We will start out today with a quote from author Shawn L. Anderson’s book “A Better Life.” He says that “Preparation is what allows the teacher to truly inspire. Preparation is knowing exactly how the lesson plan will flow. It’s in knowing what questions to ask and what answers to give.” The author is speaking about teachers, but this sentiment can easily apply to any profession, including home inspection.
Proper preparation is key in becoming good at your job. It’s often what separates the successful businesses from the failures. A lack of preparation is typically what causes a new business to go under. Figuring out how to prepare, and implementing that preparation, that’s something that just takes time. We should be be figuring out how to do this every day.
As we go about our daily work routine, we are (hopefully) learning what works best and what doesn’t. We should be analyzing what to do and the proper time to do it. We should remember the questions that come up and observe the different reactions that our actions and answers produce. We should be storing all this information away in our mental database, enabling us to be able to draw that knowledge whenever needed.
Everything we do should be preparing us to take appropriate
action the next time a similar situation comes up.
Especially for new inspectors, preparation is key; we need to have our inspection routine, the order in which we’re going to inspect the home, committed to memory. We need to know how our software functions and where each item and comment is located. We need to have a plan in place for what we’ll do if our phone dies, the seller becomes problematic, we forget our ladder at the previous inspection, or when our client brings along their uncle, the retired contractor that advised them not to hire a home inspector in the first place.
We should spend some time planning for our job, for both the obvious hurdles and the ones that seem to appear out of thin air. And yes, sometimes life throws us a curve ball and a problem appears that no one could have predicted, like the client and the seller getting into a fistfight during the inspection! Just know that the confidence that comes from proper preparation can be enough to get us through the toughest of tests.
I will close with two more quotes. The first is from web-developer Kevin O. Omereshone: “In order to get the product you must spend ample time on the process.” The last one is from former college basketball head coach Bobby Knight, who said “The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”
Invest in yourself and your career. Read when you could be napping. Practice when you could be watching Netflix. Put in the extra effort needed to learn when you could be just skating by. Work on the process and prepare to win. Eventually you will know the answers before the questions are asked.
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Thanks, Joe
