PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson 

Welcome everyone to another edition of The Belts. I know David doesn’t like me to call it that. But welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk. Today on we have someone I’ve known for quite some time now that I’m thinking about it. Kyle Phillips from Alpha Inspections. How are you, Kyle?

Kyle Phillips 

I’m great, man. How are you doing?

Ian Robertson 

Hey, doing great. And, Kyle, how long have we known each other? It’s somewhere between the five to 10 year range somewhere in that field.

Kyle Phillips 

I think we’re coming up on seven years.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, look at that. And I’ve never even had sat down and had a beer with you. Because I’m all the way up into cold north country, and you’re all the way down in the warm south. So tell us where you’re at, who you are, what you do. Give us a little bit background on you. And we’re going to talk about today, how to go from inspections into other industries, which you’ve done really well. But we want to know your background first.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah. So my name is Kyle Phillips, I operate and own and operate Alpha Inspections. We have a couple of guys on staff. But for the most part, you know, it’s a smaller organization. I was in the army, I joined the army when I was 18. I did six years, and then worked in government service and right alongside the military for another six years, seven years. And then I saw that I didn’t love the corporate world as much as I thought I did, and made my own jump to where I am now.

Ian Robertson 

Very nice. And so your business is about seven years old, right? Because you came to us and we helped you with your web presence about seven years ago.

Kyle Phillips 

Brand new, yeah.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, and you’ve you’ve done really well for yourself, you in a relatively short period of time, went multi-inspector. And we actually just had a podcast on going multi inspector and you did it the right way you worked on profitability first. Maybe didn’t have twenty guys running around, but you kept it smaller and more profitable. And so that’s fantastic. So let’s just jump right into the subject. Because this is really where I see home inspectors thrive is not getting stuck in I only inspect houses. I don’t do any ancillaries. I don’t do any anything else. And I don’t, I just inspect and that’s cool. I love inspecting houses, I know you do. But eventually, we need to either add ancillary inspections or even jump into other industries like you did. How did you go about that? At what point did you say, Hey, let me do something else.

Kyle Phillips 

So that’s really two parts for me because ancillaries are something that I wouldn’t consider another industry per se, I think we all need ancillary services. But then the second part is, you know, my other actual divisions of Alpha. So I’ll go into those in a minute. But right now, the ancillary services were a no brainer for me. Because, you know, I have to be as competitive as the next guy For my agents, so if I don’t do Radon Testing, but this guy, maybe not, you know, our favorite inspector, but he does do Radon Testing and then, you know, agent loyalty, you love them to death, but they’re not the most loyal people in the world when it comes to, you know, vendors and, and us alike. So they’re probably gonna go to the guy that’s testing for radon in one-stop shop, you know, why would they want to call an inspector and the radon tester. So that’s how I pretty much decided to make a real big commitment in the ancillary services, not only for revenue increase, but just to be a one-stop shop for my agents. They love it because we do everything and we do everything under the sun, we do lead, mold, testing, air testing, Radon Testing, you name it, we do it, so they don’t have to go anywhere else.

Ian Robertson 

You know, you basically summarized all of last week’s podcast in just those few sentences, you should have just done the podcast for me.

Kyle Phillips 

My bad.

Ian Robertson 

No, no, that’s a beautiful thing. Because that shows that it’s not just Ian throwing stuff out there. You’re a real-world example of ancillaries. So that got you profitable, then you started hiring other inspectors. Now let’s talk about these other we’re going to call them sometimes industries or verticals, is a more appropriate term. So you’re a home inspector, that also does a lot of ancillary inspections and your professional in those I know you well enough to know, you worked hard to get really, really good at all of the ancillaries that you do, but that also introduced opportunities into other industries that were related. So what other industries do you work in?

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, so you know, verticals works. I kind of like to call it divisions, because it’s all alpha. So I have Alpha Inspections, and then I have Alpha Environmental. That’s where the mold, the crawlspace maintenance and the Radon is and then I just incorporated Alpha Investment Team because we’re going to be doing some property investments. I’m pretty excited and happy, proud of that. It was something I’ve always wanted to do, so it’s gonna be a big step. But yeah, so as far as far as the other business goes, so mold testing, Radon Testing all that, you can do that with a home inspection, we’ll sell it standalone as well. But yeah, so pretty much what I’ve been doing for the last seven years is just looking for opportunities in the market space. Each market space is gonna have its own opportunities with its own agent struggles, client struggles, etc. So one of the ones that I saw here was radon. We were having a lot of radon tests that were high. And I can I can see the agent struggling to find somebody to do the mitigation and get rid of it so I can get to the closing table. So I was like, What the hell let’s, let’s do it. So I got certified, I got certified testers, and me and another guy of mine are certified in NRPP Radon Mitigation, we do a beautiful job. Everybody’s really happy with it. And we’ve solved another problem and we got another revenue stream.

Ian Robertson 

And that’s perfect, because there’s a lot of home inspectors that radon, I think is a great example, because there’s a lot of home inspectors that have radon companies for a couple of reasons. Dave Klima, he has a RADON Mitigation company. And he does pest treatment, because both of those things are outside the scope of a home inspection. So, you know, sometimes it gets a little a little hard to make sure you keep things clean, so to speak, or to give an objective inspection. So I have not seen home inspectors for the most part Say, Hey, I inspected your roof. You need a new roof? I’ll go ahead and do it.

Kyle Phillips 

I have.

Ian Robertson 

You have? You’ve seen that? That’s unfortunate.

Kyle Phillips 

I have, and it cause some you know, a couple agents liked it. But agents that I’ve been, it’s been using me forever, it really hurt their spidey senses up and, you know, because these guys were calling out like Drain leaks and, and whatever. And then next thing you know, they’re given out quotes. Yeah. Yeah, I love that as, that’s a great point. Because I do really try to steer clear of conflicts of interest. If I if I see something that could possibly be, you know, a concern, then I’ll just give it up. You know. I’ll refer somebody else that I know will do a good job. But with radon, it’s really easy because Radon Testing you can’t pencil with, the tests are in our digital report from high tech, we use Air Things. But since Corentium Pro, and you can’t pencil with those, it’s all digital. It’s all you know, it shows every step of the way. Same with mold that goes to the lab, so I didn’t pencil with anything. And then the crawlspace stuff. There’s either moisture barrier or there’s not so you know, I really tried to stick away from the gray areas.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, and a lot of guys probably listening right now. Some of them are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And there’s, there’s the purest, you should never, ever touch that house for any other reason. But so you’re in Georgia. So first of all, there’s no licensing for home inspectors in Georgia still correct.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah.

Ian Robertson 

So like, you might, guys might most likely use InterNACHI standards of practice or ASHI standards of practice. But I don’t know of any, any SOP in any state or province that has radon for home inspectors, pest, mold. I’ve never seen it, it just doesn’t. There’s a lot of things that are outside the scope of a home inspection, which all these states and provinces InterNACHI and ASH are like, yeah, that’s not part of a home inspection. It’s it’s a completely different is kind of like, you know, an automobile. Maybe you’re a mechanic. Okay, cool. Does that mean you can’t wash the car, is the dirt part of the SOP, you know, that may be a terrible example. But keeping things clean, is important. But then also not missing opportunities. And I think Radon is a perfect example because like you said, you can’t pencil with it, as you put it. You you, here’s your reading. It is what it is, is it high and it’s outside the scope of the inspection here in my state in New York. And everybody has to read their SOPs. My state in New York, it says you can’t touch the house in relation to a home inspection until close of Escrow which is when they close on the house. So you can do anything on the house. You could change the roof, you could fix the foundation, whatever after they close after Escrow is closed. But more importantly, New York State says that it doesn’t limit you if you have other things. So if you offer radon if you offer mold, if you offer all this other stuff, New York State says right in the law, this is not the limit you can offer that other stuff. This is just in relation to the home inspection. So whatever our feelings on it are, it, it’s important to realize, like Kyle is a good example, mold, radon, those things aren’t part of a part of a home inspection. But they fill a need, don’t they?

Kyle Phillips 

Absolutely. My agents love us doing mold samples and air samples and Radon Testing and mitigation to go along with it. They trust me for years, and they don’t want to have to call anybody else if I can do it.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah. And that’s part of the advantage we have as home inspectors too, you have a wide base of agents that refer you I imagine. And so that wide base of agents, there’s contractors out there now, salivating over that list that you have people in other industries would love to have those contacts. I would.

Kyle Phillips 

Oh, yeah, the contacts.

Ian Robertson 

Now you have them, you’ve built up trust, you’ve done a fantastic job. You’re I’m going to refer back to Dave Klima, because I’ve mentioned him already in this podcast, but it helps you to make money off of your books of business while providing a needed service.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, I am not ashamed of it. I’m doing everything Right. And that that time right after Corona when everything you know, really slowed down in home inspections. There was a big inventory scare. After the big boom, they came the big inventory scare because then everything was bought up. But the radon in the mold kept me alive, you know. Home inspections were really bad. So I would give all the home inspections to my guy to keep him and his family fed. And then I would you know take on the road more than the radon. So we just live through it. And I was really happy to have several streams.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah. And that’s beautiful, because now if we have one stream completely dries up. Say, there’s new regulation, that’s always my favorite, new regulation. Now you can’t do mold remediation anymore, because they say it has to be done by a space cowboy from Mars. You know, okay, you still have other revenue streams. And that’s important. I think we rely too heavily on our base home inspection fee to support us as a company, that can fluctuate with the market horribly.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, well, you know, I just I don’t know if people are not interested and they’re just comfortable or what I don’t know how you can be comfortable when, when the calls are coming in. But to me, I think people are apprehensive to start something new. You know, like, before I really got in there and got my feet dirty. I did some I did a couple of them for free, you know, just to go get in there and get hands-on. And then YouTube University for 365 days of hours worth, you know what I mean? And then getting all the right tools, the insurance and certifications, all that stuff. So it’s a lot, it’s a lot of work.

Ian Robertson 

When you actually started getting into other verticals, did you get nervous? Because here’s my thing. I find a lot of home inspectors are nervous about new ancillaries. And just being nervous about that being even more nervous about oh my goodness, how do I even start a new division? As you put it, Did you get nervous?

Kyle Phillips 

Are you talking about business or actually performing the service?

Ian Robertson 

A little bit of both.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, so for me, I didn’t really get nervous. As far as the business piece goes. I got excited, really, you know. So I can’t really speak to that too much. But I would say just have your ducks in a row. Like don’t, don’t get analysis paralysis, you know, thinking too much. Everything’s got to be perfect, perfect, perfect before you take a leap, because that leap is just gonna hold you back and you’re never going to be ready, it’s never gonna be perfectly ready. So you just got to get started in there. And you’re gonna learn some things along the way, until you’re it’s a well-oiled machine. As far as starting ancillaries and services, like you know, I do actually mitigations and construction, I guess that’s, that’s, that’s another thing where you really just have to do it. And I’m not saying doing it for pay necessarily or doing it, you know, for a client, but you can do it. So for example, when we started mold testing, we started doing the air samples and the surface samples. We had to we had to watch YouTube videos we had to do those a few times we had to get find a lab and learn how that works and how much we’re gonna charge and all that. So that’s how I like to do ancillaries, to actually get good on them hands on for a while do it on my own house etcetera until I’m comfortable enough to go charge for it.

Ian Robertson 

You know, and that’s, that’s a great point that we need to become awesome at what we’re doing. So you didn’t just go out there and start saying, Hey, let me let me figure out this whole radon thing. You actually did a couple for free, which is that shows your commitment. Like you’re like, okay, hey, if you have a radon issue, I want to do this from start to finish, no pay just to make sure that I know how to do it and you spent, it sounded like a year researching it and learning and every day, getting better at it before you even got to that point. That’s commitment and dedication. That makes you awesome at stuff. But I also like how you balance it out with eventually just had to pee or get off the pot. You know, it’s like, Okay, I’ve spent a year I’ve put in a bunch of these for free. How do I do this and realize when we started septic inspections, me and a good friend of mine, we actually went out and we borrowed tools, rented tools, and did after doing multiple courses and learning and planning actually went out and did without pay actual septic inspections, friends, family, what have you. And we did them from beginning to end until we got to the point where we’re like, okay, we’re awesome at this, not sounding arrogant, but you have to be.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, yeah. That’s great. That’s great.

Ian Robertson 

So that’s a beautiful point. And I think that’s the first thing is, well, maybe the second thing, the first thing is your mindset. Sometimes we had the mindset of I know I do. Every ancillary service, every business I started, I’ve gotten to the point where I just like practically nervously vomit. But I kind of live in the zone where if I’m not nervously vomiting, I get bored. So I pushed myself, but you that’s not. So most people aren’t weirdos like me. Most people are going to be nervous, and maybe just not do it or plan on it. And never actually do it. Like, oh, I’ve been working on adding this. And then seven years later, like, oh, yeah, I should get to that. You planned you set time limits, and you accomplished it. But you had a positive attitude, the exact opposite of me, of this is gonna be awesome. So I think if we have more of that mentality, this is gonna rock this is gonna be awesome. Let’s get in there and do it. That’s a beautiful thing.

Kyle Phillips 

My cups always half full man.

Ian Robertson 

That’s a that’s more of a lifestyle and mindset change. Did you ever get nervous about any venture that you’ve had? And if you did, how did you overcome that?

Kyle Phillips 

I don’t know if it was venture, but I guess you could say it was honestly, when I when I first started networking and pitching inspections, you know, I was nervous, sick to my stomach nervous, didn’t know what to say. You know, everything else. The way I overcame that, and I love to share this. Because if if people just put this into perspective, or trying to wrap their mind around this idea. As hard as it is. It always sets me much more comfortable in any situation. So..

Ian Robertson 

Is it picturing people in their underwear, because I don’t want to hear that.

Kyle Phillips 

I mess with some of the older realtor boards. But yeah, so people, people have a tendency to start thinking about the worst. You know, like me, when I when I jumped out of my corporate career, I had to feed my family. You know, I didn’t I didn’t wait till I had 50 Grand i just got I realized that I was dying in a corporate office, but totally unhappy. So I’ve just jumped out for it. And when I went to those meetings, that’s what I think about it, I feed my family, got to pay the bills, you know, but what really helped, when I really started just killing the industry is when I would go to those things and just be everybody’s friend. I would they I wouldn’t even I mean, I’d have a pocket full of business cards, but I wouldn’t even offer a business card. I would wait till the point they want to ask me for a business card. So that’s when I know I kind of got him you know, and just it’s really is all about mentality, doom and gloom is not gonna get you anywhere. You got to learn lessons, we’re all going to learn lessons, but you got to give yourself an opportunity to learn a lesson, or you’re just never gonna get anywhere.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, this is more like a TED talk at this point. But that is such a true, it is. It’s such a true statement. It’s if we wait around waiting for the perfect opportunity, it’s not going to happen. Sometimes you have to jump in the mud and wrestle the pig and see how things turn out. You know.

Kyle Phillips 

And man, I tell you what I feel like I feel like on the other end of that, that struggle that you know that fire under your butt. That’s that it’s such a it’s more of a beautiful thing on the end. When you can look back and say wow that was kind of hard, but I endured it. And then it’s so much more sweet on the other end than if something was given to you or easily accomplished.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, no, you worked hard for it. I remember one time, I thought it was appropriate because your logo was a wolf howling at the moon. And you posted one time it said, the wolf at the wolf climbing the mountain, or the wolf at the top of the mountain is never as hungry as the one climbing. And that kind of portrayed you, you know, it’s a common saying, but it kind of portrayed you were climbing, you’re like I’m hungry for this.

Kyle Phillips 

I’ll admit, you know, I have gotten a little complacent over the past year or so because everything just started operating itself practically. So now I’m like, Okay, what’s next? So then I got into the investment business, which I’m excited about.

Ian Robertson

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. That’s how I ended up with five companies. You know, it just like, well, that’s running itself. Now. What do I do next? That’s really cool. Okay. So, now you have, I’m counting, I think, four division, so inspections, mold, radon, and the crawlspace. And then you started into a fifth division of investing, which is fantastic. I wish more home inspectors did that. I wish I had done that. More of that. Because it really fits into what we do. We know enough about real estate, to kind of get by on that if you’re working with a good agent, maybe. But more importantly, we know the building, this is going to cost us this is where we’re going to have an issue, this is what’s going to happen if I tried to flip this and sell it or if I’m going to hold on to it and sell it later on or rent it. It’s it’s a great industry.

Kyle Phillips 

We have a huge advantage. Because not only do we already know the house, we don’t have to worry about all the unknowns that the you know, the average investor might but we also have so many contacts in the industry as far as loan officers and other realtors to chase properties down. So just bring some capital and some credit, man, and I’m gonna have fun.

Ian Robertson 

Nice. So if you don’t mind me asking how set up are you for it? Are you still in the learning stage? Are you in the beginning stage of investing? Or have you already started?

Kyle Phillips 

No, definitely jump off right now. So I got all my ducks in a row with a hard money lender. And then we’re still looking for properties. So it’s this, the pickings are pretty slim. Just like they’ve been, you know, the last couple years with regular buys, you know, people are actually looking for homes. 10 offers per.. investment properties are no different. There’s investors out there that are licking their chops. So multiple offers every time is what I’m running into and sweating on right now my unicorn.

Ian Robertson 

You know, that’s really great. Because too many of us as home inspectors, we hold back from entering other verticals. And you know, I’m really proud of you. I’d call you the Master of additional verticals here. You seem to have done what a lot of home inspectors dream about. But you’ve turned it into a reality. So what other industries are you looking into right now? So you have these verticals. What are some other ones that you’re looking into?

Kyle Phillips 

Oh, I mean, honestly, I wouldn’t say a master of verticals. But I would say serial entrepreneur, for sure. I’ll take that charge all day long. So I mean, if you want to know I’m looking at a couple of things that aren’t so related, and the serial entrepreneur part is means that I can get out of this industry completely and do something else. So one thing I know that would absolutely make mucho dineros in my area is above-ground pool installations. So by this year, by next summer, I want to have all the supplies ready. And because the marketing is too easy, everybody just gonna jump on it. So I gotta have all the supplies and trucks ready to go. You know, it’s just goes to show you can do anything. As far as in this industry goes. Oh, the one I really been wanting to get into asbestos. I think I don’t know, sparked from you or who I was talking to. But asbestos is one of those that you do have to be state certified. To do, use a lot of hazmat involved and everything. But since people aren’t, and this is the thing, even with like crawlspace moisture barriers, anybody can do it. But it’s a dirty job. It’s tough. It’s in a crawlspace, it’s scary, blah, blah, blah, but anybody can do it. But now I charge 3500 bucks to get in there to do you know. So just like asbestos, anybody could do it but they’re not going to go get certified just for their one house. So they’re going to hire somebody that is certified.

Ian Robertson 

You know, I think asbestos is a great vertical for you to get into. And I like how you mentioned that some of the verticals that you’re working in, anybody can do it. But that doesn’t mean everybody will do it. I’ve always said, some of the best jobs that you can have the best paying careers rather, are careers that nobody else wants to do, if we’re willing to do something that nobody else wants to do. Those are always going to be great paying jobs. But this pool idea of yours, I want to hear more about that, you know, who used to do that was Nick Gromicko. He was actually on the show a couple years ago. And he talked about how one of his first businesses was building pools or putting in putting in above ground pools. So tell me about that a little bit, do they come all in the pieces or is it really equipment heavy that you need?

Kyle Phillips

Yep, skid steer laser level, the pool comes all wrapped in one package, four guys on it. And we’ll be done in you know, three or four hours, depending on how much grading needs to happen. And then charge your 35, 4,000. So every single one will make will make to 2500 on each one.

Ian Robertson 

You know, an idea that I’ve been kicking around for ancillary service, or even a different vertical, are water treatment systems, you know, they go well with a well inspection, they are oftentimes needed in my area, better than half the homes have a water treatment system. And there’s not a whole lot of companies that service them in my area. And even if there are we’re the first ones to the table, by meeting the clients who have these water treatment systems. They’re outside the scope of a home inspection, and people just need to know about them. So whether we create another vertical or, you know, we just add it as an ancillary service. I think that’s a great idea, personally.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, like it would go well, with well inspections. We offer what we offer Well inspections in our ancillaries, but I’ve never really thought about tackling anything else down the line of it.

Ian Robertson 

And you know, if you did decide to create a whole new vertical, so to speak out of that, there’s a lot of recurring income that comes from it, there’s maintenance, they had to come and maintain the little timer on it. You can even offer a service to fill up their salt, salt for the water softener and all sorts of things that you could put in there that you don’t necessarily need skilled help to accomplish.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, that’s definitely something I would delegate you have one of my guys trained up on it, I started doing it. When I get into ventures, it’s got to be something that excites me.

Ian Robertson 

And water treatment systems don’t excite you apparently.

Kyle Phillips 

No..There was, there was one other one you pitched to me not too long ago, that’s right, the roof softwashing.

Ian Robertson 

Oh, man, I love soft roof washing, there was a home inspector in my area that started a soft roof washing business and eventually sold it and did fantastic with it. But I just always thought, Man, that would be a cool business to have watching all the suds build up on the roof and rinsing it off. It’s it just seems really cool.

Kyle Phillips 

Not exciting.

Ian Robertson 

But you know, another idea I’ve been kicking around, and I kind of waited on this one too long. Some of my competitions already done it. But years ago, I wanted to do level two chimney inspections. But you know, I live in the northeast, you know, we’re we’re using a lot more chimneys than you are down there in warm Georgia.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, we use our fireplaces down here just for pleasure.

Ian Robertson 

We use our fireplaces for survival up here.

Kyle Phillips 

Upstate New York is a it’s a necessity.

Ian Robertson 

But you know, that’s some of the stuff I like about you, Kyle, you think outside the box and you’re not afraid to do things. I love the confidence that you have too. You said earlier that you weren’t really scared to do things. Now me on the other hand, I was oftentimes a little scared to take on new ventures. I always did them. But you know, I always had a little trepidation. So if I were to go back in time, and do some things differently, I would have just done what I’ve already done just sooner. You know, I hesitated I waited, and maybe I could have done something six months sooner or a year sooner, whatever have you. I would have just said just do it. If I could go back in time, but otherwise, I am happy with my decisions. But how about you if you could go back in time and change something that you did? What would you do differently?

Kyle Phillips 

Honestly, right now and it’s been something kind of heavy on me is what I wish I would have done different is number one, taking the advice that I’ve just given about the networking and the comfort and the mentality of when networking. Take that to get you comfortable in the crowds and then when your pitch comes up, don’t be too salesy. Just talk smack with them, get them laughing, be their friends, tell them what problem you’re going to solve for them. But don’t be too salesy, because it’s a total turnoff. I’ve mastered those pretty quickly and then things just blew up. Once my face, you know, you gotta be consistent showing up. But it is worth it, you know, guys that say, network, it’s not worth it, I don’t know what they’re talking about, because that’s where that’s how I built my business. And then and then social media started piggybacking off that I did really well. But that’s the first thing that I would probably do differently. To that point, there comes a, there comes a time when you have to be working. So, you know, it’s, it’s very overwhelming to me to sit, think about all the offices that I can be visiting and the events I can be doing, to, to fly the colors, but also have so much work to do. So I wouldn’t, that’s one thing that I would invest in is a good marketing face, somebody that’s going to go around and be the face there, because they build relationships. And that really does work. It really, really does. So I wish I would have done that sooner. And I still haven’t pulled the trigger. But I need to it’s definitely top of the priority list.

Ian Robertson 

I think something important that we all need to remember listening to this is you were successful at each one of your verticals, before you ventured into a new one, I think that’s critical to remember, you were a successful home inspector, before you took on new inspectors, then you were a successful multi-inspector firm. Before you started your next vertical. I see a lot of guys start multiple verticals and saying Okay, which one’s gonna? Which one’s gonna land which one’s going to make make things work? We need to work on one before we start on the next one, in my opinion.

Kyle Phillips 

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, you gotta, you gotta keep your eye on the prize on each one that you’re trying to build and grow. You can’t fill two baskets and expect either one to get full. But I like your point, you just talked about waiting and like the risks. So that’s one thing that I’ve really used to make my decisions is the risk and I’m not scared of risk. And it is time and effort is where the investment really is because the overhead on these on like on the Radon is extremely low. You know, in relativity, it’s extremely low. And then the mold business is extremely low, that’s plastic and spray, you know. So if either I could let either one of these go if I wanted to, and I wouldn’t lose money, really, you know, but I can make a lot of money if I put my foot down in it. So it’s just up to you.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, everything comes with a measure of risk. But if we’re starting a business with low overhead, that’s a that’s a measure of risk that we can take on. Now if we are investing 100 grand of our own money into a business. Okay, that says something a little bit different, different level of risk. So we only want to put in, there was a guy I used to paint with. And he would only pour a little bit of paint in his cup. And he said, Only put enough paint in there that you’re willing to spill. I used to laugh at it. But that’s that’s some good life advice. We only want to put into our business what we’re willing to lose. And at the same time, if we are not scared of risk, we’re willing to put a little bit more paint in that cup, so to speak, aren’t we. So that’s a good example. You know what’s funny, though, we keep talking about crawl spaces and how you do that as a vertical but who invented the crawl space? Dig a little deeper man who thought that a 14 inch high crawl space was enough room for a full grown man to crawl. Dig a little deeper for me, something.

Kyle Phillips 

Or set the footers higher, please.

Ian Robertson 

Yeah, exactly. Give us a little bit more space. Right. But, Kyle, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being on today. You’re a great example for us that we’re not just home inspectors. That’s what we do. It’s our work. But we’re also business owners most of us. So you set a good example in making your business work for you and being successful. So thank you so much for being on.

Kyle Phillips 

I appreciate you having me and whoever is listening, you know, it takes an army and Ian has been probably like my sergeant in arms, I would say as far as marketing and keeping me straight on my websites and keeping me looking legit and Ian makes me look good. But what do you, the best part is on these ancillary on these other adventures. He kills the market informants. My phone blows up when he works his magic. So thank you, Ian.

Ian Robertson 

Wow, thank you, Kyle, you know it. It’s easy to market when there’s a great product behind it. So thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate your kind words. So thank you so much for being on and everyone. Stay tuned for the next episode. And Kyle, we appreciate it. 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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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.