EchoBlog - The Latest From EchoSign

Simplicity + Value = No Brainer

At EchoSign, we've been doing this for quite a while.  As our space continues to heat up, we're staying true to our vision from 2005: to be the easiest way to get contracts signed, tracked and filed.

What's changed over the years is what it takes to make something "simple".  With thousands of workflows and dozens of ways to sign, we have to keep on our toes to allow our users access to that power without diluting the core -- the ability for any two parties, of companies of any size, to get a contract signed in just minutes, or even seconds, on the web.

What that means is whether you are a Fortune 500/Global 2000 customer like BT, GE, Dell, Qualcomm, Pulte Holmes, First American, etc. etc.; a small business just closing your first customers; or somewhere in-between like Mr. Klugman's company  -- and to be clear, the needs are often rather different -- the product is still "easy, simple and a no-brainer". 

Look for us taking this to the next level in our Spring '09 release, out shortly.

BT @ CloudForce London: "Last Month, We Did 25,000 Contracts Using EchoSign E-Signature"

EchoSign was proudly represented by BT at this month's Salesforce.com Cloudforce in London.

Bill Murphy, Managing Director of BT's entire SME business, gave part of the keynote together with Mark Benioff.  You can see it here.  Bill describes why BT has made such a big investment in SaaS:  "Speed.  Velocity. Agility. and Utility, all wrapped together in a very agile fashion".

He then goes on to talk about eSignature and EchoSign at about 2:00:

"Last month, we did 25,000 contracts, all using [EchoSign] eSignature  ... 2 years ago, all of that would have been post ... Our velocity is signing contracts went from days and weeks to literally on average 40 minutes   .  That's a huge productivity burst ... And those are the things we're looking at to transform ourselves, and deploy back out to our customers so they can use them."

See it below and more after the jump from BT and EchoSign at Cloudforce.  And don't miss the Marc Benioff bear hug at the end of the video.  Not sure our British colleagues knew what to make of it ;)

Using Sales 2.0 Tools to 10x the Productivity of Your Sales Team

The Sales 2.0 Advocate has a great piece entitled "The Emergence of the Hybrid (Telesales/Field) Sales Rep" here.

Bill Lohr is interviewed on his experience growing a leading web content management company's revenues 35x over 2.5 years, and the key sales tools (including EchoSign) that fueled that growth.

The interview is an interesting one, in terms of best practices in cold calling, prospecting, enterprise vs inside sales, upselling, and much more.

"AS: What sales tools and technologies did you use?
BL: Among others, we used salesforce.com, Jigsaw, Hoovers, GoToMeeting, LinkedIn, Eloqua, and EchoSign.

AS: How did the Sales 2.0 technologies help you sell?
BL: Lots of ways.  Jigsaw and Hoovers helped alert us to who the players are in a given account.  LinkedIn got us to the right people faster and increases their response rate because an individual reaching out to another individual makes the outreach more personal. EchoSign accelerated the contracts cycle.

AS: What have your sales results been?
BL: When I started, we were producing $20,000/MRR.  Two and a half years later, with the same sales team, the productivity increased to $700,000/MRR."

Much more here.

100% Wind Powered E-Signatures

In honor of upcoming Earth Day, we wanted to highlight how we are working to go Green 2.0.

Making your contracting process paperless with EchoSign is obviously one of the simplest things you can do to go green with web services.  The amount of waste from contracts is particularly alarming, with, according to CitiGroup, the average 8-10 page contract being photocopied, printed, or reprinted, almost 10 times by all the various parties and departments.

Going to EchoSign can cut that waste 90-100% overnight.  And we appreciate the nods from companies like BT, HiDef Web Solutions, Qualcomm, The American Lung Association, and many others on how e-contracting has materially contributed to their Going Green efforts.

Having said that, there is still more that can be done.  Going paperless by using e-signatures is the low hanging fruit.   But there are stil those pesky servers.  So we've gone Green 2.0 and 100% wind-powered.

What Contracts and the Internet Have in Common

The San Jose Business Journal did a full-page profile of EchoSign today (online now here) with some good insights on the market.

The part that was of particular interest to us was the focus on the connection between contracts and doing business on the web.  As the Biz Jornal noted, "What do contracts and the Internet have in common? It’s virtually impossible today to do business without them."

Electronic signatures are somewhat interesting on their own.  But frankly, they are nothing new, especially IT-based solutions.  The majority of tax returns will be e-signed this year, for example.

Electronic signatures as a way to sign on the web, when more and more business is being done on the web -- that's something much more game changing.  When we started EchoSign in 2005, we did so because we saw the Internet connecting every business at least via email.  And we believed the contract was the missing piece to automate transactions.

Fast forward to 2009, and it's not about email of course ... the web has taken over all businesses, small, medium and large, tech focused or not.  Whether it's tracking customers in Salesforce, doing demos in WebEx or GoToMeeting, or closing them with EchoSign ... the point is, the web has become the hub and focus of millions and millions of businesses worldwide.

Connect the Internet and contracts together ... as elegantly and simply as your other web apps ... that's not just interesting.  That's the present for many, and the future for all.

EchoSign on "24"

The role of collaboration in contracts is an interesting one.  There are those who see it as a key business enabler and one that further unlocks the power in contracting and signing on the web.  There are others who see "collaboration" as a bit of a Web 2.0 distraction, with the vast majority of contracts being relatively formulaic, with no need to chat, interact, review or even redline.

We think they both views are right -- and so we work the way you work.  On that note, two interesting developments over the past week.  First, our friends and partner at Zoho launched Zoho Chat inside of Zoho Writer.  What does this mean for you?  Well, EchoSign has been natively integrated inside of Zoho Writer, the web's leading standalone word processor, since early 2007.  With EchoSign-for-Zoho Writer, you can collaborate on a contract together with your internal team (edits, revisions, etc) or with a customer, and then get it signed in seconds with the "DigiSign" link which directly links to your EchoSign account.  Last week, they added Zoho Chat to the mix, so you can now do instant-messaging with your collaborators as well as you draft, iterate, and e-sign a contract.  Very cool.

Even slicker -- at least visually -- is our integration inside of Cisco WebEx Connect, enhanced via some Hollywood special effects.  EchoSign is the only electronic signature solution integrated by Cisco WebEx and a visualization of it was dramatically featured in the last episode of Fox's hit show "24".  The President discussed an "Executive Pardon Order" with several members of her team over a WebEx video chat, and then digitally signed it in seconds.

Whether you work it in WebEx, or create it in Zoho Writer, you can close it with EchoSign. Thanks to our friends at WebEx for the tip-off. 

Cutting Your Costs by 66% With EchoSign and Best-of-Breed SaaS Apps

At EchoSign we didn't attend SaaSCon this year -- with limited time, we went to Web 2.0 Expo instead, and it looks like maybe we made the wrong call.

It looks like there were several interesting dialogues on why SaaS and web services adoption is really accelerating (beyond the hype), with real ROI stories.

Here was a neat one than Jnah Dash picked up:

"One CIO [on the panel] explained how he reduced his IT spend from $607K in 2007 to $259K in 2008 by switching to SaaS (Google Apps for gmail, videochat, documents, spreadsheets, charts, etc.). He adopted Netsuite as the core ERP/CRM application and picked other packages like WorkOasis (facility management), Halogen (performance management), ADP (payroll. HRIS), and admin tools like Webex, Echosign, eFax, Zoomerang, and VisualCV. His staff cost was reduced from $166K in 2007 to zero in 2008. Hardware cost was reduced from $52K to $8K. His is a small size company selling exercise equipments. No wonder the first adopters of Saas are the small to medium size companies."

This is the heart of what's happening.  A combination of best-of-breed web services -- including EchoSign -- cut this CIO's IT spend in half, and his staff cost to, ahem, zero.  Total savings: $514,000 a year, or a 66% cost reduction in his budget -- with a positive impact on revenue.  Where else can you cut costs in 2009, and also make more money by doing so?

Q1'09 for the 750,000+ EchoSigners: A Return to Normalcy

With the release of anonymous opt-in benchmarking last fall, our users have had access to unprecedented data as to what is happening in sales across their peer groups.

So what did we see in Q1'09?  A return to normalcy. 

Q3'08 saw a huge huge push, but with an abnormal amount of contracting at the very end of the month as the economy began to fall off a cliff.  Q4'08 was the opposite: ennui, with usage dropping off toward the end of the year, when for the sake of our economy, we'd all hoped for a big end of the year push. 

Q1'09: back to business as usual, at least in terms of how we work and sell.  Yesterday (3/31), the last day of the quarter, was a record day for EchoSign usage -- but with the same general patterns we saw back in 2007 and Q1 and Q2 of 2008 ... relatively slow at the beginning of the month, more contracts toward the end of the month, peaking toward the very end of the quarter.  In other words, what you'd expect in normal sales, with folks trying to make quotas, cut deals, etc.

There's no question times are challenging.  An insta-cure would be nice.  But what most of us simply want in business right now is a return to normalcy.  Understanding what the rules are, and how to play by them.  Understanding that the economy is working as expected, even in a recession.

EchoSign leading indicators suggest we're back on the path to normalcy.  That's a good thing.

Come See British Telecom and EchoSign at CloudForce 2009 in London

For our customers, users and friends across the pond, please come see us at Cloudforce 2009 in London on 7th April.

We'll be hosted by our customer and partner BT (British Telecom), which has over 5,000 sales reps using EchoSign.  In the U.K., BT also resells a U.K.-localized version of EchoSign as "BT eSignature".  BT eSignature will be prominently featured in their center pavilion at Cloudforce 2009.

Cloudforce is free in 2009, which is quite a deal.

"We are moving to a position where ‘cloud computing’ is a widely adopted norm for the way in which businesses think about and consume software and applications.  Its a seismic shift which will create significant opportunities in changing cost and capital structures in business’ and allow more and more business’ to benefit from applications that are too complex to administer or expensive to adopt now.

BT are proud sponsors of Cloudforce London 2009, the world's premier software on demand event.  Join us and our partners on the 7th April where we can demonstrate how BT can bring it all together for your business.  Register for free now."