A Day in the Life of a Mobile Agent
Important Update! Since this article was written, we’ve developed a complete program to help real estate agents use their iPad to be 100% Paperless and Mobile – see The Paperless Agent – iPad for Real Estate program for details!
Click here to learn more about iPad for Real Estate
A Day in the Life of a Mobile Agent
Over the past 12 months I have been speaking at different real estate conferences across the country on the benefits of bringing technology to the forefront of your real estate business. Though attending these conferences as a Speaker, I am also a Listener. I listen to others on stage; and I listen to attendees.
I’ve listened to a number of conference speakers advise Realtors to invest in one new, fantastic and pretty technique to improve their business: “Looking for that one special something that will transform your business, generate a flood of new leads, and which will save your business from disaster. I give you the Holy Grail of technological tools!” Of course, this game-changing technology may ultimately be purchased through each Speaker. But, in an effort to not appear as salesmen, these glowing product descriptions are sandwiched between sage advice and tips for Realtors.
The problem?
In a classic case of “All talk, No Action,” many speakers don’t put their advice, tips and gadgets to use in a personal practice of generating and servicing real home buyers and sellers. As a result, I’ve listened to many tips that are shallow and ultimately not at all helpful. An excellent example of this loss of potential comes from presentations on the uses of Apple’s iPad. There’s never a shortage of talks on the “Top 10 Apps” or other “Mobile Agent” advice given at conferences, but what is missing from these speeches is sound advice on how to use and apply these applications in the everyday practice of real estate sales. After buying this Holy Grail of gadgets, many Realtors I’ve spoken with admit to allowing it to sit idly on their desk or at home. Few have actually managed to implement the iPad as a fundamental tool of their business. Why? Because they didn’t know how.
Like Excalibur is to King Arthur, an iPad is to an Agent
In keeping with our mythological theme, as Excalibur was to King Arthur, the iPad is to an Agent. His sword was an essential part of King Arthur’s success, and in our modern world the iPad is essential for an Agent’s success. At the GoodLife Team, all of my agents own iPads. Because the iPad is so foundational to transacting and servicing customers in a mobile and digital world, owning one is a requirement for anyone working here. As a company, we teach our agents how to implement it in their daily business practices, and as a result my agents actually use their iPads. If you asked them today, they would admit to you that they wouldn’t know how to function without one.
Beyond practicality …
Though using the iPad benefits the practical functioning of our business, it also serves a larger purpose for our Team. We desire to do our part in caring for the environment, and the iPad helps us commit to our philosophical creed. Our aim at The GoodLife Team is to be a paperless company. With the help of the iPad and a few other technologies and innovations, our Agents are virtually paperless; the company is virtually paperless. By using these technologies, we have almost fulfilled our company-wide ambition!
The Presentation
In the slideshow above, I take you through a “Day in the Life of a GoodLife Paperless Agent.” I show you exactly how my agents use their iPads as a part of their business practice to serve our customers. I demonstrate to you what we revealed to Apple when they came to our office over the summer to learn why we incorporated the iPad into our core business operation and how exactly we use it. I think it’s safe to say we got the Apple stamp of approval when they named us, Official Power Users of the iPad.
How do you use your iPad?
By virtue of sharing, I think we all wind up better off. Please share with us how you use your iPad. What makes it a part of your core business practices? We would love to know!
Here’s to raising the bar,
Krisstina
P.S. Here is a link to an article published in the The Chicago Agent Magazine that describes how we are using the iPad as part of our core business philosophy and best practice.
46 Responses to “A Day in the Life of a Mobile Agent”
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thx
Hope that you register! See you there.
Krisstina, I just receive your first notice but the sign up was a week late. Did I go to the wrong place or are you sending out a new invitation to your coffee in the next week?
Barbara- we’ll be sending you an email with all the information. Thank you for interest.
Krisstina,
I am currently on holidays with my family and will be away from an internet connection tomorrow for your coffee with Krisstina. I am very interested in learning what you guys do to create the paperless agent and the apps that you use. Will you be publishing a replay of the webcast? or would I be able to get a copy of the cast?
Thanks
Ryan stay tuned- we’ll be posting the presentation here. You wont be missing it! Hope you are enjoying the holiday with the family.
Ryan .. the presentation is now uploaded. Take a look and let us know if you have any questions. Thanks!
Krisstina
I am here for the iPad apps webinar – am I in the wrong place? Too early? Too late?
we’re sending you an email right now.
At the end of the 9/22/11 paperless agent webinar Krisstina said that she would make available a copy of the show slides, on the website. If that is true, would you pls advs how to access/download the slides? Thx
Chuck- yes, we always do. We are getting ready to post here. We will notify everyone when is available. Thank you for attending yesterday.
Chuck, In case you didn’t notice, the iPad presentation is loaded in the slideshow above. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks!
Hi Krisstina,
I enjoyed your talk at the Big E and would love the list of apps. Where can I find them ?
Ronnie
Hi Ronnie, this is Pat, COO for Coffee with Krisstina. That’s great to hear! If you click on the presentation above this comments section, you will be able to see the list of apps and hear Krisstina explain how we use each app at the GoodLife Team.
I am having trouble when sending forms from my email to DocuSign. The email appears in my drafts folder but the documents are not there. I contacted docusign and they said it might have something to do with the exceptionally long names that Zipforms puts on the documents. Have you had this same problem and how do you get around it?
Hi Paul, we have had some difficulties with Docusign’s mobile app, and they are working on the program. I am unaware of that specific problem, as we have not experienced that yet.
The problem was fixed last night. Here is the email I recieved:
Thank you for contacting DocuSign Customer Service.
Hi Paul,
There was a hot patch released last night to resolve the long file name when sending to drafts.
Please let me know if you’re still having issues.
I tested the PDF you sent me earlier with the long file name and it uploaded on my end.
Hi Kristina,
Thanks for the insights, I teach a class out here on how to use the iPad – it is simplified – Evernote, forms and how to sign them…
It its very refreshing to see others using tools to their full potential.
Thank you, Terkel! Let us know if you teach on any apps that we have not included in our presentation. We are always what others are using. Thanks!
Terkel ..
Great meeting you at the CwK happy hour at NAR!
Hi Krisstina:
Found the IPAD webinar with Garry ABSOLUTELY INTRIGUEING!!!! As a new IPAD owner I was not aware of what I was capable of, I cant wait to put the competition in the dust!!!! Anyway, When I send soemthign from my computer (PC) to my own e-mail when it comes across on the IPAD, it is no longer a PDF, but rather a DAT. and the IPAD says that is cannot open it, Is there a setting I need to change?
Paul,
That is likely a setting on your desktop. I would speculate that you are using Outlook to send your emails and have a firewall in place. They are probably not playing nice and your attachments are being stripped by the firewall.
Hope that helps!
How can I get a copy of the “numbers” spreads sheet for buyers and sellers tha toy use?
Jeff … Our Numbers spreadsheet is a spreadsheet that we have created specifically to our own market so it wouldn’t be of much use for you. I recommend that you work with your broker or your title company and produce a Net Sheet. You can produce your spreadsheet in Numbers (a Mac version of Excel) and then use it on your iPad with your sellers. Hope that helps! Enjoy the day.
I took the paperless office webinar..very good; have most of the ipad apps etc…have had Macs since early 1980′s…Use Keynote and Numbers on my desktop: work well…was going to download for the iPad but the reviews are terrible for both apps which is really surprising for a native app..are they really that bad to use?
Roger
Roger,
Thanks for your question above. We have been satisfied with the apps and what we need to use them for at this time. As anticipated, it is not like the full desktop application, but it does seem that Apple has been able to keep the most important functionality in tact for the ipad apps.
I find that the Keynote app works great for my needs. I do almost all of my Stage presentations from Keynote on my iPad with no problems. It is missing some functionality that I would like, but nothing that keeps me from using the app. As far as the Numbers app, we use it for simple spreadsheets and it works just fine, so, I can’t comment as to it’s capabilities for more advanced needs when mobile. Hope that helps!
I am a real estate agent in a company w/o a companywide CRM.
You mentioned in the “Must Have” Apple Apps webinar that your office uses Salesforce for your CRM. I am currently testing Top Producer as a crm because it is real estate specific but find it too auto template driven.
I looked at Salesforce and found it very confusing and potentially difficult to learn. Also it seems to be organized by Company, not contact which is not the real estate model.
How did you reshape Salesforce to make it meaningful for your company? And what CRM do you recommend for an individual real estate agent? Act? Salesforce? Top Producer?…
Brian,
We have been customizing our own proprietary CRM on top of the Salesforce platform, and have spent 3 years and $$$ to do so as a company….because of the limitations and problems we have found in every other system out there. We, like you, never found a system that worked with our business and philosophy.
We will continue working on our CRM and may have an option as an offer to you in 2012…stay tuned!
Thanks for sharing! Your direct, no nonsense, practical approach is refreshing! I can’t wait to hear more about the CRM system you are working on. This is certainly an area our industry needs direction on! All the Best, Tami
Thank you, Tami! We are working on a CRM solution, but it will be awhile before it’s ready to offer to anyone outside of The GoodLife Team. We suggest to continue using what you are using and a better solution will be coming to market sooner than later:)
Happy Thanksgiving! Looking forward to staying in touch here on CwK.
I just subscribed to (hopefully) see the video/presentation above. Though, nothing displays. I’m using Safari/Mac. Is there a compatibility issue?
Thanks!
Hi Robin, you should not have any compatibility issues. We are an Apple house so everything we do, we do on Apple products. You should just be able to click the yellow Play button and watch it. Is that not working for you?
Pat
Hi Pat,
No, there is no yellow Play button. It looks like the video gets “stuck” loading … there is only a orange colored bar that appears halfway loaded. I’ve refreshed my browser several times and this is the same issue continuing today that I had last night!
Thanks!
Hi Robin,
This is what Jack, our super smart CTO/CXO, recommends:
1) try loading in a different browser
2) update flash – the presentation is in flash, and older versions of flash might not be compatible http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
3) make sure you are on a high speed internet connection.
Hope these help!
Pat
I use the ipad (16g wireless only) but I use “clear.com” for wireless service. When your agents are outside Travis county and signals can be limited or in & out is there a wireless service that you count on for the ipad signal?
Thanks Krisstina
Roland,
We use the 3G or 4G wireless iPads for that sake. If we have a horrible reception, we either go somewhere (coffee shop) with good service or send everything to them for e-signature later. Clients completely understand wireless issues and are great about it (and often jest with us).
Really good post. I just came on your blog and wanted to say that have seriously really liked reading your website posts. In any case I am going to be subscribing to your posts and I really hope you post again soon enough.
Quintin-thank you on behalf of our entire team! If you would like more exclusive information from all of us, make sure you join our Single Shot membership for free!
Great info.. I have been recently working with Evernote and Dropbox but was wondering if there was a simple way of syncing the 2 without having to save the 2 separately.
Thanks
Zee,
I do not know of a way to do that right now, as integration between apps on the iPad are very restrictive.
What are you wanting to save in both places?
Krisstina,
We like the idea of using iBooks for pdf’s like photos and wondered what software you created your comps photo pdf in? Do you use Pages or is it straight out of your MLS system? We thoroughly enjoyed your online presentation and learned a lot from it. Thanks for sharing.
Terry,
This is a pdf created directly out of our MLS system, which we show everyone how to do that and all of the other specific details in the iPad for Real Estate training videos. Have you see that too?
Hello, I enjoyed the USA today article about small businesses using the iPad. There’s a picture of you standing in front of an Apple monitor. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/story/2012-08-19/efficient-small-business-apps/57121726/1) Can you tell me the name of the monitor stand you are using? Thank you.
Krisstina uses the Ergo Desktop seen here: http://www.ergodesktop.com/
It is a very stable desktop stand!