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The Race to the Bottom · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

0:00
Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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You should expect all of your people to price shop you.
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You should expect all of your employees to look for jobs.
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Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast, managing your real estate,
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photography and videography business, Spiro.
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It's a software
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platform and it's designed to help you manage your day to day real estate
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media business, but ultimately really help you help it grow and scale as well.
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We want to see you succeed.
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I'm Craig Magrum.
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Welcome back to another week.
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If you're returning to the podcast, if you're brand new,
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it's all about the business of real estate media.
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We want to help you build a strong business
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and see you succeed in your market or markets.
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So well, welcome.
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Got a great topic this week.
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But before we get to that,
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let me introduce our co-host and Spiro owner and founder Todd Kivimaki.
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Welcome back, Todd
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Craig, great to be back.
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Fabulous week on this podcast Craig what did you smoke.
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And as far as meat last we're in the recent history.
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And in the last 2 or 3 weeks it was it was ribs.
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Did a, did a couple of Rex ribs.
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I have to confess, though, they were not my best ribs.
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You just I don't know if I didn't go let them go long enough.
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Flavor was there, but just that that tenderness
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where you get just that right bite you know?
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Yeah, it wasn't wasn't quite there.
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So I need to redeem myself.
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Well, what we can do, Craig, I have an idea as well.
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Invite all of the Spiro listeners down to Ohio,
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and we'll give you
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Ohia
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yes, we'll give you an opportunity to perfect your ribs.
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Oh, thank you, thank you.
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I need a larger smoker. Can
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Wow video tours provide me a larger smoker.
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Yeah, I think we can arrange something.
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Okay, okay.
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Yeah. I mean, we can write it off, right?
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Can't we?
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There we go.
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I don't know, business expense.
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Yeah, it's for the for our Spiro clients.
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Yeah, yeah, we'll put a logo on it. There you go.
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Actually, I am getting ready to do a couple of, pork
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butts, some pulled pork for my camping neighbors.
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I started the dangerous tradition last year where I smoked two pork butts
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and invited our immediate camping neighbors around for, for some barbecue.
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And they liked it so much that they're.
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They've already approached me this year and said, you're going to smoke
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some more pulled pork this year for us, right?
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I remember this story from last year. Yes. Yeah.
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That's I guess it's it's always good to feed people.
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It is.
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And and you want good camping neighbors because they're right next to you
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Yeah. Hopefully.
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Or not like the neighborhood cat
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that just keeps you know, you feed the neighborhood cat once, and she just.
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I'm not going to
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go ahead.
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I'm a visual guy.
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I'm not going to be able to get that visual out of my head now
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you're going to be chuckling when you talk to your just blame it on me.
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Hey, when you have this smirk and you're camping,
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neighbors are gonna be like, what?
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What is wrong, Craig?
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It's like, it's not my fault. It's Todd.
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They they already ask that question.
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What's wrong with you, Craig?
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Okay.
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All right.
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That says a lot, because.
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And I camp at a campground, too, so this is nothing discriminatory
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towards people that camp.
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But if people at a campground ask you what's wrong with you?
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Like. Yes.
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But I came up, on all seriousness, in
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all seriousness, speaking about smoke and, this might affect a lot of those of you
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watching, in the northern part of the US, northern and central to the east.
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We're dealing with actually wildfire smoke from, Manitoba, Canada.
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We've actually got an air quality warning, here in northwest Ohio.
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And I know it's covering all in Michigan as well.
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It's very, very hazy out. Right. It is.
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Yeah. It's incredible.
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So those of you having to deal with that, and especially our viewers and listeners
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in Canada, hear our hearts and prayers are going out to you for those wildfires.
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We know that's tough right now. So yeah, for sure.
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Hopefully all of our friends in Canada are okay.
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And yeah, yeah.
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We saw like it was like 90 jobs a couple days ago or a day ago
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because we've been rainy too and went down.
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I checked it was like it was like 70.
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I was like, where did 20 jobs go?
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It, it's like, oh yeah, it's rainy, it's foggy, it's the smoke.
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So I've got a drone shoot right on Lake Erie,
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and I'm a little concerned about the haze.
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So real things that we have to deal with as real estate media professionals.
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Right. So they are. Yes, we sure are.
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All right, let's dive into it.
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Yeah, Craig, we have a good one today here.
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I'm excited about this one.
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We do, we do that we're calling this episode The Race to the bottom
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and we all deal with it.
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Todd, you saw a great question
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on, one of the Facebook real estate media groups this week.
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That talked a little bit about, somebody's competitor
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that was offering photos and drone for like $200.
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And just the discussion that ensued around that.
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And we thought, you know, that's that's a great topic, very business oriented,
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you know, dealing with the question of,
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do I compete on price?
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How do I compete against people that are offering, you know, photos for,
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you know, you know, what might be cheap in our market,
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but trying to run a profitable business.
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Yeah.
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It is you know, so I'll just set this up a little bit.
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So you all have kind of if you haven't seen the post
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and there's good conversation in there.
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So basically
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a real estate photographer saying hey I had,
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I got this text from a realtor
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that said, you know, my current
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company does photo
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and drone for 195
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and then ask this individual if they can do that price.
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And so this individual was like, hey, what
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what do you do?
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You know, how do I and that's that's not what I charge.
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What's a great way to respond to this?
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You know.
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So and now there's, there's a few different
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trains of thought here of what's going in.
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So one, it's great that you have realtors reaching out to you, right.
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You know, and I don't know where this I don't know where this message came from.
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If it was maybe a response to a,
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a text message that was
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sent out like a cold or warm if this was an Instagram.
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Right.
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Anyways, there's an agent that is showing interest in your company,
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and I remember when no one showed any interest in any of my companies.
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I remember it was, wow, I remember it was Spiro.
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And you're just sitting there like refreshing,
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like, my my ringer must clearly be broken.
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Nobody's calling me. I mean, do you remember those days, Craig?
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I do, I do that first year I was working directly with Spiro.
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It it was tough.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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other companies out there providing you know providing a service
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that you're trying to provide as well.
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So how do you compete against that.
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Yeah exactly.
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So I'm strategically kind of setting this up here
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to mentally just make sure that we have the right mindset.
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Because I think immediately and I see this question a lot in this
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in this current thread that's going right now.
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I see it all the time.
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You all see it all the time.
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And it's a very valid question.
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But the thing is, is
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if you become surprised
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that agents text, email, call, ask you for a lower rate,
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you're already in the wrong state of mind.
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Now, I'm not saying this poster if you find this thread.
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He was actually very levelheaded about it,
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but I hear a lot of people say, hey, why would they want this?
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How would they?
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How do they think I could even feed my family, make a business,
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stay in business, whatever it may be, and you're automatically surprised?
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I, I I've told this story before, but I coached basketball
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and my assistant coach, he is very big on like, hey guys, let's not
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be surprised when we turn the ball over in a basketball game.
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Like and you know it's funny Craig, because we
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we videotape every basketball game.
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And so we watch it to learn.
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See what we did good. See what we need to improve on.
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And I'll clip my players and like
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ref makes a bad call
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and I have this one room this guys is freeze.
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Like he's throwing his hands up
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like it looks like he thinks the worlds like the sky's literally falling.
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And I came to him and said, and I said, you know, but why?
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Why are you so surprised that the ref made a bad call?
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Shouldn't we expect that the refs got to make a bad call?
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Like we just expect it and don't be surprised by it.
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Then your left brain doesn't kick up and then you don't go like
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this is incredible that a referee who gets paid $30
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a game and gets yelled at by all the fans would make a bad call.
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Who wants that job? Craig yeah, right.
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I don't
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yeah. So.
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So our goal this podcast today is I know you're saying.
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Okay, Todd cool. I'm not surprised by it.
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Like, let me just be okay with that.
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But what do I do with it?
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Right.
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Like, I still have to respond to the agent.
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I still have to try to gain the agent.
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What?
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How would you analyze this?
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Can I offer my initial like.
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Yeah, please.
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Reaction to the fact.
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Okay, so you have this agent contacting
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the the photographer back and saying can you match this price?
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My current photographer does it for this price.
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And whether whether this was, a cold call
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by the photographer or, or, or the realtor reached out on their own.
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To me, that's immaterial.
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The way I'm filtering this right now is the fact that,
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okay, they might be happy with the price of their current photographer,
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but there's something that is falling short,
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in the
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service level, because they wouldn't even bother to respond
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if they were perfectly happy with their current photographer.
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If they're willing to switch photographers, if you price match,
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then that other photographer is lacking somewhere in that, that,
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realtor is looking for something more
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so that my first question to the, to the realtor
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would be just out of curiosity, where do you you know,
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what are you looking for more from your current
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your current photographers and providing.
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And I just start digging.
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Actually what I would do first is probably invite him to coffee and say,
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hey, I'd love to talk more about this and we can talk about price.
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Can I treat you to coffee?
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Because I like to get to know people face to face.
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And then I'm that's just my personal way because I feel like when you're face
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to face versus over the phone or even let alone text or email,
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there's more of a human interaction and you can build trust a lot quicker.
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So that's,
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that's my, my initial first thought on how I would reply.
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Yeah, for sure, because there's one variable in this text message conversation
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is Will you do this thing that's not even defined
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for this price, right?
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You're you're never going to win
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when in quotes that conversation,
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if you're saying, hey, I should be at 300 or 400, I should be at 3000.
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It doesn't matter.
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You're never going to win a price conversation through a text message.
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No, it's just not so
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go ahead. Craig.
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Yeah, I was just saying it's too cold and cut and dried.
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There's no emotion, there's no interaction.
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There's no opportunity to really dig and ask questions,
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which is what we kind of covered, last week on last week's episode,
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or was it two weeks ago on the importance of asking questions.
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Is that's just a critical part of the process?
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Yeah, yeah.
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So look, I'm going to break this down real quick.
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Quick. Craig was just some math here.
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I'll give you some insight as to what what numbers and margins are for us at Wow.
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And what we see across, a lot of photographers in the world.
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So let's look at the idea of doing the shoot for 200.
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And we're going to get to in the next segment, we're going to get to
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some more dimensions about just one shoot.
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So we will get to that.
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And I'm not saying right now, by breaking down this math that you should
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or should not do photos plus drone again,
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not clearly defined for $200.
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We're just going to look at math here because I love math.
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All right. So I'm glad there's people like you that love it.
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Well and I think
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but I love I love that it gives clarity.
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Yeah. And I have our largest client.
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He, he told me he asked me a question very early on.
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And this is like a guy I'm nervous to sit with.
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I know him pretty. I know him really well. Now.
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He refers us, but I'm still, you know, I still prepare for this guy. He.
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I set a statement
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and he said, Todd, is that what you think, or is that what you know?
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Yeah.
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And he said it.
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My brain, my processor, took a second to process it
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and I went, oh, crap, I know what he's like.
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And I'm like, that is so smart.
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Like I use that all the time.
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Is that what you think I, I use it on myself.
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Is this what I think or what I know.
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The only way to truly know something I you typically take it back to metrics.
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Yeah.
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So $200 shoot photo and drone.
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Craig how long of an appointment is that. Let's and okay.
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So I'm sorry.
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Let's define this photo and drone just for the sake of this.
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Perfect for this, illustration that photos
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you're going to shoot 30 to 40 photos.
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We don't do number of photos.
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We do it by square footage. Craig.
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It's a 20 500 square foot house.
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Maybe has one room in the basement. Finished.
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And you want, drone that's going to include a five shots.
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Photos only.
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So if the house is ready, you know, it's picked up.
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We're not waiting for the sellers to have to hide things.
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Maybe even the lights are turned on.
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The blinds are open.
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Best case scenario, right.
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What, 30 photos plus, 4 or 5 drone photos, I don't know, 20.
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There.
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It probably take me 35 minutes.
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Maybe 40.
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Yeah, tops. Yeah. Okay.
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Let's say 45 minutes because you're going to talk a little bit 45 minutes.
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Sure. Okay.
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And just for actually let's I like
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taking best worst case scenario let's say 60 minutes okay.
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All right.
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It makes for easy math too.
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When we figure an hourly rate okay.
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So 60 minutes in there I know many of you are paying
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your photographers 25 to $35 an hour.
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Again, let's take worst case scenario, 35 bucks an hour.
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An hour times one hour.
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You got $35. Photographer charges.
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All right.
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Now I understand there might be some outline factors of where is this located?
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And are you paying your photographer any mileage?
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We can add some more in just for a worst case scenario.
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When we begin to add this up.
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Okay.
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So that is let's call it $35 on a $200 job.
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So the other item that we have with cost of goods is photo editing.
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And again, you're going to do, 35 photos and five drone photos.
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It's a total of 40 images.
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Send them to auto HDR.
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About $0.55 an image.
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That's 22 bucks.
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Okay.
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If you're like, Todd, what is auto HDR?
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Auto HDR is an AI photo editing.
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We don't own it. Matt. Gia.
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Fabulous individual on the real estate media company.
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We've part we we endorse it.
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We use it at Wow.
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You know, we put thousands and thousands of images through it,
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in the last month, tens of thousands of images.
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It's fabulous.
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Great quality.
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If you want to find out more autohdr.com/spiro
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or if you're in a Spiro use or just go to your integrations.
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If you use that slash Spiro to sign up, you'll get free credits in there
16:20
to try it out. So give it a try.
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See what it is.
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It's about $0.55 an image based on volume.
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Okay, Craig.
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So 35 plus 22 is 57 bucks.
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All right.
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$57 on a $200 Alv is 57 divided by two because it's 200.
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That's a 28.5% cost of goods.
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Okay.
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So your cost of goods is 20.5%.
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So the way I did that is you just take your $57
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divided by your $200 and that will give you the percentage of your cost of goods.
16:54
Okay.
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So I can tell you, after looking at hundreds of thousands of jobs and talking
16:58
to thousands and thousands of people, that that is a healthy spot for you to be.
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at Wow our cost of goods, our photographer cost
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is usually in the 30s, low 30s.
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depending the market, we pay a little bit different based on
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where the photographer is located, because cost of living is different.
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And then our editing cost is 7 to 10%.
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So we like to be in that mid to high 30s.
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That's where we always land.
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And we feel like we can keep good people, we people, you know,
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our photographers can make a good living so that they stay on with us,
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we retain them, they feel like they can grow.
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And that's the editing style.
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Now, if autoHDR and then we have, you know, video editors
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use the merge fleet, but we do have other editors, QC and all that.
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So 28.5% on the shoot,
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just from a numbers perspective I say is pretty healthy.
17:53
So again, $57 is our cost of goods.
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And we took our top line revenue or our order value was 200
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%200 -$57 is $143 okay.
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So $143 is your gross profit right now.
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That's not your net. And that's at the bottom of the PNL.
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So you still have to pay for subscriptions.
18:14
You have to pay for other things, whatever you have.
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But just as a general math related item,
18:22
these percentages seem good to me.
18:26
And again, I'm not saying you should even do it at this cost.
18:29
Now there are some variables.
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If you live in California, for example,
18:34
you are not paying anybody $35 an hour and keeping them.
18:38
I get that, okay.
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The beautiful thing is your editing cost is still the same.
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But you're I know you're not paying good people that rate,
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so you have to take this into consideration, right?
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So from a math perspective, just looking at it, I'm sitting there
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going, hey, this is pretty good.
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Like I'm happy with this.
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The one other variable, Craig, is the fact that if
19:00
if you are a solo shooter and this is not and it's not your goal
19:06
to maximize the amount of volume that comes into your business,
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you're going to think about this way different, right?
19:13
Again, we have a different thought here at Wow I think differently about this.
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I want to do as many as possible.
19:18
Why we're going to hit about 13,500 jobs this year in that range.
19:22
It'll be our best year ever.
19:24
And we want to do volume.
19:27
If you are a single shooter, you you probably should respond
19:31
differently to this text message.
19:32
If you're looking to have the highest average order value.
19:38
All right.
19:38
And again, if that's your tact, which at one point in my career was
19:43
when I was on my own with my own company, I was a lower
19:46
volume shooter compared to say, wow,
19:50
yeah.
19:50
You're giving, hopefully an exceptional level of service
19:55
and weeding out the type of clients that are only shopping based on price.
20:00
So but again, you need that face to face relationship building component
20:05
even more critically, to dive into the questions
20:08
you know, that you need to ask and build a relationship with the client.
20:13
And the right client will be incredibly loyal to you despite price.
20:17
Yeah.
20:18
So that's that's that's the route.
20:21
Let's take that scenario, Craig.
20:22
Let's talk about the pivot.
20:24
The pivot into and away from price only.
20:28
So moving
20:30
into that, let's go back to that text message.
20:34
You've already offered some great suggestions of how to respond.
20:40
We feel strongly that you need
20:44
to get the conversation out of that text message.
20:48
But Craig, let's just play the what if
20:49
game, let's say, and we're all busy out there.
20:53
I talk to many of you, I know you're busy.
20:55
I know you, you are trying to hire or you're behind in hiring.
21:00
Your business is growing, so it's exciting.
21:02
But the thought of taking one more meeting
21:05
right now is just overwhelming.
21:08
I understand that I have been there many times,
21:11
and I have a fabulous large team that helps me and I.
21:17
I don't want to take for granted the times that I look back
21:20
and I was like, man, I just
21:22
the thought
21:22
of one more meeting just like might break me.
21:25
Like, I just don't know where I'm going to pull the time.
21:30
So I feel you on that.
21:31
So we're going to pivot away from that, and we're going to give you
21:34
some ideas of how you can break this down a little bit more in a text message,
21:39
even though my gut says Todd, just tell them
21:42
that they have to sit with this person.
21:44
But I remember the times where I felt like I was going to break.
21:47
So some things you could respond to in that text message
21:51
is the first thing is, as Craig, in that text message,
21:54
we haven't really even defined what photos and drone is right?
21:58
Right.
22:00
So in terms of the number of shots, things like that.
22:03
Yeah, yeah, I had I had one of our VIPs
22:08
contact me one time.
22:09
It was towards the end of a of a contract with him, and he price shopped
22:13
and I was not offended or surprised that he price shopped.
22:17
You should expect all of your people to price shop you.
22:21
You should expect all of your employees to look for jobs.
22:25
Okay?
22:26
I had in the past been surprised about both of those things.
22:29
Many times it took took me a lot of work to learn from me.
22:33
I'm a pretty dense brain person, but I've learned to
22:36
not be surprised that people want a better deal or a better job.
22:40
It's just your responsibility as the owner.
22:43
So this VIP email me, he called me, I have that relationship.
22:48
He called me, said, hey, I'm just, you know, we're at the end of the year
22:50
and I'm looking at volume, looking at price for next year.
22:52
And I've got a couple things I will run by you.
22:55
I got a quote from a competitor.
22:56
Can you take a look at it? It looks like it's pretty good.
23:00
He emailed it to me okay.
23:01
So I looked it over and I went, there's no way I'm going to compete
23:06
with this price.
23:07
Like it was like, there's no way he had, photo drone in there.
23:12
He had Matterport.
23:13
He happened to use Matterport on everything.
23:16
And I looked at it and it just seemed like I was worlds away.
23:19
Craig.
23:20
Like, like, we're going to lose this guy like he did.
23:24
He was doing about 100 a year at that time, and now he owns his own brokerage,
23:27
like he was growing like crazy, and I knew he was going to be an owner one day.
23:31
And I was like, how are we going to do this?
23:34
Well, what we had to start to do is we had to start to ask questions.
23:38
So we looked at the competitor, we looked at what they were delivering.
23:42
We asked for examples.
23:43
He gave them to us. Remember, I had the relationship.
23:45
I can ask those questions.
23:46
I worked with him for five years now,
23:49
and as we started to see these things, we realized that the competitor
23:53
was using a non Matterport Pro.
23:57
I think it was a Pro two at the time camera.
23:59
But using a theta camera as a 3D tours look like crap,
24:03
like it was the low level theta camera.
24:06
Well, the thing about the theta camera is the fact that you can get through a house
24:10
a ton faster than the Matterport camera.
24:14
The. For those of you that don't shoot Matterport
24:18
or don't know about the Matterport camera, it scans.
24:21
It actually spins on its base, at least at the time.
24:24
I don't know if they do anymore,
24:25
but at the time the Matterport camera would spin
24:28
and it would take like a minute to spin around and then it would have to
24:31
process.
24:32
Well, the theta camera does it almost instantly
24:35
because it has 180 degree lenses on each side of the camera.
24:39
So you hit snap, you hit capture and boom, it's done.
24:43
It doesn't have to spin.
24:45
So we started looking at this and we're like, oh, this is not our product.
24:50
And then we looked at drone. It's like, well, wait a minute.
24:51
This is not this doesn't have video on it.
24:53
Some things he hadn't been getting,
24:55
he's like, oh for drone I really just want the front and the back.
24:58
I just want two images.
24:59
I don't need this other stuff.
25:01
So long story short, Craig, we had to do an apples.
25:05
The apples are oranges.
25:06
The oranges comparison was apples to oranges at the time.
25:09
I was trying to fit our superior product
25:11
into a container that was completely different.
25:15
Okay, so long story short, we looked at that.
25:18
We actually came up with a term.
25:20
We came up with a new product called Matterport Light.
25:23
We already had the cameras come on.
25:24
We are scanning other things with the cameras.
25:27
He was happy with that quality.
25:28
And again we are like, hey, are you happy with this quality?
25:31
Look at our quality. Look at his quality.
25:33
He said, yeah, I'm actually happy with that.
25:35
I just use it as a feature benefit.
25:38
I need it to get listings.
25:40
Yeah, okay.
25:41
No problem.
25:44
Then we went back.
25:45
Look at what our drone packages have.
25:47
This is what you're saying you want.
25:49
Are you good with literally two photos?
25:52
He was.
25:53
And we came up with a custom thing for him.
25:55
Now I will say you do not want to do custom.
25:58
We had a commenter on Facebook make a great message
26:02
or had a good, good, comment about like, do we want to do custom for everyone?
26:06
How do we protect our clients?
26:08
You don't want to do custom for everyone.
26:10
Again, this client did 100 a year with me and now he owns a brokerage.
26:14
So you're going to have to pick certain times for this.
26:16
But we retain that client.
26:18
We created new things because we wanted to retain him.
26:21
But our goal was to retain him and still be profitable.
26:26
So every case is going to be a little bit different.
26:28
And you got you got to run run it through kind of a matrix of questions.
26:32
And what's the word I'm looking for?
26:37
Is it proffitable
26:39
Yeah.
26:39
This is a profitable for us still to do this.
26:42
Yeah.
26:42
And one client, it might be profitable in another.
26:45
It might not.
26:46
Yeah. It might not be.
26:48
And you are going to get sorry, Craig.
26:50
You're going to get some of those dying pumpkins on the vine.
26:52
We've talked about that before.
26:54
There's going to be some messages that come in and it's a dying pumpkin.
26:57
You just need to cut it off the vine, be it and be very respectful to them.
27:03
Yeah.
27:04
He's we were on a coaching call the other day and this topic came up.
27:07
I actually brought up because I really like this conversation.
27:09
I think there's a lot to learn here.
27:11
Steve had an example as to where we had a client come in very similar,
27:16
and we molded a few things and we molded the package.
27:20
Again, it was a big client,
27:20
it was a company client, and it was a very low average order value.
27:25
But we built the relationship, we got the business.
27:28
It was a lot of volume coming in, and their average order
27:31
value has going up, has gone up over a third
27:35
in the like the three years they've been a client with us.
27:38
They went from spending about,
27:41
you know, are actually went up about 50% because they were about 200.
27:44
And now they're at 300.
27:46
So it does take time
27:48
sometimes for clients to understand the value that you bring.
27:52
Right.
27:53
And if you're starting with a new client that is
27:56
initially only looking at small packages, you know, CFO, the only type of deal,
28:01
Todd, you've brought this up.
28:02
I saw one of your responses on on Facebook. You brought this up there.
28:05
There was a period of time in our, in our company
28:08
that we weren't interested in a photo only.
28:11
But you started rethinking that with the leadership team.
28:14
Can you share a little bit more about that, that decision making process?
28:18
Yeah.
28:20
So yeah, walk us walk us through that. Yeah.
28:22
So it almost seems silly to say we,
28:24
we thought about these clients like this at a point in time, but it's true.
28:28
Like we would look at clients that came in and did photo
28:31
only jobs and we'd be like, oh, it's photos only like it was.
28:35
It was a term like their photos, only it it meant not a great thing.
28:40
And so at Wow, 80% of our jobs
28:43
include video and we've always marketed video.
28:47
Again, our company is called Wow Video Tours.
28:50
I didn't even do photos for the first 3 or 4 years of business.
28:54
So we packaged those things together.
28:56
And that leads us to a ton of flexibility.
28:58
Different podcast, different idea.
29:01
But we would get new clients that came in and they would order
29:05
photos only like, oh, they're photos only like.
29:08
And we'd kind of brush them off.
29:11
And that is a that's a dumb thing.
29:14
And it was,
29:15
it was by far I'm just going to say it was,
29:16
it was dumb to kind of think, wait, why?
29:18
These clients are photos only and it is
29:22
because your clients have to start somewhere, right?
29:26
You know, you can't expect like if if you are doing things
29:30
differently at your company and you have these higher end products,
29:34
you can't expect your your clients to come in and know about them.
29:38
You'll have some of the better marketing people come in and request things
29:41
and ask for new things, and they'll help push your brand and your services.
29:46
But if you really put your self in your client's shoes,
29:51
remember they're busy.
29:53
They are wondering how they're going to get their next listing,
29:56
their next buyer,
29:58
their
29:58
one, and how they're going to pay for the marketing,
30:00
how they're going to
30:00
pay for the same post, how they're going to pay for their dues,
30:04
how they're going to pay for all of the other things.
30:06
They're small business owners.
30:08
You know the feeling when it's just you.
30:12
So when you bring them in and you build that relationship
30:15
and you show, show them the value,
30:17
they're going to do a lot of different things for you.
30:21
Number one, they have a great potential to order more from you.
30:25
They're going to order again and again.
30:28
Our photos only price and made sense for us.
30:31
We considered it profitable. It was.
30:33
So why would we be unhappy with a job that's profitable,
30:38
right?
30:39
And especially a job that's profitable even at a smaller
30:42
margin that could lead to larger margins down the road?
30:46
Is that realtor grows their business.
30:48
And that's kind of always been my passion is especially helping
30:52
newer realtors get their feet under them
30:55
right away with really good photos.
30:58
They might not be able to afford paying for the video
31:00
right off the bat because they've got a they've got a ton of startup costs, right?
31:04
And starting their real estate business.
31:06
So if you can build that relationship and build that trust by just giving them
31:09
a fantastic service, even on photos only
31:13
the go getters, the ones that are really motivated,
31:16
they're going to keep working on building their business.
31:18
And if you're there at at ground level with them
31:22
with just a basic photo only service, but consult with them about thinking
31:27
about the future of growing their brand as a realtor and introducing some ideas.
31:33
They're going to consider that they might not be able to do it
31:35
right in the moment is their getting their business going.
31:37
But as they grow their business and become more well known in the community
31:41
because they're all about networking, that's how they build their business
31:45
and they're all able to offer sellers
31:48
more and more services as they grow their business.
31:51
You're right with them growing with them so it might be a lower average order
31:56
value to start, but stick with them long term, because on the opposite
32:00
end of the spectrum, you've got older, older realtors that are starting.
32:05
They might love you and be super loyal to you,
32:08
but they're slow in their business down because they're approaching retirement.
32:11
I've got some of those clients that even just three, you know, 3 or 4 years ago,
32:15
they were they were big hitters, but they're approaching retirement.
32:18
And they've told me, Craig, you know, I'm slowing down a little bit.
32:21
Well, you got to remember that funnel, that sales
32:24
funnel, right, that you're going to have some leaving your business.
32:27
And if you don't have new business coming in and be willing
32:30
to make that shift from an average order value, you're going to catch yourself
32:36
in a catch 22 and business can start to spiral or down.
32:40
So it's always refreshing that funnel and remembering both both ends
32:44
of the realtor career spectrum that was leaving in those just getting in.
32:50
Yeah for sure.
32:51
Yeah that that's a that's a great point.
32:53
And there is more value than just this one shoot right Craig
32:59
I mean that you know, if you look at it from a one shoot perspective, you know,
33:04
you might not make a huge amount of money
33:07
on this one shoot, but this if, if you accommodate.
33:11
And again, I'm not saying you should and maybe you say,
33:13
hey, I've got a new client discount, I think there is value
33:17
in getting the client to shoot with you at least one time.
33:21
Yeah, I think that's just the tip of the iceberg, Craig, I don't know.
33:24
What do you think?
33:25
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree.
33:27
I mean, there's there's a lot of factors to consider.
33:30
I just I'm thinking about one client
33:32
that she does, a lot of high end listings.
33:36
Well, she does some high end listings and some more average listings,
33:40
and she doesn't necessarily use this on her average listings.
33:43
I'm working on that.
33:44
But she's been getting more and more higher in listings.
33:47
And so she's using us a little bit more consistently.
33:49
Well, she recently I think I talked about this a couple podcasts ago.
33:53
She she had her highest listing value, property ever at close to 3 million.
33:59
And she was only going to do photos only only going to do photos, video and drone.
34:04
And I talked with her about being on camera to help her build her brand.
34:08
And she was super nervous, but she did it and she was super glad to.
34:12
Todd.
34:12
We just had another listing from her and she said, Craig,
34:15
I want to do that agent on video camera again.
34:18
Now she was super still super nervous.
34:20
And you know, we walked through that.
34:22
But in just one listing of doing that, she realized the value
34:28
of that additional service, of being on camera and
34:31
and so but that doesn't come until you've built trust.
34:36
Yeah.
34:36
So be willing to take the smaller average order value to start
34:40
and build a relationship.
34:41
And that business will grow.
34:43
That's my take on it.
34:44
Oh for sure. It comes down to that lifetime value.
34:46
And those are things that you're going to see.
34:48
And your metrics dashboard you know in Spiro.
34:51
So there are also a couple of other things that you're not going to see.
34:54
Or you maybe are right there.
34:57
But this this client, if they love you
35:00
and become a raving fan, they're going to refer you.
35:04
Yeah. Yep.
35:06
And that is going to continue to push revenue into your company.
35:09
So that's another opportunity.
35:13
The last
35:14
thing is if this individuals are raving fan,
35:17
they're going to be potentially
35:20
a lead to the broker and assign a broker deal.
35:25
The idea I talked about some some leading indicators of getting a broker deal.
35:29
And the biggest one is sell through our support
35:33
or the number of agents that you have at the company.
35:37
It's very difficult to have 1 or 2 agents
35:40
or a small percentage of the agents at a company
35:43
and to go and get a broker deal,
35:45
because you're going to ask for a meeting.
35:48
The broker doesn't know you.
35:50
The broker hasn't heard about your name.
35:51
This all takes time.
35:53
Your your company name has to flow through.
35:55
You have to get agents that
35:58
recommend you.
35:59
You have to get agents that say your name in team meetings.
36:02
You know, it's this idea of that the broker needs to hear your name
36:05
so many times before you're even on their radar.
36:09
This is no different.
36:10
Let me just put this in our situation.
36:12
But think back to when you were looking for a photo editor.
36:16
And this the idea of like, if you message in a particular Facebook
36:21
group, say, hey, I need a photo editor,
36:23
you're going to get 3 million photo editors.
36:25
That email or Facebook message. You.
36:29
Right.
36:30
But if you
36:33
see a post from another photographer
36:36
that says, hey, I'm just really trying to help.
36:37
Like I have a photo editor and he has he or she has a little more time to do
36:41
photo edits.
36:42
I've really loved this person, just trying to help them out.
36:44
If anybody has some jobs, here's our contact information.
36:49
Which one is more impressionable
36:52
and your mind? carries more weight
36:55
It's word of mouth advertising.
36:57
It's the same thing with a broker.
36:58
So one more agent is one agent closer to you having enough pull at the company
37:03
that you get a broker deal, or you just sell through to a lot more agents.
37:07
It's this idea of this tipping point.
37:09
And sometimes in life I look back and I, I was pushing the car up the hill
37:16
and I
37:16
was so close to the tipping point, I just got tired.
37:19
I'm like, it's never going to work.
37:21
It's not going to happen.
37:22
This and I needed to just have one more contact, one more person,
37:29
and it would have pushed the car over and then I would have been beyond
37:32
that tipping point. I would have been gone downhill.
37:35
You just never know.
37:37
The odds say one more is not going to do it,
37:40
but you just don't know when one more is actually going to tip the car
37:43
and you're going to hit momentum at that company, right?
37:46
I just imagine there's still
37:48
some, some, photographers out there asking the question, though.
37:51
Do I want to race to the bottom?
37:53
Yeah, but I think I think it's more nuanced than that.
37:56
You have to you have to run it
37:57
through a series of questions of what's what's the long term value?
38:01
Is it really a race to the bottom?
38:03
And sometimes it is.
38:06
But I think in some cases it's,
38:09
it's going to be worth the initial lower cost.
38:13
And in some cases it's not going to be because you're, you're always
38:16
you don't be surprised that you're going to have some realtors
38:19
that are only interested in price.
38:21
Like, like you said before, don't be surprised by that.
38:24
Yeah.
38:25
Craig let me ask you a question
38:26
and I'll say individuals name because I know him well.
38:28
But Ron, Ron mentioned in there and he said mentioned my name.
38:32
He said but would you charge an agent less than other agents.
38:36
That doesn't exactly seem fair to the ones that pay full price.
38:40
He said, unless you mean
38:41
lowering your price for everyone, what are your thoughts on that, Craig?
38:45
So we've struggled with that question.
38:48
But we answered it with a an agent discount program.
38:53
Or it's the
38:54
the decision is based on volume which is then fair for everyone.
38:58
And you explain and you can explain that, hey,
39:01
the more you're able to shoot with us, you know, the better price we can give you.
39:05
And we, we want to give you a better price and help you grow
39:09
so that, you know, you can move up that that tiered pricing level.
39:14
So that's how that's how we've handled it.
39:17
Yeah. Yeah.
39:18
And if you take if you take this opportunity,
39:21
if this is a new client for you and you have you create some sort of
39:25
new client discount and it could be even be on the fly and say, hey,
39:29
you know, this is we typically are 295 for photo and drone.
39:34
You know, I want to understand, you know, what you're looking for
39:37
and make sure that we exceed your expectations.
39:41
I have a promotion going on right now, or I can meet that price for the first one.
39:45
I just ask that you give honest feedback about the meeting, and we look at
39:49
if there's any ways that we can improve your marketing for future listings.
39:53
If you give some sort of picture of that.
39:55
Ron, I agree with you.
39:56
I don't think just because an agent text message
39:58
and ask for the $200 price, you can't honor that forever.
40:04
I think it's valuable money to discount it
40:09
for the opportunity of what the agent could bring.
40:13
That's good, that's good.
40:15
Yeah, but I believe fully that you need to be able to justify.
40:20
You need to assume every agent knows what everyone else pays,
40:24
and you have to be able to justify it as to why they get that discount
40:29
agents
40:30
do talk amongst themselves, even between brokerages.
40:33
Just know that.
40:34
Yeah, I've actually had a manager directly asked me that question.
40:39
So and I had to be honest because I knew that he knew what the pricing was.
40:45
So don't try and skate around it.
40:48
Just be upfront and and yeah, like Todd said, have the reason
40:51
and the justification of that from a business standpoint.
40:55
Yeah.
40:56
Craig, I think at some point we talked about pricing tiers
40:59
or I have a talk out there somewhere. Steve has one.
41:02
That's the way we come about it.
41:03
If you're looking for that, just do a quick search.
41:05
But we may.
41:06
Everybody's fair
41:07
because they fit into a pricing tier like Craig mentioned based on volume.
41:11
And the quick pivot is like, hey, I know that this agent gets a lower price.
41:16
Can I get that same price?
41:18
The response is, we would love to give you that price.
41:22
This is what you need to do to qualify for that program.
41:26
We need to get you doing 40 listings a year and then you can unlock that price.
41:31
And better yet, if you do 100 listings a year, we can even give you a lower price.
41:35
You just send them all that information so they know.
41:37
And then it's equal playing field and nobody's played favorites, right?
41:43
Right.
41:44
It's business.
41:45
I think most, most levelheaded business people understand that.
41:49
Well, volume based pricing is not a new thing.
41:52
It's expected I, I had a previous sales role and and that's what we did.
41:57
You know based on volume.
41:59
Here's the pricing that we can give you.
42:01
So nothing unusual okay.
42:04
Yeah.
42:04
Something you can you can be comfortable with. So.
42:08
Well excellent Todd I think that covers it pretty well.
42:12
Do you do you have any final thoughts or. Yeah.
42:14
Just what's your opinion?
42:16
Let's keep the discussion going.
42:17
I think this is a great one because this is something
42:19
that's very common and it might come in many different forms.
42:23
You're always going to get this if you're doing even a,
42:27
a presentation at a, at an office, an office meeting, typically
42:31
the first question is if you don't pass it, a price list is what do you charge.
42:37
So we need to figure out a
42:38
way to hit this head on to,
42:43
to be able to hit it in stride so that you have a good response
42:46
so that you can keep people interested in you so that you can really see
42:50
the full opportunity of what that client can bring, right?
42:54
I could even make a joke about it, you know,
42:57
in a presentation and have the have the pricing sheet right at their desk.
43:01
And, you know, if you have the pricing sheet
43:03
at their spot on the table, that's the first thing they're looking at.
43:06
I see them looking at the pricing sheet before I even open my mouth.
43:10
And so just address that right up front and say,
43:13
hey, I know you're looking at price already.
43:16
You've got it.
43:17
We're not trying to hide anything and that,
43:19
but then go through your presentation on on the value that you bring,
43:24
and maybe even have some stories ready of, of some success stories.
43:28
We all relate to stories.
43:30
We are a story driven people.
43:32
So if you've got some success stories that you can share, especially
43:35
if one of those success stories is in the room at the time.
43:39
I've asked that agent, especially if if I know they're
43:41
a raving fan to share their testimony, and that's powerful.
43:45
Yes, that all goes into building that relationship.
43:51
And those people will stay loyal.
43:53
They will pay more, they will upgrade more.
43:56
They refer you.
43:57
And those are the clients that you want.
43:59
Yeah, exactly.
44:02
All right.
44:02
Yeah.
44:03
If you've got a story about pricing, we'd love to hear about it.
44:05
If you're watching on YouTube, feel free to leave a comment
44:08
and maybe how you've you've handled it, because we want to hear
44:11
all of your stories and your your ways of addressing this.
44:13
This is a community, right?
44:15
So leave a comment.
44:17
We would love to hear your, your examples of how you've dealt with it.
44:21
And, be sure to give this a, like if you've found some value in it and,
44:25
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44:27
If you subscribe, you get a little bell notification that,
44:30
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44:34
which is typically every Wednesday morning, here in the US.
44:38
So, we do is just really appreciate you guys watching.
44:41
And if you have a question, a business question,
44:44
you know, like, like we saw from this Facebook question,
44:47
drop us a line at hello@spiro.media.
44:52
We would love to hear from you.
44:53
And we do we do respond to those and look for those emails.
44:58
All right, Todd.
44:59
Well, thank you for the insight this week.
45:00
Appreciate it.
45:02
Great discussion. Great to be here.
45:04
And, you know, just one more conversation that as you do these
45:07
and they're going to get better too.
45:08
The first time you do it, it's going to be terrible.
45:10
Anybody got blew. That thing.
45:12
I've blown many first conversations.
45:13
I've blown many 10th conversations.
45:15
But the 11th is going to be the one
45:17
where you're like, dang, I did pretty good on that one.
45:19
So just keep trying and keep analyzing what you're doing.
45:23
Put push through, because the longer you're in this,
45:25
the more comfortable you're going to get.
45:27
You always want a little I think you always want
45:29
a little bit of nervousness just to keep that edge. Right.
45:32
But as you build loyal customers and clients,
45:36
it will build your confidence in what you're doing with your business.
45:39
And, and you can present in a more, just a more confident
45:43
way, when you're at that brokerage, presentation.
45:47
So, stick with it.
45:49
Don't get discouraged if you're facing some challenge right now,
45:52
you might have a ton of competition in your market.
45:54
Just give your best and keep plugging away because
45:59
we we believe you can succeed.
46:01
So all right well that wraps up another week guys.
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Thank you so much for taking time.
46:06
We know this is the height of busy season.
46:08
So the fact that you're making time to, either watch or listen does not
46:13
that does not go unnoticed.
46:14
So we appreciate that.
46:16
And, just make sure even during the midst of busy
46:19
season, it takes some time to be thankful for the blessings in your life,
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because we all have blessings that we can be thankful for.
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And also make sure you take a breath.
46:27
All right. Have a great week. Take care.