June 4, 2025 • 45 mins
What is the importance of your personal ethics, principles and integrity in running your real estate media business? What things do you need to consider? What situations have you faced or may you face in the future (if you haven't yet?) What impact does establishing your ethics have on your business and its success? Todd and Craig discuss this and give you some things to consider if you haven't thought much about it.
Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 Episode Open
01:56 Spiro Software Updates
02:54 Industry Conferences
03:47 Ethics & Integrity in Business
43:28 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):
what are my values?
What are my principles?
What am I willing to negotiate?
What am I not willing to negotiate?
What are what are nonstarters? you know,what am I committed to?
And you have to answer those big questionsso that you know how to handle
the very specific individual situationsyou might find yourself in
(00:24):
Welcome to the Spiro Podcast.
Managing your real estate, photographyand videography business
with your hostsTodd Kivimaki and Craig Magrum.
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast.
Managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is it's a software platform.
(00:46):
It's designed to help you manage your dayto day business, but ultimately
really to help you grow in scale as well.
Lots of amazing features in the software.
And, we're going to talk a little bitabout those updates in just a minute.
But, before we we do that,let me introduce our Spiro
owner and founder and co-hostof the podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
(01:07):
Welcome back.
another week, Todd.
Another week. Craig.
It's a fast year.
It's past the end of May also.
Just putting it on your radarbecause I looked at the calendar,
I'm like,Holy cow, we're done with May, right?
Yeah. And the older you get.
The faster it goes.
For those of youthat are a little bit younger,
it doesn't takemuch to be younger than me.
(01:30):
It goes it goes fast.
I looked at the picture.
I looked at the picture.
My goatee.
Only like four years ago.
It was a whole lot darker.
All right, let's dive into this.
We got a great topic this week.
Something we have.
We've kind of danced aroundin past episodes.
But we're we're going to dive into.
Well, save it.
(01:51):
It's an interesting topic, Todd.
Let's first dive into, Spiroupdates this week.
What's going on with, with Spiro software?
Yeah. Spiro updates.I'll give be real quick.
I've talked about this a little biton the Spiro Super User Facebook group.
So if you're not a member, please join.
You'll get these updates before anyone.
You'll get access to knowing what's comingbefore anyone else.
(02:12):
Also, we've been active on the featurebased app.
That's where you can suggest updates.
Log in to Spiro, click
the button in the upper right hand cornerto get the feature base.
Just real quickly,some higher ideas that we're working on.
A new propertywebsite. It's going to be great.
I show a preview of itin the super user group.
Also just at a high level.
(02:33):
We're going to give you some CRMfunctions.
Excited about those and a wayto build a beautiful add on page.
So those are all coming.
All great toolsfor you going to streamline.
Oh Craigalso admin overrides on the order page.
So I know everybody's celebrating nowbecause they wanted to do that.
But that is coming. Awesome.
Good stuff.
All right.
Oh Craig, looking ahead in a yearbecause I always I have a giant calendar
(02:56):
in my in my office.And now it's time to start planning.
You know, sometimes as business owners,it's like, what am I doing right now?
What am I doing in an hour.
We have to look ahead into the future.
One thing I believe in wholeheartedly iseducation.
There's great conferences in the industry.
The REPP conferences coming up.
Just visit REPPlaunch.com.
You can find more informationabout. It's out in Vegas.
(03:18):
And then PMRE is a couple of weeks after.
So if you don't know about themsearch them. You'll find them.
But please plan for it now becauseNovember will be here before we know it.
Yeah, great.
Great conferences to, visit at least oncein your career and, a chance to connect
with others in the industry, exchangeideas, build some friendships, and, Yeah.
Hope to see you there.
(03:39):
Yeah. Awesome.
It's.
It's hard to believe
we're talking about that already, but,yeah, we're we're in June, and, it's crazy
anyway, in the fast paceof business and life. Todd
a lot of
times we, we face situationsand questions and dilemmas
and whatnot that can cause us to wrestlea little bit with,
(04:00):
I would say, ethical and,questions of ethics and integrity.
And so that's kind of whatwe want to talk about this week, is ethics
and integrity in your businessand the importance of that,
the importance of thinking throughwhat are my values, what are my ethics
in business, what's what's good,what's not so good,
(04:20):
and how does how do these questions impactwhat I'm doing day
to day in my interactionswith with my clients?
So, Todd, it'sthis is kind of a very broad topic,
but we've all run into situationsand questions of
how do I deal with this exactly?
And I'm sure you've run into a lot ofthose things over what is a 22 years now?
(04:44):
This is year 22. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, it
is we were brainstorming this idea.
I mean,I immediately thought of many situations
where I'm at a house shooting the photos,shooting the video tour.
The the agent is there.
The the sellers might be there.
They might not be.
(05:06):
And I overhear a lot of conversations
I hear over here,a lot of conversations and,
some thingsthat I probably shouldn't be hearing.
I can't help it.
I'm there doing my job right.
I'm not doing anything wrong.
I'm not trying to eavesdropor anything like that.
(05:26):
Some agents are just kind of loud.
There's there's yeah,they're a little bit loud,
but they're having conversationson the phone, you know,
they're talking with their sellersat the table.
I'm hearing price,you know, pricing discussions.
I'm hearing,
you know,
watercooler talk about whatsuch and such realtor is doing.
(05:46):
I am, you know, and in isn't sometimes
you're hearing things about other realtorsthat are also your clients
and I mean, I think most of us are smartenough to figure out,
just keep your mouth shut.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
(06:07):
I, I agree with you.
You know, I was I was,I was talking to my boys last night.
So many of you all know I have a 12 yearold and a ten year old
and, brothers being brothersand being close.
You know, we talked about the ideaof the importance of listening.
And I also shared,I think a week or two ago, I've been in
(06:28):
the book of James quite a bit,and James talks a lot about listening.
And one thing that,
and I can't remember the pastorthat said it, it was an and my devotion.
But, the the media gets really good
when we listen to others.
We need to listen to understandand not to respond.
(06:51):
So you need to understand what'scoming into your brain from your ears.
And then you need to parsethat and understand.
Do you even need to respond?
Because and sometimesyou have to be careful because I'm
Craig, you know, you and I are of,of some of the same personality type.
We're we're both high C personalities.
(07:12):
Meaning like I, I and you feelokay if the other person is okay.
So there might be pressure on us
when a realtor says somethingand maybe it's
gossip about another realtoror another person.
Another, it doesn't matter another person.
And there might just be the ideato kind of a knowing nod
(07:35):
and smile or a yes or a oh, I like that.
You have to be carefulbecause that could that could confirm
what that person is saying, or they coulduse it as you're confirming them.
I don't know,what do you think about that, Craig.
Yeah.
I just a lot of times I just, I just
stay silent.
(07:55):
I try not to react because here's, here'swhat can happen if that unintended
confirmation happens and that realtorstalk, they all talk to each other.
And if you are seen somehow is,
affirming some sort of gossipabout another realtor,
and it might not even get backto that other realtor, but
(08:17):
it might get to their friendsor their colleagues in their brokerage
that could sink your business like that.
Yeah.
I think it's as simple as
interest.
You know, I mightI might just say interesting,
you know, and and move on with the shoot.
(08:39):
I just, I try to avoid those now,it doesn't happen every shoot, you know,
but there's going to be times
where you've developeda really good relationship with the client
that you've shot
and shot with now for a couple of years,and they've gotten very comfortable
with you, which is good.
But in that comfort,they might start talking with you more,
more than maybe is appropriatein a professional setting.
(09:01):
Yeah.
So at that point you just
you got to flip your switch from,you know, friend client slash friend
that you've builtthat relationship with to this
this is a professional businesstransaction.
And I'm not touchingthat with a 20ft pole.
Yeah.
It's just the right thing to do forfor multiple reasons.
Yeah.
And you can be kind about saying it,you know, the idea of like, interesting
(09:24):
or, you know, if you're shootingin that you, they address you as something
like, oh, I'm sorry, I was focused onI was focused on what's in the camera.
You know, you can do thateven if you heard it. That's true.
You were focused on that.
The more that you can just deflect it
and move on with it, the easierit is to be done with it.
The other person, they might pushonce or twice pending their personality,
(09:47):
but if you deflect it once or twice,they're going to understand
real quickthat you're not feeding into it.
And you are.
You're going to be kind ofout of the out of the water,
if you will, as to where like,
they'll understandthey're not getting what they want
from you, so they're not goingto continue to try. Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean that specific situations, it'spretty much a no brainer.
(10:09):
I think most of us would, would knowjust to keep our mouths shut.
But, you know,
sometimes you get caught up in the momentand you're like, wait, what?
H it's easy to get caught up and doso just really guard against that.
You know, overhearing conversations andand gossip and whatnot.
Yeah. Craig, you know,let me ask you a question about this.
(10:30):
Will take we'll pivot on this topic. Yeah.
The the the person in the topica little bit.
And I think it's I think most of us outthere, most of our listeners are okay.
Yeah.I'm not really going to feed into it.
Maybe just it's a good to analyze itone more time.
Like, am I feeding into it?
I think it's always good to askthat question, but let's go one more step.
(10:52):
That is going to be more on the homefront of all of you out there.
Let's bring this inside your businessso not your clients,
but let's bring this inside your businessand your employees, your contractors,
vendors, people that are close to you,that you work with every day.
You know, how does this
how does this change when you take itinto that environment? Craig,
(11:15):
I think from a
leadership perspective,you know, speaking to other owners,
you're going to hear a lot of thingsfrom employees or through,
you know,through the grapevine of, of your staff.
And there's a lot of,
a lot of trust that is built
if, you know,if an employee confides something in you,
(11:36):
I Todd, I think you're probably better,
better suited to,
to kind of address this and situationsyou've dealt with with employees
and things that you hear around the officeand how you guard that information,
you know, with your leadership teamor just keeping it to yourself,
I'm going to flip it back to you.
But I mean,what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, along the same lines, Craig. So I,
(12:00):
I always
have to remind myself and, and remind,you know, you would need to remind
yourself as the owner that you knoweverything
about your business.
And don't put that responsibilityon everyone.
You should be very careful withinformation that you have in your head.
You should respect that.
(12:22):
You know,sometimes as owners, we want to feel,
try and think of how to phrase this.
Craig.
We feel a bit out on it,like left out on an island.
It's kind of.
It's lonely. It's lonely as the owner.
Yeah, because there's some thingsthat you have to deal with and some things
that, you know, thatmaybe nobody in your company knows.
(12:45):
And that can be heavy.
That can be difficult.
I can think of quite a few situationswhere that was the case.
Now. Also, I can think of situationsas we grew over the years
and as I empoweredmore people at my company, that I was able
to give that information to thembecause they were set up
to be ableto do something with that information.
(13:09):
So just a couple of examplesthat, you know, off the top of my head
that I can think about over the years,
as you hire employees and
especiallyif you're all in the same building,
which I know isn't as common nowadays.
Craig.
But for us at Wow,we sometimes here in the building,
(13:30):
we had 15 people that showed up every day.
This is years ago.
But people talk whether it's an emailor slack conversations,
private emails, their own cell phone.
Hey, and don't be naive to think
that your staff's not talking,that there's not chatter
(13:51):
outside of company communication.
I think I made that mistake a couple timesin my life, and I assume the good
because I, I think it's a admirable thingto assume good in people,
but I was kind of blind to some chatterthat was happening.
So some things I've learned over the yearsabout that is one, don't assume it.
(14:13):
Two, you need to really hithit it head on if it gets back to you.
Yeah.
These are this goes back to a podcastwe did it was maybe a year ago Craig.
But I really love the series.
It talked about critical communicationand confrontational communication.
Yep yep.
And how we deal with it.
So if you're in a meeting and something
(14:35):
gets back to you from an employee,
one everybody probably knows about it,
I. I've learned that as I get
chatter back to me, I'mthe last one to know about it.
Say just because naturally the chatter,it's like,
let's not go tell the bossthe chatter about what's going on.
(14:59):
So one probably everybody knows about it.
So that's why it's more important toto be proactive with what you do about it.
Now just going back to that podcastand if you want to search, it was
I think it was calledcritical Communication.
I think we actually didtwo parts on that. Craig.
Yeah, the the first thing is, is
(15:19):
I never like to hold those conversationsseparately.
If there is hearsay, if there is gossip,
I like to put two adults in the same room,and I like to talk through it.
And I you'll need to be the mediator.
And that's somethingthat you get better at doing.
But you just ask questions, don'ttake sides, bring up points and try to get
(15:42):
everybody to open up their thinkingand actually understand the other party.
So that is the first thingthat I would do.
And I'm telling you what, the first timeI did it, I had a coach recommended to me.
I was like, this is what I heard.
It was like, okay,this is what you need to do.
I'm like,
I got to put both of these people in thesame room, and I have to be in there with,
like, that is not high on my list of,
(16:04):
like, desires to do on a Tuesday.
Right.
Or a Wednesday.
All right.
Yeah.
or any day of the week.
Agreed.
But I did it,and it was awkward at some points,
but I got resolve and we gotit was a perfect thing.
(16:25):
You're never gonna work out.
Walk out of there. Perfect.
But we got somewhere with it.
And don't just don't be the messengerat your company.
Please don't.
What do they sayabout shooting the messenger?
Like you know
you don't want to be the in between.
You don't want to sit with awith employee A
and hear gossip about employee B,
and then go sit with employee Bbecause they're going to have their side.
(16:48):
And then you don't know how to respondbecause you weren't there.
So just put both employees into thesame room and ask questions and ask how?
What did you think about that?
Okay. Is,is this the feelings that you had?
Is that what you said?
Could that be have takena little bit differently?
Could you see how this person could assumethat that's what you meant?
(17:14):
Yeah.
Ask some of those questionsand get to the bottom of it.
So that's what I've learned to dowhen I hear chatter.
And and then when you hit it headon, you are really stopping that chatter.
And then those mediator conversations,you can set those expectations.
Hey, thank you so much, both of you,for having this open conversation.
(17:36):
I know it's not easy.
I really appreciate what you sharedtoday, the feelings,
the thoughts that you shared.
One thing that I just want to stategoing forward is I want this to be done.
I don't want thisto go outside of this room.
We have resolve.
This is our action plan A, B, and Cif you have an action plan
and I expect this to be done,I don't expect you to talk to
(17:58):
other employees about this.
It's only going to restartthis whole cycle of chit chat.
And we can see how that's not productivefor anyone,
not only in the company,but for our personal lives as well.
So I would say that,and then I would just follow that
same thing upwith an email to both of them.
(18:21):
You need to document it,because what's going to happen
if if something comes back to you,they're going to say, you never said that.
You never told us not to tell anyone else.
You say, well, I sent you an emailon May 29th and, can you see
in my bullet points here that I asked younot to say anything to anyone else? So,
yeah, particularly if
(18:41):
they're on staff and not a contractor.
Yeah. Because you,
you might have to follow up with,unfortunately with discipline,
you know, some sort of staff disciplineif things are met because that's
that kind of situation turn a workculture toxic just in a heartbeat.
Yeah. And that will affect morale.
(19:03):
And so just yeah, leading with integrityand ethics and,
and mediation.
Good, good. Good idea.
Yeah I remember,I remember years where it went toxic and
and and it was bad
and my first instinct wasn't to hit ithead on.
(19:24):
My first instinct was to hopethat it would change.
And I,
there's a lot of sayings
about hope, and,you can you insert your favorite one?
But it didn’t happen and it became worse.
And like, just crazy things.
And like,we had one of our past billing people,
(19:47):
positions like, share what everyone made,
like, just, yeah, crazy things
like sharing salaries of everyoneand wow, it's.
And I actually CraigI didn't get that information.
It was like four years later,this person had transitioned.
Everybody in the company knew it.
This knew that this had happened.
(20:07):
And the crazy thing was it actually tookplace at a company sponsored event.
We paid for bowling one night.
I couldn't make it.
And we all some of the team went bowling,showed up.
This individual was there was like, oh,
this person makes this, this person makesthis is like had what everybody made.
For those of youlistening like my face is just like, what?
What? Yeah, yeah.
(20:30):
Wow. And I didn't I was told
by one of my leaders 4 or 5 years later,I was like, wait a minute.
Hey, what are you.
What happened?
And my immediate response is, why?
Why are you telling me this now? Now?
Yeah. Why?
Why did you not tell this to meright after it happened?
(20:52):
And so I made adjustments with that.
And, you know, we usewe use a phrase around here that you need
to be generous with your information.
It's okay to be a little bit upsetthat an employee
isn't generous with your information,especially a leader of your company.
This is someone that I leaned on.
So don't
(21:12):
hope that your culture, you can't hopethat your culture is going to be good.
It's very intentional.
So, you know, maybe this is foranother podcast to talk about how
we built, how you build culture, thingsof how you crumble culture.
But you have to be intentionalto build it.
And that really starts with the idea ofyou need to hold people
(21:32):
to be ethical in your company,and you need to state those things right?
Right.
Okay. Can I shift gears because I yeah.
Craig let’s
Yeah, I think that's good forI have another
just very practical thing out in the field
that I've seen, discussed in the variouslike Facebook groups and things like that.
And, and that's the question of whena realtor asks you to edit something out
(21:56):
or you or things that you know
your local MLS doesn't allow.
Now, Todd,I've seen two different responses to this,
and I very strongly lead.
And, and I'm not going to apologizefor it.
I very stronglylean to one of these two positions.
But the first position and you're going toguess which one I lean towards is
(22:20):
it's not my problem that, you know,
if the if the client says to do it,that's what I need to do.
That's, that's the client's responsibilityto know the rules.
That's that's their problem.
I'm going to do what they asked me to do.
And I'm goingto ask you for your thoughts on this.
The other the other position is,
you know the rules.
(22:40):
You know what's allowedin the editing for your local MLS or board
and what's not, what is allowedand what isn't allowed.
So what how do you respond to that realtor
that asks you to do some sort of editing
that, you know, breaksthe rules of your local MLS?
Yeah, we've had this plenty of timesover the years that, wow.
(23:03):
And what we do, Craig, is
we respond to that clientand we let them know that
this is in violation,that we don't take things
out of photos, that we don't add thingsthat aren't there.
This is the reason why, you know, wedon't want to misrepresent the property.
(23:23):
We just want to protect youand bring this to your attention
that potentially,this could lead to a fine or a lot.
You know, this could lead to problems.
Basically,we don't get to be in the weeds there.
I you always want to spin it
that you're protecting the clientsbecause that's really what you're doing.
You know, actually in this situation,like you're saying no
to potential income because they might payyou for that change.
(23:47):
Oh yeah.
You're saying you're sayingno to that, to help them.
So just make surethat they understand that.
I will tell you though, Craig, is
we do have timeswhere an agent insist on it.
An agent might say, hey, this is the wayI'm going to use the photo.
I understandabout misrepresenting a property.
You know, I take responsibility for it.
(24:07):
And at the end of the day,another saying we use around
Wow is we give the people what they want.
We've said that for many years.
And I love to getyour opinion on this, Craig,
because we haven't we actually didn'tdiscuss this offline. But yeah.
No we haven't. Yeah.
Oh I, I what we're doing is if the agentsays, hey, just give me that thing.
I understand I'm cool with whatever'sgoing to happen, then we do it for him.
(24:32):
Let me let me add a qualifier to this.
Does it does your answer change
if if your company is an affiliate member
of that board.
Because he let me give you my answer in
and I'll tell you which folks this Todd.
(24:53):
No I've actually never discussed this.
So this isthis should play out interesting.
I might get corrected for this.
I don't know, I'm okay with that.
But as an affiliate member of the boardin the market, that that we have
that I take care of, my response is,
hey, this is the rule,
you know, yes, you're the client.
(25:14):
However, we are a paying affiliate memberof the board, and the board knows that.
I know the rules.
So I can't put our company
at, risk of violating those ruleswhen we are actually
a memberof that local realtor board as well.
I don't want to put our business at risk.
So it's not only
(25:34):
wanting to protect the realtor,but I, I have my responsibility,
at least in my mind, as a member of,of the the board that we're,
that we have
that didn't come out right.
Is I have to protect Wow video tours
is our business as well because I don'twant a violation from the board.
Also interesting.
(25:57):
Would youwould you argue it'd be different
if you're not actuallyan affiliate member of the board?
Because not every photographer is.
Craig is thereis there verbiage in the board?
Or if we've been told by the boardthat we it's our responsibility
to limit those type of actions?
Not that I know of.
I would have to dig deeper.
(26:20):
But my my gut reaction,
not knowing that is knowing thatwe are affiliate members and we try to be
a business in good standing,and they know that I know the rules.
I wouldn't want to ruin our reputation.
Again, especially when they know
I've asked very specific questionsand they've provided the rules to me.
(26:42):
And I actually got the comment fromfrom one of the staff members at the board
is we've never had a photographerask us what the rules are.
I'm very impressed by this,and it built a good rapport
at the board, local realtor, board levelthat we're a professional company.
We've done our duediligence of understanding what the rules
are as photographersand visual marketing professionals and
(27:07):
I guess I kind of painted myselfin a corner
from one view of,
okay, we know that he knows the rules,but now if our company breaks those rules,
how does that look to the boardon a professional level?
Yeah, it's a great point.
I think at the end of the day,because these
rules and regulations are pretty muchthe same in the and the US,
(27:29):
but they're a little bit differentbecause every board is a governing body.
They have their own rules.
Two thingsI can think of to take away Craig,
because these are going to be uniqueto your location out there.
One asked the board for their rules.
Craig did it. The ladies like,are you kidding me?
Like, if you want some brownie points,if you want the lady to remember you.
Yeah, like ask her for the rulesand tell her why.
(27:52):
And then you can justsimply ask the question. So
Mr. and Mrs.
Board Member, you know, a,
admin or head of the board,could you tell me
how you feelwould be best for me to respond
if an agent would ask me to remove or addsomething to a photo?
Are there any expectations set by mymy membership with the board? And,
(28:17):
I'm sure they've never been asked that,but it's worth
at least getting that opinion.
Yeah, I mean that there was even a point,
maybe about five years ago,virtual staging was not allowed,
in the market that I was in.
And, so I actually approached the
I approached the board with the questionof that and explaining why
(28:41):
we offered this serviceto other realtors in other markets. And,
so we we talked through it,the board discussed it, and they came
they actually ended up approving virtualstaging with a couple of parameters.
And so, you know,
there was definitely an ethicalwe don't want to misrepresent, okay.
Here's how we get around that.Just put some text on.
(29:02):
Make sure you put text on the photos.
It says virtually staged.
That waythe the potential buyer understands.
So you knowjust talk through those those questions.
Because again, as an industry asas professionals, we do want to do things
with ethics and integrity,not misrepresent properties.
But there's ways to to work aroundthat and work through that.
(29:23):
In a very,
just in a very honest way for sure.
Yeah. Craig.
And saying that, let's,let's look at the idea of just
pivoting a little bit here.
Let's talk about doing the right thing
since and doing the right thing like itis, is a little white lie.
(29:47):
Okay.
You know, no one's going to notice it.
I don't know that it would benefit meand benefit the company.
Benefit the agent.
So it's a little white lie.
Okay. I'm.
I'm pretty black and white on it.
Todd, I just you can't.
(30:08):
Once you start compromising,where does it end?
And the damage
it can do to my personal reputation,
my business reputation,my reputation as a man,
being a man of my word, I.
It might cost me in the shortrun of saying no, I'm.
I'm just I'm not going to do that.
(30:28):
I'm not going to misrepresentthis even in a small way.
To me, it's a black and white.
No, no, don't don't even go there.
You know, but
there's there'sall sorts of justifications
that people can come up with onwhy it's okay.
(30:49):
But I've got to live with myselfat the end of the day,
I agree, I Craig,
I think there's a couple thingscome to my brain immediately.
I think the world will tell you that it'sokay to bend the rules a little bit.
The world will tell you that you have tobend the rules a little bit to get ahead.
But if you want to make a spotfor yourself in this world that you need
(31:10):
to do this, and it's okay to doand everybody does it.
Sorry. Hey. Sorry, y'all. It's not.
That's a lie.
So I'm just starting.
And I say thiswith like from loving my heart.
But that is not true.
That's simply not true.
And I agree with you, Craig 100%.
It's not okayto bend the rules and tell a white lie.
(31:32):
It's importantto always do the right thing.
It's not easy.
Let me give you a quick example of a storyand the impact that it had.
And this is
this is somewhat of a silly example,but I still remember it to this day.
So I had hired my first employee
this is maybe four years into business,3 or 4 years in the business.
And she was an admin for me, Liz.
(31:53):
And she was wonderful.
And she really helped me free up my time.
You know, we talk about admin,nurse and doctor levels of activities
and it allow me to get rid of the lowlevel activities,
focus on the bigger things to grow.
She did that.
She took ownership in the business,pride in it.
(32:15):
And she was fabulous, a hard worker
and we were still working out of my houseat this time.
I had an office out and, you know,just on the side behind the garage area.
I had a room and we worked out of there.
And, so the, the only the bathroomswere both inside the house.
Everything in my house, by the house.
So she'd she'd have to walk inand use the bathroom.
(32:36):
And she came out one or actually,I got back from a shoot
one day from shooting and she was like,oh, I have something to tell you.
Like we went over thethe bullet points of this agent
that this, this is thatthis is what she look like for tomorrow.
She's like, oh, I need to tell you,
I was I used a bathroom in.
After I washed my hands,I was drying my hands on your hand towel,
(32:59):
and I snagged the towel.
And it has this snag,and it's a bit not perfect anymore.
And she used different terms.She's like, I'm really sorry.
I'll be happy to buy you a new one.
And I was like,
okay, a hand towel.
(33:19):
Like it wasn't some fineEgyptian fabric, like,
this was like a $3.99 Coles hand towel.
And it was a small little snag, like,I think
we probably just left alone,or I clipped it like I went.
It like.
This impacted meat such a high level to go
out like you are that honest, like.
(33:41):
Yeah.And nobody would have ever noticed it.
Your respect for her just skyrocket.
didn't it
Yes, it made such an impact.
I mean, that was 20 years ago. Craig.
18, 19 years ago.
It was a long time ago.
I don't remember what I atefor breakfast yesterday,
(34:02):
but I remember that Liz told methat she snagged the hand towel.
Yeah,
and I'm telling you that
if you begin doing that,it will be awkward at first.
But when you go to someoneand if you're honest with them
and you say, hey, I'meven if it's not your fault,
if there's times that you're like, hey,I just didn't realize this.
(34:24):
Like, I'll be happy.
I didn't know that you had thiscome upon you because of something we did.
I'll be happy to pay for.
I'll be happy to be.I'll be happy to make you whole.
Now, the thing
is, Craig, is you have to be preparedto actually do that
there.
There's a difference herebetween saying it
(34:45):
and hoping the person is like,no, it's okay,
and following through to what you said,following and following through
on what you say. Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
I think, you know,there's there's endless debate
and philosophiesof of ethics and integrity.
And I mean, there's entire courses on itand debate over, you know,
(35:05):
what's right, what's wrong.
And ultimately you've got to find.
A foundation for your life
that you, you build off of, ofwhat are my values?
What are my principles?
What am I willing to negotiate?
What am I not willing to negotiate?
What are what are nonstarters you know,what am I committed to?
(35:27):
And you have to answer those big questionsso that you know how to handle
the very specific individual situationsyou might find yourself
in, or things that you hear, thingsthat you're asked to do. And,
if you don't have that, that bedrock
for your life of what are my principles,
(35:48):
I think you just you're in a world of hurt
for your business, for your personal lifeand whatnot on,
caving on thingsthat maybe you shouldn't be caving on.
Integrity in business is critical.
And it might cut to,you know, we're we're discussing this.
This might be a good placeto, to wrap up, but
you might be asked to do somethingthat you're,
(36:11):
you're not in good conscience able to do,and it's going to cost you money.
But what's the
what's the fartherreaching impact of short term loss?
Do you think?
Yeah.
I mean, it could be detrimentalfor your business.
So a simple example that I can think ofover the years that has happened
(36:33):
at Wow is as we were building Spiro,and this is before it was called Spiro.
This is a whole nother system.
But we we did billing in this system,
and there was timeswhere we either billed incorrectly.
Or too much.
Too little, or we didn't bill at all.
And what we had to do.
(36:57):
To know what
we should act, the actions we should take.
We had to go back to our core values.
You mentioned thisat the top of the show, Craig and I.
I can't tell you allhow important it's been
for us to have core valuesat Wow, we've had them for many years.
We speak these, we talk,we onboard people with these.
(37:17):
We let people in our core values.
We had to go back to our core valuesand core value.
Number one isclients are our number one priority.
So what.
And that's a pretty powerfulthat's a that's a heavy core value.
Number one Craig.
Because what it does is when you
don't send an invoice to a client
(37:39):
and say it was six months ago,three months ago,
you have to put yourself in their shoes
and you have to say, if I was the client
and I had this listing six months ago
and it's closed now for four months,I've been paid for it.
I've moved on.
I actually kind of forgot about.
I even had that listing.
(38:01):
How would I feel if I got that invoice?
And and we set at our company, like,
we we'd be prettylike we'd be taken back a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, might be okay with paying it,but probably might lead us to thinking
about finding a different provider.
(38:22):
And I can tell you guys, over the years,
there has been timesthat we wrote off ten, $15,000.
Because we screwed up.
I feel like we screwed up.
Ultimately, does the agent,
does the agent owe us the money?
Yes. With the agent pay, probably.
But I clients are number one priority.
(38:43):
That's a pretty heavy core value.
Number one. And we took care of them.
And I think that's important.
Now one small little point on this.
And this isn't the point of the podcast,but we let them know that that took place.
We let them know the amount,
and we let them knowthat they didn't have to worry about it.
We, you know, so wewe used it to let them know about it.
(39:04):
but we let them know that
there are number one priorityand we don't feel
right about making them pay this billthat's passed to do for this long.
So those are all thingsthat you could decide a different answer,
but it all has a tie backto what you believe in your core
(39:24):
values, your foundation, your beliefs,whatever you want to put, insert their
and you have to let people in your companyknow those as well.
So we have them posted on the wall backhere.
They're on our brochures.They're on our onboarding guides.
Like I feel like most of our employees
at Wow would know.
At least would know two, three, four,maybe all five of the core values.
(39:48):
They definitely knowcore value number one.
And what we tell them isand we're going to train you
to a lot of situations, butwhen you get in a situation that you might
have not been trained in, or maybe we'veencountered for the first time,
we trust you to make a decision.
Go back to your core values.
Go back to our core values. Excuse me.
(40:08):
And if they align with those core values,
we want to empower youto make that decision.
And then let's talk about it afterwards.
If you feel like there's feedbackor something of the sort. So
that's the way we've handled it, Craig.
And they're not easy, I can tell you.
Like I was crying over when we wrote off$14,000, and I knew we did
(40:30):
10,000 a couple years previous,and it was not it was not a great day.
I was, I, I remember I toldI don't know who it was at the time.
I was like,
I wish I just had those dollar billsand we could have had a campfire
with $14,000 $1 bill,so it would have been a lot more fun.
Yeah, yeah, it
(40:51):
when I think about it,if I'm in a situation
and I and I do the right thingand it cost me in the moment.
I'm trying to be an optimist here.
I think that when you demonstratethat honesty and integrity
and that level of ethics to your client,say it's
a client situation, I would hope.
(41:13):
I would hope that they would respect me
for making the right decision,doing the right thing
and building that trust level,because trust takes a while to build.
Right.
But it can be destroyedin, you know, just a blink of an eye. Yes.
But building that trust, which leadsto a long term let's let's just spoil it.
I hate to do this, but let's boil it downto dollars and cents,
(41:36):
making the tough call in the momentof doing the right thing
and it costing me in the short term.
But developing the relationship of trustand a long term
business contract,or a relationship with them,
that ultimately will makeme a whole lot more money
just because I made the right call.
That cost me in the moment.
(41:56):
But long term is is much,much more profitable.
And ultimatelyit's not even about the dollars and cents.
But when you put your head on the pillowat night,
you can rest with a clear consciencethat you know you did the right thing.
And I thinkif you want peace in your life,
just do the right thing.
(42:17):
Agree a 100% Craig.
Well said.
It's not easy though,but it it needs to be done.
Yep, yep I mean there'sthere's all sorts of situations
we could talk through and,you know, debate and whatnot.
But we wanted to do this episodejust to kind of recenter
and think about,you know, situations that we face.
And how do you handle that?
You know,
(42:38):
building that foundation of whatyour principles are, what your values are.
And it might be different.
We have different faith backgrounds.
We have different upbringings.
But find, you know, for for Todd, nine,you know, we're we're Christians
where we base our, our worldviewon the Bible, what we call the Bible.
And, you know, the, the Ten Commandments.
(43:00):
We've all heard those things, you know,
but building,having that as a foundation to build from
and then make decisions based on of whataligns with what my values and principles
are as a human being, as a man, as a womanin running a business.
So I would encourage you
go back to the basics, figure outwhat are my principles
and values and how am I going to livemy life and run my business.
(43:22):
And I it's going to pay huge dividendsfor you in multiple ways.
Yeah.
It's challenging.
Hey, if you have a situation post it below,let us know.
So you know, if you cried over$14,000 $1 bills, you and I, what?
We'll, we'll get lunch in Vegasand we'll cry together.
(43:42):
So, hey, let's share this.
That's the beautiful thing about thiscommunity is we are a community.
Hey, I'm happy that you guys laughat me, cry with me.
Whatever it is, let's do ittogether. Participate in.
And if you have a comment below,put it down there.
We'd love to interact and communicatewith you.
And, let's all share in this together.
You've said it before, Todd.
Learn from our mistakes.
(44:04):
Yes, learn from our mistakes.
But, yeah, we.
Yeah. We'd love your comments.
Make sure you leave a likeif you found value in this.
And feel free to share it.
And, those of you that are newsubscribers, we really appreciate it.
We hope this, this podcast is,is a value to you and your business
and that you're able to build a stronga strong business because of it.
(44:25):
Part of whatwe're trying to pass on to you.
All right.
That's good to wrap itI think I think we're good this week.
Yeah, I think so.
Hey, let's just give him the email addressin case email is easier.
hello@spiro.media.
Send us an email.Got a show idea question.
We would love to cover it on here.
Just send us an email.
hello@spiro.media.
(44:46):
All right June is rolling strong.
Stay busy,
but make sure you also take some timeto be thankful
for the blessings in your life.And be sure to take a breath.
You guys have a great week.
Thank you for joining usfor the Spiro Podcast,
managing your Real estate, photographyand videography business.
This is a production of Spiroand Wow video tours.
(45:08):
You can find out more about Spirois Real Estate Media Business management
software at our website, Spiro.media
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
what are my values?
What are my principles?
What am I willing to negotiate?
What am I not willing to negotiate?
What are what are nonstarters? you know,what am I committed to?
And you have to answer those big questionsso that you know how to handle
the very specific individual situationsyou might find yourself in
(00:24):
Welcome to the Spiro Podcast.
Managing your real estate, photographyand videography business
with your hostsTodd Kivimaki and Craig Magrum.
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast.
Managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is it's a software platform.
(00:46):
It's designed to help you manage your dayto day business, but ultimately
really to help you grow in scale as well.
Lots of amazing features in the software.
And, we're going to talk a little bitabout those updates in just a minute.
But, before we we do that,let me introduce our Spiro
owner and founder and co-hostof the podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
(01:07):
Welcome back.
another week, Todd.
Another week. Craig.
It's a fast year.
It's past the end of May also.
Just putting it on your radarbecause I looked at the calendar,
I'm like,Holy cow, we're done with May, right?
Yeah. And the older you get.
The faster it goes.
For those of youthat are a little bit younger,
it doesn't takemuch to be younger than me.
(01:30):
It goes it goes fast.
I looked at the picture.
I looked at the picture.
My goatee.
Only like four years ago.
It was a whole lot darker.
All right, let's dive into this.
We got a great topic this week.
Something we have.
We've kind of danced aroundin past episodes.
But we're we're going to dive into.
Well, save it.
(01:51):
It's an interesting topic, Todd.
Let's first dive into, Spiroupdates this week.
What's going on with, with Spiro software?
Yeah. Spiro updates.I'll give be real quick.
I've talked about this a little biton the Spiro Super User Facebook group.
So if you're not a member, please join.
You'll get these updates before anyone.
You'll get access to knowing what's comingbefore anyone else.
(02:12):
Also, we've been active on the featurebased app.
That's where you can suggest updates.
Log in to Spiro, click
the button in the upper right hand cornerto get the feature base.
Just real quickly,some higher ideas that we're working on.
A new propertywebsite. It's going to be great.
I show a preview of itin the super user group.
Also just at a high level.
(02:33):
We're going to give you some CRMfunctions.
Excited about those and a wayto build a beautiful add on page.
So those are all coming.
All great toolsfor you going to streamline.
Oh Craigalso admin overrides on the order page.
So I know everybody's celebrating nowbecause they wanted to do that.
But that is coming. Awesome.
Good stuff.
All right.
Oh Craig, looking ahead in a yearbecause I always I have a giant calendar
(02:56):
in my in my office.And now it's time to start planning.
You know, sometimes as business owners,it's like, what am I doing right now?
What am I doing in an hour.
We have to look ahead into the future.
One thing I believe in wholeheartedly iseducation.
There's great conferences in the industry.
The REPP conferences coming up.
Just visit REPPlaunch.com.
You can find more informationabout. It's out in Vegas.
(03:18):
And then PMRE is a couple of weeks after.
So if you don't know about themsearch them. You'll find them.
But please plan for it now becauseNovember will be here before we know it.
Yeah, great.
Great conferences to, visit at least oncein your career and, a chance to connect
with others in the industry, exchangeideas, build some friendships, and, Yeah.
Hope to see you there.
(03:39):
Yeah. Awesome.
It's.
It's hard to believe
we're talking about that already, but,yeah, we're we're in June, and, it's crazy
anyway, in the fast paceof business and life. Todd
a lot of
times we, we face situationsand questions and dilemmas
and whatnot that can cause us to wrestlea little bit with,
(04:00):
I would say, ethical and,questions of ethics and integrity.
And so that's kind of whatwe want to talk about this week, is ethics
and integrity in your businessand the importance of that,
the importance of thinking throughwhat are my values, what are my ethics
in business, what's what's good,what's not so good,
(04:20):
and how does how do these questions impactwhat I'm doing day
to day in my interactionswith with my clients?
So, Todd, it'sthis is kind of a very broad topic,
but we've all run into situationsand questions of
how do I deal with this exactly?
And I'm sure you've run into a lot ofthose things over what is a 22 years now?
(04:44):
This is year 22. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, it
is we were brainstorming this idea.
I mean,I immediately thought of many situations
where I'm at a house shooting the photos,shooting the video tour.
The the agent is there.
The the sellers might be there.
They might not be.
(05:06):
And I overhear a lot of conversations
I hear over here,a lot of conversations and,
some thingsthat I probably shouldn't be hearing.
I can't help it.
I'm there doing my job right.
I'm not doing anything wrong.
I'm not trying to eavesdropor anything like that.
(05:26):
Some agents are just kind of loud.
There's there's yeah,they're a little bit loud,
but they're having conversationson the phone, you know,
they're talking with their sellersat the table.
I'm hearing price,you know, pricing discussions.
I'm hearing,
you know,
watercooler talk about whatsuch and such realtor is doing.
(05:46):
I am, you know, and in isn't sometimes
you're hearing things about other realtorsthat are also your clients
and I mean, I think most of us are smartenough to figure out,
just keep your mouth shut.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
(06:07):
I, I agree with you.
You know, I was I was,I was talking to my boys last night.
So many of you all know I have a 12 yearold and a ten year old
and, brothers being brothersand being close.
You know, we talked about the ideaof the importance of listening.
And I also shared,I think a week or two ago, I've been in
(06:28):
the book of James quite a bit,and James talks a lot about listening.
And one thing that,
and I can't remember the pastorthat said it, it was an and my devotion.
But, the the media gets really good
when we listen to others.
We need to listen to understandand not to respond.
(06:51):
So you need to understand what'scoming into your brain from your ears.
And then you need to parsethat and understand.
Do you even need to respond?
Because and sometimesyou have to be careful because I'm
Craig, you know, you and I are of,of some of the same personality type.
We're we're both high C personalities.
(07:12):
Meaning like I, I and you feelokay if the other person is okay.
So there might be pressure on us
when a realtor says somethingand maybe it's
gossip about another realtoror another person.
Another, it doesn't matter another person.
And there might just be the ideato kind of a knowing nod
(07:35):
and smile or a yes or a oh, I like that.
You have to be carefulbecause that could that could confirm
what that person is saying, or they coulduse it as you're confirming them.
I don't know,what do you think about that, Craig.
Yeah.
I just a lot of times I just, I just
stay silent.
(07:55):
I try not to react because here's, here'swhat can happen if that unintended
confirmation happens and that realtorstalk, they all talk to each other.
And if you are seen somehow is,
affirming some sort of gossipabout another realtor,
and it might not even get backto that other realtor, but
(08:17):
it might get to their friendsor their colleagues in their brokerage
that could sink your business like that.
Yeah.
I think it's as simple as
interest.
You know, I mightI might just say interesting,
you know, and and move on with the shoot.
(08:39):
I just, I try to avoid those now,it doesn't happen every shoot, you know,
but there's going to be times
where you've developeda really good relationship with the client
that you've shot
and shot with now for a couple of years,and they've gotten very comfortable
with you, which is good.
But in that comfort,they might start talking with you more,
more than maybe is appropriatein a professional setting.
(09:01):
Yeah.
So at that point you just
you got to flip your switch from,you know, friend client slash friend
that you've builtthat relationship with to this
this is a professional businesstransaction.
And I'm not touchingthat with a 20ft pole.
Yeah.
It's just the right thing to do forfor multiple reasons.
Yeah.
And you can be kind about saying it,you know, the idea of like, interesting
(09:24):
or, you know, if you're shootingin that you, they address you as something
like, oh, I'm sorry, I was focused onI was focused on what's in the camera.
You know, you can do thateven if you heard it. That's true.
You were focused on that.
The more that you can just deflect it
and move on with it, the easierit is to be done with it.
The other person, they might pushonce or twice pending their personality,
(09:47):
but if you deflect it once or twice,they're going to understand
real quickthat you're not feeding into it.
And you are.
You're going to be kind ofout of the out of the water,
if you will, as to where like,
they'll understandthey're not getting what they want
from you, so they're not goingto continue to try. Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean that specific situations, it'spretty much a no brainer.
(10:09):
I think most of us would, would knowjust to keep our mouths shut.
But, you know,
sometimes you get caught up in the momentand you're like, wait, what?
H it's easy to get caught up and doso just really guard against that.
You know, overhearing conversations andand gossip and whatnot.
Yeah. Craig, you know,let me ask you a question about this.
(10:30):
Will take we'll pivot on this topic. Yeah.
The the the person in the topica little bit.
And I think it's I think most of us outthere, most of our listeners are okay.
Yeah.I'm not really going to feed into it.
Maybe just it's a good to analyze itone more time.
Like, am I feeding into it?
I think it's always good to askthat question, but let's go one more step.
(10:52):
That is going to be more on the homefront of all of you out there.
Let's bring this inside your businessso not your clients,
but let's bring this inside your businessand your employees, your contractors,
vendors, people that are close to you,that you work with every day.
You know, how does this
how does this change when you take itinto that environment? Craig,
(11:15):
I think from a
leadership perspective,you know, speaking to other owners,
you're going to hear a lot of thingsfrom employees or through,
you know,through the grapevine of, of your staff.
And there's a lot of,
a lot of trust that is built
if, you know,if an employee confides something in you,
(11:36):
I Todd, I think you're probably better,
better suited to,
to kind of address this and situationsyou've dealt with with employees
and things that you hear around the officeand how you guard that information,
you know, with your leadership teamor just keeping it to yourself,
I'm going to flip it back to you.
But I mean,what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, along the same lines, Craig. So I,
(12:00):
I always
have to remind myself and, and remind,you know, you would need to remind
yourself as the owner that you knoweverything
about your business.
And don't put that responsibilityon everyone.
You should be very careful withinformation that you have in your head.
You should respect that.
(12:22):
You know,sometimes as owners, we want to feel,
try and think of how to phrase this.
Craig.
We feel a bit out on it,like left out on an island.
It's kind of.
It's lonely. It's lonely as the owner.
Yeah, because there's some thingsthat you have to deal with and some things
that, you know, thatmaybe nobody in your company knows.
(12:45):
And that can be heavy.
That can be difficult.
I can think of quite a few situationswhere that was the case.
Now. Also, I can think of situationsas we grew over the years
and as I empoweredmore people at my company, that I was able
to give that information to thembecause they were set up
to be ableto do something with that information.
(13:09):
So just a couple of examplesthat, you know, off the top of my head
that I can think about over the years,
as you hire employees and
especiallyif you're all in the same building,
which I know isn't as common nowadays.
Craig.
But for us at Wow,we sometimes here in the building,
(13:30):
we had 15 people that showed up every day.
This is years ago.
But people talk whether it's an emailor slack conversations,
private emails, their own cell phone.
Hey, and don't be naive to think
that your staff's not talking,that there's not chatter
(13:51):
outside of company communication.
I think I made that mistake a couple timesin my life, and I assume the good
because I, I think it's a admirable thingto assume good in people,
but I was kind of blind to some chatterthat was happening.
So some things I've learned over the yearsabout that is one, don't assume it.
(14:13):
Two, you need to really hithit it head on if it gets back to you.
Yeah.
These are this goes back to a podcastwe did it was maybe a year ago Craig.
But I really love the series.
It talked about critical communicationand confrontational communication.
Yep yep.
And how we deal with it.
So if you're in a meeting and something
(14:35):
gets back to you from an employee,
one everybody probably knows about it,
I. I've learned that as I get
chatter back to me, I'mthe last one to know about it.
Say just because naturally the chatter,it's like,
let's not go tell the bossthe chatter about what's going on.
(14:59):
So one probably everybody knows about it.
So that's why it's more important toto be proactive with what you do about it.
Now just going back to that podcastand if you want to search, it was
I think it was calledcritical Communication.
I think we actually didtwo parts on that. Craig.
Yeah, the the first thing is, is
(15:19):
I never like to hold those conversationsseparately.
If there is hearsay, if there is gossip,
I like to put two adults in the same room,and I like to talk through it.
And I you'll need to be the mediator.
And that's somethingthat you get better at doing.
But you just ask questions, don'ttake sides, bring up points and try to get
(15:42):
everybody to open up their thinkingand actually understand the other party.
So that is the first thingthat I would do.
And I'm telling you what, the first timeI did it, I had a coach recommended to me.
I was like, this is what I heard.
It was like, okay,this is what you need to do.
I'm like,
I got to put both of these people in thesame room, and I have to be in there with,
like, that is not high on my list of,
(16:04):
like, desires to do on a Tuesday.
Right.
Or a Wednesday.
All right.
Yeah.
or any day of the week.
Agreed.
But I did it,and it was awkward at some points,
but I got resolve and we gotit was a perfect thing.
(16:25):
You're never gonna work out.
Walk out of there. Perfect.
But we got somewhere with it.
And don't just don't be the messengerat your company.
Please don't.
What do they sayabout shooting the messenger?
Like you know
you don't want to be the in between.
You don't want to sit with awith employee A
and hear gossip about employee B,
and then go sit with employee Bbecause they're going to have their side.
(16:48):
And then you don't know how to respondbecause you weren't there.
So just put both employees into thesame room and ask questions and ask how?
What did you think about that?
Okay. Is,is this the feelings that you had?
Is that what you said?
Could that be have takena little bit differently?
Could you see how this person could assumethat that's what you meant?
(17:14):
Yeah.
Ask some of those questionsand get to the bottom of it.
So that's what I've learned to dowhen I hear chatter.
And and then when you hit it headon, you are really stopping that chatter.
And then those mediator conversations,you can set those expectations.
Hey, thank you so much, both of you,for having this open conversation.
(17:36):
I know it's not easy.
I really appreciate what you sharedtoday, the feelings,
the thoughts that you shared.
One thing that I just want to stategoing forward is I want this to be done.
I don't want thisto go outside of this room.
We have resolve.
This is our action plan A, B, and Cif you have an action plan
and I expect this to be done,I don't expect you to talk to
(17:58):
other employees about this.
It's only going to restartthis whole cycle of chit chat.
And we can see how that's not productivefor anyone,
not only in the company,but for our personal lives as well.
So I would say that,and then I would just follow that
same thing upwith an email to both of them.
(18:21):
You need to document it,because what's going to happen
if if something comes back to you,they're going to say, you never said that.
You never told us not to tell anyone else.
You say, well, I sent you an emailon May 29th and, can you see
in my bullet points here that I asked younot to say anything to anyone else? So,
yeah, particularly if
(18:41):
they're on staff and not a contractor.
Yeah. Because you,
you might have to follow up with,unfortunately with discipline,
you know, some sort of staff disciplineif things are met because that's
that kind of situation turn a workculture toxic just in a heartbeat.
Yeah. And that will affect morale.
(19:03):
And so just yeah, leading with integrityand ethics and,
and mediation.
Good, good. Good idea.
Yeah I remember,I remember years where it went toxic and
and and it was bad
and my first instinct wasn't to hit ithead on.
(19:24):
My first instinct was to hopethat it would change.
And I,
there's a lot of sayings
about hope, and,you can you insert your favorite one?
But it didn’t happen and it became worse.
And like, just crazy things.
And like,we had one of our past billing people,
(19:47):
positions like, share what everyone made,
like, just, yeah, crazy things
like sharing salaries of everyoneand wow, it's.
And I actually CraigI didn't get that information.
It was like four years later,this person had transitioned.
Everybody in the company knew it.
This knew that this had happened.
(20:07):
And the crazy thing was it actually tookplace at a company sponsored event.
We paid for bowling one night.
I couldn't make it.
And we all some of the team went bowling,showed up.
This individual was there was like, oh,
this person makes this, this person makesthis is like had what everybody made.
For those of youlistening like my face is just like, what?
What? Yeah, yeah.
(20:30):
Wow. And I didn't I was told
by one of my leaders 4 or 5 years later,I was like, wait a minute.
Hey, what are you.
What happened?
And my immediate response is, why?
Why are you telling me this now? Now?
Yeah. Why?
Why did you not tell this to meright after it happened?
(20:52):
And so I made adjustments with that.
And, you know, we usewe use a phrase around here that you need
to be generous with your information.
It's okay to be a little bit upsetthat an employee
isn't generous with your information,especially a leader of your company.
This is someone that I leaned on.
So don't
(21:12):
hope that your culture, you can't hopethat your culture is going to be good.
It's very intentional.
So, you know, maybe this is foranother podcast to talk about how
we built, how you build culture, thingsof how you crumble culture.
But you have to be intentionalto build it.
And that really starts with the idea ofyou need to hold people
(21:32):
to be ethical in your company,and you need to state those things right?
Right.
Okay. Can I shift gears because I yeah.
Craig let’s
Yeah, I think that's good forI have another
just very practical thing out in the field
that I've seen, discussed in the variouslike Facebook groups and things like that.
And, and that's the question of whena realtor asks you to edit something out
(21:56):
or you or things that you know
your local MLS doesn't allow.
Now, Todd,I've seen two different responses to this,
and I very strongly lead.
And, and I'm not going to apologizefor it.
I very stronglylean to one of these two positions.
But the first position and you're going toguess which one I lean towards is
(22:20):
it's not my problem that, you know,
if the if the client says to do it,that's what I need to do.
That's, that's the client's responsibilityto know the rules.
That's that's their problem.
I'm going to do what they asked me to do.
And I'm goingto ask you for your thoughts on this.
The other the other position is,
you know the rules.
(22:40):
You know what's allowedin the editing for your local MLS or board
and what's not, what is allowedand what isn't allowed.
So what how do you respond to that realtor
that asks you to do some sort of editing
that, you know, breaksthe rules of your local MLS?
Yeah, we've had this plenty of timesover the years that, wow.
(23:03):
And what we do, Craig, is
we respond to that clientand we let them know that
this is in violation,that we don't take things
out of photos, that we don't add thingsthat aren't there.
This is the reason why, you know, wedon't want to misrepresent the property.
(23:23):
We just want to protect youand bring this to your attention
that potentially,this could lead to a fine or a lot.
You know, this could lead to problems.
Basically,we don't get to be in the weeds there.
I you always want to spin it
that you're protecting the clientsbecause that's really what you're doing.
You know, actually in this situation,like you're saying no
to potential income because they might payyou for that change.
(23:47):
Oh yeah.
You're saying you're sayingno to that, to help them.
So just make surethat they understand that.
I will tell you though, Craig, is
we do have timeswhere an agent insist on it.
An agent might say, hey, this is the wayI'm going to use the photo.
I understandabout misrepresenting a property.
You know, I take responsibility for it.
(24:07):
And at the end of the day,another saying we use around
Wow is we give the people what they want.
We've said that for many years.
And I love to getyour opinion on this, Craig,
because we haven't we actually didn'tdiscuss this offline. But yeah.
No we haven't. Yeah.
Oh I, I what we're doing is if the agentsays, hey, just give me that thing.
I understand I'm cool with whatever'sgoing to happen, then we do it for him.
(24:32):
Let me let me add a qualifier to this.
Does it does your answer change
if if your company is an affiliate member
of that board.
Because he let me give you my answer in
and I'll tell you which folks this Todd.
(24:53):
No I've actually never discussed this.
So this isthis should play out interesting.
I might get corrected for this.
I don't know, I'm okay with that.
But as an affiliate member of the boardin the market, that that we have
that I take care of, my response is,
hey, this is the rule,
you know, yes, you're the client.
(25:14):
However, we are a paying affiliate memberof the board, and the board knows that.
I know the rules.
So I can't put our company
at, risk of violating those ruleswhen we are actually
a memberof that local realtor board as well.
I don't want to put our business at risk.
So it's not only
(25:34):
wanting to protect the realtor,but I, I have my responsibility,
at least in my mind, as a member of,of the the board that we're,
that we have
that didn't come out right.
Is I have to protect Wow video tours
is our business as well because I don'twant a violation from the board.
Also interesting.
(25:57):
Would youwould you argue it'd be different
if you're not actuallyan affiliate member of the board?
Because not every photographer is.
Craig is thereis there verbiage in the board?
Or if we've been told by the boardthat we it's our responsibility
to limit those type of actions?
Not that I know of.
I would have to dig deeper.
(26:20):
But my my gut reaction,
not knowing that is knowing thatwe are affiliate members and we try to be
a business in good standing,and they know that I know the rules.
I wouldn't want to ruin our reputation.
Again, especially when they know
I've asked very specific questionsand they've provided the rules to me.
(26:42):
And I actually got the comment fromfrom one of the staff members at the board
is we've never had a photographerask us what the rules are.
I'm very impressed by this,and it built a good rapport
at the board, local realtor, board levelthat we're a professional company.
We've done our duediligence of understanding what the rules
are as photographersand visual marketing professionals and
(27:07):
I guess I kind of painted myselfin a corner
from one view of,
okay, we know that he knows the rules,but now if our company breaks those rules,
how does that look to the boardon a professional level?
Yeah, it's a great point.
I think at the end of the day,because these
rules and regulations are pretty muchthe same in the and the US,
(27:29):
but they're a little bit differentbecause every board is a governing body.
They have their own rules.
Two thingsI can think of to take away Craig,
because these are going to be uniqueto your location out there.
One asked the board for their rules.
Craig did it. The ladies like,are you kidding me?
Like, if you want some brownie points,if you want the lady to remember you.
Yeah, like ask her for the rulesand tell her why.
(27:52):
And then you can justsimply ask the question. So
Mr. and Mrs.
Board Member, you know, a,
admin or head of the board,could you tell me
how you feelwould be best for me to respond
if an agent would ask me to remove or addsomething to a photo?
Are there any expectations set by mymy membership with the board? And,
(28:17):
I'm sure they've never been asked that,but it's worth
at least getting that opinion.
Yeah, I mean that there was even a point,
maybe about five years ago,virtual staging was not allowed,
in the market that I was in.
And, so I actually approached the
I approached the board with the questionof that and explaining why
(28:41):
we offered this serviceto other realtors in other markets. And,
so we we talked through it,the board discussed it, and they came
they actually ended up approving virtualstaging with a couple of parameters.
And so, you know,
there was definitely an ethicalwe don't want to misrepresent, okay.
Here's how we get around that.Just put some text on.
(29:02):
Make sure you put text on the photos.
It says virtually staged.
That waythe the potential buyer understands.
So you knowjust talk through those those questions.
Because again, as an industry asas professionals, we do want to do things
with ethics and integrity,not misrepresent properties.
But there's ways to to work aroundthat and work through that.
(29:23):
In a very,
just in a very honest way for sure.
Yeah. Craig.
And saying that, let's,let's look at the idea of just
pivoting a little bit here.
Let's talk about doing the right thing
since and doing the right thing like itis, is a little white lie.
(29:47):
Okay.
You know, no one's going to notice it.
I don't know that it would benefit meand benefit the company.
Benefit the agent.
So it's a little white lie.
Okay. I'm.
I'm pretty black and white on it.
Todd, I just you can't.
(30:08):
Once you start compromising,where does it end?
And the damage
it can do to my personal reputation,
my business reputation,my reputation as a man,
being a man of my word, I.
It might cost me in the shortrun of saying no, I'm.
I'm just I'm not going to do that.
(30:28):
I'm not going to misrepresentthis even in a small way.
To me, it's a black and white.
No, no, don't don't even go there.
You know, but
there's there'sall sorts of justifications
that people can come up with onwhy it's okay.
(30:49):
But I've got to live with myselfat the end of the day,
I agree, I Craig,
I think there's a couple thingscome to my brain immediately.
I think the world will tell you that it'sokay to bend the rules a little bit.
The world will tell you that you have tobend the rules a little bit to get ahead.
But if you want to make a spotfor yourself in this world that you need
(31:10):
to do this, and it's okay to doand everybody does it.
Sorry. Hey. Sorry, y'all. It's not.
That's a lie.
So I'm just starting.
And I say thiswith like from loving my heart.
But that is not true.
That's simply not true.
And I agree with you, Craig 100%.
It's not okayto bend the rules and tell a white lie.
(31:32):
It's importantto always do the right thing.
It's not easy.
Let me give you a quick example of a storyand the impact that it had.
And this is
this is somewhat of a silly example,but I still remember it to this day.
So I had hired my first employee
this is maybe four years into business,3 or 4 years in the business.
And she was an admin for me, Liz.
(31:53):
And she was wonderful.
And she really helped me free up my time.
You know, we talk about admin,nurse and doctor levels of activities
and it allow me to get rid of the lowlevel activities,
focus on the bigger things to grow.
She did that.
She took ownership in the business,pride in it.
(32:15):
And she was fabulous, a hard worker
and we were still working out of my houseat this time.
I had an office out and, you know,just on the side behind the garage area.
I had a room and we worked out of there.
And, so the, the only the bathroomswere both inside the house.
Everything in my house, by the house.
So she'd she'd have to walk inand use the bathroom.
(32:36):
And she came out one or actually,I got back from a shoot
one day from shooting and she was like,oh, I have something to tell you.
Like we went over thethe bullet points of this agent
that this, this is thatthis is what she look like for tomorrow.
She's like, oh, I need to tell you,
I was I used a bathroom in.
After I washed my hands,I was drying my hands on your hand towel,
(32:59):
and I snagged the towel.
And it has this snag,and it's a bit not perfect anymore.
And she used different terms.She's like, I'm really sorry.
I'll be happy to buy you a new one.
And I was like,
okay, a hand towel.
(33:19):
Like it wasn't some fineEgyptian fabric, like,
this was like a $3.99 Coles hand towel.
And it was a small little snag, like,I think
we probably just left alone,or I clipped it like I went.
It like.
This impacted meat such a high level to go
out like you are that honest, like.
(33:41):
Yeah.And nobody would have ever noticed it.
Your respect for her just skyrocket.
didn't it
Yes, it made such an impact.
I mean, that was 20 years ago. Craig.
18, 19 years ago.
It was a long time ago.
I don't remember what I atefor breakfast yesterday,
(34:02):
but I remember that Liz told methat she snagged the hand towel.
Yeah,
and I'm telling you that
if you begin doing that,it will be awkward at first.
But when you go to someoneand if you're honest with them
and you say, hey, I'meven if it's not your fault,
if there's times that you're like, hey,I just didn't realize this.
(34:24):
Like, I'll be happy.
I didn't know that you had thiscome upon you because of something we did.
I'll be happy to pay for.
I'll be happy to be.I'll be happy to make you whole.
Now, the thing
is, Craig, is you have to be preparedto actually do that
there.
There's a difference herebetween saying it
(34:45):
and hoping the person is like,no, it's okay,
and following through to what you said,following and following through
on what you say. Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
I think, you know,there's there's endless debate
and philosophiesof of ethics and integrity.
And I mean, there's entire courses on itand debate over, you know,
(35:05):
what's right, what's wrong.
And ultimately you've got to find.
A foundation for your life
that you, you build off of, ofwhat are my values?
What are my principles?
What am I willing to negotiate?
What am I not willing to negotiate?
What are what are nonstarters you know,what am I committed to?
(35:27):
And you have to answer those big questionsso that you know how to handle
the very specific individual situationsyou might find yourself
in, or things that you hear, thingsthat you're asked to do. And,
if you don't have that, that bedrock
for your life of what are my principles,
(35:48):
I think you just you're in a world of hurt
for your business, for your personal lifeand whatnot on,
caving on thingsthat maybe you shouldn't be caving on.
Integrity in business is critical.
And it might cut to,you know, we're we're discussing this.
This might be a good placeto, to wrap up, but
you might be asked to do somethingthat you're,
(36:11):
you're not in good conscience able to do,and it's going to cost you money.
But what's the
what's the fartherreaching impact of short term loss?
Do you think?
Yeah.
I mean, it could be detrimentalfor your business.
So a simple example that I can think ofover the years that has happened
(36:33):
at Wow is as we were building Spiro,and this is before it was called Spiro.
This is a whole nother system.
But we we did billing in this system,
and there was timeswhere we either billed incorrectly.
Or too much.
Too little, or we didn't bill at all.
And what we had to do.
(36:57):
To know what
we should act, the actions we should take.
We had to go back to our core values.
You mentioned thisat the top of the show, Craig and I.
I can't tell you allhow important it's been
for us to have core valuesat Wow, we've had them for many years.
We speak these, we talk,we onboard people with these.
(37:17):
We let people in our core values.
We had to go back to our core valuesand core value.
Number one isclients are our number one priority.
So what.
And that's a pretty powerfulthat's a that's a heavy core value.
Number one Craig.
Because what it does is when you
don't send an invoice to a client
(37:39):
and say it was six months ago,three months ago,
you have to put yourself in their shoes
and you have to say, if I was the client
and I had this listing six months ago
and it's closed now for four months,I've been paid for it.
I've moved on.
I actually kind of forgot about.
I even had that listing.
(38:01):
How would I feel if I got that invoice?
And and we set at our company, like,
we we'd be prettylike we'd be taken back a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, might be okay with paying it,but probably might lead us to thinking
about finding a different provider.
(38:22):
And I can tell you guys, over the years,
there has been timesthat we wrote off ten, $15,000.
Because we screwed up.
I feel like we screwed up.
Ultimately, does the agent,
does the agent owe us the money?
Yes. With the agent pay, probably.
But I clients are number one priority.
(38:43):
That's a pretty heavy core value.
Number one. And we took care of them.
And I think that's important.
Now one small little point on this.
And this isn't the point of the podcast,but we let them know that that took place.
We let them know the amount,
and we let them knowthat they didn't have to worry about it.
We, you know, so wewe used it to let them know about it.
(39:04):
but we let them know that
there are number one priorityand we don't feel
right about making them pay this billthat's passed to do for this long.
So those are all thingsthat you could decide a different answer,
but it all has a tie backto what you believe in your core
(39:24):
values, your foundation, your beliefs,whatever you want to put, insert their
and you have to let people in your companyknow those as well.
So we have them posted on the wall backhere.
They're on our brochures.They're on our onboarding guides.
Like I feel like most of our employees
at Wow would know.
At least would know two, three, four,maybe all five of the core values.
(39:48):
They definitely knowcore value number one.
And what we tell them isand we're going to train you
to a lot of situations, butwhen you get in a situation that you might
have not been trained in, or maybe we'veencountered for the first time,
we trust you to make a decision.
Go back to your core values.
Go back to our core values. Excuse me.
(40:08):
And if they align with those core values,
we want to empower youto make that decision.
And then let's talk about it afterwards.
If you feel like there's feedbackor something of the sort. So
that's the way we've handled it, Craig.
And they're not easy, I can tell you.
Like I was crying over when we wrote off$14,000, and I knew we did
(40:30):
10,000 a couple years previous,and it was not it was not a great day.
I was, I, I remember I toldI don't know who it was at the time.
I was like,
I wish I just had those dollar billsand we could have had a campfire
with $14,000 $1 bill,so it would have been a lot more fun.
Yeah, yeah, it
(40:51):
when I think about it,if I'm in a situation
and I and I do the right thingand it cost me in the moment.
I'm trying to be an optimist here.
I think that when you demonstratethat honesty and integrity
and that level of ethics to your client,say it's
a client situation, I would hope.
(41:13):
I would hope that they would respect me
for making the right decision,doing the right thing
and building that trust level,because trust takes a while to build.
Right.
But it can be destroyedin, you know, just a blink of an eye. Yes.
But building that trust, which leadsto a long term let's let's just spoil it.
I hate to do this, but let's boil it downto dollars and cents,
(41:36):
making the tough call in the momentof doing the right thing
and it costing me in the short term.
But developing the relationship of trustand a long term
business contract,or a relationship with them,
that ultimately will makeme a whole lot more money
just because I made the right call.
That cost me in the moment.
(41:56):
But long term is is much,much more profitable.
And ultimatelyit's not even about the dollars and cents.
But when you put your head on the pillowat night,
you can rest with a clear consciencethat you know you did the right thing.
And I thinkif you want peace in your life,
just do the right thing.
(42:17):
Agree a 100% Craig.
Well said.
It's not easy though,but it it needs to be done.
Yep, yep I mean there'sthere's all sorts of situations
we could talk through and,you know, debate and whatnot.
But we wanted to do this episodejust to kind of recenter
and think about,you know, situations that we face.
And how do you handle that?
You know,
(42:38):
building that foundation of whatyour principles are, what your values are.
And it might be different.
We have different faith backgrounds.
We have different upbringings.
But find, you know, for for Todd, nine,you know, we're we're Christians
where we base our, our worldviewon the Bible, what we call the Bible.
And, you know, the, the Ten Commandments.
(43:00):
We've all heard those things, you know,
but building,having that as a foundation to build from
and then make decisions based on of whataligns with what my values and principles
are as a human being, as a man, as a womanin running a business.
So I would encourage you
go back to the basics, figure outwhat are my principles
and values and how am I going to livemy life and run my business.
(43:22):
And I it's going to pay huge dividendsfor you in multiple ways.
Yeah.
It's challenging.
Hey, if you have a situation post it below,let us know.
So you know, if you cried over$14,000 $1 bills, you and I, what?
We'll, we'll get lunch in Vegasand we'll cry together.
(43:42):
So, hey, let's share this.
That's the beautiful thing about thiscommunity is we are a community.
Hey, I'm happy that you guys laughat me, cry with me.
Whatever it is, let's do ittogether. Participate in.
And if you have a comment below,put it down there.
We'd love to interact and communicatewith you.
And, let's all share in this together.
You've said it before, Todd.
Learn from our mistakes.
(44:04):
Yes, learn from our mistakes.
But, yeah, we.
Yeah. We'd love your comments.
Make sure you leave a likeif you found value in this.
And feel free to share it.
And, those of you that are newsubscribers, we really appreciate it.
We hope this, this podcast is,is a value to you and your business
and that you're able to build a stronga strong business because of it.
(44:25):
Part of whatwe're trying to pass on to you.
All right.
That's good to wrap itI think I think we're good this week.
Yeah, I think so.
Hey, let's just give him the email addressin case email is easier.
hello@spiro.media.
Send us an email.Got a show idea question.
We would love to cover it on here.
Just send us an email.
hello@spiro.media.
(44:46):
All right June is rolling strong.
Stay busy,
but make sure you also take some timeto be thankful
for the blessings in your life.And be sure to take a breath.
You guys have a great week.
Thank you for joining usfor the Spiro Podcast,
managing your Real estate, photographyand videography business.
This is a production of Spiroand Wow video tours.
(45:08):
You can find out more about Spirois Real Estate Media Business management
software at our website, Spiro.media
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