How AI Is Changing Real Estate Relationships and Customer Expectations with Riley Vanderkaay

Host1 00:00

Why can't AI do that and create more powerful conversations with the human connection?

Host 00:04

I'm gonna let AI talk to my people, but really I'm supposed to be talking to my people.

Host1 00:09

AI has created a very high expectation consumer.

Host 00:12

We don't have an answer to the question. We just don't answer the question.

Host1 00:14

Hallucination happens when you're giving too much freedom and not enough information.

Host 00:19

I was able to take like what normally I think people would think like a two to three hour thing and turn it into like a 10 to 20 minute thing.

Host1 00:24

At the bottom of all of it, they're paid for as fast as they can respond with what the person wants to know.

Host 00:29

What's up, everybody? Grant wise. Welcome back to the Partner Profit Podcast. Pump for my conversation today. I've got Riley Vanderkey with Speculo, an amazing company in the real estate industry that's doing some cool things. And uh excited to have a conversation today about partnerships, relationships, growing your business, AI, all the cool stuff that they got going on. Riley, thanks for spending some time with me.

Host1 00:48

Dude, I'm excited, man. Let's let's dive right in.

Host 00:51

Yeah, yeah. So for people that are listening to this and maybe don't know much about you, give us the backstory. How did how do you get to where you are today?

Host1 00:57

I would say the best place to start is um grew up in Dayton, Ohio. And uh the first job I ever had was carrying golf bags. So I caddied for a lot of people. And uh it was during 08-09 is when I started. And unfortunately, without going depth into story, my family dealt with some some uh troublesome times during that, uh, during those years and for years to follow. And so I had this interesting perspective of carrying golf bags for people that were, you know, millionaires at this private country club, taking advantage of the recession and investment and business opportunities and all those things that come from, you know, recessions and then seeing what was happening on, you know, my family side, and and I really leaned into those conversations of those people and it really sparked. I was about 10 or 11 years old when I started there, and it really sparked this entrepreneurial nature, right? And so whether it was from mentorship conversations or it was just summers out on the course seven days a week, I started some companies when I was a kid, could have been a uh shoveling driveways during winter time or mowing, you know, lawns for people or lemonade stands. I did have one of those when I was like 10 or 11 years old. And I just really sparked this entrepreneurial journey. And so uh as I grew up in through the the country club, um, I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship through caddying to go to Ohio State. Went to Ohio State, was immediately in the business school there, doing entrepreneurial things, you know, working with a lot of the different professors there to either learn about business, connect with local businesses, grow my own businesses, and most of them failed, one of which is still alive today that my dad runs, that he and I kind of worked on together. And this company that I run now was born my senior year at Ohio State. And it basically started because I was a bartender. And that's how I made my way through school I would I would bartend at one of the big busy bars that was there, and you know, we would have lines out the door and we were all making so much money, and then COVID hit. And when COVID hit, everything changed. And so the first thing we did as uh all the bartenders, the people that worked at that restaurant, were like, okay, how can we drive traffic to this place that we need to make money so we can make money? And so we just started coming up with different concepts, whether it was, you know, digital marketing, having like influencer marketing, driving people to the bars and restaurants. We came up with this idea called a Bloody Mary Bar where people could show up to the bar and they would make their own Bloody Marys and they could go sit outside and they're segmented, you know, picnic tables. Um, so I really started to realize like how to partner with people that had communities and people that had following. That was like where that first came into my world was like finding people that that everybody knew on campus, whether it was students, student athletes, uh professors, anybody in the local Columbus area. And we would put together some partnership, you know, relationships with them where they would make content talking about the things we were doing. And that really started to explode, but we didn't own it, right? There was really no upside benefit other than just traffic to the bar. So my buddy and I one night were kind of eye dating around how do we take this and create our own company around it. So we started this. And originally it was local service businesses, CPA firms, art studios, you know, anything, bars and restaurants, all that. And we got referred a real estate agent in a very short period of time. We made her a ton of money and built some great solutions for her. And then we got connected into the coaching community for real estate. At that time, it was in KW and their coaching organization, and we just absolutely exploded. And then around that time when the industry started to change a little bit, around 2023, we kind of saw the writing on the wall that a high price point service-based uh company might not survive the swing uh in comparison to the other bigger ones out there. And so we ended up partnering up with our now CPO who was building this AI technology. And, you know, again, in the nature of this podcast, we basically I cold called him and I said, Hey, I see you building some cool stuff. Here's what we do, here's what you're trying to do. And I basically convinced him to come merge his stuff over to us instead of go the VC route and go get funding. And and uh that's where that partnership was born. And that was about a year and a half ago. And here we are today building this cool technology.

Host 04:37

That's awesome. So you said this and this technology. What what exactly are you guys building today, just for people that are listening?

Host1 04:43

Basically, in a nutshell, it's a GenTIC AI tool that creates dynamic nurture campaigns across phone calls, emails, and text is about 30, 45 days away. And we own the inception of intent to ready to talk to an agent, right? A lot of that stuff, like in real estate, uh, I believe, at least, my personal belief, I used to run a brokerage and we had about 100 agents, and we would spend a lot of time talking to about where their business is coming from and what time they're spending and what the ROI is on that time, right? And what we always would hear is, well, I'm spending all my time in power hour calling all these leads, trying to find opportunities, when in reality they end up losing intent from leads that are already right there that they can go service at a higher level. And so we immediately saw that problem and wanted to go solve it with this technology where when people are in their shopping discovery phase, they just want relevant information, right? AI has created that, right? People would just want to go shop and they want to get answers to their questions immediately. And so we figured, you know, why can't AI do that and create more powerful conversations with the human connection once that time is actually right, right? So ultimately, our product helps agents nurture and provide value to their customers and to their leads that come into their database without having to really be there because they don't need to be. Their professional opinions and their professional guidance is not needed at that phase, right? So we cover that, we get the leads ready to talk to the agents, and then we let the agents do the real work.

Host 06:02

And so for people that maybe don't know what that is, what is agentic AI?

Host1 06:06

It's basically task doing, right? Uh a lot of AI can spit back a response that makes logical sense based off the information that it has. There's the next layer of agentic, which is basically an AI that actually can do a task you give it, right? Yeah. And so it's the difference between, hey, can you analyze this document and give me a summary? That's AI, right? Agentic AI is saying, hey, can you analyze this document, give me a summary, and then can you go build an outbound communication campaign and call these people or email these people based off what you learned from this document? That's agentic.

Host 06:38

Got it, got it, got it, got it. When you look at what you guys do in an industry that is so powered by relationships, like it's it's kind of like I think maybe hard for people to like, okay, I'm gonna let AI talk to my people, but really I'm supposed to be talking to my people. Like, how do you guys navigate a lot of that in in such a relationship-driven industry?

Host1 07:00

I love that question. We get it pretty much every call we've every right we get. Um the way we see it is that uh AI has created a very high expectation consumer, right? Some people will say spoiled, but I don't think that's a bad thing, right? Like AI has created high expectations. People expect relevant personalized guidance and information instantly, right? So the way I kind of turn it on its head is that if if you want to be that person in your industry and in your location most importantly, in your marketplace, are you the person that is the knowledge source, the person people go to to find information? We see that to create more powerful relationships and and conversations, you've got to give the consumer what they want when they want it, right? There's a different kind of part of the funnel now. The funnel is very flattened because of AI, which means that people can go from, hey, I'm 12 months out and I don't need to talk to an agent to ready to go potentially write an offer, get pre-approved if they get the right answer to the right question at the right time. So the way we have have this conversation with people is we say, okay, well, do you want to be the one talking to them, or do you want to give them the answer they need when they need it? Right. Which which one is more important? Right. And so to me, that high level of service and that high level of relationship creation starts with giving them the answers they need when they want it, in the way they want it, as fast as possible and as efficient as possible. I think that's where AI is going to go. And that's what consumers are asking for, right? That's what the trend data tell us is that they want that relevant guidance instantly and it creates a faster connection to the human because they get their questions answered, and then now they're ready to go build a relationship and have a real conversation with the professional.

Host 08:31

Yeah. I think it's really powerful. I would I'd be apt to agree. I have another company where it's like um basically it's like a white labeled AI service, and what it does is builds essentially AI coaching companies. So you know, go find a go find a coach, let's say it's a real estate coach as an example, take their entire knowledge base and build it into a their own LLM, and then basically build like that coach's version of ChatGPT just for their business. Yeah. I would imagine the way that you guys are doing it, there's a lot less room for AI to make mistakes, which it often does. It doesn't hallucinate, do those types of things. Because that's what we see is like, well, if we don't have an answer to the question, we just don't answer the question, or we you know come up with an answer that's appropriate for that specific person, instead of being like, Yes, one plus one is seven, like which AI, not uh obviously that's kind of a silly example, but uh it hallucinates all the time, just makes stuff up, and then you're like, Oh, okay, cool, that makes a lot of sense. And it's like, well, that's not real, that's not an actual thing. Yeah, do you guys see that with what you do, that the way that you go about doing it, that there's a lot less margin for error. People are actually getting just relevant information for specific questions they're asking. Uh, you guys don't have some of like the hallucinations and stuff.

Host1 09:48

Hallucination happens when you're giving too much freedom and not enough information, right? That's really what hallucination is. Like AI is gonna try to give you the best answer. It has one objective, right? It's one objective is create the most logical answer based off the information it has. So inherently, it's gonna hallucinate. If it doesn't have enough information to create a logical answer, it's gonna come up with something, right? And sometimes it might be incorrect, right? What we do is basically say our product is not built to sell somebody. Our product is not built to convince somebody. Our product is built to house a ton of data, whether it's MLS data, homeowner data, first party, third party data, location data, you know, which neighborhood is the most dog friendly in DC Metro, right? She's gonna have all that knowledge. And she's just an answering engine. That's really the main thing, right? Like we look at it as pile in a ton of data on contacts and on the location in the marketplace, and you avoid hallucinations by having the right data and the right prompting, and then making sure you're communicating to the consumer on how they can use this resource. It's like part of our scripting is if Remy's gonna call you or email you, she's gonna say, Hey, I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of GrantWise Real Estate, right? And I can help you with these things. How can I help you today? Right. We're trying to set the standard of, hey, I am here to answer your questions, provide guidance, and connect you to a professional when you're ready. We're not trying to convince or sell. And what ends up happening when you try to do that is you get people asking questions or confused or they feel like they're being duped or they don't understand. And that's when you get these random questions or random conversations that aren't really valuable, which ultimately will lead to hallucination because it's outside of her purview of what she's capable of doing.

Host 11:22

Makes sense. So what you're saying is that if I'm in business and I have a tool like yours, my ability to build a relationship with someone today isn't necessarily just me talking to them, but it's somewhat predicated on my ability to get them the information that they want as fast as they can so that they still look at me or my company as a resource.

Host1 11:42

Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. Right. Like I look at some tools like, you know, when we were at the Aston Advance last week, right? We got to meet that gentleman from Fixer. And when I was talking to him about his tool, one of the things he mentioned to me is he was like a lot of people, a lot of professionals, a lot of business professionals, inherently at the bottom, at the end of the day, right, at the bottom of all of it, they're paid for as fast as they can respond with what the person wants to know. Right. And that's like one of Fixer's biggest value props. We kind of look at it the same way, but in the shopping phase, right? Like the the real estate agent is so intelligent and so capable at helping somebody through one of the biggest transactions they'll ever make in their lives, right? And that's really where they thrive and where they're really good, right? But setting somebody up on a search or making sure you update the price point when they start looking at different homes because they've increased their budget. Yes, absolutely. Agents are great at that. ISAs are great at that, right? But why not have an AI that just doesn't let anything slip through the cracks and provides that high quality service to the consumer? Because that's again, that's what they're expecting at this point, right? That's what they want. And that's what they're asking for from the professional. And we have seen through data, not just predictions, through data, it creates better and faster demand for human connection. When you get the answers you want, you want to connect to the professional. The analogy I always use is, you know, I just I just went and bought a pair of shoes. Normally I'll shop online, but these shoes were shoes that, you know, I like to do like mountaineering and climbing and hiking, and they were kind of intentional for that use. And so I walked into the store and this guy comes up to me and is like, hey, how can I help you? What's your name? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, dude, I'm I'm good. Right? Like, I don't need anything, right? I've done my online shopping, I know what I'm here to get. So I go up to the back wall, I find the shoe that I want. Immediately when I find it, now my head's on the swivel, demanding that guy's right here next to me because I want the size, I want to try it on, I want to make sure it fits, and then I want to leave. Right. And so again, that's what AI and online shopping and AI intelligence is doing for people is it's it's increasing the pace in which somebody gets what they need to then want to connect to the professional. So as soon as I try it on, now I'm asking that guy questions, right? Hey, does this fit right? Am I walking right? My toes up to here, is this gonna create blisters if I'm out on a hike for 10 hours, right? Asking the questions to the professional. I didn't need him when I walked in the store. I just wanted to go find what I was looking for. But now I want him when I actually have what I need, and I have questions that an AI can't answer for me.

Host 13:55

Hmm. I'm gonna ask you a bit of an abstract question. So your tools helping me develop relationships faster by providing people with the information that they want. How do I take those relationships and turn them into revenue?

Host1 14:06

By using the information that Remy was able to gather and then doing what the agent's best at doing, right? Consulting the person through the transaction, right? Like that's it. I think I think it's using that information and showing, and I love this question because whenever we see a failure rate or whenever, and this is even just our product, like let's just talk industry in general, right? And just sales in general or relationship building in general. Relationships at the end of the day are about providing value to each other, right? If I'm providing value to you and you're providing value to me, that's an awesome relationship, right? We're gonna continue growing together. If that's not in business, that's just you know personal. You give me good advice on arguments I have with my wife, right? Great, okay, cool. We have a good, valuable relationship. If one side is providing value and the other's not, all of a sudden that relationship starts to kind of dissipate over time, right? There's a lot of taking and not a lot of giving going on from one side. Okay. And so when I see to answer your question, when I look at how agents should use AI or agents should use technology around what the consumer is doing and what they expect from the agent, it's a very knowledgeable, like we're starting at the place you left off when you were shopping at homes online, right? Or when you were talking to Remy, or when you were looking at a search on X platform, Rooster or Real Scout, any of these platforms, right? You're looking at something, you're engaging with something. I expect the next conversation I have with a human to be about that thing and to then guide me to the next step. Right. One of our clients that's a coach, I love it. He talks, his name's Jordan Reeland. He talks about this all the time, where he says, What's the next play? Right? Like, what's the next step? I think information gathering from AI and other technology is going to allow that next play and that next step to be more trusted, uh, more valuable, and more capable to actually provide the outcome the consumer wants.

Host 15:45

Do you see that happen a lot where people don't pay attention to what Remy was talking to the client about? And then Yeah.

Host1 15:52

I hate to say that.

Host 15:53

Like if they're not watching this uh on video, he rolls his eyes as he says.

Host1 15:59

I watched somebody the other day. I mean, I, you know, I I love all of our clients who are the best people in the world, and I love spending so much time with them. But I listened to a recording the other day where somebody, you know, picked up the call and was just like, hey, what's up? How can I help? And it was like, you just got a whole text and a summary on the call. Like you know everything about what this person's looking for. And again, regardless of our product, like if you're engaging with somebody and you have access to information about what they're looking for and your engagement is, hey, tell me what you're looking for, you're just asking that person to repeat the cycle they already just went through. So yeah, I see it, I don't see it super often, but I I see it often enough that I do think there is this cycle that we have to get through as professionals, especially in the B2C space. Like B2B is a little bit differently because we're all, you know, we're all using this stuff, right? It operates a little differently. But from a B2C standpoint, like there's a lot of consumers are getting smarter, man. Like they're getting way smarter and they're understanding what they're engaging with, and they're okay with it, right? But they have high expectations now.

Host 16:59

It feels like now everybody has something in their pocket that can fact check you with some level of competence. Like I see this a lot like in insurance or car deals. I I literally just had to change insurance companies because in the state of Arkansas, the company that I had was leaving the state, and I got two or three quotes like I usually do. And then I I was like, I don't have time to sit through all this. And so I took my previous policy and I took the two to three new quotes, and I said, Okay, which one of these quotes is the closest to my previous policy? And then it just like, yeah, you should go with this one. It was like perfect. Like, thank you for doing all that work for me.

Host1 17:38

Questions I should ask that I'm not thinking about that.

Host 17:40

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Host1 17:41

Right, yeah.

Host 17:42

And that's exactly what happened. I got on the phone with the agent, I was like, Well, I was curious about this, this, and this, and then they answered, and I was like, Send me the paperwork, like I'm good to go. I was able to take like what normally I think people would think like a two to three hour thing and turn it into like a 10 to 20 minute thing. And um I see it a lot. I see it in automotive, I see it with internet, I see it all over the place. People are using AI to fact check other people, and then coming back with like, oh, I didn't think about this, I should ask this question, or I didn't think about that, I should ask this question.

Host1 18:10

That's yeah, it's like AI doesn't let you hide anymore. You know, like you can't hide, you can't give an answer that's not uh pointed or direct or valuable, right? Because AI will.

Host 18:20

And it's not and it's not like Google, like if it was Google, I would go back like, is this a good insurance quote? And it would give me a bunch of research to do on my own. Whereas Chat GPT or whatever whatever AI tool you guys use is just saying, Well, here's the answer. Like it's it's such a different search experience. I find it so fascinating.

Host1 18:38

Well, and that's like that. I I love that, and I think that that's really we're trying to just create that for the team themselves, right? Like giving them the power to have a resource like that for their consumers, I think is really the main objective. And it it's I just think it's important, man. Like, even if it's not us doing the work, we have we have you know competitors in the space, right? But we we are just as supportive of those competitors as we are about our clients using our product. And it's it's because again, like the consumer is to what you're saying, you can't hide anymore. They're too damn smart, like they know too much information, they know the resources they can go look for. And so I think we're starting to get to a place where this, you know, exodus of agents out of the business or exodus of insurance agents out of the business, or just companies in general not going the long haul, it's because they're not realizing that like you you've got to put the facts and the information at the forefront in the hands of your buyers, right? Of your of your product or service, and that's gonna allow you to build stronger, better relationships because they're gonna find out regardless. They're gonna know regardless. And if they don't learn it from you, they're gonna learn it from somebody else.

Host 19:41

I I get your specific use case. Talking about real estate, you know, real estate agent gets a lead, act deploys your tool, bring it warms them up so somebody's ready to have a conversation. But like just taking a step back and thinking about a little higher level, how do you think that we should think about developing relationships with people in the age of artificial intelligence?

Host1 20:00

That's a great question. How do we think that we should create better relationships with people in the age of artificial intelligence? Well, even before we started this, you and I were talking about community, right? I think that's huge. I don't want to I don't want to take your idea, right? But I think it's it's it's building better community and connecting people more together for sure. Um and I I really think, I mean, I hate to repeat it, right? I really think it's just build a building a better relationship is going to land on providing as much value as possible. And it's it's funny because you know, Gary Vee says this all the time. He his content, if you scroll through his content in the last four or five years, it's the same thing. Like he's just saying the same thing over and over again. And I think when it comes to relationship building, it's the same thing. Everybody who gets it will say you just want to provide value to each other, right? As long as there is a reciprocation of value. Takes me back to when I used to carry one of the carry golf bags, one of the guys that was my mentor. That was one of the main things he said. He was like, literally everything in the world is a transaction of value. That value can be anything. It doesn't matter. Well, you know, when I was carrying his golf bag, it was 15 bucks at the end of 18 holes, right? But to me, that value wasn't the $15. It was spending four and a half, you know, five hours captivating this person that had to walk next to me and answer all my questions, right? So I I think building better relationships is going to sit on the shoulders of how much value that you give, and most importantly, uh how you reciprocate value to that person in the relationship that you're in, because you might want to give that person money or you might want to give that person resources. But if they don't want that, if that's not the value that they need from you, it's not going to stick, right? So I think it's relevant value. That's that's what I would say in a nutshell to kind of consolidate it. Like relevant value in perpetuity between two people, three people, four people, whatever it is. That's really the main way I would see building relationships in the future, regardless of AI. AI is not going to change that, I don't think. Right. I think it'll make it easier and faster, but us as human beings have to be in that transaction of value together, and AI is not going to take that away.

Host 21:58

Fascinating. All right, man. I want to respect your time. So I just got one last question, and that is how can we, as listeners of the Partner Profit Podcast, partner with you? What can we do to support you and help you grow?

Host1 22:09

I would say a couple things. Number one, start bringing in more AI to your organization, right? It doesn't have to be ours, right? I think just like more people understanding and learning about AI makes you know our product better and easier for them to use, but it also brings out the best in the industry partners, other people that are here in this industry, right? We have a lot of founders of other tech companies that we have great relationships with that are doing amazing things with AI. And we're really building our product to integrate across channels, right? So I think just putting AI in your business will inherently probably bring us together at some point in the future. But then, number two, like if people want to go check us out or they want to learn about what our product's capable of, they can just go to our website and and put your phone number in and she'll call you and you can have a conversation. And then, you know, most importantly, just reach out. If you see us at events, come have a conversation. We love to walk around and engage with clients and meet new people at these events. So it's all about just connection. I really think at the end of the day, I just want to talk to more people about their business and how they can integrate the future into it. So find me wherever I am at events and reach out on our website and all that fun stuff.

Host 23:09

Love it. I appreciate you being on here, man. Uh, this was uh definitely an interesting conversation and excited to see what you guys continue to to do and develop into and um appreciative that uh got to spend some time with you.

Host1 23:20

Yeah, man. Thank you. Hopefully, this is valuable for the listeners.

Host 23:23

Absolutely, absolutely. I think it was. Appreciate you, and if you guys are are listening, I appreciate you for continuing to listen to the Partner Profit podcast. This has been a fascinating conversation about AI and relationships, and I'm excited to see what you all go do with it. I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.