An Important Decision For Home Inspectors

One of the most important decisions a professional home inspector makes is what type of inspection reporting system to use for his/her inspection business.   The inspection report you choose can have a major impact on whether you succeed or fail in the business. 

 

There are several types of inspection reporting systems on the market today, but basically they fall into two categories, electronic or written. 

 

With an electronic inspection report, the inspector usually delivers a memory stick also commonly referred to as a jump stick or a Internet website and access code.  With the memory stick, all the client's reporting information is stored on the stick and they leave the inspection with this in hand.  Once they have access to a computer, they can use the memory stick to access their inspection report.   When the inspector is using an Internet based inspection report, the client will receive the url address where they can go to enter their personal inspection report code.  This will give them online access to their inspection report.

 

With a written inspection report, like HomeReport, the client leaves the inspection with their full report in hand.  This makes it convenient and easy for home buyers to review their inspector's findings in detail so they can comfortably make their purchase decision within the confines of their purchase contract/agreement.  Not to mention the perceived value added by receiving a substantial physical report. 

 

There are also inspectors who choose different types of written reports or even do their own narrative written report following the inspection.  They write up the inspection report and then make arrangements to deliver it to the client, some 24-72 hours after the inspection.  The problem with not receiving the report at the inspection is that, often, clients must make purchase decisions before they actual have their report.

 

If you are new to the home inspection business, the choice of which way to go with regards to your reporting can be a bit confusing.   One of the main places that inspectors will get referrals is from Realtors because they are the ones working with home buyers on a regular basis.  We recently received some unsolicited feedback from a Realtor about home inspection reporting and we thought it was well worth sharing.

 

"With over 20 years in Real Estate, I have worked with many home inspectors. I have seen many different types of inspection reports but I had to contact you to tell you the reaction HomeReport received. My clients recently hired an inspector who delivered HomeReport to them at the inspection and I have to tell you their reaction to your report was amazing. They appreciated how well put together the inspection report was. They especially appreciated the value added sections on home maintenance, budgeting and even the envelopes in the back for keeping track of all their expenses. My clients were beaming when the inspector reviewed the report with them. I just don’t see this reaction from the inspectors I work with that hand over a jump stick or password to an electronic report. There is something about the value my clients see in your very detailed written reporting system. I will always try to refer inspectors who deliver HomeReport."
Sincerely JoAnne Muegge, RE/MAX Preferred Realty Ltd.

 

We want to close this post by saving again that we know you have a choice with what type of reporting system you use in your inspection business.  We just hope that, before you make a final decision, you check out HomeReport for yourself because we truly believe it's a system that has helped many inspectors build strong inspection businesses right from the start.

Wishing you continued success in all that you do,

Canspec Home Publishing

Get More Exposure For Your Home Inspection Business

Wouldn't it be great if, while on an inspection, you could be marketing your services to all the passers by?  There is a very inexpensive way for you to do exactly that!  

 

Why not consider an inexpensive lawn sign that can be placed on the lawn of the home you are inspecting during your time on the property?  Once you arrive you put up your sign up for all passers by to see and take it down at the end of your inspection.  One place you can get a sign is from a company called Vista Print (www.vistaprint.com).  It's convenient because it's all done online and at a great price. You can chose from dozens of already set designs or upload your own design and/or logo.  Personalizing the sign with your own logo and look is always the best option.  It helps keep it consistent with all your other home inspection marketing materials and reinforces your brand.   When designing your lawn sign, you'll want to ensure you don't over load it with too much information.  It's important that the key information is easy to see from the street.  Your company name, phone number and website are the most critical.  You'd simply say something like "This home is being inspected today by ABC Inspections"  Then add your company name, phone number and website.

 

A lawn sign is a completely reusable form of marketing so once you make the small initial investment into the sign itself you can reuse it over and over and over again.  You just never know how many people could drive by during the course of your inspection that may be in need of an inspection themselves.   Time to implement this idea: a minute to put it up as soon as you arrive onsite and a minute to take it down when you are ready to leave.  So, even the time investment to try this marketing idea is minimal.

 

The other form of onsite marketing that many inspectors already use is advertising on their vehicle.  Your vehicle is parked outside the property you are inspecting for somewhere between 2-3 hrs on average.  Depending on the area, there could be many passers by during this time and having your company name and contact information on your vehicle, just like on a lawn sign, is a great way to market while you work.   However, some inspectors prefer not to advertise on their vehicle.  In some instances, the seller may be trying to keep a low profile and has decided to list their home for sale without placing a sign on the lawn.  In this instance, an inspector with an unmarked vehicle may be perferred.  If you are inspecting a home that does not have a realtor for sale sign, you may want to ask before putting up your own inspection sign.  This is because, it may be one of those times when the seller is trying to keep a low profile.

 

So, what do you think?  Is a lawn sign something you might be willing to try to get more exposure for your home inspection business?  Is a lawn sign something you are already using?  Leave us a comment below, we'd love to hear your feedback.

 

If you are looking for more marketing ideas, why not consider Home Inspection Marketing For Success.  Many inspectors have already used the information in Marketing For Success to create very profitable inspection businesses. 

 

Happy Inspecting, Everyone!

Canspec Home Publishing home of HomeReport, your detailed, client friendly reporting system. www.canspechomepublishing.com

Book More Home Inspections. Have Your Home Inspection Company Stand Out From The Pack!

Our competitor claims almost 80% of inspectors today use an online or electronic type reporting system.  If that's true, that's great news for our home inspector clients!!  The incredible reaction our clients get when they deliver HomeReport™ at the inspection is why over a million dollars in copies have been sold and why clients stay with HomeReport™ year after year!

We've seen a few of our home inspector clients that have left HomeReport™ to go the electronic route and some who have come right back to us!  Those inspectors have told us the main reason they came back was they lost the “WOW” effect HomeReport™ gave them at the home inspection.   These home inspectors also told us that while going the electronic route sounded like it would be the faster reporting route, it actually took more time when they factored in the online work they still needed to do after the inspection!

One of the ways to book more inspections and to grow your home inspection business is to stand out from the crowd.  If it's true 80% aren't delivering a detailed and comprehensive report onsite, one that is more that just a few pages in a flimsy folder, then inspectors that use HomeReport™ already stand out! HomeReport™ clients have no other work to complete when they get home.  When the inspection is over, so is the reporting.   These inspectors also don't leave their clients waiting to hear when their full report is finally ready for download.

Standing out "is" the result you’re after when you are marketing your home inspection services.  If you market the same as other inspectors and do everything the same as 80% of the pack, you can't stand out!  Our HomeReport™ clients make up part of the 20% of inspectors who offer the “Wow” effect at the inspection with a great onsite home inspection report.

It's kind of funny because our competitor must believe that doing the same as the rest of the pack must be a good thing.  If they didn’t believe this, why would they advertise 80% of inspectors do this, therefore, you should too? Reality is, it's doing the opposite of the pack that's going to get you noticed.  It's kind of like stocks, when everyone else is buying, smart investors are selling and when everyone else is selling, smart investors are angling for great buying opportunities.

If you want to book more inspections, take more market share and really see your business rise above the pack of other home inspectors out there, you have to market differently, report differently and deliver differently!   Building a great home inspection business isn't about doing what 80% of inspectors are doing.  It is about standing apart, above the crowd and creating a different experience, one that home buying clients will stand up and take notice of.

On a personal note, after taking a break from the business for a few years to pursue other interests, like trying his hand at house flipping, my husband is retuning to his first love, home inspections.  Well, to be honest, he never really completely took his nose out of the game.  He has and will continue to help support my HomeReport™ clients.  He even set up and continues to act as moderator of our tech talk forum which is an informative and educational resource, exclusive to HomeReport™ users.  This forum helps inspectors connect with other inspectors, get questions answered, offer each other valuable support and industry specific information that is often difficult to obtain on your own.

He'll be stepping out again in the coming weeks after his website is up and marketing material is printed. We are located in a completely different service area than we were when he last built up a single inspector firm to a six inspector firm.  He did that rapidly by taking more and more market share through always delivering the wow effect!  You can be sure he won’t be marketing the same as the other inspectors in this area, nor will he be using an electronic reporting system and handing just a few pages to the clients at the inspection.

There was no thought given towards any other inspection reporting system.  He'll be setting himself apart from the crowd again as he steps out with HomeReport™ from his very first inspection.   I look forward to sharing how it all goes with you as he once again builds an inspection company from scratch.   His last company is still going strong to this day because he sold it to one of the very capable senior inspectors that was on his team.

This time around, He will be in a similar boat to many new home inspectors out there, trying to break into a new service area.  An area where there are already many established home inspectors, most who have been serving this area for many years. 

To ensure he brings the "wow effect", he'll be putting all the marketing tips and suggestions I make in my Home Inspection Marketing For Success CD's to work.  He will implement the strategies on how to successfully market a new inspection company and then continue to market with consistency, just like I teach on the CDs.   This will put him on his way to booking more, and more, inspections and growing a viable home inspection company from scratch.

If you would like to learn more about marketing your home inspection company or wish to check out our report, please visit www.canspechomepublishing.com.   You might even be surprised to see some of the celebrity personalities good marketing can reach :) Wishing you success in all that you do, sincerely Sharon Purtill, owner Canspec Home Publishing.

Use Consistent Marketing To Book More Home Inspections!

Successfully marketing a home inspection business has a lot to do with consistency.  I'd like to share with you a story that happened to one of my clients in order to demonstrate how consistency can impact your inspection business.

I was coaching a home inspector on reaching out to his target audience with quality information as a way to grow his business.   The target audience was the 2000 realtors within his specific service area.   We carefully planned out his first mailing, giving careful consideration to the topic, ensuring it would be of great value to realtors.  Next, we discussed the best timing of when this initial letter should go out.   We looked closely at every detail of this mailing, like the specific details I discuss on my "Marketing For Success" CD set.  Then this very specific, very targeted mailing was sent.   Now, when coaching this home inspector, I thought it was clear that in order for this effort to reap the benefits of more traffic to his business, it was only the first of several mailings that would need to be sent.  Apparently, as I found out six month's later, either this was not clear to the inspector or he chose to not heed the advice.

Six month's after the inital mailing went out to the 2000 targeted realtors, I was having a conversation with this inspector and asked how business was going.  He advised me that he had not had a single call or inspection booked that he could attribute back to his targeted mailing.  This was very surprising and disappointing to him as he had so carefully written and planned the mailing.   I asked him how he followed up to that initial mailing and he said he hadn't.   This was the problem, there was no consistency!

When we market, we must do so with consistency!   We can plan the best marketing piece and send it out to thousands of people, but if we never do any follow up or never send out another piece again after that inital contact, we will not see results.  This is because people don't react to the first piece of marketing they see.  Heck, they don't even react to the second or, often, not even the third!  If you are only going to take out one ad, send out one targeted piece of mail and never contact those people again, you are wasting both your time and your money!   If you have a specific budget in mind, you may find it makes more sense for you to send five pieces, over time, to 400 individuals rather than one piece to 2000 individuals.

Consistency is key to getting your phone to ring more often. Consistency is the key to booking more inspections.  In the story of my client that sent out one fabulous piece and never followed up or never sent out anything again for six months, well, the realtors he was targeting likely figured he went out of business.  If you reach out to someone and they never hear from you again, how can they be expected to know you're still out there?

I'll use a more common example to demonstrate how marketing with consistency so greatly affects you and I.   Let's say it's evening and you're watching t.v.  During your show, a snack commerical comes on the air.  No big deal, you may not have even noticed the brand of snack.   A few minutes later, another snack commerical comes on, you may not react but you may begin to listen to, or start to be aware of, the brand being advertised.  A few minutes later, another snack commerical comes on.  Well, by now, you are likely aware of the brand and even starting to think about the commerical itself or the product being advertised.  The next time the commerical for a snack comes on, you're really aware of it, you might even start to think you're hungry.  By the time you see a snack commerical again, you're up, you're off the couch, you're headed to the kitchen - for what, well, a damn snack, of course.  The power of consistent marketing has finally got you to take action!

So, if you have been marketing your home inspection services and felt that your efforts were failing you, consider the level of consistency that you have been marketing with.  If your marketing lacks consistency, your chances of success are greatly diminished.

Do you want your target audience to take action?  Do you want your phone to ring more?  Is your goal to book more home inspections?  Then, you need to market your home inspection business with consistency!   Consistently send out your mailings or newsletters.  Consistently follow up with those you contact and consistently build relationships.  Make sure those you market to know that you're still there, you're still in business and that you are ready to serve them.  Make sure they don't just see your name once and forget it.  Make sure they don't think you or your business have disappeared into the night.  Get in front of your target audience.  Stay in front of your target audience and the power of consistency can bring you the results you are looking for.

I hope you found this information helpful.  For more on how to market your home inspection business for success, please visit www.canspechomepublishing.com.

Happy Inspecting!

Sharon Purtill

Realtors have used this idea for years....

Let's talk about putting a twist on a marketing idea that Realtors have used for years.   I'm sure at one time or another you've recieved a "Just Sold" or "Just Listed" postcard at your door.  Well, here's a way to put a twist on this old idea and make it very effective for your home inspection business!

First, you'll want to pick postcards that say "Just Inspected", include your logo and other important information about your company and the specialized services or extra value you offer.  The cards should be generic.   What I mean by this is there will be no actual street address of the home "Just Inspected".  Instead, the cards will say something like "We've just inspected a home in your neighbourhood".

Keep your "Just Inspected" postcards in your vehicle at all times.   Now, every time you are leaving an inspection and pass a home for sale on your way out of the immediate area - stop, pull into the driveway of the home for sale and go up to the door and leave your "Just Inspected" postcard there for the vendor to find.  

The great thing about "Just Inspected" postcards is it is absolutely targeted marketing.  I think you'll agree most people that have their house for sale will be in need of another home.   This means your postcard is targeting those that are most likely going to be in the market for your services.   Realtors don't get this kind of target results with their postcards.  This is because they usually blanket an area in the hopes that a percentage of the homes receiving their cards may be thinking of buying or selling.    When you only drop your cards to homes already listed for sale, you should expect to see far greater results for your very targeted marketing efforts!   No postage required, only a few minutes of your time to stop and deliver as you drive through neigbourhoods where you do, or perhaps would like to do, business.

Now, here's a link to one marketing/printing company that is already doing these cards for inspectors.  This will give you an idea of the design ideas for your cards.    You can disregard the cost because this is based on mailing your cards for you.   While this is an option, mailing your "Just Inspected" postcards wont get you the targeted results you will get if you hand deliver them only to homes already listed for sale.  

Here's the link http://www.colourtech.com/generalstore/postcards-homeinspect.php

Something else to consider is a door hanger with your "Just Inspected" message instead of a postcard.  This option allows for a perforated business card at the bottom which the home owner can easily remove.   This product is also available from the company at the link above.

I hope you find this idea interesting and I wish you much success in your home inspection business!

Sharon Purtill,
Canspec Home Publishing