KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Mastering Real Estate Success: Team Building, AI, & Social Media with Jennifer Jones

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Friday Focus is your weekly mini-series from KGCI Real Estate On Air—a deep dive into one theme, broken into tactical, easy-to-implement episodes. Every Friday and Saturday, we unpack the strategies, scripts, and systems agents use to win more business—without the fluff.Catch every episode in the series to get the full picture, and put these moves into play by Monday.Summary:In this insightful episode, we sit down with industry leader Jennifer Jones to uncover the secrets behind her highly successful real estate team. Jennifer shares her expert playbook for effective team building, the power of genuine collaboration over competition, and how she's leveraging cutting-edge tools like AI and social media to dominate her market. This is a must-listen for agents and team leaders looking to build a high-production, sustainable, and forward-thinking real estate business.Key TakeawaysCollaboration Over Competition: Jennifer emphasizes that true success comes from a collaborative team environment where agents support and uplift each other, leading to collective growth.The Power of AI Integration: Learn how Jennifer's team is strategically incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) to streamline operations, enhance client communication, and gain a significant competitive advantage.Social Media as a Business Driver: She breaks down her team's strategy for using social media to build authentic connections, showcase expertise, and generate a consistent flow of high-quality leads.Building a Sustainable Team Model: Jennifer shares her blueprint for structuring a team that provides agents with both the necessary support and the autonomy to thrive, ensuring long-term success and retention.Keywords/PhrasesJennifer Jones, Real Estate Team, Team Building, Real Estate Collaboration, AI in Real Estate, Social Media for Agents, Real Estate SuccessCall-to-ActionReady to build a high-performing real estate team that leverages the future of technology? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and get Jennifer Jones's playbook for success! Ready for more? Subscribe to KGCI Real Estate On Air and grab the Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android. Inside, you’ll find our complete archive, 24/7 stream, and every Friday Focus mini-series—ready when you are.

What actually works. What's to do next? Here's the breakdown from this week's Friday focus on KGCI, Real Estate on Air. Welcome. I am your host, Carrie, and I am joined with a very special guest and colleague with EXP Realty, Jennifer Jones. And Jennifer has a massive theme, not only just in the GTA, but I feel like you cover Central Ontario all the way down to Southern Ontario.

she has 40 agents on her team that she works with and right now she's sitting in the top 10 in treb Toronto real estate board and that is really impressive because there's what like 70,000 agents in treb so good for you thank you so much for coming on today Jennifer um I've been trying to nail you down for a little bit I know we were supposed to meet one day online and that didn't happen. So I'm really happy that you, that you decided to come on today. Yeah, absolutely. It's my pleasure. I'm just happy to be here and share. And it's always a pleasure to meet new people. Yeah, absolutely. Especially we're in the same brokerage. We're going to be XPCon together in Vancouver. I believe you're going to be there, right? And you're going to be interviewing

our, um, our founder from what I understand. I am. Yeah, so this is a super exciting opportunity for me where I actually get to be on stage interviewing Glenn for a 30 minutes. And that'll be the second day of the conference. So just sort of working on what those questions are. And yeah, we're just really excited. I always pick his brain everywhere we go. So I don't know if you know this, but there was a Toronto picnic that was planned. That was like last month, I think. And the challenge was there was no backup plan for where it was going to be held if there was rain, which it turned into like torrential downpour in the weather. So we ended up with Glenn and all of our leadership, even some of them from the states that were at the house physically with us here. We ended up offering up the house. So everywhere I go, I've been out to Vancouver speaking different, you know, different places.

over the past couple months. And every opportunity I get to be around Glenn, I'm always asking different questions. Even things like, what are you currently investing in? Right. Like, what stocks are you trading? Yeah. And what's your disprofile, which he's a DIY?

It's fascinating, though, because I think, you know, we have this rare opportunity to have, you know, this founder, billionaire who is so accessible to all of us to learn and grow from. And we just don't have those kinds of opportunities with any other brokerage, right? Yeah. And I think that what a lot of realtors are missing is the most important piece of the puzzle in my mind is making sure that you are around people that you can learn from.

That is the, that's the key to all of this. You know, we can't get there on our own. And if we can, it would take forever. So you need to surround yourself with people that are collaborative. And to be honest, I moved to EXP. Like, it's a great company, stocks, revenue share, rah, rah, rah. I moved over because of the accessibility to, I'm talking massive producers in the U.S. because my group, my community is heavily U.S. based.

And it was a game changer for me, to be honest, Jennifer. And it's while I'll always stay. I just, I love it. Yeah. Well, I think even with that coaching you're doing, you know, yeah, you've you've amped up your game by being around these people that are like such heavy hitters. We're not talking, you know, the biggest teams.

in the company are not like other teams that are restricted hyper locally to, you know, even with certain brokerages, you know, you'd have to go check with another franchise owner to see if you would be able to run your team, you know, your expansion team through their office. And then just sort of all the politics that goes along with that. So, yeah, we're so blessed to be in a company with these massive producers where they're able to expand their groups and teams actually through the world without restrictions of area because it's all one brokerage. So every transaction is going through one brokerage instead of five, ten offices all through, which is just so complicated. So yeah, how exciting. Right.

It is. It is. Everybody that joins me, I'm not an active recruiter. But obviously, I am very high profile on social media. And I have been for my entire career, 14 years. So naturally, people have been gravitating towards me and my group, which is fantastic. And they are so happy. Their biggest regret is not finding it sooner. And all of the time that they wasted trying to figure out everything on their own. I feel like a lot of realtors have this idea in their head that they need to do it all themselves.

And it will take you forever and you can be super intelligent and really able to build your systems and your business properly. But it would take you so long to do on your own. Why are we going to try and reinvent the wheel when you have access to. people or you could have access to people that have already proven systems that work. It's plug and play at this point. Yeah, that's so, it is so critical. It's funny, you know, my first year of attempting to run the team and that was after the third year of real estate.

So I made 1.1 million gross commission income on my own as an individual and couldn't service the clientele at that really, really high level, which is what brought. all this repeat referral business. So at the time, you know, I attempted to kind of set this team up myself, which was a bit of a train wreck. And even though I made so much money the next year, but I actually lost 150,000. So I remember sitting down at the end of the year looking at the piece and all going, okay, like something's got to change. This is broken. So we ended up, I took my sales, she's sort of my office manager. She's actually been with me about eight years now. I took her and sent her down to shadow what was the biggest team in the company at the time. So that's the

Loken group out of Austin, Texas. They're amazing, just such a great group of people. At the time, they were doing around 2,200 deals a year, which was pretty substantial for the, you know, the year. and so she went down and actually shadowed everything they were doing, learned all their systems and processes, and brought it back up. So, you know, we went through a whole implementation of those things. So exactly what you're saying, Carrie, with, you know, not reinventing the wheel. That's what I learned. I learned instead of, you know, having to spend all this time, you know, trying different things and, you know, breaking it and then having to to fix. I've just implemented what they did.

And then surrounding myself with always people who are more successful in every area, you know, all areas of growth in my life. It challenges you. And then you're able to learn off their mistakes or their, you know, challenges that created learning, which is so absolutely valuable. Right. so we don't have to go through and make those same mistakes again. Yeah, it's so key because I have a very similar story to yours.

I started a team, I want to say 10 years ago, I wanted to do all-female. And down here in Southern Ontario, the only team was like Rob Golfie, Rod Frank. It was very limited. And they were small back then as well. and I had no guidance and I tried to figure it out on my own. I crashed and burned. I didn't make any money. Like the team was successful and made a lot of money,

but I made less money. So I'm just like, I did it for four years. And then I'm like, I can't. I was shifting my business anyways. For me, I just, I don't think I would, I would expand my production.

at this point in my career. I'm very complacent and happy where I'm at, and I'm more about building other companies at this point. But yeah, there's, you need to learn from people who have done it and are doing it right. And can I just say, Canadians are going to hate me for this, but Americans are on the cutting edge of everything in terms of systems and technology. their energy when it comes to sales is different. And I just think they do it better personally.

So that's why I love EXP and that's why I joined because it gave me access to these massive agents down there that are that are doing it right. Yeah. And I think it's if you look, there's been amazing things. Like we have, even in Canada, we have some absolutely phenomenal, massive producers. And it took me a while to find some of those, Carrie, like to figure out who is actually producing, not who's talking about it, not who's looking like they're doing it, but who is actually doing it. So we have an event coming up that we planned for, it's September 24th in Markham. And we've actually, we have Peggy Hill, massive producing team.

that's up in the Berry area. They do, like, she's regularly doing, like, 2,000 deals a year. So she's coming to speak at that event. So is Terry Hastings, massive producer at a Gray County, like up northwest of, she's northwest of calling it there.

So she's coming to speak. I think understanding, like, our producers, especially on Toronto Real Estate Board, if you look at, you know, those top, the top group that's sort of even above us, they are massive producers.

And they would put to shame a lot of the American, even that American top group. So I think it's just sort of looking at each area, even Vancouver, Ottawa, within each area that, you know, especially the city centers and just outside the city, city centers within Canada, there are massive producers. And I think also focusing on,

on if you're a woman, the importance of like, how is women do we sell? What kind of programs are we buying into to learn from? Because I do feel that women have a slightly different way of selling for the most part than men do. So we tend to use a little bit more, a little more intuition, a little more relationship. and, you know, for me, it's that focus on, like, how do we, how do we as top producing women

help other women, you know, really move into those arenas? You know, even so going, you know, with the former company I was with, I was, I was in Gary Keller's top producing 200. So we'd go down and go to Austin quarterly and sit in those, those groups. There's not a lot of women sitting in, you know, EXP's top 50 group at Summit in May. There was a couple, a handful of women in that group. And I just feel like women are, you know, not really just expressing themselves and becoming fully what they're meant to become.

and I think that we have to put some focus on how do we train these women, how do we mentor them into just being the powerhouses that we know they can be. So that's a big focus for me. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I really love that because my personal experience, the first 10 years of real estate, I was operating with masculine energy.

Okay. It's very unnatural. Yeah, the masculine energy is very hunt, kill, eat what you kill, go, go, go, go. It's very aggressive. And that's the only thing, and that's the only example that I had at the time. And it made me my job after a while

because it's very unnatural for us as women to operate so in such masculine energy every single day. So once I am, I'm like, okay, well, what is feminine energy? Feminine energy is nurturing and inviting and supporting instead of hunting and killing, right? So how do I apply this to my business so that I can be more fulfilled as a woman in this industry? but still be a contender. And that's when I shifted everything more over to social media and video content and teaching and just, you know, trying to inspire and mentoring and the mentoring and the teaching led to coaching.

And yeah, now I'm in a place where I can trade in real estate. I do half residential, half commercial, so I'm lucky. I can do 10 deals a year and make a pretty good living so that I can focus on what I really, what really fulfills me, that missing piece, which is mentorship and nurturing, I think. So, yeah, you're very right. And I think that I think that whoever incorporates. the feminine energy into their coaching is going to kill it with women in real estate. I had a girl on, she's a neurolinguistic programmer.

NLP. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that aligns more with feminine energy in terms of sales tactics, right? What do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, I've used NLP for a long time. I think NLP is a very, it's, it's very, a very quick way to establish trust and rapport. And so, hey, you could use that in a way that would be manipulation, essentially. I look at it and coach it from a place of, we are the best people to serve that particular

client because we are coming at it from a place of what is best for them, not as, not what is in it for us, but what is actually best for the client. And sometimes that means that they're not selling their property. They're going to hold it longer. When you're coming from a place of serving and loving others, then whatever you can do to establish quick trust and report is a great thing because you're also saving them, in my opinion, from other realtors, quite a large group that are simply there to, you know,

get in, make their kill, get paid, and then they're out the back door. So, yeah, I think NLP is critical. And I do think that more women leaders, leaders in the industry need to step up and teach and mentor and coach other women into success like yourself, right? Where you're coaching, but adding more of this woman's component of how do we do it as women and then be taught producers and run big massive teams. how do we do that? Because continuing to buy from men who have aggressive sales tactics, yes, we can learn from everyone. And it's so great.

And do you want to do it in such a way you feel you have a more harmonious life? You feel more imbalance. You feel authentic and real because it's coming from your heart as opposed to, you know, just exactly what we're saying with the hunt it and kill it, right? Yeah, yeah. I am huge into meditation and yoga and I actually talk to Nadia about this because, and I'm going to ask you right now because I think you'd be wonderful for this. I want to do a retreat. When I say a retreat, a workshop, hands on retreat, and I want there to be four components. I want it to be business. planning and actually learning how to plan their business and how to structure everything. The second component would be lead generation, social media, video marketing and communication,

which is my specialty. And then I don't even know if you know this, but I am deep into AI. So I would add AI into there as well. And then the third component has to be conversion. because that's really like what use is the business plan and the systems and the leads when you can't convert them into sales, really. So I want to just implement all of those with a peaceful meditation, maybe some yoga, some wellness, have it be like a really well-rounded workshop where the people that are coming

are literally doing the work right there. What do you think about that? Yeah, that's awesome. I think it'd be fantastic. And that would actually tie into, there's a woman's event that I put together with. So Nadia, Havid, and Elizabeth Riley out of the U.S. is coming up. You definitely should get involved in that.

There's some other people. I think, you know, that could tie into that event. and then maybe offering for people to sign up at that event to go to this retreat. That would be so good. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah.

So, okay, so for the agents out there, Mm-hmm. Your first three years, you did over a million dollars in gross commission. What were you doing? What did your day look like?

What did your prospecting look like? What methods were you using? Well, that's why I think we need more training and leadership from women because I was coming at it from from that place of how do I serve. So, you know, I moved up into it's a community, let's say it's around 65,000 people. It was dominated by in particular three different, you know, agent slash. teams and I moved up there not knowing anyone. So, you know, originally where I started was, and I think this is a great idea for anyone who's in, you know, getting into the business. I had kind of neighborhood invites, right? So we'd invite them over to the house,

you know, snacks and drinks and just getting to know them, like honestly and authentically, just getting to know people and learning about what they do and then how can we you know, like how can I promote them? How can I serve them? How do I help them get business? And again, it goes back to that Zig Zigler. The way to get what you want is by helping others get what they want, you know, in a simple premise. So that became what it was. I focused on serving. I focused on, you know, helping other people, even if it meant there was nothing coming back to me. I believe that energetically, what you put out, you know, whatever, whatever you're putting out there into the universe, coming back to 100-fold. So, you know, somebody needed, yeah, like a garage doors needed to be

painted. You know, it was just getting out in networking and then spotlighting businesses in the area focused on that. And then, you know, what my elevator pitch was. So because we were, my husband and I were, you know, buying properties, renovating and reselling, our focus became, you know, going into each property, I would look at it and say, all right, what are the cheap and sureful things that we could do here to help, you know, A, get the client more money. We're going to net them more money. And, you know, B, it's probably going to sell quicker. So that became part of my pitch and what I was doing. That was ahead of its time. There weren't a lot of agents actually doing that nine years ago. So, and I would do a lot of that physical labor myself or, you know,

recruiting my awesome, amazing husband into doing these things. So, you know, maybe we were painting a cottage or we'd bring things in from the house and stage it. I feel like at the beginning, you, because you can't really afford to go and hire all these people to do things, you just have to do it yourself,

right? Steam cleaning carpets, painting, cleaning things, gardening, whatever it's going to take to help them sell for more money. And by focusing on service, serving them, you will get repeat referral business by the truckloads.

So having these get-togethers and getting to know your neighbors and learning about what they do promoting them, that also is going to bring you more and more business. And then I actually stuck a sign on our lawn and said list with because the vast majority of people driving by don't fully read. They don't look to see list with isn't for sale. So they end up calling about the property. and then I had a list of neighbors where I said, hey, if someone came along and wanted to buy your property, what's the number it would take to get you sold? Right. And so they would give me a number.

So I'd be able to call them up and say, hey, I have a couple people. And these are people that called my list with sign. And I'd say, oh, I'm sorry that property's no longer available. I do have these other two off market listings that you could take a look at. And that's how I kind of networked through the neighborhood. And I would show up prepared. Like I think one of the biggest things, you know, for agents is they don't show up looking like a professional. They show up.

They're disorganized. They don't have any research. They don't know anything. So you need to, A, know your, know your market really, really well. Preview houses. Know the sale prices. No, know the off markets. Get to know those agents in that area that are dominating because they have access to listings

that you don't, right? So you're going to. And they will help you by getting you into those properties because they also want the objection or the purpose is to obviously get these people sold. So, you know, showing up, you know, dressed well, cars clean, organized, you know, I'd have a folder for them. And I would have, you know, if we're looking at five properties, I'd have each property numbered. I'd have notes about it on their, you know, basic questions that we know that a buyer is going to ask. age of roof, age of windows, age of furnace, air conditioning, how old's the house, how many square feet's the house? They're going to ask you these basic questions on pretty much every single home.

So do the research ahead of time, have those notes on your sheet, right? A tip too would be, you know, if you're showing in rural areas, always write the lockbox code down on your copies, you know, make sure that's written down somewhere because sometimes you get to a property and, you know, your, your phone isn't going to pull up information for you. So, yeah, it's easy to do. I'm old school too. Yeah. Yeah, I used to do that all the, you used to do that 10 years ago, right?

Yeah, we would write it down. Even now it's like, you know, the notes, at least the into your notes on your iPhone or something. So I feel like it's easy. It is easy to get going in this business. if you come from a place of how do I serve and not about my commission. Don't start calculating your commission and all those things. Focus on how to serve them first and learn.

Like, you know, we got licensed with Clover properties or rent to own. They're amazing in Ontario, like fantastic organization. All our agents that join our team are organized because you help people who think they can't afford property, right? So you're getting them into the first homes with 30,000 down. You know, that higher level of training on everything. We never stop learning. So even on our team, we're constantly trained. We have a lawyer that trains us once a month. She comes in our training calls. We have planners, city planners that train. We have mold experts, septic inspectors, well inspectors, general inspectors. You name.

it we are training on it constantly so yeah you want to be the export you've got to go work with contractors for and like watch what they're doing learn the process of building you know just learn about vacant land how do i determine whether or not i can build on this you know waterfront properties those are those are specialty that's what we specialize in because there's so many different types of ownership and to be very careful when you're purchasing those properties for a client that you fully understand what it is they're buying and what you need to make sure of. Like what are those checklist items, right? Yeah.

Easy, right, Kerry? Well, here's the thing. I'm fine that our industry has changed so much in the length of time I've been in in the business. There are so many transactional agents. That's all that they think about. is the transaction. And are you finding the same thing?

It's really discouraging sometimes, which is probably why I'm just working off of my referrals at this point. I actually had a client. You want to listen to this story? I had a client. I sold their house. And they talked to a couple mortgage brokers. And unfortunately, they only qualified for a prize.

it maybe a B with a co-signer. It is what it is. I'm like, let's put a plan in place for you so that you have an exit strategy from this, right? So that you don't get caught up with in what a lot of people are getting caught up with. They found a mortgage broker to get them in with a lender. So I'm sure you can imagine. And the mortgage broker told them that he would not approve them unless they used his wife who is the realtor.

Then they proceeded to put in an offer with her on a house that I showed them. I am like, are you seeing more of this stuff lately? Because I, it wasn't like this when I got into the industry. And it's really discouraging. I just, yeah. I'm trying to. It's so, yeah, it's so hard that you've had to go through things like that. And I think our percentage of mortgage brokers that are essentially criminals, right?

I hate to say it, it's true. Just like there's some realtors that are criminally based as well. I think for someone to take a client, you know, who's, was a B lender prospect. with a co-signer or private to an A lender means there's false documentation there, which means they're probably paying their 10,000. They're either paying $10,000 to get, you know, falsified documents to do that, or in this case, use my wife, who's a realtor, because they know that they're going to get paid that way as well. I feel like those people eventually get found out, like there was a real estate company with mortgage brokers that

were doing this, and they were all caught on Canada. We don't need to go there. I look at this as, like, we work off trust. We don't sign by our reps until we're ready to offer. I always say, you know, what you do? Jennifer, I thought I was the only person that did that. No. I know it's supposed to be a rule.

Like, get the BRA sign. But I'm not even showing you homes. if I feel like that's something I need to do before I put an offer in. That's just my personal opinion. Yes, that's exactly right, Carrie. That's exactly right. That's the way people should be. We should be, you know,

focused on if you function through your life and your world with integrity and your word is your word, your word is your bond, then we can make a deal on a handshake and I trust you. So we'll get clients that will actually say, hey, do you want me to sign anything? And we'll always say, you know what, no, we work off our word. That's good enough for us. So if we're going to put the time and the energy in and continue to serve you to a high level, then, you know, we would be grateful for the opportunity to represent

you as a realtor. But I think also by not signing something, it also keeps you, it keeps you sharp on your toes and you do not become complacent. Because when a buyer is looking for property, if you were not on it. And if I'm not on it, I fully expect if I didn't get back to someone for four hours or six hours in, and they're shopping in the price point that moves quickly, I'm going to fully expect, quite frankly,

that they're going to call somebody else. Because I would, right? I want that high level of service. I want to have contact. So I always tell our realtors, listen, you can be, you know, you can be out on appointments, watch your phone.

If someone's calling, just say, hey, I'm in an appointment right now. I'll give you a call back at 4 o'clock and then set the reminder in your phone right away. Make sure that you set the reminder to make sure that you're doing that. And then the bonus of the team is, oh, hey, guys, I need information on that property.

I'm out showing who can send me the details. And they'll send it. You need someone to go show the property because, you know, there's only two hours, or two hours left to offer presentation and the client just saw it, like just saw the listing, then we'll put it to the group and say, who can go show this property in one hour in this town, this location? And someone always puts their hand up to say, yeah, I got it, no problem. So I think you have to focus, if you want to do well in real estate, you have to feel a sense of urgency.

And if you're not someone that naturally feels that sense of urgency, you're going to have to find a way to, you know, create strategies around your world so that you start to feel the sense of urgency for other people. Yes, 100%. Because if they did lose a house that they really would have loved and would have been perfect and sold at a great price, you can understand why the client would want to fire a house.

you. I would do exactly the same thing. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think just not approaching this from, you know, I'm getting into real estate and I'm going to work less. It's going to be a part-time job. Sure. Like you could do that over time, but not at the beginning. Yeah. At the beginning, you're building a business like any other business. And Carrie, you build businesses, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So what does it be? you're 100% right. I am when I was building my real estate business and for the clients that I do take,

I don't take a lot of buyers. I'm a listing agent at this point. But when I do have like my friends and my family as buyers, they can call me at 9 o'clock at night to talk about a property that they saw. You know, I am lucky because I didn't have kids. And I just got married last year. So my entire career was that was the focus of my life because I made real estate my life. I talked about it everywhere I went.

I didn't hang out with people unless I could do business with them. I know that sounds a little bit harsh to some, but like that's that's what I believe. I don't care. And that's how I operated. Like business comes first. You need to be available for people. This is a huge purchase. And that's another reason why I have a very strong opinion about part-time agents.

I don't think there's any room for them in this industry. I think that it can be detrimental to their friends and family that they work with when they lose out on homes because they're not familiar with the market because they're not boots on the ground. And I just, I have a very strong opinion about that. And that's why is because you need to be available and you need to know what's going on every single day. And, you know, we go with ups and downs in the market, but we always come back to a market where it's imperative that you get into a house within two hours of your client

showing interest in it. It will always come back. So you may not need to adjust your time schedule and your focus now because things are moving a little bit slower. Do it now because there's going to come in time you won't have a choice right yeah that's right and i think the i agree i think agents that intend to be part-time forever this this is not the industry for you you because the market is like a living organism that's constantly changing day to day week to week a sale that happened last night could be super relevant to a list price i put on a property today i think it's important to if you're part-time to work towards becoming a full-time agent. Yeah. So we do bring in part-time agents, people that are intending on transitioning

into being full-time. But we won't take them if their plan is to be a part-time agent forever, right? They're going to work some other job for the next couple years. Yeah. It has to be like, this is the date that I intend to be full-time and then working to get their finance is up to a place where they can support their lifestyle based on their income, right? Yeah, absolutely. And like, it is a living organism that's changing every day. And that actually, and I think that's why I'm so comfortable in the coaching space,

because I coach social media at a high level, like video creation, video communication, and now AI. And it is literally changing every single day. There's updates. And you need, like any industry, you need to be on top of the newest, the cutting edge. You need to know what you're doing, you know? And how do you do that at part time? If you go on a team and you're a part time agent, that's fine because you have a team to support you.

If that team is okay with you being part time and is made. up of a lot of part-time agents. I've seen that before. Their purpose is to support each other when the other is off. And that's like having a full-time agent. But being an independent part-time agent, you are doing a major disservice or anybody's home that you list. Like, look at how quickly our market changed in, well, I don't know about where you are,

but down here, it was literally a matter of. one week last spring where everything changed. And how do you list a home without knowing what just happened the day before and the day before that? Like I just, you're doing a major disservice to your clients at that point. So I urge any part-time realtors like try to get full time. You know, this is, you want to do the best job. Even if you're just working for your family.

and you're okay, you have a real job and you're just doing transactions for your family, you don't know what the hell is going on. What are you doing? You know? No, exactly. They could, as a buyer, they could lose out on a great property because you don't know the trends in the market right now and what's happening with offers. Because that could be different today than it was two months ago the last time you did a transaction.

Yeah. Well, yeah, not to mention you don't, most of them are not going to read the RICO rulebook, right? So they don't understand like, what are the protocols when I'm running a multiple offer presentation? How do I notify? What do I notify? You know, they don't even realize, oh, they're from the same brokerage. We're a multiple rep. What is multiple rep? What does that mean? How do I explain that to the client? Like, it just, there's just so many factors, right? There's so much to know. Even with. Like we are experts in bringing on new agents and taking them through our boot camp, taking them through, you know, we have morning meetings always Monday to Friday. We have a live dial Monday to Friday. So we take these agents. We train them. We support them. And, you know, we're helping.

We're helping with their list price. We have an assist that goes out with them when they're going to list property or buy property. So we want to make sure that they know what they're doing and that they have. at that really high standards. So yeah, there's so much to know. It's a fire hose of information when you're a new agent. You do need some kind of support, be it a team, be it a coach like yourself, just to have that guidance to really get going and learn in the right way.

It's tougher to unlearn, you know, things that you've learned incorrectly than to just be a blank slate, be open and learn and work on. not only improving yourself in terms of your, you know, education and training in the industry, but also your personal growth. Because we always say, like, if you don't grow in your personal growth area, then you will never earn more than you, you know, believe that you can right now, which is, you know, here for most people. Yeah.

Yeah. And then you're also going to be in a position. that you're going to attract, like, energetically, I believe we attract where we're resonating as clients, right? So the clients that you're attracting as a new agent typically are what I would call, like, a lower evolved person, okay? Because they're going to, typically, you're just taking whatever you can get as a new agent and you're not being selective about who you're choosing to be your client.

So I think the message to agents has to be, listen, you need to work on yourself. You know, you can't look at every situation to go, it's the client's fault. The client did this. The client, no, no, no, no. I take full responsibility for what's happened. Even if it's not something we created, I take full responsibility for what's happened. And these are the things that we're going to do to make this right, right? Even if we have a situation where we just had one last week, a buyer agent went into one of our listings with a buyer.

Somebody got on top of a toilet, cracked the seat, pulled some of the trim off, obviously looking for how something was built. No one called us and let us know. So the seller comes home, discovers this. So it becomes, all right, the agent stepped in, fixed everything. now he must be present for every single showing for the seller, right? So it's just as agents, we have to move into a place of like taking responsibility, learning how to, you know, know ourselves better and become accountable to ourselves, right? So I just think growth is so, so imperative.

And I know that this is something that you've invested a lot of time, energy and money as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, your head needs to be right. This industry is so hard. This is difficult. And you will either thrive or it will bleed you dry. Okay. There's no in between.

And it's all going to come down. to your mindset and your ability to keep educating yourself and growing. I was telling Nadia this the other day. I want to be a coach so that I can literally, my job will be to learn every single day, every new thing coming out and apply it to the people that I'm teaching, coaching, mentoring. I just love it. I'm lucky because I,

I love learning. Like I was a career student before I was a realtor. So it's in my blood. My mom's a professor. My brother's a professor. I absolutely love it. I'm lucky. Doesn't come as natural for other people.

Get over it. Get over yourself and be open to new ideas. Because I'm seeing a lot of this with AI especially. So are you implementing AI into your business yet? every day. Yeah. We've used it for a, like I think everyone has used it for a long time. They're realizing it for myself and for the team. Like I'm using it every single day.

I'm using it for content. I'm using it to improve listing descriptions. I'm using it to tweak videos or things we're posting. With Canva now, they have AI. so all are advertising and graphics and things. AI is involved. It's like gen AI. I'm going to get myself a T-shirt.

Just AI. That's a hat, right? I'm like half AI right now. It's saving you so much time. Oh, how about you? I am, I'm deep. I'm creating an app right now using AI. My next step is to create a,

customized AI powered chat bot for all of my lead management. Not that I'm even doing lead generation, but like these are things that I want to learn and become an expert at so I can offer this to everybody that works with me. And the biggest, I could share, I'm not actually, I'm going to send you a Google Drive,

a Google doc of literally the best AI tools. There's so many of them. And if you have any questions, just call me. That's so great. Some are Chrome extension. Some aren't. But yeah, what I'm coming across is there's a lot of people. Like I had a meeting with a big brokerage.

I'm negotiating with them right now for them to purchase my program for like a lot of their agents. And the one manager is like, Carrie, you are fascinating, but you are scary. because I am so into this. And if you are of a different generation who never even got on board with social media, can you imagine how intimidating this must be for them? But yeah, it's just you don't need to be an expert at it, but you need to have access to an expert if that makes sense. Absolutely.

Yeah. And I think that's probably true of everything. right? You don't need to be an expert in anything. You just have to have the right people that are experts in those areas to give you sort of those like three main key things to focus on and implement today so that you change your business going forward. Yeah. And I, I'm polite and kind to AI. I figure if at some point in the future, it takes over to run the world. I don't swear at it. I don't say mean things. I say please and thank you.

Me too. I know there's a lot of people terrified to use it because they're afraid, but people were afraid of, you know, the Internet, right? Yeah. Anything new, there's always this resistance. And I feel like if you're one of those agents right now with AI, you take it, you implement it, you take the tools that Carrie has and just do it. then if we fast forward five,

10 years from now, the people that had that head start and, you know, we're already implementing are going to have a leg up. It's like, you know,

Coke being the first brand out there, right? Yeah. You need to be a real brand. Yeah. Look at social media. So the way I describe it, agents understand they need to start using

social media. However, if you look at the real estate influencers in social media, because I am one of them, we've all been on social media for at least 10 years and using it well. And there was such a small group 10 to 14 years ago that look at what we're doing now. Like it's like night and day. And this is back when it was all pictures and words. That's what social media was.

We are in the middle of a shift into video. This is like a revolution in terms of social media. It's the next revolution. They don't happen often. And now we're into video, video, video. And we're still at the beginning. We're a few years into it. But there's still time to learn it and get involved now.

Or do you want to be that agent in 10 years starting to do video? and realizing that you miss the boat. Like, now is the time to freaking do it, people. It's nice over here. Do you know that I run? Like, even my clients and friends, my entire business runs through social media. My friends and clients don't text me or call me.

They mess. They DM me. Like, that's how deep I am in social media. And it's wonderful. It's wonderful because, you know, There's so many different ways to prospect door knocking. I did it. Wasn't anything wrong with it.

It's very time consuming, right? I was good at it. It's just very time consuming. Everyone wanted to talk to me for like a half an hour. And the end of the day, I've hit like five houses. I'm like, what is happening? Cold calling. I don't even call my own leads.

I've always had an ISA. So that's just not something I'm ever going to do. I built my business on my essay. the back of my SOI. I was a very social person when I first got into the industry. I built it with my SOI and I complimented it with social media. You can't do one without the other. I don't think.

You should clarify for people what is SOI for all the new agents. So your sphere of influence. So the people that you know, the people, your hairdresser, you're in-laws, anybody that knows you personally that you have their contact information. And you need to be, it's not just who you know now, you need to be constantly building it as well. That's, I feel like that's something. When agents want to work their S-O-Y as their prospecting method, they don't understand that you need to be constantly adding to your S-O-I in order for that to work and actually produce a decent income. But those two together were a game changer for me.

And now with AI, I could literally take somebody who's afraid to be on video, afraid of don't even know what to talk about. And I could take them with AI all the way through from idea to posting. And like there is no excuse anymore, people. No excuse. This is the other night. So the other night, Chad GPT, I'm sure you know this. Chat Chappetee is very, there's a, there's a, there's a formula you need.

There's ways to optimize it. And it's a game changer. I created a confidentiality and non-compete contract because I couldn't get a hold of my lawyer. And I needed it within a couple of hours. I created it. He finally called me back. I shot it off to him and he's like, is this perfect? This is perfect.

Do you want a job? And, you know, there's just so many ways that you can enhance your business with it. And I'm so happy to hear that you use it on the daily because I think more people, more agents need to hear that, you know, this isn't a big scary thing. This is going to enhance you. It enhance your business. Yes. Yes.

It would be so awesome. Yeah. And I think we should get you out to our event if you're not. booked for the 24th of September and get you on stage talking about using AI in business, like in the real estate business if you're open. Yeah, yeah, I'm open to that for sure. I'm going to be out at EXPCon. I'm speaking about social media there.

Amazing. So we should definitely have dinner or something the night before, get together at some point. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, it's been, it's been so amazing talking to you. And honestly, I feel like you're the first woman that I've met personally in Canada that has such a large team. And I just, I love this. I am all about this. I am going to teach you all the AI. And then when my coaching, and then when I'm, I'm ready to get out of real estate, I'm going to have you. you teach me to build a team for residual income. Is that a deal? Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, and I think you're going to love meeting a couple of those women we have up on stage on September 24th, men too, but for you, the women, like meeting Peggy Hill and Terry Hastings will be those are big powerhouse women. You're going to love them. I am, I am there. I am there. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on. I'm sure that the realtors listening to this are going to get so much out of this conversation. So I really, really appreciate you coming on and sharing, you know, insights into the business and into having a team with them. I want to do this again at some point. Yeah.

No, I'm so grateful for the opportunity. And thank you. I loved connecting. And we'll get you on stage, September 24th of Markham. we're going to be putting out a link. We'll be putting together a little ad for that in the next week. And then, yeah, we'll roll it out. And anyone that wants to come see you on stage as well, this is going to be so good.

All right. Thank you so much, Jennifer. Thank you.