Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / There's No Easy Button

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There's No Easy Button · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

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Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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I look at all this stuff online and you feel like you're never enough,
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you know, despite the grind that you have been doing.
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And granted, there's days that you don't, you don't feel like doing the grind.
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You know, you might slack a little bit, I've done that.
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And yeah, we get we get trapped in this self,
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imploding trap of never feeling enough.
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And then if you're not careful, you want to give up.
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But you can't.
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You can't.
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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 by real estate photographers for real estate photographers.
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It's designed to help you
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not only manage your day to day business, but really to help you scale.
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Welcome to the podcast where we talk about the business of real estate media.
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I'm Craig Magrum and along with me each and every week, well most weeks.
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Todd Kivimaki, owner, founder and, my partner in crime.
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What other what other,
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titles can I give you?
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Todd?
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Well, it depends on which way you want to go with it.
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I don't know if you saw in the Spiro Super Users
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group, the, the post I put up, I tagged you in the comments.
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I did just see it. Yeah. So
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that's where
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I think we sound like sometimes.
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And listeners and viewers are saying right now, if they don't get to to it.
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Yeah, that's, that is what they sound like Yup.
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Yup yup.
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Yeah. We, we try to get to the content.
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You all know we can get on a good tangent or two, but it's great to be back
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this week.
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We are off the high still of the Spiro Sync conference.
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Yeah.
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Thank you to all those
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that came and enjoyed and just shared and just connected with us.
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Yeah. This morning at our team meeting,
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we always open, Todd always
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Opens the meeting with asking us for our wins.
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And by far the number of wins that was shared was just people's takeaway.
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Our staff's takeaway from, from the conference
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and just how much everybody enjoyed that and was encouraged by it.
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And they loved meeting you, our listeners and viewers that were able to attend.
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So yeah, we're definitely still flying high.
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And that's actually we're going to talk a little bit about our impressions,
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and part of the presentation that you made today on VIPs
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and, just our impressions of the conference
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and things that we noticed and, and observed in watching all of you.
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Craig
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Yes. We've, I'm excited to get into that, but I'm looking at your screen
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here, and I see something in the background.
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New staring at us.
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Oh. Oh, you mean here?
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You mean.
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There we go.
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You mean this right here?
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Yes, I do mean that.
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Yeah.
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This American is flying the, the UK, the Union Jack.
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Is that the Union Jack? I think that's the term for any good.
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Yeah.
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Thank you to, Steven and Eduardo all the way from Scotland.
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They, they gifted me a, this bag,
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and it was, it had a box of, shortbread from Scotland.
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Todd. And I love shortbread.
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The box is not gone yet, but I put a dent in it.
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Yeah.
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I agree that they were kind enough to bring me one as well.
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And I agree my, my kids and I were eating them the other day.
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Like these are really good. I'm like they are good.
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So love shortbread and knowing it's all the way from across
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the pond made it taste all the much better.
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Oh, I know, so Steven Eduardo.
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Yeah. Thank you guys.
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That was really kind of you.
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And I had I had to put it in the, in the podcast.
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So I love that.
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Yeah it was great to connect with you both and everyone there.
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So it's just a fabulous time. Right? Right.
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And Steven and Eduardo,
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if you're listening to this, you need to watch the YouTube version.
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Okay.
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Yes, because Craig
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has a British flag tattooed on his forehead.
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So it's worth watching.
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Speaking of, tattoo that day, it's coming very quickly.
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Yes. February 18th.
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So my my son is going to go with me,
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and he's going to be the one that, records, the whole experience.
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And maybe we can share it on the podcast or do a standalone episode or something.
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I don't know, but, yeah.
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So my, my oldest son, I promise we'll get to the content.
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He, he said, so what design are you going to get?
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So I sent him two pictures for two different, two different tattoos.
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And, he he texted me back and says, so which one?
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And I write back. Yes.
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Now I'm kind of conservative.
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If people haven't picked up on that, I'm not much of a risk taker.
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And I kind of get kind of,
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kind of,
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hey, my son writes back, no, I was his dad, right?
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So I was strict. He was our oldest.
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He didn't get away with much. Yeah.
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And he writes back. He's like both
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I think I've, I've shocked my son,
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but he's all about coming to, to experience this with me.
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So that's.
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It's going to be a good time.
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Anyway. All right, let's dive into it.
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So, Spiro Sync conference a very first conference that we've done,
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as a company. Todd.
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And, man, what an event.
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I'll I'll just kind of let you set it up and take it here and.
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Yeah.
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So we wanted our goal with Spiro Sync was that you were all be able to come
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and be in person.
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There's something about being in person that we've experienced at,
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the Repp conference and PMre and just seeing you all out and about,
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there is something connecting human to human.
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And this will connect with another part of what we're going to get to today.
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But we all see each other through these screens
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or we hear each other, you know, through our earbuds.
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And I think our brain can begin to fool us and think that that is a
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that is enough.
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And I know I talk to a lot of people
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every day on zoom and it's it's actually a really great technology.
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And it allows me to connect with people in ways
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that I wasn't able to prior.
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The thing that is still leaves is this gap for this human to human connection.
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And that's what we wanted to achieve with Spiro Sync.
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So we wanted you all to come to be able to build build for 2026
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and beyond to belong.
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I call it the Spiro sphere.
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And we've got some great stories about belonging
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and just how everyone interacted in the room.
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And then we want you to breathe and we want to have some fun.
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I mean, my attire was fun for peak stage.
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I always I never mind when you all get
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a laugh or two or a roll of and eyes at my expense.
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We want to breathe and have fun.
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We had fun both nights, and,
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we had fun getting snowed in and planes getting canceled and rescheduled.
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And I know that wasn't fun, so I know it was a
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it was a commitment and it was a sacrifice to be there.
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You know, I think of, you know, Ed and Eduardo
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and Torin and Keane that came from overseas.
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And, you know, Torin goes from Dayton to Fort Lauderdale, drives an hour
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or so south to Miami to run on to a plane to get the Miami to London.
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And this is all like, oh, jeez. Yeah.
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So and Steven and Ed and all of you, I know
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you all had many, many different ways that you had to get back.
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So thank you for that sacrifice.
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But we did have some fun while you were all there.
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And Dayton, Ohio's not that bad, right? Y'all?
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Y'all okay?
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I kind of understand why you had it here, because this place is cool.
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It was.
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It was a good time. The,
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what cracked me up was I was wondering when we were at the Irish pub, there
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in the Oregon district of of of, Dayton
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or at this Irish pub in Ohio.
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And we have some Scotch.
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Yeah.
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And I was just wondering, I wonder what they're thinking right now.
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Yeah, yeah. For sure.
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Well, autoHDR, so Paul is this is, this is from Scotland as well. And.
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Oh yeah. Yeah. And he
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he was like, that's not that bad.
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See. And maybe pause and and kill me.
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Maybe he's from Ireland. He's from somewhere. I was going to say.
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But better than that mix is actually from Ireland.
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I say he's like he like looks at me, but he's a lot of fun. So,
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Yeah, but it sounds like it wasn't that bad.
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You know, Craig, I started the conference off with this idea of,
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this incredible goal
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that was set many years ago, and it came down from,
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our president, John F Kennedy, in 1962.
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At the time, I think,
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and this was appropriate because of where we are located.
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And there's a connection to that
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first Apollo mission or the Apollo mission that made it to the moon.
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And this was something that was I heard this
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and I thought this was so appropriate for the room
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because John F Kennedy got up
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and at the podium, Rice University said,
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you know, we choose to go to the moon and
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I don't know that we all can comprehend that at the time, like,
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I can't I wasn't alive to hear that.
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I didn't I don't really know what it means.
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But at the time, cars barely had seatbelts.
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And, you know,
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President Kennedy's like, hey, we're going to fly to the moon
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and safely return from the moon in less than ten years.
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You know, technology was nothing.
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And, you know, we all carry around more technology than they had at the time.
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And it's not our cell phones.
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It's actually our key fobs, like our key fobs
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have more technology to start our car to all the crazy things they do.
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And they actually calculated a way to get someone safely there and back.
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And and then you have kind of the the other hero in the story,
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Neil Armstrong, who he's the first person who he climbed down the ladder
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and stepped foot on the moon.
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And coincidentally,
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Neil Armstrong is from Wapa Canada, Ohio, which is probably
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about 40 minutes north of where we were sitting, which is kind of cool.
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And we all look at, hey, John Kennedy said,
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we're going to go to the moon, had this big goal, this vision,
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and then you have the hero
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of Neil Armstrong, who actually was the first step on the moon.
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You know, you ever think this a Tandy, everything about like Buzz Aldrin,
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like he was a second one.
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Like, you kind of know Buzz Aldrin's name, but like, Neil Armstrong was the first.
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Like, it's kind of like,
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did they just do, like, a Rochambeau to figure out who went down the ladder first?
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I don't know why I'm thinking of that right now.
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Rock, paper scissors.
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Yeah. He must.
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Neil Armstrong must have been really good at rock paper scissors as well. So.
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But there was a study done
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by the British Broadcasting Network,
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and they examined this Apollo mission,
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and they actually determined that it took
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400,000 people
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to make that mission a success.
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And I started the conference off on this.
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And I think it's so important because we sometimes in our company,
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we have this declaration of, I'm going to quit my job,
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I'm going to hire someone,
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you know, I'm going to go into a new city, whatever it may be.
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We have these declarations throughout our lifespan
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of being a business owner, and they're these big things and they're
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very necessary.
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Okay.
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So the vision and the path that you are going is completely necessary.
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And then it's great when you actually climb down the ladder
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and step into that goal. Right.
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But we sometimes
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forget especially more and more, that at the tail end of a goal,
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we forget the 400,000 people or 400,000 subsequent steps
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that we had to take to get there.
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And I think this world
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is set up to trick us.
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How so?
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What do you mean?
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Well, Craig, I, I
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so think about the way we interact with technology.
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And again, just like video
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calls has allowed us something that
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we were never able to do.
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So we have this.
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There's a bell curve of everything.
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Okay a bell curve starts low.
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It goes up high.
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That's a lot of pay off.
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And then eventually the more you do something, the more of technology,
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the less you know, you start to go down the other side of the bell
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and. We all begin to kid ourselves
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to think that this technology is replacing something.
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So, Craig, you know, I, we you all know, I coached basketball.
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I was riding home on the bus last night, and, we set the coaches
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sit between the cheerleaders and the players for very good reasons.
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Right. They're all teenagers.
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And, you know, keep the boys calm down in the back.
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And so as I'm sitting in my seat staring ahead, I can see the cheerleaders
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and just naturally see the glow from their phone.
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And the way that they use a phone
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blows my mind.
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And I feel like I,
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I, I like, I wish I use the phone less like I track my time,
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I try, I try to be very diligent about not being on a phone.
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Like the swiping
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in all directions, story after story
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after story after story, like
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boom, boom, boom.
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But like that quick like never stop.
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A notification comes up, they swipe down, overwrite,
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hit the notification, type through things, tap back over.
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Boom swipes, right swipe, swipe, swipe.
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Indefinitely. Yeah.
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You know, earphones over their ears.
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I don't know how loud.
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Probably very loud.
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Like your earphones aren't great.
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Like I'm going to be, you know dad today, but those earphones,
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you keep those things on too long, you know, growth in your ears.
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Bunch of bacteria.
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You know, if you have them up too loud, you know what happens.
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You can't hear when you get old.
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What?
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Exactly.
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Thank you, thank you. Dad shows.
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Exactly. Yeah.
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How many years of earphones do you have on on your on your not.
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I play drum well. Yeah.
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So I, I'm amazed I still have my hearing because I played drums
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from sixth grade through my senior year of high school.
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And yeah, working in radio for 20 plus years.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, me too.
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I had two 12 inch subwoofers and a large amp in my car in a very small car.
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So, like I do, I did dumb things when I was young.
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But I sit there and I honestly,
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I like, feel so bad
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for society in 2026,
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especially the young kids, because they grew up with this.
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Now, I was born in 83 and I have I had the luxury
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to not have this technology in my hands when I grew up.
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Okay, my first computer was a Pentium 380 or it was an Intel 386.
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It wasn't even a Pentium, like,
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you know, like or actually I had, you know, like a Commodore computer.
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I had all those, but first real computer, like, it could do nothing.
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Yeah.
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And you would play it and be like, yeah, this really this is fun for 20 minutes
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and then like I'm outside again, right.
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So and I'm not going to preach too much longer here.
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But I will say like if you have children and I feel like there's been something
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calling me lately, like I've been feeling something in my heart that.
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This podcast needs to be
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more about just real estate, business, media.
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Like I think as humans in 2026, we owe it to each other to be like,
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hey, there's some things and I and I have people that hold me accountable
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and all of you out there, like, I hope you hold me accountable.
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If you see I'm doing something that's not if you're like, hey,
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I think you could be a better human by doing something different.
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I feel like there's this weight that we put
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and that we put on ourselves, on our kids
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when we have this technology in our face.
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And so my point is, Craig, is that this technology is all designed
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to understand how we think as humans and to make us feel inadequate.
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And I know I'm I know there's a I'm not conspiracy theory.
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I'm not any of that. I'm just like
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a simple human being in the cornfields of Ohio.
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And I see this coming in around, especially our youth and what it does.
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And I talked to a lot of you and we heard it in the room
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where y'all are like, why am I not moving fast enough?
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Why am I inadequate?
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Why is my business not like your business?
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That the trap of watching all the videos
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that we do online and in all the social media content
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that makes it look easy, like somebody just hit the easy button.
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Is that what you're getting at?
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Because that is exactly.
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Craig. Yeah.
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You know, like we look at this in this clickbait and this this content,
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this is all done by very smart human beings who make money off
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of all of those things.
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It's a business that drives it.
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Just like there was a 400,000 incredibly smart
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human beings that got us to the moon and back safely.
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This is all being engineered around us to make us feel like this.
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So you know what? We go back to it
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and we buy their things, or we we stare at it
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and we think, why can't we be better?
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But it's just not true.
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Like, you know, overnight success.
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I was reading, I think Scottie Pippen said this.
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The basketball player who plays Michael Jordan,
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something to the effect of like typically overnight success
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means 5 or 10 years of grinding and incredibly
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hard work.
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and people don't recognize the work.
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They just recognize the payoff.
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And that's rightfully so.
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Like, that's
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what usually gets publicity, and that's how people get to the top of their field.
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But if you're thinking like, why am I not going fast enough?
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I want to remind you, I've done this for 23 years.
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23 years.
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That's more than most of you are. Old. Yeah.
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I don't know, am I just preaching that?
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no, I mean, no, because if you think about the
19:16
for those of you that were at the Spiro Sync conference, those of you
19:19
that weren't there was a breakout session, I believe, on impostor syndrome.
19:23
I believe Colleen Kydd
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spoke a little bit about it or I've seen that in some of her videos.
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And, Todd, just to be transparent, even just yesterday,
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I, I've shared that I go through times of anxiety
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and even some depression now and then, and I was dealing with
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some of that yesterday because I, I did
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the thing that you just said we shouldn't be doing, and I was doomscrolling.
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Right.
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And I was looking at all the, the realtor awards and sales leaders each month and,
19:54
you know, the the awards banquet for our local board and all, you
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know, all the, the companies and vendors that got these different awards
20:02
and also got some very nice
20:05
compliments from those of you at the the conference.
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And I started feeling imposter syndrome yesterday.
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Todd.
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Because I look at all this stuff online and you feel like you're never enough,
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you know, despite the grind that you have been doing.
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And granted, there's days that you don't, you don't feel like doing the grind.
20:28
You know, you might slack a little bit, I've done that.
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I'm admitting that in front of my boss.
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Right now and then beating yourself up
20:37
because you think you should be working
20:39
harder, faster, stronger, smarter.
20:43
And yeah, we get we get trapped in this self,
20:48
imploding trap of never feeling enough.
20:52
And then if you're not careful, you want to give up.
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But you can't.
20:59
You can't.
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Because most of those things are lies.
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I'd say pretty much everything is a lie
21:06
that that speaks that kind of negativity to you.
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I don't know, I, I,
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I exercise this morning and mentally feeling better. So.
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And that's such a simple that simple but not easy.
21:21
Right Craig. Sure. Yeah.
21:22
That's something that I need to do more of.
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I need to exercise more. Yeah.
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And you know, those are the simple but not easy things.
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And the media is just made to consume our brains
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and think we need to go back to.
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I do like something like I check in Facebook again, you know,
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there's this high of the conference and I want to see what people said.
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And it's like I check it and I check it literally like three minutes later.
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Yeah. You know, I was in between something was loading.
21:48
Let me tab over and refresh is like, Todd, what are you doing?
21:51
Yeah.
21:52
You know, I was just not all social media is bad.
21:56
I actually just saw a video from, Austin Sauer down Louisville.
22:00
Yeah. Hope I said, I hope I said that, right.
22:02
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Austin.
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But he the the base, the basic thing that he was saying in the short
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video was he was he saw another company that was much larger than his.
22:16
That grew was like four times faster than his.
22:19
And he says, but then I looked at the life
22:21
they live, and I realized, that's not the life I want to live
22:26
in, finding peace in that and contentedness in that.
22:29
And I gave that video a thumbs up because he nailed it.
22:33
Awesome.
22:33
If you're listening, this dude, great, great video, great post.
22:38
And it it made me step back in.
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Yeah. We want to work hard.
22:42
We want to do our best.
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But be content with what your hard work and content, you know contentedness is.
22:49
What's the life that you're looking for Todd you've shared you know, countless
22:53
times the the reason you start a company
22:56
or build your own business is basic.
22:59
How do you phrase that?
23:01
Because I don't want to butcher it.
23:03
So you your business
23:05
the definition of your of of a business is a
23:09
a profitable enterprise that works without you.
23:14
Right?
23:15
Yeah.
23:15
But you've you've shared in the past
23:18
that you do it to basically build the life that you're looking for.
23:23
Oh, yeah.
23:23
I mean, yeah.
23:24
So you've started your business to support your personal lifestyle.
23:28
It's all personal, right?
23:30
So you got your business to build your business
23:32
and make all business goals like, well, wait a minute.
23:34
Like, I started my business to support my personal life
23:37
because I didn't want to work for a boss, I hate it, I want to make more money.
23:40
I wanted to be able to own something.
23:42
I wanted to leave something to my children right?
23:45
So don't feel like you have to turn your business into a regional business.
23:51
Maybe you do expand to 1 or 2 other cities, but if it's supporting
23:55
the the life that you want for you, for your family,
23:59
that's okay.
24:01
You know, you don't need to be a large company
24:03
that's spanning, you know, half the country if it's supporting
24:08
you and it's supporting a couple of people that you want to help out with.
24:11
You know, by having employees.
24:13
Hey, that's a that's okay
24:16
for sure.
24:17
For sure.
24:18
We sometimes as as owners I I've done this many times,
24:22
too many times throughout the years.
24:23
But we get so caught up in trying to make the perfect decision.
24:26
I think there's so much input
24:29
and especially now with AI like
24:32
there's more and more tools and more information
24:35
and it's like what is the best thing?
24:37
Craig I love that whole idea of like
24:41
let me try to find the best, most efficient.
24:44
I'm driven by efficiency.
24:46
So I will always look
24:48
to see how I can make something even a little bit more efficient.
24:52
You eventually come to a time to where your time spent
24:56
increases exponentially, and the pay and, efficiency might increase,
25:01
but it is so minimal that you've passed the point of, of pay off.
25:09
And I think sometimes I was talking with Torin
25:12
about this on the bus on Friday night as we were going out to the VIP event.
25:17
It's just the bigger you grow, the better
25:20
you become at making very fast, small,
25:23
incremental decisions.
25:26
And you adjust
25:28
and you look at the data and he has a company.
25:31
I won't give the numbers, but he has exploded in the last year
25:34
and a half or two.
25:36
And it's by hard work, like, like exploded, explode, like a huge company.
25:41
And it's a lot of hard work.
25:42
I've, I've talked, you know, he shared some of it with me
25:45
and I've been on some of that journey with him or just been at, been
25:48
lucky enough to hear a story through that journey.
25:51
It was all of his hard work and,
25:53
and it's like the idea of just making changes.
25:56
This can be common in many different things.
25:58
So this can be in a new process
26:02
like today is going to be the day that I'm going to write the process.
26:06
Today is going to be the day that I'm going to do the job posting
26:11
today is going to be the day that I'm fortunately, I'm going
26:13
to have to let go of someone right?
26:16
Or whatever it may be.
26:18
Eli Jones touched on this in his opening speech.
26:22
Spyro sync.
26:23
But everybody has a different, you know, whack a mole that they need to knock down.
26:29
You know, the game where you have the the little hammer, the padded hammer,
26:34
and these little gophers pop up and you have to hit them down.
26:38
Everybody has a different mole that they need to whack right now.
26:42
And you can either work towards
26:46
progression of whacking that mole,
26:49
or you can think about what's the perfect way to whack this mole.
26:54
But if you wait too
26:56
long, what happens in the game?
26:59
That mole goes down
27:01
and you've missed your opportunity.
27:04
So I think that's the biggest thing is what is your one thing
27:08
that you need to focus on right now and do it today.
27:14
You don't have to complete it but work at something towards it today.
27:18
Is it that you just need to stop scrolling social media?
27:22
Okay.
27:23
Try it for one hour today.
27:26
Just don't look at it.
27:28
Especially if you're driving right now.
27:29
Like many of you are.
27:31
Like, stop doing it.
27:32
Just turn it off.
27:33
What do I need to do? Think about turn.
27:36
Turn the music off.
27:37
Turn us off in your car and just think about what is that one thing?
27:41
Because when we're so used to this noise, you know what can be very uncomfortable?
27:44
To be with silence.
27:49
100%.
27:49
Craig. Yeah, for me as well.
27:52
Go take a walk in the woods.
27:54
Seriously, even if it's cold.
27:58
Sometimes we just need to clear our heads.
28:00
What do we call that?
28:01
Craig.
28:03
Nature bathing.
28:05
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
28:07
Such a weird, uncomfortable term.
28:11
That's,
28:12
Anyway, so basically what you're saying, Todd, is there is no easy button.
28:17
Don't let the algorithm fool you.
28:20
There is no easy button.
28:22
You know, there is.
28:25
No. Like, it just always takes hard work.
28:27
You know, our core value. Number two.
28:29
Wow, is about hard work.
28:31
I always say if it was easy, everybody would do it.
28:34
Think about it. If there was an easy button,
28:37
everybody would go and get that button and would pay for it, would discover it
28:42
and get to that goal.
28:44
But it's there's not anything worth
28:47
achieving is going to take hard work.
28:50
And that's that's the truth.
28:53
Like, I know many of you are going like, oh, crap.
28:55
Like I'm sorry.
28:56
Like I love you all enough to tell you that that like,
29:01
there is nothing you're going to do today that is going to be the easy button
29:05
for you to sign that brokerage that is going to get you 1600 listings a year.
29:10
Now you can work towards it and take incremental steps.
29:13
But it's a whole lot of steps to get to the payoff.
29:17
So just realize that be okay with it.
29:20
You know, say two curse words because you thought there was an easy button
29:23
and then just work towards the darn goal.
29:26
You know what's making me chuckle a little bit?
29:28
Just to get a little bit off topic and some and some levity.
29:32
I actually went to staples the other day.
29:34
No, they did not pay for placement in this, in this video,
29:37
but I went to staples to get some, fliers made for,
29:41
for a brokerage that we have a deal with.
29:44
And there it was sitting on the counter, the easy button.
29:47
And I just kind of chuckled to it.
29:49
Should I press it?
29:50
Should I press it?
29:50
Will make all my problems go away.
29:54
There is an easy button, but there's not an easy button.
29:57
Right. It's.
29:58
It was created just to sell you something.
30:00
It was a marketing ploy. Right.
30:03
So we really like.
30:04
We're breaking every algorithm rule.
30:06
We are not making this. This.
30:10
Oh it's terrible. We have people, and of course we have spam.
30:12
And we we have,
30:14
you know, people that want to do something with the podcast all the time.
30:16
Like, you can optimize this and that. I'm sure we could.
30:19
And I'm sure we are like, you know, kindergarten of podcasting
30:24
with the way we optimize and the way we do, like, but we we honestly don't care
30:29
all we have a great core group of people that listen to this and you guys share it.
30:34
And we are happy with like that's our goal.
30:36
Our goal is to be real with you here.
30:38
We're not going to tell you something that's not true because our integrity
30:41
is behind it and we're happy with what it's doing.
30:48
If you meet if you meet us in person,
30:51
this this is us guys,
30:55
it it reminds me of the days I.
30:57
There's a couple people at the conference who said
30:59
they turned around all of a sudden because I was talking there like,
31:03
I know that voice.
31:04
And in in my career, I've met people that have listened to me on radio.
31:09
There's just a funny, fun side story here.
31:12
They're like, Craig, do your radio voice like,
31:15
this is my my radio voice.
31:18
I'm sorry,
31:20
I'm not the old school disc jockey
31:22
that, you know, talks like this and the Casey Kasem's.
31:27
I love Casey Kasem.
31:28
I still that's a Casey Kasem that was a staple on what they did.
31:32
A Saturday morning top on the album. Great.
31:34
Top 40 here. It's great.
31:36
Yeah, man.
31:36
We're we're dating ourselves. They're.
31:38
Holy smokes. We might be.
31:39
They'll we might have to listen to this both. Craig.
31:41
Because I don't know if anybody is with us still. Right.
31:45
Anyway, we wanted
31:47
this episode to be encouraging to help you realize.
31:50
Yeah, it's not easy.
31:51
You're not going to get there overnight.
31:53
There is no easy button.
31:55
But keep at it.
31:56
Keep grind within, parameters.
32:00
Set some boundaries around your grinding, okay?
32:03
Because if you grind 24 seven.
32:04
I just saw someone post this on one of the real estate photography books, groups.
32:10
When do you all take a break?
32:12
And when you do take a break,
32:13
how do you deal with not feeling guilty about taking the break?
32:17
Wow. Wow.
32:18
Yeah, well, say that one more time, Craig.
32:20
I don't know if I can repeat that.
32:23
When do you all take a break?
32:25
And when you do take a break, how do you not feel guilty taking the break?
32:31
And I wrote back something like
32:36
when you figure that out let me know.
32:39
But I think it comes with time, with age
32:41
and realizing what your priorities are and being okay with setting those priorities
32:47
and, and guardrails and, and fences and guarding
32:50
your time and grow at the pace that you're comfortable with.
32:53
If your family is sacrificed
32:55
because of your constant attention on your business, it's not worth it.
32:59
I'm sorry.
33:01
No, I'm not sorry.
33:03
Yeah, yeah, it I agree 100%.
33:06
You only get that family and those kids for so long and they grow up fast.
33:10
I have a 13 year old, and, I'm.
33:13
I just am happy to spend every day and every minute
33:16
that he still wants to spend with me.
33:18
Yeah. You know, because by teenage years,
33:22
they, they have a lot of pressures and it's different on them.
33:25
So just cherish those moments.
33:26
I really encourage you. Yeah.
33:29
Be okay with your progress.
33:30
Keep working at it.
33:32
Keep plugging at your business, you know, grow it, have fun with it.
33:36
Have fun with it.
33:38
We, you know, we just had, Justin Cyrus.
33:41
Yeah. About having fun in business.
33:44
Yeah.
33:45
So, anyway,
33:47
Craig, we did one thing on Saturday.
33:51
So the VIP day that I.
33:53
I just think, you know, we had a booklet that we worked through at this event, and
33:58
I just want to talk through maybe about the first page,
34:01
not even the whole first page
34:02
of some of these things, cuz I think they're very relevant
34:04
to this time of year.
34:06
And also this podcast that we've talked about, because it all ties back,
34:10
and these are some things that I have found
34:11
has been helpful to begin to quantify those ideas,
34:15
because we do need to be strategic with our business.
34:18
And when we're strategic and we have things to work towards,
34:22
that's when it might become easier for you all to say, hey,
34:25
I don't feel guilty because I wrote this down.
34:29
That's what I wanted to do,
34:30
and I got it done, or I got pretty darn near close to it, and I'm happy with that.
34:35
So I need to reward myself and be happy with my, my progress.
34:41
So I just want to spend a few more minutes here of, of the podcast,
34:45
because there was some aha moments in the room on that cold
34:50
Saturday morning in Dayton, Ohio.
34:54
Frigid.
34:55
Not just cold. It was frigid.
34:56
It was frigid. Yes, I have to.
34:59
I have to admit, it was kind of fun watching those of you
35:01
from the South, Deal deal with our cold.
35:06
Yeah. Sorry.
35:07
Yeah.
35:08
Thin blood, thin southern blood
35:11
for sure.
35:12
Anyway, okay.
35:14
For those things. Yeah.
35:15
This booklet was called the 2026 blueprint.
35:18
And, this was our strategy to help you,
35:22
you know, begin to draw the roadmap for this year.
35:25
And this is one thing that I just historically have not been great at.
35:28
And I've learned this is like a thing that I have to force myself to do.
35:32
And we do it as a team for, for the different businesses.
35:35
But you as the owner, you will have that North Star.
35:38
And and that's one thing that I realized that I need to do.
35:42
So I think this activity will help today.
35:43
So we asked for a we asked just a couple questions at the top of the first page.
35:47
And this was called the Reality Check.
35:50
And this is like your North Star.
35:53
And we looked at it from revenue and average order value.
35:56
But do do all of you out there have a target revenue?
35:59
You want to do this year in 2026?
36:05
If you don't, now's a
36:06
great time to look at that and think about that.
36:10
And along with revenue, also think about your average order value,
36:16
because your average order value is a pretty cool thing that
36:21
you can move that needle a whole lot,
36:25
and it means you're doing less shoots to do the same or more revenue.
36:28
And I'll give you just a quick, quick breakdown here.
36:31
There was someone in the room that he does really, really high
36:35
end video and photography work out in California.
36:40
And like a 1700 AOV like I'm going to be.
36:44
And he share with me that he was at this fork in the road as to where
36:48
his clients were like really used to him and producing those.
36:51
And he was an artist at the core, you know, like really, really high end stuff.
36:56
And he was starting to get some pushback from his clients
36:59
about other team members coming to the shoots him.
37:03
And I said, hey, this is a great sign of growth.
37:06
Like, this really is growth. Yes.
37:08
This is a this is a gap that you have right now,
37:12
but this is a sign that you're growing.
37:15
And at this point you have a couple decisions
37:19
and any share with me that he would like to do less shoots.
37:24
And I said you can go one of two ways that I see it.
37:28
You know, one, you can either double your prices and just keep you,
37:33
you know, take it to a $3,500 AOV
37:36
and just give the most
37:39
high end, just like
37:43
best customer service, like cater their needs and create
37:46
something that everybody wants.
37:48
And very few can get.
37:50
And you'll do less shoots, you'll make more money
37:53
per job, but you will be doing the shooting.
37:56
This might be some of you out there right now,
38:00
the other way, if you're like, okay, Todd, what's option two?
38:04
The other way is that you.
38:08
Understand that you want to work less
38:11
as being the creator,
38:14
and you really dive into building up your team,
38:19
and you get your team to about 80% of what you're doing right now.
38:24
And you
38:27
I this is going to be tough a
38:30
why you become okay losing those clients that only want you.
38:36
Hey, that is hard.
38:40
But you see, the payoff
38:42
is in the fact that you might lose ten clients, but you have the opportunity
38:48
to gain 30 clients that your team is going to service
38:53
and you're going to build your team up, teach them skills,
38:57
they're going to provide for their families.
38:58
And you're building this team that you can nurture in this culture
39:03
that you just pour into, and eventually then comes back
39:07
and you are benefited in your revenue grows
39:11
to numbers that you didn't
39:14
think was possible or wouldn't be possible, because we all have a cap,
39:17
you know, even the most high end if you're doing it
39:20
and you're hustling, which I hate that word, but I'll use it.
39:23
Are you doing 500 shoots a year because they're half day shoots?
39:28
You know, like us in the Midwest here
39:31
and very flat, easy to travel land like our photographers are shooting
39:35
800 to 12 hundred was probably a max like when I did it and Ryan did it.
39:40
Like, we probably shoot 12 hundred 13 hundred shoots a year, but we, we,
39:44
we had days where we shot 22 in Lima, Ohio.
39:48
Okay.
39:48
So it's a it's a completely different ballgame, but you're going to be capped
39:53
if you can do 500 shoots a year at 3500 bucks.
39:56
Do the math of what that is.
39:58
It's good revenue, but it's just you.
40:01
So this is the crossroads that you're all at.
40:04
Like, what do you want to do revenue wise in 2026?
40:07
And do you want to change your AOV.
40:09
Are you saying, hey, I probably need to raise my prices?
40:13
Many of you, probably about all of you do.
40:16
It's a scary
40:17
thing for a business owner to raise prices because you think people
40:20
are going to break up with you, and some of them will.
40:23
I was to say some will.
40:26
But in order to grow you have to do that.
40:28
You have to say goodbye to some clients.
40:33
And then the next question that we worked through that day
40:36
was the most important one about target goals for 2026.
40:40
It was why
40:43
why do you want that number.
40:48
Okay.
40:49
Some of you put now like, hey, I want to do my first seven figure year.
40:53
I want to hit a million bucks in revenue.
40:56
Okay. Why why a million?
40:59
Because it's a round number. Because it's.
41:03
That sounds good.
41:05
I, I think if that's your answer, I, I would just encourage you
41:09
to push yourself a little bit more.
41:13
Like what will doing that number
41:17
allow you to achieve and especially allow you to achieve personally?
41:21
That's the tough part for me, Craig,
41:23
because I would feel guilty about saying that.
41:28
What do you mean?
41:32
So I in business for me,
41:37
I went so long and so heads down that
41:40
my business felt like the reason
41:42
why I was doing business
41:45
right.
41:46
That's called recursion and programing.
41:49
Like when you write, when you write code that calls itself like,
41:53
okay, it really does. It's
41:56
it took me a long time to understand like what is required, but it's like,
41:59
no, wait a minute.
42:00
Like you're in an infinite loop, like you are an infinite loop in this
42:05
malware of code in your brain to think that you do your business,
42:10
to fuel your business, to work longer and harder.
42:15
That's not fun.
42:17
It's not fun.
42:18
And so I'll give you somebody at Spiro.
42:20
Second, I forgot who told me to listen to this podcast.
42:23
Thank you for telling me to listen to because I normally listen to him,
42:26
but Alex Hormozi. Yeah.
42:30
Young guy,
42:31
incredibly successful with business and very, very intelligent.
42:36
Like,
42:37
absurdly intelligent and smart with the way he runs his businesses.
42:42
He had on Tony Robbins a few podcasts ago.
42:48
And it was really cool what Tony did.
42:52
And I have, I of course know of Tony.
42:54
I haven't listened to a lot of Tony Robbins, but the way that
42:58
he began to get Alex to think about, like what he's saying was just incredible.
43:03
And I sat there, I was like, oh my goodness.
43:04
Like that is like he's talking to me.
43:08
Yeah.
43:09
And so if you haven't listened
43:12
to that podcast, it's way better than this one.
43:17
But please do go listen to that Alex Hermosa podcast with Tony Robbins.
43:21
It is worth your hour of listening to it because he begins to open
43:25
up, begin to open up my eyes and remind me like, wait a minute.
43:29
Like, you know, like that is a dumb thought.
43:33
Like Alex had one in particular that had to do with happiness,
43:37
and he really challenged him on that.
43:40
And I was like, yeah, that is, I get it.
43:43
Like, yes, that is good.
43:44
That is good.
43:45
So Tony did what Tony Robbins does.
43:48
And if you love him or hate him like it's
43:51
worth listening, that podcast,
43:54
I know what I'm listening to now.
43:55
When I drove up to my shoot after this.
44:00
So then, you know,
44:01
just to wrap up this first session here section here.
44:04
Like, why why do you want to have that?
44:06
That's super important.
44:08
Like I want a million bucks and revenue. Great.
44:09
But what is that going to get you right.
44:12
You know, is it mo money, mo problems.
44:16
You know, as a notorious B.I.G.
44:18
Thing.
44:18
Like, he was pretty smart in saying that, like mo money, mo problems.
44:23
It's true. Yeah.
44:26
Yeah.
44:27
What's what's the purpose of the of the more money mo money
44:31
for sure.
44:31
It's even hard for us to say. Right, right.
44:33
Like if you're such a poser.
44:38
Anyway,
44:40
Good stuff Todd.
44:41
Good stuff.
44:43
Okay.
44:43
So let me wrap this up Craig and summarize it.
44:45
Let me give you an example.
44:46
Say in your business you want to do
44:50
$750,000 in revenue.
44:53
This year I'm going to hit three quarters of a million. Okay.
44:55
And then you go to Spiro Dashboard and you see that you did 400,000 last year.
45:01
Okay.
45:03
So and you saw that your AOV was $250.
45:09
All right. So what I'm going to do this math with you right now.
45:11
I'm going to take $750,000.
45:13
That's what you want to do in 26.
45:15
I'm going to divide it by the AOV
45:17
average order value that you're currently getting.
45:19
250 I'm going to hit return.
45:22
And that means you need to do 3000 shoots.
45:26
Okay.
45:28
All right.
45:28
And what you did last year 400,000 divided by 250.
45:32
You did 1600 shoots.
45:34
Okay.
45:35
So what this is doing is
45:37
the difference there is 1400 shoots, so you're almost doubling.
45:41
So now you can begin to do really cool things.
45:44
Like you can understand how many photographers you need 3000 shoots a year.
45:50
You're probably three, three and a half photographers.
45:53
If you're not shooting again pending your city,
45:55
it might be a little bit different.
45:57
But these are all the metrics.
45:58
So now you're taking the steps forward.
46:00
So what we did at the beginning of this, if you haven't gone cross-eyed already is
46:05
you've said your North Star, where do you want to go and why?
46:09
Please make sure the Why you're connected to it.
46:12
If you're not connected to it,
46:14
you're going to get a month in and be like,
46:15
I don't really want to take these steps anymore because they hurt.
46:18
Yeah, yeah. That's good.
46:20
Make sure it's connected to your Y,
46:22
and then let's figure out how we're going to get there.
46:25
Where do you want to go in revenue.
46:27
Divide it by your average order value. Get your number of shoots.
46:29
Can you at this can you at this point in time do 3000 shoots?
46:34
If it's just you, you cannot
46:38
so. Those are all the little steps that we went through that day.
46:41
The VIP event of like this reality, like the big North Star,
46:45
the reality check, and then like, where do I need to replace myself?
46:50
We went through org charts and did some really fun things, but I think right now
46:55
I think it's great to know
46:57
what goal do you want for this year and how many shoots is that?
47:01
And holy crap yeah, I have the staff to do that.
47:04
Or no, I don't even have the tools I need, the staff I need to do this.
47:09
I think that's a great place for you to start in 2026.
47:12
To begin understanding what more has popped up that you need to whack down.
47:19
There you go.
47:20
There's no easy button, but break it down into a step, a day,
47:24
a task, a day and just chip away at it and realize the algorithm.
47:29
Algorithm is lying to you.
47:31
It's not easy, but you are enough and you're okay.
47:34
Okay,
47:36
100% Craig 100.
47:38
And sometimes you just have to keep telling yourself that.
47:40
As crazy as it sounds like some of these things that I tell myself,
47:43
it's like you tell yourself that enough, long enough, like you begin to do it.
47:47
And it's just like why we say on Thursday, Happy Fridays Eve.
47:51
I got that from Dave Reid, a good friend and a coach of mine, a mentor.
47:54
Happy Fridays Eve, like Dave. That is dumb.
47:57
Why are you happy?
47:58
It's not Friday, it's Thursday and you know why I say it.
48:02
And everybody in the office says it because let's celebrate.
48:05
That is Fridays. Why not?
48:10
I don't think I've ever heard you say that, but I'm not in the office.
48:13
So I'm going to say now, and we say, my pleasure.
48:16
That's another thing.
48:17
That's true.
48:18
Hey, it's my pleasure.
48:19
I'm always happy to help people sing that around here, because when you start
48:23
to say that, it's it's just infectious.
48:26
Yeah, my kids say it.
48:28
Yeah.
48:29
Derek's three year old daughter, Priya.
48:31
She would when he worked, she would say it's my pleasure.
48:34
Like, it's just incredible.
48:36
And that's one of the cool things.
48:37
And this is the last tangent I'm going on.
48:39
But that's one of the cool things that you get to do as a business owners.
48:42
You get to influence people around you
48:43
and build culture and build, and you can decide if it's good or bad.
48:47
Yeah, I've taken my pleasure and I tweaked it a little bit to my privilege
48:52
because that helps me keep my mindset when I'm dealing with a client.
48:55
It's a privilege to serve them.
48:57
I don't take that relationship for for granted
48:59
because I know I've got competitors out there.
49:01
So it's a privilege to to work with you and your business.
49:04
So yeah, little things that you can do mine hacks.
49:07
So for sure for sure.
49:08
Awesome Todd good good stuff.
49:10
Thank you for sharing all that and your thoughts from the from the conference.
49:14
I'm kind of excited about the next probably two months or so.
49:18
Especially because we're going to have all the,
49:21
the speakers on stage in the leaders of the breakout sessions and workshops.
49:26
We're going to invite them on.
49:27
We've already got a couple of them confirmed, to share the material
49:31
that they shared at the conference with you here on this podcast as well.
49:34
So be looking forward to that.
49:36
Like I said, it's
49:37
probably gonna be the next month and a half, almost two months worth.
49:40
And then Todd, we had a great suggestion,
49:43
from someone that came
49:45
to the, to the conference, Ian Jones out in Las Vegas.
49:48
He has a great guy.
49:50
We've gotten to know him over the last couple of years,
49:52
seeing him at the conferences.
49:53
And he's like, you know, what would be awesome is have,
49:56
have more owners on the podcast
49:59
to share their unique ideas and thoughts because it gets me thinking.
50:04
And out of my Ian, I forgive me.
50:07
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what I got was
50:10
it gets me out of my box and challenges me to think in different ways.
50:14
So we want to do more.
50:15
Owner spotlights this year in 26, here on the podcast,
50:21
so we're looking forward to doing that.
50:24
And we just Todd, I think I can speak for both of us
50:28
and just say thank you for allowing us to help build this community
50:31
where we can encourage each other and, you know, sharpen each other's
50:35
blades and, and, and go out and build some great businesses.
50:40
Yeah.
50:40
For sure.
50:41
If you're an owner you'd like to be on, email us hello@spiro.media.
50:44
We're going to do a form that will make this a little more easy for you to submit.
50:48
And for us to understand, kind of like what you're
50:50
doing in your business and to streamline it.
50:52
But we'd love to have you all on here.
50:54
So hello@spiro.media, if you'd like to be on or if you just have a question
50:58
or want to say hello or you have a need from us.
51:01
So we're always happy to serve you all.
51:02
And, don't hesitate to reach out to us.
51:05
Absolutely.
51:07
All right.
51:07
Well, that's going to wrap things up this week.
51:09
Thanks for,
51:11
suffering through part of that
51:13
and, dealing with our goofiness sometimes.
51:16
Like we said, we're not trying to manipulate the the algorithm.
51:19
We have much more streamlined content if we were.
51:22
But we're just trying to be real with you and, live life together with you.
51:25
So thank you for taking time out of your day, to listen or to watch.
51:29
Make sure you take some time to be thankful.
51:31
Go take a walk in the woods.
51:32
Nature Bathing. This Todd calls it.
51:34
I think that's a little weird, but it just take time to be thankful
51:38
and make sure you take some time to breathe. Have a great week.