Real-Life Ways to Get more from Your PDA

			*Expert tips* Real-Life Ways to Get more from Your PDA Four veteran PDA users shows you how to turn your PDA into your new best friend.
			COMPILED BY MARIWYN EVANS Personal digital assistants can be a lot more than just your electronic calendar and address book. Realtormag.com asked some expert handheld users to share their best PDA productivity and marketing tips with our readers. Here’s how these experienced users leverage built-in PDA features and add-on programs to turn their PDAs into power tools. Larry Becker Palm Planning, Lakeland, Fla. palmplanning.com corporate@palmplanning.com Uses: A Palm 505 PDA user for: Six years Simplify your note taking during meetings by typing all your notes into your PDA’s memo pad, then later moving them to the appropriate file—calendar, client record--by cutting, copying, and pasting. You don’t have to keep switching programs when the notes apply to different topics, and you’ll be able to concentrate on what’s being said instead of on finding the right place to take notes. Create a mini-promotion for yourself and your company on your PDA using the free software program Album to Go or Club Photo. This program lets you view a series of JPG images, which can include selling text as well as photos, on your Palm. Then next time you run into a prospective customer, you can show the presentation right there or beam the entire presentation and the file viewer to your contact. Impress investors by turning your PDA with a Palm operating system into an HP 12C financial calculator that can compute net present value and depreciation. The trick is a simple, inexpensive shareware program called Abacus or Dove Software. Dwight Hale RE/MAX Advantage, The Schrader Group, San Antonio, Texas DwightHale.com dwight@dwighthale.com Uses: A Palm Vx PDA user for: Three years Wow relocation clients by using the free version of Mapopolis to give them an instant view of the city’s layout. Equip your whole team of assistants with PDAs so you can share information and not introduce errors into your data through poorly recorded or understood phone messages. If I can’t make a meeting, all my partner Dan Schrader has to do to receive my client’s information is beam it from my computer to his PDA and he’s ready to go. Make better use of time you spend waiting for clients by reviewing drafts of marketing materials. Dataviz’s Documents To Go lets you download Word or Excel files on your Palm so you can work on drafts and make changes on the go. I also download my e-mails and attachments to my Palm to review them when I'm waiting for a client. Then I synch the responses with my office computer and send them out. Nancy Argo Burnet Realty, Minneapolis, Minn. Nancy@Minneapolisrelocation.com Uses: A Palm 5 with black-and-white screen PDA user for: Three years Get lenders to e-mail you current rates and loan requirements at least weekly and then cut and paste them to your PDA. (You can even get them e-mailed directly to your PDA if you have wireless e-mail capabilities.) This way your clients can review them on your handheld, or you can beam the information to those clients who are PDA users. You can also beam clients a copy of a free calculator program such as PITICALC, (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) so they can recompute their potential future mortgage payments for each house you show them. Download this program free at PalmPlanning. Use your PDA to gently remind visitors and phone callers to cut it short. I set my Palm’s alarm to go off to remind me of the next meeting a few minutes before I want the one I’m in to end. Then I can say, “Sorry, I have another appointment, now.” It’s a great way to avoid long, unproductive discussions. It also works for phone calls; just schedule them five minutes apart. Beam copies of your buyer or seller information form to tech-savvy customers so that they can complete it at their leisure, then beam it back to you. You don’t waste time taking down information, and customers are impressed with your tech knowledge. Lois Cox The Prudential California Realty Group, Pleasanton, Calif. firstclass-realty.com Lois@FirstClass-Realty.com Uses: Supra Palm 5 PDA user for: Two-and-a-half years Load all your vendor names and addresses on your PDA so that you can immediately give clients contact names for service providers. It saves calling back and forth with information. Stop losing those yellow sticky notes with important numbers and reminders by substituting an electronic Post-it Note program such as DiddleBug. I use it to enter voicemail messages, reminders to myself about meetings into my PDA. I use it as an electronic to-do list. I can also download tasks to my assistant’s computer from DiddleBug for her to handle. Put the area you serve—for example, Northern California—at the top of your electronic business card if you work frequently with out-of-town buyers. The location will help customers find you when they're looking through their own PDAs. Creating the card itself is easy; just create a file with you own name and address in your Palm’s address book. For a business card complete with photo or graphics, use a program such as ViziCard from AardAsNails.com. More PDA Resources Learn more about buying and using PDAs in the January REALTOR^®Magazine Buyer's Guide, “Battle of the Palmtops: Palm or Pocket PC? ” and by visiting the Wireless/Communications Advisor at Realtormag.com. (For registered users of REALTOR.org, formerly OneRealtorPlace.)