No need to go about how bad 2020 was, suffice to say, if you are reading this (thankfully) you survived. I was fortunate enough to be brought on as Lead Video Producer for a real estate brokerage (which was deemed an essential business and allowed to operate during the shut-downs.) My fellow production cohort were not as lucky, and I gave work where I could to help. What I didn’t know was that I would be tested and brought to the limits of what was capable for one solo producer.
- PROBLEM: OPEN HOMES NO LONGER EXIST!
- SOLUTION: GET FAST AND INNOVATE!
The brokerage set me loose on many of the 160+ agents, as I attempted to help get their properties shown in an environment now devoid of open homes, and in which we could not meet without signing Covid-contracts and working with PPE gear. I would be stretching the truth if I said I could handle all that work at once, but I felt that if I could do anything during this unprecedented time, I wanted to help as many of the agents as I could. My family owns a brokerage, and I viewed it as doing what I could to help an “extended family”.
It seemed very synchronous that the agency brought me on just 9 days before the first recorded case of a Covid in the US, and 2 months before a statewide shutdown. So I took a breath into the undiscovered territory: from several completed projects a month, to several projects a week, without a production team, and with no plan other than to showcase a property.
It is in times of misfortune and crisis that we all have a HUGE opportunity; to find out what we are made of, and how we react in a crisis. Often times, we don’t really know until it happens. While I certainly could have been better at communicating the weight of my workload (something I strive to do but is an ongoing process) I DID find out that I truly care about my clients and the work that I do for them. Others might have mentioned this to me over the years of producing, but sometimes we don’t look into the mirror enough to see and really examine ourselves. I only really understood this about the man in the mirror after being “hazed” by circumstance.
Initially, we only thought that the shutdown was going to last 3 weeks at best….then it became 3 months, and well, you know the rest! I kept up the pace of multiple projects a week for that time frame, being a solo producer / editor, for as long as I could bear it. I injected narrative construct into inanimate space, and used some new interview techniques with drones as well as worked to formulate the “idea” of living in that space….in 190 seconds or less. Going through this helped me to understand flexibility, unpredictability, fast-paced, self-motivated production in a way that I had not before. In the end (by the end of 2020) I built the brokerage a sizable gallery of listing videos which gained attention from competing brokerages, industry blogs, helped the brokerage with the retention of agents, aired during interview segments on KTVU as well as gained attention from the national blog, Voice of America. That was in addition to providing on demand in-house projects on an as-needed basis.
The industry had no choice but to pivot, and in that process, I pivoted to a more unique and narrative approach to listing videos that garnished attention from the aforementioned media and brokerage houses. The agents gave lavishing praise, and their homes were getting seen and sold quickly and for above asking prices. This was the highest goal I could set for myself; to help get the right pair of buyer-eyes on a property quickly, entice them to want to make an appointment with the agent, and in turn, the agent would sell that house quickly and help them shine! Granted the East Bay market was already unusually hot, but what the work did do (above all) was to help propagate the idea that the agency supported its agents during a time of crisis, and while that may be a qualitative metric, that is measurable by the amount of supportive emails I received as well as online attention. All told, by August, my cumulative average at that point was a video project every 2.5 days!
I saw it as a team effort, and mind you, pushing the boundaries of previous listing videos was not an easy task. People sometimes dislike change, and not everyone wanted to head down the route of creating a premium listing video that took more engagement than the standard “float a camera through the house” approach, but most of the agents did appreciate the effort and were extremely gracious that the video helped promote them and their business and marketing acumen.
2020 has taught me that there is always opportunity around us if we can find a way to turn disadvantage into advantage.