What actual benefits can hiring a virtual assistant bring to your real estate business?
While the real estate business may seem straightforward at first glance, the process between pursuing a client and making a deal in this business takes time, trust and patience. As a real estate professional, you might want to focus in finding and closing a sale; however, to do this, it is a must that you have a seamless process from lead generation to documentation.
The good news is many of the tasks can be outsourced to a virtual assistant. With all that load of administrative work and routine follow ups, the VAs’ role comes into play by simply taking the load off your shoulders.
A virtual assistant can help you in marketing, lead generation, lead nurturing and the necessary administrative work in your business process. Here are specific tasks that a VA can help you with you with handling real estate.
1. Lead Generation
First you start with lead generation, which is the process of finding potential clients in the market. It is one of the most basic steps in in any kind of business and yet it also proves to be incredibly challenging. The tasks within it include strategic marketing, inbound and outbound methods, cold calling, cold emailing and social media management just to name a few.
Marketing and lead generation often intertwine, but the latter gets in touch with interested customers and pursue potential clients. The golden rule in lead generation is fast lead response time.
According to a lead response management study, responding to a lead within 5 minutes would mean that you are 4 times more likely to qualify that lead compared to a 10-minute response time – and a whopping 21 times more likely to convert that lead compared to a 30 minutes’ response.
Responding to multiple clients would swamp you if you already have your hands full, however, if you have a VA, it’s another story. Your virtual assistant can schedule meetings, respond readily to inquiries, maintain an open communication for you and your clients.
2. Marketing
Simply put, your VA can handle the detailed processes of getting you out there and getting the attention of your target audience. This may include inbound and outbound marketing, web development, search engine optimization and social media marketing among others.
They can launch your website, write catchy articles for your blog, add pages to your social media account, post lead generating ideas, schedule social media posts, and oversee your websites traffic growth.
3. Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process of keeping in touch with your clients. Having insight as to how particular customers respond may shed some light as to how to strategize ways to sustain leads and develop stable relationships with them. Your VA can keep in touch with them and make sure that your prospects remain warm and cared for, ready for transactions if the opportunity arises. Needless to say, this will increase your chances of closing a deal.
4. Administrative Work
Though this aspect of work may involve menial and routine tasks, it is essential in making sure no detail is overlooked. Sometimes the most minute details could mean the difference between a done deal and a missed opportunity.
Missing a meeting is mess you don’t want to deal with in a real estate business. Your VA can make sure that doesn’t happen by managing your appointments, preparing meeting materials, and providing you with the support you need as necessary.
Your virtual assistant can also help you manage your listings, design your business cards or property brochure, assist you in a comparative market analysis, researching on tax and applicable prorations, craigslist posting and more.