KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Real Estate Meets AI Power with Athena Brownson!

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Welcome to Real Estate Riches, where Kathy Burns empowers realtors to achieve the success they've always dreamed of. Starting her career at 55, Kathy built a thriving business that offers the freedom of time and financial independence. And now she's sharing her journey to help others do the same. Whether new to the industry or looking to level up, this channel is your hub for proven strategies, inspiring stories, and the tools you need to grow your real estate business. join Kathy each week to explore global opportunities, successful systems, and expert insights to take your career to the next level. Get comfortable. Pick a video and start learning. Your journey to success starts now. Hey everybody. It's Kathy Burns here and I am with Real Estate Riches. And today my guest is Alina Bronson. And man, is she awesome. We've been having talks off subject. The truth is I forgot to push record.

So she's gracious enough to come back. Hey, girl. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a joy talking with you. And I'm so excited to share the nuggets that honestly we've dug up already because there has been so much. And let's share. Okay. Tell everybody you're with Compass. You got a team.

I'm in Denver, Colorado. Yeah. So I'm in Denver, Colorado. I grew up in Breckenridge in a small mountain town. And my dad was a developer. I wanted nothing to do with real estate. Now it would be the most different. pressing thing I could ever imagine not being in real safety. It's the greatest gift that that is in my life.

And it really has kept me going through challenging times, good times. You know, we spoke a lot about the opportunity that comes when life throws curveballs and when adversity comes and how many agents in the last, you know, two years have not renewed their licenses. Right. And. And, and how burnt out people are. But if we pivot that mindset into how much opportunity it is creating for us to be innovative and to utilize new tools and to focus on culture. And my team at Compass, it's a very small team. I've been in the business, like I said, about a decade.

But culture is everything. And I believe that we're in this really neat place in the world of real estate. state where we have the opportunity to empower our team and empower ourselves to dream bigger by utilizing tools that you've talked about on the podcast, all these AI tools that are going to give us our time back. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah, there's two things.

When I didn't record this and now we're back recording, there was one I shared with you that I am so excited about. and I'm telling every realtor I know about it. I don't care what firm you're with because it's industry agnostic, but it is AI and it's called Hoosie, H-U-Z-I-A-I, and I think that one is 79, but it doesn't have any funnels in there built out. You've got to create them yourself. But if you go to Carrie Sovey, who I believe is spelled C-A-R-I-E, last name S-A-O-E-B-A-A-E-B-A.

Just tell chat. I'm like, yeah. We'll figure it out, right? Exactly. She's $99 a month. I did just sign up with her because she's built out all these different things of all the minutia of the tasks that you're doing and making it so frigging efficient, which is not a strength of mine.

If you're a strong C and you already got your systems, maybe you should at least look at it and see how you could get it all cleaned out. But this is it for us, I's over here in D's and S's. I'm with you 100%. And I think talking about the duty that we have to our clients to really be the expert on wherever their property is, not just specialize in one area. Right. You know, we have so many resources at our fingertips that will not only help empower us to be the best agent that we can for our clients. Right. Also, that word balance that you and I kept speaking of, that is. very difficult to find in real estate. And I truly believe that, you know, those that think that AI will replace the realtor,

no, I don't think human relationship can be replaced. But it is absolutely necessary and hopefully going to be something that everyone takes seriously at some point is how we can get some of our time back. and a little bit more balance so that we don't have these huge ebbs and flows in our business due to burnout. And that we do have, we're able to foster community and culture that is empowering and doesn't wear your team into the ground. Because with so many shiny objects like your squirrel, it's really easy to get, you know, we're inundated with new ideas in different pathways all the time. But if we're not very intentional about how we're using our time, how we're using these tools and educating ourselves on the tools that are at our fingertips, we're never going to grow.

And if anything that the last year and the last eight years for me of battling chronic illness has taught me is that when we are the most uncomfortable and when we're going through the greatest adversities, as you've shared as well, that is when you look back in life and you realize that the most growth happens. And if we can lean into that uncomfortability, understand that it's opportunity for us to grow, that is going to get us in a headspace to get over the hurdle. Right. And I think that's what we all need right now is how can we pivot our mindset to see the last few years of, a very difficult, long days. Yeah.

What can we take from that? How can we understand better how to utilize tools, how to empower our team with tools? Right. Let's talk about some tools. We got Hoosie. You know, it's brand new. She just released it. And so it's amazing.

And I would, you can look at both of them. I'm not making any money here. I'd like to. I don't have an affiliate program with it, but it's so good. The other one is KGCI Radio on air for realtors, which goes 24-7, and I interviewed him on my podcast today. Oh. So I actually am a podcast on that radio show, so I am one of the hosts. But it's so full of golden nuggets on every subject. And you think about it. All these realtors that just left, right? They needed help. And you have to have discipline, number one, which, you know, you've got to go search for the help. You and I were talking, you were a professional athlete,

so you're used to discipline and an agenda and going after it. But it's not going to delegating. So that has been something that I've had to learn and continue to try and learn. Yeah. Understanding our strengths and weaknesses, I think. It's just as critical. I love to delegate, but I still like to hover. It's hard. Very hard. You better do it my way. I'll tell you what to do, but do it my way.

At least you've got a good way. So anyway, that radio show, which I'll put the link in here. It goes 24-7. It's got an app. KGCI Real Estate on Air is the app. And it will go into your car. So it's as if you're listening to an audible book, right? And what's great about that?

that is you are, you're learning on whatever subject. You pick your subject because you can go in, see, or just listen to what's on. When I was talking about it on another video I did earlier, I just popped it up to see. Lars Heidenberg was on there, who is a national coach, given away gold. And these are anywhere from 20 minutes, 30 minutes or so. Master classes. He charges big money for the coaching that he does. I just picked it up and there I'm like, oh my gosh, that's awesome. And that's how, you know, I feel and we live in a time right now where the access to information and good information is so readily available that they're in as brokers, obviously

we spend a lot of time in the car. If you're not utilizing that time, I mean, whether you're making your phone calls for the day and that's your opportunity and then telling AI to please update the CRM that You have done such and when to follow up again. Or you need to be learning. Yes. There's no excuses. There's no reason that we cannot all be experts on whatever it is that our clients need

because the access to information is there. And it is about just going after it. It's got social media. It's got how to cultivate the leads. It's how to get the leads. It's how to YouTube. major players of all different avenues are the ones that are teaching on here. So you want to improve your YouTube?

Go listen to them because they're the ones that are succeeding at it, right? Or you want to teach your team how to cultivate leads better. Go listen to the guy that's, he's done it, he's mastered it. Learn from him and it's no charge. And what better way to empower one another as well? I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is understanding our strengths and our weaknesses. Yes.

understanding which of those weaknesses we should work towards or which are just not, you know, are not our thing because we can't do it all. Yeah. So when you're saying to, you know, a coach told me once, when you are doing a task that is not in line with what your strengths are, you're taking the gift away, the empowering tool away from a team member who is good at that. Yes. We have to remember that because, you know, like I said, I'm a high D high eye.

We all have different strengths and weaknesses. And if we're not helping one another to see those, first of all, but then really cultivate a culture where you're providing resources that will help people to sharpen their tools. Yeah. I always agree. So that's just an incredible. I can't wait to check that show out. So thank you. Yeah, it's great. It's great. And I'll have all that information here, which would be wonderful. So you, you're with Compass, you've got your small team, and you've been doing it 10 years.

You got your systems down. You got great collaboration within your office, it sounds like. Did you do good last year or did you struggle last year? You know, I had my best year yet. And so did my whole team. Yeah. That doesn't mean it was easy. It was definitely a very challenging year. And I'm, I am so excited for this year. And I really think that, you know, you and I talked about vision boarding and the importance of not forgetting to dream big when we get inundated in the minutia and in headlines and in negative press. And everything that we're, you know, the NAR settlements, we're constantly being fed negativity. And it's our responsibility, whether it's just individually or as a team leader, but to our clients. too, to not lose that drive and that passion that allows you to dream bigger and think bigger. And I think being intentional with our time and how we're spending time with our team,

what activities we're doing to cultivate an atmosphere where you might not think that you could take down a huge development, but you sit down and you put that on your vision board and you figure out an action plan on how you're going to step by step. I'm sure AI can help build this out, go after different developers and on projects happening all over your city. But that doesn't happen when we're weighed down by the imbalance that real estate tends to create. Right.

So I think AI really is going to be what empowers us to get some of our time back. And we have that time to take care of ourselves and to even reflect. you know, I think often we get so busy, you don't even have time to reflect on what well and what didn't. Yeah. It really allows us to have a little bit of more headspace. And anything that we can do to cultivate a little bit more space in between these headphones is something I will gratefully take.

I'm with you, girl. I'm with you, girl. Well, I know that our time is tight. Any other nuggets you want to share? You know, I think we're all coming. off of a year that was, we faced adversity. And you had mentioned in 2008, 2009, going through adversity and how it led to some of the most fruitful, you know, future experiences that formed you into the person that you are. I've been battling Lyme disease and autoimmune diseases

that have, would leave most people on disability for the last eight and a half years. And what I have learned and fully believe is we do and it is similar to what I said, but earlier, but no matter what adversity anyone is going through, whether it's being completely burnt out by the market or going through a hard divorce, struggling with illness, struggling with family, whatever it may be, these are the times for us to lean in because when you look back in life, that is where growth happens. And I would just encourage everyone to actually take the time to reflect and find where that growth can happen through your challenging times. Because if we don't use those challenging times to be our best, what are we doing? You know, for me, because I started

in the industry in 2006, when it was going up, I was in a brand new state. I knew one person. I didn't know real estate, I changed careers completely. And so all of a sudden, you know, it's going up and now it goes down. Succeeding was non-negotiable for me. I was going to figure it out. And at that time, I was 56 years old. I'm like, damn, well, better figure it out, right? And the truth is, all of us need to have that mindset. We're going to figure it out because real estate has no ceiling to your limit. A job has absolute ceilings. and no security. So I will rather take a commission check that I don't know if it's coming or not,

that I have the opportunity to have huge commission checks with especially developments. And I need to talk to you about that because I got somebody for you. We should do part too because I would love to get into development with you. Oh, yes. I got so much for you because I was on a podcast. I met this realtor who turned me on to a lender for mega developers, minimum of a $100 million loan is where they start to the billions. And I thought, who do I know like that?

I've already brought her five people. And there's a commission. Wow. Good. And if you're interested in that, people will talk to me. Yeah. It sounds like anything that any of us are interested in, you have a pretty good resource for us.

So thank you. Thank you. I do, man. And I love this. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And it shows.

It really, it shows through what you. do and it's inspiring so thank you well thanks for being my guest thanks for tolerating the fact that i didn't record the first time around but we still did good you know i i love i love chatting with you anytime thanks so much well i will be back in touch for sure so thanks everyone i hope you enjoyed it kind of sped it up but there's nuggets here we'll have all this information i will have the links for carrie and hoosie on here as well as all elthina's information she's all over the place you'd definitely want to check her out, especially if you're up in Denver or Breckenridge because that's her territory. So thank you all for joining us. Subscribe below. Share away. Thank you so much. So thanks for

joining me on this episode of Real Estate Riches. Wasn't that great? I'm sure you've got a nugget or two. I know I did. So if you liked it, please subscribe below. Share it with everybody. Make some comments. We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you would love to talk about this a little bit more. Let's schedule a business strategy call. I'll have the link below. Let's see if we can't mastermind together and see if we can't empower each other. That would be great. So until next time, signing off. Hope to see you on the next one.