In this episode of Real Estate Distilled, Scott Hack sits down with Peter Maglathlin, CEO of Sierra Interactive, for a deep dive into how Sierra is navigating a shifting market, leaning into its core strengths, and embracing AI-powered innovation. From the upcoming IntelliSearch platform to actionable insights with Agent Leaderboard and evolving automation tools, Peter pulls back the curtain on Sierra’s roadmap. They also explore where AI makes sense today, where it doesn’t, and how smart integrations—like with Shiloh and House Whisper—are transforming daily workflows for teams and brokerages.
Whether you’re a Sierra user, a real estate tech nerd, or just curious about how to future-proof your business, this one’s a must-listen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Peter Maglathlin (00:00):
We don't have a monopoly on innovation in this
(00:02):
space. And in order for us to dowhat I said earlier, which is
focus on our strengths, we needto be able to integrate with
other really great pointsolutions. And in a fast moving
market, open architecture and apublic API is what it is what
enables you to do that. Right?
Announcer (00:18):
Welcome to the Real Estate Distilled podcast. Get
ready for a smooth pour oninsights on sales, marketing,
lead conversion, and technology.All shaken, stirred, and
perfectly balanced to help yousucceed in real estate.
Scott Hack (00:43):
Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming in and joining
us for another episode of theReal Estate Distilled podcast.
Really excited to get this onerecorded. Today, we have a guest
coming to us, one of oursponsors from Real Estate
Distilled. And those of you whohave not met Peter yet,
hopefully, you'll have theopportunity to do that soon.
But I'll jump into some moredetails about Sierra. But let's
(01:04):
go ahead and get Peter on andhave him introduce himself.
Peter, thanks for joining us.
Peter Maglathlin (01:10):
Thrilled to be here, Scott. Thanks. Thanks for
having me. So yeah, I've Hi,everyone. I'm Peter McLaughlin,
CEO of Sierra Interactive.
I've been with the businessabout two and a half years, my
two year anniversary will be inOctober. I've been in software
for, God, about fifteen years atthis point. I'm a reformed
(01:31):
entrepreneur. I built two priorbusinesses, one in talent
management and one inconstruction tech, and had the
opportunity to join Sierra andpartner with Sierra's founder
Ben Pesco, who is a productvisionary and just wonderful guy
in helping to take this businessto the next level. So software
(01:53):
is in my blood.
It's been really fun and reallyfascinating to to apply my
skills in a new space in realestate. And it's very helpful to
have customers who also serve asadvisors like Scott, to learn
from on a daily basis, andbounce ideas off of, as much as
(02:18):
possible. So thrilled to be hereand, you know, real estate
distilled is is our favoriteevent of the year and was was
wonderful again this year.
Scott Hack (02:31):
Appreciate that, Peter. So I think that, as just
a real quick side story, Iactually ran into Ben randomly
at the airport just about a weekago. I was coming back from
That's awesome. Yeah. I wascoming back from Florida, and he
was coming back from a trip aswell.
And we're sitting, in theAtlanta Airport waiting for our
connecting flight. And I waslike, I sat down. Was like, man,
that guy looks familiar. Andthen I looked over again. It's
(02:54):
like that's Ben.
So that that was an interestingand fun little, side adventure
that happened. So you youmentioned that you had come over
from to Sierra. And for thosethat do not know, the parent
company now for Sierra is ASG,correct?
Peter Maglathlin (03:08):
Alpine Software Group. Yep. So they
partner with businesses thatthat they call vertical SaaS
companies. So businesses thatare wholly dedicated to serving
a specific customer archetype.Right?
And so for for Sierra, that'sreal estate agents, real estate
teams, real estate brokerages.And, we identified Sierra as
(03:29):
really best in class in thespace, we're really wanted to
partner with them in bringingthe business to the next level
over a subsequent six, sevenyear period. And so now we're
we're firmly on the path todoing that.
Scott Hack (03:47):
That's awesome. And and your journey to Sierra
through ASG is because of youracquisition of your previous
companies. Right?
Peter Maglathlin (03:56):
Yeah. So I actually got introduced to ASG.
Mean, careers are funny, right?They end up a lot of it's based
on luck and relationships. Andso my prior business, one of my
board members said, hey, haveyou ever heard of Alpine
Software Group?
It's a really cool softwareinvestment firm. And I hadn't.
And he said, hey, well, mywife's there and she thinks you
(04:19):
would be a wonderful fit. And soI began speaking to the folks at
ASG and I really fell in lovewith two things, right? My work
satisfaction fundamentally comesdown to like the people I work
with.
And so I really admired andrespected and felt like I could
learn from the folks there. Andthen secondly, fell in love with
the model. I think thebusinesses they partner with are
(04:41):
hyper focused, tend to be verycustomer oriented because
they've been founder run for thebetter part of five to ten to
fifteen years. And I think ourpartnership model with founders
and within existing businessesallows for number one like value
creation for the business andfor our customers but number two
(05:04):
an opportunity for people'scareers to be transformed and up
leveled etcetera. And so I feelvery lucky, right?
Because I didn't know thatSierra was gonna be the business
I was partnered with and I feelvery fortunate that that is what
has happened. And Ben, as wementioned earlier, was a
(05:26):
wonderful partner throughout thetransition and the team he's
built, the technology they builtover a wonderful run has set
this business up for a reallyexciting ride as we as we move
forward.
Scott Hack (05:38):
That's awesome. So it's for those that do not know,
so Sierra was actually one ofthe founding sponsors of Real
Estate Distilled. So we actuallyhad the the pleasure of being
able to go face to face and sitdown with Ben, the the the
founder, and pitch the idea. Mywife, Liz, and I, who normally
joins us on the podcast. And sowe we were able to establish
that relationship.
So Sierra has been with us sincethe very beginning. So we hosted
(06:02):
our first conference in 2018,and Sierra has been there every
every year that we've hosted. Sohoping to keep that that
partnership alive and well formany years. Peter, as we are
kind of talking about, you know,the real estate industry in
general and Sierra specifically,and like I just said, like
Sierra has got a lot of peoplethat are in the ecosystem at
(06:25):
Sierra that are part of realestate distilled as well. So I'm
sure that if they knew that wewere having this conversation,
they would have had like a longlist of questions.
So why don't you take a coupleminutes and like, tell us what's
going on with Sierra? Like, ripthe curtain back as much as
you're comfortable doing andshare a little bit.
Peter Maglathlin (06:42):
Yeah, more than happy to. So I think my
journey with Sierra has beeninteresting because ever since I
joined in October 22, the markethas looked fundamentally
different than it did in theprior period. Right? Rates
started their March upwards,transaction volumes started
their March downwards. And, whatwe've been most focused on is
(07:08):
partnering with our customers toensure that the technology and
service we're delivering them isenabling them to continue to
wade through what is certainly achallenging market.
Who the heck knows when we'llget relief from a rates
perspective? Who the heck knowswhen we'll return to more
normalized transaction volumes?But I think we're in this
(07:30):
together with our customers andI think that we a lot of folks
doing really interestingcreative things to grow their
businesses amidst what is areally challenging set of
exogenous factors out there. Andfor those of you that don't know
Sierra very well, we are an IDXplus CRM platform that primarily
(07:52):
serves independent brokeragesteams but then also high
performing single agents. We gotour start and this is all thanks
to Ben in the IDX website space.
That's where our DNA reallyresides was Ben was one of the
first folks to realize, hey,there's an opportunity to build
high performing sleek websitesfor real estate companies in a
(08:17):
way that allows them to generatemore leads, convert more leads
and service their customersbetter. And that business grew
to include a back end systemthat is really differentiated
around, two things. I'd say ourour automations. Right? We
provide folks the capability tocreate many different unique,
(08:40):
we'll just call it like if thenstatements that allow their
agents, their teams to operateefficiently, but also enable
them to get in front of theircustomers with the right message
at the right time, which we allknow is really important.
But then secondly, something wecall our accelerator platform
that allows coachingorganizations and training
(09:01):
organizations to partner withour customers and building out
action plans and ensuringthey're using the system really
well. But what we've beenfocused on of late and what we
continue to be focused on iswhat I call leaning into our
strengths, right? Our customersare with us for very specific
reasons. We've delivering goodresults for our customers for
(09:25):
years and there's no need tonecessarily rewrite that recipe,
right? How do we make what'salready good better?
How do we enable our customersto extend the advantage that
they have in their marketthrough Sierra versus needing to
build out a bunch of differentnew software to deliver to
customers that they may or maynot need. I would say our
(09:49):
customers tend to be the mostforward thinking and smart about
SEO and lead generation. Right?Our websites undoubtedly are
best in class in SEO. They alsoare really really powerful from
a lead conversion perspectivewhether that's organic or PPC.
And how do we make a step changeon that front? We have a product
(10:13):
that remains in beta and iscoming out at some point over
the back half of the year calledImpellerSearch. We've gotten
some really good feedback fromcustomers and have a clear path
I think to delivering somethingreally powerful. But the
rationale behind that product isa few fold. Number one, we
understand that the fastestwebsites rank the best, right?
And so we've modernized ourarchitecture to allow those
(10:35):
sites to be faster. Number two,it enables our customers'
customers to search across MLS.I think one of the biggest
challenges for growingbrokerages or growing teams is,
hey, if I'm now coveringmultiple MLSs, my customer
doesn't understand like the MLSconstruct. And so forcing them
(10:57):
to search by MLS is just astrange consumer experience. So
removing that from the equationremoves a ton of friction for
the consumer.
The third thing is flexibilitythrough keyword search. We
understand that the MLS datastructure remains important and
it allows for folks to whittledown search criteria to get
exactly the results they want.But the MLS search criteria is
(11:17):
also incomplete. There are a lotof different desires or needs of
customers and those needs are orpreferences, those needs are
evolving fast and beingconstrained simply to the MLS
criteria sometimes doesn't allowthe results to be as relevant as
they otherwise could. And sothis keyword search capability
paired with the kind of facetedsearch not only enables our
(11:41):
agents to create more powerfulsave searches but allows our
their customers to discover moreproperties that are hyper
relevant.
And then lastly, we continuethis is all with SEO and content
creation and content generationin mind because we know that's
what our customers care about.Right? And so if your website is
(12:03):
faster, if you're able to createcontent based on keywords that
are relevant to consumers, thenyour website will rank better,
right? And so we're leaning inhard on the IDX front and we
have a lot of iteration to do tomake sure we get this right, but
we know that's top of ourcustomers' minds. I'd say the
second piece is around dataanalytics, right?
And this is kind of an ongoingtheme for us where there's so
(12:28):
much data that resides in ourcustomers databases that we are
not yet doing a good enough jobof surfacing to them so they can
make decisions. So when youthink about all the daily
activity that ISAs or agents areengaging in the CRM, that
activity is really important forteam leads and broker owners to
(12:48):
be able to understand, okay, whoare my highest performing
agents? What are they doing?Right? Like what is it that
makes them highest performingand what are our, how can our
processes be evolved or tinkeredwith in order to make the
organization and certainindividuals perform better?
Right. And I think the beauty ofbeing a CRM platform is that
data, we have access to all thatdata. There are a lot of
(13:09):
businesses that take that dataand create analytics or charts
with it but we can do thatourselves too. And so what we're
bringing to market back half ofthis year is this concept that
we're calling agent leaderboardwhich allows team leads, broker
owners, etcetera to understand,okay, like on a per agent basis
what are the core activitiesthat my agents are engaging in?
(13:30):
How do they rank against oneanother?
And how do those activitiescorrelate or not to results? And
that's our first foray into Ithink a really exciting data
analytics capability that'sgonna put insights into our
customers hands that allow themto make decisions which is
what's most important. A coupleother smaller things around
(13:54):
where we're going. I mentionedautomations as a big
differentiator for us and theyare. I think what we're now
leaning into is more powerfulout of the box automations that
give our customers the abilityto stand them up in a way that
isn't as labor intensive.
And so getting back to thisagent leaderboard point, there
(14:15):
are automations that you canpair with core activities or
follow-up that you want youragents to be engaging in that
make sure they actually do thoseactivities. Right? It's one
thing to show them the report,it's another thing to set up the
system to say, hey this leadhasn't been followed up within
twenty four hours, it came fromthis source. Our rule is it
needs to happen so make sure ithappens. And then around lead
(14:38):
task, we talked a lot with you,some of our other customers down
in Louisville at this wonderfuldinner where we were able to
learn so much around what yourand others key priorities were
and in a tight market wheresellers matter and have always
(15:00):
mattered but I think matter evenmore in the existing environment
allowing for what we're callingpartial lead capture for seller
leads.
Putting you all in the positionto acquire leads in a way that's
more flexible and maybe a littlebit incomplete but positions you
to then follow-up with thoseleads, amalgamate that data and
(15:22):
follow-up. And so, in summary,it's really about, like I said,
leaning into our strengths,right? Our customers like you, I
think have continued to staywith us for reasons we
understand well. We diluteourselves away from what those
strengths are, I think it wouldbe an irresponsible move on
(15:46):
behalf of our customers, whichis why we're doubling down.
Scott Hack (15:50):
So Peter, going back to your your comment about,
IntelliSearch really and talkingabout, you know, those those
feeds. And one of the thingsthat I think is kind of
interesting just to make surethat all the listeners kind of
get a grasp on. I'm actually ona MLS task force from my
association right now. And, youknow, like, once or twice a
year, we come out with newfields. It's not very often.
(16:13):
But you all, as a company, aremanaging probably, what, 700
different feeds?
Peter Maglathlin (16:19):
Yeah. A little less than that, but but 500.
Scott Hack (16:22):
Yeah. So it's a it's a it's a ton of data. So every
single association across thecountry, for instance, we're
we're just like last year,introduced some fields that were
related to like electric carchargers. So, you know, some
things like that. So anytimesomething new happens, you know,
green energy initiatives, thingsthere are fields that people
might want to search for.
It takes a while for thosefields to end up in the MLS. So
(16:45):
I might have that in mind, butthey might not exist in your
other 450 customers feeds. Soit's tough for you all to roll
something out with the searchfeature unless you're able to
pull that like you're talkingabout from the remarks and
pulling all that info. So it'sgoing to I think it's going to
be really important for speedbecause that's ultimately what
(17:06):
you're able to be able to bringto your clients next, you know,
next year, essentially, is thespeed to do something even if
the field doesn't exist.
Peter Maglathlin (17:14):
Totally. Yeah. It's speed and flexibility.
Right? Because I think that aswe've you know, one one of the
terms that we found is reallyimportant to a lot of consumers
across this country is thisconcept of multi generational.
Right? Multi generationalhousing. And that term exists in
the listing description in a lotof places, but it doesn't
(17:34):
necessarily exist as a fieldwithin the MLS. And so it's
unleashing the power of beingable to translate a consumer
preference to a search result ina way that doesn't necessarily
require for it to be within thestructured data of the MLS. We
are still going to enable folksto base searches on the
structured data within the MLSand this is complementary to
(17:55):
that.
And you know consumerpreferences are constantly
changing and so what I thinkthis allows folks to do is to
stay ahead of that curve, beable to meet consumers where
they are and create reallyinteresting like high ranking
content on terms we know folkscare about that again aren't
(18:19):
necessarily based on thestructured data within the MLS.
Right? Because you could createsome really interesting
compelling content around multigenerational homes. Or know
Scott something you and I havetalked about like homes with
historic charm in Louisvillethat this platform now enables
you to do that the prior kind ofconstruct didn't allow you to
(18:41):
do. And given our customers tendto be marketing forward, SEO
forward, content forward, wefeel this is only gonna pour
fuel on that fire and give thema competitive advantage in the
market.
Scott Hack (18:53):
I'm gonna make an assumption that, you know, a big
part of this IntelliSearch, bothfrom the name, but also from,
you know, what's being needed isis leveraging some form of AI to
have that context of what theseterms are. So is that I mean,
that's part of it. Right?
Peter Maglathlin (19:08):
Yeah. Over time, yes. I mean, the the core
technology we're we're we'releveraging here is something
called Elasticsearch, and Iwon't I won't get into the kind
of the technicals around that.But what that enables is just a
far more flexible and fulsomesearch, not just against we'll
call data values, but againstfree text. Right?
(19:28):
And where we can go with that,to your point, is layering on
artificial intelligence to makedecisions about what a match is,
what a match isn't, etcetera.But you got to be careful with
AI and I know we're going totalk a lot about this. I think
that there are some reallyexciting interesting
applications today. I thinkthere will soon be some really
(19:49):
exciting interestingapplications tomorrow. But how
do we think about a phasedsequence approach such that
we're not putting AI where itshouldn't be, right?
Because in a lot of ways thistechnology remains hyper nascent
And my perspective is you gottabe really careful around putting
(20:09):
AI in between you and yourcustomer. And I can unpack that
a lot. And it will get there.Right? But as a real estate
agent, you're dealing with folkswho are going through the most
important financial transactionof their life.
It's highly emotional. And Ithink that my perspective is AI
is gonna be able to serve you ina way that doesn't necessarily
(20:30):
require you to insert it inbetween you customer, but in the
background to enable you to dothings you couldn't do before.
Scott Hack (20:38):
Yeah. A lot of the conversations that I've been
having with friends and familyabout artificial intelligence
and specifically in the realestate industry, I've I've been
very open. I'm not worried aboutmy job. You know, I don't think
that, you know, AI can replacewhat I do. It it doesn't have
the ability to understand thethe empathy that's needed when
(21:00):
someone's going through thoseemotionally charged, you know,
negotiations and that thatprocess.
I do think that AI obviouslywill be a tool that we will be
using more and more andleveraging for some of our day
to day tasks. And, you know, wehad a conversation with Brandon
Duncan. He was on the podcasthere probably a couple episodes
ago, and he gave hispresentation at Real Estate
(21:21):
Distilled on AI. And it's it'sdefinitely a topic that you
can't, you know, walk into aroom of real estate agents and
someone not be talking about AI.And I think that, you know,
really, I've seen Terminator,you know, and I know I know I
know at some point Skynet'sgoing online, you know, that's
the end.
But until we get there, like,obviously, like I said, we're
(21:46):
there's just so much going onwith it. How how do you think
that we're going to reallyembrace and how do you think
it's gonna impact real estateindustry the most over the next
twelve to twenty four months?
Peter Maglathlin (21:56):
Yeah. Yeah. This is gonna be a fun
conversation. I I think aboutthis a lot, because, hey, our
job is to deliver greattechnology to businesses like
yours, and AI is undoubtedlygoing to have a profound impact.
But, really, the construct I tryto use is like now next later
(22:19):
and then at the same time how dowe ensure that we're supporting
that continued human connectionbetween you and your customers?
Because that is invaluable.Right? Again, for a real estate
transaction people are alwaysgoing to rely on other people
for advice but there's a way forAI to work in the background. So
(22:39):
I'm going to run through what Ibelieve to be like some of the
most exciting use cases today.And then I have a couple ideas
around where it's going to bemost exciting tomorrow.
But there are a lot oftechnologies out there today
that facilitate faster and insome ways more effective we'll
(23:00):
call it like lead qualificationand lead engagement. So we have
a product at Sierra called LeadEngage that enables inbound
leads to be interacted withbased on an LLM that is
constantly training itself in avery fast and usually pretty
effective manner. But the wholepurpose of that is to qualify
(23:22):
them such that they're agentready. And I think that this is
a valuable use case. I thinkit's the best use case today and
I think really the only onetoday that you should be
comfortable in injecting AI inbetween you and your leads or
your customers because thistechnology is pretty grooved.
You can see it operating in realtime and its ability to qualify
(23:46):
and learn and hand off is prettystrong. Where I get really
skeptical at least today aroundlead engagement is with voice
AI. And so I think voice AI isgonna be a game changing
technology. I really do. Do Ithink it's a game changing
technology today?
I do not. I think it's a littledangerous. Hey certain people
(24:07):
are comfortable with enabling avoice agent to answer and call
leads or customers. I think it'sI don't think the technology is
there yet. Right?
And so like when I think aboutkind of the agent to consumer
relationship, I think the bestapplication right now is text
(24:28):
based lead qualification becauseit's relatively grooved, it's
low risk, and at the end of theday it's the agents that should
be speaking to customers becauseit's fundamentally the best use
of their time. Right?
Scott Hack (24:41):
Yeah. You you mentioned, about the voice, and
I I think one of the things tokeep in mind too is that it's an
expectation too. The consumer isnot expecting a robot,
essentially, that's the term I'mgonna use, to call them. It's
different if you call into acall center and then you have an
AI robot that's trying to answeryour question or guide you to a
(25:02):
you know, eventually, someonelive needs to be to answer. And,
again, that's kind of like thatI'm using my hands here, like
really skimming the top, youknow, 20% off of here's the
people that I think we can handoff to someone live and actually
help.
And these other 80%, maybe wecan do something with an
automated fashion or help pushinto the correct channel. But,
(25:25):
yeah, I I'm not comfortable withthe outbound right now either.
Peter Maglathlin (25:28):
No. And and and, hey, I think this count
that technology is only going toget better and better. But,
like, the way I think about itis it's one thing to have voice
AI handle a customer supportconversation around, like, a 10
to $20 purchase. Right? It's afundamentally different thing to
have a voice agent handle aconversation someone who's
(25:48):
considering the most importantfinancial transaction of their
life.
It's so much more nuanced. It'sso much more risky that that I
think it it needs fundamentallyneeds to be a human until this
technology is perfected. That'snot to say that like I'm not
excited about it. I think it'sreally cool what's happening on
(26:10):
that frontier but we need to becareful. Scott, this is
something you mentioned earlierbut I think what I'm most
excited about in the near futurewith respect to AI is around
like internal efficiency andeffectiveness drivers for
organizations like yours, right?
And there are a couple reallyinteresting applications that
(26:32):
partner companies we haveintegrations with have brought
to market that I can walk youthrough. And I think you
recently spoke with JustinBenson from Shiloh who's become
a friend and has built a reallycool product. But the first
application is when you thinkabout like rote tasks, like data
input, right? And so CRMs aremission critical. They're really
(26:53):
powerful but at the end of theday it comes down to what is the
integrity and fullness of thedata that people are putting in
it, right?
And regardless of the industrythe challenge for the buyers of
CRMs is getting their teams toactually use them frequently and
be really vigilant around datacompleteness and data accuracy.
(27:17):
And agents have hard jobs,They're moving in a million
different places. I feel a lot,right? And so this concept of
making sure everything getscaptured into the CRM such that
it can be the source of truthunderstandably can be hard and
in a lot of ways I think isdeprioritized. And so there's a
(27:40):
business out there called HouseWhisper that a few of our
customers are using.
I'm not sure if you've everheard of it Scott but it was
founded by some former Zillowfolks and really what this does
is take a bunch of the dataentry and call follow-up off of
agents hands hands so that theycan continue to do the high
value work. So I think, know,Greg Delaire, he's on the
(28:02):
bleeding edge of a lot ofsoftware. For those that don't
know who Greg is, he's acustomer based out in Green Bay,
goes by Green Bay Greg. And Greghad set up an integration that
isn't native to Sierra yet withHouse Whisperer that is proving
to be a massive efficiencydriver for his agents because it
takes 50 to 60 to 70% of thisdata entry and rote task out of
(28:29):
their rhythm, right? And sothink about what that does for
the agent's daily workhappiness.
It's the type of thing I thinkis relatively easy to sell to
your agent as long as they'recomfortable with how it works
and it's predictably good. Andgenerally this technology is.
(28:49):
And so I don't thinkHouseCostriders is gonna be the
last example of a technologylike this. Think the way CRMs
are moving is that they willcontinue to be the source of
truth but the way data getsinput into them is going to be
less reliant on humans and morereliant on artificial
intelligence. And I think that'sfundamentally a good thing
because what that allows yourteam to do is spend more time
(29:13):
talking to prospects, talking tocustomers and enabling them to
buy and sell homes.
Another really interestingapplication with respect to
internal efficiency andeffectiveness is Shiloh AI,
right? And so when you thinkabout real estate teams or real
estate brokerages, you guys arefundamentally sales
organizations, right? Like yoursales effectiveness determines
(29:37):
your business success, right?And the better you get at
qualifying, discovering andeventually selling consumers on
your service, the more moneyyour agents are gonna make and
the more money your business isgonna make. That's hard, right?
Like we have a salesorganization at Sierra that I'm
heavily involved in. It's hard,right? And I think one of the
(30:03):
reasons it's hard is technologythat have come to market like a
Gong etcetera allow you toparachute in and understand kind
of what were the strengths ofthat call? What were the
weaknesses? What were thingsthat folks maybe could get
better at.
But historically that's neededto be done on kind of a one to
one basis and it's very timeconsuming. What Shiloh does
(30:27):
which is insanely powerfulespecially for organizations
that have five, ten, 15, 50agents is it applies AI to grade
and coach calls in an automatedway and feeds that data back
into the CRM such that numberone the agent understands and
(30:50):
has access to what that feedbackis. Number two the sales manager
has access to it and so itenables a much faster feedback
loop, right? So number two, itenables a sales manager to
likely be able to manage manymore people due to the
efficiency it drives at theorganization. And so this again
(31:12):
is a relatively new business.
We have a native integrationwith Shiloh. Have a bunch of
customers using it and it'sreally powerful and it helps to
solve for one of the I'd say toppain points that our brokerage
owner and team leaders have on aweekly, monthly basis. And then
I'd say, like, the thirdefficiency or effectiveness
(31:36):
application I'm really excitedabout, but this one needs to be
viewed skeptically is aroundcontent creation. Right? And
Scott, I know you you know,you're you and your wife are
very thoughtful about what yourcontent strategy is, what you're
producing, what's the so whatbehind it.
(31:56):
And I think content creation ishard. Right? It requires forward
thought. It requires effort.There's the cold start problem.
It's like, well, hey, where theheck am I gonna start? Right? I
think where AI can be reallyinteresting is solving for that
cold start problem. Let's justsay, hey I wanna write about
this. It can get you a 75 or 80%of the way there and then you
(32:18):
take it over the goal line byapplying your local market
knowledge, what you've seen workin the industry and putting your
own personal brand on it suchthat you can become more of a
content generation engine.
The thing folks need toappreciate is this is not an
(32:39):
easy button. It's a healthbutton. Because what AI will not
do is produce soup to nutsperfect content that you should
go then publish. That'sdangerous. Google's gonna see
right through it.
It's actually going to penalizeyou for doing that. What you
should be doing is getting 75 to80% of the way there, making it
unique in your voice and makingsure you're implementing some of
(33:01):
your own knowledge and thensurfacing it to the world. And
so we're doing a lot ofinteresting thinking and going
around with, hey, how do we putthe power of AI in our
customer's hands from a contentgeneration perspective but also
how do we erect the rightguardrails so that they use it
(33:21):
the right way? Because I thinkwhat the global concern around
AI is abuse. Right?
And hey, this covers everyapplication of AI is is abuse.
And so how do we make sure thatwe're it's being used
responsibly?
Scott Hack (33:39):
So, you know, going back to a couple of things you
were talking about there, Peter,I wanted to kinda put a a little
bit of a bow on some of thosekind of services you were
talking about that are that areAI based and, kind of also just
honestly kind of tee you up,with some kudos because one of
the other reasons why that Ichose Sierra Interactive along
(34:01):
with the obviously, I had had, alot of comfort level with Ben
and what I thought he was gonnabe doing with the company. And
then the organic portion of it,was, you know, obviously a big
driver. But then also, Ben waspretty quick to be open to
building that API to bring inother people, because there's
only so much that you all can doas an organization. And you
(34:23):
shouldn't be trying to beeverything. There should be
other people that are beingexperts in their field.
And you all have had the openhad the API, and I know that you
all did some updates to make iteasier for Shiloh and some other
people to, you know, communicatewith the database and be
partners in our in our database.Is do you think that AI is gonna
(34:45):
continue to push that so otherintegrations can take place? And
is that still part of the I'mguessing that's still part of
the company's DNA and philosophyis to allow those to take place.
Right?
Peter Maglathlin (34:53):
I'm glad you brought this up, Scott. So
furthering open architecture isat the core of our product
strategy. Because I think toyour point, we don't have a
monopoly on innovation in thisspace. And in order for us to do
what I said earlier, is focus onour strengths, we need to be
(35:14):
able to integrate with otherreally great point solutions.
And in a fast moving market,open architecture and a public
API is what enables you to doAnd it also helps to drive focus
within our internal productorganization to make sure we
continue getting better at whatwe're good at.
And so we are this is anevergreen strategy. Like every
(35:37):
month, we're making improvementsor opening up new endpoints
within the API because new greatpoint solutions are coming out
and need access to that data.And the approach we try to take
here is one of partnering withour customers in the ecosystem
to understand what are thosegreat partner solutions as
(35:58):
opposed to us internally saying,oh these are the endpoints we
need to expose becauseeventually they'll be used by
someone. No, There are newsolutions coming out every month
that are interesting and thatgives us line of sight into okay
what are the endpoints that areneeded to maybe like integrate
that solution with Sierra. And Ithink a really interesting cool
(36:20):
example today and hopefully youdon't get in trouble about
talking about this but we havehundreds of customers that use
Homebot, right?
Homebot is a sister company ofour within the ASP family.
Homebot is so fundamentallycomplementary to our platform,
right? We serve the samecustomer but what they provide
(36:41):
is I think best in class longterm customer nurture that needs
to be integrated natively intoSierra in a way that allows for
the right actions to be taken bySierra users based on engagement
in the Homebot platform, right?Because a lot of what Homebot is
(37:01):
enabling our customers to do isjust stay top of mind and
probably the most authenticpowerful way at a pretty cheap
price. Right?
But all of our users are in butfolks that are on Sierra and
Homebot live in Sierra. Right?And Homebot recognizes that.
They live in their CRM. All theactivity they take is out of the
CRM.
So only if the Homebot consumeractivity information, the
(37:26):
important stuff can flow intothe CRM. Then you can agents
take action on this stuff in away that is timely and
compelling. And so the APIstrategy and the partner
strategy, think is one of themost exciting parts of where
we're going. And this space ismoving faster than it's ever
(37:50):
moved. Some of that's related toAI, some of that's related to
other technology and the onlyway I think that we stay out in
front of that is by is byenabling those great products
and businesses to partner withus, not seeking to compete with
them.
Scott Hack (38:09):
Yep. That's awesome. So, you know, we have been
chatting about, well, a lot ofstuff about Sierra, lot of stuff
about, you know, AI and wherethe the market's going. So we're
we're, as as someone, at yourorganization used to tease about
when he was finishing up his hisweekly webinars. He would talk
(38:29):
about we're getting close toneeding to start landing the
plane.
So we're coming to the end ofour our conversation. So as we
are wrapping things up, whatwhat do you wanna leave people
with that are listening to ustoday? And what else do they
need to know about about Sierra?Where do you think that they
need to do some more research onthe industry in general as tech
(38:50):
is going to be continuing toevolve?
Peter Maglathlin (38:52):
Yeah. So I'd say with respect to artificial
intelligence, I would view it asone of the most powerful, I'll
call it, like agent enablingtechnologies that we've seen in
this industry for a long time.Do not expect it to remove the
responsibility of doing thevalue add work, right? Like the
(39:15):
phone calls still need to bemade, the listing presentations
and meetings still need tohappen, but what it's going to
allow your organization to do ifyou apply it the right way is
focus more time on doing thatstuff and getting better at
doing that stuff. Right?
And so we'd love to talk tofolks about kind of how some of
our partner solutions enablethat, but really be thinking
(39:37):
about AI not as a replacementfor people but an enabler for
people especially agents becausewhen applied correctly it can be
really powerful. I'd say youknow secondly the landscape for
search and ranking and customerdiscoverability is rapidly
(40:01):
changing. I like to believe thatSierra is at the forefront of
that change and a lot of thethings that we're bringing to
market are only going to extendthe advantage that we deliver to
folks like you, Scott, in yourmarket. And so for people that
are serious about building longterm sustainable businesses on
the backs of organic traffic andare serious about honing in on
(40:26):
lead conversion and gettingreally vigilant on that front,
come talk to us because that'sour bread and butter. And I
think that what's happening inreal estate now while it can be
nerve wracking, I thinkinevitably is going to position
the best any brokerages and thebest teams to only accrue more
(40:48):
transactions and more value fromthe market as long as they have
their tech stack set up right.
So
Scott Hack (40:54):
Awesome. I'll have, some information down in the
show notes on getting, anybodywho's interested in talking to
the team at Sierra. We'll have acontact down there so you can
reach out to them. Peter, thankyou for joining me today and
sharing your insights into, likeI said, behind the curtain with
the Sierra Interactive and howAI is impacting the industry.
It's it's been a fun chat.
(41:15):
Hopefully, we can get you onagain maybe later this fall and
find out how things are goingwith the rollout on
IntelliSearch and the the otherthings. Get an update there.
Peter Maglathlin (41:24):
Awesome, man. Yeah. I appreciate it and
appreciate the the partnershipwe have with you and Liz.
Scott Hack (41:29):
So alright, everybody. Thanks again for
joining us for another episodeof the Real Estate Distilled
podcast. That's gonna be a wrapfor today. We'll talk soon.
Announcer (41:38):
That's a wrap for this episode of the Real Estate
Distilled podcast. VisitrealestateDistilled.com for more
tips, and jump into our Facebookgroup to keep the conversation
going. Here's to making everytransaction a smooth pour.
(41:59):
Cheers.
We don't have a monopoly on innovation in this
(00:02):
space. And in order for us to dowhat I said earlier, which is
focus on our strengths, we needto be able to integrate with
other really great pointsolutions. And in a fast moving
market, open architecture and apublic API is what it is what
enables you to do that. Right?
Announcer (00:18):
Welcome to the Real Estate Distilled podcast. Get
ready for a smooth pour oninsights on sales, marketing,
lead conversion, and technology.All shaken, stirred, and
perfectly balanced to help yousucceed in real estate.
Scott Hack (00:43):
Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming in and joining
us for another episode of theReal Estate Distilled podcast.
Really excited to get this onerecorded. Today, we have a guest
coming to us, one of oursponsors from Real Estate
Distilled. And those of you whohave not met Peter yet,
hopefully, you'll have theopportunity to do that soon.
But I'll jump into some moredetails about Sierra. But let's
(01:04):
go ahead and get Peter on andhave him introduce himself.
Peter, thanks for joining us.
Peter Maglathlin (01:10):
Thrilled to be here, Scott. Thanks. Thanks for
having me. So yeah, I've Hi,everyone. I'm Peter McLaughlin,
CEO of Sierra Interactive.
I've been with the businessabout two and a half years, my
two year anniversary will be inOctober. I've been in software
for, God, about fifteen years atthis point. I'm a reformed
(01:31):
entrepreneur. I built two priorbusinesses, one in talent
management and one inconstruction tech, and had the
opportunity to join Sierra andpartner with Sierra's founder
Ben Pesco, who is a productvisionary and just wonderful guy
in helping to take this businessto the next level. So software
(01:53):
is in my blood.
It's been really fun and reallyfascinating to to apply my
skills in a new space in realestate. And it's very helpful to
have customers who also serve asadvisors like Scott, to learn
from on a daily basis, andbounce ideas off of, as much as
(02:18):
possible. So thrilled to be hereand, you know, real estate
distilled is is our favoriteevent of the year and was was
wonderful again this year.
Scott Hack (02:31):
Appreciate that, Peter. So I think that, as just
a real quick side story, Iactually ran into Ben randomly
at the airport just about a weekago. I was coming back from
That's awesome. Yeah. I wascoming back from Florida, and he
was coming back from a trip aswell.
And we're sitting, in theAtlanta Airport waiting for our
connecting flight. And I waslike, I sat down. Was like, man,
that guy looks familiar. Andthen I looked over again. It's
(02:54):
like that's Ben.
So that that was an interestingand fun little, side adventure
that happened. So you youmentioned that you had come over
from to Sierra. And for thosethat do not know, the parent
company now for Sierra is ASG,correct?
Peter Maglathlin (03:08):
Alpine Software Group. Yep. So they
partner with businesses thatthat they call vertical SaaS
companies. So businesses thatare wholly dedicated to serving
a specific customer archetype.Right?
And so for for Sierra, that'sreal estate agents, real estate
teams, real estate brokerages.And, we identified Sierra as
(03:29):
really best in class in thespace, we're really wanted to
partner with them in bringingthe business to the next level
over a subsequent six, sevenyear period. And so now we're
we're firmly on the path todoing that.
Scott Hack (03:47):
That's awesome. And and your journey to Sierra
through ASG is because of youracquisition of your previous
companies. Right?
Peter Maglathlin (03:56):
Yeah. So I actually got introduced to ASG.
Mean, careers are funny, right?They end up a lot of it's based
on luck and relationships. Andso my prior business, one of my
board members said, hey, haveyou ever heard of Alpine
Software Group?
It's a really cool softwareinvestment firm. And I hadn't.
And he said, hey, well, mywife's there and she thinks you
(04:19):
would be a wonderful fit. And soI began speaking to the folks at
ASG and I really fell in lovewith two things, right? My work
satisfaction fundamentally comesdown to like the people I work
with.
And so I really admired andrespected and felt like I could
learn from the folks there. Andthen secondly, fell in love with
the model. I think thebusinesses they partner with are
(04:41):
hyper focused, tend to be verycustomer oriented because
they've been founder run for thebetter part of five to ten to
fifteen years. And I think ourpartnership model with founders
and within existing businessesallows for number one like value
creation for the business andfor our customers but number two
(05:04):
an opportunity for people'scareers to be transformed and up
leveled etcetera. And so I feelvery lucky, right?
Because I didn't know thatSierra was gonna be the business
I was partnered with and I feelvery fortunate that that is what
has happened. And Ben, as wementioned earlier, was a
(05:26):
wonderful partner throughout thetransition and the team he's
built, the technology they builtover a wonderful run has set
this business up for a reallyexciting ride as we as we move
forward.
Scott Hack (05:38):
That's awesome. So it's for those that do not know,
so Sierra was actually one ofthe founding sponsors of Real
Estate Distilled. So we actuallyhad the the pleasure of being
able to go face to face and sitdown with Ben, the the the
founder, and pitch the idea. Mywife, Liz, and I, who normally
joins us on the podcast. And sowe we were able to establish
that relationship.
So Sierra has been with us sincethe very beginning. So we hosted
(06:02):
our first conference in 2018,and Sierra has been there every
every year that we've hosted. Sohoping to keep that that
partnership alive and well formany years. Peter, as we are
kind of talking about, you know,the real estate industry in
general and Sierra specifically,and like I just said, like
Sierra has got a lot of peoplethat are in the ecosystem at
(06:25):
Sierra that are part of realestate distilled as well. So I'm
sure that if they knew that wewere having this conversation,
they would have had like a longlist of questions.
So why don't you take a coupleminutes and like, tell us what's
going on with Sierra? Like, ripthe curtain back as much as
you're comfortable doing andshare a little bit.
Peter Maglathlin (06:42):
Yeah, more than happy to. So I think my
journey with Sierra has beeninteresting because ever since I
joined in October 22, the markethas looked fundamentally
different than it did in theprior period. Right? Rates
started their March upwards,transaction volumes started
their March downwards. And, whatwe've been most focused on is
(07:08):
partnering with our customers toensure that the technology and
service we're delivering them isenabling them to continue to
wade through what is certainly achallenging market.
Who the heck knows when we'llget relief from a rates
perspective? Who the heck knowswhen we'll return to more
normalized transaction volumes?But I think we're in this
(07:30):
together with our customers andI think that we a lot of folks
doing really interestingcreative things to grow their
businesses amidst what is areally challenging set of
exogenous factors out there. Andfor those of you that don't know
Sierra very well, we are an IDXplus CRM platform that primarily
(07:52):
serves independent brokeragesteams but then also high
performing single agents. We gotour start and this is all thanks
to Ben in the IDX website space.
That's where our DNA reallyresides was Ben was one of the
first folks to realize, hey,there's an opportunity to build
high performing sleek websitesfor real estate companies in a
(08:17):
way that allows them to generatemore leads, convert more leads
and service their customersbetter. And that business grew
to include a back end systemthat is really differentiated
around, two things. I'd say ourour automations. Right? We
provide folks the capability tocreate many different unique,
(08:40):
we'll just call it like if thenstatements that allow their
agents, their teams to operateefficiently, but also enable
them to get in front of theircustomers with the right message
at the right time, which we allknow is really important.
But then secondly, something wecall our accelerator platform
that allows coachingorganizations and training
(09:01):
organizations to partner withour customers and building out
action plans and ensuringthey're using the system really
well. But what we've beenfocused on of late and what we
continue to be focused on iswhat I call leaning into our
strengths, right? Our customersare with us for very specific
reasons. We've delivering goodresults for our customers for
(09:25):
years and there's no need tonecessarily rewrite that recipe,
right? How do we make what'salready good better?
How do we enable our customersto extend the advantage that
they have in their marketthrough Sierra versus needing to
build out a bunch of differentnew software to deliver to
customers that they may or maynot need. I would say our
(09:49):
customers tend to be the mostforward thinking and smart about
SEO and lead generation. Right?Our websites undoubtedly are
best in class in SEO. They alsoare really really powerful from
a lead conversion perspectivewhether that's organic or PPC.
And how do we make a step changeon that front? We have a product
(10:13):
that remains in beta and iscoming out at some point over
the back half of the year calledImpellerSearch. We've gotten
some really good feedback fromcustomers and have a clear path
I think to delivering somethingreally powerful. But the
rationale behind that product isa few fold. Number one, we
understand that the fastestwebsites rank the best, right?
And so we've modernized ourarchitecture to allow those
(10:35):
sites to be faster. Number two,it enables our customers'
customers to search across MLS.I think one of the biggest
challenges for growingbrokerages or growing teams is,
hey, if I'm now coveringmultiple MLSs, my customer
doesn't understand like the MLSconstruct. And so forcing them
(10:57):
to search by MLS is just astrange consumer experience. So
removing that from the equationremoves a ton of friction for
the consumer.
The third thing is flexibilitythrough keyword search. We
understand that the MLS datastructure remains important and
it allows for folks to whittledown search criteria to get
exactly the results they want.But the MLS search criteria is
(11:17):
also incomplete. There are a lotof different desires or needs of
customers and those needs are orpreferences, those needs are
evolving fast and beingconstrained simply to the MLS
criteria sometimes doesn't allowthe results to be as relevant as
they otherwise could. And sothis keyword search capability
paired with the kind of facetedsearch not only enables our
(11:41):
agents to create more powerfulsave searches but allows our
their customers to discover moreproperties that are hyper
relevant.
And then lastly, we continuethis is all with SEO and content
creation and content generationin mind because we know that's
what our customers care about.Right? And so if your website is
(12:03):
faster, if you're able to createcontent based on keywords that
are relevant to consumers, thenyour website will rank better,
right? And so we're leaning inhard on the IDX front and we
have a lot of iteration to do tomake sure we get this right, but
we know that's top of ourcustomers' minds. I'd say the
second piece is around dataanalytics, right?
And this is kind of an ongoingtheme for us where there's so
(12:28):
much data that resides in ourcustomers databases that we are
not yet doing a good enough jobof surfacing to them so they can
make decisions. So when youthink about all the daily
activity that ISAs or agents areengaging in the CRM, that
activity is really important forteam leads and broker owners to
(12:48):
be able to understand, okay, whoare my highest performing
agents? What are they doing?Right? Like what is it that
makes them highest performingand what are our, how can our
processes be evolved or tinkeredwith in order to make the
organization and certainindividuals perform better?
Right. And I think the beauty ofbeing a CRM platform is that
data, we have access to all thatdata. There are a lot of
(13:09):
businesses that take that dataand create analytics or charts
with it but we can do thatourselves too. And so what we're
bringing to market back half ofthis year is this concept that
we're calling agent leaderboardwhich allows team leads, broker
owners, etcetera to understand,okay, like on a per agent basis
what are the core activitiesthat my agents are engaging in?
(13:30):
How do they rank against oneanother?
And how do those activitiescorrelate or not to results? And
that's our first foray into Ithink a really exciting data
analytics capability that'sgonna put insights into our
customers hands that allow themto make decisions which is
what's most important. A coupleother smaller things around
(13:54):
where we're going. I mentionedautomations as a big
differentiator for us and theyare. I think what we're now
leaning into is more powerfulout of the box automations that
give our customers the abilityto stand them up in a way that
isn't as labor intensive.
And so getting back to thisagent leaderboard point, there
(14:15):
are automations that you canpair with core activities or
follow-up that you want youragents to be engaging in that
make sure they actually do thoseactivities. Right? It's one
thing to show them the report,it's another thing to set up the
system to say, hey this leadhasn't been followed up within
twenty four hours, it came fromthis source. Our rule is it
needs to happen so make sure ithappens. And then around lead
(14:38):
task, we talked a lot with you,some of our other customers down
in Louisville at this wonderfuldinner where we were able to
learn so much around what yourand others key priorities were
and in a tight market wheresellers matter and have always
(15:00):
mattered but I think matter evenmore in the existing environment
allowing for what we're callingpartial lead capture for seller
leads.
Putting you all in the positionto acquire leads in a way that's
more flexible and maybe a littlebit incomplete but positions you
to then follow-up with thoseleads, amalgamate that data and
(15:22):
follow-up. And so, in summary,it's really about, like I said,
leaning into our strengths,right? Our customers like you, I
think have continued to staywith us for reasons we
understand well. We diluteourselves away from what those
strengths are, I think it wouldbe an irresponsible move on
(15:46):
behalf of our customers, whichis why we're doubling down.
Scott Hack (15:50):
So Peter, going back to your your comment about,
IntelliSearch really and talkingabout, you know, those those
feeds. And one of the thingsthat I think is kind of
interesting just to make surethat all the listeners kind of
get a grasp on. I'm actually ona MLS task force from my
association right now. And, youknow, like, once or twice a
year, we come out with newfields. It's not very often.
(16:13):
But you all, as a company, aremanaging probably, what, 700
different feeds?
Peter Maglathlin (16:19):
Yeah. A little less than that, but but 500.
Scott Hack (16:22):
Yeah. So it's a it's a it's a ton of data. So every
single association across thecountry, for instance, we're
we're just like last year,introduced some fields that were
related to like electric carchargers. So, you know, some
things like that. So anytimesomething new happens, you know,
green energy initiatives, thingsthere are fields that people
might want to search for.
It takes a while for thosefields to end up in the MLS. So
(16:45):
I might have that in mind, butthey might not exist in your
other 450 customers feeds. Soit's tough for you all to roll
something out with the searchfeature unless you're able to
pull that like you're talkingabout from the remarks and
pulling all that info. So it'sgoing to I think it's going to
be really important for speedbecause that's ultimately what
(17:06):
you're able to be able to bringto your clients next, you know,
next year, essentially, is thespeed to do something even if
the field doesn't exist.
Peter Maglathlin (17:14):
Totally. Yeah. It's speed and flexibility.
Right? Because I think that aswe've you know, one one of the
terms that we found is reallyimportant to a lot of consumers
across this country is thisconcept of multi generational.
Right? Multi generationalhousing. And that term exists in
the listing description in a lotof places, but it doesn't
(17:34):
necessarily exist as a fieldwithin the MLS. And so it's
unleashing the power of beingable to translate a consumer
preference to a search result ina way that doesn't necessarily
require for it to be within thestructured data of the MLS. We
are still going to enable folksto base searches on the
structured data within the MLSand this is complementary to
(17:55):
that.
And you know consumerpreferences are constantly
changing and so what I thinkthis allows folks to do is to
stay ahead of that curve, beable to meet consumers where
they are and create reallyinteresting like high ranking
content on terms we know folkscare about that again aren't
(18:19):
necessarily based on thestructured data within the MLS.
Right? Because you could createsome really interesting
compelling content around multigenerational homes. Or know
Scott something you and I havetalked about like homes with
historic charm in Louisvillethat this platform now enables
you to do that the prior kind ofconstruct didn't allow you to
(18:41):
do. And given our customers tendto be marketing forward, SEO
forward, content forward, wefeel this is only gonna pour
fuel on that fire and give thema competitive advantage in the
market.
Scott Hack (18:53):
I'm gonna make an assumption that, you know, a big
part of this IntelliSearch, bothfrom the name, but also from,
you know, what's being needed isis leveraging some form of AI to
have that context of what theseterms are. So is that I mean,
that's part of it. Right?
Peter Maglathlin (19:08):
Yeah. Over time, yes. I mean, the the core
technology we're we're we'releveraging here is something
called Elasticsearch, and Iwon't I won't get into the kind
of the technicals around that.But what that enables is just a
far more flexible and fulsomesearch, not just against we'll
call data values, but againstfree text. Right?
(19:28):
And where we can go with that,to your point, is layering on
artificial intelligence to makedecisions about what a match is,
what a match isn't, etcetera.But you got to be careful with
AI and I know we're going totalk a lot about this. I think
that there are some reallyexciting interesting
applications today. I thinkthere will soon be some really
(19:49):
exciting interestingapplications tomorrow. But how
do we think about a phasedsequence approach such that
we're not putting AI where itshouldn't be, right?
Because in a lot of ways thistechnology remains hyper nascent
And my perspective is you gottabe really careful around putting
(20:09):
AI in between you and yourcustomer. And I can unpack that
a lot. And it will get there.Right? But as a real estate
agent, you're dealing with folkswho are going through the most
important financial transactionof their life.
It's highly emotional. And Ithink that my perspective is AI
is gonna be able to serve you ina way that doesn't necessarily
(20:30):
require you to insert it inbetween you customer, but in the
background to enable you to dothings you couldn't do before.
Scott Hack (20:38):
Yeah. A lot of the conversations that I've been
having with friends and familyabout artificial intelligence
and specifically in the realestate industry, I've I've been
very open. I'm not worried aboutmy job. You know, I don't think
that, you know, AI can replacewhat I do. It it doesn't have
the ability to understand thethe empathy that's needed when
(21:00):
someone's going through thoseemotionally charged, you know,
negotiations and that thatprocess.
I do think that AI obviouslywill be a tool that we will be
using more and more andleveraging for some of our day
to day tasks. And, you know, wehad a conversation with Brandon
Duncan. He was on the podcasthere probably a couple episodes
ago, and he gave hispresentation at Real Estate
(21:21):
Distilled on AI. And it's it'sdefinitely a topic that you
can't, you know, walk into aroom of real estate agents and
someone not be talking about AI.And I think that, you know,
really, I've seen Terminator,you know, and I know I know I
know at some point Skynet'sgoing online, you know, that's
the end.
But until we get there, like,obviously, like I said, we're
(21:46):
there's just so much going onwith it. How how do you think
that we're going to reallyembrace and how do you think
it's gonna impact real estateindustry the most over the next
twelve to twenty four months?
Peter Maglathlin (21:56):
Yeah. Yeah. This is gonna be a fun
conversation. I I think aboutthis a lot, because, hey, our
job is to deliver greattechnology to businesses like
yours, and AI is undoubtedlygoing to have a profound impact.
But, really, the construct I tryto use is like now next later
(22:19):
and then at the same time how dowe ensure that we're supporting
that continued human connectionbetween you and your customers?
Because that is invaluable.Right? Again, for a real estate
transaction people are alwaysgoing to rely on other people
for advice but there's a way forAI to work in the background. So
(22:39):
I'm going to run through what Ibelieve to be like some of the
most exciting use cases today.And then I have a couple ideas
around where it's going to bemost exciting tomorrow.
But there are a lot oftechnologies out there today
that facilitate faster and insome ways more effective we'll
(23:00):
call it like lead qualificationand lead engagement. So we have
a product at Sierra called LeadEngage that enables inbound
leads to be interacted withbased on an LLM that is
constantly training itself in avery fast and usually pretty
effective manner. But the wholepurpose of that is to qualify
(23:22):
them such that they're agentready. And I think that this is
a valuable use case. I thinkit's the best use case today and
I think really the only onetoday that you should be
comfortable in injecting AI inbetween you and your leads or
your customers because thistechnology is pretty grooved.
You can see it operating in realtime and its ability to qualify
(23:46):
and learn and hand off is prettystrong. Where I get really
skeptical at least today aroundlead engagement is with voice
AI. And so I think voice AI isgonna be a game changing
technology. I really do. Do Ithink it's a game changing
technology today?
I do not. I think it's a littledangerous. Hey certain people
(24:07):
are comfortable with enabling avoice agent to answer and call
leads or customers. I think it'sI don't think the technology is
there yet. Right?
And so like when I think aboutkind of the agent to consumer
relationship, I think the bestapplication right now is text
(24:28):
based lead qualification becauseit's relatively grooved, it's
low risk, and at the end of theday it's the agents that should
be speaking to customers becauseit's fundamentally the best use
of their time. Right?
Scott Hack (24:41):
Yeah. You you mentioned, about the voice, and
I I think one of the things tokeep in mind too is that it's an
expectation too. The consumer isnot expecting a robot,
essentially, that's the term I'mgonna use, to call them. It's
different if you call into acall center and then you have an
AI robot that's trying to answeryour question or guide you to a
(25:02):
you know, eventually, someonelive needs to be to answer. And,
again, that's kind of like thatI'm using my hands here, like
really skimming the top, youknow, 20% off of here's the
people that I think we can handoff to someone live and actually
help.
And these other 80%, maybe wecan do something with an
automated fashion or help pushinto the correct channel. But,
(25:25):
yeah, I I'm not comfortable withthe outbound right now either.
Peter Maglathlin (25:28):
No. And and and, hey, I think this count
that technology is only going toget better and better. But,
like, the way I think about itis it's one thing to have voice
AI handle a customer supportconversation around, like, a 10
to $20 purchase. Right? It's afundamentally different thing to
have a voice agent handle aconversation someone who's
(25:48):
considering the most importantfinancial transaction of their
life.
It's so much more nuanced. It'sso much more risky that that I
think it it needs fundamentallyneeds to be a human until this
technology is perfected. That'snot to say that like I'm not
excited about it. I think it'sreally cool what's happening on
(26:10):
that frontier but we need to becareful. Scott, this is
something you mentioned earlierbut I think what I'm most
excited about in the near futurewith respect to AI is around
like internal efficiency andeffectiveness drivers for
organizations like yours, right?
And there are a couple reallyinteresting applications that
(26:32):
partner companies we haveintegrations with have brought
to market that I can walk youthrough. And I think you
recently spoke with JustinBenson from Shiloh who's become
a friend and has built a reallycool product. But the first
application is when you thinkabout like rote tasks, like data
input, right? And so CRMs aremission critical. They're really
(26:53):
powerful but at the end of theday it comes down to what is the
integrity and fullness of thedata that people are putting in
it, right?
And regardless of the industrythe challenge for the buyers of
CRMs is getting their teams toactually use them frequently and
be really vigilant around datacompleteness and data accuracy.
(27:17):
And agents have hard jobs,They're moving in a million
different places. I feel a lot,right? And so this concept of
making sure everything getscaptured into the CRM such that
it can be the source of truthunderstandably can be hard and
in a lot of ways I think isdeprioritized. And so there's a
(27:40):
business out there called HouseWhisper that a few of our
customers are using.
I'm not sure if you've everheard of it Scott but it was
founded by some former Zillowfolks and really what this does
is take a bunch of the dataentry and call follow-up off of
agents hands hands so that theycan continue to do the high
value work. So I think, know,Greg Delaire, he's on the
(28:02):
bleeding edge of a lot ofsoftware. For those that don't
know who Greg is, he's acustomer based out in Green Bay,
goes by Green Bay Greg. And Greghad set up an integration that
isn't native to Sierra yet withHouse Whisperer that is proving
to be a massive efficiencydriver for his agents because it
takes 50 to 60 to 70% of thisdata entry and rote task out of
(28:29):
their rhythm, right? And sothink about what that does for
the agent's daily workhappiness.
It's the type of thing I thinkis relatively easy to sell to
your agent as long as they'recomfortable with how it works
and it's predictably good. Andgenerally this technology is.
(28:49):
And so I don't thinkHouseCostriders is gonna be the
last example of a technologylike this. Think the way CRMs
are moving is that they willcontinue to be the source of
truth but the way data getsinput into them is going to be
less reliant on humans and morereliant on artificial
intelligence. And I think that'sfundamentally a good thing
because what that allows yourteam to do is spend more time
(29:13):
talking to prospects, talking tocustomers and enabling them to
buy and sell homes.
Another really interestingapplication with respect to
internal efficiency andeffectiveness is Shiloh AI,
right? And so when you thinkabout real estate teams or real
estate brokerages, you guys arefundamentally sales
organizations, right? Like yoursales effectiveness determines
(29:37):
your business success, right?And the better you get at
qualifying, discovering andeventually selling consumers on
your service, the more moneyyour agents are gonna make and
the more money your business isgonna make. That's hard, right?
Like we have a salesorganization at Sierra that I'm
heavily involved in. It's hard,right? And I think one of the
(30:03):
reasons it's hard is technologythat have come to market like a
Gong etcetera allow you toparachute in and understand kind
of what were the strengths ofthat call? What were the
weaknesses? What were thingsthat folks maybe could get
better at.
But historically that's neededto be done on kind of a one to
one basis and it's very timeconsuming. What Shiloh does
(30:27):
which is insanely powerfulespecially for organizations
that have five, ten, 15, 50agents is it applies AI to grade
and coach calls in an automatedway and feeds that data back
into the CRM such that numberone the agent understands and
(30:50):
has access to what that feedbackis. Number two the sales manager
has access to it and so itenables a much faster feedback
loop, right? So number two, itenables a sales manager to
likely be able to manage manymore people due to the
efficiency it drives at theorganization. And so this again
(31:12):
is a relatively new business.
We have a native integrationwith Shiloh. Have a bunch of
customers using it and it'sreally powerful and it helps to
solve for one of the I'd say toppain points that our brokerage
owner and team leaders have on aweekly, monthly basis. And then
I'd say, like, the thirdefficiency or effectiveness
(31:36):
application I'm really excitedabout, but this one needs to be
viewed skeptically is aroundcontent creation. Right? And
Scott, I know you you know,you're you and your wife are
very thoughtful about what yourcontent strategy is, what you're
producing, what's the so whatbehind it.
(31:56):
And I think content creation ishard. Right? It requires forward
thought. It requires effort.There's the cold start problem.
It's like, well, hey, where theheck am I gonna start? Right? I
think where AI can be reallyinteresting is solving for that
cold start problem. Let's justsay, hey I wanna write about
this. It can get you a 75 or 80%of the way there and then you
(32:18):
take it over the goal line byapplying your local market
knowledge, what you've seen workin the industry and putting your
own personal brand on it suchthat you can become more of a
content generation engine.
The thing folks need toappreciate is this is not an
(32:39):
easy button. It's a healthbutton. Because what AI will not
do is produce soup to nutsperfect content that you should
go then publish. That'sdangerous. Google's gonna see
right through it.
It's actually going to penalizeyou for doing that. What you
should be doing is getting 75 to80% of the way there, making it
unique in your voice and makingsure you're implementing some of
(33:01):
your own knowledge and thensurfacing it to the world. And
so we're doing a lot ofinteresting thinking and going
around with, hey, how do we putthe power of AI in our
customer's hands from a contentgeneration perspective but also
how do we erect the rightguardrails so that they use it
(33:21):
the right way? Because I thinkwhat the global concern around
AI is abuse. Right?
And hey, this covers everyapplication of AI is is abuse.
And so how do we make sure thatwe're it's being used
responsibly?
Scott Hack (33:39):
So, you know, going back to a couple of things you
were talking about there, Peter,I wanted to kinda put a a little
bit of a bow on some of thosekind of services you were
talking about that are that areAI based and, kind of also just
honestly kind of tee you up,with some kudos because one of
the other reasons why that Ichose Sierra Interactive along
(34:01):
with the obviously, I had had, alot of comfort level with Ben
and what I thought he was gonnabe doing with the company. And
then the organic portion of it,was, you know, obviously a big
driver. But then also, Ben waspretty quick to be open to
building that API to bring inother people, because there's
only so much that you all can doas an organization. And you
(34:23):
shouldn't be trying to beeverything. There should be
other people that are beingexperts in their field.
And you all have had the openhad the API, and I know that you
all did some updates to make iteasier for Shiloh and some other
people to, you know, communicatewith the database and be
partners in our in our database.Is do you think that AI is gonna
(34:45):
continue to push that so otherintegrations can take place? And
is that still part of the I'mguessing that's still part of
the company's DNA and philosophyis to allow those to take place.
Right?
Peter Maglathlin (34:53):
I'm glad you brought this up, Scott. So
furthering open architecture isat the core of our product
strategy. Because I think toyour point, we don't have a
monopoly on innovation in thisspace. And in order for us to do
what I said earlier, is focus onour strengths, we need to be
(35:14):
able to integrate with otherreally great point solutions.
And in a fast moving market,open architecture and a public
API is what enables you to doAnd it also helps to drive focus
within our internal productorganization to make sure we
continue getting better at whatwe're good at.
And so we are this is anevergreen strategy. Like every
(35:37):
month, we're making improvementsor opening up new endpoints
within the API because new greatpoint solutions are coming out
and need access to that data.And the approach we try to take
here is one of partnering withour customers in the ecosystem
to understand what are thosegreat partner solutions as
(35:58):
opposed to us internally saying,oh these are the endpoints we
need to expose becauseeventually they'll be used by
someone. No, There are newsolutions coming out every month
that are interesting and thatgives us line of sight into okay
what are the endpoints that areneeded to maybe like integrate
that solution with Sierra. And Ithink a really interesting cool
(36:20):
example today and hopefully youdon't get in trouble about
talking about this but we havehundreds of customers that use
Homebot, right?
Homebot is a sister company ofour within the ASP family.
Homebot is so fundamentallycomplementary to our platform,
right? We serve the samecustomer but what they provide
(36:41):
is I think best in class longterm customer nurture that needs
to be integrated natively intoSierra in a way that allows for
the right actions to be taken bySierra users based on engagement
in the Homebot platform, right?Because a lot of what Homebot is
(37:01):
enabling our customers to do isjust stay top of mind and
probably the most authenticpowerful way at a pretty cheap
price. Right?
But all of our users are in butfolks that are on Sierra and
Homebot live in Sierra. Right?And Homebot recognizes that.
They live in their CRM. All theactivity they take is out of the
CRM.
So only if the Homebot consumeractivity information, the
(37:26):
important stuff can flow intothe CRM. Then you can agents
take action on this stuff in away that is timely and
compelling. And so the APIstrategy and the partner
strategy, think is one of themost exciting parts of where
we're going. And this space ismoving faster than it's ever
(37:50):
moved. Some of that's related toAI, some of that's related to
other technology and the onlyway I think that we stay out in
front of that is by is byenabling those great products
and businesses to partner withus, not seeking to compete with
them.
Scott Hack (38:09):
Yep. That's awesome. So, you know, we have been
chatting about, well, a lot ofstuff about Sierra, lot of stuff
about, you know, AI and wherethe the market's going. So we're
we're, as as someone, at yourorganization used to tease about
when he was finishing up his hisweekly webinars. He would talk
(38:29):
about we're getting close toneeding to start landing the
plane.
So we're coming to the end ofour our conversation. So as we
are wrapping things up, whatwhat do you wanna leave people
with that are listening to ustoday? And what else do they
need to know about about Sierra?Where do you think that they
need to do some more research onthe industry in general as tech
(38:50):
is going to be continuing toevolve?
Peter Maglathlin (38:52):
Yeah. So I'd say with respect to artificial
intelligence, I would view it asone of the most powerful, I'll
call it, like agent enablingtechnologies that we've seen in
this industry for a long time.Do not expect it to remove the
responsibility of doing thevalue add work, right? Like the
(39:15):
phone calls still need to bemade, the listing presentations
and meetings still need tohappen, but what it's going to
allow your organization to do ifyou apply it the right way is
focus more time on doing thatstuff and getting better at
doing that stuff. Right?
And so we'd love to talk tofolks about kind of how some of
our partner solutions enablethat, but really be thinking
(39:37):
about AI not as a replacementfor people but an enabler for
people especially agents becausewhen applied correctly it can be
really powerful. I'd say youknow secondly the landscape for
search and ranking and customerdiscoverability is rapidly
(40:01):
changing. I like to believe thatSierra is at the forefront of
that change and a lot of thethings that we're bringing to
market are only going to extendthe advantage that we deliver to
folks like you, Scott, in yourmarket. And so for people that
are serious about building longterm sustainable businesses on
the backs of organic traffic andare serious about honing in on
(40:26):
lead conversion and gettingreally vigilant on that front,
come talk to us because that'sour bread and butter. And I
think that what's happening inreal estate now while it can be
nerve wracking, I thinkinevitably is going to position
the best any brokerages and thebest teams to only accrue more
(40:48):
transactions and more value fromthe market as long as they have
their tech stack set up right.
So
Scott Hack (40:54):
Awesome. I'll have, some information down in the
show notes on getting, anybodywho's interested in talking to
the team at Sierra. We'll have acontact down there so you can
reach out to them. Peter, thankyou for joining me today and
sharing your insights into, likeI said, behind the curtain with
the Sierra Interactive and howAI is impacting the industry.
It's it's been a fun chat.
(41:15):
Hopefully, we can get you onagain maybe later this fall and
find out how things are goingwith the rollout on
IntelliSearch and the the otherthings. Get an update there.
Peter Maglathlin (41:24):
Awesome, man. Yeah. I appreciate it and
appreciate the the partnershipwe have with you and Liz.
Scott Hack (41:29):
So alright, everybody. Thanks again for
joining us for another episodeof the Real Estate Distilled
podcast. That's gonna be a wrapfor today. We'll talk soon.
Announcer (41:38):
That's a wrap for this episode of the Real Estate
Distilled podcast. VisitrealestateDistilled.com for more
tips, and jump into our Facebookgroup to keep the conversation
going. Here's to making everytransaction a smooth pour.
(41:59):
Cheers.
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