BUILDING YOUR NON-LENDER APPRAISAL BIZ - PART 2

The race  is on! That’s right friends, the race is on in the real estate appraisal world to diversify your appraisal business during this time of change. The interest rates have doubled, the lending work has slowed considerably, everyone is calling all their past clients to try to drum up business, and the survival instincts have finally kicked in. I say ‘finally’, because this was predicted some time ago and we’ve been telling our coaching students and podcast listeners for some time now that you’d better diversify your business if you don’t want to find yourself behind the 8 ball when one of the 3 legs of this economic stool: interest rates, housing supply, and/or buyer demand, changes. And here we are. 

No, this is not an ‘I told ya so’ moment because nobody could’ve predicted the timing of these changes, just that they would happen. I mean, after all, real estate appraisers are in the business of analyzing the market and looking at historical trends to develop opinions. Since markets always move in cycles, this one was quite predictable and, if you were like me in 2008 and 2009, you vowed never to be caught unawares again when a big market change happens.

Is it too late? Is it too late to diversify your appraisal business and get back to where your business might have been in years past? Of course not! It’s never too late! Although there will always be those preaching doom and gloom and the end of an industry, I’m not one of those people. I am a realist in many ways, and I fully recognize some of the shifts in almost every industry, but I do not believe it is the end of the real estate appraisal industry or business. What I do think you need to do if you want to have a thriving business in this industry, however, is to expand your palate, so to speak, and be open to all of the other avenues for providing your wisdom, your expertise, your knowledge, and your experience to the world. 

If you’re not quite clear on what all of those different options are for real estate appraisers and how you might capture some of that market, then you might just want to watch the free training I did called ‘How to Make Your First $5000 in the Non-Lender Appraisal Biz’. It’s completely free, it’s over an hour long, and I detail what you need to be doing and how to do it to start building a healthy non-lender appraisal business. Just www.coachblaine.com/diversify and learn what you can do to really diversify your appraisal business. We’re talking about all of these things in this episode, we talked about it in last week’s episode, and we talked about it in the episode two weeks ago, but if you want to see it visually, go there, watch the video, and take lots of notes.

Why am I talking about this topic so much these days? One reason is survival! I’m talking about this topic so much these days because I care deeply about you; the listeners of this show, the loyal people who have been faithfully following this show for 5+ years now, the ones who’ve reached out to me via email, messenger, text, and video calls. One of my callings in this life is to ease the suffering of people in the ways that I know how, which is typically through sharing my resources, one of which is education and my own mistakes. Much of what I share on this show are the learnings and wisdom I’ve gained over the decades from making mistake after mistake, but alsongetting up and dusting off each time so that I could eventually arrive at some level of success. There were people along the way who were willing to help me shave off some of the time it could take to succeed at something, and I am very grateful for that mentorship. I’m so grateful, in fact, that I do this every week as a way to share what I’ve learned along the way in the hopes that it might help someone else shave off a year, 3, or 5 on their way to succeeding at something, and also maybe help them avoid some of the potholes and pitfalls I stepped in along the way.

One of those areas that I believe I eventually experienced some success in is in building up the non-lender segment of my appraisal business, which allowed me to effectively escape being held hostage by the ups and downs of the lending markets, as well as all the varied players in that game. This is an important point that I don’t want to gloss over when talking about all of this. In life, when you have other options, you get to call the shots. The Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan, refers to this as ‘always being the buyer’, which I did a podcast on several months ago. When you have the mindset of always being the buyer, you retain the ability to say no to whatever you don’t like, don’t want to accept, and don’t want to deal with. When you have an abundance of something in one area, you have abundance in all areas because you have personal agency and choice on your side. When you have enough of something in an area of your life, you have a form of freedom, you are free to say, ‘don’t bother me with this other stuff’.

It's the reason why people work to achieve financial independence and financial freedom. Once you are essentially free from having to trade your time for dollars, you are free to pick and choose what you spend your valuable and limited life energy doing. Just as important as that is having the ability to say no a lot! Something magical happens when you retain, not just the right, but the ability and confidence to say no to anyone and anything you know is not right for you. The magic that happens is that you become very powerful and attractive. What I mean when I use the word attractive is that you start to attract more of what you really want because, by saying no to all the other stuff, you’ve created a powerfully magnetic vacuum in the universe that must be filled with something. What’s it filled with? It’s filled with more of that which resonates with your own vibration. When you can say no to business you don’t want, you’re sending a powerful signal that you’re open for more of the other stuff.

By the way, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in the way I’ve expressed it or not, it works perfectly every time and in every area. When you have choices and you know what you want, you have power. When you have enough money coming in from passive sources to take care of your monthly living expenses, you may have to still get up and go to work, but you do so with a new freedom and new choices available to you. When you have a whole new segment of your business that takes care of all your expense and profit goals, you have more choice over who you do business with on the lending side of the equation. All of the appraisers listening who have only ever served one master, so to speak, all of your eggs are in one basket and that basket is controlled mostly externally. Your basket of eggs is controlled by the interest rates, the financial markets, the economy, the ability of buyers to buy and sellers to sell, the loyalty of banks, credit unions, and AMCs, and so on. Let’s get you out of that reliance on so many uncontrollables and put the control back in your hands.

The last episode we did on this topic we talked about the mindsets, the areas of business outside the lending side of the business that are available, and who this kind of business is for. Let’s talk about what I call the minimum cost of entry into the non-lender side of the appraisal business. One of the great things about the appraisal business is that it’s a very low overhead type of business. Relative to lots of other businesses and industries, most appraisers have very low overhead relative to the type of revenue and personal income that can be created. One of the minimum costs of entry into the non-lending side of the business, in my opinion, is to have a reasonably easy to read and understand website. I say reasonably easy to understand because so many websites speak in terms the average person might feel embarrassed to admit they don’t fully understand.

The other big mistake many appraisers make is that their websites speak to the wrong crowd. A website should speak to the people you’re trying to attract into your business, and it should speak to their biggest pain point and problem and how you’re going to solve it. Many appraiser websites speak like they’re taking to a lender about appraisals and lenders are not scouring Google to find appraisers. The only people searching on Google for an appraiser are homeowners, agents, attorneys, and the general public because they need a private appraisal for non-lending purposes. Make sure your website speaks in simple terms, it speaks to their biggest pain points, and it tells them how you’re going to solve their problem. Make it easy to do business with and the business will present itself. In my free workshop at coachblaine.com/diversify I cover several of the different options for easily making a website that converts searchers into buyers of your services, so I won’t cover it here.

The next minimum cost of entry to build up a six figure non-lender appraisal business is to make sure you have a fully filled out Google Business Profile. This used to be called your Google My Business page, but it’s always been your profile on Google. It’s the page people can see when they search your keywords in Google, you pop up as one of several businesses that serves that market, they see a map with all the business locations of your competitors, and they can read all of your reviews from satisfied or dissatisfied customers. You MUST have this filled out if you really want to exist in this world of non-lending appraisal work, and you MUST be intentional and consistent when asking for reviews from customers and clients.

Which leads us to the next minimum cost of entry, which is your Google reviews. Have a process! If you don’t have a process, you won’t get reviews. The way humans work, very few of us are thinking about you during our days and nights. We might think about you for a few minutes during and after the process, but then we’re all on to the next more important thing in our lives and it’s not you. You have to ask for reviews at least three times if you want to get them. The first time you ask is right after the inspection. “But Blaine, I’m driving to my next inspection! How am I supposed to ask for a review?” That is a problem you’ll have to solve for. If you don’t have any staff that can do the follow up for you then you’ll have to have a system in place that allows you to be everywhere at once.

Quite simply, you have a pre-recorded video email template setup so that you can go to your car, get in, make any final notes on your inspection, pick up your phone, and then send that email template to the homeowner’s email. If you can’t call them, send an email asking how their first impressions were and if they’re happy with the service so far. What does this mean for you? It means you have to wow them right out of the gate! Uh Oh, you mean I have to be nice and business like, Blaine? Yes! You have to be a professional from the very first interaction all the way through to a week after the file has been delivered.

The second time you ask for a review is either with the delivery of the completed appraisal, or right after, all with the understanding that your chances are shrinking with each passing moment after delivery of the service. Why? Because, regardless of whether or not they’re happy with you at this point or not, they’ve gotten what they paid for and they’re on to the next thing they have to do in their lives. They’re very rapidly forgetting about you because they’re done with you. The third time you ask for a review is at the one week follow up. That’s right friends, I said the one week follow up! “But Blaine, I’m super busy doing appraisal work, I don’t have time to make all these calls and send all these emails!” Cool story, don’t, it makes it much easier for the rest of us who do. Keep making excuses for why you won’t or can’t do something and it makes life much easier for those of us who aim to knock the socks off of our customers, earn their referrals and reviews, and make our competition completely irrelevant.

The last minimum cost of entry item I’ll mention is to add one of those little chat buttons to your website. If you go to any of our websites, after about 60 seconds of being there you will see a little ‘chat with us’ button in the lower right corner. This does several key things for us: one, it alerts us on new visitors to our various websites so we can see who’s there and what pages they’re looking at. Two, it allows them to have easy low friction access to me and my staff to answer questions. Three, it allows us the massive opportunity to get in conversation with someone and push them to a phone or video call at a later date. This is massive when it comes to conversion of lookers into buyers of your services. If you can get people to take some kind of secondary action, like chatting and then speaking with you, you are on your way to building a relationship and turning them into a customer. 

From minimum cost of entry stuff, we move to the rocket fuel activities that I think you need to be doing to successfully build a six figure non-lender appraisal business. Let me clarify that if you just want to get an order here and there, much of this stuff isn’t necessary. If you just want to get an extra order or two per month to make your car payment, you can do that in your sleep with an AOL website, some of your business cards tacked to a few telephone poles, and a few random people stumbling across you in the dark. What I’m teaching here is how to build a real business with metrics that you can start to count on each month, and a business that can lead to a six-figure income. Whether this is a supplement to the lending side of your appraisal business, or you want to be completely free of the lender world altogether, follow what I’m teaching, and you can get there.

I call these rocket fuel activities because, by doing them, you add some rocket fuel to your lead generation efforts and your business grows exponentially. I don’t care what business you’re in, if you don’t have an intentional and consistent sales or lead generation effort, you are at the whims of the market and whatever mindshare you have in your market. Even with a reasonable amount of recognition and mindshare in your market, that only takes you so far for so long as new entrants to the market can replace you, and also the people who know you move, leave, and die. It’s just natural that if you’re not out in the market making waves consistently, their memory of you fades over time.

One of the first things you know I’m going to tell you to do is to be out in your market giving classes and office talks. They can be as simple as a one-hour Q&A session, or a legit 2-hour CE class. When you start getting out into your market to do these kinds of things, you become the most trusted authority in the market and the natural end result is that you’re top of mind when somebody needs an appraisal. And, while your results may vary, I can almost guarantee that those hours will end up being $1000 hours for you over the next six to twelve months. What that means is that for every hour you are out in your market talking, teaching, and meeting people, you will earn a future $1000. The more you do it and the better you get at it, the higher that number goes. I know now that when I have a two-hour class or talk that those will be $5000 to $10,000 hours over the next six to twelve months. Every opportunity to talk or teach a class is an investment in your future revenue and income if you treat it that way.

The next rocket fuel activity I recommend is just plain ol’ networking. Yes, friends, if you’re not attending networking events and opportunities, you are missing out on lots of $1000 hours. You have to be seen, heard, and become a valued and valuable member of their community if you want to earn the right to their referrals. Go to Realtor events, lender events, community events, whatever is available to you. One of my great colleagues and coaching students, Glen Kangas in California, attends the weekly Realtor caravans each week, which is when all the agents of that company meet up and drive around to all the new listings. It is almost guaranteed that if you show up to some of the networking opportunities available to you as a professional in your market, you’ll be the only appraiser.

The next rocket fuel activity I will suggest to you is to be somewhat active on social media, and not just as you showing your personal life. What I’m suggesting is that you become part of the conversations in your market around real estate so that you can answer questions and solve appraisal problems. Whether you have a private Facebook group for agents and lenders, or you’re just a member of some local real estate groups, get involved in the conversations and you’ll see that activity turn into referrals for private appraisal work.

The last two things we’ll talk about when it comes to rocket fuel activities are content creation and happy hours. What is content creation? It’s what we’re doing right here; its podcasting, blogging, YouTube, social media content, and newsletters. Content creation is, in my opinion, almost mandatory if you want to build something in the six or seven figure level of business. Unless you’re creating computer code, a tech product, or something extremely valuable to the global markets, if you want to be recognized as a thought leader, a trusted guide and authority, and the go to in your field and market, you have to be doing something that lets people know you exist and you are the best one to solve their problems. How do you do that? With content!

Content is anything printed, typed, spoken, and/or videoed that your market of customers has access to in order to learn more about you and get a sense of your knowledge in that field. Your content should speak to the people you want to attract into your business, and it should inspire them to want to continue consuming your content. They should be chomping at the bit to read, listen, or watch your next piece of content. What you’re doing when you become a content producer is building an audience of people who will follow you and who want to see and hear what you’re taking about next because it scratches some itch they have, or it solves a problem they have. I talk in the diversify workshop about the two and three birds, one stone benefits of blogging, podcasting, and video so download that if you want to go deeper on those.

To wrap up this two-part series on building your six figure non-lender appraisal business, let’s end it on a happy hour. That’s right, happy hours! Every month, every other month, once a quarter, twice per year, whatever cadence you choose, host a happy hour for 20 or 30 of your VIP clients at a local restaurant bar and have your own networking events. Your VIP clients are whomever you want them to be. It can be your best lender clients, your favorite attorney clients, title agents, Realtors, financial planners, or whoever you want to invite. Obviously, you want to have people there that have the ability to refer business to you, but you get to choose who those people are.

The way we do it is to invite 10 of our VIPs with the understanding that they’re going to invite one of their own VIPs or clients. If 5 of our VIPs are lenders, they’re likely going to invite some of their VIP realtors, attorney’s, financial planners, and so on. If 5 of our VIPs are Realtors, we tell them to invite some of their VIPs or people they’re prospecting for business. It’s a win, win, win scenario for all. You’re the hero for bringing the party together, you’re creating your own networking event, and you’re getting a chance to go deeper in relationship with some of your VIPs. Those events will cost you $500 to $700 and will net you thousands in future appraisal orders, not to mention better relationships and introductions to people you likely wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.

After your happy hours, you spend a half hour the next Monday sending some video thank yous to all who attended, mention something specific about a conversation point you remember from talking with them, and tell then you look forward to getting together with them in the future.

Friends, there are lots of things we haven’t talked about simply out of the time constraints and the constraints of a voice only podcast. There are a bunch of things we do in my business to build up the non-lender division of the company that simply don’t translate well to a podcast. If you are sincere about wanting to build up the non-lender side of your appraisal business, start with my free video at coachblaine.com/diversify. If you want to go deeper, reach out to me and let’s have a chat, or jump into one of our coaching communities where like-minded and positive people like you are growing and sharing in a way that simply isn’t possible in public Facebook groups where a thousand angry and jaded appraisers are ready to pounce on your for asking a simple question. Until then, my friends, I’m out...