Great Tools, Gadgets and Resources for Real Estate Agents

Post written by Rob Minton
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In this post, I thought I would share a few of my favorite tools, gadgets or resources with you. I have written about a few of these previously, but you'll be able to find some new ones in this post! I use each tool, gadget or resource listed every single day and have found them to be extremely helpful and cost effective. Here we go:

1. 5 Clicks: 5 Clicks is a little print screen software program that you can use to easily capture any part of your computer screen and paste it into a document or turn it into a jpg or gif picture. I use this software a lot. In fact, it is always open on my computer. I've even used it in this blog post by including a screen shot below. It is immensely helpful when writing newsletters, reports, and in marketing materials. It is very easy to use. I simply love it and couldn't work without it. You can see how the software works and give it a test drive on their website.

2. Google Calendar: Last year, I tried Google's free online calendar and haven't looked back. The best part of the calendar is that you can allow other people to schedule and change your calendar. Before Google Calendar, I struggled because I was maintaining two different calendars. One for work and another for family. My assistant at the office controlled the work calendar and my wife controlled the family calendar. Scheduling conflicts occurred frequently and it was very frustrating. Now I operate with just one calendar and both my wife and my assistant schedule everything together. This way they are able to see potential scheduling conflicts and avoid them all together. For example, let's say my wife is trying to schedule a dentist appointment for me. She can check out the Google Calendar and look for an opening and make the appointment. Google's Calendar is free and it is very easy to use. I also sync this calendar with my Iphone using an Iphone application.

3. The Week: The Week is a "weekly" magazine/newsletter delivered to your door. It summarizes the top news stories throughout the U.S. and the world. It is concise, fun and entertaining. I stopped watching the news and reading the newspapers because of all of the doom and gloom. The Week allows me to stay current on what is happening without spending countless hours reading newspapers or watching TV. In addition to news, each issue includes consumer reviews of cars, television shows, movies and more. I usually find interesting ideas to use in Twitter or in client newsletters. In fact, if you send a client newsletter to your database, you can probably learn a great deal about how to format your newsletter and what to include by studying The Week. I found a special offer on their website noting that you can sign up for The Week for just 79 cents an issue. It's a steal at this price.

4.Roboform: This software is amazing. It will save your username and password for every website you visit on a regular basis. You might not realize it, but you probably have to login into dozens of different websites. I currently have over 50 different usernames and passwords setup in Roboform. Previously I would have to maintain a hardcopy summary of each website with my user name and password. Every time I went to the website, I would have to look it up and type it in. This was very time consuming. With two clicks of your mouse, Roboform automatically goes to the website and logs you in using your username and passord. It is awesome and I use it every single day.

5. UnlimitedSqueezePages.com: This company provides software allowing you to create unlimited simple, one page marketing websites. In minutes, you can setup a new website and begin capturing a prospects name, email address and phone number. Below, I have included a screen shot of one of these web pages that I copied and pasted using 5 Clicks (see number 1 above):

Tomorrow I'm hosting a special Webinar for real estate agents on how to sell their listings in one week at market value. I setup this simple website for the Webinar registrations. When someone signs up for the webinar at this site, it will automatically email them the details of how to join the webinar. If you would like to attend this webinar, go to this website and register at: http://www.CommissionBeforeSale.com.

Right now, I probably have over 50 of these little websites setup. I can create a simple one page website for every single marketing campaign I run including: free report offers, free book offers, free webinar/teleseminar offers, and more. You can easily add audio or video to these websites. One of the best features is that you can split test headlines. The software allows you to add multiple headlines to each website you create. It will then rotate these headlines and find the best one with the highest conversion rate. This is extremely powerful because it allows you to improve the results of your marketing from week to week. All of this for around $30 a month. You can test drive this software for $1.00.

In a future post, I plan to share a few additional tools, gadgets and resources. Check these out and see if they'll save you time!