Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / How to Get Two Brokerage Presentations a Month - Nick Narodny from TITUS
Transcript
- 0:00Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
- 0:04is when you want money, ask for advice.
- 0:06And when you want advice, ask for money.
- 0:23Hello and welcome to this Spiro podcast.
- 0:25Spiro is a software platform designed to help you
- 0:28manage and scale your photography business.
- 0:32It was built by my media company whow video tours many years ago.
- 0:36I don't want to say because then I'll feel that much older, but we all have it.
- 0:41And available to all of you
- 0:44to help you grow and scale your business.
- 0:47We are excited to be on this podcast with you today.
- 0:49It is just me.
- 0:50So if you're saying, hey,
- 0:51this intro sounds different, it is different again, just myself.
- 0:55As we discussed openly on this podcast, Craig, who is my co-host,
- 1:00he is in a business development hybrid role at our media
- 1:03company, Wow Video Tours, and we talk about that a lot.
- 1:06He is out selling and shooting today so much more.
- 1:09Like many of you probably tuning in.
- 1:11This is another great
- 1:14presentation from Spiro Sync Spiro
- 1:17sync was this past January 21st and 22nd.
- 1:21And Nick presented this at Spiro Sync.
- 1:24So we're excited to have him back on day two.
- 1:26The podcast.
- 1:27Before we begin, I want to give you a couple of Spiro updates.
- 1:31So we are excited to announce some Spiro updates.
- 1:34These updates are probably going to hit you about March 10th.
- 1:38So if you if this is before March 10th, you just have a little bit longer to go.
- 1:43But some things you'll see in your Spiro system.
- 1:46Well, number one, it's a Titus related update, is the fact that you will get
- 1:51past the address information
- 1:54on the invoice inside of Titus.
- 1:57So when you go into your profile and you look at, some of your past
- 2:01transactions there, you'll now have the address or list of addresses.
- 2:05If that transaction is for more than one.
- 2:08And then the next update, I'm actually going to allow Nick to tell you
- 2:12once we bring him on.
- 2:13But we've talked
- 2:14and I've talked and hinted at this for a very long time about this data.
- 2:19So Titus has built this incredible network of of understanding
- 2:23the timeline of a real estate transaction.
- 2:27And that's important to them and us.
- 2:29But them, because they are doing the pay at close.
- 2:33So they need to understand when the transaction,
- 2:35when the listing goes pending and then sold
- 2:38and then when it closes so that, that can take place.
- 2:42And along the line they're grabbing this data and this listing data.
- 2:46And this is super valuable to us.
- 2:47So I'm going to let him give you that one.
- 2:50As soon as I bring him on.
- 2:52One more update I want to mention before we get to
- 2:55that is we have gone through in this cycle 15, as we're calling it,
- 3:00we've gone through all of the property websites from a mobile perspective,
- 3:03and we have finally crossed all of those off fine tuned.
- 3:09Just built them to a higher standard that we've ever had before.
- 3:13So I'm excited to get that out to all of you.
- 3:15We know our not only agents, but buyers and sellers are on the internet
- 3:20and they need a very mobile friendly and a consistent version.
- 3:23So those are polished off, and we're happy to bring those to you.
- 3:26Without further ado, though, I'd like to bring on our guest this week.
- 3:29Good friend of Spiro, Nick, the co-founder and president of Titus.
- 3:34Nick, welcome back to the show.
- 3:36Yeah.
- 3:36Thanks, Todd. Great to be here.
- 3:38So I hinted at it.
- 3:39Can you let us know a little bit as to what
- 3:41what are you guys doing with the data now?
- 3:44Where can I go and find this?
- 3:45In my Titus dashboard.
- 3:48Yeah. And so on, of course. Yeah. So?
- 3:50So most of you know us as the pay at close company.
- 3:53We were the first to introduce the ability for agents to,
- 3:57to defer any,
- 3:59cost of photography or media until the home sells.
- 4:02So you get paid right away, and they,
- 4:05the agent doesn't have to pay till the home sells.
- 4:08We are also a full checkout company.
- 4:12Okay, so Spiro was the first to integrate our full checkout experience.
- 4:17If you think about stripe
- 4:18as a payment processor, they're servicing everyone and everyone.
- 4:22Every, everything and everyone.
- 4:24They started with software.
- 4:25As a service technology companies, we are focused on to to,
- 4:30groups of businesses, real estate media companies and home stagers.
- 4:34Okay. So what does that mean?
- 4:36We have the concept of the listing which no other payment processor has.
- 4:41And now with the integration that we're doing
- 4:44with Spiro in a couple of weeks, mid-March,
- 4:48we are going to for every single transaction, including credit card
- 4:51transactions, we're going to be attaching this concept of the listing.
- 4:57And because again, we are focused on real estate, we are tracking
- 5:01every listing and its status and certain aspects of that listing.
- 5:05And so all of that will be available inside of your Titus dashboard.
- 5:10As soon as that goes live, you're going to have the projects section.
- 5:13You can click in there
- 5:14and you'll see your listings, and you'll have additional data
- 5:17which you can leverage to get more broker
- 5:18meetings, which is what we're talking about today.
- 5:20And I'll talk about how you can leverage that, in just a second.
- 5:25And this this is one reason why we are very careful
- 5:29about our partners inside of Spiro, that we do business with.
- 5:33We use them.
- 5:34Not only do we in and integrate and endorse them via Spiro,
- 5:39but we use them at our real estate media company, Wow video tours.
- 5:42So we use the full payment processing ability of Titus.
- 5:46That is not only pay it close, but that's also pay.
- 5:48Now we're taking advantage of that because these are custom built tools, y'all.
- 5:53For us, as real estate photographers like you go to Stripe or Square,
- 5:56you're like, hey, can you give me some listing information?
- 5:59They're going to have no clue what you're talking about.
- 6:01It's not their world.
- 6:02Their world is a service anyone and everyone out there.
- 6:05And to try to be as general as possible and
- 6:09we've learned in our
- 6:10business that when you can build a tool that is very pointed
- 6:16and very specific to our niche of media real estate,
- 6:21you know, we're in a couple different niches.
- 6:23That's when you can differentiate yourself from the competition.
- 6:27Other photographers out there, you can speak to your client and they go,
- 6:31wait a minute, this person is just not just a photographer.
- 6:33How do they know about like I needed pay at close?
- 6:36Like how who are they?
- 6:38Like, what do you know?
- 6:39And that's when you become relevant.
- 6:41When you,
- 6:41like Nick mentioned, you use this data to leverage it to get brokered deals. So
- 6:46I just want to say that if you have not
- 6:48utilized Titus, number one, pay at close.
- 6:51And also number two, pay now to replace stripe or square.
- 6:55I highly endorse them.
- 6:57We have had great success at our company.
- 6:59We're seeing a blended average of a 35 ish increase
- 7:04in your cart size when agents choose to pay at close.
- 7:09So I don't want to turn this into a pay at close
- 7:10because I could talk to it all the time.
- 7:12Because if you all just want to see growth, this year,
- 7:15just implement pay at close.
- 7:17Not only you're going to get a higher cart price,
- 7:19but you're going to use the information Nick gives you today
- 7:22to go get a broker presentation that will lead to broker deals
- 7:25and better relationships with your agents.
- 7:27So Nick, I appreciate everything.
- 7:29You guys are always grinding for us.
- 7:31You're always bringing new things.
- 7:32Every meeting we have, I'm like, wow, that's really awesome.
- 7:35The data I was blown away with.
- 7:36So thank you for your dedication to the industry.
- 7:39Yeah, of course, of course.
- 7:40Well, I mean, honestly, we just have great partners.
- 7:42I mean, even this morning we've chatted with with two of our our joint,
- 7:45our joint customers.
- 7:46And I think just such, such good people like the entrepreneurs,
- 7:50the entrepreneur community,
- 7:51the local entrepreneur community is just really fun to build for.
- 7:55But do you want to we can get into some of the getting
- 7:57into the mind of the office manager.
- 7:59So we get these presentations going.
- 8:01All right, Nick.
- 8:01So let's just jump in.
- 8:02You gave this presentation as Spiro sync.
- 8:05And as I mentioned, you come from a family of realtors.
- 8:08And also, I heard you gave your first office
- 8:12presentation when you were in eighth grade.
- 8:15I did, I did, yeah.
- 8:16So my mom,
- 8:17the realtor, she dropped out of college at 18 and became a real estate agent.
- 8:21My dad is a realtor.
- 8:23And then now my little brothers are both agents.
- 8:24I'm the only person in my family not licensed.
- 8:27When I was in when I was in middle school.
- 8:29So eighth grade, I wanted to start working, and I was good with computers.
- 8:34I was super geeky, and, I realized this thing
- 8:38called the internet was, like, starting to take take the world by storm.
- 8:42And I needed to, take advantage of it.
- 8:45So I went to my first office presentation in eighth grade.
- 8:48It was a Thursday. I got out of school early.
- 8:51And I went and I presented to
- 8:53all of the agents in that office and said I would build them websites for $500.
- 8:58And I think I made three of them in my first month,
- 9:02which is a lot of money for an eighth grader.
- 9:04And in the late 90s,
- 9:07that is an
- 9:08so now.
- 9:10So you walk in to now we've all done it.
- 9:13You all driving out there listening like you think about
- 9:16like you pull up to the office like there's a little bit of intimidation.
- 9:18What was what was going through your brain?
- 9:21Or is this just like, yeah, I know it.
- 9:22Like my mom, my dad, I know realtors.
- 9:24Well, you also got to remember that I had a bowl cut.
- 9:27I was also like, you know, five foot
- 9:30nine, skinny Israel, probably not over 120 pounds,
- 9:35and wearing like a tie, which was way too big for me.
- 9:37And I'd never, you know what I mean?
- 9:38So it was like a ridiculous scene.
- 9:41And that was, that was the first time I went.
- 9:43Now my mom was going to be in the audience. Right.
- 9:45But, I think some of the agents were just like, this is ridiculous.
- 9:48I got to see what this kid produces.
- 9:51And so I made these kind of one page static websites,
- 9:54which were the first websites.
- 9:55If you go on the Wayback Machine,
- 9:56you can still see these original websites I made back then.
- 10:00That is incredible. That is awesome.
- 10:02So you're doing you're selling to agents in the eighth grade.
- 10:07And so I'm going to sell websites for them.
- 10:09And so you have that knowledge from all that time
- 10:13of how to get in front of them and what to say.
- 10:15And so what have you learned over the years?
- 10:16What works well, what does and what's the do's and don'ts?
- 10:20Yeah. So
- 10:21I think
- 10:21when you whenever you're thinking about,
- 10:25giving office presentations, you want to obviously create a system.
- 10:29You want to create a process for getting and booking broker meetings.
- 10:33Okay.
- 10:34And my favorite structure for thinking about local marketing,
- 10:38the same structure actually works for direct mail as well.
- 10:42Is a structure created by this guy named Dan Kennedy.
- 10:44He's kind of this crazy direct mail marketing mind.
- 10:47And Dan Kennedy says, when you're whenever you're you're doing outreach
- 10:51or you're making cold calls
- 10:52or you're trying to book meetings or you're sending mail, there's
- 10:55kind of three elements that matter in this order.
- 10:59The most, by far, most important, 80% of your time should be spent.
- 11:03Here is the list.
- 11:05And what that means is who are you going to be reaching out to?
- 11:09And so I cannot stress to you how important it is to figure out exactly
- 11:14who either the broker of record is or the office manager,
- 11:17and then figure out who sets the agenda for the weekly meeting,
- 11:20because it might be set by the top agent and your your outreach could just be going
- 11:25into a void because you're just calling or reaching out to the wrong person.
- 11:28Okay. The second most important thing
- 11:32is your offer.
- 11:33What are you going to be offering for this meeting, either to that broker,
- 11:37to that broker of record, to that manager, or to their agents
- 11:40and then distant, distant, distant third is the creative.
- 11:44Now, when you're a real estate media person,
- 11:46you always think about the creative.
- 11:47You agonize over what your presentation is going to look like,
- 11:50what photos am I going to show?
- 11:52How perfect are these before and afters?
- 11:53But I can't stress enough.
- 11:55Spend.
- 11:56Spend the majority of your time on nailing both who you're reaching out
- 12:00to, your list, and then the offer.
- 12:03And Titus gives you a great offer, which we can talk about in a second.
- 12:05And there's some other offers you can make.
- 12:08Yeah.
- 12:08So, so with the list, Nick, you know, the number one thing, you know,
- 12:15as you say, that this makes sense.
- 12:17Like let's make sure that we go to the decision maker
- 12:20that's going to, you know, get us in front of them.
- 12:24What have you found?
- 12:25So if someone is out there saying, hey,
- 12:27I've got some agents in an office, and they they really like me.
- 12:32They've used me for a year or two.
- 12:34I don't know that they're the broker or the manager.
- 12:36What are these positions?
- 12:38Where does someone start
- 12:39if they just are working with a handful of agents right now?
- 12:42That's great. So, there's kind of two paths.
- 12:44There's a path you're describing where it's like,
- 12:46how do I get to the office manager via my existing connections?
- 12:50And then there's the path of going cold.
- 12:53Let's talk about the path you you're describing,
- 12:57getting an introduction
- 12:59to the office manager and getting an endorsement
- 13:02from one of their agents is critical, and you should offer a discount or whatever
- 13:06you can to get that introduction and say, hey, do you set for your weekly meetings?
- 13:10If I get an intro, you know, I'm happy to discount your next shoot.
- 13:13I think that is so important.
- 13:15Typically, this is going to be their office manager.
- 13:18So the person who approves all of their paperwork in their local office
- 13:23or their broker of record, okay,
- 13:26the broker of record is,
- 13:30typically the the kind of the person that they technically report to on paper.
- 13:35Okay.
- 13:35And so this is, this is the the path you took as an eighth grader.
- 13:39Correct.
- 13:39Because I assume you're not walking in the office as an eighth grader
- 13:43and getting that.
- 13:44So yeah.
- 13:45No, I mean, you know, these are serious meetings.
- 13:48It wasn't supposed to be a joke. Right? So, yeah.
- 13:51You know, I got introduced to my mom's manager.
- 13:54Her name was Sid Gardner.
- 13:55I still remember she actually went to my wedding, which is crazy.
- 13:58And so I got introduced to my mom's manager, Sid Gardner.
- 14:01Sid sat down with me before, so be like, hey, what are you going to present?
- 14:04Like, you know, these these are professionals.
- 14:06I don't want this to be seen as like a joke.
- 14:08And I presented it to her and she goes, that's a great option.
- 14:10Websites are costing people like $4,000 right now.
- 14:13If you have a much cheaper option, I'd love to bring that to them.
- 14:15So my offer was a deeply discounted online presence.
- 14:19Yeah, yeah.
- 14:20And just to tie back, my story and then we'll go to the cold path.
- 14:25Nick, I was, 20 years old, I believe, and my parents had just bought and sold
- 14:31a house, and I had a camera and same thing.
- 14:34I knew nothing about real estate other than one transaction
- 14:37that I was involved in.
- 14:39And I knew that photos were minimal and then,
- 14:43my offer or my contract at that time was just the fact that no one had video.
- 14:47It was this new thing, and agents were beginning to think about it.
- 14:51And I had a good enough sample video to show that the manager was like,
- 14:55hey, we might as well show this to the agents to get their feedback.
- 14:59So if okay, so
- 15:02there's a real estate photographer, many of them out there
- 15:04listening saying, okay, I, I kind of maybe no,
- 15:06my contrast, my contrast is like I give really good service.
- 15:10But what if I don't have an in like maybe they're not feeling so confident
- 15:14about having this offer.
- 15:15Like you, you and I both had very unique offers that existed many years ago.
- 15:19For someone that's not feeling so confident in that or just wants the
- 15:24the path of like, hey, I'm just going to start knocking on doors
- 15:27or pulling, you know, doors open as the cold past.
- 15:30Where do we start?
- 15:32Yeah.
- 15:32So let's stick with the list
- 15:33and building your cold list, and then we'll move to the offer.
- 15:38The best place to start is check Google and check Zillow.
- 15:43Zillow and, for the top ranked agents.
- 15:47Okay, so you're going to Google real estate agent.
- 15:50Then what you're going to do is when you find that list of 10 or 20
- 15:53top real estate agents, you want to find your state license bureau.
- 15:58Okay, so the every state has a real estate license bureau
- 16:03to almost always I haven't seen a case otherwise.
- 16:05Tell me if this is not the fact
- 16:07they have to have public record of every single license and publicly
- 16:11who their broker of record is, so what you're going to be doing
- 16:15is you're going to be searching that person's license
- 16:18information, usually by last name, going and looking at their brokerage.
- 16:23And then you search for that brokerage
- 16:25and you find the broker of record for that brokerage that is your contact.
- 16:29Then you can find them on LinkedIn.
- 16:30You can pretty easily find contact information for anyone in real estate.
- 16:34And so that is your contact.
- 16:35That's how you develop this cold list.
- 16:38And then you can move on to the the offer stage.
- 16:41And crafting an offer.
- 16:43Love this.
- 16:44So I'm looking at I'm finding top agents searching them.
- 16:47And and as far as I'm aware as well Nick in the US
- 16:52every agent has to or every broker has to hold
- 16:56every agent's license and that needs to be listed publicly.
- 17:00So I've created this list and I understand the top
- 17:04agents and their brokers. And
- 17:09now what am I doing with that list?
- 17:11Yeah.
- 17:11And we have a little tool that can help you create that list that we can we can,
- 17:15post in the show notes, which, can help you build the list a little bit faster.
- 17:20But once you have that list,
- 17:22you need to craft your offer.
- 17:24And I would highly recommend when you have 1 or 2, you test them.
- 17:30Right.
- 17:32I think some of my, my best advice
- 17:34I've ever gotten for sales or fundraising
- 17:39is when you want money, ask for advice.
- 17:42And when you want advice, ask for money.
- 17:46And so one of the best people are genuine, are generally altruistic, okay.
- 17:51And people are generally good.
- 17:53And so when you go to an office manager
- 17:56and ask them for advice, they will almost always respond
- 18:00to you more than if you're pitching them something.
- 18:03And so I would highly recommend coming up with an offer
- 18:07and then saying, hey, do you think your agents would be interested in this?
- 18:10Okay, so as you think about what these offers are,
- 18:14there's a couple of vectors okay.
- 18:16So one vector is a free shoot,
- 18:19one vector or discounts free shoots, discounts.
- 18:23You know, first shoot free whatever it is.
- 18:25Another vector is features or things that you offer.
- 18:28Things like Titus. And another vector is quality.
- 18:32A lot of these like you're
- 18:34going to need to define your own alchemy of what your offer is.
- 18:37But the thing that is almost always consistent is you need to get into
- 18:41the mind of broker of, office managers or brokers of record.
- 18:47Okay?
- 18:47Most people don't understand, like what is their primary KPI or what
- 18:51are their primary performance indicators, what numbers are they trying to hit?
- 18:55And almost always there's two things that matter.
- 18:57Acquiring and keeping top agents
- 19:01and total sales of the office.
- 19:03Okay.
- 19:03Those are the two things they're trying to drive.
- 19:05And so if you can help them with either of those two,
- 19:08and typically the first is easier, right?
- 19:10It's easier to, to to make it seem make them seem like the hero to their agents.
- 19:14If you can help them seem like a hero to their agents,
- 19:17they're going to listen to you.
- 19:18And that is not food on Thursday.
- 19:20It is a true offer of you making the broker seem like a hero,
- 19:26making it seem like they get something special for working at that specific
- 19:30Coldwell Banker or Sotheby's or Remax office.
- 19:33Yeah, this is this is key all.
- 19:36And this is something that I stumbled my way into over the years.
- 19:41And what we talk about broker deals and all the time and the idea of speaking
- 19:44broker, please do not go sell that manager or the broker in charge.
- 19:49The idea that you've got really a really great camera and high quality
- 19:53images, you just they're going to look and they're going to say, hey, looks great.
- 19:57And then they're gone. They're just tuned out.
- 20:00The broker, the manager, they care about one thing.
- 20:03And those two metrics one, the the the metric is market share.
- 20:06So keeping agents, getting agents and then helping their agents sell more.
- 20:11So that is that is literally the only thing they care about.
- 20:14And if you focus on that you'll be the only photographer
- 20:17that walked in and said, hey, tell me about your recruitment strategy.
- 20:22Or do you think if clients had a way to defer payment to closing,
- 20:26that they could market better to help get more listings?
- 20:29So and Nick will get I'm sure we're going to get into this, Nick, but
- 20:32I just this is the key to going in.
- 20:35And also this is the key to all of my introverts out there
- 20:38who are saying, hey, I hate to walk in or I hate these presentations.
- 20:42Well, if you actually have information that gets responded to, well,
- 20:48that's when our left brain, the fight or flight
- 20:50goes down and we go, oh, wait a minute, they like what I'm saying.
- 20:54And then you begin to hit this momentum and you just keep pitching it
- 20:58and patient it.
- 20:58And not everyone's going to say yes, this is that's just sales.
- 21:02But the more you do it and the more that you give relevant
- 21:05information and not how good your camera is, the more yeses you get, which brings
- 21:10down your barrier and your fear of going into these presentations.
- 21:14Yeah.
- 21:14And I think
- 21:15I think kind of Todd, you alluded to this, and I think we talked a bit about this
- 21:18at Spiro Sync, but the old adage of talk is cheap is true, right? And,
- 21:24if you think of a
- 21:26normal office manager, they're probably getting
- 21:3110 to 20 requests to be in that meeting every week.
- 21:35And they're ignoring most of them. Right.
- 21:37Think about it.
- 21:37Roofers, inspectors, home warranty people,
- 21:41other photographers and the the best.
- 21:47Most of those people are not doing the work
- 21:49to really understand that office manager, to ask them for advice.
- 21:54And then they're also just not doing the work.
- 21:57If I was a new, a new photographer
- 21:59in the region and I had extra time,
- 22:02I would go reshoot exteriors
- 22:06of some of their top agents
- 22:08listings and say, hey, I don't know, do you like these better?
- 22:12Like, what advice would you give me? I'm newer.
- 22:15I'd love to get your feedback and make these so good that you switch to me.
- 22:21That will blow people away.
- 22:24That'll blow people away.
- 22:25And just nobody puts in that extra effort.
- 22:28And so writing the perfect email is going to be way,
- 22:33a way worse use of your time than picking up the camera
- 22:37and actually doing some work to blow someone away and show your value.
- 22:41And by the way, they might say, these are worse. Great.
- 22:44You need to know that to right like like a no is just as good as a yes,
- 22:48because that just means that you're you're getting closer to that.
- 22:51Yes. In the future.
- 22:52Yeah.
- 22:53So okay, so let's recap here real quick now because I love some things that
- 22:56you said in here.
- 22:57So this idea of like if this
- 23:01and I'm going to mess up what you said, but basically
- 23:02like if you want to sell something, ask for help.
- 23:05And that's what you're doing as a business.
- 23:07And I know many of you out there, you have hesitation and reserve
- 23:10on being a new business because you see what you don't have.
- 23:14But the thing that you do have is you have this idea of
- 23:17you have this passion, this love for your business.
- 23:20And remember, every agent
- 23:22in that office, everyone in there, they are business owners.
- 23:26So they are going to much like how Nick got attention in eighth grade.
- 23:30His contrast like what?
- 23:31You're an eighth grader in here and I walked into an office selling video
- 23:34before the internet really existed in a broadband, you know,
- 23:38network selling video.
- 23:41People were like, this kid might know something like, what do they know?
- 23:44So asking questions is just an incredible way to get in there.
- 23:49It brings the guard down.
- 23:50And much like Nick mentioned, everybody is selling to them all of the time.
- 23:55They are probably the most sold to industry.
- 23:58So please don't go to them and sell them.
- 24:01Yeah, constant.
- 24:02And I mean, Todd, if you think back to last summer before we had ever met,
- 24:06what did I do with you?
- 24:08I said, hey, Todd, you're the expert.
- 24:11Like I, I
- 24:14did a mock up of how this whole flow could look.
- 24:17What do you think? What would you change?
- 24:19And that's how we started this conversation of credit cards.
- 24:22And like the whole checkout process and all of this.
- 24:24And it becomes a collaboration, right?
- 24:26You want the agents to have that same kind of feeling,
- 24:30and then you can have like this kind of simpatico long term relationship
- 24:33that it can be just so exciting and so fulfilling.
- 24:36From a career. Right.
- 24:38And so just imagine if the agent's like, hey, you know how like,
- 24:42my photos look slightly different?
- 24:43Well, I actually had a saying that I actually like this is my
- 24:46this is my person.
- 24:47This is the person I go to because like, I've actually feel like a part of it
- 24:52that, like, connection is so, so good and it really can come
- 24:56from doing some work, asking for advice, making it a collaborative output.
- 25:00I mean, it's probably going to be the same output,
- 25:02but they they're going to feel like more of a part of it.
- 25:05And and, and that's like a really exciting thing,
- 25:09especially for an office manager who oftentimes is like
- 25:11stuck behind the computer managing paperwork.
- 25:13And they can actually feel like they're adding value.
- 25:15Yeah, yeah.
- 25:16No, that's such great advice there, Nick.
- 25:19And so so if so, if someone's new that's a great angle for you all to take.
- 25:24Now let's take the angle of
- 25:26because we've seen it work so well not only in our business,
- 25:29but we hear the consistent
- 25:32feedback of your out there saying, hey, this pay at close thing.
- 25:36The right people ask
- 25:37like they're asking me questions about it after I present it to them.
- 25:41Or you know, hey, would this be a need?
- 25:44So how would someone leverage and and
- 25:47what are they saying and how are they presenting.
- 25:50Pay it close to a manager or a broker in charge.
- 25:53Yeah.
- 25:53So if you're a top it
- 25:54if you're a top photographer and you already have a significant market
- 25:57share in your area,
- 25:58you need to increase that market share both by going to new brokerages
- 26:01and by getting more agents at those top brokerages.
- 26:04Pay at close is incredible for this.
- 26:06Okay, so the one of the biggest things that is in on the mind
- 26:10of office managers and brokers of record is homes are taking longer to sell.
- 26:15My agents are starting to freak out
- 26:17because it's taking longer for them to get paid.
- 26:19They're not able to make their mortgage.
- 26:20They're not able to make their car payments.
- 26:22This is top of mind.
- 26:23I mean, if any of you have ever been in one of those situations, you can.
- 26:26It's very hard to think about anything else. Okay.
- 26:29And so money
- 26:29problems are becoming real problems as the market gets a little slower.
- 26:34And so you are bringing a solution for that.
- 26:36Hey I know the market's becoming slower.
- 26:38I've just launched this new feature.
- 26:40Do you think your agents could be interested in something like this.
- 26:43Again posing it as a question, posing it as advice.
- 26:46And they will almost always if they're
- 26:48if there's any level of introduction or knowing of you, they will say yes.
- 26:52And it's a great way to get a new a new office meeting, for a relationship
- 26:58that you've had for years and really reinvigorate all of the agents.
- 27:02And then what's so cool is a lot of agents, just like.
- 27:05Like Titus is a security blanket, right?
- 27:07Where they say, oh, my gosh, this is great.
- 27:09I'm going to start using you. I'm going to use you more often.
- 27:12I'm going to order more.
- 27:13And when they get to the checkout screen,
- 27:15maybe they put this one on the credit card, but they just like knowing that
- 27:18pay at close is an option so that when they do their next and their next,
- 27:22they, they attach it, or they, they defer it to close.
- 27:26We just talked to an agent yesterday is like, oh my gosh,
- 27:29I'm going to double my.
- 27:30So like it's just on their in their mind they're like, of course I'm going to
- 27:34make the best shoot possible.
- 27:35It'll help me get the listing. And now I don't have to pay till it sells.
- 27:38I'm just going to sell faster.
- 27:39Like, why would I not do this? Right.
- 27:41So the logic really connects and the data connects, right?
- 27:45So it's a win win, right?
- 27:46The homeowner makes more you as the media company make more,
- 27:51the agent makes more commission and the home sells faster.
- 27:53It's like and they don't have to pay out of pocket. Right.
- 27:56And so that offer really does,
- 27:59ring true, especially if you're a top photographer
- 28:03and you're reinvigorating older relationships.
- 28:06Yeah.
- 28:07Let me just give a couple of examples of what we've heard at our media company
- 28:11and then what we've heard other Spiro users tell us,
- 28:15if you're still if there's any way, you're still, you know, thinking
- 28:19this might not work, let me let me just give you a little bit more feedback.
- 28:23So we sent out when we launched pay at close back in November.
- 28:28We as
- 28:29wow we sent out a our marketing newsletter.
- 28:32Okay, so this is a general cold.
- 28:34That mean they're out to our clients and past clients.
- 28:37But this is a marketing newsletter a mass newsletter.
- 28:40And we mentioned pay at close and how the agents could take advantage of it.
- 28:46And we had two brokers,
- 28:49two people in charge of the company reach out to us saying,
- 28:52can you please give me more information about that?
- 28:55Can I can I understand that?
- 28:58And it's not because they're using it, because they don't list.
- 29:03It's because they understand
- 29:05this is a problem for their agents.
- 29:08You know, I we still joke about some as I think
- 29:13back, you know, I chuckle to myself where we joke around the office as a like
- 29:17agents
- 29:18before we have pay before download, we'd send an invoice to everyone.
- 29:22And it was very common that we would call agents
- 29:24and they're like, yeah, I've got a closing three Tuesdays from now.
- 29:27Can I pay you then
- 29:29it's like, well,
- 29:32you're already 180 days past due, but can I say no?
- 29:34Like that's what I'm thinking in my head, right?
- 29:36You all, for any of you that have done collections, your agents don't say,
- 29:40hey, yeah, can I? I'll pay you next Tuesday.
- 29:43They say I have a closing coming up when I'm going to get paid.
- 29:46I that's very common for us.
- 29:48So this is a huge gap for agents of of pushing everything
- 29:52from closing to closing.
- 29:55Let me give you one more quick example.
- 29:56We had, a
- 30:00user,
- 30:01switch in the Spiro kind of on a whim, and he has a large business.
- 30:05He heard about Pay at close, and he was at a,
- 30:09a vendor fair a few.
- 30:10Where were you?
- 30:11Well, for one brokerage, and this is where there was six vendors,
- 30:15and they were all they're all media companies.
- 30:17And he got up and he said, and everybody did about the same thing.
- 30:21We've got these services, this great quality.
- 30:24We've got this great service. And we hope to work with you.
- 30:26What's different about us is we get to know you.
- 30:29You know, everybody kind of gave that same pitch.
- 30:31And he got up and he said, hey,
- 30:33we understand how you work and we have the ability
- 30:39that you can order all the media you need, and you don't have to pay us now.
- 30:45You can pay for that at closing.
- 30:49And long story short, he had a group of people around him
- 30:54asking questions when the other photographers did not,
- 30:56and he was invited back to present to the brokerage about what Pay at close can do.
- 31:02So the proof is in the pudding. There you all.
- 31:04It really is.
- 31:05Like it almost sounds too good to be true,
- 31:08but it is because we don't always think
- 31:12about the way our clients work and what their problems are.
- 31:17And when you solve their problems,
- 31:19you're relevant in your business grows because you help them grow.
- 31:22Okay. Nick.
- 31:22So we're brought in.
- 31:24We're feeling confident or more confident than we have
- 31:27in the past about approaching and understanding what to say.
- 31:31So if you're out there for our listeners that are out there
- 31:34listening to this today and they're ready to do this, what is it
- 31:39like? We have to start with an action.
- 31:40What should be done today?
- 31:43Yeah, I mean, I think baby steps, right.
- 31:46If you're new or if you've been doing this for ten years, right.
- 31:49Develop your list of new and existing relationships.
- 31:54Try and find that, try and find the broker.
- 31:56If they're top agents,
- 31:57ask for an introduction to either their broker of record or office manager
- 32:00or whoever runs their office meeting.
- 32:03Craft your offer and craft that offer in a way where you're asking for advice
- 32:07or you're asking a question about that offer.
- 32:10Go and do your presentation.
- 32:12And if you need content or copy, we have someone, Titus, we can share,
- 32:16success stories for you.
- 32:17And again, we'll share the presentation from Spiro in the show notes
- 32:21and monitor results and then adjust.
- 32:24Right. Don't assume the first time you do it, you've got it right.
- 32:27Okay. You're going to hear things and change things.
- 32:29It should change every single time.
- 32:31And you just get better and better and better.
- 32:34And if you really want a great hook or a great offer,
- 32:37it is the ability to pay at close and know that the reason
- 32:40the office manager is wanting to bring that to their meeting
- 32:45is because their agents are worried about finances,
- 32:48and they're worried that they're going to lose their agents because of it.
- 32:51Yeah.
- 32:51No that is that is phenomenal.
- 32:53So that is that is a great thing for all of us to do today.
- 32:56And
- 32:57one point
- 32:58that I want to make that you said Nick,
- 33:00was the fact that like don't expect the first one to work.
- 33:04I, I was on a coaching call the other day and sitting in on a coach
- 33:07that, was talking about a sales process and the he was talking about
- 33:13about calling, calling your list, reaching out to your list.
- 33:16And if you haven't done this for a while, the thing that you need to remember
- 33:19and the point that he made that I went, oh, yeah, that's true.
- 33:22The first time you do this is going to be the hardest.
- 33:26You're going to be terrified.
- 33:28You might be psyched up right now, but you have two shoots to go today.
- 33:31And by the time you get home, you're tired.
- 33:33You have to upload. You have to do all these things.
- 33:36And then client acquisition and this outreach goes out the window.
- 33:40So I would find a way to time block
- 33:43this on your calendar and to be consistent about it.
- 33:47And just remember, once you do the first one, the first outreach,
- 33:52even the second, the third, the fourth, the 100th is going to be far, far easier.
- 33:59And we all go through it.
- 34:01Okay. So I did this with Titus.
- 34:04I called called photographers in Atlanta, Georgia,
- 34:08and I said, would you be interested in offering pay at close to your agents?
- 34:12Again, the question
- 34:14and I had many people that said, I get paid right away, hang up.
- 34:17Okay. Now I know that's their biggest issue.
- 34:19They don't understand how it works.
- 34:21And so like, you just take every single one of these conversations and you learn
- 34:25and you adjust until you've got something that that really works great.
- 34:29Yeah, yeah.
- 34:30And just to make a point, I probably should have asked this
- 34:32at the very beginning. I assume it and I shouldn't. Nick.
- 34:35But if a photographer uses pay at close,
- 34:38do they get paid at close or do they get paid instantly?
- 34:41They get paid right away, right?
- 34:43The term pay at close is for your agent, not for you.
- 34:45You get paid right away. Just like credit card.
- 34:48Yeah, yeah. And in fact, it's 12 seconds later.
- 34:50If you're wondering out there,
- 34:51it gets dispersed to your bank account literally 12 seconds later.
- 34:54So. Yeah.
- 34:56Yeah. Great.
- 34:58So, Nick, to wrap up here, action is important.
- 35:03We're going to build that list again.
- 35:05Check the show notes.
- 35:06There's that tool
- 35:07that Nick and his team built to help you find the broker of record.
- 35:10Understand what your
- 35:14message or what your ask is of them.
- 35:17And then just get over the hump and start doing these.
- 35:20Yeah.
- 35:21We'll also paste in in the presentation we have a sample email okay.
- 35:24So we're giving you everything you can.
- 35:26Just all you got to do is press send.
- 35:29Yeah that is phenomenal.
- 35:30That is thank you so much for putting this together.
- 35:33This is a great way.
- 35:34If you are saying in 2026 I want to hit bigger goals,
- 35:38it's the year I'm going to hire a team, hire a photographer, hire
- 35:42an admin or just have more time for myself.
- 35:45For many of us, that means that we need to grow in revenue,
- 35:48which means we need to get more agents, agents doing more from a AOV standpoint.
- 35:53And this is a great path for you to run.
- 35:56And the most important thing is that you just do this.
- 35:58You put in the time, all the tools are there for you.
- 36:01Nick, if someone is wanting to find because you have great resources
- 36:05as well on your website, and once you log in, how can they find
- 36:08more information and get in contact with your team?
- 36:11Yeah. So gotitus.com.
- 36:12You can sign up or if you're in the Spiro app click on pay
- 36:15at close on the left side.
- 36:16That's probably the best way is to sign up through that.
- 36:19And then
- 36:20there's several people on our team that will respond faster than me.
- 36:23So, support@gotitus.com
- 36:25We all we all get that. See that.
- 36:27And to respond to that, if you're looking for marketing materials, once
- 36:31you have signed up for Titus on the left side, go ahead and click on guides.
- 36:35Then you'll see some marketing guides in there.
- 36:37So Nick, is there anything else coming down the road?
- 36:39Anything else you can hint at or talk about that
- 36:41can help with getting more meetings or driving AOV.
- 36:45Yeah, I mean, bringing back to what we talked about in the very beginning,
- 36:48we are going to have a listing for every single transaction
- 36:51you do via Titus, either credit card or pay at close.
- 36:54And we are going to show you both the price per square foot
- 36:58and the days on market compared to the local average.
- 37:01And so a great way to get those meetings is to say, hey, we just did the shoot.
- 37:04Look at how much more it sold for, or look at how much faster it sold.
- 37:07Here's the data.
- 37:09And so all of this I'm very I'm very curious to see how you all use that data.
- 37:13Please, please tell us because we can make it
- 37:14even better and create reports and things like that.
- 37:18That you can then share with, with brokers and agents to get these meetings.
- 37:22Yeah. So.
- 37:23Oh, that is so good. So, Nick, how so?
- 37:25Say that one more time.
- 37:26So the idea of looking at my photography company,
- 37:31the listings that we shoot and comparing
- 37:34how long it took them to sell
- 37:37and what they sold for in comparison to list price.
- 37:43Just why is that important to a realtor and a broker?
- 37:46Again?
- 37:47Yeah.
- 37:48So there's two numbers that agents really care for.
- 37:51We care about. Right.
- 37:52So how much did the sell for how fast it itself.
- 37:54So the speed is the days on market.
- 37:57The sale typically price per square foot is a great equalizer.
- 38:01And so what we do on Titus is we will compare the price
- 38:06per square foot of your listing that sold to the market average.
- 38:11And we will compare the
- 38:12the days on market of your listing that sold to the market average.
- 38:17And you just screenshot that and say like, hey, by the way, this home
- 38:20you just sold, look at how much faster results.
- 38:22Now some of them will sell slower right.
- 38:24Because just the nature of of real estate, you can't ultimately control the
- 38:29everything about the home.
- 38:30Like it'd be great to remodel it,
- 38:31but a lot of times they are selling faster if they're, well, short.
- 38:34Yeah.
- 38:34So if so, as a photographer, I take that data
- 38:39and I show them that because of the media,
- 38:43the beautiful media that we create at our company,
- 38:46the listings sell for a higher dollar per square foot
- 38:50and they take less time to sell.
- 38:52And that seems like a a knockout combination
- 38:55to a realtor, a broker, a manager.
- 38:58Yeah, you can do stack offers, stack offers.
- 39:00And again, tell us, tell us
- 39:01what what's really working because we can we can make it easier for you.
- 39:05Yeah. A quick question, Nick.
- 39:06And this one might fall on its face because I haven't asked this off air.
- 39:09I'm just assuming.
- 39:10But in your mom dad's brother's listing presentation.
- 39:14Okay, so a listing presentation. Yours.
- 39:16When Nick's family walks in and every agent in the world,
- 39:20they walk into a house to ask to sell that property.
- 39:25So to sign a contract, does your mom dad into your brothers?
- 39:29Talk about price per square foot and days on market?
- 39:33Always, always.
- 39:35Right.
- 39:35So they're talking about ways we can get this sold fast,
- 39:38trying to time the market, make sure that you either
- 39:41catch a busy season or kind of if it's a slow season, have a strategy.
- 39:45There
- 39:46and then looking at the comps of price per square foot and looking at
- 39:49where you think this home and its media package is going to get it sold
- 39:53in that range of price per square foot.
- 39:55It's a very common pricing strategy.
- 39:58It's used consistently.
- 39:59And my brother and mom use open homes photography here in the San
- 40:03Francisco Bay area,
- 40:04and they're constantly talking
- 40:05about the different packages they can offer for specific listings
- 40:08and how that can impact the price per square foot.
- 40:11Yeah.
- 40:12And again, I just why I love partnering with you,
- 40:14because everything is just so tied together with ideas of how
- 40:19and why Titus is so relevant to us as photographers,
- 40:22because it's built for us by someone who has the brain of our client.
- 40:26So I just, I love that it continues to surface.
- 40:30So as you guys begin to see this
- 40:33data, please log into your Titus dashboard,
- 40:36look at the listings and look at that data and those comparisons.
- 40:41And then much like Nick suggested, just go show that
- 40:45to the agents and say, hey, is this valuable to you?
- 40:49Hey, can you explain this whatever angle you want to take?
- 40:52Hey, would it be valuable
- 40:53if you could sell at a higher price per square foot than your competition?
- 40:58Just ask the questions and I think you'll find it's unbelievable.
- 41:00The feedback you get. Yeah, absolutely.
- 41:04Well, Nick, thank you so much for being on today.
- 41:07If you are not a Titus user, please visit gotitus.com.
- 41:13Or if you're a Spiro user in the left hand menu just click the pay at close.
- 41:17We made it easy for you. It's one click.
- 41:20You go to an application where you're going
- 41:22to give some general business information to
- 41:26enable pay at close and pay now just doing
- 41:30both while you're in there, no reason to do one or the other doing both.
- 41:33You've got great features.
- 41:34If you use both, you get the listing data back in the Titus dashboard.
- 41:38You also get a better credit card rate than Stripe and Square.
- 41:41So you're going to save money. You'll get paid quicker.
- 41:44You enable tips and Spiro with Titus.
- 41:46I mean, the list goes on and on and we will keep building things for you all.
- 41:49Nick, closing thoughts today.
- 41:51Now I'm just really excited.
- 41:53I think the, the launch of some of these new features and then,
- 41:58getting you all more broker meetings in this new year.
- 42:00I'm all ears. So.
- 42:01So please tell us what's working, and we'll just make it better for you.
- 42:05Yeah, I love that. Hey, thanks so much for your time today.
- 42:07And you're.
- 42:08Wow. Just plethora of information and expertise now.
- 42:12Thank you.
- 42:12Thank you.
- 42:12All right, everybody.
- 42:13Hey, that's going to wrap it up for us today.
- 42:16No reason to, sit and just go and do these things.
- 42:19That's the biggest thing
- 42:20about moving in your business is just time to implementation.
- 42:24Try it, get a little bit better and keep moving forward.
- 42:27If you got a question for the show, if you want to know how to do something,
- 42:31please email us. Hello@spiro.media.
- 42:34We always love to hear from you.
- 42:35We read them.
- 42:35Craig and I read each and every one of them and,
- 42:39we just can't thank you enough for all the support you've given us.
- 42:42Be sure to be grateful for the blessings that you have been given in your life.
- 42:46And take time to take a breath.
- 42:48Hey, we'll see you all next week. Thanks so much.