1069 Client's Don't Dictate Your Happiness

0:00If you are down and out and stressed and fearful and depressed 18% of the time, that's called being human, right? We all have our ups and we can't all be up all of the time, okay? I feel for you, my friend, however, I want to take a different approach today. Originating from deep inside the Rocky Mountains, transported through the power of the internet, and arriving inside your tiny earbuds. It's the appraiser coach podcast, helping appraisers increase their efficiency, quality, and make more money. Here's the guy who makes it as Mike's mission to create value for real estate appraisers nationwide. You're most in the appraiser coach, Dustin Harris. Okay, here we go again. I have to tell you, I hesitated.

1:05I probably should have just hedged and not done this at all, but I hesitated. I want you to know that because I almost didn't give in to the temptation, but here I am. I couldn't resist. Before I even tell you what I'm talking about, let me tell you why I hesitated. I hesitated for a couple of different reasons. But the biggest, the most important is I tend, I hope to be a pretty positive person. That's my goal. And it's really the way I live. I don't come on here with a fake mask that I wear of optimism. Do I have to change my attitude a little bit sometimes? Sure. But in general folks, 82% of the time I wake up on the right side of the bed. I wake up happy to face the day, low stress, excited about the job and or jobs before me.

2:08The work that I do is invigorating. It's exciting. I'm living my why most of the most of the time. I spent a lot of time doing this teaching, whether it be coaching or podcasting or writing or, you know, in mastermind groups or with my All Star team. And I absolutely love it. I love, love, love what I do. And that helps, right? That doesn't mean I don't have my issues. It doesn't mean I don't have my problems. Doesn't mean I don't have my days. Okay. So let me, let me start with that. Everyone is human. You see the most positive side of me here on the podcast because frankly, when I'm down 18% of the time, I'm not going to record a podcast. It doesn't mean any sense, right? So in a sense, what you get is is a little bit not fake, but you get the, you get the real side of me on the positive days. Okay.

3:10However, I feel like I want to do this particular podcast today because I sense something. They say there's about 40,000 appraisers across the nation, at least 40,000 active appraisers, some say more, some say less, but let's just say there's 40,000. And of those 40,000, I fear that the majority, let's call it 30,000, generally wake up. Generally wake up wishing they were doing something else with their life, wishing that they had a different job, a different source of, that they were retired, that they didn't have to deal with work, that they, you know, fill in the blank. And I think that's sad because I do think as the title says that, well, you do have a choice and your clients don't need to run your life.

4:13Okay. With that, without jumping too far ahead, let me share with you why I'm on the microphone today. And it was a Facebook post that I saw earlier, and I'm going to keep this individual anonymous. I'm even going to keep the group on Facebook anonymous. I am not going to tell you that it's the 100% group because I just don't want you going there and, and figuring it out. And I'm going to, in fact, I'm going to call this guy Mitch, and I don't know, I don't even know what his name is. I don't know this individual, and I'm not looking at the post because I don't want to accidentally quote it and have you find it. I would just give you the sem. Okay. The post this morning started with, I kid you not. If you know anyone looking to get into real estate appraiser appraisal, tell them not to, it's garbage, it's the worst thing ever. I honestly thought this was sad tire. I really did. When I started reading this, I started to chuckle thinking, okay, here we go.

5:18And it's going to be, you know, kind of a play on what some of the things you, you hear on Facebook. Oh, no. No, this guy absolutely meant everything that he said. And he went on to describe what had happened to him over the weekend. And basically what had happened to him over the weekend is it was a holiday weekend. And he had an appraisal assignment. And the client had reached out, the realtor had reached out. Maybe the homeowner. I don't know. But a bunch of people had reached out, basically begging him, he used the word begging me to get this thing done. And so I out of the goodness of my heart, worked my holiday weekend where I would have been, you know, watching football or spending time with family or what have you. I worked hard to get this thing done. And the next thing, you know, I went in Monday morning after I'd worked the weekend to turn this thing in. And low and behold, it had been canceled and they're not going to pay me. And that was the gist of his post. Now, he got a lot of great advice in the comments below. Thankfully, some people piled on unfortunately.

6:19But most people were like, dude, are you just giving up, right? And gave him some advice on how he could still get paid on this assignment. I don't want to necessarily focus on that side of things. And before I focus on the things that I want to focus on today, I do want to say this to Mitch, again, not his real name. And he definitely is not part of the 100% group because that group is always super positive. Sorry, correct myself up sometimes. What I do want to say, Mitch, is I feel you. I get it, dude. I've been there a bazillion times in my life as well, right? Again, I told you 82% of the time I'm happy. And I think that's a good gauge, the 82% rule. If you are down and out and stressed and fearful and depressed 18% of the time, that's called being human, right?

7:23We all have our ups and we can't all be up all of the time, okay? So just to be clear, right, I'm not bagging on you, Mitch. You had a bad day. You had a bad situation. I get it. I'm sorry. I really am. I feel for you, my friend. However, I want to take a different approach today. I want to speak to the Mitches of the world, the appraisal world. If you find yourself commiserating with Mitch a little too much, stay tuned because I have some advice for you. But before I give you that advice, let me give you some other advice. And that is you need to be with OREP insurance. OREP insurance is my ENO of choice. It has been for many, many years and I'm very, very happy to be a part of the OREP family. I feel they are family. They understand appraisers unlike any other insurance company out there.

8:24The benefits that they give to their members are, I mean, just unmatched by any other company. And they're real people with real hearts with real understanding. You cannot go wrong with OREP insurance. Check them out by going to their website at OREP.org. Another piece of advice I'll give you folks is make your job a little bit easier. It's so easy to get way down in the quicksand of the appraisal work and a company making it easier to do your job. And do quality, it's not cutting corners, folks, just because you're doing something faster doesn't mean that it's not good. Do you hear me? Just because you're doing something quicker than you could in the past doesn't mean that it's sloppy. In fact, you can do things faster and with higher quality with a company called True Tracks. True Tracks is a software that allows you to be able to do your job better because it helps you to define your neighborhood. It helps you to understand your market. It helps you. This is the part I really love.

9:28It helps you to support your adjustments in a way that you're going to feel confident turning that report in because if it comes back to you in the form of a revision request or heaven forbid, a buyback, a Fannie Mae letter, a state board investigation, a lawsuit. Folks, you can stand with pride chin up saying, yeah, the adjustments I made were not licking my finger and sticking in in the air. Oh, no, these are supported adjustments. Check them out by going to true footage dot tech slash tools. All right, folks, welcome back to the program positive optimistic Dustin with you today. I'm in my 82% world today and feeling good and in all seriousness, I don't mean to bag on Mitch, but I do see these posts quite often.

10:30In fact, I see them increasing not decreasing. I've seen them the entire time I've been an appraiser, right? It's one of the reasons I became the appraiser coach because I felt like there was a different way of doing things. And that's what I want to share with you today because as we go down this world of change, right? The 3.6 and AI and all of this stuff that's going on in our lives that's really uprooting what we used to know. I saw a satire post this morning as well on Facebook. I thought was quite funny where an individual, in fact, it might have been a comment to this post where an individual said, well, yeah, you know, my mentor, no, no, no, it was talking about the 3.6. Somebody had mentioned, do you actually have to measure the ceiling height in every room? And of course, people are jumping on and saying, well, you know, do your homework. Yeah, that's what the 3.6 calls for. And one individual says, well, I'm not going to do it because my mentor didn't tell me to do that. And my mentor knew everything. And obviously he was being sarcastic, at least I hope he was.

11:31And it made me laugh because I think sometimes folks we slip into this world of negativeism and and sameness and bubbles and and by bubbles, I mean these boxes that we paint ourselves into and heaven forbid we can't change any of that. By the way, if you're on YouTube, I would love for you to comment below and let me know if those lights are distracting or cool. Okay, they're brand new. I got lights behind me and I cannot figure out how to just keep them a steady level. They just kind of, you know, kind of do their flashing on and on. If that's distracting, if you hate it, let me know. If you kind of like it and it keeps your attention, let me know because I'm, I mean, it doesn't bother me. I just, you know, anyway, I digress. By the way, welcome to my new studio. I'm very proud of this new studio. I've put a lot of work into it and I think it's cool. Okay, so back to the comment at hand, right? I think there's too much negativeism and folks, I think there's another way of looking at this. This post that I'm talking about from Mitch today went on to talk about how he's tired of being treated like crap that AMCs are horrible that nobody cares about him.

12:48That the value of appraisers is gone down the toilet that we're a speed bump along the way. I mean, I'm filling in the blank, right? He didn't use all these words, but basically it's the same sentiment that the appraiser is not wanted. It's a necessary evil. And, and you know, if the if the loan cancels, I don't care how much work the appraisers done. I'm going to I'm not going to not pay the appraiser. Now folks, by the way, I commented on this post as well and encouraged him to go and make sure that he he gets paid. There's there's avenues to take to get paid on this assignment. He absolutely should be paid. Right. It's not his fault. This thing canceled. He did the work. Right. He should get paid for the job that he did. Okay. That my friends is beside the point. The point I want to make today is why are we allowing our clients to dictate our attitude? Let that sink in for a second.

13:49Now, I know some of you are going to immediately argue with me and say, well, Dustin, how would you feel if you worked a holiday weekend and didn't get paid and honestly folks and cover your kids ears? I'd feel like shit. I'd feel horrible. I don't like that at all. And I'm human. And those things, those things affect me just like they're going to affect you. But folks, here's my point. If that happens to you once in a while, then shame on them. If you find that happening on a regular basis, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but shame on you. Because folks, that's not a client problem. That's an appraiser business owner problem. That's not an AMC problem. That's a you problem. That's not a system problem. That's an entrepreneurial problem. Because you, my friends, have the ability to vote who you work for. And I know some of you're going to scream at the microphones, well, Dustin, we don't have a choice. We're in this system.

14:50And they undercut and there's a bottom of the barrel. If I'm going to make any money, I've got to cut my fees and I've got to do quick turn times and I go do all these revision requests. And I've got to work with shitty clients. And really? Do you? Folks, I've not done that line of work for a very long time. Now that doesn't mean I don't work for AMCs. That doesn't mean I don't do lender work. That means I choose who I work for and I choose how I work for them. Because guess what? It's not their choice. It's yours. And I know that sounds negative and I know it sounds like I'm yelling at the microphone, but that's a positive message. It should be a positive message because you, my friends, have options. You, my friend, my friends have freedom. And if you find yourself returning over and over and over again to shitty clients, guess what? It's not the clients that are shitty.

15:51Right? If you, like a dog, return to your vomit and that's your second meal. Right? And your third and your fourth and your fifth. How many times do you have to go back to realize it's vomit? If you is and I got to be careful with this analogy because I know there's some some sensitive situations out there and I don't mean to paint them all with a broad brush. And I have nothing but empathy for a victim of abuse. But if you keep returning to that abuser over and over and over again when they apologize and say they'll never do it again, at some point folks, at some point you got to look at yourself. I am a firm believer in freedom, liberty and choices. And that you, my friends, you appraisers have options. And if you find yourself boxed in, if you find yourself with nowhere to go, then there's something wrong with your business, not theirs. Because friends, you have a choice. I've worked for crappy AMCs in the past and I fired AMCs in the past.

16:59In fact, right now I use a program a software called true home tracker. You can find it on my website in the in the product section on the very bottom. True home tracker allows me to actually track all of my clients. And I can see what their turn times are and their fees and their revision rates. And I give them a report card and guess what? I work for A and B clients, mostly A clients, a few B clients. And if you're a Y client, a Y client means why the hell am I working for your client? Folks, I'm not going to work for you any longer. I don't have to. Because I've set up my business in such a way that I have choices. So Mitch, my friend, love you, buddy. Literally, if I if I if I knew you, I'd buy a beer and I'd and we'd have a heart to heart. This is not throwing you under the bus, Mitch. It's not. I've had days like that. But if you're finding yourself feeling like this over and over again, that you're that you're so fired up that you feel like you've got to jump on your keyboard and say, don't let anybody else join this crappy profession.

18:01Folks, we need to have a talk because you do have a choice. You really do. You can choose the clients that you work for and your clients do not. I repeat, do not dictate your happiness. If they do, that's not their problem. That's yours. By the way, folks, if you need some help with mindset. And I'm serious about about reframing your life and why it is that you do what you do and your relationships, your relationship with your health, your money, finances. If you have this negative approach to money, right. That you were raised in a home where money didn't grow on trees and I'm not made of money and and where do you think we're going to scrape together those pennies for that thing that you want. If that's the type of home that you were raised in and that you've brought that into your life, I encourage you to consider going to the elevate a Fraser retreat. Folks, this is not a conference. You will not get CE. If you're there for CE folks, you're there for the wrong reason.

19:02This is a retreat, a business owners retreat in every sense of the word with my good friend, Mr. Blaine, fine with love to have you jump on my website, the appraisercoach.com 10 seats. That's all we're accepting 10 people to this retreat. If this sounds like something lovely for your boost of confidence, we would love to have you reach out to me, the appraisercoach.com. You've been listening to the appraisercoach podcast with Dustin Harris. If you like what you hear, please give us a five-star rating and post a short review on iTunes. For more in-depth insider information on how you can make more money as a real estate appraiser, visit theappraisercoach.com and sign up for the all-star team today. Thanks for joining us. And now, get out there and create some value. Thanks for joining us.