The Value of Expanding Your Team

People by nature are adverse to change. The larger the change, the larger amount of resistance you can expect. And if the change requires money to be spent, take cover.

People tend to look at the short term effects of a change as a higher priority than any long term effects that might be beneficial. Any decision that could have long term effects on your business is worth serious analysis, but that shouldn't deter you from making timely changes as necessary.

We recently added another assistant to our team; an administration assistant to help with day to day tasks. We were long overdue for this change, and needed it greatly, but it still took us over a year to agree on how to go about it.

Part of our hesitation stems from previous assistants who didn't work out for us. Painful memories of assistants that weakened our efficiency as opposed to strengthening it slowed us down some, but the big issue was money.

As a real estate brokerage in a correcting market, we are as careful as we can be about budget increases. At Alliance we provide most of our services company wide to all of our agents, so we tend to be cautious and thorough before making decisions like this.

We were steady at 50 sales per year, but we weren't able to increase our business. In order to jump this hurdle, we had to paint the larger picture. The problem was we were scurrying around all day doing tasks that weren't our highest and best use of time. These are things like database management, listing preparation and prospecting. We needed to be spending our time working directly with our clients.

We followed a simple formula that I learned from a CRS class I took:

1. Figure out how much you are worth per hour.

(Income earned divided by hours worked)

2. Price out the cost of an assistant for specific tasks.

3. If the cost of an assistant is less than you are worth per hour, HIRE THEM!

CAVEAT: Your assistant needs to be competent. You need to thoroughly screen any potential hire to make sure they have what it takes.

We used a local temp service to find someone, and we are very satisfied so far. We are becoming more efficient, which results in more income in less time. I recommend it to anyone who values their sanity.

Rob Luhrs CRS

Alliance Real Estate