Using Virtual Assistants For Real Estate Investing
Here’s a quick video for you walking you through a few websites that you can find great virtual assistants for your real estate investing business .
Yesterday Tim Mai (a full-time investor from Texas who uses virtual assistants) put out his first video for his new product launch coming out. I haven’t got my copy of his course or the "free" DVD’s yet (they say they’re on the way though… I’m kinda excited!)… so this isn’t an endorsement for the product at all.
I got an email from Brian H. yesterday asking me how to go about finding good virtual assistants and where to look. Well… I’m a lot like you and had that same question earlier this year… then I finally made the plunge and got my own part-time virtual assistant (which I really couldn’t live without now!).
Anyhow, this video shows you some of the websites and companies I’ve used myself to find virtual assistant work… and a few other sites that friends of mine have used to find their virtual assistants. Check it out… write down the websites… and start counting up the hours you’ll be able to save in your business (whether it’s a real estate investing business or not) by outsourcing many of the tasks you’re doing right now to someone else for $5 an hour.
Here’s a list of some of those sites mentioned in the video:
- www.elance.com (bid type site)
- www.guru.com (bid type site)
- www.agentsofvalue.com (great company according to a friend of mine. They’re based in the Philippines and charge about $5-$8 an hour)
- www.teamdoubleclick.com (mostly based in the U.S… charge between $15-$30 an hour)
Here’s What To Do
Taking that first step into getting your own virtual assistant is a big one… it was for me. But as soon as I just said… "You know what… I’m just going to do it and see what happens", that was it… I will never go back to NOT having a virtual assistant.
Here’s what you need to do…
- Write down the tasks that you’re currently doing yourself in your real estate investing business throughout the day/week.
- Write down how many hours you spend on each task every week/month.
- Write down what you hope to make in income in the next 12 months… then divide that by 12… then by 30… then by 8 (basically compute your hourly income based on what you hope to make in the next 12 months). For instance, if you hope to make $100,000 over the next 12 months… your hourly worth (figuring 8 hours a day… which is WAAAYYY to many hours to work a day
is $34/hr.
That’s the number that you value your own time at. Anything that you can hire someone for less than that # should seriously be considered to be outsourced (for like $5 $10 an hour to a VA).
- Then, take the 2 tasks that are taking up a ton of your time but worth the least to you as far as your time value. Find a virtual assistant, draw up a process map for them to follow to complete those two tasks for you… and hire the VA for a couple weeks as a "trial run".
- IF you like the VA, stay with them and increase the hours as needed
- If you don’t like the VA, keep looking until you find one that is great!
That’s it.
You need to value your time more if you want to be successful… and using virtual assistants is one way to do that and get a heck of a lot more done every day for your real estate business .
Here’s A Few Things Virtual Assistants Can Do For You
- Post classified ads
- Look for properties online
- Post ads about properties you’re trying to sell online to thousands of sites
- Take seller leads over the phone
- Maintain and create your selling and buying websites
- Use the social media to drive traffic to your buyers list "squeeze pages" (where buyers sign up to receive your wholesale deals by email/fax/mail, etc.)
- Distribute your videos on properties you’re selling to the hundreds of video sharing sites (very powerful)
- etc.
Really, the possibilities on what you can have your virtual assistant do for you are endless.
Try it out and let me know if you have any questions! Also, check out this free video series that will teach you how to use virtual assistants in real estate to boost your profits big time… worth a watch for sure.
Here's A Few Related Articles...
- Using Video For Real Estate Investors and Growing Your Wealth
- Than Merrill’s Wholesaling University… I Just Joined… Have You?
- HousingMaps.com – A Cool Way to Find Properties On Craigslist…
- Do you own a company or a job? – The quandry of a real estate investor
- Analysis of top real estate investing sites by traffic – May 2007
Hey, my name is Trevor and I'm the founder of The REI Brain and a real estate investor since the age of 21. Right now, my focus in real estate investing is multi-family income properties and I have plans on moving more into the commercial real estate investment world in 2008 and beyond. 
Hey Trev do these VA’s do any cold calling for you?
Hey James,
I don’t have my VA doing any cold calling… but you can truly have your VA do ANYTHING you want at all for you. I do know people who do have their VA’s doing cold calling… but it’s really all in how good your training is for them… because they’re only as good as your training.
Of course, if you’re hiring VA’s from India or the Philippines you need to keep in mind that if you’re using them for the phone you should do interviews w/ the VA over the phone to see how good their english is. There are a lot of VA’s who have very good English… so just check around until you find one.
Then, write up a script for them to follow and you’re good to go.
Hey, let me know how it goes!
- Trevor
Hey Trevor,
Great video!!! Really helpful stuff!!!!!
Do you have written “Job Descriptions” that you use to explain the tasks required for the VA to “Use the social media to drive traffic to your buyers list “squeeze pages”"?
Thanks,
Brad
Hey Brad,
Thanks for the comments.
I actually do have written and video descriptions I use for my own virtual assistant… I beared down for almost 3 weeks solid and created all of the processes for my biz on paper and videos so I’d never have to personally train a VA to do anything ever again. Just say… check out this video… it’ll tell you everything you need to know… and that’s it.
Have you written up any processes yet? If not… I might be able to do a little tutorial or something. I’d love to just hand out my process maps and videos… but I spent way too much time on them and they’re too valuable for me just to hand out for free… but I’d love to help ya out.
Is a tutorial something you’d want to see… or would getting a hold of the actual processes and videos be more valuable to you?
Chat soon,
- Trevor
Oh… one other thing…
Could you explain how you use your VA to distribute your property videos that you’re trying to sell to all the different video sharing sites. I know of a couple of these sites…. can you tell me more of them? Thanks again for you help.
Brad (again)
Hey Brad,
I use a service called Traffic Geyser ( http://www.thereibrain.com/traffic ) to blast the videos out to about 60 video sharing sites at once… saves probably 6 hours per video… and it only costs something like $50 a month.
My VA actually blasts the videos out… so I couldn’t tell you all of the features… but Traffic Geyser does a lot more than just blast videos… it’s well worth the price for the exposure you get online.
I hope that helped!
– Trevor
P.S. – Yes, that is an “affiliate link”… so I’m not trying to pull one over on ya. I truly do use it and swear by it for my videos… way worth it.
Another great site to find VA’s is http://www.shelancers.com There are quite a few that specialize in specific markets like law, real estate, internet marketing, etc.