do you need a real estate assistant or do you need an operations manager
and really what's the difference this is a question i get a lot in my recruiting
business and i thought i'd make a quick video to explain the difference and answer
a few other questions about these essential roles on any real estate team let's dig in
before we get into it my name is vanessa i'm a recruiter i run a company called pro rea staffing
where we place real estate assistants operations managers and many more all across the united
states so if you're interested in learning how to grow your career in real estate or how to grow a
real estate team then this is a channel you might want to subscribe to so click that button below
all right let's get into it first let's talk about the differences between a real estate assistant
and an operations manager now before we get into this there are exceptions to everything
especially when it comes to naming conventions job title naming conventions in real estate but
i'm going to give you some general guidelines so you can keep this in mind when you're hiring the
reason this is important is if you mis-title your job when you're advertising for a role you will
attract the wrong kind of candidate an operations manager likely does not want the role of a real
estate assistant a real estate assistant may not have all of the skill sets and qualifications
you need if what you really need is an operations manager so it's important to understand the
difference all right let's talk about real estate assistance first so a real estate assistant's
first job is to protect their agents time this means managing their calendar communication
emails schedule all of that next they're going to coordinate the transactions they're responsible
for handling the backend tasks at every stage of the real estate sales cycle so that may
include depending on the structure of the team listing coordination marketing coordination
transaction coordination or coordinating with the transaction coordinator if you outsource that
customer service and developing systems and procedures to make the company run more smoothly
and then if they're a licensed assistant they may also be responsible for
showings helping with open houses taking incoming lead calls and pre-qualifying
buyers or sellers and setting up appointments when the agent is out of town a high level licensed
experienced assistant might write contracts it depends on the team and how skilled they
are so that's what a real estate assistant does what's the difference with an operations manager
well an operations manager first and foremost has somebody else that they are managing if you are a
solo agent with one administrator they're not an operations manager they're a highly skilled
high level real estate assistant but number one they are managing and delegating work to other
people on the team they're developing systems and procedures to scale the business they're
implementing the strategic vision of the boss managing the profit and loss statement hiring and
training they're also typically they take the lead on fostering the culture and climate in the office
and they're involved in the business planning and strategy with with their boss so they sit
at the leadership table they're involved interested strategic decisions um and also when
the team built brings on new buyer's agents or salaried agents they're involved in onboarding
supporting and in some ways supervising until the team is big enough that they have a sales manager
specifically to lead the sales team so i hope that gives you a good understanding of the different
tasks now let's talk about some of the skill sets that are different so a good real estate assistant
is detail oriented they can follow processes and procedures they have great customer service skills
and they um they can take action they're they're rolling up their sleeves and actually doing the
work a great operations manager may have the ability to do all of those tasks that a real
estate assistant does but where they really shine is in leadership and management they're good at
delegating and following up and providing feedback they're good at seeing the big vision and then
getting into the weeds long enough to implement that they're really an extension of the lead agent
uh when it comes to like if the lead agent says i want to implement this marketing program then
the operations manager is the one who puts all the pieces together and makes it happen
now you might be thinking well i kind of need both i need that operational leader
i need someone to do all the tasks and that's that's normal that's pretty typical
one thing to think about if you feel like you need all the things what i recommend people do
is hire a licensed experienced operations manager someone who has that leadership ability and then
hire a an offshore virtual assistant a lot of my clients now are hiring a second assistant in the
philippines so for between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars a month you can have a full-time
real estate assistant who can handle all of those coordinator level tasks so that
your lead person who is in your office every day can handle more of those higher level strategic
tasks this also really protects you because everybody can can take a day off go on vacation
if your lead operations person gives notice you have somebody else who is still running
things in the back end and you're not uh you know you're not without help so i think as soon as you
can afford to have a backup assistant of a second person you should do it so i hope that helps you
think about what your needs are and how you can get those needs met by either a real
estate assistant or an operations manager the other thing to talk about is salary so i think
logic would say that an operations manager would make more than a real estate assistant
and while that is generally true it is not always true a licensed experienced real estate assistant
working for one top producing agent can earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year in some markets
it could be a very highly paid position in the right circumstance and in that same market an
operations manager working for a team that maybe has a lower sales price point might make the same
or less so it depends on that person's skill set experience frankly how they value themselves and
how well they negotiate their salary and how long they've been on the team if you'd like
more information on what real estate assistance and operations managers earn across the country
i have a salary guide that i publish every year and i'll include the link in the description below
if you would like to learn more about what a real estate assistant does this is a great video
that takes you through a day in the life of a real estate assistant and this video um is an interview
with an operations manager so you can get a feel for what someone in that role talks like sounds
like acts like and if you're exploring hiring for either of these positions i highly encourage you
to reach out let's have a chat and talk about how i can help you find your perfect fit and if
you are looking for one of these jobs make sure to go to our job board jobs.proria staffing.com we'd
love to hear from you i'll see you on the next video and don't forget to hit that like button
cheers
you