Med School to $41M: Ali Keys on Delegation, Consistency, and Building a Real Estate Brand

Guest Bio

Ali Keys is the broker/owner of Got Keyed Realty, serving Dearborn and the greater Southeast Michigan area. He was studying to become a doctor when limited finances forced him to step away from medical school — a decision one of his professors warned him he'd regret. Instead, Ali closed three sale-by-owner deals in his first 30 days in real estate and never looked back. Over a decade later, he's trained hundreds of agents and built a business that jumped from $12.5M to $41M in production in a single year after one pivotal hire.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Ali Keys, broker/owner of Got Keyed Realty in Dearborn, Michigan, for a conversation that starts in medical school and ends with one of the most dramatic growth numbers featured on the show so far. Ali walks through the moment he almost became a doctor instead of a realtor, and the blunt exchange with his professor that still echoes years later — "if you leave now, you're never coming back." He left anyway.

The heart of the conversation is delegation. Ali spent years doing everything himself — showings, offers, negotiations — until he hired a director of operations who asked him one question in their first five minutes together: "How can I help you?" That hire took his business from $12.5M to $41M in a single year. From there, Ali breaks down his three-part framework for keeping leads from going cold (consistency, follow-up, and value), the specific, non-generic ways his team follows up with clients, and why he believes AI's real value in real estate is entirely on the back end — never replacing the human relationship at the front.

In this episode:

• Why Ali left medical school despite his professor's warning — and never looked back
• Closing 3 sale-by-owner deals in his first 30 days in the business
• The delegation moment that took his business from $12.5M to $41M in a year
• Why "how can I help you" was the question that told Ali he'd found the right hire
• Ali's blueprint for starting over in a new city with no database or reputation
• The "recycle approach" to lead generation — no paid leads, fully organic
• Ali's 3-part framework for retention: consistency, follow-up, and value
• Specific, real follow-up tactics that don't feel like a sales pitch (the door-knocking example)
• Why Ali believes "AI won't take your job — people who use AI well will take your job"
• Where AI actually creates value: the back end, never the client relationship
• Why the human touch in real estate isn't going away, even as consumers get smarter with AI

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey there, welcome to Under Contract, where I sit down with some of the top real estate agents and team leaders in the country to talk about how they've built their businesses, what's working right now, and where they see the industry going next. Today I am joined by Ali Keys from Dearborn, Michigan. Ali, thanks for coming on. I'm really excited to have you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yeah, let's hop right into it. Uh, I think it's important understanding someone's journey gives context to everything that came afterwards to your success now. So I gotta ask, how'd you get into real estate? And at what point did you realize hey, this could become a serious business rather than maybe just a job?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

So you never really know where you're gonna go when you're getting into real estate. It's really more so about trying different things out and figuring, you know, your path, career of life, and where, you know, where the future takes you. I was actually in medical school studying to be a doctor when I had a few other things going on, a few other gigs. I grew up in a family where my grandmother raised me, didn't have any parents, didn't have any financial support. So as I was in medical school, I realized that my uh, you know, my my my funds were pretty pretty limited. I I really needed some money to pay for medical school to get through it, to pay my expenses and my bills. So obviously what I did then is I got out of it, you know, took some time off, talked to my one of my professors. He looked at me and I told him, taking a you know a year off in bed. He said, Listen, if you leave now, you're never coming back. And I said, Well, watch me. All right. And just a few years ago, I seen him, and he goes, I told you so. And I said, Well, this is the best thing I ever did. So when I got out of it, I ended up getting into the real estate industry uh saying I was gonna do one deal a month, you know, just one deal a month. That's all I wanted, that's all I cared for. I really wasn't looking to make a career out of it. And as I started to get into it and dabble into the business and learn the skill sets, I realized I was actually very good at it. I was good at talking to people, I was good at communication, good at dealing with the first sale by orders. And that one deal a month turned into like three listings sold my first month, first 30 days in the business. And I remember walking past one of my broker's offices at Central 21, where I started, and and I remember her just clapping. And I'm like, Why what's going on? Is somebody's birthday in there? What's happening? Why is she clapping? And she's like, You just closed three, four sell by owners your first 30 days in the business. And I said, Okay, so she's like, she's like, Do you realize how big that is? I said, Not really. I mean, this is my dog, this is what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? And she's like, You're gonna be amazing. And that kind of took stern, and I'm like, you know, I think this is gonna be where I want to be. So that's how we started off.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

That's amazing, and uh, I think uh becoming Ali Keys instead of Dr. Ali was that was was a good move, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

It's that was the best, yeah. I prefer I prefer the keys over a stethoscope anyway.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um I love it. Uh so obviously that's an amazing start, which is kind of unique. You don't most of the agent stories I hear are kind of like, well, it was a grind for you know a certain period of time, and then things kind of start to pop off. But uh obviously that that was that, and now you're here you are, very successful business owner. Um, and I find that typically like every successful business seems to have a couple moments, maybe, or one moment where everything changes, whether it's like a key hire or maybe it was a marketing strategy. What would you say is like the biggest turning point in your business? Where would you, if you pointed back to it, say that that was the that was the moment things changed?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Actually, the moment things changed is when I actually started to learn to delegate. Delegating is one of my biggest things because I was always a hands-on kind of guy, doing it myself. Nobody can do it like I could. So I was out doing showings, I was out talking to clients, I was out writing the offers, I was out negotiating the deals. I was literally spread thin doing everything. And looking back at it, as a business owner, I knew that this wasn't gonna be something I can take to a huge scale. I think it wasn't scalable, right? It was something that you could do day to day. You'd probably do your you're you'd be capped off in the business doing that. So I decided to take a you know, take a huge leap of faith, and I hired in a director of operations. And I tell you, she called me uh at the time. I I went through a few assistants before then, kind of trying to figure it out. I had those that were shopping addresses online, spent half of their day on social media, not doing much. But then it really, the turning point hit when I hired the right person, right? The right delegator. And this person uh called me and she said, Hey, I'm looking to purchase a home. And she's talking to me and explaining the things that she she really wants and and you know, in the home. And as she's talking, I literally heard nothing. I just heard bleep. And it was then when I said, after she was finished talking, she stopped and I said, Hey, are you looking for a job? And she goes, uh, I guess. I said, Well, can you come meet me in 10 minutes? And she's like, Okay, where? So I sent her the address, she came to my office, and as she came to my office, I sat with her, and I literally knew the first five minutes talking to her that this was the one. The reason for that is because she didn't ask me what I'm supposed to do. She asked me, How could I help you? That was the first thing she asked. What can I do to make your life easier? And like um everything. And then she ended up literally, I'm telling you, she ended up calling my previous assistant, my previous admin, and extracted all the information that she needed from her, took care of it, called me and said, Are you ready to put in an offer? So from there on, I think I think my numbers were at when I hired her in, my numbers were at uh like 12 million a year, 12.5 million. As soon as I hired her in, my numbers shifted from 12.5 million to 41 million within one year. So it wasn't it was an insane. So you know delegation works, right? It's been proven, it's a proven theory. So that was that was the turning point when I realized that you really have to delegate positions that you don't want to do to people that you can pay to do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yep. I had a mentor tell me that uh if somebody can do it 80% as well as you, you should delegate it. But I found what's interesting about delegation is sometimes you find people that do it way better than you. And that's that's the best because you know you get to stay in your zone of genius and let somebody else that's has a better skill set for that that role do it. So yeah, I do understand that though. I think that is every or one of entrepreneurs' biggest struggles is like letting go, letting go of the reins, letting somebody else uh drive part of the business. So now you just mentioned obviously we're talking about you know 12 million to 41 million. That's that's kind of amazing. But uh, you know, there's a couple million agents in in the United States, uh, yet only a small percentage really build truly exceptional businesses. What do you believe is the biggest thing that differentiates your business from everyone else?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

So if you actually treat it like a business, right? Because real estate is you don't have a boss, you are your own boss. You can sleep in till 1 p.m. if you want to, you can wake up early and get to the grind. It's all about self-determination and how much will you actually have to make this into a business rather than a hobby, right? I feel like this is wonderful from Shark Tank right now. But really, a lot of agents in the business, I mean, 91% of agents drop out their first year. They just leave, they're done. And then it really, what's that saying? It takes three to thrive uh throughout to thrive, uh no, three to strive and five to thrive. So agents that are producing single income from real estate within their first three years are pretty much gonna make it throughout the career. It's not easy. You really have to find the determination, the consistency to get up and do the same thing every single day, even when there's no results, even when the results are literally zero, the same for the first two, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, you're building that snowball effect and eventually it'll hit. As long as you believe in your heart that what you're doing, the consistency is going to build something powerful later. That is the key. If you understand that and believe that, but a lot of agents that I trained, because I've been doing this now for a little over a decade. I'm a real estate broker. I've trained hundreds of agents. And a lot of the agents that I feel like have been coming to me, especially with the new era now, a lot of the Gen Zs are very comfortable where they are. So one of the guys that I was coaching, I said, Hey, what is it in your life that's going to change and put that fire under your ass to make you want to get up every single day, go to work, close a deal? What is it? I said, What's your current living situation? He said, Well, I wake up every morning, I live with my parents, I have coffee with my mom. And I'm like, I mean, you're comfortable, right? I'm like, why don't you move out of your parents' house, put some debt in your name, go buy a house and find some real life, you know, endeavors that you think that I think will actually give you the motivation to go to work every day. So I think if you have that drive, if you're not comfortable and you have that drive and you're consistently doing something every single day with a vision, a purpose, and a mission, you're gonna make it regardless.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I love that. I love it. Okay, well, so let's talk for just a second. Uh, this is an exercise I love to do with top agents, which is like if you woke up tomorrow in a brand new city with no database, no reputation, no contacts, how would you build a top producing business today?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I'll do the exact same thing I did building the top producing business that I have today in my current city. I would not change anything. I'll tell you what, I actually replicated this. So I went from uh I lived in Dearborn and that's where I started. It's my bread and butter was. And I want to expand outwards to other areas. But instead of dabbling a little bit in one city and then trying to dabble a little bit in the other, I wanted to dominate the city that I was currently in before I actually extended arms out, right? Because I figured that's the way to create the bread and butter. So I dominated the city I was in, and then I went back to the surrounding cities and did exactly what I did when I started in the city that I dominated. And that was such as literally picking up for sale by owners, calling every single day, prospecting, door knocking, and also putting up random for sale signs on main roads, because you know what that means, right? People think they have a thousand listings when they drive by your sign once or twice a day. People forget. So those were like the little techniques and tricks, the psychological tricks that I put on the consumer's mind. And I started doing that in different cities, and people started to call and replicate. So it does work. Doing the same exact thing that I did when I started.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

I love that. No, look, it's it's proven to work, and and nothing you said sounds like it would be something that would change over time. Like that's a consistent strategy. Um, now, real quick, uh, like I mentioned to you before, uh, you know, I'm I'm a geek out on the lead generation side. So um I feel like uh teams have different strategies when it comes to to leads. Uh kind of what's your philosophy around generating new business? Like uh do you guys is it more of a paid advertising or is it more sphere of influence or is it a combination? Uh do you do you have a specific approach to that?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, we have like a recycle approach, is what I call it. It's pretty much a recycled approach. I mean, if I've developed and we don't pay for leads, it's all organically grown. So through advertising and marketing and brand development, the leads will come, right? They will come. And even if you're hunting rather than fishing and looking for a new lead, if you're hunting and you're recognizable, your chances of closing that deal is a lot higher. Or getting someone to work with you is a lot higher than someone who doesn't have a brand or someone who's just a nobody or a no name who can have a good skill set, but still doesn't have any name or backing, you know, any brand backing. So by building the brand, number one, that's that's that's everything. It's the eliteness of the business and then kind of recycling the system. So what I have in my database is we have a incoming, inbound of leads that are calls, right? And then we have the outbound, which is the hunting, the prospecting, and finding new people. They all go down the same funnel into the same system. Now, leads are just leads, they're not clients, they're just people that you talk to. You could be a lead. I'm talking to you right now, and you can say, hey, I'm interested in buying. But to me, you're not a client, you're just a lead, you're a person. Because obviously, there's so many real estate agents, it's in the in there, they're in the industry, and all of the same buyers, like we all have the same clients, right? The one, the thing that differentiates a successful agent from a non-successful agent is the one that shakes the most hands every single day. If you're shaking more hands, then you're more likely to close more deals. So for us, as bringing in the leads, putting them through that funnel, getting them into that system, following the flow, getting them under contract, closing them, and then recycling that close. So we always follow up with people who are discontinued. We follow up with people who may have at one point some lead wanted to purchase or had a conversation with us, and we follow up with the ones that have closed to see if they have any referrals for us, right? So we just recycle the system and it works beautifully.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

I love it. You mentioned you said a word, it's kind of a hot button, uh, typically when I talk to agents, because uh, you know, there's I tend to find the sentiment is that it could be better, which is follow-up. Um sounds like you guys have a pretty pretty nice system dialed in, but uh you know, when walk me through what happens when a new lead enters your business today from like the first five minutes, maybe through the next six months. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So the three things I teach my agents are consistency, follow-up, and value. These are the three keys to keeping somebody on your side and not cheating on you with another agent, right? So, number one, if I talk to you and had my first conversation and it's valueless, my chances of talking to you again are slim. So the first conversation I had with you should have tons of value, and tons of value means asking a lot of questions, learning about the person, understanding the situation. If you have a best friend, right, that knows everything about you, I'm pretty sure you're you don't want another best friend since you've already invested so much value and context about your life into one person. You wouldn't want to do it again. So if I've asked, if I've asked so many questions already and I've talked to you and it was a valuable conversation where you felt like you've gained something inside of you, the chances of you going to talk to someone else and redoing that exact scenario is very slim. So that's the thing about value, right? And then consistently following up, right? So following up with that person, I could have the bus conversation with you today, but if I don't call you tomorrow or the day after, guess what happened? Out of sight of our mind, you're gone. So following up with the person, but also following up with value and doing it consistently on a time stream is what I teach them. Because if you're doing it every single day, multiple times a day, now you're annoying, right? But if you're doing it sometimes a week, depending on the the motivation level, whether it's an A-class buyer who's in the hospital, ready to go today. If you're and they want you to talk to them, maybe every day, maybe you have your other day, and then you're in a good position. But if somebody's like C class, I'm probably gonna buy in six months and you're calling them every day, they're like, Why are you so annoying? I don't want to talk to you anymore. I'll talk to you later. Sure, sure. So these are the things that we we teach the agents.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

No, I love that. That's I think that strategy is gold. Now, when we kind of distill in that strategy, are there any particular tactics that these agents that are listening to this right now could take away? Meaning when you say I'm gonna provide value, I totally understand the idea. I love, by the way, the now the best friend analogy that makes a lot of sense. Like I'm invested with this person, why would I go with someone else? Right. But but you know, I sometimes I think to myself, like, what are particular things that agents should reach out? What are excuses, if you will, for agents to reach out that aren't just for the sake of just hammering them, but also providing value? Do you have any specific things that you guys follow up on? Um absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

And then and these are things that we've actually done and have improved. So, for example, imagine you were a consumer, a buyer looking to purchase a home, and your agent calls you and says, Hey, I'm getting ready to go door knocking. Would you choose a parcel of a parcel or a mile, a square mile of some city or some area that you would like me to door knock for you? Could you let me know what that is? Or give me an address and I'll knock the 50 to 100 doors around there. Do you think you're do you think that person's gonna feel like not appreciated? You know, it's it's it's these are the things that you, I mean, you're putting in the work and you're showing that you're putting in the work. Hey, I'm sending out my postcards right now, and I wanted to know the exact city or area that you want me to send the postcards to. Or, hey, guess what? We put in an offer on your property. Uh we put an offer for you on this property. The offer got declined because somebody came in $50,000 above. But guess what? We're gonna send about 50 to 100 postcards to the surrounding neighbors to see if they're willing to sell their home. Maybe I can get you an off-market deal. This is all valuable information that clients want to hear that you're going above and beyond, you're going the extra mile, especially in our initial conversation when I talk to them. I tell them, listen, I'm going to set you up on this auto email gig. Everybody gets it. You're probably gonna like one or two homes. I'm not personally sending them because if you send out two or three they don't like, they're gonna say this guy doesn't know what they do what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

So I make it clear that I'm putting you on this auto email gig just so you can see that everything that's around, you can see all the properties, compare apples and organs, but I'm also going to send you handpicked properties that are off the market so you can see that they're coming directly from me via text. You're gonna get those. Furthermore, what I want you to do, I want you to grab your cup of coffee with your spouse, and I want you to do a quick drive around today and pick five homes that are not listed for sale so I can door knock them for you. How does that sound? They love it, man. They love it. This is this is the value add that you can provide to a client where they're like, you know what, man, they're really going above and beyond. Even if I lose out on 50 properties, I don't give a shit because they're really doing their best to get me the best property, you know, the best for my for my needs. They're they're finding me the my perfect home. So these are the things I mean.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

I love it. You are the man. I'm really glad you uh I chose this path instead of being a doctor, because this is this is this is gold, brother. This is gold, man. You're great, you're you're a great guest. Um I I gotta ask the um one question about AI, just because obviously that's the world I live in. Um, you know, AI is impossible to ignore right now. Building the platform genera that we we built has given me the opportunity to have a lot of conversations with teams about where AI can create value and maybe where it's a little bit hypey. Where do you think the biggest operational opportunity is for AI inside a real estate business today?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

On the back end, definitely on the back end. I think that AI is going to work perfectly on the back end. Sorry, I'm getting a call here. Let me just turn stuff. So for me, I I was talking to uh to uh an AI developer, a software kind of guy, uh and some software engineer, and we're talking, we had a conversation, and I asked him, I said, you know, this is this is the million-dollar question that everybody asks, and it may sound a little cliche, but do you think AI is gonna take everyone's job and take over the world one day? And he looked at me and laughed and said, That's such an elementary question. And I said, Please enlighten me. And he said, and this was gold, it changed my perspective on how the future is going to be ran with AI. He said, AI is not going to take over your job. The people who utilize AI the best are going to take over your job. So that put things in perspective for me. That that's that was gold for me. And I said, you know, that makes a lot of sense. So when I say AI on the back end, if you put AI designated to do your job as the consumer on the front line, as the agent on the front line, as a salesperson talking to people, you're never gonna make it. People don't want to talk to robot, especially when uh when it's a high emotional situation like this, right? Highly emotional situation. People want to talk to a person. But if AI could be on the back end helping you generate the property, leads, pick up, gather the leads, uh, collect data, organize data for you, and do all the crap that you otherwise don't want to do, and also mitigate costs on your back end, that's the way to go for sure. And I think it's gonna be genius.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

I love it, I love it. Uh, I've got uh this is actually my most selfish question uh of the interview here, because I've got a smart agent on here. Obviously, I'm building a real estate AI company. Um, if AI could come completely eliminate one task or workflow from your business tomorrow, what would it be? Because this is my this is where I do a little research here from for myself.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

My administrators. My my assistants, absolutely. Absolutely my assistants, yeah. Though that's I mean, those are the highest paying paid employees that you have, and the work they do is great, but there's also some human error there too. So sure having AI take that over and stay in compliance with your you know your state and regulatory laws do things the way they're supposed to, that would be genius.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I love it. Okay, let's uh finish by looking ahead. I want to respect our time here. So, five years from now, what changes do you think we'll see in real estate? And what do you think will still never change?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I don't ever think we're gonna change the human interaction. I think the humans and the agents will never be replaced by technology or AI, as we stated earlier. I mean, I've been seeing I've been seeing all these major tech companies trying to take over our jobs and make things easier. And even with the commission reduction, people are still going through the agent and because there's value there. And obviously, that value is I'm selling one of the biggest assets in my life. I don't want to talk to a computer, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

I want to talk to a person. I want to ask these questions to a person who knows my situation and understands that it's not a general, broad answer they can give me that you know has been proven to work for others. I want it to work for me. So I don't think that the human touch will ever change. And I do think that people and agents and consumers are gonna continue to get smarter, a lot smarter. And I think, especially with having AI at their fingertips, the consumer knows what's going on. I mean, running comparables on sales and sold properties, that's something that's gonna be given the consumer can do it for you now, right? Having them create videos or marketing material for their properties, they can do it now. I think there's gonna be an increase in for sale by owners saying, Well, crap, I got AI to do this for me. Why would I pay an agent? But then they're gonna realize having that agent touch still matters. So these are the things that we're gonna be facing as we go in the next five years for sure, I think.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I love it. All right, Ale, you've been the man. Uh, before we wrap up, uh, where can people learn more about you and your team?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Got Keyed Realty. We're located in Dearborn. We take over all of the Southeast Michigan area. Uh, my phone number is 313 598 5100. If you have any questions, you ever stop into town, want to know where a good burger join is, whatever you need, just call me.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

I love it. Oh, you're awesome, man. Thank you again for joining me on uh under contract. I really enjoyed the conversation. Appreciate you having me. Thanks, man.