MASTER OF NONE!

TO BE OR NOT TO BE!

To be or not to be, that is the question! The opening lines of act three, scene one of Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Hamlet is contemplating taking his own life and, so, starts off the scene uttering those words, ‘to be or not, to be: that is the question’. The phrase has been uttered millions of times since it was first written, and its been used in as many ways to ask a specific question: to be this? Or should I be that? Of course, Shakespeare was referring more to the philosophical question, should I exist, or should I not exist? We, of course, tend to use the phrase to ask much more simple questions like, should I be an appraiser, or should I be a real estate agent? Should I be a doctor, or should I go into nursing? Should I go to college, or should I join the military? These questions, of course, are what guide and direct our lives, in my opinion, and as we often say, the quality of our questions has a massive impact on the quality of the answers we get. Questions are what tickle the subconscious to set about seeking information and ammunition to support a particular answer or choice we might need some guidance on. Sometimes the question is easy like, Coke or Pepsi. Well, if you’re not a deranged and unbalanced human being, the answer is always clearly Coke! And then there are times where the questions might be a tad more complex and not so easy to answer. 

A question I hear asked from time to time is whether or not to specialize, or whether to generalize, and which one is the best for a particular individual in a particular field. Of course, nobody else can answer that question for any particular individual because everyone’s motives, intentions, and paths are their own. What we can offer, at a minimum, is some things to ponder in the pursuit of answers to those questions. And that, my dear friends, is what this episode is all about; whether to specialize or to generalize, and what those two paths might look like. There are pros and cons to both, and thinking through all of the pros and cons of any decision is part of the process of any mature individual. In fact, its one of the characteristics that separates children from adults, and maturity from immaturity. The ability to rationally think through all of the pros and cons of an action is a sign of growth. Children tend not to the have the life experience to know the potential outcomes and consequences of their decisions and actions, which is what life is about to a large degree, and so they don’t have a lot of context with which to go through a pros and cons exercise and then weight the probabilities of one outcome over the other. Mature adults do. When it comes to this question, one that is colloquially often phrased as, ‘should I be a jack of all trades, and a master of none, or should I try to master one?’ By the way, a little useless knowledge that might not be so useless, the jack of all trades phrase also comes from the Shakespearean era and the full saying is, ‘a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one’. So, even though we often use the phrase, ‘jack of all trades’ as a derogatory insult meaning that the person hasn’t mastered anything, the original saying was actually saying the opposite, that sometimes it might be better to be a jack of all trades instead of being a master of only one. 

So, let me clear up this age old question of whether or not to specialize or to generalize with the simple answer of, yes! ‘Well, yes what Blaine?, Yes, become a specialist? Or yes, become a generalist?’ Yes! That should clear it up for everybody! Thanks for listening to the podcast friends, we’ll see you next week. I’m kidding, of course, I can’t end a podcast after 5 minutes, not to mention that the answer isn’t really that easy. The question is easy to ask, but the answer will always be nuanced because there are lots of variables, many which are personal and based on the individual and not on the particular job or industry. So, what I’m going to offer you in this episode is my answer from my experiences in life, and in a variety of industries, and my opinions based on those experiences, as well as my experiences coaching lots of people over the last 20+ years. 

The way I’ll start this is out is with a simple phrase that, I believe, should become something of a mantra for you, and that is to generalize internally, but specialize externally. What do I mean? Well, this mantra is a calling to become something of a jack of all trades, learn lots of things, lots of views, lots of techniques and skills, lots of ideas, being open to a wide variety of concepts and belies about different things, not becoming so narrowly focused when it comes to skill and concept acquisition that you close yourself off to potentially new things and better ways of doing things. However, my belief, and my experience in a variety of different pursuits and industries, is that if you want to be best in class and be paid the highest you can possibly be paid, often breaking previously set ceilings for pay and income in certain industries, one must absolutely specialize in some area and then let the world know that you are the specialist in that area! I’m going to go deeper into the marketing and branding aspect of this specialization belief a little later in the show because this part is really important. Until then, however, let me say it again so it sticks: become a generalist internally, and a specialist externally. 

As many of you know, I have a 20-year-old son and a 17-year-old son. They both entered the working world around the age of 15, as per both mine and their mother’s belief that life is more than school at that age and, should they want to venture out into that world, or should they want to buy things, they should learn what it means to trade their time for money and learn the value of both. What I also try to impart to both of them as a parent, as well as a multiple business owner, is this idea of generalizing, or getting lots of experience in a bunch of different Industries, as well as a variety of jobs within each of those industries. You can’t possibly know what you want to do with your life until you’ve done a bunch of stuff you realize you don’t like. I keep saying to both my boys that its not so much about trying to find what it is you do like as it is often about noting the things you don’t like. Keep good notes on both of those things, the good and the not so good, but burn through lots of different things and gain lots of experience and experiences. When you take this particular approach, not only are you being exposed to a variety of skills, ideas, and industries, you’re also being exposed to a variety of world views, people, belief systems, and interests. Not only are you learning new skills for a specific job and industry, you’re being exposed to new hobbies, sports, cultures, and interests you may decide to pursue yourself. This is the ’variety is the spice of life’ mentality and generalist view on gathering lots of different experiences. I look back at my own resume and think to myself, ‘you’re probably not going to be top of the list at most places because you’ve had so many different jobs and careers over a 35-year period, but boy have we had fun!’ 

I was, and still am, a generalist internally. I am a constant learner, researcher, and trier of new things. I’ve started new sports and hobbies in my late 20s, 30s, and 40s. I’ve picked up boating now at 50 and am excited to try out wake surfing this year or next. Who knows what 55, 60, 65, 70 and 80 hold for me, and those like me, but rest assured, I will continue to be a generalist internally in life and in business in that I will continue to learn new things so that I have a wide variety of basic skills and views on a wide variety of topics. Jolene reminded me that I can do basic to intermediate electrical wiring, basic construction, some finish construction, basic to intermediate plumbing, I can install furnaces and air conditioning systems. I have a bunch of generalized skills, very few of which I would call specialized, other than maybe the HVAC stuff since I did that for several years. But all of those general skills have allowed me to get stuff done, and also know what I want to avoid doing should the need arise. If you want to be a special operations soldier or in law enforcement, you’re going to have to learn to generalize, as well as specialize. Almost every special operations team, whether its military or law enforcement, has a team of people all with a wide variety of general skills. But they all also have their specialties that they bring to the group. There is a team radio operator, a team medic, a team sniper, a team negotiator, a team translator, and so on. Each of the members is cross trained in many of those skills, but there is somebody on the team who is a specialist in that thing. Generalists internally, specialists in something externally. 

By the way, I’m going to ask you six questions in a little bit that may help you decide in what area or in what way you want to specialize. What I will say to end the suspense a little more is that you absolutely need to specialize in something in life. Not everybody does, and not everybody will. It doesn’t mean you aren’t good at what you do, and it doesn’t mean you can’t be successful in what you do if you don’t see yourself as a specialist. As a business coach though, I believe it is absolutely imperative that you specialize in something if you want to earn the most money you can, have the most freedom possible, stand out from the crowd, and be the best in class in something.  I’m also going to open the door for you on different ways you can specialize that might have little or nothing to do with your specific industry. It might, but it doesn’t necessarily have to and I’ll prove that to you in a little bit. Generalize internally; get lots of experience, knowledge, training, and try lots of things, but specialize externally. With all of that generalized experience and knowledge, start to narrow down which sets of skills, passions, and interests pull you closer to a specialty or specialized area of expertise. Or, said another way, train yourself like a generalist, market yourself like a specialist. 

With that being said, lets chat about it for a quick second. If you’ve never heard of the Dunning Kruger effect, let me introduce you to an interesting cognitive bias that gives some color to why some people think they can do something, while others, often with more experience and expertise, don’t think they can. Two researchers noticed a phenomenon whereby people with lower skills and intelligence often thought themselves to be much smarter and more capable than they were. In essence, dumb people thinking they’re smart, and not having the intelligence or self awareness to know how inept they really are. It makes sense when you dig into it because somebody who doesn’t have the requisite intelligence to be really good at something also often doesn’t have self awareness about their inability and, therefore, might be completely unaware of their own blind spots and weaknesses. On the flip side, you often have highly skilled people with above average intelligence who downplay their skills and abilities because they feel they’re not good enough, or maybe not as good as their peers even though they may in fact be more skilled than most of their peers. We tend to refer to this as imposter syndrome. Highly intelligent and skilled individuals who don’t think they’re that good and they’re about to be found out any minute now. How does this relate to what we’re talking about in this episode? Well, you have to figure out if you suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect and believe yourself to be much more competent than you really are, or do you suffer from imposter syndrome where you’re probably really skilled and experienced, but you tend to hide your light under a bushel so as to delay the inevitable imposter reveal. What I’m recommending in this episode is to take an inventory of your knowledge and skills, assess your talents and your interests, and then decide which area you’d like to be known for in the market. That will become your specialty. 

For all my appraiser and real estate listeners, I’ll give you some examples that should make sense to you. As an appraiser, for example, most of you likely have no problem appraising cookie cutter homes in typical developments. You learned how to do this within the first six months from your mentor while he or she worked on the more complex files. Maybe they let you in on some of the more complex stuff to get your feet wet, but your job was to bang out the 1500 square foot ranch home appraisals all day, every day. As a Realtor, same principle applies. You are quite happy to list and sell those 1500 square foot ranch homes all day long. However, you find that you kinda like those lakefront homes, and you kinda like being known as the lakefront home agent. Or maybe you started ‘farming’ a particular area of town because you live there and so you decide to specialize in that geographic area. As an appraiser, after 5 or 10 years you’ve had a chance to dip your toes into the more complex high end home market like my friends in California, Jason Fischman and Charles Baker do. They’re both well known for their particular specialities of appraising homes in the $10,000,000 to homes in the hundreds of million-dollar range. Not everybody wants to tackle those properties due to their size and complexity, but somebody has to, and somebody has to be the specialist. Can they appraise the 1500 square foot ranch homes? Of course, all day long! They’re generalists in that regard, but specialists in a particular niche. 

And, by the way, there are a variety of areas that you can specialize in as an appraiser. You could become the direct lender specialist, the specialist in dealing with legal work, the Realtor specialist, the pre-listing pro, the department of transportation appraisal specialist, the divorce and estate appraisal specialist, or maybe the specialist in new construction appraisals. Now, you might hear that list and think, ‘yeah Blaine, we can all do that stuff!’, to which I would say two things: prove it, and then market yourself as that thing. If you can do it, and believe you’re pretty damn good at it, and you like doing it, you have to market yourself as a specialist in that thing. If you don’t, you’ll always be known as a generalist who can do everything, but so can everyone else. Pick your niche and tell the world about it. One of the things that will happen when you pick your niche is that you will likely get even better at it. Not only because you’ll be doing more of that thing, but because you will want to be the best at it so you’ll seek out more information, you’ll increase your vocabulary around that specialty, you’ll take some classes on the topic, you might even start to teach some classes on the topic, and you’ll eventually become the undisputed and well-known specialist in that particular area. You become a jack of all trades in the lead up, and a master of at least one in the process. Those who don’t specialize in at least one thing or area, will always be relegated to the generalist category and be forced to compete with every other generalist in your market and industry. The danger of being a generalist, at least in the long run, is that you risk your skills and talents becoming a commodity. When something becomes a commodity, it is sorted and chosen primarily by price. A commodity in any market or industry is perceived to be the same as every other thing just like it and, therefore, the lowest price almost always wins. 

Can you see how not choosing to specialize, or at least not marketing your specialities, can be problematic in the long run? Am I telling you not to learn everything you can about your industry and your market and, instead, just pick a specialized area of focus and do that? Nope! Never said to do that, in fact I said to do the opposite. Generalize internally means to learn everything about everything. Become a jack of all trades. But then, at some point, become a master of at least one and let the world know! So here are six questions you can ask that may help you decide the value of specializing, and maybe in what area you’d like to be known as the best in class. After that I’ll share with you how your speciality doesn’t necessarily have to directly pertain to your job or industry. 

The first question to ask yourself is, who are the people in my industry, or related industries, I really look up to, admire, and enjoy working with? An offshoot to this question could be, who do I admire and WOULD LIKE TO work with at some point? I took this route in almost every industry I ended up in over the years and it’s done wonders for how I tend to see the world of opportunities. As soon as I decided on an industry, I immediately began learning who the top players were, who the best teachers and coaches were, and who the most respected companies and owners were in the business. Almost immediately I began reaching out to those people to make connections. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes I never got a return email. It didn’t matter. All it takes is one good connection with somebody and you are on your way to rapid and exponential growth, often with some really good guidance as well. If your goal is to figure out how and where to specialize, getting some external perspective from others who may be there already is worth its weight in gold. Get as much perspective as you possibly can from the outside world, and you’ll have an easier time narrowing down the areas you feel like you could really excel and enjoy. By the way, the last part of that sentence is as important as the first part. Its as important, if not more important, to really enjoy the area you decide to specialize in. Being able to excel is one thing, but if you have little to no interest in the area that you excel, you’ll burn out faster than if you just generalize forever. The vital intersection between interest and ability is typically where your specific guidance on specialization exists.

The second question to ask is, would I be happy, content, turned on, enthused, and stay motivated focusing on one thing, or in one area, every day? As you make your way down the path of generalization to specialization, one of the most important questions will be, ‘is this something I can see myself doing exclusively each day?’ For my appraiser audience, you could easily parse out some of the different areas of focus you’re exposed to each week or month. Do you like the more complex properties over the cookie cutter deals? Being a specialist in one of those areas doesn’t mean you can’t accept and work on both of those, it’s more a question of ‘what do we want to be known for’ and ‘what do we want to attract into our business mostly’. By the way, this is the difference between branding and marketing. Marketing is all the things you do in your business to get the world to notice you, branding is what you’re known for. Marketing is all the tools and processes you use to get noticed, branding is what people think about and remember about you without having a flyer or advertisement in front of them. If you want to be the complex property appraiser, or the high-end home agent, you have to build your brand around that specialty. All of your marketing will then speak to that specialization. For you to know what area or areas you want to specialize in you have to ask if you’d even enjoy and be motivated to focus on that thing long term. If the answer is no, keep looking. 

The third question to ask is, ‘will I need more education, and what specific kind of education will I need, to really plumb the depths of this particular focus?’ What do you need to know? What more do you need to know to become a, or the specialist in that area? Do I want to be a generalist family doctor with a typical family doctor practice? Or do I want to be a hand specialist? A neurosurgeon, an orthopedic specialist, or an internist? What additional education do I need? What is the commitment needed? How much will it cost me to get that additional education? And then, what is the potential payoff for me both in terms of income and enjoyment. Don’t ever leave out the enjoyment part, friends! Income will only take you so far in the life enjoyment category! Trust me on this one if you’re at the beginning of your career. Too many people make choices based on income alone and then realize, once they’re earning the income, they always desired, that they don’t like what they do. This kinda harkens back to good ol’ Maslow and his hierarchy of needs I talk about so often. When you’re near the bottom of the pyramid you tend to think that the things in the upper levels above you will solve all of life’s issues if and when you can get there. You’re making $40,000 per year and think, ‘once I’m making $80,000 per year, life will be amazing!’. And, of course, more money can solve many of life’s issues, but what it can’t solve is an unexamined pursuit of it at all costs. The $80,000 gets you a cushier lifestyle than the $40,000 did, but you now just have $80,000 problems and challenges instead of $40,000 challenges, and your most vexing questions about life and happiness are still there. As you work through these questions, you’ll have to do a little future thinking and try your best to imagine you’re already there. What is life like? What are you doing and do you enjoy it? If you can see it and feel it and it feels good, what will it take to become known for that?

The fourth question, which ties closely to what I just mentioned about life, lifestyle, and happiness is, will specializing in this thing increase or decrease my work life balance? How will your life and relationships be if you pursue this particular specialty? What do you value outside of your work life and your business and will pursuing this particular area of focus enhance those things, or detract from them? Again, hopefully you’re hearing a theme here. Its not just about becoming known for something in your business, your industry, and your market, its also about what being known for that will give you in the long run and in terms of life enhancement. You got into the appraisal or the real estate business because it meant potentially more income, more freedom, more opportunity, no boss potentially, and a better life. Now you maybe make more money, you work 80 hours per week, you couldn’t smell an opportunity if it was pasted on your upper lip, your boss is an asshole, and your life sucks. Good move! By the way, this is the case for many. I talk with these people on a daily basis in a variety of industries. If you decide to be best in class in some particular area, will It offer you more life, or less life? All the income in the world means nothing if you’re miserable. Life is short friends, spend it doing something you have at least a little interest and passion for. You don’t have to have a deep burning desire to be whatever it is you’re being at the moment, but if you at least have some enjoyment of it and is allows you to greatly enjoy other areas of life, you’re on the right path. If you’re going to be well known for something, make it something that will definitely increase your work life balance as much as humanly possible. 

The fifth question to ask yourself when thinking about specializing in some area is, will I close myself off to future opportunities If I focus too narrowly? This question applies a little more to the larger corporate environment than it does for small businesses and one person appraisal shops, but its still definitely something to consider. If you start telling your market that you’re the complex property guy or gal, will that paint you into a corner where they’re no longer sending you other kinds of business? Of course, just because you specialize and become known for one thing does not mean you can’t also do other stuff, it just means that’s what you’re known for, but you definitely what to think deeply about what you might miss out on if you focus too narrowly on your specific specialty. There should be enough of that type of business available for you to do well at, it should be something you enjoy, it should enhance your work like balance, and it shouldn’t necessarily close you off to doing other things. By the way, I didn’t say that there has to be enough of that work available for everybody. I said there should be enough of that type of business available for YOU to do well at. I’m speaking to you! I’m not speaking to everybody. Only 5 of you actually listen to me and implement what I tell you anyway so I’m not too worried about it, but I did not say there will be enough for everybody. 

I often get messages from people when I talk about specializing in a particular area, usually when I’m talking about building up a non-lender side of the appraisal business. Almost every time, without fail, somebody will message me and start using maths with me! “Hey Blaine, its statistically impossible for every appraiser to get the same amount of work as they do from lending work. If every appraiser went after the private market then…” I get it man! I have never ever said that there is enough of any particular type of work or business for everybody. I am a believer in the mindset that there is always enough to go around, and that for you to have more in life it does not mean somebody else has to go without. But I do not subscribe to the idea that everyone is capable of being successful in the same market or business as somebody else. Just like the disclaimer on those weight loss commercials that says, ‘results may vary’, your results will be based on a variety of things, including your mindset, your abilities, your skill set, your communication style, your ability to goal set and follow a plan, and a dozen other things that we talk about on this show. No, not everybody can be the go-to high end appraisal expert. No, not everybody can make a good living at only doing private work. No, not everybody can be the most well-known professional in their market. But that’s the good news! If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it! Its not easy though, which is why it works friends! Very few people are willing to take the time and effort to specialize and then market themselves as such. I know a ton of people who think they’re specialists in some area because of their training, their accreditations, their own sense of self importance, and a few other things, but the market may not know that or think that of them. When you choose to specialize, you also have to shout it proudly to your market so that you become known for that thing. 

The last question to ask yourself on this pursuit is, ‘to what end?’ A different way to say this is, ‘what’s my end game with this strategy?’ What do I want to be doing with my life and business 3 to 5 years from now? Will I want to be known for this in a few years? Will I want to be managing a bunch of people? If I go down this path of specialization, what else will I have to do to maintain it? Take some time and think through all of these questions as you start to narrow down what you want to be known for. Generalize internally, specialize externally.

Now, as I promised earlier, I said I would explain how you can specialize without necessarily specializing in a particular part of your industry or specific type of work. I’ve talked about my own transformational experience a bunch of times on the show and how, about 12 or so years ago now, I decided I liked teaching, speaking, coaching, mentoring, and educating my market a tad more than I actually enjoyed appraising homes in my market. I decided that if this was all there was for me, just going out every day and appraising homes, I’d probably move on at some point because I was getting burned out. I had a bunch of trainees and appraisers working for me, we were making lots of money, we were building a good name in the business, and I was completely bored with all of it. In doing some of the work that I often ask all of you to do, and the work that our coaching members go through on a regular basis, I started asking myself what would have to change for me to stay motivated to keep building this thing. The answer I eventually came up with is that I would have to be doing more of the things that I loved to do, which was in the education realm. So, one day I just decided that we’re going to rebrand our company as an education company that just happens to do appraisals. Simple! To the point! It may be confusing to some at first, but I didn’t really care what anybody else thought. I figured if I was going to close up shop anyways, might as well do it how I wanted to do it. So, I started developing free classes for my market. I started putting myself out there to give talks and workshops for anybody who would listen. I tried at first to be in some kind of teaching setting at least once per month, whether it was 3 agents in an office, or 20. 

12 years later, I give some kind of class, workshop, zoom conference, con ed class, talk, webinar, or one on one coaching with agents and lenders in my market. Fairly quickly the word got out that Blaine Feyen, and his Real Value Group, were the go-to for answers, insights, and friendly advice with all of your real estate and appraisal questions and concerns. I had no idea at the time, but that would become our specialty. Our specialty, what we’ve become known for  is not the complex properties, the high end properties, the water front properties, the rural properties, or any other segment of the appraisal market, we’ve become known as the people to go to to get your questions answered in a friendly and helpful way. Do we do all of those kinds of appraisals? Sure do! We just don’t have to market in that way because the business comes to us as the ‘answer people’. We solve lots of problems, educate our agents and lenders on the appraisal process, do lots of free informal reviews of reports, make lots of videos, we have a private Facebook group fro agents and lenders with about 1000 people and growing, we’ve expanded our class offerings to non appraisal type stuff like goal setting workshops, developing mastermind groups, coaching agents and lenders on how to be more successful and profitable, and a variety of other things. Can you do the same thing? Maybe. Not everybody has the same skill set that I just mentioned and that’s ok. You have to leverage what you do have and the decide if you want that to be your specialty. The interesting thing about the specialty I chose, which really had nothing to do with any particular segment of the market, is that by being out in my market on a regular basis talking with agents and lenders, I became the only one really educating them on these topics and solving their problems. This automatically leads people to believing on their own that we are experts in all of those areas of the business. We don’t have to say we’re the complex property experts because people in our market already believe that on their own simply by sitting through one of our interactive workshops. 

My point with all of that is not to pat myself on the back, its to show you that you can leverage some aspect of your life, your outlook, your personality, your hobbies, and your skills to become known for something that may have nothing to do with the appraisal or the real estate business. The goal is to supplant yourself in the minds of your customers and clients as the go to, even if they don’t know exactly why. What I will say to end this episode is that anybody can copy almost every aspect of your business: how you do what you do, how you deliver your product or service, how you market and advertise, and how you run your company. What they can’t do is copy exactly how you communicate with your market because that’s unique to you. If you’re not communicating with them in some way, you’re not specializing and you’re not known for anything special. You’re a generalist in every sense of the word and that’s ok for a lot of people. There are a lot of appraisers who are generalist and do well in their markets. They are, more or less, nondescript names and numbers that get orders, the orders get done, they get paid, everybody is happy. If you’re ok with being a generalist, I’m ok with it. But if you’re not ok with that, if you don’t want to eventually end up as a commodity where the only differentiator is lowest price and fastest turn time, then it might be time to become known for something! Think on what that might be and then set out after it. 

Thank you my friends for tuning in again this week, If all goes well I will be in Vegas the week of September 7th, 8th, and 9th for Valuation Expo where I will be teaching a class on building your business using social media and content creation. Right after that class I will be hosting a free half day mastermind and business building class for anybody who wants to attend and grow. Our coaching members get first crack at the limited seats and they’re filling up fast, everybody else at the expo gets whats left. If you’re going to be at the expo this year and would like to be part of that, just reach out to me and reserve your seat. Go to www.CoachBlaine.com , or find me on Facebook, and either email me or message me and we’ll save your seat. 

Before we go, I’d also like to beg you to send your most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to my good friend, and likely one of your friends as well, Mr. Roy Meyer. If you don’t know Roy, he’s a well known appraiser and business coach. Roy and his family have been living the laptop lifestyle for several years now where they travel around the world and stay in beautiful locations for months at time, and then move on to the next location. We had Roy in our Level 1 coaching and mastermind group as our monthly guest coach just a couple months ago and he gave a great two hour talk on improving your business, using virtual assistants, and a bunch of other great things. Sadly, Roy has been afflicted with Covid and is very ill in a hospital in Mexico. The last message we got from his dear wife, Carrie, was that Roy was in the hospital and not getting better and that he was growing weary. He desperately needs your thoughts and prayers so, if you’re the praying type, please send them Roy’s way.