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Networking That Actually Works; Lessons From A Home Inspector with Michael Van Hall · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:28
  Bill Gilliland: Hey there.
• 0:29
  Bill Gilliland: Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
• 0:32
  Bill Gilliland: I am Bill Gilliland, your host, and I am also the uh principal at Action Coach Business Growth Partners and one of the founders of the Asheville Business Summit.
• 0:45
  Bill Gilliland: And today I have Michael Van Hall with me.
• 0:50
  Bill Gilliland: Welcome to the podcast.
• 0:52
  Bill Gilliland: He's with Blue Mountain Home Inspections.
• 0:55
  Bill Gilliland: And uh hey, welcome to the call.
• 0:58
  Bill Gilliland: Tell us a little bit about your business and what all you do.
• 1:01
  Michael Van Hall: Okay, thank you.
• 1:01
  Michael Van Hall: Well, um, yeah, I'm a home inspector.
• 1:03
  Michael Van Hall: I've been doing it for I'm going on nine years now, so quite a while.
• 1:07
  Michael Van Hall: I've got my feet wet pretty well.
• 1:09
  Michael Van Hall: And um, yeah, I my business is out of Weaverville, but mainly we call it Asheville.
• 1:15
  Michael Van Hall: And um, yeah, it's a good business.
• 1:19
  Michael Van Hall: I wish I had I wish I had found out about it many, many, many years ago.
• 1:24
  Bill Gilliland: What'd you do before you got into that?
• 1:27
  Michael Van Hall: Uh a hundred things.
• 1:29
  Michael Van Hall: Lots of different things.
• 1:31
  Michael Van Hall: Um prior to this, I was uh running a hot springs resort in California.
• 1:37
  Michael Van Hall: Um I've just done a lot of things, a lot of things that uh businesses I've started, jumped in, got my feet wet, and just figured it out as I went.
• 1:46
  Michael Van Hall: So yeah, I've had uh I've had restaurants, I've had health clinics, I've had uh apartment complexes, I've done house flipping, I've built residential and commercial properties.
• 1:59
  Michael Van Hall: Um yeah, I've got quite a history of stuff.
• 2:03
  Bill Gilliland: I think all that stuff probably adds up to being helpful in the home inspection business.
• 2:07
  Bill Gilliland: It really does.
• 2:08
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:09
  Bill Gilliland: It seems like uh that's one of those businesses that you it's good to have some experience in around at least around things that get built or repaired or whatever.
• 2:20
  Michael Van Hall: So yeah, so I grew up on a farm and fixing equipment.
• 2:23
  Michael Van Hall: That gives you a little bit of an uh that kind of thing.
• 2:26
  Michael Van Hall: Then I had an apartment complex and did all the repairs on that and learned as I went.
• 2:31
  Michael Van Hall: I'd call a plumber him and have him show me what he was doing and how he did it, those kind of things, and then took it from there.
• 2:37
  Michael Van Hall: So um, all things like that have really, really uh played into what I look for now on when I'm doing home inspections.
• 2:45
  Michael Van Hall: I I also had an uncle when I was in my early 20s that hired me for three years.
• 2:49
  Michael Van Hall: He was a master carpenter, and we put up houses from the hole in the ground to the keys given to the seller.
• 2:54
  Michael Van Hall: So I got a lot of experience from that.
• 2:57
  Michael Van Hall: Um, so yeah, yeah, that's really helped me.
• 3:00
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 3:01
  Bill Gilliland: So you've probably got a really good answer to this question.
• 3:05
  Bill Gilliland: So if you had to start from square one, what would you do differently?
• 3:09
  Michael Van Hall: I don't think I'd do anything differently.
• 3:12
  Michael Van Hall: Okay.
• 3:13
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:13
  Michael Van Hall: Not that I can think of.
• 3:14
  Bill Gilliland: Well, you had it, yeah, you had a ton of experience.
• 3:17
  Bill Gilliland: So that that you brought that.
• 3:18
  Bill Gilliland: So what have what have been some of your learnings as an owner and an employer in all those businesses?
• 3:25
  Michael Van Hall: Oh, yeah.
• 3:26
  Michael Van Hall: Well, yeah, that's a good question.
• 3:29
  Michael Van Hall: Um, what have I learned from all that?
• 3:32
  Michael Van Hall: Uh take things as they come, um, do the best you can and move forward.
• 3:38
  Bill Gilliland: I love that.
• 3:39
  Bill Gilliland: I love that.
• 3:40
  Bill Gilliland: So, what do you think the common misconceptions are about running a business?
• 3:47
  Michael Van Hall: Well, uh, one misconception, of course, is that well, two of them.
• 3:50
  Michael Van Hall: One is that it's hard, and the other is that it's easy.
• 3:54
  Michael Van Hall: And they're both kind of good misconceptions.
• 3:56
  Michael Van Hall: It's kind of somewhere in the middle.
• 3:58
  Bill Gilliland: Right.
• 3:58
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I know.
• 4:01
  Bill Gilliland: Uh uh, yeah, I like that.
• 4:03
  Bill Gilliland: So what do you attribute your growth to?
• 4:09
  Michael Van Hall: Well, uh uh in this particular business, home inspection.
• 4:12
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:13
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah.
• 4:13
  Michael Van Hall: Well, I started out as well.
• 4:15
  Michael Van Hall: I have a lot, I've always run into difficulty with trying to get a business off the ground by doing what's considered in the past advertising or going now online and all Google and all those things and trying to understand if you're getting any bang for the buck, because it's very difficult sometimes to know if somebody comes into your restaurant, if uh, you know, how they got there, they don't tell they always tell you.
• 4:39
  Michael Van Hall: And it's hard to get that kind of feedback, especially you know, years ago when you didn't have metrics and everything.
• 4:45
  Michael Van Hall: Now it's a little bit easier to know where they came from when somebody clicks online, you see there was a click.
• 4:50
  Michael Van Hall: Those kind of things.
• 4:51
  Michael Van Hall: So that makes a difference.
• 4:52
  Michael Van Hall: But um, what's done the most for me, and I'm sure a lot of other people in the business would be able to say the same thing, is networking.
• 5:00
  Michael Van Hall: And networking, there's there's ways to do it that work and ways to do it that don't.
• 5:07
  Michael Van Hall: That's one of the things I've really learned.
• 5:10
  Michael Van Hall: Networking, there's a lot of networking groups in any city you go to, and that's a lot of business people that come and they join, and then they come once a week and they stand around, drink coffee, and eat donuts, and you get little clicks going, and nothing ever really happens.
• 5:26
  Michael Van Hall: That's what it's felt for me.
• 5:28
  Michael Van Hall: I've never gotten much from that.
• 5:30
  Michael Van Hall: But when I ran into uh a networking group that was more structured and required you to do things and required you to help the other people in the in the business, that that's probably what really took off for me.
• 5:42
  Michael Van Hall: And that way, I don't know, can I you can I say other businesses?
• 5:46
  Bill Gilliland: 100%.
• 5:46
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, as long as it's as long as it's positive, yeah.
• 5:49
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, BNI, Business Networking International.
• 5:52
  Bill Gilliland: Yep, great, great organization.
• 5:53
  Michael Van Hall: That was a huge start for me because they it's expensive.
• 5:56
  Michael Van Hall: At the time, I I quit maybe five years ago because I didn't need it anymore.
• 6:00
  Michael Van Hall: I was in there for three or four years, and at the time it was, I believe, $750 a year.
• 6:06
  Michael Van Hall: Well, that's a lot more than you pay for your maybe $25 a month to be in another networking group where they're free.
• 6:12
  Michael Van Hall: But there, it's very specific.
• 6:15
  Michael Van Hall: You have to go every week.
• 6:17
  Michael Van Hall: You only can miss a certain number of weeks.
• 6:19
  Michael Van Hall: Every week somebody stands up and promotes their business and talks about it.
• 6:23
  Michael Van Hall: And when you join the club, you are required to spend, have coffee or lunch with every member separately in the group to find out what they do, to let for you to tell them what you do and how they can help you get people.
• 6:35
  Michael Van Hall: Um, and so you end up kind of with if there's 25 people in the group, you've got your sales force out there stumping for you because you're also required to bring in every week um a list of who you've recommended others in your group to.
• 6:50
  Michael Van Hall: And that worked for me because it was very structured.
• 6:54
  Michael Van Hall: Other people don't need the structure.
• 6:55
  Michael Van Hall: I needed that structure, and it forced me to go in, learn how to talk in front of people, give presentations, um, and and it really worked.
• 7:05
  Michael Van Hall: It did wonders for my business.
• 7:07
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah, B and I is great for uh, you know, it it yeah, we've I've been a member of several B and I groups over the years, and and um yeah, it's a it's a great actually we have a global strategic alliance with B and I and Action Coach to Yeah, to want to mean to stump so much for the great job for that.
• 7:30
  Bill Gilliland: Well, I think one of the things that um I mean, one of the you know, it is it is hard to particularly uh for solopreneurs and people like that to have because you got to do the work and sell the work.
• 7:45
  Bill Gilliland: So you you you know, as as a you know, as a business person to have a network that can work for you, I mean that you know, that's $750,000, whatever it is a year, is pretty cheap if we you know when it works.
• 7:58
  Bill Gilliland: Yes.
• 7:58
  Bill Gilliland: And so, yeah, I mean, if you if you break it down per lead and all of that.
• 8:03
  Bill Gilliland: So yeah, I've I've I've always thought it was a good system.
• 8:06
  Bill Gilliland: And um, yeah, it it it was good to me in the in the beginning as well.
• 8:09
  Michael Van Hall: So yeah, I like that.
• 8:11
  Michael Van Hall: I I did the standard run around town, put your business cards up everywhere, uh, walk into the real estate offices with a stack of cards and hand them to the front desk and say, hey, please let's make sure everybody sees these.
• 8:22
  Michael Van Hall: That didn't do anything, really didn't do anything.
• 8:25
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, but what worked for me once I got my feet wet giving presentations is to go into a real estate office and say, hey, can any way that you could set up a time for me to meet with your realtors and give a presentation?
• 8:39
  Michael Van Hall: Huge difference when you can tell them what you do, how you're different.
• 8:44
  Michael Van Hall: Um I've I've always had luck with that.
• 8:47
  Michael Van Hall: That's been a big thing for me.
• 8:49
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, that did a lot for me.
• 8:51
  Bill Gilliland: So B and I's in realtor meetings was a pretty good, yeah, and all and all the realtors.
• 8:55
  Bill Gilliland: If you're calling on realtors, by the way, every realtor group in the world has a meeting every week for realtors, for their realtors.
• 9:04
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I I've done a couple online, you know, online.
• 9:07
  Bill Gilliland: They wanted me to do some help them do some planning and stuff.
• 9:10
  Bill Gilliland: So uh yeah, it's been it's been pretty easy.
• 9:13
  Bill Gilliland: So you've been in a lot of things.
• 9:17
  Bill Gilliland: You know, balancing personal life and business.
• 9:19
  Bill Gilliland: What are your thoughts around that?
• 9:21
  Michael Van Hall: Well, that's another thing.
• 9:22
  Michael Van Hall: I get one of the reasons I wish I'd found this um business many years ago, I would have gotten in a lot a lot sooner.
• 9:29
  Michael Van Hall: You you can make good money for the amount of time you put in.
• 9:33
  Michael Van Hall: Now, maybe you're not busy and you only do one inspection a week when you get started or a month, but for that time, you might make a hundred or two hundred dollars an hour.
• 9:41
  Michael Van Hall: Right.
• 9:42
  Michael Van Hall: And that's pretty hard to find without much experience and not a lot of training required to get licensed.
• 9:49
  Michael Van Hall: And um, people are really realtors are very helpful, they want you to succeed.
• 9:54
  Michael Van Hall: That's what I've learned.
• 9:55
  Michael Van Hall: And uh, that's yeah, that's it's a such a great business for that.
• 9:59
  Michael Van Hall: And if you you can be as busy as you want, you set up your own calendar.
• 10:03
  Michael Van Hall: If you only want to work mornings, you can do that.
• 10:06
  Michael Van Hall: You want to work three days a week, you can do that.
• 10:08
  Michael Van Hall: You can work all the time if you want to.
• 10:10
  Michael Van Hall: It's all up to you.
• 10:12
  Michael Van Hall: So it's just such a great business that way, as far as balancing your life in whatever way you you want to or whatnot, whatever necessitates.
• 10:20
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:21
  Bill Gilliland: It's yeah, yeah.
• 10:22
  Bill Gilliland: Well, it's one of the beautiful when you do it right, it's you know, being in business for yourself can can get can give you some freedom.
• 10:29
  Bill Gilliland: So that's that's that's fantastic.
• 10:32
  Michael Van Hall: And I've had, you know, I'm I'm getting a little bit older, so I've had some surgeries in the last few years.
• 10:37
  Michael Van Hall: I've had hip replacement, that kind of thing.
• 10:39
  Michael Van Hall: You can just block off your calendar for those three weeks or six weeks, whatever you need to do, and and start coming back after that.
• 10:47
  Michael Van Hall: It doesn't really hurt too much.
• 10:49
  Michael Van Hall: And um, so taking time off, if you need two weeks off for Christmas vacation to go to the Caribbean, you can do it.
• 10:56
  Michael Van Hall: You don't have to ask anybody.
• 10:57
  Michael Van Hall: So it's really great that way when you're on your own boss.
• 11:00
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I like it.
• 11:01
  Bill Gilliland: So this is the quick fire round.
• 11:03
  Bill Gilliland: Uh, B Epic is an acronym that I came up that we came up with when I wrote a book.
• 11:09
  Bill Gilliland: And so um, I just want like a couple of words or a quick fire answer to your thoughts around, and I'll give you the thing.
• 11:17
  Bill Gilliland: So the B and B Epic is bring the energy.
• 11:21
  Bill Gilliland: What are what are your thoughts around that?
• 11:24
  Bill Gilliland: Bringing energy.
• 11:25
  Michael Van Hall: Well, bring the energy to your work, definitely, and especially when you're chatting with people um and your clients and your realtors.
• 11:33
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I love that.
• 11:33
  Bill Gilliland: How about the E is education?
• 11:36
  Michael Van Hall: Education, that's a huge one.
• 11:37
  Michael Van Hall: In all the businesses I've started, I've many times just jumped in with cold feet, not knowing much about it.
• 11:44
  Michael Van Hall: I started my or I bought a restaurant and jumped into that, not being a chef, not ever having 20, 25 employees, anything like that.
• 11:52
  Michael Van Hall: And then, but if you do the research, you talk to other restaurant owners, you find out what they do and take the things from that that fit for you.
• 12:01
  Michael Van Hall: Um, that's kind of what I've done.
• 12:03
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, so self-education.
• 12:05
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, especially now with the internet, you can just get so much information, and it's uh it's been really helpful.
• 12:13
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah, I like it.
• 12:14
  Bill Gilliland: How about planning, P for planning?
• 12:16
  Michael Van Hall: Planning, yeah.
• 12:18
  Michael Van Hall: Well, I make I'm a list maker, I make all kinds of lists, so everything that pops into my head goes on a list, and then I look at it later and I start crossing off the things that I I uh have done or need to do.
• 12:29
  Michael Van Hall: And uh yeah, planning's huge.
• 12:31
  Bill Gilliland: I love that.
• 12:32
  Bill Gilliland: How about inspiration?
• 12:33
  Bill Gilliland: I is inspiration.
• 12:36
  Michael Van Hall: Inspiration comes mainly, um, I would say, from what's the word?
• 12:41
  Michael Van Hall: Um, success.
• 12:43
  Michael Van Hall: Every little success breeds more inspiration to keep on going and do it more.
• 12:48
  Bill Gilliland: I like that.
• 12:49
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, that's been my and and inspiration, of course, from others that have had success.
• 12:54
  Michael Van Hall: I've had inspiration from my father who was a successful entrepreneur, and um trying to uh emulate him has been a big big thing in my life.
• 13:04
  Bill Gilliland: I love that.
• 13:04
  Bill Gilliland: How about C is commitment?
• 13:07
  Michael Van Hall: Oh, yeah, commitment's big, absolutely.
• 13:09
  Michael Van Hall: Got to be committed to what you're doing, or it's not gonna go anywhere.
• 13:12
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, yeah, I like that.
• 13:15
  Bill Gilliland: So, what words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow?
• 13:21
  Michael Van Hall: Network.
• 13:22
  Michael Van Hall: That's that's just the biggest thing.
• 13:25
  Michael Van Hall: Get in front of people.
• 13:26
  Michael Van Hall: Um, you can slowly move along as others uh use you, use you in their business, get to know you through your work, but to grow it, um, you really got to get out there.
• 13:37
  Michael Van Hall: And it's not like I said, just handing out cards or putting up cards on bulletin boards, just it's just not gonna do it.
• 13:43
  Michael Van Hall: I don't mean don't do it.
• 13:45
  Michael Van Hall: I just mean it's just you've got to get in front of people, in front of realtor groups, um, network with a good organization.
• 13:52
  Michael Van Hall: That's just everything.
• 13:54
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:54
  Bill Gilliland: People buy from people.
• 13:56
  Bill Gilliland: I mean, that's just they still do.
• 13:58
  Bill Gilliland: Yes, it's it's it's still a thing.
• 14:00
  Bill Gilliland: So so what's the next thing for you and the business?
• 14:05
  Michael Van Hall: Well, I I think what we were as as many home inspectors and realtors were, we were so barraged with with uh work during COVID, which still I can't figure out, but it was super busy, and now things have slowed a little bit, and you just make your way through that, take your time, take some time for yourself during this time, work on networking and getting around people during the slow times, and then it it'll come back.
• 14:31
  Michael Van Hall: It always does.
• 14:33
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah, appreciate that.
• 14:35
  Bill Gilliland: Appreciate that.
• 14:35
  Bill Gilliland: So, lastly, what's the best way for someone to get a hold of you if they want to get a home inspection or just want to talk to you?
• 14:43
  Michael Van Hall: Yeah, um, call my phone number, 828-484-2202.
• 14:49
  Michael Van Hall: And um, website, just the name, Blue Mountain Home Inspections.com.
• 14:54
  Bill Gilliland: I love it.
• 14:55
  Bill Gilliland: That's easy.
• 14:56
  Michael Van Hall: And and the other again, the other thing, of course, these days too, but make everything as easy as possible for the customer.
• 15:01
  Michael Van Hall: And that's with your website signing up for inspections, payment, all that kind of stuff.
• 15:07
  Michael Van Hall: Spend the money you need to to make it easy.
• 15:11
  Bill Gilliland: Perfect, perfect.
• 15:12
  Bill Gilliland: So that's fant fantastic.
• 15:16
  Bill Gilliland: Listen, thank you so much for being part of our community and all you're doing out there.
• 15:20
  Bill Gilliland: Uh, we know that you're gonna be a continued success.
• 15:24
  Bill Gilliland: You've obviously you obviously love what you do, and that's half the battle, right?
• 15:28
  Michael Van Hall: Yep.
• 15:29
  Michael Van Hall: I do.
• 15:31
  Bill Gilliland: Hey, and until next time, all the best.
• 15:34
  Michael Van Hall: Thanks so much.
• 15:35
  Michael Van Hall: I appreciate it, Bill.