Russell Volk : Using Virtual Assistants for prospecting

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Using Virtual Assistants for prospecting

By: Russell Volk
Wednesday, November 21, 2007 2:08 PM

Hello everybody,

recently, I was reading an article that some agents use Virtual Assistants to generate prospects. There was an example of one agent in Florida who has a VA for buyers leads and a VA for sellers leads.

Buyers VA, follows up on every lead and email that comes in from the website. Sellers VA, generates a list of listings that are expiring that day and calls every listing that is not on DNC list and tries to setup an appointment between the sellers and the agent. The Sellers VA generates on average 8 appointments per week. The sellers VA also prepares the listing presentation, a CMA and a CD with the listing presentation material.

I understand these VAs charge between $20 and $40 per hour, but if they can generate enough business for you to justify your ROI, perhaps it can be a great solution to not only grow your business, but to also let you concentrate on business of selling real estate, instead of lead generation.

Russell Volk, REALTOR®

"A web-savvy Bucks County Real Estate expert!"

Comments

Support Staff	Carey Tufts said: Russell, at NAR in Vegas, you could hardly go ten minutes without hearing about someone's virtual assistant - they seem to be absolutely invaluable for many agents. I don't know too much about them, aside from the excellent ones we have in our Vendor Directory, so I'd be curious to hear more about others' experiences too. November 21, 2007 1:35 PM
Member Since '06	Norm Fisher said: It's a great idea really. Check your state legislation though to find out if it's legal. Where I work, you need a real estate license to solicit business. November 22, 2007 8:11 PM
Member Since '06	Chantal Gakwaya said: Russell, I know of a girl here in Florida that works as a VA. She books about 5 listing appointments a day and handles all the follow up, mailings, advertising and other office duties for the agent she works for. She is also a licensed agent but prefers to work as an assistant. I think she is worth her weight in gold for the agent she works for. However, I suppose you have to be able to invest the money in salaries for the first six months or so until the services start to pay for itself. I believe Norm is right...I think in Vegas they need to be licensed to cold call and perform some other duties of a licensed agent. Nonetheless, I don't think it would be hard to get a VA that is licensed - in fact, I don't think I'd hire one that wasn't licensed. You want them to have experience in the industry, otherwise you'll just be wasting all your time training them on the most simple aspects of the business. November 23, 2007 10:11 AM
Member Since '07	Candice A Donofrio said: [Norm sez:Where I work, you need a real estate license to solicit business.] You need a real estate license to solicit business everywhere I've ever heard about. BUT VAs generally do the 'mechanical' duties on behalf of the licensee who employs them. So they are simply distributing the information the licensee created or generated. Setting appointments can be done by a secretary, receptionist or assistant. They just can't answer questions about square footage, quote prices etc. November 23, 2007 1:58 PM
Member Since '05	Kenneth Fach said: You only need a license to solicit real estate buyers or sellers to be legal, but believe me, there are plenty of virtual assistants out there who are not licensed and are soliciting business. Hey, as long as they don't get caught, I have no problem with that. December 5, 2007 2:46 PM