PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian R: Welcome back to inspector toolbelt talk everyone. Today on our show we have Istvan Zsako, did I say that right Istvan? 

Istvan Zsako: Yes, you did. Ian, thanks for having me. 

Ian R: Thanks for being here. I’m proud that I got your name right. I’m really glad that you’re on the show with us today. So maybe there’s some out there that don’t know who you are. So maybe Istvan, you could tell us a little bit about yourself to kind of introduce who you are. Then we’ll talk a little bit about our subject and why that matters to us. 

Istvan Zsako: Excellent. Thank you, Ian. My name is Istvan Zsako. I own a home inspection business in the state of New Mexico, we cover central and northern New Mexico, I’m also an entrepreneur. I love seeing opportunities and learning how to seize those opportunities as well as being able to leverage the things that I already have access to. So I’m one of those things I really enjoy. I also do speaking, I’ve written a book and co-authored two other books. I’m always looking for the next adventure as well. So there are a bunch of things I still have yet to do on my bucket list. 

Ian R: Nice and you’re Istvan, you’re being modest as well, you have a fairly large inspection business, don’t you? You have a multi-inspector firm. 

Istvan Zsako: It is a multi-inspector firm, thank you. It became the largest Inspection Company in the state of New Mexico about three years ago. We’ve been able to hold that so far the markets have been a little setback the way it’s going, but we’re gonna keep moving forward through it. I got a whole team, we got administration, we got our office, we own two different offices, one in Albuquerque, one in Santa Fe, and we got two teams of inspectors that are in each market, as well as the separate team for all of our ancillary services. So they’re done by different technicians that just focus on specializing in sewer radon and mold. 

Ian R: Nice, that’s awesome. I love that they specialize because I’ve always said you should have people that specialize on your team because it helps you to be able to expand and has a lot of other benefits. I have to give a shout-out to Coy Bradstreet from BPI inspections. I was talking with him one day, and he’s like, you don’t know it’s fun. You gotta meet is fun. I’m like, Okay, I gotta meet this guy and I liked it from the incident that we talked about that day. You have an interesting story too. I don’t know why this came up in conversation, but Istvan is like this guy who was the biggest Home Inspection Company in New Mexico, he used to be homeless, and then he became this and he grew multiple companies. I’m like, Man, this guy has a story. Is that true? 

Istvan Zsako: That is true. At 16, I, you know, living at home was rough. We all have our story, we all go through our own things, there’s no comparing one person worse or more than the other, you know, it’s what we go through. At that time, I needed something to change, or I felt like I was just going to, you know, I was becoming a suicidal teenager, I thought, you know, it’s either going to end or I need to get out. I decided to pack up all my stuff and just go figure it out. So I kind of, on my own decision to become homeless just to get out of a situation. I didn’t know what to do but something had to change. I just took that leap. There are a lot of interesting to happen, things happen along the way. At a certain point, they can money was going to be the answer, you know, money would make everything better. It really didn’t. I’m glad to experience that I started making, you know, 10 times more than I need to live on at that time. I was unfulfilled. What really changed my life as you know, was not being angry and blaming everybody else for the life that I had, because that’s what was keeping me where I was at was a really bad mindset. I was angry and pissed off about so many different things. Once I found peace, it changed so many things. Not only was I homeless at 16, you know, off and on here and there but once I hit 21 I had all the jobs. I had the money for a nice apartment, I had so many nice things that I packed it all up and left with a debt to my name of $35. My pocket decided to go camping. That camping lasted seven years. 

Ian R: Oh, wow. Yeah. So you really camped for seven years. So 21 to 28 years old. Okay. 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah. I had dreadlocks at the bottom of my bag at the end of that journey. When I did cut the dreadlocks off, I saved them. But at a certain point, at the end of my journey, I was like, the dreadlocks were becoming part of my identity. Like if I went into a coffee shop or something, it probably took about 30 minutes and somebody wanted to take me for a walk and get me stoned or something and just you know, it. There were certain people that attracted me because of that going on crazy beard. I realized that that’s not my identity. Like that’s not who I am but that’s how people see me. So I cut them all off. I did save them as part of my story. You know, I knew I didn’t want people to say Nah, you’re making it up. No, no, I have them. They’re about you know, almost three feet long and they’re really there. It was interesting. I went to certain places. Afterward and I became visible to certain cliques and groups, and it was a lot of, you know, discovering who am I. Those seven years were a lot of that self-discovery, which I really enjoyed and look back on all the time and smile and laugh about.

Ian R: Well, for those of you who are listening and not watching the video rendition of this podcast, you and I can picture that. I’m looking at you and your nice neat blue button-up shirt and neat hair and trim to go to and I’m trying to picture you and dreadlocks and wow. So then you became a contractor at some point. Then you became a home inspector at another point. 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah, I  did a lot of off and on work, handyman odd stuff during my travels to get by, you know, because some point you got to go into town, hit a food bank, get some money, put some gas in the tank, whatever, and go back out and do nothing but when I started settling down, I went back into construction. Then one day, a buddy of mine approached me and said, Would you like to become a home inspector? I said, Yes. He says, Do you know what it is? I said, No. But I want to be one. I was like, I was at the point where I was doing construction. I had a crew under me and I kept asking myself, well, what’s the next thing? You know, what’s the next thing because, you know, we can get very comfortable where we can almost become complacent sometimes just we’re this works but I’m always been like, what’s the next thing? I was wondering when a home inspection came my way. I was just like, yeah, I want to know what it is. I’m open to it. My buddy was retiring. He just felt like it was an opportunity he wanted to pass on to somebody before he officially had, you know, hung up his hat. He wasn’t really doing many jobs. At that point. He wasn’t marketing. It was turning into a rare thing. He was trying to get somebody else to carry the baton. So it didn’t just die at him. He told me the things that I have to have ready, he wanted me to have some sort of training. So it was training from the ground up, insurance, a name registered, boom, bang, everything. Within 30 days, it was all done. I was like, Let’s go I jumped on the opportunity. 

Ian R: Wow. So and then obviously, the rest is history, because now you have the largest Inspection Company in New Mexico. I would imagine if that’s the case, then obviously one of the largest independently owned companies in the country. So that’s really impressive. You also have a book, and maybe we’ll put a link in the transcript. I noticed you could buy it on Amazon. Correct? Yeah, the title of the book. 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah, you can go to amazon.com and order. It’s The Victory mindset, a life of disadvantage, transform into a life of endless opportunity. It was that kid, you know, at 16 sleeping on the streets trying to figure it out and believing that I was destined to just suffer and fail and everything else because of my family because my relationships because everything else, to what I learned along the way, the people that I met the things that I learned from them, you know, a lot of them didn’t even realize that they were mentoring me, some maybe did I don’t know but looking back, I learned so much from these people. Then self-reflection as well, that is gotten me out of that mindset that I was going to suffer and realize that I was blaming other people, and other excuses for other circumstances outside of myself, that were keeping me stuck where I was. Once I realized that I was able to break free from it and then discover who I am and what I want and start going after it. Not using an excuse or anything, not letting anything get in my way. Actually, when people say you can’t do it. It’s just more like, really, let me show you. I think I can. 

Ian R: You know, and that’s the mindset, the book you just told us about. That idea of changing your mindset. That’s what drew me to want to have you on the show. I see that a lot with home inspectors and people in general, we start a business and it’s a little harder than we think. Or we hit some, you know, speed bumps in the road. One particular guy in comes to my mind. I just remember him talking about, oh, if I only had this that this guy had or you know if I didn’t have this background or finally had this. It just said at some point, you got what you got, man, let’s work with it. It happened around the same time that I found out about you just a week or two ago. I’m like, Alright, maybe the industry needs to hear how changing our mindset can help us as home inspectors and business owners. Before we get into that because I’d really love to get your opinion on how changing our mindset can help us to grow our inspection business. You also do a couple of other things correct for the inspection industry like sewer camera training, and some other services, right? 

Istvan Zsako: I do. At a certain point, I had started offering sewer camera inspections, and a lot of companies I networked with, were saying hey, can I fly out and spend one or two days with you and go on a couple of jobs to see how it’s done. I said sure. I had gotten a training myself through another venue that I felt like after the training, I had so many questions, all the videos were just clean PVC talking about issues, but I didn’t really get to know what they look like, I knew there were other pipes out there, nobody talked about him. As people are coming to visit me and do ride-along, I realized, you know, there’s a, there’s a need for this. I think you know, I felt like I could deliver something that was going to be more informative and more prepare inspectors for what they need to do than the one that I got. So I started sewer camera training. We do you know, we do the whole training, get everybody familiar with the pipes, the different issues, how to do videos, reporting styles, common issues, different types of pipe, pretty much just about everything they’ll need to know and then even cover a little bit of marketing too to get agents to be educated and start informing their clients. So they actually start marketing for you. The service just takes off. I’ve had so many clients go through the training that they’re just, they just hit the floor running, and it’s just helped their business. Not only is it about the money, but it’s also about, they’re helping people now understand what they’re getting that nobody can see it’s underground, and mines can, they can be expensive, on that national average about eight to 10,000, some could be 15 20,000 to replace, and that would hurt brand new homebuyers. So I started doing that. Then I also during the pandemic, marketing had to change had to shift and all the people that shifted did okay, the ones that didn’t kind of struggled along. What I started doing is an automated email marketing program that goes after building relationships with your agents. So new agents, like new listing agents do buyer’s agents that are coming into interacting with your company, they’re just following up with them. It does a lot more than that I mean, phone call reminders, postcards, and just so much more. We custom build stuff too for our clients as well. So those are some things that I do as well that have helped me as a home inspection business owner and that we are helping other companies with as well grow their business. 

Ian R: Well, both of those services I can speak highly of because there’s nothing like hands-on training when it comes to especially sewer scope. I thought I knew sewer scope and then I worked with actually he was another guest on our show, Jay, when I’m just like, Man, I don’t know sewer scope compared to you. Working with somebody who knows, really teaches us more than we can really predict that will teach us then also, Coy speaks very highly of your campaigns. So retargeting agents and relationship building with them. That’s an important part of our business. So that’s fantastic. So if anyone’s interested, would they contact you, Istvan? 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah, they can contact me, I can leave you information for them as well but there’s a topofmindcampaigns.com or tomcampaigns.com both go there. There’s more information if they want to check that out. Then sewertraining.com for the sewer camera training. 

Ian R: Perfect. We’ll have links to that and all the transcripts here. I really liked how you started off the podcast by talking about how you made a whole bunch of money and that didn’t bring you happiness. I’d like to emphasize that because that’s refreshing to me because a lot of times we think of a successful business, as “man, we make tons of money”, but you’re working 16 hours a day, you know, you’re divorced, your kids are alienated from you, you know, not that everybody ends up. I like to work I’m kind of a workaholic, but growing our business and having a successful business and all that we want to meter that we want to have balance with it. I do like that point that you made. Why is your mindset important when it comes to growing your business and, and being happy with it? Why is that so important? 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah, well, there are so many different angles. You know, one that I would like to point out, that was what led me to, you know, making all that money but feeling unfulfilled, which means I wasn’t successful because success is really more about a place that you get to where you’re really happy with your life and you have a good balance and you have what you need. You know, one of the things was really having a purpose. That’s one of the things that people miss, you know, they’ll go into business and I want to have a business, I want to work for myself. I want to go into business because I want to set my own schedule. Yeah, right, your clients set your schedule. You know, there’s all these things, people go into business, but once they get into it, and then they actually start getting busy, where they’ve actually created a demand for their product or service, then they’re just overwhelmed and they’re caught up in the business and other businesses kind of run in their life. That’s where you know, the money doesn’t bring happiness and if you don’t have a purpose or you lose your purpose along the way, it becomes a job it becomes work, you know, it’s no longer a passion. For myself, you know I have a vision, my vision goes out 1020 years different parts of it. Today, the things that I’m doing today are part of getting me to where I’m going. I’m very excited about it. Even when I have a long day, and it was exhausting, I’m just like, Man, I don’t feel like today was so hard, you know because my mindset is these things line up with what I’m trying to do. Like my subconscious programming, the things that I believe in, it lines up with, so I’m pumped, I might be physically beat, but I’m like, mentally, I’m just like, wow, it was a really good day, I got a lot of stuff done. It was that mindset, it was that that perspective, you know, what I’m building for my family, for my wife for our future, so that we can travel and be missionaries and be self-funded and be able to actually do what we want. So, you know, that mindset is really huge. What do you want? What are you going after, if you want to be one single man operation cool, you want to be six, you want to be, you know, start scaling, you know, 1 million, 5 million, 10 million, it doesn’t matter what it is, but have an idea of what it is and why you’re doing it and that purpose. So as you’re going through it, it’s not about just money, you know, you don’t get lost in the little things and just hate it. I’ve seen some business owners that are just, they’re struggling with things or the way the markets going and everything is, you know, they’re just like, they’ve been so focused on growth, growth, growth, that right now, they’re not experiencing growth, and they’re just stressing out and losing that that focus. So, you know, the first thing for me that I would say, is really having a purpose and being very clear about what that is, you know, what is your vision for why you’re doing any of it because if you don’t have that, you could do some amazing things but at the end, it will have meant nothing because it didn’t really have a purpose to fulfill. 

Ian R: You know, I can speak to that a little bit. I’ve, especially my home inspection business because you know, there’s a lot of emotions when people are buying houses, and it can be exhausting. At times, we have a podcast about how to beat inspector burnout. If we love what we do, we don’t work a day in our lives. So I can think back to the times that I’ve burned out the most in my inspection businesses typically when I focus on, okay, next day inspections, next day inspections, how do we get more inspections? You know, should we raise prices for inspections? Should we do these extra inspections, instead of stepping back and taking the 10,000-mile-high view and saying, Okay, why am I doing this? So what are some other good examples of purpose that home inspectors can have, like, in the home inspectors that you work with? What do you find some purposes that keep people going besides just the inspections and just the bottom line? 

Istvan Zsako: You find, like, what I love that, that I’ve been growing on more and more is supporting things that I believe in, and letting my business fund those things, you know, as being a homeless teenager, I love it, when I have the opportunity to connect with one of the companies here in Santa Fe that you know, it’s a nonprofit that is helping people that are experiencing that, you know, their homeless teenagers are having challenging times or coming out of a family where they’re not getting the support they need, and being able to support other things within the community. I really love finding out what realtors are in the people that you’re giving us the referrals, what did they like to serve? How can I help you serve that purpose, that’s a huge angle that not only benefits me as in, you know what I get to do for my own community, but it helps serve the people that I’m asking for the referrals for I’m going hey, you know, I’d like for you to refer to my company. I’m also going to support you and the things that you do. So it has multiple benefits at the same time plus the people that those nonprofits, our benefits are helping, so we’re helping those people. So, you know, the big thing is like, how do we continue to do what we’re doing give back, like, coaching or talking to other business owners. That’s another one that I love talking with business owners about because one of the biggest things that I didn’t know and still don’t know is I don’t know what I don’t know. Like, it sounds funny, but it’s so true once I started learning, and I realized that most people are struggling from a lack of knowledge. There are some you know, if there’s something you’ve learned something you’ve overcome, something you’ve done in your business, there are probably other business owners who would love to hear about it and hear about your six success stories. How you did that and your personal successes as well. Like, you know, perfect example like this, you know, I wanted to share what I had done. Lots of times people see people in a place of success and think, Well, they got there because of their family. They got there because of marriage they got there because of whatever it is, you know, even just when I say you know somebody helped me get into the home inspection industry I’ve had people say, Well, you took over somebody else’s company. No, I believe it was the phone that was not ringing. When we started training together, you know, I had to get the phone ringing. He did help me a little, which is nice. I do acknowledge there was somebody there to help encourage, and push and train me but there’s like, you don’t know what you don’t know. So being able to learn that, do it well, and then take it and share it with other people. That, to me is powerful. It’s also on top of, you know, when you learn something, you do it, but to really master it is to teach it. 

Ian R: That’s an interesting way to express that when you master you teach it because a lot of times, you know, in the home inspection industry, everybody wants to sell us, you know what we’ll show you this, or we’ll show you that we’ll, we’ll teach you how to grow your business to a million miles high but we need to become to the point where maybe we’re the ones that could teach it. How does changing our mindset get to that? So your mindset is, I want to share this information with people I want to help them. What if we are the person at the bottom of that equation? I don’t know anything? Do I need the help? How does? How does changing our mindset help us to come from the bottom up to the top? 

Istvan Zsako: That’s a great question and a beautiful topic. A lot of things we don’t realize we have a lot of programming in us, you know, from the things that happened to us the way our families were maybe even people that we respected growing up that poured into us, you know, like how much bad financial advice Do we always get from people who can’t manage their finances, but they always want to freely give this financial advice, you know, but we have programmed. Then there are the things that are more traumatic within our past too, you know, being that kid that was struggling, that was something I had to overcome. These things become limitations in our lives, you know, and if they hold us back, we often don’t realize that there are things that we want, we’ll say it, like mentally, I know, I want that I want to make more money, I want to take more travel, I want to go on vacation. Yet something deep down inside of us, there’s a little bit of programming that we may not feel like deserving of it, or we feel capable of ever accomplishing that. We have to dig down and start reprogramming because if we want our business to grow, we have to grow. If we don’t grow, our business will cap out because we only have so much to bring to the table. That mindset, you know, if you’re like in a stuck or fixed mindset, where this is who I am, this is the kind of person I am, this is how I am, those are fixed mindsets that are not allowing you to be open to who you can become or who you’ve been called and destined to become the things that you can do. So for myself, it was breaking through a lot of those ideas, that maybe I couldn’t really have a million-dollar business or a multi-million-dollar business. You know, it just, I couldn’t see it happening to me until I allowed myself to be open to the possibilities and start breaking away from these ideas of who I am or what I thought I was capable of because I feel all of us are capable of great things. We don’t know how great, but we have to let go of who we think we all are right now to be able to seek out the person that we know that we have the potential to become. 

Ian R: So I think we’re getting into the juicy part of the watermelon here. I like what you’re saying. So I find that to about a lot of home inspectors, I’ll have guys call me. One guy, in particular, stands out he was out on out on the West Coast. He said to me, I don’t know if I can do this. I’m like, if you don’t know if you can do this, you need to change your attitude because you need to walk into these houses and into offices and with people and say, I rock. This is why and this is what I’m going to do. He kept hemming and hawing and finally he gave up like he just it was just like, he was stuck in his own mind of I can’t do this, you know, I just or the most common thing is guys not charging enough for their time. You know, I’m only worth $199 For this inspection instead of 500. You know, or I’m only worth 350 instead of 800 Do you find that we tend to undervalue ourselves. Is that kind of what you’re getting at? 

Istvan Zsako: That’s, that’s one of them. If if I don’t feel that, you know, I deserve to get paid 100,000 A year or 200,000 or 300,000 which I’ve talked to people and there’s like, Oh 100,000 That would be more, more than I can. I don’t need more than that. So I’d be fine that 100,000 You know, it’s there’s a perspective where they actually aren’t allowing themselves to have more and to even just challenge that, you know, like, well, I don’t need more than 100,000. Okay, well stop being selfish and thinking about yourself, you know, how much money do you need to live? That’s one conversation but how many people could you help? If you made 150,000? How many people could you help if you made 200,200 50,000 300,000, maybe you only need 100,000? You give away the other 100,000. Like, there’s the possibilities of like what we can do that are beyond ourselves but lots of times, we are self-absorbed with ourselves. And yet we call other people who are going after things and going big as being selfish are all absorbed in money. But not always, a lot of the people that I found that have read success, and if acquired wealth, they’re usually giving back and doing other things, that if I only make 50,000 a year, which means I just pay my mortgage and my car insurance and put food on the table, I have nothing left to bring to the table to give to other people help. Once again, it’s just a matter of perspective, right? Where’s our mindset? Are we really thinking big? Are we allowing ourselves to dream and see what all the options are? Or are we just fixed on just this little box? Where if everything in the box is okay, then I’m okay. Instead of how big can we go? That’s just back to that mindset. 

Ian R: Okay, so, I guess rolling back to my question, I don’t want it to be a reductive comment of saying, Oh, it’s just a matter of undervaluing ourselves but how do we avoid the risk of overvaluing ourselves? You said we don’t know what we don’t know. So we could be sitting here being like, you know, what, I am gonna own a million-dollar business. We’ve never done construction. So we don’t know about the house, we don’t have a business plan. So we don’t know about business. We’re just gonna rush in headfirst and that’s, you know, there are a million haikus about that. You know, basically, it is only an idiot who thinks more of himself and rushes in. So how do we balance that? 

Istvan Zsako: I love that? That’s a great question. I think it comes back to that having that purpose. You know, what is your mission statement, look at businesses, big businesses, they always have a mission statement, something that they’re trying to accomplish somebody, they’re trying to help something away, they’re trying to change the world. That becomes a foundation for what you’re doing. As for myself, I don’t think evil is I mean, sorry, money is evil, or in any way corrupts people. It only amplifies what’s in the person. So on the side of, you know, too much too successful, too big. You know, if there’s a fear of that, I think you need to evaluate your, you know, what, somebody would need to evaluate yourself and be like, well, why am I doing it back to that cause and that purpose, because yeah if I don’t have a really clear purpose on it, I can go make a lot of money. I’ve seen people who make a lot of money have one bad year, and they lose everything. You know, they didn’t really have a purpose. They weren’t helping other people. They weren’t putting aside money for the future. They weren’t investing, they weren’t taking advantage of all the opportunities that there are, when you start becoming successful, you know, doors start opening all sorts of places that are amazing. I mean, I’ve had people call me who say, you know, they want to talk about something that they want to work with. I’m, like, awesome. Like, they called me, you know, somebody asked me to buy into a business, a company that we own now, and just said, I could buy it by myself, but I probably always be a mom, pop, if you joined in with me. I think we could scale it to do something bigger. I was like, Okay, well, let’s see what your what it is, you know, and opportunity starts presenting itself. I think we have to be very clear about what we’re doing. If we don’t know why we want to have a million-dollar business, I think we should sit down and figure out why we want it before we figure out how to get there because the why is so much more powerful than the how and I liked one of my coaches said, you know, you put the why and the how together you get Wow. 

Ian R: Are you good? How are we? Sorry, I always have been sort of dad jokes but just to go along with what you’re saying. I guess it kind of comes down to I think about one of the Rocky movies, rocky wanted to go have that big fight. He wanted to win the belt. If he didn’t have that purpose. If he couldn’t put that down to paper, then he’s just some dude drinking raw eggs and running around town with a couple of bricks in his hands. That gets old really quick. So we have to understand our “Why”. I think writing down a mission statement is important. A lot of guys will send me mission statements for their websites. It’s kind of funny. Some of them are so generic. It’s like they copied them off of a website. They’re like, Oh, this sounded good. So okay, is that rocky preparing for the fight? Are you just some dude running around with bricks in your hands drinking rags? That’s kind of what it comes down to. Some guys will give me something very meaningful Like this is for my family, so I can spend more time with them. This is for my dad, this is for, you know, my family’s future. Those are the guys that to be perfectly honest, tend to do a little bit better because they’re driven. I think that is kind of maybe your point. We don’t want to overvalue or overvalue ourselves, but it gives us at least purpose so that we can reach those goals. Is that kind of what you’re saying? Yeah, I’m just trying to wrap my small brain. 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah, no, no, I like the recap there and yeah, it’s, you know, when we serve something other than ourselves, it’s so much more fulfilling, I, at least for myself, I can speak for myself, you know, and in serving your family, serving your clients serving the people that are around, you know, I have an amazing Oh, now a couple of amazing teams that I get to work with within the companies that I own, and getting to serve them. You know, it’s amazing, and it gives me it’s not what gives me the purpose, but it gives me so much drive to continue to help and develop them, and be able to give back and pour back. But you know, what you were saying about the mission statement all that’s, you know, it’s part of your vision, right? You know, what is that overall vision. Like, for myself, I want to retire at 50 and be financially independent, so I can travel for leisure, and for mission trips, and like, you know, I put a date on it. I said, 50, you know, I put, you know, like, start visualizing what it is. You and you said you asked, you know, some people for their vision statements. I do coaching and when I talk to people, I say, Well, what, what is your vision? Like, this is your perfect day, where you’re trying to go, what would you do today, and they can’t even tell me what the day would look like. I mean, throw out a couple of things. I’m like, that’s maybe 30 minutes of your day, like that would be it. I mean, if you told me you would sit on your butt and do absolutely nothing and stare off into the distance for eight hours, that’s okay. They didn’t even say that it was just like, very unclear. For our mindset to line up with what we’re doing and what we’re trying to grow. What we’re trying to build, when we don’t even have the vision to line up with. That’s like getting in the car and turning on the GPS, but not putting any coordinates and starting driving. Like you’re not gonna get anywhere. I mean, you might get somewhere, but it may not be where you plan on going because there was no destination or, you know, Vision laid out for the plan. So it really comes back to you know, gets your mission statement, understands what you’re doing. What is your vision? What does that good life look like? What does success look like? It’s not about money but what’s your version of success? You know, if you’re trying to get something, you got to know what it looks like or have a target, or it’s otherwise really hard to hit. 

Ian R: I think that’s well said. I like your point too, about giving back. That’s actually scientifically backed, there’s more happiness and giving than there isn’t receiving. They did a study, and they found that people who volunteered and helped other people, you know, they were generally their mental health was their mental well being was increased when they did that. So that is a nice side point to having our purposes or purpose. I want to make a bunch of money. Okay, yeah, go for it. Could we actually write down what our mission statement is? What are we working for? I like how you brought that out? A lot of guys. They can’t say it, they can’t put it into words. If we can’t put it into words, we’re just driving around without a destination. As you said, I like that. So I think this is a good topic too because right now the market situation does not look good. In a lot of inspectors’ eyes, I have a different opinion. I actually have a positive spin on it. I did a podcast a couple of weeks with beyond and we talked about the positive aspects of it but a lot of guys are just like, Man, this stinks. This is terrible. What’s gonna happen? I’m gonna have to close up shop. Am I gonna have to do this? Do you see the market changes as being a bad situation? I think I know, I’m voting you on for an answer because I think I know what you’re gonna say. Or do you view it as an opportunity? 

Istvan Zsako: Yes, and yes, and yes to all of it. What, I’ve noticed is, you know, there are people who respond to life and there are people who just react, most people just react, I’m gonna have to close shop, that’s a reaction marks not going the way I want. That’s a reaction. These are reactions, you know, that are emotionally driven, rather than a response, which is observing the situation and taking action during COVID. Since COVID, started, you know, back in 2020, this whole pandemic thing, you know, it changed the way a lot of people are doing business. During that like when that started from the date when that started, I think we’ve created four additional companies since then. So if somebody is Stuck on well, it’s not like this anymore. It’s a seller’s market, it’s not a buyer’s market, everybody’s waiting for inspections, I understand that. Some of these things are challenges, but we always have to keep our eyes open to where’s the opportunity, because we can focus on the problem and go nowhere step by just being stressed out, you know, and accomplish nothing. Or we can assess the situation and start Google, where’s the opportunity? You know, maybe it’s a different way we market, maybe it’s a different product, maybe it’s opening up to a different industry. That’s an exciting one, we’ve opened up to an industry that we didn’t realize that we could now we’re doing services for this other industry that is not related to home inspection whatsoever. We actually did a report for them a whole system, everything and we’re delivering on them, I think, like five to 10 jobs a week. There are different kinds of jobs, but it’s a job, it’s something that we created out of, you know, this need to find opportunity. So is this market and opportunity? Yes, because once it turns back around, I now have more services and more places for leads to come into my business than I had before this all happened, rather than sitting around and going, well, I can’t keep doing what I always did to keep getting that result that all just dried up, you know, and it ain’t gonna work anymore. That’s back to that, like a fixed mindset. Instead of that, you know, victory mindset that’s going, well, I can’t do that. So what can I do? Right? Where’s the opportunity? It’s like my management, you know, it’s like, you’re gonna come to me with a problem come with a solution, you know, always be thinking about what is the opportunity around this condition that we’re dealing with, so that it’s not about a problem. It’s about a change that needs to take place to continue to move us forward toward the dreams and goals that we’ve already set out. We’re not going to give up on that. I definitely am not. So opportunity is all around us right now. If you’re not seeing it just got to change the way that you’re looking at your surroundings in your conditions or situations. 

Ian R: So I don’t I don’t want to press you on that one item or whatever service you’re offering, because it sounds like maybe you had that close to your chest but what are some other opportunities that we might help home inspectors see come out of this situation. So for instance, the high-interest rates, lower mortgage applications, and all that stuff going on? 

Istvan Zsako: Well, one that I’ve seen a lot of people pushing, and we’re pushing right now to is pre-listing inspections. Every time we talk to inspection companies are often like, Yeah, we don’t do a lot of those. Why not? and how can you, you know, we’ve done about eight to 10% by volume pre-listing and our goal for this year is to double that we’re gonna try to figure out how to double it because if you think about it, yes, it’s a seller’s market, which means as the demand starts to shift like it is right now, houses are starting to sit on the market a little bit longer, they’re not getting as many offers right out the gate, which means now, sellers have to compete with other sellers. So how do they do that, give more information upfront, build more trust with your buyers be, you know, more open about the condition of the home by hiring a third party to determine what the condition is? So now the buyer can feel more confident to go over the asking price because I know that it needs a roof, but I’m ready to budget for that rather than I don’t know what it needs but I’m going to overpay and then when I get in there, I’m gonna get serious buyer’s remorse and realize I gotta dish out another 30k on top of the 50k already spent, they’re stressed out and scared. That little report that’s done for the seller that they disclose. I mean, it now builds trust between the buyer and the seller. It limits the liability of the seller, that they didn’t disclose something. It actually limits the liability of the listing agent and the buyer’s agent all at the same time, which means it’s a win-win for everybody. So there’s something if you’re not doing it, or you’re not talking about not marketing it, started talking about it, there are people who will appreciate it. It just matters comes down to like how you market it and who you’re targeting, to get that service out there and the awareness that you’re offering, and what it can do, like the benefits for that transaction. 

Ian R: Yeah, I totally agree with you on that because, you know, a large portion of my inspection company’s business is pre-listing inspections but once 2020 hit, it dropped down to a very small percentage, because why get a pre-listing inspection when you have 10 offers and you know, 48 hours of listing, the only reason you’re on there for 48 hours is let all the offers come in. So why do a pre-listing inspection now they’re starting to come back? Now it’s, and I don’t I don’t see fewer inspections being out there. Just fewer buyers. There are already too many buyers. So that means more inventory, a normal set of buyers, and more opportunities plus pre-listing inspections. I agree that pre-listing inspections are something that we’ve been missing out on as an industry for the past couple of years, you know. 

Istvan Zsako: Yeah. If you did the pre-listing inspection, maybe the buyer waives the inspection, which means everybody who was hoping for the buyer’s inspection still gets nothing and you got an inspection out of it. Which means you’re actually creating demand. Unlike fighting for the demand, it’s there. You can’t create more market share on the buyer’s end, there’s only so much market share, and you’re getting a cut of that market share but if you go into the pre-listing, you’re actually creating a market share. 

Ian R: Yep. Do you think there are any other kinds of opportunities that are home inspection related that we could jump into? 

Istvan Zsako: definitely ancillary services? You know, I know some guys want to be like, well, we’re just generalists, we just stick to the home inspection. Especially like in chats about sewer, you know, not to pick sewer in particular but mostly we’ll do radon because it’s pretty easy. If that’s, you know, an issue in your area, a lot of people jump on radon. Sewer and mold and maybe even termite or other ones that are in need some areas, people even do septic tanks but these, a lot of them are not high ticket items to get involved with. When I bought my first camera cost more than the ones that I used today. I like the ones I use now, even better than the one that I first bought but it was like 11 grand to buy the whole setup with a locator. I went out there and started doing the sewer camera inspections in the first year from about starting in May, until the end of the year, I brought in 40k. This means Yeah, $11,000 is a lot of money to put up a front but to make an additional 40k. That’s almost four times my investment. I actually financed it, which means it paid for itself. I never paid anything out of pocket. It always brought in the revenue to you know, pay for itself. Same with mold are people like well, I don’t know might be a deal killer might that well, no mold, there are people who are interested. There’s a lot that won’t be but there are those who are, who are. Then on the backside, how to do you there are ways you can monetize things, too, by building relationships. We were doing free mold estimates for our clients and when they would accept them, we already they were already pre-approved with another company, we get 10% kickback on that. So now we were pushing mold remediation onto another company and getting 10% of these jobs. So there are so many opportunities and what we’re already doing today. The question to be asking yourself is, how do I leverage the client base that I already have? Getting new clients, that’s the hardest client to get is the one that already knows you like you, and trusts you, and that’s the easiest one to make a sale to. So how do you increase your ticket price, maybe if you didn’t get more inspections, but you got an extra $100 per inspection 100, you know, 100 inspections and an extra $100 Right there, that’s an extra 10 grand that you didn’t really have to do a whole lot to get. So, back to that, where’s the opportunity, there are always opportunities around us. You know, if we already have Realtors referring us, they like us, then that means they trust us. All the services we offer their clients are going to trust using us for those clients instead of giving that work away to somebody else. 

Ian R: Yeah, I agree totally. I’ve always said that ancillary inspections, that’s where the money’s at, that’s where we’re going to make the most at. Buyers are going to start to be a little bit more cautious now that the market is starting to change. So now instead of saying just get the home inspection done and get out of here in three days, well, I don’t want to end up like my cousin who bought a house sight unseen and overpaid for it. Let’s do that sewer scope. You know, what does the whole septic inspection do? Let’s do mold. Let’s do everything else. Yeah, we can increase the bottom line that way. So let me ask you this. So let’s pretend issue one that I am the guy sitting at home, in front of my computer, waiting for somebody send me an email for an inspection. I’m not getting calls. I’ve been at this for a year and I’m just, it’s just not working. What are some practical things that we can do to change our mindset and accomplish our goals? We already talked about having a purpose? You know, having that mission statement, so to speak. What are some other practical things that I can do in that situation? 

Istvan Zsako: So are we talking about personal development? Are we talking about within the business to develop the business? 

Ian R: Let’s do both what do you think I don’t think they separate from each other, to be honest with you. 

Istvan Zsako: Awesome. I’ll get into some like no cost, low-cost things that somebody could be doing in their business but to start off with, uh, personally, especially right now where we may be struggling or we’re going in you know, the market isn’t what I want and you’re having that personal struggle internally, focus on personal development. You know, even if it’s just lipid listening to like Tony Robbins or something, you know, like something that you gotta like, you got to start hearing something like something’s gonna pump you up and motivate you, you know, whoever it is that you hear that you like that? You know, maybe it’s a preacher sermon, whatever it is. 

Ian R: Keep focusing on podcasts like inspector toolbelt. 

Istvan Zsako: Exactly, you know, start focusing on the places where you can keep focusing on development rather than dwelling within the situation that you’re in. So you want to change, you have to change, you know, everybody’s always like, man, you know, I wish this would change and if the world would change, and if these people would change and the government and whatever, you know, why don’t you be the change? Let’s start right here. That’s the most powerful thing we could do is start, you know, changing ourselves. So, focus on personal development, especially right now, if you’ve got that time I pick up a book, you know, we probably all have a book or two, sitting on our shelf that we’ve told ourselves, we know that we would benefit from if we read that book, but we haven’t read it. Right now. It’s a good time, to pick it up, start reading it, and never stop building up yourself and the value that you have to bring to the table when you’re in a conversation with a client or a potential referral partner that can refer you always be bringing, you know, value, and the only way you can do that is increasing the value that I have. So I have to continue to pour into myself. That loan, just being in a networking environment where I’m sitting, having a conversation with somebody at a golf tournament, or a presentation that I sponsored, I’m gonna be able to go, you know, I was reading the other day that that person’s like, oh, my God, that was so powerful. Thank you so much. Now they’re in a conversation tomorrow with somebody going, hey, you know, get home inspector, oh, yeah, this great conversation with this guy, you should call him, he’s a really cool guy had a great, you know, like, I learned a lot from him. Your conversation had nothing to do with the home inspection, but he got value out of it, you know, so let’s bring value. We can only do that by continuing to build ourselves up and that also gets us away from focusing on those problems and learning how to focus on the opportunities that are sitting right in front of our faces. The reality is, all of us have opportunities that our right there, it’s just learning how to see them, you know, changing the way we see things and the mindset about the things around us. So that’s one person and with business, if you’re sitting there, I’d say start making some phone calls and start writing some postcards. You know, that’s just basic right there, you can do emails, but emails are gonna get a really low response. So the emails are cool but tied in with something else, maybe the agents that you are still working with that you can see that are doing well keep building those relationships, you know, make sure you don’t lose those good agents, you know, call them checking out right on my postcard look in your, you know, in your CRM, if your whatever you know, the software you’re using to manage your clients that you’re emailing your reports out of, go in there, look at your agents, and start looking at all the ones that have been pretty good, but haven’t worked with you for a while and just give them a call, Hey, how you been, I just want to check in with you. Hope you’re doing well hope you got clients you do great, and that’s awesome. Well, love to see you sometime. If you want to have a coffee catch up, don’t try to sell them, just catch up with them, see how they’re doing, and have a conversation. Make sure that you know, maybe they’re just having a hard time or they’re in between offers and they just haven’t called you because of that but now you’re top of mind because you’ve reached out to them, they’re gonna want to connect with so It doesn’t cost you anything to make a phone call or postcard. If you already got some cards in your office, it’s gonna cost you like 40 cents for three cents of the stamp, send it out, don’t sell just wanted to connect with you to see how you’re doing, wishing you the best year this year. You know, or go on social media, see what they’re doing and congratulate them on something. Those are really simple things but they’re meaningful touches. If you’re just doing an email or a newsletter that’s just generic, and hey, you know, we added all these extra services, maybe that’s good. It let them know about a new service. That’s one idea but what about the one that builds the relationship? That’s what I did over you know, like, when COVID hit, I changed all my messages that I was doing to my agents, and it started becoming about, you know, hey, here’s something really cool to share with your client, hey, here’s a really cool article, I saw, hey, here’s something of value that I think would help you as a realtor, get more, you know, help them get what they want. Out of that you’re gonna see a huge return, you know, and you’ll find out to somebody just started seeing another home inspector, well, it’s an opportunity to go, you know, I think that’s great. I understand you do that take care of your clients can ask them a question. What is it that that inspection company does that we didn’t do for your clients, and now, they may say stuff that you might not want to hear but honestly, that stuff’s gold, that is an opportunity to go, okay? They didn’t like the way I did this, or I took too long getting the report to them, okay. I can fix that which means now I can improve my service and market how I’ve improved it. It is just once again, an opportunity on top of opportunity. You know, and this is why my brain always works too. I see something new. I’m just like, Ooh, I could do this and this and that. It’s like the seven years in the woods, you know, I was I learned a lot about food. Somebody had introduced a new, like, what was it? Acorn Squash? I was like, Oh my gosh and then like, my brain was just like, I could do this, I could do that. It’s like, what are the things that you already have access to, like the list of agents that are already in your system that you could put to use, and start building relationships with them so that when they do have a house to sell, or they have a client who’s buying a house, they’re gonna call you, because you’re the one that stayed in touch with them, you’re the one that didn’t try to sell them every time you’re the one that worked on building a relationship with them, so that you could get the whole next five, seven years of their career worth of referrals to their buyers. 

Ian R: Man, that’s good stuff is fine and I really liked the point about not selling hard. I’ve always said that you shouldn’t sell, you should build a relationship. Then that sells for itself. Great stuff. Fantastic. You know, having you on each bond was well worth it. I’m really glad. Our mutual friend Coy made the connection and Coy you better listen to this podcast. I’ve mentioned your name like five times now. Wonderful stuff. It spawns book, The Victory Mindset is that that’s the title, The Victory Mindset and we can get that off Amazon, wherever we want to get it but look up ish on. changing our mindset really does affect our business and helps us to grow our business, but also to grow it in a way whereas Istvan said, we find purpose. So thank you so much. Istvan. 

Istvan Zsako: It was a pleasure. Pleasure being able to share on the show and share with your audience. Thank you. 

Ian R: Thank you, have a great one.

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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