Working in your own business can be a very rewarding experience. Unfortunately, those rewards also carry along with them some difficult lessons. One of the most confusing lessons that businesspeople learn is that in order to keep our businesses where we want them to be, we have to figure out how to change in order to stay where we are. The inspection business is always evolving, and if we want to remain competitive, at least holding onto our current clients, we must figure out how to evolve along with it.
When we first start out in a new business, it is often beneficial to be a bit of an asshole, giving the proverbial middle-finger to the doubters, haters, and blockers. In order to make it through those early days, we need to ignore the critics, maintaining a belief in our own convictions in order to build a successful business. However, just because doing a certain thing proves beneficial for building our business, that same thing could become detrimental to us in the long run. Being a jerk in the beginning may help us to get over the hump, but if we continue along that same path, eventually we’ll get a reputation as someone that’s difficult to work with and people will stop doing business with us altogether.
It is very important to be able to respond to changing conditions, both in the market, in our businesses, and in our personal lives. While remaking ourselves is an important part of growing a business, it can also be quite frightening, as, ironically enough, we’re trying to do something different from the thing that has already proven successful.
When you stop growing you start dying.
William S. Burroughs
Surprisingly enough, insects serve to illustrate this point. While inspectors are typically not required to inspect or report on insects, they are a good example of things that change to meet their current needs. All insects go through different phases before they ultimately reach their potential. If a caterpillar was hesitant to transform into a chrysalis, it would never become a butterfly. Instead of mutating into what it’s destined to be, it would remain a caterpillar, forever clinging to the earth, hoping not to be eaten by a bird, and never able to break free from the chains of gravity and fly.
Change is scary, but it’s also necessary. If we don’t work to transform our methods when called for, we’re certainly going to be left behind by the businesses that are doing those new things that we’re afraid to tackle. It can be difficult to go out on a limb and try something new, altering what’s already working in the name of innovation. We are wired to find comfort in sticking with the status quo. It’s gotten us this far, we reason; why should we change now?
Unfortunately, playing it safe often results in getting passed up by the innovators, inspectors who are better able to adapt to changes in the industry. When inspection software first appeared on the scene, the inspectors who were entrenched in their hand-written report methods were reluctant to change (and subsequently left behind.)
A more relatable example to consider is when a new home inspection software product comes along, one that is head and shoulders above what we are currently using. Many of us simply refuse to make a switch, knowing that changing from our familiar routine will result in short-term pain, making it harder for us to do our inspections. We may make mistakes because we don’t yet know the intricacies of how the software operates. Our real estate agents may complain because using unfamiliar software makes inspections take longer and forces them to use a new inspection report interface that they are not used to using.
The short-term negative implications inherent in changing something we’ve already mastered can be quite overwhelming, and all-too-often it convinces us to resist innovation. Learning a new skill, like mastering a new software program, is no walk in the park. The difficulties inherent in changing up one of our well-worn routines are a factor that must be considered when debating about altering our methods. Even though there will surely be short-term benefits to simply staying with what we’ve always done, we must also consider any long-term negative implications when deciding whether or not to make changes in our routine.
No matter how well something works for us, if we never change the way we’re doing things, we’ll eventually be passed up by those who do.
There is no sure-fire, fool-proof way to know for sure whether we should make changes or stay the course; such decisions are inherently unpredictable. The only thing that’s a certainty about our careers is that things will change. It’s inevitable that new ideas will come online to replace the old. The business owners that are able to shift their methods to accommodate the changing times will (generally) have the most success.
Change is all around us, but unless we’re paying careful attention, it’s unlikely that we’ll notice.
Now, all this talk about making changes doesn’t mean that we should jump to respond to each new provocation, taking every bait that’s dangled in front of our face. New business owners are often overwhelmed by people and vendors promising to show us the easy road (for a small fee), making it difficult to discern the opportunities from the shakedowns. We need to remain on guard against crooked schemes and the fraudsters that peddle them, and remember that if something was really as good as they claim, they would likely be using their own system to become wealthy (and not trying to convince us to buy it…)
Changes is good, when it makes sense for us to change. We just need to exercise good judgement to know when we’re changing for the better, and not simply changing just to be changing.
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Thanks, Joe
