One way to work less, but more efficiently, is by hiring an assistant. Choosing sagaciously, however, is more nuanced than one might think
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One way to work less, but more efficiently, is by hiring an assistant. Choosing sagaciously, however, is more nuanced than one might think.
Julie Brenneman, broker-owner of The Mortgage Centre Hometown Financial, would work herself into the ground and still couldn’t manage to satisfy all the demands on her time.
“Working 80 hours a week without help affected my family life and business because I couldn’t get to everyone and I was stressed out,” said Brenneman. “My son was six when I started doing this and my wakeup call was when I went to one of his soccer games. I used to miss all of them, but I went to one and when he got off the field he was angry at me. He said, ‘It’s great you came to one of my games but you were on your phone the entire time.’”
Brenneman couldn’t even take a vacation without things going sideways because, as a one woman show, nobody was around to pick up the slack.
Fast forward eight years and Brenneman’s mastery of time should be exemplary to all high-producing brokers. She presently has two assistants, but by next year she’ll fully realize her team’s plan: An assistant handling business destined for A lenders, another one for the alternative space, an assistant whose focus will be documents and compliance, and a part-time marketing person.
Working 30 hours a week now, Brenneman has hiring down to a science that allows her to optimize those hours into what she calls money-making activities.
“If you’re putting files together, that’s not a money-making activity. You can outsource that,” she said, noting that fiverr.com and upwork.com are excellent resources. “I’m doing all the networking, going after business, attending all the events, but I’m only working 30 hours a week because I have all these people in the background and we’re making more money than before.”
A common refrain Brenneman hears from peers in the industry is that they can’t afford to hire assistants. She takes the opposite approach: “You really can’t afford not to have an assistant if you want to make money.”
She recommends the Tony Robbins’ DISC Personality Test to determine suitability for certain jobs.
“Most broker-owners are high D or I, which would be outgoing salespeople. That’s not what you want to hire in an assistant because you want them to do the tasks you’re not good at. You want them to be more organized and detail oriented.”
Brenneman also doesn’t consider applicants without any previous mortgage experience—and that extends to people from the banking world, namely tellers. Instead, she prefers applicants who have worked directly with mortgages or have experience doing loans.
“Bring them in and test their knowledge,” said Brenneman. “For example, do they know how to source a down payment? See how knowledgeable they really are, because a lot of the time they’re coming from a bank and have very basic knowledge, and then it’s a lot of training.”
And, of course, there’s the cardinal rule of hiring: No family, no friends.
