enhances her chances of getting the order.
Have the phone forwarded to your cell
phone if out of the office, O’Rourke
advises. If tied up when a call comes in, return it immediately. E-mail inquires should
also be answered promptly.
Although O’Rourke still uses Yellow
Pages because the nature of her business
(estates) has some older clients, a more
important marketing tool today is a Web
site, she says. The Internet is the first place
that she goes when looking for details on
an appraiser or other information. Occasionally, she comes across work outside
of her specialty, but in order to refer it, she
needs an appraiser’s contact information.
O’Rourke can do a quick Google search
to find the appropriate appraiser for the
work, but she won’t find appraisers who
don’t have Web presences. A Web site
doesn’t need to be very fancy, she says.
There are several free and low-cost templates available from the Web and various
software packages. Most Internet Service
Providers provide Web site hosting (up to
a certain size) at no cost. Critical elements
include an appraiser’s specialties, location and contact information. Too many
Web sites include fancy graphics or links
and information that distract the viewer
from the appraiser’s business, yet don’t
include critical scope of work and contact
information.
“I’ve gotten a lot of work from my Web
site,” O’Rourke says. “I developed it using
[Microsoft] FrontPage in 1998.”
A couple of caveats from O’Rourke:
Toll free numbers can be more expensive
than they’re worth; and e-mails posted on
Web sites may be targets of spammers, so
O’Rourke recommends using one e-mail
dedicated for people to click on from the
Web site, and another for other uses.
Leveraging Professional
Relationships
Using the Internet will help an appraiser
leverage professional relationships. Marketing to a much wider audience was critical
for appraiser Gerard Morell, SRA, principal of Northern Colorado Valuations in
Greeley, Colo., as his traditional business
dropped along with the real estate market.
Morell leveraged established relationships with bankers to contact other
“This is not a time
to be hiding away
in your niche, it’s
one for adding
to the products
that you offer.”
—Gerard Morell, SRA, principal,
Northern Colorado Valuations
bankers, mortgage bankers and mortgage
brokers to offer his appraisal services.
He marketed himself to lawyers and real
estate agents for consultation work. All
of those professionals know others in
their field, so even if they don’t have any
business for an appraiser now, they might
know someone else who does. If they’ve
been happy with an appraiser’s previous
work, they sometimes will offer a recommendation in addition to a referral.
O’Rourke recommends attending meetings of and joining local organizations such
as the Kiwanis or Rotary, and chambers of
commerce in order to meet more of these
professionals. Attending open houses
helps appraisers build relationships with
real estate agents, but it’s a business development strategy that few appraisers use,
she says. “Let all your relatives, all of your
friends and business groups know what
you do. Make sure everybody knows your
name.”
Appraisal industry gatherings are important as well, O’Rourke adds, pointing
to the referrals she makes to others. “I’m
going to make the referrals to someone
I’ve met.”
O’Rourke and Morell recommend
occasionally reviewing marketing efforts
to see what brings in business and what’s
a waste of time, then expand the efforts
that have been the most beneficial. Cold
calling tends to be a waste of time, they
both said.
Though it’s a very elemental step of
sales, another skill that many appraisers
ignore, according to O’Rourke, is to simply
ask for the sales. Many sales books point
this out as one of the basics of doing deals.
Yet in many professions this step is often
overlooked.
Diversify
Beyond improved marketing, many
appraisal experts recommend changing
some of the ways that individual appraisers are used to conducting their business
to bring in additional work. Those who
diversified several years ago have more
to fall back on during the slowdown, but
even those who have continued in narrow
niches can bring in new clients by expanding the breadth of their business.
“This is not a time to be hiding away in
your niche, it’s one for adding to the products that you offer,” Morell says. “A lot
of guys are averse to doing review work.
Others just want to do income property.
I have had others tell me that they don’t
want to do drive-bys.”
While there is certainly an argument to
developing a deep expertise in a particular
strategy, in a difficult economy, appraisers need to break outside of their typical
comfort zone, Morell advises.
Since the market was slowing down,
Morell started expanding his knowledge
to include reviews, consultations and other
types of appraisal work he hadn’t done in
the past. For example, he started talking
to local groups of real estate agents for the
same reason. The agents have contacts at
the banks, mortgage firms and law offices.
A lot of times, real estate agents, builders,
