Team hiring for a remote REI operation

Most hiring failures in this business are not talent failures. If you can go to the person you think is underperforming and they cannot tell you their daily, weekly and monthly tasks, and they cannot name the one number they are judged on, the process failed before they did.

So this skill works in that order: define the role and its number first, then decide where to hire and what to pay, then post, then interview against the number, then onboard into documented tasks. Do not skip to the job post.

  role + North Star KPI
        |
        v
  geography + pay band  ->  job description  ->  post (Indeed / Facebook)
                                                      |
                                                      v
                                              applicants arrive
                                                      |
                                           [ candidate-intake skill ]
                                                      |
                                                      v
                                        interview against the KPI
                                                      |
                                                      v
                                      onboarding: tasks, SOPs, KPI review

When to use which reference

Read only the file you need.

Step 1: Pick the role by what is actually breaking

Ask what is breaking before recommending a hire. The answer usually names the role.

• Marketing does not go out on schedule, lists are stale, uploads are inconsistent: data manager.
• Marketing goes out but nobody is calling it, or dials are under 150 a day: prospector.
• Leads come in and go cold, follow-up is inconsistent: lead manager.
• Leads are qualified but offers are not getting made or closed: acquisitions manager.
• Contracts are signed but buyers are thin and assignments drag: dispo.

First hire for almost every operation at this stage is the data manager, because it is the cheapest role, the most documentable, and the one whose absence quietly breaks everything downstream.

Step 2: Give the role one North Star number

Every role gets one number that decides whether the day was a success. Not five. Full table in references/roles-and-kpis.md.

The prospector example is the one to copy: 150 dials a day minimum, and at least 2 real leads passed off. There is also an "open to goal" variant, where the target is the 2 leads rather than the 150 dials and the day ends when they hit it, whether that takes three hours or ten. Open to goal is harder to game, because dial counts can be inflated with hangups and skipped voicemails while a passed-off lead cannot.

Whichever you pick, it has to be stated out loud before the offer, not after.

Step 3: Choose geography before salary

Pay is a function of where the role sits, so pick the country first. Labor arbitrage is one of the largest levers in this business: a data manager who costs about $3,000 a month in the United States does the same job for a fraction of that in the Philippines.

Match the role to the country by what the role actually demands. Roles that live on the phone with American sellers need a specific accent and conversational profile; roles that live in a spreadsheet do not. references/pay-and-geography.md carries the current mapping and the pay bands.

Step 4: Write the description, then the post

They are different documents. The description defines the job for you and for onboarding. The post is marketing copy aimed at getting the right people to apply and the wrong people to skip it.

Put the daily KPI in the post. It is the single most effective filter you have, because the archetype who wants to make 200 dials a day is rare and self selects hard. Templates in references/job-descriptions.md.

Step 5: Post, then let candidate-intake take over

Post to Indeed and to the real estate VA Facebook groups. Once applications start arriving, hand off:

Use the candidate-intake skill to collect and score these applicants.

That skill aggregates Indeed, Gmail, Facebook posts and Messenger into one scored sheet and holds outreach behind a review gate. Do not rebuild that here.

Step 6: Interview against the number

The interview has one job: find out whether this person will hit the number every day without being chased.

State the expectation plainly and early. "The daily expectation is 150 dials minimum and at least two leads passed off." Then stop talking and watch. Any hesitation, any flinch, any negotiating of the number in the first conversation, and you pass. That reaction is the highest-signal moment in the whole process and it is free.

Full structure, the questions worth asking, and what to do about references in references/interview-and-onboarding.md.

Step 7: Onboard into documented tasks, not into vibes

A new hire should be handed, on day one:

1. The company mission, vision and core values, taught rather than emailed.
2. Their daily, weekly and monthly task list, written down.
3. Where the SOPs live and how to open them.
4. Their North Star KPI and how it gets reviewed.

If any of those four do not exist yet, build them before the person starts. Use the playbook-creator skill to turn a screen recording of the work into a written SOP, which is far faster than writing one from scratch.

Hard rules

• Never post a role you cannot describe in daily tasks. If you cannot write the task list, you are not ready to hire for it, and the person will fail.
• State the KPI before the offer, every time. A number introduced after someone accepts reads as a bait and switch and starts the relationship badly.
• Pay in the person's local currency through an international payment platform. Making someone absorb conversion cost and fees on their own salary is a retention problem you created for no reason.
• Verify the working setup before the offer, not after. A screen recording from the candidate shows their internet, their machine and their spoken English in about ninety seconds.
• Do not let a role stay undefined because one person is doing three jobs. Write all three task lists anyway. That document is what you hire against when you split the role later.
• Commission is retention, not generosity. Pay toward the top of the band you can support. A person who is job hopping every six months costs more in ramp time than the extra percent ever did.