The Agent Mistake Costing You Millions with Tom Ferry & Josh Altman

HousingWire

This week on RealTrending, Tracey Velt talks with Tom Ferry, founder of Tom Ferry International, and Josh Altman, celebrity real estate agent with The Altman Brothers Team at Douglas Elliman.  They dive into Tom and Josh’s new partnership, discussing the gap they saw in the market for affordable, high-quality training and how they're combining Tom's coaching expertise with Josh's proven sales strategies. They also talk about the importance of discipline, branding, and AI in today's market, plus the common mistakes that prevent agents from reaching their potential.  Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:  How Tom and Josh identified the need for accessible, world-class training for agents  Why 6% of agents control 60% of listings and what separates top performers  The biggest mistakes agents make: insufficient follow-up for top performers and inadequate marketing for everyone else  Josh's approach to being a "24/7 agent" and building a brand that attracts global buyers  How AI is transforming marketing and why agents need to update their social media bios  The importance of content creation and being a "chameleon" in an ever-changing market  Why both experts believe AI-enabled agents will dominate the future of real estate  Related to this episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠The Altman Brothers⁠ https://www.thealtmanbrothers.com/ ⁠Tom Ferry⁠ https://www.tomferry.com ⁠Josh Altman | LinkedIn⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejoshaltman/ ⁠Tom Ferry | LinkedIn⁠ http://linkedin.com/in/tomferry1 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HousingWire | YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠More info about HousingWire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://lnk.bio/housingwire  To learn more about Homebot, click ⁠⁠⁠here.⁠⁠⁠ https://homebot.ai/  The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

Transcript

00:00Are you ready to seriously make some money? Well, if you are, you're going to really enjoy

00:04this podcast. They go into AI, marketing, branding. And who are they? It is Tom Ferry,

00:11the founder of Tom Ferry International, and Josh Altman, the celebrity real estate agent with the

00:18Altman brothers of Douglas Elliman. And they spill all their secrets about how agents can

00:24be successful in the next year. And a special thanks to HomeBot for sponsoring the Real

00:29Trending podcast. So I've got two industry greats on the podcast today. I want to welcome Tom Ferry

00:36and Josh Altman to the Real Trending podcast. Well, thank you. I would say three greats. We

00:40were just saying this off the line, Tracy. We've interviewed everybody and you've been a legend

00:44of the space forever. So thanks for having us on the show. Good to see you again, Tracy. It's only

00:48been what, eight, 10 years? Exactly. I know. It's been a while. You definitely, you said I had

00:54baby, baby Josh on the show when I interviewed you. Oh, now I've got grown up Josh. Yeah, yeah. Now

01:04you got grown up Josh, tired Josh with two kids. Yeah. Well, I'm going to start with Tom. So

01:10obviously you and Josh have both built powerful brands based on performance and you're partnering

01:16up right now. So what gap did you see in the market that led to this partnership? So I've been

01:23obviously admired Josh for a long, long time. And it was probably, I'm thinking Josh, maybe two years

01:28ago, your wife and my wife were all walking Belleville Island, ran into each other. And I said

01:33to my wife, you know, Josh lives in Newport. We should do something together. And then Josh,

01:37you should really tell the story because I know why I did it. But Josh, that's all the origin of this.

01:43It's kind of a love fest with Tom and I, you know, look, I, even in real estate, as far as agents

01:50go, I I've at a point now where I respect the competition, right? I respect the people I go up

01:56against all the time. Tom is a little different because he's not on the agent side, but man,

02:01do I respect what he's done for our industry. And also a lot of the people that also work for me and

02:08with me. And, uh, so over the years, we've kind of missed each other on stage a lot, doing different

02:14speaking engagements around the world. An opportunity came up and you know, it was, it's all about timing.

02:20It's just like in real estate. It's all about timing. I spoke at Tom's global event, which was

02:24insane. It was like 7,000 people in the crowd, another 15,000 or 20,000 online. And I look at

02:31Tom, I'm like, man, we, can we do something? And that was it. And, and what's cool about it

02:37is we're, we're so alike, right? But we're also so different in our process to get to the same place.

02:45And that's what I like about it. So why don't you explain to the audience who might not know

02:49what we're talking about, um, exactly what you're doing together. So obviously, you know, we, we

02:54built a large and thank you guys for always the recognition, a large coaching and training business.

02:58And what we saw that was missing was, you know, I've got all these amazing coaches in four different

03:04countries. We've got clients in 29 countries around the world. It would be really fun for us to say,

03:09let's take someone like a Josh, right? Josh does $4.2 million a day in sales every day,

03:15365 days a year. He's built this incredible empire. And when he came to me and said,

03:20I want to do training for like every agent around the world at a super low cost. Cause what I want

03:25to do is I want to like open up my playbook and I want to show them everything I've done to get here.

03:31I was like, I'm in, let's go. So, so Josh is the face. Josh is the star, right? My company just

03:37knows how to package and organize and market and, you know, do the customer service and the billing

03:41stuff. So, so like, even like in a few days, Josh Altman is going to get in front of a bunch of our

03:47clients now, our combined clients and say, this is my entire listing presentation. If I'm going up

03:53against on a $2 million condo or a $150 million appointment, this is the process that I use. And

04:00I think what that means to the listener is if you can step into the mind of someone doing $4.2

04:07million a day in sales, there is so much to learn from that person. But more importantly,

04:13we all know, and it's cliche, it's motivational and stupid, but like success leaves clues.

04:18So if Josh shows this to high-end sellers and it gets him the listing, then I'm going to be

04:23inclined to like cut Josh's head off, put my head on, change maybe the company name and add it into my

04:28listing presentation. Instead, we're going to do Tracy literally everything in his business over the

04:34next, say 12 to 18 months and literally break down everything that he's doing. So the everyday

04:39agent can take that information and go, I'm stealing that. That's what it's all about.

04:44And this is for someone, whether they have like a $200,000 listing or a $20 million listing, correct?

04:50Or $200 million listing. I mean, it's interesting when we look at the, again, we just, Josh, we just

04:55launched a couple of weeks ago and we've got, you know, call it sub 300 new, you know, clients.

05:00You know, the goal is, could we help 15,000 people on a monthly basis? R&D, which you don't,

05:07you know, Tracy, I call that like rip off and duplicate the best of what Josh does.

05:11Yeah. And, and, and Tracy, for me, it was, it's about timing, right? I've done a lot of what I want

05:19to do and accomplish in my career. Of course, I'm obsessed with what I do and I'm constantly going to

05:24go to battle every day for these listings and to sell these houses. But there was a time when I

05:29wouldn't do this because I didn't want everybody to know what I was doing. And I think that's really

05:35important. It's like, for instance, like Tom said, I'm going to, I'm just going to show my listing

05:40package to everybody because I want to, and it's going to help people. It's going to help them

05:45achieve what I needed when I was in the business in 2007. I just lost everything and,

05:52and the economy just collapsed. And I decided, okay, I'm not going to be a mortgage broker

05:56anymore because I can't sell a loan. So now I'm going to be a real estate agent. And man,

06:01if I had this stuff at that time, I would have achieved a lot more success in a, in a quicker

06:09timeframe. And I'm happy to do that. Now the coolest part for me out of the hundred or so agents

06:15that work for me from LAOC, San Diego, Scottsdale, or Vegas, the coolest thing is seeing these people

06:21come in the door being okay. Real estate agents, you know, I, I, I saw something in them, whatever

06:27it may be. And now they're selling 200 million, 300 million a year. And I've seen them come up

06:34that at this point in my life, just because I feel like everything in my life, I'm a dad too,

06:39because I have children. I feel like I'm the father of their success with this. And that is the

06:46coolest thing. That's better than any other commission. And, uh, uh, so, so really that's

06:51why the timing works with, with Tom and everything. Yeah. It's that servant leadership, right? You, uh,

06:56you enjoy bringing other people up and I love that it's accessible to all agents. Um, you know,

07:03because coaching can be expensive and not always accessible to agents who are just starting out or,

07:09um, you know, not really selling a lot. So I thought that was a really cool idea.

07:14Yeah. And look, that, that approach was like this, no, no crazy contracts. None of that stuff. I said

07:20to Tom and we both agreed very quickly, listen, people want to be there. Great. If they don't

07:26anymore, all good, much love, have a great, have great success. That's not, look, this is not my

07:32business, so to speak. Like I'm still going to sell $4 million a day of real estate for the,

07:37like I did for the past 2000 days. Like that machine is still going to happen and I'm still going

07:42to do my thing. If people want it, I'm going to give it to them at such a level that it's everything

07:48that I've done exactly in my playbook to get to where I am minus the TV show. And you don't need

07:54the TV show. Yeah. Yeah. I think the TV show is one of those difficult things to get. So it's not

08:01like anybody can do it. Um, I want to pick your brains a little bit about, um, agent success. And,

08:08um, I'll start with Tom, what do you see is the biggest mistakes agents make that hinder their

08:15success in real estate? You and I both know, and Josh certainly knows this, there's levels of agents.

08:21So, so if I was just going to speak to the first six months of this year, 6% of the real estate

08:27agents in the U S like Josh controlled 60% of the listings sold and 23% of the agents did the balance

08:36to the 40%. So you're really looking at call it 90,000 agents that are controlling the list side.

08:41And Tracy, you and I both know, Josh certainly knows teams skew the numbers, you know, brokers

08:46skew the numbers, business partners skew the numbers, but we're still talking about a very

08:50small category of agents that are controlling the industry. That group is very different from the 71%

08:57that are missing the market on the listing sold side of the business. They can maybe be great with buyers,

09:01but they're missing the controlling element, which is the listing side. So I would say

09:05for the best, the six and the 23%, the biggest mistake that we're seeing right now, and I have

09:11data to back this up is they're not following up enough that they figured out like Josh's Josh is in

09:19the media and marketing business and his product is houses, right? I'm in the media and market business

09:24and my product is events and training and coaching. So these agents have figured out how to get a

09:30velocity of leads and opportunities. And they've got multiple ways that they generate clients,

09:34but without, without saying the client's name, cause he'd probably kill me. One of my clients,

09:40he was at September of this year, he's at 1200 transactions for the year. So he's running a team

09:44and we decided, Josh, you'll love this. Ready? Josh, actually you're going to, you'll have a love

09:50hate relationship with this. We looked at every agent that did a single party show agreement in

09:56the first, call it nine months of the year, right? Technically eight, cause it was kind of beginning

10:00of September. And then we did an MLS search to see, did any of those people buy a house from someone

10:06else? So they're at 1200 transactions, but they lost 518 transactions. So they signed a single party

10:14show agreement. And then Josh, they bought a house from somebody else. Crazy. I mean, first of all,

10:20the, the gentleman that is running this team is, is, you know, tomorrow's veterans day. He's the

10:25veteran. I was like, when I told him, I'm like, do you have a gun in the office? I want to tell you

10:32this number that we just discovered, but you're, you know, you're going to kill somebody. Here's my

10:36point. Sales cycles are longer than they've ever been because of, you know, inventory, because of,

10:41you know, the cost of money, you know, real estate, you know, mortgages, et cetera, follow-up

10:46for the best agents is the single biggest issue for everybody else. It's, they're not doing enough

10:52marketing and lead generation. We look at all the data right on, whether it's Zillow or sold or

10:56realtor.com, Google, everybody's converting between like one and 3%. When you look at the numbers,

11:02what that tells us is the leads aren't bad, right? We just need a lot more of them.

11:07So if I'm, if I'm in that other category and I want more listings, I've got to have

11:10AI doing my job. I've got to be thinking about expired listings starting in January,

11:15the $2 billion commission jump ball of all those properties, Josh, that are about to expire that

11:21your team should get every one of them. They need to be about more consistency marketing and lead

11:25generation. So long answer. It's very bifurcated. This group needs to follow up. This group needs to

11:31market. Great. Josh, do you have any comments on that? Yeah. I mean, look, it's funny. Tom knows

11:37statistics better than anybody I've ever met. You see, I'm the guy who just goes, yeah, 5% of us

11:43sell 95% of the business. That's it. It's very simple. Like out of a hundred agents, I know the

11:49five that do every, every deal. And that's that. But I will tell you, look, the difference of what I

11:54call the hitters and the non hitters is, is, is very simple. It's discipline, right? Discipline is

12:02huge. Especially when you get up to the, the cream of the crop, when it comes to agencies,

12:07agents are disciplined. They also, their, their brand, their job, their brand, everything,

12:14they're a walking billboard for their business. And, uh, uh, everything they do reflects on their

12:20business. You have to be obsessed with what you do when you start to get to the upper echelon

12:26of those levels. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's what Tom said is statistically exact. And what I like

12:36about the way that Tom and I look at things is we can sit in a room and he has that approach of the

12:40coach. And I have that approach of the agent. Most of the stuff we do agree on, but it, there's a lot

12:49of things we don't agree on, which is also what I like. Cause it gives these students two different

12:54angles, which I love. Um, but yeah, look at, at, at the end of the day, uh, uh, this program that

13:01we've put together and have Tom, you know, running the, the backend of it, especially because that's

13:05important for us. That's important as far as, you know, you get one reputation in our business

13:10and I can tell you from what I've seen over the years, uh, the reputation of a lot of people that

13:16are in the coaching side of the business. It's, that's not what I want. That's not where I want to

13:20be. So it was very, I had to, we had to be very particular about who we, who we partner up with.

13:25And, uh, uh, so that's why we did choose to do it with Tom and, uh, and, and his company. And,

13:31and it's great. And we're having a lot of fun. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. I'm not

13:35going to lie. It's a lot of work, but we're, uh, we're enjoying doing it. And the feedback that

13:40we've gotten so far has been amazing. So when you say consistency and lead generation,

13:45um, what is the perfect mix of lead generation? Is it portals? Is it your own sphere? Is it your,

13:54you know, your database? What is that perfect mix and, or is there really no perfect mix? It's

13:59just what you really, your mind goes to. Oh yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll grab this one. I'll

14:04shoot it, shoot it over to Tom. So every agent is different, right? Where I started pounding the

14:12pavements and pounding the phones. That's how I started this business. I didn't know anybody.

14:16People see me on million dollar listing. They go, Oh, this guy must be connected. His parents

14:20must be in real estate, whatever it is. Didn't know any of that. And unfortunately my parents

14:24were not in real estate. Uh, it, my dad was delivering babies. So I couldn't go into that

14:30business because I was not going to go to another eight years of school. So for me, the way that I,

14:34I run my business and that I, I go out there, I'm a 24 seven guy and I love to be in people's

14:39faces, right? That's, that's how I do my business. Everywhere I go, I'm doing deals because of the

14:46people that I'm meeting is going to be a lot different than a lot of Tom students, for instance,

14:51where it's going to be something where it's hitting the phones a hundred times a day, hitting the doors

14:56a hundred times a day. And it's, it's doing reps all day long. And so it's a, it's a nice mix of that.

15:01Yeah. I would tell you, um, studying all of our clients. So, so not giving you like some anecdotal

15:07insight. I'll tell you, when we look at the top six lead generation systems, Josh is spot on,

15:13right? It's, you know, my client in Toronto, Ontario is going to be different from my client

15:17in Miami as an example. So everybody's going to be a little bit different, but we start first with,

15:22Hey, your database, your past clients, your centers of influence and how many times you touch

15:26and connect with them and the percentage you get from referrals, right? Direct transactions and

15:30referrals. And then it's going to be things like geographic farming and open houses, all the things that

15:35you would expect a really smart agent. Who's going to have a wide variety of lead sources that are

15:40going after. Then you're going to look at everything from like online advertising, which primarily is

15:44going to be their Google business page. As an example, uh, obviously content creation is, we look at that

15:51completely different. That's more branding. And then candidly, if you look at things like expired

15:56listings or the silver tsunami, which are these enormous opportunities to serve a lot of clients, a lot of

16:03people are paying attention to those as well, Tracy. So what I tell people is remember, remember,

16:08like I love Lucy and the chocolate factory. Yes. Yeah. I mean, Josh, when you see this funny old

16:18television show, her and Ethel in the chocolate factory around the conveyor belt, all these chocolates

16:23are coming down and I'm like, those are leads, right? And they, when it's going slow, they got time to

16:28package them up and nurture them and, you know, put them inside the box. What I'm telling people today is

16:32you need to have way more marketing, way more leads today than certainly you did in 21 or 22,

16:37right? So you got to turn up the volume on all your marketing. So you got so many chocolates coming

16:44down the conveyor belt, you've got options, right? And you got more choices. So I would just tell people

16:49like whatever you're currently doing, that's working double and triple down. And then the one thing that

16:55everyone's going to miss if they don't pay attention is the geo, the AI search game. So we do a lot

17:01of work on build your profile the right way, make sure you're on all the right sites. And then

17:05ultimately make sure that the, you know, the search engines, the, in this case, the AI, right? The GEO

17:11you're the agent that's showing up. Josh was super fun. I'm like, Hey Josh, congrats. I was like,

17:15who's the best agent list my house was in Beverly Hills. And as long as you're in the top two or three,

17:19you're winning. Yeah. Yeah. I know we've worked really hard at real trends verified to make sure those

17:24agents get, um, you know, noticed in search as well. So, so yeah. Um, well, so what I know Josh

17:33is probably, well, I don't know, but I could guess Josh's answer on branding. Um, so I'm going to go

17:38to Tom on this one. How important is content creation to branding? Do you have to do it as an

17:45agent? I can only think of a few agents, Kurt Rappaport, right? Like Josh, like, I don't, I don't think

17:51I've ever seen a photo on a, anything with him. I can think of another agent, uh, Rob Guillem in

17:56Newport beach and Laguna, but they're like the total one-offs for everybody else. When you look

18:01at all the early studies and even the most recent studies consumers have, let me back up. When it

18:07comes to seeing a house, Josh, don't be offended. They'll let anybody open a door. But when it comes

18:13to listing my house, then it's like, okay, I'm in, I'm on the West side of LA. There's only two or three

18:19agents I want to talk to. And I want to talk to all of them. And I'm looking at, I'm looking at

18:24their brand, their reputation, their social content. What are they saying? How many reviews

18:28they have? Cause sellers are going to be much more analytical. So if I want more sellers,

18:33I've got to be positioned in the search game, the GEO game, and yes, in the branding game.

18:39And that means today that means a lot of content. Yeah. Um, Josh, why don't you tell me what you think

18:45of that and what are you doing, um, from a branding perspective now that your, your brand

18:50is pretty established? Well, look, I, you have to be a chameleon in this business, especially with

18:56everything changing so fast. And I think that's something that my brother, my wife and I, cause

19:01we're, we're all partners, you know, what we pride ourselves on, on being as everything has changed over

19:08the past, you know, decade or so when it comes to AI, you all of a sudden have to become an AI expert.

19:13When it came to YouTube, you had to become a, a YouTube giving tours of housing expert. I mean,

19:18whatever it may be, we did all of it. It constantly changes. And yeah, it's an, it's, it's an investment,

19:24right? Trust me. If it was up to me, I would just sit back and sell houses and, you know,

19:28shake hands and we got a deal. But if you're not doing all this stuff, you're not a true brand.

19:34And I can't tell you how much the brand has got us listings, billions of dollars of listings over

19:40the past decade because of the strength of the brand. People want to feel that they have a global

19:45agent. Okay. Cause all you need is one person to buy a house, especially now that the, the,

19:50the world of real estate, the local real of a world of real estate has become a global world of real

19:56estate with, with buyers coming. It's not just, you know, people locally looking anymore. So you

20:01constantly have to be evolving. You constantly have to be investing in different things when it

20:06comes to social media, AI and all that type of stuff. And you gotta be a chameleon for sure.

20:10So Josh, thinking of like the average agent who isn't selling as much as you or anywhere close to

20:18that, who doesn't have a team who can help him or her, what is the first thing that they can do to

20:24start, to really start their branding while still balancing that with actually generating their leads

20:32and selling? Well, you're going to laugh first. The best thing about social media, it's free.

20:38So if you can't put your brand out there on a platform, that's free, then I don't know what

20:43else I can tell you. So, you know, I used to say this to the agents. I would go on my agent's

20:48Instagram and every once in a while, and I'd be like, Oh, Hey, and I'm just making up a name.

20:54Hey, Mike, funny. I'm on your Instagram right now. Doesn't look like you're a realtor. And I'm pretty

20:59sure you work for the Altman brothers. Why is that? And so you, you know, everything you put

21:05out there, it's your business, it's your billboard. And so, you know, great. If somebody wants to put

21:10bathing suit pictures on their Instagram, but if I'm going to hire you for the biggest investment

21:14of my life, which is 99.9% of the people out there, we're talking about their home, right?

21:20They want someone who is fully immersed in the business. And if not, look, I get it. You want to

21:26do family pictures. Cool. You want to do real estate. Cool. But when you start to lose the

21:30real estate side of that, that's your branding is just getting lower and less valuable and lower

21:35and lower that then, then, you know, you're falling apart there. So you really have to be all in on

21:40every different platform and everything you do. You have, you, you have to, I mean, look, I look at

21:46every deal, every escrow, like it's a startup, like I'm doing another startup business from the

21:51beginning to the end. I'm, I'm, I'm coming out with a listing. My goal is to sell that company,

21:57sell that listing. And so I'm, I'm doing, I don't know, 180 startups a year. I'm failing at about,

22:04like Tom said, about 500 of them, 500 negotiations don't go through. So that's how I look at, at

22:12business, you know, as an overall approach. And I think that's how everybody else has to, and it's free.

22:17So, you know, yeah, of course you can go and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars like I do,

22:22as far as, you know, branding and stuff, but that's because I've done it free and it's worked

22:26and it's now given me the opportunity where I can go and go and spend more money than anybody doing it.

22:33Yeah. And, and Tom, you, you know, you've coached agents who have gone on to become Josh Altman's.

22:41So what do you see as kind of their biggest sticking point or their transition

22:46that they have the hardest time with, um, in making that leap?

22:51If we're talking about the branding side, it's unicorns and donkeys, right? So like,

22:56you know, I was, so Josh, I don't know if I told you this, but I got on YouTube in like 2007.

22:59And prior to that, I was on my place. I was on Beluga. Then I found out I was the only person

23:04on Beluga. So I jumped off that one.

23:07I don't even know what Beluga is.

23:11I sat next to the guy in Laguna Beach and I was like, he's like, yeah, I'm the founder of Beluga.

23:14And I was like, oh, can I invest? He's like, sure. And I'm like, okay, I'll sign up for my

23:18profile. I'm like, it's me. I was the only one, but it was, it was going to be the hot

23:22new social media site. My point is, and Josh said it like, you gotta be a chameleon. You gotta

23:27be everywhere. The, I think the biggest mistake that people make is they think that every piece

23:31of content they put out has to be a unicorn. Like I look at my content, like summer unicorns,

23:38but like, it's like one out of 12 gets really good traction and like the other 11 just do.

23:45Okay. But you know what, when you do it for a year or in my case, since 2007, right? So for,

23:50you know, a decade plus, all of a sudden you wake up and people go, I see you everywhere.

23:55Or I'll go do a seminar someplace in the world. And I'll be like, Hey, how many of you guys have

23:59seen me speak before? And like two hands out of a thousand go up. And literally I just go,

24:04Oh, I felt rejected. Then I go, wait a minute. Who's seen me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram,

24:09YouTube, tech talk, every hand goes up. And I'm like, that's exactly why you have to do it.

24:14So the thing I would say to kind of double down on what Josh said is I would challenge every agent

24:18listening. You need to put up two pieces of content every day for the next three or four years. And you

24:24need to get over the sort of myth that every one of them has got to be good. You got to show stuff with

24:28your hair off, you know, where, you know, your makeup's not right. The lighting isn't good

24:33because it's the body of work that reveals your real brand. And people will fall in love just as

24:39much with the mistakes and the errors and the flubs and the behind the scenes goofiness just as much as

24:45and the family photos and the million dollar listing and the deal that fell apart and the lesson you

24:50learned. It's all of that. We, I will tell you it's organic, the organic stuff. Like I'll go spend a lot

24:57of money on a video, nothing. The organic stuff that costs me nothing. Yeah. It, it, those are the

25:04ones that do the best and tell it, listen, it's just like marketing yourself in a neighborhood.

25:09I left a neighborhood the other day and one guy rules that neighborhood. And you, you started

25:15thinking about how many times you think that agent sends out postcards because I've done that before.

25:21And if you don't constantly hit them every single week with another postcard to the point where

25:27whenever they're thinking about selling their house over the next, you know, whatever, five,

25:3210 years, there's chance that that postcard is going to be in front of that person's face because

25:37they see it so much. I was at the gym this morning. Someone said, Oh, I saw you on TikTok. I don't know

25:42what it was, but it's good because they're seeing it. And that means that that minute when they're

25:46thinking of selling their house, you listen to two things every day, Tom, putting it out,

25:51I'll be the first person to say it. I'm busy. I'm, I'm in showings all day. I got things going on.

25:56I got to deal with my kids. This and that too is a lot, but you have to remember, look, if you're

26:01going to commit and you, this is your life and you want things that you're trying to achieve in life,

26:07you got to do it. It never stops and you got to do it. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so looking ahead,

26:14you know, AI is obviously huge. So, um, Tom, I'll start with you. What skills are you recommending

26:23agents immediately? Um, you know, learn when it comes to AI. So I sit in a unique position

26:31and then I got early access to chat GBT, like in October before I came out in November. Uh,

26:37I'm an investor in both perplexity and grok. So I'm, I'm kind of into this stuff,

26:43have been kind of nerdy since like 2015. Uh, it's very simple. Three things that every agent

26:47should do. Number one, look at your bio. If it doesn't tell me your first name, your last name,

26:51if you like cats and wine, get that out of your bio. Cause no one's like on an AI search going,

26:57I need a cat lover who enjoys Chardonnay. Like they're looking for, right? They're looking for like,

27:03like Josh. So I'm looking at Josh right now. And actually, cause I follow Josh. Here's the

27:09adjustments. So here's what he has, right? He has his name, right? He has the fact that he's a real

27:14estate agent that he, you know, Bravo million dollar real estate, you know, all that, all good

27:17stuff. Offices in LA, OC, San Diego, Arizona, Nevada. That's good. So it shows where he works.

27:22Um, then he has, here's an email address. If you want to connect with us, that's good.

27:27I would add his cell phone inside there. And Josh, I would add the number of reviews you have.

27:34And this is where it gets interesting, Josh, you're not going to do this. Somebody else on the team will do it.

27:37They also need to have how many transactions and volume he's done lifetime and year to date.

27:43And the reason why is the AI. Yeah, you're, you're fired. How come my cell phone is not there? I don't

27:49understand. Exactly. The AI is lazy. So you got to give it exactly what it's looking for. So that's

27:55the first thing. All the bios have to be redone. Second thing you got to go through, you know,

28:00rate my agent, fast experts, sold.com real trends, real verified is always on my list. I give you guys

28:05a shout out every time you need to have that bio done everywhere. And then here's, what's

28:10interesting. So Tracy, I don't know if I should share this. Oh, you have, you're going to laugh

28:16because Josh, you're going to do this. So I'm leading this mastermind. I'm in studio A and studio

28:20B in my office in Dallas. And I got like 35 people there. And the night before we're all having dinner

28:24at my house. And I say, Hey, you guys were all with me in August, you know, Josh, myself, and had this

28:29great rocking event. And I said to you all, if you go to answer the public, right.com, I don't know in the

28:34company, but if you type real estate in, it's going to tell you 2,780 questions consumers are

28:39asking across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, et cetera, et cetera. And you should have a 300 to 500 word

28:45blog written on every one of those posts three to five a day on LinkedIn posts, three to five a day

28:50on your website posts, like three to five on your Google business page. And you're going to basically

28:54give the algorithm of AI that you're the obvious choice. So, so I'm with a bunch of my clients and I'm

29:00like, so how many of you guys have done it? They're like, Oh, we started it. It's already

29:03working. I'm getting calls and people are telling me, Oh, I found you on chat, TBT. And Tracy,

29:07they're all saying the same thing, Josh. They're like, it feels kind of weird. Like it's like early

29:10dating on dating apps. They're like, how did you hear about this? I was on a perplexity,

29:16but here's what we know. We all saw the same stat. 82% of consumers are now searching for houses

29:23and real estate agents on the market using some form of an AI tool. So here's, here's the fun.

29:30So Josh, you'll love this. One of my clients, Mo says, yeah, I know you said do three to five a day.

29:36He's like, so I'm sitting in my house and listen to like Surrey, BC, Canada, I think like Vancouver.

29:40And he goes, and I'm having a glass of wine. And he goes, I get like the first 500 questions.

29:44And I say, write me a 300, 500 word blog. He uses my little, you know, like prompt. And he goes,

29:50it starts spitting out these blogs. And he goes, and I have another glass of wine,

29:52then another glass of wine. And I finally said, screw it. And he put all 500 blogs,

29:57not even reading or editing them on his website. And what he did is he told everybody in the room,

30:02he goes, look, no one goes to my website. I was only doing that to feed the generative search,

30:08to feed the GEO. And I'm like, and what happened? He goes, well, if you go on your own phone,

30:13your own phone is going to be biased. It's going to say, Josh Altman is the number one agent,

30:16right? I love you, Josh. And you know, cause I'm on your phone. But if you go to somebody else's phone,

30:20all of a sudden he's either number one or number two ranked in his marketplace. And he was not there

30:25prior to doing that assignment. Now, am I recommending Josh that like,

30:29Tracy, people start uploading five unread, unedited blogs? No. Maybe. Maybe I am.

30:36Maybe I am because it would be the fast hack. But I actually do think slow and steady always wins.

30:42Take the time to edit it. You know, like it's your brand, right? Like, you know,

30:45I love that. I love that. Todd, every real estate agent on planet Earth should just send

30:52Tom a check right now for giving that information. My gosh. Tom, some stuff you just should keep to

30:59yourself. I'll save it for our clients, Josh. Josh, how are you using AI in your business?

31:06Hold on. I'm downloading 500 things on my website right now. Hang on.

31:10Yeah. Your team's already started on them, right?

31:14Yeah. Well, it's so funny. So, yes, I've now become very quickly, just like everything in my

31:20life, obsessed with AI. Of course, in the beginning, just like everybody else, I was like, nah, I'm good.

31:26It's just another thing I got to learn. We did actually just go out because, you know, look,

31:31those the AI programs are changing so fast. It's literally every single week we went out and we

31:37hire somebody full-time that is an AI specialist in our office. You have to do it. The sellers,

31:43which is really interesting, they're catching on. They haven't specifically caught on yet,

31:50but even just dropping AI in the listing appointment is such a valuable thing. Whether

31:56you do anything with it or not, it's almost been like, ooh, you do AI? Tell me about it. And,

32:02you know, like, hey, like, look, I just got a $35 million listing and they were talking,

32:08it's a horse property. And they were talking about, you know, man, you know, can we, you know,

32:14maybe hire horses? I said, I got one better for you. We don't have to hire horses. I'm going to put

32:19horses in it and they're going to look like they're real. Like for the instance, we have a listing in

32:23Coto de Casa for $125 million. I, yeah, I called around the helicopter companies and it cost me $8,000

32:32to get a helicopter to land in the front lawn. It's annoying because right after that, we hired

32:38the AI guy and he's like, why'd you pay $8,000? I could have just landed a helicopter right in the

32:44front lawn. I said, come on, man. Why are you telling me that right now? And so he redid it

32:49with people getting out in tuxedos. I go, oh my gosh. But, uh, it's, it's really incredible the

32:55things that you can do. And look again, in my business, I got one job and it's to sell the house

33:01and it's get as many eyeballs as possible to see that property. And all of that can be accomplished

33:07with AI. I've actually planned our last three, um, trips with it. Just, you know, we have one

33:13coming up right before Christmas and it's, you know, part shopping, part, you know, uh, sightseeing

33:19and I've already planned daily agendas and itineraries for it with shops that, like I did whole

33:26searches on what exactly we were looking for and stuff. So, so yeah, I love it. Love it.

33:32I think the big, the big next move for everybody is to realize how antiquated Google is. Even with,

33:38even with Gemini coming on board, uh, thank goodness they did that. Cause otherwise my

33:42goodness, like fax me something. That's where Google was sitting in my mind. But now what we're

33:47seeing is everybody's talking to the AI. And I think that's, you know, again, like I'm biased

33:52cause I love, I love Grok for sort of truth and perplexity for easier search, but you know,

33:56whichever one you pick, try just conversing with it more. Yeah. Cause what you're tapping

34:01into is all the data around the world, the smartest people on the planet. Hey, I'm building

34:05out a new platform. I'm a real estate agent and you know, Hoboken, New Jersey. I'm thinking about

34:09doing this, this, this, and this, but before you tell me what to do, let me tell you about my normal

34:13week and how I operate. And I've got two kids and, and you can literally talk to her for like

34:17five minutes and say, now write me a marketing plan. Yeah. And it'll write you a custom marketing

34:22plan based upon you. Yeah. So I think, I think the, you know, I know a lot of conversation is like,

34:27Hey, our real estate professional is going to be needed in the next five to 10 years. Am I

34:31responses? Yeah, they're going to. Yeah. Cause it's a human experience. Yeah. But I think

34:35Josh being an AI enabled agent and every listener being an AI enabled agent, that's going to be the

34:42game changer. Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited about it. Yeah. All right. I just have lightning round.

34:47This is like quick answer. Um, you know, I'm showing the house right now. I'm not even here,

34:53Tracy, this is my AI. Yeah. I, I, I, this suit, it's actually not, I'm not wearing a suit right

35:01now. So this is a great, yeah. Well, it's funny. I actually had a podcast with Tamir Polig and he

35:07was telling me that. And I said, wait, are you real? Are you an AI? He goes, well, I'm real right

35:12now, but it could be my AI you interview next. So, so yeah, you never know. Um, so Josh, what's

35:19one daily habit you never skip? One daily habit, uh, visualization, uh, before I even

35:24get out of bed, cause it takes me a minute cause I'm 46 and I can't just jump out of bed

35:27like I used to. Um, I go through all my deals in my head, what I'm going to do, any of the

35:32big negotiations that I have coming up today. Uh, I get, I get mentally prepared before I

35:37go and get physically prepared before I go, which is the gym. So I sit there and I go through

35:41the things and I talk it out in my mind. So when I, it actually happens, there's just,

35:46unfortunately there's no room for error, especially in the price points that I'm dealing

35:49with. Um, so that's, I have a lot of conversations in my head. I would say having an outcome for

35:55everything I do, like, you know, whether it's, you know, this morning in the gym with my

35:59trainer, like I want a little more flexibility and to kill this, you know, pain I've gotten

36:02my right side to, you know, a date night with my wife. The intention is to like leave my cell

36:07phone and just be present. Every meeting I walk into, I'm like, what is the outcome of this

36:12meeting? Cause I don't want to sit in the meeting for 30 minutes or an hour. I want to get

36:15to the point, make a decision, help people move forward and get the hell out of that

36:19meeting. So I think that's probably the most important thing. And I've done that

36:21for a couple of decades. Like what's the outcome?

36:23I pitched Tom a product years ago, Tom, you might not remember this a couple of years

36:28ago. I've never seen, and listen, we, we ended up raising a lot of money for it. And, uh,

36:33uh, we've talked to a lot of people who do that for a living. And, uh, we got on with

36:39Tom and he goes, here's my, I forgot. It was like, was five questions here. My answer

36:44my five questions and we'll go from there. And he, he spit it out. And at that point he's

36:49already made a decision in the first five minutes, whether or not he should even continue.

36:53And I loved that. It was just so straight to the point.

36:57Yeah, absolutely. Um, and then one book or podcast that you think every agent can consume

37:02right now, it could be, it doesn't have to be business focused, could be mindset, could

37:06be just something personal that you love. I mean, I'm a consumer of a lot of content.

37:11I'll give you, I'll give you three. I would say the all in podcast. I love that. Love that

37:16connection to the zeitgeist. Like what's happening in the world of high tech finance, business,

37:20AI and, and, and humanity. Right. I would say, uh, my pal, David Senra's, uh, founders podcast

37:26is absolutely extraordinary. And then I would say, uh, invest like the best Patrick O'Shaughnessy

37:32does an amazing job and like 50 more. There's so much content out there. So yeah, Josh, what

37:38about you? Yeah, that look, there's so many. I like those too. I look for me, when I have

37:43some free time in the car, you got to realize, right? I have 140, uh, active listings right

37:49now. I'm rolling calls. Like there there's, there's no time for that. Unfortunately for

37:55me at the moment, I'm pushing the second best year in our career right now. We're at about

37:581.4 billion. Uh, I'm trying to get to the one six five. Uh, there's, there's, yeah, there's,

38:05it's just, my podcast is my life right now. That's great. Um, well, thank you guys both

38:11for, for joining me on the podcast today. I really appreciate all your insight and I wish

38:15you the best with your new partnership. And, um, I'm excited to, to hear more about it as

38:21it proceeds forward. So yeah. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you for having us.

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