It’s crazy how many ways there are to communicate out there today. It sure was simpler back in the old days. You could talk in person, send a letter or talk on the phone. Maybe you could also count telegrams or the Pony Express. That was about it.
Today? Like I said, crazy:
-
Email
-
Text
-
Tweet
-
Facebook Message
-
Video Conference
-
Audio Conference
-
FaceTime
-
Snapchat
-
Instagram
There’s even a new telegram service that’s web-based. I’m sure there are a lot more...
Communication is a great thing. Keeping up with all the forms of communication can be a really bad thing.
Everyone likes to communicate in different ways. Since real estate investors need to communicate with lots of different people, they have to accommodate lots of different types of communications.
57 Channels and Nothing’s On
The title of a little-known Bruce Springsteen song from the ‘80s could describe a lot of the communication channels of today. Back in the day he was talking about cable TV. All of the channels flowed through one electronic device – your TV.
Wouldn’t it be great to have lots of your communication channels flow through one place?
It would. That’s why there’s the website Slack. Slack integrates with lots of other websites to bring everything together for you.
Curiously just like Springsteen and cable, Slack operates in channels as well. Plain and simple, it’s an instant messaging app. But it does so much more. It’s a tremendous communication tool.
When you start working in Slack, you set up your channels. Channels can be organized any way you want. For real estate investors, you could use it to communicate with people in certain groups:
-
Contractors for your house flip
-
Your wholesale buyer’s list
-
Renters for certain properties – or all your renters
-
Property managers
-
Your virtual team
-
Your tech team that manages your website or blog
-
Family and friends
Once you set up a channel, you can start inviting people to join in the channel by sending them an email. Once they accept your invitation, you can instant message them all day long.
Your instant messages go out to the whole channel, but sometimes you may want to just talk to a few people in the channel. No problem. You can set up a private channel with a few select members or send a direct message.
Each message can also have an attachment. Just drag and drop the file you want from your computer and it’s instantly attached to your message. Then hit send and the file is out there.
The search function in Slack is super cool as well. It’s very much like the search function in Evernote. Not only will it search the text of all the instant messages you have stored, but it will also search the text of your attachments.
Although Slack will not replace email, it will greatly reduce it. Plus, the easy-to-read interface and advanced search make it a lot easier to find things than going through all your email. Especially emails that become super-long back-and-forth threads.
The documents you attach are also stored in Slack’s cloud storage facility. Slack gives you 5GB of cloud storage when you sign up for their free service. The free service also includes 10,000 free messages.
Once you go over the 10K messages/5GB storage limit, you will have to sign up for their pricing plan. Don’t worry if you go over your 10K limit before paying though. Slack will still store messages over 10K. You will just only be able to see the most recent 10,000.
The higher-priced plans give you more messaging, more storage and more support. They also allow more integrations with other apps throughout the web. Here’s a short video overview of Slack.
Use Slack to Tap Other Apps
One of the most powerful features of Slack is its ability to tap into other apps. With Slack, you can bring information and communication from other apps into your Slack account.
File storage can become really easy. Slack integrates easily with services like Dropbox and Google Docs. If you send a link to a file in either service through Slack, Slack will automatically index that document and allow you to search inside the text of it later.
You can also create video conferences in Slack with services like Skype, Google Hangouts and Zoom. The conference can start right in your channel thread.
Productivity apps are easy to integrate as well. You can send meeting notices or reminders to everyone in your channel from your calendar in Outlook or iCal. Or maybe you have a to-do list app like Wunderlist or todo. You can have your tasks from these apps pop up in Slack.
Project management also becomes easier with Slack. Apps like Trello and Asana integrate well with Slack. Then you can communicate easily with your teams to get tasks done.
There are a ton of other apps and services you can integrate with Slack. Slack even lets you create your own app, if you’re so inclined, and integrate it. There are actually enough apps that they have to create separate categories to list them all:
-
Bots
-
Analytics
-
Communication
-
Customer Support
-
Design
-
Developer Tools
-
File Management
-
Health & Medical
-
HR
-
Marketing
-
Office Management
-
Payments & Accounting
-
Productivity
-
Project Management
-
Security & Compliance
-
Social & Fun
-
Travel
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the communication tools out there, we are not trying to add another one to the mix. We are trying, instead, to tell you about one which will bring all the other apps together for you.
Talk to Me
If you have experience with Slack, we’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.
Organize Your Communication – Don’t use yellow stickies with phone numbers stuck everywhere to try to remember everyone. Take some time to organize how you stay in touch with your network.
Plan Your Business – If you don’t have plans and goals, you will be seduced by the latest fad out there. It’s especially easy to be distracted with all the new technology tools coming out. Make your plan and stick to it.
Communicate – Don’t hide from bad news. Stay in touch with your team regularly. If it is bad news, find a way to fix it before it becomes worse.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.