How to make the decision to hire a personal assistant!!!

Question

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well. It’s been a while since I posted. However, I’m sort of at a standstill in my real estate career. I’m a full time orthopedic surgeon at this time. Over the past two years (starting in residency), my wife and I have worked hard to build our real estate portfolio. Starting with a single duplex, we’ve been able to build now to a portfolio consisting of two duplexes, a 10 unit commercial building, a mixed use commercial/loft apartment property and a 91 unit self storage facility. Additionally, we’ve been able to force appreciate and add significant value to these properties to allow me to build a fairly large amount of paper equity that has given me some continued buying power moving forward. I am posting here because I am at a point where my ability to dedicate my time to this endeavor has been sort of limited. I have grandiose goals of growing our brand and really focusing on lead generation/customer relations management. Also, I want to further our social media presence. That has brought me to consider bringing on a personal assistant to help extend my ability to be productive during the work week. Has anyone else been in this situation? How did you go about it? What ended up happening? What sort of productivity were you able to achieve following this decision. My other list of projects include: launching a physician specific online course, starting my local real estate investment association meetup (REIA), and putting together a fund of interested orthopedic surgeons that I have networked with who want to invest in real estate. Thank you all for your time with the long post and I look forward to some great advice!

David M. · Answer

@Franky DavisReally its sounds like you need to make a decision about starting an active business. At what point do you need to form a business and start putting people on payroll / contract to do work for you. Of course, this needs some serious consultations with some professionals. For example, for the fund you should need a specialized attorney to get docs together to file with the SEC.. So, I think to answer your question, are you ready to "take that next step" to turn it into a business instead of a sort of side passive set of investment?

Sebastian Marroquin · Answer

Hello, I agree with David in that you would have to assess your business, your quality of life and your time to see what your goals are and what you are willing to do? With your RE holdings/ portfolio it seems to me that you could get property managers if you don’t have them already and have them manage the day to day with those. You could leverage the Real Estate acquisition with a Realtor. Figure out what you want and find a realtor that is knowledgeable and willing to do most of the work for you, assuming there will be loyalty on both sides of the relationship. You could get a partner to do the same as the realtor, and manage all acquisitions etc. You could also get a personal assistant : which could be great for you and will free-you up from all of the above. Usually the ones that will be willing to do more and will have the capacity to do more will be in the $40k to $60k per year range. You will still have to manage them, train them, and provide them with the necessary resources and systems to succeed. There are PAs that are already trained, or you could hire someone and hire a company to train them. The cheapest route : a VA : anywhere between $4 to $12 per hour. There are many companies out there and some that are specific to RE. They do marketing, cold calling, IT work, social media etc. I think you have to set aside a budget of at least 6 to 12 months to pay them. To be fair to them, as it takes time to train and to create the systems you want, and also to be fair to your business, as it takes time to get some momentum and traction. Slow to hire and fast to fire! of course :) Figure out and create a list for the tasks that you want to leverage out. Acquisitions and back end managerial things are really different and require different personality traits. For example : For sales, acquisitions, cold calling, Social media creation = you will need a high “D” and “I” assistant. They are go-getters, direct, self driven, social, outspoken, not shy, bold, creative but the opposite from below: For managerial tasks, back end, IT, methodical work, analysis of numbers, busy work = you will need a high “C” and “S” assistant: someone that has the mind of an accountant or engineer. They may be quite, soft voice, ok with following and not leading, like lists and task, not as creative, not as social, and like to work behind a computer, they do not like confrontation and rejection at all… I am a high D and I : and my wife is a high S and C (usually a surgeon could be a high D, and if flashy and likes the spot light an ‘I’ but if they are more reserved, maybe a high S or C). I know this is off left field, but you have to understand who you are, how you communicate and what role you will hire for and what their personalities are. In closing, figure out the list, the personalities you need to hire and build a budget for it. Plan to hire them for at least 6 months with an initial 90 day on-boarding (probation period). If they do well the first 30 days and you mesh well, then invest in them for the rest of the 6 months. I double my revenue when I hired mine (A bit unconventional and not a reg. Assistant: as she is my wife). But still, she handled all of the back end and marketing for my Real Estate sales business. Depending on what you will need, reach out, and I can give you some pointers just in passing, and if you would like more, we can talk about a fee to train your assistant (assuming you go that route). I train for cold-calling and productivity in sales. Excuse any typos anyone :) my day off and don’t feel like proofreading