Using Virtual Assistants

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.
Jon: Hello everybody. Jon Iannotti once again for REI classroom. Today’s subject is using virtual assistants.
Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by FlipNerd Investor Coaching, your blueprint to investing success.
Jon: Now, one of the first things I want to tell you about a virtual assistant is contrary to public belief, they are human. So they’re not just out there somewhere virtually. They are human. So you have to still work with your virtual assistant once you get one. What I mean by that is in the beginning, I’d say the first 30 days, you work with your virtual assistant to make sure they’re doing what you want them to do, when you want them to do it, and how you want them to do it. You have to micromanage them for a few weeks to get them doing exactly what you want.
Then once that happens, now you can step back and let them do their thing and spot-check them here and there. You definitely want to spot-check your virtual assistant every now and then. I think right now, Stephanie told me we have seven or eight virtual assistants working with us right now. We’ve been using them since about 2005. I don’t know how we’d do business without them. They’re just phenomenal. They answer our phones. They talk to our sellers. They talk to our buyers. They do our property management.
I mean if I need the PowerPoint or Excel spreadsheet or something or an ad or I need a text blast, anything. They do it all. It’s wonderful. When we had a live office, we had about six girls in the office with us. It was crazy. I mean it was just nothing but water cooler talk all the time and nothing was getting done. Then when we tried to do the virtual assistance way back when, Steph, she said, “What’s a virtual assistant.?” So I had to explain it to her and she said, “I don’t know if that’s going to work or not.” I said, “Well, let’s try it.”
So we got two to start and actually, they’re both still with us since 2005 and they’ve been the greatest. But we have other ones as well. Have we gone through some? Yes. I mean you’re going to have that. They may not click with you. They might not understand what you’re trying to do. Again, there are virtual assistants outside the United States, there are virtual assistant inside the United States. We’ve tried them both. We prefer inside the United States. They cost a little more. They’re about $0.35 a minute and they do charge by the minute so if they work 10 minutes for you, it’s $3.50. It’s not the full hourly rate for the hour even though they only work 10 minutes.
So it’s wonderful that way. I prefer, Steph says, “Don’t say that Jon,” but I prefer a female with a Southern drawl talking to my sellers and my buyers. Why do I want that? It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. A woman’s voice on the other end of the phone with that southern accent, just it works. Do we have some people who are male and do we have people from other parts of the country? Yes, and they do a great job too. But over the years, I’ve found that that is a really good aspect of a virtual assistant who is actually speaking to our sellers and our buyers.
So that’s me. You do what you want. But again, you can find them cheaper outside the United States. We’ve tried that. It’s great if you’re doing stuff behind the scenes. If they’re doing website stuff, if they’re doing research, that kind of stuff, fine. But if they’re going to be talking to your people, you want someone from the United States who can actually converse with them and everybody understands everybody and it’s so much better for your business. It makes you look so much more professional.
So again, virtual assistants, they are real people. You have to work with them a little bit to get them trained and up and running to where you have them doing what you want them to do when you want them to do it. I think it’ll make your life a heck of a lot easier if you have some virtual assistance on your team. So check it out at buyreactnow.com. That’s B-U-Y, reactnow.com. We talk about the virtual assistance there as well and also on our mentoring website and that is USAMD. That’s usamarketinganddevelopment.com.
We look forward to seeing you guys and maybe having you as members of our team as well in the future. So look forward to the next class on REI Classroom and have a great day guys and we’ll see you at the top. Take care. Jon Iannotti here. Bye-bye.
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