Technology can be a blessing or a hindrance, which one is it for you? There is something to say about doing one thing successfully instead of doing many things half way as good. That is the way many people live in today's business world. Part of the issue is not that the agent or broker is guilty of not concentrating on the processes that make them successful but more so in the fact that the world of business today is made up of time consuming matters such as catchy advertising, email, systems not talking to one another, etc. All these things add up. As the day goes on there is a point in time that one must think if all the technology systems they use are really saving time?
Time is the most valuable commodity around. It is due to the fact that it cannot be replicated, reversed or sped up. So the real variable here is the systems we use to manage and the speed at which we can do specific tasks. If time was not a factor it wouldn't matter what we use, everything would always get done. So let's take a look at some of the technology that really bogs you down. Let's take email for instance and I am going to talk about one specific platform, Microsoft Outlook. How many emails do you receive in your inbox a day, 100, 200, 500? How many are actually spam and how many need to be followed-up and how many are just for record keeping? This is important because every email will eat up about 30 seconds of your time on average. That means if you receive 500, your day is shot because more than half of it is spent answering, filing, or deleting these emails.
So how do you solve this email dilemma? The Outlook program has several ways you can eliminate many of actions you take manually by automating the process. For instance under Tools menu is a selection called Rules and Alerts. This is an option that can automatically delete, move, reply or even alert you of a specific email message. The most important is the move email. If you understand how to add a file to your Mail Folders on the left hand side by right clicking the folder, then you are on your way to organizing that inbox. If you can take control of your inbox and automatically delete spam, move typical messages to another folder or create an alert of an important email that has just come in, this would help reduce the time spent on email.
Catchy advertising is another drag on time. Everywhere you look is advertising and they are no dummies. Advertisers know what will catch the eye of the prospect. When they do, it is all about exposure to their captive audience. So next time you see an ad ask yourself if this ad represents something that is necessary to have right now. If it isn't pass over the product and move on because most likely you will have a chance in the future to try it again if it is really a good match for you.
Systems not talking to one another is not only time consuming but down right annoying.Who wants to double entry anything these days? So the real push is to figure out how much information you double enter and find a system that would combine many of your business softwares together into one system. Some of those items are buyer's and seller's names, the listing or purchase address, your own name along with the processes such as managing a listing or purchase, tasking, expenses, transactions, contact management and so on. All this data has to be transferred into many forms throughout a transaction. If you want to look at one of the latest softwares that is leading this centralization of technology, look no farther than Realty Pilot's Concourse360. It offers a growing advantage over their competitors such as direct MLS feed into the back office system, rules and alerts, lead management, transaction closing system and much more.
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