Why Today’s Sellers Call AI Before They Call an Agent

Transcript

[00:00:00] Via Williams points to data showing 80% of sellers hire the first agent they meet with,

[00:00:06] so the whole game is getting to them before they're ready to call anyone. Stay tuned.

[00:00:12] This episode of Keeping It Real is brought to you by Real Geeks. How many homes are you going to

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[00:01:08] Pod and find out why REALTORS come to Real Geeks to generate more business. Again, visit RealGeeks.com

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[00:02:55] Hello and welcome to Keeping It Real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and

[00:03:01] for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and

[00:03:07] today I'm super excited to introduce our guest, Villain Williams. If you don't know her, she's a very,

[00:03:14] very big deal in the real estate industry. She has done so many things. It would literally take me

[00:03:18] minutes to go through her highlights. So I'm just going to give you a few of them, but to let you

[00:03:23] know kind of who she is in case you haven't yet been introduced to her. So she currently is the

[00:03:28] chief growth officer of realt.com and prior to that, she was head of industry for place and

[00:03:34] and president of Ben Kinney brokerages. She continues to be a real estate team leader,

[00:03:40] a trainer, a coach, a teacher, speaker. She has been all over this industry. She currently owns and

[00:03:48] runs via real estate and this is a team of residential real estate agents, so specialists really

[00:03:54] who focus on the Seattle Washington and Puget Sound market. She's also the former co-founder of

[00:04:00] her best life, which is one of the most successful women's real estate groups before leaving to

[00:04:05] launch. She incorporated, which was also a successful real estate women's collective. She was,

[00:04:11] she hosted a show called Empire Building, which was inman named the 2021 podcast of the year,

[00:04:18] 600,000 downloads within two years, like incredible. She has done a million things and we are going

[00:04:24] to talk about, oh, and by the way, she speaks all over the country too. She's spoken in inman.

[00:04:29] She's spoken at Keller William stuff, eXp, real, Zillow, and among many, many other events. So she is

[00:04:38] somebody that the experts go to when they need experts to talk. And so we are thrilled to have her.

[00:04:44] Be a welcome to the show. Thanks. That made me sound so fancy. You are fancy.

[00:04:51] Well, I'm not really fancy, but I think you're fancy. Give us your Instagram real quick.

[00:04:56] Oh, via via. So it's V-I-A-V-I-J-A. So my name is actually spelled V-I-J-A. And the J is like a Y. So

[00:05:04] it's, you know, like Tonya, you're ever seen Tonya or Tonya with a J. So it's like V-I-A-J-A. So it's

[00:05:13] linked to that in the show notes. And by the way, since V-I-A-I-J is a speaker, a presenter,

[00:05:18] among a producer and team lead and all the other cool stuff she does, she has a lot of resources.

[00:05:24] So if you are looking for help around really any part of your business reach out to her,

[00:05:28] she's got something for you or she can direct you in the right way. She's still really, really

[00:05:33] generous person that way. So please, please reach out to her. Okay. So I want to talk about just

[00:05:39] primarily and not primarily, but first I want to talk about Realty.com because this is a new,

[00:05:45] it's not a new website, but you are newer to the company and this is a big deal. And then wrote about

[00:05:50] how you are now a part of the company. And what's interesting about Realty.com for those that

[00:05:57] aren't familiar, we're not talking RealTur.com, of course, different website there entirely. But

[00:06:09] they do instant cash offers. And what's interesting to me about that is how many companies have

[00:06:15] tried this and not succeeded. And you guys seem to be succeeding. And I'm fascinated by this because

[00:06:21] Zillow tried it and they couldn't figure it out. And they have the best data on the planet.

[00:06:25] They lost hundreds of millions and they shut it down, you know, five years ago.

[00:06:31] Curious, what do you think Zillow got wrong? And what did like people like you learn from seeing

[00:06:37] some of these other firms kind of try it and not not make it?

[00:06:41] Well, what's interesting is Zillow is actually doing it now. So it's such a great question because

[00:06:46] I think it really leads into what we want to talk about today, which is what does the agent,

[00:06:52] what is the real estate team really have to be in this post AI age, you know, what, what is it

[00:06:57] going to take to thrive and succeed? And it kind of, I mean, I would say that it starts here.

[00:07:02] It's kind of why I'm at Realty.com. And I'll tell you a story. I'll start it. I'll answer you

[00:07:05] the story. Couple years ago I was in Seattle and I had a, you know, very full-time job.

[00:07:10] His head of industry for a place, places a company founded by Ben Kinney and the quick

[00:07:20] explanation is that we worked with really, really large real estate teams and ended up buying

[00:07:25] brokerage. They own a lot of entities now. So I was on the road all the time. I was on the road,

[00:07:31] you know, twice a month, right? And so I was, I was kind of a chief evangelist. That was kind of part

[00:07:36] of my role. And I didn't have a lot of time. And, but I had this team back here in Seattle with my

[00:07:42] brother, my brother and I were running some. My brother also had another business. And, you know,

[00:07:46] for all of our friends listening, you guys know running a real estate team is a full-time job. It is

[00:07:52] not a side hustle. You just, you can't do it. It's just, it's just not by nature of it, right?

[00:07:58] Needs your full attention. And my friend called me who owns an iBire business, which is what you

[00:08:07] were referring to as a low. And he goes, Hey, Via, we're going to, we're going to start bringing cash

[00:08:11] off our leads into Washington state. Would you be our guinea pig in Washington? We, we're going to go

[00:08:16] up to 1.7 million sales price. And, you know, we haven't done this before. I mean, normally these kind

[00:08:22] iBires were in like Phoenix, Atlanta, Charlotte. You know, they were kind of in lower price point

[00:08:29] areas. It had a lot of homogenous product. And so I was like, yeah, heck yeah, let's try it.

[00:08:36] And I just had this instinct that I, you know, it's one of those things in times in life,

[00:08:41] like it changed my life having this instinct, but I have this instinct. I'm like, I just feel

[00:08:45] like I need to go all in on this, you know, so I talked to my brother, I go, Hey, can I take the

[00:08:52] agents to be kind of our Navy SEAL squad, if you will, on this and just go to town. Can we spend some

[00:08:57] money, you know, getting some of these cash off leads, you know, do I have your blessings?

[00:09:01] My business partner basically. And he was like, yeah, so I had, I knew nothing. I knew nothing

[00:09:07] about these leads. Like I knew nothing about instant cash offers. I had never, I barely knew

[00:09:13] Open Door was just because, as much as I was traveling around, it just wasn't, it just wasn't a

[00:09:19] thing. It just wasn't prominent, you know, in my market or in my world. So I start learning

[00:09:23] them and I start learning them. I'm on the phone. I remember being at events like on my way to go

[00:09:28] on stage to speak, converting, converting these leads, you know, and I mean, because I knew that if

[00:09:33] I didn't do it myself, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to teach and coach and train on it. So, um,

[00:09:38] we started crushing it. I think we were, I think we were doing, you know, a couple of million in

[00:09:44] business a month just from cash buyer seller leads within three, four months, took a couple

[00:09:51] months to ramp up. Sure. And then I ended up making some career moves. I left place and what not.

[00:09:59] And handed my team over to my brother. I said, you know, and so I kind of walked away from the team

[00:10:03] for a while. And in that process, uh, started, uh, began the process of forming a business with, uh,

[00:10:11] my, my business associate spring Benson. And in that process, I go, hey, I really have this feeling

[00:10:18] that if we want to be on the forefront of where the industry is going and where the consumer is going,

[00:10:25] I think we ought to talk to real T dot com, not real toward real T dot com. I think we ought to talk

[00:10:30] to lands about maybe having them be our lead partner in this new business. So we started meeting

[00:10:35] with lands and, um, you know, I was passionate. I was enthusiastic. And, you know, I was like,

[00:10:42] this is what it takes, Lance, this is what it takes to make these leads work. They're different.

[00:10:46] You have to handle them differently. And as long as, you know, you're open-minded and coachable,

[00:10:52] and you tweak a couple of your approaches and a couple things you do, these can change a business.

[00:10:58] I experienced it myself and ended up, he's like, can I just hire you? And it just really worked well

[00:11:02] with the business I was forming with spring and the other stuff I had going. It was perfect,

[00:11:08] really. You know, I was kind of looking for my next thing. And it ended up, it ended up changing

[00:11:13] my life because every aspect of my empire has something to do now with cash offer seller leads.

[00:11:20] Wow. My, I restarted my team. I have a national network that I've got with spring that is now

[00:11:26] affiliated with cash offer seller leads. I coach and consult teams and brokerages. And a large

[00:11:32] part of it is how to bring in a predictable, consistent lead source, you know, a new lead source.

[00:11:39] Like when you're a team or brokerage and it's like, all right, you know, we just don't have enough

[00:11:43] inventory. We just don't have enough leads. I can literally help you bring in a brand new

[00:11:48] lead source, train you, give you everything you need if you've never done it before. From full stop

[00:11:54] none to I have a team in Houston that we brought on about four months ago had never done third-party

[00:12:01] leads. I think they're $120 million team for whatever reason. They just rocked it at, you know,

[00:12:08] at prospecting. Like they just didn't bring in outside leads. And they were like, it's time,

[00:12:12] it's time. So they had never done internet leads, not even buyer leads. And we came in, they're at

[00:12:18] there at 12 deals in their first four months, 12 transactions and four months, right? I mean,

[00:12:25] he just texted me the other day. He's like, oh, we just double ended at $1.2 million

[00:12:28] listing. Like we can't get enough. So we can like deliver, cradle to grave, a brand new lead

[00:12:35] source to an agent to brokerage to a team and teach them everything. So I love it. Like it's

[00:12:42] so much fun. And I personally experienced them. So, you know, the story of how I got here is that.

[00:12:50] What's interesting though about Realty, so Lance Custon, who founded it, was definitely ahead of his

[00:12:56] time. And I think it's why we're just now getting on the map with everybody. He was generating

[00:13:03] these long form fill, cash offer leads two to three years ago before anybody was doing it.

[00:13:10] And one of me by long form fill is we if there's a million ways the leads come to us, we own

[00:13:16] hundreds of different URLs, right? Reload.com, estimate.com, realty.com, pecsis.com.

[00:13:22] And through message boards, through paperclick, through a million different sources, they come in

[00:13:28] in a homeowner, submits their name, and they fill out a pretty long form. Why do you want to sell?

[00:13:34] But they literally have to list a reason to move on. What condition is your house and what do you

[00:13:38] think your house is worth? What's your time frame? What's your name, remember email? And so,

[00:13:43] by the time a consumer fills out a really long form, by the way, for every question you ask somebody,

[00:13:50] this is just a tech thing, for every question that you ask a consumer, you lose somebody.

[00:13:56] Oh, one hundred, I mean, this flies in the face of traditional lead gen online lead gen, because it's

[00:14:02] like, you know, you ask for the last name, and instead of just the first name, you know, you

[00:14:07] want to do, and traditionally, you want to think about as few lead, if you have fields as possible,

[00:14:13] yes, few. And the, but the, the, with what you're talking about is you know, we're going with this.

[00:14:19] Yeah, you want somebody who is fully committed, because the more they're committed to telling that

[00:14:24] story, the more likely they're going to be to have that phone conversation. So I, yeah, so it can

[00:14:28] be forward and nine questions, depending on like how they command, right, different sites.

[00:14:33] And they're literally at the end, giving their name, email, and phone number and saying, call me.

[00:14:38] So they are extraordinarily high intent leads. We have a third party tracking, and 30% transact

[00:14:43] within 18 months. So there's a title change with a third of them. So basically, we have 150,000

[00:14:51] consumers a month that are requesting a cash offer on their home with a long form fill, with

[00:14:56] their name and number. By the time we dedupe, we title, verify all that stuff. We're running in net

[00:15:01] of 60 to 80,000 cash offer seller leads a month. So here's, here's the difference between what Zillow

[00:15:06] was doing. And here's what Zillow is doing. And here's where I think it's important for everybody

[00:15:10] here. So I don't want this to be a sales pitch. We are the, we are already are the nation's largest

[00:15:16] aggregator of cash offer seller leads. If anybody, any, any of my friends listening, any of you start

[00:15:22] researching this, you will end up on us. So we're here. We're affordable. We can be a thousand

[00:15:28] dollars a month up to $25,000. I mean, home lights, one of our clients, I mean, you name it. We

[00:15:32] can be small, other way at large. There are 70 to 85 dollars a lead on average with no referral.

[00:15:37] They're really cheap leads. They're just great leads, right? They're seller long form fill leads,

[00:15:42] whatever. Here's what's interesting. Zillow actually is all of Zillow seller leads right now.

[00:15:48] Our cash offer leads just like this. I would say there are closest one that's doing this. So

[00:15:54] actually, I think the real conversation DJ is that the consumer behavior is changing. And if

[00:16:01] 150,000 consumers a month are getting online, asking for a cash offer, the real thing is we are

[00:16:11] completely in a new role than we used to be. We is the agent. And the way I explain it is, you know,

[00:16:17] back in the day, I don't know how long have you done this? Are you admitting this out loud?

[00:16:21] So yeah, so I've worked at a brokerage for 15 years. So yeah, okay, pretty long, pretty long. I've

[00:16:28] been doing this for almost 25 years. So long. And I'm a second generation. I was just my whole life,

[00:16:37] right? And this is what I know. What I know is kind of back in the day, a seller would decide to sell

[00:16:43] they call an agent. They might call two, they might call three, but they call an agent. We come over,

[00:16:48] right? Give them a CMA, give them a marketing plan. Yes or no, they're going to decide who they're

[00:16:53] going to hire. And yeah, there's four sale founders, but for the most part, they're going to hire an

[00:16:56] agent, right? The agent's going to put a sign in your, okay, now one is the last time, you know,

[00:17:04] any agent, anyone listening right now, because I've done this live. And like there's maybe one hand

[00:17:09] that goes up in the one hand, just like a 90 year old person. One is the last time you guys have

[00:17:13] gotten on an appointment. And they haven't at the very least just looked at their estimate. If not,

[00:17:18] got none, chat GPT, got none, Claude, maybe look at their red fin estimate, maybe whatever,

[00:17:25] and I'm going to add now, ask for a cash off on their home. So here's the thing. We turned into,

[00:17:33] we started off the real estate agent started off as the first phone call. We are now the last opinion.

[00:17:39] Right. So it's a totally different role. So the role we now play is how do you come in after

[00:17:46] they've done all the research and translate what it all means and present it to them and educate

[00:17:55] them and no more than them have the better resources than them and be able to solve their problems.

[00:18:01] How do you do that as an agent? At the end of the day, 20 years ago, 15 years ago,

[00:18:09] right? All we had to really do was be one for ponies and we could just bring a sign,

[00:18:13] list their home. Now, if we don't really actively know four to five exits, we're probably not

[00:18:21] going to make it. So my hot take, controversial as it might be, is that the new modern post AI

[00:18:28] real estate agent can no longer just be a one trick pony. We have to walk in and have four,

[00:18:34] five, six tools in our tool belts and be able to be a problem solver for a highly, highly educated

[00:18:40] consumer. I mean, the consumer, we've never seen data this public before. We've never seen

[00:18:46] so much data exposure and we've just never had an educated consumer like this in real estate.

[00:18:51] They can see everything. And if y'all are not using cloud and chat GPT and I have not trained

[00:18:57] anybody who's not, I haven't trained any agents who are not at this point. They're shockingly good

[00:19:02] CMAs as we all know. And granted, we're inputting well. We're giving it good prompts. We're

[00:19:08] steering that. We're steering that to make it good. And I mean, we have to learn how to get a lot

[00:19:14] of business as the last person that's helping them discern and decide what to do. We're not

[00:19:27] things. I think what's interesting, DJ. I think the really interesting thing about it is,

[00:19:32] is that the consumers not asking for an agent yet when they request to cash off or lead,

[00:19:38] what they're asking for is a cash off or on their home. They are not, most of them have not

[00:19:42] contacted an agent yet. Right. So you're getting in before they were really going to talk to an agent.

[00:19:49] You're now, see what I'm saying. You're now getting in during that time where they're

[00:19:53] resistimiting. They're looking at their resistimit. They're doing all this exploration because that's

[00:19:59] now the new consumer behavior. I'm thinking about selling my home. I'm going to get on my phone

[00:20:03] and my computer. I'm going to do my own research. Then I'm going to call an agent. And then the agent's

[00:20:08] going to either help me discern or I'm going to discern based on all the information I have.

[00:20:14] So the new modern agent has to learn how to be in that role. And it's such a different role

[00:20:19] from what most of the traditional training is. Most of the traditional training is we're going to

[00:20:23] teach you how to do a listing presentation that's 20 years old. And it's just not like the agents

[00:20:28] that are crushing it. I interviewed this agent. I talked agents all the time, as you can imagine.

[00:20:35] I interviewed this agent last week and she got seven of our Realty.com leads and she has six

[00:20:41] agreements out of seven leads. So I asked her team lead. I go, can I call her? Can I just pick a

[00:20:46] brain? So I start talking to her and I go, what's your story? And she was like, she's just an amazing

[00:20:53] woman. She's a single mom to four kids. She's in Houston. And I won't share a name, although I have

[00:20:59] a feeling she would love me to share her name. She's just such an amazing human, but I won't. And

[00:21:04] she started telling me she's like, I didn't even know what an I-vire was until four months ago.

[00:21:08] I didn't know. She's like, I just double ended that $1.2 million listing using a sub two. She goes,

[00:21:15] I didn't even know what that meant four months ago. I go, well, how did you learn? She was like

[00:21:19] combination of talking to my team lead in a lot of YouTube late at night after putting kids to bed.

[00:21:24] I was just determined. I just instinctually, she's like, I just knew that I just knew that I had

[00:21:29] to learn all this stuff that and she goes, now I bring in a cash offer every single one of my

[00:21:33] listing appointments, even if it's a sphere referral. And I explained to them what their options are

[00:21:38] now. And it's just made me such a better agent. And so what what I would say to you now is the new

[00:21:43] modern agent needs four to five arrows in their quiver. It's just the way it is. We have to think

[00:21:48] about ourselves now as consultants and problem solvers and just get used to that role, get comfortable

[00:21:53] that role and try to with our marketing usurp and get in before they're ready to call an agent.

[00:22:01] Be the first. You know, the stats are still overwhelming. NAR and sold both have data that

[00:22:06] shows that consumers are still 80% of sellers will hire the first agent they meet with.

[00:22:11] Yeah, it's always tell people your listing presentation doesn't matter because they're only

[00:22:16] interviewing one person. So the trick. So with that DJ, exactly, the trick is to try to get in

[00:22:22] before they were ready to talk to an agent. Right. And that's where I know what we're the agent is.

[00:22:26] Yeah. Yeah. Typically. And so, you know, whether it's us, right, whether it's realty.com, whether

[00:22:30] it's, you know, Miria, different things, I think the new modern post AI agent is the one that's

[00:22:35] really looking at their marketing going, okay, what's the consumer behavior? What can my content

[00:22:40] look like? Where I'm going to start attracting and I'm going to start getting in before they

[00:22:45] naturally are going to start calling my competition, right? And, you know, what can I say? What can I do?

[00:22:50] You know, you have to have home valuations on your website. You have to have some kind of a

[00:22:56] home bot type report going out. You have to be able to track when they open it. You really should

[00:23:01] be having like top five things to make your house self-assed or top five pink colors of the hottest

[00:23:07] listings of the year. You have to start having that stuff so that you can start looking at their

[00:23:11] patterns. Okay, they're starting to download. They're starting to view the report more. You need to

[00:23:16] have probably AI on your CRM to tell you that. Hey, their behavior, their algorithms are going to

[00:23:21] look like they're in seller buyer territory. Then you can start sending them things like, hey,

[00:23:26] do you want to explore what a cash offer would look like on your property? Because you is the agent

[00:23:31] have the power to partner with. There's eye buyers in every marketing United States now. So,

[00:23:36] all of you guys can partner with and I don't want to promote particular companies, but it's so

[00:23:41] easy. All of us can partner with them and how it works guys is the eye buyer. You work with the

[00:23:46] eye buyer. They come in and buy the property. Some eye buyers will pay you for that first transaction.

[00:23:50] All of them will pay you when you list the home and list it on behalf of the eye buyer. So,

[00:23:55] I shouldn't say all of them. There's some that actually only pay on the first transaction.

[00:23:59] There's a million different versions of it. All of you guys have that capability no matter what

[00:24:04] market. So, if you really start looking at what you need to do and who you need to become,

[00:24:09] that's what it is. I think this is such an interest. It's something I never thought of before.

[00:24:14] I understood what eye buyer companies were, but you guys are sort of going a little bit in a

[00:24:21] slightly modified direction, which is really quite clever because you're right. Once they have the

[00:24:27] listing appointment with an agent, the NAR data is shows that they're getting most likely the listing.

[00:24:33] And you're coming in before they make that call and you're still getting the lead to an agent

[00:24:39] and you're saying, hey, you know, because you're right, who doesn't want to know,

[00:24:43] we all look at our estimate. We ask CHAT, GPT, what the value of our home is currently worth.

[00:24:48] We're always looking at what we think our home is worth. And it is kind of a fun experiment

[00:24:54] just to go, I wonder what somebody would offer me right now without having to go through

[00:24:58] the entire process. And so what's brilliant about this is you're getting to that person before

[00:25:05] they get to an agent, but they're getting to an agent in a different way. And so that I just,

[00:25:10] and all in a, you're right, finding investors like the eye buyers, that's the easy part.

[00:25:15] There's so many people that will partner with you to purchase homes. And I'm curious,

[00:25:21] what, now do you guys have data on what percentage of the people that close are taking the fast cash?

[00:25:30] Like, is there, because I suspect it's probably not, it doesn't probably matter to you guys,

[00:25:35] but I'm curious of like what percentage are actually, because me, I would just want to know whether

[00:25:41] I took it or not, I'd want to know what you guys could get me, right? So totally. And that's the question.

[00:25:45] That really is a question. So there's a couple answers. I was, I was going to say that. Anyway,

[00:25:50] I'm so glad you, it's perfect that you asked me that. The best data we have actually comes from

[00:25:55] Zillow offers the brief period of time and what you were referring to earlier is Zillow became the

[00:26:02] eye buyer for a brief period of time. They became the eye buyer, which is different from generating

[00:26:06] seller leads this way. Very different, right? We are not an eye buyer. You guys are always a

[00:26:11] or just like Zillow, same with Zillow now. Which by the way, very smart business to be in because all

[00:26:17] you have to do is one thing and not everything. Yeah. You guys, there's so many eye buyer companies.

[00:26:23] You guys could all go register right now. Right now with, there's, there's one in my head that

[00:26:30] is literally in every market in the US. And, but there's, there's other ones, you know, I work with

[00:26:36] one that's in like 12 or 15 markets. They're, they're the ones that I started with in Seattle.

[00:26:40] All you do is register form, you get trained and then they generate offers instantly for you and

[00:26:45] you show up and you can bring them to every single one of your listing appointments. Just

[00:26:49] sure. But going back to what you're saying, because it's a really interesting question. So we have

[00:26:54] an RK 150,000 consumers, not homeowners, I should say, requesting cash offers on their home every

[00:27:00] month. So the question is what percentage of those are cash offers? And so as a tech company,

[00:27:06] obviously we only have access to our clients data if they give it to us. Right. You know what I mean?

[00:27:12] Higher transactions, yes, it's barely. Yeah. So when I started, I started in December of 2025.

[00:27:16] And when I started, one of the first things I started doing was getting feedback loops so that we

[00:27:21] could start tracking that. So we are in the process of tracking it. And the only public data I could

[00:27:27] find was Zillow because they're a publicly traded company. And Zillow published it about 5%

[00:27:33] of their total offers and it up as cash offers. And you know what the data is? It's 5%.

[00:27:37] That is really the number. When I, you know, and what's interesting is I have a couple teams that are

[00:27:43] super investment heavy, meaning they have really strong relationships with investors. They have

[00:27:48] a thriving off market and investment divisions. And they do slightly higher just because you're

[00:27:54] always going to convert what you know. And they're just getting more people on the front and

[00:27:59] they're just stronger converters because their team vibe and their team culture is so investment

[00:28:04] heavy. That makes sense. But for the most part, it's right around 5%. So said another way. It's like

[00:28:09] one out of every 20 leads. And I train a lot on this. And it's really interesting because you can

[00:28:16] hear them right away. Most, I mean, 95% of these are listing leads, right? And I'm not, again,

[00:28:22] I'm not trying to say this to to show and to sell realty.com leads. I actually, what I want you guys to

[00:28:28] hear is that a lot of these lead sources aren't about the lead source. It's about, it's about

[00:28:34] understanding the new consumer behavior, getting them to raise their hand, you know, to, hey,

[00:28:40] come help me solve my problem and you inserting yourself to solve their problem. We're just using

[00:28:44] realty as an example. You know, I just don't want everybody to think that we're, you know,

[00:28:48] because it's the best example. It's such a good example and puts it all together. I'm like, oh,

[00:28:52] the consumer is doing a whole bunch of research before they call a real estate agent. So

[00:28:56] how can you use a real estate agent? How can you use a real estate team leader? How can you get in

[00:29:02] there and get in the consult somehow, get in the consumers, you know, get on the phone with them,

[00:29:08] get in front of them before they would naturally call that agent. Well, you know, you have to have

[00:29:13] a compelling offer and you have to have tools in your tool, but tool belt to do that. So you can

[00:29:18] generate your own cash offer leads to you can do direct mail. You could be really strong on

[00:29:23] social media. You could buy ads. It's cheaper to buy arts, which is why most people end up,

[00:29:28] mostly older, like, 70 by bucks a liter. But there's a lot of people that do ours and they're also

[00:29:34] generating their own too. You know, the point is look at what the consumer is doing. Do you have

[00:29:39] home valuation on your website? Do you have really good automation? Do you have a really compelling

[00:29:44] reason for them to register? Right? You know, so, so really asking yourself every time you're at an

[00:29:49] open house, every time you add people to your database, are you being really strong in making sure

[00:29:54] that they're registering, that they're opting in so that you can send them home valuations? They all

[00:29:59] want to know how much their home was worth, right? Sure. So the way to look at it when I'm teaching,

[00:30:04] if you can visualize it pyramid, I do a pyramid of intent. And on the very bottom, the highest intent

[00:30:10] possible is I want to cash off from my home right now. That's the highest intent you can try.

[00:30:14] But the top one is home valuation leads. And, you know, I used to work those back in the day when

[00:30:19] that was all we had, where someone, you know, and I mean, just because someone wants to know how

[00:30:24] much their house is worth doesn't necessarily mean that there's a high intent to sell, right? At the moment.

[00:30:28] Right. It might just be a general interest of curious. Everyone kind of wants to know. Yeah.

[00:30:33] But, you know, then, okay, how often are they checking it? That starts looking like a little bit

[00:30:37] more intent. Like, okay, they're starting to check it. Now, are they starting to download my articles

[00:30:41] that are pretty, my articles are pretty blatantly, I'm getting ready to list, right? Are they saying,

[00:30:46] hey, I have the best, I have the top five most, you know, value laden movers or painters or

[00:30:54] junk removal guys in the market. Let me know if you want that list where they're certainly clues

[00:30:59] that they start moving down that pyramid. Then, then you kind of get the IP cash off or curious

[00:31:05] people who are like, I'm not really in a hurry. I'm not really sure. But I'm kind of curious.

[00:31:10] Then there's the, I want to cash off from my home, my time frame is ASAP or three months and I have,

[00:31:17] you know, I'm getting a divorce or I'm moving out of state or I inherited this property, right?

[00:31:22] And we get those all the time. I just posted, if anyone checks my Instagram, I just posted a text that

[00:31:30] I got from our onboarder. He goes, and I just onboarded someone and within two days, I had an

[00:31:35] $800,000 appointment and it's a buy sell because it's just, it can happen very, very fast and

[00:31:41] sometimes you get nurtures because they truly were not ready to talk to an agent. So it's all over

[00:31:47] the place. But I think the big lesson is, is, in the paradigm shift and I was speaking with a

[00:31:53] whole bunch of agents here in person, I've event, and Seattle Friday, everybody was nodding

[00:32:00] there like, oh my gosh, you're right. And I was like, you guys just have to learn more tools.

[00:32:03] You have to get comfortable with this whole new reality in all of my old time or friends. I am one

[00:32:09] of them, almost 25 years I've been doing this. And, you know, I just kind of two years ago, I just

[00:32:15] had this instinct. I was like, I've got to embrace this. I've got to embrace this whole new world.

[00:32:20] I can't be this old school. All I do is listen to you. You've got to open yourself up. There are other

[00:32:25] ways to do business. Now there's other, you can do fractional, you know, purchases. You can do a,

[00:32:31] you can do a lease purchase. There's a whole bunch of ways to solve the consumer's problems now

[00:32:36] that we didn't have. And it's really important that we learn them and we know them better than the

[00:32:41] consumer and that we become their resource. So that they trust that we're going to bring them

[00:32:45] the best options and that we're going to give them a lot of options. Otherwise, if they don't trust

[00:32:49] us, they're going to think they can do it better themselves. They won't hire you. It's a whole different

[00:32:53] role that we're in. Yeah, I agree. And I'm thinking that if I'm an individual agent, this is

[00:33:01] again, another arrow for the quiver to bring in and say, well, we have a couple of options. We

[00:33:05] can go the traditional listing route and here's one way to do it. And we have these immediate,

[00:33:09] you know, people that need to get their home sold more quickly or just are looking for a particular

[00:33:14] price point. And maybe the ibuyer can get there. And again, just offering something the other

[00:33:19] agents don't. But I'm also thinking if I'm a team lead, there's a whole nother revenue

[00:33:24] street line of revenue stream, which again, only maybe 5% of the time will convert to an actual

[00:33:30] ibuyer sale. But that's not really the point, right? And so this is an opportunity for you as a team

[00:33:36] lead to really add additional team members and bring people in. So yeah, this is if anyone is

[00:33:42] interested in getting more understanding about working instant ibuyer leads or instant valuation

[00:33:51] kind of leads, what's the best way that they should reach out to you? They can through my

[00:33:56] Instagram or I mean, you could reach out to realty.com and get on our website. I work with teams

[00:34:04] and brokerages. We have a great team that works with individual agents at realty. And there's a

[00:34:11] lot of trainings. You don't have to know anything. You don't have to know anything. I think that,

[00:34:16] you know, my message to team leaders is that we can deliver an entirely new leg on your lead

[00:34:23] gen stool, cradle and brokerages. We work with a lot of brokerages. Brokers are actually our largest

[00:34:28] clients, our largest enterprise clients, because we can we we don't just sell leads. We sell them

[00:34:37] a training system, you know, and so we're we're able to train it all. And so it's it's really cool

[00:34:45] to be with a company that that's doing that. And again, I don't want to make this sound like I

[00:34:49] in fact, you and I didn't really plan this. We didn't really plan for me to do all this. So I'm

[00:34:54] sensitive to overselling from the pulpit, you know, so to say, but I will say that, you know, I got

[00:35:01] to this role and I got here purely from I didn't come here and then start preaching. I was

[00:35:09] preaching this and seeing this two years ago, right, and came to the role because of that. So I am

[00:35:16] pretty passionate about it because it just slapped me in the face. I was like, this is a completely

[00:35:21] new way of thinking about our roles, thinking about ourselves. And I'll be honest with you in a,

[00:35:26] vulnerable moment. I don't know if any of you guys have felt this way, but there is a time kind

[00:35:31] of a year ago where I was a little discouraged. I was like, man, I don't know. Like I don't want to

[00:35:38] believe all the hype, but like all this AI and everything like, are we going to really be you

[00:35:43] served? And in in working through all of this and working with literally thousands of agents in

[00:35:48] teams, I am more excited than I've ever been. So I'm like, there is a huge role for us. It's just a

[00:35:53] different role. We now come in and we discern and we we provide resources and we provide knowledgeable

[00:36:00] education about the pros and cons and trusted partners and all of it. So as long as we embrace being

[00:36:08] the best at giving information and discerning what to do and understanding who, you know, what the

[00:36:16] pitfalls are going to be before they hit them. Because by the way, when I'm working with clients now,

[00:36:21] I can say, here's what's going to happen. The offer is going to come in. It's going to come

[00:36:24] to do do do. I just know three steps ahead. Right. So I can counsel them through it. And so there's

[00:36:30] really, you know, no hiccups. If they went undid it by themselves, it would be a whole different

[00:36:35] experience than them doing it through me or people that I train. So it's a big deal. I mean,

[00:36:41] it's a really big deal to view ourselves this way and to view ourselves differently and to say,

[00:36:45] you know, as long as we can embrace this new identity, we can thrive.

[00:36:50] Well, Viet, thank you so much for coming on our show and talking about this. This is a huge thing

[00:36:55] that is going to really help agents sort of differentiate themselves from other agents, offer

[00:37:02] some additional, you know, exit strategy, as you said, for sellers and also just serve the need

[00:37:08] of people wanting to know what's my home worth and what could I get for it right now. So on behalf

[00:37:13] of our audience, thank you so much for coming on for everyone else. Reach out to Viet if you are

[00:37:18] interested in learning about this, being trained on it, how it works, what the best practices are.

[00:37:24] She works for the best teams in the country, helping them do this and she's done it herself. So

[00:37:28] reach out to her via on behalf of our audience. We say thank you on behalf of Viet and myself to the

[00:37:33] audience. We say thanks for making it to the end of the episode. Follow her on Instagram. We have her

[00:37:38] link in the show notes and we'll have her contact information as well. Reach out to her and Viet,

[00:37:44] thank you so much. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you, bye everyone.

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