Last year I transformed my business by making Evernote my one go to tool to handle my complete transaction management, task management and productivity center. In this article I am going to talk about 5 power uses of Evernote that I wish I knew about when I first started using Evernote. These are five things you are probably not doing, unless your name is Michael McClure, that can transform how you and your clients work.
Transaction Management
I manage my complete transaction inside my clients notebook. I send all important emails, all contracts, inspection reports and any related information into the clients notebook, which I share with them.
Inside each client’s notebook I have a master transaction template which on the top contains all of the important contact information and contract information I may need at a moments notice.
Below that I have a master checklist for everything that will need to be completed.
And finally I have a table that has all my transaction notes. Any communications with my client, the cross agent, a lender, title company, home inspector and anything else goes in here. You can never document to much.
Templates
I use templates to make my transaction note setup quick and easy. What do you mean, Evernote has templates? No, but that does not mean you cannot create them in a matter of minutes.
I have a notebook I call Templates. Inside that notebook I have a buyers template, a sellers template, two short sale templates, and any other templates I need on a regular basis.
To create a new note from your template just create a new note and do a quick copy and paste.
Note Linking
When spending time developing my system my big ah-ha moment was when I learned about note linking. Note linking allows you to connect text in one note, to other notes inside of your Evernote account.
I use this in everything, but my favorite use may be in my short sale transactions. While on the phone with the negotiator and taking notes in my master transaction note, if the negotiator asked me a questions about the estimated HUD I never have to go searching for it. All my documents are uploaded into the clients note and a link is created on the master note to each document so the information is never more than a quick click away.
To-Do and task hub
The power of Evernote is it allowed me to do everything in one program. There are two ways you can do task management in Evernote.
First you can create a master to-do check list, this is how I first started managing tasks in Evernote and it worked great.
Second you can have each task be a to-do item, and use tags to set due to dates and manage the task. If I get an email that is a to-do item I will forward it to Evernote and apply the appropriate tag.
Reference material for clients
Use Evernote to create resources for your clients. There are a few examples of how you can do this, but my favorite is create a template that has all the information your client is going to need before they close on their home.
- When do they need to turn on the electricity to their name
- Who do they call for electricity
- Cable and Satellite resource numbers
- Local newspapers
- Gas company information
- Local pool cleaners or plow companies
- Recommended landscapers
- Cleaning and moving companies
- Who do they call? buyer resource, visitor resource, documentation for transaction can send to them
Create a master note and share with them before closing, they will be thankful!
If you want to learn the step by step details of how I do the power items above check out my book Evernote for Real Estate. If you use the promo code Inman you will get 33% off.
