How AI is Transforming Appointment Setting

Dylan Silver (00:01.082)
Hey, folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, have Martin Tijmes. Martin was the number one realtor in Texas at his brokerage, EXP Realty, in 2024. He got there by creating a human-like AI bot that contacts all of his leads and sets appointments for him. It’s called Accessible Agents, and he now offers it to real estate investors and realtors. Martin, welcome to the show.

Martin Tijmes (00:26.24)
Woohoo! How’s it going there Dylan?

Dylan Silver (00:28.346)
I’m happy to be here with you brother. Thanks for coming on the show.

Martin Tijmes (00:31.884)
man, I’m happy to be here too. What’s up?

Dylan Silver (00:35.374)
Thanks for coming on the show.

Martin Tijmes (00:36.982)
Of course, thanks for having me.

Dylan Silver (00:39.598)
Let’s talk about the origin story here. I think people oftentimes see the success and they see the end result, but they don’t see the origin. So how did you get into the real estate space?

Martin Tijmes (00:51.598)
that’s a great question. actually my background, believe it or not, is marketing and I graduated, from Austin college up in North Texas with a marketing degree, communications and a funny back note. I was actually a radio DJ in Austin for a little while. And, but I, I was in marketing and doing marketing for a national company.

Dylan Silver (01:09.85)
Let’s go.

Martin Tijmes (01:18.136)
Got let go, had always had real estate on the back of my mind. you know, once I got let go from that, I’d, you know, kind of wanted to put my own destiny in my own hands and had always thought about it and was like, well, gosh, I mean, if they’re going to do this to me, then I might as well be able to, I want to control my own destiny. So got my real estate license and actually started out in Portland, Oregon of all places.

that’s where I had my job. And then I moved back down to Houston, Texas about two and a half years ago. And that’s when I went to an EXP, EXP con in Vegas. And everybody was talking about AI, AI, AI, AI. And I was like, what the heck is AI? Like,

had no idea at that time they were just using it for like the public remarks I could describing houses online, you know, and I could spot those things from a mile away. I honestly hated those. It always use the same words like, you know, boasts this house boasts this and it’s robust. It’s elegant. And I’m like, man, that’s not elegant. That thing’s fallen down. But so I started looking into it and I was like, well,

Jeez, like if it can, okay, it kind of got my mind rolling. I was like, well, if it’s kind of spitting out stuff like that, maybe it can spit out texts, you know, like maybe it can do other stuff, you know, I was just like, you know, that’s just kind of how I get when I start going down a path, man, it’s, it’s, just start going and yeah. And so I started kind of just going down the rabbit hole of AI, figuring it out and

Anyways, fast forward a couple of years. well, number one, I did it for myself originally, and then it helped me double my business. went from 9 million to almost 20 million, about 18 and a half million, in 12 months. And then I just started focusing on AI and AI, the technology just kept on getting. Crazier and crazier. And I started tweaking my own backend system.

Martin Tijmes (03:39.886)
And then I started thinking to myself, like, man, you know, I mean, I’ve been in real estate for eight years now and I have sold everything from a $20,000 piece of dirt to, you know, helping first time home buyers to selling multimillion dollar penthouses, even commercial buildings. And I’ve gone through a whole bunch of

crazy transactions and so now I’m like I think my time is better spent helping other agents and you know get some more appointments on their calendars and help people make some more sales man.

Dylan Silver (04:17.21)
love that. Let’s talk about the AI transition. So you went into this convention, you mentioned this EXP convention, new to AI, and then fully adopting and embracing it, innovating. How did that process come about from the totally new to now cutting edge?

Martin Tijmes (04:37.326)
well, mean, like, how did that come about? Like, how did I think of that? Or…

Dylan Silver (04:43.746)
Yeah, I mean, because I’m thinking about myself, right? When I see a new idea, it’s one thing to think about it, it’s another thing to bring it to fruition. And then also too, as an outsider looking in, right, because you were new to AI, this wasn’t your native language, so to speak, to jump in there is super impressive stuff.

Martin Tijmes (05:00.13)
No.

Martin Tijmes (05:04.718)
Well, I appreciate it. Yeah, I’ve always been more of a hands-on kind of outdoorsy guy. And so to get in front of the computer and figure this stuff out, it took a lot. But it really impressed the heck out of me. So all this new technology. then, like I said, I just started going down the rabbit hole. And then I started meeting people. I started contacting tech friends of mine, picking their brains. And then they would introduce me to somebody and then somebody else. And then I’d go online.

and start researching other things. basically, I ended up hiring a tech team. It’s my brain, my brainchild and all that stuff and how it works. But ultimately, they’re the ones that essentially created it. I didn’t create it on the back end, all the tech stuff. But I’ve spent a lot of time, and not to mention a whole heck of a lot of money, creating it.

And now it’s to a point where I would say it is as good as it’s gonna get and until things change and everything’s evolving so fast in AI, but I’ve got my finger on the pulse at this point.

Dylan Silver (06:19.16)
Let’s talk about the vision. So you mentioned it was doing descriptions when you had just been brand new to AI. It was doing descriptions and talking about what the property looks like and using general terms, you know. And you saw an opportunity to do something different. And that opportunity, I’m sure, evolved over time. But when you initially thought about it, what was the idea? Hey, I can do X. And what was X for you?

Martin Tijmes (06:45.608)
man, I can book more appointments. I mean, I would honestly say that, you know, as agents, lot of us, a lot of leads fall through the cracks and we’re out showing homes, we’re busy, we’re writing contracts, we’re doing this, we’re doing that, we’re driving a lot and a new lead comes in and you know, you and I are doing an interview or, you know, I’m out showing homes, something’s going on, I can’t get to that lead right away.

Dylan Silver (06:49.828)
Yeah.

Martin Tijmes (07:13.814)
I may not be able to get to that lead for another 30 minutes, maybe an hour, maybe I forget about it. And then two days later it pops back in my head and I’m like, my gosh, I need to call, I need to call Bob, you know? And so yeah, that was kind of the aha moment, you know, was like, huh, if I can get this thing to contact my leads, know, speed to lead right away.

and book appointments for me. And I mean, I’ve had VAs before as well. And sometimes their internet’s down, they don’t work 24 seven. We’re all human, they gotta take care of their families and this and that, life gets in the way. So that’s not 100 % reliable either. And so this thing, I mean, it’s a human like bot that really acts like a human. At this point, it uses emojis.

It can even misspell words on purpose and be like, oops, I meant to say Saturday, not not stir today. You know, so it’s pretty remarkable what what it can do. And so, yeah, to answer your question, man, I mean, it’s that’s that was the vision that I had was like, gosh, I could have a calendar full of appointments with warm leads instead of me being the one sitting there just like texting, texting, texting, calling, calling.

Dylan Silver (08:18.38)
Ha ha!

Martin Tijmes (08:41.614)
just trying to find that one person that is, you know, that’s looking to buy or sell a house.

Dylan Silver (08:49.294)
Had you launched a tech company prior to this? So this is, I mean, not a software engineer by background, right? So this is new to you. This is an aggressive undertaking, but you said, I’m gonna make this a reality because it’s not gonna just be helpful to me, it’s gonna be helpful to other people. What were those steps like to you as someone who’s not from that space going into it? How did you connect with the right people? What connections did you make? How did you get the development team? How did this all happen?

Martin Tijmes (08:52.576)
No.

Martin Tijmes (09:17.192)
Yeah, no, that’s a good question. Again, mean, after that, exp con, mean, AI was just stuck in my head and just started just started talking to a whole bunch of different people and just going down that rabbit hole researching, talking to different tech friends, people who are in the tech industry. You know, there was a few people that that really helped me out quite a bit as well. But I mean,

Long story short, it’s just like creating any other business. I mean, it’s like buying a McDonald’s franchise. like, well, I’ve never owned a burger joint before, but I mean, you have the systems in place and you purchase it. Like I purchased a tech team to help me out and really, I mean, I had the vision and then we all kind of mapped it out together and they’re the ones that created it on the backend.

Dylan Silver (09:52.792)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (10:12.046)
Was that harder? I’m thinking about this from a thousand foot view. I also didn’t mention this before we hopped onto the show here. I’m actually a software engineering school. I’m in a boot camp. And so I’m wearing a lot of hats right now, but kind of seeing what you’re seeing with the AI and everything, I’m thinking, you know, I actually would like to be a little bit more educated on this. What can I do? Well, let me put myself through schooling on this. And so.

Martin Tijmes (10:17.997)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Tijmes (10:23.65)
Okay.

Martin Tijmes (10:36.046)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (10:40.512)
I can say that when I talk to folks like you who come from the outside and make the bridges, talk to the people, enable a team to happen without the background, it’s truly impressive to me because I’m like, how? And so when you’re going out and you’re finding these people, was it kind of like a needle in a haystack type of deal or did you have maybe a couple fortuitous connections that opened a couple doors for you? How did you meet these people?

Martin Tijmes (10:55.884)
Yeah.

Martin Tijmes (11:07.404)
Yeah, and I’ve, I mean, I had teams all around the world. I mean, that’s the beauty of the internet. and yeah, so can’t give away my, my whole secret sauce, but, but yeah, I mean, my team is, all around the world. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely had had some help with people who have done tech companies before and got into the right circles and,

Dylan Silver (11:19.256)
Don’t give away the secret sauce.

Martin Tijmes (11:36.994)
You know, they’re like, well, why don’t you do it like this? Or why don’t you do it like that? Why don’t you, you know, I know this company that can help you over here. They can do this. They have this sort of team. And it’s like, okay. Like I had no idea these people existed or like these, yeah, like this style of software or these types of engineers existed. And yeah, I mean, just, I just picked up the phone at that point and just started, you know,

Dylan Silver (11:52.291)
existed.

Martin Tijmes (12:06.222)
calling them and emailing them and saying, hey, this is my idea, can you help? And like, yes or no. And it’s like, okay, well, let’s get to work. Let’s figure this thing out.

Dylan Silver (12:15.992)
I’m impressed, and I think if I may say it, the level of learning that you had to do is massive. Now granted, you’re not coding it, but you’re still having to bridge all the gaps, right? And so what was the timeframe from when you saw, there’s this opportunity where I can…

have a way for agents to, or not agents, clients to reach out to me, customers to reach out to me, and they can respond and book it in my calendar, to then making that a reality. What was that timeframe like?

Martin Tijmes (12:50.542)
that was about six months. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:54.936)
Wow. And so at that point, there tools that were already doing that or not really?

Martin Tijmes (13:01.13)
No, we’d piece this thing all together. I created my own bot and again, help with the tech companies and stuff, but we created the bot. We made the connections on the backend to talk to, for example, like Facebook Messenger. And I was like, can it do this? Like, let’s figure it out. Yes, we can. Okay, well, let’s do it.

Dylan Silver (13:20.943)
Yeah.

Martin Tijmes (13:27.99)
and then we created, you know, ads on Facebook and Instagram and then boom, as soon as somebody clicks on the ad, then the bot engages and has like a human like conversation with it. And the next thing you know, I mean, I still get excited when I, when I see a text come through on my phone and it says, Hey, John Doe scheduled an appointment for Monday at 11 AM. And I’m just like, my gosh, this is awkward.

Like it still gets to me every single time because I use it myself still, you know? And yeah, I didn’t have to do anything.

Dylan Silver (14:04.41)
AI, think, has been around since 2022, the version that we know of it, maybe a couple years before that. But I’m thinking one that I really started to see chat GPT. How long has Accessible Agents been around for?

Martin Tijmes (14:16.184)
So we just did our public launch in February.

Dylan Silver (14:19.962)
Okay, so we’re new here.

Martin Tijmes (14:22.018)
We’re new. We’re new. Yeah. And, yeah, I was using it for myself. That’s, that’s what I was getting. I was using it for myself. And then that’s when I like kind of the light bulb went off when I was closing more deals and was like, my gosh, I could, you know, sell this and bring it out to the public and help other agents. And cause I mean, this is a huge, disconnect where agents have a lot, a lot of issues with, it’s extremely time consuming.

Dylan Silver (14:24.461)
I can-

Martin Tijmes (14:51.756)
So to be able to offer somebody a, basically a 24 seven assistant that never sleeps at a fraction of the price of hiring your own assistant, it’s kind of a no brainer to me.

Dylan Silver (15:04.782)
No brainer, no brainer. And I’m thinking about the niche that you carved out with real estate. I mean, this could go into anything, but the real estate space, how many times are, as a new realtor myself, right, how many times are we trying to get ahold of somebody they’re not picking up and time is of the essence. Now we’re having to play phone tag.

And this can all be simplified by a tool like what you have. I’m imagining every month there’s probably a new application or a new way that the improvements can be made on the system. You mentioned emojis, you mentioned more human-like interaction, you mentioned, I believe, like incorrect spelling to make it seem more human-like.

As time goes with AI, but also with any business, things adapt. Where do you see the next six months year with AI in the real estate space and with your company heading to?

Martin Tijmes (16:07.84)
my gosh. No, that’s a good question. yeah. And you’re totally right. I mean, my own company has evolved and it’s almost frustrating because it’s like, figured something out perfectly. And it’s like, but wait, this, this just rolled out and it’s like, my gosh. Well, we need that. And, so yeah, it’s.

Dylan Silver (16:24.666)
Yeah.

Martin Tijmes (16:31.786)
It’s growing very, very fast. Where is it going to be in the next six months? I don’t know. I mean, I was just telling somebody today that, one of my first clients that I had, I told him that I didn’t do voice AI. And this was just, you know, the beginning of the year, January. Well, we launched in February. So it was in February when I told him that. And then just the other day I was like, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, why aren’t you using voice AI? And he’s like, well, you told me you don’t, you’re not using, you know, offering it. I’m like, no, no, no, I offer voice AI. He’s like,

But you just said a few months ago, the technology isn’t there and the technology is completely here now. I mean, it’s crazy the things that the voice AI can do. It can sound like you, you know, I don’t like to, you know, even give a white lie or anything. So, I mean, when the bot engages with people, it, you know, I tell it to act honest, you know, it’s like, this is Martin’s assistant. I gave her name, her name’s Erica.

Dylan Silver (17:10.798)
Yeah, it is crazy.

Martin Tijmes (17:28.398)
It was like, this is Martin’s assistant, Erica. I’m his AI assistant. So it’s not lying. It’s not saying anything like that. It’s like, hey, this is Martin’s assistant, Erica. How many beds and baths are you looking for? OK. And it just goes straight into the conversation. And what’s the price point that you’re comfortable with? Are you working with a realtor? It asks the qualifying questions. And the next thing you know, boom. It’s like, well, hey, it would be great to have an appointment or book an appointment with Martin.

And then next thing you know, get a calendar invite on my phone.

Dylan Silver (18:02.874)
I can imagine as you were developing this for your own personal use, just like you mentioned, there’s new ways that this can be useful and a utility to you, starting out maybe with text, then moving to different platforms people can reach out to you. Now they can hop on the phone, right? And you can have an AI assistant take calls. there’s our rooster going off over there. that’s right. And as you’re…

Martin Tijmes (18:26.35)
Ha ha ha, speaking my language. Ha ha ha ha. No.

Dylan Silver (18:33.068)
you were doing this for yourself. Was there a point in time where you said, I’m going to do this for the public or was it you knew that from the beginning?

Martin Tijmes (18:41.454)
I did not know that from the beginning at all. I didn’t even know what I was getting myself into, quite honestly. Like didn’t even know if this thing was gonna work. I just found it to be interesting and I heard everybody talking about AI at this conference and like, if you don’t get into AI, you’re gonna be left behind, you know? And I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t wanna get left behind. That’s pretty much how that happened.

And yeah, no magic sauce or anything, no brilliant, you know, anything popping in my head. It was just almost out of fear. Everybody talking about AI getting left behind. And I do see it. I mean, now that I’m in the space, everyone’s going to be using it. You know, it’s, kind of like to give the analogy of the, of the iPhone, you know, everybody had the sleek flip phones, you know, that were really small and compact. And then iPhone comes out.

So, well, I don’t know if I want this big computer in my pocket and now there’s no such thing as a… Not really.

Dylan Silver (19:42.83)
You don’t see too many people walking around with Motorola razors any longer, do you?

Now, was there an aha moment for you where someone came up to you and said, hey, how do I get on that? Or was it a lot of feedback that you were seeing from other people and thinking, hey, I have this tool that isn’t available to the public. How did you decide I’m going to make this publicly available?

Martin Tijmes (20:06.06)
Yeah, pretty much the latter. You know, I mean, nobody was really, I mean, I just kind of had my head to the ground, you know, and I honestly didn’t even know that I was the number one realtor in Texas at EXP. And I was just doing my deals and somebody actually texted me a photo of like a congratulations that EXP put up on Instagram. And my name was right there and I was like, what?

Okay, cool. Yeah, and then from that point, I was like, man, I think I need to do something with this. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (20:44.568)
Yeah. Wow. And you would credit a lot of that to your invention.

Martin Tijmes (20:52.846)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. It definitely helped me. I mean, I wouldn’t say it was like 100%, you know, but it definitely helped me get deals and find people and then working those leads and then getting referrals. I mean, all of that. You know, it’s. Huh? I’d probably like 50 50 something like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dylan Silver (21:08.962)
or maybe 15%. I said maybe 15 or 20%, something like that. Yeah, that’s a huge increase. That is phenomenal. So I can imagine, you know, the success that you’ve seen personally was wonderful and maybe shocking because going into it, like you said, is this going to work? Not only did it work, doubled. And so I’m thinking just about the future and what the future is going to look like. I’ve seen so many different

things with AI, I’ve seen the AI Talk agents, so much out there right now. Where can folks currently go to get a hold of you or to get a hold of accessible agents?

Martin Tijmes (21:52.632)
Yeah, for sure. Accessibleagents.com. A-C-C-E-S-S-I-B-L-E. Accessibleagents.com. There is a demo on there that you can actually play with and book an appointment with me. Me or my team right there. And you get an email notification. So like I said, I mean, I’m using my own AI. I mean, just a few months ago, that widget, you know,

didn’t even exist. now that exists. But yeah, you can go on there. I mean, of course, I’m wearing my rowdy realtor shirt. That was my brand, still is. Still do a few listings here and there, and really mainly focusing all my time into accessible agents and helping agents succeed and double their income as well.

Dylan Silver (22:45.348)
Phenomenal stuff Martin. Thank you so much for coming on the show

Martin Tijmes (22:49.172)
Awesome, thank you, appreciate it. and another quick plug, I totally forgot, I wrote a book about it too. The Future Proof Realtor, getting serious buyers and sellers using AI.

Dylan Silver (23:01.668)
Thank you for coming on, Martin. Thank you so much.

Martin Tijmes (23:03.938)
All right, thanks Dylan.