A Paperless Business and 5 Ways You Can Achieve It Now

Achieve a paperless business with Signority

Read on to learn about the five ways you can turn your business into a paperless business – today.

Flashback: it’s 1980.

Inflation is creeping higher and Americans are helplessly watching their purchasing power vanish into thin air. Retirement funds dwindle while it gets harder to put food on the table. The dollar’s inflated to 10% and everyone’s worrying about buying things before they go up in price. Anxious consumers are purchasing goods the same way squirrels pack away nuts for winter.

Problem is, this ever-consuming loop of fear is actually driving prices higher. Fear contributes to a rapid, debilitating buying cycle. And as prices go up, employees ask their bosses for a raise. Bosses comply with wishes, left with no choice but to raise prices. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy of inflated prices.

But here comes Paul Volcker, the newly appointed Federal Reserve Chairman. Notorious for his devil-may-care attitude and allowing his socks fall scrunched about his ankles, he’s intent to fix the economic mess. His way.
Traditionally, inflation is supposed to stop once you stop printing money. Volcker’s stopped the presses, yet things just keep getting worse! Having iced the economy, we’re in a recession now too, and Volcker is facing an uproar.

But he’s sticking to his principles, cool and collected. Winter is coming, heck, it’s already here – but the Fed Chair knows that a frozen economy must thaw before financial security springs anew.
What did Volcker do to end the woes of inflation?

He showed the American people that the problem was all in our heads. He didn’t succumb to convention, refused to print more money, and made us all stand firm. This is what allowed the dollar correct itself. We had to stop worrying and just accept things as they were for a season.

By the end of a 1981, inflation dipped to 9% – then 6%, then 4%. Since then, inflation has remained relatively tame at around 2%.

What does inflation have to do with the paperless office?

The obstacles to a paperless office are in your head. Just like inflation.

Paper consumption and papertrail headaches are a ‘mo’ paper, mo’ problems’ scenario in the modern office. Since the “paperless office” was heralded in 1978, we’ve all looked ahead to a space-age time where we’d save trees and feel great about it – all while increasing efficiency and productivity.

Well, that time is now.

The Modern Paperless Office

You still with us after that Doctor Who-style history lesson?

Now in the present day, we’re enjoying a wireless age of information that empowers us to send, receive, and consume immense amounts of data formerly reserved only for sheets of paper. The internet and cloud platforms allow our ideas to circulate without boundaries, be they time, or space, or paper.

And yet, companies in the US already spend more than $120 billion a year on printed forms, most of which are outdated in three months or less. The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year. Businesses pay for this wasted paper, pay to file it, pay to search through it, and pay to have it tossed out when more space is needed.

By comparison, the internet creates 7.5 million blog posts each day, but we never have to print those files. They simply exist, or can be stored and sorted as we see fit. Imagine if we printed all the articles we read and circulated. How much would that cost? You’d need to print and distribute each Word file, Google Doc, Adobe Acrobat PDF, and Adobe Reader you read all year. That’s an unrealistic, costly number.
This is the beauty of the paperless office: infinite informational capability, zero limitations. So here’s the five best ways to move forward to this paperless reality.

1. Paperless Meetings

According to a recent AIIM survey, 59% of respondents said that the biggest driver of paper consumption is meetings. The second highest user of paper was signatures.

If you’re serious about a paperless office, start in the meeting room. Printouts for each employee across every meeting adds up fast, yet most documents are trashed immediately afterwards. While paper is flexible, portable, and easy, the same is true of modern technologies.

For example, Doodle and SurveyMonkey provide free service for conducting and scheduling meetings.

But what about all the printouts during the meeting?

Try TeamViewer to conduct paperless meetings. This powerful office package gives you remote access to office computers 24/7 through any computer or mobile device. It also includes features for screen sharing during presentations, transmitting videos, sharing files, accessing whiteboards, and teleconferencing.

TeamViewer lets you avoid handouts by simply hijacking your colleagues’ laptop while you’re showcasing an idea. Then easily upload the slides to Dropbox or Basecamp so everyone gets access to the digital copy. Now everyone can reference ideas on the fly and there’s nothing lost.

When it comes to meetings and printouts, good technology puts an end to the printout cyclone that surrounds every meeting.

2. Electronic statements and payments

Remember the classic Seinfeld episode when George Costanza loses his fiancé to postage stamps? I’m sure your company is doing better than dear ol’ George, but my point is you needn’t stress over such minor things anymore.

The more online bill paying you do, the less you’ll shell out for postage, envelopes, and employee time (and potential damages) spent on invoicing, checks, and mailings. Office finances that run through the web make sure payments are prompt, immaculately recorded, and easily tracked. Business at the speed of paper is no longer efficient for many, especially when we consider the file shares, mobile, and social collaboration platforms in the competitive space.

Many merchants turn to apps like Square to process payments through smartphones. With recent developments in digital signature technologies — like Signority — getting bills paid and approved via eSignatures has never been easier. And studies show that consumers would rather receive paperless receipts through email than in hand.

Plus, think of all the papercuts you can spare your valued employees.

3. Digital Storage

If your business is located in a major urban center, space is a key concern.

In terms of rent per square foot, storing thousands of paper documents in San Francisco, Manhattan or Toronto can skyrocket office costs. Instead of renting additional office space for storage, convert files and have them stored on secured off-site servers or in the cloud. The latter option will be much cheaper.

And easier to access. Turn to PDF converters make the transfer process easy, PDF editors that allow you to make changes, and PDF readers to allow easy access to documents. Plus, you’ll save on the costs of disposing of sensitive materials.

A few companies in the digital signature space also provide their customers with full-fledged storage and document management solutions, as part of their monthly package.

With paperless storage, you’ll be able to access documents easily through keyword searchability as well, no more rummaging through file bins and back rooms. Digitally thumbing through thousands of documents is both cost and time effective for employees. This will also decrease the likelihood of losing valuable data.

4. Electronic Scanning and Faxing

Yes, scanning and faxing is still highly prevalent among businesses.

The paperless office saves on ink, paper, and hassles by eliminating the physical component by sending and storing documents seamlessly. The initial hesitation for many companies is that shuffling documents through a scanner will be less efficient than paper copies and cost in terms of employee work hours.

As Xerox reports, the US already spends roughly $460 billion in salaried time to simply manage paper-driven information overload.

Meanwhile, effortless digital solutions are abundant in this space. For example, Turboscan is an excellent app that allows phone cameras to be used as scanners which then convert captured images to PDFs for easy-send emails or upload to Signority for grabbing that quick eSignautre. For only $15 per month, eFax takes incoming faxes and puts them into your email box and paperless, easily-searchable emails.

5. Paperless Connectivity

Sending files instantly is the best aspect of a paperless office.

If you’ve got multiple offices, accessing relevant documents from anyplace is truly a revelation. And connectivity is only getting better. With the ever increasing internet of things, data usage and storage rates are up. Data accessibility is expected anywhere at anytime and streaming data is a given between more and more devices.

Quocirca’s recent report finds that 72% of enterprises surveyed already have “some paper-free processes in place and are planning to implement more.” Why? Because the companies that go digital create opportunities to spot bottlenecks and inefficiencies in their workflows while maximizing productivity and using fewer material goods.

In coming years, paperless offices will mesh with home offices. As the prevalence of AI increases, so will the use of private contractors and employees who work from home. Yes, telecommuting and working from home will signal a substantial reduction in paper and office costs for businesses, but more happier, more effective employees too — we know, contractors are a huge part of the Signority workforce.
As a Global Workplace Analytics study reveals, two-thirds of employees would take advantage of the opportunity to work from home, and 36% said they’d rather telecommute than receive a raise. Sharing documents with cloud-based platforms will have increasingly positive impacts for between workers, managers, and even clients.

For businesses moving with digital trends, digital signature services complete the paperless office model and Signority provides an affordable solution for seamless integration into your business process. A modern agile business means agile data, accessible from anywhere — even when it comes to connecting pen to paper — when every level of business is able to exchange signatures and data fluidly, companies can move forward at lightspeed.

Signing Off

These days, technology is inflating the capacities and capabilities of businesses in a big way. And like a balloon set to rise, integrated technology promises a positive impact upon how far businesses can stretch their money. From cloud platforms to handheld apps, it’s no secret that businesses directly benefit from being more connected and more effective than ever. In coming years, we’ll see the  best companies enjoying increased productivity, reduced costs, and a competitive advantage as a result of a move towards the paperless office.

As environmental concerns stay top of mind, companies with the paperless office will enjoy a boost in their bottom line. Value-conscious consumers eager to change the world with their purchasing power are always happy to endorse the green company with the paperless office. Will your company catch the trend upwards?

 

Looking to go paperless? Sign-up now and get a 14-day free trial to a Signority eSignature Plan.

How to avoid: The 3 big costs most businesses incur today without realizing

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As any growing business,  we at Signority are constantly looking for ways to become more efficient in our operations. In a recent chat with our friends at Indellient — experts in business process management — we explored internal areas and processes to improve our business. Katie Hulan, their Marketing Manager, was gracious enough to accept our invitation for a guest post to share her insights for other small businesses.
As businesses, we are often fixated on the next immediate business need – shipping the next version of our product, making that next big sale, fixing that bug, applying for funding. These outward-facing or revenue-driving activities are the first to be given resources as they are directly related to the success of your business. But what about what’s happening internally? Are you set up to be as efficient as possible? Believe it or not, business success comes quicker when your team is set up to be successful first. And that, my friends, is where business process management (BPM) comes to play – it is a systematic approach to making the workflow of an organization more efficient, effective and capable of adjusting to an ever-shifting environment. A business process is an activity or group of activities that will achieve a goal of the organization. So, when your people, who, by the way, are your greatest asset of the company, are equipped with productive processes and effective tools, they are better prepared to meet the goals of your organization.  

There are many costs that an organization can incur if the business process management is not implemented.  

  1. First, the cost of customer support. Customers can easily get discouraged when they do not receive services efficiently and satisfactorily. Due to poor organizational workflow and not adapting to the changing environment, the customers will lose morale and migrate to those that have adapted to modern technology and with efficient services. In today’s world, you know that when customers complain about their dissatisfaction, they don’t complain to you but to the public instead. And the customers are good at this! Allow me to explain. The increasing popularity of social networks acts as a forum for frustrated customers to talk about their awful experiences with given companies and it spreads like wildfire! Now, this is very costly to the business since it implies the loss of loyal potential customers, loss of reputation, and profit.And when the organization fails to meet its financial goals, it cuts costs by reducing the number of employees. Cue the loss of morale and confidence because job insecurity takes away their focus from work. Obviously, the moment there is a shift in attention, productivity declines and more absenteeism follows and customer complaints rise. Thus it becomes a fierce cycle.
  1. Opportunities! Missing opportunities can be disastrous for businesses. Indecision, or, not taking advantage of the chance to make a decision, leads to its own costs and those costs more often are beyond that of a bad decision.  Bigger costs of inaction are the cost of missed opportunities. One of the major factors that lead to missed opportunities is the failure to adapt to the ever-changing environment, a role that Business Process Management accomplishes very well. It is commonly said that opportunities come once in a lifetime and therefore should be seized immediately. You may not calculate the exact cost of missed opportunities, but it is great. This is because, without an organized effort to find them, the opportunities to increase the performance will go un-noticed.
  1. Engaged Employees. A study conducted by the Gallup in 2015 shows that 32% of U.S workers were considered engaged in work.  Most of the employees were not engaged that is 50.8%, while the 17.2% were actively disengaged. The detailed research of Gallup reveals that the engagement of the employee is powerfully linked to business results, an element essential to the success of the financial goals of the organization, measured by productivity, profitability and customer engagement. Employees that are engaged are involved in the innovation, development, and revenue that their companies aim at.

    The “engaged” workers are those that were considered as having an opportunity to do their best on a daily at the workplace and had somebody to encourage and recognize their opinions as workable. These elements foretell the outcomes of the performance of the organization.Gallup further describes the engaged employees as those who participate and are enthusiastic about their work. Thus the research outcomes, according to Gallup, indicate clearly that employee engagement is strongly linked to business results. Lastly, the study concludes that the engaged employees boost the development, innovation, and revenue that their companies aim at.

In general, the cost of the inaction of Business Process Management is huge and leads to a vicious cycle. Right from customer support, loss of staff, inefficiencies, the cost of missed opportunities, reputation damage to loss of profits.  All these lead to a general decline of business efficiency, stagnation and may end up in the closure of business.
As you look to optimize your processes, take note of the 5 predictions for BPM in 2017.
Interested in BPM solutions? Look at this evaluation criteria for BPM.

About the Author

SMB_Growth_Katie_HulanThe author Katie is the Marketing and Communications Manager at Indellient, a software development and IT professional services firm that helps companies meet and exceed their critical technology and business objectives. Katie writes about the importance of effective business process management and how it is a revenue-driver for organizations today. She also explores topics on competitive advantages, marketing, and more. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Making the Most Out of Your Online Ad Spending

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Back in January, waspbarcode released fresh data from their small business survey indicating that not only do small business have a marketing budget, they also intend to increase it in 2017. Investing in marketing is great for business growth, especially if the investment allows businesses to reach new customers. The report did mention those small businesses are considering investing some of that budget in online marketing, but is that the right thing for your growing organization?
When I talk to owners of small and medium businesses, they quickly mention Facebook and Google Adwords as the place to start, and that is understandable, these platforms have great targeting ability and the largest audience reach. Google also has the added advantage of search intent. If I am searching for Car insurance, I am more likely to be looking to purchase a policy soon. But are there any things to look out for? Let’s look at the insurance industry.
It turns out that keywords related to insurance are the most expensive ones to bid on, $54.91 USD is the cost of a click on an insurance related ad according to data released by wordstream. Using this data 100 clicks would cost a company $5,491, and if your website is typical it would convert at an 4% rate, that means of the 100 customers that clicked 4 would have provided their information and become a lead, a cost of $1,372.25 per lead. There are ways to optimize that experience, no doubt one can get to a 10% conversion rate by using well-designed web pages, placing good offers on the website, etc…, if we use a 10% rate, the cost per lead is $549.1
That is the range for Cost Per Lead online, approximately $549 – $1,372.25 for an insurance broker. If your brokerage is looking to acquire 100 customers from the web channel, what should your budget be? That number highly depends on how well your brokers/agents close leads, if we assume that they are able to close 54% of all leads, then the cost per customer would be 2*Cost per lead, or $1,098 on the low end or $2,744 on the high end.
The question is, can this be optimized? Remember that customers searching for car insurance probably clicked a few ads and are getting quotes from various parties, converting these customers fast is key to success, here are some tips to convert potential customers.

Optimizing Your Online Ad Spending

  1. Create a Well-Designed Web Page and Clear Value Proposition

Make sure you have a well-designed web page and a compelling offer to increase your website conversion page. In a previous article on usability, we gave some tips on how to optimize your website for a better customer experience
What is important is to create a compelling and clear value proposition: A value proposition is a business declaration that describes why your potential customer should use your product or service. Usually, a great value proposition should address what your company does, how are you are different or unique and who your company serves.
A/B test website content: Split testing, most popularly known as A/B testing, is a method of determining the more successful content piece (that could be a web page, copy or even buttons) by putting two variations of content against each other and basing it on a common goal set by you.
The goal could be, the number of conversions, sign-ups, increase in downloads etc.  

  1. Responding and Interacting to Leads

Responds to leads fast: the 5-minute rule is in full effect here, data released by The Lead Response Management study show that the odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times. So stay on top of those leads.
Address objections: Objections are a part of the buying cycle and are inevitable. The critical part about an objection is to understand that it might be due to your potential customer’s lack of knowledge regarding your product or inability to understand your solution thoroughly.
Listening to your customer and addressing these objections in a concise manner is primary for your business’ success. In terms of your site, spend the time to address typical questions that you expect or have been asked frequently through an FAQ page or even landing page copy and imagery.

  1. Increasing Trust

It’s natural tendency to make a purchase from a person or company that you trust, so why would this be different for your potential customer? Ensuring you give your potential customers a reason to trust you and your product can be critical in the conversion process. Few ways you can do that is:

  • Being transparent about the services or product features you offer.
  • Always honor any promises you make to your customers, whether online or offline.
  • Display your product or service’s price on your website.
  • Show social proof by creating a section for mentions or quotes about your product or service from happy customers.
  • And finally, be consistent with your brand and product throughout your website, collateral and communication.
  1. Sealing the Deal – Online

Remove the possibility of leakage: customers do not want to print, sign, scan, fax, it’s inconvenient and if I am shopping my quote around and your competitor sent me a document ready for my digital signature, you would have lost me as a potential customer. Stats show that 46% of customers drop off after a broker sends them a paper based quote. In terms of Google online ad spending, that equals $43,920, meaning that if a digital signature solution saves one customer dropping off, the $50 investment is well worth it!
Looking to seal the deal? Why not try Signority’s Digital Signature solution for free. Click here

The Benefits of eSignature

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Thankfully, most eSignature software (like Signority) are easy to use—even for the most inexperienced users. In fact, it’s ease of use has been one of the contributing factors to its sky-high adoption rate.
Though the exact process may vary depending on the software solution, the basic workflow is virtually the same.
Here’s how a basic eSignature solution works:

  1. A document is uploaded to a website (usually a third-party software)
  2. The document is tagged to pinpoint exactly where a signature is required
  3. The document is then emailed to the participants who are required to sign
  4. The signer(s) completes all required fields, then signs the document electronically
  5. The completed document is then automatically emailed back to the original sender
  6. The document is automatically stored for safe, secure, and easy access

Now that you understand the basics of how eSignatures work, let’s look at some of the benefits of eSignature.

Benefits of eSignature

Legally-binding eSignatures have a number of important benefits for businesses:

  1. Easy to use. Signing an electronic document is super simple for all those involved. In fact, most eSignature software is intuitive even to complete beginners, which means less time spent learning how to use new software.
  2. Save money: Paper isn’t cheap, especially when you account for purchasing, copying, scanning, and printing costs, among other paper-related expenditures. Needless to say, these costs add up quickly. Moving to a paperless system can reduce expenditures and instantly increase your profit margins. You can access our post ”A Paperless Business and 5 Ways You Can Achieve It Now”.
  3. Save time. Printing, copying and scanning take time. Preparing documents for signature takes time. Tracking down (and waiting for) signatures take even more time. eSignatures can shorten the turnaround time by as much as 90 percent.
  4. Improve accuracy. There’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for a signed document only to realize the recipient forgot to fill out a required piece of information, eSignature software allow you to specify mandatory fields, which, as you probably guessed, require the recipient to complete all such fields before the document can be signed.  
  5. Stay organized. Keeping track of paperwork (regardless of how efficient your filing system may be) is often burdensome. eSignatures create an easily sortable, organized filing system by which you can easily store and retrieve important documents.
  6. Add an extra layer of security: Electronic documents can be protected by a variety of methods, including passcodes, encryption, two-factor authentication, and even biometric authentication methods. These methods instantly make your important documents more secure.
  7. Make things easier for customers and/or vendors. While the benefits of eSignature can be obvious for your own business, they also make things much easier for your customers, partners, suppliers, or other vendors (for many of the same reasons we’ve already covered). Customers prefer eSignature solutions not only because it is more convenient, but it brings a number of important advantages, including eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth (saving time), simplifying internal processes, facilitating quicker onboarding, and increasing operational efficiency, among a laundry list of other benefits.

Planning to take your business paperless? Check out our recent guide “A Brief Introduction to eSignatures”, you can download if for free here.

Border-Free Business: Your Definitive Guide To International Contracts

International contracts for SMBs

My first experience with international contracts did not go so well. The year was 2004, I was travelling and had just recently met up with a very promising business prospect. We had the responsibility of finalizing a housing development project, by creating sandcastles from the toys we found scattered around the beach shore. Oh, did I mention I was only 8? Well, anyway, turns out my new found friend at the beach purposely hustled the only toy shovel right from my little naive hands.
This is my story.
Both of us wanted the shovel, so we decided to figure things out fairly- with a legally binding contract, aka, a game of heads or tails. Now, my new sandcastle developing partner, seeing an opportunity to push their own agenda, said “tails I win, heads you lose”… as you can probably guess, I blindly agreed to these terms. At the time, I didn’t realize the fine print of their offer and grudgingly gave away the only toy shovel. Only years later, lying wide awake at 3am, did I realize how unfair and one-sided that “contract” really was!
Don’t let yourself make the same mistake, because there’s probably a lot more at risk. So keep reading to learn what to watch out for before signing or sending international contracts (and some other useful information too).
International contracts can open up a lot of opportunities…. opportunities that you should take advantage of, like right now. If your business is not, at least, looking to expand into foreign markets, you are losing a huge slice of potential market share. Our economy would not be where it is today without the access and ease of entering into international markets. International trade is a part of every aspect of your, and my, day-to-day life. 
Now, you may be thinking, you work for a small to medium sized business and have no idea how to handle international contracts. Well fortunately for you, we have already done the hard work.
So here it is… Your definitive Guide to International Contracts!

Laws When Doing Business with a Foreign Company

Obviously, international business agreements are substantially different from domestic. For international, you have to be aware of the country’s political environment, economic environment, culture, and legal system. For example, as explained by Business Management, India’s laws protect small businesses and consumers, whereas China’s government strictly controls its business sectors. With this being said, it is very important to know the country’s specific contract laws. Countries that follow common law systems, like the United States, have very detailed contracts compared with countries that follow a civil law system, like Russia. This is an important detail to note, as common law system contracts can be time-consuming and expensive to create.

Sending International Contracts: What to Look for

The first, and most obvious, thing to look for is if your terms are properly stated. Make sure your international contract is easily understandable, free from any grammatical errors and is written in plain English. According to the State Bar of Michigan, writing contracts in plain English can improve the contract’s substantive content, and promote the client’s interests. Furthermore, your contract must follow a logical segmentation- if you can’t follow along with what the contract is saying, your signee won’t be able to either. Along the same lines, you should look out for vague standards, such as “reasonable” or “significant”, as these phrases can cloud your actual objective. Furthermore, read through and remove any implying terms. Make sure everything is explicitly stated and said with intent, especially in regards to price and payments. Making your standards more concrete and clear will make them easier to reinforce, and easier for signees to follow. Click here to learn how to include remote workers and digital nomads into your business plan. Already know how/why you want to hire international workers? Click here.

Receiving International Contracts: What to Look for

Most importantly, you need to read it over and agree to everything stated. Make sure the contract leaves none of your questions unanswered. For example, it should clearly define whether the method of payment is a fixed fee, or based on the current exchange rate (and whether you will be paid in local or foreign currency). It is usually a good idea to have a lawyer look over any international contract before you sign (don’t worry, we’ll explain how to easily find a cheap lawyer a little later on).

Receiving Employment Contracts: What to Look for

Unfortunately, international employment contracts are more technically complicated than standard employment contracts, as employment laws, tax laws and immigration laws affect them. As such, there are several things you should watch out for. First, make sure all of the nitty-gritty details are spelt out and clearly defined. For example, ensure any and all promised benefits are fully laid out. Second, be sure to read every single clause. You do not want to end up in a sticky situation because the “past” you was too bored to actually read what you were agreeing to. The non-compete clause is an important one to note, as, according to Wikipedia, this can prohibit you from working within a competing profession or trade with your soon to be employer. Especially if you’re uprooting your life and moving for this job, you want to be sure you have plenty of opportunities if you ever decide to quit (and that you’re not forced to move back home).

How to Find a Lawyer

All this responsibility does not have to fall on your shoulders; to be safe you should hire a professional to look over everything and make sure things are in order. You might be rolling your eyes and groaning, but hiring a lawyer does not have to be expensive. Let me repeat, hiring a lawyer does not have to be expensive. And the added security is definitely worth the minimal cost. You can always ask around for lawyer recommendations, but this can be extremely time consuming and friends/family are not always the most reliable source. Thankfully, there are also online sources available. LawTrades can help you find employment contract lawyers for cheap. Since they don’t have the overhead expenditure of law firms, they are about 60% more affordable – score!

Digital Vs. Paper Signatures

Contracts, in general, can be stressful, and it doesn’t help when you’re sending/receiving them half way across the world. International contracts have the added stress of time and distance. Paper signatures not only prolong the signing process, it also increase the frustration and overall inconvenience (and sometimes the associated costs). Thankfully, the future is here! Digital signatures speed up the process by sending contracts across borders instantaneously. As such, they save time, money and make everyone’s experience as stress-free as possible.
Online eSignature companies like Signority, can be the solution you’ve been waiting for. Compared with digital contracts, paper contracts make about as much sense as sending your mail by pigeon.
Well there you have it, all you need to know about the basics of international contracts. I bet heads your small to medium sized business will exponentially grow from being introduced to international markets, and tails that international contracts are not as hard as they seem.  
Thank you for reading, now please sign the dotted line below to grant us full access to all of your bank accounts: ____________________
To most of you who didn’t sign, I’m very proud of how much you’ve learned. To those who did sign, maybe just stick to hiring a lawyer.
Well, we have given you the basics of international contracts, now it’s time for you to start applying this information into your business strategy and open up a whole new world, literally and figuratively.
Also, check out our recent article on “The Ultimate List: 100+ Tools & Resources For Skyrocketing Business Growth in 2017” to help further automate and streamline your international business deals!
Looking to take your business paperless? Sign-up now and get a 14-day free trial to a Signority eSignature Plan.

How to Create, Manage and Track Your Legally Binding Contract

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We know how important it is to properly create, manage and track your legally binding contract, and fortunately, we have comprised a foolproof step-by-step guide on how to do just that. Read on to learn how to impress your boss and clients with your notable contract skills.
Picture this: you have an incredibly important deal hanging in the balance, all the responsibility of tracking and managing the binding contract falls on your shoulders.
What do you do?
Well, you have two options.
One, you can stick to the basics and stunt your contracts growth and potential. Similar to a seedling being neglected and kept in the dark, no matter how much work and time you invest into making and managing your legally binding contract, it will never be able to grow. We know how dedicated you are to your work, so why work harder for less payoff? Not only is this tedious and time-consuming, but it’s also risky.
Or two, you can break through the old crutch of habit and reinvent the way you manage and track your legally binding contract. This industry is evolving and with the rapid technological advancements that we are currently experiencing, it’s hard not to believe that a completely digital future is just around the corner (check out our recent post on “The Evolution and Future of Document Signing”).
So, like Yoda from Star Wars once said, “once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.” Similarly, missing the window for automating your sales operations, could mean a long and tedious future.

Allow yourself the opportunity to expand your skillset, optimize your operational and financial performance, all while reducing financial risk. You may be surprised at just how easy this is.

Before you start drafting your legally binding contract  


1. Work with the right people

You’re only as strong as your weakest link, so be sure your team comprises of people who are right for the job, match your company’s culture and are on the same page with your company’s mission.
According to Glassdoor:
“Employees who understand their contribution to the company’s mission are more likely to bring a positive attitude and commitment to the workplace, which trickles down to company performance at every level.”
So, building a team with passionate individuals, will lead to getting more contacts signed and ultimately leads to your team’s success.

2. Do your homework
This goes without saying, but in order for the seedling to grow strong and sturdy roots, you have to put in the work.
Research the business you are creating the legally binding contract for and the legal background of the business relationship you’re entering. Systematic planning and methodology are what’s required to be successful.
Conduct interviews with the right people and collect any needed information on the present situation, as well as any decisions the outside parties’ plan on making in the future.
A couple of other important points to research are:
Who are you contracting? What steps need to be taken for the company/business to comply with requirements? What are their specific policies and procedures regarding decision-making? Does a decision have to be approved by multiple people? If so, what order? In short, familiarize yourself with the foundation and culture of that organization.
You can also use resources such as the Financial Times, Forrester Research and  Economist Intelligence Unit for general industry and market research.

After the research   


1. Get started on the paperwork

Creating a successful, legally binding contract can be broken into 3 main segments: Drafting, Reviewing and Finalizing.
Drafting
Ask your client to prepare and outline before you draft your contract.
According to RocketLawyer, asking your client to prepare an outline of the agreement as they understand it, not only provides you with a blueprint of the points that are important to them. But also, serves as a good starting point for discussing other critical issues that that they might not have thought of and should be addressed.

If this is not possible, be sure to include all of the important points that you made note of during your initial meetings with your client.
Reviewing
Once you have created your draft based on your client’s outline, begin reviewing the contract to make sure it is precise and focussed. Filter sentences to their basic points and substitute specific sentences with general ones to avoid future confusion.

FindLaw, a website that let’s you find information about legal topics, says that all valid, legally binding contracts have to follow some basic rules, namely, intent to make a contract; a lawful subject matter; an offer made by one party; acceptance of the offer by the other party; and an exchange of something of value.
Finalizing
To ensure that all goes well and you close your deal, prepare to work fast and make the signing experience as easy and pleasant as possible for your client.  
Fortunately, this can be done easily through Electronic Signatures.
Electronic Signatures solutions, like Signority, allow you to upload and securely send documents for eSignatures with a few clicks. This allows for a seamless experience for your client, ultimately avoiding wastage of time and money.

2. Get Tracking 

Tracking your online legally binding contract sent for signature is critical.  Tracking lets you know when the document has been viewed by the required party or if it has been forwarded. There are a few ways to track your contract:
Contract Management Systems
Contract management systems allow you to gain control of most aspects of your contract, from allowing you to access critical information and tracking, to generating reports when you need them.
eSignature platforms
Most eSignature platforms (including Signority) provide you with a tracking functionality, that lets you view crucial information, such as:  when a contract is viewed and how many times it was opened in real-time.
You can set up reminders and notification for your clients, allowing you to get your deals closed faster.

2. Get Paid 
After celebrating your closed deal — hopefully, with your awesome team — now comes the next challenge:

“Payments”.
Life is busy, and keeping track of all the nitty-gritty payment details of your contract can be tedious. We all have a lot on our plates and automating the payment processes can save you a time and hours of confusion.
Online payment and transaction apps such as PayPal and Stripe (we swear by Stripe at Signority), help your clients stay punctual with their payments — with minimal effort from both sides.
Besides making it easy for your clients, these platforms allow you to sync your data with most or all your management systems, to easily generate financial reports and provide you with important data for your analysis.
As the old English proverb goes: “work smarter, not harder”.
Follow these foolproof steps and guarantee that all of your hard work will reap the rewards you deserve. That little seedling will grow into a sturdy and resistant tree that can withstand any difficult contract building/management process.
Also, check out our recent article on “5 Habits of Highly Effective Insurance Brokers”.
Looking to take your business paperless? Sign-up now and get a 14-day free trial to a Signority eSignature Plan.

The Ultimate List: 100+ Tools & Resources For Skyrocketing Business Growth in 2017

The-Ultimate-List-Updated-100-Best-Tools-For-Skyrocketing-Business-Growth-in-2017

However skilled a manager you might be, if you’re looking into expanding (or even just for saving time and money) then you might want to look into some tools for making everything run smoothly and easily for your business. What’s in this list you may ask? Anything from apps to platforms, to websites and analyzers allowing you to coordinate, manage and develop your marketing and business strategies, as well as help in your team’s communication and collaboration.
I’ve personally tested or used most of these tools on a daily basis at either Signority or at previous jobs. The rest have been strongly recommended by other members of the team here as well colleagues from other technology companies. A lot of them also appear in this list from LeadPages last year. So, we’ve gathered it all and made, what we think is an updated list, the list of lists if you will, to go to in 2017 when it comes to tools for explosive business growth.
This list is broken down into sections for you so you can focus easily on what your business needs today. Anything from video marketing, automation, collaboration and more. We’ve also included some of the key reads and other resources we thought were amazing in 2016 and that you should read this year. So, here it is, please read on and share.

Team Communication

Team communication is one of the most important aspects in every line of work, so you have to definitely encourage and make it easier. The best apps we found for this are:

  1. Slack – it’s the ultimate tool for team communication. You can find your team and set up common communication channels, as well as one-on-one’s. The best part of it is the integrations into almost any other tool that matters today. It will make communication with your team and with your tools a lot easier and effective. It’s heavily used here at Signority as our central hub of comms between teams and it’s also where all our apps post status updates, making our daily life at work a lot easier.If you didn’t know, Slack is considered by many one of the fastest growing startups ever, having launched in August 2013 and with a current valuation (as of Apr, 2016) of over 3.8 Billion dollars. They are doing many things right. If you’re into making software, we suggest you read up on them and learn.
  2. Trello –  divided into different cards for each phase of your project and task related to it, Trello makes for a reliable and organized way of keeping in check with your team and the success or failure of each task. Recently acquired by Attlassian for $425 million dollars, it is unclear to us what will happen to it. Asana (read below) recently featured an update to include cards taking much of the functionality of Trello inside it.
  3. Invision – if you have a designer in your team, or better yet, a design team, they should be using something like the Invision app for team collaboration. It helps make the entire design process better and it allows people to collaborate around designs easily and faster than before. They recently released Boards which adds to it. They have free plans so there’s no excuse not to use them to improve your design workflows.
  4. Asana – as its own website boasts, Asana makes it possible for you to get projects from start to finish either with tasks and projects, or with conversations and notifications. We use this at Signority for tracking all of our work outside of engineering and I’ve been a fan since the early days in 2009.
  5. Realtimeboard – A virtual whiteboard for your browser. Very neat tool to allow collaboration with your remote workers, clients or partners across the web. Lots of ready-made templates to start collaborating online.
  6. Basecamp  – Its main focus is in getting everything organized and in one place, reducing the possibility of important files getting lost in the haste to reach deadlines. This is like Asana really and both have great features that set them apart. Here’s a handy comparison between Asana vs Basecamp from Capterra.
  7. Weekdone – Weekly employee progress report for managers. It focuses on showing everyone in your team, goals and tasks. The premise is that transparency and collaboration around people’s goals ensure alignment and success.
  8. Join.me – offers screen-sharing, video conferencing and online meetings, reforming and presenting them to your team in the most comfortable of ways. There’s a plugin that needs to be downloaded to run but once you get this done you are usually set. It’s pretty easy to use even for people that are not used to software and cloud apps.
  9. Projects by Growth Hackers – made for teams and making them focus on the most important tasks without getting sidetracked by all the mental cluster. This was a mystery last year but it’s finally out. It is relatively new and I haven’t personally used it yet but it’s trending among the tech circles. It’s got Sean Ellis behind it who is the father of growth hacking (the term at least) and so if he’s behind it, you can expect quality.

Marketing

Next one, right along with team communication is marketing. We all know that one of the keys to making a great product or service sell is marketing it well. Tools and sites that can help your business with this particular task include:

Communities/key blogs:

  1. Inbound.org – Inbound Marketing is a community of inbound marketers that share new ideas, events, jobs, and more.
  2. HubSpot blog – They know how to do inbound marketing well and often have quality posts.
  3. GrowthHackers –  Powerful collaboration, ideas and learning resources for marketing and growth teams.

Apps and tools:

  1. Buzzsumo – it’s the most used tool for marketing your content and SEO campaigns. This tool allows you to keep track of your content and how it’s doing online (shares) as well as that of your competition (or any site for that matter). It allows you to find influencers on any particular keyword or topic and it’s very easy to use. 
  2. PageCloud – They claim to be the world’s most innovative website creator. If you’re like most small businesses you probably have “updating the website” marked as an outstanding task for a while. PageCloud will make the entire process of creating a website seamless and easy using their drag and drop technology. You open up a browser and start editing your website on the fly, it’s easy and fun. See what TechCrunch has to say about them.
  3. SurveyMonkey – The leaders in online form and web-based survey solutions. They have been around for a while and offer a robust tool for any of your data gathering needs. We recommend you survey your customers often and get feedback on how your business can improve.
  4. ReferralCandy – We’ve used this in the past with great results. If you would like to leverage your customers to sell more, consider starting a referral program that rewards people for their actions. This particular tool is great if you have an online store and do e-commerce in your business. By the way, here’s a great starter read on referral marketing do’s and don’ts.
  5. Canva – creative and engaging, Canva lets you build stunning visuals for your business proposal and everything you might need, all with the power of drag and drop. You don’t have to spend big bucks on Adobe software for image editing anymore. If you need to add a quick headline or filter to an image, this can help.
  6. SimplyCast – it’s the right tool for automating marketing campaigns. They cover anything from email, SMS, forms, live chat, surveys and other ways to do online marketing. They focus on small and medium enterprises providing great value for your money.
  7. The Stocks – Royalty free stock photos to use in your emails, website and other marketing collateral. This site aggregates some of the best free stock photo sites under one umbrella making your photo searches a breeze.
  8. Moz – the right place for SEO and digital marketing insight. Moz is the SEO toolset that’s got it all: keyword research, link building, site audits, and page optimization insights, in one. Most importantly, if you’re just getting started on SEO, their blog and Connect Community is an excellent resource for learning the ropes. They have a free browser plugin that allows you to see the ranking of any web page you are on along with other insightful information.
  9. Gnowit – Real-time media monitoring for your business that uses artificial intelligence
  10. RivalExplorer – Look and search for all emails ever sent to people by your competition.
  11. HotJar – A very comprehensive tool that gives you analytics on your website as well as an in-depth view of how your app or website is used. This means visitor recordings, heat maps and even in-website surveys.
  12. Usertesting – Let’s you get out of those discussions with your marketing team about what you think it’ll work and instead it puts it to the test. Select the target audience that matches that of your business, configure a few test plans (what you want them to achieve) and then wait while the site matches your project with potentially hundreds of people. Once they go through your site, you’ll be able to see how they interacted with it giving you tons of useful information you can use to improve your site.
  13. 5secondrule – Similar to User testing, this tool allows you to query a pool of unknown people to get their real feedback. A five-second test is great for understanding and measuring people’s first impressions of your business/website/brand.
  14. Klipfolio – The ultimate business dashboard. Monitor the health of your business while this dashboard connects to potentially all your online tools, giving you a full and unified picture of your business.
  15. Rare.io – A smart email marketing platform that works best for online businesses that do e-commerce. It connects with Shopify (below).  
  16. LeadPages – Generating landing pages and lots of them to test out your creative and content are some of the great ways to improve conversion rates for your business. LeadPages is one of the leading tools out there that allow you to do this quite easily.
  17. SumoMe –these guys arm you with a suite of fail-proof, site-growing solutions to help you get more traffic, build a following, and track your success every day.
  18. Optimizely – offers you the possibility of heavily experimenting to keep up with every whim of your users’.
  19. LeadChat – live chat agents 24/7 might be best for those of you whose service is time-dependent and your business’ success depends on how swift your response to a query is.
  20. Import.io – extracting info from web pages can become a great source of raw data that can be later re-purposed and presented to help you come to important conclusions and decisions.
  21. Datanyze – provides you with insight based on your technology choices. Especially if your business is tech based, this might be just what you need.
  22. ConvertKit – if you’re a professional blogger, this is the right email marketing tool for you.
  23. Crazy Egg – website analytics presented to you in a visually clear and understandable way. Heat maps for most clicked locations in your site? Check!
  24. FullStory – offers detailed info on your visitor’s behavior while on your site.
  25. Shopify – We couldn’t just leave out the biggest software company in Canada that is changing the world of ecommerce, and another Ottawa-based business like us. If your business does ecommerce or even as a point of sale, please check out Shopify to boost your sales. Their blog is also another awesome resource for small businesses out there.

Social Media Marketing

With social media’s far reaching impact, it has become a given for any serious business to have its own presence in it. You should check out:

  1. CoSchedule – Plan, organize, and execute every content marketing project in one place. If you are into inbound marketing (which you should) then having a healthy content calendar and plan in place is key to your success.
  2. BuzzStream – A great tool for influencer and blogger outreach. It lets you track email opens, save templates and keep organized lists for a productive outreach campaign.
  3. Buffer – makes it super easy to share any page you’re reading and schedule posts to go out from all of your major social media channels.
  4. Quuu – lets you handpick social media posts  that interest you and your followers, great tool to keep quality content in your social media feed.
  5. RaffleCopter – Giveaways, if done well, can often bring your business a lot of awareness and even leads. Rafflecopter lets you run online giveaways and embed them on your site without an IT.
  6. Grammarly – checking your text for grammar errors, typos and punctuation so that your content is flawless before posting it on all your social media account.
  7. Awario – Know thy enemy. This app helps you scour the web and find out what your competitors are posting, as well as mentions of your business of course.

Video Marketing

  1. Loom – Great tool to create short but impactful videos from your browser. Stop making “one-pagers” that people won’t read and start creating quick videos that explain what you do. It also has webcam and screen recording capabilities. Free chrome plugin available.
  2. SmartPixel – A video capture and editing software that is both easy and affordable.
  3. AlltheFreeStock – Free stock videos to include in your production. They also feature free stock photos.
  4. VideoScribe – High definition whiteboard like animation video

Business Management

As a business owner/founder/CEO you need to get everything together and manage your business in the best way possible. Where to turn to for help?

  1. Recurly -enterprise-class subscription billing management for thousands of businesses worldwide.
  2. HubDoc – A personal favorite. It’s a tool that automatically collects receipts from all your tools and sends them right into your accounting software of choice. No more chasing receipts or getting nagged by your accounting team.
  3. Xero – online accounting software for your small business
  4. Chart.io – cloud based data exploration and website analytics for everyone, made easy.
  5. TradeGecko -Inventory management software for eCommerce and wholesalers
  6. Segment – collecting data from your customers and sending it wherever you need it.
  7. Google Analytics – analyzing website visits and tracking every change for you.
  8. UpCounsel – easily hiring attorneys for your business’ needs.
  9. Toggl – timetracker and employee sheet software.
  10. Zirtual – virtual assistant service matching busy people with dedicated assistants.
  11. Signority – bit of self-indulging, but yes, we provide you with secure, easy-to-use and legally binding electronic signature services.
  12. DropBox – File storing in the cloud that allows sharing, editing and distributing. It has advantages over Google Drive, mostly around organizing files and presenting the file system. If your business is not on the cloud and uses Microsoft servers and software to run locally, but you need a cloud storage solution, Dropbox may be for you
  13. RescueTime – Time management software for staying productive
  14. WaveApps.com – Create and send professional invoices, receipts and more
  15. Versature – If your business requires lots of phone interactions, look to Versature for a solid VOIP system
  16. Flyta – Smarter and cheaper international shipping. No joke.

Customer Service and Retention 

Providing your customer with the best service is in most cases one of the top priorities for both small and medium sized businesses, as it is for big-sized ones. How to step up your game?

  1. SatisMeter – helps you collect customer feedback and eliminate churn while accelerating growth
  2. Intercom – makes communication with your customers easy. Live chat, customer support, they have everything you need.
  3. Zendesk – creates software for managing your relationship with your customers.
  4. UserVoice – decide on a roadmap for your product, while backing every decision with qualitative and quantitative feedback from your previous customers.
  5. GoToMeeting – offers you online HD video conferencing, making your communication that much easier.
  6. Typeform – creating online, decidedly human forms. Check out some sample surveys here!
  7. Customer.io – triggers multichannel messages according to customer response to each of them.

Outsourcing

When you’re short of staff, you might want to look into taking in freelancers or temporary employees. If you don’t know how to work with remote workers, we wrote a post that outlines some tips. Some of the best platforms where you can find them are:

  1. Upwork – was built after the merging of oDesk and Elance, the first and second biggest freelancing platforms on the internet. The result? Getting work done!
  2. Crew.co – Hire top of the line creative freelancers. Based out of Montreal but with freelancers across the globe.
  3. Scripted – almost exclusively for writing, editing and proofreading, you can get some great writing works out of this site.
  4. Fiverr – offers small freelance services for only $5. Might be just what you’re looking for, and at a cheap price at that.
  5. 99designs – find and work with the best graphic designers online. Logos, websites, ads, what have you, they do it!
  6. PeoplePerHour – here you can find freelancer for things like translations, writing, designing and programming.
  7. WriterAcess – connects you with all screened, US-based pros, star rated by customer reviews.
  8. Guru – you can either look for jobs, or post things you need done and get offers.
  9. Gun.io – the place where you can look for verified freelance developers.
  10. Gigster –they bring together the best developers, designers, and product managers from Silicon Valley and the world to form elite development teams.

HR, Employee Engagement & Appreciation 

Another important thing for the wellbeing of your team is keeping your employees happy and interested in what they are doing. To help you with that, take a look at:

  1. Fortay – this is a culture-fit screening and matching platform for hiring managers that improves hiring and engagement for growing companies.
  2. TinyPulse – gives leaders the tools to improve culture, employee performance, and engagement.
  3. AnyPerk – gives you the right solution so you can make your employees happy with coupons, free passes, etc.
  4. Kin – manages employee files and time off in a web-based exchange which is enjoyable for your team.
  5. 15Five – performing lightweight performance tests for bringing out the best in your people.
  6. GlassDoor – platform that lets you know your worth as an employee.
  7. Zenefits – all-in-one platform that helps you manage your employees and gives you tools, insight and inspiration for dealing with each of them.
  8. Kudos – gives your employees recognition and feedback.

Automation 

  1. Zapier – One of our favorite tools from this list. It allows you to hook up pretty much every other tool together and create awesome automation that saves you time and money.
  2. Process.st – Simple task and workflow automation. Similar to Zapier but different. Here you can create checklists that can then trigger automation tasks. Very cool.
  3. Prospect.io – Switching gears a bit from general business automation to sales automation, we have prospect.io which is a cool platform for modern sales teams. It helps you find leads on Linkedin, prospect and send drip email campaigns in a few minutes
  4. RevealBot – Set up automation rules for your Facebook and Instagram ads and let the bot manage and improve your ad performance for you
  5. MixMax – Track, automate, and enhance your emails with the essential productivity suite for Google Inbox.
  6. Narrow – works by interacting with Twitter users that are talking about subjects relevant to the audience you want to attract.
  7. IFTT – is a free web-based service that allows users to create chains of simple conditional statements, called “applets”, which are triggered based on changes to other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. IFTTT is an abbreviation of “If This Then That”

BONUS: Resources & Good Reads:

There is so much content out there to make you productive and most importantly to help you and your business succeed. We only posted a few of the big guides that are must-reads below. Keep following our blog, as we’ll be posting more of these throughout the year.

  1. Ultimate Guide to Business Process Automation with Zapier by Process Street
  2. Advanced guide to content marketing by Neil Patel
  3. Content marketing Playbook by Hiten Shah
  4. A beginner’s guide to social media by Moz
  5. The Small Business Blueprint to Marketing on Twitter by Shopify
  6. The CEO Guide to Customer Experience by McKinsey
  7. Small Business Online Marketing Kit by HubSpot

So there you have it. Our ultimate list of tools, apps and resources to skyrocket your business growth this year. Would love to know of any other tools you think are great for SMBs that we missed. Just drop us a line at hello@signority.com and we’ll make sure review and include it next time.
Looking to take your business paperless? Sign-up now and get free access to Signority’s eSignature plans for 14-days.

How To Include Remote Workers and Digital Nomads in Your Business Plan

How To Include Remote Workers and Digital Nomads in Your Business Plan Office Movement

When I got my first job as a freelancer, while living in a country where most people don’t know what remote workers are, the first words from my backing system (aka my parents) were: “But that’s not even a real job”. What’s most important, I was skeptical of the process myself. However, as a student with lots of free time and a desperate wish for financial independence.
I was scammed at first because I barely understood the process, how to handle remote clients, how the communication needed to be structured and more. This was discouraging and almost made me stop there. So, while feeling like an errant child and not wanting to admit to failure, I got another freelancing gig and kept moving forward on a path to learn. This perseverance paid off and led to eventually doing many freelancing gigs over many years, and most importantly led to being part of teams across the globe (from places like Brazil, London, Australia, Canada), working successfully and having fun doing so.
If you don’t get discouraged while you’re getting the hang of remote working, you can do all kinds of stuff with your life when you get out of work. You can work in the comfort of your own home, at cafes, parks, basically everywhere a laptop is allowed. Most importantly, especially for young people: you can travel the world!
Now, if you are the CEO, founder, director or person responsible for managing and including in your business plan digital nomads and remote workers, then consider the following feedback from a previous digital nomad (before finding my team here at Signority!)

Remote workers have opportunities

Despite what company you own or manage, there may be many opportunities for hiring digital nomads that you haven’t thought of yet. Many creative people are basing their whole activity on the net – photographers, game designers, writers and editors, but what is really flourishing is game designing and programming. Still, not to be left unmentioned are technical people in engineering, designing, consulting and marketing.
Given the myriad of new and great team collaboration apps for communicating and managing tasks such as Slack, Asana, Trello and even TeamViewer, the process is getting easier every day. Programmers are using sites such as GitHub and BitBucket to collaborate on projects, and writers are polishing up their WordPress and SEO skills to get ahead of the game. More and more each day, Skype is used to communicate with team members around the world. What this means is that many fields already have a system in place allowing and facilitating remote working. Find yours!

Digital Nomads do their research!

It is a given that remote workers will have to read every sentence of contracts and terms and conditions they agree to. There are many cases where they don’t, which would make it your job to incite them to. This is extremely important for the job process, so to ensure that neither of you are caught up in loopholes. Double check everything thoroughly! Read everything there is to know about the payment process, the monitoring of the job quality, or periodical checks while it’s ongoing. While this doesn’t mean to treat people as if they’re out to get you, you have to remember that working remotely is just like the traditional system of work. You’re still dealing with people behind all those emails and check-up chats. Ensuring you have a sound contract to start from is a good foundation and ensuring it gets signed before committing work just makes sure there are no surprises down the road. A lot of our customers use eSignatures for the purpose of onboarding employees and remote workers to facilitate this workflow.

digital doesn’t mean humanless

If you are a manager making space for remote workers and freelancers on your business plan, you have to remember a very important thing: at the end of the day, you are still dealing with people. If you communicate only through texts or emails, it is very easy to forget you are not talking to a very efficient robot on the other side, and that is a valid point whether you are the manager asking for quality work from a freelancer, or if you are the freelancer doing it.
While working as a freelancer myself, I found myself guilty of treating one of my bosses as this very timely and robotic entity, where I could submit my documents and get feedback on in a few hours. Aided by the fact that he was not the most conversational person on earth, the work hours became very easily tedious and annoying. Many people are not social butterflies in today’s workforce, however much we try to make ourselves look so. In the manager’s position, oftentimes you will have to encourage people to express themselves more easily, or if you make a pitfall into “robotville” you will have to remember that the people you have hired have personal lives, which while not disrupting their work, should actually have to be lived at some point during the day. You can’t expect them to work or even be online 24/7.
How you choose to do this is still your choice, it doesn’t matter if it’s through Skype calls, group pictures of the team working in HQ, or even weekly updates of the social life within the company: parties thrown, events attended, you know the drill. Just remember, workers, digital or not, are still people and a happy worker is definitely more productive!

Internet connections can still be a pain in 2017!

When remote employees are travelling the world and working for you at the same time, you will not only have to change meeting hours left and right because of flights and all the rest: you will have problems with slow connectivity. There are still places, much preferred from those who like to work while lounging on the beach, in which broadband connectivity is spotty, slow, and overall, horrible.
It can set back the progress of your project, and you will have no one to blame. However, this is an easily controlled problem. While most freelancers usually make sure the connectivity is a priority wherever they decide to stay on their trips, things happen. So what’s best is to leave a certain amount of security time, usually a day or so, during which you’re sure to get the completed work successfully.
Additionally, digital nomads should make sure to have an established cloud backup for everything, with helper tools such a DropBox or Google Drive, electronic signature services and even online editing tools, which makes it possible for them to pack up their office and go to the coffee shop down the street to complete the task you’ve given them with no hassle at all.

Office implications

If you are a big company with many offices, having one or two freelancers on your team won’t make too much of a difference into the overall available space in your floor. When you’re small- to medium-sized, however, it can be truly and greatly beneficial for you. You can be a part of a team with 15 or more employees, and only have to rent an office for two people, or even better, you can have a whole team of remote workers. Companies like Buffer do this well. With remote offices, as a manager, you will have to work on the office culture you want your company to have. While digital nomads tend to avoid office gossiping and similar phenomena, they also tend to communicate less with other team members, especially if they don’t have to collaborate directly on projects. Everyone can benefit from a little “water-cooler” conversations, even if it is only to make plans for drinks after work hours. This is one of the reasons why traditional workplaces are still going strong.

Conclusions

As every new team member, digital nomads and freelancers come with their own set of problems in management and on the other side, benefits. What you have to decide is how does it all work for your company, after careful consideration of all the positives aspects and downsides.
For more, read up on this article by the Globe and Mail on how to work with Freelancers.

Customer Experience is Taking Center Stage in 2017 and for Good Reason

Sprint 46 Release Notes

Customer experience is taking center stage in 2017 and for good reason. People expect a good customer experience whether buying online or offline. More and more statistics from all industries reflect CX (or Customer Experience) is becoming center stage of business and customer loyalty. In their article titled “75 Customer Service Facts”, HelpScout shares some eye-opening realities of customer service and total customer experience.
As we know, great CX goes beyond customer support, it includes everything from the time people see your ad for the first time online, to your website, to interaction with your sales team, to contract signing, customer onboarding and ongoing support throughout the lifecycle.
No one realizes this reality more than the retail industry which over the last few years has seen retailers acknowledge that good customer experience is the path to higher profit. Smart retailers are investing heavily in optimizing customer experience as online shopping is no longer enough; customers want to check store inventory online, order online and pick up at the nearest store. Customers want the mobile experience to match that in the store, they want a single cohesive experience, and retailers are just starting to deliver with omni-channel projects. Forrester released a report last year that demonstrates that CX leaders grow revenue as much as 25% than CX laggards in their category, this again shows the proven importance of customer experience.
Convenience is king and so is speed, from same day to delivery to drone-based delivery, retailers are pushing the edge to make sure customers get the wow factor every time they experience their brand. On the run, no problem, Amazon Go allows you to get your grocery without talking to anyone, load up your basket and walk out, you card is signed, sealed and delivered automatically.
This week is #NRF17 where world of retail converges on the Javits center in New York to talk about the future of retail, and again the customer experience is center stage. Wearable technology, Smart Technology, Artificial Intelligence are prominent themes this year.
There is a lot we can learn from retail, but the core lesson is that customers want an easy and frictionless experience, all the time.

Here are 5 simple ways other industries can improve their customer experience:

  1. Test every customer touch point to make sure it works and that is inline with your brand promise. Tools like UserTesting and 5SecondTest are great for getting quality feedback from people in your target audience.
  2. Automate. Right now there is an explosion of online tools to help you service customers and reduce errors. Make it easy for them, implement things like Intercom on your website for better communication, Slack channels or even venture into smart chat bots.
  3. If you are billing online, make sure it’s done right and easy. I recommend trying FreshBooks.
  4. Make sure you make the most out of your CRM. We at Signority use and love Pipedrive. Use your CRM well along with other tools and plugins to empower you to know what to say and when to say it. These tools not only help save you time and be more productive, it also ensures a better CX in the sales process.
  5. Use smart signatures. Businesses sometimes do not think of contract signing as being part of the CX, although in our humble opinion it is still a big part of it. Think about it, after all the hard work by marketing and sales is done, and a prospect is in the last stages of closing the deal. You want to make sure you have a process in place that makes it easy and convenient for them (while also secure). Offering a paperless contract signing experience is what we do best and I encourage you to read some of our other posts on this blog to learn more.

How to Effectively Run Your Medical Marijuana Business: Paper vs. Electronic

Electronic Signature for Medical Marijuana Business

In 1996, California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis.
Shockingly, that was 20 years ago. That’s 20 excruciating years of back-and-forth between pro-marijuana supporters and opposing groups, all debating the effectiveness of marijuana — when used for medicinal purposes.
Today, we can thank the internet for providing us with a wealth of information on exactly why and how cannabis went from a drug associated with unemployed stoners — an image popularized by films like Cheech &  Chong’s “Up in Smoke” or the more recent, “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” — to what the Washington Post recently reported as a stunning reversal of that age-old stereotype — based on findings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Currently, with 28 states — including, the District of Columbia – having legalized marijuana for medical use, it’s needless to say that there is no other industry creating more of a buzz than cannabis.

The Green Rush

Today’s “potpreneurs” are opening medical marijuana dispensaries all over North America, and they all have varying reasons for why they choose to do business in the industry.
There are those whose eyes instantly light up with dollar signs every time there is news that confirms the arrival of the “green rush”. On the other end of that spectrum are those who may have a personal connection to cannabis, benefit from the plant’s medicinal properties themselves and would naturally want to go into this line of business, not necessarily for the money but because they truly believe in their product — like the popular talk show host and entrepreneur-activist, Montel Williams.
Can you hear the sweet sound of a vintage cash register ring in your head every time you explain your medical marijuana business to anyone who asks? Or are you a champion for marijuana’s indisputable and evolving presence in the medical world? Whether you are one or both, there is one thing that all marijuana business owners have in common; they are all trailblazers.
Despite the fact that there are still limitations and strict regulations for marijuana business owners, they’ve pushed forward, hopeful that the rest of the country will catch up and embrace the future as they have.
And if medical marijuana business owners are innovators and disruptors, who are looking towards the future and welcoming the revelations of science and nature, it would only make sense for them to combine both technology and the environment — by going green and shifting to electronic business practices.
With medical marijuana now being legal, and although it’s being socially accepted by more people, your business still bears the burden of an entire generation who were raised to believe that marijuana was only for “pot-smoking hippies” and frequently associated with criminals, most of who still remain behind bars today.
Like we listed in our previous post — A Paperless Business And 5 Ways You Can Acheive It Now — going paperless has numerous advantages, for a business in the medical cannabis space, one primary benefit could be helping you soften your business’ image by proving that you are not just a “dealer”, but an organization dedicated to improving the lives of your customers.
If you’re going to sell green, your business should go green.
However, if you’re not entirely convinced, let’s explore the pros and cons of both sticking to paper and embracing technology.
[socialpug_tweet tweet=”If you’re going to sell green, your business should go green” style=”1″]

Onboarding your clients with a traditional paper system

As a medical marijuana business owner, you are likely to have clients walk in with a prescription that has been printed out. You will need a copy of their identification card — possibly, driver’s license or their passport. And if they have a medical marijuana card in lieu of a doctor’s recommendation, you’ll need a copy of that as well.
After gathering all that, you would need to take their prescription and identification, scan & print them or use the copier. You’ll then ask your new customers to fill out a membership registration form manually. If you’re lucky, they have excellent penmanship, and you can easily, yet monotonously encode all their information into your company’s own record keeping system which is probably a spreadsheet or most likely, the exact same document you just had the customer fill out.
Or if your company hasn’t begun the practice of keeping any electronic files at all, the form your client just filled out gets put in a folder and deposited in a filing cabinet in the back of the office.

Filing cabinets: Can’t live with them, can live without them

Those dreaded filing cabinets, they’re large, bulky and visually unpleasant.
If your medical marijuana business requires that you lease a large office area because you need more space for ugly, bulky filing cabinets to store all your paperwork, then you might need to think about getting on the paperless business bandwagon. For one — as you may already know — filing cabinets take up a lot of room and as your business grows, you’ll eventually need to buy more cabinets and potentially, rent a larger, more expensive business space.

Onboarding your clients electronically

Picture this: Your customers walk into your store, filled with a new hope and excitement — waiting to get their hands on your great product. And bam they’re handed a clipboard with a pen attached to it, with paperwork they need to fill out — reminding them of some of the worst days of their lives, that were spent in the hospital filling out health insurance, waivers, consent and release forms.
Making the switch to electronic business processes can have a strong, positive impact on the experience your patients have with your medical marijuana business — before they even walk through the door.
Electronic signatures and digital documents present members of the medical marijuana industry with a modern solution for delivering an improved way to help patients, while cutting costs, increasing operational efficiency, and adding an enhanced layer of security. Additionally, providing your customers with an electronic alternative, shows them that you’ve taken into account their needs by providing them quick and easy registration.
Embedding digital registration forms on your website – instead of requiring on-site completion – can save patients headache of waiting in line to fill out tedious paperwork. As you know, many of them are experiencing significant pain or other health related matters that make mobility difficult. Implementing processes that reduce the need to travel is more than just convenient, it’s considerate. It’s moral.
Not only does this result in an easier sign-up process for your patients, it shortens lines, so everyone is helped faster.

Security and Privacy

Choosing to run your business electronically reflects your determination to keep your customers’ privacy preserved. It means that they can trust that you’ve built a strong foundation of security that is tamper-proof.
Electronic signature and storage companies — like Signority — include tamper-proof electronic signatures and document tracking, all on a secure PCI DSS Compliant hosting platform. Your patients can rest easy knowing that their important health-related information is safe, and managed by a team with government level clearance.
What’s more, storing your files electronically also ensures your customer data is protected in the event of a fire, flood, or tornado, as the information is not located onsite, it will be accessible and safe even if your building has been damaged.

Ease of Access

Through electronic business practices, your clients will not have to wait as you walk to the back of the office so you can pull out their files. Storing them electronically means having the most control of their visibility and that their customer records can be located with the click of a button.
With digital onboarding and document storage — there are no more sorting errors, lost files, redundant copies or damaged paper documents — just up to date information you need, where and when you need it.
By removing the tedious tasks of managing and storing paper documents, along with the risk of exposing  sensitive employee and patient information, medical marijuana businesses can work faster, cut costs and increase efficiency.

It’s obvious that there are a lot of benefits for your customers when you present yourself as an environmentally-sensitive organization who has their best interest at heart. But choosing to go paperless also has benefits for you and your business. Sure, investing in electronic practices may cost you today. And, that’s why it is called an investment. Consider how much you will potentially save when you are no longer stocking paper or hiring the extra manpower to monitor and archive all that paperwork. Most importantly, it leaves you with more time to do what you love to do – building a great product.

Looking to streamline your customer onboarding? Sign-up now and get a 14-day free trial to a Signority eSignature Plan.