[Tim Wilson]

Okay, coming in late as usual.

We had a decent run doing real estate video, and I have some observations to add.

At the tippy-top of the list – there’s no way you can pull this off by working with individual realtors on individual properties. You have to work through brokers, who get a slice of EVERY sale that comes through the office.

To put it another way, many realtors have second jobs to make ends meet. NO brokers have second jobs.

The first pitch to the broker can even be a regular old commercial, to sell the entire office. We did one for a Century 21 broker with 5 offices under him, the furthest of which were an hour apart. We had him gather them all to the office in the middle. Then we put 40+ realtors in gold jackets up the stairs leading to the second-floor office and around the balcony.

It was a subtle-ish team-building exercise, reminding them that they all had a stake in the success of the entire company. And when they all saw the response they got to this one ad – hey! I saw you on TV! – they fell over themselves to do individual pieces with us. The broker kicked in to the production cost, since he was of course getting a piece of the eventual sale.

So now, the realtor isn’t resenting the broker – “I put in all the expense and he takes HALF of my money?” Every conversation became MUCH different when *everyone* had skin in the game. The broker became a partner, lowering an individual realtor’s risk. The broker didn’t kick in fully half – I forget, maybe 10-15%, enough so that he could hedge his bets, while realtors understood that he had a lot of bets to hedge.

Second, you have to turn the realtor into your creative partner. One of our first fights was that we would ONLY shoot under blue skies. It took juggling, and the realtors kvetched at first, but when they saw how much better even a marginal property looked in the right light, a whole lot more of our advice got taken without a fight.

Then, we took a lot of their advice on staging, even if we weren’t nuts about it. Still, once I started straightening pillows a little more than THEY had – gently, as in, “The camera sees that wrinkle more than the naked eye does” – it gave us a lot more room to shift discussions our way later. Client Management 101.

Third, think broadly. We got away with doing two different real estate shows, but those days are gone…EXCEPT on local cable channels, where you can buy the spot infomercial-style. Even more common is video on the broker’s website. That money came straight to us from the broker, so we never once had to hustle up collections – occasionally an issue from individual realtors.

(We never went to air with anything that hadn’t been paid for, but we still did the half up front/half on completion thing, and sometimes had to wait longer than we’d been told. Realtors are all about cashflow.)

In fact, we sold a house a couple of months ago with a company that used online video for the majority of their properties. They use an external contractor who handles shooting, editing, VO/music, and compression. By working with the broker, that contractor had dozens of properties to work with.

Which brings me to #3. This is a volume play, and it goes like this. Once you factor in all of the other crap you have to do – answer the phone, go to the bank, read the COW – you’re lucky if you WORK work half the time. So for these projects, cut your hourly rate in half, and work like a demon for a couple of weeks on 15 or 20 pieces at a time. If you plan properly, you’ll actually pocket MORE for those days than you usually do.

Although I get slammed for this every time I mention it in this forum, a flat rate is far, far, far more effective and efficient, and a far easier sell. I found that realtors are much more comfortable with flat rates, and flipping to that from hourly actually took away the last obstacles for the last holdouts.

It still helps to base your flat rate on around half of your hourly rate. Trust me. If you stay on top of this, you’ll wind up making more than you could ever get away with if you quoted hourly.

To that end, yes, templates are critical. If you treat these as one-off, standalone gigs, you are doomed. Doing it that way, the more you do, the less you make. You’re DOOMED, I say.

3a. Use the realtor’s resources. If they have stills, use ’em. It’s not an either or. Get really good at the animated still thing, create templates, and scream through ’em.

Last thing – if you don’t have an insanely killer demo reel, this will never get off the ground. Realtors are the most ego-driven clients you’ll work with. Everything they’re taught is that they need to promote themselves above their products – hence the pictures of themselves on their cars, business cards, signs, and everywhere else they can.

I don’t say this as a criticism. It’s a good principle when they are themselves are the brand. That’s why you MUST build reels and full-length demos after you get a nibble that make them ACHE to put their faces in your work. Wow them with your prowess. You have to make them feel bad about THEMSELVES if they DON’T do a video with you.

Best place to start with a demo of a video to sell a house? Your own house. Doesn’t matter that it’s not a glamorous showcase. Most houses aren’t. Show these realtors that you know how to make a comfy, regular house — flaws and all — look like a movie star. Then use yourself, your spouse, or any other normal-looking person to play the part of the realtor, and show that you know how to make an everyday person look like a movie star, and you’re in.

The last last last bit of advice is to really steep yourself in this stuff. My wife and I have a peripatetic streak, and have moved around a lot more than most people. We pore over those real estate magazines on every vacation. We pore over things like the NY Times real estate slideshows (a total trip) and HGTV. (Don’t overlook the chance to sell your shows direct to them. A lot of the ones you see are produced by shops that are smaller than you think.)

As a result of looking at so many houses, and working with dozens of realtors on our own househunting and selling, we look at the world the same way these guys do. Show the broker that you get what they’re doing, including the part about showcasing the PEOPLE and not the properties. That and a killer reel make all the difference.

You also have to pay attention to micro-trends. Condos get hit hardest, first, during downturns, but can be the first to come back. Some neighborhoods are hotter than others. Zillow.com makes this stuff a piece of cake to find out. Whatever it is you find, TELL the broker what you know. If a particular neighborhood is tracking up, and the broker has properties in that area, make that your opening gambit. “You guys are clearly paying attention to the market. Hyde Park is hot, and you guys are all over it. You’re working smart, maximizing every opportunity, and that’s why I want to show you how to raise your profile even higher,” blah blah blah.

Again, you’re making this pitch to the broker, not the realtor (yet). Specifically, you’re pitching to the broker’s ego. They’ll know you’re full of poo, just like they know that they themselves are full of poo, but they’ll bite for the reason that every buyer bites – you’ve helped them articulate their own desires, and helped them feel better about themselves for buying.

Which begs the question – do you want to work this hard?

If so, then you’ll have a gas. I confess that we bought a couple of houses at choice rates because, doing the videos, we got to see them before they went on sale. Like I said, we moved a lot.

The bottom line is that these are guys are playing a high stakes game. To win their business, you have to play for keeps too.

[Tim Wilson]

Before then, I’d love to hear more about the problem and how you solved it!

[Tim Wilson]

Enter your name in any handy search box. Breaks the results out by forum, so especially helpful….

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

[Shane Egan] “Agreed, this seems like a good idea. I have seen this around other forums and it works well.”

Since Dave posted this, I started poking around some of the special-interest forums I visit (iPad, etc.), and am seeing that too. I like it!

We obviously have way more posts than most of those folks, so I’m not sure exactly how we might pull it off, but worth checking into.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Tim

[Tim Wilson]

[Stephen Smith] “I say anyone who wants to shoot on their iPhone and miss out on a lot of camera functionality more power to you.”

Good for you for adding the “more power to you.” 🙂

The piece Jim linked to really struck me. It wasn’t a gimmick, like the producers of the piece I originally post admitted theirs was. This was a nice package, well written, well edited – they clearly had a specific thing in mind from the start, and executed. If you didn’t know it was an iPhone, you wouldn’t say, “Hmph, dang iPhone video.”

You’re right of course that they made some tradeoffs. Some of those could have been compensated for with even basic post – again, I was struck by their not having color corrected. That means no white balance. I assume natural lighting. Onboard audio? In any case, bare bones, and came out really well for the kind of on-location, run and gun piece that it was. Not just for an iPhone.

So after posting the original movie with a playful rolling of the eyes – not bad, but come on man – having been through DV, HDV, etc., and listening to the common response to DSLR video, I’ve now come to the place where I’m less interested in what’s NOT possible with these cameras than what IS possible. What do these small-format cameras allow you to do that you couldn’t do before, faster, cheaper, and maybe not at all?

After you start to answer that, what are the unique aesthetics that become possible? That is, beyond the crappy shaky “look, I’m using a cheap camera” nonsense that we saw so much of a few years ago.

Not that I’m advocating that everybody drop film for DSLRs, then drop those for iPhones – just thinking about what’s possible when we add more brushes to the jar, more colors to the palette.

Since I acknowledged at the beginning that this was kind of off-topic, and that I can count on you kids to be thinking broadly, now I’m curious – anybody have some more links to good iPhone videos?

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

So are you saying that you’re prone to be in answering type mode?

🙂

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

That’s the point – get ’em where people can read and comment in the flow of what they normally do at the COW: interact in forums….

[Tim Wilson]

[Jonathan Ziegler] “There’s an odd shadow near the top of the frame during the overhead crane shot, too.”

They mention a crane, but they also mention an RC helicopter. My guess is that the shadows are the blades of the copter.

And seriously man, an RC helicopter, and the shot looks (relatively) great. Definitely something you can get away with with an iPhone more readily than a RED.

@Stephen, I don’t think they are talking about this as an actual substitute for the RED. People are in fact doing that with DSLRs in some conditions, but I’m certainly not suggesting anything like that. I just think it’s interesting that, even with the specific issues that you and Jonathan mention, and others as well, it still passes the straight face test.

We might revisit this after iPhone 5. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

[Bob Zelin] “This is business – lie all you have to, to get your end result.”

You have been, and always shall be, my hero.

[Tim Wilson]

[Bob Zelin] “oi”

I thought it was spelled “oy,” as in “oy vey” or “oy gevalt.” My Yiddish neighbors in Brooklyn taught me these…and at my very, very firm insistence, a number of things that I’m not able to repeat here. I mean, why learn a foreign language if you can’t cuss in it?

In any case, the same intent: woe!