Nelson and Liz interview Aundrea DeMille, owner of 360 Tour Design Salt Lake.
In this episode Aundrea shares how a life changing event with her husband’s job created the opportunity to start her own business. Aundrea discusses what it was like to be a solopreneur, how she knew it was time to hire, and what steps she took to scale her business.
SPEAKERS
Liz Sears, Nelson Barss, Aundrea DeMille
Liz Sears 00:01
Welcome to the Business greater than you podcast, where we dive deep into the stories of men and women who have successfully transcended the fragile solopreneur life and built productive teams with better lifestyle and income.
Nelson Barss 00:13
I'm Nelson Barss, the founder and owner of Utah Independent mortgage Corp.
Liz Sears 00:18
And I'm Liz Sears, founder and co owner of My Utah Agents.
Nelson Barss 00:21
We're excited for you to listen, interact and grow with us. So please share your comments below. And let's get started.
Liz Sears 00:29
Well, welcome, welcome to our next episode of Business Greater Than You podcasts are excited to have Andrea DeMille here as our famous speaker. How are you doing today?
Aundrea DeMille 00:42
I'm well how are y'all doing?
Liz Sears 00:43
Doing great.
Nelson Barss 00:44
Great, Good to have you.
Aundrea DeMille 00:45
Thanks for having me.
Nelson Barss 00:46
Andrea is the owner of 360 Tour Design Salt Lake. You do real estate photography.
Aundrea DeMille 00:52
Right.
Nelson Barss 00:52
It's beautiful work.
Liz Sears 00:53
And videography. I know the spiel
Nelson Barss 00:57
Plays with drones, right?
Aundrea DeMille 00:59
Yep
Nelson Barss 00:59
That's awesome. And so how long have you been doing that?
Aundrea DeMille 01:03
Um, we just hit four years over the summer. So yeah, this summer will be fun. So I guess four and a half years? Yeah.
Nelson Barss 01:11
Well, we're excited to talk to you about your team and how you've built it. Because it's quite a story. Would you just start by telling us how you started this got into the business and give us a little bit of background.
Aundrea DeMille 01:22
So before we got into the business, I was actually a professional mommy blogger, and, and photographer. And my husband had been laid off. We were living in Georgia, and he was working for Medtronic. And they cut the entire training program literally overnight. He was in surgery in LA and gets a text saying you've been laid off. And so.
Liz Sears 01:45
Wow
Nelson Barss 01:45
Did he like walked out of surgery.
Aundrea DeMille 01:47
Literally, walked out of surgery and called me he's like, I think I just got laid off. I'm like, No, you didn't. Like no,
Liz Sears 01:53
That's not how it works.
Aundrea DeMille 01:54
He's like, No, I'm pretty sure I'm like, Just go back yet and finish the surgery. It'll be fine. I'm sure it's nothing. Oh, no, they were like immediately head to LAX and go home. It was crazy. And
Liz Sears 02:05
Wow.
Aundrea DeMille 02:06
So I drove two hours north to Atlanta, with I was visiting my grandma at the time. And I picked him up. And literally overnight, all of a sudden, we had no home, I was pregnant with our fifth boy, and we had no job. And so my husband had mentioned several times over the coming years, we should move to Utah. And I was like hell no. No, no. But he hopped in the car and I from the airport. And I said, Well, we can job search from anywhere in the world. Do you want to go to Utah? And he was like, Alright, so we spent a week just kind of road tripping and hotel hopping across the country with our kids. Everything we owned was in our car, I mean, some stuff in storage, but like literally like no house. I'm grateful we could afford a hotel, but we would have been sleeping under a bridge probably, you know, have we not had a few savings. So I continued to do a little bit of blogging to kind of float I was now our primary income, which wasn't that much, you know, just a few $1,000 a month, nothing crazy. And so we spent some time in a little town called Eden and the Ogden Valley. And Dave kept job searching. And then I went to him and I said, Hey, why work for other people? Like, let's just take the fate of our family into our own hands open our own business.
Liz Sears 03:28
Had you ever talked about it before then?
Aundrea DeMille 03:30
Oh, you know, the pipe dream? You know, you know, when you're like watching HGTV, and you're like, oh, we should own a tiny house, you know. And we really did go look at trailers to see if it would work. And we talked about little things like that we should go live off the land in Alaska. You know, we should open a gun range. So we pipe dreams, yes. But like hard concrete? No, we'd never talked about it. And so he did some thinking and I kind of operate from ready fire aim. And I was already all in. And it took me some therapy to realize that that was my idea and not his.
Liz Sears 04:10
Yeah
Aundrea DeMille 04:10
If we ever need to go down that road. So Dave was like, alright, well, I really don't want to start our own thing just because of fear of failure. So what if we look into something franchisable So there's that proof of concept. And you know, we have a better idea of we could be successful. It's like all right. So here we started looking at franchises. And we were you know, this close to buying a Little Caesars? Yeah, we almost bought a Little Caesars. And then we pick the brain of some friends who owned a few franchises in Georgia and just found out wasn't quite a good fit for us. And so Dave came across 360 And at the time, they were not an official franchise. They were just selling like contracts and their branding and they would, you know, fly you out. Well, you fly yourself out for a few days of training and that's about it. You kind of on your own. But the model had been proven because there was more than one location and a couple of states. And so Dave comes to me and he said, Well, you're a photographer, and this is real estate photography. Do you want to do it with me? And I said, Yeah. And that's kind of how we got started.
Nelson Barss 04:35
Oh, wow Yeah
Liz Sears 05:17
I love that.
Nelson Barss 05:17
And you were here already. You were in Eden.
Aundrea DeMille 05:19
We were in Eden. We rented a condo, like a month, a month condo for the whole summer to just kind of figure out what you know where we were going to end up. And we actually stayed in that condo when school started, we put our kids in a charter school. And I was just commuting literally two hours a day.
Nelson Barss 05:37
Oh, wow.
Aundrea DeMille 05:38
Because you did drive through the valley. It was crazy. But yeah, we just did that until we kind of got a good feel for the area of k, where do we want to? You know, rent and, and kind of, kind of thing. So
Liz Sears 05:49
All right. So you solopreneur'd it for a while?
Aundrea DeMille 05:53
Yeah.
Liz Sears 05:54
So at what point in this process did you decide it was time to hire your first employee? And who was it like, what did they do?
Aundrea DeMille 06:02
So I'd have to say, before I even conceptualized hiring our first employee, about six, eight months in, I hired a coach.
Liz Sears 06:17
Nice.
Aundrea DeMille 06:18
And so working with her
Liz Sears 06:19
Business coach, life coach?
Aundrea DeMille 06:21
A business coach
Liz Sears 06:22
Okay.
Aundrea DeMille 06:22
Yeah, well, sometimes, I mean, they overlap sometimes to kind of help clear out the junk in your brain,
Nelson Barss 06:26
It's pretty much the same thing
Aundrea DeMille 06:28
Depending on their credentials? Yeah, she was a sales coach. But yeah, there was definitely some life coaching mixed in there. Just because that's what happens in relationships.
Liz Sears 06:36
Right.
Aundrea DeMille 06:37
So I hired her first and to help me grow the business. And it was great. I increased my sales, you know, very rapidly, I think we doubled ourselves, just after three weeks of hiring her. Yeah. And then again, and again, and again, till eventually I created systems where I'd increase my sales by 483% in a year. So I would say, we brought her on first, and then we kind of so she helped me navigate that space of it's time to grow. But you know, to be honest, fear was definitely in the way, because you're thinking, well, how can I afford to sustain someone else? And I can barely afford to feed myself? You know, as we mentioned, we have 5 boys, and my grocery bill is, $1,000 a month, you know?
Liz Sears 06:52
Wow. That's significant. Yep. I do know. I've got all boys too.
Aundrea DeMille 07:32
Right, and so it was it, she helped me see that if you take the leap of faith of bringing someone on, then it frees you up to be able to scale and make more money, then you're making more money, and you can pay them and so on, and so on, and so on. So I initially brought on my first photographer, Coban, probably about 18 months or so into the business. That's a rough guess. And it was great. Because at this time, Dave, and I had redefined our what our roles look like in the company initially, because Dave was in sales. That's what he did with Medtronic. And he's a civil affairs army officer. So he goes to war and literally sells America to tribal elders. So he has that relationship experience. And I was the talent because I was the photographer. And we very quickly learned that my personality networks a lot better than his does. And it's easier for me to build relationships. So we switched roles I trained Dave how to do the photos, and I became the face of the company in terms of selling and just doing all the admin work also. So when we brought Coban on, I was still doing a lot of the admin work. And it was Dave and Coban were our two photographers just kind of handling it all.
Liz Sears 08:53
Nice.
Aundrea DeMille 08:53
Yeah.
Nelson Barss 08:54
We both had the opportunity to see you selling. We've known you for quite a while.
Aundrea DeMille 09:00
Yeah
Nelson Barss 09:01
We watched you grow this business. And it has been amazing to watch. I think that was a great decision to put you out front as the face of the business and selling and I can speak to that it's just natural for you. Will you tell us a little bit about the strategy that your coach helped you come up with that you used to increase your sales and what talk to us about your sales strategy?
Aundrea DeMille 09:23
Um, well, I have to say first that it was a combination. The first thing that I did was dive deep into a lot of self help books Think and Grow Rich hands down transformed my life I'd say that was the first like mindset book that I really dove into kind of became my Bible. And that taught me the power of masterminding, which is where Liz and I went deeper. We had a mastermind group with a couple of other folks. And so we would meet together so between my mastermind group and my coach, and doing a lot of reading and business books like The Energy Bus, the E Myth, things like that in the very early stages of business, it's really what helped me realize, I need better systems in place. And it was actually in that mastermind group where I started creating a lot more systems, I remember you started doing the same, just kind of redefining, and putting things into place. So once I could put systems into place where I could physically see that where I could free myself up and leverage my time, things really started to take off. Because at the end of the day, businesses don't fail because of people or money or lack of ambition, they really fail because of lack of systems. If you have proper systems in place, then it can be repeatable, then you'll be successful. I mean, just look at the McDonald's franchise. That's revolutionary. And it revolutionized the way that our American industry and world industry works in terms of manufacturing as well.
Liz Sears 10:55
Right.
Aundrea DeMille 10:56
None of those existed before McDonald's. And so I would say it was a combination Nelson of my coach talking to me and working with my mastermind team and really doing a lot of self help. That really helped me understand all the importance of systems and putting operation manual together.
Nelson Barss 11:15
So what kind of things did you stop doing that allowed you to sell more?
Aundrea DeMille 11:20
Well, I definitely stopped working in the field, I stopped taking pictures all together. So if Dave became our full time trainer, so as we brought on more photographers, he could replicate that. And we have the system in place where I would hand him a notebook. So we had our photography training manual, and our drone photography manual. And, you know, here's how to declutter and stage kind of manual.
Nelson Barss 11:40
Cool.
Aundrea DeMille 11:41
So those are the that's the first thing that I did. The second was to relinquish all of the administrative duties as well. And then I brought on an admin, and taught her how to do all the scheduling and take the phone calls, deliver the pictures, you know, upload and just kind of handle that side of things. So my customers no longer had to talk to me. And I still get no joke. Even on Christmas. I'm not kidding you every year on Christmas, I still have agents reach out to me personally, can I get some pictures schedule? I'm like, freaking Christmas, isn't everybody closed.
Liz Sears 12:16
Merry Christmas to you too, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Aundrea DeMille 12:18
Right?
Nelson Barss 12:18
I need to talk to you about boundaries.
Aundrea DeMille 12:21
Right? And so this that was definitely the second thing that I did once I relinquished those administrative roles. And it really allowed me to focus on my true strength, which is connecting with people. It really has nothing to do with sales. It really is just, Hey, how can I help you? You know, how can I help your business grow? How can I help you be a rockstar agent? If we can help bring these amazing photos that make the the process easier for your clients. We can show you how to declutter. So your clients are less stressful, we can, you know, guarantee you the blue sky so that they always look beautiful, and the exteriors things like that, we'll turn them around, you know, the next business day so you can move on, and you're not waiting on pictures to get a photo listed. So once I started coming from a place of how can I serve, and Liz actually helped me with that, too, because I used to be terrified of selling. And I don't know if you remember this comment when we were in a mastermind group, and I said, I'm so nervous to go in and say hey, use me and this is why because other bigger companies have a big part of the market share when it comes to real estate photography. And I'm the new kid on the block and new to the state. And I didn't know anybody you know,
Nelson Barss 13:35
Yeah you had no contacts,
Aundrea DeMille 13:36
I had no contacts
Nelson Barss 13:37
You drove here with your family in a van and started a business.
Aundrea DeMille 13:41
And it was a crappy van like the bumper was held on by duct tape. The fender was held on with jumper cables, and the door fell off, like literally fell off the hinge.
Nelson Barss 13:51
Such a good story
Aundrea DeMille 13:52
Right?
Nelson Barss 13:53
You should make a movie.
Aundrea DeMille 13:56
It should definitely be a movie.
Nelson Barss 13:57
We still haven't gotten to the climax of the movie yet you still got more achievements first. . But so I changed the subject. But you.
Liz Sears 14:05
Yeah, you said you're scared.
Aundrea DeMille 14:06
Oh, I was terrified. Because in my brain, I'm thinking how do I go in and sell this product sell this service? Because it's a two in one. And Liz helped me to realize she's like, well, it's not selling. You just position it in: This is how I can help you and how I can help your business grow. Once I did that, everything changed. Everything changed the one I went into my sales meetings, you know, presentations and things like that. Or if I met a realtor for coffee, or I was in their office and know here's my iPad, and I'm doing a presentation I just came from an angle of how can I help you? And my coach really helped me to clarify that message as well. So I took what Liz told me and I went back to my coach and was like how can we how can we make this better because I'm getting severe anxiety every time I was doing all kinds of things to stay calm like power posing, affirmations, deep breaths
Liz Sears 14:59
Yeah.
Aundrea DeMille 14:59
Yeah, deep breaths. And you know,
Nelson Barss 15:02
That's not unusual, though everybody has that severe anxiety about going in trying to sell, right? If you're walking in with your hand out, and you're trying to receive, you're trying to, you know, like, suck the life out of that person, you know, they're probably going to say, No, you're gonna get rejected. Of course, you're gonna have anxiety, right? I love that I haven't even ever really considered that the whole mind shift that takes the pressure off.
Aundrea DeMille 15:25
Yeah, it's just how can I help you?
Nelson Barss 15:26
I want to help you.
Liz Sears 15:27
You know another thing that I remember doing is that you would poll us in the mastermind, you'd say, what else can I do? How else can I make it better? How can I beat my competition?
Aundrea DeMille 15:39
Yeah.
Liz Sears 15:39
And then we talked about? And what's a pain point? I remember you asking me what's the pain point. And I was like, I hate that I have to resize my pictures to upload them to the MLS, and you're like, done, you know, and then putting them in the order. So that way, they're already the way that somebody would walk through a home. And so just like those different pieces of finding out what is your client's pain point? Sometimes they have no clue that's their pain point, And they just know that it's irritating.
Aundrea DeMille 16:04
Right?
Liz Sears 16:04
So how can I find that and fix it?
Aundrea DeMille 16:06
Right, absolutely. And we used that and had that conversation with my coach to help kind of fine tune the conversation when I was teaching people or, you know, teaching them about our services, and how we can help each other. So I just, I upped my listening skills, you know, I'm very outgoing, and type A, and I had no problem dominating a conversation. So I had to learn to be a better listener. And and really just start out with, hey, you know, tell me a little bit about yourself, you know, and after we get through all the fluff, it's alright, so who are you currently using? They tell me? And then I would say, what are some of the things you love about them? And they would tell me, and then I would say, Well, what, if you could change anything about working with this person? What would that be? And they give me their pain points? Well, all I had to do was take their pain points and turn them into my strengths. So if they said, if they said, Well, I hate that my pictures are out of order. I hate that I have to resize them. Or I hate that it takes two days to get on the schedule, or five days to get my pictures back. I had answers for all of those, oh, well, we deliver them in order. We guarantee them in the next business day, they'll always have blue skies, and we're not going to charge you extra for HDR, you know, you'll get the best possible product up front. There's not going to be Package A and Package B with crappy photos, better photos, right? Yeah, you just gonna get the best out front. And once I did that, they're like, oh, and then you just go in and say, so would you like to join the 360 Family? Who doesn't want to be part of the family
Nelson Barss 17:35
Join the family?
Aundrea DeMille 17:36
Yeah, that's what I would say. Do you want to join the 360 family? You know, and most of the time, they'd say, yeah. Yeah, I'll give you guys a try. Or, you know, if they say, Well, I'm really loyal to this person. I'm like, great. You know, I understand that sometimes emergencies come up. Would you mind considering us to be a good second contender if you ever need a backup? Absolutley.
Liz Sears 17:48
That is huge. Because if people think that you're trying to get all their business, they feel like they need to protect their original relationship.
Aundrea DeMille 18:01
Right?
Liz Sears 18:01
They feel defensive, they feel like you're infringing in my space. But if you say, oh, keep your first place. Can I just be your second option? And then as soon as they try you, oh, they love it. Yeah.
Nelson Barss 18:13
Yeah, I think so many salespeople would stop short of would you like to join the 360 Family? Right, Here's all the things great about us. Here's my card. Thank you for your time today. We'd love to help you bye. Right. And it's just that one extra phrase. And your response to that, that that all the magic thing helps people actually know, hey, this is the time to commit and say yes or no, right? Yeah, people are afraid of that moment.
Aundrea DeMille 18:23
Right. They are yeah. Because no one likes to hear no, we just don't. I mean, look at how our children melt down. If you don't give them a piece of candy. You know, when you're in the grocery store, and because they are so strategic with all the junk, right, the checkout counter, you know, the kids don't want to hear no, they literally have a meltdown.
Nelson Barss 18:51
I think it's different too, because you're not just selling a product, right? You're selling yourself.
Aundrea DeMille 18:55
Yeah,
Nelson Barss 18:55
You go out there and you say, Would you like to join the 360 Family?
Aundrea DeMille 18:58
Right?
Nelson Barss 18:58
And they say no, it's it's very hard not to take that personally.
Aundrea DeMille 19:02
Oh, for sure.
Nelson Barss 19:03
They just rejected me.
Aundrea DeMille 19:04
Yeah, it was hard to separate that for sure.
Nelson Barss 19:07
How do you do that?
Aundrea DeMille 19:08
Um, well, now I've just learned to compartmentalize it and say, you know, well I'm one step closer to a yes. So I keep the book, Green Eggs and Ham in an easel in my office right next to my desk where it's the first thing that I see when I walk in every day. And I probably would have to go back and Google I don't have time to whip out my phone. But I want to say in that book. Sam gets no, like close to 900 times.
Nelson Barss 19:34
Oh, wow.
Aundrea DeMille 19:34
You know, it's like, do you want to eat him there? No. Do you want him here? What about on a boat? What? On a ship on a house? No, no, no. And then in the very end, he finally wears them down. And he tries to Green Eggs and Ham and he's elated. And he's like, Oh my gosh, I wouldn't about
Liz Sears 19:52
I would in a boat.
Aundrea DeMille 19:52
I would in a tree. I would you know, I would eat them here. I would even there. I would eat them everywhere. And he's the biggest fan right? Yes, the biggest fan of green eggs and ham. So I learned that's the best business book also.
Nelson Barss 20:04
I need to read that.
Aundrea DeMille 20:05
Yeah. Green Eggs and Ham I keep a hard copy
Nelson Barss 20:08
Is it on Audible?
Aundrea DeMille 20:10
Probably
Liz Sears 20:11
If not it's probably on YouTube.
Aundrea DeMille 20:13
Oh, for sure on YouTube
Liz Sears 20:14
500 different librarians.
Aundrea DeMille 20:18
And so I learned to not take it personally by saying, Well, this no is just one step closer to a yes. And I would put them into my system, my funnel and just keep following up with them. I would send brownies after a meeting. And I would make sure to connect on levels outside of real estate, you know, if they ski Hey, I'm going up to the mountain. Do you want to come? Yeah, let's do a couple of runs, then I'll buy some lunch. You know, if they like to be outdoors? Hey, do you wanna do a golf lesson together? Or hey, do you want to go boating, I've spent so much money on people who don't use me just to build the relationship and stay in front of them. And then little by little they suddenly are like, Hey, I think I'm gonna give you guys a try. I'm like, All right, you know,
Nelson Barss 20:56
And then you blow them away.
Aundrea DeMille 20:58
And then And usually, and then usually we retain them, you know,
Nelson Barss 21:01
I had you take pictures once of a rental house, I was trying to, like get before pictures. And the pictures looked way too good. Those are supposed to look bad, they are too good
Liz Sears 21:11
That's when you use your phone.
Nelson Barss 21:13
I was too lazy to do
Liz Sears 21:16
You know, I love the comment that you made about spending money on people who don't use you. And especially in a relationship business, where in, in your industry, the people that you're interacting with are people who would use you over and over and over again, right. And so making sure that you're building those relationships and not needing them to be a client before you're investing in getting to know them inviting them to things and all of that. So
Aundrea DeMille 21:39
For sure, it's all goes back to relationships? And then also, how can I serve them in their business? You know, so our target clientele is a realtor. So it's, can we bring a gift for your fundraiser? You know, can we bring lunch to your meeting? Can I help you on this committee throw this fundraiser for, you know, domestic violence victims, like whatever it is, they're into, just getting out there, and helping and serving really made the biggest difference. And that became part of my, I don't even know what you call it, power, power statement or whatever. Anyway, but I have this statement that I say every day, you know, that's mixed with affirmations, and goals and positive feelings and faith kind of all in one. And always, no matter. As my goals change, I always mix in there that I serve my community, and that that will never change. So I might reach one goal and swap out some sentence for another sentence. But serving my community never changes.
Liz Sears 22:40
So tell me a little bit about your morning routine. Because I know that that's a little bit of your secret sauce. That helped get you to where you are.
Aundrea DeMille 22:45
Yeah, I've been doing it for sure for about four years now. Like I said, when I first picked up Think and Grow Rich, so the first thing that I do after I pee is I meditate. For years, I did a 15 minute guided meditation because it was really hard for me to take myself into my own meditative state. So, but I meditate and I visualize and bring up the feelings of gratitude of what it is that I'm going to do. And then I go over what am grateful for. And then I kind of go through this visualization of a prayer where I send someone light and energy. And it could be someone that I saw on the street, it could be a family member, it's really whoever comes to mind in that moment, after that meditation and gratitude. And I visualize giving them light and love. And that's my way of praying for them. So once I go through that, then I go through my power statement.
Liz Sears 23:46
How often do you think you amend that power statement? Just when you hit a goal, or when you feel inspired? Or?
Aundrea DeMille 23:51
Yeah, usually I just keep that statement until that goal has been achieved. And then I'll switch it up. Kind of like with my vision board. I don't believe in vision board parties. I think they're stupid waste of time. I think you need to make your goals.
Nelson Barss 24:04
How was your vision board party you had recently, Liz?
Aundrea DeMille 24:08
Did you really throw one?
Liz Sears 24:10
Well, my Yeah, my broker does it every year. I don't expect people to think the way I do and I love when they think the way they do. Because for you, it would be really stupid. And for other people, they won't make time for it unless somebody else structures that.
Nelson Barss 24:25
It depends on the people go
Aundrea DeMille 24:26
well, this is why I think they're stupid. I think what you need to do is one make your goals. Once you have your goals, then you need a plan, which is all enrolled in my power statement. The goal and the plan are all in one. Once you have your plan in place, then you get visual on what you want. So that's when you go find the images if you say I want to net $250,000 Alright, and then you can get a few million dollar bills and post them up on 10s of 10 What is it like a $10,000 bill? They're fake, but they look real
Liz Sears 24:56
They're awesome.
Aundrea DeMille 24:57
That's, they are. I keep them in my wallet. They're all over the house.
Liz Sears 25:00
I love it.
Aundrea DeMille 25:01
That's when you put it on the board. If you want to manifest a new car, that's when you go get the picture and put that car on. If you want the lake house, you know, then you. And so that's why I mean, just going to a party and mindlessly cutting out things that you like,
Liz Sears 25:15
Oh, I will never flip through a magazine. Personally, I do that make my list. And then I go to the internet to find a picture that really resonates with me.
Aundrea DeMille 25:22
And I print it off.
Liz Sears 25:23
I find pictures of girls that look like me crossing the line at a half marathon, skydiving, you know? Yeah. All those things. Yeah.
Aundrea DeMille 25:30
So that's what I mean by being very clear on your vision. So but once I achieve what's on my vision board, I'll take it down and put it in like my little manifestation drawer. And then I'll redefine what my power statement is and where I'm going to tweak and so that I'm always on par to manifest what I want.
Nelson Barss 25:49
So your day your morning routine is not over yet. Right? Power statement.
Aundrea DeMille 25:53
Yeah, so meditation,
Nelson Barss 25:55
Pee, meditate
Aundrea DeMille 25:56
Meditation. Light and Love, oh, yeah, and pray. And then I go through my power statement. And after that, I go through my affirmations, nice with the feeling of gratitude. So gratitude and love are two of the strongest emotions we can feel. And so if you are saying what you want to achieve with that feeling of gratitude, you're already on the way because the subconscious mind can't tell the difference between what has happened and what will come to fruition that doesn't know what's real and what's fake, it just knows the feeling. So when you are saying what you want with the feeling of gratitude, you are telling your subconscious mind you already have it. And the universe starts to put people in your in your life and situations and opportunities to bring those things to fruition. So I go through those affirmations with the feeling of gratitude. And then once that's done, typically I work out after I workout I get in my hot tub for 20 minutes and turn on some type of audio book like a self help. So my workouts 20 minutes, hot tub, 20 minutes, and then I shower and start getting kids ready for school. Nice, so when do you start? When are you done? Kind of with your morning routine. I start between five and 530. Typically, lately, it's been a little difficult cuz I have two new puppies.
Nelson Barss 27:12
It's really dark at five o'clock
Aundrea DeMille 27:13
It is really dark at five o'clock. But the moonlight is stunning. And I can see real well in the moonlight.
Liz Sears 27:21
I love it.
Nelson Barss 27:22
Can you tell us a little bit more about your team and your company? Now? How many? How many people are on your staff? How many photographers how how's it working right now.
Aundrea DeMille 27:30
So right now we have two admins that take turn, we have one admin that kind of does a morning shift and then another admin that'll take over throughout the rest of the day. And usually during because real estate is in season. So usually during the busy season, we'll have about four, three to four photographers from May till October that are helping us this time of year we have to the two that are always with us that are loyal. Because it just is what it is. It can be very seasonal, as the volume drops off during
Nelson Barss 27:57
So are these like independent contract
Aundrea DeMille 27:59
They're contractors. Yeah.
Nelson Barss 28:00
Yeah. Because you use them when you need them. They're not on salary or anything, right?
Aundrea DeMille 28:03
I just I treat them well, we are very frank in our conversations. And I tell them, hey, we're in slow season, if you need to go get another job right now I get it, just communicate with me, tell me what your schedule is. I give them a bonus over the winter to kind of help them get through and incentivize them to stay and honor when they want to be off if they need to take time to be with family, or I just asked I get a certain notice. You know, because I can't force them to work anything. But I tried to create that environment where they want to stay just through empathetic conversations and honoring some of their concerns and feedback. And so that's typically how, yeah, how we run it.
Liz Sears 28:44
That's awesome. You know, one angle that you have that a lot of our listeners viewers want to break into is the VA world. So I know that some of your people that you work with our virtual assistants, how did you get into that? How do you find good ones? How do you like make that work?
Aundrea DeMille 28:59
Yea, so a lot of our VA are typically like our editors. I mean, technically, my admins are not in Utah, technically, I guess they would be considered virtual also. But I got into that space. Just through networking with other owners in the industry, you know, Hey, who are y'all using? Who are you using, we would try different editors and we would sample them out for a couple of days usually, we would send the same house will pick three or four houses a day and send the same house to two different companies and see how their workflow is, and see where the holes are and where who's doing better or where we can improve and then after about a week or so of doing that then we would decide Alright, we're gonna go with these people. And this is why.
Liz Sears 29:41
It's really easy to compare them when you have them side by side.
Aundrea DeMille 29:43
Yeah, literally. And so I could give you one house and you one but that's not going to right, so if I give you guys the same then it's easier to compare for sure. So that's kind of how we got into it. Like most of my my business and success all goes down to networking and
Liz Sears 29:59
Yep!
Aundrea DeMille 30:00
And building the relationships and those people have come through networking as well. And same with my photographers, every time I need a new photographer. I don't post a job. I just reach out to my Soi, like, Hey, this is what I'm looking for if y'all know anybody, and I'm so confident and grateful for the growth that my business has, that they always just manifest. They really do. And I've never been without a photographer, ever. Like since our first hire, I just say, hey, we need another one.
Nelson Barss 30:22
Have you ever gotten to a point like, in my business, I have a hard time balancing sales and ops, right, our operation staff kind of has to be bigger than today's volume, if I want to go out and grow. Right? Did you ever have a case where your sales outpaced what you could handle? Or did you have to scramble to find people to help or?
Aundrea DeMille 30:55
Um, no, because I'm real. I'm very intentional about what I do. And I and they just manifest. So for instance, when I first got my first corporate contract with Coldwell Banker, I had no idea how I was going to do it. We didn't have the staff in place to handle that volume. And I went into the meeting, and I threw some things in a presentation. Oh, can you tell the story real quick?
Nelson Barss 31:24
Yes, please.
Aundrea DeMille 31:25
I'm going to share this story to answer your question. I was doing some drop bys. Oh, as in, I was dropping by offices and just giving gifts to realtors and saying, Hey, kind of staying in front of them. And that's also a really good time for me to get feedback, hey, what's going well, how can we improve when I just pop into an office, and I would do these with different types of marketing. So this time was spring. So yeah, it was March. And so most of my competitors and other vendors would drop into offices and give like St. Patrick's Day stuff. And I just never did I like so I was giving seedlings for planting, and something cute that was like, plant the seed and grow what you want to, you know, something like that, like manifest, whatever you want your job. So I'm passing these seeds out. And this guy calls me in the office and he goes, Hey, what do you got there? You know, and he's like, Oh, this is great. So many people just bring donuts and cookies. And you know, this is so cool. Thank you. And he's like, How come when I get online, I can't order you. And I'm like, Oh, well, we're not officially on the contract. There's just a couple of the offices that are using us. He's like, Oh, well, it'd be a lot easier for me if I just log in, and I see you and I can pick your company to order photos. And I said, Well, how do I get on that list? And he's like, Well, I think you need to talk to John Winchester said, Okay, who's John Winchester? You know, so turns out he is over all of the marketing for Coldwell Banker across the state. So I go to the front desk, and I asked the woman like, Hey, do you know John Winchester? She gives me this number, I call it he doesn't answer. Like, alright,
Liz Sears 33:05
Of course not.
Aundrea DeMille 33:05
So. But I started visualizing during the meditation meeting with John Winchester, okay, and what this meeting would be like and what it would feel like so I started doing that for about six to eight weeks. And I mix in that contract is a part of my statement, my power statement. And I'm sitting, the day got cut short on one of these very rare rainy days in Utah, because it was spring. So all the photography for the day got canceled, because it was just dumping. So I'm sitting there watching the Think and Grow Rich movie of all things, even though I've read that book a billion times at this point. And I get this feeling this voice in my head that says, Call John Winchester, and I pause the movie and I'm like, I don't have his number. Like I'm literally talking out loud. Play the movie again. And I hear the prompting one more time call John Winchester. I'm like, I don't have his number. This makes no sense. Put it back on for the third time call John Winchester, I'm like, Fine, I get up. I go get my phone. And I just Google Coldwell Banker and call the first number that just happened to show up. I don't even know which office it went to. But the woman who answered the phone, I told her what happened and how I was trying to get in touch with John Winchester. And this number that I had.
Liz Sears 33:32
So you told her that that you were prompted three times?
Aundrea DeMille 34:22
No, no, I told her that I met with the guy in a different office.
Liz Sears 34:26
Ah, Okay
Aundrea DeMille 34:27
And how I do some work with like one office, but I want the contract. Right? And so she gives me this number and prefaces it with. He never He never answers the phone. And he's never in this office. So you could try it. I'm like, Alright, so I call it third ring, he answers phone. So we get to chattin' and we ended up scheduling a meeting. And so now I have about three weeks between that phone call and the actual meeting. So I really connect with the universe and get very good inspiration from God when I'm in nature. So I do a lot of work outdoors as much as I can. So I go on a hike, and then I sit down to like meditate and commune with God. And all this inspiration starts flooding through me about what I need for this meeting. And so I pick up my phone, and I just start writing everything down in my notes pad on my phone. And including the pricing, which was a lot less than what I charge my clients, but this is the number that came to mind. Okay, so. So I go back, I prepare for the presentation. And I put things together that I've never had in a presentation before. And I've done this presentation a million times I haven't memorized. But everything that came to me during that meditation session during the hike, I added into the presentation, including that pricing. And my husband, who was my business partner at the time, we're no longer together in business.
Nelson Barss 35:52
Oh really?
Aundrea DeMille 35:53
Oh, yeah, it was do we stay married? Or do we work together?
Liz Sears 35:56
Like, let's stay married?
Aundrea DeMille 35:57
I reckon we'll keep you around. And so Dave was not on board with going in with me going into this meeting and negotiating that price. And I'm like, he's like, we're gonna lose money. This makes no sense. I'm like, it will make sense with the volume, we get the contract, and we have this many with the volume, and we continue to grow, it will make sense, it'll Don't worry. And he was completely against it. And so I went against him. And I went into that meeting with that number. And everything that John brought up to me, was what came to me during that meditation statement, everything from Can you turn daytime to Twilight, and I happen to have those in my presentation, I'd never had twilight photos in a presentation before, not where it's the same house of daytime, nighttime
Liz Sears 36:44
It was the same photo?
Aundrea DeMille 36:45
The same photo, you just change it to an evening, I'd never used that before. And we've only had a handful of clients who've requested it and, and so like everything he asked for, happened to be in there. And so then I get to the part of do you want to join the 360 Family? He was like, Yeah, I do. But I gotta run it up to you know, the CEO, because this is a corporate contract with NRT. And he's like, so low, let me follow up with you and such and such days. And also, thank you, you know, thanking him for his time and blah, blah, blah. And he goes, it's a miracle. You got a hold of me. He's like, I am never in that office. And I never answered that phone. Isn't that crazy? So, to your point, here we are, where technically we can't afford the price. We don't even have the staff to support this volume. But as I mentioned, in the beginning of this conversation, I operate from ready fire aim.
Nelson Barss 37:36
Yeah,
Aundrea DeMille 37:36
So I committed it took a little longer than I thought for John to get back to me. But eventually he did. He's like, congratulations, you got the contract. And so we're one of three vendors across the entire state that service Coldwell Banker, and, and at that price point that Dave didn't want. And so all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, I need that I need a photographer, I need a. But they manifest, they just come. So it's like, I put a plan in place. I knew what my goal was. I knew what we wanted. I executed it and got the yes, the help always just comes
Nelson Barss 38:13
It's a good problem to have to have business.
Aundrea DeMille 38:15
Yeah.
Nelson Barss 38:16
You know what I mean? I think a lot of people are like, I'm gonna make a business card. Get a LLC, going, right? I'm gonna do all these websites stuff. And someday I'm gonna hire four people, and then I'm gonna go out and sell right? It's the exact opposite mentality.
Aundrea DeMille 38:27
The opposite.
Nelson Barss 38:28
Get some sales get some people coming in?
Liz Sears 38:30
Yeah.
Nelson Barss 38:30
Then you can hire
Aundrea DeMille 38:31
Yeah, you got it, put the work in, and structure it in a place where you can sustain the growth, and eventually bring people on, so that you're not all of a sudden, like, oh, I have to raise my prices all of a sudden, you know, that's the only way I can afford to bring someone on and so suddenly raise my price. So you got to think bigger picture of where do you want to be long term, and, and trade off. And then it's very important, as you mentioned, with the cards and an LLC, and blah, blah, blah, what folks fail to realize when they're starting a business is you have to work on your business just as much as you work in your business. And then once you work on your business, where that no longer needs you, then you can work in your business. And then you can go back and tweak what needs to be done. But that's how you keep it going. And that starts with those systems, which is not the fun part. It sucks. But if you want to be successful you need good systems.
Liz Sears 39:26
Yeah, exactly. I love that. That's amazing story. I've never heard like all the details of that before.
Nelson Barss 39:32
I had no idea that I think nobody would know how hard you worked to get that contract and how long right? How long you focused on that. Yeah. And planned for it. And I just, it's inspiring.
Aundrea DeMille 39:45
Thank you.
Liz Sears 39:46
Great.
Nelson Barss 39:47
Okay, you ready for rapid fire round fire
Liz Sears 39:49
All of these questions in one minute.
Nelson Barss 39:50
Wait, have you been having the chance to preview these questions?
Aundrea DeMille 39:53
I mean I glanced over them
Liz Sears 39:55
You're good. You've already answered some of them anyway. All right. What's your favorite podcast?
Aundrea DeMille 40:02
The Ed Mylett Podcast
Liz Sears 40:04
Love that one. Ed Mylett
Nelson Barss 40:07
We need to list on our website.
Liz Sears 40:09
One minute Nelson. What's your favorite business book?
Aundrea DeMille 40:14
Think and Grow Rich
Liz Sears 40:15
Love it. How many hours a day do you work?
Aundrea DeMille 40:20
Four
Liz Sears 40:21
How many do you want to work?
Aundrea DeMille 40:29
Four.
Liz Sears 40:29
Perfect. That is amazing. Who do you really look up to as a role model in the business world and why?
Aundrea DeMille 40:32
In the business world, I mean, aside from Oprah, right? She's amazing. She's freaking amazing. How can you not love her? I'm really loving Tim Grover right now, the author of winning who coached Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Just his mindset has really shifted everything for me in the last couple of months. So definitely Tim Grover,
Liz Sears 40:54
love that. And then what is one? What is the best piece of advice or one best piece of advice that you could give our listener viewers
Aundrea DeMille 41:02
Be persistent. Don't give a crap about what everybody says even if it's your family and friends. Screw the naysayers. Focus on what you want and be persistent.
Nelson Barss 41:12
You've been listening to the business greater than you podcast with Nelson Barss. And Liz Sears. Our mission is to help lenders and agents like you
Liz Sears 41:19
If you're either already a full time realtor or looking to become one and you desire to be highly successful. If you're both a learner and a doer, a hard worker and a total team player. We would love to chat with you about joining our team visit us at businessgreaterthanyou.com.
Nelson Barss 41:22
If you're a loan officer or would like to be one we have a path to help you learn the business and develop the skills needed to lead a high performance origination team for better income and lifestyle.
Liz Sears 41:45
And lastly, if you would like to work with either of us, we would love your business.
Nelson Barss 41:49
Do you have a question for a future show? Would you like to be considered as a guest on our show? If so, please call or text our listener line at 801-871-9130
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