Don’t mess around. Go for the jugular and bury this guy. Use Thornberry’s lawyer.
Isn’t there a difference between “Certified Master Inspector” and “Master Inspector”? Or does the trademark give you exclusive rights to the shortened version as well?
A state could have a “Master” designation like they do with Electricians, Plumbers and heck, even ship’s captains.
The state of Nevada has Master Inspectors.
Nevada accidentally did just that in some legislation that they passed years ago. They caught it themselves, met with us, and we granted them permission to continue on so that they wouldn’t have to reverse and redo everything.
We also made an accommodation for ORCIA in Oklahoma as their infringement was inadvertent as well and their own board attorney caught it and alerted us voluntarily.
Like I said, I’m a softy, I’m just trying to hold on to the mark as I had to put up the money personally to get it. InterNACHI wanted no parts of it.
Our relationship with both has been very cooperative since then. In fact, I’m supposed to give a talk for ORCIA when I can find some time to go down there. Good reminder, I’ll call them Monday and schedule another event. I’m doing a sort of half-as-sed tour right now.
I also have a competitor in my area calling himself a “Master Inspector” on his website, but goes even further and touts being a “Certified Master Inspector” on his reports (sneaky, I guess). I checked, he is not listed on the CMI site.
Added: Just looked at it again…correction (ASHI Certified Master Inspector) on his report footer. lol
Email me his info: fastreply@nachi.org I want his house.
You can’t use the phrase “Certified Master Inspector” or anything deceptively similar. We have the Trademarks, they don’t.
](*,)Yikes!!! Looks like ASHI does it again.
You need to get busy then. I’m willing to bet there are 100’s if not 1,000’s of inspectors throughout the country “claiming” to be a Certified Master Inspector, many are ASHI Master Inspectors.
Here’s a few samples that took me less than 5 minutes to find. None of these are listed at CMI website.
Dwight Barnett is a certified master inspector with the American Society of Home Inspectors
Here’s one, actually two, part of a franchise that claims to be a Master Inspector and a Certified Master Inspector, yet his name (David A. Ray) is not listed at CMI site.
And anothernot listed at CMI site.
Chris Temple … ASHI Certified CREIA Certified Master Inspector
I imagine letters will be going out to all Association to drop the Master from every website. More power to Certified Master Inspectors at this point. I feel sorry for those that ignore the letter and continue using it deceptively, because it will come at a high cost.
Consider myself a Master Inspector and don’t need no stinking badge.
Mark wants me to start with 3 or 4 really good ones to set examples of with lawsuits from hell first. It’s one of his main jobs when he comes on board full time in a couple months.
Now that great news:-)
Its really wild, people do not ask what association or affiliations one may have or belong to when calling or emailing anymore.
They used too, not anymore for some reason. Maybe because they just don’t care after viewing the sample reports…
Its great to belong to associations though, to share knowledge, experience, and crazy things we come across on our daily endeavors.
Dale is correct. Few consumers even know what InterNACHI or ASSHI or IAC2 or CAHPI or CMI even mean.
But they damn sure know what “Certified Master Inspector” means. Self evident.
Dale after looking at your reports there is no way in hades I will ever specialize in click,click,add a couple photos and here you go speed reports.
Doing more photo annotation than ever and as more guys try to increase profit with fast food style reporting guys like you and me will be in higher demand.
Slick marketing only carries you till they taste the food.
Nothing beats referrals and I had connections to several people through past clients and Agents just at todays inspection, with a couple of the guys sitting in the Living room bragging to the sellers Agent about my giant reports full of great photos.
Lost track of how many times I heard how great my inspections were today.
Talk about a confidence builder.
Websites are nice with lots of gadgets but people talking are what make you.
Sorry if this offends the forum which is geared to selling us everything under the sun but facts are facts that all the spin in the world can never change.
Higher fees, too.
The absolute best type of marketing, Referrals.
Yep.
Nothing wrong with a few marketing tricks to add bells and whistles but just like a big talker it needs to be backed up sometimes.
I’m great,I promise money back,provide warranties,gee look at my shiny badges and licenses and Insurances now here is your 7 page report,
with check boxes and because pictures are fluff just a few I had time for.
I’ve had a lot of referrals from past clients in all my businesses, but they just aren’t enough to grow my companies. Even if 1 in 10 former clients fed an additional job to me… that’s simply too slow of a growth rate to rely on solely. I’ve found that I still have to market to get new clients. Referrals are kind of icing on the cake IMHO.
I think me and Condo Bob are in the wrong section of the forum, I just realized we’re not Certified Master Inspectors posting in this thread about master inspectors, or meaning we didn’t buy the logo yet.