The Evolution of Real Estate Growth Hackers: Embracing AI and Expanding Horizons

[00:00:00] Zach Hammer: Welcome back to Not Real Estate Growth Hackers. Cause that's what this episode is about. We're talking about how this show is actually going to shift, change, and evolve as who we're serving and who's been coming into the world of what we're up to, has shifted, changed, and evolve.

[00:00:18] Zach Hammer: And so, we're going to be going into that. Here with me today, as always, for the past, we've been doing this again for a while, right Charlie? But I got Charlie Madison, founder, coder. What's that?

[00:00:30] Charlie Madison: I was saying, I heard the first year is the hardest.

[00:00:32] Zach Hammer: There you go. Ha! Charlie, you're wearing a Hawaiian shirt again today. I feel like, this is the perfect episode to do this relaunch on. You're back in the tropical clothing. I feel at home.

[00:00:42] Charlie Madison: The world is back to where it should be.

[00:00:44] Zach Hammer: That's right. So yeah, let me get everyone caught up and as always, Charlie, feel free to riff with me on this. In terms of what I'm doing, like Real Estate Growth Hackers as a thing, is it really going away?

[00:00:53] Zach Hammer: Websites still going to exist. I still actually may put content up there, courses on there. And the [00:01:00] show, even as we move forward, still will be relevant. But let's step back and look a little bit at the history. So, when I started Real Estate Growth Hackers about 10 years ago, at this point, I forgot the exact day, year, etc. It would have been probably 2014, 2015. It's so almost 10 years ago now. Really, I didn't have a clear vision for exactly what I was about either. Other than, that I was about helping the Real Estate industry hack growth. And that's really what I've been about.

[00:01:28] Zach Hammer: And so What does that mean? That's meant leveraging technology in cool ways, right? Software, tools, platforms that you may or may not already be using, and putting them together in ways that really allow you to get an outsized result compared to your cost and effort on the front end.

[00:01:45] Zach Hammer: And so, I shared a lot of what had been working with me, the strategies and tactics that I'd put in place, with lots of real estate folks, teams, brokers, agents, even some lending professionals, title folks, that sort of thing, as well. And I was sharing those [00:02:00] concepts. Over time, I've found that really my niche has come toward the people that are really most able to capitalize on my strategies, which had been team owners or brokerages that run like a team. So the people that you run a real estate business like a full business, right? It's more than just a sales job for you.

[00:02:19] Zach Hammer: You think about things like having staff, and you think about things like scaling up your pipeline, in order to have people process them. Having systems, whether that's through ISAs, or CRMs, or software tools, or even on the backend. Having people like transaction coordinators and maybe admin staff on your team that help you run your business at a high level, where you've grown beyond just doing it all, that of a beginning agent.

[00:02:46] Zach Hammer: And really what I've seen is, that's who I best serve because they're able to get the best results out of what I talk about. I don't necessarily have the strategies, or at least I don't really lean into the strategies that are exactly like, here's how you get started, or here's the [00:03:00] cheapest way to get leads, as much as, Hey, here's the way to get cost-effective leads. It's scalable and allows you to stay flush with business. Those are the kinds of strategies that I tend to talk about, think about. I tend to be thinking about how can we reduce the amount of time that each person on your team has to take in order to get a successful result. Sometimes, how can we reduce the caliber of person required in order to still get a good result?

[00:03:24] Zach Hammer: So you can leverage VAs to do more than you thought possible, that you don't need somebody who's already familiar with real estate. Or you don't need somebody in the States, and so you're able to maximize your costs, etc. And you know what I've learned, Charlie?

[00:03:37] Charlie Madison: What have you learned?

[00:03:39] Zach Hammer: I've learned that pretty much, every business wants those same kind of things.

[00:03:44] Zach Hammer: And so as a result, the more that I've talked about what I'm up to, and the more that I've shared, not just with the real estate community, but the other people that I roll with. The digital agencies, the SAAS companies, those right now are probably the biggest groupings.

[00:03:57] Zach Hammer: But just companies that are running more at a [00:04:00] level of, we've got a team, we've got a mission that we're focused on achieving, and we want to leverage technology in a way that makes us more efficient, more effective, and allows us to skyrocket our growth. And so, that's what we're doing.

[00:04:15] Zach Hammer: We're making it clear that what we're talking about isn't just relevant to the real estate industry. What we're talking about actually is relevant to more people because that's what the market's telling us they want. When I put out content, I'm seeing lots of people who aren't real estate people, interested in what we're talking about, interested in what we're up to, and how we're automating SOP generation, and how we're automating the turning of content via video into marketing content on social media that's written, how we're taking processes that used to take people easily 30-40 hours and reducing it to a process that takes three hours for a person to do. Everybody seems to want that. Everybody at least, who fits into that vein of, [00:05:00] you've got a mission that you're looking to accomplish and you got a team that can help you do it.

[00:05:04] Zach Hammer: So, that's who we're looking to serve. That's a little bit about why we're doing that change. Because really, I was running into an issue of, it was obvious people were liking what we're up to, but it's a little bit confusing when the name of the show is called Real Estate Growth Hackers for people to know, is this really for me?

[00:05:18] Zach Hammer: And so, we're making it more clear than it is. Go ahead.

[00:05:20] Charlie Madison: I think, one of your most brilliant points is you can really good sales, which businesses need. You're also one of the most technical people I know. You teach me stuff and I've been called the most technical person that most everyone that I know knows. And you're also really good at marketing. And the way that we got connected was through Kevin, and he's got multiple businesses and Costas who runs a software company. Though I've got a real estate practice, we really connected because I had my software company. And your ability to be able to see the big [00:06:00] game, but also dial it in, and take step by step, to actually get something completed.

[00:06:06] Zach Hammer: Right.

[00:06:07] Charlie Madison: well, I want to just move on to the next thing.

[00:06:09] Charlie Madison: The fact that you can hold both sides is really cool. And the people that I've seen that need that, who you work really well with, whether it's large software companies or people paying you $4,000 a month for your consulting. It's the person that's already successful, that's ready, to Five X, 10X, through your wisdom and technology.

[00:06:32] Zach Hammer: Exactly. And yeah, that's really a good way of putting it. I found that who I best serve isn't necessarily the group of people that are struggling to figure it out, as much as the people who have something that's working. They just like it to be a lot better. They'd like it to cost less. They'd like it to run more efficiently. They'd like to maybe buy back some time freedom, where maybe they have the income taken care of, but they're looking to make sure that they get more time back. Or maybe, they already have [00:07:00] strategies that are working, they just want to see how they can leverage it even further, get even more out of what they're doing.

[00:07:04] Zach Hammer: Now, does that mean it's not going to have relevant, useful information for people who are just starting out? No, it'll still be useful and helpful for anybody. It starts you down a good track of thinking about things in a positive, scalable way.

[00:07:16] Zach Hammer: But that's, who at least really, my ideas, my way of thinking, my way of helping seems to help the most. That's who we're focused on.

[00:07:24] Zach Hammer: So now, what's staying the same? Like I just mentioned, we've already been talking about most of these concepts already, right?

[00:07:32] Zach Hammer: It's not like the subject matter of what we're talking about is going to change. We're still going to be talking about marketing strategies that work. We're going to be talking about how AI is making things more efficient, and how to build AI-empowered teams, how to leverage AI in the processes of scaling up what you're up to. So AI is still really going to be a massive part of what we're up to. And we're going to be focused on the same things that I find interesting, fascinating, and helpful of how can we streamline our [00:08:00] operations, leveraging technology and AI, and how can we skyrocket our growth, by putting out solid marketing strategies that maybe, just happen to be made more efficient or more powerful, leveraging things like AI and whatever tech tools are making our lives easier.

[00:08:14] Zach Hammer: We're talking about a lot of the same things. Will everything always be real estate-focused at this point? No. So it won't always be real estate focused. But am I never going to talk about real estate-specific topics? No, I will. So I'll still be talking about things that are real estate-specific.

[00:08:32] Zach Hammer: We might be talking recruitment strategies for real estate teams, and those sorts of things. Cause really, for me, I'm just making it more clear that while we might have case studies that are specific industries, whether it's real estate or digital agencies or SAAS companies, we're not going to zero in on only one thing all the time.

[00:08:52] Zach Hammer: I think, that's in service, even to the real estate professionals. One of the things that I have learned is, have you heard the story [00:09:00] about where the drive-through window came from?

[00:09:02] Charlie Madison: I feel like you've told me before, and I can't remember exactly how it went.

[00:09:06] Zach Hammer: It's an example that I go to often, but when we think of a drive-thru window, what do we most often associate with it in our current culture?

[00:09:13] Charlie Madison: Big Mac and fries.

[00:09:15] Zach Hammer: That's right. We think about fast food, right? The place that we most commonly see the drive-thru is in the fast food industry. Where it was first popularized was actually from pharmacies. So pharmacies were the ones that first started using the drive-thru window. But that technology was taken from that industry, that form of sales, and adapted into food, where it's actually become more powerful and, more useful, it's responsible for more, sales than it ever might be in the pharmaceutical industry.

[00:09:44] Zach Hammer: I found the same thing in, my life, as well. That there's something about hearing from people in other industries, hearing about how other people get things done that unlocks a part of our brain that's different. Where we often get into [00:10:00] these mental ruts, where we're going down the same path and we're just used to it. We get into our echo chambers. We're used to hearing from the same people, who learned from the same people. We get into this world where we're only ever hearing from the same three to four top-level opinions, right?

[00:10:16] Zach Hammer: And while that's useful at times for sake of having extreme clarity on, I know this applies to this market, I know this applies to my business, I know this applies and is easy to take in, and put into action, that's good. And that is powerful. It's like the equivalent of, if you were dying of thirst, you need to drink a water.

[00:10:33] Zach Hammer: But we also need to grow and expand, and hopefully find the thing that nobody else in our industry is doing. And find the things that really set us apart and make us unique and different and ability to 10X, over our competition. And very rarely are those things found within the industry that you are currently in. Because if they were, you'd already be doing it, and they'd already be commonplace.

[00:10:57] Zach Hammer: And very often, we do, we need to [00:11:00] hear from what people in other industries are doing. We need to hear from the people who are running Fortune 500 businesses. And how do they think about scale? How do they think about teams?

[00:11:10] Zach Hammer: Because chances are, we can learn a thing or two from the people that are having to operate at that level that we don't, currently. Now, is everything going to be relevant? Is everything going to be useful? No, probably not. But, those nuggets that sort of bridge us into a different way of thinking, that can really skyrocket what we're up to.

[00:11:27] Zach Hammer: I'm really excited that in this process of expanding, what we're talking about that we might be bringing on guests that are from different industries than you're used to hear from people that have a bigger view of things. And hopefully, be able to, both me personally grow myself. But also for you listening, that you're able to take that information and maybe find new insights that you weren't previously because it's not from that same echo chamber of within the real estate industry.

[00:11:54] Zach Hammer: And so, that's part of what we're looking at, real estate content for me is not going away. It's still [00:12:00] a big part of the group that I serve, and where I'm very familiar and have lots of readily implementable tactics and strategies for you to deploy. I still have a massive library of marketing strategies, sales strategies, follow-up, courses, templates, all that stuff. None of that's gone away and it all still works. So we're still gonna be leveraging that and probably creating new things, as we learn with new people, as well.

[00:12:22] Zach Hammer: Now, some of the content will be getting more expansive, more relevant to a bigger audience. And my hope is that in doing that, we're able to not only serve more people, but we're able to unlock more opportunities than we were able to before.

[00:12:35] Zach Hammer: In terms of, where things are going to be found, I still am not positive exactly what we're going to call the new show. I've got what we're working under. And I will reveal that now. I really like the name AMP Intel, for Amplified Intelligence. Cause it really speaks to what we're doing.

[00:12:50] Zach Hammer: If you've been listening to this for a while, or, the way that I think about AI is I don't think about it as being a replacement for humans, but rather, being a way to take the intelligence that [00:13:00] you already have and amplify it and leverage it further.

[00:13:02] Zach Hammer: If you come armed with your own expertise or looking to build and grow an expertise, AI could take that and really, throw fuel on that fire. But if you're trying to leverage AI to replace every bit of human intelligence that's going on in your world or in your business, you are setting yourself up to either be replaced by AI, or ultimately likely lose your competitive edge, because everybody has access to those tools, and you won't have an edge anymore if you don't have your own unique expertise and point of view.

[00:13:33] Zach Hammer: And so, that's what I'm looking to do. I'm looking to both for myself, for everybody that's joining us, help amplify your intelligence. You go out, get experience in the world, leverage tools to make that more effective, leverage tools to make that go farther. And as you do that, we can spread your message more effectively, help you get customers, get clients more effectively, leveraging what you're already up to, and show you how to do that in that process.

[00:13:57] Zach Hammer: AMP Intel is currently the working title [00:14:00] for the new show. Where you can find it? I'm going to start transitioning where the content is found over to ZackHammer.me. So, it'll all be under me and my name and my brand, figure it starts to make sense for folks. If you want to hear the way that I think about things in the business perspective, it's probably a good opportunity for me to just pull it under my name and start branding it that way. The show itself is, working title, but you're going to start to be able to find it at Zach Hammer. me. That may not start immediately, may take a little bit for that to happen. You'll be able to likely find it both ZachHammer.me, and as well as Real Estate Growth Hackers. If you are consuming our content from our podcast feed, you likely won't need to change anything. The feed itself, I think we'll just continue right where it is. And we'll likely change the name of the show through our feed itself.

[00:14:46] Zach Hammer: You might need to go to a new YouTube channel. We might be publishing in a new place since it's going to be more of a bigger variety of content that isn't real estate-specific. All of the old links should continue to work. But for new content, there may be new places. If you want access to that, again, [00:15:00] ZachHammer.me is ultimately going to end up being the best place to go. And find that, find those links, etc.

[00:15:05] Zach Hammer: But yeah, that pretty much covers it, in terms of what we got going on and what the shift is happening. Again, ultimately, the crux of what we're up to is we're looking to help you build AI-empowered teams, streamline operations, and skyrocket growth.

[00:15:18] Zach Hammer: We're going to be relevant still to real estate teams, but also SAAS companies, digital agencies. And really, any business leader who has a team, who has success, who's looking to innovate and grow, that's who we're serving right now.

[00:15:31] Zach Hammer: Show frequency should stay about the same. Looking to keep up a weekly schedule that does shift and change. A little bit over time, I had a backlog of content for a bit. I need to develop some more backlog at this point. So, that should stay the same. And again, we're covering the same topics and all that. So, if you want to be along for the ride with us, I encourage you to stay subscribed, content, newsletter, all that will be changing a bit.

[00:15:54] Zach Hammer: But yeah, one more thing.

[00:15:55] Charlie Madison: one more thing,

[00:15:56] Zach Hammer: With [00:16:00] AI, one of the things that's become very clear to me is, and we've talked about this a bit, but the ability for me to show up as I am, and have AI help to make it be more powerful and able to be distributed more to more people.

[00:16:15] Zach Hammer: And so, one of the things that I'm seeing currently is that there's a really strong grouping of people who would prefer to read rather than watch or listen. And we did an episode about that. We talked about that. So moving forward, one of the things that you could start to expect is that, I'm really looking to build out this show concept so that we have a format that makes sense for you.

[00:16:35] Zach Hammer: So if you like to watch the videos, if you feel like you consume content well, that's the way that I naturally show up. Charlie, you talk about the marketing DNA a lot. And so, me and Charlie doing this show together, showing up, having a conversation, and creating content that way, that's going to happen. So there's still going to be a video component. Obviously, audio from this gets put out into podcast feeds, so you'll, be able to listen as well. If you don't have the time to sit and watch. You want to [00:17:00] throw us on while you're doing dishes, mowing the yard, exercising, throwing it on during the commute, it'll still be there.

[00:17:06] Zach Hammer: But the other thing that we're going to start doing is, we've already started shifting this a little bit, but you can expect that when we put out an episode like this, we will also have not just high-level show notes, but it'll actually be restructured as an easy to read article that you can consume and read and skim if you want.

[00:17:24] Zach Hammer: So you can still get the key insights at a really an in-depth level. Not just the high-level ideas, but really, if we talk about something in the show, if we talk about specific tactics or strategies, you'll be able to get that in a written format. So you'll see that happening as well, as we make this shift. The content will be multimedia for video, written, audio, all of that. So no matter what way you like to consume content, you'll start seeing it that way. And then also, some of the other strategies that we're doing, you'll see bits and pieces of this come out over time, as social media content from me as well. We still have clips going out and all that.

[00:17:58] Zach Hammer: If you want the [00:18:00] beating pulse on what I'm up to, what we're thinking about, and what we're working on, this show is going to be the best option. Whether you want to listen or read what it's up to, but it becomes the anchor point for everything else.

[00:18:09] Zach Hammer: So I encourage you, subscribe, whether via podcast, video, or written, or all of the above, depending on how you're feeling at that day, we'll have some good content for you, in a way that you should be able to take action on, put into practice, and help it grow your business.

[00:18:24] Zach Hammer: So, there you go. Charlie, any final thoughts or whatnot on this shift, and the changing direction?

[00:18:31] Charlie Madison: We've been talking about it for a while, off of the show. And so been seeing it. And the two things that occur to me is one, to be successful in real estate, and you've worked with a lot of successful real estate businesses. You've got to be the top of your game. I've seen many people that go from a real estate business to another business and they're like, I take what I learned there that I had to do to survive, and I bring it over here to this other industry. And no [00:19:00] one's doing anything like that.

[00:19:01] Charlie Madison: Like A lot of industries, literally, you just return phone calls that day, and you win.

[00:19:06] Charlie Madison: And so, for you to take what it takes to recruit a sales team, to build out your SOPs, to have a 1099 sales team, all the AI that you're leveraging to take the presentations, and all of that, and then, put it into other industries, which you've already been doing through the SAAS companies. So to be able to take that information and then put it in other places is really cool.

[00:19:30] Charlie Madison: And then also, just like the stuff that you're building AI-wise, can touch so many. If you're a successful business, and you're wanting to actually have effective AI, and like I said, not just a list of 50-word prompts, but actually have like usable AI. The machines, the things that you're putting together now, are like blowing me away. And so, it's really, exciting to see where this is opening up.

[00:19:56] Zach Hammer: I love it. I think really, on the AI front, part of what makes [00:20:00] the difference is, I'm not just talking about AI because it's a fun, shiny thing. What I am doing is, I am sharing what I am putting into practice to make a meaningful difference in my business with everybody else.

[00:20:13] Zach Hammer: I'm sharing what's actually working, what I'm using day-to-day in my business to make my team more effective, to recruit more effectively, to hire more effectively, to run my marketing more effectively. I'm just sharing, from the front lines, what I'm actually using.

[00:20:29] Zach Hammer: I'm not building a tool and then finding an audience. I'm building things for myself and saying, it's working for me. You want it to, right? I think that makes a big difference because most people, when they're talking about AI are still, it's a shiny object that's capable of cool things and people see a lot of potential, but they're not actually putting it into practice and don't know how, right?

[00:20:49] Zach Hammer: And hopefully, this quirk of my brain where I can't help but put it into practice and figure out, how to make it work, and do that hard work of figuring out the right prompts, and figuring out the right way to [00:21:00] string things together, and figuring out the right technology to run it and make those processes feel easy.

[00:21:04] Zach Hammer: Hopefully, that thing that I do is beneficial to everybody else, to be able to get those results without having to put in that time and effort that I put into it naturally.

[00:21:11] Zach Hammer: Love it. Thank you for those thoughts, Charlie. I'm excited for us to continue recording content, continue reaching this group of people that like to hear from us and hear us talk about how they can grow their business, scale more effectively, create streamlined operations, and really build an AI-empowered team, so that it's like you have a whole army of people that all have their own Iron Man suit to make them 10 times more effective. If not more.

[00:21:37] Zach Hammer: There you go. That covers it. So again, be looking for information and shifting places where we're publishing. But yeah, ZachHammer.me is the best place to check out, to stay informed. It's where the content should be moving to. So check that out.

[00:21:52] Zach Hammer: But otherwise, if you're already receiving information from us, on our list, if you're already subscribed via podcast feeds, you shouldn't have to change anything [00:22:00] there. So most of you should already naturally be pointed to the new direction. But yeah, there you go.

[00:22:05] Zach Hammer: If you haven't been through, I definitely recommend, head over for now to RealEstateGrowthHackers.com. If you haven't already, you can sign up there. ZachHammer.me, we should be getting stuff up and live there soon, for you to sign up there as well, so that you can stay informed on what we're up to.

[00:22:19]Zach Hammer: But yeah, thanks so much again for coming on, Charlie. And until next time, we'll catch you guys on the next one.