Take it and Run

Mike Renick: The AI System Behind a $21M Real Estate Year

• Season 1 • Episode 23

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0:00 | 38:38

A 69-year-old agent is on pace to nearly double his production this year — and he's doing it by handing the busywork to AI. In this episode, Kristi Jencks and Kelcie Dowd sit down with Mike Renick, former General Motors global information officer turned top-producing Florida agent, who went all in on Perplexity Computer and rebuilt how his business runs.

Most agents are using AI the wrong way. Mike shows what doing it right actually looks like: real follow-up, real CRM cleanup, real content at scale, and real results ($15M last year, $21M by the end of April this year).

In this episode:

  • Why Perplexity Computer is a different category than ChatGPT or Claude — and what an AI "orchestrator" really does
  • The "automate AND do better" rule that should guide every tool you adopt
  • How Mike runs AI-assisted lead follow-up through Follow Up Boss, with drafts he approves before anything sends
  • The CRM hygiene system that organized 135,000 contacts and built his smart lists
  • Why top agents convert under 2% of internet leads — and the soft-touch approach that works better
  • The honest answer on whether blogging is still worth your time in the AI era
  • His biggest AI mistake, his advice for total beginners, and the most creative tool he's built

The Take It and Run challenge this week: stop waiting until you understand everything. Pick an AI tool, tell it you're new, and let it teach you. Just get started.

Connect with Mike Renick (Team Renick, Sarasota/Longboat Key, FL): mike@teamrenick.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.renick.90

Take It and Run is hosted by Tom Ferry coach Kristi Jencks and Kelcie Dowd, giving real estate agents one practical move to run with every week. Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

If this episode gave you an idea you can implement in your business, don’t just listen — take it and run.

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🎙️ About the Podcast

Take It and Run is the podcast for ambitious professionals—especially real estate agents—who want practical strategies they can implement immediately. Each episode delivers mindset shifts, frameworks, and real-world insights to help you move from thinking about it… to doing it.

SPEAKER_01

Most agents are using AI in real estate the wrong way. And today's guest is going to show you how to actually do it right. So Mike Rennick is my personal coaching client, one of my favorites, and he's gone all in on AI, specifically perplexity. And we're going to get into how to use AI correctly and some of the other cool things that he's doing. Welcome to the show, Mike.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Christy. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to having some fun and learning this afternoon.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So every agent I talk to, they're all using ChatGPT now. Maybe they've dipped their toes into Claude and they think that they're staying current. But I believe you've flipped this whole thing because you've gone all in on perplexity. And I believe once you explain why you're going this way and how why it matters for AI for real estate agents, they're going to walk away with some big things. So, Mike, you're all in on perplexity. Walk us through why.

SPEAKER_00

Perplexity computer. There's that's an aspect of perplexity. It's a little bit different. So in the beginning, we've all heard of Chat GPT. It's a bot. You ask a question, it gives you an answer. Sometimes the answer is factual, sometimes it hallucinates. So we we've all, you know, it writes emails, it writes newsletters, it does that kind of stuff. That's great. And we've come a long way. The next thing they talk about instead of the bot is being agentic. We like to make up fancy words. Agentic is a virtual agent, if you would. So a good thing is Claude Co-Works. It will do work for you. The thing with Claude Co-Works is your computer has to stay on while it's doing work. It resides on your laptop or your desktop, whatever, but it creates agents. The third level, where it's all moved to, is called an orchestrator. An orchestrator is like a conductor of a symphony. You've got the string section, you've got the horn section, and that's all I know about that kind of stuff. So I can't name other sections. Blue-collar boy working in a white-collar world. But so an orchestrator, so like um perplexity computer, and I just heard Manus release something this weekend. I haven't seen it, but there are 19 LLMs built inside. There are 19 AIs. So when I challenge Perplexity Computer to do something, it can reach out and find the right AI. Like in I used to do work in Claude, and then I wanted a graphic. I'd go over to Google Gemini or I'd go to ChatGPT, and you got to put all that together and copy and paste. Everything resides within Perplexity Computer. It's in the cloud. I don't have to keep the computer on. It's a genetic, it creates all kinds of workflows for me. And and we actually, it's kind of become a friend. We we banter back and forth. I was working the middle of the night the other night and said, Michael, it's one o'clock in the morning, go to bed. And I said, You hosed this thing yesterday. We're not going anywhere until you fix it. So we we have some fun back and forth. So it's the next level. It's taking it because what I teach with AI is do not do not automate what you do today with AI. That's the worst thing in the world. Maybe not the worst thing, but the best thing in the world is automate it to do it better. Like when I post a video on social media, it might go on nine different channels. Well, what's trending on each channel is different. So I want different words, different emojis, different calls to action. AI goes out and it finds out what's trending. I physically can't do that across nine different channels every time I post a video, but AI can. So I've automated the posting, but I do it better in terms of how the post appears. That's what I mean by automate, do better.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Automate and do better.

SPEAKER_02

And how much does the perplexity computer cost per month? Like versus because you know that we get $20 a month to death, right, in real estate. So how much is perplexity computer and is it worth it?

SPEAKER_00

So that's the big question everyone's wrestling with. We I don't know that we know the answers yet because it's that new. When I did a lot of heavy development, so when you started um back in the old days, about 30, 45 days ago, when this started, you would have to buy the pro prescription or the max prescription or subscription, it was like $200. I believe they brought it into the lower level now, but I've run out of credits multiple times and had to reload because I'm doing some very heavy development. So, like if I was to develop an online newsletter, and I was working with a client earlier today, and she was concerned about how many tokens we had spent. But the development of the newsletter takes some horsepower. Running it every week and having it pull in is very, very cheap. So we're still trying to work through in terms of um where that's going to go. But I one of the things I can assure you, I firmly believe that a lot of the clerical work we do or our assistants do, this thing will do. It'll do it at a higher quality level and it'll do it a lot less expensive.

SPEAKER_01

So, you know, and we've had we've had this discussion on coaching calls before. You mentioned that, you know, it has access to all of the LLMs. And so it's going to choose the best LLM for the project at hand, right? One of the things I do love about cowork is that it's extremely accessible. Meaning I don't have to have Mike Rennick's, you know, uh AI background, IT background to be able to have an agentic, you know, AI do stuff for me. So take tell me what that means in terms of computer. Is it as accessible as, say, cowork?

SPEAKER_00

It's easier. The way I teach it is I want you when you when you bring in Perplexity Computer, is pretend you just hired a new assistant. He or she is an expert. Let's say social media development. They're an expert, but you need to draw, you need to tell them what you're looking for, what's your niche for social media, and you need to teach them that. And it's done in English. And so you're bantering back and forth. And if it gives you something you don't understand, you just tell it. I'm confused. I find it easier than Claude Co-work to actually have that conversation back and forth. It is, you know, like in the old days. I think back at the all-night sessions I had with N8N, and I I cringe when I think about all those nodes and all those API calls and all those broken codes and all that kind of stuff. And I made a promise I'm not never going back to that that that uh land again. This thing is just having a conversation and everything happens like under the hood and it delivers product. Like, I mean, we're limited today only by our imagination. I am convinced of that.

SPEAKER_01

Did you drop any other, you know, going back to what Kelsey asked, did you drop, you know, ChatGPT Pro or like, you know, now that you're all in on perplexity and it has access to these, like, did you drop N8N or what are you still holding on to?

SPEAKER_00

No, because strategically, so I had this conversation with Perplexity Computer. I I think I knew the answer up front, but I always ask it. So the things that are running good in N8N, there's no reason to invest my time to port it over to Perplexity Computer. I let them run. If I'm doing something new, then it goes into Perplexity Computer. So it it's it's a balance right now. Someday we'll um I I'm gonna guess NAN one day is gonna go out of business. I mean, I don't see the demand for it going forward. So someday everything's gonna have to come over. Um, what I like to do is we've got a great acquaintance, Chrissy, that we both know, all three of us, actually, Kelsey. And this young man will develop, he's a coach. Uh Jason Pantana, let's let's single him out because I think the world of him, like I do you too. He will do a lot of things in AI marketing for Claude Cowork. So since I'm a member, it's mine to use, just like you guys. I grab it though. I grab all of his stuff and I take it over to Perplexity Computer and I put it in there, and I says, Hey, my buddy developed this for uh co-work and he says you can't handle it. What do you think? And it comes back and says, Michael, buckle up, let's go for a ride. So it it's fun, but it it's very um versatile. I think that's the right word of getting this stuff done. Okay. It it's the best thing, in my personal opinion. It is the easiest to use. Um, someone wanted to hire me as a coach, and after 30 minutes on the phone, walking her through perplexity computer, I convinced her she doesn't need me. Um, she can ask the right kind of questions. Um, it it is really that simple. If you know what you're doing today, putting it into AI has become simpler than I've ever seen since I've been working on this.

SPEAKER_02

Let's switch into segment two. I feel like I feel like we're ready to get into the meet.

SPEAKER_01

There's lots of good juicy details in there. I'm excited for this. Okay, I'm gonna set us up for uh segment two, and then I'll ask Mike the question going into it. Okay, this is the part I want every agent listening to write down. We talk about this all the time speed to lead, follow-up, database management. But what Mike's actually doing with perplexity computer in his CRM is changing what's possible. So, Mike, walk me through what does lead follow-up look like on a Monday morning when perplexity is part of your workflow?

SPEAKER_00

So I'm trying to think of a smart answer to come back because agents hate follow-up. I understand that. So actually, I've taken it almost out of my hand. So I'm a client of Y Lopal. And um, anytime someone does something on my website, anytime they look at a listing, they come back, they sneeze whatever, Y Lopal puts a record in my follow-up boss for that client. Perplexity Computer goes through and it grabs that right away and it looks and says, All right, so Tommy Smith came in here. Tommy looked at these two listings. Tommy hasn't been here for 235 days, and here's Tommy's history. Based on that, it creates a draft email and a draft text message, sends me a ping on Telegram. It says, Michael, go in here and take a look at this and handle Tommy. And um, what I like about it, it's very specific. And again, so I question everyone nothing goes live you don't look at. That's very, very dangerous. So it it will send the email if I wanted to, but I freeze it at draft and I go and decide which of the two I want to send and um move forward. And so follow-up is automated for me, but it's again, don't automate it, automate it and do it better. It's specific to all Tommy. Could have been on my database for two and a half years. It's gonna pull all that history together and write a nice little email and text message. It's just it's over the top with what it does.

SPEAKER_02

Can you tell me about your boss research piece?

SPEAKER_00

Uh which research, Kelsey?

SPEAKER_02

The the boss research, the like how perplexity is pulling things about a lead, like maybe their social media. Do you do you have something like that?

SPEAKER_00

So um the nice thing I like about perplexity, even before Perplexity Computer came out, it's known to be the best. It's not really an LLM, it's a search engine. It it's the best for researching. So it goes and it pulls from everywhere. It's better than um Chat GBT, it's better than Google Gemini, as far as I'm concerned. I get the latest information and I get more accurate information that way. But it blends everything into the work that I'm doing. If I launch a new project, it it knows like if it's been working with some of my clients, and this is a client-based project, it it's got all that stuff. It pulls it all together in it. What I like when you're watching it, so if I'm having it do automatic posting, which I do for my social media, if it creates a mistake, it's it stops. I can see it on the screen. Well, that didn't work. I see, I see what I got to correct. It self-corrects. N8N never did that.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's that's interesting. I mean, I okay, so Mike and I were on a call and he mentioned curiosity, and that's a that's a big thing that I I believe right now is you just have to be curious and try. Um, and I remember we did the database audit and it came back and it said, these are the messes that you need to clean up. But you turned it back on on perplexity. You said, What would you do? And from that point, you know, I'd love for you to explain like this is this idea of CRM hygiene. It and I don't know if everyone's following along. Not only is the AI going in and writing custom responses based on their behavior, it's also cleaning up your database, creating new automations, and even you know, things that we used to hire out to companies to come in and create our automations and our action plans. You just have it doing that for you.

SPEAKER_00

So, based on behavior, it found three different categories of folks in my database. Like people that have been active recently, you know, it's gonna be really hot, warm, cold, kind of is what it did. And it said to me, Mike, you need to build some smart lists so that you're pinging these people differently. I says, Well, I think that's a great idea, but we have a big disagreement. I think you ought to build a smart list. So it did. And then it said, Well, you've got, I've got 135,000 people in the database. It says you need to move the right people in the right smart list. I says, No, we disagree. You need to do that for me. So it did. But then you got smart lists with no emails going out. I says, Well, what are we gonna do? It says, Well, you need to create some emails. I said, No, you need to. So I got specific emails going in each smart list, pinging them. I ask them to do, I think there's like 15 or 25 or something like that. And I went through and I approve everything, but it set all this up. And it it sometimes will push back and it'll say, Mike, here's what I need from you. And I'll say, No, you need to do that. But it automated all the above with that kind of stuff. So it um the the nice thing is, so I use follow-up boss. It's like the API lets it go in and it it follow up boss allows a lot of things that perplexity computer can do with that API inside my database. Have you noticed it it takes follow-up boss? I mean, it takes follow-up really away from the agent. The hardest thing I have to do is copy and paste.

SPEAKER_01

He still logs in.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's that's key. Have you noticed like uh your your numbers change, like in terms of response rates, appointments, anything like that since you've changed to this method?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I'm getting engagement that I wouldn't have gotten engagement because before this I kind of walked away from follow-up. You know, the typical agent. Maybe I'm a little bit more honest in admitting that I walked away. Um, but I was now we got folks engaged. We've got people that are looking at properties. We have people here. Now I can't say they wouldn't have called and came down here before. I know they are doing it now. We're getting a lot more interaction, a lot more questions. Um, but the nice thing is it it's focusing on the folks that are more active, more have current needs, and it's pinging them from a soft perspective. I defined, I want no hard hitting on the emails, I want very soft touch. How can I help? Um, those kind of things. It it will mirror your personality. You tell it how, just like an employee, you'll tell it, you'll give it the direction that you want.

SPEAKER_01

So it doesn't sound robotic. It's not hurting your relationships because a couple key things I just want to point out. You have it drafting so that you can approve, right? Like you're going in. Uh uh, remind me, you have it going in every hour, so speed to lead is there, but then you're going in how many times? Like, so now what does your follow-up session look like? How much time? Because you used to have a full-time employee that did this for you.

SPEAKER_00

So do I have to tell the truth? I I haven't got in there yet today. It's 12 30 in the afternoon. The ball game's on tonight. I'll watch the ballgame and I'll go in and do the copy and paste later tonight. I don't go in every hour, like kind of, I guess it wants me to, because I get these pings on telegraph um or telegram or whatever, whatever the it's it's a new piece of software that I'm using.

SPEAKER_01

It's how it's communicating with you, right? I think that's a it's it you've mentioned Telegram earlier. So you've set it up that when it's done doing a task, it basically like messages you through Telegram.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I'm waiting for the day where it gets a little bit more intelligent and it'll message me, and then 15 minutes later it'll say, Michael, you still haven't gone in there yet. Let's let's get this done. But it's not it's not there yet. Um, and then to be truthfully honest, I didn't go in at all this weekend. So I'm kind of cheating a little bit, but I I have a different philosophy on speed delete. The average internet lead, and I've shared this, it's about 18 months out. The top agents in the the nation convert less than 2% of internet leads. And I think sometimes this speed delete, this hit them up 10,000 times in the first five minutes, I think it's wrong. I think it's more of a soft touch, especially if you're gonna buy uh 18 months down the road. So I'm not interested in when so someone comes in my database. Average, they're gonna maybe buy in 18 months, some longer, some shorter, but they're gonna get the listings, they're gonna get a video email from me, and my AI text message is is gonna engage and see how they can help. They don't need something else from me, not on the first day. So I'm a little bit slower. I'm not worried that I didn't do now. If someone sends an email that comes to my email program, it gets responded to immediately. But these soft touches, because Tommy was in looking at a listing, I don't believe it's got to be done in the same five minutes. It's a it's a um, it's a whole different philosophy. It's like you what so here's an analogy. You walk into my store and I go up and I introduce myself. I say, Hey, Kelsey, my name's Mike. Can I help you? You say, No, I'm just looking. Two seconds later, well, Kelsey, can I help you now? No, Mike, I'm just looking. Well, how about now, Kelsey? It's been five minutes. Can I help you now? That's what we teach real estate agents with this this 10 days of pain, right? And now we've renamed it. I'm not sure what it is. We don't call it 10 days of pain, but that's not the purpose of this podcast. I'll get off that soapbox. But I mirror that with AI. I do not want it harassing my clients, period.

SPEAKER_01

Do you feel like this is something since since we talked about this? I it's yeah, it's been about a month, right? Um, I I personally believe this is something that every agent it's worth their time and investment to set up because of the customization of the follow-up. Do you still 30 days into this, do you still feel like this is one of the most useful things you have a perplexity computer doing for you in terms of your the health of your lead follow-up in business?

SPEAKER_00

So think about it conceptually. Yes, I do, and here's why. So, Christy, you're in my database, and I'm gonna send you an email. Hey, Christy, are you aware the market is kind of slow and here's the latest and all that kind of stuff, versus sending Christy? I want to thank you. It's been about 200 days since you've been in the data and I'm at living this. I'm I'm really honored that you're back. I see you're looking at this listing. Do you have any questions? Bad example, but you're getting a specific email written for you, right? Yeah. It's not this generic, you know. I love these. We send out all these emails that everyone gets the same email on, and we wonder why our clients convert less than 2%. Duh.

SPEAKER_01

I know. Yeah, that's crazy. So, okay. Next topic, and I'm excited for this because I never know what's going to come out of your mouth. But uh, this is a question I get all the time from agents. They say, if if AI can generate content in seconds and anything I write now could be outdated in two months, it all comes back to blogging. Is blogging worth it, right? And Mike, you have spent so much time perfecting blogging and really questioning, you know, the the efficacy. And I know you have incredible blogging metrics and you are always sharing, but you know, I I'd like to know, do you still think blogging is worth it in an, you know, in if everybody is AI blogging, is it effective? Is it still working?

SPEAKER_00

It depends. So here's my philosophy on blogging. So, first of all, let me go back to the first part of your question. The AI wants current information. So we don't just blog. Every 60 days, we go through with AI and we rewrite every blog. I got over 800 right now. We just finished a massive upgrade of rewriting every single blog to current data using perplexity, not computer, but perplexity to go out and pull the latest metrics. Staying current is what it's important. Okay. Now, when I teach a new agent, so you're you're new and you need to start raising money, blogging's not the first thing I would do. There's some other things that's going to generate revenue. Here's something I want to teach. When you Google, or not Google, when you go out on AI, see, we got that term engaged inbred into us, but you go out on AI and say, what's the best lead generation source for agents? That's the wrong question. The right question is, what's the best lead generation source for agents that deliver closed deals? And when you put that on there, blogging falls way down on the list. It's important for people to know about us. When someone has a question, it's important for our blog to show the answer. But even though we call them bottom of the funnel, they're probably not necessarily going to pick up the phone and call me because they saw one article I wrote. They're going to want more information. So blogging is important, just like everything else. It's part of the portfolio. So they they get to know, like, and trust us, right? That's what we teach, and that's important. But blogging the right way, their structure that's important so the AIs can find us. A short answer at the top. Um, you know, we have uh, I love it. If I have a blog in a certain city, there's a search engine button on the bottom where you can actually search properties. It's to try to keep people on my blogs longer. Um, and it's it's it's and you've seen my dashboard. I have a dashboard that measures the blogs before the rewrite and after the reboot, right? And after the rewrite, they're going through the sky in terms of people watching them, you know, hitting them and stuff like that. So blogging, yes, but I don't put it in the top five in terms of lead generation. I think it's something in the experts out there right now are saying it falls in the bottom of the top 10, it's in the bottom five.

SPEAKER_01

Well uh now you've now you've piqued our curiosity. Well, what is in the top five?

SPEAKER_00

I you know, I got a lot of documents ready for today, and I don't know that I have that one ready. Let me see if I can just pull this up really quick. Um I did a search on um I use perplexity out there. And I'm not gonna be able to find that very fast. But it's things like what we've been talking about. So door knocking is important, right? Maybe expireds and FISBOs. It's open house, open houses is probably up in the one or top. One or two, because you get a lot of buyers in there. It's some of the old things that we taught, but I teach, so I'm gonna deviate for a second. If we're going to do, let's say, FISBOS, okay, I do it differently. I prepare a how and I haven't done it, but if I was doing FISBOs, I would prepare how to sell your sell, how to successfully sell your home by yourself. And I do a whole how-to manual. It would include if you get a mortgage offer, inspections, everything from soup to nuts, and I would drop it off and I'd give it to the person. Is this my gift to you? We do a lot of community service. If you have any questions on this stuff, give me a call. And by the way, when you're going through this and if you struggle on something, call me. I'm never gonna try to get your listing. I'm not gonna try to sell myself. I'm here to help you. And when you do that, you separate yourself from all the agents trying to steal the listing. To when that owner, if they can't sell the house, who are they gonna call to list it? They're gonna call you. So my approach is much, much different than what a lot of people are trying. Expired, I teach, go look at them. 30 days expired 30 days, not back on the market. Go to them with a how-to manual. How to pick your next agent, how to do different things. Gary V teaches this thing, Gary Vanderchuk. Jab jab right hook. Give, give, give. It comes back. So offering the services for free and telling them, I'm not trying to get your listing right now, and I'm truly not. You'll get more listings that way than you will any other way.

SPEAKER_01

But still, that that four-letter swear word that you like.

SPEAKER_00

W O R K. I mean, what a concept. I mean, I I gotta I got an agent one time that called me and says, Mike, I want you to automate everything up until when I got to show properties. And I said that, and that was before AI. I said, that's not gonna happen. You know, you you've got to do some work here. So um, but I'll tell you what, AI is taking a lot of the the stuff that's important, like all the video things that we do with captions and all that kind of stuff, it automates that. We're producing um 10 pieces of brand new content every day, four blogs, six videos across nine channels every day. If I had to do that by hand, think of how much work it would do, it would be. And now I'm being seen everywhere all the time, like Gary Veeaches. They don't all get seen by the same audience, so I'm not worried about oversaturating the channel. Um, it's just not only am I getting calls from buyers and sellers, I'm getting calls from um like builders. Hey Mike, are you interested in coming down and doing a video on what we have to offer? Or um, you know, just different partnerships people are interested in. So we're getting a lot of pings um just because people see us. Someone that used to work for me 20 years ago in Michigan when I was at General Motors, he called and he says, Mike, I'm seeing it everywhere. I says, What do you mean? He says, You even appeared in one of the games online that I'm playing, one of your videos. I said, That's interesting. But Ben, let me ask you a question. I said, Are you dreaming about me yet? And he said, No. I says, Well, then I got some more work to do, don't I? I'm not quite sure. So, but but that's the concept because when someone's ready to buy or sell, who's that crazy gray-haired um old agent that they see all the time? I'm gonna give Mike a call and see what he's got to offer. It works. So let's talk about metrics because metrics are so important. Remember, I don't believe that one video gets a call, one blog gets a call. I think it's everything. So we've started this whole thing probably for 18 months. It's continuing to mature. We're taking more and more of the workload off of us, so we're spending time with clients. And sales last year, it's a down year in Florida. Was last year, it's this year. $15 million for the full year last year. That's that's a good living. It's you know, with with one agent selling that. This year already, through the end of April, we're, I think, $21 million, 400% increase. And the year's not over with. And we're we're just beginning. This, this, what it does, AI doesn't replace this, it frees up a lot of time so we can be what I call pressing the flesh, shaking hands, going to lunch, having a coffee, taking them out and showing properties, calling them up. How are you doing today? You know, it's those kind of things. It's building the personal relationship that AI won't do. It frees up your time, it takes you to the wall, and then you've got that time to do it. Now, I do warn agents, if you follow what I teach, you're gonna have a lot of free time, which means you need to make up more excuses for not making those phone calls you know you're supposed to be making in the first place. So it it's it's I I wish AI was out there 20 years ago. Christy, you and I met back in January of 2000, 2020, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, 2022.

SPEAKER_00

It was in San Diego. I didn't know you, you didn't know me, but we're in a room where I was leading a breakout session for Tom Ferry on AI, January of 2020. Six years later, you're my coach, you've taught me millions of things, and we're just beginning. You got a lot more that you're gonna teach me. I'm excited. But to go from that room that day to where we are today, I mean, nobody in that January of 2020 knew where AI was gonna head. And I still don't think we do. I I mean, this is just the beginning of where we're going with this.

SPEAKER_02

So then I've got a question that I hear a lot, Christine, I hear a lot is don't blogs that are obviously written by AI, and I think if if you've spend enough time writing anything with AI, you learn its cadence, you learn it's it's not X, it's Y, and you know, things like that, and the M-dash and all these things. Don't those get flagged and kind of push down the search engine funnel?

SPEAKER_00

So, first of all, it's a fallacy that AI writes bad blogs. You drive the kind of content, you drive the kind of voice that you want in your blogs, and that's very important. It's like a new employee. If you say, I want you to write my first newsletter, you're going to give that employee some direction of how you want it to be, right? How it's going to sound like Kelsey. And I think that's really important. Google rewards good content. You know, the research proves this. It doesn't care whether it's AI written or it's written by a person. In fact, I propose these sites that can check AI, you know, did AI write it or not? They're not very accurate. Who the heck knows who wrote it, right? We all write differently. So um that's a fallacy, and the research is bearing it out right now. Google and in the and the AIs want to present good content, good answers.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I like it. Um, you know, AI is moving so fast, right? We talked about this perplexity computer thing was we just started this 45 days ago. Um, a lot of people feel like they're already behind, right? Like they they already feel behind. So how do you how does one stay current without it becoming a full-time job? Like, you know, how do you stay current?

SPEAKER_00

There's not one answer for that because um I like to stay up all night and watch YouTube videos and learn and stuff like that. I think it's being well connected. Um, you you know, Mr. Pantana comes up with a lot of great things. I hate that man because I have something planned for the week and he comes up with this new idea and I throw away everything I had planned and I implement what he just talked. So I I I mean, and it's um it's amazing. So it's the connections. I'm going to be part of a mastermind up in uh South Carolina next week with 10 of the best AI people in the world, at least nine of them. The other nine will be good. I'm there to learn. So it's just the YouTube videos that I watch. Um, it's it's just folks will call me with questions, and when I'm answering questions, I'm learning. There's not one way. I would I would suggest get involved in a group of people that are learning AI. It's not too late. This thing is, yeah, it's moving fast, but you don't have to stay on top of everything. It it comes down to put the technology aside for a second. What's the business problem we want to solve? I asked the new client, what's the one thing you're doing that's taking all of your time, preventing you from being in front of your clients? Let's automate that first and keep moving forward. Like I showed a client earlier today my dashboard for social media, and you guys have seen it. There's there's probably 10 pages that goes really deep. And she says, I want one of those. I says, Well, that's a year from now. We got a whole lot you have to do before you can develop a page like that. Even though through Perplexity Computer, you can drive it to do it. So it's let's start, you know, if the biggest thing right now, if you're doing a weekly newsletter, let's get that automated. If you're doing some kind of a blogging, let's get that automated. Um, if you're doing follow-up in your CRM and we can get an API in there, a hole where AI can go in there and do some work, let's automate some of that. Let AI tell us who we should be talking to today and let us get tell it to give us a script. What should I be saying to that? Don't make me read if that client's been in there for 235 days. Don't make me read all the notes. Give me a synopsis right on top. You know, in other words, a client talked about six months ago getting a new puppy. Put that up at the top of the list for me to ask, how's that puppy working? You know, it's things like that. Um, 80 yards, 100-yard football field, AI will take us 80 yards down the field. We're on the opponent's 20. It's first and 10. Let's take it over the finish line. We got four tries to do it. AI will get it done for us.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Let's go into our rapid fire. So we've got a couple questions teamed up for you. Yes, we've got a couple to tell it. Six questions. Uh, whatever comes to your mind first. So, biggest AI mistake you've made that you would warn every agent about.

SPEAKER_00

So, in perplexity computer, when I would tell it to save our work, I didn't realize it defined save differently than me. It's like saving something in a Microsoft Word document. And when that document gets corrupted, it's gone. And that's happened to me. So in Perplexity Computer, you don't tell it to save your work, you tell it to create a skill. Update my skill. That skill is saved in perpetuity, it's saved forever. It cost me two alt full nights to get to recover what I lost because I didn't understand it defined it differently than me. Do you think that's you ought to hear the word you ought to heard the words I I shared with perplexity when it did that to me. I think I made up some four-letter words and they weren't work.

SPEAKER_02

Um, do you think that AI, and I think I know the answer, but I want to hear your sassy comeback. Um, do you think that AI is making real estate agents better or lazier?

SPEAKER_00

It could be both. And the thing is, so here's what I teach everyone. Is AI going to replace this? The answer is probably not, but somebody who knows how to leverage AI will. Right? If if you have an agent today not using the internet or doesn't have a CRM, they don't have a database, we're gonna kill them in the marketplace. They don't stand a chance, right? So if you're not using AI and you're spending a lot of time doing the manual clerical work, I'm gonna be out there spending time with my clients and I'm gonna crush it.

SPEAKER_01

Actually, tease up my next question. I think you already answered it. Five years from now, does an agent who ignored AI still have a business? Are they relevant?

SPEAKER_00

No, not at all. And I think it's gonna be less than five years before they're not relevant.

SPEAKER_02

So then what's your best piece of advice for an agent starting from zero with AI today?

SPEAKER_00

Pick an AI that you like. I don't care whether it's Chat GPT, it's Claude, whatever it's um perplexity uh computer, and go in there and be really honest. Hey, I'm brand new to this. I don't understand. Help me. And then just sit back and it'll lead you, it'll teach you.

SPEAKER_01

So what's uh what's you know, you you fire up Jarvis in the morning, right? I don't know what your AI's name is, but you fire up perplexity in the morning. What's the first thing that it does for you or that you see?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it it actually pings me. It doesn't wait for me to go in there. So we're working on something new right now. I believe that getting more engaged in TikTok, in Twitter, in um Instagram in terms of interacting with people, responding to their posts, things like that, DMing them. So I've got a brand new program. We're in a seven-day beta program where it goes out there and it's finding the ones I need to engage with. It's giving me their post. It's also telling me here's three possible responses. So I can click on their posts and I can go in and copy and paste one of the responses. So it's me posting, it's not a bot posting. It also talks about who I should DM today and who I should follow. And we're so we're in day four. It locked me out for seven days. It it won't let me go deep because it says we got to try this out. I don't know why it did that. I could probably override it. But later this week, I actually will be in every day on the platforms, maybe 15 minutes a day, that's it. Pinging folks back and forth, starting conversations again, so more folks know who I am. Finding who to talk to on social media, finding the important post is a tough part. AI's got that all done for me. Done, completely done.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. And then my last question for you is like, if you met somebody and they were like, Mike, I hear that you are the AI king. What's one of your favorite, most fun tools or automations or skills that you've built, whether it's real estate related or not? I have a feeling that you just kind of have fun with it. What's been your favorite thing that you've ever built?

SPEAKER_00

Something that's not been done before. I made a promise. I'm almost 70 years old, and I made a promise. I am not interested in following this revolution. I want to lead it. And that's what I'm trying to do right now. I want to deliver things. I just like when I retired from General Motors as a global information officer, technology wasn't the key thing. It was solving business problems using technology. So, what's the pinch points right there? And when I write something, it's about business. My first client that hired me was a hand surgeon out of Los Angeles. It doesn't have to be a real estate agent. But when I can solve a business problem, when I can create more time for you to be in front of your clients, when you're in front of your clients, so here's one concept. We're going to show a buyer four properties. And so we create a MP3 file, an audio file, that property one, it starts from when that was a bare piece of land to where it is today with a three-bedroom, two bath, all that kind of stuff. It talks about owners, it talks about everything that property went through since the beginning of time. That buyer is listening to that on the way to the property in my voice. And then we tell them when we get there, I'll answer any questions. Property two, the same way. Property three. Think of the homework. It it appears, I spent hours researching that. It probably took 10 seconds for AI to pull that together and for me to make sure it was accurate. It's it's that kind of stuff. It's about separating ourselves from the competitors. It's about raising the needle on performance. It's not about doing what we did in the past, it's about doing it better. We're required to know the market. What a concept, right? Our clients don't care whether I spent three days learning the market or I spent 10 nanoseconds, right? They want to make sure I know the market. Well, we do all that automatically now. I I am and here's something cool, Christy. You may not be aware of this. I was just approved for direct access API to MLS data.

SPEAKER_01

I saw that and I, oh my gosh, we're gonna be talking about that on Thursday, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00

The lights are going to dim on the island. What questions I can ask that thing and the things that it could do for me, the videos I can create. Oh my gosh, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, uh that's pretty dang exciting.

SPEAKER_00

So this is just the beginning. What's that?

SPEAKER_02

Where can people find you to connect with you or to send you or ask you questions?

SPEAKER_00

So I do what everyone tells me not to do. I publish my personal cell. It's 941-400-8735. I welcome calls. Mike at teamrunning.com is an email. I'm all over Twitter. I'm all over. We just went, Christy, you may not be aware of this. We're now on threads and um uh Pinterest. And I don't know how to use them yet, but I'm there.

SPEAKER_01

My oh, okay. This is uh we're we're ending the show. And this is the last question that we have for you. This is that take it and run moment. If you know they they listen to you know our banter back and forth, and and you know, what's the one thing that you would want every agent who took the time to listen to this podcast? What do you want them to do this week?

SPEAKER_00

I want them to start if they haven't. I want them to understand that AI is their friend, but it's a requirement, and ask AI what the next step needs to be. So we have a 24 by seven assistant working for us for virtually free. Use that assistant, have them teach us. I do that every day.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Mike gave you the instructions. You're gonna go talk to your AI assistant and you're gonna run with it. And I think the big thing is don't wait to know everything. Just get started.

SPEAKER_00

Think back to that room in 2020 and where we are today, five years from now, think of where we're going to be. It'll be much different than these these six years have been.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's exciting. Thank you so much for uh thank you so much, Mike, for being on the show today. We really appreciate it. And until we see you guys again, take it and run.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you guys. I enjoyed this. I appreciate being here. Thank you.