Outsource and grow your business

Run off your feet?  Outsource!

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the huge number of tasks required to be completed in order to keep a real estate agency running. Clever agency principals are tapping into a concept that the large corporates have been using for years – outsourcing. Sold Magazine spoke to Elle Whyatt, a businesswoman who believes outsourcing is the way of the future.

Savvy business people have done the sums and worked out that their time is better utilised on chasing the bigger dollar.

There’s a global trend – in peoples’ personal lives as well as business – to delegate daily tasks in order to focus on things that are more important to us or more dollar-productive. It’s a trend that is somewhat attached to generational values. For example, it would have been a shot at your grandparents’ pride for your grandfather not to wash his own car, or your grandmother not to cook the meal for a dinner party, however, there would be many a member of Generation Y who regularly employs the services of a car detailer and who wouldn’t think twice about hiring a personal chef when entertaining friends. A willingness to let go of values-based attitudes of the past may be part of the phenomenon, but it’s more likely to be the fact that savvy business people have done the sums and worked out that their time is better utilised on chasing the bigger dollar at work, or recharging the batteries on social time.

It’s no secret that the large corporates are achieving greater profits through outsourcing IT and call-centre type projects to organisations overseas, but small businesses are finding outsourcing is also accessible to them to assist where the business owner or manager just can’t wear all the hats required to keep the business running and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

How do you determine whether it’s worth outsourcing tasks? On a business level, it’s just maths. If your hourly worth is say, $50, and you can pay someone $25 per hour to take care of your administrative tasks so you can concentrate on making sales, then your time is better spent on the dollar-productive sales area.

On a personal level, the equation is more emotional. For example, if someone can look after admin tasks while you coach your son’s junior soccer team after school, the benefits are most likely to be priceless.

Welcome to the great outsourcing debate. For the affirmative, we have advocates of outsourcing as many of your daily tasks as possible like Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Workweek. For the negative we have a martyr-like urge to do every little thing ourselves. Just a minute – if we let go of that old fashioned emotional attachment to tasks, there’s no debate at all – it’s just good business sense.

Keep on running
Elle Whyatt had spent twelve years working in real estate. She particularly enjoyed paying attention to the finer details and providing high-level support to executives. She identified a need for people in business (not just real estate) to outsource daily business tasks as well as tasks relating to their personal lives. In 2009 Elle established her Adelaide-based business, Running in Heels, a company she glamourously describes as a “personal concierge”.

Basically it’s a service where busy people can delegate the things they don’t have time to do themselves. It is part of a whole new industry sector in providing personal and business support services and it suits the needs of real estate agents perfectly.

Elle attributes the trend towards outsourcing to a shift in society’s idea of what it means to be happy and successful. She explains, "The current generations who saw their parents stressed and tired with no time to spend with them are making a conscious effort to spend meaningful hours with their own families.  For busy single people too, they are making it clear that climbing the corporate ladder, having the European car and trendy inner city home doesn’t always equal success.”

“Perhaps you’re a small business owner and find the tedious tasks are keeping you from doing what you really want – that may be growing the business, spending more time with family and friends or taking up a hobby. Then wouldn’t you want to find a way to achieve some balance? I think today’s generations are more self aware and realise they have the ability to make a change to their lives. Today, people and businesses are realising that if certain jobs or tasks are not representing the best use of their time then why not have them outsourced to a professional who can do them?”

While the propensity to outsource business tasks or employ the services of a lifestyle manager is greater for younger generations, the concept is being embraced by people across many demographics and to achieve many different goals. Describing her clients, Elle says, “Surprisingly there isn’t a particular stereotype of our typical customer. We have retired professionals, working single mothers, bachelors, families, single dads, small business owners, fly in/out clients, older professional women, seniors.  The corporate side of our business has clients whose priority is staff retention and in creating a happy workplace. The common thread is that all our clients are proactive. They’ve realised that there is a solution to their home-life or workplace workload and have all made the decision to outsource.”

Outsourcing makes perfect sense for the real estate industry because agents need to wear so many hats in order to get each day’s work done and inevitably, the “day’s” work involves business afterhours and on weekends and time becomes a precious commodity.

Outsmart by outsourcing
Although there are plenty of advocates for outsourcing, perhaps the most attention-grabbing one is innovative American businessman, Timothy Ferriss, who gloats about his globetrotting lifestyle, all made possible by outsourcing his work around the world and working himself for just four hours per week. He now has devout fans (as well as vocal critics!) globally. Perhaps his ideas are a bit far-fetched for most real estate agents but he certainly does give some interesting food for thought for anyone who has ever felt weighed down by the to-do list on their office desk.

Elle says, “I love this advice by Timothy Ferriss, found in his book The 4 Hour Workweek. He says, 1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important and 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important. He explains that what you do is more important than how you do it.” She adds, “Often agents (especially those who’ve been in the industry a long time), tend to run around being ‘busy’ but in most cases not ‘effective’. By identifying, and outsourcing the tasks that are not the best use of your time, a huge amount of possibilities open to you.”

According to Elle, there are three main benefits for a real estate agency in outsourcing tasks;
It helps free time – Business owners can spend the free time working on effective means of building their business. Perhaps that is taking time to attend a seminar or working closer with the sales team to implement ideas that have been on the back-burner for ages. Perhaps this redirection can heighten the focus on core competencies within the office.
It helps reduce costs – If an agent is spending time running errands for vendors or typing appraisal reports when they could be meeting with a new client, and these tasks can be carried out by someone external to the company, at a fraction of the amount that they could otherwise be earning, then outsourcing is not an expense, but a money saving exercise.
Things “start to move” – Once an agent starts to outsource different tasks, they find they have a release of energy which propels them forward. They can put ideas into action which they never previously had the time to test or implement.

Time-saver tips
If you’re so busy that you don’t know where to start, Elle has some suggestions on the areas real estate agencies can benefit most from outsourcing. Remember, it may take some time to explain the task and how you require it to be done the first time you delegate it, but ultimately, the more specific you can be with instructions, the better the results you can expect.

1. Property management – Routine property inspections can be carried out by an experienced inspector so the property manager can focus on building the rent roll and marketing.
2. Home presentation – A third party home stylist can be effective in showing a vendor how to de-clutter and present their home for sale. This is often met with a more positive response than when the sales agent makes the suggestions.
3. Corporate and client gifts – Anyone can hand over a bottle of Champagne at settlement, but by outsourcing gift buying to a specialist, you can make a lasting statement with the quality and uniqueness of the gift.
4. Attending building and pest inspections – A busy agent can lose several hours per week attending inspections but a company like Running in Heels will provide a person to open the house, attend, take notes and follow up action points if required.
 5. Vacant properties or absentee vendors – A personal concierge can visit vacant properties prior to open inspections and take care of presentation details eg sweeping, dusting, opening windows, turning on air conditioners, replacing flowers, watering plants and collecting junk mail.
6. Co-ordinating staff and client functions – Events like Christmas parties, corporate golf days, financial year award celebrations are best outsourced so office staff can concentrate on their specific jobs.
7. Mail-outs – Christmas cards, large mail-outs, folding brochures and stuffing envelopes can be outsourced to a personal concierge or sometimes charity organisations.
8. Award submissions – Have you ever wanted to enter industry or business awards but didn’t have time to complete the submission process? Elle says she has helped put together a number of award applications resulting in some happy winners.
9. Professional office organising – Too busy to sort out your messy office? A professional organiser can help agents with implementing systems, de-cluttering, filing and assist with space saving ideas that create ideal working environments.
10. Office errands – You name it, they’ll run it! A personal concierge can provide a dry-cleaning pick-up and delivery service for all staff in the office, even arrange the delivery of birthday cakes or special gifts.
11. Bookkeeping – Outsourcing the bookwork and accounts side of the business can release business owners from being too bogged down in paperwork. That time is better spent sourcing new business!
12. Specialised administration tasks – Elle uses the example of Form 1 documents (which agents are required to complete in South Australian property sales) which can be outsourced to The Form 1 Company in Adelaide, saving agents time and also releasing them of liability.

Tiny details, huge impact
Elle’s corporate concierge service adds value for real estate agents and has huge benefits for vendors who are time poor. For example, on a Friday she will prepare properties for weekend open inspections by watering plants, sweeping porches, replacing fresh flowers and fruit, even the odd blown light globe. Depending on the weather, air conditioners or heaters may need to be switched on a couple of hours prior to the open, or she may light candles, put on music or arrange garden furniture if requested.

Elle gives the example of an agent listing a deceased estate, often via a Public Trustee. She says, “It’s then left to the agent to deal with a house in desperate need of a clean and its contents de-cluttered or disposed of. By outsourcing this task to a concierge service, salespeople save countless hours by making one phone call, instead of 20. Running In Heels can then recommend cleaners and gardeners, oversee the process and report back to the agent. De-cluttering and organising the home into a state ready for marketing is personally handled with the agent free to work on more important income-generating tasks.”

One agency using Elle’s services is Klemich Real Estate in Adelaide. They are a medium sized boutique agency that has a reputation for delivering a high level of customer service. Directors Oren Klemich and Matt Smith are conscious of maintaining this level of personalised service and have embraced the personal concierge option.

“It makes more sense to employ the services of Elle Whyatt for tasks that don’t represent the best use of our employee’s time” says Matt Smith. “If our sales people or their personal assistants are too busy to sit in a house for two hours while a building inspection is taking place, then we have the ability to call on Elle to attend to that for us. Plus with her extensive real estate experience, we know the vendor is being looked after and any questions raised will be dealt with professionally and with care.”

The list of odd jobs that Elle has been assigned with is endless, and although some of the requests may seem like trivial details – buying a bag of green apples, making a last-minute key delivery, sourcing unique corporate gifts, even making a vendor’s bed and hiding their dirty washing – they go a long way towards making an agent’s life easier and helping achieve a sale!

The business end
But back to business, for real estate agents who view a personal concierge service as a luxury currently out of their reach, they may find it easier to justify outsourcing the areas of database management, creation of marketing material, co-ordination of staff and client events or property management accounts. Whatever the task, the aim of outsourcing is that tasks which can be done efficiently and cost-effectively by a third party should be delegated in order to accomplish tasks in-house that are capable of generating more income for the business.

Of course, before you hand over all your prospecting calls to a call centre in India and start sailing around the Whitsundays, you need to look at what is appropriate for your business and your clients. Real estate is, afterall, a people business, and personal (face-to-face) contact is still one of the most important parts of your job. You’ll also need to look at what is available in your area and suited to your business and your clients. Some tasks may be specific to your region, your state, or even to your own ways of doing business.

The first step in the outsourcing process is to carry out an audit of the tasks required for your business to function properly and sort the dollar-productive tasks from the non-dollar-productive tasks. When you have decided what can be outsourced, you’ll need to find a suitable third party service provider to take care of it – and this is important as their ability to do the job well is your key to success.

Some tasks that you may decide to outsource involve the handling of sensitive information, client data or financial details. Elle offers the following tips for finding a reputable and ethical concierge or service provider.

1. Look for a concierge who has experience in being an executive assistant or personal assistant at a high level. Also, life experience counts for a lot. They are more likely to be more organised, efficient, able to take the “bull by the horns” and to meet your needs. Check out their background and ask for referrals if required.
2. Check if they’re a member of the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association. This ensures that you are dealing with a reputable company that has an industry body which requires members to adhere to certain standards.
3. Check out their website. If it’s professional, easy to read and follow, it will generally give you an indication of the individual behind it. Messy, complicated websites which have no directive or are hard to navigate often are a reflection of the business owner.
4. Meet with the Personal Concierge or Lifestyle Manager prior to commencing services. You will be working very closely with this person, exchanging personal and sometimes financial information. You want to feel comfortable with this person and build a rapport.
5. Find someone who is passionate. This will be evident from your very first phone call with them. You want an enthusiastic, happy person taking care of your request. You want to know that this person is committed to making your life easier.
6. Look for a company with a broad range of services. This will give you an indication of the concierge’s skill level and you want to know they can take care of anything you throw at them.
7. Don’t hire on price. It’s like in real estate. You wouldn’t choose the cheapest agent to sell your house just because their fee was 1%. Hire someone you feel comfortable with, who has handled your initial enquiry well and who you feel will best service your business.

The only trouble with outsourcing your business tasks is that it can be contagious and you may find it spreading into your personal life. Before you know it, you’ll be eagerly outsourcing your housework, hiring a dog-walker, finding someone to organise your kids’ birthday parties and someone to do your Christmas shopping. But hey, if it frees up more time for you to spend at work, you’ll have plenty of time to make more sales!

Editor’s note: Learn more about Elle Whyatt at www.runninginheels.com.au. You’ll find great tips on outsourcing for real estate agents at www.agentplus.com.au/outsourcing.