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Creating the Ultimate Paperless Office for REALTORS®Four Easy Steps Help You Focus on Income Production, not Paperwork
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When I received my real estate license 10 years ago, I realized that about 40% of my time was spent dealing with paperwork. These were documents, many of them for the same transaction, that were required by my designated broker, the escrow officer, lender, cross-sale agent, my client and others involved with the escrow. Some documents got lost and needed to be sent again. Others didn’t go through because of a busy signal on the other end, forcing me to sit by my traditional fax machine and causing frustration.
I knew that my time could be invested in more important and more productive activities. There had to be a better way! After searching, with no luck, for a good system that didn’t require me to go out and buy a bunch of new software and hardware, I decided to develop a way to create a real estate transaction from ANYWHERE in the world—and WITHOUT paper, fax machine, printer or scanner! I call this the Ultimate Paperless Office.
As technologies have improved, so has the way I do business. Today I have a four-part system that anyone can master, without breaking the bank. I have taught these techniques all over our great state of Arizona to thousand of agents. With a little bit of practice and dedication, you too can master this extremely simplistic yet effective system. I’ve had REALTORS® email, text or call to let me know how excited they are that they have mastered these skills—whether that be in two days, six months or a year.
Step 1: Organize Your Documents.Develop and use a systematic filing system on your computer for all of your documents. This is easy to do without any cost involved. This will allow you to instantly store, retrieve and send documents to anyone involved in the escrow, even after the transaction has closed. Forget about searching for files in boxes in the garage again, or worrying about keeping your documents for five years to satisfy ADRE requirements, as you will have your documents FOREVER in your computer that you can access quickly. (Be sure that you back up your files online or with an external hard drive!)
Step 2: Use an Online Fax System.You’ll need an online fax system, such as www.metrofax.com , that allows you to both send and receive documents. With short sale banks giving us mostly fax numbers and then losing the 80-page short sale documents that were sent to them three to five times, this will allow you to receive a fax and send a fax to anywhere, long distance or not, just like you would a typical email. You can actually send to multiple fax numbers and email addresses simultaneously, saving time and energy. No longer travel to get back to your traditional fax machine just to retrieve or send a fax, as the fax is now part of your travelling office, even if that means you are sitting at your home office.
Step 3: Customize PDF Documents.You want to be able to convert documents into a PDF file, then extract, insert, rotate and manipulate these forms using a professional PDF writer program. Highlighting the signature lines for the client, typing in broker information on page 9 and adding a short sale number to all pages are just some of the features that will make your job easier and make you look more professional. This, like the other three parts of the system, is essential to making the system work.
Step 4: Utilize a Tablet Computer.This is the one that changed the way I do business most of all. A tablet computer allows me to have my clients sign directly onto my computer screen. It’s just like a regular laptop or desktop computer except that the screen rotates and flips down parallel to the keyboard (hence the name tablet). More importantly, it has an electronic pen built right in to allow you to write on the screen. This allowed me to get rid of my portable printer, to WOW my clients, and more importantly, to stop driving all over the city to fax, scan or sign. My tablet computer allows the client to sign right then and there. This is different from electronic signatures (i.e. Docusign) as the client is actually signing, just like they would on paper. 
The Ultimate Paperless Office system has provided me the opportunity to do more transactions in less time while being more professional. I have substantially reduced the amount of time, energy and expense associated with the non-income-producing elements of the transaction. This system is a successful tool in working smarter, not harder.
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