Hiring an assistant

 

I am really excited to the next part of this guest post on “How to Hire Your Dream House Flipping Assistant! (Part 2)”.

Monday I posted the first part of this article and today we get down to the “nitty-gritty” in the final piece of Part 2 of this article by Justin Williams.

 

Vanessa’s Pay

With Vanessa, I set up her pay schedule like this:

Month 1: $11 / hour

Months 2-3: $12 / hour

Months 4-6: $13 / hour

Months 7-12: $14 / hour

After Year 1: $15 / hour

Like I mentioned before, your employees are much more valuable once they are trained than when they first start. (To be honest, I almost feel like they should pay you for the first couple months to learn your systems, but of course that isn’t how it works, and this is why employees are an investment, right?) The training you put in to your employee increases their value considerably after just a few months.

People also like to see that they are progressing, so if they know those raises are coming it will help keep them motivated and avoid the possibility that they will look for a “better” opportunity.

Now, I know that some of you might say “but shouldn’t a raise be based on performance”? My answer to that is, if your employee isn’t progressing at the rate they should, then you should probably just let them go anyway. Good performance and a strong work ethic should be something that is a given — not something considered unique or special.

For the bonus structure I worked out with Vanessa, if memory serves I paid her $100 for every house we purchased and then $200 for every house we sold. This gave her an added incentive to make sure the company was successful.

After the first year with your assistant you can re-evaluate where you want to be. Do they have what it takes to eventually run your entire operation? Or are they more of the type to just take care of the day-to-day administrative work? I’ll let you work that out for yourself in 365 days, but for now let’s get back to the hiring process. 😉

 

Narrowing Things Down

The next thing you should do is set up a specific email address just to use for the ad you post regarding this position. This is where you will have people send their resumes. I also requested that they send an email or cover letter explaining why they felt they deserved the job. This helped me in three big ways:

1. It let me know if they could actually follow directions.

2. It let me know if they actually read my ad or just threw resume’s at the wall hoping one would stick

3. It let me know, in their eyes, why they thought they’d be a good fit for the job.

In the end I received well over 100 resumes for the ad I posted. I went through and eliminated those who didn’t follow instructions or include the cover message. I also tossed out those who had poor grammar and spelling (not to say they needed to be perfect, but there were some real doozies in there!). I also eliminated anyone who didn’t have experience with the MLS or real estate.

This got rid of 60% of the applicant’s right off the bat, which was a great time-saver.

Then I looked a little more carefully at their resumes and eliminated anyone who couldn’t type at least 40 words a minute. (I mean if they couldn’t type, how were they going to do everything else I needed them to do?) And people who looked like they couldn’t keep a steady job (i.e. they were in and out of work every few months). Plus anyone else that just didn’t seem to meet the qualifications.

This brought the total down to around 15 – 20 applicants.

 

The Cream of the Crop

At this point I went through and, rather than focus on elimination, focused on the ones I thought would be the MOST qualified and narrowed it down to about 10.  I then e-mailed all 10 of these individuals the same questions.

Now, I don’t remember exactly what I asked, but they were about 4 to 5 questions of the normal “interview scenario” type, and I sent them to each of the 10 top applicants.

Two of them didn’t respond, and of the 8 that did I narrowed it down to the top 3, with whom I set up a phone interview so I could get to know them a bit better and ask more specific questions. Of those three there was one that really stood out. But I didn’t eliminate the other two yet. Instead I asked all three of them to meet me at Starbucks. But when I met the first choice I knew that I had found the right one and hired my superstar assistant, Vanessa!

So, that was a lot to read, and while it might seem like it is a long process, in the end I really only spoke to 3 people on the phone and ended up only meeting one of them in person. But putting in that effort really has been worth its weight in gold!

As you prepare to hire your “rock star” assistant, the next question you’ll have is “how do I go about training them?”

Well, this is exactly what I’ll be covering in my next post! So, in the meantime, get going and write that ad so you can find your assistant! 😉

 

Did You Miss Our Podcast?

If you missed the podcast we did a while back, but if you missed ityou can listen to that here.  

 

House Flipping HQ

Be sure to stop by Justin's site “House Flipping HQ” where you will find articles, podcast's and more to help you grow your REI business.   Just Click Here to check it out …..

Justin Williams House Flipping HQAbout Justin Williams

Justin Williams is a professional real estate investor and house flipper who, for the past 7 years has built his systems and business to around 100 deals per year, all with minimal involvement from himself.  Currently Justin is helping educate others and share his knowledge through his website and podcast, available at www.HouseFlippingHQ.com

 

If you haven't already subscribed to the “Inner Circle”, be sure to do that today so you don’t miss any of the business building tips I have coming your way. I want this year to be your best year ever!  And if you enjoyed this article, please share it.

Pin It on Pinterest

Shares
Share This