One of the most important things that I ever learned in school was leverage. Not the excessive leverage of capital like what we have seen cause devastation to many companies recently. No, I mean the simple definition of leverage, specifically using technology and people leverage to be more efficient.

Our team has doubled in the last year in a declining real estate market, with sales off more than 40% from highs achieved just two short years ago. Why? Well, I decided instead of taking new found time (not busy as much with clients) to build systems. We put marketing on auto-pilot, changed contact management systems, and the list goes on and on. We also decided to expand our team into the Virginia market and as such I needed to find a way to have local phone numbers in Virginia.

At first we did the same thing that we do in NC, just got a cell phone and used that phone number on all of our marketing. But then, I found this great service called MagicJack that allows you to make unlimited calls for only $39.95 A YEAR! No long distance, no per minute costs and get this... it driven from your computer! It's really worth checking out. It has voice mail, caller id, even call forwarding. The voice mail is actually sent to your email address as attached sound file! Great Leverage. Now I can be anywhere and I receive calls like I'm actually in Virginia, and the best part for a very small fraction of the cost I would have had otherwise.