Certain Success™ Podcast

Can You Really Be Too Nice for Sales? with Barry Jenkins

August 01, 2023 • Matt Fagioli • Episode 14

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Can being too nice hinder your success in sales? 

Join me as I sit down with sales expert Barry Jenkins to dive into this thought-provoking question.

Barry Jenkins, a true powerhouse in the real estate industry, shares his remarkable journey with us. Starting in the field at just 18, he has climbed to the top, now leading a 100-agent brokerage and authoring a bestselling book. 

Throughout our conversation, we uncover valuable insights into the delicate balance between being nice and closing deals. We delve into several key themes, including the significance of authenticity and service in sales, overcoming the fear of bothering customers, and the value of engaging in difficult conversations and problem-solving for clients.

Barry's got a unique perspective and some proven strategies that'll totally shake up your sales game. So don't miss out!

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • The importance of authenticity and service in sales
  • Overcoming the fear of bothering customers
  • The value of difficult conversations and problem-solving for clients

Links from this episode:

Barry Jenkins [00:00:00]:

Most consumers don't know what they want yet. To that, I say you should not be so consumed with your need to be approved of. You should care enough about the stranger on the other end of the phone to ask really good, really engaging, what I call socratic questions. You use these questions to highlight awareness to the fact that they really don't know what they're doing. The new urgency that this creates with the consumer is an urgency of a need to be educated.

Matt Fagioli [00:00:32]:

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Certain Success podcast. And today I have an interview for you with author Barry Jenkins, who wrote a book called Too Nice for Sales. And as you'll find out in the interview, it's definitely a bit of a misnomer because Barry's been incredibly successful at sales by being super nice, by putting others first. And he's wrote a book that gives you a really practical understanding of what it looks like to do that. And he's a shining example of how your certain success flows from doing the right thing, putting others first, putting God first in your business, and digging deep, rolling up your sleeves, and doing the hard work. So can't wait to share this with you. Welcome to my conversation with Barry Jenkins.

Matt Fagioli [00:02:38]:

Well, Barry, give everybody a little bit of background. You and I have both been around the real estate industry for a long time, and that's been your most recent sales. But just give us a little background and don't be shy about telling everybody that you're one of the top team leaders in the country, maybe top ten. I don't know.

Barry Jenkins [00:03:14]:

No. Yeah, well, the way I explain it is when you're doing a bio, it's so that people that don't know who you are know that they should listen to you. So I don't see it as being bragging or anything like that. So, yeah, I actually started in real estate when I was 18. I'm in my 40s, so it's been a long career. About 2012, I sold 100 homes by myself, and so I realized that wasn't the life for me. And so I built a team. That team is now 100 agent brokerage, and we're running one of the top teams in America. And around 2017, an upcoming digital marketing firmleegen, you name it, company called Ylopo got my attention and I became heavily vested in the future of their success. And I'll just put it that way. And so I've been helping them make that product since 2017. And in the process of making that product with ju fungji and the whole team over there, howard tager and the rest of them, I ended up learning that a lot about how I was running my business and how I was converting leads, which is what actually caught the team at Ylopo's eye originally, was a little bit different. And so I turned it into a book and self published it. As I say in the book, I didn't learn what a noun was until I was in my 20s, but now for two years, it's remained an Amazon bestseller in three different categories. In real estate sales, it pretty much consistently stays in the top 20. Business Ethics, which is a category I'm really grateful to be a member of. And then lastly, Business and Business and Christian Professional Growth is another one that it remains typically Top 50, top 60, which that's even a bigger category. All that to say, I'm super stoked, because throughout it all, I've been able to stay true to who I am. And as I've learned, and hopefully I'll be able to share with your listeners, Matt, that the slower I move, the more intentional I become, the better quality work I put out, my agents are more successful, my businesses thrive, and it's because I've figured out who I am in this big world. And yeah, it's working really well, man. I'm really excited to talk to your listeners, man.

Matt Fagioli [00:05:32]:

Well, I've known you for quite a long time and I know a lot about your personal journey, and it just comes through in your voice what a good place you're in. And I can't believe it's been two years on the book. I thought it was five minutes ago. I'm a little late to the punch interviewing you, I guess, but no, it's incredible. Can we leak out that I heard the little birdie told me there might be another one coming.

Barry Jenkins [00:06:00]:

Is that yes, another one is in the works. Too nice for leadership. And let me say this regarding being late to the game and this, that and the other, I feel like I didn't really market it. And so for the first year it was kind of like a baby giraffe walking through. And so within the last twelve months is when it really took off. But yeah, definitely working on my next one because new problems have arisen, new challenges for nice people. And so I'm going to continue the journey, and the subtitle is a compendium of all my screw ups. So it's all the ways I've screwed up as the leader.

Matt Fagioli [00:06:39]:

I love it. Well, all right, so let's dig in with Too Nice for Sales. Again, I think the name is a little bit of a game because you are excellent at sales, and therefore you're not too nice for it because you're crushing it. Right, but I won't give it away. You talk about it. What's the premise, and how do you talk about it to people? Because obviously you're very successful in sales nonetheless.

Barry Jenkins [00:07:07]:

Yeah, I think that at the crux of the issue, nice people really delight in making others happy, pleasing them. And that works well when the consumer, or in this case the real estate lead, has an awareness of what they need. They need a specific home or a specific price range. And then I get to please them by answering their questions, meeting them when they want to be met with. However, everything crumbles when the consumer does not have clarity on what they want. And so because I'm motivated by pleasing naturally, the only way I know of to please them is to get off the phone, because they don't see relevance in speaking with me. This creates a really challenging set of circumstances for realtors, that are buying leads online, because most consumers don't know what they want yet, and because they don't know what they want, our follow up consistently is something like, hey, I wanted to see if I could help you. No, thank you. Okay, I'll call you in six months. To that I say, you should not be so consumed with your need to be approved of. You should care enough about the stranger on the other end of the phone to ask really good, really engaging, what I call Socratic questions. Socrates, Jesus, all use questions to teach the student. You use these questions to highlight awareness to the fact that they really don't know what they're doing, and it creates annuity for the consumer. The urgency now, instead of is what I wanted it to be as an agent is, can I come over to sell your house? Or Can I come over and show you a home? The new urgency that this creates with the consumer is an urgency of a need to be educated. And so I was told in 2010, I was still working through the crash. I was selling other things, life insurance and a couple of other industries. I talk about it in the book, and one of the owners said I was too nice for sales, and that stuck with me. And I learned how to care so much about others that even though it feels awkward in the moment and I'm uncomfortable, I have enough courage to do what's best for that consumer, which is to continue to talk to them and ask them questions. I don't put this in the book, so this is just for your listeners, but I really don't like the phrase overcoming objections. I understand what student or what teachers are trying to teach when they say overcome objections, but from my vantage point, as someone who's too nice, I really want to seek to understand objections. Why do they believe what they believe? Why are they saying what's coming out of their mouth right now? And how can I add value in this moment, on this call to bring awareness to what it is they need to make what is likely the largest financial transaction of their life? And I believe that because I do answer this question in the book. I believe that's why the book took off for a lot of brokerages. They buy it for their new agents and veterans because they're all stuck in this place of trying to understand what the consumer wants and how they can make a living.

Matt Fagioli [00:10:25]:

Having been in real estate and trained a lot of people myself and encountered tons of new agents and experienced agents, but so many people get into real estate, and the vast majority of them never actually get any meaningful sales training. They learn how to not break the law, hopefully, and then they learn how different systems work and whatever. But I think it's actually lost on most real estate salespeople that they actually don't have any sales training, which is a different thing. Right. How do you train your agents to adopt this philosophy? What does it look like?

Barry Jenkins [00:11:07]:

Yeah, I mean, they do take some of the courses that I've created and I have them read my book. But outside of that, when a person begins to embark on a journey of sales, and specifically when they have kind of this nice disposition, when they get nervous, all of us, the fight or flight mechanism in our brain kicks in, which is instinctive. So they resort back to what and how they always deal with uncomfortable situations, which for most of us is to like, whatever you want, man, I'm just here for you. Let me know. I'll send you an email in six months. And so to counteract that one, I ask my agents to act like they care. I ask my agents to act like a person that is incredibly curious, because not all of them actually care, not in a meaningful way about strangers. Not all of them are naturally curious. And so I ask them to act that way. I give them three questions. These questions are in the book. And then I give them two objection handlers, which is how or what? And so I ask them to ask these questions like, what are you hoping to change about where you live? Instead of saying, what kind of home do you want? Right, because I'm getting them to engage the consumer. And then when the consumer is answering these questions, the agent is able to connect with the person. So if they say they want a yard, I get to say, why? Not really, but in a way. And I get to learn more about what this person does in their free time with their family. It's intensely personal, and this is a lot better than this kind of I call it fake friends that a lot of salespeople do. Like, oh, so you're from the area. Where do you shop for your groceries? Me too. Oh my gosh. It's this really lame and we wonder why they don't answer the phone, the leads anymore. And it's because they don't want to talk to fake friends. But when I'm able to relate to them on a meaningful level, it means something. So they use these questions. And so in my training, I teach my agents to use these questions. And then when the person says why they aren't a good lead, we call those objections. So, for example, I'm waiting a year. Instead of just accepting that statement on face value and being, quote, too nice, I want you to face the discomfort of being afraid in the moment. And I want you to care enough and be curious enough about why they think they're waiting a year. And I just want you to say, how did you decide? I just knocked my microphone off. How did you decide you're waiting a year? That's it. How or what? And for most consumers, they don't know how they decided on a year. And this is the moment that you've created ignorance or fear. Not created, but brought awareness to their ignorance or fear or confusion. And that's that new urgency I referenced in the beginning of our talk. Because now I'm able to say to them, you sound like my other clients that needed a lot of direction. We should meet at my office sometime. I'm available next week. When's good for you? And consistently. Matt what we found is agents that are willing, veteran and rookie agents that are willing to just do this even though they're uncomfortable, but use these questions, use these objection handlers. Fight the fear and just do it anyway. It is not unusual for me anymore. It is a science when they do this in this way consistently. They find humans that don't know what they want or when they're ready. And they meet with my agents. My agents fill in the gaps of what the person understands as far as preparedness and awareness of financial needs. Credit, all those things. And without pushing anybody, we shrink what would have been a nine to twelve month nurture, which is typical for a lead from Google into 90 days consistently. And it's because we're making it easy for them by solving their problems. It's the difference between a waiter or a waitress saying, how can I help you? And a doctor or physician that asks really good pointed questions that gets to the heart of the issue so they can then give advice on what the next steps are.

Matt Fagioli [00:15:24]:

I love that metaphor. You talked about that in the book, the comparison of being just a waiter or waitress. Hey, I grew up in that environment and it's a totally noble task, but doctors get paid more and they get paid, among other things, for saying asking really great questions to get to the answer, to provide the diagnosis. Waiters don't provide the diagnosis, they just provide the dinner that you've specifically asked for. So love all of that, for sure. And I think one of the big things that happens in any kind of meaningful sales training is you learn that people are quick to run from discomfort. So if you're focusing on, hey, what is it that you don't like about your current house? It's just such an easy conversation because everybody knows the answer to that.

Barry Jenkins [00:16:13]:

Well, in future tense relies on certainty. It relies on awareness. So what do you want in the future? I remember the first time somebody asked me what my five year plan was. I'm like, I don't know, I haven't thought about it. Right. And awareness is not something that a lot of people have an abundance of, really, in our culture, which is the attention economy between social media and documentaries and radio and Spotify, we all have our attention divided. And so having clarity on what we need and what we want is not easy. People pay therapists a lot of money to help bring about a status of self awareness. And as a realtor, we have the ability to be a part of their journey, which for most people, the buying and the selling of a home is one of the most emotional processes that they've undergone because it's where you feel safe at night. It's more money than they've ever spent in their life. And so we have the ability to be that sounding board for the consumer. What's great about this is there's a lot of the big companies, I don't hate them. I wish I would have thought of the idea. Zillow, Realtor.com, the list is very long. They've been able to carve out an experience where the Realtor doesn't have to do anything that I just said. Because in most instances the realtor is saying, you wanted to see one, two, three, Smith Street, how can I help you? When do you want to see it? And those are great, but they're very expensive because Zillow and Realtor.com and the other companies similar to it realize they've created a specific type of opportunity for their customers. The Realtors that are buying leads for me that didn't scale well in a market with 200 and 5300 thousand dollars homes. I had to figure out how to climb up the metaphorical funnel to the middle of funnel, where the consumer is searching, but they don't have clarity. If I couldn't crack that code, I would not have been able to scale my business in 2016. A Zillow lead, I don't know, it was like four or $500. This is before the referral programs. It didn't scale well. Man, everybody made money. A million dollars that year. And I think my net was about 50,000. And so I knew that that could not be my future. And that's what started me on the path of Google, Facebook. I started with a company called Real Geeks in 2016, which then led me to Ylopo. And since then, of course, I've stuck with Ylopo. But that's why that journey started, because I said, I can't keep doing this. This isn't worth my time. I'd rather just go sell myself.

Matt Fagioli [00:18:52]:

Well, Barry, you're obviously in the real estate business, and I've spent a good bit of my career in that space. But really, your book and these ideas are applicable to any industry. One of the things that you talked a lot about in your book is the idea of active listening and making the customer feel understood. Talk about that a little bit. And again, I think this works for any kind of sales.

Barry Jenkins [00:19:18]:

It really does. I use real estate as the example I pull from a couple of different industries to try to share my journey. But active listening, it's really a life skill. One of the ways that we show empathy is when someone's sharing their story with us, we repeat back to them what we think we heard them say. That actually is a way to show empathy because the person on the other end of the phone or on the other side of the conversation says to themselves, this person heard me. It makes them feel understood. And see, when we're trying to learn something new, which is the whole shtick that I just went over is trying to get the consumer to understand that they need to be educated. But if they're nervous and they feel like they're dealing with a salesperson, they're going to push us away. They're not going to be in a disposition of education. They're going to be on defense. You really have to help the person relax. And one of the ways we do that is by making them feel understood. And so one thing that I teach my agents is don't use the phrase, it's not wrong, but, oh, I hear you right, because that could just be considered dismissive. When they tell you why they're not ready or why they're not ready to buy your widget, try to compliment their reasoning. I don't want to buy it because I'm saving money. I'm so glad to hear that you're trying to save money, candidly, there's not enough people that are saving money, and I just want to take a moment and tell you I think that's fantastic. So by complimenting their reasoning of not being a good prospect for you, it one makes them feel hurt. It's also very disarming. And then the whole concept of act like they need you needs to kick back in, because now I need to continue to ask questions, to continue to dial in and refine what it is I'm trying to teach them. I personally believe that the best salespeople are authentic and passionate teachers. Authenticity is refreshing, and teachers have a passion for their content. We've all been in classes where the teacher just, you know, they were getting a paycheck, maybe not a good one, but they were just going through the motions, reading the book, asking questions at the end, bored out of their mind. And then you had that one. I had a 7th grade social studies teacher that just, like, loved social studies and loved, you know what I mean? He did crafts, we went outside. His delight was in the student learning. And so you might not be that type of salesperson. You might not even like the product that you're selling. However, as a teacher, you can teach people to solve problems in their life with whatever it is you're selling. And in that sense, it's very compassionate, it's very empathetic, and it happens to make you a lot of money in the process.

Matt Fagioli [00:22:32]:

Well, it is just a sensible sales skill to get that kind of active listening and pay attention, which leads to an ability to create sales. Right. It's not forced. There's nothing contrived about it. You had another great metaphor in your book, example, I guess, where the car buying process? So tell us a little bit about the different kinds of car guys, because I think that highlights it so well.

Barry Jenkins [00:23:02]:

Yeah, I was looking for a car and found the same type car in two different dealerships. The one was super respectful of the fact that I had just had a life event that I think in the book a family member was ill, and the person was so kind. They said, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I don't want to push you. The last thing you need to do is to be sold anything. So why don't I call you next week? Or I forgot exactly the timing. But then the other car person, same disposition, very kind. I'm so sorry. I'll tell you what, let me see if I can get approval for you to borrow the car for a few days. Maybe you can have more family members in the vehicle using their product, meeting my need and ultimately winning my business. Because at that point, it was, like, actually helpful. One was the response to my life circumstance was to retreat and be apologetic. The other, pressed into my circumstance, was just as empathetic, but leveraged the power that they had with their product to make my life a little bit easier. And I think this really represents the two types of salespeople. The one that presses in, gets their hands dirty, understands the need and desires to be a part of their journey. And the other that hides and runs from because one is motivated by helping, the other is motivated by not bothering me. Let me say that again. One is motivated by pressing in and helping me. The other is motivated by not bothering me. And I think a lot of people that are listening to this right now, Matt, will find themselves on one of two camps. And you'll know what side you're on when you start calling your prospects, when it's time to do, like your stereotypical lead follow up. If that deep seated fear is inside of you, which we all have some, but if it's overwhelming, I think you probably are in the camp that says I'm bothering people and I shouldn't be calling them. And that's a mindset issue, really. What should be happening is you should be pressing in with a desire to serve these strangers on the other end of the phone. And let me just say this as well. It is not fair to the stranger on the other end of the phone. We call them leads or prospects to burden them with your emotional need to feel accepted and approved of. That is not fair to them. That is not their job. You should find that in your faith, your family, your friends, somewhere else, not the stranger. It's not about us. It really isn't.

Matt Fagioli [00:25:46]:

Yeah, well, the thing I want to punctuate there is what's interesting about what you're driving on is that both of those people are nice salespeople, but one is a fear focused, nice person and the other is a service minded, confident, but service minded nice person. I think when people look at the title of your book, they think on first blush that it's like, oh, well, there's the nice sales guy and then there's the jerk who's just like pushy, pushy. And we're not even talking about that guy, really. We're talking about two different flavors of nice, but one's effective nice and one's not going to be effective at.

Barry Jenkins [00:26:30]:

You know, as I say in the book, I was taught to manipulate and lie and steal. And I was very good at it, Matt. I was very good. And I put this in the book. There was like a way to where I had them draw up a chart. To this day, I don't even know if it was real of all the missing, all the parts that they got returned. And I took this chart that they made for me and I leveraged specials off of it. Still to this day, I don't know if it was real or not. And I didn't like how I felt. But I also did not sense I didn't feel any more righteous or good for being poor either. I didn't feel any better about myself having bill collectors call me saying, Where's my money? And so these two parallel universes being the number one salesperson in my organization when the market crashed or being broke, and I decided that there has to be a way to do it the right way and be the best.

Matt Fagioli [00:27:39]:

And I figured it out, man. Incredible. Well, you kind of teed up the next question for me, which I want to talk about change and sort of embracing change. And you told a story in the book about COVID and how that impacted your business. And I may be mixing stories a little bit because we were also talking about the downturn in 2008 time frame, whatever, but more than once you referenced the idea of embracing change and being open to it. And on the COVID reference, you said something like, we're all trying to wait for the time when it was going to go back to the way it was. And I've had a lot of conversations around this with a lot of smart people, and the people who really catapulted forward from this last season of COVID were the people that were never looking for it to return. It just doesn't work like that. It's always going to be something new and jumping forward. So talk a little bit about that with me.

Barry Jenkins [00:28:42]:

Yeah, I actually started my book with the story of the Crash, and I ended my book with the story of COVID and I'm starting my next book with another big life change. And so what I found is that business owners tend to we figure out how to find success and we've got our little box and we chart it out and we do things a certain way and it works for us for a while. It doesn't maybe market changes, circumstances changes, the product changes, the Internet comes into the picture, just all this stuff. And I realized in life, specifically in 2008, I waited a year for the market to go back to normal, and it never did. Whatever normal was for me. And looking back, I now know through experience that what I should have been doing is hopeful that things go back to the way they were, but having to actively look for the opportunities that are in front of me right now. So when COVID hit, I remember the first week of Quarantine, I took COVID really seriously. Not going to say I made a mistake or didn't. I'm just going to tell you what I did. I took it really seriously. So here I am watching the news, 24/7, not going many places. And now I've got this business to run, and I use the experience of 2008. I remember telling my agents, guys, I don't know when things will go back to normal. But I do know this. There are people on our website right now that are shopping for a home. And if anybody in our area in Virginia Beach is going to sell them a home, I've decided that we're going to be one of the teams that still does it. And here's what we're going to do. And we leveraged Facebook messenger video because Zoom was. Not as popular yet in the mainstream America as it was going to become. So we used Facebook Messenger and we sold homes through live streaming. Facebook messenger to Leads, figured out a way to wear masks to where they were comfortable. Fortunately, in our state, we were considered what was the required then. And then three weeks later, Wilopo had the largest webinar we've ever had. I don't remember how many thousands of people were on this webinar, all at home, all wondering what they were going to do to be able to survive this. And I remember having to teach thousands of realtors across the country the changes we made to Raya. I had to rewrite her scripts. Instead of encouraging showings, we went for video appointments. So we had to rewrite the AI. I had to talk about what my team was doing to sell homes. And so I guess embrace the challenge. Life is hard sometimes, but if you just press into it and allow the wilderness of the moment to change who you are, you come out this beautiful version of yourself. And we just have to focus on what opportunities we have in front of us. Seek those opportunities, press into them, and I guarantee you, no matter what's going on around me, I'm going to figure out how to thrive. Because I've decided that's just what I'm going to do. I'm not going to just sit on my hands and be a victim to my circumstances. Being a victim is a decision because I can't control the world around me. All I can control is how I respond to the world around me. And that's what we're talking about, is how you respond to what you see in front of you. And it's a much better way to live, I'll tell you that.

Matt Fagioli [00:32:44]:

Totally agree. And I think you have to go through at least one of those big cycles before maybe I guess it would be easy to tell someone, hey, this is what you should do. But until you've lived through it, it's a little bit different. But I had a very similar experience in eight, nine, totally circled the drain and ultimately ended up digging myself out, rebuilding. And I've done that multiple times in my career. But gosh, would it have been different if I had known that first day, right? And to your point, fast forward to COVID. The day COVID dropped, which there was a day for me, it was a day which will live in infamy when we had two of our conferences scheduled and the day that I had to kill those, which I hollered on for dear life until the last second. And I'm like, the day that I had to kill those was like the day so the day it dropped and then the next day I'm like, okay, I never thought anything else except for I'm going to go figure out a way to run through this and make a huge transition and whatever. But that was because you and I both had the experience of eight is what I'm driving at.

Barry Jenkins [00:33:59]:

Yeah. So Dale archdeacon tells a story. He owns Smart Inside Sales, I think is the name of the coaching organization. So in 2008, 2009, I was waiting for I would take any listing if they were breathing and they wanted to list their house. That's what I always did because homes always sold right away. And they told me what they wanted to sell it for and I didn't really give them a lot of gripe over it. Nothing sold because values dropped overnight in 2008 from like 200,000 to 150. Dale was having the difficult conversations and with prank. Look, I hear you. You want to sell your home for 200. It's now worth 50. Do you have $50,000 to make up that deficiency? And about 60, 70% of the time they said no, but 30% of the time they said yes. So while I'm striking out, literally spending money, putting signs in the yard, not having anything move, dale figured out how to still sell homes. Not as many, but at least he was selling something. For me, on the other hand, I didn't adapt. I didn't see the opportunity. I wasn't having the difficult conversations with the consumer. I was just pleasing, making them happy, trying to serve them by putting a smile on their face when ultimately I was doing a disservice by not having that difficult conversation up front.

Matt Fagioli [00:35:25]:

Man experience in life and sales, nothing you can really do to replace it. I want to talk a little bit about you've talked a little bit about Wilopo and AI and you mentioned Bria, which is the name that you guys have given to that tool. But you and the team at Know, I guess AI has been around for a while, but it certainly has exploded as a buzword in the entire planet in the last six months. But it's been years now that Ylopo has been out in front with that. So can you talk a little bit about the AI experience at Ylopo and your perspective on how it is in the world now?

Barry Jenkins [00:36:08]:

Yeah, it has exploded. I think it's, uh, I think what AI will do a really great job of consistently in its current iteration is augmenting professionals. So if you're an engineer programming, you'll probably be able to program, do programming languages by increase your productivity by 25% because it's going to write the code for you and then you're going to audit it to make sure that it's good code copywriters are able to take an idea, seed thought maybe they write an outline. AI is going to help write. That what we've been able to do since we rolled out Riah in 2019. And at the time it was revolutionary because we took website behavior like homes that they were saving and injected their behavior into what our AI was saying. So for example, hey, here's a link to one, two, three, Smith Street. Looks like you were checking out a few in the neighborhood. Let me know if you want to see the inside of it. At the time, it was revolutionary, to my knowledge. Still, no one to this day has been able to take those two worlds and merge them. But since that time, AI and its ability to understand language has grown profusely to where now when Raya is talking to someone and she has a certain percentage of evidence, or a lack thereof as to what the consumer is saying, she'll bring in chat GPT. And chat GPT is wordy. But I saw one conversation where the person said, I just lost a family member. I think I'm going to be putting my search on hold. And Raya, I'm so sorry. It must be so hard to be going through a life change and buying a new home and losing a family member the way that you have. We want to be here for you without pushing you. Is there a better way for us to serve you during this transition, something like that, to where it was very empathetic, it was candidly quite impressive. And we actually are the only that I'm aware of in the real estate space that's actually built our own AI, like, we have our own machine learning experts, our own technology. And it's not just slotting. If then it's actually true AI, because we've been doing it for a lot longer. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is it's now rolling into video. I don't think I'll get in trouble for bringing it up, but basically what we're working on right now is I hesitate to use the phrase because it has a negative connotation, but you've seen like deepfakes where videos that look like the person, but they're not really the yeah, so working on that. So imagine a lead saves a home and it's one, two, three, Smith Street. And a video of me comes in and says, hey, this is Barry. I saw you were looking at one, two, three, Smith Street. Love to show it to you. Let me know when you have a moment. We have that technology now. We're perfecting it because it has to be perfect, but that'll be the next mind numbingly amazing thing we found. When we do something revolutionary like this, it typically takes two to two and a half years for the rest of the industry to kind of come up with something similar, and typically four to five years ahead of what the consumer understands as possible. So in 2016, you could send a text message to a lead, an auto text. They didn't know that it was a robot. Now they know that robots send text messages, video. The average consumer is not going to be aware that a video could go out. So that atmosphere of innovation, it just never stops. And I'm grateful to be a part of that story.

Matt Fagioli [00:40:05]:

I want to expand on that just a little bit because I'm not sure that everybody is going to fully follow what you just said. So what you're describing is a little max headroom kind of vibe where there's going to be a video of Barry, but it's not really Barry, it's AI taking a bunch of established recorded video of Barry and creating a message, replicating Barry and presenting that message. And it's going to look a lot like Barry. And there's really not any max headroom to it. That technology has moved to a place where it's pretty good and a little scary. It's a can of worms that we won't go into today. But I'm a little bit concerned about we're crossing a line where you're going to have to unless you were standing in the person's personal space hearing that person say what they said soon, you're going to have to be a little concerned about whether it was true or not.

Barry Jenkins [00:41:01]:

Yeah, no, look, there's no doubt there's new challenges on the horizon for all of us when it comes to robots. And I think it's something that I will say. I'm not worried about our industry being replaced, but I do think that most industries agree that the only people that are going to be replaced are the people that don't embrace some form of AI in their business. This is not just in real estate. This is just generally because it's almost like having mechanical legs. In a way, I'm going to be able to just run faster than you. And so understanding how that makes sense for your business, maybe it's not AI texting, maybe it's not AI blogs, maybe it's AI transaction management, maybe it's AI digital marketing. There's just all kinds of ways that you can kind of accelerate your success by leveraging the technology available to you today.

Matt Fagioli [00:42:05]:

Man barry, this has been an incredible conversation. I want to wrap it by asking you a little bit more about faith because you opened and closed your book with a faith conversation, which you and I have gone deep on. But talk a little bit about that. How did it lead to the book? I know it's baked into your whole life, but share with us a little bit about that piece of it.

Barry Jenkins [00:42:30]:

Yeah, it's similar to I don't know if you can see it in the camera, but if you look at my left arm, it's just covered in like this isn't a marker. These are tattoos that are very meaningful for me and they represent my faith. And I asked after I wrote the book and I added it because when I had people beta read the book, one of the questions that kept coming up was you talk about this tension in this moment where you found success, but you didn't like the way it made you feel. Why did you feel this sense of morality? Where did it come from? And so then I started to expand on that and what I've had people say to me from other faiths. So I happen to be a Christian, and so people from other religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Atheism, they've come to me, and they actually appreciated me putting those things in my book because they said that they were able to read about why someone like me believes the way that I do without needing you to buy into my faith. So I allowed people to see who I am and share my journey of faith and struggle without me needing the validation of people agreeing with me. Like, if you turn the next page, you're going to have to for me, it wasn't about that. It was an authentic, this really is who I am. It's what I believe. And I pastored a church for ten years. My real estate business supported my ministry. I left that ministry honorably. But for me, it really is just who I am. And that's why I ended up getting all these crazy tattoos, because I said, it's a part of my journey, it's who I am, and I'm very proud of it and what I believe to be is the best possible way. So I don't even remember if I.

Matt Fagioli [00:44:31]:

Answered your question, but yeah, you absolutely did. I wanted to touch that point. I didn't want to leave our conversation without touching it, of course, but I like the way you handled it because it was very upfront and clear at the beginning and a little bit baked in throughout the book. But then at the end of the book, you went deep on it, and you even called that an appendix to say, hey, if you want this piece, here it is. And I thought that was an interesting way to handle it. So kudos to you on that and congratulations on the and so guys, if you're catching this, definitely get online, get a copy of Barry's book, Too Nice for Sales. It's one of the best I've read. Barry, appreciate you, man, and I hope you'll come back here and join us real soon.

Barry Jenkins [00:45:18]:

Absolutely, anytime. Let me know.

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