What You Need More Than an Assistant

Guest contributor Jared James of REALTOR®Mag says:

What has helped shape me as a real estate speaker and coach are my past experiences selling homes as a real estate professional and working as my mother's "unpaid assistant" in her office for years as a child.

I've seen a lot of change in the industry, but I also haven't seen enough change in many practitioners' businesses. I believe in resisting Shiny Object Syndrome — a preoccupation with adopting every new piece of technology that comes along — that many agents and brokers suffer from. But I also acknowledge that our ability to change with the industry will determine the level of efficient success we experience going forward.

Notice that I said "efficient success." Some agents will try to justify the way they do business by saying they sell X number of houses per year, which must mean they are successful. That's not exactly true: If you sell 40 houses in a year, but you have no freedom because your business is entirely reliant on your 24/7 availability, then I would question how successful you really are.

Last week, my company held our first-ever Annual Advance, a conference focused on the latest strategies and systems to run a 21st century business, at the Connecticut Convention Center. It was attended by agents and brokers from all over North America. There were more takeaways than I can mention here, but there was one that stood out from the rest: Hiring personal assistants or a couple of buyer's agents is a great step to building business — but not necessarily the best idea up front. First, bring on an ISA, or Internet sales associate.