Do It Yourself or Outsource?

WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host 31.2K Website Atlanta, Georgia Linked In Facebook Twitter YouTube TikTok Instragram Matterport Service Partner Google Street View Trusted Photographer Zillow Certified Photographer We Get Around Network Member	31.2K DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 0
	Screen Grab: Glassdoor email sent to Dan Smigrod on Wednesday, 4 July 2018 --- Hi All, Congratulations! You are so busy, you don't have time for your friends, family or you! You wear all the hats and do everything yourself: ✓ sales ✓ marketing ✓ shoot ✓ post production ✓ deliver ✓ invoice ✓ collect As you know, if you are busy shooting or doing post production, you take time away from either business development (marketing, sales) or personal time with friends, family or you. If you are on this hamster wheel, think about what earns you the most money? And, while you might think it is shooting photos, video, aerial, Matterport or post production, it really is marketing and sales: everything else can be outsourced to free up your time for more marketing and sales. According to Glassdoor in an email I received yesterday (4 July 2018), the average base pay for a photographer in Atlanta is $30,674 per year. In San Jose, it's $41,115, in San Francisco $37,791). And, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN it is $38,604. If you want to earn triple, you (eventually) need to outsource shooting by either engaging freelancers or hiring. That said, the likely easiest place to begin outsourcing, is photo and video editing which is: ✓ labor intensive (for you) ✓ often done by you at night (after your shoots) ✓ likely the same (or better) quality than your editing ✓ not going to compete with you (versus engaging a freelancer to shoot) I could imagine that editing is hard to let go. You have taken a long time to master the tools to produce excellent quality. And, your concern is likely that if you outsource photo and video editing, the quality will not be up to your standards. And, the quality may not be. So? Think of yourself as a business person - rather than an artist. That's important. Because when you start thinking about how you can make the most money, good enough editing quality will likely be good enough. Seriously, your standards for photo and video editing may be working yourself to death - or, at least telling friends and family that you have no time for this or that because you have to edit to get the work to the Client tomorrow morning. First, stop promising tomorrow morning (or at least charge a premium for anything else than 48 hours) and second, realize that photo and video editing by a 3rd party service that specializes in editing can be good enough to free-up your evenings for family, friends or you, AND, make more money. Plus, you'll get a promise of 24 hours with work likely delivered and ready when you wake up. Think bigger than being a one person band. If you are going to get to the next level, you need to outsource and begin scaling. On a recent WGAN-TV Live at 5 show, I chatted at length with PhotoAndVideoEdits.com Founder Colin Forte about outsourcing. Colin - whom has sold millions of dollars in real estate before setting up Hometakes and PhotoAndVideoEdits.com - summed up our discussion in this video at 1:51:00. "Focus on what brings in money ... get more clients; get more shoots," Colin told me. You can learn more about PhotoAndVideoEdits.com – including Special Offers for WGAN Forum Members and for WGAN Standard and Premium Member – here: ✓ New! Photo & Video Editing Service for MSPs ✓ All WGAN Forum discussions tagged: PhotoAndVideoEdits.com ✓ PhotoAndVideoEdits.com \| @Hometakes \| @PhotoAndVideoEdits \| LinkedIn \| Twitter What's holding you back from outsourcing today? Best, Dan WGAN-TV Best Practices Shooting Real Estate Video and PhotoAndVideoEdits.com Demo and Discussion with Founder Colin Forte. At 1:51:00, Colin summarizes our discussion about outsourcing.
	6 years ago	Post 1 • IP flag post

Yes Dan, it works exactly the same..... What I have found is photographers have a hard time letting photos go out to Realtors unless they are perfect in the photographers eyes. Thats fine if you are getting paid mega bucks for your shoot. But getting paid mega bucks from an agent is not the norm. Agents want to pay as little as they can. So why would you give them "Your Perfectionist photos" unless they are paying you for them? Make more money with less stress and just cut that out.

Its wasted time and effort on the photographers part, worrying over stuff thats not perfect in the photographers eyes. 99% of agents would not see a difference unless your perfect photos were side by side and I would go so far as to say you may have to point them out to them.

What the photographer should care about is the Realtor being happy with the photos, not themselves. Realtors are very quick to tell you if there is something they don't like about a photo. As long as you get it fixed for them thats all the photographer should worry about. That is of course you want to make more money with less stress.

I can say this with experience as I own a Photo and Video tour company too (as well as being a realtor before that who use to pay $600 just for a photo shoot) and we operate that way. We have very happy clients and my stress level is non existent.

204	204 Bernardhhi private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 1
	Dan We do not outsource, however, I definitely advise anyone in real estate that they should hire professional photographers and videographers while they concentrate on money making activities ie prospecting, showing and negptiating.
	6 years ago	Post 2 • IP flag post

Photo - Video Editing Service 258 Website	258 PhotoAndVideoEdits private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 1
	@Bernardhhi. You are completely right about that. The more listings they get, the more money they will make. Watch my video interview with Dan as I mention the same type of scenario but it applies to photographers. The money is made in doing more shoots which means you should continously be prospecting for more clients. Could you handle 200 shoots per week with your current set up and get some sleep and have a life? The additional shoots you get way out way the cost of outsourcing the editing and your bottom line will increase significantly.
	6 years ago	Post 3 • IP flag post

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