Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / Your Growth Isn't About the Camera

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Your Growth Isn't About the Camera · 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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it means we’re making more money doing less shoots,
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which I think is almost
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kind of the golden combination for business.
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Let's do less of something, sell it for more,
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to make more money,
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Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast, managing your real estate,
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photography and videography company, Spiro.
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It's a software platform.
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It's designed to help you manage your day to day real estate media business.
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And ultimately, we'd love to help you grow and scale as well.
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Welcome back to another week.
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I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
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And just enjoy this time each and every week where we get to talk
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shop, kind of, you know, relax a little bit,
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talk about how business grows and maybe give you some examples,
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how of how we've grown and mistakes we've made over the years,
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and how you can learn from our mistakes so you don't have to make them
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as Todd says.
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Todd Kivimaki, our owner and founder and cohost of the podcast, Welcome Back, Todd
1:18
Craig, It's great to be here.
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You know, this is year 22 for Wow Video Tours, our real estate media company.
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So excited about that.
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You know, I've been doing a lot of reflecting
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you all lately about just business and the years.
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And I get a lot of questions.
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I love the questions from you guys.
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I do a lot of coaching to you all.
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And, you know, there was some industry news this week that happened.
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And so and we have some actionable items that help you
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grow your business in 2025 and beyond.
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We've got it all packed into this podcast for you today.
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Yeah, there's going to be a lot.
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But before we do that, it was like to, dive into, you know,
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what's going on in the industry.
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Any news conferences, announcements that you have, Todd this week?
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Yeah, just a few of them here.
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So, a reminder, the conferences and the industry
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are in November out in Las Vegas.
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There's two of them. They're fabulous.
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There is the REPP conference that is November 7th and 8th.
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So I get the the pleasure of emceeing
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and hosting that conference this year, which is going to be great.
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That's the Eli Jones conference.
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So the REPP team, just a fabulous event that is again November 7th and 8th.
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There's an MVP day on the sixth.
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It has a minimum monthly revenue requirement
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and I think it might be sold out.
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So they sold out immediately.
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They found a bigger venue and it's either sold out or close to.
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So make sure you if you want to do that please visit
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repplaunch.com/repp2025.
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We'll link it below if you're typing at repp has to P’s also
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PMREis November 18th through 20th.
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We will be at that conference as well, so we will have a booth.
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The Spiro team will be there.
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Excited to meet you.
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That is pmreeconference.com.
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So please I think it's great. Pick one of them.
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I would love to see at them.
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And, we will be at both of them.
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Like I said.
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But I think this is a good time
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to think about how you're going to build your business.
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How are you going to recharge?
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And I know it can seem overwhelming right now, like, oh, I'm super busy too.
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Like, I can't think about what I'm going to do in November.
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But to be frank, that's how you grow a bigger business
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is that you think ahead, you think ahead of today.
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You think ahead of six months from now.
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Even so, conference is
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their beneficial.
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I'll just throw in there
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the conversations you get to have with other people in this space.
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And just the sharing of stories and, you know,
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sharing things that have worked for you and, things that haven't worked.
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It's it's just a good time to kind of relax and, and share ideas
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and build some build some friendships in the, in the industry as well.
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Yeah, I know specifically at the repp conference,
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they've adjusted the schedule a bit to be they have breakout sessions,
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and you're going to go sit with other business owners
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in your same, you know,
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and your same size of business.
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So same stage of business. Excuse me.
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I think that's so relevant because it's always, you know,
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when I speak on stage, I'm always like,
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hey, guys, like, I don't want you to feel pressure.
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I say it here on the podcast,
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like, don't feel pressure to do millions of dollars a year in real estate media.
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If you're just starting out, you're like, I can't do it.
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You can do it.
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Just it took me 22 years to do.
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But when you can sit at a table with someone that's like,
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oh yes, a VA oh, my first photographer.
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Oh yes, my 15th photographer,
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that's when you're really late and you go, oh, I can do this.
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And then the cool thing about it too, Craig, is you're sometimes
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teaching at that table, which is fabulous because when you can teach it,
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it means you've mastered it, which means that.
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And when you can give back and help others.
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I don't think there's anything better than that.
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Yeah, it's a good feeling.
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It sure is. It sure is.
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So looking at we also like to talk about potential Spiro updates here.
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There is a September launch plan for Spiro.
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We're going to integrate Titus, which we've talked about on the Spiro tech call.
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If you want to find out more, go back to the Spiro Super User Facebook group.
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It's basically a great financing.
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Options pay out close for real estate agents.
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And along with
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that we're going to optimize the property website editor.
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So this is going to give you an app like experience.
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It's not going to be an app. That's not what I'm saying.
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But we're going to optimize it as if it were an app.
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We know you guys are out there in the field,
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many of you trying to expedite in QC photos from your phone.
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The next day.
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And we've looked at all of how you use it.
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We've reconfigured that going to be just a really streamlined experience.
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Very cool.
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Oh, also, Craig, I meant to mention
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and I kind of hesitate because this isn't in stone yet.
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Okay, but you know how I do this.
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I say things and then kind of like, oh, did I say that?
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Like, are we going to do that?
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But we hinted at the idea of a gathering
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for Spiro users,
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non spiro users, but us Spiro doing a gathering
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and we call it the Spiro summit before I think we made it up on air.
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Craig I think we really did.
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We were spitballing live we were.
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And enough of you email me or said something about it.
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I was like, wait a minute.
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Like
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There might be something here, like the industry might need this.
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So Shannon and I got in a room today face to face, which is always dangerous.
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And, when there's ideas, are there?
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You have you,
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for those of you listening. Yeah. Right.
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Yep. Yeah.
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I was just mid sip of my morning drink and,
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I, it almost came up through my nose.
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Sorry.
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I'm going to get you one time Craig.
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That's my goal out. You know, it was one time.
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I have too much expensive equipment sitting in front of me.
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Don't do that.
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Too many electronics.
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And, oh, my goodness, if you're not, if you don't watch on YouTube,
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go back and watch. It's great.
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So we sat in a room Shannon and I were like, this idea.
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And we started brainstorm.
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And Shannon has built a ton of events for real estate agents.
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And we just got going and we're like, oh my goodness, like this.
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So what we're what we're thinking you all and we want your feedback.
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It's the reason why I'm telling you this. We came up with the tag.
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We came up with the name of Spiro Sync, okay.
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And what this is, this is a little bit different.
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It's not like the conferences where you are going to go and learn in November,
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but the idea of this is
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or the tagline is breathe, build and belong.
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And this is not just for you.
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This is bring your leadership team, bring your admin, bring a photographer.
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It might just be
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you want a photographer, but you're like, I need some sort of event.
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I need some sort of team building.
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We're going to have our team from Wow there, we're going to talk
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not just the owners, but we're going to talk about operations VA teams.
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We're going to virtually do some time online.
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VA teams, the VA teams like let's Connect.
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I know the community needs this connection, and that's why
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we just think this idea of belonging is so important.
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We know that it can feel like you're out on an island.
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Craig and I both did it right.
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Craig, how many times were you in your own business?
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You're like,
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you get in your own head and you're like, this thing's never going to work.
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Like, I might as well just go back and work at McDonald's.
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Nothing wrong with working at McDonald's, but but it's like you get it
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in your own head when you have belonging and when you can connect with others,
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and then
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when you can get your team to do that.
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I think it can just be fire.
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So let me know, is this is this worth doing?
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Like it will be in the cornfields of Ohio?
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We won't do in Lima because we're we're there's no major airport here.
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So we're thinking Dayton, Ohio 2026, third week of January.
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Shoot me a message. Let me know.
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Would you come to it? Do you see value in it?
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What would you want to accomplish from it?
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Sounds good to me.
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You know, Spiro Sync,
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that idea of being an island and out on your own,
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even as a photographer, out in the field, you can slip into
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that feeling of loneliness and that you're the only one
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dealing with the issues that you are.
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And you get stuck in this overthinking cycle.
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And it just it can get bad.
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But when you can plug back into community and realize, oh, wait a minute,
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I'm not alone, I'm actually facing these same things and work through it together,
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and bounce ideas off each other.
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That's that's a good thing.
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I like that idea. So. Yeah, yeah.
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Drop us a line.
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Hello@spiro.media.
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We would love to hear from you.
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Yeah.
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All right, just one thing to close with that,
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and then we'll get to the topic.
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But I saw that my businesses grew
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exponentially when I started asking more questions.
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And I think the idea of that community, the relationships,
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the vulnerability of asking questions
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can just take you to the next level.
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Yeah, for sure.
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All righty.
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Well, let's dive into this.
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- Let's, Craig - a bit of a little bit of a provocative
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title for this podcast.
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And we've talked about it before.
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That it's not about the camera
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we get, we get stuck on, pixel
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peeping, as you say, Todd and equipment and gear.
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And I mean, it is creatives.
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Yeah, we love gear.
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We love that creative outlet. Right.
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But we want to dive into some things that
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we believe will really benefit your business, to help you get beyond
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just the gear and the creativity part and looking at your business.
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That's what this podcast is all about.
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So, Todd, we're officially, you know, over halfway through the year.
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It's the end of July here when this, this, episode gets published and,
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looking at the data of our real estate media company
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Wow video tours, it's been a really good year.
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And we don't say that to to brag.
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But it's pretty staggering.
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It is.
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You know, we are up nearly 20%
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in 2025 at our media company,
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and that's 20% over for our best year ever, 2024.
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So when you have growth like that,
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I, I looked at that because many of you asked me that question, how do I grow?
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You know, I talked to one of you this week like I just quit my job
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August 1st.
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I'm full time. I'm all in.
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It's like, how do I grow?
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It's like, well, okay, well, let's let's break this down.
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It's a lot more simple than what you think.
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And so I did that throughout the course of what
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we took, what we did over the last few years, that wow.
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Right.
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And what's, what's really kind of amazing about it is it's
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not necessarily it is a growth in terms of the number of shoots we've done, but
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the how of how of those numbers
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is really in that average order price and that going up.
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Yeah.
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And that's so key because when we looked at our numbers,
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like Craig mentioned, not only is it going to be our best year ever,
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but we're actually it'll be our best year in revenue.
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And also number of shoots.
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But the thing about it is, is
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our revenue is outpacing the number of shoots,
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which means our average order value went up, which means we're actually
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making more money doing less shoots,
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which I think is almost
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kind of the golden combination for business.
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Let's do less of something, sell it for more,
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to make more money, because we all know the kinks and the bottlenecks.
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You know, say we just cut prices in half
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while number of shoots would skyrocket it.
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Right.
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But we're still above it.
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Yeah, it's a race to the bottom, you know, go back.
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Two months ago we did that podcast. Podcast.
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But what's going to happen is we're going to have a kink
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with the number of photographers and all of us,
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we all have a kink right now in the summer.
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We're all looking.
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We monitor our lead time very closely,
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and we know if agents can't get in 3 or 4 days,
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they're going to go find someone else.
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So to not put yourself in that predicament is fabulous.
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Less shoot more money.
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We're going to break down how we did it
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if Todd before we dive into it.
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If you could.
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This can be really kind of hard.
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Sorry I'm putting putting you on the spot, but if you could boil down to one word
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on the growth that we've experienced this year, what would it be?
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It's a good one, Craig.
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You know, I, I think one word
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just has to be focus.
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The focus that we had to grow
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is what has given us this growth.
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Okay.
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So with that necessity of focus okay.
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Yes, we're having an amazing year, but it hasn't always been that good.
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So go back.
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Let's go back to 2023.
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Right.
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What what did things look like back then.
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Yeah 2023 was tough.
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And I've shared this before so I won't tell the whole story.
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But end of 2022 we lost a major account
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a quarter million dollars and one day gone.
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Boom.
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The market was down.
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That was another quarter of $1 million.
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So that's a half $1 million.
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We didn't know it at the time.
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You know, we were just hoping that it was that
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we only going to be down a quarter million.
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Just from the account and the market was bad.
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It was super fast, like houses were selling
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instantly with 50 offers, a lot of inspections.
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Yeah. No inspections. All cash. Yeah. Crazy.
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It was crazy.
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And we, we the business just didn't come in.
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And so what we had to do
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honestly for me Craig like it was an oh crap moment.
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Like I'm not talking like,
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you know, this year I'm not going to make as much
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literally y'all. I'm like,
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I might have to sell my house.
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Like, I like my wife and I talked about that.
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I had never talked about that before.
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Like, that's a pretty that gets you to focus
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like none other when you're like,
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hey, babe, we might have to sell the house
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like we raise our kids.
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Our kids are like this. How? Like,
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that's a big thing, right?
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So what did that focus lead to then
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in that in the middle of that really hard situation?
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Yeah.
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So like we had just had to get rid of the shiny objects.
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My back up against the wall
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forced me
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to say no to everything except
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one thing that we'll talk about,
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but it really it it forced me to focus, Craig,
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because I was like, I have to keep the ship afloat.
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I to be quite honest, Craig, it was.
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That was your 20 or 21.
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That was your 20
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and it was 20 years of growth.
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Every year was better than the previous.
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And I think after 20 years of that.
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I got a little lax.
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Okay.
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And I lost focus.
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A but, you know, I started Spiro.
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In the meantime I was splitting focus and.
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It just took some more attention to get back into it.
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So what we did, we looked at everything we were doing.
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We cut everything we were doing.
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I cut it from a personal level to and I tell you the personal story
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because it connects to the business, but you might need to do it two
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so when we
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did basketball tournaments, we decided we could still do basketball tournaments.
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We packed our food to eat in the hotel.
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We didn't eat out.
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Yeah, because it's expensive to eat out.
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I didn't know if I was going to have that $100.
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We packed food.
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We booked hotels that had a microwave.
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Like we did all the little things because I was
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in just save mode right?
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And so I got to know my numbers really good.
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Craig.
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And that's one thing that if you're going like, hey, I think everything's good
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or I think everything's bad,
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you better find out real quick, really, where you're at,
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what do your numbers tell you?
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So when you're in that situation you're looking okay.
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I, we we have to cut. You said the shiny objects.
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What?
18:53
You can't cut everything.
18:55
Obviously, you have some business functions
18:57
that have to stay to to keep the doors open.
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So what what were the things or
19:02
maybe the one thing that you didn't cut that
19:05
somebody on the outside looking in might say, well, you need to cut this too.
19:09
Was there anything specific.
19:11
Yeah.
19:12
I mean, our, one of our biggest expenses and it's something we did not
19:16
touch was sales and marketing
19:19
because our goal, our core values remain the same.
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Craig.
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Our core our fifth core value is think growth.
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We want to grow.
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And so we knew that if we remove
19:32
the engine of growth,
19:35
it was going to lead to even a worse 2024.
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And that that honestly, like
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if you turn the podcast off after this, you this is the message
19:46
like that idea of focusing on growth
19:50
led to our best growth ever.
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And Craig, when I say it, it
19:56
sounds stupidly simple, right?
20:00
Right.
20:01
Like when you focus on growth, you're going to lead to growth, right?
20:07
Nobody quote me on that because it's a dumb quote, but it's true.
20:11
Yeah,
20:12
it's it's really easy to be tempted.
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I'm so glad you said this because this is what I ran into
20:19
to all the time before I was in the real estate media industry.
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I spent almost nine and probably about 20 years working in radio
20:27
broadcasting, broadcast radio, and my focus I was on air, yes, but I,
20:33
I also managed a station and did sales and marketing.
20:37
And every time I would talk
20:40
with a business owner about advertising on air,
20:44
if they were in a position like a financially,
20:47
challenging position, the thing that I always consistently
20:50
heard and I and I learned this in college as well,
20:53
most of the time, the first thing people cut in their business
20:57
is their advertising, right?
20:59
Because the budget's getting constricted and advertising
21:03
doesn't necessarily have a, concrete
21:07
immediate,
21:10
number, like an ROI.
21:12
You can't always necessarily, get that ROI number right away.
21:17
And so it's kind of an intangible and they're like, oh, I got to cut that.
21:21
But what happens is when you cut your advertising in your marketing,
21:26
you're not in front of everybody that you're trying to reach.
21:30
And so then your sales take another hit in another dip,
21:33
and now your budget's even tighter because you're making even less.
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And and it just, it's, it's a vicious cycle,
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downward cycle that is almost impossible to get out of.
21:44
And I talked to I talked to quite a few business owners,
21:48
some some you could see the light bulb go on, some still didn't get it.
21:53
And and they're like, not now. I just
21:56
but that's a
21:56
vicious cycle to cut your advertising.
21:59
It is, it is.
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I love analogies Craig.
22:02
So I'll do an analogy here real quick.
22:04
It reminds me of playing monopoly with my son Grant.
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So he, he's, middle child.
22:12
He has a humongous brain, and I know he's my child, so I say that.
22:16
But, like, the way he thinks is incredible.
22:19
I cannot beat the kid at monopoly.
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I'm not kidding you.
22:22
I can have the most luck, but I can't beat him at monopoly.
22:25
And it's almost.
22:27
Yeah, I can, like, every once in a while, I talk trash.
22:30
My beating like maybe one out of ten.
22:33
I shouldn't admit I talk trash to my son when I beat him.
22:35
Monopoly.
22:36
But that's how bad he beats me.
22:37
I like to win. Kind of funny though.
22:40
Yeah, but it's like this idea of
22:44
if you have houses or hotels
22:48
built on a property and say, I have one property left,
22:52
I've got like, you know, the yellow, whichever that is, and
22:57
I land on one of
22:58
his properties, I have to pay him out if I mortgage
23:02
my hotels, if I mortgage, if I sell them back and mortgage my property,
23:06
I have essentially cut off any money I'm going to make.
23:10
He goes from landing on Marvin Gardens and paying me
23:14
$1,800 to pay me $22.
23:20
That's what we didn't do at Wow.
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We that you can't sell the hotels, y'all.
23:26
The hotel was my sales and marketing department.
23:30
And yes, I have a department.
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But for you, it's going to be sales and marketing efforts.
23:34
And I'm going to give you what to do
23:35
in August or whatever month you're listening to this in.
23:40
You cannot cut off your sales engine
23:42
if you want to grow, good or bad, you just can't do it.
23:47
That's a key
23:48
insight, that business engine that you can't let go of.
23:52
But okay, so here's where the the provocative title of this
23:56
episode comes in.
23:59
When I, when we look online is seen, it seems like.
24:02
And we're going to step on toes sorry.
24:04
Or we're just going to do it.
24:06
It seems like so much the conversation that we see online in the real estate
24:10
groups is talk about the cameras and the picture quality and like,
24:14
like we said earlier, what you call the pixel peeping,
24:18
the, the the focus pun intended, it is intended
24:23
own your puns, you cowards.
24:26
Don't ever say pun unintended on it.
24:30
Anyway, I want that t shirt, Todd,
24:33
I asked my mother in law did to, user cricket.
24:36
I'm still waiting on that t shirt.
24:37
But on your phones, you cowards. Anyway,
24:40
the focus needs to be
24:41
on the engine, not necessarily on the gear.
24:45
Yes. No, it's.
24:47
Craig. I'm sorry.
24:48
This is a, Yeah.
24:49
I mean, this is a bit of a rant on my part, but I see many and many of you
24:53
ask really great questions, and you're you're doing this correctly, but.
24:58
And so this isn't directed at you, but holy cow.
25:01
Like, I get a good amount of what's going on the real estate media industry either.
25:06
Yeah.
25:06
I see what's going on on social, you know, YouTube.
25:11
You guys ask me questions.
25:13
Craig, if I see one more comparison
25:15
on AI editing, like it's like
25:19
like I there was one.
25:21
It's like like these are hour long comparison videos
25:24
that have a lot of views on them, like zooming in to a photo
25:29
to look at pixels of two different AI photo editing companies.
25:35
Craig, I forgot you could even zoom in
25:37
and see a pixel like seriously, y'all.
25:40
Like.
25:41
And the thing about it is, is and this is why business.
25:43
And I say this from a place of love in my heart.
25:46
I think you guys really know me.
25:47
Like if this is the first time
25:49
you're listening to me, I'm really not a mean person.
25:52
I do this because I want your business to succeed.
25:56
Let me tell you a little secret why you all are looking at pixels
26:01
and trying out 42 different photo editors or AI editors.
26:06
You know what? We're doing at Wow.
26:08
We are building relationships with all the people
26:12
that you should be building relationships with.
26:16
That's how we grew 20% over our best year.
26:21
Just plain and simple.
26:22
It's all comes down to focus.
26:25
Do you need a better camera? No you don't.
26:27
We shoot video on iPhones and you know what we do?
26:31
We shoot 8000 videos a year,
26:35
8000 videos a year.
26:38
We shoot them on iPhones.
26:40
My camera.
26:41
I'm still using the Sony a6400.
26:43
I'm not in the 7000 series.
26:47
No one's saying anything and no one's saying anything.
26:50
Yeah, I had someone ask like, oh, should I go to iPhone? No.
26:53
Your client say anything about like, no, no, I never said anything about it.
26:55
Like, oh, and by the way, we shoot shot 8000 videos.
26:59
No client ever goes, hey, because they trust us.
27:03
Because we take care of them, because we have a relationship with them,
27:08
because we've serviced them for 20 years or even one year.
27:12
We look at the stats of how when they come back, how often they come
27:15
back, we call them, we nurture them, we care about them.
27:19
That's why they don't care that you shoot on an iPhone.
27:22
That's why they don't care that you shoot on a6400.
27:26
I know, yeah, I got an A7s3 or they're probably up.
27:29
The A7r14.
27:31
I don't even know it because I don't care
27:34
because it's not going to get me to the next level.
27:38
It's not your picture quality is not your editing quality.
27:41
It's the fact that you got to build your sales engine
27:44
to, okay, to put it in perspective
27:48
there, there is some focus on continuing to provide better quality,
27:54
right?
27:54
I mean,
27:56
so yeah, I guess to be fair.
28:00
Oh, so we haven't looked at new equipment.
28:04
No equipment. We haven't. Yeah.
28:06
I mean the equipment works.
28:07
So we
28:10
what we focus on though, Craig is aligned with our core values.
28:14
We focus on how we better
28:19
equip and educate the photographers.
28:23
So we do spend time with feedback.
28:27
And when we look at photos we say and our QC process.
28:30
And many of you have a QC process too.
28:33
But in our QC process we say did autoHDR do its job okay.
28:38
And before there is autoHDR there were human editors.
28:42
It's did editing do their job
28:44
and editing is not ever going to do their job 100%.
28:48
It wasn't when we had human editors.
28:50
It's actually better with autoHDR,
28:54
and if it did its job, great.
28:55
If it didn't fix the small little thing that needs fixed.
28:59
And then did the photographer do their job
29:02
that feedback goes to Brittany at Wow
29:08
and she then compiles that feedback, digs in a little bit more,
29:12
gives her eye into it, and then helps the photographer understand
29:18
why you need to take the third wall in a small bathroom,
29:22
why you can't cut off and watch if you can't show the floor,
29:25
then you got to come back and double up with a vertical two and a half baths.
29:29
Like those are all the little things we built into because it's not like,
29:33
hey photographer, you need to buy a A7sR15.
29:37
It's like, hey, you just need to step back, hug
29:41
the doorframe to the right, open up to the left until you can see
29:45
the other door frame, and then make sure that you can see the concave ness of this.
29:50
Like we go through our training, we look at that very in depth.
29:54
Yeah.
29:54
So it's not to say that you're not not concerned with quality at all.
29:59
There's still a concern for quality because
30:02
agents will look at overall quality.
30:04
Yeah.
30:05
But but the focus is on growing the business.
30:09
Right.
30:09
The, the effort to step outside that your doors, go visit offices,
30:13
make phone calls.
30:15
It it kind of reminds me you've you've talked about this before.
30:19
The the one thing principle.
30:22
Gary Keller
30:23
Yes, yes.
30:25
There was wasn't there another another name to.
30:29
Yeah.
30:29
Alex Hormosi says it somewhat similar.
30:32
Okay. Yeah.
30:33
I think a lot of people do.
30:35
I just listen to the I listen to Alex a lot.
30:37
I read the Gary Keller book.
30:38
Right. Okay.
30:39
So for the real estate business owner listening right now,
30:42
what what is the one thing would you say?
30:46
Yes. Craig.
30:46
So Gary Keller asks the question is, what is the one thing I can do
30:52
such that by doing it, everything else will be
30:55
easier or unnecessary?
30:59
Let me say it again because I think it's it's but there's a lot to digest in there.
31:02
What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it,
31:06
everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
31:12
Okay.
31:13
You know, basically what's the one thing that you can do
31:17
that is going to take your business the furthest
31:20
So you have a perfect story about this
31:22
the first time you set up a broker deal.
31:25
Can you tell us about that? Yeah.
31:27
So it was our first large broker deal. Craig.
31:29
And it was in a real city.
31:32
You know, it wasn't in the cornfield.
31:33
It was in a big city.
31:35
And Dayton, Ohio, and it was a big name.
31:37
Hundreds of agents at this brokerage, this was like, oh, crap.
31:42
Like, this is a big like I've worked hard to get to this person
31:47
and the
31:49
meeting was scheduled and coming up to it,
31:52
I well, one I took the meeting immediately.
31:56
Okay.
31:57
So it's not like like I knew at this point
32:00
I couldn't service hundreds of agents.
32:03
Okay.
32:03
So it's not like I told the managing broker, oh, I'm sorry.
32:06
Like, I really have to just get this camera figured out
32:11
or I need to perfect my systems,
32:14
or I got more photography to hire first.
32:17
I've got I got to hire more photographers because it's really
32:20
just me and a couple part time people.
32:23
Like, I took the meeting.
32:25
Okay, I was ready for.
32:27
I probably had a week.
32:28
You know, we schedule probably a week out now.
32:30
In the meantime, I started to play the what if game.
32:33
I was making calls to some people, one in particular, like,
32:37
hey, like this big thing's going to come through.
32:39
Like, if this closes, I literally need you to quit your job almost instantly.
32:43
And we've got to focus on this and so and luckily for me, that person was on board.
32:47
I'd set that up and, it happened to all fit together nicely.
32:52
So I laid some groundwork,
32:56
but I didn't halt the progress,
33:00
I went in, I had the meeting, and
33:03
And honestly, he helped me like we created
33:06
the perfect broker deal segments in the room.
33:09
Like I had portions of the broker deal.
33:11
But he was like a visionary of the industry.
33:14
And he was like, would it be great if we did this?
33:15
And we did this?
33:16
And he was like, we're not even going to give him an option to do photos only.
33:20
I still remember I'm like, are you like, okay, great.
33:24
Like he's like, no,
33:25
because I know if we give them an option, they're cheap and they'll do photos only.
33:29
So they're going to have to do photos and video.
33:31
He's like,
33:31
can you like driving your car and like hang out the sunroof and take video?
33:35
I'm like, well, we'll do it a little bit differently.
33:37
But yeah, we have a suction cup mount.
33:38
And so he was he was creative helping me with it.
33:42
I earned his trust.
33:44
It was the first meeting I had with him, but I earned his trust
33:48
by whom I was working with.
33:51
That's a key point to getting in front of him.
33:53
I talk about it all a lot.
33:54
Go back and listen to some of our broker deal things.
33:56
If you're like, how do you get in front of this person,
33:58
Todd, go back and listen to those podcast, because that's how I got that trust.
34:03
But I was all in and I remember Craig,
34:06
there was a point in the conversation that like,
34:09
we were both excited, we were creating is like, yeah, this could be awesome.
34:13
Awesome for me, awesome for you, awesome for the agents.
34:16
It's a win win win. Truly.
34:19
And he looked at me, Craig.
34:22
And he said,
34:24
Todd, can you do it?
34:30
And I'm like, yeah.
34:32
So what was what was the response.
34:34
Like 10,000 pounds on your shoulders, right.
34:37
Like Craig I knew, I like I knew I couldn’t do this with the cards I had right now.
34:45
If I was going to stay with where I was, I couldn't do this.
34:48
It was hundreds of agents.
34:50
And still to this day, it's our largest deal. Yes.
34:54
And okay, so so how did
34:57
how did that one thing focus, principle tie into this?
35:02
It you're you're earning the business before you even have the infrastructure.
35:07
Yeah, yeah. Well, there was
35:11
stupidly and smartly enough, I responded instantly. Yes,
35:16
with confidence.
35:18
Right. Yeah.
35:19
And then and then I got, I got really happy
35:23
because the meeting was done shortly after that.
35:25
Shook his hand, you know. Hey, we'll follow up.
35:28
This is what we're going to do.
35:30
And then I walked out of the office.
35:32
Sun hit my face.
35:33
It was like, oh.
35:36
And then you know what happened, Greg?
35:39
I got really hot really quick
35:42
because I was like, how am I going to do this now?
35:45
Right?
35:46
The person listening
35:47
right now or watching, they're thinking, okay, Todd yeah, this is great fun story.
35:51
But yeah, what do I do Monday morning when it when I'm trying to implement this.
35:56
Yeah,
35:57
I focused on the one thing I needed
36:00
okay.
36:01
So I, the one thing I needed to grow my business was to get more business.
36:05
That was the marketing engine, the broker deal engine.
36:07
That's been so fabulous for us.
36:10
Okay, my problem at that date
36:13
and time, that point in time was not business anymore.
36:17
My one thing if I focused on would move my business along.
36:21
The furthest was I needed more photographers, I needed staff,
36:24
I needed help.
36:26
I remember I told you I had some conversations set up,
36:29
I first call, I made, I call my wife told her,
36:32
went well, second call I made was to this individual.
36:36
I'm like, hey, you need to quit. He's like, boom, I'm going to go do it.
36:38
I'm going to tell the principal like, there's three.
36:41
There's 2 or 3 weeks of school left.
36:45
And I knew that I laid off.
36:47
That was the thing I focused on.
36:48
Then he came on and we focused on building the team of what we would need.
36:53
Also, there was another gap at the time.
36:54
I needed scheduling software.
36:56
The software didn't schedule at the time, and I knew there was going to be
37:00
hundreds of jobs coming in and I couldn't schedule.
37:04
The people couldn't call me, and I had no clue what the date book was,
37:09
and I knew there was going to be a lot of photographers.
37:11
So I went
37:13
to the developer who I knew.
37:15
I'm like, hey, Kyle, you got to build this thing for me.
37:17
Like, great, let's do it.
37:19
So, you know, your focus will change a little bit.
37:22
But the thing that I want to make a point of, Craig, is I.
37:25
I didn't change my focus. I wasn't split.
37:29
This idea of multitasking is a lie.
37:31
You can't multitask.
37:33
It's split tasking. It's split focusing.
37:36
I focused on getting the job.
37:38
I laid some things up, but it's not like I went
37:39
and built the scheduler prior to having it.
37:43
And I was smart about how I set expectations with that broker.
37:48
We had a build out plan.
37:49
He didn't expect me to do a 100 jobs tomorrow.
37:53
All right.
37:55
So I set those expectations of when we could launch
37:58
and when we could do all the agents.
38:00
But it all was very, very concrete,
38:04
just direct focus on what needed to be done at that point in time.
38:09
Okay. So you're a systems guy.
38:11
You've talked about that in the past.
38:14
So this to me this is kind of an abstract principle okay.
38:17
Yeah. The one idea, the one focus.
38:19
The one thing.
38:21
But what what's the system you build or the or the structure.
38:24
What's something concrete that the person listening right now
38:27
that's looking to grow their business could put to action,
38:32
say, in the month of
38:33
August, to help start getting their their focus
38:37
and start making some forward progress, especially in light of recent news.
38:41
We've heard about another particular big company in our industry.
38:45
Yeah for sure.
38:46
So we you know, well, let's talk about that, Craig.
38:49
But let's talk about we'll get to the news and teaser.
38:53
VHT
38:54
you know we it's it's something to talk about but
38:58
you need a sales engine like Todd.
39:00
What do I do. Here's just a very easy plan.
39:02
What I need you to do is I need you daily to have five meaningful
39:09
two minute conversations with a real estate agent,
39:14
okay?
39:14
This can be a current client.
39:16
This can be new clients.
39:17
This can be a warm lead, okay.
39:20
And you'll get that as you talk to current clients.
39:22
It's easier to call current clients. Right.
39:24
And then and then you can ask for the referral. Yes.
39:26
Ask for the referral.
39:28
If they know I can trust you, they will refer you.
39:31
Worst thing is if you say, hey, do you know anybody else who's looking for
39:35
the same level of services and quality that we provide you?
39:39
Worst thing they say is like, let me think about it.
39:42
Or they say, no, but if you don't ask, they're not going to say anything.
39:47
Okay, so five meaningful two minute conversations.
39:52
And I want I only want you to do that.
39:53
I need you to do 20 a week okay.
39:55
So that's four days I'm giving you Friday off for three days.
40:00
Very nice of you. Thank you, thank you. Great.
40:03
Thank you.
40:04
Because well, I'm sorry I said it.
40:07
I said it like a you know what? But I,
40:11
I, I, I do this because I under
40:13
I hear from you guys like this is difficult to do.
40:15
I remember dialing the phone and hanging it up,
40:19
dialing the phone and hanging it up.
40:21
I remember
40:21
pulling into the real estate office, sitting there getting to my left brain.
40:25
I'm pulling out of the real estate office, and I was gonna walk into,
40:30
okay, I know it's not like something we all gravitate towards.
40:33
You're all you are typically an S personality, which means you want
40:38
to help others, which means you feel bad when you ask others
40:42
to buy your product or service.
40:46
So 20 calls a week
40:49
if it happens, take Friday off enjoy.
40:53
But if you don't get 20
40:56
meaningful conversations, then you got it.
40:58
You have to fill up on Friday.
41:00
If you're 17, you need to talk to three more people.
41:04
And I'll just to clarify, like
41:05
this isn't calls like meaningful conversations.
41:09
Okay, so hey, here's a little cheat code.
41:10
If you walk into an office or you go to a brokerage event,
41:13
or if you go to a MLS event, you're probably going to talk to five people
41:18
in the first ten minutes, okay, so that you're done for a day.
41:21
But I think what what this will do is this will start your sales engine,
41:25
build meaningful conversations
41:28
and get you off the ground right.
41:31
It's amazing how
41:33
once you take that, taking that first step is always the hardest thing.
41:37
It's just like an exercise, right?
41:39
You don't want to drag yourself out of bed in the morning
41:41
and go take a brisk walk or run, but
41:45
once you get that first step done,
41:48
the momentum builds
41:50
and you'll start to see the payoff on the effort.
41:53
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
41:55
And I think that's great because sometimes we need to track our effort
41:59
and see what it was. You know,
42:01
the beautiful thing about exercise is you begin to feel it in your body.
42:05
And I think you'll feel this too, because you'll get the feedback
42:09
and you'll actually call and you'll think the person
42:11
is going to hate you, but the person really loves you.
42:13
And you see these, you see these,
42:16
you see the output of your energy in.
42:19
But I think it's important.
42:20
Let's be strategic about let's track our sales team tracks it.
42:24
Now, don't worry about a CRM if you're not set up in a CRM, which is a
42:27
customer relationship management piece of software, just use a spreadsheet.
42:32
Okay, Google Drive or Excel or whatever, and just have a column of the date
42:36
you called.
42:37
The next column would be the client name.
42:39
I'd probably put their phone number there so you can call them back easier.
42:42
Maybe the company they're with and then any notes about the conversation.
42:47
You know, that that note might be like left the voicemail
42:50
that might be had a conversation.
42:52
Talk to them about so-and-so.
42:53
They refer me to this person.
42:55
Okay. So just put some notes in there.
42:57
The last thing is, is if you're going to follow up with someone,
42:59
if there's something actionable about it, go to your calendar
43:03
because you're going to gain information from these conversations.
43:06
Go to your calendar
43:07
and put something on your calendar to make sure you follow up with that client.
43:11
Yeah, because there's not there's nothing worse
43:14
than calling the person
43:17
having a great conversation, them needing
43:19
something from you, and then they never hear from you again.
43:22
Right? Yeah.
43:25
So powerful challenge for the month of August.
43:29
To hammer this home Todd let's go ahead and and talk about the news
43:34
that just broke that everybody's talking about online right now with VHT
43:39
Kind of an opportune
43:40
time to focus in on this effort
43:43
in this challenge that Todd has laid out for us.
43:47
Oh sure is.
43:48
So if you haven't heard of VHT who VHT was one of the country's
43:52
largest media providers to realtors.
43:56
They they announced earlier in the week
43:59
that they are closing shop very quickly like in a couple of weeks.
44:03
And like they're only taking orders for another week or two.
44:06
Right.
44:07
So you and they've been around for over 20 years. Wow.
44:11
And they're huge.
44:13
And I think they're doing 50 to 75,000 shoots a year.
44:17
It's just a guess I might be completely off base, but it's a huge company.
44:21
So you have thousands of agents across the US
44:26
scrambling to figure out who is going to provide that media for them.
44:33
And so you got a great opportunity.
44:35
Make calls, ask questions.
44:38
The agent's going to tell you, oh, this is perfect timing.
44:42
I used to use VHT and they just closed shop
44:48
gave us no other option.
44:50
I used them for five years, ten years, whatever it may be.
44:54
You get that information right.
44:56
Craig, do you feel like when you talk to agents, are they pretty
44:59
closed tight to chest with information, or is it just flow?
45:03
I mean, some are cautious if if it's a, true cold call
45:08
and there's no connection made from another realtor that referred you,
45:12
they can be a little bit.
45:13
But again, you do it long enough.
45:17
You you build up a tolerance to that. You understand?
45:19
They're not trying to just be mean to you.
45:21
It's Realtors are busy people, but,
45:25
more often than
45:25
not, especially if it's an opportune time.
45:28
Yeah, they're they're going to talk.
45:30
Realtors like to talk and they just, you know, so like to talk.
45:35
Yeah.
45:36
So they do they listen well to they do.
45:39
Let's be fair to realtors.
45:41
They have to listen.
45:42
The good ones and I'm good at it.
45:45
It's a squirrel.
45:45
Squirrel moment.
45:46
let it go right now.
45:47
Craig I feel like that was
45:54
I had a realtor of one time asked me,
45:56
have you ever thought about being a realtor?
45:58
And I'm wondering if it's because I talk to talk too much to them?
46:02
Anyway,
46:03
I, I did work in radio for a long time,
46:05
so it's hard to get that, you know, but no, I think
46:10
they're looking to improve their business.
46:12
And if you're providing a solution to a problem
46:14
they're facing, they're going to talk with you.
46:16
Okay, Craig, let's let's break down the VHT thing
46:19
real quick, and I want to tie it into why I'm so excited
46:22
for all of you and honestly for myself as well,
46:24
because I think there's a great opportunity
46:26
with real estate media in 2025 and beyond.
46:29
Okay, VHT.
46:31
Humongous company owned by a larger company
46:35
that's owned by a larger and a larger.
46:37
Okay, there's your nesting boxes.
46:39
There was nothing.
46:40
There was no resource, no amount of money.
46:44
They had everything that potentially could have been needed.
46:48
Okay.
46:49
I think homes.com has more money than Zillow.
46:54
So I want to make a point that all you
46:56
you guys feel limited like, oh I got this or I have that or I like know like
47:01
this is a company that have more money than anything, more resources.
47:05
And I think they were losing like $10 million a year
47:10
after 20 years to lose that amount of money.
47:13
And I think about like, they didn't even try to sell the book of business,
47:18
which was really I'm like, well,
47:19
wonder why they didn't try to sell the book of business.
47:22
And and who knows, the reason might not ever be told, in my opinion,
47:25
really doesn't matter.
47:26
But the point I want to make to all of you
47:30
is, I really think that the VHT
47:34
Matterport those companies,
47:37
I think they lost focus
47:40
as to what was really important.
47:43
I think they got too clever
47:46
and tried to have this massive pay off.
47:51
There was some really intelligent brains in a room
47:55
that thought, we're going to devise this master plan where we're going to leverage
47:59
these four different companies to own the space.
48:06
But being too clever doesn't work.
48:11
Our business is simple.
48:15
I luckily was forced to do it in 2023.
48:20
I might have been the VHT of 2025
48:23
if I want have focused in 2023.
48:26
I had a lot of shiny objects.
48:28
I had a lot of crazy ideas.
48:30
We were spending time and money on them.
48:34
The tough
48:35
year of 23 forced me to focus on what's important.
48:38
At the end of the day, your client is the most important thing to you.
48:43
That relationship will, will yield, will return
48:47
you them using you, them referring you, which will give you
48:51
the lifeblood of your business, which is revenue.
48:54
You can't have a business with negative profit.
48:58
Revenue. Negative profit, okay.
49:00
If you do, if you do 20 million in revenue, I don't know.
49:04
That's what VHT was doing.
49:06
If you do 20 million in revenue, but you lose 10 million a year,
49:11
no matter how much money you have and your parent companies have,
49:15
you're going to cut it off at some point.
49:20
Focus on what's important, please.
49:22
I'm telling you, it might seem too simple to you.
49:25
And you think you're more sophisticated
49:27
than five meaningful two minute conversations four days a week.
49:33
But if we want to have done this at Wow,
49:35
we might have been the VHT of 2025.
49:40
We're up 20%, almost 20% year
49:43
over year over our best year ever.
49:47
We came back in 24 a little beat up from 23, and we had our best year
49:53
ever, and we're beating it by nearly 20% this year.
49:57
And again,
49:58
I don't say it to brag, but I say it because I want you to take that path.
50:03
It's not difficult for all of you.
50:05
A lot of you talk about, oh, it's tough to beat the big people like,
50:08
oh, they do VHT was doing a 150 for photos you can't sustain.
50:13
It's a race to the bottom.
50:14
It doesn't work for anybody.
50:17
Follow the simple path.
50:19
Have the meaningful conversations,
50:21
build relationships, do the hard thing
50:26
and your business will grow.
50:29
The key word that I'm taking away from this Todd is meaningful
50:33
and or when you get too clever and used it,
50:37
you only focus on,
50:40
massive business growth and numbers.
50:42
You take the humanity out of business, working with others in the marketplace,
50:48
and ultimately the reason we're all doing what we do is we
50:52
we need to we need to take care of ourselves.
50:55
You know, we need income.
50:57
Many of us, most of us, I don't know, have families that we love
51:01
and care about and want to take care of, and we're working hard for them.
51:04
So is the realtor.
51:06
So if you can truly serve somebody
51:09
in a meaningful way and not make it just about the business
51:15
and you're just real with people and authentic
51:17
with people, yeah, that's going to go a long way.
51:20
And taking time to have conversations with people.
51:23
It's so easy to just shoot a quick text or a quick email,
51:27
but to have an actual, meaningful conversation, that's huge.
51:32
Yeah.
51:32
So it almost seems too simple.
51:34
Craig I think it does.
51:35
I'm I'm I'm happy.
51:37
It I'm happy.
51:38
I'm happy that people overthink it, I really am
51:41
I'm happy that people make it more difficult than it has to be,
51:44
because it just shows that if if you simplify it
51:46
and you do this.
51:49
You're adding your competition.
51:52
And again, competition means nothing.
51:54
It really means nothing.
51:55
And look at the great upper hand
51:57
you have right now because that hole in the market exist.
52:01
So take this opportunity to do it.
52:03
Just trust me. Please do it.
52:05
Yeah.
52:06
And you'll see your business. Just go.
52:08
So there's there's the challenge for the month of August. 5 by 4 method
52:14
five meaningful conversations four days a week. And,
52:20
see what impact it has on your business.
52:24
Magic is magic is in that work.
52:27
Not not the gear.
52:29
Yeah. So are you serious?
52:31
Are you serious? Enough? And I'll end on this.
52:33
But are you serious enough about your business
52:36
to have 80 2-minute conversations
52:40
in the month of August?
52:44
There you go.
52:46
We'd love to hear at the end of August
52:48
how that month went with taking that challenge.
52:51
So drop us a line. hello@spiro.media.
52:54
We would.
52:54
We love hearing from you.
52:55
Leave a comment on the YouTube channel
52:57
which we try our best to keep up with those.
53:01
Yeah. We want to hear from you.
53:03
What what successful Todd always makes us share success stories.
53:06
Makes us.
53:07
It sounds kind of bad.
53:08
Makes us share success stories at our staff meeting every Friday morning.
53:12
And, we want to hear your success stories.
53:15
What what went good for you in August?
53:17
Share that with us. All right.
53:19
Yeah. Thank you so much.
53:21
Oh my pleasure. Also, we've got a great community.
53:23
The Spiro Super User Facebook group. Please get in there.
53:27
You know, you guys are so kind.
53:28
I see a lot of people are like, oh,
53:29
not Spyro related, but posting this here because I just love this community.
53:33
Thank you all for making that such a great community.
53:35
Get in there and let's talk about it.
53:38
Tell your successes. Or maybe you need some kind of building.
53:41
Be like, hey, I, I only had one this week.
53:43
Like, okay, well you can do it.
53:44
This is something that I found was
53:46
this is what unlocked that for me or I was struggling with that as well.
53:50
So let's do it as a community.
53:51
Don't be on an island. Please don't.
53:53
Your ego is going to tell
53:54
if your ego tells you like, hey, you need to do it yourself.
53:57
Your ego's wrong.
53:59
Please just get into a community.
54:01
If it's not, if it's not, if it's not that Facebook group, I don't care.
54:04
I'm not offended by it.
54:06
Find some community to push you to hold you accountable.
54:10
There you go.
54:12
All right.
54:12
That's good to wrap things up this week.
54:15
Thank you so much for taking time.
54:16
We know it's a busy summer, so thank you for taking the time to listen or watch.
54:20
And again, if you have somebody you want to share with us, ask a question.
54:24
Topic idea, business topic idea, drop us a line.
54:27
hello@spiro.media.
54:29
In the meantime, make sure you take time out of your week not just for those,
54:33
five two minute conversations
54:36
per day, but take some time to be thankful
54:39
for the things in your life and make sure you take a breath this week.
54:42
You have a fantastic week. Take care.