The Two Sides of a Real Estate Business

There are two sides to a real estate business. The sales side and the admin side.

As an admin there are certain tasks of the business that are solely your responsibility. I’d like to help you clarify with your agent what tasks you are supposed to be doing in order to help leverage your agent and grow the business.

Quite simply, you are doing everything that is NOT one of these three things:

1. Lead generation – in the form of cold calling and following up with leads
2. Going on listing appointments – this includes showing homes to buyers if there is no one else on the team designated to do this
3. Negotiating contracts

These three things are what your agent is doing. It should be their sole focus.

The only time spent doing something that is not on this list for them should be coaching and advising the rest of the team.

Is it really that simple? It could be.

Let’s see what your agent is probably doing that they could (and should!) be letting go of:

• putting out/picking up signs and lockboxes
• collecting data from sellers and inputting listings into the MLS
• writing listing contracts
• photography (either taking photos or arranging for a professional)
• arranging for professional staging
• maintaining the database of clients and contacts
• marketing, including updating social media
• designing and ordering business cards, letterhead, brochures, etc
• organizing and implementing client events
• writing purchase contracts
• opening escrow
• staying in touch with the lender
• setting up inspections
• negotiating inspections (this can only be handled by an assistant who is licensed)
• putting up signs and preparing for open houses
• provide feedback from showings
• prepare a CMA (yes! assistants can be taught to do this!)
• obtain testimonials
• buy and inventory supplies and equipment
• make deposits, review and pay bills, write checks and handle all accounting (yes! assistants can be taught to do this! or the agent may hire a 3rd party bookkeeper)
• produce monthly P&L statements

Did your list of responsibilities just get longer? Good! Because if it did, that means your agent can focus more on bringing in business and less on the details that keep the business going.

For those of you with Keller Williams, you can find a comprehensive list by logging in to mykw.kw.com, hover over the Education tab and select Keller Williams University. In the left hand navigation list, click on All Products and click Browse A – Z. Click on Recruit-Select. Click on the Toolkit tab in the middle of the page. Click Additional Job Descriptions and then click Tasks and Functions by Level. You now have a blueprint for what everyone on your team should be doing depending on your current level.

A quick word about negotiating inspections. I’ve had the pleasure of working on two real estate teams where the transaction coordinator handled the inspection negotiations. The transaction coordinator is the next admin hire after the executive assistant. This is advanced stuff. And it works out phenomenally because let’s face it, negotiating inspections is a HUGE time suck for an agent. There are lots of calls back and forth and tons of coordination with electricians, plumbers and handymen depending on the abilities of your clients. If this is something that you as the assistant can take on, I guarantee your team is going to grow and make more money.

The same is true of the bookkeeping part of the business. If an agent doesn’t have to spend time keeping track of invoices, depositing and writing checks and paying taxes, they will have more time to lead generate or at least be freed up to actually enjoy some time off once in a while.

What tasks did your agent turn over to you that made a big difference on your team? Tell us in the comments below!