August 20, 2025 • 50 mins
Todd decided he wanted to know what a day in the life of Craig was like, so the questioning has started. Have you wondered what Craig's life is like during the workday? How does his role work? What does he have time for? How does he manage his time with both taking listing photos and video tours in addition to developing business in his market? Has he taken time out of his day to get a tattoo?
Interested in Eli Jones REPP Conference? Find out more at http://repplaunch.com/repp2025
Also be sure to check out the PMRE Conference! Details are available at: http://pmreconference.com
Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 Episode Intro
01:15 Craig Getting a Tattoo?
06:06 Spiro Sync
07:22 REPP Conference
07:38 PMRE Conference
08:35 Titus - Pay At Closing
13:16 A Day in the Life of Craig
48:59 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):
you might just be burnt out right now.
You might just need, you know,if this is the first slow day you've had,
you might just need to shootthat one house,
and then you might need to take yourwife out to lunch or dinner.
Do something for yourself.
It might.
It might do you more good to slow down
(00:24):
so that your body can catch up.
Your brain can catch up.
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
(00:44):
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform.
It's designed to help you run your dayto day real estate media business.
And ultimately, if it's your goal to helpyou grow and scale your business as well.
I'm Craig Magrum,welcome to it, host of the podcast.
Glad to be here with youeach and most every week.
(01:05):
And along with me each and every week.
Our owner and founder of Spiro,cohost of the podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
Hello, Todd.
Craig, it's great to be here.
Sorry, I'm jumping right in. So off air.
Craig, told me
Okay. Yeah.
Just so we're justI want to go on right for it, right?
I want to bring everybody inbecause you have me.
So my interest so piqued here.
(01:27):
So we start the podcastwith just a little introduction
to Justine, our fabulous editor. And
Craig said with
this topic, he's like,if you want to do anything that's fun
digital on me, like,and you want to special effects
to make our listeners and viewerslaugh, feel free to do it.
(01:48):
And I said something to the effect of,yeah, like maybe
a face tattoo or something of the like.
And Craig said to me, the face,well, let's
give it a little context, the face tattoo,to not just a random thing.
Was it last year?
I think it was last year somehow.
How did that even come up?
We started talking about me having a facetattoo like Post Malone.
(02:12):
Yes. I can't remember what it was likehow we got there,
but somehow we were tattooing all kindsof different things on your face.
And yeah.
Todd,throw out a challenge to to listeners
and viewers to do their own,you know, photoshopping of my
I don't know I don't know how it starts.
So that's why Todd said to Justine,
(02:33):
tattoos or a face tattoo.
All right. Okay. Go ahead.
And then Craig said to me, well, Todd,
actually, I've been thinking.
And I said, Craig, stop right there.
We cannot use this off linebecause everybody's going to want to know
what you're about to say.
So you've been considering what, Craig?
(02:54):
I've been toying with the ideaof getting a tattoo.
It's not the first time in my lifeI don't have any tattoos.
Back when I was in my 20s,I thought about it.
My boss at the time said, Craig,
think about,think through that a little bit more.
Do you really want a tattoo when you're80 years old and it's all saggy and
you know, it doesn't look good.
And hehe talked me out of it, right? Okay.
(03:15):
He talked me out of it.
So I haven't haven't thought about itfor a long time, except for the fact that,
how many
years ago was it, I forget, maybe 2018.
I took a trip to Egypt.
I did a mission trip to Egypt. Okay.
We served inwhat was called El Multimedia.
(03:35):
It's the garbage dumps around Cairo
where Coptic Christians and,
the the poor Muslims live.
They live in these garbage dumpsright outside of of, Cairo.
They go into the city.
They gathered the garbage,they take it back to where they live,
sort through it for the recyclablesand sell the recyclables.
(03:56):
It's it's.
I've never seen anything like it.
Yeah. So
Christians in Egypt are mostly knownas Coptic Christians.
It's a particular,you know, denomination of Christianity.
And one of the distinctive marksthat Coptic Christians
have is this little Coptic crosson the inside of their right wrist.
(04:19):
Okay, parents give their kidswhen they're young that
if if they're Christians,just to remind them
of their their heritageand their faith right in Jesus.
So I got to servewith Christians in in Egypt,
and I've thought on and off
for the last couple years,but especially the last four months,
(04:40):
I've thought about maybe getting a Copticcross on the inside of my right wrist.
I've toyed with the idea,
I just I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
So yeah, nothing.
Nothing. No big deal. No face tattoos.
Not good.
Well, okay.
Well, we'll continueto try at times on the podcast,
(05:00):
but I do I mean, I love the idea ofI don't have any tattoos and
I haven't really thought a lot about one,but I love the story behind it.
Craig. I mean, I think it it resonatesand it connect.
I think I think it's funny,those of you listening, watching,
I'm guessing you're agreeing
that you think it's probably funnythat the owner of the business
is toying with the idea of lettingone of his employees get a face tattoo.
(05:23):
That's how we're facing for the clients.
Are you sure you want to do that, Todd?
No. My plan depends on what it is.
Tell me if I'm almost 50 years old.
My parents would still kill meif I did that.
But, yeah, that is.
That's a bit extreme, but I like the.
I like the cross on theon the inside the wrist.
(05:45):
There.
And and how much can a wrist really sagas you get older.
There is that there is that.
Certainly not a valid concern okay.
So weird way to start the podcast.
I hope we might have two listenersleft now.
Todd Yeah, that'sokay. Let's keep going for those two.
Right. Okay.
(06:06):
Well, before we dive into the topic,which is, oddly enough,
related to what we just talked about,do you have any Spiro updates?
What's going on with the software? Todd
very quickly, Spiro sync.
Y'all are loving it.
It is our event in January.
We have a date January 22nd, 23rd.
By the way.
Thank you all for messaging and saying,hey, this sounds great.
(06:29):
I want to know more about it.
If you haven't messaged me yetand want to know more about it
and are interested, this would be January22nd 23rd in Dayton, Ohio.
So you would fly into Dayton, Ohio.
You'll stay there hotels,
you know, probably going to be lessthan 100 bucks or right at 100 bucks.
It's going to be a two day eventwhere you're going
to come and learn, connect with us.
(06:51):
You can bring your team as well.
So we are excitedthis will be our first event.
It's something we've wanted to do.
We love connecting with you
and we love the communityconnecting with each other.
Craig and I did a podcast long agoabout PMRE.
The conference in Novemberand our first trip there,
(07:12):
and how we took away with the idea
of the importanceof connecting with your community.
So we're going to do an event.
There's also a few more waysto connect on top of the Spiro sync.
You can connect at the REPP conference.
That's Eli Jones's conference.
That's going to be an incredible event.
It's, November 5th and sixth, I believe.
(07:34):
Check the dates for me.
We'll link it below.
And then you do have PMRE two weeks later.
So pick an event,pick one of them, pick all of them.
But I think you'll find value in comingand growing and learning.
And then when you get there,go talk to people.
Come to find myself,come find someone that you know.
Talk to someone you don't know.
(07:55):
Connect with people.
You'll find a ton of value in it.
Absolutely.
Maybe we invite a tattoo artist to comeand I get my tattoo.
Well, Craig, I was going to say,are you going to, like,
why don't we do thistattoo in Vegas this year?
That'd be the place to do it, right?
Yeah.
I was trying to have more self-control.
I was thinking about that. But.
(08:17):
So I mentioned it, but I did.
What would happen in Vegas, though?
That wouldn't stay in Vegas.
It would come with me, would go. Yeah.
Not a bad thing to bring back from Vegas.
There could be worse things, I suppose.
Anyway.
Yeah. All right. I did want to.
I did want to quickly mentionedbefore we dive in
(08:37):
just because I'm so excitedabout this update in this partnership.
It's it's with a company called Titus.
Oh, yeah.
And Titus is a pay at closing company.
So your agents will quickly and easilyapply
if you choose to use Titus for financing.
And they can pay for their darn photosand video.
At the close of the property,I think that's just the coolest thing.
(09:01):
Let me ask a question.
Yeah, Devil'sadvocate playing in the back of my head.
What if the sale doesn't go through?
What if that agent loses the listingand they don't renew the contract?
What happens? Yeah. Great question.
So ultimately the agent is responsiblefor making the payment.
You know,this is somewhat similar to a firm.
(09:23):
And some of those other payment systemsyou see out there
that are on your most popular e-commercewebsites, where you can pay over time.
So the agent is responsible for it.
Number one,
I want to mention that the photographergets paid immediately regardless.
Okay, so you all get paid immediately.
Number two, if the house does not close,the agent has the ability to move that
(09:49):
liabilitythat that charge to another listing.
If they have it, then they can pay forboth listings at the close of listing B,
if they don't have another listing,
ultimately they're going to be,you know, do that money back to Titus.
But we have seenand we've heard from Nick, the founder.
And Nick's going to be on here soon. Yeah.
(10:12):
That average order value
is going up substantially.
Agents are understanding.
They love the flexibility.
He's gonna give you some incredible statsabout agents
and finances and justI think the thing that I always try to
remember is when an agent gets a listing,it doesn't mean they make money.
(10:33):
It means they pay out money.
That's one of the big
things, is they get a listingand they have
all of these things to pay for theirtheir go.
There's a good chance they're goingto make money off the houses,
you know, appropriately, priceand you know all of those items.
But they have to pay out money and that'sdifficult for the majority of them.
I didn't realize that Craigeven top producers.
(10:55):
So and if you all think about it,
if you have an admin, if you have a VAand you have W-2
employees, it's not, you know,you are going to get paid by jobs.
They do.
And this is a great topicthat we need to cover coming up.
But what do you do in the down seasonwith your W-2 employees?
So I'm excited about Titus.I'll stop there.
(11:17):
Just one more hintthat I want to give you guys is,
Titus is also going to have one otherreally big feature
that is, well, there's a couple of them,but we'll talk about him in a week or two.
It's going to save you moneyon your credit card processing as well.
So I love this company.
I the the founder Nick is incredible.
We will continue to only dopeople do business with people that align
(11:41):
with us and companies that align with usand just an incredible guy.
It's so intelligently, so intelligent and,
just really understands us as real estatephotographers
looking forward to that episodeshould be good.
Yes. And Craig, we're looking at a,
September 23rd launch of that,a tentative.
(12:02):
So mark it down your calendars.
We're going to give you all
all of the materialswhere you can market out to your agents.
We're going to help you sell this.Educate your agents on it.
It's really nothing to sell.
It's actually it's kind of a no brainerif I can.
But enough of that will give it all ofyou will give it all to you in a week
or two.
We'll help you
grow your business through this,and we'll continue to do things like this.
(12:25):
And Spiro, it's exciting.
Oh, and we will be the first to integrate,so you won't get this anywhere else
right now. That's fantastic. Cool.
I can't wait for that episode.That should be good.
Yeah. It'll be a fun one. All right.
Awesome.
All rightwell welcome back to another week.
Those of you returning new listenersI know that was an odd way
(12:45):
to start a podcast.
But go back and listen to some pastepisodes.
You'll get a feel forwho Todd is, who I am, who what Spiro is.
We're, pretty laid back.
We try not to take ourselves tooseriously,
and we have fun with what we do.
So, but ultimately,
we want to help you grow a strong,good, solid real estate media business.
(13:06):
And, we were brainstorming topic ideasfor this episode,
and I threw out a couple ideas,and you came back with another one.
I'm going to let you set this up.
Yeah.
So we are at the middle of August of 2025,
and we are cominginto a transition of the market.
All right.
So we have thiswe have these cyclical patterns.
(13:29):
And for those of you
on YouTube, I'm just shown a graphthat shows this kind of sine
curve where you start offslow in the winter, you peak in the summer
and you go downback for the fall and winter.
And that is happening now.
So we've got things like back to school,you got county fairs,
you have other activitieswhere people who might be buying
(13:51):
and sellinghave their attention elsewhere.
And I thought it was appropriatebecause this was very awkward
for methroughout many years, this transition,
because you go really, really hardand then it's like, whoa,
wait a minute, I have some of this time
and I, I hate to say that
(14:12):
my first
couple ofyears when I hired on my first key person
and he was the helper that I referred to,we talked about this in a podcast,
or I talked about this in a YouTube videowith Eli Jones.
If you want to go back and find thatit's on Eli's page.
I talked about hiring a helperversus a builder, and this was my helper.
And Craig, you know, as I look back,I told this individual I was like,
(14:35):
you know, for the winter,I that's where I take time off.
And there was literally day
I'm like, there's going to be dayswhere you just don't see me.
And I would do that.
I would literally not be a partof the business for days at a time.
In the winter.
I'd be excited to be with my family.I'd be doing things around the house.
It was kind of awkwardbecause we worked out of my house,
you know, so you'd come in to usethe bathroom.
(14:57):
I'd be sitting on the couchwatching TV or watching TV.
Yeah, like, hey, how's work going?
But you know what?
I did that intentionallybecause I needed a break,
and I was okay with itbecause I just knew that
if I didn't get that break,I wouldn't have enough to give.
When it came time for me to give.
But if you are excitedabout growing your business,
(15:20):
and you probably arebecause you're listening to this,
you all are overachievers out there.
If you're listening to this else,you'd just be watching TV
right now.
There's this time, and I get this questiona lot from you all out there
on coaching calls and other eventsI do is like, what do I do?
And I think by habit,
(15:44):
it might feel natural to go back tosome of the tasks that you've delegated.
You might check email,
you might micromanage VA's or employees.
You might go do the laundry,
you know, whatever it may be.
But I thought this would be a great timeto do a day in the life of Craig.
(16:04):
So now for
for the record, I told Todd,are we sure we want to do this?
We want to maintain and growour audience, right?
Which we don't want to drive you away.
Couldn't talk him out of it.
Well, Craig,I'm actually extremely excited about this
because I think if any, if you or
I really connect to our client,think you connect to our client,
(16:28):
you know, to you listenersout there being shooting, selling.
And I think understanding this transition
from busy to slowseason is just going to resonate.
So I'm excited to go through this today.
So Craig, we're just coming offa busy season. Right.
So give us an idea.
What does busy season look like for you?
(16:49):
Well, as you said,I've got the hybrid roles on both doing
the photography, videography, drone,you know, agent on camera videos.
I get all the fun of the creative sideduring busy season.
I my day is full with shoots.
A full day for me can be anywhere between
like four large shootswith multiple services.
(17:10):
Up to maybe six shoots if I have a couplethat are of, like, say, photography only.
Right?
So anywhere between 4 and 6 shoots,is a full, busy day for me.
And pretty much from,like I would say, April
through about this time, mostevery day is is full.
Just came off of July where,
(17:32):
you know, our my my territory,my my market.
I think we did 88 shoots.
I've been busy.
Been very busy.
So not exactly surewhere you might want me to go.
Maybe start at the beginning of the day.
Yeah. So a couple?
Yeah, a couple.
So a busy day.
(17:52):
So 4 to 6.That is a lot of shoots in a day.
And I know that that's something.
And this is a little bit of a tangent.
But I think it helps becauseit really is an inside in your day.
So just walk us throughand it can be briefly.
But I know when you and I talked
many years ago when you were startingyour business, you were doing
maybe a handful, 2 or 3 shoots a dayand you felt capped by that.
(18:14):
So, yeah.
Is there anything, any,anything you'd like to gain?
Give us insight as to how we're ableto achieve six shoots in a day.
Wow. Well,number one, outsource your editing.
I mean, when when I was only able to do,say, two shoots a day,
I was doing my own editingand a very, very quickly dawn on me.
(18:35):
There is no way to scale a businessor be able to support myself
when when I was doing this on my own,by doing my own editing because I could
like I said,
yeah, I can only do two shoots, andthen the rest of my day into the evening
I've spent editing to try and get thingsturned around that very next bit.
You know, that next business day.
And even back in 2017 when I first
(18:56):
got into it,that's what, realtors expected.
They expected things.The next business day.
So numberone, outsource your editing immediately.
Just don't don't bother with trying to,do your own editing.
If it wasn't for our editing team,we wouldn't have a business right?
And, Craig, we have a simple solutionfor that autoHDR,
(19:17):
AI editing we used exclusively at Wow.
It's integrated into Spiro AutoHDR.
Search it. use it.
You'll probably need to QC it,look over it.
I don't want you to QC it. Find a VA.
We are working on a solution for youto just hire a team that we outsource to.
But that is kind of a done for yousolution.
(19:38):
But number two,
finding a systemto handle your invoicing, the,
you know, the scheduling,the sending, sending things out.
Originally when I first startedbeta testing the Spiro software,
before it even had a name,I was even with that,
I was still doing my own scheduling,I, I don't
yeah, I was using Google Calendar,and so it made my day kind of clunky.
(20:02):
I would shoot
and then, you know,the phone would be ringing
whileI'm trying to shoot or in between shoots.
Then I'm checking my calendar
or my emails in between shootsand trying to finagle scheduling,
and I managed.I grew the business, but boy,
it took a lot of timeand a lot of energy to do that.
So I yeah,
outsourcing or bringing on team membersto help you
(20:23):
with all of those administrativetasks is huge.
And it's to the point now where I'm partof the Wow team Wow video tours and I can
I can just concentrate on two thingsshooting and business
development.
Where do you want to go from there?
Did that answer that first question?
So how much? No.
(20:43):
That's fabulous.
Thank you for that.
So in a day of six,it seems like a lot of shooting.
How much businessdevelopment is in that Craig
during busy season.
Not a ton.
I'm still taking,you know, some phone calls.
If it's if I'm on a shoot,I let it go to voicemail.
I do check that voicemail.
Then in between my shootsand if it's something I have to respond to
(21:04):
right away, I take care of that.
If it's something I can respond towhen I get home,
back to my home office, you know,before I start uploading for the evening.
Then I'll I'll take care of it then.
Same thing with emails,you know, responding to emails.
I still do check in between shootsso that I can be timely in my response.
(21:25):
And that's huge.
Realtors are often on short deadlines,
and so I want to respect thatand make myself valuable to them.
So being sure to respond
quickly for me is is an important thing.
Yeah.
With that responding Craig,
is there I'm sure there's times
that you handle things, but are thereany other times that you might quickly
(21:46):
forward something to a team memberback at the office?
Yeah. The number one thing is scheduling.
Because so many,so many of my early clients who are now,
wow, clients got used to medoing all the scheduling.
Even now after doing this, I thinknow I've been shooting for two years.
For Wow
I still every once a while
get a client that will calland want to schedule with me.
(22:09):
And I'm like, I'll tell you what, I'mactually on a shoot right now.
I'm going to have you do 1 or 2 things,either call or scheduling team.
They're there until 5:00,and I give them the phone number
and I said,they'll take great care of you.
They'll ask all the right questionsand make sure that you get set up
the way you need to,or you can do it online 24/7
It's super easy to schedule online.
(22:30):
I give them the website.
I unless I'm sittinghere in my home office,
you know, and have the time,
I might schedule it then,just since I'm on the phone with them
and I can do it, but out in the field,I'm not going to mess with it on my phone.
Yeah.Our scheduling team takes care of that.
That's the number one thing.
Yeah.
And Iand I love that you're still able to.
(22:54):
That is in a way sales.
That's part of the businessdevelopment role that we do.
It's justyou've removed yourself from that column.
And you're staying in a higher column.
We've talked about if you're like Toddwere you talking about to time tracking.
Those are some verbswe use with time tracking.
(23:15):
But Craig has moved himself upto a more valuable column,
and he lets another team member help
with a task that needs to be done,which is scheduling.
But he's just more focused on what'smore important to him, what I what I often
will do to when they do call to schedule,I will ask about the the listing.
You know what,give me some key features of it.
(23:37):
What services are you looking forwardlooking for?
I might find out. It's a vacant.
I might talk to him about,you know, virtual staging.
So even in that scheduling call,I am trying to upsell.
If there's a benefit to them for that.
Love that.
And then I'll slack the scheduling teamand I'll give them just a quick,
(23:57):
brief summary of the conversationand and just say, be expecting their call.
Or would you please call themto get this scheduled?
And here's what we talked about,just to make sure that we're
on the same page on servicesthat we talked about.
Yeah. That's great.
And one thingthat we're excited about Craig,
is now that our schedulingteam is inside of our CRM,
(24:19):
those
call transcriptionswill be inside of the CRM.
So hopefully that will even save youa little bit of information passing.
From you to scheduling.
So you could just bump scheduling and say,hey, just talk to so-and-so client.
All the info is in there.
They could read the AI summaryor listen to the call,
and then you can even more minimizeyour time to focus
(24:42):
on the things that you want to.
You need to focuson, okay, full transparency time.
I forget about some of these newer toolsbecause I'm so used to doing things
a certain way that, yeah,AI summary I, you know,
that's going to be you two,you know, you listening
as these new tools and efficienciescome into play in our industry,
(25:03):
it's going to take some getting used to,especially if you've done it
the same way for a long time.
I'm not opposed to new methods.
It's just it's hard to break old habits.
Right? Yeah.
But yeah, it will make it more efficient.
It will.
And I think those are
those are all those habits are good thingsbecause they're called
what I, what I call like a capture devicewhen you're out and busy, like what?
(25:25):
What's going to trigger you to remind, to
remind yourselfto follow up with someone you know?
Sometimes, like I take photos of thingsand then I'll look at my photos
if I need to check something, or I'll sendmyself an email or record a voice memo.
But those are capture devices.
And then it is really coolhow technology can streamline that.
We're not specifically talkingabout our flow with the CRM
(25:48):
and learning support today,but those are some things
that as you grow, we just took a big step
up to put everybody into it at Wow,
and it's breaking down what we referto as silos of communication.
So we'll do some podcasts on it.
Coming up, if you're at that point alreadywhere you have many divisions
(26:08):
and you have those silos,you like to know what we do.
Shoot. Shoot me a call. I'll be happy to.
Or shoot me an email.
Excuse me.
I'll be happy to have a call,give you some insight on it,
but we will be givingyou guys more information on that.
And talking about our flows.
But those are all things that continue
to keep you in your columnwhere you're most efficient.
Craig, are there any other little things?
(26:28):
I know you talked about scheduling,but anything else that you're just
you would not hesitate thatyou send to the team member
that can take care of that client.
Off the top of my head, I.
I'm not thinking of a whole lot.
Scheduling is is pretty muchthat is the big one.
Let me ask you to let me ask you alittle bit different of a question, Craig.
(26:49):
Do you get do you get requests from agents
about changes or fixes with media?
That's a great question.
Not a ton. Okay.
We usually are setting expectationsbefore the shoot.
Yeah,there's there's not a lot of changes.
We, I just we try to make surethat we do things right ahead of time.
(27:14):
And you know, before we get photos back oror deliver those.
But if, if they're,
if I knowI've shot something that you know, there's
something slightly wrong or let's sayeither I catch my reflection in a black
refrigerator or something that I justdidn't see when I took the picture.
I'll, I'll let the support team know.
(27:36):
And they take care of that editing.
I'm not editing anything myself, but I,
you know, I try to keep my eyes openfor those things, but yeah.
No, what?
I think what's happeninghere, Craig, is actually
we have proper channels of communicationsto our clients.
And, I'm realizing that this is workingwell, just in real time.
(27:56):
Talking through this with you today,
because we do have complaintsthat come in and request for adjustments.
Why it doesn't get sent to you
is because all of the delivery emailscome from a specific inbox.
That's not your inbox, right?
And you have done enough expectationssetting to let
your clients know that we have a teamthat can assist them.
(28:20):
So and I'm sure over the years,a client has called
you randomly here and thereand you have probably said, hey, I,
I actually have someone that can helpyou better than me.
So my suggestion
there is if if you are still on that inbox
where clients are going to clickreply to a delivery email,
(28:40):
I would say get yourself out of that inboxand put it into a shared inbox
with your team,because we have team members that do that
and they do it very instantlyand they do it very quickly.
We've learned that from the timea client requests something,
to the time we clone something outvery quickly and easily in a photo
(29:01):
and get that back to them,that is very critical.
That time right thereand getting back to them means that
and getting back to them quickly meansthat they you are still in the process
of whatever task they're doing, say,uploading photos to MLS.
They want to get that done because again,just like you,
they don't make moneyby uploading photos to the MLS.
(29:25):
They have to do it.
You don't make money by QC and images.
It just has to be done.
So the quicker we can get them throughthat process, the better.
I will say, you know,since you mentioned them replying to
like save the support emailor whatever email is delivering,
they will still reach out to mebecause they might not pay attention.
(29:45):
There's so used to the relationshipwith me that they might they might say,
hey Craig, you know,
there's something in the yard can,you know, can you edit that out?
And I'll, I'll reply to them and I'll CC
support and say, certainlyour support team can take care of this.
You know, in the future, if you ever haveany editing requests, things like that,
please feel free to go aheadand just email support directly.
(30:07):
That'll save a step in the processand get you a quicker results.
So it's providing education and helpingthe the realtor understand, you know, hey,
add this address to your your contact,you know, in your phone or whatever.
And it just takes some training,some education.
Yeah.
A quick example from my endbecause I actually got one of those
emails yesterday.
Craig I don't did you really. I really did.
(30:29):
I don't get a lot of emailsfrom our clients at Wow, I happen
to get one from a very large clientat our largest brokerage deal.
And it and this client
also CC the managing broker.
Okay.
So the broker in chargeand it wasn't a complaint.
It was just a need for some filessome old files.
(30:49):
And it came in and Evan on our teamresponded
and gave everything that was neededbefore I even saw the email.
And I think the point is, is while I havethat connection with that very large
agent, and I have the connectionwith the broker in charge, we've said it
enough atWow that ultimately the agent knew to CC
(31:12):
or address our support team,
and then I, I just let the wheels turn.
I saw it pop up.
I saw the name.
I'm like, I'm not focused on it right now.
Evan got it within a matter of minutesand an and and you have to do that.
One quick point I want to makeis if you respond instantly,
you have just set expectations that
(31:33):
that client, that broker,that person needs to always email you.
Yeah.
Please don't takeplease don't take the the, the, success
or don't take the opportunity for successfor your team away from them.
Evan did.
Yeah.
Like don't take itbecause let them succeed.
And then I praised Evan.
(31:54):
I gave him a shout out at morningmeeting this morning.
I'm like, hey, yeah, but I don't knowif you knew it, but this was the broker
in charge at our largest company.
Like, thank you so muchfor getting back to them so quickly.
The agent, the broker in charge,both responded super happy,
super appreciativethat I didn't have to do anything.
Y'all.
Yeah.
That's that's a great insightin, you know, conversely,
(32:16):
if if an owner jumps into early
and takes that opportunity for a winfor one of your employees away,
you're going to kill morale in your teambecause your team if
if you've hired the right people,
they really want to seethe company succeed and see you succeed,
and they want to feel empoweredto be able to do their job
and know that you as the owner,trust them.
(32:39):
If they don't think that you trust them,they're going to be on pins and needles
all the time.
They will.
Yeah, I, I hate that I've had to raisemy hand for doing that over the years.
I did it in a general manager rolethat I had earlier.
I learned, I learned, yeah, yeah.
So and I learned when you do that,the best thing to do is
(33:01):
when you recognize is to go let them.
Yeah. And apologize, let them know.
And, you know,
I just saw a video clip yesterday,Todd, of, a guy talking about leadership.
He said, I will follow a leader to the endof the Earth through a brick wall.
If they do, at least one of these topthree things apologize.
(33:23):
Ask for input and admitthat they don't know something.
If they do any of thosethree, I'll follow them. That
that is that is so countercultural, Craig.
Because I would say that the cultureof the world in 2025 would tell you
that all three of those thingswould show you to be a weak leader.
(33:46):
Great insight there. Okay, Craig,let let's transition here.
Thank you for the insight.
That is incredible.
I'm sure there's a ton of questionsaround some of those flows.
And those are flows that we've tried toperfect over the last 20 some years that.
Wow. Again, if you have questions,we'd love to take them.
Hello@spiro.media.
Shoot them overso we know what you are wanting to know.
(34:07):
But let's transition here, Craig,into this.
The coming down of busy seasonwhere we're at right now.
So whatwhat does your day begin to look like
when there's not six shoots on the day?
Great question.
Had that kind of day yesterdayfor the first time in months.
(34:28):
Todd I had one shoot yesterday.
Okay, well, you know,
like, this shouldn't be a surprise to me.
I've been doing this enough years now.I know the cycle.
I know mid August.
It's got to you know, people arekids are getting back into school.
Like you saidat the beginning of the podcast,
last minute vacations are happening.
(34:48):
County fairs right now.
I live in Bowling Green, Ohio, in BowlingGreen, Ohio is known,
for hosting the national tractorpulling championships
for the entire county for the entire year.
Very serious stuff.
I live right next doorto the Wood County Fairgrounds, and,
I hear those tractorspulling all day into the evening.
(35:09):
Sometimes at 2:00 in the morningif they've been rained out.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, there's a lot of peoplejust a lot happening right now.
So my appointmentshave suddenly dropped this week,
compared to.
So I'm like, well, what am I going to do?
Am I going to sit around, watch TV?
Yeah.
(35:30):
No I'm not.
So knowing watching that
it was a Thursday, watching that daycome up on my calendar
and not seeing any more shoots coming up,I started shifting my thinking
back to business developmentand okay, have I caught up with my VIPs?
Have I touch base with, teamsthat I haven't had a chance to talk to?
(35:53):
I'm shooting for them, butI just haven't been able to talk to them.
Do I have any new clientsthat I need to call and reach out with?
And set, you know,first order expectations or follow up
on a shoot that I didin the last 2 or 3 weeks.
Check back in with them,see how their experience was.
So I started thinking through all thesebusiness, business development things,
and I start I picked up the phone, startedmaking some calls yesterday
(36:16):
that I haven't been able to get to becauseI've been so busy, sent out some emails.
I set up a potential new client. Coffee.
I've talked a lot about my coffeemeetings.
Because I had found this new realtor
at a brokeragethat we do a lot of business with.
And reached out, introduce myselfand you know, the relationship
(36:38):
that we have, and asked herif I could, you know, treat to coffee
and get to know her
her new real estate business and introduceWow video tours a little bit more.
You know, mentionedthat we're the preferred vendor,
but I know you have choices.
So I'd love to tell youa little bit more about wow.
And she responded, I think within aboutfive minutes and said, yeah, I'd love to.
(36:59):
I'm new to town. From out from Colorado.
So I don't know, don't knowa ton of people.
And I got a coffee meeting right away.
I haven't done a coffee meeting in a whilebecause I think too busy to,
you know, shooting.
So I just I've done this long enough.
I know the activitiesthat work for me, for business development
and what I need to get back towhen I have that extra time.
(37:21):
I can't sit still when I have a
a free shoot day.
Because I knowI need to keep my funnel full
if I've been busy shooting for the last,
you know, say 4 or 5 months,
and I've not had the opportunityto maintain relationships,
I've got to get back to thatas soon as possible,
(37:43):
because my personal philosophy isI don't want to take any of these
relationships that I've worked very hardto build for granted.
Wow, I want I want them to know, hey, yes,I haven't talked with you
a whole lot, but it's because I've beenso busy with the shooting.
But I want you to know I appreciate you.
You know, I might be sending out.
Thank you. Is I might write.
I've got a whole kind of arsenal of thingsthat I like to do when it's slower
(38:07):
to reestablish the relationshipand make sure that I'm taking good care
of my clients in my market.
Craig, so many questions around that.
I think I have onethat will we'll unpack here
and then probably begin to end becausethere's, I have a ton of questions.
I'm sure all of you do about this arsenalthat Craig has to keep the funnel for.
But, maybe just one. It just. Let's go.
(38:31):
Very practical.
Yesterday,or you had realized at this Thursday
with one shoot was comingup, you know, subconsciously,
probably some things are comingback to the top of your mind
from a practical standpoint.
What what did you do, like that time
finally hit where you had timeand you haven't had it forever.
(38:54):
Like, from where did you go?What did you like?
Where did you start?Was it in your memory?
Was it in a CRM? Just give us a.
If someone out there is saying, hey, I'msitting around today listening to this.
That sounds great, Craig,you've mentioned some fabulous things.
VIPs.
Okay,I don't know if I have VIPs, new clients.
I don't know of these things.
(39:14):
We don't have broker deals.
Where did you start yesterday?
Where could our work at our listenerstart at today?
From a practical standpoint? Right.
So you mentioned the CRM.
You know, we we have a CRM, a programthat helps us maintain
and keep track of all of our businessactivities,
(39:34):
you know, sales outreaches, thingslike that.
So earlier this week, as things would popinto my mind, I would go into that
and just create a to do item, basically,so that when Thursday came,
I had a list to work off ofand I could stay focused during the day
and make those phonecalls, send those emails,
you know, set
up the coffee meeting, whatever it was.
(39:57):
Now, some some of those things obviouslyaren't necessarily time dependent.
I didn't have to do it yesterdayif I didn't get it to it yesterday.
And I think there was 1 or 2
the next slower day I have, I canI can knock that out.
It's on my listthat I'm not forgetting about it
because I can't remember everythingthat comes to mind.
You know, I might be brushing
my teeth, getting ready for the dayand oh, I need to call so-and-so.
(40:21):
Well, I only need to remember long enoughto get down to the computer and put that.
Or actually, I have the app on the phonewhere I can add
that, that To-Do item to, to the CRM.
So that that's kind of my practical thing.
And honestly, I took, I think, an hourbreak besides lunch of not making calls
and when busy season happens,
(40:43):
my office gets a little less organized.
Let me put it that way, I like that.
So I took the I took the opportunityto file some things away
to clean up my workspacebecause for me, mentally, I just, I,
I feel better when my workspaceis organized and clean and not cluttered.
It just, it allows me to.
(41:05):
I don't even know how to describe it.
I just, I feel betterand I feel more focused.
So I spent a little timeorganizing and cleaning yesterday, too.
Yeah, I think that's great insight.
And when you take that downtime, youall shouldn't feel bad about it, right?
You know, there's way too many daysthat I like to admit
that I sit here where where I'm at today
(41:28):
for the entire 8 or 9 hours, seven,
nine hours,and I'm at the office to the point
that's like I'm running to the bathroomand back because I'm on my next call.
And this is just me
kind of confessing out loud like I'm,you know, we're all still trying
to figure this out, too,but when you take that downtime,
(41:50):
see that as valuablethat you're going to have some margin
in your brain in your life
to actually focus on the important things,
you might just be burnt out right now.
You might just need, you know,if this is the first slow day you've had,
you might just need to shootthat one house,
(42:11):
and then you might need to take yourwife out to lunch or dinner.
Do something for yourself.
It might.
It might do you more good to slow down
so that your body can catch up.
Your brain can catch up.
So that that would be my tip.
If you feel like you're caught upand you want to make those first practical
(42:33):
steps and say you don't have the CRMlike Craig mentioned,
and if you don't have a CRM,we have a solution coming up for you
very soon with Spiro.
But if you don't have a CRM, what I wouldsuggest you do and if you're like,
I didn't keep those, I didn't keep
the list of people I need to contact.
(42:55):
When you're at your desk or working space,
quiet space, disconnectfrom the world, turn your phone off,
go back and search through your emails.
Who in there do you need to respond to?
Don't respond to them right now.
Just write their name downor flag the email.
(43:15):
Okay, go through those emails.
How much money is sitting in therethat you need to respond to?
So look back
through your calendarand look at those meetings that you did.
There's probably someone thereyou should follow up with.
Again,don't follow up with them right now.
Just make a list for today,in the coming days where you are,
where you have this time to focus onclient acquisition, then go back through.
(43:39):
You got to turn your phone back on,
go back through your past calls, scrollthrough the calls.
Did you have a missed call?
Do you have a missed voicemail?
Okay, if you do write that name down, thenfinally, if you have any other capture
devices for me, it'smy it's the images on my phone.
I sometimes take pictures of somethingthat needs to be done,
(44:00):
go through the other capture devicesthat you do and make your list.
That essentially is all the CRM is.
You all so don't feel intimidatedby this idea that you have to have a CRM.
Just create that list,get it out of your brain.
That's going to free upsome margin from there.
(44:20):
Then you're just going to cross them offone by one, ideally in time blocks
where it's dedicated for that list.
And then you're going to goclean your office
or spend time with your family,or think about your next big idea.
Go take a walk in the woods.
Craig.
We had a friendmy wife was with, a a friend this week,
(44:45):
and she used a phrase nature bathing
And so if y'all don't like,
my wife is very,
on the health conscious, natural, organicside, like, about big, about nature
or, like, grounding and all these thingslike alignment with body.
(45:06):
And long story short, anyway,she uses term.
I was like,I've never heard of nature bathing.
And she's like, I thought you would haveheard about nature bathing.
Long story short, I mean it.
It's nothing.
Nothing weirdother than the fact that, like, sometimes
we need to disconnect from technologyand we just need to be out in nature,
like sitting in nature,listening to the birds,
(45:28):
appreciating thethe beauty of the trees, the flowers.
So sometimes you just needto turn everything off and you need to
stop scrolling on a device,let your eyes rest
and go out and just let your othersenses work out in nature.
You know,
I'll admit that I was tempted to do thatyesterday, and but my default is I.
(45:50):
You've mentioned it.
I feel guilty doing thatduring the workweek, so I never do that.
And there's been times in my pastwhere I've been so overwhelmed
or so stressed out by somethingthat it's like I start to break down
and I, I have to get away.
And when I, when I take thatwalk in the woods or sit by that stream,
(46:12):
it's like,
And you hit
but don't wait to that pointof almost breakdown to do that
again, build some time into your schedule,do that maybe once a week
or once every other week or somethingjust to get a regular cadence.
I, I love walkingbarefoot out in the grass there.
(46:34):
There is something to ground.
I agree, I don't know all the science,but I feel better
when my feet are on some soft green grass.
It just it just feels better and wears.
Yeah.
Craig, I got to chat.
Okay, Craig,we're going to wrap this a challenge.
This is for me and you.
How many shootsdo you have today, by the way? Craig, I.
(46:54):
I've only got two
Okay.We're going to do some nature bathing.
All right?
So you and I and all of youlisteners out there
take ten minutesand it's going to feel awkward.
At least try ten minutessomewhere out in nature.
Take your shoes and your socks off.
Okay.
Sit. Listen.
Lay down, get comfortable,
(47:15):
and just take in the beauty and everythingthat's around you.
All right, Craig, I'll take a selfie.
You take a selfie.I want to see your feet.
I want to see your bare feet in it.
So if you do it,
take the selfie
post posted on our SpiroSuper User Group or Spiro Facebook page.
Post it somewhere and tag spiro.
(47:36):
Tag nature bathing, hashtagnature bathing.
And let's see if we can get some people
some timeto really just let their brain go free.
You know, I was thinkingbefore this podcast, you gave me
a challenge months ago that admittedly,I have not moved on, and I have,
I have I'm publicly apologizing to my bosshere, folks.
He told me he wanted me to record myself
(47:58):
day in the life of basicallyout in the field, and I've not done it.
I, I, I'd rather be behind the camerathan in front of,
well, this is different anyway.
So maybethat will be the kick off for that.
But you told me needed to be done, and,I'll, I'll, I'll take my shoes and.
Yeah, we're. Baby steps.
(48:20):
Y'all give some, give Craig some lovedown in the comments below.
I don't ask for it, but give Craigsome love down in the comments below.
I think if he really knew howhelpful he was and how insightful he was,
I, he's hard on himselfand he is incredible.
I know you all love him, as do I,but Craig, we're excited
to see your bare feet todayand your nature bathing photo.
(48:43):
You might see a, brisket injuryon the back of my ankle.
There's a story behind that one.
Maybe I'll share that next week.
I love that, Craig. Let's do it next.
What a great hook.
Okay.
All right.
This is getting weird.
We're getting close to an hour in here.
How about we wrap things upwhen things get weird?
It's our time. We just wrap, right? It's.
(49:04):
It's time to go.
So anyway, transition from busy seasonsand a slow season.
Yeah.
A day in the life of shooting,business development.
I hope you I hope you got some some,good tips and ideas.
Maybe to try something new and,
yeah, I'm thankful for thethe work I get to do.
I really do love what I do.
So hopeyou found some value in that, Todd.
(49:27):
Thank you, thank you.
Chris was sharing two weird.
All right,
well,guys, that's going to wrap things up.
Before Todd asks any more weirdquestions of me, I'm just going to.
We're we're going to.
Yeah, but but I'll just stay on mute here.
Make sure you when you're doing thatnature bathing takes
some time to be thankfulfor the blessings in your life.
(49:49):
And like we say, take a breath.
You guys have a great week. Take care.
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
you might just be burnt out right now.
You might just need, you know,if this is the first slow day you've had,
you might just need to shootthat one house,
and then you might need to take yourwife out to lunch or dinner.
Do something for yourself.
It might.
It might do you more good to slow down
(00:24):
so that your body can catch up.
Your brain can catch up.
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
(00:44):
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform.
It's designed to help you run your dayto day real estate media business.
And ultimately, if it's your goal to helpyou grow and scale your business as well.
I'm Craig Magrum,welcome to it, host of the podcast.
Glad to be here with youeach and most every week.
(01:05):
And along with me each and every week.
Our owner and founder of Spiro,cohost of the podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
Hello, Todd.
Craig, it's great to be here.
Sorry, I'm jumping right in. So off air.
Craig, told me
Okay. Yeah.
Just so we're justI want to go on right for it, right?
I want to bring everybody inbecause you have me.
So my interest so piqued here.
(01:27):
So we start the podcastwith just a little introduction
to Justine, our fabulous editor. And
Craig said with
this topic, he's like,if you want to do anything that's fun
digital on me, like,and you want to special effects
to make our listeners and viewerslaugh, feel free to do it.
(01:48):
And I said something to the effect of,yeah, like maybe
a face tattoo or something of the like.
And Craig said to me, the face,well, let's
give it a little context, the face tattoo,to not just a random thing.
Was it last year?
I think it was last year somehow.
How did that even come up?
We started talking about me having a facetattoo like Post Malone.
(02:12):
Yes. I can't remember what it was likehow we got there,
but somehow we were tattooing all kindsof different things on your face.
And yeah.
Todd,throw out a challenge to to listeners
and viewers to do their own,you know, photoshopping of my
I don't know I don't know how it starts.
So that's why Todd said to Justine,
(02:33):
tattoos or a face tattoo.
All right. Okay. Go ahead.
And then Craig said to me, well, Todd,
actually, I've been thinking.
And I said, Craig, stop right there.
We cannot use this off linebecause everybody's going to want to know
what you're about to say.
So you've been considering what, Craig?
(02:54):
I've been toying with the ideaof getting a tattoo.
It's not the first time in my lifeI don't have any tattoos.
Back when I was in my 20s,I thought about it.
My boss at the time said, Craig,
think about,think through that a little bit more.
Do you really want a tattoo when you're80 years old and it's all saggy and
you know, it doesn't look good.
And hehe talked me out of it, right? Okay.
(03:15):
He talked me out of it.
So I haven't haven't thought about itfor a long time, except for the fact that,
how many
years ago was it, I forget, maybe 2018.
I took a trip to Egypt.
I did a mission trip to Egypt. Okay.
We served inwhat was called El Multimedia.
(03:35):
It's the garbage dumps around Cairo
where Coptic Christians and,
the the poor Muslims live.
They live in these garbage dumpsright outside of of, Cairo.
They go into the city.
They gathered the garbage,they take it back to where they live,
sort through it for the recyclablesand sell the recyclables.
(03:56):
It's it's.
I've never seen anything like it.
Yeah. So
Christians in Egypt are mostly knownas Coptic Christians.
It's a particular,you know, denomination of Christianity.
And one of the distinctive marksthat Coptic Christians
have is this little Coptic crosson the inside of their right wrist.
(04:19):
Okay, parents give their kidswhen they're young that
if if they're Christians,just to remind them
of their their heritageand their faith right in Jesus.
So I got to servewith Christians in in Egypt,
and I've thought on and off
for the last couple years,but especially the last four months,
(04:40):
I've thought about maybe getting a Copticcross on the inside of my right wrist.
I've toyed with the idea,
I just I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
So yeah, nothing.
Nothing. No big deal. No face tattoos.
Not good.
Well, okay.
Well, we'll continueto try at times on the podcast,
(05:00):
but I do I mean, I love the idea ofI don't have any tattoos and
I haven't really thought a lot about one,but I love the story behind it.
Craig. I mean, I think it it resonatesand it connect.
I think I think it's funny,those of you listening, watching,
I'm guessing you're agreeing
that you think it's probably funnythat the owner of the business
is toying with the idea of lettingone of his employees get a face tattoo.
(05:23):
That's how we're facing for the clients.
Are you sure you want to do that, Todd?
No. My plan depends on what it is.
Tell me if I'm almost 50 years old.
My parents would still kill meif I did that.
But, yeah, that is.
That's a bit extreme, but I like the.
I like the cross on theon the inside the wrist.
(05:45):
There.
And and how much can a wrist really sagas you get older.
There is that there is that.
Certainly not a valid concern okay.
So weird way to start the podcast.
I hope we might have two listenersleft now.
Todd Yeah, that'sokay. Let's keep going for those two.
Right. Okay.
(06:06):
Well, before we dive into the topic,which is, oddly enough,
related to what we just talked about,do you have any Spiro updates?
What's going on with the software? Todd
very quickly, Spiro sync.
Y'all are loving it.
It is our event in January.
We have a date January 22nd, 23rd.
By the way.
Thank you all for messaging and saying,hey, this sounds great.
(06:29):
I want to know more about it.
If you haven't messaged me yetand want to know more about it
and are interested, this would be January22nd 23rd in Dayton, Ohio.
So you would fly into Dayton, Ohio.
You'll stay there hotels,
you know, probably going to be lessthan 100 bucks or right at 100 bucks.
It's going to be a two day eventwhere you're going
to come and learn, connect with us.
(06:51):
You can bring your team as well.
So we are excitedthis will be our first event.
It's something we've wanted to do.
We love connecting with you
and we love the communityconnecting with each other.
Craig and I did a podcast long agoabout PMRE.
The conference in Novemberand our first trip there,
(07:12):
and how we took away with the idea
of the importanceof connecting with your community.
So we're going to do an event.
There's also a few more waysto connect on top of the Spiro sync.
You can connect at the REPP conference.
That's Eli Jones's conference.
That's going to be an incredible event.
It's, November 5th and sixth, I believe.
(07:34):
Check the dates for me.
We'll link it below.
And then you do have PMRE two weeks later.
So pick an event,pick one of them, pick all of them.
But I think you'll find value in comingand growing and learning.
And then when you get there,go talk to people.
Come to find myself,come find someone that you know.
Talk to someone you don't know.
(07:55):
Connect with people.
You'll find a ton of value in it.
Absolutely.
Maybe we invite a tattoo artist to comeand I get my tattoo.
Well, Craig, I was going to say,are you going to, like,
why don't we do thistattoo in Vegas this year?
That'd be the place to do it, right?
Yeah.
I was trying to have more self-control.
I was thinking about that. But.
(08:17):
So I mentioned it, but I did.
What would happen in Vegas, though?
That wouldn't stay in Vegas.
It would come with me, would go. Yeah.
Not a bad thing to bring back from Vegas.
There could be worse things, I suppose.
Anyway.
Yeah. All right. I did want to.
I did want to quickly mentionedbefore we dive in
(08:37):
just because I'm so excitedabout this update in this partnership.
It's it's with a company called Titus.
Oh, yeah.
And Titus is a pay at closing company.
So your agents will quickly and easilyapply
if you choose to use Titus for financing.
And they can pay for their darn photosand video.
At the close of the property,I think that's just the coolest thing.
(09:01):
Let me ask a question.
Yeah, Devil'sadvocate playing in the back of my head.
What if the sale doesn't go through?
What if that agent loses the listingand they don't renew the contract?
What happens? Yeah. Great question.
So ultimately the agent is responsiblefor making the payment.
You know,this is somewhat similar to a firm.
(09:23):
And some of those other payment systemsyou see out there
that are on your most popular e-commercewebsites, where you can pay over time.
So the agent is responsible for it.
Number one,
I want to mention that the photographergets paid immediately regardless.
Okay, so you all get paid immediately.
Number two, if the house does not close,the agent has the ability to move that
(09:49):
liabilitythat that charge to another listing.
If they have it, then they can pay forboth listings at the close of listing B,
if they don't have another listing,
ultimately they're going to be,you know, do that money back to Titus.
But we have seenand we've heard from Nick, the founder.
And Nick's going to be on here soon. Yeah.
(10:12):
That average order value
is going up substantially.
Agents are understanding.
They love the flexibility.
He's gonna give you some incredible statsabout agents
and finances and justI think the thing that I always try to
remember is when an agent gets a listing,it doesn't mean they make money.
(10:33):
It means they pay out money.
That's one of the big
things, is they get a listingand they have
all of these things to pay for theirtheir go.
There's a good chance they're goingto make money off the houses,
you know, appropriately, priceand you know all of those items.
But they have to pay out money and that'sdifficult for the majority of them.
I didn't realize that Craigeven top producers.
(10:55):
So and if you all think about it,
if you have an admin, if you have a VAand you have W-2
employees, it's not, you know,you are going to get paid by jobs.
They do.
And this is a great topicthat we need to cover coming up.
But what do you do in the down seasonwith your W-2 employees?
So I'm excited about Titus.I'll stop there.
(11:17):
Just one more hintthat I want to give you guys is,
Titus is also going to have one otherreally big feature
that is, well, there's a couple of them,but we'll talk about him in a week or two.
It's going to save you moneyon your credit card processing as well.
So I love this company.
I the the founder Nick is incredible.
We will continue to only dopeople do business with people that align
(11:41):
with us and companies that align with usand just an incredible guy.
It's so intelligently, so intelligent and,
just really understands us as real estatephotographers
looking forward to that episodeshould be good.
Yes. And Craig, we're looking at a,
September 23rd launch of that,a tentative.
(12:02):
So mark it down your calendars.
We're going to give you all
all of the materialswhere you can market out to your agents.
We're going to help you sell this.Educate your agents on it.
It's really nothing to sell.
It's actually it's kind of a no brainerif I can.
But enough of that will give it all ofyou will give it all to you in a week
or two.
We'll help you
grow your business through this,and we'll continue to do things like this.
(12:25):
And Spiro, it's exciting.
Oh, and we will be the first to integrate,so you won't get this anywhere else
right now. That's fantastic. Cool.
I can't wait for that episode.That should be good.
Yeah. It'll be a fun one. All right.
Awesome.
All rightwell welcome back to another week.
Those of you returning new listenersI know that was an odd way
(12:45):
to start a podcast.
But go back and listen to some pastepisodes.
You'll get a feel forwho Todd is, who I am, who what Spiro is.
We're, pretty laid back.
We try not to take ourselves tooseriously,
and we have fun with what we do.
So, but ultimately,
we want to help you grow a strong,good, solid real estate media business.
(13:06):
And, we were brainstorming topic ideasfor this episode,
and I threw out a couple ideas,and you came back with another one.
I'm going to let you set this up.
Yeah.
So we are at the middle of August of 2025,
and we are cominginto a transition of the market.
All right.
So we have thiswe have these cyclical patterns.
(13:29):
And for those of you
on YouTube, I'm just shown a graphthat shows this kind of sine
curve where you start offslow in the winter, you peak in the summer
and you go downback for the fall and winter.
And that is happening now.
So we've got things like back to school,you got county fairs,
you have other activitieswhere people who might be buying
(13:51):
and sellinghave their attention elsewhere.
And I thought it was appropriatebecause this was very awkward
for methroughout many years, this transition,
because you go really, really hardand then it's like, whoa,
wait a minute, I have some of this time
and I, I hate to say that
(14:12):
my first
couple ofyears when I hired on my first key person
and he was the helper that I referred to,we talked about this in a podcast,
or I talked about this in a YouTube videowith Eli Jones.
If you want to go back and find thatit's on Eli's page.
I talked about hiring a helperversus a builder, and this was my helper.
And Craig, you know, as I look back,I told this individual I was like,
(14:35):
you know, for the winter,I that's where I take time off.
And there was literally day
I'm like, there's going to be dayswhere you just don't see me.
And I would do that.
I would literally not be a partof the business for days at a time.
In the winter.
I'd be excited to be with my family.I'd be doing things around the house.
It was kind of awkwardbecause we worked out of my house,
you know, so you'd come in to usethe bathroom.
(14:57):
I'd be sitting on the couchwatching TV or watching TV.
Yeah, like, hey, how's work going?
But you know what?
I did that intentionallybecause I needed a break,
and I was okay with itbecause I just knew that
if I didn't get that break,I wouldn't have enough to give.
When it came time for me to give.
But if you are excitedabout growing your business,
(15:20):
and you probably arebecause you're listening to this,
you all are overachievers out there.
If you're listening to this else,you'd just be watching TV
right now.
There's this time, and I get this questiona lot from you all out there
on coaching calls and other eventsI do is like, what do I do?
And I think by habit,
(15:44):
it might feel natural to go back tosome of the tasks that you've delegated.
You might check email,
you might micromanage VA's or employees.
You might go do the laundry,
you know, whatever it may be.
But I thought this would be a great timeto do a day in the life of Craig.
(16:04):
So now for
for the record, I told Todd,are we sure we want to do this?
We want to maintain and growour audience, right?
Which we don't want to drive you away.
Couldn't talk him out of it.
Well, Craig,I'm actually extremely excited about this
because I think if any, if you or
I really connect to our client,think you connect to our client,
(16:28):
you know, to you listenersout there being shooting, selling.
And I think understanding this transition
from busy to slowseason is just going to resonate.
So I'm excited to go through this today.
So Craig, we're just coming offa busy season. Right.
So give us an idea.
What does busy season look like for you?
(16:49):
Well, as you said,I've got the hybrid roles on both doing
the photography, videography, drone,you know, agent on camera videos.
I get all the fun of the creative sideduring busy season.
I my day is full with shoots.
A full day for me can be anywhere between
like four large shootswith multiple services.
(17:10):
Up to maybe six shoots if I have a couplethat are of, like, say, photography only.
Right?
So anywhere between 4 and 6 shoots,is a full, busy day for me.
And pretty much from,like I would say, April
through about this time, mostevery day is is full.
Just came off of July where,
(17:32):
you know, our my my territory,my my market.
I think we did 88 shoots.
I've been busy.
Been very busy.
So not exactly surewhere you might want me to go.
Maybe start at the beginning of the day.
Yeah. So a couple?
Yeah, a couple.
So a busy day.
(17:52):
So 4 to 6.That is a lot of shoots in a day.
And I know that that's something.
And this is a little bit of a tangent.
But I think it helps becauseit really is an inside in your day.
So just walk us throughand it can be briefly.
But I know when you and I talked
many years ago when you were startingyour business, you were doing
maybe a handful, 2 or 3 shoots a dayand you felt capped by that.
(18:14):
So, yeah.
Is there anything, any,anything you'd like to gain?
Give us insight as to how we're ableto achieve six shoots in a day.
Wow. Well,number one, outsource your editing.
I mean, when when I was only able to do,say, two shoots a day,
I was doing my own editingand a very, very quickly dawn on me.
(18:35):
There is no way to scale a businessor be able to support myself
when when I was doing this on my own,by doing my own editing because I could
like I said,
yeah, I can only do two shoots, andthen the rest of my day into the evening
I've spent editing to try and get thingsturned around that very next bit.
You know, that next business day.
And even back in 2017 when I first
(18:56):
got into it,that's what, realtors expected.
They expected things.The next business day.
So numberone, outsource your editing immediately.
Just don't don't bother with trying to,do your own editing.
If it wasn't for our editing team,we wouldn't have a business right?
And, Craig, we have a simple solutionfor that autoHDR,
(19:17):
AI editing we used exclusively at Wow.
It's integrated into Spiro AutoHDR.
Search it. use it.
You'll probably need to QC it,look over it.
I don't want you to QC it. Find a VA.
We are working on a solution for youto just hire a team that we outsource to.
But that is kind of a done for yousolution.
(19:38):
But number two,
finding a systemto handle your invoicing, the,
you know, the scheduling,the sending, sending things out.
Originally when I first startedbeta testing the Spiro software,
before it even had a name,I was even with that,
I was still doing my own scheduling,I, I don't
yeah, I was using Google Calendar,and so it made my day kind of clunky.
(20:02):
I would shoot
and then, you know,the phone would be ringing
whileI'm trying to shoot or in between shoots.
Then I'm checking my calendar
or my emails in between shootsand trying to finagle scheduling,
and I managed.I grew the business, but boy,
it took a lot of timeand a lot of energy to do that.
So I yeah,
outsourcing or bringing on team membersto help you
(20:23):
with all of those administrativetasks is huge.
And it's to the point now where I'm partof the Wow team Wow video tours and I can
I can just concentrate on two thingsshooting and business
development.
Where do you want to go from there?
Did that answer that first question?
So how much? No.
(20:43):
That's fabulous.
Thank you for that.
So in a day of six,it seems like a lot of shooting.
How much businessdevelopment is in that Craig
during busy season.
Not a ton.
I'm still taking,you know, some phone calls.
If it's if I'm on a shoot,I let it go to voicemail.
I do check that voicemail.
Then in between my shootsand if it's something I have to respond to
(21:04):
right away, I take care of that.
If it's something I can respond towhen I get home,
back to my home office, you know,before I start uploading for the evening.
Then I'll I'll take care of it then.
Same thing with emails,you know, responding to emails.
I still do check in between shootsso that I can be timely in my response.
(21:25):
And that's huge.
Realtors are often on short deadlines,
and so I want to respect thatand make myself valuable to them.
So being sure to respond
quickly for me is is an important thing.
Yeah.
With that responding Craig,
is there I'm sure there's times
that you handle things, but are thereany other times that you might quickly
(21:46):
forward something to a team memberback at the office?
Yeah. The number one thing is scheduling.
Because so many,so many of my early clients who are now,
wow, clients got used to medoing all the scheduling.
Even now after doing this, I thinknow I've been shooting for two years.
For Wow
I still every once a while
get a client that will calland want to schedule with me.
(22:09):
And I'm like, I'll tell you what, I'mactually on a shoot right now.
I'm going to have you do 1 or 2 things,either call or scheduling team.
They're there until 5:00,and I give them the phone number
and I said,they'll take great care of you.
They'll ask all the right questionsand make sure that you get set up
the way you need to,or you can do it online 24/7
It's super easy to schedule online.
(22:30):
I give them the website.
I unless I'm sittinghere in my home office,
you know, and have the time,
I might schedule it then,just since I'm on the phone with them
and I can do it, but out in the field,I'm not going to mess with it on my phone.
Yeah.Our scheduling team takes care of that.
That's the number one thing.
Yeah.
And Iand I love that you're still able to.
(22:54):
That is in a way sales.
That's part of the businessdevelopment role that we do.
It's justyou've removed yourself from that column.
And you're staying in a higher column.
We've talked about if you're like Toddwere you talking about to time tracking.
Those are some verbswe use with time tracking.
(23:15):
But Craig has moved himself upto a more valuable column,
and he lets another team member help
with a task that needs to be done,which is scheduling.
But he's just more focused on what'smore important to him, what I what I often
will do to when they do call to schedule,I will ask about the the listing.
You know what,give me some key features of it.
(23:37):
What services are you looking forwardlooking for?
I might find out. It's a vacant.
I might talk to him about,you know, virtual staging.
So even in that scheduling call,I am trying to upsell.
If there's a benefit to them for that.
Love that.
And then I'll slack the scheduling teamand I'll give them just a quick,
(23:57):
brief summary of the conversationand and just say, be expecting their call.
Or would you please call themto get this scheduled?
And here's what we talked about,just to make sure that we're
on the same page on servicesthat we talked about.
Yeah. That's great.
And one thingthat we're excited about Craig,
is now that our schedulingteam is inside of our CRM,
(24:19):
those
call transcriptionswill be inside of the CRM.
So hopefully that will even save youa little bit of information passing.
From you to scheduling.
So you could just bump scheduling and say,hey, just talk to so-and-so client.
All the info is in there.
They could read the AI summaryor listen to the call,
and then you can even more minimizeyour time to focus
(24:42):
on the things that you want to.
You need to focuson, okay, full transparency time.
I forget about some of these newer toolsbecause I'm so used to doing things
a certain way that, yeah,AI summary I, you know,
that's going to be you two,you know, you listening
as these new tools and efficienciescome into play in our industry,
(25:03):
it's going to take some getting used to,especially if you've done it
the same way for a long time.
I'm not opposed to new methods.
It's just it's hard to break old habits.
Right? Yeah.
But yeah, it will make it more efficient.
It will.
And I think those are
those are all those habits are good thingsbecause they're called
what I, what I call like a capture devicewhen you're out and busy, like what?
(25:25):
What's going to trigger you to remind, to
remind yourselfto follow up with someone you know?
Sometimes, like I take photos of thingsand then I'll look at my photos
if I need to check something, or I'll sendmyself an email or record a voice memo.
But those are capture devices.
And then it is really coolhow technology can streamline that.
We're not specifically talkingabout our flow with the CRM
(25:48):
and learning support today,but those are some things
that as you grow, we just took a big step
up to put everybody into it at Wow,
and it's breaking down what we referto as silos of communication.
So we'll do some podcasts on it.
Coming up, if you're at that point alreadywhere you have many divisions
(26:08):
and you have those silos,you like to know what we do.
Shoot. Shoot me a call. I'll be happy to.
Or shoot me an email.
Excuse me.
I'll be happy to have a call,give you some insight on it,
but we will be givingyou guys more information on that.
And talking about our flows.
But those are all things that continue
to keep you in your columnwhere you're most efficient.
Craig, are there any other little things?
(26:28):
I know you talked about scheduling,but anything else that you're just
you would not hesitate thatyou send to the team member
that can take care of that client.
Off the top of my head, I.
I'm not thinking of a whole lot.
Scheduling is is pretty muchthat is the big one.
Let me ask you to let me ask you alittle bit different of a question, Craig.
(26:49):
Do you get do you get requests from agents
about changes or fixes with media?
That's a great question.
Not a ton. Okay.
We usually are setting expectationsbefore the shoot.
Yeah,there's there's not a lot of changes.
We, I just we try to make surethat we do things right ahead of time.
(27:14):
And you know, before we get photos back oror deliver those.
But if, if they're,
if I knowI've shot something that you know, there's
something slightly wrong or let's sayeither I catch my reflection in a black
refrigerator or something that I justdidn't see when I took the picture.
I'll, I'll let the support team know.
(27:36):
And they take care of that editing.
I'm not editing anything myself, but I,
you know, I try to keep my eyes openfor those things, but yeah.
No, what?
I think what's happeninghere, Craig, is actually
we have proper channels of communicationsto our clients.
And, I'm realizing that this is workingwell, just in real time.
(27:56):
Talking through this with you today,
because we do have complaintsthat come in and request for adjustments.
Why it doesn't get sent to you
is because all of the delivery emailscome from a specific inbox.
That's not your inbox, right?
And you have done enough expectationssetting to let
your clients know that we have a teamthat can assist them.
(28:20):
So and I'm sure over the years,a client has called
you randomly here and thereand you have probably said, hey, I,
I actually have someone that can helpyou better than me.
So my suggestion
there is if if you are still on that inbox
where clients are going to clickreply to a delivery email,
(28:40):
I would say get yourself out of that inboxand put it into a shared inbox
with your team,because we have team members that do that
and they do it very instantlyand they do it very quickly.
We've learned that from the timea client requests something,
to the time we clone something outvery quickly and easily in a photo
(29:01):
and get that back to them,that is very critical.
That time right thereand getting back to them means that
and getting back to them quickly meansthat they you are still in the process
of whatever task they're doing, say,uploading photos to MLS.
They want to get that done because again,just like you,
they don't make moneyby uploading photos to the MLS.
(29:25):
They have to do it.
You don't make money by QC and images.
It just has to be done.
So the quicker we can get them throughthat process, the better.
I will say, you know,since you mentioned them replying to
like save the support emailor whatever email is delivering,
they will still reach out to mebecause they might not pay attention.
(29:45):
There's so used to the relationshipwith me that they might they might say,
hey Craig, you know,
there's something in the yard can,you know, can you edit that out?
And I'll, I'll reply to them and I'll CC
support and say, certainlyour support team can take care of this.
You know, in the future, if you ever haveany editing requests, things like that,
please feel free to go aheadand just email support directly.
(30:07):
That'll save a step in the processand get you a quicker results.
So it's providing education and helpingthe the realtor understand, you know, hey,
add this address to your your contact,you know, in your phone or whatever.
And it just takes some training,some education.
Yeah.
A quick example from my endbecause I actually got one of those
emails yesterday.
Craig I don't did you really. I really did.
(30:29):
I don't get a lot of emailsfrom our clients at Wow, I happen
to get one from a very large clientat our largest brokerage deal.
And it and this client
also CC the managing broker.
Okay.
So the broker in chargeand it wasn't a complaint.
It was just a need for some filessome old files.
(30:49):
And it came in and Evan on our teamresponded
and gave everything that was neededbefore I even saw the email.
And I think the point is, is while I havethat connection with that very large
agent, and I have the connectionwith the broker in charge, we've said it
enough atWow that ultimately the agent knew to CC
(31:12):
or address our support team,
and then I, I just let the wheels turn.
I saw it pop up.
I saw the name.
I'm like, I'm not focused on it right now.
Evan got it within a matter of minutesand an and and you have to do that.
One quick point I want to makeis if you respond instantly,
you have just set expectations that
(31:33):
that client, that broker,that person needs to always email you.
Yeah.
Please don't takeplease don't take the the, the, success
or don't take the opportunity for successfor your team away from them.
Evan did.
Yeah.
Like don't take itbecause let them succeed.
And then I praised Evan.
(31:54):
I gave him a shout out at morningmeeting this morning.
I'm like, hey, yeah, but I don't knowif you knew it, but this was the broker
in charge at our largest company.
Like, thank you so muchfor getting back to them so quickly.
The agent, the broker in charge,both responded super happy,
super appreciativethat I didn't have to do anything.
Y'all.
Yeah.
That's that's a great insightin, you know, conversely,
(32:16):
if if an owner jumps into early
and takes that opportunity for a winfor one of your employees away,
you're going to kill morale in your teambecause your team if
if you've hired the right people,
they really want to seethe company succeed and see you succeed,
and they want to feel empoweredto be able to do their job
and know that you as the owner,trust them.
(32:39):
If they don't think that you trust them,they're going to be on pins and needles
all the time.
They will.
Yeah, I, I hate that I've had to raisemy hand for doing that over the years.
I did it in a general manager rolethat I had earlier.
I learned, I learned, yeah, yeah.
So and I learned when you do that,the best thing to do is
(33:01):
when you recognize is to go let them.
Yeah. And apologize, let them know.
And, you know,
I just saw a video clip yesterday,Todd, of, a guy talking about leadership.
He said, I will follow a leader to the endof the Earth through a brick wall.
If they do, at least one of these topthree things apologize.
(33:23):
Ask for input and admitthat they don't know something.
If they do any of thosethree, I'll follow them. That
that is that is so countercultural, Craig.
Because I would say that the cultureof the world in 2025 would tell you
that all three of those thingswould show you to be a weak leader.
(33:46):
Great insight there. Okay, Craig,let let's transition here.
Thank you for the insight.
That is incredible.
I'm sure there's a ton of questionsaround some of those flows.
And those are flows that we've tried toperfect over the last 20 some years that.
Wow. Again, if you have questions,we'd love to take them.
Hello@spiro.media.
Shoot them overso we know what you are wanting to know.
(34:07):
But let's transition here, Craig,into this.
The coming down of busy seasonwhere we're at right now.
So whatwhat does your day begin to look like
when there's not six shoots on the day?
Great question.
Had that kind of day yesterdayfor the first time in months.
(34:28):
Todd I had one shoot yesterday.
Okay, well, you know,
like, this shouldn't be a surprise to me.
I've been doing this enough years now.I know the cycle.
I know mid August.
It's got to you know, people arekids are getting back into school.
Like you saidat the beginning of the podcast,
last minute vacations are happening.
(34:48):
County fairs right now.
I live in Bowling Green, Ohio, in BowlingGreen, Ohio is known,
for hosting the national tractorpulling championships
for the entire county for the entire year.
Very serious stuff.
I live right next doorto the Wood County Fairgrounds, and,
I hear those tractorspulling all day into the evening.
(35:09):
Sometimes at 2:00 in the morningif they've been rained out.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, there's a lot of peoplejust a lot happening right now.
So my appointmentshave suddenly dropped this week,
compared to.
So I'm like, well, what am I going to do?
Am I going to sit around, watch TV?
Yeah.
(35:30):
No I'm not.
So knowing watching that
it was a Thursday, watching that daycome up on my calendar
and not seeing any more shoots coming up,I started shifting my thinking
back to business developmentand okay, have I caught up with my VIPs?
Have I touch base with, teamsthat I haven't had a chance to talk to?
(35:53):
I'm shooting for them, butI just haven't been able to talk to them.
Do I have any new clientsthat I need to call and reach out with?
And set, you know,first order expectations or follow up
on a shoot that I didin the last 2 or 3 weeks.
Check back in with them,see how their experience was.
So I started thinking through all thesebusiness, business development things,
and I start I picked up the phone, startedmaking some calls yesterday
(36:16):
that I haven't been able to get to becauseI've been so busy, sent out some emails.
I set up a potential new client. Coffee.
I've talked a lot about my coffeemeetings.
Because I had found this new realtor
at a brokeragethat we do a lot of business with.
And reached out, introduce myselfand you know, the relationship
(36:38):
that we have, and asked herif I could, you know, treat to coffee
and get to know her
her new real estate business and introduceWow video tours a little bit more.
You know, mentionedthat we're the preferred vendor,
but I know you have choices.
So I'd love to tell youa little bit more about wow.
And she responded, I think within aboutfive minutes and said, yeah, I'd love to.
(36:59):
I'm new to town. From out from Colorado.
So I don't know, don't knowa ton of people.
And I got a coffee meeting right away.
I haven't done a coffee meeting in a whilebecause I think too busy to,
you know, shooting.
So I just I've done this long enough.
I know the activitiesthat work for me, for business development
and what I need to get back towhen I have that extra time.
(37:21):
I can't sit still when I have a
a free shoot day.
Because I knowI need to keep my funnel full
if I've been busy shooting for the last,
you know, say 4 or 5 months,
and I've not had the opportunityto maintain relationships,
I've got to get back to thatas soon as possible,
(37:43):
because my personal philosophy isI don't want to take any of these
relationships that I've worked very hardto build for granted.
Wow, I want I want them to know, hey, yes,I haven't talked with you
a whole lot, but it's because I've beenso busy with the shooting.
But I want you to know I appreciate you.
You know, I might be sending out.
Thank you. Is I might write.
I've got a whole kind of arsenal of thingsthat I like to do when it's slower
(38:07):
to reestablish the relationshipand make sure that I'm taking good care
of my clients in my market.
Craig, so many questions around that.
I think I have onethat will we'll unpack here
and then probably begin to end becausethere's, I have a ton of questions.
I'm sure all of you do about this arsenalthat Craig has to keep the funnel for.
But, maybe just one. It just. Let's go.
(38:31):
Very practical.
Yesterday,or you had realized at this Thursday
with one shoot was comingup, you know, subconsciously,
probably some things are comingback to the top of your mind
from a practical standpoint.
What what did you do, like that time
finally hit where you had timeand you haven't had it forever.
(38:54):
Like, from where did you go?What did you like?
Where did you start?Was it in your memory?
Was it in a CRM? Just give us a.
If someone out there is saying, hey, I'msitting around today listening to this.
That sounds great, Craig,you've mentioned some fabulous things.
VIPs.
Okay,I don't know if I have VIPs, new clients.
I don't know of these things.
(39:14):
We don't have broker deals.
Where did you start yesterday?
Where could our work at our listenerstart at today?
From a practical standpoint? Right.
So you mentioned the CRM.
You know, we we have a CRM, a programthat helps us maintain
and keep track of all of our businessactivities,
(39:34):
you know, sales outreaches, thingslike that.
So earlier this week, as things would popinto my mind, I would go into that
and just create a to do item, basically,so that when Thursday came,
I had a list to work off ofand I could stay focused during the day
and make those phonecalls, send those emails,
you know, set
up the coffee meeting, whatever it was.
(39:57):
Now, some some of those things obviouslyaren't necessarily time dependent.
I didn't have to do it yesterdayif I didn't get it to it yesterday.
And I think there was 1 or 2
the next slower day I have, I canI can knock that out.
It's on my listthat I'm not forgetting about it
because I can't remember everythingthat comes to mind.
You know, I might be brushing
my teeth, getting ready for the dayand oh, I need to call so-and-so.
(40:21):
Well, I only need to remember long enoughto get down to the computer and put that.
Or actually, I have the app on the phonewhere I can add
that, that To-Do item to, to the CRM.
So that that's kind of my practical thing.
And honestly, I took, I think, an hourbreak besides lunch of not making calls
and when busy season happens,
(40:43):
my office gets a little less organized.
Let me put it that way, I like that.
So I took the I took the opportunityto file some things away
to clean up my workspacebecause for me, mentally, I just, I,
I feel better when my workspaceis organized and clean and not cluttered.
It just, it allows me to.
(41:05):
I don't even know how to describe it.
I just, I feel betterand I feel more focused.
So I spent a little timeorganizing and cleaning yesterday, too.
Yeah, I think that's great insight.
And when you take that downtime, youall shouldn't feel bad about it, right?
You know, there's way too many daysthat I like to admit
that I sit here where where I'm at today
(41:28):
for the entire 8 or 9 hours, seven,
nine hours,and I'm at the office to the point
that's like I'm running to the bathroomand back because I'm on my next call.
And this is just me
kind of confessing out loud like I'm,you know, we're all still trying
to figure this out, too,but when you take that downtime,
(41:50):
see that as valuablethat you're going to have some margin
in your brain in your life
to actually focus on the important things,
you might just be burnt out right now.
You might just need, you know,if this is the first slow day you've had,
you might just need to shootthat one house,
(42:11):
and then you might need to take yourwife out to lunch or dinner.
Do something for yourself.
It might.
It might do you more good to slow down
so that your body can catch up.
Your brain can catch up.
So that that would be my tip.
If you feel like you're caught upand you want to make those first practical
(42:33):
steps and say you don't have the CRMlike Craig mentioned,
and if you don't have a CRM,we have a solution coming up for you
very soon with Spiro.
But if you don't have a CRM, what I wouldsuggest you do and if you're like,
I didn't keep those, I didn't keep
the list of people I need to contact.
(42:55):
When you're at your desk or working space,
quiet space, disconnectfrom the world, turn your phone off,
go back and search through your emails.
Who in there do you need to respond to?
Don't respond to them right now.
Just write their name downor flag the email.
(43:15):
Okay, go through those emails.
How much money is sitting in therethat you need to respond to?
So look back
through your calendarand look at those meetings that you did.
There's probably someone thereyou should follow up with.
Again,don't follow up with them right now.
Just make a list for today,in the coming days where you are,
where you have this time to focus onclient acquisition, then go back through.
(43:39):
You got to turn your phone back on,
go back through your past calls, scrollthrough the calls.
Did you have a missed call?
Do you have a missed voicemail?
Okay, if you do write that name down, thenfinally, if you have any other capture
devices for me, it'smy it's the images on my phone.
I sometimes take pictures of somethingthat needs to be done,
(44:00):
go through the other capture devicesthat you do and make your list.
That essentially is all the CRM is.
You all so don't feel intimidatedby this idea that you have to have a CRM.
Just create that list,get it out of your brain.
That's going to free upsome margin from there.
(44:20):
Then you're just going to cross them offone by one, ideally in time blocks
where it's dedicated for that list.
And then you're going to goclean your office
or spend time with your family,or think about your next big idea.
Go take a walk in the woods.
Craig.
We had a friendmy wife was with, a a friend this week,
(44:45):
and she used a phrase nature bathing
And so if y'all don't like,
my wife is very,
on the health conscious, natural, organicside, like, about big, about nature
or, like, grounding and all these thingslike alignment with body.
(45:06):
And long story short, anyway,she uses term.
I was like,I've never heard of nature bathing.
And she's like, I thought you would haveheard about nature bathing.
Long story short, I mean it.
It's nothing.
Nothing weirdother than the fact that, like, sometimes
we need to disconnect from technologyand we just need to be out in nature,
like sitting in nature,listening to the birds,
(45:28):
appreciating thethe beauty of the trees, the flowers.
So sometimes you just needto turn everything off and you need to
stop scrolling on a device,let your eyes rest
and go out and just let your othersenses work out in nature.
You know,
I'll admit that I was tempted to do thatyesterday, and but my default is I.
(45:50):
You've mentioned it.
I feel guilty doing thatduring the workweek, so I never do that.
And there's been times in my pastwhere I've been so overwhelmed
or so stressed out by somethingthat it's like I start to break down
and I, I have to get away.
And when I, when I take thatwalk in the woods or sit by that stream,
(46:12):
it's like,
And you hit
but don't wait to that pointof almost breakdown to do that
again, build some time into your schedule,do that maybe once a week
or once every other week or somethingjust to get a regular cadence.
I, I love walkingbarefoot out in the grass there.
(46:34):
There is something to ground.
I agree, I don't know all the science,but I feel better
when my feet are on some soft green grass.
It just it just feels better and wears.
Yeah.
Craig, I got to chat.
Okay, Craig,we're going to wrap this a challenge.
This is for me and you.
How many shootsdo you have today, by the way? Craig, I.
(46:54):
I've only got two
Okay.We're going to do some nature bathing.
All right?
So you and I and all of youlisteners out there
take ten minutesand it's going to feel awkward.
At least try ten minutessomewhere out in nature.
Take your shoes and your socks off.
Okay.
Sit. Listen.
Lay down, get comfortable,
(47:15):
and just take in the beauty and everythingthat's around you.
All right, Craig, I'll take a selfie.
You take a selfie.I want to see your feet.
I want to see your bare feet in it.
So if you do it,
take the selfie
post posted on our SpiroSuper User Group or Spiro Facebook page.
Post it somewhere and tag spiro.
(47:36):
Tag nature bathing, hashtagnature bathing.
And let's see if we can get some people
some timeto really just let their brain go free.
You know, I was thinkingbefore this podcast, you gave me
a challenge months ago that admittedly,I have not moved on, and I have,
I have I'm publicly apologizing to my bosshere, folks.
He told me he wanted me to record myself
(47:58):
day in the life of basicallyout in the field, and I've not done it.
I, I, I'd rather be behind the camerathan in front of,
well, this is different anyway.
So maybethat will be the kick off for that.
But you told me needed to be done, and,I'll, I'll, I'll take my shoes and.
Yeah, we're. Baby steps.
(48:20):
Y'all give some, give Craig some lovedown in the comments below.
I don't ask for it, but give Craigsome love down in the comments below.
I think if he really knew howhelpful he was and how insightful he was,
I, he's hard on himselfand he is incredible.
I know you all love him, as do I,but Craig, we're excited
to see your bare feet todayand your nature bathing photo.
(48:43):
You might see a, brisket injuryon the back of my ankle.
There's a story behind that one.
Maybe I'll share that next week.
I love that, Craig. Let's do it next.
What a great hook.
Okay.
All right.
This is getting weird.
We're getting close to an hour in here.
How about we wrap things upwhen things get weird?
It's our time. We just wrap, right? It's.
(49:04):
It's time to go.
So anyway, transition from busy seasonsand a slow season.
Yeah.
A day in the life of shooting,business development.
I hope you I hope you got some some,good tips and ideas.
Maybe to try something new and,
yeah, I'm thankful for thethe work I get to do.
I really do love what I do.
So hopeyou found some value in that, Todd.
(49:27):
Thank you, thank you.
Chris was sharing two weird.
All right,
well,guys, that's going to wrap things up.
Before Todd asks any more weirdquestions of me, I'm just going to.
We're we're going to.
Yeah, but but I'll just stay on mute here.
Make sure you when you're doing thatnature bathing takes
some time to be thankfulfor the blessings in your life.
(49:49):
And like we say, take a breath.
You guys have a great week. Take care.
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