September 17, 2025 • 65 mins
This week we get an inside view from the Brokerage's perspective on what it's looking for in marketing for it's Realtors. Steve Helton, Realtor and Director of Marketing for Keller Williams Advisors & Pinnacle Group joins Todd, Shannon and Craig on this week's episode to talk all things Marketing from the Broker's perspective.
Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 Episode Open
04:30 Spiro Announcements & Updates
06:12 A Brokerage's Perspective
01:02:39 Episode Wrap-up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
So I tell my agents that all the time,leverage your time and let someone
who is arguably betterat this than you are take over for you.
(00:27):
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform.
It's designed to help you manageyour day to day real estate media business
and ultimately help it grow and scale.
I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
Glad to have you back this week.
If you're a returning listener or viewerand if you're brand new to the podcast,
(00:49):
like we said, thiswhole, podcast idea is to help
you build a strong real estate, mediaand marketing business
in order to be a benefit to your realtorclients and brokerage clients.
So, we just we like to celebrate wins.
If you've got some wins
that you've experienced lately,leave us a comment in the in our comments,
(01:10):
here on the YouTube channel.
Or if you want to drop us an email,you can email us hello@spiro.media.
We're trying to build community here,help each other in our real estate
minute businesses,and we want to see you win.
So we hope this is a benefit to you.
Great topic. This week.
Let me introduce, our co-hosts.
I'm going to say a co-hosts.
(01:30):
Plural. Todd Kivimaki, owner of Spiro.
Spiro Media and Spiro media.
Spiro and Shannon Landers.
Todd and Shannon, good morning
Craig.
Fabulous to be here.
Hey, I love thatwe're starting off at wins.
Like post your wins below, y'all.
I had a tech talk last night,and if you're wondering
(01:51):
how to catch those tech talks with me,you can join the
the Spiro Super User Facebook groupand the schedules posted on there.
So we come, we hang out,we talk all things.
Spiro, but really we talk to business,we talk life.
And it's just great to connectwith you guys.
And for some reason,
it's the first time I was like,
hey, if you got a win this week,post it in the chat below.
(02:12):
And we had fabulousthings happening. Craig.
Like people sayinglike they attended a broker open house,
or they attended a networking meetingand these were like seeds
that were planteda year or two ago, Casey shared.
And, another individual who said that they
got in front of the whole teamand, their agent that was working
(02:34):
with them, introduce and refer themto others in a group setting.
And it was such a great win.
And I was like,were you nervous as can be?
You tell me you didn'tsit in your car in the parking lot.
And secondguess if you should actually go in.
He was like, I was terrified.
Yeah.
I was like, what a good win for you.
Like that'sthat is you as the business owner doing
(02:56):
what your business needs to do.
And when you do that, you gain momentum.
And momentum is fun.
Like that is when you can saybusiness is fun,
but you have to push the ball upthe hill enough to get momentum.
So let's see if collectively,as a community,
we can get momentum and cheer each otheron and pick each other up.
(03:16):
And we have a, you know, somethingthat's not such a great win.
As I get attacked by flies here.
If you're watching me on YouTube,
but post them in the chat belowand we'd love to celebrate with you.
Absolutely.
Yesterday's tech talk was a lot of fun.
Very cool.
Join us there to like, don't forget.
Or because you can do it,you can listen to it
at least while you're driving,so don't feel like you have to.
(03:37):
And please don't be like textingand driving like we do.
Not for most that ever.
So, but you can listen to the tech talks,and you can always limit ask questions.
Guys, this is another thingwe would love to hear.
What you want usto talk about on the tech Talk.
So submit questionsbelow on the Facebook user group.
Email us.
Whatever I've sky write.
(03:59):
Just let us know what you want to hear.
Sky write
Is that like a plane with a smoke.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Sky writing.
I'm starting to think,is this a new social media platform
that I'm clueless on?
I'm getting old. Good.
It was the first social media platform, Craig.
Smoke signals.
Yeah.
(04:21):
Oh. Very cool.
All right, well, we got a great topic.
That's, Shannon and I teased last weekwe're going to introduce our guest
in just a few minutes. But, Spiro.
Spiro. Yeah.
Todd,you have some Spiro announcements and,
and updates to go over,so I'll hand it over to you.
I do just give me a clock.
A 60s Craig Spiro updates 23rd
(04:43):
of September 2025 will launch.
The big thing is Titus.
This is pay at close optional.
It's just going to releasethe 20 early testers for us.
Okay,so 20 of you, you'll know who you are.
You've signed up on the early releaseform,
probably about 2 or 3 weeksafter that release.
Everyone can get in.
This is not only pay at close,
(05:03):
this is also credit cardprocessing will save you your will,
save you money on stripe processingbecause this is more affordable.
But also you'regoing to get pay out quicker.
Along with that, a couple otherthings are coming.
The complete revamp of the mobile versionof the property website
editor that's just so you can,if you need to expedite
(05:24):
or QC and deliver your media on the roadthe next day, you can.
It's going to be fully mobile friendly.
And a few other things in there as well.
We'll have four release notes,but I do want to get to reminding you
that if you have not bookedyour ticket for REPP 2025, you should.
That's the conference in November.
Please check them out.
(05:44):
reppteam.com search for their conferenceand if you want to
go to another conference this year.
Spiro,we are holding our first conference.
So we're calling it the Spiro sync January22nd, 23rd.
You will all have a link and we'lladvertise that here very soon for you
to, jump on the list and buy your ticketand find out more information.
(06:08):
Awesome.
Exciting stuff. Very exciting.
All right, Shannon, I'm so excited.
We talked last week.
Towards the end of the podcast,we you had the brilliant idea
of getting a brokerages input on
marketing for our fellow, real estate
(06:29):
media partners and colleaguesin this industry.
And you had a guest in mind,I'm going to turn things over to you
and let you introduce this week'sguest and topic.
Oh, I get introduced. Okay. This is fun.
This is exciting.
Okay.
So I figure, you know, I always joke andsay, let's hear it from the horse's mouth.
Right?
So it's notthat I'm calling our guest a horse.
(06:52):
So let me just be very clearthat I feel I'm not calling him a horse.
Okay.
But why not listen to the agentand to the marketing people and the
that are at the brokeragesto help us figure out either
where we want to go, what,maybe where we don't want to go.
And how you can
connect with that brokerageas a media provider.
(07:15):
Okay.
So I have had the pleasure in my careerof knowing some amazing
marketing people,and this guy is one of them.
So he started at Keller Williamsa few years ago.
I'll let him tell how long.
So I can't remember.
And he's amazing.
His name is Steve Helton.
He is the director of marketing at KellerWilliams Advisors and Pinnacle Group.
(07:37):
We have the luxury of havingfour market centers in our umbrella,
which actually is really cool,and maybe overwhelming at times.
So you can probably share with that.
But he gets to work with over
650 agentsand help them with their marketing.
And so, without further ado, Steve Helton,welcome to the podcast.
(07:59):
We are so excited you're here.
Why don't you share just a little bitabout you and your background?
He is also an agent,so he'll share some of that too.
So I'm going to pass it over to you,Mr. Steve.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much.
I've been, I've been called worsethan a horse, though.
I wasn’t calling you a horse
I really, promise. so my name is Steve Helton.
(08:22):
I'm the director of marketing for KellerWilliams Advisors and Pinnacle Group.
A little bit about meand kind of how I got to this position.
I started out actually as the director of,a music school
and, like, as a director of the musicschool, I ran the,
the entire program,from hiring and firing teachers
(08:45):
to searching for studentsand advertising all all of our, events.
So with that camejust a ton of natural marketing,
kind of hands on job experience.
And I ran that for about six years.
It kind of combined my, my passionfor graphic design, which,
I when I went to schoolat Miami University
(09:08):
with a degree in English,and creative writing,
I had a focus in communicationsto those kind of feet into it as well.
I was in bands in college,and someone had to design the,
the, the fliers and the t shirts.
So I taught myself the Adobe platform.
And keep in mind, this was before,
(09:29):
master class and you’ll get by Google, Courseraand stuff like that.
Right.
So there was a lot of trial and error.
But, yeah.
So I'm self-taught with all of the,Adobe platforms
and used that in my, my, my career
as the director of the musicschool that I was a part of.
(09:51):
While I was
there, I actually had a gentleman who,
I knew in college, I,
I swept outhouses, new construction houses.
And this gentleman, his son,came to my music school, and he was like,
hey, man, I've always thoughtyou should be a real estate agent.
I told you thatyou should be a real estate agent.
(10:11):
Why haven't you ever taken my advice?
And I was just the position.I said, you know what?
I'm going to take your advice.
I'm going to,go ahead and get my real estate license.
So I got my real estate license,and I was doing that very, very part time
as I was still the director of,the Learning Center.
And, then one day,
Covid happenedand I woke up in school, was shut down.
(10:33):
And just like that,I was a full time real estate agent.
I didn't have another job.
And as crazy as that
time was, what a silver lining.
Because it put me boots to the ground.
Hey, I've got bills I have to pay.
How do I pay them?
(10:56):
I've got this experience in marketing.
I know what I need to do now.
I have the time to do it.
So I did that, and I went.
I went into production for myself.
I spent about a half doingfull time production, my first year
of doing full time, I closed on 14,
deals, which I was very happy with.
(11:17):
And that was five years ago.
That's 14 deals now.I would have paid a lot more.
What I, but I did have kind
of, like,I kind of missed working at helping.
Helping people.
I've always been, had, like, a teachermindset, and I did miss that part.
So when I found out that my own brokerage,Keller Williams Advisors, was,
(11:40):
looking for a director of marketing,it felt like this would be a
just an amazing, like, you know,marrying of of my my two different lives,
being able to to teach and workin graphic design and marketing
while also being able to, like,keep my feet in the real estate world.
So, I've been the director of marketingfor almost four years now.
(12:04):
I'm still in production.
I don't do a ton of marketing for myself,because my main focus
is making sure that I am helping,the 650 plus agents that we have.
But, I do absolutely have mymy feet on the ground.
I'm still out there.
You know, closingseveral deals a year,
staying up to all of the new trendsand all of that helps me,
(12:28):
be the best director of marketingthat I can be.
Yes, and he is. He's great.
I love his design.
Him and I chat all the time about how,you know, it's fun
for to create branding, right?
Like when you when you're branding agentsand they get excited about it, right.
Like, that is a really fun thing.
So, Steve does an excellent job.
(12:49):
And, I've been thankful to know himfor these years.
What I love about this talk has it's now,
you know, we get to share this knowledgewith all of our media
professionals and they can input thisinto some of their business.
Right.
So Todd, do you have any burning questionsoff the top of your head?
I do, I do.
I'm, I'm just noting them downbecause my memory.
Yes. Is not thatso I just have a couple simple ones.
(13:14):
So I think one thing and servingour clients is
real estateagents is a real estate photographer.
It's that we need to actually knowand understand what they do.
And I think one thing that there'ssome terminology that Shannon and Steve,
you guys just use second nature,but you guys referred to a market center.
Can you just help us?
(13:34):
What is the market center in the Keller?
Is that a Keller Williams thing?
What is that inside the ecosystem?
Just so our listeners know?
Yeah.
So, so your brokerage is kind of your,big umbrella.
So there are you've got your,your cold wells and your Keller Williams,
and then each one of those in the like,
(13:56):
our independently owned and operated.
But there are somesmall brokerages that are,
that that
is as high corporate as you can get,if that makes sense.
Market center is a Keller Williams term.
Shannon.
Do you know, do do other bigger brokeragesrefer to that as well?
(14:16):
No, KW is the only one I know that.
They call it a market center.
You know, Keller uses a lot of vernacular.
So when you come to Kellerand you are drinking from a firehose
on the terminology,
and it's fun.
And, and I like thatthey actually call it market centers.
The point is that it is a marketcenter of agents.
(14:38):
It's a market center of real estate.
And honestly,the the way Keller Williams runs
their franchisesat the market Center to make money.
And so they call it market centers.
And it is a only KW thing.
Everybody elsecalls them offices or brokerages.
And that's it.
So but yeah, that KW is vernacularsfive pages long
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for like as like a broad scope KWRI.
So KW regional internationalis the that the highest tier you can go.
And then you've got your regions.
And then inside those regions you have
at that point, that's where you're kind ofgetting into your individual names,
(15:24):
which is kind of like that'slike where you find like your brokerages.
Right?
So, I am a part
of specifically KellerWilliams Advisors Realty.
That's where my personal real estatelicense is held.
That is divided upbetween three different offices
that kind of work togetherbut also work independently of each other.
(15:47):
And then I'm also the directorof marketing
for Keller Williams Pinnacle Group,which is a different owner.
But the same
leadershipteam that runs, that makes sense.
Yeah. That's right.
That OP’s and Tl’s Toddand all sorts of things.
And OP is an operating principlethat is pretty much the one leading
(16:09):
the charge, probably has the most dollarsinvested into the market center.
And market centers have investors,typically 2 to 3
4 agentsthat have rolled up and been investors.
So Sarah is our one of our main investors.
And as long as there's common ownership,then at least in Ohio,
you can brand the same,which brings more market power.
(16:33):
Gotcha, gotcha.
So your OPI is equivalent to your owneressentially.
Okay.
And then is that person alwaysanother term like your broker in charge
or is that sometimes someone differentthat is someone different,
especially at Keller now other brokeragesthat could be the same.
Okay.
But at Keller they actuallybrokers are complete typically.
(16:53):
Now a brokercould be one of those investors.
Right.
So very clear like that at many Keller'sthe broker is an investor.
But they're not the leader now.
They're the leaderof the the real estate rules
Steve.
Is that is that the best way to say that.
Yeah. Good. Nailing it. Yeah.
Yeah. Perfect.
That's super helpfulbecause I think one thing is, is that
(17:16):
when you go into any of these offices,you have to understand how they operate.
Like, you, if you're talkingto the wrong person or not talking
to the decision maker, then you shouldkind of just wasting you, you know?
Yeah, it's just likeyou're not going to get anywhere with it.
So and I think Keller Williams definitelyI know, Shannon, you really helped me
understand that.
Keller Williams as we aswe you know, as we
(17:40):
we have a broker dealactually with Steve's office and offices.
So, so I just wanted to share thatbecause typically Keller
Williams officesare the most difficult broker deal to get.
Yeah.
So just and we won't go into broker dealstoday.
It might pop up here.
If you have questionslet us know about broker deals.
We we've done a lot of podcast on them.
(18:01):
But typically you're Keller Williamsoperate differently.
So you have to think differentlyto to speak their broker language.
I use that phrase all the time.You have to speak their language.
They're going to look at you like,what are you saying?
Like, I don't want that thingbecause that means nothing to me.
So it's always helpfuland understanding that,
okay, so one other thingI had written down here, Steve.
And then we'll get into marketingbecause I have so many questions.
(18:24):
But you had thisCortez burn the ship moment
where Covid happened.
Your other option went away,
and that required you to focus.
And I know
Gary Keller has a book about focus.
I love the book.I talk about it all the time.
(18:45):
Can you just give me some insight?
Because we talk a lot about focus,and I think a lot of listeners out
there are in a similar positionto you pre-COVID
where they mightthey might even be full time
with photography,but they might be doing weddings.
I shot over 100 of them,but I, I had it removed
from my brain,the memory of shooting weddings. But
(19:09):
and babies, they poop on you and families.
They have crying kids but houses,they don't talk back.
They're not ready,but they don't talk back.
Okay, I'm going on a tangent, y'all.
But when I focus them,it sounds like when you focus, that's what
really allows you to really double downand succeed in what you're doing.
Do you mind?
Can you just share a little bit onwhat that focus did for you?
(19:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
Because you're completely right.
Another Kellerismis what you focus on expands.
And I truly, wholeheartedly believe that,
even before I worked
for Keller Williams, I really think thatthat is one of the things,
you know, it the
(19:54):
the saying the grass is always greeneron the other side.
Note the grass is always greeneron the side that gets watered the most.
So and really,I mean, that's what it comes down to,
having like the ability to say,
okay, today I don't have to worry aboutgetting my kids
(20:15):
ready for school because they are workingvirtually during Covid.
I don't have to worry about,
you know, fighting trafficto get to to the office
because I don't have another job anymore.
All I have to do is,
time block my day
in and and actually make it work.
(20:38):
The the biggest thing that that I think
helped me focus the most was the idea of
replace, then erase.
So this was something that was thoughtto be by one of my productivity coaches
before Covid even happened,but it stuck with me.
If I have my day time blockedand something,
(21:01):
I have something there that, I realizeI'm not going to be able to get to
at that time, or I'm not gonna be ableto get to at that day before I erase it.
I have to write it down somewhere else.
So I have to make sure.
And I try not to kickthe can too far down the road.
Right.
So I had a rule that I had to be done
within 24 hours,so no more than the next day.
(21:24):
And that could have been anythingthat could have been
whether, you know, if it's somethingas simple as checking market
trends on the MLS or if it was somethingmore extensive, like,
you know, making contactwith ten people in my personal database.
I made sure that I
replaced it, wrote it down somewhere else,and then I erased it.
(21:45):
And then I also made sure to writein what I did there.
That way I knew, oh, hey,every time I erase, it's I'm erasing
because I realized I had to mow the grassbecause,
you know, that falls to the wayside. Or.
Oh, every time I erased,
I realized that I was picking upa click list from progress,
whatever it might have been.
And then that way, over time,I could plan ahead.
(22:08):
Right.
At what point is it worth it to you to,
pay for the Kroger delivery serviceinstead of the click list?
At what point is it worth itto you to hire someone to cut your grass?
Those are all like individual questionsand challenges, but if you can truly
write out your day and focus on it,I absolutely believe
(22:29):
that that is what will expandyour your business, will expand.
Yeah.
I so love that.
Thank you for sharing that, Steve,
because I think that there'sso much value in there and one thing
I want our listeners to understandis some of the things that he was saying.
Now, Steve, we're all in this roomcreatives.
Okay.
So we as creatives,we like to sometimes go back
(22:52):
and we like to overwork and fine tunesomething that might be done.
We might want to make itlook a little bit better.
But the thing that Steve told us all,what did he mention
when he had time to focus,was calling ten people from his database.
He didn't say, I need to go backand rework my personal logo.
Okay, that.
(23:14):
And so is that what you so
the what you're telling us,Steve, is the actual action.
So the focus.But it was actually the level.
And we talked about different levels oftask like an admin, a nurse and a doctor.
And when you showed up to a
to a doctor's office for your appointment,the doctor does not check you in
because if the doctor checked you in,
(23:35):
then you would kind of be like, well,what kind of doctor is he?
But the doctor focuses on doctorlevel tasks.
So it sounds like not only didyou have this bur the ship
moment,but you had focus on high level task.
You're completely correct.
And I will tell you from my experience
(23:55):
on the other side of this,as, the director of marketing,
how many times I have
somebody once a custom business card and,
and I'll send them the proofand we'll say, here's your business card,
and they'll say, that looks great,
but could you move my namelike half a centimeter to the right?
I'm like, sure, sure, sure, sure.
We send it, send them another proof,and then they come back and, that.
(24:17):
Yeah, that looks good.
But also maybe change itblack instead of red.
Listen,I will make those cheap for my agents.
I will do that all day long becauseI love them and I want them to be happy.
But yes, those are the things that like,at the end of the day,
the color of the name onyour business card
is not going to get youthe million dollar deal that you want.
(24:37):
It's not so, yes, being
very purposeful and thinking about,
what are the high
leveltasks that we all know we have to do?
Maybe they're not the most fun or,
like, the most beautiful things,but yeah, they're the high level ones.
The 8020 rule.
Todd, have you talked you guys talkedabout the 8020 rule a lot, right?
(25:01):
I love the 8020 rule. Yeah.
As someone who is typically lazy,I love the 80/20 rule,
but it's just very true, right?
Like you, you've got to live, you know,and what is going to bring you
the most, power. Right.
And in your business.
And so detailing out and detailingthose task out
(25:24):
and getting down to what's going to movethe needle is just so critical.
And so Steve and I are very blessedand thankful.
I think I speak for both of us.We love KW.
We we do love the mindset,
mindset to everything and all of thisat the end of the day.
And so they really lean into it.
So again, people might say,
(25:44):
you know, drink the red Kool-Aid, drinkblue Kool-Aid, drink Kool-Aid, whatever.
Listen, if you're drinking Kool-Aid,
that you're getting where you want to go,baby, keep drinking that Kool-Aid.
It's all good.
All right, Steve.
So, you know, we as photographers,as videographers, is the creatives
we kind of live in a certain certaincreative world.
(26:05):
And we don't always knowthe ins and outs of how,
a realtors day goes when you know
how your day goesas a director of marketing
and how that relationshipbetween you and the realtor
in the brokerage,how that relationship connects.
So to help us is, is the creative side, isthe photographers, is the marketer,
(26:25):
you know, marketing team understandyour business a little bit better.
Can you kind of step us throughwhat it looks like when an agent
lands a new listing and comes to you
for marketing adviceor marketing help or support?
What?What does that relationship look like?
What are you coaching them onor helping them with?
Can you walk us through that? Absolutely.
(26:47):
So there's a coupleof things. The first is
I think
the most obvious is
they have to have material or systems
place in place to market the property.
Right.
And when I tell, when I tell like agentsis, you know,
(27:10):
you're not just marketing the property,you're marketing, you're
your seller's wants and needs.
You can marketa buyer's wants and needs right?
But in this situation, you're marketingyour seller's wants and needs.
Their wants and needs are
they want to sell their home,or they need to sell their home
(27:32):
because they want to buy another home,or they need to sell this home
because they want to retire,and they need to sell this home
because they want to use the equity to,send their kid to college.
Right.
So you really have to kind of thinkit's not just the property,
it's it's your seller's wants orneeds that you're marketing.
Not that you're goingto go put that out on the internet, right?
(27:53):
Like,hey, my seller is trying to sell this home
because they want to send their kidsto college. But,
understanding that, like understandingthe need of your seller
is like priority number one.
Then it, you know, it comes as simple
as being prepared
to actually market the property.
(28:15):
So for me, what that looks likeis before they have a listing,
we try to get them to understandthe, essential things they might need,
like yard signs, directionalor leading signs
for for sale or open houses.
Business cards are great,but even things like property flier
(28:36):
templates or, postcard templatesthat they can easily plug
in, the photos into in order to marketthe property correctly. What
a lot of
agents do is they waituntil they get their first listing,
and all of a suddentheir listing is going live
and they don't have any of these thingsready.
(28:58):
So then at that point we're rushing.
And do you really want the propertyto go live
before you have a chanceto put your sign in the yard?
No. Right.
Because every one of these listingsis an opportunity
to have these little tinylisting babies that pop out.
And if we don't have it proper,
if we don't have our information on it,it's going to be much harder
(29:22):
to turn those, listingsinto our own business.
The best way to put it is McDonald'sdoesn't wait until somebody orders
a cheeseburger to then go buy the meatto make that cheeseburger right.
They've got the meat in the back.
They've got it all right there.
So not that you need as an agent to go
(29:42):
spend a ton of money on yard signs.
But making sure you knowwhere that yard sign is coming from,
whether that foreignone for your brokerage
or having one personally made,making sure that you've got.
And you know, what is your strategy for,directional signs?
What is going to be your strategyfor open houses?
(30:03):
That's that's all kind of step one.
Does that does that make sense.
Absolutely.
So from there
what what we have seen
a lot recently is to be honest,
a lack of marketing because why.
Because houses areor were selling themselves.
(30:26):
Right.
If you have a housethat you have beautiful pictures of and
you put it online, you were getting offers
and you were getting offers and hours,
if not minutes,
you were getting offers sightunseen or sight,
you know, not not bodies, physical bodies,not being in the house.
And you were getting them for over
(30:48):
asking with waived inspections,
grazing.
It was grazing down.
I’m still waiting for the lawsuits
to start happening,I'm telling you, they're going to happen.
Lawyers are going to startgetting real rich.
All these people about all these houses
without inspections,and then they're going to try to sue
and they're not going to have a legto stand on.
But lawyers are going to take their moneyanyway and give it a shot.
(31:10):
Right. So yeah. Yeah.
So all of these things were
really preventing peoplefrom marketing the homes.
And when you're marketing your buyeror your seller's wants or needs your
marketing, your own business, and that isliterally how you are going to grow.
(31:31):
So what I have told
all agents recently, yeah, well, forever.
But they're just now starting to listen.
Is every home that you list,
not only do you need to have everythingfrom step one that we talked about,
but you need to plan on
(31:52):
number one, doing an open house.
I am a full believer of open houses
are good for the real estate industry.
Open houses show
confidence in in the market.
It shows.
Hey look, this is going to be potentiallya good deal for both sides.
(32:16):
It is truly a win win situation.
You know it.
Some people are like oh yeah, but my
my property is going to sell beforeI have an open house.
Have the open house.
Anyway, there's nothing wrong with havingthe open house after it's gone pending.
And also
if you plan to have an open housethat opening
(32:37):
weekend anymore, it's not selling at what?
Average days on marketis longer than three days now.
Right.
So if you're going live on a Thursday,you should absolutely be having
an open house on a Saturday or Sunday.
I have an agentwho is out of our Cincinnati office,
and I don't want to name drop herjust because I
want to respect her personal privacy,but she is a she's a rookie.
(32:59):
This is her first year.
And I met with her yesterday.
And she has five houses under contractright now.
And I asked her like,oh my gosh, that's awesome.
How did you getfive houses under contract?
And she said, well,four of the five came from open houses.
I mean, people that they are meetingat open houses
who are unrepresentedand why are they unrepresented now?
(33:24):
Because
there is a buyer brokerage agreementthat has to be signed.
Right.
And the only way to view homes withoutsigning a buyer brokerage agreement
is to go to open houses.
So you're seeing a lot of unrepresentedpeople walk through these houses.
And by having those conversations,
she's been able to convert theminto, into real business.
(33:47):
So open houses,I know that I went off on a tangent
there,but open houses are good for our industry.
What do we all need?
Listings.
So real estate agentsdon't just need buyers
or sellers,they need listings on the market.
If there were more listings on the market,
(34:08):
their buyers and their sellerswould actually both benefit from that.
So, you know, the ideal market iswhen there are slightly more buyers
than there are sellers, right?
So but we need to get thosewe need to get those listings on
so that we can build confidencein our buyers again,
so that the buyersare going to want to buy,
(34:31):
so having thoseopen houses I truly believe will help
not just your own personal business,but help the industry as, as a whole.
I also think that,
I mean,we could talk all day about social media,
but if you're not runningsome sort of targeted ad
and by targeted,I mean you're defining an audience
(34:52):
inside the meta platformof who you want this ad to go to.
Geographically based on,
what their search history is, whatever.
You're justyou're absolutely dropping the ball.
This is a super, super passive,low expense way
(35:12):
to not only get your name out there,but potentially get leads.
Steve, you used a term that I love
and you use the term listing babies.
Can youcan you explain that to our listeners?
Absolutely. So
every it's a proven fact that,
(35:33):
every time a house lists
two other homes within the area
are likely to also hit the market.
Okay. And
obviously, that's not like a,
what, 100% of the time,
but it is pretty trackable.
(35:54):
And if you are not turningthe current deals
that you have into more business,you are missing out on a huge opportunity.
And what I mean by that is,
if I have a home for sale
and whether it sells for 10,000above asking and one day
(36:16):
or 5000 below asking in 20 days,if I'm not
marketing that home correctly andand using that momentum
to tell my success storyone way or another
through social media, through, postcards,
through Doorknocking, around that area.
(36:40):
I'm just I'm not goingto get any more business from that area.
You have to do that, right? You have to,
one of my favorite things to do for anagent
is when they have a home selland they they're the listing agent.
They had a home sale,and it was in multiple offers.
Okay, so there's more than one personwho wants to move to this area, right?
(37:03):
There's more than one personwho wants to move to this neighborhood.
So doing a campaignwhere we reach out to the neighbors
and we say, hey, look, we have buyers
who still want to moveto this neighborhood.
What would be a good time for us to talkto see if your home would be a good fit.
Right?
That is like such a powerful thing,such a powerful thing you can do
(37:26):
because it's true. You've got buyers.
There are people out there
who want to move to that neighborhoodand getting, you know,
that that's
it's one of many ways to turn that listinginto other pieces of business
in the other way is to to, like Imentioned earlier, tell the success story.
Right. Tell the success story.
I'll tell you how many years ago,selling out
(37:49):
20 days for 5000under would have been a success, right?
To me, it's still a success.
And yeah, it absolutely is.
It absolutely is.
But you know,
being able to market your
your sellers win on social media,
and showing peoplethe life that you changed
(38:11):
will make them want to work with you and
get you more business,get you more listings or buyers.
So there's a couple of thingsyou've mentioned in there, Steve,
that I'm thinkingfrom the photography company
or the real estatemedia companies perspective.
And I would love your input on.
And the first thing you mentionedwas professional pictures,
something that you suggestto your your realtors and agents. But
(38:37):
I would argue that most I think are doingprofessional photos now,
but there are still realtors out there
that are kind of doing their owncell phone pictures,
you know, things like that.
What advice would you giveto a real estate media company
that is looking to build a relationshipwith with you?
as the brokerage or,you know, the company?
To to partnerand to offer value to those realtors
(38:58):
and help educate them on the importance
of professional photos or even videowalkthrough tours, things like that.
What how do you coach the agents and
and what kind of relationshipand qualities
are you looking for in a real estatemedia company
that could bring that valueto your realtors?
That's a really great question.
So the first thing is,
(39:21):
like, I truly come from alike we were talking about earlier
when I said, at what point is it worth itto have someone mow your grass for you?
Right?
Just leveraging your time.
I mean, just leveraging your time rightthere is I mean,
how long is it going to take a real estateagent to go through and
(39:43):
get the right angles with their phone,
or get the angle of the bathroomwhere they don't see the mirror or,
you know what I mean, or the toilet paperthat they very clearly missed or whatever
it that all of that time adds up,all that time adds up.
So when I'm talking to an agent,I just tell them like, hey, look, be
smart and leverage your time.
(40:03):
This is a business expense.
This is a business expense, right?
I equate it to
if I were having a home built,
I'm going to go ahead and paysomeone to paint it professionally.
I'm not going to look at them and say,hey, how much?
If, you don't paint the house,let me paint it myself.
Like, that's a terrible idea.You're getting a brand new.
(40:25):
All right.
What?
The professionals paint it,or it's like showing up
to a restaurant and being like, hey,is it going to be cheaper if I bring it?
If I go back there and cookthe steak myself?
Stay.
Right.
These are all things that like,they're professionals for a reason.
So I tell my agents that all the time,leverage your time and let someone
(40:47):
who is arguably betterat this than you are take over for you.
From a talking to a photography,specialist or photographer.
I think the
the biggest thing with that
they could probably talk to agentsabout is easing friction.
(41:09):
So what I mean by that is
what kind of, you know, red tapeare they going to have to jump through
in order to get their photos scheduled?
Do they have,
an agreed upon or, turnaround time?
How are they going to be delivered?
(41:30):
What is the process for,
you know, touch ups or retakesif need be, all of those things.
Right.
And just your general being ableto, like, put forward
the general expectationsthat both like the homeowner
and the real estate agent andthe photographer have all of each other.
(41:52):
Right?
You can expect the photographerto get the best pictures.
If there is a 300 pound dogrunning around the house, right?
You can't expect the photographerto get the best pictures
if there's laundryeverywhere, things like that.
So I think it's just,
you know, communicating with the agentsand maybe even something about
(42:13):
as simple ashow is this getting paid, right?
Like how when, when do they get paid?
How at what point do, doesthe agent have to swipe their credit card?
It's as easy, as simpleas that are all things that
and because different brokerages,
one of the things we knowabout real estate agents,
there are a lot of agentswho do brokerage hop.
(42:33):
And yeah, and they do.
And one brokeragemight cover the cost of the photography.
One brokerage might,
cover the cost upfront, and then youpay them at the end of the month.
Other brokerages are completely hands off.
So I think making sure that the individualagents know how, whatever
(42:55):
the relationship is that the photographerhas with their specific
brokerage,is is probably the most important.
Interesting couple questions.
Steve, thank you so much for sharing.
So what agents.
So we talked about removingas much red tape.
And I think as a business owner,
(43:16):
the more of that we can doand we can make it easy for our clients,
the greater success that clients come toyou and stay with you.
Now, do you, in your opinion,see that it's an advantage
that an agent doesnot have to pay up front
for media and saythat they could potentially pay at close?
Is that removing some red tapeor is really swiping the credit card
(43:38):
at the beginning not a problem. Do you?
And I know we're generalizing here, butfrom your perspective, working with over
600 agents, what is there a consensusthat you have a gut instinct on?
Yeah. I honestly do believe that
a majority of agents would
much rather payafter the fact for versus paying upfront.
(43:59):
There are going to be the agentswho are very fiscally responsible
and have no problem,swiping their credit card right there.
And they want to get their pointsor whatever right up front.
But there's seven of them, right? Steve?
They're seven of those.
So sorry.
If there's agents, let's say I'm sorry,I it's just a joke.
(44:22):
I always tell peoplelike I'm a real estate agent
so I can make jokes about real estateagents, right? Right.
That's what I'm saying to.
I'm like, okay, I can pick on us. Yeah.
I mean, I coached them for four years.
Like, I think I need to write a book.
I'm pretty sure I need to write a book.
So that being said,
yes, I think paying after after the fact,
(44:46):
even if it's not, when the house closes,
even if it is just,you know, with their brokerage
at the end of the month,I think it's a huge help, especially with
some of these agents who, if this is,
their first dealor even their first couple of years
in the business, if,you know, they might look at this as,
(45:09):
okay, well,every penny is going to help me transition
from whatever job I'm currentlyinto to a full time real estate career.
And so for those people,
swiping that card up frontcould be an issue, right?
I mean, that was one of the hardestthings I had to do
was when I was working dual career.
(45:32):
Was not touching the moneythat I got from the closing that, like,
my very first closing,it was leaving that money alone. And,
it was hard to not touch it, right.
Like it's there.
So. Yeah.
So I, I definitely think
having it
at the end of the transaction is goingto benefit most real estate agents.
(45:53):
And they can spend money on marketing.Right.
Like that's where my brain goes like,oh, if I can pay for this like close
or even even like me, like I hadthe ability like I just got my invoice.
So my, my listening from last monthor on my invoice.
But guess what?
I get paidnext Thursday for that, for that listing.
And then my invoice gets paid on the 20th.
(46:13):
So I'm solid, like I'mnot really paying for it, right?
It gave me that time.
So then I ran adsbecause I had other dollars to spend.
I love that,I mean, that's such a good point.
Yeah, it'sfreeing up some resources, right?
So not having that expense at the front,I never want an agent to be like,
(46:33):
oh man, I'd really liketo get this listing, but I can't afford to
get photos right now.
It's like, no, dude, get the listing.
Like, right.
Like that's that's what we call,
was Ihad a manager who said this in the past.
It was their,
passing up dollar, but
pennies or something, I don't know, butyeah, that's what it feels like, right?
(46:57):
Yeah. Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
There we go. That's it.
Todd loves to say it
And that's that'sI mean yeah that's right there.
That's what that to methat's what that is. Right.
And so yeah.
And this is, this is no differentthan any other business y'all.
Like think about a businessthat produces a product and say they are.
(47:18):
And Walmart or a big retailerand they get a PO,
a purchase order and it's for $1 million.
The cost of goods is $1 million.
They're finance.
That's almost money in the bank.
Like if they know it'sgoing to sell through,
that money's going to come back,maybe two millions coming back,
but they have to pay a million nowto make the product.
So this is really no different.I think leveraging that.
(47:40):
And there's many ways you can do itthrough a broker deal through Titus,
you know, and, and your age,some of your agents are doing this
just by swiping their Amex card.
They get the pointsand they pay in 30 days.
So this is really I know, I know,the Titus is the big thing right now
because we're launching it, but this isno different than any other business
where you're just trying to mitigatesome of your cost up front.
(48:04):
So when you get paid,no problem, I'll pay this percentage
and I'll take the rest is my profit,I think.
I think remembering that
any professional who's
working with a real estate agent,you're in business to business.
It's not businessto consumer, it's business to business.
(48:24):
Does that make sense? For sure. Yeah.
So so with that Steve
you see so you have a ton of agentsthat come through and you hear
what is.
So say there's an agentnot working with a professional right now.
Or say they are a little bit unhappywith their current.
(48:45):
And they want to lookfor another media provider.
Or in your opinion, what is
how are they finding that provider?
I, I feel like they are finding it
from referralsfrom other agents in the office.
More almost 99% of the time,that's where they're going to.
(49:06):
I do not think anyone is necessarily,
you know, just
hitting the search engine and seeingwhat pops up and reading reviews.
I think they're going to go with real,
real referrals from other agents.
And, and maybe a branch off of that is
if they are seeing properties on the MLSthat are beautifully done,
(49:32):
maybe they and they see that that is buy,you know, and it's listed
by someone else in their office.
Maybe that agent will be proactiveand reach out to that agent and say, hey,
we're who did your photos.
These are great, I love that.
These are great, I love that.
So Steve,if you were in thank you for that.
So I'm going to push a little bit more.
So if you were a real estate photographer,
what would you do so that your name spread
(49:56):
and you could grow your real estatephotography business.
What do you what?
Yeah, actually, single action or actionswould you see valuable?
You know, I, I think justthe same as real estate agents.
I think you have to ask for referrals.
I thinkwho do you know that I should know, right?
Who else is in your officethat you feel like could use my services?
(50:20):
And it iswhen when I'm telling real estate agents,
about how to ask for referrals.
I'm, you know, I'm telling them, hey,
you got the house under contractonce they're under contract,
and they're really happy to plantthat seed of.
Hey, I'mso glad we got this under contract.
Just so you know, by the end of this, I'mhoping to give you, like,
such a good experiencethat when you close, you've
(50:42):
got the name of somebody elsewho might want to use my services.
Obviously, we are dealing with a 30 day,maybe 21 to 45 day
time period of being under contractthat we have time to plant the seeds.
And I knowphotographers have less of a time, but
if you're not,
(51:02):
if you're not asking, I don't knowthat you're going to get to get them,
can you say that one more time, Steve?
if you're not asking, I don't knowthat you're going to get them.
I mean, I thinkI think that's what it comes down to.
So I can't just throw a referral codeinto your account portal
and expect you to use it. No, no.
(51:28):
There's the again.
There's the seven agents who might. Right.
But I mean, yeah,I think a majority of it is, is,
you know,
I don't think in real estatethere is a secret sauce.
I that's one thing that I have found isthere is not
a, there's not a secret sauce.
(51:49):
Everyone is kind of eager to, to share.
Sure.
Who they like to useall of the real estate agents they are.
Not that they're just going out there
singing their praises,but no one, no one is going to say,
oh yeah, when I keep this photographerto myself, right.
They're going,you know, they want to share.
(52:10):
I think the majority. Yeah.
You got a few that are probably 90that say, I'm not going to share.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, because anymoreyou can figure out what company it is
pretty quickly. So yeah.
Yeah.
So but there areso there's a feel of out there
that think that, you know,that media company is their secret sauce.
(52:31):
So what they do remember and honestly,
this is to any business, you're
you are your secret sauce, right?
You are the sauce in your business.
Right. It's.
Oh, I like that one to tell himI have to make that shirt.
You are the sauce in your business.
You have to do the little things more thatother people are not willing to do that.
(52:57):
You know,
Steve, if you ever heard any,like, direct feedback from Realtors on why
they like the photographerthat they're working with,
besides the quality of the photo orthe video, is there any like professional
characteristicsor even personal characteristics on why
Realtors like workingwith certain individuals or companies?
I think I honestly think it comes
(53:19):
down to the ease of ordering and paying.
Besides professional quality, right?
So if we're leaving that out,I think it comes down to the ease
of ordering,paying and receiving deliverables.
Fair enough.
Pretty pretty to the point.
(53:40):
I mean, yeah,you know, and and do I think that
there is a like a human element like.
Yes, I obviously think that peoplewant to talk with people who are friendly.
I think that peoplewant to talk with, you know,
they want to make sure that
they are, getting what they paid for.
(54:02):
I will tell you,
I was going to say maybe I'll like.
Maybe I will do it. Do it.
Come on
No one will nickel and dime you like a real estate agent
Wait, what?
No one will nickel and dime.
You like a real estate
I mean, it's really,
What this 50 cent charge for,I don't understand.
(54:23):
What's this 50 cent charge or,
So they want to know what thatwhat they're paying
for is what they're getting.
Yeah.
And realtors, they,they offer a high level of service.
I mean,and so if you think of that, they are
and they're busy and, you know, so they'relooking for that level of service back.
(54:45):
And and that level of serviceis different for everyone.
So there's not like a five step processlike you'll connect differently.
And that is the human elementthat Steve Steve had mentioned.
Yes Steve Steve Steve, as we begin
to wrap up here,I'm going to pivot a little bit.
What trends do you see
for real estate media,like what's catching your eye?
(55:07):
What do you think's valuableas we approach the end of 2025 here?
I don't know that this is necessarily new,
but it is certainly not going anywhere.
Our attention spans are about that big.
Right?
And I feel like the idea of 32nd
video is, it's where we are at.
(55:30):
We are this far away
from the next video at all times, right?
Yeah.
Like your thumb moves half an inchand you're at the next video.
So. Yeah.
So I think that short, quick cut media,I do still think that there's, that
there is a, time and place for long form,
but I think that,
(55:53):
that is probably the
the biggest followed by agentsgetting in front of the camera.
I think that we are
in a time and place where
if there is a productthat is being advertised and
I don't see the person who is
(56:14):
claiming to have created the product,I think I'm being scammed.
Because it's so easy to fill in thingsnow, right?
Like getting in front of the camerais so easy to do,
and if there is a company
or a business who doesn't have,
(56:34):
especially a small businesswho is not like actively
in front of the cameraor actively putting out content,
it makes me wonder how legit are they?
How serious are they?
What kind of businessare they actually like
producingif they're not doing these things?
(56:55):
So getting in front of the cameraand it's hard for some people because,
you know, I mean, you know, one likeshow they look on camera or whatever,
except for me.
Yeah, I know
there are there are tons of, you know,I mean, that's that's the truth, right?
It can be really, really, really hard
and overwhelming and
(57:17):
my, my biggest thing is,
respond to the good commentsand ignore the rest, right?
Like, get a guy kind of have a thick skinor get ready for it.
But I do think it's really importantfor agents to get in front of the camera.
Yeah.
That is that is great advice, Steve.
Thank you so muchfor sharing your incredible insight
from so many different fields.
(57:38):
We got so many different brainsof Steve today.
So thank you so much for spending timewith us today.
Yeah, it's my absolute pleasure.
Thank you guys so much for having me.
I loved, I loved every minute of it.
Well, thank you,
Shannon, do you want to wrap us up here?
Do you want to,give us a little more information about,
I know we talk pivoting slightly, butlet's talk a minute about the Spiro sync.
(58:00):
Yeah, because we talked a lot about.
We haven't really dug into it,but what is it?
You are the brains behind it.
You just want to tell our listenerslike we've we've
said, and people are like,what is that thing?
But give us some insight.
What is this thingthat we are going to come to?
So the idea really likethere's a couple things.
Todd and I got in a room,we were doing some planning
(58:22):
and we were just talking, and I told him,I said, you know, there's some key
things about our companythat we just can never change.
Their core values,
but that's how we are going to keep themand we're never going to change them.
And one of those was listeningto our users to make changes.
Right.
Again, I think spear was
great because we own a media companyand so we understand the issues.
We understand what Steve's talking about.Right?
(58:44):
We we get to these things.
We have these relationships with brokers.
So we get to put that into the system.
But there's multiple waysto run a business.
So we need to hear from our usershow they're using the system.
We also can't lose our customer support.
Just how we want theminteracting with our people.
They are human.
We want that human to human contactand we just can't lose that.
So Todd said them to me and he said, well,how do we bottle that up?
(59:08):
And I'm like, well,
we should probably have an eventand let our users vote
on what we're going to do in 2026.
And Todd jumped out at the table and said,yes, that's what we have to do.
And, so, Spiro Sync kind of came and wewe talked about it and we were like,
(59:28):
we're trying to, you know,of course you want a catchy name, right?
Who doesn't, Steve. Right.
You want catchy brand names and, well,I was like, we're we're kind of like,
sycing up together, right?We're syncing with our users.
We're syncing our brains.We're sycning thoughts.
And we wanted this to be all business to.
Right? Like, this is all business.
It's it's hey, you're going to comehelp us out with Spiro.
(59:49):
Let us know what you wantfor your business and your platform.
But then this is a conferencewhere you get to get around like people,
community and discuss best practices.
What isn't working here from some othersand and so Spiro
Sync came together.
The idea really behindhow will operate this event
(01:00:14):
is something that I used to host called,
eitherrebar or real estate buyer camp or rebar.
However, we're supposed to say it.
And before Covid, these were doneall over the country.
They're still done.
I think just Covid
kind of took a hammer to it,and then everybody stopped doing it.
(01:00:35):
But the premise around that is,can we invite real estate
agents to comeand just share with each other?
And we have people lead sessions.
They're just leaders in the in the topic
right there and then everybody in the roomis sharing best practices.
Todd, you are a part of these events.
They are a fantastic
(01:00:56):
time to engage in best practiceswith your fellow community.
And so that ishow we're going to kind of operate it.
But then we're going to adda little special thing at the end,
because who's tired.
And Steve knows thisbecause he goes to lots of KW event,
who is tired of goingto a really amazing conference
(01:01:17):
and you leave and then you never implement
or get done the amazing thingsthat you just listen to,
right?
Like so hard.
So the second half of the second dayis all about workshopping the topics,
and you get to chooseand you're going to leave this conference
with something ready and
(01:01:37):
or at least ready to implementor already implemented in your business.
So I'm excited.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
We're gonna have a lot of different peoplethere.
I've been talking already to justdifferent people that are to become
agents, that are going to be teaching usagain, like how to sell them,
different people from different,you know, brokerages
(01:01:58):
and just really bringing,a lot of awesome subject matter experts.
I'll call them into the, into the,
conference that we're doing now.
This first one, I will sayit's be really limited attendance.
So the registration link isgoing to come out next week.
So this
is it's going to get a little interesting,Todd, on this first one.
(01:02:20):
Yeah.
But we'll do it again.
Like Shannon saidwe have a limited attendance.
And so look out for that link.
Get in.
And, we hope we see you all there January
22nd 23rd of 2026.
Yeah, it's it'sgoing to be here before we know it guys.
Football started.
That means Christmas is almost here.
(01:02:41):
Although manI'm going to tell you guys what green Bay.
Oh last night today.
Look look riddunkilous.
Good day Jordan love is not on my fantasy.
And they're going to be in Dallas at weekfour.
And I like that is just markedthat that game is on my calendar.
Man I can't I didn't evenI didn't even check my fantasy lineup.
(01:03:03):
They play football on Thursday.
So I'm hopefully I had everybodyin that need to be in
what I had.
Of course I have Daniels.
And so that didn't fit me well last night.
And I actually thoughtabout pulling the cord
and pulling them out because green Baylast week looks so good and I did it, so.
Yeah.
Well, I, I'm probablygonna lose the second week in a row, guys.
(01:03:25):
Yeah. I'll go down.
You know, we should do fantasy leaguebetween a, like, Spiro, like our
just listeners and just like, real estateprofessionals.
It'd be kind of fun that we all gotin the league, and we all could.
I mean, there could be a lot of them,but we could all.
Yeah. Oh, no doubt.
Like how many?
Like, then you can have the championsof the champions of the year.
You know, there's nothing likemaybe that's an idea for next year.
(01:03:47):
Well we definitely should maybedo some fun.
Like there's funfootball playoff pools that you can do.
Like once you get down in the playoffs.
And it's like you have to pick the teamsand it's kind of like the NCAA stuff.
So we can maybe do some of that.
I mean, yeah, that might it might be fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Lot of good things are happening
I mean the updates coming out are amazing.
Titus is really going to help impactour business as, like, as you said,
(01:04:11):
a lot of agents,
they have the ability to pay at
close thatthat's going to be really great for them.
And maybe we can actually
help some new agents get businessbecause of that feature.
And that would be really cool.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Well, Shannon, Steve,thank you so much for your time today.
We appreciate all the insightthat's going to do it for us today.
(01:04:33):
We thank you for being listeners.
If this was helpful,
if you could share this podcastwith someone you know that would help
us, it's just a small way to say thank youback to us.
We're here for you.We appreciate all of you.
Be sure to take it.Take time to take a breath.
Enjoy the blessings you have.
We'll see you all next week. Thanks.
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
So I tell my agents that all the time,leverage your time and let someone
who is arguably betterat this than you are take over for you.
(00:27):
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform.
It's designed to help you manageyour day to day real estate media business
and ultimately help it grow and scale.
I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcast.
Glad to have you back this week.
If you're a returning listener or viewerand if you're brand new to the podcast,
(00:49):
like we said, thiswhole, podcast idea is to help
you build a strong real estate, mediaand marketing business
in order to be a benefit to your realtorclients and brokerage clients.
So, we just we like to celebrate wins.
If you've got some wins
that you've experienced lately,leave us a comment in the in our comments,
(01:10):
here on the YouTube channel.
Or if you want to drop us an email,you can email us hello@spiro.media.
We're trying to build community here,help each other in our real estate
minute businesses,and we want to see you win.
So we hope this is a benefit to you.
Great topic. This week.
Let me introduce, our co-hosts.
I'm going to say a co-hosts.
(01:30):
Plural. Todd Kivimaki, owner of Spiro.
Spiro Media and Spiro media.
Spiro and Shannon Landers.
Todd and Shannon, good morning
Craig.
Fabulous to be here.
Hey, I love thatwe're starting off at wins.
Like post your wins below, y'all.
I had a tech talk last night,and if you're wondering
(01:51):
how to catch those tech talks with me,you can join the
the Spiro Super User Facebook groupand the schedules posted on there.
So we come, we hang out,we talk all things.
Spiro, but really we talk to business,we talk life.
And it's just great to connectwith you guys.
And for some reason,
it's the first time I was like,
hey, if you got a win this week,post it in the chat below.
(02:12):
And we had fabulousthings happening. Craig.
Like people sayinglike they attended a broker open house,
or they attended a networking meetingand these were like seeds
that were planteda year or two ago, Casey shared.
And, another individual who said that they
got in front of the whole teamand, their agent that was working
(02:34):
with them, introduce and refer themto others in a group setting.
And it was such a great win.
And I was like,were you nervous as can be?
You tell me you didn'tsit in your car in the parking lot.
And secondguess if you should actually go in.
He was like, I was terrified.
Yeah.
I was like, what a good win for you.
Like that'sthat is you as the business owner doing
(02:56):
what your business needs to do.
And when you do that, you gain momentum.
And momentum is fun.
Like that is when you can saybusiness is fun,
but you have to push the ball upthe hill enough to get momentum.
So let's see if collectively,as a community,
we can get momentum and cheer each otheron and pick each other up.
(03:16):
And we have a, you know, somethingthat's not such a great win.
As I get attacked by flies here.
If you're watching me on YouTube,
but post them in the chat belowand we'd love to celebrate with you.
Absolutely.
Yesterday's tech talk was a lot of fun.
Very cool.
Join us there to like, don't forget.
Or because you can do it,you can listen to it
at least while you're driving,so don't feel like you have to.
(03:37):
And please don't be like textingand driving like we do.
Not for most that ever.
So, but you can listen to the tech talks,and you can always limit ask questions.
Guys, this is another thingwe would love to hear.
What you want usto talk about on the tech Talk.
So submit questionsbelow on the Facebook user group.
Email us.
Whatever I've sky write.
(03:59):
Just let us know what you want to hear.
Sky write
Is that like a plane with a smoke.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Sky writing.
I'm starting to think,is this a new social media platform
that I'm clueless on?
I'm getting old. Good.
It was the first social media platform, Craig.
Smoke signals.
Yeah.
(04:21):
Oh. Very cool.
All right, well, we got a great topic.
That's, Shannon and I teased last weekwe're going to introduce our guest
in just a few minutes. But, Spiro.
Spiro. Yeah.
Todd,you have some Spiro announcements and,
and updates to go over,so I'll hand it over to you.
I do just give me a clock.
A 60s Craig Spiro updates 23rd
(04:43):
of September 2025 will launch.
The big thing is Titus.
This is pay at close optional.
It's just going to releasethe 20 early testers for us.
Okay,so 20 of you, you'll know who you are.
You've signed up on the early releaseform,
probably about 2 or 3 weeksafter that release.
Everyone can get in.
This is not only pay at close,
(05:03):
this is also credit cardprocessing will save you your will,
save you money on stripe processingbecause this is more affordable.
But also you'regoing to get pay out quicker.
Along with that, a couple otherthings are coming.
The complete revamp of the mobile versionof the property website
editor that's just so you can,if you need to expedite
(05:24):
or QC and deliver your media on the roadthe next day, you can.
It's going to be fully mobile friendly.
And a few other things in there as well.
We'll have four release notes,but I do want to get to reminding you
that if you have not bookedyour ticket for REPP 2025, you should.
That's the conference in November.
Please check them out.
(05:44):
reppteam.com search for their conferenceand if you want to
go to another conference this year.
Spiro,we are holding our first conference.
So we're calling it the Spiro sync January22nd, 23rd.
You will all have a link and we'lladvertise that here very soon for you
to, jump on the list and buy your ticketand find out more information.
(06:08):
Awesome.
Exciting stuff. Very exciting.
All right, Shannon, I'm so excited.
We talked last week.
Towards the end of the podcast,we you had the brilliant idea
of getting a brokerages input on
marketing for our fellow, real estate
(06:29):
media partners and colleaguesin this industry.
And you had a guest in mind,I'm going to turn things over to you
and let you introduce this week'sguest and topic.
Oh, I get introduced. Okay. This is fun.
This is exciting.
Okay.
So I figure, you know, I always joke andsay, let's hear it from the horse's mouth.
Right?
So it's notthat I'm calling our guest a horse.
(06:52):
So let me just be very clearthat I feel I'm not calling him a horse.
Okay.
But why not listen to the agentand to the marketing people and the
that are at the brokeragesto help us figure out either
where we want to go, what,maybe where we don't want to go.
And how you can
connect with that brokerageas a media provider.
(07:15):
Okay.
So I have had the pleasure in my careerof knowing some amazing
marketing people,and this guy is one of them.
So he started at Keller Williamsa few years ago.
I'll let him tell how long.
So I can't remember.
And he's amazing.
His name is Steve Helton.
He is the director of marketing at KellerWilliams Advisors and Pinnacle Group.
(07:37):
We have the luxury of havingfour market centers in our umbrella,
which actually is really cool,and maybe overwhelming at times.
So you can probably share with that.
But he gets to work with over
650 agentsand help them with their marketing.
And so, without further ado, Steve Helton,welcome to the podcast.
(07:59):
We are so excited you're here.
Why don't you share just a little bitabout you and your background?
He is also an agent,so he'll share some of that too.
So I'm going to pass it over to you,Mr. Steve.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much.
I've been, I've been called worsethan a horse, though.
I wasn’t calling you a horse
I really, promise. so my name is Steve Helton.
(08:22):
I'm the director of marketing for KellerWilliams Advisors and Pinnacle Group.
A little bit about meand kind of how I got to this position.
I started out actually as the director of,a music school
and, like, as a director of the musicschool, I ran the,
the entire program,from hiring and firing teachers
(08:45):
to searching for studentsand advertising all all of our, events.
So with that camejust a ton of natural marketing,
kind of hands on job experience.
And I ran that for about six years.
It kind of combined my, my passionfor graphic design, which,
I when I went to schoolat Miami University
(09:08):
with a degree in English,and creative writing,
I had a focus in communicationsto those kind of feet into it as well.
I was in bands in college,and someone had to design the,
the, the fliers and the t shirts.
So I taught myself the Adobe platform.
And keep in mind, this was before,
(09:29):
master class and you’ll get by Google, Courseraand stuff like that.
Right.
So there was a lot of trial and error.
But, yeah.
So I'm self-taught with all of the,Adobe platforms
and used that in my, my, my career
as the director of the musicschool that I was a part of.
(09:51):
While I was
there, I actually had a gentleman who,
I knew in college, I,
I swept outhouses, new construction houses.
And this gentleman, his son,came to my music school, and he was like,
hey, man, I've always thoughtyou should be a real estate agent.
I told you thatyou should be a real estate agent.
(10:11):
Why haven't you ever taken my advice?
And I was just the position.I said, you know what?
I'm going to take your advice.
I'm going to,go ahead and get my real estate license.
So I got my real estate license,and I was doing that very, very part time
as I was still the director of,the Learning Center.
And, then one day,
Covid happenedand I woke up in school, was shut down.
(10:33):
And just like that,I was a full time real estate agent.
I didn't have another job.
And as crazy as that
time was, what a silver lining.
Because it put me boots to the ground.
Hey, I've got bills I have to pay.
How do I pay them?
(10:56):
I've got this experience in marketing.
I know what I need to do now.
I have the time to do it.
So I did that, and I went.
I went into production for myself.
I spent about a half doingfull time production, my first year
of doing full time, I closed on 14,
deals, which I was very happy with.
(11:17):
And that was five years ago.
That's 14 deals now.I would have paid a lot more.
What I, but I did have kind
of, like,I kind of missed working at helping.
Helping people.
I've always been, had, like, a teachermindset, and I did miss that part.
So when I found out that my own brokerage,Keller Williams Advisors, was,
(11:40):
looking for a director of marketing,it felt like this would be a
just an amazing, like, you know,marrying of of my my two different lives,
being able to to teach and workin graphic design and marketing
while also being able to, like,keep my feet in the real estate world.
So, I've been the director of marketingfor almost four years now.
(12:04):
I'm still in production.
I don't do a ton of marketing for myself,because my main focus
is making sure that I am helping,the 650 plus agents that we have.
But, I do absolutely have mymy feet on the ground.
I'm still out there.
You know, closingseveral deals a year,
staying up to all of the new trendsand all of that helps me,
(12:28):
be the best director of marketingthat I can be.
Yes, and he is. He's great.
I love his design.
Him and I chat all the time about how,you know, it's fun
for to create branding, right?
Like when you when you're branding agentsand they get excited about it, right.
Like, that is a really fun thing.
So, Steve does an excellent job.
(12:49):
And, I've been thankful to know himfor these years.
What I love about this talk has it's now,
you know, we get to share this knowledgewith all of our media
professionals and they can input thisinto some of their business.
Right.
So Todd, do you have any burning questionsoff the top of your head?
I do, I do.
I'm, I'm just noting them downbecause my memory.
Yes. Is not thatso I just have a couple simple ones.
(13:14):
So I think one thing and servingour clients is
real estateagents is a real estate photographer.
It's that we need to actually knowand understand what they do.
And I think one thing that there'ssome terminology that Shannon and Steve,
you guys just use second nature,but you guys referred to a market center.
Can you just help us?
(13:34):
What is the market center in the Keller?
Is that a Keller Williams thing?
What is that inside the ecosystem?
Just so our listeners know?
Yeah.
So, so your brokerage is kind of your,big umbrella.
So there are you've got your,your cold wells and your Keller Williams,
and then each one of those in the like,
(13:56):
our independently owned and operated.
But there are somesmall brokerages that are,
that that
is as high corporate as you can get,if that makes sense.
Market center is a Keller Williams term.
Shannon.
Do you know, do do other bigger brokeragesrefer to that as well?
(14:16):
No, KW is the only one I know that.
They call it a market center.
You know, Keller uses a lot of vernacular.
So when you come to Kellerand you are drinking from a firehose
on the terminology,
and it's fun.
And, and I like thatthey actually call it market centers.
The point is that it is a marketcenter of agents.
(14:38):
It's a market center of real estate.
And honestly,the the way Keller Williams runs
their franchisesat the market Center to make money.
And so they call it market centers.
And it is a only KW thing.
Everybody elsecalls them offices or brokerages.
And that's it.
So but yeah, that KW is vernacularsfive pages long
(15:03):
for like as like a broad scope KWRI.
So KW regional internationalis the that the highest tier you can go.
And then you've got your regions.
And then inside those regions you have
at that point, that's where you're kind ofgetting into your individual names,
(15:24):
which is kind of like that'slike where you find like your brokerages.
Right?
So, I am a part
of specifically KellerWilliams Advisors Realty.
That's where my personal real estatelicense is held.
That is divided upbetween three different offices
that kind of work togetherbut also work independently of each other.
(15:47):
And then I'm also the directorof marketing
for Keller Williams Pinnacle Group,which is a different owner.
But the same
leadershipteam that runs, that makes sense.
Yeah. That's right.
That OP’s and Tl’s Toddand all sorts of things.
And OP is an operating principlethat is pretty much the one leading
(16:09):
the charge, probably has the most dollarsinvested into the market center.
And market centers have investors,typically 2 to 3
4 agentsthat have rolled up and been investors.
So Sarah is our one of our main investors.
And as long as there's common ownership,then at least in Ohio,
you can brand the same,which brings more market power.
(16:33):
Gotcha, gotcha.
So your OPI is equivalent to your owneressentially.
Okay.
And then is that person alwaysanother term like your broker in charge
or is that sometimes someone differentthat is someone different,
especially at Keller now other brokeragesthat could be the same.
Okay.
But at Keller they actuallybrokers are complete typically.
(16:53):
Now a brokercould be one of those investors.
Right.
So very clear like that at many Keller'sthe broker is an investor.
But they're not the leader now.
They're the leaderof the the real estate rules
Steve.
Is that is that the best way to say that.
Yeah. Good. Nailing it. Yeah.
Yeah. Perfect.
That's super helpfulbecause I think one thing is, is that
(17:16):
when you go into any of these offices,you have to understand how they operate.
Like, you, if you're talkingto the wrong person or not talking
to the decision maker, then you shouldkind of just wasting you, you know?
Yeah, it's just likeyou're not going to get anywhere with it.
So and I think Keller Williams definitelyI know, Shannon, you really helped me
understand that.
Keller Williams as we aswe you know, as we
(17:40):
we have a broker dealactually with Steve's office and offices.
So, so I just wanted to share thatbecause typically Keller
Williams officesare the most difficult broker deal to get.
Yeah.
So just and we won't go into broker dealstoday.
It might pop up here.
If you have questionslet us know about broker deals.
We we've done a lot of podcast on them.
(18:01):
But typically you're Keller Williamsoperate differently.
So you have to think differentlyto to speak their broker language.
I use that phrase all the time.You have to speak their language.
They're going to look at you like,what are you saying?
Like, I don't want that thingbecause that means nothing to me.
So it's always helpfuland understanding that,
okay, so one other thingI had written down here, Steve.
And then we'll get into marketingbecause I have so many questions.
(18:24):
But you had thisCortez burn the ship moment
where Covid happened.
Your other option went away,
and that required you to focus.
And I know
Gary Keller has a book about focus.
I love the book.I talk about it all the time.
(18:45):
Can you just give me some insight?
Because we talk a lot about focus,and I think a lot of listeners out
there are in a similar positionto you pre-COVID
where they mightthey might even be full time
with photography,but they might be doing weddings.
I shot over 100 of them,but I, I had it removed
from my brain,the memory of shooting weddings. But
(19:09):
and babies, they poop on you and families.
They have crying kids but houses,they don't talk back.
They're not ready,but they don't talk back.
Okay, I'm going on a tangent, y'all.
But when I focus them,it sounds like when you focus, that's what
really allows you to really double downand succeed in what you're doing.
Do you mind?
Can you just share a little bit onwhat that focus did for you?
(19:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
Because you're completely right.
Another Kellerismis what you focus on expands.
And I truly, wholeheartedly believe that,
even before I worked
for Keller Williams, I really think thatthat is one of the things,
you know, it the
(19:54):
the saying the grass is always greeneron the other side.
Note the grass is always greeneron the side that gets watered the most.
So and really,I mean, that's what it comes down to,
having like the ability to say,
okay, today I don't have to worry aboutgetting my kids
(20:15):
ready for school because they are workingvirtually during Covid.
I don't have to worry about,
you know, fighting trafficto get to to the office
because I don't have another job anymore.
All I have to do is,
time block my day
in and and actually make it work.
(20:38):
The the biggest thing that that I think
helped me focus the most was the idea of
replace, then erase.
So this was something that was thoughtto be by one of my productivity coaches
before Covid even happened,but it stuck with me.
If I have my day time blockedand something,
(21:01):
I have something there that, I realizeI'm not going to be able to get to
at that time, or I'm not gonna be ableto get to at that day before I erase it.
I have to write it down somewhere else.
So I have to make sure.
And I try not to kickthe can too far down the road.
Right.
So I had a rule that I had to be done
within 24 hours,so no more than the next day.
(21:24):
And that could have been anythingthat could have been
whether, you know, if it's somethingas simple as checking market
trends on the MLS or if it was somethingmore extensive, like,
you know, making contactwith ten people in my personal database.
I made sure that I
replaced it, wrote it down somewhere else,and then I erased it.
(21:45):
And then I also made sure to writein what I did there.
That way I knew, oh, hey,every time I erase, it's I'm erasing
because I realized I had to mow the grassbecause,
you know, that falls to the wayside. Or.
Oh, every time I erased,
I realized that I was picking upa click list from progress,
whatever it might have been.
And then that way, over time,I could plan ahead.
(22:08):
Right.
At what point is it worth it to you to,
pay for the Kroger delivery serviceinstead of the click list?
At what point is it worth itto you to hire someone to cut your grass?
Those are all like individual questionsand challenges, but if you can truly
write out your day and focus on it,I absolutely believe
(22:29):
that that is what will expandyour your business, will expand.
Yeah.
I so love that.
Thank you for sharing that, Steve,
because I think that there'sso much value in there and one thing
I want our listeners to understandis some of the things that he was saying.
Now, Steve, we're all in this roomcreatives.
Okay.
So we as creatives,we like to sometimes go back
(22:52):
and we like to overwork and fine tunesomething that might be done.
We might want to make itlook a little bit better.
But the thing that Steve told us all,what did he mention
when he had time to focus,was calling ten people from his database.
He didn't say, I need to go backand rework my personal logo.
Okay, that.
(23:14):
And so is that what you so
the what you're telling us,Steve, is the actual action.
So the focus.But it was actually the level.
And we talked about different levels oftask like an admin, a nurse and a doctor.
And when you showed up to a
to a doctor's office for your appointment,the doctor does not check you in
because if the doctor checked you in,
(23:35):
then you would kind of be like, well,what kind of doctor is he?
But the doctor focuses on doctorlevel tasks.
So it sounds like not only didyou have this bur the ship
moment,but you had focus on high level task.
You're completely correct.
And I will tell you from my experience
(23:55):
on the other side of this,as, the director of marketing,
how many times I have
somebody once a custom business card and,
and I'll send them the proofand we'll say, here's your business card,
and they'll say, that looks great,
but could you move my namelike half a centimeter to the right?
I'm like, sure, sure, sure, sure.
We send it, send them another proof,and then they come back and, that.
(24:17):
Yeah, that looks good.
But also maybe change itblack instead of red.
Listen,I will make those cheap for my agents.
I will do that all day long becauseI love them and I want them to be happy.
But yes, those are the things that like,at the end of the day,
the color of the name onyour business card
is not going to get youthe million dollar deal that you want.
(24:37):
It's not so, yes, being
very purposeful and thinking about,
what are the high
leveltasks that we all know we have to do?
Maybe they're not the most fun or,
like, the most beautiful things,but yeah, they're the high level ones.
The 8020 rule.
Todd, have you talked you guys talkedabout the 8020 rule a lot, right?
(25:01):
I love the 8020 rule. Yeah.
As someone who is typically lazy,I love the 80/20 rule,
but it's just very true, right?
Like you, you've got to live, you know,and what is going to bring you
the most, power. Right.
And in your business.
And so detailing out and detailingthose task out
(25:24):
and getting down to what's going to movethe needle is just so critical.
And so Steve and I are very blessedand thankful.
I think I speak for both of us.We love KW.
We we do love the mindset,
mindset to everything and all of thisat the end of the day.
And so they really lean into it.
So again, people might say,
(25:44):
you know, drink the red Kool-Aid, drinkblue Kool-Aid, drink Kool-Aid, whatever.
Listen, if you're drinking Kool-Aid,
that you're getting where you want to go,baby, keep drinking that Kool-Aid.
It's all good.
All right, Steve.
So, you know, we as photographers,as videographers, is the creatives
we kind of live in a certain certaincreative world.
(26:05):
And we don't always knowthe ins and outs of how,
a realtors day goes when you know
how your day goesas a director of marketing
and how that relationshipbetween you and the realtor
in the brokerage,how that relationship connects.
So to help us is, is the creative side, isthe photographers, is the marketer,
(26:25):
you know, marketing team understandyour business a little bit better.
Can you kind of step us throughwhat it looks like when an agent
lands a new listing and comes to you
for marketing adviceor marketing help or support?
What?What does that relationship look like?
What are you coaching them onor helping them with?
Can you walk us through that? Absolutely.
(26:47):
So there's a coupleof things. The first is
I think
the most obvious is
they have to have material or systems
place in place to market the property.
Right.
And when I tell, when I tell like agentsis, you know,
(27:10):
you're not just marketing the property,you're marketing, you're
your seller's wants and needs.
You can marketa buyer's wants and needs right?
But in this situation, you're marketingyour seller's wants and needs.
Their wants and needs are
they want to sell their home,or they need to sell their home
(27:32):
because they want to buy another home,or they need to sell this home
because they want to retire,and they need to sell this home
because they want to use the equity to,send their kid to college.
Right.
So you really have to kind of thinkit's not just the property,
it's it's your seller's wants orneeds that you're marketing.
Not that you're goingto go put that out on the internet, right?
(27:53):
Like,hey, my seller is trying to sell this home
because they want to send their kidsto college. But,
understanding that, like understandingthe need of your seller
is like priority number one.
Then it, you know, it comes as simple
as being prepared
to actually market the property.
(28:15):
So for me, what that looks likeis before they have a listing,
we try to get them to understandthe, essential things they might need,
like yard signs, directionalor leading signs
for for sale or open houses.
Business cards are great,but even things like property flier
(28:36):
templates or, postcard templatesthat they can easily plug
in, the photos into in order to marketthe property correctly. What
a lot of
agents do is they waituntil they get their first listing,
and all of a suddentheir listing is going live
and they don't have any of these thingsready.
(28:58):
So then at that point we're rushing.
And do you really want the propertyto go live
before you have a chanceto put your sign in the yard?
No. Right.
Because every one of these listingsis an opportunity
to have these little tinylisting babies that pop out.
And if we don't have it proper,
if we don't have our information on it,it's going to be much harder
(29:22):
to turn those, listingsinto our own business.
The best way to put it is McDonald'sdoesn't wait until somebody orders
a cheeseburger to then go buy the meatto make that cheeseburger right.
They've got the meat in the back.
They've got it all right there.
So not that you need as an agent to go
(29:42):
spend a ton of money on yard signs.
But making sure you knowwhere that yard sign is coming from,
whether that foreignone for your brokerage
or having one personally made,making sure that you've got.
And you know, what is your strategy for,directional signs?
What is going to be your strategyfor open houses?
(30:03):
That's that's all kind of step one.
Does that does that make sense.
Absolutely.
So from there
what what we have seen
a lot recently is to be honest,
a lack of marketing because why.
Because houses areor were selling themselves.
(30:26):
Right.
If you have a housethat you have beautiful pictures of and
you put it online, you were getting offers
and you were getting offers and hours,
if not minutes,
you were getting offers sightunseen or sight,
you know, not not bodies, physical bodies,not being in the house.
And you were getting them for over
(30:48):
asking with waived inspections,
grazing.
It was grazing down.
I’m still waiting for the lawsuits
to start happening,I'm telling you, they're going to happen.
Lawyers are going to startgetting real rich.
All these people about all these houses
without inspections,and then they're going to try to sue
and they're not going to have a legto stand on.
But lawyers are going to take their moneyanyway and give it a shot.
(31:10):
Right. So yeah. Yeah.
So all of these things were
really preventing peoplefrom marketing the homes.
And when you're marketing your buyeror your seller's wants or needs your
marketing, your own business, and that isliterally how you are going to grow.
(31:31):
So what I have told
all agents recently, yeah, well, forever.
But they're just now starting to listen.
Is every home that you list,
not only do you need to have everythingfrom step one that we talked about,
but you need to plan on
(31:52):
number one, doing an open house.
I am a full believer of open houses
are good for the real estate industry.
Open houses show
confidence in in the market.
It shows.
Hey look, this is going to be potentiallya good deal for both sides.
(32:16):
It is truly a win win situation.
You know it.
Some people are like oh yeah, but my
my property is going to sell beforeI have an open house.
Have the open house.
Anyway, there's nothing wrong with havingthe open house after it's gone pending.
And also
if you plan to have an open housethat opening
(32:37):
weekend anymore, it's not selling at what?
Average days on marketis longer than three days now.
Right.
So if you're going live on a Thursday,you should absolutely be having
an open house on a Saturday or Sunday.
I have an agentwho is out of our Cincinnati office,
and I don't want to name drop herjust because I
want to respect her personal privacy,but she is a she's a rookie.
(32:59):
This is her first year.
And I met with her yesterday.
And she has five houses under contractright now.
And I asked her like,oh my gosh, that's awesome.
How did you getfive houses under contract?
And she said, well,four of the five came from open houses.
I mean, people that they are meetingat open houses
who are unrepresentedand why are they unrepresented now?
(33:24):
Because
there is a buyer brokerage agreementthat has to be signed.
Right.
And the only way to view homes withoutsigning a buyer brokerage agreement
is to go to open houses.
So you're seeing a lot of unrepresentedpeople walk through these houses.
And by having those conversations,
she's been able to convert theminto, into real business.
(33:47):
So open houses,I know that I went off on a tangent
there,but open houses are good for our industry.
What do we all need?
Listings.
So real estate agentsdon't just need buyers
or sellers,they need listings on the market.
If there were more listings on the market,
(34:08):
their buyers and their sellerswould actually both benefit from that.
So, you know, the ideal market iswhen there are slightly more buyers
than there are sellers, right?
So but we need to get thosewe need to get those listings on
so that we can build confidencein our buyers again,
so that the buyersare going to want to buy,
(34:31):
so having thoseopen houses I truly believe will help
not just your own personal business,but help the industry as, as a whole.
I also think that,
I mean,we could talk all day about social media,
but if you're not runningsome sort of targeted ad
and by targeted,I mean you're defining an audience
(34:52):
inside the meta platformof who you want this ad to go to.
Geographically based on,
what their search history is, whatever.
You're justyou're absolutely dropping the ball.
This is a super, super passive,low expense way
(35:12):
to not only get your name out there,but potentially get leads.
Steve, you used a term that I love
and you use the term listing babies.
Can youcan you explain that to our listeners?
Absolutely. So
every it's a proven fact that,
(35:33):
every time a house lists
two other homes within the area
are likely to also hit the market.
Okay. And
obviously, that's not like a,
what, 100% of the time,
but it is pretty trackable.
(35:54):
And if you are not turningthe current deals
that you have into more business,you are missing out on a huge opportunity.
And what I mean by that is,
if I have a home for sale
and whether it sells for 10,000above asking and one day
(36:16):
or 5000 below asking in 20 days,if I'm not
marketing that home correctly andand using that momentum
to tell my success storyone way or another
through social media, through, postcards,
through Doorknocking, around that area.
(36:40):
I'm just I'm not goingto get any more business from that area.
You have to do that, right? You have to,
one of my favorite things to do for anagent
is when they have a home selland they they're the listing agent.
They had a home sale,and it was in multiple offers.
Okay, so there's more than one personwho wants to move to this area, right?
(37:03):
There's more than one personwho wants to move to this neighborhood.
So doing a campaignwhere we reach out to the neighbors
and we say, hey, look, we have buyers
who still want to moveto this neighborhood.
What would be a good time for us to talkto see if your home would be a good fit.
Right?
That is like such a powerful thing,such a powerful thing you can do
(37:26):
because it's true. You've got buyers.
There are people out there
who want to move to that neighborhoodand getting, you know,
that that's
it's one of many ways to turn that listinginto other pieces of business
in the other way is to to, like Imentioned earlier, tell the success story.
Right. Tell the success story.
I'll tell you how many years ago,selling out
(37:49):
20 days for 5000under would have been a success, right?
To me, it's still a success.
And yeah, it absolutely is.
It absolutely is.
But you know,
being able to market your
your sellers win on social media,
and showing peoplethe life that you changed
(38:11):
will make them want to work with you and
get you more business,get you more listings or buyers.
So there's a couple of thingsyou've mentioned in there, Steve,
that I'm thinkingfrom the photography company
or the real estatemedia companies perspective.
And I would love your input on.
And the first thing you mentionedwas professional pictures,
something that you suggestto your your realtors and agents. But
(38:37):
I would argue that most I think are doingprofessional photos now,
but there are still realtors out there
that are kind of doing their owncell phone pictures,
you know, things like that.
What advice would you giveto a real estate media company
that is looking to build a relationshipwith with you?
as the brokerage or,you know, the company?
To to partnerand to offer value to those realtors
(38:58):
and help educate them on the importance
of professional photos or even videowalkthrough tours, things like that.
What how do you coach the agents and
and what kind of relationshipand qualities
are you looking for in a real estatemedia company
that could bring that valueto your realtors?
That's a really great question.
So the first thing is,
(39:21):
like, I truly come from alike we were talking about earlier
when I said, at what point is it worth itto have someone mow your grass for you?
Right?
Just leveraging your time.
I mean, just leveraging your time rightthere is I mean,
how long is it going to take a real estateagent to go through and
(39:43):
get the right angles with their phone,
or get the angle of the bathroomwhere they don't see the mirror or,
you know what I mean, or the toilet paperthat they very clearly missed or whatever
it that all of that time adds up,all that time adds up.
So when I'm talking to an agent,I just tell them like, hey, look, be
smart and leverage your time.
(40:03):
This is a business expense.
This is a business expense, right?
I equate it to
if I were having a home built,
I'm going to go ahead and paysomeone to paint it professionally.
I'm not going to look at them and say,hey, how much?
If, you don't paint the house,let me paint it myself.
Like, that's a terrible idea.You're getting a brand new.
(40:25):
All right.
What?
The professionals paint it,or it's like showing up
to a restaurant and being like, hey,is it going to be cheaper if I bring it?
If I go back there and cookthe steak myself?
Stay.
Right.
These are all things that like,they're professionals for a reason.
So I tell my agents that all the time,leverage your time and let someone
(40:47):
who is arguably betterat this than you are take over for you.
From a talking to a photography,specialist or photographer.
I think the
the biggest thing with that
they could probably talk to agentsabout is easing friction.
(41:09):
So what I mean by that is
what kind of, you know, red tapeare they going to have to jump through
in order to get their photos scheduled?
Do they have,
an agreed upon or, turnaround time?
How are they going to be delivered?
(41:30):
What is the process for,
you know, touch ups or retakesif need be, all of those things.
Right.
And just your general being ableto, like, put forward
the general expectationsthat both like the homeowner
and the real estate agent andthe photographer have all of each other.
(41:52):
Right?
You can expect the photographerto get the best pictures.
If there is a 300 pound dogrunning around the house, right?
You can't expect the photographerto get the best pictures
if there's laundryeverywhere, things like that.
So I think it's just,
you know, communicating with the agentsand maybe even something about
(42:13):
as simple ashow is this getting paid, right?
Like how when, when do they get paid?
How at what point do, doesthe agent have to swipe their credit card?
It's as easy, as simpleas that are all things that
and because different brokerages,
one of the things we knowabout real estate agents,
there are a lot of agentswho do brokerage hop.
(42:33):
And yeah, and they do.
And one brokeragemight cover the cost of the photography.
One brokerage might,
cover the cost upfront, and then youpay them at the end of the month.
Other brokerages are completely hands off.
So I think making sure that the individualagents know how, whatever
(42:55):
the relationship is that the photographerhas with their specific
brokerage,is is probably the most important.
Interesting couple questions.
Steve, thank you so much for sharing.
So what agents.
So we talked about removingas much red tape.
And I think as a business owner,
(43:16):
the more of that we can doand we can make it easy for our clients,
the greater success that clients come toyou and stay with you.
Now, do you, in your opinion,see that it's an advantage
that an agent doesnot have to pay up front
for media and saythat they could potentially pay at close?
Is that removing some red tapeor is really swiping the credit card
(43:38):
at the beginning not a problem. Do you?
And I know we're generalizing here, butfrom your perspective, working with over
600 agents, what is there a consensusthat you have a gut instinct on?
Yeah. I honestly do believe that
a majority of agents would
much rather payafter the fact for versus paying upfront.
(43:59):
There are going to be the agentswho are very fiscally responsible
and have no problem,swiping their credit card right there.
And they want to get their pointsor whatever right up front.
But there's seven of them, right? Steve?
They're seven of those.
So sorry.
If there's agents, let's say I'm sorry,I it's just a joke.
(44:22):
I always tell peoplelike I'm a real estate agent
so I can make jokes about real estateagents, right? Right.
That's what I'm saying to.
I'm like, okay, I can pick on us. Yeah.
I mean, I coached them for four years.
Like, I think I need to write a book.
I'm pretty sure I need to write a book.
So that being said,
yes, I think paying after after the fact,
(44:46):
even if it's not, when the house closes,
even if it is just,you know, with their brokerage
at the end of the month,I think it's a huge help, especially with
some of these agents who, if this is,
their first dealor even their first couple of years
in the business, if,you know, they might look at this as,
(45:09):
okay, well,every penny is going to help me transition
from whatever job I'm currentlyinto to a full time real estate career.
And so for those people,
swiping that card up frontcould be an issue, right?
I mean, that was one of the hardestthings I had to do
was when I was working dual career.
(45:32):
Was not touching the moneythat I got from the closing that, like,
my very first closing,it was leaving that money alone. And,
it was hard to not touch it, right.
Like it's there.
So. Yeah.
So I, I definitely think
having it
at the end of the transaction is goingto benefit most real estate agents.
(45:53):
And they can spend money on marketing.Right.
Like that's where my brain goes like,oh, if I can pay for this like close
or even even like me, like I hadthe ability like I just got my invoice.
So my, my listening from last monthor on my invoice.
But guess what?
I get paidnext Thursday for that, for that listing.
And then my invoice gets paid on the 20th.
(46:13):
So I'm solid, like I'mnot really paying for it, right?
It gave me that time.
So then I ran adsbecause I had other dollars to spend.
I love that,I mean, that's such a good point.
Yeah, it'sfreeing up some resources, right?
So not having that expense at the front,I never want an agent to be like,
(46:33):
oh man, I'd really liketo get this listing, but I can't afford to
get photos right now.
It's like, no, dude, get the listing.
Like, right.
Like that's that's what we call,
was Ihad a manager who said this in the past.
It was their,
passing up dollar, but
pennies or something, I don't know, butyeah, that's what it feels like, right?
(46:57):
Yeah. Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
There we go. That's it.
Todd loves to say it
And that's that'sI mean yeah that's right there.
That's what that to methat's what that is. Right.
And so yeah.
And this is, this is no differentthan any other business y'all.
Like think about a businessthat produces a product and say they are.
(47:18):
And Walmart or a big retailerand they get a PO,
a purchase order and it's for $1 million.
The cost of goods is $1 million.
They're finance.
That's almost money in the bank.
Like if they know it'sgoing to sell through,
that money's going to come back,maybe two millions coming back,
but they have to pay a million nowto make the product.
So this is really no different.I think leveraging that.
(47:40):
And there's many ways you can do itthrough a broker deal through Titus,
you know, and, and your age,some of your agents are doing this
just by swiping their Amex card.
They get the pointsand they pay in 30 days.
So this is really I know, I know,the Titus is the big thing right now
because we're launching it, but this isno different than any other business
where you're just trying to mitigatesome of your cost up front.
(48:04):
So when you get paid,no problem, I'll pay this percentage
and I'll take the rest is my profit,I think.
I think remembering that
any professional who's
working with a real estate agent,you're in business to business.
It's not businessto consumer, it's business to business.
(48:24):
Does that make sense? For sure. Yeah.
So so with that Steve
you see so you have a ton of agentsthat come through and you hear
what is.
So say there's an agentnot working with a professional right now.
Or say they are a little bit unhappywith their current.
(48:45):
And they want to lookfor another media provider.
Or in your opinion, what is
how are they finding that provider?
I, I feel like they are finding it
from referralsfrom other agents in the office.
More almost 99% of the time,that's where they're going to.
(49:06):
I do not think anyone is necessarily,
you know, just
hitting the search engine and seeingwhat pops up and reading reviews.
I think they're going to go with real,
real referrals from other agents.
And, and maybe a branch off of that is
if they are seeing properties on the MLSthat are beautifully done,
(49:32):
maybe they and they see that that is buy,you know, and it's listed
by someone else in their office.
Maybe that agent will be proactiveand reach out to that agent and say, hey,
we're who did your photos.
These are great, I love that.
These are great, I love that.
So Steve,if you were in thank you for that.
So I'm going to push a little bit more.
So if you were a real estate photographer,
what would you do so that your name spread
(49:56):
and you could grow your real estatephotography business.
What do you what?
Yeah, actually, single action or actionswould you see valuable?
You know, I, I think justthe same as real estate agents.
I think you have to ask for referrals.
I thinkwho do you know that I should know, right?
Who else is in your officethat you feel like could use my services?
(50:20):
And it iswhen when I'm telling real estate agents,
about how to ask for referrals.
I'm, you know, I'm telling them, hey,
you got the house under contractonce they're under contract,
and they're really happy to plantthat seed of.
Hey, I'mso glad we got this under contract.
Just so you know, by the end of this, I'mhoping to give you, like,
such a good experiencethat when you close, you've
(50:42):
got the name of somebody elsewho might want to use my services.
Obviously, we are dealing with a 30 day,maybe 21 to 45 day
time period of being under contractthat we have time to plant the seeds.
And I knowphotographers have less of a time, but
if you're not,
(51:02):
if you're not asking, I don't knowthat you're going to get to get them,
can you say that one more time, Steve?
if you're not asking, I don't knowthat you're going to get them.
I mean, I thinkI think that's what it comes down to.
So I can't just throw a referral codeinto your account portal
and expect you to use it. No, no.
(51:28):
There's the again.
There's the seven agents who might. Right.
But I mean, yeah,I think a majority of it is, is,
you know,
I don't think in real estatethere is a secret sauce.
I that's one thing that I have found isthere is not
a, there's not a secret sauce.
(51:49):
Everyone is kind of eager to, to share.
Sure.
Who they like to useall of the real estate agents they are.
Not that they're just going out there
singing their praises,but no one, no one is going to say,
oh yeah, when I keep this photographerto myself, right.
They're going,you know, they want to share.
(52:10):
I think the majority. Yeah.
You got a few that are probably 90that say, I'm not going to share.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, because anymoreyou can figure out what company it is
pretty quickly. So yeah.
Yeah.
So but there areso there's a feel of out there
that think that, you know,that media company is their secret sauce.
(52:31):
So what they do remember and honestly,
this is to any business, you're
you are your secret sauce, right?
You are the sauce in your business.
Right. It's.
Oh, I like that one to tell himI have to make that shirt.
You are the sauce in your business.
You have to do the little things more thatother people are not willing to do that.
(52:57):
You know,
Steve, if you ever heard any,like, direct feedback from Realtors on why
they like the photographerthat they're working with,
besides the quality of the photo orthe video, is there any like professional
characteristicsor even personal characteristics on why
Realtors like workingwith certain individuals or companies?
I think I honestly think it comes
(53:19):
down to the ease of ordering and paying.
Besides professional quality, right?
So if we're leaving that out,I think it comes down to the ease
of ordering,paying and receiving deliverables.
Fair enough.
Pretty pretty to the point.
(53:40):
I mean, yeah,you know, and and do I think that
there is a like a human element like.
Yes, I obviously think that peoplewant to talk with people who are friendly.
I think that peoplewant to talk with, you know,
they want to make sure that
they are, getting what they paid for.
(54:02):
I will tell you,
I was going to say maybe I'll like.
Maybe I will do it. Do it.
Come on
No one will nickel and dime you like a real estate agent
Wait, what?
No one will nickel and dime.
You like a real estate
I mean, it's really,
What this 50 cent charge for,I don't understand.
(54:23):
What's this 50 cent charge or,
So they want to know what thatwhat they're paying
for is what they're getting.
Yeah.
And realtors, they,they offer a high level of service.
I mean,and so if you think of that, they are
and they're busy and, you know, so they'relooking for that level of service back.
(54:45):
And and that level of serviceis different for everyone.
So there's not like a five step processlike you'll connect differently.
And that is the human elementthat Steve Steve had mentioned.
Yes Steve Steve Steve, as we begin
to wrap up here,I'm going to pivot a little bit.
What trends do you see
for real estate media,like what's catching your eye?
(55:07):
What do you think's valuableas we approach the end of 2025 here?
I don't know that this is necessarily new,
but it is certainly not going anywhere.
Our attention spans are about that big.
Right?
And I feel like the idea of 32nd
video is, it's where we are at.
(55:30):
We are this far away
from the next video at all times, right?
Yeah.
Like your thumb moves half an inchand you're at the next video.
So. Yeah.
So I think that short, quick cut media,I do still think that there's, that
there is a, time and place for long form,
but I think that,
(55:53):
that is probably the
the biggest followed by agentsgetting in front of the camera.
I think that we are
in a time and place where
if there is a productthat is being advertised and
I don't see the person who is
(56:14):
claiming to have created the product,I think I'm being scammed.
Because it's so easy to fill in thingsnow, right?
Like getting in front of the camerais so easy to do,
and if there is a company
or a business who doesn't have,
(56:34):
especially a small businesswho is not like actively
in front of the cameraor actively putting out content,
it makes me wonder how legit are they?
How serious are they?
What kind of businessare they actually like
producingif they're not doing these things?
(56:55):
So getting in front of the cameraand it's hard for some people because,
you know, I mean, you know, one likeshow they look on camera or whatever,
except for me.
Yeah, I know
there are there are tons of, you know,I mean, that's that's the truth, right?
It can be really, really, really hard
and overwhelming and
(57:17):
my, my biggest thing is,
respond to the good commentsand ignore the rest, right?
Like, get a guy kind of have a thick skinor get ready for it.
But I do think it's really importantfor agents to get in front of the camera.
Yeah.
That is that is great advice, Steve.
Thank you so muchfor sharing your incredible insight
from so many different fields.
(57:38):
We got so many different brainsof Steve today.
So thank you so much for spending timewith us today.
Yeah, it's my absolute pleasure.
Thank you guys so much for having me.
I loved, I loved every minute of it.
Well, thank you,
Shannon, do you want to wrap us up here?
Do you want to,give us a little more information about,
I know we talk pivoting slightly, butlet's talk a minute about the Spiro sync.
(58:00):
Yeah, because we talked a lot about.
We haven't really dug into it,but what is it?
You are the brains behind it.
You just want to tell our listenerslike we've we've
said, and people are like,what is that thing?
But give us some insight.
What is this thingthat we are going to come to?
So the idea really likethere's a couple things.
Todd and I got in a room,we were doing some planning
(58:22):
and we were just talking, and I told him,I said, you know, there's some key
things about our companythat we just can never change.
Their core values,
but that's how we are going to keep themand we're never going to change them.
And one of those was listeningto our users to make changes.
Right.
Again, I think spear was
great because we own a media companyand so we understand the issues.
We understand what Steve's talking about.Right?
(58:44):
We we get to these things.
We have these relationships with brokers.
So we get to put that into the system.
But there's multiple waysto run a business.
So we need to hear from our usershow they're using the system.
We also can't lose our customer support.
Just how we want theminteracting with our people.
They are human.
We want that human to human contactand we just can't lose that.
So Todd said them to me and he said, well,how do we bottle that up?
(59:08):
And I'm like, well,
we should probably have an eventand let our users vote
on what we're going to do in 2026.
And Todd jumped out at the table and said,yes, that's what we have to do.
And, so, Spiro Sync kind of came and wewe talked about it and we were like,
(59:28):
we're trying to, you know,of course you want a catchy name, right?
Who doesn't, Steve. Right.
You want catchy brand names and, well,I was like, we're we're kind of like,
sycing up together, right?We're syncing with our users.
We're syncing our brains.We're sycning thoughts.
And we wanted this to be all business to.
Right? Like, this is all business.
It's it's hey, you're going to comehelp us out with Spiro.
(59:49):
Let us know what you wantfor your business and your platform.
But then this is a conferencewhere you get to get around like people,
community and discuss best practices.
What isn't working here from some othersand and so Spiro
Sync came together.
The idea really behindhow will operate this event
(01:00:14):
is something that I used to host called,
eitherrebar or real estate buyer camp or rebar.
However, we're supposed to say it.
And before Covid, these were doneall over the country.
They're still done.
I think just Covid
kind of took a hammer to it,and then everybody stopped doing it.
(01:00:35):
But the premise around that is,can we invite real estate
agents to comeand just share with each other?
And we have people lead sessions.
They're just leaders in the in the topic
right there and then everybody in the roomis sharing best practices.
Todd, you are a part of these events.
They are a fantastic
(01:00:56):
time to engage in best practiceswith your fellow community.
And so that ishow we're going to kind of operate it.
But then we're going to adda little special thing at the end,
because who's tired.
And Steve knows thisbecause he goes to lots of KW event,
who is tired of goingto a really amazing conference
(01:01:17):
and you leave and then you never implement
or get done the amazing thingsthat you just listen to,
right?
Like so hard.
So the second half of the second dayis all about workshopping the topics,
and you get to chooseand you're going to leave this conference
with something ready and
(01:01:37):
or at least ready to implementor already implemented in your business.
So I'm excited.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
We're gonna have a lot of different peoplethere.
I've been talking already to justdifferent people that are to become
agents, that are going to be teaching usagain, like how to sell them,
different people from different,you know, brokerages
(01:01:58):
and just really bringing,a lot of awesome subject matter experts.
I'll call them into the, into the,
conference that we're doing now.
This first one, I will sayit's be really limited attendance.
So the registration link isgoing to come out next week.
So this
is it's going to get a little interesting,Todd, on this first one.
(01:02:20):
Yeah.
But we'll do it again.
Like Shannon saidwe have a limited attendance.
And so look out for that link.
Get in.
And, we hope we see you all there January
22nd 23rd of 2026.
Yeah, it's it'sgoing to be here before we know it guys.
Football started.
That means Christmas is almost here.
(01:02:41):
Although manI'm going to tell you guys what green Bay.
Oh last night today.
Look look riddunkilous.
Good day Jordan love is not on my fantasy.
And they're going to be in Dallas at weekfour.
And I like that is just markedthat that game is on my calendar.
Man I can't I didn't evenI didn't even check my fantasy lineup.
(01:03:03):
They play football on Thursday.
So I'm hopefully I had everybodyin that need to be in
what I had.
Of course I have Daniels.
And so that didn't fit me well last night.
And I actually thoughtabout pulling the cord
and pulling them out because green Baylast week looks so good and I did it, so.
Yeah.
Well, I, I'm probablygonna lose the second week in a row, guys.
(01:03:25):
Yeah. I'll go down.
You know, we should do fantasy leaguebetween a, like, Spiro, like our
just listeners and just like, real estateprofessionals.
It'd be kind of fun that we all gotin the league, and we all could.
I mean, there could be a lot of them,but we could all.
Yeah. Oh, no doubt.
Like how many?
Like, then you can have the championsof the champions of the year.
You know, there's nothing likemaybe that's an idea for next year.
(01:03:47):
Well we definitely should maybedo some fun.
Like there's funfootball playoff pools that you can do.
Like once you get down in the playoffs.
And it's like you have to pick the teamsand it's kind of like the NCAA stuff.
So we can maybe do some of that.
I mean, yeah, that might it might be fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Lot of good things are happening
I mean the updates coming out are amazing.
Titus is really going to help impactour business as, like, as you said,
(01:04:11):
a lot of agents,
they have the ability to pay at
close thatthat's going to be really great for them.
And maybe we can actually
help some new agents get businessbecause of that feature.
And that would be really cool.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Well, Shannon, Steve,thank you so much for your time today.
We appreciate all the insightthat's going to do it for us today.
(01:04:33):
We thank you for being listeners.
If this was helpful,
if you could share this podcastwith someone you know that would help
us, it's just a small way to say thank youback to us.
We're here for you.We appreciate all of you.
Be sure to take it.Take time to take a breath.
Enjoy the blessings you have.
We'll see you all next week. Thanks.
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