The Power of Adaptability and Alignment in Property Media w/ Chris Powell

In this episode of the PropMedia Podcast, hosts Matty and Moses sit down with Chris Powell, the founder of Lighthouse Studio in the Pacific Northwest. Chris shares his unique perspective on building a "joyful business" by moving away from the typical "hustle bro" mentality and instead prioritizing servant leadership and deep alignment with his team of nine.

Discover how Chris transitioned from a solo photographer to a leader who empowers his team to deliver a consistent, boutique experience to every client. From the intentionality behind his company’s rebranding to the tactical ways he fosters an optimistic team culture, Chris provides a roadmap for growth that focuses on people first.

**Chapter Markers:**

  * **00:00 - Introduction to the PropMedia Podcast**
    Matty and Moses introduce the podcast and today’s guest, Chris Powell.
  * **01:08 - A Different Approach to Scaling**
    Chris discusses his "go with the flow" mindset and why serving his team and clients is his primary objective over revenue targets.
  * **03:43 - The Story Behind Lighthouse Studio**
    The origins of the brand name, its connection to the Seattle area, and the "steady light" brand identity.
  * **06:01 - Delivering a Consistent Boutique Experience**
    How Lighthouse Studio builds trust by acting as a guiding light and advisor for their agents.
  * **08:46 - Finding Joy and Optimism in Business**
    Chris explains why enjoying the work is essential and how he looks for positive personality traits when hiring.
  * **10:50 - Ad: Scaling with Pixlmob**
    A quick look at how Pixlmob can help media businesses manage post-production and improve quality of life.
  * **11:42 - Transitioning from a Solo Shooter to a "Real Company"**
    Why Chris moved away from using his personal name for the business to build something more professional and sellable.
  * **17:47 - Leading a Team of Nine**
    A breakdown of the current staff, including an operations manager, photographers, editors, and a social media manager.
  * **19:20 - Strategic Social Media and Outreach**
    How a part-time dedicated person handles client engagement and stay top-of-mind in a competitive market.
  * **22:10 - The Principles of Servant Leadership**
    The impact of the book *The Servant Leader* on Chris's management style and empowering employees.
  * **26:40 - The "Dark Side" of Servant Leadership**
    Understanding the need to remain a decisive leader while still valuing team input.
  * **30:58 - Hurdles in Maintaining Quality During Growth**
    The challenges of training and the importance of hiring for adaptability and vision alignment.
  * **36:58 - Communicating Values and Brand Consistency**
    Why Lighthouse Studio holds frequent team and individual meetings to maintain granular brand standards.
  * **40:01 - Helping Clients Transition from the Founder to the Team**
    Strategies for introducing new photographers to long-term clients and putting stressed realtors at ease.
  * **45:18 - Closing Remarks and Where to Follow**
    How to connect with Chris and follow the journey of Lighthouse Studio.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey, it's Maddie and Moses. We're the co-founders of propmedia.com and pixelmob.com. This is the Prop Media Podcast where we're going to talk about property media.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Today we get to talk with. They tell me I say people's names weird. And so we get to talk with Chris Powell. But apparently I would normally say Chris Powell. And I like ask a question of people's names. But anyway, we're talking with Chris Powell, Lighthouse Studio out in on the Pacific Northwest. He runs a team with nine on staff. Um and he particularly has, I think, some really interesting ideas about focusing on like near-term specific results with his people and his customers that have led to a growing, thriving business, but it's a little bit different mindset than your average hustle bro scale kind of an idea. So if you're interested in a joyful business that's growing and prospering, tune in. Maybe you'll learn something from Chris. Welcome, Chris. I'm particularly excited about this episode because it's a little like sometimes like we've been doing this for a little while, and everybody has their own take and their own flavor on how to grow and scale their business. And we've learned tons from a bunch of different photographers. But a lot of times, like as I'm reading through those, they're all different variations of scale this to the moon and grow this way and hire out your team or whatever. Like there's lots of lots of different variations within it, but they're all the same. Like, I'm gonna grow this to maximize revenue or grow this, maximize revenue, sell. And reading through some of the like the brief and and what we've talked with you before, seems like that is like not you at all. But you run a very successful real estate photography business. So I'm curious. Talk to me a little bit about like what what fuels you? What actually gets you up in the morning that you want to do with your with your business, Lighthouse Studio?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

From when I started this business when I was just shooting solo, I didn't really know what I wanted out of it. I had seen people scale these businesses and have big teams, and that seemed really intriguing to me, but I didn't really know what I personally wanted to do. And I've never been someone who sets super specific goals and works toward those. I kind of have some different goals I set, but I kind of like to go with the flow and just see what happens. And maybe that's a good mindset in business, maybe it's not. I don't really know. But so far it's worked out. And I I uh try to focus first on serving my team and serving our clients. And I think that the business growth comes from that. And that's kind of how my team and I view everything we're doing. So we try to look at it through that lens. And rather than then pursuing, you know, scaling or growth or certain revenue or profit numbers as our primary objective, we just look every day at how are we serving our clients? How are we showing up for them? And then my operations manager and I look at how are we serving our team and showing up for them because that's what empowers them to serve our clients. Um, and then we found that a lot of the success just comes from that.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

But what about waking up at 5 a.m. and drinking a 13 in an ounce like protein shake and running seven miles before you even get to the office? Is that you don't need to do that?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Or man, not for me. I don't know. I mean if if that works for you, go for it. But but not over here.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Well, that's what I do. I mean, I yeah, I mean, yeah, if you that's how I get this. These physiques do not happen on their own, all right? But maybe it was a slip of the tongue with a 13-ounce protein shake. That's probably where we're missing it. Yeah. Yeah, it's too small. Yeah, exactly. Ramp that up and like maybe 64 ounces. Um, tell us a little bit about your brand identity. So, like you've you've mentioned before, like the city light for a lighthouse is not just uh something you chose at random. Like, where is that coming from and what does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. So when I started the business, again, when I when I was shooting solo, the business was just my name, people just knew me. And I always knew that at some point I'd want to have a team and I wouldn't want people to just know us as Powell Photo or whatever. Yeah. And I wanted to have a real brand, you know, a business that seemed like a real business. And it goes back to almost when I first started the business, I kind of had the idea of lighthouse something. And it's got different uh different meanings and uses in our area. Kind of um, you know, we have a lot of lighthouses here in the area because we're here in Seattle on the Puget Sound. And um, so it's just kind of aesthetically it matches the the vibe of the area that we're in. Um, it's also a little bit of a pun because we we photograph houses.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

So um but do you shoot it with do you shoot them flambient? I mean lighthouse, you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

No, but there's light in them capturing the light.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Um, so anyway, I I just always liked the name and I thought it sounded cool. Um honestly, it's not like there's a super deep meaning behind it, but I like branding. I love seeing a good, nice, clean brand. So when I started working with my team about what that might look like, um, we we just kind of dove more into that. We hired a really good brand designer and we spent some time talking about what that actually means for us. And honestly, I don't care too much about the fluffy brandy stuff that some designers like to get into. Um, so so as we were going through that, there were some ideas that came up where I was like, this just, you know, we sound kind of snobby if we go in this direction. And we had to take some time to refine it from there. Um, but I think where we ended up is a really good spot. And we rebranded about a year ago. And it does represent uh a few different things to us. So, first, just the consistency in what we're able to deliver. We always want to show up in our client for our clients in a consistent way where uh they know that whoever shows up on site, we're gonna deliver. And whether it's a shoot for a big house or a little studio apartment or anything else, we're we're gonna deliver that same quality that they're looking for and that they know us for. And then also as a guiding light in the in the marketplace, in the community, uh being someone who our agents can come to to guide them, to give them any advice they need if they're not sure what to do for a particular situation. We really like to be advisors for our clients. And again, I think that's how you can build that trust with them and get them to the point where you can, if you recommend an upsell, they'll actually trust you with that. Or if you recommend choosing a different bundle or whatever it might be, they will actually trust you to help make those decisions so that they don't feel like they're just being sold to all the time. And again, that goes back to serving the client and looking at it through that perspective of like rather than just trying to make a certain amount of money or you know, do a certain number of shoots in a month, how can we actually serve the people that we work with? So again, it kind of goes back to that same thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Connected to me with Steady Light. So Lighthouse is your studio, right? But Steady Light is part of your brand identity. Like, what's the what's that look like?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, so that really comes down to the consistency that we aim to deliver in every shoot, but also in every experience that the clients have with us, whether it's just a text on the phone or a phone call, uh, whatever it might be. It's showing up with a steady presence, always being consistent, being professional, taking great care of them. Uh again, consistency is uh what it really comes down to.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

It sounds like that's a really key part of what you focus on, like listening to you talk about it is like I'm sure you have goals at some level for your business, yeah, but that's not what you're zeroed in on. You're looking at the really near, the really near-term focus of if I do a great job for this customer, listen well to this customer, make a bespoke experience for this customer, the the money and the revenue will pan out. I will have the customers I need, they will share what I need, but you're not as focused there. You're focused on the customer experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's that's very true. And yes, we do have goals, we talk about goals and certain things that we want to accomplish. But again, it's through that lens, it's it's with that same perspective of how can we take care of our customers, how can we show up consistently? I know I keep saying that, but the consistency and customer experience is really huge for us. And it's something we've been spending a lot of time lately focusing on because as we hire other photographers or build the team in different ways, it's so crucial to us that we're able to deliver the same quality experience that our clients are wanting. Because I think when you start to lose that consistency, that's when you kind of can lose who you are and and that that experience that clients expect. And um it's just not a place where you want to end up as a business.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And you said it wasn't anything deep. I don't know. That seems pretty pretty thought-through to me.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

I mean, maybe, maybe actually I have a uh maybe a weird question, but when you when you think about yourself and your business, you seem you seem happy. Like a lot of times when I'm sitting talking with somebody who's like desperate to scale their business and 2x and 3x their business, they're they just have this frenetic kind of energy. You don't really have that. What do you do do you feel like you're uh happy with what your business is doing? Like you enjoy what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah, I absolutely enjoy what I'm doing. And it it would be kind of pointless to be in this kind of business, in any business where you're the owner and and you're you're trying to build the thing, if you're not enjoying what you're doing, and that's I tell that to people all the time. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, or if you're not at least taking some time to enjoy something and enjoying the fruits of what you're doing, then I don't know why you want to be doing it, because you you've got to be able to enjoy life. And um to answer your question more specifically, there are many times, many, many times, where it's not like happy stuff that you're dealing with in business. Of course. I think being able to be positive and optimistic outside of like aside from that, I think that's really important. And I guess that's another thing. It's not like in our company values or anything like that, but when we're building the team, we look for people who have a positive outlook on life and who, you know, don't get all bogged down and in in negativity and stuff like that, because that doesn't help anybody. It definitely doesn't help our clients when they're coming to us with questions. Usually they're the ones who have that frenetic energy and they're like, I don't know what to do here. The house has a water leak and we're supposed to do photos today, and it's a big listing. And we like to be the ones who can be like, hey, look, we got you. We're gonna make this work, we're gonna do whatever we can to help you out here. And I think just for me personally, I am kind of a happy, optimistic person. Um, and that comes through with the whole team because the types of people that we're looking for as we build the team also have those some of those personality traits. And then that comes through to your customers as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

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SPEAKER_02 11:40

I wonder um why did you decide to change the name of your company and rebrand? Because before it was PAL photography, right? Yeah. Is your your name what kind of sparked the the rebrand?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Mainly what sparked it was that I always just wanted something that kind of sounded more like a real company. And throughout my career, I had been, you know, like Chris Powell photography or Powell Photo or whatever it was. Yeah. And you, you know, you go you tell your family and friends, and they're like, Oh, that's nice. You have like a little photography business.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

This is a real business, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So honestly, I think that was maybe the root of it. Uh and then as we grew, I'd be on site uh with with one of my photographers and they'd be like, Oh, what business are you with? And we started getting that type of question more, and just saying, like, oh, we're we're Powell photo, just I don't know, it didn't feel that real. So maybe it's like superficial and and maybe uh maybe the the brand could have been built under that name. But I also just really liked the idea of naming something Lighthouse Something. So again, look, sometimes the decisions I make in business are like, I just kind of want to do this. But I think that also goes back to like having fun with it. It's your business. Like, if if you're not enjoying it, then then find out some way to change that because you should be enjoying it. And for me, that's one of the reasons why we ended up rebranding to Lighthouse Studio. It also just felt right. And that's another one of those things I can't really explain in in a precise way. But as we were growing and as I talked with more of the team, kind of floated some of these ideas and we had brainstormed different things together, it just seemed like it was the right time, the right fit. And um, it was kind of one of those instinctive things where it was like now feels like the right time to move in this direction.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Well, I know your story a bit. Um, we go back a ways. The uh the Eli Jones uh had a what did they call them? They were um mastermind groups. That's what was masterminds.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah, the round table. That was it.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah, and we were in that group together for oh years. Oh wow, and it was like every Thursday night. Um, and yeah, I mean, those could go long. So Chris and I got to know each other pretty well through that. Um, but for a long time, you were a single one-man band, single shooter, like can we say single shooter? I feel like that's uh that's that's not the right term anymore, but single shooter.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

I mean, what should it be? Like ethically monogamous shooter or like well, okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Um anyway, I mean uh you you did this all on your own for a while, and then uh did that do you did that change some things when you were like, all right, I'm building a team, I've got some other photographers now? Or is that it really just was I I wanted to make some a cool name? Yeah, are you asking about the branding specifically? Yeah, I guess yeah, I guess so. I mean, I I've that obviously changed a lot of things in your company. You're really into the branding.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean that that's what kind of pushed me in that direction was when I started having a team. I had hired one or two photographers um before we started talking about the rebrand and we had an admin. So we were we were growing already. Um, and that's when I really started feeling like the photographers don't like really know what to say when they're out at a shoot and someone asks what company they're with. Or we would do some cold calls and be like, hey, we're here with Powell Photo, and they'd be like, What? So I don't know, just something about giving the team a cool name to say, I think also helps them feel a little bit more professional, a little bit more confident when they're answering those questions. And like if our admin makes a call to a brokerage and wants to set something up, they can say, Hey, we're with Lighthouse Studio. And it just has a little bit more gravitas, you know, it just sounds a little bit cooler. And again, maybe it's shallow, but I just think it sounds cool. So that's that's why we ended up there.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

I know a lot of people, I mean, there are a lot of people that name their businesses after them, their family name, whatever. Um, and for me, part of the motivation for not doing that is like, oh, if I want to sell this someday, yeah, that might be like a limiting thing, but it's a scaling decision, like a lot of times is that you have something you can sell that isn't associated with you. Yeah, sure, right. Which is not you, but yeah, I I'm I'm just as a topic. I mean, I we haven't really talked about like naming your company before, and it is really kind of an interesting thing, like what sparks uh like why a real estate photographer may or may not make certain decisions while naming their company. Um and it I I do kind of wonder how much that would be limiting, like if PAL photography would be more sellable or lighthouse. And I I don't know how you think about that, or if that's even crosses your mind, but and if people even can ever sell their business, I think that some people that's kind of like the dream. Some people that's just this is my business, and I'm gonna do this until I have a reason to not do it.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, it's a good question. Selling the business is definitely something I've thought about, but I don't think we're anywhere near the point of actually seriously considering that or even pursuing it. But yeah, I mean, I think any business owner at some point starts to think about what that might look like down the road. So that was probably a factor too. Um, is just you know, thinking very long term. What will this business look like in five, 10, 20 years? And, you know, where where am I going to be? I have no idea. Obviously, none of us do. But um, yeah, I think just thinking for the long term, that's always something I try to do when I'm approaching big or small decisions, is have sort of a 20-year perspective and think about what's actually going to matter in 20 years or what's going to matter in one year and kind of framing your decisions that way. Um so obviously with with branding a business or rebranding, that's one of those decisions that could ripple through through the next decade or more. So that definitely is a factor. Uh selling the business specifically isn't really a goal that we have right now or anything we actively talk about, but I think any business owner is is wise to think about that and what it might look like. And I'm definitely open to that idea down the road.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Well, let's pivot away from branding toward um how you choose to lead your company. Because I mean, we're talking about how maybe you're making some different choices away from like scaling excessively, but you're not a small company. You lead, like, tell me a little bit about your business. How many it's you, and what's what does your staff and photographers look like?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, so there are nine of us total, if you count me. Um, there are three photographers besides me. I still do shoots sometimes, and I still do a lot of the training for the photographers. We've got a full-time operations manager. So he started out as our admin, and he was doing really great in that role, and now he manages a lot of our day-to-day operations, which is amazing by the way, because I'm able to take a few days away if I need to, and I can be out of service range, and things can still go okay, which is awesome. I was actually just at Yellowstone a few weeks ago, had no service at all there, and the business kept on moving. So that was really cool. Um, and then we also have um someone who does our photo QC and handles uploads and different client retouch requests and things along those lines. We've got two video editors on the team in-house, and we have a social media manager as well.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

And they're doing your social media or they're doing actual like client-based social media?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

They're doing our social media, so we don't we don't offer any client management or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Gotcha. Wow. So a full-time social media person.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

He's part-time right now, he's doing 20 hours a week. So that's what he's doing. And he also does outreach and engagement and things like that. So it's not just okay posting.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Gotcha, gotcha. So, what does your social media and outreach look like? Um, because even at that's great. Even at 20 hours a week of dedicated effort, it's a lot of effort in that direction. Yeah, what does that look like? Where is what is he doing?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Most of his time is spent doing engagement. So he's going on and you know, all the realtors in the area, he's engaging with their posts, he's sending them DMs, commenting, um, things of that nature, including our current clients too, so we can stay top of mind. So um he's he's dedicating a lot of time there and then also sending DMs, you know, doing cold outreach. Still, we're trying to we're trying to grow and get more clients all the time, of course. So he's he's spending time there. And then he's also spending time prepping posts, collaborating with clients and and uh getting our work out there.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

What does that look like in Seattle area? Like obviously it's a pretty big market, but how much competition is there in the area? Like, do you think you're gonna grow a big, big company and it's all gonna be Seattle? Is it gonna be a small team and you're drill down, do more boutique and grow doing higher average order value? Like, what's kind of the business model you think as you keep growing in that uh in that market?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

I want to maintain the boutique small business feel because I just I like working with other businesses that have that same kind of vibe. So as I'm building this business, I I kind of notice that when I'm working with other people in the area or going into a small store or whatever I whatever it might be, I I kind of figure out the vibe that I like. And I think intuitively we tend to put that into our own businesses. So I I I want to grow, but I don't want to lose that small business kind of locally owned feel that you get when you go into those types of places. And about your question about competition, there's a lot of competition here, but I just try not to look at it too much. I stay off social media. I don't even go on Instagram. I don't even think I have Instagram on my phone right now. Um, I just totally stay off of it because honestly, it's not good for me. I see what people are doing, and I'm like, oh my gosh, we're going out of business tomorrow. Like we can't keep up with this. Um, so I just do a lot better when I'm not on social media. I let the team handle that. Um, there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of people in Seattle who shoot real estate. There's several really big businesses. There's a lot of kind of mid-sized businesses who are a lot bigger than we are who shoot real estate and do great work. Um, but I try to maintain an abundance mindset. There's a lot of work out there. And yes, there is obviously a finite number of listings that go on the market each day. But with a small team like ours, we have a lot of room for growth. And I just try not to dwell too much on what what the competition is doing. Obviously, there's stuff. That we can learn and in ways we can adapt and change. Um, but I I don't like that to be kind of the focus of our time because it can be a little bit of a dark hole sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

You mentioned the book, The Servant Leader, that has impacted you a lot in your the growth of how you run your team. Give us the lowdown on on what's helpful in that space for you and your mindset.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, there's some books you read, and we we've all probably been through a lot of business books at this point in our businesses. And some that you read that you you read them and you're like, oh, that was really good. That was helpful. And you maybe learn a few things and implement them. Then a few years later, you don't really remember the title of the book or anything. But this is one of those books that I read years ago before I ever had hired and had a team. And some of the lessons in there have really stuck with me as I've kind of grown into this role in leading a team. And the main point is that if you can serve your team well and if that's kind of your focus, then you'll empower them to serve the people that you're serving, your customers. So it kind of shifts your your mindset from just selling stuff to your customers and doing the job to actually serving your team and empowering them to take care of the customers. And that has been really helpful. And I think it'll become even more important, increasingly important as we grow more and have a larger team because um it's just such a different perspective than a lot of people have. And it becomes more and more important as your role shifts. So, one of the big challenges for me and the big things I've had to sort of learn as I have started to grow the team is just the the amount that my role has actually changed from being a solo shooter, just taking photos of houses and kind of running and gunning and getting from shoot to shoot, to actually having to become a leader for my team. And it's really been a significant transition, and I'm still learning every day, but it's a totally different job than the job that I was doing a couple of years ago when I was just shooting alone.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

What does that actually look like when it comes to like tactically? If you want to impart this, I think you're talking about at this mindset, what you're doing at a management level and how you act. And that you're hoping for this kind of mindset to impact your team, but at a training level or at a you know, a meeting cadence, or how does this actually like uh ripple down into your team? Are there tactical things that this impacts and how you think about it?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, I I think first of all, just having that mindset, it will kind of permeate through everything you're doing, even if you're not making intentional tactical choices. Like you might not change a process directly as a result, but as you build your business, things will change just just by you having that perspective. Yeah, but there are there are a lot of conversations we have about this, and especially my operations manager, Justin and I, because for us, we're kind of we're we're the leadership of the business, and then you know, we we see it as our job really to serve the team that's that's below us, that's working with us. So that's the photographers and the editing team and all that. Um, because they're the ones who are interacting with the customers every single day. So tactically, uh one of the main things it it means to me is just empowering the team to actually do what they need to do and actually valuing their feet, like truly valuing what they say when they have ideas and various things. Um, this isn't the kind of job that's like really brutal on your employees or anything like that. So, you know, there's nothing really there that changes a whole lot. But I think just having that mindset will help you kind of think of ideas and it'll open you up to different ideas that you might not have otherwise had. And we, you know, we look at things like how can we make this job as enjoyable as possible for our team? Because sometimes it's not the most fun if you're driving through traffic multiple times a day or you're getting home from a twilight shoot at 10 45 at night. So we always just look for ways that we can help out. And it could be little things, like a photographer had a kind of a long shoot day, so we send them a Chipotle gift card or whatever, or uh it's been a crazy week, so we all go out for a team lunch and we just buy everybody lunch and have have a little bit of time where we can just not think too much about business and just get to spend time with each other. Um, so it's little things like that. I don't really have any like big tactical ideas that have come from that, but again, it's it's just kind of about having that mindset. And then one other thing I'll add is sometimes there can be a little bit of a dark side to servant leadership, where as the leader, you might end up in a place where you're actually reluctant to make the decisions that need to be made because you're almost stuck in that servant leadership mindset too far. Um, but your team still needs you to be decisive. They need you to be the leader. So I think what the dark side of that could look like is if you guys need to make a decision and you're seeking the team's input or advice or whatever, that can be good. But also sometimes you need to know as the leader when is the time to not seek input from everybody on the team and when do they need you to just make a choice and lead the team? Because you still have to be actually leading the team. So to me, servant leadership does not mean that you're just kind of letting everyone do whatever they want. You have to be the leader and you have to be decisive sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

No, it's super true. You can't, servant leadership can't be code for leadership by committee slash just doing what anybody wants. It's really interesting. Like there's a thread as a common theme through both of those pieces that we've talked about, both with your customers and with your employees, that rather than focusing on the longer-term goal or obsessing about a longer term goal, you're really focused on specific principles that are really close and tangible and executable, which is actually rare. A lot of people are so focused on a long-term goal that they want to hit X revenue or they want to have X shooters or whatever that it kind of gets in the way of focusing on the actual implementation and execution today of what needs to happen. What strikes me is there's a lot of trust in that. Like you trust those principles that they will work. And so that lets you focus on them. Where did that, where'd you learn that? Where'd that come from? That is it's very mature leadership, um, but uncommon. And I mean, I mean, maybe you're a grizzled 80-year-old and you just look very youthful, but you don't look very old.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Chris is a vampire, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Well, that explains it then. It's just the wisdom of the ages.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Definitely, yeah. Um, it's I have always enjoyed reading different leadership books and and things of that nature and listening to people who are significantly wiser um and a lot more experienced than I am. So I don't know. It's just how it makes sense to me. It's how I want to run a business. I've always wanted to build a team that feels well taken care of and have a business where we can provide jobs to people that they actually enjoy and that can become real like career level jobs. Um, and I I just don't see any other way to make that happen and actually enjoy doing it and have the people who are working for you also enjoy the process.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

I love it. I have an unpopular opinion that um most ethics and morality is based around the means you choose to employ rather than the ends, which is what a lot of people focus on. And so I I feel some kindred spirit here. A lot of what you're focused on is is the means of doing your business, the means of doing your customer service, what you're choosing to do, and you're trusting the result to happen, that if you're choosing the right way to do it, the results will naturally come. Sorry, I'm I'm fanboying a little. I I love it. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

No, that that's actually that that makes a lot of sense. I haven't like framed it that way, but what you're saying absolutely makes sense. So yeah, I agree with you there. And I've had times where I have been so driven by a certain profit goal or whatever it might be, and I I see my decision making start to get a little bit questionable, where now I'm so focused on hitting these numbers for this month that I'm no longer taking the kind of care of our clients that I'd want to do. Like back when I was shooting solo, if I wanted to hit 30K in a month and you know, we had four days left, well, then I'm maybe I get to a point where I'm trying to sell a client drone photos on a property where they don't really need it. Yeah. So I don't like how how I feel when I start to focus too much on those things. So again, maybe it's just a reaction to that, but I have personally seen businesses where when the people are taken really great care of and everyone loves being there and clients enjoy the business. I see those businesses thrive and it just makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

You've obviously grown a lot like over the last few years, despite all of these things that some people would say wouldn't work. Um, but tell me like what are some of the challenges you've hit as you've grown in keeping that boutique feel and keeping that bespoke service? It's obviously really, really core to what you love about what you do. Maybe pick a hurdle or two that's been hard. And then, like, how have you systematized that and and made that work with nine instead of one?

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah, that's that's what it all comes down to, really. It's been a series of many, many challenges. So, first, the the first one that kind of hit me was what I mentioned earlier, which is the changing of the role from being someone who's just taking photos of houses alone to someone who now has to lead a team.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

And there have been and continue to be lessons every day about that. Um, but but one of the biggest, kind of most tangible ones has just been the struggle of maintaining our consistent quality as we grow. And again, I don't have like a magic bullet answer to that, but I think it's in our training process. It's in the the amount of communication we have with our team and and between our team members. Um, and the way we we try to um get together frequently. We we meet multiple times a week when we can. Um, so I think that's a big part of it. And again, just that training process, really spending a lot of time with people, making sure that they actually understand the mindset that you're looking for and and having that same kind of heart behind the business. So even before we start training in the hiring process, we go through a lot of candidates and we spend a lot of time finding people who kind of understand the values that we have in our business and who who seem to just get it. And that's something you can't, you can't really think of a exact process. At least for me, I don't have a solid process for that, besides just talking to people a lot, asking them questions, kind of sharing about your business, and then seeing how respond how they respond. And some people respond and you're like, okay, you get it. You understand what we're trying to do here, what we're trying to accomplish. Um, and also being really open with the team about where we are and where we're hoping to go. Because being an employee of a small growing business is tough. There's there's uh a lot of stuff that has changed, even just in the past year in our business that our employees have gone through with us, even little things like what systems are we using to track the photographers' hours or you know, different systems for uploading or communicating with the editors. And you have to find people who are willing to kind of accept some of those speed bumps along the way and being willing to go with the flow. So, one of the biggest qualities we look for in team members is adaptability. So when you find people who are aligned kind of with your vision for the business and are also willing to be adaptable and grow with you, that's kind of that magic combination for a team member. So, so back to your question, getting the quality consistent has been one of the biggest challenges for us as we grow. But one of the main ways that we've been able to maintain that is finding people who don't just know how to take the photos, or you know, we can train people to take the photos who don't just know how to use a camera and and um know how to take a video and all that, but who actually understand what we're trying to accomplish because then they get the stakes behind it. And now when they're on that they're at a listing and they're like, I could rush through this one, or I could take an extra 20 minutes and make sure things are looking really good. They understand the vision for the business and where we are hoping to go as a team together. And I think that pushes and drives all of us to do our best work.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

I'm hearing a lot of like communication focus. You're communicating with your team really consistently, which is creating a lot of alignment. And then you're also hitting on another theme that we've hit with several of the the more scaling-oriented companies, like like I remember Brad Zemer. I mean, he he might he's at least one of the top uh like scaled photography businesses in the United States. And and he was actually hitting kind of the same point, even in a scaling business, was hiring hiring is super key, and particularly hiring for alignment of the types of behaviors you need in your shooter.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

It seemed like that was almost a hundred percent of his job was yeah, like it wasn't just an important thing, it was the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

He was very like starkly focused on identifying that the the particular brand of qualities that he was looking for, which it sounded a little different than what you were looking for. Um, but that that's okay, right? Like it's two different businesses, two different goals, two different vibes, and the similarity between them is the alignment of the personnel with the founder, and then the fact that it's it's really critical in a successful business that you have alignment with your key team members or the people that are representing the brand. So, I mean, the brand can be different, the organization can be different, but that principle of the alignment between the stakeholder and the and the vision, the owner, is it's tough to build a business without some of that.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

And even to your point of representing the brand, that's another thing that we spend a lot of time talking about. So when the photographers are on site, even the way that they're, you know, putting their gear down, making sure that it's it's tidy and organized and tucked in a place that no one's gonna walk into or trip over, closing up the tripod legs as you're walking through the space so you're not banging up the walls, even those things we spend a lot of time talking about because all of those come together to form the image that someone's gonna have and the opinion that somebody will have of your brand. So when we release a photographer to start doing shoots on their own, we make sure that they actually understand that stuff. And again, not just that they know to do it because it's on a checklist, but they actually understand why we're doing that and the vision that we have for the business that's behind all of that.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yeah, I mean, it sounds so simple, but uh really specific question like how often do you talk to your team members? Like maybe at least weekly twice a week. Okay. So at least twice a week, you're refreshing or hitting some of the principles that you're talking about in terms of reminders about tripod legs and like really granular brand awareness at least two times a week.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Yeah, yeah. Every single week, every Monday morning we have a meeting with the whole team, and then every Friday we have individual meetings with every team member.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

It's it's it's awesome, but it's it's it's always amazing to me. Like every entrepreneur has a vision of how they want their personnel to behave. But very few actually build a system to maintain that. They just expect, okay, I'm gonna communicate what I want about my tripod legs one time and they're gonna get it, right? And they're they're gonna always, and then eventually you're gonna get mad a year later because they forgot about it and they're not doing it anymore. But but really, that's it's just completely human. Like organizations that maintain consistency communicate regularly about those values because they don't expect people to be perfect, they expect people to be per forgetful and to need reminders, and that that shared community and alignment happens through the relationships, it happens through those shared conversations, and without that, it starts to degrade. And then most entrepreneurs just get mad about it later. It's like, how could they forget that? This is the this is I taught this on day one. But nobody's like that, we're not robots. So, anyway, I I applaud you like overcommunicating like that is awesome. Um, and in actually maintaining a brand, and and without it, it almost inevitably starts to degrade.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Absolutely. And that's that is a lesson that came from the experience of having that happen, where I hired my first or second photographer, told them all the stuff to do, and then I would you know pop into a shoot sometimes and I see them doing it totally wrong. Yeah, knocking the tripod legs on the wall. And I'm like, what are you doing? I told you not to do this. So that the idea of you know having meetings as frequently as we do came from those lessons where I was like, look, this I can't just train these photographers and then never talk to them again. That's not gonna work because in this business, we we all work remote for the most part. So once you have a fully trained member of your team, you're probably not seeing them much at all, except for you know those rare times when you get everybody together. But yeah, I I quickly realized that that wasn't going to work if I wanted to build the brand that I knew we could.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

That's awesome. And that's also you're paying attention to what's real instead of like what you kind of wish were real, which is another another trap. You're actually seeing that feedback loop and figuring out a way to uh adjust.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

For those people who might be making a transition or considering a transition from being a single shooter to building a team, I feel like one of the hurdles, mental hurdles that I think you have to kind of jump through is how your customers are going to respond. Like even if you go through this really extensive training process and you feel like they're really understanding your your photographer is understanding the process, they're showing a lot of ability, and you feel like they're really ready to go, but then they hold on to this idea that they won't be able to engage with my customers the same way I do, or they'll say the wrong thing, or and and maybe they actually just they do do that, and like that. Uh I'm curious how you kind of made that transition because I know you you thought about that kind of stuff a lot and uh really valued that. How did you make that leap? And what kind of advice would you give?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah, I mean, that's that's kind of the the big scary thing about building a team, and we still run into that at least once a week, where there's a client who's worked with me personally, yeah, and maybe they hadn't had a listing in a while, but now they have one, and they find out that there's more than one of us now, and they're like, wait, Chris, why aren't you gonna be at my shoot? So I think really clear communication with your client, obviously, is very important. Um, I still show up at a lot of shoots that our photographers are shooting, but I like to pop in just to say hi to the client, make sure we're maintaining that relationship, especially if it's the first or second shoot that that we're doing that is not having me actually as the photographer. Um, but that again goes back to the hiring process, just finding people who actually get what you're trying to do and who have that personality fit so you can trust that when they're showing up on site with a client, they're gonna say stuff that that they're supposed to say and they're gonna be able to have a decent conversation with the client and help put them at ease. A big part of our job, and I tell all of our clients this, or all of our photographers this in training, is just putting the client at ease because realtors tend to be stressed out on photo day. There's a lot going on, they're finishing touch-ups or cleaning the house or landscaping or whatever it might be. And it tends to be kind of chaotic because it's that last step before they can put the house on the market. And, you know, when people are putting their house on the market, they tend to procrastinate and they've got this list that's a mile long. So one of the biggest things we can do is just be there and be kind of a calm and confident presence and be like, look, you got this, we're gonna take amazing care of you. It's all gonna turn out great, and we're gonna deliver you some beautiful photos tomorrow. It's gonna be fine. So that's a big part of it. Um, but then there's also the flip side where you can't just throw your photographers out there with your clients and expect everything to be perfect because that's just not going to happen. Um, so it's a period of transition where if you're you're if you're thinking about doing that, I definitely recommend spending some time on site with your clients, with that new photographer there with you. Let them do some of the work and show the client, like, look, we're doing stuff the same way. I trained this person personally and they're gonna do an amazing job for you. And then kind of the last part of that is as the leader, you have to accept that everybody is different and no one's ever gonna do 100% exactly the same thing that you would do in a given situation. So you might have moved a plant a tiny bit differently, you might have answered a client's question a little bit differently, but if they're getting to kind of the same heart of the thing, if they're still approaching it with the same attention and care and representing the brand well, that's what you have to look for. You can't try to find a clone of yourself because that just doesn't exist. And as a leader, again, you just have to accept that. And that was a little bit tough for me at first, kind of going back to the stuff we were talking about earlier, Moses. Um, because I I wanted people to do exactly the same thing because it's all I knew. Yeah. But it's actually kind of a lot nicer when you get a group of people who don't think just like you.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yeah, it's it's actually really cool when you get people who have alignment on those core things, then suddenly the trust goes both ways, where you you can let go of some of the nitpicky pieces because you trust the heart in your. employee. Yeah. And it it makes it easier, at least for me, it makes it easier to hear their feedback. If I know we're in alignment at like a heart level, I can trust that the what they chose to do was coming from a good place. Even if it was wrong. Like my approach to it being wrong is different because I I know what they were trying to do. And it allows a lot more charity and allows uh like an open approach with somebody with the walls down where you can actually engage about how to find a solution instead of just posturing about who's right. It just creates it creates a great a great collaborative community space that I when I when I get to work in teams like that is so it's fun and freeing and and joyful, which I see all over you, which is fun.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Yeah, I 100% agree. It's fun to work with a team that actually enjoys the team that they're working with and nobody wants to work with a team that's miserable because that's that's just terrible for everybody and for the clients because they see that too. So yeah, that that's huge. And like you said, if you're aligned on on the reason why you're doing things and you know maybe somebody answers a question wrong, that's okay because we can fix that answer. But what matters more the stuff that we can't quite fix is actually getting aligned on why we're here and what the vision is.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Yeah. That's awesome. All right. Well Chris, it's been awesome talking with you. It's been really fun. Uh before we wrap up tell people where they can follow you and like what if they want to follow your journey in building Lighthouse Studio, uh, where do they do that online?

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yeah, absolutely. So you can see us online at lh.studio or lhstudio.re on Instagram and we will see you guys there. Feel free to reach out if you want to chat about anything else. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

We appreciate it. Thank you, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Absolutely yeah thank you guys appreciate it.