Today we’d like to introduce you to Elijah Jones.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Norman & Young started by accident. I had always taken photos and made videos as a hobby, but planned on going to Medical School and never considered a career in media production. My mom became a Realtor in 2014 to buy their personal house, and I happened to be with her one day when she was headed to take cell phone photos of a home as a favor to her Broker.
I had my camera with me and figured I would give it a shot, as I figured I could do better than a cell phone – so I took a bunch of photos and spent a ton of time editing them and delivered them to her Broker. They were HORRIBLE by today’s standards but were fantastic in competition with the cell phone photos that the majority of Realtors used to market their listings at the time, and her broker and eventually most of the agents in that office started hiring me to shoot their listings.
From there, I started adding more and more clients until the point when it became way too much to handle myself, and that is when Aaron started working with me. We eventually rebranded to Norman & Young (both of our middle names) and continued on.
The story isn’t really very interesting from there – it was just a lot of hard work and long hours. We have grown almost exclusively through referrals since then. Since I am not a salesman (nor is Aaron) and do not like prospecting and selling, we figured the other alternative was to take REALLY good care of our clients and focus exclusively on making our business more useful for them and then to let them handle the rest.
It worked in our favor, and we are extremely grateful for our client’s willingness to give out their “secret” and pass on our info.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Big picture wise, it really has been a smooth road, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t required a ton of hours and dedication, but we haven’t had any major business altering issues or problems to tackle. It has been about continuous small improvements to ensure we continue in the right direction.
We are vigilant about keeping up with the needs of our clients, and we also pay close attention to the higher-end real estate markets (LA and New York) to make sure to bring our clients the newest technology and offerings that those markets have the resources to test.
The thing these last five years have taught me more than anything else is that business is really about finding problems at solving them – if the road is too smooth it means you haven’t done anything and are probably not accomplishing much. You have to break and change things to improve as a business, but this, in my opinion, isn’t “struggling” it’s just the natural course of progression of a growing business.
For those readers who are considering starting a business, I have just one main piece of advice – focus on your customers and work HARD to serve them to the best of your abilities, the rest will fall into place if you do this.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Norman & Young Real Estate Media – what should we know?
Norman & Young is a real estate media company. This means we serve exclusively Realtors, builders, and other construction and architecture related businesses. We do everything from taking photos and videos of their listings and projects to producing podcasts, branding videos, and lead generation.
This exclusive focus on a specific industry allows us to go “deep” with our knowledge base and skill rather than service a broad number of industries – this results in a much higher quality of the product for our clients.
Additionally, we place a massive emphasis on customer service, but not just the cliche “service.” Everything from the way our photographers dress, to how quickly we are able to fit a client in, to a no-fee, simple pricing structure is designed from our clients perspective. We exist for our clients benefit, not the other way around.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Frankly, a ton of people deserve credit. My team puts up with crazy hours, have a ton of great ideas, and are the reason we continue to grow – they embody the client first principles that drive us as a company. Aaron is a fantastic co-founder and has put in a TON of work and has greatly helped shape this company to get us to where we are now.
Our clients are the engine of our growth via referrals and the reason we exist. My parents also deserve a ton of credit for the foundation they provided and not once suggesting that my decision to drop out of college and pursue this business full time was a bad idea. Also, shoutout to my wife Kasidee who puts up with my long hours away from home, and is always ready to help when needed.
Pricing:
- 36 Photos (any size property) | $155
- 60 Second Video (Aerial, Interior & Exterior Footage) | $195
- Podcast Production | $295/episode
Contact Info:
- Website: normanandyoung.com
- Phone: 8174086557
- Email: elijah@normanandyoung.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/normanandyoung
- Facebook: facebook.com/normanandyoung
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
