Proptech Pulse

Proptech Pulse: Innovating Real Estate Relationships Through Technology with Kendall Bonner

• Lone Wolf Technologies

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In this impactful episode of PropTech Pulse, host Aaron Kardell welcomes Kendall Bonner, VP of Industry Relations and Strategic Partnerships at eXp Realty. A licensed attorney, former broker-owner, successful team leader, and recognized industry influencer, Bonner shares her expertise on leveraging technology to enhance client relationships while maintaining the human connection that drives real estate success. The conversation covers digital transformation, balancing efficiency with personal touch, technology adoption strategies, and building community in virtual environments.


Topics Covered

  • How digital transformation has changed client relationships in real estate
  • Balancing technology efficiency with authentic human interactions
  • Current gaps and opportunities in real estate technology
  • Effective strategies for technology adoption and implementation
  • Building team culture and community in digital environments
  • The future of AI-driven insights in real estate business


Key Quotes

  • "We are a belly-to-belly business in real estate... the goal of technology and digitizing relationships is to enhance the client experience."
  • "You can't outsource the heart. People want to digitize the heart part of their business, and I think that's a mistake."
  • "Before you can reach the success goal... you have to get consistent doing it over and over again. The next step is proficiency... And then the final step is efficiency."
  • "The one thing technology can do really well that we are honestly not that great at is aggregating and interpreting data."
  • "You can't just focus on how to do something, how to use the tool. You have to teach the agents why they need to use the tool and where and when to implement it."
  • "Community is not just about having a physical location... Really what community is about is relationship."


About Kendall Bonner

Kendall Bonner has been a licensed Florida attorney since 2003 and entered real estate in 2011. She founded a franchise brokerage in 2014, growing it from a single agent to 60 agents with over $200 million in volume. In 2021, she launched a real estate team that achieved 200+ home sales and $80+ million in volume within two years. Currently, she serves as VP of Industry Relations and Strategic Partnerships at eXp Realty, overseeing the eXp Solutions business unit. Her recent accolades include being named a 2024 Woman of Influence by HousingWire, a 2025 Power Player by Inman, and a 2025 Newsmaker by RISMedia.


Resources Mentioned

  • CRM systems for real estate
  • AI-driven insights and coaching
  • Virtual community-building platform

Connect With Kendall Bonner

PropTech Pulse: From the entrepreneur's desk to the industry front lines and into real-world operations – taking the pulse of real estate technology in just 20 minutes.


https://www.lwolf.com/podcast

SPEAKER_00:

From the entrepreneur's desk to the industry from the leading and into real world operations. I'm Aaron Cardell, joined by Kyle Hunter and Jake Hamilton. And we're here to take the pulse of real estate technology in just 20 minutes. All right. Today we've got uh Kendall Bonner with us. Uh Kendall is uh a renowned uh, you know, she started out as an attorney, uh, became a team leader, uh, is now the VP of Industry Relations at EXP Realty. And she has so many accolades uh that um I'm concerned I would miss something. So I just want to put Kendall on the spot. And can you tell us a little bit about, you know, some of those recent accolades and and just uh your background?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thank you, Erin. It's such an honor to be here today. And I'm I love doing stuff like this. I think podcasts and education and and trainings and just conversations are so important um as a part of our industry and and helping us, you know, uh my favorite things are like learn, master, grow, right? So thank you before I get into anything about me, um, just for the opportunity to be here today. So um, yeah, you were right. I've been a Florida licensed attorney since 2003 now. So at the time of this recording, almost 20, about 22 years, I got into real estate in 2011, got my real estate license, and 2014, I started my first franchise brokerage and became a broker owner, started that company as an agent of one myself, grew that to about 60 agents at one point, over 200 million in volume. And um then in after 2020, and we had, you know, the pandemic and all the challenges that came with owning a business during that time. I um was inspired in 2021 to start a real estate team. And it was it's its own story how I did that, but I had to overcome some personal limiting beliefs to do that. And I started that team from scratch, from zero. And within two years, that team sold over 200 homes, over 80 million in volume. And I personally did not sell a house. Like we we taught underperforming agents and brand new licensees how to sell real estate. And um, and I leveraged technology and marketing and you know, some of my favorite things that were um I was underutilizing those skills as a broker owner. I got to bring that to growing that team. And then now um that was about three and a half years ago. Um, on now my husband runs that team. And last year I was the first hire of the existing CEO, um Leo Pereja. He was um just hired on as the CEO. And about two weeks into his um uh his new job, he tapped me to come in and be the VP of industry relations for EXP. And then within, I don't know, maybe four months of that, I was um promoted to not just be the VP of industry relations, but strategic partnerships. And so I had up all of the third-party um relationships and a lot of the technology and SaaS um products for EXP brokerage and the services we provide to agents. Uh, my business unit is called EXP Solutions. So that's my like career um in a nutshell where I started to where I am today. And um, you know, a couple of things that happened in the last nine months that I think you're referring to because we chatted about it off off off camera off um offline, was uh three really what I would say like lifetime achievement awards for me are in the last nine months. And um I'm super honored and grateful for these opportunities. And especially as a woman in the industry and as a woman of color in the industry, I think it's um meant a lot to me to have these opportunities. And so last year I was um honored with the 2024 Women of Influence by Housing Wire, and then this year in uh 2025, I was named a 2025 Power Player by Inmin and um in 2025 Newsmaker by RAS Media Luminary, which um was really, really humbling to get that. So I'm grateful to be recognized for what any and everything that I feel like I've done. Um I've been so blessed with opportunities in this industry. So the fact that it gets recognized and seen, I I'm just so thankful. But thank you. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, kudos to you. It's uh been uh quite the nine months, but that's really just the the culmination of uh a lot of buildup over the last uh 20 plus years and and all you've been working towards. So good, good to see that recognition. I'm honored. Well, our our topic for today is really around innovating real estate relationships through technology. Um, and this is kind of an area that's uh near and dear to my heart. But as as somebody who's uh practicing and and also leading adoption of uh tools, um really interested to get your perspective here. Um so we're gonna dive right in. Um, how has digital transformation changed uh client relationships?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, that is um gosh, it's funny because I have believed in technology for the majority of my career, right? And leveraging technology to what I used to say was and still continue to say is enhance the client experience, right? Like that to me is the goal of technology and the goal of digitizing some of those relationships, right? And and I'm very firmly believe like, you know, we are a belly-to-belly business in in real estate, of course. I I don't think that'll ever go away truly and in the sense that like um because we've been replaced, if we do it, it's only because we chose to go that direction for efficiency and again for the client experience, right? But um, you know, how has it changed it? I think the the fact that um CRM management, for example, is especially today, so much more widely accepted and expected in our industry compared to, you know, when I first got into the industry and I know the years before, not that it was new technology, but it was just not widely used because so many agents have built a business around sphere of influence. And now with the um growth of teams and top producers and people leveraging, you know, um relationships that they had to kind of grow, you know, started as strangers and grow those relationships, it's just become more um acceptable and more well, you know, more more firmly used. And I think it's been good because it's organized us um, you know, by digitizing uh those processes. And and that's the other thing, it introduced the process system, it's uh promoted follow-up. And I think that that's a huge um opportunity for agents and growth because part of our biggest challenge in the industry has been our follow-up. I think has been really poor and lacking. And by bringing digitization into that process, it's caused us to be better at that, which I think creates a better client experience and more relationships, more transactions, um, more repeat um and referral business.

SPEAKER_00:

That's really great. And uh I'm curious, uh, you know, with CRMs becoming more pervasive, um, sometimes I like to talk about I got uh on a particular day uh in a house closing recently, like I got three different uh happy birthday notices from my mortgage broker. And um you could tell one was actually intentional and personalized, and the other two were not. Um but how how do you maintain that balance between efficiency and and warmth of human interactions? Um, and what does that look like for for you and your teams?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think like the thing that people have to remember is, and I heard this, I've heard this from a really good friend of mine. You can't outsource the heart, right? Um, people want to digitize the heart part of their business, and I think like that's a mistake. So, where you could balance the two is perhaps the automation is around reminding you to take action, right? As opposed to taking the action on your behalf. I think a smarter way to leverage technology because the goal here is that we send a personalized or we send a message, right? We want to show that we did not forget your birthday. Well, if you automate that, guess what? You did in fact forget their birthday. Whereas if you automate the recognition of like, hey, Kendall, it's time to, you know, Aaron's birthday is tomorrow. Make sure you send him a text, right? And I would set that automation for the day before because on the day of, everybody is texting Facebook and messaging you, et cetera, on your birthday. But someone that remembers the day before, that's typically more memorable. It'll stand out. So that's an example based on what you just said that you could do differently.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a lot of a lot of gems in there. Um so uh what problems are you still seeking solutions for in real estate tech? Like what where do you think there's fertile ground that that we still need solutions for?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a big question. I, you know, there's a couple of different places you could go with that. But I think, you know, first I think the first challenge and barrier is to adoption is this recognition of like how to implement it into your business, right? So I think that's like really our first step before we can even like build more technology to do more things, like we have to get agents to use the things that are right in front of them and to use them more efficiently and more effectively, right? Like the example I just gave. Um, but really for me, the and and educating on that, right? And and educating the implementation of this technology. But for me, like the future that I think is, you know, really, you know, I hope and believe is uh closer in our future than further away in our future is the ability to leverage technology to deliver insights that delivers um growth opportunities that kind of evaluates what we're already doing and saying, hey, I AI can tell us, I believe it will tell us in the future, like where our inefficiencies are, um, how we can um close the gap between uh what we're doing. So for example, um it provides a form of coaching and training based on best practices and experiences, because the one thing technology can do really well that we are honestly not that great at, it's um aggregating and interpreting data, right? Um we're not that great at doing that just in our human selves, you know, our memories are faulty. You know, our ability to document and track things at a detailed level is is all faulty, but technology can do that all very, very well. And when we get to that place where technology can then record and then advise, like wow, that I mean, what massive gaps we'll be able to lead once we're able to do that at a really high level.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And uh it's it's alarming how fast uh things are moving with AI and and also just uh so many opportunities there. I I want to hone in on uh something that I I think I took away there, which was uh sometimes uh really adopting what you have is kind of uh just as important as looking for the next thing. And like how with your teams or just even more broadly at EXP, um, are you really focused on some of those training and uh adaptation strategies? Like what are adoption strategies rather? Uh what does success look like for you in that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that when it comes to um adoption, right, it it requires repetition and consistency, number one. You know, I have this um saying, you know, before you can um reach the success goal, which I can I measure this way, first you have to get consistent, doing it over and over and over again. Next step is proficient, get good at what you're doing. And then the final step is efficiency, which is maximum output with minimum wasted effort. Everyone wants to, you know, skip steps to get to efficiency, not recognizing the the journey there is through that through that lens, right? Consistency first, proficiency, then efficiency. And so um I think that if agents and and leaders can focus on not just how to do something, but the why to do something, the when to do something, um, you know, and focusing on where agents can insert a tool into their business, because I think that's the biggest challenge. They they don't turn it into a habit because they can't figure out like where do I implement this into my business and my day-to-day um practices. I think if we could spend some time on that piece, that is how you will magnify and and 2x and 10x adoption, right? You can't just focus on the how, how to do something, how to use a tool. You have to teach the agents why they need to use the tool and where and when to implement it into their business and their day-to-day operations.

SPEAKER_00:

So well said. One one last question. Uh, I think especially just with your background in exp and in a very virtual first environment, how have you gone about maintaining team culture in uh a digital environment? What does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so great question because I think a lot of people have misconceptions about what it means to actually build community. And community is not just about, you know, we have a physical location that we all randomly meet up with um on any given time, right? Really what community is is about relationship. And you can have relationship, like for example, I moved, you know, across the country away from my family, um, and I don't see them every day. I don't get to um, you know, half Sunday dinners every Sunday, but we still maintain relationship because we choose to, right? And because we design um opportunities to have conversations and and get together. I've even done Zooms with my own family before, um, because just that alone using technology today allows us to be more connected than ever before, right? Because as long as we get this FaceTime, um, that matters. And so um I think that if you can um build a community around um some activity and some um and commonality, right? Whether it's, hey, we get to I have a monthly women's mastermind, that I build community around that. And we're all over the country. We don't physically get together all the time, like in person, but we still feel like we all are very connected and we we message outside of that. So I think like it's important to find those moments where you have these commonalities and you intentionally um make time for one another. And I think even if you have to do that via Google Meet or Zoom or at EXP, we go into the world and frame, um, you still get to uh to build community and connectivity that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds like a lot of intentionality. Well said. Well, some of the uh key takeaways uh for our listeners that I just want to highlight here that I heard were we really want to automate reminders, but maybe not the communication itself. Um and maybe consider sending those uh birthday notices or the like a day before uh they'll stand out. Um uh really focus on effective adoption and education of what exists. Um, and look at you know repetition and proficiency first and then focus on efficiency. I really loved what you said about focusing on the why and when. I think everybody wants to know why they're doing what they're doing. Um, and then uh, you know, a lot of uh opportunities around technology and and providing insights for growth opportunities, and it'll be cool to see what comes uh with AI in that space. Uh well, Kendall, I I want to just thank you for your time today. Uh, this was uh really insightful. Kendall, if you want people to find you online, uh, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, super simple. You can go to KendallBonner.com. That's K-E-N-D-A-L-L-B-O-N-N-E-R.com. Happy to connect.

SPEAKER_00:

That's our pulse for today. Keep innovating, keep implementing, and keep moving real estate forward.

Contributor

svalerin@lwolf.com

Producer