Diversify To Grow your Business

Tony shares his 26-year journey in the home inspection business and the creation of his new book "Beyond Inspecting: A Guide to Growing Your Home Inspection Business." His experience shows how diversification strategies can transform an inspection business when residential markets slow down.

• Success is opportunity meeting preparation
• Diversification saved Tony's business during California's real estate downturn
• Creating opportunity through wildfire home hardening programs
• Finding opportunity in regulations like California's mandatory balcony inspections
• Using The Corridor Principle - you'll only see certain doors when you're in motion
• Setting three priority tasks each day to maintain discipline and momentum
• Analyzing the numbers to know when to abandon a diversification effort
• Starting with "low-hanging fruit" services that require minimal investment
• Value is set by the customer, not the inspector

Get Tony's book at InspectorGrowth.com and connect with him as a mentor through InterNACHI.

Check out our home inspection app at www.inspectortoolbelt.com
Need a home inspection website? See samples of our website at www.inspectortoolbelt.com/home-inspection-websites

*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.

Chapters

• 0:18 Introduction to Tony and His Book
• 9:34 The Birth of Inspector Growth
• 18:27 Diversification Strategy for Home Inspectors
• 34:30 Balcony Inspections: A California Opportunity
• 52:12 Creating New Service Lines
• 1:09:43 The Corridor Principle of Business Growth
• 1:35:10 When to Abandon Diversification Efforts
• 2:15:56 Low-Hanging Fruit First Approach

Transcript

Ian Robertson  
Tony, welcome to Inspector Toolbelt Talk, great to have you. How are you today? 

Tony Escamilla  
Hey, Ian, doing great. Thank you for having me on. 

Ian Robertson  
Yeah, no, I've been looking forward to having you on. We have a lot to talk about today. We're going to be talking about diversifying to grow your business. But one of the things I want to talk about today is you have a book that came out. I want to hear about your home inspection career and what brought all this about. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your inspection company, you know, your book and just about everything you can think of?

Tony Escamilla  
Yeah, absolutely. So I started my company 26 years ago out here in Southern California, and you know, that was back in the days of beepers and Thomas guides, if you can imagine. And you know, 26 years later, here I am. And the way that the book came to fruition is that I was listed on the Nachi website as a mentor. So I started getting phone calls from new up and coming inspectors. And I would take an occasional phone call, you know, 30 minutes an hour, a couple of follow ups once in a while. Then I realized that I wanted to give them something a little more structured. And so I started putting things together. And that's where the idea came from for the book. And, you know, it was, it was a labor of passion over the last two years or so, and I wasn't even sure if I was gonna actually launch it or release it. And then I decided to launch it. And then right as I was getting to editing, I found myself going through the big D, got divorced, put everything on hold for a little while, and so that's when you and I first spoke back then. And so finally, it got released early this year. And yeah, I've had good feedback. 

Ian Robertson  
Well, that's a long and illustrious inspection career. But do you know how I know that your book is amazing, because you quote me in it. So I mean, come on, man.

Tony Escamilla  
You're in it. No. Thank you so much for your contribution. Yeah, I thought it was important to get industry leaders like yourself in the book. And I have everybody from Nick Gromicko to Wally Conway to Mike Crow. Yourself. Melissa Boggs, I think all of these people you've had on your podcast at one point or another, and I was surprised when I reached out to everybody, just how willing everybody was willing to contribute something. 

Ian Robertson  
Well everybody you mentioned there is just an awesome person, like you said, we've had most of them on the show, and they're just great people, like they've built empires, you know, and they're just normal people. They're good to be around. And I was joking before about, you know, I knew it was gonna be a good book because I'm in it.

Tony Escamilla  
No, I do appreciate it, yeah, but you're right. These are the giants that we stand on, on their shoulders, and there's no reason to reinvent the wheel when you've had people who have led the industry, like you and everybody else in the book for so long, there's always something you can learn. I learn something new every time I watch your podcast. Some of the guests that are on your podcast, some of them are local here in California. And there's always, I'm always jotting down notes.

Ian Robertson  
You know, I always learn something from my guests, too. I take notes pretty much every podcast, and I'm just like, why didn't I think of that? And that's, you know, in a multitude of counselors, there is wisdom, because we all think from a different angle. And when somebody says something, and it's like, that is so obvious, why did I never think of that? So I plan on learning something from you, because you have a lot of wisdom to give. Just for anybody who wants the book. How can they find it, Tony, I'll put a link here in the transcript so that people can find it.

Tony Escamilla  
It's very simple. It's inspectorgrowth.com.

Ian Robertson  
Oh, great.

Tony Escamilla  
Yeah, we have the book there and a couple other things that I created. So during the pandemic, we all took a little bit of a break before the real estate market blew up. And in that time, I was trying to figure out, okay, how am I going to make money here? I didn't know how long the pandemic was going to go on. And so I created a couple of things for other inspectors that I had been using, I had created for myself a long time ago, and I figured other inspectors might be interested in that. And so that's how Inspector Growth came to be. But, you know, the inspection business has been my passion, and that's a side thing, and the book was, like I said, just a labor of love.

Ian Robertson  
That's awesome. Well, it shows, and you're passion about the industry shows. But I think your topic that you brought up for today, diversifying to grow your business, is an important one, because a lot of times we think of ourselves as home inspectors, and we kind of get stuck into what we're comfortable with, and I am super guilty of that. I love inspecting houses. I don't like adding on ancillaries. I don't like going outside of the home inspection industry, because we do what we know and we love what we know, but diversifying to grow your business, that's a skill all unto itself. So tell us a little bit about why you brought that up as a subject today. 

Tony Escamilla  
Well, I learned a lesson back in, not too long ago, actually, in 2023, I had been putting too much emphasis on doing just residential inspections, and the economy took a dump, and real estate here in California took a dump. And, yeah, it was a rough year, and I since then have started a commercial division, which is doing really well, and we have taken some other opportunities that came up specifically here in California, but that was my epiphany there, is that we need to add on and diversify in order to not suffer ups and downs of the market. And I'll give you an example, 2024 here in California, a law passed that all balconies have to be inspected in apartment buildings and condominiums. And I saw it coming, and I set up a web page very early on, and I tweaked the SEO. And then as we started getting closer, the phone started ringing a little more. My web page was getting little traction. And fast forward to today, in 2024 I did more revenue in balcony inspections than I did in home inspections. And it just blew my mind, just how much it took off. Because, you know, there's that old saying that success is nothing more than opportunity meeting preparation. And I feel that we had a really good opportunity and we were prepared to do it, kind of there was a lot of growing pains along the way that we had to figure out really quickly to be able to keep up with the business, and so at the end of 2024 they came in and extended the deadline for this one more year, which is great for us, because we get to squeeze that lemon for another year. But here in California and I know a lot of other states, there's also things like insurance companies that are trying to pull out of California, they're canceling people's policies, 1000s of policies, especially with the fires that we just had right now. It's all over the news. How many people got canceled, or where we come in, and here's another opportunity, is that a lot of the companies that are staying in California are now requiring inspections in order to renew policies. Yeah, and it's nothing more than a four point inspection. And so we had to pivot, and we started getting phone calls, and we created an inspection specifically for insurance, based on what was on the letters that they were sending their policy holders. And so we're now getting balcony inspections. We're now getting insurance inspections. And then we have one other thing that we're working on right now that just happened sadly because of the fires that we just had here, is that we're offering a new service for wildfire, home hardening and fire mitigation. And that was my point. As far as mitigation, I mean diversification, and in just being able to see the opportunities, because I'm sure you've seen this, I've heard a lot of guys on Facebook saying, hey, you know it's really slow over here, I don't know what to do. And I think if you look and you pay attention, there's always opportunities. And I'll give you an example. I didn't know what this fire, this new fire thing was going to be, and we were set up to do a sewer camera training, were these fun, out here in California. And I got a training room from one of the real estate companies. Turns out it didn't work out, he couldn't make it. The fires kind of screwed things up. And so that's going to be rescheduled, but I ended up with a free training room, and I had 10 days, and so I pivoted, and I said, we're going to put on a workshop for wildfire, home hardening and mitigation. And marketed, marketed, marketed and created a couple of PDF giveaways, only like eight people showed up, but one of those happened to be a city council person for the city, and so guess what I'm doing next month, I'm doing a citywide presentation. 

Ian Robertson  
Oh, wow.

Tony Escamilla  
For that city now, because they invited me to do it, he liked it so much. And so that's another huge opportunity that I never would have seen it had I not taken that chance and taken that opportunity, and even though it was crazy amount of work to put this together in a little one week, so far, knock on wood, it's paying off.

Ian Robertson  
Yeah, you know, I'm jotting down notes as we're talking here, and I love that expression, success is nothing more than opportunity meeting preparation. And I don't think we realize as inspectors how much we're actually prepared to do. So, for instance, here in New York, there's three ways that I kind of wrote down. You can create the opportunity. You can find the opportunity in a new regulation, like the balcony one out in California, or sometimes, the opportunity was always there, but nobody took advantage of it. So here in New York, we had a new law that was passed, I say new, I don't know, 6, 7, 8, years ago now, with mold assessors. So they're like, all these mold assessments need to get done before anybody can do any mold work on their house. We're like, oh, okay. And nobody wanted to do it, though, the inspection industry, some would take the course, and I had, there was guys taking the work course, getting mad, walking out on the course. They're like, this is stupid. We don't, we can't do this. There's too much liability. I am, it's on my mold assessors license, the 31st mold assessor in all of New York State. Because did I want to do it? No, like I said before, I don't like change. There's a quote, I love change when I have time to prepare for it. I hate it. I didn't want to do it. But you know what? There's times where, in a week, we'll do almost as much business and mold assessments and mold work, as we will in home inspections. It's a whole other industry. It's a whole other add on service. It's a whole other thing. That was a regulation like the balcony, that was handed to us. As we see those coming down the line, don't be scared of it, or be scared of it. I don't care. Just do it, though. Get into it. See what happens. 

Tony Escamilla  
Be scared, but move forward. Get out of your own comfort zone. That's what you have to do sometimes.

Ian Robertson  
Exactly. And I love it when the regulation is handed to us. Have you ever found, though, that this is loosely based on what you said, have you ever found an opportunity to create those diversification channels, or have you found ones that were always there, that you just never took advantage of before?

Tony Escamilla  
Well, outside of the ancillary services, you know, I still see a lot of guys, should I offer mold, or should I offer radon? Or, yes, all day long, and twice on Sundays, the more things that you have, the more value you offer, and the better you do competing, you know? And yeah, there's always things here, and there's some things that I just prefer not do. I've been asked to do expert witness work. 

Ian Robertson  
Oh, I hate that. 

Tony Escamilla  
And that's just not my thing. I don't do construction inspections, for example, even though I'm ICC certified and I can, I don't do construction inspections, so I picked and I chose the things that I like doing. But then I realized I have to have more than just that, and it's just looking at opportunities. And that's how Inspector Growth came to be. It's like, okay, well, I need something else also, and I have some other ideas, what I don't have right now is a bandwidth, because, luckily, I'm a numbers guy, and I'm looking at the numbers for January of this year compared to December of last year and compared to January of last year. The market is going really well here right now, and I'm just, I'm gonna ride it. And you know, it's, it's one of those things that I'm sure you've heard of. When people get busy, I don't have time to advertise. I can't handle any more work. No, right now is where you keep your foot on the pedal and you don't let that car slow down in the middle of the freeway, you keep your foot on the pedal because it's so much easier to keep coasting at 60 miles an hour than it is to start from a complete stop.

Ian Robertson  
Yeah. No, that's very true. And I like that idea of things is when things are going well, that's when we need to make them go even better, so that way we avoid those really deep slowdowns. But let me ask you, that fire hardening thing. Is that a state regulation, or is that an industry that was kind of quasi there, like, is it regulated? How did that come about?

Tony Escamilla  
Well, two ways. Sadly, it comes to mind, to everybody's mind periodically, when we have these horrible fires that burn 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of acres and take out like this one that we just had, took out approximately 12,000 structures, and I was there assessing the burnt out properties the day after, for the next, like few days with the local city and I literally had to say, hey, look, I can't come in this next time because it's a lot to process when you're standing there in the middle of just entire neighborhoods that are missing. They're gone. But that brings it to mind for people to oh, I need to do something. That and the fact that, at least here in California, because the insurance industry is pulling out of California a lot, it's a lot harder to get fire insurance now, and it's not a regulation, but the insurance companies will make it a lot easier for your premium if you can show them that you've hardened your home. Look, these are the measures that I've done to harden my home. You know, the landscaping, all of the different things that you can do to your home. And insurance companies love that, and so it inadvertently created a small industry. And I think there's a lot of opportunity out here and in other places, not just in California, for this type of inspection. And you know, there's always the naysayers, you know, you put it on social media, and there's always somebody who's going to say, oh, that's too much liability. Oh, you're not going to make enough money on this. Oh, so and so can do it for cheaper. Well, I beg to differ. I've already booked one without even launching the page, and we're charging almost about as much as we charge for a regular home inspection.

Ian Robertson  
You know what I love about the naysayers is that they make more business for me. I've told this story on this podcast, years ago we started doing septic inspections 8, 9, 10, years ago, and everybody's like, you can't do that. We're doing full septic system inspections without a pump truck. Engineers were calling angrily on the phone while we're doing them. Agents were getting mad. People were getting mad. We're charging four or $500 for them. I'm like, get all the mad that you want. Other home inspectors were like, you can't do that. And then all of a sudden it's like, lots of money. And then people are like, oh, that looks like it's working out. Now half of our competition is like, oh yeah, we do septic inspections too. I love naysayers, but I guess that's what I was thinking when you talked about the fire hardening inspections. I had never really heard of that until you just met just mentioned it here. That's a created industry. You saw a need, and you created the opportunity. So whether it's on you as a group or you as a person, you create the opportunity. That's a beautiful thing.

Tony Escamilla  
Absolutely. There's a need. And like I said, if you look closely in your particular location, there's always something that you can do or you can try. I've tried a couple of services that just didn't work out. Took them off the menu, basically, okay, we tried. It didn't work. You know, I write about this in the book that you know, I have a $4,000 camera, Matterport camera, sitting under my bed right now that I thought was the biggest idea ever, because I already had contact with realtors. Turns out it is a tiny little percentage of realtors who actually use that service, and I have a total like three scans on that camera. And not everything works. But if you don't ask, the answer is always no.

Ian Robertson  
And Wayne Gretzky, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. 

Tony Escamilla  
Amen, yes.

Ian Robertson  
You have to at least try. And not every service I've ever done has been like, wow, this is a blow up success. I have equipment too that I'm like, well, that stank. Oh, well, and you kind of move on, because for every idea that didn't work, you hit one that nobody else was willing to try after their first failure. And so now you're the leader in that particular niche.

Tony Escamilla  
Yeah, I had, for example, on the balcony inspections. Again, early on, there was a lot of naysayers saying, oh, there's just too much liability. I'm not going to get involved in that. And if you read, really, read the law, the way it's written, it's something most home inspectors can do. And I remember early on, I had somebody call to price check me, and I googled the phone number, and it was one of the biggest engineering firms here in Southern California, and they were trying to figure out how much to charge, but my idea was, hey, I'm not going to follow the pack. I'm going to lead the pack, and so I'll set my prices, and I'll let them set their prices behind me. And you know, knock on wood. It's like I said, I did more balcony inspections last year than I did home inspections.

Ian Robertson  
So to go back to your point too. So the home inspection market in general over the past two years has been some of the worst I've seen in 20 years, nationally speaking. If you hadn't diversified, you'd be in a harder spot.

Tony Escamilla  
It'd be a very hard spot. And I learned that in 2023 because I hadn't diversified as much in 2023 and so there were some rough moments there. But in 2024 the commercial side started taking off, and we were doing really good with the commercial side. And that was my goal for 2024 is to, like, really expand the commercial division. And then the whole balcony thing happened, and we kind of had to put that back on the shelf for a little while, but there was still a lot of commercial business coming in. So at some point we were literally working seven days a week between regular home inspections, commercial inspections, balcony inspections, insurance inspections. And had I not pivoted and taken a chance on a different opportunity, it would have never happened, and I'd be relying solely on the residential market right now for home inspections, which is not doing so hot.

Ian Robertson  
And I think it's, I think of home inspectors with everything you just said right there. Sometimes they'll email our company with stuff for their website, or, you know, they're setting up an account with our app, and you look and it just says, what do you do? Home inspections. That's it. And I'm like, all your eggs in one basket, dude, that's not..

Tony Escamilla  
You know what blows my mind still, as as I speak to people who call and I get on phone calls with them from the mentor thing on Nachi is, I'll look at their Facebook page, and there is nowhere on that Facebook page that says they're a home inspector. Yeah, they don't have a dedicated page. Nobody knows, there's a picture of him drinking a beer on a boat. Yeah.

Ian Robertson  
But I mean, if you're gonna have all your eggs in one basket, at least advertise that basket, right?

Tony Escamilla  
At least advertise that one basket, exactly.

Ian Robertson  
Yeah. But, I mean, that's even just starting out. If a guy's listening to this podcast and they're starting out, and I say starting out, you're within your first five years of business, or maybe this is your first year. Do you, Tony, still think that it's important to diversify right off the bat?

Tony Escamilla  
To a certain extent. Yeah, I think you need to get good at what you do. Get good at the home inspection, provide value. And you got to remember that value is set by the customer, not us, and so whatever they perceive as valuable, that's what they're going to be willing to pay. So if you can show them that your service, even if it's just home inspection service, is valuable, that you have experience, that you're going to give them a good report, you have good bedside manner, you're not going to kill their deals. That's value for a customer or a realtor. And so I would suggest, yeah, get good at that. And then, yeah, start adding ancillaries, typical ancillary services depending on your geographical location, like radon and, you know, septic and sewer and that kind of stuff. And then, yeah, then there's always opportunities. For example, I keep track of all, I'm a total nerd. I'm a numbers nerd. So I keep track of real estate numbers for residential and commercial, and there's free information out there that you can get online. What's selling? Here in California, retail space is not doing so hot, but industrial warehouse space is doing great. So that's where I'm going to put marketing to. Balcony inspections were blowing up, and so I put a great deal of of time and effort into that. So it's, it's looking for those opportunities.

Ian Robertson  
Yeah, and I guess, um, first of all, I like what you said, their value is set by the customer. I wrote that down because that's something I want to think about. That's a good expression. But I do like your point about being good and adding value to your core services and expanding from there. I'm a big proponent of having at least three services to start out with, because there's going to be ancillaries that are expected in a market above and beyond, like in my market, we call it the big three - home, pest, and radon. If any one of those you don't offer, you're not even going to get off the ground, but you have to be able to add value on those three services at any given given point. So maybe the startup is going to be a little bit more. But I also agree with you that, yeah, you have to be a good home inspector, otherwise you could offer 20 services, and if you stink at all of them, you know, you're not going to get anywhere with it.

Tony Escamilla  
I know the other thing that I found in common speaking with a lot of inspectors throughout the country is that it's typical. Hey, I just got my certification and I passed my test, so I'm opening my business. What do you think? Okay, yeah, that's great. You should, but it's not just knowing how to do a home inspection that makes you successful. You have to have a different mindset to be a business owner. You wear a lot of hats. You are the marketing person. You are the bookkeeper. You are everything. You track your numbers and see how you're doing, and that's what points you in the right direction. 

Ian Robertson  
Yeah, no, that's a very true statement. A lot of us are good inspectors, but bad business people or good business people, and not a great inspector. So we got to be at least pretty good at one of the two and really good at the other to make a good go of it. But you wrote on some of the ideas of talking points here, you wrote discipline and persistence as one of the items. Can you tell me how that fits into being able to diversify?

Tony Escamilla  
You know, there's a lot of stuff that I write about, and I think, you know, like I said, if what you know, and this is how I started, you know if what you know is home inspection, that's what you're focusing on when you're starting, you know that old saying that if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So when you're starting out, you're focused on home inspection. But a lot of, at least in my opinion, a lot of what makes you successful is consistency, is having a different mindset than just home inspection. You have to have a mindset that I'm going to ride this wave if it's big, if it's small, if it's you know, if it's kicking my butt, I'm going to continue riding it every day. And even if you inch something along every day, if it's one phone call that you're going to make to somebody who might give you an opportunity, then make that phone call. On my planner, I have my three top priorities for today, and I will not make it through my day unless I check those three things off. I have three phone calls or three people that I need to reach out to every day. Okay, who do I need to reach out to? Whether it be a realtor, or it be somebody else, whether it be somebody like you, but it was checked off at the end of the day. And this is what I mean about persistence and marketing. The same thing with marketing, you know, creating opportunities or creating programs, and like in my case, creating the fire program took a lot of work, and it was consistent. Just a little bit every single day, and it's having that discipline of getting up, it's like brushing your teeth. It's just, it has to be that automatic, that okay, now I'm going to sit down and okay, I'm going to write this email to this person who might be beneficial. I'm going to invite somebody to coffee. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and it has to be daily. And those little things that may not look like they're getting you anywhere. As you start adding on and adding on and stacking on top of them, they do. They move. An inch at a time will get you a mile in no time.

Ian Robertson  
You know, those are some really important points. First of all, I like that you organize things into lists like that. Have three people a day to call. However it is going to be, network and marketing, whatever it is. I think that's something very actionable all of us can take away. If our business has slowed down right now, the last thing you should be doing is emailing me or Tony, saying, hey, it's slow right now, what should I do? It's like, take that point that Tony just said, at the very least. Take three people a day, three agents a day, an agent and an insurance broker, whatever, whoever we want to call, three people a day, check them off as we go. I like that. But I do like the part about persistence, and I think we learn a lot more about opportunities we lost because we weren't persistent. Like I'll tell you, there was a business idea that I had back in about 2006, 2007 during the great recession. So inspection companies were going well, and like all these properties, they're looking for people to manage them, regularly inspect them for the banks, foreclosed properties. And there's a name for that industry now, I won't get into all the details of it, but I actually went out and started advertising, came up with a corporation for it, and then got distracted, literally just got distracted by something else that took off. I'm like, oh, well, let me follow this now. 

Tony Escamilla  
Shiny object. 

Ian Robertson  
Shiny Object. I'm like, look at that. ADD is both helpful and detrimental. But about five, six years later, this guy calls us to do a website for him. And guess what he was doing?

Tony Escamilla  
That exact same thing.

Ian Robertson  
That exact business model. He's like, Ian, you wouldn't believe it. Nobody else thought of this. And he goes, I started a business. We had 20 employees. I just sold it for however many millions of dollars. And I'm just like, you have no idea, I'm no competition because I gave up so quickly. I mean, I probably wouldn't have lasted too long in it, because there was some stuff about it that I don't really like. But it was a niche within the niche within a niche, and it just exploded, and he sold his business. So there's where persistence and discipline really, really count. I didn't have the persistence and discipline at that point in time to follow that particular path, and we miss a lot of opportunities by having a good idea but not sticking to it. Have you ever lost out on an idea? Maybe nothing that big, but..

Tony Escamilla  
You know, I think there's, maybe not as obvious as that one, but yeah, absolutely, it's not putting the effort forward on something that you could have. For example, the balcony thing I created that I set it aside, didn't do anything with it again, and then it kind of started landing in my lap and kind of forced my hand, and because the phone started a ring, but I was not paying attention to it. I was paying attention to the commercial side, growing the commercial side, and it was doing well. And then I realized what the potential was on the balcony side, and it's like, oh my God, I really need to shift my attention and my effort here and just be persistent with that. And yeah, but yeah, it's one of those things that sometimes it's a corridor principle. I don't know if you've heard of the corridor principle? 

Ian Robertson  
No, what's that?

Tony Escamilla  
The corridor principle is an old principle that says that if you're standing in front of a corridor, a long corridor, there are certain doors on either side of that corridor that you're not going to see unless you're in motion. So if you're in motion, if you're moving forward regularly, there are going to be doors on either side of that corridor that are going to be there. Now, some of them are going to open and some of them are not, but every door that opens is an opportunity, and that's where going back to the whole you know, opportunity meets preparation. And if you're lucky, to be prepared and you have that opportunity because you were moving forward. There's a lot of people who say, well, I'll do this, you know, when the time is right, when things are perfect, when I have this in place, when I have that in place. And sometimes, if you have just enough, move forward, and you might trip and fall, but you get up and you keep going.

Ian Robertson  
I like that, the corridor principle. I wrote that down because I had not heard about that one. I might be the only person listening that hasn't heard of it, maybe. But that's a good one. I like that, you'll only see certain doors when you're in motion. So let me ask you, though, there are some of us that are really good at diversifying, but to a fault, like there's this one inspector who really wanted to do blower door testing, and in some markets, that does pretty well. A lot of markets, the vast majority that I've seen for my clients, it's either over saturated or barely exists. There's one guy, lived in a market where it just didn't exist, and he put every dollar and ounce of energy and everything in the blower door test. He went with, your point about discipline and persistence, and it just flopped to the point where it hurt him financially. At what point, Tony, do you stop and say, okay, I'm giving up on this avenue of diversification that I came up with, when do you stop the train? 

Tony Escamilla  
I think you just have to stop every so often and look back and really analyze. Like I said, I'm a numbers guy, and so I run my numbers, and if this particular service is not doing what it's supposed to, then I ask myself some questions, okay, am I putting enough effort forward on marketing this? If I'm not, maybe that's the missing piece, and I'll try that. But if I continue, you know, throwing money at it, and I see that it's just not doing what it's supposed to do, then it at some point, it's time to cut it off, like that $4,000 camera that I have sitting under my bed. At some point I realized, like, it's just not happening. I'm not going to try to continue it, because there was other costs that come along with having that service that I was paying out and not making any money. And so it just wasn't worth it at some point. And we had another service that was a little bit smaller, and it was not a standalone service, but we started getting phone calls for a standalone service, and there was just zero money in that. As an add on, maybe. But then it was taking too much time from the inspectors, so you have to make that, you have to be able to make that hard decision, okay, this isn't working, and move on. Let it go. Move on. And there's always going to be another door down that corridor that's going to open up.

Ian Robertson  
Yeah, and I guess the balance is not giving up too early, so that you're just opening doors, sticking your head in and walking away all the time, versus picking one door good or bad and just pushing ourselves in no matter what, there's a balance between the two. Do you ever find yourself, so to speak, opening two doors at once and seeing which one looks better?

Tony Escamilla  
This is where my ADD kicks in.

Ian Robertson  
Congratulations, me and you are kindred spirits.

Tony Escamilla  
I open a lot of doors, very frequently. And you know, it's wanting to do more than my body can physically do. And like this last thing that I was talking about that I did this, this presentation that I did this week. I'm glad I did it, because something came out of it. And had I not taken that chance, it wouldn't have but it literally just ate up an entire week of my life. And there were other opportunities as well that I wanted to continue working on, and you have to kind of pick your battles. And I strongly believe in going with my energy flow and where my energy and where my creativity takes me. So if today I have a lot of energy and creativity towards one of the aspects of my business, I'm gonna dedicate myself to that, and I'm just gonna just take it all day long, and then I'll shift gears and move on to something else and just give it all I have on that. And just the idea's, like I said, is being persistent and keeping those things moving forward, even if it's just an inch.

Ian Robertson  
I like that. I think I take a little bit of an opposite effect. Usually I'll go to where I don't want to do because my business mantra has always been, you make money two ways, by doing something that no one else can do or doing something that nobody else wants to do. And since yeah, since I don't really have any talent that makes me better than anybody else at anything, I usually go for the things that nobody wants to do. So my thing has always been, if I don't want to do this, likely nobody else does too. So, I guess there's a balance between those two, those two mantras, if you're feeling it that day, I see the benefit to that, like you're feeling it for your commercial side of your business, that is a legitimate, diversified avenue that leads to profit. So that's gonna be a good place to put your energy. At the same time, you know what? Septic inspections, nobody wants to look at a big hole of somebody else's poo and stick things in it and tell you how thick it is. But that's why they pay us so well.

Tony Escamilla  
And that's where discipline comes in. I think Brian Tracy said it the best, discipline is doing what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. And those are the things like you said, doing the whole septic thing is probably not the, you know, your favorite thing to be focusing on, but...

Ian Robertson  
It's our number two service.

Tony Escamilla  
But it's very necessary.

Ian Robertson  
Sorry Tony, had a corny moment there. No, and that's exactly it, having the discipline to do the things that we don't want to, to follow where you said our energy is going. So we may feel really energetic about being creative with our, like your commercial or, let's say, the balcony aspect of your company, but at the same time, you might hit some spots where you're like, I really don't feel like writing another article on ballast or rot. You know it's like, but this is what's happening right now, and so you push through it to follow your passion. Yeah. So it's a combo of that, good point. Tony, if you were to give, and I took some good notes from our discussion here. I like the corridor principle. Look for opportunities, either create, find them with regulation. And I really like that point, looking for opportunities and regulation that you sent over earlier. I never thought of it as concisely as that. And then value is set by the customer. If you were to give one of the home inspectors your coaching, they said, hey, how can I start diversifying right now? What advice would you give them? 



Tony Escamilla  
Look for the things that, there's lots of things that you can do to diversify, of course, all of the typical ancillary services. I always look when I'm considering something is okay, what is going to require the least amount of effort and the least amount of money that can still help make me money. And you know, it's something as simple as sewer or radon. Okay, that's easy. That's a no brainer. But if another opportunity comes, you have to analyze and say, okay, do I have to spend money here? And how much do I have to spend? What's my potential to make that money back and what's the potential to it to actually grow this? And if the answer is, I'm spending more money than and putting in more effort than the potential for growth, then it's probably not a good idea. So I always try to go, always go with the low hanging fruit first. Go for that first. 

Ian Robertson  
That was some fantastic advice to end our podcast on. That was a great sound bite. Go for the low cost, high yield stuff first. It might be great to buy $10,000 in equipment and have this great service. But can we make good money with low overhead, with the basic ones and grow from there. Perfect advice. Tony, this was a great discussion. You've been a great guest. 

Tony Escamilla  
Oh thank you, Ian, I've been wanting to be on here for a bit. I've been a big fan for a long time.

Ian Robertson  
Well, we've been a big fan of yours too, and we're really glad that you made the time out of your already busy schedule. You're a business owner. You're running a whole company here, so multiple faceted company. So we really appreciate you taking your time and again, for anybody listening, Tony's book is Beyond Inspecting, a guide to growing your home inspection business. Definitely a recommended read. Get it. Contact Tony with any questions. He's on the InterNACHI website as a mentor.

Tony Escamilla  
I still mentor, yeah.

Ian Robertson  
Yeah. I mean, I just offered you up there because you're a mentor. I'm sorry, Tony, but everybody, blow up his phone. But Tony, you sharing your knowledge and your wisdom and things that you have earned over your 26 years of inspecting, that you've earned with your own blood, sweat, and tears, is a beautiful gift that you've given to everyone. So thank you very much, and hopefully we'll be able to have you on again.

Tony Escamilla  
Awesome. All right, Ian, thank you so much. 

Ian Robertson  
Thank you. 

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.