Ray Ellen is the team lead at Pixel Properties, a national speaker and podcast host, and a contributor to Broke Agent Media. During his interview, he said something that stuck with us. He said that back in the day, no one was offended by answering machines, and bots today are the answering machines of yesterday. But there are steps businesses need to take to ensure that chatbots aren’t perceived as anything other than helpful tools. Listen to find out what to do to make bots more palatable to your prospects and clients and more useful to your business; the big, costly mistake too many agents make when creating their brand; and the painful lesson Ray learned as a new team lead that he wants to spare others from having to experience. Be sure to check out our show notes at staypaidpodcast.com for more in-depth information and added details not included in the episode. Connect | Resources Instagram: DM @Rayzorback with the word Gear, and Ray will send you a list of the gear he uses for his video and podcast productions. Free e-book: The Relationship Marketer’s Guide to Branding 0:00     Introduction 2:09     Ray’s backstory 3:24     The dangers of “you do you” 6:08     Most have their branding backwards 7:48     People are accepting of bots 9:25     Use of deceptive and disclosed bots 12:32   Testing of bots 13:51   Prompts that work 14:40   Converting from bot to a real person 15:53   Processing leads collected by the bot 19:40   Don’t allow your culture to erode 22:31   Best performing lead-gen sources 23:59   Ray’s advice to younger Ray 26:46   Action Item