Overcoming challenges in your business: Advice from Real Estate Photographer Doug Logan

Are you looking to stand out from the competition? Need a proven way to gain market share with local real estate agents? Want to "wow" the real estate agents in your area and help their listings sell faster and for more money? 

Now more than ever, it can be difficult to grow your real estate photography business. Whether enticing new clients or impressing existing ones, the tools in your photography toolbelt often make all the difference. 

As founder of Fine Homes Photography, Doug Logan knows the difficult intricacies of the business landscape for real estate photographers. Since founding his business in 2011, Doug has photographed thousands of homes, many of them (upwards of 95%) including virtual tours or digital floor plans with iGUIDE. Doug believes that much of his business growth over the past few years is due to iGUIDE. 

Here’s his story: 

Initial Challenge 

Real estate agents must always make their listings or properties get noticed and stand out from the crowd. It's their stand-out ability that often makes listings sell. Gone are the days of relying on the “For Sale” sign on the front lawn and hoping a prospective buyer drives by and then makes an offer.  

What’s more, even the days of relying on catching a prospective buyer’s attention online are long gone. Every online listing looks the same and uses the same playbook. To stand out today, listings need something different and more than the standards of a decade ago. 

“I was looking for a way to differentiate myself. If you’re all doing the same thing, sometimes you need to find a solution that’s different to make yourself stand out,” Doug says. 

Doug saw an opportunity and sought out alternative offerings to not only distinguish himself from the competition but also his clients.  

Adding a 3D virtual tour and floor plan service to his business seemed like a promising way to achieve this. After researching iGUIDE in detail, he decided to become a service provider for the company.  

At the time, there was little competition in the market, and he found iGUIDE technology was the right fit.  

Discovering a solution 

The implementation process was straightforward, and the iGUIDE team was knowledgeable, friendly and helpful, making it easy to start offering the solution immediately.  

“iGUIDE was brought to my attention in 2015 by some associates that I had that were operating in the real estate industry at that time. I looked into it, and business took off from there,” Doug recalls. 

Today, Fine Homes Photography prides itself on giving realtors the modern-day, digital assets they need to win more listings, sell more homes and get more referrals. Since adding iGUIDE to his toolbelt, Doug offers more than images from a point-and-shoot camera.  

Home buyers nowadays demand more than still photographs. They demand more than outdoor pictures or aerial footage. Increasingly, buyers expect virtual tours and interactive floor plans. That’s why Doug uses iGUIDE.  

“In our market, our clients rely on the iGUIDE report for the floor area information and room measurements,” he says.  

iGUIDE enables Doug to be the hero for his clients, who then become heroes for their clients - the home-sellers and homebuyers. 

In the end, it’s Doug’s toolbelt that helps his clients win.  

By adding iGUIDE to his set of tools, Fine Homes Photography can help more real estate agents win by selling more homes for more money. 

Fine Homes Photography has a reputation for delivering high-quality digital assets (photographs and more) and delivering them quickly. These digital assets help agents sell homes more efficiently – faster and for more money. iGUIDE is the tool that helps Doug do that consistently for his clients.  

Seeing benefits and results 

One of the important ways that Doug stands out in his local market of real estate photographers is by leveraging iGUIDE to help his clients sell their listings faster and often more (than photos alone).  

Easy to use

Fine Homes Photography can give clients a simple, powerful tool. Real estate agents can easily upload or embed digital assets such as virtual tours or digital floor plans to multiple listing services. 

Moreover, clients (realtors) can add the files to social media or their websites quickly and easily.  

"The iGUIDE platform integrates really well with all the platforms necessary that a realtor would use to market their property,” Doug added. 

Easy to understand

With the ability to tour a property digitally, potential buyers can visualize themselves walking through the home from the convenience of their couch on their phone or tablet.  

With this built-in simplicity, buyers can easily understand and imagine life in the home. Instead of needing to book an initial tour to get a grasp of the space, buyers only need to reach out to the agent for a showing once they already know they’re interested in the property.  

From the user’s perspective, using the camera system is simple to use and easy to understand. You’ll capture an entire home within 15 minutes. 

Easy to teach

It isn’t only Doug at Fine Homes Photography. There are other photographers on his team as well. That’s why it’s been important to Doug that iGUIDE isn’t just easy to learn but easy to teach his staff. 

He says: "One of my favorite features is the speed and efficiency of the system. Not only learning how to use it, but how to teach it to other members of my team and to get the end results delivered to our clients very quickly.” 

With iGUIDE, Fine Homes Photography helps real estate agents become heroes by selling more homes for more money. It gives their listings the modern-day necessities of virtual tours and digital floor plans. iGUIDE allows photographers to add to their team with an easy-to-use tool that you can train new team members to use in minutes. 

Want to add iGUIDE to your team’s toolbelt, too? Book a free virtual demo with an iGUIDE Specialist to see how it can help your photography business grow.