Let me use your math from your list of links. One is a response to someone else’s comment discussing that they lost in court to InterNACHI, again, and were forced to scrub their own bullshit tagline from their website. - That’s me answering a question about them and is also inspection-industry news. One is a thread I started about a state government that recently erased every mention of ASHI from an entire government website. - That’s also inspection-industry news. One is from today where I explained that Inspection World, one of only two national conventions in our industry, is cancelled again and into the future, leaving only InterNACHI’s Convention. - Again, that’s inspection-industry news. The rest aren’t threads I started or posts I made initially, I was just responding to threads or posts about ASHI that someone else made first. All the others aren’t in this past year. That leaves two jokes. And one of those really isn’t a joke as I’ve decided that I’m truly going to host a Bingo game for the ASHI members who attend InterNACHI’s Convention, now that ASHI cancelled their convention… again. That leaves one joke this year. And they are a joke.
Easy to make a contention (“does a better job”).that isn’t quantifiable. Let’s get back to numbers. If that was true, then it must not be very important to market their association overall to agents overall (instead of individual members in their own local markets), or they would have hung on to their members. Why do you think they have so few members left?
Could it be that inspectors prefer an association that spends its money marketing inspectors in their own local markets… as opposed to an association that spends its members money marketing itself? I don’t know. Just thinking out loud. How did a “society” with a 20-year head start in race with InterNACHI, lose? How do you lose a race with a 20-year head start? Not picking on them, I seriously would like to know what you think they did wrong.
You’re mostly correct. I have zero interest and have always had zero interest in promoting InterNACHI overall to agents. We believe in creating competitive advantages and tools, some of which are really good at helping an inspector promote his/herself to agents in his/her local market. I want agents in your local market to know YOU, not me. We don’t do inspections. You do.
We do the former, but only because we can’t help it. Real estate agents are now (and have been for about 3 years) the group that takes most of our courses (surpassing inspectors) because our real estate courses are approved by their local real estate commissions, conveniently online, and free. But that doesn’t really change an agents preferences when choosing an inspector. No agent says “I’m going to use ABC Inspections because I get my CE free from InterNACHI.” Overall promotion of the association doesn’t move any individual’s needle much, if at all. Stuff that moves the needle for individual inspectors is stuff that promotes those inspectors, locally. For example: We have a lot of agents that only use inspectors who participate in the “We’ll Buy Your Home Back” Guarantee.
Anyway, back to the question at hand and on topic: What is ASHI doing wrong to have so few members, benefits, cancelling their podcast, cancelling Inspection World (their national convention), etc? What do they need to fix?
I’m going to assume that you haven’t been around long enough to remember a time when Nick actually THREATENED to terminate all the memberships of ALL inspectors holding DUAL Memberships!
Fortunately, many of those inspectors are still with us today, and many others simply stopped posting on the MB to the detriment of this association! We lost the expertise of many veteran inspectors due to Nick’s greediness that this MB has never fully recovered from.
I was a member of ASHI. So was my brother Ben. At Inspection Fuel a few days ago, ASHI met with us and discussed the possibility of Ben presenting at ASHI chapters. And I agreed to come on as their VP is they really needed help.
But lending a hand to one chapter isn’t going to do much, IMHO. They don’t need me. They need a conglomerate like InterNACHI has. That is what provides the finances to do other things for inspectors. Our conglomerate topped $50 million in revenue in 2022. www.nachi.org/conglomerate. Money isn’t everything, but with trade associations, it really makes a difference.
Guilty as charged. Even churches have to give some attention to finance. Without funding, we aren’t much good to any member. So your theory is ASHI doesn’t focus on making money? You might be on to something there.
If you don’t have the revenue, you can’t launch new member benefits, if you can’t fund benefits, you lose members, so you have less revenue. It’s a vicious downward circle.
With what we’re launching next, I suspect the InterNACHI conglomerate will go from $50 million a year today, to $100 million in only 3 years. The InterNACHI® Conglomerate. Money matters.
I joined INACHI (then NACHI) almost 20 years ago. Before I joined I did go to an ASHI meeting and meet otherwise with ASHI members. There were at that time some good ASHI Inspetors. However ASHI was pushing the “Fiefdom” attitude about the inspection industry. That is if you were not an ASHI member you weren’t even shit! Not only do I totally dislike that attitude but it is a failing attitude. Why would I want to join a failing organization.
It was a hands down no doubt decision of joining NACHI even though NACHI was in its infant stage. Even then though NACHI was still providing more to its members than ASHI could ever hope to! Shortly after when the first NACHI chapter was formed in North Texas NACHI started to take off and local ASHI leadership actually came to our meetings to find out why so many Inspectors were joining and attending NACHI meetings? I have not seen the numbers lately but the last I saw well over half the licensed Inspectors in Texas are INACHI members. After all of these years ASHI still has not taken one cue or lesson from how INACHI grew and they are unfortunately for them headed to the garbage heap they came from.
Look at INACHI now and what your membership benefits are. IMO INACHI far exceeded its own expectations for growth and continues to grow! I used to laugh at the use of the phrase “Planet NACHI” but there is certainly nothing to laugh at now!!
Nick I know you don’t watch TV, so you are going to have to trust me on this. Or ask Ben or others in the building. I watched HGTV 5 years ago when I had their channel. They only mentioned an inspector one time in about 5 of the 1/2 hour episodes. I now have their channel back and nothing has changed. Not once have I heard, well lets see what the inspector finds, or don’t get too excited until we get the inspection report…
If you could get/pay HGTV to say in each episode, “well we will see what the NACHI inspector says”
I think it would be huge marketing for us. Another option would be to buy a 30 second NACHI commercial and run it during their shows…
There were some of us years ago who wanted NACHI to have the same cred in the eyes of the RE industry as ASHI had, granted ASHI has been around since 1976 and NACHI was then the new guy on the block in 2002 & 2003. IMO a proctored exam would have helped in that arena, but Nick wanted nothing to do with it and was of the mindset that electronic testing was just as legitimate.
Another thing was trying to get Nick to brand NACHI the same way ASHI did to the RE industry. Nick would always say he was for branding the inspector as opposed to the branding the association. Many of the Brokers in my area promoted ASHI Inspectors over NACHI inspectors, I knew of a few offices that would allow ASHI inspectors to display their brochures and bus cards on the top shelves labeled “ASHI Inspectors”, and all others on lower shelves labeled “All others”.
This was the result of ASHI branding itself and its inspectors to Brokers and REAs as being the best in the business, and whether it was true or not, it worked.
I’ve been a dual member since 2008 and have seen good and bad inspectors in both associations, and I will say Nick (with the help of Chris and a few others) built an awesome thing here, and I’m glad he did it and proud to be a member of this org.
The bottom line the way I see it is, both associations exist to promote and improve inspectors and the inspection industry as a whole, and we as Inspectors should want both associations survive equally as the competition only makes both associations better, which in turn is better for not only all of us inspectors, but for the entire inspection industry.
This was one of Nick’s biggest mistakes from being out of touch with what is actually going on in the field.
Everyone knows that thousands of new inspectors come and go every year… more so that new agents.
Agents get sick and tired of all the targeted ‘sukking up’ newbies do for business, and are basicially in ignore mode towards them.
Agents want ONE source to refer/choose from, not new faces every month that they will need to build a new relationship with, until they are gone and have to start over again.
ASHI knows this, Internachi refuses to understand it.
Sorta like the changes ASHI is making regarding podcasts and conventions, etc. Where has Nick been the last few years? It is a different world out there, and it’s not based on Colorado mountain views, or Floridian mandated insurance requirements. Outside of the densely populated cities, rural america is hurting big time, and inspectors are feeling it severly. They are tired of the hyperbole podcasts from vendors trying to take their last marketing dollars, and many just can’t afford to fly off to some distant location for a convention and alll the costs involved… away from their struggling businesses they are striving to keep alive!
IMO, ASHI is making smart moves to stay relevent, whereas Internachi just keeps churning out FREE STUFF for non-members and kindergarten grade graphics for members. WTF is up with THAT!!?
Note: I am NOT, and have never been, an ASHI member, although Nick thought/thinks otherwise!
The only thing worse than an obsession with money is an obsession with power. Building the largest inspection association doesn’t seem to be enough for you. I think nothing would give you more satisfaction than to bring ASHI to their knees so you can jump in and save them.
Don’t get me wrong. I have a great deal of respect for you and the organization that you have built. You provide resources for both members and nonmembers alike which affords me opportunities that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
We have our Inspector AJ (Austin Jenkins) who now has 2.3 million followers on social media. 1.8 million on TikTok: The Home Inspector, CMI® (@inspector_aj) Official | TikTok
There are only 30,000 inspectors in the U.S., so his followers are all consumers. He works for us. His show causes our inbox to be flooded (every day) by consumer emails asking questions about buying a home.
He came to my talk in Orlando and in the three hours I was on stage, he picked up another 1,600 followers.
