- TOP PRODUCER UPGRADE & THE PALM PILOT

Great news for Top Producer users! The System 6 upgrade to version 6.025 is now available from the Top Producer web-site - for free!

While this version corrects several minor bugs, the best reason to download the upgrade now is for the two new features: a Palm Pilot interface, and a Recommended Price option in the CMA Module.

The download may take over an hour, depending on your Internet access speed, but it's worth it!

- EFAX GETS EVEN BETTER

If you recall the Internet fax service I wrote about last issue, www.efax.com then you'll really appreciate the latest update to the service: toll free numbers for $29.95 per year, and then just $.10 per page received.

Personally, I'm still happy with the free fax number, even though it's not a local number. But, for others, the toll-free fax service is a pretty good deal, and a real customer convenience.

- SURFING WITHOUT COMMERCIALS

We all know that the Internet can be an incredibly efficient method of finding information. Unfortunately, there are times it just seems to crawl, too.

While there are many reasons for this, they are mostly technical and often beyond our individual control. However, there's one problem you can now do something about, and that's excessive banner advertisements.

In a sense, banner ads are a necessary evil. Many web sites offer us something for nothing, search engines being a prime example, and need a way to generate revenue to support themselves. In this light, banner ads follow the path carved by radio and television; they pay for the programming we receive.

Unfortunately, while radio and TV don't have issues with connection speed, the Internet certainly does. So, instead of simply being a visual distraction, waiting for particularly large banner ads to download can literally add minutes to the time it takes to view the web page that you're actually interested in.

There are two reasons for this. Briefly, too many banner ads are becoming too complex. This increases their file size, and stretches the time it takes to download them. Additionally, banner ads are often loaded directly from the advertiser's web site.

Thus, while the site you're viewing might be running smoothly, the advertiser's site can be overwhelmed and thus the "weak link" that stands between you and the information that you're looking for.

If you could just surf the Web without waiting for all of the advertisements to load, Internet life would be simpler, and faster. This is exactly what the folks at Siemens Freeware had in mind when they created WebWasher.

This simple program is designed to do just one thing: prevent the larger sized banner ads from downloading to your browser, so you can surf the Web faster.

In essence, WebWasher stands in between your browser and the Internet, and filters out what it determines to be excessive banner advertisements. It does this based mostly on the dimensions of the graphics it finds.

For example, images that are 130 pixels wide, by 80 pixels tall are usually banner ads. Thus, when a web page includes a graphic of this size, WebWasher edits that information out of the page before your browser reads it.

The effect is simple to understand: your browser doesn't know the graphic exists, so it never tries to download it; and that's how this program saves you valuable on-line time.

In practical use, WebWasher will never be able to filter out each and every banner ad from the Internet; there are just too many different banner ad configurations for the program to catch them all.

But since it's the largest ads that take the longest to download, eliminating just those saves an incredible amount of online time.

For all that WebWasher does, it's simple to install (as long as you read the documentation) and for non-commercial users it is absolutely free!

To read more about how the program works, or to download a copy for yourself, just visit the Siemens web site at: http://www.siemens.de/servers/wwash/ and you're on your way to faster surfing!

- SAVING WITH CELLULAR

Up until recently, I have always considered my cell phone to be an additional drain on my resources, a necessary evil, so to speak.

However, my experiences over the last year have opened my eyes to the concept of using cellular services to make life simpler, and to actually help save money, too.

A few cellular and communication tips:

• Sign on with a wireless one-rate program. Of the systems I've priced and tested, ATT Wireless offers the best value in my area. "ATT One Rate" has no roaming fees or long distance charges and features such as voice mail, Caller ID and Call Waiting are included!

  For $119 per month I receive 1,000 minutes of talk time - it's just that simple. This breaks down to just .12 cents per minute, regardless of where I am or where I'm calling from, or to!

• Strip the premium features from your business line. I've stripped all of the premium services from my business phone, such as voice mail, call waiting, etc., except for call forwarding. This saves me over $13 each month in premium services on my business line, and it also makes me much easier to reach.
• Forward your business phone into your cellular number. Whenever I leave the office, or am otherwise unavailable, I simply forward my business line into my cell phone. I now publicize just my business number. If I'm in, I'll answer. When I'm not, the call reaches me on my cell phone. If I'm not available at all, then my free cellular voice mail will take the message.
• Disconnect your Internet phone line. Up until recently I spent enough time on the Web to justify a second phone line. While I still use the Internet for hours each day, I've disconnected the phone line I used for my computer. Now I simply forward my business line to my cell phone whenever I'm online. This saves me another $30 each month, and I never miss a call.
• Disconnect your fax line, too. If you're a regular reader of my newsletter, you already know that I receive my faxes through my e-mail account. Using www.efax.com or www.j2.com I can give people a fax number, and receive their faxes, for free. While this doesn't actually have anything to do with my cellular service, saving the cost of a phone line (another $30 dollars) bears repeating!
• Use your cell phone for long distance calls At just .12 cents a minute, making long distance calls through my cell phone is often cheaper that using my business line! This is especially true during peak calling hours, and when calling Canada - for which there is no extra fee! Thus, I often choose to use my cellular service, even when I'm in the office.

The bottom line:

While each of the above suggestions might not fit everyone's lifestyle and communication needs, for me the result is spectacular, I:

• have gone from paying for three phone lines to just one
• can be reached with one call, regardless of where I might be
• only have to check one voice mailbox for all of my messages
• never pay roaming or long distance fees
• can surf the Web all day long and never miss a call

Given all of the features of today's cellular one-rate services, it may be time for you to re-think your communications strategies - I'm glad I did.

- NEW LETTERWRITER PLUS

If you're using a contact manager the way it's supposed to be used, then you're sending hundreds of prospecting letters each month. If you're not doing this, then you're missing the single greatest moneymaking feature of popular real estate programs such as Top Producer, PREP or Online Agent.

Each of these programs has the ability to do more than simply mail-merge form letters with your contact database. These programs will allow you to create countless "action plans" that can be applied to your prospects, where the "plan" will automatically write not just one letter, but comprehensive sequences of automated letters, upon the frequency of your choosing.

Thus, with the click of a single mouse-button you could specify that a FSBO receive a different letter each week, for the next twelve weeks. Even more comprehensive, an "action plan" might send a letter a week for 3 weeks and then remind you to make a phone call or stop by, and then send follow up letters every other week for the next two months and then offer another reminder to call.

Ultimately, these "action plans" can be tailored to fit any marketing plan you choose to design.

Besides letting you create fully customized "action plans" for all of your prospects, the greatest thing about these contact managers is that they don't simply remind you to write the letters, they will actually write them for you! All you have to do is tell them to print your letters each day or week and then print envelopes or labels and you're done. You can print 50 different letters to 50 different contacts, without having to proof-read a single one!

Using a contact manager, a properly motivated agent can easily send 25 to 50 letters a day to cover all of their prospecting and customer follow-up activities in just a few minutes. Annualized, this is at least 6,250 contacts made each year - and that's not counting weekends and two weeks for vacation!

The result is simply a lot more leads and referrals from those contacts.

However, the primary reason that most agents don't take advantage of this sure-fire prospecting technique is the time it takes to create comprehensive and meaningful action plans and then to write the original form letters.
This brings us to the value of Dave Beson's LetterWriter program. Thousands of agents have used this program to successfully implement their database prospecting.

Within five minutes Dave's program automatically installs into Top Producer, PREP or Online Agent and creates eight separate "action plans" - containing 202 different letters. Each letter is professionally written for use by real estate agents and can also be edited if so desired.
Recently, Dave has released LetterWriter Plus to add an additional nine action plans and another 204 letters to extend the success that agents have had using his original LetterWriter program.

If you own a contact manager, but aren't taking full advantage of the ability to create and implement prospecting action plans, visit www.canale.com and take a look at LetterWriter and LetterWriter Plus, they're indispensable productivity tools.