Are you a real estate company, broker, or sales agent that has a growing business? Do you feel the need of having a real estate secretary that will work side by side with you?
Everybody needs someone who can assist, especially when you are growing a company. Moreover, yes, you need someone who can take care of things that will lessen your load.
So, are you ready to hire a Real Estate Secretary?
Let’s define first a Real Estate Secretary. A Real Estate Secretary is someone who can help you in performing tasks efficiently and productively. That person should know clerical duties such as scheduling appointments, organizing documents or files alongside customer service jobs, and knows how to deal with different types of people.
Before we talk about how are you going to hire a Real Estate Secretary? Let’s discuss first what are you going to look for in a candidate for this position.
Real Estate Secretary
1. Create Rapport
A Real Estate Secretary should be a person who can create rapport with different kinds of people, regardless of their social class. Having this skill will help you gain the trust of your guests, clients, and prospective buyers. As you establish trust, there’s a tendency to increase your sales and even increase the number of referrals as well.
2. Communication Skills
Alongside rapport, a Real Estate Secretary should also have excellent communication skills not just in oral but also in written communication. Having excellent communication skills will help you enlarge your territories and thus, give you more success in this industry.
3. Familiar with the Real Estate Industry
When you hire a Real Estate Secretary, make sure that the candidate you will choose has familiarity with the real estate industry, if not familiar, that person should be open to new learnings and willing to grow in the industry. If not, your business will have a harder time growing. You’ll need your real estate secretary to answer questions of the guests, clients, or prospective buyers. With no familiarity in the industry, communication and rapport will suffer.
4. Telephone Manners
Your Real Estate Secretary should have telephone manners. Expect that you’re going to receive many phone calls so, your secretary should know how to handle calls, whether they are incoming or outgoing. Your Real Estate Secretary is a frontline in your industry. If that person fails to answer calls/inquiries well, then that’s the end of it. Objections, questions, feedback, suggestions, inquiries, asking for details, or closing sales should be handled well and not be taken for granted.
5. Time Management
Time management is one of the things that you should also consider in hiring your Real Estate Secretary. Someone said that there’s no way for us to manage time because time runs or flies, but we can control ourselves to take care of our time. When you look for a Real Estate Secretary, check whether that person knows how to manage themselves. How does that person deal with pressures, deadlines, problems, or solutions? That’s a great way to figure out if that person can take care of the time that was given to them to be productive. How do they deal with the assignments, how do they prioritize things? Do they know how to prioritize what is more important? Do they do things as they flow and not able to manage everything well?
6. Attention to Detail
Attention to detail is one of the skills that you should also look for in a Real Estate Secretary. Is that person attentive to details or always missing something? Is that person willing to go through every document to check whether it’s complete or not? Or is that person ready to go the extra mile to double-check if the appointments for today were followed up on or not? Attention to detail is critical, especially in this industry. One’s diligence and performance can also be tied up with having that attentiveness to details.
7. Well Organized
When you hire a Real Estate Secretary, you should also consider if that person is well-organized. Being well-organized will help reduce the stress in your company. Is that person willing to organize the files that will lessen the time to look for documents that are needed? Being well-organized can also be seen in how that person manages the appointments, the day-to-day activities. Having covered what to look for, how then will you hire a Real Estate Secretary?
8. Google search
Start with a google search for real estate secretaries. You will find independent workers, companies, and virtual options. Narrowing your search will move much faster when you have answered the questions above and have a good idea of what you need.
9. Don’t Rush
Interview candidates, companies, and any other option you find. By interviewing/questioning more choices, you will see who stands out, and you might learn some other aspects to the job you didn’t even consider before starting this process. Keep an open mind and learn from others in the industry.
10. Cheaper is not always better
Be prepared to pay a little more. A competitive salary will attract good people, but it will also attract bad and mediocre people as well. Learn what the going rate for a real estate secretary and maybe go a little higher than avg. Start small and if your real estate secretary performs as you need, then be willing to pay a little more to show them you appreciate their work.
Lastly, prepare a service agreement for your real estate secretary you hire that can be signed. It should be clear, concise, and very detailed. Also remember that once that person signed the contract, that person is under your responsibility and that person’s growth is also in your hands. Most companies will have this part taken care of if you decide to use one.