Work Smarter, Not Harder

As I get ready to celebrate my 11th year as a home inspector, I began to reminisce about the days when I was first starting out. I was taking part time classes at a local college for a year, and after that, I shadowed a tenured inspector for three months. Once I had finally received my inspection license, it was off to the races…but I was at a dead start. 

I had no idea what to do next.  I didn’t even think about the business side of running a home inspection business, but we can cover that at a later time. My first inspection was done with a flashlight, a screwdriver, and a stack of papers with a checklist of what I needed to look for.  Then it was back to my office with my computer to access a pay as you go report.  It reminds me of how inefficient I was at the time. 

That first inspection took about 11 hours to complete in total, from getting out of the car to sending the report to the client. Now, we have so many resorces and tools available to home inspectors that make us so much more efficient at our job and allows us to be much more professional. These home inspector resources include, but are not limited to; professional report writing programs, home inspector website builders, client management software, call centers, home inspection marketing programs and professional organizations.  Not to mention, we also have some of the most advanced tools around including drones, moisture meters, infrared cameras and who hasn’t amazed their clients with that cool telescoping ladder! 

The only area that has not evolved over these years is that it takes as long as it did 11 years ago to search around for all these amazing resources.  Or does it?  Today, we have an amazing website, homeinspectology.com that has all the resources needed for the home inspection industry.  From state licensing requirements, marketing information, software, and training to professional organizations and environmental testing labs, we have it all.  If you don’t see it there, you probably don’t need it. My motto has always been “Work smarter not harder”.  I encourage you to go to homeinspectology.com and take a look, let me know what you think.