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Posts Tagged ‘Cool Apps’

Cool Apps: Get things done when you want to with Seize the Day

By John Thompson | April 27th, 2012 0 Comments

If you’re anything like me you constantly have a to-do list running through your head. Walk the dog, pick up dry cleaning, prep for client meeting, put together presentation. Some of it has due dates and some of it doesn’t. A lot of my to-do list can easily get pushed off to another day while others need to be done now. Here’s an app that will help you prioritize and keep track of your to-dos simply and efficiently.

Seize the Day is a simple and easy to use task manager that helps you organize and stay on top of your busy life. Simply download the app and start adding tasks. For each task you can assign a due date, or you can leave it to be done at some point in time. I really like this feature because there’s always a task that doesn’t need to be done right away, but needs to be done eventually.

The app also allows you to add a tag which is nice if you’d like to categorize your tasks. The reminder selection is optional and customizable so you can choose when and if you receive a reminder about that particular task. The notes section allows you to go into more detail about the task. And lastly, you can view your tasks by day or all at once in priority order making it easier for you to see what’s important now.

Seize the Day is super easy to use and keeps your to-do list simple, uncluttered and organized. Just what you need when striving to stay on top of it all.

Cool Apps: Instagram – Easy, Fun Way to Share Neighborhoods

By John Thompson | April 20th, 2012 0 Comments

Little known fact regarding Intero Real Estate and Instagram: We brought it to you here on Cool Apps back in 2010. Yep, that’s right, we were way ahead of the curve.

Since the app seems to be taking the internet world by storm, we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane and reiterate how this very cool app can be of great service to you in the Real Estate world:

Looking for an app that allows you to be social and useful at the same time? One that’s easy and fun to use? That doesn’t require a ton of strategy or technical prowess to get right?

Check out Instagram – the latest iPhone addiction for folks who like to take photos and share.

As real estate agents, you’re selling neighborhoods just as much as you’re selling homes (if not more, in many cases). My first thought with Instagram was that it offers a fun way to show off the quirky things about a neighborhood that you really can’t stage.

Imagine this: you’re out touring houses in a neighborhood where you have a lot of listings. You didn’t intend to have a photo shoot today, but you do of course have your iPhone with you. You notice some fun things happening: a guy on the corner playing the trumpet; a bakery that’s gone wild with a new mural on the side of its building; two squirrels who seem to be posing in front of a home for-sale sign.

Using Instagram, you simply launch the app, snap a picture, add a cool filter for effect, add a title so people know where it was taken, and upload it to all your social media networks – Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, for instance. Do this often and your followers will start to see the world you live in – the neighborhoods you sell.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so do the math and you might find yourself subconsciously selling great places to live to folks who are looking for just that.

To test out Instagram yourself, you’ll need to download it from the iTunes app store. It is currently a free app and only available to iPhone users.

Snap it. Share it. See what happens!

Intero Cool Apps: Make your Address Book Smarter

By John Thompson | April 6th, 2012 0 Comments

Put all your contacts into one location with Smartr Contacts. Smartr Contacts connects with multiple email addresses and social media sites to organize all of your contact profiles in one place.

Just think, one click and you can see your entire center of influence. Now you might be thinking, “my phone already comes with an address book. What makes this one so great?” Well, does that address book include everyone you have ever contacted through social media or otherwise? And does that address book log every single communication you have ever had with that person? I didn’t think so.

With Smartr Contacts, you will have a historical log on an individual contact page of all interaction that has happened between you and that person making it easy to track the conversation. This contact page also allows you to view emails and calendar events for that person. You will no longer have to ask the question “Did I call Jane last week about that new property listing?” It’s all there in black and white.

By tracking the number and frequency of interactions, Smartr Contacts will also sort your contacts by importance. This makes it easier for you to find people at the center of your world at that instance.

Its simplicity makes it effortless for anyone to use. Smartr Contacts provides plenty of shortcuts to easily get in touch people in various ways. It allows you the option to search contacts by first, last, company name or phone number and you can edit or hide contacts you don’t wish to see right now.

The best part of all is everything is hosted on the cloud, so if you ever lose your phone, you’ll still have access to your contacts.

Smartr Contacts, a smarter, easier, more effective way to keep in touch.

Cool Apps: Blogsy Puts Blogging in Your Fingertips

By John Thompson | March 30th, 2012 0 Comments

Blogsy Puts Blogging in Your Fingertips

By: John Thompson
Executive Vice President
Intero Real Estate, Inc

Just in case you needed another reason to fondle your new iPad (or iPad 2 – because that’s still cool too), there’s an app that will enable you to create blog posts – and do it well – right from your beloved tablet.

Blogsy will completely challenge the notion that iPads are for content consumption, not content creation. The app enables posting to WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and other blogging platforms.

Blogsy has a built-in web browser that makes linking, photo, video and other content embeds simple. It’s real content creation right from your fingertips. Built with touchscreen interaction in mind, the interface is simple and intuitive to use.

Not blogging? This is a market technique that is well worth a try – even if you think you can’t write. There are plenty of online resources that can help you get started. (Try Copyblogger for starters.) Think about blogging as a way to answer or address all the questions you find yourself constantly answering for buyers and sellers. You can use it as an educational tool that helps market your expertise and therefore sell your services.

If you’re looking for an easy interface to use for blogging that’s simple, but gets the basic job done, test Blogsy.

The app is available for $4.99 in the app store – well worth the cost if it helps you execute on a solid marketing strategy that moves you ahead.

Cool Apps: 5 Must-Have Apps for Your New iPad

By John Thompson | March 23rd, 2012 0 Comments

If you’re one of the 3 million people who snagged a new iPad last weekend, you’ve probably been busy drooling over the device’s ground-breaking retina display and also wondering which apps are the best for both personal and professional use in the real estate business.

This week, we’re highlighting the top five iPad apps that you won’t be able to live without once you’ve started using:

Dropbox (free) – Dropbox enables you to save and access files from your iPad from anywhere with connectivity. If you’re already using Dropbox on your desktop or laptop, then adding the iPad app is a no brainer. If you’re not yet using this cloud storage system, then you’ll want to create a free account right away. It’s a lifesaver for situations in which you need quick, remote access to important files.

Skype (free) – With the iPad’s camera, easy user interface and web connection, catch up with clients, vendors and business associates using Skype. You can do Skype-to-Skype audio and video calls for free, and also instant message other users.

iPhoto ($4.99)– Photos are essential for great real estate marketing. But why pay professional prices when you can create great-looking photos of your listings or purchase prospects with your very own iPad? The new version of iPhoto for iPad gives you basic photo-editing capabilities that are super easy to navigate and actually pretty fun.

Quickoffice Pro HD ($19.99) – This app may be the one that finally makes it possible for you to never have to leave the office or home carrying your laptop again. Quickoffice Pro HD enables you to open Office documents and PDFs, and make edits all from your iPad. Now you can tweak contracts on the go – saving time and impressing clients with your amazing response times and ability to get things done.

Tweetbot ($2.99) – If Twitter is part of your personal real estate marketing strategy, check out Tweetbot for iPad. The Twitter client has a unique interface that gives you a larger view of the context around your tweets (and tweets from others). Swipe to the right and see the full conversation surrounding it; swipe left and see replies to a tweet. You can also tap and hold a tweet, hashtag, username or a link to view contextual options that relate.

All of these apps are easily found by searching for them in the app store right from your iPad.

Cool Apps: CloudOn Transforms Your iPad Into a True Mobile Workspace

By John Thompson | February 24th, 2012 0 Comments

Have an iPad but still struggling a bit with how to turn it into a killer on-the-go, anywhere and everywhere work station? You know, the kind in which you can seriously do anything, and access anything you need to get your work done without ever picking up another device to make that happen?

There’s a new productivity app for iPad that just may be your kismet calling. It’s called CloudOn, and it launched in the U.S. iTunes store in January. The cloud-based service offers full Microsoft Office capabilities and Dropbox integration, turning your iPad into a mobile workspace for those of us who use Microsoft programs (um, nearly the entire business world!).

Until now, using Microsoft and accessing documents made in Microsoft programs has been a sort of “hacked together,” less-than-awesome experience. But CloudOn enables you to access, create, edit and save all your Office documents while on the go. You’ll have to set up a Dropbox account (which is free for basic storage) if you don’t already have one as this is where your documents will be stored. Dropbox is a cloud-based service that enables users to save their documents and back up work that they can then access anywhere with an Internet connection.

With CloudOn, you can do most basic editing and creation functions in all Microsoft Office programs, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For example, you can edit and track changes in a Word doc, create pivot tables and formulas in an excel file, and view and edit presentations in PowerPoint. It’s not going to be as a robust experience as you’d get using the program directly on your laptop or desktop computer, but it’s pretty much all you’ll need for on-the-go work and productivity.

Imagine changing contracts and getting signatures on the fly – moving things along without being tethered to a full computer or hamstrung by location or circumstance. This business is about service and volume: master those and you’re golden. This is the type of app that can aid you tremendously in achieving that goal.

Microsoft is likely to come along and release an iPad app for Office at least by next year. In the meantime, you can check out CloudOn free in the iTunes app store. Embrace mobility!

Cool Apps: Help Clients Organize Priorities and Property Detail Notes

By John Thompson | February 10th, 2012 1 Comment

Here in Silicon Valley, many agents have come to expect their real estate clients to be a bit high tech. Suggest they bring a pen and paper to take notes on all the houses you show them this Sunday and you may get puzzled looks. Pen and paper? That’s so old-school.

Wow them a bit more by suggesting an app for that: House Hunter.

House Hunter is an iOS app that works on iPhones. It makes it easy to take notes while house hunting and organize features and priorities so you can remember later and compare the homes you’ve seen.

It’s good practice anyway to have your buyer clients list out priorities for their home before you start looking at properties. House Hunter captures it all and uses the priorities to score homes your clients see against what they’ve deemed important. And after they’ve seen a handful of houses, most people naturally start to forget details about each one – or remember things a bit differently.

Another cool feature is that your clients can share their notes with you. Now you know where their heads are at: is it really the fireplace or the extra office space that will break their decision? Remove the guessing and give them details to compare.

House Hunter also has a mortgage calculator – always a good thing (if it works well, that is), and stores photos (nothing jars the memory quite like a good photo).

I can also see this app coming in handy for yourself when on broker tours. You can refer to your notes and images later and remember what you’ve seen – and easily share with clients. Then you have it for easy reference on your phone later too.

The app costs $3.99 in the iTunes store. Give it a test run and see whether this could be a solid decision-making aid when searching for the next perfect home.

Cool Apps: Your Email Needs a Personal Assistant

By John Thompson | February 3rd, 2012 0 Comments

Email. It’s hard to believe that at one point it was considered a real breakthrough in human productivity – a real advancement. Sure, it makes so much possible for so many people. But the reality is that it has become a major time suck for many of us. Ever let your inbox go for three days? It’s almost impossible to catch back up.

With all its utility, email can come back to bite you. Getting buried often means forgetting to follow up. Reading emails on your mobile while waiting in line for your morning latte often means reading and forgetting to reply when you have time later.

Don’t let this happen to you. Bring back the magic of email and check out a new app called Contactually.

Contactually is like a personal assistant who handles your email follow ups. It automatically prompts you to take action with the people in your network according to groups and time schedules that it and you set up. It even syncs with all the contact info in your CRM.

The service connects directly with your email program, and sends you daily messages saying that you need to follow up with these specific people today. When you first set up the service, it notes who you contact, how frequently you email them and how quickly you respond to people. Then Contactually puts them into buckets based on commonalities. (You can also organize the buckets yourself.)

Basically, you get a reminder email when Contactually sees that you haven’t reached out to an important contact in awhile. This can be tremendously useful in your prospecting efforts. Most people only buy and/or sell a house once every seven or so years, and regular check-ins can be easy to let slip. Contactually does the thinking for you and gives a nudge when the right amount of time has passed.

Contactually works with Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and Google Apps right now. The company expects to support POP3 and Microsoft Exchange in the future. You can get a free trial at https://www.contactually.com/.

Cool Apps: Get it Done in 2012

By John Thompson | January 13th, 2012 0 Comments

With New Year’s Resolutions comes great accountability. Yeah, right. If that were true, we’d be the fittest, smartest, most motivated, wealthiest and generous people on the planet. We’d be nearly superhuman.

But really, why set goals or take aims into the future without intention to take the first and follow-through steps necessary to get there?

Try iDoneThis, a simple “accountability” app that simply asks you via email: “What’d you get done today?” then tracks your answers and tells you what you’ve accomplished. Seeing strides made yesterday can motivate you to forge ahead even stronger today and tomorrow.

What is this good for? iDoneThis can help you get things done. Simply.

A regular process of aim-do-reflect is the ultimate productivity weapon. By keeping track of what you’ve done, you can learn and build on it throughout the year. And let’s face it, New Year’s Resolutions are worthless clichés if not acted upon. That makes us human, but that also can separate the movers from the nonmovers.

To try this app, visit iDoneThis.com and create a login. You will see your calendar, which you can start filling up with things you accomplished today. Then at 6 p.m. Pacific time every day, you’ll receive an email asking you to respond by listing what you got done today. Both the accountability and the sense of accomplishment can go a long way in filling your list the following day.

Change your email settings if you want to set a different time of day and frequency for receiving your reminder emails. You can also set the time and frequency of your memory emails, which give you a roundup of the day/week/month’s accomplishments.

Another cool feature is that you can export your data as a Google Spreadsheet, Excel file or text file. This way you can access your data later (and if the website ever were to stop operating).

Olympic athletes train this way – tracking their workouts, drills and nutritional intake, then using the information to make informed improvements. This is a tactic that could be very useful in improving your business in 2012.

Check out iDoneThis for free online.

Posts Tagged ‘Cool Apps’

Cool Apps: Get things done when you want to with Seize the Day

Intero Cool Apps: Make your Address Book Smarter

Cool Apps: Blogsy Puts Blogging in Your Fingertips

Cool Apps: 5 Must-Have Apps for Your New iPad

Cool Apps: CloudOn Transforms Your iPad Into a True Mobile Workspace

Cool Apps: Help Clients Organize Priorities and Property Detail Notes

Cool Apps: Your Email Needs a Personal Assistant

Cool Apps: Get it Done in 2012

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