Electronic Signatures and Transaction Management-What You Need to Know

Repree has been a sponsor of the OREA Emerge conference and I have also been speaking at those events going on a couple of months now.

As a Realtor® in Ontario, you should consider going to these one day conferences, the potential for your business in 2016 is limitless and will get you Fired Up!

Part of what I speak on is systemizing your real estate business, in particular, Electronic Signatures and Transaction management. These two components are essential when you are looking to create more of a system, in fact, I refer to those two as part of the 3 Pillars of Systemizing your Real Estate Biz.

So, for those of you that can’t make it to Emerge this year, I am going to give you a rundown of what eSignatures are, what you should look for in a provider, and why getting on board with eSignatures will fundamentally change the way you approach your business.

They’re Coming – The Millennials,Gen Y,Gen X

This is no time to run to the hills.

It is time to embrace the Amazon generation. It is time to do business the way that they want to do business. It is time to adopt the here and now. It is time for every Realtor® to adopt a paperless business.

Why? Because the Amazon generation will be demanding it. Think about this…the millennials are buying their first homes now. Gen Y and Gen X are likely on their second homes at this point, but let’s be honest, these two generations are digital immigrants.

Millennials are digital natives. They have never known a world without computers. They have never known a world without being interconnected. They have really never known a world where you have to go to a mall to buy something, remember, Amazon was founded in 1994!

Those Millennials would be either 4 or just being born when Amazon was incorporated.

In 5 years time, when they are coming back to the market to purchase their second home, they are going to remember the experience that they had and likely choose their next agent based on whether that Realtor® is efficient in their business.

Translation: Paperless.

What You Need to Consider

Here is what you need to consider when looking for an eSignature or Transaction Management provider:

  1. Do I want just an eSignature provider
  2. Do I want a transaction manager that offers a workflow and is also an eSignature provider

There is a distinct difference between the two. The transaction manager will give you:

  • Access to all of your forms within the platform
  • The ability to create client files, transactions and form templates
  • Setting up Activity Plans to keep you and your clients in the know with every transaction
  • The ability to forward any document into any transaction from any device, without having to download, print & scan
  • The ability to access this platform from any device

The Electronic Signature will give you just that, the ability to place an eSignature on a document. Most platforms allow you to store your documents there but there is no workflow.

In my opinion, the money is the transaction management side, not just the electronic signature solution.

What Should I Look For

Number 1 priority should be in the workflow. How does the system communicate, most importantly, with my client as this will be a direct reflection of who you are as an agent.

Number 2 priority should be in security. There should be a tracking system and a security certificate that authenticates the form and signature. Using PDF Expert will not get you either of these.

Number 3 priority should be ease of use. Not just for you, but for your clients. What does the client experience look like and is it a good reflection of the type of agent that I am?

Next Steps in Finding The Right Solution

I like to test things out before I buy them. I would never had bought my truck this year without having test drove it. I would never buy a house without looking at it thoroughly. I would never buy a TV without going to the store and researching it online first.

So do this…sign up for all of the FREE trials and try them all. Get your significant other to act as your client and send some documents to get a feel for the product.

Ask questions like:

  • Can I access this from any device?
  • How secure are your servers?
  • Do you have the ability for me to upload a document from a device that I can’t save my form on?
  • Do you have features like Strikethrough and Multi-Tagging? (ok, I threw this one in there, most don’t have this feature but we do!)

Ultimately, you have to decide how efficient you want to be and how much you want to make in 2016? FYI…we did a case study on an agent earlier this year that showed how she was able to double her business year over year by being completely paperless.

Adopt. Execute. Efficiency. Time.