 Why don't you tell all the agents in your market to quit buying Zillow lead and feeding Zillow if you're worried about Zillow? And why don't you quit using DotLoop? So ever since Zillow announced they're buying showing time, I've been getting blown up by you guys. This is the most I've ever been blown up about anything. And if you don't know what I'm talking about today, I'm going to break down exactly what's going on, what it means for you and what you can do to protect yourself long term because you guys are absolutely scared to death about what this could mean for the industry. And before we get going, smash the like button, click subscribe. And let me know what you think about Zillow acquiring showtime in the comments. So first off, what exactly is going on here? Well, a couple of weeks ago, Zillow announced that they're going to acquire showing time. What is showing time? Showing time is the software, is the company that most of you in the U.S. use to set up showings on other agents listings. I know we use it in my MLS and I'm sure you use it in yours. There's over 900,000 agents in the U.S., which is the majority of agents in the U.S. and over 350 MLSs total in the country that use showing time. So there's tons and tons of data. Now, this could go down in history as one of the best moves in the real estate industry ever. I don't know, but I still can't figure out exactly why they did this. I really don't. I would love for someone to explain to me why they spent a half a billion dollars on this company. Maybe it's a can't lose situation. Maybe showing time is actually making enough money to justify the half a billion dollars plus as a bonus, they get all this data on the industry. Now, what does this mean for you? What does this mean for real estate agents? What does this mean for the entire industry? In my opinion, absolutely nothing. And everyone has been blowing me up about this, what I think about it. Everybody's scared. OK, I've been getting the question, will Zillow replace real estate agents? I've been getting it night and day. Just message after message after message after message. In my opinion, absolutely not. And I posted on Instagram a couple of days ago. What does Zillow by showing time have to do with you? And there were all kinds of comments, hundreds of comments there. And one of the comments talked about how Ricky sells like the travel agent back in 2000 talking about, you know, the industry's not going to take our job. But we'll see what happens over the next five, 10 years. Hey, listen, let me tell you something. OK, am I worried about automation and AI and Zillow or some other entity coming into the industry and taking real estate agents jobs? Absolutely a hundred percent not. Now, do I think something could come in and alter the industry? Yes, it already has. Our industry looks completely different than it did when I started 19 years ago. What do we do when things change, when the market dynamics change, when the industry starts to change? We adapt. We keep moving. We continue doing what we've always done, build relationships with our clients and help them buy and sell property. And listen, if something comes along and takes a bite out of our income, it's because that bite of income came from something automated, something, you know, something that that took a lot off of our plate. OK, now we're able to do more volume because of this technology. OK, so you got to look at the silver lining every little step of the way. I've been saying it for years now, something's going to come along and four percent is probably going to be the new norm of real estate commissions. The new norm real estate commissions could be in the future. I'm talking five, ten years out, maybe even longer, maybe shorter. Who knows at a four percent normal rate. Right now in my market, we're still getting five and six. The same exact rates that we were getting when I started in the business. And look, guys, I'm not naive to this. I'm not uneducated. OK, I look at history, I look at companies, I look at the way technologies come in and absolutely demolish several industries. You even have the CEO of Blockbuster that came out publicly and a quote and said, Netflix is not competition for us. And we all know how that story ended. But there's been several industries that people thought that technology would take over. Everybody was scared about lawyers whenever legal zoom came out. OK, what happened there? Absolutely nothing. And do you guys think that Zillow is going to go out there and sell houses for free? OK, it's not going to happen. There's always going to be a charge to handle transactions. There's too much that goes into this. There's too much fiduciary responsibilities. There's too much legal. There's too much work involved. There's the negotiation of the contract for one. Everyone needs a third party in between the buyer and seller to help negotiate and facilitate that deal. But not only that, there's the marketing. There's the dealing with the title company, the mortgage people, the inspectors, everything that's included in the transaction. There's timelines. OK, you need someone on your side looking out for your best interest to make sure that you are in the best possible situation. I'm sorry, you're not going to find a salary person or a robot that's going to handle that for you. Now, I know a lot of you are going to argue with me in the comments about this that, yes, Ricky, you can't automate this. Yes, AI can come in there and take care of most all the real estate agents, responsibilities and duties. I would just fear to say that I'm on the other side of the coin here. OK, and only time will tell. Let's see how it plays out. Now, let's get into what you can do to protect yourself. OK, if you're really worried that something's going to come along and replace you as a real estate agent. OK, if you're really worried about it, here's what you need to do. I would say it comes down to this one thing. OK, this one thing, if I have to just sum it all up into one sentence here, and that is build your database to the moon. You should go all in with building your database, which means what? Means getting out, talking to people, meeting people, creating relationships with them, building your brand with those that enter into your database. You guys know my favorite brand builder, that's the weekly email on the same day of the week forever. Start building your, what is it called? Database, what does that consist of? A base of data. Start building your own data. This is how you're always going to be able to combat any of this negativity, any market crashes, market swings, any of this. AI is going to take your your business, any of that stuff. Guys, get out there and build your own data base. Tons of gurus out there say it all the time. And I stand behind it that data is the new goal. Data is king. Whoever owns the data owns the market. And like I said, that's probably the exact reason Zillow is buying showing time mostly for the data. Now, how do you build your database? OK, how do you build your database? That's what you need to horn in on. Most everybody is too concerned with transactions, closing deals, getting listening appointments. And that's what we need to do. We should focus there, right? But we should have two focuses. And that is how do we help clients buy and sell properties? Meanwhile, building a massive database. Everybody builds their databases differently. I feel like there's two things that you should do to build your database. One, think of yourself as a politician. You should be canvassing the market with phone calls, calling every single person in your market, let them know who you are, what you do, and you're here to help. And the second way is social media. We should all be pounding social media as hard as we can, right? Using it as a tool for what to collect data, collect contact information and data of everyone in your local market. So if you use both platforms, OK, your voice to voice communication and digital, social media, email, all the digital platforms that you have at your disposal. OK, if you use both, that's when you're going to find the maximum results and not only your business, but also your database growth. I see too many agents only doing voice and voice are only doing digital. They're not really combining the two. I feel like as a real estate agent, we should all wake up, organize our business by 9 o'clock. We're on the phone 9 to 12 and then eat lunch. And then the rest of the day is pounding social media, doing our digital marketing, running our emails, following up with people, appointments, all that stuff. But it starts with the phone calls. So just to sum it all up, guys, I'm not worried about Zilla whatsoever, taking our jobs, replacing us as real estate agents. You shouldn't either. You should keep your head down. You should watch. You should watch. Continue watching. It's good that you're watching. It's good that you're paying attention and we need to watch things as they happen and as the industry evolves and use these changes to our advantage. Are there going to be huge shifts in the industry? Absolutely. OK, that's what makes this such a great game. That's what makes this such a great industry. All the changes that have been made so far have done nothing but help real estate agents do more business, help more clients, communicate better. And look, here's the bottom line. If you're really that worried about Zillow taking over and all this stuff, why are so many agents still using DotLoop that Zillow bought? Why are we still using DotLoop as an industry? OK, now that they bought Showing Time, why will MLSs continue to use Showing Time? Why are agents still buying Zillow leads? If we're so worried about Zillow taking over the industry, why are we feeding Zillow? Why don't you go on a boycott of Zillow? Why don't you send your MLS a letter saying, please discontinue Showing Time? Why don't you tell all the agents in your market to quit buying Zillow lead and feeding Zillow if you're worried about Zillow? And why don't you quit using DotLoop? Cool, guys. Enjoy letting my thoughts out here. Let me know what you think of the comments. Smash the like button, hit subscribe and let me know what in the world I could do for you. Let's go.