This office has 180 agents and for $500 a year I could get in their agent book, set up a booth at their 2 big events during the year, attend or present at their sales meetings, and set up brochures and candy bowls at their office.
The answer (if trying to let the REA down easy so as not to offend, I guess) is this:
I have a marketing plan for my business. It is already set, I have determined where I want to spend what portions of my marketing efforts and budget, and it does not include this in it, thank you for thinking of me.
It IS accurate, it is also nice.
Depending on the event, a huge difference. I sponsor a local RE office Christmas party. I get my name on a banner, along with other Home Inspectors, banks, title companies etc., it’s a charity event that they put on for homeless children. And it’s a one time charge of $150.00 per sponsor.
Much different than a pay to play scheme. In over 10 years I’ve had 2 Realtors ask me for money in return for referrals. One ended up getting sued big time & I think the other one quietly went off onto another line of business.
This lead broker would lie to protect his relationship with a real estate salesman. So would many home inspectors.
This is why NACHI and ASHI established in their code of ethics certain prohibitions that preclude inspectors from paying money for “advertisement” or other disguises that actually equate to paying agents to be referred.
We cannot stop lead brokers and some home inspectors from telling lies. All we can do is distance ourselves (and our businesses) from them and avoid the mess that they make as they pass through.
Trend? Really?
I see you’re spewing more of your BS. Why am I not surprised?
Or do you have something besides your infinite wisdom to prove it?
And just who are you referring to that gets “a significant amount of referral business from one agent”, inferring that they pay for that business? Or is that more BS?
On second thought, nevermind, I already know the answer.
I’ve had many agents ask me to “sponsor” their marketing brochures as their preferred home inspector for a monthly fee. I always tell them the same thing - “I’d love to but I am prohibited by my association-affiliation to participate in these programs.”
Am I lying? Works for me 
Thank you Mr. Pope!
I would agree with you that an event where all of the proceeds go to charity would be different. That and a nice thing to do. Not the direction that I was heading but it does bring to light that there are no absolutes. In the end it is up to each and every one of us to decide how close we chose to venture to the line of what is ethical behavior and what is not.
Amen to that…
Guess it depends on who you make the check out to. The charity or the Real Estate office…
Back in 2005 I had nine employees (include me and it’s 10) and we did just over 3,000 inspections for the year.
After starting my business in October 2001, I knew over 5,000 Realtors by the end of 2005.
In 2006, I do believe 6,000 Realtors asked me to sponsor their New Year’s party, the Valentine’s Day party, the St. Patrick’s Day party, the Tax Day party, the Memorial Day party, the Beginning of Summer party, the End of School party, the Graduation Day party, the Flag Day party, the Independence Day party, the End of Summer party, the Labor Day party, the Halloween Party, the Thanksgiving Party, the Christmas party, and the End of Year party.
By “sponsor,” we’re not talking about $10. We’re talking about a sponsorship, of which the cheapest one was $100.
6,000 Realtors at $100 each at 12 office parties annually equals $7,200,000.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Well how about just 3,000 Realtors at $100 each at 6 office parties? That’s still $1,800,000.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Well how about just 10 Realtors at $100 each at 3 office parties? That’s still $3,000. What’s even worse, though, is that Realtors talk to each other, and they see the names of the sponsors, and they write those names down. They keep notes. And if they asked you to sponsor their office party, and you said no, and then they see your name as a sponsor at Mary’s office party…ooooooooops.
I simply explained to everyone who asked me, even my favorite agents, exactly that. Everyone said they understood, but records indicate that I did lose some business in 2005 from some offices that had asked me to be a sponsor.
That’s the way the business world works.
That’s why, as my wise old grandmother always told me, “You take 10% of your gross profits and market, market, market, good times and bad. Without marketing, your good times could quickly turn bad.”
I read through some of the replies after posting my comment and saw the concerns about lying. Ha! Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, Bloomberg, etc., all report each year that adults lie to other adults about 75% of the time. Makes for great conversations.
Back in 1995 when I was working as a consultant in the telecommunications industry, I had a major Client named Nextel. I worked in 37 of their offices nationwide. One week I was in their Lafayette, California, office in the East Bay. The Nextel president asked me if I would like to go to a seminar at Stanford University which was being put on by Stanford’s MBA program, one of the top MBA programs in the nation. The seminar was going to feature Lee Iacocca (Google or Wikipedia the name if you don’t know who he is).
Keeping in mind that even though I’m an openly gay man in a 20-year gay marriage living in California, for some reason I still have Southern ethics. The one thing Iacocca said that really affected me was, “It’s okay to tell third party lies in business.” He went on to explain that if you’re late to a meeting because the wife was nagging you, it’s okay to say that you were late because the traffic was horrible. If the work didn’t get completed on time, it was okay to say that the computer crashed and that you had to re-create everything.
One guy (not me) asked many questions; it was obvious that he had a serious issue with lying. Iacocca went on to explain that he never lied about people other than himself. He didn’t blame anything on people per sé, only on conditions that could rarely be verified – traffic conditions (they were bad all the time in Detroit–hopefully you looked up Iacocca by now), computers, etc. Always blame the things that people build (roads, cars, computers…) or the things that Mother Nature does (rain, sleet, hail, snow) rather than the people themselves.
I took that to heart. After all, I was driving a highly customized Mustang (hopefully you have looked up Iacocca by now) at the time, so I was a pretty big fan of Iacocca, a pretty successful person.
The last thing I took away was “Offer a solution.” If the computer crashed, “I’m sorry I didn’t have this work done by the deadline. The computer crashed. I had to re-create everything, but I now have a backup computer and backup software.”
Of course, he ended, “As you tell one business lie and expose your solution, in the future, that condition can never happen again. Hopefully, though, your business will grow and you’ll have new things to lie about.”
If I remember correctly, the seminar was titled something like “The Ethics of Lying.” At the time, I could think of no ethics of lying, so being offered the chance to hear Iacocca (you HAVE googled him by now, right?–just lie to me and say you have–I can’t verify it, after all) talk about the ethics of lying really intrigued me. And it was free for me since Nextel paid for me to go!
Adult lying starts early since adults teach their children to lie in the best and most memorable wasy possible: by lying to their children: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny… That turns into, Honey, do I look fat?..How come you’re late? I was at the office… On and on. It’s a world of lies…Heck, just look at our politicians. Every single one of them lies!
Yes, I have told business lies, but not about people, only about conditions that couldn’t be verified.
The COE prohibits paying to be on a list of preferred inspectors. Where there is a fine line between “marketing” and a prohibited act, the very best advice is to examine what they are asking you to sign up for (or strong-arming you for) and see if it passes the smell test.
If the idea is that by paying an agent or office (because offices DO have lists of preferred inspectors), gets you on a short list of inspectors, then you have paid for referrals, which is prohibited by this Association.
It was a big fad here in the 2001-2005 period, specifically with Coldwell Banker and Keller Williams. It has definitely faded out, though. I don’t know of a single CB or KW office here that still has a preferred vendor list. I know Coldwell Banker nationwide still does because I get calls from the guys putting their lists together for them. However, as each brokerage is independently owned and operated, the CB offices here don’t seem to be participating in the Concierge stuff.
My husband, a Realtor formerly with Century 21 Award, just changed brokers. I, being the legal mind in this household, had some questions about the contract that the new broker wanted Jim to sign, so Jim and I went to meet with the broker. After some clarification, and language changed in the contract to my satisfaction, the broker asked me if I would like to be on their list of preferred vendors. I said, “Only if it doesn’t cost anything.” Well, the cost was $2,500 a year. I explained to him the ethics problems behind such a list and that if they could find a home inspector to be on that list by paying to be on it, that inspector probably was not a member of InterNACHI, ASHI, or CREIA. We discussed the issue for almost an hour. I’m pleased to say that they are not implementing their preferred vendor list, and I do believe I’m the reason why.
I might also add that I was successful at getting that broker to consider InterNACHI inspectors. There in the office I took him to the CREIA site, the ASHI site, and the InterNACHI site to show him how easy it was to become a CREIA or ASHI inspector, and the difference between the three sites. He was blown away. He had been raised on CREIA and ASHI, and no one ever bothered to explain the inherent problems with both of them. He did say, and I agreed, that CREIA and ASHI do great marketing to Realtors here in San Diego. Sure wish InterNACHI did the same…
If anyone wants a definitive answer as to whether something may run afoul of the COE, feel free to contact me if there are questions.
The rule of thumb when it comes to “rewarding” or “respecting” agents who refer folks to you yearly is to remember to keep the value of said “reward” or gift to around $25, if you decide to do anything.
Russell has always provided valuable insight with regard to marketing and paying to be on a list of preferred inspectors. He has done the same above.
Thank you. Mr. Ray… and your Wise Old Grandmother…