August 27, 2025 • 49 mins
We all know the effort that is needed to win new business. But how much work do we put into retaining the clients we've won? If you're losing more clients than you're winning, or even breaking even in that, you have a leak problem! Todd and Craig talk about what to do to plug the leaks in your real estate media business!
REPP 2025 Conference: http://repplaunch.com/repp2025
PMRE 2025 Conference: http://pmreconference.com
Spiro Sync Event: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15nKXvL9ge/
Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 Episode Open
07:07 Conference Info
08:18 Spiro Updates
08:30 Titus Feature coming to Spiro
09:11 Plug the Leaks
48:25 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):
if you just presentedand you haven't followed up with someone
or you haven'ttracked some metrics on it, then
you kind of did it for nothing.
(00:26):
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform.
It's designed to help you maintain, run,but ultimately
really to help you growand scale your real estate media business.
I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcastAlways good to have you here.
(00:46):
We hope that,
if you're a longtime listener oreven a recent listener, that you've found
some value, in the discussionof running business in this industry,
that, that we've put forth,if you're a brand new listener.
Welcome. We're glad to have you.
We just,we really like to celebrate success
and see people be successfulin the real estate media business.
Let me introduce our co-host,Ian Spiro, owner and founder, Todd Kivimaki.
(01:10):
Welcome back, Todd
Craig, It's as always great to be on here today.
We've got some exciting thingsto talk about.
You briefly said that you've cometo a conclusion
on your tattoo for your facetattoo right? not a face tattoo.
What are you having tattooed on your face?
Nothing on my face.
Oh, I was thinking about it.
Was thinking about the inside of the rightwrist there, but no, I just.
(01:33):
I read this stat, and I'm like,
now, whether it's true or not, I'mgoing to just assume it's true.
But I read there's a 30%,
increase
chanceincrease of developing a blood cancer.
For tattoos.
Now, some of that I'm sure some peopleare going to say no, no, no, that's right.
(01:53):
And that it might not be true.
But you know what?
I just think I'm I'm going on 50.
Why at this point,why chance it so I'm thinking, well,
can I pass uppass up on the tattoo decisions made.
Yeah. No, no judgment on anyone else.
I've admired some really greatlooking tattoos.
So anyway.
(02:14):
Well, good.
I mean, I'mglad that we've discussed that.
I mean, we havewe have some exciting things to discuss.
We talked about bathing last week, Craig.
Nature bathing.
Yes. Nature bathing, which explain thatbecause even that sounds weird.
Todd. Yeah.
If this is your first time listening tosorry, we really are sorry, but not sorry.
(02:37):
nature bathing
is the idea of, like, when you all know,like, you've looked at a screen too much
or you focused on something too muchand you just need to get your head clear.
This is this ideaof going out into nature,
putting your bare feet in the ground
and just
taking a moment to just
(03:00):
just be gratefulabout the beauty of nature.
Yeah. Breathe. Yes.
Craig.
And, so we challengethis was a new term to me.
Now, this isn't something new.
I mean, if you live around me,you'll find my wife every morning
going out with bare feet,whether it's 100 degrees or zero degrees.
And, at firstI gave her a little bit of a hard time.
(03:21):
She probably kill me for even saying this,but then there is really something
in this.
So we took a challenge last week, Craig,and we did some nature bathing.
We did, we did.
I sent Todd the picture.
Todd, we're going to have to give Justinethese pictures so you can pop
them up on the screen.
Yeah.
The idea was that, yeah, for usboth to take some time and just.
Yeah, breatheand put our feet in the grass.
(03:43):
And I have to confess, mine was my timeof putting my feet in the grass.
I can't see nature bathing.
It just feels weird.
It just it does. It does.
My time of putting my feet inmy grass was actually on the job.
I was at a shoot.
It was a really picturesque,though type of property.
Had a pond in the front of the yardand the sellers weren't there,
(04:05):
so it was just me.
And so I, I took my shoesoff, took my socks
off, and I put my feet in the grassright there in front of the pond.
It was a beautiful moment. That's great.
And we did not get any complaintsfrom any nosy neighbors that,
wow, Craig, that you wereyou sitting with bare feet by the pond.
So. Right.
But you as a good moment,you get a moment too, right?
(04:29):
I did, yes.
So I just walked out back of the officehere, as you know,
we're in the middle of a cornfield here.
And I said, we have a humongous,beautiful tree out back.
I sat underneath that.
And Craig, in all seriousness,
I noticethings like I notice a caterpillar
crawling on this on the grassand walking through the grass,
(04:50):
and I noticedI just could hear the the corn blow.
And I saw the sun come through,and I heard the birds.
And I just notice these things.
I've never noticed before.
Like the locust shells on the treegoing up
and things that if you're just super fast.
When I live super fast, I should sayI would have never noticed that thing.
(05:13):
I know the trees out back.I know there's corn out back there.
I had no clue at just how much was backthere.
Was good to put my feet in the grassand just take.
I set ten minutes on my on my stopwatchon my phone and turn my phone upside
down, put it about five feet away from meand just took it all in.
It's good.
Speaking of corn
(05:33):
and hearing the sound of the corn moving,did you know you can hear corn grow?
Is this a is this a dad joke?
Oh, it's actually not a dad joke.
I I've heard it before.
You again.
You have to be really still.
It's got to be a dead still day.
Like no wind.
And it helps if it's really humid as well.
(05:56):
Okay.The corn does really well in humidity.
And if you're really quietand you're out in the middle
on the middle of a cornfieldand there's, you know, no cars driving by,
you can hear it almost creak.
It's oh, it's yeah, it's it'sso the creaking is the idea
that the stalk is growing and crackingand that's that's what I've heard.
(06:19):
And I swear I've heard it before,you know, once or twice.
I don't slow down enough usually.
Anyway, this is a weird podcast search,
I guess,but it's people are going to think
we're a bunch of hippies and, you know,they won't be a hippie with us.
Post your nature bathing photo below.
Please make it PG rated.
(06:39):
Just your socks off.
And yes, if you're looking at my picture,my feet really are that big.
I have skis
for feet and they're that white,so go ahead and make fun of them.
It's fun. We'll all laugh at me.
My oldest son, he's.
Yeah,we we joke that he's got gigantic feet.
Just I mean, Michael Phelps size feet,
you know,they're they're flippers, their size.
(07:01):
But he's still shorter than I am.And that irks him to no one.
Okay, let's let's get back on track here.
A great topic today.
We're looking forward to.
It's kind of an expansion of a topicwe did back in March.
We'll set that up in just a second.
But first, you have a fewfew announcements you want to make.
Yes. Conference is in November.
(07:21):
If you don't know where you're going,pick one of them.
Go to REPP November 7th and eighth.
It's in Las Vegas. We'll all be there.
Come see us if that week doesn't workfor you PMRE is two weeks later.
If none of those work for you,come see us at the Spiro Sync in January.
It is in Ohio.
We have finalized dates.
We have a Savethe date posted for you all on the Spiro
(07:44):
Super UserFacebook group, January 22nd and 23rd.
It's going to be fabulous.I'm excited about that, Craig.
So come, come to one, come to all of them.
But this is where you really get out.
You take a moment to breatheand you get some margin in your brain
to think differently.
Right now, when you do those conferences,when you take that deep breath
(08:07):
at Spiro Sync,it's going to be the middle of January
and it's going to be really cold.
So just be carefulhow deep of a breath you take.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
You might be coughing right.
Just real quick about Spiro updates
and I'll just more or lessgive you guys a resource.
I did I did a tech talk, last week,we covered a ton of updates.
(08:28):
So Titus is coming up.
Titus is financing for your realtors,
and this is going to help youincrease your average order value.
I shared two things with youthat I hadn't shared before
that are going to be partof that Titus update.
They're going to bejust incredible features.
So if you need to get caught up,we won't take time here.
(08:49):
Go grab that tech talk.
Worst case, if you don't want to listento all of it, ask a comment and the video
or just download the video, give it toAI and have AI give you the information.
There you go.
And, we're going to be talking
with the owner of Titusnext week, correct?
Yes. Next week.
Nick's going to be on looking forwardto it.
(09:10):
Cool.
Already?
Well, without further ado, enoughTitan nature breathing talk.
And in, in all of that,let's dive into it.
So, Todd, back in March, we did an episodecalled The Fortune is in the follow up
and talked about just the opportunitiesthat we have to grow our business
just by simply following up on phone callsand emails and discussions
(09:34):
that we've had with,you know, clients and potential clients.
And it was really good material.
But you've got some some great materialfor us today on some practical
how to steps and systems.
That will help what you refer
to as, plugging the bucket.
(09:55):
Did I get that right. Let me.
Yes. Yeah.
The plugging the leak leak.
You've got leakybucket, right? Yes. Craig.
So we're going to continue with that.
And butwe're going to dig in a little bit more.
So if you listen to that podcast,please stick with us.
We're going to go deeper.
So the goal here is any time you doanything is you just try to find
one little nugget that you can useand adapt into your workflow.
(10:18):
So and this idea is,I think, a problem that plagues all of us.
This idea of the leaky bucket. Okay.
So let's expand on that a little bit.
Yeah. So you know I love analogies, Craig.
And I thought this was just a fittingone for this podcast.
But the imagineyour business is the bucket okay.
(10:41):
And we all want to fill our bucket upwith water.
And the water representsthe business jobs coming in.
It represents revenue.
It represents a full business okay.
So the water in the bucket
and water flows in to the bucket.
And that's potential business.
(11:03):
All right.
And there's a problem where
you might have some cracksor some holes in your bucket.
And as water flows in it'sflowing out and it's okay Craig.
Every business has water has some cracks.
So, I want to caution you
to not try to make your bucket leakproof,
(11:26):
you know, like on humongous ships
and even not even humongous like,large ships.
They all take on some amount of water.
And that water,no matter how hard you try, you're
never going to make the haul or the boatthat doesn't take on some amount of water.
It's actually not a problem because theypump the water right back out.
(11:49):
Okay, so I don't want you
to make your bucket leakproofbecause you're going to have some cracks.
But if your cracks and holes
are larger than the water comingin, then we have a problem because
your actual water levels going down,not staying the same or going up.
(12:10):
And again,
we want the water level to go upbecause our goal is to have a full bucket.
If your cracks are biggerthan the water coming
in, then you are actuallyin a decline of your business.
So kind of go into that that ship example
of it's kind of the opposite,
thing where if you're taking ontoo much water, you're going to sink.
But you mentioned the pumps.
(12:32):
There's a system thereto take care of that issue.
And I can't helpbut think of a job that I had years ago.
I worked in an inside sales department,and hope you don't mind me telling the
story, but,
our inside sales department,
we had actually two divisionswithin that inside sales department.
One was specifically designedto find new business.
(12:54):
They were called the prospecting, people.
And then we had, inside salespeoplethat specialized in retention.
So it was retaining the new clientsthat we were landing it.
Just like you said,
we didn't keep 100% of our new clients,but had we not had that focus on retaining
current clients, clients, thatthat loss could have been even bigger.
(13:18):
So it was a system.
It was a very simple system.
Yeah.
And sometimes the most simple onesare the best.
So before I tell you, a simple system,before we go through
what a simple system is and a systemthat I use, I just want to ask a question.
Craig. Okay.
So I'd like to ask all of you out there.
So wherever you're at,you know, just think about this
(13:40):
on a scale of 1 to 10,
how good are you at following up?
How good are you at doing
what you say you're going to do?
Okay, so I would say
doing what you say you're going to dois critically important
to getting and growing a business.
(14:03):
You know, if you think about it,if you don't do what you say you're going
to do, your clients are going to thinkthat you don't care about them.
They're they're not importantthat their business doesn't matter
or that you just run a crummy business.
Right.
And, you know, that's kind of that impactsyour integrity.
You know.
(14:23):
Yeah, it does.
And thatand that might be a little bit harsh.
I'm not saying you all do this,but that is
what the perception iswhen you don't follow up with someone.
Right?
So just rate yourself right now
on a scale of 1 to 10,how good are you at following up?
All right. And keep that number in mind.
(14:44):
So now we're going
to look at a couple of mechanisms.
And this was taught to me by a coach.
And he called it gather and focus.
All right.
And again very simple system at its heart.
But there is so much value in here.
We're going to help you uncover this.
(15:06):
So the idea of what gather and focus is,is that
you take a dedicated time, okay.
Typically at the end of the week
where you have probably a two hour block
and it's just you and you, we'regoing to go through some capture devices.
We'll explain that in a second.
(15:28):
We're going to go throughsome capture devices to help you
find those cracks in your bucket,
to make sure that you do what you said
you will do, and you'll follow upwith people you've talked to.
So a very dedicated
system, systematized set of words,systematized approach.
Yeah.
(15:48):
To to find the leaks okay.
All right.
Yeah. So and this isthis is really simple.
So the first thing is, is you'll sit downI recommend a pen and paper.
All right.
So don't type because when you type justI mean how I do this all the time, right.
If I type or I'm on the computerwhat happens
(16:11):
interuptions, pop ups, right.
Yes. It's crazy.
15 things come upand now I'm three websites over
an inch is something I never intendedto be doing at that point.
And I will say, Craig, this is somethingthat I've been focusing on lately, like
I'm in the habit oflike when I wait for something to process.
Like if I'm using AI and I prompt it
(16:34):
with a message,there's a little bit of spending time.
And I've gotten in thehabit that while that thing spends for,
I don't know, ten 20s, I'll switch
screens and I'll work on something else.
How many times have we mentioned on thispodcast we are not wired to multitask?
(16:55):
I'm just guilty.
I'm just guilty
Can I share a quick, quick story with you?
Yeah. Tied into this.
So this past week, my wife has been gone.
She's been overseas on a mission tripin Madagascar. Out.
She's coming back tonight. Hallelujah.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah,but what I have found, and I don't know,
(17:15):
I think this is commentary on me,and I need to work on this on me.
But I have found when she is home,I am not as focused
on, like, getting things done.
We both can get into the habitof doomscrolling when she is gone.
I've noticed my phone.
I don't pick up my phone as muchand I have gotten so much done this week
(17:35):
just by not picking up the phone.
I think part of it is I don't want herto come back to a dirty house, right?
I don't want to be.I don't want to be that husband.
So I've gotten the dishes done.I've gotten the laundry done.
I've, you know, Zeke’s school lunches.
You know, she gave me that task. Here'swhat you need to do.
It's like, I don't want to drop the ball.
It's kind of a matter of pride, right?
(17:56):
But, yeah.
Just going back to the basicsand put the electronics down.
It is so hard to do sometimes, but, man,can we get a lot done
when we go back to old schoolpen paper like you just.
You just mentioned
it's it is amazing, Craig,how much it is, how much better it is. So,
(18:16):
I, I that'ssomething that we all struggle with.
So I'm saying this and Craigand I say these things out loud
just as much as a it's ait helps us remember what we need to do.
So we're right there with you.Yeah. On this.
All right.
So first you're going to spend 20 minutes
and you're going to gothrough your text messages okay.
(18:38):
So you have to be diligent here becauseyou're picking up a piece of technology.
You're not going to answer calls.
You're not going to do anythingbut go to your text messages okay.
So open up your phone.I've got my phone here.
I'm going to go inand go through your text messages.
All right.
So if it's good for you playa little music in the background just so
(19:00):
you stay focused because this is a timeyou're just collecting, you're gathering.
That's the first part of thisexercise is just gathering.
So I don't want you to feel
and in fact, you should
not respond to anyone,no matter how who it is.
You know, unless your mother's texting youand she needs help with something
(19:20):
like it's emergency,you know, respond to your mother.
You know.
Yeah.
But go throughand just gather information, okay?
So what we're going to do andand if you're not driving right now,
you can do some of this.
So you get the idea.
And it really is this simple.
You're like, I'm not giving you anything
(19:42):
other than a very simple system,but it's going to save you
and make you thousands and thousandsor tens of thousands.
There's deals in herethat you would not believe.
So scrolling through your text messages,this is the toughest
one for me, Craig,to keep consistent with because I have
text messagescan somewhat disappear when they go on.
(20:04):
Once you read themand you get 4 or 5 more text messages,
that single text message gets pushed downand you have to go find it.
So scroll through here.
Look at these names okay.
So oh here's someone okayI need to respond to this one okay.
So I, I, I found this oneI need to respond to.
I'm going to write downthe name of the individual,
(20:26):
and I'm going to write downjust a quick note
to help me understand what I need to do.
Again, you're not doing it.
You're just gathering.
So literally spend 20 minutes and yes,
you're going to go throughprobably a few months of text messages.
Okay.
But for.
Right, because that far back, that farback Craig.
(20:48):
Because how many of you dida broker presentation
three months ago.
Right.
We talked all you were excited.
It's exciting to get that opportunityto go in and present.
But if you just presentedand you haven't followed up with someone
or you haven'ttracked some metrics on it, then
(21:11):
you kind of did it for nothing.
So yes,I would go that far back and look at that.
All right.
So as you're doing this andand you won't actually do it right now,
please take some time to disconnect,
play some music,get in the zone of gathering.
Okay. Again, gather and focus.
(21:33):
We're just going to gather atthis point and write it down.
Now let me ask a question againas you're looking at that.
And if you've if you've scrolledthrough ten text messages,
you have probably found someonethat you need to respond to.
And here's a pro tip here.
It might not necessarily be thatthe person's waiting on you for something.
(21:56):
You might have sent over a price list.
You might have sent over a proposal,
but it's the fact that
you are waiting on themto get back to you.
And again, it in this relationshipbuilding
sales process,
you need to make that personfeel important.
(22:18):
Okay,so how many people just need a quick bump
and it could be hey Happy Friday, hopeyou had a fabulous week.
Any time to talk next week, okay?
Or just make it somethingabout what's going on this time of year.
Hey, how did your kidshow was school for your kids?
Did they enjoy their first day?
You don't have to sell again.
You're not going to sell in these, but
(22:39):
look for text messagesthat you just need to bump back up.
And this doesn't have to just be businesslike I.
I talked aboutgetting back to your mother.
How many y'allcalled your mother this week?
All right.
Do we have to answer that?
No, we don't have to.
We just have some silence here.
(22:59):
I've always been bad about phone calls.
it's just.
And it's notthat you don't want to. Right, Craig?
Right, right.
I think part of it is like you'reall grown up.
My mom would tell me I'd be boredand my mom would say,
call one of your friends.
It's like,mom, guys don't talk on the phone.
Girls talk on the phone.
You know, mymy sisters would make phone calls.
(23:20):
And to this day, they call my parentsmuch more regularly than I do.
And it's not because I don't enjoytalk with my parents.
Just get busy with life.
You just have to.
Yeah. Set priorities, study schedule.
What if you have to?
Honestly schedule?
I was on the way home this last week.
I was like, I have not called my motherlately and I called her on the way home.
(23:41):
I have a seven minute drive home.
Y'all okay, so most of youhave a longer drive home than me,
and that's if I hit the red lights.
Okay, so it might be 5 or 6 or 7 minutes.
Yeah. To all two of them. Exactly.
And you my mom said, oh, son, it'sso good to hear from you as a mom.
I was just thinking about you.
And justhow was your week and said, always good.
(24:03):
It was nice.
You the call.
And I said, mom, you know, I,I really felt obligated to call and
and it's just my humor.
I just I didshe laughed about it and oh son.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
How are the kids.
And we just had a great conversation.
All right. So it doesn't take long.
In fact,and I'm getting on a tangent here.
I'll get off of it in a second.
(24:24):
But the longer it,the more time in between you touching base
with someone like your mother,the longer you have to talk.
So your brain goes, oh, wait a minute,I got to talk longer
because I haven't talked to my momin three months. Okay?
If you call your mom every other week,those calls are much shorter.
Unless you wanted to be longer.
Like, I'll go overand see my mom and visit with her.
(24:46):
But there are some timesI just need to call
and just make sure that she understands.
I think about her
and she's important to me.
So who in your text message list is important to you that you need to say that?
It's as simple as that.
There's a group of guysthat I text pretty consistently
and it's just like, hey, hopeyou had a great week thinking about you.
Hey, how's the family?
(25:06):
And these are guys that areimportant to me and it doesn't take long.
Like, hey,have a good week thinking about you, man.
Let me know if you need anything.
All right.
So let me ask the question again.
As we've talked about this,
on a scale of 1 to 10,
how how good are you at doingwhat you say you're going to do?
(25:27):
I feel like mentally,my number is dropping a little bit.
Todd.
And I and it does for all of us.
Craig.
Okay, so this is just life because we justtypically don't have this simple system
or anything in place to make surethat we remember these people.
It's not natural.
And in fact, it feels it almost feels,
(25:50):
a little bit bad for us to
put on our calendarto remember to call mom.
It's not, though, y'all.
It's not like Craig said his sister's calla lot more than what he does.
Okay, so they just naturally do it.
If you need to touch base with people,just schedule it.
(26:11):
It's not bad, okay?
It's just that it doesn'tcome instinctual to you to do that.
But it is important, right?
The very fact that you're makingthe effort speaks volumes
to the sincerity of what you're doing.
Exactly, exactly.
All right. Yeah.
So so next week content I would say20 minutes, 20 minutes on texts,
(26:33):
going back through texts. Okay.So what's next.
Yeah.
So next we're just going to keep goingthrough your Capture devices.
And Capture devices are where informationmight come in.
And we're going to go to your email again
technology please be diligentbut just scroll through your inbox okay.
So how many peoplein there need responded to.
(26:57):
Craig now,
you know,some people might use a flagging system.
Some people might mark it on read.
That's what I some people mightjust hope that they remember it.
How many of you all out there have 4842
emails in your inbox?
They're all marked read other than
the ones that I have left unreadbecause I know I need to get to them.
(27:17):
But yeah, perfect.
And that's a good systemI'm going to give you guys.
I'm going to give you guys heresome insight into what our system is,
what I've worked as a simple systemand what our customer support
team uses, sales team uses here atWow for business emails.
And you're going to say, Todd,this is so dumb. Simple.
(27:38):
But it really is.
And I'm telling you it worksbecause it's this simple.
So inside my inbox I have my inboxfolder and I have a sub folder.
All right.
The subfolder is name complete.
And what I do is my goal
is to have my inbox, my main
(27:58):
inbox showing zero emails.
So how I get zero emails is
when an email comes inand there's something to do,
I leave it in the inbox.
And for me, Craig, it's okay.
I just leave them redbecause just being in
(28:20):
the inbox is signifiesthat there's something for me to do now
when I go and do that taskor respond to that person,
I move that email into completed.
Okay, so boom, it's gone.
It is not right in front of me.
I spent a lot of time in my inbox.
More time than I'd like to admit.
(28:40):
But when there's very little
or nothing in front of you in your inbox,that feels really good.
Like it clears up my brain.
And knowing that I've responded,and I know that everybody
I needed to respondto has been responded to.
All right.
So simple, simple, simple task of justcreating a subfolder in your inbox.
(29:05):
Name it completed and your goal is to move
and get back to everybodywho needs something.
Now here's just two quick questionsI get asked a lot of times.
Number one, if you're emailing someone
and you need to rememberto follow up with them, what do I do?
Okay, so for me, very simple.
(29:26):
Our sales teamdoes this a little bit differently.
But for me, if I need to follow upwith somebody I put it on my calendar,
I move the emailand then I go put on my calendar,
follow up with so-and-so,and I paste the body of the email
into the notessection of the calendar event.
That way, I know that next WednesdayI'm going to follow up with Joe,
(29:50):
and I'll get to that point.
And at and I'll do that task
now. at Wow, Craig, we use a CRM right?
For our sales team. Yep.
Yeah, we're using Pipedrive.
It's it's a similar type of thing
where we have a task list and same thing.
You know, the email will show up in thein the history of that client.
(30:15):
But if I need to follow up,then I can assign a date
and even a time when I'm going to,you know, I'll make a title or a header
of what the task is, and then I can justgo back into history and look at the notes
of what the last conversation wasand know exactly what I'm calling about.
Yeah, yeah.
And as a, as a, a goal or just a simple,
(30:38):
processthat we always use with the sales team is
thereshould always be a follow up on everyone,
even if it's 12 months from
now, six months from now,there's always a follow up.
Right, Craig.
Yeah, yeah.
So even like, new clientswill, you know, we'll have an initial call
and then we'll have a second callonce the media has been delivered.
(30:59):
And then we I said a third call or
email or touch point of some sort.
Just to check back.
It's I believe it's about 30 days laterwhere we just kind of touch it.
It allows us to maintain that relationshipand keep things warm.
Yep, yep.
And it works. Right, Craig. Simple.But it works.
(31:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So we,
the second thing I was going to sayis if you're working in a team,
if your team is working on one inbox,we have this as well.
We have seven, tenpeople in one inbox at Wow.
And we use the same system,the inbox, a completed folder.
The only difference is, is that everybodyon the team just has a, a color label.
(31:43):
So it's very common injust about every email program
that you can put a label on an email.
And it's a color generally,and everyone's assigned a color.
So Craig might be orange,I might be blue, Jess might be green.
And what happens is emails come in
and if there's no label on it,somebody needs to work on it.
(32:04):
If I'm going to work on it,the first thing I do
is I put my blue label on it.
I don't read through it.I don't begin to work on it.
I claim that suckerput my blue label on it.
That syncs
through everybody's
inbox, and that does thatjust through the magic of technology.
And then Craigwould see a blue label on that so
he knows there's nothing for him to do.
(32:27):
And I would then work on that.
If I'm if I'm not the one to do it,I'm going to remove my label.
Craig might see thatand then he might pick it up.
But the cool thing about this isthis is how we keep a
lot of people in one inbox,and we know who's working on what.
Once I'm done with that email,I move the email
and I leave my blue label on it,and I move it to completed.
(32:50):
And the reason why I leave my bluelabel on it is because if anybody's ever
searching the inboxand this email pops up,
they know who took care of this.
So Craig could come back to mevery easily and say, hey,
back in April, you responded to so-and-so.
Did they do this thing?
All right, so it keeps thatline of knowledge going, right?
(33:12):
And it's a great workflowbecause then it it really kind of
how do I put this?
It kind of gives ownershipor accountability to each person.
Each possible leak in the bucket.
Yeah.
Yeah. So
now if you don't have a system right nowthat's okay.
And let's get back to the idea of gathergathering.
(33:35):
You're just going to gatherthrough your email.
So scroll through your email againgo months back.
You knowcan you make it back to it's August now.
Can you make it back six months.
Just set yourself 20 or 30 minutes here.
Play your music or radio stationyou like and just go back.
There's going to be some people in therethat you need to respond to.
(33:56):
I can guarantee, oh,I didn't get back to Bob.
Okay, put that down.
And againyou're just gathering this information.
Just write it down on your notebook
and, you know, the name, maybe the dateand something that prompts you
so you can quickly
and easily search for the email again,and then you can respond to Bob.
Right. All right. So you're going toyou're going to go through that.
(34:17):
You don't have to ask the question,what about Bob?
You got that?
Craig, I don't know how many our listenersare going to get that.
But you guys sailed on my first try. Yes.
Folks, if you didn't catch the reference,look up.
What about Bob? Bill Murray?
(34:37):
You can thank me. Incredible movie.
You can thank me later.
I got you up one.
But what up, Bob?
I'm glad you did.
That. Played almost constantly.
There was a rotation of videos
that my brothers and I played,and that was one of them.
I'm going toI got to watch that movie tonight.
(34:58):
Now, that was one of the funniest moviesI've ever seen.
Okay, Bill Murray, genius. Anyway.
Good one. Okay.
All right.
We're we're we'll.
Yeah. So we'll just continue here.
And you guys are understandingthis cadence.
But the thing I want to again,
caution you about is don't not do thisbecause you think this is so simple.
I can guarantee youand you all are coming to me now
(35:21):
saying, hey, August has really been bad.
Like, you guys are sending out the S.O.S.
flags, like, seriously and I and this is
for those of you that I coach in orbitthat have really big businesses.
And this is youall that have are just starting.
All right. So this is across the board.
(35:42):
And so please don't take it.
Don't not do it because it's so simple.
Okay.
The next thing I want you to go throughthe next capture device is your calendar.
So go back into your calendarand scroll back.
You know, look at day by day.
What events have you had on there?
Ideally, if you can hide your shoots,
(36:05):
probably hide those because there'sprobably not something actionable.
Or maybe there is.
Maybe if you see an agent name,it might trigger you to say, hey,
I shot the first property for that agent,and I was excited
about getting that agent,and I haven't heard from her.
All right,you probably need to call the agent.
Just check in. How'd your summer go, kids?
Back to school?
(36:25):
It's that simple. Again, don't call now.
Just write the agent's name down.
Okay,so look through all your calendar events.
And this is a big one, Craig.
Because if a person was on your calendar,you probably went to them.
You had a zoom meeting with them.
Like this took a lot of time.
So are these peopleimportant to follow up with?
Yes. So wewant to make sure we follow up with them.
(36:48):
All right.
Ten minutes on your calendar
okay.
Here's a couple more.
And this kind of encapsulatesjust about all of my capture devices.
But I go through next.
Go through, bring out your phone againand go through your photos.
Okay.
Oh, yes. You've talked about this.
(37:10):
Yeah.
So I use typically with a capture device.
I use my phoneas a capture device, the camera.
And there's a lot of timesI'll take a picture of something.
It might be a picture of the screen, itmight be something that I've written down.
But I take a picture of it because there'ssomething actionable for me to do here.
You might also find the picture of thebrokerage meeting you were at the room,
(37:33):
and that might trigger you to say,oh, I went to that.
I need to follow up. Okay.
So scroll back through your images
and do you have anything?
Just do you have a little nugget, a littleflake of gold in there sitting there.
You got to get it up okay.
You got to get that into the jar.
(37:54):
So write that name down.
Write that idea down.
And I give a practical example of that.
Yeah please.So I didn't physically write it down.
I'm going to have to start doing that.
But I was going through my social media.
I follow a lot of our clientsthat I serve in our market on Facebook.
And of course, when I'm scrolling through,I see a lot of their activity.
(38:17):
And an example,a client that I've worked with
for a number of years now,and she's always been very, very happy.
I saw a post fromher come up, a new listing
had professional
photos tagged,but it wasn't ones that I shot.
It wasn't ones that wow shot.
So immediately I'm like, what happened?
(38:38):
I screenshot that postthat had the address and everything, and
I just, I shot it.
I attach it to an emailand shout it to my work email.
This morning I pulled up my email.
I'm like, I'm going to take care of thisbefore we dive into our meetings,
because I want
I haven't talked to her in a long timebecause I've been busy with that.
With the busy seasonand got her voicemail, left her voicemail.
(39:02):
He just wanted to follow up.
I know we haven't talked in a while.
Congrats on the new listing.
So even though I didn't shoot it,I congratulated her on the new listing
because that's important to her.
And, and I did mentionI just got the awkwardness out of the way.
I said, hey,I saw we didn't do the photos for that.
You know, we'd love to chat.
Just get your feedback on things,she responded.
(39:23):
I think within about 30s and said,hey, I'm just going into a showing.
But can I, can I call you back?
I'm like, hey,no pressure. No, you know, no rush.
Take care of your showing.
Just wanted to check in.
I gave her a synopsis of the voicemail.
And she said yes, let's catch up.
So no awkwardness,
but we'regoing to have a good conversation.
(39:43):
I'm going to find out, you know, the why.
So just very simple screenshotemailed it, followed up.
Yeah, it's that simple Craig.
That's such a fabulous technique.
And get in the habitof doing it in the moment.
Yeah okay.
Now I will just give you one little tipand just some verbiage that I use.
If I'm if I'm standing in front of someonethat I'm doing something for,
(40:07):
okay, I'll pull out my phoneand please be cognizant.
I try to never have my phone when I'mwith someone because I feel though it's
I feel it's rudebecause they should have my attention.
If I pull out my phone,I verbally communicate to them like, hey,
I'm going to get this done for you.
I'm just emailing myself a reminder.
I'm emailing the staff right now.
(40:28):
Verbalize that to themand then say good at sent.
I'll get this in the morning, okay?
And then put your phone back away. Yep.
Exactly.
So supersimple things are just verbalize it.
And if you tell them that you're goingto get back to them in the morning,
please get back to them in the morning.
Yeah.
So that's why it's so importantto put it into your inbox
(40:51):
because just like Craig said,he got there,
he saw he already tookthe screenshot of the listing.
If he would have left itin his camera, Craig,
it probably would havedisappeared forever, right?
At least for a while.
Yeah, but that's whereif you make this a regular cadence,
like you've talked about,you go through those photos every week,
(41:13):
at least you're staying on top of it
all week at a time, at the very least.
Yeah, yeah. Great.
So that is gather and focus you all.
And again this was this is not a me thing.
This is, taught to me by a coach.
His name is Austin Cheviron.
And he does this and I find value in this.
So I want to pass it along to you guys.
(41:35):
I think you guys are workingso hard out there.
And I know some of you are saying, like,I just I need new business, and I just
you've probably worked really hardto have opportunities
to get business and now those peopleare warm leads to you.
Or they might be currentclients like Craig discovered today.
(41:56):
We had already done a propertyfor this individual wall, so
it's awkward, like Craig said,to have those conversations.
But you got to do it.
You got to go find them.
You got to have tough conversations.
But the idea of first is just gatheringthis and focus
on what you've worked hard for, tojust push it across the finish line.
(42:17):
I wonder if it's hard for us, Toddsomewhat
to at least for me,when you take that hour or two
where you're gathering and focusing,it can feel unproductive, right?
Because you're not responding to messages,you're not taking action.
It's like all internal, focusedand maybe at least for for some people.
And I think this is one of my strugglesis when I'm
(42:41):
taking that time to organize,I don't feel productive.
However, once I have all of thatinformation focused and written down,
it's it's a taskbecause it's a checklist and suddenly
I can focus then on the
actionable part of that listand I can start bringing stuff out.
And it feels great when you can take,you know, check off those things.
(43:05):
And you've had a very concentrated,actionable, time
that at the end of that,when you've checked off all those things
and you've made those phone calls and donethose follow ups, it feels really good.
And it it's given you focusto be more efficient in a shorter
amount of time and get a lot doneand have some great results.
(43:28):
Yeah, yeah.
And that's all that that kind of that highof getting things done right Craig.
Like that hit a dopamine.
You knowit's tough to start on the first one.
But once you do it you you realize thatit's really kind of satisfying.
And it gets a bitaddicting to go through your list.
And then when you get your list done,like, there's nothing better than that,
(43:49):
like you're done, go enjoy your family,go do whatever you want to do.
And and you can do thatfeeling good that you've secured
some loose ends or some leaksand your bucket of your business.
And even if you don't get throughthe whole list, having it written down
and knowing
I don't have to try and remember thatwhen I'm having dinner with my family,
(44:12):
your mind can relax a little bit because,you know, I already have it written down.
I know I'm not going to forgetbecause I'm going to go back to my list
and all the detail will be there.
Yeah, it's amazing what your brain can do.
And it's amazing what your brain can do
even when it's not
being a checklist.
Our brains weren't made to be a checklistokay.
(44:34):
It hurts your brain.
It's like how we get clogged up.
I gave myself a thumbs up againwith technology here.
I see, so don't make your braina checklist.
Just get it down and,you will feel better about that.
Good deal. Fantastic advice. Todd.
Thank you for sure. Craig.
I did miss onebecause she's gone for this.
Yeah, I, I,
(44:55):
just one more capture device for you tolook at if you write down in a notebook.
Okay, so that notebookthat you're writing, go to your notebook.
Like I keep a daily notebookand I keep it digitally.
Just go through that.
I keep notes of my meetingsand just go backwards.
And is there anything in there that youneed to take that you need to clean up?
Okay.
So write it down on your checklist
(45:16):
and then you've brought it backup to the top of your page.
Good, good advice.
And just a tip I use there.
And I stole it from someone else.
But when I write in my notebookand when there's something for me to do,
I draw a box.
And then I write what I need to do.
And in the box. This is so stupid. Simple.
(45:38):
But the box is just so I can go backand I can put a check mark in it.
Like if I look at a page,it has a box on it.
I immediately knowthere's something for me to do
and then I can later when it's done,check it off and that feels good as well.
An easy visualclue to make it less stressful
to find that information that, yeah,you know, you have to follow up on.
(46:00):
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Could you.
All right.
Any any parting thoughts,any any summary for us
challenges just to do it.
I think you'll be surprised.
Then comment below.
How many things did you find?
How many loose endsor leaks in your bucket did you find?
I remember a month agoyou were really excited about that lead,
(46:23):
but if they don't feel excited
about the excitement from you andyou haven't followed up with them, do it.
It's there.
You guys have your businessand your pipeline.
Just please follow up.
Do what you say you're going to do.
Chad, you mentioned just as I
as I think through this,you mentioned the panic that some people
are starting to have with Augustand things slowing down a little bit.
(46:43):
I think for at least those
that have done this for a little whileand I include myself in this,
I'm actually getting to the pointwhere I look forward
to a little bit of a slower seasonin terms of the activity of shoots,
so that I can follow up on all of
the opportunities and getting
back in touch with clients,not taking them for granted.
(47:04):
Because I start to get a little, antsyor anxious
about not keeping in contact with peoplebecause I'm so busy with the shoots.
So take this season of of thingsstarting to slow down a little bit
to do exactly what Todd just shared here,where you can take an hour or two
and go through your,your capture devices and spend
(47:24):
those, you know, 20 minutesgoing through your, your texts and,
and just all the thingsit will make you feel so much better.
I felt good making that
that phone call this morning to a clientthat I haven't talked to in a while,
at least for me.
Todd I think it's partially a guilt thing,
like I feel guiltythat I even talk to her.
So now that guilt is relieved,it's like, okay, yeah,
you know, we're going to catch up again.
(47:45):
We're going to get things rolling again.
Exactly.
Yeah.It's crazy how that just flipped a switch.
Like you felt the little bit of pitwhen you saw the, the images,
the new listing in the images.They weren't ours.
And think now it's like,oh, this is great.
Like she responded right back to me, like,
there's something herewe're going to uncover. Right.
And nice job with that. And we're okay.
(48:06):
You know, I yes,I might not have gotten to do that. Shoot.
It might have been something as simple asI didn't have availability
when she needed itand she just had to get it done.
I understand that, you know,but the relationship is still there,
and she's totally okaywith with talking about whatever it is.
Yeah, I love it.
Love it guys, thank you for tuning in.
Hopefullythis has been profitable for you.
(48:28):
And and you can start to kind oftake some time and get things organized
mentally. Take a breath.
It's a great
system to plug the leaks in your bucket,
and you're going to see that waterlevel rise in.
It'll be nothing but good for you.
So, Todd, thank you.
My pleasure.
(48:49):
All right.
Well,that's going to wrap things up next week.
We will be talking with Nick,the owner of Titus.
An exciting new integrationcoming to Spiro.
So make sure you don't miss that.
And, just a lot more on the wayfor the rest of 2025 as well.
We are so thankful for the,the time that you take to listen to watch,
feel free to share if you found value inthis, leave us a like that just helps,
(49:12):
helps us
get things out to more people to help themhave successful businesses as well.
We appreciate you.
You have a great rest of the weekand we will catch you next week.
Take a breath. Take care.
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
if you just presentedand you haven't followed up with someone
or you haven'ttracked some metrics on it, then
you kind of did it for nothing.
(00:26):
Hi and welcome to the Spiro Podcast,
managing your real estate, photographyand videography business.
Spiro is a software platform.
It's designed to help you maintain, run,but ultimately
really to help you growand scale your real estate media business.
I'm Craig Magrum, host of the podcastAlways good to have you here.
(00:46):
We hope that,
if you're a longtime listener oreven a recent listener, that you've found
some value, in the discussionof running business in this industry,
that, that we've put forth,if you're a brand new listener.
Welcome. We're glad to have you.
We just,we really like to celebrate success
and see people be successfulin the real estate media business.
Let me introduce our co-host,Ian Spiro, owner and founder, Todd Kivimaki.
(01:10):
Welcome back, Todd
Craig, It's as always great to be on here today.
We've got some exciting thingsto talk about.
You briefly said that you've cometo a conclusion
on your tattoo for your facetattoo right? not a face tattoo.
What are you having tattooed on your face?
Nothing on my face.
Oh, I was thinking about it.
Was thinking about the inside of the rightwrist there, but no, I just.
(01:33):
I read this stat, and I'm like,
now, whether it's true or not, I'mgoing to just assume it's true.
But I read there's a 30%,
increase
chanceincrease of developing a blood cancer.
For tattoos.
Now, some of that I'm sure some peopleare going to say no, no, no, that's right.
(01:53):
And that it might not be true.
But you know what?
I just think I'm I'm going on 50.
Why at this point,why chance it so I'm thinking, well,
can I pass uppass up on the tattoo decisions made.
Yeah. No, no judgment on anyone else.
I've admired some really greatlooking tattoos.
So anyway.
(02:14):
Well, good.
I mean, I'mglad that we've discussed that.
I mean, we havewe have some exciting things to discuss.
We talked about bathing last week, Craig.
Nature bathing.
Yes. Nature bathing, which explain thatbecause even that sounds weird.
Todd. Yeah.
If this is your first time listening tosorry, we really are sorry, but not sorry.
(02:37):
nature bathing
is the idea of, like, when you all know,like, you've looked at a screen too much
or you focused on something too muchand you just need to get your head clear.
This is this ideaof going out into nature,
putting your bare feet in the ground
and just
taking a moment to just
(03:00):
just be gratefulabout the beauty of nature.
Yeah. Breathe. Yes.
Craig.
And, so we challengethis was a new term to me.
Now, this isn't something new.
I mean, if you live around me,you'll find my wife every morning
going out with bare feet,whether it's 100 degrees or zero degrees.
And, at firstI gave her a little bit of a hard time.
(03:21):
She probably kill me for even saying this,but then there is really something
in this.
So we took a challenge last week, Craig,and we did some nature bathing.
We did, we did.
I sent Todd the picture.
Todd, we're going to have to give Justinethese pictures so you can pop
them up on the screen.
Yeah.
The idea was that, yeah, for usboth to take some time and just.
Yeah, breatheand put our feet in the grass.
(03:43):
And I have to confess, mine was my timeof putting my feet in the grass.
I can't see nature bathing.
It just feels weird.
It just it does. It does.
My time of putting my feet inmy grass was actually on the job.
I was at a shoot.
It was a really picturesque,though type of property.
Had a pond in the front of the yardand the sellers weren't there,
(04:05):
so it was just me.
And so I, I took my shoesoff, took my socks
off, and I put my feet in the grassright there in front of the pond.
It was a beautiful moment. That's great.
And we did not get any complaintsfrom any nosy neighbors that,
wow, Craig, that you wereyou sitting with bare feet by the pond.
So. Right.
But you as a good moment,you get a moment too, right?
(04:29):
I did, yes.
So I just walked out back of the officehere, as you know,
we're in the middle of a cornfield here.
And I said, we have a humongous,beautiful tree out back.
I sat underneath that.
And Craig, in all seriousness,
I noticethings like I notice a caterpillar
crawling on this on the grassand walking through the grass,
(04:50):
and I noticedI just could hear the the corn blow.
And I saw the sun come through,and I heard the birds.
And I just notice these things.
I've never noticed before.
Like the locust shells on the treegoing up
and things that if you're just super fast.
When I live super fast, I should sayI would have never noticed that thing.
(05:13):
I know the trees out back.I know there's corn out back there.
I had no clue at just how much was backthere.
Was good to put my feet in the grassand just take.
I set ten minutes on my on my stopwatchon my phone and turn my phone upside
down, put it about five feet away from meand just took it all in.
It's good.
Speaking of corn
(05:33):
and hearing the sound of the corn moving,did you know you can hear corn grow?
Is this a is this a dad joke?
Oh, it's actually not a dad joke.
I I've heard it before.
You again.
You have to be really still.
It's got to be a dead still day.
Like no wind.
And it helps if it's really humid as well.
(05:56):
Okay.The corn does really well in humidity.
And if you're really quietand you're out in the middle
on the middle of a cornfieldand there's, you know, no cars driving by,
you can hear it almost creak.
It's oh, it's yeah, it's it'sso the creaking is the idea
that the stalk is growing and crackingand that's that's what I've heard.
(06:19):
And I swear I've heard it before,you know, once or twice.
I don't slow down enough usually.
Anyway, this is a weird podcast search,
I guess,but it's people are going to think
we're a bunch of hippies and, you know,they won't be a hippie with us.
Post your nature bathing photo below.
Please make it PG rated.
(06:39):
Just your socks off.
And yes, if you're looking at my picture,my feet really are that big.
I have skis
for feet and they're that white,so go ahead and make fun of them.
It's fun. We'll all laugh at me.
My oldest son, he's.
Yeah,we we joke that he's got gigantic feet.
Just I mean, Michael Phelps size feet,
you know,they're they're flippers, their size.
(07:01):
But he's still shorter than I am.And that irks him to no one.
Okay, let's let's get back on track here.
A great topic today.
We're looking forward to.
It's kind of an expansion of a topicwe did back in March.
We'll set that up in just a second.
But first, you have a fewfew announcements you want to make.
Yes. Conference is in November.
(07:21):
If you don't know where you're going,pick one of them.
Go to REPP November 7th and eighth.
It's in Las Vegas. We'll all be there.
Come see us if that week doesn't workfor you PMRE is two weeks later.
If none of those work for you,come see us at the Spiro Sync in January.
It is in Ohio.
We have finalized dates.
We have a Savethe date posted for you all on the Spiro
(07:44):
Super UserFacebook group, January 22nd and 23rd.
It's going to be fabulous.I'm excited about that, Craig.
So come, come to one, come to all of them.
But this is where you really get out.
You take a moment to breatheand you get some margin in your brain
to think differently.
Right now, when you do those conferences,when you take that deep breath
(08:07):
at Spiro Sync,it's going to be the middle of January
and it's going to be really cold.
So just be carefulhow deep of a breath you take.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
You might be coughing right.
Just real quick about Spiro updates
and I'll just more or lessgive you guys a resource.
I did I did a tech talk, last week,we covered a ton of updates.
(08:28):
So Titus is coming up.
Titus is financing for your realtors,
and this is going to help youincrease your average order value.
I shared two things with youthat I hadn't shared before
that are going to be partof that Titus update.
They're going to bejust incredible features.
So if you need to get caught up,we won't take time here.
(08:49):
Go grab that tech talk.
Worst case, if you don't want to listento all of it, ask a comment and the video
or just download the video, give it toAI and have AI give you the information.
There you go.
And, we're going to be talking
with the owner of Titusnext week, correct?
Yes. Next week.
Nick's going to be on looking forwardto it.
(09:10):
Cool.
Already?
Well, without further ado, enoughTitan nature breathing talk.
And in, in all of that,let's dive into it.
So, Todd, back in March, we did an episodecalled The Fortune is in the follow up
and talked about just the opportunitiesthat we have to grow our business
just by simply following up on phone callsand emails and discussions
(09:34):
that we've had with,you know, clients and potential clients.
And it was really good material.
But you've got some some great materialfor us today on some practical
how to steps and systems.
That will help what you refer
to as, plugging the bucket.
(09:55):
Did I get that right. Let me.
Yes. Yeah.
The plugging the leak leak.
You've got leakybucket, right? Yes. Craig.
So we're going to continue with that.
And butwe're going to dig in a little bit more.
So if you listen to that podcast,please stick with us.
We're going to go deeper.
So the goal here is any time you doanything is you just try to find
one little nugget that you can useand adapt into your workflow.
(10:18):
So and this idea is,I think, a problem that plagues all of us.
This idea of the leaky bucket. Okay.
So let's expand on that a little bit.
Yeah. So you know I love analogies, Craig.
And I thought this was just a fittingone for this podcast.
But the imagineyour business is the bucket okay.
(10:41):
And we all want to fill our bucket upwith water.
And the water representsthe business jobs coming in.
It represents revenue.
It represents a full business okay.
So the water in the bucket
and water flows in to the bucket.
And that's potential business.
(11:03):
All right.
And there's a problem where
you might have some cracksor some holes in your bucket.
And as water flows in it'sflowing out and it's okay Craig.
Every business has water has some cracks.
So, I want to caution you
to not try to make your bucket leakproof,
(11:26):
you know, like on humongous ships
and even not even humongous like,large ships.
They all take on some amount of water.
And that water,no matter how hard you try, you're
never going to make the haul or the boatthat doesn't take on some amount of water.
It's actually not a problem because theypump the water right back out.
(11:49):
Okay, so I don't want you
to make your bucket leakproofbecause you're going to have some cracks.
But if your cracks and holes
are larger than the water comingin, then we have a problem because
your actual water levels going down,not staying the same or going up.
(12:10):
And again,
we want the water level to go upbecause our goal is to have a full bucket.
If your cracks are biggerthan the water coming
in, then you are actuallyin a decline of your business.
So kind of go into that that ship example
of it's kind of the opposite,
thing where if you're taking ontoo much water, you're going to sink.
But you mentioned the pumps.
(12:32):
There's a system thereto take care of that issue.
And I can't helpbut think of a job that I had years ago.
I worked in an inside sales department,and hope you don't mind me telling the
story, but,
our inside sales department,
we had actually two divisionswithin that inside sales department.
One was specifically designedto find new business.
(12:54):
They were called the prospecting, people.
And then we had, inside salespeoplethat specialized in retention.
So it was retaining the new clientsthat we were landing it.
Just like you said,
we didn't keep 100% of our new clients,but had we not had that focus on retaining
current clients, clients, thatthat loss could have been even bigger.
(13:18):
So it was a system.
It was a very simple system.
Yeah.
And sometimes the most simple onesare the best.
So before I tell you, a simple system,before we go through
what a simple system is and a systemthat I use, I just want to ask a question.
Craig. Okay.
So I'd like to ask all of you out there.
So wherever you're at,you know, just think about this
(13:40):
on a scale of 1 to 10,
how good are you at following up?
How good are you at doing
what you say you're going to do?
Okay, so I would say
doing what you say you're going to dois critically important
to getting and growing a business.
(14:03):
You know, if you think about it,if you don't do what you say you're going
to do, your clients are going to thinkthat you don't care about them.
They're they're not importantthat their business doesn't matter
or that you just run a crummy business.
Right.
And, you know, that's kind of that impactsyour integrity.
You know.
(14:23):
Yeah, it does.
And thatand that might be a little bit harsh.
I'm not saying you all do this,but that is
what the perception iswhen you don't follow up with someone.
Right?
So just rate yourself right now
on a scale of 1 to 10,how good are you at following up?
All right. And keep that number in mind.
(14:44):
So now we're going
to look at a couple of mechanisms.
And this was taught to me by a coach.
And he called it gather and focus.
All right.
And again very simple system at its heart.
But there is so much value in here.
We're going to help you uncover this.
(15:06):
So the idea of what gather and focus is,is that
you take a dedicated time, okay.
Typically at the end of the week
where you have probably a two hour block
and it's just you and you, we'regoing to go through some capture devices.
We'll explain that in a second.
(15:28):
We're going to go throughsome capture devices to help you
find those cracks in your bucket,
to make sure that you do what you said
you will do, and you'll follow upwith people you've talked to.
So a very dedicated
system, systematized set of words,systematized approach.
Yeah.
(15:48):
To to find the leaks okay.
All right.
Yeah. So and this isthis is really simple.
So the first thing is, is you'll sit downI recommend a pen and paper.
All right.
So don't type because when you type justI mean how I do this all the time, right.
If I type or I'm on the computerwhat happens
(16:11):
interuptions, pop ups, right.
Yes. It's crazy.
15 things come upand now I'm three websites over
an inch is something I never intendedto be doing at that point.
And I will say, Craig, this is somethingthat I've been focusing on lately, like
I'm in the habit oflike when I wait for something to process.
Like if I'm using AI and I prompt it
(16:34):
with a message,there's a little bit of spending time.
And I've gotten in thehabit that while that thing spends for,
I don't know, ten 20s, I'll switch
screens and I'll work on something else.
How many times have we mentioned on thispodcast we are not wired to multitask?
(16:55):
I'm just guilty.
I'm just guilty
Can I share a quick, quick story with you?
Yeah. Tied into this.
So this past week, my wife has been gone.
She's been overseas on a mission tripin Madagascar. Out.
She's coming back tonight. Hallelujah.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah,but what I have found, and I don't know,
(17:15):
I think this is commentary on me,and I need to work on this on me.
But I have found when she is home,I am not as focused
on, like, getting things done.
We both can get into the habitof doomscrolling when she is gone.
I've noticed my phone.
I don't pick up my phone as muchand I have gotten so much done this week
(17:35):
just by not picking up the phone.
I think part of it is I don't want herto come back to a dirty house, right?
I don't want to be.I don't want to be that husband.
So I've gotten the dishes done.I've gotten the laundry done.
I've, you know, Zeke’s school lunches.
You know, she gave me that task. Here'swhat you need to do.
It's like, I don't want to drop the ball.
It's kind of a matter of pride, right?
(17:56):
But, yeah.
Just going back to the basicsand put the electronics down.
It is so hard to do sometimes, but, man,can we get a lot done
when we go back to old schoolpen paper like you just.
You just mentioned
it's it is amazing, Craig,how much it is, how much better it is. So,
(18:16):
I, I that'ssomething that we all struggle with.
So I'm saying this and Craigand I say these things out loud
just as much as a it's ait helps us remember what we need to do.
So we're right there with you.Yeah. On this.
All right.
So first you're going to spend 20 minutes
and you're going to gothrough your text messages okay.
(18:38):
So you have to be diligent here becauseyou're picking up a piece of technology.
You're not going to answer calls.
You're not going to do anythingbut go to your text messages okay.
So open up your phone.I've got my phone here.
I'm going to go inand go through your text messages.
All right.
So if it's good for you playa little music in the background just so
(19:00):
you stay focused because this is a timeyou're just collecting, you're gathering.
That's the first part of thisexercise is just gathering.
So I don't want you to feel
and in fact, you should
not respond to anyone,no matter how who it is.
You know, unless your mother's texting youand she needs help with something
(19:20):
like it's emergency,you know, respond to your mother.
You know.
Yeah.
But go throughand just gather information, okay?
So what we're going to do andand if you're not driving right now,
you can do some of this.
So you get the idea.
And it really is this simple.
You're like, I'm not giving you anything
(19:42):
other than a very simple system,but it's going to save you
and make you thousands and thousandsor tens of thousands.
There's deals in herethat you would not believe.
So scrolling through your text messages,this is the toughest
one for me, Craig,to keep consistent with because I have
text messagescan somewhat disappear when they go on.
(20:04):
Once you read themand you get 4 or 5 more text messages,
that single text message gets pushed downand you have to go find it.
So scroll through here.
Look at these names okay.
So oh here's someone okayI need to respond to this one okay.
So I, I, I found this oneI need to respond to.
I'm going to write downthe name of the individual,
(20:26):
and I'm going to write downjust a quick note
to help me understand what I need to do.
Again, you're not doing it.
You're just gathering.
So literally spend 20 minutes and yes,
you're going to go throughprobably a few months of text messages.
Okay.
But for.
Right, because that far back, that farback Craig.
(20:48):
Because how many of you dida broker presentation
three months ago.
Right.
We talked all you were excited.
It's exciting to get that opportunityto go in and present.
But if you just presentedand you haven't followed up with someone
or you haven'ttracked some metrics on it, then
(21:11):
you kind of did it for nothing.
So yes,I would go that far back and look at that.
All right.
So as you're doing this andand you won't actually do it right now,
please take some time to disconnect,
play some music,get in the zone of gathering.
Okay. Again, gather and focus.
(21:33):
We're just going to gather atthis point and write it down.
Now let me ask a question againas you're looking at that.
And if you've if you've scrolledthrough ten text messages,
you have probably found someonethat you need to respond to.
And here's a pro tip here.
It might not necessarily be thatthe person's waiting on you for something.
(21:56):
You might have sent over a price list.
You might have sent over a proposal,
but it's the fact that
you are waiting on themto get back to you.
And again, it in this relationshipbuilding
sales process,
you need to make that personfeel important.
(22:18):
Okay,so how many people just need a quick bump
and it could be hey Happy Friday, hopeyou had a fabulous week.
Any time to talk next week, okay?
Or just make it somethingabout what's going on this time of year.
Hey, how did your kidshow was school for your kids?
Did they enjoy their first day?
You don't have to sell again.
You're not going to sell in these, but
(22:39):
look for text messagesthat you just need to bump back up.
And this doesn't have to just be businesslike I.
I talked aboutgetting back to your mother.
How many y'allcalled your mother this week?
All right.
Do we have to answer that?
No, we don't have to.
We just have some silence here.
(22:59):
I've always been bad about phone calls.
it's just.
And it's notthat you don't want to. Right, Craig?
Right, right.
I think part of it is like you'reall grown up.
My mom would tell me I'd be boredand my mom would say,
call one of your friends.
It's like,mom, guys don't talk on the phone.
Girls talk on the phone.
You know, mymy sisters would make phone calls.
(23:20):
And to this day, they call my parentsmuch more regularly than I do.
And it's not because I don't enjoytalk with my parents.
Just get busy with life.
You just have to.
Yeah. Set priorities, study schedule.
What if you have to?
Honestly schedule?
I was on the way home this last week.
I was like, I have not called my motherlately and I called her on the way home.
(23:41):
I have a seven minute drive home.
Y'all okay, so most of youhave a longer drive home than me,
and that's if I hit the red lights.
Okay, so it might be 5 or 6 or 7 minutes.
Yeah. To all two of them. Exactly.
And you my mom said, oh, son, it'sso good to hear from you as a mom.
I was just thinking about you.
And justhow was your week and said, always good.
(24:03):
It was nice.
You the call.
And I said, mom, you know, I,I really felt obligated to call and
and it's just my humor.
I just I didshe laughed about it and oh son.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
How are the kids.
And we just had a great conversation.
All right. So it doesn't take long.
In fact,and I'm getting on a tangent here.
I'll get off of it in a second.
(24:24):
But the longer it,the more time in between you touching base
with someone like your mother,the longer you have to talk.
So your brain goes, oh, wait a minute,I got to talk longer
because I haven't talked to my momin three months. Okay?
If you call your mom every other week,those calls are much shorter.
Unless you wanted to be longer.
Like, I'll go overand see my mom and visit with her.
(24:46):
But there are some timesI just need to call
and just make sure that she understands.
I think about her
and she's important to me.
So who in your text message list is important to you that you need to say that?
It's as simple as that.
There's a group of guysthat I text pretty consistently
and it's just like, hey, hopeyou had a great week thinking about you.
Hey, how's the family?
(25:06):
And these are guys that areimportant to me and it doesn't take long.
Like, hey,have a good week thinking about you, man.
Let me know if you need anything.
All right.
So let me ask the question again.
As we've talked about this,
on a scale of 1 to 10,
how how good are you at doingwhat you say you're going to do?
(25:27):
I feel like mentally,my number is dropping a little bit.
Todd.
And I and it does for all of us.
Craig.
Okay, so this is just life because we justtypically don't have this simple system
or anything in place to make surethat we remember these people.
It's not natural.
And in fact, it feels it almost feels,
(25:50):
a little bit bad for us to
put on our calendarto remember to call mom.
It's not, though, y'all.
It's not like Craig said his sister's calla lot more than what he does.
Okay, so they just naturally do it.
If you need to touch base with people,just schedule it.
(26:11):
It's not bad, okay?
It's just that it doesn'tcome instinctual to you to do that.
But it is important, right?
The very fact that you're makingthe effort speaks volumes
to the sincerity of what you're doing.
Exactly, exactly.
All right. Yeah.
So so next week content I would say20 minutes, 20 minutes on texts,
(26:33):
going back through texts. Okay.So what's next.
Yeah.
So next we're just going to keep goingthrough your Capture devices.
And Capture devices are where informationmight come in.
And we're going to go to your email again
technology please be diligentbut just scroll through your inbox okay.
So how many peoplein there need responded to.
(26:57):
Craig now,
you know,some people might use a flagging system.
Some people might mark it on read.
That's what I some people mightjust hope that they remember it.
How many of you all out there have 4842
emails in your inbox?
They're all marked read other than
the ones that I have left unreadbecause I know I need to get to them.
(27:17):
But yeah, perfect.
And that's a good systemI'm going to give you guys.
I'm going to give you guys heresome insight into what our system is,
what I've worked as a simple systemand what our customer support
team uses, sales team uses here atWow for business emails.
And you're going to say, Todd,this is so dumb. Simple.
(27:38):
But it really is.
And I'm telling you it worksbecause it's this simple.
So inside my inbox I have my inboxfolder and I have a sub folder.
All right.
The subfolder is name complete.
And what I do is my goal
is to have my inbox, my main
(27:58):
inbox showing zero emails.
So how I get zero emails is
when an email comes inand there's something to do,
I leave it in the inbox.
And for me, Craig, it's okay.
I just leave them redbecause just being in
(28:20):
the inbox is signifiesthat there's something for me to do now
when I go and do that taskor respond to that person,
I move that email into completed.
Okay, so boom, it's gone.
It is not right in front of me.
I spent a lot of time in my inbox.
More time than I'd like to admit.
(28:40):
But when there's very little
or nothing in front of you in your inbox,that feels really good.
Like it clears up my brain.
And knowing that I've responded,and I know that everybody
I needed to respondto has been responded to.
All right.
So simple, simple, simple task of justcreating a subfolder in your inbox.
(29:05):
Name it completed and your goal is to move
and get back to everybodywho needs something.
Now here's just two quick questionsI get asked a lot of times.
Number one, if you're emailing someone
and you need to rememberto follow up with them, what do I do?
Okay, so for me, very simple.
(29:26):
Our sales teamdoes this a little bit differently.
But for me, if I need to follow upwith somebody I put it on my calendar,
I move the emailand then I go put on my calendar,
follow up with so-and-so,and I paste the body of the email
into the notessection of the calendar event.
That way, I know that next WednesdayI'm going to follow up with Joe,
(29:50):
and I'll get to that point.
And at and I'll do that task
now. at Wow, Craig, we use a CRM right?
For our sales team. Yep.
Yeah, we're using Pipedrive.
It's it's a similar type of thing
where we have a task list and same thing.
You know, the email will show up in thein the history of that client.
(30:15):
But if I need to follow up,then I can assign a date
and even a time when I'm going to,you know, I'll make a title or a header
of what the task is, and then I can justgo back into history and look at the notes
of what the last conversation wasand know exactly what I'm calling about.
Yeah, yeah.
And as a, as a, a goal or just a simple,
(30:38):
processthat we always use with the sales team is
thereshould always be a follow up on everyone,
even if it's 12 months from
now, six months from now,there's always a follow up.
Right, Craig.
Yeah, yeah.
So even like, new clientswill, you know, we'll have an initial call
and then we'll have a second callonce the media has been delivered.
(30:59):
And then we I said a third call or
email or touch point of some sort.
Just to check back.
It's I believe it's about 30 days laterwhere we just kind of touch it.
It allows us to maintain that relationshipand keep things warm.
Yep, yep.
And it works. Right, Craig. Simple.But it works.
(31:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So we,
the second thing I was going to sayis if you're working in a team,
if your team is working on one inbox,we have this as well.
We have seven, tenpeople in one inbox at Wow.
And we use the same system,the inbox, a completed folder.
The only difference is, is that everybodyon the team just has a, a color label.
(31:43):
So it's very common injust about every email program
that you can put a label on an email.
And it's a color generally,and everyone's assigned a color.
So Craig might be orange,I might be blue, Jess might be green.
And what happens is emails come in
and if there's no label on it,somebody needs to work on it.
(32:04):
If I'm going to work on it,the first thing I do
is I put my blue label on it.
I don't read through it.I don't begin to work on it.
I claim that suckerput my blue label on it.
That syncs
through everybody's
inbox, and that does thatjust through the magic of technology.
And then Craigwould see a blue label on that so
he knows there's nothing for him to do.
(32:27):
And I would then work on that.
If I'm if I'm not the one to do it,I'm going to remove my label.
Craig might see thatand then he might pick it up.
But the cool thing about this isthis is how we keep a
lot of people in one inbox,and we know who's working on what.
Once I'm done with that email,I move the email
and I leave my blue label on it,and I move it to completed.
(32:50):
And the reason why I leave my bluelabel on it is because if anybody's ever
searching the inboxand this email pops up,
they know who took care of this.
So Craig could come back to mevery easily and say, hey,
back in April, you responded to so-and-so.
Did they do this thing?
All right, so it keeps thatline of knowledge going, right?
(33:12):
And it's a great workflowbecause then it it really kind of
how do I put this?
It kind of gives ownershipor accountability to each person.
Each possible leak in the bucket.
Yeah.
Yeah. So
now if you don't have a system right nowthat's okay.
And let's get back to the idea of gathergathering.
(33:35):
You're just going to gatherthrough your email.
So scroll through your email againgo months back.
You knowcan you make it back to it's August now.
Can you make it back six months.
Just set yourself 20 or 30 minutes here.
Play your music or radio stationyou like and just go back.
There's going to be some people in therethat you need to respond to.
(33:56):
I can guarantee, oh,I didn't get back to Bob.
Okay, put that down.
And againyou're just gathering this information.
Just write it down on your notebook
and, you know, the name, maybe the dateand something that prompts you
so you can quickly
and easily search for the email again,and then you can respond to Bob.
Right. All right. So you're going toyou're going to go through that.
(34:17):
You don't have to ask the question,what about Bob?
You got that?
Craig, I don't know how many our listenersare going to get that.
But you guys sailed on my first try. Yes.
Folks, if you didn't catch the reference,look up.
What about Bob? Bill Murray?
(34:37):
You can thank me. Incredible movie.
You can thank me later.
I got you up one.
But what up, Bob?
I'm glad you did.
That. Played almost constantly.
There was a rotation of videos
that my brothers and I played,and that was one of them.
I'm going toI got to watch that movie tonight.
(34:58):
Now, that was one of the funniest moviesI've ever seen.
Okay, Bill Murray, genius. Anyway.
Good one. Okay.
All right.
We're we're we'll.
Yeah. So we'll just continue here.
And you guys are understandingthis cadence.
But the thing I want to again,
caution you about is don't not do thisbecause you think this is so simple.
I can guarantee youand you all are coming to me now
(35:21):
saying, hey, August has really been bad.
Like, you guys are sending out the S.O.S.
flags, like, seriously and I and this is
for those of you that I coach in orbitthat have really big businesses.
And this is youall that have are just starting.
All right. So this is across the board.
(35:42):
And so please don't take it.
Don't not do it because it's so simple.
Okay.
The next thing I want you to go throughthe next capture device is your calendar.
So go back into your calendarand scroll back.
You know, look at day by day.
What events have you had on there?
Ideally, if you can hide your shoots,
(36:05):
probably hide those because there'sprobably not something actionable.
Or maybe there is.
Maybe if you see an agent name,it might trigger you to say, hey,
I shot the first property for that agent,and I was excited
about getting that agent,and I haven't heard from her.
All right,you probably need to call the agent.
Just check in. How'd your summer go, kids?
Back to school?
(36:25):
It's that simple. Again, don't call now.
Just write the agent's name down.
Okay,so look through all your calendar events.
And this is a big one, Craig.
Because if a person was on your calendar,you probably went to them.
You had a zoom meeting with them.
Like this took a lot of time.
So are these peopleimportant to follow up with?
Yes. So wewant to make sure we follow up with them.
(36:48):
All right.
Ten minutes on your calendar
okay.
Here's a couple more.
And this kind of encapsulatesjust about all of my capture devices.
But I go through next.
Go through, bring out your phone againand go through your photos.
Okay.
Oh, yes. You've talked about this.
(37:10):
Yeah.
So I use typically with a capture device.
I use my phoneas a capture device, the camera.
And there's a lot of timesI'll take a picture of something.
It might be a picture of the screen, itmight be something that I've written down.
But I take a picture of it because there'ssomething actionable for me to do here.
You might also find the picture of thebrokerage meeting you were at the room,
(37:33):
and that might trigger you to say,oh, I went to that.
I need to follow up. Okay.
So scroll back through your images
and do you have anything?
Just do you have a little nugget, a littleflake of gold in there sitting there.
You got to get it up okay.
You got to get that into the jar.
(37:54):
So write that name down.
Write that idea down.
And I give a practical example of that.
Yeah please.So I didn't physically write it down.
I'm going to have to start doing that.
But I was going through my social media.
I follow a lot of our clientsthat I serve in our market on Facebook.
And of course, when I'm scrolling through,I see a lot of their activity.
(38:17):
And an example,a client that I've worked with
for a number of years now,and she's always been very, very happy.
I saw a post fromher come up, a new listing
had professional
photos tagged,but it wasn't ones that I shot.
It wasn't ones that wow shot.
So immediately I'm like, what happened?
(38:38):
I screenshot that postthat had the address and everything, and
I just, I shot it.
I attach it to an emailand shout it to my work email.
This morning I pulled up my email.
I'm like, I'm going to take care of thisbefore we dive into our meetings,
because I want
I haven't talked to her in a long timebecause I've been busy with that.
With the busy seasonand got her voicemail, left her voicemail.
(39:02):
He just wanted to follow up.
I know we haven't talked in a while.
Congrats on the new listing.
So even though I didn't shoot it,I congratulated her on the new listing
because that's important to her.
And, and I did mentionI just got the awkwardness out of the way.
I said, hey,I saw we didn't do the photos for that.
You know, we'd love to chat.
Just get your feedback on things,she responded.
(39:23):
I think within about 30s and said,hey, I'm just going into a showing.
But can I, can I call you back?
I'm like, hey,no pressure. No, you know, no rush.
Take care of your showing.
Just wanted to check in.
I gave her a synopsis of the voicemail.
And she said yes, let's catch up.
So no awkwardness,
but we'regoing to have a good conversation.
(39:43):
I'm going to find out, you know, the why.
So just very simple screenshotemailed it, followed up.
Yeah, it's that simple Craig.
That's such a fabulous technique.
And get in the habitof doing it in the moment.
Yeah okay.
Now I will just give you one little tipand just some verbiage that I use.
If I'm if I'm standing in front of someonethat I'm doing something for,
(40:07):
okay, I'll pull out my phoneand please be cognizant.
I try to never have my phone when I'mwith someone because I feel though it's
I feel it's rudebecause they should have my attention.
If I pull out my phone,I verbally communicate to them like, hey,
I'm going to get this done for you.
I'm just emailing myself a reminder.
I'm emailing the staff right now.
(40:28):
Verbalize that to themand then say good at sent.
I'll get this in the morning, okay?
And then put your phone back away. Yep.
Exactly.
So supersimple things are just verbalize it.
And if you tell them that you're goingto get back to them in the morning,
please get back to them in the morning.
Yeah.
So that's why it's so importantto put it into your inbox
(40:51):
because just like Craig said,he got there,
he saw he already tookthe screenshot of the listing.
If he would have left itin his camera, Craig,
it probably would havedisappeared forever, right?
At least for a while.
Yeah, but that's whereif you make this a regular cadence,
like you've talked about,you go through those photos every week,
(41:13):
at least you're staying on top of it
all week at a time, at the very least.
Yeah, yeah. Great.
So that is gather and focus you all.
And again this was this is not a me thing.
This is, taught to me by a coach.
His name is Austin Cheviron.
And he does this and I find value in this.
So I want to pass it along to you guys.
(41:35):
I think you guys are workingso hard out there.
And I know some of you are saying, like,I just I need new business, and I just
you've probably worked really hardto have opportunities
to get business and now those peopleare warm leads to you.
Or they might be currentclients like Craig discovered today.
(41:56):
We had already done a propertyfor this individual wall, so
it's awkward, like Craig said,to have those conversations.
But you got to do it.
You got to go find them.
You got to have tough conversations.
But the idea of first is just gatheringthis and focus
on what you've worked hard for, tojust push it across the finish line.
(42:17):
I wonder if it's hard for us, Toddsomewhat
to at least for me,when you take that hour or two
where you're gathering and focusing,it can feel unproductive, right?
Because you're not responding to messages,you're not taking action.
It's like all internal, focusedand maybe at least for for some people.
And I think this is one of my strugglesis when I'm
(42:41):
taking that time to organize,I don't feel productive.
However, once I have all of thatinformation focused and written down,
it's it's a taskbecause it's a checklist and suddenly
I can focus then on the
actionable part of that listand I can start bringing stuff out.
And it feels great when you can take,you know, check off those things.
(43:05):
And you've had a very concentrated,actionable, time
that at the end of that,when you've checked off all those things
and you've made those phone calls and donethose follow ups, it feels really good.
And it it's given you focusto be more efficient in a shorter
amount of time and get a lot doneand have some great results.
(43:28):
Yeah, yeah.
And that's all that that kind of that highof getting things done right Craig.
Like that hit a dopamine.
You knowit's tough to start on the first one.
But once you do it you you realize thatit's really kind of satisfying.
And it gets a bitaddicting to go through your list.
And then when you get your list done,like, there's nothing better than that,
(43:49):
like you're done, go enjoy your family,go do whatever you want to do.
And and you can do thatfeeling good that you've secured
some loose ends or some leaksand your bucket of your business.
And even if you don't get throughthe whole list, having it written down
and knowing
I don't have to try and remember thatwhen I'm having dinner with my family,
(44:12):
your mind can relax a little bit because,you know, I already have it written down.
I know I'm not going to forgetbecause I'm going to go back to my list
and all the detail will be there.
Yeah, it's amazing what your brain can do.
And it's amazing what your brain can do
even when it's not
being a checklist.
Our brains weren't made to be a checklistokay.
(44:34):
It hurts your brain.
It's like how we get clogged up.
I gave myself a thumbs up againwith technology here.
I see, so don't make your braina checklist.
Just get it down and,you will feel better about that.
Good deal. Fantastic advice. Todd.
Thank you for sure. Craig.
I did miss onebecause she's gone for this.
Yeah, I, I,
(44:55):
just one more capture device for you tolook at if you write down in a notebook.
Okay, so that notebookthat you're writing, go to your notebook.
Like I keep a daily notebookand I keep it digitally.
Just go through that.
I keep notes of my meetingsand just go backwards.
And is there anything in there that youneed to take that you need to clean up?
Okay.
So write it down on your checklist
(45:16):
and then you've brought it backup to the top of your page.
Good, good advice.
And just a tip I use there.
And I stole it from someone else.
But when I write in my notebookand when there's something for me to do,
I draw a box.
And then I write what I need to do.
And in the box. This is so stupid. Simple.
(45:38):
But the box is just so I can go backand I can put a check mark in it.
Like if I look at a page,it has a box on it.
I immediately knowthere's something for me to do
and then I can later when it's done,check it off and that feels good as well.
An easy visualclue to make it less stressful
to find that information that, yeah,you know, you have to follow up on.
(46:00):
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Could you.
All right.
Any any parting thoughts,any any summary for us
challenges just to do it.
I think you'll be surprised.
Then comment below.
How many things did you find?
How many loose endsor leaks in your bucket did you find?
I remember a month agoyou were really excited about that lead,
(46:23):
but if they don't feel excited
about the excitement from you andyou haven't followed up with them, do it.
It's there.
You guys have your businessand your pipeline.
Just please follow up.
Do what you say you're going to do.
Chad, you mentioned just as I
as I think through this,you mentioned the panic that some people
are starting to have with Augustand things slowing down a little bit.
(46:43):
I think for at least those
that have done this for a little whileand I include myself in this,
I'm actually getting to the pointwhere I look forward
to a little bit of a slower seasonin terms of the activity of shoots,
so that I can follow up on all of
the opportunities and getting
back in touch with clients,not taking them for granted.
(47:04):
Because I start to get a little, antsyor anxious
about not keeping in contact with peoplebecause I'm so busy with the shoots.
So take this season of of thingsstarting to slow down a little bit
to do exactly what Todd just shared here,where you can take an hour or two
and go through your,your capture devices and spend
(47:24):
those, you know, 20 minutesgoing through your, your texts and,
and just all the thingsit will make you feel so much better.
I felt good making that
that phone call this morning to a clientthat I haven't talked to in a while,
at least for me.
Todd I think it's partially a guilt thing,
like I feel guiltythat I even talk to her.
So now that guilt is relieved,it's like, okay, yeah,
you know, we're going to catch up again.
(47:45):
We're going to get things rolling again.
Exactly.
Yeah.It's crazy how that just flipped a switch.
Like you felt the little bit of pitwhen you saw the, the images,
the new listing in the images.They weren't ours.
And think now it's like,oh, this is great.
Like she responded right back to me, like,
there's something herewe're going to uncover. Right.
And nice job with that. And we're okay.
(48:06):
You know, I yes,I might not have gotten to do that. Shoot.
It might have been something as simple asI didn't have availability
when she needed itand she just had to get it done.
I understand that, you know,but the relationship is still there,
and she's totally okaywith with talking about whatever it is.
Yeah, I love it.
Love it guys, thank you for tuning in.
Hopefullythis has been profitable for you.
(48:28):
And and you can start to kind oftake some time and get things organized
mentally. Take a breath.
It's a great
system to plug the leaks in your bucket,
and you're going to see that waterlevel rise in.
It'll be nothing but good for you.
So, Todd, thank you.
My pleasure.
(48:49):
All right.
Well,that's going to wrap things up next week.
We will be talking with Nick,the owner of Titus.
An exciting new integrationcoming to Spiro.
So make sure you don't miss that.
And, just a lot more on the wayfor the rest of 2025 as well.
We are so thankful for the,the time that you take to listen to watch,
feel free to share if you found value inthis, leave us a like that just helps,
(49:12):
helps us
get things out to more people to help themhave successful businesses as well.
We appreciate you.
You have a great rest of the weekand we will catch you next week.
Take a breath. Take care.
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