Today’s REI Classroom Lesson
In today’s lesson, Alex Pardo lets us in on who you need to hire to be able to disconnect yourself from deals while still getting closings each month.
REI Classroom Summary
Having the right people on your team to handle your online presence, sales, transactions, and leads can help put you in a position to work less but have more volume.
Listen to this REI Classroom Lesson
Real Estate Investing Classroom Show Transcripts:
Mike: Welcome back to the FlipNerd.com REI classroom, where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now let’s meet today’s expert host.
Alex: Hey guys it’s Alex Pardo, I’m back with another REI classroom lesson. Hopefully you’ve had an opportunity to see some of my past lessons. If not, I highly encourage you to check those out. Today I’m going to be talking about something that really excites me. I’m very passionate about it. It’s about building a team to reach freedom.
Mike: This REI classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by VirtualStaffNow.com.
Alex: We’re obviously, most of us anyway, are in this business not so much for the money but for the freedom, whether it be time, whether it be the things that we feel money can do for us. Ultimately for me, my vision and my why is freedom. Aside from family, freedom is ultimately I think what most investors are after. I’m excited to bring to you this content.
When it comes to building a team to reach freedom, there’s a few different things that I want to mention right off the bat. About three to four years ago I realized that as a wholesaler, we’re involved in a transactionally based business, meaning that in order to get paid you have to continue to do deal after deal after deal. The challenge is how can we disconnect ourselves from a wholesaling business and still have it run month in and month out and produce the kind of deals and volumes that you want?
What I found was that you need to surround yourself with a team of rock stars, right? There is a book that’s called Top Grading that talks about how to find and identify what he calls A-players. I call A-players rock stars. So I’m going to cover five key positions that you need to hire and the order in which I would recommend you hire these people so that ultimately you are building a wholesaling business that . . . I mean wholesaling is very involved.
It’s not a complicated business, but there is a lot of moving parts to it and I was a one man show for the first three to four years of my business and I was going crazy working all these hours and while the business was generating a lot of revenue, I didn’t feel free. I didn’t have that freedom to disconnect on the weekend or take a day off if you wanted to, or go on vacation and basically have deals stop closing.
Today I want to talk about the five positions that you should hire and I’m going to briefly mention what you can do to start hiring out these positions. The first one is the virtual assistant. I’m not going to spend too much time on this because if you have any level of experience in this business or even if you’re just getting started, you probably realize and understand the importance of hiring a virtual assistant.
Once you have a VA in place that can take care of a lot of the online things that you need to do in your business, the first position I would hire is a call screener or a lead manager. Basically this is someone that is going to process the incoming leads that come in from all your marketing. For example, in our business we send out 4 to 6000 [inaudible 00:03:11] a month on average. We have two lead managers that are responsible for instantly calling back those leads as soon as they come in.
For me, start thinking about in the business, what are your time sucks. Where do you spend the majority of your time? If you’re marketing on a consistent basis which obviously you should be, you don’t necessarily want to be the one that’s always on the phone talking to the sellers unless it’s something you particularly really enjoy and you’re passionate about. That was one of the first things that I wanted to outsource and get off my plate.
The second thing is you want to hire eventually an acquisitions manager. Someone that is going to go and meet with the seller at the property whenever you have a hot deal and whenever your call screener or lead manager sets up an appointment.
Third is you want to hire a property wholesaler or a sales manager, they are basically the same thing. But whenever you contract the property with the seller, or even whether it’s an REO or an on-market property, you want someone that is responsible for then getting that property out to your cash buyers list. Sometimes showing the property, following up with buyers, marketing. Essentially someone that is going to handle the portion of selling the property to your end cash buyer.
The last position that I would recommend filling is the transaction coordinator. Now if you’re just doing one or two deals a month, not a big deal to manage those files and make sure that they get to a closing table. But whenever you start doing volume, three, four, five plus deals a month, the transactions coordinator part of the job can really be full time. I would suggest hiring someone and you can even pay this person, I would recommend between $300 to $500 per file if they’re working on that close list.
Just a recap, virtual assistant, lead manager, acquisitions manager, sales manager and transaction coordinator.
Really quick I’ll mention that Craigslist and ZipRecruiter are two great places to go ahead and place an ad and start looking for these positions. I will caution you, make sure that . . . I would not advise to go out and place an ad for all these positions. Make sure that you have documented systems in place, a standard operating procedure for each one of these positions before you go out and hire them because it does take time to onboard someone onto your team and to make sure that they’re a right fit.
I would recommend going through a pre-screening process when you interview these people. Make sure that you make them jump through certain hoops before you get to the interview stage. You definitely just want to make sure that you are connecting with the right people and you don’t want to be wasting your time interviewing a bunch of people that might not be a right fit for your team and for the culture that you are building.
Hopefully you enjoy that lesson. I look forward to connecting with you on the next one.
Mike: VirtualStaffNow.com is the leading virtual assistant provider for real estate investors. As busy real estate investors, there is nothing more valuable than our time. And VirtualStaffNow.com not only helps you find the right real estate virtual assistant for your business, they train them on an ongoing basis, manage them daily to make sure they’re staying productive and effective. And in the event they’re not the right fit or need to be replaced, they handle that for you too. Whether you need 1 or 100 virtual assistants for your team, start the process right now at VirtualStaffNow.com.
Please note, the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers, or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.
Are you a member yet of FlipNerd.com, the hottest real estate investing social community online? If not, you can join for free in less than 30 seconds and get access to hundreds of off-market deals, vendors in your market to help you in your business and you can start networking with thousands of other investors just like you. Get your free account now at FlipNerd.com.
Please check out the FlipNerd family of real estate investing shows where we host four great ongoing shows at FlipNerd.com/shows or simply search for FlipNerd in the iTunes store.
Alex: Hey guys it’s Alex Pardo, I’m back with another REI classroom lesson. Hopefully you’ve had an opportunity to see some of my past lessons. If not, I highly encourage you to check those out. Today I’m going to be talking about something that really excites me. I’m very passionate about it. It’s about building a team to reach freedom.
Mike: This REI classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by VirtualStaffNow.com.
Alex: We’re obviously, most of us anyway, are in this business not so much for the money but for the freedom, whether it be time, whether it be the things that we feel money can do for us. Ultimately for me, my vision and my why is freedom. Aside from family, freedom is ultimately I think what most investors are after. I’m excited to bring to you this content.
When it comes to building a team to reach freedom, there’s a few different things that I want to mention right off the bat. About three to four years ago I realized that as a wholesaler, we’re involved in a transactionally based business, meaning that in order to get paid you have to continue to do deal after deal after deal. The challenge is how can we disconnect ourselves from a wholesaling business and still have it run month in and month out and produce the kind of deals and volumes that you want?
What I found was that you need to surround yourself with a team of rock stars, right? There is a book that’s called Top Grading that talks about how to find and identify what he calls A-players. I call A-players rock stars. So I’m going to cover five key positions that you need to hire and the order in which I would recommend you hire these people so that ultimately you are building a wholesaling business that . . . I mean wholesaling is very involved.
It’s not a complicated business, but there is a lot of moving parts to it and I was a one man show for the first three to four years of my business and I was going crazy working all these hours and while the business was generating a lot of revenue, I didn’t feel free. I didn’t have that freedom to disconnect on the weekend or take a day off if you wanted to, or go on vacation and basically have deals stop closing.
Today I want to talk about the five positions that you should hire and I’m going to briefly mention what you can do to start hiring out these positions. The first one is the virtual assistant. I’m not going to spend too much time on this because if you have any level of experience in this business or even if you’re just getting started, you probably realize and understand the importance of hiring a virtual assistant.
Once you have a VA in place that can take care of a lot of the online things that you need to do in your business, the first position I would hire is a call screener or a lead manager. Basically this is someone that is going to process the incoming leads that come in from all your marketing. For example, in our business we send out 4 to 6000 [inaudible 00:03:11] a month on average. We have two lead managers that are responsible for instantly calling back those leads as soon as they come in.
For me, start thinking about in the business, what are your time sucks. Where do you spend the majority of your time? If you’re marketing on a consistent basis which obviously you should be, you don’t necessarily want to be the one that’s always on the phone talking to the sellers unless it’s something you particularly really enjoy and you’re passionate about. That was one of the first things that I wanted to outsource and get off my plate.
The second thing is you want to hire eventually an acquisitions manager. Someone that is going to go and meet with the seller at the property whenever you have a hot deal and whenever your call screener or lead manager sets up an appointment.
Third is you want to hire a property wholesaler or a sales manager, they are basically the same thing. But whenever you contract the property with the seller, or even whether it’s an REO or an on-market property, you want someone that is responsible for then getting that property out to your cash buyers list. Sometimes showing the property, following up with buyers, marketing. Essentially someone that is going to handle the portion of selling the property to your end cash buyer.
The last position that I would recommend filling is the transaction coordinator. Now if you’re just doing one or two deals a month, not a big deal to manage those files and make sure that they get to a closing table. But whenever you start doing volume, three, four, five plus deals a month, the transactions coordinator part of the job can really be full time. I would suggest hiring someone and you can even pay this person, I would recommend between $300 to $500 per file if they’re working on that close list.
Just a recap, virtual assistant, lead manager, acquisitions manager, sales manager and transaction coordinator.
Really quick I’ll mention that Craigslist and ZipRecruiter are two great places to go ahead and place an ad and start looking for these positions. I will caution you, make sure that . . . I would not advise to go out and place an ad for all these positions. Make sure that you have documented systems in place, a standard operating procedure for each one of these positions before you go out and hire them because it does take time to onboard someone onto your team and to make sure that they’re a right fit.
I would recommend going through a pre-screening process when you interview these people. Make sure that you make them jump through certain hoops before you get to the interview stage. You definitely just want to make sure that you are connecting with the right people and you don’t want to be wasting your time interviewing a bunch of people that might not be a right fit for your team and for the culture that you are building.
Hopefully you enjoy that lesson. I look forward to connecting with you on the next one.
Mike: VirtualStaffNow.com is the leading virtual assistant provider for real estate investors. As busy real estate investors, there is nothing more valuable than our time. And VirtualStaffNow.com not only helps you find the right real estate virtual assistant for your business, they train them on an ongoing basis, manage them daily to make sure they’re staying productive and effective. And in the event they’re not the right fit or need to be replaced, they handle that for you too. Whether you need 1 or 100 virtual assistants for your team, start the process right now at VirtualStaffNow.com.
Please note, the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers, or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.
Are you a member yet of FlipNerd.com, the hottest real estate investing social community online? If not, you can join for free in less than 30 seconds and get access to hundreds of off-market deals, vendors in your market to help you in your business and you can start networking with thousands of other investors just like you. Get your free account now at FlipNerd.com.
Please check out the FlipNerd family of real estate investing shows where we host four great ongoing shows at FlipNerd.com/shows or simply search for FlipNerd in the iTunes store.
