FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #101 Great Photos Beat Bad Listings Every Time
The first click decides the next call. We sit down with Gavin Robyn of Next Door Photos to explore how strategic real estate media turns casual browsers into booked showings and signed contracts. Gavin breaks down a practical toolkit—pro photography, video, drone, virtual tours, and floor plans—and explains why each medium matters at a different moment of the buyer journey. You’ll hear how they pair a local owner-operator model with national systems to deliver next-day turnarounds, consistent quality, and easy online booking in just minutes.
What stands out is the shift from “vendor” to “partner.” Gavin walks us through staging-aware shooting, sequencing images for MLS performance, and choosing a hero shot that raises click-through on Zillow and realtor.com. We talk about the unglamorous but vital stuff—reliability, communication, and service recovery—and why his mantra, “own it fast, fix it hard,” protects an agent’s brand when the stakes are high. Along the way, Gavin shares candid advice for entrepreneurs considering franchises or startups: align on values, pick the right partners, and treat failure as fuel for better systems.
Beyond tactics, this conversation centers on people. Real estate is a chance to build others up—teams, clients, and homeowners making big life moves. That human focus shows up in the work, from photos that respect a seller’s story to drone angles that highlight true neighborhood value. If you’re an agent, property manager, or investor looking to elevate your listings with media that actually moves the needle, you’ll come away with practical steps and a fresh mindset about marketing as a growth engine.
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Gavin Robyn
Next Door Photos
gavin.robyn@nextdoorphotos.com
+1 540-735-6744
Fredericksburg, VA
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. Joining me today, we have Gavin Robyn, and he is with Next Door Photos. Gavin, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker:Absolutely, Dori. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm excited to have you and learn more about you and learn about your business. So let's start there. Share with us a little bit about Next Door Photos.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Next Door Photos, we are a kind of all hands-on media marketing company specifically designed for realtors, property managers, investors. We offer photos, videos, drone work, virtual tours, floor plans. Those are our five core products as agents here in the Virginia DMV area.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. So I would love to learn more about you. Tell me about your background and tell me how you got into this.
Speaker:Yeah, well, I have a background in photography. It's where I started. In high school, I was doing senior portraits, family shoots, uh branched into weddings very briefly. And I got connected to Next Door Photos from a mutual friend of mine who was uh mentoring and doing some business coaching for the recruiting director of Next Door Photos at the time. He said, Hey, Gavin, I know you've got a passion for photography. You're thinking about going to school for architecture. So I know you like buildings. What about this company that's doing real estate photography? And at the time I was just a freelancer, just doing my own thing. And I didn't have any previous business experience, but uh I was very intrigued by the company and the mission and vision that they have. And um, and now that I have gotten to embrace and the rest is history from there.
Speaker 2:Amazing, amazing. So what it how is how does it work? Are you um a photographer within Next Door Photos? Is there like a group of photographers? Talk to me about that.
Speaker:Yeah, so every location is independently operated. We have over 100 locations across the country, and every uh location has one local owner that runs operations for the local area. So the the idea there being there are a lot of, you know, it's a very saturated market. There are a lot of photography companies out there. The local guys, people who are uh very invested in the communities, fantastic people, but they may not have the back-end support that you know a national uh company can bring. And then on the flip side, your national companies, they have everything you want as far as systems, as far as operations, but they're not very personal, they're not connected to the local community. So Next Door Photos is kind of the bridge between those two worlds and having something that is you know able to be scaled at a very large level, but also still have the local touch.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. I love that. So almost like a franchising or a licensing model.
Speaker:Indeed.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I love that. So since we're talking on the subject of talking about business models, if uh someone came to you and they were thinking about um buying a franchise or or getting into business, maybe even starting the business completely on their own from scratch, what advice would you give them?
Speaker:I think a franchise all it comes down to is finding the right partners and making sure that you are aligned both in your values, your mission and vision. If you don't have that, it's gonna fall apart very quickly. Uh most entrepreneurs that, whether you're you know starting on your own or even franchisee owners, um, they do not last long. I think there's there's a statistic out there that I read, and don't quote me on it, that somewhere around 50% of entrepreneurs fail within the first five years. I feel like that uh from what I've seen in the people that I've met and worked with in the past is is pretty accurate. And I think it comes down to the right partners, surrounding yourself with people that are much wiser than you, never being the smartest person in the room, so to speak, and constantly learning, constantly failing, and and viewing that failure as learning. And that's that's the entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, you can't be afraid to fail. You're gonna learn from it. You gotta fail to grow, right? Absolutely. I love that. So let me ask you this. Um, are do you find that there are many or any myths or misconceptions about your industry?
Speaker:I think maybe one particular one that I get a lot is the differentiation between being a vendor versus being a partner with a realtor. I think that realtors work with a lot of vendors in their roles, right? And and you know, real estate agents, even property managers, they're bouncing between title companies and mortgage lenders, they're bouncing between painters and cleaners. Photography is a little bit more, I would say it holds a special place because marketing is, you know, a very large portion of what realtors are investing in. And so I do think there's maybe an elevated role that a photographer has the privilege of entering into where we become an extension of their team. And the marketing that we do, it is so near and dear to the hearts of the homeowners that we're working with by extension of the agents. And so having that ability to really speak into that and be encouraging and be a company that solves problems instead of creating more of them, um, that all makes a difference in the overall experience for the clients, for those who have sold homes in the past, having a good photographer makes all the difference.
Speaker 2:It really does make a huge difference in the marketing when you are looking at homes. I mean, you're you're looking online first, right? You're not going to be able to do that.
Speaker:Well, that makes a difference. And it's it's not just taking the photos, right? Having a photographer who also can see things in the lens, pun intended, of uh an interior designer and a stager, what is going to actually make the house look good rather than just the technical know-how of taking a photo? Because anybody can learn that you take a five-minute video course on YouTube, you practice it for a hundred hours, and yeah, you could say you're professional. But having additional training outside of that of understanding real estate as an industry, understanding what people are looking for, understanding the analytics and the traffic of you know systems like MLS and realtor.com and Zillow, what gets these top-producing agents in the top producing role? It's really good marketing.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad that you brought that up. You have so much more value to a realtor and a homeowner than just being a good photographer. Absolutely. So are is real estate the uh your primary um focus?
Speaker:It is the primary focus. It's uh what we're advertising. Now, keep in mind I have contractors on my team, photographers, who are absolutely wonderful. I've been able to spend a lot of time uh developing them as leaders and as entrepreneurs in their own right. So some of my T people on my team, they do weddings on the weekends. Some of them do uh sports, photography, and videography. So what I always say to agents is you know, real estate is our go-to. But if your niece is getting married or your kid has a sports team, you want to capture those moments, you can always reach out and you know, I can connect you to somebody on our team who would love to do that on the side as well.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. So clearly you work very hard on your business. So when you're not working, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker:Uh, it sounds uh like a cop-out, but spending time with my family. Um, married two little ones um who are adorable and uh I love spending time with them. My my side passion, I'm a huge nerd. Uh anything sci-fi fantasy, I've got swords and lightsabers in my office and uh various vehicles from my favorite stories and movies and things. Um, you know, if I'm if I'm not spending time with my family, I'm usually uh watching my favorite show or uh playing a session of Dungeons and Dragons with friends. That is uh how I like to spare uh spend my spare time.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. So, what is something that you wish the listeners knew about Next Door photos?
Speaker:I think the thing that I would love for listeners to know about Next Door Photos very much is uh, you know, that we want the best for your business. Our our goal is to help agents win, to help them reach new levels of success and growth. Like I said earlier, to be a team that solves problems and doesn't create more of them. Uh and that can be anything from just the quality of our work to our pricing to the convenience of how we're offering what we're offering and the timeliness of our deliveries. And for me as a business owner, I think we both said earlier, failure is such a huge component of being an entrepreneur. Uh, what I always tell my agents is if anything ever happens uh that creates a negative experience, my my first priority is to uh own it fast and fix it hard. And that's that's how I model my business, how I model uh how I how I craft my team and then hone in their skills as well.
Speaker 2:You said own it fast and fix it hard. Is that what you said?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker 2:I like that. I love that. What do you love most about what you do?
Speaker:Oh man, I have to pick just one thing. Um, I think there is there's one thing I love most. I think it is the fact that real estate is so unique in the sense that it is a tool that you can use to build people up. And you do that through the teams you work with, but also the business-to-business relationships you develop. And then by extension, the homeowners are the central force that we all revolve around. So agents are working with them, we're working with the agents. So getting to build relationships with the homeowners too is such a gift. And I think that's maybe the one thing I love the most is just using the business to build people up.
Speaker 2:I love that. Very rewarding.
Speaker:Indeed.
Speaker 2:If the listeners want to learn more from you or connect with you, where can they find you?
Speaker:Yeah, well, unfortunately, my phone number is everywhere. So I get phone calls uh on the daily. I think I've already missed five just in these uh 10 years. But um, yeah, if you uh would like to ask any questions, if you're a realtor, you're looking for a new photographer, you just want to know what we offer, the prices we're offering it at, what we do differently, uh you can always uh reach out to me over the phone. Uh my number's everywhere, easy to find. Um, you can find us on you know Google Business, type up Nexer Photos, Fredericksburg, we'll be right there, top of your search. And you can send us an email, you can check out our website, book today. Um, super straightforward. I think it takes about two minutes, even less, to fill out an order. So super convenient. Uh, our deliveries next day. So turnaround times really fast. And uh I'm happy to help any way I can.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Gavin, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Next Door Photos with us.
Speaker:Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to FXBG NeighborsPodcast.com.