Winning with Customer Service: How to Retain Clients for Life w/ Scott Golmic

In this episode of the PropMedia Podcast, hosts Matty and Moses sit down with Scott Golmic, owner of The Real Estateographers in northeastern Florida. Scott shares his journey from professional sports broadcasting and running an ice cream shop to scaling a massive real estate media empire with a team of nearly 10 photographers.

Key Discussion Points:

• Operationalizing for Scale: Scott discusses the critical hire of an operations and client success manager that allowed him to step back from daily scheduling and communication.
• The Operator to Owner Shift: Insights into transitioning from being involved in every "balloon in the air" to focusing on high-level vision, culture building, and brokerage relationships.
• Building a Client Training Center: How Scott uses short, "bite-sized" educational videos to onboard new clients and photographers, saving hours of time and building brand trust.
• Exceptional Customer Service: Why "great" customer service is the ultimate retention tool, even when the media itself is already solid.
• Strategic Growth: Scott’s "just start" philosophy for referral programs and why speed often beats perfection in a growing business.
• Bridging the Knowledge Gap: Providing unexpected value by teaching realtors basic technical skills, like how to post Instagram Reels or offering MLS upload services.

About the Guest:

Scott Golmic runs The Real Estateographers, a distributed team serving several counties in Florida. His background includes shooting for NFL Films and the Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as entrepreneurial ventures in the insurance and food service industries.

Follow Scott Golmic:

• Website: The Real Estateographers
• Instagram: @therealestateographers

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, I'm Maddie. This is Moses. And we are the co-founders of pixelmob.com and propmedia.com. You're listening to the Prop Media Podcast where we talk about everything around property media.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Today we get to talk with Scott Golmick. He runs a large team in Northeastern Florida, has six shooters, has been operationalizing his staff and growing a business that can scale and sharing lots of different insights on culture and engagement with staff and really what does it look like to build a life worth living inside a real estate media empire? So tune in. Tell me a little about how you divide decision making in an operation like yours. You're operating across several counties with a distributed team. What do you still own personally versus what does your ops manager, let's say, own?

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Man, uh good question. Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys. Uh the operations and client success manager is a new role that we started in January. Uh, just to give you background on that position. I don't think like if you were playing Madden and you could create a player, you could not create a better profile for somebody in this position. She was a photographer on our team for a year, previous admin in another uh industry, and a former realtor/slash broker. Like you couldn't have a better situation there. So she started in January and is an absolute rock star. So um for now, the biggest thing that she has taken uh for me is she's answering the phone and responding to texts and taking care of scheduling, which is a huge weight off of my shoulders as we scale. Um, right now, as far as decision making, it's probably a lot still in my uh my court. And that's something that I probably have to work on. What we don't have right now is quite a system where there's like people would go to their manager and the manager comes to me. We're in the process of transitioning to that. But for now, I think most uh decisions are mine. But uh man, we've got a rock star team and uh super proud of what we've built.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So, what does she like? If you were describing in your own words, what does she take off your plate? So it sounds like you're still a major point of decision making for core decisions and how you run your business. What is she already effectively taking off your plate?

SPEAKER_02 2:29

A ton of communication for me, uh, which is awesome. And she's so good on the phone. Um, we've been through enough phone calls that I can feel myself get tense whenever a realtor you know makes a comment about something or they need this change. She is just like so pleasant on the phone all the time. And so it is a better client experience for her to do that. So, as simple as calling to confirm the shoot the next day, something I never did, she's getting us gate codes that for or realtors forgot to put in. She's making sure the access points are good. She's doing like an educational upsell where, like, oh, you know, if a Zillow showcase, okay, yeah, did you know you can now do video on a Zillow showcase? And they're like, oh no, I didn't do that. Add it on. So she's doing some add-ons right there. Uh, and then afterwards, um, all new clients are getting a call within a week. Uh, to me, that's about the right time because they've gotten their media, they've probably gone live on the MLS. She's now checking in. And if it's a good response, which they seem to be very good responses from the realtor, that's when she'll filter. Would you mind leaving us a review? Um, and that's how we've done it. So that's a very small take on what it looks like with um with scheduling. Uh, she's also playing that Tetris game of literally trying to see, like, if I move this 30 minutes, that's gonna allow this big shoot to fall in here. So she's trying to maximize our capacity, something that I would not have put time into. Um, and so she's doing a lot of that. Now, there's a lot more that we have for her, um, making sure that she's touching base with all of our VIP clients. If there's somebody that we haven't had a shoot for in, I don't know, 60, 90 days, just checking in, seeing if we can better serve them in case they had gone somewhere else. Uh, if a listing is still live after 120 days calling for a market refresh. So she's basically going to be the touch point between clients uh and our company. The other thing that she's doing is she's a major touch point with all of our photographers. So I have essentially, I don't know if you've ever seen um Parks and Rec, Ron Swanson. He has the circle desk and he just kind of goes like this when somebody comes this way, I feel like I'm in that stage of business where if somebody comes this way, I'm not ignoring it, but we're starting to build people in place that it doesn't all have to come to me. Uh, and that's a pretty exciting spot to be in.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

You should probably double check that she's not actually booking all of your future appointments for February 29th or 28th or something like that, where you have a day where they all show up.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

But that sounds all that sounds awesome. Um so she's functionally like the job that she's finishing for you is you're no longer having to focus on customer relationships, both internal customers, your photographers, which is the hardest thing to give up, I think. And external. Uh, and she's she's entirely focused on those relationships becoming warm, referring, review-giving, yes, beautiful experiences.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

100%. And and she's already said, hey, you know, this system doesn't quite make sense. Can we change it? It's like, wow, yeah. I it's one of those things where it's like, um, why do you do it? Well, it's just the way that we've done it. And she's been able to very politely say, Hey, what if we did it this way and things have gotten better, you know? So um, yeah, it's been awesome to have that role. I've heard from others in the industry how important that hire is to your business. Um, I've heard some numbers from people that are like, you know, maybe it becomes affordable around the $50 or more, like $60,000 a month range to make sure that there's enough profitability to pay somebody in that role. For me, though, I was looking at this as like um just the expense. And that for me was really hard to swallow. Like, I don't know that there's enough wiggle room with expenses and our personal expenses that we could hire somebody. But what really changed things for me is she should be helping pay for herself. And when she's doing these check-in calls and things are getting um added to the order that would not have been there otherwise, yeah, she's taking care of um her own pay. Uh, and that made it a lot easier to kind of make that leap.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And what are you hoping to design your role to be now that you're offloading these in uh responsibilities and delegating? What do you think your role evolves into over time?

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Man, uh, this is such a good question. And it's so fresh in my mind because um I went and met with somebody yesterday who has a business building AI automations for small and medium-sized businesses. And so he gave me some questions. We can talk about that later. But I thought I went in with I had nine pages of notes of like, I think these things could really move the needle. I highlighted the ones that could save us time and make us more money, all of these things. And at the end, he said, all right, I mean, you got like literally 13 categories of things. What's one? And I like I couldn't narrow it down to one. And so he said, that's okay, but let's let's work through it. And at the end of the conversation, I realized I had some cool ideas for the business, but none of them directly impacted me and my time. And that's the biggest thing. I feel like I'm just constantly checking in. And that's something that I'm starting to learn, hopefully, learn to not have to check in all the time and be able to trust the team. Because every time I check in or step in, I use the analogy of like, if I had 10 balloons in the air and one hit the ground, I'd go sprint over and throw that one up in the air. And then go like that's the role I feel like I'm in right now. Whereas I think I'd I need to be saying, all right, our team can keep the balloons up and then it can come to me. Right now, I feel like mentally the business is fragile. It could fall apart if you know that photo is not perfect. And I know that that's not true, but deep down I don't know if that is what I believe. And so I'm a little bit too involved. Um, and so to answer your question, at the end of the that meeting yesterday, it became clear I need to step into an owner role where it's not everybody has access to me, and it's not like I wouldn't pick up the phone, but like things need I need to give our team the ability to solve things on their own and almost let things break a little bit so that we can come up with the solution. I feel like every time I interject, it fixes it for that one small moment in time, but it doesn't give us a long-term solution. So my role would be more of an owner role where I'm focusing more on vision of the company, ideas, how we can enhance profits, coming up with those goals, meeting with our team and building a culture. Go meet with brokerages. That's the type of stuff that I want to be doing. I mean, I just did, I don't do it often, but I just did a shoot yesterday and I'm uploading last night. I'm like, something's off here. I need to change my role into more of a an owner role.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, it's a it's a core mindset shift. I like that I almost every entrepreneur we talk to, there's there's some level of doing what you're describing that's it's immortalized in a lot of different books, your emyth books, or to riff off of your analogy. One of my favorite books is called The One Thing, and it talks a lot about like sequential iteration. And he has an analogy similar to yours, that as a business owner, you're constantly juggling balls and you got to keep them up in the air. But some of them, like you, are balloons or rubber balls, and if they actually hit the floor, it's fine, they'll bounce back. There's there's a lot of there's a lot of things that we struggle to let go of, but they really are rubber. Like you're your photographer can make a poor decision, and it's not gonna actually damage your business functionally, like, but it does get it out of you having to juggle that ball. And then the cautionary tale is some of the balls are glass, and those you actually have to maintain more, but most of those look look personal, like those are things with your family, those are things with your core relationships with this manager and stuff like that. That I don't know, I love the analogy. The balloons is funny. I've got this image of my of my kids trying to keep a balloon in the air, and it is it is very like uh some of our entrepreneurial frenzied endeavors at times. Uh it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful, funny, sad uh image of what we all do in our businesses.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I I can see us scaling quickly from here. Um, yeah, it's an online. My job, my job has to be uh hiring and recruiting, not necessarily training, but bringing people onto our team. And I think that that's the right next step for us. Uh, we have somebody on our team, a senior photographer, who can do some training. That I just have to go find the photographers, and then we can keep on building. There is room to grow here in Northeast Florida.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

It sounds like you're making a real transition into like CEO style leadership where you're learning to entrust the right things to the right people and focus just on the recruiting, the personnel, and those sorts of things. As you're doing that, what's the hardest part for you in managing photographers as employees and staff as trusted engagements and learning to let go of those balls, balloons?

SPEAKER_02 11:54

I think early on, whenever I was shooting by myself, I was looking at every angle and how to make it perfect. I think I have now released we've got good training, our team's doing a great job no matter who goes. So I think I've released that. That's not as much of an issue. Um, I the Slack channels, everyone has a Slack channel. So I think I could probably remove myself from the Slack channel so that I'm not seeing everything. That's the type of thing like if I remove that and I give that ownership to one person, that's off of my plate. It's not taking up my mind, every small little thing that's happening. Give the ownership to somebody else to let them take care of it. So one of the biggest things I think is building a culture. I think as a um real estate photographer, it can be very much like you're living on an island. You get your shoot, you go shoot, you upload, and that's it. You don't really see anybody. We have tried to do some quarterly team things, but it's always so hard because you just knock out six, I think we're up to like nine photographers. You just knock out everybody's schedule for so many hours. No availability on a day. Right. And it's like, ah, that's hard to do. So I know the value of culture, and it's been good to be together, but trying to balance that with our availability has been hard. And then also just making sure that you've got the right amount of people on your team. Last year we grew January, February, March, April. We hired two because we're going to the moon, you know? And then uh I felt like things were still very good, but it kind of came down and just plateaued. So it's still a great year for us, but I thought it was growing. So we were a little overstaffed. We're the opposite right now. We're a little bit understaffed. So it's just a constant challenge of trying to figure out how many people do you need on your team, making sure that your availability is there has been a challenge. We try and maintain 48-hour availability, and up until last month, we've been able to do that as our standard. Um, now we're booking probably like five days out, which feels a little bit too long for what we want to do. So we'll continue to hire, but it's all a challenge, man. You go from like just doing this thing on your own to now you have 17 people on your team.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

It's wild, it's very different as you grow.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Let's uh shift gears a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about your uh client training center? It sounds pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

It's a little different. Yeah, so um, on our website, we have three videos, and it's basically like how to log in, how to place an order, see you in the next video. And so ideally, they're all three to five minutes, but it handles a lot of those initial questions. And so instead of having to um answer the call every time, you can politely say, Hey, check out video number one, you know, let us know if you have any questions. And they're like, Oh, this is great. And then it also shows them how to use the whole marketing kit. And so the client experience portal is there to basically help onboard or answer any questions pretty quickly. I think it also helps for a new client who stumbles on our um website, that then they would see all these videos and be like, oh, wow, look, look at all this value type of thing. Um, and so that's why we built it. It's kind of the Dan Martell buy back your time method of like, if you can just record it once and then share it, um, it saves you a lot of time. And so that's the idea. We've had good feedback on it. I'm now doing the same thing with our onboarding experience uh for photographers, just recording a ton of videos, very short to the point. Like, here's how to set up the tripod, see you in the next video, here's how to set up the camera, see you in the next video. Um, so whether it's a client or photographer, just trying to build out very short training things so it doesn't take our time having to explain it.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

I love how you you unifying that, like philosophy-wise, you're treating your photographers and your customers both as clients. They're they're people with specific needs to serve, and you're you're developing a system that allows you to scale with either one. And it's fascinating. I love the client training center idea because you're you're building an anchor point that's different and you're focused in on actually problem solving what they need, not just like how to do what you do and trying to get them to conform. You're trying to give them a resource of how to utilize your services. It's it's a thing of beauty. I don't think I've ever seen I've seen that on I don't know, maybe any other photographers. But it's it's it's brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Well, um, I don't know that I can take credit for it, but it's it took two hours, maybe, you know. You even better believe how many takes it took to get it.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Oh, we believe it.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, nobody knows behind the scenes that this podcast has been we've been recording this for 18 hours to get a time lapse of the light moving behind you.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Uh no, so I I'm a yeah, big fan of just recording it and and building it out, making them very short too, so that they're bite-sized videos.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

That's amazing. And like truly, two hours to like throw a stab at how much time that saved you. Like two hours for how much time bought back.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah, no, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

That's uh unfathomable, yeah, big number.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I I think one of the other cool things it's easy to overlook too is it this is a uh subliminal thing and kind of hard to articulate, but that is a trust signal that you're sending to your customers that they can trust you, that you're a proof of them, right? Exactly. And so if they want to be on camera in the future, they they're this is their first interactions with you and in your company. And like I probably I would feel confident that they would be able to make me look good on camera. Um, it does all kinds of things psychologically to them, um, as a brand building thing. So I I love it. I think it's a really smart idea.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

I appreciate it. It served us well.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

All right, drilling deeper into that same vein. Photographers, I think in general underestimate how much hand holding an agent actually needs for their media deliverables. Like, I I think many of them don't realize, according to NAR, your average realtor is a 57-year-old lady, I think is like the core personality profile or or persona um in their data. So, like if you just think about that individual, they likely need a lot of technological hand holding. They may not be as familiar with a media pipeline, all kinds of things. There's a knowledge gap there that you're meeting. What insights could you offer there? Like, what are things that you surprised you maybe around the type of hand holding your core clients need? And what are gaps that you're still working on on bridging?

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Definitely more of an issue than I would have anticipated. Uh sometimes when we get an opportunity to do a brokerage meeting, yeah. Um, I'll go in and take it more of like an educational, hey, here's how to shoot your own social media video. That's a great tact. Yeah. Everybody knows that they should be, but nobody does because they just look at everybody else and they feel like I can't do it. So I go in and I train them. I say, if you were on our team, here's the exact settings that I would use on your phone, here's what I would do. 0.5, have a little foreground, just don't walk, just a little movement, five to seven clips. Teach all of that. And then the question is like, what's a story? And you're like, Oh, let me back. Like, um, what is a post? Oh, let me have you built a reel? Oh, you haven't built a reel. Let me show you how. And so then the video, the the training becomes okay, yeah. Now on Instagram, you hit the plus and you can add photos or video to this reel. And at the end, they're like, that was the most educational thing that we've ever had. And you're like, wow, okay, I can do this all day. I could provide that value, you know. Um, and so I might be better off just doing another sort of client training center on here's how I would use our media. Yeah. Um, the other one that I see a lot is like they take the vertical reel that we sent and then they make it as a post in the square one by one, and you just the black bars and you're like, okay, uh if you want to post it like that. So there is definitely a gap. One thing that our local MLS started doing that we jumped all over, they offered like a preferred photographer network that if you were preferred, they could select you so that you could upload media to the MLS for the agent. Um, so we talked about it with our team and immediately said, great. So our QC and delivery uh assistant, as soon as he finishes um the media and is about to deliver it, he checks, is there a Zillow showcase request? If so, upload, if not, move on. Is there an MLS upload request? If yes, upload it, if not, move on. Like that's just part of his every listing uh checklist right now. And so we have agents coming to us because we'll upload their media for them. For us, that takes two minutes. We already have all the download files, we're right there. They've added us, we just add it. So that's been a cool way to be able to add value, particularly for some agents who are coming in, and you know, they don't it that process could take them hours, even though it shouldn't, it could take them hours. And so that's just another way we're trying to provide that value. Now, there's a couple MLSs in our area, only one does it. So I think it's brilliant, and I'm we're happy to do that, trying to help.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

I wish more MLSs did that.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about an MLS is doing kind of the same thing you are, where they're focused on like how do they they bridge educational gaps and connect to where people actually are instead of like kind of where people assume that they are. You assume that they need help with the media part because that's what we do, but really they need help in how do we post to post a story on Facebook, like it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

What I do with all these files. I mean, it's can be some very basic stuff. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

I think there's probably some more uh trainings coming up.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

We found we'd love to be in the loop. I'd love to see what you come up with.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

We found early on when we started our real estate media business. Um, this was all from Moses's um experience was. That realtors we uh needed their measurements of their their properties. This was kind of early days of Kubi Casa, and so uh at the time it wasn't free. Like you now you can get free measurements and all that stuff. So that was a paid thing, but we went through and we would measure the rooms. They just need a length and width, and then we put them in order by room that matched the order of the MLS, and we got so many customers just because we provide them a list of their rooms with the length and width in the order that they had to input it into the MLS, and that was such a sticky factor because they didn't want to give up that, even if I if we totally screwed up a photo shoot, which happens occasionally.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

They still needed that thing or added 15 minutes to their like data entry, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:43

And it's just a thing that they couldn't get somewhere else. So I think understanding that level of complexity of what their your customers are actually what their frustration points and pain points are, that's a really big deal.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

So yeah, but uh I'm hearing that same idea, and it's giving me ideas for our media company too, because like what you're doing is you're getting really atomic, like with what are the specific training points that people need. And it's it's actually less a broad analysis and more like you're talking about this is an individual, this is how you set up a tripod. This is more individual. It's this is how how do you do a real? Like, and you're breaking it into these really basic component parts that are they're a lot more remixable and they're a lot more easy to get to, like where somebody's actual pain point is instead of where you kind of theorize their pain point is. Um it's pretty it's pretty interesting. Like, how do you atomize all the customer needs to make sure you're nailing it? Because what a customer doesn't want is hey, I reached out to you, Scott, and you sent me a 12-minute training that teaches me 17 things, and I only needed two things, and so I don't feel good about that because I feel like you just wasted 10 minutes of my time. But you seem very sensitive to that, where you can send a very targeted um explainer, or two or three or five. I'm like, am I getting that right? Is that kind of like is that part of your your thinking?

SPEAKER_02 24:12

That's the absolute thought process is uh all of our training for our photographers is probably two minutes or less in the video. See in the next one. Because when they're on site and they're like, I don't know what this thing is, and they go to our document and they find it, in two minutes, they have the answer. They're not searching in the 12-minute video like you referenced. So um, yeah, that's the idea. I love just being practical, get rid of the fluff, get right to the point, and we'll end it. See in the next one. So, I mean, as we're talking, yes, I think I need to build that social media one, and and what a nice little value add to be able to share with clients just in an email blast. Hey, here's how your new training on how to best use the media you receive, and then five or six short videos. I think that'd be an awesome uh add-on.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

A weird question, but like as you've done that, I I expect it's had some impact on the actual clients that you engage. So is there as there's more training, like what is the result of that? Has that shifted the types of realtors who are attracted to your business? And is that has it ended up being a good thing, or are there challenges in that that you're catering more toward people who need this kind of granular onboarding?

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Truthfully, I think it's probably hard to track. I don't know if it's pulling us one way or the other. I think for me, I just land on I want to have my hands open and say, Let me help as much as I can. And I think for that, that helps build the know, like, and trust factor. And yeah, for that, we're I think we're probably gaining clients because of that type of just um feel from our company. And I think that that's the goal. So I don't know if we're attracting or how that's working. That's a good question. Are we attracting people that like uh need this information because they have no clue what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Are they needier? Are they harder to work with because of that funnel?

SPEAKER_02 25:59

I I'm not saying they would be, I'm just I'm curious. I don't know that answer, but I do feel like just from our operations standpoint, I think we're doing okay. There's not a whole lot of like crazy needs out there. So you know just with the feedback that we're hearing from realtors. So I I think we're okay. I don't think we're attracting the the wrong crew.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

You're you're not getting all the divas through this method.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, even if it's not uh affecting your what who you're attracting, I do think it affects who you retain over time. Have you seen uh retention change when the more you've offered this kind of training, like before and after? Have you seen that shift at all?

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Yeah, I mean that that particular part of our website was probably a year or two old. So I don't know um again the exact numbers, but I do think because of our level of customer service, like I like to say our media is good, but our customer service is great. Like our media is solid, but people come back because of our customer service. Like if you were to text our number right now, you'll get a response within a minute. And to be able to take care of people that quickly, or we're gonna make it right. Like if there's something wrong, even if it's not really our fault, like we're gonna go take care of it. No questions asked. Let's go, we'll get it figured out, make sure that you're taken care of. So, whether it's the onboard, onboarding training kind of for clients, that client portal, um, or it's just that level of customer service, I think that's the that's helping our retention. Is that of course we're trying to bat a thousand, but you can't. You're gonna make mistakes. But when we make a mistake, we're gonna make it right really quick.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

That's great. Um, what what's been influential for you in your customer success philosophy?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

I don't know that I could point to any book uh about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Your your mama just raised you right.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Is that just how it works? She's naturally brilliant. Absolutely. Got some great parents. If you're ever in doubt, just say is how it's what my mama taught me.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Yeah, um, I have a weird kind of career story, and I'll share in 30 seconds. Um, I wanted to be a sports broadcaster in middle school. Then I realized I don't want to be on camera, so I'll be a cameraman. So I went to school for that, shot for NFL Films, got to shoot for the Pittsburgh Sealers, like worked for them for a couple of years. And then after that, I transitioned to help my uh wife who was working for AfLAC, the insurance company with the duck. So then I helped her with that. Then we got pulled into like, man, I want to help our town. So we bought a commercial building. Guess how much in Elwood City, Pennsylvania? $40,000 on the main street. It's like you can get a car for more than that. Right. We got the building and we opened up an ice cream shop because we want to help downtown be revitalized. So from shooting sports to insurance to ice cream, I have had multiple points in this past year where I've thought every one of those has led to our business decisions that we're making now. All of those experiences have built to like this exact moment. And I feel like if I didn't have that shooting background or going into an employer with AfLAC trying to talk to them about insurance, like that's very applicable to what we're doing. Um, and then just the community type feel, I just feel like all of that has led to this moment. So when you talk about like building that customer service, it's just been a wild ride. And uh to not know real estate was a thing, real estate media was a thing like four years ago. Uh, and then to be here now on with you guys is is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

So you learned a ton about customer service across multiple different veins, and like I love it. You're applying like ice cream, the customer experiences, everything to real estate photography, and you got some loyal people who are addicted to your flavor. It's great. Oh, I like it.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Let me go. Well played.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Sometimes I say things I regret.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

I need you to get that as a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Yeah, yeah, you get me one. Yeah, it's like co-founder of Pix Mob. Sometimes I say things I regret.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, so let's pick up a little bit on uh your referral program. Um, and so tell us a little bit about how you've structured your business around referrals.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah, so I mean, we've we've built it out um where if a client refers us, they've got a unique code and link that um once somebody they referred has not only booked but then paid, then it automatically adds $50 to their account as a thank you. And so we've sent that out. Uh, and I think that we have had agents use it. I've also noticed that a lot of agents don't care about the $50 or the money necessarily. Uh, I think if you just do a good job and you show up on time, you smile, you work, you deliver the stuff on time, they're happy to refer you whether they get that $50 or not. So the referral program I think is good to have. It's one of those things like a client training center. It sounds good, it helps build trust. Um, but we've been fortunate to have some referrals, whether it's going through that specific referral program or not. Um, yeah, we've had we've had an awesome growth because of uh referrals. I mean, that's like best case scenario, right? To get a referral from one of your agents.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

So you're kicking 50 bucks back, but what I'm hearing is you don't really think that's the thing at all. You're just you're consistently delivering great performance and user experience. And then it sounds like you've got a system for asking for that referral a couple of different ways for the right client.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

At the at the right time, I try and be really sensitive on how much I ask for a Google review. Like I'm not gonna ask more than once, I'm not gonna pester you. We've been fortunate to have a lot of great reviews. It's the same thing with referrals. I'm not too explicit in going right out there and asking for it. It's been after um a good amount of time of working together. I might ask, hey, kind of like playing dumb, does you does your uh does your brokerage do any sort of sales meeting? Oh, yeah, we do this. Does anyone ever sponsor a breakfast or anything like that? Oh yeah, could you put me in touch with uh your manager?

SPEAKER_03 32:03

That'd be nice.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Yeah, come in and come in and do it. And it's like, oh, okay, so now we're we're in. And so that has worked for us. Um, and yeah, the the referrals have kind of happened naturally, I think, because people have been happy with her experience. And to have Kelly in her role now, with her calling um and touching base with clients, we're also being proactive and catching any sort of negative feel. And now we it doesn't happen a ton, but now we're getting it and it's like, oh, how can we make this right? So sorry. Like, and so instead of us not knowing and they just kind of churn to somebody else, we're trying to catch it, make it right so that we can retain them as a client too, which is um something we hadn't done to be proactive like that.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I found starting out that that's usually like the scariest part of being a business owner is when something goes wrong, just flooded with guilt about that problem and like, oh no, we're gonna lose them forever. Um, but the more I've been in business, the more I realize that's usually like a blessing in disguise. Um, because it's actually your best opportunity to prove your value to them. It's it's not that you got it wrong, it's that you can make it right and that you care to and like that's the thing that seals the deal for them long term. Um, because everyone's gonna get it wrong once or twice. Like that's I think people come into it in in a service business with some expectation like you're not gonna get it the way I like it, or there's I have things the way I'm gonna be particular about. But knowing that you can be responsive and come to meet their expectations, that's the thing that locks in a customer. So that's pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Yeah, it's it's kind of bizarre, but I think you could make a case, and maybe that's what you're saying right there, is that like when you do make a mistake, you can actually go further in the trust with the client than if everything would have just been good.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Way further, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

If everything would have just been good, like it would have been fine, but there was a mistake, so you think you're going backwards. But if you do it right, you're actually like gaining speed in that relationship with the client, I think. So um, yeah, it we thankfully have we have a good team, we don't have anything crazy going on, and when there's a a mess up, we we take care of it pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

So, what we need to do to systematize this is we need to ingrain a mistake in every order. So we we're just trying to accelerate, we're gonna get to the mistake faster.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Hey, everyone needs to mess up today, so I mean, we're laughing, but that would actually probably work if you did it right. But yeah, I mean, but it's it's so true. It's like it's it's super intuitive. Like it's how our relationships work too. Like your deep relationships, your core relationships are people that you've kind of been through the trenches with. They are the people that stuff has gone wrong and y'all have worked through it together. And then with a customer relationship, you're it's a microcosm of that. Like if it if it always just goes fine, then it's almost like the customer can just take you for granted of like, well, it always goes great with Scott, but it'd probably go great with that other guy, too. But as soon as there's that complexity that y'all work through together, it starts to become more of a professional relationship instead of just a vendor. And it's such it's such a great spot for you as a business owner to be building that trust. And it's it's definitely something we see over and over again in the businesses we talk to that when you focus on those things and you're focused on like how do we rebuild trust and extend trust with this customer, those are always going to be successful businesses with great reviews because it's impacting that customer emotionally instead of just um performing a service that they feel like they need.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

I have two quick examples to add to this. Do it if I'm running four minutes late, I will call the realtor and say, hey, or I'll text them, hey, I want to let you know I'm on my way. Just want to say I'm running a few minutes behind. ETA is 1034 and the shoots at 1030. I think just to communicate that, like, yeah, it is my mistake that I'm a few minutes late, but I think it also builds trust. So, like, oh, it's four minutes. But also, thanks for letting me know. And so, very small example, but I think just to get ahead of all of that, it's a communication. There was one, we shot an oceanfront property, I think $14 million or something ridiculous. Um, and this homeowner was so picky about what they wanted and was going to the realtor. The realtor was coming to us, and it like the photos I think were great. Like, and the realtor even said, like, man, I think everything's fine. It's just the homeowner, I said, if there's an opportunity, I'd be happy to talk to the homeowner and hear what they're wanting just to make sure that we get it right. I mean, it I think was like a 30-minute phone call with the homeowner.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Blew them away.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

It rocked their world that I would talk to the homeowner and then the homeowner was happy. We got everything taken care of. It was a lot, but we got it taken care of in like an hour. So, in the grand scheme of things, it was an hour worth of our time. And for this rock star agent in this $14 million house, I think we've earned some trust there with them. So that type of extra mile thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

And that's probably customer lock-in for life. Because you helped him protect uh $120,000 commission. Like, what uh yeah, what is that worth? Like, wait, yeah, well, it's worth $120,000. But but really it's worth more. It's it's you're now a core part of his business, and he knows you're gonna be a partner in problem solving things, even delicate things for his customer.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

That retention, I think, oftentimes is kind of like a we overcalculate in our minds that this is a big expense for us. Um, you know, that this is in part because it's indefinite. It's scope is unclear, fuzzy edges sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Or you freeze because you know you can't scale it. You can't spend an hour with every client. And yeah, there's this thinking trap of like, well, if I do it for this one, you have to do it for all of them. But really, it's it's not how that's not how life works.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Right. Well, the thing is that like think about how much we spend in in uh acquiring a customer. And when you lose a customer, like this is a customer you've already made that investment, so you've lost that investment, and retaining it is is way cheaper long term than than acquiring a customer. Almost always. And we're almost always overcalculate for like I'm willing to make that investment to acquire, but we oftentimes are over or underestimate the value of retention. Um, and customer services is exactly where that happens.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

We had talked a little bit earlier about um where do I see my position growing into? Yeah. This is it. I think I have a tendency to hop in way too fast to fix things that aren't big deals. And so if I see you guys at an event at some point, hopefully my update to you is I'm not checking things before 9 a.m. Yeah, I'm not checking things after 5 p.m. We have systems in place that can handle any issue. And truthfully, the real win, I use this kind of as a joke, but the real win is when I'm home to be home.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

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SPEAKER_02 39:11

And you talk about like the glass balls that could break on the floor. Yeah. Protect time at home. Right now, if like elevated work to be this big thing, it's our only income in our family, so it has to work. So there is a little bit of that pressure there. But I'm at a point now, I think we got to like encourage our team to take responsibility to be able to take make those fixes so that when I'm home, I'm home. I'm not checking in. Like, I should just delete Slack, is really what I should probably do. And then I also just kind of joke like, I want to go play pickleball. I can't fathom leaving work, even though like you start your own business so that you can go do whatever you want, right? More time, more money, but it's really a lie for the first several years. Um, I want to go play pickleball. So when you talk about fixing things, that would be my goal is to equip our team to fix things with incredible customer service so that I'm just getting the report of the thing that happened, not the person that's actually making the call to fix it. I want to go play pickleball and I want to be home when I'm home. So that's the goal. That's the biggest goal in business right now.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

I love it. And maybe to encourage you, like of folks that I've coached or interacted with who've made that jump from like operator to owner, um you're you're hitting a lot of the same mindset markers that I hear all of them talk about. Like you, if you stay with that path, you'll be there and we'll talk in a year and we'll get an update and you'll be a CEO. And that's that's awesome. So yeah, and seriously, that'd be really fun. We'll do uh do an update with you in a year and see how it went. Um, but that's the point, right? So you can protect protect those the glass balls from hitting the ground because they're irrecoverable. Like you can only play pickleball for so long. So how do you make the most of it right now? You only have kids for so long. How do you make the most of it right now? And I think you're on the you're on a good path, at least from my my vantage.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

It it feels like there's been seasons of like light at the end of the tunnel, like, oh, I think we're almost there. Yeah, and then it wasn't. And oh, I think we're and then it wasn't. And so, like, it you know, I'm making it up, but like 10k was a big one. 25. Okay, when we hit 50, and it's just like it keeps like the light keeps going further. I do feel like this is now the real spot that that transition can happen. Um, so we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Yeah, I I hope so. And I I feel it in that like I'm I'm actively working with my wife right now to help her move toward more executive role in her company. So, like this the same, like the same trench. So we should we should commiserate more. Let's go. As she's she's working on that. Um, and we we are too, but we're also like we're really active and in pick some up, it's fun and engaged for us. It's not something we're trying to get out of right now.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Um good spot to be.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

But anyway, any uh words of advice for like somebody who wants to launch, like they want to up their customer service. Where would you start? And somebody wants to launch a referral program, like what's the what's the first step you'd take with what you know now in both of those categories for somebody else?

SPEAKER_02 42:09

I think in any of the categories, if you're starting a business or a referral program or customer service, like literally start today and go as fast as you can. I think a lot of people get uh stuck trying to think of the perfect system or they have the excuses of why this won't work. I would much rather go at lightning speed and have to course correct along the way instead of trying to analyze and come up with the perfect system and delay. It's the same thing I tell realtors at that class. I'd rather you post every day to have the rhythm of posting instead of trying to come up with the perfect post after 30 days and get two likes. Like just get going. And so if it's a referral program, build it today. Send out an email to your client, say this is now built with whatever system you're using. Customer service. I think that you're always going to win if you lead with value and you make things right. Um, I don't know that we've ever stood up a client or even fired a client. There's probably something in there that I need to work on, but we just take care of everybody. And it's certainly not profitable a lot of the times for us, but it when you start calculating lifetime value, um, it's gonna work out in the end. So I think that's my encouragement is if you feel like stuck thinking about it, man, just go and know that you'll make mistakes and uh you can course correct along the way.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

If people want to follow your journey, like if they're interested in this and they're in the same vein, they want to grow their way to out of from operator to owner, where can they follow your your journey, your company, stuff you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Yeah. So we're on Instagram. Uh, the real estateographers. The idea when I started was if you needed a photographer or a videographer for your real estate, you need to call the real estateographers. So that's how it's actually the longest email address, I think, in the history of the world. So people ask me an email, like I'll text it to you later, instead of sitting there and spending. Selling for the next 30 minutes. Anyway, they can uh follow us on Instagram. Um, you know, you could go to our website, see our company phone line. Feel free to reach out, shoot a text or call, and would happy to uh, you know, chat. Um, I love it. We've got an amazing industry and community. Um, I don't know if this is the same for like the plumbing industry and other industries that people just like bakers have their own community. I feel like real estate photographers are just like always sharing and growing and helping each other. So um I've had a lot of people help me. Would love to, if I can, share anything with anybody interested. But um yeah, um thankful for for everyone that's kind of fed into me. Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Well, thanks for sharing your advice, and we'll hope to check back in in a year in your owner journey. So thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you guys are awesome.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Thanks for having me. See you later.