It wasn’t so long ago that, like many real estate appraisers out there, things just didn’t seem to be adding up for me. I was working plenty of hours, but I was still living from paycheck to paycheck. It was like that for most of the first twelve years that I ran my real estate appraisal business.
Eventually I decided that enough was enough, and I needed to make a change. I started to study successful business people, both living and dead, and found the common threads: principles that, regardless of the industry, were a key to every person’s success. I called these the ‘principles of prosperity’.
Out of all the principles of prosperity which I identified, OINII was the single most important one. OINII is an acronym I invented, which stands for ‘on it, not in it’. The ‘it’ in question is your business.
I meet a lot of real estate appraisers in my role as The Appraiser Coach, and time and again I hear that there simply ‘isn’t enough time’. Well, I’m here to tell you that there is enough time; it’s just a question of how you use it.
If you spend all your time being a ‘technician’ – doing inspections, setting up appointments, finding comps, and so on – you can get lost in that work. You’ll always be more of an appraiser than a business owner. To truly see where your business is going, identify the problems your business has, and work out ways to fix those problems. Periodically, you need to get above everything. You need to rise above the proverbial canopy, and take a 30,000ft view of the situation.
So, how do I actually do this? Throughout the week I’m constantly making notes. Every time I have an epiphany, or think of a problem, I’ll write it down. Each Monday I wake up at the crack of dawn and head to a quiet place in my house. I turn off my phone and, although I take my computer, I make sure the internet is off: I don’t want any distractions. You can find more info here on utilizing the internet for your benefit and learn so much.
I then go through all the notes I made, one by one. If the notes relate to a problem, I work out solutions to that problem. If it’s an epiphany, I work out how to turn it into practice. Later that day I have meetings with my staff. We’ll go through everything I came up with that morning, then immediately start putting the new processes into practice.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not exaggerating when I say that, if it wasn’t for OINII, there’s absolutely no way I’d be where I am today. OINII makes me work on my business, not just in it. It’s crucial to looking at the bigger vision, setting goals, and dealing with issues. Maintaining the discipline to do this every single week isn’t easy, but if you don’t follow the principle of OINII, then I promise you any number of other principles will keep falling through the cracks.
If you want to make your business more effective and more efficient, and start working smarter, not harder, then OINII isn’t simply an option. It’s a necessity.
For way more information on Working On It; Not In It (OINII), see my Go Create Some Value Online Workshop.
For more information on this subject, please listen to The Appraiser Coach Podcast Episode:
