Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / It's Harder the Better You Get

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It's Harder the Better You Get · 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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you have to embrace the realization
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that doing the same work that you have done
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is not going to move your business along further.
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Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast, managing your real estate,
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photography and videography business.
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Spiro is a software platform.
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We designed it
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designed by a real estate media company for real estate media companies
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to help you manage your day to day business.
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But ultimately we want to see is scale and grow as well
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and be a part of that with you.
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Welcome to the podcast.
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I'm Craig Magrum
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and along with me, each and most every week, one of us is on here.
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One what you know at one point or the other.
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Todd Kivimaki, owner founder, co-host, partner in crime,
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superhero, all things software.
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What else can I come up with? Todd?
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Craig, do you want a raise? Is that what you're looking for?
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No. I'm good.
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I'm good.
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I'm good. But the company takes care of me.
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I just I, I just want to put this out here publicly.
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For for listeners. No. No, seriously.
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I do brag to our clients about what a great company Wow video tours is
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the culture that has been built at our company, led by our owner, Todd.
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And I'm not saying that to get a raise.
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I really enjoy working at this company.
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And when I, when I do that, it it shows the clients that are confident
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that they've chosen the right company to work with because they see me
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enjoying my job, the work I get to do, the way the company takes care of me.
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And, so, just,
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quick aside for the the argument
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for building great culture, your employees will advocate for you to your clients.
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And that builds strong relationships.
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So. Well, thank you for that, Craig.
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It's yeah, it's,
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you know, it's it's one of those things and this isn't actually the topic today,
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but it'd be a good one for a future podcast is you know, it takes a
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it takes a lot of work.
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And I underestimated nurturing the culture and, and explicitly
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saying what the culture was and holding people accountable for the culture.
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Once we defined it for a lot of years, then I felt a lot of pain
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and that pain was greater than the pain of actually protecting the culture.
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So I finally made a change.
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I can be bullheaded sometimes, and when you get it right,
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and we're not perfect by any means, but when you get it right,
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it's a really good thing for everyone involved.
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Yeah.
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It goes back to that quote I've shared before that I learned at Cherry Street
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Mission in Toledo
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that our C CEO taught us, people don't change, cultures don't change.
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Companies don't change until the pain of staying
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the same is greater than the pain of the change.
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You need to make. Yeah.
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So yeah, we're kind of going to talk about that today.
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Craig will use that same statement with our topic today.
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That's true. That's true.
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And we'll we'll introduce that in just a minute.
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But Spiro updates tab something big just rolled out.
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Yeah. Just a quick one for you.
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It's actually when we're
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recording this, it's February 6th and this hit two days ago.
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So probably by the time you're getting this,
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this might have been a couple weeks or more,
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but we have revamped this is upon enormous amounts of request.
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So we listened to you all.
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I know sometimes it doesn't feel like that.
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We really do.
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And you all said, how can it be
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easier for my agents to download video?
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Hey, they need the video on their cell phone, especially iOS.
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It was very tricky with pop ups and blocking and goes to files
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and hit the share code.
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You have to jump through 42 hoops on iOS to get a video, and your camera.
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And the
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engineering team has been working on this behind the scenes for quite some time.
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They did their magic.
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And now when your clients go to the download page and there's a video
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and I'll just take the iOS path, because this is always easy on Android,
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but on iOS.
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So iPhone, iPad, you click download and there's a prompt on the screen
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that lets them know the video is, the download is processing.
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They can see a nice dialog box that fills up when the downloads done.
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There's a pop up box that asks them to continue to save their file.
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They click continue.
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Then they're going to get the iOS
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system screen at the bottom.
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That is basically like, hey, here's the file.
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What do you want to do with it?
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You can.
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The top option is send it to a contact.
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The second option is the apps that are in the quick menu.
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And then the best option in the option that you'll want to tell your clients
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is it says Save Video when you click Save Video.
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And this is different than Save to files.
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When you click Save Video, that
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agent can now click Save Video.
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Go to their camera.
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And the last media type will be
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that video in their camera roll.
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So we're extremely excited about this and what this allows your agent to do
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is go through that process, go straight to Instagram, hit upload, browse,
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camera, boom, upload the video right to their social feed.
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Just as an aside, isn't it ironic
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you just said it's super easy on Android, but iOS?
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It's been challenging.
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Mac is supposed to be like the platform for creators and media,
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and yet it's harder to to save the media on iOS.
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That just kind of popped it.
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Yeah, a few whoops, I this security I you know, I,
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I agree with you but it's solved now for everyone right.
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Kudos to the to to the development team.
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Yeah. And keep keep the feedback coming.
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Please do. It's super helpful.
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We are we work on a lot of things behind the scenes, and,
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we appreciate the feedback and the support that you guys give us.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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All right, well, Todd, we have a whole slate of guests
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scheduled now, for the next, probably close to two months,
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for the podcast speakers,
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both on the mainstage and, the workshops and the breakouts
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from the Spiro sync conference
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that are going to be joining us, like I said,
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for the next month and a half or two months or so,
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and we're super excited to have them there.
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Their schedules are very busy as well.
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So there's been a slight delay in getting them in the schedule
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that worked for them.
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But we are just very, very thankful for the time that they're going to be
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giving us, to benefit you.
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Here on this podcast and share the knowledge that they shared
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at at the Spiro Sync conference.
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But in the meantime, you're going to have to put up with Todd and I
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one more week here.
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But, Todd, this morning
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at our staff meeting, you made a comment that
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just kind of jumped out at me and I. It's not going to be an exact quote.
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But you made a statement that something to the effect of this.
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And go ahead and correct me, clarify whatever.
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But you made a comment that said it's harder to get better, the better you are.
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I'm like, oh yeah, I suppose
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that is because the next step to improving
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when you're already at such a high level
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seems exponentially harder
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than when you're just starting out at something, and any changes
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can, well, any positive change is going to be a big step forward.
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And I just thought that was really interesting.
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Yeah I and what was said before
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that was from Jess, our head of operations at Wow.
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And she has been on fire lately to just make changes,
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to make things better, to get people aligned,
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to finalize and clean up
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any SOPs that might be hanging, you know, out hanging.
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And she
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gave a few wins.
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And our morning, I mean, we always start with wins
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and then we go to our leader, Steve and Jess.
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And Jess has been fired up and she started by thanking the team for their support.
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And then she apologized for her
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for her.
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Well, she used a word, but it's.
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But for her excitement, her energy, for her passion.
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Insert your favorite intensity.
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Intensity? Yes. Yeah, yeah.
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And I think this shows that she's a great leader
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by bringing that up and apologize for it, apologizing for it.
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Excuse me, but also the other thing is
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this is year 23 of wow.
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Yes, 2025 was our best year ever by about 20%.
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That's so 2024 was the best year
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before that by about 25%.
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So as we grow, it
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gets harder and harder every year to grow better.
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And I just really appreciate appreciated her energy
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because quite honestly, we could probably sit back and do what
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we've done for 23 years and we would about maintain
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we might go, we might hover the same, we might go down minimally,
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but we have a foundation of a lot of years and a lot of strong relationships that.
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If we were,
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if we were content, would probably stay about the same
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and minimally go down over the next ten years
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and I just wanted to make the point to the team that it's
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going to take this thinking from everyone and then everyone support,
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because core value number two is about hard work.
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We always say, if it was easy, everybody would do it.
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We don't want to do the easy road here, and I know you don't at your business.
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And this aligns with core value, our last core value that says think growth.
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We want to grow.
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That's a core value I actually the on the wall out here
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and they're painting it today.
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We have our core values hung up.
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And if we wanted to stay where we are at in 2025, I'd probably
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have to throw the picture away today and take it off a core value.
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And that is okay.
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You can change your core values over the years, but it's not for us.
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We're still aligned with our our five core values.
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And I just really appreciate what Jess said.
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And you know, when you get content with things, things can get scary, right?
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Yeah, I mean, there's there's that business principle
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that if you're not moving forward, you're falling behind.
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You know, I'll admit, Todd, like when I, when I had my, my business,
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you know, I got to that point where I was comfortable,
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like I was making decent money compared to what I've ever made in the past.
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Working, working in ministry.
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And I, I know that one of my strengths,
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versus weaknesses is.
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I like to be hands on with the work that I do.
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And I'd like to work shoulder to shoulder with people
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versus leading them.
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Now, I might have influence
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working shoulder to shoulder, and that is a form of leadership.
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But to be the out front leader was not my strength.
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And I knew that I was at the point in my business where I either had
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to stay at the size I was, which was basically it was a two man show.
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I had one other photographer and myself, and I was doing basically everything
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in Stay Boutique, which is okay
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if that's what your goal is.
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But at some point
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you're going to carry some weight and it's going to burn you out doing that.
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And I recognize that.
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And I knew that at some point there would be bigger companies
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that would move into our, our, market where I was
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and they would be pushing forward, and I would eventually get left in the dust.
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So there is that, you know, that pretty solid
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principle that if you're not growing, you're falling behind.
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So what I, what I kind of wanted to pick your brain
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on, Todd was just, you know, wows kind of wows history.
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The why of growing
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and looking at the impact of continuing to grow
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and get better, even though it's getting harder to get better.
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What is the impact on the bottom line for the business
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to keep pushing that way, versus what is the impact on the bottom line
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of just settling where where you're at and continuing to do the best that you can,
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but not necessarily making those steps to get better when it's harder.
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Does that make sense?
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It does. Craig.
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And and so I'll go back to my why our goals and I mentioned more than that.
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We want to grow like I when I started this
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I wanted to do as many tours as possible for anyone anywhere.
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And so I commonly, you know,
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when you play the what if game, it's typically on my calculator.
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And I've shared before like I am motivated by money
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and I would typically go, hey, if
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each agent spends,
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I charge of $75 for a video Craig and doing video only.
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So I take $75 because that was my average order value.
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I didn't know it was called that at the time, but I took 75 times.
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I'm working with 20 agents, okay, times 20.
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And I'd say, well, maybe they order
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two with me a month on average, and I put two and I'd hit enter
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and I'd get a number like, oh, that's kind of fun.
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Well, what if not if it wasn't, you know, 15 or 20 agents?
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What if it was 100 agents?
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What if it was a 1000 agents?
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And I would continue to do that on my calculator?
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And the more you hit enter, the more zeros you get and the more fun it is.
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And so that was always
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a goal of mine, of just wanting to scale this business.
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And I was always, I'm okay
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with the idea of you have to spend money to make money.
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That was always and that just seemed natural to me.
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I was fine with everything I had started prior.
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I like that type of accountability
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and so I was always okay with spending the money.
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And then you get to a certain point, right?
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We all do.
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You know, the more zeros you add anything events,
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you're gonna be like, oh, that's a lot of zeros.
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And in those situations,
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let's call the plateaus of business Craig.
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That's when
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if your business has plateaued,
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you're probably doing the actions that got you to this point.
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And you are at a crossroads, that doing
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the same actions are not going to take you any higher.
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What got you here won't get you there.
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Exactly.
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Craig.
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The book what got you here won't get you there by Marshall Goldsmith.
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When I hired a coach
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and I was in one of these plateaus.
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First coach I ever hired.
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And it was a nerve wracking hire because it cost a lot of money.
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Eventually, just so fed up again, the pain was more of staying where
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I was at and in some of the situations and the pain of spending the money.
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It was actually the second book you had me read.
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And, the first one was, Leadership and Self-deception by the Alex Berger
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Institute.
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He had me read this book, and it's got some really great points
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in it, but it's the idea of like, hey, what are you doing today?
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And so right now
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in your business, if you are a 1 or 2 man band and you are still shooting
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and you want to get to a team of 5, 10,50,
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is shooting going to allow you that growth?
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If you're quality checking your images,
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is that going to allow you to growth?
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If you're okay, let's take your next phase.
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So about 50 K a month and up okay.
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So I coach many of you in the orbit program.
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That's Eli Jones's repp coaching.
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We handle the 50K a month and up.
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It's called orbit.
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And so you individuals might right now still be training.
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Many of you aren't shooting but you might be training new photographers.
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You might be hiring new photographers.
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Maybe it's time that you need to bring
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a lead photographer in and empower them to train the team
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so it can be many different things, and a lot of times it disguises itself.
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And it's tricky.
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And you know why?
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The reason it disguises our self and it's so hard for us to pick up on it.
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It's because we really enjoy doing those activities
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and we're really, really good at them.
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So, Craig, back to your example of shooting.
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And, you know, you had this idea
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of staying in a boutique company and that was fine.
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But did you enjoy shooting, building relationships
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with your clients, and did you feel like you were really good at it?
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Yeah, that that those are my two favorite things to do.
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What I didn't like was the bookkeeping that I had to do Saturday morning,
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chewing up that Saturday morning when I could have been
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spending time with my family.
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You know, the, the,
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bringing on another photographer, even though I worked well with them.
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Like I said, I don't necessarily like being a manager of people.
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I'd rather work shoulder to shoulder with people.
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But. Yeah, but
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what I have found, Todd, is I'm getting older,
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especially this winter, is these winters.
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I'm not quite enjoying shooting outside
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quite as much as it didn't bother me before.
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So I've got to start thinking through what,
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you know, what changes do I need to make in my my career
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moving forward that's going to both serve the company
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and challenge me and keep me interested in moving forward as well.
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Yeah.
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And that's an interesting that's kind of an interesting point.
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So let's take a tangent here, Craig,
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because this is on the topic, but off the topic
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because many of you might be at this crossroads.
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So I have a fantastic
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employee in Craig, and it is a lot more personal that I just can't, you know.
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But he is he's a key person on our team and we've won.
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We've had conversations with Craig about this already.
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Steve has I have we you know, lunch up in Findlay, Ohio
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Craig that I can remember that we talked about goals and things you want to do.
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So the first step is really understanding Craig's goals.
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Like we do not want to lose Craig.
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Can we expect Craig to shoot until he's 70?
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It's only
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four years from now, but probably not.
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Maybe single level condos on the inside.
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The only.
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And you have the young guys do the outside
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and Florida and yes, yes I could start a chapter done.
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Oh, there's so many of you down at Florida already know that would be really hard.
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Yeah, that's true.
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Yeah.
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And Craig, you didn't pick up on I said yes.
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It's only four years from now when.
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No, no I miss it.
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Yeah there I age.
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Well what can I say.
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So no we can't.
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But we want to keep Craig at the company engaged.
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And at the end of the day, we want to make sure Craig can reach his goals.
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I'm never for, like, trying to strongarm somebody in a company.
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And Craig would never do that.
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But you have to make sure people can reach their goals at your company.
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So we understand this and we understand this trajectory and path
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that Craig wants to go on, and we support him on that.
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And Craig, I guess, just what have we done
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specifically in your market to begin to work towards these things?
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Well, for one, we've we've been able to,
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hire a new, new photographer.
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We call them videographers because they're doing photos and video. And,
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this guy
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has a really great attitude, presents himself really well.
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So he's he's starting to train to eventually start
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taking some of those shoots off my schedule
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so that I'm not shooting as much and I can spend more time on the business
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development side of things, building those relationships, providing education
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to our clients on how to best use the media that we're providing for them.
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Because I do like to teach,
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and like just practically speaking, speaking.
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Yeah, eventually I don't necessarily want to be out trudging, trudging
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around in the snow and, you know, freezing
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my fingers off and whatnot. But,
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yeah.
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So number one is hiring another photographer in the market that I serve,
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which is fantastic. Yeah.
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And this is this this actually segue like we planned at Craig.
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Although, I'll be honest with you all,
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we didn't plan to segue this way into the second half of the conversation,
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but this is the idea of creating new columns and moving up those columns.
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What do you mean by that?
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Yeah.
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So you I've talked a lot about time tracking,
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and I had a coach who is very big on this and I would do it.
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And it was it's fabulous.
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And so he had you track your time or I would track my time.
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And I still do this throughout the year at least a couple times
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to hold myself honest and to see what has changed.
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And, and, and I always remember that what got me here won't get me there.
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And so I will track my time.
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And typically it's like I'm 15 minute intervals and I
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take it from morning to when I leave all my business time.
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And then I do this for probably two weeks is a good time to do it.
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And after those two weeks, I analyze the results,
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and I
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look at those tasks and I categorize those actions that I did
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while working in the three different categories.
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One is admin.
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Okay, low level task.
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I quality checked photos.
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I helped with client support.
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You know, I had a couple of those this week.
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I'll be transparent.
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The support team was Spiro.
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We had, 1 or 2 people off.
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It was the early morning.
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I worked early morning.
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I saw that there was a bunch of tickets in there.
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I talk with my and talk with them and like, hey, you guys want me to jump in?
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Amy is like, Amy, our head of customer support, said, yeah, it'd be great.
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Like, if you have time. If not, I can.
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I can try to keep going.
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And we have someone coming on in about 30 minutes.
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I said, hey, I'll jump in for 30 minutes.
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And I actually had a ball doing. It was fun to talk to you.
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I, you know, like I and again back to like, why did I love doing it?
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One because I did it a lot for a long time because there was no one else.
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So when you guys had questions, it was me in the bubble only.
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And number two, like, I feel like I'm pretty good at it.
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Like there's not a one question in it that comes in that like I'm like,
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oh, I don't know this. Like, I know it, I enjoy doing it.
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I enjoy giving solutions and helping you all use the software better.
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So for me, if I was time tracking this past week,
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that would have been categorized admin level work.
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Yeah.
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Then the second category is nurse work.
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So this is higher.
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You know,
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if you think of a health care organization,
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the admin is going to check you in at the front desk.
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The nurse is going to come back and he or she is going to take your blood pressure.
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They might draw blood.
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They are going to do various things.
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Okay.
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And then you categorize nurse.
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And then the final category is doctor
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and doctor.
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Are these really pinpointed task.
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When you go in to see the doctor, what's the typical thing?
24:06
Always them for five minutes and out.
24:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:10
You know, the nurse is probably building rapport.
24:12
The admin has built some rapport with you.
24:15
The nurse spends a little more time, and then the doctor is in
24:19
and he, he or she is out as quick as possible
24:23
because the doctor understands where their time is valuable,
24:26
and they understand that the more people they can see him, 5 or 10 minute
24:31
intervals, the more people they can help.
24:35
And so you're looking at these categories at the end of the week.
24:39
And this sometimes is a realization.
24:42
There might be some Time Bandits in there.
24:45
And you have to kind of be careful because I'll give you an example, Craig,
24:49
of one thing.
24:49
For me, that's a time bandit is social media.
24:54
Yeah.
24:55
So I could very easily justify that.
24:57
Me spending too much time on social media during the day,
25:01
and I don't spend it in the evening
25:02
I don't have my password on my phone
25:04
because I know my social media password accounts are on my phone.
25:09
I'll go and look at them.
25:10
And only my work laptop has the password manager
25:16
that holds my social media accounts,
25:19
and I actually don't even know my password manager login.
25:22
It's on a file inside my account, so I've had to like
25:26
I had to lock myself out.
25:28
Yeah, like literally four year old level.
25:31
Like,
25:32
you know, I have gates and bumpers all around
25:34
because I don't have the self-discipline to not check.
25:37
But I could justify
25:38
social media because one, it is part of my job description.
25:43
I do see it as my job description.
25:45
To spend time with you all on social media.
25:48
Make sure I understand how everybody's feeling,
25:50
makes sure I can answer questions or connect with you all.
25:53
And as the owner of the company,
25:56
I am still the face of Spiro and then we're bringing more people in.
26:00
But I could justify that time, right?
26:03
But I have to be very careful because that can sneak away from you very quick.
26:07
Oh yeah.
26:09
So I am very careful about categorizing those things.
26:12
There might be a little bit of time that I'm a doctor on social media,
26:15
but some of it's just admin level work.
26:18
Let me rewind
26:19
just a little bit and just ask a very base level question,
26:22
because this is something I was,
26:23
I was discussing with, with somebody else that was picking my brain on some things.
26:28
When you're looking to grow your business and make that,
26:31
you know, that next hire, which is part of getting better, right?
26:35
If you're trying to grow your company, you know, say you're you're wanting
26:38
to hire a new business development specialist person,
26:43
but your budget isn't necessarily
26:46
quite there and you don't necessarily have the money, right.
26:50
You know, upfront to be able to bring somebody on, how do you handle
26:55
that very base level question of,
26:58
can I afford to hire somebody right now?
27:01
Yeah, it's a great question.
27:02
I'm going to answer it with, a little bit
27:05
of a different perspective just specifically for this question.
27:09
Craig. Okay.
27:10
If your business is not doing 50 to 100 K a month,
27:14
you're probably not to the level of hiring a sales person.
27:18
Okay?
27:19
I think a lot of times I see some owners that have success
27:22
and they might get to ten, 20, 30, even 50.
27:26
And they say and they don't enjoy sales.
27:30
You know, the dirty word is sales.
27:32
And they're like, I'm just going to hire it.
27:34
And I would really
27:37
caution you in doing that.
27:39
Okay.
27:40
Number one, because if you hire a salesperson
27:43
who is going to manage that salesperson
27:46
has to be you. Yes.
27:48
And if you have if you're not comfortable with selling
27:52
and you don't really know what the path
27:55
is to successfully selling,
27:58
it means you one haven't done the job at two,
28:01
you haven't been a manager of those people say if you've never managed salespeople,
28:06
I would not suggest that you jump into it at that stage in your business.
28:11
Interesting. Okay.
28:14
And salespeople are driven differently,
28:18
and it's not a bad thing.
28:19
You actually need them to be driven by money and getting the sale.
28:22
And they like to help people too.
28:24
I'm not I don't want to paint a bad picture here, but I will tell you,
28:27
I struggled many years with managing the sales team.
28:32
And then I
28:33
finally hired a manager to manage to build and manage the sales team.
28:38
And I learned a lot of things there.
28:39
Like I was literally going to the library.
28:41
This is when you still went to the library.
28:43
I was getting like books, like on how to manage sales teams,
28:47
and I learned a lot from it.
28:49
So this was this idea of like, what got me here won't get me there eventually.
28:54
I'm I'm bullheaded enough.
28:55
I'll try something for long enough
28:56
and I'll go, hey, I need to learn more about this.
29:01
And so that was me continuing to understand that
29:04
I'm lacking these abilities.
29:06
Let me go learn about them.
29:08
And that got me from here to there or let me hire someone.
29:11
You know, if I hired people.
29:13
And that was me educating myself.
29:17
So. Okay, going back up, up the ladder here of the discussion
29:21
of of the hard work of getting better, the better you are.
29:25
So in the last year, Todd, you know, for Wow video tours,
29:29
you know, you said we've grown what, 20 20 some percent over last year.
29:33
Yeah. About 20% last year. Right.
29:36
So what are the you don't have to go into specifics,
29:39
but what are the challenges that that Wow was facing from last year to this year.
29:44
And what's what's the approach or the plan or the,
29:50
the strategy to tackle the next steps
29:53
to get better when, when we've been at this for 23 years.
29:57
What's the method of organizing how you're going to approach getting better?
30:01
Yeah,
30:03
it all ties back to our core values.
30:06
So let me just walk you through some examples and some of this.
30:09
I'll completely be transparent.
30:11
I hear a lot of this,
30:12
but you might know more than me and some of these topics, Craig, because I
30:17
you know, we talk during this and I meet with Steve and Jess and
30:20
I have an idea of where they're going and they're managing their own,
30:25
you know, priorities and goals, initiatives inside of our big goals.
30:29
So let's just walk down our core values.
30:32
And I think this will be a fun activity.
30:34
And this will make maybe help you all realize that Y core values
30:37
are so important.
30:38
And just tying everything back to that allows you, as the owner
30:42
to succeed, even though you don't have to be in everything.
30:46
Okay.
30:46
So core value number one is clients are our number one priority.
30:50
And so currently right now we
30:53
are working on well one look video download.
30:57
Y'all gave us that idea like that I announced that up morning mean
31:00
everybody is thrilled.
31:01
How can we make it easier for our agents to download video to order?
31:05
How can we give better support?
31:07
How can we give better, you know, client onboarding?
31:11
Okay. An example Craig.
31:12
We just back hired and Craig
31:14
is going to spend more of his time building relationships in his city.
31:18
We are examining more
31:21
people like that business development specialists in more of our cities.
31:24
Okay. Where do we feel like there's some gaps?
31:27
We're looking at partnerships, okay.
31:29
There's some people that want to partner with us in some of our cities.
31:31
Is it a good year to do this partnership?
31:34
How is it paid off in the past?
31:36
Have we done things like that?
31:37
So all of this supports our clients.
31:39
Okay. Core value number two.
31:40
I actually just grabbed them from the wall, y'all. So I'm going to.
31:43
These really do exist.
31:44
Okay.
31:47
Our work is our character.
31:48
Okay.
31:49
This means I'll summarize it.
31:52
If it was easy, everybody would do it.
31:54
It's going to be hard work.
31:56
Just like Jess apologize for how she was pushing everybody.
31:59
Everybody was okay with it because they realize
32:02
that if we want to grow, it's going to be hard work.
32:04
Okay.
32:05
So we're doing things like that next initiative.
32:10
We are family.
32:12
We are family for you. For you.
32:14
Audio podcast listeners.
32:16
Yeah. Says we are family.
32:18
Okay. What does that mean?
32:19
What are we doing this year to be more family?
32:21
Well, one, we just talked about it with Craig.
32:23
Like we want him in the family.
32:25
So we're understanding what his goals are.
32:28
We're doing this with the entire team.
32:30
There's been at least I can think of Craig's move
32:34
into backfilling 2 or 3 other positions where someone was doing
32:39
something completely different this year,
32:41
and they've moved into a completely new job title and description.
32:45
And we are backfilling and bringing
32:47
new family members in that is going to help us grow.
32:51
That's hard work.
32:52
That's what's going to get us off this plateau.
32:55
Okay.
32:56
Next, core value.
32:58
Okay. This is the Star Wars one, Craig.
33:01
This is the disturbance in the force.
33:03
Now we realize that
33:05
we have to do things different again.
33:08
I was doing video of real estate back in 2004.
33:13
It was a really dumb idea, but it was ahead of the curve.
33:16
The dial up times, dial up time for you kids.
33:19
Dark ages. Right?
33:21
And so what does that look like this year for us?
33:23
How are we disturbing what we did last year?
33:26
Well, one, what Jess was so fired up about our video agent on camera video
33:31
of more luxury,
33:32
high end, better edit, faster moving, better music, better everything.
33:36
And then many of you are doing that.
33:37
Too many of you have done it last year.
33:39
Okay, we're a little bit bigger. It takes us a little bit longer to move
33:43
and so we are working hard on that.
33:46
We are disturbing that. Again.
33:47
Back to Craig's situation.
33:49
We're disturbing his market with new people.
33:51
We just started a really cool partnership
33:53
that I talked about down in the Cincinnati area.
33:57
So all of these things, we are changing.
33:59
We are not doing what we did last year based on client feedback.
34:05
Then finally the last initiative and this is, you know, think growth
34:10
and it's the core value says we are constantly learning.
34:14
So we're learning about new things.
34:16
We're learning about video.
34:17
We're learning about new sales techniques.
34:19
We're learning about new partnerships.
34:21
So those are our initiatives.
34:23
And there's maybe 50 more I'm just guessing.
34:26
But I know from my perspective and spending very little time at Wow.
34:31
And I hear this from everyone in the company, as long as I can tie back
34:36
what we're doing to our core values, that I'm good with it as the owner.
34:42
Craig.
34:43
Now, I
34:43
kind of skirted around answering that just because I don't like to be transparent.
34:46
I don't have all those initiatives at Wow, but is that a fair answer?
34:51
Yeah, I think that's a good 10,000ft view.
34:54
You know, the I think the, the thousand foot or or 100ft view that
34:59
the actual tactics to make those changes are going to vary from company to company,
35:03
market to market, you know, situation to situation.
35:06
But I think you could fit all of those under those, those main categories
35:11
of making the hard changes.
35:14
The further you go in, in this, in this field or any field, really.
35:18
I mean, this isn't just for real estate media,
35:22
but that hard work issue
35:23
or hard work value, I should say,
35:26
is the one that you've got to be able to embrace
35:29
and be able to bring leaders into your organization that can
35:33
that also have that same view of, yeah, we're going to
35:35
we know that's going to be hard work and we're committed to that.
35:38
We're on the same page. Let's go do it.
35:42
So I think, I think a key part of it is finding the right people.
35:45
And, and I think we have those right people leading us.
35:48
That causes
35:49
people like me then to get fired up and want to be a part of that as well.
35:53
You know, it all flows down from leadership and and from ownership,
35:58
of those core values and truly believing in them
36:01
and, and being committed to them even through the hard times.
36:04
I mean, I had I had one of the hardest weeks
36:07
I've had just with challenges this week.
36:11
But I was able to get through it
36:13
because we have a team that we rally around each other right?
36:17
We're we are family,
36:19
and that goes a long way in helping get through those hard challenges.
36:23
So find the right people to join you in the journey that you're
36:27
you're on with the with your business.
36:30
And you'll get through it.
36:31
You'll you'll make those those exponentially hard,
36:35
steps that you need to make to get better.
36:38
Yeah, for sure Craig.
36:40
Well said.
36:40
So let's let's go over a quick action plan because many of you are probably saying,
36:44
okay, what does this mean for me? Right.
36:47
This is quarter one of a new year.
36:49
What does this mean for me?
36:53
Number one,
36:55
you have to embrace the realization
36:58
that doing the same work that you have done
37:02
is not going to move your business along further.
37:08
And that might be hard to hear.
37:11
You know, I say it from a place of love in my heart.
37:14
Sometimes we have to have
37:17
a harsh realization to actually make the change.
37:20
So you have to embrace that idea.
37:21
If you're like, no, that's not me, I'm really doing the right activities
37:25
and your business isn't growing.
37:28
We should talk, okay?
37:30
We should break that down a little bit more.
37:32
You should look at what those activities are.
37:37
So if you're like, great, Todd, I'm all on board.
37:40
I'm okay to do new activities.
37:42
What what what are they?
37:44
Okay, well, they're different for everybody.
37:46
What I would suggest is that you do a time tracking activity.
37:50
So track your time, write it down.
37:53
And many of you, you know, if you want to use something digital,
37:57
I just use pen and paper.
37:58
I think it's great just to write it down. I use pen and paper.
38:01
I have a chart that's Monday through Friday and it has like seven,
38:04
six, seven, eight, nine, ten all the way to like 8 p.m.
38:08
and you're not going to use all that time.
38:09
Just use your working time and track your activities.
38:13
How how long did you quality check.
38:14
How long did you,
38:17
how long were you in the field shooting?
38:19
Okay. What activities were you doing?
38:20
Do you have planning?
38:22
Did you do projections?
38:23
Did you do hiring?
38:24
Whatever it was, write it down.
38:26
Do it for two weeks.
38:29
Then at the end of two weeks, take three highlighters
38:32
and one will represent your low level or admin task.
38:38
The second will represent your nurse
38:40
and the third color will represent your doctor activities.
38:44
And then just take those all down in a chart and type those out,
38:47
or give them to AI
38:49
This is a beautiful task for AI and analyze where you spent your time
38:55
immediately.
38:56
Look to get rid of any admin level task.
39:01
Is there someone on your team,
39:03
even a VA, come and talk to them about it.
39:06
The cool thing that this does, Craig, is
39:10
your admin level task
39:13
is actually a doctor level task
39:16
for an individual in your company.
39:19
Okay?
39:23
Okay.
39:24
Explain that, explain that okay. So let me.
39:26
Yeah. Sorry. I so think about this.
39:29
Your employees all have these same type of task.
39:33
They have admin nurse and doctor.
39:37
And for your VA that is quality control in photos.
39:41
That is their big deal.
39:43
That's their doctor level task.
39:45
That's the highest level task you've given them okay.
39:49
So if you come to your VA and you say hey
39:52
I found that I was responding to clients
39:57
about support fixes for two hours last week.
40:02
Would you be willing to help me
40:04
with these task and these responses.
40:09
You know what they're going to do Craig.
40:10
Your VA is going to fall off their chair
40:13
and they're going to be like, wow, I can't believe that Todd trusts me
40:17
and wants me and will allow me
40:21
to email back and forth with the client.
40:24
I've wanted to do it for so long. I see these images.
40:27
I know the system. I know how to do it.
40:29
This is really cool that Todd wants me to do this. He.
40:36
I think this is the most fun thing in business.
40:39
Craig I, I just so get a kick out of this.
40:41
I I'm like, I have goosebumps right now even about this
40:44
because think now what's going to happen.
40:47
Your VA is going to go home.
40:49
You know what they're going to talk to their spouse about.
40:52
Guess what Todd asked me to do today.
40:54
Yeah, you will not believe what Todd wants me to do.
40:58
He thinks he trusts me to do this.
41:01
And I fully believe that as the business owner in your company,
41:05
if you can get your employees to talk about what they do
41:08
or what you said to them and impact them in a positive way,
41:12
there is no better thing that you can do as the leader of your company.
41:15
Key word. Positive. Positive. Positive. Yes,
41:19
a positive way.
41:21
Can you believe what Todd said to me today?
41:24
Better make sure that's positive.
41:26
Exactly.
41:28
So in that now you have created a new column, your VA,
41:33
their highest column, their doctor column used to be quality control.
41:37
Now you moved up a new column for them that's higher than the doctor.
41:42
And that is client support emails.
41:46
And then what do you get to do.
41:48
You get rid of your admin level column because you gave it to your VA.
41:53
Now your nurse level task are actually your admin level task.
41:58
And now you've created a new column.
42:00
So you have nurse doctor and you have owner
42:06
columns
42:08
and that you continue to do that year after year after year.
42:13
Five years ago, Craig,
42:14
if you told me what Wow's initials were, I would have given you the 100ft view.
42:20
I can only give you that 10,000ft view.
42:22
And I have to tie it all back to core value,
42:24
because I know we're aligned there because I've given those columns away right?
42:30
So when you can do that in your company.
42:34
It will not only help you grow,
42:37
but you will see your employees grow
42:39
and be engaged and be aligned with you.
42:43
And they will then bring things to you that you would never believe.
42:48
With this, it's this is how you get back to culture.
42:51
This is how you begin to create this culture is you trust in people.
42:55
You give them the ability. You align them.
42:57
You hold them accountable and you help, you know, you help them learn.
43:03
Good stuff.
43:04
Good, good.
43:05
Practical steps to take when the change gets harder and harder.
43:11
Thank you. Todd
43:12
Yeah. Hey.
43:13
I feel like I need to say this, Craig,
43:16
if you're listening to me right now and you're like,
43:18
I don't need to do the time tracking activity, I use my time.
43:21
Well.
43:25
Can I just tell you.
43:26
And from a place of love in my heart,
43:29
you're. You're probably wrong about that.
43:31
Yeah.
43:33
There's always room for improvement.
43:36
None of us have it.
43:36
None of us have it nailed down 100%.
43:38
Yeah.
43:39
I mean, and I still actively do this, and I don't even have a huge business.
43:41
I mean, we have a large real estate, big media business, but the idea
43:45
the Small Business Administration defines a small business
43:49
as a any entity under $40 million.
43:53
Okay. We're worlds away from 40 million. Yeah. Wow.
43:56
So we have a very small business, but I think it's
43:59
this desire to learn and to analyze is what's going to help you go.
44:03
So if you said, hey, I don't need to do that, please go get a time tracking.
44:07
Download a spreadsheet, just get a piece of notebook paper
44:09
and write down what you do from 8 to 5 in business.
44:12
There you go.
44:15
Good deal.
44:16
Todd. Thank you.
44:17
Appreciate it.
44:18
Yeah. My pleasure. Good discussion today, if you will.
44:21
If you have any aha moments
44:25
would you share them with us.
44:26
We did this at Spiro Sync thinking it was so great.
44:28
Like we had aha moments as was Shannon's idea.
44:31
You know, at after day one and at the end of day two and these
44:35
aha moments, I think it just helps everybody because they disguise themselves.
44:40
Hey, I realized I was doing this action and I,
44:43
I actually asked one of my Vas or my admins
44:47
and they actually really loved doing that, and I used to hate doing it before.
44:50
I love those stories. Those get me so fired up.
44:52
So if you had an moment, would you share it with me?
44:56
Hello@spiro.media.
44:58
And and then let me know if I can read it on the podcast.
45:00
I can keep your name and everything private, but I love sharing that.
45:04
I love hearing that.
45:05
And I think all of us would love if you shared that as well.
45:09
If you don't email us, you can also leave it in the YouTube comments on this video.
45:13
If you're watching the video,
45:15
and yeah,
45:16
I'd try and keep an eye on those things and I can pass that on to Todd as well.
45:20
So awesome.
45:22
Alrighty.
45:23
Well, next week starts the, the Spiro Sync conference guest speakers.
45:29
We're looking forward to that.
45:31
So make sure you stick around.
45:32
And in the meantime, if you do have specific business questions
45:36
that you'd like us to tackle on the podcast, again, email us.
45:40
Hello@spiro.media.
45:42
We want this to be a podcast that benefits you and brings value to you
45:46
and your business.
45:46
All right, we believe it or not, we don't like to just sit here
45:49
and hear ourselves talk.
45:53
Kind of like that video I posted in the,
45:55
Spiro Super Users Facebook group the other day.
45:59
Yeah, I had to.
46:00
I had to all right.
46:02
That's going to do it for this week.
46:03
Guys, ladies, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule.
46:07
We know, Spring Market is right around the corner,
46:10
so you're probably already doing the work to get ramped up for that.
46:13
So thank you for taking the time to, to listen, to watch and for us
46:17
to be a part of your business and, and, we just appreciate it.
46:21
Yeah. All right.
46:22
Make sure you take some time to be thankful for the blessings in your life.
46:26
And make sure even though you're getting busy, take some time to breathe.
46:30
All right? Have a great week.