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Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Katie Lance podcast and the Get Social Smart Show. I’m Katie Lance, founder and CEO of Katie Lance Consulting and the Get Social Smart Academy. I’m so excited to be here with you guys today. We have a very special interview in store for you. This interview is our monthly Get Social Smart Academy Spotlight, and I’m thrilled to have two very special people in the house with us today. We have Tom Pietsch and Susan Hall. Welcome. Welcome. I’m so excited to have you guys with us today. We’re going to have a really fun conversation. Awesome. We’re looking forward to it. Absolutely. So for those of you who don’t know, Tom and Susan, I have known, I think I’ve known you guys at least, gosh, I want to say probably a good three or four years. You’ve been a part of our academy for quite some time. It’s been awhile.
I know we, we connected in person a few years ago at one of our first mastermind events. I’m going to go ahead and read through Tom and Susan’s bio. So if you guys don’t know Tom and Susan, by the end, you will want to know them. Trust me. Tom Pietsch is the co-managing partner of Tom and Cindy and Associates at Long and Foster. Their team is a long-time powerhouse located in Alexandria, Virginia and they consistently sell 250 to 300 homes each year, which we’re going to ask them about in just a second. After graduating from Virginia Tech, Tom worked as a ski instructor and then on Capitol Hill and then in the airline industry and with real estate, Tom really concentrates on the marketing and lead gen side of the business. He sees his job as making the phone ring and his goal is for new clients to say, we see you everywhere, which I love that. Tom is currently designing a new flagship office for the team, adding some new agents, to grow a new generation of Tom and Cindy teammates.
When he isn’t working, Tom’s swimming, checking out new restaurants, he’s playing his guitar. He’s watching Ted Lasso, one of my favorites, and planning some fun international travel. So Tom, so excited to have you with us today. Thanks Katie. Good to be here. Absolutely. And of course we have the lovely Susan Hall and Susan is Tom and Cindy’s marketing director. Originally from the Mount Vernon area of Alexandria, Susan is a graduate of the university of Virginia, and she’s been with the team over 15 years. She and Tom, they constantly are researching, testing and tweaking new methods and platforms that really help their sellers achieve consistently superior results. Susan is a fanatic for detail, which I love. She’s the team’s voice on social media and directs their extensive video projects. In her free time, she’s an avid runner, a Peloton queen, loves the fast paced, mystery novel and traveling to the clear and beautiful waters of the Caribbean. So Susan, welcome to you as well.
Thanks, Katie. Happy to be here.
Awesome. I love it. So I would love to hear kind of your backstory a little bit. Tom, you mentioned that you were in the airline industry, you are traveling extensively. How did you end up how’d you end up in real estate?
Well, I knew that I wanted to do something different. I was a young guy. I was a flight attendant. It was awesome. Every time I went to work, I’d meet some new fun people. We have a good time, but I knew I wanted to do something different and it was hard to do. It would be hard to be a part-time lawyer or a part-time doctor or something. And, I just had always liked design and homes. So I decided to try real estate. And one thing led to the other. I met Cindy was the top agent in our office and I had a listing for another flight attendants townhouse. And I went away. This was before cell phones and I was at the airport and right before we took off I one more time, I put in all my numbers and got my messages and it was an agent saying, um, I’ve got a, I’m writing a contract and on your listing and I need to get it too because my people have a time crunch.
So I quickly called Cindy, had her take care of it and kind of a light bulb went off because she was the top agent in the office. She did a great job. She spared me from all the paperwork and, uh, you know, all these details that I didn’t want to do as much. And I knew a lot of people because I had grown up in Northern Virginia. So we kind of, it was a good mix. Um, we are very different people, but we each are complimentary to what the other person doesn’t want to do. And it allows me to, um, pursue the parts of real estate that I’m really interested in. So that’s kind of where it started. And then we, uh, I don’t know if anyone out there remembers Howard Britton, but we got into star power probably in the year, 2000 and just started, uh, copying things and borrowing things from people across the country. And, uh, uh, that’s how our team began and, uh, started growing.
That’s awesome. You have to, you, you have to be inspired by the best, right? And, uh, it’s a great one. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can see what other other folks are doing and, and be inspired by that. I love that. You said how you and Cindy are, are, are very different. You know, I know we’re going to get into video and I know you, I tend to see you in, in terms of a lot of the marketing, but I love that. Obviously it’s a lot, like, I mean, in some, in some regards similar but different of course, to, you know, how Paul, my husband, also my business partner, how we work, you know, often you’ll see me on camera and then generally he is not on camera, you know, and that’s, everyone’s, you know, you’ve got your strengths and you’ve got your, uh, you know, the things that you bring to the table. So I love that about the partnership that you and Cindy have. That’s great.
It works well, and we’re not constantly fighting to do the same thing because she wants nothing to do with what I do and vice versa. So it does work out really well.
That’s awesome. And then Susan, how about you, I mean, have you, have you always kind of been in real estate or it seems, or I would love to kind of just hear your backstory, how you got to where you’re at.
Yeah. I graduated from college. Yeah. Really had no idea, you know, what I, you know, wanted to want it to do. And, you know, kind of, if it was 2005, I started with Dan, Tom and Cindy. Um, I was originally their listing manager. So I was the person who, you know, went out to the properties, got notes, make the descriptions and the brochures and, you know, kind of, you know, all those types of things, getting know properties ready to go on the market. And, you know, we, you know, it was super busy in 2005 and we ended up, you know, getting a couple of part-time people in the listing department to help, you know, get everything together. And I gradually moved into helping with different projects, like our direct mail campaigns, um, community publications, kind of helping me, you know, get our voice out there and in the community. And then, you know, kind of when social media came into play and that was a natural sort of progression to kind of get us going in the social media around. So yeah, I really had no intentions of getting into real estate, but as 2005. So
If you had seen Susan in 2005, she w we, at that point, we had this great idea that we’re going to our team was going to be like a family and, you know, everybody’s birthday. We were going to have cake and celebrate and lunch. And when it was Susan’s birthday, she was just petrified because all his attention was going to be on her and to get her from that to actually now be really good on his ideas and everything. It’s a pretty amazing transformation. And when we hired her, um, you know, she didn’t know a lot about real estate or anything. She’s always been a very good writer and, but just an amazing worker where, um, those of you listening to this that are, you know, thinking about hiring a listing manager, I mean, there was a week she put 14 listings on and it would be where Cindy has this habit of coming in with a folder and going, huh, we got this listing and a needs to go on tomorrow and she’s just walking the walk and so proud of herself. And when, if you have 12 listings going on and somebody hands you a 13, Cindy’s all happy. And smiles. Susan was about to have a breakdown.
Okay. Give me a few days. And that’s great. So that’s really kind of a good segue to kind of talk a little bit about your, your team structure. And I, you said you’re, you’re kind of working on, you know, continuing to build your team, Tom, but you know that at the top of reading your bio, I can’t help, but notice the fact that you have that your team, you know, has responsible for anywhere between 250 to 300 deals a year. That’s a huge number for a lot of folks in the industry. Um, so it is it, is it just you and Cindy, is it you Cindy and some other aides, like, we’d love to, just to get a sense of like, what is, what is your team look like to produce? Not only at a high level, but I know that you’re so passionate too, you know, people, aren’t just another transaction, they’re, you know, the, the service that you provide for people is so, um, it’s so amazing. So how do you do that?
Well, it’s, uh, what we did again, we kind of copied a lot of the people in the Howard Britton network. And what we realized was if you make, you know, this much money and you can pay someone to do things, uh, that you don’t have to do that aren’t income generating. Then the, the fear that you have when you first do that is w you know, we lived and died by every client. And they were like your family, your best friend. And so in growing, and when teams first started, it seemed like they weren’t really what I consider a team. They were, um, you know, just two people who did stuff, but things fell through the cracks. And we wanted to make sure that, that if I was giving up something, the person that was stepping in and doing it was going to do it at least as well, and hopefully better than, than what I could do.
And, uh, so we started first with a closing manager because Cindy would, you know, Cindy and I both were so many hats at the time. Cindy’s an early morning person. I’m a late person. Uh, I’d be putting stuff on our website at one in the morning, running around, making sure signs were straight, uh, you know, doing marketing and meeting deadlines for postcards. And so, you know, we were, we were starting to do really well, but literally you would work 2, 3, 4 months in a row without a day off. So we started just putting the pieces in place. And so now we have a, you know, a closing department we have, which is two people. We have a listing department. Uh, we have Susan kind of oversees, um, the marketing department from the standpoint of, we grew our business with direct mail, uh, geographic farming. That’s how we grew.
So we would, uh, when the internet was first starting, we’d get all these just fantastic calls because all the big players, uh, there was no long and foster.com, remax.com, um, Zillow, truly, there was nothing like that. So we, we would constantly get great calls and there wasn’t enough hours in the day. So then we started adding some buyer agents. And so now we have, uh, you know, we’d probably have 12, 14 buyer agents. We’ve got listing department closing department. We have a, we call her our field tech, but, uh, Laurel puts up our signs, but locks, boot, slot boxes on deliveries for insurers. So that’s the structure we kind of used. And then we do have, uh, when we started working with you a lot, what was fantastic was hearing about how you were able to do the same thing that we were doing, because videos, when we started doing videos, my God, the checklist was just killing her. And so, but Susan’s always had this thing where she’s so detailed and wants everything to be so right. That she’s afraid to give it up. And then she gives it up to somebody who does it great. And she’s thinking, why, why, why was that so hard to do? And then we moved to the next thing.
It’s hard to delegate. Sometimes I can relate Susan. So you’re not alone.
You’re doing something yourself. You know, you know, you’re going through your checklist when everything would be right. And it’s hard to, you know, give up that control to somebody else, even though, you know, Allie is fantastic. She’s really, you know, super helpful with all those little checklist items now.
That’s great. Well, and it really takes, it takes a village, it takes an army. And I, I, I appreciate you kind of sharing a little bit of that behind the scenes. Cause I think sometimes we just look at numbers or we look at something from the outside and we don’t always see, like, look, there’s a whole system, there’s a whole process. There’s a, you know, and an army of folks behind the scenes. So I appreciate you sharing that.
One thing I would add Katie, that I think would help people that are trying to do what, what, um, what we’ve done is we’ve made every mistake in the book. So hiring agents, but at first it was like anyone who wanted to be with us, we were so flattered, we’d hire. And then we realized maybe we were, we had a lot of people that were selling one house a year, uh, the same with, uh, people in your support staff. I say, take your time. And if you can hire a superstar, that it’s just the difference between just filling a niche or filling a need and filling it with somebody who’s great is so different. And with our social media, um, uh, system marketing director that we’ve hired, I mean, we went through, did you guys get like 400 resumes or something? Yeah.
We narrow that down in narrative down and then, and then had some good interviews with some people. But then when, when we, when we talked to Allie, it was just like this perfect fit. And, you know, when you have someone like that, no matter what position it is, you’re not having to call them up and say, did you do this? Because, you know, they did it, did you do this right? Will you know, they did it right. In fact, they found out something you didn’t even know to add to it, to kind of make it better. So,
So I would love to kind of talk a little bit about your marketing. I think that’s a great, um, another great segue to talk about your marketing. And I know you’re doing obviously a lot with, with video and, uh, and social media, are there one or two things that are really working for you right now? I also know you, you know, you’re probably still doing a lot of direct mail I believe. Right. Um, and, and newsletters and things like that. So what what’s kind of working for you right now, or maybe what’s not working
Well, uh, what’s working is still our geographic direct mail postcards that we send out. And, uh, they, you know, we started with one community and then we just kind of went all around that community to other communities and we’ve built it up. So we send out about 46,000 postcards every single month.
It sounds kind of like intimidating at first, but the reality is we didn’t start by doing that. We started sending out a couple thousand and then we, then we just kept building and saying, well, if we obviously, if you spend $2 and you make $5, wouldn’t you do that all day long. And so we would, we would find a community and we’d go, this is working. And everyone in community has to pass by all our signs on their way home. Well, why don’t we do that community? And so that’s what we started doing in a couple of zip codes. And it just kept up. And that idea that I say about, you know, when Cindy, um, when somebody calls Cindy and says, well, we’re thinking about selling our home when we want to buy a larger home. And she says, well, how did you know about us?
And they say, well, we see you everywhere. I look at that as you know, we did our job on the marketing side. So whether they see the signs in the yard, the directional signs, they get, they get our postcards, they get just sold cards. So we’re big on that, but we wanted to have more kind of thinking about it, like a stool where you want to have more legs. So it’s not just the postcards, because what if that stopped working? So then, um, we started doing, I think, did we start doing the, um, uh, BoomTown and that before social media? Um, maybe a little bit before. Yeah. So, so we were getting a lot of leads, but we weren’t managing them very well and we weren’t converting them well. And our agents, agents are, most agents are awesome at, if they meet you, they love you.
And they’re gonna find you a house. You’re going to be happy and you’re going to be pals, but they’re not good at, you know, following up on someone who might not be a real lead. And with the internet leads, you have to do that. So we, um, we got BoomTown, we use BoomTown for a, an internet leads management, you know, CRM. And then now we’re using a company called rocker box so that our agents don’t even have to really, you know, spend that much time with them. We let rocket box do that. One of the things that we didn’t do as good a job on that, we’re trying to be better is past clients. And there’s so many Brian Buffini and all these people that are, that are doing, you know, preaching their past clients. And, uh, it’s easier to maintain an old client and get, get, uh, referrals from them than it is to create a new client.
So we’re getting better with that. And then when social media came along, we realized, well, you know, we would see stuff, but I wouldn’t really understand it. I wouldn’t really understand how you could. Yeah. Great. If you just spent, you know, two and a half hours on Facebook or something else, but how does that lead to actual business, right. And you really kind of showed us how that can be done. And I still don’t do a good job of it on my, uh, on a personal basis. And we had a little bit of a challenge that I think is unique to teams, which is, I totally get how a person can form their online presence and have a voice and attract their tribe. But then how does a team do that without pushing people away that aren’t their tribe, if you want to get a big tent, so to speak.
And so we’re, that’s kind of an ongoing learning process. And then being at that first mastermind, just kind of, you know, you know, blew our minds in terms of you actually had it down to a science. And so just like we did with everything with the star power people, we said, well, Katie, Lance has this and chairing it. And why don’t we just, if she doesn’t mind, we’re going to copy what she’s doing, that we, that’s why we’ve been big fans for so long and tried to, you know, put in place for our business, what, what you’ve done and it’s, um, it’s starting to pay big Devin dividends.
Uh, I love hearing that well, it’s it, it’s, it’s really neat. I remember that first mastermind, I think you literally were at our very first one that we ever did. Um, and, and Napa, and, uh, I just remember, you know, Tom getting you on camera a little bit and you were a little nervous and you’re like, ah, and, and just to see like the evolution, like, I, I, you know, hopefully I’m not embarrassing you, but just, and we’re going to link to, uh, to your videos, some of your videos below. And I would definitely encourage anyone watching, like check out, uh, talent’s Cindy’s videos and ELC, Susan making lots of appearances in there too. And, uh, it’s just been really cool. I was watching some of them last night just to prepare for our interview today. And it’s like, holy moly, like what an evolution. Right. But that’s what happens from the first time you get on camera to, you know, 150 videos later. Uh, there’s just something about doing the work. Right. And then, and the process. So, uh, do you have any advice for someone who maybe wants to get better at video, but they’re maybe they’re intimidated or they’re not quite, you know, they don’t like how they look or they sound, you know, I guess any tips for people kind of try it, who know that they probably need to do it, but maybe you’re a little reluctant,
Um, you know, sort of want to hear things Katie done is better than perfect. I just need to get on camera and do it. I mean, me, I was super nervous. Yeah. We, over the years, I don’t want to go back to those beginning ones. I think, you know, with anything, the more that you do it and the more, the better that you are and the better prepared you are, the better you’re going to be. So if you can have, we’ll put together, we call it like a storyboard and put together. Okay. You know, here are the things that we’re going to talk about and try to provision your eyes yourself with the topics. So you’re not getting on camera. Um, you know, what was that? And I try to kind of have a sense of, you know, and also trying to figure out, you know, what people want, you know, what topics, you know, are people going to be interested in? And I think, you know, one thing new for them, sorry, I’m a little off topic here, but you know, local, local things, local events, market updates, community spotlights, people love that kind of things. If you can kind of try to get comfortable with yourself, but also pick topics that you know, other people are gonna be interested in or you’re interested in. And it makes it a little bit easier. I think. Absolutely.
I would have to say Katie, that I remember at Napa you, you asked this to go out on the deck and like, say, you know, did we learn anything? What, what, what like, well, what, what, and I, when I started doing video, I hated how I looked. I hated the sound of my voice. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I was the worst. Like anyone thinking about doing video, you could not possibly be worse than I was in the beginning. There was, we had an assistant listing manager, Kyle, who I made him do a video of me at the front of the office. And what I thought was I had to craft every word and I had to memorize every word. And every time I did it wrong, I had to start over again. And it was, it was just agonizing. It was awful. And like Susan said, you just keep doing it. And now she and I can be somewhere. And the thing about videos is there’s always going to be some, you go to a house perfect day, blue sky. Sun’s out. Suddenly the lawnmower and crew is coming by.
We’ve done so many videos that we just, it’s not that we like how we look or sound any better. She looks great. But I, I just, I realized that everybody already knows what you look like. They know what you sound like. So it’s only me that had had the issue. And one of the things Susan said was spot on, which was, you have to get out of the judgment of yourself because the subject matter, sometimes we’ll put out a video, we’ll go. This is cool. In fact, one of the ones we gave you, that’s probably our second best video we’ve ever done that probably hasn’t gotten as many videos, as many views as, um, the, the shorter video we gave you, Susan came home one day and said, you know what, there’s a new homes project, literally at the end of our street. Uh, and, um, they just broken ground.
And so we said, okay, we’re going to tell people about something. They don’t know about some new homes within 24 hours. We had more interaction than we’ve had on all of our videos put together. So people calling us, emailing, you know, we all already have people that are going to just say, as soon as they open it up to buy, we’re going to buy, and then we’re going to have to sell our house. So this is like real stuff. And it’s local things, people, people like that. And so they don’t, they’re not as judgy of you as you are of yourself sometimes. So to me, that was, that was the big thing to learn and just keep at it because just like everything we do, you know, you get better at it.
Yeah. I think that’s such a great example. And one of the things you’re touching on here, especially with that video you did with, uh, the, uh, the new project that’s being developed. I think the fact that you just noticed it, right. And you, I always say, look at your life as content and, you know, will you probably just look out your window? And you’re like, Hey, look, we should do a video about this. You know? And I think that’s, that’s where an opera. I think there’s a lot of opportunity in that I often hear from agents while everyone’s doing video. You know, I’m, I’m, maybe I’m late to the party, but I think the reality is, is that, and I don’t know if you have experienced, if you guys have experienced this, but I don’t think a lot of people are doing it in a consistent manner, right?
It’s more of, oh, I have a new listing. I have to do a video. And there’s a lot of gray listing videos that are out there, but I love that your videos, of course, a lot of them are listings and open houses. And it’s, it’s fun to see you, you know, all the homes in the DCA DC area, especially being in California. And I’m like, look at those homes. Those are so different than, uh, than what we see out here. But it’s not just listings. It’s like you said, you know, your favorite local eateries, or, you know, just, just different things that are relevant to your local area. So I love that
The videos, people love that stuff. And some of them, I put them out and I go, Ugh, I’m cringing a little bit. Cause I think it’s going to be boring. Or maybe we didn’t have any fun with it or whatever people, people love that people love a local topic. You know, people, people like it. And I think that you were the one that said that the thing that kind of got to me the most was that idea of consistency over time. So it, if someone, uh, one of my best friends, who’s one of our oldest agents, he told us one day, he’s going to start doing videos. And he and Brenda are going to start doing videos. And I noticed too, and I go, yeah, he’ll do one. He’ll do two, might do three. There’s no way he’s going to do one every week for years.
And I think it’s that you just like everything. Even our postcards, the reason our marketing works, we go to people’s houses and they literally will have a stack of our postcards with a rubber band and say, you know, I always knew when I sold my house, I was going to go with you guys. Cause you keep me updated on what’s going on in the community and with videos it’s. So to me, this is a funny story, but we, we went to our old office and there was a woman in our old office. He’s been a realtor for at least 50 years. And she was really good friends with Cindy and I knew her, but wasn’t sure if she remembered me. And so we, Cindy and I went in and said hi to everybody in the old office. And Cindy said, um, Ellie, do you remember Tom?
And she goes, of course I see his videos every single week. And so what happens is after a while, people are seeing your stuff that you can’t imagine that are seeing that or seeing it. So it’s kind of like, you know, everything was social media where if this person likes it, they tell that person. And if they like it, so it’s not like we’re going viral or anything, but we’re getting noticed enough for it to start making a difference. And it’s also something that we can on a listing appointment, we can send people and show people and say, we’re going to get your home noticed in a way that not veteran, many other people are doing. So it’s kind of another, uh, point of differentiation.
I think it’s, I think that’s great. One of the things you said that I think is really important that you said how you’re not going to go viral. Right. And I think that there’s this, I don’t know myth or feeling like if you’re going to do video or are you going to be on social media? Like the goal is to get to like millions of followers or millions of views or you need to become like the next influencer. And I really pushed back against that. I think in, especially in real estate, you don’t even need thousands of views. It’s just like, like to your point, it’s just these consistent drips, this consistent actions. And I actually think this came up at the mastermind. It’s this idea of consistency builds trust, you know? And I think that’s one of the things you, you guys have beautifully done. You’ve, you’ve just consistently shown up, you know, versus like here today, gone tomorrow, you know, here or there. So I love that. That’s the name of the game for sure.
Yeah. And, and what Susan said about done is better than perfect. You know, sometimes you mess up like I’ll mess up and I want to do another take and then we go back and look at them and we go, well, wait, wait, the first one where I messed up, that’s how people talk. And it was actually better. The one that was that you did, that was exactly right. And so anytime you can throw some humor into it, anytime you have your personality shine through a bit, it just, um, and that’s what happens with doing a lot of them is that you tend to relax a little more. And so sometimes you throw something out that you would have never thought of if you were so nervous and concentrating on being perfect.
Yep. I love that. I love that. Well, this has been so much fun, Tom and Susan. I so appreciate this conversation and I know we’re going to keep you on the line for a second because we have a couple of bonus questions for our podcast listeners. We always have a couple extras, uh, for our, uh, our listers, our podcast listeners. Um, but as, as we wrap up this portion, any, uh, any last thoughts that, uh, that you want to add or anything that I didn’t ask you that you want to share?
Sure. You have a good checklist go down and mark it off. Well, and also one of the things that that I think is, uh, if you, when you’re doing something you don’t always know when you start where it’s going to end up. And what I love about our relationship with the academy is that you’re always, it’s not me, just me on the lookout for new stuff. You’re always finding new things that you’re alerting us to. And that kind of gets us, you know, further along the way. So we like that. It’s, um, you know, we’re just trying to have fun with it. And, uh, way back in the day, the best line I ever heard about real estate was like a tagline. The sky had was, you know, helping people, having fun, making money. And if we can do those three things, then, um, you know, it’s all good.
I love that. I absolutely love that. Well, we are going to link to all of Tom and Cindy and Susan’s contact information below. So you guys can get in contact with them. And if you are curious about working with us, we would love for you to check out the, get social smart academy. You can hang out with Tom and Susan and myself. Uh, they are longtime members and you can go to Katie, lance.com/academy to check it out. So Tom and Susan, we’re going to keep you on the line because we’re going to head over to the podcast and answer some more questions over there, but thank you both for being with us today. I sure appreciate it. All right. Welcome back. We are recording the Katie Lance podcast and, you know, we just had a great interview with, uh, Tom and Susan. And, um, I would love to have a few extra, a little bonus questions for our podcast listeners.
So, um, for the people who listen to our podcast, there’s a lot of folks who might be brand new to social media or brand new to video. And, you know, you, you gave some good tips earlier. Is there anything else that you might recommend, maybe someone who is new to social media and they’re just feeling really overwhelmed. You know, there’s constantly a new options. There’s all these different platforms. Do you have, maybe just like one or two tips that you might share for someone who is finally ready to get into the social media game and start using it for their business.
Another one of your sayings, Katie is like, you don’t have to be everywhere. Maybe there are a lot of platforms out there, but you don’t have to be on every one of them now choose, you know, something, whether it’s video or doing a podcast or, you know, photos and two something. So say you’re going to do videos and maybe just start with a couple of platforms then maybe, you know, think about, you know, any social, you know, platforms that you’re on, that you like, and you enjoy, you know, choose one or maybe you like Facebook and Instagram, you know, go with that, start with that. And that maybe add, add YouTube. Maybe you add, you know, LinkedIn. Um, but you know, don’t try to do too much, you know, you don’t have to be everywhere.
And, uh, I think what, when you said your life as content, you know, I’m never going to be the Kardashians or I’m never going to be that person, but what you have to do is slightly alter your thinking to think, okay, I’m doing this thing. It’s really fun. And then all of a sudden later on I’d go home and go, ah, well, I, I thought it was fun. Other people would, would like knowing about this. So you’re not like losing the moment by, um, you know, just, just making it a part of your social media as well, without just, you know, having your whole life be a camera in front of your face. And then the more you think about it, it seems like the content, which I think is everybody’s biggest fear coming up with content actually becomes easier. It’s weird. It’s like the more content you produce, the more content you can think about that might be good. Oh, one last thing, uh, sauna has been awesome for us because we’re just like, oh, we get this idea. Oh, put it in a salon. And so we constantly have a, this week, we don’t feel like doing something, but we don’t, we’ve got nothing. So we go in there and we go, oh, okay. Here’s a couple of things that might be okay. Like we do have some ideas.
Yeah. Yeah. Asana is great. We have been using Asana for years and years and years. And we’ll link that up below in the show notes for our listeners that say, uh, who aren’t familiar with, that it’s a project management tool and it’s, um, definitely you have to have some sort of tool. There’s a lot that are out there, but it’s, it’s great to just especially be organized with your marketing and as your team grows, it’s not just, you, you’ve got a number of people who were involved in marketing and videos, so you gotta all be on the same page. Uh, so that’s, that’s great to hear any other apps or tools that, that you guys use that you love that help in terms of social media or video or, or marketing or keeping yourself organized.
Got that. So I’ll tell you something that we found that totally has changed our videos. It’s this, one of the weak parts of our videos was a sound and an audio. And so we found there’s a company, uh, Sara, Monica, um, and they have this plug, you plug this little thing in your phone, and then we have these mikes that are really easy to put on and they’re very good in the wind. And so it suddenly allowed us to walk around and, and have her, uh, you know, have one of us walking towards the camera from far away. And it completely changed the sound in our videos and what we were able to do and make things maybe a little bit more interesting. So if you’re doing videos and you only use your phone, you’re going to be disappointed in the audio and this stuff was not expensive. So, um, we’re still using our phone and upped our game just a little bit.
So it’s just, is it, it’s like a little device and then there’s like, like a couple of different mics that you just flip on.
Yeah. So this is the transmitter and you turn it on and it turns blue and then that this hooks in and then, and then the things on your phone and it automatically syncs with your phone. So it’s not like we’re going in later and doing all this work, um, on the computer to make sure, I mean, we’re not doing anything. It’s just, the only thing we do is after each shot, we look at it and go out and we liked that one and then confirm that everything’s right. And then go on to the next one. So I think that’s a great, I mean, I’m sure there’s others, but that’s one, that’s the one that we have and it works really, really well.
That’s a, that’s a great, that’s a great nugget. Uh, it could, because sound is, is so important. And, uh, it’s interesting. I find that people will watch a video, maybe the quality of the video isn’t the best, but they will watch it. They will watch it longer. If it, if the sound is good and sound quality makes a huge difference.
I know I’ve got one more for you, Katie. So our video guy taught us something we never thought of before. Some of our stuff was voiceovers and we would have it written down and we would read the voiceover. What he told us is if you’re doing a voiceover, you’ve got to hold it up because your voice sounds different. And he was right. And we’d go back and listen. And our videos would sound normal like this. And then all of a sudden, and so it was, it was a tiny chip, but it, but it made a difference and he knew about it just cause that’s what he does for a living.
Yeah. Oh, that’s a great tip. I have done some voiceovers and I probably am guilty of doing that. So that’s a great tip. That’s fantastic. Oh my goodness. Well, I know we could, we could probably continue to chat for like another hour, but this has been so helpful. I just, I so appreciate both of you and your time and your generosity and, uh, you guys are just awesome. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Thanks for having us, Katie. It was great talking to you.
Thank you so much. So again, for all of our listeners, we are going to put all of Tom and Cindy, and of course Susan’s contact information below. So you can connect with them. I highly recommend you check out their YouTube channel, subscribe to their channel, check out some of the fun videos that they are doing. We’ll put all their social channels below as well. And if you enjoy the podcast, the best thing you can do is share it out. Share links out on social media. You can take a screenshot. You can tag me, tag Tom and Cindy, tag Susan, let us know that you enjoy the podcast. And if you really liked it, we would love if you give us a five-star review over on Apple podcasts. Yes, they really do make a difference. So thank you in advance. All right, my friends until next time. We’ll see you soon. Bye for now.
