3 ways to be more referable

Hi, this is Mike Crow and I run a home inspection business.

In fact, I've run a couple of home inspection businesses.

You true joy for me though, has been helping literally thousands of

home inspectors build really solid home inspection business as well.

We can help a single man operation be able to do over $300,000 a year.

Maybe all the way up to $400,000 a year as a single inspector.

Even better for me is the 80 plus companies that we have helped

be able to build million dollar home inspection businesses.

I would like to help you be able to do the same thing.

Hey guys, this is Mike Crow.

I am the father of home inspector marketing.

I've been doing this business for, gosh, I don't know how long 30 plus years.

And it has just been exciting.

Somebody, the other day was talking with me and we were having this long

discussion about my book home inspector marketing secrets, which by the

way, I think is still out on Amazon.

Think you can still get it.

It has a couple of website references that are outta date,

but the information is rock solid.

As we were going through the book we focused in on page 59 and this was

chapter 10 and system number six.

And it talked about making yourself more

referable.

Uh, The more referable you are, well, the more business

you have come your direction.

And there were three things, three things that I wrote down that

you must do to be more referable.

When I tell 'em to you, you're gonna go, well, duh, of course.

and then you're gonna look around and you're gonna realize that as obvious as

that this is, or like Davy the gentleman that runs coach blueprint here for

me, likes to say, you know, is that common sense is not common practice.

And I love that saying, I love that saying.

And so what you're gonna realize is that this is common sense.

And then you're gonna realize that this is not common practice.

In fact I'm gonna tell you that At some level, these are fireable

offenses for one of our inspectors.

I mean, if our inspectors can't do these things, not only are they not referable

after a certain point, we go, you know, we just don't need this here anymore.

And we let, 'em go.

As one person said, we let them go find their happiness elsewhere.

I got that from a Disney person and of course, you know, I love Disney

backwards and forwards and sideways.

The reason being more referable is important is because you are a direct

reflection on whoever refers you.

Okay.

And we know that there are about 15 mavens out there, mavens being person

that has an influence on a group of people and they can refer you.

And of course, there's real estate agents and title companies and mortgage companies

and insurance companies and builders.

And the list just goes on and on, on there's about 15 mavens or 15 referral

sources that you can do out there.

Real estate attorneys is a real good one, by the way.

And one of the things that you discover is that you need to

make sure that you're referable.

You know, here's one of those little secrets that I'm gonna tell you, you

know, I hear inspectors sometimes go, you know, agents, they never refer me.

They never refer me, but you know, when their daughter's buying a house

or when they're buying a house, they go, oh, Hey you know, Hey Joe, can

you come do this inspection for me?

You know, you're one of the best inspectors I know.

And I'm sitting there thinking, yeah, I'm one of the best inspectors, you

know, but you won't even refer me.

Now here's what you need to know.

I know that he may be a great inspector, but there may be also some

things that make him UN referable.

So let's tackle some of those real quick.

Here's number one be on time.

Okay.

And let me explain this really simple.

I'm sure I've got it written here somewhere.

But what I like to say is early is on.

On time is late and late is not acceptable.

Okay.

We have fired inspectors before because we just can't get them for some reason to

show up to the inspection on time early.

You get that.

Okay.

So one of the things that I discovered and keep in mind that my company's

done well over a hundred thousand inspections, I've done over 10,000

plus inspections myself in the 30 plus years that I've been in this business.

And.

You know, I tried getting there 15 minutes early and that was okay.

I tried getting there 30 minutes early.

That was pretty darn good.

I tried getting there 45 minutes or even an hour early.

That was too much.

So I went back to the 30 minutes.

So we teach all of our inspectors to get there 30 minutes early.

And by the way, here's the cool part.

During that 30 minutes, we take a look at the roof.

We take a look at the foundation.

Now we do termite inspections.

So we're looking for termites.

We get all of our paperwork ready, we get our toolbox and everything

set up on the front porch.

We're ready to go.

So in the 30 minutes I've looked at three of the top things that we

know can cost us the most money.

If we miss them during an inspection.

So we have no pressure or anybody, you know, giving us a kind of a time pressure

thing, because we're on the roof or walking the foundation and we can look

at things and prod things and maybe move things away to see things a little better.

without creating a lot of disruption in the thought process for people

because they're simply not there.

So very simple number one be on time.

Okay.

And again, remember the adage to be early is to be on time to be on time is

to be late and late is not acceptable.

It's one of my favorite sayings.

So number two do what you say you will do.

Do what you say you will do.

You know, again, this may seem simple and we say, or do things without realizing

how much sometimes we promise people, anything you tell someone is a promise.

Don't forget that anything you tell somebody is a promise.

So don't forget that.

So when you tell the agent who shows up at the house, you'll

deliver the report to her office.

She's probably expecting that report right after the inspection.

Not the next morning.

All right.

And by the way, you could tell people, oh, we'll deliver that report this evening.

Oh, we'll deliver that report the next morning.

And at least you told them, but even then, that's not the best thing that you can do.

We'll talk about that more at some point.

So I was up in Chicago and I was working with an inspector and he

was saying, Mike your marketing doesn't really work that well.

And I was going really what?

And so we went out on some of his marketing routes.

He was making several basic mistakes there.

And.

You know, for the fun of it, I decided, Hey, I got time.

Let's go ride with him on an inspection.

And we went to ride out on an inspection and the buyer arrived

and he welcomed them and he said, Hey, you can follow me around.

We'll do a great job.

And and I was thinking, man, this is going well.

And he did the inspection in a different routine than I would

have done it, but you know, I get that, that's the old style routine.

I created a new routine that it generates a better relationship with your buyer and

with other people and helps make things a little more obvious during the inspection.

So my routine's very unique in that respect.

And then the agent arrived, then the agent arrived and he like snubbed the agent.

Oh, wasn't expecting you to be here.

You know, we'll be done with the inspection in about, I don't remember, 30

minutes, 45 minutes, the agent went great.

I'll hang around.

Right.

And then we did the whole inspection and then he looked at the buyer and said,

Hey, why don't we go out to your car and we'll talk over the inspection report?

He turned to the agent and said, I'll get the report to you as soon as possible.

Right.

And and then we walked off and we sat in the car and went over everything on

the inspection report with the buyer and left the agent, standing in the house.

I was like, you don't do that man and ever get referred again.

And then it got worse.

It got worse about one o'clock.

This was, we did the inspection.

Oh, I don't know, 10, 11 10 o'clock and nine o'clock or something like that.

We finished the inspection around 12 o'clock or so around one

o'clock I went you know, he went back, he finished up the report.

We talked about some of the stuff he put in the report.

He did a great job.

I said, okay we gonna run this over to the agent.

How are we gonna handle that?

We're gonna email it to him.

He went no.

I sent it out at night.

All the agents know that.

I said, you really believe that the agent thinks you're gonna deliver this report

tonight and not as soon as you're done.

And he went, yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody understands that.

And nobody delivers on, you know, a site or delivers you

know, right after the inspection.

And I went, wow.

You're sure?

And he went, yep.

I went okay.

And I let it go.

Well, that was about one o'clock.

And then about three o'clock the phone rings and it's the agent and she's

going I, I thought you were gonna send me the report as soon as you were done.

Are you not done yet?

He went, oh yeah, I finished the report, but I'll deliver it to you tonight.

No wonder the marketing's not working this dude's not referable.

Okay.

So she might use him for her inspection, you know, or maybe her daughters, but

the last thing she wants is this guy doing an inspection for one of her

clients and making her look like a dufus.

Okay.

And so you just gotta be really careful about that.

So do what you say you'll do.

He said he was gonna get the report.

Everything else was still garbage.

I couldn't believe how he treated her, but then he said, Hey, I'll get

you the report as soon as possible.

And then he didn't.

Okay.

And.

He wonders why he is not referable by the way that guy's long out of business.

So, you know, sometimes you can't help some people, they just, they won't listen.

All right.

The third thing, and the final thing is finish what you

start, finish what you start.

It's incredible to finish what you start, it's even more important for

everyone who works with you to know that you finish what you start.

All right.

And I wanna give you two specific examples.

The first one applies to every inspector every day, when you do

an inspection, you need to make sure you finish it completely.

All right.

And as far as the client and agent are concerned, the sooner the better.

All right.

I like to talk about what I call speed and accuracy, right?

The faster you get the inspection done, the more accurate

it's done every single time.

The more referable you are, you just need to know that.

So get the report done and leave the house the way you found it.

So, I made this mistake once and several of our inspectors

have made this mistake as well.

And I have worked hard now to build a system to address this.

And so I call it a tent card.

I call it a tent card.

So the first time I realized it was a problem was when my dad and I were

sitting in a chair in front of a house after an inspection, it was drizzling

rain and I noticed that the agent was sitting in his car facing us.

And my dad was looking through the maps go.

And for you younger guys, that's a book that had a map teaching you how

to go from one point to the other GPS didn't exist yet at that time.

Anyway I know I'm showing my age, but anyway, dad was working on how

do we get to the next inspection?

Now I noticed the agent looked at us and I said, dad, the the

agent's kind of staring at us.

dad looked up and he said, yeah, he's probably waiting for us to leave.

You know, that kind of made sense.

And so I didn't worry about it much, but then I looked at him again and I could see

he was looking at us and then he looked at the house and he did that several times.

Okay.

And I will never forget.

You know how you could see somebody do a body motion and you know, you could

hear the sound that goes with that.

So here's what I heard just by watching him.

I saw his shoulders rise.

I saw the shoulders, you know, go down.

I heard the, I could hear the sound and I was going, what the heck?

And I heard the agent sigh, you know, metaphorically.

And he got out of his car.

He walked up the side yard through the wet grass and he closed

the gate that I had left open.

Okay.

And you know what?

We never saw that agent again.

All right.

So we didn't finish what we started.

We didn't put the house back exactly the way it was when we started.

And if the fence had been open, when we started, I should have told the agent,

by the way, the fence was wide open.

When we got here.

I don't know if they have reason, but I'm leaving it that way

because that's the way we found it.

I should have told them.

So they would've known.

Okay.

Now I'm gonna give you another experience.

As I grew my business and I had multiple inspectors, most inspectors

probably never have this problem.

Okay.

And maybe you won't ever have to deal with it.

If you're in business long enough and do enough inspections, I guarantee

you, this will happen to you at least once, if not 3, 4, 5, 6 times.

So you start the inspection and the buyer's working with you and you look

around the outside of the house and there's obvious foundation problems.

And you could walk around the outside of the house and you see the

roof and there's shingles missing.

It's very obvious.

Right.

And then you start on the inside and you can't get the air conditioning

to come on and it's a hot day.

Right.

And the buyers are following.

Every step of the way.

And then you open up the main electrical panel and there's

aluminum wiring throughout it.

And it's the last straw for the buyers.

Right?

So the buyer, a lot of times will say, you know, you've done a

great job, but I've seen enough.

I'm kind of done here.

Maybe you can gimme a discount on this inspection and maybe

the next one, I don't know.

But I'm done.

You don't need to write me a report.

I don't need anything.

Just tell me how much owe you and I'll write you a check, right?

And you're going, wow, well, bummer.

Okay.

By the way, here's the secret.

My dad learned never open the main electrical panel first, never open

the main electrical panel first.

It should be one of the last things you.

So that this doesn't happen to you if there's aluminum wiring okay.

So there's a little bit of routine secret there.

All right.

So keep in this mind, you know, they insist they're done.

You need to go no further.

They need no report.

The buyers are holding their keys and they're ready to leave and they just

wanna know how much they owe you.

If anything, you know, And maybe you give 'em a discount.

Maybe you don't, maybe you promise 'em a discount on their next inspection.

I'm fine with all of that.

And then what you do next though, is the most important thing.

So some inspectors think to call the agent and let 'em know, Hey, your

buyer saw that there was foundation problems and roof problems.

And then they discovered the house had aluminum wiring.

And they said they were done.

Okay.

Well, here's the most important part of all.

You are not done yet.

You might think you're done.

You might even convince yourself done.

Somebody else might tell you.

Well, yeah, you were done buddy, but you're not done until you

produce some kind of report.

Okay.

You're not done until a report has been produced, you might

say, but the home buyer said he didn't need or even want a report.

And, you know, I, I kind of got.

So when I first recognized this problem, most inspectors gave me a dozen reasons

why a report was no longer needed and I'm here to tell you it is needed.

Okay.

You're leaving the agent hanging and in the long run you're causing the

buyer a potential problem as well.

When it hits the seller side of the equation

well, let's say they have a lot of questions and no real

answers and nothing to back it up because they don't have a report.

And if there's not a report well or not a complete report, maybe that's

fine, but mark everything you didn't inspect and say not inspected.

And then make a note that reads something along this line, the

inspection was canceled prematurely

at the request of the buyer.

Now you put that on your report, so they understand it wasn't

you that canceled the report.

It was somebody else.

And the last statement is really you're there for your protection.

Otherwise the rumors will fly in it'll sound, something like

this, man, the inspector talked the buyer outta the house.

Get the picture.

Okay.

So all of this can be avoided if you simply finish what you start.

So there's a lot of simple little things here that I need to make, you know.

All right.

So most agents will use you for their own home and maybe even their daughters,

but they won't recommend you to their buyers because, well, you're too thorough.

Nonsense it's because you're not referable.

Okay.

Maybe it's cuz you don't show up on time.

And they don't wanna recommend somebody that doesn't show up on time.

Maybe it's cuz you don't do what you say you will do.

Okay.

Or maybe it's cuz you don't finish what you start.

Those are just three of about seven or more items that you

need to know at some point.

And you know, here's what the agents tell me, cuz I ask the agents,

Hey, I have a great inspector in my area and I like him, but.

he's regularly late and he leaves me hanging one way or another and

he doesn't leave the house in the way he finds it and on and on.

And I, and so I've sat in, I'm more real estate agent circles than probably

anybody, you know, in this industry.

And they say, oh, I don't mind using it for myself, you

know, but I'm not comfortable recommending em to my clients.

It makes me look bad.

All right.

So there's two sides to every story.

And I thought you might like to know that one.

So ask yourself this question, which one of these is an area in

which you could do some improvement?

So one of the things I try to do with my inspectors for instance, is make

sure they all arrive 30 minutes early.

You ask any amount of questions?

In fact we used to call it Crow time and then in our business, we now call

it Texinspec time cuz the name of our home inspection business is Texinspec.

So this is important if you are not on top of all, three of these, be on time,

do what you say and finish what you start.

Maybe a few more, then you're not referable.

You're absolutely not referable.

Okay.

And so I wanna make sure that you realize that, well, there's the three

must to making sure that you are referable, because if you get those

wrong and your marketing might get you started, but it won't sustain.

You, you have to put a good inspection behind it.

You have to make sure that you do the things that make you referable.

And if you don't do those.

Don't expect people to use you a second, third, fourth, fifth time.

All right.

And that makes it really hard to grow a business.

Now I'm very fortunate.

We work on doing all of these things and so we have agents that use us

20, 30, 40, 50, 60 times a year.

All right.

And They know that we understand.

In fact, one of the things I tell 'em at meetings a lot of times is I understand

that we are a direct reflection of you on each and every inspection.

It's one of the reasons we wear professional uniforms.

It's one of the reasons we show up early.

It's one of the reasons that even if the inspection, some reason gets

canceled halfway through the inspection, we still produce a report for you.

Okay.

And they all go, wow.

Because we wanna make sure that we take care of the home buyer, the client,

absolutely over the top, but we don't wanna leave the real estate agent or any

of our mavens that could refer us hanging.

Well guys, this is Mike Crow.

And we'll talk about another situation like this recently,

probably outta my book, cuz I've been talking with a lot of people.

So I have four magic words.

I have the three letter word that will make you more powerful

than anything else out there.

And then we'll talk about some other fun stuff too.

And.

It's a lot of fun.

I will tell you that currently I am in the process of meeting with some

top inspectors three times a year for mastermind events and every now

and then I will invite people to come and sit like a fly on the wall.

Can you imagine sitting around some of the top top home inspectors from across

the nation and sitting around the table with them and watching what they've done

and being able to have lunch with them and dinner with them and figuring out how they

grew million dollar businesses in some cases, multimillion dollar businesses.

And of course we run a multimillion dollar business.

So when you come, you get to walk our business and see it

and understand some of that.

You can learn more about that by going out to I think our current

website is MikeCrowReturns.com.

Mike, M I K E Crow, C R O W returns.com.

I am ramping back up on my coaching business.

I'm having a lot of fun.

I've been helping people and they've been having great successes.

I wanna see how many people I can help now.

And my prayer to some degree is Lord, let me help one more.

Let me help one more.

Okay.

And so with that said, the way I do that is by this simple

phrase here, be successful.

And be around those that are successful because the more money you make, the more

people you can help have a great day.