#196 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest Scott Hoen From TitleCapture

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We Discuss The Best Apps & Services Connected to Getting Stuff Done For The Busy Real Estate Agent!

In this show we going to be talking about all the apps and online services that can make you a more productive real estate agent from DropBox to Boomerang Mail. We cover a load of stuff in this episode and give some excellent tip and trick connected to getting stuff done!

Jonathon: Welcome back folks to the Mail Right show. This is episode 196. My normal cohost, Robert Newman, he is still in Spain. And he’s on a plane as we talk. On a plane, a train, a car who knows? But I’ve got a returning guest. I have got Scott with me. And we have got an amazing show for you. Scott provided some great subject material and it’s going to be a blast. Scott, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?

Scott: Yeah, I would. Thanks again, Jonathan for inviting me back. Glad to be able to participate. My name is Scott Hoen. I’ve been in the title insurance industry for nearly 30 years, helping title sales, real estate agents, mortgage professionals with the technology and marketing side of the business. It’s the ability to build relationships and create value and help them grow their business. So I’ve taken the tools and I’ve stayed current with the tools and the real estate marketplace.

I currently work for Title Capture. It’s one of the best net sheets, closing costs, calculator tools that are out there for real estate professionals and title professionals to use.

Jonathon: That’s great Scott. And what are we going to be discussing listeners and viewers. Is we’re going to be discussing all the tools in the digital age that can help you get stuff done the quickest and with the least hassle as possible. We’ve got a load of free or inexpensive digital applications for your phone, android, iPhone. And for your desktop that will enable you to get work done as efficiently as possible and keep your clients happy. I am amazed at your productivity and efficiency. That doesn`t sound bad does it Scott?

Scott: That’s right.

Jonathon: So where are we going to start off Scott?

Scott: You know, I would kick it off with the, one of the most important apps that anybody should have, whether you’re in real estate or not, is a password management tool.

Jonathon: Why do you think that’s important, Scott?

Scott: Too many times I see people on sticky notes. Too many times I see people using maybe the notes app on their devices. Or putting in an email systems. It just, they’re not secure. So, and I literally have so many places to log on. And I changed my passwords regularly to make sure they are secure. And I want to make sure that I have different passwords with different sites just because if someone gets hacked, I don’t have to change the password for all of my sites. I try to have one password application that allows me to have one master password that gets access to all my passwords that I use.

Jonathon: And I do exactly the same. Well I think people got to realize folks, is that I have different levels of security Scott. You know, somebody would agree with me. But on my key accounts, my banking accounts and my email accounts, they have extremely long and complicated passwords. Which are in no shape or form could I remember? On less important websites I use either general passwords or not that secure. But hackers basically they want to get into your banking and financial accounts and especially your email accounts. They want to be able to change your password on your email accounts and then approach your financial institutions. Would you agree with that?

Scott: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And more and more people are getting comfortable using mobile applications, even their financial apps. So, a lot of times there’s that double security where you log in and then it sent texts you a code to make sure you’re the right person to get into that. So yeah, very important.

Jonathon: So, which password managers do you recommend?

Scott: I would recommend either last pass there’s a nice free one or I use one password. It works for me in terms of I’m a Mac user, so if I create a password in one password, then it’s on my phone, it’s on my Mac and it’s easy. It’s all my browsers and it just, it works for me. But I would recommend either one password or last pass.

Jonathon: Yeah, one password I’ve been using it. But recently over two years now you’d been able to use it on Windows. Because I’m not an android user. I don’t know if one password provides an android app. I don’t know. But I do know it works on windows desktop now.

Scott: Yeah, it does.

Jonathon: And on the Mac. When it comes to the last password, I think it’s a great tool. I don’t know if they’ve changed their pricing. It used to be free for the desktop and then if you wanted to use it on mobile devices then you had to cough up some money. I don’t know if they’ve changed that. The only thing I would say about last pass is that its interface. And some of its key functionality about sharing passwords. I find a little bit more complicated than one password. Would you agree?

Scott: I would agree. I mean, one of the nice things is with one password. My family knows all of my passwords just by knowing that master key password. So if anything should happen to me and they wanted access to any of the sites I go to or used, they just know the master or secured password. And it’s a long saying to make sure that it’s secure. So it’s easy for them to get access to it.

Jonathon: In fact don’t worry about, we will have to go, next week is go to the mail right website and hopefully Scott’s going to give me the URL to we discussed on. And I we’ll make sure that they are in the show notes.

Scott: Yeah, yeah. That’s great.

Jonathon: We are going to be discussing today. So I totally agree with you. It’s not the sexiest subject to start off with. But if you get your business and your clients get hacked with you because you haven’t got secure passwords that are not a fun situation to deal with. Is it Scott?

Scott: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of horror stories. So do it right when you can.

Jonathon: Where are we going next?

Scott: The big thing is social. So I would go with social apps that are there. So a lot of people are accessing them on desktop, but when you look at the social applications that are out there, obviously in our market. Facebook’s important for the older crowd. Instagram is probably more important for the younger crowd. I use those and I usually accept friend requests from anybody that’s associated with my friends. But when it gets to LinkedIn, it’s more of the professional app. And I recommend that you use LinkedIn. It’s more the, I don’t know, it’s the professional resume. It’s those actual contacts you know and you have relationships with. And obviously you got Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat. But learn to whatever your market is, whether it is in the higher end, Facebook or lower. Learn how to use the APPS and learn how to use the page manager even within Facebook to manage your ad campaign if you have one.

Jonathon: Yeah. So I was listening to the presentation, about Instagram. And the individual that was the guest of the webinar hopefully is going to come on the show. I’m still discussing her coming on the show, with her personal assistant. But what are your thoughts about Instagram? Because I think I’m not totally bought into its ability to actually generate leads. But on the other end I think it’s a great medium for building your local brand.

Scott: Yeah, that is for sure. So yes, I think the Facebook, the homeowners, the older homeowners or on the Facebook side of the business. But you know the 28 to 35 year old, first time home buyer that’s active on Instagram is going to be the Instagram of the future. And it all goes around video really. So get comfortable with video, get comfortable with using it in an open houses and telling a story. Because you never know when it might catch somebody’s attention. You get some followers, but it’s building that all-encompassing brand.

Jonathon: Yeah. And also the actual mechanism I haven’t seen. I’m sure probably going to be corrected on this. Because Instagram is a very mobile device. And this is reducing a little bit, but actually getting people to purchase a mobile is a little bit more difficult than getting them. I’ve seen recently when it comes to actually shops ecomm`s. Actually getting people to purchase or when you’re on mobile devices it seems a little bit harder. You inform them. And then at some stage they’re on a desktop and then they’d go to your site. And I think I used to advertise. Would you agree that?

Scott: And when you think about it, you know, the social is building relationships. So if you’ve spent time and energy building a sphere of influence or having past clients, I mean, the biggest mistake I see real professional real estate agents make is they forget about the buyers and sellers they represented. They haven’t stayed in touch. Use Instagram to more personally to stay in touch with your clients. Or use Instagram to tell stories about what’s going on in the community. Build value.

Jonathon: Well I totally agree with you. I was listening to Chris Smith and Jimmy from Curator. They were doing a Facebook live and I think one of the key things that they were discussing during the show. Which was on yesterday was what you’ve just said and how bad a lot of agents are about keeping in front of their referral network. And just building their brand in general.

Scott: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree.

Jonathon: So what are we going to go next?

Scott: I would recommend every one of the real estate professionals throughout there. Even the lending professionals, mortgage professionals reach out to the title company that you work with. The title companies have a tremendous amount of technology tools available to them. You know, the first one is property information. So a lot of real estate professionals access to Rpr through the MLS system. Rpr is free from the National Association of Realtors. But I don’t see a lot of people using the Rpr App.

Jonathon: What is RPR and what is the app?

Scott: Well RPR stands for resource property. I something like that. It’s a property information app. It’s a real estate agent wants to know ownership information, physical characteristics, tax information, loan information of a particular house. They want to know the comparable sales in the neighborhood.

They want to know what’s going on with schools in the neighborhood. There are a lot of good ones out there. So first American has my first AM. But if you’re using the fidelity, fidelity, Chicago TRICOR lawyers, they promote the agent pro two, four, seven. Core logic has a great tool out there called REI source. There’s even property shark, there’s a lot of them that are desktop and mobile or you know, and they do a good job. I mean, my first AM for example, has got a great farming application built into it. So you could literally knock on doors and before even knock on a door, you know who lives there, how long they’ve lived there, and all the information about them. So you can start carrying on a conversation. So use the tools from your title company to the max. And the property information ones are the ones to start with.

Jonathon: Are there any that you really like?

Scott: I would probably say my first AM and agent pro two, four seven is my one two.

Jonathon: Oh, that’s great. That’s great information. And I think a lot of agents don`t know about that.

Scott: Yeah. And you know, so for example, if you’re going to go on a listing presentation, and if you had my first AM for example. You could go look up that particular property, go look at the grant deed that the ownership document, the warranty deed. To see if there, in fact the ones that own the house, they’re going to sign the mls agreement. I mean, does your research before you go there. Most agents do in terms of coming up with a comparable sales analysis, you know, those tools have them. But just knowing the right ownership and physical characteristics and making sure they’ve got that down right as a good place to start to.

Jonathon: Oh you are back again Scott. We broke up a little bit.

Scott: Oh, sorry. So real estate professionals just need to go to the apps to determine who actually owns the property. Go look at the grant deed, go look at the warranty deed. Go look at the information before you go out in that listing presentation to make sure you’ve got the right people. Sign the documents to list the property.

Jonathon: Oh, great. So where should we go next?

Jonathon: I think on your list is neighborhood information.

Scott: And in fact, what I would probably recommend is, don’t forget on the title company side. First American’s got a program called discounts. And the fidelity brands have a program called EEC purchasing. So if you’re looking to save money on office supplies, mailing services, things like that, they can actually save you some money with their purchasing power by enrolling in their programs. So talk to them about those mobile apps.

Jonathon: Let`s go on to neighborhood information.

Scott: So everybody should be aware that Yelp is a good system. A lot of the younger professionals out there are using Siri on their phone. And they’re asking Siri for who’s the top real estate agent in the marketplace, get connected to Yelp. Next door is the next good app to be connected to in terms of neighborhood information. So Yelp, next door, but there are three other good ones, us best places and great schools. Again, good information of what’s happening in the neighborhood that you could stay connected to.

Jonathon: Reviews, getting your page which you can get done for free. If you’re going to get Yelp approaching you like a rash. But these are the free. Are they more about well like are around us or is it more about getting the useful information or bit of all?

Scott: Yeah, it’s around us in best places is more community based information in terms of demographics and what’s happening in the marketplace. Average income, things like that. You need to be the mayor of your city. You need to be the expert. So those tools will help you do that. Great schools is just going to help you with the school systems and the ratings that buyers are always interested. What’s the best school or what’s the school for that particular home that you’re with. So I recommend those.

Jonathon: Do you know if you can advertise on these apps?

Scott: I believe you can. I don’t know. I don’t know. Obviously you can.

Jonathon: I will make sure it is in the show notes folks. Sorry about the slight technical problems. I think it’s on my end folks. But continue listening to us because we’ve got some great information. We’re going to go for our break folks. And when we come back we’ll be delving in to some more great apps and resources to make you a more effective real estate agent. We will be back in a few moments.

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Jonathon: We’ve had some slight technical troubles. I don`t know if it’s on Scott’s or my end up. I think it’s probably more my end. I’m recording, I’m away from my normal studio folks, but the connection should be great. So onto the next area and I think it’s purchasing power. I think that’s the title.

Scott: Well I think we touched upon those, but I would go to just the Apple and slash Microsoft Apps.

Jonathon: That’s a great example, Microsoft.

Scott: So you know, everybody you know is familiar with Microsoft in terms of word, excel, PowerPoint, and a lot of people get those applications. If you are an iPhone user, you have pages which is compatible to word numbers, which is compatible to excel or keynote that’s compatible with PowerPoint. And you can import those into either one. So Microsoft’s done a good job to make sure they information can flow back and forth. But biggest one that I would recommend if you’re an iPhone user on the apple side. Or if not get connected to pdf expert. So either I books, or PDF expert, a pdf type tool. Real estate professional should have their flyers, their materials, their information organized in a way that they can easily pull it up on an APP and send it to somebody. I book does a great job in terms of managing PDFs as well as books, pdf manager and our pdf expert. Or there’s a lot of other utility tools that can manage that too. But just somehow learn how to manage your pdf assets that you can send material to people easily and quickly.

Jonathon: That’s a great point actually. I think a lot of agents if they’ve been really honest with themselves, they need to up their game a bit. Don`t they?

Scott: Yeah, I mean, well it’s just, you’re scrambling for paper or I’ll email it to you tonight or I’ll email it to you tomorrow. Just be able to be able to call it up real quick on your phone or your iPad, or your tablet of some type. Just makes it easy to communicate and makes you look better too.

Jonathon: And then we got closing costs and net sheet.

Scott: So you know, obviously I’ve worked for Title Capture. That’s one titlecapture.com but again, title companies have access to these different tools. The first American brand has access to cost first, costfirst.com. It’s an app as well as desktop.

And the first, the fidelity brands, fidelity, Chicago, TRICOR lawyers there are using the palm agent APP. So you could go get fidelity agent or Chicago agent or TRICOR agent. But get connected to your title company closing apps. So when your seller wants to know, great, what am I closing costs for, what am I net out of the transaction? If I sell for 500,000, how much cash back you’re gonna get after I pay off my loans? Or if the buyer wants to buy this particular property, they’re having a conversation with you in an open house. They want to know how much my monthly payment and what’s my down payment is going to be to make that work. These closing costs applications are excellent. Title Capture is more into the title agency side or the attorney marketplace. But if you’re dealing with a national underwriter right now its cost first or this palm agent type APP, but get connected to those apps.

Jonathon: Oh, that’s great. Then we’re on to scanners.

Scott: Everybody needs to have some type of app that can easily take a picture of a receipt, take a picture of something and converted to a pdf. There are a lot of them out there. I have used ever note and PDF expert. Evernote is a great place to store information, but it’s also got a nice little scanning tools associated with it too. But learn how to take a picture and not just send a jpeg or a high density image. Learn how to be able to convert that to a pdf so you can use it. I mean obviously it’s important for your closing documents or getting a signature. You need to learn how to manipulate those.

Jonathon: And I think full contact, another free app for your contacts. You know, I’m managing your contacts on your phone. I think with the full contact also, I think you have to pay you for the paid version though. You get a really nice scanner there. And they’ve got an IPhone, and an android APP. So I would add that. I think that applies to Evernote. They’ve got android and iPhone.

Scott: Yeah. Just there are so many out there. I mean I was looking at my phone and all the different scanner apps that I have. If someone says, fax me this page. How are you going too easily, how are you going to fax somebody by just taking a picture? No, learn how to use these tools so you can fax somebody.

Jonathon: Yeah. I think when it comes to actual professionalism and shown that, it’s not agent free either. Any agent that really wants to be taken seriously, they’ve got to learn how to use these tools.

Scott: Yeah. They really do. If you don’t want the younger generation will and they’ll pass you. So if you’re the season veteran that’s doing a lot of numbers, you know, 25 50 transactions or more a year. You need to stay on top of the tools cause you’re gonna compete against him.

Jonathon: Then we’re on to cloud storage.

Scott: My ones that I use most of the time are Dropbox, Google drive or Evernote. So Dropbox makes it easy to store documents in the cloud. Or on multiple, on my devices at the same time. So if I store something on my computer, I could say to Dropbox, I also want to keep a copy in the cloud. Or I only want to keep it in the cloud to free up space. So Dropbox is one, it’s easy to share files from Dropbox to other people. Google drive, they’ve just increased, I don’t know how many, you can have like a terabyte of space now for free. I think. So Google drives into the popular one. It gets used a lot with Google docs and all the tools that Google has. And then obviously Evernote. Evernote is a great place to store it. S I take pictures of my driver’s license. Or I take pictures of serial numbers, whatever, and I can store things in the cloud. And not have to take space on my computer and I have access to it than either mobile desktop or anywhere I am.

Jonathon: I think the one way I would devote these Scott. Is that I still have a business level, of Dropbox because I’m a distributed company. But the basic interface search ability and being able to share links, the actual UX design of Dropbox is still superior to Google.

Scott: Yeah, I agree. I would agree.

Jonathon: With Google drive, one of the great reasons why I have a Google drive and I do is, especially if you’re taking a lot of photographs and video on our iPhone or Android. You if you have the Google photos app on it and you can soon fill out your phone with photographs. And with especially video. But if you have the Google photo APP, which we’ll link to your Google drive, you can automatically push this off into your Google drive. Or use the photo app to sort and find photos and push them and download them. It’s just a great.

Scott: You bring up a great point that we don’t talk about enough is backup, backup, backup. You know, and most people don’t even check it to see if they’re backing up their photos and videos or whatever it is on their phone to a cloud place. And maybe do multiple backups, so photos are precious to you. So if you lose your phone, oh my God, what am I gonna with my photos? There in the cloud. Or I have them in multiple places just to make sure. And the backup, backup, backup.

Jonathon: And the cloud APP is really easy to use. Because some of Google’s stuff can be a bit clunky to deal with. And the basic, they’ve improved the actual Google drive interface. And recently they provided the same ability as Dropbox where you actually have an APP on over windows or a Mac. Where you can literally have the folders. Available on your desktop. They have introduced that functionality with Google drive. And it’s available on the Mac and on windows.

Scott: And if you’re a team of real estate professionals, Google drive’s got the ability that have people go into a document that three or four people can make comments on. Pull it up in real time, manage those documents. So from a team point of view, and if you’re managing documents or managing files, it’s a good place to use it too.

Jonathon: Right onto the next thing news. You’ve got news.

Scott: Everybody wants to stay current on things. So you know, my favorite news apps or smart news, which would probably compete better than apple news. Flipboard, pick a paper that you like, pick a, you know, one that meets your politics. But I always want to stay connected to some of the top of the mind. Easy, quick things that are happening today. Pick the local news. You know, that you have, I mean, to be the neighborhood expert or to be the mayor of your city, you want to be able to communicate out to your sphere. Or out to your marketplace what’s happening in the case of something major happens in the marketplace. It could be a fire, could be an accident, whatever. Just stay on top of things. And these mobile apps, let you do that.

Jonathon: I will add one. Obviously folks I come from England, so the BBC. I have a great free app as well. And that’s the one I use to keep myself up to date. You can have it on your phone, android or iPhone or on your tablet. Android or Apple. And it’s the one that I use and I thought I would just add that.

Scott: Different perspective too. Different viewpoints. So, you know, stay in tune.

Jonathon: We’re gonna wrap up with audio. We’re going to continue the discussion in our bonus content. But we want you to keep this around 30 minutes. And I want to give Scott the opportunity to say how you can reach him. But let’s wrap up with audio. So what do you think about audio then?

Scott: People are starting to multitask more than ever. And it’s easy to listen to something in the background and continue doing your work. So with video, you have to pay attention and watch it and listen. But audio, you can just listen. So Stitcher as got a great audio news service just to keep in contact with what’s happening. So it’s the news feed on audio, but get connected to audible. If you’re driving for a couple of hours and you want to listen to a book rather than reading the book. And then get connected to whatever podcast app you have. I mean, Mail Right. Jonathan does a great podcast with Mail Right. You should be using the podcast apps to listen to it. So once a week, you know, you can download it, look at it, and listen to it while you’re driving. So take advantage of the podcast apps as well.

Jonathon: Yeah, it’s so true, especially if you’re a busy agent. But keeping yourself up with the latest technology trends in your industry. Listening to them, there’s about half a dozen really active podcasts, which I think will give you good value if you’re a real estate agent. Obviously I am bias, I think Mail Right me and Robert have been doing an excellent job. Recent listening figures show that. And having great guests like you as helped as well, Scott. But I think it’s just a great way, especially if you’re in the car, which most agents are there. They’re got their home office there in the car, they’re visiting clients or showing property. It’s just a great way of keeping you up to date. Isn’t it Scott?

Scott: Yeah, absolutely. You know, listen to something that you can learn from and grow from rather than just listening to music. I mean there’s great music apps too. We haven’t talked about them, but you know, learn and learn and grow

Jonathon: So we are going to continue this in our bonus content. Which you’d be also being able to watch on the website. Like I said we have a full set of show notes with all the links to all the products and services that we’ve discussed. Now Scott, how can people find out more about you, your thoughts, what you’re up to and the company that you represent?

Scott: Yeah, the best way to reach me is Scott@titlecapture.com. That’s the net sheet company that I represent and work with. Or you can call me at (714) 270-9607. Text me, call me. I’m on Facebook, YouTube, just Google me, Scott Hoen and get in touch with me. And if I can help or be of assistance, let me know.

Jonathon: That’s great. And we will be back next week. I’ll be back with my normal cohost Robert Newman. And we’ve also got a good guest. I think it’s going to be an interesting discussion. It’s going to be around sales and how to influence your local community. And the most modern sales advice. And we got a really powerful con on. I am can going to tell you who it is, but you’re going to be impressed. We’re gonna see you in next week, folks. Bye.

Scott Hoen https://www.titlecapture.com/