When Kathy Drewien of RE/MAX Realty Group - Atlanta Relocation Services called her Virtual Assistant, Kim Hughes of Creative Business Concepts, in Dallas, TX, to have her prepare a CMA, she simply provided Kim with the property address, MLS number, access codes, property photo, etc. In very little time, Kim created a unique personalized Comparative Market Analysis and laptop presentation that was instrumental in the speedy listing and sale of a $500,000 home in less than 3 days!

(NOTE: Kim Hughes is featured in this edition's VA PROFILE)

With little effort from the Realtor, Kim took the ball and ran with it. She already had Kathy’s MLS program installed on her computer. She obtained all of the property information and the comps utilizing the tax rolls and property info from the Multiple Listing Service by using Kathy’s access codes (using comps suggested by Kathy). Kim then organized all the information and input it into a PowerPoint presentation, which enabled her to print a hard copy and have a laptop presentation with sound and special effects such as flash. Kim sent it via the Internet to Kathy who printed and bound it for presentation.

Armed with this unique, compelling hard copy and laptop presentation CMA (RIGHT-CLICK HERE to download an eFax Messenger Plus version of it - 1mb) Kathy went to her appointment, obtained the listing that afternoon and sold the house in 3 days!! Now that’s success —especially when you realize that while her VA was doing the hard part of creating a CMA, Kathy was free to generate more business!

How your VA goes about creating CMAs will depend upon their experience, access to your comparables information, and their familiarity with your market area. Until your VA does become familiar with your area, you can provide them with the subject property address, photo, and the specific comparables.

There are several software options available that your VA can use to create your CMAs. If you already use a program such as TopProducer or Agent 2000, a VA could access your computer, MLS and tax rolls via Gotomypc.com. With this remote access tool they would prepare the CMA using your computer as if they were sitting right at your keyboard and then to print to either your printer or even their own! (CLICK HERE to see an example of a CMA I created for my clients, Ellen Bithell & Agnes Stalmach of RE/MAX Executive Realty in Hollywood, FL using Top Producer - .5mb) ToolKit™ from Realty ToolKit is another program that specializes in creating attractive CMAs where the grunt work could be done by your VA (CLICK HERE to see a PDF example - 1.6mb).

Another option is to have your VA design a special, custom CMA presentation that is unique to you (e.g. the one created by Kim Hughes for Kathy Drewien mentioned above). These are not your “cookie cutter” CMA’s found in packages software. They may incorporate any number of presentation mediums including PDF's, Flash Movies, Power Point slides, Special HTML pages, etc. And typically you will end up with both a hard copy and laptop based presentation.

Like Kim Hughes mentioned above, another highly experienced VA —Bev King of Global Connection Virtual Office specializes in providing this kind of CMA service to her clients. People like top sales professional "Uncle Ben" Coleman of Century 21 Hartford Properties in San Francisco.

CMAs While You Sleep...

Recently "Uncle Ben" received a Hot Tip about a couple interested in selling their home and called asking them for an appointment. Over the phone they told him that they had decided on another sales associate but were willing to listen to what he had to say. Uncle Ben called his VA, Bev King late that night (NOTE: her time zone is two hours later than Ben's!) and asked for a CMA on the property for first thing in the morning. He sent the property information to Bev and she put together a stellar CMA, which was waiting on Uncle Ben’s computer before he was even out of bed. That next morning Ben walked into the prospect's home with hard copy and laptop in hand, blew the competition away and walked out with the listing. Try pulling that off with an on-site assistant!

These are just a few examples of how top agents are able to increase their business with the help of highly experienced VAs who take care of the details from thousands of miles away. Having your CMAs done remotely is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what a Virtual Assistant can help you accomplish.

Over the next several months you can look forward to more articles within this column that include real-world examples of how VAs are helping agents everywhere earn more, work less and enjoy life —virtually! In the meantime, if you have topic suggestions or would like to know how a VA would do something particular and like to see it covered in VA CORNER, just e-mail me at michelle@vacorner.com.

(A SPECIAL NOTE FROM Mr. Internet: We are honored to have VA Michelle Thornton as a regular guest writer for our new VA CORNER column. This new series of articles represents our continued dedication to giving you cutting-edge, yet practical solutions that help transform your business into a fabulous career!)