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 things we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and sense, as well as the insight we get from memories, feelings, and intuition. All day long, our brain is processing messages.
Some messages that we receive are more important than others and can have a direct impact on our moment-to-moment mindset. But, regardless of importance or immediate impact, it’s all messages, all day long.
With our senses bombarded continuously, from all directions, it can be hard for something important to break through the minutia. We easily fall prey to information overload and often overlook important incoming information. For something to reach the level of inducing action, for a message to move us from vaguely aware of its presence to motivated to react, it must be very well packaged: clear, concise, and easily understood.
Think about walking around the exterior of a home while inspecting. How often, without realizing it, have we stepped in soft mud? If that message had been more pronounced, we may have realized that we were about to step somewhere really muddy, and we wouldn’t have started the first inspection of a multi-inspection day with a cold, wet sock. That message, look out, you’re about to step in water, was not very effective.
Conversely, think about walking around a new construction house, where we inadvertently step on a roofing nail. When it pierces the bottom of our shoe and sticks into our foot, that, effectively, is a well packaged message. Valuable information is conveyed and our nervous system reacts instantly. Message received and action (quickly) taken.
As professional home inspectors, we are tasked with moving someone to action (our home-buying client and their agent) using nothing but the contents of our inspection report. We need to document our findings, define their implications, and direct our clients toward an appropriate course of action. To accomplish this feat and limit the number of problems we have in the future, takes a skilled messenger.
When it comes down to it, a skilled messenger is really, at base, an effective marketer. To be an effective marketer, you have to follow the rules. And the first rule of marketing is to know your audience. Just as it would be a mistake to set up a hamburger stand in the lobby of a vegetarian convention, we don’t want to waste our efforts on meaningless attempts at messaging. We should concentrate the majority of our energy on recognizing who our client is, where they are in the process, and what it is they are trying to achieve by hiring us. While each real estate transaction normally follows a similar trajectory, each person involved is an individual, and we should customize our message to meet the needs of everyone’s distinct situation.
We must play to our audience. This means that, by necessity, professional home inspectors should use a different approach for each inspection. Every property and each client calls for a unique perspective. Tailoring our process to meet the needs of the home, the paying customer, and the real estate agent (as well as our own) can only serve to make things progress more smoothly, improving the overall experience for everyone involved.
Ultimately, our goal in running a successful business is not simply to do more inspections. We should be striving to provide such a high level of customer service that our clients can’t help but tell everyone they know (especially their friends and relatives about to buy a house) about how smart they were to have hired us.
Satisfied customers (buyers and agents) are one of the best marketing tools an inspector can have. Giving them more than they were expecting is a sure-fire way to have happy clients.
In order to do that, and provide the highest level of service, we must getting the message right.
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Thanks, Joe
