Introduction/Instructions Letter

Introduction

This is the introduction you will receive with the Plans. We've included it here to give you some additional insight into the quality and comprehensiveness of them.

NOTE: The majority of the activities have 'Notes' within the activity that describe how to accomplish that activity. It's comparable to a 'dynamic operations manual'. Some describe it, some tell click-by-click how to print the report the activity calls for, where in AO to put the information the activity calls for, etc.

Even if you don't buy "Trans-Plans" - feel free to use this as a means to better understand how to build and use your own.

These plans are a compilation of “Activities” put together from many sources. The first is my own business, when I was an active agent. In my last year I did 43 transactions with a part-time assistant. Some agents did more, many did less, but it was certainly enough to be able to construct, implement, and refine these core listing and transaction management “plans”. My plans were then expanded when I automated an operation for an agent that did 140 transactions that year.

The plans continued to improve with input from the many agents and teams in varied markets around the country with whom I’ve worked over the years, who were gracious enough to share the results of our 'Activity Plan Building' (Tech-Speed) sessions with me. The end result of these dozens of sessions is 'Trans-Plans', a combination of the ever expanding Plans I brought with me, and the activities unique to their market, which were added to what I had.

Typically when an agent purchases an Agent Productivity software or service, they add their contacts, and maybe use the calendar, etc., but they rarely make the time to sit down and create their own “Activity Plans”, or “Campaigns”.

The idea with these plans is to just go down the list of activities in each plan, and delete the ones that are not relevant to you. As you're going down the list, you will undoubtedly see that there are some things that you do, that are not on the list. Odds are that you will realize that as a result of the ones that ARE on the list.

There are notes in the vast majority of the activities. Agents with different levels of experience will get different things out of these notes. For those of you who are more experienced, many of them are basic - BUT - there are also things you may not have known. We strongly recommend that you read the notes in each activity as it comes up the first time. Some of them:

1) Explain what the description means, period.

2) Some explain the description to an assistant that may not know the business yet.

3) Some give detailed instructions how to run different reports; fill in different fields; tell you where information should go, etc. They are in almost all of the activities. You really should read all of them as you use them, as there is a good deal of information about how to use AO, and general information with tips for your business.

4) ALL 'Mail' activities give click-by-click directions how to edit that specific letter.

Launching the plans:

There are 8 basic plans. Two for listings, and six for closings. The listing plans MUST be launched from the “Listings Module”. The closing plans MUST be launched from the “Sales Module”. The reason is that you want to ‘associate’ the client and subject property in each activity with the launch, and that is how that is accomplished.

When to launch the plans:

The following plans are to be launched when you have a listing:

'Residential Listing Plan’ – launch date is the actual listing date.
‘Listing Price Adjustment’ - launch date is the date of the price adjustment.

The following plans are to be launched when you are responsible for the Seller’s side only:

‘Seller from Contract Date’ – launch date is the date of the ‘Executory Agreement of Sale’. This date will vary from market to market. Some markets must take ‘Attorney review’ periods into account. The important issue is that the launch date should be the date when ‘the clock starts ticking’, the date from which contingencies will start.

How many days do you typically allow for the home inspection and other contingencies? They're not always the same, which is problematic for standardized activity plans. There are 2 ways to deal with it. You can change the number of days for the contingencies in this plan, to the number of days most common in your transactions. Then, after launching the plan, you can change the contingency activities to the correct number of days, one by one, if they differ from what is in the plan. The other way to deal with it is to use the 'Copy Plan' button to copy this plan, and modify the plan to use a different number of days for the contingencies. Simply name the new plan accordingly. In other words, this plan could be the standard, and the other one could be 'Seller from contract date-7' - meaning it has 7 day contingencies in it. Note that some agents prefer to let the contingency deadline go by if there is no word from the buyer's agent, to give the sellers the negotiating advantage. Some prefer to give the buyers notice that this is the last day, to avoid disagreements, which can mean time and potential trouble. The "Collaborative " style of negotiating would favor the former. Plan your number of days accordingly.

‘Seller from Closing Date’ – launch date is the closing date.

The following plans are to be launched when you are responsible for the Buyer’s side only:

‘Buyer from Contract Date’ - launch date is the date of the ‘Executory Agreement of Sale’. This date will vary from market to market. Some markets must take ‘Attorney review’ periods into account. The important issue is that the launch date should be the date when ‘the clock starts ticking’, the date from which contingencies will start.
‘Buyer from Closing Date’ - launch date is the closing date.

The following plans are to be launched when you are responsible for both the Buyer’s, and the Seller’s side of the transaction:

‘Both Sides from Contract Date’ – launch date is the date of the ‘Executory Agreement of Sale’. This date will vary from market to market. Some markets must take ‘Attorney review’ periods into account. The important issue is that the launch date should be the date when ‘the clock starts ticking’, the date from which contingencies will start.
‘Both Sides from Closing Date’ – launch date is the closing date.

Some Suggestions for Implementation:

Notice that there are two sets of plans. One set uses letters that are from “Us”, and the other set uses letters that are from “Me”. The latter set is the one that ends in a “-I”.
There is one plan called “Additional Letters”. That plan was simply used to enable the installation of the software to bring in letters that are not ‘called in’ in the other plans. You don’t need to understand this. Just ignore that plan, or delete it if you want to..
If there is an activity that you do not do, but which you plan to eventually implement, consider leaving it in, so that when it keeps coming up on your calendar, it reminds you that you want to implement it.
Priorities – Remember – assigning a high priority more than a couple times in each plan, yields a calendar day full of high priorities, rendering the function of prioritization meaningless.
Agents in different states have different responsibilities depending upon whether or not they have the buyer or the seller. Also, the closing plans always assume you check on the co-op’s progress, not leaving it up to chance that they are doing the things for which they are responsible. If you don’t want to do that, delete those activities from the plan.
Print out the plans, using the ‘Print Plans’ icon in the Plan Manager, and use them in your presentations to the buyers and sellers.
All activities are assigned to ‘the agent’, as no other assumption can be made. If you have an assistant, you must re-assign the appropriate activities to the assistant, one time, in the 'Plan Manager'. Bear in mind that although you may not have an assistant, it may be advisable to assign tasks that will normally be accomplished ‘in the office’ to another calendar, by creating an assistant, and assigning them those tasks. If you are synching AO with a PDA, that would be another reason to assign the tasks to an ‘imaginary’ assistant, so as not to have all those tasks appear on the ‘agent’s’ calendar, on the PDA.

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Description of the Agent Office Activity Plans Package

Detailed Content of Each Plan

List of Letters & Promotional Pieces

Ordering Information

Screen Shots

These Plans & Letters are available for OTHER programs too!

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