Every Investor, even the newbie, needs to delegate some tasks in order to allow enough time for the money-making activities that they should be concentrating on.
Studies show that only 20% of what we do is focused directly on income-producing activity. Imagine how much we could earn if we refocused more of our work hours on those tasks critical to making money?
What do we do with the other 80% of tasks that seem to consume most of our time? Well, some of it can be dropped as unproductive and unnecessary. The other tasks can be delegated.
There are three inexpensive alternatives to finding help for your real estate business:
1. Hire interns. Any entrepreneur near a college or university with a business, marketing, communications, or IT program will find bright, eager beginners who may even be eligible for college credit by interning for your company. Often, it costs the entrepreneur nothing to hire college interns. Just check with the university departments in question and ask if there are interns available. Sometimes colleges and universities have work-study stipends to offer interns who work for employers off-campus. Alternatively, advertise on Craigslist or other social media for an intern and outline the tasks that will be delegated to the intern, the hours per week, and whether the work will be done on-site or off-site. Indicate if you are offering pay, room and board, or other benefits in exchange for the work experience. Often just that work experience, a good recommendation or write-up for a grade, and possibly a nice gift at the end of the internship will be enough to attract top-notch student interns to your business.
2. Hire VAs. You can hire virtual assistants from the Philippines for $250-$350 per month for a full 40 hours of work a week, with an extra month’s pay if the VA works for you for a full year. There are agencies that will pre-screen candidates from the Philippines and other countries and can supervise their work for you for a small service fee. Make sure that you make your expectations clear and provide sufficient training and procedural documentation to get your VA off to a good start. Reporting procedures are critical so you see the results of their work every day.
3. If you have kids or grandkids under the age of 18 you can hire them without paying social security or Medicare taxes if the business is a sole proprietorship or a partnership owned by a parent or grandparent of the child or grandchild. Essentially the kids can be hired with pre-tax dollars.
The advantages to hiring your own kids and grandkids are obvious. More important than the tax savings are the lessons in entrepreneurship that you can teach them by providing them with an opportunity to work with you. I might be a little biased, though – all three of my children work with me!