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From Crawlspaces to Classrooms: How Justin Berger Revolutionized Home Inspection · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hey there, welcome to this episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I am Bill Gilliland, your host.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I am the principal at Action Coach, business Growth Partners and one of the founders of the Asheville Business Summit, and I am super pumped today to have Justin Berger from the Home Inspection Collective with me.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: So, justin, tell us a little bit about you and what the heck the Home Inspection Collective is.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, bill.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, looking forward to having a conversation with you and all the listeners that are out there.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, home Inspection Collective.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I get asked that all the time, like, why did you go with the collective?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: The collective, what is that?
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: And it actually my business model changed when I first started the business to what it has evolved to today.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Originally, I just wanted to be a scheduling company, so I just wanted to have a handful of home inspectors out there that I trusted that I could send work to or leads to.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, I found out quite quickly that that business model wasn't going to work, because it was hard to really protect any IP that we had and also to keep other inspectors from poaching the realtors that we've been working with that send us leads.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And so we changed the model and said you know what, let's build out a team.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: And so we changed the model and said you know what?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Let's build out a team, not necessarily a team at Home Inspection Collective, but a team of subcontractors that we use on a regular basis to help us, our agents and our clients with home inspections.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: And so that is Home Inspection Collective, and we've been servicing Asheville since 2017.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Well, asheville and the surrounding areas since 2017.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, when you say that you have a team of subcontractors, tell us more about that model.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, in-house we have two full-time inspectors, so we have Sean and Kayshawn, but the subcontractor side of that is professionals that were not licensed to do any type of formal inspections, and so most of our clients ask us to do what's called a termite inspection or a pest inspection with our general home inspection, and so we have colleagues that are subcontractors to us, and one of those would be Jake with Recon Pest, and so we've teamed up with him since 2017 to do specific inspections, again, that we're not qualified or licensed to do.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And then other subcontractors that we use is Emma.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: She is our chimney sweep and, as you can imagine, her schedule is filling up quickly this time of year because everyone wants to get their wood stove or fireplace cleaned and ready to now for about six months.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: And we're and again, as a subcontractor she's a subcontractor on paper, but she's obviously, uh, one of our team members, um, even though she's compensated a little bit differently than than our home inspectors.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And then other subcontractors that we use is septic.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So we uh, we have companies that we subcontract out to do septic and well inspections and I think that's it for yeah, that's it for subcontractors.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So basically, if you want to get anything inspected around your house, pretty much you're a source for that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's great, I understand.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I understand the model now so let's jump to the business.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So you I mean you, you started with one model.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: You kind of it wouldn't say completely changed.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It seems like you just morphed it a little bit to be to meet what the what the market would differently.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: But if you had to start from square one, what would you do differently?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: one.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: What would you do differently, man?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: That is, that's a great question.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Someone asked me that the other day and, you know, out of uh, you know, I've reflected on a little bit and and my answer kind of changed a little bit because I don't know, I don't know that I would change anything.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Um, I have a.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of quotes, but I have one in particular that I like, and it's, you know, what got you here, won't get you there, and so my journey in entrepreneurship, or being a business owner, has been just one wall after another, one ceiling after another.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And so would I change anything?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: You know, probably not, because every, every obstacle that I had to, that I was up against, I had to find a solution for it.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Um, and so that was, that was my answer when I was asked that before.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: But my answer has now changed, um to where, uh, you know, one of the biggest challenges that that I've had to face and that I will continue to face, is just self-awareness.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Um, my, you know this, this idea that I was the best home inspector in Asheville.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I came to this realization that, no, I'm not the best home inspector in Asheville, and then it's like okay, so what do we do about that?
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: If you're not the best, how do you get the best or how do you find the best?
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: And so then I just said, okay, we have to build out a team, let's find someone that's better than me at doing home inspections, and so that kind of changed how we looked at our business personally and professionally.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Is that self-awareness to where?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I am constantly trying to determine what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are, and if I had to go back and start over, I would identify what I'm really good at and what I'm terrible at, and then I would find those people and surround myself with those individuals that excel at some of those things that I'm not Like.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I will never be a bookkeeper, I don't have the bandwidth to sit behind a computer and look at numbers every single day, or doing my taxes, or doing marketing or whatever that it is, and so so I certainly had this mind shift changed of like okay, stop trying to take on all of these things that I shouldn't be doing, because I'm not good at it and I don't want to learn it, and let's find someone that's better at it and let's get them on board with us to help us with the path of the business that we want to run and operate, and so self-awareness, that is my answer.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit about you know.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I had a mentor one time said you got to learn to commit ego side.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You got to.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You know, you got to put the ego.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: You got to put your ego aside and get going on it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: What?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So it sounds like that was a good learning.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: What other learnings have you had as an employer?
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: What other learnings have you had as an employer?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the struggles that we face in our industry and this isn't specific to my business is hiring.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It's finding just in terms of like filling the role as a home inspector.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: That will continue to be our biggest hurdle and our biggest challenge, and it is because we're a licensed state and so we have to meet some basic requirements that allow us to do a home inspection.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: And there's not a lot of people out there that know about our industry or that are excited about our industry or even know anything about how to get into becoming a home inspector.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And so every time that we're looking to build our team, our internal team with home inspectors we have, you know, indeed ads that are out Word of mouth we're constantly reaching out to other agents or anyone else that knows of a home inspector that might be looking to join a team.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: But our challenge is like when we have such a small pool of candidates, like I might go through one or two, three licensed individuals throughout the year that want to join our team, and when I'm only interviewing one or two candidates, I'm hiring them because out of a specific need, that we're busy and we need inspectors and what I found is if you have one candidate, then you are going to hire that one person.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: That's not really set up for success.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I need to have a pool of 10 candidates, right, and then I need to find the best one out of the group and bring them on board to join our team.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: And so it starts.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: The problem is our industry, because we are a licensed state.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: There are several companies out there that offer pre-licensing certification, so it's usually 120 hours of online training.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Then you have to take 80 hours of field training, which is not done here in Asheville.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: But the companies that offer that service, they're selling other stuff, so they have a hidden agenda, right.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: So it's not about getting someone licensed.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: They're trying to sell them their reporting software.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: They're trying to sell them their insurance.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: They're trying to I mean, you name it.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: They're trying to pitch it Like I get it right of being a business owner and all the benefits of it and you can make a hundred thousand dollars a year.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: You know after one or two years of being in the industry and that's extremely misleading.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And so when I have conversations with recently licensed individuals that they had this idea that I'm going to be a business owner.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to run my own business and I'm going to make a hundred grand a year.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: All I need is five inspections a week.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Right, and it's really.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's one thing to be licensed and know how to do a home inspection, but it's another thing just to get your phone to ring, and so.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: So our biggest challenge is having conversations, finding talent that are already licensed.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Um and then, and then having conversations with these newly licensed individuals like hey, I understand that you might run a business, but let's talk about that a little bit, because there's two paths in our industry or the business owner, or you work for another inspection company, and, unfortunately, most of the new business owners that decide to go that path start their own business.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: They're out of business within six months and we lose track of them because they're no longer interested in our industry, because now they're selling cars, you know, down the road, or they're installing cabinets, or, and so they've, they've, so they, they were promised this idea, or they were promised this you know this really cool gig and an awesome industry with X, you know, earning potential and then they're out of business in a short time period and so so that's so which?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: So I'm challenged.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I'm challenged with trying to identify people that are licensed or thinking about getting licensed, and then just helping them through that process of hey, is this really something that you're interested in, like, why do you want to be a business owner, why do you want to be a business owner, or why do you want to be a home inspector?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And so now it's kind of changed to where now I'm building a pipeline of non-licensed people and now I'm having those conversations with them early and walking them through that process about being licensed, having a conversation with them about what's going to be your marketing strategy if you're a business owner, or do you like taking vacations and not having your phone ring.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And so if I can help a potential team member decide what career path might be right for them, then at that point we say, okay, we're going to keep you on our pipeline, we're going to help you through the licensing process, we're going to keep you on our pipeline, we're going to help you through the licensing process, and then at that point then we can start bringing in some more qualified and already licensed individuals to join our team.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: But that is like a six month to a one year play, and so it's the long game just in terms of building out our team with licensed people.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: But that is our biggest challenge is finding the right people to do the job.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I get it, I get it.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It seems like you have to play the long game with that, because I mean, the other option would be to, every time somebody gets licensed and comes into the marketplace, you should talk to them like right away and say, hey look, here's the deal, here's.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You know, this is the way it goes.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I know, you know you're likely to be successful.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: If you're successful, that's great.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: But if you get out there and it gets hard and you don't, you know, come see me, we can have a chat, we can, we can.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: You know, come see me, we can have a chat, we can make this work out for you.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So it's an interesting one in that.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I worked with some locksmiths.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: It's the same deal.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: They've got very high licensing standards and you know it's hard to be licensed because you know they have criminal background checks and all kind of stuff in that.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm sure they have that here too.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting one.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: So what are some of the common misconceptions that you hear about running a business?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: About running a business.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you've probably heard it time and time again, but time freedom that always seems to kind of pop up.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's hard work.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It is extremely hard work to run a business, especially a small business or a startup, when you're you're wearing multiple hats and uh, and so that's yes.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Just kind of circle back that if anyone is interested in starting a business, I mean I would start early in finding the right people to help you through that process.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Um, but you know, we've we've built a business since 2017 that we're always on call.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: So my wife Sonia, she does all the admin stuff, so she answers phones, emails, sending out reports, all the scheduling, and that doesn't stop when we're on vacation, and so we made it after hours.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: We have this internal saying in our business that we answer the call and and we do.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: If someone calls us, like either my wife or I will sprint into the garage to get the main line before it rings three times Right, it's just kind of a fun thing that we do here, but, um, but I think that, yeah, time freedom and then just trying to separate yourself from a business that you're either passionate about or you have a lot of financial investment in.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: It's a challenge.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: It's a challenge just to kind of step back and take a break, which is needed and necessary, but it's certainly hard to do.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: So how do you balance the personal and the business lives?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know that we do.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Hmm, yeah, I mean it's, it's.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a challenge too, because you know my wife works for the business and so you know when we're having conversations at dinner our kids know like hey, we have a rule we don't talk about business and um, but yeah, it's it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: it certainly is a challenge that you know.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: We, we, you know my wife and I, we we try to separate ourselves from the business how and when we can and not talk about it, because there's always something to talk about.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: There's always something to do with the business.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can talk about it 24-7 if you wanted.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's no, there's no.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no, there's no question.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: That's why I ask it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: It sounds like at least you got some boundaries around meal time anyway, so we did.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's, that's a good idea.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: So what do you attribute your growth to?
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I wish that I had an answer for that, but I don't know because we're not really tracking it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: But I don't know because we're not really tracking it, and so you know it's been kind of an interesting rollercoaster ride just in terms of business, specifically in real estate, Because we all know it's pretty volatile it's.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: You know, it's really hot this year or we're going to see a down year, and it's a rollercoaster ride, the highs and lows of it, and we have seen 20% growth year after year, and so you know it's so for us, like I don't, I don't really focused on things that that I can't control, or my actions within my business, and so I saw something the other day that you know real estate sells.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: It's the lowest point that it's been in, however many years that it's been in, and it was a little confusing to me because we're up 20% and so I don't, I don't, so all the outside noise is not really being reflected in our numbers, and so, um, and and I'll be honest with you we've never really had a marketing strategy, and so most of our business is word of mouth, and it's kind of an interesting business because we now we have a marketing strategy right, but we're marketing to someone who's not going to be our client.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: So we market to realtors, who then refer us to their clients and so, uh, but our business has has always been built off of word of mouth referrals, um, from realtors, um, and that represented probably 90,.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: You know, 90% of our business is from those referrals and that, to me, is a little scary.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I'd like to see it a little bit more of a 50-50 balance, just in terms of realtor referrals than our direct-to-consumer clients.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And so part of our marketing strategy now is essentially that we do have a plan on social media just to build awareness and brand awareness to a potential buyer.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: We have a pay-per-click ad campaign on Google that is certainly bringing us in some good leads, but we're still probably operating at that.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe 80 to 90 percent of our business is built off of agent referrals.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's historically the way it's worked.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But you know, I do think it's out there there is.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: There's opportunity for you know people to get their house inspected and see what, see what the heck's wrong with it, and fix it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: You know, fix it before they want to sell it.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Or maybe even if they don't want to sell it, they may just want to know what's wrong with it.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So it's an iffy thing.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So what qualities do you look for in employees?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: I look for excellent communicators.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I look for excellent communicators I don't look for.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, what we do is you have to have a basic understanding about construction techniques and practices and all that.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: But so I don't look for anyone to join our team on the inspection side that has any type of construction experience.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And during our interview process, I actually tell them if you tell me that you know how to wire an outlet, we're going to, we're going to stop that conversation and we're going to talk about some things that are a little bit more important for us, and and how we, as an employer can meet your needs and how you as an employee can meet our needs.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Like it has to be a win-win for us both.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And so Sean and Kayshawn, our two inspectors, both have a background in hospitality, no-transcript, and so my approach to, and our approach to, home inspections is more about just being educators.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: And, as you can imagine, home inspectors don't get invited to a lot of parties, because that's what we do.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: We walk into someone's home and then we can't turn it off and we're like hey, like you know, you have termites in your garage.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Or hey, do you see that ceiling stain or whatever that it is?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: And so, uh, and so we try to separate ourselves from that and just be educators and not just home inspectors and so, um.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: So I'm looking for.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: The individuals that we're looking for are someone that has a really calm demeanor and, again, are just really really, uh, are just really really.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: They put a lot of emphasis on that communication and having that human to human connection during the home inspection.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mostly what we see, you know, in hiring people is that it's the intangibles, it's not the skills, it's the you know, can they talk to people, can they get it?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So I mean I think that's important.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: So be EPIC or EPIC.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: You know the EPIC and EPIC Entrepreneurs is an acronym.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So I want to do a quick fire round here of a couple of words or sentences about each piece of the acronym.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: So just give me a couple of thoughts on the B stands for bring the energy.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Bring the energy All right.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So ask me that again Am I in how it relates to my business?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And whatever your beliefs are around bringing energy to your.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we're talking about business, but yeah, I mean, what is how?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: you know, how does now give give us a couple thoughts about energy yeah, we uh, bringing the energy for us is really that client experience, and that starts when we get that first interaction.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Whether it's an email, whether it's a call um, we're always the first to respond, uh, in group emails that come out, and so, uh, yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: So it's like, yeah, bring the energy starts from that first interaction to the end, that we're always looking for something positive to end any of our interactions with.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And so, like a home inspection, like we just told them that you know, it's got termites, it's got roofing leaves, it's got all these things.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: But we had that conversation with them on the deck enjoying the view that they're going to enjoy for the next, however long they're going to be enjoying that, and so, yeah, so bringing the energy is just being energetic and being excited for our clients, like they're purchasing a home.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: This should be fun, it should be exciting.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Right, yep, got it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So the E is education, and you've talked about that a little bit.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: So what are your thoughts around education?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: My thoughts are how do we get better?
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: The more we know, the better equipped we are to to help our clients.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Um, so that is the.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: So that's the education part, like in the field with our guys, but for me I've I've kind of taken a different role in my business.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I no longer do home inspections and so I you know I use this analogy from crawl spaces to classrooms and, and so now I teach.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: So I am certified by the state of North Carolina to teach continuing education classes for realtors.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So for four hours they get to hear me talk about septics and termites and issues that we find in home inspections.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: And so bring that education.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: It goes beyond our team.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I want to, I want to empower agents to where they are better qualified when they show up on site on a listing appointment or showing appointment that they can show up to the table and being that reference for their clients.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, it's yeah, education is key, yeah.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And it makes our lives easier as home inspectors Right is key, yeah, and it makes our lives easier as home inspectors, right, yeah.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, the whole idea of the acronym was like all right, what does it take to be successful?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And so when I wrote a book, that's what I wrote it about, so I had to spell something.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: So BEPIC sounded pretty good.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: So the P stands for planning.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know very many successful people who don't do some sort of planning.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Planning, planning's hard right.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Yep, that is yeah, and I'll be honest with you that that's that's one gap in our business is is the planning, Because there needs to be purpose behind it and you can't just set goals to set goals, and I've realized that this year we set some pretty ambitious goals for 2025.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And looking at our numbers, you know, halfway through after Q2, it's like, okay, we're not even going to come close to hitting these goals that we had.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: And so we adjusted.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: So we adjusted some of our planning and how we were, how we were going to tackle some of the problems that are some of the goals that we were going to try to achieve, um, for this year.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: But, uh, yeah, but planning there's, there's gotta be purpose behind it.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, moving forward, it's like, okay, let's, let's set our goals.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: And then it's as simple as just working backwards and in one of the things that we've recently done, uh, again, just, you know, identifying my, my strengths and my weaknesses is, um, is is part of that planning.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: And so we hired a fractional CMO who came in on a three month retainer to help us with that, to help us with our planning.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: What is our marketing strategy going to be for the next 30, 60, 90 days and helping us come up with the plan and, more importantly, the execution.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I'm an idea person.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I'm not an executor.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I am not an executor and plan, but few people actually do it, so it's a pretty interesting one.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, the I stands for inspiration.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Well, for our team, it's inspiring them to get better every single day and then giving them the tools that they need to make that happen.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Um, and then it's.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: It's for my children I, I, I hope that they see me working hard and their mother working hard, um, and I would inspire them to find something that they're good with or passionate about, and inspiring them to start their own business.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: My daughter we pay her to do chores around the house and I said, listen, sweetheart, she's 13.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I said, listen, I'm not going to pay you until I have an invoice, perfect.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And it took her three months to write me an invoice.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: And I said, okay, here's the invoice.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: But we haven't really, uh, defined the scope of work.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: So define the scope of work, right.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: So now I have an understanding about what you're doing and you have an understanding about what you're doing.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: And that took another, you know, three, four weeks.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And the other day she gave me an invoice with the scope of work and what I owe her.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: And now I have to pay up.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, so yeah, inspiring my kids to consider entrepreneurship in, in whatever activities that they're interested in in life.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have we.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to say we don't need better and more jobs, and that seems to be the focus of politics, because that's great, that helps the economy.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: But what I think we need is more entrepreneurs who create more jobs.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: So it's the.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I think that's where the money should go, in my opinion.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: But I'm in the minority still, because it's easier just to throw money at jobs, I think.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: But that's not a political statement.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: That's across the aisles, that's left and right, so near as I can tell that every government wants to throw money at jobs.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So C?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: C stands for commitment.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my commitment is to my team.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: It is extremely important to me and this is something that we talk about often, just in terms of what our team looks like, just in terms of personnel, and you know, we, we operate always around 80% capacity.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Um, and based on our benchmarks, that is the time to hire, and so we are looking to fill a spot in January, um, and?
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: But my one of my commitments to them was like, hey, like I understand that you probably love being a home inspector, but you're providing for your family, and so my commitment to them was like we're not going to hire another inspector until we hit certain benchmarks, because if I bring on another inspector, you need to understand that's going to be pulling some work from you.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: And I don't need you stressed out, I don't want you stressed out about money, I don't want you stressed out about the don't want you stressed out about money, I don't want you stressed about, stressed out about the jobs that you're getting or not getting and and so so that commitment is is, and that's just one example of many that is, you know, I want, I want our team to really have a I hate calling it a job, it's not a job, it's a career I want.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I want them to have a career that they enjoy, that they when they get home at five o'clock.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: They've done the best that they possibly could, and now it's time for them to spend with their family, and and so it's giving them the right tools to be able to do that.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But Perfect, yeah, no, do that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Perfect, yeah, no, that's perfect, that's perfect.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Well, there you have it.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Be epic.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: That's how you be epic in the home inspection business.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: So what's the next big thing for the home inspection collective?
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: What's up next, the next big thing?
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Man, I'm really excited about this.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: But yeah, just in terms of entrepreneurship, we, you know, we're always looking for opportunity, and it's funny, when you're looking for opportunity, you tend to find opportunity, and so then it's just trying to figure out which opportunities is best for you, or the right ones, or the wrong ones, right, and so, uh, so some of the challenges that we had was with our subcontractors on the septic side.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: We determined that we could do things a little bit differently to enhance our, our client experience, and so we started a septic business.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: So we have local septic that we started last year.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Um, and then so home home service and yeah, you're hearing it first, but we're launching a tech business here in the next 30 days and it's called HomeCast, and it is what you would expect.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: It's a forecast for your home.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I talk about in my continuing education classes is there are, you know, we've inspected like 10,000 homes right in Western North Carolina and it's gotten to the point that I can really predict what we're going to find on that home inspection.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: And so HomeCast is a software-based business that helps agents have a better understanding about what a home inspector is going to find on an inspection.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: But the timing is what's important and exciting, because what the process is now, if you were to buy a home, an agent is going to show multiple homes and then finally find the one.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: They have to negotiate it, get it under contract and then all the inspections come.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: And when the inspections come, ultimately there can be something that's found in that home inspection where a potential buyer would be like you know what I'm not OK with this.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Like I know I understand there's water getting in this basement and it just kind of hit me the other day like why are we having that conversation with the buyer after the inspection when a lot of these things are predictable?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: They didn't start waterproofing and damp proofing foundations until the 1980s, even into the 1990s.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: So taking this idea of homes that are built in specific time periods are known to have certain issues, and so HomeCast gives agents those tools up front so they can have those conversations with their clients before the showing and before the offer and before the the home inspection, and so they're going to have higher closing rates.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: You're going to have clients that aren't going to be caught with surprises when a lot, of, a lot of these things are known.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It feels like that yeah that's awesome.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: It feels like the seller ought to be.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: You know, may want to repair those things and get more for their house.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of times just doing the repairs makes their house more valuable because they're going to try to get.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, you know, I did that one time I had an inspector come on a house that we were going to sell.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I just had him come out and tell me everything's wrong.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: We just fixed it and you know so there wasn't any.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So when he came back, there was and the seller got the I mean, the buyer got the inspection at a lower price because he had just been there six months earlier while we fixed area.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: You know, to me I was also on a board one time at a church and you know big plant and equipment essentially, and you know we just made a prediction of like when we were going to have to fix everything and it seems like that's what you're doing there, like all right, this is probably about the lifetime of this furnace.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: This is probably about what's going to.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: You know, you might, you're probably going to have this electrical issue at some point, because this is how old the house is.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's, I think that's.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So well, that's exciting, that is exciting.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Last question how do people get in touch with you?
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: How do you get in touch with you?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Uh, how do you get in touch with us?
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Go to our website, homeinspectioncollectivecom, um, and make sure to read some of our reviews about what our clients are saying and experience that they had.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: We have 580 five-star reviews, um.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, check us out online and our website.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: We'll have a telephone number that if you need to reach us the schedule inspection or just have questions about home inspections or the process, or if you're considering a career in home inspections, like, yeah, find my number online and give me a shout.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not going to go away.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: It feels like that's a great career choice.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I mean they's not going to go away.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: It feels like that's a great career choice.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I mean they're always going to be.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: It's always going to be there.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: So, and in this area we're still growing, it's going to keep growing here.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think you know that people are.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: You know, we had a disaster in the, in the not and not like a lean, but in the COVID, and more people moved here.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't like people left, they came instead of leaving.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: So it's going to continue.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: So, hey, thanks for being part of our community, Thanks for all you're doing, Thanks for being an entrepreneur, Thanks for acting on your ideas.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that's just awesome.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, we certainly know you're going to be continuously successful.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Bill hey, and until next time, all the best.