How to Use Personal Assistants in Commercial Real Estate Agency Today

In commercial real estate agency today, you can drive more opportunity in listings and commissions if you use a personal assistant.  That being said, that assistant needs to provide the correct support to you in a professional way.

Many commercial real estate agents are not sufficiently organized to use a personal assistant successfully.  All they do is extend the chaos from their desk to someone else’s.  Some may say that it is OK to do that; I disagree.  Top agents are not disorganized, they are systemized and focused.  They can then use the assistant more effectively and comprehensively.

So it is the top agents that understand the processes behind working with other people and administrative support.  Here are some ideas to help you with that administrative process and the duties that you provide or direct to your personal assistant.

1. Advertising and marketing can be a time consuming process especially when you create more quality exclusive listings.  If you are a good ‘lister’ of quality property, you will find that there are limits on the number of exclusives that you can work with.  Depending on the size of properties that you work with, you will usually strike a working limit at about 15 to 20 exclusive listings.  So let’s assume that you have got this number of exclusive listings.  The marketing for this should be controlled by your administrative support team.  You are the best person to negotiate the listing and have the client agree on a marketing campaign.  It is the administrative team that will take the campaign forward and place it in the necessary media channels.
2. The administrative team should be monitoring your market share in signs and advertising.  This means that each week they should be tallying the number of other properties that you are up against in the local area.  Get them to monitor your position against competing agents.  Be careful that the difference is established between open listings and exclusive listings.  Open listings have very little relevance to market share.
3. Your support team can take telephone enquiries for you and administer your diary remotely.  This then allows you to get out into the field and talk to the people that need your services.  Every agent should be out of the office for at least half of the day and thereby the support team can provide the backup that you require.
4. Every transaction today needs to be followed through.  The more leases or sales that you create, the greater attention to detail and follow-through is required.  Your support team can check the progress of all transactions on your behalf as well as follow-up on documentation that may be outstanding.
5. It should be said that the support team should not overly interact with your clients.  The client relationship needs to be preserved by direct connection with you at all times.  At the end of each day you should be connecting with all of your clients on all of your exclusive listings.  Keep them up to date with all recent enquiries.

As a final note on this industry strategy, any disorganized agent or salesperson should not be given a personal assistant.  They will just be spreading their inefficiencies to other people and dragging the office backwards.

Top agents are highly effective with the right support team behind them.  Choose to be a top agent, and improve your services accordingly.

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