Outlook 101…ish

Taking the program you already have and making it work

Database Management

• Stats-– Realtors who have a method for tracking their

database make more per year than those who don’t (from Thrive)

– Follow-up is a crucial part of business-• Avergage home-buy takes between 9 and 21

months to make the decision… So DO NOT be forgotten

Why Outlook?

• It’s something.

• Which is better than nothing.

• Act, AgentOffice, Top Producer, etc… all great, but a database is useless if you don’t use it.

• Outlook Can:

- Categorize clients- Time block- Have recurring followup reminders- Tell you when it’s time to leave for an

appointment- Filter important emails from less important

ones- Track your time ROI- Tell you what you are supposed to do for

the next hour- Remind you to buy an anniversary present- Make life happy again (seriously)

What we will cover:

• Email

• Contacts

• Calendar

• Tasks

EmailThis is the part you probably already use.

We won’t go into the specifics of how to setup your email account. For the easiest

way to get help, type in “(email service) outlook setup’ into google, and you should be able to easily find a walkthrough. For example, typing in “gmail outlook setup’ returns great results (16.5 MM, to be exact).

Email- Once setup, there are great ways to manage your email as

you receive it.

Email

Email• Using filters is the best way to do this…

- Go to ‘Tools > Rules and Alerts’

Email- Click ‘New Rule’ …

Email

• This will allow you to automatically have your emails organized and flagged for important keywords as they come in.

Contacts

The (arguably) most important thing that Outlook offers…

- Having all your contacts in 1 database is incredibly important.

- you can import contacts from online email services, other databases, etc, but for most people here, the point is to get your contacts into 1 place… period. Which means your just going to have to spend a few hours entering each person.

- Sorry.

Contacts

Contacts

• Entering new contacts-

• On the ‘Contacts’ tab, click ‘New Contact’ in the upper-left corner …

ContactsBringing you to this screen-

Contacts• Things to pay attention to:

- Company

- Categories

- Notes

Contacts

Sending email to contact category

Calendar

• Time Blocking

• Using ‘All Day’ appointments

• Drive Times (Lon)

• Reminders

Calendar

Calendar• Color code your time-

Calendar

• Inviting attendees-– When they ‘accept,’ it automatically puts the

event into their calendar.

– Useful if they have Outlook, a hassle if they don’t.

Calendar• All Day events-

– A great alternative to the Task List (which drives me crazy)

– The key is to find a system that works for you

Calendar

• Best Practices-– Use you’re A, B, and C client lists to dictate

your daily activities, then time block accordingly.

– It works really, really well.

*You have to know where your clients are in the pipeline in that case, don’t you?

Tasks

• Your To-Do list

• You can set things like the start date, percent complete, estimated delivery, etc.

• Checking off something is a great dopamine hit.

Tasks

Tasks• A powerful tool with the tasks is to set recurring reminders-

Tasks

Great for monthly email touches, blog posts, birthday cards, etc.

And with that…

• The key to any database management system is that you use it. It can be an excel spreadsheet or the most expensive Realtor-focused program, but if you never use it, it’s useless.

• Find systems that work for you, efficiently and throuroughly.