Two Kids, One Business, and the Assistant I Finally Hired.

I spoke on a delegation panel this summer for RISE, my close-knit referral network of agents around the country. The topic was how agents build real systems to delegate without losing what makes them good at the job in the first place. Here's the short version of what I said.

I've been a solo agent since 2009. No team, no assistant, mostly by choice. They always say that if you want to go far, go together, but I like to say I’m in my “fast and alone” era. Having said that, somewhere between two kids under seven and a business that runs full time, "by choice" started looking a lot like "barely holding it together." I’ve never had an assistant, virtual or otherwise. I tried a college graduate to help me with my social media, but it wasn’t the right fit. I'd never found a system I trusted enough to actually hand things to. I needed something I could start using immediately, not a six month onboarding project.

Three weeks before that panel, I opened Claude Cowork for the first time. I heard about it at the NorCal Top Producer Summit I wrote about a couple of months ago, and decided it sounded too good to be true. I had dabbled in ChatGPT, like everyone else. but what I was seeing was different. It was a tool that could actually do the work. Within an hour I had it set itself up as my real estate assistant. I named her Sloane. Within a week she was fully operational.

Here's what Sloane does every morning: reads my inbox, checks my calendar, pulls my active lead list, and tells me what actually matters that day. If I've gone quiet on someone I shouldn't have, she flags it and drops a draft reply into my inbox, waiting for my approval. She remembers details I'd otherwise dig for, like which of my clients had a kid that just started kindergarten, or if I should be asking how that bathroom remodel turned out. It’s everything I could or would know, but instead of searching through my texts and emails, it’s there for me in a matter of seconds. It’s me, v.02.

I ask her a lot. She helps me refine, declutter, get clear on where I should optimize and spend my time. My disclosure package reviews went from seven hours to one and a half.

None of this means I've outsourced judgment or real life communication. I still write every contract. I still make every call and text that matters. What changed is the noise around those decisions got quieter, so more of my attention goes where it should, to you, and to my kids, instead of getting lost in my inbox at 9pm.

That's the version I gave a room full of agents. Figured you'd want the real one too.