My husband and I work together.  We have come up with a pretty clear division of responsiblities that works for us.  We are in a "declining" market and still closing 4-5 loans a month based on almost 100% referral from past clients.

Me: I handle all our marketing (we come up with a marketing plan once a year together - and review it half-way through the year), our licensing, continuing education, insurances, state regulations, payroll, and all the administrative stuff to keep our business open.

Him: he originates loans and takes the continuing ed classes I sign him up for.

Our processor has recently decided to go back to college and become a school teacher, but Kevin doesn't want to replace her just yet, so we will recruit a contract processor when the time is right.

Best wishes to you...

I have 2 assistants, and soon will have

1 cleans house, takes care of children, runs errands and takes phone calls.

1 Does transaction co-ordination, marketing design, office management, preparing of cmas, listing packets, buyer's packets and takes photos and installs signs and so on.  She also parcels out leads from our signs to other agents.

1 does listing co-ordination, lead tracking, ad placing, client updates, answers the phone, give feed back to clients, tracks showings and delivers signs and fliers to listings.

I feel this has really helped my business grow, at first it is costly and in the end it is costly NOT to do it.

I feel like I need an assistant at times because my days get extremely crazy at times and I just don't have the time to complete my daily tasks. But then it always levels out for me. An assistant would increase productivity. Sounds like a good fit for you. 

I suppose assistants are a matter of choice in how you want to use your time.  I have never had one, but some of my strong suits are organization and mulit-tasking. In fact, no one in either of our offices have an assistant.  Yet, in Sacramento County, we produce more volume, a higher average sales price and number of sales per agent than even the big boys such as Coldwell Banker, Lyons and Keller Williams.  Our office does offer support for escrow coordination, but we don't collect disclosures, get signatures, set appointment etc for our agents.  We did have a few agents whose strong suits were not in the details.  It was a constant battle to get them to have complete files...they could have used an assistant but didn't choose to.  Maybe some of the difference is that our office is run as a team. We don't compete and we don't have "Top Producer", "President's Club" and such.  Without the competition, we make each other stronger and help when needed.

Good ones will help gain clients bad ones will lose clients. So the key is to have a great one so you can do your job and are sure they are doing theres.

Mark - have you ever considered hiring a virtual assistant?  I am a VA specialing in real estate assistance and know that hiring a virtual assistant is alot less expensive than hiring an in-house assistant. Why? Because you don't have overhead fees, or employment taxes or a myraid of other fees associated with an in house assistant.  We are all business owners who are experts in our field.  I have had over 25 years of real estate industry experience including sales, administrative and managerial roles.  My agent clients pay for only the services they require, which frees them to do what they do best - sell!  If you don't have a virtual assistant - YOU are the assistant!

Kathy Fey

Fey & Associates - virtual real estate assistance

www.feyandassociates.com

No matter what type of market you are in you need an assistant.  Someone to do the other little jobs, while you go out and stir up the business.  Your first investment in your business should be an assistant.

Mark, you summed it up correctly with this phrase: gradual decline in productivity mostly goes unnoticed. Just like a consistent drip of water can do a world of damage, it's those gradual changes that get us.

Kudos on getting a part-time assistant; I wish you the best.

I'm sorry - I noticed you asked a question. Here are some of the high value activities your assistant could handle:

- act as a liaison between you and your processor (probably best handled in house);
- collect critical documents from borrowers and proofread them for errors (ex., make sure the names on the ids, bank statements, etc., match, make sure you receive all copies of asset statements, review the sales contract before giving it to you)
- email marketing (this can be handled in house or out-sourced),
- print newsletters (in house or outsourced) ,
- mortgage blog content (in house or outsouced),
- optimizing your website so that prospects find you (this can also be outsourced)

I hope these ideas help.