He cannot see the forest for the trees.
Attributed to Sir Thomas More, 1533
It’s an old saying that we’ve all likely heard before, and it’s an apt way to describe the mindset of the average home inspector. All too often, we find ourselves so overwhelmed by the daily grind that we have little time left over for big-picture thinking. So, there we stay, overwhelmed by the day-to-day aspect of running a business, with little to no time left over for brainstorming. We’re a lot like a dog chasing its tail: we can see our goal; it’s right there in front of us. Maybe I just need to run a little faster…
When we do get a little break from the rat race, we sometimes think about the different ideas that we have to make our job better, easier, and/or more profitable. Thoughts like “If I could only find the time to do…” are all-to-common for those of us working hard to keep our heads above water.
The unfortunate reality is that we all have ideas, but most of us never seem to find the time or inspiration to get them done. It’s a lot easier to keep your head down and keep your nose to the grindstone; it’s hard to stop what seems to be working to try something that may or may not work.
But we all know what happens if we keep grinding on something: eventually it gets smaller and smaller until it’s a sad version of its original self. My Dad has a favorite pocketknife that he’s had for as long as I can remember. Every few weeks, he breaks out the whetstone and gives it a good sharpening. As a child, it seemed to me that he would sit there for hours, pulling that blade back and forth, honing it to a fine edge. He still has that knife, and he still sharpens it all the time, but it now resembles a filleting knife more than a standard pocketknife. He’s all but sharpened the blade into nothing more than a pitiful version of its former self.
And the same thing can happen to our inspection careers, if we’re not careful.
We all need to step back every once and awhile and take some time to assess where we are, comparing it to where we want to be. It’s not good enough to simply dream about where we want to go; we’ve got to really put some thought into it so we can formulate and execute a plan to get us there.
Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin Franklin
In this vein, here are a few questions intended to jar us out of our regular routine and start us thinking about where it is we’d like to go.
1) 10x Pricing
If we were forced to increase our prices ten-fold, what would we have to do to justify such a move?
What sort of home inspection would we have to do to charge such a price? How would we position ourselves in our market? What changes would we have to make to our website and our report to support our new fees?
Would we need to market to a different type of clientele? Could we still target the same Realtors, or would we have to shoot for a higher quality agent? What sort of business relationships would we need to develop to grow that type of business?
All too often, especially early in their careers, small business owners take the easy way out when trying to drum up business. They figure if they’re the cheapest out there, then they’ll certainly get clients. Walmart’s always busy; certainly, people will hire me if I’m the cheapest!
What would we have to do to raise our prices? Obviously, 10x is a ridiculous idea, but what would it take to double what we’re currently charging?
2) No Customers
If all our clients disappeared overnight, and we had to rebuild everything from scratch, what would we do?
How would we distinguish ourselves from the competition? What would be on the homepage of our website? Would we use a different type of pricing structure than everyone else? What kind of changes would we make to our brand?
Would we eliminate some of the things we’re currently doing? What new features and offerings could we try? Given the knowledge that we’ve already gained, how would we do things differently this time around?
Once we find some level of success, it’s human nature to get comfortable; to settle into our well-worn rut. Why would I want to rock the boat? Nobody want to take the chance of pissing off a small percentage of their existing clientele, even if it means making things better for the vast majority of the rest of their clients. We often fail to realize that there’s a lot more future clients out there, most of them waiting for something better than what we’re currently providing.
3) No Customer Support
If we were never allowed to answer any questions, before, during, or after the inspection, what would we do differently?
How would we have to change our website and marketing materials to ensure that clients would be able to schedule an inspection without any assistance? Where would we make changes to make things easier for our customers? What would we do to make the whole process more intuitive?
How would we change the way our reports are written and delivered? How would our digital communication need to improve? What information should we be conveying to the people using our services?
We already know where our current sticking points are; now all we need to do is to figure out how to eliminate them. If we make things easier for everyone involved, then it’s likely we’d never have to answer another question. “No customer support” sounds like a horrible idea for a business, but never having to repeat the same instructions again sure sounds like a wonderful thing.
4) Copy-cats
If all our competitors copied every feature of our business, offering the exact same things that we do, how would we still stay in business?
The reality of the inspection world is that we work in a copy-cat industry. The minute we think we’ve come up with some new idea, whether it’s offering a free termite certificate, doing a mold inspection, or sticking a video camera up someone’s sewer pipes, every other inspector out there will be doing the same thing. If we’re relying on nothing but our product offerings to differentiate ourselves, we’ll always lose out to someone doing it cheaper.
If we want to be seen as a business that’s different from all the others, we’ve got to do something that’s different from all the others. What if we offered the most thorough inspection available? What if we provided something that’s totally out of left field; something that no one else is qualified to do? What if we found a way to actually make the inspection process an enjoyable experience? What if we went all-in on customer service?
No matter how great we think our features are, they will be copied; it’s only a matter of time. Competing solely on features will eventually prove to be a losing battle. Creating a bigger and more emotionally satisfying experience is a powerful tool, and it keeps us from the constant battle of incrementally offering more and more features. Impressing our customers will always pay more dividends than trying to have a mile-long list of services for them to choose from.
5) No Website
What if our website disappeared tomorrow? How would we still grow our business?
Could we grow by word-of-mouth? Does the product we currently offer allow that to happen? What would we need to do to make sure that our inspection clients are operating as if they were our brand ambassadors, pushing our services to future potential clients?
Could our social media presence be so good that people would sign up immediately, without having to learn more about who we are and what we offer?
Could our product be our marketing? Can we offer an inspection experience so awe-inspiring that every one of our previous clients tells everyone they know about us?
Our best marketing option is already right in front of us, simply waiting for us to take advantage of it. If our clients leave the inspection process thinking that they’ve gotten so much more value than what they paid for, they can’t help but tell everyone about it. We all love to tell our friends when we get a great deal, when we get more than what we paid for. If we aren’t already making sure that our customers feel like they’ve hit the jackpot by choosing us, then we’ve got some work to do.
6) Only One Thing
What if there was only one thing that we could change, for the rest of our career?
What single improvement to our current inspection model would make the biggest difference? What would have such a dramatic impact on the way we do business that no other changes would even be necessary?
What would generate the most revenue? What would be such a good move, and so impressive to our future clients, that they’d stay with us even if we lacked any of the other cool new things our competitors were offering?
If we stop and look back over our career, we often find that our success or failure can be pinned on one big decision we made. It’s often difficult to realize in the moment, but quite often careers take off or crash and burn because of the choices we make. Transitioning to this type of thinking, focusing only on the most impactful ideas, is likely to pay dividends far into the future.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The reality is that we spend our days inspecting other people’s houses, but rarely do we stop to inspect the business that we’re building for ourselves. It’s wonderful that we spend time learning, reading (or writing…) these questions, but it won’t do us much good if we read them, nod in agreement, and simply go right back to doing everything the same way. If we’re ever going to make progress, if we’re ever going to move beyond where we currently are in our career, we need to do things differently. We should pick one of these ideas, ideally the one that makes us the most uncomfortable, give it some serious thought, and choose to make a change.
The daily grind will always be there. The question is whether it’s helping us build the business we want or slowly wearing us down.
Based on a 2022 blog post on asmartbear.com
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Thanks, Joe
