We are back again with a list of FREE tools and activities you can be using right NOW to grow your real estate business. What are our favorite free technologies that we are using today? Where can we spend time to get the best results for the lowest cost? What’s the number one free resource that agents are constantly complaining about or avoiding altogether? We are digging in and sharing all the goods! From A.I. to good ole fashion spreadsheets we are covering a lot of ground. As the market slows for the winter and in response to market conditions, now is the time to audit our business spending and see where you can cut. The good news is there are lots of free tools available to us to keep our business running and growing even when we decrease our business spending!

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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

Katy 0:04
You can be like, make it sound like Snoop Dogg. I don’t know why people are so mad at the algorithm. And like, this is the dumbest thing ever. I am not getting on this stupid website.

Alissa 0:20
You’re a guru now.

Katy 0:21
Thank you. I really appreciate that moniker. Document. Don’t create

Alissa 0:30
a two hour office day and somebody walks in Great. Hi, y’all. Welcome to hustle humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie. And we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market.

Katy 0:42
We work for two different companies where we should be competitors. But we have chosen community over competition. The goal of our podcast is to encourage you to find your own way in business to stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi, Alyssa. Katie. Welcome. Today is episode 220. Okay, and we are going to talk about three things you can do to run or grow your business.

Alissa 1:05
I feel like this is a great follow up episode to what we did last week about remind me what it was about. Just that the shift in the market is making agents a little desperate for deals desperate for deals. And it’s also bringing out all the shiny object people that want you to buy

Katy 1:25
so much stuff right now because they’re like we can we can solve all your problems. We can save your

Alissa 1:30
business with this. With this money you give me if you use this tool, you will not experience the ups and downs of real estate. Right. You will be market proven right.

Katy 1:40
You know, XYZ lead service.

Alissa 1:44
Yeah, but I think you know, now if your thing if things are slowing down, it may not be the time to spend money. It

Katy 1:54
was an obvious choice. What is your story? I know. So if you don’t have money, hot tip, here’s our financial advice for today. Don’t spend money. Okay, buy capes episodes over. I will say I attended an in person continuing education course that for the record was free. And I got a free lunch. Oh, good. So find one of those being offered. And that was at a nice place. Nice place. Good lunch. There were cookies and sweet tea. All there. Oh, good. That’s right. And at the beginning of the class was a weird topic, like just a mishmash of topics. But at the beginning, Brent who we’ve had on the show before was teaching the class. Okay, went through market stats, okay. He has had his license and been teaching agents for 20 years. Okay. He has been tracking numbers for a long time. So it was fascinating because I think it that’s kind of gets him interested in you love to track numbers. I love number tracking, which in the future, we’re going to talk about that. But he basically was like, let’s look at the inventory and banners. Okay. Any went back to 2019. So pretty. Normally, we would have 4000 houses on the market. Okay. Every month that you check, there was about 4000 houses on the market. Then around November, like, I don’t know, late summer, it drops at COVID. So March 2020, march 20, April 2020, it drops all the way to 2000. It was 2000 for about five months, then it drops into the 1000 Oh my god less than 2000 listings. And that lasted for a few months. It is now going back in the upswing were in the 2000s 2000 houses, they were still not your inventory. So it was just really interesting to look. And he said, you will hear these news stories in November and December of every year, the news outlets will say prices in real estate are going down. And he’s like yeah, prices in November and December go down every single year I track it. Yeah, it’s a cyclical thing. It’s not the sky is falling and everything is gonna be bad. So it was fascinating to talk about numbers and stats, and it got me kind of also thinking like, it’s just a chat. This is what he said, Now is the time for you to grow your market share. Because the pie has gotten smaller. Yes. But if you’re getting more of a little pie or being more like your clients know what you’re doing your database is hearing from you. When the pie gets bigger your shares still you’re getting more of more, right. Yeah, so you might as well get more of less so

Alissa 4:36
now might be the time to really do some extra networking to add more people to your database. Yeah, then.

Katy 4:42
Okay. Yeah, I mean, hopefully you’re not, you know, in a real bad way financially because it is going to be slow, y’all it’s going to be slow for the next couple of months. It’s going to be slow. Interest rates at the recording of this have now hit the eight

Alissa 4:58
hour so you know, we read the blue print because we had him on the show James James $4 million listing, Los Angeles, Los Angeles. And he has the blueprint newsletter now. And I’ve been using that to sort of help track what’s going on. And last week now we’re in September. So in this September Fed meeting, in the blueprint, they were saying that the feds have decided to keep the interest rates where they are, for longer. Yeah, like they thought maybe the end was in sight, but it’s not. They’re saying it’s going to be at least another two years. So 20, all of 2023, all of 2024 and revisit and 2025. So it sort of lets you know that if this is, if this is making you uncomfortable, you need to find out something to cope and make yourself feel productive, right. So that, you know, we’re gonna be here for a minute. So what’s your plan?

Katy 5:54
What’s your plan?

Alissa 5:55
I kind of liked that we’re doing this freebies episode right now, because we’re in. We’re in quarter four. Yeah, like,

Katy 6:02
this is the end of the year. Yeah. And Kelsey was sharing that quarter for is like the entrepreneurs, beginning of the year, because what you do now is what’s gonna sit? Yes,

Alissa 6:12
yes. How you leave one season affects how you enter the next season. Right? So if you can use this last quarter to really focus on the things that are important, you could enter next year really strong. Yeah, for sure. And in this year, really strong.

Katy 6:27
Yeah, absolutely. I think that now is the right time also to audit your business in a lot of ways. So we’re going to tell you some free tools that you could and should be using. But you should also be digging into your budget and being like, where am I paying for subscriptions and things that maybe I can replace with their free tool or I don’t need at all. And if you’re paying for any type of advertising that you don’t know, the actual numbers results to and you don’t have any closings right now. It’s not working.

Alissa 6:55
Yes. If you cannot track the results of what you’re spending money on, you should not be spending money on it. Not right

Katy 7:01
now. Or ever really. But I mean, for sure not when it’s like this. So let’s talk about are you ready to do some free tools? All right, number one, Canva? Less Canva? Yeah, I wish I had, we might have an affiliate link, I’ll put it up on our show notes. Okay, great, because Canva is the best. And it is the most robust thing I have ever seen for free in my entire career. Like as a business person, it is wild. I do have the paid version. But that’s because I do not write and you use it just fine, right? Like I but the paid version even is $120 a year, it’s not that much. And that’s to like, save your brand colors. And we have a team. So like different people in the team are using the same account, it’s fine. You as an individual agent can get away with a free Canva. Absolutely. And you can make flyers, and thank you cards. And as Randy in our community group taught us single listing websites. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that Canva can do for you for free. Yeah, and make your website.

Alissa 8:08
And it looks so nice. It looks so good. Keeps everything consistent. Yeah, clean and just love it.

Katy 8:16
Love Canva. So number one, I don’t know if we even talked about. So way back in episode number eight. We did tech tools, which was funny, because for a long time, it was a highly downloaded episode. And it’s like basically like

Alissa 8:30
we don’t use a lot of text basically as saying we’re doing an episode on tech tools. And we are not techie right.

Katy 8:37
Here are the non techie tools we use. Yeah. So anyhow, Canva must, yes, it’s gonna make everything especially if you’re paying for some type of admin or graphic designer or like, No, you can just plug in all of that yourself on a logo, type in your information. Hit looked for the logo templates like you. You can use it for so much. Okay, moving on. Oh, are you doing well, I’ve never done that before. Oh, my God. It’s like we went to the movies. And we forgot to say please turn off yourself. Ready? Okay, thank you. Next up your friend. Trello.

Alissa 9:12
It’ll Trello girdle. Trello Trello.

Katy 9:15
also free. So free. Unbelievable what it can do for free.

Alissa 9:19
If you aren’t sure what it can do for free. Let’s hear it. You can google Alyssa is Trello class hustle humbly? Yeah. And the YouTube link is there. It shows you how I have mine set up how you can use it. It has been such a huge help for my brain just having everything in one place. I’ve if they’re in Trello you will not be forgotten. Right. Like I follow up with with people that are like five years old. I fill in the pipeline in Trello. Right. So and the prospects in Trello. So yes, you can go check that out. It is a love that. You can use it on your computer and your phone and it’s very user friendly. It translates easily. It does its use They’re friendly both ways. So like if I’m on the go and need to input somebody, so I don’t forget, I can easily do it on my phone. Love it.

Katy 10:07
Okay? If you pay for Trello, which again, you don’t need, it is about 20 to $25 a month. But the paying for it is adding like a calendar sync or these extra pieces in parks. But if you just know how to find Trello and want to track things, and make projects list, and it will do all of that, that is our most watched YouTube video cool of all of these so helpful videos, it is really helpful. Okay, Trello check. Next up, good old database spreadsheet,

Alissa 10:43
I used to call it the Excel spreadsheet. And now it’s like the Google Sheets.

Katy 10:47
Its current sheets, right? We don’t need Excel, you don’t even need to buy Excel know to use a spreadsheet friends,

Alissa 10:54
you can get a Google Sheet. Gmail has everything. It is also Word Excel.

Katy 11:01
I don’t have Microsoft Office on my computer. Yeah, I don’t you don’t need it.

Alissa 11:06
I know you can. I used to use PowerPoint for like classes I taught. Now I do that in Canva. I don’t need to excel for my spreadsheet anymore. Like, and also you can’t lose it in your drive. It’s there. It’s there forever. Now,

Katy 11:20
if you store a lot of things on Google as I do, eventually, you’re going to have to pay a monthly fee, like 10 bucks or something. Okay, but you gotta want a ways to go where all you need is a Gmail account. It doesn’t have to be the account that you use, you have to have one so you can get a Google, you know, drive folder. Yeah, you know, account. And then you can use the spreadsheets. And you can use the docs. And you can I mean, Google has Google Keep, which is like the Notes app on your phone version, but it can link up what else is in Google? Because I had Google on the list? Well, I mean, your notes app, all of your documents. Obviously, if you want to email there are so many options, so many things, so many things. For free for for free. If you want to do a form I’ve seen I think Marquis who we had on the show has taught this before, if you want to make a Google form that you use that link even on like a social media posts like, Hey, do you want to come to this first time by your class? Or do you want to get this freebie or what? Like you can get people’s information from a Google Form? Yeah, there’s a lot of ways you can use Google. Okay, next. One day, we will tackle this as a whole episode, but I’m just gonna throw it out there. Y’all should know about AI. Chat GPT. Can I tell you how many people I’ve heard say the letter. They’re like, I don’t know, chat G T, or whatever. I

Alissa 12:51
GPT. I

Katy 12:52
don’t know. Like, it’s not scary. It’s a website, you go to chat GPT you can type in anything you want. What’s a good email to send to, you know, a past client who bought a house near a lake? And it’ll just populate up email and then you can edit it. You can say no, that’s too formal. Make it more friendly. Yes. Make it still you can be like, make it sound like Snoop Dogg. Yeah, and it will send you a rap. Whatever you want. But, but how would you use it as an agent? I am sold on using it for my property description. Yes. It’s so much easier than me trying to remember the same phrases over and over again. Also, I just cut and paste my sellers. Top 10 Yeah, into chat. JpT and

Alissa 13:43
it writes the whole description for you. Yeah, I just saw where a designer is using it. Oh, she posted these pictures of the most gorgeous cottage is like dreamy ocean. And I’m like, This is amazing. I’m looking through all the pictures. I’m like, where is this? I have to go stay here. I read in the comments and it is not real. She told chat GPT as a designer to make an image of what she was envisioning for this moody comfy cottage and it spit out these images furnished throw blankets like to like rugs bed I mean, window treatments blowing in the ocean breeze. It was Wow. And it wasn’t real. You’re like that none of this is real was so bizarre to me. That is bizarre and once I knew I went back and tried to look closer you couldn’t tell looked like a real house?

Katy 14:40
Yeah. Okay, I know that’s great though. If you need some stock images,

Alissa 14:45
headshots.

Katy 14:46
Oh do not do the PT or whoever it’s the AI that does the headshots. It is awful.

Alissa 14:52
Now I have seen some that have been better lately. Okay, fine, but no

Katy 14:58
picture of yourself. Yeah, get over alleging your current age be yourself, be yourself. But also, if you wanted to put blog post on your website or something like that, you can like say, hey, chat JpT, can you compare the real estate market in 2023, to the real estate market in 1983? And give me some information on the difference in interest rates and how that impacted homeownership? Whoa,

Alissa 15:22
that’s how specific you can make you should get as specific.

Katy 15:25
Again, maybe we’ll revisit this as an episode. But my point is, it’s a tool, it is out there. And it can help you do things and make them go faster. Yeah, it can make charts and graphs and photos and whatever you need.

Alissa 15:37
I used it once to send a difficult email to a client. Because I was in an emotional state writing it, you know, I just copy and pasted what I wanted to say, in my emotional were like, make this nicer. And I said, can you make this more professional? It was perfect.

Katy 15:55
Okay, great. It was perfect. Great. Good tip. All right. Next up in our tools, free tools, email, templates, email, Tim. Sweet baby. You can make your own email templates. Yeah, we’re free. If you’re repeating the same thing over and over again, make yourself a template. Yes, save that email, save yourself some time

Alissa 16:18
before we had the email templates course. These were just our emails that we had saved, that we use over and over and over and over

Katy 16:28
if we didn’t make them up to create a course we they existed, yeah, and are busy, they were just there. It really removes a lot of the human error out of what you need to tell your clients. Yes. Okay, so

Alissa 16:40
gives everyone a consistent experience, they have all the information they need to know.

Katy 16:45
And in my case, when I implemented them in my business, I did not directly fire my assistant as a result. But I put these into place the next time my assistant left because they tend to turn Yeah, I was busy at the time. And I’m like, I don’t have time to find another one. And then all of a sudden, I was like, I don’t, I don’t really feel like I need another one on the end. So I was putting all these systems and processes into place, including email templates, and it really eliminated the need for that. So maybe if you’re paying extra money for a transaction coordinator, or some type of admin help that you’re like, I don’t know if I can continue to pay this person or this service. Maybe an email template will help you get to where you don’t have to pay a service. Yeah, it’s a possibility. Okay, there are some free ones on our website. So if you want to see what some of ours look like, and you don’t own email templates, one on one, you can get the due diligence one, which is pretty meaty.

Alissa 17:47
The due diligence freebie we could have charged money for this is really helpful and made a lot of money. Yeah, it is so helpful getting you through that due diligence period. Yeah,

Katy 17:59
you’re gonna go to hustle free, all free friends, hustle humbly podcast.com/freebies. And there will be the due diligence. And then there’ll be wire fraud. So if you want to look like you’re on top of it, and make sure you’re protecting your buyers and sellers, you can send them the wire fraud template. And then if you go to email templates, one Oh one.com and see everything about the course there’s one more super secret free template you can get and it’s the seller

Alissa 18:29
just listed. It is secret, because you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to get the free sample to

Katy 18:35
secret. Yeah, but it is there. And if you want a seller just listed template, it is a good one.

Alissa 18:42
It is a good one.

Katy 18:42
It’s a really good one because it tells them what to do for showings. And I don’t know why we were just like, here. Take the good stuff, y’all. And

Alissa 18:50
we’re just giving you one of what 27 Now I

Katy 18:53
know it’s just one there. So there you go. You need to get those templates in place. Free Tools. All right. You got anything. You’re just writing I just like that you’re writing the list as I go. I am. Okay, next up. I don’t know why. This is what Gary Vee will say. I don’t know why people are so mad at the algorithm. Yeah, you know your friend, a logarithm logarithm. Why are people mad at the algorithm on Instagram or Facebook or whatever you’re using LinkedIn Tik Tok, I don’t know. YouTube. Those platforms are all free. Right there y’all. You can be on as many social media platforms as you choose. For free for free. You can go talk to other people in your market, like potential clients for free. You can post things about your business like advertising for free now, yes, you can pay to advertise further. But the actual thing the tool is free. Yeah.

Alissa 19:55
What are we mad about? Like that’s pretty I’m going to complain about this. because it’s free, it’s

Katy 20:00
free. Okay, so maybe you’re like, Oh, I just don’t want to do social. Let me tell you a little story. Okay. I got my license in 2005. I don’t remember the year that Facebook started, but I will tell you this because of my age it was after I went to college. So my first

Alissa 20:19
profile picture in 2007 was me as a senior in high school. Okay, great.

Katy 20:24
I think that’s about when it let me tell you in 2007, I did have friends who were you know, a few years younger than me who were all like, did you see this on Facebook? Did you see this on Facebook, and I was, so resist it. I’m like, this is the dumbest thing ever. I am not getting on this stupid website. By the end of 2008. I feel like I couldn’t go to one more real estate class where they’re like, make sure that you are on all of these. And there wasn’t all of these. It was Facebook. Make sure you are on Facebook. Right. Okay. And I was like, Fine. I will get on the stupid social media. So if you think that I’m like some social media, like, early adopter, I am not

Alissa 21:05
your guru now.

Katy 21:07
Uh, thank you. I really appreciate that moniker. But my point is, if you’re not on social media, you feel like the ship has sailed. You don’t want to do it, you’re resistant, and you’re spending money, other ways that you can afford to continue spending, I would really encourage you to just take another look at some social media. I don’t actually care which one you pick, do you love Tik Tok? Fine, but you’re gonna have to go engage with local people. And I don’t know how easy that is on tick tock.

Alissa 21:33
The biggest thing about using social media for your business is if you have all your people in your database, you need to be mindful of who is on social media and who is not. So you need to go through your database and match it up with your friends list. Yes, you may even want to highlight or make a note on the ones that don’t have social media. Because social media can give you that false sense of security that I’ve posted something so everybody know, they don’t backdoor so people that follow you. But if you go down the database and just go to that person’s page and comment on their last thing, or write something to them, that tells the logarithm yes, that y’all are friends and that y’all know each other. Yeah. And then they’re like, oh, they need to see more of each other. Tell me the what is what do you how do you feel when you open your Instagram and you’re like, oh, there’s a message that’s so exciting. Or somebody commented, okay, so

Katy 22:28
let’s put our like our goggles on. Don’t think about you as the agent. Think about your your database people as the receiver of a DM from you. Hey, Alyssa, I saw that tweet, it’s getting so big, and he’s in swim lessons. How was he liking that?

Alissa 22:44
Oh, you care. And I think that it’s just, you have to use it that way. People think social media is about posting yourself and getting likes, but it’s about like you will get more from your clients. If you go to them specifically and take the time to comment or message them directly. Versus posting a photo of yourself. Does anyone need to buy or sell a house now

Katy 23:08
or with one of those just listed banners? Yeah, here’s the thing, y’all, I take a little challenge. Don’t post anything at all for five days, but spend 20 minutes a day really thoughtfully engaging with the people who you know and that are in your area and that you’ve worked with before or that you’d like to work with in the future? My mom’s from school or like your baker or like go to your who do you know list? And by the way, you get a Who do you know list when you ask for the database? freebie? That’s right. Yeah. So if you can’t think of who you know, boy, that list will really get your your wheels turning. Like, just engage with them. You don’t have to worry so much. You’re putting so much time and effort into the content part and producing that you’re forgetting that the most important part is the engaging Absolutely. So definitely use your free social media to engage and if you want to post you should but here’s my other tip from Gary Vee. Document. Don’t create your living life. Oh, yeah,

Alissa 24:12
yeah.

Katy 24:13
Did you go on a showing? Did you go to an agent tour? Did you go to a class? What did you eat for lunch? Yes, I know. That seems stupid. But what new restaurant Have you tried? Where are you going with your kids this weekend? Like what do you love to do in the fall in your city? I love to document it’s you do you’re a great document or document all the time and the more you do it, the more you get used to

Alissa 24:34
it. And I guess that happens because I don’t know how to create. You’re doing a great job doc. Good

Katy 24:38
news. It’s better good documenting people will feel closer to you than if you had some beautiful curated photo that tells you 10 real estate tips. Yeah, that is I mean fine. That’s all fine. But yeah, people are gonna connect to you more if they are watching you go to swim lessons every Monday. Anyway, so we want to document not create, but if you want to create some things go and follow modern agent Social Club. Go and follow. Hi Chelsea Peterson I like her new. Hi. Hi. Hi, Chelsea Peterson. Yeah. Because she’s giving so much free advice. Yeah, well on her Instagram, it is wild, she will give you great ideas of what to post. So

Alissa 25:15
on that note, I had podcasts as a good resource because they’re free. You can pretty much look up anything you want, and put podcasts next to it. So sometimes I even look up like, if I’m trying to figure out something health wise, you know, like, training for a half marathon podcasts. They have it? Yeah. Like anything that you’re looking for the information is there. Yes. You just have to research. It’s free. Yeah, the Google machine is also free. Yeah. So in our community group, we have paired with chat. GPT. No, no. With Ay ay ay. Ay ay ay. It’s okay. With AI, where you can go if you’re in the community to the AI platform within our community, like yeah, yes, exactly hype. What should I be doing to prepare for an open house? A I will then scan every 220 episodes we’ve ever had. And it will give you a list of what you should be doing and also which episodes to reference and exactly what time within those episodes to reference.

Katy 26:31
It has a button where you can push play. At the moment in time when we said the thing that it’s quoting,

Alissa 26:36
that’s insane.

Katy 26:37
Why yield? Okay. What about things you can do outside of tools you can use? I have on here volunteering? Yeah. You’re a big fan of the volunteering.

Alissa 26:47
I am. I don’t like to be stuck in the office. Oh, no. But you have to meet people. Yeah. What

Katy 26:52
are some free things you can do?

Alissa 26:54
Well, yesterday, I was just at school for Apple day. Oh, that’s cute. It was cute. We I really do want apple day. Well, the teacher was reading to them about Johnny Appleseed and the history of who he was and how I got started. I learned a lot by the way. Oh, great. And I was in charge of while she was doing that I was cutting nine apples up so that they we know. Yet. Four times 12 Apples up. Because we were taste testing for different kinds of different kinds of apples. Each kid got a slice, first grade, first grade, I love it. So it was like everyone hold up the green apple. We’re gonna taste this one first. And then they had to like describe it. Anyway, I was just involved with the classroom and the teacher. Right? And the ladies at the front desk when I checked to see them. You’re developing a relationship. Yeah. And so it’s like, that is the season of my life right now, if there’s something they need help with at school, if I can bring the teachers coffee, like what can I do to have connections with the people that are already there love it. But like, even before kids, I was just a part of certain Bible studies or volunteer groups that I was just passionate about that fuel to me. So even when I left those groups, as I became a mom and had to, like reconfigure my time, all those people are still friends of mine. Yeah, like they’re still on my database. They are still friends with me on Facebook, right? When I’m going down my spreadsheet, to see who I need to go comment on. They’re still there. Like, I haven’t lost anything by moving on from those groups. They’re still a very much a part of my database,

Katy 28:32
right. And social media makes it easy for you to still be connected.

Alissa 28:37
Yeah, mostly volunteer groups, like will have a roster and or a social media group that you join, so you can connect with the members. I do think that if you’re really trying to grow your database, finding more of an organized group like that, to where you have access to a roster, and a Facebook group is better. Yeah. For being able to build a database. Yeah. If you’re just getting started in that I would recommend something more organized. Yeah,

Katy 29:07
groups are good. And you can join a lot of also like Facebook groups just that apply to whatever you like. I mean, I’m in a corgi group.

Alissa 29:15
A local one. That’s cute.

Katy 29:16
They do meetups. I haven’t gone to one but can you imagine all the little Courtney’s Oh, oh, Murphy would be the cutest though. I also have seen a lot of feedback lately in Chelsea’s group where they have a follow guide. And a lot of the agents are in like the local moms Facebook group, and they’ll just be like, Hey, I have a full guide you know, with all of the events for the follow up. Anyone wants to just DM me or that’s cool. People were adding like 50 people to their email list. That’s

Alissa 29:43
a good point. You be the freebie. Yeah. You provide the freebie to get the free emails. Yeah, that’s cool.

Katy 29:51
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let’s talk about the board. We get to our board. We take some free classes. I just did one yesterday, not from the board was from a local Title Company. Thank you to them. This is

Alissa 30:00
also a great time to be thinking about this because we’re in quarter four, Yeah, gotta get that education done, you have to get your CE done and your dues are due. So you need to know what am I paying for? Am I even using everything that I am paying for? We have a lot of new agents in our office right now. And I’m constantly telling them like, the board is amazing for like the MLS classes. The MLS is not something that you want to go in and sort of figure out what you need to know the feature it does so much, and you’re paying for it. And they’re giving you classes for free. Even if you are a seasoned agent. If you went and took an MLS class, you will be amazed at some of the things that it can do. It can function as a whole database if you need it to. Yeah, I don’t recommend it in case they ever switch platforms, but it’s just so good. But you don’t know what you’re paying for until you go educate yourself. Yeah. So we have for Warren Yeah, our board provides for Warren for free. So we we need to make sure that we’re taking advantage of that. What else does your membership offer? Knowing your membership benefits? Also your current brokerage? Are you even using the free resources there? Right? Are you attending the education? Are you attending the meeting

Katy 31:21
also, because at your your brokerage, the resources are not technically free, correct, you paid to be there. So use what you already has, when you’re doing your audit, make sure if you’re gonna keep something, you start using it. I think a

Alissa 31:35
audit here would be perfect. We’ve talked about the time audit before where you track what you do with your time during the day. But I think that even like making it a challenge like no spend November is that not usually November, but I don’t know maybe like no spin November for your business or something. But just track like, I really want this, but I need to do some research to find if there’s something free.

Katy 32:00
Do you remember this? I don’t know if I told you this Lee Brown hack. I went to a class of hers forever ago, okay. And she said I she uses a specific card for her business. Okay, credit card, what a debit card. She reports it as lost or stolen once a year. Because then Oh my God, everything that she had assigned to it reaches out to her and is like, Hey, your card isn’t working anymore. And she’ll be like, Oh, that service. I’m not using that. And she’ll be like, oh, sorry, I don’t want to I’m not renewing renewing. Oh, my gosh, that’s that card was lost or stolen, and I’m not renewing. Or they’ll just be like that trigger for you to be like, do I was this valuable that I use it. And to be fair, that is a lot of work if there are things that you do want to keep, because then you have to go put in a new card. But if you there also I have no affiliate affiliation. And I don’t know how this works. But have you listened to a podcast recently when they’re advertising? Rocket money? No. I think it’s like an app. And you’ve gotta give it access, obviously to your bank yell, but it’ll tell you all the subscriptions you’re paying for and help like help you, I guess remove them if they’re like, what? I don’t even use that anymore.

Alissa 33:12
Yeah, I didn’t know I was still paying 599 a month for that.

Katy 33:15
Right? Or even like once a year, once or worse, because you forget. Yeah. And that’s a big chart. The other day, I deleted the plant app on my phone. Oh, it was like 20 bucks a month. Don’t all not a month a year. Oh, wait another month. And I went that’s a lot a year $20 A year, I can just use Google Photos and scan any plan and get the information, right. Like, I don’t need to have another app that scans that does this for free. This one’s doing it for free. So there’s that. Let’s back up to on to like the fall guy collecting email addresses like what are you going to do with all those emails, mailer light mail, chimps, lots of email service providers are free up to a certain number of contacts. mailer light is 1000. Okay. I don’t know that you’re going to need more than that.

Alissa 34:07
I don’t think so. You know, if you’re working those Well, that should be plenty to keep you thriving business.

Katy 34:12
Yeah. So get an email service provider. Those are free. Okay, so we talked about the board classes know your benefits. Do we want to talk a little bit about other things you can do for free? Sure. All right. I put open houses on eBay or back. Yeah, they are our friends. The open houses are back. Use the open house to produce content. We’ve talked about all of this before. Use it to do your work, use it to meet people just to our office day and somebody walks in great, great on our website under the hustle humbly podcast.com/freebies You can also get an open house checklist. Yes, for free. So get that done. I don’t have anything else on my free list. Do you

Alissa 34:56
I think that this is such a great start. Before you purchase any thing you need to make sure you are really utilizing to its fullest potential everything that is free to you because there is

Katy 35:06
so much how, tell me how how would you audit yours? Like if you wanted to go audit your current spend,

Alissa 35:14
I do have a business account. So I can go into my business account and print my Excel spreadsheet. I can even categorize it. Yeah, with the cells. Yeah. So I do that once a quarter just to like see where everything falls. And that’s usually where I catch like, anything that might surprise me. Yeah,

Katy 35:36
if you’re not monitoring it, I would encourage it. And also, I don’t think if you already have one account at a bank opening a second one cost money in most cases, right? I changed in 2019 to having a business account and only using that for business expenses. It is really important and helpful.

Alissa 35:57
And you know, quarter four, you need to start thinking about getting ready for your taxes. We also have a free tax tips for realtors sheet on our freebies portion of our website hustle humbly podcast.com/freebies, right. But you need to be preparing all of this stuff anyway. And if it’s hard this year, maybe come January, you need to start off the year with a business account so you’re not having to sift through what was personal what was business you could be saving money, just by tracking it better

Katy 36:28
and saving time. Yeah, when you go to prepare for your taxes so much time. I mean, I just Yeah, okay. I think we’re all good. Yeah, on free tool. There’s so many other free tools. We obviously didn’t catch them all. I know as soon as we hit stop, I’m going to think of one I’m gonna be like,

Alissa 36:43
Oh, we would love to hear yours. What

Katy 36:45
are the free tools you’re using in your business? Please share,

Alissa 36:48
go to Instagram and tell us because we’re gonna do a post about that.

Katy 36:51
Okay, I love it. Are you ready for a toast? Today’s toast is really tricky in the pronunciation world. So spell it Oh, mine. First of all, Angela, but t chi. I’m gonna go with Yeah, but Ichi is toasting to Joely Joely Joely. But I can’t do a jelly T

Alissa 37:12
R I A N T A FYLLO. You try into flu. Try antiflu. Try Anta fie lo Lu. Oh, my word. Sorry. Angela is toasting to Joe Lee. And they are in Summit, New Jersey, Chico, and you’re doing a great job. Oh, good. Joe Lee. Thanks for introducing me to this amazing podcast and for showing me that bringing your kids to work when you don’t have a choice is an option. That’s truly inspiring. Hashtag working moms sweet. There have certainly been times when I did not have a choice, right? I mean, you just do what you gotta do. Do what you have to do. Oh, thanks, Angela. That was a great one. Cheers to Joe Lee. Yeah,

Katy 37:55
thank you all for listening. I hope that you really do take this time. This is coming out. October. We’re in October now. You have two months of the year you left to audit and find the free things. Yeah. And finish strong.

Alissa 38:09
Use your

Katy 38:10
resources that you have you finished strong. You can do this. Yeah. Okay. You bye

Alissa 38:15
bye. Thank you so much for tuning into the hustle humbly podcast. If

Katy 38:19
you enjoyed this episode, please go to rate this podcast.com/hustle humbly and leave us a review or drop a comment if you’re listening on Spotify. If you

Alissa 38:27
have an episode topic or someone you’d like to toast on the show, please email us at team at hustle humbly podcast.com

Katy 38:33
Find us on social media at hustle humbly podcast. Don’t forget to find all the free resources at hustle humbly podcast.com/resources See you next week.

Alissa 38:44
This is the goodbye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai