Why is the real estate industry so chintzy?

[Christopher Enges]

Not having anyone who wants me to make a video of one's home does not help me make a real estate portfolio though I have asked. By pounding pavement, does that mean walking into real estate offices and conversing and trying to convey what I do and how I could help them, as I did in person at the Parade of Homes? If that works for you then I will try it too. Emails do not work either and are completely ignored by realtors. Initially, having a couple free shoots for a real estate company could at least give me some promotional imagery to use in a portfolio. Or if I knew anyone in the real estate business that would help I guess. However, I do not.

Don't forget to knock on the real estate rental market's door. I have done several bed and breakfast properties. But you have to convince them it is worth investing in your product (flying and putting together a excellent video) that will help them reach out to potential rental clients on the web. Face to face is always the best way to do that in my opinion.

 

[BigAl07]

Not having anyone who wants me to make a video of one's home does not help me make a real estate portfolio though I have asked. By pounding pavement, does that mean walking into real estate offices and conversing and trying to convey what I do and how I could help them, as I did in person at the Parade of Homes? If that works for you then I will try it too. Emails do not work either and are completely ignored by realtors. Initially, having a couple free shoots for a real estate company could at least give me some promotional imagery to use in a portfolio. Or if I knew anyone in the real estate business that would help I guess. However, I do not.

Do you have friends and family? CoWorkers? Surely you know some people who live in a nice area and they will let you "practice" on their home.

By pounding pavement, does that mean walking into real estate offices and conversing and trying to convey what I do and how I could help them, as I did in person at the Parade of Homes? If that works for you then I will try it too. Emails do not work either and are completely ignored by realtors. Initially, having a couple free shoots for a real estate company could at least give me some promotional imagery to use in a portfolio. Or if I knew anyone in the real estate business that would help I guess. However, I do not.

Real Estate isn't that hard to get into but the work isn't going to fall into your lap either. In order to be really successful you've got to be a safe and competent UAS operator, have an eye for the camera and be able to see and tell a story, be a top notch editor to make your product WOW, be a confident and knowledgeable sales person (be able to sell you, your product, and your abilities), and you've got to be confident at Cold Calls day in and day out. You have to MAKE your business. It gets easier over the years but at first you've got to pound pavement (going to REA offices, meetings, gatherings etc). If you aren't meeting new people every day your competition is getting an edge on you daily. Once you build a brand/reputation and you start producing work that people like they will help spread the word. The key is to WOW them and solve problems for them. Really we are all just sales people who happen to fly sUAS.

Have you sat down and built a complete and detailed business plan? The BP is one of the single most important parts of the pie if you want your business to have a leg up on the competition. We spent a few months (not constant but it took a long time) to build and tweak our BP. IMHO I feel like it helped us to be where we are today and saved us a TON of $$. From the BP you'll learn your area, your market(VERY important), you'll build a marketing plan, learn your competition, and you'll learn how to price your projects so you're getting paid and hopefully not leaving $$ on the table.

 

[Christopher Enges]

Have you sat down and built a complete and detailed business plan? The BP is one of the single most important parts of the pie if you want your business to have a leg up on the competition. We spent a few months (not constant but it took a long time) to build and tweak our BP. IMHO I feel like it helped us to be where we are today and saved us a TON of $$. From the BP you'll learn your area, your market(VERY important), you'll build a marketing plan, learn your competition, and you'll learn how to price your projects so you're getting paid and hopefully not leaving $$ on the table.

Excellent advice to anyone starting a business. I worked with the Veteran's Administration, through a veteran's business program for over a year doing labs on running a business. At the end of the course, I put together a business plan from those labs, had a Small Business Administration, SCORE mentor fine-tune it, and submitted to the VA for approval ... which they did. It was a detailed 35 page document that outlined my business for the next 5 years, one year at a time. It is amazing how it helped me focus on what I do today. With the VA's help, I started my business and have had a very good start these last 3 years. I also highly recommend you do this. It's a pain, but well worth the effort! Just my two cents worth.