Expanding Yourself In 2013 – Part 1

Perhaps 2012 was the year that you, as a Realtor and entrepreneur, finally developed a consistent rhythm and understanding of the underpinnings of your business.  Maybe to the extent where you had your best year ever.  Or could you have had a more successful year if there were simply more hours to your day?  Personally, toward year’s end, I began to think that even arising at 5:00 A.M. was no longer early enough to accomplish all that I wanted.

Expand Yourself

We all have the same amount of hours to our day and adding more is one of the few impossibilities in life.  Except for those of whom I’m envious, who say they only need four hours of sleep each night to function optimally, awakening earlier is not really a viable option either.

Perhaps this just might be the year when you should hire a personal assistant.  In essence you expand yourself by leveraging the power of another.  Yet some Realtors become overwhelmed simply by the thought of doing so.

1. How do I go about finding someone?
2. How do I train them?
3. How do I allocate responsibilities?
4. What if the work they produce is less than perfect?
5. What if I don’t have enough work for them?

Getting Started

The answers to the first three questions simply require a bit of planning.

1.  The search:

• Run an ad – I have found Craigslist to be useful.
• Utilize word of mouth – You would be surprised at how many people are looking for such work to supplement another job or schooling.
• Be on the lookout – Those who are in the service business, such as waitresses or waiters, and who excel at it, tend to adapt well to real estate as it is so centered around service.  They of course would need to have administrative skills also.

2.  Training:

• Book it – You must take time out of your day to teach the new hire how things are done.  This is one reason that hiring someone with real estate experience is a big, big advantage.  In either case, if you don’t block out time for training, the hire is destined for failure.

3.  Allocating Responsibilities:

• Job Description – Have this prepared before meeting with your candidate(s) for the position.
• Opportunity – Make the best of the opportunity that you have created for yourself.  Any task that you detest, does not require a license or is not a direct producer of income should be given to your new assistant as long as they are capable.  These are the tasks that should be in your job description and discussed with the person before hiring them.

Tomorrow’s blog will offer sage advice regarding questions number four and five above, so crucial to the success of this endeavor.

Have you ever thought about hiring an assistant to streamline your business?

What questions about hiring an assistant have you had that are not mentioned above?

Expand your mind, increase your business and receive your dose of “The Daily Tonic” every M-F.   It’s always brief, informational and thought provoking.

Simply go to the top of this page or the home page of thedailytonic.com, enter your email in the navigation bar to the right and click “subscribe.”