It seems like every mastermind, event, or podcast at some point ends up on the topic of ancillary businesses and vendor partnerships. Are you starting your own? Partnering? How are you maximizing the value of these relationships?
Teams and brokerages are realizing their role as gatekeeper to literally dozens of other businesses. Mortgage. Title. Home inspection. Home warranty. Home Security. Moving and relocation services. Utilities. Solar. Pest control.
When somebody moves houses it creates a ton of business. Everybody wants a piece of the action.
And the agent, as catalyst for it all, sits at the top of that food chain.
While we're still working on a lot of these features, a lot of this recent product release was making ground work towards this ecosystem we'll describe below.
What are “Integrated Vendors”?
The best teams we work with are obsessed with streamlining their business, and Sisu is the tool they use to do it.
Everything is streamlined, starting with processes—data is sent from the CRM and at key moments, the agent or TC fills in the gaps of the transaction with additional, important information via intake forms.
This kicks off a workflow for managing a new listing, going contract to close, wrapping up post-closing tasks and more, and feeding the data from Sisu to wherever it needs to go.
Sisu is already streamlining 1) your systems 2) your processes and 3) your reporting and business intelligence.
So we had an idea to integrate one more key portion of the business, one that’s extremely promising but also hard for teams to really execute on:
Why not build integrations with the vendors you work with as well?
How Sisu is using Integrated Vendors to streamline your workflows
We already have home warranty companies who are working on integrations here, so the process of ordering a home warranty is a great example to start with.
Ordering a home warranty usually involves lots of duplicate data entry. You take data in one of your systems and fill it out on the home warranty company’s website, or share the details with them over the phone. It’s archaic.
So the first use case is simple. You go to a directory in Sisu (below) that shows you all the integrated vendors and select the one you want to work with.
The vendor can build out a form that contains the exact data they need when you pass them the referral. This is the same form experience you’re used to in Sisu, with most of the fields being auto populated with data that was already in the system.
When you hit submit, the referral will go over to the vendor and you’ll be good to go.
If you have vendors you'd like us to discuss with about becoming a Sisu Integrated Vendor, drop us some notes here.
How Integrated Vendors could add to your bottom line
It doesn’t take a genius to see how these partnerships could be extremely valuable.
So why is it that 95% of teams don’t have them in place? At best, teams have relationships with mortgage and title, if anything. But why not the dozens of other ancillary businesses?
They’re leaving money on the table.
And they've got a legitimate reason...
Without the right ecosystem, these relationships are more hassle than they’re worth. It would be extremely distracting for a team owner to go out and build relationships with dozens of ancillary businesses, and even more work to maintain accountability and reporting on those relationships over time.
We believe Sisu can provide that ecosystem while making it simple and scalable.
Here are three core problems that Sisu’s ecosystem can solve:
The vision: here’s an example of what using Sisu Integrated Vendors would look like.
So here’s where we’re going with this.
Imagine that at some point in the home-buying process, you sit down with your client to help them make this transition smooth and simple.
Part of that transition is setting up all the services they’re going to want/need in their new home. You work through a checklist that contains the necessities (like utilities), the basics (like scheduling with a moving company, home warranty, etc) and the nice-to-haves (like solar, home security, pest control, etc).
Each step of the way, you’re just checking boxes.
Or you could go even bigger. Part of your “Road to Close” checklist in Sisu would be a three way call with your team’s own Home Concierge. This type of a process would be better for you, your client, and the vendors. It would increase conversion.
Either way, the second the referrals go out to our integrated vendors, they’re tracked and tagged with your name on them.
And here’s the most important part: these vendors can build back into the Sisu ecosystem. On the same dashboard where you track and manage your transactions, you can see referrals that you’ve sent out with their estimated return.
It’s a smooth, integrated process that is valuable for your client, for you, and for the vendors downstream from you.
Most importantly, it lets you capitalize on your powerful position as the catalyst for the entire home buyer/home selling process.
It all gets even more exciting when you consider our client-facing app (think Domino’s Pizza Tracker for your clients, using data that’s already in Sisu) releasing in the coming months.
This is the future 🎉
Other notes from Sisu’s Dec 8 product release
Check out the full notes from our most recent release here.
If you have vendors you'd like us to discuss with about becoming a Sisu Integrated Vendor, drop us some notes here.
