Of course, as you probably already know if you’ve been listening to this show for any period of time, just hearing the information isn’t going to really help you out all that much, you must become an implementer of the ideas to realize any real benefits from them and I will be your strongest supporter in implementing any and all of the ideas that might work for you. I am your biggest fan and will champion any efforts you make toward becoming better today than you were yesterday. Remember, that’s the whole 1%er concept. Tiny incremental improvements to your processes and procedures, whatever it is that you’re working on. It doesn’t matter if its weight loss, strength gains, increased mental well being, better business processes, attracting more and better business, you name it. Its not the monumental leaps and shifts that most people think are required to make change. It’s the tiny little efforts that aren’t real obvious at first that, over time, build up to what eventually reveals itself as positive change. The great thing about being a 1%er in that regard is that the changes are often so small and insignificant, in and of themselves, that you always have time to adjust, rethink, make changes, and see where the arc of activity will eventually take you.  When you’re always looking for monumental shifts and changes, not only might it keep you from making those changes since they appear so massive that you become overwhelmed, making massive changes all at once quite often has you missing the subtle opportunities that live in the small incremental changes.
 
When you walk along a wooded path casually, slowly, methodically, and with intention, you’ll arrive at your destination at some point in the future. When you do arrive at the end of the walk you will have had an experience, maybe good, maybe not, but an experience nonetheless. You will have taken in information through your senses on your walk and, by the end of it, can likely recall what that information was or is. You’ll notice possibly some small paths that lead off from the one you’re on at the moment. Maybe you notice the birds, the ground critters, the smells, particular tree varieties, the small creek to the left, the sound of the water, the smell of the water, and the feel of the dirt path under your feet. You can stop, look around, decide to go back if you’d like, maybe venture off on a new trail, the choice is yours and it’s a pleasant experience because you’re not taxed in any way on your journey. You’re there intentionally and you’re taking in the whole experience. You’ll arrive somewhere at some point in time but, since the time of your arrival to the end of this journey is not one of the metrics you’re tracking, you don’t really care how quickly or slowly you travel on the path. Conversely, lets take a journey on the same path but this time with one goal, beating our last timed run through this path. The goal is only the speed of the journey. You’ll still have an experience. You’ll still smell the smells and see some of the same sights. Not all of them since you don’t have the time, nor is sightseeing a goal of the experience, but you need your eyes to help you see the trail so you’ll definitely see something. You’ll smell some of the same smells, but probably not the same experience as the slow intentional walk on this path because, when time is the main metric for your journey, you’re having a different physical experience and a different stress response to that journey. Depending on your fitness level, you’re breathing heavier because you’re running, so you have to be more focused on controlling that part of your experience. You’re watching the trail with more intent so that you don’t roll an ankle, thus missing some of the view around you. You’re checking your watch occasionally to see where you are on your goal, this adds a different level of stress and new information about what is required of you, which may have nothing to do at all with your surroundings at the moment. And eventually you arrive at your destination and check your watch one last time to see if you hit your goal.
 
Great, two experiences along the same path. One faster than the other. Both experiences for sure, neither one better than the other. Both started at the same place, both ended at the same place. No need to judge one as being superior to the other, unless, of course, you had a specific goal to arrive at the end as quickly as possible. However, the slower journey would almost always be able to be recounted by you as a more enjoyable experience and one that allowed you to take in more sensory information along the way with which to judge each next step. On the slower journey, since there is no real destination goal, at least not a goal based on time, you can make subtle changes along the way, you can take side journeys to step into the creek, you can step off the other side of the path to pick some wild raspberries, you can climb a tree or walk along a the trunk of downed tree to test your balance. All viable options and only hampered by your creativity and thirst for adventure. Two different goals, the same general path. Again, not judging one as being better than the other, depending on your goals. However, to bring the main point of the story home, the slow, methodical, intentional journey is the journey of the 1%er in most instances. You don’t have to time your journey and beat your last best time every time. You’re constantly making small changes, getting feedback from those changes over time, assessing the feedback, and judging what step to take or try next based on the information received. If you want to take a little side journey and try something out, do it! If you want to go dip your toes in our hypothetical creek in this story, which hopefully you’re seeing is a metaphor for trying something new in your business or life, great! Go do it! Nothing ventured, nothing gained is the saying so you must venture. I am giving you permission to venture and to do it in small incremental steps, taking in all kinds of information and feedback along the way. Adjust accordingly as you receive feedback, but keep moving. The universe rewards action my friends, not necessarily speed. As long as you’re moving you can make adjustments on the path. If you’re not moving, any adjustment you make has no effect except in your view. Movement is the key my friends. Keep moving, make small adjustments and changes, assess the feedback, and keep moving.
 
On the topic of movement, I will be sharing with you shortly some of my personal experiences regarding movement, positive and negative pressure, and 1% changes over time, but I want to first share with you something from Ryder Carroll’s book, the Bullet Journal Method. You’ve heard me talk briefly about Bullet Journaling and that it’s the system I utilize the most for time and life management, albeit not without hiccups. It doesn’t matter to me what kind of journaling and time management system you use, or if you even use one at all, I just happen to need one or I’d be a wreck and, so far, the Bullet journal method has fit my style of note taking, time and task management, goal setting, idea logging, and so on. I’ll do an episode in the future about Bullet Journaling, but for now I only bring it up because its not necessarily how you use a system like this but instead why, and the whole philosophy behind it. For those who don’t know what the hell I’m even talking about, a Bullet Journal is a method, not necessarily a thing. You can actually go buy official bullet journals and all you’re getting is a nice hardcover Leuchterm journal book with a pre made index and some handy guides for using it to the letter of the method, which I don’t. But that’s the beauty of it, you can use any notebook you want and any combination of the methods and ideas behind it to fit your brain and the way you like to work. Its not like buying a Franklin Day Planner or a Full Focus Planner or anyone of the dozens of other time management systems out there, its a system you kind of create yourself. Nevertheless, the quote I want to share from Ryder Carroll, the creator of the formal Bullet Journal system and movement, is this: “You can’t make time, you can only take time. Happiness is a by-product of meaning. In order to be happy, you have to figure out what is meaningful. You figure out what is meaningful by putting in the time to cultivate your curiosity through setting goals. We accomplish our goals by breaking them down into small pieces because small questions and small solutions lead to big changes over time. Productivity is about sustainable improvement. In order to achieve that, you have to look inward to reveal a way forward. Dedicate specific times for reflection… and then prioritize what matters, discard what doesn’t. Failure is guaranteed if you never begin. If you try and fail, you fail once. If you compromise and fail, you fail twice as hard because you know you didn’t try. All you have to do is start!”
 
Ryder Carroll is talking about tiny incremental improvements as a way forward. Doing something. All you have to do is start. Failure is guaranteed if you never begin. So, on the topic of movement and starting things, I’m going to share some of my experiences and insights about just doing. I don’t like to pat myself on the back, ever, because I learned long ago that when you do that you stop growing. The ego takes over and makes you believe you’ve arrived somewhere and that you’re done growing. Nevertheless, one thing I am very proud of is my ability to move, try things, fail, learn, grow, and try some more things. When I look back over my 48 years I see lots of failure. I have failed businesses, failed investments, failed ideas, a failed marriage, failed relationships, etcetera. However, I’m only using the word failure to give context to the story and make a point. I cant honestly say where it came from, I suspect from my parents, my upbringing, maybe martial arts, but I never once thought of any of those experiences as failures. Not for one instant did I ever sit back and sigh and say, “shit, I really failed at that one.” In every instance where something didn’t go as planned I gathered up my stuff and was already on to the next lesson, project, investment, and business with the benefit of hindsight and experience in my pocket. I wont say I was proud of some of those experiences, but I never considered any of them to be failures. I recognized where I may have failed in certain areas, but that’s different than labeling something as a failure. I recognize the value of being able to say, “I really failed to understand the nuances of that particular market, or I really failed to be the best husband I could have been, or I failed to see the writing on the wall in that venture”, but that doesn’t mean I also needed to then label the experience as a failure. My marriage ended after almost 2 decades, that’s a fact, but who’s to say it was supposed to last forever. Only if you make the assumption that relationships don’t have an expiration date are you allowed to label something a failure. And then, what happens to the next one if it doesn’t work out? I lost lots of money in real estate investments in that time. Did I fail? Only if you pigeonhole the entire experience into a belief that there was only one goal and only one way to be successful and that would have been to keep it all. Who’s to say that I was supposed to keep all of my investments at the expense of something potentially greater, like my sanity, my happiness, and my health? I don’t look at the loss as a failure, I look at the experience and mine it for the lessons I was supposed to learn and grow from the experience, better as a person than I was previously. Again, I may have failed to heed some advice, failed to do some due diligence, failed to use good sense, even failed to pick the right partners, but that doesn’t make the experience a failure and to label it as such is to deprive myself of the opportunity to grow, to learn, to expand, to move forward, and to prosper from the insights and experience gained.
 
So lets talk about movement. The experience I want to share insights from is one that I had over this past week where I had the opportunity to speak to a group of appraisers at an Appraisal Institute chapter event and teach on one of my favorite coaching topics called ‘Digging Your Well Before You’re Thirsty’. This was an opportunity very graciously created for me by my friend and highly respected appraiser colleague, Rachel Massey. If you aren’t familiar with Rachel, her writing skill, and appraisal knowledge, I highly suggest you become familiar because she’s super smart, highly trained and skilled, and a great person to boot! Just google Rachel and you’ll find a wealth of information and her articles all over the place. You can also go to Ann Arbor appraisal. Blog and read Rachel’s articles and blog posts. So Rachel and I realized many years ago that we had a very similar background in that Rachel is also a high ranking and very long time Aikido practitioner, as well as an appraiser. She actually reached out to my 12 or 13 years ago and made the connection via social media that we had these similar backgrounds. She’s a listener of the podcast and a believer in the message that gets preached here every week so she put in a good word for me with the Great Lakes Chapter of the Appraisal Institute to have me as one of the speakers at this annual event. I was, of course, very flattered and accepted the offer. Up to this point in my life and my business, I have spoken to thousands and thousands of people in a variety of venues. From martial artists to law enforcement to military to salespeople to C-Level executives to consultants and several other categories. I have also spoken to lots of appraisers one on one, had breakfasts, lunches, dinner, and drinks with them, coached them in their businesses one on one and in small groups and weekend workshop type settings. What I have never done, up to this point, is spoken to what is often referred to as a ‘cold audience’. A cold audience is any audience that doesn’t necessarily know you or your message, has not interacted with you in any way, has not done business with your company, and is basically cold when it comes to what you have to say and what you might be selling. Of course, you all know me from the podcast by now so If I had a room filled with Real Value Podcast listeners or Value Syndicate members, I’m not opening or speaking to a cold audience, I’m now speaking to what is referred to as a warm audience. This is a group of people who HAVE done business with you or knows your message or has interacted with you in some way and that’s why they’re there.
 
So, up to this point, all of my audiences have been more or less warm audiences in some way. Of course, it should be noted that all of the audiences that I speak to in my market and surrounding area were, at one time, cold audiences because they didn’t necessarily know me. They may have seen my name on some appraisals or had an occasion to get a call from me, but we likely had not met up to that point. Now, 10 years later, and I have met so many Realtors and lenders at my talks that its virtually impossible to go speak or teach at an event and have a cold audience. Of course, every talk or class has new agents and lenders that I haven’t met yet, but the room will always have people that I can now count as fans of mine, strategic partners, people I now call friends, and people that I can refer to by name, or maybe even by an actual deal or scenario that we’ve had together, and that brings tremendous value and, more importantly for me as a teacher, it brings credibility to any of the audience who may be ‘cold’. I said in last week’s episode that I do not consider myself to be a speaker. I don’t get paid to speak, I have really no interest to just go speak to people, and its not top on my list of things to do with my time. The main reason being that I love to interact, add value, and I thrive off of the energy in the room and the interaction so the more of that I can conjure during my talks or classes, the more enjoyable it is for everybody and the more I learn too. I say it also as part of my opener to a cold audience that ’I am not a speaker, I am a teacher and also one of you, so please, my friends, uncross your arms, uncross your minds, yell out like it’s a tent revival if you have something to say, and lets all grow a little bit together today.’ The audience I spoke with last week for 2 hours was, very safe to say, a pretty cold audience. I knew Rachel and I got to meet the wonderful Beth Graham and the great Dan Johnson, but I was virtually unknown to the rest of the audience. I think I asked at one point, by show of hands, how many listen to the podcast and 3 hands out of the whole group meekly raise in something of a half mast hand raise. This was, by far, the coldest room I have opened and taught in over 10 years.
 
Now, the point I want to make by sharing this experience with you is that I had completely forgotten what it felt like to go and speak to a group of people who didn’t know me, like me, or trust me yet and the work that it takes to try to get there. I had forgotten what it feels like to sweat up in the front of the room wondering to yourself, ‘are they even hearing or understanding anything I’m saying? Are they laughing inside at the message and what I’m teaching?, are they ready to string me up?’, I didn’t know. This was a new old experience that I had almost completely forgotten about because by now I have honed my talks and classes, my message to those specific audiences, I know what their motivations, hopes, and dreams are, and I’ve more or less hand picked my audiences because they were the ones I wanted to educate. I’ve built up a name in my market by being this resource and that’s a big part of our business model. Speaking almost always to Realtors, Lenders, and business people, or to appraisers who already know me, like me, and trust me because we’ve worked together or I’ve helped them grow and refine their business. However, I realized leading up to the talk I gave at the AI event last week that for me to grow, expand, and get better as an appraiser, a teacher, a business and personal coach, I had to find uncomfortable situations to put myself into. I’ve talked in other episodes about how that became something of a personal drive for me to constantly put myself in uncomfortable situations that would force me to grow and expand. That’s what lead me to apply to live in a zen monastery, travel the world learning and teaching aikido and defensive tactics, that lead to work with law enforcement and the military, that lead to opening my own dojo and leadership academy, that lead to me getting involved in the commercial real estate world, that lead me to getting into the appraisal industry, that lead me to running a large residential and commercial appraisal firm, that lead me into the world of commercial and industrial development, that lead me into starting my own firm, that lead me to training others, that lead me to developing programs and business coaching, that lead me to getting into podcasting in several different industries, that lead to, that lead to, that lead to… and so on. Each and every one of those moves and ‘lead to’s’ was a moment of discomfort. A moment where I questioned, “do I have enough experience, do I have enough knowledge, can I do this, will they laugh, will I be embarrassed, what if I go broke, what if I fail‘, and the list of questions and emotions is long and very familiar to every single one of you because you’ve been there and there are areas of your business and your life right now where you’re asking those very questions.
 
My friends, we’ve talked a lot on this show about the power of questions and the power behind the type and quality of the questions you are asking. Yes, I was asking all of those questions somewhere in the back of my mind. But at each one of those points in time, I found a way to answer all of those niggling little questions with a two word answer that I’ll share with all of you today. The most powerful two words to me in those moments and the two words that have lead to more opportunities, more income generation, and more damn fun in my life are these, are you ready to write them down?... The two words are ‘so’ and ‘what’, as in ‘so what?’ Anytime that little voice popped up and said, ‘are you even qualified for this? So what?!, what if it doesn’t work out?, so what?!, what if you fail?, so what?! What if they laugh at you? So what?! What if you go broke doing this? So what?! What if you fall on your face on stage? So what?! What if they all keep their arms crossed? So what?! What if they stand up right in the middle and all walk out? So what?! I’ll have a funny story to tell. You see my friends, If you want to grow, if you want to expand, if you want to evolve, if you want to move through the crowded lower levels of the novice, the skilled, and even the specialist that we’ve talked about on the episodes on the expert pyramid you have to always be forcing yourself to move. I said this was about movement. The movement doesn’t always have to be forward movement. There are times when you assess and move laterally or even backtrack over your prior steps, but movement is the key. Keep moving and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. Whats the worse thing that can happen? Are you going to die? I’ve been in situations where that was a reality and I probably should have asked some more questions but I was young and that was the business I was in at the time. I didn’t die though and so now everything that pops up and stirs that frightened little voice inside of me gets a ‘so what?!, are you going to die?’, and the answer is always no. The worse thing that can happen to you and I If we go call on some lenders, realtors, attorneys, and estate planners is that they’ll so no, so what?! The worse thing that could happen if you put on an hour long talk at a real estate office is that they’ll sit there with their arms crossed and not say a word, so what?! The worse thing that can happen to you if you switch from paper and pen to a tablet and stylus is you’ll slow down and get frustrated for a minute, so what?! Don’t let the scared little kid inside of you dictate and control what you do and don’t do in life. Get out of your comfort zone and push yourself into uncomfortable situations in order to grow.
 
I’ve said it many times and I fully believe it; the marrow, the juice, the meat, and the full experience of life exists beyond our comfort zones but its absolutely up to you to push yourself beyond it. Put yourself in front of a bunch of cold audiences my friends. Get out of your caves and safe zones and push yourself to do something you’ve never done before because you didn’t know how to use those two little words, ’so what?!’ Every time you hear that little voice telling you something negative, say ‘so what?!’ and then move forward. Every time you hear somebody in a forum spewing doom and gloom, say ‘so what?!’, and move forward. Saying ‘so what’ is something of an idiom. It’s a turn of phrase that connotes not caring, a cavalier attitude, maybe not thinking before leaping. But that’s not how I’m using it. I’m using the phrase, ‘so what?!’ as an anchor question and phrase to knock me out of my fear and frozen state. The ‘so what’ that I’m teaching you to use is still a question, use it as one. So what? So what are you going to do then? The world is ending? So what? What are you going to do? The industry is being taken over! So what?! What are you doing to evolve yourself and your business? Are you standing around a virtual facebook water cooler and bitching about stuff but not doing anything about it? So what?! So the lender did something stupid, so the agent was an asshole, so the underwriter stipped you for some stupid comment, so what?! What are you doing to grow your business? What are you doing to be better today than you were yesterday? What are you doing to be more profitable? What are you doing to have a better quality of life? Push yourselves my friends. Push yourself beyond your comfort zones and do something next week or next month that you’ve been putting off because of some irrational fear. Ask yourself why you haven’t done it yet and then say, so what?! What are you going to do?
 
I’d like to thank you my friends for investing your most valuable currency in yourself again this week and taking time out of your busy lives to be a little bit better. Spread the message, help somebody else out today. Help somebody else see where they might be limiting their experiences due to fear and help them say ‘so what?!’, whats the worse thing that could happen? Help somebody else out of their comfort zone and see what happens to yours. Dustin Harris went skydiving for goodness sake! If Dustin Harris is willing to hurl his body out of an airplane after asking the question, ‘what’s the worse thing that could happen?’, then you, my friends, can do something small today, tomorrow, and next week that will push your business and your life forward just a little bit. It doesn’t have to be a huge leap, like jumping out of an airplane, you can actually die from that, it just has to be a little step forward. Put in on the calendar, commit to it, make the post cards, schedule the room, send out the invites, write the speech, and show up on that day. What’s the worse that can happen?

The bonus episodes are typically episodes that are extensions of main episodes that all of you get to listen to but maybe were going to be too long so I chopped it up into two parts, a main episode and a bonus episode so as to keep it relatively short. As you probably know by now, relatively short for the Real Value Podcast is anything under an hour. If an episode has a lot of content and I don’t want to go more than an hour, I end it around the one hour mark and make the rest of it a bonus episode. Every now and then I will also record additional material just for the Value Syndicate members. Its my way of adding value for the people who have signed up for always free content. So last December I recorded an episode entitled Digging Your Well Before You’re Thirsty where I get listeners 5 ideas that will help them dig their proverbial wells before they’re thirsty. The well I’m referring to is your business, of course, and the reference to being thirsty is a reference to not having enough business coming in or, at least, not enough of the kind of business you desire. Digging your well is a reference to an old concept and one made popular by the author Harvey Mackay with his late 1990’s book, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty, where he talks about networking, marketing, and basically building your database of clients, potential clients, and people who can and will refer business to you based on your networking efforts and the goodwill that you build when you add value for them.
 
So I recorded the episode back in December of last year and and I gave three ideas in the main episode and pushed the remaining two ideas into a bonus episode because they would’ve made the main episode too long. What I’m doing with this episode is sharing with all of you that bonus episode so that you can hear the last two ideas that were shared in that bonus episode. Now, what this means is that, unlike that main episode where you only got three of the five ideas, in this episode you are only getting two of the five ideas. Since the bonus episode is derived from that main episode, I have included a link to that main episode both in the email to all of the Value Syndicate members, as well as on the Real Value Cast website in the episode description and the iTunes description. I would highly recommend listening to that episode again after you’ve listened to that episode. There is obviously a lot more back story in that main episode and I tell a story or two about Mr Toyoda, which is where I got to see a master networker first hand Digging His well, so to speak, and where I was first introduced to this concept, which he referred to as ‘cooking your rice before you’re hungry’.
 
So now for the reason to do it this way. First and foremost, I want to make sure as many people as possible get to hear all five of the suggestions for digging your well. I teach at least 15 ways to dig your well in our coaching program but that would be a four or five hour episode so I just shared five of the ideas, several of which are extremely easy to do, like hand writing thank you cards every week. There are some rules for that so you have to listen to the episode to learn them and why to do it, but its all in the episode. The second reason I am recording the episode this way is because I will be speaking with a great group of appraisers at an Appraisal Institute economic summit next week and the title of my talk, or class, is Digging Your Well Before You’re Thirsty. Since I always take a lot of time to prepare for talks and classes, I have been making notes and working on some exercises that I will have everybody do at the event and it made me realize a few things. One, just how valuable this concept is, and two, how some of my teachings on this topic have evolved since recording that episode less than a year ago. The ideas haven't changed, I have just expanded on them, added more to them, and have evolved how I teach them to make them more easily doable. For one, I have added the profit first concept to the digging your well modules that we teach because its that important. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go and listen to the episode called Pay Yourself First where I breakdown the profit first concept and how to do it. Although digging your well, as it was laid out by Harvey Mackay back in the 90’s, was primarily about networking and marketing, I strongly believe that the concept of digging your well MUST take into consideration your future savings, investments, your profit, your retirement plan, money management, understanding the numbers in your business and personal finances, and basically just having your well dug long before you need to drink from it. In essence, your proverbial well cannot just be related to networking and marketing. It doesn’t matter how much money you make or how busy you are if you have no idea if you’re even making any money. Even then, its never just about how much you make, its about how much you keep! This is where the profit first idea comes in to play and I’ll be sharing all of that when I give my talk at the AI conference next week.
 
​In the podcast we talked about three methods of adding value to your business and for your clients. Its one of the most popular questions I get from the Value Syndicate members and it’s the kind of stuff we go over with coaching clients and mastermind groups. This is the kind of stuff you can be assured nobody is doing in our industry, trust me, I’ve been checking around for years. Of course, you don’t have to do any of this stuff and can be quite successful in the appraisal business without it. I didn’t start to implement many of these things until later in my career and I was doing more than ok before I did these things. What I can tell you though, is that by doing these things, you are adding a turbo booster to your business and creating long term value. One of the symptoms many appraisers suffer from is turn time thinking. They tend to think in terms of turn times so their mental clocks start when they accept an order and then they think in 2 and 3 day blocks of time until an order is done and delivered. Rarely do they think one month, six months, and 2 years or 5 years out. All of these suggestions are 6 month, one year, and 5 year activities. If you’re stuck in today or this week mode because you have bills to pay, I get it, but at some point you will have to deal with how to get beyond that mode and plan for the future. I can tell you from having implemented these things into our company, the stress of the ups and downs of the mortgage market, following interest rates and the fed, dealing with AMCs, and much of what many typical appraisers deal with is more or less gone because our peaks and valleys are smoothed out by the private work we’ve developed over the years from doing these things. Our referral business has skyrocketed and we don’t fret when an AMC goes out of business because we don’t work with any of them anyways.
 
I’m not trying to be dismissive of those who do have to deal with that, just encouraging you in the way that I do to get busy building a solid business that doesn’t rely so much on unreliable interests.
 
Ok, so the first three were to hand write thank you notes, include everybody in the transaction in an email sequence that informs, educates, and trains them on the type of appraiser and appraisal company you are, which is head and shoulders above the others. And the third suggestion was simply to set up a reminder in your calendar to send out a 30-45 day congratulations card to all of the new homeowners on the purchase transactions you’ve completed. Is this more work for you? Absolutely! It’s a whole different mindset from the get an order, schedule it, work on files, send files, and turn off computer mode of most appraisers. Over time, you will start to set aside time each day, maybe a couple times during the week, or even just once per week to work on the business instead of in it.
 
The fourth suggestion for adding value for your clients and your business is to get out of the bat cave and join a networking group or organization where there are real estate agents and lenders meeting up. I’m not talking about a BNI group, I’m referring to some kind group where you can be in front of numerous potential clients showing off your personality, answering questions, and building your network. I am a member of a several of these groups and they have done a couple of valuable things for everybody involved: one, they always pay off in terms of business for you (I’ll add one caveat to that in a minute), but more importantly, they add tremendous value to the people you’re talking and networking with because they NEVER get to talk and meet with appraisers! I’m not sure if you are hearing me or not but we have one of the greatest opportunities in any industry and that’s being the little fish in a huge pond. A room full of realtors and lenders are all competing against each other to impress everybody else. A room full of realtors and lenders with one appraiser in it is a massive opportunity for you to add some value for them because they have tons of questions, they have a bit of animosity stored up that they can release onto you (therapy for them), they have a bunch of scenarios they want to run by you, and they’re just generally surprised but excited to see you there. The first time is like being a zebra in a room full of lions and leopards but, after a while, being the zebra becomes on asset for you because you stand out in the crowd of gray and blue suits with red ties and you just add value everywhere you go.
 
And if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am not suggesting you join these groups just to get orders and for your own benefit. That’s a given as soon as you show up. We join and walk in to those meetings looking to be the go-to source of answers and a resource for all of those realtors and lenders. The discussions we have NEVER ask for business or to be put on a list. What I can tell you will happen however, is that you will get lots of requests to be added to lists from your interactions. It’s brought up all the time when I’m talking with lenders whose lists we may not be on. A loan officer will be talking with me and will inevitably ask, “geez, are you on our list?” To which I reply, “I don’t think so, but don’t let that stop you from calling or emailing me if you ever have any appraisal related questions”. I follow up with, “I’m really here just to be a valuable resource in my market whether I’m on your list or not”. I’ll tell you why this attitude and language is important. First and most important, it puts YOU in the mindset of not wanting or needing anything from anybody and that smells different than everybody else in the room looking to stick their hands in somebody’s pocket. Two, loan originators move around! You meet one lady working for Huntington Bank today and a month later she calls you from a local credit union and wants to add you to their panel. This is long term thinking my friends and its about digging your well. You go to an event, you meet some people, you answer lots of questions, you set up some coffee or lunch meetings, you follow up with thank you emails and hand written cards, and you keep digging the well.
 
Get out of the office, that’s where business happens and where you can be an awesome resource and add value for your clients. It should be noted at this point that I, like many of you, am in introvert. You might not be able to tell from the podcast but I am happiest when I am with my kids, my girlfriend, or one or two close friends. I don’t like big loud crowds, I don’t like much of the fakery and glad handing that goes on in much of the business and networking world. But this is not about me, it’s about getting over myself and putting myself in uncomfortable situations to be of service to my market. If I looked at it just as a way to get business, I wouldn’t go because I don’t really need it. Its much easier to blow it off and stay home or go workout or go to Jiu jitsu or find something to do alone. But its not about me and it’s not about being fake to get business. I had to reframe the whole experience so that it has become a way for me to go out into the community and be a valuable resource.
 
The last one will really get you out of your comfort zone but is a value syndicate favorite of mine and its to run webinars. What is a webinar? A webinar, is the name implies, is simply a mini seminar on the web. How do I do that you ask? Quite simply. Just like the Gmelius plug in or learning how to use aweber, MailChimp, or constant contact, you’ll have to step beyond your aversion to learning new stuff and start googling webinar services. The best one out today, in my opinion, a service called Zoom where you can have lots of participants on the webinar, they can see you, hear you, chat with you, you can turn their mics on and off, and you can have lots of interaction.
 
You simply sign up for the service, schedule a webinar, you get a shareable link to email out to anybody who wants to join at that pre-set time, and when its time for the webinar they click the link and will be logged into your webinar. They’ll see the screen that you’re presenting on and whatever you want to present will be shown. If you want them to see your face while you’re talking to or with them, you can do that. If you want them to see a PowerPoint presentation that you’ve created, you can do that. I recommend that you create a PowerPoint presentation because its more pleasing for the viewers and it helps lead the discussion if you’re not a natural talker, but you can really do whatever you want in the time you’ve allotted.
 
We have several webinars that we host on a regular basis for realtors and lenders and they range from how to think like an appraiser to comp choosing to just basic Q and A sessions. They are always a big hit because not everybody can make it to one of our live talks or events and the webinars can be recorded and re-distributed later for all of the participants.
 
I have a couple recommendations for any of you thinking of doing this. One, as I mentioned, have at the very least an outline of what you want to go over. I recommend having a PowerPoint presentation so that you can stay on track but even an outline works. I recommend you familiarize yourself with the controls in ZOOM, or GoToWebinar, or whatever service you choose. Run through a couple practice ones with your office staff, husband, wife, significant other, kids, or a couple friends so that you get used to muting and unmuting people. If you don’t do that there will be all kinds of background noise, people eating, drinking, and talking, people trying to ask questions over each other, and a variety of issues. You can mute everybody and when they have a question, they can virtually raise their hand in the chat room. You then unmute their mic and let them ask the question. Everybody else can hear them and your answer. You can mute their mic right after. This comes in real handy when you have that one angry agent who has nothing but disdain for appraisers and every appraisal of hers has come in low on every deal.
 
They can also ask questions by typing in the chat window to the right or left of the screen and you can answer them as they come in. That way their mics stay muted and you’re the only one talking. My other suggestion is to have a one or two page pdf that goes along with your webinar that they can download prior to the webinar with a list of things you’re discussing in the webinar with a bunch of lines or space after each point for them to write notes. The pdf will follow the topics in your presentation but the real benefit of doing this is that you are getting them to take some kind of action, which is awesome, and they will then also have a piece of paper with your company name and logo on it on their desk long after the webinar.
 
So quick recap: thank you notes, email sequence for everybody in the transaction, 30-45 day follow up for purchase transactions, join a networking group to be a value added resource to your market, and host a webinar or two. Five value adds for your business that, if you do, will all but guarantee a well that’s been dug long before you’re thirsty. And please remember my friends, that is the attitude to have as you build your business into something very real and something very valuable that supports you and your family for a long time. Dig your well before you’re thirsty and that means being a value added resource to everyone you can along your journey.