Founders + Closers: The Commission-Only Sales Growth Podcast

Laura McGregor: 00:01

Hi. I'm Laura McGregor, CEO and co founder of CommissionCrowd. If you're a self employed sales professional, someone who's always on the lookout for a high value reoccurring commission opportunity, pause your scroll, this one's for you. Today, I'm joined by Torey Thompson, the founder of LandGazzer. They're a fast growing drone mapping company helping US based construction firms, architects, real estate pros, and civil engineers get precision ID data faster and way more affordably than traditional surveying.

Laura McGregor: 00:32

We're talking 20 to 25% commission deals starting at two grand and scaling all the way over to 6 figures. And of course, reoccurring revenue from long term high usage clients. So here's what really caught my eye though. The tech is already proven. The market is booming.

Laura McGregor: 00:51

We're talking 75 Billion in projected growth. So this is a future forward sales opportunity in a space that's very ready for disruption. So welcome. Let's get into it and find out what makes this even more powerful move for independent sales professionals. Thanks for joining me, Tori.

Torey Thompson: 01:10

Yeah. Thank you for inviting me.

Laura McGregor: 01:11

Yeah. My pleasure. Thanks for being a Commission Crowd client. Can you tell me just in one sentence, what does Landgazzer do?

Torey Thompson: 01:19

So Landgazzer is a drone powered mapping company that delivers high accuracy 3D models and CAD ready files to construction companies, engineering firms, and far more affordably than traditional surveying methods. And of course, low risk because it's better for a drone to fly than a person to go in the road or in high places.

Laura McGregor: 01:38

Okay. And what kind of clients are you serving and what is the problem that you're solving?

Torey Thompson: 01:43

The great thing about this company is that we're pretty much all encompassing. We can speak to surveyors, architects, contractors, civil engineers, and construction companies. Oftentimes, they need to plan or build on sites. And instead of waiting weeks for traditional data and for large survey crews, we can bring one pilot, have a drone out there, fly it in all but ten, maybe twenty minutes maximum, and have that back to them in a matter of days.

Laura McGregor: 02:04

So just kind of how did you get into that?

Torey Thompson: 02:08

So this is actually an interesting story because I come from a filmmaking background, an animation background specifically.

Laura McGregor: 02:15

Really?

Torey Thompson: 02:15

Visual effects, things of that nature. And my brother who was in the army had told me about LIDAR and photogrammetry. Now I didn't know what these were, but then when he told me that these can be used for visual effects, I did a little more digging. And that's when I learned it can be used for bridge inspections, building inspections, farmland inspections. It's very encompassing in what its use cases are.

Torey Thompson: 02:34

So that can be used pretty much anywhere. And then I learned that there's a large community around this that's only very new and still growing, growing very fast at it.

Laura McGregor: 02:43

Yeah. Well, that's really great. And that was my next question. How big is the market and why now?

Torey Thompson: 02:49

So the market is still very small, and it's only because drones are new. And drones can be to some people a little scary because it is a buzzing machine over your head. But if you think about it, it's just putting a camera or a laser scanner on an aircraft and just flying it around freely. It can do it faster than we can, more accurately than can. Sometimes people have put LiDAR sensors on backpacks and will walk around different places.

Torey Thompson: 03:15

But instead of doing that, just have a drone do it for you. You can just sit there with your remote in your hand and move around. And so much so that the United States Department of the Treasury claims that it will grow by 75 Billion by the end of twenty twenty five. And with every everything moving right now and with all the executive voters, that's definitely going to happen.

Laura McGregor: 03:31

So interesting. Gosh. And how exciting to be at a time and a place when something is just like skyrocketing. I'm feeling that way about so many things in my CommissionCrowd as well, you know, with it, we're getting so many referrals from AI. There's so many things that are just booming in different directions, and it's so exciting to be part of that.

Torey Thompson: 03:51

People want technology to make their lives easy. You know? And if we can make make engineers' lives easier, construction companies' lives easier, surveyors' lives easier, why not? Why not provide that service that lets them take a little more time to actually focus on what matters?

Laura McGregor: 04:05

Definitely. Oh my goodness. So tell me, what kind of sales partners are you looking for?

Torey Thompson: 04:10

So if you've got relationships in construction, engineering, real estate, or infrastructure, or you're just great at opening doors, we'll train you on every detail. You don't need to be a drone expert. You just need to know how to connect with decision makers. And I I pride myself on being 100% accessible and always ready to train people on this because I've taught people how to map before. I taught people how to fly drones before.

Torey Thompson: 04:30

All of it is very, very simple, and you'll be surprised at how simple it is to grasp it.

Laura McGregor: 04:35

Well, that's what I love to hear. I love to hear founders being like, yeah. I'm there. It's win win every time. It is it is

Torey Thompson: 04:42

a team effort, and I think the best thing that somebody can have is knowing that they can speak to an expert immediately. I always keep a phone line open for any salespeople, any of my pilots just in case because if you have a question, why wouldn't I be there to answer it?

Laura McGregor: 04:57

That's great. Tell me about a win that you're really proud of.

Torey Thompson: 05:01

So this is actually my most recent one. There is a contract we're based in California. And if you know about the fires that happened this past January, it did a lot of damage. And due to that damage, there was work required to inspect some of the power line poles. And this would this needs to be done very fast.

Torey Thompson: 05:17

So we were contracted with a group of eight other drone pilots and companies, and we went to the Altadena area. That's where we had to fly and gather three d models and and data for those poles. The quota was to do 100 a day. I did 500 a day. And I pride myself on just speed and efficiency because that saves companies so much money.

Torey Thompson: 05:38

Anybody out there who works in the professional realm, you know that no matter what level you go to, incompetency is issue. Speed is an issue. And if things can just get done, you'd be surprised how much money you would save and how much you can actually accomplish.

Laura McGregor: 05:52

And that's where all the referrals come from too. Exceed expectations every time. Love that.

Torey Thompson: 05:58

I take a sort of competitive spirit to all this.

Laura McGregor: 06:01

Good, absolutely. So what was that moment that you made to start LandGazzer I know you told me about sort of earlier how it all kind of came about, but did you have that we always talk about the moment of the user journey. What was it for you?

Torey Thompson: 06:16

So the moment for me was on a project where and this was a just a project where I asked the then job that I had, hey, can I bring my drone inside and fly around for a little bit? I didn't really know how it fully worked because it was still an enigma to me, how you could fly a drone around in a pattern and it can make a three d model from that. Because to my knowledge, making a three d model is going in AutoCAD or Autodesk Maya and actually building it from the ground up. So I take the drone out and I just fly in a certain pattern and I program it to fly in a particular pattern. There's so many applications for that.

Torey Thompson: 06:47

And then when I actually saw what it created when it was done in about thirty minutes, that was my moment. Like, oh, so this can actually be useful. This actually works. I don't wanna say it's like magic, but it was just crazy to see that by it doing that so quick, may it made something that would take me days to make by, hey.

Laura McGregor: 07:09

Well, it always seemed quite magical, doesn't it? Do you know? Like, how is this?

Torey Thompson: 07:13

No way. In a way, because it is essentially a drone there speaking to a GPS, and it's saying, oh, this is this far away from this. This is far away from this. And these these can bring actionable steps. And actually seeing it created in real time is always the craziest thing.

Laura McGregor: 07:28

That is. Oh my goodness. And then, of course, being able to take that information and read it in some way and use it to do better. So that kind of brings me to my next question is like, is there a surprising way a client has used your data that you didn't really expect?

Torey Thompson: 07:44

I think the most recent contract that I did where I saw that they were using the we were basically contracted to get our drone and fly it around different power poles. Right? Now that takes all but a couple seconds. You get one picture at the top of it. You fly around it.

Torey Thompson: 07:58

And I saw what they were doing is they were using it to zoom in very close and inspect it and see where there were cracks, breaks, any things of that nature. But it was so detailed that you could see down to the numbers at the very bottom of the pole. And I think that's the craziest thing to me, that you can see so much there. And and it just saves so much time, honestly.

Laura McGregor: 08:18

Yeah. So how would they have done that before?

Torey Thompson: 08:22

They would have somebody go out there and climb up a ladder or get on a plane, look at it, then come back down and notate what the poll number was.

Laura McGregor: 08:31

That's incredible. Gosh. I love that. I really appreciate that. I guess it sounds like it's really the kind of opportunity that it's, to me, sounds like this is the kind of opportunity that maybe agents have been looking for.

Laura McGregor: 08:48

They're, they've been waiting for the high commissions, the reoccurring income, a booming tech driven market. And if so, go take a look at Landgazer on Commissioned Proud. I'll put the link in the description, and thank you so much, Tori. Really appreciate you sharing your story with us.

Torey Thompson: 09:03

I appreciate you guys having me. I look forward to working with everybody.

Laura McGregor: 09:06

Thanks. Bye for now.