Incorporate Technology Upgrades in your 2004 Goals

Every successful person establishes their goals at the beginning of the year and creates a blueprint on how to achieve them. What most people do not do is look at technology upgrades at the beginning of the year that will allow them to achieve their goals more effectively.

Over the past year, I have written articles introducing you to a wide variety of technology tools to improve your day-to-day production as a real estate agent. This article will deal with a step-by-step incorporation of these tools into your 2004 goals.

In order to produce a plan for 2004 you not only need a written plan stating your goals, you also need a way to track these goals on a regular basis. A highly effective tool is createaplan.com. Although designed for residential agents, it can easily be manipulated to fit our commercial business. This program allows agents to create their business “pillars” and then track their results so that an agent always knows what needs to be accomplished or improved upon to achieve their eventual goals.

Once you have a plan of building your business you need to look to technology to make each pillar more efficient. First, look at your current desktop or laptop computer. If your computer is more than three years old it is obsolete. With prices so cheap for new computers it is simply not worth it to upgrade existing equipment. Next, is your printer. New printers today are capable of printing almost perfect color pictures at speeds that make multiple copying on a desktop printer worthwhile. Also, new printers are more “ink efficient” cutting down costs per page printed.

Once you have your office in order, look at the tools available to improve your presentations. First, you need a good digital camera. Today for under $400.00 you can buy an excellent digital camera at 4 pixels or better that is so slim that they can fit in your suit pocket without creating a “bulge”. Next, look at software applications that can enhance your picture taking into solid presentations of potential properties. Eyecron.com offers the ability to take your photos and add voice to create a voice-over slide presentation that can match a movie clip.

Finally, look at what you are using to keep yourself organized everyday. If you are still using a day timer and have not switched to an electronic organizer, you are not capable of doing the same things to keep yourself organized as the people that do. Simply the act of keeping your to-do’s organized electronically makes this purchase worthwhile. There is no way that you can move your to-do list or appointments or carry around your important files in a Franklin organizer.

I have my entire ACT database in my Palm which is broken down into my new clients, old clients, as well as all of the major firms in my city.

Upgrading can be costly but not upgrading can cost you a lot more in lost production time. At the income levels that a commercial real estate agent should be thriving for, it is a “no brainer” to consider your technology needs as high as the rest of your goal making pillars.