Web Wise
Let the WRA Web site Work for You
Did you know that consumers and other REALTORSŪ can find you with a few clicks of their mouse? That's because as part of the benefits of membership, the WRA provides you with a Virtual Business Card (VBC) on the WRA Web site. By using the "Find a
REALTORŪ" search feature, visitors to our site can locate
REALTORSŪ by searching on last name, company name, city, or by doing a geographical search. When your VBC is displayed, the viewer will see your photo, your contact information (including address, phone numbers, e-mail, and Web site address), primary counties served, areas of specialty, and more. However, we can only display information that you have given us. So we encourage you to go check out your VBC to see if you need to make any updates. To find your VBC,
- Go www.wra.org.
- Click on the "Find a REALTORŪ" tab.
- Type in your last name and click search.
- Click on your name from the results list to view your VBC.
Making changes to your VBC is easy. Just click on the online membership change form link at the bottom of your VBC.
Is Your VBC Faceless?
Let potential customers and clients put a face to your name by adding a photo to your VBC. As with traditional business cards, a photo on your VBC adds a personal touch. You can upload your electronic photo by using the online membership change form.
Expand your Visibility with Primary Counties Served
We recognize that your service area may go well beyond the city limits and may cross a few county lines. By identifying the counties you serve, you can expand your visibility with potential customers and clients using our site to find a
REALTORŪ. When a consumer searches for a REALTORŪ geographically, you will show up in search results for each county you have indicated as primary counties served on your VBC. Use the online membership change form to add one or more counties to your member record.
Highlight Your Areas of Specialty
Choose from 16 categories to highlight your areas of specialty for potential customers and clients. Categories include appraisal, auction, commercial investment, condos, corporate real estate, farm, ranch, franchising, leasing, multi-family, new home sales, recreation, relocation, residential, subdivision, vacant land, and waterfront. You'll need to fill out the online membership change form to add one or more categories to your member record, then this new information will display on your virtual business card as well as allow consumers to match you with a specific type of real estate transaction.
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Technology Q&A with Stephen Canale
Do you have any idea why the Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) running the PocketPC have not gained favor within the real estate industry?
The Palm OS dominates the real estate industry because of "first-mover" advantage, and also because of lower average costs than comparable Pocket PC devices. Essentially, the Palm-based PDAs simply hit the market at the right time, and right price.
The reason this still affects the industry today is simply that software developers focus on whatever happens to be the dominant operating system. This becomes self-perpetuating as people will use what the developers build.
While the Pocket PC is a good operating system, it has a much smaller market share. Because of this, developers continue to create their applications for the Palm OS devices first, and then develop for the Pocket PC much later. As a result, when you want software and accessories that are real estate specific, you're better off buying a PDA that runs the Palm OS.
This advice may not apply to people who primarily use the MS Office suite for their business needs, as they are well served by both Palm and Pocket PC devices. However, in real estate (and many other niche markets) the best software and selection is available for the Palm. And, the only reason to buy any computing device (PC, Notebook, PDA, or even game console) is to run software, after all.
I want to create a property flyer with pictures from my digital camera along with a paragraph of text to describe the property, and then e-mail the flyer as an attachment. I would want the flyer to be universally readable. I tried sending a Word doc with an inserted photo, but many recipients could not download it. Is there a way to get a digital image and text into JPG format? Is Adobe the answer?
As you have already found, sending materials in computerized formats can be a tricky proposition. Not everyone you wish to send flyers to will be using the same software as you, and many email filters will strip out attachments that could "potentially" carry viruses.
While your idea of sending flyers as JPG files overcomes these issues, the size of the e-mail attachments would likely be too large, and thus a big inconvenience to the recipients.
Finally, you're correct, Adobe Acrobat's PDF format is the best answer for sending electronic information. With Acrobat, you can create flyers, contracts, reports (or any other materials you need) using whatever software programs you prefer, and then convert them into the PDF format.
Once this conversion has taken place, you can send the PDF files by email and the recipients will be able to view them, and without needing the same software that you used to create them (Word, Publisher, etc.) as long as they have the free Acrobat Reader, which is available from
www.adobe.com. Best of all, PDF files do not raise the same virus concerns as most other file formats, so your recipients will likely be able to receive them.
Stephen M. Canale, CRB, CRS, GRI
For information on seminars, software or Canale's Tips & Tricks newsletter, visit:
www.canale.com
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