Using Slack to Help Run Your Real Estate Business

I am a big fan of using the apps that come on your smartphone, but we all need a few extra things to help us be efficient and productive. If you have been following my recent articles on getting the most out of the apps preloaded on the smartphone, you know I love the calendar, contact, reminders and notes available from Apple and Android. But sometimes we need more, and I want to share a few apps over the next few articles that I think can help change the way you do business.

Let's start with Slack. I used Slack for about three years and loved it! Slack allows you to have one-on-one conversations or group conversations. Slack, Microsoft Team, Rocket Chat and Mattermost are all communication programs that accomplish about the same task.

So what is Slack? The best way to describe is text, email, document sharing, video conferencing, searchable messages and being able to fine-tune your notifications, all bundled together for FREE!

Security is always a consideration, and with Slack your data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. Please consider the security of what you are using currently. Email for most of us is not secure, which is another article. Think about the number of times breached emails makes headlines. Facebook and Instagram hacks, malware and phishing are a constant concern using those platforms to communicate for business. Text is great, but very limited—plus how many times have you scrolled back through months and months of text messages looking for that one nugget? Many times, it's not even a contact name, rather a phone number, because you haven't entered that person into contacts. We have a better way.

The nuts and bolts of Slack make it very user friendly. It works on all Apple, Android, and Windows devices. You can load Slack on all your devices without a problem and bounce between the devices. You can set notifications on each device for how you want to be alerted to a new message. Personally, I had it set for notifications on my phone and had "Do Not Disturb" programmed to give me peace and quiet overnight. On my Mac, no notifications, which prevented everything starting to sound alerts when home around the computer. Slack is available in the App Store and Google Play for mobile and for both Mac and Windows.

How do we incorporate Slack into our world? If you are not a team or do not have an assistant, you can set up a one-to-one channel that you can use for all conversation, document sharing, audio and video conferencing with your clients, prospects or anybody you want. This channel can be shared to a person or a couple and yourself so everything posted to the thread can be seen and makes collaboration simple. Use it to share all the documents, pictures and conversations. If there is a question, or if you said or shared something, it's all in one place and can be searched.

If you have a team member, assistant or maybe a couple that need to see all information, set up a group channel. Now all involved who need to see each message and document have access to a searchable platform where everything is stored. I recommend if you have a team member or assistant included in each channel involving a customer, to also have a separate one-to-one channel with the team member or assistant.

Before you decide about Slack, check out the website and be sure to click on the "How It Replaces Email" tab. If you decide to try it and want to play with it before rolling it out for business, send me an invitation on Slack so we can chat! I wish all my friends and clients used Slack!

Dick Betts is a national speaker, trainer and consultant. Learn more at www.DickBetts.com