Tech with Ty

[T]echnology: Make Your AIs Talk to Each Other
[E]ducation: The Phone Call Every Listing Agent Should Make
[C]oaching: Be the Agent They Call Before the Contractor
[H]ow To: Do Comment-to-DM Automation 

[T]echnology: Make Your AIs Talk to Each Other

Last week I said Marlowe is the first AI assistant your mom could actually use. I'm doubling down. Look at my phone from this weekend.

Nobody asked for any of that. Marlowe saw a dotloop disclosure sitting unsigned and told me the deal was waiting on me. It caught a Dropbox sign-in from a new machine and flagged it. And when I asked who I owed follow-ups from RISMedia, it already had the list. That's not a chatbot answering questions. That's an assistant watching your back. 👀

Here's the twist. Grok Bot, the one I fired a few weeks ago, stepped up and started doing the same thing.

It drafted a follow-up from a demo I did that morning, sent it, then noticed the meeting notes said "Alicia" when the person I meant was almost certainly "Alisha"... and asked me before guessing. The good ones don't just do the work. They catch what you missed.

So now I've got two assistants paying attention, and I use them for completely different jobs. Which brings me to the problem nobody's talking about.

It's leap frog. Every week one of these tools jumps ahead on something, and now you have to remember which AI knows what about you. None of them know what the others know. Three assistants, zero shared memory.

Here's what I did about it, and what I told a room full of brokers at the RISMedia CEO Exchange to do too.

One folder in Google Drive. A few plain documents inside it. Every AI I use gets access to that folder. When one learns something or finishes something, it writes an update to the doc. The next one reads it before it starts. They catch each other's gaps. They quit asking me the same questions. The folder is the brain... the assistants are just the hands. 🧠

Now do this for your clients.

See a Facebook post from a past client about their kid making varsity? Screenshot it, send it to the folder. Hear at a showing that the buyers are expecting in March? One line in the doc. In a month you've got a file on every client that any assistant you own can read. Then on a Monday morning you ask, "Who should I reach out to this week and why?" and the answer is sitting right there.

Your clients don't remember the house. They remember that you remembered.

This is exactly what I built into Victoria inside ToryOS... agent and client intelligence that never forgets an anniversary, a birthday, or the dog's name from the first showing. But you don't need my software to start. You need a folder and a habit.

Make the folder this weekend. 📁

[E]ducation: The Phone Call Every Listing Agent Should Make

My phone rang this morning. Another agent, calling about the listing I put live over the weekend. 📞

He wanted to know how the first weekend went. Showings, feedback, any early offers. He has a listing nearby, and he was gathering intel so he could call his sellers with a real read on the market instead of a guess. Smart.

Then he asked if I wanted to coordinate open houses. Same weekend, same neighborhood. And he'd already called a third agent with a listing a few streets over, who said yes. Three signs, three open doors, one Saturday. Buyers park once and tour the whole neighborhood. Also smart.

I hung up and thought... why doesn't this happen more?

Here's the thing about this market. Buyers are picky, inventory is sitting a little longer, and every listing agent is quietly competing with the house down the street. The instinct is to guard your info. Don't tell the other agent how many showings you had. Don't let their buyers near your open house. Protect the listing. 🛡️

Except that instinct is backwards. The buyer who tours his listing on Saturday is the same buyer who tours mine ten minutes later, and the third house after that. Comparing homes in the same neighborhood is exactly what buyers do anyway. I'd rather they do it with three agents standing there than with a Zillow tab open at the kitchen table.

Collaboration isn't giving away your edge. It's how you build one.

Think about what one phone call actually produced. He walks into his seller update with real data from two comparable listings, not a hunch. All three of us get a built-in open house event instead of a lonely Saturday with a sign-in sheet. And when any of our sellers asks "what's going on with the house on the corner," we all have an answer.

So here's your homework this week. 📝 Pull up every active listing within a half mile of yours. Call the agent. Ask how their first weekend went and tell them about yours. Then ask the question nobody asks... "Want to do open houses together?"

Some won't call you back. The ones who do are the agents you'll be working deals with for the next ten years.

Last week I wrote that you don't get the cooperation without cooperating. That was about an MLS. This is the version that happens one phone call at a time.

The agent across the street isn't your competition. The silence is.

[C]oaching: Be the Agent They Call Before the Contractor

Back to basics. That was my biggest takeaway from the RISMedia CEO Exchange, and one session drove it home.

Anthony Lamacchia and Allan Dalton just launched a course called Certified Real Estate Consultant. Full disclosure, I haven't taken it, so I can't tell you about the modules. What I can tell you is Anthony's training has been solid for a long time, and the premise of this one is what got my attention.

Here it is. Sit down with every client in your database once or twice a year. In their home. Not to list it. To help them through whatever the house needs next... what to fix, what to leave alone, what the equity looks like, whether it's time to think about a move.

The number they lead with is brutal. Ninety percent of past clients say they'd use their agent again. Thirteen percent actually do. 😬 That gap isn't because they didn't like you. It's because you disappeared for five years and somebody else was standing there when they needed an answer.

Right now most of us show up at two moments... when they buy and when they sell. Everything in between belongs to the contractor, the lender, Zillow, and their brother-in-law. 🤷 Picture the other version. They're thinking about a kitchen remodel and call you first, because you've been at that kitchen table every spring. You tell them the kitchen is fine, but the hall bath will cost them at resale. Five years later when they sell, there is no listing pitch. You've been their agent the whole time.

Here's what this looks like when it works. A friend of mine, also a past client, caught me at our kids' soccer game recently. Their basement flooded. Insurance sent out an adjuster, who came back with a $40,000 quote and a contractor they recommended. He didn't want their contractor. He wanted the guy I'd sent him years ago, the one who'd already remodeled most of their house. ⚽

So I told him what nobody at the insurance company was going to volunteer. You don't have to use their contractor. Ask for the check. Then put that money toward whatever you want done, with whoever you want doing it.

Two-minute conversation on a sideline. But think about why it happened. He didn't call his agent. He didn't Google it. He walked over to the person he already trusted with his house, and that person happened to have a contractor's number in his phone. I didn't sell him anything. I just knew the answer and knew a guy.

That's the relationship the course is trying to teach. Most agents stumble into it with a few people by accident. The check-in makes it on purpose, with everyone.

But you can't just call people and ask to walk their house. That's weird, and they'll know it. And you can't walk in with an agenda, because you don't know what theirs is. Most past clients aren't thinking about a kitchen. Some are thinking about aging parents. Some are drowning in a payment. Some just had a third kid and the house got small overnight.

So you don't call to schedule a meeting. You call about them. You already know something about every one of these people. You know the roof was 15 years old at inspection. You know the basement had a sump pump. You know the storms rolled through their side of town last week. You know their neighbor's house just sold for a number that would surprise them.

Start there. Text them. "Hey, saw the storms hit your area Thursday. Basement hold up okay?" or "Your neighbor on the corner just closed. You'd be shocked what it went for. Want me to send you the number?" Short, specific, no ask. 📱

Half of them text back with something you didn't expect. The basement did flood. Her mom's moving in next year. He got a job offer two states away. That's your meeting, and they just invited you to it. The ones who say "all good, thanks" still know you're paying attention, and that's not nothing.

Then when you're in the room, shut up and listen. Whatever you came to talk about is the excuse. The real conversation starts when they say "well, actually, we've been dealing with..." and finish the sentence.

And you won't be the expert on most of it. Estate planning, refinancing, a 1031, what an addition actually costs, how an insurance claim works. You don't need to be. You need a bench. An attorney, an accountant, a financial planner, a lender, two or three contractors you'd put your name on. When the question comes up, you don't fumble. You say "I've got a person for that" and make the intro.

The advisor isn't the one with every answer. It's the one with every phone number.

So this week, build the bench first. Write down who you'd call for each of those. If a slot is empty, fill it. Then text ten past clients about something you already know, get in the room, and let them tell you what the meeting is about.

Whether you take Anthony's course or build your own version, the point is the same. The hardest listing conversation is the one that starts cold. The easiest one is the one you've been having for years.

[H]ow To: Do Comment-to-DM Automation 

Have you ever seen those posts where it says, “Comment ‘DOWNLOAD’ to receive my free download link in your DMs”? 📲 Have you ever wondered how people do that? Surely they don't message every single person themselves, right? Nope! You can actually set it up for free on Meta Business Suite whenever you want. 🎉 I would do a test run first, as Meta Business Suite is notorious for being finicky (it is free, so what can you do? 😂). But you can also use paid subscriptions on many different social media management sites. 💻

But let's focus on free...

Now, how can you use this to your advantage? 🤔

Below is a list of keywords people can comment to get direct downloads. This is a great way to offer valuable resources to your clients with little to no effort on your end. You just need to supply the materials.  

🏡 BUY → First-time homebuyer guide

🏠 SELL → Seller preparation checklist

💰 VALUE → Home valuation information

📦 MOVE → Relocation guide

📊 MARKET → Local market report

📈 INVEST → Real estate investment guide

The key is to make the resource genuinely useful and the call-to-action incredibly simple. Rather than asking people to “DM me if you’re interested,” give them a clear action to take. 

If your brokerage isn’t providing you with the AI tools you need to save time, generate leads, and grow your business, let’s change that.

-Ty Morton + Abby G