Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / Attracting Good Employees & Clients: Part 1

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Attracting Good Employees & Clients: Part 1 · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

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Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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You know, you could add the best benefits, the best package
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salary
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package in the world, but if it's a job they don't want to do
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or they're not fulfilled, whether they're not going to pick it.
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Welcome to the Spiro podcast.
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Managing your real estate photography and videography business
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with your hosts, Todd Kivimaki
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and Craig Magrum
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Hi, and welcome to the Spiro podcast.
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Managing your real estate photography and videography business.
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Spiro is a software platform that is designed by a real estate photography
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and videography company for real estate photography and videography companies.
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And the whole idea
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is to manage your day to day business and really help it scale and grow.
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I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast. Welcome back.
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Another week for those of you returning to those of you
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who are new listeners or viewers, we welcome you.
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Just really appreciate you taking the time to watch and listen
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and hopefully you find some benefit and value to this podcast.
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Just meeting some very, very
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amazing and cool people through this podcast.
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You guys running some fantastic
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businesses across the U.S., across the world,
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and we're just very humbled and privileged to be able to
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to share with you our experience and hopefully you find some value
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for your business in that.
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Want to welcome our co-host and Spiro founder and owner, Todd Kivimaki.
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Welcome back, Todd.
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Craig, it's fabulous to be here.
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This is so exciting. I list this a highlight of my week.
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we get to talk to you all.
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We love hearing from you guys.
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Just as a quick reminder.
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Use the comments below.
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Email us.
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hello@spiro.media and let us know what you want to know.
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Let us know what need you have.
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One of the cool things, Craig, that we get to do as we get to see
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this industry more from a
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a little bit higher level view because we talk to so many of you
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real estate photography owners and it's so interesting to see how we can
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benefit you guys and what you guys need to know or what
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you already know that we're talking about and we don't need to talk about that.
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So your feedback is incredibly helpful to us.
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We love to hear from you.
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It can be anything industry related.
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Let us know what you're needing, what your business needs to grow.
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You know, if your business is here
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and you want to get
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to their, you know, five steps up, what is in between?
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What do you feel is in between that gap?
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Ask us those questions.
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We'd love to create this content for you guys.
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Love to get even a discussion going.
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What is it that your business needs?
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I'm fascinated by this.
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I love this idea and it's something that
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we almost take for granted here, Craig, because we communicate as a team
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and we discuss these things and we we have this.
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We have this flow that we go through where we're discussing, sharing feedback.
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And and that's one of the beautiful things
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that once you grow, when you have a team, you can grow that much faster.
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So that's something that I take for granted for our company at Wow
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and how we grew to shoot 12, 13,000 jobs per year.
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And we want to know how we can help you better
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right
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Yeah, we just really enjoy doing that.
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So again, welcome to the podcast.
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All right.
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We've got we've got a full, full episode here, Todd, a topic that
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I'm kind of excited about because it's, you know, it's two sides of the same coin.
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And we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that in in just a minute here.
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But I want to take care
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of a few housekeeping things and bring you up to speed on updates
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with Spear, the software and some just other educational opportunities for you.
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So you just did
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a live video webinar on diving a little bit more into
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the kind of the inner workings of Spiro talking about tasks and workflows.
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Can you talk about that just real quick?
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Yeah.
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So this is in a series that we're calling Todd Teaches
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and task and workflow are in the system, and it's the thing that's
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going to be the most freeing for you because it's everything after the shoot.
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And remember, that's not where we make money.
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It has to happen for us to make our money,
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but we're not making money at that point.
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So our goal is to streamline that for you.
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So I did a webinar.
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It's a fully comprehensive and there was a lot of you in there.
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Thank you for that.
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That asks really, really good questions.
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We recorded it and we're going to link to below.
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Yeah, we'll have that in the show notes for you.
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So yeah, it was a great webinar on again, tasks and workflows,
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so check that out again in the show notes.
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We'll have that link for you.
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Cool.
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Awesome updates on Spiro.
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Reshoots has been the thing of late that we've been working on.
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Can you talk a little bit more about that?
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Yes, Reshoots is on the docket
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has been developing now for probably the last three weeks.
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It's a big one, but it's basically where you're going to add another appointment.
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The term reshoot, if you're familiar with that button.
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And Spiro is going to go away and you're going to going to be able
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to add an additional appointment.
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So this is I need to go back to the property
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because I couldn't fly the drone the first time.
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I need to go back to the property because I need to reshoot something
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or I just need to send a second photographer out there
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because one's going to do photography, the other is going to do the video
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and we're going to give you a nice button that's going to be quick and easy
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and give you everything of all the feedback we collected.
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So we're hoping here in the next few weeks that gets out to you
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and that's going to streamline your workflow.
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I will say along with that, Craig, is we've taken that from our feedback board.
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Your guys's feedback board is incredibly important to us as well.
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It was a common tone here.
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Like we want to know what you want.
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We want that at Spiro as well and we have a feedback board
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and you can get to that link once you log in to
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Spiro, upper right hand corner, click feedback and post what you want,
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post what you need and vote on others so that it gets higher to the top.
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And then we work from a top down fashion.
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Excellent.
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And if you don't have a Spiro account that is free to sign up for,
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Spiro doesn't cost you anything until you actually put a job through the system.
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So if you want to check it out and, you know, take the system
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for a test drive and see what, you know, what's all in there,
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just go to spiro.media and you can sign up for an account there.
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And again, access that feedback option
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- through your Spiro account. - Yes.
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We even give you some free mug of it.
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We have it for free deliveries, 20 bucks
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Well, there you go. There you go.
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All right.
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Lots of focus on teaching.
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So we talked about your Todd teaching seminar.
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You also have Todd's tech talks through the Spiro
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Super Users Group on Facebook.
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Information on that.
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Yes. I'm starting to get this isn't too much Todd doing stuff. So
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if you hate me out there, like, I'm
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sorry, like, we'll get somebody else to teach it, but.
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But I, I am online
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in the Spiro super user Facebook group, the first
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and the third Thursday of the month at 4:30 p.m.
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Eastern.
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And the reason why is because I want to spend time with you all.
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It's important to me.
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I want to hear what you guys are liking, not liking and needing.
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Being so connected with you is important.
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And honestly, it's the reason why Spiro was a success
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for our real estate media business prior to launching it to all of you.
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It's because we all sat in the same office.
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We use the same system every day, and I literally got feedback on it immediately.
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We would launch something, we would have gaps, we would discuss them.
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What do you need?
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How can we make your job easier?
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And then we would go and do that in the system.
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So that's our opportunity that you come in, it's live
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on there, it's me and all of you ask away.
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I'm happy to share anything first and third Thursday, 4:30 p.m.
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- Eastern Eastern time. - Right.
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Let me add on to that too,
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because we were talking to off off here about this, Todd.
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We've gotten several questions about, hey,
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why don't you do any tutorial videos on Spiro on the podcast?
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And so just as a quick
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a quick reminder, the podcast, we really want to talk about the business
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of real estate, photography and videography,
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how to grow your business, how to manage it, you know, how to scale it, all of that
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because there's not a lot of resources out there on running a business,
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and that's what we're kind of passionate about.
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We have
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talking about
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teaching a lot of great resources and how to use Spiro through.
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Todd Teaches
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specifically workflows and tasks that goes really in-depth on that.
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We have the the Todd's Tech talks as well
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on the Facebook Spiro Super Users group.
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And also if you go to spiro.media the website
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right in the top NAV, there is a button, a link
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for the knowledge base that has a ton of tutorials,
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articles and videos that you can watch on how to use the Spiro system.
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Yes, the podcast is about the software somewhat.
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I mean, we're a software company,
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but again, the focus of the podcast is to talk about business.
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So just an explanation for those of you that might be wondering, Hey,
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why aren't there any tutorial videos on the podcast?
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That's the why we've got we've got them.
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It's just you got to go to a different location
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and again, I'll put a link to the knowledge base in the show notes
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for you to be able to access those tutorial videos on the software.
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Awesome. So beautiful.
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Love it. Craig, Thank you for clarifying that.
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No problem.
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No, but it's you know, it's a question
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we've gotten a couple of times and it's a fair question.
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You know, people are getting familiar with the software and hey,
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why can't I find it here on the podcast?
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Well, it's because we don't want to talk about it on the podcast.
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We want to talk about your business and help you have a successful business.
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So yeah, awesome.
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Okay, so we've got yeah, Todd's Tech talks and then also
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Nick, does Nick from our team does some demos.
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You want to talk about that real quick as well. Yes.
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So Nick Kellis on my team as a friend of mine for a long time as well.
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He does a weekly demo on Wednesdays
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at four Eastern for no 4:30
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check to show notes because I'm blanking, but you guys should come and see him.
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You'll love Nick.
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Nick is one of my buddies and he was in L.A.
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for 30 years and did everything from L.A. Ink, the Power Rangers, to.
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He did Power Rangers.
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- He did Power Rangers. Yes, - I had no clue.
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Yeah, I know.
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I know.
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He helped with LA Ink, but that's the first I've heard about Power Rangers.
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Yeah, you guys, look look him up on IMDB.
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Nick Kellis
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he's done quite a bit.
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And yeah, we hung out with the Red Power Ranger here.
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He brought him to Lima. and we.
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He did an event and we were just hanging out.
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He's a super nice guy.
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He's got two families, a Christian, but just.
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Yeah, kind of cool.
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But Nick, Nick will tell you the stories.
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Yeah, Like when we went to Vegas maybe two years ago, or maybe his last year.
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Anyways, he did, Honey, I blew up the kids and one of those was shot
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right down the strip there where they're carrying the large, some large something.
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Yeah.
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But anyway, so he's got all these stories but he does the demo
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and he knows Spiro very well and he does a demo so if you're like,
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What is Spiro or am I using it the correct way?
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He's not so much going to answer your tech questions.
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He's going to show you the flow of Spiro.
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So how it can almost revolutionize it, streamline your business,
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and he does that weekly for you all.
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So jump on, connect with him, and getting to share a cool
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Hollywood story or two and learn about Spiro.
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Ask your questions.
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But that is something that we have
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for you all out there just to learn more about Spiro
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So again, another outlet to learn about how Spiro works, Nick Kellis
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Power Ranger extraordinaire. Yes.
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You all just show up,
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have some Power Rangers and he doesn't listen to this podcast.
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So you all show up and just have, I don't know,
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Power Rangers or tattoos on your face like Craig does.
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And yeah, L.A. Ink,
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grab his profile and maybe Photoshop it somehow with Power Rangers or.
12:27
Yeah, no, Yeah.
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Ask know what we could do
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and so, you know the coach of the New York Jets, I believe.
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Yeah, just got fired.
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Yeah, he looks exactly like Nick Kellis
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I never thought about.
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Yeah. Look at this resemblance.
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Look it up. Yes.
12:44
Yeah.
12:45
So. Yeah. Oh, wow.
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Well, I could have fun with that. Yeah.
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I'm gonna put a pink slip on his desk today.
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Oh, don't do that to Nick. Poor guy
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Nick's a good guy.
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Anyway, so check it out.
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Spiro Demos with Nick Kellis
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All right, Again, we'll put that information in the show notes.
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Okay.
13:07
I think that takes care of all the housekeeping stuff,
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Todd So let's go ahead and dive in to a new top.
13:15
Well, kind of a new topic.
13:17
You know, things are slowing down a little bit.
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This week I had a presentation that I did to a brokerage I think I mentioned last
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couple of episodes that got got a new broker deal
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here in our market and made our first presentation to them.
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And they they were ecstatic.
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They're excited. Nice.
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So it's that time of year, at least here in the northern half of of the U.S.
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where the cold weather is coming on, things are slowing down.
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And if you know, if you're usually busy with shoots, now's
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the time to really start to build and work in your business and develop business.
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And that that goes both on the side of acquiring clients,
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but also concentrating on
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finding good team members to help you.
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So we wanted to talk this week about how to attract both good clients
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and good employees or contractors as well.
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We've kind of touched on it lately in other episodes,
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but we thought we'd kind of focus in on it this week, Todd.
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Yeah, this is very important because this is a change of pace for you
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this time of year.
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And a quick analogy, and I love this analogy is
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we've all just planted corn in our business
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and if you live in it, we live in a very heavily farming industry.
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So Ohio is farm country, Ohio, Indiana, all these portions are farming country.
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The corn was planted, it grew, it did
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great this year behind my house, it was probably nine feet
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and the farmer harvested it, harvested it.
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I can't say that word.
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Took it down a whole
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the farmer took it down two weeks ago.
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All right, the corn's gone.
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Okay.
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The corn is busy season for all of us.
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Now, what are we going to do to prep the field
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for next year?
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so we've got a field that's been drained of nutrients that's a little.
15:17
You know, it's got all the cornstalks in it.
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It's rough plowed right now.
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And we're in this point where it's like, great, we had a great yield.
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Or if you didn't have a great yield, we need to examine that.
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That's okay.
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Everybody has down years, but we have to get the field ready.
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And great years are really made in this last quarter.
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In this last quarter for a lot of us is slow.
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So you have to do some building here like Craig mentioned.
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So as you grow your business,
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one of your main main jobs as
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the owner of your company is to make sure that you have
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clients coming in.
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Of course, client acquisition, we talk on that all the time.
16:06
You cannot turn off that flow.
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But then also you have to be able
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to attract and hire and retain good employees
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because if you can't, you're going to be doing it all yourself, right?
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You're going to have turnover.
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It's going to be more difficult for you.
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New employees make mistakes.
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It's not their fault.
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They are new employees, they need training.
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It's bad for your business.
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And then you've just you go in this downward, downward
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spiral of just putting everything on your back.
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And I've done this where it's like, just be easier if I did it myself.
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How many of us have said that?
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I've said it plenty times earlier in my career.
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Yeah, it's just natural.
16:55
I've never said that before, Todd.
17:00
those of you not watching and listening.
17:02
I hope you heard the sarcasm.
17:06
Anyway.
17:07
So we were again, we were talking before the podcast about
17:11
when I think about attracting good employees, I was a manager
17:15
at a radio station and one of my biggest challenges was hiring,
17:20
finding good people to join their team
17:23
that get the vision that have the work ethic that you're looking for, you know?
17:28
And one of the first things I asked you, Todd, was
17:33
as a as
17:33
a smaller company, most of our businesses are probably considered small business.
17:37
I would I would I would guess so.
17:41
There are challenges inherent in owning and running a small business,
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especially when it comes to attracting talent
17:49
to help you grow your business.
17:52
Kind of.
17:53
What I wanted to do, Todd, is kind of ask you about some of those challenges
17:56
and what are some effective ways to overcome those challenges.
18:01
Get around those barriers
18:04
and you know what?
18:05
What sorts of things do you do to then in lieu of say, let's just dive into it?
18:11
Let me ask a question like this. Yeah.
18:13
So health insurance is a huge, huge deal here in the U.S.
18:17
You know, we understand other countries might have,
18:19
you know, socialized health care programs and it's different.
18:22
But here in the US, health care is it's a challenging topic.
18:28
We'll just put it that way.
18:30
Yeah.
18:30
And it's expensive.
18:31
It's very, very expensive for a small company
18:35
to try and provide health insurance.
18:38
Let's just dive right into that question.
18:40
Can a small business afford to offer health insurance
18:43
to employees?
18:45
So that is a difficult one for
18:49
at least I have not figured it out.
18:51
So we do 12,000, 13,000 shoots
18:55
a year, you know, 300 to 400k a month in revenue
18:59
and we have about a 15 employees and then all of our photographers
19:02
are subcontractors
19:04
and it is very difficult for us to provide health insurance.
19:08
So I'm just going to step back one step, Craig, and then.
19:12
Sure.
19:13
And answer that a little bit differently, because what you need to do
19:16
as an employer is you need to just make sure that your compensation package
19:23
allows your
19:24
employees to fulfill their needs.
19:28
So it might be very difficult for you out there
19:31
to go get a policy
19:34
and to pay for that.
19:36
And even if you could pay for that,
19:40
your employees are going to look at it and they're like,
19:42
that's not even that great of health care.
19:45
And it's just that health care is a very tough thing.
19:48
So not to go too long when what we have
19:51
found at our company is we need to do different things.
19:54
So that was one area that we examine yearly
20:00
and we have never found a way to do it, but we don't focus on that.
20:04
We focus on what the need is.
20:06
The need is, is that the employees need to feel
20:09
as though they can by working at your company,
20:15
have a good
20:16
lifestyle, character goals be fulfilled, all those things.
20:20
And we go to different portions.
20:23
So we look at what is salary, okay, what are what do we pay?
20:27
What are we able to pay?
20:28
If you don't offer health insurance, you're probably going
20:31
to have to pay a little bit more.
20:34
And this was one thing that was always difficult for me.
20:37
I was like, Oh my goodness, that's a lot like.
20:40
And you kind of just I don't know if the terms get over it,
20:44
but let me let me use a quick just story.
20:47
Do you all remember when you were kids and you'd you'd go out to eat
20:51
or you would go somewhere and your mom or dad would pay for something
20:57
and you didn't really know what it was, but it was like this memory of a family.
21:02
And you enjoyed it.
21:05
And fast forward now many years
21:09
to where I would go out with my family and we don't eat out a whole lot
21:14
or we don't do things a whole lot.
21:16
Like, you know, we have time as family, but there's times that we splurge.
21:20
And in those times as a dad, as the dad of the family. we were there,
21:25
and maybe my parents or her parents are there
21:27
and there's other family members, there's times where it's just like,
21:30
you kind of suck it up as a dad and you just pay something.
21:33
You're like, I can't believe I'm paying this,
21:35
but you don't say anything, you know, in your mind,
21:37
you know, and your wife looks at you like, Are you doing that?
21:39
I'm like, Yeah, let's just do it. Let's enjoy it.
21:42
And what you're doing is you're buying
21:44
that experience, that memory, that time together.
21:48
Yeah.
21:49
So I look back on sometimes like, wow, Like I didn't realize how expensive
21:52
that was. Like, because my dad just sucked it up.
21:55
He paid for the bill because he knew we would enjoy it.
22:00
And that's sometimes
22:02
what you need to do for your employees, because your employees, as you pay
22:07
and as you pay them more, that's a really good thing.
22:11
That's a good thing for you.
22:13
And I sometimes just only looked at the bottom line, but it is a good thing
22:17
that employees can make a good living wage and understand that they can make more.
22:22
Just understand what the path is for success
22:25
defined by them and agreed upon by you at your company.
22:29
Yeah.
22:30
So if you can't offer health insurance, you're probably getting
22:34
you're probably going to need to pay a little bit more per hour.
22:39
And a couple other variables that we look at.
22:41
We look at time off flexibility.
22:44
So paid time off.
22:46
How much time off do they have?
22:47
What type of flexibility do you offer?
22:49
Can they work from home?
22:51
that's a big one.
22:54
It is a big one.
22:54
So someone might say, well, I don't really
22:57
I can figure out my own health insurance, but I need the flexibility to be at home
23:00
because I know my kids get on the bus in the morning
23:02
and I don't need to watch them, so to say, like they're dependent on themselves,
23:07
but I need to be at home
23:08
and I can still I can answer the phone, I can do whatever I need to do.
23:12
So you have to look for other things.
23:14
You can't focus on what you cannot do.
23:17
You have to focus on what you can do
23:20
good inside there.
23:22
Yeah.
23:23
You know, other things that you might be able to do.
23:26
What about, like a retirement program?
23:29
You know, is that something that's even feasible for for an owner to consider?
23:34
Yes. Great question.
23:35
So it is we do it at Wow
23:38
and we do
23:39
a 401k and it does cost us money per year.
23:44
So you set it up, it's going to cost you money.
23:46
But the thing about it is, is you'll be able to contribute to it as well
23:50
so you can contribute.
23:51
I think it's like 19,000 or 16,500.
23:54
So you can put that much money back on yourself.
23:58
You can save that money for you and that's tax free for you.
24:01
Now you have to allow your employees to do that as well.
24:04
And what you can do is you can just set up the program for them
24:10
that it'll be taken out of their paycheck or you can do a match portion.
24:15
So if they, you know,
24:17
contribute 2%, you'll match the 2% or you will match half of it.
24:21
You can decide it and you you create your own terms.
24:23
But we have a company match program at Wow.
24:27
And there's qualifications.
24:28
One of the qualifications is you need to be at
24:32
WOW for at least one year employed for at least one year.
24:36
So there are things and when you talk to individuals,
24:39
you can
24:41
they'll they'll consult you on all of these variables.
24:43
But that is definitely something that's attainable.
24:46
One way that we got into that is I started contributing when it was just
24:49
a few of us to a Roth IRA, and that's where you as a business owner can put
24:55
you can invest money and it's tax free.
24:59
Now you can only do that through so many employees.
25:03
And again, talk to someone who's way more qualified than I am.
25:06
I don't know.
25:06
I don't remember the employee count, but I remember one year it came back.
25:10
It's like, oh, we're over the number of employees.
25:11
I got some bad information from a financial advisor.
25:14
My account like, Hey, do you know about this thing?
25:17
And that year we had to convert it
25:18
and we funded those individuals because they were at the company.
25:22
But there's ways around this and there's ways to turn.
25:27
It's a benefit for you as well.
25:29
So definitely a 401K is great.
25:31
To do at your company.
25:33
Let me talk to
25:33
that just as an employee from an employee's perspective.
25:37
So I'll just I'll be real transparent here.
25:40
I'm 48 years old, right?
25:42
I've been thinking the last year more and more about my retirement age.
25:47
My oldest son is 19 years old.
25:49
And I think about, okay, if I work until, say, I'm 67,
25:53
I'm only
25:56
The quick math here, what does that 40, 80, 19 years away?
26:00
That's from the time my oldest was born and we adopted him
26:03
to last year when he turned 19.
26:07
And that when I think about that time, Todd, that time disappeared like that.
26:12
I'm trying to figure out how am I the dad of a 19 year old
26:15
who has graduated and actually already moved out of the house
26:19
when it seems like yesterday I was watching him, you know, get up,
26:22
get on his belly and get up on all fours and start crawling.
26:24
I can remember that like it was yesterday.
26:27
And I realized that time.
26:30
I know this
26:30
is very philosophical and kind of introspective, but every year
26:34
you get older, time seems to go faster as especially if you have kids.
26:39
So the fact that I'm only about 19 years away from retirement, hopefully
26:44
maybe 17 years, maybe 65, I'm realizing more and more
26:49
I've got to put away more money for my retirement.
26:53
I would say the first probably eighteen years of my career,
26:56
I worked in a in a nonprofit and I was not making great money.
27:01
So I did understand the importance of trying to put away.
27:04
But I was only putting Todd.
27:05
I was only putting away like $50 a month.
27:09
And that's peanuts.
27:10
I mean, that's that's hardly anything.
27:12
So as I've grown in my career, course, my pay has gone up, you know,
27:17
as I've changed careers and gotten older and gained more experience.
27:20
And I'm now at the point of trying to play catch up,
27:25
if you can, on my retirement.
27:27
So the fact that the company that I work for, Wow Video tours
27:31
is willing to do a match, I consider that part of my compensation.
27:35
And that's a huge benefit to me
27:37
because that's basically free money to me as an employee.
27:41
And that's that's part of my salary and I greatly value that.
27:45
Yeah, I don't have health insurance through the company,
27:47
but I've got a great alternative program that I'm a part of.
27:50
It's a health share program and it's relatively affordable
27:55
when you consider other health insurance plans.
27:58
So that that wasn't as huge of a deal because I had found a good,
28:02
you know, a good solution to that.
28:04
But a huge draw to me of working for a Wow was this 401k
28:07
match that our company offers, and I'm very grateful for that.
28:11
So yeah, you've got to kind of,
28:12
you know, find out from your employees or potential employees
28:16
what is important to them and what can you offer to really attract them
28:20
and show them value of of how you value them?
28:24
Mm hmm.
28:25
Yeah.
28:26
Agreed. And that's great insight. Craig.
28:29
Just two quick things.
28:30
One is that the health share program I just want to mention it because I do
28:35
get this question. I see this question quite a bit.
28:37
And I remember back when my wife was working and she worked at a hospital.
28:42
She had a great job, great benefits and she went from full time
28:47
the part time once we had some of our kids
28:50
and then they did away with part time.
28:53
So she had to go back to full time.
28:55
She had our daughter, our third child.
28:57
There was some complications and she just felt God calling her
29:00
to be at home with the kids and to do homeschooling with the kids.
29:03
And I wanted to support her.
29:05
But there was this moment when I had this oh, crap
29:08
moment because the safety of
29:12
the income of her job was nice.
29:13
It wasn't needed, so to say.
29:15
But the insurance I was, I built this.
29:18
I was counting on that insurance.
29:21
And insurance was an incredibly scary thing to me.
29:24
Incredibly scary.
29:26
And it's
29:28
once you learn about something,
29:31
things become less scary.
29:34
And I had done some research and I wanted to align with her.
29:38
I wanted her to stay at home.
29:39
And I felt that that was the right path to move forward.
29:43
But I had to figure out insurance.
29:45
Well, Craig and I both do something similar.
29:47
And Craig, I don't know if we use the same company,
29:49
but we use a health sharing plan.
29:53
Now, that's not the marketplace, not the healthcare.gov, I think is what it is.
29:57
It's outside of that.
29:58
Yeah, it qualifies for insurance, so you won't be penalized
30:03
and it basically acts excuse me as insurance.
30:09
Okay.
30:09
So I'm again read the terms but it's acted as insurance for us.
30:14
And I'll just give you our specifics because I'm transparent with it. So
30:18
Christian care, I think that's what we use Christian care as well.
30:22
We use and again, not affiliate anybody.
30:24
If you type in health sharing, then you can look at all those there.
30:28
But we've had good luck with the one we were on.
30:31
We have a family of five and I have young kids.
30:34
I have three under 12, 12, ten and five.
30:39
My wife and I are relatively healthy.
30:43
I'm 41, she's under 40
30:46
and we pay about 350 a month for our benefits.
30:51
We've taken the highest, maybe it's 380, about 380 a month.
30:55
We've taken the highest health share, which is deductible basically.
31:00
So every year we pay up
31:03
to 10,500 in our medical bills
31:06
and then anything over that to our max share.
31:09
So anything over 10,500, the health share program picks up.
31:15
Yeah.
31:16
So when you go to the doctor, you submit your bills to insurance
31:20
and there they negotiate someone there's an insurance or there's a
31:26
a discount I think is what they call it.
31:28
So you're going to get some money off.
31:30
Now, I will tell you, we found a couple of of
31:34
ways to do this a little bit differently.
31:35
One, if you go to a doctor, ask them what the cash discount is.
31:40
Yep. Okay.
31:41
Because when you submit that to insurance,
31:45
the doctor knows already that insurance is going to be like, Hey,
31:48
we're going to give you like 10% of this,
31:50
and then they're going to no, you need to give us 90.
31:52
And there's this whole song and dance, right?
31:54
So if you go to them and say, what is your cash discount?
31:57
And you do not submit that to insurance, a lot of times I'm not kidding you.
32:01
It's like a 50% discount.
32:03
Yeah, like it's a huge discount.
32:06
So that's one thing we found. So
32:09
with our daughter, this year, she was born with a hernia,
32:13
little hernia just above her belly button, and we knew we'd probably have to get it
32:17
taken care of. And now was the time.
32:19
And so we had to have surgery, which to a parent,
32:23
you know, we're concerned about it, but it's a huge medical bill.
32:28
So what we did is we hit our deductible this year, our max sharing.
32:32
And so that 10,500.
32:34
But the thing about it is, is when we went to the hospital, we
32:40
we asked them what the what the cash payment was.
32:44
And this was in the pay for the entire surgery because the surgery
32:46
was very expensive, way more than 10,500.
32:49
But they had an early pay discount.
32:51
And if you paid within 15 days, your share portion, they would take 30% off.
32:59
So the nice
33:01
thing about that, though, Craig, is they take 30% off.
33:04
So take, say 10,000 -30% for easy math is $7,000.
33:08
So we wrote them a $7,000 check, but it counted
33:12
towards 10,000 towards our deductible.
33:16
There you go.
33:17
So it was submitted as we paid 10,000.
33:19
We got to early pay discount.
33:22
And that I think you can find that among most, if not all
33:27
health care facilities out there, they will do a cash discount.
33:30
So just ask.
33:31
That's my biggest thing is again, we pay about 350 a month.
33:35
We did have a surgery this year when my wife had Jade
33:38
years ago, five years ago.
33:40
We had our deductible.
33:41
That year I did the same thing like, Hey, can I pay that?
33:43
Here's our portion 10,000. What if I pay it today?
33:46
I will give you a 20% discount.
33:48
Okay, here's a check. Yeah.
33:49
So that means you need to have some savings set aside.
33:52
Sure. But it it it is doable.
33:54
It is workable. Just ask questions.
33:57
See what options are out there.
33:59
There are good options out there, right?
34:01
Yeah.
34:01
Ours is Samaritan Ministries that we use in our
34:05
our monthly share is actually about twice what yours is.
34:09
But any any one claim, you know.
34:13
So our youngest son, Zeke, just fractured his elbow a couple of weeks ago.
34:17
Anything over $300 per incident.
34:20
Basically our our health share will cover.
34:23
So we pay the first 300 for that incident and then anything over that.
34:27
The health share count nice and takes care of.
34:29
Yeah.
34:30
So, yeah, there's different ways of doing it out there.
34:34
But that 600 you know, some that we pay
34:36
a month is still cheaper than most health plans, health insurance plans out there.
34:41
So all of that to say
34:44
there are resources out there for employees that might be looking
34:47
for health insurance.
34:48
And maybe one thing that you can do as an owner
34:52
is maybe, maybe create a document of various, you know, health,
34:56
health insurance or health care options for them to consider, help them find it.
35:01
If they're just lost, they don't know where to look.
35:03
Maybe one of the value add that you can offer a potential employees,
35:08
hey, we've got some resources you can check into
35:10
that are affordable and, you know, check these out.
35:14
It's just little things like that.
35:15
As an owner, anything you can do to show value to your employees,
35:20
even if you can't cover something big like in health
35:22
insurance is appreciated because you're you're
35:24
putting in the effort to show them value and understand.
35:27
I know you have needs.
35:28
I care about those things.
35:30
Let's work together in finding a good solution for you.
35:33
Yeah, that's a great idea.
35:34
And that is a benefit. Y'all.
35:36
Yeah, I think I was under the misconception
35:38
that benefits were big things like retirement, health care.
35:43
No, A benefit is any way that you help your employee.
35:45
And if you can educate your employee through this packet and maybe you do a
35:50
you do a group demo or whatever it may be, or you mention this,
35:54
you remind your employees, but that's a benefit of working there.
35:57
You know, some of the benefits of working there is you're a small company.
36:01
We're a small company. I sell that. I sell our core values.
36:03
When people come on and make sure that they understand
36:06
that these core values are important to us and that they are important to us.
36:10
So all of that
36:10
understanding, that process of attracting and getting good employees to come in
36:15
is going to be incredibly important for the trajectory of your business.
36:20
Right?
36:21
So we wanted to talk about kind of two sides of the same coin.
36:24
So we've we've kind of discussed in general attracting
36:27
good employees and what can you do to help attract good employees.
36:31
So just a real quick recap
36:35
of resources on how to find good health.
36:37
You know, health care, a 401k program, flexible,
36:41
you know, flexible working conditions, time off.
36:46
Was there one or two others that we talked about?
36:48
I'm now blanking already.
36:50
Anyway, you can rewind in the episode.
36:53
So put together a list of benefits that you can offer an employee
36:58
to help attract good talent, you know, a good team member or somebody
37:01
with a healthy, positive outlook that's going to contribute, not be toxic
37:06
and draw from your team, but somebody that's going to add
37:08
value to your team and show them value as well.
37:10
That's that's critically important.
37:13
The other side of this.
37:14
Oh, go ahead, Craig, before you flip the coin.
37:16
Yeah, let me let me just take two steps back on that because it's it's
37:20
one thing we skipped over, but it's it's that now I'm thinking about it.
37:23
We've improved and we've gotten better at over the years.
37:27
The idea of attracting them is the initial hook, right?
37:31
How do we get them to see more, to see our job posting.
37:35
So just the nuts and bolts of it.
37:38
One we post online, we call.
37:42
We have relationships with local career development, job placing services.
37:48
We have some relationships with colleges,
37:51
their media department, and we post that online.
37:55
We also use indeed we've had luck with.
37:57
Indeed.
37:58
And and one thing about that is you have to know how to write a job posting.
38:03
And we've gotten better at this over the years.
38:05
So if you don't know how to write a job posting,
38:07
just go online and look at other job postings.
38:09
You can Google that.
38:10
I'm not going to go over it now because I'm not an expert by any means,
38:13
but we do always look at our job postings.
38:16
Sometimes we'll ab test them as well and there's a certain
38:22
cadence of what a good job posting is and just being clear
38:26
and setting proper expectations in that job posting is important.
38:31
So that is things like
38:34
job duties and descriptions.
38:36
If you're posting a job, you need to have a list in there
38:39
of what this individual is going to do.
38:42
Right.
38:43
You know, you could add the best benefits, the best package
38:47
salary
38:48
package in the world, but if it's a job they don't want to do
38:51
or they're not fulfilled, whether they're not going to pick it.
38:54
And that's that's one thing.
38:55
I think sometimes as owners, we get a disconnect.
38:57
Like employees are different than owners.
39:01
They they look at these job postings way different than you do.
39:05
You all have you all are different
39:08
in a good way.
39:10
Do you want to you want to clarify that?
39:13
Yes, you're different.
39:14
I kind of the two in my head, they're purposefully I want to
39:17
I want to see if anybody's going to swear at me today.
39:20
I'm more different than all y'all.
39:21
So in a bad way.
39:23
But you guys are different in a good way.
39:25
You are owners, you have an owner mentality.
39:28
So when you look at something on one of them,
39:30
when someone who wants to be an employee looks at something, it's way different.
39:34
So show your job posting to someone.
39:36
Show it, you know?
39:36
Do you know somebody in h.r. And another?
39:40
Do you have a mentor show to them and just have them look at it.
39:43
Show to your neighbor who maybe is an employee, doesn't own a business.
39:46
Just get some feedback because your lens is different than their lens.
39:49
True.
39:51
So just make sure that you have a good job posting job duties.
39:54
Description talks about salary expectations, things like that.
39:58
Yeah, and that is the initial, you know, top of the funnel.
40:02
And then from there you need to have a good process
40:04
with vetting out those resumes as they come in.
40:09
And there's a way to do that.
40:10
You know, basically a coach taught me when you look at resumes,
40:14
you just quickly look at them and identify,
40:17
do they have the skills
40:20
to perform the job, yes or no.
40:23
And just quickly get rid of a nos.
40:26
Don't go on Facebook.
40:28
Don't search this person yet. Don't do anything.
40:30
But does this person have the skills to perform the job skills and education?
40:37
And then from there you do a second round.
40:39
So there's all these little tips and tricks
40:41
and you will get better at this over the years.
40:43
You'll get better because what happens is you kind of get burned
40:46
and you learn from it.
40:48
It's a good thing you learn from it.
40:49
Learning is a good thing, but make sure you have a good job posting.
40:53
Get it out there, understand what candidates apply,
40:56
and then be prompt with responding to your candidates.
41:01
Yes. Yes.
41:03
Oh my goodness.
41:04
I used to think, Oh, I'm going to see if they, you know, see if they contact me.
41:07
No, no.
41:09
We're upside down in the job market.
41:12
Hey, you okay?
41:15
I'm going to jump in real quick.
41:17
That is.
41:17
Yeah, that is totally opposite of how I was
41:21
raised and taught about searching for a job.
41:24
I was taught if I really wanted the job.
41:27
I don't wait for the employer to get back to me.
41:29
I have to show proactiveness in that I'm really interested in this job.
41:33
I got to show that employer that I want this.
41:36
And Todd, I'm going to bet that's how I've taught my oldest. Mm.
41:40
And he is, he, he has told me repeatedly, Dad, they're just not getting back to me.
41:45
And it was frustrating the crap out of him.
41:48
Yeah.
41:48
And he said I have,
41:51
you know, I have tried to follow up and I'm just not hearing anything.
41:54
And I don't know that
41:55
I want to work for a company that can't bother to respond to me.
41:58
Yes, I was frustrated for from a 19 year old who's concluded this.
42:03
Yeah, yeah.
42:04
Gen Z, I'm Gen X's, He’s Gen Z,
42:07
And that frustrated me because, yeah, my dad taught me,
42:10
you know, you have to follow up,
42:12
you got to show practice that you want the job, etc., etc..
42:15
Right?
42:16
So what you just said is completely flip the script for me
42:20
and didn't think about the fact that,
42:22
yeah, employers are hard up for employees these days.
42:26
It's hard to find good people.
42:28
It's hard to find people, period.
42:30
It is.
42:31
So you're saying don't wait for them to.
42:35
Show the proactiveness if you're interested.
42:37
- You need to go after them - 100%. Yeah.
42:40
You know, we
42:41
we did the whole game back in and elementary, middle or high school,
42:44
whenever you like.
42:45
The girl was like you would go talk to your friend and who knows her
42:49
and there would be this whole thing like, okay,
42:52
you went on your first date and then like, oh, is do I call one day?
42:55
Do I call in three days?
42:56
Maybe I go seven days.
42:58
Like, you know, if you're interested in something,
43:01
someone show your interest in it and show that appreciation and,
43:05
and say what you want out of the relationship,
43:11
even if it's just a courtesy, say, hey, thank you so much for your resume.
43:14
I looked it over and I was really impressed with it.
43:17
We're going through our first round.
43:20
Just set expectations.
43:24
It's so easy to do.
43:26
And and from that you're going to find out who evem answers their phone.
43:29
Yeah, that's true.
43:31
- So, yeah, it's a way different process and, - Man, I'm showing my age
43:36
because yeah that that's challenging me to to think about because that's
43:41
that's just polar opposite of everything I was raised to do in searching for a job.
43:47
Mm hmm.
43:49
Yeah.
43:49
I remember the same thing Like we would find out.
43:52
You remember this Craig? And we were looking for our first jobs.
43:55
Like you'd find out who pays.
43:56
Well, you know, because your buddy works there.
43:59
It's like,
43:59
you know, back and was like, back in our day, like, Oh, they pay $6 an hour.
44:03
It's like, Oh, I want to work there.
44:05
I want to worked there.
44:07
And so you'd go and you'd show your interest in that.
44:09
But it has changed a lot.
44:12
And I think getting back with employees quickly is important.
44:16
Yeah.
44:18
Good stuff.
44:20
Yeah.
44:20
Man, you've flipped the script at least for someone of my age.
44:25
It's one of those things that's simple.
44:26
Not easy.
44:27
Like, it's
44:27
so simple to call the people that apply for your job that you've shortlisted.
44:31
Just give them a call.
44:32
It's not easy.
44:33
And again, if you're out there looking for a job,
44:35
if you've just stumbled upon this,
44:37
I don't know how you stumbled upon this podcast as well.
44:40
Why did you tape typed the name Spiro?
44:42
But anyways, if you if you stumbled upon this and you're looking for a job
44:48
and you show interest in it and you follow up
44:51
and you do what Craig and I were like, trained by our families to do,
44:55
like, go in, introduce yourself, follow up with them,
44:59
like you're going to get a job really easily.
45:01
It's easy to get a job if you understand that.
45:04
Again, I mean, these are where we talk about probably the most on here.
45:06
But understand that relationship.
45:09
Actually, let me challenge that
45:12
because my my oldest, Evan, did do a lot of those things.
45:16
He you know, I told him at the minimum wear business casual,
45:19
you know, khaki pants, collared shirt, if you know when you go in.
45:23
And he was still having trouble getting a response.
45:26
But I'm wondering if it's because those employers had my old school
45:30
mentality of just being too picky
45:34
or not showing courtesy back to the applicant.
45:38
I wonder if they're just stuck in old thinking.
45:41
Could be, Could be.
45:42
And I still I still think the funnel theory applies here.
45:45
Craig
45:46
Still need to go through you need to you need to walk into enough places.
45:51
Right.
45:51
And you know, for Evan,
45:52
the beautiful thing is, is once he walks into an employer
45:56
that understands what we're talking about and that's their philosophy,
45:59
it'll click with that employer and it'll click with him.
46:02
And that's what makes a good win win, is that everybody's aligned on the same page.
46:07
So but yeah, my guess is it's unfortunate
46:11
that we have business owners that can't be
46:17
courteous and responding,
46:21
I mean, I'm I things get busy, people don't understand, yada, yada, yada.
46:25
But I think when those two connect and you have the same philosophy, that's
46:29
when that's when successes you know, set up right there.
46:32
Right, right.
46:34
Good stuff.
46:35
Good stuff.
46:36
Well, Todd,
46:37
you know,
46:38
I was thinking originally when we started the podcast
46:40
that this episode that we were going to talk about
46:42
the two sides of the same coin in one episode. Yeah.
46:45
But I'm looking at our time and realizing we've we've, we're going to have to
46:49
flip that coin next week, right?
46:51
It's going to have to be a part two to talk about attracting good clients.
46:56
The other side of that same coin of how to attract good people to your business,
47:00
whether it's employees, contractors or or clients as well,
47:04
because all all of those are necessary for a good, solid business.
47:08
So I think we're going to wrap it up there.
47:10
Todd, This this first part one focusing on attracting good team members.
47:16
Would you say team members is a generic, whether it's contractors or employees?
47:20
And next week, then we'll flip a coin, go to part two in attracting good clients.
47:25
Because it's one thing to just go out and find clients,
47:28
but I'll bet I've got some favorite clients
47:31
that are just really good clients and they go to bat for us.
47:35
So we'll talk about that on next week's episode of The Spirit podcast.
47:39
Any closing thoughts? Todd
47:42
Well, one, we have some great
47:44
examples and some things that just happened this week to us
47:47
for attracting good clients, So I'm excited about that. Two.
47:51
Let us know what you need to know about that hiring process.
47:56
How can we make your job as an owner easier
48:01
with some knowledge, some tools, some documents?
48:04
What is it? Why? Where is the gap?
48:06
Where do you just hit a wall like, Oh, I don't know how to do this
48:10
or I wish I just had this document.
48:12
Todd You talked about these things.
48:14
Let us know what you want, what you need.
48:15
Put it in the comments below.
48:17
We would love to help you with it, right?
48:19
Yeah. Comments below.
48:20
If you're watching YouTube, if you're listening to the podcast, drop us a line.
48:24
hello@spiro.media
48:26
and just put questions about hiring or something like that.
48:30
That way we know
48:33
we don't say this every
48:34
episode, but we really appreciate you liking the video,
48:38
liking the podcast or in or subscribing, sharing it with others.
48:43
And so we're just going to politely
48:46
and respectfully ask if you are found value hitting that
48:49
that like button and the subscribe and the share button is greatly appreciated.
48:53
It helps us get this information out to more of those in our industry
48:58
and hopefully just continue to help build strong businesses within real estate,
49:01
photography and videography.
49:03
So from Todd and I, thank you so much for for liking and sharing and subscribing.
49:09
Yeah, that's going to wrap it up this week.
49:10
Some really good information, man.
49:11
You've really challenged me this week, Todd.
49:13
I'm thinking about it from an owner's perspective.
49:17
How to attract good talent.
49:20
Yeah, it's a difficult thing.
49:21
Yeah, I just, it like I said, it's a generational difference,
49:25
and I didn't think about how the labor pool is different
49:29
from when I was growing up and trying to get my initial first jobs.
49:33
Good stuff this week.
49:34
Really appreciate that. So.
49:36
All right, awesome.
49:37
All right. Well, that's going to wrap it up.
49:39
We always like to tell you remind
49:41
you just take some time to be thankful for the blessings in your life.
49:45
You know, we're here in the U.S.
49:46
Thanksgiving is relatively close.
49:48
We're getting closer.
49:50
So it's a good season of really meditating on thankfulness and blessings
49:55
and make sure that you do take a breath for yourself as well.
49:58
You guys have a great week. Take care.
50:00
Thank you for joining us for the Spiro podcast,
50:02
managing your real estate photography and videography business.
50:06
This is a production of Spiro and wow video tours.
50:10
You can find out more about Spiro
50:12
is real estate, media, business management software at our Web site.
50:16
spiro.media.