ORLANDO, FL – March, 2013 – YachtCloser is delighted to announce that prestigious yacht brokerage, charter and new boat sales firm Tom George Yacht Group (TGYG) of Dunedin, Florida, is utilizing its web-based contract management system to help make the process of buying and selling a yacht more efficient and enjoyable for its clients.

“In January, TGYG relocated its offices to Marker One Marina. This state-of-the-art facility on the ICW offers clients a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere combined with direct water access, dockage, boat sales and service, all on-site in one location. As part of this expansion, we are proud to say that TGYG has added our innovative contract management software to its suite of business tools,” said Brad Parker, president of YachtCloser. “Now, TGYG’s brokers and sales team can list a yacht or go to contract on a sale without requiring their clients to be physically present. As long as both client and broker have internet access, they can be anywhere in the world.”

TGYG brokers already are raving about YachtCloser:

“It’s a great product. It’s going to make life easy for all the brokers and the clients. It’s easy; it’s intuitive. [YachtCloser] is constantly expanding, and their customer service is beyond comparison.” – Mark Karampelas

“It’s made it very easy for my clients to receive and sign contracts and get [them] back in a timely manner with no buyer’s remorse. So, thumbs up for YachtCloser – Rob Wojciechowski

“We are using it for every single deal and it totally simplifies the paperwork process for yacht brokers. I would highly recommend it to anyone who’s interested.” – Jimmy Rogers

YachtCloser named Jim Coburn to its strategic advisory board, where he will work with the YachtCloser team on the development of new and innovative products and services designed to streamline the financing process from initial application to closing.

YachtCloser provides a secure online platform with e-signature technology to expedite yacht listings, sales and purchases. Buyer, seller and broker no longer need to travel to a single closing location; the deal can even be signed by parties on different continents via computer, iPad or other Internet-enabled device.

“We’re very pleased to have Jim Coburn join our strategic advisory board,” founder and president Brad Parker said in a statement. “With Jim’s extensive industry knowledge and experience in banking we will be better positioned to introduce new products and services to further simplify and streamline the yacht brokerage industry across multiple channels.”

A 30-year veteran of commercial banking, Coburn has managed consumer finance divisions that include credit, sales management, dealer finance, direct lending, floor planning, manufacturer relations, residential mortgage, credit card, merchant services, collection servicing and compliance.

He is the managing partner of Coburn and Associates LLC, a consulting firm with expertise in consumer lending and finance. He has held senior regional and national positions for Flagstar Bank, BB&T and PNC Bank (formerly First of America/National City).

Coburn has been a member of the National Marine Bankers Association since 1983 and has twice served as its president. He also has served on the association’s board and as its secretary and treasurer.

Coburn also is a founding director of the Recreational Boating Industries Educational Foundation, a 26-year Michigan scholarship foundation. In December of 2009 he was elected to the board of the Michigan Boating Industries Association and he is chairman of the board.

Click here for the full release.

Denison Yacht Sales is streamlining the process of buying and selling a yacht for its clients by using YachtCloser’s Web-based contract management system.

YachtCloser, developed by Florida yacht broker Brad Parker and his team, provides a secure online platform with e-signature technology in an effort to expedite yacht listings, sales and purchases from anywhere in the world, according to the company.

Although initially skeptical about whether YachtCloser’s “new tech” closing solution would improve the buying and selling process for his firm’s clients, Denison Yacht Sales owner Bob Denison ultimately said in a statement: “We’ve been guinea pigs for lots of first-generation technology, but we have never experienced a smoother first run. This technology has saved our sales team time and has improved document accuracy, but most importantly it makes the sales process stress-free for our clients.”

Denison Yachts senior yacht broker Kevin Frawley recently used YachtCloser for the sale of a 61-foot Viking.

“The closing process now can be minimized to just half an hour, where before faxing and emailing all the necessary documents usually took a couple of hours,” Frawley said in a statement.

“We work hard to equip our brokers with thorough product knowledge and systems and sales training, and technology plays a large part in this,” Denison said. “We have five marina locations in North America, allowing us to serve large yachting segments locally. Technology gives our ‘local’ yachting experts global reach, reflecting our commitment to [give] the listings our clients entrust us with truly international marketing.”

Denison is a full-service yacht brokerage and yacht charter firm with marina offices in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Marina del Rey, Calif.; San Carlos, Mexico; Old Saybrook, Conn., and Scituate, Mass.

YachtCloser manages more than $500 million in active boat and yacht contracts nationwide.

Miami-based new and used yacht dealer Yachting Experts is integrating YachtCloser’s web-based contract management solutions into its business.

Yachting Experts now has access to a single, secure digital platform for managing its inventory, brokerage listings and contracts, allowing its staff to offer customers yacht transactions, regardless of where they are, Yachting Experts announced.

YachtCloser lets everyone involved in a business transaction review and revise a contract from any device with Internet access, including an iPad. With e-signature technology, all parties also can sign the contract and return it instantly via the Internet, eliminating “fuzzy faxes” from the process. The participants in a deal closing no longer need to be in the same room or even on the same continent.

“YachtCloser is a great tool,” Yachting Experts principal Frank De Varona said in a statement. “You basically can have a virtual office anywhere in the world. It makes us a more streamlined organization, facilitating the process for customers who want to buy or sell a boat with us.”

“YachtCloser makes it a lot easier for our customers to have access to important documents,” Betty De Varona said in a statement. “They can e-sign without having a need to print the document, sign it, then scan it and send it back.”

“I listed my boat with Yachting Experts and I was surprised how easy it was with the electronic signature. It was all seamless, electronic and professional,” Bob Wexler, Miami-based owner of a Riviera 44 sport yacht, said in a statement. “I do a lot of real estate contracts, and I’ve never used anything like this before.”

Internet yacht brokerage portal YachtWorld.com announced it entered into a strategic alliance with YachtCloser, a provider of Web-based contract management solutions.

The alliance will bring a contract management solution to BoatWizard, the inventory management tool for YachtWorld. Broker members will be able to access a single, secure platform to manage their inventory, leads and now their listing and closing contracts. The alliance was formed to streamline the closing process, including the auto-fill of boat specifications directly from their inventory in BoatWizard.

“We are very excited to bring the YachtCloser application to BoatWizard,” Dominion Marine Media vice president and general manager Ian Atkins said in a statement. “Consumers increasingly expect they can complete transactions online. We want our brokers to have the same ability to easily manage their listings, contracts and purchase documents to streamline the boat-buying process.”

Brokers, regardless of where they are, can create, edit and send contracts from any device with Internet access. Thanks to e-signature technology, all parties can sign contracts and return them instantly via the Internet, eliminating “fuzzy faxes” from the process, according to the companies.

Click here for the full release.

By Paul Ivice

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Source: TC Palm

Source: Soundings

Automating everything involved in a yacht brokerage transaction seems like an obvious concept, but until recently no one in the business had done it. The idea occurred a few years ago to YachtCloser LLC president Brad Parker.

He was heading into a movie theater with his wife and three children when he got a call from a prospective buyer who wanted to get on a plane the next day to do a sea trial on a yacht he was brokering. Parker panicked. He was nowhere near home, did not have the documentation he needed to get the deal moving and had no scanner or fax machine available even if he had the necessary paperwork.

Needless to say, the night out with the family was a bust. “In order to make that deal happen right there I would have to send a contract to the buyer to sign and put in an initial offer, send that to the seller for the seller to print out, sign and fax back to me,” Parker says.

Such transactions can be further slowed when there are multiple sellers and buyers, which Parker says is common. It’s also typical that all of them are in separate locations, he says. He scrambled to get everything in motion so the buyer could get his plane ticket the next day. Then he decided that there has to be a better way.

After months of development and testing, Parker introduced YachtCloser in January. The website (www.yachtcloser.com) enables brokers to close and execute deals completely online. Traditionally in yacht brokerage, if a seller accepts an offer, a contract is drawn up and, if there are conditions to the sale, an additional contract is drawn up, Parker explains. Then there is state registration, title work, documentation — all of which is done manually. All of those documents must be faxed back and forth and can be barely legible by the time everything is done.

Parker fully automated the process, often accomplishing in a few minutes what in the past would have taken several days. His system relies heavily on the federal Electronic Signatures Act, which took effect in 2000 and gives electronic contracts the same weight as those executed on paper. “We have taken every single one of those contracts and automated them,” he says. “All you have to do is put the information in once and [the software] will automatically fill out every piece of registration.”

The information is stored in one place with reminders of important dates and expiration deadlines for each contract. A broker also can check a few boxes to have e-mails sent to buyers recommending insurance providers or transportation companies. The attached insurance form will already be 85 percent filled out, making it easier for the buyer to put in a few pieces of information and send it off with a click.

Parker hasn’t implemented a subscription service for those companies, but plans to do so soon. For now, he is charging brokerage companies $199 a month for each location, regardless of the number of users. So far, it’s working. Everyone he has pitched the service to has subscribed.

For Jenny Wicker, a broker at Denison Yacht Sales in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the system has been extremely valuable. “This is the third brokerage firm I’ve been with and the first that doesn’t have someone specifically handling closing,” Wicker says. “This is my secretary for my closers.”

When she was handling everything on her own it was easy to overlook certain steps in the process or miss dates, she says. The first deal she did with YachtCloser was after a sea trial while she and the prospective buyer were in the car. He was driving and telling Wicker what he liked about the yacht and what his conditions would be. “I sat and pulled up YachtCloser on the phone and changed the conditions [of his offer],” Wicker says. When the buyer asked when he would have a copy of the changed terms, Wicker was able to tell him, “It’s already in your e-mail.”

Wicker initially checked with a lawyer to make sure everything about YachtCloser’s contracts was legally sound before she used the software because she was new to e-signature. The lawyer told her it was the best way to do business today.

“I can’t believe nobody’s done this,” Wicker says. “It amazes me that nobody’s come up with this, and I don’t know if there’s anything like this in the real estate industry, but if not [Parker] should go for it.”

This article originally appeared in the June 2012 issue.

Source: Trade Only Today

YachtCloser offers an automated — and simpler — way to close and execute boat deals online.

Automating everything involved in a yacht brokerage transaction seems like an obvious concept, but until recently no one in the business had done it.

The idea occurred a few years ago to YachtCloser LLC president Brad Parker. He was heading into a movie theater with his wife and three children when he got a call from a prospective buyer who wanted to get on a plane the next day to do a sea trial on a yacht he was brokering. Parker panicked. He was nowhere near home, did not have the documentation he needed to get the deal moving and had no scanner or fax machine available even if he had the necessary paperwork.

Needless to say, the night out with the family was a bust. “In order to make that deal happen right there I would have to send a contract to the buyer to sign and put in an initial offer, send that to the seller for the seller to print out, sign and fax back to me,” Parker says.

Such transactions can be further slowed when there are multiple sellers and buyers, which Parker says is common, and it’s also typical that all of them are in separate locations, he says. He scrambled to get everything in motion so the buyer could get his plane ticket the following day, then told himself, “There has got to be a better way.”

After months of development and testing, Parker introduced YachtCloser in January. The website (www.yacht closer.com) enables brokers to close and execute deals completely online. For a process that’s often comparable to buying a house, that’s saying a lot. “YachtCloser is designed by someone who lives and breathes and understands every step of the process,” Parker says. “It’s amazing that nothing like this existed sooner.”

Traditionally in yacht brokerage, if a seller accepts an offer, a contract is drawn up and, if there are conditions to the sale, an additional contract is drawn up, Parker explains. Then there is state registration, title work, documentation — all of which is done manually. All of those documents must be faxed back and forth and can be barely legible by the time everything is done. “I used to just think, We sell million-dollar yachts, and I can’t believe I’m sending a contract that looks like this. I can’t even read this,” Parker says.

Parker fully automated the process, often accomplishing in a few minutes what in the past would have taken several days. His system relies heavily on the federal Electronic Signatures Act, which took effect in 2000 and gives electronic contracts the same weight as those executed on paper. “We have taken every single one of those contracts and automated them,” he says. “All you have to do is put the information in once and [the software] will automatically fill out every piece of registration.”

The information is stored in one place with reminders of important dates and expiration deadlines for each contract. Sales managers can access each broker’s sales and determine where each deal stands. A broker also can check a few boxes to have e-mails sent to buyers recommending insurance providers or transportation companies. The attached insurance form will already be 85 percent filled out, making it easier for the buyer to put in a few pieces of information and send it off with a click.

“The amount of functionality and integration we have with these companies, it’s going to be completely new for this industry,” Parker says. “With everyone else, they’re just a link on someone else’s website, but this gives actual connectivity to the deal itself. Think about it: If an insurance company has an opportunity to get in front of the buyer of a yacht, the purchase and sale agreement is a perfect time. It gives these resources a unique and targeted opportunity to be at the right place at the right time.”

Parker hasn’t implemented a subscription service for those companies but plans to do so soon. For now, he is charging brokerage companies $199 a month for each location, regardless of the number of users. So far, it’s working. Everyone he has pitched the service to has subscribed, so Parker has spent no money on advertising.

“We currently have … about $197 million in contracted boats that have been executed through our system, and based on some of the brokerages that have signed up … we see that number doubling or tripling in the next two weeks,” Parker said in early February.

For Jenny Wicker, a broker at Denison Yacht Sales in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the system has been extremely valuable. “This is the third brokerage firm I’ve been with and the first that doesn’t have someone specifically handling closing,” Wicker says. “This is my secretary for my closers. I don’t have to have anyone keeping up with my paperwork. It’s made [closings] much less of a nightmare.”

When she was handling everything on her own it was easy to overlook certain steps in the process or miss dates, she says. The first deal she did with YachtCloser was after a sea trial while she and the prospective buyer were in the car. He was driving and telling Wicker what he liked about the yacht and what his conditions would be. “I sat and pulled up YachtCloser on the phone and changed the conditions [of his offer],” Wicker says. When the buyer asked when he would have a copy of the changed terms, Wicker was able to tell him, “It’s already in your e-mail.”

Wicker initially checked with a lawyer to make sure everything about YachtCloser’s contracts was legally sound before she used the software because she was new to e-signature. The lawyer told her it was the best way to do business today.

On a per-sale basis, YachtCloser saves Wicker about 10 hours, or “at least a full day’s worth of work,” she says. “I can’t believe nobody’s done this,” she adds. “It amazes me that nobody’s come up with this, and I don’t know if there’s anything like this in the real estate industry, but if not [Parker] should go for it.”

Asked whether he would consider expanding to other industries, Parker answers quickly: “Yes.”

This article originally appeared in the June 2012 issue.

ORLANDO – In an effort to bring more of the brokerage business online, Brad Parker, general manager of Parker Boats, launched YachtCloser, an online resource through which brokerage businesses manage their entire array of brokerage contracts exclusively via the Web.

Parker, who handles much of the brokerage business for his family’s Orlando, Fla.-based dealership, said in an interview with Boating Industry that he started YachtCloser to alleviate the pain in creating and faxing the many contracts involved during the closing period. With YachtCloser, Parker said this same process is completed in a fraction of the time with an Internet connection as the only resource needed.

Along with his YachtCloser partners, Kevin Bush and Andy Lewis, Parker created the program so brokers can construct, sign and send contracts online to potential buyers, who, in return, electronically sign and email back the contracts, which is as binding as a physical signature.

Parker said once brokers have their inventory information and necessary contact information uploaded, many of the contracts can be automatically created with the current transaction’s information.

“I didn’t want to be handcuffed any more,” Parker said. “I want to be able to stand on a dock and conduct business with my iPad or iPhone.”

Brokers can either upload their own contracts or use one of YachtCloser’s contracts, which can be personalized to add a business’s logo, for example, Parker said.

With everything online, managers can monitor their employee’s progress in the transaction by viewing what contracts have been sent and signed, allowing for new levels of oversight, according to Parker.

“When I am off on business, I could go look at my brokers’ transactions and check in with them to make sure there aren’t any issues if something looks held up,” he said.

With all sales documented online, brokers will also have real-time access to historical sales totals, whether it is per broker, brokerage company, or even the entire brokerage industry, according to Parker.

Prior to its official launch Jan. 4, YachtCloser had been in beta testing since September 2011, successfully completing more than $32 million in contracts during that period. In order to further encourage its growth, brokers pay per location for YachtCloser, not per user.

Mike Kiely, a broker with Denison Yacht Sales, uses YachtCloser at his Fort Lauderdale location. Chosen as a beta tester, Kiely said he has no plans to stop using the program.

There is an initial time investment in gathering old contracts, contacts and inventory information and uploading it to YachtCloser, said Kiely, but the increase in efficiency is more than worth it.

“It streamlines the operations, and it makes you look more professional than the other brokers,” Kiely said. “Once you know the information is correct, you can be in your car or sitting by a pool, getting deals done on the fly.”

In the future, Parker said YachtCloser will create advertising opportunities for other companies, since potential buyers on YachtCloser.com are high quality leads in the final stages of purchasing boat. A company selling insurance, for example, would be reaching the customer at the perfect time, according to Parker.