KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Will Technology Replace the Realtor

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Will technology replace the realtor? This is the question that is plaguing our industry right now, and we're excited to talk about it today. Welcome to the influential real estate marketing podcast, where agent entrepreneurs come to learn how to generate and convert more leads by using the latest in technology, social media, and lead generation systems. Here are your hosts, national speakers and veteran agents, Amber and The Rook. Howdy, howdy. What's going on, guys? Hey, guys, before we get started, I just want to let you know that today's episode is being sponsored by Sphere Influencer, the single most effective sphere marketing strategy to build

relationships and get more referrals than ever before. You can get more information at getspereinfluencer.com. All right. Today, will technology replace the realtor? There is so much talk with Zillow 2.0 being announced with companies sending instant offers by mail to your clients or your sphere. should the agent be concerned and what should we really do about it that's what we're going to be discussing today so let's just dive in because this is something that really does concern a lot of us

technology is kind of i don't know like a like a boogeyman for some people so let's go ahead and get into this boogie man i haven't heard that term in a while i love how you pull out the old the terms that i haven't heard it all right we say we would say cuckooi Kakui. All right, big shout out to people who want to say quikui versus Bikki Man. Let's start that trend. Okay, guys, you know in the news around February 21st, the Zillow group really announced some major things, including that they're doubling down on their home buying and selling business.

They're really making a shift here. They're going to pin their future on what's called Zillow offers, which is a program. I know. which is really a program, you guys, that launched last year and was beta testing in a lot of areas that lets potential sellers request offers directly from Zillow. And so to hit the ambitious goal, they're going after $20 billion in revenue in three to five years from that home segment, which includes Zillow offers. And this would be a really big accomplishment, but they are on the trajectory to do so.

So Zillow as a whole has bought 1.3 billion in revenue just in 2018. And here's the thing that I think hurts the most is that they're doing this with our money. Yeah. Like the money that they use, like all those realtors that are paying for leads contributed to them being able to do this. And those are the same realtors that are complaining that it's happening. And so that's got to be a shot to the guy. I'm going to take your listings. I'm going to sell so I can get leads.

I'm going to sell them back to you. And I'm going to take your money that you're paying me to get leads using your listings. And then I'm going to do that to kind of do our best to get you out of business. And you know what, you guys? Just as a disclaimer, Zillow is still going to be working with realtors to help people in purchasing some of these properties. But the writing's on the wall what's been happening for a long time. And Zillow is not the only one, you guys. I mean, we pick on them because that's the...

name that realtors know the most, but technology taking over is not limited to Zillow. Yeah, we're seeing it at the grocery stores at Kroger's, at Walmarts, at Target. You're seeing it in your bank. I don't know how many times you've gone into your bank and they're like, you know what? You can go outside to the ATM. Why do they do that? Every time we go to Chase, they're like, hey, how are you? Why didn't you do this at the ATM?

He's like, I don't want to. That's why I came inside. That's funny you brought that up because I've noticed that they really are nicely pushing that heavily. They're pushing those. And I got to give the ATMs props. Those things are like magic now. But, you know. They can do anything.

Okay. Well, you know, and really this, the thought to do this topic came up because Jason and I were at the grocery store over the weekend, which by the way, we rarely go to the grocery store anymore. Most of them are delivered to our house. But there's a few things that we do like to get directly from the store. So we walked into Kroger after church with all the kids and for all my mom's out there, that's an experience. But you know, if you're by yourself, you can just get in and get out of it. We can start a discussion on that.

Do you take your kids to the grocery store? That's a whole other podcast, right there. But we walked into Kroger as a family, and there was this huge stand there in the entry with pockets. And inside all these pockets, it's like a wall of pockets, is scanners. And basically it wants you to pick up a scanner and as you take things off the shelf, it wants you to scan it. Yeah. Almost like you're checking yourself out as you go. And what's interesting is that it, I always am curious as to the mindset, like how many of you remembered registering like a target and you got, they gave you the gun and they're like, okay, so everything you scan is going to be on your like wedding register.

I'm like, let's go straight to the electronic section. I'm scanning like seven TVs. That's when you liked scanning. That was the good scanning. I want that, spit, I want that, I want that, I want that. But it's not good scanning when I have to do all the work, actually. I mean, I'm already worried about trying to tell my kids to put back whatever 10 things they just put in the cart because they're not healthy. Now I got to worry about scanning my own items and unscanning the things they just scanned.

And so it got us to thinking, you know, it was already at next level. You know, even when you walk into Target now, you can barely find it. aisle available for a checkout person to check you out, a human. They want you to go through the self-checkout. And it used to be that you had the choice, you know, and now they're pretty much taking most of the choice away from you because there is no lines that are open with human beings. And it got us to thinking, you guys, it's not just Zillow.

Our whole world is moving towards technology. Now, I'm not going to lie, y'all. You like when my tongue gets smaller. It's because Jason doesn't want me to say this. I'm right here. Like I'm seriously like right next to you. I'm not going to lie, you guys. My initial reaction was really.

I got to check myself out too. I got to bag my own groceries. Now, I'm all about saving money. So if the groceries would have gotten significantly cheaper because I have to do all the work myself, I'd be okay with that, right? Like all these does.

Right. Like an Aldi's, right? If you go to an Aldi's, you have to bag your own stuff. You got to pay to have a cart. but I don't get mad because the prices are so drastically lower that that's the tradeoff, right? Whereas at Kroger or Target, if anything, the prices are going up at Target. I don't notice them going down and yet you have to bag your own stuff and check yourself out.

So I don't see the value there. And I know that's not the point, but it's a side point of this is interesting, you guys. It's not just Zillow. It's not just the grocery stores. Everything's moving forward with technology. We can't stop it. So what does it mean for the real tour? Yeah.

So I looked at it from a different perspective because we noticed that there were very few people using the self-checkout. And so we kind of had this discussion interrupted by, no, put that down. No, put that back. Not this time. Because there was a very long line where the human was checking someone out, the human. I wish I remembered her name, but I don't. It's human versus machine in this story. So here's how I look.

at it. Okay, so there's two thoughts of this. So I kind of want to share this with you guys. The first thought is that there is still a certain percentage of the population that wants to deal with a person, a belly to belly face-to-face, however you want to call it, experience. As long is that experience is going to be something better than they can get with machines. But the other way to look at it, and this way I looked at it, is that there is still a massive amount of fear using technology. And it's not so much. the fear of using the technology is the fear of what other people will think of you if you mess it up. Okay.

It is, right? It's that fear of, well, I'm not very techy. Well, the second you told yourself that, you weren't, right? And so how does that affect them in their business if their mindset is afraid of technology? If our mindset is afraid of technology, then there is a very interesting thing that happens in our brains. And we all know it is fight or flight, which means that back in the day, if I don't think I could kill something that it would kill me. Here's the challenging thing or here's how that process has evolved in our brains is that if you are going to do something that is going to cause you stress,

that equates to that same fight or flight mentality, which means you want to run away from it. Now here is the danger as a realtor when this takes effect. That if you decide not to do something or avoid something because it's going to stress you out or you're afraid of it, your body actually releases a chemical that makes you feel good about not doing that thing. It's like a reward for not going into that dangerous situation. It's like, yeah, it's the opposite of adrenaline. I'm going to get adrenaline because I've got to, you know, fight this thing. But if I don't, then I need something else. There's got to be another chemical change that happens in our body. So it's going to release a really good feeling. So you're actually kind of rewarding yourself

psychologically for not doing that thing. For not changing. For not changing. The thing's going to stress you out. But like you were saying, the bad thing for our industry is that, that thing that's going to move your business forward is outside of your comfort zone. So there is going to be stress involved. Yeah. Well, they always say your comfort zone is where dreams go to die. Your comfort zone is where dreams go to die. Take that.

All right. So we've even heard stories of this where the agent would not embrace technology. We talk about all the time in our sphere influencer program where they fight video so much. That's like the top technology that people fight when it's the most of, effective marketing system that we're using right now. But is there anything else that you wanted to add about about that? I think it's here's the way I look at this and this, I hope this helps you out, is that whenever you approach anything technology-wise that can benefit your business. And if you have that knee-jerk reactions like, I don't want to, then always look backwards because to me,

it's easier to look backwards. Like, I guarantee you that there were some agents who fought tooth to nail to keep the MLS book. Like I can only, I can only imagine that there was this. Wait, wait, for those of them that doesn't, that don't know what an MLS book is. Right. That's from back in the day before we had the computers. Right. The MLS system.

Jason wasn't in real estate at this time, but I was, I got in real estate the year. They got rid of the book. Right. So the book is where they had to print out every single listing and put it in a book just in case because that's where people search through the book, not online. Isn't that crazy? But continue, sorry. So I can only imagine that it's like, oh, you're looking for a three-bedroom two-bath house.

Hold on. Let me see. Hold on. You know, I can only imagine. We're going to find this in the next three hours for you. But I can only imagine, even though that we were moving to this online, everything is to be accessible from your computer, which means you can access it anywhere. There are still some realtors like, nope, I'm not doing it.

I'm going to keep my book. And so let's move a little bit forward. How many of you had a pager? right and would you still use a pager to date no because it's not effective yeah because you don't know how to use the phone right or because you're not used to the phone would you have stayed with the page or no it's that evolution that just because something is working does not mean that it's not going to evolve and it doesn't mean there's not something more effective correct so the question we tend to ask a lot of roll towards is are you doing the things in your business because you've always done it that way or are you doing

the things in your business because it truly is the most effective way to do this and that's the question we need to be asking ourselves. So it was so interesting is while we're, you know, we're bringing up the grocery store and the line, I left the store. We left the store together, of course. And as I left, I was like, you know what? The prices haven't changed yet. You had to bag your own groceries, Jason.

And I'm not a diva. Like, I don't mind bagging. But I don't understand the value proposition. I don't understand the value behind it. Whereas you took it totally different, which is, hey, man, people got to embrace technology, Amber. Don't complain about it. This is technology. I think you didn't say it like that.

No, but you even had, like, I remember when we first started the process of ordering online. Yeah, even I had limiting beliefs thinking, oh my gosh, I'm not going to do that, Jay, because as cool as that sounds. Ordering online. On ordering online and having someone deliver it to me, by the time I find the exact organic ingredient that I need online, I could have just walked up to it faster. But in reality, when I went and tried it, because you just have to stretch yourself, even when you have limiting beliefs, give it a try, which was a limiting belief for me. And when I went

online, it was so user-friendly. I was actually finding things. I didn't even know they had in that store that were organic, including Walmart, who knew they carried so much organic stuff now. And I actually ordered everything online in 20 minutes, and it was delivered to my house later that day. I would have taken me way more than 20 minutes just to drive there and back, let alone do all the shopping. Now, here's one I wanted to share with you guys, and I don't know if you caught this in McQueen's story. There's two things. There's two lessons here. Number one, you as a really, realtor should absolutely be looking at your business and seeing what it takes for you to embrace the technology is going to make your business better, more effective, being able to give, provide a

higher level of service to your clients. It's possible. It could happen if we looked at it that way. But here's the second aspect of it and here's the scary part for those of us that choose not to embrace technology. Okay. You guys ready for this? The fact that she was once afraid of it, but then she embraced it and now she loves it. There is going to come a transatlantic. period where the general population is going to stop fearing technology and embrace using the technology. So us going, well, yeah, I'm like the most of people. I don't do technology stuff in my business and I'm going to talk to clients that don't.

But that shift is happening. It's not going to take but a couple of experiences, a couple of great experience using technology where the general public says, now this is our standard. And the question is, will you be ready? Right. I love that. So as we left with two different perspectives, we wanted to talk about kind of what Jason took away from the experience and what I took away from the experience. So now I'm going to kind of tell you some of my perspectives on the Zillow part, okay, and the instant offers part.

Because we did open the podcast with that about the Zillow 2.0 happening. And here's what I want to say. Here's some of my takeaways for technology and Zillow in particular. We can't stop Zillow, you guys, or any other. technology from evolving for that matter. So what lessons can we learn from this or what action steps as agents can we take? Well, number one, we touched on this briefly earlier, is stop funding Zillow. Oh, man. Now, you stop funding Zillow. Okay. And the reason why I say that is, Zillow is today why they are because we've given them the money to do so. Okay. Having said that,

though, when I say stop funding them, they already have the funds. It's too late. Okay, but I wouldn't give them any more of your money in the future. That's just a side note at number one. But number, and I wouldn't give them my data either. Stop funding them and stop giving them your data, making it easy. But let's get to the real issue, you guys. Having said stop funding them and stop giving them your data, we have to stop focusing our energy on them. It's too late. Okay, we should have been doing that 10, 15 years ago focusing on that. It's too late now. So all you can do is stop funding them, stop giving them your data past that.

Unless you have $20 billion to fight them, which is what their budget is now, you're wasting your energy fighting them. Put that energy into creating a value that you bring. Yeah, we get to speak to a lot of realtors, and they'll definitely pull us aside after we get done speaking. And they're like, you know, can I talk to you about Zillow? and I'll listen for the 15, 20 minutes that I have available to them about all the things that they're really upset about. And so then I followed up as, oh, well, so what's your plan?

You know, and there's nothing. It was just like it was focusing on the problem, not the solution. Yeah. And I hate to say that's almost every time we speak somewhere. And we have so many amazing people we talk to, but they're really upset about this or upset about that. And it's like, okay, I get that Zillow is taking your listings. I get that they're selling you back your leads for very expensive cruddy leads, you know,

and giving those back to you. But when's the last time you spoke to your sphere? What are you doing? Forget about Zillow. You can't control them. You don't have $20 billion. We already discussed this. So when's the last time you spoke to your sphere of influence?

Well, I don't really like to call them and bother them. Okay, when's the last time you held an open house? Or you start asking them about their lead generation plan. They don't have one. That's why the focus is on Zillow. That's an outch moment, right? But that is truth, you guys. focus your energy on what your value is, not what other people are doing. So here's what I'm going to say. This is

kind of a strong opinion and I'm sure we're going to have a... You have a strong opinion. What? What? I know that we're going to have listeners who disagree with this and that's okay. That's okay. That's why it's called an opinion. Okay. We all get to have ours. IMO. Here we go. I'm a moment. in my opinion because of technology especially Zillow and all the instant offers that are being mailed to our clients right now you as an agent are no longer able to stay in the middle

without being eaten alive oh now what do you mean by that because I love when you start talking about this I believe that agents are going to have to draw a line in the sand and pick which side they're going to be on and here's what I mean because if you're in the middle line, you're going to be out of business. Okay.

As technology continues to evolve, you may be fine in the middle right now, but if your plan isn't to change your business plan, eventually you're going to be eaten up. So here's the two lines. One line of the sand is going to be less fees. In other words, it's cheaper if I use Zillow instant offers or if it's more convenient if I do X, Y, Z.Z, or I'm going to go with a person charging a flat fee so I don't have to pay so much. So maybe your business model switches to a lower commission. Okay, that's one side of the sand.

And some have already gone to that side of the sand. They've already changed their business model. They're charging less. Yeah, they're doing a flat fee, take your listings, and it's more about the... Or a flat lower commission. Going after quantities. Right, quantity. Yeah.

So some have already drawn that line in the sand. That's one side. Okay. Now here's the other side, you guys. The other side is creating a value proposition so high and packed full of such great value that someone is focused on the value, not what they're paying. Right.

Okay. And I'm going to give you an example of that because some of you may not understand what that means. But if you're in the middle on the line, which is I provide great customer service, I always call you back. I'm a good negotiator. Those are things that a lot of agents are.

Was that your realtor voice, right? Yeah. If it's just that I'm going to close on time. I'm going to make sure I sell your house. A lot of agents can say that. That's not a strong enough value proposition. That's our fiduciary obligation to do most of the things that agents are marketing as their value proposition. Yeah, you don't get kudos for the things you're supposed to do.

Right, right. And really what it's doing is it's putting you in what we call a red ocean. Yeah, you're you're delegating yourself to become a product. and if you go down the product route where pretty much all the same, the only thing that's going to differentiate is the price. Right. And you know where that's dangerous. If your value is on the price because you're doing the same things everyone else is doing,

then someone will always be able to go lower on price. Okay. And I know we can't fix commissions. Just nobody message me. We're not getting in trouble with the state or with the National Association of Realtors, which I'm a member of. I'm not saying we're not cost fixing. We're not commission fixing.

I'm just talking about whatever commission you charge. If your only plan is to go lower in your commission or your fees to separate yourself, someone will always be able to go lower. Yeah. So if that's the side that you choose to be on, and we're not telling you it's wrong to be on that side, you're going to have to work a lot. I know I wouldn't choose to be on that side, but just know someone could always go lower than you,

and that's the battle that you're always going to have on that side of the sand. On the opposite side, if you're doing value, it has to be greater than what was already expected of you. I think value from what we've learned in marketing world is all about creating an irresistible offer, which is a whole bunch of stuff. And I think that's the challenge for most realtors is what's a good offer for someone because isn't it just me and what I can do?

Yeah, and that's the best part about that because there's only one you and you're going to be able to do things in a way that other realtors can't. It's just how you look at it. Right. And it's really, you guys, I'm going to give you an example. You can buy a shirt on Amazon or Walmart, but I'm going to use Amazon because it's online. It's simple. It's fast.

I don't even have to leave my house. And we love it. Okay. But you can also buy a shirt. And it's probably going to be inexpensive on Amazon too and convenient. but you could also go buy a shirt at Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. So why do people, if you can buy a T-shirt for cheaper and sometimes more convenient at Amazon or Walmart, why do people still buy shirts at Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom?

It's because there's a perceived value. It's attracting a certain clientele that wants more value, that wants more value, that wants more customer service that wants to experience. They want to have an experience, not just purchase a shirt. Let me give an example for the dudes out there. I got three dude listeners out there. Right. All right.

So you can get your car wash at a gas station pretty much anytime you fall for gas. It's an additional like $5 or $7 unless you want the ultimate power, whatever, for like $9. But yet we'll still take our cars to that one place. It's going to be like $34 just for the outside. Oh, did you want the inside too? that's going to be another $47. Because of the detail, because somebody's looking at every part of the car. Exactly. So it is about, though, you know, what are you getting? What's the offer?

I'm not just going to do the inside of your car. We're going to detail it. Oh, by the way, we're going to let you sit inside of an air conditioning place, listen to some cool music, watch some TV while we do your car. That's added value and creating an offer to get your car wash. You could take that one step further. I love that, Jason. There is now the concierge car washes where they charge, you guys. I'm not joking, $100 to $175 to detail your car, but they come to you. You don't even have to leave your office space. They're out in the parking lot, cleaning your car while you were working. So you can see, are there going to be people who want that $5 car wash? Yes, there is. We're not saying there's not.

We're not saying you're ever going to eliminate that group of people. But you don't need the masses. You need to attract the people that are going to be paying that $175 for that car wash because you're bringing extra added value. So how are you explaining your offer to sound attractive? How are you explaining your value? But can we bring it back to the real estate? Because you did this.

You were like taking people out in like a town car to go show luxury property. That is something that I never even heard of, you know, when I first got in and you were doing, can you talk a little bit about that? Because that was genius. To me, you know, you've got your transaction checklist, right? Where our transaction coordinator would do all this paperwork. and these are the things that have to happen from the time I meet them till up to a year or till close to get this thing to happen. Well, on that same checklist in every stage of the process, we had what we called wow moments that were also built into the checklist. And that included if we had a, you know, we were targeting luxury buyers and sellers.

Well, if you want to target luxury people, what are you doing that is treating them luxurious? Okay. And for me, if they're going out searching for multi-million dollars homes, why wouldn't you take them in a limo? Right? That's the kind of service they want. Because when they're at a party, you guys, yes, your service has to be great. It's a given that you have to have great customer service.

You have to answer your phone. You have to be a great negotiator. I'm not saying that stuff's not important, but that's not separating you. There's a lot of agents that are doing that. What are you doing in the wow moments to create the Neiman Marcus experience, like that limo ride? Because when they're at a party with their friends, and Jay, if you have a multimillion-dollar client, who do you think they're hanging out with?

Oh, they're multimillion-dollar clients. Exactly. So when they're hanging out with their multimillion-dollar client, now they probably also have realtors. Everyone knows realtors. There's so many realtors now. But as they're telling them about the experience they had in the limo with me, how my service is great, that I make sure that the properties have been previewed, that they're champagne, that they're in a limo so that they have the best experience possible as we're out looking.

And they're telling their friend about this. Well, their friend's realtor doesn't do that. And for one silly thing like a limo, they could ditch that other agent like a hot cake and come to me because of the perceived value. Now, I want to do a gut check real quick because we're talking about this. And so your brain is going to do one of two things. Your brain is going to jump into realtor mode and go,

man, how much is that limit going to cost me? I don't know if I can afford that. And I don't want to talk to that part of your brain. I want to talk to the marketer part of your brain that's going, yeah, man, And if I do that, how much commission will I get? Yeah. Always be training.

What is it costing me. Exactly. Always be training yourself what you stand to gain, not what you stand to lose. Right. Because if I'm selling a $2 million property, let's just say, and I was getting a 3% commission, that's 60 grand. Okay. Now, if it'd be $120,000 if it's a $2 million property.

So could I get out of that $60,000 budget $1,000 for limo rides on quite a few days? Yeah. And not to mention, it's probably going to give me a referral of another million dollar client because that's the value I'm bringing to attract a client. Now, I'm not saying you guys all have to get limos. That's just one example of like a knowledge will work. That is just one thing. There's actually hundreds of things that we built into our checklist to give somebody a wow moment, even by remembering their favorite drink. Okay, now wait a minute, because you've been saying checklist. So how many of you guys, want this checklist.

Okay, Jay. That checklist is not ready to be distributed at this moment. He always says stuff when I don't have it right in front of me. My point is it's not about the limo, you guys. It's about the value. What is your value? What is the wow experience? Who is your ideal client and how do they, what kind of experience does that client want

to have and you need to create that in your value? You don't need the masses. You just need some of the ideal client. Now, but you've got a really good phrase that you say a lot and I like it. Well, my thing is, instead of focusing on Zillow and how everybody's taking your money, instead of going on the one side of the sand where I have to drop my commission, I was on the opposite side where I'm actually going to charge more. I mean, does that sound crazy where there was this lady who I felt like she was following me around,

offering a low commission every time she knew I was in the neighborhood interviewing somewhere. She just kept popping up, offering less commission. And if you are on that side of the coin, if I would have been on that side, we would have both battled each other every time to go lower and lower, lower, and I would lose. But I chose to actually do the opposite. I chose to bring more value and charge more. I was actually charging 1% more listing commission than the average in my entire area,

which we're not allowed to talk about the actual commissions. But I was charging more, and yet I would lose some listing of you guys because she would offer less. So I would lose some. But the ones that I gained were actually my ideal client. I'd get more referrals and I'd make more money than her and get them more money. Because here's the important thing. If you choose to go on that side of the line, so we said draw a line in the sand.

Which is trying to bring more value. Right. I brought more value. And so then when I would say, listen, if you choose to do that, all you have to do is get the consumer focused on what they stand to make, not what they're paying. And right now on the other side, everybody else is focused on, hey, you're only going to pay me this commission. You're only going to pay me this commission. I would walk in with the mentality that I'm not here to save you money. I'm here to make you money.

Boom. That's so good. So if you're on that side of the sand, you must create a huge value proposition where you're not here to save them money. You're here to make them money because in almost because in almost every situation, they were making more when they walked away, even though they paid. me more. They were making more. So if you can just focus them on what they're going to walk away with versus what they're paying, you can still win. And the other side is going to be a difficult life. Yeah, you guys want to be creating a value that is so good that people will stand in line like they do at Kroger. You know, so who is your ideal client? What do you want? We've talked about

this in previous podcast. You figuring out exactly who you want to work with because man alive, it is absolutely possible inside of this industry to think in abundance and to find people that you really want to work with and stop working people that you don't. All right, you guys, as you are leaving the podcast today, I want you to ask yourself, how are you embracing technology in your business? Do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset when it comes to the challenges of people like Zillow, instant offers? Are we focused on the negative or are we focused on the value that we are bringing?

Are you focusing on your commission? Are you focusing on your value? So what is your clear offer that people will stand, in line forward, just like they do at Croker. Just like they do when they spend extra money at Neiman Marcus, how are you creating that value? Go reevaluate your process. All right, guys, I want to thank you for joining us today. Now, if you like what you heard, remember to subscribe to the podcast, to listen to future episodes.

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