HOME INSPECTION MARKETING WITH THE GREAT DAVE KLIMA OF AARDVARK HOME INSPECTORS
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Intro: A man who hardly needs an introduction, Dave Klima himself. CEO of one of the largest independent inspection companies in the United States.
How did they get started all those years ago? How have they continued to thrive in a changing market? All that more coming up in our show today. This is inspector toolbelt talk.
Beon: Well, I’m very excited about today’s episode because I get to interview the man himself, the legend Dave Klima. Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Klima: Hey, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it very much.
Beon: No, absolutely. Now, most of the guys listening, they’re going to know who Dave Klima is. But there may be a handful of guys who do not. So just as a refresher guy, Dave is the CEO of Aardvark home inspector.
They’re one of the largest independent home inspection companies in the United States, top 1 percent. He’s also recently founded a new platform, we’re going to talk about a bit today, called inspected houses, and there’s a lot more to tell, I’m sure.
But one of the things we want to find out from you today, Dave, Aardvark, 1998. Where did it all start? What’s the story?
Dave Klima: Actually, I’ll try and give it quick. I used to be a, well, I started my business career as a domino’s pizza delivery driver and then worked my way up through that system. Within three years, I owned six Domino’s Pizza stores, had 110 employees here in south bend, Indiana. I’d moved my cousin up from Florida to work with me at the Pizza stores and help me grow those stores.
We’re always working nights, always working weekends, never seeing our wives, never seeing our kids, and working 80 hours a week. I can remember it to this day, my oldest son; he is one year old. He’s sitting in his high chair eating his birthday cake, and everyone’s laughing and giggling, and I looked at him, and I was like damn, where’d that year go?
I had instant burnout. I was like, man, I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to be around for my kids when they get off of school; I want to help them with their homework. I want to go watch their ball games; I want to be with them on weekends. So I went and talk to my cousin.
I was like, hey man; I don’t want to do this anymore; he’s like good, I don’t want to do this anymore either. I’m like, well, what do you want to do? He’s like, well, let’s start a pest control company.
I was like, okay, great; I don’t know much about pest control, you do, because you were in Florida, you were doing pest control. I said, let’s do it. So I went and told my wife that we’re going to start a pest control company and get out of the pizza business. Now imagine, most women would probably be freaking out.
The only thing that you know how to do in your life you’re saying, hey, I’m done with that, I’m going to go do something I don’t know what to do.
But my wife didn’t freak out. She just looked at me, and she started laughing, and then I thought about it for a minute, and I started laughing, and the reason why is because when there’s a spider at home, I’ll make her kill the thing.
So here I am, afraid of spiders, and we decided to start a pest control company, and the name Aardvark people always ask. Well, back in the day, really, SEO was who’s first in the phone book, and so we wanted to be first in the phone book. We didn’t want to be AAA or A plus or any of that kind of stuff.
So we came up with Aardvark pest control; that’s how we started our company with a thousand dollars in a 12 by 12 room. Our pest control slogan is if we can’t kill it, we’ll eat it. So we did pest control for a while, and we built up a good referral network of real estate agents who were sending us termite inspections, termite treatments.
I said to myself I was like, you know what? We had to start doing home inspections. So then we started doing home inspections and kept growing the company. I was like, well, we ought to start doing radon, and we started doing radon testing, then we started installing radon mitigation systems.
We do mold testing, and we do a little bit of mold remediation work. Fast forward all the way to today; I won’t go through all our services. But fast forward to today, we have 42 employees; we’re a multi-million-dollar company.
In terms of being in the top one percent, there are 30,000 home inspectors in our industry, and there’s probably, I know, a few that do more home inspections a year than we do and maybe do more sales than we do.
But it’s not a whole lot of people. So we’re very blessed to be where we’re at. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed over the last couple of years is sharing a lot of my experience and knowledge, helping newer inspectors and coaching them up, and mentoring them.
So I’m glad that you had me on today, and maybe people that don’t know me get to know me, and they want to call me or message me after this, and want some advice, I’m happy to give it to them.
Beon: Yes, that’s great. That’s what we always hear from you when you do give interviews, and you’re like that. I know a lot of our listeners will indeed be interested to finding out some of those details.
But yes, Aardvark, I was wondering about the name because I grew up in South Africa, so Aardvark is actually an Afrikaans word. I grew up speaking the language. So I was curious how you landed on Aardvark, but that’s pretty cool.
Looking at where you came from, obviously long story to where you are successful, and you’re based, you set up in Indiana. So like around the south bend, fort Wayne area, that’s your service area?
Dave Klima: Yes. So they have this area where it’s northern Indiana, southwest Michigan, we call it Michiana, so you take the two states, and that’s kind of our service area. So we started in in Mishawaka, Indiana, which is right next to south bend.
So we’re literally 10 minutes from Notre Dame; everyone knows where Notre dame is. Then it’s really a small market, it’s like 150,000 people and are joining county maybe another 150,000, so it’s not like a huge market. So then we decided to go where there was more population, so we went to Fort Wayne market, which is like maybe the second biggest market in the state.
Then we just kind of branched out from there, and we have about maybe an hour service area around our locations, and so that’s where we service the Michiana area is what we call it.
Beon: Interesting. Okay, great. Now I was looking at the locality; you guys being right on the lake there, you get that lovely lake effect snow probably.
Dave Klima: Sometimes, we get some snow, and it makes me think I might want to branch out and start a snowbird inspection company in Florida.
Beon: Well, I am speaking to you from sunny Florida. So I actually thought what you were telling me that your cousin moved from Florida up to Indiana to come help you out; it must have been quite a bit of incentive there obviously to convince the man.
Dave Klima: Yes. I think I’ve had him chained to his desk ever since, so he won’t leave me.
Beon: Good stuff. Well, looking at your setup and how far you’ve come. Now recently, you’ve started a new initiative that is called inspected houses, Inspectedhouses.com.
Maybe you’d like to tell us a little bit more about that because some of the guys may not have heard about it; others may have heard and have some questions. Let’s deal first with the guys who haven’t heard about it; maybe just give them a quick overview of what this initiative is about.
Dave Klima: Right. So Inspectedhouses.com it’s really a marketing platform that I use, that I created using all my years of experience and knowledge.
A lot of people think it’s just about pre-listing home inspections, and certainly, it’s a platform that we can use to promote the concept of pre-listing home inspections and market to sellers and market to real estate agents who are forward-thinking and innovative. It’s a way for us to do more inspections because we’re getting them on the seller’s side.
Then obviously, if the seller’s buying a house, we can do an inspection for that seller and house they’re buying. But it’s also a platform that when we do those sellers inspections, we can connect with buyers because buyers will basically text in off of the platform system that we created, or maybe fill out a contact form.
Or maybe purchase a home inspection report that we loaded to the system. So we’re able to connect with potential buyers with this platform. So yes, one leg of the stool is doing pre-listing home inspections. But honestly, it’s a marketing tool. I get more use, and some home inspectors will say the same thing.
They get more use out of it, using the platform to pick up referring real estate agents and strengthen relationships with referring real estate agents. So what I love about it is I’m able to go into an office and do a presentation that is very unique, and it’s forward-thinking, and innovative.
As part of the demonstration, they’re going to text into my lead capture number and see how the system works. But then, I’m also using that system to have them on automated and ongoing text marketing for a year. Which is a powerful marketing tool because if we, say, email agents, a mass email through is MSN or whatever system you’re using.
Maybe 20 to 30 percent of agents will look at that email. But 100% of agents look at a text. So what’s cool about this platform is it’s an FCC compliant type of communication. Like you can’t legally just put a bunch of people into your phone and start texting them marketing messages; that’s an unsolicited marketing message that you sent out, which is against FCC violations.
So with our system, we get them to opt-in for communication first, by them demoing the system, and then the system always does give them an opportunity to opt-out, which is part of the requirements too. But anyway, it’s a marketing tool that we can use to pick up referring agents, to strengthen relationships with agents.
To have agents on ongoing and automated marketing. So the power behind that is just amazing. You don’t know, it’s hard to describe the feeling, but you don’t really know how well it works until you start going out and doing the presentation.
Then all of a sudden, you get better engagement than anything else you’ve ever done at an office presentation. I’ll be asked to go out do like a 15-minute conversation about inspected houses, and it turns into an hour because they keep having questions and thoughts and ideas.
So, it’s a really cool platform. The other thing that it is it’s anyone that signs up for this platform, they get coaching and mentoring, and there are groups out there that charge 500, 1000, 1500 a month for coaching and mentoring, and that’s a great investment if you know do what you’re taught and you make it to all the meetings and follow through on all the great advice that they give you.
But some guys starting out, they can’t afford 500 to 1500 a month. So for 49 bucks a month, you can get a really unique awesome marketing tool, and you get coaching and mentoring on anything home inspection-related. But it is a different type of coaching; like most coaching groups, they’re going to have structured calls every week, or monthly meetings, or whatever they do.
So how the coaching and mentoring work with the inspected houses program is if you’re a member of the platform, you can call me whenever you want. I’ll get guys that want to call me and just have a five- or ten-minute conversation; they need some help with something.
If you need a longer conversation, you just text me, and we schedule a time where I can spend as much time as you need talking about different things. So I’ll get guys that sign up for this program.
Sometimes they sign up not because they even want to do pre-listing inspections; they just want to pick my brain on other things. Like how to start a pest control company or how to start doing radon testing and install radon mitigation systems and create a company doing that.
Or how to do mold work, whatever the case may be. So I have all that experience under my belt, and I love sharing it with people.
Beon: Yes. I must say that’s one thing that’s impressed me about you, is just how accessible you make yourself. All the material I’ve seen on inspected houses, this is a chance to kind of work with you in the trenches, so to speak in and get this thing going for everybody.
Now looking at the concept of inspected houses, one of the sorts of big picture things I’m hearing and seeing over and over again, is at its core, you’re trying to really address, one of the things you’re trying to address is the dynamic in the real estate market.
So the tension that can exist between a realtor and an inspector, being labeled as deal-killers. How is that going to sort of improve? How is this platform going to work at improving that relationship?
Dave Klima: It totally changes the relationship because basically, what you do with this platform is you get educated on how to educate real estate agents on the best ways to sell real estate. That sounds kind of crazy, we got to teach them how to do their job better, but that’s really what we’re doing.
We’re going out there and telling them the traditional way real estate is sold is full of anger and anxiety, and uncertainty, and it should be a happy time for everyone. But it’s not, and when does all that anger and anxiety and uncertainty set in? It sets in when the home inspection is done for the buyer late in the process.
All we’re doing as a home inspector is our job, we’re going out, we’re finding plumbing issues, electrical issues, roofing issues, and you have to basically take all these issues that we find, calm everyone down and negotiate repairs.
Or a discount on the house, and it would be much easier and better for everyone involved if the inspection is done on the front end. Because when it’s done on the front end, one, the seller knows what’s wrong with the house so they can build repair costs into the house.
Two, they can dictate upfront what they’re willing to fix and not fix, so it puts them in control of the negotiations. They can basically say, hey, I had my home inspected, here’s everything that I know that’s wrong with the house, I’m fixing x, y, and z make your offer accordingly, right?
Three, they can make their own repairs. So it could be something simple like a GFCI outlet. If they know about it up front, they can go to Lowe’s and buy it for 12 bucks and then install it. But once they accept an offer, now everyone’s going to require an electrician to put that in.
So a lot of real estate agents don’t understand how to explain it to the client because they’re thinking, well, if I ask a client to spend $500 on home inspection, I won’t get the listing. Yes, if you say it that way, you probably won’t. But we actually have a script through of inspected houses, from talking to professional real estate agents across the country.
We developed a script that they can use at listing appointments. What I did not envision when I created this platform is that real estate agents were going to use the script to get listings over other agents; it actually works. I have agents calling me and say, hey, I think I just got that listing because of the script that you gave me.
So it’s really cool. So if you can teach agents at one, you can use the concept to get the listing over other agents, and two, you can make all your transactions easier and smoother and more certain, and more profitable even, then that’s half the battle. So then the big thing, though, too, is I always think about these buyers, right?
Buyers are making the biggest investment of their life when they’re purchasing a home. They sign on a dotted line to do it, and then they say, okay, let’s go find out what we bought. Now when we go out, we do the home inspection, we find a bunch of things wrong, and the deal falls through.
That’s terrible for the buyer because they just spent money on the inspection, they spent money on the appraisal, they spent money on the well and septic. They spent money on environmental testing; they took time off of work to be there. They got two grand wrapped up in the home buying and selling process, and now they got to risk another two grand on their next home.
So with the Inspectedhouses.com system, we can take the report and load it to the platform, and now it’s kind of like Carfax for houses, right? Potential buyers can purchase that report for 20 bucks; it’s a nominal fee.
That money goes to the seller of the house to help them offset the cost of the home inspection. The inspector doesn’t get it, inspected houses doesn’t get it; it’s the seller getting that money, okay.
But that buyer gets that report, and now they know how old the roof is, how old the furnace is, how old the air conditioner is, all that kind of stuff, what kind of foundation it has.
When we created the platform, we did not create it to replace the buyer’s inspection, we always recommend, and if you go to Inspectedhouses.com and look at one of the property pages, it specifically says on there we recommend you get your own inspection. Because the condition of the house can change from the time of the pre-listing inspection until when you come along.
But the real benefit of this report for a measly twenty dollars is to put your money less at risk. For twenty bucks, you’re saving, maybe possibly losing out on two grand. So it helps them make a more educated offer, right? Then for the home inspector, what’s awesome about this program is instead of being viewed as the deal killer, right?
We’re viewed as, or necessary evil, sometimes we get viewed as. We’re viewed as someone that actually helped the transaction become smoother. Then with the Inspectedhouses.com platform, we use the system to create buyer leads, which the real estate agent and the home inspector get.
What makes this respite compliant and home inspector law compliant is that these leads come in from inspected houses, and then they go to the agent. They come in from inspected houses and go to the home inspector.
The home inspector is not getting the leads and then forwarding it to the agent; they’re not giving the agent anything of value, right? So if any real estate agents listening to this, or any home inspector is listening to this, these leads are the hottest, most accurate leads you’ll ever get in real estate.
Because when someone buys a report, they’re serious about the house. They opened up their wallet; they spent 20 bucks, they’re serious about the house. You can’t buy something on the internet and give a fake name, fake phone number, fake address, right?
So real estate agents, listing agents, and home inspectors are getting the hottest, most accurate leads that there are in real estate. Some real estate agents spend thousands of dollars a month from junky leads from other third parties.
Well, with this platform, they don’t spend anything. They never ever pay for leads, and neither does the home inspector. The only fee involved in this process is a measly 49 bucks a month for the home inspector.
Then the real estate agents, we originally had them paying 49 bucks a month, but our members, our home inspector members, said hey, let’s give them a free trial. Well, can you give them a free trial?
Because the home inspector can’t give them anything. Can you give them a free trial and then have their fee be even more nominal than our fee? So what we settled on was any real estate agent that wants to sign up for this program can, and they get a one-year free trial, and then it’s $99 a year after that.
But the real estate agent cannot sign up for this platform unless they go through a home inspector who’s a member. I’ve had some agents call me, want to sign up for this program. I basically told them, well, you have to sign up through a home inspector in your area.
Here’s the home inspector who’s a member of inspected houses. So I’ve actually turned on real estate agents to home inspectors who are members of this platform.
Beon: Yes, that’s really awesome. Now, there’s obviously a lot of levels to this, and if you want more information, it’s Inspectedhouses.com is where we go, Dave?
Dave Klima: Yes.
Beon: That’s where all the info is.
Dave Klima: They can go there, and if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you’ll see what some of the property pages look like. Here’s what you’ll notice, some of those property pages will have like a little report icon on them, you’ll see that, and that means the home has been pre-inspected.
Some of them don’t have a report icon, and so here’s something everyone needs to understand. This platform is a marketing platform first and foremost, and you can use it to market all houses that are for sale.
So you can tell a real estate agent, hey, I can help you market all of your houses, capture buyer leads, drive leads to your listing, and drive leads to your own website. Let me show you how it works, you show them how it works, and they’re hooked.
Because what real estate agent doesn’t want a system that gets them leads off their own listings? Especially when the leads are free, they don’t have to pay for them like they do on other home searching websites.
So anyway, I guess the platform itself, Inspectedhouses.com makes it sound like it’s just about houses that we inspect, but it’s really not. Here’s what’s powerful about it is when we do a pre-listing home inspection, or we put a regular listing into the system. We also use lead capture signs that we put in yards.
These leaked capture signs are usually co-branded signs that you make with the agent, and you split the cost of the agent. So it’s respite compliant. So as a home inspector, all you have to do is tell the agent listen, but this sign in the yard. Let me know what sign is in what yard; send me the listing photos and the listing comments; I’ll take care of the rest.
So now the agent is setting out signs which have your logo on it, and that logo is going to be in that yard for 30 to 90 days at a time. Any buyer driving by that house sees it; any agent walking up the driveway sees it, right?
So it’s targeted marketing. It’s a lot better than flyers that are sitting in offices that nobody sees, right? Then if anyone taxed off that sign, both the listing agent and the home inspector get that lead, so it’s powerful, and the agent is setting out the sign and picking the sign up.
All we have to do as home inspectors is load the property into the platform and create a marketing code, and it literally takes five minutes. So for five minutes’ worth of work on your computer, you can get your logo in a yard for 30 to 90 days at a time. It’s a huge return on investment.
Even if you don’t get an order off of that sign or lead off that sign, it’s still top-of-mind awareness. So anyone driving by there sees that logo. I mean, that’s kind of what billboards are for, is just to drive top of mind awareness. So we basically have mini billboards in yards, hitting a targeted market.
Beon: Yes. That to me, if you know anybody wasn’t really paying a lot of attention, at that point you’re like whoa, wait a second.
Signs in the yard with my logo on it? I mean, that’s huge. You are effectively are making the home inspector, well, the gatekeeper, I guess access to the market, which is great.
Dave Klima: Well, I don’t know if we’re making them the gatekeeper. But the home inspector is definitely the gatekeeper of the inspected houses platform because I built it. So if a real estate agent wants to sign up, they have to go through a home inspector member.
They can’t just go to the platform and sign up and start using it; it doesn’t work that way. I also built it where if the home inspector wants to, they can use this platform without even being connected to real estate.
Like they could put a sign on a street corner next to open house sign that says, hey, need a home inspection, text, save one for discounts. Now someone text in for a discount, they get driven right to the home inspector’s website.
I did it for radon last year, and I’ll do it again in January this year; it’s a national radon month. I’ll say, hey, it’s national radon month; if you want to learn about the health effects of radon and to get a discount on testing or mitigations, text radon to this number.
So people will text radon to the number. I drive them to the EPA website, where they can learn anything they want about radon. But then I also drive them to my own website; it’s a hidden discount page on my website, where they can get a radon coupon.
So what’s cool, though, is like last year, when I did it, I ended up getting like nine leads. Out of those nine leads, we ended up doing a few tests, and we installed a mitigation system. So I ended up doing like eighteen hundred dollars in sales, just off a social media post.
Beon: Yes, that’s really neat. Now that sort of segues us into the next thing I wanted to talk to you about here because essentially, the platform you’re creating there, as you said, it becomes a massive marketing platform.
But now for our home inspectors listening, you probably every day, you also hear home inspectors doing stuff, marketing efforts, spending a lot of money on, I don’t know, all kinds of different marketing approaches.
In your opinion, the markets obviously changed. So how do we address marketing currently? Where are we wasting our money? Where are we making the most of our money when it comes to marketing?
Dave Klima: Well, okay. So I don’t want to I say where people, I mean every market is different, and maybe google ads work better in some markets than other markets. Or maybe paying home advisor for leads work is better; I think that’s a big waste of money, but who knows, because every market is different.
I can only speak to myself, and the best way to grow your business, in my opinion, is to never lose a customer, right? Think about that. If I’m doing all this stuff to get my phones to ring, and once those customers come in, if I keep them, then my sales are naturally going to grow.
We’re working since 1998, we’ve had a record year, every year. Even during COVID, had a record year. So year after year after year, we’ve had a record year. We take a lot of pride in trying to make sure we don’t lose customers, and taking those customers that are in our database, and getting them to spend their money with our company in other ways.
So, for example, if I do a home inspection for someone, and I offer pest control services. Well, then why wouldn’t I send them pest control certificates to try and turn them into a pest control customer, right? Or vice versa.
Maybe I have someone that called me for pest control services, and I start telling them, hey, if you’re ever going to buy a house or move or whatever, we do home inspections too, right?
So I think that the best form of advertising is to market to your own customers, offer a plethora of services, not just one thing, kind of diversify your company and keep those customers in the fold. Because the best form of advertisement you’re ever going to get is word-of-mouth advertising from your clients, correct? Okay.
You want them to tell their friends and family members and co-workers about you, okay. The next thing is picking up referring agents. Now some home inspectors will say, well, I don’t market to real estate agents; that’s fine.
But if you don’t market to real estate agents, you’re never going to have a company our size; I’m just going to tell you that right now. There’s only so much you’re going to get from your existing clients; you have to get new clients coming in through the door, and how do you do that?
Well, meeting real estate agents and getting them to have your company on the list or refer to you. So if you spend a lot of time and effort into picking up a referring real estate agent, well, then you should probably spend some time and effort not to lose that referring agent, right?
There are some things that you can do that don’t cost; they won’t cost you hardly any money at all. One of them is you can pick up the phone and say hey, thanks. Thank you, thank you for referring to us. I know that you feel we’re a reflection on you, and if we do a bad job, that could hurt your business.
But you trusted us enough to refer to us, and I just want to let you know that if our mutual client ends up having a problem after they move in, make sure they call me, okay. So anyway, calling them and thanking them for the referral and reassuring that agent that you’re going to be for the client after the client moves in the house, I think it’s easy, right?
So there are different systems and processes that we have in place to make that happen. One, the home inspector will call them. But two, our office staff will call them, or a marketing person will call them.
Three, we also have thank you cards that we send out, and we don’t have video right now. Otherwise, I could show you some of them. But we have different thank you cards that we can send out. Some of them are pre-printed cards with a message, and we just sign it. Some of them are blank, and I might personally write a message in there.
Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while, or it’s been a long time since we talked; I hope things are going great, thanks for using us, etc. So it’s really easy to thank them for their business. You don’t have to send them gifts, and goodies and all that kind of stuff. Just thanking them for their business.
Most agents I know just want a high-quality home inspection, and they want to feel like, in a way, they have an extended business partner who cares about their client as much as they do, right? So I think that’s important. Now there are things that you can do to keep your relationships with those agents if you want.
I mean, obviously, we all know about birthdays; it’s really easy to know when someone’s birthday is if you friend them on Facebook. So have them be friends with you on Facebook, you get the birthday notification.
Make sure you shoot them a private message wishing him a happy birthday. If you want, you can mail him a card. Again, you don’t have to spend a ton of money on gifts giving them birthday presents, right?
Just send them a card. Let them know that you know it’s their birthday and you’re thinking about them; I think that’s really easy. Do a handwritten message, so like we have birthday cards that are blank inside, and again, I handwrite a message versus sending a pre-printed form.
So I think that’s something that people can do. Then as far as marketing to your past clients, what kinds of things can you do? Well, after a year, make sure that you send out a card to your clients and say, hey, you know it’s been a year since we inspected your house; I hope things are going great.
Here’s a coupon where we can do an annual termite inspection for you for 95 bucks, right? So it’s a way for you to get another termite inspection in and keep up relationships with that client. So you could do that if you’re doing, you don’t need to own a pest control company to do that, but you can do that.
Then obviously, if you own a pest control company, you could send them a certificate that way. Also, the EPA recommends a bi-annual radon test at least every two years. So make sure you have in your systems to send out a notification to the client to do a radon test.
So there are lots of things that we can do to market to our clients and referring agents, just to keep them in the fold.
Beon: Yes, those are great suggestions. The last question I have for you, and we’ve sort of touched on it as well.
But in your experience, obviously adding value to your clients, coming from a pest control background, that’s how you add a lot of value. Are there any other sort of low-hanging fruit where you can add value to your current repertoire that you’d like to recommend?
Dave Klima: So when it comes to adding value for our clients, obviously, there are different things home inspectors can do. One of them is offering different types of services and then being able to bundle those services at discounted rates.
So maybe normally, a termite inspection might be 95 to 125 dollars, and a radon can be 125 to 175. Then you have your home inspection, and your well inspections, and all the stuff that you do.
So you can basically come up with bundle pricing, which if the customer is looking at all of these prices individually, they’re going to be like, wow, that’s a good value, right? So you can do that.
The other thing is I’ve always believed in protection with the inspection because I believe that home warranties can provide a great real estate experience for the client.
So there are warranties in our industry that are available to home inspectors that they can use, so they can always go out and say like we do, hey, with Aardvark, you get more than an inspection; you get some warranty protection.
You get a 90-day home warranty, a 90-day sewer line warranty, a 90-day mold warranty, a 5-year roof leak warranty. We pay a fee to a warranty company to provide those services to you.
So now, if a consumer is shopping around, and they have one home inspector at say 450, with no warranties, and another one at 500, with all these warranties and a five-year roof leak warranty, who are they going to use, right? Think about it from that standpoint.
So protection with the inspection is something that I believe in, but the biggest benefit for it everyone listening is you can use it to pick up referring agents. So let me just give you my little spiel that I give to agents.
I’m like assume that you’re using your favorite home inspector; he’s a great guy, does a great job every time he’s out there for you. Really love them, your clients love them, and he’s going out, and he’s doing a home inspection for a client one day. He tests all the sinks, toilets, tubs, showers.
Goes above and beyond the sop, test is the dishwasher, the washing machine, everything’s draining great, no problem. Client closes on the house, moves in, lives there for a month, and never has a problem. All of a sudden, on day 31, they got gray water backing up in their house, and that’s the result of a broken sewer line.
So who’s that client calling? They’re calling the real estate agent first, freaking out. Then what’s the real estate agent do? Well, you’re going to say, hey, I didn’t do the home inspection; go ahead and call the home inspector; he’s a great guy. He’ll take care of you.
Okay, so now they call your favorite home inspector, and your home inspector says, you know what? I’m really sorry having this problem, but I did a really good job for you when I was there; I went above and beyond the SOPs. I can’t see in the ground to see you got a broken sewer line.
I can’t predict the future performance of anything; you actually lived there for a month and never had a problem. This is not my fault; there’s nothing I’m going to do for you. Now is that home inspector right to say that? One hundred percent right; it’s not his fault. We don’t guarantee future performance of anything, right? So it’s not his fault.
But does that lead to a great real estate experience for the client? No. So let’s just say the same scenario happened, but we did the home inspection at Aardvark. Now the client’s going to get in touch with me, and I’m going to say, you know what? I’m really sorry you’re having this problem. I know we did a good job; we always go above and beyond the SOPs.
Obviously, we can’t see into the ground to see you got a broken sewer line. We can’t predict future performance of anything, so this is not our fault. However, I did pay a fee to give you sewer line protection; here’s how you file a claim to get that fixed.
Now, let me ask you something, what leads to a better real estate experience for the client? Using your favorite inspector or giving me a shot, right? So now you can use the warranties to actually pick up some referring agents. Maybe they won’t start using you right away; maybe they’ll just put you on the list.
Maybe you’ll be their second guy when their first guy is gone, whatever the case may be. You just want to start that relationship with them. So using the warranties to try and break into relationships with agents is really one of the good uses for the warranties.
Then the other use, the more important use, is having those warranties available for the clients if something breaks after the inspection. There’s a lot of home inspectors in our industry that one don’t know about the warranties.
Two, if they do sign up and use the warranties, they don’t know how to use them correctly because they don’t even know what the policies say, which is a mistake, right? Or three just hate on the warranties for whatever reason. So here’s what I’m going to tell you if you’re signed up for inspected houses.
Again, you get coaching and mentoring on anything home inspection-related. If you decide that you want to offer warranties, I’m going to teach you about all those warranties inside now. So when you go and do a presentation, you can sound just like I did.
Beon: That’s awesome. Well, Dave, obviously, I feel we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg here, but I think we’ve given the guys a lot to think about. If you are interested in checking out Aardvark, there’s AardvarkInspect.com.
Then, of course, the new platform that he’s working on, Inspectedhouses.com. They’ve got a whole section for home inspectors there; you can find out some more and even be able to sign up.
Like Dave said, there’s an open offer for one-on-one mentoring with the man himself. Dave, I can’t thank you enough; thank you very much for your time.
Dave Klima: All right, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.
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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