Does AI Mean Your Sales Funnel Should Be Worse? with Tanner Sherman

About this episode

For twenty years the rule was simple: get more people into the top of the funnel. AI broke that rule. Jonathan Green talks with Tanner Sherman (Principal & Managing Broker, Top Tier Investment Firm, Omaha) about what happens when inquiring costs nothing — 150 "is this still available?" messages a day, 1,500 inquiries per rental, and a signed-lease rate that fell from one in 80 to one in fifteen hundred. The fix is not a better funnel. It is a deliberately worse one. Key Takeaways: • AI did not create more demand, it created more noise. Tanner's team went from roughly one signed lease per 80 inquiries to one per 1,500 once "I'm interested" became a single tap. • Deliberate friction is the filter. An auto-reply that asks people to text the office cuts 1,500 inquiries down to 100–150 actual humans, then to 10–12 showings, then to one lease. • Stop optimizing for engagement and start optimizing for proof of commitment. Reach, clicks and inquiries are exactly the numbers AI inflates fastest — the number that matters is who took a costly step. • Referrals repriced overnight. When résumés, portfolios and proof can all be generated, a person somebody actually knows beats a better-qualifi