Appraisal Scoop: Your Road to Success Needs a Plan

Every time I see an Ameriprise Financial Ad, the one with Dennis Hopper sitting in the middle of a intersection, this is what I hear.

"So here you are a little confused, did you think the road to success was an express way?

Come on! This is not some random road trip. Your dreams are out there somewhere.

You can’t start this journey without knowing where you are going. You, my friend, need a plan.

I see intelligent, bright people focusing on things they can not do anything about, and not focusing on what they can do."

Dennis is right, we need a plan:

For me that means identifying where I am and then identify where I want to be.

I want to make more money… big surprise there.
I want to continue doing what I am doing, not necessarily defining me as an appraiser but a professional in the real estate industry.
want to continue to work for myself and out of my home

Second question is what do I got to do to get there?

Well then I have to do a couple of things:

First I have to eliminate some of my competition. Yeah that’s right. I have to find a way eliminate some of them, reduce the supply by taking away some of their business. Some of them are tough, I am going to have to work hard.
I have to see myself not as just an appraiser but an individual in the real estate industry. Sort of like that oil company BP or “Beyond Petroleum” which recognizes they are not in the oil business but the energy business.
I need to try several options (some will work some will not) which utilize the skills I already or ones I can obtain in a short time. (although I do have long term plans)
I need to recognize what has been working. Things like doing FHA, RELOS, and Attorney work. Also expanding my territory into new Hampshire. (Those are the goals I made last year)

Click here to continue reading . . .

I have to admit that I am hoping some of my competition is sitting at their desk. I hope they are complaining how AMC’s are taking their business, how fee’s are getting lower, how AVM’s and BPO’s are competing against them. Yeah I like those kinds of appraisers, after 30 years I know they won’t be around long.

Where am I going to get new business this coming year? Well the first thing you can do is go to the “Appraisal Press”. It has lots of articles of appraisers that have thought of different ways to sell their services.

What are my goals this year?

One is to get even more attorney work. But what I feel I need to do in order to get more attorney work is to re-enforce my image as a professional appraiser.
Two I like what Gary Crabtree does. He provides monthly reports, and in return he gets compensated and he also gets additional business.
Three, I like what Ed Odham does. He measures buildings for realtors and provides sketches for their listings, and he also gets additional business.

In order to market these services I am going to need to do a couple of things:

Define the services that I am offering. For me this means creating a webpage or several WebPages.
Collect names and put them in a database. Which I constantly added to in my x-sellerate database.
I have to create some way of communicating to them via e-mail, post cards and etc. An example is this newsletter was also meant to increase my exposure, market myself as a professional, and to
I want to take advantage of some of these duress properties. I believe that if I can do an analysis and support conclusions on sales. Why can’t I do the same for property that is for sale?

Now once you determine what you want to do, then you have to set up a process what needs to be done to get there. Yeah it takes time, but as Dennis Hooper says, did you think this road to success was an express way?

The image you see to the right is the first draft of my newsletter. It will be going out to all the real estate agents and attorneys in the area. I would like to thank Daniel DiGriz of http://www.mixmysite.com for designing it with me and would recommend him.

This newsletter went out to 450+ attorneys, 300+ real estate agents, 1,000+ mortgage brokers and lenders. I send out 500 e-mails out each day. By the second day I received, two new requests from two new clients, an invitation to write in one of the local real estate agents blog, an attorney inquiring about my litigation skills, and several thanking me very much for the information. I have told each real estate agent thanking me that I would be willing to go over the information at their weekly sales meeting. Click here for the newsletter.

As Gary Crabtree point out in the interview done for the article: “Fast-Cheap-Good the quest to diversity and sell our professional expertise.” Getting out there and marketing and promoting your services is essential to generating revenue as a professional especially with non-lending sources of business.

I point this out because recently I have been reading several comments on several forms regarding marketing ideas. Over the past couple of weeks I have communicated with several appraisers that present additional services on the websites. Yet only those that market their services and present their case to prospects clients are the ones that are actually indicating they are getting additional business.

It is not just having a great idea that generates additional revenue. It is having a plan of action, then implementation that plan of action and then following through that generates additional revenue.

As I have said in the past, my business took a dramatic reduction as of March of 2008. Yet as I look over last monthly sales records I am very please to find that I have increased month sales volume 10%.

My method has not changed since my first article on appraisal scoop:

Marketing 101 - It’s all about numbers
Marketing 102 - Profit is all about effective marketing
Marketing 103 - Recording what works and what doesn’t
Marketing 104 - It is all about your plan

Now some people just like to complain. Some people rather work for AMC’s for a lower fee instead of marketing. Some appraisers might just want to find a proven method of generating income for alternative sources.

Which one are you?

Author: Jeff Patterson, owner of Residential Appraisals - Has been providing residential appraisals for most of southern and central Maine for the past 25 years. Jeff's clients range from private appraisals to working with brokers, banks, litigation support and expert court testimony.