The Power Of Leverage For Real Estate Agents

When real estate agents get their start in the business, they usually start by doing all their own work. Although it can be tough at first, savvy real estate agents will begin to gain traction, and produce at a higher volume.

If they continue to grow, at some point, there will be a time where they can’t do everything on their own. For someone who has worked hard to build their real estate business, adding team members can be extremely difficult.

This week we want to share the top reasons why real estate agents need to learn how to delegate and use the power of leverage to scale their work, life, balance, and productivity.

Increases ROI. – One of the reasons why so many agents love to do all their own work is they get to keep all the commission from their end of the transaction. However, if you sat down and did the math, you could see that having help with some of the more menial tasks can increase your effective earn rate.

As an example, let’s say you focus primarily on buyers, and it takes 40 hours of labor to close a single transaction. If you close a $400,000 home and split 6% with the listing agent, you will receive $12,000 in commission. Divide $12,000 by 40 hours, and you have an hourly rate of $300 an hour.

Now, let’s see what happens if you have help. Let’s say you hire an assistant at $20 per hour who handles the administrative duties for every transaction. Their services remove 10 hours of your workload on a transaction, which leaves you with 30 hours to close a deal. Here’s what the math looks like:

$12000 – $200 = $11,800
$11,800 / 30 Hours = ~$390 per hour

What if we take it a step further? Let’s say you hire a Buyer’s Specialist who helps you with the full transaction process, which frees up an additional 20 hours of your time and costs $30 per hour.

Let’s look at the numbers:
$12,000 – $200 – $600 = $11,200
$11,200 / 10 Hours = $1,120

As you can see, delegating can dramatically improve your Return on Investment while doing less work. In addition to making more money per hour, those extra 10 hours can be used towards finding more business, organizing client events, or simply enjoying some leisure time.

Which brings us to reason number two.

Improves Work/Life Balance. – Even the most passionate real estate agents need to take a break.

However, if you are handling every aspect of every transaction, there won’t be much time to enjoy yourself. When you find people to delegate tasks to, you can free up more time, which will help you relax and rest.

The better your work/life balance is, the easier it will be to stay focused during your work hours and avoid burnout in the long run. The worst thing any real estate agent can do is to put in thousands of hours of work into building their real estate business, only to burnout and move on to another industry.

Improves Scalability. – There are only so many hours in a day, in a week, and in a month, and an individual has a cap on how much they can handle in any given period.

Aside from improving ROI and providing a better work/life balance, delegation allows you to scale your outreach and increase your production exponentially.

For example, a marketing manager can handle your social media, direct mail, and other marketing efforts, and your office manager can handle all administrative tasks.

What about all those new leads? Buyer’s agents and listing specialists can be added to the team to handle leads below a certain price point (especially if your model is focused on luxury listings).

With the right team in place, your one-person real estate business can transform into a strong real estate team with virtually unlimited potential.

Making the leap from handling everything to creating a team can be daunting, but when it comes to improving your quality of life, reaching more clients, and increasing your ROI, delegation is the most effective way to do so!

How did you make that leap, and how has it improved your business and your life? How many more transactions were you able to close after making your first hire?

I recommend every agents first team hire be your administrative assistant. Use the form below to download your copy of the Agents Boost “Hiring an Unlicensed Assistant” book now. 

The free download includes: reasons to hire, personality and communication style profiles, extensive list of tasks an assistant can do for you, where to find an assistant, interview questions, sample employment agreement, sample confidentiality agreement and more.

You will be glad you did!

Strength and courage,
Wade