Everyone seems to be feeling overwhelmed with email these days. It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago people were predicting the death of email. If you’re like most people today, you think the death of email has been greatly exaggerated.
The trick is to tame your email. There are so many emails that you can spend your whole day trying to keep up with your inbox. The emails come from everywhere:
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Businesses that have you on their email list
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Friends and family
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Motivated sellers – hopefully
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Eager buyers – just as hopefully
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Spam
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People who want to sell you something through a ‘cold email’
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Social media notifications
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And on and on...
So, we thought we would provide a few tips and techniques that could greatly help in reducing the time you spend on your email. We’ve covered a lot of useful tools already here on Mogul, but now it’s time to create an overall strategy for your email.
Subtraction is the New Addition
Many productivity people will try to show you how to answer/delete/organize all your emails more quickly. We’d like to think of it a different way:
‘How can I cut down the number of emails I receive and still be more successful?’
As Peter Drucker, the king of productivity gurus said:
“What gets managed gets improved.”
To manage and take control of your inbox, it is worth thinking about an overall strategy, rather than just looking around for tactics.
What are your goals as a real estate investor? Are they specific? Some examples might be:
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Wholesale 50 houses this year
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Acquire 10 rental properties in the next 10 months (1 per month)
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Create a cash flow of $20,000 per month through rental properties in the next 4 years
Whatever your goals are, it is important to have them. Once you have the goals, then you can start cutting out the parts of your business (especially in your email) that don’t contribute to your goals.
For email, having definite goals means you won’t be chasing down the latest website or internet tool to control your inbox and adding it to the 362 other tricks and tools you already have - but don’t use.
Now do a Pareto (80/20) analysis on your inbox. The percentages might vary, but think of how some small percentage of your inbox is contributing to most of the results. Some questions to ask yourself as you go through your inbox could include:
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Which 20% of my emails take up 80% of my time?
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Which 20% of my emails lead to 80% of my profits?
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Which 20% of my emails or contacts cause 80% of my stress?
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Which 20% of people in my contacts require 80% of my attention?
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What 20% of subjects do 80% of my emails cover?
Besides the 80/20 rule, think of other metrics you can use to manage your inbox. Some might include:
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Number of emails you have to answer in a certain time period
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For every email you return, how many more emails does that create?
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How many emails do you send to certain individuals, and how could they be consolidated?
Seeing the results of some of these measurements can be illuminating. It will start your idea machine and help you crank out solutions to reduce the amount of time you spend on email.
If some of you are thinking this sounds like a Four Hour Work Week strategy, it has lots of parallels. The overall idea is to reduce the time you spend on ineffective action and maximize the results you receive on your effective action.
Create a ‘Not To Do List’
Once you can see how you spend your time on email, you can start reducing that time. You can also use the time you do spend on email to increase your results.
Figure out which emails are not returning you a decent profit or those that may even be costing you money. Then try to figure out a way ‘Not To Do’ these emails.
The best way to start is to eliminate unproductive emails. Unsubscribe to newsletters either through the unsubscribe link on the email itself, an unsubscribe feature in your email client (like Gmail or Outlook) or a service like Unroll.me.
Consider also ‘unsubscribing’ to certain people. Maybe not just in email but in life. Create a list of people who are costing you more than the value they are bringing. Then ask yourself: ‘Why am I interacting with these people?’ You may have to ask yourself ‘why?’ several times before you get to the heart of the matter.
For example:
Q: Why am I interacting with this person?
A: Because they are trying to sell me something I don’t want.
Q: Why don’t I tell them I am not interested?
A: I don’t want to hurt their feelings.
Q: Why can’t I figure out a way to let them know without hurting their feelings?
A: I haven’t found a good way to let them down easy.
Then start thinking of a solution. Perhaps you could provide them with a referral? Maybe you can explain to them that what they are selling will never work for you, offer tips to make it better, or just tell them their time would be better spent on other prospects. Whatever it is – unsubscribe them!
Also, think of your email like you would think of marketing to motivated sellers. You’re always (or should be) testing different forms of marketing. Why not test different ways of email?
One way to help you eliminate emails is the autoresponder. Many people use autoresponders to let people know they are ‘out of the office.’ What they are really saying is: ‘I won’t be answering emails for X period of time.’
Take time in your day to stay away from email. Put on the autoresponder every day so you can buckle down and get work done. You can put in the autoresponder that you will answer emails at a certain time during the day.
Perhaps people asking specific types of questions multiple times, such as:
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Renters wanting to put in a maintenance request
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Potential renters wanting to schedule a time for a showing
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Other investors wanting to network with you
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Potential motivated sellers who want to know more about how you operate
If that’s the case, you can put links to where they can find the information in your autoresponder. You can also create a short video on YouTube showing people how to do something and put the link in your autoresponder. Or have people sign up for a showing or other appointments through a link with software like Sign Up Genius.
Test different autoresponders to see how they will cut down on your email, and how effective they are at moving your business along.
Email is Not Project Management
When you are flipping a house or rehabbing a rental property, you become a project manager. You have to communicate with:
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Contractors
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Inspectors
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Realtors
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Banks
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Potential Buyers
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And probably lots of other people.
You have to coordinate all their actions in order to see the project happen. Lots of people try to do this through email.
Wouldn’t it make sense to use project management software instead? Then you have a great record of everything associated with the project all in one place. Versus email where it is all mixed in with other emails in your inbox.
At best, you have emails related to the project in their own folder. But you still have to keep track of the money, create lists and maintain documents. These tasks can take several different programs or websites to track it all.
There’s some really good project management software out there for very little money. Programs like:
These programs will help you organize your project much easier than your inbox. So get to it.
Share a Tech Tip
Got any other ideas for minimizing the amount of time you spend on email? Please share them in the comments section below.
Eliminate the Unprofitable – This applies to both your real estate business and your personal life. Find ways to cut down on the people and tasks that are wasting your time.
Don’t Get Distracted – Don’t let email pull you off task. Use techniques like the Pomodoro technique to stay focused.
Step Back – Every so often, take a strategic look at what you are doing. How can you make your daily life more profitable using less time.