The TC Exchange Podcast Episode 2: The Tech Stack
Today, we'll break down some of the essential tools, and also, I'll sprinkle in some of my personal recommendations throughout the episode.
Transaction Management Systems (1:05.8)
Let's kick things off by talking about the central hub of your operations - your transaction management system. Some platforms you might have heard of include OpenToClose, TCDocs, PaperlessPipeline, and A Frame. Now, in my experience, I've tried several of these and after testing them out, I landed on OpenToClose. It is a compelling platform. I love the automation and its integration with several programs that my team uses for other purposes. It makes transitions seamless. I also love that it holds all my email and test templates and uses incredible technology to intake a new file in no time. They also recently added an integration with DocuSign so you practically never have to leave the platform.
OpenToClose
TCDocs
PaperlessPipeline
A Frame
Email Management (1:56.5)
Now let's switch gears to email management. Email is where a lot of action happens. So whether it's Google or Outlook for your day to day correspondence or MailChimp and ConvertKit for those marketing emails, you've got some solid options. Personally, I've always leaned towards the entire Google suite of products. It's very user friendly and easy to learn. MailChimp is well known for marketing and integrates into so many platforms that it's a no-brainer.
Google
Outlook
MailChimp
ConvertKit
Cloud Storage Services (2:27.4)
Documents - we have so many of them, whether it is contracts or listing photos, Drive One, Drive and Dropbox are great options for secure storage. I swear by Drive being that I am a Google suite user. It makes the most sense for me.
Real Estate Software (2:45.2)
And no one wants to hear the word compliance, but it's a necessary part of our job. Platforms like Skyslope, Dotloop, Brivity, and Sisu can make the compliance process much more bearable. And when it comes to compliance, you will most likely be using whatever platform your agent's brokerage uses.
My personal favorites are Dotloop and Skyslope. I like that I can not only store compliance copies of documents on the platform. Each of those also has an e-signing feature that's very easy to use.
Team Communication (3:20.9)
Let's talk about how you're keeping your team in the loop. If you haven't checked out Slack or Microsoft Teams yet, they offer much more than just chat. Think file sharing, task assignments, and even video meetings. Communication is key and that's why I love Slack. Considering that I have a team across multiple time zones, having a place to easily connect and collaborate as a group is fantastic. I also love to use the video recording feature for quick training videos with screen share. This type of in the moment training is well received, and we have created a separate channel to share those for future reference.
Social Media Marketing (4:02.3)
Now, onto one of my favorite topics, social media and marketing. Canva, Meta, Hootsuite, and Buffer can help you easily manage your social media posts and marketing campaigns. My go to for this is Canva. Canva is growing and enhancing its product constantly. They have incorporated AI into the platform, which works great with creating branded presentations, documents, and even graphics.
Custom Relationship Management Systems (4:32.2)
Now, before we wrap up, let's talk about CRMs, or Customer Relationship Management Systems. Follow up boss, HubSpot, and Salesforce are the big players here, and they can seriously act like your virtual assistant.
If you're shopping for a CRM, consider Follow Up Boss. I find that its integrations make managing the client relationship as well as eventual transaction to be a great selling point.
Follow Up Boss
HubSpot
Salesforce
Financial Management (4:58.7)
And lastly, we cannot forget about financial management. We are after all building a business here from invoicing clients to tracking your expenses. QuickBooks, Wave, and FreshBooks have you covered. I have found QuickBooks is the platform that I prefer to keep those finances in check. I can connect it to my accounts and my bookkeeper can keep it all organized for me. And I also manage payroll and invoicing from there. So that's a lot of stuff, right?
Getting Started (5:30.9)
So I don't want you to feel too overwhelmed here. There are a lot of options that are out there, but if you're just getting started out as a transaction coordinator, I want you to know that you can absolutely start simple. When I started as a transaction coordinator, I simply used my Gmail. Google Sheets to create a virtual whiteboard and manage my transactions from there and my phone.
I didn't have really anything else, a laptop. So these types of additional tools are all things that I created down the road. And I think that they have helped me because my goal was to scale up my business. So I would recommend that as soon as you are ready to start scaling your business and want to make sure that you have technology to support you, that you look at adding some of these things.
The things that I would absolutely make sure that you get into place is your CRM, because this is how you're going to manage your lead generation and nurturing your clients relationships, your transaction management system. So whether you use a super badass, virtual whiteboard, or if you want to shift into a program with automations and things and templates and things that you can, work within that platform, then you should do that.
And then the last thing that I think that's absolutely crucial when you start out, is figuring out how you're going to manage your social media, how you're going to keep getting in front of the clients that you want. And so there we are, that wraps up our whirlwind tour of the must have tech tools for transaction coordinators.
Click here to access your Tech Stack Free Resource Comparison Guide that goes even more in depth into what we discussed today. Bye for now.
