Latest / PropMedia Podcast / The Godfather of Property Media: 17 Years of Scaling w/ Phil Maurion

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The Godfather of Property Media: 17 Years of Scaling w/ Phil Maurion · PropMedia Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is Maddie.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: This is Moses.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: We are the founders of pixelmob.com and propmedia.com.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: And this is the Prop Media Podcast, where we talk about everything related to property media.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: And today we're talking with Phil Marion.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: He is the founder of Visual Advantage.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: He's got a lot of wisdom.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: He's like a godfather of the real estate media space.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: He's been in the business for 17 years, I think.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: Has scaled into four different locations, just thousands of shoots a year.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: So he's got some great business insight on what it looks like to scale both the simplicity and complexity of that.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: So come along.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: Phil, welcome from Sunny Canada.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: Not so sunny today.
0:53
SPEAKER_03: We've got lots of snow still, but it's it's getting better.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: We're almost into the pluses now, so that's good.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: Oh, into the oh, into the pluses.
1:00
SPEAKER_03: That's rough.
1:00
SPEAKER_03: I think it's gonna be 80 here today, Phil.
1:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Oh, nice.
1:04
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
1:05
SPEAKER_03: I'm envious.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: All right.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: So let's dive in.
1:08
SPEAKER_03: Phil, tell us a little.
1:09
SPEAKER_03: So you've you've been in this business a long time, like 10, 15 years, right?
1:13
SPEAKER_03: 17 years.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: And I think I was just thinking about that today.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: I might be the well oldest, not from a age perspective, but oldest company at PMRE, perhaps.
1:23
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
1:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
1:24
SPEAKER_03: I haven't found a company that's been around as long as we have been, but I'll keep I'll keep my grandpa jokes to a minimum.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: But tell us a little.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: So you've done this for a while.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: So you were a single shooter for a long time, and then you made a transition where you really started scaling a company eventually to where you're scaling in multiple locations with a pretty sizable team.
1:44
SPEAKER_03: Um talk to me about that jump.
1:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:48
SPEAKER_03: Um, to be honest, it wasn't a very long time to add photographers to to our our uh our arsenal of people because it was already getting crazy from you know the first year out.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: Um nice.
2:02
SPEAKER_03: I was going very fast.
2:03
SPEAKER_03: Um, I was taking a lot of business from companies that weren't really in the business.
2:07
SPEAKER_03: They're kind of half in, half out kind of thing.
2:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, so for me, the the idea behind growing this business was always not to be a single shooter.
2:17
SPEAKER_03: I never started it being a single shooter.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: I never called it Phil's photography, called it visual advantage right from the beginning.
2:23
SPEAKER_03: The logo was terrible.
2:26
SPEAKER_03: It got better along the way.
2:27
SPEAKER_03: That's that's one thing for sure.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: But Maddie loves our first logo too.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: It's not funny when you look back.
2:33
SPEAKER_03: Even my first pictures when I look back, I go, oh my God, what did why did people hire me?
2:38
SPEAKER_03: But um, but yeah, things were very different back then.
2:41
SPEAKER_03: And and all we sold was photos and you know, virtual tour and and uh, you know, maybe 360s and stuff like that.
2:47
SPEAKER_03: But there's no video, there was no drone, there was nothing, none of that stuff back then.
2:52
SPEAKER_03: Um, I even said to one of my photographers that'd been with me for 15 years, 16 years now.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: And I said to her the other day, I'm like, man, if we had AI back then, because we were trying to change one of the buildings, we only had a summer version of the building, and it was a bad day out.
3:05
SPEAKER_03: So we we used AI to turn it into a uh a winter shot.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: I was like, Can you imagine we would have had this technology back 17 years ago?
3:13
SPEAKER_03: What we could have done instead of going back and reshooting, you know, stuff like that.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, anyways, so back to topic.
3:20
SPEAKER_03: It was uh, you know, it was always um my background was marketing, sales, and and and I just I knew when starting this business it wasn't gonna be just about just me.
3:28
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to grow into a team, and uh, and I did that.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: So that was the uh that was the goal the whole time.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: Do you have uh a dialed in where you know like about how many shoots you do annually across your footprint?
3:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, and it's it's shrunk a little bit with the market now.
3:44
SPEAKER_03: It's it's obviously, but we were shooting up to 7,000 properties um a year at one point, and we had 20, 20 shooters at the time.
3:54
SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's a pretty impressive operation.
3:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's um, you know, I uh but funny enough, going to PMRE, I compare myself to some of the guys in the US, and they're you know, hundreds of shooters, and I'm like, how do you manage that?
4:06
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like I don't want a hundred shooters, I'm fine with 15 kind of thing, right?
4:10
SPEAKER_03: Like anyways, 15 to 20 is good, but it it's not like I'm looking to doing, you know, 100 or 200 shooters and and companies that are across Canada, across the US.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how these guys uh manage that many shooters.
4:23
SPEAKER_03: Um when I uh when I first started, actually with we were one of the we were the first iGuide provider at the time.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: So when iGuide launched their their product, it was like they were doing everything themselves.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: And actually, they were one of our competitors and they're just in their backyard.
4:39
SPEAKER_03: So we're competing head to head with these guys.
4:42
SPEAKER_03: And uh I remember one of the owners, Kevin, he um he said to me, He's like, I said, let me take on your technology and let me offer it to my clients, right?
4:51
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, No, no, no, we're we're gonna manage all of these photographers ourselves.
4:55
SPEAKER_03: We're we're growing across the country, and he's gonna, you know, take over the world, kind of thing.
4:59
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Oh, good luck to you.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: I said, Call me in six months if that doesn't work out.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: Well, the phone rang six months later, and okay, we're ready.
5:07
SPEAKER_03: We'll pass this on to you because he doesn't want to manage photographers, like that many photographers across the country.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: Somebody calls in six, somebody, you know, I mean, like it's just I don't know, it's crazy.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of complexity to scaling that kind of a footprint for sure.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: And I don't think there's actually one company that's been successful to a point where they were really successful that's been across nationwide.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't know if you guys have kept track of who and when, but I don't think I've seen one company being very successful at managing across the whole country.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: It definitely has been a struggle, and I mean there were a few we could have pointed to, but I think Windows is the one that stands out in my mind.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a franchise model, though, isn't it?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't know.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure they're all employed.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: I actually don't know ex the exact business model in and out.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, we talked to Brad in the fall, and I'm pretty sure there it is a direct employment um model from what I recall, where he's scaling and then and growing.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: So maybe talk to Brad next time you're at BMRE.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: And maybe we'll have him back on again.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, people have done it, but I think a lot of times though they really struggle.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: I remember a conversation with Brad actually in the fall.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: It was a lot about um some of his endeavors and hiring the right people in order to get good quality control, which I think at any level of scaling is one of the big shifts.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: Like if you're a solarpreneur hiring your first photographer, the big question that keeps people from doing that a lot of times is how do I how do I train that person to get a good enough quality?
6:37
SPEAKER_02: How do I convince them not to leave me?
6:39
SPEAKER_02: Like all of those questions where it's a lot of it is about like how do I replicate my quality and get a standard that my customers have come to appreciate about me.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: So I know zero in on that.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: Like even you, I mean, you've scaled impressively across four municipalities.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: That's huge.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: How do you do that?
6:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, how do you make sure your quality control for your videos?
7:00
SPEAKER_02: Like, we were just we were looking at your Instagram profile this morning, and you got you got awesome, awesome stuff that you guys have been working on and a lot of consistency of what it looks like.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: How do you make sure that happens across 15 shooters?
7:13
SPEAKER_02: You all have you know little quirks and differences and how they do stuff.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: It's been a challenge, it's been a challenge for for many years.
7:20
SPEAKER_03: Even last year, I remember, guys, we need to do this, we need to do that.
7:23
SPEAKER_03: And it's just hard to get the whole team when you have that big of a team, you're moving that much slower at changing things, right?
7:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like when you implement something over 20 people, it's easy when it's just by yourself.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you just decide to change, right?
7:37
SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh, done.
7:39
SPEAKER_03: But when you have 15 people with different mindsets who are like, wow, how much more am I getting paid for this?
7:44
SPEAKER_03: And how much is this gonna take of my day?
7:47
SPEAKER_03: And you know, it's not as easy as just turning on a switch and there it is, right?
7:52
SPEAKER_03: So it's it's it would I'd say it was difficult for the past few years to do that because we were still relying on our team to do almost everything.
8:03
SPEAKER_03: So, like our photography.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: So when I first started the business, I developed a way to kind of speed the process up.
8:10
SPEAKER_03: I could edit a home in 15 minutes.
8:13
SPEAKER_03: And even to like five years ago, people were like blown away by that.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: Now it's no longer because you know, AI and and editors and and all that.
8:21
SPEAKER_03: And the process I had created back then allowed me to shoot five, six houses a day, easy.
8:27
SPEAKER_03: And deliver them.
8:28
SPEAKER_03: And deliver them that day, like that night.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: Um, so everybody I trained on board and came on board with us, we uh I always make them sign non-competes because I was like, okay, well, if you're if you're like if I'm teaching you all this, giving you all these tools, I can't get you to just take them and then run the other way with it, right?
8:48
SPEAKER_03: So right, that's a side note.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: But it that's how it was.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: It was like I had developed this thing.
8:53
SPEAKER_03: So, but even then, like, you know, you you kind of see a guy doing or a girl like doing like like a photographer getting into it and saying, Okay, I I've got the process down, I'm doing it right.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: But then they start deviating, right?
9:08
SPEAKER_03: But they don't realize they're deviating because now they've started changing the preset a bit, they've changed, and all of a sudden you're like, you wake up the like a few weeks later, I'm checking photos from the previous day, and I go, What does this look like?
9:19
SPEAKER_03: Right?
9:20
SPEAKER_03: Like this is completely changed.
9:21
SPEAKER_03: So then you're on them, you're like, Okay, you gotta reel it back into like it was, and oh yeah, I I was making some changes.
9:27
SPEAKER_03: I thought it looked better on this one house, but of course, every house after that looked really messed up.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, there's all those challenges nowadays.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: It's way easier.
9:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've got photo editors, video editors, we're we've got our own like video editor coming on board now.
9:44
SPEAKER_03: So that that's been a huge thing for us is trying to find the right person to be our video editor that's gonna edit every single one of our videos moving forward.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: We same as photo, we can't rely on our guys to put out that exact recipe that we want them to do every single time.
10:01
SPEAKER_03: Because everyone's a little different, and not everyone is an editor either, right?
10:05
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, there might be a great shooter, but not so much on the post-processing side.
10:10
SPEAKER_03: And I like I'll I'll pick on one of my guys, and he knows it very well.
10:14
SPEAKER_03: Like, he's not a video editor.
10:16
SPEAKER_03: Like, he I said I said to him last year, I said, I need to take you off video completely until we have a video editor in place and we have a solution for you, you're no longer doing video.
10:25
SPEAKER_03: There's no way, like it's just it was that bad, you know.
10:28
SPEAKER_03: So there's those challenges, like you're you're dealing with with a lot of different people, different bodies, different people that have different mindsets, different abilities, different, you know, and that think that maybe one thing is good and the other person thinks that's bad, you know.
10:42
SPEAKER_03: And so now I'd say in our day and age, with all of the tools we have in terms of backend support, meaning editors, you know, um, we use HG PhotoApp for a lot of our stuff, like for everything.
10:54
SPEAKER_03: And like all the stuff that I wish I had, like 15, 17 years ago, um, is there now.
10:59
SPEAKER_03: So I think it is what you're seeing a lot more guys come into the business too, because they have access to all this, right?
11:05
SPEAKER_03: Like it seems nowadays, like everybody's doing real estate, right?
11:07
SPEAKER_03: Where when I started, I was like this really niche.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: Like my friends and my buddies were like, Oh, I'm a videographer for for weddings or I am working on movie sets and stuff, but you never heard I'm like a real estate videographer.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: Like it was just yeah.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: When I was getting into this, there were like one or two in my area.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: Now there's like what do we oh there's dozens, yeah.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Dozens, if not 70 or 80, I think, in there in our general area.
11:32
SPEAKER_03: It's nuts, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_03: And it's grown because it's a good business, it's the business I always wanted.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: It's a repeat business.
11:39
SPEAKER_03: Like, you're not chasing the next like once you have an agent that trusts you and then switch you, they they come back and buy again, right?
11:45
SPEAKER_03: Like they're you're not chasing the next sale every single time.
11:48
SPEAKER_03: Like to some businesses, oh my god, you don't even know what your next project is gonna be.
11:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you have to go and sell that project to the next company or the next, and there's no repeat business.
11:59
SPEAKER_03: I've never wanted to have that, I always wanted a repeat business, a repeat order business, right?
12:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know what I think is funny that's a joke about that with wedding.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: There's this virality built into um real estate media.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: So, like you lock in an agent, but what I didn't realize coming into this industry is that like agents move around from brokerage to brokerage so much.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: They're like bees, they pollinate new exactly.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they they go from this brokerage to the next one and they tell all their friends about you, and then they go and a year and a half later they move to another brokerage and they tell all their friends there.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: So there is this kind of kind of like built in.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: If you stick around, like you can quickly grow a big audience.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: I feel like there's something we could start a recruiting business and couple it with and maybe you don't even recruit to anybody in particular, so you could match it to the agent exactly.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: So you're not recruiting to your brokerage, you're just recruiting to any other brokerage that they're not at yet, and get them to move.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Get them to move, yeah.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
12:59
SPEAKER_03: I I like a lot of our business, especially like we didn't have social media like we have now and stuff like that.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, there was Facebook back then, and but you know, we relied on like word of mouth, like 100%.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: That was how we got along and and presentations.
13:14
SPEAKER_03: So I would do a lot of broker's presentations, you know, go in, somebody would say, Hey, yeah, you got to come in.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: My broker has a home inspector this week, but maybe next week you or next month you you're the you know the guy for.
13:25
SPEAKER_03: And so I would go into these and enjoy doing them.
13:28
SPEAKER_03: You know, for a while we were talking about floor plans and how important they were, you know, like it wasn't always like super sexy stuff, it was just more educational at times.
13:38
SPEAKER_03: But it was something that we would do.
13:40
SPEAKER_03: And and uh nowadays, you know, we've had to amp up our social media platform or presence a lot because we weren't really doing a lot of social media, we're just growing naturally, you know, through right of mouth, people knowing us and relationships.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: And I I still think relationships are stronger than social media, like you know, if it was truly up to just social media, we'd be dead in the water.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, we I don't think we we spent that much time in our social media, you know, over the past five years.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: We've definitely spent more time on you know, doing stuff, but you don't see me on camera a lot either.
14:14
SPEAKER_03: I I don't tend to I hate social media, I don't hate it, but I don't love it, so I'm not on there a lot.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: So I I never want to be that guy who's like trying to you know sell you on something.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't know, but that's just me.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: But I gotta do more of it to be honest.
14:28
SPEAKER_03: I gotta be doing that more stuff because if things have changed, right?
14:31
SPEAKER_03: And relationships.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, relationships part is, I think, really interesting, particularly in this industry, which is agents are so relationship oriented, huge.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: But you you mentioned doing kind of these uh brokerage like lunch and learns and presentations.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Is that something you're still doing?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And what does that look like?
14:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we do some.
14:49
SPEAKER_03: I just did one for women's in real estate just uh about a month ago, and it was just it's women that get together once a month and that are all real estate agents or whatever, and they have this little group and pretty big group, and then they just get together and I did a presentation about what we do and and all that stuff there.
15:06
SPEAKER_03: I got invited and it was nice, right?
15:07
SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's nice to connect face to face, and I I actually love smaller groups.
15:12
SPEAKER_03: Um, then I was at this Royal LaPage event, and I had to like go on stage to say a few words, and that's a different animal because then you're like on the mic, and I love the low the more like intimate settings, like that's just me, but um, I'll do the other ones too.
15:27
SPEAKER_03: But it that is sort of my forte.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: I love spending time with people and talking to them and about what we do and how we do things, and a lot of times you get a few clients from it, like it doesn't take a lot, you know.
15:40
SPEAKER_03: Like they get to learn about you, trust you, and know who you are, and and yeah, they get they give you a shot, right?
15:46
SPEAKER_03: So you'll have to impress after that.
15:49
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, relationships.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: I always say actually, like for people that start out, I would say, you know, hang out where they hang out.
15:56
SPEAKER_03: Like it's funny, but it's like you know, I there's a private golf course near us, and I know a lot of the brokers and a lot of the agents are part of that golf course.
16:07
SPEAKER_03: Well, you should be a member of that golf course.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: That's your business, you should be right in there.
16:12
SPEAKER_03: So that's what I do.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: I like I tend to want to be where my clients are.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: So no, it's no longer, oh, Phil the photographer.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: It's Phil the business owner who's there with me, golfing or whatever, right?
16:25
SPEAKER_03: So it's a different environment when you're part of that versus trying to sell them on something.
16:30
SPEAKER_03: And and there's so much noise.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: I mean, if you and again, truly back to the the point of like social media and how much noise there is, or cold calling to agents, it you know, they're bombarded with this stuff every single day.
16:42
SPEAKER_03: So for them, it's a lot of noise.
16:43
SPEAKER_03: So, how do you get through that noise?
16:45
SPEAKER_03: It's again relationships, it's being there, it's connecting with them on a different level.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: I think almost every new business owner has an impulse toward, I just need to get the right social media feed or something, and then my business is just gonna grow on autopilot.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, no successful business owner, hardly, that I've ever talked to.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: Has that been the vehicle of their success?
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Like talking about relationships and getting in front of agents.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: And those are things that the the new uh I don't know, the new generation of real estate media folks, it almost sounds they're allergic to that.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: Of like I want to figure out how to DM enough people instead of just figuring out how to go hang out with people and grow business in a human way.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's always surprising to me because there's this gravitation toward uh that because it feels highly leveraged, yeah, because like it's just being published in a feed, and we have this dream that hundreds of thousands of people are gonna see that or whatever.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: But in reality, just going and hanging out with seven people at a golf course probably gets you way more business than spending that same time optimizing a reel on Instagram.
17:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have to do both, like it's it's not just one or the other, but um you have, yeah, yeah.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: It and you're right.
17:55
SPEAKER_03: And it's but it's not just about that.
17:57
SPEAKER_03: And I think people will always gravitate towards I have that relationship, I feel comfortable with that person, I know who they are.
18:04
SPEAKER_03: That's gonna speak wonders over okay, they have a good reel.
18:08
SPEAKER_03: And and and you know what?
18:09
SPEAKER_03: Like the other thing too, we're not selling to each other, right?
18:13
SPEAKER_03: So you might have the best reel technically, but agents aren't looking at it from a technical perspective, right?
18:20
SPEAKER_03: They're not looking like we're looking, right?
18:22
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
18:23
SPEAKER_03: They see this real, they think it's cool, but they don't know, like, oh my god, he used this technique and that, you know, right?
18:30
SPEAKER_03: Like they're not like you gotta learn about your demographic, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_03: And uh another one that happened to me recently that relates to this is um I was at that roll of page show and I was showing some of our clients some of the new AI uh videos that we're doing, right?
18:46
SPEAKER_03: And it's super cool.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: You got virtual staging coming out of the floors and you know, whatever.
18:50
SPEAKER_03: Right.
18:51
SPEAKER_03: And uh they're like, wow, cool, yeah.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: But you could tell in their eyes is like, okay, I'll call you next week.
18:58
SPEAKER_03: I got a listing, and it's gonna be an eye guide and photos.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: You know, yeah, they're they're interested in their they're liking it, but are they gonna like pull the trigger on uh you know a thousand dollar package versus a four hundred dollar package or whatever it is or$299?
19:14
SPEAKER_03: Like whatever it is, like I think you gotta learn your demographic.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: And realtors are a little bit like used car salesmen in a way, right?
19:21
SPEAKER_03: I don't I hate to use that analogy, but you know what I mean?
19:23
SPEAKER_03: Like they're gonna use as much as they can without going over.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: Be that mean to used carls, uh car salespeople, Phil.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: That's really rude.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, yeah.
19:32
SPEAKER_03: Oh what I meant.
19:32
SPEAKER_03: It's more like they just try to get by with like what the minimum.
19:35
SPEAKER_03: Maybe we'll cut that part out, right?
19:38
SPEAKER_03: No, but like it's more about like I think realtors are like, okay, how much do I need to do to get the listing and how much do I need to do to sell it?
19:46
SPEAKER_03: And I get it.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: It's if it was my personal money spending it, and again, I think they're looking at it like it's their own personal money.
19:51
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes they're not looking at it from a business standpoint.
19:54
SPEAKER_03: I always used to say to people too, I was like, you gotta realize that whatever you do for media for the property, it's the only thing that the neighbor down the street is gonna look at.
20:04
SPEAKER_03: He's not gonna know what you did for on the back end and how you signed that document and negotiate this thing and whatever.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: All they're gonna see is what did you do to sell this place?
20:13
SPEAKER_03: And but that is photos, video, and whatever else you're doing.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: So you do have to impress, but sometimes a lot of realtors just go, Well, what can I do just to get by?
20:24
SPEAKER_03: Right.
20:24
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and uh you always try to push that, you always try to get them, you try to upsell them because it's good for our business, but it's also good for them.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: But they don't all realize that they don't all want to do that.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: So the majority of our clients are still very much eye guide and photos.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: We'd sell a ton of eye guides, but i guides and photos is basically the basis.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: That's the like we call it our floor plan pack, and that's that's it.
20:48
SPEAKER_03: That's that's the smallest package essentially, but that's is the one most of.
20:52
SPEAKER_03: And I would add to that is if you're gonna do that and you know that's your demographic, and they're gonna most people are buying that, make sure make sure that package is also very attractive, right?
21:02
SPEAKER_03: Don't don't make just the high-end packages super like that's where you you put all your stuff in because all your eggs in that basket, because there's still those people that just want that, right?
21:11
SPEAKER_03: Just to want the basic.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: So also look at those guys, and they are your repeat business, they are the guys that are calling you all the time.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: So don't forget about those guys.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: It's a great word.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: It's like there's always a place for the uh base heads are what win games.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: All right.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: It's that time in the episode where we're gonna pause for a second on a feature of Pixel Mob that might be useful for you.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: So actually, talking with Phil about like his needs, one of the things that had has come up in the past is the need for large teams like his to have editor teams and redundancy in order to make sure they can deliver things.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: So, right in the back side of Pixel Mob is that feature where a larger team can have not just one editor that's pinned to the type of service that they need.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: But let's say you want to have a roster five deep of HDR editors.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: That all match your standard.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: You can find those in the marketplace.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: You can build the templates and build the workflows and store them right in your editor team.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: So whatever what happens, whether a natural disaster hits the Philippines with your main team or something like that, you have your redundancy built right there.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: So your workflow is exactly the same the next day.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: And as soon as power is restored with your main editor, you can go right back to them.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: Or whatever.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Like maybe you've scaled to where you're doing 15 shoots a day and one editor can't handle your volume.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Pixamob is right there for you.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: So you can send as much as you want into your editor team and get the actual deliverables back that you need.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: So we're still waiting on that awesome presentation video ad.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Maddie's still deliberating on the exact form of how to do that and in directing a beautiful commercial.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: But until then, I'm just going to tell you about cool things in Pixel Mob.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: So thanks.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: You use iGuide.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people uh have are familiar with like Matterport and Zillow 3D, and these are kind of coming things.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: What what's kind of the difference between an iGuide and these other platforms?
23:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I can't speak too much on say Zillow and we don't have Zillow up in Canada.
23:07
SPEAKER_03: Like we don't, it's not something that is massively used as in like there is no like 3D, like we don't don't get into that.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: So I I can't really speak of Matterport, yes, and iGot are the two biggest.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: iGuide even being the biggest actually in Canada, uh, versus Matterport.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: Um and part of it is that it's a Canadian company, they've pushed hard.
23:26
SPEAKER_03: And uh I don't know if you guys know they got bought out recently by an Australian I saw that uh RA, yeah.
23:32
SPEAKER_03: So um they're gonna do some more developing, they're gonna they're gonna push even harder now in the US, but in Canada it's been huge for for the from the beginning.
23:43
SPEAKER_03: Um your question is like, you know, what being at PMR, you see a lot of different things, right?
23:49
SPEAKER_03: You get pitched a lot of different things.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: And every time I'm like, I I struggle with some of these newer companies because it doesn't make sense to me.
23:57
SPEAKER_03: Like it's too fast forward, it's too um, how do I say it?
24:02
SPEAKER_03: Like it's just like it's too, it's missing something.
24:05
SPEAKER_03: It's like with Mataport, like I don't know where I'm going in this property, right?
24:09
SPEAKER_03: You got the dollhouse, okay.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: You can kind of figure out some of these newer platforms.
24:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't even know where I am.
24:14
SPEAKER_03: I've never been in this house.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: Like, so Uber shot it, obviously knows where they are, but I'm a new guy coming in, a new user, new viewer of this house.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: I'm coming in going, I don't know where the bedrooms are.
24:24
SPEAKER_03: With iGuide, it's so basic, but it works really, really well.
24:29
SPEAKER_03: You know, at all times you're in the house, you're in the second floor, you're on the first floor, you know you have the floor plan at all times right there, kind of showing you where you can transport yourself from one to the other.
24:39
SPEAKER_03: You don't have to be like, Oh, I gotta walk up the stairs and go all the way up.
24:43
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know what I mean?
24:44
SPEAKER_03: Like there's yeah, there's something that's missing on sometimes on with new technology that it's super sexy and it's fun, and it's like, oh my god, look at this.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: Like, I can, it's like a video game.
24:54
SPEAKER_03: I'm walking around, but you're missing the point of selling a house, right?
24:59
SPEAKER_03: Like it it is that there's that moment where you're just like the older generation, first of all, my parents would never be able to use some of these things.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: Like, they're just like they would get so confused.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: But and you have to remember, like, who's buying, right?
25:13
SPEAKER_03: And and you gotta make it a simple it can't be complicated to the point where they're getting confused and and and frustrated frustrated by the motions or the the ability to get from what from A to B.
25:26
SPEAKER_03: So iGuide for us answers all of that.
25:29
SPEAKER_03: Um, it also provides us with floor plans that are very, very accurate.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: I won't won't knock anybody today, but there's some floor plan companies out there.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: It's it's rough.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: It's it's you know, and for a little I wouldn't want to put my name to it.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: Um, we don't actually do any floor plans outside of iGuide because we can rely on the data and and and and everything else from it.
25:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, so yeah, we get floor plans and we get the turnaround is super fast.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: We've got some automation built in with HG Photo Hub.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: It comes in.
26:01
SPEAKER_03: We don't have to like manually move everything around.
26:03
SPEAKER_03: And and when we switched to HG Photo Hub as a side note, um, our biggest thing is we needed integration.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: I couldn't do five, six, seven thousand tours and manually copy and paste all this stuff in, right?
26:16
SPEAKER_03: Imagine that kind of volume you would now have to pay someone every morning, and that delays delivery as well.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: Um, so you're you're gonna manually gonna copy and paste the links, all the floor plans, all the the virtual tours links and and pdfs and jpegs, and no, we we couldn't do that.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: So when we when we switched, we it had to all be integrated, and I guide was there for us and uh to integrate with HE Photo Hub and Matterport wasn't right.
26:47
SPEAKER_03: So you know, like sometimes you gravitate to things that make your life easier, but you also know your your clients are happy with.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: That's really insightful.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of times we get and and maybe us even more than average, like we're really excited about new technologies and new ways of doing things.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes like the fact that it's really cool that you can move through a Gaussian splat or whatever, and like you were describing, like a video game.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: Cool is one thing.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: Best experience for a user is another.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: And those kinds of um, those kinds of user experience prioritizations in companies and technology decisions, I think really are I think always almost more important than the actual like uh technical excellence of the product.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: Like the fact that it works is really key.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: And the fact that it works in your business, like it sounds like that's deeply integrated into how your workflows work, how you sell your services, how you prioritize the uh the accuracy of the floor plan so much that you're you're not like a lot of people are trying to offer a version of a floor plan on everything, but you've prioritized the quality of this one in your package and different those kinds of decisions are always fascinating to me, and obviously working very well for you in your decisions in your markets.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: It's quality and delivery, right?
28:04
SPEAKER_03: It's a mix of both.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: If you just had quality, but you like how many, how many times we have a client saying, Oh, I tried this guy, but man, I remember this one uh agent, she's like, Uh, I tried this photographer, it was highly recommended to me.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: And we're like, Well, how did it go?
28:18
SPEAKER_03: And she's like, Horrible.
28:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and they gave me a free floor plan, and you biting your tug of like, Well, was it worth what you paid for it?
28:27
SPEAKER_03: Well, no, they got so apparently this guy was like really high on himself, right?
28:31
SPEAKER_03: He walks in the house and he sees that there's different color light bulbs around the place.
28:35
SPEAKER_03: So he made that realtor go to Kire, which is the like uh a hardware store in in Canada.
28:41
SPEAKER_03: He made the the realtor go there, buy new light bulbs, so that she had to switch all the light bulbs out into these lamps so they all matched.
28:50
SPEAKER_03: Well she's like, I have I don't have time for this.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: Like, what I she's like, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, that's an easy post-production.
28:57
SPEAKER_03: Like you can easily match.
28:59
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, what was this guy thinking?
29:00
SPEAKER_03: But he was trying to become this, like, you know, I'm really highly regarded, blah, blah, blah.
29:05
SPEAKER_03: And and what I've been on shoots like that, but that's not your realtor.
29:09
SPEAKER_03: I like I used to shoot for uh Delta Hotels, the Marriott, and and it was like I'd be eight hours on set on on like in the hotel, and they would like we would take a picture and I'd be like tethered to my laptop.
29:24
SPEAKER_03: My laptop would be would be with the marketing team, their marketing team, and they would look at every little detail, and they would rotate this thing like three quarters and then go, okay, let's take it again.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: Let's take it again.
29:35
SPEAKER_03: And it like it was that like my tickets, but you get paid really well, you're on set all day, and that's fine.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: But that's your that's that customer.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: Like a realtor is not that customer, and but this guy was acting like that with the realtor.
29:47
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, oh man, this guy has no idea.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: And you want to like sometimes, like I always get this idea, I want to like call my competition up.
29:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, don't do it, it's so bad.
29:55
SPEAKER_03: Like, like you want to help them out, but you're not going out, right?
29:58
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, yeah.
29:59
SPEAKER_03: You're like, I I wish I would call these people up, like, no, I've tried it, don't don't worry about it.
30:04
SPEAKER_03: But of course, you don't do it, but it's like you kind of want to help people out sometimes, but you're like, oh man, that's just a bad idea.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: I feel like that's like the most Canadian thing you've said in this podcast so far.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: I want to help my competitors do better.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's let's just shift focus just a little bit toward um one.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the things you've done that I think is gonna be interesting toward a lot of people is you've expanded into three other markets.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: Successfully, you're running a successful business in all three.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things I'm curious about, I think a lot of people would be, is if you were to do that again, let's say you're gonna open up uh five.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna open up a new one.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, well, I mean, you could answer that question of if you opened up five new ones, but I'm just asking about one.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: Like, what would you do?
30:53
SPEAKER_02: What would your playbook look like if you're like, okay, I'm gonna launch, it makes sense for me to launch in this new market.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: How would you come at that and think about that, having done it a few times?
31:01
SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, it you know, it comes down to I I've been really lucky with the people we have under us.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: Like there are photographers that are out there every day for us.
31:14
SPEAKER_03: I've got some I mentioned earlier, some of my old photographers have been with me 15, 16 years.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: I probably have the highest retention of any business in my area because of your photographers, yeah.
31:24
SPEAKER_03: But like I'm talking like, who do you know works for a company for that long nowadays, right?
31:29
SPEAKER_03: And and so yeah, they've been with me for a long time and people know them.
31:33
SPEAKER_03: And you know, we don't hide our photographers, we put them on our website, like we say who they are.
31:37
SPEAKER_03: We we kind of have that sort of environment that you know we want to put them in the head.
31:42
SPEAKER_03: Now we've had some major losers too, and they're they're gone now.
31:46
SPEAKER_03: But you know, but you know, and they try to steal a business and all that crap.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: But you know, like the most most what of what you want is a good person, right, in front of your clients.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: And nowadays, with of course doing the editing offshore and all that stuff for video photos, it helps that process before you had to find a photographer that can actually do all of the pieces, yeah, everything, and we're able to, like, you know, and it was like train them up to do video, and that's always took months, right?
32:14
SPEAKER_03: So nowadays, like, yeah, opening up a new area is a lot simpler in a way.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: Now, the problem is the market sucks, like in Canada right now, or our real estate market.
32:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how it is in everywhere in the US, but um, it it's a rough goal right now, yeah, and everyone's desperate, right?
32:31
SPEAKER_03: And the funny thing is we're also dealing with, and Lizzie's off topic, but we are dealing with bigger numbers now, like the packages have grown, as in like now they want to do AI videos.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: So now the packages are worth like a thousand bucks, two thousand dollars.
32:44
SPEAKER_03: And so with that, you can it's harder to like some guy could come up and be like, Oh, I'll give you two hundred dollars off, right?
32:51
SPEAKER_03: Like, there's so much more margin, or not margin, but like you know, play in the with the numbers that you can like as a single shooter, you could like discount, undercut somebody.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: Whereas if you're like on a$300 package, if the guy goes, Well, I'll do it for ten dollars less, I mean, as a realtor, you'd be like, Oh, okay, here's a six guy, right?
33:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but once you're starting bigger numbers, bigger differences, like that's when it's like, okay.
33:14
SPEAKER_03: So it's harder to compete right now.
33:16
SPEAKER_03: So to open up a new market for me right now, uh, it's something we're looking at.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: We're definitely looking at different markets, but it's in my jumping at it right now because of how slow the market is.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: Once you get somebody on board, um, you got to keep them busy.
33:31
SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, they're gonna go do something else, right?
33:34
SPEAKER_03: So uh it's a tough goal.
33:36
SPEAKER_03: I I if I would do anything different from I like like I like I said, I think technology and the and the support we have now on the back end allows us to grow faster as in and get more people on board.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: We don't have to train them for as long, we don't have to do days on end of training, and we can kind of just get them going by knowing how to capture, and then we'll do the rest.
33:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, so that's really that's really important to grow nowadays.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: Um back in if I to answer your question a little more, like but what we did back then was mostly you know presentations and getting out there and and I remember like Muskoka's that the cottage area I was talking about, and that area I I would do a presentations to really get people to know who we were because they had no idea.
34:20
SPEAKER_03: And and again, relying on social media back then was impossible.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: Um, so we would, you know, we would do some Facebook ads, but it was you know like limited in a way, so we would just physically go there and present.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: Nowadays we're doing you know, there's target market, you know, uh softwares, and you can get a VA to help with you know pushing some of that stuff, cool calling some people, try to get them on board, give them a free tour, give us a try, you know, like some of that stuff you can use, and that helps to get the the word out and that you're available to work up there and and wherever you're you're you're growing.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: But you do have to take it's almost it's an investment, right?
35:00
SPEAKER_03: You grow into a new area, you're not making money off that that area for a long time.
35:04
SPEAKER_03: You're talking like it's a four or five year plan, maybe a little less, but it's a it's a long road ahead to to get the you know, the rewards.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: So is it you're bringing a photographer on that's gonna be working that area at the same time that you're going and starting to seed the area with you know the marketing, or what's that timeline and like what comes first?
35:29
SPEAKER_03: We've worked in the past with people like if they work at a photo store or like you know, if they work somewhere that made sense um for them to work there and then work for us part-time.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: Like that's how sometimes it starts because then you that you know it's really hard to unless you bring them on as an employee and you're giving them full-time salary or something, that that would be where you can kind of just say, okay, well, you're just on staff and you're just gonna work when the work comes.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: But if they're working at for you as a subcontractor and they're just going out there when the work is there, yeah, a lot of pressure on you to get them busy.
36:02
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, so you it's kind of like you don't have a choice, right?
36:07
SPEAKER_03: But if they get the job, the pressure's not quite as great because then it, you know, or sometimes wedding photographers are great too, because they would work weekends, but we need them during the week mostly, right?
36:19
SPEAKER_03: So that was always a fun like one to use there because you could utilize their skills during the week when they're kind of slow and do nothing, and then vice versa, you know, they're busy on the weekends with their weddings.
36:29
SPEAKER_03: So finding those kind of groups of people oftentimes helps.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's also very hard to go very far versus like the neighborhood, like if you're like in a neighborhood region, right?
36:41
SPEAKER_03: So if you have a region that's close to you, like you can kind of send your own people there once in a while to kind of fill in.
36:47
SPEAKER_03: But if you're working on on a pro like on a region that's super far, that's the hardest.
36:52
SPEAKER_03: That is really tough.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: It's complex.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's complex, yeah.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of wisdom that you're putting down there around.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Like I remember talking with Brad in the fall, some similar themes, like he dialed in on that question on like you're hiring the right person.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: Like you you gotta find the right talent, and then you are also dialing in on you got a great post-production that keeps it consistent.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then all these lead generation levers that you're dropping great nuggets of things people could try.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: Like, if they're going to engage, like if you put those three together, yeah, you find the right person, you dial it into your postproduction system, you have enough business knowledge to realize this isn't just gonna print money tomorrow.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: This is an investment, just like you would you would put money into the stock market, you're gonna put money into your business in an effort to make it grow.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: And then you're gonna go market it.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: You're actually gonna take it into the market it and make it grow.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: Like it's I I it's it's one of those things where it's like it's it's I don't want to say it's simple, but it it seems like one of those, it's simple, it's not easy.
37:58
SPEAKER_03: And to your point earlier, there's you know, 80 people in your region now doing the same thing, like that it makes it the more difficult.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: Where before uh you would be very close to being one of maybe four or something, you know, that it's easier to get into that market when you have 80 people offering the same service.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: Now it's become a lot harder to get that growth, right?
38:19
SPEAKER_03: And we've seen companies around us that have tried to grow way too fast, too quick, and they're struggling.
38:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're struggling.
38:26
SPEAKER_03: Their investments are, you know.
38:27
SPEAKER_03: So I I don't envy them, but it's it's you know, it's a difficult task for sure.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, Phil, this is some awesome content.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sharing openly, transparently about your business, how you've grown, and hopefully super helpful to others as they're working on the same endeavor around the world.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, hopefully you're um, yeah, still don't just a word from an American.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Don't call your competitors and tell them how to make their business better.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Um But thank you for helping uh our listeners figure out ways to think about their businesses and and improve them.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: So before we go, um, we'd love to let you plug your business.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: And if there's ways people can follow you in your journey, what are the best ways for followers to find you online?
39:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh Visual Advantage, uh Visual Advantage underscore CA for on Instagram and Visual Advantage on Facebook.
39:18
SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, those those be the the main spots.
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SPEAKER_03: Visual advantage dot ca for website as well.
39:25
SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much, Phil.
39:26
SPEAKER_03: And we'll look forward to seeing you around.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me, guys.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: Appreciate it.