How to Modernize Title Operations with Tech | Title Agents Podcast Ep2

work your way through and do it in kind of baby steps, but you should be spending time every day looking at it and becoming more familiar with AI. Not everybody, but you should have a resource on your team that's doing that and trying to make sure because it's gonna be everywhere you look. In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shamil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Title Agents Podcast. I am very thrilled to have my good friend here, Pat Carney. Welcome, Pat. Thanks, glad to be here, looking forward to chat. Before we get started, let me read a brief bio to give you all listeners a little background on Pat.

Pat Carney is the dynamic president of Viking Sasquatch, revolutionized the title and FinTech industries with his innovative software solutions, with a focus on seamless integrations and cutting-edge APIs. Pat and his team have developed a cult-like following among industry professionals. I'm one of them. Pat's extensive experience includes leadership roles at agents national title, Lozencorp, and Require, where he drove technological advancements and strategic growth. His entrepreneurial background, having owned four successful title agencies across multiple states, gives him a unique perspective on the challenges faced by the industry.

As a thought leader in software development, has positioned Viking Sasquatch at the forefront of the title and FinTech spaces, delivering exceptional results and forging lasting partnerships with clients seeking tailored, innovative solutions. Welcome, Pat. Thank you so much. Before we start and dive into questions, I would love to hear your story, your background, how you got started in the title industry, where you grew up, education, work, all that fun stuff. Hear the story.

It's kind of a crazy story. So I'll try not to give all of the pieces, but I'll at least kind of run through how I got here. So when I got out of the service, I went to work for my mom. She owned a Remax franchise. Where did you serve?

I was in the Navy. So I was stationed in Bahrain, Coronado, and Scotland. Thank you for your service. Thank you. So I got started in real estate because my mom owned a Remax franchise.

So I came on to work with her when I got out of the service, ended up running that office for, and then I started having kids. So I decided that I needed a little bit more normal of a job. So I went to work for an ad agency. After I worked at an ad agency marketing firm, I started my own specializing in the real estate space. So my clients were title agents, real estate brokerages, mortgage brokerages, builders, and that's where, so I built that up.

And then one of my clients was one of the largest title agents in Ohio, brought me on to run their marketing. And then I took over their tech and helped turn them into a showcase for, Stewart at the time had showcase offices. It became the 29th showcase office for Stewart. Then moved me to the regional headquarters in Virginia Beach, where I turned that into a showcase. And then I ended up kind of doing a pretty unique role.

I was basically a performance consultant. I would go around and fix title agents for Stewart. So I would go in and I would help them with their, not only their brand, but I would help them with their software selection, their workflow, all the way, and really help them selecting what vendors to use that made sense for their particular product. So I would just go around and was a performance consultant, helping their title agents do things in a better fashion. Then I started my own title company in Virginia Beach.

And then I opened another one in Chesapeake, Virginia, and then one more. So I had three of them in that greater Virginia Beach, Norfolk, the Tidewater region. What timeframe? Timeframe? This was 2004-ish, I believe.

Maybe it was, no, 2007. They all kind of run together for me. Right when you shouldn't be starting title companies. Yeah. You've been doing this for so long, it's a blur.

Yeah, it's a blur. It's just a blur. So then I started one in Cincinnati. I merged that one with another company, and then I kind of went back into doing consulting. And then I went to work to develop new products for Require, became their chief strategy officer.

I left for a period, and then I came back to run that company, get it right. And then I did that. And then from there, I went to be the chief innovation officer for Closing Corp. And then I was the chief technology officer for Agents National Title. And then I started Viking Sasquatch after that.

So there's a bunch of companies being bought and sold within that journey. Companies I was working for kept getting bought. And finally I decided after Agents National got bought by a Blackstone company, I decided it was time to start Viking Sasquatch and just make cool things with people I like. Couple of questions. I know I asked you this before.

How'd you come up with the name Viking Sasquatch? And the second question is, what does Viking Sasquatch do exactly? Sure. Catchy name. The origin story of Viking Sasquatch involves a conference and some people that are all executives at this point in time.

They weren't executives at that point in time staying out a little bit too late. We all had morning meetings, breakfast meetings. I don't think any of us went to sleep that night. And after our morning meetings, we're kind of sitting in, not feeling very good. One of the guys looks over and he goes, look at that freaking Viking Sasquatch.

It's not even hurting. And from there, the name Viking Sasquatch. So I owned it. I kind of looked like a Viking Sasquatch. So I was like, let's do it.

So if you're going to be a software company, why not have a unique name? It doesn't really matter. So nobody wanted something that was unique and catchy and represented kind of what we do. Our, did a bunch of taglines, but officially developing the elusive solutions you need is one of them. So you get, you kind of get both.

So what do you guys do exactly? So we do three things. So we do custom dev, really kind of trying to specialize around integrations and APIs. We do a lot of that for folks. Clarifying question.

What does integration with API mean? So integration is connecting different businesses together through technology. API stands for Application Programming Interface. So it's just how different applications connect. I'll talk a little bit more about that later, but I am an API evangelist.

It's an API economy. It's what the world should run on. And our industry is a little bit farther behind. So we do the custom work. We do some virtual consulting work, whether it's CTO or COO.

I've got another consultant that works with me that does the COO side of things. And then we build our own products. So we've got four products. One of them's rolling out next week. So we can talk a little bit about that if you want to, but we're rolling out products that solve pain points.

And that's really what we're known for. You know, whenever somebody has a problem and wants to figure out how to do things better, they call me because if we can't do it, I got a guy for anything, so. So a Viking Sasquatch has really transformed the way title companies use technology. Could you share how you balance, or you should balance, respecting the traditions of the title industry while pushing forward with innovation? The title industry is really different than any other industry as far as I know, because it's this experience-based industry, and it's not black and white.

It's grayscale. Every state does things a little bit. So there's all of these intricacies that are really powered by experience. So you have to keep the experience, but then you have to figure out how to do things better, faster, more accurately with less people, especially with all the pressure that the industry is putting in place. So it's finding that balance between experience and technology to create the innovation that's needed to survive in today's market.

As technology continues to advance, what are some core aspects of the industry that you think should remain untouched? I would say really what we're doing shouldn't be lost with technology, which is helping people achieve the American dream of owning a home. That can get lost sometimes if it becomes tech, and you kind of lose that human touch. But tech should be used to enhance the process and the experience, not replace it. The most important thing for me is remembering what we're doing and why we're doing it, and then figuring out how to do it better with technology.

With all the changes happening, how can Tata companies best adapt their operations to include AI, bots, and other digital tools? This is your domain. So I speak a lot on AI right now, and there's a study that was put out by Gartner. So Gartner, they do all of the research and they provide all of the latest facts and information about all of the leading technologies. It's the Gartner Group.

It's a very expensive organization to be part of. Only really Fortune 500 companies can afford to be in it. I mean, if you want to use them, it's going to cost you like a million-dollar-a-year consultancy just to be able to use them. But they put out different items. One of the items that they put out is the Gartner AI type cycle.

And did you want me to try to pull that up and share that? Please share your screen. Yeah, let me see if I can find that real quick. Should have had it pulled up for you. So this is the hype cycle.

So it's talking about all of the different components that make up AI. And you probably have only heard of a couple of them, but AI is not new. AI has been around for a long time. It's just now the generative AI is really sparked. It's almost like kind of equate the AI revolution to the internet revolution.

I think it's going to have kind of the same impact. Please share your screen. Let me see if I can find that real quick. Should have had it pulled up for you. So this is the hype cycle.

So it's talking about all of the different components that make up AI. And you probably have only heard of a couple of them. But AI is not new. AI has been around for a long time. It's just now the generative AI is really sparked.

It's almost like kind of equate the AI revolution to the internet revolution. I think it's going to have kind of the same impact on the space. But what you're seeing here is all of these different kinds of AI. Generative AI is at the very peak of this cycle. So everybody is trying to find out about it.

I'm probably down here in this trough of disillusionment. So these are where I was talking about all of the different types of AI and where they are in the cycle. Right now, generative AI is right at the peak. This is where everybody is talking about. Everybody's trying to figure out how to do work with it.

Thousands and thousands of startups that are trying to find different things about it. I kind of live down here in this trough of disillusionment. We've been working on it. I've got four people that all they do are work on AI-related projects and how to implement them into our products and improve what we do. AI is very hard to operationalize.

It's very easy to play with and experiment with. But to operationalize it, dealing with all of the items like hallucinations and security and everything that we deal with, we're working on these large financial transactions. You have to be very careful. There are lots of things that it can do. But I'm still down here.

It's like, this is really hard to turn into something that you can use. You can use it absolutely for different parts of it. Now, there are folks in our space that are coming out of this trough. And they've protocized and are able to start providing value for folks. But I still think that we've got a long way before we come through this till we get to where it's really providing value in the title space.

Right now, it's definitely bleeding edge. It'll get cutting edge here in another 12 months. And it'll really start providing value for the title space in three to five years. But this is a very interesting thing. Where do you see the most impact in our workflows?

I think machine learning is the one that's probably going to provide the biggest bang, the quickest. I also think that, I'm going to stop sharing, but this is easily, just do a Google search and you'll be able to find this if you want to look at it. And I send it to you so you have it if somebody asks you for it. So I think what you'll find is besides machine learning, which is really data collection and data extraction is really what machine learning is good for. I think you can use it for customer service, absolutely.

I think that will help as well. I think you'll see it in marketing. Can you give us like a real life scenario? So we have a very wide audience, some techies, some don't know much about technology. So we kind of take the mystery out of talking AI and talking bots.

What does that mean? Kind of solving that customer experience or enhancing it. So on the customer side, it can be used to communicate with your clients and pull information and provide them with information without a human really being involved. So if you want to know, you know, specifics or fees or status on a file, you'll be able to ask an AI powered bot that'll be able to collect that information and communicate with them in natural language. So that's going to be customer service.

It's really good to take away a lot of those calls where they're just asking basic questions. And emails. On the, yeah, and emails, on the machine. Yes, absolutely. On the machine learning side, it's like taking data out of title examination or a sales contract for creating orders or pulling data off of, can be just about anything, but it just takes a long time to teach it that it's accurate.

So when you're dealing with what we're dealing with, really it needs to be accurate and fine tuned to a point where you can trust it and rely on it. So it's not creating claims while minimizing work, but creating claims is not a good read issue. How about automation? I see it like a big, big value in automating tasks. Like one of the biggest challenges with our industry is technicality and also it's extremely difficult to find talent.

But probably automation is going to be very crucial to take those mundane, repetitive tasks away from human beings and let humans focus on more the customer experience, talking to clients versus doing those repetitive kind of mundane tasks. Yeah, I'm very passionate about this piece. This is how you can do this. I think there's probably three things that come together and then all kind of work together on this. So really it comes down to utilizing the automation that's part of the title production software already.

Most people aren't fully utilizing the tools that they're already paying for. Then using that in conjunction, first and foremost, there should be an API. So an API, again, is you're connecting into different systems to pull that data out. Problem is that there aren't a lot of great APIs, the title space or the lending space or the real estate space. So it makes it pretty challenging.

So if there is an API, you use an API to pull that data and it should work very good. Now, a lot of the one we really need to continue to improve the APIs that we have in our title production software. I talk to them regularly on how to do that. I'm like, focus, just give me the APIs, focus on your core stuff. And then lets me really create unique solutions for your clients.

But I need better APIs to do that. When I don't have APIs, I'd have to do RPA. RPA is Robotic Process Automation or BOTS. So basically what BOTS are, it's software that mimic actions of a human. So whether it's logging into a website, whether it's going into or doing a search or logging into a portal.

Are you able to show us an example? I would love to give our audience kind of a real life example. And I mean, you and I know exactly what we're talking about, but a lot of people have no idea. I would love to kind of give them that visual to see how impressive and how amazing this BOTS are, kind of pulling data from public records and all that. All right, this is an example of a BOT that logs on to a state website to do lean searches.

Yeah, so this BOT logs into a state lean site and it searches for the homeowner's name and then it collects whatever it finds and then will encrypt it and then push it back into the title production software. So the title production software trigger, it has an action that triggers it. So it reaches out and it talks to this BOT and then the BOT will go and do all of these things. So it happens really quickly. And you can actually, the part on the right side is the actual code that's doing it.

And then on the left side, it's just kind of clicking what the process is. So I'll just go ahead and click it and we'll see what it looks like. So it's logging into the site. It's selecting the product that it needs to use, which is the advanced search. So it's putting in an address and it's putting in the name and it's searching for all of the data.

Those are the results that we got back. Now we're encrypting it. So it took a screenshot of that page. Now it's encrypting that data and then it'll send it just that quick. So we did that quick.

So this BOT literally, it just goes. So it's doing that a hundred, let's say that it's doing it 500 times a day. So that's one person can't do that. It can do that. The one person could probably do it a hundred times a day.

What's the limits or capabilities? I guess this is any open web platform that's public, I guess, it can have access to with the login? Yes. So there's different tools you use for different scenarios. So if it's a web-based solution, we just use an open source tool for it.

If it's something where it's in a, like a hosting environment on ABD, which is Azure Virtual Desktop, where you have to log in to a site and to then use tools, then we use a different tool. We'll use Power Automate for that. So just depends on the scenario. If we're just dealing with the web-based, we use one tool, or if we have to do things within Microsoft and log into a server-based type TPS, not a web-based type TPS, we have to use a different tool. So like a quality it's web-based, we just use a normal bot.

We do that all the time. If it's something that's inside somebody's cloud and we're having to log in through Azure to do that, then we use a different tool that's actually in that environment. So sometimes we have to use the combination of both. There are really just depends upon the scenario. Unfortunately, bots are more custom in nature.

The core functionality we can reuse, but everybody in title uses their software differently. So it requires some custom work on all of them. So say if I wanted to make this particular bot work for somebody else, it's probably 80% there. I just have to do that 20% customizing that'll work for their workflow. So not only is it the way they have their bot set up in their environment, it's their workflow is different.

Title agents all have different workflows. You're touching on one of the inefficiencies like in the title space, there's a lot of fragmentation, there's a lot of different systems and all the title production software companies, they're all kind of competitors. They don't play nice with each other. They don't play nice with developers like you. So what's kind of what advice do you give to like, is there like a best practices as far as how to use workflows or systems?

We're big on systems and processes. Like it's the best way to be efficient and automation. And what advice do you give like a company owners and managers? So I think everybody does things a little bit differently. I wish that there was a magic wand that says, okay, you're doing business in this state, but then that.

software companies, they're all kind of competitors. They don't play nice with each other. They don't play nice with developers like you. So what's kind of what advice do you give to like, is there like a best practices as far as how to use workflows or systems? We're big on systems and processes.

Like it's the best way to be efficient and automation. What advice do you give like the company owners and managers? So I think everybody does things a little bit differently. I wish that there was a magic wand that says, okay, you're doing business in this state, but then that person does commercial, that person does REO, they have all these different workflows. So some of our clients are super advanced and have it all dialed in and then some of them are pretty basic and they we make a lot of recommendations when working with them on how to kind of improve their processes.

But even the super advanced ones, sometimes they go too advanced. So there's just finding that fine line. I know when I had my own title agency, I went too advanced. So I had to pull it back because it was very hard to maintain. You can do a lots of things and make things super custom and then it's very hard to maintain.

There's a balance that you try to do between creating really advanced workflows and being able to maintain them. Because if you create a super advanced workflow and you lose that resource, because only a couple people are going to know how to maintain it, you're really in a rough spot. So there's a fine balance in complexity and efficiency. So what advice do you give to title professionals that are maybe a little behind adopting technology? The way I tell people, automation and technology and AI, it's here, it's forever.

It's either adopted or you're going to be left behind. So what's the best advice you give title professionals? Like what's kind of baby steps if you're a little too far behind? How can we get your feet wet and gradually adopt some easy to use technology? Yeah, so it's definitely with tech, it should be crawl, walk, run.

So first off, figure out what you need, figure out what your weaknesses are, document, and then start looking at them and figuring out how and where you can improve and start looking for tech. There's a whole nother, we could do a whole nother podcast on how you evaluate tech and software to make sure it is what it is. Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of vapor out there. Near future, we'd love to have you back. Yeah, so there's a lot of vapor out there.

There's a lot of people that are just saying that we've got AI this, AI that, and it's not real, or it's not proven. So my advice would be to focus on getting the most out of the software that you have, make sure that you have the right software, then get the most out of it. And then start looking at those things that are common tasks that are repeatable that you have to do the same thing on every time. And then figure out how to use the automation components of your software, coupled with RPA. If there's no API, I'll always try to do API first, because that's going to be quicker, cleaner, and more reliable.

And if not, then you go to an RPA solution, you do the RPA, and then you dip your toes into AI. There's going to be people that are going to start bringing products, there's already a few of them that you'll see at all the shows, but there's going to be more and more products that are going to be more AI powered, I think you'll start to see the underwriters coming out with AI tools. There's products out there like fluid for how to do searches in a really automated fashion that's hitting multiple data sources. There are tools out there for that. But just kind of work your way through and do it in kind of baby steps.

But you should be spending time every day looking at it and becoming more familiar with AI, not everybody, but you should have a resource on your team that's doing that and trying to make sure because it's going to be everywhere you look. And it's again, it's very easy to experiment, it's very hard to operationalize. I know you mentioned earlier some products you're coming up next week. Is that something you can share or give us a little behind the scenes look or maybe even just a little hint? Yeah, so we've been building a product for a couple years, and it's a fee and pricing engine.

And there are calculators, which are what title agents are going to use for their consumers. But it's so much more than that. This is very robust. It's all designed on API's. It's everything that we use is powered by composable API's with a three tiered architecture designed to be able to be custom without being custom and creating experiences that solve and create unique selling propositions for our clients.

So it's designed for people that are multi-state, multi-underwriter, multi-logo, high complexity on their pricing capabilities, and then being able to deliver those to your clients. But what you'll see are going to be there are nine different apps that you can use for different things. And we've got a lot more features and functionality coming. But we've got people that have been using it, but now we're letting the rest of the world in on it. So we're launching that next week at MS3.

I can't wait to take a look. All right, we're getting very close here to the end of our podcast. We'll get a little personal here. Do you have a favorite quote that influenced your approach to technology and business and how you took your journey or just what's your favorite quote? Well, I've got a couple of them that I use.

There's one by Steve Jobs that's really good, which is innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. So I don't know if following is going to cut it in the title space. So if you're not innovating, I think it's going to be very tough to be relevant. Another one that is also is one by Albert Einstein, which is insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So that is I've used that one a ton when I'm consulting in the title space, because you want to make a change, but you're not willing to change your process.

It's impossible to get a different result. If you only have the same ingredients, how are you going to be able to bake something different? So you have to change the ingredients up to get a different result. Absolutely. And I truly believe with all the advancement in technology, if you don't adapt, you will become obsolete.

I think lenders will force a lot of companies, if you don't have certain standards and technology and security, then they're not going to let you do closings for them. So it's really going to force people to adapt. So it's better to kind of get your feet wet slowly and talk to people like you or myself and how we can help them versus kind of really becoming obsolete and left behind. Completely agree. What about a favorite book you read recently?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Jason Free. So Jason Free owns a tech company called 37 Signals that built Basecamp, which is kind of like Slack or Teams. They were like the first one of those years ago. Yeah, so he's got a series of books that he's come out with. And I really kind of used it to design my company, which is completely remote.

So we have about 35 people. And we have people all around the world. Very similar to kind of his design. So it's not about where you are. It's about if you're a talented rock star, I don't care where you're at.

So we designed the company to be a remote company. But his latest book is called it doesn't have to be crazy at work. I'm a bit of a workaholic. And he's showing me the errors in my ways. There's lots of things that you can do to kind of improve the way you work and how you work with your team and work.

There were definitely some good nuggets in that particular book. But overall, I like it. They've never taken an ounce of money from anybody and it's empowered them to kind of do things the way they want to do them. And I'm a big believer in that. Yeah, I'm a big Jason fan as well.

He's definitely a thought leader and innovator. If you want a second book, I would give I'll give you one more book, which is James Clear Atomic Habits. That's another great one. I'm really big into creating systems and processes. And that one just is a big reinforcement on doing that to be able to do more with less.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Any final thoughts or to our audience, all title agents and professionals in the industry? I think we cautiously go all in on technology, but do it cautiously. For all walk, run.

Only way to get there. Well, thank you so much. I could not be thankful or grateful enough for your time and for your wisdom. Thank you so much. And that's a wrap on today's journey with Mo Shamil.

From the title agents podcast, reminding you that mastering the art of innovation is key in the title industry's fast paced world. If you're finding it tough to keep up with the changes and challenges, remember, you're not alone. Our calendar is open for you. Find the link in the show notes and let's connect. Make sure to hit subscribe to not miss out on strategies that elevate and insights that empower.

Together, we'll navigate the future of the industry. I look forward to our next meeting in the upcoming episode. Keep pushing, keep innovating and see you in the next episode.