How Real Estate Agents Can Use Storytelling, Content, and AI to Win More Clients | Tony Ray Baker

Tony Ray Baker (00:00)
one of my things is I’ve been telling all agents is stop using AI for the wrong reasons and stop using it to be fake and cloned and have like these robots out there doing your work. It doesn’t work that way. The consumer wants more.

than ever to have a personal relationship and touch and see eyeballs and see teeth. And AI can’t touch its face.

Scott Bursey (01:55)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey. And today we’re bringing in some serious championship level fuel to the mic. Our guest has built a powerhouse presence with Remax Fine Properties and is leveraging his expertise as a published author. He’s not just adapting to the market. He’s writing the playbook. Get ready to deep dive into scaling your influence and converting content into closed deals.

Please help me welcome Tony Ray Baker. Tony, thank you for joining us. This is an absolute pleasure. And for our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us how did your career begin and what is your main focus now?

Tony Ray Baker (02:29)
Hi Scott, thank you for having me.

career began in 1994. Had no interest in doing real estate, but my mom told me I should. thought she was crazy, but I woke up about 24 hours later and realized she was absolutely right. So I jumped into real estate and started learning what I could about it. And I was seriously, horrible. The first two years I should have left real estate. Didn’t sell anything.

I was more interested in learning so I went to lots of school after I my license and then it clicked and I started realizing it was absolutely the perfect fit for me and I just needed to do it my way. So ⁓ fast forward, I’m 31 years into real estate now and I have done everything my way and it’s been against a lot of the conventional norms. So my focus right now is, my focus is teaching.

and helping others, whether it’s real estate agents or whether it’s consumers, helping them through teaching, whether it’s books, websites, blogs, podcasts, whatever it is I’m out there trying to help folks navigate this stuff that they need to know.

Scott Bursey (03:54)
That’s awesome. Let’s transition into what we call the pro playbook. Tony, what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to weave storytelling into your real estate practice.

Tony Ray Baker (04:06)
yeah. So I think that we’ve all connected throughout history with stories. That’s why movies are so big. And one of the things that we always try to do in our consultations, instead of telling people what they should know or what they should do is we weave stories into even consultations, which is how it began was here’s, here’s something that happened. Here’s how it was got worse. Here’s how we solved it. Here’s how we made it better. And here’s how, you know, it all resolved out.

And so think that storytelling is just a natural function for all of us. so now it’s come around full time for me as writing in books. But if you were on any of my websites, you’d see storytelling there as well because I was using mini books like blogs as way of storytelling there.

Scott Bursey (04:56)
Tony, most agents treat a listing as a transaction, but your background as an author shows in how you frame the narrative of a home, making the process feel much more human and engaging.

Tony Ray Baker (05:56)
Right. Yeah, I think it’s like we really went into writing about lifestyle versus four bedrooms, two baths, 2,400 square feet. So that’s another part of the story, right? Is one of the things we did very early on for the story of what those homes where those people live and what those homes bring to value is we started giving all of our clients 30 years ago. I started giving every client a tour of the city before.

they even looked at property. If they were coming from out of town, they did a three hour tour with me. And then the three hour tour, I showed them the entire city, all the things that they needed to know about the different areas. And then we would hone in on the area based on which one they liked the best. So again, storytelling. And now we own a trolley tour company because of that. So that’s how that happened. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (06:48)
love that framing. That’s awesome. Tony, what

Scott Bursey (06:51)
What is the single biggest advantage you gain from being associated with a national brand like Remax when attracting luxury clients?

Tony Ray Baker (06:58)
Yeah, so for me, the jump to Remax from a local broker was really because it was a global brand. And the statistics about luxury buyers are homeowners is that those luxury homeowners typically buy a second million dollar home, know, million dollar plus home. And a lot of our friends who are millionaires

they fall right into that category. So they may have one in Italy and may have one in Tucson, Arizona. And it was important to get global reach. then my other component for buyers to get them to me, but then the other component was when I list a $2 million property in Tucson, which is a very high price point for our city, how do I reach out and get that in front of people in different countries and cities? And the only way really forward to do that is to go

a global brand that can get you on the massive luxury sites.

Scott Bursey (07:54)
Absolutely

that makes so much sense. Leveraging a recognizable global footprint instantly grants you a level of credibility that is hard to build from scratch. It shortens the sales cycle by removing the trust barrier.

Tony Ray Baker (08:10)
Right, yeah and it’s, know, re-maxes, the balloon is well known. It’s been around for a very long time. There’s trust, they should have a whole thing that just says trust the balloon.

Scott Bursey (08:16)
Absolutely.

Tony,

if you could walk us through what is the most challenging aspect of balancing the time demands between actively selling properties and consistently producing high quality content as an author?

Tony Ray Baker (08:37)
⁓ the challenge would be, getting a grip on the, calendar. So I run five companies plus I write and I teach. And then I do take nights and weekends off, which is really crazy to hear that, but I don’t work nights or weekends. And I take six vacations a year. One of them is 30 days, at least in Europe every year.

In order to have that time and that quality of life, I have to be very structured on what’s going to happen each day and what’s the priority for each company and to get that done. And it’s very interesting because once you lay it out and you just follow that, it’s very easy to do. Well, it’s not easy, but it’s much easier than you think it is. And I’m proof that you can do it because I’m doing it. And I was never trained to do that. I didn’t get to even go to college.

It’s just a matter of learning structure and learning how to organize your calendar probably is the best thing.

Scott Bursey (09:33)
And Tony, very curious on this. Where do you see the biggest untapped market opportunity right now for agents who have positioned themselves as niche experts or authors?

Tony Ray Baker (10:20)
biggest untapped market? Geez, I don’t know. Untapped, I would say probably coming up there’s going to be a large foreclosure market that’s gonna be, so understanding how to help people navigate before foreclosure would be a great untapped market right now. I would go after making sure every client I know, if they’re having any problems, that you are there by them without judgment to help them.

sell that property, grab that massive amount of equity they probably have due to the COVID jump in appreciation. I’d get folks out and get them moved and help them recapture that money. I think there’s a big mark coming up there.

Scott Bursey (11:05)
Tony that was excellent breakdown and I understand you teach AI could you tell our audience a little bit about your perspective on AI.

Tony Ray Baker (11:16)
Yeah. So I love AI. I’ve loved it for 10 years before it went open source. I’ve loved AI. But I think the biggest component maybe that we could focus on, could say is you could,

one of my things is I’ve been telling all agents is stop using AI for the wrong reasons and stop using it to be fake and cloned and have like these robots out there doing your work. It doesn’t work that way. The consumer wants more.

than ever to have a personal relationship and touch and see eyeballs and see teeth. And AI can’t touch its face.

Did you know that? AI can’t be a human and it can’t clone it. won’t do those things. And humans can spot it in a second. They’re being trained subconsciously to spot AI. So stop using it to pretend you won the Olympic gold and stop do all that fake stuff. Use AI to back you up. It’s a tool that

does amazing things to make you more efficient, let you take six vacations, have quality of life. That’s what it should be used for. It helps with your cloud fog. It helps you get going on ideas. It’s something to work with, but it should not be the human front. So that’s where I would say be careful with AI. Be messy and be silly and be on video or whatever, but just stop using AI to do that stuff.

Scott Bursey (12:41)
If I’m hearing you correctly, incorporate it properly. Use it as it’s designed, not as a crutch.

Tony Ray Baker (12:49)
Yeah, use it as a good tool, but just, you’ve gotta be the front person.

Scott Bursey (12:56)
Well said Tony. Tony, what are some of the goals for your operation over the next 18 to 24 months?

Tony Ray Baker (13:04)
I’m working on an exit strategy for the future, which means that I have to think 10 years ahead, right? I want to hand over the keys to the kingdoms and I have five businesses that I do not want to shut down. They all have their legacy to me. so my goal is to build a small team and to have that, and I apologize, to have a small team.

of folks that I can hand over the income and the business and they’ll be able to have a great life and they can continue on while I might be in my villa, lake house and Lake Como. I haven’t decided, but that sounds really good. Lake Como sounds fantastic. ⁓ But yeah, so I’m right. just, have one person now. We, never wanted a team.

But now I do have a team. I have one person who is definitely in line, but I’ll need a couple people to hand the kingdom over. So that’s my goal over the years is to set up all these platforms so that the income keeps flowing in and these, call them my kids, can take over the business and let me make a soft exit.

Scott Bursey (14:19)
Absolutely, and I know our listeners are going to be curious to get the answer from you on this. What key piece of advice do you have for an agent trying to convert their industry knowledge into a profitable second revenue stream, you know, like authorship or coaching?

Tony Ray Baker (15:19)
What piece of advice? I took teaching as a way to learn which is ironic, but I started committing to teaching because it always put the pressure on me to have to go learn the subject so I would not be humiliated on a stage and I am not afraid to go up on stage. Like a thousand people in a room is my energy.

love going on stage, I feed off of it like a vampire, I love that energy. But it’s imperative to know the subject matter so you can talk about it. And I think that it’s a great way to go is to force yourself to get out there and teach even a small group of five. Go teach five clients something about AI today or something about real estate. And the fact that you’re teaching it forces you to become really, really well.

a much better expert at it, right? So it’s a really good way to do that.

Scott Bursey (16:14)
Awesome great advice Tony and our listeners are here for the goods the pro secrets that separates the good from the great. Let me ask you this and this is the secret sauce question Tony if you had to boil down your negotiation success the secret sauce to use when a deal is falling apart what is the one deep dive tactic you employ to steer it back to a close?

Tony Ray Baker (16:25)
Yeah.

Oh, when the transaction’s falling apart. Typically I find that it’s, we’ve missed the why. We’ve missed the why somewhere. And I think there’s really disarming words like curious. If you say curious before you say anything, it’s the Colombo effect and you gotta be older enough, know, old enough to know what Colombo is. But curious is disarming, right? And it’s, you know, when you say I’m curious,

What about this is important to you? Or what were you thinking about this subject? When you say curious, it says I’m not judging. Just help me understand. And help me understand is another one. Help me understand. And I think that a lot of times negotiations fail because we don’t understand their point of view or what’s really going on. And when we can get to that piece, we can typically find out that it’s something so simple to go back to the other party and say, hey, here’s what’s really going on.

Here’s what we need to do. Can we resolve? And I just did this 10 minutes before you and I started talking on a phone call over $30,000. And ⁓ I think we’ll definitely resolve it because one party just got hit with a $30,000 problem. But I think both parties will come together because I understand and the other agent now understands what we’re trying to resolve for both parties. So think that’s really where we get into 50 % of these transactions falling through.

is there’s not enough conversation happening. And so that’s probably the big point I’d say in negotiation. Ask a lot of questions and without judgment.

Scott Bursey (18:17)
It sounds to me like getting deep underneath the surface so you can have authentic, genuine conversation.

Tony Ray Baker (18:25)
Yeah, yeah, especially, you know, we have a 96 % closing rate, but I do know the industry standard is really bad. And I think that a lot of times it’s just because there’s not enough information flowing. And maybe it’s because they’re passing emails and not having the conversation about what’s really important to clients. And that’s our obligation is to figure out how to help both clients get to the win-win.

And if you don’t have both clients happy, then you have a lose-lose, because it’s not going to close.

Scott Bursey (18:57)
Absolutely. I couldn’t agree anymore. Having good, authentic email conversations as well is so critical.

Tony Ray Baker (19:07)
Yeah, there’s where AI could help you is to read your email and have it read the email and see if you sound like you want to sound. You can ask AI to tell you this, right? So is it, does it sound harsh or does it sound, does it sound nonjudgmental? Does it sound professional? What’s my tone in this email? The AI can help you with those things.

Scott Bursey (19:28)
That’s a really key piece of advice right there that I think a lot of our listeners may overlook. Email implementation, extremely critical. Tony, do you have any ⁓ other advice that you could leave with our listeners here today?

Tony Ray Baker (19:39)
Yes. Yeah.

I think in my in my world where I the reason I got to where I am today is because I the world for me was all about sharing and not being afraid to share it and whatever Avenue that means to you. It could be blogging or Instagram or whatever but share your world That’s really what it comes down to share your world. The right people will be attracted to you They’ll connect however you share your world. Just get out there and share your world I was a secret agent for the very first year and

And being a secret agent does no good for me or anyone else. So share your world. Be yourself.

Scott Bursey (20:21)
Absolutely, Tony this has been pure fuel for our pros and we truly appreciate the incredible value that he shared with us today. Now we always want to make sure that our listeners are able to connect with you for those that want to reach out what’s the best platform or what’s the best way for them to connect with you.

Tony Ray Baker (20:40)
I am an open book online. can Google Tony Ray Baker. Of course, I’ll come up right up several pages ⁓ I’m always willing to take a text and a call so you they absolutely can call me at (520) 631-8669 and If you go to my website at seetucsonhomes.com which is see tucson H o me s dot com

and you can find me at, I mean I’m so easy to find, there’s, I’m on everything. yeah, just look for Tony Ray Baker, R-A-Y is my middle name and everybody calls me Tony Ray, so it’s pretty easy to find.

Scott Bursey (21:19)
Tony,

this has been an absolute master class. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Tony Ray Baker (21:25)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott Bursey (21:27)
And pros, just as Tony highlighted.

The big takeaway is don’t just be an agent, be the one who writes the manual. Find a way to formalize your knowledge into scalable content, whether it’s a book, a course, or a series of white papers. Content is the new currency.

Scott Bursey (21:45)
And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Tony, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.