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If You Had to Start Over... · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

• 0:00
  Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
• 0:04
  So there's things that you can do to be financially responsible,
• 0:08
  but the idea of trying to
• 0:12
  put a crimp in your business
• 0:15
  by not having something that your business really needs to grow,
• 0:20
  can be a reason why you don't succeed.
• 0:35
  Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
• 0:37
  managing your real estate, photography and videography business.
• 0:41
  Spiro is a software platform is designed to help you manage your day to day
• 0:45
  real estate media business,
• 0:47
  help it to be successful and help it to grow ultimately.
• 0:50
  I'm Craig Magrum. Welcome back to another week.
• 0:52
  If this is, a return visit for you,
• 0:56
  if you're a first time listener or watcher, watcher viewer.
• 0:59
  How about viewer? Viewer is a better word.
• 1:01
  We welcome you.
• 1:03
  We're kind of laid back here on this video podcast.
• 1:06
  We just like to have some fun talk business.
• 1:08
  And, we're,
• 1:10
  you know, we're just a couple of guys in the cornfields of northwest Ohio.
• 1:13
  Speaking of a couple of guys, my partner in crime, our fearless
• 1:16
  leader, Spiro founder and owner, Todd Kivimaki
• 1:20
  Welcome back, Todd,
• 1:22
  it's great to be here.
• 1:23
  It's quite an introduction.
• 1:24
  I'm not that important, y'all, but,
• 1:27
  what it is,
• 1:30
  I'll come up with a longer list of titles for you next week.
• 1:32
  Chief corn shocker.
• 1:35
  All right.
• 1:36
  But it's great to be here with you guys.
• 1:39
  This is, Yeah, I know that was not sure what to do.
• 1:42
  Craig. Just jumping in the more just nonsense.
• 1:45
  Have you seen the series the House of David?
• 1:49
  I've watched the first, I think, two episodes.
• 1:53
  But I have not gone beyond that.
• 1:56
  Okay, so the the chosen,
• 1:59
  the chosen.
• 2:00
  Yeah. That I got into.
• 2:02
  Yeah. So chosen is great.
• 2:03
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:04
  So my wife and I, I've been watching the House of David.
• 2:07
  So. Okay.
• 2:10
  So for those of you that this is the biblical series,
• 2:12
  David and Goliath, that David. Okay.
• 2:16
  And it's an incredible story. Like. And
• 2:20
  like the House of
• 2:21
  David, the production is is not all biblical.
• 2:24
  There's some interpretation in there.
• 2:27
  But you're like, it just is a really neat way to look at.
• 2:30
  It's a big graphic, honestly.
• 2:32
  I mean, it was kind of a gory time back then.
• 2:35
  But anyways, long story short, Craig, I, I had a dream two nights ago
• 2:40
  that I was literally roaming through the wilderness
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  like, and I was in like, I honestly like we had watched
• 2:46
  like 2 or 3 episodes when I had, we were like, binged it one night
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  and I don't ever remember a dream, but literally,
• 2:52
  like I was sleeping in and, you know, in the dirt.
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  And we were, we were like, running.
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  I don't remember, David, but it's just like.
• 3:00
  Like I woke up and I was like, oh, no, we're like, we're on the run from Saul.
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  Anyways, long story short, I, I remember that story.
• 3:07
  I remember that dream.
• 3:08
  So if y'all are looking at yeah, House of David, it's on him.
• 3:11
  Okay.
• 3:13
  I was curious if this was tying into our episode.
• 3:15
  No, it's not,
• 3:16
  I just, I, I thought I'd share if you are looking for something to watch.
• 3:20
  Chosen is fabulous as well.
• 3:21
  But anyways, that's my tangent for today.
• 3:23
  I mean, I have I have a reminder to dream in like ten years and like it was,
• 3:28
  you know, that's.
• 3:29
  But my wife Gail and I, we've talked about that.
• 3:31
  Are we?
• 3:32
  It feels like we hardly ever dream.
• 3:33
  But I hear everybody dreams.
• 3:37
  It's just whether you remember the dream or not and what state
• 3:40
  or stage of sleep you're in when you wake up.
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  Influences whether you're able to remember the dream or not.
• 3:48
  Yeah.
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  I mean, it wasn't a very glamorous spot.
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  Like, maybe I could have woken up when he was like the king.
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  Or maybe when he swung the rock at Goliath.
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  But, I mean, I was sleeping in the dirt.
• 3:57
  Yeah. I was like, oh, crap, I gotta go. Yeah. I was like, I gotta go.
• 3:59
  And we were off to the next spot.
• 4:01
  So were you late for work that morning?
• 4:04
  Maybe I can't remember.
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  Yeah. Anyway.
• 4:07
  Okay. Well welcome back guys.
• 4:10
  We we've got kind of a different,
• 4:13
  a different episode today.
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  That should be kind of fun.
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  It's going to be kind of freeform,
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  open discussion.
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  It's going to get me thinking, Tod, because the question is a good one.
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  And, what I would do today is would
• 4:30
  might be different than what I did when I first started my business.
• 4:33
  There's a little teaser for you.
• 4:34
  But before we dive into all of that, let's, let's talk about Spiro updates.
• 4:40
  What's going on with the software?
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  It's going to be real quick.
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  I wrote all of my notes down here.
• 4:45
  Just stay with me for 60 more seconds.
• 4:47
  I'm going to give you a lot of information, more than just updates.
• 4:51
  So updates were probably the end of September is what the update looks like.
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  The big one is Titus.
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  If you don't know what it is, go search him.
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  They are a Payette closing
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  option for agents.
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  It's going to be fabulous.
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  Love these guys.
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  Great team Nick and the team.
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  Also.
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  The thing they're going to do
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  is they're going to revamp and offer credit card processing.
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  So you'll sign up.
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  Not only will your agents be able
• 5:16
  to finance your media, which means they spend more
• 5:19
  and they pay it close,
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  but then you'll be able to accept credit cards as well when they don't finance it.
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  And we're going to save you money on the right.
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  There's some other goodies as well.
• 5:28
  Oh, now some.
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  As we get closer to it.
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  There are some cool things coming with that integration one of them mentioned.
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  So it's that last week at the very end of the podcast and you guys caught it.
• 5:38
  So thank you for listening to me.
• 5:41
  Spiro sync it's our event.
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  We're going to do it in January in Ohio January 22nd, 23rd.
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  You'll fly into Dayton, Ohio. Okay.
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  This is an hour and a half from our cornfield.
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  But pencil if you're interested, send me a note.
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  Pink bubble chat. Hello@spiro.media.
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  Pencil it down if you're interested.
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  You're not going to want to miss it. Spiro.
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  Team's going to be there. My Wow team is going to be in there.
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  This is going to be a fabulous event not only for you, but this is a
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  great thing to bring your head admin to bring some of your team.
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  We're going to train and and just coach
• 6:15
  to all different aspects of your company.
• 6:19
  Okay.
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  January 22nd 23rd 2026
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  last Vegas conference to REPP conference November 7th and 8th.
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  Put it down. Tickets are going fast.
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  They sold out the MVP.
• 6:31
  You should be there.
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  Come visit us.
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  So I heard from a little birdie today that,
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  I don't know if I should even say it now.
• 6:39
  Probably not.
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  I think Craig, or you might be there.
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  you're the boss.
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  I'll be there if you tell me to be there.
• 6:51
  I'll be there.
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  Although you told me to talk to my wife.
• 6:54
  Yeah, you got to talk to your wife.
• 6:55
  Okay, so if you're listening to this, just forget it.
• 6:57
  But Craig might be there.
• 6:58
  Come meet us. Come hang out like it's a time.
• 7:01
  So, Craig,
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  I remember a few years ago when you and I went
• 7:03
  to the first conference and we went to PMRE.
• 7:06
  That's another great option for you.
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  I didn't mention that search PMRE conference.
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  And the
• 7:11
  first year we went is about like, what is this thing is overwhelming.
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  We're intimidating like Spiro was.
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  Nobody knew anything about it.
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  No. Had no clue who we were.
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  But it was just incredible time to connect people who are like us
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  that drive around with your wife and family.
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  Like I shot that house.
• 7:28
  Oh, this one, that house wasn't ready.
• 7:30
  So come connect with us. Find an event.
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  Come to all of them.
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  You have the REPP conference November 7th and eighth.
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  PMRE is a couple weeks later.
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  And then you have the Spiro sync.
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  January 22nd, 23rd.
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  You know, for me, balmy warm Ohio, west central Ohio in January.
• 7:49
  It's going to be you have a snowman build off.
• 7:51
  That's awesome.
• 7:53
  Yeah.
• 7:54
  Good times. Excellent. Hope to see you guys.
• 7:58
  It one or all three of those events.
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  Yeah. Come see us. It'll be fun.
• 8:03
  Awesome.
• 8:04
  All right, Craig, this is a fun one today.
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  It is. It has me thinking.
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  So Todd asked the question.
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  Well, Todd,
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  I'll let you introduce the question in the yes topic of the podcast today.
• 8:16
  Yeah.
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  So what if what if you had to start over tomorrow,
• 8:21
  start the business over tomorrow?
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  Yes. You wake up life over tomorrow.
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  That's a very deep question.
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  That is a very if you had to restart your if you
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  if your business was nothing what it was and you had to restart tomorrow,
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  what would you do? You know this idea of.
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  So I started mine 20 almost 23 years ago
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  and it was different, a different world, different market.
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  And we've learned a lot over these years.
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  But I've got a pretty good idea, as if I had, you know, if we weren't
• 8:52
  doing the 14,000 jobs a year and I, we were zero zero job, zero clients,
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  what would I do to get back to building
• 9:00
  a business again?
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  I'm just thinking about, yeah,
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  I started my business in 2017.
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  And, at that time
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  there were a couple of individual photographers doing real estate,
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  but there were no, I would say, no real like companies doing real estate media.
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  It was pretty much just photos that people were doing around here.
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  So my approach was photos
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  and video and drone,
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  and that was kind of new in my market to bring all 3 in 1 appointment,
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  that there was nobody else really doing that today.
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  However, there's, three,
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  I believe, three larger companies in our market doing what we do now.
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  So, yeah, it's it's an entirely different atmosphere.
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  And, and, playing field.
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  Well, what I do different and that's,
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  that's a tough question.
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  Well Craig. Yeah let's let's go back.
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  So let's maybe establish what we did back then.
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  And then we can look at do those tactics.
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  How have we do we do those anymore.
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  Have we revamped that process.
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  So for let's stick with 2017 with your journey.
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  And you know, we've talked about this a little bit, but this idea that you had,
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  you saw that there was an opportunity and,
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  you know, what were some of the initial things
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  that you did to just let people know you exist?
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  Well, I had the advantage that a former pastor of mine
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  had gone full time into real estate, and he was the first one.
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  I asked, here's where the coffee meeting started.
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  I asked him to coffee,
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  and sat down and
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  just shared with him where I was at in my career.
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  I was coming out of working in the nonprofit world, but told him
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  this idea I had for doing real estate media,
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  for realtors and bringing, like I said, bringing photos, video tours and drone
• 11:00
  media into one appointment and really helping realtors step up their game.
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  In terms of marketing homes, I don't know if I had thought
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  of building their brand as a realtor or not at that point,
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  and I had before that
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  coffee meeting, I did two free shoots
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  for two different realtors that I had gotten to agree to.
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  Let me come in and shoot.
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  The photos for and at that point it was photos only
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  showed him those photos.
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  His eyes got super big. He's like, Craig, these are fantastic.
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  I'm using my cell phone to do my real estate photos right now.
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  Now, I had the advantage that I had the friendship with him,
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  and we had built trust and friendship over a couple of years
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  that out of his generosity and
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  liking what he saw,
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  he gave me a 12 shoot contract on the spot to shoot his next 12 listings.
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  That allowed me to immediately upgrade my camera.
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  My camera at the time, if you remember,
• 11:56
  these guys was a canon 40D.
• 11:59
  Yeah,
• 12:00
  my cell phone takes high resolution pictures,
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  and they kept the cameras sitting over here on my on my on my shelf.
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  I'll never get rid of it because that was my first dSLR camera.
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  What lens?
• 12:09
  What lens was it, Craig?
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  You remember?
• 12:13
  So that's a crop sensor.
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  It's a crop sensor.
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  We'll say 18 kit lens. 18.
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  So the kit lens 18 to 35, I think. Yeah.
• 12:21
  Kit lens.
• 12:21
  So you were nowhere near wide enough, right?
• 12:23
  No no no no.
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  The noise the noise level was terrible because my ISO was cranked.
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  The first house I shot was really dark.
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  I mean, it was terrible.
• 12:33
  It's absolutely terrible how he thought that.
• 12:36
  Those were great pictures.
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  I don't know, but evidently his cell phone was worse.
• 12:43
  But, Yeah, that's that's how I started.
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  And he, he started
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  getting other realtors asking him who was doing his pictures.
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  And so he started spreading my name.
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  And that's how my business started growing.
• 12:59
  Very, very simple.
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  I mean, it was nothing, nothing genius level
• 13:03
  in terms of a business strategy or anything.
• 13:07
  Yeah.
• 13:08
  And and so I think the we have some similar
• 13:11
  we have a lot of similarities of how we started.
• 13:12
  Craig, because I when I started, I was, I was in college at the time
• 13:17
  and I happened to be going my, my parents were buying and selling a home.
• 13:21
  And so I had a connection to that realtor that happened to be the largest realtor
• 13:25
  in town.
• 13:26
  And with a small town, but she still was doing a lot of a lot of shoots.
• 13:30
  And, and I had the luxury that there was nothing there.
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  Nobody was taking photos.
• 13:36
  Nobody was taking video,
• 13:39
  nothing.
• 13:39
  Now, there might have been a
• 13:41
  I know there's been some companies
• 13:42
  around longer than us, so clearly it was out there.
• 13:44
  I'm not saying I invented the field, but there was nothing in our market.
• 13:48
  It was very customary that agents would take their camera and there was no
• 13:53
  there's no cell phone cameras at the time that just didn't exist.
• 13:57
  Cell phones were barely there.
• 14:00
  You would take your Sony camera that had a 3.5in floppy insert.
• 14:04
  You'd put the floppy drive into the can't.
• 14:07
  Yes. Navigate. Yes.
• 14:09
  And you would take very poor pictures and you would take probably 6 or 8 of them.
• 14:15
  And they would be posted online, probably a resolution of 320 by 160.
• 14:20
  And they would not click the enlarge.
• 14:22
  Nothing like that.
• 14:23
  And that's all there was me and I was doing that.
• 14:27
  I was like, well, this is this is dumb.
• 14:30
  Like, why, why is this like, why do I have to drive the houses
• 14:34
  to see what it's like?
• 14:35
  So I start off with doing video.
• 14:38
  And again, if you've heard me tell this story like it's absolutely a
• 14:43
  ridiculously dumb
• 14:44
  idea because you couldn't even.
• 14:47
  I want to put video on the internet
• 14:50
  when you couldn't even play it.
• 14:53
  Dial up.
• 14:53
  Oh, the days of dial up.
• 14:55
  It's like I have this golf ball that I want to get through a garden hose like
• 15:01
  anyways.
• 15:01
  So some of, some of you will never know the pain.
• 15:05
  Yeah, you never will. You.
• 15:06
  You won't know that modem connecting sound right?
• 15:10
  So long story short, I use a connection I had and then ask for more connections.
• 15:16
  I had no clue what I was doing at the time.
• 15:18
  I didn't know I was asking for a referral.
• 15:20
  I didn't know that
• 15:21
  our number one core value would turn into clients are our number one priority.
• 15:26
  I just wanted her name was Bobby.
• 15:27
  I wanted her to be happy because I wanted her to buy from me.
• 15:30
  Yeah. And then when she
• 15:34
  liked what I did and I,
• 15:36
  I can't remember, I probably shot 1 or 2 for free for I have no clue.
• 15:41
  I asked if she could spread my name to people in the office, and then I asked.
• 15:47
  I had no clue what an office meeting was.
• 15:49
  She was like, hey, do you want to come in and show the video in the office?
• 15:53
  I was like, that'd be great. What?
• 15:55
  What is this thing you're talking about?
• 15:57
  And just stumbling my way through a lot of it
• 16:00
  to just really
• 16:03
  I wanted to talk to more people and I wanted to take care of them.
• 16:06
  So I think we started off in a very similar way.
• 16:09
  Craig.
• 16:10
  Now we had the luxury.
• 16:11
  I had no competition.
• 16:13
  You had minimal competition and you had a, you know,
• 16:17
  a USP of putting all those products together.
• 16:21
  Now the landscape has changed a little bit
• 16:25
  and I actually
• 16:28
  it's not good or bad to me, of course.
• 16:30
  Would you like to get in in ground level
• 16:32
  and do we have some relationships that we've taken care of for a very long time?
• 16:35
  Well, yes we do, but at the end of the day,
• 16:37
  we still have to take care of them and we still have to earn that business.
• 16:41
  So, you know, like Craig mentioned, the top of the podcast of the segment,
• 16:45
  you know, he's got competition in his market.
• 16:48
  Let you guys know we're still overshooting our goals for his market.
• 16:52
  We're still as a company
• 16:54
  at Wow we're still beating the goals that we have set for this year.
• 16:58
  So this is doable.
• 16:59
  If you're getting into real estate media right now and you're going,
• 17:02
  oh my goodness, I have all this competition, you're it's okay.
• 17:07
  You can find little
• 17:10
  wedges where you can get in and you can take compet.
• 17:13
  You can take business away from competition.
• 17:17
  So I think at its core we always mentioned this I think Craig
• 17:21
  would you still try to sell based on relationship selling.
• 17:24
  Oh yeah.
• 17:25
  That I mean that's how I'm wired anyway.
• 17:29
  And so for me it comes naturally.
• 17:33
  Yeah.
• 17:33
  It has to be relationship based.
• 17:35
  I mean that that's the whole real estate transaction.
• 17:42
  Methodology.
• 17:43
  I can't find the right word for it, but it's it's I watched the realtors
• 17:46
  interact with the sellers, and that's what they're doing.
• 17:49
  They're building relationships with their sellers.
• 17:50
  I hear them talking about their families and what's going on with mom and dad
• 17:54
  and, you know, health issues and the move.
• 17:56
  And it's it's all relationship based.
• 17:59
  So if you don't have that,
• 18:02
  natural bent, it might be a little bit more challenging.
• 18:05
  But those are skills that you can develop.
• 18:07
  There's so many great leadership courses out there and, you know, the book
• 18:12
  I think is Dale Carnegie, you know, How to win Friends and Influence people.
• 18:15
  Yeah. Great, great classic book, you know.
• 18:18
  But yeah.
• 18:19
  How how can you build strong relationships with the people that you're serving?
• 18:25
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  So let's let's get really tactical here, okay.
• 18:29
  Tomorrow you wake up, you have no business
• 18:33
  what is going to be the first thing you do.
• 18:39
  Do I have all the gear or not?
• 18:42
  Okay. This is this is great.
• 18:43
  So let's take a pivot here.
• 18:44
  So yeah I think this I wanted to talk about this, this idea of
• 18:49
  building a
• 18:50
  business defensively versus offensively.
• 18:53
  So I get a lot of you ask me like hey I have a I have a job right now
• 18:57
  or I don't have this thing or there's some,
• 19:01
  object in your way.
• 19:02
  There's a gap that you have to get over.
• 19:05
  And I think over the course of the years, I played too much defense
• 19:08
  and business, and I wish I would have played more offense.
• 19:12
  Okay. Explain that. So, what do you mean? Yeah.
• 19:14
  Let me, let me let me break that down.
• 19:15
  How it relates to the idea and equipment.
• 19:18
  So first off I would go all in
• 19:22
  I if this is something I think there's a great opportunity
• 19:26
  to grow I would go all in with this idea. I,
• 19:31
  I don't think you can
• 19:35
  ramp as quick as you're going to want to if you don't go all in.
• 19:39
  Now, can you build a successful business and have one foot
• 19:42
  in a job and one foot getting into building your business?
• 19:46
  You can.
• 19:47
  But let's look at this from like a Silicon Valley type of investment.
• 19:52
  Angel investment, an investor type of
• 19:56
  situation that something that I don't really know.
• 19:59
  I bootstrapped all of the businesses that we do.
• 20:01
  Craig, you bootstrapped and I think there's something
• 20:04
  that there's some grit to bootstrapping your business.
• 20:08
  At the same time, you can't suffocate your business
• 20:13
  because of bootstrapping it.
• 20:16
  Okay.
• 20:17
  So there is a reason why, when companies want to grow to be a hundred,
• 20:22
  500 million, $10 billion company, they have this idea.
• 20:27
  They see there's leverage in the market and they go and they get funding
• 20:31
  because they need pieces that help them grow to that.
• 20:35
  I was going to say that that is one thing I would do differently.
• 20:38
  If you remember, Todd, when we met in a coffee shop.
• 20:44
  I'm not even that big of a coffee drinker, to be honest,
• 20:46
  but everything would, Craig Magrum, come into a coffee shop and you you.
• 20:50
  Sounds like an event. March.
• 20:53
  Anyway, if you remember our conversation,
• 20:56
  part of it was, was, my hesitancy to spend money
• 21:02
  and to to incur a little bit of debt to start,
• 21:05
  to start my business or actually to be able to scale it.
• 21:08
  We were talking about using the before
• 21:12
  it was called Spiro, the Spiro software, and me investing in that.
• 21:16
  And at first I just I was really hesitant to do that.
• 21:19
  I'm very fiscally conservative.
• 21:21
  I well, other than when it comes to hobbies, as we mentioned last week,
• 21:26
  which I'm working on.
• 21:27
  But anyway,
• 21:30
  I, I didn't want to spend the money
• 21:31
  for gear for systems because I was afraid
• 21:35
  it was based out of fear, because I had a financial insecurity.
• 21:39
  I worked in nonprofits my whole life, so I never was making a ton of money.
• 21:43
  You don't work in nonprofits to make a ton of money.
• 21:45
  You do it because you want to serve people. Right?
• 21:48
  So I, I the first part of my career, I was very, very conservative fiscally.
• 21:53
  I pinched pennies.
• 21:55
  So I didn't want to spend money to start this business because I was scared,
• 22:00
  because I was coming from a viewpoint of lack.
• 22:02
  Right.
• 22:04
  My first major expenditure, which I don't remember
• 22:08
  how long after I started my business it took me to get to this point,
• 22:11
  but I bought my first drone and it was a huge.
• 22:15
  It was a Phantom three, if that tells you where I started.
• 22:19
  Oh, we're going back here.
• 22:21
  Phantom three and I was scared
• 22:24
  to death to make that investment.
• 22:28
  I had to look at it as an investment in the future of my business,
• 22:32
  because that was a huge chunk of money to me.
• 22:34
  A huge chunk of money.
• 22:36
  After I started booking jobs that I was able to tell people
• 22:40
  I can provide drone photos and video, and they started ordering it.
• 22:45
  I think I paid that drone off in ten jobs like
• 22:49
  it was a blink of an eye and my drone was paid for.
• 22:51
  And it dawned on me, Craig, you dummy,
• 22:55
  you have to spend money to make money.
• 22:58
  But I was coming from a viewpoint of lack and fear,
• 23:02
  and I think that's what I would do differently today.
• 23:04
  I've now seen how, yeah, if you invest in the business
• 23:08
  and you have the plan and you, you work hard, there's still a grind.
• 23:12
  You're going to make that money back fairly quickly.
• 23:16
  Yeah.
• 23:17
  So that's that's one thing
• 23:18
  I would do differently today if I had to start over, spend the money.
• 23:23
  Yeah I'm a firm believer in that I think, I think
• 23:26
  sometimes as I look back like I took it too seriously.
• 23:30
  Like I almost had this idea that there was no option of failure.
• 23:36
  And and it
• 23:37
  crippled me a little bit at times or I moved too slow because I was like,
• 23:41
  oh I can't like, oh messing with that or raising prices or hiring someone,
• 23:47
  you know, figuring out payroll like, it just
• 23:51
  I hesitated because it felt scary,
• 23:56
  because I had this like mentality that the business could not fail.
• 24:02
  Yeah.
• 24:02
  I mean, just going back to the very early days, like in 2004 when I started,
• 24:08
  you know, I was 21 years old.
• 24:12
  Okay,
• 24:13
  21 years old, 21 years old. Sorry.
• 24:16
  I had to do some math in my head. I was 21.
• 24:19
  I should have been thinking like, let me fail 30 times before.
• 24:22
  I'm 25 now
• 24:24
  because at 25, what's the big deal if you have nothing,
• 24:29
  you're you're just, you know,
• 24:31
  and no offense, any other 25 year olds out there, but like,
• 24:34
  how many 25 year olds out there like, can't take a risk that they come back
• 24:38
  from 35, 45, 55?
• 24:44
  If you're gonna work 20 more years at 55, you have to,
• 24:48
  you know, if you're going to work till 75, from 50, that's 20 years.
• 24:52
  You can come back from some things.
• 24:53
  Now each time
• 24:55
  you could only come back from so far.
• 24:57
  But at 25, 35, 45 was like, let's take some chances here.
• 25:01
  You've got time.
• 25:03
  Yes, you've got, you have.
• 25:05
  Yeah.
• 25:06
  You know, one thing that a coach told me wants is,
• 25:10
  he had this analogy of and I might mess it up a bit,
• 25:13
  but when you are young, you will trade all of your time for money.
• 25:20
  But when you're old, you will trade.
• 25:22
  Trade all of your money for time. Oh,
• 25:27
  and I took that money way too
• 25:30
  seriously when I was young.
• 25:33
  And there's nothing wrong with being financially responsible.
• 25:38
  Like Craig mentioned, he's.
• 25:40
  I forget the term used, but I call it financially responsible
• 25:44
  I drive a 2017 year old car
• 25:48
  or a car from 2017.
• 25:51
  I paid for it.
• 25:52
  I don't own anything of it and I'm happy driving it.
• 25:56
  Could I drive a nicer car?
• 25:57
  Yes, I could, and do I love cars, I do love cars and I look at I'm like, oh,
• 26:01
  that'd be nice, but it's like 80 grand, 60 or even 50 grand,
• 26:05
  you know, like financially responsible.
• 26:08
  I all the money I took out of colleagues
• 26:11
  that I made, I paid off my student loans as quickly as I could.
• 26:14
  That interest drove me nuts.
• 26:16
  We took out a 15 year loan for our house.
• 26:18
  So there's things that you can do to be financially responsible,
• 26:22
  but the idea of trying to
• 26:26
  put a crimp in your business
• 26:29
  by not having something that your business really needs to grow,
• 26:34
  can be a reason why you don't succeed.
• 26:37
  Okay.
• 26:39
  So yeah, yeah.
• 26:41
  Again, thinking about the conditions back in 2017
• 26:44
  versus today, you know, and having major competitors in the market,
• 26:48
  if I don't have those services to be able to provide
• 26:51
  new clients that the competitor does.
• 26:54
  Yeah.
• 26:55
  How am I ever going to get this business off the ground?
• 26:57
  And and I realize that we're saying to you
• 26:59
  all like some things that just don't seem possible at this point,
• 27:03
  you know, hey, I'm a teacher and I'm doing this in the summers, and then I have
• 27:07
  a little bit of night time after school,
• 27:10
  like, how can I make this work?
• 27:13
  You know,
• 27:13
  I realize you're not getting paid, you know, thank goodness for our teachers.
• 27:16
  I know you all don't get paid a lot of money.
• 27:17
  You might not have the savings,
• 27:20
  but that is that's the thing about entrepreneurship is
• 27:24
  when you have those gaps, you've got to go find a way who can help you get there.
• 27:28
  Do you have someone that can loan you the money? Can you go to a bank?
• 27:30
  Are you going to put her on credit cards?
• 27:32
  These are some scary things.
• 27:34
  But to go all in the idea of burning the ships,
• 27:39
  like.
• 27:40
  That's why, you know, when Cortez got here, it's
• 27:43
  like we're going to burn these darn things because we're not going back.
• 27:47
  We're going to figure it out.
• 27:48
  Sometimes you just need to do that to help you push through it.
• 27:52
  So if I was starting over tomorrow, Craig,
• 27:55
  I would one
• 27:58
  I would put the the systems in place that I need.
• 28:02
  Okay. I know the Spiro podcast.
• 28:04
  I would definitely do Spiro I'm not just advertising Spiro,
• 28:07
  I would I would get a phone line.
• 28:09
  Okay.
• 28:10
  I have together Google Voice for way too many years because it was free.
• 28:15
  Okay? I would pay for a phone line.
• 28:17
  I would have what I would need there.
• 28:19
  I would make sure I had the equipment, all the services that I need to do now.
• 28:23
  I would start off tomorrow and
• 28:28
  I would do.
• 28:30
  I would be a one man band for a short amount of time,
• 28:33
  but I would very quickly
• 28:36
  look at who I knew in the industry and then try to go meet anyone
• 28:40
  I could, and I would personally do everything for them.
• 28:44
  So I would do all the shooting, I would outsource all of my editing.
• 28:47
  I would make sure my systems are okay, and then I would quickly
• 28:50
  get into hiring a VA.
• 28:55
  VA's or something that
• 28:58
  we never I mean, it was 10 or 10,
• 29:00
  12 years before the idea of hiring a VA even come out came around.
• 29:04
  I think when I started mine, I didn't even know what a VA was.
• 29:09
  But let me ask you about that, Todd.
• 29:12
  So if a VA were to say the first employee
• 29:14
  you were to hire, what tasks would you
• 29:18
  Would you assign to them, would you train them on to help you grow your business.
• 29:23
  Yeah.
• 29:23
  Great question.
• 29:24
  So what I talk a lot about time tracking.
• 29:27
  I just got done with a study for myself.
• 29:29
  I'm analyzing it.
• 29:30
  But, there's a admin nurse doctor level of activities.
• 29:35
  Right. We talked about a few weeks ago. Yeah.
• 29:38
  So I would give them all the admin level.
• 29:40
  So this is anything in those systems
• 29:43
  that is not client talking to clients, building relationships with clients.
• 29:47
  I would keep all of that for myself.
• 29:49
  And I would want to build those relationships myself.
• 29:51
  I want to have every conversation.
• 29:53
  But anything that has to do with quality control, expediting,
• 29:57
  anything that has a email coming back like, can you brighten this photo?
• 30:01
  Can you change this title on a video?
• 30:04
  I would have processes and procedures of how the VA would facilitate
• 30:07
  that through the editing team.
• 30:11
  All of those items I would not like.
• 30:14
  If I'm going to wake up in the morning, I'm either shooting
• 30:17
  or building relationships.
• 30:19
  At this point, that's the only thing I'm doing, nothing else.
• 30:23
  And if I have to take a phone call while I'm driving from A to B
• 30:26
  okay.
• 30:27
  Great systems in place.
• 30:29
  You're out shooting, you're establishing relationships.
• 30:32
  Things are starting to come.
• 30:34
  Say you're getting to the point of doing 5 to 10 shoots a week.
• 30:39
  What's next? And building from scratch.
• 30:41
  Yeah.
• 30:41
  So you've got a little bit of income revenue coming in.
• 30:45
  And this is where it's going to feel scary.
• 30:47
  Because what I would do is I would begin looking for my next photographer
• 30:54
  or for my first photographer, excuse me, at 5 to 10 shoots a week,
• 30:57
  I would if I started tomorrow, I would, I really would because the thing is, is
• 31:01
  5 to 10 is going to go to 20 to 30 very quickly because you're going
• 31:08
  to allocate the time for yourself to continue to build relationships.
• 31:12
  that I didn't I didn't think about that.
• 31:15
  But here's why.
• 31:16
  That is a very wise move, Todd.
• 31:18
  To this day in the market that I serve, where I'm
• 31:21
  both shooting and doing business development, I am still fighting.
• 31:25
  I am still fighting the battle of getting clients to trust
• 31:29
  someone other than me, shooting for them like that, that's still something I'm.
• 31:35
  I have a challenge with,
• 31:38
  because I've built these long term relationships that I've been doing the
• 31:41
  shooting from day one, and they don't want anyone else shooting for them.
• 31:45
  Yeah, I can't do it all.
• 31:49
  No. And so if you can get
• 31:52
  if you can get clients, but new clients used to somebody else
• 31:55
  shooting them for them as early as possible.
• 31:59
  They don't become so dependent on you and thinking that you're
• 32:03
  the only photographer. They can shoot their listings.
• 32:06
  Yeah, when you know very well that you can get somebody else on board
• 32:09
  that can train and maybe even shoot better than you.
• 32:12
  I'm not the I'm not the best photographer or videographer in the world.
• 32:15
  There are people that could do it much better than I can, but
• 32:19
  I built relationship and they've they've
• 32:22
  they've created the relationship
• 32:24
  and the trust that I've built with, to the technical skill.
• 32:28
  And yes, I deliver a quality product.
• 32:30
  I'm not saying that my work is crap, but
• 32:35
  there's somebody else that
• 32:36
  can do just as good on the technical level than I could for sure.
• 32:40
  That would free me up to then continue to grow the business.
• 32:44
  Yeah, that's that's smart, that's smart.
• 32:46
  And I would look for every time that I can get someone to be 60 to 80% of me,
• 32:50
  and no matter what the activity is, I am getting rid of that activity on my plate.
• 32:55
  I'm just I'm not even considering it anymore.
• 32:57
  It's just done.
• 32:58
  And I do it with a photographer because I'm going to go out
• 33:00
  and I'm going to build relationships and I'm 5 to 10
• 33:04
  is going to go very quickly to 20 to 30 a week.
• 33:08
  There you go.
• 33:12
  Yeah, that's one point I like that.
• 33:14
  Oh yeah. If I had to restart.
• 33:16
  Yeah.
• 33:17
  Get get them used to other photographers besides you as early as possible.
• 33:22
  That's a key one for me and the. Yeah.
• 33:24
  And the thing that it does on top of that, at least for me that would help me,
• 33:29
  is it puts that pressure on me.
• 33:31
  Like I have this person that I need to take care of.
• 33:34
  Not only do it via your it's pretty easy to sustain the VA salary.
• 33:38
  Okay.
• 33:39
  It's 1000 to 2000 a month depending on how good you pay them.
• 33:43
  Okay.
• 33:44
  That's not a whole lot to have the amount of work that they're doing.
• 33:48
  If it's part time, it might be 400 or 500 a month.
• 33:51
  Okay.
• 33:52
  But when you get a photographer on
• 33:54
  and you get another high level person that's in your area,
• 33:58
  you know that this is a person on that feels more like on your team.
• 34:02
  And that is some pressure that I need to go out there and do it for them.
• 34:07
  I think pressures, pressure can be good and pressure can be bad for me, like
• 34:11
  knowing that I need to do that would be the reason I continue to get up
• 34:14
  and I go and I continue to have the coffee meetings I continue to send,
• 34:18
  you know, the messages,
• 34:19
  make the calls, drop into the offices, go to the board events.
• 34:23
  Anywhere a realtor is at. I'm there,
• 34:29
  So two major things so far.
• 34:31
  If you had to start over today,
• 34:33
  don't be afraid to spend the money to make the money.
• 34:37
  And invest in a photographer as early as you can.
• 34:41
  It might be a little bit controversial Craig, but if,
• 34:43
  if I was starting tomorrow that's what I would do.
• 34:46
  I would nurse them along in my sales pitch to the beginning ages like hey,
• 34:50
  I would give them my vision of the company and I would get to know them so well.
• 34:55
  I would take care of them.
• 34:56
  I would just give them the best service ever.
• 34:58
  And then I'd work through who they knew and I would ask for that referral.
• 35:03
  And then from there, I'm going to build a team around me
• 35:06
  because my pitch to the agents is, we have a team here to serve you.
• 35:10
  We know how important it is that you get on the schedule quickly,
• 35:15
  that your clients can get in when they need to get in, and I would look
• 35:18
  for those little gaps where other competition is probably failing in your area.
• 35:24
  If you had to pick a third point
• 35:26
  because it feels like I feel incomplete with just two points.
• 35:30
  Yeah.
• 35:30
  If there was a third thing you would do that would be different
• 35:34
  than maybe what you did 23 years ago.
• 35:37
  What what would that third, third point be in
• 35:40
  starting over, starting a new real estate media business?
• 35:44
  I would find a way to attract
• 35:48
  and hire and pay the best possible person
• 35:52
  I could find that matches something that has a positive,
• 35:57
  where I'm not as strong.
• 36:01
  Okay, can you give an example?
• 36:04
  I can, so I'll give you two examples.
• 36:08
  And then you guys can see if this relates to something that you might need.
• 36:13
  So very early.
• 36:15
  Well probably five years in business was growing.
• 36:18
  I had part time photographers and one full time, I think three part time
• 36:23
  photographers, and I was very behind
• 36:26
  in my systems and I needed help.
• 36:29
  I needed a helper.
• 36:30
  I've talked about this before with there's helpers and builders,
• 36:34
  and I hired my helper, and he was excited about the business and I used and I did.
• 36:39
  And I didn't realize at the time, but he was really attracted to working with me
• 36:43
  because it was it that it was working with me.
• 36:46
  It was, look what we can build, look at where I need help.
• 36:49
  And he's like, I love doing those things. I love growth, I love all these things.
• 36:52
  And he came in and he helped me like crazy.
• 36:54
  So Todd could go be Todd.
• 36:56
  And at that point, Todd
• 36:58
  well, the Todd that I where I'm strong is the ideas.
• 37:02
  I'm building relationships like put me out.
• 37:05
  I have ideas, I'll paint a vision and then I'll go
• 37:08
  and I'll get people to know like and trust us.
• 37:11
  So I took all of those task away.
• 37:13
  Now the thing that I think about it, looking back over those years is Spiro
• 37:16
  does most of it now, invoicing some.
• 37:20
  You know, there's a lot in there that Spiro has automated,
• 37:24
  but I still would get to that helper very quickly.
• 37:28
  The the
• 37:29
  second thing that I'll leave you guys with is I hired a builder.
• 37:33
  Not long after that, I had gotten to the point that
• 37:38
  there was enough to do with kind of visionary ideas
• 37:42
  and and the direction of the company,
• 37:45
  and then the building of the revenue, the sales engine that I call it.
• 37:50
  And I hired a builder.
• 37:53
  Shannon, many of you know our lover.
• 37:55
  Okay. I hired again for Spiro.
• 37:57
  So I did the same thing. Okay.
• 38:00
  There was a developer and myself.
• 38:01
  That was all Spiro was.
• 38:03
  You emailed Spiro, you got me.
• 38:05
  That's all there was.
• 38:06
  Pink bubble chat.
• 38:07
  It was me, okay, a demo, it was me.
• 38:11
  And I put it on my back to win over clients, to get people in until
• 38:15
  the snowball got big enough.
• 38:16
  And then I went, wait a minute, I'm not serving my clients good enough.
• 38:19
  I need help in chat.
• 38:20
  Okay, so I offloaded the admin level work.
• 38:22
  I need pink bubble chat help,
• 38:24
  and I brought that team up and then I got to a point.
• 38:27
  I was like, I need higher level help to help me grow this.
• 38:31
  I hired Shannon again.
• 38:33
  Okay, y'all, please don't try to hire Shannon, okay?
• 38:36
  Shannon's with me right now.
• 38:39
  Shannon's. Shannon's building pushing me.
• 38:41
  No poaching
• 38:44
  In fact, I mean, you can try.
• 38:45
  Hopefully I'm taking care of her good enough
• 38:47
  that she's like, hey, I'm cool right now, but find yourself a Shannon, okay?
• 38:51
  I can sell.
• 38:52
  I can build relationships.
• 38:53
  I didn't like the idea of selling. I really did not.
• 38:56
  I hated the term selling, but I could go take care of people.
• 38:58
  Shannon was like, I can build a structure of sales and wasn't afraid of it
• 39:02
  and sell selling through serving, selling through helping people.
• 39:06
  She built the systemize process, this repeatable
• 39:09
  sales engine, and we still use portions of it today.
• 39:13
  Now we've revamped it over the years to be relevant to today.
• 39:17
  Steve has, but it's why we're grown almost 20% year over year.
• 39:21
  It's why we're predictable.
• 39:22
  I knew that I couldn't do it, so I needed someone to compliment me on that.
• 39:29
  Excellent.
• 39:30
  Three things that you can do if you had to start your business over,
• 39:35
  maybe you're listening
• 39:35
  and you're thinking about starting a real estate media business.
• 39:39
  I'd take these things and run with it.
• 39:42
  Yeah. Todd. Good stuff.
• 39:44
  Yeah, hopefully was helpful.
• 39:45
  I'd love to keep the conversation going.
• 39:47
  Comment down below.
• 39:48
  Email us at Hello@spiro.media.
• 39:50
  Let us know what you want us to expand on.
• 39:52
  You know, those are three main points.
• 39:53
  If you have questions about one point, let us know.
• 39:57
  We're happy to talk on those.
• 39:58
  We want to make sure that we're bringing you value here on the podcast.
• 40:01
  Absolutely, absolutely.
• 40:03
  Well, because I mentioned I wear a couple of different hats,
• 40:07
  I have to get going and get some shoots done today.
• 40:10
  But I love doing this podcast.
• 40:12
  I love interacting with you, the listeners and viewers and,
• 40:16
  just talking shop and what's worked for us.
• 40:18
  What, what we screwed up.
• 40:19
  What you can learn from from our mistakes.
• 40:22
  And just be an encouragement to you.
• 40:25
  So thank you for taking the time each and every week to, to watch, to listen and,
• 40:29
  if you if you find value in this, please make sure you leave a like, share it.
• 40:34
  If you're involved in some real estate media type, you know,
• 40:37
  groups online, Facebook, whatever.
• 40:40
  We'd love for you to share the podcast so that we can help
• 40:43
  and benefit more, more businesses and business owners.
• 40:47
  Also make sure we we always like to end the podcast this way with two things.
• 40:51
  One, make sure to live grateful and thankful.
• 40:55
  Think about the things that you've been blessed with
• 40:56
  and just kind of meditate on those things.
• 40:58
  It will turn your day around.
• 41:00
  If you're going through a tough time right now, think about the good things
• 41:03
  and what you've been blessed with and, take time to think about that.
• 41:06
  Number two, breathe.
• 41:08
  That's what Spiro actually means, right, Todd?
• 41:11
  It does, it does. We're gonna do a lot of breathing.
• 41:13
  January 22nd, 23rd. Spiro. Spiro Sync.
• 41:17
  Let us know
• 41:18
  All right, guys, you have a great week.
• 41:20
  Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week.
• 41:22
  And have a great one. Take care.