New year, same question. Where to find the best people?

[Elias Pappan]

Being the new year and all, I am feeling like everyone else, "New Year, New Me," working up annual goals and determined to hit them. One of my goals this year is to build up my network, which brought me to Bigger Pockets. After reading the books and listening to the audio, I decided it is about time to get back to my roots and start doing vs simply listening, which is basically how I got into real estate in the first place. 

So, with that said, I figured I would start out my first post by reaching out to the resources right in front of me to help solve a topic I have been battling with. Most of us know what it takes to start, run and sustain a business and for those of us that don't, the hurdles will soon reveal themselves. It's hard to keep up with the day to day working in your business let alone come up for a breath of fresh air and get the chance to work ON your business. To help support the efforts and keep overhead down, I have recently been researching the world of Virtual Assistants. The problem that I now have is, I almost need a Virtual Assistant to find me the right Virtual Assistant. 

I know that there huge benefit to shifting tasks to someone that will be more timely and probably even better at them than me. The question I have is where to get started? Has anyone had great luck with their Virtual Assistant? It seems like sites such as Upwork and Fiverr have so many options it is tough to make the right selection. 

Any feedback or suggestions would be great! 

Thanks!

[Abel Curiel]

Originally posted by @Brandon Frulla:

Originally posted by @Abel Curiel:

Originally posted by @Elias Pappan:

Being the new year and all, I am feeling like everyone else, "New Year, New Me," working up annual goals and determined to hit them. One of my goals this year is to build up my network, which brought me to Bigger Pockets. After reading the books and listening to the audio, I decided it is about time to get back to my roots and start doing vs simply listening, which is basically how I got into real estate in the first place. 

So, with that said, I figured I would start out my first post by reaching out to the resources right in front of me to help solve a topic I have been battling with. Most of us know what it takes to start, run and sustain a business and for those of us that don't, the hurdles will soon reveal themselves. It's hard to keep up with the day to day working in your business let alone come up for a breath of fresh air and get the chance to work ON your business. To help support the efforts and keep overhead down, I have recently been researching the world of Virtual Assistants. The problem that I now have is, I almost need a Virtual Assistant to find me the right Virtual Assistant. 

I know that there huge benefit to shifting tasks to someone that will be more timely and probably even better at them than me. The question I have is where to get started? Has anyone had great luck with their Virtual Assistant? It seems like sites such as Upwork and Fiverr have so many options it is tough to make the right selection. 

Any feedback or suggestions would be great! 

Thanks!

 Hey Elias,

Welcome to the BP forums, great to have you in the community!

I never used a VA until about a year and a half ago. The only reason I used one is because my brokerage provides a network of VAs to choose from within a company called SkySlope.

If you'd like, I can e-introduce you to the woman I have first-hand experience with. Shes awesome! Shooting you a PM now.

Best of luck to you in 2020!

Abel

I'm glad an assistant works well for you! I was listening to the podcast this morning about VAs and how useful they can be, but I had trouble of thinking of things for them to do besides intercept phone calls. Can you give some examples of what you have offloaded to them? Thanks! 

 Hey Brandon!

Sure!... I offloaded ALL of my clerical work. I sell properties in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island New York and my company has a ton of paperwork that needs to be submitted for each deal/closing. Although an attorney is involved in the transaction, they do not cover all of the paperwork needed so I created templates and task lists for my Virtual Assistant. 

Paperwork included - sending contracts to all involved parties, obtaining signatures for all disclosure forms and agreements, submitting board applications for condos, co-ops, HOAs, etc. Aside from paperwork, the VA took care of scheduling/coordinating appointments, confirming receipt of documentation, and coordinating all the moving pieces in the transaction.

We have since brought on a full-time administrative assistant because we have more agents in the office and it became more necessary to have someone in-person. However, the assigning of tasks hasn't changed much in comparison to how we did things with the VA.

The way we maximized production from our VA was by being very precise with the wording in our task lists. We also provided outlines to help the VA understand the appropriate sequence for tasks and reason behind the sequence.