How Much Is An Excellent Assistant Worth? Are You Kidding?

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

My company is a two horse operation. And one of the horses has just been cleared to take on riders. Although in the past I’ve had several assistants, I’ve found that when it’s all boiled down, my business is built on the foundation of — homework. In the past my assistants were trainees on their way to becoming full time investment agents. So as soon as they became really good at being an assistant, they were allowed access to the next level. And I’d be back at square one — again.

It’s about to happen for the last time as my son has finished two years of training. He’s been my right hand, assistant, TC, ‘road guy’, and general doer of those things we’d all rather avoid. And now I have to figure out how to replace the irreplaceable. The cost to train and retain long term, an employee as effective as Josh would literally be unaffordable. How do you find someone who can solve problems, keep clients happy, snap the whip, and million other things? And on top of all that care as much as I do about the results? You probably don’t.

Enter Becky Bethke. Calling her a diamond in the rough would be damning her with faint praise. We’ve done about 20 transactions in the general Boise region in the last two quarters this year. Not a tremendous number, but enough to test the local supporting cast. I’ve gone through two escrows, two title companies, three lenders, two property inspectors, and a partridge in a pear tree. And one Transaction Coordinator. Though calling her a TC is an undeserved compliment to TC’s everywhere.

I won’t bore you with the details, but outside of delivering pizza and beer when escrows close, Becky does everything else. She calls her company The Closing Source. She calls herself a Transaction Coordinator. Trust me, she’s not a TC, not even close. My mom was an executive secretary back when that’s what they called executive assistants. In her prime she wouldn’t be a better assistant than Becky.

When we are successful in acquiring another Boise property she gets the file before the ink on the contract is dry. She pretty much takes care of everything until closing. Our lenders, escrow and title, the other agent, home warranty company, and whoever else is involved, become aware very quickly that nothing escapes Becky’s all-seeing third eye. If you fall down on the job you’ll get a gentle reminder from her. Don’t respond immediately and you’ll get another email showing all the appropriate folks who were CCed, putting everyone on notice — you haven’t done your job. It rarely happens more than once. I’ve begun referring to her affectionately as Darth Beck.

Problems are simply not allowed to grow legs.

Without knowing it she’s become a Virtual Assistant. Most of her clients don’t really get it. She has said to me, “I think it’s boring to do just the normal TC stuff. I thought the idea was to close escrows.” Exactly. She’s now working on how to find potential employees who think and work like she does. We think she’s fishing in the wrong pools, and have suggested possible alternative sources.

Of course the idea of a Virtual Assistant is not original. We’ve seen them before. Google the phrase and you’ll get over 22 million results. But they won’t be Darth Beck. They’ll say they are. They’ll have great intent. But the results won’t come close. How many virtual assistants – how many in-house assistants are you aware of who produce the kind of results she does? I’ve met two in 37 years. And those two had the same sixth sense of anticipation Darth Beck has.

Now let’s go back to the original question. Is an assistant really worth it? Think about doing twice the business you’re doing now. If it happened over night would a TC make the difference for you? No way. What if your TC actually performed like a full time in-house assistant? It’d be a breeze. As we did this year, my son and I will be travelling between California, Arizona, and Idaho in 2007. Though we do what most would be considered a lot of business already, we think ’07 will possibly triple our load. One, maybe two dozen multi-state tax deferred exchanges, clients located all over the map — and Becky will be the reason we won’t be hiring office help in Idaho…..or California……or Arizona.

We won’t need help. We use the power of Darth Beck.