The absolute most effective ways to build your business, even if you're on a shoestring budget.

Dramatically grow your business by using simple Guerilla Marketing strategies and tactics, combined with specific relationship building techniques. In an easy to understand style, the articles, video's, podcasts and advice contained in the members section gives you the insight you need to cash in on your home inspection business dream.

Realtor Newsletter Would you like a one page Realtor newsletter that gets results? The Realtor newsletter template (word document) will be downloadable the 2nd to last day of the month. Take a look, I have tried to take all my own advice and show you how it's done. You are going to have to come up with the front side personal story for each issue. The human interest element is a major factor in what makes this newsletter so effective, and it can't be bought. . . . Keep Reading Profit Calculator Spreadsheet The Profit Calculator is now available for free in the download library for members. Here is an example of the resultant spreadsheet with 300 inspections @ a cost of $300.00 each. I used a conservative number for most fixed cost entries and no provisions for retirement witholdings. Check it out, it will open your eyes. . . . Keep Reading Produce Your First One-Page Newsletter Get your first issue written, produced and distributed as quickly and as easily as possible by using a template. Use this attractive design framework to simplify creating each issue of your newsletter. The template is in .pub format so you will need Microsoft Publisher to use it. . . . Keep Reading More

Book Review: - The Exceptional Presenter We've all heard it before - Presentations are the best way to gain new Realtors or other equally Realtor concentric affiliations. But what if your not any good at it? Well, there's two things you can do.... . . . Keep Reading Idea Hurdle- Crowd Dynamics The other day I was explaining to a group of home inspectors the very real possibility that all homes in the future will need to have passed a methamphetamine residue test. . . . Keep Reading Biggest Mistake - Home Inspection Marketing Cruising the message boards the other day and came across an entry that stimulated quite a few posts. Not that I take issue with the responses, but... . . . Keep Reading Pre-Market Inspections - Brokers Wanted Most of us, if were active marketers anyway, get hundreds of emails a year touting some sort of free tele-seminar that will make us rich, smarter or better looking. Not to throw the baby out with the bath water I'm going to give you the crux of the latest call (Pre-Market Inspections), in a nutshell. . . . Keep Reading Business Card Fodder Take a good long hard look at your business card. Your business card is your identity, your unique and distinctive mark on the home inspection profession of your area, how does it stack up. I mean against the competition or for that matter your own sense of creative excellence. . . . Keep Reading Introducing the "Guerrilla Minute" podcast It took a bit of doing but I finally jumped through enough hoops to get my first Guerrilla Marketing Minute podcast posted. Networking 101: Networking boils down to just one crucial element, the mindset of service. Click through and sit back for an insight or two on networking. . . . Keep Reading Hard Work The hardest part of any business is the "Critical Thinking" aspects. Inspecting a house and the relationship building that might be accomplished during the inspection is not what I would call hard work. There's no creative struggles, or internal conflicts that keep you from progressing to your finish point. The problem with hard work is... . . . Keep Reading Where Did It Go? Home Inspection Seminars and back of the room sales, we've all been there. The speaker paints the scene of success using their product and then motivates us to buy. Oh yeah, for a greatly reduced price for a limited time, like the next 30 minutes. The odds are definitely stacked against your benefiting from the purchase. Why, because - something's missing. . . . Keep Reading The Decision Matrix - Speed & Excellence In almost all of the decisions that you have to make during the growth of your home inspection company, the two main elements or standards by which those decisions are made are speed and excellence. These two elements are pitted against one another in what is called a decision matrix. . . . Keep Reading Phase Inspections - Getting Started A member called the other day to ask about how to get started doing phase inspections. Since I'm trying out my new phone recording equipment I recorded the call. If you have any interest in adding this type of service to your home inspection company - this may be for you. . . . Keep Reading Productive Time Warning, this article is not geared for the sedate, just glad to be a home inspector with a job. In writing this article I started to give an example of the average home inspectors hourly rate- but nixed this route right off, as this article isn't for the average home inspector. . . . Keep Reading Creative Whack Pack I've always had a thing for Tarot cards, so when I stumbled upon the Creative Whack Pack I just had to have them. These aren't so much Tarot cards in the way you normally think of Tarot cards. These cards can give you a needed creative whack!... on the side of your head when you're feeling a bit stuck. . . . Keep Reading For Want Of A Nail What's the next best thing to a notepad at the side of your bed to write down some half baked dream of a home inspection marketing plan gone bad? A chalk board in the shower of course. Honestly, I get some of my best flashes of insight about the time my finger tips start turning white. Unfortunately, it's much like the dream state in that. . . . Keep Reading Inspection World Workout The big SHOW... ASHI Inspection World 2007, didn't quite live up to its billing. This year CREIA and ASHI joined forces for the big meet. I was at the last CREIA conference in Sacramento, CA at the beginning of 2006 and there was a fairly large crowd -- 600 or so "thinking" home inspectors eating up the goodies. I'll bet many of the recent non-attendee's are singing the blues, here's why. . . . Keep Reading What's In Your Wallet? So, what are you doing different than your competition that puts money in your wallet? If you have been reading my articles, you're building relationships in a systematic and maybe slightly over the top, outrageous way. Let's think a bit about when that "golden" opportunity of a Realtor acquisition presents itself and how we handle it for maximum results. . . . Keep Reading Home Inspection Postage Pizzaz When you're tying to get noticed or generate a bit of buzz - get outrageous with your marketing ideas. Your recipient or target audience has to have something interesting to pass around if you want word of mouth advertising to work. Something novel - like your own postage stamp. . . . Keep Reading Home Inspection Marketing "Outrageous" Interview Tune in for an interview with Jon Spoelstra, author of the number one best seller "Outrageous Marketing". Jon starts out with the question, "what's it gonna take", and then leads you through the action plan. I contacted Jon for an interview after reading his book because I thought there were some nuggets inside that could easily transform the way you market. That is, if you keep an open mind. . . . Keep Reading Limiting Beliefs I recently posted the article "Lowest Priced Marketing" to the Nachi forum. The response was impressive, with some getting the point that marketing using the lowest price strategy doesn't pay in the long run, and others aurguing to the contrary. No matter how you look at it, I'd rather be paid more than less. I'm worth it, and so are you. . . . Keep Reading Pulling Nails - Home Inspection Education Whenever I go to an educational event, I'm looking for that - one thing - that I can take away, that made it all worth while. You know, some thing to justify the fee. It doesn't work like that thou, does it. Sometimes you get way more out of the personal contacts and networking than the presentation. If your focusing on class descriptions to determine an events worth, your using the wrong size nail. . . . Keep Reading Home Inspection Marketing - Hugs For Free I thought I'd pass this short clip along. Much of what this site talks about is how important it is to develop personal relationships in your home inspection marketing. This clip demonstrates the power of feeling connected and loved. It also shows what can happen if you just ask and persist through the rejections to the validations. . . . Keep Reading Low Price Marketing There are several factors to be considered when thinking about trying to create sales with a low price marketing strategy. You might even be tempted to lowering the price this one time to close the sale. For the most part these factors remain true whether your just starting out or not. . . . Keep Reading Overwhelm - Home Inspection Balance To overwhelm, to immerse and bear down; to overpower; to crush; to bury; to oppress, etc., overpoweringly. How do you shake off a state of overwhelm? I'll warn you in advance: this article is about what's good for you, not what's good for business. . . . Keep Reading CMR - Customer Relations Management The sales conference room was in use with the door ajar, being nosy I let myself in and sat in the nearest chair. Bold move, but victory goes to the bold. The presenter noticed me but didn't skip a beat and continued to give his lecture on CRM, customer relations management. . . . Keep Reading A Compelling Message To build your personal home inspection brand, reach your goals, and increase your personal fulfillment, you'll need to increase your visibility and get your message out. But before you start spreadin' the news (in the words of Frank Sinatra), you should understand that the news should be of a compelling sort. . . . Keep Reading Grabbing Testimonials Should you be using testimonials in your ad copy? You bet. Testimonials are highly effective and can increase your ROI ten fold for any ad copy you have. Want to know how to easily grab testimonials worth printing? . . . Keep Reading Likeability - A Question Of Practice I've spoken about likeability in past articles and most of us agree that being likeable will help us succeed faster in building our relationships. However, when I ask the question -- "So, what have you done in the last 12 months to improve your likeability?" -- there's generally a long pause. . . . Keep Reading Critical Thinking - Journaling Critical Thinking involves the daily active process of working "ON" your business. The purpose and intent of critical thinking using a daily routine involving journaling is to follow your written goals and action plans. Journaling will enable you to take your home inspection business to where it is you ultimately want to go. Think of where you want to be at the end of your career and work backwards. What does your retirement look and feel like. . . . Keep Reading Copy Is King - Home Inspection Marketing Copy is always the reason for a successful ad campaign. Whether you're doing a postcard marketing campaign for new home warranty work or you're laying out your brochure, copy will be at the root of its success. The aim of your copy should be to connect with your readers emotional "wants" and to elicit at least one of the following three responses. . . . Keep Reading The Attraction Factor - Home Inspection Marketing This article is about how to create a winning newsletter that keeps your name in front of your referal base. The Attraction Factor is an important ingredient for a successful newsletter. Remember that the newsletter is an extension of your personal brand so it had better be of value and tastefully done. Here's how . . . Keep Reading Home Inspection Marketing Action Plan Teleseminar This is a posting of last weeks teleseminar on the 7 critical action steps needed for a successful home inspection business. I know it's a bit crude but it was my first attempt at a recording. . . . Keep Reading How To Create An HTML Newsletter Want to know an easy method to create your own HTML type newsletters. Well, I shouldn't say easy - how bout easier than figuring it out from scratch. This article details the steps that I used to create the html newsletter I send out. The same process can be used to start your own home inspection newsletter. Another way to get started is to buy a closely related template and customize it. . . . Keep Reading Seven Cures For A Lean Purse One of the most interesting questions you can ask a group of people is; what book or books have your read that have changed your life? During a roundtable discussion two book titles were shared with me that have now changed my life and I'd like pass on just one title and a bit of a book review. . . . Keep Reading More