Be Careful Who You Choose To Follow

This week’s episode is about influence. Influence is defined as the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something. On any given day we are all being influenced. Robert Cialdini wrote an excellent book back in the 1980’s called ‘Influence, the psychology of persuasion’ which I’d highly recommend to all of you. In it he talks about a variety of ways that advertisers, marketers, authority figures, politicians, and the people in our lives are having some kind of effect on us based on the software in our brains, our upbringings, certain language cues, unwritten social rules like reciprocity and our beliefs about the value of certain things. It’s a fascinating study on the psychology of following the crowd and how easily we can be manipulated based on one word or one simple seemingly unnoticed action by a person or company. ​

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The one that always gets me is a concept called social proof. Social proof is a simple way to refer to the old bandwagon concept wherein people do something simply because other people are doing it. We see this every day all around us and in a variety of ways. Studies have been done showing the powerful effect of social proof in simple ways like having one person on a sidewalk stop and look up at the sky and then they watch as others will stop, look up to see what the person is looking at, and then they count the number of people who will gather and look as if its something important when nothing is really there. The researchers will add inputs or behaviors like having the fake pedestrian point up to the sky to see if that has any effect. In every case, however, a crowd always gathers to look at them non existent spectacle.  
  
This is an example of social proof and evidence of a phenomenon known as the ‘multiple source effect’. The multiple source effect occurs when people give more credence to ideas or behaviors that are by exhibited by multiple sources. An example of this observes that people who hear five positive reviews on a book that were read by five different synthesized voices perceived the book more favorably than if they hear the same five reviews as read by one synthesized voice. The belief that five different people thought the book was good was more powerful than hearing five separate reviews in the same voice.

The great Cavett Robert stated in his sales training that “since 95% of the people are imitators and only 5% initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer”. I believe he was being nice because the reality is closer to 99% imitator and 1% initiator. But we know the principle of the multiple source effect to be true in the digital age with sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Amazon, and basically any other place consumers can read reviews of products and services before buying. I think this has been one of the greatest benefits of the Information Age for consumers. It’s the reason we all strive to get positive reviews on Google and Facebook and shutter at the thought of a negative review because they’re all public and the public tends to follow the crowd regardless of the context of a negative review. The big benefit for people is that they can see if there is an inordinate amount of people saying something negative about a product or service. We can all use our judgment to determine if the random negative review or comment is an outlier but we most definitely trust the majority if they are saying to buy or not buy something.  
  
In the non-digital world we see the power of social proof and crowd behavior in a variety of places maybe not thought of or expected. When I first came back to my hometown after living in Chicago I was bar tending at a couple different bars around town and it’s a common practice among bartenders to ‘salt’ the tip jar with assorted dollar bills and change as an example of social proof. If a customer sees an empty tip jar, the built in program in their brain says “nobody else has put anything in that jar yet, must be something wrong with the service OR I’m not going to be the first to fill the jar OR I’m not even sure what that damn jar is for and you’d better believe I’m not going to be the idiot to put money in it if its for something else”. You don’t even realize that you’re thinking it but you are. You get your drinks from the bartender but now you see some ones, fives, tens, and 1 or 2 twenties in there and now you have a different set of thoughts. Now your programming says “these guys must be good, look at the tips!” OR “everybody else has thrown in some money and I don’t want to be that guy that doesn’t conform so here’s mine”. Again, all primarily subconscious and behind the scenes so to speak, but very effective.  
 
It’s common in churches to salt the collection plates with money and envelopes to guilt people who weren’t thinking of giving to reconsider and it was a common practice of well known evangelist Billy Graham and a host of other Evangelists to salt the crowd with what are called ‘ringers’, or people trained to stand at certain times and come forward to witness, wail, fall down, or give donations to get the crowd to do the same. In fact, a university of Arizona research team infiltrated the Billy Graham organization and reported on their common tactic of having a virtual army of literally thousands of people rehearsed to do these kinds of things to get the crowd digging into their pockets. At one crusade event there were over 6000 people trained and rehearsed to exhibit this behavior to incite the crowd into a variety of behaviors. You think you’re seeing a spontaneous mass outpouring of love, giving, praising, and healing and you’re really just seeing a well choreographed scene of mass manipulation based on the principle of social proof. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people don’t give on their own or experience love and healing at these events, I’m simply saying that in this instance, and a host of other similar events, the organizers and big named headliners used the power of social proof to elicit certain behaviors from the crowds that they may not have gotten otherwise.  
  
There was a story in the news back in 2005 about a group of shepherds in Istanbul, Turkey who watched in horror as a group of 1500 sheep were lazily grazing on a mountainous cliff one afternoon while the shepherds ate lunch when one sheep randomly jumped off the edge of the cliff only to have all 1500 sheep follow. All 1500 sheep followed each other off the end of the cliff to the gruesome pile of bodies below. The good news was that only 450 of the 1500 sheep died while the remainder lander relatively softly on their fellow sheep. The bad news was that 450 sheep died which represented the livelihood of a bunch of villagers in that area. A gory and sad example of the power of social proof and herd behavior. Another sad example of this would be the Jonestown massacre in the late 70’s. I wont go into the details because most are already probably familiar with it. The only way I knew about it, since I was 8 at the time, was because my friend’s sister was one of those who died there. Again, social proof and herd behavior with a little treachery thrown in. A sad example of people following something and somebody they thought they could believe in and trust based on his well articulated vision of a better world that ended very badly.  
  
I’ve talked many times in previous episodes about beliefs and how powerful they are in running our lives and daily decision making. Quite often, what is at the core of many of our beliefs is fear. Our desire to fit in is rooted in the fear of standing out and being judged. Our desire to succeed is quite often rooted in the fear of failure. Our fear of public speaking is rooted in our fear of being judged and exiled from the tribe for messing up which leads to our ultimate fear of being disconnected and on our own which could ultimately lead to our death, at least in the reptilian part of our brains. We know, of course, that all of these things are, at some level, irrational motivators but they're there nevertheless.  
  
One of the interesting aspects about the appraisal business is that the vast majority of appraisers are introverts who like to work on their own and have no problem not interacting with other humans on a regular basis. They tend to work best when left alone and the other humans they may come across on any given day stay out of their way. What appraisers are facing as an industry and as a group, of course, is massive change from a variety of angles and groups. I wont use the word extinction because I believe its more like evolution where the most adaptable and prepared will evolve into the roles as they change and evolve. One of the things driving this evolution is technology and the efficiency with which all the parties to a transaction can obtain information and data pertaining to it.

The same forces that are driving the evolution of our industry, as well as the real estate and lending industries, have also lead to some awesome ways for appraisers to connect and interact. The variety of facebook groups, forums, podcasts, online education, webinars, and the general ability of people to communicate in fractions of a second from anyplace in the world means we too are taking advantage of the same advances that threaten the status quo of an industry that has basically operated the same way for decades. Imagine the companies who make tape measures and the business they lose to laser measuring devices. Imagine the paper and folder companies and all the business they lose to tablets and mobile technology and the benefits of digital note taking. I have to imagine there are members of all of those industries screaming into the wind about the forces that threaten their livelihoods and how the world needs tape measures and folders and paper and people will rue the day when they finally disappear from the planet!  
  
The reality that we live in today my friends is a reality where distance is no longer a factor in a lot of things. Yes, we still have to drive to our observations and we still have to physically move through our daily geographically required boundaries but we no longer have to drive to the assessors office and the county building and the one hour photo shop. We don’t have to drive to sams club or costco for cases of printer paper and folders anymore. In many ways our lives are getting easier but in many ways they are also getting exponentially more stressful as we are taking in exponentially more information in shorter periods of time. We are bombarded with microwaves and radiation as we add more computer screens, more bandwidth, more modems and routers. We go from dial up to 2G, to 3G, to 4G, and now to the scariest of them yet, 5G. They all make our lives faster and, we believe, easier when it comes to things like streaming videos, accessing information, and keeping touch with friends and family thanks to Facebook, FaceTime, skype, and the proliferation of technology that takes advantage of the technology. The world she is a changin’ and she’s changing fast.  
  
And while the techniques, the tactics and the way we run our everyday lives may be evolving, there are some things that will always be. Some things we can count on that, when understood and practiced, we can rely on for direction, guidance, and the path to greater success regardless of how many gigabits of information is being transmitted through the airwaves. The things that will always be are principles. Principles are foundational truths and the basis for beliefs and behaviors. Principles don’t change when everything around us might be. We might be able to download the Empire Strikes Back in 43 seconds onto our mobile devices but our ability to do that says nothing about how humans like to be treated, how they like to be lead, how they follow and who they follow, how they like to be spoken to, loved, and how they conduct business. One of the things that the advances in technology threatens the most is the belief that because we can send an email or text in a few seconds, that we should do that as opposed to talking to another human being. That we have the ability to comment on another person’s post on social media that we SHOULD be commenting on that post knowing that something like 95% of they way human beings interpret communications between other humans is lost when we remove context, tonality, body language, facials cues, and volume. And one of the things that these advances in technology have allowed us to do is to forgo some of the foundational principles we used to use to judge who we might choose to follow, to listen to, to look up to, and to take advice from.  
  
The internet and all of the advances that you and I utilize on a daily basis, many of which I absolutely love, come with a set of caveats or warnings. They warn us to be very wary of who and what we choose to follow, who we trust, who we look up to, and where we get our information from. The internet has allowed the world to look to and look up to people and things that have no business whatsoever to have a platform to lead. I’m one who is all for free speech and unrestricted media but I also say that to have that level of freedom we require a commensurate level of education on how to sift through rhetoric and information to get to the principles. I’m not referring to or speaking about anything specifically, by the way, so if you’re thinking there is some hidden meaning in all of this, there is not.

This episode is a simple warning to be very careful who and what we choose to follow and look up to as our choices are nearly endless. In our industry specifically, there are and will be lots of new entrants into the profession and they need, most of all, good leaders leading based on principles. I’ve said it before and will continue to say that our industry has very few real leaders. There are many great teachers of the tactical and practical and how-tos of appraising, but very few, if any, real leaders teaching existing appraisers and, maybe more importantly, the new entrants (the next generation, if you will) based on the principles that almost every great business is built on which are the principles that govern positive human interactions.  
  
What the advances in technology have allowed us to do is present to the world a one dimensional image of our lives, our businesses, our beliefs, and our personalities that are quite often vastly different from reality. We can post selfies with the Eiffel Tower behind us making the world believe we’re in France when in fact we’ve just used an app to paste in a background. We can show the world just how great our relationships are with awesome pictures of beaches, travel, amazing dinners, and our perfect partners without showing the world all of the shit that happened 4 minutes earlier when you were bitching at your wife for spending too much money or she was bitching at you for walking too fast. The world doesn’t know about the fight you had in the hotel room two hours ago or how you rearranged your dinner plate to make it look more appetizing.

I mean, we all do know at some level that those things don’t represent reality but there is a portion of our brains that cant separate the real from the fake. Our children are bombarded on a moment to moment basis with an unrealistic standard they believe they have to live up to based on what’s being snap-chatted and instagrammed by their friends and peers. What they aren’t learning from all of it are the principles that all of those instagrammers and snap chatters are begging for deep down inside and that’s to be loved, to be spoken to like a real human being, to be liked by the peers, not just ‘like’ by a button with a fake blue thumb, and to be like for how real they really are, not how fake they they may think they have to represent themselves in a fast moving one dimensional world. 
  
I hate to say it my friends but nobody gives a shit about your filet mignon or where you’re smoking cigars this evening. Nobody really cares how much you say you love your spouse or significant other on social media on her birthday. The only person who cares is her, say it to her! You don’t have to say it to the world to let her know you love her. The unwritten new social rule that says if you don’t Gram it or Facebook it it didn’t happen is a rule not based on any principle grounded in anything that is real. The need to say and show all of these things to the world is rooted in a narcissistic fear that somehow we aren’t enough. That somehow life is better where my buddy is because he just posted a picture of his feet up with a beach in the background. He’s calling you out man! Next time its your turn! Show him how awesome your breakfast is an prove to the world just how healthy you eat…this time! The world doesn’t get to see the shit you shoveled into your face last night before you passed out. They just get to see the smoothie you’re making this morning to make everyone believe health is the most important thing to you. And if they do get to see the shit you shoveled into your face last night and now you’re showing us your smoothie, well now we know how big of a hypocrite you are. “Headed out on run today everybody!" "All finished with my run everybody and here are my stats from my fitness tracker and heres the route I ran." "All of you can go to hell because you’re not as good as me." "Here are my CrossFit numbers everybody, getting’ after it!", "here’s the most handsome man in the world and the best father a woman could ever ask for and he fixed the roof last week and he lifts heavy things all the time and I’m the luckiest girl in the world." 
  
Listen, your friends and family are going to hit that like button but there’s no reason to. They like you just the way you are and the people who know you, love you, and know how special your man is, that’s all the people that need to know and matter. The world doesn’t need to know that you like hot peppers and pineapple on your pizza! That’s for your friends and those who eat the damn pizza with you to know. And all of the folks in the forums giving less than stellar advice to all of the people asking legitimate questions…well, be very careful who and what you choose to follow my friends and who you let influence you because the reality is that many of those so-called experts, veterans, and big wigs are part-time BestBuy warehouse stockers and Home Depot cashiers trying to make a little extra money because they cant make ends meet with their day job as an appraiser. And do you know why they cant? Because they don’t follow the principles that successful people follow. They may be great appraisers and even good teachers but be very careful who and what you choose to follow and look up to and who you let influence you because you may be following and being influenced by somebody who will steer you straight into traffic just to be right and make themselves feel better. Be careful my friends. Be careful who and what you choose to follow and look up to in this fast paced and often one dimensional world of selfies and fake experts. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes but the good ones are good because of the principles they follow and, more importantly, the principles they teach and encourage others to follow.  
  
The principles of business don’t change even when the techniques and tactics might. The principles of talking to people like they’re people, of treating them like they like to be treated, of doing business in a way they like to do business, lifting others up, and generally making the world a better place as you move through it are the principles and the foundation that appraisers should be building businesses on. I’m not saying anything about quality work, knowing your shit, solid practices, more education, and solid support for your conclusions, those are the techniques and tactics of our industry. I’m talking about the universal principles that ALL businesses, all human beings with normal stable minds follow to live in harmony with their fellow humans. Businesses are built on the same principles and those don’t change. Don’t be swayed by the latest fad or high tech technique for getting more clicks on your website. Those are important things to understand, or at least hire somebody who understands it since they’re part of the tactical and practical of getting found in the digital age, but the principles that you demand from the other human beings you interact with on a daily basis are typically the same ones that others expect and want to do business with.  
  
Be careful who and what you choose to follow my friends and who you let influence you. At the end of the day, we have an almost infinite number of people and ideas to follow and learn from, both good and bad. Choose wisely and choose based on a solid set of principles that you have determined to be the principles you want others to follow. Demand of yourself what you demand from others. We lead the same way we learned to follow and the world is 99% follower and 1% leader.  
  
I’ll end this episode with a funny little parable that goes like this, A group of young hikers, anxious to explore the treacherous mountain ranges of Alaska, interviewed a number of guides at a remote outpost. "Yep, I'm the best there is," bragged an older, very weathered looking man; "I know every mountain and valley in Alaska – been hiking them for over 50 years.“ Impressed with his obvious experience, the hikers chose the elderly gentleman to lead their expedition. Days into their journey, the group seemed to be wandering aimlessly, passing by landmarks they'd seen before. Cold, hungry, and very skeptical, the group questioned, "We've been hiking 6 days and we're lost – you said you were the best guide in Alaska." "I am," snapped the old-timer, "but we're in Canada now!” 
  
Be careful who is leading you my friends and in what direction you are headed… 
  
Thank you my friends for spending your most valuable currency with me and that is your time. I will always try to give you a solid return on your investment but it is ultimately up to you to determine what you’re going to do with that return. Take some actions today that lead you even one step closer to your dreams and goals and if you don’t have any of those, well, maybe its time to sit down and start dreaming again. You did at one time and you can do it again. As you do begin to dream and set some goals, be very careful who you listen to and follow as there are more than enough people who do not want to see you succeed. Success for you means more work for them and a confirmation that they were wrong! Be the 1% who moves confidently through the crowd knowing full well that your plans, ideals, principles, and practices will lead you to your vision of the perfect life, business, and relationships. There are great things ahead for appraisers who have the vision to see through the forest, make good choices of who and what to follow, let the criticism and negativity roll of you like water off a ducks back, and set a solid plan for success.  
  
My name is Blaine Feyen and I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and happiest and safest of holidays my friends. Let’s chat again next week, I’m out…