Topic: We chatted with MyOutDesk.com founder & president, Daniel Ramsey.
MyOutDesk is the premier real estate Virtual Assistant company realtors trust to help them with their outsourcing needs. Daniel’s experience contributes an invaluable amount of insight to MyOutDesk’s business development, sales, and marketing strategies. He is a Real Estate Broker, General Contractor and Developer. His love of new ideas and desire to dominate the industry has led MyOutDesk to its most recent successful growth on record.
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Daniel Ramsey Hangout Details
Date: March 31, 2016
Time: 8:30am Pacific
Show Notes
Beau: I met Daniel two years ago at a mastermind. I knew he was a visionary then.
Background
Dan got his broker’s license in 2004 and opened an office. He didn’t even know how to process a mortgage application.
After a lot of learning, Daniel ranked #26 out of 9000 in 2012 in Sactramento. That year, he lived 6 months in South America and kind of had an “A-ha!” moment. That started the wheels turning on outsourcing. That, plus he got married and spent most of his honeymoon working late nights and early mornings because he hadn’t set up systems yet that he could pass along to assistants and employees in his business.
In 2007, he lost 90% of his business. Foreclosures, short sales, banks not lending. Remember? That was the beginning of the mortgage meltdown that crushed a lot of real estate professionals.
That year, he hired his first virtual assistant.
Today, MyOutdesk has 1500 virtual assistants and earns $20 million in revenue. They help people in all facets of real estate.
Beau: You have to be really good at setting an agenda for your VA. They can do anything, but they need direction.
What kind of training do they get? What kind of training should I give them? Tell us more about that.
Daniel: We train them in general real estate but you need to train them on your systems. One thing that works especially well is “Play-pause-do.” Use Screencast-0-matic or Camtasia to make how-to videos. OR do a Google Hangout, set it to private, and show your VA how to do something.
Then focus on your revenue-producing activities. Everything else can be outsourced.
Beau: Right now, I’m using my VA to find properties that I can buy, rehab, and then rent out. She uses Zillow, MLS, Craigslist, and a few other websites to do the searches, to get leads…andget data for potential flips and buy and holds.
How do you get started, build the infrastructure, and how do you grow? (Watch the video!)
Things you can have your VA do:
Add contacts, track emails, organize, also track deals (budget), they can be your organizer.
And it’s easy to show people how to do all of the above on a screenshare, as mentioned before.
One important thing you need to consider: break-even point. At first, you will spend a considerable amount of time training your VA. But then he will become proficient and start earning money for you, or give you the time to earn money when you were doing administrative stuff because nobody else would or could.
In short, it’s opportunity cost avoidance. Use that free-up time for something more productive OR to provide you with the lifestyle you want.
It’s always a trade-off. But always do the revenue-producing activities and outsource as much else as you can out.
Beau: What is a cool thing you’re seeing somebody do right now in the real estate investing arena?
8% of MyOutdesk’s client base is real estate investors. The rest are brokers and agents. One guy is doing crazy mail campaigns. All inbound marketing (people call you). He puts signs on properties he’s selling. He has open houses nearly every day. All signs say something to the effect of, “Call this phone number.”
His VA handles all the calls. She calls everybody to a “pre-pre open house”. Call for your showing…invites entire neighborhood. VA does all the work.
Beau: I want to get off the grid. That’s the power of having a VA. I have a VA, VA transaction coordinator, and in-person assistant.
Dan says the best way to start is to draw a “T” on a piece of paper. On the left-hand side write out your “dollar productive activities,” everything else on right column.
What do you want to get rid of? Everything on the right-hand side. Track it all for a week, everything you do.
Then bunch those tasks into categories (listing tasks, loan docs, paperwork, etc.). You’ll find patterns. Easy things you can train your VA to do.
Daniel gave some pointers on organization, too.
If you use dropbox, Evernote, google drive (all electronic stuff), your VA can be immensely helpful to you. VAs can schedule stuff, even personal things like a night out with your wife or other personal tasks.
Also, look at repeatable tasks: Those are great candidates for VAs. Admin, scheduling, paperwork, etc.
Remember: The sweet spot for that break-even we talked about earlier is between 30-60 days
You have to coach your VAs. If they are doing phone work – record their calls. Give coaching, advice, feedback. Be their mentor/coach.
You have to learn to set up systems. It’s the only way to scale, to take yourself out of the business.
Quality of life is a biggie, too. If you don’t show other people how to do what you know, and don’t outsource it, YOU will always be doing all of those things.
A mix of physical and virtual employees is best. Also, follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of all work is revenue-producing, 20 percent is stuff you have to do but doesn’t bring in any revenue.
In order to hire a VA full-time, you need to be doing a lot of deals (a lot more than 5-6 transactions a year). Most find it ideal to hire part time.
MyOutdesk is only for real estate pros. They have 150 VAs suited to real estate investments.
They put their prospective VAs through 2 week auditions. They get trained – Basic training. Most people don’t pass. Then you get to vet them further. You interview them, and MyOutdesk helps you set up your requirements.
Consultations are free.
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