Ask the agent
It’s Friday and nothing is booked next week. What do I do?
Text the twenty agents who already paid you, before 5 p.m. The empty week isn’t the problem; the discount post you’re about to write is. Minnesota winter takes my studio from $20-30K in a busy month to around $1,500. I’ve had empty Fridays.
Text the twenty agents who already paid you
Not strangers. The last twenty you delivered for. Open the invoices, sort by date. That’s the list, and it took you two minutes.
One line. "Anything coming up before the end of the month? Tuesdays are open next week." No discount, no explanation, no "slow season."
The agent with a listing appointment tomorrow doesn’t know you’re free. Now she does. That’s all the text has to do.
Twenty is the number because it’s the list you can send before five. If you’re staring at a blank screen wondering what to say to a stranger, you’re on the wrong list.
An empty week is a paid week for the business
Monday is where most photographers waste the empty week. Refreshing the inbox, redesigning the logo. Here’s what to do with it instead.
Build what you never have time for: the vertical clip for your own page, the package sheet, the shot list. Drive the ten listings that went up this week with phone photos. That’s Tuesday’s opener list.
The vertical clip and the package sheet are the two you’ve been promising yourself since spring. The empty week is the only week they’ll get built, because the full weeks will always have a gallery due.
Fix the delivery email so the next shoot rebooks itself. One paragraph at the bottom of the gallery email, and you’ve done a month of selling in an afternoon.
Plan for the empty week during the full one
Now the rule nobody on the slow-season threads mentions.
In a busy month the studio banks for winter. A $1,500 January is survivable because it was decided in July. I listed houses for ten years and my own listings dried up every winter; it never once occurred to me to warn my photographer. Nobody is going to warn you either.
Your number: how many months of bills in the account before any week counts as slow. Write it down Sunday night, and from then on an empty week is either inside the plan or it isn’t.
That discipline pays for months in Vietnam. I leave October 19 and work from a laptop, because the slow months were paid for in the busy ones. Not the busy weeks. The saved ones.
Anything coming up before the end of the month? Tuesdays are open next week.
An empty week is information. A discount is panic.
Before 5 p.m. today: text the last twenty agents who paid you. Sunday night, write your winter number.
The agent opener scripts
One observation, one question, and the day 3 and day 10 follow-ups. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.
Get the scriptsGet my roadmapStraight answers
- What do I do when I have no real estate shoots booked?
- Text the last twenty agents who paid you with one line asking what’s coming up. Then use Monday to build the package sheet, shot list and delivery email you never have time for.
- Should I offer a discount when business is slow?
- No. A discount tells every agent on your list that your price was soft. Text past clients, build, and drive the new listings with phone photos for Tuesday’s openers.
- How do real estate photographers survive the slow season?
- By deciding it in the busy season. Bank a set number of months of bills during the full months, and the $1,500 January is a plan instead of a panic.
Related questions
Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.