Beyond the Listing: Finding Your Creative Voice in Property Media w/ Devon Pastorius

In this episode, the co-founders of Pixlmob and PropMedia talk with Devon Pastorius, the head of Narwhal Creative in Windsor, Canada. Known for his work with the PMRE conference and his "zany" creative approach, Devon discusses his transition from traditional real estate media to running a full-scale advertising agency. He shares insights on standing out in a crowded market by thinking like an advertiser and moving beyond standard listing media to build brand equity for clients.

### Chapter Markers:

  * **00:00** - Welcome to the PropMedia Podcast
  * **01:05** - Devon’s Background: From Copywriting to Real Estate Media
  * **02:16** - The Birth of Narwhal Creative
  * **03:07** - Shifting from Listings to Agency Work
  * **05:10** - Marketing a Brand vs. Marketing a House
  * **08:04** - The Problem with "In-House Rockstar" Hires
  * **10:01** - How the Pandemic Fueled Digital Media Growth
  * **13:42** - Standing Out: Why Are You Making What You’re Making?
  * **15:05** - Solving Problems vs. Selling "Flash and Sizzle"
  * **17:48** - The Reality of Buyer Behavior and Property Videos
  * **19:48** - Thinking Like an Advertiser
  * **20:08** - **NEW** Ad: Pixlmob's New In-App AI Photo Effects
  * **22:24** - Positioning the Realtor as the Expert
  * **25:16** - Becoming Indispensable Through Vertical Integration
  * **27:01** - The Best Clients Already Believe in Advertising
  * **30:04** - "Zany" Content: Rap Videos and Cinematic Sketches
  * **33:22** - Case Study: How a Viral Rap Video Got Four New Clients
  * **36:32** - The "One Take" Historic Party Video
  * **39:35** - Truth in Advertising: The "Piece of Sh\*t" House Idea
  * **42:17** - Challenges of Scaling a Bespoke Business
  * **45:49** - Quality of Life vs. Solo Operator Hustle
  * **47:44** - Justifying Higher Budgets to Clients
  * **51:07** - How to Start the Creative Conversation Today
  * **52:33** - The "Vegan Curious" Marketing Concept
  * **55:56** - Where to Follow Devon and Narwhal Creative

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Prop Media Podcast. I'm Maddie. This is Moses. We're the co-founders of Pixel Mob and Prop Media. And this is where we talk about property media.

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Today we get to talk with Devin Pastorius. He is the head of Narwell Creative up in Windsor, Canada. If you've met him, you may have met him in association with PMRE, where he does all the media for the actual PMRE conference. And he also is known for doing kind of zany different sorts of approaches to real estate videos, rap videos, creative things that are a little bit out of the middle of the road of what many people do. So if you're interested in maybe expanding in an agency direction or more creative direction with your content, tune in. Okay. But how'd you get into what you're doing right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, so I I went to school for communications, media, and film um thinking that I was going to be a a writer, move out to Vancouver, write for television, starve to death. I was working as a copywriter for a while and I got hired by a local realtor um to produce videos. And he was kind of like the first guy in town who was doing videos, and I was the first guy therefore making the videos. Um worked for him for about a year-ish. Um and then it stopped making sense financially for him at the same time. I was asking for more money. So I kind of cut out on my own. He gave me a really, really cool deal. Um, and in like my first week, because I was the guy doing the things that only one guy was doing, I had a bunch of clients. It was great. Um and so kind of grew um the real estate media side of things from there, and I started to kind of get bored with it. Um, it was a bit of a grind. It was, you know, it was making money. My wife joined and and stuff like that, and that was great. Um, but again, that kind of like writer in me, that that kind of advertising side of things, I wanted to do more, wanted to get bigger, wanted to do more interesting stuff. Um, and so that was what launched what later became Narwell Creative. We called it Winter Creative at the time. Um and yeah, and so I'm the the creative dictator um and kind of owner and generalist, I guess, here. Um kind of do a little bit of everything. And I've got an awesome team behind me now. We've got photographers, videographers on staff, graphic designer, copywriter. Um, we do a bunch of post-production work. Um, we kind of like white label for agencies in the US on high-end um like commercial work for all the major automotive manufacturers and stuff like that. So like we've touched a lot of different interesting projects. Um, and then we also do the kind of like the full advertising scale for everything from small mom and pop shops locally all the way up to big um, you know, software as a service companies across the world. So um we we kind of do a little bit of everything, and that's that's the way that I like it.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

What's your mix of agency work to like like very direct just listing real estate media? And narwhals. Where did narwhals come in?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Um so we have been kind of slowly fading out of real estate stuff. Um like we're we still do it, we still offer it. Um, but the agency side of things um is much more prevalent for what we've been doing lately. Um, right, like a really good real estate client, they are a couple thousand dollars a month, um, if not, you know, maybe five to ten if they're really good on a really good month. Um and different clients in the agency world, that is like the lowest tier per month, and it's less work um in terms of like driving around, shooting, dealing with the homeowners and stuff like that. It's just it's a little bit more of a streamlined approach. Um, it gives us a little bit more flexibility to do things that are bigger, right? Like with real estate, if you if you're given that leash to go, you're still on a very tight leash because you need to list the house yesterday and and so on, right? Like I've been blessed a few times, and I know in the notes we'll we'll we'll get to the a few of those um where I've been given like a two or three week lead time um to create something really interesting. Uh, but to to create something fun and big and different, it's very hard to do in a 24-hour turnaround timescale. Um, and so that's kind of what we've been pushing for. And now we also have a lot of clients where we've vertically integrated in the real estate space. So we're running their social media, we're doing their advertising, we're creating campaigns for them, we're we're doing a bunch of stuff on that end, uh, where we're doing more than just generating media, we're we're running their entire marketing campaigns um and kind of being their outsource marketing department. Um, so yeah, so it's we're I would say we're probably at like 40% real estate now. Um, and every, you know, every month we kind of change that math, but that's because we're just adding more agency stuff.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Brokerages and real estate teams and bigger realtors, are are those good agency customers?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

They would be in theory. Um, but so around here, it's uh Windsor's kind of a funny little niche. Um, you guys may be familiar with the name Eric Davidson. He comes from Windsor. Um like that's where he he was working full time for uh for a local guy who's one of the the bigger brokers in town. Um a lot of the a lot of the brokers in town here, once they get to kind of a certain size, they really start to look inward. Um and they like to have their kind of own in-house staff and stuff like that. Because if uh quite frankly, if they came to us, the price that I would be charging for all of that um would probably be a little bit out of budget. Um and they don't have the full control that they like to have, right? Um so yes, in in in certain circumstances it would be. Windsor is a little bit of a weird town in that regard. Um, it's a lot of kind of smaller teams and stuff like that, but um it would be ideal. We do work with a local brokerage. Um, we've done a bunch of ad campaigns for them. It but that's less real estate advertising, and it's more real estate brokerage advertising. So it's kind of your recruitment, it's just why you should use this particular brand, why our agents know more than other agents or whatever kind of marketing it is. We've been doing actually kind of like podcast stuff with them and that sort of deal. Um, so it's less about marketing homes and more about marketing a brand. Um, and that's kind of what we talk about even with our real estate clients who are kind of full in. It's less about selling a house because if you're priced strong and your clients are unreasonable, we can't sell that house regardless of how great the media is. Um one of the things we always say is that we we lead horses to water, but can't make them drink. Um but with a brokerage, we could be a little bit more effective with that, right? Because we're we're promoting a brand. And even with an individual agent's team, we can promote the brand of that team, we can sell that team, we can sell that message. Um, but it's it is nuanced and different from typical real estate marketing.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

I wonder if in your journey, was that kind of like always your intent coming from this like copywriting kind of you have a little bit more exposure to a broader kind of like advertising category, and you were like I I set out and I'm gonna make that kind of my vision for my company, or did that kind of evolve? And you know, did it start with that and then you added listings, or did you start listings and then you started adding more of this kind of marketing stuff?

SPEAKER_00 7:36

So I used real estate kind of as a way to fund uh making the agency, right? Um because the thing was is that once we got the agency going, we had a couple clients here and there, and that was great. But if that's all that I had to rely on, I would have gotten out of business in about seven days. Um, right? It's just it's we it it's difficult for cash flow. Yes. Um, especially if you need to have those teams. One of the things that we realized is that like we kind of need our snipers in their lane. Um this is a bit of a side tangent, but one of my favorite things that I ever see from local businesses and and real estate agents like to do that a lot, these in-house teams. They go, We're looking for our social media rock star. Um, this rock star needs to do photos, video, graphic design, social media management.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

And shoot lasers out of their eyes.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Exactly, right? And uh if they can if they can do some lease paperwork as well, that'd be fantastic. Um and also $22 an hour. Yeah. Um and like those people just don't exist. With that ad, it's $12 an hour. Well, that's about $22 Canadian. So it's fair. Um so uh one of the things that I saw was that there is a market there, right? There's money there, there's there's uh they're willing to spend that. And then when you'd factor in carrying costs and stuff like that, it's like they're they're spending 70, 80 grand a year um on top of all their ad buys and and stuff like that. They're they're spending a lot of money for these people. Um and it's not just real estate agents who were doing this, right? It's small businesses around here. There's a lot of like tool and mold shops and and stuff like that. And so I kind of saw that as a okay, so you hire this one person who can't do any of these things particularly well, or they're a photographer and they're like, oh yeah, I can do all this, and they they kind of can't, not in any sort of effective way. I'm like, we can take this budget and I can give you access to, you know, a proper graphic designer and a profit, proper photographer, and somebody who actually knows what they're doing in social media and knows the difference between organic and paid content and this, that, and the other. Um, so that was kind of like the idea behind it, but those people cost a lot of money. Um so we needed something to to to fund it. And fortunately, we started uh Windsor Creative, the the agency, on like March 6th, 2020, um, which nothing you know world-changing happened in March of 2020. Um and sounds like us. Yeah. Um and so what a little later than that. What was really interesting though was that the real estate stuff took off, right? Because everybody needed digital stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

They couldn't show houses normally and thought it was gonna crush down and then real estate just exploded for the next two years.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

And so that was that was a a big benefit to us. And then obviously being in houses, right, especially kind of those higher-end houses, you meet people who own businesses, you and and it all kind of grew from there. Um, but to get back to your original question um of was this the plan the whole time, yeah. I kind of um as much as I love shooting interiors, um, I it was one of those things where it's like the day-to-day part of it was not was not loving it. Um it was a grind. I know a lot of people thrive in that grind and stuff like that, but I started having kids, silly me, um, and and whatnot. And so like being at home was important. And the thing is is that I I also understand that realtors are going out there and they're doing it 24-7, right? Like the the one of the clients that I had for a long time when I first started working with them, he was like, I love the fact that you sent an email at two in the morning. And when I was 22 and had nothing else to do, that was great. Here you go, 2 a.m. email. Now it's like, no. Yeah, you'll you'll you'll get an email maybe between 9 30 and like 4 30, and that's that's kind of when it is. And so just priorities changed and stuff like that, just the way that I wanted to live and the way that I wanted to run a business and the and the work that I wanted to do changed.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

So I might still be sending an email at 2 a.m., but I'm gonna time it out to go at 9 03 so that nobody expects me to be sending an email at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I think it's really interesting the approach. I mean, I sympathize kind of with where you're at. Um I came from a uh film and production background and kind of like post-COVID and everything else in my industry crushed down, and so like I can make money doing real estate stuff. And and similarly, it was not creatively inspired. You know, three months earlier was working on big sets, whole crews, you know, like very and then here I am in this uh trailer, like dragging a mattress from the live from the living room into the bedroom, like my life just fell apart and having like a mini breakdown, right? Like, uh, but not all real states like that, it could be very fun, and and there are a lot of things to it, but it wasn't the same kind of creative fulfillment. So uh I think it's really interesting just what you've done in through your career, and I think there's a lot of people that probably are are uh would be excited about to know that there's companies that can take a uh a creative endeavor and and fund it with real estate media, like it buys you the cameras, it you've got creative people on your team, um, and it's a cool, stable base, and you can build off of that from there.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

It's really smart. It's it's uh you earn uh revenue forward, yeah, make money, uh accumulate everything you need, accumulate skills, other people, connections, equipment, yeah, and kind of take it wherever you want to go, which Devin, I I think for a lot of people listening, like I'd say the average person listening is there doing production real estate photography. I mean, you've got your architectural or your your people like you doing agency stuff. But I'd say most of them are there and and they might uh want to be you or they might love what they're doing. But for the one who wants to be doing more agency stuff, like what advice would you give that guy? Maybe they're a single shooter, maybe they have an assistant, but mostly all they do right now uh is production work. What would be some tangible stuff they could start doing if they want to take your path toward agency?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

The this is gonna sound a little bit weak. Um, but the the the it which is a great sales salesman. Um but the first thing you have to do is you have to kind of ask yourself, why am I making the thing that I'm making? Um it's it's one of the things that frustrates me the most about real estate media is that like there's all this stuff going on, and I just constantly ask myself, why is this happening? Right. Um, why are we doing the platform nine and three quarters through a wall into another bedroom? Why are we doing all these different um things? And uh I find that a lot of real estate media is for the flash and sizzle. Um and agents love it. And so because agents love it, they they pay you for it. But the thing is that we're not actually building any sort of branding with it, we're not building anything. Um, we're not reinforcing any sort of message with it other than look, look here, right? Attention, attention, attention.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

I mean, there's um tons of that with every like with every industry. There's a new well, but in real estate in particular, I think with the personas that are in it, there's a there's a huge gravity toward, oh, that's new flash c and I want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, and and the thing is is that that brings you money, right? I have I have lost clients to we want this, and I go, why? And they don't like being asked why. Um now the one to yeah, because I do, and I'm gonna pay you for it, and I go, okay, well, let's see. Um and the thing is though, is that if you look at any um we'll call it proper marketing, um, is that it's always answering some sort of question, right? It's always solving a problem um with whatever the widget or whatever it is that is selling. Um, and it's trying to spread a specific message to a specific audience. Um and that is what you kind of have to do with that creativity. It's not about the production so much, it's about what the idea is that you are conveying with that and what action you're spurring the audience to do. Um for for a really simple example, it's like McDonald's advertising is trying to spur you to eat a cheeseburger. That's what it's trying to do, right? It's not trying to be like check out the sick edit. Um, it's it it it wants it wants you to go to McDonald's and buy that thing. Um whereas with all this real estate marketing, um, and I'm gonna go on a tangent here and stop me, please, if it gets too much. Um so again, I'd be involved with with the community and stuff like that. I've got a lot of different photographers and cinematographers and stuff from across the world on my feed. And unless I read the name, I don't know what city, what person who is making this content because it all looks the same. Every realtor is doing the whatever that's flashy, you could barely read it, text going on in the background. Um, that I'm convinced that whoever started that had an ex who is a graphic designer that they wanted to spite. Um and it's all the same. It's all the same. And I mean it's so the editors who are being paid by these realtors and or the uh the shooters and stuff are providing the thing, and we're getting this great homogenization. Um and there's so much money being spent, and there's so much time and effort, and it's not that any of it's bad per se, right? No accounting for taste, but uh it's not bad. It's uh it takes a lot of effort and skill and talent to do this. Um but what's it doing? You know what I mean? Other than filling up space and being a piece of content that people can show their seller and go, hey. And now there is a certain amount of value to that. I'm not trying to sure you know, do you think this is a uh trap though?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I think you and I and Moses and people in our industry fall into this. We see a a feed of this stuff, and so we see uh that one, and then literally the next video is the same thing, and then two more posts down, and then it's the same. You see three houses floating in a row and reconstructing and but the buyer in that in that market, they see that one video and they go, wow, that's something I've never seen. Yeah. Do you think that's true? Or do you think they've they're seeing the same stuff too?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Well, so I think that they're seeing the same stuff because that is what is available, right? That is the content that's being produced for it. Um now, anecdotally, um, my parents are actually looking to buy a house right now, which means by extension, I'm looking for them to buy a house. And I'm I'm looking at a little do you know how many property videos I've watched? Zero. Absolutely none. Um now again, this this could be a bias. This this could be a thing. I'd I'll fully admit that. Um but the photos.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Yeah, you're just scanning through the photos. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

And I want to see the floor plan. Yeah. Um, especially on houses that I haven't, right? Because like around here we have your raised ranches, your backsplits, your side splits, all that stuff. It's like, okay, it's one of those houses. Great. I don't need a floor plan for that. But if there's a little bit of a custom house or whatever, if I don't know how that works, the zoom zoom, let's go inside, outside, drone shot, this, that, and the other, that doesn't do anything for me either. Um, and furthermore, I don't need whatever Sam Altman's robot thinks it should say about the house that it's never seen before with the script that they're doing at the beginning about a you know, a mid-level townhome that this is the one you've been waiting for.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Um it's just the same as every other one that's been listed in the last six months.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Exactly. There's an entire row of the same homes all all down the line. It's again, it's not like it's not saying anything about the realtor, it's not saying anything about the brand, it's providing a service, right? Sellers are expecting the video, sellers are expecting the photos, they're expecting the 360, maybe. Um, so there is a service, there is a little bit of theater going on there with it. Um, but I think that it's a missed opportunity because I think for the same money and the same effort and the same time spent, you can do something different. Now that takes effort, you can't just ask the LLM to come up with something new because it doesn't come up with anything new. But if you think about it, and again, this is the long way around to that question of what can people do, it's think, think a little bit. Um, and that's really hard to do when you're really busy. And I get that. But if you want to elevate what it is that you're doing, if you want to take the next step, if you want to go beyond day-to-day listening media, you gotta think. Right? You you have to be that's the first thing you have to do. You have to think like an advertiser, you have to think about how the audience is going to receive that message, what that message is, what is it that you're trying to say, um, and why is it that you're trying to say it. And again, what action are you trying to spur? Um so yeah, that's that's what it is. Think more.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

All right, it's that time where we tell you something that's a cool feature. This one's brand new, launching Unpixel Mob that many of you have asked for for a long time, which is a series of effects that you can do to manipulate photos right in line in the site. So we're really excited about this launch, and it gives you a lot of versatility of things to do with your photos with AI that allow you to make changes really simply and easily. And Maddie's, of course, the point person in product. So, Maddie, like what are some of the favorite things that you can now do point and click inside of Pixel Mob, right in the workflow?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

So we got to the biggest stuff that happens all the time. And the number one thing is uh open toilets.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

I mean, that's fair. That is a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

No, and it does happen, but you know, like when there's an open toilet, you can push a button and it closed that toilet. It's gonna save a lot of time.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

So we've got can I have one of those in my actual bathroom?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Like I don't think you need a button for this. It's pretty easy to fix in real life, but uh not always easy to fix in the in in the real uh in a photo. So we've also made it really easy to do some of the things that you do every day, like grass screening, um adding fires in fireplaces, TV replacements, things like that, sky replacements, um virtual twilights. Um obviously these things take just a few seconds to load and uh makes that really easy. Obviously, your files are already there in Pixel Mob if you've worked with an editor and you want to kind of push it a little bit farther. Um I will say one of the things I think is probably gonna be the most helpful is object removal. We've made us a simple tool for you to be able to drop pins on your image so that way you can uh detail exactly what needs to be removed and have those things removed in you know 20 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

If that's something that you've been waiting for and where you want just a little bit more versatility in what you can do with a photo, um check out effects on pixel mob today.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

What does it look like then? Um you get These photo jobs, and particularly you've grown an agency out of this now, to think of it more as a marketing campaign rather than just photos, the catalog photos of the house. How do you break that down? And how can you uh segue this opportunity to shoot a house and do the listing photos and segue that into something more meaningful, use your brain power and create some brand equity with that agent?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

So, one of the things that I always talk about with with the clients that I am trying to do this transition with is again don't make the video about house for sale, right? Because most videos is house for sale. Here it is, these are the details, this, that, and the other. Um a really easy one to do is how can we position the realtor as an expert, right? Why why this realtor over anybody else? What do they know about this home that is not obvious from the photos? Because as I said before, the video doesn't give you any more information about a house. Um, right? It tells you how good an editor is, it tells you how good the shooter is. Um and it's flashy, it's fun. Um, but it's it, you know, you're gonna get more information from a house and a floor plan than you are from a video. Fine. So what can we do with that video? What message can we spread um with that agent on camera? And again, if they're just reading a script about this is one, two, three, whatever street, come check it out. Who cares? Um, but if you do something like here's five things that photos won't show you about this house, something as simple as that, now you're positioning the client as an expert, right? Um you're they they know something, and what I I mean, it could be something as silly as like that roof was put on last year by such and such local brand, tag the local brand. Um, right, increase the reach, make some friends along the way. That just little things like that. It's a good hook, too.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I mean, generally, like you know, like, oh, there's five things I can learn, or like it may not be interesting. This is but like for five things, I'll stick around to find out what the five things are.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

And the other thing that I always like to kind of point out is don't ask a question as a hook that the answer could just be no and then swipe away, right? Like, ha have you been waiting for a town host in this town for six hundred thousand dollars? No. Yep, do you want to like watch my video? No, no, I don't know. It's yeah, it's um if you can answer just no to any of those hooks, um, that's uh generally not great. Um, right. And and ChatGPT loves to ask questions that you can answer no to. Um so yeah, um that's what it is, right? So you start to expand on the message. Expand on the message, expand on what the audience is gonna get out of it, what what differentiates the actual piece of content um and and the medium that you're using and the the message. I don't know if any of you are are are Marshall McLuhan fans, um, but the the the medium is the message. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh there you go, back to college. Um but yeah, like that's it's important. It's a it's a fundamental principle of advertising, right? The things that you would say on a billboard are not the same things that you would say in a video, um, necessarily, right? And and so on and so forth. So that's you kind of have to think of it like an advertiser. The other thing I'd say is start to vertically integrate, um, right? Become become much more um of an asset to your client. Because if the only thing that you do is is real estate media, that's replaceable, right? I'm I'm sure we've all lost clients to somebody else who comes in for $12 cheaper, yeah. Um, or they're willing to do more work for the same amount of money, right? And and stuff like that. It's you you're especially if you are somebody who's approaching or in their 30s and stuff like that, you're not gonna out hustle that 21-year-old who might still be living at home and thinks $150 is like winning the lottery. Um, right. So if you you have to become indispensable, um, and you can do that through a variety of different ways. Um, and oftentimes, unfortunately, because of the way that real estate media works, there is a low bar to entry and kind of a high ceiling of the day-to-day stuff. Somebody can catch up to you on that. So, what is your differentiator? Um, and again, the way that you think, the way the way that you solve those problems of how do you spread message, how do you spell um explain a brand. Um, and and learn about that. If you don't know about that, it's there's no secret to it. Um, you just have to educate yourself.

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Well, it's it sounds like you're also doing work of connecting with and educating your clients. It sounds like to find the ones that are interested in a higher level of service that aren't interested in the commodity product, and then you're focusing on that.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

And and that is definitely something that you will start to discover is that there are not as many that value that. Um and you kind of you kind of have to and and the thing is is that um and this is something that goes across industry, it's not just it's not just in real estate. Um one of my biggest qualifiers when bringing in clients to talk and stuff like that, one of the first things I say, and it's a weird way to start a sales meeting, but if I go, I I usually tell them, if I have to convince you that advertising works, you're not my client. Let's not even let's just drink some coffee, talk about sports, and then go on our merry way. Um because if it's good enough for McDonald's, if it's good enough for Walmart, if it's good enough for every successful brand that has ever existed in the history of brands, it's good enough for you. Um, right, like advertising works. This is not a secret, this is not a mystery, it is something that is built into our kind of brains that if you hear a message, you can be spurred to action.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Um well, and also just the the bar of if no one knows you exist, they cannot buy your service. Exactly. There's and if it's just lost in a sea of sameness, why would they buy your service?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

So one of the things though is that, and this is a bit of a blinder in whatever ego um of individuals, and and and I suffer from this as well, um, of well, everybody knows I'm the best, right? Everybody thinks that they're the best, and that everybody should know that, right? Um and that's not and just unfortunately it's not true. Um right, you if you you kind of have to be the loudest person. And even if you're not the best, if you scream loudly enough that you are the best, people will start to believe it. Um and we can see examples of this all over life right now. Um right, and it's just that's that's that's the way that it goes.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Sorry, just several coming to mind. Like to scream about being the best.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Exactly. Um anyway, um use that as proof though, right? That uh we can see it. Um we we can see how that discourse works in the general public. Um and that's advertising, right? Advertising is just getting your message out there to people through different mediums. Um and you have to do that for your clients, you have to convince them that that is the way to do it. And often, especially with real estate small businesses, stuff like that, local businesses that you're gonna come across as you start to leapfrog into like bigger and bigger companies, um, they're working on a limited budget. So you kind of have to understand how you can do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. And there's a bunch of different ways of doing that um to kind of steer this back into like a creative uh situation. Um if you have a good idea, your execution doesn't actually have to be that good. Um I had I lack a great example of it right now. Um but a really good idea transcends your ability to execute on it gr greatly, right? So if you're a solo shooter and maybe you're a better photographer than a video guy, if you have a really good idea, even if you don't ex execute it at the level of Steven Spielberg or something, it's going to track. If you have a good idea, if you have a good delivery of it of some variety, people are going to respond to that message. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

And you've done some pretty you do some weird stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

So I we should probably mention that so people know to follow this guy, but like rap videos in houses and cinematic sketches and what are some of your favorite zany stuff that you've done that's and and maybe particularly stuff that worked, like that really that really hit.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

The rap video is one of my favorites. It's getting long in the tooth now, though. That was several years ago that we did that. Um, and it it seems to follow me everywhere. Um so that one You could pick a different one. No, no, it's it's it's like that one, that one's good, and that one was kind of like a perfect alignment of the planets for it to happen. Um, particularly in real estate. Um, you're not just convincing your client to do something really stupid. You you have to convince the homeowner of it. Every realtor wants a rap video. Or the homeowner. The homeowner wants to be able to do that. Yeah, and and honestly, those those real estate agents didn't want a rap video either, but I like somehow managed to strong them um them into it. Um and it was kind of at the behest of their client. Their client was pushing them. Um the clients were a lot of fun. Um and they wanted something big, they wanted something, they had an out-of-town agent from a bigger city come in and do absolutely nothing with their property. Their property was super unique, and they were happy to do something completely zany. Um, and I was given basically a blank canvas to work with. Um and I will say that I was I was kind of borrowing some infiration from Tim Smith and the uh the the uh Teach Me How to Duffy uh video that he did, which is just phenomenal. Um and you know, you you're combining popular music, you're you're combining stuff that is already proven to be interesting um with something that can be considered fun or different and and changed it up enough that one, you don't get sued, and two um actually translates some sort of message. Um so that that video, it was born out of me thinking about it. We're on the Great Lakes here. The house had its own beach, and I thought it would be funny if you said something along the lines of you've seen 99 houses without a beach at one. Um, and that's kind of what we we we went with 99 problems instead of it was 99 houses. Um, and so I sat there for probably about seven hours writing the lyrics out to it, line by line. Um and then I went, There is no way I'm getting either one of the it's um it was previously a duo, no a husband and wife combo. Um I'm like, there's no way I'm getting both of them to do all of these lines. They're they're not musicians, they're not into this. So we hired a local rapper um to do most of it. I'm like, but you guys have to do guest bars. Like we we have to do guest bars with this. It's it's it's amazing. And so they kind of each did half a verse. Um the guy that we got for it was absolutely perfect because he's like he's kind of a a goofy guy, but also takes it really seriously, which is exactly what the entire project was. Don't I yeah? We were taking a very stupid idea very, very seriously. Um and the the cinematographer I had at the time had worked on a bunch of music videos and stuff. So it like it all worked out really, really well. Um the results of it uh is that we had like a quarter million views in a day. Um and they and sold the household. The house sold in four days. The house sold in four days. I take zero credit for that because they changed the price.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Um I think you should take at least 10% credit for that.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Sure. 10% sounds good. Um But what was most interesting is that they actually got four clients from it. They had two buyers and two sellers.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

And that's what realtors are really marketing for. It's not, I mean, the house is gonna sell if it's priced right, just like you were saying.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Exactly. Um so that was where the success came from from it, was that they reached a ton of people and then they kind of gave a little bit of their personality with it. And now again, awesome.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

And that's also like that's the distinction is maybe it was 10% of selling the house, but it was a hundred percent of them getting four clients. When's the last time a a normal everything is the same uh video of a house got a realtor one client? Much less exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah. And now, I mean, with the the normal videos we'll call them, maybe as a culmination of the last 50 that they did might get them a client, right? There's a certain amount of consistency and some.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

I'm not denigrating that. That is that that's table stakes of a good realtor. Yeah. But if you really want to stand out amongst the good realtors, try something different.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

But they literally had somebody pick up the phone like the day that it dropped, and they were like, We love you, Lusterhouse.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

This has to be you, yeah. Yeah, and I want a rap video, and you're like, oh crap.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

But they didn't. That was the funny part. They actually they were like, they're like, We need to get this house in the market or whatever. Because it because that um between sign off on doing it and actually releasing it was three weeks. Um, it's rare to get in real estate. Incredibly rare. Um, we've done it a few times. Um, there was another one kind of back to that. Like, you kind of have to get the uh the homeowner on board and as well as the agent. Um, because of that video, I got a call, a bunch of calls for a bunch of different ones. We did one with another guy, he's always called himself the the sold man. Um, and he's also part of like a cover band of the blues brothers. And so we we literally did a I'm the sold man video, nice, yeah. Um, which was incredible, it was a ton of fun. Um did he sing it? Uh he yeah, he sang it. Um and he like he called Find the Right Client. Well, he found me. Uh like I had shot from before. He's like, hey Devin, you do videos, right? I'm like, yeah, I do videos. And I just thought kind of your normal one. He's like, I got something for you. And he emails me over the lyrics. Um and so we went back to the same producer that I had do the um the recording for the uh the 99 houses and stuff like that. And yeah, we we got it together. We found a local venue and stuff. Um, and uh he needed a guitar player, so I kind of stepped in um to to be in the video and stuff, and it was a great time. Um but another one that we had was it was for a listing, very historic listing, still hasn't sold, it's been on the market for like five or six years now. Um in in in Windsor. It's a it's a really it's kind of a white elephant house. Um it was built by like a rum runner in the 20s or something like that, and it's um I think Albert Kahn was the um the architect on it, um, who's a pretty famous architect in Detroit. Um anyway, um so the owner of it is much more serious, very proud of the house, uh kind of a more of a serious guy. So we weren't doing something ridiculous, but we wanted something that showed off the house in the way that he loved it. So we did a two and a half minute something like that, one take um of a party going on the house that actually we kind of like weave through and brought everything together, and we had like little skits set up and this and that in order to like to make sense for it bringing you through the house and to show you both the layout, how it could be used, and just be interesting. Yeah, um, so it was a lot less goofy and stupid, um, but it was it was still kind of like technically difficult. I think it was like the third or fourth take was the one that we ended up going for. Um it was cool. My my my cinematographer at the time, he like strapped a GoPro to his head, so we have the the above and below. Um, and I was walking behind him, shouting out directions when to start things, when to do this. We had one of the dumbest camera rigs we've ever rigged up in order to get some sort of audio out of it that would make sense while you're watching it. Um, that one blew up on Reddit for us, of all places, um, and and got a lot of stuff. Again, didn't do anything for the house, but the realtor got a ton of coverage from it. Her name was everywhere. Um it got shared around all over the place. It was it was a really good like profile event for her.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Um, and and again, that's she spent a lot of money on that, didn't sell the house, used different agents and stuff like that in the past, and still hasn't sold the price. Um, but she was able to leverage that in a way where you know we had a five-figure budget for that, which is crazy for a real estate listing, but it wasn't about that listing in particular, it was about everything else with it. Um, and she made a bunch of really good connections with the community and and so on and so forth, right? So there's like there's different buckets that that money has to go towards, and um as like an action item, you kind of have to like pull your clients out of the idea that the money spent can only be related to the money available from that house, right? You kind of have to delineate between the opportunity of the exposure that you can get from the idea. So if you overspend on listing, um that's okay if what your goals and message and stuff are. If it's not about sell this house, you can actually change that conversation. You can be like, well, this is about selling you, this is about selling what it is you do, how you do it. Um, one idea that I would love to see done, I have not been able to convince somebody of it yet, um, and I think it's usually on the client side, is that if you have a really, really bad listing, I would love just an agent to be like, hey, I'm here at one, two, three, whatever street, and this place is a piece of shit. Um, and just that's and really go there and then talk about how it's you know it's meant to be torn down. It's point to the hole in the wall. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

The ceilings moving, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Like hold the raccoon that you caught and like try not to get bit by it or whatever. Truth in advertising.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Deal you'll get on this house. Low bids accepted.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

I mean, everywhere. That would be it would be awesome. It would be shared everywhere. And with that kind of house, you typically your best shot at maximizing value for that kind of house is a bidding war between two investors that both see a different thing in it.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

So it's like the thing's only gonna sell for 100k, period. In the story, it gets listed at 80, and you hope that somebody overbids to 105 or something. Like that's the hope of that property. So something like that would crush.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Devin, you need to find someone that can do like foreclosures and go find one of these houses because I want to see this video.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Yeah, the problem is they're 100k or 200k. Like it's not, but that's what Devin was saying, though, is the realtor has to see a vision for like, okay, I do this one thing and it explodes. That's brand equity for me for well and years.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

The thing with that idea is that it doesn't need to be expensive, right? You can film that on a phone. Oh, that's that's true.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Yeah, that could be pretty.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

But like that's not like you could just do that um kind of thing, right? There's a guy in Texas that I think did something similar to that, where it was like, look at this piece of shit house, and it was like a million-dollar house, and he would like like that idea of um like here's five reasons why you shouldn't hire me. Uh-huh. Like, have you seen those kind of like trendy things like don't hire me if you don't want a good like it's all very uh Don't hire me if you don't want the sexiest beard in real estate, yeah. Exactly. Um things like that, right? Like um it doesn't cost anything to do that, right? And back to my point of you have the time being spent, you have the opportunity being spent, you have the money being spent already, do something else, do something different, do something creative, do uh just break out of the mold and say something new. Um and and try to rely less on LLMs being the thing that generates the idea for you.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

I I want to know a lot of people have built their businesses in real estate media around a bit of a formula, and I'm not taking a s a stab at anybody at all. Like this is part of how it works, you know, it it is a heavily commoditized like media production uh business model, and it works for people to be able to learn it quickly, get into the business, but then you've got something like what you're talking about is using a lot of the same tools, it's the same customers, um, and you're selling houses, but it's a different business model. So, like, how do you handle something that is bespoke and custom every time? Maybe not every time, but uh in the cases when it is bespoke, particularly when it's in a market where there's already an expectation about what a listing video would cost, and you're like, okay, well, this is not a typical listing video, and how do you build a business around that?

SPEAKER_00 42:56

So the problem with that um is that it's not entirely scalable unless you can bring on other people um who are able to also think like that, right? Yeah, um there there is that problem of scalability. Um and it's also a matter of what kind of business do you want to run. Um, right, for me, if I had to continue doing the grind and stuff like that, I'd I was gonna find the highest point in town and and just be done with it. Um it just that wasn't for me, right? And there are prevention.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

That is a good conversation.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Exactly. It's um if you need help, there's somebody that you can do that.

SPEAKER_03 43:38

Go ahead and just put a superscript of the suicide prevention hotline at the bottom there.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Um but it's right, like it so for me, I I don't want to do the like let's scale, scale, Lambos, check out this, that, and the other thing. Like that that wasn't my vibe. If that's what you want to go for, don't do the bespoke thing. Um it's it it's very difficult to. Scale that. Now at the same time, something that I had done when I thought I'm like, oh, I'm going to keep on making all this money, but also do the bespoke thing and have cake and eat it too. Was I was trying to like delineate two sections of my business, one being like the luxury bespoke side and it's very difficult to do. And then have kind of your like whatever your Henry Ford assembly line, right? It can be done. But that takes a lot of administration. It you do have to build a team. You have to put a lot of overhead in. And sometimes the money that you make from doing the thing you want to do doesn't quite pay for that to happen, right? For all the other things. There's there's a lot of trade.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Different voices. Like it's two different, like you're talking earlier, like you're asking the question of what is this supposed to be saying? Well, both of those brands need to say two different things. So unless you're gonna literally be Lexus and Toyota and have two completely separate brands owned by the same, like it's tough to do.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

I would say that perhaps if you kind of had the if you did the bespoke thing and made enough money with that, you could like acquire a small, like a more you know thing. But again, that's the same.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

It's separate, but it's where you refer everybody who's like, I don't want to pay five grand for that. Well, I've got a great option for you, and it costs five hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

But at the same time, this is one is back to that business ethics of like what do you want to do with your business? Yeah. Um, what one of the things I think that a lot of people kind of get like lost in is like actually not answering that question um with their business. It's like, you know, I gotta make money, I gotta do this, I gotta do all these things. This is what a business TM is. Um, and I've been fortunate in that I've kind of been able to create what I wanted. Yeah. Um, and I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty I am not making as much money now as I was when I was a solo operator doing 25 houses a day and you know, killing myself kind of thing. Um, but my quality of life is infinitely better. Um now again, I've taken that money and I've invested it in the business that I have and that sort of thing, and it's a lot easier to get going once you have that first bundle um there and stuff like that. You can front load it, but it's the it's an ethos question. Um now you can scale the bespoke thing to a certain degree, but you probably are not gonna be able to do it within a single market um with just one industry. Very difficult. And I think that's it doesn't matter what industry you're in, right? If you're in medical aesthetics, if you're in whatever manufacturing stuff like that, it's very hard to build a business off of just one business. Um, because the thing is, is like one of the things that I ran into when I kind of got a certain saturation point, people started asking me, well, I don't want my stuff to look like so-and-so stuff. Yeah, right. So there's gonna be some natural variation where somebody, like, even if they like your work and your price and everything like that, they're gonna go find somebody else just to look different, just to be different. Um, and also that you're gonna develop a style, right? Um, back to those silly videos, those weird videos and stuff like that. I've got a silly weird style. That's that's what I like. It's the the certain kind of advertising, that's the way that my my head thinks. Um, if somebody's not into that, they're never gonna be my client, right? It's they're just they're not gonna vibe with that. That's not what they're gonna follow, that's not what they're going to get on board with, and that's okay. But now I need to go look somewhere else outside of our community within the industry and stuff like that. So um it's it's a really long answer to that question. Um, but I think that there are parts of each that you can kind of integrate, right? You can do kind of an elevated thing at the right time, and that's where you can kind of find your creative fun. Um, and that's what I was doing for a while before I really started to step out of the real estate stuff personally did today. Um, I was like being like, hey, this one's coming up, you know that it's coming up. Do you want to do something interesting? Let's, you know, talk about budget. Let's talk about how we extend this beyond just, you know, yes, it's a two million dollar house and you're gonna make 60 grand on it or whatever, but how can we justify spending five or six thousand dollars and do more with it? So that's like you do have to tow the line between what you want to do, what actually makes sense to do, how to fund all of that, and and how it actually creates value for your client, right? Um again, if if you were at PMRE kind of two years ago when I was talking, one of the things that you always want to think about is what's the message, what's the audience, and where are you delivering that? That dictates your content, and that's what gets you your results. Um, right, it's that that little math formula is something that we go through for every one of our clients for almost every single piece of content. We're able to do it very fast for certain things. It's a social media post. Where's it going? Um, right? What are the what are the things we're talking about? But if we're doing a bigger piece of content, it always comes down to the question of what do we hope to get out of this? Um for some brands it's a lot easier, sell more things. Um for real estate, it's a little bit more nuanced, it's a little bit harder, right? Because we're trying to sell this house, but we're also trying to get seven more listings out of it. We're trying to convince people that they're the one to go with and one to trust with their sale. Um, so how can you say those words? How can you deliver that message that convinces people of of such a thing? Nice.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yeah, I think I think you've nailed it. I think there's a lot of ways to do that. And it's interesting you you brought this up before about advertising. There's a lot of kinds of advertising, you know, and there's a lot similarly when we're talking about real estate videos. I think the one thing that everyone could walk away from, even if they're not going out uh down this like creative path, and they they love being able to just go do the same thing every day, that gives them that relieves anxiety, and then there's other people that gives them a tremendous amount of anxiety. Like uh there's gonna be two different kinds of people there, but either way, uh the message messaging and the the value you're providing um I think is is the same, and you're doing it in different ways, but um yeah, I I I I not all advertising is the big uh Super Bowl commercials. Um there's very simple business cards as our advertising, you know. Um you can do that in a lot of different ways. So, anyways, uh we're kind of running out of time, and I feel like we only kind of really scratch the surface of all these uh notes we've got, but uh we had a great conversation um and uh I I I really enjoy being able to talk through kind of the the creative side of this industry, and I think there's a lot of people that feel similarly that there's uh real estate media feels a little bit like a creative uh cramp on your style sometimes. Um and so I I would definitely challenge listeners, you know, if you figure it out, even if you don't have a customer that's gonna go buy something tomorrow, find someone that will let you you make that investment, do a little bit of a creative project on your own, let them do that, and you're gonna start asking. You might be surprised who might see that and say, like, I'll pay for it, you know, like on the next one.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

So and open the conversation with your clients as well, because there's a lot of times where people are think about something, um, but they're not gonna bring it up to you because they're just thinking about it.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

Um the realtors don't know what to ask for typically. I mean, they might have an idea in their brain, but it's out of their general wheelhouse.

unknown 51:25

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

But I don't think it's foreign to them that they also see that everything is the same. Uh uh. They also want to stand out in theory. Uh-huh. They may not have the courage to do it and do something really different. Uh-huh. But they they want that. So just starting that conversation, I think, is a really easy place that's accessible to anyone. See if you can find somebody that's a zany client that wants you to do a custom thing. Like, and maybe that just starts with a script that you do with every single client of just like, hey, would you ever want to do something a little different? Or do you just want the speed ramps and like are which one are you? Are you I want the same and or do you want to take a swing?

SPEAKER_00 52:04

And the other thing too is that you could just bank ideas, right? Like have a notepad with you. Have a have something that you could just what would be funny in this house, maybe you don't do it on that house, but now you have this concept in play, right? Like I've got a I've just got stuff on the proverbial shelf that I can pull off and go with. Um, and not just in real estate, just in other things in other industries and stuff, because I think it would be funny, I think it would be interesting, I think it'd be effective. Um, to give you an example, there's a there was a a vegan restaurant that was looking for marketing for a while, and I came up with this whole campaign, and I gotta find another vegan restaurant. So if you're running own a vegan restaurant, call me. Um because one of the biggest problems that with vegan restaurants is that, well, there's only so many vegans. Um so you gotta get people who aren't vegans to come and try it. Um, so I thought that the ad campaign of Are You Vegan Curious um would be phenomenal. Um and do it in like really like almost like sensual ways. Um like I thought like sending out like purple velour um like mailers out and be like, are you vegan curious? Come try it. We won't tell. Um and and stuff like that, right? Like and and and have that. And because again, you gotta find a new audience of who's gonna come with your tofu. You might find a new audience in that campaign. Exactly. Um, and get them in. Get them in to to try your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Um lot of eggplants and peaches and exactly, right?

SPEAKER_03 53:40

Um, someday in the future, Matt, you know, we'll start a restaurant. Wow. Our restaurant is gonna be called We've never considered if the bone pit could be a vegan restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

We have not, no. Our our our uh joke uh restaurant concept is called the bone pit where uh wings and ribs wings place, and you just throw the bones in the giant pit.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

Yeah, uh people would come. But if we if it were vegan or vegan curious, I mean that would be a I mean you don't need to go vegan for the bone pit to be a euphemism.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Yeah. There's a lot of there's a lot of meat on that bone um to to go with. So whoa.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Uh alrighty. Well, on that note, Devin, it's been great. Um and where can people follow you and see some of your fun videos?

SPEAKER_00 54:31

And yeah, so you can you can you can find me, just search my name. I'm the the only Devin Pastorius out there. Um, so that's cool. Um, and then if you want to follow my company, which is kind of all one and the same, um, is Narwell Creative. Um, and we're based out of Windsor, Ontario. So if you look up narwhellcreative.ca, uh look up narwhell creative on Instagram or Facebook, that's where you will find us.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

All right. Well, thank you very much, Devin. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Thank you very much.