Feeling overwhelmed by how much you have to do? Have you kept up with the rapid changes in technology? If the increasingly fast pace of the real estate business is draining your energy, a "systems" approach may be exactly what you need to put you back in control.

Having "systems" that support you and your business is critical to surviving in today's fast-paced environment. A "system" can be something as simple as taking a different route to work each day to search for For-sale-by-owners or as complex as doing virtually all aspects of your business online. The key is that the system is "repeatable," reduces time and effort, and yields consistent results. If you're interested in working smarter rather than harder, here are seven areas where you can begin "systematizing" your business.

1. Simplify your phone and message system. Get rid of your beeper, change your cell phone number (and don't give the new number to your clients), and have all messages flow into a single number. Change the message on your voicemail daily indicating the date, the time period where you'll be returning calls (say from 3:00-5:00 PM), which of your listings are available, and which are under contract. Check your messages every 1-2 hours and return what is urgent. Answer the remaining messages at the time you specified in your voicemail. By checking only one place for messages and letting callers know you'll be returning calls at a specified time, you are now free to work more efficiently without phone or beeper interruptions.
2. Use "electronic forms" to write your offers, counteroffers, and listings. If your Board of Realtors doesn't have these forms, you can do your offers and counteroffers on your computer rather than laboriously writing out these documents by hand. Once completed, you can e-mail the document to your buyers or sellers and have them fax back the signed copy saving you both time and gasoline.
3. Prospect using an e-mail newsletter. Instead of expensive mailing pieces, use a newsletter service like those provided by Realtytimes.com. For a nominal fee, you can send a customized e-mail newsletter to your customer and client lists.
4. Set up your own personal referral base. If your company does not provide "Concierge" services (a single phone number where customers and clients can get assistance with any aspect of their move from home repairs, furnishings, warehouse storage, etc.), put together your own referral network. This is a great way to give and receive referrals from trusted service providers.
5. Promote your open houses online. Do this each week through your own web site as well as nationally through Realty Online. Use the same services to track your transactions on-line with an automatic system that e-mails your customers and clients with updates. For as little as $20.00 per month, you can set up your own transaction items, access your transactions from any computer with Web access, automatically be reminded via email of important dates as well as update your clients via email when you make a change. Since it automatically updates your clients when you make changes, this is a great way to increase "client contact" throughout the course of the transaction. It's also a powerful tool on listing presentations to help you differentiate yourself from the competition.
6. Delegate your Internet marketing efforts. There are a wide variety of options. Hiring a "virtual" assistant is the best option, such as those found at Assistu.com. You can also have a service such as Goto.com set up your "meta tags" to help drive more traffic to your web site.
7. Use an 800 number as the contact number on all your listings. This allows you to capture valid phone numbers on any lead who calls on your listings or advertisements.

Wondering where you should begin? Start with whatever is easiest and then add one new idea each month. In seven months, you'll have them all of them in place and be amazed at how your systems "Make your business go and grow!"