Can We Speak Like We're Old Friends?

Welcome back to the real value blog, the blog about real estate, appraising, values, life, love, success and well… how it all fits together…good morning my friends and a smashing fist bump to all my 1%ers for finding your true north, making your way back here this week and ready to elevate your game! My name is Blaine Feyen and I am your host for this and every episode of the Real Value Blog. The blog by an appraiser, for appraisers, and the place to be if you have any desire whatsoever to stop following the herd and the guts to move toward where the elite hang out. 

If you'd like to listen to the podcast episode of this blog post, just click here...​

---

I say guts because it does take guts to be in the 1% club. It’s a club filled with professionals who have decided they no longer need the pats on the back from those who don’t accomplish anything, the criticism of those who don’t achieve, and have no time whatsoever for petty squabbles over unimportant topics. The 1%ers focus on mind, body, spirit and creating value wherever and whenever  they can. They know that to have anything in life they have to help enough others with their goals, aspirations, dreams, and desires. It can be lonely at times and you’ll have to develop some new survival skills but attitude, guts, determination, and a no fear mindset are the only requirements for entry into the interview room at the Value Syndicate headquarters.

From there my friends, it’s a long slow ride upward to new levels in your life, your business, and the lives of those around you as you face and conquer your fears, set new goals, push yourself higher, and stand among an elite group of doers. People who decided long ago they didn’t want the relative, albeit false, comfort and safety of the herd but instead want to breathe the air not shared by the masses. It’s cleaner, healthier, more life sustaining, and you’ll be among a group of finest success minded life givers the world has ever seen. People who strive to give more, create a better world, create a better industry, create better businesses, and live better lives by recognizing that your life, your relationships, your health, your businesses, your attitude, your mindset and your home are all part of the same whole.  
  
You cant address one without affecting the others and my goal is to address the whole person, the whole business, your whole life with this podcast, not just those aspects that involve your office, your desk, your computer, your market, and your appraisal software. No, we go deep because deep is where the shit lives. The good, the not so good, the hidden, the repressed, but also the potential, the rockstar, the leader, and the one who doesn’t need anyone’s permission to kick ass and take names. If you’re in, you’re in for good! So think long and hard my friends because once you start this journey, there is simply no turning back. Once you’ve been stretched you can never go back to the old you. Once we start setting some goals, developing some tracking and measurement of those goals, once we start thinking big together, the old you is going to scream for safety but fear not, I’ve got your back. There’s no need to look back toward comfort and safety because you’ll never be left alone.  
  
Alright my friends, I hope you’re warmed up and ready to do some work because we’re on our last week of our goal setting focus. The month of January is the month of New Years resolutions and 64% of people who make them just dropped off this week. They’re no longer on the statistical grid of those who do and now belong to a new group of those who don’t. By the end of next month that number will have risen to 88%, leaving a mere 12% of people still doing what they said they were going to do. I’m sure there are stats about how many of those end up quitting before the end of February but I don’t really care at that point. As I’ve mentioned before, I know the stats from running a large martial arts and leadership academy for 20+ years. I know how many people start out with big dreams and goals and never make it out of the gate. And I know how many people start a 4 or 6 week introductory course and end up becoming a black belt 6, 8, or 10 years later and the numbers are sobering, to say the least. It’s less than 1% in the martial arts world. Of course, this doesn’t mean everybody who stops going to the gym or quits a martial art are losers or quitters. They’re all good people with the right intentions. Some of them may realize Planet Fitness isn’t for them and do what I did, invest in gym equipment for their house or garage so that they don’t have to waste time driving, getting dressed, showering, etc. Some of them realized that Aikido, or Karate, or Brazilian Jim Jitsu wasn’t their thing and maybe they’re doing Tai Chi now, or CrossFit, or have thrown themselves into running or cycling.  
  
Unfortunately though, for some large percentage of those people, sadly they have quit altogether and will be back around next year with a new goal, a little more shame, a little more beat up and oxidized, and hopefully this will be their year to stick to it. When I reference being a 1%er, I’m not necessarily making a statement about being part of the 1% who accomplish what they say they’re going to. That’s part of it, but more importantly it’s a reference to people who recognize that if they can just strive to get 1% better each day, each week, or each month, or 1% better at a task or skill each time they do it, then they’re on a path of growth. They don’t have to make huge leaps or be the best at whatever it is they're doing, I certainly wasn’t and haven’t been in almost everything I take up. I can honestly say that in almost everything I have ever done throughout my life, I’ve been entirely mediocre at best. In everything I’ve done, from soccer leagues, playing hockey, martial arts, golf, skiing, business, you name it and I’m not the standout on the field, the ice, the course, the mats, the slopes, or the office.

Nope, I’m just the guy who keeps coming back for more while the masses slowly quit, fall away, or move onto something else. I’m the guy on the ice who says, “teach me”, yell at me if you have to, tell me what I’m doing wrong so I can learn”. I’m just the guy who keeps studying everyday to get just a little bit better. I’m the guy who is always reading, listening to podcasts, YouTube videos, and audiobooks so I can be a little bit better tomorrow than I am today. Even if I don’t notice it. Even if nobody else notices it. I’m the guy who just kept showing up to Aikido class every week. I’m the guy who had to work harder than the naturals because I wasn’t born with some special gift. I’ve seen, trained with, and have good friends and students who are like this. The ones who can come in and pick stuff up like its part of their DNA. They fly through the ranks or move naturally through the lessons like its nothing. Then they get bored, they quit or move on, and this is becomes the path for somebody for whom everything comes easy.  
  
For the rest of us, its work harder, work smarter, train slowly, methodically, intentionally and, if we’re lucky, someday maybe we’ll look like the natural. But maybe we wont and we still keep training, learning, growing, reaching. For some, the constant grind is simply to keep from decaying. I’ve had lots of students who were simply never going to really grow. They were never going to test for new ranks. They were never, ever going to look like whatever they were doing was natural. But that’s not what was important. For them, they were getting 1% better each time because without doing it they would be getting 1% worse at life. Remember, there is no such thing as staying the same. Because of gravity, oxidation, decay, atrophy, and the natural life cycle of things we’re either growing or we’re dying.

We’re either moving forward or moving backward. There is no standing still. Even when you think you’re standing still the earth is spinning on its axis at roughly 1000 miles per hour and traveling at 67,000 miles per hour to make it around the sun in a year. There is no standing still or staying the same. Thinking that you’re the same person, the same business, the same body, or the same anything one year, heck, one day later, is a very dangerous idea because decay happens slowly and it goes unnoticed. It’s only years or decades later that you all of the sudden notice how much you’ve aged or how in the hole your business is. It seems to creep up on you and then you look back and say, “geez, where did the time go? How did this happen?” 
  
That’s the thing about being a 1%er. You’re not training 8 hours a day for an Ironman triathlon, you’re jumping on the bike for 20 minutes to burn off breakfast. You’re jumping in the pool to do 10 laps because that’s all you can do. You’re stretching for 10 minutes and doing 10 push-ups because that’s all you can do right now. But next week you’ll shoot for 11 or 12 push ups, 11 or 12 laps. Next week you’ll do 22 minutes on the bike. And next week you’ll have one meeting with a new realtor, attorney, estate planner, or lender. Next month you’ll be giving one talk to a small group of people interested in what you have to say. And in 6 months you’ll be talking to a larger group, meeting with 3 or 4 new people each month, riding 30 minutes on the bike, swimming 40 laps in the pool, and doing 40 or 50 push-ups. And because you’re tracking and measuring what you say you want to achieve, you’ll be able to see the growth. Slowly, methodically, intentionally you’ll see it as you gather more data points. More time in the pool, more time in the saddle, more time on the mats, more time pushing around some iron or your body weight, and more time plugging away at your business. That’s what being a 1%er truly means.

Rest assured my friends, next week, next month, and next year is coming whether you like it or not. The question we always need to be asking is, when it arrives, will I have grown some small percentage as a result of the things I’m doing today? Or, when it arrives, will you instead be saying, “gosh, I still haven't started doing push-ups like I said I was going to in January, I still haven't gone to the gym, I still haven't changed my diet, I’m still drinking a ton of diet soda, I’m still smoking a half pack a day, I’m still getting hammered on the weekends and taking the next 3 days to recover, my website still has a stick figure with an ‘under construction’ sign, and 98% of my clientele still consist of AMCs who don’t know me, trust me, like me, or give two shits about me. And here it is 6 months later and I haven’t had one meeting with any realtors, haven’t met any attorneys, haven’t spoken to any real estate groups, haven’t gone to any networking events, unless you count the Steelers game after party that I barely remember, and I’m still using a pencil, tape measure, and clipboard when I said I was going to go mobile in 2019”. 
  
Just 1% my friends. 1%. You don’t have to tear it all down and start again. You just have to start! Reduce your half pack by one cigarette this week. The next realtor you call to verify or ask questions about a comp, just ask them to go for coffee. You’ll be surprised how willing they are to meet and chat. Don’t throw out your clip board and pencil, just invest in a decent laser measuring device and take it with you. Play with it while you’re stretching that dirty tape measure. Get used to it, get confident that you know how to use it, get confident that you’ll always be able to find something to bounce the laser off of, and eventually that will be your go to measuring device. Then invest in a tablet that you can take along with your clipboard. Play with it on vacant house observations, use the clip board for the data gathering and then when you're all done, play around with entering the data you gathered into the tablet. After a while you’ll gain the confidence in its ability to do the same as your clipboard that you’ll find yourself slowly moving away from the analog to the digital. Set for yourself an intention and what we call a stack, or a habit stack, where every time you get up to fill your coffee cup you do 5 or 10 pushups. Every time! Pretty soon, you’ll either be drinking less coffee because you don’t want to do pushups or you’ll be upping your game to 20 or 30 pushups each time. That’s the 1%ers way my friends. Say you’re going to do it, write it down, break it down into trackable activities, and then sandwich them with something else you’re already doing. Do just a little bit each time. After a while, if you’ll do it, I guarantee you’ll have a new habit before you know it. 
  
One of those habits I’d like you to add to your portfolio of new habits is learning to speak effectively. This is a huge topic and usually when I start talking about it people start to squirm in their chairs because it is the number one fear of most people universally. Public speaking is something that makes most people’s skin crawl at the mere thought of it and they’ll avoid it all costs. And truthfully, I get it. I understand the fear and having studied it for many years now I know why it makes people so fearful. It is tied deeply to our survival instincts and goes back to when we were more tribal than we are now. We’re still tribal but not in the same way. Back when the tribes were smaller and more close knit, anything that would get you expelled from the tribe likely meant death. Without the tribe to fight for you, back you up, help you hunt and gather, and take care of each other, you were likely fodder for predatory animals, warring tribes, starvation, disease, and whatever else being part of a tribe all but insured your survival against.

Fear of rejection is so ingrained and hard wired in us still that doing anything that may cause us to be or even sense some kind rejection triggers in us a rush of adrenaline and cortisol like we’re being chased by that predator through the jungle. We will do almost anything to avoid it. Appraisers especially, mostly introverts, type A personalities, stronger than normal negativity bias, argumentative to a fault, love to be right, hate to be wrong, love to argue about both, much more comfortable in their basements and home offices than out in the world where they may be confronted by another human being, elusive and sensitive to the light, rarely seen and even more rarely heard, creatures of extreme habit, smarter than many but less friendly than most, and no two appraisers have ever been captured together, although if you ever wanted to (not sure why you’d want that headache) the best place would likely be a bar between 2:30 and 4 because that’s when the school busses are slowing things down on the roads.  
  
Nevertheless, learning to speak effectively is a skill that, not only comes in handy throughout ones life, it actually changes your brain in a way that you start to see life differently because of your ability to communicate effectively without fear holding you back. Back when I was teaching aikido and defensive tactics every day one of the weeks of a six week course was devoted to the art of falling and getting to the ground safely. I’ve talked about it before and it’s the art of ukemi, in Japanese. Literally the art of controlling ones body. In any physical training or sport its extremely important to have control of your body and in the martial arts or arts of self defense specifically, it is even more important that a practitioner learn how to absorb energy so as not to experience an extreme loss of balance or maybe even an extreme loss of awareness due to a strike or a push or a fall. So we devote a whole week to the art of falling and learning how to control your body during times of high stress and in an attack situation. One of the psychological benefits of getting comfortable with falling, rolling, and being on the ground is that a certain portion of your brain is freed up because prior to that, that portion of your brain was occupied by the fear of falling.

Once you spend enough time practicing falling and feeling comfortable being thrown to the ground and surviving, that portion of your brain that was once occupied by fear now opens up. In essence, a part of your life is freed up and opened to a new view of the the world, a new view of life. It’s the same experience as someone who conquers their fear of heights and goes skydiving. They land safely on the ground and a wave of euphoria rushes through their bodies. Partly this is due to the adrenaline release that occurs with the whole experience. But also a part of the persons brain is realizing that they’ve just accomplished one of the most fearful experiences they could ever imagine up to that point. They did it! They have found new strength and slayed a demon called fear.  
  
Once the demon has been slayed the mind is free to begin looking for other adventures, other fears to overcome and a certain confidence enters the picture. The person walks differently now, they carry themselves differently and they begin looking at life as an experience to enjoy, grow, and learn from instead of a set of rules governed by fear. Public speaking, for many, is like jumping out of an airplane but with no parachute. Just the thought of it causes a very real, visceral reaction and series of events within the body. The fight, flight, or freeze response kicks in and the body is overwhelmed by adrenaline and cortisol. How do we avoid having that feeling? Never do that thing!!! Which is what 99% of the world does. They simply avoid it. They then build up a backstory about themselves and their identity to help reinforce the avoidance mechanism and make themselves feel better. Do you know what it sounds like? It sounds like this, “oh, I couldn’t do that. No way. I’m not a speaker. That’s not a skill I have. I dread being in front of crowds. That’s just not me” and on and on the reinforcement goes. Layers of protection are built up with the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what you couldn’t do. I’m here to tell you that it’s time to start stripping away the layers of BS you’ve told yourself, probably your whole life, and start pushing yourself a bit in a couple areas. One of the stories we have to begin changing, one of the tapes you’ve been playing in your mind for so many years, is the “I couldn’t do that” tape.  
  
When it comes to speaking in general most people, and by most people I mean 99% of the world, have no problem speaking to a person or a group of people they're comfortable with. You have friends and family that you have no problem speaking to and with and, in fact, if there was a new person in the group, say a new girlfriend or boyfriend of a family member, you’d have no problem carrying on a conversation. So one of the things we have to begin working on is reducing some of the false evidence we have around public speaking and ramp up some of what we know to be true about speaking with friends, family, and people we feel comfortable around. I say false evidence because we all have heard the acronym for fear is false evidence appearing real. And that’s exactly what it is. Your mind and body deal with imagined stress in the same way that it deals with very real stressful experiences. Just thinking about standing on a stage or even in an office with 40, 50, 0r 60 people in front of you creates the same central nervous system response as if you’re actually standing there. The same heart rate increases, the same adrenaline dump into your bloodstream, the same weak legs and shallow breathing, it all happens for some people just thinking about that experience. So, the first thing we need to do is to begin addressing what that fear is. The fear for most people is judgment. They fear being judged harshly which equates with ridicule and rejection and, as we mentioned earlier, this correlates with being rejected from the tribe and ultimately leading to your death. What do we know for real though? We know that no matter how harshly you might be judged by anybody you wont die. I should say its not likely because, of course for some, a heart attack is not out of the question in these situations. That’s how much they dread the thought of speaking to the public.  
  
But for the vast majority of people, they will leave the office meeting or walk off the stage and go on with their lives as if nothing has changed. Of course, something has changed. You’ve changed. You’re lighter, freer, and more confident for having tackled that experience. So just walking through some of these things in your head is a valuable exercise. Reminding yourself that the worst things you could imagine happening are not going to happen. They just aren’t. I’ve been speaking to large audiences for 20+ years now and cant think of one experience where my life was in danger, I was going to go to jail afterwards, I was drooling, I farted, or some other embarrassing scenario that our brains put us through when we think about worst case scenarios. It just doesn’t happen. So we work through some of these things in our heads first> we begin to replace the not likely to happen scenarios with what is more likely to happen scenarios and we tie those to things that make us feel good. We instead imagine we’ve done an adequate job for 20 minutes, a half hour, maybe an hour and people come up afterwards and congratulate you for a job well done. Several people come up to you and hand you business cards and start asking you about your business. You get invited back for another talk in a couple months. You get a call or emails from other offices to come in and give the same talk to their group.

These, my friends, these are the reality of appraisers speaking to the public. The reality of almost every opportunity to get up in front of people and say something is that, since everybody else in the audience also has a fear of public speaking, by moving to the front of the room, the auditorium, or the stage, you get instant respect from the group or crowd for simply having the guts to do it. You’re doing something fully 99% of the people listening do not have the guts to do and they know it. You begin to occupy a place in their minds reserved for people they respect. You haven't necessarily gained their respect but the guard that normally patrols that area of their brains very closely takes a lunch break and lets you in as if saying, “you’re alright, you can go have a seat in the waiting room”.  
  
What you do and say next will determine if they let you in all the way and leave having more respect for you than when you arrived but that comes with practice, technique, and some of the tips that I’m going to give you today. Some of this stuff may not be new to you. Maybe you’ve read a book on public speaking. Maybe you’ve watched videos. Maybe you’ve taken the next step and actually joined a Toastmasters group. What I want to do in this episode is to simply give you a few tips, along with some encouragement, from my own personal experience having done this kind of thing for the past almost 27 years. Before we move on to the tips, it goes without saying that I have bombed many times. Whether it was teaching an aikido class to a large group, speaking to audiences in a variety of industries throughout the world, teaching to a tough group of military or law enforcement professionals, or giving a talk to a group of high school teens going into the trades, I have had times where I left and thought, “well that didn’t go as I had imagined it would!” But what I realized after assessing those situations was that any bombing that had occurred was usually the result of poor preparation of my message or not actually having a strong message, lack of preparation in what types of questions that particular crowd may ask, and not following some of the basic rules of public speaking which is what I’ll pass along to you now.  
  
The first thing I’d say is to know your stuff and know that you know your stuff! This one tracks closely with what you’ll get from most public speaking courses which says to “know your audience”. That means, of course, know who you’re speaking to, what their problems are, what their concerns are, and how what you have to say will solve their problem in some way. I imagine if I queried all of you how well you know the world of appraising I would get an almost unanimous “pretty well”. There’d be a few who think they're the best and a few who’d say you have lots to learn. Either way, you likely know way more than the group or audience you will be speaking to. After all, that’s why you’re there. You have more knowledge and experience than likely everybody in the room and you have to keep telling yourself that. This was one of my first lessons from Mr. Toyoda when I was studying leadership under him. He was about to give me a huge responsibility which was leading an evening class all by myself before I was a black belt. This was the headquarters academy of one of the most prolific and well known Aikido and Zen masters in the world and a very large international Aikido organization.

The classes were big, the students were coming there primarily because of him and his teaching staff, there were people from all over the world coming to train there and he was giving me a lofty position of instructor of one of the evening classes before I had even really earned the title. What he told me in his office that day, however, was that I had to believe I knew more than almost anybody on the mat. I was training close to 2000 hours per year on the mats while the students were getting 3 to 5 hours per week and then going home and watching tv. To them, I was the pro. Even though I was only a brown belt at the time, I still had more time on the mat, more insights and instruction from all the hours spent with higher ranked students, and if I could add just one thing to my repertoire I’d be a very effective teacher.  
  
That one thing he said I needed was a teachable point of view. I didn’t know what he meant at the time but he explained it to me. The reason he was teaching me this valuable lesson was because I was very concerned about the prospect that there would be somebody higher ranked than me on the mat while I was teaching. My concern was not unfounded either. It was not uncommon to have 2nd, 3rd, and 4th degree black belts in that evening class and here I was a mere brown belt leading the class. Some of them had 10 or 20 years more experience than I at that point. He told me several things in response to my fear and here’s what he said. He said, “Braine, first of all, don’t go out there to teach anything, just go lead the class. Be a leader and lead the class. Your ultimate job is to lead the group somewhere for the hour so just be a leader. Second, have a teachable point of view. Even though you may not be teaching some of the advanced students anything new, per se, you have a viewpoint and an opinion on some aspect of that technique or movement. Just express that point of view and give them something to think about. And then, own the fu…ing mat! When you step out there, you’re in charge; own it! You cant demand respect from them but you can command it by how you carry yourself, how clearly you speak, and how clear your teachable point of view is. Whatever they think about you before, during, and after your class is their business, not yours. Just go lead them for the hour and express your teachable point of view in the most dynamic way possible and you’ve done your job for the night. Then do it again tomorrow”.  
  
Now, that’s what you get from an Aikido and Zen master and that was his job with the live-in students. His commitment to us was to build us into leaders and good teachers. He never said I had to be a good public speaker but when he started talking about being dynamic, leading the people somewhere, and having a teachable point of view, it only made sense that the more dynamically I developed my speaking points and learned to express them the more effective the instruction would be picked up by the audience. In that case, the students coming in for class. Knowing your stuff and then knowing that you know your stuff is first, and then develop a teachable point of view. We develop opinions every day. Develop an opinion on some of the topics you’d like to lead your group in on that day and then develop a message around it. Having a teachable point of view is critical, in my opinion, when becoming an effective speaker. Since that day and those lessons I’ve taught thousands of classes, travelled all over the world speaking and teaching people with decades more experience than I in certain areas but they didn’t have one thing that I had, they didn’t have my teachable point of view and they haven’t practiced it as much as I have. They may have 10, 20, in some cases 30 more years of training or teaching than I but when it’s my turn to lead the class or get on the stage, I remember Toyoda Sensei’s words: own the fu…ing mat! Have something to say, have an opinion about, and express it like you’re the only person in the world who can deliver this information in this way on this particular day.

When you adopt that attitude and mindset, it doesn’t matter who is in the audience or on the mat because it’s my teachable point of view and I’m going to deliver it like I created it and own it, because I do. Most groups you’d be speaking to will be comprised of either realtors, lenders, and attorneys. There might be some title people, some insurance agents, and some financial planners. Get to know what each of those groups cares about with regard to the appraisal and the appraisal process and customize your message for that group but you are the subject matter expert on value. Believe it and carry yourself in a way that conveys that without conceit. Know your stuff and know you know your stuff and then you can relax because it will show.  
  
The next thing I would say is, much like a book, a movie, a good podcast, a real estate deal, or an appraisal, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. I have found over the years of giving presentations and leading classes that if you have an intro, a middle piece (some critical info, lesson or exercise) and then a closing statement, the rest fills in itself. Now I am not saying you shouldn’t have a full hour of stuff you’d like to talk about. I always have 4 hours of info for every 2 hour talk or class. But I always have an introduction or opener (this varies based on the audience), I always have the key middle pieces that I’d like to get accomplished (this is my teachable point of view stuff) and then I always know exactly what I’m going to say to recap my main points, reiterate what I want them to leave with, and then my closing remarks thanking them and giving some extra piece of value. Once you have those three things you have something to practice.

My kids can tell you that it is not uncommon to see me sitting at my writing table banging away on my keyboard and then stopping and practicing what I just wrote as if I was speaking it to an audience. I practice voice inflection, delivery, timing, pacing, modeling and mirroring, and a few other advanced speaking techniques, but I am essentially practicing those critical beginning, middle, and ending pieces. I know the rest will fill in itself. It’s like knowing where you’re starting from when you head out on observations and knowing where you have to go. You may not necessarily know the perfect route but you know which direction to head and you have a fairly good idea of how to get you within a mile or so of your destination. Then you do a little research, you plug it into the gps and the route develops for you. Boom, you’re on your way there. Should there be a detour or reroute required, you know you’ll be able to get there because you have two of the three critical pieces already triangulated. You know the beginning and the end and you just have to fill in the middle with help from the maps or gps.  
  
Giving a talk or teaching a class is no different. Know where you’re starting and where you’d like to end up. Fill in the middle with your teachable point of view on the topic and everything else falls into place. The last piece of advice I’ll give you on public speaking, at least in this episode, is to make the information relevant to the audience you’re speaking to. Now, I know what some of you are saying. ‘Of course appraisals are relevant to a real estate or lenders office’. But that’s not what I’m referring to. I’m referring to your audience’s hopes, dreams, fears, stressors, and aggravations. You’re an appraiser and you opine value. They know that. And while it is important that an audience of non-appraisers understand the appraisal process, what they really want to know is ‘how are you going to solve some of my problems today or are you here to create a few more’? ‘Are you going to put my mind at ease? No? Ok, then are you going to give me some tips, tricks, and tactics that will help me deal with my concerns going forward? Yes? Good, now you’re leading me somewhere and I appreciate you’.

We don’t solve their problems by agreeing to hit the values they're hoping for, but we can solve their problems by teaching them why that might occur, what parameters we might have to do that under, and then helping them with language that may make it easier to express to their clients. Do you have the language to give them? Of course you do! You’re an appraiser for goodness sake! You work with words and expressing your opinions in your narrative in every report. You’re an author and you write short novels with almost every summary. Learn how to package up those words and explanations in a way that speaks to their fears. After giving my talks, classes, and presentations dozens of times over the years now I have a collection of the questions that have been asked in all of those talks and I recommend you do something similar. What this allows you to do is anticipate them beforehand and develop high quality answers to them when they come up.  
  
I’ve heard every question that could possibly be asked by realtors, lenders, attorneys and financial planners so I know what my answers will be beforehand. If somebody throws some kind of curveball (I don’t know what that might be) it is likely a variation of one of the questions I have an answer for. In fact, I do what I call an ‘answer stack’ in those cases which is where somebody asks a question that pertains to a very common question that always gets asked or is at least on the minds of many in the room. A person asks a similar question but maybe it comes from a different angle. I will respond something like this. I will restate the question or say, “if I understand your question, you’re asking this…”, and they’ll respond with “that’s right” Or they’ll restate it and correct me. Once I know the question and what it pertains to I’ll say, “that’s a great question” (always lift them up and make them feel comfortable asking questions) “and this question usually comes in this form or sounds like this”, and then I’’ll state the question that almost everybody has on their mind and then give my answer. Good examples of this are questions like, “why on a sale does the opinion of value almost always magically come in at exactly the sale price?”, or “which updates usually contribute the most value to a home?”, or “on new construction, do you guys consider the appliance package, the landscaping, and the builder upgrades?”, and on and on they’ll go and you have to have some reasonable answers and explanations for them if you want them to believe you are the expert in your market. This will likely be the middle of most of your talks, classes, and presentations. Have good A’s for their Q’s and you elevate yourself in their eyes and in reality.

If you have a strong opener that builds them up and lets them know right away that you respect and appreciate them, and then a strong closing statement wrapping up your teachable point of view. You can easily fill in the middle with quality information. Now, having the gift of gab, the natural ability to talk, or no fear of public speaking is something that most of us were not blessed with. Speaking and teaching is a skill that needs to be developed. Like anything, the more you work on it and develop it, of course the better you will get at it but, more importantly, the more comfortable you will get doing it.  
  
The last bit of advice I’ll offer in today’s episode has already been implied in the last point about answering questions and that’s to make your talks, classes, or presentations interactive. I believe one of the big irrational fears many people have around public speaking is that they imagine stumbling and stammering with their words, they imagine a critical crowd with arms crossed staring at them with disdain, they imagine forgetting their whole presentation and then maybe running out of the room in embarrassment never to be seen or heard from again. This doesn’t happen my friends. The rooms you’ll likely be in will be filled with people just like you and I and they will help you out in times of need. If you forget something, just say, “oh my gosh, I forgot what my point was going to be, lets go on to the next slide and I’ll come back to my point if I remember it”, and everybody will laugh and it will be forgotten 3 seconds later. If you make your talks, classes, and presentations interactive you make the audience part of the lessons. Have questions for them along the way.

After you make a point, ask, “would you all agree with that?” Most will likely say “Yes”, and if somebody says “no”, you know have a dialogue and productive interaction with them where everybody learns something. 3-5 minutes killed right there. By making your audience part of the presentation you show empathy for them by including them. When you reach out to them for questions or interactions you are saying to them, “I really care about you and I want you to leave with as much value as I can possibly give in the hour, two, or four we have together”. By the way, that is part of my opening statement. I’ll give it to you for free and you can use it or modify as you see fit. My openings vary depending on the crowd, who I am speaking to, and the size of the audience, but they are all designed to convey the same basic message. I typically open cold with a joke that I know will get them laughing (this is important because it breaks down barriers and gets people smiling. Studies have shown that when you smile you become 30% smarter and whomever you’re smiling at sees you as more competent). Then I open and say, “I’d like to thank you all for being here today, I know how valuable your time is and I really respect how much you value education. I am going to do my absolute best today to add some value for your time invested with me. I have 70 slides in this particular presentation today but I want you to know is that the slides are not as important to me as your questions and what you leave with today is. I’d rather have a chat like we’re old friends than have me talking at you for two hours so please ask questions whenever they pop into your head. There are no stupid questions and whatever you are thinking is likely something everybody in the room is thinking so ask away. I will spend as much time as necessary to answer your questions so you can leave today with as much value as possible. Is that ok with everybody? Great, lets dive in”…  
  
That’s my basic cold opener, give or take a joke or two and some variations depending on a few factors, but that sets the tone, puts everybody at ease, gives them permission to interact, lets them know I’m not a jerk, and most importantly, it lets them know I am there for them, not me! If you can take the focus off of yourself and place it on the audience, you change your brain chemistry and some of the fear can dissipate. Of course, some nerves and fear will always be there, especially in the beginning of giving these kinds of talks or classes. It’s natural. But what you do with your nerves and fear will determine what happens in your life and business going forward. Are you going to let your fears and nerves keep you from being seen as the preeminent value professional in your market? Or are you going to get over yourself and start delivering value to them? Trust me when I say, they need what you have! They want what you have! They are begging for more information from the deep dark vault of knowledge that you posses. Don’t keep it a secret. Get out there and share it with everybody who can use it. When you do, you win, its that simple.  
  
Three things to hopefully help you get out there and win your market while also educating them. First, know your stuff and know that you know your stuff. Develop a teachable point of view and practice expressing it over and over. Get as comfortable as possible with your information. There will always be nerves and you’ll always be checking your notes and reviewing your presentation beforehand, no matter how many times you’ve given it. That’s just part of being a professional. I look at my notes and presentations every week and for an hour before an event. I make more notes, I rewrite some things, and I practice my opener and my closing remarks. The second piece of advice is to have a well thought out beginning and a strong closing and then simply fill in the middle with the info you want them to leave with. Sounds like a huge ‘Duh!’, but when you think of it in those terms it helps to give it some structure. The last piece of advice is to simply include your audience. I cant remember a talk or class I’ve lead where it was just me talking for the whole time. Personally, I hate that because I feed off of the audience and I think they make me better.

I cant even imagine not interacting with them throughout the whole presentation. By asking them questions, answering their questions, talking with them like you’re old friends, not only does the time fly by, but you get immensely more opportunities to show your personality and lift up the audience. The more you can say things like, “that’s an awesome question, I’m so glad you asked that!”, the more the rest of the audience wants to jump in and get some praise. The more you include them, the more your middle gets filled in. In fact, sometimes you have to be careful because, if you let them, most audiences will fill your whole hour, two, or four with questions. It happens to me at every talk or class. I just had my biggest one yet with two large ballrooms filled with hundred of realtors, a few lenders, and some appraisers. 6 large screens spread around the rooms, full mic system, mic runners in the audience for questions and me up on an elevated stage presenting. What was the first thing I asked before going on? Can I come off the stage and move through the crowd?  
  
I’ve been on an elevated stage many times but I more prefer to be on the audiences level and even though they have mics, I want to be standing within 10 or 15 feet of them when they ask questions. So I jumped off stage several times during the three hours and ran around answering questions while giving the presentation. What you have to be ready for is what we call the ‘anecdotes’. These are questions that sound like this: “what would you do if you had a parcel of land with an air strip in the back yard…” or “I had this one appraisal…”. So now I state at the beginning of my talks or classes that they can ask anything they want but to please hold all anecdotal scenarios until after the class. ‘I’ll stick around to discuss some of the crazy appraisal stories you might have’. If you don’t, every crowd has at least 2 people per 20, so 10%, with a story they’re just dying to test you with. They have a deal that died because of the appraisal and they want to hold you partially responsible and see what you would have done. Learn from my mistakes and experience and simply say, ‘I can’t solve any of your dead deals, I can’t review any past appraisals you may have in your head, and I can’t offer value on a property I haven’t seen. What my goal for you today is more knowledge about the appraisal process and what to do going forward. Is that ok with everybody?’ They always understand and agree and off we go. 
  
I want to thank you my friends for coming back week after week to the Value Syndicate compound and hanging with me at the Real Value studio. I really enjoy our talks together and I sincerely appreciate you investing your most valuable currency with me each week and that is, of course, your time. I hope you have gotten some value from our time today but what I am really hoping is that you will take what I’ve offered and go do something with it. This topic is near and dear to my heart and has been the foundation of my business for many years. I have the heart of a teacher and so I use my appraisal business as the medium to deliver education to my market. With no ego or boastful intention whatsoever, it has helped set us apart as leaders in our market and one of the go to appraisal companies for lenders and non lender alike. We never rest on our laurels and we get out there almost every week with some kind of talk, class, presentation, or networking event. It keeps us in front of our most valuable and desired clients and it allows us to solve problems on a daily basis for them. That’s really all they want.

I encourage you to get out there and do the same. Start small. Every one of you has a realtor friend that can pull together 4 or 5 other agents. Go practice your talks with a small group. Then shoot for 10 agents in the room. Once you feel comfortable with that. I say double it! Go for a minimum of 20 in the room every time. Our minimum is 30 now because I want as many people as possible to hear the information I have to give and I want as many questions answered as I possibly can. The more people in the room, the more opportunities to educate and solve problems. The more problems I solve, the more advocates and fans I have in my market sending me referrals and coming to me for input. It’s simple math my friends and its just good business. Are you an entrepreneur or are you merely a proprietor? Speaking and teaching, in my opinion, separates the weak from the strong. You get to decide which one you will be this year.  
  
Thanks again my friends, lets meet back here again next week, love you all, much success, I’m out 
 ​