August 13, 2025 • 41 mins
What would you do, or do differently if you had to start your business over today? Would you do the same initial setup of your business? Would your business development effort (sales) look the same? Would you hire employees or contractors the same way or in the same order? What would you do the same, and what would you do differently? Listen in to think through what you would do or not do, and what Todd and Craig may do differently or the same.
Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 Episode Open
04:37 Spiro Updates
05:32 Spiro Sync Event
06:24 Industry Conferences
08:05 If You Had to Start Over
39:45 Episode Wrap-up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
So there's things that you can doto be financially responsible,
but the idea of trying to
put a crimp in your business
by not having somethingthat your business really needs to grow,
can be a reason why you don't succeed.
(00:35):
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform is designedto help you manage your day to day
real estate media business,
help it to be successfuland help it to grow ultimately.
I'm Craig Magrum.Welcome back to another week.
If this is, a return visit for you,
(00:56):
if you're a first timelistener or watcher, watcher viewer.
How about viewer? Viewer is a better word.
We welcome you.
We're kind of laid back hereon this video podcast.
We just like to have some funtalk business.
And, we're,
you know, we're just a couple of guysin the cornfields of northwest Ohio.
Speaking of a couple of guys,my partner in crime, our fearless
(01:16):
leader, Spirofounder and owner, Todd Kivimaki
Welcome back, Todd,
it's great to be here.
It's quite an introduction.
I'm not that important, y'all, but,
what it is,
I'll come up with a longer list of titlesfor you next week.
Chief corn shocker.
All right.
But it's great to be here with you guys.
(01:39):
This is, Yeah,I know that was not sure what to do.
Craig.Just jumping in the more just nonsense.
Have you seen the seriesthe House of David?
I've watched the first,I think, two episodes.
But I have not gone beyond that.
Okay, so the the chosen,
(01:59):
the chosen.
Yeah. That I got into.
Yeah. So chosen is great.
Yeah, yeah.
So my wife and I,I've been watching the House of David.
So. Okay.
So for those of youthat this is the biblical series,
David and Goliath, that David. Okay.
And it's an incredible story. Like. And
(02:20):
like the House of
David, the production isis not all biblical.
There's some interpretation in there.
But you're like,it just is a really neat way to look at.
It's a big graphic, honestly.
I mean,it was kind of a gory time back then.
But anyways, long story short, Craig,I, I had a dream two nights ago
that I was literally roamingthrough the wilderness
(02:42):
like, and I was in like,I honestly like we had watched
like 2 or 3 episodes when I had,we were like, binged it one night
and I don't ever remember a dream,but literally,
like I was sleeping in and,you know, in the dirt.
And we were, we were like, running.
I don't remember, David,but it's just like.
Like I woke up and I was like, oh, no,we're like, we're on the run from Saul.
(03:04):
Anyways, long story short, I,I remember that story.
I remember that dream.
So if y'all are looking at yeah, Houseof David, it's on him.
Okay.
I was curiousif this was tying into our episode.
No, it's not,
I just, I, I thought I'd shareif you are looking for something to watch.
Chosen is fabulous as well.
But anyways, that's my tangent for today.
I mean, I have I have a reminder to dreamin like ten years and like it was,
(03:28):
you know, that's.
But my wife Gail and I, we've talked aboutthat.
Are we?
It feels like we hardly ever dream.
But I hear everybody dreams.
It's just whether you remember the dreamor not and what state
or stage of sleepyou're in when you wake up.
Influences whether you're ableto remember the dream or not.
Yeah.
(03:48):
I mean, it wasn't a very glamorous spot.
Like, maybe I could have woken upwhen he was like the king.
Or maybe when he swung the rockat Goliath.
But, I mean, I was sleeping in the dirt.
Yeah. I was like, oh, crap,I gotta go. Yeah. I was like, I gotta go.
And we were off to the next spot.
So were you late for work that morning?
Maybe I can't remember.
Yeah. Anyway.
Okay. Well welcome back guys.
(04:10):
We we've got kind of a different,
a different episode today.
That should be kind of fun.
It's going to be kind of freeform,
open discussion.
It's going to get me thinking, Tod,because the question is a good one.
And, what I would do today is would
might be different than what I didwhen I first started my business.
(04:33):
There's a little teaser for you.
But before we dive into all of that,let's, let's talk about Spiro updates.
What's going on with the software?
It's going to be real quick.
I wrote all of my notes down here.
Just stay with me for 60 more seconds.
I'm going to give you a lotof information, more than just updates.
So updates were probably the end ofSeptember is what the update looks like.
(04:56):
The big one is Titus.
If you don't know what it is,go search him.
They are a Payette closing
option for agents.
It's going to be fabulous.
Love these guys.
Great team Nick and the team.
Also.
The thing they're going to do
is they're going to revampand offer credit card processing.
So you'll sign up.
Not only will your agents be able
to finance your media,which means they spend more
(05:19):
and they pay it close,
but then you'll be able to accept creditcards as well when they don't finance it.
And we're going to save you moneyon the right.
There's some other goodies as well.
Oh, now some.
As we get closer to it.
There are some cool things coming withthat integration one of them mentioned.
So it's that last week at the veryend of the podcast and you guys caught it.
So thank you for listening to me.
(05:41):
Spiro sync it's our event.
We're going to do it in January in OhioJanuary 22nd, 23rd.
You'll fly into Dayton, Ohio. Okay.
This is an hourand a half from our cornfield.
But pencil if you're interested,send me a note.
Pink bubble chat. Hello@spiro.media.
Pencil it down if you're interested.
You're not going to want to missit. Spiro.
(06:03):
Team's going to be there.My Wow team is going to be in there.
This is going to be a fabulous eventnot only for you, but this is a
great thing to bring your head adminto bring some of your team.
We're going to train and and just coach
to all different aspects of your company.
Okay.
January 22nd 23rd 2026
last Vegas conference to REPP conferenceNovember 7th and 8th.
(06:27):
Put it down. Tickets are going fast.
They sold out the MVP.
You should be there.
Come visit us.
So I heard from a little birdie todaythat,
I don't know if I should even say it now.
Probably not.
I think Craig, or you might be there.
you're the boss.
(06:47):
I'll be there if you tell me to be there.
I'll be there.
Although you told me to talk to my wife.
Yeah, you got to talk to your wife.
Okay, so if you're listening to this,just forget it.
But Craig might be there.
Come meet us. Come hang outlike it's a time.
So, Craig,
I remember a few years agowhen you and I went
to the first conferenceand we went to PMRE.
That's another great option for you.
(07:08):
I didn't mentionthat search PMRE conference.
And the
first year we went is about like,what is this thing is overwhelming.
We're intimidating like Spiro was.
Nobody knew anything about it.
No. Had no clue who we were.
But it was just incredible timeto connect people who are like us
that drive aroundwith your wife and family.
Like I shot that house.
(07:28):
Oh, this one, that house wasn't ready.
So come connect with us. Find an event.
Come to all of them.
You have the REPP conference November7th and eighth.
PMRE is a couple weeks later.
And then you have the Spiro sync.
January 22nd, 23rd.
You know, for me, balmy warmOhio, west central Ohio in January.
(07:49):
It's going to beyou have a snowman build off.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Good times.Excellent. Hope to see you guys.
It one or all three of those events.
Yeah. Come see us. It'll be fun.
Awesome.
All right, Craig, this is a fun one today.
It is. It has me thinking.
(08:09):
So Todd asked the question.
Well, Todd,
I'll let you introduce the questionin the yes topic of the podcast today.
Yeah.
So what if what if you had to start overtomorrow,
start the business over tomorrow?
Yes. You wake up life over tomorrow.
That's a very deep question.
That is a very if you had to restart yourif you
(08:32):
if your business was nothing what it wasand you had to restart tomorrow,
what would you do? You know this idea of.
So I started mine 20 almost 23 years ago
and it was different,a different world, different market.
And we've learned a lot over these years.
But I've got a pretty good idea,as if I had, you know, if we weren't
(08:52):
doing the 14,000 jobs a year and I,we were zero zero job, zero clients,
what would I do to get back to building
a business again?
I'm just thinking about, yeah,
I started my business in 2017.
And, at that time
there were a couple of individualphotographers doing real estate,
(09:14):
but there were no, I would say, no reallike companies doing real estate media.
It was pretty much just photosthat people were doing around here.
So my approach was photos
and video and drone,
and that was kind of new in my marketto bring all 3 in 1 appointment,
that there was nobody elsereally doing that today.
(09:38):
However, there's, three,
I believe, three larger companiesin our market doing what we do now.
So, yeah, it's it's an entirely differentatmosphere.
And, and, playing field.
Well, what I do different and that's,
that's a tough question.
(09:58):
Well Craig. Yeah let's let's go back.
So let's maybe establishwhat we did back then.
And then we can look at do those tactics.
How have we do we do those anymore.
Have we revamped that process.
So for let's stick with 2017with your journey.
And you know, we've talked about thisa little bit, but this idea that you had,
(10:21):
you saw that there was an opportunity and,
you know,what were some of the initial things
that you did to just let people knowyou exist?
Well, I had the advantagethat a former pastor of mine
had gone full time into real estate,and he was the first one.
I asked, here'swhere the coffee meeting started.
I asked him to coffee,
(10:43):
and sat down and
just shared with himwhere I was at in my career.
I was coming out of workingin the nonprofit world, but told him
this ideaI had for doing real estate media,
for realtors and bringing, like I said,bringing photos, video tours and drone
media into one appointment and reallyhelping realtors step up their game.
(11:04):
In terms of marketing homes,I don't know if I had thought
of building their brand as a realtoror not at that point,
and I had before that
coffee meeting, I did two free shoots
for two different realtorsthat I had gotten to agree to.
Let me come in and shoot.
The photos forand at that point it was photos only
(11:26):
showed him those photos.
His eyes got super big. He's like, Craig,these are fantastic.
I'm using my cell phoneto do my real estate photos right now.
Now, I had the advantagethat I had the friendship with him,
and we had built trust and friendshipover a couple of years
that out of his generosity and
liking what he saw,
he gave me a 12 shoot contract on the spotto shoot his next 12 listings.
(11:50):
That allowed me to immediatelyupgrade my camera.
My camera at the time, if you remember,
these guys was a canon 40D.
Yeah,
my cell phonetakes high resolution pictures,
and they kept the camerassitting over here on my on my on my shelf.
I'll never get rid of itbecause that was my first dSLR camera.
What lens?
What lens was it, Craig?
(12:11):
You remember?
So that's a crop sensor.
It's a crop sensor.
We'll say 18 kit lens. 18.
So the kit lens 18 to 35, I think. Yeah.
Kit lens.
So you were nowhere near wideenough, right?
No no no no.
The noise the noise level was terriblebecause my ISO was cranked.
The first house I shot was really dark.
(12:32):
I mean, it was terrible.
It's absolutely terriblehow he thought that.
Those were great pictures.
I don't know,but evidently his cell phone was worse.
But, Yeah, that's that's how I started.
And he, he started
getting other realtorsasking him who was doing his pictures.
(12:52):
And so he started spreading my name.
And that's how my business startedgrowing.
Very, very simple.
I mean, it was nothing,nothing genius level
in terms of a business strategyor anything.
Yeah.
And and so I think thewe have some similar
we have a lot of similaritiesof how we started.
(13:12):
Craig, because I when I started,I was, I was in college at the time
and I happened to be going my,my parents were buying and selling a home.
And so I had a connection to that realtorthat happened to be the largest realtor
in town.
And with a small town, but she still wasdoing a lot of a lot of shoots.
And, and I had the luxurythat there was nothing there.
(13:34):
Nobody was taking photos.
Nobody was taking video,
nothing.
Now, there might have been a
I know there's been some companies
around longer than us,so clearly it was out there.
I'm not saying I invented the field,but there was nothing in our market.
It was very customary that agentswould take their camera and there was no
there's no cell phone camerasat the time that just didn't exist.
(13:57):
Cell phones were barely there.
You would take your Sony camerathat had a 3.5in floppy insert.
You'd put the floppy drive into the can't.
Yes. Navigate. Yes.
And you would take very poor pictures andyou would take probably 6 or 8 of them.
And they would be posted online,probably a resolution of 320 by 160.
(14:20):
And they would not click the enlarge.
Nothing like that.
And that's all there was meand I was doing that.
I was like, well, this is this is dumb.
Like, why, why is this like,why do I have to drive the houses
to see what it's like?
So I start off with doing video.
And again, if you've heard metell this story like it's absolutely a
(14:43):
ridiculously dumb
idea because you couldn't even.
I want to put video on the internet
when you couldn't even play it.
Dial up.
Oh, the days of dial up.
It's like I have this golf ball thatI want to get through a garden hose like
anyways.
So some of,some of you will never know the pain.
(15:05):
Yeah, you never will. You.
You won't know that modemconnecting sound right?
So long story short, I use a connectionI had and then ask for more connections.
I had no cluewhat I was doing at the time.
I didn't know I was asking for a referral.
I didn't know that
our number one core value would turn intoclients are our number one priority.
(15:26):
I just wanted her name was Bobby.
I wanted her to be happybecause I wanted her to buy from me.
Yeah. And then when she
liked what I did and I,
I can't remember, I probably shot 1or 2 for free for I have no clue.
I asked if she could spread my nameto people in the office, and then I asked.
(15:47):
I had no clue what an office meeting was.
She was like, hey, do you want to come inand show the video in the office?
I was like, that'd be great. What?
What is this thing you're talking about?
And just stumbling my waythrough a lot of it
to just really
I wanted to talk to more peopleand I wanted to take care of them.
So I think we started offin a very similar way.
(16:09):
Craig.
Now we had the luxury.
I had no competition.
You had minimal competitionand you had a, you know,
a USP of putting all those productstogether.
Now the landscape has changed a little bit
and I actually
it's not good or bad to me, of course.
(16:30):
Would you like to get in in ground level
and do we have some relationships thatwe've taken care of for a very long time?
Well, yes we do,but at the end of the day,
we still have to take care of themand we still have to earn that business.
So, you know, like Craig mentioned,the top of the podcast of the segment,
you know, he's got competitionin his market.
Let you guys know we're still overshootingour goals for his market.
(16:52):
We're still as a company
at Wow we're still beating the goalsthat we have set for this year.
So this is doable.
If you're getting into real estate mediaright now and you're going,
oh my goodness, I have all thiscompetition, you're it's okay.
You can find little
wedges where you can get inand you can take compet.
(17:13):
You can take business awayfrom competition.
So I think at its corewe always mentioned this I think Craig
would you still try to sellbased on relationship selling.
Oh yeah.
That I mean that's how I'm wired anyway.
And so for me it comes naturally.
Yeah.
It has to be relationship based.
(17:35):
I mean thatthat's the whole real estate transaction.
Methodology.
I can't find the right word for it,but it's it's I watched the realtors
interact with the sellers,and that's what they're doing.
They're building relationshipswith their sellers.
I hear them talking about their familiesand what's going on with mom and dad
and, you know, health issues and the move.
(17:56):
And it's it's all relationship based.
So if you don't have that,
natural bent,it might be a little bit more challenging.
But those are skills that you can develop.
There's so many great leadershipcourses out there and, you know, the book
I think is Dale Carnegie, you know,How to win Friends and Influence people.
Yeah. Great, great classic book, you know.
(18:18):
But yeah.
How how can you build strong relationshipswith the people that you're serving?
Yeah.
So let's let's get really tactical here,okay.
Tomorrow you wake up, you have no business
what is going to bethe first thing you do.
(18:39):
Do I have all the gear or not?
Okay. This is this is great.
So let's take a pivot here.
So yeah I think thisI wanted to talk about this, this idea of
building a
business defensively versus offensively.
So I get a lot of you ask me likehey I have a I have a job right now
or I don't have this thingor there's some,
(19:01):
object in your way.
There's a gap that you have to get over.
And I think over the course of the years,I played too much defense
and business, and I wishI would have played more offense.
Okay. Explain that. So,what do you mean? Yeah.
Let me, let me let me break that down.
How it relates to the idea and equipment.
So first off I would go all in
(19:22):
I if this is somethingI think there's a great opportunity
to growI would go all in with this idea. I,
I don't think you can
ramp as quick as you're going to want toif you don't go all in.
Now, can you build a successful businessand have one foot
(19:42):
in a job and one footgetting into building your business?
You can.
But let's look at this from like a SiliconValley type of investment.
Angel investment, an investor type of
situationthat something that I don't really know.
I bootstrapped all of the businessesthat we do.
Craig, you bootstrappedand I think there's something
(20:04):
that there's some gritto bootstrapping your business.
At the same time,you can't suffocate your business
because of bootstrapping it.
Okay.
So there is a reason why, when companieswant to grow to be a hundred,
500 million, $10 billion company,they have this idea.
(20:27):
They see there's leverage in the marketand they go and they get funding
because they need piecesthat help them grow to that.
I was going to say that that is one thingI would do differently.
If you remember, Todd,when we met in a coffee shop.
I'm not even that big of a coffee drinker,to be honest,
but everything would, Craig Magrum,come into a coffee shop and you you.
(20:50):
Sounds like an event. March.
Anyway, if you remember our conversation,
part of itwas, was, my hesitancy to spend money
and to to incur a little bit of debtto start,
to start my businessor actually to be able to scale it.
We were talking about using the before
(21:12):
it was called Spiro, the Spiro software,and me investing in that.
And at first I justI was really hesitant to do that.
I'm very fiscally conservative.
I well, other than when it comesto hobbies, as we mentioned last week,
which I'm working on.
But anyway,
I, I didn't want to spend the money
for gear for systems because I was afraid
(21:35):
it was based out of fear,because I had a financial insecurity.
I worked in nonprofits my whole life,so I never was making a ton of money.
You don't work in nonprofitsto make a ton of money.
You do itbecause you want to serve people. Right?
So I, I the first part of my career,I was very, very conservative fiscally.
I pinched pennies.
(21:55):
So I didn't want to spend money tostart this business because I was scared,
becauseI was coming from a viewpoint of lack.
Right.
My first major expenditure,which I don't remember
how long after I started my businessit took me to get to this point,
but I bought my first droneand it was a huge.
It was a Phantom three,if that tells you where I started.
(22:19):
Oh, we're going back here.
Phantom three and I was scared
to death to make that investment.
I had to look at it as an investmentin the future of my business,
because that was a huge chunk of moneyto me.
A huge chunk of money.
After I started booking jobsthat I was able to tell people
(22:40):
I can provide drone photos and video,and they started ordering it.
I think I paid thatdrone off in ten jobs like
it was ablink of an eye and my drone was paid for.
And it dawned on me, Craig, you dummy,
you have to spend money to make money.
But I was coming from a viewpoint of lackand fear,
(23:02):
and I think that's what I would dodifferently today.
I've now seen how, yeah,if you invest in the business
and you have the plan and you,you work hard, there's still a grind.
You're going to make that money backfairly quickly.
Yeah.
So that's that's one thing
I would do differently todayif I had to start over, spend the money.
(23:23):
Yeah I'm a firm believer in that I think,I think
sometimes as I look backlike I took it too seriously.
Like I almost had this ideathat there was no option of failure.
And and it
crippled me a little bit at timesor I moved too slow because I was like,
oh I can't like, oh messing with thator raising prices or hiring someone,
(23:47):
you know, figuring out payroll like,it just
I hesitated because it felt scary,
because I had this like mentalitythat the business could not fail.
Yeah.
I mean, just going back to the very earlydays, like in 2004 when I started,
(24:08):
you know, I was 21 years old.
Okay,
21 years old, 21 years old. Sorry.
I had to do some math in my head.I was 21.
I should have been thinking like,let me fail 30 times before.
I'm 25 now
because at 25,what's the big deal if you have nothing,
(24:29):
you're you're just, you know,
and no offense, any other 25 yearolds out there, but like,
how many 25 year olds out there like,can't take a risk that they come back
from 35, 45, 55?
If you're gonna work 20 more years at 55,you have to,
you know, if you're going to worktill 75, from 50, that's 20 years.
(24:52):
You can come back from some things.
Now each time
you could only come back from so far.
But at 25, 35, 45 was like,let's take some chances here.
You've got time.
Yes, you've got, you have.
Yeah.
You know,one thing that a coach told me wants is,
he had this analogy ofand I might mess it up a bit,
(25:13):
but when you are young,you will trade all of your time for money.
But when you're old, you will trade.
Trade all of your money for time. Oh,
and I took that money way too
seriously when I was young.
(25:33):
And there's nothing wrongwith being financially responsible.
Like Craig mentioned, he's.
I forget the term used, but I call itfinancially responsible
I drive a 2017 year old car
or a car from 2017.
I paid for it.
I don't own anything of itand I'm happy driving it.
(25:56):
Could I drive a nicer car?
Yes, I could, and do I love cars,I do love cars and I look at I'm like, oh,
that'd be nice, but it's like 80 grand, 60or even 50 grand,
you know, like financially responsible.
I all the money I took out of colleagues
that I made, I paid off my student loansas quickly as I could.
That interest drove me nuts.
(26:16):
We took out a 15 year loan for our house.
So there's things that you can doto be financially responsible,
but the idea of trying to
put a crimp in your business
by not having somethingthat your business really needs to grow,
can be a reason why you don't succeed.
(26:37):
Okay.
So yeah, yeah.
Again,thinking about the conditions back in 2017
versus today, you know, and havingmajor competitors in the market,
if I don't have those servicesto be able to provide
new clients that the competitor does.
Yeah.
How am I ever goingto get this business off the ground?
And and I realize that we're saying to you
(26:59):
all like some things that just don't seempossible at this point,
you know, hey, I'm a teacher and I'mdoing this in the summers, and then I have
a little bit of night time after school,
like, how can I make this work?
You know,
I realize you're not getting paid,you know, thank goodness for our teachers.
I know you all don't get paida lot of money.
You might not have the savings,
(27:20):
but that isthat's the thing about entrepreneurship is
when you have those gaps, you've got to gofind a way who can help you get there.
Do you have someone that can loan youthe money? Can you go to a bank?
Are you going to put her on credit cards?
These are some scary things.
But to go all in theidea of burning the ships,
like.
(27:40):
That'swhy, you know, when Cortez got here, it's
like we're going to burn these darn thingsbecause we're not going back.
We're going to figure it out.
Sometimes you just need to do thatto help you push through it.
So if I was starting over tomorrow, Craig,
I would one
I would put thethe systems in place that I need.
(28:02):
Okay. I know the Spiro podcast.
I would definitely do SpiroI'm not just advertising Spiro,
I would I would get a phone line.
Okay.
I have together Google Voice for waytoo many years because it was free.
Okay? I would pay for a phone line.
I would have what I would need there.
I would make sure I had the equipment,all the services that I need to do now.
(28:23):
I would start off tomorrow and
I would do.
I would be a one man bandfor a short amount of time,
but I would very quickly
look at who I knew in the industryand then try to go meet anyone
I could, and I wouldpersonally do everything for them.
(28:44):
So I would do all the shooting,I would outsource all of my editing.
I would make sure my systems are okay,and then I would quickly
get into hiring a VA.
VA's or something that
we never I mean, it was 10 or 10,
12 years before the idea of hiring a VAeven come out came around.
(29:04):
I think when I started mine,I didn't even know what a VA was.
But let me ask you about that, Todd.
So if a VA were to say the first employee
you were to hire,what tasks would you
Would you assign to them, would you trainthem on to help you grow your business.
Yeah.
Great question.
So what I talk a lot about time tracking.
(29:27):
I just got done with a study for myself.
I'm analyzing it.
But, there's a admin nursedoctor level of activities.
Right.We talked about a few weeks ago. Yeah.
So I would give them all the admin level.
So this is anything in those systems
that is not client talking to clients,building relationships with clients.
I would keep all of that for myself.
(29:49):
And I would want to buildthose relationships myself.
I want to have every conversation.
But anything that has to dowith quality control, expediting,
anything that has a email coming backlike, can you brighten this photo?
Can you change this title on a video?
I would have processes and proceduresof how the VA would facilitate
that through the editing team.
(30:11):
All of those items I would not like.
If I'm going to wake up in the morning,I'm either shooting
or building relationships.
At this point, that's the only thingI'm doing, nothing else.
And if I have to take a phone callwhile I'm driving from A to B
okay.
Great systems in place.
You're out shooting,you're establishing relationships.
(30:32):
Things are starting to come.
Say you're getting to the pointof doing 5 to 10 shoots a week.
What's next? And building from scratch.
Yeah.
So you've got a little bit of incomerevenue coming in.
And this is where it'sgoing to feel scary.
Because what I would do is I would beginlooking for my next photographer
(30:54):
or for my first photographer,excuse me, at 5 to 10 shoots a week,
I would if I started tomorrow, I would,I really would because the thing is, is
5 to 10 is going to go to 20to 30 very quickly because you're going
to allocate the time for yourselfto continue to build relationships.
that I didn't I didn't think about that.
(31:15):
But here's why.
That is a very wise move, Todd.
To this day in the market that I serve,where I'm
both shooting and doing businessdevelopment, I am still fighting.
I am still fighting the battleof getting clients to trust
someone other than me, shooting for themlike that, that's still something I'm.
(31:35):
I have a challenge with,
because I've built these long termrelationships that I've been doing the
shooting from day one, and they don't wantanyone else shooting for them.
Yeah, I can't do it all.
No. And so if you can get
if you can get clients,but new clients used to somebody else
(31:55):
shooting them for themas early as possible.
They don't become so dependent on youand thinking that you're
the only photographer.They can shoot their listings.
Yeah, when you know very wellthat you can get somebody else on board
that can trainand maybe even shoot better than you.
I'm not the I'm not the best photographeror videographer in the world.
There are people that could do itmuch better than I can, but
(32:19):
I built relationship and they've they've
they've created the relationship
and the trust that I've built with,to the technical skill.
And yes, I deliver a quality product.
I'm not saying that my work is crap, but
there's somebody else that
can do just as good on the technical levelthan I could for sure.
(32:40):
That would free me up to then continueto grow the business.
Yeah, that's that's smart, that's smart.
And I would look for every time thatI can get someone to be 60 to 80% of me,
and no matter what the activity is, I amgetting rid of that activity on my plate.
I'm just I'm not even considering itanymore.
It's just done.
And I do it with a photographerbecause I'm going to go out
(33:00):
and I'm going to build relationshipsand I'm 5 to 10
is going to go very quicklyto 20 to 30 a week.
There you go.
Yeah, that's one point I like that.
Oh yeah. If I had to restart.
Yeah.
Get get them used to other photographersbesides you as early as possible.
(33:22):
That's a key one for me and the. Yeah.
And the thing that it does on top of that,at least for me that would help me,
is it puts that pressure on me.
Like I havethis person that I need to take care of.
Not only do it via your it's pretty easyto sustain the VA salary.
Okay.
It's 1000 to 2000 a monthdepending on how good you pay them.
(33:43):
Okay.
That's not a whole lot to havethe amount of work that they're doing.
If it's part time,it might be 400 or 500 a month.
Okay.
But when you get a photographer on
and you get another high level personthat's in your area,
you know that this is a person onthat feels more like on your team.
And that is some pressure that I needto go out there and do it for them.
(34:07):
I think pressures, pressure can be goodand pressure can be bad for me, like
knowing that I need to do thatwould be the reason I continue to get up
and I go and I continue to havethe coffee meetings I continue to send,
you know, the messages,
make the calls, drop into the offices,go to the board events.
Anywhere a realtor is at. I'm there,
(34:29):
So two major things so far.
If you had to start over today,
don't be afraid to spend the moneyto make the money.
And invest in a photographeras early as you can.
It might be a little bitcontroversial Craig, but if,
if I was starting tomorrowthat's what I would do.
I would nurse them along in my salespitch to the beginning ages like hey,
(34:50):
I would give them my vision of the companyand I would get to know them so well.
I would take care of them.
I would just give themthe best service ever.
And then I'd work through who they knewand I would ask for that referral.
And then from there,I'm going to build a team around me
because my pitch to the agents is,we have a team here to serve you.
We know how important it isthat you get on the schedule quickly,
(35:15):
that your clients can get inwhen they need to get in, and I would look
for those little gaps where other competition is probably failing in your area.
If you had to pick a third point
because it feels like I feel incompletewith just two points.
Yeah.
If there was a third thing you would dothat would be different
than maybe what you did 23 years ago.
(35:37):
What what would thatthird, third point be in
starting over,starting a new real estate media business?
I would find a way to attract
and hire and pay the best possible person
I could find that matches somethingthat has a positive,
(35:57):
where I'm not as strong.
Okay, can you give an example?
I can, so I'll give you two examples.
And then you guys can see if this relatesto something that you might need.
So very early.
Well probably five yearsin business was growing.
(36:18):
I had part time photographersand one full time, I think three part time
photographers, and I was very behind
in my systems and I needed help.
I needed a helper.
I've talked about this beforewith there's helpers and builders,
and I hired my helper, and he was excitedabout the business and I used and I did.
(36:39):
And I didn't realize at the time, buthe was really attracted to working with me
because it was itthat it was working with me.
It was, look what we can build,look at where I need help.
And he's like, I love doing those things.I love growth, I love all these things.
And he came inand he helped me like crazy.
So Todd could go be Todd.
And at that point, Todd
well, the Todd that Iwhere I'm strong is the ideas.
(37:02):
I'm building relationshipslike put me out.
I have ideas, I'll paint a visionand then I'll go
and I'll get people to knowlike and trust us.
So I took all of those task away.
Now the thing that I think about it,looking back over those years is Spiro
does most of it now, invoicing some.
You know, there's a lot in therethat Spiro has automated,
(37:24):
but I still would getto that helper very quickly.
The the
second thing that I'll leave you guys withis I hired a builder.
Not long after that,I had gotten to the point that
there was enough to dowith kind of visionary ideas
and and the direction of the company,
(37:45):
and then the building of the revenue,the sales engine that I call it.
And I hired a builder.
Shannon, many of you know our lover.
Okay. I hired again for Spiro.
So I did the same thing. Okay.
There was a developer and myself.
That was all Spiro was.
You emailed Spiro, you got me.
(38:05):
That's all there was.
Pink bubble chat.
It was me, okay, a demo, it was me.
And I put it on my back to win overclients, to get people in until
the snowball got big enough.
And then I went, wait a minute,I'm not serving my clients good enough.
I need help in chat.
Okay, so I offloaded the admin level work.
I need pink bubble chat help,
and I brought that team upand then I got to a point.
(38:27):
I was like, I need higher level helpto help me grow this.
I hired Shannon again.
Okay, y'all,please don't try to hire Shannon, okay?
Shannon's with me right now.
Shannon's. Shannon's building pushing me.
No poaching
In fact, I mean, you can try.
Hopefully I'm taking care of hergood enough
that she's like, hey, I'm cool rightnow, but find yourself a Shannon, okay?
(38:51):
I can sell.
I can build relationships.
I didn't like the idea of selling.I really did not.
I hated the term selling,but I could go take care of people.
Shannon was like, I can build a structureof sales and wasn't afraid of it
and sell selling through serving,selling through helping people.
She built the systemize process,this repeatable
sales engine,and we still use portions of it today.
(39:13):
Now we've revamped it over the yearsto be relevant to today.
Steve has, but it's why we're grownalmost 20% year over year.
It's why we're predictable.
I knew that I couldn't do it, soI needed someone to compliment me on that.
Excellent.
Three things that you can doif you had to start your business over,
(39:35):
maybe you're listening
and you're thinking about startinga real estate media business.
I'd take these things and run with it.
Yeah. Todd. Good stuff.
Yeah, hopefully was helpful.
I'd love to keep the conversation going.
Comment down below.
Email us at Hello@spiro.media.
Let us know what you want us to expand on.
You know, those are three main points.
If you have questions about one point,let us know.
(39:57):
We're happy to talk on those.
We want to make sure that we're bringingyou value here on the podcast.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, because I mentionedI wear a couple of different hats,
I have to get goingand get some shoots done today.
But I love doing this podcast.
I love interacting with you,the listeners and viewers and,
just talking shopand what's worked for us.
(40:18):
What, what we screwed up.
What you can learn from from our mistakes.
And just be an encouragement to you.
So thank you for taking the time each andevery week to, to watch, to listen and,
if you if you find value in this, pleasemake sure you leave a like, share it.
If you're involved in some real estatemedia type, you know,
groups online, Facebook, whatever.
(40:40):
We'd love for you to share the podcastso that we can help
and benefitmore, more businesses and business owners.
Also make sure we we always like to endthe podcast this way with two things.
One, make sure to live gratefuland thankful.
Think about the thingsthat you've been blessed with
and just kind of meditate on those things.
It will turn your day around.
(41:00):
If you're going through a tough time rightnow, think about the good things
and what you've been blessed with and,take time to think about that.
Number two, breathe.
That'swhat Spiro actually means, right, Todd?
It does, itdoes. We're gonna do a lot of breathing.
January 22nd, 23rd. Spiro. Spiro Sync.
Let us know
All right, guys, you have a great week.
Thanks for joining us.We'll see you next week.
(41:22):
And have a great one. Take care.
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
So there's things that you can doto be financially responsible,
but the idea of trying to
put a crimp in your business
by not having somethingthat your business really needs to grow,
can be a reason why you don't succeed.
(00:35):
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform is designedto help you manage your day to day
real estate media business,
help it to be successfuland help it to grow ultimately.
I'm Craig Magrum.Welcome back to another week.
If this is, a return visit for you,
(00:56):
if you're a first timelistener or watcher, watcher viewer.
How about viewer? Viewer is a better word.
We welcome you.
We're kind of laid back hereon this video podcast.
We just like to have some funtalk business.
And, we're,
you know, we're just a couple of guysin the cornfields of northwest Ohio.
Speaking of a couple of guys,my partner in crime, our fearless
(01:16):
leader, Spirofounder and owner, Todd Kivimaki
Welcome back, Todd,
it's great to be here.
It's quite an introduction.
I'm not that important, y'all, but,
what it is,
I'll come up with a longer list of titlesfor you next week.
Chief corn shocker.
All right.
But it's great to be here with you guys.
(01:39):
This is, Yeah,I know that was not sure what to do.
Craig.Just jumping in the more just nonsense.
Have you seen the seriesthe House of David?
I've watched the first,I think, two episodes.
But I have not gone beyond that.
Okay, so the the chosen,
(01:59):
the chosen.
Yeah. That I got into.
Yeah. So chosen is great.
Yeah, yeah.
So my wife and I,I've been watching the House of David.
So. Okay.
So for those of youthat this is the biblical series,
David and Goliath, that David. Okay.
And it's an incredible story. Like. And
(02:20):
like the House of
David, the production isis not all biblical.
There's some interpretation in there.
But you're like,it just is a really neat way to look at.
It's a big graphic, honestly.
I mean,it was kind of a gory time back then.
But anyways, long story short, Craig,I, I had a dream two nights ago
that I was literally roamingthrough the wilderness
(02:42):
like, and I was in like,I honestly like we had watched
like 2 or 3 episodes when I had,we were like, binged it one night
and I don't ever remember a dream,but literally,
like I was sleeping in and,you know, in the dirt.
And we were, we were like, running.
I don't remember, David,but it's just like.
Like I woke up and I was like, oh, no,we're like, we're on the run from Saul.
(03:04):
Anyways, long story short, I,I remember that story.
I remember that dream.
So if y'all are looking at yeah, Houseof David, it's on him.
Okay.
I was curiousif this was tying into our episode.
No, it's not,
I just, I, I thought I'd shareif you are looking for something to watch.
Chosen is fabulous as well.
But anyways, that's my tangent for today.
I mean, I have I have a reminder to dreamin like ten years and like it was,
(03:28):
you know, that's.
But my wife Gail and I, we've talked aboutthat.
Are we?
It feels like we hardly ever dream.
But I hear everybody dreams.
It's just whether you remember the dreamor not and what state
or stage of sleepyou're in when you wake up.
Influences whether you're ableto remember the dream or not.
Yeah.
(03:48):
I mean, it wasn't a very glamorous spot.
Like, maybe I could have woken upwhen he was like the king.
Or maybe when he swung the rockat Goliath.
But, I mean, I was sleeping in the dirt.
Yeah. I was like, oh, crap,I gotta go. Yeah. I was like, I gotta go.
And we were off to the next spot.
So were you late for work that morning?
Maybe I can't remember.
Yeah. Anyway.
Okay. Well welcome back guys.
(04:10):
We we've got kind of a different,
a different episode today.
That should be kind of fun.
It's going to be kind of freeform,
open discussion.
It's going to get me thinking, Tod,because the question is a good one.
And, what I would do today is would
might be different than what I didwhen I first started my business.
(04:33):
There's a little teaser for you.
But before we dive into all of that,let's, let's talk about Spiro updates.
What's going on with the software?
It's going to be real quick.
I wrote all of my notes down here.
Just stay with me for 60 more seconds.
I'm going to give you a lotof information, more than just updates.
So updates were probably the end ofSeptember is what the update looks like.
(04:56):
The big one is Titus.
If you don't know what it is,go search him.
They are a Payette closing
option for agents.
It's going to be fabulous.
Love these guys.
Great team Nick and the team.
Also.
The thing they're going to do
is they're going to revampand offer credit card processing.
So you'll sign up.
Not only will your agents be able
to finance your media,which means they spend more
(05:19):
and they pay it close,
but then you'll be able to accept creditcards as well when they don't finance it.
And we're going to save you moneyon the right.
There's some other goodies as well.
Oh, now some.
As we get closer to it.
There are some cool things coming withthat integration one of them mentioned.
So it's that last week at the veryend of the podcast and you guys caught it.
So thank you for listening to me.
(05:41):
Spiro sync it's our event.
We're going to do it in January in OhioJanuary 22nd, 23rd.
You'll fly into Dayton, Ohio. Okay.
This is an hourand a half from our cornfield.
But pencil if you're interested,send me a note.
Pink bubble chat. Hello@spiro.media.
Pencil it down if you're interested.
You're not going to want to missit. Spiro.
(06:03):
Team's going to be there.My Wow team is going to be in there.
This is going to be a fabulous eventnot only for you, but this is a
great thing to bring your head adminto bring some of your team.
We're going to train and and just coach
to all different aspects of your company.
Okay.
January 22nd 23rd 2026
last Vegas conference to REPP conferenceNovember 7th and 8th.
(06:27):
Put it down. Tickets are going fast.
They sold out the MVP.
You should be there.
Come visit us.
So I heard from a little birdie todaythat,
I don't know if I should even say it now.
Probably not.
I think Craig, or you might be there.
you're the boss.
(06:47):
I'll be there if you tell me to be there.
I'll be there.
Although you told me to talk to my wife.
Yeah, you got to talk to your wife.
Okay, so if you're listening to this,just forget it.
But Craig might be there.
Come meet us. Come hang outlike it's a time.
So, Craig,
I remember a few years agowhen you and I went
to the first conferenceand we went to PMRE.
That's another great option for you.
(07:08):
I didn't mentionthat search PMRE conference.
And the
first year we went is about like,what is this thing is overwhelming.
We're intimidating like Spiro was.
Nobody knew anything about it.
No. Had no clue who we were.
But it was just incredible timeto connect people who are like us
that drive aroundwith your wife and family.
Like I shot that house.
(07:28):
Oh, this one, that house wasn't ready.
So come connect with us. Find an event.
Come to all of them.
You have the REPP conference November7th and eighth.
PMRE is a couple weeks later.
And then you have the Spiro sync.
January 22nd, 23rd.
You know, for me, balmy warmOhio, west central Ohio in January.
(07:49):
It's going to beyou have a snowman build off.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Good times.Excellent. Hope to see you guys.
It one or all three of those events.
Yeah. Come see us. It'll be fun.
Awesome.
All right, Craig, this is a fun one today.
It is. It has me thinking.
(08:09):
So Todd asked the question.
Well, Todd,
I'll let you introduce the questionin the yes topic of the podcast today.
Yeah.
So what if what if you had to start overtomorrow,
start the business over tomorrow?
Yes. You wake up life over tomorrow.
That's a very deep question.
That is a very if you had to restart yourif you
(08:32):
if your business was nothing what it wasand you had to restart tomorrow,
what would you do? You know this idea of.
So I started mine 20 almost 23 years ago
and it was different,a different world, different market.
And we've learned a lot over these years.
But I've got a pretty good idea,as if I had, you know, if we weren't
(08:52):
doing the 14,000 jobs a year and I,we were zero zero job, zero clients,
what would I do to get back to building
a business again?
I'm just thinking about, yeah,
I started my business in 2017.
And, at that time
there were a couple of individualphotographers doing real estate,
(09:14):
but there were no, I would say, no reallike companies doing real estate media.
It was pretty much just photosthat people were doing around here.
So my approach was photos
and video and drone,
and that was kind of new in my marketto bring all 3 in 1 appointment,
that there was nobody elsereally doing that today.
(09:38):
However, there's, three,
I believe, three larger companiesin our market doing what we do now.
So, yeah, it's it's an entirely differentatmosphere.
And, and, playing field.
Well, what I do different and that's,
that's a tough question.
(09:58):
Well Craig. Yeah let's let's go back.
So let's maybe establishwhat we did back then.
And then we can look at do those tactics.
How have we do we do those anymore.
Have we revamped that process.
So for let's stick with 2017with your journey.
And you know, we've talked about thisa little bit, but this idea that you had,
(10:21):
you saw that there was an opportunity and,
you know,what were some of the initial things
that you did to just let people knowyou exist?
Well, I had the advantagethat a former pastor of mine
had gone full time into real estate,and he was the first one.
I asked, here'swhere the coffee meeting started.
I asked him to coffee,
(10:43):
and sat down and
just shared with himwhere I was at in my career.
I was coming out of workingin the nonprofit world, but told him
this ideaI had for doing real estate media,
for realtors and bringing, like I said,bringing photos, video tours and drone
media into one appointment and reallyhelping realtors step up their game.
(11:04):
In terms of marketing homes,I don't know if I had thought
of building their brand as a realtoror not at that point,
and I had before that
coffee meeting, I did two free shoots
for two different realtorsthat I had gotten to agree to.
Let me come in and shoot.
The photos forand at that point it was photos only
(11:26):
showed him those photos.
His eyes got super big. He's like, Craig,these are fantastic.
I'm using my cell phoneto do my real estate photos right now.
Now, I had the advantagethat I had the friendship with him,
and we had built trust and friendshipover a couple of years
that out of his generosity and
liking what he saw,
he gave me a 12 shoot contract on the spotto shoot his next 12 listings.
(11:50):
That allowed me to immediatelyupgrade my camera.
My camera at the time, if you remember,
these guys was a canon 40D.
Yeah,
my cell phonetakes high resolution pictures,
and they kept the camerassitting over here on my on my on my shelf.
I'll never get rid of itbecause that was my first dSLR camera.
What lens?
What lens was it, Craig?
(12:11):
You remember?
So that's a crop sensor.
It's a crop sensor.
We'll say 18 kit lens. 18.
So the kit lens 18 to 35, I think. Yeah.
Kit lens.
So you were nowhere near wideenough, right?
No no no no.
The noise the noise level was terriblebecause my ISO was cranked.
The first house I shot was really dark.
(12:32):
I mean, it was terrible.
It's absolutely terriblehow he thought that.
Those were great pictures.
I don't know,but evidently his cell phone was worse.
But, Yeah, that's that's how I started.
And he, he started
getting other realtorsasking him who was doing his pictures.
(12:52):
And so he started spreading my name.
And that's how my business startedgrowing.
Very, very simple.
I mean, it was nothing,nothing genius level
in terms of a business strategyor anything.
Yeah.
And and so I think thewe have some similar
we have a lot of similaritiesof how we started.
(13:12):
Craig, because I when I started,I was, I was in college at the time
and I happened to be going my,my parents were buying and selling a home.
And so I had a connection to that realtorthat happened to be the largest realtor
in town.
And with a small town, but she still wasdoing a lot of a lot of shoots.
And, and I had the luxurythat there was nothing there.
(13:34):
Nobody was taking photos.
Nobody was taking video,
nothing.
Now, there might have been a
I know there's been some companies
around longer than us,so clearly it was out there.
I'm not saying I invented the field,but there was nothing in our market.
It was very customary that agentswould take their camera and there was no
there's no cell phone camerasat the time that just didn't exist.
(13:57):
Cell phones were barely there.
You would take your Sony camerathat had a 3.5in floppy insert.
You'd put the floppy drive into the can't.
Yes. Navigate. Yes.
And you would take very poor pictures andyou would take probably 6 or 8 of them.
And they would be posted online,probably a resolution of 320 by 160.
(14:20):
And they would not click the enlarge.
Nothing like that.
And that's all there was meand I was doing that.
I was like, well, this is this is dumb.
Like, why, why is this like,why do I have to drive the houses
to see what it's like?
So I start off with doing video.
And again, if you've heard metell this story like it's absolutely a
(14:43):
ridiculously dumb
idea because you couldn't even.
I want to put video on the internet
when you couldn't even play it.
Dial up.
Oh, the days of dial up.
It's like I have this golf ball thatI want to get through a garden hose like
anyways.
So some of,some of you will never know the pain.
(15:05):
Yeah, you never will. You.
You won't know that modemconnecting sound right?
So long story short, I use a connectionI had and then ask for more connections.
I had no cluewhat I was doing at the time.
I didn't know I was asking for a referral.
I didn't know that
our number one core value would turn intoclients are our number one priority.
(15:26):
I just wanted her name was Bobby.
I wanted her to be happybecause I wanted her to buy from me.
Yeah. And then when she
liked what I did and I,
I can't remember, I probably shot 1or 2 for free for I have no clue.
I asked if she could spread my nameto people in the office, and then I asked.
(15:47):
I had no clue what an office meeting was.
She was like, hey, do you want to come inand show the video in the office?
I was like, that'd be great. What?
What is this thing you're talking about?
And just stumbling my waythrough a lot of it
to just really
I wanted to talk to more peopleand I wanted to take care of them.
So I think we started offin a very similar way.
(16:09):
Craig.
Now we had the luxury.
I had no competition.
You had minimal competitionand you had a, you know,
a USP of putting all those productstogether.
Now the landscape has changed a little bit
and I actually
it's not good or bad to me, of course.
(16:30):
Would you like to get in in ground level
and do we have some relationships thatwe've taken care of for a very long time?
Well, yes we do,but at the end of the day,
we still have to take care of themand we still have to earn that business.
So, you know, like Craig mentioned,the top of the podcast of the segment,
you know, he's got competitionin his market.
Let you guys know we're still overshootingour goals for his market.
(16:52):
We're still as a company
at Wow we're still beating the goalsthat we have set for this year.
So this is doable.
If you're getting into real estate mediaright now and you're going,
oh my goodness, I have all thiscompetition, you're it's okay.
You can find little
wedges where you can get inand you can take compet.
(17:13):
You can take business awayfrom competition.
So I think at its corewe always mentioned this I think Craig
would you still try to sellbased on relationship selling.
Oh yeah.
That I mean that's how I'm wired anyway.
And so for me it comes naturally.
Yeah.
It has to be relationship based.
(17:35):
I mean thatthat's the whole real estate transaction.
Methodology.
I can't find the right word for it,but it's it's I watched the realtors
interact with the sellers,and that's what they're doing.
They're building relationshipswith their sellers.
I hear them talking about their familiesand what's going on with mom and dad
and, you know, health issues and the move.
(17:56):
And it's it's all relationship based.
So if you don't have that,
natural bent,it might be a little bit more challenging.
But those are skills that you can develop.
There's so many great leadershipcourses out there and, you know, the book
I think is Dale Carnegie, you know,How to win Friends and Influence people.
Yeah. Great, great classic book, you know.
(18:18):
But yeah.
How how can you build strong relationshipswith the people that you're serving?
Yeah.
So let's let's get really tactical here,okay.
Tomorrow you wake up, you have no business
what is going to bethe first thing you do.
(18:39):
Do I have all the gear or not?
Okay. This is this is great.
So let's take a pivot here.
So yeah I think thisI wanted to talk about this, this idea of
building a
business defensively versus offensively.
So I get a lot of you ask me likehey I have a I have a job right now
or I don't have this thingor there's some,
(19:01):
object in your way.
There's a gap that you have to get over.
And I think over the course of the years,I played too much defense
and business, and I wishI would have played more offense.
Okay. Explain that. So,what do you mean? Yeah.
Let me, let me let me break that down.
How it relates to the idea and equipment.
So first off I would go all in
(19:22):
I if this is somethingI think there's a great opportunity
to growI would go all in with this idea. I,
I don't think you can
ramp as quick as you're going to want toif you don't go all in.
Now, can you build a successful businessand have one foot
(19:42):
in a job and one footgetting into building your business?
You can.
But let's look at this from like a SiliconValley type of investment.
Angel investment, an investor type of
situationthat something that I don't really know.
I bootstrapped all of the businessesthat we do.
Craig, you bootstrappedand I think there's something
(20:04):
that there's some gritto bootstrapping your business.
At the same time,you can't suffocate your business
because of bootstrapping it.
Okay.
So there is a reason why, when companieswant to grow to be a hundred,
500 million, $10 billion company,they have this idea.
(20:27):
They see there's leverage in the marketand they go and they get funding
because they need piecesthat help them grow to that.
I was going to say that that is one thingI would do differently.
If you remember, Todd,when we met in a coffee shop.
I'm not even that big of a coffee drinker,to be honest,
but everything would, Craig Magrum,come into a coffee shop and you you.
(20:50):
Sounds like an event. March.
Anyway, if you remember our conversation,
part of itwas, was, my hesitancy to spend money
and to to incur a little bit of debtto start,
to start my businessor actually to be able to scale it.
We were talking about using the before
(21:12):
it was called Spiro, the Spiro software,and me investing in that.
And at first I justI was really hesitant to do that.
I'm very fiscally conservative.
I well, other than when it comesto hobbies, as we mentioned last week,
which I'm working on.
But anyway,
I, I didn't want to spend the money
for gear for systems because I was afraid
(21:35):
it was based out of fear,because I had a financial insecurity.
I worked in nonprofits my whole life,so I never was making a ton of money.
You don't work in nonprofitsto make a ton of money.
You do itbecause you want to serve people. Right?
So I, I the first part of my career,I was very, very conservative fiscally.
I pinched pennies.
(21:55):
So I didn't want to spend money tostart this business because I was scared,
becauseI was coming from a viewpoint of lack.
Right.
My first major expenditure,which I don't remember
how long after I started my businessit took me to get to this point,
but I bought my first droneand it was a huge.
It was a Phantom three,if that tells you where I started.
(22:19):
Oh, we're going back here.
Phantom three and I was scared
to death to make that investment.
I had to look at it as an investmentin the future of my business,
because that was a huge chunk of moneyto me.
A huge chunk of money.
After I started booking jobsthat I was able to tell people
(22:40):
I can provide drone photos and video,and they started ordering it.
I think I paid thatdrone off in ten jobs like
it was ablink of an eye and my drone was paid for.
And it dawned on me, Craig, you dummy,
you have to spend money to make money.
But I was coming from a viewpoint of lackand fear,
(23:02):
and I think that's what I would dodifferently today.
I've now seen how, yeah,if you invest in the business
and you have the plan and you,you work hard, there's still a grind.
You're going to make that money backfairly quickly.
Yeah.
So that's that's one thing
I would do differently todayif I had to start over, spend the money.
(23:23):
Yeah I'm a firm believer in that I think,I think
sometimes as I look backlike I took it too seriously.
Like I almost had this ideathat there was no option of failure.
And and it
crippled me a little bit at timesor I moved too slow because I was like,
oh I can't like, oh messing with thator raising prices or hiring someone,
(23:47):
you know, figuring out payroll like,it just
I hesitated because it felt scary,
because I had this like mentalitythat the business could not fail.
Yeah.
I mean, just going back to the very earlydays, like in 2004 when I started,
(24:08):
you know, I was 21 years old.
Okay,
21 years old, 21 years old. Sorry.
I had to do some math in my head.I was 21.
I should have been thinking like,let me fail 30 times before.
I'm 25 now
because at 25,what's the big deal if you have nothing,
(24:29):
you're you're just, you know,
and no offense, any other 25 yearolds out there, but like,
how many 25 year olds out there like,can't take a risk that they come back
from 35, 45, 55?
If you're gonna work 20 more years at 55,you have to,
you know, if you're going to worktill 75, from 50, that's 20 years.
(24:52):
You can come back from some things.
Now each time
you could only come back from so far.
But at 25, 35, 45 was like,let's take some chances here.
You've got time.
Yes, you've got, you have.
Yeah.
You know,one thing that a coach told me wants is,
he had this analogy ofand I might mess it up a bit,
(25:13):
but when you are young,you will trade all of your time for money.
But when you're old, you will trade.
Trade all of your money for time. Oh,
and I took that money way too
seriously when I was young.
(25:33):
And there's nothing wrongwith being financially responsible.
Like Craig mentioned, he's.
I forget the term used, but I call itfinancially responsible
I drive a 2017 year old car
or a car from 2017.
I paid for it.
I don't own anything of itand I'm happy driving it.
(25:56):
Could I drive a nicer car?
Yes, I could, and do I love cars,I do love cars and I look at I'm like, oh,
that'd be nice, but it's like 80 grand, 60or even 50 grand,
you know, like financially responsible.
I all the money I took out of colleagues
that I made, I paid off my student loansas quickly as I could.
That interest drove me nuts.
(26:16):
We took out a 15 year loan for our house.
So there's things that you can doto be financially responsible,
but the idea of trying to
put a crimp in your business
by not having somethingthat your business really needs to grow,
can be a reason why you don't succeed.
(26:37):
Okay.
So yeah, yeah.
Again,thinking about the conditions back in 2017
versus today, you know, and havingmajor competitors in the market,
if I don't have those servicesto be able to provide
new clients that the competitor does.
Yeah.
How am I ever goingto get this business off the ground?
And and I realize that we're saying to you
(26:59):
all like some things that just don't seempossible at this point,
you know, hey, I'm a teacher and I'mdoing this in the summers, and then I have
a little bit of night time after school,
like, how can I make this work?
You know,
I realize you're not getting paid,you know, thank goodness for our teachers.
I know you all don't get paida lot of money.
You might not have the savings,
(27:20):
but that isthat's the thing about entrepreneurship is
when you have those gaps, you've got to gofind a way who can help you get there.
Do you have someone that can loan youthe money? Can you go to a bank?
Are you going to put her on credit cards?
These are some scary things.
But to go all in theidea of burning the ships,
like.
(27:40):
That'swhy, you know, when Cortez got here, it's
like we're going to burn these darn thingsbecause we're not going back.
We're going to figure it out.
Sometimes you just need to do thatto help you push through it.
So if I was starting over tomorrow, Craig,
I would one
I would put thethe systems in place that I need.
(28:02):
Okay. I know the Spiro podcast.
I would definitely do SpiroI'm not just advertising Spiro,
I would I would get a phone line.
Okay.
I have together Google Voice for waytoo many years because it was free.
Okay? I would pay for a phone line.
I would have what I would need there.
I would make sure I had the equipment,all the services that I need to do now.
(28:23):
I would start off tomorrow and
I would do.
I would be a one man bandfor a short amount of time,
but I would very quickly
look at who I knew in the industryand then try to go meet anyone
I could, and I wouldpersonally do everything for them.
(28:44):
So I would do all the shooting,I would outsource all of my editing.
I would make sure my systems are okay,and then I would quickly
get into hiring a VA.
VA's or something that
we never I mean, it was 10 or 10,
12 years before the idea of hiring a VAeven come out came around.
(29:04):
I think when I started mine,I didn't even know what a VA was.
But let me ask you about that, Todd.
So if a VA were to say the first employee
you were to hire,what tasks would you
Would you assign to them, would you trainthem on to help you grow your business.
Yeah.
Great question.
So what I talk a lot about time tracking.
(29:27):
I just got done with a study for myself.
I'm analyzing it.
But, there's a admin nursedoctor level of activities.
Right.We talked about a few weeks ago. Yeah.
So I would give them all the admin level.
So this is anything in those systems
that is not client talking to clients,building relationships with clients.
I would keep all of that for myself.
(29:49):
And I would want to buildthose relationships myself.
I want to have every conversation.
But anything that has to dowith quality control, expediting,
anything that has a email coming backlike, can you brighten this photo?
Can you change this title on a video?
I would have processes and proceduresof how the VA would facilitate
that through the editing team.
(30:11):
All of those items I would not like.
If I'm going to wake up in the morning,I'm either shooting
or building relationships.
At this point, that's the only thingI'm doing, nothing else.
And if I have to take a phone callwhile I'm driving from A to B
okay.
Great systems in place.
You're out shooting,you're establishing relationships.
(30:32):
Things are starting to come.
Say you're getting to the pointof doing 5 to 10 shoots a week.
What's next? And building from scratch.
Yeah.
So you've got a little bit of incomerevenue coming in.
And this is where it'sgoing to feel scary.
Because what I would do is I would beginlooking for my next photographer
(30:54):
or for my first photographer,excuse me, at 5 to 10 shoots a week,
I would if I started tomorrow, I would,I really would because the thing is, is
5 to 10 is going to go to 20to 30 very quickly because you're going
to allocate the time for yourselfto continue to build relationships.
that I didn't I didn't think about that.
(31:15):
But here's why.
That is a very wise move, Todd.
To this day in the market that I serve,where I'm
both shooting and doing businessdevelopment, I am still fighting.
I am still fighting the battleof getting clients to trust
someone other than me, shooting for themlike that, that's still something I'm.
(31:35):
I have a challenge with,
because I've built these long termrelationships that I've been doing the
shooting from day one, and they don't wantanyone else shooting for them.
Yeah, I can't do it all.
No. And so if you can get
if you can get clients,but new clients used to somebody else
(31:55):
shooting them for themas early as possible.
They don't become so dependent on youand thinking that you're
the only photographer.They can shoot their listings.
Yeah, when you know very wellthat you can get somebody else on board
that can trainand maybe even shoot better than you.
I'm not the I'm not the best photographeror videographer in the world.
There are people that could do itmuch better than I can, but
(32:19):
I built relationship and they've they've
they've created the relationship
and the trust that I've built with,to the technical skill.
And yes, I deliver a quality product.
I'm not saying that my work is crap, but
there's somebody else that
can do just as good on the technical levelthan I could for sure.
(32:40):
That would free me up to then continueto grow the business.
Yeah, that's that's smart, that's smart.
And I would look for every time thatI can get someone to be 60 to 80% of me,
and no matter what the activity is, I amgetting rid of that activity on my plate.
I'm just I'm not even considering itanymore.
It's just done.
And I do it with a photographerbecause I'm going to go out
(33:00):
and I'm going to build relationshipsand I'm 5 to 10
is going to go very quicklyto 20 to 30 a week.
There you go.
Yeah, that's one point I like that.
Oh yeah. If I had to restart.
Yeah.
Get get them used to other photographersbesides you as early as possible.
(33:22):
That's a key one for me and the. Yeah.
And the thing that it does on top of that,at least for me that would help me,
is it puts that pressure on me.
Like I havethis person that I need to take care of.
Not only do it via your it's pretty easyto sustain the VA salary.
Okay.
It's 1000 to 2000 a monthdepending on how good you pay them.
(33:43):
Okay.
That's not a whole lot to havethe amount of work that they're doing.
If it's part time,it might be 400 or 500 a month.
Okay.
But when you get a photographer on
and you get another high level personthat's in your area,
you know that this is a person onthat feels more like on your team.
And that is some pressure that I needto go out there and do it for them.
(34:07):
I think pressures, pressure can be goodand pressure can be bad for me, like
knowing that I need to do thatwould be the reason I continue to get up
and I go and I continue to havethe coffee meetings I continue to send,
you know, the messages,
make the calls, drop into the offices,go to the board events.
Anywhere a realtor is at. I'm there,
(34:29):
So two major things so far.
If you had to start over today,
don't be afraid to spend the moneyto make the money.
And invest in a photographeras early as you can.
It might be a little bitcontroversial Craig, but if,
if I was starting tomorrowthat's what I would do.
I would nurse them along in my salespitch to the beginning ages like hey,
(34:50):
I would give them my vision of the companyand I would get to know them so well.
I would take care of them.
I would just give themthe best service ever.
And then I'd work through who they knewand I would ask for that referral.
And then from there,I'm going to build a team around me
because my pitch to the agents is,we have a team here to serve you.
We know how important it isthat you get on the schedule quickly,
(35:15):
that your clients can get inwhen they need to get in, and I would look
for those little gaps where other competition is probably failing in your area.
If you had to pick a third point
because it feels like I feel incompletewith just two points.
Yeah.
If there was a third thing you would dothat would be different
than maybe what you did 23 years ago.
(35:37):
What what would thatthird, third point be in
starting over,starting a new real estate media business?
I would find a way to attract
and hire and pay the best possible person
I could find that matches somethingthat has a positive,
(35:57):
where I'm not as strong.
Okay, can you give an example?
I can, so I'll give you two examples.
And then you guys can see if this relatesto something that you might need.
So very early.
Well probably five yearsin business was growing.
(36:18):
I had part time photographersand one full time, I think three part time
photographers, and I was very behind
in my systems and I needed help.
I needed a helper.
I've talked about this beforewith there's helpers and builders,
and I hired my helper, and he was excitedabout the business and I used and I did.
(36:39):
And I didn't realize at the time, buthe was really attracted to working with me
because it was itthat it was working with me.
It was, look what we can build,look at where I need help.
And he's like, I love doing those things.I love growth, I love all these things.
And he came inand he helped me like crazy.
So Todd could go be Todd.
And at that point, Todd
well, the Todd that Iwhere I'm strong is the ideas.
(37:02):
I'm building relationshipslike put me out.
I have ideas, I'll paint a visionand then I'll go
and I'll get people to knowlike and trust us.
So I took all of those task away.
Now the thing that I think about it,looking back over those years is Spiro
does most of it now, invoicing some.
You know, there's a lot in therethat Spiro has automated,
(37:24):
but I still would getto that helper very quickly.
The the
second thing that I'll leave you guys withis I hired a builder.
Not long after that,I had gotten to the point that
there was enough to dowith kind of visionary ideas
and and the direction of the company,
(37:45):
and then the building of the revenue,the sales engine that I call it.
And I hired a builder.
Shannon, many of you know our lover.
Okay. I hired again for Spiro.
So I did the same thing. Okay.
There was a developer and myself.
That was all Spiro was.
You emailed Spiro, you got me.
(38:05):
That's all there was.
Pink bubble chat.
It was me, okay, a demo, it was me.
And I put it on my back to win overclients, to get people in until
the snowball got big enough.
And then I went, wait a minute,I'm not serving my clients good enough.
I need help in chat.
Okay, so I offloaded the admin level work.
I need pink bubble chat help,
and I brought that team upand then I got to a point.
(38:27):
I was like, I need higher level helpto help me grow this.
I hired Shannon again.
Okay, y'all,please don't try to hire Shannon, okay?
Shannon's with me right now.
Shannon's. Shannon's building pushing me.
No poaching
In fact, I mean, you can try.
Hopefully I'm taking care of hergood enough
that she's like, hey, I'm cool rightnow, but find yourself a Shannon, okay?
(38:51):
I can sell.
I can build relationships.
I didn't like the idea of selling.I really did not.
I hated the term selling,but I could go take care of people.
Shannon was like, I can build a structureof sales and wasn't afraid of it
and sell selling through serving,selling through helping people.
She built the systemize process,this repeatable
sales engine,and we still use portions of it today.
(39:13):
Now we've revamped it over the yearsto be relevant to today.
Steve has, but it's why we're grownalmost 20% year over year.
It's why we're predictable.
I knew that I couldn't do it, soI needed someone to compliment me on that.
Excellent.
Three things that you can doif you had to start your business over,
(39:35):
maybe you're listening
and you're thinking about startinga real estate media business.
I'd take these things and run with it.
Yeah. Todd. Good stuff.
Yeah, hopefully was helpful.
I'd love to keep the conversation going.
Comment down below.
Email us at Hello@spiro.media.
Let us know what you want us to expand on.
You know, those are three main points.
If you have questions about one point,let us know.
(39:57):
We're happy to talk on those.
We want to make sure that we're bringingyou value here on the podcast.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, because I mentionedI wear a couple of different hats,
I have to get goingand get some shoots done today.
But I love doing this podcast.
I love interacting with you,the listeners and viewers and,
just talking shopand what's worked for us.
(40:18):
What, what we screwed up.
What you can learn from from our mistakes.
And just be an encouragement to you.
So thank you for taking the time each andevery week to, to watch, to listen and,
if you if you find value in this, pleasemake sure you leave a like, share it.
If you're involved in some real estatemedia type, you know,
groups online, Facebook, whatever.
(40:40):
We'd love for you to share the podcastso that we can help
and benefitmore, more businesses and business owners.
Also make sure we we always like to endthe podcast this way with two things.
One, make sure to live gratefuland thankful.
Think about the thingsthat you've been blessed with
and just kind of meditate on those things.
It will turn your day around.
(41:00):
If you're going through a tough time rightnow, think about the good things
and what you've been blessed with and,take time to think about that.
Number two, breathe.
That'swhat Spiro actually means, right, Todd?
It does, itdoes. We're gonna do a lot of breathing.
January 22nd, 23rd. Spiro. Spiro Sync.
Let us know
All right, guys, you have a great week.
Thanks for joining us.We'll see you next week.
(41:22):
And have a great one. Take care.
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