businesses off the ground and scaling quickly.
FAQ About Virtual Assistants with Joseph Gonzales
What is a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant (VA) is a supplemental resource for your real estate business. They are someone you can hire to help you earn more money and implement more business strategies by saving you time. VAs can help you earn more by providing outbound services so you can gain more inbound business.
However, it’s important to note that they should also be a member of your family whom you take care of and support. Treat them as a real person and build a relationship with them so they can perform their tasks better, reduce turnover, and grow with you over time.
Where Can I Find a Virtual Assistant?
There are many places to find VAs! You can find them on Upwork, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, and similar freelancing platforms.
How Do I Onboard Virtual Assistants?
Many agents fire VAs too soon because they expect these individuals to have a higher level of business expertise than they actually do. Virtual assistants will have a skill set, but they need your guidance to utilize this skill effectively for your business. They won’t know immediately how you want things done in your specific case.
To start the onboarding process for working with virtual assistants, think of three to five things you hate doing every day. Social media, creating on Canva, editing videos, etc. are all things that you might dislike doing on a daily basis but that still need to get done.
These are the things your VA can do. So, to get them onboarded with these tasks, set up a standard operating procedure that you use every time. Then share this process so they can do the tasks exactly as you want them done without your help.
How Do I Know When to Hire a Virtual Assistant?
To determine the right time to hire a virtual assistant, there are a few things you need to know:
- How much will a VA cost you each month?
- Can you replace and exceed the income you’ll spend on a VA with the income they will help you earn within a year?
- Do you have enough income to hire a VA for at least six months to get your VA trained and your process started?
Basically, if you find that they will pay for themselves by generating you income or that they can save you time that allows you the freedom to pursue new business, it’s the right time to hire.
To ensure you’re hiring a VA for the right tasks, always keep an eye on what is actually bringing you business. You may have to regularly change your processes to address what’s truly making you money.
For example, if you’re hiring an editor VA for both a podcast and a YouTube channel, but your YouTube channel is bringing in twice as much business, you may need to cut some of the time you and your VA spend on the podcast. Focus on what’s doing best, and, if time allows, expand into further channels later on.
In the end, you want to make sure that if your VA isn’t making you money every second by what they are doing, they’re at least freeing you up some time to go out and make money elsewhere. Give them those mundane tasks so you can focus more on your clients.
How Do I Use a Virtual Assistant in My Business?
Let’s get into implementation: how can you personally use a VA to make your business better? There is really one main goal when hiring a VA: making more money.
You’ll use VAs mainly to delegate tasks. For example, if you’re starting a big project (new YouTube channel, new podcast, new blog, etc.), you may want a VA to help you implement that new change.
Yes, you may still have to do some work yourself, especially if you want to eventually train the VA on it. However, you can make things easier on yourself by working on certain tasks alone and allowing a VA to do the more mundane tasks.
For example, say you’re creating landing pages for certain ads you want to distribute on Facebook. To make the process easier, use a VA to do outreach and follow leads while you create landing pages. Now you’re working together, each implementing the tasks you know how to do best.
How Do I Work With My Virtual Assistant?
As you’re implementing new practices, you want to ensure that you’re doing your best for both yourself and your VA. Always remember that your VAs are real people. Don’t be afraid to invest in them because they will be investing in you and your business.
It really is important to build relationships with your VA. You want to see them succeed and enjoy their work so they’ll remain loyal to you. Offering bonuses, paid time off, and other benefits can encourage them to maintain a loyal relationship with you even if they could technically make more money elsewhere.
It’s also important to build relationships so that your VA knows how to work as part of your team. If they’re making calls for you, you want them to sound enough like you that clients won’t be put off when they meet you in person. You want to maintain a sense of continuity.
So, if you want VAs to make calls for you, start by recording your calls and creating scripts. Give both resources to VAs so they see exactly how you talk to people and answer objections. They can implement those strategies to help you maintain your brand and image across all conversations and platforms.
As a bonus that will help you maintain a strong connection, consider tools to help you communicate and track work. For example, Joseph uses Slack, Asana, and Screenrecording.com.
- Slack is a useful and cheap tool for communication that allows you and your VAs to interact in different channels to make sure everyone is on the same page.
- Asana is useful for creating processes and systems to implement across your team so no one forgets tasks.
- Screenrecording.com is a tool that takes screenshots of your VAs’ computers as they work to identify how they’re spending their time and to track their hours. This makes it easy to ensure they’re working for you and reporting accurate hours to you each week or month.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant in Your Business
In conclusion, remember three important things about working with virtual assistants:
- Hire VAs to help you make more by performing mundane tasks and freeing you up to engage in more business.
- Treat VAs like family and invest in improving their lives as they help you improve yours.
- Take advantage of free and cheap tools to maintain structure and communication with your VAs.
By implementing these tips and working hard, you and your VAs can expand your business in no time. So, go ahead, get out there and build some virtual relationships!
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