 | 
Ask the Experts
If you want advice on hiring or working more productively with your current assistants, here’s your chance to ask the experts. Click the feedback button or e-mail your question to mediatech@realtors.org and receive free, personal advice from the REALTORS® in our story.
More Resources
To learn more about working with personal assistants, visit Realtormag's Personal Assistant Advisor. For registered users of REALTOR.org. | | BY ROBERT SHAROFF
Why hire an assistant?
“I started off with one assistant and immediately saw my service and income improve and my stress level go down,” says Jo-Ann Forster of Wimbish-Riteway REALTORS® in Miami Beach, Fla.
“I’ve more than quadrupled my business in the last decade, and a lot of it is due to my assistants,” says Eric Blackburn, a salesperson with Keller Williams in Overland Park, Kan.
The decision to hire an assistant is a crucial moment for many real estate salespeople, marking their transition from independent operator to team leader. When it works, the results can be inspiring--more volume, more visibility, more commissions. But getting these productivity gains isn't automatic. It takes hiring the right person and then building skills and trust to form a great team. (Training is important, too. See “Personal Assistants: Learning to Excel .”)
There’s no magic formula, but the accounts of three successful salespeople who have seen their businesses transformed by working with assistants may help you begin your own team building off to a stellar start.
Power in Numbers
“He’s ‘mini-me with a mustache,’” says Jo-Ann Forster, of her main assistant, Mykael Marinelli. “I can’t be everywhere, and Mykael’s a very high-caliber replacement. He’s licensed and handles it all--shows properties, negotiates contracts, does inspections and closings.”
In addition to Marinelli, Forster, an associate broker, has six other assistants: an office manager, a marketing director, three buyer brokers, and a part-time administrative assistant who mainly works on mailings. All but the marketing director and the part-timer are licensed. Marinelli provides oversight and direction to the team when Forster is unavailable.
Her team, she says, is the reason she has been the company’s top producer for the last four years, with a total volume last year of $67 million.
When asked the secret of keeping and benefiting from assistants, Forster stresses two points: compensate them adequately and don’t be afraid to let them develop their own businesses within your business.
“Most salespeople want to hold on to everything--they don’t want to share any business with their assistants,” she says. “You can’t be stingy that way. A lot of full glasses are better than one full glass.” Forster compensates her various assistants differently. Marinelli receives a percentage of all of Forster’s business, a percentage of the business he lists or sells personally, plus a year-end bonus based on the overall success of the team.
The office manager and marketing director receive a salary plus a year-end bonus. The three buyer brokers receive commissions plus year-end bonuses in addition to periodic incentives and gifts, such as handheld computers.
With such a large team, occasional conflicts are inevitable. “We work in close proximity under highly stressful conditions. Of course there are going to be conflicts,” says Forster. One of the more common conflicts is deciding who gets the commission when more than one salesperson has been involved with a client. Forster’s method in such situations is the team’s equivalent of binding arbitration. “I bring everybody together in the conference room and tell them to come to some kind or agreement. I never impose a settlement; I like people make their own decisions. Usually after the facts are clear, people can agree.”
Another way Forster ensures communication is by having her assistants fill out an annual seven-page review of their and the team’s performance. “I give them a few weeks to do it. I ask them everything—what their goals are for the next year, how they feel they did individually, how the team performed, what are our strengths and weaknesses, and what can we do to improve the operation. I get hundreds of good ideas.”
One recent innovation from the questionnaires is a buyer response card that salespeople complete after an open house. “In the past, sellers needed to go to the Web site to get buyer comments,” says Forster. “The salespeople keep hearing that this wasn’t enough, that sellers wanted some kind of written acknowledgement. Now we provide it.”
To ensure that clients don’t feel forgotten when they work with other members of her team, Forster’s listing presentation materials include pictures and bios of her staff and discuss what aspects of a transaction they handle. She also frequently takes various assistants to presentations so they can get to know clients on a face-to-face basis. When clients understand the team concept, they recognize that “they're receiving a much higher level of service than any one person could provide.”
Forster says she asks potential assistants for a one-year commitment. Some, of course, stay much longer, but she’s found that it’s “very unusual to have the same assistant for five years. You have to expect that eventually they’re going to go out on their own. And when they do, I hug them and wish them well.”
Get a Life
“I waited so long to hire an assistant because I’m a control freak,” says Bonnie Clement, the Buffalo (N.Y.) Board of REALTORS® top real estate salesperson in 1999 and 2000. “I thought I could do everything myself. I sometimes worked until two or three in the morning doing paperwork.” After 20 years in the business, she finally hired an assistant two years ago.
What finally forced her to change her mind, she says, was a tragedy in her personal life. “My husband, Bernie, was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. I knew that I was going to be spending a lot of time at the hospital, and there was no way for me to stay on top of my business without some help.”
Clement, who works for Realty USA, found the support she needed at her local drug store’s make-up counter, where she had become friendly with the clerk, Sheryl Martin.
“We just fell into it,” says Clement. “One day, out of the blue, I asked her to work for me. I knew from seeing her at the drug store that she was smart and could handle computers, and I figured I could teach her the rest. I also knew that she was hungry. She was making minimum wage and needed a better job.”
The education began almost immediately and included everything from the intricacies of negotiating contracts to the intricacies of personal appearance. “I told her that if she was going to represent me, she had to look and sound like me to some degree,” says Clement. “I took her shopping for clothes, and she got a new haircut. We also worked on her speaking voice to make it softer.” Clement also required that Martin obtain a real estate license.
Both Clement and Martin say a turning point in their relationship occurred six months after she was hired. “I started in July,” says Martin. "Bonnie went on vacation to Florida over the holidays and left me in charge of the business. I was so nervous, but she told me to believe in myself and make the best decisions I could. I wound up selling five houses while she was gone. I knew then I could work for her forever.”
Clement’s husband died a year later, and Martin again stepped in to run things--with Clement’s oversight--during the months leading up to and after his death.
“Her job has gotten much bigger,” says Clement, echoing the evolution that many salesperson-assistant teams experience. “I hired her with the idea that she would do paperwork, customer follow-up, and the first round of buyer showings. Now, she picks up where I leave off—I get the listing and she follows up with clients, call buyers and showing housing. Some of my clients like her better than they like me.”
Clement still does all the prospecting and most of the listing appointments, but everything else—marketing, negotiating, handholding—has become a mutual enterprise. Eventually, Clement adds, Sheryl’s job will evolve into being a partner. “We’re like partners as it is.”
Martin receives a salary, plus a percentage of Clement’s commissions and a year-end bonus based on total sales and other factors.
Clement says her volume has grown about 10 percent in the four years since Martin joined her. But Clement says that the biggest advantage of having an assistant is that “it allows me to have a life,” she says. “I’m on the board of the hospital where my husband was a patient, and I’ve made a two-year commitment to head up the Buffalo-Niagara Jewish Federation Women’s Division. And last year, I went to Italy for the first time. I never would have been able to do it without Sheryl.”
Strong Back-up
“When I hired my first assistant in 1990, I was doing about $3 million a year,” says Eric Blackburn, a salesperson with Keller Williams in Overland Park, Kan. “Today, I’m doing $15 million to $18 million.”
This productivity gain occurred, says Blackburn because “when I get a contract, I hand it off to my team and don’t have to worry about setting up inspections and all the other follow-up that goes with servicing a listing. I’m free to go out and get another lead.”
Blackburn’s first assistant--Jane Ball--is still with him. “I hired her to do administrative stuff and almost doubled my business in one year,” he says. Several years later, Blackburn hired a second assistant to take over the administrative work, and Ball became a combination office manager and a licensed buyer’s representative—working with buyers and accompanying Blackburn on listings.
Over the years, Blackburn and Ball have developed a relationship that goes considerably beyond salesperson and assistant. “Jane is invaluable to me,” says Blackburn. “There’s nothing I go through that she doesn’t know about, and the same is true for her.”
Ball agrees. “The main reason I’ve stayed so long is we have a very special relationship,” she says. “If I’m having trouble with a client, I pass the person on to Eric. He does the same with me. Usually one of us can save the deal.” They also balance each other’s personalities. “If buyers don’t buy after two days of looking, Eric’s ready to dump them. I’m a little more patient. But Eric’s terrific at prospecting and closing, so we make a great team.”
Blackburn’s hiring philosophy is succinct: “I read somewhere that if you want to be successful, you should surround yourself with people who are better than you. I’ve tried to do that.”
He also believes in looking outside the real estate industry when it comes time to hire an assistant. “I tried hiring people from within the industry, and it didn’t work,” he says. “They had too many bad habits. I want assistants who aren’t set in their ways and are willing to learn my way of doing things.”
Blackburn compensates each of his assistants differently. Ball receives a salary plus buyer commissions while Debi Brennan--the administrative assistant--is paid on an hourly basis and also receives bonuses and referral fees for bringing in business.
Looking ahead, Blackburn says he will probably hire a part-time listing coordinator in the next few years. And beyond that? “At some point, I wouldn’t mind replacing myself. I’d still own the business, but it would be run by other people.”
As these accounts demonstrate, the number and kind of assistants you hire has a lot to do with your business goals. But whether you’re planning on carving out a mini-empire or just looking for a break from the paperwork, assistants can play a vital role in transforming your business.
Ask the Experts
If you want advice on hiring or working more productively with your current assistants, here’s your chance to ask the experts. Click the feedback icon or e-mail your question to mediatech@realtors.org and receive free, personal advice from the REALTORS® in our story. Please include your name, company name, and city and state.Check back regularly to read questions submitted by other readers.
More Resources
To learn more about working with personal assistants, visit Realtormag's Personal Assistant Advisor. (For registered users of REALTOR.org.) | |
|
