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Success Stories
A
Real Talk
post:
(Real Talk is a "list-serv" comprised of over
50,000 members)
Michael wrote:
Can anyone tell me their experiences with Top Producer and/or ACT? Or does
anyone have any other products that they would recommend instead...?
Don responds:
I was a long time (15 years) ACT user. The last decent version of ACT was 6.0.
Since that release Sage bought Act and basically destroyed a great product.
Their first "new" version (Act 2005) was so bad that no one could make it
work...Act 2006 wasn't much better...2007 is so convoluted that ACT consultants
suggest hiring a consultant to install the software. I spent 9 months
trying to get ACT 2007 to work properly & finally threw in the towel.
Through this list I was introduced to Gary David Hall
http://www.garydavidhall.com/ and have found him to be a true guru when it
comes to contact management software. He sells them all: Act, Top Producer,
Agent Office etc.
Not only is Gary knowledgeable, but he has taken the time to listen to my needs,
offer solid suggestions, provide working copies of the leading contact
management software on a trial basis and finally I settled on Agent Office,
Version 10 which I purchased directly from Gary's web site.
When I was ready to convert my 800+ contacts from Act to Agent Office, Gary was
there...logging on to my computer via the internet to assist in getting the new
software set up & the Act files moved over.
Gary offers additional help in maximizing the Agent Office software which I plan
to avail myself of soon.
I've only been using Agent Office for less than a month, but it works! It also
runs circles around Act.
P.S. I'm not on Gary's payroll...... just a happy customer.
Kind regards to all,
Don N. Nelson
A
Real Talk
post:
(Real Talk is a "list-serv" comprised of over
50,000 members)
"I just wanted to
share with everyone that I spoke with Gary last week about changing my contact
management software after he answered a post of mine here. Gary was easy to talk
with, gave me plenty of time to explain my entire situation and set-up, and
directed me to several different options giving me pros and cons to each.
Ultimately, we arrived at a solution together, which I think is the best for me.
Thank you, Gary for your excellent, unbiased help and for taking the time to
understand my situation before making recommendations. I highly recommend Gary
to everyone here. He is an excellent resource as most who have been members of
this listserv know. I sincerely appreciate your consultant approach to my
challenge. Thanks, again, Gary!!!"
Steve Rupp, Realtor,
Broker-Associate,
ABR, ASR, CNHS, CRS,
e-PRO, GRI, RFS, SRES
Some kind words from someone that bought one
product from me, did not like it, returned it, and didn't know I could also
sell her Top Producer:
"Your professionalism is outstanding. I am very
impressed by your willingness to "Make Things Right". It is rare in today's
world. I would love to know more about what you do and who you are
affiliated with. I have signed up with Top Producer and am very happy with
the system. I am currently looking at Real........... If you have an
affiliation with them or another lead system, please let me know. I would
love to continue some sort of business with you as you have earned my
trust. You must have similar standards to mine and the Core Values I live
by. There should be more people like you out there. I have also shared your
information and standards with many agents in my workshops & offices. I have
referred several people over to Top Producer that have signed up after
seeing my presentations. Would you gain from me referring them to you
instead to get them on with Top Producer?
Thank You again and I truly hope we can have
dealings in the future in some format."
Lori Ballen
Hi Gary, I wanted to follow up with you regarding the success
of our Agent Office software and especially the "Activity Plans" that you helped
us to implement.
As you know, we have for some time been operating with
extensive manual "check lists". The check lists we designed were created with
two main objectives. First to enable us to work as a complete team, and second
as a complete management tool for our client's entire real estate process.
With your help, we were able to fully automate our own 432
step process into the Agent Office system. Having used the system now for over a
year, I can attest to you the success it has had on our business. Being able to
launch plans (not check lists) has made our operation much more efficient and
complete. Those in the office responsible for managing client files no longer
need to improvise and second guess the process. Each step is automatically set
up on their desktop w/ step by step procedures as a reference if they need it.
Our office manager has been able to alter the plans as
needed, enhancing our ability to customize a particular client's process or to
simply edit a plan for efficiency. Our entire business model's servicing process
is in Agen t
Office and is the tool of choice in our company. I want to thank you for your
expertise and guidance in helping us to automate our servicing process.
It has made a world of difference to all of us and most
importantly helped our client's receive a thorough and completely managed real
estate process.
If fully servicing a client is important, I recommend the
real estate professional automate their process. No more hand written notes, no
more "to do's" falling through the cracks, no more
embarrassing phone calls of what was forgotten, no more sleepless nights
wondering what was done or left undone. It is all there, in the system,
documented and professionally managed.
Bill Luke,
Luke Real Estate - Delaware
I have been using AgentOffice for over a year now
and I still find new things it can do for me.
After trying to get Outlook to
print some labels I bought an older version of AO and fell in love with it. I
like programs that think like me and don't have a long learning curve. I figured
this one would work. I used it for several months and kept finding new areas and
capabilities. Finally I broke down and took a class from Gary David Hall. WOW!
That was money Well Spent! Gary knows his programs and is a good teacher. I
learned a whole lot and was able to put it to good use.
One example: I used to print out
my mailings and then I had to sort them by zip code. AO will sort them for you.
The printing process is about as simple as it can get. I was very happy how easy
and quick it goes.
Another: Listing Plans come with
the program. Gary Hall wrote a set called TransPlans. They are Very Thorough. I
was suprised at some of the things he came up with to remind me to do. Some are
not relavant to my practice but most are and it is very easy to delete the ones
you don't need.
Brent Link
A Real Talk Post:
Gary Hall first came to my attention through Real Talk. His
regular posts, generosity of knowledge and accurate observations led me into his
website
www.GaryDavidHall.com.
For anyone who has not yet bookmarked this site, I strongly suggest a visit. You
will find it a labyrinth of excellent real estate resources.
My
first contact with Gary was a personal consultation. Gary was on the phone and
in my computer via "GoToMeeting" to import my contacts into my newly acquired
Agent Office software. From this point on, my business was operating on a new
level and Gary was a permanent part of my Team. I have attended his classes and
look forward to his help in the future to expand my business.
I
strongly recommend Gary's services to all Real Estate professionals. Gary has
helped me to sharpen my edge over the competition, and has showed me many ways
to optimize my time. Thanks Gary.
Kevin
McCallum e-Pro, Beacham Walsh Properties Inc.
Hi Gary - Because I'm a good student who listens to
the instructor :>), I created the activity plans you recommended while I was
taking your class. And I'm thrilled that I did. As you promised in the class, my
stress level is dramatically reduced. I'm juggling 9 transactions at the moment,
and don't worry about a thing because AO tells me every day what needs to be
done. If some unforeseen event needs to be scheduled, I just add it to the plan.
I love it!
On another subject (a favorite of yours), I had some
hiccups early on with AO and somehow couldn't access my data. But, thanks to
your recommendations, I bought Eazy Backup
and religiously backed up AO just about every day. Thus, I was able to retrieve
everything once I cured the hiccups. Then, this week, I had a weird virus (at
least, I assume it was a virus), and after 6 hours on the phone with Dell and my
ISP techs, my only option was to reformat the hard drive. The bad news:
Reformatting and reinstalling all my programs took the better part of two days
(I had no idea how many programs I use regularly). The good news:
Eazy Backup had all my data, and that took
less than 30 minutes to restore. Now I'm back in business. Thank you, Gary Hall!
Gary Rekstad
...My experience of your training of Agent Office is that you are thorough,
totally competent, patient (which is essential), maintain a sense of humor, add
value from your own data base of real estate documents and personal real estate
experience, and a valuable asset in the essential dialogue of setting up a real
estate office contact/day to day business management program. You are also
generous with your time and have a lot of stamina to get the job/goals
accomplished. As to the use of PC anywhere (I use
GoToMeeting now - much
better and easier), it is quite simply about 99% as good
as being in the same room with you; no drawback or diminished effectiveness
whatsoever. I appreciate all your effort.
Robbie Dein, C21 Royal
Maui Properties
"I am so thankful that I found out about your Tech-Speed program. It was the
answer to my Team’s flagrant offensive of purchasing technology, installing
software, and then not spending any time or resources on training and
integration.
Your approach, with a hands-on and on-site visit is in my opinion the ONLY ONE
that works. Classes don’t. Books don’t. Tutorials don’t. You showed my team and
myself how to do and why we ought to do it. It was the best money I have spent
on my business this year and I endorse you and your company without hesitation.
Gary – feel free to use my name as a reference and until the next time we have
you out here – keep up the good work!"
Jon Modene, Broker/Owner ABR,
RE/MAX Masters
...I had a 1 hour phone consultation with Gary on Friday, and his methods and
tips on setting up and using AO (Agent Office - Agent 2000 - Online Agent) are
extremely valuable, and saved me countless hours of learning on my own. Wow. No
kidding. Best $ I have spent on my business in a long time, and I immediately
scheduled more consultation calls with him next week.
Tony Schimek - Prudential
Carolina Real Estate
I love Soar eMLS, my custom Web site from Sizzling Studios, their Web
positioning, the popularity links from Linkage Express, and the Google adwords.
You haven't steered me wrong yet. What else do you have up your sleeve?
Mark Wade - Prudential
Fox & Roach Realtors
Gary, I can't thank you enough for helping me understand the role technology
would play in increasing my sales and systems. The time that you spent pulling
all the loose ends together for me, and explaining and simplifying it all has
proven to be invaluable. I have gone from throwing internet leads in the trash,
to being the first one to respond. The familiarity that you have with the
products real estate professional's use, helps what was once overwhelming become fun
and exciting. Thanks again.
Leslie McDonnell -
RE/MAX Suburban, #1 RE/MAX Agent in Illinois - 2004
"Gary, I wanted to thank you for your time with my inquiry about and
subsequent purchase of Agent 2000. You were prompt in providing me with some
great information and made it easy to purchase the contact management software.
You were very responsive and up front about the capabilities of Agent
2000. When I approached you about training sessions, you were flexible
in offering several sessions on the phone.
Thanks for all of the advice, and I will be calling on you again in the near
future and also recommending you to anyone looking for contact management
software!"
Casey O'Neal,
Associate Broker - RE/MAX Horizons Alexandria, VA
We thoroughly enjoyed the classes you held at our office. Both the agents and I
felt the material presented was of a significant value and will help us in our
day-to-day work activities. Being more efficient and managing time effectively
will only continue to grow in importance in our industry. Having a knowledge of
and being able to use technology is an absolute must in today's business world.
I especially appreciated that fact that you took the time to present an outline
to me prior to the class so that we could custom-tailor it to our agents. So
many times people take classes where the speaker / teacher never investigates
the level of sophistication of his or her students and consequently a
significant amount of time is wasted going over items in which the students are
already proficient. The agents also appreciated you allocating time for their
questions both during and at the conclusion of the class.
Bringing educators like you into an environment like ours provides tangible
evidence of the value we as owners and managers provide our associates. As you
know, both classes you gave were complete sell-outs with waiting lists. I am
looking forward to having you back soon!
Neal Baldwin, RE/MAX Action
Associates, Manager
"I used to use ACT Extensively, for many years, and
personally customized it for Real Estate. What a headache. After
much research and testing, I decided on Agent Office and find it
much-much-much-much-much better than any other alternative I have tried. Not
perfect, but close. Definitely good enough. Almost Nirvana.
Much has been said about the importance of action
plans, and their value, too. (Otherwise a shoebox is fine) We also use
E-Server and have Agent Office
hosted on their server, so any of
our team of four can access the database from anywhere, live. Works incredibly
well for a team. We can program calls and tasks and appointments for each other,
anytime. And....bonus....our business e-mail accounts are set up on E-Server
Outlook 2002 that works side by side with Agent Office. Incredibly cool,
really. Amazingly efficient. It's what many of the top multi-agent teams
in the country use. That being said, Agent Office 5.0 alone for one agent
is great too.
Many thanks to Gary Hall's excellent hourly
training, made the Agent Office learning curve a matter of hours instead of
weeks. Really-Really-Really worth the money. Foolish not to do so. (Try
to learn on your own over many many hours making mistakes)
We are Jubilant.
Guess you can tell:)
RIP,TP...(sorry, couldn't resist)"
And again from Tony, responding to a post about
learning by yourself...
I'm not so sure about learning 100% on
your own. I think a combination of self learning AND expert training is
best. I played around with AO for many many hours, and learned some
things, before hiring Gary. With Gary Hall's over the phone training, I
learned 10 times more than I did on my own, in a quarter of the time, and
learned many tricks right then and there on the phone that would have taken me a
long time to find searching manuals, listserv archives etc..
Manuals, archives, Jim Caseys DVD's and
learning on your own all do work, but for me, having a hands on expert/coach
worked better, and much faster. We have three team members with AO hosted
by eSERVER. May switch to eAGENT
Tony Schimek - Prudential Carolina Real Estate
"…it was nice learning from someone that does not treat you like an idiot for not knowing something"
Lisa Phillips - Assistant to Bonnie Eschelman
After her first of 6 classes, Barb e-mailed with:
"I just wanted to
send you an email telling you how much I enjoyed the class and found it so
helpful. I have had Agent2000 for RE/MAX since 2000 and have put contacts in it
but never used it properly. I upgraded last year to AgentOffice v.6. This
class will be a godsend to help me get organized and automated..."
Barb Britton - RE/MAX All
Stars
A
Real Talk post
from a student:
"I've just
completed Gary Hall's Agent Office online training course. I found it to be
extremely helpful - and unexpectedly fun. I liked the format; visual online
demos in conjunction with conference calls. I lucked out with the others in our
group as well; Marcia, Dan, I look forward to hearing from you both!
Agent Office is
such a comprehensive program that despite the best of intentions on my part, I
know I would never quite "get around to" fully learning and utilizing all the
features - which is what I really need to do in order to take my business to the
next level.
For me, the best
part was having the benefit of Gary's experience. As with any program, Agent
Office has its own idiosyncrasies; Gary pointed them out and showed us how to
effectively work around them, saving the pain and frustration of having to learn
the hard way. He also provided a wealth of information on topics that impact
Agent Office, but were not necessarily strictly about the use of the software.
Gary, I hope you
read this. I want to publicly acknowledge all of your help. You were always very
generous with your time and expertise, both during the actual sessions in the
course and outside of them. I never could have gotten that from a book. Many
thanks! I look forward to seeing what courses/offerings you may add in the
future."
Lisa Kilfoil - Houlihan Lawrence
Real Estate Centers
"The AgentOffice
online training was fantastic. The online format really
worked out well. I
appreciate that you kept it at our pace and answered all our questions. I'll be
back for more training - for sure! It was just what I needed!"
Ann Braunagel - Keller
Williams Realty
"I just finished Gary's course. Excellent- you will enjoy it and
gain much from it. There is a lot of give and take between the participants and
Gary during the sessions and many questions get resolved immediately."
"Clear, concise, "How-to" advice.
To steal a phrase from the home handyman, Gary makes sense of data basing!"
Merrill Allen - Keller
Williams
"I recommend Gary's method of teaching Agent Office over the internet for 6
weeks. It gives us time to do 'homework' on each class and return the next week
with questions. I have had this software for years and am probably using 10%
of it. I am now able to see what it can do as a result of the class. Prior to
the class I had not realized how important it could be to me, my team and my
future ability to build a saleable business."
Betty & Robert Gordon -
RE/MAX Action Realty
"Gary
was great! He answered all of my questions (no matter how basic).
This was a very valuable training day - time well spent. With a training
background, I found myself observing as a "trainer". He had
great audience involvement, good visuals, control of the group, and was very
relaxed and comfortable with the content. His sense of humor is refreshing
and a good teaching technique."
Beth
Markowski - Realtor's Licensed Assistant, MBA Teaching
Excellent & exciting! As a college teacher for
20+ years, I can really appreciate the value & experience of high quality
instruction, coupled with an engaging and entertaining personality. I'll
be signing on for more of Gary's courses in the future.
Patricia
L. Kendel - Past Client, Broker/Owner - RE/MAX
Allegiance
"Mike, just wanted to take a moment and pass on to you how much Gary Hall has
helped our office. The numerous tasks he has explained, (SOAR, RE/MAX 2000,
Internet, etc.) I not only benefited from his office visits, but have also
learned from his ability to teach. I know I have not used all the support
systems that region provides (a fact I am changing) but next time I am asked
what the region is doing for the money they receive from us, Gary Hall will be
at the top of that list."
Ural Tomblin - Broker/Owner - RE/MAX Countywide
"…it was nice learning from someone that does not treat you like an idiot for
not knowing something"
Lisa Phillips - Assistant to Bonnie Eschelman
"…did an excellent job on the Internet Seminar on Tuesday. Both the presentation
and the materials were excellent. I thought your information was well organized
and covered the important points without getting bogged down in details that no
one needs to worry about."
Barbara J. O'Donnell - Realtors' Special Services at RE/MAX Properties Ltd. -
Sponsored by Norwest Mtg. Inc.
I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday's Internet Training session at the Blue Bell CC.
The materials presented were informative, and will inspire us to enhance our
technology efforts. Gary Hall and Jennifer Gates did an excellent job and should
be commended accordingly. We are looking forward to Gary's visit with us…"
Bob Shadduck - Broker/Owner - RE/MAX Associates of Delaware
"Thanks so much for making our meeting extra special. Your insights and
recommendations were greatly appreciated by both myself, the owners, and our
agents."
Neal Baldwin - Manger RE/MAX Action Associates - Recipient of RE/MAX SEPA
Technology Award 1997
"Best technology course I ever took! I use the computer and internet daily, and
I often take additional courses. I learned more today than in any other course"
Polley Student - Using Technology to Serve Consumers
"Thank you for a most interesting, informative, well prepared, structured,
course. You have managed to make sense of a very confusing issue (Technology).
As instructors rate, I give you an A+. You captured 100% of my attention, and
that is not easy!
Linda Scaperotto, Instructor evaluation from Polley Student
Contact us - 215.345.5222
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