We were lucky to catch up with Dan Sherman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

We try to beat the industry standard at everything we do – our biggest claim to fame has been our engineered photography process. Our process takes 6-10 photos to make one finished photograph – each photograph is hand-blended to make the space bright, big, and as similar to the way the human eye would view it as possible. It’s the new way of doing things and we are excited to be able to bring it to market and offer it to our clients.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I decided I wanted to start my own business, my biggest priority was finding the right fit – something I was passionate about and would be happy to do every day. My biggest priority was finding a business where I could help others, create relationships, and be a resource to those around me. Before starting Stainless, I was a mechanical engineer working at a technical equipment manufacturer. I thought my job would be to design and sell custom equipment, but it quickly morphed into a jack-of-all-trades. Managing projects, customer service, managing the responsibilities of our affiliates, sourcing products, you name it. I would have to work an extra few hours a week to handle all the extra responsibility, then a few more, then a few more. In short, I was taken advantage of. I was salaried, working 20-30% over my scheduled 40 hours per week, and felt like my efforts weren’t recognized or valued – just expected. I had stumbled into the world of real estate after attending a few meetings on investing and, quite honestly, I fell in love. The feel of the meetings, the hustle, the people – it was where I belonged. It felt like a place where you were in control of your own destiny – if you had put in the work, it would pay off for you. I didn’t want to be an agent, so I wondered of ways I could get tied into the industry without directly buying or selling homes. After researching real estate photography, I wondered if I could engineer a new process – something that would make homes look bigger and brighter. After some brainstorming with a couple of my engineering buddies, investing in professional equipment, and a lot of testing, we had a breakthrough. Our process, although complicated, could be applied to just about any interior space and crank out some top-tier images. I quit my job, dropped out of graduate school, and decided to jump into creating and growing this business head-first. It was scary at first, but I couldn’t imagine what life would have been like if I hadn’t taken the jump and bet on myself. Now, we are trusted to handle the marketing for hundreds of agents in our market. It has been an absolute dream to be able to work on this business day-in and day-out. I still work just as much, but there’s a purpose now.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

As a brand new company starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to lean heavily on social media to get the ball rolling. I had some experience with growing social media accounts in the past for other businesses, and was lucky enough to have the experience of knowing what had worked and what had not worked for them. In short, we were able to grow our social media following and get the business rolling by utilizing a few principles: #1) Posting regularly, and posting at the right times based on your data insights (when are your target customers checking social media?)
#2) Making sure posts always add value to your target customer – whether that is entertaining them, providing knowledge, or giving them resources they can use
#3) Learning as much about the social media algorithms as possible and using it to your advantage

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Aside from having a great product, I believe the best strategy for growing and maintaining your clientele is to show a genuine sense of care and willingness to help. I’m lucky enough to have a natural urge to serve and it’s been an easy and natural thing for me to implement in my business. But, overall, every business is only as strong as your customers make it. Be nice, be respectful, be cool, and make time to chat and get to know your clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stainlessmn.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stainlessmn
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stainlessmn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stainlessmn/

Image Credits
Stainless Real Estate Photography