As real estate investors and marketers, we’re faced with a lot of decisions on what software, gadget, service or gizmo to use to help us in our businesses. Here are some of my favorites:
Tools For Delegating:
Taskrabbit.com– Outsource your “feet on the ground” from an app on your phone.
Real Estate is Local. You hear that all the time, and it’s one of the things that makes this business very fragmented. Every city is different, however, most of the “on the ground” stuff can be dished out to someone else through an awesome service called TaskRabbit.com. I like this better than Craigslist because it’s faster (they have an app), and all of the “Taskers” that perform your tasks are well qualified and vetted to be smart, loyal people. Virtual Wholesalers will especially LOVE this service. (Caveat: Physical tasks with TaskRabbit are only available in the vicinity of most major US cities, but it’s expanding rapidly, Uber style. Don’t worry though, their Virtual Assistants are on staff for everyone too)
FancyHands: Non-dedicated Virtual Assistants that will do anything with extreme accuracy, 24/7.
They are all US based and English speaking. Instead of paying full-time for a talented assistant, just use them as needed with FancyHands They’ve got an amazing platform too, where you can make “requests” from a Google Chrome Extension, from your App, from an email, or even through a text. Some examples of things you can have them do:
Investor Friendly Virtual Assistants:
If you need a full-time virtual assistant that is very knowledgable about real estate and in particular real estate INVESTING, then you need to contact this company. They put their VAs through rigorous training to make sure they are well qualified to handle your leads, do your due diligence, and make offers on your behalf.
Tools For Streamlining, Saving Time, and Automating:
Camscanner
Copy machines? Printers? Faxing?? I hereby claim all of these technologies obsolete. With Camscanner, you can simply snap a picture of a physical contract, invoice, or any document/picture/note. It will take the document, enhance it drastically, and crop it up to remove it from the background, and the results are equivalent to using a state-of-the-art copy machine.
Hellosign.com: simple digital signatures.
Upload your contracts to Hellosign’s dashboard and within seconds, send out your contracts to your sellers or buyers for legally approved digital signatures. Even better, you can use Zapier to connect into Podio and initiate digital signatures right from your Podio interface!
RescueTime
AMAZING Chrome extension that tracks your every move on the internet, and automatically categorizes your actions based on the level of Productivity they are associated with. If you’re watching Netflix, that’s low productivity, but if you’re on Podio, that’s high productivity. This can allow you to see a macro level view of what you are actually doing day-to-day. It’s easy to get lost in the moment, but reflecting back and SEEING your habits over time is the best way to analyze and change your habits for the better. You can also block certain websites during certain hours of the day to keep you on track. HIGHLY recommend you set this up once, and log back in a month to get a snapshot of how productive you are online 🙂
Boomerang for Gmail:
Do you ever get an email that you send to someone and they never respond and you just forget about it!? Use Boomerang. You can automatically have your emails “Boomerang” back to the top of your inbox at the time of your choice, while simultaneously archiving it in your “All Mail” folder so you don’t have it cluttering up your precious inbox. This takes your Gmail game to a whole other level. It’s a built in extension and it doesn’t really get in the way, but it will help you get a firmer grip on your inbox. You can also schedule emails to get sent later. Very very useful tool. Get it!
IFTTT– If THIS Then THAT
This is a very powerful website, much like Zapier.com, that allows you to connect 2 different cloud-based platforms together. Here are a few of my favorite recipes:
Automatically get iPhone photos to Dropbox
Be sure to check out some of the other recipes on there. Gotta love technology!