Latest / PropMedia Podcast / The Power of Community: Lessons From 23 Years in Real Estate Photography w/ Vince Collura

Transcript

The Power of Community: Lessons From 23 Years in Real Estate Photography w/ Vince Collura · PropMedia Podcast

• 0:01
  I'm five years out of New York, but I still like mentally I'm a New Yorker.
• 0:06
  Yeah.
• 0:07
  Yeah, it never registers for me that I moved out.
• 0:11
  Didn't go too far if you went to Allentown.
• 0:13
  Right.
• 0:13
  Yeah.
• 0:14
  I moved unintentionally a month before COVID hit.
• 0:19
  Um, and I was talking to some of my friends who were there, and they were just like, this was and so many of them moved in that period of time, moved out.
• 0:28
  It just how brutal it was.
• 0:30
  The thing is, I mean, like, as you know, like basically everyone has a roommate.
• 0:35
  It's so hard to have afford your own place.
• 0:38
  And people pick roommates based off of, you know, like, do they leave me alone?
• 0:43
  And then all of a sudden you're locked in this house with you know, an apartment with somebody, and everyone's worried about, you know, like, are they gonna die because someone tracked something in?
• 0:53
  It sounded like a total nightmare.
• 0:55
  I was very happy that that uh coincidentally that timing worked out.
• 0:59
  So somehow homicides went down though.
• 1:02
  I feel like they should have spiked.
• 1:03
  I don't know.
• 1:04
  You just everyone locked inside.
• 1:06
  Honestly, like I feel like one of my favorite things about New York is like how New York responds when shit goes wrong, right?
• 1:12
  Like, you know, I spent my first 43 years in New York, right?
• 1:17
  Like, and I can tell you post-9-11, blackout of 03, COVID, like the fabric of our city just felt better, right?
• 1:28
  Like, um that's that's when you you know you're sort of putting aside differences, right?
• 1:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34
  Like crazy to think about that because all three of them suck for a hundred million reasons, right?
• 1:38
  But the time was was great to be in New York.
• 1:41
  Yeah.
• 1:42
  I I like blizzard.
• 1:43
  The closest I got to it was like blizzards, uh, you know, and just like you have electric uh outages and you know, uh transit outages and stuff.
• 1:53
  And there is definitely a camaraderie uh that we're all kind of in this together that is pretty hard to uh articulate.
• 2:00
  It's pretty that is pretty cool.
• 2:01
  I remember seeing the videos of everyone like you know cheering on the you know the medical workers leaving the hospital and stuff, uh leaving out their apartments and you know, rattling bells and everything.
• 2:12
  It was pretty cool.
• 2:13
  Yeah, it was wild.
• 2:14
  Blackout of 03.
• 2:16
  Um, I had I had a tech company and I think I had just started, yeah, just started Gotham.
• 2:20
  Um I was on Wall Street, and so we had a little office.
• 2:23
  I think I had like eight or nine people.
• 2:25
  And when we realized like the blackout, like what was going on, right?
• 2:29
  We're like, okay, we've got to figure this out, right?
• 2:31
  Like subways are not happening, right?
• 2:34
  Um and I remembered seeing so the traffic lights, when those went out, right?
• 2:38
  Because that's on a different grid, I was like, oh guys, this is this is serious, right?
• 2:43
  So um my partner had an apartment in Harlem.
• 2:47
  So Wall Street to Harlem is as far away from each other as you can get in New York City.
• 2:53
  And we decided that, like, okay, all team members, we're just gonna migrate to Dave's place, like hunker down there and figure this out.
• 3:00
  And I remember, you know, those like big Poland Spring bottles of water.
• 3:06
  Right.
• 3:06
  You got to remember I'm in my 20s, even dumber than I am today, right?
• 3:10
  I took my belt off, right, and I made a sling for one.
• 3:14
  And I said, guys, we're gonna make this trek.
• 3:16
  And this here, this is currency.
• 3:19
  Uh-huh.
• 3:21
  Right.
• 3:21
  I think we made it like eight blocks before all of us were wasted from all the free alcohol being handed out in the streets.
• 3:28
  It was like, it was like a four-mile-long block party.
• 3:31
  Like it was like the best experience of my life.
• 3:34
  Yeah, that's cool.
• 3:35
  That's very cool.
• 3:37
  That sounds very New York.
• 3:38
  Yeah.
• 3:38
  Hey, I'm Matty.
• 3:39
  This is Moses.
• 3:40
  Howdy.
• 3:41
  We are the co-founders of pixelmob.com and propmedia.com.
• 3:44
  And this is the Prop Media Podcast where we talk about everything around property media.
• 3:49
  Today we get to talk with Vince Kalura.
• 3:52
  He has previously been uh COO, market manager, different things for some really high-profile companies, Matterport, VHT, and is now running a collective, uh, a unique structure for how photographers interact with him in really high standard, high quality, um, not just production work, but really quality work and growing that company now.
• 4:17
  We started six months ago.
• 4:19
  So if you want to hear the insights of industry Titan leadership now applied into growing a real estate media company, come along.
• 4:29
  It's gonna be fun.
• 4:43
  All right, Vince, tell us a little bit about this collective.
• 4:47
  So you guys have a little bit of a different business model than most of the folks we've talked about on prop media.
• 4:52
  Um, you describe it as a network, not a company, but that's gonna be a little different for a lot of people listening in.
• 4:57
  So give us kind of the day-to-day.
• 4:59
  What is that, what does that look like?
• 5:01
  And then we got lots of other questions.
• 5:03
  You know what's funny?
• 5:05
  Like, um I don't actually like the structure of the company itself isn't all that different from most people out there who are if they're on the contractor end of things, right?
• 5:16
  Like if they're uh if they're dealing with independent contractors.
• 5:20
  So they're employing gig workers.
• 5:22
  You're saying it's not that dissimilar on a business structure from that.
• 5:25
  Right.
• 5:26
  It's not that dissimilar at all.
• 5:27
  Where where it is, like I would say vastly different than my experiences so far, right?
• 5:33
  Like VHT, Matterport, CoStar.
• 5:36
  Um, is that you know, I founded it with the notion that I wanted to layer in and kind of centered around the community aspect of real estate photography, right?
• 5:48
  Like if you think about it, like if there's 22,000 folks shooting real estate in the United States, right?
• 5:55
  Like, and that's a number I I had come up with at some point, right?
• 5:58
  That's like 22,000 lone wolves, right?
• 6:01
  Even those who belong to one or more networks, right?
• 6:04
  There's there's not really a community.
• 6:06
  And funny enough, I mean, we were just talking about COVID and those experiences, right?
• 6:11
  Like when I was running VHT, um, COVID was this really kind of interesting like time for us because I was running probably one of the largest networks, right?
• 6:24
  We were operating in all of the states.
• 6:28
  And for most of the first, I want to say 13 weeks of COVID, right?
• 6:33
  The rules were changing daily.
• 6:35
  Yeah.
• 6:35
  Right.
• 6:35
  Like couldn't shoot here.
• 6:37
  And probably by state too.
• 6:38
  Yeah.
• 6:39
  Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 6:40
  And it was like literally, I'd wake up in the morning, you know, have a response back from a mayor's office in some area, and I'd be like, oh, we can operate here now, right?
• 6:50
  Um, so you know, my response to COVID was I launched uh pretty much, it was for the first bunch of weeks, it was daily, you know, uh like webinar series called VHT Live, right?
• 7:02
  Because you got to remember most of the photographers within the network, they couldn't do any of their jobs, right?
• 7:08
  They're kind of like stuck at home, not sure what's going on.
• 7:10
  So it kind of offered a little bit of like a fabric of continuity to the network.
• 7:16
  And, you know, it was live format, right?
• 7:19
  So, you know, I was inviting people up.
• 7:22
  Um, and what was born of it was this really high level of transparency, which doesn't exist when you get into companies that scale, right?
• 7:31
  Like, you know, at the time I had I had just taken the COO role at VHT, right?
• 7:37
  And I'm having daily calls with our contractor network.
• 7:41
  Um, and what came out of that was, you know, sort of the connective tissue from photographer to photographer and photographer to company really started forming.
• 7:52
  And we saw a culture, which is like, again, something you don't see when dealing with contractors.
• 7:56
  That's a term that we typically use for companies that have employees.
• 8:00
  Um, you know, I look at I look at that period of time, right?
• 8:05
  And VHT Live like became a thing.
• 8:07
  I think I did like 98 episodes over the first year.
• 8:13
  And like, guys, eventually it devolved, right?
• 8:15
  Like I had like I had cast members from The Walking Dead on as guests.
• 8:19
  I hired, I had a virologist, right, show up one season, one, one episode, um, astronomers.
• 8:26
  I mean, it was like looking for something to tell these people about because I don't have any news today, right?
• 8:31
  Like, what can we do here?
• 8:32
  But, you know, it really kind of showed me that working, right?
• 8:38
  Like the tagline of the show eventually became better together, right?
• 8:42
  Because that that community fabric, right, like propelled everyone forward.
• 8:48
  So as areas, states, and cities lit up and opened up, people are sharing tactics, sharing how they're dealing with issues, sharing how they're dealing with the agent who refuses to put on PPE when we thought that was important.
• 9:01
  Right.
• 9:01
  And, you know, for me, it was definitely like a really bright spot in the history of VHT.
• 9:08
  And when I was kind of when I found myself in a position where I've I've got to start something new, I looked back at my 23 years of history and I was like, well, you know, during COVID, I was the happiest I ever was, as was the photographers.
• 9:22
  So I said there might be something here to really making this a community, you know, sort of oriented effort.
• 9:29
  Um, so within the collective, right, like, you know, it is very much a contractor company relationship.
• 9:37
  Um, but I run it with the same level of transparency that I was running VHT, you know, with during that period of time.
• 9:45
  And I give, you know, the folks sort of like front seat to all aspects of the the business.
• 9:52
  Um, you know, I say to photographers as I recruit and onboard them, you know, there's not a democracy element, right?
• 9:58
  Like I people don't have voting rights or anything like that.
• 10:01
  But, you know, ultimately, I think the decisions I make to drive the business forward, most photographers will like most of the time.
• 10:10
  And those that don't will at least understand how we got there, right?
• 10:15
  Because of that level of transparency.
• 10:17
  And so far it's been working, right?
• 10:18
  We're like six months in.
• 10:19
  What's kind of the footprint?
• 10:20
  Like you've got people all over the place or mostly around Allentown, or what's it look like right now?
• 10:25
  No, so funny enough, uh, we've done one job in Allentown and I didn't shoot it myself, so that's good.
• 10:30
  Um, so we're mostly Chicago and the New York Tri-St area.
• 10:34
  Okay, cool.
• 10:36
  Uh, what about like there's there's a challenge, just even in US employment law, of like normal photography contractor relationships is sometimes a little bit difficult.
• 10:46
  It sounds like it might be even more difficult in your case because you have a value proposition of these standards of excellence and media and non-automation and stuff like that.
• 10:55
  But how do you actually create that when you can't control a contractor's choices and how they deliver uh their work?
• 11:03
  Yeah, it does.
• 11:04
  And and it's nuanced.
• 11:05
  Um, and and I do want to put aside, right, like uh for the conversation later, later, there's no anti-automation stance.
• 11:12
  There are very specific things that it won't automate.
• 11:15
  Um, but you know, in terms of, you know, sort of control.
• 11:19
  So, you know, it's funny.
• 11:20
  I I ran VHT, I had 75 employees under me.
• 11:24
  We had a thousand contractors at some point.
• 11:26
  Um, I never use the term control, I use the term influence.
• 11:29
  And that's just philosophically, right, like how I approach these problems.
• 11:34
  Um so, you know, when you look at quality control or you know, a level of standardization, right?
• 11:42
  You get people sign off.
• 11:44
  You you inspire people, you inform them as to what's important, why is something important, and you make sure that there's a really strong shared understanding there.
• 11:52
  Um, within contractor law, yes, I cannot dictate how you shoot.
• 11:57
  So, Moses, if you said, hey, I want to contract with the correct collective, I can't dictate how you shoot, but I can dictate what your deliverables are.
• 12:04
  Sure.
• 12:05
  So, you know, there's your format, there's your job acceptance, there's all of that stuff, that that is very strict and standardized.
• 12:13
  Um, and then as far as influencing to an end product that I'm excited by, right?
• 12:20
  How do we do that?
• 12:21
  You know, it is there's a lot of community activity within the network.
• 12:25
  So we're doing peer reviews, we do a lot of live format stuff.
• 12:30
  Um, as the single point of QA on all jobs, right?
• 12:34
  There's there's not a photographer that doesn't hear from me pretty often.
• 12:38
  Um, and and then within our private community, there's a lot of work that gets shared out.
• 12:43
  So, you know, if Maddie and Moses are shooting with me, right?
• 12:46
  Like when Maddie shoots that bomb property and he's really proud, he's sharing that stuff out.
• 12:52
  Moses is seeing it, they're having a discussion about it.
• 12:54
  Moses is saying, Oh, I never thought of composing a shot like that.
• 12:57
  Maybe I would have done this.
• 12:58
  And that level of, you know, sort of interaction just lifts everybody.
• 13:04
  You know, and if you think about it, right?
• 13:06
  Like again, I I know I believe both of you have shot, right?
• 13:11
  A lot in your life.
• 13:12
  No, he he has he has followed me to a shoot before.
• 13:16
  But that was like he he he he shot well one of those, yeah.
• 13:20
  Yeah, just think about the you know, years and years of doing that on your own, right?
• 13:26
  In fact, Maddie, I you only started after COVID, right?
• 13:29
  Real estate photography, that's right.
• 13:31
  Yeah, okay.
• 13:31
  So real estate photography, doing on your it doing it on your own after COVID, you know, there's there's no peers to challenge you, right?
• 13:39
  In fact, you think you're doing a good job if your client isn't asking for a refund or they're giving you an attaboy.
• 13:45
  Right.
• 13:46
  Um, and I look at clients as, you know, the ultimate civilians, right?
• 13:51
  In terms of they know what they like, their satisfaction is super, super important, but they're also not the best source of quality feedback.
• 14:02
  So that that community, again, is is very much a function that helps me maintain the quality that I look for.
• 14:09
  Yeah, cool.
• 14:11
  And so like the people that are a part of this collective, how does that come together?
• 14:17
  Are you going out and finding people or sure?
• 14:20
  So a good majority, right?
• 14:22
  Like the day VHT closed, there was sort of a demand, right?
• 14:27
  Like, yeah, before before the body went cold, right?
• 14:30
  Like there were calls like, uh, hey, what are you calling the new thing?
• 14:33
  Are you calling it Gotham?
• 14:35
  Right, like a bunch of people that wanted it circle back, wanted it to be ready Gotham Photo Company again.
• 14:39
  Um, so most of our people are X VHT.
• 14:42
  I know them intimately, right?
• 14:44
  And then I've recruited very selectively based on the work that I see, based on reputation, and you know, even working with the photographers to say, okay, you know, we need to expand in this area.
• 14:55
  Who's killing it?
• 14:56
  Whose work are you following?
• 14:58
  Who are you whose names are you hearing?
• 15:00
  Let's start approaching them.
• 15:02
  Yeah, interesting.
• 15:04
  And you identified two very kind of specific geographic uh footprints.
• 15:12
  Why New York and why Chicago and why not, you know, Miami or somewhere else?
• 15:19
  Sure, sure.
• 15:20
  So Chicago had sort of the greatest burning need both from the client base and the talent base, right?
• 15:27
  Like is that where VHT was kind of centralized?
• 15:31
  Yeah.
• 15:31
  Yeah.
• 15:31
  Okay.
• 15:32
  Yeah.
• 15:32
  And it's where VHT was strongest for the longest time.
• 15:36
  Um, and then New York, you can't take you can't take the New York out of the New Yorker, right?
• 15:41
  But but I'll say also, you know, what I looked for was where did I have the most engaged pockets of talent, right?
• 15:50
  That would jump in the quickest, you know, sort of feet first in terms of the the community aspect of things.
• 15:57
  Um, because that base is what makes everything else possible.
• 16:02
  So as I go into Miami, right?
• 16:05
  Because Miami is definitely, you know, on the short list, right?
• 16:08
  Like having that base, having that bustling network, having that communication is just going to make it easier for me.
• 16:14
  That makes total sense.
• 16:15
  Yeah.
• 16:16
  Yeah.
• 16:16
  Start with the talent, and you probably have some level of customer base in there too, people that know you and have a reputation that helps a lot.
• 16:25
  This has been kind of a six month journey.
• 16:28
  So pretty, pretty fresh, pretty new.
• 16:30
  What are the things that you learned in your experience with VHT?
• 16:34
  You've come a pretty wild journey now.
• 16:37
  Sure.
• 16:38
  The things that you're like, oh, we're doing it different this time.
• 16:40
  And you're like, we're super opinionated about coming into a new uh endeavor.
• 16:45
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:46
  So, you know, I'll I'll start with some of the things that I took from VHT, right?
• 16:52
  Um, and then I'll I'll pivot to that.
• 16:54
  So when I joined VHT, I had sold them, I had sold my company, Gotham Photo Company, over to VHT.
• 17:00
  And my initial, like when I initially joined, I wasn't planning on making this my long-term career, right?
• 17:06
  There was a little bit of an exit strategy.
• 17:08
  I thought I was moving on.
• 17:09
  Um and, you know, as part of the the purchase agreement, right?
• 17:14
  Like I was, I was required to be there for I think, I think it was like a 12-month contract.
• 17:18
  Okay, cool.
• 17:19
  Right.
• 17:20
  And I wanted to make sure that my people, because the photographers in New York, the staffers, right, like they were, they've been with me for years at that point.
• 17:27
  I wanted to make sure they landed well.
• 17:29
  Um, so okay, cool.
• 17:31
  And then I got to know the team at VHT.
• 17:33
  And Brian, our CEO, early on, you know, said to me, Hey Vince, you know, not only I want you to leave the talent network and, you know, start owning the operations, but most importantly, you know, we've been operating for however many years at that point.
• 17:48
  I think it was 16 years.
• 17:51
  And we've never had a photographer at the table in the executive boardroom.
• 17:57
  Um, and, you know, there's there's been nobody whose you know, sole responsibility or or biggest charge it was, was to represent the photographers.
• 18:06
  And Brian was already um really smart in recognizing that in running a large, you know, sort of uh photography operation, talent is your biggest client retention tool, right?
• 18:22
  You keep the photographers happy, they keep the clients happy.
• 18:25
  Right.
• 18:26
  And there's there's been other people that have said smarter versions of that, right?
• 18:29
  Like it's not that the customer's always right.
• 18:31
  I keep, I keep the customer service happy, they represent the customer.
• 18:35
  So, you know, that was um eye-opening for me.
• 18:39
  And that was my opportunity to say, okay, cool, let's make sure talent is really well represented.
• 18:45
  Um so over the years of VHT, right, because we grew a lot when I joined the company, I think it was like 140 photographers.
• 18:52
  We peaked at around 1100 photographers.
• 18:55
  Um, there were there was stuff we got right, stuff we didn't get right.
• 18:58
  Um so what I'll say I took from VHT were the two notions, you know, sort of that number one, right, if the product you're selling is ultimately talent, they have to be well well represented, right?
• 19:13
  And then number two, you know, recognize, and and and I've read this in other, you know, other phrasing, right?
• 19:20
  Like people aren't loyal to big companies or brands, right?
• 19:25
  They're loyal to people.
• 19:26
  Um, yes, I probably have every Apple device, right?
• 19:29
  But like aside from hardware, right, when you think about, you know, whether it be your real estate agent or your service company, right, you tend to think of Joe, Maddie, Moses, whoever it is.
• 19:44
  And and that's where loyalty lies, um, especially in a service, in a business like ours, where so much of not only the there's the end product that's completely influenced by the Maddie with a camera in his hand, but there's also the client experience, right?
• 19:59
  At VHT, right, just like the collective, our staff, they only are interact with our clients a tiny bit, right?
• 20:06
  The half hour to two and a half hours on site is owned by the photographer.
• 20:12
  So they put a high, you know, sort of, you know, I'll say relevance, right, on that.
• 20:17
  And that was definitely a lesson that I was able to see really kind of carried through and and helped us build a very strong company.
• 20:26
  I mean, when we when we sold BHT to Matterport, we were right at, I think, 22 million a year.
• 20:31
  Um so that's what we got right.
• 20:34
  Um what I'll say, you know, what we got wrong, which which definitely helped influence um how I formed the collective, was you know, responding.
• 20:43
  It's really interesting.
• 20:45
  When you listen to listening to customers is the most important thing to do, but it's also the most important thing to do deeply and in a filtered way, right?
• 20:54
  Henry Ford said it.
• 20:55
  If I asked my customers, they would have just wanted a better horse, right?
• 21:00
  Um, so you know, when you think about VHT working with large multi-regional brokerages, national companies, right?
• 21:07
  There's there's always a demand, right?
• 21:09
  Like you ask your client what they want.
• 21:11
  I want a million images and I want them for a dollar, right?
• 21:14
  I want same-day service.
• 21:16
  I need to be able to, you know, order my photography and have the photographer out there, you know, within 24 hours.
• 21:22
  That level of commodities commoditization is definitely it's always present, right?
• 21:28
  Like if I ask um if I ask Moses what he wants from Apple, he's gonna say, I want a computer even better than this, and I want it cheaper, right?
• 21:39
  Like, no shit.
• 21:40
  Tell me that water's wet.
• 21:41
  Can I say shit on this show, guys?
• 21:43
  Yeah, you're good.
• 21:44
  Okay.
• 21:45
  Um so you know, at VHT, I I learned to listen more deeply to the market and its demands, and you know, sort of be able to overlay that with.
• 22:00
  my own instinct and life experience.
• 22:03
  Yes, everybody wants things cheaper, right?
• 22:06
  But when you look at where the agents spend goes, who they're loyal to, what their actual you know sort of activities are, you learn that they they want consistency, right?
• 22:18
  They want to feel they want to trust and feel safe.
• 22:22
  They want representation in front of their buyers, right?
• 22:26
  They want Matty.
• 22:28
  They don't necessarily want Uber with a camera.
• 22:33
  So you know, looked at that.
• 22:35
  And then also in this industry, every every year there's, you know, the new disruptor technology that's going to come out.
• 22:44
  Right.
• 22:45
  In fact, you know, at Matterport we launched Digital Pro.
• 22:49
  Right.
• 22:49
  Like if you were a photographer paying attention to that and and you believe that Matterport was going to be impactful, that the sky is falling, right?
• 22:56
  Like what we can do stills from a 3D scan, right?
• 23:01
  That was a response to you know sort of a market desire for something it hit on consistency, right?
• 23:10
  But it it carved out and kind of um abandoned a lot of what makes photography or media in general good.
• 23:20
  Or the user experience with the homeowner or the realtor it changes.
• 23:25
  Lots of things shift.
• 23:26
  Even if the product has similarities the fundamental experience is different.
• 23:32
  That's absolutely true.
• 23:34
  And you know it's it's really funny Moses when we when we launched DigitalPro, we did so much work in making sure that you know my my one of my biggest concerns for clients is I said listen we need to make sure that this is never perceived as a bait and switch because we're marketing the product we're saying you get photography, a digital twin, a floor plan, a video, right?
• 24:01
  We have to call out, right?
• 24:02
  Be really specific.
• 24:03
  This is digitally extracted photography.
• 24:05
  This is a video based on the 3D tour.
• 24:08
  A floor plan is a floor plan in a lot of ways and digital twin is obvious.
• 24:12
  And I mean, you know, even to the point where they would put it in bold text on the order form, right?
• 24:18
  But so many of the calls we got were hey your photographer just showed up and he doesn't even have a camera.
• 24:25
  He's taking that big box out of his case.
• 24:27
  What what what's going on here?
• 24:28
  Yeah I think that there is definitely an expectation um and we're seeing you know shifts in uh some of that expectation it's it's interesting some people I think that is totally cool.
• 24:44
  Like that's all I all I need um they want the commodity but then other people they yeah obviously like there's a obviously a huge category that's we want amazing looking marketing material and it's a a different level of uh expectation entirely and it seems like with the collective you're taking that approach pretty seriously a lot more of a bespoke kind of custom uh feel um how is that kind of materialized um as you've started going is is that expect expectation held true or are you finding oh man it makes more sense we need to get more to kind of good enough photos or like are you really trying to make stand out aesthetic yeah aesthetics so what we're doing with the collective is I'm making sure that you know photographers to be an independent photographer right now like it's such a great time right like you Maddie could go out right like if you didn't have pixel mob right in your back pocket you still have five ten other solutions for every major pain point of a photographer right you got platforms we've got you know you don't go a half hour without hearing from an editor or an editing company right you've got everything at at your fingertips so you know in order to stand out right I believe that we need to double down on making sure that the photographer is the director on any given job right so it's it's their vision it's their composition.
• 26:18
  So that you know puts us in sort of direct opposition to something like a 3D capture to photography right and and it also you know sort of informs a lot of our decisions on what we will automate what will streamline what will keep human.
• 26:34
  Yeah so tell us about that you've you've kind of drawn a line the sand what does that look like so right now I I'm a big believer like AI is such an amazing like opportunity for force multiplier right as well as automation.
• 26:49
  And you know my previous experiences right like automation I want to say we probably automated a lot of the wrong things right um so I look at it like every implementation I move forward with is to allow the photographer to be more empowered, the staff to do more with less in terms of time, right?
• 27:13
  And drive quality up.
• 27:15
  So you know you kind of look at those as the as the you know sort of triangle in the decision making right like what vectors does any given move hit on and how can we take advantage of it?
• 27:29
  So as of right now, right, like I'm not utilizing AI editing.
• 27:34
  We are obviously using AI within our image to video product right AI is absolutely used with every client services interaction right like our clients get what they need super fast and our staff have access to a ton of stuff to just automate the granular kind of grind work.
• 27:56
  And again when I think about being an independent photographer nowadays, right, like y'all have these solutions.
• 28:03
  Yeah it's 39 bucks a month going to company X, 49 going to company Y.
• 28:07
  So there's there's no excuse to have a business that's hard to run.
• 28:13
  So when I look at you know what would be a win from the collective standpoint for a photographer, the more I can make your experience where most of your minutes are spent shooting or thinking about shooting, right?
• 28:30
  Not thinking about tagging, uploading, you know, drawing a floor plan, right?
• 28:36
  Like all these things, the more successful we are because we're keeping our talent operators doing what they do best.
• 28:44
  Right.
• 28:44
  And you know Maddie worked in film director almost never touches a camera right but he's got the most influence over the end product of anybody involved with any given production same thing with photography, right?
• 28:58
  Like the photographer has to have the most influence but I don't want them to have the most work.
• 29:03
  Yeah got it and it that makes a lot of sense I I um it it's easy I think particularly if you're you're taking a more uh talent approach and like we want to hire creatives remove a lot of the administrative and the all the stuff that just bogs you down entirely scheduling and all that stuff.
• 29:26
  Are you focusing heavily on video or like on the photo side is there a lot of room there creatively where do you I've I found that like on the photo side of real estate there's not a lot of room for oh we're gonna invent and be doing a ton of creative stuff but well at least on a standard kind of yeah general right right yeah you have a lot more room when it's a really kind of unique you know unique yeah unique bespoke properties and stuff where are you seeing that kind of like creative energy going so I'm seeing the creative energy going into it's really the craft itself right like you know it's so funny when we think about when we think about all the iterations of editor editing standards right editing styles capture styles right like they exist the more technology progresses the less influence they have ultimately on the end product right like everything everything is good or great right like let's just accept that so where do we have the most creative you know opportunities it's really on site behind the camera creating your composition um so I want to say you know looking at and you know sort of how I interact with my photographers so much of their their creative energy comes from and goes to that single function um which is great right like I don't want them thinking about right like the technical aspects of things or getting involved with the editing of things right within real estate there's a pretty narrow band of what expectations are right like that's funny I was talking to a client this morning who has a special request and they're looking for something that's far moodier than what you typicals typically see within real estate.
• 31:07
  Great, we can execute on that that's fine.
• 31:09
  But that's such an edge case right things need to be well lit they need to be neutral.
• 31:15
  So yeah I'm not I'm not I'm not like searching or scrounging for the next big thing in terms of like the photography format.
• 31:24
  If we get to a point where you know the camera technology and the formats uh open up to something great new and innovative awesome I'm all in but where I'm gonna spend my time is making sure that folks who have a camera in their hand, they're they're creating art.
• 31:40
  They're not just going in running and gunning shooting the shooting the square as one of my photographers used to say early on.
• 31:46
  There's a lot of pressure in the industry right now that is or buzz conversation that is around the other side the automated side the automated AI conversions all sorts of things um you've been making a case for the last few minutes that the human touch is worth waiting for but where do you see the market itself going?
• 32:09
  Do you see that like kind of bifurcating where there's the commodity kind of production and then there's a luxury layer or like how do you think this shakes out over the next couple of years?
• 32:19
  Because there's lots of people who do just want the commodity it's just a realtor it's just an average house so where do you see that kind of settling?
• 32:27
  So you know it it's so interesting because there's certain things right like speed right like speed of uh getting your image back next day or same day right like your your AI conversions have pushed on that a lot of like you could deliver this by the time you get back to your office and my question is usually like do you does anybody actually want that but but but but it's there and people are attracted to it and and it's a thing right yeah and you know I don't want to say like I'm I'm not gonna say speed right like if we just look at speed for a second right like I'm not gonna say that's a fad right because everything should be as fast as it can be sure.
• 33:04
  Right.
• 33:05
  But what are the trade-offs?
• 33:07
  Um you know when I look at the the market and the the kind of question of whether or not it could bifurcate absolutely right like I you know I have agents that call us that want same day shoots right they want to call at 9 a.m and have somebody there at noon that's not the business we're that we're in.
• 33:25
  That's not the clientele we service.
• 33:27
  In fact I would say that you know yes there are consumers for that level of commoditization but are those the agents that are going to be commoditized out right are are they the ones that are going to be they themselves won't be an agent for long.
• 33:43
  Yeah yeah like when when I look at it right like most of our agents right like in the six months uh that we've been up most of our agents have used us six or more times right which is far above sort of the national average of 4.3 listings a year on an agent that has one or more right which is an interesting data point.
• 34:04
  Those agents are planning ahead right their homes are staged their homes are prepped right the sellers know the schedule there's not there's not a lot of fire drills there working at that tier.
• 34:16
  Right.
• 34:17
  I also look at those agents and I recognize that they have long careers already right and I believe those are the agents especially as we get into all of the other kind of uh you know portal wars and tech companies that are after the agents piece of the business right um I think those are the ones that she'd be concerned the least about losing out to tech solutions.
• 34:41
  They're gonna leverage tech solutions.
• 34:45
  So I think you know over time I don't think the notion that you know I didn't know I had a listing and now I need it shot at noon on a Tuesday is a viable business.
• 34:58
  Yeah it's a lot more planned than that like the industry doesn't necessarily demand that to have be good service.
• 35:04
  Right.
• 35:05
  In fact you know if if you're tuning for that service you're going to pick up some business absolutely but is that the is that the business that's going to give you a listing a month two listings a month for an agent 10 listings a month I don't think so right those are the agents that don't necessarily have their shit together.
• 35:20
  Right?
• 35:21
  They're probably not your long-term agent you know look I would say it's the same thing with photographers.
• 35:28
  I I I always have this joke um you know I'd get into a brokerage firm meet with their executive team and they'd say you know okay yeah and looking at this we need like a two hour SLA on scheduling commitments right and we need to be able to get people there next day and I said I I would always say to the client so you want photographers who aren't in demand in any way and they're just waiting for a job said yeah I said do you think those are the good photographers it's fair.
• 36:04
  All right every week we represent two different brands so Pixamob and Prop Media Pixamob's where you go to get all your editing outsourcing all that stuff done but Prop Media we don't actually talk about as much even though it's the name of our freaking podcast.
• 36:17
  Prop Media is a network and it's a front door for your business is completely free to sign up but it creates an SEO optimized way to backlink to your website where you have a display in a national directory of you your work what you offer all that stuff all tailored to be able to drive traffic to you completely free.
• 36:36
  Make an account go here prop media and then if you want to there's also a paid tier to rank higher on your on your own like your locale your geography if you want to but there's no need for that it's completely free just to get basic benefit to your website.
• 36:51
  So check it out enjoy grow your business let's shift gears toward your imagery in motion ideas you you're creating videos from stills that's been a bit of a fad the last year, year and a half maybe even a little longer of people taking still images converting them into video as a product so walk us through what you're doing and then maybe an an underlying element of it is that I think a lot of photographers are really nervous that this type of product is actually a disintermediating product where there's not a lot of reason that a realtor couldn't just do it themselves.
• 37:25
  So those two pieces so what are y'all doing and then why should photographers be afraid of that or maybe they shouldn't be like what's your take sure sure so I have a couple of thoughts on that one piece of it um speaks to my fundamental belief that content creators right like when we think about AI generated content or AI enhanced content right um content creators kind of have a more important place right now in terms of acting as the director right and acting as a source of truth.
• 37:59
  So there's a million products that agents can use right now, right, to put out you know they could pay$5, pay a monthly fee, pay nothing, right?
• 38:07
  And put out something that's valuable content.
• 38:10
  Is it going to be good?
• 38:12
  Is it going to be directed right like our are important differentiators.
• 38:16
  I think we're at the point now especially with AI generated video, especially when you're starting with finished or perfected stills where the the quality of the experience right to the viewer can be as good if not better than what most of us can get actually running and capturing.
• 38:36
  Yeah.
• 38:37
  Yeah so like that's where it starts to cross right like because again you know I I think I said this earlier right like I'm especially interested in AI when it makes the end product better.
• 38:50
  If it's something that's almost as good right that's not all that interesting to me.
• 38:54
  I don't want to ever move back right um so you know number one I think AI video huge opportunity now you know as far as it being an you know sort of disintermediary product right that risk that risk is true and it's there but now let's circle back to the client profile.
• 39:16
  If you're going after the agent that isn't planning their listing they need a shoot tomorrow and they need it done same day because they have a listing deadline that they've promised before they signed a contract well those are probably the agents that aren't going to wait for you to you know create your AI generated content.
• 39:34
  They they've got the subscription they're doing it on their phone whether or you know waiting for the the buyer to sell it at all not bothering at all because they're not valuing the media side as a part of as a core part of the process.
• 39:46
  They're just slapping a listing up yeah exactly and you know look we've seen this um you know we we utilize cubicassa for floor plants right like as does half the industry um cubicassa has always sold to agents but if you're a good agent agents don't adopt it's time for that yeah when I've talked to MLS like there was a big shakeup like a year year and a half ago where cubicasa started like going after MLS's to like offer it as a member service and stuff like that.
• 40:16
  And everybody got really mad about it and then nothing changed because the realtors don't do it or or only a very small portion of them do it.
• 40:27
  And it is it's fascinating it speaks to some of what your uh it just cracks me up because every once in a while I'll see a post in like the Facebook groups where someone shows up really late to the party and it's really mad.
• 40:39
  Did you guys see this about Kubikasa or whoever it is today but it's like literally a year and a half news you know it's like from three years ago but they just are totally just where have you been right right and and it's not to say look it it it gets under my skin right when our providers try to go directly do an end run around.
• 41:02
  Yeah that is yeah that can be frustrating.
• 41:04
  But you know I also look at it like I think there is a separation within the community right there's the masses right that will you know some percentage will go down that road right absolutely so let's let's look at the Cuba Casa you know sort of example right and you know I I love that company right like I'm utilizing them.
• 41:22
  So no no shade being thrown if they're successful in capturing sort of that transient, I'll say less prepared right like or more cost conscious agent, great they're still building the expectation that this element is necessary on listings.
• 41:39
  Which helps you up so much my clients and the clients that I'm gonna approach there's that expectation um so I think about AI video and I think about all of the AI tools right like how many virtual staging like widgets and companies are there out there.
• 41:53
  All in the same boat right like DIY is fine and if if your clientele are going to go that route they're gonna go that route my clientele and my future clientele are probably too busy to do that.
• 42:05
  Yeah they're not DIY people.
• 42:06
  Yeah now I do think um the accessibility of the technology drives the expectation up which I think can be a little bit scary and daunting for people but I also think that we're in an industry that has not innovated a whole lot over the past decade.
• 42:25
  So that's a beautiful thing right like I want my clients to demand a higher level of media and service because they can get something that's viable right on their own.
• 42:37
  So so yeah I'm I'm like all in for it.
• 42:39
  I think I think it's an exciting time.
• 42:41
  Now you had asked you know what am I doing what am I doing special?
• 42:45
  I'm actually not doing much special at all, right?
• 42:47
  Like I'm using one of the 24 services that are out there, right?
• 42:52
  My team is handling it.
• 42:53
  Yeah I've done an API integration so we can get the model started right but there's there's not much magic behind the scenes other than making sure that A, we're starting with perfected media, right?
• 43:06
  And then B, there's there's a human currently directing it right like any video that gets produced, there's human eyes on there's somebody saying, you know what, I'm gonna do a cool transition here.
• 43:17
  I'm gonna take advantage of you know doing a virtualized you know sort of um time lapse here right so there's still like an artistic influence and I think ultimately that's where I can provide value at least now.
• 43:30
  Yeah are have you guys started to venture into any of the really crazy stuff with AI videos like you're just doing kind of the when people need something kind of like there's two versions of AI video.
• 43:43
  I think there's the there's the image to video with we're talking like crazy conversions and stuff like that.
• 43:49
  Yeah so play with it sure right um there's there's a pretty high bar to have you know any any of the newer stuff Make it to make it to market on my end, right?
• 44:02
  Like I have to believe that A, it provides true value, right?
• 44:07
  B, we can still offer truth and media, right?
• 44:10
  So played with it.
• 44:12
  Super important.
• 44:13
  Yeah.
• 44:13
  Yeah.
• 44:14
  Yeah.
• 44:14
  Like that's that's that's gotta be one of our responsibilities, guys, as content creators, is to make sure.
• 44:19
  And and you know, funny enough, if if an agent is using the tools that I'm using, they better check every frame because we we just had to take a three-armed human out of a frame, right?
• 44:31
  Because these technologies still hallucinate on occasion.
• 44:34
  Um, so you know, that's where I think the content creators responsibility has evolved a little bit, right?
• 44:40
  And and again, where we can provide value.
• 44:43
  Yeah, I think that we definitely feel that responsibility as well in some of what we're doing.
• 44:47
  It's one of the veins we've been tracking has been like disclosure legislation and stuff like that, that I think is pretty relevant to all of this stuff.
• 44:56
  Like there is there is a new value of curation and picking the right things and disclosing the right things that I don't think enough people are talking about yet.
• 45:08
  And I I love your approach from from the like the talent agency high standards direction to encourage that and put put the photographers' design choices front and center.
• 45:20
  But I think you're gonna see that coming from lots of different angles in the industry where there's more and more legislation and requirement and expectation that the truth of the real estate matters a lot, which is really interesting because it's also in the exact same time frame where our ability to make things absolutely unrealistic has never been higher.
• 45:43
  So, like our capabilities to make things as deceptive as humanly possible has exploded in the last year and a half.
• 45:52
  And it's in an industry where the there's actual requirements for the truth and veracity of the product, of what's presented, or the the realtor has liability.
• 46:04
  So it's an interesting, it's an interesting path to tread.
• 46:07
  Yeah, it it is, and you know, that that's again why I feel like there's a very special role for the content creator or content creator as a partner to the client, right?
• 46:17
  Like I would say that's that's another really important thing as as photographers is to you know sort of keep up to speed with responsible use of this technology, right?
• 46:27
  Or these technologies.
• 46:29
  Um, you know, it's interesting because there's so much legislation, but at the end of the day, it hasn't really complicated things, it just comes down to be truthful, right?
• 46:39
  Like be transparent.
• 46:41
  Yeah.
• 46:42
  I mean, if if you're doing that, then there's not a whole lot of issue.
• 46:46
  Though some things are getting a little bit more persnickety of like what actually counts as a change and what has to be disclosed, which I think is a great trend, really, because even though like I I love what you're saying, it's it's very it's virtuous on on its face and it's hopeful of humanity.
• 47:05
  But unfortunately, I don't think humanity always lives up to that standard of wanting to produce the truth, right?
• 47:11
  So I think it needs some hedges and fences that actually are like, no, you no, you will, you will present the property truthfully.
• 47:18
  Yeah.
• 47:18
  So, Vince, I've got a question.
• 47:20
  You've kind of been through a lot of the uh big changes.
• 47:25
  You've been a part of big companies that have been trendsetters, really, in a lot of ways within our industry.
• 47:31
  Um, starting at Gotham, then moving into VHT, then Matterport, then CoStar.
• 47:37
  Uh, you've probably got some brands.
• 47:39
  You've had the most movement kind of through the industry.
• 47:42
  I think I've talked to uh to anybody that I've talked to.
• 47:46
  But you've and you've seen that over a lot of time.
• 47:49
  Two decades.
• 47:50
  Yeah.
• 47:50
  Almost two and a half decades.
• 47:51
  Yeah.
• 47:51
  Yeah.
• 47:52
  Crazy.
• 47:53
  What in in where we are now, and particularly like uh we're talking about AI editing and and image to video and all these things.
• 48:01
  You've seen the hype cycles, um, you know, 25 years, all the way back to almost like dot-com level era.
• 48:08
  Um, you even potentially even like some film to digital stuff.
• 48:12
  Um 23 years ago, 2003.
• 48:15
  So what's uh that is film to digital era, and even like people ordering online, and you've seen a lot in this industry.
• 48:22
  I think it's probably over the lifetime of real estate media, I think, as a formalized industry.
• 48:29
  What do you think about the hype now around AI?
• 48:32
  We've talked about it a lot here already, but like, is this hype?
• 48:35
  Is this real?
• 48:36
  Um, you've seen the changes, you've seen things that have stuck.
• 48:39
  Uh, you've been part of Matterport's big technology booms and digital twins and all this stuff.
• 48:45
  Um, where do we stand now?
• 48:47
  So I think it is both hype and real, right?
• 48:50
  Like, so I mean, like sidebar, right?
• 48:53
  Like the the network tool that I use with my team, right?
• 48:56
  Like they, as I said, they hear from me daily.
• 48:59
  I feel like I have to stop myself from saying, what a time to be alive in my every other day.
• 49:05
  Yeah, because I'm constantly like I wake up in the morning and there's cool shit on my mind, right?
• 49:11
  Um, so I think it it is both hype and an opportunity, right?
• 49:16
  Like, and I would say, especially for your solo shooters and your small companies, right?
• 49:22
  Because we can all look at adopt and adapt to changing technologies and new capabilities way faster than you know, at VH2, we used to, we used to, when the boardroom door would close, right?
• 49:36
  Like Brian and I would be like, we are too slow moving and lumbering, right?
• 49:41
  And I think that's even more so more true now, right?
• 49:44
  Like, I mean, have you seen have you seen Zillow's 3D tour?
• 49:49
  Right?
• 49:49
  Like a company with all the money in the world is producing and propagating a technology that's that looks like it belongs in in my early years of this journey.
• 50:02
  So I think especially for solo small content creators, it's a great time to be alive.
• 50:08
  It's an exciting time to be alive.
• 50:10
  And we need to be looking at all of these opportunities with that filter of, you know, what is the value provided, right?
• 50:21
  Um does it make my end product better?
• 50:24
  Does it make my response time better, faster, right?
• 50:28
  More secure, right, more reliable.
• 50:30
  You know, I think about uh as small and as silly as this one is, right?
• 50:35
  All of the big platforms have, you know, the capabilities for on-demand scheduling, right?
• 50:40
  Like just for the the ability for me to have my calendar be live.
• 50:44
  If you're not using something like that in the year 2026, you're out of your mind.
• 50:50
  And I remember just five or six years ago looking at and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars building that technology and being unsure if it was important, right?
• 51:01
  Thinking, like, uh, do people really need this?
• 51:04
  So the this is where like innovation and the availability of technology drives more and more from the expectation, but also lowers that barrier to entry, right?
• 51:16
  Like I was joking with a photographer just the other day.
• 51:18
  Like, can you remember you used to put things on your calendar manually?
• 51:22
  Like, how crazy was that?
• 51:24
  You would text somebody back about a time.
• 51:26
  Like, that was insane.
• 51:28
  So, really, like we should be using it as a force multiplier, using it as as a superpower, right?
• 51:35
  To do more to provide value.
• 51:38
  Vince, thank you so much.
• 51:39
  Can you give us like where can people follow you if they want to follow your journey in this collective as it develops?
• 51:45
  Where do they follow you?
• 51:47
  So the collective underscore R E on Instagram, the collective on all of the other major platforms.
• 51:53
  If you're looking to follow me personally, Google Action Vance, you'll find me there.
• 51:57
  Um, but yeah, that's that's it.
• 51:59
  I don't have a ton of social media presence at the moment.
• 52:02
  I feel you might be a healthier life choice.
• 52:05
  Uh yeah.
• 52:06
  But thank you very much, Vince.
• 52:08
  We appreciate you being on the show and see you next time.
• 52:12
  Yeah, it was my pleasure.
• 52:13
  Great talking to you guys.