AI Playbook for Real Estate Domination: How Agents Can Become #1 in Their Market with GEO & HeyPearl (with Misti Bruton)

In this episode of the Be The Solution Podcast, host Maria Quattrone sits down with Misti Bruton, founder of HeyPearl, to unpack the hottest topic in real estate today: AI-driven market domination.

After building multiple top-performing real estate teams, Misti saw the same recurring problems:

• Agents struggle with consistency
• Team leaders struggle with accountability
• Online leads create dependency
• Organic growth gets neglected

Her solution? A hybrid approach that blends traditional SEO with modern AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) to make agents omnipresent online.

If you want to dominate your neighborhood, your zip code, or your city in 2026 — this episode is your blueprint. 

🔑 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

1️⃣ Why Organic Authority Beats Bought Leads

2️⃣ SEO vs AEO vs GEO — What’s the Difference?

3️⃣ The 90-Day Domination Window

4️⃣ Why Google Business Profile Is Non-Negotiable

5️⃣ The “Fast Expert” Authority Hack

6️⃣ LinkedIn Is Underrated

7️⃣ AI Is Not a Shiny Object — It’s Survival

💬 Best Quotes

Misti Bruton:

“If AI doesn’t know you, you don’t exist.” 

Maria Quattrone:

“There has never been a closing that didn’t start with a conversation.” 

👩‍💻 Guest Information

Misti Bruton
Founder — HeyPearl
Product: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization for Agents)
Website: geo.haypearl.io
Instagram: @heypearl.agency

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Transcript

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Welcome And Why AI Now

Maria Quattrone 0:00

Friends, welcome back to the Be the Solution podcast. And I'm excited today because all I've been hearing about since last meet week, but even before that, but the the big premise last week at Inmin was AI. AI AI AI. And today we're gonna unpack that with Misti Burton. Dominate your market with AI, no matter what market you're in, anywhere in the world, in the country, any city USA, Misty's team, Hey Pearl, is showing the agents how you can dominate and be number one in your market by working with her and her company. So welcome, Misty. I'm excited to talk with you today about this great II AI topic.

Misti Bruton 0:52

Yes, I'm excited, Maria. Thanks for having me here. And this is gonna be a good one. There's a lot to unpack.

Maria Quattrone 0:59

Let's dive right in. So Misty's been uh in the real estate world for what 20 years. Yes, okay, and has decided to take all of her knowledge of real estate coupled with AI and assist agents on really being able to dominate your market. So let's just dive right in.

Misti Bruton 1:23

Love it. So I'll give you a little backstory, just a little um history on me, so I can connect the dots on everybody that's wondering. Like, you know, they may know me as a team leader.

Misty’s Journey From Teams To Tech

Misti Bruton 1:36

I've spent the last 10 years building mega teams, uh, top 1% performers, and I found that the problems that I faced, no matter what stage our team was in, was always the same. The agents struggled with consistency. And if they were consistent, it led to burnout because it's making the calls, finding the clients, doing the grind, all of the stuff. And if they're on a team or whatever brokerage they were, they struggled with that leader wanting them to be accountable to all of the things that they needed done, working the leads, finding the buyers, making sure that all of those things that needed to be done were done. So the business was profitable. So when AI launched, we've all been using AI since 2015 or beyond. But when AI really became a big thing last year, I realized this is an opportunity to solve those problems for agents and team leaders. If we could bridge the gap on how can we get agents consistent so that they are taking more listings, getting more business, building a business that they want to build. That's why they got in the industry, and solving the problem where the team leaders now have a profitable business. We really can solve big world problems in real estate. So that's kind of where it started. So I don't run a team any longer. I decided to go all in on this. I'm very passionate about helping agents succeed. I'm also very passionate about helping team leaders succeed because that's the role that I was in for the past 10 years. So that is what I'm doing right now, full time, and I'm doing it with AI. So we can um break it down. What topic do you want to go to first, Maria?

Maria Quattrone 3:47

Because it's kind of like I want to I want to go through whatever you think is the best way to unpack this because you're the expert at this.

Misti Bruton 3:57

Yes, well, let's go. I'll just keep talking and please interrupt me when you want to ask a question. Don't worry. I know that's what I love about you. So, with that, what is the most important thing that an

Consistency, Burnout, And The AI Opportunity

Misti Bruton 4:10

agent can do in their business? It's getting organic growth, hyperlocal focus so that they dominate their market. And so, with that, we're solving old school problems with AI. So on the agent side, it's not a shiny object, it's not a new piece of tech that you're using if you're using our system. What you're doing is using you're tapping into systems where you're really gaining that hyper local authority in your market. What we're doing on the back side is using AI to make sure that it's manufactured and hyper fast, building that authority in a hyper fast way.

Maria Quattrone 4:56

So the reason I'm able to let's say that in uh a particular agent wants to build in a particular neighborhood, and they haven't sold a lot of homes in this particular neighborhood, but they actually live right near it, right there, it's next door to them, and they specialize in listings and they want to grow their listings. I know you have a product um through your company Hey Pearl about Geo and the geographic. So how does that how can an agent take that and and and put this into yes?

Misti Bruton 5:29

So what we do is we match old school SEO, the old school organic growth with new school AEO, which is answer engine optimization. So if an agent wants to join us, we do all of this for you. But I also love to educate agents and share with them how they can do it on their own. The problem again comes back to consistency. Agents don't have time to do this. So I'll speak just direct from how we do it, what we do, and how you can join us without selling it. Because again, I want to educate agents on being able to do it on their own. But old school SEO is it hasn't changed. It's really the same organic growth. If you want to be found in your city, you need to put out organic content consistently to be found. It takes time, it takes effort, and it takes consistency. Now, in the new world of AI, you can do this in a way that it speeds it up. We call it manufacturing it. If you want to dominate a neighborhood or a city or whatever your

Hyperlocal Authority And Manufactured Organic

Misti Bruton 6:40

keywords are, right? So maybe it's your neighborhood. We pick the keywords based on what's easiest to rank for or what your niche is or where you want to get those listings. So it goes back to figuring out what it is you want to dominate, and then we put out content, lots of content, in a way that AI can understand it, and Google being the old school SEO, although it is now AI driven as well, we put it out in a way where all the systems can read it, and that's where the AEO comes in. So if an agent wants to dominate an area and get more listings and be omnipresent everywhere. So think about if somebody googles, if somebody asks AI, if somebody gets on social media, if somebody um, you know, types into Chat GPT, who is the best listing agent in my neighborhood or in my city, as long as we have put out the right content with the right information, answering the right questions, then you pop up as the expert. And we're able to manufacture it so fast that we're back in the old school where you had to wait months or maybe even years to rank on Google. Now you're able to get that done. It's almost like dropping a bomb on your neighborhood and making sure that you show up everywhere. Now we have a system that we use where we follow um a very specific structured way of doing this. So it's blogs, it is um having a Google Business profile, it is um using old school things like LinkedIn and Reddit, believe it or not, Pinterest.

Maria Quattrone 8:43

It's all these things that I recently just heard about Reddit, not heard about it, but heard that people are utilizing that to go in there, answer questions for people. But I heard also though,

GEO, SEO, And AEO Explained

Maria Quattrone 8:56

you actually really have to pay attention to it. Yes, because the the the thread can like be like a runaway train. Yeah, is that accurate?

Misti Bruton 9:06

It is very accurate. So that is where it comes in too. I love to educate and tell agents how to do it. I have studied this for almost two years. I call it my PhD because I'm a nerd. I went to school to be a tech geek. I was gonna code and do all the things back in the day and ended up in real estate. I came from a family that did real estate. So I'm a nerd. So when AI really came out last year, where it became like a everybody was using it, I went into my nerd phase and really just studied it. So I've been studying this for and it evolves. Every day it evolves, it changes. So I stay very, very on top of it. But with that, it is very, very interesting that things like that, you know, like Reddit are a big deal and LinkedIn, guys. If you're not on LinkedIn right now using it, LinkedIn, if you go Google yourself right now, if you are on LinkedIn, it's the one number one spot that shows up on Google if you Google yourself. So if a client is looking for you, if they need a listing agent and they need somebody that they can trust, LinkedIn is the big is like a huge place that's gonna show up right now. AI uses it to recommend you, and um Google uh indexes that it's one of the top spots. So things like that. So where should LinkedIn fall? I just Googled myself.

Maria Quattrone 10:35

Okay. It's if you're doing it right, it'll be the number one spot. All right, so mine isn't because I Googled myself.

Misti Bruton 10:41

There's my how often do you use LinkedIn? Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.

Maria Quattrone 10:48

I don't because how do I do all these things? Misty, I'm a woman who took 192 listings last year. How many workers do that? Who has time to do all these things?

Misti Bruton 11:02

I'm impressed. That's a lot. Yeah, I'm with you.

Maria Quattrone 11:06

Maria, that is exactly I want to dominate though. So I want to um let's do this. Is a real life thing, everybody. Okay, I just put myself in there. My number one thing what came up first Google My Business, and I got 649 reviews. That's a good start.

Misti Bruton 11:23

Good job. Yeah, that's a big one.

Maria Quattrone 11:25

Number two, well, the Zillow people, F the Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, then there's some little learn something new, homes.com, LinkedIn.

Misti Bruton 11:39

Yep. Another big one that everybody needs to be on is fast expert. So if you're not on Fast Expert, that's a big one. That's AI. AI is using this. So you just googled yourself. Remember, there's two different things we're talking about. We're talking about old school SEO, which is you just Googled yourself, and we're also talking about AEO, answer engine optimization, and GEO, which are both AI related. Now we're bridging the gap between both. I'm solving the gap so that you are omnipresent everywhere your ideal clients go. Not everybody,

Omnipresence Across Search, Social, And ChatGPT

Misti Bruton 12:20

your ideal clients. So if you want listings above 500,000 in this zip code or this city or this neighborhood, that is what we solve. And we do it with a specific way that makes sure that those Reddit threads don't like go crazy. We do it with a very structured way of making sure that you show up everywhere, and then we compound it. So I've always been a team leader that had online leads. You said F Zillow. Like, I get it. I'm that team leader that gave my team Zillow and Realtor.com and all of these online leads. I'm not opposed to online leads, I think there's a place for them. But the gap that I saw was it was such a crutch for agents, and it really destroyed a lot of really great agents because they got into the cycle where they were so reliant on these online leads that they forgot to build an organic business. They should have been doing both, right? It's okay to have Zillow. My husband still has realtor.com and Zillow. I'm not saying and he loves them. He loves that they come in and they're ready to go, but not at the expense of growing that organic side of things. And now in today, in 2026, having your business AI ready. Because I don't know about you, but I use Chat GBT like Google now. If I need an expert, I ask Chat GBT because Chat GBT knows my whole life. It knows my, you know, like how to fix a roof, or if I have a roof problem, I'm already on there saying, like, you told me how to fix it. Now tell me a roofer that specializes in this. It's the same exact thing for real estate. Everybody's using, and the ones that aren't or moving this direction, they're using ChatGPT like a search engine. So don't you think that they're probably saying, gosh, I inherited this house or I need to list this house that I just ended up with in a divorce. You chat GPT has already counseled them through all of this. Now they're saying, Who do you think the best agent is that would sell my house that has all these problems that you already know about? And if you're not showing up in those recommendations, you're missing out. And that gap is gonna close, that gap is gonna get bigger and bigger because more and more people are starting to adopt that asking chat GPT.

Maria Quattrone 15:04

I know I actually don't even have I have chat set up on my phone, but I don't even use it on my phone, and I don't know why, but I wouldn't go to be after the conversation I had yesterday, except I didn't know what the password was. How about that? Yeah, anyway, I use it on my laptop or my desktop, and I also use Claude. Yeah, I was wondering what you thought about Claude AI.

Misti Bruton 15:31

I love Claude, I use Claude Claude and ChatGBT are two my favorites. I'll give you another one that is changing the world of AI right now. Manaus. It is one

Platforms That Matter: Google, LinkedIn, Reddit

Misti Bruton 15:45

manus is really good and CloudBot. How do you use MAS? Manaus is more like an agent. Um, so if you want to, I use it for deep research. So if I'm looking for um data, so you could use it in a real estate business, having it seek um people that are likely to list their houses. So the old school data mining that we used to do where we had to buy leads and do different things like that, manus solves that problem for me. So I'm no longer buying leads or buying data for whatever it is that I'm looking for, or our clients. Um, you know, if they need data on something, I need listings or I want to target this specific area, we use MANIS for that.

Maria Quattrone 16:34

Okay. So let's say that an agent wants to take over this particular area, and how much heavy and they wanna they're they want to partner with you on this. So how much heavy lifting do you have to do? What does that process look like for them? Like it and how long does it take to work? Because one of the things, let's let's go back for a second, a moment. Let's say that you want to farm uh Dolly Acres neighborhood, and you're gonna send mailers, you're gonna send direct mail. These we know that geographic farming with mailers, you have to ride that weave a minimum generally six to nine months, absolutely, and carry that fee, whatever it is, let's just say a few thousand dollars a month, before you probably are gonna get someone to raise your hand, their hand, and say, I'm thinking of listing my house. Yep. So in regards to AEO and GO and all these things from the AI world, how does that change that?

Misti Bruton 17:51

It makes it hyper fast. So it is organic. Let's go back to what it would look like for the um if an agent wanted to work with us. Number one, I built this from a team leader broker mindset of I didn't have time. I needed all of these things, and I did not have time to figure

Balancing Online Leads With Organic Equity

Misti Bruton 18:12

this out when I was a team leader because I had agents that I was responsible for. So when I built out what I'm doing now with Geo specifically, which is a product of Hey Pearl built specifically for agents, I built it with that in mind. So it is literally the heavy lifting for the broker or the team leader is almost zero. All I need because we're gonna manage your content is logins to things where we're gonna post things. So we do all of your social media, we do your blogging, we do your newsletters, we do everything to make sure that this works, and we do it in a way where AI really works behind the scenes to make sure that the onboarding is effortless for you. For us, it's a lot of work behind the scenes, but that's why I built it. Second of all, how long does it take? It's organic, but the system that we have built is hyper fast. So what we're doing is in 90, we're tracking everything because how do you know it's working if you're not tracking it? So we track everything so that we can improve it on a daily basis, and then we share that transparently with our clients so you can see the organic traffic. The difference between buying leads online like Zillow and Realtor.com versus what we're doing, which is more organic, is you somebody might find you because they Googled your name or asked Chat GBT, but you know, maybe let's say they found you on Chat GBT. They asked, and all of a sudden you became a recommendation, and then they decided to go and Google you, and then they end up on your website or they end up on Facebook and you are there because we've now retargeted that group of people. They might call you from your Zillow profile, they might call you from your, you know, website or your phone number that they found on a blog. So, how do you know where they really came from? So we do all the tracking behind the scenes. So it's a little bit hard to say, like, when are you gonna get your first lead? If you turn on Zillow, you know you're gonna get first lead tomorrow. This is different. But we do very intensive tracking so that you traffic, how is it increasing? Where is it increasing? Where did those phone calls come from? Where did they likely initially find you so that they could get to that phone number? So, with that, we're seeing results within 90 days. Most of my clients at this point have seen have doubled their organic traffic and seen incoming phone calls from organic traffic in 90 days and and sooner, but 90 days really is what I like. I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver, right? Because that's not a good business model.

Maria Quattrone 21:03

So I always say give it 90 days and things take time. So what are some things right now? Three to five things right now that an agent can just go and do themselves, and it can make somewhat of a difference, it can give them some juice. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna go back for one second before you share that messy. One of the things that uh I stopped doing in 2013 or is 11, one of those years, well over a decade ago, is doing is doing online leads, but I'd already been in the business I started in 04. So it was already a good 10

Tools Check: ChatGPT, Claude, And Manaus

Maria Quattrone 21:45

years. The thing is, I've never realized why am I paying for buyer opportunities when I can go get seller opportunities, and then sellers organically give me buyer. For those listings. So I went all in on Maria Quatroon, my name, versus so I think it's like a bit, it's like kind of like crack. I don't say it like Zilla Realtor.com and all these things. It's a quick fix to get the deal, to get the business, but nobody knows who the agent is because they know but they know who Zillow is. That's right. So this is something I think it's an opportunity for realtors, for real estate agents to kind of take back then. And if you're smart about it, I'll be listening right now and saying, okay, I'm gonna be in this. And I say this to people years and years ago. Ask yourself how long you plan to be in the real estate industry because it's a long game. And I'm year 23. And so the business of you know, like let's say use an example of 190 listings last year, they didn't come from last year, they came from years. I already got uh 57 on my board for this year that I'm working. Nice. Now someone crossed out already because they they they're kind of either back right or the price the price is back right. Um but they're in the they're in the there's a process to it, there's a cadence to it. Right. So now let's take whatever wherever you are, you're as an agent. What are some things that they can do like today? Yep, they can literally do today, and it'll help someone.

Misti Bruton 23:41

Yep. Number one, take an audit of your online presence. Just Google yourself, ask chat GPT, just just do an audit. Where do you stand? Are you ranking if if you search best agent, best listing agent in Dolly Farms or Springs, whatever it was, who shows up? Is it your competitor? Do a little research. What is your competitor doing? Ask Chat GPT, it'll show you where it's pulling from. So when you search in Chat GPT, I use Chat GPT because it's obviously there's a lot of other ones, and you can do this on any, but Chat GPT is the best one

Onboarding, Heavy Lifting, And 90-Day Wins

Misti Bruton 24:20

to start with. Just ask ChatGBT and then look at the sources that it's pulling from and and then go audit yourself. Are you on um, you know, do you have a Google Business profile? It's gonna pull from Google Business Profile. That is huge. If you don't have one, that would be step two after you add it yourself. Doesn't matter what Chat GBT says on that, you have to have a Google business profile, you have to keep it active. It's not just create it, wait for it to organically grow. You need to add things on it weekly. What you what you can add on there are local job site photos. If you're at a new build, snap a photo and put it on your Google Business profile. There is something called metadata that attaches to photos. And when you upload those photos into your Google Business profile, maps start to uh rank you on activity. So it's kind of like your job sites, right? So do that often. You can also put your blogs and when you upload blogs to your Google Business profile, answer questions. So don't just write a blog about whatever the whatever comes to mind. Do a little bit of research and look to find out. You can use Reddit, find out what people are asking about your area. Are they asking things like, what is the best um coffee shop or what is the best gym or what is the best um neighborhood near shopping? What are they asking? And then go answer those questions and put those things on your Google Business profile. So first, I would audit myself. Second, I would make sure I have an active Google Business profile. Third, I would make sure I'm using LinkedIn. I would go update my profile, do a little bit of research, and make sure that your profile, because there is like ways that you should do it. So update your LinkedIn and post on LinkedIn three times a week. You don't need to overkill it with three times a day, but post on there at minimum three times a week. Doing the same thing. Answer questions. Answer, you can, you know, like repurpose the blog you're writing and put it on LinkedIn. I would do all of those same things on my socials. Take a look at your Facebook page, Instagram, and um YouTube and do the same thing with those. Audit them and make sure they look good, and post at minimum three times a week on each one of those. We do a lot more than that because we are what we're offering is hyper fast. I don't want you to organically grow over time. I want you to see massive shifts in 90 days. But we can do that because we do it full time. You're an agent, you can't do that full time. Don't go become a full-time content writer. Um, you know, just just do these things consistently. I think that's the biggest part of all of this is consistency.

Maria Quattrone 27:28

Consistency, everything. Life is about consistency. You mentioned another thing about this blind.

Misti Bruton 27:36

I know you're gonna edit this, but my whole face is like I forgot. It's like that time, 7:30. I'm gonna shut this blind. You're just gonna have to edit this part out. Sorry about that. I don't want to look like a ghost in here. Oh, better.

Maria Quattrone 27:48

Okay, and another another thing that you mentioned earlier on Misty was Fast Expert. Yes. What is that?

Misti Bruton 27:57

Fast Expert is a referral. Um you can go in as an agent and log in, and it's a referral-based

Five Actions Agents Can Do Today

Misti Bruton 28:06

um app. Like uh, you know, there's a million of them out there. But for some reason, any agent can go sign up. It's free. You create a profile, you put in your target market, you um fill out all the stuff, and then you you really don't have to do anything else once you get it set up. But for some reason, AI has chosen that as a authority. So, what AI does is it looks for authority signals. This is something else we didn't hit on that I think is actually really important. When you're posting on social media and when you're posting on LinkedIn and when you're writing blogs, it needs to be in an authoritative way, in a way that makes you the expert. So, going back to Fast Expert, for some reason, AI, specifically Chat GPT, has chosen Fast Expert as a source of authority. It believes if you have a profile on Fast Expert, and maybe it's simply because it says expert, I don't know. And there's no real you know, reason to why these things work the way they do, but it has chosen that source as an authoritative source. So if you have a full profile built out with reviews and the things that are required to have your profile built out, chat GVT loves it, it takes it for its word and makes you get recommended more if you have that.

Maria Quattrone 29:35

That's excellent. That's a great nugget, Misty.

Misti Bruton 29:39

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 29:39

Drop it on this. So where can people find you?

Misti Bruton 29:42

Yep, you can find me on Facebook, Misti Bruton Broker. You can find me on Instagram, heyperl.agency. You can email me at Mistibruton.com. Um, my website for agents, where geo is really the product that every agent and every team leader needs. It's geo.kpearl.io. Pearl stands for processes, efficiency, automation, replication, and leverage. Everything we need in a business.

Maria Quattrone 30:23

I love that name. That is hot. Well, this has been a great episode today. Dominate your market with AI. Everybody, if you are not focusing on AI, you are gonna be lost in the dust, lost in the dust because it's happening so fast that the people that get on board are really gonna excel. And the rest, uh, well, I don't know.

Misti Bruton 30:51

So, well, the beauty is too that I feel like I agree with you a hundred percent what you just said. It's so true, and that's why I went all in on this. For agents that might be listening to this that feel

Fast Expert And Authority Signals

Misti Bruton 31:05

overwhelmed, what we offer with our geo product really just gives you everything you need where you don't have to feel the overwhelm. You're not gonna get left behind if you're working with us and you don't need to learn it. Most of our clients aren't tech savvy and they're feeling that pressure of, I know if I don't get on board, I'm gonna get left behind. We solve that problem for you. And because it's AI driven, because what we do is AI driven, we do it at a fraction of the cost. It was built for solo agents. It's not as expensive as it sounds. So you can go to geo.hayperl.io to get all of the pricing and everything, but don't feel you're definitely gonna get left behind if you don't get on board. But partner with somebody that learns and does it for you, and then do what you do best. Get in front of clients, close deals, and make a lot of money doing real estate.

Maria Quattrone 32:02

It's been a great episode of Be the Solution. You keep being the solution, Misti. Thank you, Maria. Great having you on the show today.

Misti Bruton 32:11

Thank you. Nice to see you again.