Nick’s Picks-Hiring Virtual Assistants

To ease the burden of a fast, growing business, Off Leash onboarded its very first outside hire, Lezil coming up on 2 years ago. Since then, there has been no turning back, and Lezil runs the show as the most loved and feared member of our team. In addition, over the past 8 months, Off Leash has hired two more incredible Virtual Assistants (VA), Margie and Raf.

The number one question in this realm we get is, “How do you hire a Virtual Assistant?” We have two basic answers: recruitment agencies and referrals. Personally, we used Sphere Rocket to hire Lezil. Since the onboarding of Lezil though, we live the philosophy: Rockstars know rockstars. Lezil referred Margie and Raf to work with us, and we highly recommend going the route of referrals.

Recently, during Nick’s Picks, Lezil, Margie, and Raf joined to chat with the cohorts about their work with Off Leash. In summary, we found lots of helpful tidbits they contributed and wanted to share. Here is what you can do to benefit working with extraordinary Virtual Assistants:

Questions. Before beginning the interview process, create a list of questions to interview the Virtual Assistants that reflect your business needs. For us, it was important to find coworkers who are assertive, initiative takers, and organized. Personally, we cared very little about real estate experience as we were more than happy to teach our databases and processes. If you are stuck on what to ask or the qualities needed, take a look at what items you want off your to-do list on a daily basis and understand the attributes needed to be successful completing the list. Here are example questions we made sure to ask:

1. What is your expertise?

2. How did you become a VA?

3. How long have you been a VA?

4. What tools do you like using?

5. What security measure do you use to protect client’s information?

6. What hours do you work?

7. What hours are you available?

8. How do you prefer to communicate?

9. How do you prioritize work?

10. Why do you want to be hired?

11. What is your software proficiency (rate 1-10)?

12. How resourceful are you when it comes to data mining?

13. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Compensate. We want every single person who works for Off Leash to care and protect our business. Therefore, it is a top priority to compensate our employees above the starting average wages, train/onboard on company time, and create incentive programs to ensure a workplace employees want to stay. An example of the programs we run would be giving back $X per closing, $Y if over 95% rent collection, or Z% of rent raises and many more. Get creative!   

Onboard. When you first onboard a virtual assistant, you’ll give an hour of your time to get 30 minutes back. However, if you set your processes up beforehand, you will find your return on time invested to skyrocket before too long. Lezil recommends that you do not spend time training on items that they can research themselves on YouTube/Google. Spend the time onboarding your unique systems and processes. She also recommends that you put your business process into your database with video tutorials and documents outlining step by step. At first, it may be beneficial to create to-do lists for your VA’s before delegating and letting them create their own. We usually follow the model--watch me, do it with me watching, and do it yourself and let me know how it goes. Know how you would do something in your mind before you outsource it.

Trust. Check in, but don’t micromanage. We have a daily sync with the entire Off Leash Team and weekly individual sync-ups and find that these two meetings and a weekly recap email are enough to keep tabs on what everyone is doing. We find it unnecessary to track keyboards or record screens, as it does not promote trust nor understanding within our company. We all communicate in a coordination chat on Slack and will announce the start and end to our days.

Redundancy. A key part to setting Virtual Assistants up for success (or any hire for that matter) is to create systems and processes that are redundant. If only you are able to understand your process or you have multiple, complex systems going at once, it is near impossible to offload those systems and find time to teach others how to navigate them.

Here at Off Leash, the Virtual Assistants do a little of everything and then more including utilities, deal finding/analyzing, managing timelines, holding team members to high standards, portfolio management, etc. We have had incredible luck with hiring Virtual Assistants. Reach out if you would like our help to find the newest member of your team You can contact us at nick@offleashinvestments.com.