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Every industry imaginable could benefit from the integration of a truly electronic capture strategy. By fully electronic, I mean electronic from acorn to oak tree, starting with eForms in the cloud and ending with fully usable data in your organization, not starting with paper to scanner to web site to customer to paper to scanner and ending with somewhat usable data in your organization.

Today though, we're going to limit our industry discussion to real estate.

I actually find it hard to type about the capture opportunities that exist in this dojo without subjecting you to a littany of "excitement typos," like trying to text somone a note about just winning Powerball. "Hly St just w #300mlllln inpwbl! Byng Bugaty vayrn!"

So if a picture is worth a thousand words, let us paint one, using words, to better describe some benefits:

A new client calls a real estate office wanting an agent to help find a house. "Hey, thanks for your call. Let's chat for a few minutes and if you don't mind after we're done, take a minute to fill out this quick search form on our site. This way, we'll have on record exactly what you're looking for so you can hold us accountable. Also, it allows us to automate this form to ping the local MLS for matches. Cool, right?"

Two days later you meet the client at a potential home. "How about a little housekeeping before we go in? The state real estate commission requires me to disclose to you your rights as a consumer and my legal duties as an agent. This is for your protection. Let's go through it on my iPad. Just tap each box when you agree and at the end, use your finger to sign and date, then hit submit. This form will sync with your early search form so we have all of your data in one place in our system. Oh, if you want a copy e-mailed to you, just click that box right there. A PDF is on its way to your inbox."

That's only the beginning folks. Now start thinking about your other required disclosures, like lead paint, property disclosures and addendums. Any form you have a client fill out and sign in the sales process—and there are a lot of them—can be done electronically and then bundled as one for a clean, efficient closing package that can be e-mailed or availble via the cloud to the closing parties, whether a title agent or attorney.

Marketing your real estate services is all about setting yourself apart in your market. Can you think of something cooler than being the first agent with a full-on electronic transaction management process? Just think how much money you could spend on glamour shots instead of printer and fax ink? Okay, sorry, that was below the belt.

eForms would be loved by your local governing bodies as well because everything is completely backed-up and in place for long-term record retention guidelines. No more file cabinets full of old, trapped data. And speaking of which, just think about the benefits of tying all your sales process data into your customer relationship management tools? Oh man. And if LincDoc is not the right fit for you, cool. Even a fillable PDF is better than making a giant pile of paper. 

So what do you think folks ... time to stand out and go paperless? Or is a personalized license plate all you need?