• About
    • Our Mission
    • Dare Dreamer Media
    • Ron Dawson
  • Branded Services
  • Contact Us
    • Write for this Blog
  • Join
    • E-mail List
  • Resources
    • Freebies
    • Team of One Filmmaking
    • How to Price Your Services
    • Templates
    • eBooks
      • Music in Film and Video
      • Frame Rates and Shutter Speed
    • Members Only
  • iTunes

Dare Dreamer Entertainment

The Sites & Sounds of Creative Expression

  • Radio Film School
    • A Filmmaker’s Journey
    • Making a Documentary
    • Short Ends
    • Women in Film
    • Shooting Sunshine
    • RAW
  • Breaking the Glass
    • Podcasts & Films
    • Podcasts
    • Films
  • Blog
    • Creative Arts
      • Film & Video
      • Movies & Television
      • Photography
    • Business
      • Sales & Marketing
      • Branding
      • Productivity
      • Social Media
    • Inspiration
      • Satire
      • Thought Provoking
  • Music Channel

SignNow is a Free and Awesome Way to Sign Documents

December 20, 2011 By Ron Dawson

Yesterday I talked about the top five things professional creatives need to make sure they include in their contracts. Today I’m going to talk about the best way to get those bad boys signed.

As you already know, I’m crazy about the Cloud. I am a Cloud using maniac. I run my whole business on the Cloud. One of the things I like to use is electronic signature services. I used to use another service that only allowed a few free signatures per month. But recently I came across SignNow.com, and I’m in love.

There are three main reasons I love SignNow.com

  1. It’s easy
  2. It’s thorough
  3. It’s free

What more could you want. I use it not only for electronic signatures, but I also use it for filling out forms that need my signature. It’s great. Some of my favorite features include:

  • Electronic sticky tabs to show clients where to sign
  • The ability to password protect signatures
  • Ability to upload your own signature and save it for future
  • You don’t have to create an account if you don’t want

They have a paid Pro version coming out soon with collaboration, tracking and ID tools. But what you get with this free version will suit a lot of your needs. Check out my demo below for a full run-down on how it works.

If you can’t see this video in your RSS reader or email, click here.

Related

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: cloud computing, Contracts, signnow.com, The Cloud

About Ron Dawson

Ron is a writer, filmmaker, speaker, author, coach, and host of Radio Film School. He does brand and content marketing for the media and tech industries at Blade Ronner Media.

Comments

  1. Brian Ortega (@humanbeanvideo) says

    December 20, 2011 at 11:37 am

    I just ordered my Square dongle. 2012 will be the year of the Human Bean. This will help too! Thanks again Mr. Dawson.

  2. Cody says

    December 20, 2011 at 11:41 am

    Great write up and demo Ron! I had been looking for a free contract signing cloud app a year ago before we signed up for Shoot Q… maybe I will switch?

    Question: When the client gets the contract, does SignNow tell them how to use the “Signature” and “Text” buttons? Is the process easy for them or is there a learning curve?

    • Ron Dawson says

      December 20, 2011 at 4:21 pm

      hey Cody,

      Great question. Personally, I found most of it relatively self-explanatory. But, there is a “tour” button in the upper right-hand corner. If you click that, it walks you through what to do. But, if you want to be safe, you could write up a short sentence or two instruction and send that in the note section when you send the contract.

      If you’re already using ShootQ’s contrat feature, it probably make sense to keep the process all in one. But, as I mention in the post, there are other ways you could use SignNow. I recently used it to fill out my paperwork for WPPI (I’m teaching a master class) and I used it for a health insurance form I needed to fill out. In both cases, I didn’t assign a signee, so the document just comes to me.

      • Cody says

        December 20, 2011 at 4:35 pm

        I wouldn’t have thought to use it for contracts people send me (insurance, etc…), that’s a great use for this software since I already have Shoot Q. Unfortunately, I like how you can have them initial different parts of a contract… Shoot Q can’t do that. Shoot Q does automatically fill in all the info though which makes it pretty quick and easy (name, address, phone numbers, package, etc…).

        • Ron Dawson says

          December 20, 2011 at 5:19 pm

          Yeah. The ability to use it for initialing is great. But, as you alluded, you don’t have the integration with the rest of your client info. But, there are still so many other uses. I love using it to sign contracts that people send me.

  3. Chris says

    December 21, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    Great tool. Thanks for the heads-up Ron. My practice document signing was intuitive and fast. Uploaded my own signature and it really rocks.

    I just saw an article about Adobe’s EchoSign for iOS: http://blogs.adobe.com/acrobat/2011/12/adobe-echosign-esignature-app-now-ready-for-ios-devices.html

    • Ron Dawson says

      December 21, 2011 at 10:02 pm

      Echosign is great Chris. That was the service I used before. But it’s not worth the $15/month for the few added features it offers. One thing that’s good about it is that you can easily resend a document you’ve already uploaded, or save documents you send a lot. Whereas with SignNow each time you want to send a document, you have to re-upload. A small “price” to pay to have what they offer for free.

  4. David McKnight says

    January 3, 2012 at 6:16 pm

    Hey Ron, GREAT find. I’m starting to give serious thouht to your article on the cloud. Been wanting to do this stuff for awhile but can’t justify ShootQ at this time. One quesiton I have is I have a (possibly baseless?) concern of sending out a contract with my signature already on it. I would prefer that the customer sign it first, then we sign it. To do this with SignNow we’d need to upload the original contract, send it to the customer, get the confirm email from SignNow, reupload that contract with their signature, we sign it thru SignNow, then send it again to the customer thru SignNow. Is that how you do it, or do you send the inital contract out with your signature on it? Thanks! David

    • Ron Dawson says

      January 3, 2012 at 8:31 pm

      Hey David. The way I do it is sign it first then send to client. I don’t have a problem signing it first if the contract is one we’ve all agreed on. But, if for some reason that concerns you, you could send it to your client to sign first. Then, when it comes back, you can download the signed copy then re-upload and DO NOT send back to them. It’ll already be signed by them. Just sign it yourself. You’ll be emailed the final copy, plus an immediate download link is created. Either way you go, you only need to send a document to a client once.

  5. Cody says

    January 26, 2012 at 11:29 pm

    For some reason, I can’t find the where to add the sticky’s when I upload a document…? Do you think they quit using that feature or something?

    • Cody says

      January 26, 2012 at 11:35 pm

      I just tried it in firefox and chrome and no stickys… I hope they didn’t get rid of that feature!

      • Ron Dawson says

        January 27, 2012 at 12:00 am

        They updated the app since I created this video. They stickys are temporarily gone. But I chatted with their tech support and he said lots of people have been asking for it. I’m hoping they have plans to bring it back, along with additional functionality.

  6. Chris P. Jones says

    January 10, 2013 at 2:49 pm

    just used sign now for the first time. wow. life is better, colors are brighter, and birds are singing in the trees. how did i ever live with printing out an attachment, signing, scanning, then resending. i might as well have been washing my clothes by hand.

    ron, thanks, as always, for the tips that make a difference!

    • Ron Dawson says

      January 10, 2013 at 3:21 pm

      I felt that same way may friend! It’s a great feeling.

Trackbacks

  1. How I Use Evernote for My Paperless System | Dare Dreamer Magazine says:
    August 13, 2012 at 8:00 am

    […] – as much as possible I keep client correspondence electronic. I use Signnow.com for contracts. I save important client correspondence in Evernote by forwarding email to the appropriate folder. […]

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube

Latest & Greatest

  • Radio Film School Season 2 Finale – Love, Loss and Looking Ahead
  • Celebrating 15 Years of My Video Business [Podcast]
  • Making a Documentary Pt. 5 – Giving Credit [PODCAST]
  • MCU vs. DCEU: Lessons for Creators [PODCAST]
  • Breaking The Glass SEASON FINALE – The Definitive Solution for Change [PODCAST]

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...