3 Signs That It’s Time to Hire a CRE Assistant

This week is Administrative Professionals Week, and I wanted to honor administrative assistants and executive assistants in the CRE industry with this 4-part blog series highlighting their importance to our business and their impact to our quality of life. In this series we will discuss: how to determine if you need an executive assistant or not, what to look for in an executive assistant, what can an executive assistant take off your plate, and finally – some great onboarding and training tips.

In this first installment, we will discuss the top 3 reasons you should consider hiring an executive assistant. In order to share only the most relevant and valuable information with you, I interviewed the best executive/assistant teams I know. When I say “best”, I simply mean those partnerships that work seamlessly together and are highly effective. The first question I asked was, “How did you know when it was the right time to hire an executive assistant? What were the signs?”

1. High levels of stress and a lack of balance in your life. Almost all of the brokers/executives that I spoke with said that they just felt overwhelmed with too much work, and they were not getting everything done in a timely manner. They had to work longer hours and were not able to spend enough quality time with their families. One executive that I interviewed said that he knew he was in trouble when his wife quit. Yes, unfortunately, most brokers wait until it’s really bad before they make a change, or an investment. Almost all of the brokers I spoke with said that they wished they had hired their executive assistant much sooner than they actually did.
2. Work is no longer fun. Everyone interviewed said they were spending too much time doing tasks that were not client centric, or even in their wheelhouse. Whoever said “do the job you love and you will never work another day in your life” was right. If you used to look forward to Mondays, and now you find yourself looking forward to Fridays – it might be time for you to consider hiring an executive assistant.
3. An inconsistent pipeline. Here is the pattern: You prospect consistently for 60 to 90 days. You get busy negotiating offers, managing escrows, holding client’s hands and closing deals. You fill up your bank account and then you are shocked to find that your pipeline is now empty. Then you rinse, and repeat. The problem with this model is that the prospecting you are doing today will bear fruit 90 days from now. It’s an unwritten law of physics. One broker said his pipeline was “porpoising” because he was unable to prospect on a daily or weekly basis. That is a great word picture for many brokers’ pipelines.

If you: are feeling stressed and overworked, your spouse has signed up for tennis lessons with that cute new tennis pro at the club, your spouse is having to kick you out of the house on Monday morning because you are dreading going to your office, OR your pipeline has a nickname and it’s Flipper – you might want to consider hiring an executive assistant. In his book, Hyper Sales Growth, Jack Daly went so far to say – “If you don’t have an assistant, you are one”.

Lastly, I am going to give you a bonus reason to consider an assistant: No one is good at everything. If you are honest, there are things you do that you are not that good at. Hiring the right partner/assistant will strengthen your weaknesses, and make you stronger and more effective. That’s a great introduction to Part 2 of this series – we will take a look at some of the tasks executive assistants are performing, and I think you will be both surprised and amazed.