Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / Christmas for Clients - How to Plan

Transcript

Christmas for Clients - How to Plan · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

0:00
Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
0:04
And it's especially difficult because if you think about our clientele
0:07
as real estate agents, your top agents, they already have nice things,
0:13
like they're somewhat difficult to give a nice gift to,
0:18
you know, because they buy what they want.
0:34
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast, managing your real estate,
0:38
photography and videography business.
0:40
Spiro is a software platform.
0:42
It's designed to help you maintain, manage direct your day to day
0:48
real estate media business, but ultimately help you scale it
0:51
and become a very efficient and effective in what you do.
0:55
Welcome back to the podcast.
0:56
I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
0:59
And, just we're getting ready to wind up the year here.
1:02
And, of course, each and every week our co-host and founder
1:06
and owner, Todd Kivimaki welcome, Todd.
1:09
Craig, it's great to be on here.
1:11
Good to see everybody today or great to be with everybody.
1:13
Thank you for your time.
1:14
We don't underestimate that. We do.
1:16
Thank you for hopping on with us.
1:19
We were just at, conferences for the year.
1:22
So Craig,
1:24
a lot of the Wow
1:25
team got to go with me to the REPP conference, which is fabulous.
1:28
And then myself and the Spiro team, we went to the PMRE conference,
1:33
and we just enjoyed getting to talk with so many of you.
1:36
And, we know we have so many just loyal listeners.
1:40
So thank you for that.
1:41
I just want to say that started at the top of the hour here.
1:44
Thank you for your support.
1:46
If you are,
1:49
or if you have an idea of how or what
1:51
you want to hear on the podcast, you can contact us.
1:54
I'll get it out, y'all. I got to spit it out here.
1:57
Hello@spiro.media.
1:59
Send us a note. You'll get us. We'll answer.
2:02
Let us know what you want to learn about or what you'd like.
2:05
Some insight on.
2:06
Or if you are a master of something that you'd like to share
2:10
and you like the idea of reaching the community, let us know that as well.
2:13
So again, email hello@spiro.media.
2:17
Excellent.
2:18
All right.
2:18
Well it's end of the year.
2:21
It's you know Christmas time.
2:23
We start thinking about gifts and time with family and friends
2:26
and all of that good stuff.
2:27
So this week we are going to be talking
2:31
about Christmas gifts for your clients, how to do the planning for that.
2:34
You know, who, who, which clients do you give those to?
2:38
Just all things gift related to help you think through that and, just further,
2:43
further deepen those relationships with your clients.
2:46
But before we get to that,
2:48
Todd Spiro announcements and updates, what's going on?
2:50
Yeah.
2:51
So we are you might have it by now pending when you're listening to this,
2:54
but we are moving towards our CRM functions.
2:58
And this is going to allow you
3:02
to do actions that actually
3:05
affect the growth of your business, is what I've been saying.
3:08
So we know that.
3:10
And we talked to a lot of you and we coach a good amount of you
3:14
and those of you
3:17
when we're talking, we know that you have limited time
3:21
and on many of your list is not number one.
3:25
Being client acquisition.
3:27
And we want to help you with the time that you're devoting to client acquisition.
3:31
We want to make it easier for you to do it.
3:33
We want you to be able to track it and manage it so that you
3:36
can grow your business.
3:39
As I as I look back over the years,
3:42
the way that we grew to be over
3:46
14,000 jobs this year and it was low, 12 thousands last year.
3:51
So we are still growing at a very nice pace as we focus on growth.
3:57
It's a core value of ours and we have systems and processes
4:01
that allow us to focus on that and people.
4:04
So we want to give you some insight.
4:07
We want to give you some tools that we have,
4:09
And we want you to grow your business to meet your goals.
4:13
So CRM functions are coming.
4:15
Check out the website Spiro Dot media.
4:17
Or if you're on our email list, you'll have a newsletter.
4:20
When the updates launch, it will be the agent Grid will
4:24
where you will be able to manage your agents.
4:28
Look at that data with quick filters that are valuable to your company.
4:33
Make the calls when needed.
4:34
Set follow ups when you need to so that people don't fall out of the funnel.
4:39
Follow up is key.
4:41
Yeah, yeah.
4:42
It's you know,
4:44
they say the fortunes in the follow up and we're going to help you do that.
4:47
And so we are excited about these features.
4:49
We'll continue to build on this.
4:51
These are things that we want for our company.
4:53
So if we want them we know you guys want them.
4:57
And we'll have them out very soon and we'll continue to build on them.
5:01
Okay. Excellent. Anything else?
5:04
I think just a we'll mention it later, but yeah.
5:07
Go ahead. Yeah.
5:08
Just a quick update on if, if, if you have not launched Titus in your Spiro system.
5:14
Yeah. If you don't know what Titus says, please go back and find it.
5:16
Listen to that. We have we've done podcasts.
5:19
We've done many things.
5:20
We've done a live with Eli Jones.
5:22
Titus will change your business.
5:24
We are seen it at wow.
5:26
We compare when people use pay at close with Titus versus pay now.
5:30
So when agents have the convenience to pay when the house closes and again
5:35
you get paid immediately, our agents at Wow are spending 44% more.
5:41
That's amazing.
5:41
If you want your agents to spend 44% more to have that flexibility,
5:45
please look at Titus.
5:46
It's a game changer.
5:47
We're the only ones that have it.
5:49
It's integrated in the system. It's just
5:54
I already said fabulous.
5:55
I don't know what else to say.
5:56
Like, I'm telling you all, I don't get this hyped about things.
5:59
Please look at it.
6:00
Please see how it can change your business.
6:02
Also, if you're like, hey, I'm in California
6:04
and you didn't have it, Nick and the Titus team has worked hard.
6:07
They are in California now, so please check it out.
6:10
It's a great thing to do as we all slow down here for the winter.
6:13
Advertise it to your agents and put that into your business workflow.
6:18
Excellent.
6:20
There was a brief moment there, Todd.
6:22
You were actually speechless.
6:23
That's a rare moment.
6:26
I agree, a 44%.
6:28
It's just. It's such a no brainer.
6:30
Yeah.
6:30
And I will tell you, I know there are some naysayers about this.
6:33
I was one of the biggest ones months ago.
6:35
And then I started looking at the data.
6:37
And now I see the data in my own company.
6:39
Like it's not a shiny object, y'all.
6:42
Like it's something that agents need.
6:44
We know that. We integrated it.
6:46
We're the first.
6:47
We're the only to have it again.
6:49
I'll say that again because we work hard for you all.
6:51
Like, look at the updates.
6:52
I'll just toot my engineering's horn here for a little bit.
6:55
Like, look at the updates that we gave you.
6:57
And I do this very rarely.
6:58
I never sell on this podcast,
7:00
but look at the updates that we gave you over the last 12 months.
7:04
And if you're not with us, I hope I can earn your business that you see
7:08
how relevant we are to your business and how much we have given
7:12
to our users over the last 12 months compared to other systems.
7:16
So you do the comparison.
7:17
I'm not going to do it here, but we have worked hard for you all.
7:20
We will continue to do.
7:21
It will continue to be the first, first to do autoHDR.
7:24
first to do Titus, first to do CRM features, first to do Spiro Sync.
7:28
We'll continue to say that as you listen to us on the podcast, and that was done.
7:33
That was my hard pitch. Craig. It's fine.
7:35
And those of you that are Spiro clients, we just we appreciate you so much.
7:40
We truly, truly have really enjoyed getting getting to know you.
7:44
I mean, the REPP conference.
7:46
So that was just so much fun.
7:49
Anyway.
7:50
So, Todd, it is a fun time of year.
7:53
It's the season of giving.
7:55
It's more blessed to give than receive.
7:57
And, that's what we're going to be talking about this week.
8:01
Giving back to our clients.
8:03
And I have had a ton of fun working on a special project
8:08
for my VIPs in my market this, this season.
8:12
But there's a lot of planning that goes into,
8:16
giving gifts to
8:17
clients and VIPs and figuring out who did you know?
8:20
Who do I give it to? What's my budget?
8:22
You just all these questions that maybe on the surface, you don't think about, but
8:27
we've put together a pretty, pretty good guide of planning for giving back.
8:33
And, so I'm just going to turn things over to you and and, let's work through this.
8:39
Yeah. Craig.
8:40
So we took our five step process for gift
8:43
giving around the holidays that we've done for many years.
8:46
And we strategically look at this process and we strategically look at everything
8:52
we do.
8:53
And, so I've got the guide here in front of me and it's a five step process.
8:57
This is the Wow way guide to client gift and holiday giving.
9:00
So we're going to go through these five simple steps.
9:03
One thing I've learned as I get older every year
9:07
is I hate to be,
9:10
like around Christmas time, like 2 or 3 days.
9:14
That finally slows down before Christmas.
9:17
Like, it's just it's such a bad feeling to feel like you're underprepared.
9:21
Yeah, yeah.
9:22
You know, like, and and I try to weigh
9:26
that with going overboard, especially like with my kids.
9:30
But they're people are in your lives and clients
9:35
that are important and they are a lifeblood to your business.
9:40
And they use you consistently and they refer you.
9:44
And I do think, like Craig said, it's very nice
9:47
just to say thanks and know you don't have to spend a ton of money
9:51
if some of you are like, hey, I just don't know where the money
9:53
is going to come from. We have ideas for you.
9:56
So Craig, we're going to go through this five step process.
9:59
It's relatively simple, but it's okay.
10:01
Tested and tried. Excellent.
10:03
Let's let's dive in okay.
10:05
So step number one in the process.
10:07
Walk us through it Todd.
10:08
Yeah you're going to want to prepare your data.
10:12
So you're going to get this time of year.
10:13
And now you have lots of clients.
10:15
We have thousands and thousands of them in our system.
10:18
And you're just going to want to create basically your own agent rank and report.
10:23
So if you're in Spiro go to the metrics section.
10:25
You can download an agent performance.
10:28
You can download the full order report.
10:30
Your goal here is you're just going to want to compile your data.
10:34
And if you download those reports here's just a user tip.
10:37
Give it to AI give the whole big report for 12 months to
10:40
AI and tell it to create this for you. Okay
10:45
okay.
10:46
Instead of doing different you know, going to excel and sorting
10:51
and grouping and doing all that stuff, just give it to AI it's easy button.
10:56
And and it'll, it'll give this to you.
10:58
But you're going to want to look at your clients
11:00
and companies from most spend down.
11:04
And ideally what we suggest is
11:07
the people that spend the most with you are your best clients.
11:11
I know that's nothing like, you know, just earth shattering there,
11:15
but they're the people we need to remember during this time of year.
11:20
So is there like a certain percentage of your top clients
11:24
that you would focus on, or how do you distill that down?
11:28
Yeah. So it's a great question.
11:30
A lot of times when you're going through your list, you're going to see
11:33
the 80% 20% rule come into effect.
11:37
So you're probably going to see the top 20% of your agents
11:41
probably spend a or do 80% of your revenue.
11:46
So other than just going through your list and looking like you'll see,
11:50
hey, this person spent 20,000, this person spent 15, and you'll go down
11:54
and you'll see like, okay, there's a lot of sevens
11:57
and there's a lot of fives and oh, it drops out here.
12:00
Take a look at where you see those drops out.
12:02
Drop out.
12:03
And you might see something natural in there of where you're going to cut off
12:08
the, kind of the limit of where you're going to give certain tiers of gifts.
12:13
We'll go into different tiers of gifts.
12:15
There are ways that you can reach lots of agents.
12:18
And then there's also things you should do for your VIP clients.
12:20
But use that 80 20 rule.
12:23
Excellent. All right.
12:25
Step number two. So we've compiled data.
12:28
We've got, you know, a pretty good ranking report.
12:31
What's what. Step two.
12:32
Yeah.
12:32
Step two say you've identified the the 50 agents.
12:37
That and I'm just using that as a number I'm not saying it should be 50,
12:40
but say you've identified 50 individuals that you are
12:43
going to give something to this holiday season.
12:48
What you need to do is you need to establish a budget,
12:52
because if you just do it based on your feelings, you might be happy.
12:57
This time of year, might be feeling good,
12:59
it might have been a good year, and you start adding up those things.
13:02
And it's especially difficult because if you think about our clientele
13:05
as real estate agents, your top agents, they already have nice things,
13:11
like they're somewhat difficult to give a nice gift to,
13:16
you know, because they buy what they want.
13:19
And I'm generalizing here, but it's going to be tough to like,
13:23
buy really nice, knock it out of the park gifts for all of your clients.
13:26
I mean, spending 100 bucks a client is just not realistic.
13:31
We spend 100 bucks on some of our clients,
13:33
but it's not realistic to give to a large amount of clients.
13:36
Right?
13:37
So a number that we recommend is take,
13:40
0.15%.
13:43
Okay, of top line revenue.
13:46
So whatever you're going to do this year, if you're going to do 400,000,
13:50
multiply that times 0.0015
13:53
and then take that number 15%, not 15.15%.
13:58
Excuse me, not 15% okay.
14:00
You're not giving away 15% of your revenue. Yeah.
14:02
Don't spend that.
14:03
It's 0.15% of your revenue.
14:07
And that's a roundabout amount of what we spend.
14:10
Look at that. Are you comfortable with that?
14:13
Is that going to put you in a bad spot okay.
14:16
You don't need to spend that.
14:18
If you feel like you can give more please give more.
14:21
I don't think you can over give to an extent,
14:23
but if it was a great year and you want to take care of your clients
14:27
a little bit better, then give what you feel is comfortable.
14:30
So Todd, kind of a a little bit of a tangent,
14:33
but what if you're in a situation where you have multiple markets
14:37
that might be at different, say, income levels or
14:41
do you keep that same percentage
14:43
or do you kind of allocate things a little bit differently.
14:47
What what's your thoughts on that.
14:48
Yes we do.
14:49
We've looked at this a few ways and we think the best way to do it
14:53
is you take the same percentage.
14:55
So multiply top line revenue times 0.0015.
14:59
If you're doing 0.15% of gift, gifting of revenue,
15:04
and then you're going to want to divide that number
15:07
equally among your markets.
15:10
So say you, you know, say you're doing that $400,000,
15:13
but say 300,000 of it comes
15:16
in one market and you're doing 100,000 in another market.
15:20
You should give 75% of it to the bigger market
15:24
guy, that 75% give allocated to the bigger market.
15:28
Now you might want to throw in like a base revenue of, say,
15:32
or a base gifting amount of, say, $200, because maybe you have a market
15:37
that's extremely small and just got started,
15:39
and you try to equally just distribute the,
15:44
the budget, you might get a budget of like $14
15:48
and you can't do anything with you can't do much with $14.
15:50
So maybe you I think we give each of our markets $200, take that out of the budget.
15:57
And then we equally distribute the rest of the Christmas budget
16:03
based on the revenue of each city, the percentage of revenue that it.
16:07
Yeah. And etc..
16:09
So that's what we do.
16:10
That gives you a good idea of where to spend and how to spend it.
16:13
And if you're in different markets okay.
16:16
Excellent. Pretty simple so far.
16:19
Yeah. Not too bad right Craig.
16:20
Now here comes the fun part.
16:21
Yeah. So step number three is
16:25
buying the gifts getting the gifts.
16:27
And and we want we've looked at this. We've overthought this.
16:30
I think one thing we don't want to do is we don't want to overwhelm you
16:33
with one huge task to do.
16:37
Now, like I have individuals, we have individuals in the team.
16:40
Like Jess is fabulous at putting together gift baskets,
16:43
and she can go out and somehow she can go to 1 or 2 stores
16:47
and she has like these incredible gift baskets
16:49
that look like they came from, like this boutique shop.
16:52
I can't do that.
16:53
I hate walking around stores looking for things personally,
16:57
the crowds this time of year.
16:58
So I'm not trying to overwhelm you.
17:01
You can keep it simple and the way that you will do this
17:06
and continue to successfully do this is by keeping it simple.
17:10
So Craig, I know you, what we do at Wow is we allow our salespeople in each city,
17:16
we give them the budget and we just say,
17:19
hey, you can decide what you want to do.
17:22
We do have some, some help, you know, some
17:26
some things that we suggest, and we'll talk about them.
17:29
It's a gift giving,
17:31
company here that we use that you can utilize as well.
17:33
We'll let you know about them.
17:35
But we do give the budget because those individuals are local in that city.
17:39
You all know what's local.
17:40
We love to buy local things, do local things.
17:42
So, Craig, would you mind sharing,
17:45
some of your secrets as to how you took your budget?
17:48
What did you do with it to create gifts this year?
17:50
Yeah, so I've done different things over the years.
17:54
But there's kind of three ways you can break it up.
17:58
You could do, say, gift baskets for maybe your top brokerages, maybe
18:03
you have a broker deal with, you know, a particular broker or multiple brokers
18:07
doing some sort of gift for the entire office.
18:10
You know, whether it's a meat and cheese tray or, you know, chocolates, whatever,
18:14
something that you could put on the front desk, you know, at the receptionist desk.
18:19
That's just for the entire, brokerage to let them know.
18:22
Hey, we really appreciate your partnership.
18:25
At the broker level
18:26
and making sure that you say hello to the broker while that
18:29
there, if they're there,
18:31
then you you also want to look at your VIPs,
18:34
you know, go through that that formula, the the percentage
18:37
that you're looking at and do something nice for your VIPs as well.
18:41
Now, what I've done, let's see, last year, Todd, there is a,
18:47
chocolate place in, in Findlay, Ohio that's very, very well known.
18:52
People know about their chocolates.
18:54
they had put together, different levels of their, their products,
18:58
their chocolate products, in kind of a, like a gift bundle type of thing.
19:02
And so I did I did their chocolate packages
19:06
for my VIPs last year and got a great response.
19:09
This year, I decided to do something a little bit more personal.
19:13
It's it's actually a little bit more affordable.
19:15
I'm not spending as much, but the time investment has been,
19:20
substantial.
19:22
But nothing compared to what Chris,
19:24
our one of our sales manager, what he's doing.
19:27
And maybe I'll let you talk about that.
19:30
But I love to cook. Right.
19:32
And people know from my social media I like to smoke meat,
19:36
but pretty much anything meat and smoking related, I love and,
19:41
bacon related especially.
19:43
Oh, yeah.
19:44
So, Todd, I found, I don't know, probably a year ago,
19:47
I found this recipe for a smoked maple bourbon bacon jam.
19:52
Oh, that sounds good.
19:53
Dude, did I just say dude to the owner of our company?
19:56
You did? That's what I do. It's that good, though.
19:59
It's.
19:59
It's that good. And I haven't made it a ton,
20:02
but it's really, really good, especially on a burger.
20:06
And I thought, you know what?
20:09
I'm going to make
20:10
smoked maple bourbon bacon jam for my VIPs.
20:13
And it's, you know, it's not in normal gift.
20:17
I haven't heard of bacon jam being given as a Christmas time gift,
20:21
but it's really good.
20:23
It was handmade.
20:25
I took the time to to make this myself, and because of the relationships
20:30
I have with my customers and being able to tell them, hey, I made this
20:35
and I explain what it is, I've delivered,
20:40
let's see, ten out of my 14, VIP gifts.
20:43
And Todd, the reactions I've gotten this year
20:45
without them even tasting it yet has been incredible.
20:49
Yeah. So I'm really excited about that.
20:51
About this. In fact,
20:53
I, I had to tell my wife, Gail,
20:56
I had a woman tell me she loved me today.
20:59
Oh, I don't want to tell this what I told this realtor what it looks.
21:04
I love you
21:06
so, you know, anything that you're really passionate
21:10
about and good at, and you can maybe put some time, personal time into,
21:14
that is just a really special touch
21:17
to be able to do.
21:18
Yeah, the VIP gifts, personal touch.
21:21
A lot of time.
21:22
It takes a long time to make just one jar of this.
21:25
Oh, my goodness.
21:26
I know my wife makes jam from time to time.
21:29
I'm like, do you know that you can buy that at a store like it takes?
21:33
And then if it doesn't set, like,
21:35
there's just so much that goes into it and you have to get temperatures and
21:40
mine isn't that complicated.
21:42
It's just time consuming, you know, cooking the onions down
21:45
to caramelized and frying all the bacon and just anyway, I've had fun.
21:50
I think we need a video of you making this.
21:54
I think this is going to be like a Joanna Gaines.
21:56
Like, we we need you in the kitchen.
21:59
So I think we're going to bring up the camera equipment.
22:01
We're going to have to figure out a way to get your recipe.
22:04
What's funny is on YouTube, you know, I could share the recipe.
22:07
Actually, I could put the yeah, I could put the recipe in the show notes.
22:11
If you know, Craig, we want you in an apron with a chef hat.
22:14
We want we want to be in your kitchen.
22:16
I don't know if anybody else is saying this right now other than me,
22:20
but I think there's going to be a lot of people saying, yes,
22:22
I want to be in Craig's kitchen for maple bacon jam.
22:26
Okay, well, you'll have to send the team up to produce that.
22:28
I can't do it all. It.
22:30
Oh, man.
22:30
I do have an apron though.
22:32
I got a very funny apron, actually.
22:36
Maybe I'll send a picture to
22:37
to Justine here to throw in the, in, in the podcast.
22:41
Okay, Craig, just a couple of quick questions here to clarify.
22:44
Yeah.
22:45
Just your process here because, if you take a broker
22:49
basket in to an office,
22:52
is that the only gift you give?
22:54
Even if there's VIPs there, I guess that is that become their gift?
22:58
Or do you actually give the VIPs their maple bacon jam?
23:02
And and then I guess I have a follow up question to that as well.
23:05
Okay.
23:06
So yeah, the brokerage office would still get a, say a gift basket.
23:10
You know, especially if
23:11
you have a broker deal in place with them and they're one of your top
23:15
clients as a brokerage.
23:18
But the VIP is, still
23:21
you're looking at what they're spending with you
23:23
and you still want to give them some some care.
23:25
And in individual,
23:27
attention
23:28
and, you know, a show of
23:31
thanks for what they're doing at an individual level,
23:34
as an agent or a team, you know, whatever.
23:37
So, yeah, it's.
23:37
Yeah, it's still still both gifts. Got it.
23:39
So they're both gifts. Great.
23:41
And then this this may be more of a personal thing, but,
23:45
like, you can't give gifts to everyone.
23:48
And if you're in an office and you're taking, you know, say
23:52
the the VIP list,
23:55
you have an agent in the office that just missed the cut off.
23:58
It's just like, oh, but I and I really like him or her.
24:01
Like, is it am I just in my own head about that or what?
24:04
No, because I kind of ran
24:05
into that situation last year where I did deliver at the office,
24:09
and there was another agent that we do shoot for and
24:15
I had an
24:15
extra gift, and she was kind of right at that cutoff.
24:19
And so I did actually give that
24:22
client that agent a gift as well.
24:25
But it got me thinking about that type of situation.
24:28
And so this year I've done a lot more deliveries to their homes.
24:32
So that's a great idea.
24:34
Yeah.
24:35
And nobody has had a problem sharing their, their home address.
24:40
So it's kind of avoided that situation,
24:42
that awkward situation can have when you walk into an office
24:45
and you're giving one agent a gift and not another, that is also your client.
24:50
That's that's a great question.
24:51
Yeah. So a couple great tips there.
24:53
Thanks for that, Craig.
24:54
One, you might want to have a few extra gifts.
24:57
Yeah I know many many of you are a high s personality which means you want
25:00
everybody to be okay. Yeah.
25:02
And the disc profile.
25:04
And it feels like you take it and you're like, oh,
25:07
you spent 3000 with me and you spent 2850.
25:11
It's like you don't get a gift, but you get it.
25:12
So you might want to have a few extra gifts.
25:14
If not, you're going to give them to some family member on Chris.
25:18
You know, when you see him around, it never hurts.
25:20
My wife, my mom.
25:22
They always buy extra gifts, candles, you know, lotions, things like that.
25:26
That's easy for guys.
25:28
You know, you just go to the guy aisle at an TJ Max or something and buys
25:33
buy something there.
25:35
But a couple extra gifts are great.
25:36
And then, also, if you can deliver them to your client's home.
25:40
And, Craig, I'd like to just make the point that
25:44
your clients, if they are completely comfortable
25:46
giving, you're giving you their home address, shows that you are doing
25:51
your work as nurturing your client and your clients,
25:55
getting to know, like, and trust you.
25:56
Because if you're just a vendor and this is for everyone out there
25:59
as vendors, if your client doesn't feel comfortable with you
26:02
and they're like, can you just send it to my office?
26:05
Yeah, yeah.
26:06
Like I think there's just a level of comfort.
26:08
I know you all listeners take fabulous care of your clients,
26:12
but I do think that's just a nice touch to drive to their home.
26:15
Also note that home address down
26:17
if you're asking them for that address so that you have it for next year, right.
26:21
And just just for transparency, I haven't delivered
26:23
every gift to each person's home.
26:26
I did have a couple of office deliveries as well, but I've done a lot
26:30
more home deliveries this year than I did last year.
26:33
Okay.
26:33
Awesome. Craig, thank you for all the insight.
26:35
Is, is there any other level of gifting that you give?
26:38
We have the brokerage baskets.
26:39
We have our VIPs.
26:41
Do you do anything else? Yeah.
26:43
You could you could go that next tier down.
26:45
And do you know a handwritten card and maybe like a
26:49
5 or $10 gift card to Amazon or something like that.
26:52
Just something at a, at a smaller level, but shows that you're still recognizing
26:56
that they're partnering with you at, you know, at it's still a decent level.
27:00
You don't you don't want to ignore those mid tier agents because they're
27:05
a substantial part of your business. Still.
27:07
So yeah,
27:08
I, I agree, I think there's one thing that
27:13
I, and I had a coach who was big on writing
27:17
handwriting, you know, note cards and he did it the whole year
27:20
round, not just for Christmas, but the way he started off
27:23
his day was every day he hand wrote three cards to somebody, okay?
27:29
And he would do that every single day and he'd send them out.
27:32
And there was times where he would put in
27:36
a $5 gift card, and I was like, like, what?
27:39
Somebody can do a $5.
27:40
You know, you can't even get a coffee at your local coffee shop, really, for $5.
27:45
there is something just psychological that just
27:48
getting the gift is what is important.
27:52
It doesn't matter the amount.
27:54
And honestly, if you think about it, if you open a card
27:57
and there's a gift card in there, and the gift card doesn't show
28:00
how much is on it, it's generally just a gift card.
28:04
So they don't even know how much the gift card is.
28:06
I think I, I told a story on this podcast once where there was a buddy of mine,
28:10
we went to school together, had the same major,
28:13
so we spent a lot of time together in college and he came to my wedding
28:17
and he did the same thing, got a got a card and wrote it,
28:22
and he left a Walmart gift card in it and we didn't use a thing forever.
28:27
And my wife texted me one day laughing that
28:31
he had like $3.87 on the Walmart gift card.
28:35
So like, he even regifted.
28:38
That's funny.
28:39
Like, he used all of it, but $3.87, he's
28:42
he gave it to us, but we were like, oh, it's nice nook.
28:46
And that's his nickname. Like, that was nice nook.
28:48
I came to the wedding.
28:49
He actually put pants on and not shorts, and he gave us a card and a gift card.
28:54
So yeah, $5 is more than enough.
28:58
Don't feel like you need to do more.
29:00
It serves the purpose of giving the gift.
29:02
And if you handwrite the card, that's more than what 95% of people do.
29:07
Yeah, for sure.
29:09
So Chris, you got to share what Chris's done.
29:12
Chris has gone above and beyond what I did even.
29:16
Yeah.
29:16
So Chris, who is our sales manager, he too, like Craig, wanted to
29:22
personally, personally make the gifts.
29:25
And he's a woodworker and he's very good at it.
29:30
Yeah.
29:30
So he handmade these beautiful walnut inlaid cutting boards
29:37
and I'm like thick cutting boards, like nice cutting boards, big boards.
29:41
They are.
29:42
And it was amazing what he did.
29:45
They he showed me a picture of him this week.
29:47
We're on a zoom and they're beautiful.
29:48
You know he hand, you know, varnished them and sealed them.
29:53
And that's the completely incorrect term.
29:56
You woodworkers, whatever you do.
29:58
But they look fabulous. They're incredible.
30:01
They are. And he took the time.
30:02
He printed out a little care card for how you take care of the,
30:08
the cutting boards.
30:09
And then
30:09
he had nice packaging or wrap on them, and then he put a wow sticker on them.
30:14
And so they just look fabulous.
30:16
It was a lot of time.
30:18
Craig and Chris both spent a lot of time, but the idea that anybody can take money
30:24
and buy a gift, but for you to actually give your time,
30:29
that goes above and beyond, I think we'll see it in the like.
30:32
Craig mentioned the reactions of what people think about it.
30:35
You know, one lady already loves him, you know.
30:37
So now that poses a different problem with your wife.
30:41
You have too many, too many ladies that love you.
30:43
Yeah, but if you can make babe make maple bacon jam, I mean, that's
30:48
that's key.
30:50
Can I share a funny story?
30:51
Another. Yes. Client action.
30:53
Okay, so
30:55
this I hope I don't offend anybody with this, that there's no offense meant.
30:59
And the person in this story was not offended either.
31:03
So one of our our.
31:05
And no animals were harmed in this story.
31:07
Just well, other than the pig that gave its life for the bacon.
31:11
Oh, no, I didn't know this story.
31:13
Sorry, I screwed this whole one up.
31:14
Well, that's okay, so I made a delivery.
31:17
There is a particular broker, slash,
31:21
realtor here in the area that does a lot of business and,
31:26
the person, however, that
31:28
I deal with the most is his marketing director.
31:31
He really.
31:32
I don't talk to him hardly at all.
31:35
And he has said in the past, basically just give
31:38
his marketing director the gift or whatever.
31:41
And time felt so terrible.
31:44
I felt so terrible.
31:46
As I was going to
31:48
this broker's office, I realized
31:52
I think I remember the marketing director might be vegetarian, vegetarian.
31:58
And I was right.
32:00
I was texting, I was texting with her.
32:02
I'm like, Jess, I have an off the wall question
32:06
are you a vegetarian?
32:08
She said, yes, I am.
32:10
I said, I apologize so much.
32:13
The gift that I will be delivering will have to go to the broker,
32:17
because you're not going to appreciate or you're you're not going to want it.
32:22
And she was she was so gracious.
32:26
And I explained to the broker, hey, I made this.
32:28
You're going to have to enjoy this.
32:30
You know, I, I will get something for for your marketing director as well.
32:35
And she just was standing there all smiles.
32:38
But the funniest part of this was the broker tried to convert her
32:42
to eating meat on the spot.
32:45
You. Are you kidding me?
32:47
She's like, no, no, you're not going to do that.
32:51
I'm like, did he just really do that she tried to convert her?
32:55
Maple and bacon jam.
32:57
So it was a it was a great interaction.
33:01
And she's the sweetest, sweetest woman ever.
33:04
So I pull out of the parking lot and I get a text from her.
33:06
I'm like, oh no, hopefully she's not offended.
33:10
And she said, that was the sweetest gift ever.
33:13
The fact that you took personal time to do that,
33:16
don't worry about, you know,
33:19
about me being vegetarian.
33:20
Basically, I'm still going to be giving you something as well, she wrote back.
33:25
You don't have to do that.
33:27
But she was just so gracious because, again,
33:30
the building, that relationship, she knew where my heart was.
33:33
And so she wasn't offended in it.
33:35
But the fact that he tried to convert her to eating.
33:41
Anyway, you
33:42
can have some fun interactions with gifts, you know, with your clients like that.
33:45
Okay, thanks. Thanks, Craig, I think story.
33:47
No. I'm so glad you that you did.
33:50
But the point that I want to make is
33:53
when someone tries
33:55
to take that business from your company,
33:59
when someone tries to undercut you,
34:01
or when you need a little grace because your photographer
34:07
screwed something up, your lead time is further out than your client.
34:10
wants
34:12
These are the interactions
34:15
you know that secure the business for you.
34:18
The time that you laughed all together.
34:21
Human to human in the office that the broker tried to get the man,
34:26
the admin to convert to not be a vegetarian.
34:28
You know, those are all the little things.
34:31
That's why people stay with you.
34:34
You have good photos, you have good videos, and don't be offended.
34:36
You all.
34:36
But the stuff's not that like it's not like it's Earth shattering
34:40
and it's not that much better than anyone else's.
34:42
Like, I probably offended a lot of you.
34:45
The reason why you keep the client is the relationship.
34:50
The relationship alone.
34:51
I'm telling you, as long as you're over the threshold of quality,
34:55
the relationship is why those clients will stick with you.
35:00
Especially when competitors come in.
35:02
They offer a discount, they undercut you, they have something better, or,
35:07
you know, they have whatever it may be.
35:10
But those are the reasons why the the why the agents stay with you, you know?
35:13
Craig, just one thing I
35:14
also want to point out is like these are all like these procedures.
35:18
This is a procedure for us.
35:21
This is something that we do.
35:23
We measure and we get better every year.
35:27
You know, we look at where there might be gaps
35:29
and perfect that we make it easier to make them more efficient.
35:32
We help it convert better if if that's what it is.
35:36
And these are all things that are important to the growth of our business.
35:41
One thing and this is it's a shameless plug
35:42
right here, but we have a conference coming up.
35:44
This is a two day event, January 22nd and 23rd of 2026.
35:50
We're calling it the Spiro Sync.
35:52
It's where you're going to come build belong and breathe.
35:55
We are going to help you with things like this.
35:58
We are going to go through how you can create this,
36:01
what we have, how you create certain procedures.
36:04
What do you do in this case is hiring with growing
36:07
a team, state side, admin versus VA admin,
36:11
all of these items we are going to work on this is going to be a great time
36:14
for you to come and connect.
36:16
There's going to be incredible people there.
36:18
Eli Jones is going to be there.
36:19
Colleen Kydd is going to be there.
36:22
So lots we have some keynote speakers.
36:24
They're going to help you grow your business
36:26
and think about launching it correctly in 2026.
36:30
And then also we're going to have breakout
36:31
sessions where you're going to smaller groups, you're connecting with each other.
36:35
You're building things like this.
36:37
So January 22nd, 23rd is a very limited amount of tickets.
36:42
They are selling very fast.
36:43
VIP sold out 90 minutes.
36:46
The general admin ticket is still a fabulous.
36:49
You get everything except that on Saturday there's a third day for VIPs,
36:53
but you're going to get the bulk of everything.
36:56
It's a $199 ticket.
36:58
The conference is in Dayton, Ohio.
37:01
It's cheap to stay cheap to eat.
37:03
We're going to feed you most of your meals.
37:05
And, we would love you to come, but you have to get your ticket quick.
37:09
You can get your ticket.
37:11
Go to Spiro.media, and in the top nav bar, click Spiro Sync 26.
37:17
It's going to be a great time.
37:19
Yeah, Craig's going to be there.
37:20
We're excited about it.
37:21
Yeah okay so we got the first three steps.
37:25
Two more steps in the gift giving process.
37:28
What's number four.
37:30
Yeah Craig number four is timing and delivery.
37:32
So you talked about a little bit but I think timing is important.
37:36
Can you just talk about like
37:37
why you've already gone and what we've seen when we go to late
37:40
and how that affects the outcome of the gifts?
37:44
Well, planning ahead is, is pretty important.
37:46
And I, I've been a little under the gun because I was still busy with shoots.
37:51
So I've been taking some evenings and early mornings to,
37:54
you know, to give the get the jams ready, and do the cooking and
38:00
that that hand delivery part is pretty important.
38:03
So I actually had a day this week where I had no shoots
38:06
on my schedule, and I had ten out of the 14 jars made.
38:10
I'm like, I'm going to get these out today because I don't want to rush,
38:13
you know, towards last minute before the holiday and not get this done.
38:19
And, you know, the realtors themselves are getting ready to go on vacation
38:24
probably as well between, you know, between Christmas and the New Year.
38:27
It's it's a it's a slow season.
38:29
So you want to have enough time where they can appreciate it.
38:32
They're not still they're not at the point of checking out entirely yet.
38:38
You can catch them.
38:39
Things are a little bit slower for them.
38:42
So yeah, just trying to
38:43
trying to get it done as early in December as you can.
38:47
And I know we're setting you up a bit to fail as it's almost mid December
38:51
as we're talking about this, but it's still not too late.
38:55
Don't over complicate it.
38:57
Maybe you're not making jam or cutting boards this year.
39:00
I've got a kind of a lay up for you here, if you will.
39:04
We have partner with a local,
39:06
the US company that they do these great little boutique
39:10
gift boxes of coffee and baked goods,
39:13
and they have gluten free options and, items like that.
39:17
You can see what we have
39:21
on our website, our Wow video tours website.
39:23
So go to WowVideotours.com.
39:25
It's slash gift shop.
39:28
There is a link in the
39:29
So if you go to wowvideotours.com and click on the gift
39:32
shop up there you will see gifting.
39:36
We also allow our agents to order these as closing gifts.
39:39
So we just it's just a great partner of ours.
39:42
You don't have to use them by any means,
39:43
but it's literally like you send them what you want.
39:46
They create the boxes, they ship them directly to the client.
39:49
So this is going to save you this time.
39:51
If you feel like you're,
39:52
you know, behind a little bit where you can just order the items.
39:56
There's many tiers of gift boxes put in the address.
40:00
You can also send them
40:02
a personalized card or note and they'll put them in the boxes.
40:05
So that's a great option for you.
40:06
And there's many great options in the cities that you live in.
40:09
Like Craig mentioned, he's got a great local chocolate, create or,
40:13
you know, company that everybody knows, but don't overdo it.
40:17
Time is of the essence. Get those gifts out.
40:19
We have seen before when we've gone like,
40:22
two days
40:22
before Christmas, that we leave the gift, the person's not in the office.
40:26
Then the person emails us mid-January and says, hey,
40:28
thank you so much for the gift.
40:30
I just got back and I got it.
40:31
Yeah, it serves a purpose.
40:33
Then to Craig, like
40:34
mid-January, it's different because I got the Christmas gift, but
40:38
I make keep it simple like we talked about and just do it this year, right?
40:43
Right.
40:44
All right.
40:45
Finally, number five.
40:48
Yes. Number five.
40:49
What?
40:49
I'm sorry, I forgot to give a little number for when you deliver these things.
40:53
Just a quick tip.
40:54
When you deliver these things, if you can get a picture with anyone, please do it.
40:58
Like, hey, I'm in the office.
41:00
Take the picture, a selfie with the broker if you can get or whomever
41:03
with the gift baskets.
41:05
Thank you so much for the business.
41:06
I'm out delivering gifts. Keep an eye out.
41:08
Anything you can do for social media that's a great
41:11
tip to, to do when you're out in the field.
41:16
So number five, quickly here.
41:18
This is after this is all done,
41:19
and this all comes back to just how we measure everything out. Wow.
41:23
But you're going to want to, you know, look at what had the most impact.
41:27
Did it.
41:27
What were the responses you got for taking the time to make
41:31
maple bacon jam, cutting boards, things like that?
41:34
How was the response for a gift card?
41:36
Did realtors email you or they text you real quick and say,
41:39
hey, thanks, I got the gift.
41:40
That means a lot.
41:41
Have a merry Christmas and Happy holidays!
41:43
Gather those things and see where you get the most bang for your buck.
41:48
And then note that down,
41:50
because this is something that you're going to be done with it.
41:54
You take a breath, you're like, great, it's done.
41:57
And then you're going to try to remember what you did beginning November
42:01
of next year, and you're going to forget some things just naturally.
42:04
So ideally type it out in a little bit of a document.
42:07
So you create an SOP and then you can review that.
42:11
Also ask your team maybe your team has heard of something.
42:15
But just collect all the data and know what it is.
42:18
Good stuff.
42:20
All right.
42:21
It's a fun time of year, Craig.
42:23
It it is it really is fun to deliver and gift and
42:27
and, just see those reactions and, you know, something we didn't talk about,
42:31
Todd wasn't when I was out on Wednesday making those deliveries.
42:34
I also squeezed in two other two other things.
42:37
One, I had seen somebody that I knew from,
42:41
previous networking group that I had been in a couple of years ago,
42:45
made an announcement that he just got his realtor's license.
42:49
So I reached out to him.
42:50
I'm like, Mike, let's talk.
42:52
Because he knew I was in the field that I was in, and he is in a brokerage
42:58
that has a preferred vendor that is not us.
43:01
And I wanted to open with we are not your preferred vendor.
43:06
I just want to be transparent, however.
43:09
And we we got I got a meeting with him.
43:12
And so while I was out delivering I had this appointment with him.
43:15
We sat down, had a great conversation in the midst of delivering the gifts.
43:19
You know, it's a slow time that we've talked about this before.
43:22
When thing, when shoot slow, you go into business development mode.
43:26
And so he made a verbal, commitment to me.
43:29
He's like, I'm not using the preferred vendor.
43:31
I've got the relationship with you already.
43:33
And it just now he's a new agent.
43:35
He doesn't have any listings.
43:36
It's going to take some time for that to build.
43:39
But you can you can be very, very productive in your day.
43:43
Even just making deliveries.
43:44
You can squeeze some other things in.
43:46
Where we met was actually in the same, complex, same strip
43:51
as a brokerage that I've been working on trying to get a relationship with.
43:56
So I'm like, well,
43:57
I after the meeting with Mike, I'm going to swing around,
44:00
pop my head in there, because it's been a while
44:01
since I've seen, you know, the the office manager.
44:04
I walked in Craig, you know, and she has used our company.
44:09
She's used well for shoots before but has an owner that had immediate team
44:14
in another part of the state that he was insistent on them providing services?
44:19
Well, through the conversation she shared with me,
44:22
the owner has realized that that's not working and that a local
44:25
provider is going to work much better for the office and in my market.
44:30
And so it led to an invitation to come speak at their next meeting.
44:35
So that's awesome. Yeah.
44:37
It just it
44:39
you have to be comfortable
44:40
with popping in places and just showing your face, saying hello.
44:44
And that takes time to build those relationships.
44:46
But this is a great time of year to to reconnect
44:50
and to show your face and set up those those brokerage presentations,
44:56
set up those coffees, you know, looking for new agents
44:59
and just making yourself available for people.
45:02
Yeah, that's a great tip that could lead to, just continuing that.
45:06
That would be a very big deal to get that to come in.
45:08
I know we were talking offline here, Craig, but you never know.
45:11
That's what
45:13
again why we want to do this CRM that's the lifeblood of
45:16
your business is growing and building those relationships.
45:19
So, we have seen that as companies begin to focus on those relationships,
45:25
that relationship building call selling a if you don't like selling, serving,
45:29
whatever it is, but it's relationship building.
45:31
That's when you see your numbers start to do some hockey stick growth.
45:35
And as you reach and impact more people.
45:38
Yeah.
45:39
Excellent fun podcast.
45:41
Todd, thanks for the, thanks for those ideas.
45:44
Hey, thank you for sharing.
45:45
I love that, you know, like you did it this last week.
45:47
So thank you for the tips on that, Craig.
45:50
And, we are excited to, if you if you have a gift, a gift idea,
45:55
post it in the comments below.
45:56
Send us a picture if you've got if you made maple bacon jam,
46:00
maybe we'll do a maple bacon jam off and whatever it is,
46:04
if you have an idea, you guys all have great ideas posted below.
46:08
If you're on YouTube, send us a picture of it.
46:10
We'll share it on here.
46:11
And, we always love the community, serving the community and helping each other.
46:17
Good deal.
46:18
Well, that's going to wrap it up this week.
46:20
We have some exciting episodes coming up, Todd.
46:23
Some, some special guests that, shared at the wrap conference.
46:29
We're should I should I
46:30
should I tell them who's coming, or do we just tease it?
46:35
I think you almost have to now, I think.
46:37
Yeah, probably do.
46:38
So Colleen Kydd is going to be joining us again.
46:40
Yeah. And Scott Golmic as well.
46:43
We've got him scheduled and I'm working on some other guests as well.
46:47
We're just so excited
46:48
to build these partnerships and community with, with you guys.
46:53
And, yeah, it's just it's a privilege for us.
46:55
So some, some good guests coming on to share their knowledge
46:58
and experience with you all as well.
47:01
Todd, have a great week.
47:04
You as well. Craig.
47:04
Yeah, thanks everybody for listening and we will catch you next week.
47:07
Absolutely.
47:08
Make sure you take some time, especially in the slower season,
47:10
to be thankful for the blessings in your life and take a breath.
47:14
Have a great one.