PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Beon DeNood
This is Inspector Toolbelt Talk.

Ian Robertson
James Dick, thank you so much for being on today. I appreciate it. You’re a busy guy, so thanks for being on.

James Dick
Yep. Hey, my pleasure, man. Thanks for having me.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. So, just so everybody knows why we have James on today. I love inspectors that do unique things or things that other inspectors, inspection companies don’t do, and create a niche for themselves and just run an awesome business. And I want to tell everybody about what James is doing. But James, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we can get into why we have you on today a little bit more.

James Dick
Yeah, I have my own solo home inspector business. Been doing it for about 10 years. I love what I do, and I’m always trying to figure out the next thing. And I’ve always been that way, pretty much since I started this. You know, had the business, come up with one thing, and it’s you know, it’s that time of year where things slow down, and let the wheel starts spinning in my head, and what’s the next thing I’m going to do. And it’s been that way since I started the radon, and then took on termite, and then took on sewer, and then the most recent thing was chimney, and that’s probably been the biggest thing for my business. And like you said, it’s just been the niche for me that no one else does. And so I’ve made that my lane, and I kind of been running with it ever since.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and what you’ve done with your chimney business has been amazing. So tell us a little bit about what you do and how you do it, because that’s really what we’re here to talk about.

James Dick
A lot of it is, just ran through my home inspection business, you know, as an extra service, and one way I’m able to sell it. Well, I got certified. That was one of the first things. The first thing I did, I took a class through Copperfield Chimney. I took a level two training course through them, which was probably the best course I’ve ever taken. And then that right there piqued my interest. I was the only home inspector in the class, but I was the guy constantly raising my hand throughout the whole course, and I loved it. And then after that, went and bought a camera, and started doing just the inspections, and it was a pretty easy sale. Like I noticed right away, if I offered it, people were getting it. It wasn’t something that I really had to push on people. And one of the things I did is, since I do my own sewer inspections, this is just something I came up with, so I do my own sewer and I do my own chimney. I made it a package deal, and that pretty much sold them both every single time. And also I have a few other home inspectors that I’m kind of buddy with buddies, the kind of guys that if I’m not able to get to a job, I refer them my inspections and just kind of told them like, hey, if you ever have someone ask, I can do that for you. I can do a chimney, and they don’t try to sell it as much as me. So it’s just like one here or there, and then I got another home inspection business that does sell them pretty frequently. They’re bigger. They got a few different home inspectors, and so I usually get one a week from them. So it’s just nice little icing on the cake for that. And then I get the people that, because I started a DBA and put a whole other side business out there, just random phone calls. So it’s worked out pretty well for me.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and what you’ve done is put the effort into a real high-value ancillary service. And the reason that I wanted to have you on today is because so many of us in our industry don’t or won’t do that kind of thing. For instance, when we started doing septic inspections, you know, pulling the lids, running the cameras, doing hydraulic load tests, and all this other stuff, nobody did it, and everybody’s like, “No, don’t, don’t, don’t do that. Too much liability. Too much this. Too much that.”

James Dick
I hear that every single time I bring on something different.

Ian Robertson
Right?

James Dick
Yeah, termite inspection, like, “Oh, too much liability. Sewer, too much liability.” I’m like, if I said that about everything, I’d just be doing inspections. I’d be making half as much money. I’d be having to chase down twice as many jobs, and there’s just as much liability in the home inspection.

Ian Robertson
I mean, there’s more liability in the home inspection than any of those services combined.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
You know, it just doesn’t make sense to me. But you push through that, and really, this podcast is more about ancillary services because that’s where our money is made and businesses are grown. The home inspection almost just burns off overhead in a lot of ways. It makes us money, but it’s like okay, sewer scope and septic inspections, chimney inspections, all that stuff is highly valuable to the point where you’ve even created a whole separate business for it, and the businesses feed each other, don’t they?

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
One holds the hand of the other.

James Dick
And I’ll say, with me being able to do all those separate services, I’d rather do one inspection in all those services and be able to do all those services myself. But when I get two inspections in one day, which I do a lot of times in the summer, I was mostly doing two a day. I then have to bring in other guys. I have to bring in a sewer guy. I have to bring in the termite guy. Well, I quit doing radon altogether. I got these two monitors over here collecting dust, and you don’t make that much more doing two inspections a day than I will just doing one where I could do everything myself. I’m like, I got to pay this sewer guy, you know, almost 200 bucks, 400 bucks because he’s doing two of them for me that day when I could have just did that one myself, and I’m paying this termite guy, I mean, I could have made a little bit less just on one inspection. I’d rather do that.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and you know the chimney thing too, especially the reason I keep bringing that up is it’s different and something that I hear people say, no, I would never do. We’ve mentioned it even on the podcast before. Like, there’s a competitor in my area does chimney sweeps. Man, does he make a killing with chimney sweeps. A couple competitors, I should say. It’s one of those things where people are like, “You shouldn’t touch that as a home inspector.” And I think that home inspectors say that to make themselves feel better about not doing it. I think it’s a subconscious thing.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
Because chimney inspections, I mean, they’re profitable. They’re low equipment. I mean, you have your camera and your sweeps and stuff like that, but it also becomes recurring revenue. Like you can have contracts, you know, yearly contracts with…I have a buddy who does chimney sweeping, and he has a yearly contract with this condo association. Does all their chimneys once a year every year, and he has other contracts.

James Dick
One of the best things with the sweeps, you know, this is only my second season doing the sweeps, but it comes in right at the same season where the inspections start to slow down.

Ian Robertson
That’s convenient. That’s awesome.

James Dick
And you know what I mean. And it’s October, November, December. What happens to the home inspections? They start to slow down a little bit. When do people start getting their chimneys swept? Right at that season, and even in January, stuff like that. And so I’m like, you know, it works kind of hand in hand. And I was always, even as inspections, pushing people to get a level two chimney inspection. Well, I would recommend it be done. I had someone that I liked, but this time of year he couldn’t get there for a month, and we got 10 days to get him there. You know, so it’s like, hey, you should get this done, but you can’t get there within your inspection period. So, what’s the point of me recommending this service?

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and the level two chimney inspections are so incredibly important. I can’t tell you how many times after inspection, all right, get a level two chimney inspection. Something doesn’t feel right. I think most inspectors will look at a chimney and will be like, yeah, something’s just not right here. They get it done, and then they need a new liner or something bigger was going on.

James Dick
Yeah, I just left the house where the whole chimney was pulling away from the house. The house I just came from. You could see the caulk line from the house as it was going up, pulling away. Went inside. You know how normally outside a house when you got lintel, it rusts, it expands, and it cracks the brick. Well, you can see the lintel inside; it was rusting and expanding. And you go outside, and you can see the brick actually cracking all the way through outside, and the damper was rusted all the way through. I mean, there was just problems with it, and so the home inspector did his job by calling it and saying you needed to get this further evaluated. That’s why I was there because he really did hit it hard. He didn’t get all those items, but he could see that there was water intrusion, and so he really told he really let them know that this should be further evaluated, and so that allowed me to get in there and let them know that yeah, you do have problems.

Ian Robertson
And that’s the beautiful thing about ancillary services. It also opens up, like you talked about, you have inspectors who are friends in your area, and you scratch their back, and they scratch yours. You watch each other’s backs, which I love, by the way. I’ve always said that we should have more of that in the industry, especially when we’re solo operators. But that also leads to, we have inspectors, home inspectors that refer us all the time.

James Dick
Yeah, great referral partners.

Ian Robertson
Right? We already have the network. And it’s like, they’re not going to always be referring us for the home inspection, but you know what? Septic, level two chimney inspections or other things that they don’t do, you know, they’re going to refer us all the time. So that’s that’s an important thing. There’s actually a growing number, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked out there, James, on this, but there’s a growing number of inspection companies that only do the ancillary stuff, and I find that highly interesting. That there’s companies that they only service really home inspectors or homeowners for the various different inspections, but they’re like, hey, you need termite, you need this or that, you need pool. We’ll show up and we’ll do all your ancillaries. We don’t advertise our company. We’re just subcontracting to you.

James Dick
Yeah, and I can see that working too.

Ian Robertson
Right.

James Dick
Yeah, I remember one guy trying to do that. I can’t remember, I don’t know whatever happened. He called me and he was pitching that idea, but that was before I did all those things, and I had people. And usually, you know, if I have people that I’ve worked with, and they’ve never given me a reason not to use them, even if someone came at me with a cheaper price, you know, I stuck with that guy. And you know, we have a service here called. I think it’s pretty much only done in St. Louis area, called gas safety inspections, and I’ve been where the guy comes out, he does a combustion analysis on the furnace, pressurizes the gas lines, looks for leaks. He’ll put gages on the AC so we get a little more in depth in that. And I’ve been working with the same guy now for probably six years, and someone could come along with a cheaper price. But you know, if I’m working with someone, feel comfortable with them, I’m just gonna go with that guy. And yeah, it was a company, approached me. It was a long time ago, but yeah, same idea, and they were gonna give a cheaper price. But I’m not sure whatever happened to them, if they’re still around or not. But that was the only time I’ve ever seen or heard of someone doing that.

Ian Robertson
It used to be a very rare thing. I actually considered doing it, you know, 10-20, years ago, but it’s becoming more and more common now. But I think that’s also a good example of why price isn’t so important. Loyalty, doing a good job, adding value, like even you hiring another inspection company, you’re like, I’m not going on price. I want to go on who I can trust.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
But what advice would you give to home inspectors out there, listeners, to break out of our own mentality on things? Because I’ll be honest with you, I freak out every time I add on a new service. Every single time, I had to deconstruct my ego, my sense of self, and die a little inside, and then I can do it. How do you do it, James?

James Dick
It’s always stepping outside of your comfort zone. Yeah, I never approach any of these lightly. I always do more than just the minimum as far as training, like I did the level two chimney course. I took a course offered by United Infrared. I don’t know if you ever heard of them before. They got a course called Chimney Scan, and that is geared towards chimney inspectors. So I took that course, and then there’s, it’s called CVC. That’s how I got my certification for CSI, and it’s called CVC. I think it’s Success 15 Consultants. That’s what it is, and they have hundreds of courses on there. And I just would every day be watching chimney stuff, and then I went and practiced on other people’s chimneys, and to the point to where I had my certifications, taking multiple courses. I didn’t just take one course. I wanted to make sure I had as much training as possible before I went out there and just started doing it. And with the sewer inspections. I took the ASHI training course. Jim Krumm, is that his name?

Ian Robertson
I don’t know who teaches that course in particular.

James Dick
Yeah, they have an ASHI certification course, and then they have the Inspector Cameras course. I took both of those courses before I went out and started just doing my sewer inspections with the termite, I took some course. It was on InterNACHI, and then I just found another random course. I can’t remember who it was through, but I took a couple courses, you know, just to give myself confidence to be like, okay, I know this stuff. But that’s the one thing you do have to be licensed here in Missouri. So I always want to make sure, like, all right, I did more than enough, not just the minimum. And then, you know, being around these other guys for at least a handful of years and seeing what they do, watching their process, also gave me the confidence because anytime my termite guy was there, I’d see what he was doing, see the evidence that he was showing my clients, watch my sewer guys’ videos. The chimney thing is the one thing that I really went out there on a limb and kind of had to learn a lot of it myself.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of that, a lot of what you just mentioned, showed the importance of first of all, recognizing a market opening. So you looked at something and you said people need this service, but then you went the extra mile and said they don’t need a junky version of this service. They need a real professional, and you got more training, more certification, and more experience than you quote unquote needed. I think that’s a great example for us because sometimes, well, I’ll use an example, and if he’s listening, I’m sorry, man, but I had a client recently. He’s like, Ian, I need to add on ancillary services. I’m like, okay, and I gave him a list, and he goes, How about mold? I’m like, okay, you can do that, and it wasn’t, I want to say it was later that day or the day after. He said, here’s my mold certification. Can you put this on the website? I’m going to start doing mold. I’m like, dude, it hasn’t even been 24 hours, and now you’re advertising that you’re a mold specialist. I’m like, can you take some courses? Can you do some things? And it went away. Like, he wasn’t confident in it. He kind of got into a few houses, and people expected more out of him than he was able to or willing to do. There’s a lot to be said about recognizing need in the market, acting on it, but also being qualified for it.

James Dick
Yeah, that was one thing that I started at one time, and you know, it’s a pretty in-depth, that was certification through InterNACHI also, and I didn’t finish it. I’m like, I moved on to something different, and yeah, I tell people they ask for a mold inspection. I have someone I can refer to, but I’m pretty confident during my home inspection process that I tell people that it’s kind of the same thing. We can’t confirm it unless we see it, but I’m pretty confident most of the time if I see something, whether or not it’s mold, I can swab it, but yeah, you can’t just become a certified mold inspector in less than 24 hours.

Ian Robertson
Oh, you can. There’s certifications that you can get pretty quick.

James Dick
Really?

Ian Robertson
Oh yeah, there’s some that you can get pretty quickly. He just ran through some courses, and just, I don’t even remember. There’s some cereal box certifications you can get, so to speak. But I mean, if there’s no licensing, you can just say that you’re a mold inspector. You can say that you’re anything. When I started doing, almost 20 years ago, New York State doesn’t have licensing for pest inspectors. So when they have licensing for every other aspect of pest control, I’ve talked about it on this podcast, so I’m not going to get into it. It’s insane, near impossible to become a pest control operator in under three years. But for pest inspections, there’s nothing. So I know some guys are just like, cool, I’m a pest inspector now. And you know what? Technically, they are. Me? I took so many courses, man, because I’m just like, I need to know everything. I need to know the difference between ant frass and powderpost beetle and what a termite tube is and all that stuff.

James Dick
Yeah, our course, well, it’s not even a course. They just give you a book. I probably got the book on here somewhere. If you gave me a minute, I could probably find it. It’s just a book, and pretty much it’s all about applying pesticides.

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

James Dick
That’s all ours is, and the test is a multiple choice, and half of it is all of the above or true or false. And if you see an all-of-the-above question, select all of the above, and you can get a 50% just by that. The test is pretty simple. Anybody can almost go in there and pass it. But I studied real hard, thinking it was going to be a difficult test, and I went in there. I’m like, this is a joke.

Ian Robertson
Well, I guess it’s kind of like there’s a difference between being licensed or certified and being qualified. Just take a drive out on the road, right, man? We have all these licensed drivers, but the vast majority of them are not qualified to drive well. So we want to be a qualified driver. We want to be well practiced. We want to understand the vehicle that we’re in. We want to know all the situations and scenarios, not just hold a driver’s license and say, okay, here I am. I’m going to start doing chimneys. I’m going to start doing septics. I’m going to start doing pests. But what would you say is where we miss the mark as inspectors when we’re getting ready to add a service? Because I see a lot of guys, quote unquote, add service. And then it kind of flops. Where do you find that it flops for most guys?

James Dick
That’s a tough one. Where does it flop for the most part?

Ian Robertson
Is it the execution, or is it like they learn all this stuff and they’re like, this is so hard, and they stop.

James Dick
Most of the stuff. I mean, you just got to be able to sell it.

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

James Dick
And most of the stuff here that we offer sells itself. You know, I see a lot of the group stuff, and I’m on a sewer inspection page. One of the groups is just dedicated for sewer inspections, and I’ll see people ask like, “How do you sell sewer inspections?” I’m like, in my area, you know, they sell themselves, and then I don’t think people think the same way with the chimney thing, but once I offered it, it sells itself. The couple things that will sell themselves, and you don’t even have to offer in our area, there’s going to be termite and sewer. You know, people call, and I’m like, so what are we going to be doing here? And termite and sewer on almost every house has 80% of homes. If they don’t, and then I’ll ask them, you know, I’ll give them the age of the home, and then if it’s, you know, prior to 1980, I know you’re going to have cast iron. Then I’ll really hit home on you should probably get this done, and I recommend it on every home. But then I’ll really stress it a little bit more. But those are easy sells, and you know, radon is probably on 50% of homes, and upselling here for the most part is pretty easy. So if you offer it, people are going to get it.

Ian Robertson
I think the reason that you sell it so well is you’ve picked the right services for your area, and I think that’s maybe where the point is, picking the right service for our area. Oftentimes, we’ll pick a service that we love instead of one that’s needed. So I see a lot of guys say, well, now I offer infrared, and I took all these courses and blah blah blah. It’s like, okay, cool, but I don’t know a whole lot of inspectors out there selling just infrared inspections. I would say 80-90% of home inspection companies offer infrared. You know, it’s just part of our inspections.

James Dick
Yeah, I think that’s almost part of the norm now, especially if you’re part of the younger generation. I don’t know if the guys who have been around for 20 years have adapted to that or how it works out, but I would think that most guys that are coming into it, kind of see it like this is something that we do now, and it’s a given. I could be wrong. Is that something you feel like you see? Like the younger generation, this is something that they do, while the older generation is kind of like, oh, this is kind of stuck in the way kind of thing.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, actually, now that you say that, that’s exactly what we see. It’s the older generation views it as an add-on, and they’ll even try to charge extra for the infrared. And I’m like, dude, everybody that’s 50 and under is already offering infrared, and it’s just part of the inspection. Like, don’t charge extra for it. In some areas, you do, but I think that’s also just an example of avoiding the things that we don’t like. There’s a contractor I know that gets all of these commercial jet outs for commercial sewer drains, crazy, crazy money, and he refuses to do it. Instead, he gets paid less to do other commercial work, instead of the jet outs. And I asked him why, and he goes, I just don’t like it. He was the first person that was honest with me, because his other worker was just like, oh well, you know, there’s too much liability in the drains, and you never know what you’re getting. He came up with a whole bunch of excuses, but my buddy, the guy who owns the company, goes, I just don’t like it. There’s poop. I don’t want to deal with the poop. And I’m like…

James Dick
It’s usually probably not that bad.

Ian Robertson
It’s really not, but there’s the psychology of it. We will tell ourselves a lot of things about why we shouldn’t add on a service because we don’t want to do it because we don’t want to have it and usually that reason is liability. You mentioned it before, James. If we have a whole home inspection, we have more liability in that house than we would ever have in doing a chimney sweep because we already own the chimney with the home inspection. You know, we actually have less liability doing a level two chimney inspection because now we can actually see what’s inside of it. Is it going to catch on fire? What’s going on in here?

James Dick
And who’s going to follow up behind me and look back up that chimney and know if I missed anything? I’m not saying that I’m just like whatever. Yeah. But you know, what are chances I’m going to go up the chimney, and then the homeowner is going to be like, come up behind me and say, oh, I see that you missed this in my chimney flue. So I mean, I don’t try to look at it as I need to avoid these things because they’re just adding more liability. I understand that there is liability, but the whole job is liability. You just gotta take your time and do it right.

Ian Robertson
And there’s the thing: how do you build a house? One board at a time.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
Just slow your roll, do it right, and everything will be as okay as it’s going to be.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
But I have no problem with liability because everything’s liability. You drive out on the streets, liability. Go in your front yard, there’s liability. If we avoid liability, we’ll just never have a business, never have a life.

James Dick
Yeah, I mean, 10 years and I’ve had to return half a fee two different times so far. So I’m doing all right with as far as, haven’t found myself in the courtroom yet. So I think that’s all right for 10 years.

Ian Robertson
That’s very good for 10 years, and we don’t end up in the courtroom as much as people say we do as home inspectors, anyways.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
All of these ancillary services are important for a lot of reasons, but one thing I like about where you’re headed, and where you’re probably already starting to be at, is having recurring revenue, and I always talk to inspectors about that. Find ways to create recurring revenue. Is it going back yearly? Not for another home inspection. That is a near-impossible sell, in my opinion. People have tried it for 30 years; it just doesn’t work. But can you do yearly chimney sweeps? Can you do water treatment systems? You know, afterwards, can you do yearly gutter cleanups, seal their driveway? I don’t know, maybe not seal their driveway, but you know, any way to build recurring revenue.

James Dick
Yeah, I mean, even if I see the people once every three years, but you know, if I’m doing this for 10 years, and you know, I get the clients that burn, you know, five days a week that need it yearly, or I have the clients that burn once or twice a week. You know, if I have the client that comes and I sweep their chimney and they tell me they burn, you know, five times a winter, I’m not going to tell them they need me to come out every year.

Ian Robertson
Right.

James Dick
But you know, hey, have me out in a few years again, and then they’re going to be a client potentially every three years for me, which is fine. That’s a reoccurring client, like you said. And then maybe when they go to buy a house, they might call me, you know, or they refer me to their neighbor down the street that needs their chimney swept. So I’m already seeing it in one year of doing this that this person tells their neighbor or a friend tells a friend or type of thing that. So I already see it heading in that direction.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and that’s really what it comes down to is your business will grow organically, and then even as you grow, you’re going to start keeping databases of your clients. You’re like, okay, I do chimney sweeps, and I have my home inspection clients. Now I offer water treatment. Now you can market to both client bases. However, it works. It’s important because we’ve talked about on this podcast pest control, at least a couple of different times, being a great recurring revenue service. This water treatment system, a lot of different ancillary services we call them, but they’re really their own standalone service. It makes our business more sellable if we ever want to retire. It makes our business more profitable, and it makes it more predictable. So your business is now more predictable because you know, okay during the summertime, I’m cranking out home inspections, and I’m upselling my sewer scopes and my level two chimney inspections and then when you get to October/November/December, you’re like cool, home inspections slowed down, I’m doing chimney sweeps. You have a much more predictable business model at that point, and it also makes it easier to hire when it comes time to hire. Have you thought about hiring at some point?

James Dick
I think about that, and yeah, I’ve just, that scares me more than taking on a new service, just because I’ve never done that. You know, I’ve been able to keep myself busy, especially this year, you know, I don’t know how much you talk about people’s finances on here, but you know, I’m, I think, 45,000 ahead of where I was this time last year.

Ian Robertson
Dang, nice.

James Dick
Yeah. And so that’s a big jump in just one year. But you know, I have one slow week, and I don’t market. I know me and you just became friends on Facebook. I don’t know if you ever see any of my posts now.

Ian Robertson
I looked over some of them before, I was cyber stalking you before the podcast, James. Sorry.

James Dick
And so, I mean, I do very basic posts. I don’t do anything fancy, but like just last night I had an agent text me or message me on Messenger and say, “Hey, I read your post. I would like to connect with you.” And Facebook is pretty much my marketing, and then Google. You know, I don’t know if you looked at my Google, but I’m at like 390 something reviews on Google now, and so that’s pretty much where I get a lot of my business. And then the new chimney business, where people are randomly calling me, and then yeah, you know, referrals from agents is probably about 50% And then in the last two weeks is the first time I ever had anybody tell me that they got me off a chat where they typed in “best home inspector in St. Louis” and I popped up, which was the first for me. I don’t know if that’s something that is just random, like where one day it’s going to be one person, and the next day it’s going to be the next person.

Ian Robertson
It does change a lot, yeah, and it changes from person to person. So if I have ChatGPT and you have ChatGPT, we’re going to come up with different answers.

James Dick
Yeah, and I did it from my phone, and I’m like, that’s probably a bias, you know. It knows me, and so it’s probably going to pull up my business. But I’m like, oh, that’s good to know that it’s throwing me in the mix at least. So that might be a new way I’m getting the business. But you know, you get those slow weeks, and if I have a day off, then you’re worried about like, what is this other guy doing now that you’re responsible for? That’s my biggest fear. Does that guy have another family? You know what I mean. So I would have to go back out there and really market more than what I’m doing. It’s kind of where this was all going. I know I started rain playing about other things, but yeah, I would have to go out back out there and start chasing business. That’s kind of…

Ian Robertson
Yeah. It’s always a personal decision. Personally, I like a smaller company. It’s more comfortable, less stress. But there’s that old adage: two or 20. Two employees or 20. It’s not an exact number system, but it’s either saying keep it small or keep it big. But everything in between kind of stinks. So I know guys with 10 to 18 inspectors, and their head spins because they’re not big enough to get out of the weeds, but not small enough to have some downtime. But I mean, having two businesses like that, having two streams of income, makes that transition, if you wanted to go that way, you don’t have to, I know some guys that decided years ago, I’m going to stay single inspector. Awesome, but you have opportunities there that others might not because you can say, okay, both businesses are killing it right now. I’m going to hire a chimney sweep guy, and now one company has a guy and the other one doesn’t, or I’m going to hire an inspector to take care of the inspections, or however you want to model it. It opens up options for you that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

James Dick
I would be easier to trust someone to go out and do the chimney sweeps.

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

James Dick
And inspections than it would be for me to go out and trust someone to do a home inspection the way I would do a home inspection.

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

James Dick
That’s a tough one. To be able to just release someone in the wild and have them inspect under your company’s name. But I’m sure you’ve had to do it.

Ian Robertson
It is a hard one, and we’ll relate it back to the ancillary services. There’s always a level of uncomfortableness when we add a new service. We have to get through a barrier. So what we do to get through that barrier is okay, I’m going to add this. I’m going to learn everything I can about it. So you learn about payroll. You learn about hiring. You learn about training, building out an SOP, all this other stuff, and then when the time comes for you to hire, you’re not scrambling. You’re like, okay, I’ve prepared things so that I can hire. I know what hiring platform I’m going to use. I know what I’m going to pay the person, but you don’t have to go that direction. The point is, you’ve built a profitable business by diversifying, by taking ancillary services and not, not having fear, but overcoming fear to be able to add those ancillary services. And I wish I could just repeat myself 1000 times because I still have home inspectors that are in business for 3, 4, 5 years and still don’t have any ancillary services.

James Dick
You need to at least be subcontracting those.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, at the very least.

James Dick
Yeah, I mean, there’s still money to be made there. You need to be subcontracting. And one of the other things that I probably do that I don’t know if any other inspector does, and this is just a selling point for me, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in any of our conversations and messaging, the irrigation system inspections that I offer.

Ian Robertson
Oh yeah, those are good.

James Dick
And that’s not a normal thing in our area. That’s not expected. I’ve only ever had one person ask before, but if you go on my website, that pops up right at the top, and I offer it as a free inspection.

Ian Robertson
Oh wow.

James Dick
And the reason I do is because the guy who does it for me does it for free. He’s looking to build relationships, and a lot of times if he goes and does inspections, and the buyer’s not there, he just takes his sticker, throws it up there on the irrigation system, so he’s like, you know, if one day they have an issue and they’re looking for someone to go make a repair, they go to the irrigation system. They see my phone number. There’s a potential job for them there one day.

Ian Robertson
I’m glad you mentioned that. There’s a buddy of mine that I lost connection with for like 20 years, so obviously not that close of a buddy. But I’ve been reconnecting with him, and his son works with him, and all this other stuff. And he owns an irrigation system business. And I was just thinking because we had somebody get irritated us because we don’t offer irrigation system inspections. And the guy, my buddy who’s doing the irrigation systems, he’s making a killing. He has 10 employees, and he’s just killing it out there because we’re in the Northeast, so not everybody has irrigation systems. So there’s not enough competition out there to, I mean, you can basically build the business a little bit easier than in Florida, where everybody has an irrigation system.

James Dick
I think maybe one in five here probably have one.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, but those are good. That makes it more niche. It makes it more profitable. So there you go. Everybody listening, start doing irrigation system inspections once you’re qualified, please. Follow James…

James Dick
I would think about it, but eventually it’s like, all right, I can only do too much to where I’m on a property for so long.

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

James Dick
Those take a good amount of time…the septic…I got a guy who does pool inspections, and I’ve seen other pool inspectors. This guy, he’s there for a couple hours, because he just kills it. He’s awesome. You see his reports, it’s almost like you’re looking at a home inspection report, and so there’s no replacing what he does. Yeah, I mean, I’m there probably, if I’m just doing a sewer, termite, and a chimney on a 1500 square foot home, I’m going to be there, you know, four and a half hours typically. And that’s not finishing up the report, so I don’t know, throwing in any other inspection services is a good idea or not.

Ian Robertson
I don’t know, man. I love the stack, you know, because I also view it as high value for the client.

James Dick
Well, you know, I’m talking about like doing it myself.

Ian Robertson
Oh yeah, like have an assistant or something.

James Dick
Yeah, I don’t have anything else I could offer, I don’t think.

Ian Robertson
There’s always something.

James Dick
I’m not sure. I’m not sure. Like, what else do you think that is even potentially an inspection service that is out there that I’m not offering?

Ian Robertson
Water treatment systems, septic systems.

James Dick
I do septic.

Ian Robertson
Oh perfect. You do septic.

James Dick
When you say water treatment system, what do you mean exactly?

Ian Robertson
Water softeners, dechlorinators, chlorinators, the whole well pump and all that stuff.

James Dick
I offer well inspections. So you have people out there that just do a water softener inspection.

Ian Robertson
So I tried to get into it, but we didn’t get into it. But there are enough inspectors out there that do just that, and it creates recurring income. We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, and I don’t want to divert too much from our main subject matter. But there are opportunities.

James Dick
Now you got the wheel spinning again, man.

Ian Robertson
And that’s what I love about you, James. That’s the point. Once we get our gears spinning, you know, then you’re like, okay, that idea that at first was just like, that doesn’t seem like a good idea, now we’re like, oh, you know what? There was five of those houses that had X, Y, Z in it. I wonder…

James Dick
That seems like something that would be doable. You know, I see how long the guy spends there on the sprinkler system, because they’re usually on the big homes and the septic. I see how long they’ve been there in the pool. I mean, we’re talking an extra hour at least on some of these.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, it depends. We do pool inspections too, and we make good money on the pool inspections.

James Dick
How much you guys charging for a pool?

Ian Robertson
That I don’t know off the top of my head. I want to say 400, but I’d have to look it up.

James Dick
Yeah, that’s about the same. Well, and the guy also does leak detection. Those ones, he’s like up in the 600s.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, easily.

James Dick
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. But listen, James, this has been a great conversation. We’re running out of time here. I would talk all day with you. But thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. You have two companies that you’re running that are doing very well, and it sounds like you gave yourself some things to think about of some add-on services here.

James Dick
Yeah, I’m gonna have to dive into that.

Ian Robertson
But what I wrote down from our conversation today is find gaps in the market, fully learn how to take over those gaps and how to provide that service 100%, and then fully execute. So that’s a three-step process.

James Dick
Yeah, I wanted to just say one more thing. Anybody out there that is interested in doing the chimney. This is the camera I use. It’s Sweeper Peeper. It’s completely affordable, so you don’t have to go out there and spend $6,000. That’s like a $1,000 camera.

Ian Robertson
Oh, nice.

James Dick
Not even, and it just uses, it’s a 360 Insta, I think it’s Insta 360 is what it’s called, and it’s Wi-Fi goes up, and you control it with your finger, and you just get the three-foot rods, and yeah, it’s like $1,500 all in, and that’s the route I went, and it’s worked out great for me. And if anybody has questions, feel free to reach out to me. I’m more than happy to help him out and set him up with who helped me out and got me going.

Ian Robertson
James, you’re a good guy. When I meet people like you, it just makes me happy. You know, giving back to people who could use help. So thank you for that.

James Dick
No, I enjoy that. When people call me or text me and ask me questions, I like these kinds of conversations.

Ian Robertson
Nice. Well, I do too. Thank you again. I know I’ve said that a million times, but I’m really appreciative of you, James. You have a great one.

James Dick
All right, we’ll see you.

Ian Robertson
Talk soon.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

If you’re enjoying the conversation, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button. Our podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. For more information on our services and our brand-new inspection app, please visit our website at Inspectortoolbelt.com.

*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.

PODCAST SUMMARY/BLOG

Home inspectors talk a lot about raising prices, but the biggest growth jumps often come from adding the right ancillary services. On Inspector Toolbelt Talk, Ian sits down with James Dick, a solo home inspector who steadily stacked high-value add-ons over a decade: radon, termite, sewer scope, septic, and then the game changer, Level 2 chimney inspection and seasonal chimney sweeping. The core idea is simple and powerful for any home inspection business: find a service buyers already need, get genuinely qualified, and deliver it at a professional level. When you do, the add-on stops feeling like an upsell and starts feeling like a natural part of protecting the buyer from expensive surprises.

A major theme is the mindset shift around liability. Inspectors often avoid new services because they assume “more services equals more risk,” but James and Ian argue the opposite can be true when the add-on provides clearer data and tighter documentation. A Level 2 chimney inspection with a chimney camera can reduce uncertainty compared to a visual-only callout inside a general home inspection report. The conversation includes real-world examples of chimney defects like separation from the house, rusted components, water intrusion, and damaged brick, all of which can lead to costly repairs. Offering specialized inspections helps the client make a better decision inside the inspection period, instead of waiting weeks for a third-party contractor who cannot schedule in time.

Execution matters more than the announcement. James describes taking multiple training paths rather than relying on fast certifications: Copperfield training, chimney-focused education like ChimneyScan, ongoing coursework, practice on real chimneys, and a similar approach for sewer scope training. The takeaway for marketing for home inspectors is that confidence comes from competence, and competence comes from reps. That also protects your reputation with agents and referral partners. James explains how referral relationships with other inspectors work both ways: he passes inspections when booked out, and they send him chimney inspections when they do not offer that service. For many markets, sewer scope and termite inspection “sell themselves,” but the bigger win is choosing services that match local housing stock and local demand.

The episode also dives into recurring revenue for inspectors, which is rare in the traditional home inspection model. Chimney sweeping arrives right when home inspections slow down in October through January, smoothing cash flow and making the business more predictable. James highlights a practical sales approach: bundling sewer and chimney into a package that increases close rates for both. Ian connects this to long-term business value, including building client databases you can market to later and making your company more sellable if you ever want to retire. They also talk about simple but effective lead generation, including consistent Facebook posting, strong Google reviews, and how new search behaviors can influence who shows up when someone asks for the “best home inspector” in a city.