I’ve recently fallen down a rabbit hole, as I am prone to do, learning about the human mind and all the different ways that our brain receives information. We could easily say that we go through every day of our lives, constantly receiving messages. We spend every waking moment (and some sleeping moments) getting sensory input, receiving useful information from …
The Decider
Being a professional home inspector means wearing a lot of different hats. Yes, we walk up to the house wearing our inspector hat, but we had to perform a lot of other jobs to get us to that front porch. Obviously, we’re a student, always learning about our profession, but we’re also a marketer, an accountant, a secretary, a tech …
Sharpening the Ax
This time of the year is notorious for adding more stress to our already hectic lives. We’re often doing things wildly different from our normal routine and we find ourselves subjected to personal interactions we would normally steer clean from in our daily lives. Ah, the holidays! In spite of all the extra demands placed on me by all this holiday …
Why Should We Change?
Most of us have a good thing going. Whether it’s our job, our daily routine, or our relationships, there are some areas in our lives where we’ve settled into a well-worn routine. Personally, I’ve been doing inspections since 2000 and feel like I have it down to a science. I know my job, my software, and my routine like the …
Our Defendability Score
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone we dealt with in our businesses (and our lives) saw things from our point of view? Whenever there was a problem, we would talk it out, they would quickly see things our way and the issue would miraculously disappear! Unfortunately, that’s not the way that things work in the real world. We are certain …
3 Things
What the hell am I supposed to do when this happens? When we’re out there inspecting, running our business, we’re going to be asking the “what do I do now” question a lot. There are always going to be unusual situations popping up, and we’re the one left trying to figure out what to do next. Things happen to us …
Answer Before They Ask the Question
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 …
Developing Trust (Part 2)
Note: This post is the second of a two-part article. Click here to read part one. It is impossible to go down to your local bank, open a savings account with $100 and then turn around and attempt to withdraw $500. The teller would look at us like we were crazy! This is exactly what inspectors do when their only marketing …
Developing Trust (Part 1)
Trust. It is one of those words that evokes a certain, unique mental imagery for most people. Some people will immediately think about a parent or favorite family member, some will think of lifelong friends and others may think of a pet or a favorite place. Trust can be hard to define and even harder to explain. One of the …
6 Steps to Growth
Starting and running a small business can be both extremely rewarding and extremely frustrating. While we can find business success, the stark reality is that almost 75% of new small business ventures won’t survive past the 2-year mark. Today we will discuss six of the most important things to remember to give us the best chance of getting into that …