WANT TO GAIN 150k PLUS FOLLOWERS ON TIKTOK AND 79k FOLLOWERS ON FACEBOOK? THEN LISTEN IN AS MIKE ORTIZ GIVES US THE “SECRET SAUCE” THAT HAS GAINED HIM THAT MANY FOLLOWERS
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Ian Robertson
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk everyone, and I am super excited today because we have back on our show, Mike Ortiz. How are you, Mike?
Mike Ortiz
Good. How’s it going Ian?
Ian Robertson
Hey, not bad. Thanks for being on, you actually reached out to me to let me know how good you’re doing. And I really wanted to do this episode with you. And I’m super stoked, because if you don’t remember Mike, Mike, he’s the owner of Homefront Inspection Services. And we did a podcast on him last October, how he went from zero to 500 inspections in a year, and just rocked it. And, Mike, you’re you’re already rocking it this year, aren’t you?
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think that first year was really me just having a lot of pride in the fact that I was able to do that. Because I had a lot of help in order to do that with my with my wife and the the friends and referrals that helped me out. And this year, I think it just grew off of that. I think it allowed my SEO to kick in and allowed everything to kind of fall into place. Because I was getting calls on my 1-800 number. And I was like wait, did I, was is this a Google service add call is this a you know, Google add call? No, it was just an organic, they found me because they looked up a home inspector in my area, we got great reviews, and just the reputation has built really well. And it took a year to get to that. So it was just me not being a patient person. I’m super excited that at least this year, I’m on track. So what I do is I compare it and then you know, this this year, I’m doing at least 10 more inspections per month than I did last year.
Ian Robertson
So you’re you’re on track to actually do even better this year, aren’t you?
Mike Ortiz
Yeah. So I’m able to track how many inspections I do, obviously, I’m doing about 10 more inspections per month, this year than last year. So it’s going to add up to an additional 120, inspections, 100 inspections, so something like that. So it’s perfect. For me. It’s just enough to where I’m training someone so that they can help me with the, because I could be busier. But I pulled back a little bit on the marketing because I can’t keep up. I don’t want to lose people by constantly telling them no, you know, I don’t have any availability.
Ian Robertson
That’s a, that’s a beautiful problem to have. Yeah. That you you had to pull back your marketing because you’re so busy. And so 500 plus 120ish. Yeah. So you’re somewhere gonna be somewhere between 600 to 650 inspections this year. Hypothetically, I think you might end up with more to be honest.
Mike Ortiz
I think so too.
Ian Robertson
You can’t go by January through March numbers, because sometimes those are the lowest on the year.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, exactly. May is my, my no days off month. Yeah.
Ian Robertson
So man, and that’s, that averages out to like 12 or 13 inspections a week. Yes. That’s fantastic, man. That’s, those are those are great numbers. And this is your second year. Yeah. Yeah, it’s awesome.
Mike Ortiz
But it’s it’s really what it’s, I can’t do it by myself. It’s impossible to do by yourself. You need support. Yeah, my wife’s a big support for me, as far as getting to those numbers. And then just in general, I know that you’ve talked about this before, too. I give up a lot of my overflow to my, to my competitors that I that I know very well. So I have a couple of guys that I know personally, and I trust. And honestly, if if you lose an agent, it’s not really their fault. It’s your fault. If you can’t keep an agent for whatever reason, because they go to someone else that means that they did a better job than you. And that’s not something you know, that you should be upset with someone else for it’s really a you thing. So for me, I you know, I’m not I don’t worry about things like that when I refer out for my overflow, because they always helped me out. And then they always shoot me if I buy I don’t have any slow days right now. But when they do they always ask me for, so it’s that relationship, even though we’re competitors, it’s that relationship. There’s plenty of work.
Ian Robertson
That is fantastic. And I love it. I love how you put that, if you lose an agent. It’s not their fault. It’s your fault. Yeah, that’s a beautiful statement. And as a single inspector firm right now, and you’re looking for help, obviously, as you mentioned before, but that’s important, because if you get sick, break your leg, heck, you want to go on vacation for a week.
Mike Ortiz
Vacation…
Ian Robertson
You have backup now. Yeah, you’re right, what’s that. But you have now, help, people would be like, don’t worry, Mike, we got your back and you have theirs. Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah. Yeah, It’s works out.
Ian Robertson
Yeah. So I actually wanted to have you on the show because you were talking about how you’re not only killing it in your market, but you’re killing it on social media. And I had to go look this up. I had to verify this. I’m like, maybe maybe he typed it in his email wrong, but you have 100 verified it. 157,000 followers on TikTok and 79,000 followers on Facebook. Dude.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, it’s quite a bit. Yeah. It’s it’s a it’s a solid stream of referrals. Honestly, it is.
Ian Robertson
Well, so just so our listeners can kind of understand a little over half of the world is an active user on Facebook. So no matter what anybody says about Facebook, it’s dying and this and that. It’s actually still one of the most heavily used platforms in the world.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, people that can afford to buy homes have a Facebook.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. And then if they’re of a certain age group, they’re on TikTok, TikTok actually surpassed google.com as the most visited website in the world recently. Yeah, it’s insane. So those two spots are the two most important spots to be on.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think so. I think just because the interaction’s more, it’s more potent. Instagram, that we’re focusing on growing right now. And YouTube as well. YouTube, I’m just I barely started it like a month ago. So we’re only like, 112 subscribers. It’s, those are a little different. But I just want to keep you know, ever since that whole TikTok ban thing. I wanted to keep my options open as far as putting out content.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, we do have to keep an eye on that, TikTok is having some problems with the federal government here in the US right now. So just every..
Mike Ortiz
Exactly.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, just so everybody understands. That doesn’t mean necessarily that TikTok is going to go away and all your marketing is going to go away. There is a potential for that. But while it’s around, it’s a great marketing platform, I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, Mike, but the federal government has already made it illegal or banned for federal workers. Yes. So if you’re a federal government worker, you can’t have it on your, your devices for because they don’t want it to be able to interact with any federal network.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think it’s really federal and in some states are doing it too, as well.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, no, it’s true. So they’re talking about getting rid of a completely in my opinion, that’s probably a long ways off. Right now I know guys that are saying they’re getting 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 inspections a month, just from doing the TikTok a week. And I’m like…
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think the biggest I think the biggest misconception, it’s funny because especially people my age, it’s when we first heard about TikTok, I was like, you just think dancing, all that stuff. But when I use it, if you look at you know, you have an algorithm that shows you videos you might like, most of my videos are either you know, other inspectors, or, you know, this old house or you know, old clips of funny moments from Tool Time or just like just things that I take interest in woodworking, you know, Ireland, things like things that I take interest in, they’ll constantly show up so it’s not, you know, dancing, and so I don’t see any videos of anyone dancing ever. It’s more just what you’re interested in.
Ian Robertson
So I guess what does it mean that they keep showing me videos of squirrels eating candy bars in the woods?
Mike Ortiz
Sometimes, yeah.
Ian Robertson
I don’t know what that.. okay. I don’t know. What’s TikTok trying to tell me?
Mike Ortiz
I know, right. Sometimes you question.
Ian Robertson
Like, this is all your brain can handle.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, sometimes you question yourself like, okay, like I watched, I watched an entire video of how they make stainless steel cooking pots, is like a three minute video and I had to watch it to the end. I had to watch to the end because I was like I don’t know, when I was growing up, I would watch How This Works, you know or How It’s Made.
Ian Robertson
Oh, yeah.
Mike Ortiz
You know what I mean, that TV show, I think it was on PBS it shows you how they make like a Twinkie or like from scratch, you know, in the factory. And I would just it was just, I was mind numbingly just stuck to that screen. And same thing with this.
Ian Robertson
I liked the one about the crayons on that show, how they made the crayons. But..
Mike Ortiz
Oh, yeah.
Ian Robertson
But I’m the same way. There’s they always showed these videos of guys. You know, finishing sheetrock. Yeah, I have no idea why. Cuz in real life, I hate doing it. I do it. And I’ve done it my whole life. But then I see some guy and Tiktok I’m like, oh, man, look at that screen. That’s such a straight line.
Mike Ortiz
I feel. I see a lot of roofing videos and like, their nails. They’re nailing so fast. And this one is so it’s fun to watch. Yeah, it’s fun.
Ian Robertson
I gotta know, though. So even on YouTube, you just started YouTube and you already have over 100 followers. So YouTube’s important too, especially for SEO reasons, which we won’t get into. But yeah, what’s your secret sauce? What’s your secret social media sauce to get 79,000 followers on Facebook and over 150,000 on TikTok?
Mike Ortiz
Got it. Okay, so my method my method is pretty easy. So with TikTok, I think I lucked out because I was there during like the beginning portion of it. And I’m not the most followed home inspector on TikTok. There’s plenty of other guys. I mean, everybody knows AJ. And he’s a great guy. He’s out of I don’t know where he’s out of but he’s he’s a the number one followed inspector like a 1.1 million followers. Okay, so I’m sure he gets a lot of his work from from social media. But my My thing is, is that I see so much everyday we’re lucky as inspectors because we have so much content that we can use, and everything is content, even if you don’t find it’s not about finding things wrong in a house because you’re gonna always find something wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a house where I haven’t found at least one thing wrong. And taking a video you already got your phone out. Doing your inspection is just a quick change to the app to record 15 seconds none of my videos are longer than 15, 20 seconds some of them are like you’re here and there when I have to explain something really thoroughly. But for the most part, people don’t want to hear technical terms from me, they don’t want to hear boring things from me, what they want to do is they want to be entertained, they want to either want to feel something, an emotion, so either scared or just angry about something, or they want to learn something, because everybody lives in a house, apartment, condo, whatever, you know, manufactured home, they all live somewhere. And so they’re going to see things like this in your videos. So this, the secret is consistency, and then the quality of the content. So you don’t have to think too much. If you’re walking through a house, and you see a loose toilet, you can take 15 seconds to show them how you test to see if it’s loose. And then what a real loose toilet looks like and what could happen and it takes like 10, 12 seconds, you put a trending sound behind it really low in volume. And then you just explain yourself without putting a bunch of fancy words on the screen. And I’m not I never show myself my face on my videos, it’s always just what I’m looking at. Because at the end of the day, I think that it’s really just about showing them what I see through my, through my eyes, some inspectors do show themselves and that’s fine. But for me, it’s about the work. And so I show them, you know, lose toilets, or an active leak. And I don’t know, you know, you’ve got to test see if some of the videos by see some pretty bad stuff, you know, and I show that and then I post it and then the thing is, is that I post it several times a day, I think three times a day on TikTok, okay. And that’s three videos a day, all week, because I have so many videos, I think I have like 900 drafts pretty much of just constant videos. And so I always have a heavy stream to keep posting. Then what I do is once I posted on TikTok, I posted like 9am and then 1pm and then 6pm When everybody’s off of work. So in the morning when they wake up, when they’re on their lunch break and when they’re off of work. And then they can get 2000 views or they can get 660,000 views, the videos, randomly because it’s TikTok. And then what I do is I download those videos, and I hope TikTok’s not listening to this, but I have a way of taking off the watermark. So it’s just the video without the TikTok tag on it. Because those if you if you download a video from TikTok and it has the watermark on it, then you try to upload it to Facebook or YouTube or Instagram. It’ll, they’ll downplay it because of the watermark, they won’t let it go out to a broader audience because they don’t really want you to use their software to kind of make the videos. So I repost them and regurgitate the same videos to Instagram, to YouTube and to Facebook. And then, and then it just built up from there. The Facebook again, everything blew up, you know, 8 million views for a video about cabinets, you know, eight million is like that. There’s one that got 13 million views because of cockroaches in a sewer line. It’s it’s it’s easy stuff. But with that kind of content, people are interested in that I would be interested if I wasn’t seeing it every day. But yeah, people are like, is that in my sewer line? Is my toilet loose, could my you know, attic have a leak and not know about it. Because if people don’t normally go into their attic, so I you know, I think that’s what helps.
Ian Robertson
You know, there’s a lot to unpack in what you just said there. And, and some really, if you’re listening in on this some really great nuggets, because the people I find that say they have a problem with social media, like I’m on. My favorite expression is I’m on the Google, on the Facebook, you know, and I’m not getting any work, we have to engage and entertain. And as much as we hate to hear that. You know, if you go on an educational campaign, I’m going to educate people about hydrostatic pressure. And when to use type M pipe versus type K pipe. You know, it’s like, all right, I’m already falling asleep talking about it. You know, I know because I see it every day. You’re talking about real things that engage people. And I want to unpack some things. First of all, what’s a trending sound? You said put a trending sound behind the video.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, so typically, so what I do, I mean, because I have the followers I have now, I don’t need to do that anymore. I can get by with just using my voice as the sound. When you’re recording a video, it gives you the option to add music. A trending sound is a song that a lot of creators are using to make their videos more reach a broader audience because some sounds are going to be more popular than others, depending on what the song is. Sometimes I don’t like doing that because there’s going to be music that I don’t really care for or like at all, but I have to plug it in there just to get the views. But I forgot to mention one thing too, the biggest thing that nobody thinks about. The only reason that some of my videos gain traction quickly is because I interact. So as soon as people leave comments, I respond to the comments that gives you that puts you back on the algorithm and refreshes your video on the algorithm and pushes it out to more people when it’s being when there’s engagement. So whenever you post a video, I spend 10 minutes engaging with other content that I follow so on Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok I go, and for 10 minutes, I just engage with different accounts that I follow, like like Like, comment, comment, comment, and then I leave it alone, and then I’ll see traction on my videos. But when it comes to trending sounds, I think it’s just really what you just picking a song that’s popular right now, not the most popular song, but somewhere in the middle, adding it to your video, but really low, because you’re going to be talking, you don’t want it to be over what you’re talking to, like get a five volume or two volume instead of 100. And then that’ll help you get your bid. And then not too many hashtags, and all that. But the training sound is pretty much just now I just pick songs I like, you know, either Country Classic Rock, I’ll just put it in just because I like the music. And even that helps sometimes, because you’ll have that niche. And that niche that niche too.
Ian Robertson
Okay, cool. So let me let me kind of pick this apart for audience then. So you’re taking the video, first of all, from the TikTok, from the TikTok app, right?
Mike Ortiz
My phone.
Ian Robertson
And then you upload it?
Mike Ortiz
No, I take it from I take it from my phone. Okay. And then later on, I’ll upload it. Yeah. And so here’s the thing, this is the one little secret, because in the videos, it makes it look like I’m talking as I’m recording, I voiceover every single one of my videos. So you record it on your phone. And then later on at night, when you get home, this is for the next day, you upload the video to TikTok, not post it, upload it, so you can work on it. And you can add a voiceover, it gives you a chance to not be raw. Because most of the time you get out there and you’re confident what you’re saying. But then you’re like, wait, what, you know, what’s the thickness on the wire for this 15 amp breaker and let me make sure I’m right. And you don’t want to stand there at an inspection trying to figure out the right thing to say, just record it. 10 seconds, 15 seconds, you get home you do the voiceover you’re like this size breaker is has an undersized wire, it’s you know, it’s got a 12 gauge wire and it’s like a 60 amp breaker and this is bad because of this or whatever. And then you and then you put it on there make it look like you’re still there talking about it. That way you don’t get stuck at a home inspection trying to figure out how to explain the video that you’re doing. It cuts a lot of time wasted right there. And that’s why it’s important to up to record on your phone first. Awesome.
Ian Robertson
So I’m really glad we asked that then so you’re not taking it from the app directly. And that’s probably going to make it a lot easier now to take that same video, upload it to YouTube and Facebook later on. So that makes it easier. Okay. Yes. So you’re taking a quick video, and you’re not really talking. So let’s, let’s use the toilet illustration there. You’re shooting 10, 20 second video of a toilet. You’re probably using the hula hoop method where you put your legs around the bowl. Kind of wiggle your hips a little bit. Yeah, toilets loose. Yeah. So now you can add like later on that night you get home and you say, please add some hula hoop music to like some Hawaiian music to it. And say here’s the hula hoop. Yeah, I never thought of that. Oh, there you go. Now you can use it. Here’s a hula hoop method people. Yeah. And it’s just you playing the Hawaiian music doing the hula hoop on the toilet. Perfect. Now, a lot of people might think sounds like a lot of work, but I just added it up in my head 30 second video. You’re talking about 10 minutes of engagement after you posted maybe five minutes of editing and fiddling maybe two minutes if you want two minutes. Yeah. So let’s say all together, you only have seven minutes of engagement. So it’s 10 minutes altogether. If you do three videos a day, which by the way is a lot, that explains why it’s such big numbers. That is going to only be 30 minutes out of your day. 30 minutes. Yep. And that’s that’s amazing advertising. I can’t stress enough. How amazing that kind of advertising is for any home inspection company. It’s, it’s really incredible. It’s obviously worked for you. Yeah, yeah, five to seven inspections a week. Yeah. And so I also like to you put the timing of the post. So we deal with that a lot, too. When we post something, we actually have an algorithm that will tell us, hey, here’s the optimal time to post, or here’s a secondary time or here’s another time if you want to post this way and reach this audience. Yeah. You basically said, I’m just going to cover every possible audience early, mid and late. And ya know, and so you’re just casting a wide net. And that’s that works really well. What time do you think so let’s say some guy says, Okay, that’s a lot. But I want to start one video a day. Yeah. So how many? Like what time do you think is the best time for them to post?
Mike Ortiz
So, TikTok uses UTC time, so you have to figure out what your your timezone is based on that because it’ll you know, when you first start out, you’re not going to have a recommended time to post because you don’t have many followers. So you don’t know when you’re gonna get the most engagement from what I’ve seen, my most the most engagement I get, there’s two times a day, that’s either at the beginning of the day or at the end of the thing. So usually, about 5 o’clock, you’ll get a lot of engagement. That’s usually when people are getting off work, or they don’t have any work left to do, and they’re in their offices, and they’re just, you know, filling on their phones waiting for the time to run out. And then usually like 9am or 8:30am people just dropped off their kids and they’re about to get to work and And it hasn’t started yet. And they’re just going to scroll for a minute. While they wait for that, it’s hard to time the lunch one. So the a the recommend like 8:30 to 9:30 in the morning, or from four to 5:30, or four to six o’clock at night is where you’re going to get the most engagement from what I’ve seen for our type of content, home inspections, because the people that watch our content are working people, they’re people that are looking to buy homes, so you’re not, you know, you’re not going to catch you know, the, you know, you might catch some stay at home moms, but most of my followers are going to be, you know, it’s split down the middle men and women looking at some of our stuff, and a lot of my videos are saved. So meaning these people probably see the things I’m pointing out and they’re like, you know, hey, we need to check on this and that, but I think that once you figure out your timezone, once you figure out your timezone, and then start posting that way, it’ll it’ll be beneficial to you.
Ian Robertson
So I’m assuming that you’re talking mainly about weekdays, what about weekends?
Mike Ortiz
So weekends, weekends, I usually post either at 9am, or at like, the same time for I think just because of the habit. So and here’s the thing, you’re gonna post a video, and it’s gonna get maybe 10,000 views, and you’re gonna be super excited, right? And then you’ll post another one, it’ll maybe get 200 views, it doesn’t matter, don’t delete it, don’t do anything to it, get, post the next one, it’s about the consistency. It is really about the consistency if you just stop, if you, I posted once, I posted like 12 videos in a row, only, they only got like 1000 views, 900 views, and then one, then I’ll get a video that gets 2 million views. So it’s it’s really just about consistency, posting every day. Sometimes when I you know, I’ll have gaps in what I post because I do get burnt out on creating content, you know, you’re just not, you’re just you’re human, you’re gonna get burnt out. But you know, and I think in those moments, I see that decline in views and you even lose followers, because you’re not, you know, and then when you post again, after a break, you’ll lose more followers, because they’re like, Oh, I didn’t really see this guy too much. I don’t care to follow him anymore. I forgot I was following him. Let me just unfollow him really quick. So you know, if you keep the consistency, then you’ll constantly be on their top of mind when they think home inspector, I follow a home inspector. Let me see what I can do. I know someone who lives in California, let me tell them that, hey, you should hire this guy. You know what I mean? Because TikTok is worldwide, Facebook, a tiny bit more local, Instagram, significantly more local, YouTube more worldwide. Yeah.
Ian Robertson
Yeah. And so I think it’s important to remember that we actually have an interesting job, as you mentioned before. So I think the mistake the home inspectors make is we forget, I say we because I’m gonna throw myself in here. We forget that our job is interesting. I remember one day some guy was talking, telling some stories about his job. And I’m like, Oh, wow, that’s super interesting. He’s like, what about you? I’m like, and nothing ever happens. And I’ve done like 1000s and 1000s of inspections. He’s like nothing. He’s like, Have you ever walked in on anybody being naked? And I don’t know why he picked that out of the air, but I’m like, I’m like, Yeah, almost every week sometimes, it’s like, I don’t know why, yeah, because I’m like, oh, and they’re asking more questions. I’m like, oh, yeah, dead animals all the time, I found that this was a whole different podcast found human remains once Yeah. Police called on me, guy coming up with a gun, attacked by dogs. So when you start saying it out loud, you’re like, oh, yeah, I have an interesting job.
Mike Ortiz
I think a big thing that you’re talking about is that because someone like you has so many inspections under your belt, you’re, you’re, you’re numb to it. You know what I mean? Like you walking into a house that’s falling apart, you just take a deep breath, and you’re like, Okay, it’s gonna be a little long one. And most people don’t think of that. Because you have so many under your belt. You just think, Oh, this is just another I’m used to seeing this. And it is crazy. Some of the stuff you see. So it just like you’re talking about that kind of stuff. I mean, the dog attack and all that. It’s it’s to other people that’s like, what? I’ve been at the desk all day, you know?
Ian Robertson
Yeah. And that’s the thing we have to remember, almost every inspection has something that’s TikTok worthy on it. Whether we realize it or not, especially to people who don’t have any construction experience, like we see loose toilets all the day, all day long every day. Yeah. But you and I have been talking about that. That’s a great post. People. People will pay money to watch you swing your hips over a toilet to see if it’s loose. Yeah, exactly. But I think that consistency point you made is extremely important. So let’s talk about any algorithm. You have Google, you have Bing, those algorithms rely very heavily on consistency. Yes. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, rely very heavily on consistency. So even just with an algorithm itself, the more regular we post instead of doing okay, here’s 15 videos and then I don’t post for two weeks. Here’s two videos, I don’t post for three days. They’re gonna, not penalize you, but not give you preference.
Mike Ortiz
Exactly.
Ian Robertson
And also, you were saying something about our podcast actually, before we were sitting here. Yeah, it was. It was funny because now I’m making a connection. Yeah, because we do a weekly podcast and sometimes I’ll be honest, I have a lot of fun with this podcast, but sometimes I’m like, I’m tired.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I bet.
Ian Robertson
But we’ve had weeks where, okay, well, I’m gone for two weeks. We took two weeks off last year from the podcast. We were getting phone calls and emails. Hey, what happened?
Mike Ortiz
Checking if you’re all right. Yeah. Are you okay? You fall off a roof or something? Yeah.
Ian Robertson
Yeah checking if we’re alright, like, you gonna post some more?
Mike Ortiz
Yeah.
Ian Robertson
So it’s like, people want that consistency just for the consumer. They’re like, just give us something, even if it’s not, even if it’s not the most amazing post that you did. Or, Hey, I’ve done five loose toilets this week. Consistency is key. It really is.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think and then it is. And the thing that would that in I don’t know, it’s either, like I tell, you know, I tell my wife all the time. I only listen to certain things when I’m going to my inspections. It’s either a podcast about serial killers or Inspector Toolbelt. Or, you know, just news, basically. And I every time I finished one of your episodes, It’s so upsetting. It’s so upsetting that I have to wait another week to hear another episode.
Ian Robertson
We’ll have to start doing them daily.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah. And I’m like, what, doesn’t he have time for us? You know, does it we have we work here. And there’s not many, you know, a podcast to choose from. And it’s really just about, you know, because it’s just, it’s a niche industry. And it’s like, you know, you don’t think you know, nobody really thinks about so it till you have to buy a house. And it’s just like, you know, and so us. It’s funny because we’re home inspectors listening to you. So I mean, I don’t even think about the homeowners listening. It’s just us, and then it’s, um, it’s just, it’s annoying man. Like, man, I gotta wait a whole week. So sometimes, I’m like, I’m gonna work really hard. And then forget about it for like two weeks, and then I’ll, at least I’ll have two in a row, and that’s the best I can get from you. You know.
Ian Robertson
When you told me that earlier, I was cracking up. I’m like, that’s funny. I don’t know if I’ve ever in my life said, Ian, I’ve waited to hear your voice.
Mike Ortiz
I know. It’s funny.
Ian Robertson
But I mean, it’s a super awesome way to make your point is people want consistency. It’s kind of like your favorite TV show. If they’re not consistent. This is really niche nerd. But do you know, you know that show, Firefly?
Mike Ortiz
I’ve heard of it. Yes. Yeah.
Ian Robertson
So it got cancelled. Not because it was a bad show. It’s actually heralded as one of the best one of the best sci fi shows ever. Yeah, but it was they inconsistently released it oh, they released an episode. Then they waited a couple of weeks, and they released another one. And then there was like some sort of other break. And so people gave up on it.
Mike Ortiz
And they did that movie, right.
Ian Robertson
So yeah, then they did the movie because they’re like this. This was like one of the best TV shows there was ever made. So but that’s a way of saying that. People will cancel us so to speak. Yeah, if we’re erratic in how we post.
Mike Ortiz
Exactly.
Ian Robertson
So a little bit of something that’s better than nothing is what people say. But can we just be consistent and post something every day? Pick our, pick our consistency.
Mike Ortiz
Exactly.
Ian Robertson
Is it three times a day? Yeah. Or is it once a day, once a week? Three times a week?
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I moved. You know, for me, it’s like, I like having that routine. of, you know, that’s how I kind of build my personality is on based on what I am interested in what I watch for me. I have I have seasons of what I watched throughout the year. So I’ll finish an entire the entire series of like, Star Trek The Next Generation, then I’ll go.
Ian Robertson
Oh you’re speaking my language.
Mike Ortiz
Then I’ll go yeah, then I’ll go to deep, then I’ll go to Deep Space Nine, um, and then I’ll go to Voyager. And then, okay, so I feel like I’m too young to enjoy the original series because it’s just not as engaging to me as Picard and Riker, but, like, even and then when I’m done with those, then it’s Battlestar, the new one, not the original Battlestar Galactica, and I watched Edward James Olmos, and I watched them do that whole thing. And then I go back to start. And then I just continue on every year.
Ian Robertson
You are so in my head. That is literally my life. My daughter and I, we just watched all the Star Trek series all over again. We just got done with Voyager. Oh, yeah. And now we’re going, I’m making her watch the original series because every time they referenced Kirk, she doesn’t know what’s going on. Yeah, but then we go back to the original series or not the original series but next gen and then we’ll go through it again. Yeah, so you’re speaking my language.
Mike Ortiz
After I do all that during the holiday season. I like because I have HBO Max. I like watching all the motion pictures people forget their motion pictures, Nemesis. You have some of the older crew members from the original series show up on the movies where, you know, Spock is in and everything and those are good to watch. And you know, I’m the only one in my house that watches it. So it’s fun.
Ian Robertson
You’ll have to come over here and watch it. But man, we could digress on that all day. But the point is consistency. And going back to watch those series that you talked about. People will go back and watch TikToks, like if they discover you, like oh man, this guy. Yeah, this guy does something interesting. It pops up in their feed now they’re going back and watching your 900 TikToks.
Mike Ortiz
Oh yeah, you can’t, I can’t imagine it going viral for good reason. I know right it’s it’s a lot and and the thing is one thing that is important though, there are our rules as, because our job, because of liability. So the biggest rules are, I never, in any of my videos have any, include, I purposely avoid any personal photos of the current owners of the home and the video, or the numbers of the address in the home. Unless the you know, actually never really at all. And I do not this is the most this is like the golden rule, I never tag the agent in a video of something that I find defective. So that’s a quick way to get that agent to not use you anymore. So when I post a video, it’s like, I’m at house, they don’t know which house I’m at and what agent I’m working with that day, I’m at a house, this is what I found blah, blah, blah, because what happens is, if the video becomes viral, the comments in the video gonna be like, I would never buy that house, what who would buy this house, what you know, this is insane. This is going to be expensive. And imagine being a realtor, seeing your inspector post the house that you’re on and not only post a tag you and say, Hey, this realtor for this for their nearby or got them this big piece of crap house basically from just one video, they’re assuming a whole house is a piece of crap. And you know, the agent doesn’t obviously like that. So what you do is you post a video, you what you don’t, if you see, if you see something that day, don’t post that same day, you know, if you if the thing is, is trying to keep it separate from the agency tech, because at the end of the day, honestly, our main referrals are going to be the agents, that’s going to be the one that gets us the most referrals, word of mouth from them is what gets us a lot of work. We always take care of our buyers, but we we know deep down where our work comes from. And that’s the thing is, as long as you have a good, because I have agents I don’t work with because of the way they they, they operate. And that’s okay. But the agents that I do work with, I make sure to keep that separate, you know, I’ll make sure to say, this is what I found at an inspect inspection, I won’t say I’ll maybe tag the city. But that’s about it. It’s important, and you don’t want to give people’s personal information. And the one thing that does get taken down is dead animals, which is unfortunate because I see a lot of dead animals but TikTok will flag it and take it down for violating their guidelines, especially human remains, you know it. Anything with firearms. Yeah, anything with firearms and things like that are going to be taken down and I never have any other people in my videos. So it’s just about the defect that I found and myself. That’s it.
Ian Robertson
Awesome. So I want to go back to the point of not tagging agents because a lot of times, I think sometimes we get confused a lot of different types of social media that we’re doing. Like sometimes a home inspector will make a post. Hey, great inspection with Amy Realtor, and they’ll tag Amy and pretend realtor obviously. In that post. Yeah, that’s a great way to tag, tagging agents.
Mike Ortiz
That’s awesome.
Ian Robertson
They did a fantastic job. They take care of their clients, boom. If we’re doing the loose toilet hula hoop thing. Leave the agent out of it.
Mike Ortiz
You’re gonna tag Amy.
Ian Robertson
Yeah. Leave Amy out of it.
Mike Ortiz
Don’t say, Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, I found a loose toilet. Amy always gives me the good ones, you know.
Ian Robertson
So it counts on us having common sense when it comes to that. Could this make the agent look bad? Could this make it? Could somebody figure out where this is? Does this have a picture of like you said, a family in the background, the people can zoom in, Hey, that’s my cousin’s house on this viral video with 2 million views.
Mike Ortiz
Exactly. Or even the owner that says that’s my personal property. That’s us, you’re showing our things, you know, and stuff like that. So it’s really that part too.
Ian Robertson
I guess that’s the problem is, I see a lot of posts that are fantastic. Guys like you and some other guys that I know, just have it down to an art, it would be really hard to do say something bad about what you guys do, then I just see some home inspectors to be perfectly honest, posting some stuff. And I’m like, oh, no, this is this. This makes me hurt inside.
Mike Ortiz
We’re part of the same Facebook groups for the most part. And a lot of unfortunately, I understand, like, being knowledgeable is a great trait, obviously. But if we’re being honest, our business is a people business, we’re talking to people about a purchase, that’s what it is. And we’re helping them out. So knowing it all, it doesn’t always get you far, you know, being technically perfect. And what you know, as an inspector doesn’t get you far, as opposed to being more approachable. And my, one of my favorite agents, Loretta, and, Justine, they tell me all the time, explain it, like to us how you would explain it to a five year old. And I tell them, you know, they’re like, because when I’m talking to the clients, I’d make sure not to get too technical. A lot of inspectors, you know, that I’ve seen that have issues with getting referrals. I asked them you know, you know, what do you think it is and then I see and then they’ll they’re the ones that are, you know, they glorify, you know, oh, I killed another deal today or I really you know, I got this client out of this, you know, horrible situation. And then I really, you know, I got the realtor and I got into it with the realtor and the selling agent, the listing agent and all that stuff. If you become alarmist, if there’s one thing of helping your client, but being an alarmist, that’s also something that we’ve seen with social media if you’re just negative, as opposed to me, I’m just like, hey, look what’s going on, come on, you know, like, don’t do this, and, but it’s an easy fix, or it’s fixable, because everything is fixable. But being negative is a big drawback for a lot of guys who they just want to show how much they know, I get that. But throw a little personality in there, so that I want to hire you because I feel like if I hire you, you’re gonna make me feel like I know nothing. You know, and that’s hard. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to get that into people.
Ian Robertson
Yeah. And I was thinking too, even of how guys post stuff like they I see some guys post on their page, like, here’s a picture of somebody’s bedroom. Let me know what’s what’s off. And I’m like, Yeah, okay, there’s a crack in the wall over there. And I see this lady’s dresser and or half made bed there. That’s kind of inappropriate. I’d be mad if you posted that. And you were inspecting my house.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah. Exactly.
Ian Robertson
What are you doing? Or, you know, everybody was trying to be funny after that Elmo thing. A year or two ago.
Mike Ortiz
I know. But yeah.
Ian Robertson
I was just like, Okay, I would never hire you. If I was an agent with the some of the stuff that you posted after that. Yeah. On your public facing business page. And I’m like, exactly. Yeah. So we have to be discreet. And if we’re worried about, I don’t know how it is with your wife. But whenever I’m about to say anything, my wife can read my mind. Oh, yeah. And I have no mental secretary, whatever’s in here just kind of comes out. So I usually look at her, and she’ll know where I’m going. And she’ll just give me the little nod. Like, No, don’t, don’t do that. And then I’m like, Okay, I’ll stop. If we need that, was it Socrates who said know thyself was it Socrates, or..
Mike Ortiz
I don’t know, that’s where you got me beat.
Ian Robertson
I don’t know somebody somewhere, if even if it was me, said, Know thyself. In other words, you gotta know yourself well enough to say, are you going to put something inappropriate out there? Should you run this by somebody first? Yeah. Is your wife or your husband going to be the person that checks things a little bit first.
Mike Ortiz
I think that it’s important to have other opinions around you. When you’re left alone. You have no one to challenge you. You know what I mean? And that’s the tough it’s a tough part. Yeah. But it’s not always helpful, you know, to to have no filter and then wonder why people keep a distance.
Ian Robertson
Exactly. I say what’s on my mind, why does everybody not like?
Mike Ortiz
It’s why we watch Star Trek alone.
Ian Robertson
Exactly.
Mike Ortiz
That’s what it is.
Ian Robertson
But now you’re gonna start watching Firefly, so..
Mike Ortiz
Oh, yeah, I know. Right?
Ian Robertson
You’re gonna like it.
Mike Ortiz
Just to be disappointed that it’s done. There was another show, you know, there’s a bunch of shows that do that Jericho, you know, just different ones. That ended too quickly. And I hate that. Yeah. So much. Mind Hunter. Man. So mad about Mind Hunter.
Ian Robertson
I don’t know. I don’t know Mind Hunter. But I know what you’re talking about some of the best shows. And then years later, they’re like, let’s reprise it. I’m like, or you could have just not canceled it. You know.
Mike Ortiz
I know. Right? Let’s reprise it with everybody. Botox.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. But it’s, um, this is incredible information. So I’m gonna run through the scenario, just one last time. So that of course, if I want to do the Mike Ortiz method, each of my inspections I pick something discreetly..
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, of course.
Ian Robertson
Record it on my phone. Go back to the wiggly toilet. It could be a loose light or it could be something incredible. Like I one of my best posts, was the shower leaking above and classically draining into the light fixture below it. Yeah, exactly. That’s a big one. You know, like, okay, and then later that night, I’m going to upload it to TikTok when I’ve had time to think about it. Make sure my videos okay. Add a quick voiceover, Hey, guys, here’s the light leaking from the shower above or here’s the wiggly toilet, put some Hawaiian music behind the wiggly toilet scene, post it. And then just consistently do that and cross posting YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, those are going to be four of the most important ones. Interestingly, Twitter is still really good for Google algorithm purposes.
Mike Ortiz
And one big piece of advice with that though, you’re going to try them at that method. If you’re going to do this, I’m talking to you the inspector listening to this show. Do, you will if your video takes off, you will get comments. So many comments from former plumbers, electricians, contractors, homeowners, things like that. And they will say home inspectors are useless. You’re wrong. This is wrong. You’re ridiculous, that you’re dramatic or you’re you’re, what are you talking about? You don’t know what you’re talking about, all these things. The only way to respond has to be positive, or no response at all. Remember, if your video goes viral, that video is attributed to you and your company. Your company is a public company. Guess what? You have a Google page, the Yelp page, you will get people that are so vindictive, that They will leave bad reviews, that they will talk bad about you, that they will use you as an example of the type of person you don’t want to use. So always respond with a cool head. I know it’s hard. I know, it’s, it’s hard if somebody goes into your comments and says, I found I found a crack in a chimney, or Prefabricated Chimney, and it was like three pretty good sized cracks. And I said, Don’t do this. You know, it can be it’s a fire hazard. Okay. And I know this because I have a good friend of mine who’s chimney sweep license, the certified chimney sweep, because apparently there’s no license. And then the comments, you’re being dramatic is not going to catch fire. just patch it, you know, there’s no, no, there’s no license chimney sweeps, I’m like, you know, in my, in, I was finding myself saying, you know, instead of going around digging, trying to prove these people wrong, because I know that they’re wrong. And I know that, you know, you have to replace each panel as if it’s cracked enough and all that stuff, I just let them talk and then they’ll respond to them. And what, what that does is, it gives me the opportunity to cool down because if you respond, you have to be professional the whole time. Even if the video is funny, you still have to maintain that professionalism. And it’s gonna be hard. Because if you post a video that takes off, people will comment with their opinions. That’s the hardest thing to ignore, the hardest thing.
Ian Robertson
So I think that is a fantastic point. Because if we’re the type of person that can’t let it go, and one of the Facebook groups where..
Mike Ortiz
I know, that’s what I’m thinking, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about, those guys.
Ian Robertson
If you’re one of those guys, and you can’t let it go. Maybe skip the TikTok for a little while and do some word of mouth. I don’t know. But that’s a very important point. Because, I mean, I’ve done a lot of social media marketing over the years, and that is one of the hardest parts. I’ve never had a bad review from that. But I’ve seen other people get bad reviews, not because of what they posted. But because they had how they responded.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, even when you respond to reviews, even if it’s a bad, there’s there I’ve seen businesses and I see, I’ll judge it based on how they respond to their negative reviews. Yeah, it’s tough.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, same here. So respond politely. As Mike said. I found personally I thank them for their experience. Because that’s really what they want is they want validation. If you’re if you’re some 55 year old guy bashing people on TikTok, you know, I’ve got 30 years experience, okay, seven o’clock at night, sitting there all night just bashing people on TikTok, you really just want some validation. You want somebody say, Okay, thank you for your experience.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, no, I get that.
Ian Robertson
They’re not gonna leave a bad review or be a jerk to you or start a, that’s the worst, starting an argument..
Mike Ortiz
Starting an argument in the comments.
Ian Robertson
On your viral video. Exactly. Then everybody’s just going there for the comments. Well, I think that’s actually a great way to conclude the podcast. Because, yeah, you know, you have 157,000 followers on TikTok, 79,000 followers on Facebook, you’re running a successful business. You took time out of your day, to give us words of wisdom, so to speak, and not just like, hey, here’s a broad view of how awesome I am. You’re like, here’s a method. Yeah, A, B, C, and D. That’s extremely valuable. So Mike, I honestly can’t thank you enough for that.
Mike Ortiz
I appreciate that. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, I wish someone had given me a little bit of advice. Because a lot of inspectors, I feel like, play close to the chest. Yeah. When it comes to offering assistance and offering help. And it sucks, because I’ve had inspectors reach out to me for advice. And I’m gonna have lunch this week with a guy that I used to work with. And he needs help with the marketing, social media. Another guy to hit me up, that’s an inspector in Canada. He needs help, and I just send them a little voice messages, lending advice, just quick advice. And I don’t really see the reason of keeping things close to the chest, it’s not secret what we do. It’s just you know, and it’s, and then not only that, I’m off topic, helping your competitors keep a certain level of standard a standard for me in my area. I’m fighting a lot of undercutting with pricing. Okay. Yeah. Because we. So, for me, it’s, it’s, if the more inspectors I get to, to talk to, we, the ones that are actually genuine in wanting to reach out to me, we always talk to each other about our pricing, how much are you charging for this? And that this, this and that? Oh, you know, maybe I should up it a little bit, you know, so we can keep the same thing. And having those conversations will create a better industry standard, because I don’t think prices have changed much since the 90s. Honestly. And you know, and they haven’t gone up, and you know what, I mean? It’s like, you have to think, with inflation. You know, $100 an hour doesn’t go that far anymore. You know what I mean? So we have to make sure that we maintain the level that we’re providing across the board, cuz you’re gonna have the $200 inspectors, the 199 guys that are doing three or four a day with just like three pages and the picture of the front of the house and they are out there and they’re busy, you know, because most people the general public don’t know. You know, and that sucks, but, you know, hopefully with social media, we can at least set that standard that hey, this is what We’re supposed to look for, this is what we’re supposed to do. And one thing I did forget to mention that my wife reminded me of your social media is your live website. That’s what it is. Your social media is your current, your current offering, what you’re offering, what you’re doing, your current level of expertise, that is your live website, that’s your way. Your website is a way just just like before, they had websites, when you’re on the yellow pages, or whatever your website was your way of showcasing your business, your social media is now what I would consider your new website. And that’s what people go to, to figure out if they want to hire you, you know, and they’re keep it professional, knowledgeable and approachable. People love hiring people that they can approach. You know, I tell that to my agents too, the agents that have you know, nice cars in their posts and extravagant lifestyles..a normal, you know, guy like me, or blue collar guy or a normal family, middle class family, they’re gonna be like, this is probably not, you know, the agent, we want to approach with what we want that you know, and then you’ll see the regular agent that’s like, I’m local in the community. I help veterans to help families, that’s the kind of agent you want to go to. Same thing with us. You know, if you go out there as like I am ICC InterNACHI. ICA, certified ASHI certified, CREA certified. I know all these things, technical terms, I am hot, you know stuff. And then you think people you feel out of their element. But if you show Hey, I know what I’m doing. And I’m here to help you out. It’s really that simple.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, that’s fantastic advice. And Mike, there’s a reason why you’re doing so well. And we’ll have to have you back on again. Because I like these checkins. I like to see how guys are progressing. I like to see how you go multi inspector and how you progress through the year. So thank you so much, and we’ll have you on again.
Mike Ortiz
All right. Yeah man, I appreciate it. I can’t wait to get on the next one. Hopefully with a couple more guys.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. We’ll have to do a drinking episode because we get asked about those a lot.
Mike Ortiz
I know right. With that blood wine.
Ian Robertson
Klingon bloodwine.
Mike Ortiz
There you go.
Ian Robertson
Awesome. See you later.
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.
