Subtitle: How Organized are You?

While wading through the 250+ or e-mail messages that came in over the last 24 hours, it hit me.  I never considered myself the most organized guy in the world, but at that moment I realized how organized I really am.

On an average day, I receive an average of 200 to 300 e-mails a day through nine e-mail accounts.  25 to 30 phone calls, plus mail, faxes and blog comments.  Yet I still find time to visit clients, show properties, do inspections, create flyers and  virtual tours, attend meetings for several boards and committees, update websites (21 of them and growing), teach chess classes, organize events and attend my family activities including my children's sports events. I still do the normal day to day things like going to the gym, shopping, getting a haircut, etc.

In the last couple of months my business has grown considerably.  You might think that my service would suffer after reading that list; but the opposite is true. 

The reason my business is growing is that I have increased my personal marketing and continue to raise the level of service I provide my clients.  More about that in a future post.

So how is this possible? It is about having systems.  

I could not live without Outlook^TM, a PDA phone, a laptop and a Sprint^TM Card for my laptop.  Outlook^TM allows me to filter out spam and organize and file the incoming and out going messages.  It also allows me to receive all of the messages from multiple e-mail accounts into one InBox.  If you are not using Outlook or some similar program; get one to manage your e-mail, your contact lists and your schedule.

The next great tool in my arsenal is Adobe Acrobat Professional^TM.  I can not imagine what life before Acrobat was like.  Having an electronic file with every document and every communication not only makes my life easier it makes me look so much more professional to my clients.

The next piece of the puzzle is finding help when you need it.  We have several newer agents in our office that willingly assist with my listings to gain experience and to hopefully pick up clients at our open houses.  My good friend and team mate Donna Shefcheck moved to Alaska, leaving a void.  Celeste "WooHoo Sally" Cheeseman to the rescue.  Sally has stepped up to help manage my files, etc. 

Working in such a great supportive office makes all the difference.  In the next week or so, I will follow up on this post with some of the challenges and some of the solutions I have come up with.

Aloha from sunny Hawaii!