PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian R
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk everyone. We have Sean Garvey on from Dwellinspect. How are you, Sean?

Sean Garvey
I’m doing great, Ian, thanks for having me.

Ian R
Oh, man, I’m super stoked to have you on. I just want to tell everybody how we found you and why we have you on. One of your inspectors was actually messaging us about our app or our podcast, rather. And he’s like, hey, you know, what about this episode or that episode, you remember which episode and I keep sending him stuff? And I’m like, who are these guys? So I go and I click, and me and David, who’s been on the show multiple times, we’re both like, wow, branding is tight. And it was simple and clean, even the colors and the hues and the layout and the lines. And I’m like, these guys, these guys know what they’re doing. And then it turned into a conversation with you. And I just thoroughly enjoyed that. And not to over compliment you here. But you seemed like a super intelligent guy. You’re like, no, no, please. You seem like an intelligent guy. And what you have is on point, and I really wanted to have you on the show. You’re going to talk to us today about something that’s very important to me. And I found out that’s very important to you, boutique and branding. We’re gonna talk about what those two things are and why they’re important. But first, Sean, can you tell us a little bit about your background, your company and things like that?

Sean Garvey
Yeah sure. Well, first of all, I want to compliment you too. The inspector that messaged you, his name is Andrew. He’s our lead inspector at Dwellinspect. He and I both are habitual listeners of of your podcast. And I think it’s quickly become one of our favorite in the industry. And so it’s been an honor to be asked as a guest on here. So thank you on that.

Ian R
Oh, no, thank you.

Sean Garvey
So your question was, I have to go back to it, was what got me into the industry and the history on that. So about 2013, 2014, I started a home inspection company when I was living in Honolulu, Hawaii called Diamond Head Home Inspections. I ran that for about three years or so and then sold it to a gentleman whose name is Daniel, who still owns Diamond Head and operates Diamond Head. And we speak quite regularly. So we work together still. And then I moved my family over to Phoenix. When I moved my family over to Phoenix, we opened Dwellinspect Arizona, and then have been operating this business for about seven years or so now, six and a half, seven years or so. We’ve created a multi inspector firm, we have seven inspectors, five sewer scope techs, three office staff, just hired a marketing rep. And what am I missing, myself.

Ian R
That’s quite the company you’ve built, put together in a relatively short period of time.

Sean Garvey
Well, it was interesting, because I got to do, I got to start a second company in a second city. And I said I would learn from all the mistakes that I did it for the first time. And in reality, I repeated all of the same mistakes that I made. I just kind of knew what I was doing a little bit with a little bit of experience. So I started with from nothing. Sorry, that’s not right. I started again, with experience, which is not, which is contrary to the way most home inspectors start their business because they’re starting from scratch.

Ian R
Well, and that’s the benefit. And the beautiful gift that you’re gonna give us today, what’s that expression, a smart man will learn from his mistakes, a wise man will learn from someone else’s. Your experience is going to teach others how to build a business, and you have a marketing degree you said, right, you and your wife, I believe you said

Sean Garvey
Yeah. I do. I have a marketing degree from from Arizona State. And then my wife as well has a background in marketing. And then our office manager Leah is marketing driven as well. So we have a lot of focus on marketing. And as you mentioned, branding is really important to us. When you asked me to talk about it, I had to think back to it because it almost comes inherently at this point. And a lot of times as you go through business, you look at where you want to be, but you forget to look backwards at what you’ve accomplished. And so in thinking that, all of this kind of, all the branding and all of it being put together is kind of just commonplace for us at this point. So I had to think back to when we started this business, to what we were thinking in order to apply it to, or have applied it throughout the stages of our business here too. So that’s where we’re at here. And that’s that’s how it’s kind of come to fruition on us.

Ian R
That’s a great introduction to it too because you’re literally an expert. And your company is an expert, I can, I can see that. And the proof is in the pudding, but you also have a degree behind it. So there’s a lot of science on how branding works. And we’ve talked about that in previous podcasts. But I want to show everybody how the rubber meets the road. And here’s the reason why I want to talk about it. Because we work on websites for home inspectors as part of our company. And one of the hardest things to do is to get home inspectors to think about branding. This, this is typically what happens, home inspector contacts us, hey, I got a free logo off of an AI generator or Vistaprint. Just shove it in there. It’s a blue logo, but I want my website to be purple, no pictures of themselves, they don’t have a shirt with the logo on it. They, you know, one guy sent me a picture of him and ripped jeans and a Yankees hat to put on his website. And just this is how it goes. Or, as we were talking about before the show, guys will contact me every couple of years, sometimes, hey, it’s time for a rebrand, look, we’re going to redo our logo, maybe even change your company name. And I’m like, no, it’s like, that’s like you just got done building a house and you’re like, let’s tear it all down and start over. I’m like, why would you do that?

Sean Garvey
Right.

Ian R
So, and I hear guys talking about branding doesn’t matter. I stay busy without branding. And I’ve always said you’ll never, you’ll just never know the work that you lost. You know, it’s like I’ve been fine, doing exactly what I’m doing. But you’ve, you’ve never actually known what it’s like to have the branding, because you’ve never done it. And anybody who’s ever done really good branding never goes back to no branding because you see the power of it, would you say that’s true?

Sean Garvey
100%. I mean, what it really does is it adds a layer of professionalism to the product that you’re trying to produce. And so when I started again, I looked at the elements of, you know, I didn’t make up branding, I looked at the elements of the great brands that exist that people are tied to. And you just look at the methodologies and the layers that they put in as they put it through their products. And you take it from examples like Starbucks, probably one of the strongest brands in the world, Nike, AT&T, believe it or not, Disney, like everybody recognizes what their logo looks like, and what their colors look like. And it’s even subconscious. You know, like, if you showed me a logo of Pepsi, but didn’t put anything with Pepsi on it, you would know that it’s red and blue and basically a circle and be able to pick it out. And so in that element, it adds a layer of professionalism as it carries through, and allows your brand to have somewhat of a recognizable source. And as home inspectors. That’s kind of a challenge. Because if you look at all of our logos, they’re almost all you know, a house on the top of it, some sort of magnifying glass maybe in there. Most of our names, say home inspection in it, so it’s important to find some ways to to become unique and recognizable throughout. And quite frankly, I wanted my brand and logo to be recognizable and plastered everywhere. Because that’s just good, effective marketing and recognition.

Ian R
Yeah. And if we distilled it down too, branding comes down to the logo as the focal point and then expanding outward from there. If we have a junky logo from Vistaprint, we’re going to have junky branding, expanding from there. So it always starts from the logo, think about alternates to it, how can I, even taking the same logo and changing it like, here’s a bad version of our logo, here’s this, here’s that, and being able to keep the same style and same colors and same feel kind of like FedEx, I always bring them out because I remember my daughter being really little, like two or three. And she goes, Daddy, look, there’s your company, as a FedEx truck drives by and I was I looked at my wife, I’m like, yeah, that’s right. And she just recognized, she just recognized, hey, there’s a brand. And it kind of had the same feel, as my, as our company. And, you know, that’s when we know we’re doing it right reason why we hire FedEx and not a white van courier. But it really ties in to with being boutique. Being boutique as a small company, you’re not owned by a large corporation, Sean, as far as I know, you’re still considered a small business, even though you have quite a large company in comparison. But why is branding important and being boutique important and tied together when it comes to competing up against these big companies. And just real brief, we have companies like Launchpad, they bought home inspection companies all across the country, National Property Inspections, big brand all across the company and all across the country and multiple markets, owned by now an insurance company. We have all these big brands and we try to compete with them. Why is branding and being boutique so important when it comes to taking our market on?

Sean Garvey
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I mean, it adds back to that, that layer of professionalism, that starts from the logo and you put it on your shirt, and you drive up in a car that’s logoed. And so paying attention to branding matters in that in that respect. And then also in competition with those bigger, bigger corporations that are getting into the home inspection. They’re trying to create a recognizable brand as well. So you’re gonna have to compete on that same level. And so you have to you have to think in you have to basically think big, even if you’re small, continue to think big, even if you’re small. Because one thing that consistent branding does is also allows you to be positioned yourself, either as a low cost provider which if you look at the forums, nobody likes a low cost provider but they exist. And and even the luxury brand as well. And if you think to luxury brands about even use Louis Vuitton is probably the most, one of the most recognizable luxury brands. And does it do anything specifically different than any other purse or shoe or belt, not specifically, but people are willing to pay more to be seen with that brand. So in the boutique methodology that you mentioned, there’s an element of loyalty, or customer retention when you, when you concentrate on a good brand, that you can exist. And it can even create a sense of tribalism, like I use that brand, you should use it too. So it helps with that boutique model. In our pre show when we were discussing the boutique, we talked about the barber that I go to and the barber that I go to owns four stores on three corners of the street. So they have four barbers on three quarters of the street. And they’re all branded similarly, meaning that they have a logo with the head and a guy with a beard, but then they have different brand extensions. So one is like an area where you go in and smoke cigars and get your hair cut. And the other one is, is more driven towards an old school barber feel, and so on and so forth. And they’ve they’ve captured different service types under the same brand. And they’re able to charge more than these national great clips or Supercuts because they offer a better experience. They’re easier to, they’re easier to schedule with. They offer a different service, they have TV’s on in the background and things that people desire. So when you have a good brand, you can have extensions, and when you have extensions, then you can have different offerings within that extension.

Ian R
I think that’s a fantastic analogy. And I remember you talking about that. And the whole point is those barbershops, they’re not competing with Supercuts. They’re not looking saying, okay, what’s, what’s Supercuts doing? Let’s do that. They’re thinking, what can we do to make ourselves stand out and away from what they can’t do. And what a national brand can’t do is offer a level of professionalism and service on a personal level. So I went to a restaurant just last week, and I paid way more for a shrimp poboy that was delicious. And I got to meet the owner’s daughter who served us. And I gladly gave her extra money for the great experience than if I had gone to Chili’s and gotten, you know, just standardized foods, standardized waiting service, the whole nine yards, because it’s just better.

Sean Garvey
Yep.

Ian R
There’s room for both in the market. But if we want to compete with these big companies, we need to stop looking at them and saying, well, what are they doing? Now we need to look at them and be boutique and brand and say what are they not doing? Sure, what are we, what are they not able to do? And that’s usually comes down to the service that a boutique business can provide. And I think that’s what you guys strive for too, right? Just the over the top exceptional professionalism and service, right.

Sean Garvey
Yeah, at one point in my life, I was a, I was a bartender in the beach in Waikiki. And, and in that we learned really high levels of service. And one of the bartenders that trained me, taught me to introduce myself to every guest that came in through because he said, who you going to get a better tip from, a stranger or your friend. And I mean, it was like a light bulb moment, it was plainly obvious that you’re gonna get a better tip from your friend, in most cases, as long as you have good friends. Yeah, we’re assuming a lot here, Sean. But these bartenders have created an environment where people come to vacation, specifically to go or hang out in this bar or restaurant. And these bartenders will remember guests year after year after year after year, and say like, oh, hey, Ian, nice to see you. And you’re, you’re blown away when they walk through. And so it creates a really high level of service that allows people to feel great. And that’s yeah, that’s 100% what we strive for in our business is really high levels of service to make people feel like they got their money’s worth. And they feel comfortable, and they feel, they feel handled, if that makes sense. And that, that the job has been performed to the best of the ability of the inspector. And so we’ve been drawing from this book, it’s called Unreasonable Hospitality. I’ll plug it because I think it’s fantastic. And everybody should be reading it who’s in business, I have, actually my computer sitting on a stack of seven of them right now so I can get it to the right level. I’ve been handing it out like it’s, like it’s a lottery ticket to people. And there’s a specific chapter in there that I’ve drawn from and I’ve helped to coach our team on and our leadership staffs reading on it and it’s, it’s chapter 11 of Unreasonable Hospitality. And there’s some really cool points from it that helped to differentiate us as we go through. The bulleted points are pretty simple, and it’s excellence is the culmination of 1000s of details executed perfectly. So it’s a bunch of, it basically says the devils in the details right? All the small details matter to create the experience better, that’s part two as well, the littlest things matter. So it’s important to focus on the littlest things that can have the biggest impact because most of those competitors are larger competitors, or everybody, I’ll always believe that every inspector, we have a industry full of integrity, and every inspector wakes up in the morning to do a good job, whether they do or not, who knows, but everybody tries to do the best job that they can. And so it’s creating those little layers of little things for high level of service and thoughtfulness that make a big difference as we go through. The third point is the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And so if you do everything well, you’re going to have good results. The fourth one, which is almost my favorite of it is finish strong, the one inch rule. And so we train our guys to graciously thank people for using our services because they had a choice, right. And so in the book, they use it as an example, because it’s based on the experience of a restaurant, where they placed the plate on the table, so that when you flip the plate over, if the, if the guest is interested in it, the logo is facing up. And what that does is creates a sense of intentionality when they’re setting the plates so that when the guest comes into the restaurant, everything’s set up the same way every time. So it applies to inspections as well. And then the fifth is an important one, which is customer service, which is being right is irrelevant. And in the book, they talk about the argument between a medium rare steak and a medium steak. And if you’re arguing for the sense of winning, you’re still losing. And so some of those are, that really reflects five key principles to base a service based business which we are in a service based business on to your clients. And it’s been successful for us. You know, I think those are fantastic points. I really got to read that book. You didn’t write it? Did you write it? No.

Ian R
You just really like it.

Sean Garvey
I just really like it, I saw it. I saw it in a clip on a television show called The Bear. And it’s like a pivotable moment, pivotal moment in the transformation of one of the characters and he’s sitting in his bedroom reading it and I go, I bought it that moment and went on Amazon, I bought it, I read it, and then I’ve been giving it away. So huge plug for a good TV show and a book.

Ian R
Nice, I haven’t seen The Bear either. So I’ll have to check out both of those. Maybe I’ll read the book and then watch The Bear. But I think those principles are so forgotten in our industry, because a lot of times, like I’m just gonna take my market. There’s home inspectors that I’ve known for years. And they’re like, what, I go and I inspect, I gave them the report, it was within 24 hours or same day. What else do they want from me. And I think that point about the, well, just the title, Unreasonable Hospitality, that’s what people want. I’ll go back to a place just because they did those little extra things. They checked on me one extra time. They left the mints on the table before I could even ask, and can have the check ready, pulled the chair out, whatever it is, those little things matter a lot. So we have to stop looking and saying, well, I did the same thing that they did. Stop doing the same thing everybody else does. Be completely over the top with our hospitality, call them. Yep, thank them. Automated reminders are great about the inspection, maybe pick up the phone and call say, hey, we noticed this on your order form. Is that correct? Okay. Great. We’re really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. And that’s really important. I think the hardest thing that you mentioned, though, was it’s not about being right and winning. I think that’s probably, I think that’s the probably the hardest thing that we have as an industry. Would you agree with that?

Sean Garvey
100%? I mean, inspectors like to be right when they’re pointing out something that’s wrong. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that’s, that’s just kind of the driver. And that that is our industry. I think, I think you brought up another good point, too, which I’ve been mulling on recently, which is that a lot of us believe that the commodity in which we deliver, which is the report, is the product. And I think the product is really the review and the connection that you can make with the client so that they can see the house in three dimension. You know, if they can’t be there, obviously, the deliverable should be great. And, and the report should be great, but there’s so much more to the conversation than just handing over a report. And so it’s important to create that connection and open the phone lines, like you mentioned, to make sure that that they’re getting everything they need through this experience because it’s stressful.

Ian R
Yeah, you know, you have to be kind of part psychologist, there’s some friends of mine that are real estate agents. And they joke that they’re psychiatrists, basically, because they’re like, that’s where when people move in, they don’t remember hey, this person helped me find a great house. They remember the experience leading up to it. And the connection they had with that agent, and I’ve always applied that to home inspections. Do we make a connection with the person? Do they remember us? I just had a client that we did an inspection for 10 years ago call me, and I immediately connected with him. I’m like oh hey, yeah, I remember, and it was like we were back on the inspection. I’m like, that’s weird feeling but at the same time it’s important. We’ve talked about parasocial relationships. Those are extremely important in our industry. A parasocial relationship is like the relationship we have with a TV show. You probably know this. I’m a high school dropout, you’ve gone to school for this. But you know, we watch a TV show, I can watch, I can watch a sci fi show that I watched when I was 13. And I instantly feel a hug. Like, it just feels warm and fuzzy. But that person has no idea about me. But it just makes me feel good. Because the person who produced that show did a good job with a parasocial relationship. Yeah, one sided relationship. We need to be able to do that with others, give people that warm, fuzzy feeling. So that when they call us in 10 years again, they’re like, hey, what’s going on, man? Thank you so much. They still remember a two hour inspection 10 years later. Yeah, that’s, that’s what the experience we want to be able to create. And that came off braggy. But I was just trying to give a good example.

Sean Garvey
No, that’s great. That’s a huge win. I mean, I think that’s, well, that’s the other. That’s not the book I’m using for my mouse pad. The other book that I pull from a lot is Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And the ultimate end of that is, is people don’t remember exactly what you said, they’re not going to remember exactly your report, they’re going to remember how you feel, how you make them feel. Yeah. And that’s a, for us, that’s a, that’s a reread like, once every year or every two years, because it’s important.

Ian R
Remember that one part in the book, because we were just talking about dispute resolution here, when it comes to customer service, about the guy about how he brought his dog and the police officer stopped him, I always appreciate that the first thing he did was, I am so sorry. I did not mean to do this, I am completely at fault. And it completely diffuses it, he even did it twice. And he said he did it on accident again, the same cop found him, he was able to smooth smooth it over, instead of arguing about the sign and all this other stuff. I think that’s a, it all comes back down to basics right? Yep. You know, if we have a client that’s upset at us, we don’t have to say I am sorry, I am at fault for this. But can we say, oh, man, I can see how you’re upset? Yeah, what are you looking for? I want to make sure that you feel good coming out of the situation. Really hard to be mad at a dude that’s approaching it like that, you know?

Sean Garvey
Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a basic human need and desire for human connection, which, you know, in, in a world of people being stuck with their nose in their phones is, is ever more important. Because each interaction is more impact, each real interaction is more impact, impactful. There’s one other element in the book, which I really like. And this one’s in chapter 12. And it says, is one size fits one in quotation and it’s, it’s our job to read the client and and, and get and treat them. Sorry, let me start over. “One size fits one, it’s our job to read our client and serve them how they want to be served.” And so one thing we teach our inspectors in our office team is how to read personalities quickly. And then give them the information that they want through there. And so it just, it just compounds and creates an amazing service level when you can read somebody who has only high level desires, meaning they want to know the four biggest things that are there and how to fix them. And just give them that four biggest things or somebody who’s really really detailed oriented, say, engineer or even an accountant who may be even a little trepidatious. Not to stereotype everybody in those job roles, but just a little bit of personality stereotyping. And, and I give them the details and maybe take it a little longer and give a little bit longer of a review and explain the report to them. Because you know that they’re going to read every little letter in the report and may even correct a couple of spelling errors for you too. So it’s just really important to kind of read your client and provide that high level of service. Obviously, you can tell about that I get passionate about giving high levels of service.

Ian R
No. Well, and that’s why you’ve done so well for yourself. I actually have two questions for you.

Sean Garvey
Sure.

Ian R
Well, first, first of all, I mean, this goes back to our theme, you can’t do this as a large national company, you can try. But there’s a reason why we get bad service at McDonald’s and bad service at Walmart. Because these are national brands that have policy books that nobody reads and it’s too much to control. When you’re a boutique, you can compete at a higher level offering that level of service because now you have seven inspectors, I believe you said, easier to make sure those seven guys are doing just the best job ever than trying to manage 3000 inspectors and just hoping they’re all doing a decent job. But how do you, how do you train your guys to offer that adaptive level of service to understand your clients as you mentioned before, like you said you train them to understand.

Sean Garvey
Yeah, I mean, it’s not a perfect system. And let me go back just a touch but I think, I think you get bad service at McDonald’s is because they’ve created an environment that allows people to give bad service, if that makes sense. Like they have enough people going through the drive thru and walking in and they know exactly what they’re gonna get. And, and so you don’t expect a high level of service, you’re also not, well, yeah, it’s more expensive now, but you’re not paying a lot of money for the food that you’re getting. So you’re, you’re kind of okay with that level of service as long as the tables are clean and the bathrooms are clean. And that’s actually fundamentally how McDonald’s started their empire, was having clean bathrooms on the side of the highway, because people would pull it. But how do we train that, we just kind of have, we have weekly meetings. And so from time to time, we’ll pop in and talk about, it’s called the DISC assessment. It’s a personality assessment. And we’ll just go over what the DISC mean, and discuss how it applies, and then allow our team to work that into their reviews and in their service levels as well. We also have Andrew, who’s our lead inspector as well and now probably listening to this, so shout out to Andrew. But he also comes from a hospitality background, and applies that, applies the pressure on our team to continue to keep raising that bar as well. The majority of the people that we have added into our group, within our culture have some sort of service level experience in their background. And that’s really helped to kind of raise that bar for us. Because everybody’s coming with a different angle of that service.

Ian R
That’s fantastic information. I’m going to start trying to apply some of that, because that’s really where, we’ve talked about USPs in this podcast a lot, how it’s hard to have USPs anymore. So it’s like you have the same USPs as 30 other guys on the market, how do you make make yourself stand out? And how we do that is offering the best service possible. We’re the steak house, not with just the best steak, but with the best service. We take care of you. Oh, is that medium well and not medium? Let me take that back for you. Are you happy with this? Here, the cook threw in a baked potato, whatever it happens to be, bringing things to an extra level. So that really points out why boutique is the way to go. Whether we have one or two inspectors or seven or a larger company, we’re smaller companies competing with larger, and that’s really important. So going back to the branding part, because I think you do really great on both of these, and they interweave so, so much. How would you recommend the home inspector to go about branding themselves? I have my own opinions on this. But I’m really interested to see if you were starting out today, how would you go about branding yourself?

Sean Garvey
I guess the first things that we looked at were probably two things. One, we found a name or settled on a name. And then the second thing is we started working through colors. And if you just Google it like branding, colors or marketing colors, there’s colors that actually elicit different responses. And so I picked out a couple I haven’t done in a while. But like for example, we use orange, and that elicits a warmth, response. Green is optimism, life growth and nature. Blue is calm and trusting. And so you can apply whatever colors you want, as long as they match, or I guess they don’t specifically have to match, whatever you’re going for, and then add that into your logo. And then it’s just kind of taking those colors that you selected and applying it across all different avenues of your marketing material. Whether you have cards, rack cards, or tri folds, sunglasses, hats, shirts, cars, emails, website, am I forgetting anything, just anything, and just carry it through from one to the end. And with that you get a sense of recognition, as we talked about, and it just strictly looks more professional. I mean, going back to Starbucks, that logo and I know I can’t, I can picture it, but I don’t know what is it, there’s a, I think a woman on the inside of a circle. But it’s everywhere. It’s on there, it’s on their signs, it’s on their cups, it’s on their food, it’s on their receipts, it’s on their staff’s apron, everywhere. And there’s a reason they do that. And so you don’t have to recreate the wheel. Just follow the example of people that are doing it at a high, high level, and work it within that framework.

Ian R
Yeah, I think that’s great, great points. And going back to the color aspect. We do want to be careful about our color combinations and what kind of colors, you really want to avoid browns in my opinion. I have not seen, I mean there’s certain logos that are leathery looking that can be okay. But brown on different devices can look like baby poop really quickly. And also there was a book I was reading one time, and it talked about not wearing brown to an interview because they found that statistically people who wear brown suits, it denoted almost loserdom is what they, what they termed it. They’re like, people just didn’t react well to it. So we need to be very careful with the colors. I like to use two colors at most. I don’t like a lot of different colors. And there are exceptions to that rule. It’s easier to work with one or two colors. And keep it, keep it simple. I love your logo, it’s Dwellinspect, all one word, with a, with a very slight roof over the top of it. And it just works, and it’s clean. We don’t need to have cartoon inspectors all over it and three different houses in the magnify, please, just no more magnifying glasses. I don’t want to see any more magnifying glasses. And more isn’t better, less is better. Like you brought up Pepsi. I mean, that’s simple. It doesn’t even mean anything, the logo, it’s like almost a ying and yang looking kind of thing. But you’re like, all right. Even Starbucks is okay. It’s a circle with a lady and weird crown. So I do agree with everything that just said there and then carrying it over. What, what did we mentioned this before? And I did want to touch on this? What are the implications of rebranding? I’ve always, I’ve always dreaded that word. When guys contact me, what are your thoughts on rebranding. Guys like, oh, well, you know, I started off with the wrong logo, or I want to just change things up. What are your thoughts on that?

Sean Garvey
That’s a great question, Ian. So in order to rebrand, and I think there’s probably a time and place for it. But it better be really early in the formation of the business. Because if you have any longevity in there, and people recognize you as ABC home inspections, if you’ve got to change it, you’ve got to change everything, you got to change the way you answer the phones, you got to change the color of your logos, you got to change all your uniforms, hopefully you have uniforms. If you’ve logoed a car, you’ve got to change that as well. So it can be a really costly shift in your business. And so if you’re going to spend that money, it better be worth it. We’ve had the same logo since inception, we’ve had the same website since inception. And, and our name’s not going anywhere. And so the reality of it is, is to flip and flop on different brands, you’re giving up a lot, even if you don’t like the name for some reason. And so it better be a high value change. Like high level, high value.

Ian R
Yeah. And that’s what I always try to tell guys that call and say they want to rebrand because they want a fresh look. Or, oh, I started off with JJ Home Inspections. And now my last name is different. And now I want JR Home Inspections, whatever it happens to be, you end up losing more than you might think. Changing your phone number or changing your business name or changing your logo is a big deal in the marketing world. It is turning everything upside down and being willing to lose work for quite some time. And you’ll never know what you lose. Because we spent all that time. Branding is basically about making everybody feel warm and fuzzy. You want everyone to feel warm and fuzzy about your company. And they can do that very quickly if you’ve branded branded right. Now changing your brand rips out what people are already comfortable with. And you’re forcing them to get some to be more comfortable now with something new, which we’re, we’re creatures of habit. None of us like new things. Remember years ago, when Netflix said, we’re no longer going to mail out CDs or DVDs. And remember the backlash. They almost lost their company. I mean, heck, Blockbuster almost came back because of that decision to rebrand. They were gonna call it something different. And now they’re, now they’re still Netflix because they realized, oh, man, that was a bonehead move. We shouldn’t have done that.

Sean Garvey
Yeah.

Ian R
So think about those times that it’s failed. Why Disney hasn’t rebranded in, what is it 100 years. We really need to stick with what we have.

Sean Garvey
Growing up my dad owned a motorcycle store called Edwards Cycle. And it was a small business, Edwards Cycle. His name is Jim. He bought Edwards Cycle. And I always asked him as a kid, like why have you not changed it to Jim Cycle? And he said, because everybody already knows Edwards Cycle. And so they just, they automatically come there. And if you change it to Jim Cycle, you’ve got some explaining to do.

Ian R
Yeah, you have to earn all of that trust back that you had for years. So why change it, there’s a, I’m not gonna name the name of the company, but a guy just bought a company down south and it has the old owner’s name on it, and he did the same thing. He goes, not rebranding, I’m gonna build what we have. So he just cleaned the logo. So in other words, it was like low resolution now it’s high resolution, didn’t change the colors didn’t change the brand. And that’s all he did. And it’s actually working out really well for him. He’s expanding because he’s building on that trust that was already built. And that’s where, that’s where it comes down to, to be, to have good branding and, and to be boutique, to be a smaller company, to be able to compete at that level. And I really love the restaurant and barbershop illustrations that we’re using throughout this podcast because that is really a lot, what it’s like, it’s hospitality, being able to charge more for better service so that people don’t ask you, well, how much is the price? You know, Inspectify charges X amount of dollars. Why do you guys charge more? They’re not going to ask why do you charge more? They’re gonna be like, oh, this is the way it should be. Now we know why these other companies charge so little in comparison. That’s, we want to change their mentality.

Sean Garvey
100% That’s the reputation we’re going for, and fortunately, and hopefully we can continue to grow on it.

Ian R
Yep. Well, I mean, you guys are doing a fantastic job on that. I mean, I have nothing but compliments on what you’re building out there. If there was any other part of being boutique or branding that you’d like to leave our listeners with, what other bits of advice would you have? Obviously, I think there’s gonna be a lot of people buying that book here.

Sean Garvey
I sure hope so. Maybe I should get a small royalty for it too. It’ll help to pay for my, me giving them all out. I just, I just encourage people as they’re building their brand, or building their business, is to look for other experiences where you feel like you’ve had great service. And as you continue to become aware of that, you’ll start to recognize that there’s certain amount of repetitions that exist in different businesses, so you don’t have to necessarily recreate the wheel. Or even think way outside the box. You just have to look for experiences that make you feel good, and then apply them to your own business, create systems and, and applications and conversations about good service. It’s not that hard. I mean, I don’t know if you have Dutch Brothers out, up in the northeast, but Dutch Brothers is a West Coast brand or Western brand started in the Oregon area. And they hire teenagers, and maybe young 20 year olds. And it’s, it’s a coffee replica or the drive thru coffee replica, but they train them to just ask questions about people’s day, and make them feel good. And they offer a high level service in the line that it takes to go through a drive thru asking about what you did on the weekend. And so it’s just asking questions, being inquisitive, and seeing what makes you feel good. And so people go back. The cars, the cars are down the street and block traffic, they had to shut one down in Phoenix, because of blocking traffic.

Ian R
Oh wow. And that just came from good service.

Sean Garvey
Just good service, ask the questions, smiling. Listening to music.

Ian R
Yeah, you know, it’s funny about the smiling thing, because as soon as you said it, I really love that advice. Take an experience that we’ve had, customer service that made us feel good and replicate it in our business. And I just had one, we walked in to a busy restaurant, that same restaurant I talked about before. It was packed, the owner’s daughter comes out. And she goes, hey everybody, and she smiled the whole time and a really like busy restaurant, she brought us to a table, checked on us like five times. I didn’t even notice that the waiter wasn’t with us yet, because she had checked on us so much. And all she did was smile. And I realized it was just nice to have somebody care about us and smile, you know, it was like, oh, well, that made me feel good. So I’m gonna put that on the training roster. Everybody smile more.

Sean Garvey
I mean, it’s just so commonplace, but you know, smile, shake their hand, thank them, and get to know him a little bit. And that’s the beginning of good service, and replicate it.

Ian R
Yeah, it sounds so creepy. But there’s an article I was reading about touching people makes them feel better. I’m like, we really need to like work on your title, writing skills. The article was basically talking about, you know, hand on the shoulder, shaking hands. But I don’t want everybody to go out there, start touching people. But you know, basic human stuff we’re talking about here. Well, that’s an awkward ending. Welcome to Inspector Toolbelt Talk, where we tell everyone to touch people. This was very valuable information, Sean. And I really appreciate it. You guys are doing great stuff. I know I’m going to troll you guys on the internet and watch to see what you’re doing. Because I really want to see how you guys grow and expand and continue rockin your market out there. And you taking the time to talk to us about this is a beautiful gift. So years of experience, years of work, and you share it with us to use in our own businesses. So we appreciate that a lot. Thank you for being on today.

Sean Garvey
I appreciate it, too. It’s been an honor. Thank you so much. I enjoyed it.

Ian R
We’ll talk soon.

Sean Garvey
Talk soon. Have a great one.

Ian R
You too.

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.