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Publications

What your agency is worth, and how to raise it.

Practical articles for real estate media agency owners on pricing, hiring, recurring revenue and selling. Each one opens on a real agency and a real number, and ends with what to do about it. Two new pieces a month.

A drone hovering over a small house on a pedestal
Strategy6 min read

Keep the Brand, Hand Off the Back Office

What an operating partner runs, what you keep, and what it costs

One owner with three photographers went from an $84,000 month to a fifty-something-thousand month and asked me in September why he could not let go. The Growth Partner answer is a back office that runs twelve functions under your brand for 35% of collected revenue, with the shoots and 100% of the company staying with you.

  • What the model is
  • What you keep
  • What it costs
  • How it differs from hiring
  • + 2 more sections
  • growth-partner
  • strategy
  • operations
Read
A cut-paper mountain of blue and gold layers with a camera at the peak
Strategy6 min read

What Running Your Own Back Office Costs

The worksheet to fill in before you compare anything to 35%

One owner did the math on a call in September without being asked: his admin, his editing and his three full-time editors already cost about $14,300 a month, and 35% of his $45,000 residential month is $15,750. His number will not decide it for you. Yours will, and most owners have never written it down.

  • The worksheet
  • The comparison
  • Where 35% is more, and where it is less
  • growth-partner
  • finance
  • operations
Read
A blueprint dial with a gold segment
Strategy10 min read

Financial Management for Growth

Most agency decisions get made on a feeling, and the feeling is usually out of date

Two shoots grossed $2,300. After video editing, photo editing, a floor plan, listing sites and card fees, $1,758 was left, and the owner had touched the work for 11 hours. That is $160 an hour, which is the number to argue with. Ask an owner why they have not hired yet and you get: I do not think I have enough. Enough for what?

  • Turn every feeling into a number
  • Start with your baseline, not your revenue
  • Budget by percentage, then hire against the calendar
  • Move the cash forward
  • + 1 more section
  • strategy
  • acre-partner
  • finance
Read
A marble town carved on top of a single column
Strategy10 min read

A Team Foundation Before Headcount

The work that decides whether a hire succeeds happens before the job is posted

One creative missed a Matterport scan and went back to reshoot without telling anyone, so the agent walked in on a photographer at her listing she had not scheduled. That client was worth $35,000 to $50,000 a year and has been referring business elsewhere since. Nearly everything that decides whether a hire works happens before the job is posted.

  • Start with the hire you actually need
  • Put a number on the role before you post it
  • Hire on the calendar, not in the panic
  • Where operators get this wrong
  • + 1 more section
  • strategy
  • acre-partner
  • team
Read
A cut-paper figure holding an agency's camera, drone, and house on strings
Article10 min read

The Founder-Dependence Discount

If the business needs you daily, a buyer is not purchasing a company

Somewhere in the process a buyer will ask what happens here if you are unavailable for ninety days. On $600,000 of earnings, the honest answer is worth $1.2 million, because the same agency prices at 3x or at 5x depending on how much of it runs without you in the room.

  • The dependence hides in three places
  • Why it shows up as a discount, not a discussion
  • Leadership is the constraint, not the tooling
  • What actually removes the discount
  • + 1 more section
  • growth
  • valuation
  • operations
Read
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