The results are in for the October Mr. Internet/Realty Times survey of agents and their use of on-site assistants.

"Of the 227 people who responded to the October Mr. Internet/Realty Times survey, 127 said that are using online assistants," says Michael J. Russer, AKA Mr. Internet. "They are using it mostly for clerical and some secretarial work, but no one is using an assistant at the executive level which is where you get the biggest bang for the buck."

According to Russer, there are three levels of assistants:

• Clerical - Clericals perform tasks with low skill requirements such as data entry, telephone answering, responding to e-mail, correspondence with little self-direction.

• Secretarial - These individuals have more advanced clerical skills with some self direction. They can work on things that are not defined completely like CMA research and writing, marketing projects, and creating marketing materials.

• Executive Assistant - At the executive assistant level, the employee takes a strategic view to bring the highest value to the business. The executive assistant helps the agent stay on track by allowing the agent to do what he or she does best and by taking over other functions besides those that are clerical or secretarial in nature that the agent would benefit by delegating.

"Almost half of the respondents aren't using assistants at all and the typical response is that I don't have the time or I can't afford the trouble or money involved," says Russer. "They are concerned about keeping an assistant busy, and that brings up scalability. It takes time to hire a good one, and then you have to stay at a level to keep them busy"

"I suspect that there are few that have executive level assistants," says Russer. "I have someone like that in my business - she hires people for me, and lets me know when I am off track. She''ll say, "Michael, that is not what you should be doing." I can make suggestions, but her primary goal is to let me achieve what I want to achieve and bring the highest level of value to the business."

"I wanted to contrast the idea of an on-site assistant with that of the virtual assistant which is highly scalable - you are only paying for the hours you need and for no overhead," says Russer. "As independent contractors there is no need to incentify them with commission splits."

"It is interesting that it is because the agents and their assistants are in the traditional model. Most who responded that they had assistants pay entry level wages of up to $14 per hour, and they also have the expense of providing furniture, vacation and sick pay and other benefits. If they don't have space, ability, money and time to mess with one, now we have an alternative that makes all those issues go away. Right now the chicken and egg issue is that assistants are viewed as being a resource only available for top producers, but any agent can become a top producer with an assistant that will help you grow our business without growing your infrastructure."

Published: November 1, 2001

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