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- [00:00]
Brian Buffini
The Internet, smartphones, automation, remote work, and now AI. Give me a minute to show you how every major shift in history created fear before it created opportunity. Everyone's asking, will AI take my job? That's the wrong question. The real question is, will you learn how to use AI before everyone else does? Because the people winning right now aren't competing against AI. They're leveraging it at a high level. They're letting it handle the repetitive work so they can focus on what humans do best. Leadership, creativity, relationships, and emotional intelligence. And here's what's crazy. The rise of AI is actually making human skills more valuable now. Every industry is changing, and the people who stay curious, learn the tools, and evolve with the technology are going to separate themselves from fast. AI isn't just a conversation about the future anymore. It's becoming the resource that shapes who stays relevant and who doesn't. So the question is, are you going to fear it? Are you going to learn how to leverage it? What if the biggest career mistake right now isn't AI replacing you, but refusing to learn how to use it? People are terrified that artificial intelligence is coming for their jobs. But history shows us something very important. The people who win during disruptions are usually the ones who adapt first. AI is incredible at speed, automation, research, and repetitive tasks. But it still can't replace leadership, creativity, develop trust with the other human beings. Emotional intelligence, which is every bit as important as artificial intelligence or human connection. That's the shift happening right now. The future won't belong to people competing against AI. It'll belong to people who learn how to leverage it. Think about it. If AI can save you hours every week, that doesn't make you less valuable. It gives you more time to focus on what actually matters most. Building relationships, solving problems, leading people, thinking strategically, and creating real impact. The real danger isn't AI. The real danger is staying the same while the world changes around you. Because the people who learn this early, they're not getting replaced. They're actually becoming unstoppable. In today's blueprint, I'll break this all down further and I'll also touch on what skills will matter most in the AI era. In today's blueprint, we're going to discuss where artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence meet. Michael Thorne, who's the lead trainer at Buffini Co. For our AI initiatives, is the host of our AI training program called the AI Bootcamp. Amazing program. An amazing teacher, and he shares a phenomenal insight that I think will change everything for you. AI is not a tool It's a teammate. AI has been packaged the same way. So many technological developments have been as a tool, and it's not the most amazing thing about the world we live in today is that with a technology like AI, a small business owner can operate like a big business owner. I had an opportunity to do a speaking engagement here a couple of weeks ago with a gentleman who has a billion dollar company with 10 employees. That's unthinkable just five years ago. Now, it doesn't mean that all employees are gone. It just his particular business operates extraordinarily well with a whole bunch of AI agents and then people who manage it. So I have a few major points for you today, as I always do, usually three. And it's. The first thing is how do you stop competing with AI and start utilizing as a teammate? We want to get into this leverage ability. How can you have a small business that runs like a big business? The people who struggle most with AI won't necessarily be the least talented. In fact, some of them be very talented. But they will be the ones who refuse to adapt. AI is not here to replace every worker. It's here to replace repetitive tasks, speed up workflows and increase efficiency. The question is no longer can you do the work? The question is, can you produce value efficiently? Instead of fearing AI, start asking, what parts of my work slow me down? What repetitive tasks can AI help simplify? How can I use AI to create more value in less time? AI is great at research, organizing information, drafting content, by the way, not, not finishing content. You still can draft it, but you need to polish it. Otherwise it sounds like AI summarization, automation, data processing. But people still bring their gifts to the table, their own personal judgment, leadership, creativity, the ability to build trust with another human. What I call emotional intelligence, which is so, so valuable in the modern world, and then actually relationship building. The future belongs to people who know how to combine artificial intelligence with these human elements. Underneath this dynamic of emotional intelligence. The second thing I want to talk to you about is that it's time to double down on the skills that AI can't replace. Ironically, the rise of AI is making human skills more valuable, not less. Why? Because when technology becomes common, authenticity stands out. The kids talk about AI as AI slope, which is AI just pumps this stuff out. It was interesting. Recently, a gentleman gave a commencement address at a university. He was a representative from one of the leaders at Google. And all the kids booed him because he was talking about AI. And they booed him because they were afraid they Wouldn't have jobs. Now, what was interesting, many of those kids use AI to get their degree and write their papers. So they actually know how effective it is. But they're scared they won't have a job when they come out. People will still choose leaders they trust people they trust professionals who can communicate clearly, Advisors with wisdom and experience, Teams that build relationships, Creative thinkers who solve real problems. AI can provide information, but it cannot replace human connection. The professionals who thrive will become more human, not less. Here's an example of why I love AI. For many years, I've trained our system all over the world, 47 countries. Well, all those countries, every time I bring out a new training program, they're like, brian, can we get it in our language? And sometimes not in our language, our dialect in our country? Well, that is a major project. And in fact, this last year, I had a company come to me and said, okay, we'll take 40 hours of your video training, Brian, and convert them into eight languages. It would take a million won and take eight months. One of my staff just did this project with AI and here's a clip of our training program. This took moments for my team to put together with AI non proprio. Choce e da vero sul mercato E com il resto del iceberg e soto illi velo del acqua. I love the fact that Buffini is finally speaking Italian. How great is that? So the winning formula is simple. AI handles the routine. Humans handle the relationship. The third major point for you is adaptability. Adaptability will become your greatest advantage. Every major shift in history will rewarded people willing to learn and evolve. Some jobs will change for sure. Some roles may disappear, but new opportunities will emerge for those willing to adapt. The biggest risk isn't AI itself. The biggest risk is waiting too long to learn how to work with it. It's your teammate. So start now. You got to learn basic AI tools. You got to improve your efficiency. With that, you got to stay curious and learn. Keep upgrading your own personal skills and then become someone who can solve problems in a changing environment. Oh, by the way, as I mentioned, at Buffco, we're known for our training programs worldwide. We produce training that produces results. And we have an amazing AI training system taught by Michael Thorne. If you go to thebrianbuffinishow.com AI you can check it out. It's absolutely amazing. And we take what is very overwhelming and abstract, and we've just rebuilt the whole program now. So this is fresh and new. And we have four introductory modules that after going through those four modules, you'll already be AI proficient. So check it out. We really want to get you up to speed on this. Let me say this, a guy who has not been historically on the front edge of technology himself. I use AI all day, every day. It's very helpful. And then it gives me a base to work around. Very, very powerful. Don't build your identity ultimately around a task that can be automated. Build your identity around your adaptability and your ability to think and lead and communicate and solve problems. And I'm talking about your work identity. Tasks can be replaced, but adaptable people become indispensable. Hopefully today's blueprint's been helpful for you. Talking about something that's terrorizing a lot of people. They don't know if AI is here to help them or to turn into Terminator 2 and end the world. Well, guess what? Neither thing is true. So number one, don't forget, utilize AI as a teammate, not a tool. Number two, double down on the skills. AI can't replace those human skills. And number three, adaptability. That'll become your greatest advantage. And for sure, check out the brianbafinishow.com AI and go check out Michael Thorne on AI Bootcamp. Hope this has been helpful for you today.
- [10:28]
Ethan
Welcome to the most meta version of Ask Brian. We're going to be doing an Ask Brian about Ask Brian. My name's Ethan, new servant leader with Buffinian company. Thanks for the opportunity to Ask Brian. Ask Brian is a feature coming to folks soon, next couple of months.
- [10:45]
Brian Buffini
Fall.
- [10:45]
Ethan
Yeah, yeah. So I want to get into that like what is Ask Brian? What is Buffini Mode? Talk about this story of how this came to life.
- [10:56]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, probably people might have any clue what you just asked me.
- [10:59]
Ethan
Right, of course, yeah.
- [10:59]
Brian Buffini
I'll give you a couple things. The podcast, the original Brian Buffini show that started 10 years ago, started this way. I would do our peak experience events, our mastermind events, human huge personal growth and development and I would be driving home and our director of content, David Lally, who helped me build all the presentations, would call me on my way home and this is two Irishmen having a conversation. And we would have five, 6,000 people who just had this life changing couple of days. And Lally always would say to me, hey boss, that was amazing. Best one yet. It's a pity only 5,000 people will ever get to hear that. Which is that's an Irish congratulations, I guess because I create the content, developed it, present it and never present it again. Like some of my favorite speakers Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Lou Holtz. They had one talk for 30 years. I have a retention organization of coaching clients. I have people who've been to more than 100 of my events. They don't want to hear the same thing five times. So it forces me to constantly create new content. So I would do these mega events, these life changing content and it would go nowhere after that. So I'm like a stage actor who'd do a performance in a TV world. So the podcast, the original Brian Buffini show, now more than 10 years old, was started as a, as an outlet for, hey, we have these great content we've been teaching and we now want other people to hear it. And so when it in our first year, it was in 168 countries and we're getting 400,000 downloads a month. It was amazing. And then it morphed into something else, as the show is now today. Well, now you combine 30 years of training, hundreds of hours of video training, conference calls. I used to conference calls, which back in the day was the early technology and people would call in. I had 350 of those. Then we went to webinars. I did 450 of those, I did podcasts, 700 of those. And so you have all of that content, hundreds of hours of training. We have an entire company called Stone Mountain here in San Diego that stores literally underground all our servers. Well, I have a whole bank of servers of just video and audio content. You've been to the headquarters and you saw the Ask Brian vault, which is a room as big as this, from floor to ceiling, double deep with folders and workbooks and content.
- [13:25]
Ethan
Those are densely packed file cabinets.
- [13:28]
Brian Buffini
We're in the coaching business for 30 years and it's like we live in this modern world and it's like, how do I. I'm going on an appointment, Brian, and my client wants to list the house for 40,000 more than they should. What should I say and what should I do? Well, now in the Buffini mode of the Bow Trail app on their phone, they're going to be able to ask questions like this and I'm going to coach them up from all 30 years of content, all done through questions and prompts, whether it be here's the email to send, here's what to do, here's the questions to ask them, here's how to present this, and here's how to bring your client along on every topic under the sun in the real estate space, then into the financial piece and the all the different Time management piece. It's all there. I've been teaching incessantly. I tell the story that since December 3rd of last year I built 53 new presentations, separate, unique presentations in a six month period of time. Well, imagine I've done that for 30 years. So that's what this Ask Brian feature now is. So that's the first piece of what this bow trail Buffini Mode is. The second piece is one of our most successful programs is called the Ultimate Year in Real Estate which basically for realtors and lenders helps them go through a period of productivity closing transactions. So you have blitz for a definitive period of time to go, generate leads, a period of time to serve those leads and duplicate your customers. We call it the Duplicare system. And then blitz again, Duplicare and then a couple of seasons of planning. Well, it's 30 years of coaching and training to get to that. So that's going to be part of it. And then lastly we built a contact management system in n in 2009 called referral maker. So at the time, you'll be aware of this, there was big systems like Gold Mine, Howard and Friends, Top Producer or these big bulky CRM systems. And our clients would go, it's really hard to work by referral with these systems. Now I know more wanted to get in the software business than man of the Moon because it's a brutal business. It's the only business in the world. If you imagine this, Ethan, you're selling cars and someone walks up to you and says, hey, can you put the door on the roof? That's the average software customer. And everybody's got an opinion and everybody's a designer and everybody kind of hates their software system. They tolerate it. That's what I'd say, the best one. So I didn't want to get in that business, but it became an impediment for our people we were coaching. So we built Referral Maker and it's won award after award because guess what, like me, I'm not the biggest technologist in the world. I needed to be simple. I wanted it to be pretty and I wanted it to support working by referral. So it did that well and we made iterations over time. But at the time of this recording in 2026, our CRM is 17 years old and it's been patched and enhanced. And now we live in an AI world and I literally feel like we're driving a Model T down the freeway. So we had gaps, modern security, all the different dynamics, all the different Aspects of things tying into multiple listing services. We didn't have any of that, you know, idx, websites, all, you know, print shop, all that. We didn't have any of that. So we started researching for about two years who might be the best in class and the best in class company people we found were with this company called Inside Real Estate and they had a product called Bull Trail you're very familiar with.
- [16:51]
Ethan
Yeah.
- [16:52]
Brian Buffini
And they were like, okay, we can do business with these people now can their products support our people? And it's taken nine months of development. Their product is called Boll Trail and they're inside their company, they call it Buffini Trail now. So they built this Buffini Mode and Buffini Mode is going to have this aspirin feature, this ultimate year in real estate training and coaching piece. And then the world's first AI enabled mobile CRM. And so it's all on the phone. You have a desktop version of it, but you can, you can ask your phone, who are my five best customers in Solana Beach?
- [17:31]
Ethan
I'm going to have a, I'm going to have an afternoon in Oceanside, right? Got time to visit two or three people, right? I've already talked. I'm all my A pluses up there. Give me some A's or some B's.
- [17:40]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, who, who, who are my best clients up there? When was the last time I was with them? What did I bring them last time? Can you text them and see if they're available? Can you call them and tell them I'm on my way? Can you give me a map to get from? Just by talking, all by talking. And when I do it, it tracks the activity for you. So I'd say 15% to 20% of all coaching calls we do is reviewing the tracking and the non tracking of our customers so they'll never have to track anything again. The average agent spends 27% of their day between admin and email. Our goal is to take that down to 5%. And so the goal is to use this AI enabled mobile system to get people freed up to spend more time face to face their customers. And in the, in the tests, the average agent who've been with us many years is freeing up an hour and 15 minutes a day. And the goal is to not go to the beach per se or although when that's your day, go do us. But it's an hour, 15 minutes a day for me to go do this. So now I'm going to go have a coffee with someone, I'm going to Spend a little more time. I'm doing a little Popeye and someone's going through stuff in life, going to sit down, turn it from a Popeye to a plop by and be there for somebody. So for me it's all about the high tech. I will, I, I'll embrace the high tech if it allows me to do more high touch. So I like to say I'm not Mr. High Tech, but you, you'd be a blind person not to see what it can do and how it can do it today. And so we've gone from kind of the, a little bit of the outhouse with the old system, the Model T, to now we're front of class AI Mobile along with Ask Brian and all of a sudden we're the Jetsons.
- [19:22]
Ethan
Yeah, love it. I spent about three years interviewing a different team leader or brokerage owner or their right hand, the operations leader who often has to implement a lot of this stuff, talked with over 170 of them in a recorded setting and hundreds more in non recorded setting. And of course the whole game is agent leverage. What can I put behind my agents to allow them to do exactly what you just said, which is spend more time in real conversation, real relationship with clients in order to do more business. And so this is the ultimate leverage and it's all run through the filter of the philosophy and methodology of working by referral. I'm super excited about it. Practical tip for folks because it's common whether someone is in real estate or not. We're all, you know, having to either adopt new technology ourselves and neither, I don't speak for you, neither of us is like that cutting edge early adopter person. You know, I look for value, I look for opportunity, I look for use cases and when it makes sense, I adapt. But no matter what business anyone watching or listening is in, they either need to adapt technology or they need to lead people into adapting technology. In this case and throughout this episode, we've been talking about AI, whether it's AI or anything else. Any tips you've observed in working with so many folks throughout your career to help people adapt new tools, tech and you know, essentially it's behavior. Sure, a couple tips there.
- [20:44]
Brian Buffini
Well, I, I'll use an analogy from this very office because I did a bunch of our first ever new Brian Buffini shows. We did these coach em ups, which is great to do part of our episode today. And I get to talk to some real life agents and we've done it in the field in Hawaii and other places. But I'VE also right here coach them up. Well, I, I've done a bunch of these coaching calls and Danny Iverson, our producer here, he's sitting here and he goes, he's talking to these people and they're great salespeople, top producers in each one of their companies. And he'll go, okay, now do you have your audio on how would I do that? And do you have your. Now, what's this? They're great salespeople. They're great at their business. They're not technologists. Oh, by the way, neither is this dude here. Okay, so yet I've leveraged it. I've spent money on it and invested millions and millions over my time and know the value of it. Obviously, I don't use a Thomas Brothers map anymore. GPS does a very nice job. So here's the dynamic. You have to learn these things and you have to learn it from a familiarity standpoint to your usage. So one of the things I committed to and when we first down went down with Inside re, I said, make it simpler. Make it simpler, make it simpler, make it simpler. Like to the point driving engineers to the point of distraction. But genius is found in simplicity. And so I am demanding of Inside Real Estate the simplest, cleanest, prettiest version of bold trail they've ever done, with the ability to have this referral management from our old CRM system built in. And then the next piece that I promised the folks who adopt this is we are going to train, train, train, train, train you, and we're not going to overwhelm you. We have a couple of people in the organization like Jessica Lacerda, right? You've met Jessica's sweetheart.
- [22:41]
Ethan
Yeah, she's sharp.
- [22:42]
Brian Buffini
And Michael park, very, very sharp cookie. Well, Jessica's been on our journey. She started in our client care department 13 years ago, answering the original calls from people who didn't know how to download their database. And now she's on stage at our events teaching people how to download their database and use it. She knows our customer inside now. She knows her people. And we've just committed. She's so she's running the training team. We are going to train, train, train. And I will just say this. It's important that you train. You train in peacetime so you don't bleed in war. The bottom line is this. People are like, oh, I never wanted the referral maker to change the world changed. Technology has changed. The security required for your database has changed. People are hacking your database every day, every hour of every day. So security functionality AI Mobile, everything's gone mobile, the desktop and by the way in real estate there are no desks or tops anymore. So this is inevitable. And what we've done is we once I know what the lay of the land is, I don't get caught up on gimmicks. I'm never a bleeding edge guy. I'm okay with leading edge. AI is inevitable. We train on it with Michael Thorne, we teach on it through the business process. And this AI streams app that we have in Buffini mode where someone's able to run their whole business, I mean it used to be so much work for example for one of our clients, put on a client party, they can speak that into their phone now and this app will do the entire campaign for them. Email their customers, mail their customers, build, build a menu, build a budget, help them facilitate the location. Here's the posters to have, here's the follow up campaign that used to be five coaching calls and now it's a facilitation of one with the streams up. So bottom line, I when I saw what is going to be released to the marketplace, my best year in real estate, I sold 127 homes within assistant and I stood backstage in not a egotistical moment and I turned to Darren Dawson, our CEO and I said I'd have sold a couple hundred homes a year with this. And that is the ultimate test. It's going to make the most important part of what you do available free up your day. And again for some people this is the hard statement, you're going to get fired from your non essential work. And for some people, that's their identity. They want to stuff the envelope themselves because it feels like work. They want to do all the admin stuff by hand because it feels like they have a job and it also avoids me having to talk to people. And so for people who want to work by referral and be successful, where we're going light years ahead of where
- [25:29]
Ethan
we've been and it is again all about leverage. Do the most important work. I want to go into the most important work briefly at the risk of running along with you here. Thank you for allowing me to ask Brian.
- [25:38]
Brian Buffini
Sure.
- [25:39]
Ethan
One of my favorite books of about I'm probably going back six or seven years ago is written by a professor named Dr. Roland Rust. It was called the Feeling Economy and he and his wife, who was also an academic had been following AI for years at that point and he made a list of the jobs that were the most protected and of course we've seen more Recent research on this, but this is the first time I really got dawned on to the importance of emotional intelligence. Human, human relationship. And, and the most important work, especially in real estate and mortgage in particular, which are all about trust and relationship. You know, at a level, it's a commoditized business, right?
- [26:18]
Brian Buffini
Yes.
- [26:19]
Ethan
And so the difference is you and how you present yourself. And. And a lot of that, you know, the human side of the business is a lot of the most important work, trust and relationship. And so in his list of jobs that were most insulated, I saw salesperson was second or third from the top. And I just felt really reassured at that point. Cause I was, you know, coaching up real estate and mortgage folks how to use video messaging. And so I'd love for you to kind of double back and do a little bit of what you shared in the blueprint segment earlier about the most important work. If you were kind of bottom line, the most important work in this eq, human relationship, trust building, part of the business. Give me a quick go at that.
- [27:00]
Brian Buffini
It is face to face and voice to voice. That's it. It's a relational driven business. You know, I became a. If you've ever seen the movie Field of Dreams, Burt Lancaster plays this doctor and he was this guy and he never quite got his chance. And I always remember him having this little doctor's bag. Remember he had the hat?
- [27:20]
Ethan
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:20]
Brian Buffini
He was, he was beautifully melodramatic in his whole career. Burt Lancaster. And there's a role, there's a chance in the field of dreams, he gets to come back and be a baseball player as a kid again. And Kevin Costner's character, his daughter swallows a hot dog and she's choking. So here he is. He has a chance to play with all the greats. It's his dream. And he's now an old man. He's become young again. And he steps over the line and becomes this old doctor and he pats this gal on the back and he gets the hot dog out, gives the Burt Lancaster wink and says, good as new. I envisioned myself to my database as the Burt Lancaster. I was like the family doctor, but I was the family doctor of real estate. So if you were at one of my customers and your roof was leaking, I wanted to be instantly the first person you call. Now most realtors are terrified by that. Oh, my God, I sold them the house. That's a leak. No, I'm the resource to help you find the person who's going to help you solve your problem. And I'm going to find you the right person and then I'm going to check them to make sure they did a great job. I'm going to make sure they do a great job because you're my referral. And I'm going to be in that game because I'm your trusted advisor. If you needed a babysitter and you were newer to town, I wanted to be the first call. I want to be the first person that we want to go out on a date. We'll call Brian. He'll know somebody. I need an accountant, I need an attorney. I need auto detailer. I actually produced Angie's List. Well, I used to have Brian's Referral Book, 1992. Beautifully done book. And all this stuff with all of the best of the best. I will say this, it's 2026. I was. We, Beverly and I were over at our friend's house the other day. They had their Brian's Referral directory from 1994 in the corner. All got the pages tagged. I mean, it like gobbled up. And they said, well, most of the people are still in business. Most of them are. These are all the best people we know. I wanted to be that trusted advisor. So that's what high tech, high touch means to me. I'm there. I'm the voice of value. I'm the resource. I want to be the first point of contact. I'm the problem solver, the fixer. And oh, by the way, when they think about me for needing a detailer, when their roof is leaking, when they need a mortgage, when they need a babysitter, once they're at work or church, at a baseball game, sitting on a bench in Little League, and someone's thinking about buying or selling a home, they go, we're thinking of making a move and upgrading. You got to talk to Brian. Oh, I had one time, I had an experience. I was at a restaurant and a client of mine was at a. I was sitting in a booth. There was a booth next to me. And I didn't know it was a client of mine. And I was sitting down, I was having a quiet moment with my wife, and I heard this voice and I go, that sounds like Dorothy. And I was going to get up and talk, go, go around to see her. And she was New York, she was on Long island, okay. And she was loud. It was a loud restaurant. But you go here. I know it was dark, easy to
- [30:13]
Ethan
pull out of the crowd.
- [30:14]
Brian Buffini
And it turns out she's talking. So I'm about to get up. It Turns out she's talking to a friend of her she's having lunch with and the friends asking about real estate. And she goes, and I'm literally getting up out of the booth to go say hi and I hear she goes, if you don't work with Brian, you're a moron.
- [30:29]
Ethan
Yeah.
- [30:30]
Brian Buffini
And I went and I sat back down, you know, and I'm like. And that was referrals in action.
- [30:35]
Ethan
Yeah.
- [30:36]
Brian Buffini
So people go, how did a 26 year old sell 127 homes a year with almost no advertising budget? Is because I had Dorothy's all over the place telling people they were morons if they didn't use me. By the way, you know, one of the greatest referrals I ever got her because she moved from Long island to Delmare. I can't find a hairdresser, Brian. I found Dorothy a hairdresser because I'm, I'm the connector. And by the way, did I know the hairdresser to get her? No, I didn't. My bride's an African American gal. Black hair, white girl hair is different. Okay. So I had to go calling around some of my best customers in the same age bracket as her. And then I called up the hairdresser, said, hey, an important client of mine, I referred to you by so and so, would you let her? And I, I called her, said, hey, she's set up for you. Go down, she'll give you a free wash. Just check her out, see if you like her. That's how it started. What has that got to do with real estate? Nothing. What's that got to do with being the trusted advisor? So that for me, AI Aspirin High tech is so I can spend time being Burt Lancaster and I'm the guy that will spend his whole career. And that's what the truth of the matter is. It had to be something very compelling. The speaking and training made me, allowed me to be Burt Lancaster to an entire industry or I never would have left real estate. I still miss it. It's 30 years, I still miss it. And it was a calling. I'm not going to be sitting here, oh, what was me? I mean I did, I did good. Life is good. I enjoy what I do. But I really miss the real estate business and I love being that. And so now it's just, I get to do it on a different scale. And I have a couple of hundred Burke Lancasters working for me. Being the family doctor to those people.
- [32:22]
Bo Benjamin
Yeah.
- [32:22]
Ethan
And Brian is going to help a lot more people with Ask Brian it's coming soon. 30 years of content, 30 years of insight all put into AI for you to ask with the phone that's already in your pocket or your purse any time of the day or night. Thanks so much for letting me ask, Brian.
- [32:45]
Brian Buffini
Well, welcome to Coach Em Up. We're out here on the patio in beautiful Kapalua in Maui getting ready for our peak experience event. Longtime member, great guy Bo Benjamin is here from Indianapolis, right?
- [32:57]
Bo Benjamin
Yep.
- [32:58]
Brian Buffini
And so Bo's in town. We're going to have a good time the next few days.
- [33:02]
Bo Benjamin
Absolutely.
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Brian Buffini
How can I help you and coach him up? What's your question, Bo?
- [33:05]
Bo Benjamin
Well, we met before and I asked you a very important question to me which was how did you balance the business growth that you had and your family? And you recommended the first thing, first book to me, which I read and I loved. And so now I want to dig more mature into that question. So the question is now I'm very comfortable with the priorities, the God family, business, and when I make a decision to where I'm going to sacrifice some business for, to make sure I'm at my son's game or something more important, I can rest easy at night. I know that's the long term correct answer. What I'm trying to figure out now that I need help with is that inner Olympian just fights that. And so while I'm at peace, I know I did the right thing. There's still something inside me. It's like that you can do more, you can go get more, you can go do more business. And so it's that constant struggle of trying to figure out and just be peaceful with what's going on.
- [34:04]
Brian Buffini
Great contentment. And so I'm going to give you three pieces to this. I always typically have three. That's all I care. One is you got to learn to be content with your goals. So when you set a goal, the goal is to be content with it. Like if your, your goal is to settle 40 homes a year and you're on track to sell 40 homes a year, you're in Olympia and you're driven, you're on track. You know what I started doing is I, my top year in real estate, I sold 127 homes. The following year my goal was to sell 90. But I wanted to raise my average sales price 150,000. And so what I ended up doing, I ended up doing 97. I had raised my average sales price by 200,000. And my goal was in the game I play, I don't really ever teach on this, my goal was to do it in 30 hours a week. Wow. And so I would have a little egg timer. I did this whole thing and I sometimes created more stress for myself than I needed. But my goal was how could I do this in 30, 30 hours a week? So first thing is, what's your clear goal? And if you're winning, allow yourself to win. The second thing, and you're a software guy, is there's a reason we've just done this major initiative with Inside Real Estate and Bow Trail. The combination of so what's going to happen? And you're here to hear about us. We're taking Bow Trails Technology, the leading CRM in real estate, along with AI technology, along with our referral methodologies and principles, along with the thing called Ask Brian, which is like having me with you 24, 7 and 30 years of teaching and training like this. And the goal is this. Right now the Average person spends 19% of their day doing admin and 18% of their day doing email. And our goal is to shrink that up. And so in the test we've done with this, we've. How about this? How do you like this? An hour and 15 minutes a day.
- [35:52]
Bo Benjamin
I think I have that to spare.
- [35:53]
Brian Buffini
So an hour and 15 minutes a day is what we're getting back in people's schedule. Sometimes that's going to be devoted to business. Sometimes that might be for going for a walk, sometimes that might be going for lunch with your bride, whatever it is. So goals, technology and efficiency. And then lastly, you know, you're here at peak experience with the best of the best agents that have been doing it for years, that have huge businesses. And the third piece here is not just your goals and the technology and efficiency, it's also expanding your horizons. There's 500 people here in Maui and many of them have built phenomenal businesses, giant careers. You've met many of them in the past. You're a phenomenal guy. And the goal is to get that real connected, authentic interaction. You're going to talk with people who are doing 100 deals a year and they're doing a fairly stress free. You're going to talk with people who got over the hump with I'm guilty when I'm with my family and I'm not with my clients and I'm guilty when I'm with my, my clients and not with my family. And they've gone through that. So right now, to me, you know, we were starting here today and you're like, hey, my son's At a game today, and I'm going to do this interview with you, but then I'm going to run off and see my son play his game. Well, that's kind of the deal, you know, that's kind of the deal. And you do the best you can with it. The main thing is this. What I did for my family that changed my world is I set a set of goals. And then I went home with Beverly and I asked her to share her goals. And then we melded them together so it became us. So the first team was me and my bride. This is what we're about. And that's like, okay, now what's it going to take to get that? What are we willing to give up? What are we not willing to give up? What's the non negotiables? Right? What's the date nights for us? Sunday we're going to church. We're hanging together as a family. I didn't do much business on Sundays. And so then there was things. Okay, you know, Monday was always after a weekend, was a big day for me. And sometimes that was a lot of listing appointments and things like that. So Monday, Wednesday, Thursday actually were my big days. Saturday was a lot of when I was doing showings, and then Sunday, I didn't really work in the last five years. Sundays, we knew what night date night was, was always Friday. And then as the kids got older, so six kids playing three sports each now. So imagine this now. So now for 30 years, I'm traveling all over the world and my demands, like, if I do 100 seminars, people complain I didn't do 120. So what happens to this day, Beverly and I sit down. In fact, we're about to do it on our last day here in Mali for next year because my schedule for 27 is already pretty much booked. Here's the schedule, here's the calendar. What's our time? What's the family time? What's the commitments? We have grandkids now. Some of them live out of state. That goes into the calendar first, and then I hand the rest to the business. And I have 14 departments and hundreds of employees who'd like to have me 24, seven. Oh, can you get on the Brian Feeney show? Oh, we need you for the events, we need you for training, we need you for product. We need you in meetings. Coaches want to hear from you, clients want to hear from you. It's like, first priorities. That's first things first, and then you manage the demands. And then it's this. Then I'M at peace. I'm also, lastly, I'm at peace saying no to people.
- [38:57]
Bo Benjamin
Yeah.
- [38:58]
Brian Buffini
So I love people. I want to serve people. I want to help people. But I'm, I'm, I'm good at saying now. And I'll finish with this. I have a plaque on my wall at Buffining company and it's from Warren Buffett. And he says the difference between successful people and hugely successful people is hugely successful people say no to almost everything.
- [39:17]
Bo Benjamin
Yeah.
- [39:17]
Brian Buffini
You've heard me say that before. You're at the stage now where you're going to get a chance to say no because you've earned the right. Yeah. So good job, man.
- [39:24]
Bo Benjamin
Thank you.
- [39:24]
Brian Buffini
Glad you made it.
- [39:25]
Bo Benjamin
I'm thankful for your wisdom.
- [39:26]
Brian Buffini
Appreciate you, bud.
- [39:27]
Bo Benjamin
Thank you.
- [39:29]
Brian Buffini
Well, thanks for watching today's episode. Hope you learned something you can use and felt encouraged by it. Now, please remember to like and subscribe. And if you're still listening to us, check us out on YouTube. It's great to watch the show. There's all kinds of cool stuff they're able to show visually that's more than just the audio experience. And when you like and subscribe, subscribe. That way you won't miss any new episode that comes out. It's also a great way to help us share it with other people. Like and subscribe. Help us grow this program. We'll see you soon.