What is it worth?

[SonOfSwamp]

Well, as far as volume goes, I say get the volume in dollars, not in the number of inspections.

I freely admit that my HI path was unusual, and wouldn't work for everybody. But this little roadmap might just be useful info for somebody:

I worked solo for about 8 years, and did about 10 jobs a week. By year 8, I was starting to shut off my phone for much of the day, and I'd thrown 2 or 3 pagers out the window of my truck. I was having zero fun.

So, I hired a co-inspector and doubled my rates. Then I raised rates some more. My goal was to price my company out of the POS-house/complaining buyer/dark-side reeltor market, and provide a service that was more than twice as useful as the service provided by my competitors, such as they were.

About year 10, I started writing a column for the local alternative newsweekly, which is targeted at well-to-do mover/shaker types. Column readers became my customer base, and the column kept me from getting any pushback from reeltors. The co-inspector cut time on the job by more than half, so I had more than twice as much time to spend as I pleased.

About 18 months ago, as HI licensing loomed in TN, I decided that I didn't want to be constrained by the "stakeholders" who'll write the TN HI laws/rules. So, I gave my company to my co-inspector. I'm a part-time consultant/independent contractor to the company now.

All my way of saying that there is a way to work less, get paid more, get treated better and have more time outside of crawl spaces and attics. All an inspecting organism has to do is create his own loyal customer base, do a good, honest job and be worth a lot more than the competition. In a decent market, there will be plenty of people who'll pay the going rate for excellent work.

WJ

PS: IMHO, the mentoring here at the TIJ is much better than a lone voice who sells a much weaker version of HI advice. Of course, I'm talking about mentors in general, not any specific one...

[Les]

Walter,

You speak the truth. Everyone can not write for a newspaper, nor follow another path exactly. The part of your advice that always will ring true is the loyal customer base and do the best job you can do.

I do appreciate you making your comments general in nature. One of my failures in this business was the time I thought I could help a young man and did much damage before I realized he was just not my personality type and ill suited to home inspection. I remember that incident nearly everyday.

[SonOfSwamp]

True that it's kinda unusual for an HI to end up writing for a newspaper. I started on the high school newspaper in the 11th grade. So I had a head start.

While I'm on the subject: I think any HI who can write well enough to keep readers' eyeballs on the page should be able to produce decent newsletters.

When I was just getting started, I created newsletters that were packed with useful and readable (magazine-like) content, and I had them delivered to (gasp, choke) reeltor offices. My business tripled that year. Once my column caught on, I ditched all marketing to reeltors.

The trick is to provide content, not sales talk. Reeltors throw away reams of HI sales crap every day. If the HI's newsletters catch on, the HI will catch on.

Same goes for websites: Content, not sales. (Co-inspector Rick is slowly upgrading our old website.) Well-composed email advertising is another good way to get our from under reeltor thumb.

Hint: HI newsletters, websites and email advertising need to be just as polished and perfect as the best stuff out there. Avoid canned non-content.

If the HI gods smile, it is entirely possible for an HI to establish a higher public profile than any reeltor in town. Once that happens, the HI can, as brother Loden once explained it, "shape the market."

WJ

[Brandon Chew]

Originally posted by Les

Sooooooo - we are evolving into a pretty good discussion and there are some very good points made.

Brandon writes a pretty good scenario and his post could start a 10hour discussion, if we were sitting across the table from each other. Cost to come to my office and watch would be considerably cheaper than bringing me to yours. But on the other hand, you would be out of your "element".

Agreed. As I've been mulling this over I think there is a "right time" for both approaches during the course of the inspector's career -- having the inspector watch the mentor and having the mentor watch the inspector. Perhaps offering both, either stand-alone or as a package would be the way to go?

When the inspector is raw and green and just out of school (where the teacher told him how to do it) I think the best approach is to have the inspector watch the mentor in action in the mentor's element (student watches the teacher do it). I don't mean just ride-alongs on individual inspections. The inspector needs to watch the mentor conducting the business of inspecting homes. This should be followed by some time set aside where the inspector and the mentor can chat and pick each other's brains for a while. You'd want to do this at a time when it wouldn't interfere with the mentor's business.

Once he's gotten his feet wet and has begun to settle into a routine, I think the inspector reaches a point in his development where he'd be better served by having the mentor watch the inspector in the inspector's element (the teacher watches the student do it). To add some real value to this service the mentor should make specific recommendations to the inspector about things he should do to improve his business.

A point I was trying to make, and Brandon W. commented on, is that once the new inspector has survived in the business long enough to see steady work coming in, then I think the value (in the eyes of the inspector) of having a mentor come to the inspector will now start to depend on the individual inspector. For this, I'll break inspectors into two groups: those who think that because they have steady work coming in they've got it all figured out, and those who approach this business as a process of lifelong learning and self improvement. The first group is not going to see enough value in the service to justify the cost, while the latter group will.

Try not to get too hung up on the numbers of inspections that I threw out there. I did that just to create a familiar frame of reference to illustrate my point.

BTW, I cringe at the thought of sitting across the table for a 10 hr discussion.... how about a couple of hours over a good meal and a few of our favorite beverages?

Originally posted by SonOfSwamp

All my way of saying that there is a way to work less, get paid more, get treated better and have more time outside of crawl spaces and attics. All an inspecting organism has to do is create his own loyal customer base, do a good, honest job and be worth a lot more than the competition. In a decent market, there will be plenty of people who'll pay the going rate for excellent work.

WJ

PS: IMHO, the mentoring here at the TIJ is much better than a lone voice who sells a much weaker version of HI advice. Of course, I'm talking about mentors in general, not any specific one...

I agree about the mentoring. I was lucky enough to have found TIJ early, before I even made the decision to enter the HI profession. The collective mentoring I've received through reading the archives and participating in discussions here is better than any I have found elsewhere. It's helped me to develop and form my own sense of ethics about the profession and a model for how I want to build and conduct my business.

Walter, I hope you are right about that formula for success because it pretty much nails how I'm approaching it. It's a tough road for a new guy to take without pandering to the RE agents. Building that loyal customer base is a slow process, especially in the current RE market environment. It's going to take a while to hit critical mass but I'm confident that eventually I'll earn a decent living while doing something I love to do. I've spent far too much of my life chasing a steady paycheck while banging my head against a wall.

Brandon