January 17, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode, I do a deep dive on the different electronic signature platforms, and what my recommendation is if someone is looking to use this tool.
In this episode I cover: → Comparing and contrasting the top e-signing platforms. → How deal submission platforms are integrated and who they're integrated with. → What you need to consider when deciding on a platform to use.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, everyone.
(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of
Tech Talks.
This one, we go way back for our
longtime listeners to one of ouroriginal types of episode, which
is a software deep dive.
We get deep, we get techie in this
one.
I really enjoyed it.
What we talk about today is e-signature platforms, electronic
signature platforms.
Probably everyone who's listening
(00:21):
to this use these types ofplatforms, but I'm going to go
platform by platform, what youshould be looking for, how they
compare, and really what myultimate recommendation is if
someone is looking for this typeof tool for their business or
maybe looking to make a switch.
Like I said, it's a pretty techie
episode.
It's a lot of fun, and I think we
cover a lot of interesting ground.
If you use eSignature in your
business, see some value here.
Can't wait to see you on the other
(00:43):
side.
All right, let's get right into it
here.
This is going to be a lot to cover
in this episode.
So I want to get right into it
here.
So as a quick recap, we are going
through e -signing platforms.
Of course, since COVID, the
adoption of these have just takenoff.
(01:04):
But surprisingly, I'm still seeinga lot of maybe fragmentation in
the market.
Maybe not surprisingly.
I think it's a good thing to havelots of options.
But I think going into 2025,efficiency will be king,
especially in light of lots ofrenewals.
And with that, a lot of probablypaperwork to work through,
especially doing switches anddifferent things like that.
So let's get right into it here.
It's completely appropriate when
(01:25):
an episode talking about e-signing is to start with the
king, you know, the number one outthere, which of course is
DocuSign.
I mean, DocuSign, really, I'm not
going to beat around the bushhere, even though I have a little
bit of a horse in the race, whichI'll talk about later.
I mean, DocuSign really is theking.
You know, it's like one of thosethings that...
The brand name became the namethat you just used for it, right?
I mean, the only one I can thinkof right now is Kleenex, right?
(01:50):
How, you know, you say, hey, canyou pass me a Kleenex, which is
really just like a facial tissue,I guess you should call it.
But it was such a prominent brandin that space that everyone just
calls it a Kleenex and knows whatyou're talking about.
Even if it's, you know, the no-name brand or maybe some other
brand out there, I don't know.
You know, Kleenex became the name
of the thing, facial tissue.
DocuSign has become, and I'll take
a lot of circles, the name ofeSign where it's like, hey, I'll
(02:11):
send you a DocuSign.
Even if you're using a different
provider and some of the otherones will go through, you'll still
say that.
So it's absolutely king.
And I think there's a lot ofreasons why.
And I think rightfully so,interestingly enough.
But let's go through some of thefeatures.
I mean, right off the bat, kind ofthe interface that everyone's used
to where a document comes up andyou're able to click and drag and
put signatures in the appropriatespot.
(02:32):
I'm not going to spend a lot oftime on that type of feature.
I think that it is pretty muchstandard across the board, very
little variation across thedifferent players.
And it's kind of standard, right?It's like talking about that is
like talking about how an inboxreceives emails.
It's like, yeah, that's just whatit does.
That's what you do with an eSign.
So I'm not going to spend a lot of
time there, but it is easy to use.
They did pioneer a lot of it.
(02:54):
And so DocuSign is great withthat.
The particular feature that I dowant to spend maybe a little bit
more time, and then we'll talkabout other things about DocuSign,
but a feature that I really,really like that DocuSign
absolutely has is templates.
So this is, I think, still totally
underused right now in themortgage market.
I think the mortgage market is aperfect use case for these
templates.
And I see very, very few brokers
actually using these templates.
So what is a template?
Let me put it in an example that Ithink probably would make sense.
(03:17):
Let's say you get a commitmentfrom Scotia, let's say, and it's
just for one borrower, it's asingle borrower.
And of course, there's variations,different things, but more or less
the signatures and the initialskind of need to go in the same
place, whether you're doing acommitment now for this one client
or in two weeks, you have the samething.
They're kind of in the same spot.
(03:39):
If you can guess where I'm going
with this, the template allows youon kind of a blank canvas to say,
hey, if I get a document likethis, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, putting thesignatures, putting the initials,
putting the sign date in all thesedifferent places.
And you do that one time.
So it takes, of course, a little
bit of work.
And honestly, maybe that's the
reason why it's not as widelyadopted.
You do have to do this one timewhere you go in a blank canvas and
(04:00):
say, boom, boom, boom, I want toput all these signatures in all
these places.
But once that's done, then the
next time you get that Scotiacommitment with one borrower, You
don't have to redo it.
You just have to say, hey, apply
the template, boom, click, andthey're all there.
Now, there are some variation.
Maybe it's not going to be perfect
every time, but it's going to getyou 80 % of the way there.
I think maybe that's anotherreason people get a little bit
scared about these templates.
(04:21):
There is that variation.
It's not going to be perfect.
But you know what, I think 80 %
done, you know, automatically is alot better than 100 % done by you.
So if you're willing to go andjust kind of tweak that last 20 %
to account for those variations,these templates are amazing.
I'll give you a quick story.
We work with a broker who does
hundreds and hundreds ofapplications a month, commitments
that he does, and he uses theseall the time.
And what he's done, and it'staken, of course, that work up
(04:42):
front.
And again, that's maybe what's
required.
But he's gone through and he's
gone through every lender that heworks with, which is many.
And he's done, you know, Scotiaone borrower, Scotia two borrower,
Scotia three borrower, Scotia fourborrower, right?
Because, you know, differentsignatures needed for the
different borrowers.
And then he's done TD one
borrower, TD two borrower, youknow, so it is that work up front.
(05:03):
But now he has a catalog ofprobably over 100 of these
templates.
And so then anytime when these
commitments come in, it's justclick, click, click, boom.
And, you know, he's on to the nextone.
So I love these templates.
They're a great feature.
DocuSign is amazing at it.
And it's something I think anybody
needs to look at when they'redoing eSignature.
But just to round it out, Ialluded to other things about
(05:23):
DocuSign, not feature related.
I think these are actually hugely
important and probably, again, areason why it's so dominant.
I talked about at the beginningof, OK, hey, I'll just, you know,
I'll DocuSign you as the termpeople use for eSignature.
That's not just mortgage brokers.
It's also your clients, right?
And that's another huge one withthis, where although it's not too
complicated or too much variation,you know, as soon as you introduce
any type of friction to clients,it is a potential stumbling block,
(05:45):
which I always, you know, try toavoid, right?
And so your clients have receivedDocuSigns many, many, many times
probably.
And for that reason, they know
exactly where to click, how to doit.
There's no questions.
There's no friction there.
And so it's expected by clients.
I think this is huge.
I mean, as a quick side story forus, we work with the Zoho suite of
(06:06):
products for the people who knowBlue Mortgage were built.
And we work within Zoho, which isthis big suite of software tools.
And within it for free, we get ameeting tool, right?
Basically a tool that allowssomeone to jump on a meeting.
It's a video call.
We can talk about things great
for.
Demos, which we do a lot, but even
for a mortgage broker, jumping on,doing discovery calls, walking
(06:29):
through commitments, manydifferent types of situations for
those video calls.
We don't even use that.
Instead, we use Zoom for thatexact reason.
It's not really that much betterat this point.
in terms of video quality andthings like that.
It's just literally that peopleknow what a Zoom is and know where
to click to join a Zoom, right?Just click, click, click, click,
click.
And I know what a Zoom is.
I'm familiar with this and there'sno friction there.
For us, we see people joiningcalls much, much more frequently.
(06:50):
Not much, much actually, maybe.
10 to 20 % more frequently, but
that's enough for us to say, okay,it's worth it.
And so I think, you know, the samecould be applied to DocuSign to
say maybe 10 % of the time, maybeless, someone might stumble over a
different provider.
But if you can take out that 10%,
you know, those inches add up overand over again.
The other big thing that DocuSigndoes, and I know I'm going a lot
(07:11):
on DocuSign, the other ones willjust kind of quickly compare back
to DocuSign.
So, you know, don't expect maybe
this long of a rant for everysingle provider.
This is more just laying theframework.
But the other big thing aboutDocuSign, again, because it's
king, it's kind of one of these, Ithink, self -fulfilling
prophecies.
Because it is the market leader,
it's accepted by all lenders,assuming the lender does accept
eSign, right?And I think that's most now.
Maybe someone leaves some commentsbelow saying, okay, who exactly
(07:31):
isn't doing eSign these days?But most are.
And the first place they're goingto go, because a lot of these
lenders, yes, will do eSign, butwe want to look at the provider
that you're using.
We want to make sure that they're
SOC 2 compliant, they're secure,they're private, all these things
that we want to do to protect ourborrowers.
And DocuSign is always the firstplace that they're going to go.
And DocuSign is all those things.
It is very private, it is very
(07:53):
secure.
And so it's a very easy first one
for any lender to do.
And so, yeah, you never have to,
if you're going to use a DocuSign,question to yourself, hey, is a
lender going to accept this?I know for sure other providers
have been rejected, and I'll talkabout that in a second.
DocuSign will always go through,the lender will always accept
that.
Pretty huge, especially if you're
trying to be efficient.
The last thing, this is a quick
(08:14):
one, with DocuSign is the cost.
I always said in my head, which is
interesting, it's just soexpensive.
Yes, it's king.
Yes, you know, it's got all these
bells and whistles.
It's great and blah, blah, blah.
But they know that and they chargeaccordingly.
But in doing my research for thisepisode, that's actually not
completely true.
It's a little bit true.
Not to the degree maybe that Ithought.
So real quick, I'll just throw outthe number.
It's about 33 bucks a month forunlimited, I think it's envelopes.
(08:35):
I think that, and then you have tocommit to the year.
So you can, you know, whatever,multiply by 12 there.
Or if you just want what they calltheir starter pack, it's five
signatures or packages a month.
And that's 13 bucks a month.
So yeah, it's a lot, right?So almost, I guess if you do the
first package, it's going to bealmost 400 bucks -ish on the year
to do that.
So that's a lot of money, 400
(08:57):
bucks in the year.
But it's not like astronomical,
right?It's not over the moon.
And I think that's honestlychanged recently, which is really,
really interesting.
Okay, so I took about almost 10
minutes there to talk aboutDocuSign.
But like I said, I think it'sreally, really important to lay
the foundation.
So now we're just going to go
rapid fire through some of theseother ones and really how they
compare back to DocuSign.
Okay, so the first one I kind of
(09:19):
came to mind, the one I hear alittle bit more and more these
days is HelloSign.
So HelloSign is a provider.
They've actually, I don't knowwhen it actually happened.
Maybe I'll actually quickly lookthis up.
Okay, this was in 2019.
So actually really good timing for
DocuSign with COVID.
HelloSign's probably kicking
themselves.
Because they acquire that and then
COVID happens and everyone movesto eSign.
And it's probably a very goodacquisition for Dropbox.
And the HelloSign founders are alittle probably upset with
(09:39):
themselves.
But in any case, I digress with
this.
I hear it probably second most to
DocuSign.
I'm not as familiar with it.
And of course, I think yourclients aren't as familiar with
it.
So that's one thing.
And we talked about why that'simportant, that familiarity.
And then the other big piece withit is...
The acceptance by lenders, again,it's not the first one because
that lack of familiarity, it's notnecessarily the first one people
go to.
(10:00):
Now, Dropbox is a big name.
I am certain that this is verysecure, very private.
If it went through the ringer forany lender, I'm sure that it's
going to pass with flying colors.
So if you're using it, it's not
that I would say that you need toworry.
It's just that has each lendergone through that due diligence
(10:20):
for HelloSign?I don't know.
I think a lot do accept it fromwhat I've heard.
And the fact that I've heard somany brokers using it probably
tells me that, yeah, it probablydoes get accepted.
You know, it's just not certain,right?
You do have to have a little bitof doubt, especially maybe it's a
new lender you're working withthat seeded out with something
like HelloSign.
(10:41):
The real benefit I see with this
over DocuSign, just from a peerfuture perspective, is the fact
that it's in the Dropbox family,right?
So if you are using Dropboxalready, that integration is
pretty nice, right?Where you can... you know, sign a
document and then it automaticallygets added to the appropriate
folder.
There's no manual work for you.
So that's good.
If you are using Dropbox, that's
good.
But there's actually a couple of
cautions I would say to that.
I'm going to touch on it later.
(11:01):
I've done this a couple of timesnow where I say I'm going to touch
on it later, but I will circleback to this point where, you
know, having these things verytightly coupled actually might not
be a great thing.
And so, yeah, let's put a pin in
that one for now because it's apart of a bigger conversation I
want to have.
With all that said, I looked at
it, and this is the part thatshocked me, and this is the part
(11:22):
that I was alluding to earlier.
I looked at the pricing.
It's more expensive than DocuSign.
It's crazy.
DocuSign is all these great thingsthat I talked about, all these
benefits to you, your clients,your lenders, and it's cheaper
than the Dropbox HelloSign.
If anyone out there is using
Dropbox HelloSign, and I missedsomething, let me know, but I see
no reason why you should be... onthis product when the better
product is cheaper.
(11:43):
So yeah, again, maybe in the
comments, let me know.
But anyone who has any kind of
questions, which one should gowith, if you're looking just at
these two, go with DocuSign.
Don't think about it and just go
with the winner.
Okay, next one.
I said it was rapid fire.
So we're going to keep going
through here.
Adobe Sign.
This is, again, very similar, Iwould say, to HelloSign.
And that, yes, it has a drag anddrop.
Yes, it's very private and secure.
But is it accepted by all lenders?
I don't know.
Are your clients familiar with it?
Probably, but not certainly.
They're probably more familiar
(12:03):
with DocuSign.
But at least they've done their
market research, I guess you couldsay.
So Adobe Sign, at the very least,understands that, understands
their position in the marketplace,and has priced things.
It's about, I think, when I lookedat it, 20 % cheaper than DocuSign.
So it's not like you're going tosave a hand and a foot, but you're
going to save some money.
So if cost is a big concern, you
(12:24):
want to use one of theseproviders.
Adobe might be a contender in thatsense.
The other thing that does make alot of sense with this, similar to
Dropbox, it's part of a biggerAdobe bundle.
And unlike any of these otherproviders, Adobe does provide
unique services.
So the idea of being able to
aggregate and bring together andadd and remove documents, PDFs, is
something that you probably needto do in Adobe.
And with that... the Acrobatstandard comes the e -sign, right?
So for some people, they're like,I need this anyways, right?
(12:45):
I need to be able to merge thesedocuments together to put together
my commitments, whatever it mightbe.
You know, it's the way I like tosend my docs to the lender is one
big document, or maybe that's theway my underwriter likes to
receive them.
In any case, if that's a priority
for you and you're going to getAdobe anyways, well then, hey,
(13:05):
it's kind of included as part ofthat.
You kind of get these two thingstogether.
That's good.
Again, I caution, OK, be careful
about bundling these things up.
But, you know, I think it makes a
little bit more sense because, youknow, it's a pretty unique value
add that Adobe has.
They have that Acrobat reader,
which is kind of unique in itscategory.
OK, continuing through, Imentioned earlier that I had a
horse in the race.
And so let's talk about that
(13:27):
horse.
The horse that I have in the race
is Zoho Signs.
So I alluded to it earlier.
Our product, Blue Mortgage, isbuilt on the Zoho suite of
products.
Of course, primarily it's a CRM.
But as part of that suite ofproducts, of things in it, it does
come with an e -signature.
(13:47):
That e -signature is called Zoho
Sign.
Basically, I wouldn't really make
it too dissimilar with really allthe other ones that we just talked
about, Hello Sign.
They're all kind of, there's like
one, and then there's like two,two, two, two, two.
There's a bunch of these twos.
And so, yeah, basically with Zoho
Sign, you get the templates.
They're amazing.
That's great.
In terms of lenders, I can speak
to this more certainly.
across the board, haven't had any
issues or heard any issues withlenders except for one.
(14:09):
And I'm sure you guys could guesswhat that is.
And that lender is Scotia.
But it's also not even 100 % of
the time with Scotia.
It's like 80 % of the time, it's
good.
But 20 % of the time, you might
get this underwriter or they'rehaving a bad day or something.
I don't know.
that gets rejected.
And so usually what I say topeople is, okay, if you're going
to use this, use the whole sign,but keep a couple DocuSign
(14:30):
envelopes in your back pocket incase this sort of thing happens.
So it's a little bit inconvenientin that sense.
And again, I'd imagine that AdobeSign, HelloSign, they're all very
similar in that sense.
Same point about client
familiarity.
Most are not as familiar as
DocuSign.
Most clients aren't as familiar
with DocuSign, but 95 % of themcan figure it out.
(14:51):
They click, they know how to gothrough and do a package like
that.
So really with this, what I say is
that if you are using the Zohosuite, it's kind of good cost
savings, right?It's kind of like the Adobe point
to make, which is, hey, if you'realready paying for Adobe to move
documents around, hey, you getthis nice e -sign with it.
It's kind of the same point.
If you're going to use Blue
Mortgage or Zoho or one of thesetools for your CRM, hey, you got
(15:13):
the e -sign with it, right?So that's really the benefit and
how I see people using it.
And honestly, my recommendation
when it comes down to that.
OK, the last category here, the e
-sign right within your dealsubmission platform.
So this is getting used more andmore and more.
And, you know, it's a nice thingto have.
So I'll just go through a coupleof the big ones, the research I
was able to do ahead of this, theones I was able to find.
So starting with Velocity, I wasable to look at what they have.
(15:36):
They use DocuSign.
So I use that word a lot, but they
basically in their product, theydon't have their own e -sign.
They've embedded this providerright in their product.
DocuSign.
And so really all the points made
DocuSign can be made here.
I actually don't know if you can
do templates in Velocity ifsomeone knows one way or the
other.
I wasn't able to see that.
I was looking for it.
I don't know.
(15:57):
So maybe that's actually one ofthe drawbacks of doing it in your
deal submission platform.
You don't get maybe all the
features because it isn't thewhole product, right?
It's like this embedded versionthat Velocity has taken and put in
their product.
And it's a little bit less.
But again, the benefit, we talkedabout some of these other, in
these other cases, that it is allwithin that ecosystem, right?
So if you've collected documentsor you have a compliance document
in Velocity, because that's whereyou're managing things anyways,
it's just a few clicks to get it,you know, over into an eSign
(16:20):
platform, which is really, reallygreat.
And that's true for all theseplatforms I'm about to talk about.
Having it all in one place issuper convenient, which is nice.
Scarlet, Scarlet, Mortgage, AxiomInnovations.
They do DocuSign as well.
It's almost identical how Velocity
does it.
So I'm not going to spend too much
time on it.
The only difference is that I can
maybe find, I know for sureVelocity charges for it.
So if you use an envelope inDocuSign, they'll actually charge
you for it, which I totallyunderstand because they probably
(16:44):
have costs from DocuSign.
I wasn't able to find that on
Scarlett.
And maybe that's, again, just lack
of research.
So again, if anyone out there
knows this.
But I wasn't able to find that
wasn't immediately apparent on anyof kind of their public facing
information.
So curious about that one, but
that might be the only difference.
But if I had to guess, if I was a
betting man, I'd probably chargesomething, probably a couple bucks
per envelope, something verysimilar to Velocity.
(17:05):
And then the final one I did someresearch on was Finmo, Lendesk.
They have an e -signature rightwithin their platform.
They don't charge for it.
So that's a little bit different
than the other ones.
It's one span, which we haven't
talked about yet.
You know, it's obviously not
DocuSign.
I've talked a lot about DocuSign
this episode.
It's probably similar to some of
the other ones.
I honestly actually have heard
(17:26):
that some of the UI in terms ofclicking and dragging and finding
the right box to put it in can geta little finicky sometimes.
I'm not as familiar with it, butagain, I kind of put it in that
two category.
If DocuSign is one and all these
other ones are in the two bucket,I think one span belongs there as
well.
So I've been alluding to it the
whole episode.
(17:47):
And I think especially in terms of
deal submission platforms, this isof course true as well, is yes,
things integrated all together isreally nice and very convenient
and might save me some money.
But what's the downside of it?
And the downside of it is, youknow, the stickiness that comes
with it, right?So if I go back even to the
Dropbox little blurb that I had.
Yes, it's nice that they're
integrated, they're all together,but now you're that much more
(18:07):
dependent on Dropbox.
Now it's that much harder to leave
Dropbox.
I would even say the same about
Zoho and Blue Mortgage, right?If you're using the e -sign there,
it's that much harder to leaveBlue Mortgage, right?
If I'm being unbiased about that.
And of course, that's absolutely
true about your deal submissionplatform.
If you're using e -signaturethere, if all these documents that
are actually really important forcompliance are just embedded.
as part of your deal submissionplatform, it's going to be that
(18:29):
much harder to switch.
And I just caution because I have
seen a lot of switches in thepast, call it two, three years.
And, you know, these platformsknow it.
And that's a lot of the reason whythey come out with these features.
Of course, they want to make abetter product.
And I totally understand whatthey're doing.
But they're also in the back oftheir head saying, hey, the better
the product, the more embeddedthese types of things are in my
product, the harder it is toleave.
(18:50):
I guess kind of, so what, right?If someone's listening to like,
okay, I can kind of get on boardwith what you're saying, Tom, so
what do I do about it?I just say, keep it kind of church
and state in a sense of, you know,look for your eSign platform,
whatever it might be, and pick itbased on eSign, really.
And okay, you know what, maybe ifyou want to say someone use these
(19:11):
other platforms, but don't keep itin these platforms, right?
So even if you're using, I'll useBlue Mortgage, just to show I'm
not biased here.
Even if you're using the eSign in
Blue Mortgage.
Go once it's signed and put it
into your local drive or yourGoogle drive or whatever you use
that's independent, that'sdifferent so that, hey, if
tomorrow you say I want to nolonger use Blue Mortgage or this
deal submission platform, you'relike, but oh crap, I don't have
(19:32):
all my documents that I need.
Okay, I can't leave.
Keep it separate, separate theseinterests and keep each tool for
really what it's intended for.
And that way you can make really
the right decisions for.
your mortgage business.
Okay, that about wraps it up heretoday.
I hope that was informative.
Anybody has other opinions?
And I know there were someuncertainties in this episode.
So if you can fill in those blanksfor me, please leave it in the
comments below.
But thanks so much, and we'll see
(19:53):
you next week.
Hello, everyone.
(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of
Tech Talks.
This one, we go way back for our
longtime listeners to one of ouroriginal types of episode, which
is a software deep dive.
We get deep, we get techie in this
one.
I really enjoyed it.
What we talk about today is e-signature platforms, electronic
signature platforms.
Probably everyone who's listening
(00:21):
to this use these types ofplatforms, but I'm going to go
platform by platform, what youshould be looking for, how they
compare, and really what myultimate recommendation is if
someone is looking for this typeof tool for their business or
maybe looking to make a switch.
Like I said, it's a pretty techie
episode.
It's a lot of fun, and I think we
cover a lot of interesting ground.
If you use eSignature in your
business, see some value here.
Can't wait to see you on the other
(00:43):
side.
All right, let's get right into it
here.
This is going to be a lot to cover
in this episode.
So I want to get right into it
here.
So as a quick recap, we are going
through e -signing platforms.
Of course, since COVID, the
adoption of these have just takenoff.
(01:04):
But surprisingly, I'm still seeinga lot of maybe fragmentation in
the market.
Maybe not surprisingly.
I think it's a good thing to havelots of options.
But I think going into 2025,efficiency will be king,
especially in light of lots ofrenewals.
And with that, a lot of probablypaperwork to work through,
especially doing switches anddifferent things like that.
So let's get right into it here.
It's completely appropriate when
(01:25):
an episode talking about e-signing is to start with the
king, you know, the number one outthere, which of course is
DocuSign.
I mean, DocuSign, really, I'm not
going to beat around the bushhere, even though I have a little
bit of a horse in the race, whichI'll talk about later.
I mean, DocuSign really is theking.
You know, it's like one of thosethings that...
The brand name became the namethat you just used for it, right?
I mean, the only one I can thinkof right now is Kleenex, right?
(01:50):
How, you know, you say, hey, canyou pass me a Kleenex, which is
really just like a facial tissue,I guess you should call it.
But it was such a prominent brandin that space that everyone just
calls it a Kleenex and knows whatyou're talking about.
Even if it's, you know, the no-name brand or maybe some other
brand out there, I don't know.
You know, Kleenex became the name
of the thing, facial tissue.
DocuSign has become, and I'll take
a lot of circles, the name ofeSign where it's like, hey, I'll
(02:11):
send you a DocuSign.
Even if you're using a different
provider and some of the otherones will go through, you'll still
say that.
So it's absolutely king.
And I think there's a lot ofreasons why.
And I think rightfully so,interestingly enough.
But let's go through some of thefeatures.
I mean, right off the bat, kind ofthe interface that everyone's used
to where a document comes up andyou're able to click and drag and
put signatures in the appropriatespot.
(02:32):
I'm not going to spend a lot oftime on that type of feature.
I think that it is pretty muchstandard across the board, very
little variation across thedifferent players.
And it's kind of standard, right?It's like talking about that is
like talking about how an inboxreceives emails.
It's like, yeah, that's just whatit does.
That's what you do with an eSign.
So I'm not going to spend a lot of
time there, but it is easy to use.
They did pioneer a lot of it.
(02:54):
And so DocuSign is great withthat.
The particular feature that I dowant to spend maybe a little bit
more time, and then we'll talkabout other things about DocuSign,
but a feature that I really,really like that DocuSign
absolutely has is templates.
So this is, I think, still totally
underused right now in themortgage market.
I think the mortgage market is aperfect use case for these
templates.
And I see very, very few brokers
actually using these templates.
So what is a template?
Let me put it in an example that Ithink probably would make sense.
(03:17):
Let's say you get a commitmentfrom Scotia, let's say, and it's
just for one borrower, it's asingle borrower.
And of course, there's variations,different things, but more or less
the signatures and the initialskind of need to go in the same
place, whether you're doing acommitment now for this one client
or in two weeks, you have the samething.
They're kind of in the same spot.
(03:39):
If you can guess where I'm going
with this, the template allows youon kind of a blank canvas to say,
hey, if I get a document likethis, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, putting thesignatures, putting the initials,
putting the sign date in all thesedifferent places.
And you do that one time.
So it takes, of course, a little
bit of work.
And honestly, maybe that's the
reason why it's not as widelyadopted.
You do have to do this one timewhere you go in a blank canvas and
(04:00):
say, boom, boom, boom, I want toput all these signatures in all
these places.
But once that's done, then the
next time you get that Scotiacommitment with one borrower, You
don't have to redo it.
You just have to say, hey, apply
the template, boom, click, andthey're all there.
Now, there are some variation.
Maybe it's not going to be perfect
every time, but it's going to getyou 80 % of the way there.
I think maybe that's anotherreason people get a little bit
scared about these templates.
(04:21):
There is that variation.
It's not going to be perfect.
But you know what, I think 80 %
done, you know, automatically is alot better than 100 % done by you.
So if you're willing to go andjust kind of tweak that last 20 %
to account for those variations,these templates are amazing.
I'll give you a quick story.
We work with a broker who does
hundreds and hundreds ofapplications a month, commitments
that he does, and he uses theseall the time.
And what he's done, and it'staken, of course, that work up
(04:42):
front.
And again, that's maybe what's
required.
But he's gone through and he's
gone through every lender that heworks with, which is many.
And he's done, you know, Scotiaone borrower, Scotia two borrower,
Scotia three borrower, Scotia fourborrower, right?
Because, you know, differentsignatures needed for the
different borrowers.
And then he's done TD one
borrower, TD two borrower, youknow, so it is that work up front.
(05:03):
But now he has a catalog ofprobably over 100 of these
templates.
And so then anytime when these
commitments come in, it's justclick, click, click, boom.
And, you know, he's on to the nextone.
So I love these templates.
They're a great feature.
DocuSign is amazing at it.
And it's something I think anybody
needs to look at when they'redoing eSignature.
But just to round it out, Ialluded to other things about
(05:23):
DocuSign, not feature related.
I think these are actually hugely
important and probably, again, areason why it's so dominant.
I talked about at the beginningof, OK, hey, I'll just, you know,
I'll DocuSign you as the termpeople use for eSignature.
That's not just mortgage brokers.
It's also your clients, right?
And that's another huge one withthis, where although it's not too
complicated or too much variation,you know, as soon as you introduce
any type of friction to clients,it is a potential stumbling block,
(05:45):
which I always, you know, try toavoid, right?
And so your clients have receivedDocuSigns many, many, many times
probably.
And for that reason, they know
exactly where to click, how to doit.
There's no questions.
There's no friction there.
And so it's expected by clients.
I think this is huge.
I mean, as a quick side story forus, we work with the Zoho suite of
(06:06):
products for the people who knowBlue Mortgage were built.
And we work within Zoho, which isthis big suite of software tools.
And within it for free, we get ameeting tool, right?
Basically a tool that allowssomeone to jump on a meeting.
It's a video call.
We can talk about things great
for.
Demos, which we do a lot, but even
for a mortgage broker, jumping on,doing discovery calls, walking
(06:29):
through commitments, manydifferent types of situations for
those video calls.
We don't even use that.
Instead, we use Zoom for thatexact reason.
It's not really that much betterat this point.
in terms of video quality andthings like that.
It's just literally that peopleknow what a Zoom is and know where
to click to join a Zoom, right?Just click, click, click, click,
click.
And I know what a Zoom is.
I'm familiar with this and there'sno friction there.
For us, we see people joiningcalls much, much more frequently.
(06:50):
Not much, much actually, maybe.
10 to 20 % more frequently, but
that's enough for us to say, okay,it's worth it.
And so I think, you know, the samecould be applied to DocuSign to
say maybe 10 % of the time, maybeless, someone might stumble over a
different provider.
But if you can take out that 10%,
you know, those inches add up overand over again.
The other big thing that DocuSigndoes, and I know I'm going a lot
(07:11):
on DocuSign, the other ones willjust kind of quickly compare back
to DocuSign.
So, you know, don't expect maybe
this long of a rant for everysingle provider.
This is more just laying theframework.
But the other big thing aboutDocuSign, again, because it's
king, it's kind of one of these, Ithink, self -fulfilling
prophecies.
Because it is the market leader,
it's accepted by all lenders,assuming the lender does accept
eSign, right?And I think that's most now.
Maybe someone leaves some commentsbelow saying, okay, who exactly
(07:31):
isn't doing eSign these days?But most are.
And the first place they're goingto go, because a lot of these
lenders, yes, will do eSign, butwe want to look at the provider
that you're using.
We want to make sure that they're
SOC 2 compliant, they're secure,they're private, all these things
that we want to do to protect ourborrowers.
And DocuSign is always the firstplace that they're going to go.
And DocuSign is all those things.
It is very private, it is very
(07:53):
secure.
And so it's a very easy first one
for any lender to do.
And so, yeah, you never have to,
if you're going to use a DocuSign,question to yourself, hey, is a
lender going to accept this?I know for sure other providers
have been rejected, and I'll talkabout that in a second.
DocuSign will always go through,the lender will always accept
that.
Pretty huge, especially if you're
trying to be efficient.
The last thing, this is a quick
(08:14):
one, with DocuSign is the cost.
I always said in my head, which is
interesting, it's just soexpensive.
Yes, it's king.
Yes, you know, it's got all these
bells and whistles.
It's great and blah, blah, blah.
But they know that and they chargeaccordingly.
But in doing my research for thisepisode, that's actually not
completely true.
It's a little bit true.
Not to the degree maybe that Ithought.
So real quick, I'll just throw outthe number.
It's about 33 bucks a month forunlimited, I think it's envelopes.
(08:35):
I think that, and then you have tocommit to the year.
So you can, you know, whatever,multiply by 12 there.
Or if you just want what they calltheir starter pack, it's five
signatures or packages a month.
And that's 13 bucks a month.
So yeah, it's a lot, right?So almost, I guess if you do the
first package, it's going to bealmost 400 bucks -ish on the year
to do that.
So that's a lot of money, 400
(08:57):
bucks in the year.
But it's not like astronomical,
right?It's not over the moon.
And I think that's honestlychanged recently, which is really,
really interesting.
Okay, so I took about almost 10
minutes there to talk aboutDocuSign.
But like I said, I think it'sreally, really important to lay
the foundation.
So now we're just going to go
rapid fire through some of theseother ones and really how they
compare back to DocuSign.
Okay, so the first one I kind of
(09:19):
came to mind, the one I hear alittle bit more and more these
days is HelloSign.
So HelloSign is a provider.
They've actually, I don't knowwhen it actually happened.
Maybe I'll actually quickly lookthis up.
Okay, this was in 2019.
So actually really good timing for
DocuSign with COVID.
HelloSign's probably kicking
themselves.
Because they acquire that and then
COVID happens and everyone movesto eSign.
And it's probably a very goodacquisition for Dropbox.
And the HelloSign founders are alittle probably upset with
(09:39):
themselves.
But in any case, I digress with
this.
I hear it probably second most to
DocuSign.
I'm not as familiar with it.
And of course, I think yourclients aren't as familiar with
it.
So that's one thing.
And we talked about why that'simportant, that familiarity.
And then the other big piece withit is...
The acceptance by lenders, again,it's not the first one because
that lack of familiarity, it's notnecessarily the first one people
go to.
(10:00):
Now, Dropbox is a big name.
I am certain that this is verysecure, very private.
If it went through the ringer forany lender, I'm sure that it's
going to pass with flying colors.
So if you're using it, it's not
that I would say that you need toworry.
It's just that has each lendergone through that due diligence
(10:20):
for HelloSign?I don't know.
I think a lot do accept it fromwhat I've heard.
And the fact that I've heard somany brokers using it probably
tells me that, yeah, it probablydoes get accepted.
You know, it's just not certain,right?
You do have to have a little bitof doubt, especially maybe it's a
new lender you're working withthat seeded out with something
like HelloSign.
(10:41):
The real benefit I see with this
over DocuSign, just from a peerfuture perspective, is the fact
that it's in the Dropbox family,right?
So if you are using Dropboxalready, that integration is
pretty nice, right?Where you can... you know, sign a
document and then it automaticallygets added to the appropriate
folder.
There's no manual work for you.
So that's good.
If you are using Dropbox, that's
good.
But there's actually a couple of
cautions I would say to that.
I'm going to touch on it later.
(11:01):
I've done this a couple of timesnow where I say I'm going to touch
on it later, but I will circleback to this point where, you
know, having these things verytightly coupled actually might not
be a great thing.
And so, yeah, let's put a pin in
that one for now because it's apart of a bigger conversation I
want to have.
With all that said, I looked at
it, and this is the part thatshocked me, and this is the part
(11:22):
that I was alluding to earlier.
I looked at the pricing.
It's more expensive than DocuSign.
It's crazy.
DocuSign is all these great thingsthat I talked about, all these
benefits to you, your clients,your lenders, and it's cheaper
than the Dropbox HelloSign.
If anyone out there is using
Dropbox HelloSign, and I missedsomething, let me know, but I see
no reason why you should be... onthis product when the better
product is cheaper.
(11:43):
So yeah, again, maybe in the
comments, let me know.
But anyone who has any kind of
questions, which one should gowith, if you're looking just at
these two, go with DocuSign.
Don't think about it and just go
with the winner.
Okay, next one.
I said it was rapid fire.
So we're going to keep going
through here.
Adobe Sign.
This is, again, very similar, Iwould say, to HelloSign.
And that, yes, it has a drag anddrop.
Yes, it's very private and secure.
But is it accepted by all lenders?
I don't know.
Are your clients familiar with it?
Probably, but not certainly.
They're probably more familiar
(12:03):
with DocuSign.
But at least they've done their
market research, I guess you couldsay.
So Adobe Sign, at the very least,understands that, understands
their position in the marketplace,and has priced things.
It's about, I think, when I lookedat it, 20 % cheaper than DocuSign.
So it's not like you're going tosave a hand and a foot, but you're
going to save some money.
So if cost is a big concern, you
(12:24):
want to use one of theseproviders.
Adobe might be a contender in thatsense.
The other thing that does make alot of sense with this, similar to
Dropbox, it's part of a biggerAdobe bundle.
And unlike any of these otherproviders, Adobe does provide
unique services.
So the idea of being able to
aggregate and bring together andadd and remove documents, PDFs, is
something that you probably needto do in Adobe.
And with that... the Acrobatstandard comes the e -sign, right?
So for some people, they're like,I need this anyways, right?
(12:45):
I need to be able to merge thesedocuments together to put together
my commitments, whatever it mightbe.
You know, it's the way I like tosend my docs to the lender is one
big document, or maybe that's theway my underwriter likes to
receive them.
In any case, if that's a priority
for you and you're going to getAdobe anyways, well then, hey,
(13:05):
it's kind of included as part ofthat.
You kind of get these two thingstogether.
That's good.
Again, I caution, OK, be careful
about bundling these things up.
But, you know, I think it makes a
little bit more sense because, youknow, it's a pretty unique value
add that Adobe has.
They have that Acrobat reader,
which is kind of unique in itscategory.
OK, continuing through, Imentioned earlier that I had a
horse in the race.
And so let's talk about that
(13:27):
horse.
The horse that I have in the race
is Zoho Signs.
So I alluded to it earlier.
Our product, Blue Mortgage, isbuilt on the Zoho suite of
products.
Of course, primarily it's a CRM.
But as part of that suite ofproducts, of things in it, it does
come with an e -signature.
(13:47):
That e -signature is called Zoho
Sign.
Basically, I wouldn't really make
it too dissimilar with really allthe other ones that we just talked
about, Hello Sign.
They're all kind of, there's like
one, and then there's like two,two, two, two, two.
There's a bunch of these twos.
And so, yeah, basically with Zoho
Sign, you get the templates.
They're amazing.
That's great.
In terms of lenders, I can speak
to this more certainly.
across the board, haven't had any
issues or heard any issues withlenders except for one.
(14:09):
And I'm sure you guys could guesswhat that is.
And that lender is Scotia.
But it's also not even 100 % of
the time with Scotia.
It's like 80 % of the time, it's
good.
But 20 % of the time, you might
get this underwriter or they'rehaving a bad day or something.
I don't know.
that gets rejected.
And so usually what I say topeople is, okay, if you're going
to use this, use the whole sign,but keep a couple DocuSign
(14:30):
envelopes in your back pocket incase this sort of thing happens.
So it's a little bit inconvenientin that sense.
And again, I'd imagine that AdobeSign, HelloSign, they're all very
similar in that sense.
Same point about client
familiarity.
Most are not as familiar as
DocuSign.
Most clients aren't as familiar
with DocuSign, but 95 % of themcan figure it out.
(14:51):
They click, they know how to gothrough and do a package like
that.
So really with this, what I say is
that if you are using the Zohosuite, it's kind of good cost
savings, right?It's kind of like the Adobe point
to make, which is, hey, if you'realready paying for Adobe to move
documents around, hey, you getthis nice e -sign with it.
It's kind of the same point.
If you're going to use Blue
Mortgage or Zoho or one of thesetools for your CRM, hey, you got
(15:13):
the e -sign with it, right?So that's really the benefit and
how I see people using it.
And honestly, my recommendation
when it comes down to that.
OK, the last category here, the e
-sign right within your dealsubmission platform.
So this is getting used more andmore and more.
And, you know, it's a nice thingto have.
So I'll just go through a coupleof the big ones, the research I
was able to do ahead of this, theones I was able to find.
So starting with Velocity, I wasable to look at what they have.
(15:36):
They use DocuSign.
So I use that word a lot, but they
basically in their product, theydon't have their own e -sign.
They've embedded this providerright in their product.
DocuSign.
And so really all the points made
DocuSign can be made here.
I actually don't know if you can
do templates in Velocity ifsomeone knows one way or the
other.
I wasn't able to see that.
I was looking for it.
I don't know.
(15:57):
So maybe that's actually one ofthe drawbacks of doing it in your
deal submission platform.
You don't get maybe all the
features because it isn't thewhole product, right?
It's like this embedded versionthat Velocity has taken and put in
their product.
And it's a little bit less.
But again, the benefit, we talkedabout some of these other, in
these other cases, that it is allwithin that ecosystem, right?
So if you've collected documentsor you have a compliance document
in Velocity, because that's whereyou're managing things anyways,
it's just a few clicks to get it,you know, over into an eSign
(16:20):
platform, which is really, reallygreat.
And that's true for all theseplatforms I'm about to talk about.
Having it all in one place issuper convenient, which is nice.
Scarlet, Scarlet, Mortgage, AxiomInnovations.
They do DocuSign as well.
It's almost identical how Velocity
does it.
So I'm not going to spend too much
time on it.
The only difference is that I can
maybe find, I know for sureVelocity charges for it.
So if you use an envelope inDocuSign, they'll actually charge
you for it, which I totallyunderstand because they probably
(16:44):
have costs from DocuSign.
I wasn't able to find that on
Scarlett.
And maybe that's, again, just lack
of research.
So again, if anyone out there
knows this.
But I wasn't able to find that
wasn't immediately apparent on anyof kind of their public facing
information.
So curious about that one, but
that might be the only difference.
But if I had to guess, if I was a
betting man, I'd probably chargesomething, probably a couple bucks
per envelope, something verysimilar to Velocity.
(17:05):
And then the final one I did someresearch on was Finmo, Lendesk.
They have an e -signature rightwithin their platform.
They don't charge for it.
So that's a little bit different
than the other ones.
It's one span, which we haven't
talked about yet.
You know, it's obviously not
DocuSign.
I've talked a lot about DocuSign
this episode.
It's probably similar to some of
the other ones.
I honestly actually have heard
(17:26):
that some of the UI in terms ofclicking and dragging and finding
the right box to put it in can geta little finicky sometimes.
I'm not as familiar with it, butagain, I kind of put it in that
two category.
If DocuSign is one and all these
other ones are in the two bucket,I think one span belongs there as
well.
So I've been alluding to it the
whole episode.
(17:47):
And I think especially in terms of
deal submission platforms, this isof course true as well, is yes,
things integrated all together isreally nice and very convenient
and might save me some money.
But what's the downside of it?
And the downside of it is, youknow, the stickiness that comes
with it, right?So if I go back even to the
Dropbox little blurb that I had.
Yes, it's nice that they're
integrated, they're all together,but now you're that much more
(18:07):
dependent on Dropbox.
Now it's that much harder to leave
Dropbox.
I would even say the same about
Zoho and Blue Mortgage, right?If you're using the e -sign there,
it's that much harder to leaveBlue Mortgage, right?
If I'm being unbiased about that.
And of course, that's absolutely
true about your deal submissionplatform.
If you're using e -signaturethere, if all these documents that
are actually really important forcompliance are just embedded.
as part of your deal submissionplatform, it's going to be that
(18:29):
much harder to switch.
And I just caution because I have
seen a lot of switches in thepast, call it two, three years.
And, you know, these platformsknow it.
And that's a lot of the reason whythey come out with these features.
Of course, they want to make abetter product.
And I totally understand whatthey're doing.
But they're also in the back oftheir head saying, hey, the better
the product, the more embeddedthese types of things are in my
product, the harder it is toleave.
(18:50):
I guess kind of, so what, right?If someone's listening to like,
okay, I can kind of get on boardwith what you're saying, Tom, so
what do I do about it?I just say, keep it kind of church
and state in a sense of, you know,look for your eSign platform,
whatever it might be, and pick itbased on eSign, really.
And okay, you know what, maybe ifyou want to say someone use these
(19:11):
other platforms, but don't keep itin these platforms, right?
So even if you're using, I'll useBlue Mortgage, just to show I'm
not biased here.
Even if you're using the eSign in
Blue Mortgage.
Go once it's signed and put it
into your local drive or yourGoogle drive or whatever you use
that's independent, that'sdifferent so that, hey, if
tomorrow you say I want to nolonger use Blue Mortgage or this
deal submission platform, you'relike, but oh crap, I don't have
(19:32):
all my documents that I need.
Okay, I can't leave.
Keep it separate, separate theseinterests and keep each tool for
really what it's intended for.
And that way you can make really
the right decisions for.
your mortgage business.
Okay, that about wraps it up heretoday.
I hope that was informative.
Anybody has other opinions?
And I know there were someuncertainties in this episode.
So if you can fill in those blanksfor me, please leave it in the
comments below.
But thanks so much, and we'll see
(19:53):
you next week.
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