If you are a real estate entrepreneur who feels stretched thin, buried in admin, and wondering how other people seem to scale faster without burning out, this is the story of how I changed the trajectory of my business. I share exactly how I integrated virtual assistants into my real estate agent business, how that decision multiplied my production in a brand new market, and how it ultimately helped me build a business I could sell. This is the behind the scenes of what actually shifted when I stopped trying to do everything myself.
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Hello and welcome. I’m Adrienne Green and today I’m excited because I’m going to share my own story of how I got started with virtual assistants as a real estate entrepreneur.
This is something I’m really passionate about, helping other real estate entrepreneurs use virtual assistants within their business. I want to show you why and tell you how transformational it was for me. I first brought in virtual assistants to my real estate agent business before I brought them into the investing side. It really was what led me to go from a solo agent to a team leader to then having a business that I could sell. It was transformational in the amount of income it brought in and the amount of impact I could have for the people I worked with. That is why I love helping other people get virtual assistants through my virtual staffing company, Workergenix.
I’m going to share that story from the very beginning. If you want to evaluate the difference this could make in your own business, head over to my website, adriennegreen.com. I have a Time and Freedom Starter Pack. There is a free download you can get that walks you through exactly how this could work in your business so you can evaluate whether it would be a good fit for you.
Let’s dive into my story of how I got started with virtual assistants.
For those of you who don’t know me, I was a real estate investor starting in 2013. Being a real estate investor led to me becoming a real estate agent in 2018. I was a solo agent at first. I was in the Northern Virginia market and had a pretty solid business there. I was averaging about five million in sales volume. I did 12 transactions a year. If I had a closing a month and always had one under contract, that brought me around a hundred thousand in income. That was pretty good.
I will note, shout out to my husband Harley. During this time period he had read The Four Hour Work Week and suggested I could use a VA to help me as a real estate agent. I did not listen. I dismissed it. I said I did not need to do that and questioned how it would even work.
In 2020, I met an amazing team with Keller Williams and they convinced me to join. This team used virtual assistants. It was my first time working in a business that used virtual assistants. I saw for myself how helpful it was. It lightened my load as an agent and allowed me to focus on what I do best.
After joining that team, my husband and I decided to relocate from Northern Virginia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. I did not stay on that team very long, but I appreciate what they gave me. It was huge in helping me build my own business once I moved to Chattanooga because I had seen how they used virtual assistants.
That takes us to the end of 2020. In January 2021, I was ready to start being an active agent in Chattanooga. I had my licenses for Tennessee and Georgia and was ready to roll. It was a challenging situation.
I was in a new market where I had no sphere. I knew one person in Chattanooga and she was a real estate agent. A lot of real estate agents get their clients from people they know, people they went to high school with, people they are in the PTA with. I did not have those long standing connections.
I was also moving from a market where the average price point was around five hundred thousand to a market where the average price was around three hundred thousand. If I wanted to do the same amount of business, I was going to have to do roughly twice the work.
On top of that, I had three children between the ages of zero and five. I was starting a business from scratch without connections and during a time of life with significant personal demands.
What would you be thinking in that situation? How would you set up your business to succeed?
I was lucky enough to have an amazing coach who was a friend of mine. We sat down and came up with two key pieces of my strategy. The first was that I was going to niche down to helping real estate investors. Real estate investors were my passion and how I got into real estate in the first place. It was an area where I could differentiate myself from other agents because I was an experienced investor.
The second piece of that strategy was that I was going to hire a virtual assistant. I was going to need to do twice the number of deals just to make the same amount of money, and I wanted to make more. I knew that meant more paperwork, more back end work, and more lead generation because I did not have a sphere or past clients. I needed to free up time for lead generation and marketing. That meant someone helping with operations and the logistics of marketing was going to be transformational.
There are many reasons to hire a virtual assistant. The affordability, because they can be much more affordable than someone in person. Greater selection, because you are pulling from an entire country rather than just the city you live in. High education levels, where I could afford someone who was college educated. The ability to have multi use employees who could help with operations, marketing, and bookkeeping. Flexibility in scheduling.
One thing that was huge for me was that I did not have to figure out payroll, W2s, 1099s, or overhead. I wanted someone full time. I needed forty hours of work a week. That was not going to be an independent contractor. I would have needed to set up payroll and handle all of that legally. I did not want that additional paperwork and overhead. With virtual assistants located abroad, I did not have to deal with US employment laws, tax withholding, or insurance. It made it much easier to commit.
What did the virtual assistant do?
I hired a VA full time. It was harder because Workergenix did not exist yet, so I had to figure it out myself. I break down what they did into three main pieces.
First, they did eighty percent of my computer and phone based tasks. Eighty percent of what you are doing on the computer or phone can be handled virtually.
Second, they did my bottom eighty percent tasks. We all know the eighty twenty rule. The top twenty percent of our tasks make eighty percent of the difference, but we spend time and bandwidth on the bottom eighty percent. They handled those.
Third, they did tasks I could not do.
For the computer and phone tasks, they handled contract to close tasks. They managed contracts, ordered and sent client gifts, and took care of tasks that were not my top twenty percent. They helped with emails. After consultation calls with new clients, we would send email introductions to lenders, property managers, or general contractors. We had template emails for each scenario. I would provide the details, and my virtual assistant would customize and send the emails. They set up buyer searches and handled the back end after a client connection.
For the bottom eighty percent tasks, bookkeeping and accounting were major. Many real estate entrepreneurs do not have up to date books. My virtual assistant kept everything updated. Every Friday during my business planning block, I reviewed a Google Sheet they updated with year to date income, outstanding liabilities, credit card totals, bank balances, assets, and commission under contract. I had a clear financial snapshot every week. They also handled compliance and contract prep so I could review rather than create from scratch.
For tasks I could not do, they handled video editing, graphic design, and event planning. We started hosting real estate investor meetups. After the first event, my VA created an SOP and checklist so it became repeatable. All I needed to do was select the date and time.
What was the effect?
I brought on a virtual assistant in January 2021. By August 2021, I had done fifty four real estate transactions in a new market where I had no sphere. That was ten million in volume. In eight months, I did five times more transactions than I had previously done in a full year and twice the volume.
I was so busy that even with a full time VA and showing agents, I needed to start a team. The virtual assistant handled so much of the back end that I was able to focus on lead generation and marketing, including YouTube. I would record a video and my VA would edit it, create the thumbnail, add captions, upload it, and promote it. That marketing brought in clients. I would not have had time without a virtual assistant.
In August 2021, I started a real estate team. We had agents, and virtual assistants did all the admin work. Over two years, we typically had three virtual assistants: one focused on contract to close, one on video editing and marketing, and one on general admin. Annually, we did about twenty seven million in sales volume and about one hundred thirty transactions.
We were able to run a volume based business because virtual assistants handled so much of the admin. We consistently ranked in the top ten percent of our market center. I was selected for the Agent Leadership Council in 2023.
Beyond the numbers, having that help allowed me to have time with my family. I went to little league games and school events. That was a huge part of it.
In August 2023, I attended a mega agent camp and realized I was not excited to implement new ideas for the team. I felt it was time to sell. I made that decision in August and sold the team at the end of October 2023.
Having virtual assistants helped with the sale. First, they lowered our costs, which increased net income. If a virtual assistant costs twenty four thousand a year instead of forty eight thousand, that increases net income by twenty four thousand. With a two or three times multiple, that increases the valuation by forty eight to seventy two thousand.
Second, the business was less reliant on me. When valuing a business, buyers ask how much leaves when the owner leaves. Because virtual assistants handled systems and procedures, contract to close and client experience remained intact even when I stepped away. The business maintained more of its value.
After selling the team, we started online businesses and began traveling full time. I initially focused on how I used virtual assistants in my real estate agent business. After that success, I brought them into my property management and investing business. We also started Workergenix because we saw how transformational it was and wanted to make it easier for other entrepreneurs. I had learned lessons the hard way with VAs quitting or having issues, so we built Workergenix to solve that.
It was transformational. It allowed me to go from being a solo agent working for every dollar to building a team that became a saleable asset that paid me even after I stepped away.
If you have questions, put them in the comments below and I will check and answer them. If this was helpful, share what resonated with you.