Entries from March 2007 ↓

Today’s real estate market, you need to watch your pennies. There is a lot of software out there to make your contact management much easier, but you will pay for it. Everyone in Long & Foster has free software that you are not even close to using to its fullest capabilities. I consider myself a power user and still have not captured all of the power it has to offer. You can have the best software or all the bells and whistles, but it’s no good unless you unleash the hounds (use it) I have gone over how to make labels with outlook, and form letters, now here are some more tips on getting the most out of FREE.

Take a look at the actual contact information. Have you ever tried clicking the other tabs? Details; don’t you keep track of personal information on your clients? Isn’t that what our industry is about? Making contacts and keeping it personal! The more you know about someone and can work it into a conversation, doesn’t that build on your relationship? Activities; when was the last time you talked to them? What did they say in their last email? Here is a link to the Microsoft Tutorial http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC011036431033 You can use this at your own pace and in front of a computer for some hands on training. You can make your own categories. This is useful when you want to group contacts together based on how you know them, conducted business, hobbies or whatever… I use this extensively to track my business. Where did I get the lead? Go to my contacts and select Category view and wah lah… there they are all lined up in their cooresponding category. You can see where your business is coming from if you categorize it. They can have multiple categories.

The ACTION list is where everything happens. Look at the amount of items you can do with your contact. Make appointments, or follow up on you calendar for you. Messages, letters, Journal entries,.. Journal entries??!?! What’s that? Well you can log your conversations, activities that you have done for this contact, etc. It logs the time for you. Open one up and see what its all about. You put the information on starting and ending. Start and stop the timer for your work.. You know did you ever wonder how much time you are spending on working a project? This (if you use it properly) will do just that. Like I said before, you can have all the bells and whistles, but you gotta use them in order to benefit from it. Below and next page you will see the journal for the phone call.

Give it a try. Make sure to click create a journal entry. This will start tracking your time once the journal entry opens up. The journal is a great way to track time you spend on projects. You can go back and start the clock where you left off. It will let you track your progress and so forth. Don’t be afraid to look around on the menu drop downs. There is so much to offer… and to think you want to pay for software with all the bells and whistle and you haven’t even tapped the whole FREE product you already have!!! Have fun and remember practice makes perfect!

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Rant disclaimer – when I say “I”, “Me” it really means “We” and “Us” and when I say “you” it means “you”

I can’t take it any more… EMAIL Etiquette… What is driving me to this, is the forwarded emails. In our office (and I am sure elsewhere), agents are asking staff (who are authorized to send to large distribution list) to send out an email to the masses… That’s fine. However, to make it easier on the masses… you should ALWAYS have a Descriptive SUBJECT LINE!!!! “Please forward” means “please delete” to me. I get a lot of emails and tons of junk mail (lately)… so it would definitely help me (and everyone else) if there was just a little time spent in utilizing the subject line properly. Now, while we are spending time on this subject, no pun intended, let’s move on to the rest of the etiquette. I am not going to write a whole article on it. Instead, I am going to send you to a site that has all the answers. Click Here.

A few key things that I do want to talk about… let’s start with “Reply to all” feature. Only use that when EVERYONE on the list needs to know your answer. Next, if you decide to physically to add everyone in the company directory to your email, do me one favor… add it to the BCC line. Why, you ask??? so when someone in Virginia is mad that you invited everyone in the company to your Broker’s Open in Baltimore and they decide to REPLY TO ALL, it will only go back to you. And another reason, so when I page down to read your email (cause it was missing a relevant topic in the subject line) I don’t have to page down past the hundreds of email addresses.

Next, for your safety and the integrity of your inbox, don’t reply to emails that look like spam, otherwise, you will just tell them that you really have a good email. You see, spammers, random generate email addresses by the thousands and hope that a few of them really work. Once, they confirm they have legitimate email address (cause you replied to them and told them to remove them from their list) they will sell their “new” confirmed email list to other spammers… and so on and so on… Just send them to the “Junk Folder” or flag as spam

Also, Bank of America, will not send you an email asking you to update your bank account in an email… nor paypal or any legitimate company. And one last thing about email, your long lost relative did not die in a plane crash in south Africa. So don’t send the attorney any information to help clear up the estate where you will get thousands even millions of dollars.

Surf safe… And thank you for helping manage my inbox.

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