As a coach, I'm teaching appraisers on a constant basis. A lot of them are interested in doing non-lender work but they aren’t sure how to attract that work. Really, there is no big secret here. Any marketing firm will tell you that an active presence on the internet is the key.
You need to have a website and you've got to constantly feed the website in order to get ratings. Fresh content is king for Google ratings. You have to put up new blog posts regularly, you have to change things and you need to put videos on your website. The more people that are pinging off your site, meaning they're taking your content and pointing from their content back to your content, the more Google likes your site. These are the kind of things that will help your site rank on Google searches.
Google owns YouTube. If you don't have a YouTube channel that is putting up fresh content, you're going to fall behind your competition. To be a player in the market, you’ve got to be known as an expert. Video can do that for you.
I know, I know, you aren’t an actor and you can't create a video. Have you heard of vlogs, video blogs? Instead of writing something down for a blog post, you create a video instead. You might be intimidated by that, but let me make it easy for you. How often do you go to an appraisal inspection and the borrower or the realtor start asking you questions? I’m sure it happens all the time. This is a great opportunity to educate and it’s great content for a vlog.
No, you don’t have to grab your phone right then and record your answer in front of them (that would be weird), but you could take a few minutes immediately after you've left the property. When you get back to the office, while it's still on your mind, take a few minutes to record your answer using the video on your cell phone.
These days we carry a whole motion picture studio in our pockets. You already have all the technology you need to be able to take information that you know and get it up on the internet. Add videos to your websites, be known as the expert, and that non-lender work will come your way.
For more information on this subject, please listen to The Appraiser Coach Podcast Episode:
