THE UNLIKELY NETWORKER

What I’m about to give you in this episode might be worth upwards of $50,000,000 dollars or more. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, it’s not and here’s why. What I’m going to share with you on today’s podcast are the specific steps to building your network of buyers, collaborators, gatekeepers, mentors, and influencers, and, in fact, it’s almost the exact same method used by one of my mentors to grow his business to the point where he sold it for $70,000,000. That business today is worth almost a billion dollars.

Ok, ok, I know, most of you have no interest in building a billion-dollar business, but if you could utilize some of the same tactics that he used and generate an additional 10, 30, 50, or $100,000 for your business, would you be interested? Of course you would! And there’s only 3 things you have to do to make it happen; you have to listen to this full episode, you have to take good notes, and then you have to actually do what I’m going to tell you to do. Sound fair? Cool, let’s get started!

Welcome back my friends, my name is Blaine Feyen and I’m your host for this, and every episode of the Real Value podcast. So glad to be back hanging out with all of you this week, and I’m actually kind of excited to be sharing the information I’m about to share in this episode. We’ve been putting out a lot of content lately to help appraisers get more business, launch their non-lender appraisal businesses, and diversify their businesses in a way that may just be the difference between surviving and thriving, and complete extinction. As all of you hopefully know by now, I am not a doom and gloom person and I do my best to not bring people down with negative talk about what are very real changes happening as we speak. I’m an unabashed ethical opportunist, which is somebody who simply looks for the opportunity in every situation, instead of sitting around waiting for the world (or profession) to end.

If you go back two or three years of episodes of this show, you’ll hear me talking about some of the changes on the horizon that are happening now. If you’re part of one of our private memberships or coaching communities, like the Appraiser Increase Academy and Community or our Black Belt Business Coaching groups, we’ve been coaching for several years to the very scenarios that are playing out today. I’m not patting myself on the back and saying, ‘I told ya so’, just telling you that the indicators, the signs, and the signals are almost always out there for those who are looking for them and know how to interpret them. The signs of what the world is going through at this moment have been in play for many years. The indicators of what the real estate, appraisal, and mortgage industries are going through at this moment have been speaking to us for years. Those of you who picked your heads up for even 10 minutes to see the signs hopefully did something about it and started to dig your wells, make the necessary pivots, do the required activities, get your survival accounts fully funded, and so on.

If you didn’t do those things and you still want to thrive in business going into what we’re inevitably heading into, you may want to consider become part of at least our Appraiser Increase Academy and Community. It’s packed with hours and hours of valuable business building exercises, dozens of hours of coaching videos, live monthly coaching calls, deeper dives on some of the stuff I share on this podcast, and maybe the most important part, a community of positive people all doing stuff to grow their business and thrive. I’ve sold the coaching exercises and some of the videos in that community as a package in the past for $799 and it sold like crazy. Why? Because just one idea or coaching tip in that package led to thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue. We heard time and again from buyers of that program how much additional revenue, how may new clients, how many new streams of income, hours saved, relationships saved, and businesses saved with that program.

 I took that program off the market as a package and turned it into a community instead because I realized how valuable the community aspect is. So, that $800 package is now a $29 per month community of bad ass business moguls killing it in the appraisal business, and the good news is that I’ve paid for your first month. It’s completely free for 30 days and guaranteed for a full 366 days. The reason I tell you all of this is to make the point that even being part of one of our awesome communities or programs, you still have to do the work. The only thing I can do is educate you, show you the way, give you the steps to follow, but then it’s up to you to do the work, and it will be the same with this episode. I’ll tell you what to do, but you have to do it if you want to profit from it. (By the way, if you want to give the AIA a try, just go to www.coachblaine.com/freemonth and check it out).

Let’s get into what I call the Unlikely Networker System, so called because I, like many of you, am a reluctant and unlikely networker. I have introvert tendencies and internal wiring, I get energized when I’m alone and learning, researching, writing, recording, building systems, and so forth. I know many of you are wired the same way, which is one of the attractive draws to the appraisal business. It’s a relatively low interaction business (or can be) and the vast majority of its participants are one or two person offices working the vast majority of their time in solitary confinement by choice. If they have interactions with other humans during the day it’s primarily via Facebook, Instagram, Slack, or some other communication channel that doesn’t involve having to actually be in front of a real human being. If we do like being in front of other humans, it’s only the few humans we call our people: a spouse, significant other, family member, or good friend.

For people like us to be out in public engaging with lots of other humans, we can do it just fine, but it drains our energy and then we have to go back to our caves and recuperate with down time and solitude. If this is not you and you’re more of the extroverted type, congrats, you’re probably already doing some of the stuff we’re going to talk about in a minute and you’re probably fairly good at it, although I think I can make you even better. One thing we all have in common, however, is that we’re all a little wary of natural networkers and salespeople. We all start to wonder, ‘what’s their real motive for being so cheery and talking to me right now? What do they want from me?’ That’s what makes us unlikely networkers.

Here's the thing though, friends, you may have built your real estate, appraisal, or mortgage business off of the massive deal flow that was the last 10 plus years, but real businesses endure downswings. If you find yourself with little to no business in one of those industries because the interest rates changed, you weren’t doing the necessary and important things that real businesses require for survival. So, get ready to write down these five categories of people that I think you need to be networking with on a regular and disciplined basis if you want to be at the top of the pyramid, so to speak. With each category I’ll give you an example, how to go about connecting with them, some ideas for building relationships with them, and maybe a short story or case study of how it has worked for me or others.

The first category in the Unlikely Networker System you could or should be reaching out to are what we will affectionately call collaborators or partners. By the way, as we go through these five groups you should be networking with, you’re definitely going to see some overlap. Some people will fit into several of the categories and, not only is that ok, but the more crossover there is with somebody, the greater the potential for connections. So, collaborators are simply people that you’d like to partner with in some way. Maybe you’ve done business with them in the past, maybe they’re not even somebody you can actually transact with because they’re in a different industry than you, but you’d like to partner with them in some way because you believe it could be a beneficial relationship for both parties in some way.

I’ll give you an example from my own life and business. Once I started thinking this way, I started to say collaboration opportunities all around me. As most of you know, I run a busy appraisal firm, I’m an investor, I run a busy coaching company, I have an executive role with a company called True Footage, and I run a content business whereby I create content and programs that can sold on the internet as an additional stream of income. When you’re involved in that many different businesses, almost everybody can be a collaborator in some way. But, with my appraisal business, I saw several people right away that I wanted to collaborate with, so I simply reached out to them with a value proposition.

 One of them is the regional sales director of a national title company, one of them your garden variety loan originator at a credit union, and one of them a broker/owner of a nationally recognized real estate firm. What was my value proposition? It’s what I talk about on this show all the time: either in-person educational classes, or virtual ones. I offered to do them for free for them, which was a great value to them because all three of those groups are always on the search for education. In two of those partnerships, the title guy and the lender, since they’re always trying to get more Realtor clients, my offer allowed them to get in front of more agents hungry to gain knowledge and have their questions answered, while the real estate broker is always on the lookout for two things: education for his own agents, and more agents to come join his brokerage.

A simple collaborative proposal that has put me in front of more than 20,000 agents, lenders, and other appraisers over the years. Was that my intention? Well, to get in front of people who might have the ability to use our services or at least refer our services was the intention, but it wasn’t to get in front of 20,000 people. That has simply been the end result of consistent collaborations over the years with those 3 people. What happens when you throw 20,000 of anything into the mix? You’re going to get some kind of result whether you want it or not. It just so happens that I wanted it and turned those 20,000 impressions into something valuable. Some of them turned into appraisal business on the non-lender side, some of them turned into introductions to great lenders who’ve become clients, some of them have turned into friendships that remain today, some of them have turned into coaching students, some of them into new collaborations, and so on. 

The thing about becoming an unlikely networker is that you never know what will come of it if anything. But that’s the gold in this journey. You just do the activity, create a habit of reach out to people, either with some kind of value offering, or maybe nothing at all beyond just wanting to meet and see how you might be able to add value. I had a call two weeks ago with a loan originator that did almost 300 million dollars in loan production. Did I have something I was pitching? Nope, I simply sent a bombbomb intro vid and said I thought she was somebody I’d like to meet. She was blown away by the fact that I sent a video, so we had a great call, got to know each other, found some mutual interests and connections, and ended the call with a promise to connect again in a couple weeks.

The interesting part about all of it was that, towards the end of the call she asked, “so, I’m still trying to figure out why you wanted to meet and what I can do for you?” She was suspicious because she has a lot of people reaching out to her and wanting something from her. I didn’t want anything from her but to meet her and see if I could provide some value for her. It turns out that just by reaching out to her with a video introduction I was able to add value for her. She was immensely curious about the videos I send because she immediately saw the value. Now she wants to know more how I use it, what gear I have to record, what scenarios I might send videos over plain emails, and so on. I didn’t ask to get added to her appraiser panel, I didn’t ask her to give me something, I simply told her I was impressed with what she was doing and thought we should meet. Will we end up doing business together at some point? I have no ideal, but I’ll continue the conversation and we’ll see if we can find a mutually beneficial way to add value for each other.

That’s the collaboration or partnership category and is probably one of my favorite categories, which is why I started with it. The next category of people to network with and build relationships with are what we might call gatekeepers. What are gatekeepers? They’re anybody who can connect you with somebody else, and preferably the many. What that means is that, if you want to get in front of a larger group of people, those groups will often have gatekeepers, or people that control who gets in front of the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper could be a secretary, an executive assistant, or a manager, but the gatekeeper can also be people who can grant you bigger opportunities for exposure, more work, better clients, speaking opportunities, opportunities at bigger conferences, and so forth.

An example of this comes from a relationship I’ve come to really cherish over the years as he’s become a good friend, and that’s the Appraiser Coach, Dustin Harris. As most of you hopefully know by now, Dustin has one of the best podcasts for appraisers out there, and he’s what I call the OG. He’s the original and one of the best at what he does. I never looked at Dustin or the Appraiser Coach podcast as an opportunity, I just valued the content and started sending messages to Dustin via social media about how much I valued the content. At some point, Dustin started listening to this podcast and eventually reached out to me to have me on his show. He didn’t have to do that, but he did. What he also did once he got to know me a little bit was refer me to the organizers of the Valuation Expo conference since he wasn’t able to speak at an upcoming event. He recommended me to the organizers who reached out to me and booked me to speak at the next big expo. I spoke at that Expo, which opened more doors to about 20 other things that have come my way since. I’ve since spoken and taught at Val Expo 3 or 4 times, taught at the ACTS conference and the Appraisal Summits, have been invited on several other podcasts, was introduced to the CEO of True Footage at one of the Val Expos I spoke at, and the list goes on.

I never thought of Dustin as a gatekeeper back then, but I certainly jumped at a chance to collaborate with him on his podcast. The only value I had to offer was my insights on his podcast, which would hopefully bring some listeners. However, Dustin had connections I didn’t have at the time and even though I wasn’t thinking that way back then, Dustin was big enough and gracious enough to show me the real value of making those connections for others. He made the connections for me, for which I am eternally grateful for, and I’ve done my best to continue adding value.

Right after collaborators, gatekeepers are probably one of the most important groups of people to try to connect with, in my opinion. And here’s the thing; you might reach out to 10 or 20 gatekeepers and two of them respond back to you, maybe only one of the two responding favorably. Ignoring and outright rejection is common in this pursuit. People are bombarded with emails, texts, social media, and requests for their attention. They don’t know you from anyone else and they would have no reason to want anything from you. However, history is filled with stories of people who gave up after a rejection or somebody ignoring them, and it’s also filled with some of the greatest success stories of people who just kept reaching out and finally getting through to a gatekeeper or to someone who wants to collaborate with them.

If you’ve never heard the name, Jamie Kern Lima, search it out on Google and read up on her story. I got to hear her tell her story live at a conference called BuiltHow in Palm Springs a few weeks ago and it’s the perfect example of perseverance, collaborators, gatekeepers, and how sticking with it and trusting your gut pays off big time. In her case, it paid off to the tune of $1.8bn in cash when she sold her cosmetics company to L’Oréal after being rejected by the people she now collaborates with and who were gatekeepers for many years.  

Collaborators, gatekeepers, and now the third group that is, in my opinion, an absolute MUST for connecting, for growth, and for relationship building and that is mentors. Mentors are simply anyone you look up to for any reason and who has the ability to teach you something. If you’re not finding and reaching out to people who can mentor you in some way, you are stunting your own growth tremendously. I see this as a coach in the appraisal industry almost every day. I mentioned the great Dustin Harris earlier in the show, he’s one of the best appraisal business mentors there is. Out of the 70,000 +/- appraisal license holders out there, my guess is that Dustin has several hundred people that he coaches at different levels. Call it +/- 200-300 people between all of his different mentorship programs out of even 50,000 people who could benefit from Dustin as a mentor is appalling and, quite frankly, embarrassing.

Want to make a correlation from causation calculation real quick? Look at what is happening to the appraiser industry at this moment and correlate it with the ratio between licensees and those who seek out business development help. Is that the only reason the current business model for appraisers is in a bit of decline? Of course not! It’s correlated with poor quality work, lack of sales and communication skills, bad attitudes toward their primary client base, poor customer service skills, and so on. if you have a chance to get better at running the business of providing the thing you purport of offer for money and you don’t take it, again, you’re not only taking money out of your own pocket, but you’re also taking it out of your family’s pocket because you could be upskilling and getting better and you choose not to.

The majority of appraisers looking to grow tend to grow in one direction only, and that’s in the direction of becoming more skilled at the technical aspects of that job. While nothing wrong with becoming better at the technical aspects, there is also a correlation with becoming better at the technical aspects of a job and getting further from business aspects that could propel the business forward and make it more money. The more technical you become, the more importance you tend to place on the technical aspects of the job and, therefore, tend to try to sell those aspects of your service when your market might not give a hoot about your technical expertise beyond a certain point.

On the flip side, when you’re not so buried in the technical aspects yourself, you can always hire that part of the equation, or pay for somebody within your company to get that technical expertise while you focus on the all-important business aspects that give you the things you hopefully got into to business for yourself to experience, more time, more money, more opportunity, and better life experiences. And this is what this whole episode is about, my friends, developing the most important skills for building your business and your lifestyle. I can assure you that your growth is not rooted in becoming the most technical appraiser in your market, it’s in becoming the most well-known, the best communicator, the best storyteller, the best problem solver, and the best networker you can possibly be.

I’ve run technical businesses since I was 20 years old and the greatest skills I learned over those 30+ years were all the ‘soft’ skills I just mentioned. Every business I’ve been in that required technical expertise; we hired that skill out. Installing and servicing furnaces and air conditioners, running a grocery store, running a martial arts school, and building and selling appraisal businesses. All of them had some technical aspect that was helpful to know and understand, but beyond a certain point the highest paid skills were marketing, selling, communicating, management, leadership, storytelling, and networking, by far!

Learn and get comfortable with networking with people you can help and add value to, and then learn to leverage other people’s time, talent, and treasure to do most of the technical work. Until next week, my friends, I’m out…

PS. If you want to learn more about the networking like a pro,check out Josh Spector’s Skill Sessions here…