Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / International Owner Spotlight Series: Simon Caya of Caya Media - Quebec, Canada
Transcript
- 0:00Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
- 0:04If you ever look to say, hey, I'm at the bottom of the mountain,
- 0:08how do I get to the top?
- 0:09And you're like, how do I jump to the top?
- 0:11You're not going to jump to the top.
- 0:13You might have periods in your life where you leap,
- 0:17but most of your life is going to be one foot in front of the other.
- 0:34Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast, managing your real estate,
- 0:38photography and videography business. Spiro.
- 0:41It's a software platform.
- 0:42It's designed to help you really manage your day to day real estate media business
- 0:45and ultimately help it grow in scale as well.
- 0:49Welcome to a new episode.
- 0:50I'm your host, Craig Magrum.
- 0:51Thanks for, all of you that, had some patience with us.
- 0:55We did not have an episode last week.
- 0:57It is Spring Market, and, Todd, it has gone
- 1:00absolutely bonkers, at least in our markets.
- 1:03Sure has.
- 1:04It sure has.
- 1:05Yeah, we broke a record this month at Wow.
- 1:07So our largest month ever.
- 1:10So we're so excited about that.
- 1:12Craig, you had some nice records that you broke in your area.
- 1:15Yeah, yeah, it was it was amazing.
- 1:17Our our market not known for really, a lot of high end listings.
- 1:21And we had four,
- 1:22four, $1 million or more properties in the space of three weeks that we shot.
- 1:27And there's only 6 million plus houses in your whole area.
- 1:30No, I'm just kidding.
- 1:34A few more than that.
- 1:35But we're lower in Lima.
- 1:37We're lower in the Toledo. So I'm not, like, making fun of you.
- 1:40I'm making, but I'm here at the same time.
- 1:41So. Yeah.
- 1:43And let me introduce Todd Kivimaki
- 1:45Spiro, founder and owner, co-host of the podcast.
- 1:48Good to be.
- 1:48Thank you. Craig.
- 1:49You know I just butt in. Thank you.
- 1:51Just make room for myself.
- 1:53But it's great. It's great to be here.
- 1:55And I do want to say that if you are like, hey, I didn't have my best month
- 2:00ever last month, that's okay.
- 2:03I, I really caution saying numbers from Wow and what we do.
- 2:08Y'all need to remember
- 2:09I've done this for 21 years and I have a fabulous team around me.
- 2:13I have screwed so many things up over the years
- 2:16and I try to take screw
- 2:19ups or gaps like I like to call them, as opportunities
- 2:23to figure out what went wrong and learn from it.
- 2:27And I've tried to nurture that culture around here,
- 2:29that we look at mistakes as a good thing and we learn from and we grow.
- 2:33So if you didn't have your best month ever,
- 2:35there was plenty of times where I didn't have my best month ever
- 2:38and I was listening, or I read online of someone having this fantastic thing.
- 2:45I think the natural thing to do
- 2:47is to want to beat yourself up a bit, so I do.
- 2:50Please do not do that.
- 2:51Please know that you are building something.
- 2:54And there's
- 2:55there was plenty of bad things that happened to us over this last month.
- 2:59Okay.
- 3:00It's a mindset shift and it's a an idea that you're going to push through.
- 3:06I call it my dumb stupidity.
- 3:08Again, I started a real estate media.
- 3:10I started a real estate video business video only
- 3:15back in 2004.
- 3:18When you can't even stream video on the internet, it was too slow.
- 3:23So that was a really dumb thing to do.
- 3:25But I had this just intuition.
- 3:29I had this drive that I was going to make it work.
- 3:32So please do not be like, well, Wow had their best month.
- 3:35And you know, they probably shot more houses in one month than I do in a year.
- 3:39But it took me 21 years to get here.
- 3:41So please don't take take it with a grain of salt.
- 3:43Look, in your business,
- 3:45the, who are the guests?
- 3:47We have on the day is going to share some fabulous things with you all.
- 3:50I'm super excited about that.
- 3:52I think is going to connect with you at a different level that I think
- 3:55will get you asking some good questions about your own business.
- 3:58So that was my long winded way to say, please,
- 4:01I'm not trying to pressure you to think that you're not worthy.
- 4:04You're not doing well.
- 4:05You are.
- 4:05You're an overachiever because you started your own business.
- 4:09And it's tough.
- 4:10It's tough to do hard things.
- 4:12Yeah, yeah.
- 4:14Don't don't be discouraged.
- 4:16I had a challenging last year where I didn't there were months.
- 4:20I was not hitting my goals.
- 4:21There were months I exceeded goals and I never beat myself up emotionally.
- 4:26I just, you know, just push luck, right?
- 4:29You sure do. Yeah. And never know.
- 4:32I never beat myself up.
- 4:34Yeah, yeah, I swear, I swear our team has more grace for me than I have for myself.
- 4:39But, it's good to have people around you that will encourage you
- 4:43and speak life into you and help you get beyond beating yourself up.
- 4:47So let us be that voice for you, this week.
- 4:50All right.
- 4:51So, Todd,
- 4:52yeah, we do have a guest this week, and I'm really excited to talk to him.
- 4:55Our first international guest, on the podcast.
- 4:58And, we'll introduce him in just a minute.
- 5:01And his business, but before we do that, Spiro updates.
- 5:05What do we have going on?
- 5:07Yeah, literally.
- 5:07Give me a minute, because I want to save time for our guest.
- 5:10So cycle 11 is going to launch May 20th.
- 5:14That's a Tuesday.
- 5:16And you will get a brand new marketing kit.
- 5:18It's going to do everything you wanted to do. I won't spend time on it now.
- 5:21We've talked about this a lot and I've heard we've heard you.
- 5:24The changes are coming. The new updates coming.
- 5:27Property website analytics, a beautiful report
- 5:30that your agents can email their homeowners.
- 5:33We're hoping to squeeze in a new property website template
- 5:36and then subsequent and future releases.
- 5:39There's some other goodies coming as well,
- 5:40but the big one is the marketing content.
- 5:42So excited about that.
- 5:44And, we're going to get it into your hands.
- 5:46It's going to be flat media but also MP4.
- 5:50So taking real type of or, you know, a real orientation
- 5:56and using photos to animate, animate text and things like that.
- 6:00So that is all coming excited about that.
- 6:02And that will be a great way for you to really that's a reason for you
- 6:05to call your clients.
- 6:07Hey, did you know that we have a new marketing content
- 6:10where you can do X, Y, and Z and so a reason to reach out?
- 6:14Sometimes you need a reason to reach out
- 6:16because you just are like, hey, I talked to many of you.
- 6:18And it's like, hey, you need to build relationships with your clients.
- 6:21It's like, okay, well, I don't like the idea of calling,
- 6:24but I will call and it's like, well, what the heck do I say?
- 6:27So that's kind of a give me that's a lay up.
- 6:29And I have a lot of other ideas for reasons you can reach out.
- 6:32Promotions. We're doing a promotion. Craig.
- 6:34We talked about this,
- 6:36morning meeting today.
- 6:37We're doing 30 bucks off a drone.
- 6:39That's a reason to call your clients.
- 6:42So, all that and more is coming.
- 6:44And a few other goodies I didn't mention on there.
- 6:47I did a Facebook Live last night.
- 6:49I do tech talks on Thursdays, so, it would be this Thursday
- 6:53if you're listening to it, the date of this podcast launch.
- 6:57So it's May 8th.
- 6:58I have another tech talk.
- 6:59I go much more in the detail there, and you can ask me
- 7:01whatever questions you want,
- 7:02but you can find that on the Spiro Super User Facebook group.
- 7:06Perfect.
- 7:0759 seconds, Craig.
- 7:09you are a pro.
- 7:10You are a pro.
- 7:13All right.
- 7:13Well we're just going to dive into it.
- 7:16For those of you that have watched or listen for any amount of time,
- 7:18you know that we have certain episodes that we call our owner Spotlight series.
- 7:22And the whole idea of this of the Spiro
- 7:24podcast is really to talk about the business of real estate media.
- 7:27There's we've said this a bazillion times.
- 7:29There's a ton of great resources on the creative side of what we do
- 7:33as photographers and videographers, but we wanted to to, launch
- 7:37a podcast that talked about the business and help you build a strong business,
- 7:41not just from our viewpoint in, in our background, of,
- 7:45you know, Wow video tours being around for 20 years, but also to hear
- 7:48other real estate media owners, company owners stories and learn from them.
- 7:54This is a community.
- 7:55So we can we want to learn from each other.
- 7:58So I'm really excited this week to, introduce
- 8:01and welcome to the podcast, Simon Caya of Caya Medias.
- 8:05Is it Caya or Caya. Yeah, yeah.
- 8:07Caya okay, okay. It's French a little bit so.
- 8:10Right from, Quebec, Canada, our first international guest.
- 8:14Simon, welcome to the podcast.
- 8:15Thank you so much guys.
- 8:17Yeah, so happy to be here.
- 8:19I was watching a couple episodes in the last year, and,
- 8:23just being here is humbling to me.
- 8:25And thank you so much.
- 8:27We're just
- 8:28a couple of guys in the cornfields in northwest Ohio, right, Todd?
- 8:31We sure are.
- 8:31Yeah, we are.
- 8:32Yeah, yeah.
- 8:34So excited. Simon. Thanks for making the time.
- 8:37Simon shared with me this was kind of a we we've been trying
- 8:39to schedule a time, and we had to reschedule a couple times,
- 8:43and then I had we had an opening, the day before.
- 8:47Because part of my fault, the day before recording.
- 8:51And so I reached back out to Simon said, I know this is last minute.
- 8:54Can you come on the on the podcast?
- 8:56If not totally understand? He's like, this works out perfect.
- 8:59I had a cancellation.
- 9:00So this this was meant to be Simon. Exactly.
- 9:03So, here the weather is pretty crazy.
- 9:06It's it changes a lot.
- 9:08And we have super harsh winters and super hot summers.
- 9:12So we're just in between right now.
- 9:14And, you know, last Sunday it was snowing.
- 9:17And, you know, two days ago was like 27°C.
- 9:21So the range is extreme.
- 9:24And, just today, was actually raining
- 9:29when it said a week ago that it was going to be a sunny day.
- 9:32So it was just the perfect timing.
- 9:35Yeah.
- 9:36The joys of trying to do real estate media
- 9:38and those kind of weather conditions, man.
- 9:40Yeah, yeah.
- 9:43So, Simon, I, we have a ton
- 9:45of topics and you have fabulous things that we talked about in the pre-show.
- 9:49But I think to start off, could you just give us a background?
- 9:52I think that will help bring everybody up to speed. What?
- 9:54How long have you been doing it?
- 9:56What got you into it?
- 9:58About what volume are you doing?
- 10:00Just give us a little insight into your company, if you can.
- 10:03Sure.
- 10:03So, I'm about an hour from Montreal.
- 10:07More in the countryside, and, it's a city called Drummond Ville.
- 10:12And so I started out my business there.
- 10:15Just to give you more of a background, I went to university in marketing and sales.
- 10:20So, I started out as a,
- 10:24I was working in a marketing agency, and, just after school
- 10:30and did the 9 to 5 was just getting to me, you know, I was
- 10:35I had to punch in all my hours what I was doing.
- 10:39And it was just stopping me from being focused on, on something.
- 10:43And I just really wanted to start my own thing.
- 10:45And so I just,
- 10:48went to
- 10:49my boss and I told him, I don't know where I'm going right now,
- 10:52but I know this is not my place, and I'm just going to cut it right here
- 10:57and I'll give you my two weeks and, you know, I don't know where I'm going,
- 11:02but I'm just burning the ships as, many say.
- 11:07Yeah, yeah.
- 11:08And so, you know, when when you're
- 11:11getting desperate like that, sometimes you get creative.
- 11:14And so that's what I had to do,
- 11:16to, to get it out, to get out of there.
- 11:19So, you know, I knew I had a passion for for photography,
- 11:25and I really wanted to become a, real estate investor.
- 11:30Okay.
- 11:30And I knew I had a pretty good marketing, background as well.
- 11:34So I was like, maybe I can merge all of those
- 11:37and try to find something in real estate photography.
- 11:41And so, I just reached out to a, an agency
- 11:45that is, right around the corner here, and they just said, yeah, sure.
- 11:49Why not?
- 11:50We're going to try you out. And they actually,
- 11:54gave me a contract
- 11:56that I signed that, you know, we're going to talk about this.
- 12:00And I had an exclusivity, contract with them.
- 12:05And, you know, there were,
- 12:08maybe ten realtors in that team.
- 12:11So they had a fairly good volume, but,
- 12:14you know, a couple, a couple of months in, you know, when the market went
- 12:19a little bit down, I was just stuck in that contract.
- 12:23I couldn't help anyone else.
- 12:25And, you know, I had to talk to the owner of that agency
- 12:30and tell him that I just had to
- 12:33to break it there and just, part our ways
- 12:37because they really wanted to, keep all their, photographers in-house.
- 12:43And so we just started there,
- 12:45and I started out my own thing,
- 12:48and, you know, I had my portfolio
- 12:50and, I built my website, my Facebook, and then just the branding altogether
- 12:56was, making me more, appeasing, appealing.
- 13:00Sorry to, other realtors.
- 13:02And I had a couple calls and just went went from there.
- 13:06So, actually a pretty,
- 13:10intense story when I just started out,
- 13:12you know, I lost all my clients, at that moment.
- 13:16And so I went, to Montreal
- 13:19to do a, to to do a photo shoot for our house.
- 13:23And the when I got there, I just stopped at a restaurant to eat.
- 13:27When I got outside, my car got broken into, and,
- 13:31so they broke my, you know, my door, my,
- 13:36the window
- 13:37your gear was gone.
- 13:39All my gear.
- 13:39And I had everything, you know, my computer, my hard drives,
- 13:43Drone, all this stuff that I had.
- 13:46Simon.
- 13:47So that was getting to the rock bottom.
- 13:51I could say I actually went to,
- 13:55to restaurants and gave my,
- 13:59job application to to go back to,
- 14:02to, you know, to working somewhere because I just,
- 14:06couldn't pay my rent.
- 14:08But, yeah, I had a
- 14:11I hired a coach back then.
- 14:13He was a friend of mine, and he just helped me out, and he was like, dude,
- 14:17you got to promise yourself that you're not ever going back
- 14:20to working for someone else.
- 14:21I know you got it inside of you,
- 14:23and you got your good vision and your good mission.
- 14:25So just go for it and it's going to work out.
- 14:28So that's what I did.
- 14:30And the rest is history.
- 14:31So okay, so after all of that segment I mean you're yeah you're at rock bottom.
- 14:36You've you've got nothing.
- 14:37So you built after having your gear stolen
- 14:41and burying, you know, barely being able to pay rent.
- 14:44So how do you build from there.
- 14:46I mean did did you wait tables.
- 14:49What did you do to get back going to then really launch your your business.
- 14:53So the only portfolio I had left was on my Facebook page,
- 14:59my Instagram and on my website, stuff that I, you know, had downloaded there.
- 15:05Now I got the Dropbox, Dropbox and everything is in the cloud,
- 15:09so we're good with that.
- 15:10And I also did not have business insurance at that point
- 15:14because I was just starting out and, you know, rookie mistakes.
- 15:18So I made a,
- 15:22so somebody
- 15:24that is close to me lend me money to buy a new camera
- 15:28and out of, you know, such a sweetheart.
- 15:31And I just went and bought a new camera, new new gear
- 15:36and just went, you know, 12, 12 hours a day.
- 15:41Just client acquisition.
- 15:42I was going to every, realtor office, calling
- 15:47every realtor that I had in my, city.
- 15:51And I just went crazy on it.
- 15:52And, you know, three, three months out after that, I was booked out.
- 15:57And so everything was good.
- 16:00Good for you. Love to hear that.
- 16:03Love to hear that. Simon.
- 16:04Some things that I'm getting from from your story is,
- 16:07one, you're very desire of decision maker.
- 16:12And I, I can actually tend to be the opposite.
- 16:16And it's something that I have to consciously
- 16:19get myself out of because I love to look for options.
- 16:22I love the what if game, and you had a couple points in your story.
- 16:26You're like, you know, you're working a 9 to 5 and you just have
- 16:29this feeling inside of you that it's not right
- 16:32and you know that to get beyond that, you just have to make the decision.
- 16:37And that gets you further.
- 16:39It's kind of like a give you an analogy.
- 16:41So, kind of the same idea, back when I, you know, back in school
- 16:45when I was playing basketball, and I'm, I'm a large human being, y'all.
- 16:50I think many of you know that.
- 16:51So, like, for me to run around, we would run, you know, in conditioning.
- 16:55We would run a mile or two
- 16:56and I would run it and I'd start to slow down and
- 17:00there was another individual on the team that just would sprint through it.
- 17:03And I'm like, why did you sprint like, you know, what's up with that?
- 17:07And he's just like, I just want to get it done.
- 17:08It was too hard.
- 17:09Like I figured I'd just go through and I'm like,
- 17:11that is such an incredible ability to have to want to go in the pain.
- 17:15And that's that's what you possess.
- 17:17Simon is like the pain of the unknown, which can be very scary.
- 17:22But you you had this intuition inside of you that it just wasn't correct.
- 17:27And also, along with the exclusivity with your first, you know, that first gig
- 17:32you had, you again, I think the same thing kind of popped up.
- 17:36Do you know this is a quality of yours or do you you like?
- 17:39Because I think that's an incredible quality
- 17:41to have that intuition be like, I need to make a change.
- 17:43I'm going to make it. Then I'm going to go figure it out.
- 17:46I think this is something that you can it's like a muscle.
- 17:50So being decisive, I read a book about that
- 17:53and it's something you can, absolutely
- 17:58get better at making, you know, a white and black decision.
- 18:04You know, not staying in a relationship.
- 18:06Maybe that you're not hundred percent fulfilled in,
- 18:10quitting your job and starting to to build your dream
- 18:13and just going forward with all of those stuff is,
- 18:18is actually something you can get better at this for sure.
- 18:22Todd Todd.
- 18:23It ties into something I learned at the
- 18:27the, the mission I worked in, in Toledo doing donor development.
- 18:30Our, our CEO said people will not change until the,
- 18:34the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.
- 18:37Yeah. And that just stuck with me.
- 18:40And it sounds like that's kind of what you live by, Simon.
- 18:44Sure. And, you know, I.
- 18:46I did not do this all by myself.
- 18:49I got amazing people around me and I just started to listen
- 18:54to podcasts, mindset, podcasts on my Spotify.
- 18:58And, I just started reading books about that.
- 19:02And it's just a muscle that like, like everything, you know, your willpower to do
- 19:09something is something you can get better at
- 19:12just by doing more repetition. And,
- 19:16it's just going to work out
- 19:17if you stay on it and go through it.
- 19:22Todd, Simon and I were talking before the show, and, he
- 19:25he was sharing with me how fitness is, an important value to him.
- 19:29And I, I like how you brought that in, Simon, with, you know,
- 19:32the mindset is it's just a muscle that you exercise, that decisiveness.
- 19:36I like how you tied in the fitness analogy.
- 19:38There.
- 19:40Yeah.
- 19:40So join me to go in and yeah that let's, let's let's dive into that.
- 19:44Yeah.
- 19:45The importance of fitness and being a business owner. Yeah.
- 19:47So just to put you in perspective, a year and a half ago,
- 19:52I was still, just a solo photographer
- 19:55and with an editor and,
- 19:59you know, now, I just lost two photographers, actually.
- 20:02But, we're a team of four.
- 20:04It got our editors, our a VA and all that stuff.
- 20:08And I built that.
- 20:12Business, while
- 20:15getting, a lot of physics,
- 20:18activity. How do you say that's physical?
- 20:21Like physical activity?
- 20:21Yeah. Yeah.
- 20:23So so I, I left to run marathons.
- 20:25I do ultramarathons in, in mountains
- 20:29and, you know, last year I did a half ironman.
- 20:33Then the week after I did a full Ironman in, down in Maryland and,
- 20:39all of that as well, I, I bought a house.
- 20:42My wife is just about to give birth to our first,
- 20:46little girl in, like, a week or two.
- 20:50So, so it was a pretty crazy year.
- 20:53And, you know, when you're when you prioritize
- 20:57your time to, to doing the right thing,
- 21:01you can do incredible,
- 21:04achievements just by, you know, managing your time.
- 21:08Yeah. And
- 21:09and investing it in yourself physically, which helps your mental game as well.
- 21:13I've noticed when I, when I do actually buckle down
- 21:16and start to take care of myself physically and get the exercise
- 21:18and get the blood flowing and the heart beating, it releases
- 21:22hormones and chemicals that are good for your brain
- 21:26and just give you a much better mental state as well.
- 21:29So you know, now I've, I've shared this, Todd, before
- 21:31and in past episodes I've, I've dealt with periods of depression or anxiety.
- 21:36And when I start exercising, it does help lift you up out of that.
- 21:40So Simon, thanks for sharing that.
- 21:42Yeah, absolutely.
- 21:43I'm a big fan of longevity.
- 21:46And, I don't know if you guys heard about the book outlive.
- 21:51It's a book about, you know,
- 21:53the guy is he wants to live to 100 and still be able to, you know,
- 21:59pick up his grandkids, being able to go upstairs and, all that stuff.
- 22:04And he's talking about the most important thing to, to
- 22:07to get to that age is actually your VO2 max.
- 22:10It's your in, capacity to,
- 22:14get oxygen to your system.
- 22:17And so, exercising is, absolutely,
- 22:20absolutely the best way to do that to, to, to manage that.
- 22:25Incredible. Live to a hundred.
- 22:27I'm hearing Ironman and marathon.
- 22:29I'm just good, good. Good for you.
- 22:31Yeah. I’m thinking the same thing.
- 22:33Yeah.
- 22:35Running.
- 22:35Running is not my favorite activity.
- 22:38Yeah, but I don't do it because I like it.
- 22:40Do it guess. Yeah.
- 22:42Know.
- 22:42Yeah. Yeah.
- 22:43It's it's something that I do like every day.
- 22:46I don't do marathons every day.
- 22:48Now, I,
- 22:48I just took a step back because I, I'm just about to have a, baby in my life.
- 22:53But, you know, every morning I just do a little 15 minute
- 22:56workout in my gym, and then I go for a run and,
- 22:59a little 20 minute run just to get the blood flowing. And,
- 23:04I listen to another podcast,
- 23:07a couple weeks ago about a guy that is, that went, on the, on the show,
- 23:11and he was talking about,
- 23:12you know, when he's got a big decision to make or a call to make,
- 23:16just go to the gym and, you know, get the blood
- 23:19flowing and the energy going, and then you make the call.
- 23:22It's going to be a whole different, energy,
- 23:26that you're going to bring to the game
- 23:28for sure.
- 23:29And, and all of these things are if you're saying, hey, I can never do that.
- 23:33Like, I'm not a runner either.
- 23:34Again, I'm a I'm a very large human being.
- 23:36Like, maybe one day I'll run more, but just start off small.
- 23:40That's the biggest thing. It's just a small step.
- 23:42You know, Simon mentioned 15 minutes.
- 23:44Like, if that seems undoable, just do do planks for three minute, you know,
- 23:48do a plank for a minute or, you know, just start small with where you're at.
- 23:53I love the scene around here.
- 23:54And I use it and we chuckle about the at the office.
- 23:57By the saying of how do you eat a whale?
- 24:01Well, you eat a whale.
- 24:03Just one bite at a time.
- 24:05And that is true with anything you do.
- 24:08If you ever look to say, hey, I'm at the bottom of the mountain,
- 24:11how do I get to the top?
- 24:12And you're like, how do I jump to the top?
- 24:15You're not going to jump to the top.
- 24:17You might have periods in your life where you leap,
- 24:20but most of your life is going to be one foot in front of the other.
- 24:24And then there might be a step back, but most of your life
- 24:27is going to be very just at that pace.
- 24:31And then as you start to add that pace up, you'll begin to leap
- 24:34and you'll find those exponential gains.
- 24:37But it can be just impossible to think, how am I going to do that?
- 24:42You know, if I was thinking, if I was in a go train
- 24:43for something like that, like, how would I do that?
- 24:45Like, I think, I think I would die at mile three, like mile one.
- 24:49I'm going to be complaining more than anybody and that I'm dead at three.
- 24:52So it's like, you know, how do you get the how many is it for you?
- 24:54And it's 32 miles.
- 24:56Tony Simon, you know, kilometers or 26 miles.
- 25:00Yeah. Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
- 25:01I mean yeah, I mean kilometers.
- 25:03Yeah. Right. So.
- 25:05Well, cool.
- 25:05Well that's great.
- 25:06Now let's, let's let me transition a little bit.
- 25:08Yeah.
- 25:09Because I know you have so much to give,
- 25:10but let's talk about you have a natural instinct in you to go
- 25:14and ask for business to a network, to talk to people.
- 25:18We are all about the human to human connection.
- 25:22And people will order photos and video from you.
- 25:27They'll buy from people they know, like and trust.
- 25:29So can you share some insight as to, maybe some tips and tricks?
- 25:35I know you have some things with sales or brokerages.
- 25:37What what did you find allows you to take some of those big
- 25:41or substantial gains through your client acquisition techniques.
- 25:46Yeah.
- 25:46So, one one of my best tricks
- 25:50that I, that I learned in the last year was,
- 25:55trying to be, like the master in
- 26:00to the eye of your clients.
- 26:01You got to be the master marketer.
- 26:03So you got to be the master at showing off the house, getting the right angles
- 26:09and just, helping them sell the house faster and make more money.
- 26:14So, what I do is I go to,
- 26:19realtor congresses, and I just meet with people,
- 26:22and I go to every presentation there.
- 26:25Is there. Right.
- 26:27And I just takes tons of notes, and I build my brokerage
- 26:31presentations, based on notes that I took from congresses.
- 26:36And, you know, a couple of weeks ago was, was,
- 26:40exp con it was right here in Montreal.
- 26:43So it was a four, four day, Congress.
- 26:47I was there for, four days straight and from the, from the first,
- 26:52to the last presentation, try to go there,
- 26:56take notes, and I adjust my presentation based on that.
- 26:59And then, that gives me an actually,
- 27:03an actual leverage when I go to, talk to new people, I just tell them,
- 27:08you know, hey, do you want to have a brokerage presentation?
- 27:11I've learned, a ton of stuff in the last years as,
- 27:15doing thousands of houses and how to sell, and I can just do it, do this
- 27:19for free to 20 minutes.
- 27:21And, I'm going to bring a lunch in, which is going to talk about it and have fun.
- 27:25So that worked really well for, for me just being, you know,
- 27:31as a, a,
- 27:34good. Yeah.
- 27:35An expert marketer and just, I look like I know everything,
- 27:40but I just learn from others and just speak it to, to more people.
- 27:44So that's one of the ways I do brokerage presentations.
- 27:49So, Todd, I what's, what's jumped out to me
- 27:51about Simon and him building his business is that there's two things you mentioned.
- 27:55One, very early in in his start in this he invested in coaching.
- 28:00You've talked about coaching. Yes.
- 28:02Even even when it's financially difficult.
- 28:05The value of that. Simon,
- 28:08you've gained dividends from that.
- 28:11You invested in education.
- 28:13You're going to these conferences, these these congresses and, and, learning.
- 28:18And you're taking time away from your daily shoot activity.
- 28:21So you're not out shooting.
- 28:22And a lot of people might be saying, well, I'm losing money, but you're really not
- 28:25because you've invested in your education, which then you applied
- 28:28to your presentations at brokerages, which then ultimately gets you,
- 28:32gives you more clients, more business.
- 28:35Yeah.
- 28:35That makes me think of your, story, Todd,
- 28:38that you, talked about the, you know, the the two lumberjacks.
- 28:43So one of them is just going home and, sharpening his ax,
- 28:48and the other guy's like, how do you how do you cut more?
- 28:52Would then I, and you work less.
- 28:54And, you know, the guy's just like, I just go home,
- 28:57sharpen and come back and it's it's much easier.
- 29:00So the same thing has to be applied to your business.
- 29:04My calendar is full of, you know, the conferences I go, I book
- 29:09them, you know, in advance so that I just don't have the choice to go.
- 29:14And, these days,
- 29:17that I go to these
- 29:18conferences are so packed with knowledge and,
- 29:23yeah, it's just, it's it's steps like that, you know.
- 29:28Yeah.
- 29:28And it's, it's really a secret weapon.
- 29:30We talked about this a little bit last podcast when Shannon gave her
- 29:34market update, the idea of we used a term that isn't a common term unless you're
- 29:40a realtor is how many days of inventory are do we have right now.
- 29:47And that's a question you could ask an agent.
- 29:49And that means is it a buying?
- 29:52Is it a buyer's market a seller's market?
- 29:54Is it neutral.
- 29:55But that is a term that you're going to say to a realtor and they're going to
- 29:58look at you like, this person really understands me.
- 30:01And the same thing with Simon,
- 30:03he's going to exp con and there's a ton of conferences out there.
- 30:06And even if you're like, hey, I it's exp Con or KW the home,
- 30:12whatever they call it, or CB whatever the Coldwell Bankers Conference is like.
- 30:17It didn't come to my city.
- 30:19What? Take one step down.
- 30:20Just join your local board of Realtors, MLS, the local organization.
- 30:25It's called something different wherever you're at.
- 30:27But there is an organization where all the realtors go and they get continuing ed
- 30:33and they have conferences, they have different committees,
- 30:36and they have many things that you can get involved with.
- 30:40And you can gain that information right there.
- 30:42Begin to put that in your head, and then you begin thinking like a client.
- 30:47And when you think like your client,
- 30:49that's what allows you to really understand
- 30:52what your client needs because you think like them.
- 30:57So I know when I
- 30:58started, there is many times where I would think like a photographer,
- 31:02and that is good because
- 31:04it's going to make your images creative.
- 31:08But we see this a lot with our new photographers.
- 31:11If we don't give them any training, they go take these creative angles
- 31:15and, right Craig, and they are nothing that you need to sell a house
- 31:21like a realtor is going to look at it and go, that's
- 31:22not what I need, because that's not how I sell a house.
- 31:26So that is really a key to doing that with learning, with educating.
- 31:30Simon, talk about a little bit.
- 31:31And you briefly mentioned this,
- 31:33but I'm a firm proponent and believer in organizing a calendar.
- 31:37You mentioned you put these things on your calendar.
- 31:39How big is an important how big of a aspect is,
- 31:43organization in your calendar, in your day to day activities?
- 31:46Yeah.
- 31:47So building the systems in my,
- 31:50company was the absolute foundation of where I am today because,
- 31:56you know, I'm not at the top yet.
- 31:57I'm just saying that, from where I was, I'm so much better
- 32:01with my organization, and it, you know, I'm a I love to,
- 32:07do stuff and be all over the place because I'm kind of hyperactive.
- 32:11And so having a calendar that is,
- 32:14set in advance for me is an absolute must.
- 32:17I would, I would be absolutely lost without my calendar.
- 32:21So I use Google calendar, and, you know, everything is on there.
- 32:26You know, my,
- 32:28I, I was talking about life balance,
- 32:30the other day, so I got my training.
- 32:33Is I right there every every time.
- 32:36And, you know, every Wednesday night, I have a sacred night that I call.
- 32:41It's just me and my girlfriend.
- 32:43No TVs, no cell phone. We just take time.
- 32:46We read a book together, and we just talk and just grab some time.
- 32:50Because if you if you don't write it down, it's just going to slip away.
- 32:54And, you know, we'll do it tomorrow, and then you just forget about it
- 32:57and you just finish by never doing it at all.
- 33:00So having a calendar is the best.
- 33:03And actually I've been using Spiro for like a year now,
- 33:08and it changed my business.
- 33:09I, I learned about metrics.
- 33:12And you know, now I look at that every day.
- 33:14And it's just so helpful to see, how the analytics of your business
- 33:19is changing throughout the time, throughout the season.
- 33:22You know, it's the best for sure.
- 33:25Yeah. Having a system like that.
- 33:27Well, thank you for that.
- 33:29Yeah.
- 33:30Todd, I want to kind of shift gears a little bit,
- 33:34with with Simon being our first international guest. Yes.
- 33:37Our first real estate media business owner outside of the US.
- 33:41I love learning about different cultures.
- 33:43And if if I had time, I would try and learn multiple languages.
- 33:47And I just.
- 33:49I'm fascinated by different ways of living throughout the world.
- 33:52And that crosses over into business.
- 33:54Now, Simon, a lot of what you've already talked
- 33:56about today is that's common across the board.
- 33:58No matter where in the world we are as real estate media professionals,
- 34:02business principles are pretty much the same in how we connect
- 34:05with people, how we sell, you know, the the media that we're providing.
- 34:09But I'm kind of curious and I don't know exactly how to phrase the question,
- 34:14or or know if, if you can encapsulate this, but
- 34:18what are some of the cultural differences, you know, say, between,
- 34:22you and Quebec and us in the United States, internationally,
- 34:27what cultural differences have you noticed in business
- 34:30and or the real estate media,
- 34:33industry?
- 34:34Yeah.
- 34:34So there's a couple things for sure.
- 34:37It's still pretty similar because we're still in, you know, North America.
- 34:41But, you know, here in Quebec, there's actually laws
- 34:45to, that,
- 34:48you got to speak French.
- 34:50Your website needs to be in French.
- 34:52If you, do, you know,
- 34:55publicity, it has to be mainly in French.
- 34:58Then in English.
- 34:59So there's a couple things like that, because, there's lots of people
- 35:02that are trying to keep this language alive here.
- 35:05And it's slowly, slowly declining and, Yeah.
- 35:09So that's maybe something that I could talk about or,
- 35:12there's not many, 3D tours here.
- 35:16Okay.
- 35:16Not as much as, you know, there's no, Zillow.
- 35:19Zillow is not a part of my market.
- 35:22So, you know, I know you guys have 3D tours on Zillow and, and,
- 35:27you know, they get boosted stuff on there.
- 35:29So it's not something that we have here.
- 35:32So there's not many, 3D tours.
- 35:35So it's more about pictures, drones and and doing stuff like that.
- 35:39But yeah. And also sorry.
- 35:43Go on.
- 35:50Yeah.
- 35:50But it's something that was not popular.
- 35:53Really really, really not popular.
- 35:55So, almost every client that I,
- 35:59get here don't know about it, and or they're barely hearing about it.
- 36:03So something that I would bring into the game.
- 36:08But they love it.
- 36:09And I think it's awesome, for sure.
- 36:11And, I love to do them.
- 36:13So yeah, I think it's the best.
- 36:14And it's a good added value to them.
- 36:32Yeah.
- 36:32So here Centris is our Zillow.
- 36:35So every property is pretty much on Centris
- 36:38And you got to have the, floor type,
- 36:43you know, things like that.
- 36:44And it's draw to, get the, measurements as well.
- 36:49Yeah. Okay.
- 36:51So, so another thing that I can talk about this on another
- 36:53topic, but, you know, winter, winter is hard here.
- 36:57So, when winter kicks in,
- 37:00we do a bunch of, you know,
- 37:03just exterior listings and stuff like that.
- 37:06And so then when summer comes, it's it's a super hot summer as well.
- 37:11So the market is always demanding
- 37:14new pictures. And,
- 37:17remodeling our pictures for, for the properties that didn't sell.
- 37:21So, yeah, from a business relationship standpoint.
- 37:26So what I'm a lot of what I do when I'm trying to build relationships,
- 37:30in my market with potential clients is I'll take them up to coffee
- 37:34and just get to know them.
- 37:35You know, relationship building is is hugely important.
- 37:38What does that look like in Quebec?
- 37:40You know, versus say, Ohio?
- 37:43Even Ohio to New York can be different today, I'm
- 37:46guessing, in how people interact with each other.
- 37:48So when you're building, client relationships,
- 37:52Simon, what what does that look like for you?
- 37:54How how do you best do that?
- 37:58Well, I don't
- 37:59exactly know how it is in Ohio, to be honest.
- 38:03But, you know, there's conference conferences everywhere.
- 38:08There's meetings.
- 38:10I just do client acquisition through Instagram, and I send them videos
- 38:16and I just meet with them sometimes to get a coffee or, so pretty much the same.
- 38:21Yeah.
- 38:21Yeah, I think it's pretty much the same on every first shoot with a realtor.
- 38:25I try to be the one on, on site, and then I just,
- 38:29you know, talk to them about the culture, who we are, how to use our system.
- 38:34And usually that's that's how we do it.
- 38:38Todd, here's a good question.
- 38:40Just keying off that.
- 38:41So, Simon, you've got now you just lost a couple of photographers,
- 38:45but you have other photographers.
- 38:46So this is a common question.
- 38:48I still deal with this today and I see it all the time in the Facebook groups.
- 38:52So when you're out on that first shoot with, with a new client
- 38:55with a new realtor, and you're the one that they're used to,
- 38:59and you, you introduce another photographer and
- 39:04do you find that they're
- 39:05resistant and they don't want to work with another photographer.
- 39:08They just want to work with you and have you shoot.
- 39:10And if that's the case, how do you handle that?
- 39:12as the owner.
- 39:14So if I feel like the photographer is not bringing up the value
- 39:18as much as I am or better,
- 39:21I'm a bit hard on that.
- 39:22So I did fire photographers in the past,
- 39:26and I try to get like, people that are creating an experience,
- 39:31you know, and it's a people business, you know, what about that?
- 39:34So it's you got to be a magnet.
- 39:37You know, people need to, to like to talk to you.
- 39:40And I think, when I introduce new photographers,
- 39:46I really brag about the realtor
- 39:49in front of them and just trying to
- 39:52make them feel super confident about the new guy.
- 39:55And, you know, that that this person is absolutely,
- 40:01that is absolutely.
- 40:03You know how you say that
- 40:05they know everything that that this realtor needs and wants.
- 40:09So we just put emphasis on that and, yeah, yeah,
- 40:15I think that's a that's that's a great technique and, and a great thing to do.
- 40:18And kind of a term that I've learned is it's called managing people up.
- 40:23And it's when you would give, you know, you would talk
- 40:26good about someone in front of a colleague or in front of a client.
- 40:29And it gives them the confidence, like
- 40:32if you're confident in them
- 40:35and that client is confident in you, it's just psychologically
- 40:40connecting the idea that the client should be confident and your new hire.
- 40:44So and that can go a long way, not only in the cycle psychological
- 40:48aspect of the client, your your agents wanting someone other than you.
- 40:52But it also can go a long way with that photographer of thinking,
- 40:56oh well, oh, Simon thinks that about me.
- 40:58Like, oh that's. And then sometimes
- 41:01was just thinking, you can do it
- 41:04allows you to do it.
- 41:05You know, like sometimes we get so down on ourselves,
- 41:08like my 12 year old, my oldest son, he I think you guys know
- 41:12we play he plays a ton of basketball, I coach a ton of basketball.
- 41:15And he is a really, really good basketball player.
- 41:17But he is super hard on himself.
- 41:20He works hard.
- 41:21He has the skills.
- 41:22He's put in the work,
- 41:23but he will beat himself up from a psychological standpoint,
- 41:27and it's building him up to think that he can do it.
- 41:29And when he thinks he can do it, he goes out there and he does it
- 41:32at a very high level.
- 41:34And I think that's the same.
- 41:35Not only it's the same
- 41:36with everyone in life, like if you're beating yourself up, stop.
- 41:39But if you begin managing up your employees,
- 41:44that's going to do so many things from a company standpoint,
- 41:49and it will help you get over that hump of like and Craig, I agree with you.
- 41:52We see it all the time.
- 41:53Like, how can someone get someone other than me?
- 41:56And that is a big that could be a big gap.
- 42:00And there's a there's some good ways to do it.
- 42:02But being on site, managing your people, making sure that your agents know
- 42:05what your company's about,
- 42:07if they know you want to grow and you're growing to serve them better, that's
- 42:11way different than like, hey, I just I don't really want to shoot anymore.
- 42:14And I'm going to try to get some people that do a half as good as me,
- 42:17like, you know, which one is the agent going to be comfortable with?
- 42:20Yeah.
- 42:20So yeah, I love that technique, Simon, of managing those individuals up.
- 42:26Yeah.
- 42:26You phrased it much better than me, but that that's pretty much the idea.
- 42:31And, Yeah.
- 42:32So so these individuals, are,
- 42:36you know, in target cities around, where I'm from.
- 42:40So, I don't have a, another photographer in my city.
- 42:43I have, one that is an hour away
- 42:46from Drummond ville that side and an hour from that side.
- 42:50So I call it the Golden Triangle.
- 42:52So they are expert in their, market, in their market.
- 42:56And that's how I really put it out to the realtors.
- 43:00And, yeah, it works really well. See.
- 43:03Excellent.
- 43:05Well, Todd, we're kind of getting close to the end of the podcast here.
- 43:08So, Simon, what we always like to do is ask our guest
- 43:12if there was one parting piece of advice that you would give to listeners and,
- 43:17viewers of the podcast, especially those outside of the US.
- 43:22I would love for you to speak to to others in our industry outside the US.
- 43:26What would your best piece of advice be that you would give?
- 43:31Well, absolutely.
- 43:33Be prepared to fail.
- 43:36It's absolutely part of it and in every aspect of your life.
- 43:41But, in business it's always, you know,
- 43:45repeating that process of not starting over but getting over
- 43:50things that don't work out because it's always going to happen as well.
- 43:53So for me, it was pretty hard at first of not giving up on myself
- 43:58and just going all the way and just,
- 44:03you know, try to get a thousand no's or a thousand maybes is is a lot.
- 44:08But when I do client acquisition, I love to, to get no's and just,
- 44:14you know,
- 44:16going forward and it is going to work out for sure if you just stay consistent.
- 44:20It's a lot about consistency in the in the long term.
- 44:24It's a numbers game.
- 44:26Yeah. It's a challenge to you right Simon.
- 44:28Because it's not.
- 44:29No it's no not right now.
- 44:32That's a psychological.
- 44:34They tell me no okay. No problem.
- 44:35Not right now I'm going to get you in three months.
- 44:37Six months I might get you in 12 months.
- 44:39It might be four years later.
- 44:41But I'm going to get you.
- 44:42So you're going back on my list, and you'll hear from me again.
- 44:46Absolutely.
- 44:47And the follow ups are extremely important.
- 44:51So many times, in the past, I just send a message to a realtor as a,
- 44:56you know, for client acquisition.
- 44:58Didn't get a response, and I just dumped it, you know,
- 45:01but you got to do a feedback.
- 45:05Yeah, I follow up, and there's so much value in those follow ups.
- 45:09And realtors are busy.
- 45:11They don't always have the time as, as us business owners and usually, you know,
- 45:17the third or the second or the third follow up is actually going to work out.
- 45:22And in many cases it does.
- 45:25Yeah. That's so true.
- 45:26The fortunes and the follow up.
- 45:27That's what I think.
- 45:28Shannon Shannon that's a Shannonism.
- 45:31I she didn't create it. But the fortune is in the follow up.
- 45:33So you know, and think about you've laid all that hard work.
- 45:36If you've called someone one, two three, four times, you've gotten them
- 45:40so much closer to a yes,
- 45:42or you've gotten them closer to a no, but at least you understand where they're at.
- 45:46And maybe you just need one more contact to make that person feel special.
- 45:51Maybe you've learned a new thing at a conference.
- 45:53You can use it as an opening line.
- 45:55Maybe you can call them with your promotion,
- 45:58the new marketing toolkit, whatever it may be, it's a reason to reach out.
- 46:01And that's one step closer to getting that.
- 46:03Yes, absolutely.
- 46:05And sometimes, one,
- 46:08free shoot is going to get you many more shoots.
- 46:11You know, we did a, a new record at our business last, last month,
- 46:17also at 31K, but we're super happy about it. And,
- 46:23yes, so much
- 46:25compounding of effort and we're not done.
- 46:29And we are going to go, all the way with this.
- 46:32And I'm super stoked to to be a part of, you know, all this community
- 46:37that that's here to help.
- 46:38And, it's it brings so much value to have people around.
- 46:43Yeah, yeah. Todd, I love his energy.
- 46:45I just I was just going to say I love his mindset.
- 46:49Yeah. And he has energy. Is this incredible?
- 46:51I, I think it's it's it is something for us all to learn from is just that mindset.
- 46:56It is so much in our mind.
- 47:00Simon, any any books off the top of your head?
- 47:02You talked about books about mindset.
- 47:03Anything come to your mind, comes to your mind using the same word a lot.
- 47:06But if someone's like, hey, what book was it that you read?
- 47:09Or where should I start?
- 47:11Do you have a title recommendation? Sure.
- 47:13So I got a couple for sure. I, I love to read.
- 47:16I read, pretty much every day, only a 15 minute gap,
- 47:20but it I get through books, through the months
- 47:23and, you know, right now I'm reading a book that is called The Gap.
- 47:27And again, I don't know if you know about that.
- 47:30So it's, it's talking about,
- 47:34the gap between
- 47:35where you are and where you want to be.
- 47:38That's the trap.
- 47:39If you look at the gap, you're you're going to be depressed.
- 47:43You ain't going to be, you know, feel down because you're not there yet.
- 47:47But if you look at the gain, which is the other part where you're from,
- 47:51the historically, what have you been through to get where you are?
- 47:55If you think about that, you're going to be
- 47:58super energized about, you know, looking at what you achieved
- 48:02and all the, the, the knows that you've been through to get where you are.
- 48:06And it's super powerful to do that.
- 48:10The gap in the game.
- 48:11Okay.
- 48:12Awesome, awesome.
- 48:14Well, Todd, any final questions that you have?
- 48:18Simon, if someone has a question for you or wants to,
- 48:21reach out to you, is how could someone get in contact with you?
- 48:25Sure. Just reach out.
- 48:27I love to to help other people and bring value.
- 48:31I actually,
- 48:33give free, sales, teaching in schools here.
- 48:38And that's where the idea came from to do brokerage presentations
- 48:42and actually gain from from being in front of people and giving value.
- 48:46So just reach out to me on Facebook.
- 48:48Instagram.
- 48:51I'm super open to, to talk than that.
- 48:53I love to help people.
- 48:55Awesome.
- 48:56Our guest this week, Simon Caya from Caya Medias in Quebec, Canada.
- 49:00Simon, thank you again so much for taking time out of your day
- 49:03and in spending it with us here on the Spiro Podcast.
- 49:06Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
- 49:08Yeah, Todd, it's been a great week.
- 49:11Good to see you again. And,
- 49:14we've got a great episode next week.
- 49:16We're going to be speaking with some realtors and getting their take
- 49:20on what they're looking for in a real estate media partner.
- 49:24So hearing right from our clients what they're looking for I'm really excited.
- 49:30They're they're great team of ladies, that are very high energy.
- 49:34They're they're they're a hoot to shoot for.
- 49:36I love working with them.
- 49:38So it's going to be a fun podcast.
- 49:40So make sure you, come back next week for that episode and, Yeah.
- 49:44Simon, again, thank you so much.
- 49:46It was a pleasure getting to know you and talking to you.
- 49:48And thank you again for making the time.
- 49:50Yeah. Thanks so much.
- 49:51I'm all I'm I'm all jacked up energized.
- 49:54Now I'm going to go conquer something. Yeah. There we go.
- 49:57All right.
- 49:58Well, guys, that's going to wrap it up for this week on, on the Spiro podcast.
- 50:01Thanks for making time. We know it's busy season.
- 50:03So the fact that you're spending time to either watch us or listen
- 50:06is not lost on us.
- 50:07We appreciate that. We're humbled by it.
- 50:09Make sure you take time this week to just be thankful.
- 50:12Have that great mindset that Simon talked about this thing on this episode.
- 50:16Be thankful for the things that
- 50:17that you've been blessed with in your life,
- 50:19and make sure you take some time to breathe.
- 50:21Have a great week. Take care.