As much as the world is becoming increasingly more digital, different industries seem to embrace new technologies at different rates. The real estate industry in particular has long standing traditions that many are wary of breaking from. Notably, many swear that the homebuyer needs a printed brochure that can be taken after visiting a property in order to help make a decision.

David Zadareky, Owner of RE/MAX Evolution, prides himself on doing things a little differently. Working in a world that swears by paper and signing on the dotted line, Zadareky has built a successful real estate business that is completely digital. Everything from internal communications to home brochures are handled online, much to the delight of both his staff and his customers. Read on to see how it’s all done:

The Team

RE/MAX Evolution is not just comprised of agents but creative and administrative talent as well. Zadareky manages to run a tight-knit team, despite the fact that employees are not centralized in one office. Box’s file sharing and collaboration platform enables the team to instantly access all of their documents anytime anywhere, which is critical in the fast-paced real estate business. Everything from preparing to closing a deal is handled with Box. Thanks to Uberflip’s integration with Box, a home’s key selling feature – the brochure – is also a part of this process.

After the graphic designer has finished creating the PDF version of a brochure, she then saves the file in her team’s Box folder. An agent then takes a look at the most up-to-date version when he has a moment between viewings. If further revisions are needed, the agent can use Box to comment on the file with specific instructions; if he is happy with the brochure, the agent can quickly sign off on the file to indicate that it’s approved. Once approved, the office administrator logs into her Uberflip Account and easily uploads the PDF directly from Box. From here, she then begins to add enhancements that will give the brochure the bells and whistles that the homebuyers will love – all with absolutely no coding or complex technical knowledge required.

The Customer

Purchasing a home is one of the most important decisions a person will ever make, and so a brochure can easily make-or-break a decision to buy. A good brochure sells not just a home, but a lifestyle and emotional bond as well. Uberflip enables RE/MAX Evolution to provide homebuyers with an elegant, intimate and powerful experience that perfectly tells the story of the home they are about to purchase. Printing a brochure can be very expensive, so agents normally cut costs by printing fewer pages. With Uberflip, a brochure can be 2 or 20 pages – whatever a home needs in order to best tell its story.

A problem commonly faced by agents is that once a brochure is handed out, they must often wait for the homebuyer to contact them. By emailing the brochure’s unique URL, potential buyers can be integrated with a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) – in this case Salesforce –  in order to help drive leads. This URL also ensures that the homebuyer has the most up-to-date information. After all, selling a home is a quickly-changing process and so once something is printed it becomes outdated.

A picture is worth a thousand words – but Zadareky does not like to limit himself to that. Once uploaded to Uberflip, a brochure becomes a canvas to overlay enhancements that create a much more compelling experience for the customer. Widgets like Vimeo videos and Flickr slideshows allow homebuyers to see more of a home and recreate the feeling of actually being there. Plus, social media sharing buttons are also in place for customers to easily share their excitement with friends and family.

The Sale

Though it has become commonplace for a property to have its own website, this method does not provide enough control for guiding a customer towards making a purchase. As great as a property listing might be, websites can be very distracting and disjointed experiences that ultimately might drive leads elsewhere. The RE/MAX Evolution team trusts Uberflip with its important sales materials in order to create a rich, structured and complete environment for buyers to explore.

Once a buyer has expressed interest in a home, the team uses Box to send further documentation. Since items are shared via URLs with both Uberflip and Box, the team knows that customers will always have the most recent version of any document. In a fast-paced and ever-changing industry, Uberflip and Box enable RE/MAX Evolution to have the control and efficiency they need to stay ahead of the competition. “The only way to stand out from the competition is how well we tell our story,” Zadareky adds. “Uberflip is a more effective storyteller than the boring pdf.”