Hey Sisu community!
It’s been a minute since we put out a product update blog. Time to fill you in on what’s changing and improving within Sisu.
Last month we held our first ever onsite event. It was a collaboration between 50 or so team/operations leaders, the Sisu executive team, and The Utah Life Real Estate Group (which is the first ever team to start using Sisu).
Of all the takeaways, I think the biggest was how two teams with similar models can get wildly different results from using the system. And that shift in results comes from a relatively small shift in approach—a small shift that changes just about everything.
Consider two teams with their own unique Sisu implementations.
The main objective? Both teams want to see beautiful dashboards. They want real-time data to make better decisions. Their vision as a leader depends on this.
It’s a great objective.
How they get there makes all the difference.
Team A uses Sisu reactively. When a transaction goes under contract, they put it into Sisu. When it closes, they update it again. Better than a spreadsheet, but still a basic application of the system.
The only value coming from having the data in the system is in their reporting.
And getting that reporting takes extra work.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Team B uses Sisu operationally. When a listing is signed, their agents go into Sisu to fill out a form.
It’s not extra work because completing this form is the only thing they have to do to kick off the listing—and it’s required if they want to leverage the admin team on the transaction.
When the agent goes into Sisu to complete the form, the transaction is already sitting in the system ready for them—because Sisu pulls in all of their “hot” leads (or leads with a certain tag on them) into their pipeline.
So the agent simply finds that pipeline transaction and starts filling out the form. Fields like “name”, “email” and “lead source” were already completed for them. They’re just filling in blanks.
The form requires key fields, like the MLS notes, MLS live date, open house date, etc. that aren’t found in the CRM. Some of the fields are optional. Others are required.
Submitting the form kicks off everything in the transaction. A yard sign goes in the day before the listing goes live. Your marketing manager is tasked to add the listing to a weekly “coming soon” email blast 7 days before it goes active. When it goes active, a social media post is scheduled. This is done through Sisu task management.
Fast forward to when this listing goes under contract. The agent simply pulls up Sisu and completes the next form—but the form only asks for information we don’t already know. It’s just filling in the blanks.
The next form gets submitted and the next workflow and task list kicks off.
So here’s the vision. Data runs THROUGH Sisu, not just into Sisu. That’s the difference between the two teams.
If Sisu is creating more work for you, it’s likely because you’re gathering data after key data chokepoints, rather than implementing Sisu at those data chokepoints.
The difference between the two is a difference of hours and hours of manual data entry. It’s also likely the difference between accurate and inaccurate data.
In the example above, Team A and Team B both get the result they are after—beautiful reports in Sisu and a better vision for their business.
The difference is that Team B’s reports are effortless.
You’ll notice that we’ve done extensive work in the “forms and fields” section of the platform.
The forms themselves are more powerful:
What can go on those forms has also improved:
Future updates will make these forms even more powerful—updates such as form logic(i.e. if response is A, then present them with fields 1, 2, and 3. If response is B, present them with fields 3, 4, and 5).
In addition to the updates above, we have updates like auto-emails with merge fields, additional triggers for task lists, improved document management and improved manual emailing that support this vision.
The scenario above also illustrates a powerful application of a CRM integration.
When leads reach “hot” status or accept an appointment they move over into the Sisu pipeline. This typically saves ~10 fields of manual entry. It also gives you reporting on the hottest leads and appointment conversion ratios.
Not only that, but it forces accountability for using both systems. It drives the mentality that “if it didn’t happen in the CRM, it didn’t happen”.
Over time, this drives very strong habits with your agents to stay on top of their leads. If not all of them, at least the ones that matter the most. Here’s why:
It doesn’t happen overnight, but over time these processes start to sink in. They start to create culture.
We’re seeing more and more clients (and partners) leverage the API to build out integrations exactly how they want them. We have a network of consultants and partners who are effective and experienced with the Sisu API.
Speaking from experience here, integrations are often scarier than they seem. I’ve been able to work with a handful of consultants from this Facebook group to build custom integrations exactly the way I want them.
Recent updates to the Sisu API make this even more reachable:
We’ve also doubled down on our out-of-the-box supported integrations.
In the last six months we’ve invested heavily in a new integration infrastructure that will help us and our partners kick out integrations much faster. We’ve also hired three new developers who have the core focus of integrating Sisu with as many applications as possible.
Whether you are looking at leveraging our API on your own or using one of our out-of-the-box integrations, we always consult on one thing: the most important thing an integration can do is support your operational workflow.
It’s the same difference between Team A and Team B earlier in this article. Is your data running through Sisu or just into Sisu?
That difference is everything.
If you run a large team with sub-teams inside it, or a brokerage with multiple locations, the hierarchy you create within your Sisu accounts becomes extremely important.
Done right, you’ll be able to run reports in seconds that take most large multi-office or multi-team organizations weeks.
Here is a breakdown on how hierarchy works in Sisu
We’re seeing more and more large-scale rollouts of Sisu. Mega teams with 50+ locations. Brokerages who are consolidating their multi-state backends into one scalable system. And we have a bunch of updates that make Organizations easier in Sisu:
It wouldn’t be Q4 if we didn’t talk about goal setting.
We’ve added features to our goal configuration screen that makes it much easier to adjust for seasonality.
This updated video explains how goal setting works, from start to finish, with the new seasonality updates.
It was amazing connecting with a lot of you at the last in-person event. We spent a lot of time talking about the big vision of the product. We spent a lot of time talking about how Sisu can drive a shift in leadership and culture, and a shift in leadership and culture can drive a much higher level of usage in Sisu.
We’re running another event on December 9-10 here in Salt Lake. The details are here. Come mastermind with the Sisu team in person!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sisu-mastery-workshop-sisu-hq-tickets-206626885577