How a Top Texas Real Estate Agent Wins on Relationships and AI | Rebecca Kennedy

Rebecca Kennedy (00:00)
when I got into the business, because of where I come from and I’ve been in sales, I’ve been commission based for, the last 17 years. they said it takes three, four years to get going as an agent. And I was like, no, it’s fine. It’s not gonna take me that long. It’s not gonna take me that long. It’s not that it takes me that long to do the job. It’s because it takes other people in my circle that long to see me doing what I do and trust that I know what I’m doing.

Dylan Silver (01:00)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Rebecca Kennedy, a Fort Worth native who left a six-figure corporate career, built a screen printing company that did 700,000 in its first year, and then jumped into real estate, where she’s now ranked In the top 1% of Berkshire Hathaway agents in Texas. Rebecca, thanks for joining us here today.

Rebecca Kennedy (01:23)
Hey, thanks, Dylan. I’m so excited to be here this morning.

Dylan Silver (01:26)
What types of deals are coming across your desk these days?

Rebecca Kennedy (01:30)
So I have a lot of first time home buyers coming through. So we’re looking at price points, 300 to 400.

Dylan Silver (01:38)
Now, first time homebuyer, so important. And I’m particularly passionate about this because this is, my peer group and a lot of the people that we interface with, and a lot of people also feel like they’re in some cases left out and not sure exactly how to go about this process. It can be very challenging. What’s your approach to those conversations with first time homebuyers?

Rebecca Kennedy (02:01)
It’s education. There are so many people that do not truly understand the nuance in first time home buying and that obviously everyone knows that you need a down payment, but the closing cost and how we can help in getting the closing costs covered, how we can buy down the rate, the interest rate may not be what you want. You don’t want to wait for, but we have ways to mitigate it. So it’s truly just educating through the entire process because it’s very overwhelming if you’ve never done it before.

Dylan Silver (02:28)
What’s interesting right now, anywhere in Texas, certainly this holds true in DFW, is there’s so much new construction, ground up new construction, new subdivisions going up, the corporate builders, everyone knows by name, that people have maybe more pathways to homeownership now than they might have had in some cases 10 years ago, even seven years ago. And so I think one of the things that doesn’t get spoken to is how much. This nü construction is impacting the proces.

Rebecca Kennedy (02:59)
100%. And especially for our sellers, they don’t understand. They don’t understand that you have a huge competition. So it’s important to work with an agent that kind of understands how we can structure things from the sales side as well to help push that through. Because sometimes there truly is nothing. If you’ve got a new construction development that’s going in, three blocks over, they’re only a third done. You’re gonna sit for a while.

Dylan Silver (03:21)
Yeah, I mean that’s exactly right. I’ve heard folks on this show talking about home sitting for seventy days plus. And I think the reasonable expectations are what are important to set right up front.

Rebecca Kennedy (03:35)
The very beginning. Absolutely. Yep. Transparency and setting the tone because if not, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s going to be frustrated. You’re going to think I’m not doing anything for you. so I want to make sure that there is an expectation and a pathway through the entire transaction.

Dylan Silver (03:49)
When folks are deciding to move, and typically in many cases this means selling one home and buying another, this can be tricky. And I talked about this on a show recently, that especially when you’re up against a time crunch, I’ve got to move by this date. There’s a lot that goes into this. When folks are considering that, they’ve got to sell and then they’ve got to buy. What do they have to get right?

Rebecca Kennedy (04:15)
Just the the timing and then on my end, it’s the paperwork, right? It’s making sure that all of the dates work. They need to make sure that they are prepared as far as the back end and the financing and making sure that they’ve communicated with their lender because a lot of times, even though it is cash, they’re gonna be taking a portion and they’re they’re borrowing out for a portion of that. so you just wanna make sure that again, everyone is on the same page for the timeline and the goals from the very beginning.

Dylan Silver (04:41)
Do contingent offers work in DFW? If someone was gonna say, I’m gonna I need to sell my home first before making before this offer goes through, would a receiving, listing agent be receptive to that or would they say, I’ve got too many other offers for me to consider an offer contingent on the sale of your home?

Rebecca Kennedy (04:58)
So it’s dependent on the seller. It’s completely dependent on the seller. They absolutely do work, but they don’t work for everyone because maybe you have someone who is already out of their home. so they don’t want to wait. They’re already paying, that mortgage. maybe they’re relocating in two or three days, months. It truly just depends on the situation of the seller.

Dylan Silver (05:18)
I want to pivot here and talk about the marketing arm of being a successful realtor and building a business. So we’re talking in the green room. You’ve got an amazing website that you’ve built out. And I think also too, marketing is a multi-pronged approach. People rely I’ve many people will rely on a very old school methodology, a Hot 100 list, who’s in your sphere, family, friends, and then that extended network. And then you have the entire opposite side of the spectrum, which is, I’m going to be, paying to build my brand and marketing myself using dollars and billboards and TV marketing and print and so forth. What’s worked for you?

Rebecca Kennedy (06:02)
Relationships. 100% relationships. and I learned this from the printing business. I’d spent $32,000 on a website that was phenomenal. And it back then, it was SEO. Make sure the Google is optimizing you the way you need to. and after 12 years, I did not get a single order from that website. Not one. Wow. The business that I had generated was because of phone calls that I made and relationships that I built. So I feel like the online presence is absolutely key because that’s where you get validated, right? People meet you and then they look you up. so it does need to be there, but the key part, what’s most important to me is building valuable relationships.

Dylan Silver (06:47)
When we talk about building relationships and then ultimately that converting into a signed listing agreement or buyers rep, it feels like a lot of times agents will do a lot of work and then someone will go with someone else and that this can be very, very frustrating for folks. So it’s not just, building that relationship, but it’s also about having enough faith in this person that it’s a no-brainer. Hey, of course I’m gonna go with this person because look what they’ve already done for me and how much trust I have in them. How can realtors bridge that gap between a pleasant conversation, at a kitchen table to then, hey, I trust this person enough where this is my realtor?

Rebecca Kennedy (07:27)
I think just being transparent and honest. I have had in the past couple of months, I have had clients that I have told them up front because of the situation and the nuances on the transaction, this is not going, this is not going to sell. You are going to sit for a while, and I want you to be aware and this is what’s going on. They said, nope, nope, we want you to do it. We want you to do it for a discounted rate. I’m not going to do it for a discounted rate. If I discount my rate, Then it’s also going to discount the buyer. That’s going to put you in a worse position. Okay, nope, we’ll do it for this amount. You have to be transparent from the beginning with the good news and the bad news. That’s what builds the trust. If I can sit down and tell you that, what, I know this isn’t the answer that you want, but based on my experience and based on what the market is telling us, this is what’s going to happen. I need to be able to put that trust in me. And you’re not going to do it if I’m telling you everything is wonderful. And then at the end, it’s the complete opposite.

Dylan Silver (08:23)
Is there a secondary expectation set aside from price and time, are there other expectations that realtors need to consider setting right from the gate so that their clients are not, maybe blindsided in some capacity when certain things come up?

Rebecca Kennedy (08:39)
Well, communication. They need to know that they’re going to hear from you because from a client’s perspective, especially when it comes from from the listening side, you put a sign in the yard, you put it on the MLS, and then it’s just sitting there and they think, Well, my agent’s not doing anything. Well, they think you’re not doing anything because you’re not communicating to them what you’re doing. So you need to let them know, look, this is where I have marketed. These are the conversations that I’m having. This is who I followed up with that have shown up in your, to do the reverse marketing. you need to be able to communicate so and hold their hand. I don’t care if they tell you they don’t need it or not, but hold your client’s hand because that’s what’s gonna build that trust.

Dylan Silver (09:19)
Now, I’ve heard varying perspectives on this next question. I’ve heard it’s easier to sell a home when it is vacant, of course, but then there that does present an obstacle because then this person has to vacate the home in order for it to sell. How how can realtors broach that conversation? Should they stress the importance of the property being vacant or is it, equally applicable to say we can get the same market value just may take longer if you’re in the home?

Rebecca Kennedy (09:51)
Think having someone actually living in the home is the biggest holdup. I think when you don’t want them there when you’re showing. Okay. So we’ll just clarify that. Homeowners need to leave out when you’re doing showings. but as long as the home is clean and it is orderly, I don’t think that that’s a holdup as far as a vacant selling set faster than a something that’s being lived in.

Dylan Silver (10:16)
Staging so important. So important. Not just staging in person, but also the photos digitally. Do you encounter folks who maybe push back on this and don’t quite understand how, a deep cleaning is so important. We may need to get the walls repainted over here. Hey, we may need to rehab the bathroom or the kitchen in order for us to get that same market value that you remember your neighbor’s home sold for.

Rebecca Kennedy (10:43)
a hundred percent. And it’s very your home is very personal. So you have to approach the conversations with a finesse. And I want to say gently, because sometimes it’s just a hard conversation. Like, this is what you’re gonna have to do. but it depending on the house and where it’s where it’s sitting in again, what the comps are, sometimes nothing needs to be done and others we we’re gonna have to do some work.

Dylan Silver (11:46)
I’d like to pivot here and talk about what that first couple of weeks can and should look like when things are going well. I think a lot of people think, okay, well I saw my neighbor’s home sell for this and there were multiple offers on this or the opposite. I’ve heard homes are sitting and so in that first couple of weeks when people have signed a listing agreement with their agent, ideally what does that look like right now?

Rebecca Kennedy (12:11)
So I can tell you from my perspective and with my clients, what we’re gonna do that very first weekend, we’re gonna do an open house because that’s the most important. Now it’s new on the market. You want to generate as much buzz and exposure in the early stages. That’s where we’re gonna get the most dollars for you, right? The longer it sits on market, the more we’re gonna have to negotiate the price. So it’s important that we get that exposure in the very beginning. so we will do an open house. I usually like to list on a Wednesday. So we have a few days to advertise that it’s going to be happening. We’ll do an open house on Saturday. And then we’ll do an open house the following weekend. And then at that point, I’m going to run boosted ads online. We’re going to do all of the marketing within the brokerage to other agents, promoting it online. and then we’re gonna do all of the analytics. And every two weeks, my clients are gonna get an email from me along with a phone call after they reviewed it to let them know. This is what’s going on. This is the exposure that we’re getting. This is where the comps are. We’re going to reevaluate the comps every two weeks. just so we can keep an eye on what the market is doing and what their house needs to be doing. and if we need to make adjustments.

Dylan Silver (13:16)
I heard three things that really stuck out to me. boosted ads, marketing within the brokerage, and then regular reviews of the analytics. boosted ads, this is new to me. Break this down for me.

Rebecca Kennedy (13:29)
just for what you would get on Facebook and Instagram. so the we’re I’m gonna pay to have those as advertisements. they go under the housing criteria and we’re I’m not gonna put a stipulation on just the city that they’re in because here in the Metroplex we have so many people that are moving from out of state. I wanna be able to capture their audience as well.

Dylan Silver (13:52)
That’s amazing. I’d like to dive in there, get a little bit granular there if we can. I haven’t heard this strategy before of hey, I’ve got a listing and I’m gonna promote it with boosted ads. You would think I would have, but this makes all the sense in the world. What are those interactions like? D is there frothy interest when you do that boosted ad?

Rebecca Kennedy (14:11)
Y yes and no. Again, right? Some of them fall flat and others based on what’s what’s happening go fantastic. I actually just did a commercial, commercial building a couple of days ago and woke up and I had 22 inquiries on it. I’ve done some that I’ve had nothing on. So it there’s there’s a lot of nuances there. There’s not a perfect science, but being able to show my clients that this is what I am doing. and then the platform that I have, I’m able to track anyone that clicks on a property. So I capture their information, it rates them, lets them know their interest if they’ve been shopping for a while, or maybe this was just a, an inquiry. that’s a pretty kitchen. Let’s look at it. that’s really not a true lead. but it allows me to capture their contact information and follow up.

Dylan Silver (14:55)
You mentioned a commercial listing. Obviously, different side, different asset class. can you tell me anything about that deal?

Rebecca Kennedy (15:03)
So this one is actually in Arlington and it is a warehouse set on about five acres.

Dylan Silver (15:10)
Very interesting. Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of I call it small bay. I think the term is small bay or light bay industrial, small bay industrial, where where investors are now more interested in this asset class seemingly than ever before, because it they’re they’re in many cases good tenants that are recession proof that service homeowners. And so there’s more interest, I think, i from an investment standpoint, investors may be pivoting away from some asset classes and looking more into asset classes like a small bay industrial.

Rebecca Kennedy (15:43)
Yeah, I’m saying the same thing.

Dylan Silver (15:45)
when we look at the other side of this game here, which is representing buyers, and we touched on this at the top of the show. buyers are gonna sometimes not know their own timelines and sometimes be pressed up against time. But I’ve heard from many folks that specifically in DFW, what is often motivating folks now is needing to decrease their lifestyle. They’ve had lifestyle inflation, or they they’re seeing that May maybe this home that they’ve lived in for so long is not in the equity position that they thought. And on top of that, they’re having difficulty making payments. Are you seeing a similar trend where where maybe some folks are facing financial distress in some capacity, or what’s been the motivating factor for for folks to be buyers?

Rebecca Kennedy (16:27)
So I deal with a lot of relocation as well. And folks that are coming in from BNSF, from Chase. So some of the large employers here. I also work with quite a few investors. So I have seen the pre-foreclosures kind of tick up a little bit. so it’s a it’s a little bit of both.

Dylan Silver (16:47)
Relocation, so I’m you’re you’re dealing with folks I’m imagining from the parentheses as they call it, East Coast, West Coast, and then of course, neighboring states as well. When they’re looking at relocating, I’m sure this is a challenging process for them and they have to figure out who who to connect with. Are they finding you through, your sphere and your referral network, or do you have partnerships like you mentioned with corporate entities?

Rebecca Kennedy (17:11)
So those are actually provided and introduced to me through the brokerage and the relationships that we have that the contracts that Berkshire has.

Dylan Silver (17:57)
when you’re helping a relocation, that’s gonna be a different type of deal, right? Because there’s so much that goes into that and there’s a lot of moving pieces and then folks need to know how to get set up. What does a relocation consult look like? and how might that differ from someone who who’s, living in DFW and buying in DFW?

Rebecca Kennedy (18:16)
gonna get really down into the nitty-gritty on their lifestyle because they don’t know the neighborhoods down here. They don’t know the area. It may be something where they have younger kids and they need to make sure that they have, the sidewalks, they have parks nearby, maybe they’re runners, they want to have trails. how do you have a nightlife that you enjoy? Do you want, do you want to drive to go to that? Do you what is the lifestyle? That way I know kind of where to put you. So it’s not just necessarily where’s your job gonna be. we need to find the pockets and the good neighborhoods that fit what you’re looking for to live.

Dylan Silver (18:49)
Now, I’m imagining some of this process can be done virtually, but I’m also imagining a good component of it is they wanna see the home and experience the neighborhood. How and when is it appropriate for someone to fly out then to be looking at these properties? And on the other side of this, are people buying homes virtually at this point?

Rebecca Kennedy (19:07)
Yes, they are. Yeah. Where I’ve I’ve done a few just from face FaceTime walkthroughs. but I do prefer them to come here and that is once we have done a few FaceTime walkthroughs, you have done a few video tours, and we’ve said, Okay, these are the four we want to take a look at. I’m not gonna have you fly into town to take a look at one property. So we want to

Dylan Silver (19:29)
Interesting. you mentioned a couple people having purchased homes virtually. I think some of our audience, myself included, goes, Wow, that’s pretty courageous on the on the part of the of the buyers. What happens differently when someone is buying a home virtually? I’m imagining there there’s several components that maybe have to be adapted for that virtual process.

Rebecca Kennedy (19:49)
We are gonna have a lot longer conversations. Yeah. because there are a lot of a lot of boxes to tick and they are putting a lot of trust in me. So there’s times I’ve gone out, five or six different times to the same property because hey, can we take a look at this? Hey, we missed that. Can you go back over here? And okay, yeah, you can take a video and send it to him, but it’s just it’s not the same. You wanna be able to get up and close and really go through the process.

Dylan Silver (20:16)
Want to pivot here, talk about a totally different side of this, going back to an earlier conversation we had about your website, and we both share a passion for tech and for AI, if I can say that. How are you implementing technology in your business these days?

Rebecca Kennedy (20:33)
every day. so I built the website. I’ve also built my own CRM. it handles not only the financial side of things. So it replaces QuickBooks, it replaces my email marketing, it handles my social media for me up front. I have it set up to where when I make notes on a client, there’s a review button. So all of the information that I have put in. Whether it is, contact information, if they have put in the interest rate for their current approval, I can do a review and it’s gonna tell me, hey, look, these guys are looking in Keller. Are they aware that the data center is coming in? hey, their interest rate seems a little bit high. Let’s see if we can talk to them about a buy down or it kind of gives me prompts and reviews to further a conversation and better serve them. so that’s one of the things.

Dylan Silver (21:23)
That’s incredible, by the way. I’d l I wanna ask a follow up question there. If I heard it right, quick books replacement basically. So it does your bookkeeping. You can put client notes in and it’s handling other portions put potentially outreach. Is that accurate? Or fulfilling communication in some capacity?

Rebecca Kennedy (21:41)
So I don’t have it set up currently with like Twilio where you can go in and like have it send text messages through the platform, but it does do the reminders on who you need to contact. And then I just put in the notes of our conversation into it. it does tie in to email, but it just helps with those prompts and making sure that I don’t miss anything. I’ve got it

Dylan Silver (22:03)
Can I ask how long it took for you to, iterate through this and build it out?

Rebecca Kennedy (22:08)
So it took about a week and a half. And then there are still things that I’m like, ooh, what? I wanted to do this. Can let’s let’s add this in here. So I’m still tweaking it. It’s not, it’s not perfect. And I wouldn’t want I I don’t know that I can hand it over and say, here, take a look. Cause I’m still perfecting the little nuances of it. but it is kind of exciting and it just it does, cause I’m in control, it does all the things that I want it to do. So

Dylan Silver (22:34)
I’m very impressed by this and I’d like to maybe peel back the layers of the onion here. Give away some of the gold, but you don’t have to give away the whole gold bar here. a lot of folks, and we again we were talking about this in the green room, say, I have difficulty using AI tools, Claude, ChatGPT, what have you, to build out workable tools for myself. And my my retort to that, as I mentioned to you, is well, try doing it from scratch. It’s a lot harder, right? when when folks are trying to use an AI tool in order to build out a CRM, a client lead capture tool, what should be their reasonable expectations? How long should this take? How much money should go into it, based on your experience?

Rebecca Kennedy (23:19)
So the money that I have spent on it is the money to operate the programs, right? So I have the the business version for Claude. I pay for the OpenAI account to tie into the CRM. so that’s where the cost comes in. But you have to be very specific and very clear. Chat is and AI are smarter than we are, but they’re only gonna do what we tell it to do. So you have to make sure that you’re you’re telling it very clearly. what you what you want. So it gets it right, or you’re just gonna keep going over and over and over and over.

Dylan Silver (23:50)
Yeah, it’ll start, hallucinating and have prompt injection and next thing it’s off on a tangent. There is some level and I think fair caution when folks handle AI and when they’re utilizing it especially in client communication. But on the flip side, you have so many people who have speed to lead, right? And so if someone puts a comment on one of their posts, then They’re being DM’d and if someone gets a text message, there might be an auto response that goes out. what’s your perspective on this?

Rebecca Kennedy (24:23)
As far as having AI communicate for you.

Dylan Silver (24:26)
In some capacity.

Rebecca Kennedy (24:28)
I think that is I don’t do that. I don’t have the AI do auto responses for me because I you lose the touch and it sounds like AI. And when people feel like, okay, that’s not really her, you’re AIing me, it’s a turn off. Yeah. So I don’t do that.

Dylan Silver (24:47)
I think as we’re navigating the current real estate market and what’s happening with AI and just how everything is changing so rapidly before us, it’s it’s like the a fascinating AI arms race. And so, I remember a year ago thinking that some of these tools, weren’t close. Like one of the things was AI voice. And then the other day I got tricked up because I had a call and I thought it was a real person. And so it we’re we’re inching closer to where it’s it’s harder to tell the difference. Do you think that if realtors aren’t using some of these tools, if they’re not, having a compelling website, if they don’t have a CRM that’s tailored to what they’ll use and what works for them, that it will be tough for them to compete, or can you still have a pretty old school real estate brokerage business?

Rebecca Kennedy (25:37)
I think it’s gonna get harder. I think it’s gonna harder. I know agents that have been in the business for 40 years and they are trusted by everyone that they know. And to sit and tell them that, your business is gonna go down the tubes because you’re not using AI, that’s not fair. Right. But I do absolutely feel that those that are using it are going to have an edge because it’s not it’s it’s it’s the use of it, it’s also it’s also the exposure. It is the lead generation that we do online. and all of that, it’s it’s all key. It all plays a part.

Dylan Silver (26:11)
It’s huge. And I was talking in the green room about investor in DFW who who had used AI to manage, over a hundred rooms for himself, over a hundred co-living rooms. And we think about this and it sounds like it’s beyond the pale of what would be reasonable, which begs the question, and I like asking this to realtors, get different responses. How close are we from where buying a home virtually becomes way more common and how close are we from where, be being a realtor is less time intensive and potentially done more through, remote opening of doors and through virtual presentation and so forth.

Rebecca Kennedy (26:54)
Ooh, that’s good. I don’t think that that’s in the next, two, three years, but I do think that it is on the forefront. I listen to a lot of these, podcasts and you hear people talk about AI and how it’s going to replace all of these jobs. And it’s not actually replacing jobs right now, it’s creating jobs because people are learning how to use it. So here in the next generation, the next, five or 10 years, then we will really start seeing a pivot. but I don’t think that that’s anything that we have to worry about right now.

Dylan Silver (27:24)
I was actually in a new home community in San Marcos, Texas, in July or June time frame. And as I’m walking through, there was signs in the yard. These are stick built homes, right? Corporate builders. And they had QR codes in front of the home. So I scan the QR code and then it has me upload my driver’s license and then it says, Okay, in thirty minutes, the front door will be unlocked. And I’m like, that was crazy. And so then I’m walking in through the home and I’m seeing a home and then I’m taking pictures, I’m leaving, right? And then after I leave, I get a call from someone I’m assuming at the sales office, how was your visit? Do you have any questions and so forth? And this was this year in the summer. And I was thinking to myself, Wow, that this is the future.

Rebecca Kennedy (28:12)
Yeah, I’ve had done a few of those too. I’ve done a couple of them where they charge you, they charge you a couple of dollars to get through and go through the house. which is wild to me. That would be nice if we could do that, right?

Dylan Silver (28:22)
That’s an interesting one.

Rebecca Kennedy (28:24)
Yeah. and I think I think that it is a futuristic platform, but I just don’t know that the public is ready for that yet.

Dylan Silver (28:33)
Yeah, there is a lot of that, right? And until until there’s mass adoption, then people will probably, drag their feet in some capacity. I had recently been to the US Open and my dad told me that when he went, they were no longer accepting cash anywhere. And so, you look at how many places are

Rebecca Kennedy (28:53)
And that’s frequent.

Dylan Silver (28:54)
That’s frequent now. And so, what are we w how are we going to transact? What are we gonna do with this cash? And it wasn’t like it was, a slow gradient of, hey, we’re we’re some of the vendors, it’s like no, we’re not accepting cash at this sprawling, campus in Queens.

Rebecca Kennedy (29:10)
Yeah, no, we see that here. I mean, at the you go to the state fair, I go to go to my kids’ games. There’s no cash.

Dylan Silver (29:17)
There’s no cash happening, right? There’s no cash. Maybe Cash App, but not not not not cash. when we look at the this as a whole, and specifically the niche that you’re operating in with relocation and doing much of this virtually, do you think that agents who are even hyper local, folks who who may not be in the relocation side, should start incorporating this right now? Or is this is this more relevant if you’re doing, let’s say, relocation and working across state lines?

Rebecca Kennedy (29:50)
No, I think that this is absolutely where we’re headed. I think you need to start now. You need to get comfortable with it. You need to educate yourself and because again, there there’s always something to learn. And as fast as it’s coming, it’s changing and it’s evolving. So what I learned today may be completely different than what I’m doing in five months because of all of the changes that have already taken place.

Dylan Silver (30:12)
There’s so much change that’s happening. And you mentioned, five months from now it could be completely different. I feel the same way. And it’s hard to even know what that’ll look like because then the tools that we use that themselves are changing. I wanna ask you an unrelated question. ha having built a business, multiple six figure business in screen printing, and then now taking a lot of those skills into brokerage, where do you feel like that gives you maybe a leg up?

Rebecca Kennedy (30:39)
I think just the nuances in the in the business acumen that comes with it. I can kind of I I see a transaction from the full spider web, not just right here in front. It’s not just about this one house, this one contract. It’s looking full picture and it’s also understanding the marketing side of things, which I think is very key, especially to my sellers.

Dylan Silver (31:02)
Marketing is so huge. And we talked a little bit about, the boosted ads that you’re doing. And I love that approach. I think it’s also very unique. At the same time, a lot of business owners and not just realtors and investors, but business owners in general cite either capital or marketing as their biggest bottleneck. If we just look at marketing, what’s the first thing that comes to mind that people need to get right in their marketing?

Rebecca Kennedy (31:28)
Branding. You have consistent branding. You need to know that the colors, the font, that everybody knows McDonald’s because of the golden arches. Everybody knows Berkshire because of the wine color. Everybody knows Keller Williams because they’re red. Red. These all of the branding and the nuances, that’s what resonates with people. And from the psychology standpoint, if they it you have to see these brands consistently over time in order to build that trust. They say I think it’s seven times to talk to someone online, it’s twelve that then they can start to trust you. So it is the branding and the awareness and consistency with it.

Dylan Silver (32:10)
I think sometimes people will do this for a week or a month or six weeks and then throw in the towel and say it didn’t work. It is a long-term game. You gotta do be doing this for months and months, and then maybe at six weeks you adjust your marketing slightly or you tap into one type of boosted ad that may be working more than others and so forth. When people are looking at this, what’s a reasonable expectation set that they should have for, how long this should take?

Rebecca Kennedy (32:38)
As far as building a real estate business or for one transaction. Because I was

Dylan Silver (32:42)
Question, right?

Rebecca Kennedy (32:44)
Yeah. So I when I got into the business, because of where I come from and I’ve been in sales, I’ve been commission based for, the last 17 years. they said it takes, it takes three, four years to get going as an agent. And I was like, no, it’s fine. It’s not gonna take me that long. It’s not gonna take me that long. It’s not that it takes me that long to do the job. It’s because it takes other people in my circle that long to see me doing what I do and trust that I know what I’m doing. It’s not about my ability to do it. It’s about what others see and can entrust in me. So if you get into real estate, yes, you can have some success in the very beginning. I hope that everyone is. I mean, there’s enough to go around, but setting the expectation that it’s it’s about putting your name out there and it is about. showing the world, right, what you’re doing so that they can trust in you more so than you having the knowledge and the expertise to do it.

Dylan Silver (33:45)
We are coming up on time here. Any new projects or activities that you’re working on these days? Also, anything that you’d like to mention directly to our audience?

Rebecca Kennedy (33:55)
So my my project is the CRM that I’m working on, which I’m continuing continuing to evolve. That is that’s my little baby right now. I’ve got a commercial a couple of commercial deals that are in the work. So I’ll be excited to share those once we once we go live on that. And yeah, if you need me, I am here in the DFW Metroplex. My website is consideritsoldtx.com. And I’m sorry it’s so long. I thought I would be creative when I made that, but too many characters, but that’s what it is. We’re married now. but yes, I’m I’m here to help in any way possible.

Dylan Silver (34:26)
Rebecca, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for joining us.

Rebecca Kennedy (34:30)
Thank you.