Gary David Hall's Blog

Do you have a SOAR MLS manual?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:34:28 -0600

This will bring back memories for some. I used to be involved with a product called SOAR MLS, that did automated MLS searches before IDX came along. I am doing some research for someone, and I need a copy of the "SOAR MLS" manual, or the "SOAR E-MLS manual. I need one that is dated 2001 or prior. To help compensate you for the time you take looking for and delivering it, I will be happy to pay $100 to the first person to provide one.

If you have one and want to send it to me, please contact me first so I can provide delivery information, and announce that I no longer need one.

Thanks!

What does a CRM do anyway?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:39:01 -0500

If you don't know what a Customer Relationship Manager does, how can you know if you need one?

Do you run your business like a business? You're probably tired of hearing that old question, but it's one of the many things a CRM helps you do better. So what doe s a CRM do? If you want to do the following things, or do them better or faster, then you should be looking at CRM solutions.

Prospecting - get suspects, turn them into prospects, and turn them into sales, by knowing who they are, what they want, and when they want it, all in significant detail, and being reminded to capitalize on that information automatically
Lead source tracking - knowing where your business is coming from and spending your marketing time and money accordingly/wisely
Referral tracking - knowing who is referring you the most business, so you know who to do more for in return
Contact management - That means everyone! Suspects; prospects; clients; vendors; friends; relatives; neighbors. Knowing how to find any information on anyone, even from many years ago, with a few clicks virtually instantly
Time management - having automated to-do lists, and organized methods of consistent follow-up. Decide what you want to do, once, and automatically follow up that way every time from then on
E-mail management - how many e-mails are in your inbox? They should be with your contacts, or with the property, where you can find them, quickly, not in your inbox or in a folder somewhere
Listing coordination - the biggest complaint lodged against Real Estate agents is poor communication. A comprehensive, automatically executed listing plan enables you to turn those complaints into praise effortlessly, automatically
Closing coordination - too many details can fall through the cracks. The busier you get, the more details you have swimming around in your head. And each day you have to make many decisions regarding what actions you need to take for which transactions. Even the best paper list and file methods are rife with bottlenecks and inconsistencies. Having all the information you need in one place and an automated to-do list posted on your calendar makes your job far easier and more stress free.
Document management - store all the documents relevant to a transaction right with the record of that transaction and/or with the client
Word processing and desktop publishing- enjoy being able to easily do any kind of mailing you want to, right from the database itself rather than farming it out to third party if that is your preference. OR maintain your mailing list and easily send it out to third parties with a few clicks when needed.
Post closing follow-up/client retention - not staying in touch with past clients is one of the single biggest causes of loss of income in the Real Estate sales industry. Never lose another referral due to your failure to stay in touch.
Risk reduction - knowledge is power. Having an automatically generated centralized easy to reference complete record of phone calls, letters, e-mails, appointments, etc., insures that you will enjoy a much better position from which to defend yourself if need be.
Staff training and accountability - personnel retention is a problem that never goes away. Having a system in place with notes built into the CRM task lists significantly diminishes the impact of a lost staff person. It enables you to have the new person step right into a tried and true system, and none of the details are lost in the transition. Additionally, it provides a clear picture of exactly who is doing what each day in the daily tasks.

CRM is the software you need to do these things for you. Therefore, if you need to do these things, you need a CRM solution.

You cannot really grasp how much it will help you.

Occasionally when you are working with a buyer or a seller, do you find yourself thinking, "They have absolutely no clue how incredibly complex this whole transaction is from start to finish. They can read all they want about it, feel they have become quite expert on the subject, and still have no real appreciation for it all."

Until you use a CRM to the point where you can no longer see yourself getting along without it - you too, cannot appreciate how much of an impact it will have on your business, and even on your life.

If you invest the necessary time to truly use and develop a good CRM as more than just a glorified Rolodex, it is an absolute fact that you will look back some day and wonder how you ever grew your business, stayed in business, and kept your sanity without it. It will be the single most all-pervasive choice you will make in your entire Real Estate career concerning the day-to-day administration of your business. It will become a growing thing and believe it or not, you will actually come to like it a great deal.

DO NOT BUY A CRM...

...unless you are committed to:

making the time to learn it - note the use of the word making as opposed to gettingthe time. It's so very important to understand that this one point makes all the difference in the world between someone who implements the CRM and reaps the benefits, and someone who eventually simply regrets spending the money, and blames it on the CRM. Maybe you have heard the time management axiom that a project or meeting takes as long as the time you allot to it. The same goes for your Real Estate day. You cannot keep putting off learning your CRM until the time that you need to spend with it presents itself. For many of us, that time just does not come. When you put one hour into learning your new CRM first thing in the morning, before you answer any calls or e-mails, you get it done, and then you somehow miraculously manage to get everything else you need to get done that day, done!
learning to use it as more than just a glorified Rolodex. If that is all you are going to use it for, stick with Outlook or something like that.

As a Real Estate licensee, we wear many hats. No one likes all of them. There are those who will tell you that the reason most agents do not use a CRM is because they are too complex, and they need to be easier. Maybe they do, but selling Real Estate needs to be easier too, but it is what it is. You learned how to use Outlook, MS Word, and maybe MS Publisher too. You spent hour after hour playing with them until you got a handle on them and never complained because you had no choice. What is so different about learning a CRM?

You do not have to like the time you invest into becoming proficient with a good CRM. But if you want to grow your business, while having more of a life, with less stress, with less mistakes, with better service, with less staff, with more compliments, with more referrals - then you need it.

Make that determination right here and now. In order to accomplish the above, you must make a commitment to investing the time to learn how to use a CRM. You then must either create, or purchase and tweak, pre-written e-mails and letters; fliers; post cards; prospect follow-up campaigns, etc. This does not have to be done all at once! It's an elephant. Eat it one bite at a time! If you are not yet an organized professional business person in Real Estate sales, and want to become one, what are you waiting for?

Are you using your CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) to follow-up?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:30:40 -0500

My timing in my career in Real Estate sales was impeccable - not!

I started in 1987, when the market was starting its decline, and I got out in 1994 when the market was turning to the good once again. In my first year, I sat new construction for my broker, and that community's sales were virtually nil for everyone sitting them. When I wasn't sitting the samples, I was sitting "on floor/opportunity time" for that same broker. Well no one was getting many opportunities in that market either. I was doing BAD!

Finally after the better part of a year, I stopped doing both, and started doing my own prospecting. Once someone's name got into my database (I used one called Real Estate Specialist in those days - a DOS program) they got followed up with until they would either, as Steve Stewart would say, "Buy or Die"!

So over the next 5 years, with no pre-existing sphere of influence to speak of, I went from 0 sides in 1988, to 43 sides in 1993, in a very slow, buyers market. How? By mailing or calling everyone who had the misfortune, I mean good fortune, of finding themselves in my database.

I ended up going from a non-producer in a mom and pop shop to the number two agent in transactions in a 100% RE/MAX office simply because I followed up consistently. The other agents in the office called me the ‘King of follow-up' because they knew I consistently did business with people months and years after I first met/spoke with them at an open house, ad call, sign call, door knocking, local pub, golfing, or whatever. I never let them forget me. And I was able to do that easily and efficiently by using my CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.

So are you, you know, using yours?

If you own a CRM, and you ever have that phone conversation that contains the words - "Oh thanks for calling, but we already bought a house", then you are not using follow-up plans with your prospects!

Any time you speak with someone, and they said something like "Oh we're not doing anything until Bobby graduates in June, always made sure you get something personal out of them like that he liked to golf, or that Bobby was going to major in photography. That goes into that prospect's notes. You then continue to mail/e-mail them - consistently - until it gets closer, and then you call.

You have a pre-arranged follow-up "Plan or Campaign". As soon as you get that lead, you click a couple buttons, and select the plan you have specifically created for that kind of lead. It would be a Hot, Medium, or Cold plan, and when the plan called for that phone call somewhere down the road, it will come up on your to-do list.

When I called him back many months and sometimes years later and asked if Bobby was still interested in photography, you could hear a pin drop on the other end of the phone. There was always one of two reactions. He either marveled at my memory, or he said something like, "You use follow-up software don't you?" Either way I had them, especially if he said the latter, because he knew I was organized. Buyers and sellers like organized!

Now, I teach people to track those things in the right manner. So let's say you find out about a special golf outing in your market area. You can do a quick search, find the golfers, and shoot an e-mail out to them to let them know.

Or maybe Doylestown Borough just announced a tax break in the local paper. How many people read the paper any more? Before they find out by word of mouth, you can do a quick search on your past buyers who bought in Doylestown Borough, and let them know about it. Are you not just the best darn Real Estate person they have ever known!

And what are you doing each time you send out these notes? You're staying "top of mind" with them, and of course, you are asking for referrals.

DO NOT neglect your past clients with regards to follow-up. Are you proud of the job you did for them? Did they like the job you did for them? Then capitalize on it! Make absolutely sure you ‘touch' them at least once each month by mail or e-mail, and annually or semi-annually by phone. And again, always ask for a referral.

If you are not consistently in your past client's face, guess who will be? Right! The neighbor or the brother-in-law who just got in the business. They are hungry and prospecting. If you are not top-of-mind with your past clients, you will lose money.

If your CRM does not have its own "Content", that is, pre-written e-mails/letters, then write your own. Just make sure to use spell check, and have someone else critique and edit them.

If the thought of writing scares the Dickens out of you, buy some like "Dave Beson's LetterWriter". And remember what I said in a prior post about pre-written content., the value is in the concepts, not the wording. Or do a search on "Real Estate Prospecting Letters". Be careful though. Some of them are really dated.

A contact manager is a glorified Rolodex^TM. Outlook is a good example of a contact manager. What you have, or should have, is a CRM, which stands for Customer Relationship Manager. Operative word being Relationship. Its job is to help you maintain a relationship with your suspects, prospects, and clients, by targeting specific groups of people, with customized plans for follow-up.

You customize by categorizing them, such as hot buyer, past seller, etc., or by keeping certain information on them such as that they like golf, or are a graduate of Penn State, or that they like wine, etc. All of this information enables you to target market to them, as opposed to doing what all the other agents who do not know them do, which is generalized non-targeted marketing. Which do you think works better?

The point is, you have a tool to make you more money already. Start using it! Do not let your CRM solution suffer the same fate as that poor Nordic Track^® you have, sitting in the corner being used as a lingerie rack!

Contact Management & CRM's - A healhty dose of patience can be required

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:35:16 -0500

Based on many conversations I continue to have where certain issues keep coming up, I think it is time to re-visit a few points about trying to find, and learning how to use, Contact Management and CRM Solutions.

1) Do not judge a CRM by its graphics alone. There are several products available that may not appeal to the eye aesthetically, but if you look past the graphical appearance, you might be surprised. There is one product I have in mind in particular that definitely looks dated, but in actuality it has been improved more frequently based on user suggestions, and for a longer time, than any other product of which I am aware. They have a Catch 22 going on. This particular product puts user suggestions higher in priority than the appearance of the product, and they end up with people passing their product by based only on its dated look. I keep encouraging them to put a higher priority on giving it an updated look, but it is still on the list. Be aware of the 'Shallow Hal' tendency in yourself with CRM's if you have it.

2) Do not spend too little time evaluating a product. Do not rush through 10 of them. You need to narrow it down to 2 or 3, and then spend the time necessary to evaluate them well. On a regular basis I see people discount a product because they think it does not do what they want. That is because they have not taken enough time to properly evaluate it. The interesting thing is that even after I point out that it does do that function; ofttimes they have already talked themselves out of the product due to those falsely inferred negative feelings! So do not let yourself count out a product for lack of doing something you want it to, until you confirm with the company or myself, that it does not do it.

3) Stay with a technical problem until it is solved, rather than a few minutes here and there when it is convenient, frustrating yourself and the support people. Sometimes support is bad and non-responsive, but other times it is the user's fault for only being available during a small window of time once every few days. Recognize if you are the cause of the problem, because blaming the vendor may make you feel absolved, but it does not get the problem solved. Sometimes you may have to wait for hours or even until the next day for a response from a support person. What I see very often is that someone will have a problem but not make the time to deal with it. Rather they will wait until they get the time to deal with it. They then make a call or submit a support ticket, and then wait for a response. If the response does not come in fifteen minutes or an hour, and they have moved onto something else, they then miss the phone call, or do not answer support's e-mail for days. They then get time to deal with it again, respond to the call or the ticket, move on to something else, and get back into the same vicious cycle. That happens 3 or 4 times, and then they say "I've had this problem for 8 days and it's unresolved! The reality of it is that they've only actually been working on it for a matter of minutes! Their next step is to berate the support team and flee that product, blaming the support. Now you are into the cost of a new product, and worse, a whole new learning curve. Talk to me before you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I will be honest and tell you whether or not you should try to stick it out with your current product, or move on to another. It depends upon many factors. What is best in the long run; a product that does most everything you want, but can sometimes be tough to get support from; or a product that does less of what you want, but has great support? The obvious answer is - I want both! Well again - your needs determine if you can have both.

4) Do not let the normal initial frustration of getting your old database into your new database, and getting used to the software, get you to the point of dumping it for something else, assuming the next product will not have the same issues. Starting something new, or changing to something new, is very likely to be painful for any number of reasons. Deal with it. Certain things are going to require your time no matter which one you choose. Then again, maybe this product that you chose is having problems it should not have right up front. Does that mean you have made the wrong choice? Not necessarily. None of these products is perfect. Maybe this particular product's imperfections are right up front. After that maybe it will be great most of the time. All these factors are just that. They are factors. Each product has a very long list of pros and cons. The one with the most pros, and the least cons, for your needs, is the one for you.

All in all - if you spent a fair amount of time determining that this one does more of what you want it to do than all the others you looked at, give it time. Give it a chance. Do not be so quick to jump the gun. You may be glad you did.

It is hard to know when you are right to be upset with a product/company, if you have little or no experience with which to form a perspective, compared to similar products. What is normal? What is fair to expect? Are you even interpreting the problem correctly? Again - call me, and I'll tell you what I think.

Agent Office Serial #1

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:03:02 -0500

Recently I received an order for an Agent Office upgrade, which in and of itself is nothing unusual. But this order was different. One detail one must provide when ordering the upgrade is the serial number of the software. Well I looked at this order and saw that the serial number was A000001 ! The very first one! The man's name is Bruce Hackel, and he has been using Agent Office since the very beginning! I spoke with him a little, and he first got it in 1992, and has been a happy camper for over 17 years. I'm not saying this to tell you it's the very best solution out there for everyone. Different solutions are better for different agents. I just thought it was noteworthy.

When I placed the order for him I suggested to them (Emphasys Software) that we should do something special for him. Emphasys took me up on it, and we are celebrating his number one status by giving him free support for a year which normally costs $295. Mind you it's not a new Ferrari, but hats off to Emphasys Software for a token of appreciation for so many years of loyalty, despite the fact that they only just recently acquired Agent Office.

I would also like to thank you Bruce for choosing me to make the purchase of the upgrade through. It is kind of an honor! Hope you have many more years of productive use of Agent Office! It will be exciting to see where Emphasys Software takes the product. My conversations with them have me optimistic, anticipating good things in the future.

Agent Office Vista 64 bit compatibility

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:43:18 -0500

Hello all. Just wanted to get the following information out there. I just received it from Emphasys Software.

"We just ran several scenarios on installing AgentOffice v10.0 on to a 64bit version of Windows Vista and determined that AgentOffice is compatible with Windows 64 bit Vista...The customer needs to make sure that they have installed both the latest updates for Windows x64 SP1 AND .Net Framework 3.5 SP1. Below are the 2 links that will provide the updates needed to be installed, prior to installing AgentOffice v10.0.

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
http://tinyurl.com/W35SP1

Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems
http://tinyurl.com/WV64Blink

When installing AgentOffice v10.0, it will be sufficient to "Save" the download onto the user's Desktop and run it from Desktop after download is complete.

Hope this clears any concerns regarding AgentOffice's compatibility with Windows Vista x64."

Gary David Hall
http://TheRealEstateCRMBroker.com

Everything you ever wanted to know about Real Estate Contact Management and CRM but did not know what to ask - is now available in an informative and easy-to-use Matrix.

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:01:29 -0500

After almost six months of research, interviews and design, the Matrix is ready! It started as a way for me to be able to answer all of your questions when you called to ask about the various features of each. After mentioning it to some people and hearing the interest it generated, I decided to make it available to the public, along with some of what I know on the subject, in the form of a glossary

The Matrix allows you to compare any of currently 29 products side-by-side, across 350 features/topics/categories. Equally as important as being able to compare the product features, there is a 15,000+ word glossary to which they link, which will teach you every capability in virtually all of the products available on the market today.

There were/are 40 Real Estate specific Contact Manager and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions in all. Currently there are 29 products in the Matrix. I am affiliated with 22 of them as a reseller, and will soon be affiliated with the other seven as well. There are five more which have recently come onto the market which I am in the process of adding to the Matrix with which I am discussing affiliation. There are three in product development which will eventually be added. There are three that have gone out of business since I started. One of the 40 has opted not to participate in the Matrix, or to affiliate.

Gathering the data on each product started with a three to five hour GoToMeeting interview between myself and, in all but three cases, the CEO of the companies, to complete the initial raw Matrix. All the vendors now have 24/7 password protected access to the data in their product in order to edit it and keep it up to date. There is a field which contains the last date they revised the data.

Most products are targeted at North American residential resale agents. Some combine that with BPO's; REO's; Long Term Rentals; Short Term Rentals; International Sales; or Commercial Real Estate. Some are focused on marketing materials and light on CRM. Some are relatively simple, while some are seriously powerful. None of them are perfect, and none of them have it all, but some come pretty close, depending upon your needs.

The cost to do the comparisons and learn about what capabilities exist is $9.95 for access to all of it for one month.http://realestatecrmmatrix.garydavidhall.com/

This exercise has been an invaluable ongoing education, and is giving me a tremendous insight into the entire RE CRM industry. It is a pleasure getting to know the people behind the CRM's. Each and every CRM comes to the market with a different perspective about what is most important.

Other tools useful in helping with your search:

A History of Contact Management in Real Estate - Article

"...comprehensive, unbiased,........aspects of making a decision on CRM I never even thought of.........far and away the best article of it's kind I've ever seen on the Internet..."

Considerations when choosing a Real Estate Contact Manager or CRM

A 60 minute Power Point Presentation by Gary David Hall

Prepared for the Real Estate Cyberspace Society's 2009 Cyber Convention

Interview by The Lead Booster Club CEO Kathy Goughenour

Kathy interviews Gary for her membership for an hour, with a wide range of questions about

Real Estate Contact Management & CRM Productivity Software

When you're in the market - I am "The Real Estate CRM Broker! "

Contact Management Tech Support - How much should you expect?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:21:21 -0600

Different vendors have different ideas of what Tech-Support means. What I call Tech-Support, as defined in my Matrix, is "If it is broke, we will help you fix it". In other words, if their software is not working; it is not doing something it is supposed to do; or it is doing something it is not supposed to do, they will help you fix it. A different kind of support would be if you call and ask how to do a mail merge. Tech-Support will USUALLY refer you to a user's manual or training videos. What I call Help-Desk is a policy whereby they will help you fix problems, but will also walk you through how to do something, as a normal part of their service.

Why the two different policies? Revenue streams. Income. Tech-Support/Help-Desk is one of, if not the biggest expense software vendors have. Web based products have an ongoing stream of income. They get paid thousands of dollars by thousands of people every month. That is many thousands of dollars every month, whether they get any new customers/users or not. That pays for a larger support staff. If they are big enough, they can answer the phone directly, much if not most of the time.

Desktop solutions on the other hand are paid only once, up front, when you purchase the product. They will then provide you with Tech-Support and with some products Help-Desk support for anywhere from 30 days to one year. After that you must pay for it, with some exceptions. What percentage of people pay for it after the 30 days or one year? Very few. which makes for a much smaller support staff, longer response times, and a narrower scope of what they will help with. If they have a large user base, and were to attempt to provide significantly more, most would simply end up going out of business. Typical response times for desktop software varies, but can be as much as 24 hours. Longer than that should be unacceptable.

Am I saying that desktop solutions are a bad idea? Absolutely not! I use one myself. The point is that I wanted to speak up for desktop solutions that are getting a bad rap about tech support. Too many people expect too much for too little.

Another tendency (not a hard and fast rule) I've seen with desktop solutions is that the more users there are, the more questions there are, and the more of a demand that is placed on support. As the company sells more product, it is a cart and horse thing dealing with increased sales, generating more of a demand on support, and being able to grow the support staff commensurately. Obviously, the better the product, the less of a need for support. But there are still a good percentage of users that want hand holding, so again the more users, the more demand for support.

Be aware that NO RE CRM company TRULY offers 24/7 support, by phone or by e-mail that they will commit to. Some do go the extra mile when they can, and some offer extended hours via e-mail, but virtually none work on weekends, again, that they will commit to.

So income is the primary reason for the two different policies. It makes sense, and if you are objective about it, it is also quite fair.

What I hear very often is that people do not want to pay for a Web based product, because they want to own the software, and not pay for it monthly. BUT - they then want to have Tech-Support, and many expect Help-Desk support as well. Sorry to disappoint, but an old adage come to mind. "You can't have your cake and eat it too." You can say "I paid for the software and I should get support for that money too", and you do, to a point. But again, that one time fee just doesn't last very long. If you want ongoing quickly answered phone support, more often than not, you have to pay an ongoing fee.

The questions then become; if the product is stable, and they have a good training tutorial library available, how much do you need in the way of support after the initial setup? Do they have a "per incident" fee for support? Might that be sufficient for relatively rare future needs?

How safe is your data? Web based vs. Desktop CRM's

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:09:13 -0600

Following is a little known fact. If one were to think about it, it makes perfect sense, but I had simply never thought about it. Everyone who likes Web CRMs always says, “I like Web based databases because I don’t have to worry about backing up.” Let us think about this in some detail. Let us say your computer is stolen. With a Web based product, all you have to do is get another computer, log in, and everything is there like you left it. Very nice! And that’s the type of scenario people always think about when they think about what would happen if they had a desktop solution and their data is not backed up. They look at it in terms of a total one time loss. They think about losing their computer, or having a hard drive failure, or having a virus, etc., and losing everything.

But let us say you were working on your database on a Web based product, and you accidentally delete 200 of your contacts instead of putting them into a different category like you thought you were doing. There is a good likelihood that you are bleep out of luck. It is possible that they will be able to restore your database to the day before, or some period before, but if they can, it may cost you a fairly significant chunk of change. So what can you do to protect yourself? Not much. You can do periodic exports, say weekly or monthly. Just bear in mind that exports never contain all of your information. See “How much of your data can be exported?”

I would like to take a moment to ease some concerns about data loss that are either outright wrong, or simply overstated. They are:

• Your data is not safe with a Web based solution

• Desktop solutions make your data vulnerable due to inconsistent backups

There are actually two sub-categories here. Some people are afraid that the web based provider may steal their contact database, and sell it. There was an instance back in the 90's when a major franchise provided a Web based solution for its agents, and unbeknownst to the agents, the people in their contact database were suddenly being deluged with e-mail and postal mail, soliciting the franchise's mortgage company, title company, insurance company, etc. In that case, the franchise claimed a right to the data. Whether or not the franchise was entitled to use that database was debatable, but it is quite different than a third party vendor doing it. Maybe that event is where this, what I consider to be irrational fear, came from.

That scenario is considerably different than a Web based CRM provider actually compromising their user's databases by selling the database, or soliciting to it. If they did that - their business would be over! It's that pure and simple. They would be found out in short order, and their business would be done. For what? For a few comparative measly dollars that they could get for the sale of that data. I am sorry - I just don't see it. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? Most certainly not. If it were that probable, it would have happened by now. Is it possible that it has happened, and I just haven’t heard of it? Sure, but I doubt it. People love to recount such horror stories, and I’ve spoken to thousands of people for over a decade one-on-one and to groups, and have never heard of it happening with a third party vendor. Another possibility is that a disgruntled employee could steal it. Again, that is absolutely possible, but has not happened to date to my knowledge. It takes a great deal of time and effort to develop and market a CRM solution. To then allow such a thing to happen is unlikely at worst.

Additionally, people are concerned that their online database will simply be hacked, and marketed to. Is this possible? Sure. Is it probable? With no statistical data to support this supposition whatsoever, my guess would be that it is about as likely as your personal hard drive being hacked, and having your database stolen from it. Very low odds. Getting hit by lightening also comes to mind. Also consider that Top Producer would be a perfect, well known target, given that it has the largest market share in RE CRM and it has not happened to them since they went online with their data in 2003.

With regards to an online solution simply losing your data; they always have at least one redundant set of servers - a backup. That said, my advice has always been to do at least a monthly export of your data from a Web based solution. This leaves nothing to chance. While that export will not be a copy of all your data, it will be all or most of your contact data, normally including names, phone numbers, addresses, notes, categories, etc. Note that I said an Export and not a Backup, the latter being usable only by restoring it into the software.

There is actually another topic that bears discussion here. That is the heavily blown out of proportion, and just plain misrepresented, topic of contact managers/CRM solutions that hold your data hostage. Each Web based solution is very different with regards to how much data they make available for export, but all of them enable you to export at least some basic contact data. The answer to quelling that fear is simply to find out, before you decide on a solution, exactly which, and how many, fields are available for export from your chosen solution. Also consider weighting what data is most important to you. As long as you have the primary contact information, you have your inventory. As long as you have your sphere of influence's names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, you have far and away the most important information. Everything beyond that may seem absolutely necessary, but if you think about it, not having it would be a nuisance, but it would not put you back to square one, as losing your inventory would.

Another sometimes overstated issue is that having a desktop solution means putting your database at risk, as many agents are bad/inconsistent at backing up. While this is a valid concern, it used to be true more than it is now. One of the reasons is that a significant number of agents have now been burned - lost their data. You have never seen more religious backer-uppers than those who have at one time lost their data. The next reason is that if you pick the right solution now, there are very often at least two copies of the data in two different locations. Consider that a significant percentage of agents have both a desktop computer, and a laptop/tablet PC, or simply two desktops. One at the office, and one at the home office. If that is the case, then the database is being shared between the two, hence two copies, and no need for a backup. For two of the contact management/CRM desktop solutions I sell, the Master Database may be stored on a thumb drive, which is used to transfer the changes back and forth between the computers, while each computer also has its own copy of the database. This means there are three copies of the database. If you have two or more computers, backing up is not an issue. Those same two solutions offer to host your master database, making it available to be shared by any number of remote users/computers. This of course, once again, makes backing up a non-issue, as the master would be the third copy of the database.

For those agents who have only one computer, which is certainly still a significant percentage of agents who use a CRM database, there are better and easier methods of backing up coming out all the time. There are automated online services which back up your computer in the background with no effort from you whatsoever, other than the original setup. My personal preferences for backing up all my data can be found on my home page. But if you still do not back up consistently, then you will be in trouble some day. For those of you who know you will not back up consistently - get an automated Web based solution! This will be a safer solution for you. Once you have finally realized that you must have some kind of method to track and maintain a relationship with your sphere of influence, without a doubt, keeping that sphere of influence (your inventory) safe, is of paramount importance. Proper research and planning will ensure that it is given the attention it deserves.

Agent Office purchased from FNRES by Emphasys Software!

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:31:22 -0600

Well it is official! While Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions (FNRES) is still "taking care of business" until everything is transitioned over, as of October 29th, Emphasys Software is now at the helm of Agent Office! Emphasys is a Real Estate management, financial and compliance software solutions company. It offers a long list of Real Estate related software solutions.

Personally, I am happy about the potential for this move, obviously pending seeing what happens. Emphasys is a Software company, as opposed to a Title company. Their interest in having Agent Office is to actually make money by making the product better, and selling it. Without getting into specifics, I will just say that FNRES has not exactly been the best thing that ever happened to the Agent Office software application. If you have followed events during their tenure of ownership, you have an idea what I am talking about.

Moving forward, having spoken with a representative from Emphasys, I am optimistic that this will be a good thing. They have plans to make significant improvements to the product, which will be a long overdue development when it happens.

Agent Office has been around since 1992, and this will now be its 4^th owner. For those of you who have it, the road ahead should be interesting, and probably better.

Agent Office is currently in Version 10. It is still available through my Web site at a discounted price, in its current version, new. If you want to upgrade from an older version, I can still do that for you as well. There will be no interruption in my ability to provide Agent Office software to you, as I will continue to be a reseller for it, when Emphasys takes over.

As always, if you have any questions about Real Estate specific contact management or CRM software, that is what I do. I am a broker/reseller for 32 different Real Estate specific Contact Management & CRM solutions.

FYI - My Real Estate Contact Management/CRM Software Matrix is nearing completion, and I hope to release it in the next 30 days.

For Emphasys Software's press release - click here!

OK - I bought a CRM, now where do I start?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:54:36 -0500

This is one of the most common questions I hear. Some Contact Managers and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions have fairly good training materials. Some have great materials. Some have none. But what none of them really excel at, is a tutorial to take you through the basics, in a "Where do I start" format. Maybe I can propose a bit of a solution.

One of the issues making a starter tutorial problematic is that different people consider different things to be the basics, and the CRM's themselves can be quite varied as to what it is they are capable of doing for you in the first place. So how about teaching yourself how to get started?

The very first thing you do is actually a no-brainer. In any of them, you get all your contact information in. Names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. Always have both a first and a last name for every contact. If all you know is Margeret, put that as both her first and last name until you get her last name. Which contacts go into it? ALL of them. I have seen some people recommend using one program for business, and one for personal, such as Top Producer for the former, and Outlook for the latter. My personal opinion is that I could not disagree more. I have been using, teaching, and reviewing Contact Management and CRM in the Real Estate industry for over 20 years, and I just do not see any benefit to that line of thinking. Why have those details of your life; contact information and scheduling information; in two places? It makes for duplication of effort, and confusion having to reference two sources for everything, not to mention that business and personal ofttimes overlap anyway. I have my business contacts; my friends; my Christmas list; my neighbors; I even have my daughter's dog in my contacts. Why? Because I can track his birthday that way! I have a contact - First Name: Computer; Last Name: Tips. In the notes for that contact, I have various things I want to remember about little tricks I've learned over the years, and I even have them at my fingertips in my Blackberry, because the notes synch!

Remember the cardinal rule for contacts; always have a contact in at least one category. Otherwise, you end up with contacts for whom you have no clue whatsoever what they are, down the road. If you are using a CRM, and you are using Activity Plans of some sort, I recommend the following nine categories for a start:

Buyer - Prospect
Buyer - Active
Buyer - Pending
Buyer - Past
Seller - Prospect
Seller - Active
Seller - Pending
Seller - Past
Closed - 20xx (x's being the year they closed escrow)

So what is next? If you had seen my Power Point Presentation on selecting a CRM, you would have created a list of what it was you wanted to accomplish with your CRM, in order to determine which one you wanted to invest your money, and more importantly - your time in. If you don not have that list, create one now. It should contain things such as; Print Labels to ‘Sphere of Influence'; Export names and addresses for mailing, for calendar company; print ‘Just Listed' post cards to geographic farm; Create activity plan to remind me to follow up with Internet leads; etc.

A good CRM will have some kind of training available to learn how to do each of these basic things. Your issue is that you don't know where to start. OK - it is a big job. It is HUGE. It is an elephant! Get over it! How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. No one is going to tell you where to start, or what is most important, so you need to figure it out yourself. This is how you will do it.

List what you want to accomplish, as above
Prioritize it
Use the available training to learn each of those things.

It really can be that simple! Now you have your start. Do you your list. Add things to it as you go. By that time, you will be getting a handle on the software, and the rest will naturally follow.

Now some people will do what I just said, and that will be the end of it. That's OK! If that's all you want out of it, fine. Others of you though, want to see what else this CRM can do for you. The only way you're going to get a good feel for your CRM is by ‘playing' with it. When you're in a screen, click on the menu items, and follow them. You can't hurt it, as long as you are backing up every day, and it can't hurt you. If you are NOT backing up every day - you need to start. My choice for that is actually twofold - EazyBackup for a local copy, and Carbonite for a Web based copy. Both have their pros and cons. Fodder for a differnt post :-)

For more information about choosing a Contact Manager or CRM, you may want to check out:

A History of Contact Management in Real Estate

Considerations when choosing a Real Estate Contact Manager or CRM

Coming soon! Real Estate CRM Comparison Matrix!

CRM or PDA? - Chicken or Egg?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:51:47 -0500

Someone recently asked:

I'm getting a 1st gen iPhone as a gift from my brother and am very excited to get going with it. Before I jump in I'm looking for suggestions, tips & ideas from the iPhone users out there:

1) What CRM solution are you using & how does it work with your iPhone?

This person may have no choice. She is getting the iPhone as a gift. What I have been running into a LOT lately, is people going out and getting an iPhone, and THEN asking me what CRM to get, that works with an iPhone. That is backwards. OK - I get it that the iPhone is the great new toy, but when it comes to which phone/PDA you should get, THAT choice SHOULD come AFTER you get your CRM solution. Your CRM solution is a far more important, complex, and long term choice than your PDA.

If all you are using is Outlook, go for it. iPhone will do just fine with it. If all you are using is Outlook however, you're going to have a much harder time doing well in this market, because you are not doing the kind of consistent follow-up, in volume, that you need to do in this market. Doing well in my mind is not doing 15 or 20 sides. You can do that kind of volume by simply working a lot of hours and doing a lot of manual follow-up - the hard way. I feel comfortable making that statement, because I not only survived, but prospered doing 40 - 50 sides, in the same kind of market, from 1988 through 1993. I know for a fact with myself, that the reason I prospered was because I had a program called "Real Estate Specialist" which allowed me to launch follow-up campaigns, which kept me on track with a large volume of "suspects".

There are 25 different CRM solutions out there. Frankly, many of them are too new, or have too many holes (usually a function of being too new) to be the best choice, but out of 17 of them that I have interviewed and/or used, 5 of them will work with an iPhone, all of which require extra software to do it. Top Producer doesn't. Agent Office doesn't. Mark-It Advantage Xi only does if you first synch it with Outlook. Active Agent for Outlook does with additional software, as will All Clients. Many Web based solutions will be quick to jump and say they will work with it by going online with it. Sure, but you may as well open your laptop and do it that way. It's not truly practical.

My point - if you see both a new PDA and a new CRM solution decision in your near future, pick your CRM FIRST, and make what it will synch with part of your choice. Not a big part; just a part.

Just a reminder - this blog is for Top Producer related discussion

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:41:47 -0500

Having inherited this group from Christina Ethridge, it has fallen to me to basically do one thing - keep everyone on topic. Please remember the description of the group when posting. "Created for Top Producer 7i & 8i users. A place were we can teach, learn and implement the features of TP7i 8i to enhance our businesses."I just deleted a few posts only because they were not relevent to the intended purpose of this group. Continuing to stay on topic will insure that when you want to read about TP related issues, you can do it here, without having to wade through unrelated topics. Thanks!

The Value of ‘Canned’ content in CRM’s

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:34:27 -0500

On a fairly regular basis, I hear people comment that this person’s or that program’s form letters or fliers are bad/not for their market/hokey, you-fill-in-the-blank.

The value in ‘canned’ content is not necessarily in that you can take them as they are, and start using them. While it is true that there are some things, some times, that can be good they way they are, or pretty close, it is rare. The value is in the fact that the content, the concept, is already there for you, and pretty much done. What is left for you to do is to tweak it to your personality, and/or your market. The value is in not having to start from scratch. Starting form scratch takes a great deal of time. That’s where the value is; the time savings.

It’s literally impossible to create a body of letters, fliers, post cards, or activity plans, that are perfect, for everyone in every market. Different people have different ways of communicating, with different personalities. And the difference in markets is vast in some ways from one to another, with regards to terminology and procedure.

The point here is that once again, there is too much of a tendency to throw the baby out with the bath water when searching for a CRM solution. People hear; “Oh the form letters in that program are terrible”, and they discount the software on that basis alone. That’s a mistake. The form letters in all CRM solutions need to be tweaked. Granted, some more than others, but it’s necessary in all of them, for the reasons stated.

I liken CRM software to the purchase of a home, in that when purchasing a home, you are actually purchasing a parcel of land, and the improvements on it, the house. The lot can not be changed. It is where it is. It can’t be changed to any significant degree. The home however, can be added to, or raised for that matter, and built anew. CRM software also has two parts; the program itself, and the content. The program, for all intents and purposes, cannot be changed, whereas the content, can be added to, deleted, or modified.

When looking for a CRM solution, one of your decisions is which is more important for your needs. Is it the content, or is it a complete system to track prospects, track your history with those prospects, schedule to-do’s and reminders, create reports, manage your listings and closings, create mailing lists from the way you have categorized your contacts, and manage drip email campaigns. In my opinion, there is not one single CRM solution out there, that has the best of both, so keep this in mind when conducting your search.

Top Producer 8i - What's different from Top Producer 7i?

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:34:31 -0500

Following is a list of the core differences, as communicated to me by Top Producer. If you have any questions about other things it may or may not do, feel free to e-mail me about them.

Technology:

Top Producer 7i is based on Microsoft Java technology which does not come installed on new computers. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the only web browser supported, leaving users of Firefox, Safari, and other web browsers with no way to use the program.

Top Producer 8i is based on ASP.net and Ajax. It is compatible with a wider range of web browsers. Top Producer 8i also places a lighter demand on resources and responds faster.

Web Browser:

Top Producer 7i's interface disabled most web browser functions that normally appear across the top of the browser window. This included functions like the address bar, Back and Forward buttons, the Refresh button, multiple windows, tabs, and so on.

Top Producer 8i runs in a normal browser window with all of these features are available. The Top Producer 8i user will also be able to use the browser's print screen functionality to print off whatever anything in browser window. Users can now display any information they want, sort it how they like, and print it off.

Landing Pages:

A completely new feature to Top Producer 8i that allows users to go a landing page that provides a brief summary of stats for items like contacts, leads, referrals.

The Ne UI:

Top Producer 8i's main navigation is a departure from Top Producer 7i. The main features have been given their own buttons. When clicked, rather than simply displaying a list of possible functions, they will take the user to a landing page for that feature. These landing pages are a brand new function in Top Producer 8i, and make all of the commonly used functions available right away.

Screen Forms:

Top Producer 7i used multi-step wizard based interfaces for many of its workflows. In Top Producer 8i, these wizard based interfaces have been replaced with single-screen forms with necessary fields for activities such as contact entry or creation of listings or closings in a single window

Contact Look-Up:

The Contact Look-Up interface appears on the right side in every workflow that could require a contact record. The 8i user can drag and drop a contact's name into the appropriate spot on a form rather than typing out their name or performing a search as was required in Top Producer 7i.

Load Indicators:

Unlike Top Producer 7i, When Top Producer 8i is retrieving information from the server, it will display an indicator which will inform the user that the operation is still ongoing. This indicator will, in most cases, appear in the lower right hand corner of the browser window

Don’t make assumptions, when it comes to evaluating CRM’s

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:15:31 -0500

Finding the right CRM (Customer Relationship Management – often called “Contact Management”) solution, is getting more and more difficult all the time. There are literally dozens of choices. It takes hours to evaluate each one, to get only a cursory sense of how closely it matches your needs.

The biggest mistake I see people make on a regular basis, which ends up costing them more time in the long run, is to evaluate too many, too quickly. Because looking at one after another is so time consuming, people tend to discount each one too quickly if they don’t see what they need right away. Some solutions are more intuitive (easier to understand and learn) than others. While that is an attribute, it is not necessarily the only factor to take into consideration. In some cases, some solutions are less intuitive, but contain more of the other attributes you require. Intuitive or not, it’s very easy to ‘assume’ it does not do what you need, simply because you don’t see it. Rather than eliminating one as a possible solution, and moving on to the next one, make a list of the things you want it to do, that you don’t see, and send it to the provider, or me. That way you don’t pass one by, that could actually be your best choice.

Once you find one that feels right, and has many of the attributes you need, spend more time with it, and give it a chance. And remember, if you have a great many needs, it’s very unlikely you will find one solution which will do everything. One thing I hear from many people is that they have to have CMA capability, and the ability to interface with the MLS. Most CRM solutions do not have those capabilities, so most agents use their MLS’ CMA feature, or a third party service such as Lightning CMA; Toolkit CMA; or Expert CMA.

For more information about many of the various choices out there, take a look at my article – “A History of Contact Management Software in Real Estate”.

Backing up? Ignorance is NOT bliss!

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:42:56 -0600

By ignorant, I mean someone who has never "gotten burned" by not having a backup. You will never find a more devoted "backer-upperer" than someone who has lost hundreds of hours of work, and/or their "people inventory" - their contacts. It's one of the most painful lessons you will ever learn in your life. In this article, I hope to save a few people from having to learn it the hard way.

I've been using a product called EazyBackup for years now, and it has saved my bacon a couple times, as well as made transitioning from one computer to the next, nice and easy.

Some people copy the entire contents of their computer's hard drive onto another drive, as a backup. I decided some time ago that I did not want to back up my entire hard drive. When I get a new computer, I don't want to dump everything from my old computer, onto my new one. My existing computer has developed it's own little problems throughout it's use, and I don't want to bring them onto the new one. Also, my old computer ends up with software that I no longer use, and those programs I don't want on my new computer. I just want my data, for the programs I do still use.

There are 3 sets of data I am concerned with. One that I want is everything in my "My Documents" folder. ALL my data, including photos, music, Publisher Files, Word, Access, Excel, Power Point, and the like is in my "My Documents" folder.

The other set of data is all the separate programs that have their own backup utilities, like Outlook, Agent Office, Quickbooks, etc. With those, you can back up each program individually using their own utility. I can "point" those individual backups to store their data in my My Documents folder for some of them, but not all. And that's time consuming getting them all done individually! So the other option is to back up each of those program's data files, without using their individual internal utilities.

The third set of data is one that I hadn't even considered before I started using this program, which admittedly was many yeras ago. That is:

Desktop	-	Automatically save files and links on your Desktop
Internet Explorer	-	Preserve the Favorites, Cookies and other critical data from Internet Explorer
Windows Common Files	-	Backup and restore the miscellaneous common files (e.g., Address Book and Dictionaries).

Historically, backup programs assume that the user has intimate knowledge of (a) what data to backup, and (b) where to find the data. The average backup program supplies the user with some type of list of all of the files available on the PC and the user then has to figure out which ones to back up. For instance, many people back up the ".PST" file and think they now have a complete backup for Outlook. Not true. The .PST file does not include your "Message Rules' (filters), or "Signature Files" as well as some other things you definitely want backed up from Outlook.

Eazy Backup is a departure from the traditional backup program. Eazy Backup has built in logic to backup and restore various software applications (e.g., Microsoft® Outlook). That is, Eazy Backup knows where the critical data is located and knows what data must be included to make an effective backup for an application. This relieves the user from having to figure out which data to back up (and wondering if the selection is correct). Equally importantly, Eazy Backup also knows how to restore to the proper location. Restoring data is often more difficult than making the backup - especially when restoring to a machine with a different version of Windows.

The reason I like this backup utility is that this software knows where to get the files for those programs you SHOULD be backing up frequently. Instead of having to go into each of the following individual software programs, and do THEIR backup, or having to know which files to back up for each of those programs, this will do them all in one shot. Oh yeah, and you can schedule it, and have it write to a CD, DVD, external drive, or any other device which you have the capability of doing a 'direct write' to. What programs does it already know which files to back up?

Outlook	-	Outlook 2003, 2002 (XP), 2000, and 98
NEO	-	Nelson Email Organizer versions 2.x and 3.x
Outlook Express	-	Outlook Express 5.x, 5.5 and 6.x email
Eudora	-	Eudora Mail versions 4.x, 5.x, 6.x and 7.x
Netscape	-	Netscape version 4.x, 6.x and 7.x
Thunderbird	-	Mozilla Thunderbird
FireFox	-	Mozilla FireFox
IncrediMail	-	IncrediMail - free and paid versions.
MSN	-	MSN 8, MSN 8.5, and MSN 9.0
QuickBooks	-	QuickBooks 2000+
Quicken	-	Intuit Quicken
Money	-	Microsoft Money
ACT!	-	ACT pim/data base.
Palm	-	Palm Desktop Database
MailWasher Pro	-	MailWasher Pro Database
Dragon	-	Dragon Naturally Speaking
4T REM	-	4t Calendar Reminder MP3.
RoboForm	-	Siber Systems AI Roboform.
Expensable	-	Expensable Time &. Expense
Chaos 32	-	Time and Chaos 5.x and 6.x
ClipMate Pro	-	ClipMate Pro
Darn! Passwords!	-	Darn! Passwords!
TurboNote+	-	TurboNote+

And if it doesn't work on one of your programs - they may add it for you! They are constantly adding programs requested by users.

The other thing is that it is EASY to use. It brings up a window that lists all of the above programs that you have on your computer, and asks if you want to back them up. You just uncheck any you do NOT want to back up, and away it goes! It doesn't get much easier.

Last, but far from least, is the companies excellent tech-support. If you're having problems getting it set up, they'll help. But you probably won't need it!

$49.95 is the price!
To download a free trial version - click here. , or visit my site at http://GaryDavidHall.com/eazybackup.htm for more information.

Lead generation doesn't get any easier...Top Producer 7i "Market Builder®"

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:29:41 -0500

If you started in this business in the late 80's or before, as did I, you appreciate the fact that there are now so many tools available to generate new business, which never existed before. Some are good, and some are not so good, but it is inarguable that there are many available. Cold calling, door knocking, and mailings with recipes and homeowner tips, have been replaced with automated listing updates e-mailed to the prospect, automated drip campaigns, third party mailing services, lead generating Web sites, and so much more. If one is willing to invest some money, there are tools available that provide a tremendous ROI (return on investment).

After 20 years of first using technology in my own Real Estate career, and then working with thousands of licensees in the context of technology, one thing has become crystal clear; the easier a technology tool is to learn and use, the more readily we will adopt it. A significant majority of licensees do NOT have the patience, and/or the inclination to spend time learning new tools, even when they know they will make them more money. That is probably the cornerstone of why I like this new product from the Top Producer people so much, and why I think it is going to be very popular - especially for agents who understand ROI.

Top Producer 7i just launched a new product called "Market Builder®". It is an exciting new adjunct to "Market Snapshot®". "Market Snapshot®" was launched in September of ‘06, and has been justifiably well received. It provides prospects, or your SOI (sphere of influence) up-to-the minute MLS graphical reports - automatically delivered and updated. For prospective buyers, it's like IDX/Reciprocity (the ability for prospects to search, or receive search results of MLS listings) on steroids. For sellers, it uses MLS data to provide current comparables in an interactive mapping format. One of the things which makes it unique, other than the mapped format, is that it uses your MLS data, as opposed to courthouse records. Note that MS/MB is not available in some markets, but is in many.

You can make "Market Snapshot®" available on your Web site, or via e-mail. "Market Builder®" takes the next step, and incorporates automated post card campaigns, pointing people to "Market Snapshot®". You pick the street, pick a set of post cards, and Top Producer grabs the closest 400 people (owner occupied only), and starts a regular mailing to them 3 times each year.

40 homes per week, at market proven times of the year, with market proven post cards, and the post cards give the person a Web page to go to, where they key in their very own code to get their free "Market Snapshot®" specifically relevant to their neighborhood. You of course get the name and e-mail address they key in, in order to receive the "Market Snapshot®". And in keeping with the theme of "It doesn't get any easier"; the new prospect is automatically populated into your Top Producer 7i account as a new lead!

What does one have to do to avail themselves of this service? What does the process look like? It's as easy as:

Pick a street name
Pick the post card set
Watch for new leads to come into your 7i

I have all the information about it on my site, on the following Web page. I invite you take a couple minutes and see if you're as impressed as I am! https://garydavidhall.com/tpmarketbuilder.htm

Disclaimer: I am an authorized representative for Top Producer products. That said, those of you who know me or my reputation, know I only speak highly of products in which I believe.

Top Producer 8i

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:35:59 -0500

For those of you who are curious to hear any new bit of information that's out there on it, here are a few from Top Producer's customer service manager, from Real Talk.

"One of the biggest benefits to the online version is going to be realized by our subscribers again this year; upgrades and enhancements are no additional charge. So, in a nutshell, the price will be the same for subscribers who hold a Top Producer 7i license prior to the 8i release. Although official pricing has not been decided, there will likely be a small increase for new 8i subscriptions. We haven't yet seen an increase in price for an agent license since Top Producer 7i was released in 2002.

There are many changes, most I will leave for our marketing department to disclose, but the program has been reworked top to bottom for functionality, workflow and features. The biggest change, in my opinion, is that the software is moving away from the Java platform. Eliminating the use of MS Java benefits those who use Sun Java, or don't use Java at all, and will make setup easier for new users or on new workstations."

Top Producer 7i Campus & Free Blogs for Top Producer Web site users

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:37:22 -0500

Courtesy of another user group I'm on:

Top Producer 7i Campus Beta has now gone live and can be visited at http://www.topproducercampus.com./

This is a free service that is intended to provide support for Top Producer 7i users as well as an opportunity for you to participate by asking questions, giving feedback and sharing ideas and tips on how to make the most out of your Top Producer.

There is a forum, as well as success stories from our clients outlining what works best for them in their business. There are polls for you to vote on different topics from time to time to help us gauge what is most important to users, which will help our product development decide what services we will provide in the future.

The Top Producer 7i Campus also features Frequently Asked Questions and gives advice on how to get the type of help you may be looking for as well as many other resources.

I hope you all get a chance to visit and find it useful and perhaps give your valued feedback.

Top Producer Blogs are now included at no charge with your Top Producer Website. Blogs are really proving to be an excellent way to provide a resource that home buyers and sellers find useful that is unique to you and your style that will set you apart from the crowd. Blogs may keep them coming back to you as the local expert and guru that consumers are looking for.

Trans-Plans Activity/Action Plans

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:07:12 -0500

As you hopefully know, I am a reseller Top Producer 7i, Agent Office, Active Agent for Outlook, and many other Contact Management/CRM solutions,and a trainer for Agent Office. Just in case you are unaware, I am also the guy that created Trans-Plans. Trans-Plans are available for Top Producer, Agent Office, and Active Agent for Outlook. ‘In Agent Office and Active Agent for Outlook, they are called Activity Plans'. In Top Producer 7i they are called ‘Action Plans'.

These plans and letters import into the program you're using, and included in the plans are drip mail/email campaigns to thank referrers, keep your clients informed and therefore calmed down, always asking for referrals at the same time.

What will Trans-Plans do for you?

Reduce your overall stress level more than ANY other single action you can take
Stop the details from "falling through the cracks"
Save you approximately 150 - 200 hours by not having to create and key in the plans yourself
Keep you in touch with automated letters or e-mails, for your buyers and sellers throughout the listing and closing process
Give you a comprehensive "Action List" to present to buyers and sellers in your initial presentations with them
Significantly reduce the learning curve for new agents
Significantly reduce the time necessary to train a new assistant, or give your assistant a comprehensive list of their responsibilities. One that you can track!
Give you new ideas to differentiate you from your competition
Enable you to create and maintain a detailed history of your transaction for future reference
Provide an instant to-do list for someone helping you out while you're on vacation
Enable you to provide detailed "Client Reports" for your buyers and sellers
Get FAR more paperless
If you have a team, everyone is assigned their individual tasks, which appear on their calendar - not yours!
If you have a team - you will stop playing "Who has the file?"

"I would like to offer a non-solicited plug for Gary's 'Trans Plans' action plans that he sells on his web site. I purchased them several months ago, and have been slowly modifying them to my way of doing business. I feel without his plans, I would not have been able to keep up my current 2007 production of 40+ transaction sides with no assistant.

To take your business to the next level, or just simplify your existing business, take a close look at what he has to offer. Thanks! "

Randy Eide

...Finally I broke down and took a class from Gary David Hall. WOW! That was money Well Spent! Gary knows his programs and is a good teacher. I learned a whole lot and was able to put it to good use.

...Another point: Listing Plans come with the program. Gary Hall wrote a set called Trans-Plans. They are VERY Thorough. I was surprised at some of the things he came up with to remind me to do. Some are not relevant to my practice but most are and it is very easy to delete the ones you don't need.

Brent Link

A Real Talk Post:

Question:

Has anyone yet used the Trans-Plans for Top Producer? Are their any recommendations for this? It sounds great but $200 is a large investment? I would like to see recommendations first.

Answer:

Amy - I use these action plans in Agent Office - same plans. They are great action plans because they are so complete. There are a couple of big challenges with any contact management program and the biggest one, imnho, is the follow-up action plans. First, you have to create them, then you have to launch them and use them, and then you have to update them (or do you???).

We had more than 100 action plans in our system before these came along. We can't delete the old action plans because of how the system works, however, we use these new plans now, customized to our business which is now at 7 on our team, on the way to 9 before the end of the year.

Before these action plans came along, we were actually at the point where we were going to bring in the creator of TransPlans (Gary David Hall) for a couple of days to re-write all of our plans. There are not a lot of options out there for this type of action plan, and these are very good and definitely worth the small cost.

Chris Newell

For more information - http://GaryDavidHall.com/planslanding.htm

Agent Office Compatibility - Version 10.0

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:38:47 -0500

I have had people ask me what 'Vista' is, so I'll start out by saying it is the Windows Operating System (OS) which succeeds Windows XP.

AgentOffice has just released Version 10.0.

99.9% of the difference between Version 9.x and Version 10.0 is Vista compatibility. The other .1% is aesthetics. By the latter I mean the icons on the top of the screen are a different color and slightly different design. I wouldn't call them better, just a different look. You also have the option of choosing the background color, and/or placing an image in the background, like you can on your Windows desktop. That's it.

If you have Version 9.x, you are entitled to a free download of the "Upgrade" or "Version 10.0." If you have a version prior to 9.x, you must purchase the upgrade for $169, to have Vista compatibility. That price is a sale price, down from $229, and was supposed to end at the end of June, but has been extended through July.

The download is actually the entire program, as is all their upgrades. It is a 210MB file, which is quite large by anyone's standards. That said, with the slowest FIOS, it took me about 5 minutes to download it. With Cable or DSL, it would take a few minutes more.

There is not really any significant reason to download the upgrade, unless you have, or plan on getting, a Vista OS computer. To download V10, you need to already have Version 9.x. If you go to the following link, you can download it from there. http://realestate.fnf.com/Products/AgentOfficeDownload.aspx You will also need to call call FNF at 800.996.6546 to get an install code. The order in which you do it does not really matter, but you will need the install code to complete the installation of the upgrade. If you would like a CD, which contains the same thing, you can order it for $29.95 plus S & H.

To buy Agent Office, Top Producer, Active Agent for Outlook, REST, and others, just visit my site or call.

Exporting Notes & Types from TP6i

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:05:25 -0500

I just saw a post from someone who was using Top Producer 6i, and bought Agent Office. They were unaware that you can get Top Producer's "Types" or the ‘notes' to transfer to Agent Office. So.....here's how to do it.

While in TP 6i, click on ‘Setup', ‘Export Data', ‘Send to Top Producer 6i', ‘Display all contact', ‘Select all', ‘Export Source' should be ‘Top Producer 6i'.

Note that at this point, all the fields are in the ‘Fields to export' column. They include TYPES and NOTES. You want to highlight and ‘Remove' fields that you do not use, before exporting, so you do not have to ‘Map' them on the Agent Office import. Click on ‘Export', and then give it a ‘File name', and location.

Now you have a file to use to import the data into Agent Office.

Go to ‘Start', ‘All Programs', ‘Agent Office', ‘Import', ‘Yes', ‘Top Producer System 6 (Windows)',

This line of instruction puts everyone in the import into the ‘Category' ‘TP Import' in Agent Office. That way, if the import doesn't go the way you want it, you can delete the import contacts. It will also give you a future reference for who was in your "Old" database.

‘Set Defaults', ‘Categories', ‘Add', ‘TP Import', ‘OK', ‘TP import', ‘Include', ‘OK', ‘OK',

Continuing - Click on ‘Choose file', find the file you exported from TP 6i. Click on ‘Import'. You're done!

Top Producer 7i & Agent Office News!

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:49:15 -0500

Regardless of what software company it is, you should never hold your breath waiting for a software release, based upon when it was supposed to come out. They make their best projections, and sometimes it happens; sometimes it doesn't.

You should also, as a general rule of thumb, not install upgrades for any kind of software until they have been out for a while. It's always a good idea to let the people who do not subscribe to this 'rule of thumb', be the guinea pigs. The caveat to that is if you really need what the upgrade offers right now. Wanting to get Agent Office but having a Vista OS would be a perfect example J Having Agent Office and needing to upgrade to Vista, would be another. Sometimes it's unavoidable.

That said, Agent Office is scheduled to release it's Vista compatible version, Version 10.0, on July 2nd for download, and a week or two later on a CD. Aside from a few cosmetic changes, the only significant difference will be compatibility with Vista. So what does that mean? Yes it is called Version 10.0. No it is not beneficial to get the upgrade unless you are planning on upgrading, or have upgraded, to Vista.

•1) If you bought Agent Office, or the upgrade, after July of last year, you are entitled to a free download of the ‘patch' that is Version 10.0 from their Web site, when it is released - projected to be July 2^nd.

•2) If you would like a CD of the upgrade, which you do not need, it will cost $29.95 for materials and shipping.

An interesting outgrowth of this patch being made available online for download, is that from that date forward, I will be able to fill your orders for Agent Office or the upgrade, as a download, as opposed to being shipped a CD. The price will remain the same at $329 for the download, but there would be no shipping costs or taxes, and you would not have to wait to receive it.

Top Producer 7i recently announced the ability to synch with Windows and Blackberry based PDA's. Although the ability to synch with the PDAs exists, there are some carriers that did not afford the ability to do so. One was Bell Mobility. Official confirmation has been received from Bell Mobility that they now support direct TCP and therefore Bell customers are now supported with the Top Producer for BlackBerry product.

Top Producer 7i Outlook Connector (TPOC) is an add-in component for your desktop version of Microsoft Outlook. The TPOC allows you to use Outlook rather than My Email as your primary email application while maintaining the ability of creating connections between email messages and contact records (that is, maintaining email messages in a contact's history).

TPOC had been limited to use with Outlook 2003. Top Producer 7i has just announced that Outlook Connector now works with Outlook 2007.

Q: What is the price of the TPOC?	Retail Price: $149.00 (one time fee)
Q: Is there a cost associated with the upgrade?	No.
Q: Do existing customers need to upgrade to the new version of the TPOC?	No. However if a customer is running Microsoft Vista or upgrades to Outlook 2007, they will be required to download and install the latest version of the TPOC.
Q: Will the old and new version of the TPOC be available going forward?	No. Only the latest version of the TPOC will be available for download going forward. The latest version of the TPOC supports all the same versions as before in addition to MS Vista and Outlook 2007.

Do an export NOW if you have Top Producer 6i

Gary David Hall, Real Estate CRM Broker,e-PRO,RECS (RE-ACT, LLC) — Fri, 25 May 2007 11:00:01 -0500

For those of you who have not yet made a decision on what to move to if you have TP6i, you need to do this now!

If you are going to move to Top Producer 7i prior to the end of the month when support ends for 6i, you're fine. If you are going to continue to use 6i beyond the end of May 2007, you need to do an EXPORT, not a backup, now!

If your TP6i crashes after the end of this month, or your hard drive crashes, or your computer is stolen, your backup is useless. All your data will be inaccessible because the backup is only good if you can restore it to your TP6i software, or give it to Top Producer to convert it into 7i.

Now don't go getting all upset at Top Producer. A backup, as opposed to an export, is usable only in the program it was created from, and would be true of Agent Office or any other proprietary software.

If you decide not to go with TP7i, you'll need this export, so you can import it into whatever program you decide to use. If you have an export in an ASCII, CSV, or TXT format, that data can be imported into any other database program. That's why you need to keep a current export, as well as a current backup.

To do an export from TP6i:

Click on - Setup, Export Data, ASCII file export, Display all contacts, Select all, Export contacts, Click on ‘Add' for every field, Export, Key in a file name ending in ".csv" ( no parenthesis), pick a "Folder" to save it into, click OK.

Keep this export current, and no matter which program you move to, you'll have your data ready for import.

With regards to what program you are going to move to, keep in mind that TP7i will be able to import almost ALL of your data from TP6i, they do it for you, for free, and they are currently running a promotion which is for a $60 credit to upgrade to 7i. You can order 7i on my site at http://GaryDavidHall.com/topproducer.htm

Using the export of the 6i data for import into another program is limited to the fields you will see when you are clicking on "Add" when you are doing the export from 6i.