Summary: Blaine Feyen discusses 3 ways (with a 4th bonus method) that Real Estate Appraisers can increase their income and dollars per hour and, at the same time, have more life and peace in the process. Blaine also talks about the 80/20 rule and how 20 percent (or less) of your clients likely deliver 80 percent of your results and income. Blaine goes on to talk about how letting some of your biggest headache clients move on may be the best thing for you, your business, and your life! If you'd like to listen to the Real Value Podcast version of this post, just click on this sentence...

Its a pretty regular experience for me to peruse an appraisal industry forum or group and see somebody complaining about how tight things are for them. So we’re going to talk about firing some of your clients, raising your fees, and above all, why and how to stop bitching about the things you can change.


When I talk to appraisers, real estate agents, lenders, teachers of other disciplines, you name it, anybody in any field of work really, and the topic of money, pay, income, salary and pay rates comes up, two habits in me are immediately triggered. The first habit is one that I learned from Mr. Toyoda, and subsequently a whole host of other teachers throughout the years after that, and that’s the habit of listening very closely to the words the speaker is using. Of course, I do this anyways now just as a normal habit that has become ingrained from a couple decades of practice (we have an upcoming podcast on the science of listening and linguistics and how to almost immediately get inside the mind of the person speaking to you), but I tune in very closely to the specific words the person is using to describe their feelings on the topic. I’m not talking about just being a good listener, I’m referring to the almost non-existent skill of listening to the exact, very specific words the person is using and understanding how the words they’re using are giving you deep insight into how this person really thinks.  The words a person uses gives tremendous insight into how the software in their brain operates and how they make decisions.


As a teacher, business coach, mentor, and consultant, my business lives and dies on getting results for my students, staff, and clients. This is true with my appraisal firm, my aikido academy, leadership seminars, defensive tactics training, whatever it is that we do. If I don’t get results for my clients, my staff, my trainees, my colleagues, and ultimately my businesses as a whole, people start looking elsewhere for results. This, again, is true in every single aspect of our lives. Its true in relationships as much as it’s true in business and every interaction we have with other human beings. Whenever somebody is speaking to me I am quietly and discretely analyzing their language because it gives me great insight into how their mind works, and more importantly, their belief systems. I’ll give you a little teaching secret, by the way, if you want to be a great teacher, just having information on how to do something is never enough. If you want to be great, you need to know how to get others to implement your information, your suggestions, your techniques, and your specific demands into their lives or businesses. And the only way to do that is to understand, at a deep level, how one thinks, feels, and speaks about a variety of topics, the language they use and their self talk, and then understand how those words and feelings influence the decisions they make. Once you understand this about the person, two things happen: first, you have gained tremendous insight simply in understanding the person much deeper than most who only listen superficially, and second: you can begin altering the language they use, which can in turn, help to start modifying potentially limiting beliefs and feelings about a topic, and then you can begin helping them start installing new words, new language, new thoughts, new ideas, new paradigms or views of the world, and ultimately new belief systems about what is possible.


So how does this relate to giving yourself a raise? Well, it relates at a very fundamental level and to get you to understand where we can go with this idea, I need you to trust me for just a minute when I tell you that, at a very fundamental level, the business you have today, the income you have today, the client mix you have today, the relationships you have today, the fees you get paid today, the very things you have today, are all due, in large part, to the way you think, the way you feel about how you think, and the habitual patterns of languaging and thoughts that stream forth from the time your eyes open in the morning until they eventually close at night. Theres a saying in leadership training and business coaching, the saying is “every owner or CEO gets the exact company they deserve”, which is a deep statement pointing to how we create what we have so if you don’t like it, look within before looking outside of yourself. I could spend literally hours on this topic, and do in some of our workshops, but to keep this episode reasonably short, I’ll do my best to get right into the meat of it so you can begin seeing a difference in your business (and maybe life as well if you decide to implement the things we discuss today). We’re going to discuss tactical and practical, which is how I refer to the actionable things one can do today to start seeing some change, but we first have to hover at 50,000 feet and discuss strategic.


Having trained and mentored literally thousands of students since 1994 in several different industries, I can assure you that by helping somebody see that how they think directly affects what they do, what they say, what they feel, what they earn, and ultimately what they accept, we can then begin to help them identify their limits, which are almost always self imposed, we can help them identify where those beliefs may have come from, and then help them begin to change some of those beliefs to be more empowering, lead more effectively, and start experiencing some of the things that they may say they want on the outside, but inside they are actually trashing and destroying any chance whatsoever of ever having it. What happens simultaneously, and is often the key to making the changes stick, is to help them change the language they use when describing certain things.


Anytime we start talking about money, people start to squirm a bit in their seat, either because they don’t make enough of it, they’ve been taught that its rude to discuss, or because they know they make more than everybody in the discussion and they know the fundamental reason why. When you read the title, specifically the ’give yourself a raise’ part of the title, how did you feel about that part? I don’t mean superficially how did you feel, like “of yeah, I want to learn how to give myself a raise”, I mean deep down inside, how does the idea of having more money make you feel? (Please the note, I have not used the words ‘make’ or ‘earn’ when referring to money) My guess is that the surface idea makes you feel great, I mean. Who doesn’t want to give themselves a raise and have more of the very thing that helps give us freedom to do the things we like to do?


I can assure you, however, deep down inside most people, the idea scares you and for a variety of reasons. One of them I know to be fact because I hear it all the time, “I cant raise my fees because those are dictated by the lender, the client, the AMC, customary and reasonable for our area, etc”. For lenders its, “I cant do that or I wont be competitive with XYZ bank or credit union”, and for Realtors its, “I cant do that, the industry standard is X% commission and my company’s controls that”. So, given the language you would use to describe that scenario to me, I would know instantly that the feeling associated with that situation is one of resignation, a feeling of having no control over the clients you work with and the fees you’ve accepted and, therefore, you’re just going to accept them. You might even be the kind of person who takes it the next positive step and says, “I cant control them, so I’ll just accept them and be grateful”, and to that I would say, good for you because being grateful for what we have is definitely an important aspect of having control over the way things make us feel, and ultimately keeping the flow of good things coming into your life. However, if you’ve simply accepted that there are no other options and resigned yourself to the status quo, I would encourage you to ask yourself a few questions. Questions are the tools I always use to start the process of change. If I can get you to ask yourself some very vital questions and eventually get good answers to them, I can begin to help you make vital changes that lead to real results. One of the ways we do that is by figuring out the program running in your brain and then by helping you install new software into your brain. Once the software is installed in the form of new beliefs about a topic and then new language when thinking and discussing that topic, we are on our way to getting new results.


So, the first thing I would ask you to do is dig down and ask yourself where the belief that you have no control over your clients or their fees comes from OR why you might believe that whatever you’re doing right now is the ONLY way that money comes to you (again, not using the words make or earn) You’d likely give me the answers I mentioned earlier to which I would say, no, dig deeper. You’ve accepted that there is no negotiating those fees because you think the AMC is so big, they dictate the work and the fees, its all that’s available to you in your area, etc., etc. But the reality is that you’ve simply accepted that to be your reality in likely the same way you learned the way you appraise homes today, or sell houses if you’re a realtor, or sell money if you’re a loan officer, you do it because that’s the way you were taught and, at some level, the way you operate fits with our belief system about what is possible, what is manageable for you, what you deserve, and definitely what you don’t deserve and isn’t possible for you in your market. My guess is that many of you make canned adjustments and comments on the appraisal because that’s the way your mentor taught you how to adjust. You accepted it as true, reasonable, acceptable, and at some level, it didn’t clash with any internal belief systems within you and here you sit today, doing things the same way 5, 10, maybe 20 years later because that’s the way you were taught and it seems to be working for you.


Given that premise, that we do things a certain way simply because that’s the way we were taught or that’s the way we’ve always done them, is it possible that the way you think and feel about work, money, income, salary, fees, costs, clients, what’s possible, and things in general, is a belief system, or a piece of software that your brain runs on, that continues to dictate how you think, feel, and act today? I’ll end the suspense because there is a right answer to that question regardless of how you might feel about the answer. The right answer is simply ‘Yes!”, we all operate on a daily basis based on software that runs in our brains, these are called belief systems, many of which were given to us at a very early age when we didn’t yet have the ability to think critically about the world around us. In fact, many of our belief systems that we operate on 30, 40, 70 years later aren’t even explicit lesson we were taught, they are what we refer to as implicit, or implied belief systems, based on what we saw or heard from the world around us. For example, if in your household money was always tight, mom and dad both had to work to pay the bills, there was talk about not having enough or not being able to do certain things because of finances, your family never had a new car, or took an awesome vacation, or could fly on a plane, or maybe had the latest fashion trends, and on and on the list goes. Many of us were raised in households where it was very common to receive the life lesson that if you want to be, do, or have something in life, you have to work really hard! Dad left early in the morning and came home sometimes after dark and then had to relax because he had a ‘hard day at work’. In fact, a very common phrase we’ve probably all used is the phrase ‘hard earned money’. That phrase alone implies that there is only one way to get it and that’s from hard work. Every time you say it, you reinforce the software in your brain that there is no other way and, therefore, every dollar that comes to you comes via hard work. Since you’re working hard to earn it, you keep telling yourself that’s how you got it, you feel good about that method because it fits with your belief system that was installed long ago before you even knew that’s the lesson you were learning, you then look at others who may have acquired some it by working a little less hard than you and what do you do? You complain that they didn’t have to work hard for their money, they’re paid too much, they’re not worth that much, something is wrong with the world, they should be working harder, etc., and this further reinforces your belief system that the only way for YOU to have some of it is to work ‘HARD’. In fact, never has it become more obvious than the current world we live in where information flows freely and electronically so we have immediate access to levels of information we never could have dreamed of just 10 or 15 years ago. We see and hear about the Kardashians and the millions, and now almost billions, they are worth, we hear about professional athletes and what they make for what they do, we hear about the founder of Amazon and his net worth being over $100 billion dollars. We see and hear all of these things and we immediately have thoughts and feelings about them. Most people, (I know this because I hear it and see it written in comments sections every day) have a very negative opinion about people who earn more money than themselves, especially people who earn significantly more than they do for work they’ve judged to be less significant in the world than the work they do. And while there is nothing wrong with having an opinion, we all have them, if your opinion is keeping you from realizing more of those things for yourself (and they most likely are), than its time to start examining your beliefs and opinions about those things. On the subject of money, if you hear about Jeff Bezos being worth more than $100 billion dollars and you have a negative reaction to that, you’ve just activated the software in your brain that says “that’s not right, it wasn’t hard earned, he’s taking it from somebody else, there’s not enough to go around, he could feed the world with that money, he only works an hour or less per day, and all of your focus has shifted to the aspects of Jeff Bezos’ income that you have absolutely no control over which reinforces your belief that we’re powerless at some level, there’s an imbalance in the world, rich people are greedy, rich people are evil, you have to step on others to be wealthy, or whatever negative stuff you might say to justify feeling the way you feel and staying at your income level. Some of that stuff may be true, by the way. Jeff Bezos might be evil. Bill Gates might be evil. Steve Jobs may have been evil. I’m not making any qualitative statements or judgements about any of them. If you believe they’re evil in some way, don’t buy anything from Amazon, Microsoft, or Apple to make yourself feel better. But focusing on it will only keep you in the same place you’ve been in for however long you’ve been there. By associating their wealth, how they may have acquired it, and what they do with it with some negative thoughts and feelings in your own paradigm of the world, your own belief systems, you’re constantly feeding your own belief system that wealth sucks, having more than others is somehow bad or evil, and a long laundry list of things that most definitely keep you from some of the very thing you likely say you want more of. You see, you cant simultaneously praise something and disdain it. You cant hold two competing ideas in your brain at the same time. You cant say I want to have more of something, while at the same time swearing at the Ferrari driver and saying rich people suck! Anything you disdain at some level will always move away from you. You can say you want more of it but that statement is simply a statement of fact, you want it. Whether or not you want it has almost nothing at all to do with whether you’re capable of having it.


The great Earl Nightingale is famous for saying lots of things, but one of his famous sayings is that we become what we think about. Believing that to be true, if those are the things you think about, whether consciously or unconsciously, you can easily see why and where you are in life. That means, by the way, all the good things you have as well as the things you may not be so pleased about.


Nevertheless, for the sake of our discussion today, I’m going to give some you some practical tips to help your business, your income, and your life today, but I’m also going to encourage you take some of your after hours life energy time and start asking these questions of yourself. When you do, you’ve begun a process that will ultimately start benefitting your life almost instantly. Because when we begin to identify first what beliefs we have about certain things, and then where those beliefs came from, we have the opportunity to literally change the world we see around us. This is not hocus pocus stuff or new age mumbo jumbo, this is the stuff that separates the average from the elite. You can always give somebody a technique, a tactic, a script, or a piece of technology to help them in their business or life, but if there is a belief system buried deep inside of their brain that says, ultimately, I don’t deserve to be happy, healthy, wealthy, have freedom, that there’s enough to go around, that money is only acquired through blood, sweat, and tears, etc., they’ll always and forever make choices that contradict the benefits that the tactic or script were meant deliver. I see it in businesses every day where the thinking is stinking so the business flounders in some mediocre state. I’ve been part of companies where this occurred, I’ve coached companies and company owners where this was the case, and I’ve mentored many where this was their biggest hurdle. Its only when, and until, the thinking and belief systems about what is possible become the software that runs everybody in the organization, most importantly the leader, that things begin to change in the people and the organization.


I’ll give you another example from the physical world that doesn’t have to do with money but emphasizes the power of belief and the software that runs in our brains. Its from the world of defensive tactics which is one of the worlds I’ve been teaching in since the early 90’s. It doesn’t matter if I am teaching a women’s self defense course, a group of law enforcement folks, or a group of military special operations folks, if they don’t believe they are capable of doing something, they wont do it in a real life situation. For example, If I tell a group in a women’s self defense course that gouging an attackers eyes or crushing their windpipe will offer an option for escape and may be their absolute last opportunity for survival, many of them will walk through the motions in the class, but at the end of the session when we sit in a circle and discuss the training, I always say, “this is the time to be honest about what you think you can actually do in a violent situation now that you’ve been exposed to a variety of different scenarios”,  almost all the women admit that they’d never be able to do either of those things because the beliefs they have about violence, about a woman’s role in society, their beliefs about being subordinate in some way to a man or being weaker than a man, the beliefs they have about seeing blood (their own or somebody else’s) etc. In essence, what they’re saying is, I’ll die before I’d be able to stick my fingers in the attackers eyes, I just cant do it. In fact, the biggest difference between the women’s self defense training and the military special operators IS the belief systems that those two vastly different groups hold about violence, self defense, what they’re capable of, and so on. Its not just the difference of male vs female, the soldiers already believe they can do those things and do them with no remorse or squeamish feelings about it. To help them in their brain training, they change the language and the words they use when talking about the person they’re dealing with to words like ‘obstacle, enemy, and distraction’.  By doing so, they bypass the brain’s normal connection to the feelings they’ve been taught to have for other human beings.  By defining the other person with inanimate and tactical or task oriented terms, they are able to activate a particular software program in their brains that will not allow them to let feelings enter into the equation because, in their world, feelings in those situations mean seconds and seconds can mean the difference between life and death. A quick point on this specific topic, in the women’s self defense workshops, having them come to the conclusion that they simply wouldn’t have the guts to gouge out an attackers eyes is one of the goals of the course. If we can get them to begin thinking realistically about what they are capable of in terms of their strength and will power, but also realistically about what they just aren’t capable of doing, they begin looking at their world a little differently.


Many of them express afterwards that they have become infinitely more aware of their surroundings because they now realize that its not like a Hollywood movie, Violence is real, and since they know now that defending themselves against a motivated attacker is much more difficult than they initially thought and there are things they just aren’t willing to do, they focus on awareness and avoidance of certain situations instead of trying to remember a groin kick or eye gouge. This is an example of where a tactic or technique conflicts with a belief system and where a conflict like this exists, the belief system always wins and takes over. That’s a very important concept to understand because, in your own life and business, where a conflict between what you say you may want, like more income, and a deeply held belief system that says its just not possible and here’s the list of reasons why, the belief system will ALWAYS win. Even if you do, by some chance, implement some new product, system, or program and more money starts flowing in, if the deeply held belief system about money is never addressed and reprogrammed, the money will eventually be squandered, lost, and start flowing the opposite direction. It simply a universal principle my friends. Always has been and always will be!


Ok, so now that we have the big idea of the equation out there, lets get to the tactical and practical with the full disclosure and understanding that none of these tactics and techniques mean anything if you cant work on getting you’re belief systems congruent with the benefits of the tactics.


The title is The Top 3 Ways to Give Yourself a Raise as an Appraiser. All three of those are million dollar techniques, by the way. We’ve just spent the bulk of our time together talking about a huge concept, that whatever you have today in your business and life is exactly what you believe is possible and exactly what you deserve. I read and hear, literally every day, in forums, Facebook groups, mastermind groups, business coaching groups, podcasts, videos, and from mentoring clients about all the reasons they cant do something, that somebody else is evil, that the AMCs are the bain of the Appraiser’s existence, that the fees are set by the client, the bank, the AMC, Dodd Frank, some guy named Jim, whatever it is, its always somebody else’s fault that they feel the way they do. They’re bitching about other appraisers, they're bitching about their clients, they’re bitching about the realtors, the lenders, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, somebody over at the ASB, the MLS, the bank, the homeowner and the homeowners dog, and they're giving away every single ounce of control they have about ever changing their situation when they do. Every time you bitch about something you feel is out of your control or is causing your current situation, you have the opportunity to turn it into a path to reform. I use the word reform over the word ‘change’ because change simply implies just that, change, which can be good or bad. Reform implies change for the positive. It’s a simple concept called “clarity through contrast” and its literally transformative. Here’s how it works:


Anytime you catch yourself bitching about something, anything… recognize that you’re doing it, identify what it is that you don’t like about the situation, and then immediately shift to asking the simple question, “what do I want then?”. If you don’t like the fees that an AMC is paying, stop bitching about it, ask yourself, “what do I want then?”, that answer is simple, right?, you want a higher fee. Ok, now you’re on the path to reform! You’ve literally started building a new pathway in your brain because you’ve interrupted the old pattern, installed new software in the form of a new question, and you’ve started the process of seeking better answers. Now, understand, the answers may not be immediate, but by simply starting to ask the question, you have activated the process through which answers come.


Let’s start with the first one, you want a higher fee. Let me ask you this, have you ever asked them for a higher fee? Now I know some of you have because I’ve talked to some of you and I’ve also done it myself on many occasions. In fact, I’ve done it some many times that now its not even part of a secondary process, it’s the primary process when interviewing new clients and AMCs. It might sound stupid but I’ve asked many appraisers this question and the most common answer is, “well no, because they sent me the fees that they pay” or when they send a request, I just accept the fee they send to me. To which I ask again, but have you asked them for more?, the answer is always a no. So step one is to simply ask. My standard script when interviewing a new client or AMC is to ask for their fee sheet for particular areas and/or products. Once we see the sheet, regardless of the fee by the way, it doesn’t matter if its our standard fees or higher, we always ask them for more. I simply say, “I really appreciate the opportunity we have to work together, but our standard fees for this type of appraisal is $X. I see from your fee sheet that your standard fee for an average appraisal is $Y, is there another fee sheet for your preferred, tier 1, or platinum level appraisal work because we’ve found over the years that our work typically qualifies us for those higher levels”. If the answer is no, we don’t stop there, we simply say, “
I understand and appreciate you even giving us the opportunity. Can I ask who the appraisal manager is and would it be possible to speak with them about some of the other services we offer that my not be common in other appraisal firms?”


You’re not saying “hey, you’re a low level staff person, put me in touch with somebody higher than you”, because you may be already talking with the highest level person you’re ever going to interact with, you’re simply asking a question and then, when you don’t get the answer you’re looking for you move to a different tactic, which is to suggest you do some things or offer some services that aren’t on the typical list. If they can put you in touch with somebody higher up, you can often times have a very normal conversation with a person who gets it. This technique has worked almost every time we use it. Now, what other services do you offer them you’re asking? NOTHING! You simply reengage the manager with the same question about the fees, but this time you say, “I totally understand the fee sheet that you guys publish for the bulk of appraisers and I don’t blame you one bit for doing it. Our standard fee for this product is $X and almost all of our clients are paying that or more.  I imagine you guys have the inter office fee sheet for your top appraisers in every market so I’m just asking if that is available to us, and if not, how we attain that level with your company?”


Now, if all this sounds too much for you, too “salesey” for you, it probably is. Don’t ask. If you cant say that kind of script without having your voice quake and shiver, or if you just cant imagine saying something like that…don’t. Accept the fees they’re paying, but stop bitching about them. Take their fee, shut up, do the work, and at least be happy about it. If everyone asked the way we do, the AMC would either raise all their fees for everybody, which would mean we would again ask for more, or they’d tell everybody to eat crow. The reality is, almost nobody asks so one of there things happens: most of the companies either give us our requested fee, they give us the steps and standards that need to be met to get those fees, or we say thanks and don’t do business with them. If you accept their fee and its too low for you, you’re activating the script in your brain that reinforces the belief that that’s all you’re worth so I might as well just take it. Now, when you do decide to use a script or languaging like that, the fee increase typically comes with a caveat from the AMC and a little finger wagging which goes something like this, “alright, we’re going to try this out but we expect XYZ,  we’re going to be monitoring your reports and turn times and if we don’t see …, we’ll have to adjust your fees back to the normal fees”. To which we say, of course! They’re a business too and they have standards for their clients that need to be met.


And, by the way, it has to be said, of course, quality work is the highest order for any business, especially Appraisers. I know that there is a subjective nature to quality when it comes to appraisals, but there are also objective standards to developing what is considered a quality report. Developing credible, non-misleading reports and supporting and documenting your results, your adjustments, your methodology, and your reasoning behind all of it is the minimum level for entry into being called a quality appraiser. There’s talk about tiers in appraising. Being a Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 appraiser has been floated out there by some folks with the understanding that somewhere there is a secret list and your name is on it. Where you fall on that list determines the fees you command and the type of work you are eligible for. I’m working on a project at the moment where I call a bunch of banks and AMCs to inquire about their Tier levels relative to fees and we’re filming it all as well so stay tuned for that. Nevertheless, I can absolutely guarantee you that the tiers do not control your destiny or the level of income that flows to you. There are shitty appraisers getting paid top dollar and there are really good appraisers accepting shitty fees from turn and burn clients. I review appraisals, as many of you do, and know this to be true so lets dispel at least part of the tiered appraiser myth. Just as there are shitty realtors and lenders earning top commissions and there are really high quality realtors and lenders doing great work for their clients struggling for every dollar that flows their way. Tiers or no tiers, quality work is a must. We’ll never argue for speed over quality. We do talk a lot about optimization, efficiency in your work, shaving off time by using mobile data gathering tools, leveraging technology and information, leveraging virtual assistants, and the value of time in your business, but that’s only to free you up to do the heavy lifting of proper comp selection, good analysis of the market, proper adjustment methodology for the situation, and then supporting and narrating all of it to create a product that solves problems and answers questions.


Ok, so that’s one raise you’ve just given yourself. And that’s actually one of the harder ones because it requires a certain belief system and confidence first, then proper languaging that can roll off your tongue with no qualms. You can’t balk, stutter, or stammer when you say it and you have to be completely serious when you ask. You have to believe in your heart and mind that somewhere there is an appraiser working for that AMC that is getting paid $100, $200, $300 or more per appraisal more than you and I can assure you that in almost every case its true. Where its not true and you have no luck with that script, you at least have a choice. You either accept the work at the proposed fees (and not bitch about it) or you say, “Thanks for the opportunity, but we’ll have to pass until we can come to an agreement on fees. But please do keep us on your list of appraisers for follow up so maybe we can discuss it again in the future OR if you have case by case work or complex files that require a higher level of appraisal experience, please give us a call, we’d love to have that opportunity as well”.  What is true in every single one of the companies you work with is that there is a human being handling things and passing off messages.  If you’re respectful and kind with them, you can ask almost anything without sounding like a jerk. Even low level people answer to a manager or boss higher up the chain and they relay how the person on the other end of the line treated them so always be respectful and kind when you use this language or these scripts. We always assume every person we’re talking to is somebody else’s relative in that company so speak to them knowing that how you treated them will ultimately make it back to the decision makers if they're not the decision maker.


So here’s the easy one, and at the risk of sounding cavalier and flippant, raise your fees! It really is that simple! Most of the work we do is with lenders, AMCs, attorney’s, estate and financial planners, realtors, and simply homeowners, where we simply set the fee. We have a good mix of work with more and more of it moving to the non-lender side of the house, but we still do tons of lender work, its what our company was built on. When we get a request to work with a new lender, or apply for acceptance with a new client, if they have an online application and portal, we simply set our fees for all of our products in the system and demand that we get them. By demand, I simply mean that when an order comes over that is below our stated fee, we have the choice of accepting it as is, asking for a higher fee, or turning it down. Simple, end of story. We don’t spend even one second bitching and moaning about the fee, the state of the appraisal business, what the president said or did last night, those damn realtors, or any other such nonsense. We simply accept the opportunity to dictate our destiny in that moment and move on. The reason I say we consider those options is because you may decide that accepting a lower fee because its close by, its easy, its an address you’ve appraised recently, you have trainees or other appraisers who will take the work, and a host of other reasons you may accept an order at a lower than you’d like fee. Whatever you decide, the point I’m hammering is just don’t bitch about it later. Don’t reinforce the program in your brain that automatically starts bitching as soon as the external world isn’t matching up with your expectations about it. If you accept a lower fee, accept that it was situational and that’s it. Don’t add any negative emotion or talk to the situation.


If you’d like to get $50 more per file, simply tell all your clients that your fees have gone up $50.  You don’t have to explain, complain, or give any excuse whatsoever, in fact, I would advise against it. Simply say your fees have gone up. If you want to use the line that your fees are much higher with everybody else and you’re just getting around to raising them with this particular client, fine, use that. Just raise them! The thing about raising fees is that, once you do, you give yourself the opportunity to do fewer files and make the same as before, do the same amount of files and make more, and/or fire one or two of the clients who are in the bottom percentile of your emotional baggage quotient. That means those clients who give you the most grief, the lowest fees, make you do the most work, meet the most egregious turn times, rate you on a degrading quality scale, give you the most revision requests, and generally cause you the most headaches in your business and life. By keeping those clients around, you are only reinforcing the software program in your brain that says for money to be earned well, it must be hard earned. Again, based on your thoughts and brain software, you’re getting exactly the company you deserve! They’re the lowest profitability clients for you because they pay the lowest (typically) and you work the longest hours on those files. I’ll also throw out there that I have fired some of my highest paying clients too. They were the ones who fit all the categories I just mentioned with the only difference being they paid really well. However, given my belief system and how my businesses operate, I know two key things, the highest paying aren’t always the best, and getting rid of the headache clients, regardless of how much or how well they pay, frees up time, space in the day, and mental and emotional space, to take on new and better clients. All of my businesses, regardless of the genre or industry, operate the same in this regard. Essentially, we educate our clients how we work and what our expectations are, we expect they’ll do the same, and every month we review our client list and fire any that don’t meet our criteria. I can assure you that there are many months where we don’t fire anybody, of course, but its because of our systems, the type of business we attract now, reputation, the education, and the speaking and teaching component we’ve added into our business, and all of the belief systems we’ve been talking about this whole time. However, whenever somebody does make that list, we waste no time in saying Thank you for the business, best of luck in the future. This allows us to constantly be working on training and raising up B and C level clients to get them to become A level clients in our business.


​An A level client, by the way, is a client who will stay, pay, and say more. They are loyal to us and don’t move on at the first revision request or appraisal that comes in under a sale price because we have good rapport and communication, and they essentially stay with us. They pay the fees we ask and they believe in the value they’re receiving, and they are willing to talk positively about our company to their realtor clients, their LO’s and their other strategic partners like attorneys and financial planners. They stay, pay, and say more about us than the B and C clients. The B and C clients are good clients too but ones that we have to work on a bit more to get them to maybe pay and say more about us. We’re in constant development with our B and C clients and I’ll talk in another episode about how that looks and feels, but suffice it to say that we do not tolerate D and E clients very long. This process of constant cultivation has had huge ramifications on our client list, our choices and opportunities in the market (many of them we’ve created, which is another podcast episode), and our ability to control and ultimately profit from and enjoy this business to no end!

​Summary: Blaine discusses his background and history as an Aikido and Zen Meditation teacher, his experience living in a zen monastery, teaching defensive tactics to 1000s of students over the years, and his background as a teacher, trainer, coach, and mentor in 10 different industries. If you'd like to listen to the podcast version of this, just click here to listen to the Real Value Podcast-We're Back- The Podcast Reboot!  

If you'd like to watch the podcast on the Real Value Podcast YouTube channel, Just click here

My name is Blaine Feyen and I am the owner of Real Value Group, which is a Real estate appraisal firm located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I've been a real estate appraiser since 2001 and before that I was a mortgage originator for several years. Lest you think that my real estate experience begin and end there, before my time in financing, I was also a Realtor for several years and an investor in residential and commercial real estate. 


Now, I'd love to say that I had glorious careers in both the Real Estate sales and Mortgage businesses but, I guess if I had, I'd probably still be doing one of those things as a career. The reality, however, is that I was altogether average at both of them and, although I enjoyed certain aspects of both of them, I was 18 when I bought my first rental property, 24 when I started in real estate, and 27 when I became a loan originator, and quite frankly, didn’t know jack about sales or selling when I started my careers in those fields. Of course, I learned a ton while I was in those fields but, like almost everyone past the age of 25, all of the jobs we have from the very 1st lawn mowing gig or paper route, we learn what we're good at, what we're not good at, what we enjoy doing, and what we don’t.


For me, I realized a few things about myself while a part of those 2 industries which gave me a tremendous amount of respect for the people who succeed at them, which I'll address in a bit. But first, I want to share a few of my experiences prior to the real estate and mortgage gigs which I think will add some color to future podcasts and, more importantly, some important context to the things I plan to share in future episodes. As I mentioned earlier, I believe you need to know a little about the person speaking to decide if you want to spend any more time listening in the future.


When I started Real Estate sales in 1994, I had just returned from living in Chicago for several years where I was taking part in a very unique type of personal development training. I was living in a zen monastery that doubled as the Aikido world headquarters for one of the most renowned Aikido and Zen masters in the world, a man named Fumio Toyoda. I had been accepted into a very unique and intense multi-year leadership development program called which is referred to in Japanese as Uchi-Deshi, (uchi means inside and deshi means student), this is a very traditional live-in student program popular in Eastern cultures like Japan, China, and India, whereby the student makes a 24 hour commitment to training under a master in a particular discipline while living with, traveling with, studying with, and learning the business of, the master. In my case, I was living in this Aikido and Zen school primarily to study the martial art of Aikido and Zen meditation, as well as business and leadership, from Mr. Toyoda. (by the way, you can google all of this stuff if you’re interested in any of this. You can google Fumio Toyoda, spelled with a D, and learn about who he was and what the uchi deshi program is).


The goal of the program for the master is to teach and train a select, somewhat elite, group of students in order to eventually go out into the world and transmit the art so as to pass it on and keep it alive. The goal for the student, although somewhat different for every individual, is to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to study under a master of a particular discipline, get your ass kicked on a daily basis, travel with the master, learn business and leadership lessons from a master of both, forge your character and leadership skills by daily immersion in the culture, the grueling physical training, the mindset, being in the presence of such an individual, and just being around other like minded individuals who wanted the same type of hard core training and mentorship.


Now, why share this part of my life with you in this episode? Simple, I owe it to you to be completely transparent and open about my intentions and motives for this podcast. At the time of this recording, I'm 47 years old and have spent almost 40 of those years doing martial arts, with several of those years taking part in the uchi deshi program I just mentioned. I've been teaching other people since the mid 1990's as an Aikido, Zen, and defensive tactics instructor with 1000’s of students over 20+ years from the military, law enforcement, and civilian world. The lessons I learned about myself, about people in general, about hard training, about training the mind and body, about leadership, about breathing and meditation, about business and success, about linguistics and communication, and a host of other things we'll talk about at some point in future episodes, these are the things I intend to bring to the podcast since they’re the experiences that have formed who I am as a person, as a businessman, as an appraiser, father, partner, friend, teacher, mentor, and any other mask or role I may play at different times of the day.


Like all of you, what we do or what we call ourselves; Appraiser, realtor, lender, teacher… these are not the real you and I, these are just parts of who we are and what we identify as. All of our accumulated life experiences are the real you and I, and for me, I may call myself a real estate appraiser from 8am to 6pm, but that’s simply one of the things I do. In fact, If you google my name you'll find that I did, in fact, go on to open one of the largest and most advanced Aikido, Zen, and Leadership development centers in the midwest. I modeled the school after Mr. Toyoda's and had full time live-in students and well over 150 monthly students studying Aikido, Kendo, Zen meditation, judo, jiu jitsu, MMA, yoga, japanese language, massage therapy, and a host of other disciplines. I traveled the world teaching Aikido, defensive tactics, and leadership principles for 10 years or so while I was also learning the disciplines called real estate sales and loan origination.


So what does all of this have to do with Real estate appraising, real estate sales, lending, or investing in real estate? Nothing and everything! (count that as your first zen lesson!) The new Real Value Podcast will be primarily for real estate appraisers and real estate professionals but its important for me to share with you who I am if I'm going to ask you to take time out of your busy day to listen to me. In my years studying Aikido, Defensive tactics, Zen meditation, and leadership I learned to study other industries and disciplines for best practices and then bring back what works and implement those practices into my life and business. One of the areas that Real Estate salespeople, and even lenders, are much better than appraisers at doing, is constant and continuous training and professional development and also learning from other industries. One of my intentions is to bring that spirit to the appraisal industry via this podcast, as well as build a network of like minded individuals to learn from and share best practices with. If that’s you and you'd like to be part of that network, the cost is absolutely free and I have only one simple rule: add value. And by ‘add value’, I don’t necessarily mean add value to me or to the podcast, I simply mean to start shifting your thinking to adding value in everything you do from this point forward.


I’ll end this episode with a quick story about adding value. If you’ve never heard of the book Significant Objects or the Significant Objects Project, this is the perfect time to introduce you to it. There are links in the show notes if you’re interested in learning more, and of course, you can google it. The gist of the book and the project is about narrative and the power of story.


The authors of the book, Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, set out to test a hypothesis about how the story of a thing can influence how you feel about a thing. Of course, we all know this subjectively because we all tell stories everyday about things that mean something to us. We tell stories about our grandparents, parents, lessons we learned growing up, we tell stories about things in our closets, sometimes as a way of justifying keeping the things in our closet when we should be selling them or maybe donating them to goodwill. Stories help us give meaning to things.


The authors of Significant Objects set out to test whether or not you could measure objectively those things that have value and meaning subjectively. They did this in a very unique way! They went to flea markets and second hand stores and acquired, for, on average about $1.50 per item, little things that, at first glance, had almost no value. These were tchotchkes, knickknacks, small things that had virtually no meaning or value. They then asked other authors, journalists, and writers of various sorts to write up stories about each of these items with the intent of selling the items on Ebay. What they found was unbelievable from the standpoint of verifiable results. On average, the increase in value, based simply on the story created about the item, was some 2700%!! Items purchased for $1.00 sold for $50, $70, over $80! All because somebody added slime meaning to the item by telling a story about it. I highly encourage checking out the book, its filled with some very interesting stories! If nothing else, the marketing value gleaned from many of the writers of the Ebay ads for these knickknacks is brilliant. What you leave with is a greater understanding of the power of story, the immense strength that words, placed together in a certain way, can have on all of us.


I challenge you all to take 15 minutes out of your day today and think about your story. What is it about you that makes you you, that makes you do what you do, and that makes people want to engage with you. So, to borrow the ending line from one of my favorite filmmakers, Levi Allen of Left Coast Media, Life is Better When You Make Stuff! So go out and create something of significance today and strive to be a person people when miss when you’re gone.