Welcome to another episode of Golden Nuggets Tips & Tales
powered by Property Finder. The leading property platform
and number one property app in the region driving more leads
and transactions than any other platform.
This is where SuperAgents and smart home seekers meet even
smarter tech because behind every great listing and every
hot lead is technology that works harder so you don't have
to. I'm back with Jack Simpson,
sales director at Edwards and Towers, 96 % of his agents are
property finder super agents. Round of applause for that
achievement. Yeah, well done team.
It's them, not me. Now let's talk about technology
and AI because it's a hot topic right now.
There's been a few claims that AI is coming to replace real
estate agents. What's your thoughts on that?
AI ever replace the real estate agent?
um Look, let's be honest, an off-plan agent is pretty much a
financial planner. There isn't much real estate
about that. that's been my job over the last few years. um A
real estate agent where you go and show homes to people and we
discussed emotion and... the why people are looking at properties
and, you know, having that emotional attachment to that
client, it will always be there. However, I am a huge fan of AI.
I don't think the machines are coming to take over just yet.
They might take over uh off plan sales.
Yeah. I think with more and more
transparency in the market and as it matures, which Property
Finder's done extremely well is to provide tools, not only to
agents for them to inform their clients to make better
decisions, but when that then rolls out to clients, you can
see transactions on the listings now of what was previously uh
sold or rented for, which is fantastic.
Just provides more visibility for clients.
And as that... evolution occurs where data points that were only
for professionals become public. I think the client will be able
to get right the way down the funnel, the sales funnel
themselves without employing an individual or a professional,
right up to the point where they're making a decision.
And that point they need to obviously interact with
potentially a human. Well, it could be a human on
behalf of the developer directly rather than having an agent.
So yeah. you know, who knows what the future holds.
I think the efficiencies or the systems within a business,
that's going to be the, the, the real, uh, the real impact for
AI. What's going to, what's going to
happen there. So what's in, what's in your
toolkit? I mean, look, we've, we've, I've
explored everything, right? Um, so I've explored the, the AI
agent to call out. which sounds like me, which is crazy. it
sounds like a robot. No, it sounds like Jack, but
it's the language model that's not quite there yet and the
latency. So the language model you would
effectively tell it a script. So if somebody says this, then
you take the direction of this. And, but if someone, if the AI
agent calls up and says, Hello, this is Jack.
How are doing today? And the person goes, I'm
terrible. I've, you know, I've just lost
my cat or whatever it obscure thing is that somebody says a
human would be able to respond to that.
But the AI agent will just say, that's great.
I'm sorry to hear that. eh And have you, you know, have you
looked up the tree or whatever the, you know, it finds out
through the internet, but there's also a delay on that,
which is awkward. Yeah, it is.
And people will pick that up and say, this is AI.
And I think the government here in Dubai in particular will um
have the ability to limit AI being able to reach people
because it's leaving people exposed.
And you don't want to be misled thinking you're speaking to Jack
when actually you're speaking to Jack's AI representative. you
hear all these horrendous stories of grandmothers in the
UK that are being targeted from, all over the world, whether you
know, their bank accounts are ultimately empty because
somebody's acting as Amazon or, know, their internet provider or
gas services, whatever. if people start then using AI to
do, to do harm to people, there's gonna, there's gonna be
some, um, restrictions and Dubai will be the first to do that.
And I think, and I think it's really important that they get
that right because otherwise You know AI agents regardless of
industry will be calling people all day every day every hour of
the day It's unlimited. So you dabbled in that and
decided to wait. Yeah.
And I looked at it a lot and I also looked at kind of sales
automations and funnels and where we can employ AI and where
it's going to save time. But fundamentally when we do
transition and it's going to happen, we can't fight it.
It will happen. When we do transition, into that
world, it's going to be really special that somebody is
actually dealing with an actual human being and somebody that
they can trust. So, I mean, you're probably
seeing it now on social media, some of the videos, it's really
difficult to differentiate AI and a normal human. one piece of
advice that I would probably give, and that's what I'm
personally doing is, making sure that I'm focusing a lot more
time and attention to my own personal brand of me online and
me giving real life case studies of maybe some of the clients
that I'm working with and some of the properties that I've
helped them source and purchase and also have some testimonials
on there so that when this change or this shift does
happen, people can look and go, you know what?
That's a human and they've done the job and they... can advise
me correctly and I'm comfortable in dealing with them because all
I want to do is just try and find a human.
Yeah. You're building your personal
brand. Trying to.
It's hard work, but yeah, when
you start in real estate, it's something that people advise you
to do. And then when you look back and
you haven't done it, you kick yourself because as we know the
most experienced and Uh, most successful agents now are the
ones that are self-sufficient on referral basis and lead
generation coming through their own trusted personal branded
pages. Um, but I'm trying and it just,
it was just one of those where throughout my real estate
career, was either helping clients, helping colleagues,
managing people, building systems, hiring people, you
know, that it just, it runs away from your time.
Not dancing on Tik TOK. Not yet.
Actually, I was approached yesterday in a very unique way
that I actually responded to for the first time.
And I'll give this as as a golden nugget to everyone
listening. get hundreds of messages on LinkedIn every week.
Yeah. And, um, even to the point where
it's, you know, I don't respond, apologies. and then they keep
following up and then they typically end it with, did I say
something wrong? And that really gets on my
nerves. when they say, I say, cause then they're trying to
take it like emotional. Yeah, but that's an automated
software system. Is it?
Yeah. I feel misled.
Okay. All right.
Well, it's annoying. I don't respond even to, I say
something You have plugins on LinkedIn and LinkedIn hasn't,
hasn't been able to stop it yet. Okay.
I don't feel so bad for ghosting them now. that was, was an
automated process and that's AI kind of.
But it's annoying. So, it's, it will get no
business out of me. Yeah.
But. someone did send me a voice note on LinkedIn yesterday.
And of course I get voice notes all day long on WhatsApp and I'm
used to that. But because it was out of
character for the LinkedIn platform, I was like, well, I'm
going to press play. And I played it and it was a
very lovely message, very professional.
And he was reassuring me that I'm sending you a voice note so
that you know I'm not AI. And I really appreciated that.
And guess what I did back? Sent him a voice note.
So it's kind of like, I, what was he selling?
He was actually selling. He hasn't responded yet, but he
was like, if you something to do with podcasting SEO, um, yeah,
something like that. And I get tons of those in a
day. Like optimize your YouTube
channel. It's like my YouTube channel is
just doing fine. I like you real people. like you
real humans. Like engage, do what you want,
but. It's not, you know, I don't want
to, I don't want to hack the system.
Whoever's watching enjoys it and whoever likes it shares it.
Um, but yeah, I just thought again, it's, it's dealing with
people, different behaviors on different platforms.
I wasn't expecting a voice note on LinkedIn.
It was refreshing and it was refreshing and I listened to it.
So that's a little golden nugget tip for you all.
Voice notes LinkedIn. Do a quick voice, but then also
it's got to feel authentic. So that's the thing.
Like people are trying to focus more on being sounding authentic
rather than automated or scripted or, yeah.
So had he said, hi Silvia I'd like to tell you about our pro,
no, was just such a casual voice note.
And I was like, you seem pretty cool.
Reply. And I replied, I don't, well,
he's not the same business. Everyone on LinkedIn is just
selling, selling, selling, right?
It's just like, Well, it's no different to real estate
industry. You feel like you're constantly
being sold to. Constantly.
So come at your clients, come at your leads with a slightly more
refreshing approach. Yeah.
And that is the human element of why.
And AI won't ever have that, I don't think. m Which is why
it's, you know, really important now more than ever is to cement
your personal brand online. Yes, the systems that the
business will probably roll out, which we're looking at
seriously. I mean, even like the listing
module that we use, um the text that we can just plug in chat,
GPT, and it's giving you a listing for two bed and the
address or whatever, and it's there.
It's probably better than... uh better in terms of grammar than
what I could ever write. And I'm a native English
speaker, terrible English at school, the way.
But yeah, so it's exciting. when you look at the fundamentals of
a real estate business, there's photo, video, editing.
We have a library of stock images anyway, which you can
then rotate. can then, uh it's email campaigns, all the
creative, WhatsApp campaigns to some degree with chat bots built
in. You've then got the call
systems. It's like, oh my God, this is
amazing. Right the way through as well to
kind of like finance and payroll, HR, all of that can be
streamlined now. And it's great, but it's also
leaving people a little bit worried, which I understand.
I mean, if you're a taxi driver in the US, I'd be very worried.
Yeah, be worried, Tesla's going to turn on the self-driving next
year. And if you're a taxi driver over
there, that's the first major industry drivers that's going to
be kind of, Oh my God, what do I do?
I've driven all my life. And it's not just like taxis,
it's chauffeurs, it's logistics companies, big trucks driving
over the U S it's all going to be self-driving.
It's going to put a lot of people out of work.
So be prepared for it, but adapt to it.
Don't be scared. And build your personal brand.
Build your personal brand. What tech can't you live
without? But technology for me, I
absolutely love it. think the systems that we've put in place
as a business now, predominantly for visibility on the business
metrics on success of individuals inside the company
and their activity metrics for us as a leadership team is
super, super important. And, you know, we've got several
systems that we're very proud of that not many other businesses
have. And that was something that at
Edwards and Towers, we were taking a really old brand and
bringing it into today's modern age.
And, um, and it's worked really well.
Um, but tech systems for me personally, I mean, the one
thing that a new agent has to have, and that's because they're
building their own network is just a simple broadcast list on
WhatsApp, especially if they're a community specialist.
And I say this all the time to new agents is just have your own
little list of people that you can. market to have saved your
number and can see how busy you are and what you're doing and
how you're adding value and sending information because I've
still got broadcast lists now that I ping out a few messages
to and always something comes back and even if it's just,
Jack, nice to hear from you, you know, it's those relationships
and you can nurture those relationships and still provide
value to people down the line for many years to come from just
being on top of that contact list. great.
All right. Well, thank you very much for
that. Hope you enjoyed that episode.
And no, we don't think AI is going to replace real estate
agents, but get working on your personal brands and get ready
for the changes. Hope you enjoyed that.
Catch Jack's other episodes and while you're at it, binge the
whole season.