If you’re doing things right, at some point in your business your sphere of influence will be huge and your pipeline filled to bursting. When you have so many leads you don’t know how to start following up with them all, it’s time to think about hiring an assistant to take over the more mundane tasks like keeping your schedule, stuffing and mailing envelopes, making some cold calls, etc. An assistant can take over the day to day tasks that are relatively simple, but time consuming, freeing you up to convert more leads to clients.

An assistant can also take care of your current clients, fielding questions, scheduling meetings, getting paperwork in order. Because of that, the best assistant you can ask for is someone with their real estate license but who isn’t ready to get there as a full blown agent yet. Though your assistant doesn’t NEED their real estate license to be effective, a licensed agent DOES already know the basics and therefore less training is involved. You could even pay them per transaction they help to close, rather than an hourly rate, depending on what they would be doing.

Your assistant can also double as your accountability coach as well, but only if they’re intelligent and organized because, let’s face it, do you really want an idiot keeping you on track with your business? As long as they’re smart and understand the need for making and sticking to goals, they can double as an accountability partner.

The most important thing when hiring an assistant is to find people who are GOOD at what you SUCK at. Maybe you’re bad with technology, but a whiz in sales, marketing and customer service – well then, you want to hire a tech-savvy assistant to handle that aspect of your business.

When our three co-founders got together, Dave was the tech-whiz, Rory knew sales and Steve was the money man, good with numbers and paperwork. That’s probably the reason their partnership has worked so well. Dave will admit that he is pathetic at organization, while Rory and Steve’s tech skills are just enough to get them by. Think about what skills you lack, and then look for an assistant that excels in those skills. There is a specific skill set to look for in an assistant, but it very much depends on what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at. Figure that out, base your search for an assistant around it, and you’ll have no problem finding someone who can help you get your business to new levels.