How To Train & Delegate Tasks To Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant
Our firm, MyOutDesk, has been around for 11 years, working with successful Real Estate Businesses and providing value by matching them with highly talented Virtual Assistants. Throughout this time, we’ve heard it all, success stories and horror stories too. Two crucial factor in all these stories are training & delegation.
Our most successful client and Real Estate Virtual Assistant relationships share crucial components; they took the time to train their Virtual Assistant — and the understood what tasks to delegate.
While we go through great lengths to ensure that each of our clients gets matched with the Virtual Assistant that matches their talents and that they have gone through basic levels of training, each business has a unique set-up that our Virtual Assistants need to learn. You have to take the time to ensure that your Virtual Assistant will be equipped to not only take over the tasks you are delegating to them but that they will be able to do them as well as you do or perhaps, even better than you can.
(Related- Read about the 30x Rule HERE)
Why is Training Crucial?
Training takes a lot of time and effort. If you have or are planning on hiring a Virtual Assistant, the odds are that you have precious little time already. However, look at it as an investment. By investing your time in ensuring that you have trained your Real Estate Virtual Assistant well, you set them up for success and in turn your Real Estate business benefits too. Once you have gone through lengths to ensure that your Virtual Assistant not only understands how your business works but also their place in it, you will both benefit in the long run.
Training also builds trust by establishing rapport and developing that relationship between you and your Virtual Assistant. For example, MyOutDesk’s Real Estate Virtual Assistants are all from the Philippines. Filipinos are known to be hard working individuals who are eager to please and to do a stellar job. Training will help boost that relationship and will enhance their loyalty to you and your business. This benefits you because they will start treating your Real Estate business as their own and will work as such.
Finally, remember that you hired a Real Estate Virtual Assistant for a reason. Taking the time to train them will allow you to focus on your revenue productive activities and grow your business. We’ve heard it said that if you don’t have an assistant, you are the assistant. By giving your Virtual Assistant the time and guidance they need to fully inculcate the inner workings of your business, you are empowering them to provide value to you and your business. You are also empowering yourself to be confident that they can do the job well so you can focus on the things you need to do.
How to Train your Virtual Assistant.
So, how do you train someone who is practically halfway across the world away from you? Here are some of the best practices we’ve seen.
- Create step-by-step guides: First, create task lists and guides on how to accomplish these tasks. Be very clear about your expectations and goals and make sure that your Real Estate Virtual Assistant knows the why behind what they are doing.
Creating step-by-step guides can take some time but are an excellent resource for training your Virtual Assistant especially for lengthier tasks or tasks that have many different facets. By creating these, your Virtual Assistant will always have something to check their work with and to ensure they are going about each task correctly, even when you are not physically available to confirm or remind them. If you hire someone to make calls, send over some call recordings of you or others in your team so they can hear how you talk to clients, handle objections, etc.
- Create Videos: You can also use screen capture software to record yourself working on different tasks and give instructions while going through the various processes they will need to handle. Better yet, you can have them on with you as you go through everything and record that video call so that they can go back and watch it again later.
- Have them watch webinars/videos: These days you can find practically everything online, especially instructional and informational videos. There are so many tutorials on YouTube, and there are many free live or pre-recorded webinars that can be utilized in training your Virtual assistant. You can even ask them to do some research and send over what they have found to see if it is relevant to what you need them to learn! If you are going to have them use a specific tool or software, look the FAQs and other resources they might have on their website and have your Virtual Assistant study those as well.
- Have them read blogs/articles: Look for useful articles and blogs online that may help in the training process of your Virtual Assistant.Finding them reading material and how-to guides can be beneficial and can be something they can go back to when needed. You can ask them to discuss what they have learned with you or do a short write-up or something of the sort so you can gauge how much they have learned and what else you need to give them.
- Purchase Training: Sometimes, you may have a few high-level tasks that you need to execute well. You may want to consider purchasing training for these higher level or more complicated tasks if you feel that the free materials available are insufficient.
- Set-up practice sessions: If you have a Real Estate ISA that you need to train, set-up mock calls with yourself and other members of your team so your Virtual Assistant can practice your scripts in a safe space and can get immediate feedback.
- Create A Task Management System: Lastly, make sure to set-up some sort of task management system where you and your Virtual assistant can keep track of what they are learning, what they have completed and see if anything is lacking. This system can be helpful after their training as well.
Done With Training? Now It’s Time To Delegate!
There are several steps you have to take and things you need to do to effectively delegate tasks to your virtual assistant. The issue is that the majority of mangers only do one or two of these things and then when a task isn’t completed properly, they complain that employees aren’t good enough to handle the job.
- Perfect Execution Every Time: If you want the perfect execution of a task, every time, you have to prepare. After all, employees will not be able to deliver the desired results if the task delegated is not fully thought out or if your expectations continue to change. If you want perfect execution, you have to know what you are asking and the outcome you desire.
- Training (30x Rule): The 30x rule states that you need to spend 30x the amount of time training someone to complete a task than what it would take you to complete the task a single time. For example, if you could complete a task in just five minutes each day, then according to the 30x rule, you should spend approximately 150 minutes training someone else for that same task.
- Communication: Effective communication during the course of a delegated task is a must. Knowing the progress that has been made, issues that an employee has had, and other factors can help ensure the desired outcome is achieved. The good news is, there are several communication platforms you can use to help make this easier, including Slack, Skype, Trello, RingCentral and others. Employees who have the ability to openly communicate with C-level executives are more productive and more successful in the work that is done and the things that are accomplished.
- Matching the Right Person to the Task: When it comes to real estate, there’s the concept about how to properly use land or a particular plot. For example, you don’t put a house next to a shopping center. When it comes to leverage, there is a similar concept. Each employee you have is paid for a particular skill set. Determine where your worker’s strengths lie to know what tasks they should take on.
You also need to learn how to delegate to various stakeholders in your company, such as virtual assistants. The best way to do this is by ensuring they feel like part of the team even though they aren’t in the office. Accomplishing this can be done by conducting one-on-one video calls, as well as including them in meetings via video.
- Setting Expectations: You have to ensure your expectations are clear. When an employee knows what you desire out of the task they are doing, they will have a much higher likelihood of success. If your expectations are unclear, or if you continue changing them, the desired outcome will be virtually impossible to achieve.
