Speakers: Ronn and Martin

Guest: Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton

Martin: All right, I hope everyone is ready for another jam-packed session of the multifamily podcast with Ronn and Martin. Today’s episode is going to cover the power of video marketing for apartments, with special guests and co-founders of show my property TV. These two sisters came to start one of the most sought-after digital marketing agencies in the multifamily industry, the yin to the yang of all things video marketing and immersive content. Christina singleton has traveled the globe, backpacking and teaching yoga. Now she develops badass products for the video and multifamily industry. And a singleton brings 10 plus years of experience in TV production, hosting and journalism, focused around the London UK area. It is my great pleasure to introduce the cofounders of show my property, Christina singleton and Anna Singleton. Welcome to the multifamily podcast.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Very excited to be here. We love all things multifamily. And we haven’t done a podcast for ages. So, thank you for the invite.

Martin: We can’t wait.

Ronn: That’s so awesome. Welcome to the show, ladies. Now I can’t wait. I know we connected earlier and but I can’t wait for you to share a good startup story. Can you share with us, how you two came up with the idea? I mean, working with your sister, I’m sure was like, do I really want this? So, what was the driving force behind it all?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Great question. And it was, I think, you know, I spend a lot of time speaking to multifamily business owners and none of us wake up one morning and say, we’re going to start a business in the apartment industry, tends to be some sort of weird, happy accident, which is exactly what happened here. I am obviously am from London, England, and I had moved over to Ventura, California. And at the time, I was a TV host and I was like oh cool. I’m gonna live in LA, I’m just going to be like this famous TV, hosted by British accent and I’m gonna be like presenting on NBC within a year. Didn’t happen, obviously. And I moved over and I was living in this pretty nice apartment, on the oceanfront in Ventura. And it was never that full and I had no friends. I didn’t know anyone here. And one day, I went into the property manager’s office and I was like, hey, what do you do with your marketing because I don’t really understand why these apartments are always empty. And we looked at her like, terrible old website and there was just nothing going on with it. The photos are bad and I said, I’m actually a TV host. I was like, I would love to make you a video, where I like interview the tenants and show my apartment. And obviously I’d made my apartment super cool. I was like you do not have to buy it, just let me do it because I’m bored, she was like, okay. So, I made this video and I was like, I sometimes watch it back now. It’s somewhere on YouTube, it’s really cheesy. And I’m like, hi, welcome to the beachfront apartments and this is in 2009, right, so multifamily was not doing video in any way. So, I made the video, I gave it to her. And then about a week later, this guy calls me and he says, hi, I’m the CEO of ICI apartments, you made a video for one of my properties. It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this, I have 15 more apartment buildings, I would love 15 more videos, boom, show properties. I was like, yes, sir, wonderful. I have something to do now for the next two months. So yeah, then I spent two months driving around the high desert of California of filming all these 15 videos with my like, no money and you know, tiny camera crew. And then from there, that was you know, 12 or so years ago, Christina came on after three or four years. And you know, we firstly deployed video in every city and stay and then we’ve added social media, we’ve added renderings, we’ve added photography, so we’re always trying to kind of keep up with what’s going on. So yeah, that was the happy accident of show my property TV. 

Martin: I love that.

Ronn: That’s a great story.

Martin: I’d love a good startup story. Yeah, I think we all can agree that video marketing is vitally important for all communities in today’s age. But do you think the multifamily industry is fully utilizing video marketing to its fullest potential?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yes and no. And I hope it will eventually be yes. But the way that I see it is, if we just focus on like mid-tier first, some mid-tier communities are, maybe they don’t have the best asset to show, but I find they really utilize video very well. At that level, they often really utilize casting actors, models, using people to really showcase the lifestyle. And they seem to invest quite well at that mid-tier level. But again, some people do and some people are not utilizing it at all. And then at the sort of high budget lease up level. These are the people you really want to look at and they are, some of them really utilizing it, investing in great website videos, great social media video campaigns, then spreading those videos is out throughout their digital marketing strategy as well. But again, some are investing in some on and it’s just like some marketing directors speak the language of video fluently, and others don’t talk it at all. So, I always advise people to just start learning the language now. Because as the, you know, as everything progresses like Tik Tok, the more fluent people are now, the easier it’s going to be for them later.

Ronn: That’s awesome. Yeah, and obviously, shooting and producing the actual video at any committee could be challenging, especially if they don’t have the assets, right? Especially in your managing the whole process. So, things can come up like bad weather, I’m sure. I mean, you mentioned Ventura. So, I’m like, I wonder if the weather was good that day, right, and they probably just is not ready for their close up, maybe they don’t have the right cool equipment out there, or they’re waiting for things to show up. So, what are some best practices communities can implement, when they’re preparing for their properties for the video shoot, to make sure the whole process goes as smooth as possible, and not waste your time too.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): It’s such a great question. And I spend my life figuring out processes of how best to make this happen. We have refined this process over the many years, we have shot 1000s of apartment community videos. So, the first thing we do is offer, basically a weather guarantee, you know, we don’t want someone to spend, you know, $5,000, $10,000 on a video, and then the weather looks bad, it just doesn’t look good. So, we say to everybody, if the weather looks bad, we’ll soak it up, we won’t shoot, we will come at different days. So that’s something that we offer, because it is just really important. If it’s really cloudy, and it doesn’t look nice. There’s nothing we can do about that in the edit. So that’s the first thing. And then I think there’s often this kind of communication issue between the marketing director and the onsite team. And we all know how multifamily is, right, the marketing director can be in a different state. And maybe they haven’t been there for a while. And the marketing director, like Christina says, maybe speaks the language of video and potentially the on-site team don’t. 

So, I mean, we make videos about videos about preparing your property for this process. And it’s like, we have checklists, guys, the landscaping needs to be open, the leaves need to be out the pool, the patios need to be washed out, for some beds need to be in the straight line. Like there’s so much to making it look good that people kind of forget or don’t realize, there’s been numerous times when we’ve turned up on the day of the shoot and on site weren’t even sure that you know, we were coming that day or they got confused. So, I think having amazing communication between video team, marketing and on site is the most crucial thing. And you know, we send all of our client’s checklists of everything, you know, you can shoot an amazing video, and there’s two wrinkles in the bedsheet, and then the video doesn’t look good anymore. So, like the beauty is in the detail, we say and we’re very good at, you know, making sure everything looks good, but it is for the most part up to the property to be kind of shoot ready, as we call it. So those are kind of some of the things we do to make it go seamlessly. 

Ronn: I’m sure that checklist, you have to send it to everybody to like you said, marketing director, operations, on site.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah. And now you also have to sign it, to say that you got it. Yeah. Exactly.

Martin: That makes total sense. I love the way you guys put that together. I mean, you guys have probably seen it all as well. You’ve seen every different thing that could go wrong. So having that checklist being updated on the daily, you know, it’s good for them and you guys to make the process a little easier. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): We have like a laugh in the office of like, things that people ask us to Photoshop out of a video, you really can’t Photoshop out a video. There’s like a totally unmade bed that somebody accidentally shot or like the running machine that doesn’t work with the caution tape around it. Can you Photoshop that? No, no, we can’t guys, it’s not possible process.

Martin: That’s like Photoshop is taken away everything but holy cow. So once the video is created, now comes the fun part of getting it out there to everyone so they can all see it. Now we know Google provides like a universal search engine, indexing all types of files like websites, PDFs, and even video content, with YouTube being the main powerhouse at the moment. You also have the rise of Tik Tok and Instagram TV. So now you have more places to promote your video content, even Google Ads offers YouTube ads and YouTube short ads now. So how can communities get the most of their video content and even repurposing it for social media and other digital marketing campaigns?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): So, this is a great question. And I really hope that more people will listen to this answer and apply it because only a few people do. It is all about a bigger picture. So, before you film a video, know where that is going to end up. If you know it’s going to end up on a, you know some of the places that you just mentioned, all of the places, you want to talk to your PPC vendor and find out exactly how long these mini videos need to be on these ads, on all of these different platforms. If you then come to a video vendor with all of those different lengths for the different platforms, your video vendor can create your beautiful video for your website, and then cut it and slice it into these micro videos in all their different lengths. And the beautiful thing is, is let’s just say we create a website video. And then we create 30 mini videos for all of these different platforms and ads. Five years down the line, if your property looks the same, you can re-edit those videos with different messaging on the top and still keep repurposing them. So, you can stretch your dollars so far with a bigger picture plan.

Ronn: That is great feedback. Oh my God, I hope everybody was listening. If not rewind it a little bit.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): That is great feedback. Oh my God, I hope everybody was listening. If not rewind it a little bit.

Ronn: Because we are one of the PPC vendors out there and we too believe in having great content. So, we’re going to talk a little bit more about that. To be able to promote, you know, and get your maximum ROI out of it. So yeah, and again, to your point, it can have a life of its own even, you know, years later, that’s huge. So people that are out there wondering like how much do I have to spend? Wait, how much does it cost? You’re like really listened to that answer and really maximize your return on the investment. Yeah, cuz we’re always asking for it, right man? We’re like video content, anybody?

Martin: Lacking in a lot of ways video still.

Ronn: For sure.

Martin: We need more of it.

Ronn: So, I am speaking of which, obviously, the pandemic really reset the world and really pushed us to become more familiar with technology, including a Zoom meeting, like we’re on right now to record our podcast, even learning more about the power of video and creating tours for, that you can view actually on smartphones. So, when did your team actually release your smartphone tour? And how did it simplify leasing apartments virtually during these times? Because that’s the newest wave, I believe.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, well, we came up with something called a smartphone tour, probably about two weeks into the crazy part of the pandemic. So, we, you know, we have hundreds of video shoots going on at all times. And then suddenly, videographers didn’t want to go out. Everybody was scared. Nobody wanted to let anybody in. And there was this, like, complete shutdown, that everybody needed to carry on leasing. So, our clients were calling us, freaking out, like, what can we do right now. So, we were like, okay, we’re going to teach you how to shoot something that’s pretty good on your smartphone, with a small amount of equipment, you’re gonna go and do that and send it to us. And then we’re gonna use the footage that you’ve shot to save anybody having to go on site, at the time when people couldn’t. And we’re gonna create that into what we call a smartphone tour. So, we priced it, very affordably. And, you know, we had a ton of clients signing up their whole portfolio because, you know, how else are we going to show these apartments right now, people can’t come in and do tours. So, it was a real kind of just moment of brilliance in the pandemic, it helped a ton of our clients out and we kept the product, you know, because it is super affordable. And, you know, a lot of times people don’t have time to go and filming themselves, and they don’t want to, but equally, a lot of times, they don’t have the budget for one of our higher price videos. 

So, we kept that as a super affordable option. And you know, we always say here, have something rather than nothing. If you have a tiny bit of budget for video, let’s go, let’s shoot it ourselves, like we’ll show you how to do it. And we’ll jazz it up and edit and still make it look great. So, it was a nice thing. And it also just opens up that world of video, not just to the you know, high end lead subs, but to everybody. So yeah, we were really happy with coming out with that product. It was actually a really amazing, memorable moment. So COVID, pandemic, everyone’s at home, but Anna and I were still going to the office and like the phone wasn’t ringing and we were worried okay, much like a lot of businesses were and we were just like cycling a bike around our lonely office. And then anyway, came up with this idea marketed it, guys, within like an hour, our office turned into, just me and her Wolf of Wall Street Style, 150 videos, 250 videos. It was such an amazing, like, weeks of like all of that craziness and it turned into a silver lining, right, total silver lining.

Ronn: I think that’s amazing because if anything, if anybody learned anything during the pandemic, it’s the power of pivoting in any model, right? Yeah. And so that’s I mean, I literally have chills thinking about it, because that is an amazing feat to get through and realizing hey, you know, you could still be a value to the customer, to the end user really, I mean, we all relied on a lot of that technology again, in the beginning of the, when our worlds, you know, virtually shut off.

Martin: Yeah, I remember in the multifamily industry, when that first hit man, everyone was panicking scattering and we had to like, you know, calm them down from like taking the job and just telling them, hey, now more than ever you need digital content, you need to be marketing on Google. You have no other choice, your website’s your most important promotional tool at that point.

Ronn: We had some people saying, turn off their ads, they’re like, turn off our ads. We’re not gonna leave because we’re closing our office. And then like, literally two weeks later, where’s our traffic? We’re like, Yeah, they do. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, that’s funny. 

Martin: So as the world goes more virtual, where do you see virtual reality and leasing going into the future? How’s it being utilized today and how could it be utilized tomorrow?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): So virtual reality is an interesting one, it’s sort of blew up a while back and became, you know, it built a lot of traction. I personally feel like it’s died down a little bit. And the trend has calmed down, because it’s expensive. Okay. And like, you know, certain areas of the industry don’t have that type of budget. So, I personally feel that VR is sort of dabbled with at the moment, especially at the lease up stage of things. But you know, as we move towards this new centralized leasing structure, I foresee that VR is going to become less expensive, way more accessible, and really used, you know, as part of that process. And I think it’s going to become extremely popular. I don’t think it’s going to become as popular as video. But definitely getting up there.

Martin: Yeah, I’m excited for virtual reality. I mean, you have the metaverse and all that stuff going on. So, I imagine someday somebody’s setting up some kind of virtual shop where you could actually virtually look at these apartments in your Oculus or something like, in like the metaverse. So, I see that come in one day. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): For sure.

Ronn: I still get like seasick when I’m in those.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, also the over 30s we get, we all fatigued.

Ronn: Yeah, it’s like caution, do not drink and drive, you’re with them Oculus. Well, I’m excited for this next chapter because for the multifamily podcast first, we’re gonna do a quick Q&A. I hope you guys are ready. Couple of short answers here and a series of questions for our audience. So, if you guys don’t have your pen and paper down, just get ready. How much should I spend on video marketing and how can I track the ROI?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): You should spend all of your budget on marketing, you should spend absolutely as much as you can afford and you know, I think with ROI and video, it is typically very difficult to track dollar for dollar right, but let’s just say this, if you have somebody who’s come to see your apartment, and they’ve been on your website, and they’ve watched the entire apartment on video, they are 100% qualified lead, there is really nothing more that you need to do apart from show them the lease, you know, they’ve seen it, so the more you can spend the better you can look online, it’s just lead qualification before they come through the door.

Ronn: Yeah, I know for sure, that’s the great one. Another follow up to that would be how long should my video be and how many videos do I actually need?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): I’m trying to keep this concise. Website video should be between 30 to 60 seconds, you really only need one. Social media videos for feeds, should be no longer than 60 seconds, you need about one a week. Insta Stories, should be no longer than 15 seconds, you need one a day.  Tik Toks should be between seven and 15 seconds, guess what? You need three a day. And LinkedIn videos, just for the more you know, professional side of things should be about 30 seconds and about one a week would be great.

Ronn: Those are some great stats, honestly. Yeah. And again, I like how you segment it like how much more demanding it could be on social side. Buckle up, get ready.

Martin: Tik Tok being the most demanding.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Ronn: Yeah, I knew of you guys but I fell in love with you guys, when you did the Tik Tok at Aim. And I was like, oh my God, they’re brilliant because you broke it down. And you told the good, bad and ugly about it. All right. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Right. Right. That was a journey. 

Ronn: Yeah, people were so excited. I mean, the people we were talking with before and after about that entire thing, was so much buzz around it. But they were honestly afterwards scratching their head like oh my god, the girls. Yeah, exactly. So, what’s the most important item to show in my video to make the biggest impact?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): It’s a great question and it’s something we go back and forth with our clients. We say, let’s show the best quickly. Let’s not show every single detail. Let’s show the highlight real, let’s get them in the door. So, the best amenities and the modal unit is what we tried to push. There was this kind of time, maybe like three or four years ago, where all the clients wanted to show every single thing in the apartment. And it was like, because no one wants to watch a four-minute video. So, the highlight really quickly, is my answer.

Ronn: That’s a good one. And then overall, how long does the process take to create a cinematic video from start to finish on average? I’m sure it can vary. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Of course, it varies on a million different factors. But without actors, we could turn around a video between two to four weeks, with actors, will turn a video around between, about four to five weeks.

Martin: And how common is it for you to get actors for these videos? Is it like 50/50 split between the actors or are they gonna do it themselves?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, it’s really the, you know, our higher priced videos, our kind of luxury videos, you know, with drones and actors, and they, the actors activate the space, you know, it’s essentially commercial, you don’t want to see an empty kitchen, you want to see someone having a lovely coffee and enjoying their life. So, we’ve really seen like, a big swing towards those kinds of videos. And the last, I would say, one to two years, we’ve really seen more.

Martin: Well, how do you find all these actors like, nationwide?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): We have our very lengthy casting processes. And you know, truthfully, there’s a lot to it, because, okay, who’s the audience? We’ve got to keep fair housing at top of mind all the time, right? Even if you have one or two actors who is going to be very careful with that. So yeah, we just have a big network of kind of actors and how we find them. And then we let our clients pick, you know, so we’ll, it’s like, it’s like a movie, you know, here are 10 to pick from, you guys pick the three that you want. And then not only is it pick the three that you want, but then we have to dress them, you know, they have to look the part, the dress has to match the city and also the people that are going to watch the video. So yeah, there’s a lot that goes into it.

Martin: A lot involved.

Ronn: Yeah, definitely bringing brick and mortar to life and you’re selling a lifestyle. So, I can only imagine that that process is huge, right?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Huge. And again, just so important that they’re becoming the faces of the property. They’re representing the property in that video. So, you know, it’s always good to be somewhat aspirational too, isn’t it? It’s like, oh, I want to hang out with them. I want those guys to be my friends. Those are the kinds of people I see myself living next door to, so yeah.

Ronn: Do you ever have actors that say like, wow, I never thought I’d shoot a video for apartment.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): They know they have the best day of their lives. By the end of the video, they’re like, oh my God, we want to live here and they’re wearing fancy clothes all day. And they’ve got this like hot fake girlfriend next to them. They’re like having wine on the balcony and the drone comes in. They’re like, this was our best day ever.

Ronn: Like, can I have the footage from my own social media?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Totally. They want it. They want it. So, it’s fun. 

Ronn: Well, speaking of social media, we did talk a little bit about this a few seconds ago, but about Tik Tok for marketing, for apartments is obviously definitely a hot topic in the multifamily industry. As I mentioned, you’re a great topic at AIM. And it goes right along with our video topic today. So, can you share any new initiatives with Tik Tok and the type of results you have been seen on your end with these communities finally embracing the platform?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): You know, the initiatives on Tik Tock are consistently released video, I mentioned this earlier, you need three videos a day. And also, I know that within that the Tik Tok platform, we’re seeing really great results with the Tik Tok ads. So, you need a strong ad strategy, good budget and consistently releasing video. And with those videos, and I mentioned this at AIM, this is the way it is on Tik Tok. We released videos that were Property Tours in the Tik Tok style. They got really good engagement with no money behind them. And then we released videos that were using the onsite property staff and we were using trending sounds and the onsite staffs’ personalities and faces within these videos. When we were jokey, light hearted and being quite brave with comedy, that’s when we saw engagement shoot through the roof. So again, it’s tricky with Tik Tok because some areas of the multifamily industry don’t like to step outside of their brand. And with Tik Tok, you do need to lean towards the slightly unprofessional personality. 

Ronn: That was air quotes, folks. That’s awesome. No, that’s great feedback. And I think you’re right. I think sometimes because we’re focused, meaning marketers are focused on brand, one on one, we always think that we have to stay within the box. But I think to that point, we kind of got to get a little bit more creative and fun and brave.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah. And it’s, you got to lean into it and it’s tough. It’s really tough, like when we were doing the Tik Tok for our clients and we came up with some videos, and we like our clients to approve every single thing before it goes out. Because, you know, sometimes we are a little bit too out there. And there were some videos where they were like, no guys like you’ve taken this too far. This is no, okay, we’re like really lent into the Tik Tok. And a few of them, we kind of push back and they’re like, no, like, let’s try it, you know, and they landed well, but then you’ve got that kind of argument between like, you know, ownership and then marketing and you know, that whole thing and you need really strong personalities on site to pull off a good Tik Tok like, because they’re the ones in it, and then you got the possibility that they might leave, you know, so there’s just a lot to think about when it comes to Tik Tok, but you just have to be fun. And you have to begin system.

Ronn: That’s awesome. And the ROI is there. It seems like.

Martin: Yeah, have you guys played around with YouTube shorts by chance?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): No. Well, have we? Well, we’ve done, yeah, we’ve done YouTube ads. Yeah, so very short videos, we used to do a lot more of them actually, a few years ago than we do more recently. But again, it’s kind of a flashback to what I was talking about earlier. A lot of clients aren’t coming to us with a bigger picture for their ad strategy and for their video marketing strategy. And like, yes, we have all of the ideas here. But we need more buy in from our clients. So, I’ve actually spoken to other PPC vendors out there and being like, tell your clients what video length they need for these ads and for the shorts, and we will do it. So, I leave that to you guys.

Ronn: Love that, we’re here for it. 

Martin: Yeah, we’ll have to see which clients we share together.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, probably many.

Martin: Yeah. So now let’s pivot and get into some other questions around startup life. As women co-founders, what were some early challenges you face when starting your company and how did you overcome them?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Oh, my goodness, I mean, business ownership, what can I say? It’s like a whole thing. You guys know, we had like a whole chat about this before we started the podcast, right? Like, the do’s and the don’ts, the trials and the tribulations. I mean, I think the same as everybody, we bootstrapped the company, we don’t have investors, we completely own the whole thing. So, when you’re trying to do that at the beginning, it’s you know, I talked about driving around the high desert with my cheap cameraman to shoot the first 15 videos, you know, it was tough, but like, that’s like, when it’s really fun. You’re like your boots on the ground, you’ve got to figure out everything else yourself. And then as your company grows, and then you get team members, and then suddenly you have like, 25 staff, and then it takes on his own personality, that you can kind of no longer control and all the things that you were wondering, you know, you have to do differently. 

So, we grew in a way fast, but in a way not, we didn’t take investment and blow up really quickly. So, it was somewhat organic growth. But I think all growth is difficult, you know, we’re always testing out new products and trying to stay ahead of the curve. So that in itself has its challenges. And I think, for us as being a video company back in the early days, like trying to convince people now sometimes that video has great ROI is tricky. You know, 11 or 12 years ago, it was like that was a that was the whole job. It was like even just telling them where they could put video and how do they get it on a website. So, we really felt like we educated the entire industry on how important this was and you know that was a challenge but it was a cool challenge. And I think like for me, I ran the company, by myself for so many years and then when I was pregnant with my first child. I mean, I have business ownership, trust issues coming out my ears. So, I called Christina and I was like, you need to move to America and handle this company for a bit because I need to have a baby right now. And there wasn’t anyone else I would trust her, then she came on and you know, running it as sisters is been so much more pleasurable than running it by myself, just having a solid partner to bounce stuff off and talk about ideas and, and grow together has been honestly the best part of it. I couldn’t imagine. I mean, how long have you been on board now?

So, eight years, is amazing. Because we are so different and we are so good at completely opposite things. And we both know where our strengths and weaknesses lie. And she nails all my weaknesses and vice versa. So, we have this great trust with each other. And also, we have the exact same sense of humor. So, we find everything the same, so it’s just like whenever we have bumps in the road, which we always do because it’s business, we’re able to laugh at it together in the same way.

Martin: That’s beautiful.

Ronn: That’s awesome. You’re like get to work, that’s my weakness Yeah. Let me get back in my lane. What a beautiful story. I love that part. So, who came up with the name show my property.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): It’s kind of funny, I think how anyone comes up with any business name is again, it’s down back to those like sort of happy accidents. So, in the beginning, when I made the first video, I was always trying to make the apartment look like it had been featured on a TV show, because that was the background I came from. And in England, we use the word property for any retail building, commercial building, everything comes under the word property, which isn’t really the same here. So actually, once we got into it realized doesn’t actually make that much sense in America, as it does in England. But you know, by then it was kind of too late. So, we just, we kept the show my property and the only URL that was available was.tv. But then it kind of worked, because it was this whole TV show. And I swear to you, and I’m sure you guys have been through this in some way. I have spent the last 12 years trying to buy show my property.com from this random man in Ireland, who doesn’t even use it and just will not give it to me. I think he’s just trying to be annoying. So yeah, I’ve tried to get the .com. But yeah, the show my property.tv has just kind of stuck. And honestly, most of our clients and kind of in house, we go by SMP. So yeah, it’s just.

Martin: Totally irrelevant .TV and that it was available when you bought it. So, you were able to scoop it up without having to go to the secondary market. So, that’s a plus. So, if he didn’t give you, he just didn’t respond when you wanted to reach out for the.com 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Oh, no, he responds, and then he sometimes pretends he’s gonna sell it to me, then he sort of makes up numbers, and then he like disappears for a couple of years.

Martin: Did he ever throw out a number?  

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): I think he threw out a really ridiculously high number once and I was like, okay, I’m gonna come back to 1 million. Yeah, he was using it in the beginning. And he could obviously see that I wanted it because that’s the name of my company. And then, you know, I’m gonna check back in because it’s been a while. So, I’ll update you as.

Martin: Now might be a good time.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, now is a good time. If anyone knows him, put in a good word for us.

Martin: Can each of you recommend one book that made a profound impact on your life, something our audience may like to read or add to their list.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Okay, I’ll go first. So, my dad gave both of us this book, actually, I was 19. When my dad gave me Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it’s a classic. Everyone’s heard of it. If you haven’t read it, you have to read this book. And please give it to your children. It is about the difference between a liability and an asset, financially. So not only is this book been embedded within me, financially, about how I spend my money, what I put my money towards. So, I’ve always liked to live quite modestly, but enjoyably, but when I moved to Los Angeles, which is the most or one of the most materialistic and expensive, image focused cities in the world, to have this really strong ethic within me about not, you know, not falling prey to spending all my money on image and the flash things has been, it’s just really, really important to me. And I like that book. We’re actually going to bring out our own version, rich sister, poor sister. 

Martin: I love it. Go for it.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): I always find this question so hard, right? Because there’s so many books, and there’s so many genres. And you know, we all have our audible accounts. And we just like taking two books a week at this point. But I think a book that I’m always in the middle of is traction, which is kind of known mostly to business owners. And it’s this kind of way to, you know, once you have a business of a certain size, you know, how to run your teams and how to run meetings well, and I’m in an entrepreneurs group called Entrepreneurs Organization, and a lot of the business owners in their run completely off traction. So, I’m always kind of dipping in and out of it. And I, we do not run the company completely on traction, but we use a lot of it. And it’s always just nice to refer back to it. And, you know, when you start a company, most company owners haven’t gone to business school and don’t have that business degree. So, it’s kind of nice to have a framework to kind of go back to, so I would recommend that book, if you wish to start a company. And you know, who recommended that book to me was Dimitri from Noc. Yeah, nice to meet you. who recently got acquired.

Ronn: You definitely read it and probably rewrite it. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah.

Martin: Picking that up.

Ronn:  I texted him, right that same day. I was like, congrats brother, drinks on you. Exactly. So, one final question. It’s probably one of my favorites also, for you guys to share any kind of major news updates, product releases, that we should know about you want to share today?

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah, I’m really excited by this question. So, as I mentioned, everyone thinks of us as a video company, but we’re actually a full-service digital agency, doing video, photography, social media management. And the two things we recently added, the two services we added. Number one is virtual tours. So, people have been asking us for years, do you do virtual tours? And we’re like, we don’t want to do that. But we finally have absolutely mastered it and released this incredible virtual tour product to the industry. So, it’s your click through capabilities. So, you can click through your potential community. And what is so exciting for me about this service is, a lot of our products, well, all of our products are really, really good quality products, which is also meant that it comes at a certain price tag, and that we’ve been really serving like class B, and up properties. But now with our virtual tour, offering, it’s accessible to all price tags. So, we’re now able to basically go after world domination with our virtual tours. And the other thing I’m really excited about is, with our social media, we have created an incredibly refined lease up strategy, which basically takes a community’s from whenever they want to go live, we advise, you know, a year to six months before doors open. And the strategy is all focused on building your following. There’s no point releasing 100 posts to people that are not going to see it, we need to find those really incredible people, that are going to be engaged in everything. So, we’ve just actually launched our first one recently, I had a call with a client yesterday. And she was like lowest bounce rate we’ve ever seen. You’re in the top 10 counters for our lease up success so far. So winning.

Ronn: That’s amazing.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Yeah. And actually, there is one more thing you guys can have a worldwide exclusive on this, because, we have not announced it to the world but we are launching it right now. And we’re super excited about it. So, you know, we’ve been going like 10 or 11 years and we’ve not really been doing enough kind of charity work or giving back as a company like we do you know, our bits of volunteering here and there. But we’re launching at the moment you know; we sell a lot of clients will come to us for 10, 20, 30 photography packages or video packages. So now when anybody, when any client buys 10, or more video shoots or photo shoots, we are going to donate a photo shoot or a video shoot to a charity of their choice. So, it gets our clients to say, hey, I support 10 you know, videos using you know, the company’s money, but you know, maybe my dad had cancer and I feel really strongly, so I can personally now donate a video and photo shoot to that course. So, our teams really excited about doing it and we’re really excited about giving back in kind of the way that we know how. So that’s kind of getting launched right now. So, we’re stoked about that.

Martin: That’s a whole Another way to make impactful content right there. 

Ronn: Yeah. It’s a win, win, win. 

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Exactly.

Martin: Thank you, Christina and Anna, for taking time out of your day to speak with us and our audience about all things video marketing, immersive content and entrepreneurship. We look forward to watching your company grow and seeing your continued success. Ronn, any final thoughts?

Ronn: Yeah, I just wanted to say, it was such a pleasure to connect on the podcast, connect before, you guys have an amazing story. I relate to a lot of it. We’re also bootstrapped. So, anything and any time you want to share any kind of like war stories, I’m sure we could definitely grow from.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Oh, we definitely going for drinks. 

Ronn: Yeah. But I’m so proud of you guys. Congratulations. And yeah, definitely keep up that continued success.

Co-Founders of Show My Property TV (Christina Singleton and Anna Singleton): Amazing. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. We love multifamily and we’re always happy to talk about it. So, thank you so much for having us.

Martin: Don’t forget to head to ShowMyProperty.TV to get their services and see how they can help you build more immersive video content today. Until next time, you can find us and subscribe at MultifamilyPodcast.com and get your Free SEO marketing analysis at ApartmentSEO.com. Till next time, bye everyone.