Part #1–Working “In” Instead of “On” Your Business

Straight from Michael Gerber’s book - The E-Myth Revisited, the biggest mistake that most entrepreneurs make is “majoring in the minors.” In other words…not paying enough attention to the things that really matter the most to your success.

At the end of each day, take a look at the things you crossed off your “to do” list and see how many of them could have been done by someone making a third of the salary you make. If most of them fall into that category, then you need to change your priorities.

As a small business owner, manager or VP, you may be the only one that can provide the strategic direction that the company needs to survive, but I guarantee that you’re not the only one that can do bookkeeping or take inventory. As hard as it may be to let go of certain tasks, hire out those tasks whenever you can.

Put another way…what is one thing that you could do tomorrow that would have the most dramatic effect on your company’s future. Think about it.

RSS Feeds (RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication) allows you to automatically download information from websites when that webpage is updated. An example would be if you signed up for the REA Blog RSS feed, you would automatically be able to view the latest blog entries as the blog is updated.

For this tutorial, I will be using Internet Explorer 7 and Microsoft Outlook 2007, but there are many programs out there that will allow you to download and view these RSS feeds. By following these instructions, you will be able to view the updates to our REA Blog directly in your Outlook when they become available! Continue reading ‘Using RSS feeds to stay up to date on the latest information’

We all invest extraordinary amounts of time on the computer and can suffer as a result. The following article is a great primer on how to avoid injury:

Better posture can mean less stress, more energy and increased productivity.

By Dr. Pia Martin, DC

Poor posture distorts the alignment of bones, chronically tenses muscles, and contributes to stressful conditions such as loss of vital lung capacity, increased fatigue, reduced blood and oxygen to the brain, limited range of motion, stiffness of joints, pain syndromes, reduced mental alertness, and decreased productivity at work.

According to the Nobel Laureate Dr. Roger Sperry, “the more mechanically distorted a person is, the less energy is available for thinking, metabolism, and healing.” Therefore, posture ranks right up at the top of the list when you are talking about good health and vitality.

Ideally, our bones stack up one upon the other: the head rests directly on top of the spine, which sits directly over the pelvis, which sits directly over the knees and ankles. But if you spend hours every day sitting in a chair and hunch forward, such as at work in front of a computer, it can affect you not only physically, but emotionally, too- from the predictable shoulder and back pain to headaches, short attention span, and depression.

To read the rest of this article, click the link below:

http://www.bizsandiego.com/index.php?option=com_mamblog&Itemid=28&task=show&action=view&id=835&Itemid=28

REA can print labels and envelopes but there may be times where you want to send a postcard to 5000 investors and you prefer to use a mailing house to send the cards.

1. Create a query of the contacts.
2. Press F5 to go to the List view of your contacts.
3. Open the Fields drop down in the upper left corner.
4. In the Field dialog, add/subtract the fields you need for the card.
5. Click the Excel icon.
6. Viola’ Excel opens with your data and the column headers included.

REA is not web based but it can be accessed via the web in several ways.

Single User

If you are using REA as a single user in your office and want to access REA from home you have several options:

1. Create a www.logmein.com or www.gotmypc.comaccount on your office PC. Leave the computer running when you leave the office. When you are at your home, start your PC there and you browse to the web site and enter the login and password for the service. In mere seconds, you see your office desktop. In this mode, you are actually running your computer remotely so all the computer work is being done at the office. The advantage of this system is that you can access REA anywhere you have a web connection when your office computer is on. At this writing, www.logmein.com is free for a single user while www.gotomypc.com  is a monthly subscription. 
2. Any other option is a VPN connection. This is a Virtual Private Network and the difference is that a VPN encrypts and decrypts data as it is transferred between the two computers so it has high security but is slower as a result. The way it works is you connect to the web and then start the VPN session. Then you start REA and it connects to the server (which can be your desktop) in your office and opens the REA database located on the server/desktop. Setup of VPN requires the assistance of an IT professional.

In order to build your business as a new broker, it takes persistence and lots of phone calls. REA provides an easy way for you to schedule and locate just those cold calls that you know you have to make to build your business. Before using this process, I suggest that you create an Event that is named Cold Call:

1. Open the Tools menu and select System Tables and then Event Types.
2. In the Event types dialog, Select New.
3. A blank field opens at the bottom of the list. Type Cold Call
4. Click OK.
5. Locate the contact for which you want to schedule a Cold Call.
6. Open the Schedule menu and select Cold Call. Use the date setting but leave it as a Timeless call. You may wish to select a Project so that it is added to the Marketing Report when you Finish the call.
7. Repeat this process until you have 25 (or more) calls scheduled.
8. Open time Managment (F2).
9. Pull down the Query pulldown and select Query.
10. Open the Field drop down and select Event Type.
11. Click on Cold Call.
12. Click OK.

The Time Management window has only the cold calls listed. Right-click on the first and select Go to Linked and place your call. Make sure you Finish the call to add the History and schedule a Follow Up as needed.

REA 9.13 includes a direct connection to Microsoft MapPoint http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/default.mspx which alllows you to select multiple properties in REA and draw tours for your clients. The second new addition is a greatly enhanced connection to Outook. Now, a synchronization is nearly 100 times faster than the prior release! Download and give it a try!

Being technologically challenged is an issue when reading materials or correspondence in which “tech” terms are used that are unfamiliar. Wired magazine produced an edition called “Geekipedia,” an A to Z guide to geek speak, tech terms, IT heroes and villains, and what’s coming, all in short bits that are (for the most part) understandable to a non-techie. You can reference it on their Web site if it’s time to brush up your high tech vocabulary.

: www.webopedia.com has lots of tech terms, too — but it tends to be on the geeky side itself

Whether your game is commercial real estate or tiddly-winks, the keys to success are the same. Click this link to get a 4 minute success course:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success.html

Tim Creagh, the designer of REA, has never liked moving his fingers off the keyboard. So, many processes in REA are function key activated. For example, before entering a contact always press F12 to search to see if the contact already exists. In fact, F12 should be used every time you search for a contact. To search for a property, Shift-F12 opens the search window. F5 always opens a list view of whatever you are looking at. F2 opens time managment. F1 for the excellent context senstive Help. Drop that mouse habit and learn to function in REA.