Direct-to-Consumer Marketing for Home Inspectors

Welcome to a riveting conversation where we unravel the secrets of direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing with none other than Mike Ortiz. Get ready to explore the fascinating world of digital marketing as Mike shares his invaluable expertise in leveraging Google My Business and Local Service Ads to foster relationships and generate leads. With his insights, we promise to guide you through the labyrinth of customer reviews and show you how to effectively utilize platforms like Inspector Toolbelt for your benefit.

The episode takes an interesting turn as we venture into the realm of home inspection businesses with Mike, who shares his tried and tested strategies for traditional advertising. From targeting the right customers to utilizing old-school methods like yard signs, Mike has got you covered. What's more? We discuss ancillary services such as septic inspection, solar inspection, and water quality testing, taking a deep dive into how these can be incorporated into your business model for maximum benefit.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more exciting, we bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the mix. Hear first-hand from Mike about his experiences with AI in report writing and the potential he sees for AI in marketing. His insights on leveraging AI for creating unique content and enhancing visibility in Google searches are not to be missed. All this, and more, in our engaging conversation with Mike Ortiz. Tune in to hear Mike’s experiences, fears, and advice on staying ahead of the competition by using AI and creating value for customers. And of course, don't miss out on his thoughts on the role of AI in the home inspection industry. It's an episode packed with useful insights and fascinating discussions, so don't miss it!

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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.

Transcript

Ian R
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk, everyone. Today we have on us live from a commercial inspection, Mike Ortiz. How are you, Mike?

Mike Ortiz
Good brother. How you doing?

Ian R
Hey, not bad. So I’m really glad to have you back on the show. Your episodes tend to be extremely helpful and detailed in a way that guys can go step by step and do certain things. And I’m really glad to have you back on because there, you have some useful stuff to talk to us about today. And you’re actually on a commercial inspection, aren’t you?

Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I am. I have a property in Orange County, it’s very large. So it’s taking a couple of days, but my guys are doing a great job. So I’m really proud of everybody. It just takes time with commercial, especially when you’re dealing with a medical facility.

Ian R
Yeah. You know, that’s going to be a whole different podcast getting into Commercial Inspections. I don’t want to get hung up on it. But..

Mike Ortiz
Yeah.

Ian R
Man, that’s that’s the way to go. That’s where the money’s at. That’s where, you know, two days are filled up. And I love to hear you say, my guys.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah.

Ian R
Because I remember when we first met, it was Mike. Yeah. And now it’s Mike and his guys. That’s awesome. Congratulations, man.

Mike Ortiz
Well, yeah, I mean, I’m very proud, I feel very fortunate to have them. And I feel very fortunate to be able to trust people enough to be able to help me. Because it’s not just me, it’s me and my family, and the business that we’ve built together. So it’s really humbling and very, I feel very grateful for the opportunity to help someone provide for their own needs. And at the same time, build a relationship with someone like that.

Ian R
Yeah, that’s nice. You’ve done really well. And the subject we’re going to be talking about today, the main point is going to be direct to consumer marketing. Now, as guys are driving in their truck listening to this podcast, I just pictured about half of you turning it down, saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don’t do that. Because I’ve often said in this podcast, every agent is worth 10 inspections a year, every client is worth one inspection every 10 years. So you go where the juice is, but especially with what’s going on with NAR. And the way the market is right now, it’s a bit of a shift. The thing would NAR is in the future, that that hasn’t quite happened yet. But the way that the market is right now with let’s be honest, there’s, I forget what the latest statistics were. But we have half as many houses on the market and only half of those ever get a home inspection anymore. And it’s that’s kind of where we’re at. So the home inspection industry, we’re hurting a little bit right now.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah.

Ian R
So this is, direct consumer marketing is very important. And a sub point to that will be using AI to do direct consumer marketing. Do you find that marketing to consumers directly is more beneficial now than it was before?

Mike Ortiz
Yeah. So the best way to look at it is that I started listening to this podcast, because I was by myself as an inspector, after leaving a big firm, and I had no idea really what kind of foot you know what kind of plan I had to grow my business, right. All I knew was that I was really good at going out finding the agents, honestly, the way I was trained was go to as many agents as possible, and get as many of them to refer you as possible. And this is how you will be successful. It shifted completely here. Now the NAR lawsuit is on appeal. So it’ll take a year or two before anything comes into play. But where it’s important to the inspectors right now, is that, okay? So there’s a possibility that eventually a buyer’s agent might not be in the same role as you’re used to them being in the future. So I like to prepare for the worst case scenario, imagine there was no buyer’s agent, so no one that their buyer who is hiring you has to refer them to an inspector. So let’s say that means that the consumers responsibility is to find a home inspector, maybe the lender can help you find the title or escrow lender can help you find the appraiser. But when it comes to the inspection, it’s not required anywhere. So it’s something that consumer might have to find on their own. So you want to find a way to get to that consumer without the buyer’s agent pushing for you. So if you imagine if you lost your buyer’s agents, right, it’s like your heart would drop. Okay. No more referring agents. How would you get the work beyond using Google My Business which is an amazing for if you’re, if you’re going from single man to multi, even one? It’s such a great tool. Yeah, they’re 50 bucks a lead or whatever, but it keeps your guys busy. If that’s something that you know, you can do that for.

Ian R
Are you talking about Google Local Service ads? You mean?

Mike Ortiz
Yeah. The local services? I’m sorry. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

Ian R
Those are amazing right now. Those are killing it.

Mike Ortiz
Those are great. Yeah. The quality of the leads and everything and the ease of dispute is very easy if you do the numbers, right. Okay. And then if you track it, now, as far as direct, that’s the only direct to consumer that you can pay right now beyond Facebook ads and Google ads. But what I’m saying is that imagine if you didn’t have the buyer’s agents to refer, what would you do? How would you scramble that up? Now, if you’ve been doing it for a while, and you’ve had a lot of buyer’s agents, and you have that step ahead. So this is for guys have been doing it for a year or two. And they’re finding that they’re, they’re successful at two to 500 inspections a year, then your reviews should speak for themselves. If you’re not already, use Blip, or other apps that get you reviews by constantly asking the client hey, how did you think Mike did on this inspection? And you know, because we’ve had 100 plus reviews in the past couple months, just because of that the you know, it sends automated text messages. Now that’s one thing, so that reputation will cement you alone in your Google listing. Having a Google listing is paramount. Yelp, I don’t really talk about Yelp much, because they’re just bad. I don’t like to say bad. Yeah, it’s pretty bad.

Ian R
I, oh my goodness, I hate Yelp. I said that on the last week’s podcast, I hate you, Yelp.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah, exactly. It’s pretty bad. But you should at least have a Yelp profile. And with a couple of five, as long as you have a couple of five star reviews, then you’re fine. But don’t focus on that I would focus on Google. Because if you’re thinking about all encompassing, Google is all encompassing. All right. So I think that without having buyer’s agents, you have to go straight to the consumer. And the way to do that is your, you have a couple options. So you have your local markets, which you can do on all the Facebook groups. All right, you have. I mean, sometimes when I do an inspection in the city that I don’t usually go to, they’re like they asked me, Mike, do you know the plumber here in the area to take care of some of these drains that are leaking, and I say, you know what, I don’t know anybody in this city, or this area that I can, you know, refer to you. But if I’m going to be honest with you, a place that people air out all their concerns and brag about what a great job someone does, in an honest way would be the local Facebook group, they’ll tell you the honest truth, don’t use this guy, don’t use that guy. Now, that’s a perfect opportunity for you to put yourself out there. Okay, I know, it seems like a small thing. But people like to talk, especially when they have bad experiences. But at least catch the ones that talk well about you, when you do something right. Now, a lot of new construction in my area, it might not be the same in other people’s areas, but a lot of new construction inspections. So it’s easy to go put door tags on a home, you have to find the sweet spot, you put a door tag not while they’re building it, because builders gonna come and tear it right off, you put it right when you know, they’re in escrow, and they’re about to close. And these are kind of going back to the old school ways of marketing for yourself. Because you have to prepare for the idea that it may not be the kind of market that you are used to, hundreds of 1000s of agents are no longer renewing their licenses, the market has dropped for that job, like off the cliff. Interest rates just went down like half a percent, like a day or two ago.

Ian R
That’s nothing, though, they’re gonna go up again.

Mike Ortiz
That’s yeah, they’re gonna, they’re gonna move up and down. And the thing is, is that you know, it, anybody who hangs on now, they’ll be good. If you, this is the peak, you know, because I’ve had in the past couple of days, and I hate to see this, I get calls, from inspectors leaving other companies looking for work, looking for a job, I can’t take it on capacity right now, because I’m as full as I can be. But I’m not where I have time to train another inspector and put them on the on the on the board. And I’m so I’m seeing it in the real world. And so this is where you kind of cement yourself in your own community. Now, again, yeah, I will always attribute my success to the fact that I cover a broad area, it might be time to broaden some of the things you said you’d never do. If your content where you’re at, it’s important. But, you know, it is important to go back to that old school way of thinking where you’re going direct to the consumer, yard signs, door hangers, you know, going to the networking events, Facebook, all the ways that people look for services.

Ian R
You know, I want to touch on a couple of those points. First thing I want to touch on because you made some beautiful points. I was talking to a guy just two days ago. And it’s the same conversation I’ve had over and over again, Ian, I’ve been in business for 15 years. I have to close my doors. Because it’s not a matter of you know, I looked at the guy’s market. I’m like, there’s like no houses for sale. I mean, what do you do? So I’m like, You’re not a failure. He’s like, No, I look on Facebook groups and all these guys are like I’m having a banner year. I’m like, come on, half these guys are blowing smoke. I’m looking at the stats all across the US and Canada. There’s a few guys that are in small pockets that are doing okay. For the most part people are hurting. The estimates of how many home inspectors have gone out of business is nuts, like parts of New Jersey have lost like 30% of their home inspection community in just the past six months. I didn’t keep track of a lot of states because I was watching the number go down. But there’s a lot of home inspectors that just don’t renew their license, leave, agents like you said, their mass exodus. And we’ve said this on the podcast before, this is when a business is made. I built my first inspection company. It went big after the Great Recession. I lost 45% or so of my competition. And then the other ones got part time jobs. So when everything came back, you know, small wave, they’re like Ian’s the only one there. Let’s go use him. This is the time to get market share. But I do agree with you, some old school methods are going to work really well right now. The Facebook group thing, every town in my area, everybody. The younger guys are always like, oh, nobody uses Facebook.

Mike Ortiz
The people that can afford to buy homes do.

Ian R
Yeah, like 60% of the world’s population does. And even younger people, they still use Facebook, because they’re like, oh, that’s where I chat with my uncle and all that.

Mike Ortiz
Are we still younger?

Ian R
I don’t, no, man. I’m old. How old are you? Oh, you’re still young. You’re still young. I’m 42. I have to ask my wife how old I am. I think I’m 42. But those Facebook groups, I actually joined a whole bunch of them recently to sell a vehicle that I had. And it’s amazing the interaction that’s on there.

Mike Ortiz
35. Oh, yeah.

Ian R
Those are amazing opportunities to go direct to consumer. Hey, thinking of buying in this town. That’s two towns over, anybody know a good home inspector? Why hello! Here I am. But yard signs. I always talk about my driveway contractor, because man, that guy is awesome. He’s he’s just a great advertiser without knowing it, he just sealed my driveway. Me and him were just shooting the breeze out front. And he’s like, you know what makes me the most money. He goes, I spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on marketing all the time. Because he’s working these big jobs. He goes, that little $4 yard sign will get me more work than all of my other advertising put together.

Mike Ortiz
Big time. Yeah.

Ian R
Yep. And he just leaves them, he doesn’t even care. Leaves them in the yard. And then people chuck them, he doesn’t care. He’s just hoping that somebody forgets about it for a couple of weeks. And now he has free advertising.

Mike Ortiz
Oh, yeah, big time, really quick about yard signs, I was able to get a deal for 300 yard signs for 300 bucks, but they don’t come with the little, the little feet, I guess. Just, all it says on the yard sign. This is, this is an ancillary, just ancillary, this is how I thought out of the box that got me really busy. Just on the yard sign, you can put the word a sewer line inspection, and then just put a one 800 number that you can track on call rail. And then you just put them frickin everywhere, they’re gonna take half of them down. But every, something that people could you know, the toilets flush low or whatever. And then you get a bunch of calls. And a sewer line inspection, I charge 295 to go out there. It’s almost like half of the fee of an inspection just to go out there for 30, 40 minutes. It’s, it’s money sitting there. And that’s an old school method of doing it.

Ian R
That’s a great idea. And it is an old school method. But there’s a reason why politicians who get all of these. I mean, when there’s a presidential election, down my road, there’s like 30 signs, and I’m like this presidential, like whatever you call them. This guy running for guy running for president pays the people to put signs all over the place. What, why wouldn’t we? And I liked that idea. Just put the service and a phone number that works too, keep the yard signs really simple. But put them wherever you’re driving, if it’s a legal place to put it, pop it in, if we’re doing a pre listing inspection. Those were always my favorite.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah.

Ian R
Because then those people were usually happy. And they’d let you leave it in your yard for quite some time.

Mike Ortiz
Of course.

Ian R
In their yard for quite some time. Buyers inspections, I’d usually take those out of the yard after my inspection but put them in before take them out after, that kind of thing. Or if everybody seemed kind of cool. Maybe when we’re picking up the radon test, pick it up, but typically they want to tick off the seller. But yeah, have a bunch of yard signs out front or in front of everything that you can rather but keep them in your vehicle. Treat them like business cards, just pass them out like candy.

Mike Ortiz
Exactly. Just quick and to the point, even with a QR code on it. Because people don’t have the attention span to go and read all crazy design. They just want straight to the point.

Ian R
Yep, straight to the point. And the door hangers. I know a lot of guys have called me and said, oh, that doesn’t work. But I’ve had other guys call me and say, you know, I left 1000 of them. I spent two days doing it. Me and my wife, and we picked up you know, five 11 month inspections.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah.

Ian R
I’m like, that’s awesome. That was their whole next week. Yeah, you know.

Mike Ortiz
So look at it as like a Facebook lead or a Google lead. What we do is we put the door hanger and on the door hanger in big, not. You know what we do is not in big letters, inspections is in there. But what’s in big letters is 30 bucks off. That’s it. Yeah. And for everyone that calls we just consider that the cost of advertising to that person, whoever doesn’t use it, we don’t lose the 30 bucks. But whoever does use it, we automatically know hey, you’re calling from the number from the door hanger. So they’re already gonna get 30 bucks off whatever size house they have. We put that into the cost of advertising to that person. We, like you said, we go, I hire, I get one of my guys to go out and pay him by the hour to go just hang 1000 of them. And we put them down as the 11th month warranty inspections, even maintenance inspections for commercial areas. Maintenance inspections. Don’t want to get sued. Don’t want to worry about this and that. Just give us a call. And that’s why I’m sitting where I’m at right now. You know, it’s one of those. Yeah. Old school.

Ian R
Yep, old school, and then each one of those 11th month inspections. I only ever wanted to get one in the neighborhood. Yeah, I’d usually I wouldn’t spend entire days like some people have, like those people I told you about. Of course, I would usually take take an hour in between inspections. Go find a neighborhood that was built, you know, 10, nine months ago. Yeah. And start leaving the door hangers. But once I got one, I put signs in their yard. Yeah. And oh, everybody who had that door hanger, they see my sign. So you know, the four touch rule with marketing. So now they’ve seen me twice. And now the third time is when they’re talking to your neighbor, did they find anything? Oh, yeah, they found they found this, you know, busted chimney in my attic, or there was a crack in the foundation that was hidden by some sheetrock, you should have him come check. Yeah, old school methods they still work.

Mike Ortiz
They do, the word of mouth is paramount when you do a new construction. And I’ll get a call. Hey, you did my neighbor’s. Okay. Hey, you did my neighbor’s okay. Hey, a bunch of us want to get an inspection. I got a call last week where a bunch of them got in. So they wanted like a group discount. Well, yeah, I’ll work with you guys. Yeah, you know, depends on how many houses but you take what you can get, this is the time if you’re talking about being able to survive what’s going on right now. Okay, unfortunately, but in a necessity kind of way, your pricing is going to take a little bit of a hit just to get you through this. So you’re gonna have to give in a little here and there. Obviously, we always offer veteran discounts and first responder discounts. And we have a lot of those in our area. So we always hand those out. But pricing might take a little bit of a hit right now, because so many people are so tight, with the holidays coming up and everything. So you know, maybe relook at the way you price not so much towards you know, messing with our market. But it’s you know, even in our area, the area that we cover, so big, our pricing can’t even, can even vary based on the county that you’re going to just because of the income that is in that area, you can already tell, you know, Los Angeles and San Diego, obviously higher income, they’re going to be okay with the price that we have set. But in areas that have lower income bars set, we noticed that we’re getting a lot more no’s and no’s and no’s, no’s. So we adjust, you know, $15 here accordingly, depending on where it’s at. It’s like kind of the cost of doing business. I think every major business does it. You know, depending on the areas and stuff like that even franchises, there’s a difference, even though it’s cents for them, it’s millions, you know, for us, it’s for nickel and dime.

Ian R
Yeah, and you know, all of that stuff makes a lot of sense. Because we’re, all we’re doing is trying to survive this downturn in the market. I see so many guys freak out and say like that guy I was telling ya, I’m going out of business. This is the first market downturn we’ve had in almost 20 years. It’s one of the longest good runs of a real estate market that we’ve ever had. Yeah, so for a lot of guys, this is the first time they’re experiencing a little bit of a little bit of a downturn. Yeah. But when it comes to changing our marketing a little bit, because each agent is worth less inspections now. So an agent was always worth 10 inspections to us. Now they’re going to be maybe worth two or three a year instead. So that’s almost at the value of, you know, direct to consumer plus going back to previous clients, if we’ve been around for a little while. So here’s the thing, it’s not going to hurt us. It’s going to benefit us. So a lot of guys are like, well, I’ll just wait it out and see if it happens. I’m like, is it going to hurt you to do direct to consumer right now? No. So if it turns around, and nothing happens with NAR, and buyer’s agent never goes away or never changes. Cool. Now you have two funnels of marketing. Yeah, like, why wouldn’t we want that?

Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think limiting yourself to just agents does you a disservice. And then also limiting yourself to just general home inspections does you a disservice as well. If you just if you I mean, if you don’t offer ancillary services, it makes you marketing very difficult because everybody now is already up to par with thermal imaging, irrigation included, drone included all of those things that you used to be able to call an ancillary or add on service, are now already expected in a general home inspection. So you really have to be able to stand out by offering more than just the general inspection. And that includes things like inspecting for attorneys and litigation from tenants and landlords. Those are very common out here in areas that are urban, manufactured homes. You know, doing new construction branching out because people really search on Google Mobile Home Inspection manufactured home, they don’t search general inspection. If they are buying a manufactured home, they don’t. They think it’s different. Even though the only real difference honestly, it’s just the foundation configuration. That’s it, compared to a regular single family home. It’s really, they just use different materials. And the foundation is very vastly different. Or condo and townhouse inspections, these are all inspections that are very, there, we’re getting a lot of right now condos, townhouses, manufactured homes. Why? Because they’re cheaper. That’s the people that can afford to buy right now, because everybody else is holding on to their money really tight and waiting for that percentage downturn for the interest rates. And they’re not letting go of the interest rates they have now, or they’re still renting, it’s cheaper to rent right now than it is to buy for them on paper. So they’re not, we’re not you know, even though I’m in LA and San Diego, we’re not seeing the $10 million, $15 million homes like we used to. It’s all the new construction manufactured, condo, townhome. And then commercial is always just it doesn’t respond the same way to the market as residential does. So it’s very different. Because they have a lot of things they have to adhere to, and they don’t want to get sued. And that’s really the pushing drive of getting inspections for them anyways. So I think that if you’re going to market yourself, limiting yourself to just general inspections, it keeps your it’s hard for you to stand out versus everyone else. And pool inspections as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian R
So I’m gonna take what you said even a step further. So you said limiting ourselves to home inspections. I do know some guys that still do just home inspections.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah.

Ian R
I’ll be frank. It’s low volume. Because if I have a septic system, if I have a chimney, and I’m just gonna go to the guy that seems the best qualified and offers all the rest of the services. But I’m going to take a step further. We can’t just get stuck in home inspections. But we also can’t just get stuck in what our market already expects. Yeah. So I think you basically alluded to that. So if our market like my market it they expect home inspection, wood destroying insect, and radon. We call them the big three. Yeah. But if you do that, now, you’re just at the same pace as everybody else. Yeah. Do you offer level to chimney inspections? Do you do septic inspections? Do you do anything else to make ourselves stand out a little bit. And those ancillaries sometimes become our career almost. I had one guy that did and I bought up water treatment a bunch of times. And, you know, we’re still actually working on it at the moment. But I know a home inspector that got into that. And then he actually shut down his home inspection company because his water company became too big. Yeah, just started out by saying, Oh, let me check out your water treatment system while I’ there. Septic inspections for us are huge. We did it, I mean, multiple times a month a week, we’ll have a septic inspection on somebody’s buying house. And they’re like, we waive the home inspection. But we at least want the septic inspected. We wouldn’t have had it, we wouldn’t have had anything. And then we do that we’re doing the septic for four or 500 bucks.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s stuff like that, it’s that out here. And where I am new construction in California it’s a requirement, solar inspections, solar panels, looking at the breaker, looking at the shut off, and looking at the panel’s themselves while you’re on the roof already, or while you’re doing your drone, you know, figuring out a way to make that into an ancillary service to where you can inspect enough to charge but it’s not obviously, it’s not going to be, you’re not going to go out and do you know, load calculations and how much they’re going to save and all that. But you can make it to where you’re offering enough of a service that you can charge more, because it’ll be valuable to them, Hey, your system is there’s something wrong with your system or your systems good. Sewer inspections are almost a separate business in my compant. It’s like they’re almost caught up to making as much as the general inspections. Pool inspections, you know, they’ve gone up in price for us, but they’re easy and standard. I think the water quality testing is a big one. Out here in California, a lot of environmentally conscious people. So they do a lot of air quality testing, things like that. So it’s it does depend on your climate and where you’re at. But I think the the idea that it should be limited to just what other people sell is, it limits you, you know, because nobody thinks to offer solar inspections, they just we just they just go oh, we don’t inspect solar, contact your solar company. If you have any issues, you know, when we can easily add it on as $100, $150 service to do a quick evaluation of what your solar system is at. Look at the breakers look at the wiring, look at the look at the capacity, and then give you kind of a an ancillary report on how it’s doing and if you need any service or maintenance or repairs, and then they add it on. And there you go. That’s an extra 20,000 a year just for going that extra mile and I’m not saying start doing it without knowledge. Make sure, it’s so easy to go and get a certification or go to a solar company and say hey, I want some hands on training. How do you guys, when you guys go out to inspect the solar system to, you know, sell them or upsell them or whatever. What do you guys look at? Can you train me, then get trained by solar contractor in your area, which there are a ton of solar contractors everywhere, get trained. And then, you know, do that if you, you know, don’t just take an online course on pool inspections and then start inspecting pools, do like I did, go to a pool contractor, ask them what they look for, ask them what inspectors miss, ask them all of that. And then add that to your credentials. Don’t, you know, I’m not saying add ancillary services without doing the proper training, because I’ve seen it happen before where someone will get trained to look at manufacturing homes, and then they’ll just immediately start doing manufactured homes. And there’s a lot more to it than that.

Ian R
So I like your solar idea. I am one of those guys that for a million years, I’ve always said I just don’t touch your solar system. How long is a solar inspection? Like how much is an upcharge in general, because around my area, there’s a lot of solar panels, but nobody really does it around my area. So that might be an interesting idea.

Mike Ortiz
So, yeah, like the solar inspection is basically what you’re looking at, is your look. So you know, when you have the main electrical panel, you have the shut off for the solar, you have the breaker for the solar and the photoelectric system, what you’re looking for is you’re now extending your electrical inspection to just those areas. And depending on what the labeling and what the amp rating on those panels are, you count how many panels there are on the roof, you look at the brand system, and then you look up what the capacity is. And then you check the panels, see if there’s any breaks, you look in the attic to see if, if there’s any leaking coming from any of the connections on the roof, you make sure they use the right kind of flashings, and then you make the recommendations based on that. And then the inspection shouldn’t take more than, you know, an additional 30 minutes or 40 minutes, depending on the size of the of the system. And then you refer them, hey, you have a panel that’s broken, you have it looks like one of them, like you, you learn to read the water usage and see if there’s a discrepancy between how many solar panels you have and how much is being drawn and being saved. And then you make recommendations, you should have, you know, we recommend a battery, because you’re producing so much energy has been lost. And then there’s an issue with this breaker, wires loose or whatever it is, or this overheating is not properly transferring over to the breaker in the panel. And then you charge them, you know $149. And you tell them, you know you need to get the system looked at or this system looks like it’s in normal operating condition, I recommend you get another inspection in a couple of years. Make sure you do the solar cleaning softwash on the on the roof because it’s a really dusty area, high wind. And that’s it. And that’s basically it. You know, it’s just like, you know, it’s not really a really super detailed inspection. But when there are things wrong, you can save them a lot of money. It’s kind of like a sewer inspection. I tell people get sewer inspections in new construction. And they always tell me no, no, no, no, no. But every time I do, I find lines that are disconnected lines that have grout hardened and pour in filled halfway, you know, because I don’t know why they pour grout on these damn lines when the the work that they hire it just you know, I’m like, this is why I recommend a sewer line inspection now. Three times maybe two times out of 10, it’ll be a clear line. No issues, just normal grease buildup. That’s it, maybe one piece of toilet paper, is clear all the way to the city. And they’re like, oh, man, I paid 300 bucks to find that out, I’m like, yeah, but you know, to replace a sewer line that has issues is $10,000. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s one of those trade offs. Yeah. So it’s something to look into. But it’s worth it. I mean, there’s always money to be made. And there’s a value there. People ask all the time, so there is value there.

Ian R
You know, it’s funny when ever it depending on if I knew the client really well or not. Sometimes they would say something like that, like, oh, I paid for a pest inspection. But there weren’t pests, I’m like, you paid your proctologist for, for a scope. And you’re upset at him because he didn’t find anything. I’m like, that’s it depends on, it depended on the client who I would say that to but that’s, I’d usually say, you know, I went to a general practitioner, he said, you’re healthy. You didn’t get upset about going, you’re like, okay, good, I’m healthy. So it’s the same thing with your home. So like, I’m stuck on this solar thing, because I like the idea that like how much is a solar inspection out in California?

Mike Ortiz
So nobody does them. Me? Yeah. So me, myself right now. I’m working with a solar contractor to build kind of a standard of what should be looked at by an, by like, let’s say a general home inspector, what would be helpful to a contractor to look at to find out what’s going on with the solar system so they can quote the repair. So it’s kind of like a sewer line inspection. I did it by while working alongside a plumber. I said, okay, in what way could I make this report to where the client can send it to you along with the video and you can quote them on what the repair would be? Because that would add the most value. Rather than saying, hey, there’s an issue here. Call a plumber and the plumber has to do another sewer scope to find out themselves, you say, so I told them I said, a lot of people want their solar system looked at, he’s like, yeah, we get hundreds of those calls a week, we’re not just gonna go out there and look at it for him, our time is valuable. I was like, alright, so how can I look at that system and look for issues that might be there and make a report that would be valuable to you, if there’s an issue that you can repair or offer replacement or whatever. And for not just for you specifically, but for any solar contractor, whoever they decide to use. And then what would that look like? And he’s walking me through the steps that when we go out there, this is what we look at, the things I just talked about a minute ago, we look at the panels, we look at the capacity, we look at what it’s actually putting out. And this is how we look at those things. And it takes us about 20, 30 minutes, we have a little checklist that we go through, I was like, okay, so I want to turn that checklist into a template for my report, so that I can now go out and do solar inspections. And that’s what I’m building right now. And you know, the great thing about this podcast is that, I hope that people in my area, hear this and do the same thing. Because then we can compete, then we can go out and be the best we can and we can make it a standard. And then we all make more money together. Because people are like, everybody is getting solar inspections. Why? You know, because it’s gonna, like, they’re gonna say, who else does this? Nobody. Why are you even bringing it up, Mike, realtors say. Just do what you’ve been doing, refer them to a solar guy, they’ll never call, and nobody will have any issues. I’m like, okay. You know, it’s like one of those things. Yeah.

Ian R
So I mean, it’s about market education. The more guys that do the service, like, it’s not a secret. More people who do your service that you’re trying to start, the more market education is then it becomes a standard. So that’s, that’s smart. And that’s also very generous of you to share that too. But um, you had mentioned before the podcast about using AI, to market to direct to consumer, I use AI every day, oh, my, oh my goodness, I used it for gift ideas for my anniversary, and was like, hey, those are, those are not bad ideas.

Mike Ortiz
I think I use AI in nearly every aspect of the business, even in report writing. Whenever I see something unique. I’ll say you know what I’m like, okay, so I tell I tell AI, hey, so I have this drain that has three traps on it, before it even makes it to the vent. And I need you to explain it in a way that is short, basic, to the point, make an observation and a recommendation. And bam. Because otherwise, I’m sitting there technically writing it all out, I look at it, I proofread it and I’m like, copy, and then change a couple of things take off a couple of things. And then there goes in that comment for that specific item. That’s easy for report writing, it just puts your own words of of seeing something and makes it a little simpler. But when it comes to marketing, it’s very different. So I have this fear also, with AI and marketing. Just be wary that one day Google may be able to flag anything written by chat GPT, you know, if it has a, you know, any metadata in it that will show Hey, this was done by an AI chat bot or something. So try to use, try to use the chat GPT or any kind of AI as a way of giving you ideas and articulating something that you might not be able to articulate yourself with your marketing. It’s easy to, you know, if you think about your social media, which is part of your marketing should be part of your marketing, making posts every day is nearly impossible, right? So it gives you content to put in these posts that might show up, because social media does now show up on Google searches, YouTube, you know, TikTok, these all now, when you search home inspections, there’s home inspection finds, there’s the social media market’s so saturated, that now you can count it as almost a secondary website of how you conduct your services, how you conduct your business, because it’s showing up on Google searches. So using the AI for marketing, is really at the base level right now. And then one day could eventually take over those positions. You know, I have this fear and I talked to my wife about it. This was my, this is this is I always like to psych myself out this is why I do so many different things. My fear is that is that somehow there is going to be a way that AI will eliminate, you know, the need for full home inspections, right? So not now or anytime now, but I always think like that so that I have to kind of add it into you can’t run away from you know, it’s like it’s like I heard one realtor say to the other. If you’re the kind of realtor that says “fax me that” and you make fun of those Realtors not using AI right now is the same as saying, you know, fax me that, you have to keep up with what the current trend is, which is using AI in your business in as many aspects as you can. Especially with the whole template crap that’s been going on. I’m sorry. It was just I’m glad that it didn’t affect me. But and I listened to that podcast.

Ian R
It does affect you, though, just not directly. Yeah, it affects all of us.

Mike Ortiz
It does affect us. But it’s like one of those things that I’m like, I’m gonna put this on the shelf to worry about later because I gotta answer this. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s kind of like the NAR lawsuit thing. It’s like, well, it’s a little closer on the shelf than the template thing for me. You know, it’s, it’s one of those things. And the funny thing is that when I heard that podcast, and I heard Nick talking, I think the other guy was Thornberry, right?

Ian R
Yeah, Thornberry.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah, immediately when I heard the podcast, I bought a bunch of Porch. I bought it at like 50 cent’s.

Ian R
You made a bunch of money.

Mike Ortiz
50 cents, yeah. And it shot up to $1 like a couple of days ago, like double, it was good. And then I sold it. But that, you know that podcast episode, what it really was, was a way of showing me that you can’t just rely on, you can’t rely on what other people do for marketing, you have to kind of make it your own. And same with with templates, using AI to make it kind of your own, you know, by using it by talk, because you can talk to it. Now, you can have a full on conversation with your voice to AI voice on the chat GPT app and say, How can I change the way, this is how I do things now. And then give them an example, a sample of what you do. How can I change this to be more modern, to be more cutting edge, and market to the consumer.

Ian R
So if I could just touch on a couple of points there. That was an insane podcast. First of all, with Nick and Nathan, that was a ton of fun. But I do have to give a plug for our app, we actually integrate with directly with Chat GPT. So you can actually while you’re inspecting, say shorten this comment with just clicking on it, we have three options, create a comment, shorten, lengthen, so and we have pre prompts in it. So it already knows what state you’re in that your home inspector, and you can say, you know, write this, write this up in a short comment, but, you know, add the standards for my state in there. And it’ll do all that. So it’s really awesome. So I had to give a plug for Inspector Toolbelt. Built right in. As far as I know, we’re the only app, home inspection app that has it built in at the moment. And it’s been months. The Google thing about I do want to talk about AI and blog writing, because that is still one of the best ways to be able to reach consumers is to not just blog about home inspections, but blog about the home, home buying experience in general. And the more niche keyword set that you can find the better. So if you, so if you write, you know, how do I take care of my HVAC unit, you’re never going to be seen. That’s not, that’s not the keywords you set, you should be looking for. Now, if you have a keyword set of can I clean efflorescence with vinegar and baking soda? That’s getting a little bit better. Now, if you say, are the houses in Guilderland, New York, infested with termites, even, the more specific we get, the better. AI is actually, so Google is actually John Mueller, he officially said Google has known about AI content for the better part of a decade. And their official stance is we don’t care because of what they have called the helpful content update. They’re like whether it’s AI generated or not, as long as it’s helpful. And they measure that in a lot of different ways. They’re like, we don’t care who wrote it. So we just have to be careful that our content is helpful. Like if we if we write content, and we say, write me a blog about a roof, that’s not helpful. It’s just gonna be general information. Now, write me a blog about architectural shingle roofs, when there’s nailheads showing, how to fix it, and describe if it’s serious or not, and make it very local to San Diego, California, or this specific neighborhood. Now, Google will see that as being more helpful content, so never just take it the way it gives it, read it over, rewrite it, make it more human sounding, obviously, but when it comes to direct to consumer, I still have people that find us on blogs I wrote 15 years ago, there’s a nice neighborhood in where I grew up. I knew the homes really well. They have three things, radon termites and aluminum wiring. I wrote a blog on all of them. Tiny little village, maybe 10,000 people, maybe 12,000. And to this day, I still get work from that I can watch them land on that blog, schedule an inspection, and then we’re out there doing that inspection.

Mike Ortiz
That’s awesome. Yeah.

Ian R
So content is still important, it’s becoming less important though. It’s kind of like peeing in an ocean now because there’s so much content out there.

Mike Ortiz
Yeah, cuz the other day, I was testing out the system. And so the chat GPT-4, which is like the premium one. If you can take a photo with it now or put a photo into it. So I took a photo of I took a photo of a trap that had the flex line installed on it was little plastic flex line. And I said explain to me what’s going on here and make a recommendation, if there’s any issues. And it explained, it looks like you have a PVC drain and it has a flexible drain. And it looks like it has a flexible drain and it looks like it’s underneath the sink in the cabinet. And these flexible drains are not efficient. It’s recommended that a plumber install a smooth wall drain I was like, Oh, well, that’s just from a photo. You know. Imagine that in the hands of a typical homeowner who you know is like, my water heater sounds funny. What’s this popping sound here, it’ll explain everything. So they don’t have to call us a plumber or anything. It’ll just tell them my fear is that it’ll be wrong sometimes, obviously, but at least tell them but it’s like humans, you know, sometimes there’s inspectors or plumbers or electricians that’ll miss stuff or get something wrong, right? Eventually it’s going to, AI will be, which it already operates faster than our own minds. It’s going to eventually catch all its mistakes and one day not make any mistakes. But you have to watch it now and see what it can do. Oh man, this is all this all within the span of what a year. That’s insane.

Ian R
Yeah it’s been about a year, you know, I actually watched a documentary. It’s called Terminator. There’s two of them. There’s a sequel. Yeah. So it doesn’t end up well for us.

Mike Ortiz
Unless your name is Connor.

Ian R
Exactly.

Mike Ortiz
But it’s, it’s one of those things. So you have to plan accordingly. You have to branch out, you know, you have time on your hands, and you have an opportunity to learn as much as you can. ancillary services, it’s not a big thing to go take a $400 course from Mr. Crump for sewer inspections, you know, and then meet with a local plumber and have them give you advice, and then just get a sewer camera, you can get one on Amazon for 1900 bucks, crap use a firm to get it if you have to do payment plans, get started, and then start offering it if you know what you’re doing, and then work from there. And that’s an extra 300, 250 bucks in your pocket. That is an upsell on every inspection. Now if a house has a tree in front of it, get a sewer line inspection you know, that’s it. And that’s an extra 1000 bucks in your pocket a week, if you can do it, you know, and that will that will get you through what you need to but right now, if there’s three types of inspectors listening, the one just getting into it, there’s a lot to get into this business. But I recommend getting into it now. Right, right now, learn as much as you can from everyone that you can. The second kind is the one that’s in the middle of his growth, which I consider myself right in the middle of my growth, keep going with what works, and go all in when you’re going to invest in your business, invest your own money and time to grow it. And if you think it’s going to be, it only works, if you’re all in, this is not a part time job. It’s not. And then the other type of person listening in is someone who is extremely successful, and I’m calling on you to call Ian so I can find out what you’re doing. And do that.

Ian R
Be on the show. Yeah.

Mike Ortiz
You’re doing so great. I want to learn from you, I have so much to learn, and I want to learn from you. You have a wealth of knowledge that would benefit all of us. And it’s such a big country. And even the you know, it’s just a you’re letting it waste away by not helping your fellow inspector, you know, unless they’re right next door to you, you know, it’s important, you know, that we all grow and learn. And that’s what I’ve learned so far.

Ian R
Yeah. And you know, it’s always great having you on the show. To go along with your message, I think you kind of captured our audience, for the most part with those three categories there. But my big takeaways from our discussion today is direct to consumer is becoming more important now, whether or not the NAR thing actually happens, just because of where the market is right now. It’s becoming more important. Old school methods going to be important, yard signs, door hangers for 11th month inspections, on new construction, door hangers, things like that those old school methods are going to be great, even though we didn’t talk much about it going back to old clients and remarketing to them is going to be even more important now. Facebook groups for local towns around us, towns and cities, going to be incredible to be part of that. I like all your discussion about the ancillary inspections, especially the solar panel one, I think that’s a fantastic idea. And I’m a little jealous that you, you had that thought and I didn’t, I didn’t do it.

Mike Ortiz
I haven’t fully developed it yet. I would love to get together with you and actually make a standard for so that way, if we can make a standard, we can share it with everyone. Yeah. And if we share with everyone, then we can make a standard. And then we can make a standard price and expectation so that no one can ever offer less than that standard without knowing that they’re not meeting, you know, the requirements for a solar inspection because it all starts just like that solar was never something that everyone thought of. But now in my state it’s a requirement and eventually it moves on to other states and it’s going to be something that we’re going to rely on in the future. If you’re thinking about building a business that you want to pass on to your kids or your family. Adding a solar inspection is it’s um, you know, you can’t question it whatsoever.

Ian R
Yeah, no, I, again, I think it’s an amazing idea. We should totally flush that out. But yeah, these are all great things and keeping up with modern technology like AI, if we’re not using it now, or if we think it’s a joke, just spend some time on it. It’s not a joke. And we really should be using it. And it’s good for a lot of things that we do for direct to consumer marketing. But Mike, I hate to say it, but we’re out of time. Me and you could go on all day, and you have a commercial inspection to get back to. So thank you very much for taking your time out.

Mike Ortiz
No worries, man, I appreciate your time. I appreciate talking to you. And you know, I know we didn’t get to talk about it. We should do another one on Commercial Inspections. Yeah, obviously, it can seem very, very intimidating. But, and there’s no easy way to do it. But it’s doable. If you have the passion for inspecting, I always say residential inspections. Honestly, anybody can become passionate about that. But commercial, it’s got to be a lifestyle. Like you have to actually be interested in the way a building is built. And that’s something that comes with time, but it’s something that’s attainable, for sure.

Ian R
Yeah, it’s the ultimate level, in my opinion to reach out to as an inspector. But let’s get that on the books. I would love to talk about that. Thanks as always, Mike, talk soon.

Mike Ortiz
Alright brother.

Beon DeNood
On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team. Thank you for listening to this episode. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you can catch our future episodes as well. And if you have any feedback, please send us an email at info@Inspectortoolbelt.com. Also, don’t forget to check out our brand new app for home inspectors, scheduling and report writing all in one easy to use app. Check it out now at Inspectortoolbelt.com.

Ian R
The views and opinions of this podcast and its guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.

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 info@inspectortoolbelt.com.

If you’re enjoying the conversation, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button. Our podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. For more information on our services and our brand-new inspection app, please visit our website at Inspectortoolbelt.com.

*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.