Brokerage Keeps Agents Producing At 250% | Dotloop

How An Iowa Brokerage Keeps 175 Agents Producing at 250% of the National Average

A dotloop Case Study

In search for the best real estate transaction management software

In 2012, broker Robb Spearman was looking for a way to speed up his agents’ transactions. Already known as one of the Des Moines area’s highest producing firms, his RE/MAX Real Estate Concepts agents were completing deals at a rate well above the national average.

 

But he knew that they could be doing even better. Deals were being needlessly delayed by a slow signature process. His admins were spending too much time tracking the progress of transactions, and the reams of printed paperwork required to be archived was becoming unmanageable. And with his agents spread over offices up to an hour away, it was taking too much effort to archive paper documents at a single location.

Additionally, Spearman knew he had the potential to grow his business. But with each agent he added, he was also adding to his operational complexity. If he wasn’t able to streamline the transaction process and its oversight, he would be limited to growing no bigger than he could manage the old fashioned way.

Spearman was convinced that there was a single technology solution to all of this—something that could reduce operational complexity. Something with built-in e-signature, not another 3rd party integration. Something that could create documents and solve his storage dilemma. He just had to find it.

 

Making Do With Semi-Digital

 
Like the rest of the world in 2012, the agents of Real Estate Concepts were using digital technology to communicate with their clients, as well as to market or hunt for properties. Their laptops, tablets, and smartphones could operate entirely in the digital realm. But when it came to their documents, they had one foot in the Shakespearean world of pen and ink.

They would, of course, edit their documents on computers and email them as PDFs. But their clients would have to print them out on paper to sign, then scan them to email them back. This happened in a round-robin process, with emailed documents being reprinted and rescanned as each signature was collected. Whenever a document was revised, the whole process had to be repeated.

It was cumbersome for the agents, created tracking headaches for the admins, and on top of it all, made the transaction more stressful for clients.

 

eSignatures Alone Were Not Enough

 
Though it was tempting to adopt one of the available e-signature platforms, Spearman knew that this would not be enough. They would eliminate the need for ink signatures, but unfortunately their API integrations would still need regular maintenance—not to to mention that they would not solve the bigger problems of version tracking, document editing, compliance, and long-term storage. Though his admins would do less printing and scanning, they would still be manually tracking the deals through to completion.

 

The Only End-To-End Solution

 
Then Spearman heard about dotloop, the platform that could streamline transactions from beginning to end with form creation, eSign and document collaboration, and transaction management. In addition, his agents could use it on any device. He signed up right away.

When asked which other platforms he had considered at the time, he says that there weren’t any others. “No one comes close. Dotloop has no competitors,” he says.

Spearman felt that by comparison, the stand-alone programs were just too cumbersome for his kind of brokerage. Rather than cobbling together a bundle of separate programs that might or might not cooperate with each other, he wanted a single solution designed as a single, seamless system.

Dotloop makes it easy to edit documents, get needed signatures, and archive the final versions of all contracts in the cloud. But instead of relying on a round-robin or broadcast model of sending digital documents as PDFs out to each of the signing parties, dotloop uses patented Version-Now™ technology to invite everyone into the most current version at any point in time. The system also archives all previous versions, but only the most current is accessible by those invited into the transaction.

“It really makes it easier on the agents,” says Spearman. “And clients love the clean, simple design.”

The admins at Real Estate Concepts also saw immediate benefits. They were automatically notified when each stage of a transaction was completed, and were able to know in real time what was left to be done and by whom.

 

Onboarding In Just 30 Days

 
Because he was so convinced that dotloop was the missing ingredient to the next level of productivity, Spearman decided on an ambitious onboarding schedule. He gave his agents and staff one month to switch to the new platform.

“I knew it was extremely aggressive,” he says. “And some of my agents let me know they were not happy with being forced to switch so quickly.”

But training support from dotloop helped to make the process as painless as possible. And soon those agents who had expressed reservations about switching to dotloop were saying how they didn’t know how they could live without it.

Spearman says that his brokerage’s use of dotloop has become a tool for recruiting tech-savvy agents. Since adopting the platform, he’s grown from 90 to 175 agents. Using his highly effective sales system, this group is able to complete nearly 4,000 transactions per year, putting them nearly 25% above the average production for RE/MAX agents, and 250% of the number of deals completed by the average U.S. real estate agent.

“Having been a dotloop customer for several years,” says Spearman, “I’m happier than ever. We’ve succeeded as a brokerage because we’re able to quickly adjust to change. With constant improvement and regular updates, dotloop is agile just like us.”

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