Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Igor and I were discussing this subject at last week’s NY NACHI Chapter meeting. He is both a NACHI and ASHI member and outrageously busy and successful. I posed the question to him “Of the real estate agents that regularly refer you, how many know or care what associations you belong to?” His answer: none.
"What changes peoples minds is not branding, it's a great product or service as well as other factors, including proximity of service or supply. Starbucks became a brand not because it spent millions on advertising but because, with a Starbucks on every street corner, it truly services the customer."
With regards to home inspections, I would go even further and say that it is not that there is a Starbucks on every street corner (when I buy a coffee I don't care that there are coffee shops on other street corners). It is that there is a coffee shop on the corner I'm standing on, when I'm looking for coffee. An absolute impossibility before Al Gore invented the internet.
I would love to think that all home buyers insist on a NACHI inspector, but it isn't true. Therefore it is impossible, even with millions of dollars, to attract clients thru branding. Save your money. If in the end if we unintentionally become the Starbucks of home inspections...I won't complain.
You don't need to be Starbucks to succeed. You just need to have good hot coffee (inspection service) ready on the corner your client is standing (internet) at the exact time your client is thirsty (looking for their new home online). Secret: this is NACHI's audacious goal... and we're achieving it!
The truth is that the internet provides a one-to-one marketing opportunity for NACHI to find the clients for our members (rather than each member spending so much on advertising that their clients find them). Then have our members offer, provide, and charge for their great service. Hi-technology marketing (at no cost to our members) combined with great inspection service equals market share for NACHI members.
Originally Posted By: gbeaumont This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Hi Nick, very interesting article from forbes, and very relevent to small businesses like mine an those of most of our members. no matter how big you are and how big your advertising bugdet, if you cannot project effectivley to your target market you fail, as in all things service and availability is king.
while were kinda on this tack have you ever read "radical marketing" by Hill/Rifkin (isbn 0-88730-905-4) it seems to suit us very well
Originally Posted By: rray This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
I believe wholeheartedly in branding. I know it is old fashioned, but there are still a lot of ranchers in America. It keeps one’s cows, sheeps, goats, pigs, and horses from getting lost on one’s neighbor’s ranches. After all, a brown cow is a brown cow and doesn’t come running when its name is called.
Originally Posted By: gbeaumont This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Russel
I too am a big fan of branding, but think it would be confusing at chapter meeting to be sitting across from someone with A$HI burnt into their forehead. but from their stand point you can understand that this may stop their members joining us at the rate they are doing.
Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Branding is great…if you own the brand. Inspectors should promote their service above and beyond their association or franchise (be it NACHI, ASHI, HomeTeam, HouseMaster or whatever). You should always make sure that your money goes toward improving and promoting your service first, and building another organization’s brand equity last.
Put your NACHI logo on the back of your brochures and your face on the front.
Originally Posted By: ltrower This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Gerry,
Maybe at chapter meetings you will have to do like so many businesses do today about employees that have tattoos they must be covered when they are the meetings. You might even need to take a big bottle of tums with you . lol
Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Build your own brand equity, not NACHI’s. I see so many home inspection flyers that have a NACHI logo but no picture of the inspector.
I'd love if every inspector tattooed NACHI across his forehead. (that's sort of where the word "branding" comes from). However, I'd prefer to see more smiling faces on the front of inspection brochures. Put the NACHI logo on the back.
By all means... build your brand equity... in you and your service first though. The inspection business is a people business.
FACES, not logos.
My thinking.
Nick
PS Ever notice how most business cards do not have the persons face on them, yet nearly every real estate agent's business card has the agent's face on it?
Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Gerry:
Correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm bending the truth. Two days ago I was talking to Gerry on the phone about California and Russel Kirk's name came up as talent we need to tap more. For several minutes, Gerry and I ran thru the different national franchises trying to remember what franchise Russel was with. After several minutes we concluded it was NPI.
I just saw Russel's post and realized we were wrong. Faces, not logos.
Nick
PS I can remember personal things about Russel (and we've never even met) like he spells his first name with one "L" but can't remember what franchise he has. Home inspections isn't the athletic shoe business.. its a people business.
Originally Posted By: gbeaumont This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Hi to all,
all joking aside, Nicks point is very important especially to those who are new to the business or who are trying to build market share in their areas, people do not buy brands they buy people, their is absolutely no substitute for putting your face in front of as many people as possible, whether you do so via face to face contact, web presence or by having your mug shot on every piece of literature that you put out.
That is one of my issues with some of the promotional piece ideas that we have been discussing recently, they promote Nachi first and the member second. I use Nachi to support my brand, not the other way round.
BTW, this (for once ![icon_confused.gif](upload://qv5zppiN69qCk2Y6JzaFYhrff8S.gif) ) is something I do know about I was a brand manager for DuPont in a previous life.
Originally Posted By: chorne This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Hi all,
Just a little imput on the logo:
since I have the logo the front page of my
brochure, the realtors have been mentioning how
impressed they are with my new brochures.
The logo is the only thing that is different
Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Carla:
They notice everything about you (including the NACHI logo) because you must really do good work. I never saw an inspector come so far so fast. They must love you. I do.
Originally Posted By: jmyers This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Since we are on the subject of branding I will add my two cents worth. After having spoken with many inspectors I have concluded that many inspectors concern themselves too much with getting the “quantity” of work, rather than selling the “quality” of their work. I have heard many inspectors berate realtors as being afraid to use their company because they may kill the deal. Having been close to a few of those realtors I can tell you for a fact that is not true at all. Many of them are concerned with the quality of the inspector they recommend to their client, remember it protects them in relation to this deal when the inspector does a good job. Here is you next marketing tip, start selling yourself as a quality inspector, not a quantity inspector. The quantity comes after you sell the quality of your inspections. Anything else and you are just trying to take a short cut to financial independence.
I for one would like to thank ASHI for all the branding they have done. They have done more to inform consumers they are not the only home inspection association in town than anyone else I know. If it was not for their branding campaign most realtors would not know the other associations existed. I believe they did us all a favor, don't you?