Are you curious about working with a virtual assistant?

Let's face it, sometimes our beliefs can stop us from trying something new.

This month I’ve been working with my members to shed some light on the misconceptions around working with virtual assistants (VAs) in commercial real estate.

Sharing my own experience of working with a VA has helped many of them to reframe their beliefs, related to online security, quality-control and ethical considerations.

I’d love to help you embrace the efficiency-making, time-saving and income-growing potential that can come from trying something new.

Inside +$25K in 25 Weeks, you’ll get my process to find, hire and onboard a VA that can work for only a few hours a week at just $5 an hour (and a whole lot more).

+$25K in 25 Weeks is a new program for commercial real estate agents, and it’s only $25 to join. Visit cresuccess.co/25 now for more information.

And, if you are curious about working with a VA, but you have some legitimate concerns, I’m addressing the Top 5 objections in episode 154 of CRE Success: The Podcast.

Episode transcript:

Complete this sentence: I don't want to work with a virtual assistant because...

What's the reason for you? What's the excuse that you're making? What's the belief that you have in your mind that may in fact be a lie? (The word lie is inside the word belief, by the way).

And what's the misconception that you have that tells you that it won't work for me, even though I know it works for other people?

Look, working with a virtual assistant can work for you if you're a commercial real estate agent.

And on the podcast this week, I want to debunk the myths. I want to deal with the objections that I've heard many, many times from commercial real estate agents that say, "You know what, I don't want to work with a virtual assistant."

I'm going to actually tell you why you should be working with one and how you can start working with one for just, well, a few hours a week and only $5 an hour.

Hello, and welcome to episode 154 of CRE Success: The Podcast. My name is Darren Krakowiak. I'm your host. And I help commercial real estate leaders to accelerate growth in their business.

Really pleased that you've decided to join us for today's episode. This is an episode I think that if you're willing to take on board, what we are sharing with you could lead to huge increases in your income.

If you're a leader, if you can start encouraging your team members to adopt some of the practices that we're talking about today, or even introduce a virtual assistant strategy in your business, it's something that could really increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your people and raise their dollar productivity.

Now, we are of course, working with commercial real estate leaders everyday inside this business. But we also have a lot of commercial real estate agents who listen to the show.

And what I've decided to do is to start working with commercial real estate agents inside our membership for a very special low price of just $25 a week.

And what we're going to be doing is inviting these commercial real estate agents to work directly with me, we'll be doing group coaching, we'll have members master classes.

And in fact, our next masterclass is going to be all about how to hire a virtual assistant, the exact steps that you should go through.

And the program that we're putting together for these commercial real estate agents who'd like to join us is called +$25K in 25 weeks. 

And the outcome that we're working with people to produce this quite simple.

We want to help commercial real estate agents in any market, particularly the somewhat difficult market that we find ourselves in now, how they can increase their income by at least $25,000, over and above, what they could do on their own in the next six months.

So, if that sounds like something that you'd be interested in, and you're open to giving it a go, and it only costs $25 to start, I want to invite you to go to cresuccess.co/25 

Because that's the place where you can register your interest, and then we'll send you all the information about how it works and how you can get started for just $25.

Join us inside +$25K in 25 weeks. This is the program for commercial real estate agents rather than leaders. 

So, we've been talking a lot about our leadership program recently, I wanted to remind you that we've got something for agents as well. Go to cresuccess.co/25 for more information.

So today, I want to share with you five excuses that you may be telling yourself about not working with a virtual assistant.

And I'm going to debunk those reasons for you and tell you why actually, you should be working with a virtual assistant.

And while I'm not going to put this one in the top five, I think one of the reasons that you might be telling yourself is that I'm better off doing things myself.

And if you're doing a lot of things yourself that it could reasonably be expected to cost much less to get somebody else to do then your hourly rate is or your effective hourly rate is, then I want you to well, if you don't even know what I'm talking about when it comes to your effective hourly rate.

The rule of 2000 hours is a concept that we talked about in episode 60 of the show. That episode is called 'That's below my paygrade.'

And I really encourage you just to go back and listen to that episode because if you're doing a lot of tasks that you could get somebody else to do on your behalf or much less than you can make per hour doing what it is that you're best at, then I think that is a bit of foundational content that you should go back and listen to.

But, whether that's you or not, today, we're talking about the top five reasons why you're not working with a VA.

These are based on feedback that I've had from commercial real estate agents, people telling me, "I don't want to work with a VA because of these."

And that's I've compiled all of these, and I'm going to share them with you, because you might perhaps resonate with one or two of these reasons.

And then I'm going to tell you why perhaps, that's not such a valid reason or objection for not working with a virtual assistant.

So, I think the first one that I hear a bit is that people are concerned about online security. They're concerned about identity theft; they're concerned about the idea of sharing their password with somebody who is based overseas.

And by the way, I've been working with my virtual assistant for over two years, and all is going well. 

And when we're talking about virtual assistants were predominantly talking about people who are based in the Philippines, or at least, that's the virtual assistants that I've worked with and had success with.

Now, if you're concerned about sharing your password identity, first, I want you to know that there are a few ways around this.

First of all, you can set up security accounts where your virtual assistant logs into a platform, which then gives them access to certain platforms without them having to actually use your password. So LastPass is an example of that.

The other thing that you can do is actually give your virtual assistant an admin login to certain platforms. So, you have your login, and they have their login.

So, my virtual assistant, for example, she uses her Facebook login, to access the back end of meta to then do things like scheduling Instagram and Facebook posts.

She's doing that for me on my account without actually using my password. So not an issue. 

You don't have to worry about that. If you are concerned about it, you don't need to share your password with a virtual assistant, there are ways around it.

Also, when it comes to social media, I would say that there are a lot of scheduling software that you can use. So, your virtual assistant can handle that process for you without actually needing to access your passwords for those platforms.

Number two excuse I hear is, "Well, look, I can't monitor the work that the virtual assistant is doing. How do I know that if I pay them for five hours that they're actually going to do five hours of work, I might get ripped off?"

Well, first thing I'd say is that I'd encourage you to be the boss that you would want to have. So, I don't know if we need to be monitoring people's every moment that we are paying them just as you wouldn't want your boss monitoring every single moment that you're at work.

But with that being said, I think that you can set tasks that you could reasonably expect someone to do within two hours, five hours, however long it could be.

Have a look at the output that they've produced and see if that is commensurate with the value that you'd expect for how much you have paid them to do the work. And you'll be able to tell if it's worthwhile for you to continue that relationship or not.

And one other thing I can tell you is, if you're really concerned and you want to know is there a software that you can use, and in fact, some agencies that hire VAs on your behalf do this. 

They give you reports of screenshots periodically from your virtual assistant’s computer that shows you what it is that they're working on throughout various times of the day.

So, there is ways that you can monitor them, even though they are overseas. 

Number three, why do I not want to work with a virtual assistant, sometimes I hear the feedback, "well look, my boss, my company, they won't let me do it. Or I cannot let a virtual assistant access the systems that we're using at work.

Well, if your boss won't let you do it, or they won't pay, I would still encourage you to consider working with a virtual assistant for just a few hours a week for just $5 an hour on things that they don't need any access to your work platform for.

Let me give you a few things that they don't need access to, but you can still work with them without it having to be approved by your company.

They can manage all of your social media, including editing videos that you might be posting online or creating tiles and images or engaging with people on social media, on your posts on other people's posts on your behalf.

A virtual assistant can analyze market data, they can do research on leads and prospects.

They can also do non-work-related online chores, things that you need to do that take time that you can't reasonably allocate to somebody else at work, you can get your person, your virtual assistant to handle that for you.

And in fact, one thing that you may not be doing now but is a great job to ask a virtual assistant to do is to help you track your lead generation you’re prospecting and new deal flow.

So, you've got an understanding of where the business that you're doing is coming from and where it is that you should be focusing more of your time to improve the amount of business that you're doing.

Let's get into number four on my list of five reasons why people might not want to work with a virtual assistant.

And this is one that a few people mentioned, it's like, it's immoral to pay someone just $5 an hour for something that could be done and paid for by someone in my market for $30 an hour.

And I guess the same goes that it's kind of like, if we offshore those jobs, then we're stealing onshore jobs. So, we're taking jobs away from people.

You know, if you live in Australia, from people in Australia, or some people believe that it's exploitation to be playing someone that low amount for doing that sort of work?

Or that, how can people possibly live off that amount of money, or what the quality of the work be poor, because we're playing such a low amount?

Well, I think that we've got to understand that there are different costs of labor in different places. And those 5 US dollars an hour is actually a pretty good wage in a lot of countries.

And it is certainly a fair wage for a virtual assistant, who you'd be working with in a place like the Philippines, because there's a different cost of living there.

And if you've been to other countries overseas, you'll know that what might cost say, $200, for a hotel in one country, can get you a much better standard of hotel, then say if you paid $200, in Australia or the US.

So, there's a different cost of living, which means that the price of labor is different.

And if you're really concerned about this idea of exploitation, or, you know, taking jobs away from people in your own country, I want to just give you a couple other points.

One is that if you're doing everything yourself, now, you're still taking jobs away from other people.

But if you actually start to elevate your production, you'll have the opportunity to hire not only a virtual assistant, but potentially someone else in Australia to help you with all the improved and increased workflow that you're creating, for stuff that you cannot actually ask a virtual assistant to do.

And the other thing is that you can just be a better boss, right? Be the type of boss who is not exploiting people who is treating people fairly and paying them fairly for what it is that they do.

The last thing that I want to say about working with a virtual assistant, in terms of some of the excuses that I hear is that some people say, "Well, look, it just won't work. Like I need people to work with me in the office, we need to be in the same company, I need that person to be in the in the same country. It's just not feasible to have someone working overseas for me."

Well, I think a lot of people would have said before COVID, that it is not reasonable to expect that people can work from home half of the time and that things will still get done.

People don't say that anymore, because it's just proven to be not true. And if we look at the residential real estate sector, if we look at other service-based industries, there are lots of people who are working very effectively with virtual assistants. 

And it's something that you can do to I think, get an edge over your competitors by learning how to make it work, by understanding how to create processes, by understanding how to work effectively with a virtual assistant, how to find them, how to onboard them, and how to have a productive working relationship with them.

So, there's the five reasons why people tell me they don't want to work with a virtual assistant and a few I guess objections are handled.

A few ways to handle those objections, in today's episode, just a reminder, +$25K in 25 weeks.

If you'd like to start working with me and join our next masterclass, which is all about how to hire a virtual assistant, it's just $25 to join and you can find more information at cresuccess.co/25

That is our episode for today. Thank you so much for listening, and I will speak to you soon.