KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Embrace Tech and Transform Your Real Estate Career.

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Welcome back, everybody, to real estate riches. And today I'm really excited because I've got a great guest on, my daughter, Kelly Burns. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about her. Hi, Kel. We're really excited to have Kelly on today because she's a trailblazer man. She started young, although I started her young selling stuff in the yard sales out front because single mom's got to raise money somehow. So let's sell the kids' toys, right?

It wasn't long after that that Kelly started her landscaping business. She had a Jeep that matched her trailer. It was really cool. What was the name of it, Kell? Gardens Galore. Yeah, Gardens Galore. I forgot about that. And then she became a top mortgage originator.

That was really good because as a realtor, of course, I only use Kelly. And she went on from there to start another entrepreneurial business that she ended up franchising, which was really an incredible story. So I'm going to let Kel kind of take over and share her story instead of me just reading off here. So you're going to tell. Kel, how are you? I'm great. So, yeah, I would say when I was just graduating high school, I was able to open up an all-girl landscaping company. We did everything but how do you, or everything but landscaping. We did lots of patio papers and planting and things like that. But obviously the garage sales with you every Saturday morning was the kickoff, I think, of my. entrepreneurial spirit and then graduated down to ending up opening up a mortgage company down in North Carolina doing commercial and residential for a bit and then eventually opened Lucky Dog Barkinburne which was a first of its kind company it's essentially an indoor outdoor dog park

with a sports bar and we did doggy daycare overnight boarding and baths and did that for about 10 years and franchise the model for that and eventually ended up selling that and moved on from it. And now I'm helping people with technology. Yeah. And it's been great. And we're very different styles, wouldn't you say? Very, very different. I'm more visionary, all over the place, squirrel and been successful.

However, Kelly, she's systems machine and kind of talking. me down. So she may be doing that while we're on here together. Probably, yes. One of the big talents that's brought to your success in systems, how would you say that technology has helped you with that, Cal? Yeah, I mean, I am a huge advocate for technology, and I know it's always changing constantly. So to say out of the curve is always a challenge. But I think there, With technology now, there's so many more easier and more efficient ways to become very, very systematic, you know, so that a lot of things are automated. A lot of things are, you know, you can set it and forget it kind of things, which we really didn't have before. So the technology is there to help people. And that's really what we're looking to teach, you know, is how do we help people get more organized and have balance? in your life so that you're not feeling overwhelmed by the amount of technology that's out there. Keep it simple, but also keep it effective. And I use it like crazy. Yeah, me too.

I'm an addict for it. And one thing I want to tell everybody is that you and I have formed another company of sorts. And it's called Tech Savvy Solutions, where we have our own YouTube channel that we're really helping realtors get accustomed to technology. Because so many are so fearful, wouldn't you say, Cal? I would. And not to correct you, but I just want to make sure that we have the right handle. It's tech savvy, realty solutions. There you go. And we're growing that channel. She's a skimmer. We'll fix that below. I'm going to fix me. Yeah, but I'm excited about that because it's essentially a YouTube channel that we're keeping it simple, organized, and efficient of teaching agents of all technology levels of how they can actually implement it

into their, into their, you know, real estate world and not be afraid of it. And a safe space true to really be able to ask questions, you know, pull on other agents, creating it really, truly a community so that people can lean on each other for advice and understanding. Yeah. Well, I was, I was in these Facebook groups. There's a lot of realtor Facebook groups. And I was noticing, you know, there's just a lot of agents that they're clueless on so much technology. When I talked to them, it's like their eyes glaze over because they don't have any idea

what I'm talking about. And I'm older than a lot of them. However, there's a lot of realtors that are 45 plus that are just, they're great realtors, but they really don't have a clue what's going on. just to soon shy away from it instead of embracing it. Or like you and I did a survey recently and we were like, what level are you just to see in our little Facebook group? We did find out that a lot of people were actually posting a lot,

but they were really eager to learn more. And that's, I think, probably a big piece of it is the types of YouTube's are really educational. like here's a tool for you did one on signatures and I just thought you just met a pretty signature. I didn't know basically a template. Want to embellish on that, Cal? Sure. So that's something I've utilized as far back as the beginning of my mortgage business is when I was doing mortgages.

I was also building that other company and I was essentially working 18 hour days for, gosh, I didn't know, like seven years. So I had to be very efficient with my time. And I didn't want to have to rewrite anything. If I wrote an email more than twice, I was going to create an email signature technically. It's essentially a template of a cut and paste where I would just plug in the name, whatever that specific detail was. But for instance, because I was on the mortgage side, I would do a lot of things like, you know, here's here are the steps. that you take as a first-time homebuyer or if you have credit repair, these are the things that I want you to do. So I didn't, you know, it was very detailed and thorough and I was still, you know,

servicing my clients how I should, but it was effective and efficient so that I didn't have to keep rewriting it. I just had to put their name in there. Right. And send it off. So I went into Outlook. I know Google does this as well. You can create different signatures, technically, they're called, and just label them. You know, one is, first, I'm homebuyer or one is credit repair or whatever the case. And I would just insert signature, whichever one that was appropriate for that particular client and send it away. It took me two seconds to do that versus, you know, 30 minutes. The wheel. Yeah, who knows what I'm, you know, and essentially most people, I mean, you can always tweak it once it's in there. It's not set in

stone, but you can you can fix it so that it's still tailored to their needs, but also just cleans it up. It's almost like, you know, again, it's just a system that makes things more efficient and faster. And I ended up having my assistant do the same thing so that she could, if I had an email where it came in, I would just forward it to her. She would know exactly what to do. And she would have them saved on her. She would have different signatures. Sometimes she would have the same. So you can actually delegate this to other partners of your, you know, your team as well. Oh, Cal, I just thought of an idea. It's not just one thing to do. tell people how to create them, maybe you'd create some that we would have as downloadable documents

that agents could be able to say, you know what, all that sounds great, but that's too time consuming for me to even figure out. Give me a template. I love that, don't you? I do, but I probably wouldn't write it. I would have Chad TBT write it. That's right. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Yeah, because I was just thinking, you know, realtors, they've got basically the intro letter or follow-up letter. It's the same thing basically as a drip campaign that you have as you're following up with clients, but now you're, let's say you're under contract. Here's what happens. Here's the beginning one. Here's the first steps of what's going to happen so that you're all prepared. We're at this stage. Here's another letter. I know you even had it when we had the

CD, it would come out and it was like a little recording that you had of the whole process of that particular person's CDs so you could walk them all through it. that was so time saving in itself. Yeah. For me and for them, I essentially would do a screen record going through their specific. So that one was individual. Right. But just the idea of having a video that people who maybe take a little bit longer to understand things,

they could go back and watch it multiple times. I would take me five minutes to break down the closing disclosure and screen capture it, send the link, say, hey, this is from me. Here's the attachment. if you have any questions, feel free to reach out, but please watch this video first. And it was very professional looking. It was quick. I would also send it to the agent to make sure the agent knew about it and that there were no questions either there.

But they also saw that, hey, I'm doing this extra stuff to really make sure that they're comfortable and confident knowing, you know, before they're walking into closing. It's just little things like that that technology can change your business. Yeah, it levels you up. I love that personally, and I was glad that you were my partner and you were actually good and not just my daughter somewhere in a lousy mortgage person. Right. That would be terrible. That would be terrible.

Go work with my daughter. She's so okay. She's so-so. Yeah. No, it was great. And you had a great reputation in the area as well, which was good for me, too. I think you leveled me up. Anyway, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Technology, there's just so many ways. And we just mentioned Chad GPT. And I think a lot of agents are just afraid of it. They're just barely dipping their toe into it. And it is exploding. And you and I, as we've been trying to come up with ideas for like how we're going to do different things on here, well, you know me, I'm gathering every possible newest thing to do. And I'm filling up our little inbox and you're like, slow down.

And you immediately started organizing. those into folders of what the different components were, which I thought was great. Because there is so much that you can't get lost and go down a bunny trail. You really need some basics. And that's really going to be part of our agenda, don't you think? Yeah. I think what's cool about this YouTube channel that we're building is that we're going to have different sections for beginners, advanced, intermediate.

You know, we'll have all the different levels. I think most people are fairly, I want to say they understand technology a little bit, but at least in the group that we're kind of focused on, the 45 plus of real estate agents, I think that they have a knowledge of it. You almost have to, you know, in this industry. But I think that there's a good section that are really intermediate that could use some how-to videos on slightly more techy than what they're probably used to, but simple, concise, clear directions of how to use it, how to set it up, what to watch out for, what the cost is, is it worth it,

you know, hey, we've tried it, we've used it, it's worth it, no, this, don't do this, do this, you know. Right. It's just a trusted source that I feel like agents can turn to and really understand rather than go down the bunny trail and find 40 things that sound amazing and pay. thousands of dollars, you know, we're trying to limit that. And so that, because everybody can get caught. I know as a lender, I would get introduced to all these different things that would attract agents, you know, and try and get their business. But the truth is, it really does come down

to service. And so if there's a couple things that we can do technology-wise to stay in front of your clients, treat them well while you're going through the experience, and make sure that they know that you need referrals, I think that's really the core pieces of what we're trying to build and teach people how to automate it so that they don't have to do anything extra. Right. You know, we're not looking to add more work. No. We're looking to reduce the work.

It's going to take a minute to set it up, but I do think we can show them how it's going to be really efficient and effective. Yeah. And we're going to be doing those types of things in the future. And also on that channel as well, when we did our survey, you know, it was like, who's a rock star out here? And we had different people respond to that because we don't know it all by any means. We're looking to learn and grow ourselves.

Yeah. So several agents like there's one that's going to be coming on. She's also going to be a guest on this channel because she's built her business from Instagram and using many chat. Well, I never even heard of what that was. And now I hear about it all the time. I did have one younger, really tech agents say to me, I hear it's really complicated, so I haven't dove in. I thought, oh, shoot, I don't want that mindset that it's really complicated.

I'm just going to have somebody teach me or I'm going to have chat GPT figured out. As a matter of fact, I told my VA, I said, I want you to go learn mini chat, figure it out, because it seems to work primarily with Instagram and I think LinkedIn. So I said, you go figure it out, summarize it, and tell me how we can start to use this. I don't have time to do stuff. And that's another thing we can, you know, it isn't technology having a VA, but your VA can do a lot of the technology research, which is great. I said, go figure it out. And I paid for her to have the $20 level up with her Chad GPT because another thing with Chad GPT that I just loved was how I can share one of my folders direct with her if she pays that 20 bucks.

So it's person to person. There's so many things with Chad GPT, and we'll do more things like on our other channel there all about the levels. And we are going to separate it in the different components of beginner, medium, advanced. And we want to be in the advanced ourselves. I would really categorize me as a medium plus. Yeah, absolutely. You know, because it's a lot.

It's really a lot. what would you say to realtors that aren't embracing technology right now? So when I was on the franchise market, I heard a quote that really stuck with me. And it was, you need to Uber your business before it gets code act. And I think that's really powerful because the truth is, if you don't embrace technology, you will be eliminated. Yeah. And as scary as that sounds, that is the world that we're in now.

So you have to figure out a way to embrace it. Find YouTube channels like ours. If it's ours isn't the one, that's okay. But find someone that can teach you how to utilize some of these technologies so that you can stay evolving. Because if you're not evolving, you know, you're just going to be going backwards. And we don't want to see that. you know, we're here to help. So right. I'm excited about what we can do with that channel. I'm really excited about that. I was inviting, I was on a, it's an all realtor referral site.

And, you know, like have conversation, blah, blah, blah. So I was going through and I was saying, hey, we got this new YouTube channel, come check it out. You know, we're going to be talking all about tech. And, you know, Facebook and stuff. And this guy, I would guess he's in his 60s because I've been talking to them on and off about different things for years. And he's in a very affluent area. And he said, yeah, I dropped Facebook years ago. I go, oh, that's interesting. And even Kate and yesterday we were talking about it.

She said her age group is much younger. She goes, I'm not on Facebook at all. But her target market isn't Facebook either. Right. And that's an important piece. Like who's your target market, right? So anyway, I said, you know, we'll be talking about AAI and stuff. then he goes, AI equals evil.

And I go, oh, okay, you're never going to get it. I'm not going to try to convince you. And you clearly are doing okay in a very well-to-do area. You know, your repeat and hopefully you save some money and you can retire. Because the truth is most realtors are broke after each sale. There is no retirement plan. And what we're trying to do is help them really level up so that they have more time freedom. Right.

That's a big deal, right? Absolutely. So, yeah, I really hope that a lot of realtors will come and embrace this because I think we're offering something that it was really on my heart. I'm older, obviously. That was 30 when I had Kelly. So look at Kelly at 30 and I don't use to hide it. But the point is there's a lot of realtors out there who really would like they're good realtors. They're just good.

But they're doing things in an old model. And what we're trying to do is get them on a new model, which will really give them back their life, don't you think? Sure. Well, that was great, Kell. I really appreciate you doing that, giving us all this information. I just wanted you to know. We'll have that YouTube channel and how to get in touch with Kelly on there. So feel free to reach out to her. And any last minute things you want to say, Cal? You know, I'm just excited about it. I hope that people understand that it's not as scary as it sounds. And, you know, you can dip your toe in.

And once you learn a couple little things, it can take off pretty quickly. Even if you're just good at one thing, you know, just start with one thing. That's probably, I think, the biggest takeaway is don't try and tackle everything. You know, it can be overwhelming if you do. So just pick one thing, understand it, feel comfortable with it. utilize it. And once that's good to go, let's move on to the next. But what we do is we keep a folder of things that are interesting that we may want to look into later. Maybe they're not a high priority, but they're, you know, like a five on the scale of one to ten. Just, you know, we email it to

ourselves and we bank it in a folder for a down the road to check out. If it was a high priority, we're going to, you know, put it to the top of the list. But, you know, again, it's a system of staying organized, staying on task, don't get lost in the bunny trails, but still utilize the system. So I just encourage anybody that's a little bit afraid to jump right in and feel free to reach out.

We'd be happy to help. All right, Kelly, thank you so much. This was fun. Yeah. All right, girl. I will, again, everybody, thanks for joining in and I'll put all Kelly's contact information

down there and how to get in touch with that channel. I think it'll be a great one for us all. And we'll learn, you'll learn, It would be wonderful. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for having me.