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When you own your own business, you most likely have to deal with several daily challenges. You wear many different hats and are looking for easy ways to streamline your business without losing profits or getting distracted from the tasks that matter the most – but many times, it’s hard to identify what is essential and what can be outsourced.
This article will explore 15 tasks that you can have your virtual assistant accomplish for you. This will save you time as the business owner and permit you to focus on the tasks requiring your attention.
What Does a Real Estate Virtual Assistant Do?
Virtual assistants help real estate agents by lifting the massive workload involved in running their business. You can have them do various tasks, like managing your social media, handle your accounting, answer emails, and many more.
Virtual assistants are available to you from different time zones. This means they can work when you are unavailable or asleep, making their role even more valuable. You can have them help you with a multitude of tasks. For example, they can take notes at meetings and brainstorm ideas. They can also step in as your virtual receptionist. This will free up your time, allowing you to do more essential things in your business.
Tasks Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant Can Do
If you have a real estate business, whether you’re a top producer or just getting started, hiring a virtual assistant can be an excellent investment. You may not need an assistant full-time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have the help around when you need it.
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Research
As a real estate agent, there are times where you are required to conduct your research on your clients’ properties. But there are also instances when you have to gather information for the sale or purchase of property, conduct market analysis, or prepare a market report for a client meeting. The problem is, a lot of these tasks require a lot of time and effort –– which could be better used in selling or buying properties by meeting with your clients and visiting their properties.
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Data Entry
You spend more time on administrative tasks such as data entry than you do on your core business activities. To make matters worse, chances are you have to take care of this task as well. This is where virtual assistants (VAs) come in very handy. These are individuals who can take your administrative burden from your shoulders.
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Basic Bookkeeping
It's not a good idea to do your own bookkeeping. It can be challenging to manage your books manually, especially if your business has several transactions happening every day. Also, the more you grow, it will be easier to entrust third parties to take records of whatever is happening in your business. This can help save you time in the long run and help you focus on what matters: growing your business.
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Spreadsheet Creation and Management
Whether you need a new spreadsheet for tracking data or want your current one refreshed for increased efficiency, a virtual assistant capable of handling spreadsheets is always handy. VAs proficient in creating and managing spreadsheets can help you effectively use this essential tool, whether on your own or with a team of real estate agents.
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Cold Calling
Cold calling is a numbers game. You’ve heard this phrase before, and it’s true. The more numbers you call, the higher your chance of closing a sale. But let’s face facts – cold calling is boring, tedious, and any other word you could use to describe the task at hand.
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Managing and Organizing Agreements or Contracts
Many agents, even those that own their own businesses, forget or don’t have the time to keep up with managing contacts, regardless if they are physical or digital. This is why Virtual Assistants (VAs) are a valuable addition to your business and improve your bottom line.
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Setting and Organizing Appointments
As soon as you get your first few clients, you’ll find yourself trying to keep up with appointments. There are even more things you’ll have to manage for each client (meetings, calls, feedback, and so on). A virtual assistant is especially great for this because they can be instructed with precise details, so you don’t have to worry about them forgetting a detail or two.
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Calendar Management
Hiring a virtual assistant to handle your calendar might sound like a scary idea, but you will discover that it will be convenient. There are a few reasons why hiring someone who is handling your schedule is beneficial to you. First, you won’t be swamped with people who want appointments from you. Second, you can then take the time to concentrate on the viability of each client and manage the existing ones better. You will also have more time coming in with additional tasks that can help you improve and grow.
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Creating Letters or Emails
Business writing matters whenever you communicate with your clients whether, by email, letter or instant messaging. It could determine whether they will have a good impression of your business and whether they will want to continue to do business with you again in the future. This is why the letters or emails written by your virtual assistant must all be perfect in terms of grammar and spelling.
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Online Marketing Tasks
It doesn't matter what kind of real estate business you run if you want to succeed online. Yes, some things are a little different for residential versus commercial properties, but the techniques and technology behind running an online campaign are the same. You can organize your marketing tasks and delegate them to your virtual assistant so they're not sitting undone.
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Website Management
Have you heard of website management? If not, allow me to explain it further. Website management is a technical term that refers to managing your website to edit, monitor, and update your web content. Your site might contain valuable information for your readers. Still, if the information isn't up-to-date or is incorrect, you will be losing potential subscribers or customers that could lead to more revenue for your business. Being able to manage your site means making sure it stays safe even outside of the Internet. If you are too busy with other business areas, hiring a virtual assistant with experience in web development could help ease some of these stress points!
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
It can be challenging to keep track of what to do for your clients, especially when you have many of them. It’s easy to remember what to do by meeting your client in person, but when it’s just through the email exchange or phone call, there are too many things to remember between sending emails, reminders, appointments, and events. A virtual assistant is a good solution, and they can handle those things and free you up to spend more time closing deals.
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Prospecting
Prospecting is vital for every business because it allows you to grow your client list, providing more sales opportunities. At the same time, it is a time-consuming task and can use up a lot of resources. Although there are times you may need to do some prospecting on your own, for the most part, it’s an excellent idea to hire a virtual assistant to take care of this work for you. Letting somebody else handle this hard work will allow you to focus on essential details and close deals without worrying about new leads. In addition, the more clients you have working with you, then chances are you will have more free time in which you can dedicate yourself to more productive tasks.
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Proofreading
Always read over what you have written, proofread it several times, and check for any grammar mistakes. I can assure you that people will notice if you do not proofread your writing. As well as being embarrassing in front of friends or other people, they will see worrying about the mistake in your writing.
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Translation
There are plenty of great reasons to hire a translator for your business. For one, it’s incredibly beneficial to the people that you need to communicate with, whether you’re communicating with employees from all over the world or speaking with potential clients who can’t speak English. Secondly, it means that non-English speakers visiting your country will have an easier time understanding what is being said to them. This can also improve customer service immensely.
Conclusion
If you want to spend more of your time on the things you do best and less on the daily tasks that have nothing to do with running your business, hiring a real estate virtual assistant can make all the difference.
Need more local marketing tips? Check out The Essential Marketing Guide for Real Estate Professionals
