Technology For Agents

In the past, Top Producer 7i hasn’t been the greatest email platform provider. Using their software, you can forward all emails to your Top Producer inbox and send emails from there, but the system really isn’t as robust as Google or Yahoo Mail, even Microsoft Outlook. Probably the best thing about using Top Producer for your emails is that when searching a contact in Top Producer, you can view their history and see a list of all emails sent to that contact in the past.

Our cries have been heard! Top Producer has now introduce Outlook Connector. This piece of software links your Top Producer account with Microsoft Outlook 2003 (2007 not yet supported) and comes with the following features:

• Email features within Top Producer 7i automatically launch Microsoft Outlook 2003 rather than Top Producer 7i’s My Email.
• When sending an email from Microsoft Outlook, the message is copied to the recipient’s contact history in Top Producer 7i.
• Search your Top Producer contact list and add contacts as message recipients, all from within Microsoft Outlook.
• Manage your Top Producer email and all additional email accounts directly from Microsoft Outlook.

This functionality comes at a hefty price, unfortunately, at $149. Though this is a one time fee, I have been using Top Producer 7i and Microsoft Outlook for quite some time now interdependent of each other, and I personally cannot see spending $149 to link the two at this time for a system that has been working fine up to this day.

As real estate agents, we must analyze all expenses and make sure that will all new added expenses, a replaceable income can be accounted for. In this case, linking Top Producer and Microsoft Outlook will not increase my sales directly, thus I cannot justify the expense to my business budget.

It’s always puzzled me why Top Producer charges for upgrades to their software such as this one. The new functionality should be used to entice new agents to become a user of their system, not as a way to continually hit the wallets of agents eager to invest in technologies that may not necessarily benefit their business. Top Producer 7i is a wonderful tool to have in your arsenal. A pricey upgrade such as Outlook Connector, though a nifty tool to have, is not really required and shouldn’t be invested in without making sure it can TRULY help your business become more efficient and prosperous.

You can learn more about Outlook Connector here.

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Top Producer offers a handy feature for real estate agents in it’s 7i version under a tab labeled “financial”. Inside, you will see that you can track your working expenses and buyer or seller net sheets. I haven’t experimented too much with the business finance tracker, but I have been using the seller net sheets and have been pleased.

When opening this feature, you’ll first notice the blank space with headers labeled “contact” and “address”. Top Producer 7i will save each of the net sheets you calculate and keep them stored on their servers. I didn’t really realize the usefulness of this feature until one of my listings received a counter and I had to quickly adjust the seller’s net on the fly. It was very easily perform due to the saved records that Top Producer quietly stored for me.

After created a mock net sheet, you’ll notice that many key features are asked for such as price, address, and selling expenses. Selling expenses could be closing costs, prorated property taxes, commissions, or the owner’s title policy. Regardless, it gives you the option for each expense to enter a percentage value or a static numerical value.

It’s actually quite simple from here; you must enter each expense the seller plans to incur during the sale of their home or real estate investment. At the bottom of this net sheet you will see the total estimated selling expenses, along with a total estimated equity to seller. This of course provides you with the numbers your seller really wants to hear. How much money will I have at the end of the day?

The last feature I’d like to go into is the reports option. I wouldn’t think that Top Producer 7i would force you to do a print screen to show this information to your clients; and they didn’t let me down. You also have the option to print the information contained in your finance records for your seller in a nice, professional report. This is what I bring to the seller’s home when presenting offers. Doing so allows the seller to easily see the selling expenses calculated precisely. A tool such as this does nothing but add to your value proposition as a real estate professional and establish that you really know what your doing.

This quick look at the technology currently available to real estate agents is just a peek into what Top Producer really has to offer. I use it in my day to day business and it comes as a highly recommended contact manager or transaction manager. Now that I have been using the finance tools I can also say the finance technology is also a highly recommended tool.

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I received an offer in on one of my real estate listings yesterday, and I went through the normal routine of asking myself, “How can technology help me present this offer in its best light?”. I jumped into my contact management program, Top Producer 7i, and quickly found my way over to the financial section to work on a seller net sheet. Using this tool is very simple and intuitive, and it helped me create a professional looking net sheet that is presentable in a professional way.

The last thing I want is to scribble down a net sheet on a piece of paper, and that’s exactly why Top Producer’s net sheet calculator shines. It has a nifty built in report function that will print out and summarize the expenses and income of the sale. At the bottom of all the calculations, it also derives a total amount to seller, which is my client’s bottom line. This is probably the most important number of all; and it’s in bold.

Another neat feature is the ability to add default expenses, such as the seller title policy (I usually estimate 1%), or agent commissions. This comes in handy when pulling net sheets for multiple offers; I’d hate to have to re-enter the same items repeatedly. You can also add in expenses, such as prorated taxes or estimated payoff on their existing mortgage, in order to provide the most accurate “equity from the sale” as possible.

I think this simple tool is a great way to express your organization in your business. I will be presenting this offer tomorrow at noon with the completed Top Producer report; I’ll be sure to update how that goes and make sure I get feedback on the final net sheet report.

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Probably one of the largest available systems currently available is the Top Producer system. It is currently one of the most in-depth and well supported systems available, allowing for real estate agents to gain a considerable amount of help in regards to client management.

This review will be an on-going review. I will uncover my takes on different parts of the Top Producer system, and over time have a comprehensive review of the entire software. Currently, the system is far too extensive to be covered in one post.

The Address Book

I really like how they implemented the address book. Upon login, you can easily select the link to take you to your address book by selecting the “contacts” option on the main header bar. Once there, you may select your clients name by using the alphabetical links located to the right of the address book. The way this is implemented in my experience has been very smooth. I’m very easily able to select clients using this browser. You may also search by groups, which will be discussed later.

When single clicking on a contact, a brief peek at their contact information loads on the page to the left. This allows you to quickly get phone numbers, notes, or upcoming appointments. You may also enter contact notes using a link located on the preview page.

When double clicking on a contact, you are presented with a full blown highly detailed contact input form. You may edit all fields at any time, and it asks you for most of the usual: Full name, phone numbers, emails, addresses.

Soon, I will go into more detail on the contact manager and provide some insights into what has proven to be useful, and what hasn’t.

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