Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / Attracting Good Employees & Clients: Part 2

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Attracting Good Employees & Clients: Part 2 · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

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Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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I've seen discussions on this on the various Facebook groups
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and whatnot that it seems like and again,
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no scientific evidence to prove this out, but it seems like
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when you are serving realtors that don't like to spend money,
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they're even more picky than the higher end agents that maybe
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are doing luxury listings that are paying you top dollar
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Welcome to the Spiro podcast.
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Managing your real estate photography and videography business
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with your hosts, Todd Kivimaki
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and Craig Magrum
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Hi, and welcome to the Spiro podcast,
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Managing your real estate photography and videography Business.
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Spiro is a software platform that was designed to help you manage
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your day to day business,
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but more importantly, help you scale well, assuming that's one of your goals.
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I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
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Welcome back to Another Week.
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This is going to be a part two of a small short series
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on attracting good, good team members and good clients.
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But before we dive into that, let me introduce the cohost and Spiro
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founder and owner Todd Kivimaki
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It's it's a beautiful morning as we were recording this, Todd.
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It is Craig.
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We're a little bit up on an off morning here, so feels a little weird.
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Yeah but it is it is a beautiful fall morning here in Ohio.
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So it's it's good to be on here.
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And we've heard from a lot of you lately.
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It's so great to hear from you all.
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So thank you for reaching out to us.
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We just really appreciate the support.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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All right. Well, let's just dive right in.
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I know a lot of our viewers and clients, like when we can just kind of
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get to the points. Let's get to it.
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Spiro, we like to you
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always introduce some Spiro updates on what's new with the software.
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So, Todd, what's going on with Spiro right now?
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Yeah, thanks for asking. Craig.
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So with Spiro.
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You are going to get some fabulous updates this week.
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So typically they come on Wednesday.
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So I think this Wednesday, this week
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you will be getting the revamp of the reshoot process.
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So this is a way
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Yeah.
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So this is a way that you can add quickly an appointment.
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So the reshoot button's going to go away
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and you're going to get a new button that will allow you to add an appointment.
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You can select what services you want from the original appointment.
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You can add an ad hoc custom service.
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That's something like reshoot, the master bedroom.
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You can assign it to a photographer,
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assign a task, payment, things like that.
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And you can button that all up very quickly and easily
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and add that second appointment.
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And the big and here is that all of the appointments
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will flow through to the same property website.
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So we know you don't want multiple websites.
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So that is that's an exciting time coming up there
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for the reshoot process.
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Along with that, you're going to do you're going to get a couple of other
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goodies with being able
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to run a report up to one year in length.
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So right now it's limited at three months.
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So now you can get a whole year and this is perfect timing for coming into
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the end of the year so that you can see what your business has done.
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You can do it before.
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You just have to combine a couple of reports,
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but it's going to be easier for you and that's why we're here for you.
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So excited about that.
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And then also looking at adding in some new functionality with
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when you're able to alert your next client in the photographer portal.
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So we're going to give you the ability right now when you check in to appointment
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number one, that's when you notify.
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That's when the system notifies appointment number two some of your like,
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well, I don't really love doing that
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because I need to go up and see that the houses in proper order.
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And so we're going to decouple those two functions.
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And when you check in, you don't have to send a text message.
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You could wait until you're in the house, then you just hit that button,
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that notify button, and it will send it when you want it to.
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So and again, this is all feedback, Craig, Based from the Feedback board.
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And this is like a top down mentality here of the most users
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per request.
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We look at those and we want to give you guys features that work for you all
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and that make your day to day workflow quicker and easier.
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You know, in the Facebook Super Spiro users or Spiro Super Users group.
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Yeah, that's a mouthful.
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I've known as people talking about features that they want to see
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and in members talking amongst themselves
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about, Hey, have you mentioned it because yeah, that
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the the what's the phrase the squeaky wheel gets squeaky wheel.
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Yeah.
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This gets the grease here though. Yeah.
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So yeah.
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You guys are recognizing that, that we want to prioritize what you need.
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So yeah.
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That that feature is there for you
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and you get how can they access that that feedback board.
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yes once you're logged in the Spiro in the upper
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right hand corner, there's a little feedback button.
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Just hover on that and then there's a link in there that takes you
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to the feature based board that we subscribe to.
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Excellent. Excellent.
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And if you don't have a Spiro account, it's absolutely free to sign up.
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We don't charge you anything for having a Spiro account.
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Just go to Spiro.media and you can sign up right there super easy.
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And don't we give them like 20 free credits or.
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Yeah, they even get they even get 20 free credits to play around with.
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You can use that on a listing or the merge fleet.
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So go in there and have fun and give it a try.
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Okay. Excellent.
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Well, those are exciting updates and we'll keep those rolling out to you,
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keep us primed and give us your ideas because this is this is to serve you
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is originally to serve our our real estate media company Wow video tours
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and we realized you know what this can this could help other people.
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So we're here to serve you guys because we're in the same industry, right?
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- Yep. - Yeah. Excellent.
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All right.
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Well, there's there's the updates for the week.
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Vegas.
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Well, some conferences coming up. Todd.
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Yeah.
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So it's coming soon now.
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So November 12th, my team and I are.
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We're flying out and we'll be there till the 16th.
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So if you're going to Vegas, if you're going to the repp conference,
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that's Eli Jones or PMRE, that's Brandon Cooper or going to both.
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I will be at both. My teams will be at both.
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So come and find me and say hello.
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I'd love to meet you in person.
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I am the big tall guy with probably something bright pink on,
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so come and find me.
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It'd be great to meet you guys in person.
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I know I've talked to you guys a lot.
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We've done zooms, but it's still not the same.
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And, you know, part of the experience of going out to Vegas,
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the speakers are great, but part of the experience is after
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and between when you can connect with other colleagues of yours
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and you know, you can share stories, you can help coach other people
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and get coached yourself.
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So long story short, come find me.
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We'll be there and we'll be just looking forward to connecting with you in Vegas.
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Absolutely.
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And if there's no pictures of the pink suit, it didn't happen, Todd.
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Yeah,
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yeah, yeah.
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Somebody that comes, if he's in a pink suit, send me a photo of this
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because I think I have some payback coming for the Post
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Malone Tattoo Photoshop job.
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You do owe me one. Yeah. You know, you know those.
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You know those pink marshmallows, don't they Make pink marshmallows?
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Like, around Easter time? Yeah.
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Bring like those. But you're going to be.
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Yes, that's going to be me. So.
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Okay.
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Okay. Fun stuff. All right.
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also, Craig.
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Yeah, Yeah,
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I threw this idea out there.
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I just have to throw it out there to y'all.
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Okay, We talked about.
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So all my tech talk with Todd, which is the first and the third
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Thursday at 4:30 Eastern on the Spiro Super User Group.
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So come on in there.
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I'm in there to connect with you all had some free talk I just throw out.
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The idea is, like anyone, I want to come to Ohio
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in January.
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Did you get crickets for an answer?
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No, actually.
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People, they're like, Yeah, I come out like, seriously?
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Great. Yes.
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Who wants to come to Ohio in January?
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It's beautiful. Craig.
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It's all white and gray and and brown from the mud in the snow.
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But I don't know.
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It's like I love connecting with you all and.
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And now we'll get our fair share in Vegas.
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But I thought, man, it'll be cool if we pick one of our cities
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that's close to an airport, Cincinnati or Columbus.
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We do a Spiro summit.
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I think JD came up with that name.
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Spiro Summit.
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Okay.
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And I don't know, I'm throwing it out there.
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Email me. hello@spiro.media. Is that interesting?
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I don't even know. This is just a whim right now.
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I'd come down for that.
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Thank you, Craig.
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I'd come down for
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Columbus, actually. Be here.
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I'd be great to have you there.
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Yeah, it'd be fun.
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I mean, Columbus is only 2 hours from where I'm at, so.
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Yeah, good stuff.
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Some good restaurants there.
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Columbus is a good time.
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All right, well, keep us posted.
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And, yeah, if you're interested, let Todd know.
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hello@spiro.media.
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Yeah.
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Spiro Summit in January in Ohio.
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Come on. That's great.
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What's better, we'll go sledding after it All the sessions.
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Well, if there's snow. Yeah, true.
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If there's snow, is there any hills?
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Well, Cincinnati has hills.
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You come up to northwest Ohio, it's flat as a pancake.
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You're lucky to find a you're lucky to find a hill.
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So when I was a quick story and then we'll dive in.
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But speaking of hills, this is this is how flat northwest Ohio is.
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So when I was in college, I went to this little
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this little college called Cedarville College.
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It's about, I don't know, half hour east and south, little bit of Dayton.
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And I was driving to church one morning and I had another other student from the
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the university.
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It was coming or the college that was coming with me
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and she was from West Virginia.
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And as we were driving down this road, it was going through some hills.
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It was between Cedarville and Xenia, Ohio, and there's some beautiful hills
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and the sun was coming up.
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There's a little bit of, you know, a little bit of fog.
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It was just a gorgeous scene.
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And I,
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I made a comment and I said, you know, and these hills are just so beautiful.
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And her head whips around it.
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Those of you that her head whips around, she's like hills.
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What hills?
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I'm like these hills that we're driving through right now.
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And she starts laughing.
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I mean, like what? She goes, Oh, honey, not this.
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She wasn't my girlfriend.
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It was just this is the way she talked about it.
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Yeah, right, right.
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These aren't hills.
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I'll show you hills.
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And then it clicked. Oh, yeah. You're from West Virginia.
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I guess these aren't hills.
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I still remember
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just the way her head whipped around and started laughing at me.
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And I. Okay, I found it funny.
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- I don't know if you guys -they are hills for us Ohioans.
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Right? Right. Okay, let's.
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Enough of that.
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Let's dive into this week's topic on the Spiro podcasts of last week.
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Again, we talked about how to attract
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good team members and also good clients.
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And last week we talked all about attracting great,
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you know, great team members, whether they are employees or contractors.
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This week we want to talk about how do you attract good clients?
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You know, the question of attracting clients,
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period, is one that a lot of us can find a challenge in.
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But how do you attract good clients?
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Can you attract good clients, or is it what it is?
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So that's that's what we want to dive into this week. Todd
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Craig The
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idea of attracting the good client, I think in our industry,
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there's a couple of things that come to mind as to where.
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There's some behaviors and some marketing tactics
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that would potentially lead to clients that aren't so good
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and just the thing off the top of my head is that if
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and I know this is going to be controversial
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because a lot of you do it, I'm not saying that we don't do it,
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but I think we have
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we have not seen as much success with a free offer, just a carte blanche,
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free offer, trying to give the house away for your first time.
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Right. To get someone in.
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We have founded our company that has worked at times.
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It's pinpointed when we use it, though.
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It's not just anyone and everyone and it's not in an office setting.
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We have we've ab tested this a lot.
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We've tried.
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Let's walk into this office where we don't have relationships
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and let's try to get relationships and let everybody try us and here's free.
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And then we've tried
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the same city, same type of office where we don't have relationships.
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Hey, here is our summer promo.
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You can get up to 50% off and it's so much better.
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- hm, really - it has. Yeah.
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And that and that honestly went against my grain of thinking
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because I thought, well, let's pitch them like, Hey, just try us.
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It was a city we were new in.
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We're new in town.
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We want you to see the difference, see the value.
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And I don't know what it was it and free might work for
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you all out there, but it just didn't work for us. And
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if you
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have someone that takes you up on a free offer,
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that person we find generally
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is always looking for something free.
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So I don't know.
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What are your thoughts on that, Craig?
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Well, I'm thinking back to when I first started my business
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and I gave away two shoots to start because I was I was a nobody, right?
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I was brand.
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I won't say I was brand new to photography,
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but I was brand new to real estate photography, for sure.
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And it was
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the sellers were actually the youth pastors at our church.
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And I approached them because I knew they were getting ready to move.
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They were making some changes in their life.
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And I asked them if I could.
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I didn't understand how the whole industry worked,
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that you have to really deal with the realtor, not the sellers.
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So I approached them and told them what I was looking to do
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in starting this business, and I needed to start to build a portfolio
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and hey, could I shoot, you know, your your house photos for you?
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And they're like, Oh, wow.
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Yeah, well, that would be awesome, but you'll have to talk to a realtor.
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So I'm like, Oh, okay.
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So immediately I'm starting to learn, okay, this is how this works.
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So I got the realtor’s name.
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I had never met her before, but approach her and introduce
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myself, explained who I was and what I was looking to do.
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And she's like, Oh,
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well, I normally don't have someone to do the photos for me.
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I just take them myself.
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But yeah, you can take them.
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And she was probably thinking of, I don't like them.
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I could just take my own photos though.
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And so I took them in.
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I did that twice.
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And what's funny is thinking about giving away photos.
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Those are the only two houses that I ever gave away a free shoot for.
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And I think she only used just maybe two more times
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after I started charging and she went back to doing her own photos.
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Yeah.
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So she wasn't even that the type of person that really appreciated,
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you know, or understood the value of professional photography.
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So I think when when you give yourself away, when
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yeah, it is going to be somewhat controversial.
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Todd Because my take on it is if you don't value
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yourself, nobody else is going to value you either.
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Yeah.
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So if you're not charging anything, even just to try and get started
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subconsciously, that realtor might be thinking, Well,
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I wouldn't give away my services. You must not be that good.
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Because if you were decent, you'd be charging me.
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Can I prove that out?
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Probably no.
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Yeah.
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And I think it's I think it's different for different stages of your business.
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And, you know, I know a very popular method is what Eli Jones
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teaches with the Instagram method and he has a
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humongous, proven track record of new individuals
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getting their business off the ground, doing the five, ten, 15K a month
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by starting their business with that method.
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Now there's different methods that I know he teaches, but the outbound
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method and some other ways of selling.
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So I'm not saying that doesn't work because it does.
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And I see, I see the results of it and I think there's
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a time and a place for it, and I think it needs to be pinpointed.
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And maybe that's the thing, just speaking out, out loud.
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Craig here, kind of digesting all of this is that it's pinpointed
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in that message to a realtor as to where not everybody gets it.
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The difference with that is when we walk into a real estate office
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and there's 20 agents there or, you know, 40 agents sitting there
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and you say, Hey, everybody get something for free.
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I think when everybody hears that, everybody else gets it, they begin to go,
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Wait a minute, is there something up with this offer?
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Yeah, you know, is there something fishy about this? So
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and we give
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away free things, you know, But it's always thought about.
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It's always
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given in a way that we've put some time and energy and thought
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into what would giving this away get us in the end.
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Right. Right. Yeah.
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If you're just starting out and you need to build a portfolio,
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yeah, you might give away a couple of free shoots
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just so you have something to start showing future potential clients.
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There was something I was going to say and I would just it just blinked.
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It flew out of my head, Todd
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Oh, yeah, I know what it was.
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So, yeah, giving away things for free
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doesn't communicate value necessarily, but you could really kind
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of say the same thing for racing to the bottom on price.
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You know, if you're going to be the cheapest one in town,
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I've seen discussions on this on the various Facebook groups
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and whatnot that it seems like and again,
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no scientific evidence to prove this out, but it seems like
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when you are serving realtors that don't like to spend money,
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they're even more picky than the higher end agents that maybe
18:23
are doing luxury listings that are paying you top dollar, that they know
18:29
you're the professional and they don't they don't seem to bug you as much.
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They don't bother you with,
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you know, nit picking little things because they trust you.
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You're charging them a premium and you're doing
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you're delivering excellent work and you can deliver
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excellent work to those, you know, that are not premium listings.
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But it seems like there's a mentality difference between the agents that are
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more cost conscious versus those that are willing
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to invest in their business and invest in their marketing.
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I think you get a different type of client on both of those.
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Yeah, yeah, I agree with you 100%.
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I think one area that I learned over the years
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and I screwed up on this when I was younger
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is the fact that I would see what the market was doing.
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And I would say, well, I'm
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going to be just a little bit less than.
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And the thing I didn't realize is that that doesn't that tactic doesn't work.
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You don't want to look at your competition and go ten or 15%
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lower price because you're just going to attract.
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I think that is a recipe for attracting bad clients.
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Okay.
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And your like you mentioned,
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Craig, you're racing to the bottom, but you haven't really discerned what
19:52
is going
19:52
to differentiate you from that competition.
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And it all boils down to this.
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And I must say word we say probably the most on here,
20:01
but it all comes back down to that relationship.
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And I wish I really I wish I really knew that when I was younger
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because I would do the math and say, can I do it a little bit less?
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And I love efficiencies and I love scale.
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So I would find ways to save money, but I didn't realize it.
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That doesn't make any sense.
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I mean, if you think about it.
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Craig So let's put ourselves in
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the shoes of a realtor
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and a realtors listing a house and let's say
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they're listening to a half million dollar house now in 2024.
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This isn't some outrageous house anymore.
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I mean, this is a this is a very nice house in our area.
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And some areas are out. The world.
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This is not a nice house.
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But let's just for simple math, it's a half a million dollars.
20:47
That agent is going to make an industry average of about 3%.
20:54
Okay.
20:54
So they're going to make $15,000
20:59
on this house when it sells.
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Now they're going to split that with their broker
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and they're going to keep some of that and they have other expenses.
21:07
I'm not saying they put $15,000 in their pocket,
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but if you think about a typical average order
21:13
value of what we see 250 versus say, you come in
21:18
10% lower, 25 bucks or 225,
21:22
is the agent going to risk
21:25
saving $25 to potentially send you into a house
21:29
as an unknown where they can make 15,000,
21:32
they can bring $15,000 of revenue into their business,
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Like just it just doesn't line up like they just
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they would never take that risk of saying, oh, let me try to save a couple
21:44
hundred dollars here so that I jeopardize my $15,000 commission
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because I'm going to send in somebody I haven't vetted
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who knows where they're going to show up to.
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My homeowner's like, it just doesn't connect right
21:59
in the life of a realtor.
22:00
It just doesn't connect.
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They see the marketing as a very important part.
22:04
In fact, that's how they get more $15,000 checks.
22:09
Right?
22:09
They use they market their current listings, they get new listings.
22:13
So that kind of debunk the idea of this race to the bottom.
22:17
Let me underprice myself
22:21
mentality. Right.
22:22
And we saw that.
22:24
We saw the turn in when we started to hear
22:29
from our clients how we help their business.
22:33
Like in a partnership, I'm like, Oh, I can do this with it.
22:35
I can do that with it.
22:36
You guys are always on time and you're always there when I need you
22:39
and you're always so quick to respond and you're always so helpful.
22:43
And we heard, at least with our clients, that
22:47
our clients focus way more on that than price. So
22:51
we would send out
22:51
a survey every year and we would survey them
22:55
in many different areas and Price always came back as it was.
23:00
Yeah, I'm not unhappy, I'm not happy.
23:03
And we're good with that answer.
23:05
We don't ever want no one's ever been like, Oh, I'm so happy what?
23:08
I'm paying for your service
23:11
or no, and you're going to get somebody who always is
23:14
like, Well, yeah, I'm going to answer that.
23:15
I always want the service lower.
23:17
It's just the law of supply.
23:18
It's economics.
23:19
At that point, if your agents go, Yeah, I'm not unhappy or happy,
23:24
like I'm satisfied with the price and then they're rating you high
23:28
in customer satisfaction and value, which is different than price
23:32
rating, you high in quality rating, your customer service, high.
23:37
You know, you have a package that works for realtors.
23:41
So we had
23:42
found in those surveys that the price wasn't the thing
23:45
that was the hinge for people to use us are not use us.
23:48
It was just the fact that we needed to relay the information
23:52
as to how realtors would be impacted by our services better.
23:56
Yeah,
23:57
I think you can tie the idea and the concept of value
24:01
in back into relationship,
24:02
which is what we seem to preach over and over and over on this podcast
24:06
is the relationship is key in building a good, solid
24:11
and real estate media business because it goes back to that
24:15
that sales mantra, for lack of a better word, of people
24:19
buy from people they know like and trust and trust being being huge.
24:24
So how do you build trust if you don't even have a relationship?
24:27
Well, you got to get to know them and then you got to get them to like you
24:31
and do it in a you know, in an honest
24:36
what's the word I'm looking for?
24:37
Authentic way.
24:38
- Authentic. Yeah. - Yeah.
24:40
And it you know, different people do that in different ways.
24:44
You know, me if you've listened to the podcast before,
24:46
I like coffee meetings,
24:48
but I'm an introvert and I like one on one relationship building.
24:51
If you put me in a big party atmosphere like, like Vegas,
24:55
I'm the wallflower.
24:57
I'm I'm the one that's it's harder for me to engage,
25:00
but I can engage all day long, you know, one on one coffee meeting.
25:03
In fact, can I can I share a quick story that actually involves
25:07
one of our one of our Spiro users and a podcast watcher.
25:12
So, Shawn, of Spacecraft, Spacecraft Media.
25:15
Right.
25:15
I just point out wealth and candor. He changed. Oh, he changed it.
25:18
That's right. Yes.
25:19
I even saw his email address change.
25:22
So, yeah, Shawn reached out to us and said, Hey, I've got this.
25:27
This client of mine in my market is looking for an investment property
25:31
in in your market.
25:34
And Todd said, Well, yeah, talk to Craig.
25:36
That's that's the area he manages.
25:38
And so and I know Shawn, so Shawn and I connected and we started talking
25:43
and this client, yeah, wanted to invest in a property in Toledo
25:47
and said, Do you have anybody that you can suggest to my client,
25:50
you know, any realtors that she could work with
25:52
and trying to find something, Right?
25:53
Oh, yeah, I, I know a lot of people.
25:56
I said, let me put some feelers out, though,
25:58
and find somebody that you know is a rental income specialist.
26:01
So I reached out to about, I think it was six
26:03
or seven different realtors and got got some interest.
26:07
And yeah, I definitely I can I can do rental incomes
26:10
and I said, great, I'm
26:11
going to pass your information along to the, you know, to my colleague
26:15
and he'll pass it on to their, their client.
26:17
And one person said, no, I don't specialize in that, but I have
26:22
a, you know, another realtor in our brokerage that does
26:24
and she does a fantastic job and gave me her name.
26:28
And this is someone that's not currently a client of ours.
26:31
So I, I said, perfect, awesome.
26:35
Went ahead and sent her name,
26:36
but I reached out to her as well and introduced myself and said, Hey,
26:41
you know, Tom referred you to me and here's what's what's going on.
26:45
Explain the situation of this this realtor in in Shawn's market.
26:51
And she wrote back, Wow, thank you so much.
26:53
Even if I don't get the business, I really appreciate you,
26:56
you know, pass my name along.
26:58
And I said, absolutely.
26:59
You know, if Tom suggested you, I know I can I can trust that you're going
27:02
to be a great referral for this person to consider.
27:05
And I said,
27:07
You and I have never met and I've heard your name before, but
27:10
I've never had the chance to to, you know, get to know you or meet you or anything.
27:15
Would you be open to meeting for coffee?
27:17
My treat.
27:17
I'd love to get to know you and get to know your business and
27:21
you know your your time at this brokerage,
27:22
because this particular brokerage is a newer one in our market and
27:26
and you know, introduce myself and in Wow video tours a little bit more.
27:30
And she said absolutely. I would love to hear more about you guys.
27:32
She was just totally open.
27:34
And it all started because of relationship building.
27:37
And for me, who's not super outgoing, it was a very easy conversation.
27:43
And it's because I was like, you know, I did something for her.
27:47
Well, of course
27:48
she's going to want to reciprocate and be open to hearing more about Wow,
27:52
but also telling me more about herself and her business.
27:56
And I always couch it in the fact of, hey, I want to learn more about you
27:59
and learn about your real estate business.
28:01
I love hearing people's stories.
28:03
I really do. I love hearing people's personal stories.
28:07
And then I can just
28:08
kind of wrap in well, here's here's my story, here's what I do
28:11
and what I'm, you know, really enjoy doing and I'm passionate about.
28:14
And and maybe we can find some, you know, some synergy synergy.
28:19
I just used a business buzzword, Todd, that I swear I don't do.
28:23
I had this job one time where I had this inside sales manager that used
28:27
every business buzzword in the book to the point
28:31
where it is an inside.
28:34
I shouldn't admit this as an inside sales team,
28:36
we actually started secretly playing business buzzword bingo,
28:39
and every time he would use one of those words in a in a department
28:43
meeting, we'd have our little bingo board.
28:47
We would see who would win
28:50
That’s hillarious
28:50
And I swore I would never use business buzzwords like that.
28:53
Anyway, synergy.
28:54
There's your business buzzword for the day.
28:56
People.
28:58
Where was I? I don't know.
29:00
So I actually have a meeting right after the recording of this podcast
29:03
with this realtor.
29:04
And, you know, I might get her business,
29:05
I might not, but I'm looking forward to it and getting to know her.
29:08
And it all started just with building relationship.
29:12
And that's how you attract good clients, is you make it a win win situation.
29:17
It's not all about you
29:18
getting just you getting their business, but what can you do for them?
29:21
How can they win and how could it be a win for you as well?
29:24
So just keeping things positive, being helpful, serving others,
29:28
your business will grow,
29:30
you'll get referrals, and referrals are the best, I'm convinced
29:34
are the best way to build good business and attract really good clients.
29:39
For sure. For sure.
29:41
Yeah, we've seen that over the years and that is something that
29:46
I think and saying that.
29:49
So my method of
29:51
of selling, if you will, is so
29:53
I prefer the larger events, you know, I prefer the events.
29:56
I prefer the meetings, I prefer the presentations. Yep.
30:00
And so when I hear a story like oh, one on one coffee,
30:05
my brain goes a like,
30:08
oh, this is that's too slow for me.
30:11
And then I have to knock myself out of a hit myself in the brain.
30:14
You know, like our CD players used a skip and you have to hit it and it
30:20
and I'd have to get it in my brain.
30:24
I don't want any of you to discount the fact of building
30:26
relationships one at one, one on one.
30:30
Like if you have these huge goals.
30:33
And I had a couple that emailed in and they're a husband wife team
30:36
and they're like, Hey, we are obsessed with scaling.
30:38
Can we talk to you about scaling?
30:40
I'm like, Yeah, I'll talk to you about scaling,
30:41
so I'm going to talk to them.
30:43
Actually today, I think.
30:45
But the thing going on to start with is you have to.
30:49
So I love this analogy and I gave this to my 12 year old last night
30:53
because we were talking about some things that he's working on.
30:56
So if you are here
30:59
and think of it like the left side of a yardstick,
31:03
okay, so you're at zero and you want to get to there,
31:06
your big goal is the end of the yardstick away.
31:13
How do you get from here to there?
31:15
0 to 3 feet.
31:17
Okay, think of it as dominoes.
31:20
Can you set up one domino in the middle
31:23
and then tip your first domino over
31:26
to get that last domino knocked over?
31:29
No, you can't.
31:29
You're going to tip over that first domino is going to fall flat at two inches
31:33
and the middle domino and the end domino is still going to be standing.
31:37
Your goal is still going to be there.
31:38
You're not going to tip it over.
31:40
You have got to set up a domino
31:43
every half inch, quarter inch, whatever it is.
31:46
But those are all interactions that you do every day
31:50
and you have to build those relationships on one on one
31:54
will grow way faster than you all think.
31:57
And trust me, my brain immediately goes, Oh, just give me a
32:01
give me a room of 50 people.
32:03
Give me a zoom of 50 people.
32:04
Like, I'll just get on there, I'll bring some energy, I'll say
32:09
some corny jokes, I'll be sincere, and then I'll get 50 people.
32:12
No, it doesn't work that way.
32:14
It really doesn't. That can work.
32:16
But you build your business one client at a time
32:20
and you build a solid relationship.
32:22
One client at a time.
32:24
Our number one agent, she was a number one agent in Ohio for many years.
32:28
Many, many, many years.
32:30
She came to me through a referral.
32:32
I tried to call her a million times.
32:34
I tried to email her a million times.
32:36
I tried to give her everything, including my house, to use me.
32:40
Okay, Cindy, never call me back.
32:44
Shelly told Cindy about Todd.
32:47
Cindy called me, and I've told this story before.
32:50
I remember
32:52
I was in the upstairs of a loft at a house, and Cindy's calling my phone.
32:57
Yes, I had her. I had her keyed into my phone. Okay.
32:59
I guess maybe it's a little creepy,
33:01
but I want to know, like, I feel like I had her keyed into my phone.
33:04
She's calling me.
33:06
This is the number one agent in Ohio.
33:09
Like, this is the big dog.
33:11
She's calling me and she's like, Oh, and she was so friendly.
33:14
She's the kindest person in the face of the earth.
33:17
Love her, love her, love her.
33:18
And she's like, Oh, Shelly had such good things.
33:20
I've got a couple listings coming up. Can you shoot a few of them?
33:23
like Sure. She’s like. I have seven of them.
33:24
Can you come in next Tuesday?
33:27
And it was done.
33:28
It was done like it was that referral
33:32
because I built that relationship with Shelly it automatically.
33:35
So your one coffee meeting, the point
33:37
I'm trying to make and I'm not doing the greatest job,
33:40
but you're one coffee meeting will spread
33:44
like you don't realize
33:46
and I was I spent a lot of time with Shelly,
33:49
who was referred to by Bob, and I spent a ton of time with Bob,
33:53
and I built really, really good relationship with Bob and Shelly
33:57
and those two were out there
33:59
having my coffee meetings for me.
34:04
So I took the time to have
34:05
two really good coffee meetings and then I would nurture them.
34:09
When I would shoot for them, I would do what they would need.
34:12
And then they did all my meetings for me.
34:14
building raving fans.
34:16
Yes, yes.
34:18
Raving fans will market you.
34:20
They will.
34:21
And then once Cindy started using me and this ties into the presentation,
34:24
I'm going to give them Vegas about broker deals.
34:26
And this is the one thing you all ask me.
34:29
How do I get a brokered deal?
34:30
Well, I'm telling you through this story, like the broker deal,
34:33
the dominos at three feet, you're at zero right now.
34:36
You need to set up a lot of dominos to get to three feet.
34:39
But what happened was I built all those relationships
34:43
and there was relationships.
34:44
And between Shelly and Cindy, there was other relationships.
34:48
But anyways, long story short, once I got to Cindy,
34:52
that set up so many dominos that I didn't even realize,
34:55
and it got me to the managing broker of the company
34:59
that we have a brokership deal
35:01
with for 11 years that we've probably done
35:05
many, many millions of dollars in revenue with over those 11 years.
35:10
Because I had a few really good relationships
35:13
that created raving fans that got me to the number one.
35:18
Just get the top ten. You're good.
35:20
It's the same difference.
35:22
You get enough higher up agents to use you.
35:26
That managing broker.
35:28
The company will go, Oh, wait a minute, I've heard you all say this name enough.
35:33
Yeah. Yep.
35:35
And they'll want to meet with you.
35:36
And again, that managing broker emailed me and again I tried it.
35:41
I emailed him plenty of times.
35:43
I tried to give him everything away.
35:45
He didn't want it at that point. It doesn't matter.
35:47
He meant at the time there was 300 agents.
35:49
They have 550 agents now.
35:52
you're not going to give that man anything
35:54
that's going to make him think that he should use you.
35:57
You have to earn it. Yeah.
35:58
That's what business is all about.
35:59
It's really this simple, but it takes one step in front of the other,
36:04
one foot in front of the other, and you have to go a little by little.
36:09
Let me play devil's advocate real quick, Todd.
36:12
So we both started our businesses
36:15
in markets that you 20 years ago.
36:18
The idea of professional real estate media was almost unheard of,
36:23
so you didn't necessarily have a ton of competition,
36:26
so to speak, other than getting realtors
36:28
to think passed, shooting their own really bad photos.
36:31
- right - me
36:34
you know, many, many years later, 2017 is when I started my business, my market.
36:38
There were some real estate photographers,
36:40
but they were solo shooters and they were only doing photos.
36:43
There was no video.
36:44
If they were doing Drone, they were hiring another company.
36:47
So it was a similar situation for me where I was able to grow fairly quickly
36:51
because I didn't have a ton of competition.
36:54
I got out of the business for a year and a half or so, and what I've got
36:59
when I got back in, when I joined the Wow team, it was a different market.
37:03
There was probably two or three other larger competitors that were now doing
37:07
similar to what we were, and I found that it wasn't quite as easy
37:12
to land new clients or even necessarily get old clients back.
37:17
That there, had wandered to these other companies.
37:20
So what would you say to the person that is listing right now
37:23
that's just starting their business?
37:24
They're going, Todd, this is easy for you to say.
37:26
This sounds like, Oh yeah, I'm just to grow so fast
37:29
in the reality of the market that we're in today, where
37:33
there are a lot of real estate photographers and,
37:35
you know, real estate media companies out there.
37:40
What we do say to the person that's still having a little bit
37:42
of a challenge and can't quite get past that mentality of,
37:46
oh, I'm just I'm too small to to stand a chance against the big dogs.
37:51
I love this question.
37:52
This is the perfect question.
37:54
Craig,
37:56
Stop focusing on what you cannot control
38:00
and focus on what you can control.
38:03
Back in 2004,
38:08
I couldn't control that
38:11
video wasn't played on the Internet.
38:14
We were on dial-up Internet.
38:17
Why an idiot in his right mind tries
38:19
to sell a product to someone that nobody can use.
38:24
Like I'm telling like,
38:25
How did you pull that off, Todd?
38:29
I don't. I just.
38:31
I love the video. I loved it so much.
38:33
I would say, Hey, it's fine.
38:35
Just click on it, come back 30 minutes later and you can watch the video.
38:40
That's what I told him.
38:41
Craig Well, my excitement for it.
38:43
- Yes, Yes, that - I loved it.
38:45
I knew it could work for them.
38:48
Excitement for what you do is infectious to others.
38:51
I've I've been able to honestly look someone in the eye say, I love what I do.
38:56
And the response.
38:56
Nine times out of ten.
38:57
The response I get today is I can tell.
38:59
And they want to be they want to be partnered with enthusiasm
39:04
and excitement and positive thinking.
39:06
I truly love what you do.
39:08
If you really love what you do, it's going to be hard to sell it,
39:14
for lack of a better word, it's going to be, yes, you're selling your services,
39:17
but if you're not enthused, if you don't really enjoy your work,
39:21
your work will show that in your your demeanor will definitely show that.
39:25
And that's that's not infectious.
39:26
That's not going to attract the type of clients that you really want to attract.
39:30
agree it's it's all about that mindset like you said, Craig
39:35
and you have to be you just there's some simple things
39:38
that I've learned over the years and I see you've learned and you do.
39:41
We all do, Craig.
39:42
But it's keeping the thoughts high
39:45
and keeping things positive,
39:48
And again, when you're positive, you keep your thoughts high.
39:52
You don't focus on what you don't have.
39:54
- You focus on what you have - that's good.
39:56
And you excited about that.
39:57
And I think, you know, along the ways, I've had a lot of mentors
40:01
and I have this fabulous team around me now
40:04
and we pick each other up and push each other along.
40:07
I have a coach as well, so I'm not saying that you need a coach,
40:11
that you probably do need a mentor, you need someone.
40:14
Life is lonely at the top.
40:16
Like if you're the owner of your company, it's very lonely.
40:18
You're not going to turn anyone and get like a pity party from from now.
40:24
And if they
40:24
do, it's going to be somewhat and think of it like no disrespect
40:28
for they're an employee of yours, like why are they feeling sorry for you?
40:31
Like they're going to be like, Well, what is this?
40:33
They're going to lose confidence in your business.
40:35
So yes.
40:36
Yeah, it just it's so important to focus on
40:40
what you have, sell what you have, and don't worry about it.
40:43
Don't.
40:43
If you're so focused that there's 300 other real estate photographers
40:46
in your city, then you should probably and I say this with love from my heart,
40:52
you should probably just do something different.
40:54
Yeah.
40:55
Or get off the fact that you have this pity party for yourself
40:59
and just go do the things that we talk about that you can find on the internet.
41:04
This is business.
41:05
This is honestly pretty basic business stuff.
41:08
And I think for a lot of us we would think that
41:10
it wouldn't apply to us because we were in a different industry
41:13
like, Oh, that doesn't apply to me.
41:15
And Eli Jones tells a story really well.
41:17
It's like, Well, my business is different, you know, you all listen to your
41:21
you listen to us, you need to listen to other podcast.
41:24
And the other podcast might not be specific about real estate photography.
41:28
And you go, Oh, well, that doesn't apply to me
41:30
because I'm a real estate photographer.
41:32
No, that all applies to you.
41:33
Well, I don't know
41:36
what else to say about the topic and how to attract good clients.
41:41
I mean, I've kind of covered everything I can think of.
41:44
You know, I had one client, Todd, that.
41:49
Yeah, I don't know if I would want to tell that story.
41:51
It she wasn't my favorite client.
41:53
You know, it's a situation where the client doesn't value you.
41:58
And I still did the best job I could
42:00
for them, but they've kind of faded away,
42:04
you know,
42:05
you don't want to spend too much energy on clients that don't value.
42:09
You still take take the best care of them that you can.
42:13
But I wouldn't expend extra energy to try and appease
42:17
what might be
42:20
really kind of unrealistic expectations that that might have of you.
42:24
For sure.
42:24
Yeah.
42:25
spend your your energy, where it's going to be valued and appreciated.
42:28
Yeah. Yeah.
42:29
We had a client that was one of my first clients,
42:31
literally 20, 20 years with us, and she doesn't do a lot of listings.
42:35
We hear from her maybe every other year and when we do, it's very difficult.
42:40
And so we finally just made the call
42:42
and Chris was like, Hey, I, I don't think we can make you happy.
42:45
I'm so sorry.
42:47
We don't think I don't think we can make you happy.
42:49
And she's like, Yeah, probably not.
42:51
And he's like, you know, I really appreciate the time
42:53
and, you know, you need a referral and, and it was done and when we told the
42:59
story back here at the conference table, you could just see the weight lifted off
43:02
the face of people like, oh, like, honestly, we tracked the hours.
43:06
It was it was 4 hours of man hours on the phone
43:10
and on email that wasn't at the shoot.
43:12
It was 4 hours attending to the calls to the changes.
43:16
She wanted it and we were just like, We need to make this call.
43:19
So, you know, that's not 100% what this podcast is about,
43:22
but it was about attracting good clients.
43:25
And then sometimes you just have to say, Hey, I'm so sorry, I don't think
43:27
I can really please you, give you what you want.
43:30
And in the long run, that's efficiency for you.
43:33
You know, Is it going to cost you more to keep that client than to let them go?
43:38
yeah, that's our pumpkin plan again, Craig.
43:41
You know, what's funny is
43:42
I just got an email from Amazon of trying Audible for the first time,
43:47
and you get an audiobook version of the Pumpkin Plan for free.
43:51
Nice.
43:52
I didn't respond to that.
43:53
Yeah, I might have to do that.
43:55
So anyway, that's you saying the pumpkin plan made me think of that?
43:59
Yeah. For those you, they're like, What are you talking about? It's,
44:01
it's by Mike Michalowicz
44:03
It's, it's called the pumpkin plan.
44:05
The pumpkin plan or pumpkin planning.
44:08
If you type in Mike and pumpkin and Amazon, it's going to come up.
44:11
I'll put a link in the show notes for that as well.
44:13
No, we're not getting any sort of sponsorship from Amazon
44:18
or anything for mentioning that.
44:19
- It's just a good book, that - we're not even getting our $0.12 on that click.
44:24
We don't do that either.
44:25
We just want to help you guys.
44:26
So yeah, but
44:28
Well, good stuff.
44:29
I think that's going to wrap it up this week, Todd
44:31
Unless you have any other closing thoughts,
44:33
Just my last request is what do you guys need?
44:36
Continue to send us.
44:37
We want to hear from you guys.
44:39
And I think one thing that is interesting to all of us as we talk
44:42
here on the Spiro side is the fact that we're building this community.
44:46
And it's neat to see you guys converse in that and the group.
44:49
But what you guys need is a community.
44:51
Do you need an accountability?
44:53
Do you need a coach? Do you need someone to turn to?
44:55
I don't know what you need. You tell me what you need.
44:58
And if it's something that we can create, we can put together or we can connect,
45:02
maybe we can connect you with someone in opposite markets who's of the like size,
45:06
or maybe someone who's a step ahead of you and like mentorship.
45:10
I don't know what it is.
45:11
I'm honestly making this up, as I tell you right now,
45:15
but the idea of knowing what you all want and what's in your head
45:19
like I want to know that like that just fascinates me and that excites me.
45:23
So email me.
45:24
hello@spiro.media.
45:26
Let me know what your business needs.
45:28
What would make your job easier?
45:30
Where do you felt feel? There's a gap in your business.
45:32
If I just had this one thing, I could grow some much bigger.
45:36
Let me know what that is
45:37
Right
45:38
Or if there's a specific topic, you need more information,
45:41
whether it's business insurance or accounting or,
45:43
you know any of the
45:45
Craig, of all the topics you pick, you wait a minute.
45:48
This is
45:50
this is a legitimate business question.
45:54
We've had listeners ask it before.
45:56
I stand by it, Todd.
45:58
Okay.
45:58
These are real business questions and we've even done some podcasts on them.
46:03
Yeah, I see people.
46:04
Todd is my boss, but I'm not backing down on this one.
46:08
- business insurance, accounting - all of the fun topics that you guys
46:12
have, business insurance or accounting or
46:16
Hey, when
46:16
I started my business first business.
46:19
I was the type of person I always worked for somebody else.
46:22
I never bothered to learn about any of that stuff.
46:24
So that prospect of starting your own business, that those are valid questions.
46:29
- I got to learn about this. - Yeah. So I take this all back.
46:32
I'm sorry if you have those questions.
46:34
I'm not saying that their bad questions
46:37
Watch it backpedal, people.
46:39
I'm just saying of all the like, like buzzwords
46:42
that Craig could have used, like how to grow and scale to $1,000,000
46:46
and like, like he's like, let's talk about business insurance.
46:52
We are not click baity podcasters.
46:56
No, we're actually probably really terrible podcasters
46:58
with that what the algorithm and all that, we're probably doing it all wrong.
47:02
But we're hearing from you guys and we're loving it.
47:04
So that's all that matters.
47:06
Then we do like to laugh. People
47:08
just got to be real about ourselves, right?
47:11
I'm just a guy in northwest Ohio that I've worked in many different jobs
47:16
and I can't take myself too seriously.
47:21
All right?
47:23
We totally derailed that.
47:25
I mean, there's nobody listening right now, so at least we enjoyed it.
47:28
No one else.
47:29
- Everybody else is on in the next podcast, you know, - for a Tuesday morning.
47:32
It made my Tuesday.
47:33
Okay, Let's wrap this up, guys.
47:36
Thank you so much for putting up with us
47:38
for and during the podcast, hopefully you find some value.
47:41
If you did, please like subscribe, share, you know, all that good stuff.
47:45
It really does help us
47:46
to reach more people with just information we think is helpful to others,
47:51
but we really do love what we do
47:53
and appreciate you being a part of this and watching and listening.
47:56
So make sure this week take some time out,
47:59
especially as we approach November and Thanksgiving here in the U.S.,
48:03
Take some time out just to be thankful for the blessings in your life
48:06
and make sure you take a breath. Have a great week.
48:08
Thank you for joining us for the Spiro podcast,
48:11
managing your real estate photography and videography Business.
48:15
This is a production of Spiro and wow video tours.
48:19
You can find out more about Spiro is real estate, media, business management
48:22
software at our website, Spiro.media.