On the Level

As is often the case for small business owners, during those occasional moments of calm when nothing is happening and no one is blowing up my phone, I sometimes find myself pondering the trajectory of my home inspection career. I think about where I’ve ended up and how I got here and often wonder how this all happened. Quite often, I struggle to make sense of it all.

home inspectors meditating on the front lawn

In an attempt to keep theoretical angst to a minimum, I find it beneficial to try to and look at things from a different perspective. Anything that helps to alleviate the stress of running a home inspection business is a welcome addition to my toolbox.

I was recently listening to a random podcast and heard the host talking about those little plastic coin sorters that were around when we were kids. We would put change into the top of the sorter, and it would separate all the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. When I was a child, I never gave much thought to the technology of the plastic coin sorter. However, understanding how the sorter does its job can help give us a different perspective on our career trajectory, and maybe even guide us to increased profitability (and less stress!)

When we drop our change into the top of the sorter, the first layer would have a hole the size of a nickel. The pennies, dimes, and nickels would fall through to the next level, leaving all the quarters behind for us to pack into those little paper sleeves (or bring with us to the local arcade to feed our growing video game habit!) The next hole would be penny-sized, allowing the pennies and dimes to fall through, keeping the nickels sorted, and so forth until all the change was neatly separated into the appropriate piles (which my young OCD self really appreciated!)

It’s not much of a stretch to think about sorting our potential home inspection clientele in the same manner. Clearly, the sorter would have to be much bigger and would likely need some padding -for when the people fell through the holes- but the technology behind it would remain the same. The first hole (obviously with some type of magical spell cast upon it) would only let through people who are willing to spend more than the minimum for a home inspection. Any customer who isn’t willing to spend a penny more than $350 for their inspection would remain on that first level. The next level would separate the people who would pay up to $450 for their inspection, and so on, stratifying clientele according to the value they place on a home inspection.

To continue this analogy, let’s imagine that when we start our home inspection careers, we’re given a hand-held buzzer (like the ones we get while waiting for a table at a chain restaurant) and we’re shown to a door. We walk through the door into the fresh, new world of home inspections. It’s a fairly crowded space, filled with other hungry inspectors and potential clients. We try the only exit door but discover that it’s locked, and we can’t get through. We soon realize that we’re trapped on this level with all the people who won’t pay a penny more than $350 for a home inspection.

Stratifying clientele according to the value they place on a home inspection…

We also realize that our buzzer has a counter on it, and we seem to be amassing points as we do inspections. Once we get enough points, our buzzer lights up to let us know that we can now pass through the exit door, which we quickly do. To our delight, we find ourselves moving on to the next level, where the clients are willing to pay up to $450 for an inspection.

Before long we realize that we’re playing a game: the game of small business. We gain points through education and experience, allowing us to graduate to the next level. We more points we get, the more levels we can move up.

buzzers for our home inspection career

The big question is, where are we going to stop? At what point do we say this is the level for me; I don’t want to go any further? When do we stop trying to get more points? When do we stop worrying about getting the buzzer to light up? When do we decide that it’s time for us to settle?

The reality is that for some inspectors, the buzzer never goes off, and they remain at the same level indefinitely.

The even bigger question for the rest of us is why would we not want to keep going through the exit doors?

Why would we stop trying to move up to the next higher level?

Why would we ever settle?

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Thanks, Joe

pic of me, Joseph Cook Jr, home inspector