PMRE Conference 2023: Day 1 Recap
The 5th annual PMRE Conference 2023 taking place in Las Vegas Nevada. Here’s a full recap from all of Day 1’s speakers and presentations.
Table of Contents
PMRE Conference 2023 Day 1 Speakers List
- Darryl Stringer, Owner of The Real Estate Photography System
- Cody Boone, Supervising Producer at SERHANT Studios
- Branick Weix and Matt Michalski, Co-founders of Aryeo
- A panel of experts with the discussion led by Herb Dierks, Founder of HDPhotoHub
- Kelsey Kurtis, Founder of Elevate: A Brand Photography Collective
Darryl Stringer - Building A Resilient Photo & Media Business In An Unpredictable World
Darryl Stringer from The Real Estate Photography System flew to Las Vegas all the way from Brisbane, Australia to give a talk on building a resilient photo and media business in a world that you can’t fully control.
The over arching theme of Darryl’s talk was to focus on the things that you can control within your business and do your absolute best when working on them.
He spoke about three specific parts of a photographers life: technical, mental, and business. A key quote during his discussion was to remember that “you control the settings in your business, just like the settings on your camera.”
In order to design the best business for you, you have to change the settings to make sure your business is helping to lead you to success. But how do you become successful? It matters on how you define it.
Darryl defined success as setting an objective and making progress towards that direction. Success doesn’t just need to be about business either, it can be about anything. Family, creativity, fun, etc.
The main thing I took away from Darryl’s talk was that it’s a great idea to figure out what success means to you. If you have a lifestyle you want to work towards, you can design your business around that ultimate goal, which will ultimately help you succeed in achieving that lifestyle.
It’s a shift in mindset that will help you consider these questions, especially in an industry where we rarely turn down jobs or question what our ultimate goal is.
Cody Boone - Real Estate Video: From Concept To Creation
Cody Boone got his start by going into open houses and creating real estate videos for free for the agents at a very young age. Now, at the age of 21, he’s creating some of the most incredible videos in our industry.
Cody pointed out that real estate video is becoming a very saturated market, which means that you need to find a way to stand out. His speech was a mix of case studies and personal stories and featured some of his law-dropping work.
He offered three unique case studies to illustrate his steps towards creating a great real estate video. In each of these case studies, he followed the same four step process:
Step 1: Identify Key Elements
Step 2: Work With The Agents Brand
Step 3: Create a Story
Step 4: Create Urgency
Key elements can be things like the properties history, location, or architectural elements. Showcasing them makes sure that you’re highlighting the properties best features.
Working with the agents brand is important because you’ll want to make sure that you’re delivering the type of style that you clients wants and expects.
Creating a story helps to engage the viewer and creating urgency is what will bring the viewer to action.
If you can follow these steps and keep the target buyer of the listing in mind, you’ll be able to create captivating and engaging real estate videos.
Branick Weix and Matt Michalski - State Of The Industry
Branick Weix and Matt Michalski, just like they did last year, gave a state of the industry talk that was a deep dive into statistics and trends.
I’ll put together another article to highlight everything Branick and Matt talked about on stage at a later date to make sure that you have a full understanding of the data points.
The general idea was that although the amount of listings is down, there are many reasons to be hopeful.
Once that article is written, I’ll make sure to link to it here.
Herb Dierks - Key Milestones Of Building A Real Estate Photo & Media Business: A Live Discussion Panel
Herb Dierks led an expert panel discussion that featured the following people:
Kevin Rhatican, Founder of Shutter House Tours
De Ann Martin, Founder of AZing Realty Media
Bran Ziemer, Founder of WindowStill
Rachael Ann Adkins of Rachel Ann Photography and Host of Shooting the Shit Podcast
This panel went through a list of five milestones that take place in the building of a real estate photo and media business. Each were able to offer unique perspectives and go into examples from their own businesses.
The theme of the questions worked within the idea of each of the following milestones:
Milestone 1: Going All In. When real estate photography becomes your full source of income.
Milestone 2: Expanding Your Services. Defining and refining your value proposition.
Milestone 3: Growing Your Customers. Getting the word out with sales and marketing.
Milestone 4: Build Your Team. Scaling up and setting culture
Milestone 5: Build Your Business. Putting the camera down and hiring an admin.
One over arching take away from this panel was to always focus on what it is that you do best, then find someone else to handle the rest of your business. The main way the panelist recommended you achieve this was by hiring a VA.
Kelsey Kurtis - Future Proof Your Business With Connection-Based Branding
Kelsey Kurtis gave an electrifying talk on branding. It was lively and extremely informative. Right from the start Kelsey drove home the idea of eliminating fear of the unknown and let the audience know that she had two goals for her presentation:
- Leave with a new perspective of how you can make an impact
- Get the beginnings of your own connection based brand
She gave an excellent personal example which illustrated the point that your clients are buying you first and your product second. She also did a great job of explaining what a brand actually is, which is rarely explained yet spoken about constantly.
She defined a brand as the following three factors:
- Brand foundation (who you are, what you value, what clients can expect)
- Brand identity (colors, fonts)
- Brand logo
A key point was that understanding your brand means understanding yourself and what it is you and your business stand for. You have to know this before you can display your brand accurately.
Her entire talk was dedicated to helping the audience work through what it is that they define as their own brand.
An exercise did with the audience was to consider four branding word questions to ask yourself when defining your brand:
- How do you want others to perceive, feel, speak about you, your business, and or your work?
- How would you describe your personality?
- What type of experience do you want others to have with you?
- What do you value the most?
By answering these four questions, you can start to better understand your own brand, and therefore better communicate it to your clients.
PMRE Conference 2023: Day 2 Recap
Stand by for our PMRE Conference 2023; Day 2 Recap article!
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