Bad news is that as you’re processing transactions, putting listings on the MLS, handling customer service calls, putting out and picking up signs, taking pictures, etc...opportunities to do more business are passing you by.
It’s at this stage of the game that it’s time to get some sort of administrative assistance on board to free you up from doing the $12 to $15 an hour work that honestly, is neither what you’re best at nor what you signed on to do as a real estate agent.
If you want to double your business, you absolutely, 100% must let go of as much administrative work as you can — if not all of it — and focus on doing more sales.
But wait...I can’t afford to do that
The bad news is that YOU CAN’T AFFORD NOT TO DO IT.
That’s right, if you have any hope of growing your business and don’t want to stay awake 24-hours a day, eating three meals a day out of your car, then you have to find a way to pay for some administrative assistance of some sort.
Now, you can get a transaction coordinator who will take money on the back end of a sale, and that’s great. However, if you want to put this thing on the fast track and get to 50 deals, then full-time help is what the doctor ordered.
To afford this type of hire, you must implement a transaction fee in your business.
A transaction fee is an additional fee you build into your compensation structure to offset the cost of having someone take care of the internal processing and handling of their transaction and listing paperwork.
Yes, transaction fees are legal in every state. No, you’re not going to get in trouble for implementing them in your business as long as 1) people are actually paying for a service and 2) the fee is not usury in any way.
I promise you that if you start charging a transaction fee in your business, it will change your real estate career (and your life) forever.
To do so, you must:
-Pick an amount that’s reasonable based on your area’s sales price
-Have it populated in your paperwork before you present it to your prospect
-Demonstrate a tremendous amount of value
-Believe you are worth it
Collecting these fees could literally pay for most or all of a full-time administrative assistant for you, which will free you up to do way more selling.
Get to know more people
When you’re selling about 25 homes per year, it’s likely that many of your sales are coming from referrals and past clients. This is great news, because it shows you do a great job and take extremely good care of people.
By no means should you stop bringing this kind of business in the door. It’s good, good stuff. I wrote a blog post about how to ramp up your referral and repeat business a short while back.
You can go
here to get a look at it.
That said, no matter how good this type of business is, it can be terribly inconsistent and hard to count on when scaling your business. What this means is that you need more leads coming in the door.
What kind, you ask?