For your real estate appraisal office, a great idea you can implement is brainstorming meetings. This might be something you already do, but it’s great to do these on a regular, scheduled basis. These are in order to improve your business and work toward the vision that you have for your real estate appraisal office.
A brainstorming meeting is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an opportunity to come together with those you work or socialize with, starting with an inkling of an idea and leaving with a solid plan. It is creative, open, and unstructured. It is an opportunity to discuss and talk. The key is to be willing to be wrong, and open to new ideas. These meetings are where your ideas become visions, and eventually reality.
Keys to holding effective brainstorming meetings:
- Don’t have an agenda. You can have bullet points or a loose idea of what you’d like to talk about, but no rigid structure. Creativity must flow freely.
- There are no stupid comments. Your team must feel safe to communicate openly in these meetings for them to be effective. Feel free to throw around any idea, even if it’s not fully developed. That’s the purpose of the meetings. Good ideas build on top of each other until they form a plan. Throw things against the wall and see what sticks. Don’t hold back.
- Be willing to be wrong, in a devil’s advocate way. Take a step back and consider everyone’s ideas and see if there’s anything in it you could tweak or alter to improve it. This isn’t to be a downer, it’s to look at ideas from every aspect.
- Write down action items. A meeting is a waste of time if nobody writes anything down. Talking by itself is fine, but unless you have notes, nothing will get done. Notes can be to-do lists, ideas you’d like to further develop, or anything that stood out to you in the meeting.
Your first real estate appraisal brainstorming meeting may be a little bumpy because no one is quite sure what to do or may not be willing to talk much. It’s important to establish this is an open, creative space. Creativity will make you more successful than your competition.
For more information on this subject, please listen to The Appraiser Coach Podcast Episode:
