Archive for June, 2006

Our Interview on ePowernews

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

     In the July 2006 edition of the online journal ePowernews.com, virtual assistant and founder of Hamric Enterprise, Kandra Hamric, was interviewed concerning her business background and her VA practice, Assistant for Real Estate. The interview is a part of an ongoing ePowernews series and is available online at ePowernews.com

  For anyone who is interested in a VA for their real estate business, this article answers some of the most basic questions about what a VA does and can do for your business. Kandra speaks candidly about her own background as an assistant and an agent, and her transition into starting up her own VA enterprise. She speaks broadly about her business procedures- from the initial meetings to client retention-and about the services which are most commonly requested. From the responses in the interview it is clear Kandra knows both how to be a service provider and how the real estate business works apart from the immediate services which she provides.

   One of the most important aspects of this article comes at the end when Michael Russers asks Kandra what she looks for in a client. The question is something which is on the mind of every service provider and consultant, but is not talked about as openly.

    The interview paints a good picture of what Assistant for Real Estate is about. For anyone who is currently engaged in real estate sales, take a few minuted to read over this profile and consider using a VA as a way to improve your business.

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How Do You Work With A Virtual Assistant?

Saturday, June 24th, 2006

How Do You Work With Virtual Assistant?
 

          Even though the idea of working with a Virtual Assistant may be completely new, it will not change the essentially person to person nature of your real estate business. The point of using a VA is to allow you to have more face time with your clients and let the VA handle the office, on-line, book and appointment keeping, and mailing applications.

         The first step is to simply look at the numerous services that a VA can provide for your business. A complete list is available on the web site along with some samples of what the practical applications of each service are. By looking at your own business needs and goals along with the services that the VA provides, you can decide which services to inquire about.

       The next step is to set up a consultation appointment by emailing Kandra@assistantforrealesatate.com or calling the toll-free number 1-888-REVA- USA. During the consultation, you can decide which services are best for your business niche and on what basis you need them, temporary, seasonal or long term. You will then be provided with price quotes and time lines for the completion of projects.

        Once this has been decided, you can enjoy the hassle-free services of the VA. If at any time, your services need to altered or augmented, just contact your VA and adjust your service package. By becoming part of the network which the VA has, you will also have access to options which were not previously available and be alerted to new business trends from different areas.

 As your business grows or you decide to branch out, a VA can provide stop-gap coverage or can be used to experiment with different selling and recruiting methods while you are searching for the perfect fit for your area. In this capacity, you can also use the VA as a consulting practice to help assess your needs. You can simply set up an appointment with the VA to talk about your business proposal and they will assist you in choosing the services which fit your plan. Your business will be handled with the utmost confidentiality and professionalism.

At the completion of a project, your VA will solicit your feedback to see how they can further assist you or improve their own services.        

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Take the Hassle Out of Managing by Using a VA

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Take the Hassle Out of Managing by Using a VA

No matter what business you are in if you are self-employed, you are a manager. It could be managing as many as 150 employees or as little as 3. Regardless of the amount of people, the time spent keeping track of projects, calculating the books, following up with emails to clients, and spending hours on the phone can take the time away from your business.

Many individuals become self-employed due to the luxury of working on their own schedule, developing a business, not answering to any boss, and many times, working in a career at which they love. The ironic part is no one realizes that self-employment is not just about delivering a service or product to the client. All the backend and HR part to the business also has to be done by the self-employed individual.

How can a Virtual Assistant take the hassle out of managing?

To answer this question, a VA can do it all! From answering phone calls, emails, instant messages, to organizing employee records, distribution sheets, and payroll. Think about the amount of time you spend each day just managing while you could be spending the time actually working on projects.

For example, you work as a real estate agent. Many of your inquiries come through the internet from your website on email. Depending on the request, time is spent responding to the email or making a phone call to have a conversation with a potential client. There is never a guarantee of the sale and sometimes just managing this end of the business can be an all day event.

A real estate VA can do the responding for you. These assistants have a large source of knowledge and experience in the real estate field. Many have been involved with real estate and know the ins and outs, the rules, and how to fill out all the paper work without question.

All the legal documents, title documents, phone calls to mortgage lenders, and other realtors can all be done by a Virtual Assistant. Your VA can be anywhere in the world and work as if they were right in your own office.

Managing your clients and work does not have to be an individual chore. Virtual Assistants are here to help take the hassle and stress away so your energy can be focused on the product or sale.

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Real Estate Drip Email Campaigns

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Real Estate Drip Email Campaigns

Real Estate is always changing with new homes and price reductions, how can a realtor keep all of their clients informed of the changes. A Virtual Assistant or VA is the new way of a personal assistant right at your fingertips! VA’s are knowledgeable in all the newest programs when it comes to marketing your business.

When internet leads occur through a website or referral program, many times the prospect is not ready to be contacted immediately by a live person. The internet allows “window shopping” type behavior and when a form is filled out, it doesn’t mean the person is interested at that second to buy. Many times the prospect wanted to search around to become familiar with the homes in a certain area.

Potential clients are aware that searching online gives them more opportunity to browse what is on the market before contacting a real estate agent. Searching online gives buyers a no stress way of finding out about the market values for properties and the rate they are selling for. Before the internet, searching through the MLS listings was impossible but today consumers want to be more in control of their house selling and buying purchases.

Many potential clients begin their search six months to a year prior to making a move. By incorporating a Drip Email campaign, it allows realtors to stay in touch with their prospective clients until they are ready to move forward. The Drip Email campaign takes the potential clients email and sends automated messages which provide helpful information until they are ready to speak with you personally.

Virtual Assistants know more about internet forms of advertising than anyone else. If you decide to try and do your own Real Estate Drip Email Campaign, always use upbeat, positive words.

Some things to remember when planning to conduct a Drip Email campaign:

  • A link to your website in all emails.
  • Always use the BCC or blind carbon copy option so every potential client email addresses are hidden.

Always offer an unsubscribe option in every email

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Auto Responders

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Real Estate Email Auto Responders

With any business, especially real restate, the more information and the quicker the response the better. In today’s fast paced environment of business sales, the competition to be number one and ahead of the game is a necessity. Email auto responders are a great way to respond to client’s who ask questions or require more information about who you are and what you can do for their business.

Auto responders are special email addresses that automatically reply with a prewritten message. Auto responders are only used to handle certain inquiries like requests for the real estate market or a homebuyer’s checklist. If a visitor wants a specific article mailed to them, by using a certain online form, the article can be automatically emailed to them without the realtor ever clicking send.

An email auto responder works like this:

  • The visitor fills out a form on the website asking for more information and this process automatically places their name and email address into your listserv

Or

  • The Virtual Assistant or Realtor enters the client’s name into the system to generate the automatic emails.

Many Real Estate agents use auto responders for a few purposes.

1)When the client is asking for real estate listings to be sent directly to them, automatic emails can be sent without the realtor spending time searching.

2)Weekly emails can be sent with useful and important information concerning the real estate market and mortgage rates.
3)Each email sent is personalized with the receiver’s name.
4)HTML and text can be sent.
5)Different campaigns can be set up for different purposes.
6)It saves time. When there is time, the realtor can write a few emails and save them to be used for an auto responder campaign to new clients and consistent clients.

Clients should be made aware that emails will be delivered weekly when they sign up. On all emails, always offer an unsubscribe option. There are a few different ways of conducting an email auto responder campaign. Virtual Assistants can set these up without the realtor ever having to write one email.

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About Kandra Hamric and Assistant For Real Estate.com

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Kandra Hamric, a Real Estate Professional Assistant certified through the National Association of Realtors, has taken her years of expertise and brought it to the internet. As a Virtual Assistant or VA, Kandra’s leadership skill has led to many successful closings with no stress or hassle by the Real Estate agent. Kandra takes care of all the specific details of a project from start to completion to guarantee each project is perfect!

Client’s continually work with Kandra due to her strong background and years of experience in real estate sales; as well as her understanding of what it takes to make a business grow. Holding a board position with the Michigan Virtual Assistant Association (MIVA), Kandra continues to mentor potential new VA’s entering the field.

With her creative approach to sales, having patience, understanding, constant contact, and strong listening skills; Kandra always produces the greatest profits for every client. With the need for success, Kandra is always learning new ways to drive business sales.

A certified Home Stager, a Notary, a mentor; Kandra does it all!

Through phone, email, instant messaging, or webcam, Kandra is available. She is always ready for the next project and her enthusiasm shines through every conversation. With the computer skills of a guru, and the personality which makes you feel as if you are in the same room; Kandra continues her multi tasking ways to be the backbone of many of her client’s success with their own business.

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Delegating to a Virtual Assistant

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Delegating to a Virtual Assistant

A Virtual Assistant can be a massive benefit for any small business – but what exactly do they do? And how do they do it?

There are many day-to-day tasks that can be delegated to a Virtual Assistant. For instance, simply forwarding all incoming telephone calls to your VA will allow him or her to filter out unwanted calls. This filtering is important when it comes to communications with your customers. Any assistant would be typically charged with taking calls and making bookings. A Virtual Assistant – thanks to the modern age of technology – is just as able.

You can give your VA access to your diary system and emails, enabling them to book meetings, reply to mail on your behalf, dig out that vital email from 6 months ago that you misfiled and even log reminders for you to complete particular tasks, as well as manage your contacts list.

It is important of course to hire a Virtual Assistant according to their skills. In a Real Estate business, a considerable amount of information will need to be recorded about each client and the properties involved. As such, a VA with database skills is very desirable. Similarly, if you’re delegating tasks such as bookkeeping and billing, spreadsheet and tax knowledge is important for your VA to possess.

These two examples would normally require the assistant to be available on your business premises, whether that is a dedicated office space or a box room. But thanks to software such as Symantec’s “PC Anywhere”, both you and your VA can work on the same document, stored either on your PC or your assistant’s. Meanwhile you could work with your assistant on a complicated piece of work utilizing this remote viewing software and an instant messaging (IM) application such as MSN, Yahoo or AIM in order to make suggestions.

A fax machine meanwhile can prove vital if you have all business mail filtered by your Virtual Assistant. Any documents that require signatures can be faxed from the VA’s fax machine to you and back again. Your VA really can be based ANYWHERE in the world!

You might want to conduct meetings with your VA over the telephone – or even business meetings with your Virtual Assistant present utilizing conference call facilities. Alternatively, a webcam system (again via an IM program) might be used for online conferencing or simply to illustrate information quickly.

These systems are successfully utilized in Real Estate and other businesses across the country in day to day business – don’t worry if your knowledge of how to implement them is weak, as your Virtual Assistant will know exactly how to get started!

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The Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Real Estate Assistant

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

The Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Real Estate Assistant.

You run a busy Real Estate business. Business is booming, and you have more and more clients every week. But with overturn in business comes an uproot in administration… fully-trained permanent staff is hard to come by, while temporary staff often require training – what can you do?

More and more, Real Estate businesses are turning to “Virtual Assistants” (or VAs). With the amazing communication possibilities offered by the Internet, businesses across the country are turning to Virtual Assistants to provide administrative assistance at a moments notice.

Never heard of a Virtual Assistant? Over the last five years administrative services provided by these means have been slowly thriving, and featuring in the news reports of the BBC among others. Virtual Assistants are more than just cyber secretaries; charging hourly rates which allows many to be considered entrepreneurs.

Full-time staff might be well trained, but they also require office space and computer hardware, a telephone, demand holidays and it is really hard to find a truly competent administrator that isn’t already snapped up by a corporation or a competitor. It is estimated that full-time staff actually cost an organization three times the annual salary in holidays and benefits! Temporary staffing solutions, meanwhile, come with added stresses – while hiring them for a few hours a week might seem ideal, as soon as a permanent position becomes available you’ll be left with no temp and lots of paperwork.

Virtual Assistants really are a godsend. They only bill for the hours they have worked, come ready-trained, and don’t have the standard overheads that come with fully employed staff such as tax and holiday pay. They make themselves available by utilizing the latest communications technology such as cell phones, instant messaging and email, and have all of the same clerical and conveyance skills of the real-life Real Estate administrator. Working from home they can also utilize snail mail if necessary, and many even provide web development, desktop publishing and event planning services.

All of these skills underline the benefits of contracting a Virtual Assistant to your Real Estate business. No longer should you worry about contacting hard-to-reach clients or answering the phone – a Virtual Assistant can take care of these things for you and at the same time contribute to your Real Estate brand.

The Virtual Assistant industry itself is taking off in quite a big way, with very professional and polished websites advertising these services are listed on Google. With the massive benefits involved in contracting such services, your Real Estate business could reap huge rewards from utilizing a Virtual Assistant as your business continues to thrive.

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Branding Your Real Estate Business

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Branding Your Real Estate Business

If you are a real estate agent, you know how competitive the business is. Thousands become agents every year. And thousands quit. Why? Many rookie real estate agents make the mistake of treating their career as merely a typical 9-5 office job. It isn’t. Real Estate is fiercely competitive, and most of the agents who find success do so by effectively branding themselves.

Effective branding of a real estate business is very often what separates good real estate agents from mediocre ones. Your task as an agent is to make people think of YOU in your property area when they are thinking of buying or selling a home. But how do you brand yourself this way without unlimited finances?

Coordinating your entire sales message around a few key points is a beginning. First of all, many agents find it helpful to focus their business on a certain type of client with which they have a good rapport or personal experience. This is an effective strategy to differentiate yourself in the public’s mind. If you are just ‘a real estate agent,’ you are just one of millions. But if you focus on one area, it makes it a lot easier to brand yourself to stand out from the crowd.

For example, an agent who has a lot of experience with senior citizens and their issues could choose to brand herself as an expert in the downsizing senior real estate process. This could include everything from helping to find an auctioning firm to clear the family home of its contents, selling the home, to helping them purchase a new, smaller home.

Once you have chosen your niche, the next step would be to focus all of your real estate branding on that niche. Your business cards should say something like “Your senior real estate expert in Northern Virginia,” for example. Your Website should have the same senior-related theme, as well. Any newsletters, flyers or signs you use in advertising should be branded in the same way. All of these pieces of the marketing puzzle should use the same color scheme, fonts and layout, as well. This will help to cement your brand in the public’s mind.

If you are branding yourself as an expert in senior real estate, it would be helpful to go to senior centers, churches and other senior focal points. Make sure your branded sales materials are available for people to pick up.

Once you choose your niche in the real estate market and focus all of your marketing materials on that message, stay focused on it relentlessly! Everyone you talk to, every contact you make, people should understand your focused, branded message. Once you have done all of these things, your real estate business will be effectively branded and you are on your way to a successful real estate career!

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Faux Finishing

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Faux Finishing

The term “Faux Finishing” refers these days to any kind of decorative finish given to walls, flooring or furniture. Methods such as stenciling, antiquing or lacquering can create all sorts of new looks in any property, and improve the chances of its sale.

There are a large number of different techniques that can be applied in order to improve the interior and exterior of a piece of real estate, to maximizing its sale potential. Coupling Faux Finishing with other concepts such as home staging will be instrumental in attracting prospective buyers into giving your property serious consideration.

Where you once had a troublesome crack in a plaster wall, employ a technique such as Venetian Plastering. This is a three-coat plastering technique, which employs a thin layer of Venetian plaster which is allowed to dry completely, followed by a thicker layer applied in a criss-cross manner. Once fully dried, a third thinner layer is applied, dried and sanded; and you have a brand new wall.

There are many instruction manuals and websites that fully illustrate the benefits of faux finishing, not just to enhance your real estate for a sale but to improve your home interior for your own domestic purposes.

A bland kitchen surface can be given a new lease of life with a marbling effect. This technique utilizes three shades of green paint, a natural sponge and high-gloss polyurethane to give the surface a marble-like shine.

Alternatively, you might want to give items in your property an old-time rustic look. This is where the extremely popular method of crackling would be used. Crackling is the practice of giving wooden furniture an “aged” look by replicating the crackled finish that occurs over time. Special paints can be purchased to apply this effect, and it is quite striking; some have even speculated that the crackled effect is better than the time-worn original.

On the subject of time-worn originals, this effect can be simulated in other ways, such as the distressing technique, which involves removing stain on doors and chairs with #180 to #220 grit sandpaper. It’s a great technique that works wonders!

Remember, there are many more techniques which can be employed to enhance the interior of your real estate in preparation for a sale. You can find many more ideas on the web or in a library or book shop, as well as keeping an eye on the DIY shows on television.

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