← Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Real Estate Tech in 2025: What Works & What to Avoid
00:54:54
From AI-driven tools to QR codes and automation, this episode dives into the tech that’s actually helping real estate agents work smarter—and what’s just noise. Join hosts Tami Simms and Jack Miller, along with special guest Rob “Peanut” Janson, as they break down which tools enhance client relationships, increase productivity, and elevate your brand—without sacrificing authenticity or luxury standards. Whether you're building a brand, streamlining your workflow, or staying ahead in a shifting market, this episode is your blueprint for tech that truly works.
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- [00:00]
Tammy Sims
Today's podcast is brought to you by Interlux Auctions. Your solution to guarantee competitive offers on your luxury listings with no compromise to commission. Visit interluxe.com today to find out more. That's I N-T-E-R l u x e.com welcome to a State of Mind, a podcast series all about motivating, inspiring and educating you in the art of selling luxury real estate. The podcast is brought to you by the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. I'm Tammy Sims, lead trainer for the Institute and a full time real estate professional in St. Petersburg, Florida for more than two decades. In this episode we're going to talk about how real estate professionals utilize technology to boost productivity. Jackson. I'm here today with my co host Jack Miller, a 25 plus year veteran luxury agent with Onward Real Estate in the greater Nashville, Tennessee market. And also joining us today is Rob Jansen, Director of marketing for John Jones Real Estate in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, adjacent to Jack's Market and somewhat overlapping. Rob, who's also known as Peanut, is a sought after real estate marketing and technology trainer with a broad skill set in photography, video production, web and graphic design, and both design, digital and terrestrial marketing. So hello to both of you and welcome.
- [01:30]
Rob Jansen
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [01:32]
Jack Miller
Hi Tammy. Hi Peanut. How are you guys doing?
- [01:34]
Rob Jansen
I'm great.
- [01:36]
Tammy Sims
So we are definitely going to have some fun with this topic because in preparation we realized that, that all of us have been involved in technology, if you will, from a real estate perspective from many moons ago. And we're part of groups that were early adopters of technology, beta testers for things like blackberries and you name it. If there was a piece of software or technology tool that was designed for the real estate industry, the groups that we belong to were involved in working out those bugs and seeing, seeing what worked and what would, what didn't. And it makes me think about the fact that in 1986 my mother had a website built.
- [02:35]
Jack Miller
Oh wow.
- [02:36]
Tammy Sims
And people told her that she was crazy for spending. Oh gosh. And it was probably maybe even tens of thousands of dollars at that point for a static page of the picture of her holding the brick phone in her car. And she said I think that this thing is to go somewhere and, and then in doing some, some research. So Jack, I understand that you were recognized, you and your partner for creating a, a website that actually let people save listings and make comments, right?
- [03:15]
Jack Miller
Yeah, it was, it was kind of a big deal at the time. It's interesting because Robert and I started in real estate My business partner in 1998 with a company in Rutherford county where Peanut currently works. And it was a large office and we came from a corporate sales background where we were already using the Internet pretty frequently. But when we got to our new role in real estate and we're all ready to go and there's an online MLS already available, all the agents were still using big books and tearing out pages because stuff was pending and they put in the new pages in sales meeting and we did the same thing for, for a few weeks and we're like why, why are we doing this? I don't understand why we're using hard copy. So we created a, a webpage. Ultimately we called it instant access where we would put all the listings together for each client, a password protected webpage for each client. So whether they were a buyer or a seller, their transaction was online. Buyers could search the MLS online, put thumbs up, thumbs down comments about the properties. We would share comments, they could eliminate listings. We put scan the documents for buyers and sellers clients online. Each one had a password protected web page and we thought it was really cool. But in hindsight it really was because this was five years before there was a Zillow, five years before there were any realtor.com online product or anything like that that tracked listings online for clients. So it really was a big deal. Made the COVID of the National Business Journal and it was a lot of fun. And then very quickly technology soar passed us but we got a good head start, so that was nice.
- [04:54]
Tammy Sims
Yeah. And Peanut, what I loved about some of the comments that you made leading up to this is how you predicted the, the effectiveness of the QR code in early days. And when you left the industry and then came back here it is, full front and center. And tell us a little bit about that, about, about what you saw early and, and shifting back in.
- [05:22]
Rob Jansen
Well, I saw the ease of access that it was going to provide, but nobody knew what they were yet. But the problem at the time that the reason they didn't catch on. When, when was that? 2010 I guess when I left to go into the education world and they hadn't caught on yet really was because there was still too much barrier to entry for like your average person because you had to download an app that could read the QR code. So I couldn't, I was putting them on signs but they weren't getting read at the time because nobody knew what to do with them. And then fast forward to I was at the DMV yesterday watching 80 year old ladies come in and have to scan a QR code so they could check in and they're like, well, we.
- [06:07]
Jack Miller
We had a listing, peanut. We had a listing In I think 2005, I believe 2004, 2005, in Hidden River, a really large estate community here. And we, we did a, a beautiful two page spread in Unique Homes magazine. And we said, it's big, it's beautiful, you're going to love it. We put a QR code. We thought we were so cool. QR Code took you to a wonderful place, all the details and nobody knew what to do with it. And we did it for a few months and then we realized, you know, we're putting it out there. But it wasn't have the effect because there weren't enough of an audience to understand how to use the technology. And honestly, when we, when we quit using the QR code for that listing, we were convinced it was a wasted technology that would just go away. And then of course, what we found was Covid. Covid hit many years later. And suddenly QR Code became the, the staple on every dining table in retail establishments, at your doctor's office, the hospital. And everywhere you go you see a QR Code. Even on the screen in the movie theater, you see QR Code.
- [07:12]
Rob Jansen
The aha moment for me wasn't when that super bowl commercial came out and it was just a QR code. There was no context for it. And I was like, they've made it.
- [07:22]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so we think about, we think about some of the things that we saw early on. And I remember that the mantra was always to try to be on the leading edge without being on the bleeding edge. So I'm curious, Peanut, specifically for you, what are some of the technology tools that you think have lasted the test of time and are absolutely necessary for real estate professionals in terms of their productivity?
- [07:52]
Rob Jansen
Well, the biggest one is going to be phones, getting cameras in them. Right. Even when they're. My phone's as good as my, as my actual camera. Now I just have that attachment to the real thing. But I could go out and do most of my job with just a phone if I had to. In fact, something happens in the field with the camera and I'll just pull out my phone. So that's the one that's probably the biggest one, Video. I was a really early adopter with video and knew it was coming. In fact, the reason I kind of got sucked out of real estate and into education is because I don't want to say invented. I didn't invent the video ad. Right. I invented the video ad here, got it in our market. So the big newspaper in Nashville, the editor got a job and stole me away to mtsu because our relationship to me introducing them to video ads. So videos huge, obviously. Other ones that have stood the test of time websites, obviously. I think that's going to be the biggest one. Real estate photography. I know, if you consider that technology.
- [09:10]
Jack Miller
Absolutely. Matter of fact, I think I was laughing earlier with Robert. We were talking about some of these topics and we remember specifically hiring actually a private pilot peanut out of Murphy'sboro, who's a friend of mine, to fly me over a listing to hang out of his plane window and take an aerial shot, which cost a fortune, by the way, because it was a really large estate. We wanted that aerial shot to help sell the house. And of course now we can hire a drone photographer to fly a drone up and cost virtually nothing to get the same better quality shots actually and a lot more for probably, you know, what a tenth or even less of the price we were paying for flying up with a, with a pilot.
- [09:50]
Rob Jansen
Yeah, I mean that was my, my sales pitch for our company. It's not anymore because now there's a gazillion real estate photographers. But our original sales pitch was I was the only, I was the only one here in Murphy. I mean Murphysboro had no others. I got hired by all the other companies to go freelance outside of my John Jones time.
- [10:10]
Jack Miller
I can, I can attest to that. Pinot, because I remember specifically, you know, there were early on there were only a handful of agents in our marketplace doing professional photography when it became a thing. And still many, many agents were hanging on to going out there with a Canon sure shot. Seriously, before the smartphones were so popular or available, I should say, and taking some horrific pictures with a Canon and then uploading those with a digital card, you know, and these were just ridiculous pictures and sometimes in some really high end properties. And so it was interesting because I think the luxury market really created a space for professional photography and it kind of stayed in that realm for a few years because early on if you wanted a luxury photographer, they. That was also, also very expensive because it really weren't. To your, to your point, Peanut, there really weren't professional photographers aligned with real estate. It was, you were hiring professional photographers and pulling them out of the studio, doing, you know, in our market, you know, album covers, graphic design, album covers, shoots like that. And to come out and shoot an estate home. And it cost a lot of money to do it. And so it was reserved only for the most elite properties. And then we see the evolution through people like you who were bringing professional photography into the real estate realm specific to that application. But then there was a lot of people very slow to adopt it still. But the luxury space made it so popular that it became the bar. You had to have professional photography to get a get that listing. And then the trickle down, you started to see agents who were working more moderate price ranges really standing out in the field because they were doing that level of photography for your average subdivision property, subdivision home.
- [11:56]
Rob Jansen
It was huge. And then the downside of the phone was as the phones got better and better cameras, to this day, I can go shoot the same property with my phone and my real camera. And even though I know everything to do to make that image as good as it can be, it's not the same. And then your average person, now if the camp, the cameras are getting better, right? But your average realtor can go out there and just shoot a property with a phone and it come out good. It drives me crazy still to the day. And I get in the MLS and I'm looking through these photos and there's phone photo and they've taken them vertical.
- [12:37]
Tammy Sims
That leads me down the path. If we're talking about how things increase our productivity, if our audience is successful real estate professionals, particularly in the upper tier, we have to think about the highest and best use of our time. And I remember phases of the industry when we were taking our own photographs, when we were doing our own staging, right. When all of those things. And there comes a point at which you need to leverage the tools available to you so that you can, as a real estate professional, focus on the highest and best use. Which one of the things that you said, Peanut, in our conversations leading up to it is ultimately this is a relationship business. It's a person to person. And we need to be able to hold on to that while using tools for productivity. Right. To maximize effectiveness. And we'll just go right to the elephant in the room and talk about AI, because that is the hottest trend at this particular moment. And Peanut, you said that that's what people are asking you most about. So I'm going to give you kind of free rein to give us your thoughts about AI, what tools you are seeing as effective and what some of the words of caution might be.
- [13:54]
Rob Jansen
So I'm going to try to give you a more succinct answer because, because I'm a marketing person, I use it for a lot of things I don't think your audience is probably really going to use it for because they don't have to do these things. They hopefully hire somebody else that knows how to do it. But AI for me, right, the number one caution is it is not human and it is a human connection game. I saw an interview with the, with the CEO of EXP the other day that said they're further developing the way they use AI, but they still see that there's 10% of that end game is going to be the agent. It's the most important thing. I think AI has moved too fast.
- [14:42]
Jack Miller
I agree.
- [14:45]
Rob Jansen
It'S progressing very fast because it's moving fast, but I don't think, I think there's been maybe too much adoption too early on. Like from like a year ago, I was teaching classes on version one of chat GPT and how to use it for image, like changing images. And from then till now I was like, whoa. I made one the other day and I didn't have to do anything. I used to spend an hour in Photoshop fixing AI. So it's, it's progressed quick and it's getting, I think it's getting picked up too quick. For instance, yesterday I was on a shoot with an agent and we're, that's a video shoot. So we're doing a house tour and they're doing all their lines and I'm like, this is going great. And then I get to a section of the house, like we're filming the upstairs and he's giving me his line and I'm like, wait, did AI write this? And he's like, yeah, how do you know, right? I said, because this house has a second floor primary in addition to the downstairs primary. Like there's two primary suites. It doesn't even mention it.
- [15:58]
Tammy Sims
Yep.
- [15:59]
Rob Jansen
That's the human thing, right?
- [16:00]
Tammy Sims
Yep.
- [16:01]
Rob Jansen
Like AI doesn't know because they haven't set foot in the house.
- [16:04]
Jack Miller
Tammy and I have actually talked about, talked about this previously. It's interesting. I had a, an agent come to me not too long ago and Tammy, you and I discussed this, who was writing their description of the property for the MLS and asked me to review it. And it had every cliche possible in the description. You know, entertainer's dream, chef's kitchen, blah, blah, you know, on and on. And I said, this is, I said, this is full of cliches. I said, talk. Write your description as if you're talking to someone about this gorgeous home. And she said, oh, well, I used AI. I said, don't and I think, and really, I guess, really the lesson here, I think sometimes too is in this podcast, we're, we're talking to an audience who are marketing luxury properties. And the luxury space is very much a boutique market where our sellers and our buyers are hiring us for our personal expertise, what we bring to the table. Personally not say we can't use AI tools. We can, there's tools out there we can use, but we certainly shouldn't be writing copy for ads using AI, you know, for multi million dollar properties. Another use I would say too, that I find particularly annoying is going on to some sort of website in the luxury space and seeing an AI assistant messaging me as if they're the actual broker. And it's very clear that it's, you know, it's an AI chat kind of thing where they're not talking to me. It's just, it's just, it's robotic and it's very quickly, you turn it off, you're done, I'm out, I'm gone.
- [17:37]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, it's like, like you said, Peter, you could, you could pick it out. And the same way with that, with the copy that Jack was talking about and that it makes me think of the fact that that one of the, one of the concepts that Jack and I come back to over and over again, regardless of the topic, is the importance of authenticity.
- [17:57]
Jack Miller
Yes.
- [17:57]
Tammy Sims
And that's in you shooting the photos and you knowing the subject in our authentic exchanges and that sort of thing. But I do think that there's opportunity for us to really capitalize on not just AI, but other tools. I mean, databases, Gosh, think back over the years, everybody was struggling to create or find the best database and they were switching and having to, you know, migrate their data only to learn that it was proprietary to the, you know, to the company that they had chosen to go with. And everybody still asks, what's the best, what's the best CRM? What's the best database? And you know, the answer is the one that you use. So I want to, I want to go down on the path on tools like that that can really boost productivity. And so from your perspective, peanut, what do you see that the most successful real estate professionals are utilizing like every day that, that are about productivity?
- [19:11]
Rob Jansen
You're going to think I'm, maybe I'm, it's going to take us back to the dark ages. But I'll tell you what, this one thing changed our business a lot here as far as productivity. Right. Because we all use, we all know what the golden letter is. And we've been using them. It's technology, but it's like old school technology, like a letter folding machine. It's like, you know how much time we had, people's folding letters and stuff in them. And I got one of those for 200 bucks and I was like, look, all the time we have left. Okay, so that's a simple thing, right?
- [19:49]
Tammy Sims
And even scanning technology.
- [19:52]
Jack Miller
Oh yeah.
- [19:52]
Rob Jansen
I mean if you think about it, self driving cars, you know, they're here. I rode one in Austin the other day and you know, I could do whatever I wanted to, I didn't have to worry, worry about. So that stuff's coming, right? And there's a lot of stuff with, with AI. Obviously I don't want to just make this whole thing about AI because I think that's changing a lot about technology. But here's the thing about I don't want to go constantly on AI. But here's the problem with it right now. Right now to use AI number one, you have to onboard it. That's the problem most people face is they haven't onboarded their AI like you would a new employee. Right. Get in chat GPT and you put in some a question and, and expect a good answer. If you take a little time and set it up properly and then you ask it that same question, you'll get way more valuable insights in the data. Like I use it a lot for data mining. I produce stats every month. Now you can pull those stats in to chat GPT via image and say hey, show me, you know, give me a market report out of this data. It'll write it. You have to double check it. Right. Because it's wrong.
- [21:07]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [21:08]
Rob Jansen
Don't misinterpret some things especially out of images. But it does a pretty good job where you can clean it up. I use, I use it same AI a lot for transcriptions. I think it kind of existed before. We just didn't call it AI. A lot of things that have been AI for a long time, we just didn't call it that.
- [21:30]
Tammy Sims
Facebook, It's a good point.
- [21:31]
Rob Jansen
Able to message through Facebook messenger in your website forever. And that was AI like for almost 10 years reprogrammed how it was going to respond to certain questions. Right. It was an early kind of version of that. But now I'll pull a transcription which is transcribed via AI in one of the. There's a lot of platforms that do it. I use VEED pulls it in, take the transcript, dump it in a chat GPT, correct a few things that are wrong. Like it can't spell Murfreesboro. Correct. Some names correct. Just double check that what it pulled out was right. And then I asked it to make it in four more different voices and provide it to me and in a teleprompter format. Get those four things, double check those too. Because you don't always get, get them right. You gave them good information in the front end. It's not always right on the back end. And then I take that to a teleprompter and I start feeding it to agents to say here's your script for this month for market stats.
- [22:41]
Jack Miller
That was it. By the way. You just hit on something very interesting. We talked about voices because you know, we all have skill sets and there are some agents who don't feel comfortable with audio, don't feel comfortable with video for whatever the reason is. And that's a terrific technology to bring the table where you, you write your script or you use AI, you know, chat GBT to write your script and you proof it and have another voice, you know, do your voiceover which gives a much more professional. We can't all sound like Tammy at the end of the day. Get a much more professional voiceover, you know, for your, for your work. I mean right now I'm doing, it's, it's not AI obviously but now we're doing social media video tours of our properties and I have my niece basically hosting them for me because I love her voice and her presentation. So I direct everything but I have her do the presentation. But doing professional voiceovers but yeah, what a wonderful tool that is.
- [23:37]
Rob Jansen
And I've got some great ones where you can choose a little voice you want. I mean it's come a long way since when I was, before I, in my time away from this industry, when I was in education, I was using the similar technology. Wasn't AI, but it was. You write your script and then they had these pre programmed voices that would read them and they're pretty good.
- [23:57]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [23:58]
Rob Jansen
Now it's come to the point where I can train AI. Like VEED for instance has it where I can train it on John, our broker, recreate his. I can make Jon Jones say whatever I want, just type it in and he can just.
- [24:13]
Tammy Sims
Right. And that, and that's why we keep having more and more videos and, and classes to keep us out of trouble for phishing and, and, and video scams and that sort of stuff because it has progressed. But it made me think about when we were talking about the, the, the voiceover. It Made me think about in, in the training we talk about the, the, the mini movie for real estate as opposed to just the walkthroughs and all that where you've got an appropriate cast and a script and a story that you're telling. If you want to choose some virtual voiceovers, you get to pick the type of voice that's going to go most appropriately with the lifestyle that the house is. And so that's pretty amazing.
- [25:00]
Jack Miller
That's very important too is another aspect of that. One of the issues I had, you know, when people start using CRMs and tying their CRM to, you know, a virtual assistant and they pull these virtual assistants from other markets. You know, if you're in a place like Nashville, Tennessee and someone calls because they're moving to Nashville, Tennessee, you don't want to have somebody with a non local accent answering the phone and talking with them or calling them, say, would you like an appointment with Jon Jones? Blah blah, blah. Because immediately you feel like, oh, you got somebody in a cubicle. It's not. Again, we'll come back to authentic. It's not authentic. And so I think everything that we do, whether, regardless of which area of real estate we work in, but certainly in the luxury space, you've got to have that filter applied to say, does this fit my clientele? The people who are going to be answering these calls and here and enter engaging. Is this going to fit the property? And this is, is this going to fit the brand? Because if it doesn't, it's a disservice. I don't care how much time it saves.
- [26:03]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, that it's, it's got to be suited to the property where it is and the appropriate audience. And that makes me think about one of the most effective tools that I have heard about for at least 10 years now is utilizing virtual assistants for certain tasks that are certainly more productive, more efficient to outsource. Right. And those could be to anyone, anywhere in the world. And so that's been a great time saver, particularly for, for things that don't require in person. I remember one very successful realtor who was in the California market and had a lot of international clients. They engaged a virtual assistant in every time zone to cover the phones for their business so that the phone was being answered appropriately at any time and that was really appropriate for their business. But one of the things that you have to take into consideration is if you're using a VA that is in a different country, much like Peanut, you said you got to onboard your AI, you Also have to onboard your, your virtual assistants for your, your voice and your authenticity and use them for things that, that aren't the highest and best use of your time. Not to replace you as the, as the real estate professional.
- [27:38]
Jack Miller
Again, it makes, it makes me think of the, you know, there's a lot of platforms out there that provide content for social media. And you know, you just, you sign up, you pay a monthly fee and they're providing social media content, they're uploading, blah, blah. And there were several of those I evaluated years ago and a couple we tried, but one of the things I found was very interesting is they, they'd splash the social media content and you'd see for the, you know, for. And peanut, you'll get a kick out of this. You know, for the Nashville market, we would see some palm trees behind the stucco house and like, that's not Nashville, you know. And so again, it's, you've always got to apply that filter to make sure it authentically engages with your audience and with your market where we are. Yeah.
- [28:20]
Tammy Sims
On, on that particular topic, I want to say members of the institute have access to automated social media that's included with their membership through a social. With RIS media. And it is content that is actually curated for an audience that would be likely owners of luxury homes. So it's the best content that I've ever seen. But it does require that you put your eyes on it every once in a while to see what's coming up. Because there was one post that was best ways to finish out your basement. And in my market, I would be very soggy if I had a basement. So, you know, it again, it requires that human touch.
- [29:03]
Jack Miller
Tammy, I want to say too, you know, it's interesting, there's, there have been. Because you, you started this podcast talking about technologies have come and gone where we started, there have been some wonderful technologies that I know in our case we tried to embrace, I think are wonderful technologies, but I found we got lots of pushback from our clientele. And one of Those was a 360 degree virtual tours. I thought that was such a wonderful technology and was very quick to embrace it and quick to use it and start it. And what I didn't expect when I started showing this to our clients, how we, you know, how we package their home or marketing on the Internet. And 360° and quickly I got pushed back on. Wait a minute, wait a minute there.
- [29:43]
Rob Jansen
You're, you're.
- [29:44]
Jack Miller
It's too intrusive. You're violating our security and we don't want people to see our floor plan to that degree and access points and, and we shut that down quick. It was like we had to quickly dump that from our portfolio of tools because it was, it just wasn't, wasn't received well at this level.
- [30:00]
Rob Jansen
Those things, I mean, virtual tours, I think are funny. I get not a lot anymore, but we used to get a fair amount. Like why don't, why don't you all do virtual tours? Because we have the capability, we've got Matterport. But I'm like, I'm making videos, they get 400% views compared to what a Matterport gets. And it takes me way more time. And like, would you, if you're having to choose which one they're going to get to see, would you rather, you know, four times your viewership or one time? Because, and the amount of like when people are in the virtual tours, I find they get in them for a second.
- [30:42]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:43]
Rob Jansen
Because they're cool.
- [30:44]
Jack Miller
You only have attention span for so long on the Internet.
- [30:47]
Rob Jansen
I mean it's worse than a video as far as they're clicking through two different points and they're like, I'm out of here.
- [30:53]
Tammy Sims
And then they run into a wall. Right, right. If they don't know how to use the system, I will say that one really effective way to utilize Matterport in particular that, that overcomes. Jack, what you were talking about. I agree there's a lot of pushback in the, in the luxury space that it is showing too much. It gives people reasons not to go see the property shares too much from a privacy perspective. But there are some who will do that. But they will keep that private until somebody's actually seen the property. They've expressed interest, they are vetted and they are likely, you know, they really are interested and they have more interest in understanding the floor plan and then that can be provided securely after the fact. So I think that's one way, one way around that.
- [31:47]
Jack Miller
But the other issue you run into along those same lines is, is when you're doing video is family photos and personal effects and valuables and things of that nature. And so it opens a whole can of worms when it's, it's a lot easier to do editing on photos and selecting out photos, just simply not using this photo. We had a celebrity client one time here on a eight or a nine million dollar home that was an animal rights activist and was very prominent as a. Prominently known as an animal rights activist. But she got married to somebody who was, who's an avid Game Hunter.
- [32:25]
Tammy Sims
Oh, no, I was, I was thinking of that. I was thinking of the trophy room. Right.
- [32:29]
Jack Miller
And had. And there. So their agreement was his. He could only have one room in the house where there were mounts. One room. And he had a lot of them, and they were very impressive. And one was even a bear up in the corner of the wall and a big rock. And unfortunately, that issue was not discussed with the business manager until after the listing went live. And we very quickly got, you know, all kinds of pushback. Hey, pull that down. Pull it out, pull it out. And so we quickly retrieved it and, and fixed it. But that's. Again, it's. With photos, it's very easy to do that. Video and. And virtual tours, much more difficult.
- [33:08]
Tammy Sims
Yeah. So, Peanut, I want to ask your opinion. I think there's a lot of younger real estate professionals who are traveling the same path that we all did of wanting to be the videographer, the photographer, and that plays in to social media, and there's a lot of sensationalist kind of approaches to that. And then everybody's using Canva, right, to do their own stuff and, and, and all of that. So I would love to hear your thoughts.
- [33:47]
Rob Jansen
It's like an easier version of Photoshop if you don't have the design skills, or I can just pull up a design and change it, do it to do whatever I need. In fact, I mean, I still make, like, luxury listing books or Canva bought it on Etsy, you know, a little thing that I send off and have professionally printed. So Canva thinks its own beast canvas got tons of AI. It can do a lot. And I like Canva, so, yep, I'm.
- [34:19]
Tammy Sims
Telling you, I use it.
- [34:21]
Jack Miller
I want to open a can of worms. Tammy and Peanut, that. That is related to what we're talking about. And Tammy, you may not want to talk about this at length, but one of the things that I have seen or feel like we are seeing coming down the pike, you know, we have watched Amazon take off and enter all kinds of markets. And we've seen Amazon going from, you know, mailing product many years ago and shipping product UPS years ago to having their own people bring it to your doorstep. And now they're taking photos of it to show that's there and everything's real time and you're being activated. You. You're getting, you know, memos on your phone that's just been delivered and here's a picture of it and that sort of thing. And in some markets where there's been issues with package, packages being delivered, they're now starting to bring packages into the home. You know, they're being packages into the garage or into certain doors using codes and remote codes and all sorts of things where Amazon's getting very intrusive to some degree or engage is probably a better word because it's something that the consumers choosing to do very engaged with Amazon, a very trusting relationship with Amazon. I've told agents for the last couple of years, if you're in the luxury space, we have clientele who want live people, trusted professionals, people who've been truly vetted and only people have truly vetted coming into their home. And, and you know, buyers walking through sellers homes who are coming through with a broker who understands who exactly is with them. It's all by, by appointment, of course, and no surprises and no security issues. And I don't. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see Amazon prime or something like Amazon in the near future going to a virtual broker, buyer broker arrangement where you know, they're promoting a property or some entity's promoting a property and somebody's coming into your home with a remote access and you know, and that sort of technology kind of scares me a little bit.
- [36:36]
Tammy Sims
Dak. That is actually already happening where it is happening in my marketplace.
- [36:41]
Rob Jansen
You're kidding.
- [36:42]
Tammy Sims
I think to, to, to some degree I only see it in the entry level price point, right? Because the, the luxury consumer in most cases, as you said, is going to be very particular their property. But from a buyer's agent perspective, right. So let's say even, even if I am present as the listing agent, right? And that is a whole another conversation. Different markets, different price points, all that sort of thing. I have seen buyers come in with an agent that they got round robin through an Internet spin circle who knows nothing about the neighborhood, nothing about the house, nothing about the buyers. They've never met the buyers before. They're meeting for the first time on the doorstep, right. They have no idea what is going on. So to some degree that, that, that is already present. And I think that that is a disservice to our industry, personally, I do. But I'm going to spin that to the other direction in price points where lockbox access is going to mean the most exposure to a home, right. And ease of, ease of showing, right. You try to line up a busy, successful listing agent with the buyer schedule and the seller schedule and all that. The advent of the CBS lockbox, right? Like the super, the Bluetooth lockbox that could be completely controlled access that knows exactly when somebody Was in that can have a secondary code to lock down down. Right. So that a seller feels secure in, in, in, in allowing somebody to use the lockbox to come in if the listing agent isn't present. I think that's probably the game changer technology that, that, that I like the most in certain price points and with the comfort level of certain sellers.
- [38:38]
Jack Miller
Yeah. So that was a big, that was a really big deal. I remember.
- [38:41]
Tammy Sims
And I still encounter the places where I have to go break my fingernail on the little flippy, you know, lockbox that they got for 10 bucks at the hardware store. There's no level of accountability, there's no, no level of protection for a seller there. So I, I think that's a, that's a big time saver productivity seller satisfaction tool too.
- [39:05]
Jack Miller
Absolutely. The ring camera. The ring camera and security cameras, that's certainly been a big game changer as well, for lots of reasons, for security, for comfort and peace of mind for our clients. But also, we well know, and I think at every level in the industry, there are sellers out there who are looking at their ring cameras and making decisions about what they're doing in negotiations based on what they see and hear.
- [39:27]
Tammy Sims
Exactly, exactly. And that, that is a different thing. I don't. Quite honestly, I think that's the antithesis of what our topic is about productivity. Because when my seller is calling me while the people are still in the house going, hey, they're talking about this, they're talking about that. What do you think they're doing? You know, that is it. That is a word of caution for all of our real estate professionals out there to make sure that your buyers understand that they are likely being listened to, whether they can see a ring camera or not. So really important, number one, don't, don't tick off the seller. Right. Like, don't say awful things about their house. And, and don't give away your negotiation position.
- [40:03]
Jack Miller
But yeah, almost routinely, Tammy, to that point, yeah, routinely tell buyers we're taking buyers into properties. These are estate homes, typically. And I'll say just because we passed the front porch, don't assume that you're not being recorded. You shouldn't be. But always anything you love about the home or any types of comments you have on negotiations or value or whatever, always save that for after we leave the property. And then let's talk.
- [40:26]
Rob Jansen
Yeah, vendors too. Don't forget about your vendors. Because yes, I've, I've had some agents that have talked to me in front of those cameras and I'm like, Hold on, hold on, hold on.
- [40:43]
Tammy Sims
So p. Note, are you talking about the fact that when you are as a vendor in the property. Right. Shooting the video, that sort of thing, that the agent. And it's probably the listing agent with whom the seller has a relationship, that they might just speak in a way that they wouldn't necessarily want the seller to hear. Right. Like too, too informal or.
- [41:08]
Rob Jansen
Yeah. Or the vendor, but goes both ways. Right. But yeah, you know, I wish, I wish these countertops were, you know, not for Micah or, you know.
- [41:19]
Tammy Sims
Right.
- [41:19]
Rob Jansen
Or.
- [41:20]
Tammy Sims
Or the vendor that says. Right. The vendor that. The photographer. Vendor that says, man, what am I gonna do with this? This place is awful. Right. Like, how am I going to make this look good?
- [41:29]
Rob Jansen
Exactly.
- [41:30]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [41:30]
Rob Jansen
All these kids, you know, insult their kids or say something. God forbid they say something about a picture that's up. Yeah, there's a bad ways of those because you always think about it with the clients. Hopefully you're. Yeah, but I've had too many times where I'm like, don't say that.
- [41:49]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah. I have a little code that I use with my, with my buyer clients. And again, this goes back to the clients, but as I am opening the door and they are standing behind me, I will point to the ring doorbell from underneath it, which I'm hoping they don't have the fisheye, but I'm like, I'm. I'm reminding them of those things. But, but you know, you're absolutely right. That, that goes, that goes beyond just the clients in the house.
- [42:17]
Rob Jansen
I don't see a reason not just to point it out and say, hey, they've got. Especially with what you're walking with the buyer. Hey, they got a ring hammer. Just. I mean. Yeah, yeah, okay. We say, say that, but also, you know, but also when I'm filming with agents, you know, sometimes, especially when you're filming with an actual agent.
- [42:35]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [42:36]
Rob Jansen
And like, you know, you might say the wrong word, you might say a curse word because you've messed up 20 times your line and you're like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [42:46]
Jack Miller
We didn't, they really didn't talk about. At least not yet. I think is a really important advance in technology and a very simple one, but one that's had a huge impact, mostly positively, but sometimes negatively, is the very simple digital signature capability. Because for so many years early in our career, it was always a very much a face to face interaction with our buyers, with our sellers, with other brokers having conversations and dialogues about not just the language and the contract, but also the spirit of the offers and negotiations. But the flip side of that was it was very time consuming to try to do all that travel back and forth and we were relying on fax machines and. And then was it still a legally binding document if it was fax and not the original? There's all these. And so digital signing capability became a huge, huge time saver for us. But I think it's also. So it's helped us be very productive. But at the same time, particularly I think for agents who entered the industry after that was standard practice. I think a lot of agents have grasped the technology, but they haven't grasped the fundamental critical elements of negotiations and interactions with all the parties to that contract. And so that's one I'd be left to hear both of your opinions on.
- [44:07]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, and for, for me, there's, there's two things that, that makes me think of. Number one, you're not taking the time to go through the contract with them, right. So you're expecting they're just going to hit the next and the next and the next. And sometimes that can, that can cause friction in your relationship, right. Because you're expecting them to be quick, lickety split because they've just said, write this offer right now. Right now. Right. And. And so you've done that and now they have the means to expedite it. But, but you're losing that piece of that interpersonal communication. And then also sometimes it can be, it can mean that I'm writing an offer at 11 o' clock at night. Right. So often, Jack, you and I have talked about, you know, setting some boundaries and setting time for family and recharging and all that. If, if I know that I can go sit in my, in my home office and whip this up digitally and send it off. Right. And get that done. It makes it a little harder to, to keep those boundaries. But what made me think, something to toss to Peanut on this is if you're reviewing marketing pieces, right, like you're designing something for an agent, the ability to digitally like make comments and questions and that sort of thing, as opposed to having to write it out or let alone schedule a meeting, that sort of thing. So I'd be interested in, in your input on the, that digital communication piece.
- [45:37]
Rob Jansen
Actually, you know, I'm the wrong person to ask about that because I'm like, like the very first thing you said when, and that we talked about before we got onto this. It's still a relationship business and that's I mean, that's the biggest thing we train our agents on is you're right and you're writing a contract and you're sending off the contract and you're doing that digitally. Still can't call the other agent and.
- [45:59]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [46:00]
Rob Jansen
And if you're not, I mean, should you be in this business, that's a disservice to your client if you're not doing everything you can.
- [46:10]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, you can. You can save an awful lot of time and be more productive using digital signing platforms and that digital communication. But I think something to think about now for all of these things that we've been talking about is there's a human element and there's an expectation setting that sort of thing. So if you are starting a relationship with either a seller or a buyer, that's the time at the beginning to say, these are some sample contract forms that we're going to see later on. So let's go through these together and we can answer any questions. So the first time that you're seeing these contract documents is not when I'm sending it to you for electronic signatures, asking you to just push the next button.
- [47:00]
Jack Miller
That's great advice. Tammy. Really is. And you're right. And there's so many agents. I think, again, I think it not to pick on newer agents, but I think a lot of the newer and younger agents who had that technology available to them from the beginning, it's very tempting to kind of gloss over the actual content of the contract and jump right into the signatures. I've got an agent I'm dealing with right now where I've got a listing and he's drafted an offer and I cannot get him to talk about the terms of the contract. I get text messages, I get screenshots, I get voice memos, but I need to talk with the agent and make sure I understand the context, what's happening with this client. And he keeps telling me he's just too busy and. And I'm looking at the production history. I'm thinking, you're not that busy. Let's pick up the phone and have a conversation here. This is really your client.
- [47:50]
Rob Jansen
Yeah, but with the technology side of like the collaboration thing you asked me about, Tammy, and the reason I don't like it is because when I was working in education and, you know, with big, bigger teams than we have here, because we're pretty. We're a small brokerage, we've got like 30 of us, so the interpersonal communication is easy. But when I was at the university and we're all on a Slack channel, which is common. Things get lost in translation and that's why I'm kind of.
- [48:19]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, and, and that's a good point. As we, as we come to the end of our time together over the last several decades and likely decades to come, there's always going to be technology that's designed with the idea of making us more productive, making our time more effective. That is just too deep. Right. Like Peanut, your early comment about the QR codes didn't work in the beginning because they required you to have this learning curve and other applications. Right. Other programs, other software in order to be able to utilize them. And I found that with Slack and a couple of other of those collaborative pieces that it was too much of a learning curve and it was too deep. Right. So going back even just to, you know, Google. Oh, that's my, that's my one. Right. Like the, the Google professional Google Drive, Google sheets, all those sorts of things. That level of collaboration that's just only like, you know, too deep. I, you know, two as in the number two deep. Those have made for great efficiency for me. But last thoughts as we wrap our time together, things that you think are really, really working and going to make us more productive.
- [49:42]
Rob Jansen
Well, to that end, what you just talked about, AI is the thing, right? Yeah. Reason it's I think lacking now. I still, I do think it will come to fruition where it's. We have to think about it too much. It's like the early QR codes. Right. We have to have to know how to use it properly. We have to think about it too much. Currently. That's how it is. You have to know how to use it, you have to train it. But at the point where we're not realizing that we're using it anymore. Just like a cell phone was in the beginning.
- [50:13]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [50:14]
Rob Jansen
When it's just built into like our everyday lives. It's there and it's inside Canva. It's inside Photoshop, man. I use it in a ton of Photoshop and all the, the newest versions of the video tools. I'll have it. I mean it surrounds us. It's everywhere.
- [50:29]
Tammy Sims
It.
- [50:30]
Rob Jansen
Google's gonna, it's gonna be a built in everything Google. Right. So yeah, I mean I've got this but here's the thing. Like I've got the, the new AI note taking thing. You know, this one's plot but there's a vertical a million versions of these. But you got to remember to turn it on. You got to think about it. But oh my goodness. It's always listening. It's always listening.
- [50:57]
Tammy Sims
That's. Yeah, that's right. I mean it's, it's so interesting. I was, I was doing a inspection and walkthrough on a $1.4 million new construction condo today with my client and the developer's rep was walking behind me and my buyer is taking video. Right. And we're in the non finished room and he taps him on the shoulder and he says, I don't think that you hit the record button. Right. So there is always operator error that comes in.
- [51:23]
Rob Jansen
That's right. I think wearables will be a big thing. Once that gets to the point where we are not thinking about it so much. Where, you know, Jack's glasses are recording this conversation.
- [51:36]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [51:36]
Rob Jansen
We're in the house and then he can recall whatever he wants to. I mean, that's where we're going. I mean it's, it's already started.
- [51:43]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [51:44]
Rob Jansen
Pick up. There's an AI notetaker. Limitless. It just listens 24. 7.
- [51:50]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [51:50]
Rob Jansen
At the end of the day, you can look at your day in bullet points and.
- [51:54]
Tammy Sims
Right.
- [51:54]
Rob Jansen
Dive deeper into what you want. But it's.
- [51:57]
Jack Miller
Yeah, I think the final. Yeah, I think the final evaluation. Peanut and Tammy, for all these tools we're talking about, we've seen it happen already. If it's going to make us more productive, that's terrific. But if it's not making us engaged even more intimately with our clients, more authentically with our clients and really helping us engage with them better, and if it's not helping us truly do a better job of marketing the listings and connecting our buyers to listings, then we really have to ask ourselves, you know, is this tool really helping us or is it hurting us? Because we've done some in the past, we talked about today a little bit, you know, and using the signature is a perfect example. Digital signature, it has ability to help us have greater engagement with our clients, more time for greater engagement. But if we're using it instead to bypass the engagement with other agents and bypass the engagement with our clients, then we've. We've missed the boat.
- [52:54]
Rob Jansen
I think that is if it's a time suck. That's the other one. I see.
- [52:57]
Tammy Sims
Yeah. So if it takes too much time.
- [53:01]
Rob Jansen
My graphic designer could have hired somebody on Fiverr to do that for five bucks.
- [53:06]
Tammy Sims
Right, Exactly. Exactly right. But I think, I think it's a great wrap up for us that as we're seeking ways to be more productive, we should be definitely making sure that it is. That it is indeed freeing us up to spend more time with our clients to to do what it is that we do. That's that interpersonal communication. So productivity doesn't mean having more time to offload being a realtor and spend time on the golf course or at the pool or playing music. It should be about giving us more time to engage with our clients, to interface with our sphere of influence, build relationships and feed the pipeline. And so I think that's a big takeaway for us. And while I know that we could go on all day about this, our time is up. So I want to thank all of you, you out there listening so much for joining us on this episode of A State of Mind, the Art of selling Luxury Real estate. If you're interested in learning more about the Institute, you can find more@luxuryhomemarketing.com and if you like what you just heard, please share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. And if you've got a hot topic that you'd like us to discuss in a future podcast, feel free to let us know. Send an email to infoluxuryhomemarketing.com thanks for listening.