[T]echnology: X by Xreal a01+ Glasses
[E]ducation: Deep Dish Data Fight…the Paper Round
[C]oaching: “I’ve Been Doing This for 97 Years”
[H]ow To: Build a Brand Voice In Claude
[T]echnology: X by Xreal a01+ Glasses
Nerd Alert. Just got the new X by Xreal a01+ glasses. $299, one USB-C cable, and you get what feels like a 147-inch screen floating in front of you. 1080p, 120Hz, 1,600 nits, 62 grams. Lighter than most sunglasses. They work with your phone, your laptop, a Steam Deck…pretty much anything with USB-C video out. No battery to charge either. They pull power from whatever you plug them into.
Here’s what I like: these are perfect for the plane. I can plug these into my phone, use my foldable keyboard and have a full workstation on the go. Think about that setup for a second. A phone, a keyboard that folds in half, and a pair of glasses. That’s an entire office in a jacket pocket. No more hunching over a laptop wedged against the seat in front of me. And nobody next to me can read my screen. They’re also perfect for watching movies. 📽️ The lenses dim and basically black out the cabin, so the movie is all you see.
I also tried them last night in my recliner with the laptop and worked until 3am. Surprisingly comfortable for a long vibe coding session. No sore nose, no headache. Honestly forgot I had them on.
What I don’t like: it takes a bit of finagling to get the view just right. Almost like my eyes weren’t used to focusing on text this way. Or maybe I’m old and need a new glasses prescription. Both can be true. There’s a learning curve the first twenty minutes. I also probably won’t use these for anything under 30 minutes…not worth the setup time. ⏰ And they don’t replace the ultrawide at my Mac Studio. It just doesn’t make me more efficient in that scenario. These are a travel tool and a couch tool, not a desk tool.
Overall, I really like them. A big screen in your pocket for $299. Solid B+.
[E]ducation: Deep Dish Data Fight…the Paper Round
Quick update on the Zillow vs Compass vs MRED fight. Three weeks ago I told you the courtroom showdown wasn’t the trial, and that briefs were due mid-July. Well, the briefs are in…and they’re spicy. 🌶️
Zillow’s 48-pager goes all in on the conspiracy angle. They claim MRED and Compass worked “in lockstep” to cut them off, and their smoking gun is an email where Reffkin urged MLSs to “discipline” Zillow by pulling feed access. Zillow also told the judge that if its Chicagoland listing supply drops below 50%, the damage to its brand would be “difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.” Translation…their whole business model is having every listing, and everybody knows it.
MRED and Compass fired back with a 40-pager that boils down to one line: any harm is self-inflicted. Zillow claims it’s fighting for transparency while it “knowingly and deliberately withholds the fact that a home is for sale from its users.” If Zillow wants every listing, stop banning listings. And they insist there was no conspiracy…they each acted alone. 🧍
Now zoom out, because Chicago is only one front. Compass has been signing MLS deals like it’s a land grab…MRED, Realtracs in Nashville, The MLS in Los Angeles, and Bright MLS, the largest in the country with over 100,000 subscribers. Four partnerships in three weeks, with Compass subsidizing subscriptions to feed its national inventory through all of them.
And now Washington is paying attention. On July 1, a coalition of consumer groups asked the FTC and DOJ to investigate the Compass MLS deals, arguing they keep homes out of public distribution during key marketing periods. Then this week, the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee summoned Reffkin and MRED’s CEO to brief Congress by August 5. Their concern? ➡️ That the partnership creates a “closed information system” with “velvet ropes” around properties.
So this fight is now being waged in a federal courtroom, at two federal agencies, and in Congress…all at once. The judge’s ruling on the injunction has no deadline, and the actual trial still doesn’t have a date.
My take hasn’t changed since May. Everyone in this fight is wrapping their business model in the word “transparency.” The seller hires you for maximum exposure, and any strategy that limits it needs to benefit the seller, not the brokerage. Whatever gets decided in Chicago won’t stay in Chicago…it’s already in Washington.
[C]oaching: “I’ve Been Doing This for 97 Years”
How many times have you heard in this business, “I’ve been doing this for 97 years”? Maybe it’s time to hear how the next generation of agents is doing it.
Tom Ferry just sat down with Anthony Anselmo.
He’s 23 years old and five years into the business. His numbers: 6 homes his first year, then 30, then 75, and on pace for 70 this year at a higher price point…with 35% market share in the neighborhood he farms. And here’s the kicker. He started at 18 with zero sphere. His sphere was college kids. Nobody was buying anything. ❌
So how does a kid do that? Nothing fancy. He spends about $25 a day on Facebook ads and knows his conversion rate cold…1 to 2%. A hundred leads, one or two closings. Boring math. He does it anyway, every day. He answers new leads within minutes. He calls himself a “CRM demon” and doesn’t go home until his follow-up tasks are done. Some of those leads he’s nurtured for two-plus years, and he says his best referrals come from those slow-burn relationships, not the hot ones handed to him. 🔥
And the one year his production dropped? It’s the year he stopped grinding the phones. He turned the faucet off and assumed the calls would keep coming. They didn’t. Five years in, he’s already learned the lesson some 20-year veterans are still fighting.
One more thing. The 23-year-old already has AI synced to his CRM, calendar, and email. The next generation isn’t waiting to see if AI matters. They’re building it into the business on day one.
Nothing Anthony does requires being 23. It requires doing the boring stuff daily. Experience tells stories. Activity closes them.
[H]ow To: Build a Brand Voice In Claude
One of the best hacks when using any kind of AI is to train it to sound less like AI and more like you. One of AI's biggest drawbacks is that everyone starts to sound the same, and you can usually tell when someone is using AI based on the tone. Instead, train AI not to sound like AI, but to sound like you. 👇
How do you do that?
First open up Claude. (you will have to have the Chrome extension to do this. To figure out how to that click here)
Once you've downloaded the Claude Chrome extension, enter the following prompt into Claude: "Look through my Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok using the Chrome extension. Also review my sent emails to clients. Gather information about my writing style, tone, and personality to create a brand voice guide for me. Then ask me any questions you need to fill in the gaps."
Claude will generate a document outlining everything it has learned about your voice and brand. 🗣️ It will also ask follow-up questions to help refine the guide and fill in any missing details. Once you've answered those questions, send one final prompt: "Any time you write content for me, use these brand voice guidelines and follow them consistently."
I recommend revisiting this process about once a year and asking Claude to update your brand voice guide. The way we communicate naturally evolves over time. New phrases become common, old ones fade away, and your own writing style changes as your business grows. Updating your brand voice regularly helps ensure AI continues to sound like you, not AI.
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-Ty Morton + Abby G