Take 5 5 Ways to Automate Your Business — But Not Lose That Personal Touch with Nick Baldwin TRT Transcribed Nick Baldwin directly addresses camera: Are you ready to take your business to the next level? It's time to automate. Real estate professionals hear the word automation and artificial intelligence and think, I can't afford that, or I'll lose that personal touch.’ But these systems, they don't cost a lot of money and you're going to make more money without sacrificing relationships. I'm Nick Baldwin, the team leader of Keller Williams Premier in Clarkston, Mich., and co-founder of Lab Coat Agents, a collaborative Facebook page for real estate professionals If you're a solo agent who wants to start scaling or growing your business, it's time to get automated so you can concentrate on doing your money-making activities. Automating a lead nurture program is a simple way to keep in touch with people. You will never forget a birthday, home anniversary or other important event. And, you can automate open house follow up, and internet leads. And, it's not just about automating texts, videos and emails. You can automate sending out greeting cards and gifts as well. I mean, who doesn't like to be appreciated? Here are some apps and programs that I use to automate my business. First, for drip campaigns, I use Agent Legend. Keep in touch with your sphere of influence, internet leads, open house visitors and others through campaigns that are set up automatically in this program. It allows you to create different campaigns that keep in touch with people using voicemail, video, text and email. Second, everyone loves a handwritten note, but not everyone has the time to write them. With a program called Handwrytten, you can make a handwritten card online starting at about $3 a card. It looks just like you signed it. I love this for greeting cards and notes that make you want to look more personalized. Third, closing gifts. They should be personalized to your customers so they know you care about them and that you get them. With evabot.ai, you can send a text message from Eva, your "client care coordinator," to your customer. Eva is the artificial intelligence identity for evabot. Through the program, Eva will ask your buyer or seller a series of questions in a conversational manner and then choose a gift that's personalized based on the customer's answers. You can even set up campaigns so the bot will send out gifts on their birthdays and anniversaries. It will remember what they said the first time and personalize the gifts they sent after the first one. The service has several different price points for the gifts as well. Fourth: Is lead follow up. It's all about giving an immediate response, which isn't easy when it's after hours or you're showing homes to buyers. I use structurely.com, an artificial intelligence program that conducts authentic back and forth conversations with people in your database. The other day, I had a lead come in through Zillow and the prospect mentioned that they were going to use a VA loan for veterans. Structurely responded with ‘We love working with veterans. Thank you for your service.’ We were just blown away. And at less than $200 a month, it is definitely worth it. Finally, don't forget to use Siri, your Google Assistant or Amazon Echo to set reminders for yourself. For example, you can say, “Siri, remind me in two weeks that Mr. Smith's mortgage pre-approval is due.” Don't overthink it. But do remember, don't automate your prospecting. That's best completed face to face or over the phone. But, you can automate follow up. By automating some of your processes, you can spend more time face-to-face with prospects and customers. And it’s a win-win.