Spring Has Sprung! Time For Appraisers To Remodel Their Businesses!

​Welcome back to the real value podcast, the podcast about business, life, success; about finding value in anything and everything and about creating absolutely as much of it as you can with the time we have! Thank you for taking time out of your busy days and investing your valuable time with me each week, my name is Blaine Feyen and I am your host for this and every episode of the Real Value Podcast. Happy spring my friends! Spring time is a time for rebirth, renewal, regrowth, and rejuvenation. A quick science and history lesson for everybody, what most people tend to call Spring around the world relies on an astronomical definition of the word ‘spring’. Spring is the period between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Equinoxes are days during the year when the day time and night time are almost equal, thus the word equinox which is from the Latin Aequus (aequinoctium), meaning equal, and noctis, or nox, meaning night, so equal night. So, technically, spring is one of two period per year when the earth’s axis is not pointed away from the sun. This is called the vernal equinox while the fall equinox is called the autumnal equinox. The spring equinox is typically on March 20th or 21st in the Northern hemisphere and runs through Late June when the Summer Solstice begins. 

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​Regardless what it is called, it is that awesome time of year when, for many of us, the snow has, or is in the process melting, the sun is out more, its warming up, the air smells different, the days are longer so its lighter earlier and later, we’re maybe a little fatter from the long winter and seasonal depression eating, the holiday eating, and the lack of exercise for many. Spring is a time when it feels like everything is going to be ok. Spring is when we feel like we can stand outside and take a big breath and make new plans. Now I know for many of you south and west of me, you guys can feel like this all year round, but there is still something special about the spring time. Thankfully, for those of us that love snow sports like skiing and snowboarding, snowmobiling, cross country skiing, fat bike riding, or whatever it is we snow junkies choose to do to get us through, the winter time is a welcomed period. But, of course, only for a period! When its over, we’re usually quite ready for it to be over so we can start into spring activities and plans. Spring represents rebirth in many religions and cultures. It’s Easter for the Christians, Passover for the Jewish, the cherry blossoms are celebrated in Japan, which is called Hanami, the Songkran water festival in Thailand, Nowruz in Iran and Central Asia, and Holi for Hindus in India. Cultures and religions around the world celebrate the coming of spring for various reasons and the stories that keep them alive, but they all have one thing in common and that’s that, regardless of the story, rebirth and renewal is the common theme. And by the way, for those who ask why bunnies and eggs for Easter in the United States, Easter is simply the Christian story of rebirth and renewal. There are celebrations that date back thousands of year before Christianity where eggs, and even bunnies, represented new life and rebirth. The Bosnians celebrate a springtime holiday called Cimburijada (cimbur=scrambled eggs) where they gather down by the river on the first morning of spring and share a huge pot of scrambled eggs to celebrate rebirth and new life, thus the Cimbur, or eggs. If you study history you’ll find these common themes across almost all cultures and religions and going back thousands of years before most modern religious books were written.
 
Rebirth, rejuvenation, and new life is something we all need from time to time and probably much more frequently than  the once or twice per year celebrations many people engage in. In fact, without some kind of renewal and rebirth almost every week, I find myself becoming less and less productive, less and less inspired, and less intentional about my stated motives which, in essence, means I tend to put less action into my motives meaning, I become unmotivated! Yes, renewal is an absolute requirement my friends! And in fact, I would say it is more important today than it was even 10 years ago because of the effect that social media and technology is playing in our lives. We may step away from the desk at 5, 6 or 7 but then we have our mini computers called cellphones in front of our faces, heads aimed down, staring at yet another screen and likely perusing social media and likely posting, commenting, or scrolling through some kind of industry related forum or group. Which means we aren’t really done working when we step away from our computers or desks because our brains are still in the beta brainwave category which is the most active brain state. The blue light from all of the technology and devices that surround us on a daily basis is constantly sending a signal to the brain that its daytime and work time and it keeps our brains in the beta brainwave state which, after some period of time, is simply and literally dying to rest. The brain and body were designed to go through natural stages of work, rest and recovery, rebuilding, good stress and stimulation for growth, and then recovery, rebuilding, and remodeling so that they can handle the next days load and responsibilities without breaking down and failing. We’re working longer and harder and often without realizing it because technology and social media have made the world much smaller and the days much longer but often with less productivity, less real human interaction, less interaction with nature, and less rest, recovery, remodeling of the brain and body, and less appealing results.
 
I love technology, by the way. I am what you’d consider something of a tech junkie, or somebody who simply loves my tech. I always have the latest smartphone which, right now is the Galaxy Note 9. I will undoubtedly get the Note 10 when it comes out. I have a Galaxy Gear Frontier watch with LTE. I have an iPad Pro 10.5, a Galaxy Tab S3, I have half a dozen laptops from high end MacBook pros for editing to MacBook airs for, well for who knows what. I have a killer somewhat custom desktop computer with multiple monitors, the latest in computer mice, headphones, microphones, recording gear, mixers, 4 or 5 high end cameras, the high end lenses to go with them, the latest GoPro cameras, and on the list goes. I love technology and I love what technology can do for us in all of the various areas that we use it. But I also know the downside to having all of that technology and what its doing to our minds, bodies, relationships and the world around us. If you’ve never downloaded the app called Architecture of Radio, I would encourage you to do so and warn you at the same time. Its an app that uses your phones camera and some of the other built in technology to scan for WiFi and other radio signals all around you and give you a visual representation on the screen of where all of the radio waves are along with some sound representing the strength of the waves. It will show you where the WiFi towers and routers are in your house and neighborhood and it will generally freak you out, or at least should, because you’ll see that we are swimming in a sea of radio and microwaves 24-7-365. This wasn’t the case 20, even 10, years ago. Its getting worse each day as we add more power, more routers, more signal boosters, more devices, and more frequencies. All of these things are brain and body disrupters that are literally transforming the way we think, behave, and make decisions on a daily basis.
 
Now, this is not an episode about the dangers of technology and again, I’m as guilty as the next person (maybe more!) since I have all of these things around me all of the time. I take some precautions, but probably not as many as I should, to protect my brain and body from the bombardment of waves and signals passing through it moment to moment. I mean, I wear one of those big lead dentist smocks they make you wear for X-rays and I keep my cell phone in a faraday cage and the walls of my office are lined with tin foil but I could be doing more. I’m kidding, of course, I would never have wall paper again, tin foil or not! But in all seriousness my friends, the point I’m trying to make is that with the evolution of technology to make us more efficient, more connected, faster, better, smarter, and more educated, we must also evolve our time and life management technologies if we truly want to get the most out of our workday, out of our efforts, and most importantly, out of life. I say it often, I am more interested and concerned with the human being than the business since the human being is the business. The business is often a direct reflection of the human being who created it and is running it and if we can get the human being part on track then often the business part follows. Too often people try to make changes to or correct their businesses without addressing the all important human aspects that may be hindering any progress toward a certain goal or result. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say, depending on what your particular goals and aspirations are, if you haven’t squared away the human part of the equation, often when you hit your goal you realize you’re less happy and satisfied than before the goal was reached. Many people find the goal was simply covering up bigger issues deep within the individual. They think more money will solve some of their issues. They think more business will solve some of their issues. They think more time will solve some of their issues, and they may. But if the human issues aren’t addressed as a primary function of goal setting and developing the business, then all of those things could end up being a bigger burden than initially imagined. I know for some of you, because I’ve worked with some of you, you start out with the standard “more money, more business, better business, more vacations, more assistants, etc.” All of which can be good things to address. However, once we start really digging into what your beliefs are about money, time, relationships, and a few other key areas, we start to realize that what you really want is simply a better quality of life and money isn’t necessarily the issue. Sometimes it is a ‘better business’ issue or a time issue, but often what you end up realizing and we end up teaching is just how important net is over gross.
 
I cant tell you how many times we’ve analyzed a business where the owner said, “more business, better business, more money, more staff, more, more, more…” only to realize that what they were really looking for was how to squeeze more profitability out of the gross they already have. And by the way, when I talk about profitability I am referring not just to profitability in accounting terms in your business because profitability affects everything in your life and business. I am also referring to how profitable your life is as a result of your business efforts. If you're investing your vital life energy and time then you must get a return on that investment that benefits your life so we always look at life profitability as well as business profitability. You can be wildly profitable in business and be emotionally bankrupt at the same time which is a harbinger of things to eventually come in your business. We often find huge inefficiencies in time use, huge inefficiencies in some of their assets, huge wastes of time, money, and energy in people and things they simply don’t need so they end up looking for more business to throw at their waste and inefficiencies. This is called filling up the swamp to cover the weeds. For many, after some deep contemplation and realizations, they come to a place where they understand that grossing a million and keeping $350,000 while working an 80 hour week is not the same as grossing $200,000, keeping $100,000 and working a 40 hour week with half the staff and equipment. Now I know for many of you, because you’re a one or two person businesses, the numbers might be different but the concept is the same. Squeezing more out of your day in less time and realizing more profitability from your existing book of business is a step I would encourage everybody to think about before randomly throwing out ‘more business, higher fees, better clients, personal assistants”, etc. I love all of those ideas but not all of those ideas are for everyone at the end of the day, even when they may think they are. We've got to clean up some of the weeds first and drain a little of the swamp before throwing more work, dollars, time, people, and vital personal assets at this issue.
 
One of the first things I recommend taking a look at is how you use your time. I'm not going to go deeply into good time management in this episode, although we can in a future episode if the feedback indicates a need to do that. What I'd like to share with you in this episode is a simple, yet extremely powerful time and life management system that I have been using for several years. I learned some of these concepts and ideas while part of a high end business coaching program called Strategic Coach. If you aren’t familiar with Dan Sullivan, the strategic coach, he’s been one of my mentors for years and I recommend learning a bit about him. Another one of my mentors and business coaches is a man named Joe Stumpf. Joe is a well known real estate coach and the founder of the By Referral Only real estate training and coaching company. I was a coaching member of By Referral Only for years while in real estate and have been learning from Joe long after I left the sales side of real estate. Between those two gentleman I have been vacillating between Dan’s system of time management and Joe’s system of time management with some blending of the two. I’m going to introduce both of them to you, at least in brief in this episode, and then I’ll be expanding on them a bit more throughout the year. Both coaches teach a method for breaking up the days in the week into three different kinds of days and they both have different words for them. I prefer Joe Stumpfs words a bit more because they just seem to resonate a bit more with me and my penchant for language and the meaning of words. Dan Sullivan’s days are broken into Free days, Focus Days, and Buffer days. Joe’s week is broken into Results days, remodel days, and recovery days. In essence, they’re both pretty much the same idea and its that in each week you are blocking time, or days, into three categories to optimize your business and life. The Free days, or recovery days in Joe Stumpf’s model, are the days that you do absolutely nothing related to business. No emails, no phone calls, no appraisals or appraisal related activities. You get out into nature, you have a day at the spa, you binge watch Breaking Bad or Golden Girls, you hop on your motorcycle or mountain bike, you do manis and pedis with the girls, and you just generally rejuvenate so that you can be focused and alive for your results or focus days. The next type of day is the focus day or the results day. I’m a fan of the word results over focus because the word results connotes an outcome where the word focus connotes a state of mind or state of being. I often get results without being particularly focused so I choose to use the word results days.
 
Nevertheless, whether you like results days or focus days, these are the days you use to simply do. You get shit done. You produce income, crank out appraisals, and just generally put nose to grindstone to do the work that needs to be done. The last type of day is the buffer day or remodel day. The buffer or remodel day is the day you use to prepare for your results days. So this kind of day is when you are out prospecting, writing thank you cards, sending mailers, working on the website and Google my business page, doing SEO work, and anything else that will help you be more focused during the results or focus days. In essence, the day, or time, when you are focused on remodeling your business. Ok, so those are the days in their systems and what they’re supposed to be about. Now I’ll tell you how I use them. The only day that I am a convert on using up a whole day is the free or recovery day. I took to heart years ago their shared idea that most people see theirs time off, there weekends, or their vacations as a reward for all of the drudgery that they endured during the week or prior months. The philosophical idea behind recovery, rejuvenation, or free days is not to see it as a reward but, instead, as a necessary precondition of success. In other words, if you don’t take these days each week or, at a bare minimum, each month, you will burn out, lack motivation, lack inspiration, lack creativity, and eventually just hate what you do. The free day or recovery day concept is one of the most important ideas I’ve taken away from these time management systems because that tiny little shift of seeing them as absolutely necessary instead of some kind of reward for hard work was the mindset shift needed to flip from a mindset of this is happening to me to a mindset of radical responsibility and leadership. With free or recovery days you are telling yourself and the world that you are in complete control of your day, your mind, your attitude, your vision, and your life and for it to be everything you desire it to be you absolutely must disconnect for some period of time. It is a necessary precondition of living a quality life and also for success in business, life, and relationships.
 
With that being said, I am not necessarily a fan of referring to the whole system in terms of days. Other than the full recovery day, and by the way, I typically have two recovery days per week and those are on the weekend. I always take the weekends off to do life. I simply never work on the weekends and I cringe when I see somebody talking about how they’re working at 7pm on a Saturday or Sunday night to meet AMC or client deadlines. I am absolutely not impressed with this kind of work ethic. I’ve said before on the show that if that is simply how you parse out your work schedule because it works best for you then fine, go ahead and work on Saturday or Sunday night. It better mean you are taking Monday and Wednesday off for recovery or free days. This idea that appraisers have to work 6 or 7 days per week to make ends meet or get shit done is an old tired trope that needs to go away. I, and many of my colleagues, work normal 30-40 hour weeks and have killer businesses that support our lifestyles and feed our families quite nicely. I’m not opposed to working a 50 hour week if it’s because I’m leaving for an extended vacation in the next week, but it should not be the norm. What I have done to modify these time management systems that I learned is to block out time within my day for all three categories. By that I mean that, other than my free or recovery days, I incorporate results and remodel into the same day. In Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coach system these are your focus and buffer days. While it would be great to take a whole day to prepare to be successful, I find this a bit tedious and unnecessary considering the rest of the business world is operating Monday through Friday from 7 or 8 until 5 or 6. I see no need to have a whole day of buffer to prepare for being focused and getting results.  And I don’t see the need to have a whole day of remodeling my business so that I can get results the next day. I fully believe that you can split your days so as to incorporate both kinds of time. So, for example, I’ve said many times that my typical morning routine is to wake up and start writing or working on some kind of project for my businesses. In essence, I am working but not necessarily on near term profit making activities. I am working on things that will net me a return a month, six months, maybe a year or two from now. I work on the podcast, I work on the book I’m writing, I work on thank you cards, I work on SEO stuff, and anything else that, if I can get done during the first hours of the morning, I am freed up the rest of the day to get nothing but results. And results means income. It means production. It means producing appraisal reports, reviewing reports, and mentoring my apprentices on some aspect of the business.
 
If you break up your day into free, focus, and buffer time, or recovery, results, and remodel time, instead of full days, you can become very productive at life. Again, I am absolutely adamant on taking the free or recovery time during the week however. That is something that requires a whole day at least. Am I the best at it always? No. I mean I take the weekend off and get out of the office. I don’t work on appraisal related of business stuff. But occasionally I will take phone calls off of my website or calls from my people who might be working on the weekend and have a question about something. Sometimes my virtual assistant is working on files over the weekend and catches something or has a question so I take the call so as not to hold up her results and focus time. But these are moments during the weekend and not focused results time. If you call my phone right this moment, you will 100% get my voicemail. Unless I recognize the number and you are saved in my favorites or important list, you will not get through. You will go to my voicemail and the message you get will say this: “Hi, this is Blaine with Real Value Appraisal Group, so sorry I have missed your call. I typically return calls between 2 and 5 Monday through Thursday, unless its an emergency. If you need a call back right away, please say so in the message, otherwise, just let me know that best number to reach you at during one of those days and times and I’ll call you back at my earliest convenience. Thanks and I look forward to speaking with you soon.” Now, some of you might think that’s ridiculous. “But Blaine, what if it’s a client or a potential new customer?” Great! If its important they will state so in the voicemail. If it isnt, I’m ok with getting on with my day or weekend without their message. Most people say something like this, “hey Blaine, this is so and so, I see I’ve missed your return window for today but its not urgent, you can just give me a call back tomorrow or Monday.” The whole point is that, while I am in either results mode or recovery mode, I will not be distracted by phone calls that pull me out of a particular mental state. If I am working and getting results, that’s where my head needs to be. If I am in recovery mode, that’s where my head and heart needs to be.
 
So, a typical week for me usually means that I take my recovery and free days on Saturday and Sunday. This is when Jolene and my boys and I might go skiing for the weekend in the winter, maybe take a weekend of travel and visit some interesting places. We might just stay around home relaxing and having fires in the fire pit. Whatever we do, its not work related. Its time to recovery so that we can be better people the following week. Come Monday, my days are broken up into remodel time and results time so a couple hours during the day I am working on making one of my businesses better, preparing or learning something new, writing or creating content, and remodeling my business. The rest of the day is the time when I am focused on getting results, getting files done, going on observations, dealing with whatever needs to be dealt with in terms of income production. When I structure my days this way, there is no need for a buffer day or a whole remodel day. Those tasks and functions can be easily completed during the work day if you are disciplined enough to block out that time and, here’s the key piece, if you have a plan. If you don’t have a plan to accomplish anything but appraisal files, you simply wont know what to do with yourself during your remodel time. I encourage all of you to start creating your marketing plan for the year, getting your thank you cards written, scheduling up some time to remodel your business by walking into banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies, reaching out to attorneys and financial planners, and spending some vital brain time imagining your ideal business and life. That is what remodel and recovery time is for. You are remodeling your business whenever you take time to imagine what it could be like, what you could and should be doing for your clients and staff, imagining how your business can enhance your own life and the lives of others, and just generally get out of your office and into the future. That’s vital time that absolutely must be part of your day, your week, and your month. The results time somewhat takes care of itself because that’s what most of us are best at. We are best at completing inspections and appraisal reports. What many of you are not so good at is the imagining what your business and life could be like and then following up on your imagination with a plan to get them both there.
 
As I mentioned, I’ll be going into more detail about exactly how to implement your results, remodel, ad recovery days but for now, at my specific request, please place special emphasis on the recovery time and make sure you are taking the vital time out of your business, not as a reward for your hard work, but as a recognition that you will not get better without it. In fact, without it you will for sure get worse. Now, I know what some of you are saying right now, “hey Blaine, we’ve been super slow the last couple months and have about as much damn recovery time as we handle, we need some results time!” To that I say, I get it. That is the nature of the appraisal business for many and the slow times are the times when you can dive into extended recovery and remodel time. The slow times are the times when you should be out digging your well, if you haven't already, you should be networking and going to events where realtors, lenders, attorneys and financial planners hang out. You should be scheduling talks and educational luncheons with lenders and realtors, and you should be taking care of all the stuff you didn’t do when it was busy. I know many who just sit around and complain about the lack of work and how they have to get second jobs. Listen superstars, that’s not the market where you are. That’s complete bullshit. Unless you live in a one horse town, you cant tell me that every realtor, every loan officer, every bank and credit union, every attorney, every financial planner is not doing any kind of business. You just cant. I don’t buy it! They just aren’t doing the business with you my friend. But rest assured, they are doing business with some appraiser because every market, regardless of how slow or depressed it may be, has somebody who absolutely must refi their house. Somebody who is getting a divorce. Somebody who is being relocated to your area and buying a house. And a handful of superstar agents and lenders making shit happen. The fact that you aren’t making shit happen with them says more about you than it says about the market. Get off your ass and go make some shit happen! Remodel your business, your mindset, and your attitude and see what that does for your results.
 
Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives my friends and spending it here with me each week. The goal of this podcast is to add a return on your investment of your most valuable currency and that is your time and your life energy. I sincerely hope I have been able to do that for you today but remember, it is ultimately up to you to take some action and begin remodeling your business and life, taking time to recover so that you can be all you desire to be, and getting the results you have imagined and created a plan to achieve. Without the plan, all of your hopes and dreams are just that, hopes and dreams. To quote the great horror author Stephen King, “wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first”. You must have a plan for how you will use your days and the vital time during those days. Without it your days will be filled with simply putting out fires and doing whatever is right in front of you. Time expands to fill whatever void exists and its your job to fill the void with either productive results getting activities, or taking time completely away from your business to be a better human being and, as a result, a better business person.
 
Enjoy your spring break my friends, I will be enjoying my recovery time in the mountains of North Carolina communing with nature, my family and friends, the mud and water, and being rejuvenated by the spring mountain air. I will see you on the other side of spring where we’ll do this all again, only a little better for having taken the recovery time. I’m out.