Elevate or Evaporate: Navigating the New Norms of Real Estate Marketing

In a world where the only constant is change, the real estate industry stands at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. This episode of The 121% Podcast, titled "Elevate or Evaporate: Navigating the New Norms of Real Estate Marketing," features a deep dive into the shifting sands of real estate marketing with none other than digital marketing sage, John D. Reyes, as our distinguished guest.

Hosted by Kevin Johnson of CENTURY 21 Edge, a visionary in the real estate sphere, this episode zeroes in on the seismic shifts shaking the foundations of real estate marketing. With the backdrop of recent class action lawsuits and the NAR settlement stirring the pot, Kevin and John dissect what these changes mean for the industry at large and how real estate professionals can not just survive but thrive in this new era.

Why is this episode a must-listen? John D. Reyes brings to the table his unparalleled expertise in digital marketing and a forward-thinking approach to the real estate business. Together, Kevin and John explore actionable strategies for harnessing the latest in digital marketing, AI, and beyond to secure a competitive edge in an increasingly digital marketplace.

Listeners will walk away with insider knowledge on making the most of the new norms in real estate marketing, understanding the impact of recent industry developments, and getting ahead with innovative tools and strategies. This is not just another podcast episode; it’s a playbook for success in the rapidly evolving real estate landscape.

Tune in to "Elevate or Evaporate" on The 121% Podcast for an engaging, insightful, and utterly transformative conversation that promises to change the way you approach real estate marketing in the digital age. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from the best and elevate your game. Subscribe now to catch every game-changing insight.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, and content expressed in The 121% Podcast are solely those of the individual speakers and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, or policies of the show's sponsors, Century 21 Real Estate LLC, CENTURY 21® Edge, OneBlue Real Estate School, or their affiliates. Each CENTURY 21® office is independently owned and operated. CENTURY 21 Edge and OneBlue Real Estate School fully support the principles of the Fair Housing Act.

The information provided in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information, we do not guarantee the content's veracity, reliability, or completeness. The 121% Podcast and its creators are not responsible for errors, omissions, or results obtained from using this information. Listeners are encouraged to conduct their own research and due diligence and seek professional advice before making legal, financial, or real estate decisions.

Transcript

John Reyes: 0:00

I think the value proposition offered by a realtor it needs to be elevated. It needs to be elevated more today than ever before. Because before you were okay, just being good or skating by, that's going to change.

Mary Thompson Hunt: 0:11

Welcome to the 121% Podcast, the podcast dedicated to helping real estate agents take their business from where they are now to 121% through motivation, education, and action. And now, here's your host, Kevin Johnson. Welcome to

Kevin Johnson: 0:30

the 121% podcast. My name is Kevin Johnson. And today I'm excited to welcome a very, very special guests. I've known John now for over a decade at first met him as a century 21 agent, when I was first getting licensed, was part of a group called the rising professional network within century 21 edge. I'm sorry, we didn't century 21. And John's company social networks at the time, was brought in to help coach and train the agents in the network when it comes to video and social media marketing. So I always joke with my team, I wouldn't be around here today, this podcast wouldn't exist. Our brokerage wouldn't exist without John, his team and the amazing things that I've learned from them over the years. I mean, even doing this podcast as a result of all that. So welcome to the show, man. Yeah,

John Reyes: 1:16

well, thank you very much for having me. Very excited. And I mean, the fact that you share that story, I mean, I'm touched by it for sure. And I'm excited about all the things that you guys are doing. I mean, what an amazing podcast room, one of the most impressive I've seen for the audience

Kevin Johnson: 1:30

who doesn't know you, your background, your journey? How how'd you get into, you know, marketing and video where that passion come from? Lead you today? Yeah,

John Reyes: 1:40

so I would say the biggest thing for me was just always wanting to stay focused on developing my skill set when it comes to sales. And I was fortunate enough to land a job very early in my life, 18 years old, because you have to be 18 years old in order to be paid to 99. Right, at least in California can't speak for everywhere. And so at a very early age, I learned the importance of being able to have an influence over people. And in fact, at the time, I think minimum wage for us was maybe five, six bucks an hour. And I had an opportunity to sell a product, the product that I sold generated me $5 In five minutes, and I said, Wow, five bucks in five minutes. Let's see if I can replicate this success is me $10 in 10 minutes. And so I was just doing the math and thinking, if I just applied this moving forward, I can be at 60 bucks an hour, right? Again, minimum wage 1/10 of that, at the time. I was in college, getting a degree in business. And then I went from selling that product back in the day, which was an onion chopper on over to cell phones. I worked for Nextel Nextel had 11,000 salespeople nationwide. And I was the number one sales person for retail stores on the West Coast. Number two in the United States. The only person that beat me according to the numbers, because we're given the the number tracks is I had one person out of Florida of all places that actually beat me. And I always say he came from corporate sales. So he had an edge over me. And so with that, when I was in college, working at the cell phone store, that was an introduction to more like tech stuff, because we're selling blackberries. And obviously that was huge back in the day. A lot of the reps that worked out of my store. They didn't want to learn how to do BlackBerry's because it took more steps to get email account set up. And of course, if somebody buys a Blackberry from me, for those of you guys who don't know what that is, I was like the first really big emailing machine from your cell phone. But then I thought she would all learn this, I get paid 20 bucks for every Blackberry, I sell. I learned this all day. And my counterparts they're like, No, you take care of that because it was just too much too many steps involved. So I really appreciate that sense of digital connection because I do believe that that had an influence on me. And as I was having my last quarter of college at Cal Poly Pomona, my phone rang, I answered it. It was a friend from elementary and I haven't talked to him hadn't talked to him in years. And he says, Hey, John, I am working for this company. I'm selling mortgages, and I think that you should get in this business. And I said, okay, and he told me how much money he was making. I was like, okay, like, yes, let's do this. I scheduled an interview and I went out interviewed in Orange County because there was no openings in my local market in the Inland Empire. And I had the opportunity to enter into the mortgage industry in the City of Anaheim. So, I was appreciative of that because my clientele right from the beginning, I had a clientele that I had to be very thorough, very detailed, and I had to learn this loan process. And I had to break down how I was bringing value to my clients because at the time we were selling refinances. And so shortly after that, we ended up opening up our own brokerage, our own office, and learning the art of connecting with real estate agents for loans as a referral source. And so kind of just putting the pieces of the puzzle together is really what it is. I didn't want to work harder. I rather work smarter. That was my thought. And so my way to work harder, I'm sorry, way to work smarter, is that I wanted your loans if you were a realtor, why didn't want to sit there and say, Hey, I got the best rates, best turn times best fees, because that's what everybody said, Instead, I would say, would you like to come on out to a free event, I'm going to break down for you things that you can do in order to be a more effective communicator, or I'm going to show you how to market and promote your business. Back when we were still didn't, we weren't, we didn't even have I don't think Facebook back then. So this was just other forms of marketing. And I had just read every business book while I was in college that I could get my hands on. And so I had a lot of startup knowledge, and I would just take my knowledge of whatever I learned, and said, I'll put together a one hour class for realtors. Now, when Realtors showed up, I would say the cost of admission is free. But here's what I would like to ask if you genuinely feel that you could walk away with something of value, give me five minutes of your time, so I can share with you how my loan team can bring you value. And so that's how we kind of put that formulated that whole plan. Together. That makes sense. It makes total

Kevin Johnson: 6:13

sense. So what was the spark or the catalyst for you two back in the day, you know, form a company that is out there helping agents with video and social media. Now you'll get into a little bit but AI like you're great at training agents and delivering solutions, like from mortgages to this what was what was that moment?

John Reyes: 6:33

So what it was is very funny, I was asked by an escrow company, would you do a training for real estate agents? And I was showing them because I just kept evolving, right? So I'm doing marketing. Now Facebook is popular. I did a Facebook class now. You online video, YouTube is becoming popular. We started doing videos with trainings, and I had an escrow company call and they said to me, Hey, John, would you be okay doing a training for us? I said, Yes, no problem. And then they asked me, How much do you charge and I said, Nothing. I'll come on out and do the training for free. They're in my local market. And I tip my hat to them. Because when I showed up at this event, I was the one on the flyer. And the room was packed, and they were charging for admission to the room. So I was like what the hell man, you know, thinking like, You're weird charging with me as a speaker. I was like smart, okay. And then my friend, escrow guy was like, Hey, man, you know, we got to, we got to cover the expenses, we have to pay for the room. I didn't care. It's not like I cared. It was just more like I was acknowledging smart move. Because at the time, nobody was really doing that in our space. And so we went my wife and I, my sister in law and her husband, we had went to Disneyland, we're at California Adventures. And I they wanted to go on this Tron thing. I've never been into Tron and even know what Tron is. So I'm like, I'll sit out on this one. So I sat outside, I was just kind of by the bench. And, you know, there was one of the vendors are selling something. So I walked up to the lady, and I was like, Hey, I'm gonna steal a cup of your napkins. She's like, No problem. And I had a pin on me. And I just wrote out by the time that they came out of the trunk class, or the trunk, you know, right or whatever. I had this thing written out. And I had put Social Media Summit. And then I put five hour class teaching Facebook, teaching YouTube, and I wrote out the whole details. So that was on Sunday. I had a meeting the very next morning with my partner, Matt at the time. So him and I had a training together. At the time, we would do trainings at the, you know, together, we're still trying to learn this concept of training. So I said, Hey, man, I got an idea. I grabbed my laptop, I Googled a summit, like a mountain peak, throw it on a slide through like some opacity on it. And I put Social Media Summit date to be determined location, I put some particular spot in Rancho Cucamonga tickets at $295. And we pitched it, we sold eight tickets right away. Our very first class we did, we had 70 tickets sold. And this was almost 14 years ago. And that was really a combination of the conversation with the escrow and then people just asking us about our trainings. And that really kind of was our launchpad for a company because at the time, it wasn't really a company. We were just, we just wanted loans. So that was really the catalyst of saying, I think we can build a model here an actual legit business model on providing the training for real estate agents. And then we started doing them in markets throughout Southern California. We did them in San Diego sold out class, Inland Empire, same thing sold out, Los Angeles sold out. And so that was a really big push and start for us to just focus on building out the company itself.

Kevin Johnson: 9:53

Awesome, man. You know that story. It's pretty cool to learn. So you know, stay on top of this stuff you You You're You were learning as you went, but like, what I've always admired about you and your team is that you're always ahead of the curve. You know whether it was Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, AI, whatever, your team, you know, led by us. We have you under the latest talk to John. It's not like, okay, it's here. Now let's learn it. You're more proactive than reactive. How do you, you know, how have you seen the evolution of it of all over the years from, you know, just Facebook to was the thing and now Instagram? What's that evolution been like? And how do you manage to stay on top of that? So

John Reyes: 10:33

really, for me, it's one of those things where it's, it's not feelings, its facts. And so that's something that we hear right? I said, I've been a coined phrase that I believe Ben Shapiro pushes feelings, not facts. And I think the same thing applies to what we're doing on the digital side. So really, what I would just do is look at the data, the data points of the amount of people that are using these new technologies, what are the adoption rates, how are people staying engaged and online. And so for me, it's like the pattern has already been established. If this has already been shown, then let me connect the dots in regards to connecting with buyers and sellers, because as a practicing agent, myself, and this is one of the key things I meet so many brokers that hire marketing people, sometimes they'll hire the person right out of college, and they're not having the success that they wanted, because in many instances, the person is extremely tech savvy, but they may lack that knowledge of how buyers and sellers really work. And so for me, it's just the combination of that hybrid. So, for example, we'll tell you the latest thing, AI, I saw a video, just scrolling through social media, maybe I was on Tik Tok or something. And I saw a video of the CEO of Google showing a robot, essentially artificial intelligence calling a hair salon, booking an appointment for her person. And I just I watched that and the audience erupted in applause because like, this is like revolutionary. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is insane. Because we've all I mean, we've watched those movies where robots it's like Demolition Man. If you remember that movie back in the day with Sylvester Stallone, it's like, we always anticipated this advancement with technology. And now that it's right in front of us, I'm just like, oh, well, how could we use it for this? Or AI? Okay, you could ask this. We'll call it a robot. You could ask this technology, whatever, anything, I could ask this robot anything, it gives me a response, I'm having a back and forth conversation, while wonder if you could help me with the property description. And I remember, I didn't see anybody else doing that. The first time I had actually done that. I was like, blown away. I was like, Oh, my gosh, this isn't gonna save us so much time. Because I've always hired out for that. I've always paid somebody else to write my property descriptions for me before it was independent contractors. Now it's just my in house squad. So I'm like, Okay, well, if that's one less step that they need to do, then it frees up more time for us to go on out and to do more. So I think for really any professional, as we see these new technologies, I'm always thinking, okay, cool. Being cool is one thing. But if it doesn't make dollars, it don't make sense. How can I use this? How can I put this together in order to improve my business? And is a consumer going to use it? Are they genuinely going to adopt this, this technology, and we know people are obsessed with their cell phones, when I meet with sellers, that's one of the biggest things that I I harp down on, as I say that the industry has changed more, I would say in the last five years, and in the previous 50 years, and a big reason has to do with the advancements of the adoption of technology, people walk around like a bunch of zombies on their cell phones. I mean, you can go to a Starbucks, and just stand in line. And you'll notice that people don't say hello anymore to their neighbor. But instead they're just on their phones like this, go to dinner, look at the restaurants and move on their phone. See, and when I tell a seller, what I'm talking to you about right now, your response is is so on point with what they'll say to me. Yes. Or, you know, sometimes families are everyone's on their phones, right? Like, that's why we have the no phone zone. And so I'm like, Okay, you get it. And now what I'm doing is I'm connecting the dots for them to just show how we can capitalize on what people are already doing. So to answer your question, to summarize, I just want to use the tools and resources that I think will have a significant impact on my business, I'll try it out. If it works great. If it doesn't, no problem, we move on to the next but it's really just keeping our ear low to the ground. And knowing that this is the value proposition that I bring to my market. So then I better make sure that I'm on top of it as well.

Kevin Johnson: 14:28

And, and one of the big. I remember in 2014 15, when we were working together with RPN, you were preaching video, and video was not a big thing at that point. As far as in the real estate sector. Obviously it is huge today. From your perspective, what really, why do you think there was that shift? Why do you think video became so dominant in the real estate space

John Reyes: 14:51

because people watch videos online? It's the short answer, right? It's because if we just look it's like Wayne Gretzky says pass you Want to be with a pat on where the puck is going? Not where it's at. So then if people are sitting there watching videos online, and I see my mother in law who's no longer with us, but when my mother in law is watching videos on YouTube, for entertainment, when I see my father, who's in his later 70s, right now, going on YouTube, just to look up stuff, right? Like if he wants to learn something, he'll look it up online. He was changing out his water heater at his house. I said, Dad call a plumber. No, no, no, I'll do it. Dad, you don't even know how to do this, though. Do you? Yeah, watch the video on YouTube. And so that's where we're at today, right. But if we looked at the data points previously, we already knew that the number one group, the fastest growing group at one time for Facebook was females with the 60 plus age range, and that was because of them wanting to get photos of their grandkids. So then, if we just think about it from that perspective, it's like, okay, well, it only makes logical sense that people are going to become more and more comfortable with this. And now the data is there to support that the majority of most consumers will go online, they're going to do their own homework, they're going to check out the reviews, they're going to look up products and research them look at videos in order to decide whether or not they want to buy a product. And so I think for us, we had just it was it was plain and simple. The plan was already right in front of us. And that's where I sometimes wanted to bang my head against the wall with the response of real estate agents throughout the country that would fight against it. But you know, what's funny today is that there are still real estate agents that will fight against it.

Kevin Johnson: 16:41

We have we have one agent, I love her to death. She's amazing. And if she would just get on camera, she could do so much more than she does. But she flat refuses to she came to your class today. I was gobsmacked that she was there. So maybe I'm maybe we're breaking down the the video mention her name. But hopefully, hopefully we're making some progress there. Well, I just admire about you is that, you know, as I've watched you over the last 10 years, you have always been ahead when everyone else has said, Man, you've been Yeah. And you've been right 100% of the time. You know, everywhere you said the video trend was going to be it happened? Right on everything you done from Facebook to social on every aspect. So kudos to you. That's why I think you're such a valuable resource to our industry. And why our brand keeps around, you know, and all the conferences.

John Reyes: 17:28

Yeah, no, you know, and that's another thing too, is that I never take for granted. I did this office meeting with you today. And you know, we had a great audience. But if we had one person show up, I would have given just as much to that one person, because the way I think about it, is that their time that they're investing, it's really irrelevant from any time that anybody else is investing as well. The reason I say that is because I do take that responsibility on my shoulders to say if I'm going to stand in front of a group in front of an a in front of an audience, like 121, or any of these conferences, I better make sure that I'm bringing something that I can stand behind where I can plant my flag and say yep, okay, if they didn't like it, at least I did what I believe to be as my very best. And I really do feel one of my greatest value propositions that I bring to the market is that I'm in the trenches with you. I'm doing this every day, I don't do anything else other than real estate. That's it. I mean, obviously what I'm doing here, this is still related to our business. But there's no nothing else that I do. My focus has been for so long 100% Our real estate business, from buying, selling, helping clients buy and sell and then getting involved in that ourselves, and just the investment aspects. And that's what I love about this industry is that if you really stay connected to it, learn it. I mean, the possibilities are endless, like legit endless. And I feel like that sense of passion because it's had such an impact on my life, is what I'm able to bring in at least do my best to share with others to say, Guys, look, if you're struggling, know that there's opportunities that are in front of you right now that despite what the market conditions are, you're always going to have your producers like look at like Marty Rodriguez, you know, Marty Rodriguez is an institution in real estate, let alone she's a legend in Century 21. And I admire her tremendously. She's been in the business. I don't even know how long now I don't even want to say but decades and decades, right? And Marty still top performing no matter what and like she says people are going to always buy and sell. So I'm fortunate to have had the influence from quite a few really amazing people that still inspire me to this day just to do better.

Kevin Johnson: 19:38

I mean, just when your promotional video is 20 Mike Ferrante the team leader for the 21 of my team, number one team in the world for century 21. And He credits his all of his access to things he's learned from you. You know, same thing with us. So you're definitely leaving a huge impression on the people that have the privilege to work with you. When you talk about social media and marketing in general. As all of this together, the one consistent theme is they're constantly evolving. They're constantly changing. What advice would you have for real estate agents that are kind of they're in fatigue, right? It's just when they think they have Facebook, or they've got clicking just right. The algorithm changes, you know, Google stands for this constant change, how? How can they avoid that fatigue and stay on top of the change and be relevant?

John Reyes: 20:25

I think the number one thing is to remember that if you work for somebody else, and somebody paid you, you'd be paid to deal with that fatigue, whether or not you want it to. It's like, I talked to so many people to say, if I told you when you will eat if I told you when you're approved to take a bathroom break, but I'm going to pay you fill in the blank. Would you do it? And so many people would be like, Heck, yeah, I would like sign me up. And I said, Isn't that crazy, we're willing to work so hard for others, and sometimes not even willing to work that much for ourselves. So just remember that your fatigue is going to be there. Regardless, choose your heart, there's that video online where the guy talks about choose your heart, while allow the fatigue to be a reason and an excuse as to why you don't stay up to date with it. And you struggle with your business, or you're not at the forefront. clients aren't looking at you, as the esteemed professional the authority like you want to be? Well, that's no fun either. Yeah, I'll deal with the fatigue. The other thing I think the the easy answer to this is just no two of you can get connected with somebody. And this isn't a pitch for us. But like a company like us get connected, where this is what we do. We filter these resources. So that way, we can just say learn this, stay on top of this, there's more things that I'll say no to that I don't show, then I will. And at least you know, and this is one of the things I always tell people at training events. Anytime I show something, you can feel comfortable and confident in knowing that I use it myself. Because if I don't use it, then I wouldn't show it to you. Because then that wouldn't make sense, either. So I think that's also the thing is you have to have a platform, you have to have somebody that will assist you in the process. And that's one thing that I've always done. I think as long as I can remember, I had one time in my life, I was playing pool, often, like, you know, Bill billiards, right. And I was young, and I didn't have that much expendable cash. But I would go and I'd play for $100 A game. I mean, that's big money back, you're talking 20 years ago. And so in order to have an edge over the competition, believe it or not, when I was at Cal Poly Pomona, I used to pay somebody who was like a coach, a professional pool player would come on out, meet me call at my college. And I would skip the class that I knew I could skip. I told my dad about it later. So I guess I skipped the class that I knew I could skip. And I would get like an hour training with him. And I learned even something as simple as the mechanics of playing pool from the level in which you hold the pool stick from the rhythm in which you move forward and you shoot and and all these other things. Like there's so much science behind it. And if I was just at the pool hall just playing, maybe I would be better than if I didn't play actively. But if I play just as much with this additional knowledge, it's a complete game changer. So having somebody that will give you this guidance and the tech side, I think can make a significant difference on how effective you can be in your business. Definitely,

Kevin Johnson: 23:24

let's let's kind of shift the conversation a little bit to AI. It's definitely shaping many industries, real estate is no exception. What are some of the ways that you're seeing real estate agents work AI into their business strategies? And do you have an example of a way an agent has leveraged this or you've taught them to leverage it? That has just been a game changer?

John Reyes: 23:47

So I'd say one of the easiest things this is kind of where sometimes I feel everybody's doing this. And then as I travel across and speak to more offices throughout the US, I learned not everybody's doing it. That's why I asked you, but using something like chat GPT or Gemini, the Google version of chat GPT for something as simple as a property description, that that is, I would say a game changer for sure. Where all of a sudden, if the large majority of real estate agents start using artificial intelligence, or you're telling Chad GBT, I have a brand new listing and I'm a real estate agent and I need a professionally well written description for the following address three to one South Main Street, use these details and then boom, all of a sudden chat GPT gives you something where it's a lot better than what you would write on your own. That is something that we think how long does it take you to do that? Three minutes if you're taking your time, you know, five minutes if you're probably on the phone and watching TV at the same time, but the result is something that clients are still floored by right now. So I would say something along those lines property descriptions easy peasy lemon squeezy. And then also using this Same thing artificial intelligence to have your new bio written to have content that you can say not for search engine optimization, because, you know, the algorithms don't like the AI written stuff for your websites as much. But I can go to chat GBT. I'm a real estate agent who wants to build my business by connecting with more locals in the Orlando market, give me a marketing plan and include what I should do in order to get this done. And then all of a sudden, I mean, I've already done this where Chad GBT will say, connect with local businesses, spotlight highlight local businesses. And I'm like, Well, that makes sense, right? Because if I followed this plan, I have an opportunity to connect with the local baker or whoever the new pizzeria in town. And that person there, it's not a franchise, not a corporation. It's a mom and pop type shop. Well, now I'm connecting with the community, now I have an opportunity to bring value to that prospect. And at the same time, introduce myself introduce my services, and make an I know people have built their businesses this way. I mean, where they'll tell me, don't just do the video one time for the local pizza shop, frequent that place, visit them at least once a month support their business Hey, Jim, what's going on there, you know, just so that way, you can start establishing your name, it's, it's like you have the intent. You're purposeful, about being a part of your local community. And I'm like, that's so key to because it's easy to if you're out there, being a producer, you're busy. It's easy, just ordering GrubHub having to send to your house, you know, or DoorDash and not really getting out of your way to be connected with the locals. So

Kevin Johnson: 26:39

that's our agents were swag, especially if you're with a company that's well known. I wear every day you will find me in a century 21 shirt, and I get leads from it on a regular basis. All you're in real estate. Yeah, yeah.

John Reyes: 26:52

That's a nice one, too. I like it.

Kevin Johnson: 26:54

I bought a car recently. My mom was with me. She came out to Tampa and she had a century torn shirt. I had one he's like, so what do you do for work? I'm like real estate. Oh, you're a real estate. I was like, Yeah, we just like to wear this company's name for fun. But you know, I'm actually talking with him now about, you know, potentially listing his home in Tampa. So you never know. I mean, getting out there. Like you said, frequent businesses. You know, Kyle was out in San Diego is is huge with that with exp. He's built his business from video and from working through a series with Santy Saturdays and became everything he's counting now. Amazing. You know what they can do we have some agents that are starting to do that here. Finally been like kind of saying it for years, and they're starting to do it. And it's actually working. Right? The business owners are thrilled that you're doing it for him. It's helping especially the small mom and pops that don't have a big marketing budget. And the cool thing is AI, you can you know, a lot of majors don't know what to say, ask AI to research that company, research that restaurant, and help you come up with some questions, or feed it what you do know, and then ask it to also research. I made the same thing with you today, like I know you but I just wanted to see what he came up with. And the intro that he gave me was pretty spot on.

John Reyes: 28:03

Because it's the prompting, right the asking of questions to judge up to give you a better result. It's so important to really understand kind of how that works, where you could even ask Chet GPT I am trying to do X. Here's the information I have, based off of the information provided. Is there anything else that you would need to know or want to know in order to give me a better result? So I've done that actually, recently, we put together we put together some formal offering. And I had asked Chet GBT, what other information would you want? Boom, gave me a list. I was able to answer the questions. And then we were ready to roll.

Kevin Johnson: 28:43

We have several tools that we've built using Zapier in fluid forms in chat GPT, for example, helping agents come up with their agent bio, we ask a series asked, I asked chat, if you were to write an agent's professional bio, what questions would you want answers to? To be able to write that bio, it gave me the questions, I created that in the form. Now I feed that in it writes their bio forum, my fact we're asking some of those basic questions when they signed their contracts with us. So when they hit submit on their contract with Panda doc, literally, their bio is written in about five minutes. So by the time they're a joke, by the time your butt hits your car to go home from signing your contract with us, we'll have your bio, all your everything set up because of AI. Where else can you do that?

John Reyes: 29:27

You know, and I think we're barely scratching the surface right now as to where things are and I'm only I'm excited about it, but at the same time, I'm like, How is our industry going to change? where for example, you know, the the new product that Apple has like the ski goggles, right? So imagine you have these on it's like, the, the virtual reality world so your client is at home, or your clients at their office, and you're the agent who happens to be at the property. You have have yours on they have their eyes on. And you're walking them through, you can see them on camera talk. And they could say, okay, Kevin, go ahead and go back into the kitchen. Let me look around. And I mean, that's the fully immersive experience. And then from the real estate agent that's taking listings that will say, Hey, listen, we get it. Not everybody has this technology. But for those who do, here's what I'm going to do for you, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, is to make sure that I'm showcasing your home in a way that if people are going to be looking at the property with the virtual reality resources, we're going to make it simple and easy for them to do. So. I think that's going to be a big, big opportunity. It's like video, I can tell you right now, how many listings I secure. When I'm meeting with a seller, I'll compete against other realtors. But my video marketing makes it pretty dang simple for the seller to be like, I want to work with this guy. So that I'm just thinking, if we can just keep elevating our offering. And we can connect the dots for our client how much of difference that will make in securing more business from our sellers. Why

Kevin Johnson: 31:00

is the only saw the video it's been a couple months where the I forget the war he won't but this the second person that will end all Disney company's history to win this patent award this crater award. First one was Walt Disney this guy just want it for a floor that you can see you put your 3d goggles on. And where you can't really walk through something right now the floor, it's Omni multiple directions like you can set it and just walk. And it knows. And now you can move through and walk through different gyms in every direction. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's this. This for matter of fact, let me think of a real estate office that could go in and do a level up from a Matterport. And then have we can come into our office, we can actually show you the homes right here in our virtual showing studio.

John Reyes: 31:47

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly where I think things will go. Because it just makes sense. These, the whole AI Okay, here's my thought. If we look at when we had the.com, boom, it was technology, a lot of companies entered into the.com space. And a lot of them blew up, they didn't make any money. But a lot of them did right there, there's still the leaders to today, then we had this now next surge with video. People know the writing's on the wall AI, we're barely scratching the surface, this is going to change everybody's life. And in the real estate space, I think it's going to happen fast, I think it's going to happen quick. It's like the snowball effect, it's going to move quickly. And I bet it's going to be really hard for a company to keep their ear low to the ground, it's not going to be a company as much as it is probably the individual agents. Because we know that companies just tend to be slow to respond, because they're so big. It's not that easy. There's board of directors, there's this, there's that right. And a lot of the times companies don't want to make a push or a jump with something that isn't already validated. But I think that's going to be a big opportunity for a lot of producing agents out there are a lot of even agents who maybe aren't producing the way that they want. But they just get it and they're like, Yep, I'm going to do that.

Kevin Johnson: 33:03

People always ask me what I think about the AI boom, AI, in my opinion, is the amplifier. If you're a great agent, if you're an extraordinary agent is going to amplify that. If you're a mediocre agent, same thing, if you're a bad agent, that because the great agents, extraordinary agents are going to know how to take that and level up where the others are going to try to take it and make it a crutch or a substitute for what they should be doing. Anyway. If I could agree with that. Just my thoughts on that. So let's talk about you know, kind of today like how do how do you and your company support agents enhancing their online presence and marketing and enable them to grow what what things you're doing is having the most impact.

John Reyes: 33:42

So when we do live events, I would say the biggest thing is really connecting the dots for agents to say, Okay, we hear about video, we know we're supposed to be out there creating content for our social media. But what are some practical things that we can do to put it into play so we can actually start generating business. And so I put a lot of attention on making sure that Realtors understand the importance of having something like a video business card, that 30 to 45 second 62nd video, in my opinion, there's nothing more important than that. And I say that because I use it practically every day. If I'm talking to a client, that's what I'm getting out in front of them. Bottom of my email signature, that's what you're gonna see. And so now when I have conversations with clients, and they say, Oh, I checked out your online content, that video business card is the lead to them now connecting with my other content online. So I feel that when I'm out here doing a training for these agents, I want to give them something tangible and it doesn't have to be a professionally produced video. It could be them grabbing their own cell phone using the$15 tripod that they can buy on Amazon using the $15 light using their microphone that they already have plugged into their phone to create something so it's the it's really about making sure that agents at least have an internet auction to the things that work. And then it has to be followed with what else next steps. And so what we're excited to launch is that we have an online training site. We're putting a lot of time and effort into this site. It's all it's aI chat, GBT. It's how to use captions how to use cap cut. But I keep recording more video content adding more. So I have one session is more about communication, but communication leverage with digital tech. So this is where we are going to be providing a more structured offering to agents, I have a call scheduled actually tomorrow, it's going to be a Zoom meeting. And I have it for an hour with brokers all across the country. And from the century 21 network, they reached out to me and asked me if I could be a part of this, or that I'm saying to them, Hey, stay with me for 12 weeks, 12 weeks, here's what I'm committed to doing to you for you. One new training video 21 minutes or less. And it's actually not because it's century 21. I couldn't wait till I was 21. Because I wanted to go play blackjack. So 20 one's always been like my number, right. And so it's funny though, because the correlation to see 21 can be there. So new video content every every week. And then it's going to be now I send out the invitation join us live if you'd like but I know agents have schedules. And then after that, I send them a condensed consolidated version, where three minutes or less, they're going to get the main points of our video because I know time is valuable. But if they find that valuable enough, come and watch the main production with us. So I think it's just a continuous offering. And knowing that it's almost impossible to learn all of this in one try, you really got to just make a commitment to learn enough where you build your base, build your foundation, and then you can take it run with it, do it on your own, because now you have the resources and hire professional whenever that opportunity arises. Definitely,

Kevin Johnson: 36:52

you know, I look forward to the future, you know, for the next five year outlook of real estate 10 years, where do you see things going? When it comes to emerging technologies like AI? And maybe there's something else that we don't even know about yet?

John Reyes: 37:05

You know, it's, I will say that I feel there's so much money in the real estate space for companies to go after. And so I do envision that with this whole emergence of AI and the advancements of other technologies. I really believe that it's going to make it challenging and difficult for the realtor who's not really committed to their business. The hobbyist realtor, the I'm doing real estate, kind of like as on the side, I think that that's going to be something that's going to be more challenging, because you are right now pretty much competing with your fellow agents. But soon and very, very soon, you're going to be competing even more with Wall Street. And we're already there. We already know we already see it like what's going on? How do we compete with Zillow. We compete with Zillow on a daily basis. Right now, Zillow is a publicly traded company. Look at what happened with open door right? Look at what happened with purple bricks, money's been thrown in companies are trying, not everybody's doing it home light. Not everybody's figuring it out. But I think eventually somebody will figure it out. And when one person figures it out, it's going to be Lyft and Uber. And so I, I just think that there's a lot of change coming our way. And I think the rate of change in which we will see over the next few years, I'm going to say three to five years is going to be drastic. And I'm not saying replace real estate agents. But I think that it's going to change the landscape tremendously.

Kevin Johnson: 38:41

I can agree, I think, you know, especially with some of the latest, you know, settlement talks and proposed legislation that's out there. Like I said, the amateurs or hobbyist, we're gonna see a reduction in the number of agents, but the agents that are adapting the agents that are those extraordinary agents, they're going to thrive and grow in this market. Because at the end of the day, you know, you still gonna have real estate agents, customers, I mean, we've had markets or markets we've had, you know, platforms out there business models out there that would cut the agent rate, a flat fee listing service, where you sign up online and your home's on the MLS. The markets overwhelmingly rejected that they still want that relationship, they still want someone to guide them and represent them. But those hobbies, like you said, we're gonna see a huge reduction. And I think it's good for the industry and they level up the standards for everyone. I

John Reyes: 39:33

think when it comes to something even like marketing, if we really think about it professional photos and videos is something that should be second second nature for us now. And unfortunately, a lot of real estate agents are not adopting these elevated ways of marketing real estate. So when somebody comes to the market and they tell the sellers, look, here's a way for you to do it yourself. Here's a photographer, here's a videographer. That's where I see potentially things go in. And it's so important for us to make sure that our value proposition is defined that our value proposition is true. And that it is some it's something that we can really stand behind. And say, I'm going to take care of my client, here's how and why. So I think the value proposition offered by a realtor, it needs to be elevated, it needs to be elevated more today than ever before. Because before you were okay, just being good or skating by, and I think in the next three to five years, that that's going to change. It's going to, it's going to make it where you really got to be a pro.

Kevin Johnson: 40:38

Yep. Which is a good thing. I think it'd be a good thing for those agents like us out there that are an agent in our office that are our pros that are doing it right. So what any closing thoughts before we wrap it up today?

John Reyes: 40:51

I just want to say this, I love your office. them as soon as I walked in, the energy was all over, I could already feel the energy the whole way you have have it set up. And so I tip my hat to you. If there's any agents out in your market, in the Orlando area. Without a doubt, I would say hey, to contact you, for sure. It's exciting to see even your group today. The vibe, the energy was there. And so I really appreciate you just giving me an opportunity to come here to share with your agents and and to be on this podcast with you today.

Kevin Johnson: 41:23

Well, I appreciate you coming. You know, as I told my agents, you know, this is a huge honor to have you here, especially seeing how instrumental you were when I first got into real estate leaving hospitality after 17 years. You know, I the knowledge that you empowered me with shaped my career. And I can't say that enough. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here. I hands down. So if you are out there and you're looking to learn more about these topics, I recommend that you get a hold of John Wood, what's the best way for them to reach you? So

John Reyes: 41:56

John de reyes.com Or you go January chin D as in David reyes.com or find me on Instagram GD res 01

Kevin Johnson: 42:06

Right, and we'll put all that in the description below as well, so that we can get hold of them. Well, John, thank you so much for being a part of our podcast today. If you're watching us on YouTube, please do me a favor, click the like button. If you're not subscribed, make sure you click the subscribe button and click on that bell so you get notified when we have new episodes coming out. We have some great guests coming up. I can't wait to share with you. If you're listening on our your favorite podcast app, do me a favor, give us a review. But let the algorithm know that you liked this content. It'll help us get our message out to more people. So as we part today, don't forget, you know the difference between an ordinary extraordinary everyone that takes 50% motivation. It takes 50% education, but the difference is a 21% Extra. Thank you so much for watching the 100.1% podcast. Have a great day and we'll see you next time.