Rarely, in business do we actually take people to court – why? It’s often because we don’t believe our case is strong enough. If you’re smart enough to be getting actual signatures on paper at the moment, then you’re one step ahead of most businesses.

What’s interesting, is that at various stage of our Web Development business, Advantix Consulting, we had paper agreements sometimes (often depending on the client) and other times we didn’t. My biggest worry was making a nice, informal chat about their business, and the development of a cool new site into this big formal song-and-dance. Not the approach I wanted. This resulted in us not bothering to get agreements signed, where they’d agree to pay, and we’d agree to do the work.

Fast forward 2 years and, it kills me to actually write because It’s like admitting you’re stupid for not getting a simple signature, but I left £8,630 on the table in the last 2 years in our development business, in completed work, just the clients didn’t pay.

Why?

Circumstances change, people see web development as a ‘nice to have’ and not an essential service like a telephone line. I have no idea – I’m guessing. Either way, I’m 100% confident that had we had an agreement in place (separate to emails back and forth) then those customers would have paid. I know this because…

I tried it!

We started using SignBase in our development business ages ago to fine-tune it before we released it publicly. We had an instance where we’d done the work and the client didn’t want to pay. All I did, was send them a link to the SignBase agreement, which had their digital signature on it, and hey presto – He electronically transfers me the money that same day.

Digital Signatures and Online Agreements are Awesome!

This leaves me to believe that it’s got nothing to do with actually taking anyone to court that makes the difference, it’s simply the fact that they know they’ve agreed, (digitally or not) to pay/work/dance/perform/whatever and it’s the fear, that they’ll be taken to court if they don’t comply.

If you want to try using digital signatures with SignBase, the simple app that allows you to get your agreements and documents signed electronically, give it a try today free. We don’t need your credit card and you’ll be logged in inside 10 seconds. Try it now at www.GetSignBase.com.

If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a massive fan of over-delivering service by 10x what you charge for it. To that end, when travelling through Europe I decided I wanted a box of some kind to send out. I’m not sure why, I think it was largely because I have an entirely intangible business, so having a physical product seemed fun.

This obsession turned into a 6 month quest to document every cool thing I’d ever figured out and present it in a fun, cool colourful way that was easy to access and easy to understand.

What started out as an actual box, has turned into the hub of all the information that I deem useful. It might be a cool link, or a PDF of some sort. All the information is free to share. It’s a completely free universe of awesome stuff that would otherwise cost you money.

We have interviews with various people, cool videos that are useful, or inspiring, downloads, fill in the blank content creation pieces. This’ll always be free, as it’s our way of spreading the word about our other products, that doesn’t mean we’re going to send you tons of email – in-fact our average for emailing is roughly once every 3 weeks.

It would be great if you could experience happiness through learning by going to BoxOfHappiness.com and give us your email address, and it’ll let you straight in.

One last thing, if you tell people about the Box of Happiness, and they sign up and eventually buy from us – you’ll be credited with £50 and 50% of their setup cost if they buy anything else from us.

Do you have a website you use regularly? Is it any good? By that, I mean – does it generate any actual leads? If not, listen up – I have some very bad news for you.

You are currently leaving a massive load of potential business in cyber space somewhere every day. The daft thing is, your competitors might not even be serving them. They might be sitting around still looking on the internet for you and literally have no idea you exist.

Your job as a business owner, is not to have everyone in the world know you exist, leave that to Coca Cola. Your job is to be there, and be able to be found if someone is looking for something you can help them with. If your website sucks, you won’t be putting any effort into promoting it, it’s as simple as that. So, this is how to get more leads in 3 simple steps, ready?

Step 1: Get a website you’re proud of.

Step 2: Put your website/marketing message where people are looking

Step 3: Ask them to do business with you

We can’t do it all for you, but we can help you with the first couple. It’s more than possible that the concept of “building a new website” is making you think:

a)    “Yeah, right mate, i’ll do that in all the non-existent free time I’ve got at the moment”

b)    “Are you going to pay for it? Well then”

Hang on a minute – Yeah, you have to put effort in if you want an awesome site with lots of awesome information on it. Yes, it may cost you a few quid, but you don’t need to be spending thousands, or really, even hundreds anymore.

… you must be thinking “How predictable, here comes the pitch”.

I try not to disappoint people J – The EasySite is a simple way to get yourself a new-look website without committing to it if you don’t like it. It’s easy to use and update, doesn’t come with unreliable website designers who don’t answer their phones and is packed with a few awesome features that you (as readers and customers) chose for us to build.

It’s free to try, we don’t need your credit card and you can be logged in and looking around in a few seconds. Go to www.EasySiteHQ.com and take a look.

About 3 months ago, I wrote a blog post asking for your ideas and suggestions with regards to the features on SignBase. I’ve also had pretty decent feedback with the story I told about how we got all our customers to do the product design for one of our apps EasySite.

Here’s the post I wrote on April 30^th 2011.

Our first product, EasySite was named by accident, and we didn’t pick any of the features. How on earth did we end up with an awesome product by having nothing to do with it? Here’s how:

I credit Boyce at Bikes of Brighton for coming up with the name. It was originally called the Tix-InfoSite. It was clear, that the Tix bit would become obsolete fairly soon, so InfoSite it was… until, NO-ONE COULD REMEMBER THE BLOODY NAME!  This is what people would say:

“Ads, one of my mates has started a business and wants one of your easy site things”

Alright, EasySite it is then!

Features? How did we manage to not decide what features to include. Here’s how:

It started before we built the EasySite. I installed tracking software called Google Analytics on the control panel pages (the pages where you edit your site). I didn’t realise at the time why, it just seemed like a good idea, however upon checking it almost a year later, it revealed some awesome information, it showed the two pages used most were Content page and Photos. Interesting. 2 of 12 features, 8 were never touched.

Couple that with the insane number of “how do I market my website online” questions I got in my inbox on a daily basis and I knew where we needed to focus. We drew up a bunch of features, shortlisted them and submitted the final 20 to anyone that would talk to us (with a small business) and picked the best ranked 10, and built those. I personally picked 2 of the 10 that got the best rating in the survey. Does that say my intuition sucks as a product design guy? Yes. I’m also well aware of it – hence the survey J.

Why am I telling you all this? I want to know what you ladies and gents want to see in the next round of updates to SignBase. Please email me and just best explain your idea. If we implement your idea, you can have 3 months free usage of any of our apps.

Email me your ideas at ads@advantixconsulting.com

Have you got a SignBase account yet? If not – why not? Have you seen the tour page, or our awesome movie trailer?

Let me give you a super quick summary. SignBase allows you to eliminate paper contracts within your business. You can get your signatures signed faster and quicker than ever before. This, not only saves you time, but it saves your customers a lot more.

After all… they’re the ones that are hunting around trying to find envelopes, only to find a screwed up one in the bottom of a drawer, or managing to find every single pen in the house that DIDN’T work. Or the technological classic… the scanner that doesn’t work. By simply using SignBase, even if you never saved a minute of time (which of course you would), your clients would see you as a more professional business, having their best interests at heart.

SignBase is free to try. You can have 10 agreements before needing to upgrade. We’re known for our super quick signup processes, it takes about 10-seconds to sign up, 2 seconds to log in and about a minute to watch the welcome video. Give it a try free today at www.GetSignBase.com

If you talk to us regularly, you’ll know that we’ve been building an online contact manager allow small businesses and start-ups kickstart their business with the proper organisational structure that the big boys use without the big business pricing.

We’ve finished building the product and we’re taking on businesses that are happy to try it out completely free of charge. We’ll give you extra pro-active support in using the system. All we ask for in return is a testimonial and honest feedback on the usability.

Here’s a look at some of the things AddBook will do for you:

• Store all your contacts, be that regular business contacts, your customers, leads or whatever
• Keep track of all your quotes you have outstanding with these people and remind you if they’re outstanding for a long period of time
• Is a project management suite, so you can create projects, and tasks within that then check them off when you’re done
• An awesome eShot Maker which builds stunning emails so you can email your users for free with MailChimp.
• Adjust the colour scheme and logo so it matches your company colours (it’s completely unbranded)
• A calendar which syncs with Google Calendar, and ultimately your phone
• A Facebook style feed which gives you updates in real time on the status of quotes, company information, notes and reminders.
• Unlimited users, so you can add your entire staff and only give them access to the things they need to do their job.

We haven’t built any of the sales pages, and signup areas yet so we’ll need to create your account manually. This doesn’t take very long, but if you’d like an account to try, email me at ads@advantixconsulting.com with your Name, Email, Company name, Phone number and a password if you want something specific, if not – I’ll create something random for you.

Time for a short, yet rather interesting story?

Our first product, EasySite was named by accident, and we didn’t pick any of the features. How on earth did we end up with an awesome product by having nothing to do with it? Here’s how:

I credit Boyce at Bikes of Brighton for coming up with the name. It was originally called the Tix-InfoSite. It was clear, that the Tix bit would become obsolete fairly soon, so InfoSite it was… until, NO-ONE COULD REMEMBER THE BLOODY NAME!  This is what people would say:

“Ads, one of my mates has started a business and wants one of your easy site things”

Alright, EasySite it is then!

Features? How did we manage to not decide what features to include. Here’s how:

It started before we built the EasySite. I installed tracking software called Google Analytics on the control panel pages (the pages where you edit your site). I didn’t realise at the time why, it just seemed like a good idea, however upon checking it almost a year later, it revealed some awesome information, it showed the two pages used most were Content page and Photos. Interesting. 2 of 12 features, 8 were never touched.

Couple that with the insane number of “how do I market my website online” questions I got in my inbox on a daily basis and I knew where we needed to focus. We drew up a bunch of features, shortlisted them and submitted the final 20 to anyone that would talk to us (with a small business) and picked the best ranked 10, and built those. I personally picked 2 of the 10 that got the best rating in the survey. Does that say my intuition sucks as a product design guy? Yes. I’m also well aware of it – hence the survey J.

Why am I telling you all this? I want to know what you ladies and gents want to see in the next round of updates to SignBase. Please email me and just best explain your idea. If we implement your idea, you can have 3 months free usage of any of our apps.

Email me your ideas at ads@advantixconsulting.com

Whenever I talk about SignBase to anyone, the first thing I get is “How is that legally binding?”. Truth is, a verbal agreement is legally binding. To understand this, we need to start where it all ends up if it goes wrong – In court. In big-time court cases, in a dispute, they’ll bring in the hand-writing experts to verify the validity. However in small claims court (anything less than £5000), they don’t bother, so what happens?

If you have any form of document that’s signed, you win. That includes emails, electronic signature software or pen and paper. Essentially an electronic signature is a computerised record of an individual showing their agreement to something.

The Electronic Communications Act 2000 Section 7, which is the law that permits such agreements taking place, states that:

7 Electronic signatures and related certificates.E+W+S+N.I.

(1)In any legal proceedings—

(a)an electronic signature incorporated into or logically associated with a particular electronic communication or particular electronic data, and

(b)the certification by any person of such a signature,

shall each be admissible in evidence in relation to any question as to the authenticity of the communication or data or as to the integrity of the communication or data.

(2)For the purposes of this section an electronic signature is so much of anything in electronic form as—

(a)is incorporated into or otherwise logically associated with any electronic communication or electronic data; and

(b)purports to be so incorporated or associated for the purpose of being used in establishing the authenticity of the communication or data, the integrity of the communication or data, or both.

(3)For the purposes of this section an electronic signature incorporated into or associated with a particular electronic communication or particular electronic data is certified by any person if that person (whether before or after the making of the communication) has made a statement confirming that—

(a)the signature,

(b)a means of producing, communicating or verifying the signature, or

(c)a procedure applied to the signature,

is (either alone or in combination with other factors) a valid means of establishing the authenticity of the communication or data, the integrity of the communication or data, or both.

Source: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/7/section/7?timeline=true

In English, this means that an online agreement is legally binding, if the person signing it has confirmed that their digital signature or the way it’s recorded is a valid way to authenticate their acceptance.

In essence, digital signatures not only save massive amounts of time, money, effort and hassle, but also are more secure in nature as it’s considerably more difficult to sign someone else’s name. In addition, according to EU legislation, you cannot refuse a digital signature, because it’s in an electronic form. Essentially, you could switch to electronic signatures without any backlash from your customers. (I can’t find any UK law about this, I’ll keep looking).

It’s evident that signing documents electronically is making huge waves in today’s fast-paced world, and we’re glad to be playing a part in it.

Did you know you can have documents countersigned with SignBase?

We installed this feature because a number of our early testers (Hi Graham and Tim) suggested the ability to have documents countersigned. We built the feature and it’s readily available in the create agreement section.

Here are some “behind the scenes” notes on how this works. You should get some ideas about how you could use this.

First thing to note, you can have unlimited signatories. This means, if you want your staff to all agree to something, or signup for an event or agree to attend a meeting, you can do 1 single agreement with them all as signatories.

Second thing is, the signatory gets the PDF once it’s completely signed. This means that if you’ve just signed an agreement, which is supposed to be countersigned, you’ll get it once it’s been countersigned successfully. We did it like this so the users signing agreements didn’t get crazy amounts of emails.

When you’re adding multiple signatories, you can remove them just as easily. In addition, when it comes to emailing them – you can tweak the email that goes to each signatory when inviting them to sign online.

If you have any questions about how this works, or any suggestions – shoot me an email: ads@advantixconsulting.com

Writing a good ‘Thank you’ message is often an afterthought for most people. They’ll put something generic like “Thanks for signing our document”. This is fine, but I want you to consider for a moment what the user is doing at that moment. They’ve just digitally signed your agreement, they’re wondering what the next step is – this is your opportunity to explain it to them.

We have a solution to make this easy…

The team at Advantix are always working on new stuff. It might be a new app, adding features to existing apps, or building mobile versions. One of our next projects is something called MyContentCoach. This is a content writing app where you’ll actually write all the content yourself, but it just gets you to answer one simple question at a time, and when all the answers are put together – hey presto, your content is written! Why am I telling you this?

How to write a SignBase ‘Thank you message’

Section 1:
Genuinely thank the user for agreeing to your terms, consider the situation – is this the bit where they just agreed to go ahead with your business? Thank them for choosing you.

Section 2:
Explain that they’ll have a PDF waiting for them in their inbox. This only happens once every signatory has signed the agreement. If you don’t have multiple signatories (this includes countersigning) then they’ll receive the email instantly. Tell them this.

Section 3:
What’s the next step? What’s going to happen now they’ve signed this document, agreement or contract. Are they going to get a phonecall from your billing department? Will they get their product shipped? Are you going to start work? What’s the situation? This is actually the most important bit of the ‘Thank you page’ as it’ll relieve an immediate feeling of “Oh shit, I’ve just signed this thing, what now?”.

Imagine how you felt when you signed your partnership agreement, or your mortgage paperwork, or signed up for some expensive consultancy. Unless the sales person did a superb job of comforting you through the process, you’ll likely have felt a little uneasy at some point. The job of explaining the “What next” bit, is not to be taken lightly – do this properly and spend some time on it.

Section 4:
Quickly thank them again and give them a contact number or something if they want to talk to someone.

If you answer each section, then put all your answers, or responses together – you should have a fairly solid message. Then go ahead and put it into the ‘Settings’ > Thank You Message section.

Enjoy,