People respect badges and logos.
It is psychological.
I display mine as do many, to add everything I can to my resume.
Sure they mean nothing to us ,but perception is the name of the game with most things in life.
It’s not one, it’s millions I send. Why do you think I don’t get too upset about Molly the Dog expanding the battlefield into the world wide web. That’s my forte.
True. Although personally, I don’t think a logo has anything close to the meaning of our certification seal. InterNACHI’s certification seals are clicked constantly. They are interactive. They work, use them: www.nachi.org/webseal.htm
True ,which is what I really meant by Badge.
Heck i am even proud to be a Chamber of Commerce member,thanks.
InterNACHI just paid (not a small chunk of change either) for every U.S. and Canadian member’s membership into the Chamber of Commerce for the 4th year. Enjoy! InterNACHI probably save $40,000.00 a year with the Chamber’s FedEx discount to members, just on the door prizes we ship. I know the members who do a lot of radon and mold lab work save a ton on the FedEx discount.
When a buyer calls and inquires about prices and information about my company, I always ask if the utilities are on if the home is vacant. If the buyer says they don’t know, I recommend that they check with their agent so there are no issues when I show up to inspect the house. I have actually had agents call me in the past and ask if I could inspect the house with the utilities off. I tell them yes, but it would involve an additional fee for me to return another day. Some agents have said that I should not charge extra because if the utilities are not on during the initial inspection, that means only half the inspection was completed. I guess some agents don’t consider the inspector’s time and cost of gasoline. Also while still on the phone, some agents automatically ask if I am an ASHI member. When I tell them no, I am a member InterNachi, the largest home inspection association in the world, they say, oh, well my client is only allowed to use a company listed on the ASHI wheel. I then would politely say, well, your client is allowed to choose and use the inspector who they feel has their best interest in mind. Some agents then agree, others have actually started an arguement. Very strange business that we are in. Seems that when an agent experiences one of my 4-6 hour inspections, and the client is very happy with my inspection, pdf report and photos, I never seem to get any referralsfrom those agents. Once in a while, a few agents have referred me which lets me know that the client has a good agent working for them. Approximately 50% of my monthly inspections come from past client referrals and not agents. I have been inspecting homes for 12 years and this is the worst slump that I have ever experienced. It is so bad that I am almost ready to go out of business. My wife and two daughters are probably going to experience a no present Christmas, which is putting me in a deeper depression that I am already in. Sorry folks, I don’t mean to cry on any of your shoulders. I honestly wish all of you a blessed, safe and Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year.
Steven Chioda
Clearview Home Inspections Eccl.9:10
Nick may not like to hear this…but there is a very simple answer to the “Are you a member of ASHI?” question that wins every time it is used properly.
When I was in St. Louis and a client or agent asked me if I was a member of ASHI, I gave them this response, which I committed to memory so that it would flow, smoothely…
“If you are asking me if I belong to a nationally recognized home inspector association that requires me to meet certain standards, then continue to sharpen my skills with additional annual continuing education requirements, then adhere to a code of ethics and also inspect according to an industry-wide accepted standard of practice ---- the answer is “Yes”. The national association that I belong to requires a bit more than the others to join…but I have been told that the most important thing to the public is that the inspector is accountable to someone and has a system — not just making up his own rules as he goes along. Is that how you feel, too?”
They always said “Yes”…and I would move right into setting the appointment.
I spent a year as a member of ASHI in southwest Missouri and aside from one lead I got from their internet database…I was never once asked if I belonged to ASHI by agents or clients.
The ASHI significance is not a national thing…but a local thing…based upon the local chapter’s relationship (rarely platonic) with the local real estate board.
Your fight against ASHI needs to be local, too…with active local chapters. I spent enough years in the St. Louis market to be able to say that there is very, very little that Nick or NACHI can do to interfere with the ASHI hold on St. Louis and other strongholds.
Simply use the above prepared response…or something similar to it…and let ASHI’s branding work in favor of you.
Good luck.
Sorry to hear about your hard times. I am in the same boat you are. Realtors have just come out and said that they will not refer me because I am too thorough or I am not a member of A$HI (the home of the one hour, and no crawlspace and attic, inspections). Luckily I pick up enough mold inspections to survive.
Like I have said before, Nick needs to get off of the mountain and really realize what is going on. I know a lot of us inspectors in Missouri would be glad to take Nick around to some real estate offices and listen to Realtors claim they only use A$HI inspectors. Us inspectors spend enough time trying to survive, we cannot inform every Realtor about the diploma mill. It looks bad on us when we do. This is not our job, I feel, it is the associations responsibility to inform the Realtors about what NACHI stands for.
Not gonna happen. It is your job to explain to the agents in your local market why they should use YOU. Greg could easily meet with the reporter and get a nice article written about Greg, about what expertise Greg does and why consumers need to watch out for diploma mill inspectors. He can then take a dark pen and underline his name Greg everywhere it appears in the article, then underline certain key words like expert and quality, then go to Kinko’s, blow it up to legal size, and make 10,000 copies, then hand deliver stacks of them to all the agents in his market and keep including the article with everything he mails or hands out forever. He’d have to hire 5 more inspectors this year and more office help. The dirty little secret about marketing is that it only takes one good move to change your life.
ASHI is defenseless against this 100% true “diploma mill” charge and they can’t afford to remove their 30-second online requirement-less application button from the front of their site. Your ASHI competitors have no armor. They are impostors in YOUR industry. Be merciless.
It is all about marketing. Whether it is on a national level or a local level, you have to market. It also takes time to get your message across to your target audience. Since real estate agents have about the same turnover as home inspectors, it is a non stop job when it comes to marketing to them.
ASHI uses a national PR firm and PSA’s all around the country. The ASHI President spends hundreds of hours on a national PR tour, every year. The PR firm books him on the national morning shows, CNN, FOX and various other shows. The ASHI President has even spoken at the NAR national conference. ASHI also has a booth at the NAR conference as well as at some of the national franchise conferences. Bottom line is that ASHI spends money on national PR and it pays off on the local level. Then on top of that many of the local chapters have their own marketing programs that reinforce anything that national is doing.
INACHI can do the same, if not on a national level then on the local chapter level. It just takes time… FYI, the ASHI “branding” program ended over 5 years ago when the membership would not fund it any longer. This is when ASHI went to the PSA’s and the national speaking tours. Marketing is very expensive on a national level.
A tip about marketing: You should never talk bad about your compatition, it does nothing to validate your claim nor does it increase your chances of securing the job. Many times it will backfire and makes you look and sound like a child who is not getting their way.
Scott, the home inspection business is all local. Marketing is best done at the local level by each member in his/her own market to the consumers and agents that live and work in his/her area. You have to promote YOU as being the best inspector in your town. This is how you dominate a market. Your association can’t make you, but if it is a known diploma mill, like ASHI is, it can break you.
BTW: I don’t consider ASHI members to be valid competitors. They got into our industry through ASHI, a known diploma mill. They are impostors to be exposed.
Like you said last month Scott:
InterNACHI does so much and has so much to say that we can blast out press releases to the media every hour, but if you are a lousy inspector and a lousy marketer, InterNACHI membership won’t help you in your local market and won’t can’t make your business successful. It can only offer the tools for YOU to succeed.
By the way, if any real estate agent or consumer is reading this, I would like to direct you to ASHI’s homepage where you will discover that ASHI will allow anyone to join with nothing more than a valid credit card, online, in less than 30 seconds: https://www.homeinspector.org/join/application/default.aspx
As I said, it sounds like a child not getting their way.
It’s not “my way.”
Let ASHI stick to using their member’s dues to brand ASHI. We’ll stick to helping our member’s brand themselves and their businesses in their own local markets.
P.S. I’m helping brand diploma mill ASHI too. 
Keep that online application up on ASHI’s site for me as long as you can.
Good point, but it is “your way” as you own INACHI and ASHI is owned by its members.
Two totally different membership associations with two totally different mission statements and two totally different ideologies.
I’ll agree with that. Allowing any bozo to join ASHI online in 30 seconds or less with nothing more than a valid credit card, then encouraging that bozo to go out and perform actual fee-paid inspections for poor, unsuspecting conumers as the only way to achieve full membership, thus causing the bozo to cut his prices to get his inspections in, and thus cutting our throats… is certainly a “different ideology” than InterNACHI’s.