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How Good Is Your Junk?

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408

My agent asked me to help with Outlook and I noticed that there were 474 messages in her junk folder. I asked her what she was doing with messages there, and she said she time from time deletes them.

I suggested that we experiment a little, and we opened the Junk Folder. On the very first page there was a message that was not a junk. The agent was very surprised to see it there. I left and she kept checking the remaining messages.

junk - Jon ZolskyIf you do not check your Junk Folder often, you better do. I am not a techie and I am not playing one. I too often find important messages sitting in the junk folder, and too often when I call my customers and ask whether they have received my e-mail, they say “no” and then find it sitting in the junk folder.

Every time that happens, I would mark “always trust this address”, and expect the filter remember it, but the program has its senile moments and amnesia is often the fact of Microsoft Outlook.

I am getting notifications of comments on Active Rain, but contacts via Active Rain often end up in the Junk Folder. I try to check it often as I do not want the messages sit there for a long time unanswered, and the other reason is that surfing though 474 messages is not fun. 30-40 is OK, but hundreds is too daunting.

I now routinely ask people to check for my e-mail and if they do not get it, check the Junk Folder. You will be surprised how many of them do not even open the Junk folder being absolutely sure that nothing good can be there.

Get used to think that Junk Folder is not the place where there is only junk e-mails, but rather a Folder, where there is ore junk than good. So visit it for that good.

Visit often.

I tend to think that I am as good as my Junk Folder. Not because it is entirely true, but because my Junk Folder is good ;-)

* image courtesy of bixentro via Flickr.com 

Leslie Ebersole
Swanepoel T3 Group - Saint Charles, IL
I help brokers build businesses they love.

Ouch...one of my team mates opened his spam file last year to find a message from a potential client saying "you won the listing", and then a message sent 18 hours later "you lose, you've taken too long to respond". He saved the opportunity with a screen capture showing the message went to spam and that he actually did check it every day.

Thanks Jon, good reminder.

Aug 16, 2010 04:51 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Leslie - what an example. He was lucky he could save the listing. But how frustrating this can be

Aug 16, 2010 04:57 PM
William Johnson
Retired - La Jolla, CA
Retired

Hi John, The i-mail feature of the Mac is actually pretty good and I rarely find needed mail but as you say, nothing out there is fool proof and we have to train ourselves to look and look often, so I do it daily. Oddly I still find one every now and then. Good reminder Jon.

Aug 16, 2010 05:07 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

William - especially when this one is what you were waiting for. Thanks for stopping by.

A few years ago I was not doing it often and when I surfed themessage before deleting, I ran into a request for the nformation on a $1.5 mil home on the ocean or on t he intracoastal. I looked at the date, and it was already a week ago. I called, and the lady said she was coming and she had made another contact.

Losing a rare and expensive deal is still in my memory, and not as a pleasant one...

Aug 16, 2010 05:17 PM
Melissa McKinney
Everything Pines Partners Fayetteville - Fayetteville, NC
Realtor, www.LivingFayetteville.com

Jon~ You will LOVE Gmail! I was such a firm believer in Outlook... but every time you have a computer problem or crash (hate when that happens...) you loose all the information that you had not backed up.  I can not tell you how much I have lost over the years.  I am completely working out of Gmail now.  Have my folders for each client so I can keep everything tiedy. I use the email address that i have always used along with my Gmail account.  I have Gmail retrieve from the server and have that server delete after it has been retrieved.  I have Gmail set that when I hit the reply button that it returns the email with whichever address that it was sent to: so if it comes into my mmckinney@nc.rr.comit is sent back that way.  Then you have the calendar there to keep your appointments and I have it set to email me each morning of my appointments for that day.  I really could go on and on... Also if you have a DROID you can access all this from your Gmail app on the phone: see my blog http://activerain.com/blogsview/1801117/-should-you-droid-or-not-

 

Aug 16, 2010 05:23 PM
Chris Alston
Chris Alston (Keller Williams Realty, Silicon Valley, California) - Campbell, CA
Silicon Valley, California

I check it daily...  Sometimes Outlook thinks some of my good mail is spam..  :)

Aug 16, 2010 05:26 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Melissa - that is what my good friend is telling. I was so loyal, but the love to Outlook was not mutual. I will have to learn all t he tricks on Gmail, and thanks for your comment, it gives me some good direction

Aug 16, 2010 05:41 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Chris - same thing with me. With no reason suddenly an e-mail will go the  the Junk folder and the rest wold go to Inbox

Aug 16, 2010 05:42 PM
William J. Archambault, Jr.
The Real Estate Investment Institute - Houston, TX

Jon,

I blame allot of this on the sender!

A poor or blank subject line is a big problem. Despite all my efforts I get a couple hundred e-mails a day. I read 10 to 30.

Second before I open any thing I look at the sender. It's had to believe in serious corporate business coming from a free account! Even harder when it's a foreign free account.

As your agent illustrated you rarely get a second chance at a first opinion!

Bill

 

Aug 16, 2010 06:21 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Bill - for years I was adamant against free e-mails. I am getting the advice to use Gmail from the most corprorate guys out there.

It is safer, it is better protected, it is reachable from anywhere, it is better organized.

The guy called me the other day and said that if I am not using Gmail, I am ... well.... behind

Today was the day when I finally copied all my contacts to Gmail. E-mail to follow

Aug 16, 2010 06:29 PM
Pamela Seley
West Coast Realty Division - Murrieta, CA
Residential Real Estate Agent serving SW RivCo CA

Hi, Jon, I use gmail too and don't have a junk folder, but if I did I would check it often. 

Aug 16, 2010 07:24 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Pamela - That's what my friend told me. He said that there is no junk with Gmail, and this is a huge benefit. I am getting enoormous amount of junk, and it is taxing

Aug 16, 2010 07:27 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

Wow, Jon, I don't even know how to access my junk folder!

Aug 17, 2010 12:08 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Jay - if you use Microsoft Outlook, it is on the Navigation Pane on the left. The same place where you have Inbox, Outbox, Deleted, Sent, Archives

I heard that there is no Junk (and subsequently Junk or Spam Folder) in Gmail.

I suspect you are a lucky man if you do not know what it is, and I would try to keep it this way.

Aug 17, 2010 01:21 AM
Mike Saunders
Retired - Athens, GA

Jon - interesting. I have on my list of subjects to blog about junk/spam mail folders. I have been bitten by not checking them out faithfully.

Aug 17, 2010 04:37 AM
Bob & Leilani Souza
Souza Realty 916.408.5500 - Roseville, CA
Greater Sacramento Area Homes, Land & Investments

Jon, I used to use Outlook, but now I'm only using Gmail and it's true what others have written above...I really don't get any "good" junk mail there! I have several e-mail addresses that I use from Gmail, so they don't all necessarily have to come from my gmail address. I also have the "push" notification on my iPhone so I'm alerted to new messages as they come in. Last thing, Gmail does have a junk mail folder; they call it a spam folder instead. :)

Leilani

Aug 17, 2010 06:41 AM
Ray Saenz
Exit Realty Laredo - Laredo, TX
Homes for Sale in Laredo, TX - Texas, Realtor

Jon,
I usually don't check my junk email, I use google for my email and it works wonders, I know that I should not say never say never, but it works wonders, when I check my junk email it seems ok, no problems that I missed something important there.

Great blog and thanks for sharing this !

 

Aug 17, 2010 06:26 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Mike - me too. Sometimes I think I still have these bite marks. The thing I hate about it that it sometimes "junks" those who were OK before. And because you were constantly communicating with them, you do not expect them to end up in the junk folder, and then you do not check it for couple of days, and why are we surprised that people are not happy with our response time?

Aug 18, 2010 12:22 PM
Missy Caulk
Missy Caulk TEAM - Ann Arbor, MI
Savvy Realtor - Ann Arbor Real Estate

Jon, I was doing a transaction with an agent here, who kept asking us to resend the offer, the contingencies and finally the removals.

I and my Assisant had, HAD IT.

Finally her Relo Department called, and said to send it all to her, so once again we did.

Then I got a message from the Relo corrdinator telling me she found it all in her JUNK MAIL.

 

Aug 19, 2010 01:30 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Missy - Isn't it frustrating? And I hate when my customers call me and ask where the promised infomation was, which I selt to them earlier.

They are sometimes angry that I promised to send and they did not get anything.

And when I ask them to check their Junk Folder, they say "Yes" and are surprised that it went there. I donot know why, but it happens all too often

Aug 19, 2010 03:42 AM