How AI Can Help "The Talk" With Buyers

"Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and your fees..."

Discussing a prenup on the first date is advice no one would ever give. Yet that’s the position many agents are now in after the NAR settlement. Even before the August 17 commission rule changes went into effect, agents (on both sides of the transaction) have had to address new types of questions from clients around how commissions are handled, who’s paying what, and how much is at stake.

For those of us on the inside, we know how stressful these conversations can be, particularly for agents without much experience having them. Even seasoned agents who have a comprehensive understanding of the complex buyer journey are encountering commission conversations that they haven’t had before.

So how can AI help navigate these moments? Two words: preparation and practice. Let’s get into it.

Knowing Where to Focus

Luck may favor the prepared, but the better approach is to try to remove luck from the equation altogether and win your client’s trust through developing a deep understanding of what’s important to them - and why you are uniquely capable of delivering it.

Leveraging AI to help find patterns in what your client is looking for, how they communicate, and what their priorities are can help align your approach and better anticipate their concerns and questions. For example, if you know your client is operating within a narrow budget range, AI can help articulate how working with you will help them save money in the long run with real numbers. If they are very data driven, AI can assist in quickly pulling and making sense of market data that they can’t find on a search portal (we discussed this a little in last week’s post with the Sidekick Query Engine). Letting an AI review email/text exchanges, search histories, and other unstructured data could help develop an angle of approach that may not have been obvious otherwise.

Whatever your client’s needs are, having an AI Assistant at your side can only help provide an additional layer of support to better secure the outcome you (both) are hoping for.

Having the Conversation Before it Happens

While practice may make perfect, it doesn’t help much if your debate partner is a mirror. Having an interactive teammate to role play the commission conversation with (at any time of the day or night) is an invaluable way to learn about potential objections and iteratively develop responses that get you ready for game time.

These types of AI uses cases can be really magical. You can direct an AI to take on a specific personality, set of considerations, or background context - any information about your prospective buyer and their priorities that you think is going to be relevant to the conversation, you can train an AI to act upon. One of the best parts about using AI to help practice these types of negotiations is that they never get tired - it’s really up to you how much time and effort you want to put into it. So whether it’s framing how to best highlight the unique value you bring, helping craft rebuttals, or simulating a client interaction to help reduce your anxiety and build your confidence, rehearsing the commission discussion with an AI Assistant can only help.

Putting it Into Perspective

Commissions have always been negotiable, and marketplace forces have driven where the percentages fall. The degree to which changes to commission structures happen will largely be determined by how well agents communicate with their buyers.

Every relationship is co-created. It’s time to start building one with an AI Assistant so that you can build an even better one with your clients.

Thank you for reading this edition of the Sidekick Newsletter - more to come next week.

Michael Martin
Co-Founder/Co-CEO
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