Top 10 Articles from October

With a chill in the air and shorter days upon us, there's no better time to hunker down and catch up on the latest real estate technology issues. Our list of the top articles from October is a great educational guide to get you started.

1. Lose the Paperwork, Build Your Business With the iPad - by Jared Daniel
Many agents and brokers have yet to adopt the concept of going paperless. According to Garry Wise of the GoodLife Team, on average, paperless agents save five hours per transaction. It's no secret that real estate professionals have hectic schedules, so why wouldn't you want to save yourself a little time to get back to the things you enjoy?

2. 6 Marketing Tools to Build Your Business - by Emily Williams
Your marketing efforts serve two masters: you and your sellers. Let's discuss the latter first. Marketing each seller's property helps you to move it more quickly and for more money. Pretty obvious, right? Then there's the other side of marketing, the marketing you do to increase your client base. That's what we're here to discuss today.

3. Secrets to Success with RPR® - by Emily Williams
Realtors Property Resource® (RPR®) is a free member benefit from the National Association of REALTORS®. The compelling cost-benefit ratio and impressive functionality create an appealing package, one that we were interested to see "in action." So, we've spoken with a variety of agents around the country to learn how they are using RPR® to be more successful.

4. 6 Tips for Streamlining Your Workflow - by Frances Brittle
We've all experienced the consequences of being overwhelmed. It could be that you have too many projects going on at once and suddenly you're paralyzed with too many choices to make. It's a known fact that when faced with too many choices, people often make no choice at all. Knowing this, it's to your advantage to leverage this concept and learn how to streamline your workflow.

5. Is Your Website Serving the Needs of Tomorrow's First-Time Buyer? - by Kelly Phelan
Members of the Millennial generation are reaching an age where they're considering buying a home for the first time. As the largest generation since the Baby Boomers, this means that an influx of first-time homebuyers is on the horizon. Are you and your business ready?

6. Agent Mobile Apps: Better for Agents, Great for Consumers - by Emily Williams
Many real estate agents are missing an opportunity with mobile, failing to create their own branded apps for real estate search and losing that important customer touchpoint to third parties. "Wait," you're probably saying, "why do I need my own mobile app when my clients can download any number of property search apps?"

7. Google+ for Real Estate Agents: A Beginner's Guide - by Geneva Ives
Have you joined Google+ yet? Joining Google+ is great for SEO. Since Google+ is run by Google, almost everything you add is immediately indexed into search results, meaning that your blog posts, neighborhood videos and client interviews become searchable more quickly. Spend just an hour getting your profile up to speed, and you'll be a G+ mover and shaker before you know it!

8. How the New Cartavi Helps Agents Optimize Their Productivity - by Kelly Phelan
Hundreds of agents and brokers attended the second event in our October webinar series, "Keep Real Estate Digital: Optimize Your Workflow." Cartavi CEO Glenn Shimkus gave us a live demonstration of how Cartavi 3.0 can streamline your workflow and help you provide clients with a better experience.

9. 5 Steps to Maximizing Your Marketing Budget - by Chad Bhalla
The most important number you need to pay attention to with regards to marketing is ROI (return on investment). The whole purpose of marketing is to spend some money to get more customers and more money in return. Good advertising always generates a profit. Here are five steps to ensure that you maximize your marketing budget.

10. Introducing Position-Me - by Emily Williams
Happy Grasshopper has earned a sterling reputation in the real estate industry. They've spent years perfecting their email marketing services, and growing even more quickly than they expected – but now that they've mastered their initial product offering, they're ready to branch out. Responding to client requests for expanded services, they've just launched two new products: Position-Me and HG-Recruits.