I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I (somehow) ended up in a career that I really enjoy, that allows me to help others and that helps me provide for my family. I started doing home inspections in 2000, and soon thereafter started teaching other home inspectors (and Realtors) about our industry. I’ve helped inspectors in many different states start, …
Right Place, Wrong Customers
Customers. They’re the lifeblood of any successful business. Without them, we’re just standing around, thinking about how great our business ideas are. Without them, we’re soon on the way to the unemployment line. No business can survive without cash flow, and that means customers. Unfortunately, customers can also be the worst part of our business, often causing untold grief and pain. I’m …
Incomplete Information
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Helen Keller It is great to be alive, but this life is not all love and roses. Being a human does come with its own difficulties. How we decide to deal with those difficulties, the …
Opportunity and Decision
What do we do when faced with an opportunity? How do we decide what’s our best course of action? What happens if we can’t make the hard decision?
Are We Getting Fixled?
Friday, April 03, 2026. It’s been a few days since Spectora rolled out their misguided attempt to milk even more profits from their “captive” home inspector client base. The backlash against their new “Fixle” product (seriously, you couldn’t have come up with a better name than that?) has been pretty strong. Spectora has even gone into radio silence mode on …
Guidelines
Guidelines. They exist to help us know what to do in public, in our relationships, as well as in our business. If you’re a professional home inspector, like me, those guidelines will typically include your standards of practice. They may be directives coming down from your state or local government or may be established by the home inspection organization that …
The Complete Product
In business, our success is tied to our abilities. And having the skills to juggle multiple responsibilities at once helps ensure that all those different things come together at one time. The main thing that any business puts together is the product that they’re trying to sell. Our product (for inspectors, that means our inspection report) must be assembled properly; it’s …
The Best Plan
As I often talk about the role that ethics plays in running a successful home inspection business, as expected, I tend to get pushback from some inspectors. One thing that’s often said is that it’s very easy for me to say that I place ethics and relationships over money, because I’ve been an inspector for so long that I don’t …
Jumping Off a Cliff
Unless we are someone who has completely given up all hope, which unfortunately happens to some of us every once in a while, we are all driven to succeed in our lives and in our businesses. This drive for success motivates us to look for ways to get better at what it is we do, which ultimately pushes us to …
Problems Suck
If you’ve been inspecting for more than a couple of days, it is quite likely that you’ve already encountered a problem. Problems are a way of life for small business owners, and, let’s face it, problems suck. Problems usually mean that, one way or another, someone is extracting a pound of flesh from us. We’re likely going to end up …