NEIL SUMMERS TALKS BUSINESS AND SALES FOR NEW HOME INSPECTORS – WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Ian R: Welcome back, everybody to Inspector Toolbelt Talk. Today we have with us, Neil Summers. How are you, Neil, good to have you good. How are you doing? Doing? Fantastic. I’m really thrilled to have you on. How long have we known each other now, Neil? Five, or six years?
Neil Summers: Well, I started my business in 2016. I was running my own website until 18. Then I got sick of it and I said, why am I doing this? I’m not a marketer. I’m a salesman, I need a marketer to do this for me. So I believe it was 2018.
Ian R: Okay, so four-five years now, almost five years. I feel like we’ve known each other longer. I like hanging out with you. I like talking with you. I found out some new things about you recently, which we’ll get into in a minute but for those of you who don’t know, Neil owns Neil Summers home inspections. It’s here out in Maryland, right?
Neil Summers: Yep. south of Baltimore.
Ian R: You’ll see Neil, on the forums and in all the Facebook groups, and you’re one of the guys that usually have something constructive and helpful to say, which we always appreciate but tell us a little bit about your background, Neil, you weren’t always a home inspector.
Neil Summers: No, I wasn’t. When I tell people about my background. They say, Man, you’ve had a lot of jobs and I have. I didn’t go to college and if I did, if it was a requirement in Maryland, to be a home inspector, I’d probably be doing something else I started in the construction of the commercial construction industry in the 80s. I started because I actually went to work for a big computer company. I just moved to Maryland and there was this new group opening up that was going to build in this computer company build these big data centers for their, for their clientele. I was driving a forklift in a warehouse. I had two jobs. I was working at Westinghouse working with this big computer company, the big computer company was offering insurance I had a pregnant wife I needed insurance. I was driving a forklift at night and I looked at the job posting and says, I need someone that can read blueprints. Well, I was a machinist. Before I moved to Maryland, I could read blueprints, even though these were blueprints for office buildings and things like that. I was the only one I think around that could read blueprints in the company. So they hired me. Next thing, you know, I’m designing data centers. It was not what I was expecting, you know. I’m drawing these things and I might as well learn about this equipment, what I’m doing and why this piece of machinery goes there and that goes there. So one day, I realized that the salespeople were making all the money in the guys, we in the trenches are actually doing all the work and weren’t making any money. I mean, we’re, I was doing okay, but so I wanted to go into sales. They said, No, you’re too important in your position. We, I said, then, okay, pay me for that importance. They really couldn’t find a number that I was happy with. So I went to work for a competitor, which was actually a big construction firm, that was getting into the data center construction, business, and they paid me the money I want and I was competing against my old company. The funny thing is, once I beat him a few times, they hired me back as a salesman, but that’s how I started in the construction industry. So I was never swinging a hammer or turning screws or anything like that. I was designing data centers, which is a lot easier than it sounds. Then I went into selling and I went to work. That company, that big computer company got sucked up by another big computer company and my job disappeared. So I went back out to work for a contractor that did high-end construction. They did bank lobbies, computer facilities, breweries, not your basic construction, kind of specialized stuff. I sold that in 1991. I did really well. It’s a different kind of sale, selling a home inspection, you got about two minutes. If you’re lucky, they’re gonna keep you on the line for two minutes. Selling a big commercial job. I mean, it might take me a year and a half to sell it. So I’d wait. I got paid a percentage of the job. So you know, I get every month we get a payment as during so it could be three years for I got a paycheck on a job I sold. So anyway, my kids were little, they’re in T ball, they’re doing things and I’m traveling. Anheuser Busch was one of my clients. I’m going to Columbus, Ohio, I’m going to Merrimack New Hampshire. I think Atlanta and I were never home, and the money was really good. Life wasn’t and so I came home and long story short, I needed to find a job real quick. So I got hired at a car dealer to sell cars something and if I can sell a $2 million add-on to a building I can sell a car. I found out it was a lot harder selling cars because they didn’t really care so much about my qualifications or my company’s quality. They cared about price, they cared about comfort, and they cared about not getting raked over the coals by the car dealer. They cared about those things. Fortunately, I worked for a dealer group that was really a good dealer group. Back then they were four, maybe five stores, and now they’re there in New York now. There’s a Maryland-based company, recall that only says the name, but they’ve got I think 75 car dealerships in the mid-Atlantic area up and then they were so they really grew. So I was selling cars, and I was selling a dying brand. I was selling a General Motors product that was great in the beginning in the early 90s through the 90s. Then I realized that that the cars were not they weren’t putting a lot of money into the product, they were focusing on trucks or focusing on SUVs. I saw I saw my job kind of ending but they keep me they promoted me to sales manager. I’m thinking well, I’ll make a lot of money being a sales manager. Well, I did, but it’s a lot of work, you know, you have people work for you. My biggest concern now versus from being a car salesman to being a sales manager was now I got to feed everybody in the dealership, I have to make sure they make a paycheck, they feed their families, they’ve, they drive nice cars, they can afford clothes to come to work. So I had a lot more on my plate. I never thought of it that way. I thought I was just going to be the heavy dude that came out to the desk and tried to close the sale and that’s just a tiny part of that, you know, my concern was making sure everybody in the dealership everybody in the sales department was making a good living. So they so I could keep them. I started out in a great store. It was really a big store for that particular product line. It was, I think the second most productive store in the mid-Atlantic, which is a great place to start. Then what happened is they took me out of that store and started sending me to stores that were having problems. They were buying these other dealership groups. So I was going to failing dealerships, so my new job now was as a sales manager, but I had to go fix car dealers. Typically when you’re fixing broken companies, you’re firing people, you’re hiring people, you’re finding out why they’re losing money, whether it be internal theft, or whatever it was like being an investigator. Plus, keeping everybody happy and upbeat and down. salespeople don’t sell guys with smiles. Women with smiles. They sell cars they sell so I had to kind of turn around it’s like Buck showed Walter with the Mets, he had to turn around the culture and get everybody to perform as a team. So that’s what I did. Eventually, I decided I was tired of 12-hour days and working six days a week. When you have a car dealer, you’re selling new cars, but you also have you know, 75 to 100 used cars sitting there that need to be fixed, and none of them look perfect when the dealers get them. So one day I was writing a PO to my painter, the guy that would come into the dealership and fix the fenders and fix the bumpers and I’m writing these POs and I asked him I said, How many dealers like I do you go to each week he said, he said six. I’m looking at what he’s making versus what I’m making. It’s three o’clock he’s on his way home. I said I’m gonna do that but what I did, was I bought a failing body shop. I knew this body shop, they did work for me from my dealership, so I knew them. I knew why they were failing. They had crummy employees, they were managed poorly. They just did a lot of things wrong. I’m used to running a tight ship and a car dealer and they’re running a sinking ship. So I assumed the death of this body shop it took over the body shop and I turned it around I expanded it opened a second location actually opened the third location but because of some EPA issues I had to close it, it was doing fine. I just had to close it. It was new zoning issues all kinds of things I couldn’t get over so anyway, I took this body shop and I wound up letting everybody go over time and hiring better people and paying people a lot more money. This and it succeeded. It did great. It’s still going to open up a second location. It’s still going and I tried to sell and I think this is going to be the I’m finally gonna be able to sell a business. I had a couple of plays with a couple of other businesses, but this one was really working. So I hired an agent that sells businesses, a broker, and I was having a hard time selling a body shop. One of the things is the body shop did only commercial work, you couldn’t bring your car in off the street. So I was doing police cars, fire trucks, and a slew of car dealers, cars, everything that got scratched in shipping, I was fixing everything they bought at the auction we were fixing. It was a weird market, people didn’t understand it. One of my employees came up and said, Hey, why don’t we? Why don’t I buy it? I’m thinking, how can you do that you don’t have the money? He says, Well, we can figure it out. So he got with the other employees and the employees all went to the bank, and they got a loan, and they bought the Bodyshops from me. So I sold the business. So I had arrived to me that was my goal in business to own a business to sell it, and they’re still doing well, I see them every once in a while. They took out a loan for half the price of the body shop and then they paid me over a three-year period, which ended two years ago, I finally got my last check two years ago, but that was good. That’s how I was able to afford to go into the home inspection business. I wanted a business that I had played with flipping houses a little bit back when it was easy and did okay with that. So I understood homes. I didn’t understand the real estate market but I understood selling, and selling is not to be confused with marketing. I don’t market I’m not a good marketer. I never that was never in my wheelhouse. So marketing was not my thing but if I get a person in front of me, I can sell him something. So I figured, okay, well, it’s a low overhead business home inspection. There that’s good there, I understand the components of a home I understand the construction process. I’ve been in the construction industry I can sell. It’s a perfect marriage for me and that’s what I did. So in 2016, late 2015, I took my Maryland-required course passed the national exam, and got my license. Two weeks later, I fell off a ladder, tore up my leg and I was down for seven months. So that was a rude awakening. It wasn’t during a home inspection. It’s actually putting a fan up in my grandson’s bedroom. That’s how I got the home inspection. So that’s my background. So a lot of sales, all sales and some construction sales, some car sales, and in a couple of other little things mixed in but that’s where I come from.
Ian R: So that’s a very eclectic background that you have, you have a lot of stuff going on there but a lot of things that are valuable to you as a home inspector, you know, before the podcast, you and I were talking about how the market is down for home inspectors. We’re looking at just about half the posts on Facebook sometimes and all over you hear home inspectors talk about how much things are hurting right now. I’ve talked about this, we’ve been talking about this for several weeks about the market. Matter of fact, we were just talking about the podcast that I did a couple of weeks ago about this as an opportunity. I thought it was interesting because that’s exactly what you said when you popped on before the session here. Yeah, I’m not seeing this as a bad thing. I’m seeing it as an opportunity. That’s exactly what it is. So if I could there’s a lot of good things that you bring to the table. This podcast is basically about business ownership. As a home inspector, that’s a subject that you pretty much brought up when we were discussing the subject matter. There are a lot of questions that I have for you because you have the sales things down obviously, you have the business part down and you have the managing people down. That’s a good combo. So what are some things that you think are good advice for home inspectors, about business ownership, I have some definite opinions about it. Oftentimes there is either a really good home inspector, or a really good businessman, but very few times does that crossover. So what are some business tips that you can give us?
Neil Summers: Something I see is I was never a Facebook person till I got into this business and there’s a lot of great stuff on Facebook, a lot of misinformation but there’s a lot of people talking. There are some things when I see or read an inspector say on Facebook, I just want to take my head and beat it up against the wall. Things I hear like the market is saturated It drives me crazy every time I hear that.
Ian R: Why is that?
Neil Summers: Well, because every market is saturated. I don’t care what business you’re in selling tires, opening a restaurant, or selling gasoline. There’s an area here. This isn’t a rural, highly populated area. There are four gas stations, there’s a crossroad as a gas station on every corner, and every gas station has cars in there. It’s as saturated as it can possibly get. Every one of them is selling gas, and they’re all successful. So I don’t believe in market saturation, I don’t believe it exists. Every time I hear it just makes me go loony because if the market is set if you’re going to go into business, read about the business. When I went into business, I went online, and I went internationally and I typed in the zip code looking for home inspectors. I looked at all these home inspectors in my zip code, and I said, Okay, there’s 16 of us in one zip code. I looked up each home inspector’s website, about five of them had a website, and maybe seven of them had a website. I’m convinced that half of them aren’t even in business anymore. There were probably 100 houses for sale, maybe 50 houses for sale back then. Now I tell you, I looked the other day, and there are 12.
Ian R: The inventory is crazy low right now.
Neil Summers: Yeah. So there’s one house for every home inspector right now in my zip code. So I realized even back then that 50 houses weren’t enough to serve 12 home inspectors. So I knew I had to expand that in my area. So when you’re starting a business, I highly recommend you read business books, and I highly recommend you read sales books. When I was in the car business, the dealership group I worked for spent $2 million training their people each year. That’s a lot of money. One year I remember it was one five-day session at the beginning of the year, and then one day a week for about six months, you know, these are eight-hour days, sales training. I had a conversation with an inspector the other day, and he said, you know if you’re that good, you don’t need to sell us it’s just that’s not true because Apple doesn’t sell, of course, they sell. They have commercials every day, every time one of their phones is leaked online. They’re selling their phone. That’s what they’re doing. It’s not leaked, they’re throwing it out there. So here’s our new bonus coming. They have Apple stores.
Ian R: Yeah, if I could, that’s a fantastic point because I hear that all the time. I’m so good that I don’t need to advertise. I shouldn’t need to advertise. If I’m that good of a home inspector. How’s anybody going to know about you? If you’re not selling yourself?
Neil Summers: Yeah, I agree. When I was doing my own website, I only had my own website, because I wanted to legitimize my business. If I went and made contact with somebody, they could look me up there I am, I’m online, I have a website, and I’m a real company. So a website, to me is a business card. It’s online, it’s a business card, but it’s a business card, in a swimming pool full of business cards, what are the odds that someone’s going to reach into that swimming pool and pull my card out, that’s pretty low. So I couldn’t rely on that. So what I did was, I knew right away that I would have to not concentrate on just my area, I would have to go out to serve about nine counties. So I don’t mark it in all nine counties, but I serve about nine counties. So there are only I think 17 or 18 counties in the state. So what I would recommend home inspectors do is find out where the people live, find out where the people that make a lot of money live, and concentrate on those areas because you’re going to be able to get more for a home inspection in those areas. There are more people in those areas that cost me just as money as much money to advertise in Montgomery County, Maryland, which has the highest income in the state, as it does downtown Baltimore, which is the lowest income and it cost me the same amount of money, the same effort. I don’t want to not do the work for the people in Baltimore, but I’m not going to pay the same price for those jobs. I’m not going to spend as much time on getting that work. I’m gonna get that work done in time I’m gonna get that work. So I concentrated on marketing and knocking on doors, all my marketing my first two years. The first thing I started doing was knocking on real estate agents’ doors, which is I think what most home inspectors do because that’s what they’re taught. I went to AHIT school for my training and that’s what I was told. I learned within the first month or so that I’m burning a lot of gas. I’m not meeting any agents. They’re just not there. They weren’t there. So I needed other ways to go find these. I want my agents to sell for me. I want to make them so comfortable with me and love me so much that they’re out there helping my work, they’re out there bringing me in. That’s what I’ve done. So in the beginning, I did HomeAdvisor successfully, it can be done successfully if you know how to close sales, if you don’t know how to close sales stay away from it.
Ian R: Yeah, so that’s a fantastic point. Sorry, I know, I’m apparently an earlier show, but I didn’t know your show today. I’ve done the same thing with HomeAdvisor. I’ve done it successfully. You can’t just let the lead hit, and then wait, and then call and not have a sales pitch not have a way to, you know, funnel them down into where you want them to be, which is a converted client. You have to be the first one to call, you have to have everything all set and ready to go each and every time. I’ve done, man, I don’t know, probably hundreds of 1000s of dollars worth of work just from the home advisor. It actually becomes a relatively inexpensive marketing engine. People listening right now are going to other home inspectors like oh my goodness, grab your pitchforks. We’re going after Neil and Ian. Take Neil first get him, kidding.
Neil Summers: Hear it all the time on Facebook.
Ian R: Yeah, no. Yeah. So they’re an evil corporation. Okay, but can I get leads from them? Yeah. All right. Cool. You know, I don’t do it now, just because, you know, not a necessity but I don’t do it now either. Yeah, but it works. It works when you need it.
Neil Summers: I can tell people my three highest producing agents, which I got from the home advisor of three agents, I can attribute about 250,000 in business from one lead. When I’ve come in one time, you know, when home advisor brings you in, and now it’s Angie’s, but they promise you a $19 leads and all my leads are 50. You know, my leads are $40. So that night team doesn’t last I’ll tell you that. I have a couple of dealer groups and the nice thing about HomeAdvisor is you can put in the zip codes that you want to call you. So it reduces the junk phone calls a lot and you’re only getting prime real estate listings, which is what I was looking for, especially in the beginning. Now I still answer my phone. It’s just me. I’m a one-man show and that’s why I went into this business. I’m gonna stay a one-man show. When I’m on a job, I don’t like to answer the phone. When I’m with a client. I don’t like to answer the phone. So I’ve turned home advisor. We used to leave it turned off all the time and to have a five-star rating. So people would see that five-star rating Google me and then call me. I was getting business that way off home there. So it’s 375 a year or whatever, but I was getting business. That wasn’t the most effective thing I did and I did it my first year. I had a postcard printed it was a $100 off coupon. It was really nicely done. I had it done with Vistaprint and I printed my first one was a flop my second one was a success. I come from the car business. So in the car business, we do a direct mail piece you’re looking for a 1% return if you get one sold car after out of every 100 mailers you send out it’s a huge success. So 1% is I knew if I could get 1% let people think a 1% closing ratio is awful. It is awful but when it doesn’t cost me anything I was literally going on realtor.com. I picked a zip code every night and I wrote I sent one of these postcards to every home that was for sale, dear homeowner and I put the address on it. It was a $100 off coupon for a home inspection. They’re moving somewhere. They’ve got it in their hand and I sent out 2500 of those my first year, and I got 25 inspections off of it. The cost of 20, the cost of that 2500 I think it was probably including postage, maybe 45-50 cents a copy. This was six years ago. I got 25 inspections off of that. Those 25 inspections, I’d say about eight of those and I’m just trying to meet agents and I’m meeting an agent, the best possible scenario while I’m on stage, I’m performing the home inspection and I’m meeting a new agent while I’m performing. That’s the best place to meet an agent. I say between six and eight. Probably of those agents have that 25 I’ve retained over the last five, six years and I’m still doing business with them so $2,500 That’s not very many home inspections to pay for. I’ve done a couple of $100,000 off of that. So that was cheap, it was cheap. It was easy. I didn’t have to I didn’t have to get on my boxer shorts, I sat in front of my TV, watching baseball, stamping these things, sending them out every night, every night, every night. Then once I mean that really put me on the map and, all of a sudden. I even said I was like a specialist in old homes on one of these mailers in this area I sent to the very affluent area, they’re all 100-year-old homes. I’m like, I’m spent, why not? I’ll be a specialist. You know, it’s just me who’s going to ask, you know, and, well, now I am. So I’m the go-to guy for these. I mean, I inspect homes from the 1700s 1800s. A lot of them are from the 1800s. I’m the guy, I’m the guy they’re gonna call and who do you know who specializes in old houses move? It’s Neil, it’s me. I just kind of created a niche that no one really played with before and I just saw the opportunity but you’re right, you’re we’re back to one back to the market slowing it is an opportunity. I know guys are going out of business. I know guys are failing because I know local, the big companies have let guys go let inspectors go. I’m getting called now by agents whose home inspector has shut down. So I know what’s happening. I’m dealing with twice as many agents as I was a year ago. My income hasn’t doubled. So I know that agents aren’t doing well, either.
Ian R: I’m glad you actually provided that number of twice as many agents for the same or maybe even slightly less work. Yeah. Back to our last podcast.
Neil Summers: Five percent ahead this year.
Ian R: Okay, well, hey, good for you.
Neil Summers: Yeah. My wife’s not thrilled, but I’m happy.
Ian R: Think about it this way. I mean, if we go back to the podcast that we were just talking about, about gaining market share, you’re twice as many agents. Now when the market turns back, you’re gonna be explosive. You’re in trouble. You’re gonna need a couple of guys. Yeah, you’re gonna need some help there. I do want to roll back to one point that you made. You know, everybody has their own opinion, I want to do only direct-to-consumer marketing. I actually got an email, usually, I get emails like, thank you for that podcast. It was awesome. This one guy sent this very nasty email. He’s like, How dare you tell home inspectors the market to agents? I’m like, Okay, well, that’s fine but if we’re that kind of guy, we don’t like to market to agents, we want to stay 100% away from it fine. Just ignore this next part but if you had two agents come up to you and say, we’re thinking about using you. We’ve never met you before. Can you demonstrate a home inspection for us for the next two hours? I would do it in a heartbeat. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, why not? So now, if you have to pay $500 to get a $500 inspection, you get to demonstrate that inspection in front of two agents. I do that every day of the week. Yep. So whatever do we have to pay to acquire them? Yeah. Heck, yeah. So let’s say you have a terrible retention rate of 50%. You know, I only get one agent, every time I go to an inspection, you know, the other one hates my guts. That’s still one more agent that’s still, you know, 10 out of 10 Home Inspections a year, the 10 houses that they’re going to sell, and you’re going to be their guy. So each inspection, Jay, when brought that up on one of our podcasts, he goes, every time I lose an inspection, I lose hundreds of 1000s of dollars. So whatever it takes to get there, those 2500 mailers that you said you sent out, paying the evil corporation that people consider HomeAdvisor. As for Angie, you know, I’ll tell you one of my first years back in Angie’s, heyday, I did almost 100 grand just on Angie’s leads without paying a dime. Just people were like, Oh, hey, cool, you know, before Google reviews, so I have over 180 Angi reviews at the time, and people are like, wow, look at this guy. So it’s like, Alright, whatever works is Angi, my favorite Corporation. Heck no. HomeAdvisor No way. You know, do I like sending mailers or even visiting offices or any of that? No, it’s not. I’d rather not be doing that but does it get in from us in front of agents, that’s what matters. Every agent you’re in front of is another opportunity to acquire them.
Neil Summers: Something I do. When I have an agent, I always ask them if to have you got any new agents in the office. Have you got any new people? I always targeted I always target new agents I always have and always will, old agents already have their favorite guy they already had that’s a tough nut to crack. I might you know, maybe he’ll be sick one day, maybe he will die eventually but I’m not gonna go after the high-hanging fruit. I’m gonna go after the low-hanging fruit. So yesterday I did a Condo Inspection, a two-hour inspection real short, maybe an hour and a half. I asked the agent the day before I said, I know you hired a new agent, can you bring him along? He did. I met a new agent and he’s, so now I have a new agent. New agents aren’t listing agents, they’re nothing but buyer’s agents. So those are the agents I need. I need the kid, the young agent who’s just starting out, most of them are gonna fail. I think most home inspectors fail. Most of them are gonna fail. I don’t want to help them succeed. I’ll tell them that I want to help you succeed, I’ll take them out to lunch, and I’ll talk to them about them reading an inspection report. What to be afraid of what not to be afraid of, and how to present things to their client and thought, you know, the home inspection report is a presentation. It’s all in the presentation. You know, we’re on stage when we’re doing a home inspection we’re on this day when I was selling a car, I was on stage. I couldn’t offend anybody. I couldn’t upset anybody. That doesn’t mean I do a watered-down home inspection report. It just means that I present it in a way that is realistic about what they can expect down the road. Same with the agents and I have agents I’ve never heard of so and so called me and said to call said to talk to you. I have a problem and a house and they’ll send me a text with a picture of the problem. What’s going on here? I’ve never met this agent. Next thing you know, I’m doing home inspections for him. I say I’m approachable. I mean, I remember salesmen I used to work with old car salesmen always eager to please, when you’re talking on the phone smile people can hear a smile when you’re talking to your clients smile when you’re delivering bad news smile. It really is important to there are no perfect houses. One home I’ve done in six years with no defects. One, I think I think it was one it was this year. When you’re selling a car I sold Saturn’s Saturn is a glorified lawnmower. Okay. It’s noisy. It wasn’t attractive. What people don’t realize about Saturday is they had the highest markup in the industry. People would flock there because they didn’t have to negotiate the price. Carmax is the same way their prices aren’t great and their warranties are only 30 days most independent dealers will give you a longer warranty than that but people don’t like to negotiate. I love going to the car dealer to buy a car I love I go with my friends. I mean, send me I love me. Americans are terrible negotiators. We’re awful negotiators. You go to the Middle East, they buy everything at the market. They’re gonna negotiate over the price of a thing. We won’t negotiate over we hire people to do it for us. We hire a real estate agent to do it for us. We’re lousy negotiators. I love negotiating. I just love it. I don’t know what it is my family will play Monopoly with me. They just won’t do it. Anyway, I’m running my mouth here but what would I tell a new inspector to go after the new agents go to the agencies, and say, Hey, I’m a home inspector. I don’t say I’m a home inspector, I’m looking to get inspections out of you. So I’m a home inspector, are you training any new agents, I’d love to do a presentation for him. That’s what I did and that got me in the door.
Ian R: I love that you’re bringing that out. I don’t know if I’ve ever brought it up on this podcast but when I was younger, just first starting out my business. That’s what I did, too. I didn’t want the agents that have been around for 20 years because they knew more than me. Let’s be frank. 23 or something like that, 21 or something around there. Yeah, they knew more than me. What? What was I going to teach them? Now the new agents? Oh, yeah. Oh, you’ve been a home inspector for two years. I’m just getting into the real estate industry. Tell me about how Home Inspections work. You know, like one out of 10 will actually make it let’s be honest. Yeah. If you meet, let’s say 200 That first year that still gives you what’s one at a 10 out of 200 is 20 agents. So then you do it again next year. Now you have 40 agents do it again the next year 60 agents is on average for us on our books for 600 inspections. Yeah, those are going to be new agents coming in all the time. They’re only going to know you and your way.
Neil Summers: I’m your guy. Yeah, the only way I have to be dead or on vacation or they’re not going to I have one agent who still after all these years will still call me and two other inspectors and then present three prices to their client but she’ll put I know I’m getting her business. She’s not a high-producing agent, but I love her and she’ll say no, these two guys are in and out in about two hours and you’ll hear will take about three and a half hours. He’ll explain everything to you and it might be a little bit cheaper. So you pick who you want. I am cheaper than the big boys than the big multi-inspector companies. That’s right where I want to be. I don’t want to be Macy’s, I don’t want to be Kmart, I want to be further north than Walmart. So maybe Target, Target plus.
Ian R: If I could, I just want to roll back because I’m loving your points here. I want to roll back to just kind of add some continuity into my mind. So first of all, to grow your business or to make your business you recommended reading some books on business and sales. I want to know what a couple of books you might recommend.
Neil Summers: Every sales book I ever read was written by a car salesman. Only because when I was in commercial construction, it was a negotiated job. We the industry knew my company was qualified, they called us we weren’t going to reach out to them, they called us and they bring us in and I’d meet with him for over a year or so finally decide what they wanted. Then I’d price that they’re so comfortable with me at that point, we were a design-build firm, we’re not going to charge him for engineering, we’re not going to charge them for architectural design, they would just sign our contract. We were not cheap. commercial construction operates on a two to 3% profit margin, and they’re hoping for change orders, we would go in with a 20% profit margin and guarantee no change orders. So that was a little different than car sales. Car sales were nose to nose, I got a couple of minutes they have to like me eyeball to eyeball sales, which is great. If anybody’s gonna ever going into business for themselves, I recommend they sell I sell cars for a year to learn how to sell. There’s a book, I believe it was called the world’s greatest car salesman. I’m going to google it while we’re doing this.
Ian R: That’s what we do here on inspector toolbelt.
Neil Summers: What we did was a book on how to close a deal, how to talk to a customer how to ask the right questions and all of the good sales books are the same. Nothing has changed in sales since you know Peter was buying a sale for his fishing boat. I think Peter was the salesman was the fisherman, wasn’t he? So nothing has changed and the media has changed the Internet has changed things but nothing’s changed, people. People still buy comfort they buy.
Ian R: They buy warm and fuzzy where they feel good.
Neil Summers: They buy warm and fuzzy, right? They want to feel good about giving you their money. So it’s just basically simple but then you have to ask for the money and a lot of people don’t do that. Grant Cardone is written books, Grant Cardone is a famous sales trainer. I’ve been to one of his seminars but I’m gonna look for the world’s greatest car salesman book.
Ian R: You know what’s interesting, we had a very high-level salesman on man, probably four or five, six months ago, on the show, and he brought us some good points, too. He says it’s not that complicated. I’ve read sales books and all sorts of things but the biggest thing, biggest takeaways for me are number one, always anchor your message in common ground. Yes. So whatever, we’re talking to a person, we need to connect with them and have some sort of point to build off of. So in other words, what are your concerns? This house that you’re buying? What are you worried about? I’m worried about the foundation. You know what I worry about those too, that’s one of the biggest things that I look at. Now we have a common ground and we anchor our message. At that point, we have the same concerns. Home Inspections are actually fairly easy. They’re concerned about their house, we’re concerned about their house, we’re going to have that common ground.
Neil Summers: This is an easy product to sell. If you know how to sell it.
Ian R: Yeah. Then as always be selling never ask it should never be asked. So would you like to schedule when we should always be? Yeah, should always be assumed we should be talking like they have already scheduled with us. It’s just simple. It’s not a trick. If somebody’s talking to me, I’ve been sold things before and at the end, I go, that was amazing. Nice job. Thank you. Gearing me up.
Neil Summers: The greatest compliment a car salesman has ever gotten and we’re told this before you ever sell your first car because everybody gets some training. When a guy walks into the dealership and says no, I didn’t come here to buy a car today and they’re driving home in a new car. That’s the greatest compliment. I used to work I’ve worked with some great sales managers. I worked with a guy from New York, a Jewish mobster from New York. He was one of the most influential people in my life. I didn’t like him. He didn’t like me, he was really tough. I wasn’t performing as a salesman. He just told me one day to shut up and listen to him and talk to customers and I did. I learned so much. And I’ve been selling cars for a couple of years already and doing okay, but I didn’t realize the level you could get to. He turned my life around, and he and I still find he’s still running a car dealer. He’s probably 85 years old. He’s running a Cadillac store now but we were taught in sales, and I was always taught the steps to the sale. You mentioned one of them establish common grounds when a car dealer it’s meets, seats, greets, and establishes common ground, those are the four steps. We don’t always get to see them in our business, we might be on the telephone, but you’re still establishing common ground and my client, the client I’m going after. As much as other people don’t like to hear it, they’re the agent. I want them to be so comfortable with me, they’re afraid not to recommend me and they’re going to be I’m going to return every phone call immediately. I’m going to do all these things but Meet Greet Seat, establish common ground and the common ground is as you mentioned earlier, what’s most important to you have to ask the right questions to the client and car sales are salesman books are going to talk about that. Joe Girard, by the way, was the guy the world’s greatest car salesman. Joe Girard, his wife left him and cleaned him out. I think he was an engineer or something like that got lost his job, walked into a car dealer kind of the way I went in the car dealer and they said I want to sell cars here and I said we don’t have any room for another salesman. He says you got to have an extra desk somewhere and they did it when the attic had a phone he had a pen $2 million with inventory sitting out there and Joe Girard turned into the greatest car salesman in the world because his books are a lot about follow up with clients if you don’t sell them you got to be in touch with them you did gyro inspector yet did you do this yet? A lot of times you’re gonna follow up. They did hire another car salesman in the car business or the sales manager used to say, you know, if you don’t close him today, he won’t be back. I know there are a lot of home inspectors. I’ve talked to that when I say close. I didn’t even know what that meant. When you’re closing a deal, whether it be on a house or selling a home inspection, I learned a lot of things from him. He relentlessly followed up with customers. Every time he met a customer, he wrote their name down in front of them so they could see the customer felt important because it was important for him to write their name down. Then when he spoke to him, he used their name. He always used their names people like to hear their names. In the car business, they taught us to ask for a sale three times. Usually the fourth time and the third time they’ll say yes. If you don’t ask for it. I mean, you might volunteer to give you money but most people don’t volunteer to give their money away someone has to ask for it. Ian, we’ve talked now for half an hour looks like you trust me I trust you, you like the dealership you seem to like the car you haven’t bought yet. Is it me? Then the closing technique there’s you shut up and stare at them until they talk and it can take you five minutes I’ve done it a million times. They’ll usually say no Neil it’s not you, I have to call my wife I said great. Here’s the phone. Let’s call your wife you have to make you have to make facilitate the sale you have everything they need to make that decision. Push it in front of them. I heard a car salesman say you have to call your wife let me call my wife to see if it’s okay to sell your car. That’s not really the way to go. He sold a lot of cars he could get away with it he had a way of saying things lady bought a four-cylinder she thought she was buying a V six and I remember I heard the conversation says do you want the says have a V six and he would go Would you like that? Would you like that the whole time? He never said yes Would you like that here let’s go for a drive she bought the car and came back like two months later says this is only a four-cylinder but it feels like a V six right? Well yeah, it does and everything was fine off she went, and anyway, there are great books out there on sale. There are good books on running a business, running a business. This is not a hobby for me. I see a lot of guys on Facebook. They’re treating their business like a hobby. I have hobbies I fish you know that’s my hobby. When I slow down in the winter, I don’t like fishing in the winter, it’s cold. So that’s when I start really beating the streets again, I’m doing it right now. I just had the worst October I’ve had in five years. So I know interest rates are going up. I know house prices aren’t coming down fast enough and I know there are low still low inventories. So I know there’s a big problem in the market, I foresee a problem I’ve received the next couple of years is really tough in this business. So I have to get to work. This morning I was out in an area don’t normally canvass and I was knocking on doors, I haven’t done a long time. I’ve done this before I was offering free walkthroughs for people selling their homes, not for people buying but for the clients who are selling their homes, I spend an hour that doesn’t cost them a penny. I say this is something that’s going to bother the inspector that over there is going to bother the inspector, I’m not writing a report and providing a service. I did a dealer presentation in an office on Saturday, with people I’ve never dealt with. That’s all I talked about was that service. I don’t like doing those services, I don’t like going out the door for no money but they do bring business and it just takes a while. It takes wealth to get them to believe that what I’m doing is going to help them because I’m trying to help them. If I help them, they’ll help me, you know what works for you. If it’s working, don’t stop. If it’s not working, stop, and find something else. It wasn’t working knocking on the door saying I’m Neil, I want to do home inspections for you that didn’t work, what worked was I want to meet all your new agents and do a presentation for him. That worked.
Ian R: I think that’s a good point that you have to do what works for you now and what we’re comfortable with. I think that often was a mistake, we’re like, this is what works for me. If it didn’t produce anything, it’s not working, it’s just what we’re most comfortable with. So what may work for me might not work for you what works for you might not work for me, we have to go with our own way of doing things. I say that because I remember when I was first starting out, I looked like I was about 10 years old. In-person, marketing was not working for me. You know, I looked like I was 10 and like, Hey, you want me to inspect your house, I’m gonna refer me to your clients. Just, that’s not gonna happen. You know, you’re sitting there with your beard, and You look like a home inspector, you look like you know, stuff, you know in person is going to work a lot better for you than maybe for me. Then as I got older, I switched to more in-person. So whoever we are, whatever our circumstances are, the end game is the same. Ultimately, the sales process is the same too. It’s a matter of anchoring our message and common ground, connecting with the person. I really liked how you drove to the point. It’s always selling and that’s what it is. If you have to always be closing. Always be closing. Yeah, exactly. That really is an important point. Neil, this was fantastic information. I think it’s gonna help a lot of new guys out hearing it, especially because while you’ve been around for, you know, six, seven years now, you know, you shared with us what worked for you in your particular market. I think that’ll help a lot of guys who are just starting out or for us, who are, you know, trying to suffer through this market waiting for the market to turn as we’re trying to hold on to our own market share and grab some new stuff. So thank you very much, Neil. Appreciate it a ton
Neil Summers: Thank you very much. See you.
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].
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