As the end of summer nears, many of us are getting our children ready to return to school. Back to school brings many challenges for home inspectors (as well as our kids). Quite often, the real estate market slows down in response to the start of the fall semester, as families hunker down for the new school year and are …
Above and beyond
As professional business owners, we all have some standard that we operate by; some set of guidelines that we put out there so that our clients know what it is they’re actually getting when they hire us. Typically, these principles are provided to our clients in one form or another, either printed out in some sort of list or outlined …
Fishing for Success
Good news! We’re currently in a booming real estate market! While this information will come as no surprise to those of us that have been working as a home inspector for more than a minute, and the bottom is certain to eventually drop out (so be prepared), being in the middle of a boom time does make for some increasingly …
Hell Yeah
We’d all like to be more decisive in our lives. While some of us are blessed with the certainty gene, most of us are pretty wishy washy when it comes to making decisions. We think about it. We debate. We hem and we haw. We say we’ll think about it. Then we think about it some more. Whether we end …
Now and Then, Too
This is the second part of a two-part article. The read the first part CLICK HERE Obviously, self-assessment is an important task and should be performed by all business owners on a regular basis. We should be evaluating our overall situation, examining our long-term goals, and figuring out ways to reach them. We should be setting milestones, figuring out the …
What’s Going On Here?
Face it, we’re an unknown. The dreaded home inspector. The deal killer. (And yes, one of my agents actually calls me that…) The agents think we’re there to cause trouble; to create hurdles to them closing the deal. But the buyers, they really have no idea what we’re there for. They know that their agent told them they had to …
Marketing Like a Kid
We were all young once (and if you ask my wife, I still haven’t grown up yet.) We can all remember the times when we were small and purposefully did things to test our boundaries, to see exactly how much we could get away with before we got into trouble. And if you were anything like my brother and me, …
Just Give Me a Second
Marketing. It’s one of the most stressful words in a small business owner’s vocabulary. Marketing can be overwhelming. It can be expensive. It can be frustrating. It can push you to the edge of a nervous breakdown. Most importantly, marketing can mean the difference between running a successful business and running yourself into the ground. No pressure here. No pressure …
It Was an Accident – Part 4
There are no mistakes, only happy accidents. Bob Ross Our lives are filled with things that happen when we’re not expecting it; accidents we call them. So, why should our jobs be any different? We’re all going to have accidents when we’re inspecting houses. It’s inevitable that, one way or another, we’re going to be held responsible for things that …
AAAA Letter to an Agent
While there are many different ways to get clients as a home inspector, I think we can agree that most successful home inspectors get the majority of their clients through referrals from real estate agents. As we’ve discussed in an earlier post, the agents already know who needs an inspection and when they’re going to need it. As a result, …