After you have been selling real estate for awhile, chances are you have become reasonably adept at generating and closing leads.  Striving to improve these skills will incrementally improve your business for sure.  However, here is the one thing you can do that will result in a quantum leap in your bottom line and give you more free time to enjoy it…

Job vs. Business

First of all, you can’t possibly have a massive improvement to your business if you don’t have a business.  The vast majority of real estate sales professionals have a “job” they work for rather than a business that serves them.  It’s a huge distinction that is lost on even some of the industry’s top producers.  It doesn’t matter how much money you make, it is how it’s made that matters.

As the figure below shows, there are only three things to consider for any business (whether it’s real estate sales, manufacturing widgets or building skyscrapers) Lead Generation, Lead Conversion and Business Support.  These are known as the three phases of the business cycle, and every successful business follows them.

How you handle each of these phases will determine the extent of your business success.  For the sake of this article we are going to assume that your core competencies of Lead Generation and Conversion are well handled.  Our focus instead will be the Business Support phase of the cycle.  The way most agents handle Business Support literally guarantees they become mired in the job of selling real estate, rather than having the benefit of a business doing the heavy lifting for them.

The Three Most Expensive Ways to Get Things Done

The biggest factor that holds sales associates back from truly having a business that serves them, is how they handle all of the myriad details that need to be done outside of their selling activities.  Here are the three most expensive mistakes most agents make when dealing with these issues (listed in order of most expensive on down):

  1. Not Do It At All – in their well-intentioned attempts to do everything themselves, they become so overwhelmed that the detailed items start falling through the cracks and their lead generation / closing activities suffer.
  2. Do It Themselves – one of the biggest limiting beliefs in real estate sales is that if you want to have “total control” and have things done right, you have to do it yourself.  Just for laughs, tell that to the CEO of any successful company and see their reaction.  Remember, any time you do something outside of your core-competency, you end up paying top dollar for amateur results.
  3. Hire an Onsite Assistant – this may actually work if you are naturally gifted manager and motivator of people (which the most salespeople are not).  However, you are still paying way too much for what you need done.

There is a fourth way however, that allows you to focus on what you do best, brings in the most money and costs you the least.  It is the way I’ve run my businesses for the last 15 years and have taught 10s of thousands of REALTORS to transform their business…

Virtual Outsourcing – Business Support On Call

Imagine being able to hire talent to accomplish nearly anything you need done, that you don’t have to train, motivate, provide office space, equipment or benefits, and you only pay for what you use.  That is the payoff of using virtual assistants and consultants.  It is the only way I’ve found that is accessible to every real estate sales person of any experience level that truly addresses the Business Support phase of their business cycle in a practical and profitable way.

Keep in mind however that working with virtual assistants and consultants is not at all like working with a traditional onsite assistant.  In fact, if you treat them that way it is almost guaranteed to fail.  The process of finding, evaluating, hiring and working profitably with virtual assistants and consultants can be a bit involved.  So to avoid the inevitable overwhelm that would result from my attempting to insert all that material here, I’ve created a separate PDF download for you that covers the following topics in great detail:

  • On-Site Assistants vs. Virtual Assistants
  • Ways Virtual Assistants Can Support Your Success
  • How To Find And Hire The Right VA For You
  • Five Critical VA Interview Questions

To download this free document, just go to www.Facebook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools” tab at the top of the page.  There you will find a number of free resources including the special report “ePRODUCTIVITY – Earn More, Work Less & Enjoy Life!“.

Case Studies

Here are just a few examples of REALTORS who have incorporated Virtual Outsourcing into their business and never looked back:

  • Dave Fletcher, The Fletcher Group – uses a virtual transaction coordinator to handle the many 10s of millions of dollar closing each year.  Here’s the best part, she only charges Dave if the deal closes!
  • Chris Coveny, Royal LePage Performance Realty – found a skilled virtual writer to research and post on his blog for a fraction of what his time is worth.
  • Roman Pavlik, Pavlik Luxury Real Estate – found several VAs to keep his listings up to date on his Website on a daily basis.
  • Sven Andersen, The Andersen Team – uses a team of VAs to handle every aspect of his listing marketing coordination, which of course frees him up to bring in as many new listings he wants without breaking a sweat.

It is no accident that all of the above (and many, many others) have a business that serves them, instead of being a slave to a job.  If you truly want to have a business where you can earn more, work less and enjoy life you need to focus on what you do best and outsource the rest.  Virtual Outsourcing (i.e. using virtual assistants and consultants) is the most viable and affordable way to accomplish this available to all REALTORS of any skill and experience level.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.russer.com

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the July 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.