SHOW NOTES
Peter Schravemade used to be the operations manager for a hotel franchise, but he soon found himself spending not enough time at home so he decided to leave. When he saw an ad looking for a personal assistant for BoxBrownie, he went for it. At that time, BoxBrownie didn’t have any idea the direction they were headed to and they weren't making much profit yet. But six months after Peter joined the company, they have become financially viable.
Four and half years later, BoxBrownie has become the fastest growing property technology marketing platform in the world. Currently in 69 paying countries and growing by 2500 new clients each month, Boxbrownie.com continues to spread around the globe with the aim to solve the problem of poor property marketing everywhere.
Let’s join Peter as he shares his knowledge and expertise on how enhancing your images can help you improve the way you market your properties.
In this episode, we talk about...
(5:28) What is BoxBrownie
(7:51) When is the best application to take advantage of BoxBrownie’s technology
(8:29) What are the 5 things the purchaser wants to see
(14:51) How to determine if a property’s image is professional
(16:46) How to Ieverage BoxBrownie products to make sure my quality is best in its class
(18:18) Why do you need a twilight shot of your property’s exterior
(21:28) What to do if you are a poor copywriter
(24:36) Why mls listings need to have floor plans
(29:20) The value of having a 360° camera for your virtual tours
(35:06) The reward of delivering the 5 things a purchaser wants to see in each of your listings
(36:50) Why BoxBrownie does not charge for subscription
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the GRIT podcast. I have a really fun episode for all of our listeners today. I'm super excited to have this is a really unique interview because I've never interviewed anybody like this, Peter. So looking forward to this, but I'm Brian Charlesworth. I'm the host of the show. I'm the founder and CEO of Sisu, which is the real estate growth automation software. And today, our guest is Peter Schravemade I believe is how you pronounce your name. Is that right, Peter?
Peter Schravemade 1:05
Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. Good. Good to be here. Thanks for having me on the GRIT.
Brian Charlesworth 1:09
Yeah. Awesome. We're excited to have you here. So Peter started with BoxBrownie. How many years ago was that Peter?
Peter Schravemade 1:15
As about four and a half now four and a half in. Okay.
Brian Charlesworth 1:19
So four and a half years ago, I know at the time you started BoxBrownie was not in the situation. They were today maybe struggling a little bit cashflow wise, struggling to figure out what their model was. And you came in and made a significant difference in the business. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about that story, and just how you've gotten to where you are today. If you have a few minutes to go down? Yeah,
Peter Schravemade 1:42
Yeah, I do. So I was the head of a hotel operations, I was the Operations Manager for a hotel franchise. And ironically, I was spending on enough time at home was one of the driving factors for me to resign that job. And I was at a quite a large amount of annual leave, sitting with my feet up on the coffee table in the living room, enjoying no work at all, but also going a little bit stir crazy. I don't know if any of you out there have ever had a job that's occupied all of your time and attention and then you lose that and you kind of go a bit stir crazy. I was kind of in that period, when a company that I'd seen before called BoxBrownie, they posted an advert for a personal assistant is I mean, I'm not a personal assistant, I'd make a terrible personal assistant. But I said in my full resume to to the boys, actually, specifically to a former owner of BoxBrownie. So someone who's cashed out now. And mail mail was the guy I met who's a CTO, CFO, CEO, all of the C's, he kind of has all of those titles. But um, yeah, that was the first time I met him. And but it was really interesting because BoxBrownie, back in those days was definitely not profitable. We really didn't have much idea of direction. And you know, even a lot of the work that we were doing is not aligned with the work that we're doing now. So, six months later, we had become financially viable and, and so ever since then, the last four and a half years feel like for decades, you know, even though we were probably moving fast as far as a property technology startups concerned, it goes at such a pace that a day feels like a week to me, you know, a week feels like a month and and that hasn't, you know, the pandemic period that we're currently in hasn't helped. It feels like you know, 10 years since March. So look, it's been an exciting ride. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've met some really cool people along the road and we show no signs of abating or slowing we continue to kick goals and move towards different targets.
Brian Charlesworth 3:47
Awesome. So for those of you who can't tell Peter is from down under. He's in Australia, he's on lockdown. They're not really they're just locking everybody else out because COVID is not in the country. Like for you Peter masks exist right now in Australia. Not back to normal life other than your you're stuck on the island. Is that right?
Peter Schravemade 4:10
Yeah, look, it is bad down in Melbourne sat down in the southern end of Australia. One of our sites is having a bit particular battle with it, but seems to be coming good now. But the rest of Australia the other states and territories are all yeah, it last is proceeding as normal as possible. You know, aspies it doesn't help you guys, because I'm well aware of what is going on in the US at the moment. So you know, maybe let's move on from but I look at he's good to let you know that there is life after COVID and you can get a hold of it. So you know.
Brian Charlesworth 4:41
Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's interesting where I live things are, everyone's back in school. Obviously there are times when you need to wear a mask but life is you know, rolling and just like it always was so
Peter Schravemade 4:58
Good to hear.
Brian Charlesworth 4:59
And then No, that's different in every state. But, Peter, you've had you have a real estate background, you've been in real estate for about 19 years, I believe you did. You've been in residential, you've been in commercial, and you've also been in investment properties. And so I guess when you went into BoxBrownie, BoxBrownie was trying to figure out exactly what they were doing. And you brought that real estate background into this picture and said, Hey, this is the direction we should go with this. And for those of you who don't know what BoxBrownie is, maybe maybe you can give us a little update on that as well, Peter, but BoxBrownie is a tech company that can basically make your images look amazing and help you market properties better or anything else for that matter. So
Peter Schravemade 5:45
Yeah. Right. So first off, we're a website, we we enhance imagery. So we edit imagery, native to property, mainly related to property. And so you know, as an agent, taking a photo with our iPhone, we can make that look like a million dollars. And we do that for $1 60. And then there are all these other edits that we have, we can take a daytime photo and convert it to a twilight, we can remove the tenants furniture, out of a property, we can virtually stage a property, we can even renovate a house. You know, we redraw floor plans and things like that. But basically all of the products exist around the premise, trying to make a, I guess, an agent better at marketing a house than what they currently are. So so that's that's where we are now. And I suppose when I when I came into the business, back to your first question, you know, it wasn't so much that I changed it. It was the the owner founder is a guy called Brad filippone. And he's an incredibly talented real estate photographer. So he already he already had that, I guess, segment under his belt. But when you're starting a startup, it's quite difficult. Like back in those days, Brad was still shooting property because there was not enough money to go around. Like we weren't profitable, we couldn't pay a wage, he couldn't draw wage. So he had to continue to do what he needed to do day in day out. And I just happened to be, you know, I suppose the person who could step in and could afford to take time to to really grow the business. And that was that was my involvement in the role, obviously, you know, the other part to that is we have a brilliant genius in that in the area of Mel Myers, who has developed the technology back end behind BoxBrownie. So it's kind of a three way prong. And, you know, it's made us what we are today.
Brian Charlesworth 7:35
Okay, so exciting. So most of our listeners are probably team owners, who probably pay for real estate team owners who pay probably for their pictures. So if you're speaking to a team owner right now, and like when when would be the best application to actually take advantage of your technology? Like, is it when I'm putting a home on the MLS? Or and if I'm staging it in pictures, and then someone gets in the house, and it doesn't look nearly as good? There's a little bit about that. And you've seen this flow into the real estate world?
Peter Schravemade 8:10
Yes. So I mean, there's a couple of things that I'd say to team owners. And the first one is, you know, Gone are the days where you can simply hire a professional photographer, get them to take images, write, copy, and put it on the MLS and hope that it sells. If the pandemic period has taught us anything, there are really five key areas that you need to cover off when you're marketing a property. And the first one is imagery, and I'll pop that we'll come back to it in a minute. These five things by the way, the National Association of Realtors stats, so these are off, if you want to have it go and have a look at it. There's been a survey for the last seven years called the National Association of Realtors, generational home buyer and seller trends. And it talks about the five things that purchasers want to see as far as property marketing's concerned. So the first one is is good imagery. The second one is copy with essential detail. The third thing is floor plans. Very very underutilized tool. Over 50% of your buyers want to see one yet only 5% of the MLS listings have one virtual tours, they sit at about under 10% of MLS listings is number four. And the fifth thing is video. So you know that five prong approach is is almost the complete marketing circle if you get to market any property. And you include those five things you've covered up on on all generations that may be interested in the property you've covered off off on everything that is there. But more specifically, you know, what we've learned during the pandemic period is that people are no longer buyers in particular are no longer going to want to go and investigate 60 or 70 houses in the hope of finding that one. They're going to want to be qualified a lot better for the three to four to 5% That they actually eventually go and look at in hopes of selecting that one. And and that that has become incredibly clear. And in it, the challenge that I have to the team owners out there is how you describe the property has never been as important as it is now. Because you know, a lot of agents sit out there and think I'm selling a house. But really what they're doing is they're marketing a product to a given target audience audiences, and so that taking every house is different that taking that product, hopefully they're identifying as to who it may be that will purchase that. And that's sculpting a marketing plan that suits that. So you know, in a maybe a 62nd bundle of an answer to that question, there is so much there is so much that the general state of American property marketing can do better, from photography, through to videos, through to virtual tours, floor plans, and even copy, there are so many ways that you can enhance your marketing and make it better. And the best thing about that is, it's statistically proven to sell a house faster and for more money. So you know, if there's one takeaway that I could do, a lot of teams spend hundreds of thousands of 10s of thousands of dollars on lead generation and whatever else, it's a couple of bucks to fix up your marketing, it really is not, not expensive at all, you know, spend some time focus on that and develop that tool before, before any of these other things can because you may find that you just don't need it.
Brian Charlesworth 11:29
So Peter, and hearing those five things, I'd like to cover each of those if you're okay with that. And imagine I decided I'm going to do this on every property, I may get 200 listings a year, I want to do this on every one of these properties. I'd like to first know what the relationship with you guys, it looks like as far as expense, but I'd like to really dig in and say, okay, and those five categories, what do I need to provide to you so that you can make that look amazing? As I as I heard you talk about those, the two that stand out to me that most people don't really do a good job of floorplans? Absolutely. And then, video, most people don't have video, you know, they might have a 3d tour, depending on if they're willing to pay for that. But how much how much are they paying for that with some of these other technologies versus what they would get from you guys? So let's let's hit in on some of those areas.
Peter Schravemade 12:18
Yeah, correct. Okay, so let's start at the beginning, good imagery, look, you know, things that you should rule out, if you're taking a photo yourself. And believe it or not, I would estimate about 85% of American agents actually do do their own photography, they take their own photography, and that's why we have such a field day in this area. We charge $1 62 to professionally edit that image.
Brian Charlesworth 12:42
What percentage would you say take their own photography?
Peter Schravemade 12:44
About about 85? About? Yes, I am deadly serious.
Brian Charlesworth 12:49
I think I would have thought it was about 20.
Peter Schravemade 12:51
Now I see a lot of them will, will tell you they do but they'll only do it on the higher end properties. It is that rampant. And if you want to just do a brief check on that, go to your own MLS and look through the first 20 listings and tell me how many of those you think have been professionally shot?
Brian Charlesworth 13:07
Yeah. And really easy to see the iPhone ones right away, especially when you get to your first bathroom. Right?
Peter Schravemade 13:13
Correct. But I mean, that's changing. So recently we've developed you can read about at our blog that has turned an iPhone, see the cameras in the iPhones and and the Android smartphones in general are actually getting that good that we now bench test them against the Nikon and the Sony DSLRs and they beat them recently they've started beating them. So the iPhone 11 and the Samsung S 20. boathook added Nikon D 7200. The other day, which is an impressive feat.
Brian Charlesworth 13:41
Yeah. Nice camera.
Peter Schravemade 13:43
Yeah. So what I you know, I guess where I'm going with this is we've now developed a technique. There's there's a technical bracketing, where you take a series of images, there's an app, you can buy for six bucks, now he can press a button, it will take a series of seven photos, you can send that to us and the results are professional. So you know, Gone are the days when I would actually make that app either. It's called camera pixel Pro, only works on an iPhone. So if you're an Android user, you're going to have to stick to just taking the singular photos but camera pixel pro and all of the data that you need for that the recommended tripod and smartphone mount is available at the blog if you want to follow that up. Okay. So that, you know, I guess what I'm saying to people is to stop thinking about I've hired a professional photographer, because that word professional in front of photographer is a highly subjective term. That can mean my best friend sister's girlfriend's uncle's father has now a Sony digital SLR is shoot shooting. What I'd prefer teams to say is is not that they have hired a professional photographer, but their output at the end of the day is professional. And let me give you a really, really, really big tip and actually picking whether it's professional or not if it will change the way you view properties go to An internal picture, one that is of the interior of the property, that and check to see whether you can clearly see outside the windows exactly as your eye sees outside the window. Now, if you cannot do that the output is not professional. That doesn't mean that the professional photographer isn't. But there are three parts to professional photography, there's the preparation of the property, there is the actual shoot and the technique. And it has to be done using a technical bracketing the series of images that are merged together. And then there's the editing. Now without those three, you don't get a professional output. So where where I'm at in looking at the American market is that those three very rarely align, we estimate less than 5% of the the North American, that's not just you guys, that's Canada as well actually use all of those three together, some get the professional photographer to site and they take photos, but they don't include the photo editing, some get the preparation, right, then they shoot it with their iPhone, but very rarely do they put all three together. So my challenge on the first one photography, one is be more discerning, you know, how does, how does your photography stack up to the best in the world and be best in class as far as that's concerned.
Brian Charlesworth 16:13
So that's one here I want. I want mine to be best in class. So let's say I have 25 images that I get right now from my photographer. Unless it's a really nice house, then I get 50. And that's just the arrangement I have with my call it quotes, right? No photographer. Yeah. But I'm thinking, Hey, I can't really see out those windows like he just described. So what's the step? How would I go about getting that to you? I don't want to shoot pictures myself. Yep. Well, how do I leverage what you guys do to make sure my quality is where it needs to be?
Peter Schravemade 16:50
Yeah, I'd stopped before that. I would ask your professional photographer to bracket I would show them examples of what you want to see and get them doing it. And then then it fits in with that process that doesn't necessarily even include BoxBrownie. I mean, they can send their images to us to edit them if they want. But you know they can they can edit them themselves. legitimately. The thing that you need to be is just best in class, you need to be able to see clearly outside those windows. Yeah. So whether you're you know, I'm not saying to people on this on this podcast. Did she professional photographer, no, absolutely use it, but make sure that their output is professional.
Brian Charlesworth 17:25
Okay, great, great advice. So let's take the other 85% I guess. Yep. Who are shooting photography themselves? What's the process? If they want to get that image to you get it back, get it on the MLS? And last?
Peter Schravemade 17:41
Yeah, as advice if you're taking photos yourself, you just have to upload an image to BoxBrownie, you sign up for free. There's no subscriptions, we don't charge your minimum use. There's no catch, you upload an image and it's $1 60. So you know, at the very minimum, you do $10 $16 or $20, $32 It's not rocket science, it's not difficult. And the difference is night and day. You know, we started doing this when iPhone fours were a thing so we're used to really rubbish quality. These days, most smartphones will give you high enough quality for us to deliver it back to you is a really professional output. So you know, legitimately we can we can do that. And then there are a bunch of other cool edits like you know, when you've got an exterior shot looking at the house, you can change that daytime to a twilight. The reason you do that is because the Twilight images on on the MLS get four times more clicks. Now statistically do and
Brian Charlesworth 18:32
You guys can make that change. So
Peter Schravemade 18:35
Yep and it's $4
Brian Charlesworth 18:37
And if I wanted that Twilight, look, you can you can turn the lights on and darken the sky for me.
Peter Schravemade 18:42
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a legitimate tool photographers use it in their own right. Have you ever wondered what happens when a photographer gets out to a site? And let's say it's a cloudy day, they can't get that perfect shot that's there? Well, they will every day of the week, they'll enhance it. And I know this is a podcast, so you guys probably can't see it. But right now Brian's looking at a daytime shot, right? You're seeing that?
Brian Charlesworth 19:08
Yes. So for those of you driving, you might want to go check this out on our YouTube site. But it there as well. But yeah
Peter Schravemade 19:16
A daytime shot. So for $4 we, we we do this to it. And it's not rocket science. I mean, that's less than a coffee cup of your Starbucks coffee in the morning. But that one will get you four times more clicks on the MLS and, and the thing about the Twilight shoots is not that they're dramatic shots or anything but there's something emotional attached to it. These are the times that the person is coming home to their significant other who may be a pet for like it, it's not, it's by the by but this is the time that they're cracking a beer or opening a wine for the first time of the day. And, um, it's it's such an easy edit to utilize that. You know, it should be on every listing. If I could tell you that any photo was going to get you four times more clicks on the MLS. You would do it. And by the way, for those of you who are watching, who want to know about the image enhancement for $1 60, this is taken with an iPhone six, we enhanced that for $1 60. So that's, that's $1 60 legitimately the second shot and I know you're in, you're on a podcast, so you're gonna have to go to YouTube and check it out. But the second shot is professional, it's well and truly worthy of being on the MLS in
Brian Charlesworth 20:23
The second one makes me feel like I'm buying a new home that was right, that it's almost it's almost like seeing one of those drawings. But yeah
Peter Schravemade 20:32
But it's the same edit, it's the same medical professional would do to, to that property, if, you know, if they were to take that photo, there's no difference between the way they're editing it and the way we do it. In fact, you know, 30% of our clients are photographers that they who go out and shoot five a day and don't have time to edit, you know, 250 images, they will send them to us. And we'll do that for them.
Brian Charlesworth 20:59
Very cool. All right, so let's talk about item number two.
Peter Schravemade 21:03
Yeah, so copy is one that I don't need to spend a lot of time on, suffice to say that in, you know, as the broker owner of multiple agencies in Australia, you either are able to write, copy or not. And there doesn't seem to be a gray area where maybe sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you don't, either, you're really good at doing it, or you're pretty much in the other field, which is not good at all. And I've actually found that some of my best agents are really poor copywriters, what I'd encourage you to do, if you are a poor copywriter is, you know, every day of the week, I'd encourage you to outsource that to get someone to write the copy, we do do that. It's something that starts at $35, and actually has been growing, we don't push that service very often, because we're more about imagery. But you know, we can write your copy for you, you just have to provide a few images and details on their property. But importantly, Brian, back to what the purchasers actually want, is they don't necessarily want just copy, they want all essential detail, that was pretty clear in the study, they want to know what hot water system whether there's a haitch HVAC, they want to know what the floors are made of what the ceilings are, you know, what the walls are made off, they need the size of the the house under roof, they need the size of the land, if there's land attached, they want all of that. And what I'm encouraging agents to do is to spend time actually going and collating and nothing information about the product. Now you don't have to put that all on the listing on the MLS, but you need to have a data sheet that you can email out to people that tells them the bones about the property. You know, and a floor plan goes a long way on that, which is obviously the you know, a nice segue into the third, the third part, but that is also, you know, part of educating them as to the bones of the property. So, number two is one that I think is fallen by the wayside. People write a lovely story about the house, you know, about its appeal and whatever else. But what purchases are actually asking for is that asking for the detail about the property as well, as well as you know, to be sold virus story. Back when I started in real estate, which is actually ironically, it is 20 years ago, the in my local town, which is in the backwaters of Australia. And so you call it the bush, there was no pictures in the paper. So the only way we were able to describe property was actually using text. And so a lot of the real estate agents back in those days who were very effective at selling property were journalists, former journalists made really good real estate agents. Now, obviously, the world has moved, things have changed. We've got digital imagery these days, the interweb exists, you I'm talking to you, you're in, you're in salt, you're in Utah, I mean, I'm in Queensland Sunshine Coast. So you know, we've moved fairway since then. But the irony is that people have lost the ability to write copy the new agents coming through a forgotten what a powerful tool that can actually be. So my encouragement to you, if you're a team and you're hearing it, spend some time perfecting your copy, and if they can't do it, there's no shame in that. Not everyone
Brian Charlesworth 24:04
Find someone who can, right?
Peter Schravemade 24:05
Yeah, that's right. And don't be ashamed about it. You know, you'll be better off for it. So yeah, that's my advice in copy
Brian Charlesworth 24:13
So, third step in marketing a home effectively.
Peter Schravemade 24:16
Yeah, let me throw this at you. So the the disgusting thing for me.
Peter Schravemade 24:31
Ease and I get up on my soapbox about this. I do apologize in advance. If you're in the car listening to me rant. There's nothing worse than hearing your aussie winch, but I'm 92% of Australian listings, both in sales, commercial residential real estate, have floor plans. In fact, there is a stat here in Australia that nine out of every 10 buyers would ignore a listing if it didn't have a floor plan attached to it. In the UK 83% of all listings have a floor plan attached to it. In the EU 72%. In fact, in Thailand 74% of all listings have a floor plan attached to it. In Thailand, a third world country now, the stat in America is less than 5% of MLS listings have a floor plan and why the heck is that? Ai?
Brian Charlesworth 25:17
His only 5% are new builds.
Peter Schravemade 25:21
What do you think it is here?
Brian Charlesworth 25:24
5%? I'm just saying that that's called the laziness of us not not going to the extra effort.
Peter Schravemade 25:31
Yeah, look, I don't I don't get it. I don't, I don't think it's that hard. And you're about to see that. Again, if you're in a you know, if you're in the car, I apologize in advance. But I'm showing a photo of a blueprint at the moment. It's really, if the property has a blueprint, it's it's fairly simple. You just take a snapshot of that with your smartphone, you send it to us we redraw it for $24 starts at $24. This next image I'm going to show you I use to demonstrate that even a 10 year old can draw a floor plan and you don't have to be a rocket science scientist, you don't need measurements, we have whole videos and tutorials on this on a blog, you can just draw your floor plan, you got plenty of I'm assuming that if you're hearing this, you've got a roof over your head. So you've got something to practice on immediately. You can take any kind of paper draw a floor plan, and we will redraw that for $24. It's not rocket science. Now, I expect agents after about five years to be at this standard, where they have graph paper. Now, this is a picture with graph paper. This is one I drew just before the end of my practicing a career as a real estate agent, I would use two pins, I became really ofay. With the symbols again, we have them at our blog, you can redraw that as a 3d floor plan. And that's $32.
Brian Charlesworth 26:48
So that's 3D floorplan, can you share that against that 3d floor plan is something it's $32. And you make that pretty much on every home? What if it's a two? What's it? What if it's a two level two storey home?
Peter Schravemade 27:00
Yeah, good question two levels in things like black and white and 2d textured, which is another another style that I haven't got up on the screen at the moment. They're 24 hour turnaround, and they are 24 and $28, respectively. When you go to second story in 3d, it does go up. So it's $32 per level. So you would be paid $64 for two level house? Good. It's a good question to ask. And by the way, the 3d floorplan is the first of our edits that sort of jump into the 48 hour territory. The rest of them are all overnight. The rest of them are what? All overnight, you will get them overnight. Okay. Yeah, we say 24 hours, but most of them, you know, those Twilight conversions, for example, I buy quite often come back in a matter of hours. Actually, really cool listing tool, Brian is I used to in so many listings doing this, I would drive past the house, I'd take a photo of the front of the house and I would Twilight convert that for dollars. So I would have a beautiful Twilight image of the front of the house, taking the day before mind you.
Brian Charlesworth 28:02
That's a great idea. Twilight images are $4. You say?
Peter Schravemade 28:05
Yeah, that's right. And I would make that the centerpiece of my CMA, when I came back to actually appraise the property. The other thing that I would do is either i'd either take a snapshot on my smartphone, or I'd ask them to text me a copy of their floor plan. If I had one, I didn't, I would go in for a first inspection and draw it. And I would get that redrawn for $32. So my my listing presentation, or my CMA, whichever I decided to put it in there would have a twilight converted image of the front of their house, and it would also have a 3d floor plan. And I mean, that's, that's 36 bucks of spin on it, but that it was never the next person coming after me that they were talking. Because I'd already demonstrated instantly that I was able to market, you know, their property to a high level. So that was, you know, just to just to throw a listing presentation trip I used to I used to win, like over 95% of the listings that I did, just using that one.
Brian Charlesworth 28:58
Well, I did a listing training today, actually, for a team. Because I used to be in real estate and use and they brought me in to do that. So we It's too bad. We didn't have this conversation last week. I'll make sure and relay this information forward. Yeah. Let's go on to the fourth important point.
Peter Schravemade 29:20
Yeah, so that was virtual tours, we talk about virtual tours quite a bit. Obviously, they've come to the fore. Since the pandemic period has been has been up there. Surprisingly, these sit at 42%. So if you go to the National Association of Realtors, home buyer and seller generational trends, about 42% of all generations, one of one a virtual tour that's high enough to include it, right. So that's well and truly in there. A lot of people don't do it for the fear factor. They don't have a virtual tour in in there for the fear factor. And there are tons of companies that do it these days. You know, everyone's heard of matterport all the way down. We also do virtual tours. It's He's something that we've added in the last three months, there's a couple of ways of doing it, you can get someone out there to shoot a virtual tour. And you will use whichever system they have, whether that's mo view or Rico to is it could be box Brown, it could be matterport, you will use that form or you can do it yourself. And I'm encouraging people, especially agents that having a 360 degree camera actually needs to be part of that toolkit. And it's not so much for the virtual tour that they need to have it, it's more for the freebies that you can do with a 360 camera that don't involve, you know, let's say matterport to so on your screen at the moment, you're saying I really Ricoh Theta V, which is the the 360 camera we recommend, it really doesn't matter which 360 camera you get we we can use all of them. The Ricoh Theta v does a really cool function called bracketing, which we spoke about a little bit earlier. And you will need a monopod. So nano pot is just a singular stand. Those two things will allow you to shoot 362 is and and if you're watching on YouTube, at the moment, you'll see one such one like this is a 362 that we do. The difference between our services and a lot of the ones that are out there is that we are no subscription. So every single product you hear about, there's no catches, there's no gimmicks, there's no minimum use of virtual to start at $16, they go through about 22. And you can use them on a pay per use basis. All you do is you take a photo using your 360 camera, you give that room a name and upload it to BoxBrownie.com. And we stitch that together
Brian Charlesworth 31:30
So you say 16 to $22. You're saying per room
Peter Schravemade 31:33
No for the entire tour
Brian Charlesworth 31:36
For the entire tour? Oh, wow okay
Peter Schravemade 31:38
And there's other cool things that we do, because we're the leaders in image editing, we can do things like virtually staged it, that's that's optional extras that you can pay for on top of that. But look, if you're an agent, and you're not using virtual tours, you get stuck into it, it's not a new technology, virtual tours have been around for now, the better part of two decades, they came to the fore in about 2010. So that 10 years old now in real estate, and they digest it is so easy to do it the the Ricoh Theta camera is about the size of my palm, it's got an eight hour battery life, you can put that up, you can take photos, you can upload those photos instantly to Facebook, you know, so people can actually get an immersive view of it. It's very interactive, you've seen at the moment some of the edits that we do for 360s, if you're watching, but yeah, I just encourage people to get stuck in I don't really care how you do it, whether it's actually us or someone else, the thing that's clear to me is your purchases are actually wanting to see it. It just it qualifies the person for the property in a much, much better sense than anything else. Full plans are also pretty good as in that regard. But, you know, like, let's say I go into a property. And for whatever reason I'm allergic to wood file, none of the photos include one, but in a 360, I can clearly see that there's one there, well, instantly, I'm not going to investigate that property. Or, you know, let's say that it's a particular type of flooring that I'm after the 360 camera will expose all of that, and it will tell me that I actually want it. So what the 360 to his do is they qualify people better for the property, people feel like they've already been to the property when they get there. And they can have a look through, you know, at any rate, so that that's why I encourage any kind of user to get into 360s. Get yourself a 360 camera, start shooting yourself, whether you put that up into a tour or not, or just Facebook. And one of the other things that will show you, which is a good segue into the last one which is video. By the way, we don't edit video, but one of the things that I want to show you is what you can actually do with a 360 camera in the world of video. So let me just get out of that you'll be seeing, I guess a gray screen at the moment, Brian, is that correct? Yeah. And now if you're listening to this, all I'm showing is a mate of mine from the Asian Real Estate Association of America. His name's Derek yen, and he has a 360 degree camera on a selfie stick. He's walking through a burned out house in San Francisco. And what you can see is me swiveling around this 360 degree video as he walks through. So I can pause at any stage I can look up or down, I can look left to right. It's not high quality, it doesn't have to be which is the beauty. Now he's talking to his purchases, who may not necessarily even be any city, but this is by far and away the fastest, the easiest and the best way to do a virtual tour of someone who cannot get through a property at that particular point. It is dynamite. And if you're looking to add video to your listing, well again, that 360 degree camera is going to be an absolute gem as far as that's concerned. Of course, if you don't have that, get your best smartphone, most of them recording 4k. Now, you know there are a bunch of things that you can get, you can get a gimbal to stabilize the view, but at the very minimum Just do slow sweeping pants at the property to give somebody an idea of what's in there, that would round out the top five, Brian, if you were able to do that, and here's my challenge. If you're able to do those five things on every single listing, you would sit in the top 2% of marketers in the US, if you were to do them on every listing, I see agents do them on one, maybe two, they'll do them on their high end listings, it's really not hard to develop an actual, I suppose process whereby this happens on a regular basis. So, you know, my challenge to team leaders, if you're listening to this, or even if you're just an agent, they these are five things that, you know, the purchase is a screaming us telling us we want to see, they don't seem hard, or, you know, in my experience as a practicing real estate agent, I know they're not hard to deliver. You know, if it's not you get someone else that is able to deliver this every single time. Of course, there are a bunch of other things that go with that their BoxBrownie do like virtual staging, and virtual renovation and use them but the five things that were spoken about today, tape, you know, make sure your photographs are excellent. set yourself apart doing that copies their floor plans, if you're not using one, you know, just give it a try. Just try the virtual tours, I'd encourage you to get stuck into those and videos. They're the Five golden things that purchasers want to see. And that's my challenge to you today is to do that on every listing. And by the way, if you if you want assistance on any of that, or you need me, I have a really distinctive last name. You can find me on all the socials except for Tinder and Grindr. So you're welcome to hit me up, abuse me for any of the content that you don't agree with. I'm always happy to hear feedback.
Brian Charlesworth 36:47
I love it. Okay, so ideally, I mean, who's your ideal customer? It sounds like any, any agent, right?
Peter Schravemade 36:54
Yeah, well, it depends on what I list. And that's the beauty, we can't charge a subscription. Because you know, you might like Brian, you might go out and list a house with furniture today. Have it professionally shot and have Twilight shoot diamond. And you know, maybe you might come to us for the floor plan. So there's not an indicative user, but then, you know, all night down the road might not have the budget for a professional photographer. So he'll go out he'll shoot using the new bracketing system that we've just shown him, he'll upload all these images will enhance those, we'll do a twilight conversion, we'll do virtual staging and remove items. If we have to remove tenants, furniture, things like that. We'll do a floor plan, any might choose to do a virtual tour. So you know, you might come to us just to have an image, virtual furniture put into an image, that's fine. use us as you see fit. I guess my challenge is just to better yourself in your marketing. Yeah. And I mean, if you can use us on the white happy days, but yeah, if you sitting there going on Top of the Pops, I'm By the way, if you are sitting there in your car, and you're thinking you're Top of the Pops, submit your submit your listings for free health check, and I'll tell you whether I think you're top of the box or not. So you can get a box bradie.com forward slash health. That's h EA l th, and you can submit your listings there, we'll give you a free report on where we think your marketing is at. It's not a sell. It's just simply as saying, you see here, out of out of out of 10 Oh, yes, we agree. You're awesome. Or there's improvement needed in this area. So if you're genuinely interested about improving where you sit in your marketing, We even offer that free health check. So take advantage of that.
Brian Charlesworth 38:35
Yeah, absolutely. That's, that's great advice, a great opportunity for anybody I believe. So make sure and go there you guys. I had a couple other questions for you just I was on your website, and I saw that you had trusted clients and you had all the major brands right? I mean, kW and etc. Right. Realty One was on there. I think other bs was on there leading on there. So REMAX these major brands are on there. Tell me about your relationships with them, or is that just some of their some of their agents are using you guys?
Peter Schravemade 39:07
No, actually, we have over 300 franchise partnerships. And that's not just in America, that's globally. We're in 96 countries. So it's hard to it's hard to sort of keep up with a lot of them. There are franchises that I've never heard of, you know, let's take some of the South African independence. I don't, you know, I don't know what they're not known well. And even some of our American franchise groups, they, you know, they're emerging, they're really not well, well known or well heard of, and most of those franchise agreements are well, all of them from a corporate level. That's where we prefer that agreement to happen. It allows us to do a bunch of things, but mostly it allows us to educate or offer education to the franchise members that are part of those groups to actually move them forward. And that that seems to be the massive asset. But you know, I suppose the other part about that is that there is no No one else. There's no one else in the property technology space, actually focusing on the marketing of the property. You could argue photography companies do that. And yes, they do. But they really just focus on that one service that they're offering. Whereas what we are doing is a comprehensive all in one, these are the things that you need to do to market a house. And probably in line with that, Brian, the other thing I'd say is, are you were in the US today, that when you go to become an agent, you sit a certification called an E Pro, it's a document that I have here, it's about 400 pages long. Now, within that document, there is absolutely no mention of how to market a house for sale. And just in another oxymoron, and I'm going to throw at you, it's the first thing you do in real estate school in Australia, it hasn't has a title to it, it's how to market a house for sale or lease. That's the first class that you will see it in real estate in Australia, also in the UK, and you know, all places around the world. But for whatever reason, your E pro certification with the NAR does not actually include how to market a house for sale. So, you know, we have found this market in the US. And we really, really try to force agents, team leaders, brokers, whoever it may be, to consider the fact that it's it, it is actually essential to, you know, bringing agents through the system. A lot of agents just prefer to get these buyer's agents on that all I deal with is the buyer. But can you imagine if every single one of them was skilled in actually how to sell a house, so they could actually funnel these listings in and once you control the listing, you control just about everything. So
Brian Charlesworth 41:42
So if I'm out there listening right now, and if I've watched this, and I've seen some of this stuff, I probably have an interest in learning more about this. If I go to your website, BoxBrownie.com And I see on BoxBrownie.com Hey, the brand that I'm with, has a relationship with you guys. What's my next step? Because maybe maybe this brand hasn't let me know if they have a relationship with you guys, am I better off just going directly to you guys? or What does that relationship actually do?
Peter Schravemade 42:10
Yeah, I guess in all of those instances, I'd encourage you to go back to the brand. And they they definitely have let you know that we're just I'm actually I'm actually the spearhead of that. So if if you don't know, it's because you haven't been reading your emails, um, or something like that. But yeah, look, the reality is go to your corporate ask ask them as to what it is. But I can't say that just as a general, a blanket, it's a publicly known fact, there are no discounted pricing. So the pricing is you see it on the on the website is what you're going to get, there will be incentives. So if you're a first time customer, and you with any of those franchises, yes, go back to them, or just send me an email, and I'll respond to you. And I'll let you know what the various deals are. But Peter@BoxBrownie.com is where you can find me. Just shoot me an email and say, Hi, I'm with x. What do you offer? And we'll go from there.
Brian Charlesworth 43:04
Okay, great. All right. So jumping out of that, I think you've done a great job of sharing with everybody what benefits they can gain on marketing properties, just for sure. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's been a great episode. Just a few last questions I wanted to ask you. And I and I always like to ask this question. I just want to know what your favorite book is, or your favorite source of learning. Because if you have a favorite, that's something that I like to take note of, and I will probably read that and maybe some of the some of our listeners will as well.
Peter Schravemade 43:32
Yeah, one of my most favorite guys in the whole world is a guy called Warren Tate. You guys might have heard of him. He's, he's an Aussie guy. He lives down in Melbourne, he's under harsh lockdown at the moment. And Warren Tate, right? He's written a book called I get you, which is all about the art of communication, I would highly encourage anyone to get a copy of that book. I'm not sure whether it's on Amazon. But again, if you can't find it, you can reach out to me and I'll put you in touch with the distributors, but a life changing book as far as I was concerned, because it allowed me to understand, I guess how I communicate it and not just with one person with a group of people from a stage at a booth, wherever I may be. There are things that we do that allow other people to understand what we're saying better. And you know, we're in this society at the moment I see it every day, especially with you guys coming close to an election, where people are tearing each other down on social media. It seems to be a national sport, not just for you guys, but here in Australia as well. There's this polarization that social media puts out there. books like this allow you to understand what the other person is saying better but also to eloquently communicate your point to that person without causing offence without leading into this tunnel of chaos where we get to hate each other. And, you know, on that line, I'm really passionate about people expressing some kind of empathy when they are communicating like what is Brian actually To me Now, why is he saying it, where he's coming from? Is there anything I can take from it, that I can listen to myself and actually, you know, improve the way I behave on a daily basis. And, and that's the gist of Warren's book is that he sits there and encourages you to be a better human, but use communication as the tool to get to that point. So life changing book for me, I really like it. It's not one that you'll hear a lot in the US.
Brian Charlesworth 45:24
Yeah, sounds like a great book. I'm gonna go download it right now. So if for some reason I'm not able to, you'll be an email from me.
Peter Schravemade 45:32
I'll put you directly in contact with this. Yes.
Brian Charlesworth 45:36
Yeah, that sounds like something that every everyone should listen to, especially in this day and age. And I mean, the reality is, no matter what your views are on politics or anything else, like there's, there's a, there's a civil war going on in the us right now around this election. And if everyone could just take a step back and look at the other side's viewpoints, I haven't read that book yet. I will read it. But yeah, I do take a step back and look at Okay, where is everyone actually coming from? Because no matter what the situation, people believe what they do for a reason. And it's just everybody's beliefs. It's there's no, there's no 100%, right? Hundred percent wrong. It's just
Peter Schravemade 46:16
Yeah, I agree. We need to be better at listening and empathizing. Just and that's not just my American brothers and sisters, that's worldwide. If we could just be better listeners and better at empathizing, you know, the old adage of walking a mile in that person's shoes, you don't know why they believe what they believe in. And, you know, I'm so sick of that if you this political party, the party, we can no longer be friends. That's so dumb. Don't Don't be that person, you know, take take the high road. Listen, that doesn't mean that you need to be weakened your belief structure, you can still believe what you believe. But absolutely the minute that you cut yourself off from another opinion, whether it's one that you don't like, and especially when you don't like you're a lesser person for it. So you know, approaching the election if you can do and also you're solid and just be talking to you humans, I'd really appreciate it.
Brian Charlesworth 47:10
That is awesome advice. I love it. So living in Australia. I'm guessing Australia is your favorite place. But I know you've been all over the US and probably around the world as well. So yeah, where is your favorite place to visit?
Peter Schravemade 47:24
Oh, well, you know, I still call Australia home. And that's really saying something I have traveled quite extensively I've lost track of the amount of countries that I've been to and that's not just in this job that Sam in in in a former life, I was quite an avid traveler. Let's go with the US. There are some places there I really like I'm a big fan of Colorado I I was a big fan of San Diego. It reminds me a lot of of Australia. I fell in love with a place called Charleston. I run the other coast. That was pretty cool. I didn't mind that. And I didn't mind Austin, but for very different reasons. They're probably my full favorite in the in the US. I look if you get a chance, though. There are a lot of beautiful places in America, stunning places. Canada Also, I'd encourage you, there's a lot of Americans who don't travel to Australia, simply because of the distance Well, you'd be locked down in your house for longer than that. So I'd encourage you to get on a plane when when and if you can and come and check this country added. It's rugged, it's there's something wrong about it. There's something very, very different. If the people were any more laid back here that'd be falling over. And there's a real there's a real refreshing generosity there. They're also quite blunt, they'll call a spade a spade. They'll tell you what they think. And there's you know that there's something refreshing about that there's something great coming home to the lady with the unashamedly Australian accent can't get I love how you gallon out of the plane. So look, if you get a chance come to Australia. Before you do, let me send you a business card. So it's a tax deductible business trip. But yeah, look, I am passionate about this land. We've got great barrier reefs. We've got mountains, we've got animals you you just might believe so. Yeah, come and check it out. Come and check it out. Say good. I I'm a big fan. But yeah, there. There are beautiful places wherever you choose to look in the world.
Brian Charlesworth 49:21
Yeah. Okay. Thanks for sharing that. It's a completely different perspective getting that from you. So thank you. So, last question I have is really what's your favorite thing to do?
Peter Schravemade 49:33
Well, I'm a musician. I, those of you who are listening on a podcast at the moment, can probably not see me but I'm in a recording studio here and I just turned the camera around. It's it's fairly heavily loaded up with musical instruments. Nice. And it's it's fully fledged like I have. I have a background in this and it's it's something I don't do, I suppose just as a hobby but actually do professionally so I enjoy playing music when I can I certainly have spent a lot of my life devoting it to the research of playing the piano. And you know, I have three children who do the same. So I quite enjoy a lot of that. And probably in a secondary sense, my wife and I still play in a soccer team every Monday and Thursday night. And that's, that's a lot of fun as well. So those two things would be right up there. It probably not just because of what they are but because of the link of the back to my family as well.
Brian Charlesworth 50:28
Yeah. Okay. Great. So you told us how to get a hold of you. I know it's Peter@BoxBrownie.com for those of you who need a reminder of that. And then one more reminder of where is the website we go to if we want to get a health check on our marketing.
Peter Schravemade 50:42
Yes, BoxBrownie.com/health, The other things I've alluded to on the phone call it will be or on the podcast is the blog. So boxbrownie.com/b. If you want any tools or assets that we hand out, like priceless, so things like that, you can go to BoxBrownie.com/PDF that's short for portable document file, BoxBrownie.com/PDF. And you can get all of those. So those three links are probably the biggest ones. If you run into any dramas, you've got my email address, we've got 24 hour customer service, chat and phone numbers on the website. So don't be strangers hit us up. If you Yeah, if you disagree with anything I say I'd love to hear from you as well. Fire through to me and we'll have we'll have a conversation. Maybe hook up a zoom call over a beer
Brian Charlesworth 51:31
Alright Peter, thank you for joining the show today. It's been a pleasure for all of you listeners out there. Don't forget, share this with your friends. Let them know this podcast exists. It'll allow us to get more guests like Peter from all over the world to come in here and share their expertise with you. So thanks, everybody, for listening, and we'll catch you all next week.
Peter Schravemade 51:53
Appreciate it. Bye.
