Julian Sage (00:00):

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about professional photos versus phone photos. So stay tuned.

Julian Sage (00:06):

Vacation rental machine helps hosts just like you learn how to start, grow, and scale your short term rental business. The show’s all about creating systems that help you automate your business, give any more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living the vacation rental life, then subscribe to this podcast today, come and join us on our Facebook group, the host nation, where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.

Julian Sage (00:33):

Hey, welcome back, host nation to another episode of vacation Rental machine. I’m Julian Sage and I’m with Jon Bell and we are talking about if you should be taking professional photos right away or if you can get by with some maybe some really good phone photos. Jon, what’s your experience with taking photos on your phone? Have you noticed the difference versus phone photos versus professional photos? What are your thoughts?

Jon Bell (00:53):

Yeah, you know, we covered a pretty good segment on this within VRM, but that was really before the iPhone 11 pro came out. That’s the one with the three cameras where you could really kind of zoom out and really capture everything that’s in this space. But I’ll tell you this, my opinion still has not changed. We are to get professional photos almost from day one. The only exception I would suggest is if you’re pre-listing your place, if before you get the professional photos done, maybe you have the living room set up and you just want to kind of just post the photo and say coming soon, I’ll allow you to take those photos with your phone, with some editor that you can put your text on there, but do not over post photos of just the unfinished space. That is a no-no.

Jon Bell (01:45):

Again, we are in the business of selling photos, so we want to make sure our best foot is forward. That’s why we have to be professional photos. You just can’t do what you can do with the real camera. With the phone. They’re getting a lot better, but it’s just not the same thing. You need those wide angles. You need the right type of lighting, you need those DLSR style images. It’s just so much to do, but really just leave it to a professional. I think one of the big mistakes is that people aren’t investing into their businesses.

Julian Sage (02:20):

One of the things that I like to say is that you have a hook and a story and an offer in your listing, so you have to hook people in with the photo. In your description. There has to be a story. There has to be some way that people are feeling like this is a place that I need to go to. It has the Netflix that has a hot tub in it. It’s right by the right by downtown. That’s your story and then your offer is your price. Your offer is going to be like, Hey, well I have all of this and this is what the price is going to be. This is why you should stay with us and if you’re not investing in your hook, which is your photos, then you better have a really killer story and offer to go with that.

Julian Sage (02:55):

But if your hook is awesome and your story in your offers really good, maybe offers a little bit more, maybe your pricing a little bit higher. Well, let’s, because you have an awesome hook and an awesome story that your price can be a little bit higher, but if your hook is bad and your story and your offer is pretty decent, then people are gonna want to stay with you. But if you have all three together, people are going to pay a premium for your listing because it’s going to, it’s not going to be like anybody else’s. It’s going to be yours.

Jon Bell (03:19):

And by saying investing in your business, we’re not telling you to go out and get like one of those great cameras. If you don’t know how to use it, don’t do it. It’s a waste of money. You’ll be better off paying a professional photographer to come and take those photos for you and edit them.

Jon Bell (03:37):

I mean, there’s a lot that needs to happen sometimes in editing. You do want to set your place up to look good without so many edits. That means you might need to iron a Duvet or you might need to like turn all the lights on just to make sure it’s well lit. You just don’t want to just make this something that’s wrong. You know it’s, it’s gotta be right. You gotta get people in the door the best way to do it. Julian said it best, you can’t really take photos with your phone and then be priced higher than everybody else. Your story is wrong, right? It’s like, Hey, I shortcutted this. What else did I shortcut?

Julian Sage (04:14):

And one of the other things that we always talk about is that you want to be able to maximize your time. So if you are spending this time and trying to take photos and edit them, that’s time that you’re taking away from being able to scale the business.

Julian Sage (04:27):

And you might think that you are the best photographer. But there’s a lot of things in photography that you probably don’t know. Like Jon was saying, professional photographers, they know which lights to be turning on. They know, maybe it’s a straighten out a room. They know if they should be including things as a person that doesn’t have professional experience in photography. You don’t want to be trusting a business that you’re dependent on to be able to make money off of your experience that maybe isn’t that great. So hiring professionals, getting expertise where is best fit is the best return on your investment. And when you are taking photos, when you are designing your unit, if you are getting the foundation, then that’s going to pay for itself tenfold, month after month. Question of the day, are you going to be using professional photos or your own photos? Be honest and leave it in the comment section down below.

Julian Sage (05:18):

Until next time, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you hosts found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review as that would greatly support the show. If you’d like to connect with Jon, the community, and I then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to you hosts in the next step episode. Keep on hosting.