30,500 transactions closedwith Paperless Pipeline last month!
Finding Work-life Balance, Ditching Outdated Software, and Getting 1000+ Agents to Go Paperless
9 min read
Paperless Pipeline is the best thing since sliced bread. It has absolutely helped Maximum One’s production... Pipeline saved my life. I absolutely could not manage without it - I love it.
Dawn SouthernCompliance BrokerMaximum One Realty
Case Study: Quick Overview
About Maximum One
Maximum One Realty is an agent-owned company focused on world-class service. Since its inception in 2007, Maximum One has grown rapidly to over 1000 agents across multiple offices in Georgia.
Dawn Southern is the Compliance Broker at Maximum One.
The Challenge
When Dawn become Maximum One's Compliance Broker, she immediately started discovering serious flaws in their digital transaction management system. Entering files into the system involved endless streams of email attachments from the agents, causing files to get lost or go unreviewed. And agents could see each others' files — a security nightmare.
As the sole transaction processor, Dawn’s stress from dealing with ineffective software and unhappy agents soon came to a breaking point.
The Solution
When Maximum One switched their transaction management to Paperless Pipeline, they immediately noticed the simplicity and full mobility it offered to agents and admins.
From her very first transaction, Dawn realized that her professional life had changed for the better. Her privacy and inefficiency concerns (with the old software) were instantly alleviated.
She now has a slew of powerful tools, features, and reports at her fingertips to streamline company-wide processes.
The Benefits
Dawn is thrilled with how Pipeline lets her control what agents can and can not do in the system. With the old system, everything was visible to anyone — no privacy or security.
Maximum One was also able to eliminate their previous accounting backoffice system Broker Wolf thanks to Paperless Pipeline's Commission and Reporting Module. This module's sophisticated financial, commission, and income reports make tracking agent income and performance super-easy.
All of Maximum One’s processes are now consolidated, saving them lots of money, time, and headaches.
Key Lessons
Using multiple programs is bulky and time consuming. Be more productive by finding a streamlined transaction management program that makes the listing-to-close process exceedingly simple.
The prospect of learning and implementing new software doesn’t have to be intimidating. Develop training materials and an agent training program that works well for your office. Agent-friendly training can be the key to 100% agent adoption.
Find a system that is completely portable. Paperless Pipeline works on mobile devices and tablets while giving you the right functionality. Untie yourself from a desk while keeping the office at your fingertips.
Maximum One Realty is an agent-owned company focused on world-class service. Founders Dave and Ann Kubat, a husband-wife real estate team, opened the doors to Maximum One in April 2007. Since its inception Maximum One has grown to over 1000 agents across full service offices in Georgia. They have received awards for fastest growth from Atlanta Business Chronicle and Inc. 500│5000 Magazine for several years in a row.
Maximum One agents pride themselves on meaningful communication with each client to ensure that every transaction is smooth and successful.
Dawn Southern is the Compliance Broker who works out of the main office in Powder Springs, Georgia. When we spoke to Dawn in June 2016, her agents had already closed over 1600 transactions.
Struggling with Flawed Software and Communication Breakdowns
Things were not always so productive for Maximum One. When Dawn became the Compliance Broker in October 2012, they were using a system called TMS (Transaction Management System). This was coupled with another program, Broker Wolf, for accounting purposes.
Dawn was the only person processing transactions in TMS’s broken folder system. The stress from managing flawed software caused Dawn and her agents to become more frustrated with each passing day.
Dawn’s workflow was even more chaotic than the TMS system interface. Agents would email any and all documents to Dawn’s personal email. After reviewing the files for compliance, she would sign into TMS and create a folder. Every folder’s name was a complicated mix of the property’s address, closing date, and the outstanding documents still needed. These folder names were too long, hard to search, and constantly needed to be updated. After that, Dawn would transfer all of the documents from the agent’s email over to this folder. If something was missing, like a signature, she had to reply back and relay what needed to be corrected.
It was just a mess with so many different folders - not to mention anyone could log in and see anything. Everybody’s stuff was out there for anybody to see.
The most tedious problem she experienced was the process of playing email tag with agents on a daily basis. Communication between Dawn and the agents was beyond broken. There were many times an agent would say that they had already emailed her a file - but she never actually received it - or vice versa. That wasn’t the end of Dawn’s woes. The Broker Wolf accounting workflow was just as cumbersome. There were too many steps — nothing could be done quickly.
Having to spend most of her day moving files around was leading to increased frustration for Dawn. She was constantly struggling to keep track of every due date and deadline in her head. With TMS, she didn’t have automatic checklists to let her know which files were missing or needed for a transaction. Instead, Dawn utilized paper “cheat sheets” to keep her on task.
Instead of checklists, I had a cheat sheet sitting on my desk. It was a piece of paper that over time I memorized and just relied on my own memory.
Finally, a Change for the Better
Everything began to change for Maximum One on a fine day in January 2013 — the day Dawn logged in to Paperless Pipeline for the first time. After setting up her first transaction with just a few clicks, she knew that her workflow would become dramatically streamlined. Dawn found herself with an arsenal of new tools, features, and reports at her fingertips. Best of all, she no longer had to communicate with agents through her personal email. All communication could happen right from within Pipeline.
Paperless Pipeline gives me a record of every single time I email someone. There is no question when anything was sent — it’s all right there for your to see. All of my communication to the agents and staff members at Maximum One goes through the Pipeline.
By being able to take advantage of Paperless Pipeline’s Commission Module, Maximum One no longer had a need for Broker Wolf. They were able to eliminate that backoffice program entirely.
Dawn now uses Pipeline's Commission Module to create the transaction's commission disbursement authorization (CDA) instantly. Then with a click, she emails the CDA to her accounting department for payout — all from right within Pipeline.
We even take it a step further because we don’t issue paper checks anymore. Everything is paperless so we have direct deposits set up for the agents that don’t get paid at closing. Every afternoon I get an email from the accounting department listing every direct deposit of the day. The agents know they can go in and download their commission statement with their year-to-date that is constantly updated - it’s great. It’s a lot easier now than it was before.
Happy Agents: Check!
Checklists are the perfect way for agents to keep track of tasks and required documents within their transactions. Checklists are fully customizable and can be configured to automatically assign to transactions. With Pipeline's built-in smart auto-application of checklists, Dawn and her admins save hours of time while resting assured that nothing falls through the cracks on any transaction.
Now more of our agents get paid at closing. If everything is complete on their Pipeline checklists and if they have all of their files in order, then they get paid at closing.
Agents aren’t the only ones benefitting from the switch. Dave, the owner of Maximum One, is loving Pipeline’s Commission Module and reporting features. Dawn can pull insightful reports from Pipeline and send them to Dave. He loves seeing projections at the start and end of each month, final numbers, top producing agents, and more.
Before we started using Pipeline’s Commission Module, I had no clue. I had no idea how many projected closings we were looking at or how many we closed. Now, It makes me look good, I’m just gonna tell you. He loves getting the reports because the numbers go up every month. I send him, for example, numbers for June 2015 and June 2016 so he can compare. I also send the Aggregate Performance Report for so he can see exact totals, volume, commission, and top 10 agents. I like to be able to give him what revenue we are expecting.
Training for Continued Success
Initially, several of the agents balked at the new transaction management program. They were saying ‘Oh, good grief!’ and hated the idea of having to learn a new program. Dawn began visiting each of the branch offices and teaching a class on how to use Pipeline. That’s when things started to click for the agents.
They said ‘Wow! This is simple. It’s so easy.’ Now there’s no question about anything. Since we’ve been using it, I haven’t had a single agent tell me they hate Pipeline. Not one. They love it.
Until then, Dawn was the one and only person responsible for processing thousands of transactions. Ever since Paperless Pipeline was implemented across Maximum One, more transactions have been coming in than ever. Dawn has finally been able to train another admin-broker to work in the Compliance Department.
Dawn is now known at Maximum One as “the Pipeline Queen”. She takes her title very seriously! She knows success is a group effort, so she’s always working on new agent training materials that she stores inside Pipeline’s Reference section. New agents love it because all they have to do is log in to Pipeline. All of their training materials are right there for them 24x7.
When an agent joins Maximum One, they get all of their login information and the welcome email from the system. They are also given a training video that I made that we store in the Reference area of Paperless Pipeline along with our other how-to’s and quick guides. So once they log in, everything is in there on how to use Pipeline.
Thanks to Paperless Pipeline's simple and efficient transaction management system, Dawn is a much happier Compliance Broker. Her daily workflow is fully streamlined and the ever-growing agent base is more mobile than ever.
By eliminating inefficient software, Maximum One has also experienced significant savings. Dawn, the stress-free "Pipeline queen", is now able to enjoy what she does every day.
It’s awesome. I honestly couldn’t imagine compliance life without it. The agents love it. All the time they are saying how it’s the greatest thing that has happened to Maximum One. I love Pipeline - I could just preach about it for days because it has simplified everything.