I never posted a “question” about “succeeding”, I posted a response to the original topic of offering a “guarantee” with a home inspection.
You tried, and failed, to change the subject to business success and then implied that somehow offering a complete and thorough inspection wasn’t a successful way to do business or “get rich”.
Your “marketing” tactics make it possible for a lesser qualified and trained inspector to be successful…nothing more, nothing less. It supports an entire cottage industry of substandard inspections by making the realtor the expert and not the level of the inspection. It hurts the industry and inspectors who have actually been around longer and have the years of experience who now have to compete with the newer inspectors that are simply better at pandering to agents with your services.
You are partially correct. Coke Brands, they are far beyond needing to market themselves, unless they have a new product to introduce.
No gimmicks are necessary. Skills, knowledge Brains, speech, Credentials etc… but with all that the most important tool is the ability to market yourself as being better then your competition, and convince your potential client that not only want you (above the rest) but Need you and your skills and abilities.
They only ones that need to use widgets and gimmicks are those that lack the skill sets to do it any other way.
Producing a thorough and accurate report is a must, but isn’t all a home inspector needs to do to make silly money. It’s just not enough I’m sorry to say.
Actually you are wrong. Cokes Brand is already established, thus they have their brand, they market to keep the brand going. But coke is not the point in this discussion.
No, I’m not advising you market his brand. I’m advising that every home inspector market themselves. Doing an accurate and thorough inspection isn’t enough IMHO. Perhaps Robert has financially succeeded by solely doing great inspections, maybe he built up a following over many years. I don’t know. I just know that my advice is to market. I can’t imagine succeeding in any business by simply providing a great service… it just isn’t enough IMHO.
If I was a home inspector in today’s market I’d crush all my competitors, not by simply doing a great inspection and then staring at my phone and hoping it rings… but by marketing as well. I’d do Certified Master Inspector (CMI), “We’ll Buy Your Home Back” Guarantee, a killer brochure, “Now That You’ve Had a Home Inspection” books, free CE for real estate agents, and GiftsFromYourInspector in that order. And I’d also do great inspections.
I guess I don’t have the patience to build up a client base solely by doing good work. I’m only planning to live 100 years and can’t wait that long.
I look at marketing as an accelerant. It gets you where you are going, faster. If you suck as an inspector, don’t market, because you’ll only alert everyone about how bad you are, faster. There is a reason so much education and training comes first near the top of this page: Membership Benefits and Competitive Advantages - InterNACHI® Below it is the marketing section. That pecking order was intentional.
Nobody ever said anything about Not marketing ? The point is about Not needing to market Widgets, gimmicks and other useless garbage, basically lying to the public., rather than Marketing our skills, quality, other usp’s that are real and not useless garbage.
Isn’t there an old saying like: Honesty is the best policy? I believe that’s it, not The most widgets and lies win the race …nope that’s not it, I’ll go with the first one.
Nope I do not. It is a marketing tool and as long as you do what you claim without a bunch of disclaimers then it is actually a great product for the clients.
Get big kickbacks by selling 90 Day Widgets, and everything else having nothing to do with performing an inspection, instead of actually performing the job we are paid to. Plenty of Inspectors (??) successfully whore themselves out making big money instead of becoming Professionals! Unfortunately the one that loses are the consumers! :roll:
I did inspections and estimates for a large warranty company and it was the worst job I ever had. I would write up 10 to 100 K in repairs from shoddy builders and the people never got their money. Wouldn’t touch a home warranty with a ten foot pole.
On the other hand if an inspector wants to sell them and magazine subscriptions then go ahead. Their business after all isn’t it?
You will never get inspectors to agree on a standard of behavior so why worry about it? As long as it doesn’t affect my business I say whatever. Some customers love that stuff just like some people would pick laminate flooring over solid wood or vinyl siding over redwood.
All this is simply not needed to be successful. Rich is subjective. Who’s standard? Nobody here other than possibly Nick or a few vendors can make sill money, lol. Sorry just ain’t gonna happen. Our business model has a cap in terms of home inspections.
Now commercial, or thermal that’s a different story. You can make that sill money Nicks talking about. And I don’t have to sell one widget.
BTW: I pushed a few widgets a long time ago, haven’t in over a decade. I’m doing better than I deserve and eying a nice retirement. Stumbled upon this awesome profession 13 years old at ripe age of 27 and am thankful everyday since.
Love ya Nick and all you do but your widgets or any vendors 3rd party wares are simply not needed. But to each their own. If you feel it suits you, great. However, focus on you. Sell you. If your multi, sell you still.
Apparently there are several different options to reach the level of his success that you want. Everybody’s opinion on having a successful business is going to be different. Some people want to build their business based on providing good strong inspections While others find success and selling Widgets or add-ons. if it’s working for them then congratulations they’ve managed to figure out a way to build a successful business.
personally I find it hilarious that there’s some here that seem to have such an issue With the way someone else wants to run their business. I personally could care less what somebody else is doing I’ve got more important things to worry about like my own business.
There are indeed two views of “success” in this industry, much like the trades, generally speaking.
1 - You’re a one/two man/woman show, putting in a hard day’s work and build a solid book of business, save a little money, and retire with a good life. That’s awesome! I’m proud of people who accomplish this level of “success.” That’s the American dream right there and it’s beautiful…end of story.
2 - You’re a business builder. You can’t sit still because there’s so much work to do in order to build your kingdom. You like the idea of having employees in order to enrich their lives financially and otherwise–you lead. You love to tinker with systems to optimize workflows and constantly improve the speed and quality of your product or service. “Success” is therefore defined by a multiplier of the work you put into your business.
(Properly compliant) warranty widgets, as some of you are calling them, are lubrication for sales systems, and leverage for growth. And there’s just a lot more money involved. The “success” people refer to in this context often gets tied to “more money” like that’s a bad thing. But, it’s not! Wealth is freedom. It has just as much potential for creating a similarly beautiful life (for owners and their employees) as the first example.
The arguing on this board against Nick’s Buy Back Guarantee and/or Nathan’s Warranties is just two points of view clashing. People are not stupid for utilizing either one, or both of the warranty widgets. Likewise, people who refrain aren’t any less as a result. They just want different things.