I got out of the Army in 2006 and found myself kind of lost.
Lost in not knowing what exactly I was going to do about a getting a job and starting a new career path.
Then the real estate market crashed and I had the bright idea of getting my real estate license.
While many other real estate agents were getting out of the real estate or getting second jobs, I was going into at full throttle.
I was lucky enough to be part of a team and we grew to be one of the most profitable real estate teams in Chicago by working hard and moving forward with a sense of purpose.
I picked up my first video camera in 2008 and started shooting videos for my own business as a REALTOR®…
Back in 2008, the world was being introduced to social media and businesses where just starting to learn that it could be a very powerful marketing tool.
And what’s crazy is that there are still businesses today, that “aren’t sure” if this social media marketing thing is a good bet, LOL.
I went to a real estate marketing class and the instructor was talking all about how video marketing was going to be the future.
Maybe it was just my training in the Army, but when I heard the instructor say this after the class I went immediately to Best Buy and bought my first video camera, a Kodak Zi8.
We started making videos and had no idea what we were doing.
But we kept shooting and eventually I started to get good at them and ended up liking to shoot and edit video more than selling real estate.
The last 5 years as a full time real estate videographer (2012 to 2018)
I eventually stopped selling real estate and in 2012 I went on to become a “videographer”. I spent about the 2 years how to actually shoot video professionally.
This meant I needed a lot of practice and I watched thousands of YouTube tutorial videos about video shooting and editing.
See if you can see the difference, this first video is from May 1st, 2013.
See if you can see the difference, this first video is from May 1st, 2013.
During these years I shot over 2,500 real estate marketing videos and kept learning to further develop my skills as a videographer. These new skills were going to be absolutely critical for what happened in 2019 with the move to San Diego.
2019: The challenge of moving to a new market and starting over from scratch…
On Ocotober 31st, 2018 me and my girlfriend moved to San Diego, California.
We left our clients and businesses behind in Illinois, packed up our cats and belongings and went west in pursuit of better weather, fish tacos, and a more healthier way of life.
Sounds like fun, but it’s been non stop work and sacrifice.
2019 was my toughest year in business, because I was starting over from scratch. It was tough financially and psychologically.
Coming from a place where I had a ton of great clients to a place to where I’m fighting and trying to gain new clients, trying to fast-track building new relationships. This all takes a lot of hard work and time.
Time: It just takes time to create, build, and nurture relationships that will mature into sales and business opportunities.
During this time I also had to moonlight as an Uber drive and a UPS package deliverer, which was a very humbling experience.
2020: WTF?
On January 15, 2020 I could start seeing that a lot of the sales and marketing work was beginning to pay off and new video projects started rolling in.
By March 1st it was looking like 2020 could turn into a great year both professionally and financially.
However that all came to a crashing halt when a worldwide pandemic, the COVID-19 Virus, changed everything.
This story is still being written, but one thing is for certain.
We must keep moving forward.
But good things have come out of 2019. We met great people, and even partnered up with other videographers to work on projects bigger than anything I’ve ever worked on before.
Here’s one of those projects I had the opportunity to work on.
I’m not sure where my business is going, and what is going to happen to the US Economy as a result of it, but again all we can do is press forward with a sense of purpose and never give up.
Thanks for reading…
George “el Guapo” Cuevas
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