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6 Real Estate Tips from Krisstina Wise, New Real Estate Ambassador, Plus Evernote for Real Estate Webinar

Community, Tips and Stories | By Kasey Fleisher Hickey
Evernote for Real Estate
 

 
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Bio

Krisstina Wise owns a residential real estate brokerage in Austin, Texas called The GoodLife Team. Her company is a nationally-recognized thought leader for their approach to using technology and social media in running their business. See how Krisstina and her team of 26 employees use Evernote for everything from sharing client notes to moving a sale forward. Krisstina joins our Ambassador Program as the new Real Estate Ambassador and will also be hosting a webinar this Thursday, February 23rd. More details, below.

I use Evernote, Everywhere

  • Mac
  • iPad
  • iPhone

I use Evernote for…

Evernote has completely changed my life. I used to carry a notebook and pen with me everywhere I went, but have now completely transitioned to having my entire life in Evernote. It’s one of the 5 core tools that I use to operate my life and my business. At The GoodLife Team, every employee uses Evernote across a number of different devices. It’s been about six months since all of our agents started using Evernote and it has already become an invaluable and fundamental tool.

Above: a buyer’s notebook and snapshot of client tour with attached audio interview, imported PDF of MLS records of the property tour and client notes.

Here are a few ways that Evernote can be every realtor’s power tool.

  1. Create a notebook for every single customer. All of our agents have a notebook for every single customer they work with. With Evernote, it’s easy to store all types of information including notes on maps, recorded seller interviews (captured with Evernote’s audio feature), photos of houses, and PDF MLS sheets of houses that customers like. Agents can send everything to customers right out of Evernote.
  2. Start the buying process before getting back to the office. Once a buyer has chosen a house to purchase, the agent can move their file to the admin staff before stepping foot back into the office. Using Shared Notebooks, agents can communicate with admin staff, sharing all of their documentation so that multiple people can work on one client file at the same time and move it along in the buying process faster than ever. [Learn about sharing from Evernote]
  3. Make a habit of saving everything to Evernote. Making a habit of saving everything to Evernote is the first step to knowing exactly where you’ll be able to find information at a moment’s notice. Our agents save all of their house photos, client interviews, PDFs, and notes to Evernote. As a paperless company, we use Evernote to manage our customer files and easily capture, access and share information on the go. [Learn how to go paperless from Paperless Lifestyle Ambassador Jamie Rubin]
  4. Make use of mobile devices and Trunk integrations. On the sales side, everyone on our team works on computers and iPads, so it’s easy to get work done at the office and on site. When you’re in a mobile profession, it’s vital to have tools that can help you be productive, even when you’re not at your desk. In addition to utilizing mobile devices, we use Evernote-integrated Trunk apps to help us get more done. [Evernote Tip: Apps like RightSignature allow you to capture a digital signature and save it back into Evernote for easy access and for customer records.]
  5. Train your staff. We do training with our agents every Thursday. We sit down with our entire team and take them through a step-by-step program of how to maximize Evernote. Evernote is a really flexible tool, so we’re able to show team members some best practices and then allow them to create their own workflow version that fits their work style.
  6. Share with multiple team members. Whether you’re a buyer or seller-side agent, you can use Evernote to communicate with colleagues and customers. Share individual notes by emailing them straight from your Evernote account or create a Shared Notebook and grant access to select individuals. Premium Evernote users can modify Shared Notebooks, making edits to documents and saving them back into Evernote, adding additional info (like house photos or signatures), and making sure everyone is in lock step throughout the buying and selling process. [Learn about sharing from Evernote]

Evernote as my personal productivity tool

In addition to using Evernote in every aspect of my work, I find it to be an extremely valuable personal tool. I have a professional and personal notebook with multiple Notebook Stacks underneath. My personal notebook helps me manage all of my activities in one place.

  1. I create checklists on all different things, ranging from work to-dos to grocery lists. [Learn how to create a checklist]
  2. I clip everything into Evernote using the Evernote Web Clipper. We were recently interviewing some folks, so I asked interviewees to send their resumes to my Evernote account so that I could review them all in one place and refer back to them prior to and during the interviews.
  3. I save documents and share lots of files with my team members. [Learn how to attach files to a note]
  4. I have a wireless keyboard, which, together with Evernote on my iPhone, allows me to type notes even if I’m in a meeting at Starbucks. When I’m back at my computer, they’re all there for me in my Evernote account.
  5. My personal notebook includes recipes, my training program for my workouts, my kids’ activities and checklists. My husband and I also share notebooks to manage household things. For example, if I start a grocery list, he can finish it and we both have it on our iPhones if one of us goes to the store. [8 Great Ways Couples Can Use Shared Notebooks]

Frankly, I don’t know how I kept it all together before Evernote. I know that everything that is important to me is in Evernote, so I know exactly where to find it. This practice of saving everything to Evernote saves me so much time that I used to spend wondering where something is.

Register for the GoodLife Team webinar on using Evernote everyday

Join Krisstina and Michael McClure, CEO of Verified Agent, this Thursday, February 23rd at 11:00am CST for an informative training session covering the basics of Evernote and ways to use it as a realtor.

Register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/908731746

Join Krisstina in the Real Estate discussion forum.

Are you a realtor using Evernote? Share your tips in the comments below.

The Evernote Ambassador Program

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Drap and drop them into a New Note or attach them to a note so you can access them from any computer or mobile device where you have Evernote installed!

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  • http://www.sherrilynnsmith.com Sherri Lynn Smith

    Evernote is a great concept. I had been looking for a program that would link information from laptops to phone for years and of course I wanted it to be free. This program is great! I recommended it on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      Sherri — Yes, that is one of reasons why i LOVE Evernote — that my notes are synced on all of my devices. It makes life so much easier in that I always know the location of and have access to my files.

  • donna Plank

    I too missed the webinar and would love to listen to a replay of it.

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      Donna … We have a relay available to our paid Coffee w/Krisstina subscribers. You can find out more on my blogsite that is referenced in the article above, in the event you are interested. Our members get free replays of all of our trainings for unlimited future use. Thanks!

  • http://www.mikeinman.com Mike Inman

    I read the blog post and comments on Evernote with interest. I recently started using DropBox and wondered if anyone has compared the two products. They seem somewhat similar except for the note taking capability of Evernote.

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      Mike ..

      Many people ask me this same question and it is hard to explain in a short note, but I’ll do my best. I think of them like a spoon and fork when sitting down to eat a meal. Although, they both have overlap (you can eat most food with a spoon or a fork) — each is better suited for different kinds of food — and, eating is easier if you have access to both vs. just one of the utensils.

      I use Drop Box for Cloud storage of formatted documents, large project files, marketing/graphic docs, etc. I pull a document down from the Cloud, use it or work on it, and then save it back up to the Cloud. I don’t use Drop Box as working tool — it is simply storage. I have a lot of staff, so we use Drop Box as a digital filing cabinet that we all go to.

      Evernote is a tool and I use it constantly. I use it to take notes, store small documents into a single file, create checklists, download articles for future reads — it’s more like a digital notebook than a digital filing cabinet.

      I hope this explanation helps. If not, let me know and I’ll see if I can do a better job of differentiating the two.

  • http://www.ArizonaHomes.co Doyle Boatwright

    Would really appreciate info on how to see your Webinar that I missed. Or, perhaps an upcoming one. Thanks much.

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      We have a relay available to our paid Coffee w/Krisstina subscribers. You can find out more on my blogsite that is referenced in the article above, in the event you are interested. Our members get free replays of all of our trainings for unlimited future use.

      Also, I plan to do future training on EV … so, be sure to watch the training calendar on my website.

  • http://MinnesotaOnTheMove.com Jeff Jasper

    Well written post!
    I too am getting addicted to Evernote.
    And, like others would appreciate seeing the webinar, if was recorded. And,include me in any future ones!

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      Thanks, Jeff!

      We have a relay available to our paid Coffee w/Krisstina subscribers. You can find out more on my blogsite that is referenced in the article above, in the event you are interested. Our members get free replays of all of our trainings for unlimited future use.

      I plan to do future trainings as well — so be sure to watch the training calendar.

  • Brendan

    If you are creating a notebook per customer, do you find you run into the 250 notebook limit, or do you move old customers into an archive notebook?

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      Yes and Yes.

      I archive old files that I don’t plan to access. I also save all client files into a folder that is in Drop Box so that I have the files in two locations.

  • Tom M.

    Love what you’re doing with Evernote and RightSignature. What do you do for documents that need to be notarized? Can an eNotary be part of the routing of a document?

    • http://coffeewithkrisstina.com Krisstina Wise

      Tom .. this is a great question. And, I’d love for others to pipe in here if they have found a solution. I have not been able to find a digital solution for paperless notarization of documents that can then be sent through the digital/mobile process that we use for non-notarized documents.

  • http://cdo-realestate.com/ Cagayan de Oro Real estate

    Thanks for this tips, I’m passing my broker’s exam right now and I think I’ll give a try once I’ll have a team, it surely helps.

  • http://www.bradofficer.com Brad Officer

    I’m also a huge Evernote fan and find myself with the EN app open at all times on my desktop.

    From your tips above, it seems evernote is being used as a CRM to some extent once your team has moved a prospect into the active customer role. Do you find your CRM usage being more for marketing and less for record keeping/transaction management?

  • Chris Sanderson

    DANG IT! Missed the webinar but I’m anxious to find good info and you always seem to have the good stuff! Any chance this webinar is available on recording somewhere?

    To your success!

    Chris

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