I absolutely can not live without my ...

Well, she did it again. After 37 years you would think I would be wise to the tricks and ruses my wife employs to get me to do the things she wants me to do. She told me there was an Active Rain contest, subject: What can you absolutely not live without?   "That's easy" I replied.  Gulp, that's the sound of me swallowing the hook, line and sinker. "Great" she replied "Will you write this blog for me?"

Now what I had in mind wasn't exactly what she had in mind.

To me, and I will go out on a limb to say 99.9% of all men will agree with me, the single greatest invention that I can not live without is the wireless TV remote control. There, I've said it. Greater than the mousetrap, greater than the microwave, yes, I think so. Men everywhere, please bow your heads and observe a few seconds of silence in remembrance of Eugene Polley.

Mr. Polley worked for Zenith and developed the first wireless remote control in 1955. It looked like a sci-fi ray gun and was called the "Flashmatic". Mr. Polley passed away Sunday May 20, 2012 at the age of 96.

After needlessly extolling the virtues of the remote to my wife, she informed me, to my dismay, that the object had to be work related. So by using my pretzel logic I determined that since the object had to be work related it was a tool and since men love tools, I would be up for the task of writing this blog.

As I mentioned earlier about tricks and ruses, this topic can be directly related to a recent shopping trip I was tricked into going on. On that day my lovely wife decided I should accompany her to shop for a dress to wear for our son's wedding in August. "Isn't that what girlfriends are for?" I pleaded. "But I value your opinion and know you will tell me the truth." she replied.

The truth is, I'd rather be doing anything other than shopping. Fortunately, they had several comfortable chairs available for the condemned. I took my seat and said a short prayer as I reached into my pocket for my iPhone. Please have a signal.

Yes!  3G, I love you. Some of you more fortunate folks may have 4G, but any G will suffice in this situation. "Finally", you are saying "it's the iPhone he can't live without."

Believe me, I adore my iPhone. Virtually everything you could need or ask for at your fingertips. Now that I have one, I couldn't imagine being without it. It seems that almost everyone has a smart phone and are very dependent on it, so with that in mind, I am going to cast my vote for another tool.

Docusign, come out of the shadows.  Where have you been all my (real estate) life? I know, you've been there all along, I was just slow to change my ways and recognize how amazing you are. You not only save me time and money, less scanning and printing, but you help the environment, less trees for paper, less waste for the landfills. Here's what really hooked me.

You've all heard the saying " if business is slow, just plan a vacation".

In January of this year we decided to take a week long cruise in celebration of my 60 years on the planet. It was either that or a surprise party. I didn't need a supply of depends and ensure delivered to me gift wrapped, so I opted for the cruise.

Being the conscientious Realtors that we are, we brought a lap top and iPad with us, but promised ourselves we would only check our e mail once a day in case of any family emergencies(wink,wink). We weren't two days into our cruise when a couple we have been working with for over a year decided they needed to make an offer on an oceanfront home they had been contemplating about. Thank you DocuSign.

Although the ship had an internet lounge, the prices were exorbitant and thanks to DocuSign we did not need to print or scan any documents and were able to submit the offer for our clients as we cruised the Carribean. Wait, that's not all. Two days after that we received a referral from an agent to list a $600K short sale property and thanks to DocuSign we were able to get much of the paperwork started so that when we returned home we could hit the ground running.

We have had the DocuSign program since late last year, a relatively short time, and I do consider myself a novice user.  I am learning how to use new features every day, but mostly I use it to email documents directly from zip forms or uploaded from my laptop and to have forms sent, signed and returned is a breeze.

As much as we love it and try to use it, there are still some agents and clients that still will ask us to just fax it (hard to believe) or attach it to an email.  Believe it or not, we sent paperwork to an older client through DocuSign, prefaced by an email explaining that we would be doing that. They preceded to print it, sign it and go to Kinko's to fax it back to us. Sometimes the wheels of progress do turn slowly.

That's it. My choice is Docusign. There is no fathomable reason why every agent should not be using it. With the savings in ink, paper, time and the environment it provides, to me it's a real no-brainer.

PS. Thanks Frank and don't forget .....

Our contract with DocuSign runs out soon.. we will be looking into Adobe's EchoSign...