Archive for the ‘Time Management’ Category

Jott.com is an inexpensive and powerful tool for real estate marketers and sales people. Jott is a system that allows you to send voice messages out to other people’s cell phones as a converted text message. This voice messaging system can save a real estate sales professional precious time because it creates short 60 second messages that deliver exactly what you want to say concisely. Here are a couple of other things Jott can do for your business:

1. You can utilize Google’s Calendar program to post times for call in meetings or events that you will be having.
2. You will have the ability to convert voice messages into text messages and then send them to specified contacts on your list.
3. Reminders can be set in the Jott system which will send you a text message when you need to be reminded of an event or important task.

Setting up Jott is relatively easy, just go to www.Jott.com and set up a free account. Once you are finished with that, you will be able to input clients and business partner’s names so that you can send out a message to everyone on your list. You can then enter your message enter your message by voice which will then be converted into a computerized text message (These short messages are called Jotts, just like Twitter calls its short messages “tweets”.) The Jott system will then send out the voice message to everyone on your list.

I used the free account that Jott offered just to see how well it worked. When I called into the system a voice came on that said, “Who do you want to Jott?” I then sent myself a converted voice into text message by simply telling the system to send it to my account. It was really a very easy system to learn and use.

Jott is a Great Tool for Real Estate Agents to Save Time With

I can easily see where this service would save a Realtor or sales agent a lot of time. For one thing, it would help you avoid lengthy conversations that usually occur whenever you need to tell a client or business partner something. For example, if you wanted to tell a buyer that their offer has been accepted, then all you would have to do is say the name of the client when you called up your Jott account. Just like magic, the Jott system would send out the voice message in the form of an email. Jott will also send you an email confirmation letting you know that it has delivered your message.

Jott also can be used with other online applications like Google’s Calendar. By simply calling into Jott, you can tell the system what app to use by using one word commands. If you wanted to place an event into Google’s Calendar, just simply say the word “Google” and say something like, “Meet Freddy at 4:45 on Monday at Fanzoli’s Restaurant for meeting.” Jott will then convert that message into text, and then send it to your Google Calendar where it will appear in text form.

There are many more functions and features that you can use with this program, so much more than I would be able to go into here. However, you can jump over to Jott’s website at: http://www.Jott.com to get a free account and start checking the system and some of these features out.

Over the last ten years or so, I have had several businesses to include an online embroidery business as well as a web design business, and being a very busy person I have learned some valuable lessons.  One of the most important things that I have learned is that the most precious commodity that a person has is time, because let’s face it; they are not making any more of it.  So, time management is a very serious thing to consider, and if you want to take a look at someone that had a very productive life, take a look at Benjamin Franklin.

In addition to being one of the founding fathers of America, Franklin was a true Renaissance man.  Franklin had many achievements to add to all of his political endeavors, to include the involvement of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution; Franklin was a musician, poet, and avid chess player that wrote several essays and treatises on the subject.  He was also an accomplished scientist that helped to uncover the mystery of the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream, while making and writing about scientific discoveries in the fields of electricity, meteorology, principles of light and cooling.  His inventions were considerable as well creating the Franklin stove, lightening rods, the musical instrument called the glass armonica, ( That’s right, it is called armonica not harmonica!) and bifocals just to name a few.

One of the things that made Franklin so successful and diverse was his management of time.  Franklin was a master planner, mapping out his days in advance so that he could complete his goals and spend time on his ideas while keeping track of the progress he made with them.  Franklin usually kept a small private book on his person wherein he not only planned out his days, but also kept track of his accomplishments, appointments and important dates.  Many of the time management planners that we have today are a direct result of Franklin’s records that he kept.

How can you apply this to your real estate business and personal life?  Obviously, if you do not have a planner yourself, you need to buy one.  If you don’t want to buy one, you can always use technology like Google’s Calendar to get one and print it up off of the Internet.  However, having said that, you can get excellent cheap pocket planners that are great because you can carry them in you back pocket.  They have schedules so that you can keep track of your car’s maintenance, your travel expenses or just about anything else you can think of.  I personally like the smaller pocket versions, because they are cheap and convenient to carry around.  Also, if you lose it you won’t feel so bad because you will not have paid so much for it.

Once you get into the habit of planning your day out, you will find that you not only will accomplish more but you will feel less stressed out.  You can then begin to knock off all of those important tasks that you need to take care of in order to move your real estate business forward.

Whenever I tell real estate professionals how they should use social bookmarking sites, blogs, websites or any of the other online vehicles that are available to market themselves and the clients they represent, I always hear the same thing, “I don’t have the time!”  I will concede that you only have so many minutes of your life to live and because you can never get this precious commodity back no matter what you do, it is your most valuable asset.   You can get money back, heal relationships, buy another car, etc., but time is one thing that you cannot redeem.

So, it is important to consider time, like a precious investment and how you will use it to benefit yourself, sales career, and family.  In this article, I am going to save you time by cutting to the point and telling you about 5 ways that you can either save yourself some time ( therefore being able to market more productively) or find more of it to accomplish your goals.  You do have goals, don’t you?

1. Set some serious goals. You are going to waste a ton of time if you don’t have a clue as to where your target is, and you are going to waste tons more if you don’t even have a target to start out with.  So, take the time (which, by the way is a good way to spend some time) on setting your goals.  When you set goals, it immediately tells you what you need to do by giving you a set of instructions that you can follow.  Having a blueprint like this will save you time by taking out any confusion you may have on which direction to go, therefore saving you time.
2. Watch out for electronic distractions. Email, cell phones, and surfing the Internet are all distractions that can easily eat your time and undermine the process of achieving your goals in the real estate marketing arena.  Return unimportant calls and emails after you have completed your stated goals for the day.
3. Make a list.  I have a white board that sits above my desk and every day I make a list of 10 things that I want to get accomplished, from the top priority to the least. It is a real adrenaline boost when you see visually that you are getting your goals accomplished and that will propel you on to the next goal.
4. Avoid casual conversations.  I can’t tell you the number of times that I have walked into an open house and seen realtors with their cell phones out chatting away. As a matter of fact, they won’t even stop talking long enough to actually show you the house!  It is one thing to have a casual conversation with people that you are doing business with, but if there are situations where you can see valuable time is being wasted with friends and coworkers, cut the conversation short until you have your stated goals for the day completed.
5. Look for wasted time and use it.  If you have to do an open house and nobody is showing up, use that time. Laptops are a great invention and I take mine where ever I go.  You can write articles, send email campaigns to potential clients, make announcements on Twitter as to your open house events, there are many things you can do.  Also, you can study books on marketing and sales or listen to lectures on MP3 or audio tape by motivational speakers.

I could list about another ten things you could do to with time that would be more productive, but I will leave you with one last thought.  The time that you spend with your friends and family is the best way to spend it. You can never get back the years that you spend on time with those people, so make them a priority whenever you can.

Please see Mark’s bio information here: Real Estate Marketing Online Expert