[T]echnology: Record a Skill in Claude
[E]ducation: Zillow Wins One, For Now
[C]oaching: The World Is Designed to Distract You
[H]ow To: Create A Great Hook
[T]echnology: Record a Skill in Claude
Last week we showed you how to train Claude to sound like you. This week it can watch you work.
Claude just added a feature called Record a Skill. You hit record, do a task on your screen one time, and talk out loud while you do it. The reason you do that step. The thing you always check. The exception that only comes up twice a year. Claude watches, listens, and turns the whole thing into a skill it can run again on its own. No prompt writing, no automation software, no IT guy. You just show it the job. 👍
Now think about your week.
New listing intake. Record yourself entering one listing. Every field, every dropdown, the photo order, the public remarks, the agent remarks. Talk through your rules while you do it. Which measurements you round. What never goes in public. 🗣️ Claude turns that into a skill, and on the next listing you hand it the seller's sheet and it does the entry. You look it over before it goes live. Same recording spits out your feature sheet and social captions.
The Friday seller report. Pull the showing feedback, grab the view counts, drop it in your template, write the same three paragraphs about where we are and what's next. Times seven listings. Record it once, schedule it for Friday at 8am, and read it over coffee before you send.
New email comes in. Added it to your CRM, tagged, intro email out, follow-up task set for Tuesday.
That's a skill.
That's not a tool. 🔨 That's your first hire that doesn't need a desk.
Two warnings. It records your whole screen, so close anything with client data, passwords, or commission numbers before you hit record. And one recording is a rough draft, not a finished employee. Run it on three or four real files and correct it before you turn it loose on a live one.
It's in the + menu of the Claude desktop app. Pro, Max, and Team plans.
We've spent 22 years hiring people to do repeatable work. The repeatable work is now the first thing you hand off.
[E]ducation: Zillow Wins One, For Now
Different Zillow fight than the one we've been tracking in Chicago. This one is about loans.
Last September a class action out of Seattle accused Zillow of running what the plaintiffs called a "fraudulent enterprise." The claim: Zillow's partner agent program steered buyers into Zillow Home Loans, and that violates RESPA, the federal law against kickbacks on settlement services. They stacked RICO on top of it, the racketeering statute. That's a big swing. 🏌️
Monday, Judge James Robart in the Western District of Washington threw the whole thing out. Zillow's statement said the court found every claim in the 100-plus page complaint deficient.
Here's why it got tossed, and this is the part worth understanding. The judge said the buyers had no standing because they never directly paid for the settlement services they were complaining about. He also found no deception, because Zillow's terms of use and disclosures spelled the arrangement out. Nobody hid anything.
But it was dismissed without prejudice. Translation: come back with a better complaint. Plaintiffs have until August 17 to refile, and they may add more brokerages as defendants this time. The Real Brokerage already got dismissed out back in June. A separate steering case filed by a Washington agent in January is still alive.
So this isn't over. It's a do-over.
Zillow won this round on paperwork, not on behavior. Disclosure is doing an enormous amount of work in these cases. If your brokerage has an affiliated lender, a title company, or a preferred vendor arrangement, go read your disclosures this week. 📄 Not because you did anything wrong, but because that document is the first thing a judge reads.
[C]oaching: The World Is Designed to Distract You
You play better golf with better golfers. ⛳ I've said that for years. I've never actually golfed with Charlie Foxworth, but I've had plenty of hazys with him, and the man is wise. Honored to be in the same tribe.
His Monday Mojo this week runs about a minute and is worth more than most hour-long trainings.
"Right now, the world is not designed to build you a good life. The world is designed to distract you from one."
Then he hands you the whole system in three questions. What's next? Who's going to do it? And how are you going to know it's done?
That's it. That's the checklist. ✅ Charlie's point is you have to actually write it down. A system in your head isn't a system, it's a habit, and habits break the first week you get busy. Lead generation and staying in touch on the back end are more critical than they've ever been, and neither one survives on memory.
Now go back and read the tech section.
Charlie says write down your process. Claude now says show me your process. Same instruction, different medium. The three questions still hold. But the second one just changed, because who's going to do it doesn't have to be a person anymore.
Which makes the first part matter more, not less.
You still have to know your system cold. 🥶 You can't record what you can't explain.
Charlie puts this out every Monday. Sign up for Monday Mojo here.
[H]ow To: Create A Great Hook
Creating a hook, especially for short-form videos, is probably the most important step in the entire video-making process. That's right, I don't think it's the lighting, the audio, or even the content itself. The hook is by far the most important piece. Why? 🤔 Because you have about two seconds to get someone to stop scrolling, watch your video, and engage with it. If you don't grab their attention in that time frame, your video won't perform, even if it's the most cinematic, thought-provoking piece of art you've ever created. They've already scrolled past and will never even see how amazing your video was.
So, how do you create a great hook? 🐠 It needs to be short, clear, and emotionally engaging. Just like a thumbnail is essential on YouTube for getting people to click, the title card and opening three seconds of your video should accomplish the same thing.
That's right, it isn't even about what you say first. It's about what your viewer sees at first glance. I always put a title card in the first few seconds that quickly summarizes what the video is about. That way, if the topic interests someone, I grab their attention immediately. Sometimes I'll keep it simple. For example, I made a TikTok about the new movie The Odyssey, and I simply put, "Odyssey & the Trojan Horse." That instantly stopped anyone who was interested in that topic.
What did I say first? "I'm going to look like a complete moron." 🫠
That sparks curiosity. Why am I going to look like a moron? Where is this video going? Then I went into the video and explained how I didn't realize the Trojan Horse came from Greek mythology (I thought it was a historical event) and yes, I probably did look like a moron. That video got people talking. Some viewers admitted they didn't know the Trojan Horse was part of Greek mythology either, while others were more than happy to pile on and agree that I was a moron.
But that was the point. I knew the video would either be relatable or make people passionate enough to comment. It worked. The video received over 700,000 views 😏 and thousands of comments. I genuinely believe that if I hadn't included the title card explaining what the video was about within the first three seconds, it would've received at least 75% fewer views.
Your first job is to get people to stop scrolling. Your second job is to get them to stay and watch. The cherry on top is getting them to engage. That is how I have created videos with hundreds of thousands of views. That is how you will too.
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