WANT TO KEEP YOUR COMPLAINTS LOW AND PROFITS HIGH? THEN MANAGING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS IS KEY – LEARN HOW IN THIS WEEK’S PODCAST
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Ian R: Welcome back to the inspector toolbelt talk today we have on Beon how’re you doing Beon?
Beon DeNood: Yeah, doing pretty good, Ian. How are you?
Ian R: Hey, not bad. I actually have a question for you. I’m glad you’re on today. What do we call inspector tool belt users? Like the guys and gals that use our app? Are we calling them ITBiers or Toolbelters? Also, why don’t we talk more about tool belts on our on our show?
Beon DeNood: Yeah, it’s weird. I guess it’s, we want to make sure that we were not ranking super high in SEO with actual tool belts.
Ian R: Well, you know, if you look up inspector toolbelts that, you know, you’ll come up with our app and actual tool belts.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, we’re way up there. Inspector tool belts. ToolBelters, definitely won’t call them tools
Ian R: That would definitely go the wrong direction.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that’s not the best marketing strategy strategy. I don’t think but
Ian R: I’m gonna stick with ITBiers. That sounds like you’re The IT crowd drinking beers? Or how about The IT Crowd?
Beon DeNood: The IT Crowd? Yeah, there’s a little little pop reference as well. So yeah,
Ian R: Exactly. If you know that show. If you’re an ITBier, you’re The IT Crowd.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, if you know that IT crowd then unfortunately, you’re a nerd. But hey, you know,
Ian R: That’s awesome. So we I think we need to put all our company resources into figuring that out. Let’s get everybody on this problem, right now.
Beon DeNood: Let’s do it. Put in your vote, send us send us your suggestions.
Ian R: Speaking of votes, I put out that notice on Facebook and also on other platforms, asking for questions for the next interview with Nick Rumiko. He wants to come back on the show. We had his company. We had Daniel King and Makayla Cox from inspector media last week. That was a nice interview, helping us understand some do’s and don’ts of social media. We learned about vanilla pudding, which is pretty great.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, I must say it was an interesting podcast, I never really thought of social media as a marketing tool in this space, based on the changing, you know, dynamic of potential homeowners, the new buyers coming into the market and how it’s going to change. And the way they communicate it was it was really useful. Actually, I thought it was great. If you weren’t able to listen to it, just jump back in episode and listen to that one. It’s very informative.
Ian R: It was really great. I’m looking forward to having Nick back on the show and ask him some questions. We get some interesting ones out of the those posts online.
Beon DeNood: So great. Yeah, rough them up a bit. You know, Nick likes a tough nickel. And Nick likes the tough questions, though. Yeah,
Ian R: That’s what he asked for. He’s like, I want the tough questions. So we’ll give them a few of those and give him some other ones. That’ll just give us some great information.
Beon DeNood: You know, yeah, should be good. Now, you sent me the topic of today’s episode, how to manage client expectations. You know, I mean, the first thing I thought of actually was was my five-year-old son, he gets very set on the direction that, you know, he expects things to go. When you do a quick change-up on him, the poor guy, he needs a while to adjust, you know, but I guess isn’t that really human nature that we kind of like really want to kind of know what we’re getting into. If somebody switches it up on us, it instantly doesn’t make us very happy.
Ian R: Yeah, and it’s, it’s interesting because it’s not always just switching it up, we build our own expectations. You know, like, we’ll go back to McDonald’s. We see that picture of the, the Big Mac on the poster, and it looks beautiful. Boy, that looks appetizing. Then we get it. And it’s a squished weird little thing with somebody’s thumbprint in the top or that obviously pushed the bread down. You’re like, oh, man, this is we’re disappointed it. It’s just the over promise and under deliver. That happens a lot. When the home inspection industry, I would, I’m going to just venture to say my own guess that probably half or more of problems come from unmanaged client expectations or agent expectations. Like you said, it’s human nature, we expect something we don’t get it. Then we get upset when we don’t get what we expected.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, cuz I mean, you think of any field, you’re a professional in your field, right? So you know what you need to do, you know what you do with your job, you know what your scope of operations is and how you go about it. So to you, it’s just like, hey, it’s another day at the office, you know, this is what I do and this is how I do it. This is how my reports look, but to your clients. It’s maybe the first time they’re going through this home purchasing process, and they really don’t have a clue. They may be completely off base, but you just wouldn’t really know until there’s a problem.
Ian R: Yeah, and I’ll give an example early on in my career. There was a section of wall, it wasn’t a big section, but a section of wall that didn’t have any insulation in it. So the only way you can know is by ripping it right out and looking, hey, is there insulation in this wall, thermal imaging might have shown it up, but it was warm weather on the outside nor a condition inside, so there was no real temperature differential or anything. So they moved in, and six months later, they got upset, because somebody came in, ripped the sheetrock right off, or whatever was happened to be on there. They said, Look, no insulation on like, they had to rip all of that off in the entire room to find that one section. Really wasn’t that critical. I mean, you were already ripping everything out, it would have been one cold section in the wall in the wintertime and that would have been it. But they were upset because they had an expectation. They said, Why didn’t you find this. That was early on and that that set in my mind, I need to set client expectations. So I started building my driveway speech and making sure people understood things. As I kept building it out to manage people’s expectations, my quote-unquote, problems got quite a bit less, and people kept coming back less than less. So managing expectations is important. Managing expectations isn’t under-promising and over-delivering. It’s just bringing their expectations back into reality, and then blowing them away with what we actually do.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, so how do you shape it? I mean, you mentioned the driveway speech. So obviously, when you’re, you know, on the ground there with your client, trying to pivot one’s expectations on the spot, is maybe a harder thing to do. So what are good ways to maybe preempt that and try to, almost want to say massage your client expectations. Get them kind of ready to know exactly how things are gonna go?
Ian R: Well, before we get into that, you need to understand where the client is coming from. They’re going to have unrealistic expectations from all over. So we have a TV show with a home inspector ripping down walls saying, Hey, look at this, and all man a good thing. I found that. There’s an older TV show, oh, man, the home inspector missed all this wiring underneath the sheetrock in the wall, you know, people are looking and they already had this expectation all man at Home Inspector, he didn’t talk about code on this building. He didn’t find that wiring that buried in the wall. They already have unrealistic expectations. A lot of agents sometimes, especially newer ones, I should qualify that. Newer ones come on the market, and they don’t always know what a home inspection is about. So they may push that idea to their client saying, oh, yeah, he’s gonna do this, and this and this, because they don’t understand yet maybe. My favorite is the weekend warrior father in law, who thinks he’s a contractor? Oh, man, he needs to do this and he needs to do that I had a guy bring one time a crowbar and a giant screwdriver to the inspection. I’m like, Well, man, what are you gonna do with that? Well, you inspectors won’t. Like you start I leave. That’s not gonna happen here. You guys can do that after I’m gone and unexplained that to the seller. So we have to understand their point of view. They have this crazy high expectation already of what’s going to happen.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, so maybe that’s step number one instead of being like, oh, you know, I’m good. Just assume already that everyone has an unrealistic expectation of what you’re going to deliver? That already puts you in advantage, I guess.
Ian R: Yeah. I guess that’s a really good way beyond that. You summarized what I said in a wordy way. Expect everybody to already have unrealistic expectations. Never go into any inspection thinking, yeah, they know what’s going to happen. Even if they say, oh, yeah, I know, you’re not gonna do this or that. Their expectations are wild, and all over we understand our SOP. They don’t. So getting into managing expectations, we need to set the expectations from the start. So sometimes we get caught up in trying to sell on the inspection that we forget where their expectations start. So on the phone call on the most thorough home inspector in the world, oh yeah, you know, that guy on TV? Yeah, I’m just as good as him or I search every inch of your house. We’re just selling hard and hard and hard, because we want that inspection. But now we have just built up this balloon that we need to deflate. So right from the beginning on the phone call on our website, and also on our marketing material. So first of all on the phone call. We want to tell them about our qualifications. We want to have that overwhelming value that says, Oh yeah, I’m worth our fee. But we don’t want to blow up unrealistic expectations. There’s an inspector in my area, always trying to sell thermal imaging. He was one of the first inspectors in my area many years ago that had thermal imaging. So he would say, I can see through walls. Every home inspector you’re all listening in on this got chills up your spine. Oh, no, you can’t, you know. I’d meet agents Oh, there was this weird room that he didn’t see, I thought they could see through walls and, you know people get upset at him. That’s just an extreme example of sometimes we paint an unrealistic picture to sell that service. Oh, yeah, our sewer scopes. Yeah, we’re going to scope your entire system and we’re going to find everything. Can we really do that with a sewer scope? Not always, there’s going to be times where we can’t go all the way through can’t see everything. Maybe we can identify if it’s Orangeburg piping from from a sewer scope, things like that. Now, we want to make sure that we communicate well.
Beon DeNood: A good point, then probably would be to, you know, just look at the language you’re generally using on your website, social media or your other marketing material. I mean, you could really be maybe targeting a sensational kind of marketing angle, you know, but you could be shooting yourself in the foot from the get-go from the moment your client lands on your website, you’re already setting them up for, for bad expectations, bad for you, I guess.
Ian R: Yeah Again, we don’t want to undersell ourselves, either. I see a lot of home inspection websites where the exact language on their website is when they’re describing how thorough they are. A home inspection is a visual inspection of the readily available areas, we will not inspect this, this, this and this and this, and here’s a link to our SOP.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that’s like a copy and paste from this. Yeah, exactly.
Ian R: It’s like, All right, well, all you did was start off by telling them, this is all the stuff I don’t do. We can still be realistic, our inspections are thorough, very thorough. If we go beyond the SOP, we go above and beyond the SOP by using specialized equipment, infrared, which helps us to find at times hidden defects with temperature differentials. While it can’t see through walls, we have been able to find things like plumbing leaks and, you know, missing insulation at times. It sets a realistic expectation. So somebody’s like, Oh, I thought this could see through walls. Where did I say that on my website. I didn’t say that anywhere. That language will also come back to us on our website and marketing material. If we ever get sued or anything like that, like well, it’s just kind of says right here, you can see through walls and you can’t, that’s false advertising. So be realistic, we still want to sell, but you know, don’t focus on what you can’t do. But don’t oversell which can do. Managing expectations is the bring a personal right to the right spot. So the same thing is with brochures, cards, and any kind of marketing material. We never want to use the terms like if we’re doing 11 month inspection, say we’re doing door hangers, like from our suggestion for one of our podcasts a couple of weeks ago. Hey, we can find everything that your builder did wrong. That is an unrealistic expectation. Now, you can say something like, Hey, let us come in and make a punch list of items for your builder to to repair with a thorough inspection. You still sold me but you didn’t make unrealistic expectations in my head.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that’s very good advice. I mean, you mentioned it already, but it does bring to mind that the picture of the perfect burger that ever exists. You don’t want to be the looking like the perfect burger. You know you want to sell yourself. Do it do it. Realistically. We have some great quotes coming I’ve just called I just call them burgers and, and tools. I mean, everyone’s gonna love me after this.
Ian R: Okay, so sidebar. If you were a burger, which burger you would use. I think it’d be a bacon burger with onion rings and a fried egg on top.
Beon DeNood: Boy, yeah, I have no idea at this point what burger I would be. I was thinking I was probably something like a vegan bunless burger with celery on top. That’s what I’m feeling at the moment.
Ian R: All right, this is terrible. We have to move on. We’re not having vegan burgers. We need to talk after this.
Beon DeNood: I’ve never had a vegan burger in my life.
Ian R: Oh, good. Okay, I thought our friendship was over there for a second there.
Beon DeNood: I was describing how feeling off feels if you were a burger.
Ian R: So anyways, going back to our point, we digress there a little bit. We also want to invest in good communication, and go back to our podcast on how to be a good communicator. There are some good practical ways that we can practice being a good communicator so that we can get that information to the client and manage their expectations. One thing that we really want to invest in is a good driveway speech. So I’ve always said we should have a phone script. If you want you can go to actually it’s on our fullviewdigital.com website. We have a script there for the phone, and that’ll help you out adapt it for yourself but we should have a driveway speech script. Now some guys write it out. I know an inspector locally that has a written out and that’s fine. I give it verbally and I could recite it, you know at a drop of a pen. I had an agent one time stepped in front of me as a joke, as I’m talking to the client, and he gave my entire driveway speech, all four minutes of it. It was amazing. It wasn’t four minutes, it’s more like, it’s like two and a half, three minutes, but I talk fast. So we laughed so hard because I had that agent trained. I had the client’s expectations managed, but have a good driveway speech. The gist of my speech is basically Hey, welcome to Home Inspection. This is what we’re going to do today, we’re gonna go around the exterior, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I would tell them something like, here are the things that we’re not going to do. We’re not going to dismantle anything, we’re not going to do any destructive testing. We’re not going to do this, this, this, and this. Then the real clincher would be, we’re also not going to inspect your building for code. Now, that’s an argument in a lot of areas, and that’s fine. In New York State where I am. It says specifically in the law, Nah, ain’t gonna happen. No exceptions. Okay. So as soon as I do that the contractor’s father in law jaw drops. Everybody’s getting visibly like, oh, no, what are you inspecting for? I said, but don’t worry about that because think about it this way. House was built in 1969, with two by four exterior walls, somewhere in the mid-80s. In my area, they adopted the building code was two by six exterior walls. So if you want to bring this house up to code, you need to tear it down and start over. Then everybody goes, Oh, that makes sense. Let me tell you, we’re still going to do a thorough inspection because we have our own standards of practice besides building code, we tell you about the building code thing because you know, you’re gonna have contractors come in, and they’re like, this isn’t up to code. Yeah, we can’t bring that up to code. First of all, it’s illegal. Second of all, it doesn’t make sense. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Here’s what we are going to do again, and I and I run them real quick through, here are the amazing parts of my inspection. We’re going to use thermal imaging, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. Now everybody feels better. I learned that trick from Joe ferry, at a conference. Again, you can go back and listen to his podcast. I love that guy. So he said, he went to the dentist one time, and the dentist said, oh, yeah, we have the best equipment. Here’s what we’re gonna do is done that a toothache and he’s gonna extract a tooth. He’s like, oh, man, this is awesome. And they had them sold. He sat and sat in the chair. Here are all the things that could happen. Your son could die from this anesthesia and this and this and his heart dropped. As his heart dropped, the doctor said, but don’t worry, we literally have the best anesthesiologist in the area. We have the best equipment. I’ve been doing this for 14 years, this procedure, and I actually pioneered it. Here are my three degrees. Then he felt better. So if something went wrong, was he going to be upset after that? No. I learned it from Joe ferry, you give them the high, you give them the low and then you bring them back right to where expectations should be with that driveway speech. have it written down? It really is a beautiful thing to have in your arsenal.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that’s a very good idea.
Ian R: You know, it kind of reminds me of a camel attack that I had. No joke.
Beon DeNood: What? Sorry, a camel attack.
Ian R: Yeah. So long story. We went to this drive-thru Zoo, and they have camels and my daughter loves them, and we’re feeding the camels. So you roll down your windows, and the camels reach in and it’s pretty hysterical to watch. I roll down my wife’s window and this thing slobbering all over, she’s screaming, I’m laughing because, you know, she’s like, my window. So this camel reaches his head end, and he starts getting a little bit aggressive. So I don’t know who did it but our reaction was just to roll up the window a little bit. You know this thing is going crazy a little bit in our vehicle. So as we roll it up, he gets mad and smashes our window, and then runs off.
Beon DeNood: Like smashed it, like broken.
Ian R: Oh, yeah, you should have seen the report for the insurance company. They’re like what happened? They’re like, Can you describe the accident? I’m like, I don’t know how else to describe it. Angry camel reaches into vehicle smashes window drills on wife what I don’t understand what you’re not getting about this. I kept getting these weird calls like, so where are you located? Are you traveling? Sir? I’m like no, upstate New York. Camel socks are common.
Beon DeNood: Let me ask you Did they fail to set your expectations before you set out on that Safari?
Ian R: No. Here’s the beautiful part. They set them perfectly. I walked into that park and they have pictures of camels and giraffes and see all the animals feed them and touch them. They didn’t set anything unrealistic. They didn’t say hey, ride them a sometimes they’ll talk you know. I walked in and then as we were walking through their sign after sign, we are not responsible for damage to vehicles. If you allow the camels into your vehicle, it’s at your own risk, and sign after sign after sign. After that happened. I remember My daughter in the back she was 11 at the time. She goes, Daddy, Are they going to, you know what’s going to happen now? Hey, they warned us, you know. I realized at that point, I’m like, man, they did a great job managing my expectations. They gave me the high, they gave me the low, hey, here are all the ways you could die from our camels. Then they sent me right back where I should be so that when something did come up, that was outside of their control. I’m like, You know what, they warned me. They said a camel could break my window. So here we are. You know, they gave me a vacuum and vacuumed it up and that was the end of it. I wasn’t upset. That’s the beauty of managing people’s expectations at the beginning. So in our driveway, speech, here’s why we’re awesome. Here’s what we won’t do. Oh, you’re sad. Here are all the awesome things that we’ll do. So now something comes up later missing insulation in the wall. Now he told us he wasn’t going to dismantle these walls. You know, your problems, you can’t measure the problems you don’t get. You’ll notice a decrease in it.
Beon DeNood: It’s linked to being honest and forthright at the same time, right? I mean, you can try, and yes, your client. Oh, yeah. Don’t worry, we’ll take it, Yeah. Cuz, you know, as you said, maybe you’re worried about keeping the business or, you know, maintaining them as a client, but really doing it that way. You still retain them as a client, but the expectations are not leveled off, which is great.
Ian R: Yeah. I guess that comes down to the corporate world calls it defining goals. What’s our goal? You know, if we can define our goals to our clients, hey, we’re here to find defects. We’re not here to predict what’s going to happen to your house, this or that, and we manage those expectations, then we won’t get that call four years down the road, hey, my dishwasher broke, why didn’t you tell me that? Now? Will I still go in and say, Hey, this dishwasher is old or his water heater is about to break? Yeah, you know, we’re going to say, Hey, keep an eye on these things. When something does happen, they’re like, well, they told us that could happen. If we can define our goals is what the corporate world calls it. I just say it’s the camel effect. You know, you advertise you have camels to pet that but we’re also going to tell you that they could kill you and smash your window and ruin your day. Then you have to explain this to your insurance company. You’ll still have fun with camels. it’s the same thing with a home inspection.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that certainly makes sense. Now, with the communication process, I mean, obviously, your driveway speech then is an important component. We mentioned the website and stuff, too. Are there other stuff, things that you can do as well to kind of preempt them, keep them involved in the process, so that it’s not just sort of cold on the day of the inspection?
Ian R: Yeah, and I see this a lot in other areas in my area, the client calls me and schedules the inspection, but the agent doesn’t, that almost never happens in my area, they might do the online schedule, or the agent, well, but most of the time, it’s going to be the client. Then the clients at the inspection from beginning to end. Then I talked to them afterward. So my area is very client involved but in a lot of other areas, sometimes the inspector doesn’t even meet the client. I have clients that are website clients that say, oh, yeah, I just show up, I do the inspection and I leave but they also tend to have a few more issues because there’s no personal connection there with the inspector and you didn’t have time to manage those expectations. So what I recommend is trying to include the client throughout the process as much as possible, are they not going to be at the inspection, I always made sure that I called them ahead of time and gave them my driveway speech on the phone, have a preset email right before the inspection or right after the inspection. So and if you’re using inspector toolbelt, you can have that set up right in a notification to go right out. Hey, thank you for allowing us to inspect, sorry, you couldn’t be here. Here are a few points to keep in mind, here are all the things that we inspected. Here are some things that we didn’t inspect because it’s not part of our SOP. Here are some other things that we did to make sure that you got a great inspection. So high low than right in the middle. So if we can do that, involve them in the process as much as possible, I love having my client there. A lot of people don’t, they’re like, oh, that’s dangerous, or they distract me. I actually find that they help. Just as a sidebar, I’ve gone down into a basement and it’s usually the wife that’s actually noticed something important. Like, you know, the contractor father in law is laying on the kitchen floor trying to look under the stove and the wife’s like, Hey, what are these mud tubes over here? I’m like, Oh, well, you found a termite tube. So they’re usually helping me so before we even get there, they’ve given me half the information I need. Oh, hey, what about the heating unit? Hey, we noticed this water stain over here. Last time we were here. They were mops over in this corner. Okay, great. Thank you. So that’s just a side point. I like having them there. Then there are no questions after the inspection almost every because they asked them all right there. Is it an extra half hour on-site? Yeah, but it saves me two hours of fun On calls and all this other stuff, but try to contact the client personally if you can, or if your multi-inspector firm, have your inspector contact them before the inspection, after the inspection right at the end of the inspection, see if they can show up for a review. Because if we don’t have any contact with them over in that kind of area, we’re not gonna have any time to manage their expectations. So now, clients schedule an inspection, we never meet the client, they still have that, you know, TV shows still stuck in their head of this is what my inspector will do. We never had a chance to warn them about the Camel attack.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that certainly makes sense, trying to motivate some of the guys to try and get a bit more face time with a client. It helps in that way. Now, one thing I was thinking of, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but it would seem like the inspection agreement is also an important component in this. Timing-wise, because I don’t know, what is the best time to get that inspection agreement over to them? Obviously, that’s got all the nitty-gritty of, you know, what’s covered, what’s not. Some clients may want to know that ahead of time, what, in your opinion, is the best time to get that out of them to sort of help manage the situation as well?
Ian R: Yeah, so I’m not an attorney, but to quote Joe ferry as soon as possible. In our system, I have it set out to go two hours after they schedule, they get their inspection agreement, and they only wait two hours, just in case they call back, oh, can I have the next day or this or that? So I have it scheduled. So two hours after they schedule the inspection, they have their agreement. Let’s not mistake the agreement for managing expectations. I really encourage my clients to read it, I tell them, please read this thoroughly, but I cannot force them to do it. I will imagine that if half of my clients ever read my agreement are parts of it. I’d be surprised. Don’t we all do that, you know, I signed an agreement the other day User Agreement for a software? I didn’t I didn’t read it. You know, it’s just like, Okay, I’m not gonna spend all my days reading 15 pages of user agreements. It’s kind of the culture we’re in, I try to get them to, but if they don’t, I can’t help that. So their expectations are generally not managed with the agreement, or even with the report. How many times have we gone back on an inspection? Because people like complaints, and everything was in the report, and they just didn’t read it? Yeah. So people just don’t read that kind of stuff as they used to. So they can help your agreement and your report should clearly outline those things. It should clearly help manage expectations for the people that actually do read them but we should never assume that that’s enough to actually manage what they’re expecting.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that was a good point because you really, you managing human nature, in a way, and trying to get ahead of it. That’s why to face time with your client, and building that relationship with them leading up to the inspection and at the inspection are important components, because that’s what you get in the real community. They’ll remember the things you say in what you communicate, then, whereas the rest in electronic or digital format may have gone way over their heads.
Ian R: Yeah. Again, if we have multiple inspectors in our company, you know, give them all a copy of the driveway speech, have them memorize it that needs to happen every single time, every single client, and then refine it over the years, did you get a weird complaint about appliances? Well, we check appliances as a courtesy but you know, they’re not technically part of our inspection in our state. You know, then we can just add language like that. So we can continually adjust to managing people’s expectations, because also two people’s expectations from even five or 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, are completely different to today. Are you going to check my smart home system? Are you going to test my video camera on the doorbell? You know, it’s going to be completely different than it was even a few years ago?
Beon DeNood: Those, are all good points. Now, earlier on, you mentioned, that newer agents may sort of also try to find their feet. So they may also be involved in setting, maybe unrealistic expectations, can use a home inspector, is that a good approach to kind of try and work with the agents as well to educate them?
Ian R: Yeah, I’m a big proponent of becoming an educator. If you can, if you can become an instructor for continuing education for your area, for real estate agents. First of all, that’s amazing marketing. It is some of the best marketing that I’ve ever done. “Oh, Ian doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” and the other agent goes “Ian teaches a course on this. So I think he knows what he’s talking about.” “Oh, he does. Okay.” “Yeah, I took the course you should take it too.” Situation done. You know, I get to meet lots of new agents but more importantly, in that environment, we get to manage their expectations, because let’s be honest, there’s always going to be those few inspectors in the market that are good wheelers and dealers, but they kind of setting unrealistic expectations for the rest of us. Like that guy was talking about, oh, yeah, we can see through walls and so now you need to and educate the agents that way. I sat in the class, and that was actually really experienced these people bought a house and there was a room that was all blocked off, you know, it’s like built in the early 1800s, lots of old houses in my area. And when they moved in, they were doing a remodel and they’re like, We have a whole nother room. I mean, it wasn’t bad. It was like, oh, sweet bonus room, you know, maybe make it a pantry. The agents like, oh, man, we couldn’t see through walls. So I and another inspector were there. We’re like, you know, let us tell you this. Then we went through the whole list of the things that it can and can’t do. Now that went to their office and spread to other agents, and that actually got us more work, first of all, because they’re like, Oh, these guys know what they’re talking about. Second of all, we were able to manage their expectations, because what that agent is expecting, is going to trickle right down to our clients, if they’re expecting us to see through walls. Now we’re on-site telling them that we can’t first of all, that makes the agent look bad because then unless they’re not thermographers, their real estate agents, they know about titles and deeds and transfer documents, you know, they’re not going to know about thermography. So we need to help them understand and not make them look bad in front of their clients. Well, actually, that’s not it. That’s we can’t see through walls. Now the agent is in a bad position. We don’t want to do that to them. So the more we can educate agents, the better and I like to pull agents off to the side on inspections because in my area agents are on inspections typically say, hey, just to let you know, that’s actually not how, how we actually do things. Oh, it’s not, I’m like, yeah, here, I’ll email you the section of the law of our standards of practice. What we shouldn’t do, oh, thank you so much, I saw another inspector do that. Now they appreciate it. You just made them look good. They learned something. Now they are probably going to refer you instead of the other guy telling them to do it the wrong way. So we have to, first of all, know what we’re doing and then educate them on that.
Beon DeNood: Okay. Yeah. Excellent suggestions. Now, I’m sure though, that you from time to time run into a situation where you may be doing everything right to try to manage the expectations, but you’re still getting some signals that the expectations are completely out of whack. What do you do?
Ian R: Yeah, you know, a friend of mine is going to do a podcast with me on this soon here Beon. We’re calling it, how to fire clients. Don’t take every client. That’s really what it comes down to. So there are always the clients that we wish we hadn’t taken and will remember for years. I remember this one guy, he had very unrealistic expectations, no matter what I did, he wouldn’t stop. I did the inspection. Anyways, I showed up, he had a toolbox in hand before I could even get my driveway speech out. He’s telling me what he expects me to do. You know, it kind of irked me a little bit like, this is what I expect you to do. I couldn’t even get my speech out. It’s just like, No, this is what’s going to happen. I should have let that go. The whole rest of the inspection was not great. He’s cutting things with a knife and demanding things and the seller agent is there and he’s trying to calm the situation down. I should have just let it go. If we can’t manage a person’s expectations, say we may not be the company for you. So a lot of times, especially when we’re starting out, we’ll take inspections that we probably shouldn’t. So if we’re doing you know, hey, I did 1000 inspections last year, you’re not going to take every client. All right, you seem kind of annoying. It’s my prerogative to say no to you. Let’s move on with life and find another inspector, okay. I mean, don’t actually tell them they’re annoying, but you know, fire clients. Sometimes if they’re like, I did 10 inspections in the past six months, I need this inspection. That inspection could cost us more than firing that person. If our gut is telling us that we can’t manage their expectations, it may just be time to let them go. Let one of our competitors have them. Somebody eventually takes them, maybe somebody that can handle them better, or maybe somebody that’s going to regret that later on. That doesn’t need to be us.
Beon DeNood: Okay, well, that’s a good one to keep in mind as well. We look forward to that future episode because I think just in any business, that’s a harder decision to make, you know, so some guidance on that would be great.
Ian R: We’re gonna call that segment drinking with Jay. Yeah, so we’re gonna have to have a little glass of scotch or something. I don’t know how that’s gonna. But Jay will be on the show, and he’ll help us learn how to fire your clients.
Beon DeNood: We’ll see. Mark that one on your calendar. Exactly. It’s coming. Now. So we have mentioned trying to get the messaging, right, you know, because I think by nature, a lot of us do struggle with selling ourselves and selling your services and getting the messaging, right because over selling here is an issue, as we’ve discussed. So you touched on a couple of points, but you know, what are some good ways to really sell yourself in a way that’s not going to bite you later on?
Ian R: Yeah, to get a little bit more granular. I like to and again, break it up into those three parts. High, Low and then in the middle, we sell ourselves on us. So we talk about our qualifications. I’m a CPI, I’m a member of InterNACHI. I have these qualifications, I have 20 years in the construction industry. We sell them on all of that. Say, I don’t wonder how to fix things. I know, I’ve done it with my own two hands. So we sell them on us first. I always find that easiest, a lot of times we tried to sell them on, here are all my tools. Here are all the things that I’ll include in my inspection, this and that. I try to avoid that because I want to include that in the last part to bring them back to the middle ground. So I started off by saying, here’s why I’m awesome. Then afterward, it, you know, we have a hard time sometimes selling ourselves. You know what? Pretend our best friend is trying to qualify us for a job. What would they say about us? Well, maybe not, you’ll be on. What would Beon say about me?
Beon DeNood: Well, pull up a chair and let me tell you some things.
Ian R: No, but pretend we’re somebody trying to qualify us for a job. Oh, man, he’s awesome. You’ll never meet anybody that knows as much about a house, you know and then talk about ourselves that way. List out our qualifications and again, have a script to don’t rely on memory, we shouldn’t be answering calls, slamming the truck door driving down the street with the window open, we need to focus on that client. Not only are we selling the inspection, but we’re setting expectations. Okay? Now we’ve established that, man, we are better than any home inspector on any TV show. That’s amazing. Okay, here are the things that we won’t do. So let me tell you the things that we won’t do bla bla, bla, bla bla, and I always like to end on we don’t inspect for code because that’s what everybody expects. Now their heart drops. Now we bring them back up to the middle and we say, but here are all the things that we’re going to do, we’re going to inspect your roof, your chimney, siding, decks, porches, basement, heating unit attic, we’re going to look for this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this and this, we’re going to use infrared I use inspection, crawlers, I use all sorts of things. Then now they’re brought back up the middle ground. So later on, when we say, well, the dishwasher broke, and they said that you know, that could happen. You know, we brought them right back to where we want them to be high and low, then right back to the middle. If we can construct a little bit of a, I keep going back to the driveway speech, because, in my opinion, that’s the most important part. It’s your first impression of the client, in person. It’s your first is your first opportunity to really manage their expectations on the phone on the website and things like that. Yes, we need to do that. That is critical but that’s the first in-person contact we have. There’s the driveway speech. So I keep going back to that. I think it’s important. Write it down, get it down perfect.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, that’s interesting advice, too, because you’ve mentioned the script quite a few times. I think if we have to be honest, most of us probably are going about these things without a script. You know, I think probably if you’re honest too, if you’re listening, that maybe you don’t have a script for these things, but any sales job, if you’ve ever had a sales job, a script is like the core central piece has been for decades of your job and the reason is that you can refine it. It’s got all kinds of nuances that work, you know, you can try it, see what works, what doesn’t. So, you know, take Ian’s advice and take the time, get it down on paper, get somebody to help you to get it down on paper, practice it and get it going. That’s a very good idea.
Ian R: Yeah. And it’s kind of a sad reality that, you know, we’re all individuals. We’re all our own people but it’s interesting how scripts, like you said, are still used because we all tend to think in a certain way, whether we like to admit it or not. A script says, Okay, people like to have this then this, then this. Okay, let me switch that up. Now they don’t, and you’ll find that 99% of people will react the same way to the same message. So that allows us to hone and refine our message as we go on.
Beon DeNood: Yeah, no, that’s fantastic Ian. Thanks for helping with this topic. I think it’s a good example of working smarter and not harder, you know because maybe you’re got a good turnover, you’re profiting well in your business, you got a good amount of clients, but maybe it’s just, you know, the back end support and trying to help and issues you know. I’m sure this information will go a long way, no matter what point you are at with your business to improve and make it that much smoother for your clients and obviously, for yourself. So thanks a lot Ian, very informative as always.
Ian R: Thanks, Beon, for being on again today. We’ll talk soon.
Beon DeNood: Take care.
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