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What to do When You Lose a Client · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

0:00
Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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Invest in yourself.
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Don't let that bad soundtrack in your mind of
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of not being enough for your clients dominate
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your thought process
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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
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designed to help you manage and and grow your day to day business
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and just give you tools to make things more efficient
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and make things easier for you.
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I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
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Welcome to it.
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Each and every week, co-host and Spiro founder and owner Todd Kivimaki
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Todd it’s good to be back with you this week.
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I was super busy last week.
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I hated missing it.
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Yeah. No, being busy is a great thing.
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You were serving our clients and taking care of them, so.
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But it's great to have you back.
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You all will probably get something valuable out of this today.
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So it's.
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You know, Craig will be supplying that.
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- Yeah. No pressure. - Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We're going to be talking about something.
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It's related to what you talked about last week and that's client acquisition.
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Really.
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This is we're going to be talking more about client retention
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and and so we'll get to that.
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But we always like to give an update on Spiro and Todd.
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There's some big things coming that you told us about in our staff
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meeting this morning.
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Yes. Excited about this.
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So first off, if you are a Spiro user and you do,
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you're not in the page, the Spiro Facebook page
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for spiro users, if you could join that, that would be great.
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That's where we put a lot of our communication out.
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We'd love to hear from you.
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That is called the Spiro Superusers.
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So go ahead and search for that.
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And join that.
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You just you have to input your email that you signed in to Spiro with.
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So we want to make sure we just have Spiro users in there.
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And that is where you can ask questions.
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That's where you can and that can be Spiro and not Spiro related.
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We try to put content in there about what we're doing in our media business.
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And then also you're
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the first to get updates in what's coming around the corner.
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And then we also ask questions as well, like, Hey,
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how would you like this update to go?
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So come be a part of the community, want to build a vibrant community with you all.
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It's so great to interact with you and learn about your businesses
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and get to know you.
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So that is our preferred page in there.
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The Spiro Superusers Facebook page.
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With those updates coming up,
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the biggest one and the most excited one
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exciting one excuse me is the Cubicasa integration.
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So you will be able to integrate your Cubicasa account so that we will
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automatically pull in the floor plans for you, save you some time.
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You have nice options as to what you want to pull
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and you want the ones with the dimensions.
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Do you want the ones without the dimensions?
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And so we're going to streamline that process for you.
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Cubicasa is coming up.
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The second is many of you use some or there's groups of you
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that share the same editor and you don't know it.
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You know, these are these editing companies
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and you try to put an editor into the system
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and that editor already belongs to another system.
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So we are changing that.
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And one editor will be able to be in many Spiro systems.
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This is the same with not only editors but photographers and admin.
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So you can work between multiple systems, which is really cool.
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Coming up,
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there's another update.
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This is for our U.S. clients.
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There's been a huge change in the way that commission is done and can be advertised
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and we are going to give you a place on the property website
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to give your agents a place to advertise that buyer approved commission.
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And they can do that only on or they can choose which
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property website they'd like to go to per rules and regulations.
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We assume they'll only use it on the
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branded page because that's where they're putting the outside of the MLS.
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Typically it's against the rules to advertise buyer commission in the MLS.
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That was the big court case that we all read about and
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but the branded pages is good to go, so we want to bring that feature.
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I was talking to William,
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who's our lead engineer and also a partner in Spiro this morning.
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There is a huge list coming out.
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I'm going to leave it at that
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so we can get to the podcast, but thank you for your feedback.
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It is super valuable to us.
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Feedback can be given to us on our feedback board.
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Once you log in to Spiro in the upper
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right hand corner, there's a little feedback bubble
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hover on there and it says, Click here to go to the board.
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Please use that board.
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That's where we compile it all together
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and where you can vote on other user suggestions.
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And we're working from the top down.
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So if you go in there, you'll see Cubicasa is at the top right now
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and we want to give you guys
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what you all want and we'll work from the most request down.
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Also, one just user tip for that board, then I'll be done.
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I promise.
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Craig You can also see when
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what the development team is working on so you can see if something's in planning.
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You can see some if it's launched, you can see what the feedback is.
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So not only will allow you to suggest what you would like
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to see in Spiro, it will also allow you to see what we're working on.
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And we did that because we heard from you all that you wanted us
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to be more transparent about what we're working on and we want to be that for you.
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We're not here to hide anything.
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And we realized we would go and work.
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We'd go into a cave and work for a long time, like,
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Hey, you guys, what are you working on?
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And so that is all self-service.
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You can see it on there.
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And then I have been doing a weekly update in the Facebook
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group, the Spiro Superuser Group, as a just what we're working on.
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So we want to keep you connected, want to keep you engaged,
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and we appreciate all you and just love building
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this vibrant community of all you Spiro users.
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Yeah, that's a cool feature.
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Maybe other companies have that.
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I don't know, but I've never heard of the company being that transparent and
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and shown what what's in process. So.
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So very cool.
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Yeah, we're we're trying. We're trying.
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Yeah. Good deal. Good deal.
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All right, well, we're just going to dive right into things, Todd.
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We'll try and keep this the chatter to a minimum and get to the meat of the product
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we have.
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Todd and I have not discussed how we're going to introduce this full transparency.
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Again, we're like, What do we talk about this week?
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And I said, Well,
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how about what we're dealing with this week?
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And, you know, in the past we've talked about how to acquire clients.
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Todd talked last week about client acquisition,
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and we all go through the experience of losing clients as well.
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Big, big companies, small companies, you know, everything in between.
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It's impossible to hold on to all of your clients
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for all eternity is just not going to happen.
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And so this week I've gone through an experience
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of what appears to be losing one of my longtime clients
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that up until even just a month ago,
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as far as I knew, based on communication and regular, you know, regular cadence
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of communication, this client was super happy with everything.
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And so at its hard, you can kind of take things personally right, Todd?
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You know, you can.
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You shouldn't, but you can.
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Sometimes it's just business, but
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it can knock you for a loop
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when you think the relationship is good and all of a sudden you lose,
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you lose that relationship, and it happens to the best of us, right?
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So what we wanted to talk about this week is client retention
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and what happens when you do lose a client, What do you do?
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And Todd, you and I were talking off, you know, off air here
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that there's all sorts of opinions on what you should do.
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So we just we thought we'd kind of tackle that topic and and invite your comments.
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If you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment
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with your experiences, what you do when you lose a client.
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Do you go hard after them and try and get them back?
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You just kind of let them go.
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Is there something in between?
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So we're just going to kind of have a candid conversation.
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Todd And you might see some things I haven't thought of
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and I might share something you haven't thought of,
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But yeah, we'll just get the conversation going here.
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So from your experience,
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what is Wow done in the past when when you lose a client
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that you thought you had a good relationship with?
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Yeah, that's a great question. Craig.
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So for the longest time, so remember
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y'all, we've been doing real estate photography for over 20 years now.
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This is our 20th year and for the longest time and we grew,
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we grew quite rapidly in stages
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and then we hit plateaus like every business does in our business.
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You know, I used to think that my business was different than any other business.
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And I thought, well, those metrics or those ideas don't really impact.
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And I was wrong.
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Our business runs just like any other business, and not just
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real estate photography business, but business is business.
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You have a service or a product.
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You need to build relationships with clients.
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You have something unique about you, you have reasons why they use you,
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and along with that, you have competitors and your clients
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will be marketed to by those competitors
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and can switch and can also come back.
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So for the longest time, you know, Craig, I really in
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my mind was like, Oh, I'm not losing any clients. So
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you know it and you know it maybe.
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And I was a little bit conditioned maybe through the first five or
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maybe even ten years of business, but at least five years of business was like,
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if I lost a client, I didn't know about it, which was bad, but
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I didn't lose a client to a competitor because there just simply wasn't other
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a competitor being a company now I maybe just lost it
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because they cut budget or, you know, we went through some hard times.
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You know, think of 2008, 2009, 2010, some really, really difficult times
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for the real estate industry in the housing market.
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So I think the first thing is just if you have realize.
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So Craig shared with us,
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he realize that he lost his name and it happens to be a pretty big name.
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And I think naturally we all hear that.
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And if you hear that and that comes you, it hurts.
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And Craig used the term emotions and and again, I'm going to pull out
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for those you on YouTube I'm going to pull out my my emotion clock here
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and this we I references a lot
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because we're humans and we have these so God gave us these for a reason.
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They're actually really good that we have them.
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We don't always
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use them in the best capacity at times.
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So if you are getting chased by a bear
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and that fight
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or flight instinct kicks in, you need to take off.
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Well, actually not.
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So we just went to the Smoky Mountains and they say like,
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what's the there's a rhyme, sorry tangent
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And they say, Brown lay down.
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So if it's a brown bear, you lay down
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black bear attack and then you try to scare it off.
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And then a white polar bear white.
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Good night. So you got no chances on polar bear.
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That's awesome.
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- I mean, it's not awesome. - right. Yeah.
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So, you know, I reassured my Yeah, I reassured my kids
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and especially my five year old, my girl, Jade.
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I was like, Jade, it's good.
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There's no polar bears around us.
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Like, you're not going to have to worry about that one.
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So all the goodness, how do we how do we get off?
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It gets out once you're not have to worry about that this where good
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so if and so black is attack so if it's a black bear, that fight
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or flight instinct needs a kick in that you're like, okay, I remember the rhyme.
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I'm running after this sucker and I'm hoping to scare it off.
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And that's a good thing that we have that instinct.
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If you're if your client calls or if you're searching Facebook or you had
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you see him on LinkedIn and you see a listing pop up, it happens
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to be what you think is your client and it's not your photos.
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You don't need to run around like you're trying to scare off a brown bear bite.
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You get this sweat, an emotion like that's just
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and so I'm being a little silly, but that might happen.
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That's what we want to do.
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Some of it's it's a different emotion, some of it's anger,
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some of it's sadness, some of it's like self defeat.
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And and those are all things that it's natural.
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And our left brains like to do that
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and tell us it's the end of the world, but it's really not.
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So I would say in these instances where these come up and I can think of
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I know Craig, you know the name in your head
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you shared with me and we went on the podcast,
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But I can think of other names over the years that have come up and I'm like,
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Oh really? That person?
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Like, Yeah, like.
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And they send me the link.
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I'm like, Oh man, that's not our photos.
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And it hurts is like because you thought you had that relationship.
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But a couple of things to somewhat soften the blow.
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One, you have recognized it.
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So whatever you were doing allowed you to see it.
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Maybe you just stumbled upon it over dumb luck,
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but whatever actions you were doing is actually good.
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You're kind of doing some client upkeep at that point, right.
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And I'm so I'm not saying that you should nervously school
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all social media, always checking your clients listings.
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You'll get you'll get paranoid.
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Holy cow.
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You'll forget even what houses you shot. You'll look at those things.
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You'll be like, That's not my photos.
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And like, you'll look it up.
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And Spiro like, Oh, yeah, we did shoot that.
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Yeah,
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Not that I've ever done that before.
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I mean, either.
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Craig So I'm just, I think we get a viewer email
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and it said they did that, so I'm just putting that out for them right? But,
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but I have done that.
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I've looked at our scrum like, wait a minute, that's not our photos.
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Like maybe Jess, change up something with the editing, the editing got better.
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I looked at I'm like wait a minute this not our photos and like, Oh, we did that.
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I'm like, okay, let's it right.
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We're getting better.
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Guess it's a good thing.
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So first, recognize that you have an opportunity now.
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So this is actually a good thing.
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It hurts. It's actually not a bad thing.
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There is client fallout or churn and every industry,
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again, there's these phrases, churn, fall out, there's probably many other phrases.
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But this is part of owning a business.
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And remember, I just want to listen to walk you back in the timeline.
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2 seconds is remember when you had no clients, when you were just starting,
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how much you would have loved to have had the opportunity to actually
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lose a client?
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I know that sounds silly, but
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I remember 20 some years ago when I was trying to get a realtor
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convince a realtor to let me come out
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and take video of their house.
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And I remember the same realtor canceled on me three times.
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I was so hurt
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and like, I just wanted to shoot and like, is even like I called
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my mom and like, people knew I was like,
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I was excited about this thing, this little baby that I was growing.
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It's like. How the shoot goes like. Well they canceled on me again.
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And he said this or he said that reason it's like, Oh,
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so but remember at those points when you would have loved to have a client
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like what I'm
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trying to the point I'm trying to make is that you have move the ball along
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and you have
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gotten to the next stage of business.
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Then now you have a gap in your process
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and you just need to fill it.
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So Craig, with the idea of there's a gap
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now, what are just what is a strategy, what's a technique?
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So you realize this.
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How are you trying to fill in that crack now?
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Well, you know, like you said, different people have different thoughts and ideas.
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And I was talking with Chris, who's our sales manager.
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We have Steve, our VP of sales, and then Chris are our sales manager.
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And Chris is a great mentor and he's like, hey, let's let's talk.
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Let's put together a plan like, fantastic.
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So like I said, this, this client that we've apparently lost,
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we've lost to a brokerage that has an inside marketing department,
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there's can be different situations in how you eventually lose clients.
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It could be a brokerage with an inside
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marketing department that's pushing their own photographers.
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It could be another photographer, you know, a boutique.
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It could be another larger company that's come into your market.
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So there's different ways. And,
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you know, types of businesses that you lose your clients to.
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So in this particular case,
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it's a brokerage that has an inside marketing department.
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And I've always approached things with an incredible attitude of gratitude.
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I am grateful for every client that I get to work with
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and I on a regular cadence, let them know I don't take your business for granted.
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So thank you for another opportunity to shoot for you.
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And I say that to clients that I've been shooting for for three or four years now.
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And this is one of those those clients.
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And like I said at the beginning of the podcast, up until even last month,
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the last communication ahead with this client,
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they were very happy with everything, loved the way I represented
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them, you know, on the shoots to their clients, loved our services.
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So over the course
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of two or three weeks when I noticed listings, we weren't shooting.
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Yeah,
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there's that.
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For me, it was self-defeat. I'm like,
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Where did I fail?
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And in talking with Chris, he's like, Craig, you got to realize this.
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This brokerage, every day their managers are in their realtor's ears
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pounding their inside marketing department, and eventually
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they're going to wear down, you know, So don't take that personally.
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So it's good to have somebody speaking life into you and helping
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you correct your perspective, because my perspective was wrong.
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Right?
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So because I don't take that relationship for granted
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and I've worked with this person for so long,
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I picked up the phone and I made a phone call.
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I wasn’t looking forward to the phone call.
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I didn't want to make the phone call because I hate confrontation.
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Right.
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I hate it and I hate being in to lose.
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What I see is the losing position where I've lost
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and that I feel like I'm groveling, but I try to maintain a good attitude.
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So I picked up the phone.
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I got this person's voicemail
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and just said, Hey, I wanted to check in.
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You know, I like to make sure we're taking good care of you.
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Things I've
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said before, I'm acting like nothing has changed.
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I'm still committed to taking good care of you,
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even though I know I've lost your business.
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I was still committed to taking good care of this.
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This client
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said Congratulations on the listings.
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You've been getting.
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I've been watching your LinkedIn posts and made some fantastic listings.
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Congrats.
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You know, in this market, that's still an accomplishment
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because they're hard to come by.
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So great job.
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I happened to notice as well that these are listings
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that we're not shooting for you all of a sudden.
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And if you're open to it, I'd love to just chat with you,
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get an idea of of anything
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that's changed has been anything you've not been satisfied with.
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I know we had a week of limited availability.
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Is it a scheduling issue?
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Any feedback you have for us?
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I appreciate it so that we can work on and make things better.
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So keeping things positive is what I've done with this client
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because I don't want to come off bitter, angry
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that I've taken this person's business for granted.
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I'm coming at it as, What can we do better?
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Can I get your business back?
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So it's been about a week.
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I haven't heard anything back.
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I'm not going to give up operate check back in another two weeks or so.
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So that's my initial approach to this. Mm.
20:25
Yeah.
20:26
Concurrent with that,
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in talking with Chris, you want to kind of shift
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your focus to those that still value your relationship.
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So I've got other clients in this same brokerage,
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I'm going to double down on taking care of them, right?
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Because I want to retain their business.
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Just make sure that we're doing everything we can.
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And also look at other brokerages
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that enjoy working with us and try to expand business there.
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I know this one particular business is going hard after their realtors
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photography business and they're going to continue
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to cut prices to the point where we can't compete.
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We're not going to race to the bottom.
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TODD Yeah, because we value our work and we think it's worth what we're asking.
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It's a fair price.
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They're using it as a loss leader.
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So exactly,
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if you don't mind, for those
21:19
that maybe are new to sales or business that are just starting the business,
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you want to explain the concept of a loss leader?
21:26
Yeah.
21:26
So this is this is a universal
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universal tool,
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I guess, if you will, to four companies and a loss leader.
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The easiest thing to explain to this is you are familiar with ads
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that say you're going to a grocery store
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and you're familiar with the ads that they run.
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And there are some items in there that they greatly discount
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and they advertise.
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You know, a lot of times think around a holiday, a summer holiday,
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they are almost giving away things like ketchup, hot dogs,
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You know, some of those items that are almost staples of our American Cookout.
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And you see those items and what the loss leader means
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is that they're actually losing money on those really cheap items,
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because if you come in and you buy
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ketchup and hot dogs from them, you're going to buy buns,
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you're going to pick up some hamburgers,
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you're going to get some chips, some potatoes, some beverages.
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And many other things.
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So they've got you into the store.
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And having you in the store is the first point of them upselling you more.
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And in effects that they're going to in the long term
22:42
make more money off of you than what they've lost on the two bottles of ketchup
22:46
and the pack of hot dogs that you picked up and put in your cart.
22:50
So a loss leader is as an as an offer where a company is going to lose money
22:55
and efforts to make more money on you because you are either in their store
22:59
have tried their services.
23:01
This is the same idea that many of you out there,
23:03
if you're offering a free shoot to new clients, this is the same idea.
23:07
So you all are doing it to or a discount, whatever it may be.
23:12
But this brokerage in particular
23:15
is looking at their top. their clients from a
23:20
a volume level top down.
23:22
And this is a big agent.
23:24
And to have an agent that's not aligned with the company and what they want,
23:30
they see it as a problem, but they're like, Hey,
23:32
we need to go get this agent,
23:34
because if we get this agent, they might not ever make any money off of her.
23:38
But the image of it.
23:41
On those photos.
23:42
On those photos, yeah, on those photos.
23:44
They might not ever make any money on her photos.
23:47
Now they're making money when she sells houses and list houses.
23:51
But just the image alone of the agency, the brokerage, having that top
23:58
agent use and be aligned is worth it for them to lose money on the photos.
24:03
this is a very standard practice
24:05
for real estate brokers and owners.
24:09
So you all know and you're familiar if you've been in the real estate
24:12
industry, that it's very common for agents to switch brokerages.
24:16
It's a very competitive market and it's kind of a cutthroat market,
24:21
nothing against it. It's just a very competitive market.
24:23
You want you want the high producers at your company.
24:27
It's very common for a broker to try to get one company to try to go
24:32
after a top tier agent and offer them
24:35
dirt cheap commission to write them.
24:38
I've heard huge checks of money $20,000
24:41
$40,000 that, that owners of companies are writing these
24:45
these high end, these top producing agents to come into their company
24:49
because they know just having them in there is going to attract more.
24:54
You know, quite honestly, I mean this
24:56
I don't mean this in a negative way, but even from just an ego standpoint, like,
25:00
I kind of know the owner of this company and and I know the owner of this company
25:04
because he visited me, he drove down to see me at our office and
25:10
trying to appear as though he was going to create a partnership with us,
25:15
thus just trying to steal as much information as possible.
25:17
I know that sounds negative.
25:18
I typically don't go negative. I found that out.
25:20
I found that to be true.
25:22
Partnership never happened.
25:23
He launched his brand inside the company.
25:26
And so I just know that this is the way that this and nothing against him.
25:30
He didn't do anything illegal.
25:31
I was I welcomed him into our office and I gave him some information.
25:35
I was I was close with some others because I kind of knew what was going on.
25:39
I could sense it a little bit.
25:41
So I I'm not offended by it.
25:43
I'm really not.
25:44
And I think that's
25:45
what you have to take out as a business owner is don't be offended by anything
25:49
I do. Coach one time is like, why are you offended by that?
25:51
Why should be?
25:52
It's like you should not be offended by anything.
25:56
What this company is doing is fair game.
25:59
I understand.
26:00
I probably would want her to use our in-house
26:03
company too, if I own that company if I was the broker of that company.
26:07
Yeah. So they are all fair.
26:09
I was all fair.
26:11
How would it be nice if they just forgot about her?
26:13
It would be nice, but come on.
26:14
Like this is this business and this is, you know, this is the world in 2024,
26:21
But let's
26:22
fall back on the idea of relationships and communication.
26:25
So.
26:26
So for the time being,
26:30
we've. We've lost this client.
26:32
It appears
26:34
I'm still going to try and maintain the relationship,
26:37
stay in touch with this client because I also know
26:40
that I have other agents in this brokerage that have complaints about their inside
26:45
marketing department and value the work that we do for them
26:50
and the consistency that we provide for them and the way we represent them.
26:54
When we're on on the appointment, I've I've literally had agents
26:58
specify those things to me and that's why they won't use their
27:01
their own inside department.
27:04
So I'm going to continue to provide the best service I can
27:08
Stay in communication with this client, even if it's one way,
27:11
because there may come a day where this, you know, this
27:14
this particular realtor is not satisfied with the service that they're getting
27:18
with their own inside department, you know, by not burning a bridge.
27:22
And in fact, building on that bridge
27:25
may earn that business back.
27:27
So you got to keep that that positive,
27:31
optimistic outlook.
27:32
And it can be hard to do
27:34
because if you're anything like me, you get stuck in your own bad soundtrack.
27:38
Todd We've talked about soundtracks.
27:40
Jon Acuff come from that that podcast.
27:42
I picked that book back up and started reading it this week as I good.
27:45
I was starting to slip into some
27:47
really negative soundtracks and I was getting down
27:50
and I realized I need to talk about this because the more I let that inner dialog
27:54
run in my mind
27:55
and I don't share that with anyone else, I just start to spiral down and down
28:00
and that's, that's death when it comes to business, right?
28:03
But as so, sure,
28:06
I know this all feels touchy feely
28:09
or we're not into that necessarily, but there's some practical things
28:12
of talking out your frustrations with others and getting other perspectives
28:17
and some some positivity and some optimism, optimism spoken in your life.
28:21
So share those struggles with other, you know, other business leaders
28:25
that you have relationships with.
28:26
Talk about the challenges of business, find a business mentor, communicate.
28:31
You know, Todd We did two episodes on critical communication.
28:35
And funny enough, I don't think I mentioned this book.
28:37
Maybe I did, but I'm reading a book right now from John Maxwell.
28:41
It's called The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication.
28:45
And I've been I've been peppering Todd on on email
28:48
and in Slack with various quotes.
28:51
- Sorry, if I’m bugging with you. - It’s been great. They've been great.
28:56
But invest in yourself.
28:58
Don't let that bad soundtrack in your mind of
29:00
of not being enough for your clients dominate
29:04
your thought process so long answer to a short question, Todd.
29:09
I'm maintaining the relationship the best I can
29:12
on my side, even if there's not reciprocation.
29:15
And I'm also getting them start ramping up my effort
29:19
to get new business from other brokerages that I have good relationships with.
29:25
And just
29:27
pick up that phone call.
29:28
And even just one positive response on a phone call can really fire you up,
29:32
then start again, get, you know, getting your feet
29:36
under you again and pick back up and keep moving.
29:40
Yeah, that's that's just such great advice.
29:42
Craig. And I think the thing is, is that
29:47
I so if you're out there and saying, well my situation is different,
29:51
it's just me, I, you know, and there's many other different reasons
29:55
and I understand where you're at because I was where you were at.
29:59
Craig was where you were at.
30:01
Craig on Craig on his own business.
30:03
He started from nothing.
30:05
I started Wow with,
30:07
you know, just from an idea and we understand where you are at.
30:11
I think the important thing
30:12
and just a huge piece of advice that Craig gave is that you just need
30:16
don't play that soundtrack, that of negativity
30:20
over and over again, because what that does is that
30:24
has you lose confidence
30:27
and it tells your brain that just because one client
30:32
had this type
30:35
of interaction or one client left, that every client is going to leave.
30:39
No clients like my photographs, it's because I don't offer this.
30:43
Nobody's ever going to use my services.
30:45
And then you have essentially,
30:48
Dug, this hole of negativity that's not even true.
30:53
I talked with I talked with a Spiro user.
30:55
This is a month or two ago and there was true
31:00
what's true versus your own troops.
31:03
And this user was sharing some things about his business
31:06
and he was just getting going.
31:08
He had a few clients and he had some truth in his head that were not true.
31:14
And I just
31:15
simply asked him, said, is that true?
31:19
And it just
31:21
it just caused him to pause for a second and actually question that
31:27
because think about it, our brains, if it runs through our brains
31:31
and we allow it to keep running through our brains,
31:34
that becomes truth in our brains.
31:38
And that might not actually be the case.
31:41
You might that actually might be a lie.
31:43
And many of the times it is a lie in your own brain.
31:48
I'm not a book.
31:49
I mean, all these books are popping in my mind.
31:52
You just talked about, you know, speaking a truth
31:55
yourself isn't a truth, but it becomes a truth.
31:59
There is a neuroscientist.
32:01
Her name is Dr. Carolyn Leaf.
32:03
Have you ever heard of her?
32:05
I don't know that I have
32:06
Dr. Carolyn Leaf.
32:08
She is a Christian, but she's also a neuroscientist.
32:12
So she's written a couple of books about just about neuroscience and
32:18
how neural pathways
32:19
develop based on your thoughts.
32:23
And you've heard the term
32:26
positive affirmations, right? Hmm.
32:29
I was just listing a podcast from Jon Acuff, and he was talking
32:31
about positive affirmations, and he said, I know it sounds,
32:34
you know, fuzzy, warm, blah, blah, blah, and, you know,
32:39
just the weird psychological stuff, but there's truth to it.
32:42
And when he was talking about positive affirmations,
32:44
I thought of her work on neuropathway development
32:47
and the power of thought to develop those neural pathways
32:52
and actually hardwired your brain to think a certain way.
32:58
I don't remember the book of it.
32:59
I'll put it in the in the show notes on YouTube and on Podbean
33:04
on our audio podcast so that you can find these books.
33:08
We're not getting any sort of commission on any books.
33:10
We suggest, by the way, that none of this is sponsored.
33:13
It's just helpful resources that Todd and I have found
33:17
to keep ourselves moving in a positive, positive mindset.
33:21
but like the rest of us, I've been in a funk.
33:24
I told Chris and Steve I've been in a funk kind of in the last two months.
33:29
But I'm finding as I talk about it and as I kind of flip
33:33
a switch and start, you know, reading more resources again
33:37
and start thinking on the positives, that helps flip that switch back.
33:41
So dealing with everything I did with losing this VIP, I had another client
33:46
that just sold a huge property that we did photos and video and drone for,
33:51
and she posted how, you know, it's the deal is closed.
33:54
I keep up with a lot of my clients on social media and so I just put
33:58
hey congrats you know so and so just so they know I'm watching
34:03
I'm celebrating with them their wins because we were part of that win right?
34:06
We helped to market that house.
34:08
And so I put congrats.
34:11
And this client said you're a big help with your outstanding photography.
34:14
And I replied, Hey, we're honored to be a part of your marketing team.
34:18
Embed yourself in that client's marketing team.
34:21
You're part of their team.
34:22
Yes, you're a subcontractor, but work it into their minds.
34:25
Hey, I'm part of your team.
34:27
I'm part of your real estate team.
34:29
I'm helping you sell these houses.
34:31
And I said, Thank you for the opportunity again.
34:33
This is someone I've shot for for a number of years now.
34:36
I thank her for every opportunity because you can't take that stuff for granted.
34:40
Business is business.
34:41
I may lose her someday, but I'm going to keep it positive.
34:44
And and she responded, We're lucky to have you.
34:47
So yeah, concentrate on the wins that you you do still have.
34:52
It's not the end of the world.
34:53
If you lose one client,
34:54
you have other clients that are raving fans of your work. Mm.
34:59
Yeah.
35:00
Well said, Craig, Focus on the positivity.
35:03
Bad things are just part of life. They're going to happen.
35:06
Honestly, Like if the worst thing to have the day you lost a client
35:10
that it's actually not a bad thing.
35:11
It's a good opportunity.
35:13
So and again, you're just saying hey Todd, that's mental, same thing.
35:15
But I would much rather see the glass half full
35:18
than half empty because it's a lot easier to push yourself through.
35:22
And there are sometimes, let's be honest, this is for me.
35:25
This is for me too.
35:26
And I've done this 20 years
35:28
and there's some days I just need
35:31
like that positivity to push me through is like, man, I feel like I'm on empty.
35:35
I run really hard and like, I've taken a few shots
35:39
and after you take a few shots on your own,
35:41
especially if you're on your own, I mean, we have the luxury,
35:44
like Craig has a Chris and a Steve to go to.
35:47
And I have you know, we have this team that we can pull together, right?
35:52
I lean and we all lean on each other a lot.
35:54
And you're saying, hey, it's just me.
35:58
And so find someone,
36:01
you know, join us.
36:01
And this is me pitching that Spiro Superuser group again.
36:04
But Spiro, join the group we're in there.
36:08
Yeah private message me email us.
36:11
hello@spiro.media we actually do reply and we're here for you.
36:16
We love to hear your stories. We love to hear your wins,
36:18
but we also want to help you in those valleys, too.
36:21
And we just, you know, we'll always be the positive light
36:24
We’ll shed some truth when we need to.
36:27
And you know, you are doing something that's not easy, okay?
36:32
You know, it is not easy to own and run your own business.
36:36
So congratulate yourself on that.
36:39
And then just do you sometimes you have to do some hard things, pick
36:42
up, push on, make the call as to,
36:45
you know, ask the hard question.
36:47
It's not easy.
36:48
I remember making those calls.
36:50
I remember making the calls so many times I'd call and I'd hang up.
36:54
You know, like, okay, I'm going to do it.
36:56
I'm going to do it.
36:57
Okay, What do I say? I did kind of write it down.
36:59
I call and then I'd hang up.
37:01
Oh, I'm not going, oh, oh, I got to email or the dogs barking.
37:05
I go do something, I'd be sidetracked.
37:07
You know, it's easy to make excuses for yourself.
37:11
You know, when I was talking with Chris, let me springboard off that.
37:16
I did kind of make an excuse.
37:18
You know, we talked to in was a two weeks ago.
37:21
We we talked about the hybrid role
37:24
of a photographer and business development specialist.
37:26
So that's my role at Wow video.
37:29
So this is busy season, right?
37:30
I'm busy shooting and it's hard to make phone calls when you're busy shooting
37:34
and Chris is like, you know, take a call or two in between shoots
37:37
when you have an extra 20 minutes because I have gaps in my schedule
37:42
and I've said
37:42
I have trouble shifting gears from photographer mindset to,
37:46
you know, to sales mindset.
37:48
And so I have I know I haven't made as many calls as I should
37:51
and could be making.
37:52
I own that, you know I'm not going to shirk from.
37:55
I know I'm lacking in that.
37:58
And I said I just need to get my, you know, get it get into that mindset
38:02
of making that call.
38:03
And Chris called me out on that and I've never thought about it this way.
38:05
He said, Craig, don't don't get yourself into a mindset to make a phone call.
38:10
Just pick up the phone and call.
38:12
Yeah, And yeah, you might have, you know,
38:14
three voicemails and or a negative, but
38:19
you're going to get a positive response
38:22
that's going to give you that hit a dopamine that you need
38:25
that makes you feel good and that will that will start the cycle of feeling good.
38:30
So I've started again on that this week.
38:33
let me give you a practical example
38:35
Okay.
38:37
And I was excited yesterday when this happened.
38:39
So I shot a house that it was a condo
38:44
in one of the nicer areas of of Toledo,
38:48
which is the market I work and it was a dated
38:51
I dated condo but we shot photos, we shot video, we shot drone for it.
38:56
And I happened to notice that the unit right next door was also for sale.
39:01
I'm like, Oh, well, this is a competitive situation
39:04
between two different realtors and brokerages.
39:06
And it was a brokerage that I shoot for a couple of agents there,
39:10
but I didn't recognize this name.
39:11
So I took I haven't done this in a while and shame on me.
39:14
I took a picture of the For Sale sign and made a note of the address
39:18
so I could follow up on it later
39:20
because I'm going to I'm going to follow up on what Chris suggested.
39:22
Right. I'm going to make a phone call no matter how I feel.
39:26
So I get home, I get my
39:28
uploading to our editing team, done and I'm like, okay, I need I need it now.
39:32
Work on some business development. Oh, yeah.
39:34
I took a couple of realtor signed photos today.
39:38
I'm going to call this agent and I looked at the property up first
39:42
saw on Zillow that's been on the market for 163 days.
39:46
Okay,
39:47
That's a long one.
39:48
Wow. That's.
39:48
That's long.
39:49
Yes. It was a higher priced listing.
39:52
I looked at the photos.
39:53
I'm like, oh,
39:55
these photos.
39:58
This agent needs some help.
40:00
It's been on the market a long time.
40:02
It's a higher listing or higher priced listing.
40:06
I'll bet you
40:07
those sellers get a little frustrated with a seller or with this this agent.
40:12
I'm going to make a phone call
40:13
and offer to help and just be real honest.
40:17
Hey, I shot the listing right next door.
40:20
So I called this agent, introduced myself and said who?
40:23
I shoot for it at his brokerage and said, Do you have a minute to talk real quick?
40:28
Because I just shot photos for the unit
40:30
right next door to your listing on this room.
40:32
And he's like, Oh, yeah, yeah.
40:35
They said, How is that listing going?
40:37
You know, how's the activity on it? So I didn't even start with photos.
40:40
I just asked from his perspective, he's a realtor.
40:43
How's the activity?
40:45
I already know the answer to the question.
40:46
I see. It's been on for 163 days.
40:49
Oh, Craig. Yes.
40:51
So there's some practical, practical things to do here.
40:54
He's like, Yeah, you know, it's been slow.
40:57
It's a dated, it's a dated listing.
40:59
And I'm thinking, Yup, I know I've seen your photos
41:02
and you know that the listing price is pretty high,
41:06
but we're hoping with the unit next door going on because it's already at
41:09
it was already active when I called him
41:11
and it went active real quick after I shot the photos, he said,
41:14
We're hoping to get some foot traffic and I think, well,
41:17
you might get some foot traffic, but it's still
41:19
you're still going to be dealing with dated and a high price.
41:23
I said, I just want to pitch an idea.
41:25
There's zero pressure here.
41:27
But I wanted to reach out because I saw you know, I did see the listing
41:31
and it looks like the couple I might be mixing this up
41:35
with another listing, but I think this was the situation.
41:38
Some of the photos were I could tell we're taking a different seasons.
41:41
Okay, I said, Let me pitch an idea.
41:45
The first take a look at the work that we've done for the unit next to yours,
41:50
if you like what you see,
41:53
can we refresh the photos for you?
41:56
And the other thing that we specialize in is walkthrough video,
41:59
tours, everything online is driven by video,
42:03
and I notice that you don't have any sort of video tour.
42:06
Now, we do have discounted pricing for your brokerage and he's like,
42:10
Yeah, can you send me your pricing?
42:11
I'm open to looking at this.
42:14
So a cold call out of the blue now.
42:17
It was a good situation.
42:18
I happen to be shooting competition right next door to his,
42:21
but it led to a positive response and he just
42:25
I just had to make up pick up the phone and get past the mindset.
42:29
Get past how I felt
42:31
look for opportunities.
42:34
And I kept it positive.
42:35
Hey, I want to help you sell this house.
42:37
And he responded positively, even asked him to coffee.
42:40
He's like, Yeah, shoot me some dates.
42:42
So I haven't gotten a response on that yet.
42:43
But that's that's all you have to do.
42:46
Just look for the opportunities.
42:47
Believe that you have ability, you have good motivation.
42:52
You want to help these realtors sell more houses
42:56
and just take that positive attitude with you.
42:59
Yeah, that's such a great and again, a glass half full type of mentality
43:04
as to where if you show up and you see that sign next door like that,
43:08
that by then my photos are terrible, I lost that other agent.
43:12
I'm going to be out of business on the streets pretty soon.
43:16
You know, if if you take that mentality,
43:18
then you're not going to understand and recognize those opportunities.
43:23
And again, let's just go back to Sales 101 and then we'll wrap here, Craig.
43:26
But we're all putting potential clients into what's called a sales funnel.
43:32
Okay? The funnel.
43:33
And if you only know what a sales funnel looks like, what does a funnel look like?
43:36
That you put liquid into either your cooking or in your car or somewhere else.
43:41
A funnel starts really, really wide at the top
43:44
and gets really, really small at the bottom.
43:47
So you have to put a lot of people in
43:50
to actually get enough to drop down to the bottom.
43:54
So there's going to be far fewer at the bottom that than at the top.
43:58
So you have to give yourself the opportunity
44:01
to put people into your funnel.
44:03
And then along the way,
44:04
you have to make sure you can't only be focused
44:07
and maybe we can cover this in a future podcast,
44:08
but you can't only be focused on putting people on your funnel
44:11
because you might have some holes in your bucket.
44:14
And if you put a lot of people in your funnel
44:17
a little is going to come out,
44:18
but then they're going to sit in your bucket of clients.
44:21
If you have holes in your bucket, you're just losing them out of the bucket.
44:25
So. Right.
44:25
And that's kind of what we talked about today and their strategy involved in that.
44:28
But this is all part of owning a business.
44:31
This is all part of working with clients.
44:33
We're in a service industry
44:35
and it is our industry is becoming more competitive again.
44:38
20 years ago I didn't have a competitor.
44:40
Ten years ago, I really didn't have a lot of competitors.
44:43
Okay?
44:43
We all have competitors in our markets
44:46
and outside of another photographer,
44:49
whether it be a national competitor,
44:52
a niche photographer, a local competitor,
44:55
all of our agents have cameras in their pockets
44:59
and they get marketing about how fabulous their newest iPhone or Android device is.
45:04
So there's a lot of noise in the world in 2024 just continue
45:08
to serve your clients,
45:09
go back and read, listen to the script that Craig just did on his phone call
45:14
and I would just challenge you to call try to call five agents this week.
45:18
There's five days in this week.
45:20
Pick one agent a week and do it in between a shoot.
45:23
Don't don't think that you have to get yourself psyched up to make a phone call.
45:27
Just make a phone call.
45:29
Keep it super simple.
45:31
You know, it could be as simple as, Hey, I was just thinking about you.
45:35
You could call.
45:36
I'm just thinking about you.
45:37
I remember when we shot that house, yadda, yadda, yadda.
45:41
How is your summer going?
45:44
Just like Craig said in his script, he asked questions
45:47
about how the agent was and what the agent was doing.
45:52
Because you show care about the agent and not, Hey, do you want to buy some photos?
45:56
Nobody. Nobody's going to say yes to that.
45:59
So show care for your agents again.
46:01
Go back and listen that. Go back all 2 minutes.
46:03
relisten that because that was goal. Craig Very nice.
46:05
A Great script there and just re-use that thing.
46:08
It works.
46:10
Make it make it your own words like I didn't write that out.
46:13
I just I thought about the process. How
46:17
how am I going to talk to somebody I've never talked to?
46:20
Well, let's talk business.
46:22
All right.
46:22
His his job is to help sell this client's house.
46:25
So I want to ingrain myself into his team.
46:30
And how can I help you sell this house? Because that's his primary concern.
46:32
He doesn't care if he has good photos or not.
46:34
Ultimately, he needs good photos to help sell the house,
46:38
but attack the core concern that that he has or she has in a house.
46:44
The sale of the house going,
46:46
Yeah, okay, let me help you brainstorm some ideas on how we can maybe sell this
46:49
and get this moving.
46:50
Yeah, it might be a price issue.
46:52
It might not be a visual marketing issue.
46:53
Might just be a price issue, you know, But talking through that, they understand,
46:58
okay, this isn't just a photographer looking to take some pictures.
47:02
This is actually a marketing professional
47:03
that wants to help me grow my listing business
47:05
and understands me too, because you knew the questions to ask.
47:10
You know, the agent is focused on the outcome.
47:13
They don't care about the features.
47:15
They don't about that.
47:16
You do HDR, their ham blender use flash.
47:19
They don't care about any of that. Those are features.
47:21
Benefits are what they care about and the benefit of that
47:25
is, hey, let's help them get this over the finish line
47:29
There we go.
47:31
All right.
47:31
Well I'm going to put the three book suggestions in the notes
47:35
in case you want to read, you can do audio books as well.
47:38
Todd, you're a big proponent of audio.
47:40
I am, yes.
47:41
I like audio books.
47:42
I just, you know, in the car, it's easy for me.
47:45
Right? Right.
47:46
So I'll put that in there.
47:47
But share your thoughts.
47:49
Leave a comment, drop us an email.
47:51
hello@spiro.media.
47:53
Just what do you do when you lose a client?
47:55
Share. Share your process.
47:57
We'd love to hear your ideas on that as well.
47:59
And as always, if you have a business type question that you'd like to see this
48:03
podcast address. if Todd and I don't know the answer, which a lot of times we don't.
48:09
We will try and find someone that does and just add value
48:12
to you and your real estate visual marketing business.
48:16
So again, the email hello@spiro.media.
48:20
You can also leave comments on the YouTube channel.
48:22
And if you'd like to find out more about,
48:24
I'll make sure you visit the website again.
48:27
Just spiro.media.
48:29
Yeah, and one more thing I just thought of Craig
48:31
I should have mentioned at the beginning,
48:33
so we are going to start doing so.
48:35
If once you're Spiro member or you are using Spiro
48:40
join the Spiro Superuser Group.
48:43
Inside of that group we are going to do
48:46
twice a month Tech calls, tech calls with me.
48:49
So the first and the third Thursday coming up in September
48:53
where we're going to do it on a Facebook live on that page.
48:57
I'm going to be in there, answer any of your tech questions.
48:59
But also I'm sure we're going to go into other business related questions, too.
49:03
So just an avenue for you guys to come in to feel like you have
49:08
support, to have access straight to me, and we'll see where it takes it.
49:12
But I'm excited about continuing to engage with you all on that page
49:16
and in that community and just want to continue
49:18
to bring value to you and to your business.
49:23
Excellent.
49:23
Awesome.
49:25
We'll put the details again in the notes on that.
49:28
All right.
49:29
Well, if you don't have anything else Todd
49:30
that's going to wrap things up this week.
49:32
No. Thanks for all the insight, Craig.
49:34
Really, really good insight.
49:36
Scripts and gold in there for us today.
49:38
So thank you.
49:39
Yeah. You're not going to win them all.
49:40
I don't win them all Todd, doesn't win them all.
49:42
So what do we do when we don't win?
49:44
We find other opportunities to win.
49:46
All right, Keep it positive. Guys.
49:48
Thanks for watching.
49:49
Thanks for listening. We appreciate you guys.
49:51
We know that your time is valuable.
49:53
So thank you for trusting us with your time
49:56
again.
49:56
Drop us a line.
49:57
hello@spiro.media and just take some time.
50:01
Be thankful for the blessings in your life and make sure you take the time
50:04
to breathe.
50:05
Have a great week.
50:06
Thank you for joining us for the Spiro Podcast, managing
50:10
your real estate photography and videography business.
50:13
This is a production of Spyro and Wow video tours.
50:17
You can find out more about Spiro
50:19
Real Estate Media business Management software at our Web site.
50:23
spiro.media