Ready to send today
Following up on replies
Two weeks on from a reply, a short note to see where the job landed. It goes out once.
Waiting to hear back
When someone answers, press the matching button so the next email does not go out.
The wording of the emails
These fill themselves in for each person: {{first_name}} becomes their first name, {{agency}} the office, {{suburb}} the suburb. Keep the "Hi {{first_name}}," line at the top; for office inboxes with no name it swaps itself for "I'm after whoever looks after leasing at {{agency}}." The line at the bottom letting people say no thanks has to stay, it is a legal requirement.
The brochure goes out as an attachment on email 2, so there is no link to keep working. Get the file from the Settings tab.
Only needed if the brochure is ever put on a website of your own. Put {{brochure_link}} in the wording above and it becomes that address.
Call list
Who to ring next. Call-backs come first, then offices nobody has reached yet, small independents before the big brands. Tap a number to dial on a phone, and press Log a call when you are done.
No offices to call right now.
Invoices
Add your business and payment details on the Settings tab first, so they print on the invoice.
New invoice
Items
Business name
Shown at the top of the page. Change it here if the company name changes.
Put this on your desktop
Your brochure
The brochure you attach to the second email. Save it somewhere easy to find, like the desktop, so you can attach it in one go each time.
Invoice details
Your business and payment details. These print on every invoice, so fill them in once. The app never sets a price for you: you type the amounts on each invoice yourself.
Where clients pay
Back up your data
Saves everything (agencies, call log, follow-ups, invoices) into one small file. Do this once a week, and always before moving to a new computer.
Restore from a backup
Loads a backup file you saved earlier. This replaces what is currently on screen, so only use it on a new computer or after a problem.
People who asked not to be emailed
Anyone here is never emailed again. The law requires this, so the list cannot be edited by hand. It travels with your backups.
Version
What this is
Your outreach system: a register of real estate agencies and the leasing people inside them, an email machine that works through them a few a day, and a place to record every call. The agency list comes down from the web so it stays up to date. Everything you type in, your emails, calls, notes and follow-ups, is saved on this computer only and is not sent anywhere.
Sending the emails
- Open the Emails tab. It lines up who is due today, at most 20. Small independent agencies come first, then the big franchise offices, and within each the leasing agents and property managers come before anyone else.
- Press Open in Gmail on the first one. Gmail opens with the email already written and addressed. Read it, then press Send in Gmail.
- Come back here and press Sent. That is how the system knows to line up their next email at the right time.
- Each person gets three emails at most: an introduction, a nudge four days later, and a short sign off a week after that. Then the system stops emailing them.
- The second email mentions your brochure, so attach the file to that one before you send it. Those rows carry a reminder and a link to the file.
Why only 20 a day: Gmail treats a normal account that suddenly sends in bulk as a spammer, and once that happens every email you send goes to junk folders. Slow is what keeps you out of spam.
The brochure
What you cover and the 72 hour call-back on end-of-lease garden tidy-ups. It is a PDF, so anyone can open it on a phone or a computer without needing anything installed.
- Go to Settings and press Download brochure. Save it to the desktop so it is easy to find.
- You only need to do that once. Do it again when the brochure changes and you are told there is a new one.
- When you send the second email, press the paperclip in Gmail and pick the file. Gmail cannot do that part for you.
There are two versions and they say the same thing. The full one is the one to email. The one page version fits on a single sheet, so it is the one to print and leave with someone at the front desk.
Attaching it beats linking to it. Nothing to keep online, nothing to break later, and it is still there in the agent's inbox months down the track.
When someone answers
- They replied: under Waiting to hear back, press They replied. They move to Replied, worth a call in Follow-ups, and the cold emails stop. Somebody who has answered is the one person worth picking up the phone for. Two weeks later one check-in appears back on the Emails tab under Following up on replies, to see where the job landed. That is the only email that ever goes after a reply.
- It bounced: press It bounced. The address is bad and will not be used again.
- They said stop: press They said stop. This one matters legally. Once someone asks off the list they must never be emailed again, and the system enforces that for you.
The agency list
The Agencies tab is the list everything else runs off. Each card shows the office's email address, because that is what the system needs to line up an email. A card marked No email yet cannot be emailed at all, so it sits out of the queue until an address is found.
Tick Only ones with no email yet to see the gaps. If you ever come across an address for one of them, press Edit and put it in. That single act puts the office into the sending queue.
Offices marked Independent are the small local agencies, one or two offices rather than a national brand. They are emailed first, because that is where your replies have come from: at that size the person reading the email is usually the person who books the gardening. Tick Only small independents to see just those.
New agencies and new email addresses also arrive on their own, so the gaps close over time without you doing anything.
The people you deal with
An email to a general office address gets read by whoever opens the mail. The person who actually pays for garden maintenance is usually a property manager or leasing agent, so a named person with their own work address is worth much more.
Press People on any agency to see who is listed there and to add anyone you deal with. Save their work email and they go into the sending queue ahead of the office address.
Some names came from agency websites and people move on, so if an email bounces, press It bounced and that address will not be used again.
The different types
- Real estate agency. The usual sales and rentals offices.
- Property management. Rental only outfits, so every property they hold is a potential job.
- Build to rent. Big apartment buildings run as rentals by one company, with their own leasing team. One relationship can cover a whole tower.
Keeping your data safe
- Your call log is saved on this computer, in this browser. It is not stored online and nobody else can see it.
- Because it is saved on this computer, always open the app the same way you did the first time. Use your bookmark or the desktop icon, not a different browser.
- Once a week, go to Settings and press Download backup file. Keep the file somewhere safe, like a USB stick or your email. If the computer dies, that file is your only copy.
- New computer, or want it on a second one? Open the same web address there, then use Restore from a backup with your latest backup file.
Updates and new agencies
You never have to install anything or download a new version. New agencies and any improvements arrive on their own. Just close the app and open it again, and you will have the latest.
Your call log, notes and follow-ups are never affected by an update.
Working without internet
After the first time you open it, the app keeps a copy on the computer so it still works if the internet drops out. You can keep logging calls as normal. When you are back online it picks up any new agencies automatically.
Making it open like a normal program
Go to the Settings tab and press Install app. That puts an icon on your desktop and in the Start menu, and from then on it opens in its own window without the browser bars around it.
It is the same app either way, so skip it if you would rather just use a bookmark. Nothing you have logged is affected, and updates still arrive on their own.