Hello World! HelloSign Keap Integration Has Arrived

Time kills deals.

Busy work kills your passion.

Miscommunication kills your profits.

Not crossing your “Ts” and dotting your “Is” kills your business.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Time Kills Deals (I don’t care what Mick Jagger says!)

We’re in an instant gratification world today.

Amazon delivers on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, and well into the evening every day.

“Order by 3 PM and get it tomorrow.”

Prospects may take days, weeks, even months to make a decision, but when they do decide, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get the paperwork signed ASAP so they can pay you, you can get to work for them, and they can benefit from your work.

But getting those signatures can be time-consuming, complex, and frustrating if you don’t have an electronic signature tool like HelloSign + Keap to automate signing documents at your disposal. 

With the native Keap integration, you can have everything you need for any contract or agreement built out ahead of time (You do have templates and boilerplate agreements for your business, right?), insert the unique provisions for that customer into the template, and strike while the iron is hot!

As soon as the document is signed via your integrated HelloSign account, your custom Keap Easy Automation is triggered, which notifies you that the deal is in…and, an angel gets its wings, a child gets a new puppy, and the world is a better place…at least the corner of the world in which you and your new customer now live.

Sidebar: Once your agreement has been signed and you’ve been paid, then, yes, time is indeed on your side.

Busy Work Kills Your Passion

What is busywork for a salesperson?

ANYTHING that does not make you money, i.e.,

  • Doing paperwork

  • Updating CRMs

  • Typing emails

  • Updating contracts

  • Coordinating staff commitments

  • Leaving voicemails for hard-to-reach prospects

  • Confirming billing information

  • And maybe 107 other things.

According to a survey by SiriusDecisions, 65% of sales leaders say salespeople spend too much time on non-selling activities, such as paperwork…which includes GETTING PROSPECTS TO SIGN ON THE LINE WHICH IS DOTTED!

Salespeople spend too much time writing emails and doing data entry instead of selling. (Upwards of 40% of their time according to various studies.)

According to The Sales Whisperer® (Is it arrogant to quote yourself? Don’t answer that!) the #1 job of a salesperson is NOT to get your prospects to sign on the line which is dotted.

Signed, closed deals are lagging indicators that you did your #1 job well, thoroughly, consistently, and professionally.

What is that #1 job?

It’s to prospect.

“Prospect?”

Yes, prospect.

“Why? What do you mean? I’m a salesperson! My job is close sales!”

PART of your job is to close sales.

But you can only close sales when you do your #1 job, which is to prospect.

Because you and I cannot FORCE a prospect to buy from us.

But we can FORCE ourselves through disciplined, focused action to do what it takes to sort, sift, and separate the qualified prospects from the unqualified prospects, have open and honest meetings with them, find a need, and both agree that you can fill that need.

Still wondering if I’m shooting straight with ya? Consider why eople don’t do business with you.

There are only two reasons.

  1. They haven’t heard of you.

  2. They have heard of you.

Assuming you work for a good company with a solid offering that solves a real problem and provides a positive ROI, then #2 is not an issue.

So now you have to address #1.

The more consistent, thorough, and efficient you are at addressing #1, the more likely you are to meet and surpass your sales and income goals.

This means you must look at everything you do 2-3 times a day/4-5 times a week, document it, create a process for it, and, ideally, automate it.

Which includes chasing down prospects to sign off on working with you.

Returning the kick-off 99 yards is wonderful and makes scoring a touchdown more likely, but you still have to get the ball across the goal line, which is getting the signature on the line which is dotted.

Miscommunication Kills Your Profits

Everyone is hard to reach.

Everyone is distracted.

Everyone is multitasking, which is the art of doing two things poorly. (Or ten things, but I digress.)

Everyone is over-caffeinated, under-rested, and suffering from ADD: Adventure Deficit Disorder.

Add to that the fact that more of your prospects are now working from home, working asynchronous schedules, and/or they are global, and you find yourself faced with the nearly-impossible task of trying to collaborate, confirm, and consummate your deals quickly, clearly, concisely, and in real-time so you can get to work and get paid to grow your business.

This leads to burnout.

As a solopreneur, you wear many plates, and if you’re selling to other solopreneurs, they’re juggling just as many hats and spinning a bunch of balls…wait…ah…did I get that right? You know what I mean,…don’t you?

Trust is great. Trust is fine. Trust is wonderful.

But as the Russian proverb goes,

Доверяй, но проверяй.” (Trust, but verify.)

It’s great to trust your prospects, and we all know that people buy from people they know, like, and trust.

But verify what you are trusting one another to do because memories fade after

  • three video meetings,

  • five demos,

  • ten calls,

  • twenty emails, and

  • 37 texts over the span of two months that include…

  • a one-week vacation,

  • a flat tire,

  • a sick kid,

  • two migraines,

  • three business trips,

  • a dropped smartphone, and

  • a new puppy. (People always have time and money for a new puppy, don’t they?)

Conditions change. Requirements get reordered. Memories fade. Scope-creep grows.

You’re paid to produce results, not to set meetings to discuss potential results.

The Keap-HelloSign automation helps you do more of the former, and less of the latter.

Not Crossing Your “Ts” and Dotting Your “Is” Kills Your Business

Remember, you’re paid to produce results, not to set meetings to discuss potential results.

To ensure your project starts off on the right foot—and stays on course—you must have a final document that outlines the key points of your agreement, such as

  • Total price, including expenses

  • Delivery dates/milestones

  • Key participants

  • Duties/responsibilities of both parties

  • Support

  • Warranty

Remember that trust but verify statement above?

While you are a heart-centered, compassionate person who got into business for all the right reasons, sometimes you run across a bad apple, and/or a bad situation arises during your engagement that makes your good customers say/do some bad things, which can lead to a chargeback or other type of dispute.

How do I know? Because it has happened to me.

One time a client filed a chargeback on a credit card fee claiming she didn’t get the consulting she paid for. Visa ruled in her favor because I didn’t have one of those checkboxes on my order form that requires customers to confirm they’ve read my terms and conditions and accept them, including my billing policy.

Similarly, another customer flew in for three days of training back when I had an office back in early 2014.

She left a half-day early and also filed a chargeback claiming she did not get the training she had purchased.

Her credit card company told me that group photos did not work as proof of her attendance. They told me I had to have a separate sign-in sheet for each day of training, so they ruled in her favor.

While these examples were in the past and also few and far between, it’s a real punch in the gut when it happens.

But it doesn’t have to happen if you learn from the experiences of those who have gone before you.

Qualified buyers want to buy, but the sales and buying experience, which includes confirming “the cold hard facts,” must be pleasant.

To make that happen, you must provide relevant information in a timely manner, and you must make it easy for them to give you their money while agreeing to your mutually agreed-upon terms!

With the HelloSign Keap integration, you can set HelloSign automatic reminders, automate signing documents, and secure legally binding electronic signatures quickly, efficiently, and affordably.