Evernote.  It’s a pretty much inescapable word these days.  Attend any real estate conference, visit any Facebook page for real estate technology, talk with any trainers or fellow agents…at one point or another, you’re going to hear “Evernote” come out of someone’s mouth.  Two blog posts ago, I even talked about using Evernote for your rental properties, and here I am talking about it again!

What’s all the hype about?  Simply, Evernote is a note-taking app on steroids.  It plays well with everyone (i.e., can be used on virtually any Apple or PC platform), and can be used as just a note-taking app or, when delved into fully, become something much, much more.  From the beginning, real estate agents and brokers have been gaga over Evernote.  It fits into the real estate business, and allows for easy organization, no matter your methodology, and sharing.   Krisstina Wise, CEO and broker of GoodLife Realty in Austin, Texas was one of the first real estate ambassadors for Evernote, and often talked about how they use it in their brokerage.

You can set up Evernote for your real estate business in 3 easy steps:

1. Sign up for Evernote

This sounds pretty obvious, but I said these were the easy steps, didn’t I?  Go to Evernote.com, preferably on a desktop or laptop computer, fill in the information, maybe even take a quick tour around.  Where it says “Download Here”?  Click that.  You’ll want Evernote on your desktop and/or laptop computer as well.

Once you’ve signed up for Evernote, you’ll want to sign into Evernote.  It’d be best if you start getting used to the desktop version, so once it’s downloaded to your computer, sign in to that version of Evernote.

2. Create Evernote Notebooks for Your Business

There are two ways you can create a Notebook in Evernote:

One way to create a new Evernote notebook is by going to File in the upper left-hand corner, and selecting New Notebook.

 

The second way to create a new Evernote notebook is by selecting “Notebooks” in the left-hand side panel, and then clicking on the “+New Notebook”  prompt, probably in mid-upper left-hand corner.

 

What notebooks should you create?  It depends how you run your business, but when using something like Evernote, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Evernote Notes are like individual pieces of paper that you place into a file.

An Evernote Notebook is like a file folder.

An Evernote Stack (see picture above) is like an accordion file, where you keep a bunch of file folders full of notes.

Some suggested notebooks would be: [Names of] Buyers, [Addresses of] Listings, Landlords and/or Tenants, Business Cards, Business Receipts and Templates.   Templates is one of the best notebooks you can create, because in Evernote, you can copy notes from one notebook to another.  If you use standard checklists for every transaction, you can keep them in your Templates Notebook until you need them again.  As for Business Receipts and Business Cards, instead of carrying around little bits of paper that often get lost or damaged, it’s easier to take a picture of them in a Note and stick them into an Evernote notebook.  One of the key elements of Evernote is their robust search capability – they can even read (and search) text in an image!

If you’re wondering how this Evernote Stack, or accordion file, can be created, it’s as simple as dragging one Notebook into another.  A Stack is automatically created, and you can rename it by right-clicking on it.

3. Create your First Evernote Note

You can create an Evernote Note in pretty much the same way that you created an Evernote Notebook.  You can go to File —> Create New Note, or you can click on Notes in the left-hand panel and then select “+ New Note.”

Start by creating your Notes in your Template Notebook.  (You will always know what Notebook you’re in because the front-and-center prompt will say “+ New Note in [Notebook Name]“)

With those three easy steps, you’re on your way to every-day use of Evernote for your real estate business.  Evernote Notes allow you to not only type information in, but also attach pictures and documents, as well as record audio.  Evernote Notebooks will keep you organized, as long as you keep filing to them as you would with paper in the offline world.  Finally, Evernote Stacks keep everything handy and in one place – and just in case?  You can always use Evernote’s awesome search function!