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Growing Your Client Acquisition Effort · 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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really what it comes down to is, is there's a certain point
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where you're going to hit a plateau.
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There's just so much you only have so much time in a week
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or in a day or whatever the given situation.
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So really you just have to kind of look at that at a cost analysis
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for not only financially but your time and say,
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you know,
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if I were to bring on that next person onto the team, whether it's a salesperson
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like our business development specialist or if it's a sales manager or director
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or sales marketing, whatever the next step is for you,
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you just have to look at it from that perspective and determine
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what is it going to cost me and what are the benefits
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I'm going to get out of it and use that to kind of drive your business.
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Because once you hit that plateau, that that's really 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 designed to help you
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not only really kind of manage an and maintain your day to day
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real estate visual marketing company, but help it scale and grow as well.
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I'm your host, Craig Magrum.
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Always glad to be here with you each and every.
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Well, I shouldn't say every most podcast episodes you have.
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Our our co-host and founder and owner of Spiro Todd Kivimaki
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Our Todd is out this week but I have a
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an awesome guest host with me this week that I introduced just in a bit.
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He's been on here before and always glad to talk with him.
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But before we dive into introducing him in this week's topic,
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which we're going to be talking about, how to grow your client acquisition
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effort, how to grow that effort in gaining more clients and a specific
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two specific roles that you need in your company to help with that effort.
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So that's going to be the topic for this week.
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But before we get into that, let me give you a brief rundown on Spiro
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updates.
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Todd usually handles this, so you're going to have to forgive me.
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For those of you watching here on YouTube, my eyes might shift over at my cheat sheet.
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So but here's what we've got going on.
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If you didn't get the Spiro Update newsletter that was sent out or you just
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haven't had a chance to look at it, some great updates this week.
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First of all, Rich previews on links that you share for your branded in non
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branded property websites that Spiro builds for you.
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Previously, if you'd share a link, a lot of times you would just kind of
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have a bland link on your Facebook post or whatever.
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But now you have rich previews that show an eye catching photo for your
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your real estate agents to use in their social media posts.
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So Rich previews on property website links
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now available through Spiro also
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I can feel this one possible
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very very in real life here minimized new tabs.
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All right. So we've heard your feedback.
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Lots of tabs that open up as you're doing different things in Spiro
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Well now now let's see.
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You can really minimize the number of those tabs that pop up.
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If you need an op to open a new tab, you just right click
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in and
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use the shortcut control and click for a new tab.
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So minimized new tabs have now been rolled out.
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This is a very cool one.
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If you're using automatic scheduling and you find yourself
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short of availability for appointments, Spiro can now very gracefully fall back
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to manual scheduling so that you can try and squeeze in special requests if needed.
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Basically, you're overwriting
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some of the rules that you have on your photographers.
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Say, daily mileage or distance between appointments.
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Spiro now can manually fall back to to manual scheduling.
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So new feature, there are also new admin entitlements.
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So if you're the super admin for your Spiro account,
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you can control which
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which metrics and reports that you see on other admins dashboards.
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So if there's certain information you don't want them to see
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or you do want them to see, you can control that and manually
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make, appear or disappear certain metrics and reports.
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So make sure to check that out.
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And then finally, just some basic user interface of massages
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that we've made to make your experience a lot easier, especially on your order
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pages, easier way to build order pages.
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So check all of that out again.
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If you missed it at the email, make sure to dig that up.
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And we got a description on all of those new rollouts for Spiro.
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One other thing that we wanted to let you know about,
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so you've heard Todd mentioned this before.
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We Wow video tours our real estate photography and videography Company
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uses an editing team called Creo, which for full disclosure, Todd
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is has shared this in the past he is part owner of
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so we just want to let you know that upfront.
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But Creo has expanded their team of editors
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and so have new capacity to take on new clients.
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So if you're looking for a superb editing team, I'd encourage you check out Creo.
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You can check them out at their website.
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It's CreoLLC.net.
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that's C R E O L L C.
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Dot net.
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We'll put a graphic here you're watching on YouTube.
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You can check out the graphic on screen.
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It will put the link in the show description as well.
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But check out Creo if you're looking for a new editing team.
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All right.
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That wraps up all the updates.
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Without further further ado, let me introduce our our guest host this week. He's
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been on the podcast before,
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but our director of sales and marketing at Wow video Tours, Steve Musser.
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Welcome back to the podcast, Steve.
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Hey, Craig, thanks for having me back.
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Yeah, it's always fun.
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I love talking client acquisition and sales with you and just learning from you.
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And I just I want to publicly again thank you for your leadership
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on on the team at Wow video tours
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especially serving us business development specialist so thank you Appreciate you.
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Thanks, Craig. I appreciate it.
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- Am I making you blush, Steve? - Just a little bit.
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All right.
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Well, as as I mentioned, we want to talk about how to grow your effort of
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of acquiring new clients, which we've talked about in the past.
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But I kind of wanted to dig in specifically about the role of, say,
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a director of marketing and sales and the role of a business development
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specialist and how that comes about just all about.
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So let me kind of set this up for you, Steve, and we can we can start here.
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When I was running my own real estate visual marketing company,
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I was the director of Sales and marketing.
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As the owner. I was I was a two person show.
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It was myself and one other photographer.
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So, you know, I was I was doing the shooting.
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I was doing the appointment scheduling.
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I was, you know, doing the sales meetings and the coffee meetings
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and the present office presentations.
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I was doing the accounting on the weekends, which I despised with a passion.
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I was the chief bottle washer, you name it.
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That's a lot of us out here in this industry is, is, you know,
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a small one into two person companies that we love the work we do,
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but we're
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kind of maxed out because we're doing it all.
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So here's here's the question How does a smaller we'll just start here
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and it's a big question how does a smaller operation like that
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get to the point of needing somebody like you,
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a director of sales marketing or a business development specialist?
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How does a company even get to that point?
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Yeah, it's a good question.
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So really it comes down to just a cost analysis, you know,
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and not only for your financial but also your time.
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So as you said, you know,
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when you're running your own business, you're doing everything.
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And in your situation, like you can do that really well.
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And there's going to be some things that you enjoy doing and some things
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that you despise doing, like accounting.
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But really what it comes down to is, is there's a certain point
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where you're going to hit a plateau.
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There's just so much you only have so much time in a week
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or in a day or whatever the given situation.
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So really you just have to kind of look at that at a cost analysis
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for not only financially but your time and say,
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you know,
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if I were to bring on that next person onto the team, whether it's a salesperson
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like our business development specialist or if it's a sales manager or director
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or sales marketing, whatever the next step is for you,
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you just have to look at it from that perspective and determine
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what is it going to cost me and what are the benefits
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I'm going to get out of it and use that to kind of drive your business.
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Because once you hit that plateau, that that's really it.
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You know, you're kind of plateaued out as far as your business is going to have
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a hard time growing more than that because you're just
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one person and your time is kind of maximized at that point.
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So when you're when you're looking at that, that's
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really the deciding factor is, you know, nobody wants to pay more money out.
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But at a certain point, you know, if you can pay X amount
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and get 2X in return, then it's a no brainer to take that
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next step up and build your business into the next level.
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Yeah, that put.
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I forget who was a mentor in my life somewhere in the past
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made the comment to me because fiscally I'm pretty conservative.
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I don't like to spend a ton of money
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and I was nervous to spend money even to start my business to begin with.
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But somebody said, Craig, you have to spend money to make money.
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I'm like, Yeah, but it's so much money to spend up front, you know?
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So take a drone, for example.
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So my, my first drone was a phantom four drone
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that I got a package on Amazon, you know, included three batteries.
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And I spent at the time, I think it was 12 or 1300 dollars for me.
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That was a lot of money.
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And I'm like, Am I going to be able to get my money back
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with it
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within a very short amount of time I made it back.
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And in reality, you know, when you make that jump,
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whether it's an equipment upgrade or additions to the team or anything
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like that, you know, there might be a small amount of time
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to where you are making less money.
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And so, you know, it's a scary stuff because you're you're paying more out
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and you're not bringing more in maybe on day one, you know, maybe it's
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going to take 30, 60, 90 days, 365 days to start getting that return on that.
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So that's a tough decision.
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But that's really the measurement is, you know, you want to make that step
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when you have a plan in place to know that I'm paying more.
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But in the end, I'm going to make money because my business by 5%, 10%,
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whatever the magic number is, that makes it balance on the on the books.
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Yeah.
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And it can be exponential growth if if you're hired,
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if you hired the right role and the right person for that role.
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So you just you have to have faith that the investment is worth it and you got it.
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You got to take risks sometimes.
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Absolutely. You usually need to take risks
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with.
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We don't get into this this industry not taking a risk, right?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Any time you're running your own business, there's a lot of risk.
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You know, it's a risk to make that first step and open your own business.
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And then it's a it's a risk every time you make another investment.
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It's so it's a scary step, but it's just one that you have to
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you don't go into it blindly.
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You know, you want to make a good decision saying,
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I'm doing this because my plan is to get this in return.
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But it's a scary step and it's not going to pay day one typically.
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it's going to take a little bit to get to that next level.
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Yeah, I've shared with viewers and listeners in the past,
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you know, when I was on my own, I did I got to that point
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exactly that you talked about, about the plateau.
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Yeah. I had no more capacity.
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I had to make a decision, Am I going to stay a small boutique
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real estate photographer that only can do certain, you know,
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a certain number of jobs a year and only have a certain number of clients?
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Or am I going to grow the business, bring on additional staff?
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I shift my role more into, you know, manager, business leader versus photographer
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and one of our former teammates made that comment to me.
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Craig,
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you can't shoot forever.
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Like you saying, I'm old,
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but it's a fair point.
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But my personal decision at the time was I'm going to stay.
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Besides, I am because I enjoyed the creative side too much.
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So I did stay small initially.
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Now as it ends up of course,
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Cee Imaging and Wow video tours
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Wow kind of took things over for me
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and I'm now able to concentrate on what I really enjoy doing and that's,
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that's the relationship building, the selling and, and the shooting
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and Wow, as an organization, because it did have the vision
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for a larger reach to, you know, to other realtors
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is able to fill in all those other areas that I wasn't able to do
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and I didn't necessarily want to be the manager and leader.
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I like working shoulder to shoulder with people
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rather than being the manager or the outfront leader.
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So you got to find that, you know, what's your motivation?
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What are your goals, and then make the decision, okay, do
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I want to acquire more clients and do I want to grow this company?
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And it may require me to do something different in my role as the owner.
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So let's assume that we do want to grow.
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You're not going the boutique photographer path.
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So we've we've mentioned two roles. Steve
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Sales as a
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marketing director and business development specialist or salesperson.
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So in your opinion, if an owner is at that point of realizing
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I need to acquire more clients,
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but there's other things I need to be working on
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and I can't be leading the sales effort primarily,
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or there might be somebody that can do it better than me.
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Which role would you,
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would you suggest would be the first one?
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Somebody might want to consider hiring just a salesperson and the owner stays
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the sales manager, for lack of a better description,
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or somebody that's more the director
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and can start that effort for the owner.
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that makes sense?
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Yeah, I think and there's no magic answer on this,
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every business is going to be slightly different on what your needs
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are and everything else, but I think by the vast majority,
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the first step is going to be getting an additional getting as a salesperson.
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So that way you can free up your time and there's a lot of different avenues.
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You can go,
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you know, as you're hitting your plateau
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and you're shooting the maximum number of jobs,
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you know, maybe the first step is another photographer.
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You know, and things along those lines to kind of relieve some of that by.
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But at a certain point, you're going to need to do some outreach
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just to stay top of mind with realtors and build those relationships
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and everything else.
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So if that's not your area of expertise or you're not as comfortable with it
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or anything along those lines, then I think a salesperson is a good next step
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because they can be out day in, day out, making those relationships, building
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those connections, making sure, you know, every real estate agent in your market
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ideally knows your name, knows what you do,
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and can can start bringing that business in.
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And so I think I think that's
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the most logical next step for most businesses as they grow.
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And and then you can kind of build from there.
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You know, as you bring in more business, then you make the next step,
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the next step, the next step and continue to build that
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makes sense.
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Makes sense.
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So let me ask you then, practically speaking, put your yourself
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in the position of owner of a small but growing company.
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So you have made the decision to hire
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a business, business development specialist or salesperson.
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So you as the owner initially are going to act as the sales director.
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What does your weekly
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routine look like in leading that business
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that that salesperson in in starting that sales effort?
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What are you going to do week to week leading that salesperson
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Yeah, the first thing I would do is almost do
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an inventory of all the tasks that you're doing day in and day out
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and just kind of look at all those tasks and figure what would fit under that role.
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You know, is it making the phone calls, is it attending
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company breakfasts and events and things along those lines.
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And so you'll build that list out to kind of know these are the things that
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this person is kind of cater to,
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and I should try to pull that off my plate and put it onto their plates.
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In that way, they can they can maximize their time on that side of things.
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And then your position as the business
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owner is still everything else.
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So you've managed to take one thing off your plate and you know, a lot of
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those tasks can fit into that one thing, but you're still going to be doing
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everything else, so you're still acting as that.
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The marketer and the accountant
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and the owner and everything else that's along with it.
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And quite possibly still, you know, one of the main,
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if not the only photographer.
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So there's there's a lot there but that would be my first
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step is just taking a look at all the tasks that should fit nicely under
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that new position and build that out and then just maximize the time.
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You know,
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the next step would be looking at things that you've never been able to do
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because you've been doing a million other things.
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And so if you had a wish list of, you know, I'd really like to
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to make sure I stop in every office at least once a month,
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or if I want to make sure that I do X, Y, or Z.
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Anything that you've just never been able to accomplish on your list
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is another thing that I would dump onto that other plate
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so that way they can start maximizing their time as well.
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And then
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your position as the business owner is to direct that person
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and hopefully getting the right person into that seat that they're going
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to be able to manage their day, you know, as effectively as possible.
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But you're directing them just to know.
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One, you want to kind of direct them to
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what's most important, you know, and make sure that they understand
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what is the goal of that position so as to grow the business.
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And if you have any direction as to ways to do that or guidance for that,
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you're still you're still managing that person and you're still going to have to
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to watch out for the day to day
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just to make sure, one, the tasks are being completed and two
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it's your responsibility to kind of look at it and say, is this effective?
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And if it is, then let's keep going and do more.
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And if it's not, let's take a step back and figure out how we need to restructure.
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Or do I have the right person in that position?
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Okay, so
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great example of like the role of a sales director or
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marketing director in what they're doing week to week, that awesome example.
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Steve So let's look at it from the salesperson's viewpoint.
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What does a typical week look like for them? I would share mine.
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I've shared my experience before, but my role at WOW is is kind of unique.
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I'm a hybrid photographer and salesperson, so during the busy season I'm busy
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shooting a lot and I don't have time for a lot of the typical sales activities.
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So can you kind of give an example of like, say, Chris
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or Pam or Joy who's on our team in different markets?
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What what their typical week looks like?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So their typical week
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or day, you know, as you break it down is essentially, you know, one
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they're everything they're doing is to attempt
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to grow new business and to retain existing business.
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And so growing your business that's pursuing new leads.
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So that could be anything from contacting, you know, listings on Zillow
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that don't have real estate media,
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you know, and those are some good leading stats
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that potential new clients
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could just be cold calling people that we haven't worked with before, you know, So
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making that introduction and and the nice thing is how we structure it,
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you know, and when people think sales, they do kind of
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get that feeling where they shudder and I think used car salesmen.
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But yeah, really it's just consultative selling.
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So it's just building that relationship.
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And the first step is letting them know, Hey, we're here and this is what we do
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so they know it's an option. And then as you continue
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that relationship, you're trying to bring them in.
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So that can be through the Zillow leads, that can be through cold calling,
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that could be through stopping into offices and just trying to
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maybe meet a new person or maybe present
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to an entire team or an entire company.
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Best case scenario.
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So there's a lot of ways to start bringing new clients into the business
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and the other side of that is retaining the clients that we already have.
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So number one priority there and our core values reflect on
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this is our clients are our number one priority and so we treat them as such.
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That's not just a talking point.
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That's how we we live our business for us personally, right?
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And so we want to make sure not only
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then they're they're using us, but they're getting what they need.
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They're happy with the services.
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We're setting the expectations
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as we bring a new client in or even an existing client,
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just to make sure that they know kind of what to expect
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when they're working with Wow video tours in our situation.
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So that that's a big part of it is just retaining that existing business
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is just making sure it's not getting the sale and going on to the next person.
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And tnever talking to that.
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That original contact ever again.
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They're just as important as everybody else because their business
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is just as important to us and their relationship is just as important to us.
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So there's a lot of time that our our sales team spends
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just contacting existing clients for that reason.
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You know,
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good thing that we do is we follow up with appointments
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just to make sure going to get some feedback,
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you know, have the appointment
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go and when’s the media's delivered kind of touch based on that.
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And not only that, but all the way
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through their sales process as a realtor, you know, as they're listing,
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as they're holding open houses, as they're getting to that closing table,
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you know, just just keeping that contact up and reaching out to them,
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you know, something as simple
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as congratulating them on their on their listing, first of all.
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And then as they get
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to the end of the cycle and they they have it under contract and eventually
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sold, it's it's congratulating them again that's a big thing for a realtor
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easy way to do that follow them on social media because they
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all advertise their closings all of them they got their picture and their sign.
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And I just always whenever that pops up in my feed
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because I follow them or have friended them on Facebook,
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I make sure I just do a like and leave a quick comment.
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Hey, congrats.
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You know man.
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that was a quick closing. That's awesome.
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Something like that. Celebrating their success.
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- Yeah. - Yeah.
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And celebrate their success.
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Even if it's not with you, to be honest
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You know, as you're building those relationships, if they if they use
23:19
their cell phone to go out, snap pictures or they hired a competitor,
23:23
it doesn't mean that you should shun them and never talk to them again.
23:26
I mean, just that's a that's a big moment in their career.
23:29
You know, listings are hard.
23:31
They're hard to come by and they're hard even harder.
23:33
You get to a closing table.
23:35
So if you can just kind of build them up and let them know that you're here
23:39
to support them any way possible.
23:40
And that's that's how you want to keep the business.
23:42
And for new clients, that's how you bring them into the fold of your company.
23:46
Right. Right.
23:47
Okay. So I lied a little bit.
23:49
I said, Well, we'll talk about one of our other
23:52
But so yesterday I had two shoots
23:55
and the rest of my day I had four sales type activities.
24:00
Well, we had one of our other photographers
24:02
from one of our other markets join me yesterday and shadowed me
24:05
because he's going to be stepping into a similar role,
24:08
the same role that I have of a hybrid B.D.S. as we call them.
24:12
B.D.S. Business Development Specialist and photographer.
24:16
So, you know, I've shared on the podcast before, I really like coffee meetings.
24:20
I like the one on one
24:21
because that's just how I'm wired to build relationships, large events.
24:25
I was at a large fundraising event last night.
24:28
Those are hard for me,
24:30
you know, just the hobnobbing and the schmoozing and the small talk
24:35
is harder for me in large groups where there's lots of loud
24:37
music and tons of people and tons of talking.
24:41
But I go home from those drained, I have to recharge.
24:45
But the one on one coffee meeting I can do all day.
24:48
I can do that all day.
24:50
So this this other photographer joined me at one
24:54
a coffee meeting I had yesterday with a prospective new client, and
25:00
it's somebody I'd run into at a couple of presentations
25:03
that I had done in in their office in one on a office
25:09
regional trip to one of the islands in Lake Erie
25:13
last summer and have talked to her just briefly a couple of times.
25:17
But I could tell she was
25:18
she was a rising star, so I wanted to get to know her
25:21
a little bit better
25:21
and had mentioned once or twice, Hey, I'd love to treat to coffee.
25:25
Well, it that date set never happened.
25:29
So a few weeks ago saw her again and said, Hey,
25:31
I still owe you a coffee if if you're interested.
25:34
She said, Yeah, I would. I would love to.
25:36
So that when I got home, I gave her a couple of dates
25:39
and we finally got something on the calendar.
25:41
Well, that meeting was yesterday.
25:43
So, James, this are other other photographer from another market.
25:48
He. He joined me, and this client came in to the coffee shop downtown.
25:53
She's like, This is a cool place.
25:54
I said, Yeah, I really like this place.
25:56
It just started with small talk and,
25:59
you know, explained, you know, why? Why?
26:02
I wanted to meet with her.
26:03
I'd like to get to know you and and your business better.
26:06
You know, I noticed on your Facebook post
26:08
that you were newer, but you don't come off as new to me.
26:11
And she said, Well, thank you.
26:12
I appreciate that.
26:13
But, you know, I've had people
26:14
tell me that I shouldn't say I'm new, but compared to other realtors.
26:18
So it's just started with small talk and and I share the comment.
26:24
I just I like these meetings to get to know
26:26
you and your business and introduce myself.
26:28
And Wow video tours a little bit because we're in this
26:31
you know, we're in this industry to serve realtors and their clients.
26:35
So I just
26:35
like to find spaces that we could potentially help.
26:38
I don't like hard sales.
26:41
I, I approach it is can we be part of your team?
26:44
Do we have something of value to offer you that can help you grow your business?
26:48
Because I just I don't like sales.
26:49
And she smiled and she said, That's good because I don't like sales either.
26:52
Yet here we are,
26:55
her as a realtor, me as a B.D.S.,
26:58
but talking about how can we help each other?
27:00
And so it just started really cool and I just kind of disarmed her.
27:04
And I said, Yeah, I've hurt, you know, I've said, you can't sell a salesperson.
27:09
And she smiled and nodded. Yep, you can't.
27:11
That's it. So you just get it out in the open.
27:13
You're two human beings
27:15
just trying to make a living and do something that you enjoy doing.
27:18
You know, she loves serving her clients and helping them find homes.
27:22
I love serving our realtor clients
27:24
and giving them good media to help them build their business.
27:27
So you start from a positive, just transparent.
27:30
Here's here's what we're here to do. And
27:35
you don't want to
27:35
get stiff and force conversations.
27:38
And so there's the other photographer that was shadowing with me is like,
27:42
yeah, I like that approach it because he's not salesy either.
27:46
It's not about sales, it's about consulting and helping and serving.
27:49
and Craig
27:50
To your point, you know, every every person's
27:53
a little bit different on their comfort levels.
27:54
So when you bringing in that that person on your sales team, you know,
27:57
kind of rein in on on what's most important to you.
28:01
Our our sales team is it's pretty split to
28:04
where, you know, we have about half of our sales team that is
28:08
is more comfortable with that one on one aspect and they can build
28:12
that trust really easily and and that's where they excel.
28:16
But they're comfortable going into a room and they can present
28:19
and they can do everything else that you need to do as well.
28:21
And we have the other half of the sales team that is just that,
28:25
that social butterfly to where they go room and and head start turning
28:31
and they're all excited that talk to them and everything else
28:34
and me personally I'm more of that one on one as well
28:39
and there's nothing wrong with either way but it is two different very,
28:42
very different approaches.
28:44
And you know I, I the unique thing about our sales team
28:49
is that we have the people that can do whatever they need to do,
28:52
but their comfort levels probably lie on one side or the other.
28:56
And so when you're onboarding that first salesperson
29:00
or any salesperson, just kind of keep that in mind to on on
29:03
what's that the biggest priority for your company?
29:06
You know, are you going to be doing 90%
29:09
office presentations to groups of ten, 20, 100 people, you know,
29:13
and then try to focus in on that, that type of personality versus
29:18
if this person's going to be boots on the ground just sitting,
29:20
you know, going to coffee with clients and building that relationship and
29:24
kind of picking off clients one by one, that is going to bring
29:28
in a lot of business for your company.
29:29
Then kind of focus in on that, too.
29:32
So there's no right or wrong,
29:33
but there's definitely different approaches on that side
29:36
For sure.
29:37
So let me let me switch gears a little bit.
29:40
Still related to the role of, say, a director of sales
29:43
and marketing in trying to grow your your client acquisition effort.
29:49
What do you do, Steve, as as a leader
29:54
to really serve and
29:55
motivate your your sales staff because, well, let's face it, let's be real.
29:59
Sales can be hard and it can be
30:03
you can grow in it to the point where you can brush a lot of no's off.
30:07
But if you if you're new in sales and you get a lot of initial no's,
30:12
that can be pretty disheartening.
30:14
So you in the leader role, how do you serve,
30:16
you know, day to day, week to week in encouraging and in motivating
30:21
and equipping your sales staff for success?
30:26
Yeah, So, so from my perspective, it's kind of kind of unique.
30:30
So I get to
30:33
kind of going back to your comment when we started off just, you know,
30:36
as a business owner, you're doing everything
30:38
and there's some things that that you despise and there's some things
30:41
that you really enjoy. Well, the sales team is no different.
30:44
You know, there's some things that that they really enjoy
30:47
and there's some things that they kind of despise as well.
30:51
And so in my position, I feel like I'm kind of lucky enough
30:54
that I'm a very analytical and data oriented person.
30:58
And so I can take
31:00
a lot of that off their plate to where I'm getting the data put together.
31:04
I'm putting together processes, I'm looking at analytics to figure out,
31:09
you know, this is working, this is not what are some different things we can do?
31:13
And then I can kind of package that up and present it
31:16
to the sales team to give them all the tools that they need
31:20
so that way they can focus on what they do best and go out there
31:23
and just build those relationships and bring new clients in.
31:27
And those reports are super helpful.
31:29
I know.
31:30
I like to see where am I at right now.
31:32
I like feedback.
31:34
I like, yeah, I like the data too.
31:36
But spending the time of my day to try and put that data together myself
31:41
takes away from my time to be going out, acquiring new business exactly
31:46
like what you just said.
31:46
So I, as a salesperson, I, I definitely appreciate that.
31:50
last year was a good example.
31:51
You know, is it's very easy for a salesperson to get discouraged.
31:56
You know, last year is a little bit of a harder year in 2023
32:00
to where we're seeing this, We're as abundant, you know.
32:03
And so we had to
32:04
kind of pivot on what we were doing and bring new business in and just
32:08
honestly keeping existing business because everybody was kind of
32:12
tightening up the wallet just to save as much money as possible. So,
32:16
you know, from a salesperson's
32:18
perspective and Craig, you and I have even have conversations
32:20
like this, it's easy to kind of get discouraged because you're hearing
32:24
no, no, no, no over and over again.
32:28
But in reality, we can look at the data that's most important to our company.
32:33
And one thing that we always look at is market share.
32:35
You know, out of out of the listings that are hitting the market,
32:38
how many are we getting?
32:39
And so from from your perspective, if you're just looking at the number,
32:45
last year we did X and this year we're 10% lower than that.
32:49
That's really kinda draining, you know, because you're you're thinking like,
32:52
what am I doing?
32:53
And right from my perspective, I can pull all that data together
32:57
and I can package it up and look at like, well, we're actually exceeding
33:01
what we done last year.
33:03
With market share.
33:04
And so what we're doing is working.
33:07
We're just feeling the effects of the market.
33:09
And so I really enjoy being able
33:12
to see that, put that information together and then kind of relay that on to you
33:16
and anybody else on the sales team because I think it just helps you
33:20
as a as a sales person, stay motivated because, you know,
33:25
what I'm doing is not is not hurting the company.
33:28
It's it's helping the company.
33:30
I'm doing a good job and what I'm doing,
33:32
I just need to look at it from a different perspective
33:34
to know that that's the case.
33:37
Yeah,
33:38
those of us that especially I think that are introverts,
33:40
we have a tendency to beat ourselves up mentally pretty easy.
33:45
And yeah, if I didn't, if I didn't have that perspective that you set with
33:48
the market share, yeah, I'd be thinking I am just a complete and utter failure.
33:54
I'm just I've fallen off the wagon.
33:56
You know, it's easy to be that way when you're is, you know,
34:00
because I mean, it is that's your, that's your main number that you're
34:04
typically looking at is number of sales or whatever the metric is.
34:09
So that's less than previous points.
34:12
Then your mind instantly goes as a salesperson.
34:15
It's like, Oh, I'm not doing a good job.
34:17
But if you if you look at take a deeper dive into that and that's what
34:21
that's what I enjoy.
34:22
I gets a I get to because I'm not, you know, with the sales team
34:26
handling the day to day
34:27
and doing the tough part as far as going out
34:30
and having the conversations and everything, I get to have a little bit
34:34
more time to dissect all that data, to know exactly what's happening.
34:38
And then we can see there are some times where something's not working and we pivot
34:42
and there's times where it's like, No, we're doing better than we expected.
34:45
So keep going
34:48
yeah, I'll say I've been in sales roles before and not,
34:51
not that every role has been like this, but I know in a lot of sales
34:55
departments it can just be cold, hard.
34:58
Hey, you're not hitting your numbers. Yeah.
35:00
And you're gone. and there isn't the deeper dive in the empathy
35:04
and really the leadership perspective of I want to help you win
35:09
I've been in that boat myself and in my years of sales,
35:12
you know, I've worked for some Fortune 500 companies that
35:16
that looked at nothing except for one baseless metric
35:21
that really doesn't mean anything at the end of the day.
35:24
For example, I actually worked at in financial before
35:28
and there their metric that they were looking at
35:31
is the number of applications that were coming in through the branches.
35:35
And my metric was the number of actual accounts
35:40
and closed loan opportunities that we were taking.
35:44
And so like me personally, I felt like that was so cold and demotivating
35:48
because at the end of the day, you know, just thinking about it
35:52
in terms of our business, you know, what would I
35:55
would I look at the metrics
35:59
and see Craig had ten conversations, but he didn't get a single sale.
36:04
And that's exactly what we want.
36:05
Or when I look at it and say, Craig had one conversation,
36:09
had one sale, and that's the bigger win out of the two metrics.
36:12
So it is important to look at that.
36:14
And, you know, I do enjoy that, that we are we are looking at that
36:19
as a company.
36:20
We're not we're not focused in on on one metric or one data point.
36:24
That doesn't really mean anything At the end of the day,
36:26
for our bottom line, we're looking at our full picture
36:30
and continuing to adjust as the years change, you know,
36:33
just to make sure that we're looking at the right numbers.
36:36
Right, and keeping our humanity in the process
36:39
where it's not just cold, hard business.
36:41
And that's one thing I've been very public about seeing that I appreciate about Wow
36:46
is the leadership philosophy is our leadership
36:49
cares about us, is, you know, the the day to day out in the trenches.
36:55
And it's just it's not just cold, hard business because
36:59
like Todd and I have preached over and over and over
37:01
about developing relationships with our clients.
37:04
It's got to be the same thing for a business owner or a sales director
37:08
or sales,
37:09
you know, marketing director that you develop relationship
37:12
with the people that you're you're leading.
37:15
I'm doing this
37:16
men's cohort at church, and one of the books
37:19
that we read as part of this cohort was,
37:24
Oh jeez, I just went out on his name.
37:27
Who's the leadership guru?
37:30
- Maxwell - Yes. John Maxwell. Thank you.
37:33
Cheese or Pete did that live on the podcast.
37:36
Anyway, read a John Maxwell book called The Five Levels of Leadership,
37:39
and he dives into that.
37:42
Those you know, those various levels.
37:44
Your first level is it's just leadership by position.
37:49
You're just taking the position
37:51
and trying to motivate people and there's no relationship at all.
37:55
And that does not motivate anybody.
37:57
It doesn't encourage anybody on your team to do better.
38:00
And so growing through those levels
38:02
of leadership and trying to grow your client acquisition,
38:06
you've got to go deeper as a leader in building a good, solid team.
38:10
And Steve, you did something.
38:12
I'm going to brag on you a little bit again.
38:14
So this is something that just touched me.
38:17
It was it was actually just it was a small thing, but it impacted me
38:22
really deep.
38:23
Quite a few months back, you asked me a random question.
38:28
You know, whatever.
38:28
You know what I'm going to say.
38:30
You asked me just kind of out of the blue, Hey, what's your favorite Bible verse?
38:34
Because, you know, faith is important to me.
38:36
And I'm like, Oh, well, it's Ephesians 429 and I listed out.
38:40
You're like, Oh, okay, thanks.
38:42
And like, what's he up to?
38:45
Well, what was that for?
38:47
Because I was just kind of out of the blue question,
38:49
but I kept going, you know, with day to day work and kind of forgot about it.
38:53
So for those of you listening, watching, let's see
38:58
was end of March is is my Wowiversary
39:02
now I forget when it was anyway
39:05
my my two year anniversary of working for for Wow video tours
39:09
came up and Steve in our leadership
39:12
sent me a very very thoughtful gift that showed up in email.
39:15
He said, Hey, keep your eyes open.
39:17
We got something coming for you
39:18
Oh, all right. Thanks.
39:20
So I get this.
39:22
This two year anniversary gift, and it's a coffee mug.
39:24
Okay, Now, those of you listening, watching, you're thinking, okay, great.
39:28
A coffee mug.
39:29
I got 20 coffee mugs.
39:30
All right. It's not the point of the coffee mug.
39:33
It was what was on the coffee mug.
39:35
And it was my favorite verse, Ephesians 429.
39:38
That just touched me deeply.
39:41
So you, as a sales leader, sales director, owner of a of a business,
39:46
those little things that you ask your people that are important
39:50
to them, that you remember and come back to them
39:54
and in gift them something or
39:57
just something small makes a huge impact.
40:00
Know what motivates your team?
40:02
You know talking to them, you know, for the sales side, most of the time
40:08
it's financial, you know, because that's what they're in sales for.
40:11
But they also, you know, so you want to make sure that you're
40:15
taking care of them on that side, of course, and making sure that
40:19
that exists and where they're happy with what they have from the company.
40:22
But, you know, yeah, it's the little things.
40:24
I mean, can make a big difference.
40:26
And I've learned that through my my career, you know, is
40:29
is everybody's different on what's important to them.
40:32
Sure.
40:32
You know, I've had teammates that that they would they would turn down a $100
40:37
bill if they would prefer to be off 15 minutes early at the end of Friday.
40:41
And you know others that, you know, they would actually prefer,
40:46
you know, something personal or or in other cases, you know,
40:49
maybe just even something as simple as a candy bar or something like that.
40:52
So if you ask those questions, know your team, know
40:56
what kind of drives them, know what's important to them personally.
40:59
And that that that helps.
41:01
And even outside of sales that's just good with any team member
41:04
that you bring into your company.
41:05
But it's just it's it's a way to make sure, you know,
41:11
just like what we were talking about with our clients, we humanize it.
41:14
You know, it's just a relationship
41:16
that should be the same internally with anybody you bring on as well.
41:20
It is
41:21
I was, I was just thinking about another book,
41:24
as you were talking about finding different ways
41:26
to motivate different people because we are all motivated
41:29
by different things in this is a well, a pretty well-known book.
41:33
I think it speaks exactly to that,
41:37
that issue of different motivators for different people.
41:39
It's called the five Love Languages.
41:42
Have you have you heard of that one before, Steve?
41:44
- Yes, I have. - Have you read it?
41:47
- I have. - Oh, awesome. Good deal.
41:50
So, yeah, so check out this book called The Five Love Languages,
41:53
and I know it sounds weird because it's it's in the context of,
41:57
you know, a love relationship, marriage basically.
42:00
But the principles still apply in everyday human relationships.
42:05
Some people are motivated by physical touch,
42:08
acts of service, gifts,
42:10
words of encouragement. And
42:14
I'm blanking on the last one.
42:15
Do you remember the last one?
42:17
Put me on the spot.
42:18
I'm trying to think of what it is.
42:19
Yeah,
42:21
well, if you know, if you're watching this,
42:23
leave a comment in the in the comments section.
42:27
Yeah, I'm, I'm going to leave it.
42:28
I'm not going to try and figure it out.
42:29
You tell us, those of you watching what is the fifth love language.
42:33
I know I could Google it
42:34
and find it real quick, but let's get some some interaction going Anyway.
42:38
Those are our primary motivators for people.
42:41
So learn your team.
42:42
Learn what motivates them in the context of trying to grow your business.
42:47
You don't do it to manipulate people.
42:49
You want to truly care about them as human beings
42:51
because they can see through manipulation.
42:54
So you've got to be real about it and be authentic.
42:57
but those are great tools as you're
42:59
trying to grow your business and acquire more clients,
43:03
motivating your sales staff or yourself,
43:07
you know, to get out there and get it.
43:09
To piggyback on what you just said, you know, that's, that's probably going
43:11
to push you out of your comfort zone, to be honest with you.
43:15
And that is for me too.
43:16
Like, I'm not a like words of encouragement are difficult for me.
43:21
You know, it's it's just one of those things,
43:24
not not like I internalize those, but to verbalize them.
43:28
I just historically, I've never done a great job at that.
43:32
So I'm always trying to get better at doing that.
43:34
So you're you're going to get pushed
43:35
out of your comfort zone with some of those categories, too.
43:38
So that's that's not a bad thing.
43:40
You know, the more you get out of your comfort zone, the more you grow.
43:42
So just keep that in mind.
43:44
It's going to be it's
43:45
going to be difficult in some cases, but that's a good thing.
43:49
Yeah.
43:50
And there's two yeah, there's two aspects of of the love languages,
43:54
the love language you receive, what motivates you
43:57
and the one that you're naturally wired to express.
44:01
So like, yeah, like you expressing of encouragement might not come
44:05
natively, but maybe gift giving is, you know, you gave me the gift of that,
44:10
that coffee mug with a verse that meant a lot to me.
44:13
So yeah, you might have a native gift giving the language
44:16
that you speak, but you got to get multilingual.
44:20
And yeah, that can that can be hard.
44:21
- It takes work. It practice. - Absolutely.
44:25
Yeah. Awesome.
44:26
Well, good stuff.
44:27
Our guest, Steve Musser, Director of sales and marketing for Wow Video Tours.
44:31
Steve, I always enjoyed talking with you and thanks for making the time to join us
44:35
this week.
44:36
Yeah, I appreciate it.
44:37
I always enjoy jumping on and taking a deep dive in
44:40
some of our our day to days.
44:43
Yeah, good stuff.
44:44
All right.
44:44
Well, we I think we've talked plenty and if you if you found this
44:50
to be helpful to your business as you think about growing
44:53
and maybe starting a sales team we'd love for you to like this.
44:58
This episode.
44:59
Feel free to share it with others and if you haven't already subscribed,
45:02
make sure you hit that subscribe button so that you can stay up on
45:06
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45:10
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45:12
Always, always awesome
45:14
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45:18
So feel free to leave a comment.
45:20
Share something good that happened with you this week.
45:22
We'd love to hear those those good stories.
45:25
And just remember to take some time this week to be thankful
45:28
for the blessings in your life.
45:29
Makes you take a breath and just have an awesome week.
45:33
Take care.
45:34
Thank you for joining us for the Spiro Podcast,
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managing your real estate photography and videography business.
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This is a production of Spiro and wow video tours.
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You can find out more about Spiro
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is real estate, media, business management software at our Web site.
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Spiro.media.