In this Q and A we’re going to answer :

  • How much do I need to engage my real estate outsourced staff?
  • What happens if I don’t engage my property management outsourced staff enough?
  • Can my outsourced staff make sales calls for my real estate agency?

Transcript of the video:


Damien Barnett from Affordable Staff and welcome to our RAW Q&A session around outsourcing.

We’ve created these series of videos for businesses that have considered outsourcing and they have genuine questions or concerns that need answering.

The format? 3 questions and 3 answers based on over 275,000 hours of outsourcing experience.

Let’s get into it



How much do I need to engage my real estate outsourced staff?


Question… How long do you need to engage a new local team member as the answer is essentially the same.

This would obviously depend on their existing experience and the general common sense of the staff that you employ.

I work with a lot of clients to place property management and real estate outsourced staff and have found that when I am working with clients to integrate staff into their business we break it into 3 key stages.

Day 1 you allow to invest 4 hours but preferably be around all day.

For the remainder of the first week you should allow at least 2 hours a day and preferably on call if they need to talk to you anytime during that first week.

This first week is the most important as it’s where you form the relationship with your outsourced staff and solidify them into your business.

On the 2nd week it’s about 1 hour a day and you would normally focus on trouble shooting and reviewing the work they’re doing.

After that ongoing you would basically be available (or have a local team member) to talk on email and preferably or skype/ phone to interact with any questions.  

Remember they are a part of your team and you should treat them as if they are a part of your local staff to get the best results.



What happens if I don’t engage my property management outsourced staff enough?


Let me ask this question in another way… What happens if you don’t engage your local team? 

They lose productivity, they don’t achieve what you want and eventually they leave you. For a lot of agencies when they lose local staff members it’s just like wasting your money as you have to start recruiting and training from the beginning again.

 As I’ve working within agencies, I’ve witnessed the negative impact of not engaging your staff has on the culture of your property agencies culture, especially where there’s an expectation of increased productivity from an extra set of hands.

This is the same as outsourced staff, if you’re not prepared to invest the time with them then you shouldn’t waste your time and money.

 

Can my outsourced staff make sales calls for my real estate agency?


Well of course they can. Although, as a person in the real estate industry for 15 years, I’ve found the best result comes with an initial contact coming from a local person making the first cold call.

Also, most agencies don’t seem to have an issue with making these cold calls locally, the real issue comes once they have them in the pipeline and having the time and mechanisms to follow up the lead to sale.

We all get the real estate game is about fostering and developing relationships as well as building rapport with your pipeline of contacts. And outsourced staff are the ones that can help you develop that relationship with your contacts moving them ever closer to the point that you can close, allowing you to focus on filling the pipeline and closing the deal.

Also, we’ve tested and measured using an outsourced staff member as the initial point of contact v’s a local person within the agency and our clients have found a much higher opt-in and response rate when dealing with people locally at that first point of contact.

So while we can arrange people to handle your calls, the best result we’ve found is when you use your outsourced staff as a support mechanism and for your local person to make the sales calls.

 


Ok, that’s it


If you’d like to find out more about how outsourcing can work within your business you can call us anywhere within Australia on 1300 139 482.

This is Damien Barnett from Affordable Staff showing Australian businesses how to achieve business efficiency through outsourcing.