Break through the sales ceiling by building a team

By now, many businesspeople have heard the African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” 

Too many novice real estate investors try to do everything themselves. They wear a dozen hats in their business: marketing manager, sales manager, accountant, bookkeeper, web developer, operations manager, graphic designer. The list goes on. 

🏰 Building Your Empire

If you spend half your time duct-taping together a WordPress website, who’s actually generating money for your business? 

No one, that’s who. 

Stop focusing on individual deals and start building a business system that other people can step into and help you scale. Identify your unique ability — which should include either sales or training and managing others, as a real estate wholesaler or investor. The other dozens parts of your business, you need to outsource.

As the entrepreneur, you’re in charge of the vision, and the execution of that vision by building a sales and marketing machine that can run without you. 

Onboarding Virtual Assistants (VAs)

Virtual assistants can handle nearly every role in your business. From cold calling to overseeing direct mail campaigns, from lead management to sales management, from bookkeeping to project management, you can outsource it all. 

My project manager lives in California. My bookkeeper lives in India. And my acquisitions manager lives locally where I operate in Indiana. 

You can hand off some tasks to VAs with little training, such as bookkeeping. Other tasks require more intensive training. Start by handing off administrative tasks, then after a one month “comfort” period, start delegating marketing. Hire a VA to take over your cold calling. Later, you can train workers in sales. 

Hiring VAs

Too many investors hire VAs without having clear systems and training materials in place. Before you hire anyone, start recording screenshare videos documenting how you do various tasks in your business. You can use Loom or Zoom Clips for this, and Loom AI has a built-in feature to summarize your video into a written SOP (standard operating procedure). 

Get extremely clear on the metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll use to judge each VA’s success. Communicate these clearly when you interview and hire. Workers need to know how to measure their success, and so do you. 

Even though you’ll likely pay your VAs as independent contractors, think of them as full-time employees. Give them full ownership of the projects in their lane, rather than giving them one-off tasks. 

You’re building a system, a business machine — not completing a to-do list. Read more about hiring VAs here for a more detailed breakdown. 

Training VAs

In the beginning, you should check in with your VAs at least once a day. Schedule daily training and huddles, to make sure they stay on the same page. 

Also schedule longer weekly meetings, to evaluate the last seven days’ performance. Give them feedback, both positive and negative, so they know how to keep improving. 

If a new employee does not perform well in the first few days, ask yourself: “Am I not training them well enough every day, or are they not putting in the effort?” It’s better to fire quickly and move on to a better hire rather than waffling about an employee who cannot or will not learn. 

Many VAs see their role as temporary unless you show them a growth path with your company. Show your employees who perform well what growth opportunities you’ll have for them. That will help retain your best workers, who can grow alongside you. 

Professionalize Your Real Estate Business

Professional athletes don’t duct tape together their shoes. So why are you trying to duct tape together your real estate business?

If you want to earn profits like a professional real estate investor, use the tools your pro competitors are using. That starts with marketing and accounting tools like REsimpli. 

Don’t take our word for it. Try it out for yourself with a 30-day free trial. 

We look forward to hearing your feedback and successes after your first month running with the big dogs. 

Onboarding Marketing & Lead Managers

1. 🧑‍💼 Lead Manager Desk

At the next level up, start growing your marketing team. I myself have a VA who started in the Philippines and later moved to Canada, who manages cold calling and lead qualification. 

I recommend starting these hires with cold calling, then expanding their role to handling inbound leads. Give them a script that you’ve refined yourself, after experimenting with variations. If you’re new to cold calling as a marketing strategy, brush up here. 

Cold caller KPIs include:

• Calls made each day
• Appointments booked each day
• Leads left hanging at the end of each day without a drip campaign
• Pending tasks left open at the end of each day 

Consistency is the key to cold calling success. Think 150–200 calls per day. Even so, the more important metric is qualified lead appointments booked, since that’s the next step in the sales funnel. 

Meet twice a day with new cold callers for training, focusing on call reviews, role plays, and motivation. It’s a challenging role that requires ongoing motivation and training. Make sure you build in bonuses for closed deals to keep your incentives aligned (more on that momentarily).

Adding Lead Management

As your cold caller VAs start performing better, consider promoting one or more of them to lead managers. 

Lead managers’ tasks include listening to missed call recordings, returning calls, qualifying leads, running property comps, and scheduling appointments. 

They don’t just do the grunt work of cold calling mass lists of prospects. They work with live leads who have called you. 

How much you pay lead managers depends on where they’re based. 

For US-based lead managers, expect to pay $15-20/hour as the base pay, plus $250-$2,000 as a bonus per closed deal. Hire an American if you need local market expertise and strong communication skills. 

For overseas lead managers, expect to pay $4-6/hour as the base pay, plus $50-$250 as a bonus per closed deal. You can sometimes find lead managers with real estate experience, but beware that weak English or thick accents can turn off some sellers. 

Listen to two or three of your lead manager’s calls every day for quality assurance. Give your lead manager feedback every day, even if it’s brief. Tweak and experiment with your scripts to keep improving performance. And if your leads aren’t converting into sales appointments, determine whether your lead manager isn’t selling well enough, or if the quality of the leads coming to them isn’t high enough. 

Onboarding Sales Managers

1. 🏠 The Real Estate Sales Arena

The most effective sales happen in person. Physically getting in front of sellers increases close rates, even if your competitors offer higher prices. It’s why my sales manager lives locally in Indiana where I buy properties. 

When I interviewed real estate sales expert Billy Fernandes last year, he shared that he expects his acquisition managers to close at least seven deals per month. In turn, that required them to make at least three offers per day. 

Your lead flow should look like this: someone from your team has an initial phone call with a lead, to gather information and qualify it. On that call, they schedule an appointment for later that day or the following morning. Once they get off the phone, they can confirm the rough property value with comps, and cancel the appointment if need be. 

You or your sales manager then meets the property owner in person to walk through the property. Once you’ve determined the property condition, run a few back-of-the-napkin numbers on the spot. Then sit down with them in their living room and discuss numbers. Aim to close a handshake sale on the spot.

When you (or your acquisition manager) gets back to the office, you can shore up any loose numbers, draft the sales contract, e-sign it, and send it to the seller. 

This in-person sales process should be the last role you outsource, when you yourself are ready to work less.

Managing & Paying Team Members

Worried about whether your team members are actually doing the work you’re paying them for, when they live in another state or country? Try Hubstaff to track working hours, productivity, and screen activity.

As for pay structure, pay your people bi-weekly with a two-week delay to discourage job abandonment.

Keep VAs motivated with performance-based bonuses, and stipends for health insurance and internet for high-performing VAs. And with virtual team members, you should lean in closer with personalized birthday and holiday gifts, rather than skimping.

Daily team check-ins are also crucial. Some investors hold morning, midday, and evening huddles to ensure accountability and a closer-knit culture.

Pay your foreign VAs via Remitly, Wise, or Payoneer to avoid excessive transaction fees.

Pay your VAs as contractors, as a marketing expense. They’re responsible for their own taxes.

Partners to Your Internal Team

Scaling the Success Ladder

Your internal team can’t do everything. Part of building and scaling a business includes forming partnerships. 

To begin with, you’ll need a few lenders, depending on the type of investing you do. Flippers need hard money lenders, and as they scale, it helps to build relationships with private lenders as well. BRRRR investors also need portfolio lenders and conventional lenders.  

Wholesalers and investors alike need a close, intimate relationship with a title company. In particular, they need a company that can move lightning fast and knows how to structure wholesale deals. 

Transaction coordinators handle title issues, closing logistics, and communication with all parties. That frees you up to focus on sales and marketing instead of paperwork. Try outsourcing this to a company like ezREIClosings, which charges a flat fee (with 10% off for REsimpli members).

Tying It Together

You can only go so far as a solopreneur. Sooner rather than later, you’ll hit your ceiling. 

Embrace your role as a small business owner and build a self-sustaining machine that can run with minimal input required from you. Start small by outsourcing administrative tasks, then cold calling, then lead management. 

When you’re really ready for freedom, you can hire someone local to take over sales appointments. 

Many entrepreneurs outsource their inboxes as well. They hold a daily half-hour call with their VA to discuss any questions that came up over email. 

You didn’t start a real estate business to work a job. You started it to create an independent lifestyle. But that freedom comes at the cost of a well organized and structured business. 

We’re here to help. Lean on REsimpli’s CRM to help automate your marketing, lead management, and drip campaigns. Don’t take my word for it either — test drive it with a 30-day free trial of REsimpli’s CRM today, to shift your marketing and sales engine into high gear!