A predictable logo makes your company blend in to a sea of similar logos. In the same way that similar colors are designed to make you blend into your background a roof-over-text will make you look like “another one of those”.
The first bullet-point in The Brand Called You:
You are different. Differentiation - the ability to be seen as new and original is the most important aspect of Personal Branding.
Great News! Since branding (logo design) is almost entirely ignored in the inspection industry you barely have to do anything to stand out. Just don’t put a triangle/roof/Monopoly house over text and you are different than more than half of the inspection industry.
A logo is not a tiny picture that shows people what you do. It is an image that implies that your services are unique, that what you bring to the job is different than what someone else will.
Take time and think about your company name. Does it tie easily to an image? Has it been over-used in the inspection industry? What are my interests? What makes my services unique?
You think all HI logos look that same, because you look at HI logos all day long.
The average person hiring a home inspector only hires an inspector but a few times in their life. They don’t see HI logos all the time. When they do go to choose, they only at 2 or 3 or maybe 5 inspectors. They don’t see a sea of logos and start to notice how many all have a house in them. They see a handful.
Real Estate agents, sure, they see perhaps a few dozen logos, but they’re only looking at local firms, not inspectors across the country.
If you work in movies/TV/Video, (like I did after the market crashed) you notice how many back drops and locations are used over and over and over and over again. But movie/tv/film producers don’t much care, because the end user doesn’t see the same images day after day and doesn’t notice how many films/shows/videos are actually all shot in same few places, because most people don’t watch the same movie 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Branding is huge, and I spend a lot of time branding. But I don’t think anyone does or doesn’t remember my brand simply because there is a house shape in the logo.
Look at the Nachi designed logos scrolling along the home page, and you’ll notice several company names repeat, and numerous theme repeat in different logos. They’re not all original either. But I don’t think any freaks out over it for the same reason, and inspectors are spread out with little to no chance of every over lapping.
It’s not just home inspectors who are slapping tiny houses over text. I see it in almost every realty company, construction companies, house-painting, any house-related service. If it was rare, I wouldn’t press the issue at all because it wouldn’t be one. It’s a simple solution and most people don’t spend much money, time, or thought on any kind of branding. Which is precisely the approach that I would like to challenge. The most lazy solution might not be the best one. It’s worth considering.
I’m not saying that you cannot have a perfectly passable home inspection logo with a house over it. I’m saying that Hummingbird Home Inspections is an easier logo to remember and that it stands out in the logos that it is pitted against. The only goal of a logo or any branding is to be remembered and associated with quality. The word Hummingbird attached to an image of a Hummingbird is easier to remember than an arbitrary acronym attached to an unrelated image.
If you are in a small town and you are the only home inspector, you’re probably going to get all of the business, maybe branding matters a bit less. If you are in a city, you had better think a bit more because the competition is steeper. If I come to a site that looks like it went up in the early 90s and your job is related to how good your vision is…I might factor that into my decision.
A backdrop and a logo have two different goals. The goal of a back drop is to fade into the background. The goal of a logo is to get attention or move into the foreground. You are comparing two different ideas with nearly opposite goals.
If these respective companies were near each other (and I hope they’re not) they loose any ability to stand out from each other because they are similar.
But chances are, it doesn’t matter, because no one person looking to hire a home inspector is going to be looking at them all day long to notice similarities.
My first design for my business cards was going to be house over text lol lucky for me I decided to get my logo designed by Levi and the rest of the internachi team
I think one of the reasons I’ve been so successful is I get out of my way and I do what experts like Levi suggest. If you aren’t a design specialist, why argue with one?
I had an inspection last weekend and he had found me on the InterNACHI site. There are only a few of us in my area. I asked him why he chose me over the others. He said, and I quote… “I liked your logo”
