How the Phair-Hinton Group Seamlessly Markets Their Real Estate Listings

Get ready to be inspired by Kim Thomson, Listing Manager at the Phair-Hinton Group Keller Williams Realty, as she shares her success story with Virtuance's real estate photography services. Discover how Virtuance's easy-to-use website and scheduling platform have saved Kim time and helped her excel in the real estate industry. 

We are proud to partner with the Phair-Hinton Group and capture stunning real estate listings together. Elevate your listings' visual appeal and shorten your time on the market by trying Virtuance today. Kim's success can be yours too!

Virtuance truly takes care of everything from start to finish. Their online platform allows Kim to efficiently input property details, select services, and schedule photo shoots, freeing up her time to focus on other important tasks. 

With Virtuance's partnership discount, the Phair-Hinton Group can maintain their budget while receiving top-notch images. Their clients are consistently impressed by the high-quality, crisp, clear images that positively reflect their brand. Kim especially loves the blue sky guarantee enhancement, which helps clients visualize a property's potential even on gloomy days.

The network of professional photographers at Virtuance is incredible. They are reliable and consistently deliver a level of quality that matches the Phair-Hinton Group's expectations. Through Virtuance's services, they've addressed scheduling issues, pricing concerns, and quality and reliability matters. 

The outstanding customer service team is always there to assist with any questions or adjustments, making Kim's job much easier. Virtuance has greatly contributed to the success of the Phair-Hinton Group's real estate listings.

Transcript

[00:00:00] We've had photography companies before where their websites just weren't good. You couldn't log in, you needed, you know, a passcode sent to you to our different agents every time that you log into the account and it's just, it's really time consuming and for me, I just want to be able to schedule the photo shoot.

[00:00:17] And kind of be done with it and move on to my next task in the day. And I'm able to do that with virtuance.

[00:00:25] This is Curb Appeal, a podcast for real estate professionals who are looking to build out their business and get more deals done. In each episode, we uncover what is and isn't working when it comes to scaling in the industry. Listen in and get actionable steps to grow your real estate brand, attract more business, and expand your footprint in the industry.

[00:00:45] Okay. Let's get started.

[00:00:53] Hi everyone. It's Rachel Gombosch, marketing manager here at Virtuants, and I'm really excited to bring you our next client success story. Today we are [00:01:00] talking with Kim Thompson. She is the listing manager for the Fair Hinton group, which is a part of Keller Williams in the Chicago area. I'm really excited to have Kim talk with us today about not only the benefits she's receiving from Virtuants or all of their agents.

[00:01:13] But additionally, the benefits it has directly on her as the listing manager and as the individual where she is scheduling and making sure all of these listings get photographed and to market on time. So really excited for her to share her story and I can't wait for you guys to hear it. So with that, let's go ahead and get started.

[00:01:30] Kim, just to get started, I think if you could just share a little bit about yourself and how you got into real estate to where you're at now, and just when you found out about Virtuance. Yeah, for sure. So I've been working in real estate for about five years. I came from a background working in retail and kind of, you know, stumbled upon, um, you know, an application for a real estate team and met with them, had my first interview and just such professional, awesome people.

[00:01:58] Just a group of people I love to like [00:02:00] hang out with and be around to first and foremost. And so, yeah, I just really kind of fell into it. I've been here for five years. I Keller Williams. So our team name is fair Hinton. So Emily fair and Kevin Hinton started the business about seven years ago and kind of brought me in as an administrative support.

[00:02:19] So I started off with under contract, you know, doing under contract contract to close work for them. And then it got transferred over into the listing. So now setting up people on MLS is scheduling photos, all the behind the scenes stuff for listings that I do now currently. And, you know, I couldn't be happier.

[00:02:38] I love the team I work with. It's really fun to come into work every day. And yeah, I've just been kind of rocking and rolling on listings for the past, I would say two, two and a half years now. Nice. So you're really, you're the brains behind the operation. And you get everything to go. Us admin like to think so, for sure.

[00:02:58] I mean, I would think so [00:03:00] too, is you're making things rolling and moving along and keeping things on track. But you also get to see all of the details that come through for all of the different listings. So just on that topic, for Fair Hinton and for Keller Williams, you know, what were maybe some previous photography or visual solutions that the company was using prior to using Virtuance?

[00:03:20] Yeah, so we've stumbled upon our team has stumbled upon a couple different platforms for using different photography companies and, you know, we've always run into a little bit of trouble like scheduling. It was never, you know, the most easiest platform to like schedule. Schedule a photo shoot on so virtuance takes that on completely.

[00:03:40] Um, it's really good in that aspect. So I'd say scheduling the pricing to, you know, we try to stay as budget focused as possible on our team. You know, photo shoots are definitely important, but we like to keep them to, you know, the lowest that we can, but. With being the highest quality that we can at the same time too.

[00:03:59] So we've [00:04:00] definitely shopped around a little bit previously and found that Virtuance is just, you know, great photos that you have, you know, great photography. We like to think as ourselves as like, you know, our vendors are reflection on our team. We like to give the most utmost like customer service and recommend, you know, vendors that we trust.

[00:04:21] Um, so we found that Virtuances, you know, we trust them a lot. They're very reliable, very, um, you know, we can count on them to be on time. They give us our photos back within, you know, 24 hours, basically, you know, the next day, the following day, great customer service. I could always pick up the phone and call.

[00:04:38] Someone's always there to help you through anything that's going on or any tweaks that need to be changed. And rarely do we have any tweaks that needs to be changed because the Photographers that our agents meet on site are just, you know, we love them and they take our feedback as well. So if we want to like, look at the photos on their camera, just make sure every room is accounted for or every angle is [00:05:00] accounted for, they'll definitely let us do that and kind of have like a more hands on experience with them as well.

[00:05:06] Yeah, that's really awesome. I'm glad that you touched on like the collaboration points between the agent and the photographer, because even with our photographers, they're all, you know, they all go through that exact same training process. They've all been trained to understand and be an expert when it comes to real estate marketing and just knowing how to capture different rooms and spaces.

[00:05:26] We're, we're always happy to accommodate, um, and make sure that we're capturing the whole comprehensive view of the list as best as possible. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. It's easy with you guys, you know, I've had photography companies where it's just like kind of pulling teeth, trying to get stuff out and with you guys, it's just easy.

[00:05:45] Like I said, good customer service, reliable. Um, first and foremost, good photos. We can rely on you guys for our, you know, customers of good customer service. Um, so we thank you in that aspect as well. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're, we're always happy to [00:06:00] help and happy to push the business forward. I do want to touch on, you had brought up how the scheduling process is very streamlined.

[00:06:08] And. smooth when you're coming to Virtuense for photos. And so I want to kind of just round back to that response real quick and just kind of ask if you have off the top of your head from previous solutions about how much time you were maybe spending on trying to set up a scheduling to when the photographer came out to when you actually got the photos and just how that compares to, um, Virtuense's service and our ability to streamline that process.

[00:06:32] You know, being the back end support means, you know, any, you know, I have millions of tasks to do throughout the day. So any little things that, like, make my job easier, I'm definitely going to be, you know, looking for when we look for a photography company. And we've had photography companies before where their websites just weren't good.

[00:06:50] You couldn't log in. You needed. You know, a passcode sent to you to our different agents every time that you log into the account. And it's just, it's really [00:07:00] time consuming. And for me, I just want to be able to schedule the photo shoot and kind of be done with it and move on to my next task in the day.

[00:07:07] And I'm able to do that with Virtuance. You know, their online platform is amazing. You know, you just put in the address you put in, you know. So a few details what you want of how many photos that you want to select that you select your date and time. You could do it like all online instantly. Like I said, I've had companies before where, you know, they've been late to photo shoots and that's reflective on us and that's not cool at all.

[00:07:32] So we respect that you guys are, you know, on time and professionals and that aspect as well. So, yeah, like I said, it's just, you know, you wouldn't believe how much, you know, little. Tasks take a lot of time when the proper steps aren't set up correctly. So the fact that you guys have the proper steps set up correctly, where it makes scheduling easy through your online platform, you have customer service when you want to.

[00:07:57] Call from nine to five, you know, photos from [00:08:00] you the following day, pretty much around the same time. I know it's not guaranteed, but usually around 1130, I can expect photos back from you guys. And it just makes everything seamless and effortless on our end when, you know, getting a listing ready for market.

[00:08:13] Yeah, absolutely. Well, just like you said, the little tasks really add up when you have a million things to do. You're like, I know this is going to take me all day. So. Anything that we can do on our part to kind of remove some of those nuances or those extra steps you would need to take that maybe you were taking from a previous solution to help, again, streamline the process?

[00:08:31] Because We all know this is a really, or can be a really fast paced industry. And so the time it takes to get your listing to market can make a really big impact on it's selling faster or selling for more money. And so I think from our end, we're always just trying to make sure that we're keeping up with that industry standard that we know that agents are moving fast.

[00:08:52] And so. We also need to do our part to move fast and quickly as well. Yes, absolutely. And we [00:09:00] appreciate that. You can tell, you know, the difference when you use different photography companies. The difference between, you know, what is important to that photography company based on another photography company.

[00:09:11] So it shows for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about just Virtuance's product itself, the photos. So what would you say, in your opinion, are the common, I guess, packages that you guys always select? Or maybe what are some of your favorite enhancements that agents have been starting to select through our products?

[00:09:31] Totally, yeah. So our packages that we usually do are, you know, the 20 images. So 20 images we found that capture a condo really nicely. If we, you know, do a single family home, we'll do, you know, add on 10 more. Pricing is always, you know, on par with the partnership code. We get 10 percent off of pretty much anything that you select, which is amazing.

[00:09:54] It really. Just helps our budget stay a little bit friendlier too. So those are the packages and then the [00:10:00] blue sky before is really helpful that you guys offer just because you never know like spring is our busy time of you know the market and you know Chicago in spring there comes a lot of rainy days so on those rainy days you know you can go in and select you know the blue sky and you know the photographer will go into the photos and Edit them to make it look like it was blue skies and not rainy and gray.

[00:10:24] And so it just makes a world of a difference, especially when the photos are the main thing that gets customers, you know, and new buyers through the door. It gets showings, you know, I believe the photos have a huge impact on that. So seeing bright and sunny photos really help as opposed to seeing them on like a gray, rainy day.

[00:10:44] So that's one of the main features we've used a lot. Virtual staging we've used before. Um. Which is always really good to, um, sell them times that there's clients that, you know, they moved out recently, but they don't want to pay a huge amount of money for, [00:11:00] um, staging, actual staging. So we'll do virtual staging, which you guys will go in there and just, um, you know, pick the right furniture that goes with the house and, um, competitively priced and just get us back those photos within a timely manner too.

[00:11:14] So we like using that as well. Yeah. And all of those enhancements are, I mean, exactly to what you just said. It's like, they're meant, they're meant to make that lasting first impression. So like when you go back on like the blue sky guarantee, it's, we understand that weather is, it can be very choppy, especially as you start coming over this way into the Midwest.

[00:11:33] Exactly. Some days it's snowing and the next day is the next day it's sunny and then it's raining. And so you just never really know. We don't have very consistent weather. Yeah. Yeah. That blue sky guarantee really just is. We always like to call it our weather insurance program, cause that's pretty much exactly what it is.

[00:11:50] And so, like when you have a really overcast sky where it's like very gray and kind of gloomy looking like that blue sky guarantee can really just help [00:12:00] emphasize the impact of your photo and really just help you make really good first impression. And same with virtual staging. It's just kind of like, if you can't get that.

[00:12:09] You know, if you can't get budget to get someone to come in and stage or maybe, yeah, your homeowner decided to move out and so they don't have anything there and they don't want to move any furniture in, well, staging can be really helpful because it's always nice to show some type of furniture because essentially you're, you're creating that spatial connection and a potential buyer's head of like, Oh, I can list.

[00:12:27] Or I can fit this type of bed in this room or I can fit a couch and a coffee table in a chair and I could rearrange it this way. It just helps buyers better, better visualize. So again, you're really building that, that first impression. For sure. Absolutely. It's very, very helpful. It gets people in the door, not only people in the door, but offers coming through as well.

[00:12:46] We've seen before just listing sit and sit when they're vacant, which is okay, but we always recommend if they are vacant to either do or push for staging. And then if not virtual staging, just so like you said, it helps them visualize what [00:13:00] kind of furniture I could wear and how this is going to look.

[00:13:02] You know, it's very helpful. Yeah, absolutely. I do want to talk about maybe just some of the agents specifically, or even you and your, the, the leadership team at Fair Hinton. So, has there been any maybe specific feedback that your agents have gotten, or maybe your team has gotten, from clients about the visuals you're using to market your listings?

[00:13:23] Yeah, totally. I think so when we receive photos back, you know, we look them over, make sure they're good. Um, first and foremost, and then we send them in an email to clients, you know, with the link and just saying, you know, you know, property photos turned out great. Here's the link to the photos. Um, and. A lot of times clients will be like, Oh my God, this is my place.

[00:13:43] They're like, say a comment like that. And just be like, surprised that it looks so well because the photos are so crisp, so clear. We've used photography companies before in the past where like, it wasn't as crisp and clear and like, even just seeing out a window, like you guys make it so clear [00:14:00] that you can see like a tree in the backyard, or if it's a lake view, like seeing the lake view on the other side, some photography companies, it's just kind of blurred, so you can't really see it.

[00:14:10] That well out a window, it's just on that. But like clients have definitely gotten back to us and be like, Oh my goodness, this is her place. Like, it looks amazing. And these photos turned out so well. So we always get positive feedback from the photos. It's always, wow. Like this, I can't believe this is my home kind of feedback.

[00:14:27] So it's really great to see clients react to that because we do. But like I said, we put a lot of time and effort into like who we're going to choose for our photography company. And, you know, it's great to see that reflection on us as well, that we are able to trust you guys. And that makes the clients trust us as well.

[00:14:44] Yeah. It's so funny to like hear the reactions of the clients because I mean, I get it, you know, they, they've lived in that house. So it was just kind of like, we knew what we lived in. And so it's always fun to hear like that feedback of when a client gets the photos of their home and they're like, Just [00:15:00] blown away by how good their house looks.

[00:15:02] Yeah, I know. It's your house, like you live here, like we know it's good, it's just we're capturing it in the photo. Exactly, I don't think they've ever seen that like aspect of the home before, like they've seen it, you know, obviously walking through it on a day to day basis, but being so like crisp and clear and like the HD quality is just, you know, unlike anything else, so they're not used to seeing it in that light, which is cool to bring to them.

[00:15:27] Yeah, absolutely. So on the topic also of just, uh, results and positive feedback and everything, have your agents, um, or again, even just the brokerage and team itself noticed an impact in how quickly the homes are selling or if there's been an impact positively on the amount of money the homes are being sold for?

[00:15:47] It definitely gets what I would say it definitely gets people in the door. That's what it does do. I feel like that's what, you know, a good photography company and having good photos for a listing actually does is getting people through the door. [00:16:00] And of course, you need to get people through the door.

[00:16:02] You need showings in order for the place to sell. Um, so it just kind of goes hand in hand on, you know, each other. Um, so having good photos is definitely like, Priority for a listing, I would say, but yeah, it just goes back to kind of getting people in the door, having showings and hopefully the rest will fall into place.

[00:16:22] Yeah, well, that's marketing marketing. We're here to just get people. Here, we just need to draw you in and that's where, you know, only photos, but when you start building on with other, with the other, like, visual solutions, so floor plans and 3D tours and. I feel like I've gone over the stat like a million times in talking to people, but it's like 96 or 98 percent of home buyers are like starting their home search online.

[00:16:46] And so you also too need to understand, or like we all need to understand that people in general make decisions based on the amount of information they have. So when you combine those two with real estate, it's like, you know, they're [00:17:00] online, you know, they're going to start there. The first decision they need to make is to contact you and or go to the open house.

[00:17:07] Exactly. And so, you need to provide enough. Marketing and visuals up front so that you're educating them on the property before they even come see it in person or before they reach out to you. Yeah. Or even if they're your client or not, like that's the first thing is, you know, seeing, you know, almost like meeting each other online, like having the good marketing to market your team, market photos for a listing, like it all comes back to that.

[00:17:33] So super, super important to have. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, as we start wrapping up here, I just have a couple more questions for you. So in your opinion, or even just you can answer on behalf of the team as well. Um, but what are the best parts about working with virtuance? Oh, goodness. Um, for me, I would say it's like good customer service, having a good website, just being on the back end.

[00:17:59] But first [00:18:00] and foremost, definitely having the, you know, good photos is the number one that, you know, we strive for. Like I said, it's a reflection on, you know, us of who we use and the photos that we use for the clients listing. So having good, crisp, Clear photos is definitely number one, but for me being on the back end with the scheduling, like the website just helps so much.

[00:18:22] Um, so having just, you know, the easy to use website, easy to use scheduling, never, I don't think we've ever run into a counter where you guys have like cancels a photo shoot or anyone's been, you know, late. And even if they are, you know, running two minutes late, they'll always, they have the agent who they're meeting on site, their phone number right there so they can call.

[00:18:42] Um, no, just rarely any. issues at all. So I'd say those are definitely the most important parts of, you know, or the best parts of working with virtuants. Awesome. And then one final question, which is, it's kind of similar, but what would be, if you had to choose one reason, what would be [00:19:00] the main reason that you recommend virtual virtuants to a real estate agent, a team, a brokerage, whoever?

[00:19:05] Yeah, definitely. The main reason I would recommend Virtuance is for their amazing photos. You know, you get those crisp, clear photos, they use HD quality, the photographers are professionals. A lot of them have been working on site use. Very, you know, the same ones over and over again. So we know, we trust that they know what they're doing and the photos just turn out incredible.

[00:19:30] And it's just, it's in the client's response back to us when we send them the photos of how amazing they are. And I can't believe this is my home. Those are the responses we're looking for. And those are the responses we get with Virtuance. So we're going to continue working with them as long as, you know, the quality and everything, you know, match what we're looking for.

[00:19:48] Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, just for your time today and taking a moment to discuss your, your success with virtuants. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. [00:20:00] Thanks for listening to curb appeal. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow along on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. This podcast is brought to you by Virtuance.

[00:20:09] Whether you market one listing a year or thousands, Virtuance is your go to real estate photographer for consistent, magazine quality images that are scientifically proven to get results. For more episodes of Curb Appeal, please visit Virtuance. com slash podcast.