Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / A Day in the Life of Craig

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A Day in the Life of Craig · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

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Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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you might just be burnt out right now.
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You might just need, you know, if this is the first slow day you've had,
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you might just need to shoot that one house,
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and then you might need to take your wife out to lunch or dinner.
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Do something for yourself.
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It might.
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It might do you more good to slow down
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so that your body can catch up.
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Your brain can catch up.
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Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
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managing your real estate, photography and videography business.
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Spiro is a software platform.
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It's designed to help you run your day to day real estate media business.
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And ultimately, if it's your goal to help you grow and scale your business as well.
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I'm Craig Magrum, welcome to it, host of the podcast.
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Glad to be here with you each and most every week.
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And along with me each and every week.
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Our owner and founder of Spiro, cohost of the podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
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Hello, Todd.
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Craig, it's great to be here.
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Sorry, I'm jumping right in. So off air.
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Craig, told me
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Okay. Yeah.
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Just so we're just I want to go on right for it, right?
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I want to bring everybody in because you have me.
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So my interest so piqued here.
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So we start the podcast with just a little introduction
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to Justine, our fabulous editor. And
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Craig said with
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this topic, he's like, if you want to do anything that's fun
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digital on me, like, and you want to special effects
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to make our listeners and viewers laugh, feel free to do it.
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And I said something to the effect of, yeah, like maybe
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a face tattoo or something of the like.
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And Craig said to me, the face, well, let's
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give it a little context, the face tattoo, to not just a random thing.
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Was it last year?
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I think it was last year somehow.
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How did that even come up?
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We started talking about me having a face tattoo like Post Malone.
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Yes. I can't remember what it was like how we got there,
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but somehow we were tattooing all kinds of different things on your face.
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And yeah.
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Todd, throw out a challenge to to listeners
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and viewers to do their own, you know, photoshopping of my
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I don't know I don't know how it starts.
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So that's why Todd said to Justine,
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tattoos or a face tattoo.
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All right. Okay. Go ahead.
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And then Craig said to me, well, Todd,
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actually, I've been thinking.
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And I said, Craig, stop right there.
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We cannot use this off line because everybody's going to want to know
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what you're about to say.
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So you've been considering what, Craig?
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I've been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo.
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It's not the first time in my life I don't have any tattoos.
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Back when I was in my 20s, I thought about it.
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My boss at the time said, Craig,
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think about, think through that a little bit more.
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Do you really want a tattoo when you're 80 years old and it's all saggy and
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you know, it doesn't look good.
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And he he talked me out of it, right? Okay.
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He talked me out of it.
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So I haven't haven't thought about it for a long time, except for the fact that,
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how many
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years ago was it, I forget, maybe 2018.
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I took a trip to Egypt.
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I did a mission trip to Egypt. Okay.
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We served in what was called El Multimedia.
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It's the garbage dumps around Cairo
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where Coptic Christians and,
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the the poor Muslims live.
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They live in these garbage dumps right outside of of, Cairo.
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They go into the city.
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They gathered the garbage, they take it back to where they live,
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sort through it for the recyclables and sell the recyclables.
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It's it's.
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I've never seen anything like it.
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Yeah. So
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Christians in Egypt are mostly known as Coptic Christians.
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It's a particular, you know, denomination of Christianity.
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And one of the distinctive marks that Coptic Christians
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have is this little Coptic cross on the inside of their right wrist.
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Okay, parents give their kids when they're young that
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if if they're Christians, just to remind them
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of their their heritage and their faith right in Jesus.
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So I got to serve with Christians in in Egypt,
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and I've thought on and off
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for the last couple years, but especially the last four months,
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I've thought about maybe getting a Coptic cross on the inside of my right wrist.
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I've toyed with the idea,
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I just I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
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So yeah, nothing.
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Nothing. No big deal. No face tattoos.
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Not good.
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Well, okay.
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Well, we'll continue to try at times on the podcast,
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but I do I mean, I love the idea of I don't have any tattoos and
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I haven't really thought a lot about one, but I love the story behind it.
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Craig. I mean, I think it it resonates and it connect.
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I think I think it's funny, those of you listening, watching,
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I'm guessing you're agreeing
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that you think it's probably funny that the owner of the business
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is toying with the idea of letting one of his employees get a face tattoo.
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That's how we're facing for the clients.
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Are you sure you want to do that, Todd?
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No. My plan depends on what it is.
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Tell me if I'm almost 50 years old.
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My parents would still kill me if I did that.
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But, yeah, that is.
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That's a bit extreme, but I like the.
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I like the cross on the on the inside the wrist.
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There.
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And and how much can a wrist really sag as you get older.
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There is that there is that.
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Certainly not a valid concern okay.
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So weird way to start the podcast.
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I hope we might have two listeners left now.
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Todd Yeah, that's okay. Let's keep going for those two.
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Right. Okay.
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Well, before we dive into the topic, which is, oddly enough,
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related to what we just talked about, do you have any Spiro updates?
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What's going on with the software? Todd
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very quickly, Spiro sync.
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Y'all are loving it.
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It is our event in January.
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We have a date January 22nd, 23rd.
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By the way.
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Thank you all for messaging and saying, hey, this sounds great.
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I want to know more about it.
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If you haven't messaged me yet and want to know more about it
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and are interested, this would be January 22nd 23rd in Dayton, Ohio.
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So you would fly into Dayton, Ohio.
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You'll stay there hotels,
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you know, probably going to be less than 100 bucks or right at 100 bucks.
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It's going to be a two day event where you're going
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to come and learn, connect with us.
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You can bring your team as well.
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So we are excited this will be our first event.
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It's something we've wanted to do.
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We love connecting with you
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and we love the community connecting with each other.
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Craig and I did a podcast long ago about PMRE.
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The conference in November and our first trip there,
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and how we took away with the idea
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of the importance of connecting with your community.
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So we're going to do an event.
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There's also a few more ways to connect on top of the Spiro sync.
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You can connect at the REPP conference.
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That's Eli Jones's conference.
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That's going to be an incredible event.
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It's, November 5th and sixth, I believe.
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Check the dates for me.
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We'll link it below.
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And then you do have PMRE two weeks later.
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So pick an event, pick one of them, pick all of them.
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But I think you'll find value in coming and growing and learning.
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And then when you get there, go talk to people.
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Come to find myself, come find someone that you know.
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Talk to someone you don't know.
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Connect with people.
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You'll find a ton of value in it.
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Absolutely.
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Maybe we invite a tattoo artist to come and I get my tattoo.
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Well, Craig, I was going to say, are you going to, like,
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why don't we do this tattoo in Vegas this year?
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That'd be the place to do it, right?
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Yeah.
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I was trying to have more self-control.
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I was thinking about that. But.
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So I mentioned it, but I did.
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What would happen in Vegas, though?
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That wouldn't stay in Vegas.
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It would come with me, would go. Yeah.
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Not a bad thing to bring back from Vegas.
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There could be worse things, I suppose.
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Anyway.
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Yeah. All right. I did want to.
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I did want to quickly mentioned before we dive in
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just because I'm so excited about this update in this partnership.
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It's it's with a company called Titus.
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Oh, yeah.
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And Titus is a pay at closing company.
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So your agents will quickly and easily apply
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if you choose to use Titus for financing.
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And they can pay for their darn photos and video.
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At the close of the property, I think that's just the coolest thing.
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Let me ask a question.
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Yeah, Devil's advocate playing in the back of my head.
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What if the sale doesn't go through?
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What if that agent loses the listing and they don't renew the contract?
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What happens? Yeah. Great question.
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So ultimately the agent is responsible for making the payment.
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You know, this is somewhat similar to a firm.
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And some of those other payment systems you see out there
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that are on your most popular e-commerce websites, where you can pay over time.
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So the agent is responsible for it.
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Number one,
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I want to mention that the photographer gets paid immediately regardless.
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Okay, so you all get paid immediately.
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Number two, if the house does not close, the agent has the ability to move that
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liability that that charge to another listing.
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If they have it, then they can pay for both listings at the close of listing B,
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if they don't have another listing,
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ultimately they're going to be, you know, do that money back to Titus.
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But we have seen and we've heard from Nick, the founder.
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And Nick's going to be on here soon. Yeah.
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That average order value
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is going up substantially.
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Agents are understanding.
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They love the flexibility.
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He's gonna give you some incredible stats about agents
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and finances and just I think the thing that I always try to
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remember is when an agent gets a listing, it doesn't mean they make money.
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It means they pay out money.
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That's one of the big
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things, is they get a listing and they have
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all of these things to pay for their their go.
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There's a good chance they're going to make money off the houses,
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you know, appropriately, price and you know all of those items.
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But they have to pay out money and that's difficult for the majority of them.
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I didn't realize that Craig even top producers.
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So and if you all think about it,
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if you have an admin, if you have a VA and you have W-2
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employees, it's not, you know, you are going to get paid by jobs.
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They do.
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And this is a great topic that we need to cover coming up.
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But what do you do in the down season with your W-2 employees?
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So I'm excited about Titus. I'll stop there.
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Just one more hint that I want to give you guys is,
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Titus is also going to have one other really big feature
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that is, well, there's a couple of them, but we'll talk about him in a week or two.
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It's going to save you money on your credit card processing as well.
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So I love this company.
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I the the founder Nick is incredible.
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We will continue to only do people do business with people that align
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with us and companies that align with us and just an incredible guy.
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It's so intelligently, so intelligent and,
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just really understands us as real estate photographers
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looking forward to that episode should be good.
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Yes. And Craig, we're looking at a,
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September 23rd launch of that, a tentative.
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So mark it down your calendars.
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We're going to give you all
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all of the materials where you can market out to your agents.
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We're going to help you sell this. Educate your agents on it.
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It's really nothing to sell.
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It's actually it's kind of a no brainer if I can.
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But enough of that will give it all of you will give it all to you in a week
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or two.
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We'll help you
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grow your business through this, and we'll continue to do things like this.
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And Spiro, it's exciting.
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Oh, and we will be the first to integrate, so you won't get this anywhere else
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right now. That's fantastic. Cool.
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I can't wait for that episode. That should be good.
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Yeah. It'll be a fun one. All right.
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Awesome.
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All right well welcome back to another week.
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Those of you returning new listeners I know that was an odd way
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to start a podcast.
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But go back and listen to some past episodes.
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You'll get a feel for who Todd is, who I am, who what Spiro is.
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We're, pretty laid back.
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We try not to take ourselves too seriously,
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and we have fun with what we do.
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So, but ultimately,
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we want to help you grow a strong, good, solid real estate media business.
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And, we were brainstorming topic ideas for this episode,
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and I threw out a couple ideas, and you came back with another one.
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I'm going to let you set this up.
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Yeah.
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So we are at the middle of August of 2025,
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and we are coming into a transition of the market.
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All right.
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So we have this we have these cyclical patterns.
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And for those of you
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on YouTube, I'm just shown a graph that shows this kind of sine
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curve where you start off slow in the winter, you peak in the summer
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and you go down back for the fall and winter.
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And that is happening now.
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So we've got things like back to school, you got county fairs,
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you have other activities where people who might be buying
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and selling have their attention elsewhere.
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And I thought it was appropriate because this was very awkward
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for me throughout many years, this transition,
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because you go really, really hard and then it's like, whoa,
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wait a minute, I have some of this time
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and I, I hate to say that
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my first
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couple of years when I hired on my first key person
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and he was the helper that I referred to, we talked about this in a podcast,
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or I talked about this in a YouTube video with Eli Jones.
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If you want to go back and find that it's on Eli's page.
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I talked about hiring a helper versus a builder, and this was my helper.
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And Craig, you know, as I look back, I told this individual I was like,
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you know, for the winter, I that's where I take time off.
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And there was literally day
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I'm like, there's going to be days where you just don't see me.
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And I would do that.
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I would literally not be a part of the business for days at a time.
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In the winter.
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I'd be excited to be with my family. I'd be doing things around the house.
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It was kind of awkward because we worked out of my house,
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you know, so you'd come in to use the bathroom.
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I'd be sitting on the couch watching TV or watching TV.
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Yeah, like, hey, how's work going?
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But you know what?
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I did that intentionally because I needed a break,
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and I was okay with it because I just knew that
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if I didn't get that break, I wouldn't have enough to give.
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When it came time for me to give.
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But if you are excited about growing your business,
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and you probably are because you're listening to this,
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you all are overachievers out there.
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If you're listening to this else, you'd just be watching TV
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right now.
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There's this time, and I get this question a lot from you all out there
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on coaching calls and other events I do is like, what do I do?
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And I think by habit,
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it might feel natural to go back to some of the tasks that you've delegated.
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You might check email,
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you might micromanage VA's or employees.
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You might go do the laundry,
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you know, whatever it may be.
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But I thought this would be a great time to do a day in the life of Craig.
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So now for
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for the record, I told Todd, are we sure we want to do this?
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We want to maintain and grow our audience, right?
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Which we don't want to drive you away.
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Couldn't talk him out of it.
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Well, Craig, I'm actually extremely excited about this
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because I think if any, if you or
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I really connect to our client, think you connect to our client,
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you know, to you listeners out there being shooting, selling.
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And I think understanding this transition
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from busy to slow season is just going to resonate.
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So I'm excited to go through this today.
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So Craig, we're just coming off a busy season. Right.
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So give us an idea.
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What does busy season look like for you?
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Well, as you said, I've got the hybrid roles on both doing
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the photography, videography, drone, you know, agent on camera videos.
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I get all the fun of the creative side during busy season.
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I my day is full with shoots.
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A full day for me can be anywhere between
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like four large shoots with multiple services.
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Up to maybe six shoots if I have a couple that are of, like, say, photography only.
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Right?
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So anywhere between 4 and 6 shoots, is a full, busy day for me.
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And pretty much from, like I would say, April
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through about this time, most every day is is full.
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Just came off of July where,
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you know, our my my territory, my my market.
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I think we did 88 shoots.
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I've been busy.
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Been very busy.
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So not exactly sure where you might want me to go.
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Maybe start at the beginning of the day.
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Yeah. So a couple?
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Yeah, a couple.
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So a busy day.
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So 4 to 6. That is a lot of shoots in a day.
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And I know that that's something.
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And this is a little bit of a tangent.
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But I think it helps because it really is an inside in your day.
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So just walk us through and it can be briefly.
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But I know when you and I talked
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many years ago when you were starting your business, you were doing
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maybe a handful, 2 or 3 shoots a day and you felt capped by that.
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So, yeah.
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Is there anything, any, anything you'd like to gain?
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Give us insight as to how we're able to achieve six shoots in a day.
18:24
Wow. Well, number one, outsource your editing.
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I mean, when when I was only able to do, say, two shoots a day,
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I was doing my own editing and a very, very quickly dawn on me.
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There is no way to scale a business or be able to support myself
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when when I was doing this on my own, by doing my own editing because I could
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like I said,
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yeah, I can only do two shoots, and then the rest of my day into the evening
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I've spent editing to try and get things turned around that very next bit.
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You know, that next business day.
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And even back in 2017 when I first
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got into it, that's what, realtors expected.
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They expected things. The next business day.
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So number one, outsource your editing immediately.
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Just don't don't bother with trying to, do your own editing.
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If it wasn't for our editing team, we wouldn't have a business right?
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And, Craig, we have a simple solution for that autoHDR,
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AI editing we used exclusively at Wow.
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It's integrated into Spiro AutoHDR.
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Search it. use it.
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You'll probably need to QC it, look over it.
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I don't want you to QC it. Find a VA.
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We are working on a solution for you to just hire a team that we outsource to.
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But that is kind of a done for you solution.
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But number two,
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finding a system to handle your invoicing, the,
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you know, the scheduling, the sending, sending things out.
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Originally when I first started beta testing the Spiro software,
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before it even had a name, I was even with that,
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I was still doing my own scheduling, I, I don't
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yeah, I was using Google Calendar, and so it made my day kind of clunky.
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I would shoot
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and then, you know, the phone would be ringing
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while I'm trying to shoot or in between shoots.
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Then I'm checking my calendar
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or my emails in between shoots and trying to finagle scheduling,
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and I managed. I grew the business, but boy,
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it took a lot of time and a lot of energy to do that.
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So I yeah,
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outsourcing or bringing on team members to help you
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with all of those administrative tasks is huge.
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And it's to the point now where I'm part of the Wow team Wow video tours and I can
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I can just concentrate on two things shooting and business
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development.
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Where do you want to go from there?
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Did that answer that first question?
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So how much? No.
20:43
That's fabulous.
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Thank you for that.
20:44
So in a day of six, it seems like a lot of shooting.
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How much business development is in that Craig
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during busy season.
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Not a ton.
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I'm still taking, you know, some phone calls.
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If it's if I'm on a shoot, I let it go to voicemail.
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I do check that voicemail.
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Then in between my shoots and if it's something I have to respond to
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right away, I take care of that.
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If it's something I can respond to when I get home,
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back to my home office, you know, before I start uploading for the evening.
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Then I'll I'll take care of it then.
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Same thing with emails, you know, responding to emails.
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I still do check in between shoots so that I can be timely in my response.
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And that's huge.
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Realtors are often on short deadlines,
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and so I want to respect that and make myself valuable to them.
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So being sure to respond
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quickly for me is is an important thing.
21:37
Yeah.
21:37
With that responding Craig,
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is there I'm sure there's times
21:43
that you handle things, but are there any other times that you might quickly
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forward something to a team member back at the office?
21:50
Yeah. The number one thing is scheduling.
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Because so many, so many of my early clients who are now,
21:56
wow, clients got used to me doing all the scheduling.
22:00
Even now after doing this, I think now I've been shooting for two years.
22:04
For Wow
22:05
I still every once a while
22:06
get a client that will call and want to schedule with me.
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And I'm like, I'll tell you what, I'm actually on a shoot right now.
22:13
I'm going to have you do 1 or 2 things, either call or scheduling team.
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They're there until 5:00, and I give them the phone number
22:20
and I said, they'll take great care of you.
22:21
They'll ask all the right questions and make sure that you get set up
22:25
the way you need to, or you can do it online 24/7
22:28
It's super easy to schedule online.
22:30
I give them the website.
22:32
I unless I'm sitting here in my home office,
22:36
you know, and have the time,
22:39
I might schedule it then, just since I'm on the phone with them
22:41
and I can do it, but out in the field, I'm not going to mess with it on my phone.
22:45
Yeah. Our scheduling team takes care of that.
22:47
That's the number one thing.
22:49
Yeah.
22:49
And I and I love that you're still able to.
22:54
That is in a way sales.
22:57
That's part of the business development role that we do.
23:01
It's just you've removed yourself from that column.
23:05
And you're staying in a higher column.
23:08
We've talked about if you're like Todd were you talking about to time tracking.
23:13
Those are some verbs we use with time tracking.
23:15
But Craig has moved himself up to a more valuable column,
23:18
and he lets another team member help
23:21
with a task that needs to be done, which is scheduling.
23:25
But he's just more focused on what's more important to him, what I what I often
23:30
will do to when they do call to schedule, I will ask about the the listing.
23:34
You know what, give me some key features of it.
23:37
What services are you looking forward looking for?
23:40
I might find out. It's a vacant.
23:41
I might talk to him about, you know, virtual staging.
23:45
So even in that scheduling call, I am trying to upsell.
23:49
If there's a benefit to them for that.
23:52
Love that.
23:53
And then I'll slack the scheduling team and I'll give them just a quick,
23:57
brief summary of the conversation and and just say, be expecting their call.
24:01
Or would you please call them to get this scheduled?
24:04
And here's what we talked about, just to make sure that we're
24:06
on the same page on services that we talked about.
24:10
Yeah. That's great.
24:11
And one thing that we're excited about Craig,
24:14
is now that our scheduling team is inside of our CRM,
24:19
those
24:19
call transcriptions will be inside of the CRM.
24:23
So hopefully that will even save you a little bit of information passing.
24:28
From you to scheduling.
24:30
So you could just bump scheduling and say, hey, just talk to so-and-so client.
24:34
All the info is in there.
24:35
They could read the AI summary or listen to the call,
24:38
and then you can even more minimize your time to focus
24:42
on the things that you want to.
24:43
You need to focus on, okay, full transparency time.
24:46
I forget about some of these newer tools because I'm so used to doing things
24:51
a certain way that, yeah, AI summary I, you know,
24:56
that's going to be you two, you know, you listening
24:59
as these new tools and efficiencies come into play in our industry,
25:03
it's going to take some getting used to, especially if you've done it
25:06
the same way for a long time.
25:07
I'm not opposed to new methods.
25:09
It's just it's hard to break old habits.
25:11
Right? Yeah.
25:12
But yeah, it will make it more efficient.
25:15
It will.
25:16
And I think those are
25:17
those are all those habits are good things because they're called
25:20
what I, what I call like a capture device when you're out and busy, like what?
25:25
What's going to trigger you to remind, to
25:28
remind yourself to follow up with someone you know?
25:31
Sometimes, like I take photos of things and then I'll look at my photos
25:34
if I need to check something, or I'll send myself an email or record a voice memo.
25:39
But those are capture devices.
25:40
And then it is really cool how technology can streamline that.
25:44
We're not specifically talking about our flow with the CRM
25:48
and learning support today, but those are some things
25:52
that as you grow, we just took a big step
25:55
up to put everybody into it at Wow,
25:58
and it's breaking down what we refer to as silos of communication.
26:02
So we'll do some podcasts on it.
26:04
Coming up, if you're at that point already where you have many divisions
26:08
and you have those silos, you like to know what we do.
26:11
Shoot. Shoot me a call. I'll be happy to.
26:14
Or shoot me an email.
26:14
Excuse me.
26:15
I'll be happy to have a call, give you some insight on it,
26:17
but we will be giving you guys more information on that.
26:20
And talking about our flows.
26:21
But those are all things that continue
26:23
to keep you in your column where you're most efficient.
26:27
Craig, are there any other little things?
26:28
I know you talked about scheduling, but anything else that you're just
26:31
you would not hesitate that you send to the team member
26:34
that can take care of that client.
26:38
Off the top of my head, I.
26:41
I'm not thinking of a whole lot.
26:43
Scheduling is is pretty much that is the big one.
26:46
Let me ask you to let me ask you a little bit different of a question, Craig.
26:49
Do you get do you get requests from agents
26:54
about changes or fixes with media?
26:58
That's a great question.
26:59
Not a ton. Okay.
27:02
We usually are setting expectations before the shoot.
27:07
Yeah, there's there's not a lot of changes.
27:09
We, I just we try to make sure that we do things right ahead of time.
27:14
And you know, before we get photos back or or deliver those.
27:19
But if, if they're,
27:22
if I know I've shot something that you know, there's
27:25
something slightly wrong or let's say either I catch my reflection in a black
27:30
refrigerator or something that I just didn't see when I took the picture.
27:34
I'll, I'll let the support team know.
27:36
And they take care of that editing.
27:38
I'm not editing anything myself, but I,
27:41
you know, I try to keep my eyes open for those things, but yeah.
27:44
No, what?
27:45
I think what's happening here, Craig, is actually
27:48
we have proper channels of communications to our clients.
27:52
And, I'm realizing that this is working well, just in real time.
27:56
Talking through this with you today,
27:58
because we do have complaints that come in and request for adjustments.
28:03
Why it doesn't get sent to you
28:05
is because all of the delivery emails come from a specific inbox.
28:10
That's not your inbox, right?
28:12
And you have done enough expectations setting to let
28:16
your clients know that we have a team that can assist them.
28:20
So and I'm sure over the years, a client has called
28:22
you randomly here and there and you have probably said, hey, I,
28:26
I actually have someone that can help you better than me.
28:30
So my suggestion
28:31
there is if if you are still on that inbox
28:36
where clients are going to click reply to a delivery email,
28:40
I would say get yourself out of that inbox and put it into a shared inbox
28:46
with your team, because we have team members that do that
28:49
and they do it very instantly and they do it very quickly.
28:52
We've learned that from the time a client requests something,
28:56
to the time we clone something out very quickly and easily in a photo
29:01
and get that back to them, that is very critical.
29:05
That time right there and getting back to them means that
29:09
and getting back to them quickly means that they you are still in the process
29:14
of whatever task they're doing, say, uploading photos to MLS.
29:18
They want to get that done because again, just like you,
29:21
they don't make money by uploading photos to the MLS.
29:25
They have to do it.
29:26
You don't make money by QC and images.
29:28
It just has to be done.
29:29
So the quicker we can get them through that process, the better.
29:33
I will say, you know, since you mentioned them replying to
29:36
like save the support email or whatever email is delivering,
29:40
they will still reach out to me because they might not pay attention.
29:45
There's so used to the relationship with me that they might they might say,
29:48
hey Craig, you know,
29:49
there's something in the yard can, you know, can you edit that out?
29:53
And I'll, I'll reply to them and I'll CC
29:56
support and say, certainly our support team can take care of this.
30:00
You know, in the future, if you ever have any editing requests, things like that,
30:04
please feel free to go ahead and just email support directly.
30:07
That'll save a step in the process and get you a quicker results.
30:09
So it's providing education and helping the the realtor understand, you know, hey,
30:14
add this address to your your contact, you know, in your phone or whatever.
30:19
And it just takes some training, some education.
30:22
Yeah.
30:23
A quick example from my end because I actually got one of those
30:26
emails yesterday.
30:26
Craig I don't did you really. I really did.
30:29
I don't get a lot of emails from our clients at Wow, I happen
30:33
to get one from a very large client at our largest brokerage deal.
30:37
And it and this client
30:40
also CC the managing broker.
30:43
Okay.
30:43
So the broker in charge and it wasn't a complaint.
30:46
It was just a need for some files some old files.
30:49
And it came in and Evan on our team responded
30:53
and gave everything that was needed before I even saw the email.
30:57
And I think the point is, is while I have that connection with that very large
31:02
agent, and I have the connection with the broker in charge, we've said it
31:06
enough at Wow that ultimately the agent knew to CC
31:12
or address our support team,
31:15
and then I, I just let the wheels turn.
31:18
I saw it pop up.
31:19
I saw the name.
31:20
I'm like, I'm not focused on it right now.
31:22
Evan got it within a matter of minutes and an and and you have to do that.
31:26
One quick point I want to make is if you respond instantly,
31:30
you have just set expectations that
31:33
that client, that broker, that person needs to always email you.
31:36
Yeah.
31:37
Please don't take please don't take the the, the, success
31:44
or don't take the opportunity for success for your team away from them.
31:48
Evan did.
31:49
Yeah.
31:49
Like don't take it because let them succeed.
31:53
And then I praised Evan.
31:54
I gave him a shout out at morning meeting this morning.
31:56
I'm like, hey, yeah, but I don't know if you knew it, but this was the broker
31:59
in charge at our largest company.
32:03
Like, thank you so much for getting back to them so quickly.
32:06
The agent, the broker in charge, both responded super happy,
32:09
super appreciative that I didn't have to do anything.
32:12
Y'all.
32:13
Yeah.
32:13
That's that's a great insight in, you know, conversely,
32:16
if if an owner jumps into early
32:19
and takes that opportunity for a win for one of your employees away,
32:24
you're going to kill morale in your team because your team if
32:28
if you've hired the right people,
32:29
they really want to see the company succeed and see you succeed,
32:33
and they want to feel empowered to be able to do their job
32:36
and know that you as the owner, trust them.
32:39
If they don't think that you trust them, they're going to be on pins and needles
32:43
all the time.
32:44
They will.
32:45
Yeah, I, I hate that I've had to raise my hand for doing that over the years.
32:50
I did it in a general manager role that I had earlier.
32:54
I learned, I learned, yeah, yeah.
32:57
So and I learned when you do that, the best thing to do is
33:01
when you recognize is to go let them.
33:05
Yeah. And apologize, let them know.
33:06
And, you know,
33:08
I just saw a video clip yesterday, Todd, of, a guy talking about leadership.
33:12
He said, I will follow a leader to the end of the Earth through a brick wall.
33:17
If they do, at least one of these top three things apologize.
33:23
Ask for input and admit that they don't know something.
33:27
If they do any of those three, I'll follow them. That
33:32
that is that is so countercultural, Craig.
33:35
Because I would say that the culture of the world in 2025 would tell you
33:40
that all three of those things would show you to be a weak leader.
33:46
Great insight there. Okay, Craig, let let's transition here.
33:49
Thank you for the insight.
33:50
That is incredible.
33:52
I'm sure there's a ton of questions around some of those flows.
33:55
And those are flows that we've tried to perfect over the last 20 some years that.
33:59
Wow. Again, if you have questions, we'd love to take them.
34:02
Hello@spiro.media.
34:04
Shoot them over so we know what you are wanting to know.
34:07
But let's transition here, Craig, into this.
34:11
The coming down of busy season where we're at right now.
34:16
So what what does your day begin to look like
34:20
when there's not six shoots on the day?
34:23
Great question.
34:24
Had that kind of day yesterday for the first time in months.
34:28
Todd I had one shoot yesterday.
34:31
Okay, well, you know,
34:34
like, this shouldn't be a surprise to me.
34:36
I've been doing this enough years now. I know the cycle.
34:39
I know mid August.
34:41
It's got to you know, people are kids are getting back into school.
34:44
Like you said at the beginning of the podcast,
34:46
last minute vacations are happening.
34:48
County fairs right now.
34:49
I live in Bowling Green, Ohio, in Bowling Green, Ohio is known,
34:53
for hosting the national tractor pulling championships
34:57
for the entire county for the entire year.
34:58
Very serious stuff.
35:00
I live right next door to the Wood County Fairgrounds, and,
35:04
I hear those tractors pulling all day into the evening.
35:09
Sometimes at 2:00 in the morning if they've been rained out.
35:12
Yeah. Yeah.
35:14
So, you know, there's a lot of people just a lot happening right now.
35:18
So my appointments have suddenly dropped this week,
35:24
compared to.
35:24
So I'm like, well, what am I going to do?
35:26
Am I going to sit around, watch TV?
35:28
Yeah.
35:30
No I'm not.
35:32
So knowing watching that
35:35
it was a Thursday, watching that day come up on my calendar
35:38
and not seeing any more shoots coming up, I started shifting my thinking
35:43
back to business development and okay, have I caught up with my VIPs?
35:47
Have I touch base with, teams that I haven't had a chance to talk to?
35:53
I'm shooting for them, but I just haven't been able to talk to them.
35:57
Do I have any new clients that I need to call and reach out with?
36:01
And set, you know, first order expectations or follow up
36:04
on a shoot that I did in the last 2 or 3 weeks.
36:07
Check back in with them, see how their experience was.
36:09
So I started thinking through all these business, business development things,
36:13
and I start I picked up the phone, started making some calls yesterday
36:16
that I haven't been able to get to because I've been so busy, sent out some emails.
36:22
I set up a potential new client. Coffee.
36:25
I've talked a lot about my coffee meetings.
36:28
Because I had found this new realtor
36:30
at a brokerage that we do a lot of business with.
36:34
And reached out, introduce myself and you know, the relationship
36:38
that we have, and asked her if I could, you know, treat to coffee
36:42
and get to know her
36:43
her new real estate business and introduce Wow video tours a little bit more.
36:47
You know, mentioned that we're the preferred vendor,
36:50
but I know you have choices.
36:52
So I'd love to tell you a little bit more about wow.
36:55
And she responded, I think within about five minutes and said, yeah, I'd love to.
36:59
I'm new to town. From out from Colorado.
37:02
So I don't know, don't know a ton of people.
37:05
And I got a coffee meeting right away.
37:07
I haven't done a coffee meeting in a while because I think too busy to,
37:10
you know, shooting.
37:11
So I just I've done this long enough.
37:14
I know the activities that work for me, for business development
37:18
and what I need to get back to when I have that extra time.
37:21
I can't sit still when I have a
37:24
a free shoot day.
37:27
Because I know I need to keep my funnel full
37:31
if I've been busy shooting for the last,
37:34
you know, say 4 or 5 months,
37:37
and I've not had the opportunity to maintain relationships,
37:41
I've got to get back to that as soon as possible,
37:43
because my personal philosophy is I don't want to take any of these
37:46
relationships that I've worked very hard to build for granted.
37:49
Wow, I want I want them to know, hey, yes, I haven't talked with you
37:54
a whole lot, but it's because I've been so busy with the shooting.
37:57
But I want you to know I appreciate you.
37:59
You know, I might be sending out.
38:00
Thank you. Is I might write.
38:02
I've got a whole kind of arsenal of things that I like to do when it's slower
38:07
to reestablish the relationship and make sure that I'm taking good care
38:11
of my clients in my market.
38:14
Craig, so many questions around that.
38:15
I think I have one that will we'll unpack here
38:19
and then probably begin to end because there's, I have a ton of questions.
38:24
I'm sure all of you do about this arsenal that Craig has to keep the funnel for.
38:27
But, maybe just one. It just. Let's go.
38:31
Very practical.
38:34
Yesterday, or you had realized at this Thursday
38:38
with one shoot was coming up, you know, subconsciously,
38:41
probably some things are coming back to the top of your mind
38:44
from a practical standpoint.
38:48
What what did you do, like that time
38:51
finally hit where you had time and you haven't had it forever.
38:54
Like, from where did you go? What did you like?
38:56
Where did you start? Was it in your memory?
38:59
Was it in a CRM? Just give us a.
39:01
If someone out there is saying, hey, I'm sitting around today listening to this.
39:06
That sounds great, Craig, you've mentioned some fabulous things.
39:08
VIPs.
39:09
Okay, I don't know if I have VIPs, new clients.
39:13
I don't know of these things.
39:14
We don't have broker deals.
39:17
Where did you start yesterday?
39:19
Where could our work at our listener start at today?
39:21
From a practical standpoint? Right.
39:25
So you mentioned the CRM.
39:26
You know, we we have a CRM, a program that helps us maintain
39:31
and keep track of all of our business activities,
39:34
you know, sales outreaches, things like that.
39:37
So earlier this week, as things would pop into my mind, I would go into that
39:41
and just create a to do item, basically, so that when Thursday came,
39:45
I had a list to work off of and I could stay focused during the day
39:49
and make those phone calls, send those emails,
39:53
you know, set
39:53
up the coffee meeting, whatever it was.
39:57
Now, some some of those things obviously aren't necessarily time dependent.
40:00
I didn't have to do it yesterday if I didn't get it to it yesterday.
40:05
And I think there was 1 or 2
40:07
the next slower day I have, I can I can knock that out.
40:10
It's on my list that I'm not forgetting about it
40:12
because I can't remember everything that comes to mind.
40:15
You know, I might be brushing
40:17
my teeth, getting ready for the day and oh, I need to call so-and-so.
40:21
Well, I only need to remember long enough to get down to the computer and put that.
40:24
Or actually, I have the app on the phone where I can add
40:27
that, that To-Do item to, to the CRM.
40:32
So that that's kind of my practical thing.
40:34
And honestly, I took, I think, an hour break besides lunch of not making calls
40:40
and when busy season happens,
40:43
my office gets a little less organized.
40:48
Let me put it that way, I like that.
40:49
So I took the I took the opportunity to file some things away
40:53
to clean up my workspace because for me, mentally, I just, I,
40:57
I feel better when my workspace is organized and clean and not cluttered.
41:03
It just, it allows me to.
41:05
I don't even know how to describe it.
41:06
I just, I feel better and I feel more focused.
41:09
So I spent a little time organizing and cleaning yesterday, too.
41:13
Yeah, I think that's great insight.
41:14
And when you take that downtime, you all shouldn't feel bad about it, right?
41:20
You know, there's way too many days that I like to admit
41:23
that I sit here where where I'm at today
41:28
for the entire 8 or 9 hours, seven,
41:31
nine hours, and I'm at the office to the point
41:34
that's like I'm running to the bathroom and back because I'm on my next call.
41:39
And this is just me
41:41
kind of confessing out loud like I'm, you know, we're all still trying
41:45
to figure this out, too, but when you take that downtime,
41:50
see that as valuable that you're going to have some margin
41:53
in your brain in your life
41:57
to actually focus on the important things,
42:01
you might just be burnt out right now.
42:03
You might just need, you know, if this is the first slow day you've had,
42:09
you might just need to shoot that one house,
42:11
and then you might need to take your wife out to lunch or dinner.
42:16
Do something for yourself.
42:17
It might.
42:18
It might do you more good to slow down
42:21
so that your body can catch up.
42:24
Your brain can catch up.
42:28
So that that would be my tip.
42:30
If you feel like you're caught up and you want to make those first practical
42:33
steps and say you don't have the CRM like Craig mentioned,
42:38
and if you don't have a CRM, we have a solution coming up for you
42:42
very soon with Spiro.
42:45
But if you don't have a CRM, what I would suggest you do and if you're like,
42:49
I didn't keep those, I didn't keep
42:52
the list of people I need to contact.
42:55
When you're at your desk or working space,
42:59
quiet space, disconnect from the world, turn your phone off,
43:04
go back and search through your emails.
43:08
Who in there do you need to respond to?
43:11
Don't respond to them right now.
43:12
Just write their name down or flag the email.
43:15
Okay, go through those emails.
43:17
How much money is sitting in there that you need to respond to?
43:20
So look back
43:21
through your calendar and look at those meetings that you did.
43:25
There's probably someone there you should follow up with.
43:27
Again, don't follow up with them right now.
43:29
Just make a list for today, in the coming days where you are,
43:33
where you have this time to focus on client acquisition, then go back through.
43:39
You got to turn your phone back on,
43:40
go back through your past calls, scroll through the calls.
43:44
Did you have a missed call?
43:45
Do you have a missed voicemail?
43:47
Okay, if you do write that name down, then finally, if you have any other capture
43:52
devices for me, it's my it's the images on my phone.
43:56
I sometimes take pictures of something that needs to be done,
44:00
go through the other capture devices that you do and make your list.
44:04
That essentially is all the CRM is.
44:06
You all so don't feel intimidated by this idea that you have to have a CRM.
44:12
Just create that list, get it out of your brain.
44:16
That's going to free up some margin from there.
44:20
Then you're just going to cross them off one by one, ideally in time blocks
44:25
where it's dedicated for that list.
44:29
And then you're going to go clean your office
44:31
or spend time with your family, or think about your next big idea.
44:36
Go take a walk in the woods.
44:39
Craig.
44:39
We had a friend my wife was with, a a friend this week,
44:45
and she used a phrase nature bathing
44:52
And so if y'all don't like,
44:55
my wife is very,
44:57
on the health conscious, natural, organic side, like, about big, about nature
45:02
or, like, grounding and all these things like alignment with body.
45:06
And long story short, anyway, she uses term.
45:10
I was like, I've never heard of nature bathing.
45:12
And she's like, I thought you would have heard about nature bathing.
45:15
Long story short, I mean it.
45:17
It's nothing.
45:18
Nothing weird other than the fact that, like, sometimes
45:21
we need to disconnect from technology and we just need to be out in nature,
45:25
like sitting in nature, listening to the birds,
45:28
appreciating the the beauty of the trees, the flowers.
45:33
So sometimes you just need to turn everything off and you need to
45:35
stop scrolling on a device, let your eyes rest
45:38
and go out and just let your other senses work out in nature.
45:43
You know,
45:44
I'll admit that I was tempted to do that yesterday, and but my default is I.
45:50
You've mentioned it.
45:51
I feel guilty doing that during the workweek, so I never do that.
45:57
And there's been times in my past where I've been so overwhelmed
46:00
or so stressed out by something that it's like I start to break down
46:04
and I, I have to get away.
46:07
And when I, when I take that walk in the woods or sit by that stream,
46:12
it's like,
46:16
And you hit
46:17
but don't wait to that point of almost breakdown to do that
46:23
again, build some time into your schedule, do that maybe once a week
46:27
or once every other week or something just to get a regular cadence.
46:31
I, I love walking barefoot out in the grass there.
46:34
There is something to ground.
46:36
I agree, I don't know all the science, but I feel better
46:39
when my feet are on some soft green grass.
46:42
It just it just feels better and wears.
46:46
Yeah.
46:47
Craig, I got to chat.
46:48
Okay, Craig, we're going to wrap this a challenge.
46:50
This is for me and you.
46:51
How many shoots do you have today, by the way? Craig, I.
46:54
I've only got two
46:55
Okay. We're going to do some nature bathing.
46:58
All right?
46:58
So you and I and all of you listeners out there
47:03
take ten minutes and it's going to feel awkward.
47:05
At least try ten minutes somewhere out in nature.
47:09
Take your shoes and your socks off.
47:10
Okay.
47:11
Sit. Listen.
47:13
Lay down, get comfortable,
47:15
and just take in the beauty and everything that's around you.
47:19
All right, Craig, I'll take a selfie.
47:21
You take a selfie. I want to see your feet.
47:23
I want to see your bare feet in it.
47:25
So if you do it,
47:28
take the selfie
47:29
post posted on our Spiro Super User Group or Spiro Facebook page.
47:33
Post it somewhere and tag spiro.
47:36
Tag nature bathing, hashtag nature bathing.
47:39
And let's see if we can get some people
47:40
some time to really just let their brain go free.
47:44
You know, I was thinking before this podcast, you gave me
47:47
a challenge months ago that admittedly, I have not moved on, and I have,
47:52
I have I'm publicly apologizing to my boss here, folks.
47:55
He told me he wanted me to record myself
47:58
day in the life of basically out in the field, and I've not done it.
48:02
I, I, I'd rather be behind the camera than in front of,
48:06
well, this is different anyway.
48:09
So maybe that will be the kick off for that.
48:12
But you told me needed to be done, and, I'll, I'll, I'll take my shoes and.
48:18
Yeah, we're. Baby steps.
48:20
Y'all give some, give Craig some love down in the comments below.
48:23
I don't ask for it, but give Craig some love down in the comments below.
48:26
I think if he really knew how helpful he was and how insightful he was,
48:30
I, he's hard on himself and he is incredible.
48:34
I know you all love him, as do I, but Craig, we're excited
48:37
to see your bare feet today and your nature bathing photo.
48:43
You might see a, brisket injury on the back of my ankle.
48:46
There's a story behind that one.
48:48
Maybe I'll share that next week.
48:49
I love that, Craig. Let's do it next.
48:52
What a great hook.
48:54
Okay.
48:55
All right.
48:55
This is getting weird.
48:56
We're getting close to an hour in here.
48:59
How about we wrap things up when things get weird?
49:01
It's our time. We just wrap, right? It's.
49:04
It's time to go.
49:05
So anyway, transition from busy seasons and a slow season.
49:09
Yeah.
49:10
A day in the life of shooting, business development.
49:12
I hope you I hope you got some some, good tips and ideas.
49:16
Maybe to try something new and,
49:20
yeah, I'm thankful for the the work I get to do.
49:22
I really do love what I do.
49:24
So hope you found some value in that, Todd.
49:27
Thank you, thank you.
49:28
Chris was sharing two weird.
49:32
All right,
49:33
well, guys, that's going to wrap things up.
49:36
Before Todd asks any more weird questions of me, I'm just going to.
49:40
We're we're going to.
49:41
Yeah, but but I'll just stay on mute here.
49:43
Make sure you when you're doing that nature bathing takes
49:46
some time to be thankful for the blessings in your life.
49:49
And like we say, take a breath.
49:51
You guys have a great week. Take care.