Five Roles Your Company Should Outsource

By Gita Faust

When you run a real estate business, your goal should be—loosely—to maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company while minimizing the overall costs. A standard method for doing precisely this is outsourcing talent to fill particular roles that you do not necessarily need to complete in-house.

You might wonder, “Why wouldn’t I just hire a fulltime [insert specialty here] professional?” Well, chances are you do not need somebody to work full-time on the jobs you would outsource, so you would save money by paying them for only what you need. On top of that, these people are experts in their field, so you know their work will likely be top-tier and better than your team may have conjured up. (When you work with experienced real estate professionals, they will often have testimonials and references to share so you can see if they are the right fit for your company).

When You Should Outsource

There is no right or wrong answer to the question; it depends solely on your real estate business. At what stage of growth is your business? What talent do you already have on your team? How many employees do you have? How much revenue are you bringing in? Do you have tasks that nobody on your team has experience with? The list of questions goes on and on.

Your business can handle its normal day-to-day operations; however, when a project arises that you cannot complete due to your lack of proficiency in the subject, a lack of time on your part, or some other reason, that is when you might want to hire. For example, suppose you know that your company needs to employ a marketing campaign on social media. However, you do not have the time to do so yourself, and most of your employees are older and have little experience with social media (not to mention their hands are just as full as yours!). In a situation like this, it is wise to hire a marketing professional to organize a social media campaign; they have the experience, they have the time, and you only have to pay them for the work they do rather than as a full-time employee.

What You Should Outsource

When it comes to which roles you should outsource, it just depends on what you need; however, for most real estate professionals, there are five roles, in particular, that would be smart to outsource if you do not already have them filled on your team:

1. MARKETING

I used the previously mentioned example of hiring a marketing professional since it is the first role on this list. While you may not need to outsource all your marketing services, digital marketing is a popular service fulfilled by marketing professionals. With the rapidly growing popularity of social media, it would never hurt to hire someone who is an expert in the area. You can implement and streamline simple integrations with your CRM or sales processes to ensure you are on top of those leads. In most cases, you may not need to bring a complete digital marketing team—or even an entire general marketing team—in-house, so it makes much more sense to outsource the role.

2. HUMAN RESOURCES (AND PAYROLL!)

When you think of human resources, you often assume that somebody works in-house (I know that’s what I usually think!) However, it is becoming increasingly common to outsource your company’s human resources staff. Why? Wouldn’t you want HR to know your company and adapt to your needs? Well, HR companies do precisely that. They can meet your company’s needs (including payroll), all while minimizing risk and remaining less costly than an inhouse HR staff.

3. BOOKKEEPING AND CONTROLLERSHIP

As you know, real estate bookkeepers are hard to find, especially one that is an investor, graduate, and knows the industry and software inside out. They record transactions in detail and reconcile them for accurate reporting. You need a person who will ask questions, find errors in your closing doc, and cross their T’s and dots their I’s. This specific role is outsourced by small to mid-size businesses to reduce overhead. It saves you the expense of hiring your bookkeeper and allows your finance team to focus on tasks more geared toward your company’s performance and growth. To make the process even more streamlined, you can use software such as QuickBooks and HammerZen, which automatically uploads purchases into QuickBooks. Implementing automation into your business will save you time and money. Compare your cost with hiring an employee (with all perks), getting their work checked monthly, vs. outsourcing a bookkeeper and controller.

4. CPA AND TAX PLANNING

Tax time is the time of year that everybody dreads. It’s similar to the holidays in that you must make many preparations, but tax time comes without any festivities or holiday spirit. On top of that, tax planning requires expert knowledge, so it is best to leave it to somebody with that expertise, such as a CPA or a tax strategist (or somebody who is both!) Like bookkeeping, tax services are unlikely to be necessary full-time, so outsourcing will save you much money! Create your team by outsourcing your accounting task, and connect them with your CPA for an easy transition in filing your tax return. You will receive monthly reports that will help you keep an eye on each property budget vs. actual expense. With a snap of a finger, this process prepares you for a tax strategy session any day of the year. On top of that, outsourcing CPA and tax services removes the stress from your finance team (or you, if you are your accounting team) and allow you to be more productive.

5. CFO AND FINANCIAL STRATEGY

You might think I am crazy for suggesting you outsource your CFO, especially since I referenced your finance team a few times prior. But hear me out; when you outsource to a CFO, you hire somebody who can provide high-level strategies and advice to you and your management team—and it costs less than onboarding an in-house CFO! An outsourced fractional CFO or financial strategist does everything an in-house CFO does: develop actionable plans to help your company grow, identify methods to improve your margins and prepare for the future, and raise capital. These people already have experience in the field, but the price is low, so that outsourcing CFO services could be a highly strategic move on your part!

Should You Outsource Forever?

You read about which positions you should outsource, why it is better for your company to outsource, and yadda-yadda—but is outsourcing sustainable for the foreseeable future, or is it just temporary?

That depends on you and your real estate company. Each of these services is different, so there is no singular correct answer, but you can boil it down to this: if outsourcing suddenly outweighs the costs of hiring in-house, you should probably switch to an in-house employee. It could happen for several reasons; your business grows, and more transactions occur daily. You are closing more deals, working with contractors, you need to market your business more and more, or your number of in-house employees has grown to the point where you need to hire somebody to focus solely on them, and the list goes on. Again, it depends on you; you are the one who needs to compare the pros and cons of outsourced versus in-house employees and decide what is best for your business.

Where to Start

Now that you have decided to outsource some of these services, you might be wondering where you can find people to hire. Well, you can ask around; any mentors, associates, or other NREIA members have likely outsourced some of their services. You can look on the internet; searching for “marketing services near me” takes about five seconds, and you will be surprised with the results. You could narrow it down, too, to something like “real estate accounting services”— something specific to your company. Finally, you might already know somebody you could hire; if you have any questions, we are already here to answer them, as our goal is to help your business thrive.

Overall, there are so many places you can find professionals to bring onto your team; throw a stick in any direction, and you will probably hit somebody you could hire! (Just kidding, don’t throw sticks at anyone, please.)

Gita Faust is the founder & CEO of HammerZen, which helps businesses save time & money by keeping track of The Home Depot purchases and efficiently importing receipts and statements into QuickBooks. National REIA members receive discounts on QuickBooks services and software. Learn more by visiting www.hammerzen. com/nreia.