Tag: estate agency

Cold calling feeds the lead pipeline

To maintain a decent level of stock, Estate Agents need to maintain a healthy pipeline of leads. One way to do this is cold calling. Agents engage in cold calling to accomplish a variety of purposes that have both short and long-term benefits. These include:

• Generating new leads.
• Starting a relationship that can be nurtured.
• Initiating meeting in person with potential clients.
• Plus it can be a great source of referrals.

Cold calling is both daunting and time consuming

No matter how important it is, cold calling is time-consuming when done well. Significant amounts of time are spent researching prospects, making calls, reaching prospects’ voicemails and then phoning again, and encountering uninterested prospects to weed out those people who become qualified leads.

The answer lies in taking on an experienced VA

Taking on a Virtual Assistant who has experience in cold calling, lead generation and lead nurturing will not only level up your lead generation activity and improve on the number of face-to-face meetings you have scheduled. Their upfront work will also have you fully apprised with valuable information before you meet each client and will free up your time to focus on relationship building, signing business and closing deals.

The goal of using a customer relationship management (CRM) system is to improve relationships to grow your business. To this end, a CRM system provides a highly organised, online collection point for customer-related information. This makes managing and tracking information easy. For example, you can document and track the buyers’ journey for current clients, keep in touch with old clients and keep a record of prospects. CRM technology helps companies stay connected to customers, streamlines processes, and improves efficiency. This helps to save time and grow the business.

Here are 3 benefits of using a CRM system:

1. Since a good CRM system can store a wide range of information, it can be a central “archive” for all information, aligning processes between marketing, sales, customer service and administration.
2. By intelligently storing and managing your existing prospect and clients’ information, an automated CRM system more than maintains an existing database, it can help to improve the strategies that determine the number of leads your marketing and lead generation campaigns generate.
3. CRM systems allow both sales and marketing teams to personalise communication. This helps companies to build a relationship with their clients and prospects that converts prospects into clients, fosters loyalty, and nurtures customer retention.

When it comes to data input, IT specialists will tell you, “Garbage in, garbage out.”  In other words incorrect or poor-quality data input will produce flawed or useless output. Today CRM data management is of such importance to Estate Agencies that it is seen as an advantage to have someone in your team who oversees your database to ensure it is comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. To the point that some Estate Agents are taking on a dedicated CRM Virtual Assistant – in other words, Virtual Assistants with the appropriate knowledge to manage customer relationship management systems to keep client data organised and actionable.

Here are 3 valuable ways that your Virtual Assistant can help you optimise the use of your CRM system:

1. Data management: To ensure that data is updated regularly and accurately entered in the CRM system.
2. Lead management: To track target markets and lead generation campaigns – from prospect through to lead conversion.
3. Analysis: To mine the information for valuable trends and insights. For example, to analyse and report back on what is working and what is not working in generating and converting leads.

People who are successful business owners will tell you that there is great fortune to be had in consistent follow up. This makes sense when you consider that, according to research studies, only about 2% of sales happen upon initial contact. Clients who are among the 2% have already done their research and clearly know what they want.

What about the other 98%?

Each person within the remaining 98% is a warm lead – a potential client who has already shown interest in your stock or service. As they have already engaged with you personally or via your marketing channels they are typically receptive to outreach. However, their journey to becoming your client is still in progress. They need to be communicated with, educated and guided through an established sales funnel to keep them warm so that they don’t lose interest.

How can your Virtual Assistant help?

At its heart, lead nurturing is about making lasting connections with prospects. The three main elements of lead nurturing are building relationships through meaningful conversations, providing valuable insights that answer customer questions, and driving action by moving prospects closer to becoming a client over time. There are many ways your Virtual Assistant can help you in consistently gathering and nurturing warm leads. These include:

Gathering leads

• Market research: Conducting research to identify potential customers and target markets.
• Cold Calling: Reaching out to potential leads directly by phone.
• Referral marketing: Asking satisfied customers to refer your company to their associates and friends. To make your referral programme sing, consider adding incentives like an extra discount or reward. This will encourage clients to spread the word.

Nurturing leads

• Regular person-to-person follow up: Creating a follow up schedule then checking in with qualified leads via phone call, email or WhatsApp at appropriate intervals – depending on where they are at in the buyer’s journey.
• Email campaigns: Managing an email drip campaign. Email marketing campaigns can be quite effective at keeping leads warm because they provide the opportunity to keep in regular contact with prospects.
• Re-engagement campaigns: These campaigns are designed to specifically target leads within your database that have fallen dormant and re-engage them in the sales process.

• Digital marketing: Building relationships with your prospects with the goal of earning their business when they’re ready. This includes:

• • Social Media: Engaging with potential clients on social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Enhancing website visibility to attract organic leads.
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC): Using paid ads to target specific demographics and drive traffic to landing pages.

• Online education and networking events: Organising webinars and other online events to connect and add value for potential clients.
• Reporting and analytics: Monitoring and analysing lead generation efforts to optimise strategies.

Calculating the return on investment (ROI) in the months after taking on a Virtual Assistant is more than a financial exercise for UK Estate Agents. It has more facets to it than only determining a growth in the number of properties sold before and after they joined – or calculating their impact on annual turnover.  When you evaluate ROI on a more holistic basis there are multiple factors to consider. Ultimately, all of these – financial or non-financial – have been proven to impact positively on a company’s bottom line.

Here are the financially related facets to consider when evaluating the source of ROI your company will enjoy through taking on a bespoke VA through VA Central.

Financial returns on investment

Saving money

• Saving on upfront recruitment costs: Not having to pay recruitment costs when growing your team lowers annual business costs.
• Not having to pay employee benefits and compensations: Not having to pay employee benefits reduces monthly cost-to-company.

Containing costs

• Cost-effective rates: Paying for a half or full day package in which the hourly rate for your VA equates to the National Minimum Living Wage regulates annual salary costs (making growing the team affordable).

Increasing capacity

• Time is money: Freeing up the Agency Principal and Estate Agents’ time so that they can take on more properties, spend more time nurturing client relationships and closing deals will increase turnover.

Increasing efficiency

• Streamlining workflow: Having experienced VA’s onboard who will automate and streamline workflow has been proven to increase efficiency and level up Estate Agents’ service offering. This further capacitates Estate Agents to service the socks off their clients, increase their fees and grow the business.

There are benefits to be enjoyed where there is an indirect correlation between the cost of growing a team and ROI. What is tremendous about these non-financial gains (such as satisfied and engaged team members and a happy work environment) is that they also have a calculable impact on the company’s bottom line.

What are the costs associated with taking on staff?

Estate Agents in the UK are right to be hesitant in taking on additional full-time employees, even if extra hands are greatly needed in the business because of the time and costs involved. They know that the expense of taking on a new employee entails more than just the person’s salary and benefits. Additional costs cannot be ignored when crunching the numbers to ensure it is financially feasible to grow a team.

Here is an overview of 5 cost categories to include when considering the financial outlay for a full-time staff member:

1. Recruitment costs

Traditional recruitment agencies can charge 20-30% of the starting salary, which for a role associated with a salary of £25,000 per annum would equate to 5,000 to £7,500 in agency fees.

2. Remuneration

• Salaries

The average base salary for an Office Worker in the UK is £25,310 per year.

• Employee benefits

Additionally, employers of full-time staff are also responsible for the following monthly costs for each employee:

• Employer’s National Insurance Contributions (NICs) of 13.8% on any salary above the National Insurance Secondary threshold.
• Auto-enrolment pension contributions, the minimum total contribution is 8% in the 2024/25 tax year, with a minimum of 3% coming from the employer and the balance from the employee.
• Employees’ liability insurance.

• Payroll costs

There is also time-consuming employee-related administration to consider. There can be overheads associated with the cost of running an RTI-compliant PAYE payroll system to facilitate Income Tax and NIC deductions from your employee’s pay.

3. Employee entitlements

Employees are entitled to the following non-working days with pay:

• Holiday pay, which includes their leave entitlement plus bank holidays. UK holiday entitlement equates to about 6 weeks’ salary.
• Sick pay, for which employees pay eligible employees £99.35 per week for 28 weeks if they claim Statutory Sick Pay.
• Maternity/Paternity pay, for which you may need to pay employees up to 52 weeks.

4. Training and onboarding

Whether in-house or through an outside company the average cost to a UK business of training new employees is about £1,000 per employee.

5. Overhead expenses

To properly equip a new in-office employee, overhead costs will be incurred. These once-off or repetitive costs can include:

• Suitable office workspace
• Office furniture
• Computer equipment and software
• A phone line
• Extra insurance
• Travel expenses
• Increased utility expenses
• Office consumables, including stationery and refreshments

The pandemic brought on a ‘race for space’

In what has been called a ‘race for space’, the arrival of the Covid pandemic in 2020, saw the UK property market take off – in spite of predictions of a slump. During this property boom, even hard to sell houses were being snapped up. The outcome, according to the Lloyds Banking Group¹, was that at a national level, average UK house prices grew by +20.4% between January 2020 and December 2022.

For Estate Agents to conduct business as usual during lockdown, two things had to happen. In-office support staff had to work from home. And property software providers had to ramp up the development of digital solutions to facilitate remote work and client interaction. Advances in PropTech have since vastly enhanced many estate agency businesses and streamlined processes.

Post-pandemic problems

However, even with the post-Covid downturn in the UK’s domestic property market – and the subsequent equilibrium leading to a predicted upturn – three problems have arisen within Estate Agency’s “new normal”.

1. Technology has ramped up the need for speed and fitting more into each working day.

Yes, technology is an essential tool for automating workflow and facilitating seamless client communication. But it also means that clients have the marketplace at their fingertips 24/7. Prospective clients start their house-hunting online, giving rise to the need to market online, respond instantly to client enquiries and a whole host of other responsibilities that are added to each Estate Agent’s working day.

2. Talent is hard to find.

Even before the pandemic radically changed employees’ expectations and the working environment, a looming talent gap was noted as one of the most pressing concerns facing UK companies. UK-based Estate Agents are particularly hard hit in this regard, as industry-related skills and know-how are hard to find.

3. Remuneration costs are on the rise.

Today, with the cost of living on the increase, not only have salary expectations skyrocketed, younger employees are looking for faster career progression. They are taking on more senior roles without sufficient experience behind them and may quickly move on, changing jobs after a relatively short period of time.

Filling the talent gap – affordably

Award-winning Estate Agent and Mentor, Sanjay Gandhi, from Moss Properties and his Operations Director, Bronwyn Schmidt, quickly spotted the critical need to build an expanded talent pool from which UK Estate Agents could source a wider range of experienced support staff to grow their business.

Sanjay and Bronwyn understand that to be successful, freeing up valuable time and saving money is every Estate Agents’ imperative. They founded VA Central in 2020 to provide each of their UK-based Estate Agent clients with access to a global talent pool whose salary requirements are affordable – in line with the National Living Wage. Every VA Central client gets to take on the best Virtual Assistant to suit a variety of needs from among top quality, English-speaking candidates who reside in a parallel time zone.

How VA Central is transforming UK Estate Agency

Our Virtual Assistants have emerged as a game-changer for more and more UK-based Estate Agents – saving them time and money while supporting their business growth. As our clients’ needs grow, we assist them scale though taking on additional Virtual Assistant support. In this way, the business can adapt quickly to meeting changing demands.

Have you ever worked in an environment where one individual in the team is a nice person but clearly bluffed their way into their job – they don’t have the right skills – or where a person is good at their job but has such a poisonous personality – through grumbling, gossip or spite – that they cause havoc with team relationships. Both these situations can derail efficiency and productivity at a tremendous cost to a company. The costs are felt in lost revenue through inefficiency, fixing mistakes or bad service that loses clients. They are felt in having to pay recruitment costs to replace an unsuitable person and then spend time training someone new.  Plus they are costly in terms of damaging team morale.

Our mission at VA Central is to recruit Virtual Assistant who become valuable, long-standing team members who help each of our clients’ companies to flourish and grow. It’s the reason we take extra care to ensure that our candidates have the right skills and experience – and positive personal attributes that match each clients’ unique culture.

Here are three ways our clients benefit from the quality of our bespoke service:

1. Well-matched, bespoke Virtual Assistants

Every one of our bespoke Virtual Assistants is sourced with a particular client’s needs and culture in mind. Our meticulous selection process involves first getting to know each of our clients and understanding their needs. Only then do we set about sourcing the best candidates for the job. We put the top three candidates forward for a client interview and there have been several instances where the candidates have been of such a high quality that a client decides to employ more than one of them.

2. Skilled and experienced professionals

Only experienced candidates with the right skills make the cut. Successful applicants who make the shortlist are those that have the right tertiary education plus 3 – 5 years’ prior experience working in the role we are looking to fill. We have many instances where senior candidates are keen to work as Virtual Assistants in a first world market. These are highly qualified individuals who are passionate about their work and who are delighted to earn an hourly rate in keeping with the UK’s National Minimum Living Wage.

3. Well-supported through ongoing training and development

We believe in life-long learning – for ourselves and our team of Virtual Assistants. Our clients benefit from our team of VAs being provided with ongoing support through regular training and personal development initiatives. There have been instances where our clients have requested bespoke training for their incoming VA – and of course we have been happy to upskill their VA accordingly.

And there is a fourth benefit. Our clients find it invaluable to take on a Virtual Assistant who lives and works in a compatible time zone so that the whole team’s working day is in sync. Our Virtual Assistants live in a time zone that is only an hour (or two in summer) different to the UK. They enjoy keeping UK office hours. The outcome is that in every way that matters, our VAs are present and working alongside the team, competently handling important routine tasks to free up their boss’s valuable time.

What is the difference between teamwork and collaboration?

Teamwork happens when people work together toward achieving a common goal. The key difference between teamwork and collaboration is that while teamwork entails the individual efforts of team members to achieve a goal, collaboration involves a team of people sharing their ideas and skills, working together to achieve a common goal.

Why are teamwork and collaboration so important?

Teamwork and collaboration are both essential to a company’s success. Each team member has unique talents and skills. When these are shared for a common purpose, it can give a company a profound competitive advantage.

Research agrees that teamwork and collaboration bring these three benefits:

• Working in a team encourages personal growth, increases job satisfaction and reduces stress.
• People are more likely to take calculated risks that lead to innovation and creativity if they have the support of a team behind them.
• Collaborative problem-solving leads to better outcomes.

Integrating VAs into your existing team

Integrating your new Virtual Assistant into your team seamlessly is all about being properly prepared for their arrival. Here are 5 tips for a making your new VA’s entry into the company worthwhile and welcoming:

1. Prepare your existing team

It makes sense that bringing in a new personality with new attributes and capabilities will have an impact on the existing dynamic of the team. Communicate what the new person’s role is and provide information on their background and skillset to get the team excited for their arrival. Use the new person’s onboarding to introduce them and provide insights on each team member.

2. Assign an orientation partner

Having someone appropriate to answer simple questions is a great way to make sure a new person settles in quickly. Then your new VA won’t have to feel spare about interrupting a colleague. A “buddy” can also provide insights that go beyond run-of-the-mill orientation and so should be both loyal and familiar with the company culture.

3. Pre-set up protocols and procedures

Ensure you have things like an email address and logins ready – and that your new VA knows in advance what to expect when they get to work on their first day.

4. Make onboarding a priority

Onboarding should be a priority in your new Virtual Assistant’s first few days of work – including introducing them to their colleagues – and followed by any systems training that is required.  If your company does not have a formal induction programme, ensure you have prepared training manuals and company information to assist your new team member throughout their startup period.

5. Establish which are the best communication channels

You can help your new VA get to grips with which communication channels to use in different circumstances by creating a short and succinct internal communication process document that outlines the purpose of each communication tool and taking them through work in progress to bring them up to speed and illustrate how each of them are put to use. This will help them to be productive right from the get-go.

The UK’s legal requirement to ensure data security and privacy

In the UK, The Data Protection Act 2018 controls how personal information is used by organisations, companies or the government. The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

• The GDPR is set around 7 principles: Lawfulness, Fairness and transparency, Purpose limitation, Data minimization, Accuracy, Storage limitation, Integrity and confidentiality, and Accountability.
• The definition of personal data includes the term “any information” by which the subject of the data is identifiable:

“Especially by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or one of several special characteristics, which expresses the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, commercial, cultural or social identity of these natural persons.”

Why is data security important?

In business, the main purpose of data security is to protect a company’s data that contains trade information or customer data. Unprotected data can be accessed by cybercriminals for malicious reasons and so compromise customer privacy. Data security is important because if a data breach does occur, a company can be exposed to litigation, fines and reputational damage.

Ensuring data security in remote teams

As technology allows organisations collect more and more data, effective governance and access management protocols are essential to scaling data use without losing control. While companies reap the benefits of reduced overheads when taking on Virtual Assistants, remote working has precipitated new cybersecurity threats and risks that could impact negatively on a business.

Training your Virtual Assistants on data security protocols

When it comes to any security, people can inadvertently be the weakest link. One of the most important aspects of data security is education. Educate yourself and your Virtual Assistants about UK data protection legalities and about the latest trends, threats, tools and best practices in data security – as well as drilling them to adopt and maintain secure data sharing habits.

Here are 7 best practices for protecting and sharing sensitive information:

1. Encrypt sensitive data: Article 32 of the UK GDPR includes encryption as an example of an appropriate technical measure, depending on the nature and risks of your processing activities. If sensitive data must be stored on local computer hard drives, external hard drives, or flash memory drives it must be encrypted using security-approved encryption methods.
2. Safeguard information to which you have access: Ensure you and every member of your team chooses strong passwords and changes them often. Do not leave paper documents containing sensitive information unattended. You should also update or delete the information as needed, disposing of it securely when it is no longer needed.
3. Adhere to policy: Everyone in the company should know and adhere strictly to relevant policies. You may be bound by company policy, professional codes of conduct, legal obligations, or ethical standards that govern how you handle sensitive information. Insist that every team member sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that prohibits the improper sharing of sensitive information.
4. Restrict access: The best way to alleviate internal security breaches is by restricting access to as appropriate to each role. Access control systems allow company IT admins to define who within the company can access which files and networks.
5. Get consent: Consent means that the subject of the data agrees for you to hold and share the information having understood why the information is necessary, how you will use it, store it and protect it.
6. Use discretion when sharing: Before sharing any sensitive information (be it with a trusted colleague or vendor) ask yourself why you are doing it. Is it relevant, necessary and essential for a set purpose?
7. Monitor and evaluate: Put your internal processes to the test to ensure preserving data integrity and security. Keep track of what information is shared, with whom and for what purpose to avoid negative outcomes and trouble-shoot if need be.

Your Virtual Assistant should be seen as an integral part of your team – not a “bolt on” employee who works from afar. Due to your VA working remotely, building a strong working relationship will not begin with face-to-face onboarding or being able to pop into each other’s offices to get an update or answer questions. Instead, it will entail structured interaction, using digital communication tools and automated systems. However, what does not vary is that it will be forged through mutual commitment to the success of the business and regular two-way communication.

Building a strong working relationship takes time. It is not passive or self-sustaining – it takes continual input and action. Practically speaking, from your VA’s perspective, their commitment to building a strong working relationship is founded on their dedication to doing their job well and turning in work of a high standard – along with a positive can-do attitude. From the business owner’s side, it has its foundation in a commitment to thorough onboarding and any training needed, followed by regular communication and support – and consciously creating a work environment that nurtures engagement and builds a sense of belonging. One of the main benefits of building a strong working relationship is that it engenders trust.

Creating a positive virtual working environment lies at the heart of maintaining a strong working relationship with your VA – or any member of your team. One of the most positive aspects of taking on Virtual Assistants is that it allows remote members of the team to keep to office hours while also having the flexibility to see to personal commitments. This enabling of work-life balance contributes to a happy working environment.