Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / Spiro Podcast 100th Episode - Values & Standards in Building Your Business
Transcript
- 0:00Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
- 0:04Because when you ask questions to your team, a lot of times
- 0:07if they're employees of yours, they agree with your idea.
- 0:10Oh, yeah, that's a great oh, that's perfect.
- 0:12If that's what you want me to do.
- 0:14When's the last time an employee of yours ever went?
- 0:16That's a pretty dumb idea.
- 0:18Like, that's probably That doesn't.
- 0:19I think I have a better idea, and that's the way I led.
- 0:23Whereas just like, people were coming to me and I felt good about, it's like, okay,
- 0:28I have answers to give them, and I would give them answers.
- 0:31Sometimes they would be the right answer, so
- 0:33sometimes they would be the wrong answers,
- 0:35but no one would ever really challenge me or make me take a step back
- 0:38and look at my business. We were busy.
- 0:41Many of you are busy right now, but focusing on what is going to grow
- 0:47your business is what you need to do
- 0:50to from 2000 to 4000 or us at 6500 to 12000.
- 0:56Welcome to the Spiro podcast.
- 0:58Managing your real estate photography and videography business
- 1:03with your hosts, Todd Kivimaki
- 1:05and Craig Magrum
- 1:09Hi, and welcome to the Spiro
- 1:11podcast, Managing your real estate photography and videography Business.
- 1:15Spiro is a software platform
- 1:17that's designed to really help you manage your day to day business
- 1:20and help you more, even more importantly, grow and scale your business.
- 1:24I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
- 1:26Welcome back to Another Week, a very special week for us on this,
- 1:31on this podcast, and we'll get to that in just a second.
- 1:34But first, let me introduce
- 1:36Spiro founder and owner and co-host of the podcast, Todd Kivimaki
- 1:40Craig, welcome.
- 1:41Hey, it's good to be here with everyone. Yes.
- 1:43Like Craig said, this is a special podcast,
- 1:46so we're excited to get to some of our topics today,
- 1:49but we have some good life stories.
- 1:53Let's just get into it.
- 1:54Craig I you know how I can get
- 1:56when I start mumbling and I don't want to do that to everybody.
- 1:59Right. Well, we'll yeah, we'll keep this.
- 2:02We'll try to keep from the rabbit trail.
- 2:03So first, before we get into the main part of what we're going to be talking
- 2:07about today in the very special episode that this is, Spiro updates,
- 2:11we always like to open up with those in some cool stuff happening right now.
- 2:15Yes, it is so these were launched and these are live in your system.
- 2:20And I'll just read you down the list real quick.
- 2:22And these are all user requests.
- 2:25So I just want to remind you all that we want to know what you want
- 2:30in Spiro.
- 2:31Yes, we have a real estate media company and a very large real estate
- 2:34media company.
- 2:35But we want to know what you want.
- 2:37And all of these are what you all collectively as a community
- 2:41have asked for.
- 2:43And you can do that on our feature based website.
- 2:47If you log in to Spiro upper right hand corner click feedback,
- 2:50there's a link right to that website.
- 2:52You can put anything you want on there.
- 2:54The cool thing is, is you can see what's planned.
- 2:56You can you can upvote others as well and you can get those cards
- 3:02close to the top and we work from a top down method there.
- 3:05So please, we want to know what you want and what would make your business
- 3:10run more efficiently inside of Spiro.
- 3:12So let me just start off here.
- 3:13We have seven new reports in the metrics section.
- 3:16So these are going to let you know about the health of your business.
- 3:20These are reports such as client performance.
- 3:23Who's your best client? What do they order?
- 3:26service performance.
- 3:27So which ones of your services,
- 3:29You know, how many virtual staging images are you selling?
- 3:33Does your video sell? Very much.
- 3:35Did you know that you sold this many virtual Twilights
- 3:39along with service performance?
- 3:41We have bundle performance.
- 3:42So that's those services grouped together and then also order page performance.
- 3:47So which one of your order pages gets the most orders?
- 3:52We have a coupon code report, a mileage report, and a work duration report.
- 3:57So I've gone through those quickly.
- 3:58But the goal here is that we put these critical
- 4:04and I would say critical metrics about your business at your fingertips
- 4:09so that you know what levers to push or pull
- 4:12depending what these reports say.
- 4:16We also have added in the ability that you can add
- 4:18a credit card on an agent's profile.
- 4:22So this is cool.
- 4:23Your clients might call in and say, Hey,
- 4:25can you just put my credit card on on my account?
- 4:28And now you can do that on the agent account.
- 4:30Just go add their credit card and then they can use that
- 4:32and you can trigger that for future payments.
- 4:35This is a huge user suggested one, a Dropbox Sync button.
- 4:41So you all have asked for it.
- 4:43You want it.
- 4:43You wanted a button inside the property
- 4:45website editor where you can click it and Spiro will go out to your Dropbox
- 4:49and we'll find anything new and it will pull it back in.
- 4:53We also give you an option for the number of days that you sync Dropbox.
- 4:57That's a little bit different than the button, but that is in there as well.
- 5:00In the photographer portal, we gave you some view options that you can
- 5:04now add the company name to your photographers,
- 5:08you can add the homeowners name and number and you can add any additional contacts
- 5:13that could be the agent's assistant admin.
- 5:15As a second agent, you can add that information in the portal
- 5:20at your fingertips.
- 5:21So that is in there and excited for you to have that.
- 5:24After the order is placed,
- 5:26you can change the message that thanks your agents for placing an order
- 5:32so you can just further customize it to make it feel and sound like your brand.
- 5:37And then on the download page, if your agents are using
- 5:40the branding option, this is where they can put their logo on an image.
- 5:45They get it quickly, upload it to Facebook or any social channel.
- 5:48Some of you ask to be able to put that branding at the top of the image
- 5:51as opposed to just the bottom
- 5:53left, middle or right now you can put the top middle, left or right.
- 5:57So that is in there.
- 5:58And then we have some other various UI and UX improvements.
- 6:02We show coupons, the coupon discount on invoices, so many things in there.
- 6:05But thank you for these suggestions.
- 6:08And just to wrap up here, we are working on reshoots next.
- 6:13So the reshoot process, that's where you're going to add a new appointment.
- 6:17Say you go to a property at range, you can't shoot the drone.
- 6:20You need to quickly be able to schedule another appointment to go get that drone.
- 6:24It's going to be super streamlined.
- 6:25We're excited about this one and then I can announce you're going to kill me.
- 6:29And I know what shooting says,
- 6:30but we have some things coming up here that we're super excited about,
- 6:35but I'll leave it at that because I'm over my minute, Craig.
- 6:37Think it was a minute?
- 6:38You're such a tease.
- 6:40You're a tease. Todd
- 6:42Cliffhanger.
- 6:44All right. Well, awesome.
- 6:45Some great updates and yes, more to come.
- 6:48More to come.
- 6:49All right.
- 6:50So the last couple of episodes we've been talking about
- 6:52tech talks with Todd on the Spiro Superuser Facebook group.
- 6:56You can find that information in past episode, show notes, or just check out
- 7:00the Spiro Superusers Facebook group and there'll be information there as well.
- 7:05Also Demos of Spiro every Wednesday, 4:30 with Nick Kellis.
- 7:11So we've talked about that, but we have another
- 7:13educational opportunity coming up on October the eighth, Todd.
- 7:18Yes, we do.
- 7:18October the eighth is going to be a Todd teaches
- 7:23workflows and task, I think is what we're we're coining it
- 7:27just to see if my mouth will even work when I can announce it.
- 7:30So but we've listened to y'all.
- 7:32We understand that a lot of the power comes in
- 7:35automating your process after the shoot.
- 7:39It's all available for you to build in Spiro,
- 7:43but a lot of you're like, Hey, yeah, I stuff to build it.
- 7:45And what, what does this do?
- 7:46And how can I set this up
- 7:48and how do I get my editors that are halfway around the world into it?
- 7:52We're going to teach you how to do it.
- 7:53We're going to walk with you step by step.
- 7:55I'm going to teach you how to do it, and we're going to set up your task
- 7:59and workflows on the 8th of October at 4:30 Eastern Time.
- 8:05And in a Zoom Room, we're all going to get in there
- 8:07and we're going to get them set up and we're going to get you back that time
- 8:11awesome
- 8:13Good stuff.
- 8:13So check it out.
- 8:15It is workflows and tasks with Todd.
- 8:18All right.
- 8:19Anything else? I think that was everything.
- 8:22I think that's it, Craig.
- 8:24Conferences coming up.
- 8:25If you bought a ticket to Vegas, go check my calendar.
- 8:30The REPP conference Eli Jones was on with this last week.
- 8:32His conference is the 15th and 16th of November and then PMRE,
- 8:37Brandon Cooper, his conference is the 13th, 14th and 15th.
- 8:41So they're right in there, right on the strip and come see us.
- 8:45Our whole team's going to be there,
- 8:46our team, our leadership team, from Wow is going to be there.
- 8:49It'd be great to meet you in person.
- 8:51Come find me.
- 8:53I'm probably going to be in some bright pink jumpsuit against my own will,
- 8:59but we'll get to that a little bit.
- 9:01That's all I have, Craig.
- 9:02photos or it didn't happen.
- 9:06Although there's that conflicting
- 9:09premise of what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
- 9:12So, yeah, I don't know.
- 9:15I don't know.
- 9:16I like to be the one giving the jokes, but I think I'm going to be on the other
- 9:19end of this one. So I'm going to I'm going to play along.
- 9:21This will be fun.
- 9:22All right. All right. So that's good.
- 9:26All right.
- 9:26Well, Todd, let me let me get comfortable here.
- 9:30Very special episode.
- 9:32It's really kind of hard to believe this, but did you realize that
- 9:36this episode of The Spiro podcast is our 100th episode?
- 9:41Wow. One hundred.
- 9:42That is insane, Craig.
- 9:44It is.
- 9:45Now, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to act excited.
- 9:47Like I knew.
- 9:47I knew that I knew it was 100 because you told me some conflicted here,
- 9:51but when you told me this was our hundredth,
- 9:53I was honestly shocked the first time I heard it.
- 9:56Yeah, it's, you know, we have such fun doing this
- 10:00that the time that's gone by has just it's gone by very quickly.
- 10:04And we've just been really, really blessed and humbled to have this opportunity
- 10:09to have gotten to know somewhat of you,
- 10:10so many of you that have watched and listened a lot of you
- 10:14that have become Spiro users and we just can't say thank you enough.
- 10:18We're just a couple of guys from the cornfields of northwest Ohio.
- 10:22You know, it's like we just we love what we do.
- 10:25And Todd, you know, you've you've built a great couple of companies
- 10:29over the last 20 years
- 10:32that I've really enjoyed being a part of.
- 10:34And I get to share with our clients in the northwest Ohio area
- 10:39how much I enjoy working in the role that I do with the company that I do.
- 10:45Spiro, being one of those companies I've been able to be a part of,
- 10:49So I thought we'd spend at least part of this.
- 10:52This episode just kind of reminiscing about Spiro,
- 10:55about the development of the company, how it came to be.
- 10:58It's history with Wow Video Tours and maybe a little bit about the podcast.
- 11:03And we have a special guest that's going to be
- 11:05joining us as well to talk about some of that
- 11:09and really help us key in on the whole purpose of this podcast.
- 11:12Obviously, part of it is to talk about Spiro.
- 11:15I mean, we're just going to be transparent,
- 11:17but our real interest is in talking about the business
- 11:21of real estate photography and video and how to build a strong business.
- 11:24Our guest this week
- 11:26has some great knowledge that she's going to share with us on that.
- 11:30And I know we've talked about business development lot, but this is really
- 11:33what we're passionate about, is growing a good, strong company
- 11:37and have that that business work for you as the owner.
- 11:40So with that introduction, Todd, let me hand it over to you.
- 11:45Yes. Thank you, Craig.
- 11:46So we thought we would take a little time and just reminisce a little bit here,
- 11:53but I think this is important
- 11:54because when we look back to the history of of just I look back to the history
- 12:00of my business here with Wow Video Tours and then transitioning into Spiro as well,
- 12:05I think there's a lot of points in there that,
- 12:09you know, I get asked a a lot how did you grow to be
- 12:1312, 13,000 shoots a year, 30 photographers and
- 12:18it wasn't overnight.
- 12:20So I do this because I want to share with you just the amount
- 12:25of struggles and hard work that it took
- 12:28and a saying that I use a lot.
- 12:31And if you listen to this podcast often you're familiar with this.
- 12:36I say, if it was easy, everybody would do it.
- 12:40It's just hard work.
- 12:42It's one of our core values at Wow.
- 12:45In fact, our guest coming on is like, What's your core values?
- 12:48I was like, What do you mean?
- 12:50Like, that's too touchy feely.
- 12:52And I if you are a business owner,
- 12:56a real estate photography business owner out there
- 12:59and you are growing and scaling and you're starting to grow a team,
- 13:04or maybe you have a small team and want to grow to a large team,
- 13:08there is so much in the idea of
- 13:12the foundation of your business and your goals
- 13:17and the core values and culture, all that stuff that all these books
- 13:21are written about is honestly, it's not just lip service
- 13:26like I tried to ignore for the longest time because I was 20 something
- 13:30and I was just bullheaded and like, I don't need that.
- 13:32I'm just going to push my way through.
- 13:34And you will.
- 13:36You'll, you'll be able to grow a company
- 13:38and you'll be to grow a good sized company.
- 13:40But if you want to go beyond that point,
- 13:44there are some foundational things that I implemented
- 13:47that many people helped me implement, and our guest is one of them
- 13:50that I just wanted to kind of rewind
- 13:52in the track and I wanted to go over and just give you a quick little history
- 13:56and some road bumps along the way and how we found to overcome them.
- 14:02So I think many of you know that I started this back in college.
- 14:05So this is year 20 for Wow video tours and this was an idea
- 14:10I had when my parents went to go sell their house about 20 years ago,
- 14:14the market was still very fast like it is now,
- 14:18and it was easy to sell a house.
- 14:21A little more difficult to buy a house.
- 14:23Yeah, very similar to the market we're in.
- 14:26And I was into video productions and just trying to create anything.
- 14:33Like many of you think back to how you started.
- 14:35You get this camera and you realize what it can do
- 14:39and you take the files and you can edit them
- 14:41and do things with them and you're like, Wow, this is really neat.
- 14:44Now how can I go take this equipment?
- 14:48Let me just show you what my first camera was here all I was doing okay, Yeah.
- 14:52How can I go take this thing here?
- 14:56You're not that old
- 14:58This is. I know this is a brownie.
- 15:01I don't know.
- 15:01I'm not that old
- 15:04Yeah. Craig,
- 15:05I would say this is Craig's first camera, but
- 15:09I'm holding some old antique camera here, so.
- 15:13But how can I take this equipment Now that opens up my eyes
- 15:18to creative possibility, and how can I make money from it?
- 15:21And the idea of, like, could I honestly make a living
- 15:26by using this thing that allows me to be creative?
- 15:29Yeah, I remember those days and I was super,
- 15:33super excited about that and I was always had the camera with me.
- 15:37Now it's a little bit different because it was GL1, a Canon GL1,
- 15:42they're a lot bigger, so it's not like you're
- 15:43putting this thing in your pocket or put around like this is a bigger camera
- 15:47and we would shoot everything.
- 15:50So back in college, you know, we shot
- 15:53just around the campus, us doing dumb things all legal.
- 15:57I want to just clarify that.
- 15:59But dumb things.
- 16:01And of course you do weddings because weddings happen all the time.
- 16:06And I stumbled upon my parents selling their house and I realized
- 16:11and going with them and buying a house, it was a pain to go look at houses.
- 16:16Now it's fun for those.
- 16:18You can have bought a house or have been with someone who has purchased a house.
- 16:22The first handful that you go through.
- 16:24It's kind of fun because you you get Snoop around people's houses
- 16:27like I'm in there.
- 16:28I'm opening up cabinets like closet doors.
- 16:30I'm like, How do these people live?
- 16:32And then you hit a point that you just
- 16:36it's not fun anymore.
- 16:38And it's like,
- 16:38why did you literally pull up to a house and you hope this is the one for you?
- 16:43And you walk in, you're like, Oh, well, this, this,
- 16:46this isn't what we thought it was because
- 16:4820 years ago we didn't have the Internet like we have it now.
- 16:52So I thought there had to be a better way to get media out there.
- 16:56So it took the camera started shooting.
- 16:58Clarification time.
- 17:00Yes, we had the Internet, but not like we have it now.
- 17:04Sure.
- 17:04Not that old.
- 17:06Well, I take that back. Actually.
- 17:08We might be old enough that before the Internet really took off.
- 17:11Yeah.
- 17:12I mean, yeah, I am I don't know what the official date was.
- 17:15And if you look at the Internet as a use for, you know, government
- 17:18military, but yes, thank you, Craig.
- 17:21The Internet for Craig and I, we were taking a phone cord.
- 17:26Yeah.
- 17:26And for those you that don't know, just Google what is a phone cord?
- 17:29We were taking a 50 foot phone cord from the computer.
- 17:33That was ginormous and we were carrying it
- 17:36into the kitchen and we were unplugging the kitchen phone, again.
- 17:39If you don't know what a kitchen phone is, Google it
- 17:41and we plug that sucker in and then we'd have to dial up right?
- 17:46Banging ding, ding.
- 17:50Interesting Sound effect.
- 17:52Isn't that what it was?
- 17:54There's something like that here.
- 17:56Justine.
- 17:57Our editor, we're going to ask you to put in a sound of a modem.
- 18:00Okay.
- 18:01So the modem would tie up your your landline
- 18:04and nobody else could use the phone while you were on the Internet.
- 18:07So anyway, for the kiddos out there,
- 18:16but I think it's important to understand, like, that's just
- 18:19that's technology and that's we had to figure out a way around it.
- 18:22And you're doing this in your business now.
- 18:25New improvements come out,
- 18:27companies do things, Zillow does something
- 18:30and there's always going to be gaps in your business.
- 18:34And one of my gaps when we started was how were we going to get these video
- 18:38files out to people that don't even have broadband or fast Internet,
- 18:43You know, like
- 18:45so literally, if you want down, like you'd have to visit the website
- 18:48and it would take 30 minutes.
- 18:49A download, people would wait 30 minutes
- 18:51and they just they'd come back 30 minutes later.
- 18:53People's people's minds are blowing up right now.
- 18:5630 minutes.
- 18:57Yeah. The world was a different time. It was.
- 18:59I don't want to go on my soapbox.
- 19:01It was a much less busy time.
- 19:03It was like, okay, we can be patient, we can wait.
- 19:07But I'm moving into my story.
- 19:10So I want to tell you guys some stumbling blocks along the way.
- 19:13And because we've all had them and
- 19:15I don't want you to think like, Hey, just how am I ever to get to 12,000 shoots?
- 19:19If you weren’t a large business, there was plenty
- 19:21of stumbling blocks along the way.
- 19:23So I naturally approached the agent that my parents were working with
- 19:28and I showed them my videos, and my first videos were terrible.
- 19:32They were absolutely terrible.
- 19:34And I tell this story, but literally I'm the youngest of three boys
- 19:38and I'm a lot younger, like ten years younger than my next brother.
- 19:41So I was like the child that never did anything wrong to my mother.
- 19:46And I showed her this first video because I put that GL1 camera
- 19:51that's heavy I put it on a tripod and I walked through the house.
- 19:54It was like motion.
- 19:55Yeah, I showed it to my mom.
- 19:57My mom. I've never done anything wrong in my life.
- 19:59My mom looks and she's like, Well, this is pretty bad.
- 20:01Maybe, you know, maybe you should do something a little different.
- 20:05So I'm like, okay, this is really bad.
- 20:08So we had to find pivots.
- 20:10We started to shoot it different,
- 20:12and we started to find ways to make it better, not make people sick.
- 20:15So that was the first thing was
- 20:16how can I get my quality to something that was acceptable?
- 20:20And you all have a ton of resources out there, so go out there, find it.
- 20:24There's a lot of people that will teach you how to do it.
- 20:26You have a lot of great examples
- 20:29beyond that.
- 20:30I had my first shoot book like five times.
- 20:35You know, Marc I won't say his last name.
- 20:37I don't think he's selling real estate anymore,
- 20:39but he booked me is, Oh yeah, this is going to be great.
- 20:42And I would literally be on the way to my first shoot.
- 20:45And I'm like, Hey, mom, you know, I'm, you know,
- 20:48tell him I talk to my mom a lot and you all should talk to your mom, too.
- 20:51It's a good thing. Like, Hey, I got this first shoot.
- 20:54You know, I'm excited.
- 20:55And Marc would call me, and he's like, Oh, sorry, we can't do this one.
- 20:59Something happened for some reason, dogs can't shoot the video.
- 21:05And so that was when it was like, okay, well, this is interesting.
- 21:08How am I going to get business?
- 21:10Because I did the work to get the product,
- 21:13and then I had people that were like, Yeah,
- 21:15this is I'd like to try it, but I just couldn't get anything done.
- 21:19And it's like, you know, So then my left brain starts going
- 21:23and we've all done this where it's like,
- 21:25Well, no one's ever going to want this video, no one's ever going to do it.
- 21:28They're just going to keep doing what they're doing.
- 21:31And I'm not going to be able to grow this or get any business.
- 21:36And this idea is not going to work.
- 21:39And so it was just persistence
- 21:42and continuing to know that you have a good idea,
- 21:45you have a good product, and that you want to take care of the client
- 21:49and continuing to just tell as many people as possible.
- 21:53And I think that is the key
- 21:55to where we take our business from, where it's at
- 22:00to 2x 3x 5x is that persistence
- 22:05in building relationships
- 22:09and that
- 22:11I mean, it's a bad word to some of you, but the sales process
- 22:15and that's not a bad thing.
- 22:19So let me fast forward a little bit and then I'll get get to my conclusion.
- 22:22But we grew as a company and throughout school
- 22:26I was in college and we grew and I shot for a handful realtors.
- 22:30And then I got out of school and I approached my largest client
- 22:35and I basically set up our first broker deal.
- 22:39And I had this guarantee it was a monthly.
- 22:42And I don't suggest you do broker deals like this anymore.
- 22:44We'll tell you how to do them.
- 22:45But it guaranteed me and come in and guaranteed me.
- 22:49It was about 400 shoots in that first year just from this one company.
- 22:53And then I realized that worked.
- 22:54And I took it to two other companies that were in adjacent markets
- 22:57about 25 minutes away.
- 22:59And they said yes as well.
- 23:00It's like, okay, this is cool, this is great.
- 23:03So then I had to figure out what I was going to do
- 23:06because I got past the barrier of no one wanting it or knowing about it.
- 23:11It's not that anybody didn’t want it They just don't know about it.
- 23:14And they didn't know who I was and they didn't
- 23:16know what our company could do for them.
- 23:18And then I spent enough time to do that.
- 23:21And then I was like, Well, Todd, how are you going to do this now?
- 23:24Because maybe you could do the amount of shoots
- 23:27for the first company, but this other company, it's further away.
- 23:30So then it was, okay, well, I have to grow a team
- 23:33and I know many of you are going through that right now.
- 23:37And as I grew my team, we
- 23:41kind of grew a little haphazardly.
- 23:43You just you're figuring things out, right?
- 23:45We were all doing our own editing.
- 23:47We're only doing video at the time, and I learned a lot
- 23:50about having people work for you and work with you
- 23:55and there's a lot of good lessons in there,
- 23:58but we won't get to those today because I want to get to our guest
- 24:00and I want to get to the point of how you're going to take your business
- 24:04from here to there.
- 24:06So if you're doing 20K a month, how can you do 40 or 60?
- 24:10If you're doing 2k a month, how can you get to 4 or 6k a month?
- 24:14And that is through building relationships with people.
- 24:17I had
- 24:20taken that same broker dealer mentality
- 24:22and I had spread out a little bit further a market about an hour
- 24:27and a half south of us Dayton, Ohio and started
- 24:31working with a group of agents down there and I was working by referral.
- 24:34So this is a this is a tactic that we still use today is by referral.
- 24:39If you can grow by referral, it's fabulous.
- 24:42You know, having to be one of our northern agents
- 24:45in Lima had a listing that was south far enough,
- 24:48and a South agent happened to have a buyer that looked at that North listing.
- 24:53He's like, Oh, this is a video.
- 24:54I've never seen this before. Calls me.
- 24:57And then I spread from there
- 24:59and I got to a point to where we had a team of photographers.
- 25:03There was probably five of us.
- 25:05I had an admin and it was myself and we were just running like crazy.
- 25:10I made a key hire with someone
- 25:13that was going to run an operation runs and help me run and expand the company.
- 25:17Derek and we began to grow and we got to a point
- 25:22that we, we loved our little business and it was great.
- 25:26I remember the times, I remember the building we were in, and
- 25:30coincidentally enough, it had like six and a half foot ceilings.
- 25:33And I'm a half foot tall, so it was fine.
- 25:37But I got to a point
- 25:40where it's like, okay, how am I going to
- 25:44get from here to there?
- 25:46And that was the first point
- 25:48in my life that I went, Wait a minute, There are some things that I don't know,
- 25:51or we took a couple of stumbles and it's like, Wait a minute,
- 25:55if I would have known this, I could have done something about it.
- 25:59Yeah, right.
- 26:01You know, the saying, you know, you don't know what you don't know.
- 26:04It's true.
- 26:05When something happens to you that you don't know, you're like, Oh, crap.
- 26:09Yeah, that's kind of painful.
- 26:12How can I not know the next How can I know
- 26:14the next thing that I didn't know before, if that makes any sense.
- 26:18So this idea of knowledge came into play,
- 26:22and that's when I
- 26:25knew that the gap in my business was I didn't have this structure.
- 26:29I knew that I could build good relationships.
- 26:31I never thought of myself as a salesperson.
- 26:33I just love people. I love helping people.
- 26:36And I knew I had to become more systemized about it, and
- 26:40I knew I had to think about the process and I had it.
- 26:43That's a key word right there.
- 26:45- Systems - systems, correct?
- 26:47that's kind of the whole story of Wow.
- 26:49And Spiro is systems.
- 26:51Yes. Thank you, Craig.
- 26:52And and that is because we had or the systems we had photographers
- 26:57coming to us and they said, hey, we really like this thing that you have.
- 27:02You know, they were engaged in the company.
- 27:05Can we help you sell it to other agents because they're in their cities
- 27:10and they're going, wait a minute, there's a lot more agents in this city.
- 27:13How can we tell them about what the company offers?
- 27:19And I went, Oh, wow.
- 27:20So first I was humbled.
- 27:21Like that was that was pretty cool to grow a company to a point that your employees
- 27:27or your contractors and both are saying, we believe in what you built.
- 27:32We want to help it grow bigger.
- 27:35But along with that comes a responsibility to take care of those people.
- 27:40And many of you out there and Craig, I know you felt this, too,
- 27:43when you had employees at your company.
- 27:45That is
- 27:47a heavy responsibility.
- 27:49It is.
- 27:51And that is when I lay my head down and nights like
- 27:54I want all those people that say they work for Wow or Spiro
- 27:58insert your company name, I want them to achieve their goals.
- 28:03I want them to be okay, put food on the table.
- 28:05I want them to grow at our company.
- 28:08And I went, Holy crap,
- 28:10I don't really know the first thing about
- 28:14And and so I knew I had to get help.
- 28:19And this is so cool how this story has come full circle
- 28:23with our special guest today.
- 28:24But I reached out to our special guest and I was like,
- 28:28Hey, I need some help in building this thing.
- 28:32And she is like, That's really cool.
- 28:35Let's go eat some tacos and talk about it.
- 28:37So we did.
- 28:40And you know, the rest is kind of history.
- 28:42We scaled a humongous amount with her leading
- 28:46building this program and then leading our team.
- 28:48And so I wanted to bring her in some of you know her
- 28:52because she is our VP of product at Spiro now,
- 28:57and she was our VP of sales and marketing at Wow years ago.
- 29:01And she has a ton of knowledge in the real estate industry, has been
- 29:04a recruiter for real estate companies, recruited a ton of agents, been a manager
- 29:09at real estate companies, and she has a ton of knowledge to share.
- 29:14I'm so excited she's on the Spiro team helping,
- 29:17helping me out and then helping you all grow your business.
- 29:19But without further ado, I want to introduce Shannon Landers,
- 29:23our VP of product at Spiro Shannon, Welcome.
- 29:26Hi, guys. How are you doing? Oh,
- 29:30so good to have you on.
- 29:31Little reminiscing, little teary eyed at some of those points, but
- 29:35I know I there's so much more to that story
- 29:38that I was like telling it in my head as I was listening to you.
- 29:42As I've heard you tell the story many times, and I love hearing it
- 29:46because it's such a entrepreneurial story.
- 29:49And I think that's what I've always enjoyed about you.
- 29:51Todd, is your
- 29:52you just love to grow businesses and I think I like to do the same.
- 29:56So we had a lot of fun doing that together.
- 29:59So I'm happy to be back and be a part of Spiro
- 30:03and help everybody grow and help us grow.
- 30:07Oh, we're so happy you're on the team now, Shannon.
- 30:10Let's rewind back to that time.
- 30:12So I reach out.
- 30:13So we had worked together at a
- 30:16we had we were doing work for a company that you were working at.
- 30:19Yep. Yeah.
- 30:20From the first real estate company that I worked for.
- 30:22Yeah. Yeah.
- 30:23And we did some projects together. Yes.
- 30:26Yeah. Met Nick. That’s when I met Nick
- 30:28That's when you met Nick?
- 30:29Yeah, that's, that's, that's right.
- 30:32Yeah. So.
- 30:33So I contacted you and we had a discussion maybe just with no,
- 30:40like,
- 30:41point to make, other than just your perspective.
- 30:44Like, what did you see? Like, just from an outside perspective?
- 30:47Like, here's this kid who's got this business I know he's doing.
- 30:50We were doing a fair amount of shoots.
- 30:51We were maybe doing two or 3000 at that point and wanted to grow.
- 30:56What did you see from us and what did you see and what we needed?
- 31:00Yeah, you know, hard.
- 31:01It's funny because I always felt like just even from that first moment that I met
- 31:04you and Nick, like when we did that big project and we spent all day together,
- 31:08I think for two days, I think I can’t remember.
- 31:12I don't know, I, I just felt like kind of that
- 31:15connection, like, you know, that this guy's pretty cool, you know?
- 31:19And so when you reached out and were like, Hey, I'm thinking I want to,
- 31:22you know, grow.
- 31:23And I was like, Huh, this could be a lot of fun, you know?
- 31:26And I just think that you can sense
- 31:30about people, their business knowledge and what they want to do.
- 31:33And I've always been kind of a go getter, and you were too, you know?
- 31:37And so that was kind of like, All right, this could be fun.
- 31:41But I have to remind you, do you remember the text that you sent me
- 31:45after I sent you the contract to work together?
- 31:48Do you remember the timing?
- 31:50Like back out? You were like
- 31:53I Yeah, you were nervous.
- 31:56And I had to kind of push you a little bit and say, Listen,
- 32:00this is the next step for you.
- 32:03So I think I think it's important to say that because I think
- 32:06we all as as we're looking to grow things, we get nervous.
- 32:11And I like to call them the
- 32:14the good butterflies in your stomach,
- 32:17you know, like because it does happen because you're like, oh, you know,
- 32:21and you were making an investment on me and my plan.
- 32:26And we first worked together as consultant relationship is how we first set up.
- 32:32But I believed in you and I kind of
- 32:35pushed you to believe in yourself a little bit more that night.
- 32:38And it wasn't about me earning the contract.
- 32:40And I think that's what's important is you really know people's true intentions.
- 32:45If you just dig in and get to know them a little bit, you know, and Derek,
- 32:49having Derek there was huge with the operations stuff
- 32:54and he is not lying about the building, you guys.
- 32:57I worried as he walked around this thing that he was going
- 33:01to hit his head all the time.
- 33:04It was
- 33:05tiny and I and no lie like were working.
- 33:08I'm laying on the floor on a carpet,
- 33:11this fluffy carpet, and we're right now like what we're going to do.
- 33:16And actually, Todd, you had done a little over 6000 shoots.
- 33:20I still remember the numbers because I said, okay, brain works.
- 33:24You guys were at about 6500 shoot.
- 33:26And we're growing at a good clip year over year with just referrals.
- 33:31And we and and two and a half years later grew that 70%.
- 33:36So I mean, it was a lot of growth very quickly
- 33:40and and I don't want to say that was me that was not me.
- 33:43We organize things and we systemize things and we grew it.
- 33:46But the foundation that you laid
- 33:49of treating customers with care and making them
- 33:53happy is how you were able to do this flat out.
- 33:57It is the relationships that you built with the customers.
- 34:02Yeah.
- 34:02Yeah.
- 34:03Boy, how how often have we talked about relationships on this?
- 34:06On this podcast?
- 34:08Yeah, it's everything. Yeah.
- 34:09You know, I'm going to bring this up.
- 34:12I hope this is okay.
- 34:13We recently lost a really awesome man in the real estate business here
- 34:17in Dayton, Ohio, and he was a big part of Todd's growth in Dayton
- 34:23and I can tell this story, Rick, when he was the general manager
- 34:26when I was there at this at a real estate office.
- 34:30And Rick is who I've learned pretty much everything from in real estate from
- 34:34he affectionately is called coach by all that know him
- 34:38and Rick fondly told the story about his idea
- 34:43for a video and how he got it and then was connected to Todd
- 34:47and really enjoyed the relationship with Todd.
- 34:50So Rick has been a guiding principle for me and his his
- 34:56he always landed on build relationships, treat people correctly.
- 35:01And if you do that, everything else works, though.
- 35:06And I think that's a fun part of the story of Todd and
- 35:09Wow’s growth is, Todd could get into it a little bit
- 35:13about pacing, I think, at a dinner and Rick calls
- 35:19because this was a very large brokerage
- 35:22that came to play and brought all of us together.
- 35:25So yeah, kind of fun to reminisce on that too.
- 35:29It is, Shannon, let me just give some it's Rick Heben
- 35:33and he wrote a book, which is fabulous.
- 35:35It's called Four Quarters and Hope for Overtime.
- 35:39And it's on Amazon.
- 35:41I think he priced like five bucks like it's the plete
- 35:45it it's this is an individual like he walked in a room and like he
- 35:49would take over a room like he would like you just wanted to be around him
- 35:53because you knew he cared about you and you think about how did he do that?
- 35:56He walked into a room and how do all 400 people
- 35:59or how do all four people in the room, know that Rick cares about them?
- 36:03There's so much knowledge.
- 36:05And he gave me my first big break and he was like,
- 36:07I remember we talked was like, now we're going to do video and everything,
- 36:10photo and video on everything because we don't want him to not do video.
- 36:13If we give him the option, they won't do it.
- 36:15He's like, And I'm like, okay, well, great.
- 36:17And you know, like my I'm thinking my revenue is just going up here
- 36:20and he's selling me my thing, which is great.
- 36:22He's like, and he looks at me is like, Todd, can you do it?
- 36:26Can you handle it?
- 36:27And I was like, Yeah, Rick, I can do it.
- 36:30You know, just second nature is like,
- 36:31But it was a huge amount of business, you know, like I'm making phone
- 36:34calls on my way home trying to get people to work for me.
- 36:37You know, it was that amount of business.
- 36:40It was those guiding lights along.
- 36:42And he believed in me and he fought for me.
- 36:45And there was a point that new ownership came in and he fought for me.
- 36:48When that happened.
- 36:49And thankfully he did.
- 36:50That was about 12 years ago, 11, 12 years ago.
- 36:54And he you know,
- 36:55he put his neck on the lines like, no, we're going to use them.
- 36:58And it's that relationship, and I and we talked about it so much,
- 37:02but the older I get, the more that those relationships just matter.
- 37:07There's there's no secret sauce.
- 37:09You know, I think a little bit Shannon, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
- 37:11but I thought we could just do this online marketing thing.
- 37:14So yeah, we grew and we're just going to send emails.
- 37:18I see other companies doing it.
- 37:19We're just going to send emails. Yeah.
- 37:22And that's not what that's not what a proper
- 37:27sales funnel is.
- 37:29not for this business.
- 37:30Yeah. Not for this business.
- 37:32You know, there's a lot that you can do and you should be doing,
- 37:34you should be staying connected with your clients
- 37:37and you should be in front of them.
- 37:38And as any business should be doing that, you realtors
- 37:42operate on a relationship business.
- 37:45Everybody, they work with vendors, right?
- 37:47They have relationships with other vendors.
- 37:49A What is a real to our realtors that go to person, right?
- 37:53Somebody is going to call them
- 37:54go, you know, the doctor in that area, They just I just moved here.
- 37:57you know, I mean, realtors, I can't tell you how many times, you know,
- 38:01I get invited to weddings just because of relationships I built with clients.
- 38:05Right. It that is just how I operate.
- 38:08So they expect a relationship with you, You know, as a photographer
- 38:12and as a company
- 38:14were taking care of the most important thing
- 38:17that that agent is doing and that's getting listings
- 38:21And same thing for a brokerage.
- 38:22You know, there's only two things a brokerage needs to do.
- 38:27They need to get listings and they need to recruit.
- 38:31Yeah, that's it.
- 38:32And if you can come in as a company and you can help them with those things,
- 38:36and correct me if I'm wrong, but what Rick said was, we're going to own the market
- 38:41because we're going to have video and photo on all of our listings.
- 38:45And and he was right.
- 38:46That company owns the market to this day in Dayton, Ohio.
- 38:49And they have the most market share and their market share has grown.
- 38:53While others have lost it.
- 38:55So it was that vision.
- 38:57He had said and the story is super funny.
- 38:59I know we're you know, we got really a seller's time today.
- 39:02But Rick, he had a friend call him from a complex, I think out in Huber Heights.
- 39:09And it was a new place and it was just a great little complex and community.
- 39:14And Rick went to go look at it and he was like, you know what would be great?
- 39:17And he had a convertible, right?
- 39:19He's like, Wouldn't you just be standing it up in the convertible with the video
- 39:23and driving through the neighborhood and just seeing everything?
- 39:27And it's the best story.
- 39:30And but
- 39:30that mindset and your mindset, Todd, like they came together.
- 39:34And because you had enough agents at that company that were saying,
- 39:38Todd's the guy, Todd's the guy, you got that opportunity.
- 39:44So again, building those relationships is number one.
- 39:47As much as I think we have probably a lot of introverts
- 39:53in our business.
- 39:56Yeah, got to at least build that one on one relationship,
- 39:59you know, and that which one relationship leads to the bigger opportunity.
- 40:05Yeah, for sure.
- 40:07So Shannon, with that.
- 40:08So you came in
- 40:10as a consultant level and again, I'm so glad that you brought that up.
- 40:14I forgot about that, that I remember.
- 40:17I was like, Okay, let's do it.
- 40:18You know, let's move forward.
- 40:19And then I got cold feet.
- 40:21I was like, Hey, I don't think got Oh, oh, my goodness.
- 40:24It's like, Oh, can I really do this?
- 40:26Like, you know, one, I have to spend the money
- 40:29but two the commitment, like, I don't I was the king of the castle
- 40:33like I people do what I, you know like we get comfortable in our business
- 40:37and as the business owner,
- 40:40if you have
- 40:40people working for you, they're going to do what you say
- 40:44and you need to be pushed outside of your comfort zone some time.
- 40:49And I'm not saying in a bad way,
- 40:51like Shannon did it in a great way like just asking questions.
- 40:54Because when you ask questions to your team, a lot of times
- 40:57if they're employees of yours, they agree with your idea.
- 41:01Oh, yeah, that's a great oh, that's perfect.
- 41:02If that's what you want me to do.
- 41:04When's the last time an employee of yours ever went?
- 41:07That's a pretty dumb idea.
- 41:08Like, that's probably That doesn't.
- 41:10I think I have a better idea, and that's the way I led.
- 41:14Whereas just like, people were coming to me and I felt good about, it's like, okay,
- 41:19I have answers to give them, and I would give them answers.
- 41:22Sometimes they would be the right answer, so
- 41:23sometimes they would be the wrong answers,
- 41:26but no one would ever really challenge me or make me take a step back
- 41:29and look at my business. We were busy.
- 41:32Many of you are busy right now, but focusing on what is going to grow
- 41:38your business is what you need to do
- 41:41to from 2000 to 4000 or us at 6500 to 12000.
- 41:46So, Shannon, your go ahead.
- 41:49Right now, I just like in the update that we just launched,
- 41:51I think is important to this, because we you have to understand what you're doing.
- 41:55So the reporting understanding
- 41:59I asked Todd, I think he's talked about this before.
- 42:01I literally was like, all right, what's your average sale price?
- 42:04He was like, Huh? What?
- 42:06What do you mean?
- 42:07I was like, Well, what's your average order like where we are?
- 42:12And do you remember what it was?
- 42:13Because I do.
- 42:14- Oh, was it like 158 - 155.
- 42:17Yeah, 155. Okay.
- 42:19Yeah.
- 42:19155 And I was like, that's too low.
- 42:24Hmm. Yeah.
- 42:24Because at your default pricing I think was like 220
- 42:28maybe at the time or 220 I think so, yeah.
- 42:30And so and I was like, okay, here's our first problem, right?
- 42:34And then I did. I said, Who are you, Todd?
- 42:37Who are who?
- 42:38Who is.
- 42:38Wow, right.
- 42:40You have to have standards.
- 42:42Every company, every person.
- 42:45We operate on standards, right?
- 42:47They come from our core values first as a person
- 42:52and then they need to come from your business.
- 42:54And what is important and what was important to you.
- 42:56Todd was making sure the clients were always taken care of.
- 42:59Mm hmm.
- 43:00And so everything had to come from that perspective.
- 43:04And I
- 43:04and I didn't know that Shannon at the time,
- 43:07and you probably remember this
- 43:08because you guided me through this, but you went, Who are you?
- 43:10I'm like, What do you mean?
- 43:11Like, this is
- 43:12what do you want to go sit in a cave for 20 years and think about who I am?
- 43:15- You know, like this is - we have to preface here not very feely.
- 43:19Okay? You know, I'm not like you.
- 43:21It was like his analytic brain was like
- 43:25these words. What?
- 43:26What do you mean?
- 43:28I got to jump I got to jump in here because my experience with Todd, Shannon, is
- 43:32he is in touch with his feelings.
- 43:34I mean, we've talked a lot about empathy and relationship building on this podcast.
- 43:39He has all that.
- 43:40But to actually dive into that and I think you have to think this was
- 43:46eight years ago, you know, we've all grown and developed.
- 43:50I think naturally as we get older, we just kind of get more.
- 43:54You get more experiences, right?
- 43:56Naturally, you kind of get more empathetic, but at the time
- 44:00It was like, Oh, Shannon, I don't want to go.
- 44:05I didn't even know what to say.
- 44:06Honestly.
- 44:07I ended up writing almost like a history of Wow.
- 44:10And I gave it to you. That's what you had me do.
- 44:12You had me write a history of why I started, what I did, what was important.
- 44:17And you did that because you knew they would be in there.
- 44:19And then I gave you, you know, two or three, four pages.
- 44:21And then from there you're like, Oh, it's all in here.
- 44:24Yeah, here's your here's the five things that are important to you.
- 44:27And this is what we're going to build a company on.
- 44:30Yeah, yeah.
- 44:32And it's beautiful If you go walk into Wow.
- 44:34If anybody ever is in Lima, Ohio, if you want to hang out at Wow.
- 44:39You know, the core values are on the wall
- 44:42and it is the guiding principles.
- 44:45And I think a lot of the guiding principles of Spiro right.
- 44:47They flow kind of right into it.
- 44:50You know, I was
- 44:51on the tail end of the Spiro experience
- 44:55when I kind of parted from you guys for a little bit
- 44:58that was just being built, you know, at that time.
- 45:02And Systems has always been a big part of who you are Todd.
- 45:05So that that actually is key.
- 45:08There's not a lot of people out there building systems like you did.
- 45:11Todd built every system he's ever used.
- 45:14He has that part of the brain.
- 45:16I couldn't have gotten that.
- 45:17I can help him with the business and sales.
- 45:19But when it comes to the tech stuff, he got me in math guy's and I'm like,
- 45:22I don’t want to use this thing.
- 45:23I don’t even know how to use it
- 45:26learning every day.
- 45:28You know, teaching an old dog new tricks, I guess.
- 45:30Is this payback, Rodd? Is this what this is?
- 45:37But yeah,
- 45:38no, it's it's exciting to grow a business.
- 45:42It's hard work, though,
- 45:44and that has to be
- 45:47if think about that and you have to decide what you're willing to do and
- 45:50and you also have to put the goals out there.
- 45:52I think often people, you know, just
- 45:55they don't know what they're going after
- 45:58and you don't know the milestones that you're hitting.
- 46:01And we're kind of going through that with Spiro right now.
- 46:03That's what we're looking at is, you know, what are the goals?
- 46:06How do we help our people grow?
- 46:09And we only make more money as our you know, our clients make more money.
- 46:13And that's how it's supposed to be.
- 46:14So how do we do that together as a community and everything?
- 46:19Shannon, let me jump in here real quick.
- 46:21You've talked a little bit about hard work and systems and goals, values,
- 46:25but you said a word to two or three times,
- 46:29probably about ten, 15 minutes ago that I think is key.
- 46:33And you said when you first started working with Todd
- 46:36and coming up with what the goals and the plans, you said the word fun,
- 46:41you have a fun personality.
- 46:43Can you talk a little bit more about how fun is an integral part
- 46:48of growing a business and why you have to have that fun in doing so?
- 46:54Yeah, I mean, I just I'm obviously an extrovert.
- 46:58People will pick that up from me very quickly,
- 47:02so I think talking to people has always just been a part of me.
- 47:07And I'm the girl, that annoying girl on an elevator ride.
- 47:11That's kind of open up a conversation because I just can’t stay on the sidelines.
- 47:14Right?
- 47:16But it is important.
- 47:18Todd kind of said earlier that your employees
- 47:22are going to do what you tell them to do, but what you really need
- 47:27them to do is be a part of the growth and a part of everything.
- 47:32And and because if they believe it and they feel it
- 47:36and they're going to enjoy
- 47:38what they're doing because there's nothing worse than miserable,
- 47:42I you know, I went through the drive thru and I won't say which
- 47:46which company that let's just say my nine year old wanted to go there
- 47:49so we know what drive there.
- 47:50I'm okay
- 47:52and the person at the checkout was just,
- 47:56I think the most miserable person on earth.
- 47:58And there are too many jobs out there to be miserable.
- 48:01If you hate your job, go find something you like to do
- 48:06because work should be fun, you know?
- 48:09And so you do have to keep things.
- 48:11You have to keep everybody involved.
- 48:14So all your employees even and again, independent contractors.
- 48:17And I think this was a key of me coming from a real estate company
- 48:22where all agents are independent contractors to a photography company
- 48:26where the photographers were independent contractors, and you need them
- 48:30to buy into your business more than you buy into your business.
- 48:34So how are you creating that atmosphere,
- 48:38that fun to where those people want to grow your business?
- 48:44They want to go find another agent.
- 48:45So hey, use us because we're great and we're awesome.
- 48:50So the fun needs to be there and it doesn't
- 48:54that doesn't mean that it's parties all the time,
- 48:58By any means.
- 48:59But you do have to just find the enjoyment.
- 49:02And is it is it throwing some cash at some photographers
- 49:06if they bring in some clients? Right.
- 49:08Like developing a plan in this system where your people feel like
- 49:14they are a part of your company and not just an independent contractor
- 49:20because it's easy.
- 49:21I mean, Todd, you've had them.
- 49:22You've had the independent contractors leave and start their own thing.
- 49:26It's it happens and you won't set you won't ever keep 100% of your people.
- 49:31Some people are just going to go off and do that, and that's okay.
- 49:35But the more you make them a part of the whole thing, the less likely
- 49:40they are to feel like they're just a cog in the system, you know?
- 49:44Like, that's good. Yeah.
- 49:47Yeah.
- 49:47That was really long winded.
- 49:48But I hope I gave you the answer.
- 49:50No, it's good.
- 49:52And I think it's so smart because it all comes.
- 49:54How do you make people feel involved and buy in?
- 49:58Is they have to know what they're buying into.
- 50:01And again, just going back to those core values
- 50:03and just verbalizing you as the leader of your company,
- 50:07you have to verbalize which way you're going.
- 50:09You might have it in your head.
- 50:10And this was of my gaps for a long time.
- 50:12Is still is I sort of be conscious about it is my brain knows where it's going.
- 50:17It doesn't all it's almost in a right brain
- 50:19where just subconsciously I know what the steps that I'm doing,
- 50:23but I don't ever think to how do I verbalize that
- 50:28and put it in steps not only in my brain, but then the next step is,
- 50:32Well, I have to let everyone else know that too,
- 50:33because they're just like, Well, Todd, why are you doing this?
- 50:36And I will say with Spiro, I misstep there a little bit
- 50:39because I knew that we needed to go this route, and I knew that it was a tool
- 50:45that all of you could use that would help you
- 50:47grow your business, but also help us grow our business.
- 50:49And it would be a win win.
- 50:50I just didn't verbalize it.
- 50:51Everybody and everybody's like, Well, wait a minute, what's this new thing?
- 50:54And what do you call it?
- 50:55And why is Todd spending his time with that and not with wow.
- 51:00So as the leader of your company, you, I tie everything back
- 51:04and I use those core values that Shannon wrote for us many, many years ago.
- 51:07I use them every day.
- 51:08I use it on the Friday meeting this morning.
- 51:10I talked about clients are the number one priority.
- 51:12The responsibility to it is
- 51:16to take care of your clients regardless of what that is.
- 51:19Hard work.
- 51:20That's core value.
- 51:21Number two, if it was easy, everybody do it.
- 51:24We are family number three.
- 51:26We pull together as a family, pick each other up.
- 51:28We look out for each,
- 51:30you know, we think outside the box.
- 51:32Core value. Number four, we want to be a disturbance in the force.
- 51:35We want to do things different. Let's improve our products,
- 51:37bring new technology.
- 51:39And then five, we want to grow.
- 51:41That's important.
- 51:42If you want to grow and you have someone that's your employees that are coming
- 51:45or contractors that go away, Wait a minute, I'm kind of cool with the status quo.
- 51:48They're going to be really uncomfortable, really quick.
- 51:51And I use those five all of the time to align
- 51:56with what we're the direction my brain is thinking we go.
- 52:00It's your compass.
- 52:01Your core values are your compass, and it will always lead you to that outcome.
- 52:08And then with your core values, the goals and the goals don't
- 52:11even always have to be so, so stringent or numbers based.
- 52:17They can literally be anything but they.
- 52:20But they that all has to guide you, you know?
- 52:23And your point, Todd, communication about these things is so key
- 52:30100%.
- 52:31You have to do it and you have done that, Todd.
- 52:34And you guys have grown and you've consistently grown
- 52:37and you've grown in a really hard real estate market for photographers.
- 52:42And a house sells in an hour.
- 52:45Who wants to spend $300 on stuff now?
- 52:49Me, as I lead real estate agents for the last four years of my life,
- 52:54I would tell them, What do you do for a living?
- 52:57You Sell houses?
- 52:58Don't you think you should showcase what you do?
- 53:01And you should have mark on every house that you sold.
- 53:06But now we are leaning into a market
- 53:08that I think is going to be great for us.
- 53:12There is going to be a lot of thought process
- 53:14that goes into picking a listing agent
- 53:17and what that listing agent is going to do and we are going to have to be
- 53:21a part of their business.
- 53:22So I actually say now more than ever than I've seen in the last 11 years,
- 53:28the opportunity is huge to go build those relationships
- 53:32and get those broker deals because these brokerages now
- 53:36more than ever want more listings then then they want to scoop them up,
- 53:41but their agents are going to have to provide value.
- 53:45And that going to be key.
- 53:47That's how we grew.
- 53:48We're going to continue to dive into these.
- 53:51You know, I think as a
- 53:54as an actionable item for you
- 53:56all, it's time to get uncomfortable.
- 53:59Let's think about why you started your business.
- 54:02What do you stand for?
- 54:03It doesn't have to be what we stand for
- 54:05because that's not why you started your business.
- 54:08But if you want to take inspiration from ours, you can.
- 54:12And it's important to connect
- 54:14with those feelings.
- 54:18So then we can build goals and we can look at those things together.
- 54:21So Shannon's going be along the ride with us.
- 54:25Shannon, how would someone even start that activity?
- 54:28Like, Oh, feelings? I don't.
- 54:29Shannon told me to think about my family.
- 54:32Well, I mean, a lot like you did.
- 54:34Just write down how you how you got started, right?
- 54:38Write down why you did it.
- 54:41You know, we talk about the why.
- 54:43I think in everything that we do, because that's what drives us.
- 54:47So this can be just a notebook and a pen.
- 54:51And I actually think I'm for all of you
- 54:54that are probably 30 years and younger out there.
- 54:58Get a piece of paper.
- 55:00and get a pen
- 55:02And sit with your self in your own thoughts and write down,
- 55:06Why am I doing this?
- 55:08Where is this going to take us close
- 55:11your eyes and see that future.
- 55:14There's a good book out there.
- 55:15I'm going to blank on the author, but it's like Be Your Future Self Now.
- 55:21And in the beginning of it, they talk about one of the big YouTubers
- 55:24and he made videos for himself that said, In five years,
- 55:29this is where I'm going to be.
- 55:30I'm going to be doing these things until well and one year.
- 55:34And and it's that self-fulfilling prophecy.
- 55:37So, you know, sit with your thoughts and write down why you are doing this.
- 55:42And in that process, your values are going to be created.
- 55:48And it doesn't have to be five and it doesn't have to be ten.
- 55:50It could be two, it could be three,
- 55:53it could be one, it can be one guiding principle.
- 55:56It doesn't matter.
- 55:57But really diving into those thoughts, I think that's just where you start.
- 56:02And outside of
- 56:03that comes here, you want to me as a company,
- 56:07I love that.
- 56:08Please do it.
- 56:09If you want to send it to us, send it to us.
- 56:12Yeah. Shannon, Craig and I will read them.
- 56:15We'll give you some you know, we'll respond if necessary.
- 56:17You have questions.
- 56:18hello@spiro.media, We want to be with you.
- 56:21We want you to succeed.
- 56:23It is so fun to grow and scale a business.
- 56:25And there's just some tools along the way that can make it easier for you.
- 56:30So please start with this today.
- 56:31Take that time, find a piece of paper, notepad,
- 56:35and write down the why and those guiding principles
- 56:39and you're going to see how we're going to build a foundation on top of that.
- 56:43Yep.
- 56:44100th episode of the Spiro podcast.
- 56:48- Guys, Thank you. - I got to be on it.
- 56:51Thank you, guys.
- 56:52I really am super excited to be here.
- 56:55I will be in Vegas.
- 56:56So if you guys are there, come find me.
- 57:00And we're going to
- 57:01continue to do this thing and we're going to do it together.
- 57:04You know, as you get both, we're talking about the values of Wow video tours.
- 57:07I couldn't help but notice
- 57:08how many of them drive Spiro as well, and why we do this podcast.
- 57:12You know, our clients are our number one priority.
- 57:14Now, obviously, not everybody that watches this podcast is a Spiro client.
- 57:19We'd love to have you join our family.
- 57:21We are family. There's another value,
- 57:23the podcast is hard work, but we have fun doing it.
- 57:27I hope you understand after watching
- 57:31or listening to so many of these, that Todd and I, we like to have fun.
- 57:35Yes, we work hard.
- 57:36It is a business, but we want to be transparent with you.
- 57:39We're human beings just like you.
- 57:41You know, we all have, you know, similar struggles
- 57:44that we go through in our daily lives with families, with loved ones.
- 57:48Our work is part of a major part of what we do every day.
- 57:52So we just want this podcast to be of value to you because you're our number one
- 57:58priority.
- 57:59We want to see you succeed.
- 58:01We want to have fun doing it.
- 58:03We don't want to take ourselves too seriously, but we want to give you
- 58:06and equip you with tools that are going to really help you win.
- 58:10And we like to celebrate successes with you.
- 58:12That's why we tell you, Give us your stories.
- 58:14We do read those.
- 58:17Yeah.
- 58:18So we just want to say thank you, you know, from Todd, from Shannon,
- 58:21Nick, myself, and just the whole Spiro team.
- 58:25Thank you for for joining us on this journey
- 58:28and just the privilege of
- 58:32being able to speak into your life and into your business through this podcast.
- 58:36We're humbled by that.
- 58:37We're very humbled by that.
- 58:39I think you would agree with that, Todd.
- 58:41Oh, 100%.
- 58:42Every day I read this and when I thought two years ago, like,
- 58:44it would be really cool if I could just get a few people on it
- 58:47and the size of amount of people and the stories that come in, I just
- 58:51I literally and you guys, I'm a big baby.
- 58:52- Like I tear up reading these things, - it is not emotional.
- 58:56Not emotional. Yeah,
- 59:00it’s an onion, right. we've just been peeling back
- 59:03those layers of Todd's onion for years now.
- 59:07You know what? I just had popped into my mind?
- 59:08Shannon?
- 59:09Shrek, Shrek and Donkey just totally popped.
- 59:12Yeah.
- 59:15Okay.
- 59:17This Is the part where we have fun and don't take ourselves too seriously.
- 59:20All right.
- 59:20Well, Todd. Man, thank you for, you know, for the opportunity
- 59:24to be a part of the Spiro team.
- 59:26I just want to say that personally on this hundredth episode and
- 59:29and for placing the trust in me, too, with the idea
- 59:32of the podcast, I just I have fun doing this.
- 59:35A lot of you might know my story.
- 59:37I worked in broadcast radio for almost 20 years, so once I left
- 59:41that industry, I kind of lost a little bit of myself.
- 59:45And so when Todd gave the go ahead on this podcast, I got really excited
- 59:49because this kind of ties into my my medium, my broadcast background,
- 59:53and just being able to connect with people via media
- 59:56and what we're able to all do through the media that we provide our realtor
- 59:59clients is connect with them, help them win, help them
- 1:00:02build their businesses and serve the sellers as well.
- 1:00:05I mean, this is a fun industry we get to do.
- 1:00:07I mean, yeah, we have headaches, right? But
- 1:00:11anyway, we just want to say thank you.
- 1:00:13Okay, so all of that to say thank you again,
- 1:00:15that's going to wrap things up for this week.
- 1:00:17And as we always remind you, two things. One,
- 1:00:20be thankful for the blessings in your life and make sure you take a breath.
- 1:00:24That's what Spiro means is breath.
- 1:00:26Take a breath this week and just reflect.
- 1:00:29You guys have a great week.
- 1:00:30And thanks for joining us for this 100th episode of the Spiro podcast.
- 1:00:33Thank you for joining us for the Spiro podcast,
- 1:00:36Managing your real estate photography and videography business.
- 1:00:40This is a production of Spiro and Wow video tours.
- 1:00:44You can find out more about Spiro is real estate media business management
- 1:00:48software at our Web site, Spiro Dot Media.