Digital Evolution: Amplifying Visibility with Jim of Check A Pro Radio

Jim, host of Check A Pro Radio & Podcasts, delves deep into leveraging videos, podcasts, and books to amplify the online presence of home service professionals. With Corey Berrier, they unravel strategies for credibility, the power of third-party endorsements, and the transformative journey from radio to video. Keywords: Jim, Check A Pro, Corey Berrier, podcasts, videos, online visibility, credibility, AI, customer interaction, third-party endorsements, books.

http://theradiopitchman.com

Support the show

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-AI-Sales-Frankenstein-ebook/dp/B0BX6G5THP/ref=sr_1_3?crid=16J189ZUCE8K6&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1678457765&sprefix=corey+berrier%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-3


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrPl4lUyKV7hZxoTksQDsyg

https://www.facebook.com/corey.berrier

https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/

Transcript

Corey Berrier: 2:31

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier, and I am here with my man, Jim Klauck. What's up,

Jim Klauck: 2:37

brother? Hey Corey. How you doing, bud? Thanks for having me on the

Corey Berrier: 2:40

program. Yes, sir. Actually, I'm really shocked. I don't normally get people's last name right, but I think I was successful today.

Jim Klauck: 2:48

Pretty good. It's Jim Klauck. It sounds like Ka. Oh, thank I was close. It's German. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a popular name, but it is in my family. Yeah. So,

Corey Berrier: 3:00

Jim, what, so you look, let's just dive into it. You have got you got a pretty unique spin. Well, if you wanna tell everybody who you are and a little bit about yourself,

Jim Klauck: 3:10

go ahead and do that, and then I'll ask you question. Yeah. So, so, I will tell you that I got married 25 years ago to a wonderful woman. Her name is Robin. I've got two beautiful children, Jimmy, who's 22, and Ashley, who's 20. So I am a a husband and a father, and I'm also very deep into helping home service professionals get their image out there and their name not so much by building logos and so forth. I started a company back in 2005. Called Check a pro, and at the time it was like a local Andrews list and I've expanded it through my experience in radio and podcasting. So I started in Houston, Texas in oh five, but now you can find clients of mine coast to coast. And what I specialize in is exactly what you and I are doing today using video and podcast to bring that. Contractor, the owner of the company to the forefront. So you know, Corey, when you want to buy something from someone, you generally wanna buy from someone you know, like and trust, right? That's right. Yeah. And that's what we do when we produce these videos that we put into podcast form, which are on Spotify and Apple and Amazon and Google. These are short three to five minute videos where we profile not just the owner, but we talk about frequently asked questions. I'm gonna pull a book out here called, They ask you Answer, which is a bestselling book by my friend Marcus Sheridan. And Marcus Sheridan back in oh nine, had a home service company, a pool company, which he still has interest in. But if you remember Cory,'cause you were young back then in oh nine. In oh nine, there was a banking crisis. His company, river Pools almost went bankrupt. So he scrambled and he started to experiment with blogging and videos and asking frequently asked questions in the form of video on his website. So that's the, they ask a frequently asked question, what a homeowner may ask, and then you answer it. They ask you answer. We use his system to do the same thing. So for instance, Let's say that I'm talking with a plumber on this podcast, and a frequently asked question could be, what's the difference between a tank and a tankless water heater? These are frequently asked questions, so not only are you getting it in text form because we do transcribe it and there's closed captioning on the video. Also, you're hearing it directly from the owner of the company, and chances are you're going to buy from that individual that you see. So after you see that, you scroll to the next video, and maybe the next video is, what's Pex piping? I don't even know what that is. But you watch the guy again and you're like boom. Marcus Sheridan found the longer people spent on your website watching videos that you've produced. The more likely they are to engage. And then something more exciting than that, maybe or the next thing is this next book I've got books. Books are amazing. Everybody, I suggest you read'em. And by the way, I wanna give some books out here on the program, if you don't mind. Perfect. And so this book, I wrote the Ford of this book written by a buddy of mine, Tom Decker, attic insulation guy. When can you do it? In one year, we tripled his business from over 800,000 to$3 million using this process. And the when can you do a thing is like this. Think about this, everybody, homeowners are people who collect information. Wouldn't you want them to collect more information before you actually drove 45 minutes an hour to the sales appointment? Because when they do that and you go out there and they already know who you are, what the products are. All the specifics of a job, maybe even what it could cost. All you want the homeowner to ask is when can you do it? You don't wanna spend another hour and a half to find out they can't afford it or it's not the right product or service for them. Fascinating.

Corey Berrier: 7:12

That's so one thing that I think too, you mentioned, you know when people can hear that homeowner or the contractor talking, but they're also seeing in video, right? So, and Google picks up the transcript, so, You're really hitting, you know, as a kinesthetic person, you're hitting all the senses right here. See, well, maybe not smell, hopefully, but I yet we're working on it end. So it really, it indexes on Google. It indexes. So whenever you put that out, and obviously YouTube is owned by Google. So assuming that the YouTube, would you put it on

Jim Klauck: 7:48

YouTube? Yeah. So here's really cool, okay and I'll give an example. One of our clients is a one Garage doors Tommy Me's company. You may know who Tommy is. And so we built a website, it's a podcast site specifically for this. It looks a lot like his website, so it's an A one garage door podcast site. When you go to it, you'll see all the podcasts listed there. Now, once they're there, we can then put them on your social media so they can go onto your Facebook page, onto your YouTube page. We put them on Apple Podcasts and tune in and iHeartRadio and Spotify. You go down the list probably on about 25 apps, and then here's what's really cool. I think you'll really like this, Corey. We put back links on each one of those placements, so you'll get a back link. From Amazon, from Apple to wherever you want, which should be your main homepage. Not the podcast site we built for you, but your main site.

Corey Berrier: 8:46

Interesting. I have to figure I gotta ask how you do that, or maybe you could tell me, maybe it's a longer conversation, but

Jim Klauck: 8:56

it's a longer conversation. But certainly if you wanna learn more, you can contact me and Corey. I'm sure we'll get information there. You go in, in the notes. But Corey Let's get up back on another Zoom call you and I and I'll explain it. But I'll, you know, I can explain to anybody. And actually that's a good question. I should probably create a video and post it so everyone can learn. But I don't wanna give away all the secrets, but you know, it's like anything else. I can show you how to do it, but you probably won't do it. It's kind of like a plumber, right? A plumber can do a video all day long about rebuilding a toilet tank, but most people won't do it. Some will try fail, hire the plumber. Some won't even try. They'll just hire the plumber. That's

Corey Berrier: 9:29

right. No I totally agree with you. So, there was something else you said that really struck my brain. Okay. Oh, you said you mentioned how much more likely is it for the homeowner to do business with you? If you can answer all our questions before you get to the house. Right. So, I'll take that a step further. What if there was a way for them to interact with that homeowner through a bot? And when most people hear bot, they think,

Jim Klauck: 9:59

that's weird. Yeah, because it's,

Corey Berrier: 10:01

there's a lot of bad ones out there. A lot. Most of them. But what if you could also book the homeowner from that video to the bot? Right. They see the video first'cause that's gonna be the most attractive. And then there's a bot down below that speaks like Tommy Meow, for example, since we brought his name up and it books straight on

Jim Klauck: 10:20

his calendar. That's what I'm that's cool. And that's what's great about collaborating with other tech companies or individuals such as yourself because things are changing so quickly now. You and I have talked about AI and a lot of people using chat, G P T and so forth, and, but a lot of people don't know how to apply it, right? So we can all play with it. It's like an advanced Google. You can go in there and start typing stuff and you can have, you know, or you could write. A script or you could write a paper for your class, which you have to be careful. It might get in trouble. Depends if it depends on your professor in the school. So it, you know, it's amazing. But you know, people like you, Corey, and other professionals out there are really working on how to apply AI and sometimes plug it into something that I do. Yeah, a hundred

Corey Berrier: 11:05

percent. It almost, you can plug it into just about anything. So, I don't wanna make this conversation about AI because it's about what you're here for. So let me ask you, what made you think about the video idea? What kind sparked that in your brain? I'm

Jim Klauck: 11:20

just curious. I have to be very honest. I will tell you what sparks up my brain. So I'm gonna back up a little bit and then I'm gonna tell you what happened. So, I started doing radio decades ago to promote my own business, and then I started promoting home service professionals on my radio show, and then it went from broadcast radio, which I still do some broadcast radio for some clients. You may have heard of Cody Johnson from Garage Door Doctor. They're actually part of a one now, and so in any case I, you know, profile them. Also did the same thing with Tom Decker's company, an attic insulation company, and it's kind of a. Infomercial, but it sounds like a radio program. And we make sure that we give away something for free. We make sure that there's only so many of them left. So there's, you know, it's scarce. People want to act now and they have the fear of missing out. So I went from the broadcast, which is audio on predominantly AM and FM radio to podcast and audio. And I'm doing the one for Tommy Meow. And so I'm on a call with Tommy one day and he's like, you know, this is really great. Love what you're doing for us with the podcast, but I want to do video. And I said, well, that's not what I do, Jim. You're not listening. I want video. And I said, yes, sir, Mr. Tommy Meow. So Tommy is the one that actually pushed me into going into video. So hopefully I look good because I'm a radio guy. I'm not meant to be on tv, but here I am. So that's the story. And that was a couple years ago.

Corey Berrier: 12:58

That's fantastic. You know what you it feels like what you do, it almost is a referral, right? That we all know that referral is the best way to get business. And if you're interviewing the business owner and asking the business owner questions that he wants to answer that his, that are most pertinent to his business, it's almost like a referral, right?

Jim Klauck: 13:43

Yes. Yeah. So what I like to tell, Home service professionals who are interested in doing something like this is, look, you can do your own videos. As a matter of fact, they ask you, answer, we'll tell you how to do everything on your own. In other words, take your iPhone, you know, do selfies, take videos, have someone in your office do it, and you can go around saying how great you are. Right? So, you know, I picture this. You know, a, b, c roofing here. We've been in roofing since you know, Jesus was born and we, you know, won the B Pinnacle Award 6 million times, and we have 8,000,000,005 star reviews on Google. We're great. Now, the problem with that, Corey, is the homeowner doesn't care about you. Everyone cares about themselves first. There's, and I'm not even gonna argue that one is true. So instead of saying how great you are, why don't you have a third party? Someone like me, it could be anybody that's not related to you, that brings out the best in you and then puts you on a pedestal and says, this is a fantastic home service provider company. They're the best plumber or roofer in, in, you know, this part of Arizona or Texas or Florida, whatever. And. It. It's a third party endorsement. So back in oh five when I started Checkup Pro, I told you it's like a local Angie's list, or they call Angie now and we pre-qualify all the contractors on the website. We check insurance licenses and references. So they're already standing apart from the rest of them. And the podcast, these are three to five minute podcasts I do. Just with that home service provider, like a one garage door service, for instance. Okay. So we're doing one just for them. And so when I went from radio to the podcast world, I had an idea, I'll make it. An excerpt from the radio show. So when I do an interview with, let's say it's Personal Plumbing with Bob Mueller, okay, I do something like this. Check a pro Joe here from the Check A Pro Radio show, and here with my good friend Bob Mueller from Personal Plumbing. How are you, Bob? And he says, great. It sounds as though they're on the radio program in a video format in an excerpt of the long show.

Corey Berrier: 16:02

Makes total sense to me. And I'll tell you the other thing is, and I know you said anybody can do this but can they, I mean, I say that because, you know, by you asking the right questions, knowing how to get it to flow the right way, that's not an easy job. That takes a lot of practice. That takes a lot of work to get to the point, to be able to do

Jim Klauck: 16:26

that. I'm gonna let the cat outta the bag. I've been doing this for almost 40 years, so when I was 18, I started radio at the local radio station on campus at the University of Hartford called W ss a m I was a freshman, I was 18 years old, so, it was almost 40 years ago when I started radio. So it's like anything else. It's kind of easy for me. It is difficult for some people to be able to do exactly what I do, so I really have kind of these unique skill sets that I've put together and a little bit of an aside because I love talking to people, especially young people. So if there's any young people watching this, take some advice from an older guy. Learn to do something that you enjoy and do it really well. So when you're old like me, You can be ahead of the pack.'cause most people aren't going to be that disciplined to be the best in their field.

Corey Berrier: 17:28

So I totally agree with you. Alright, so how do you get people, and I know you, I would think you would agree with this, there's something about being on video that people just jam up. Like, they just lock up. That's like they're in a different world or different country or I don't know what happens. How do you get people to feel comfortable in

Jim Klauck: 17:50

front of the camera? Well, I have to thank Covid. Because many people started to do video calls on Zoom or other types of programs like that, right? Because they were stuck in their homes. They couldn't fly to go see one for a meeting or even drive to go see, you know, a client or a prospect. So people started doing Zoom calls. So I think people got more, I. Comfortable with that. And I'd like to think, Cory, that I make people feel very comfortable. So I tell people it's like dancing. A lot of people don't know how to ballroom dance, but if you take a great dancer, and I'm gonna go back a long time, there was a guy by the name of Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire was one of the best dancers of all time. Anyone will look good with Fred Astaire because he knows how to lead. A really good dancer can lead. My job is to lead. So I tell people who aren't comfortable with this, I say, look, you know your business, right? They're like, yeah, I'm a plumber. I know my business. So you can answer these questions about water heaters. Yeah, I can answer them. I said, don't worry about anything else. I will lead. And if they start to fumble a little bit and they, you know, fall down, I bring'em right back up because that's my job. I'm the guy who's leading it, keeping it moving forward. And generally all my clients look like superstars. They do. Great. Makes sense.

Corey Berrier: 19:06

Makes sense. Now you're also an author, right?

Jim Klauck: 19:10

I have written a book or two. The first book I wrote was called Meet Check a Pro Joe, and that book. Was written for the homeowner, but it was written by clients of mine. So it's written by plumbers and roofers and HVAC guys. And it was really kind of a neat marketing piece where they all wrote a chapter about their expertise and then their contact information was at the end of their chapter. But what's cool is the electrician gives it to the homeowner client saying, look, I'm published. If you need more information about me, it's in here. Kind of like a directory with a story about me. Tips, but also the plumber's information's in there, so is the roofer. So if they all give it out, you can see how the web works, right? In one community. And we did that in Houston, Texas, very successful book because it gave them credibility and it was a cool marketing piece. Most recently, I've written a very small book. It's a mini book. And I will tell you, there's no excuse not to read this. Corey is smiling, but Corey will also agree that if I sent you these two books, which one are you gonna read first? Probably the little one.'cause we like to get rid of the little stuff first, right? This can be read in like 23 minutes. It's 50 pages. It's called the Radio Pitchman Podcast Playbook, and it is down to the point. If you want to know anything about the type of work I do for my clients and how to do it and what not to do. It's in this book, and there's also an audio version on Audible if you wanna listen to it. It's absolutely free on Audible. And also, if anyone wants a copy of this book, I will send it to them. Just let me know.

Corey Berrier: 20:48

Perfect. I think if you're willing to give out a book, people should maybe go to your podcast also and check it out, which is, well, you've got several, but your main

Jim Klauck: 20:59

podcast is, I've got several the radio pitchman.com. And the reason why I call myself the radio pitchman is I've made so much money pitching things on the radio. So a pitchman is like Billy Maze. Remember Billy May, he used to sell Oxy, right? Well, Oxyclean be careful. He did Oxy apparently, right? Yeah, sorry about ironic, isn't it? But in any case, he would sell the cleaning products. Billie Mays here, right? And so I did the same thing with a little less flash on radio. So, I'm known as the radio pitchman and I've now moved that into the podcast world. So that's why it's called the Radio Pitch Men's podcast playbook, the radio pitchman.com. When you go there, you will see a little bit about me, but also you'll see some of our clients that are profiled there.

Corey Berrier: 21:52

So what kind of, you know, I know you took the one company from I, I don't know, eight, 800 to 3 million million. So what kind of growth do you see with the video or did you see much of a difference between moving from just voice to video? Tell us a little bit about that.

Jim Klauck: 22:11

Well, as you know, because you're a backend guy, guru, you know that Google likes that a lot. So video is key. If you don't have a video, it certainly can't be indexed as a video. It won't show up, right? So that's important. A picture's worth a thousand words or possibly more than that. I. What I tell my clients is, look, we can do all kinds of cool stuff on the backend where Google will digest this, and when someone types in your name for it, you know your company name, you're gonna show up in all kinds of places. Hopefully when they type in, I have a burst pipe, you'll show up as well. But this is the most important thing. I tell people to use it offline and they're like, what does that mean? You've got this library. Videos you should have at the bottom of every email in your signature. Click here to see our podcasts or to watch our videos also. This is a great one. Think about this. You're an HVAC company and you're doing bids all day long and you're at this home and the homeowner's looking at four HVAC companies, you're one of them. And everyone agrees that they need a five ton downstairs and a three ton upstairs. That's been determined. It's been sized. Everyone knows that. But the price, the service, how long the company's been in business, the sales staff, the technicians, that's all different. But what if you said to the homeowner, Hey, I know you're. Wanna make a decision soon. You know, you're not sure who you wanna hire yet. I know that we're actually$3,800 more, but look at all this great stuff. We've been in business a long time and, you know, we're gonna give you a free service plan for the, you know, first five years, so on and so forth. But let me share something else with you. We do a podcast, and six months ago we talked about an install just like this one, a three ton and a five ton. Can I share that with you? Boom. You send that off from your phone to their phone now they see you again. I'm interviewing you. It looks great. It sounds great. The other guys don't have that. Can that make a difference? I think so. And it does for sure. So, so that's a little less tangible. A lot of people wanna say, let me see the numbers. Okay, that's fine. Numbers are one thing, but how are you using this offline? Be creative. You've produced this thing. Let's use it out in the field.

Corey Berrier: 24:39

Yeah, a hundred percent. And what are the chances they're gonna watch another video and another video? Probably pretty good.'cause that may not answer every one of their questions and it shows that technologically you're ahead of everybody else, which not super hard to do in these

Jim Klauck: 24:57

industries. No, but I'll tell you something about. The home service industry, and most people in home services will agree. They're a little bit behind than other industries. They're not considered techie. I have seen though, in the past decade, a lot of changes, but you go back 10 years and certainly 20 years, and people were just turning wrenches. They didn't know anything. They didn't even wanna know about websites because I'll tell you back in oh five when I started Checkup Pro, A lot of my home service customers, my clients didn't even have a website and they said, how can I sign up with you? I don't have a website. I said, good news. Our website ranks real high. We can be your website for now and I can refer you to someone who can build you one. This was back in oh five and believe it or not, in oh five, a lot of small businesses were just getting a website. Yeah. I totally

Corey Berrier: 25:48

believe that. You know, you know, websites unbelievably, I. But at the same time, it's not everything, right? Meaning like it probably was in 2005, but I hear lots of times guys will say, you know, I gotta get my website up first. Da. You do need to get a website up.'cause it's kinda like a billboard. It's kind of like where people are just gonna stop and check you out. But,

Jim Klauck: 26:11

well, it's your storefront, especially if you're a home service professional, people aren't gonna come to your shop. They're gonna That's right. And they, and that's their first impression. Yeah, a hundred

Corey Berrier: 26:21

percent. And it's gotta, and they gotta be able to find you, you know? So the website's gotta be right, but still you've gotta do stuff like what you're talking about to set yourself

Jim Klauck: 26:30

apart. Yeah. And actually, you know, it's interesting too, when you have a website, what is the first thing that people see? It could be an image, it could be a video you put up. It could be a coupon. Obviously your phone number should be up there. And by the way, your phone number should be there on the top right hand corner. F y i. It should be big. Don't hide a phone number. For goodness sakes. People still will call. There should be a place to chat. There should be a place to book an appointment. But I also tell my clients this, with these videos, we have an embedded podcast player. We send you the code. It goes right on your homepage if you want. So one of the first things they see, Is you talking to them with me? Right. So it's use the technology today and reach out to people like Corey or me or other people who know tech in your field. I only work with home service. Those are my clients. So when you check out, you know, if you go online and you type in my name, you're gonna see a lot of different home service companies that work with me or I work with in producing these videos on these unique podcast sites for them. And you know, people like Corey and I understand the ins and outs of that industry. We don't deal in aviation, we're not dealing with attorneys and that type of stuff for the most. Corey might do some of that. I don't. I predominantly spend my time with home service. I've been in it for 20 years. On this side of it, I've never turned a wrench professionally, but I own a small ranch and I've remodeled kitchens and bathrooms and I do all my own work until it gets to be a little much. And I bring in, you know, professionals. But I understand how it works. I understand being on the homeowner side'cause I'm that typical homeowner. That my clients are trying to reach middle-aged plus. Be careful now. Okay. Someone who owns a home that needs stuff done. So I understand the homeowner side and all my clients are home service professionals. I.

Corey Berrier: 28:35

It's interesting'cause the both of us have never turned a wrench professionally, as you mentioned. You know, for me, that, that was a problem when I first started working with contract. It's only been a few years, but I always had this feeling like almost like I didn't fit in. Almost like, well, do I really belong here? But the truth of the matter is what we bring to the industry. Is very much so needed because most of the people, obviously, that we work with don't have the skills that we offer or maybe not as good as the skills as we offer, and they vice versa. They have skills that we don't offer. Right. So, yeah. Yeah, it just took me a minute to kind of

Jim Klauck: 29:21

wrap my head around that. Yeah. But Corey, it's really not that much different than a homeowner calling a plumber. Saying I needed to fix something, you're kind of in the plumber's position on that tech side. So, I mean, most homeowners and contractors have nothing in common per se. They could, but chances they don't, especially if that, Homeowners are white collar professionals that're now further away from ever turning a wrench. I've kind of always been on the white collar professional side in terms of what I do for a living, but I've always had tools in my hand since I was a kid. My dad introduced me to tools when I was just a little kid, and I work on things mechanically, but I actually less than the mechanic side. I really like to build and repair things and so, I can get away with doing a lot of things myself, but what's interesting is I find it odd because I'm so used to understanding home improvement myself. I find it odd when I talk to the average homeowner. They don't even know where their water heater is in their house, right? They don't know how to turn it off. They dunno how to change the temperature. They don't know how to restart the light. They don't know anything. I find that extremely strange because I know the mechanics of my house. Now I don't know everything, so sometimes I have to hire a technician to come in. But guess what I'm doing? I'm following the technician around saying, why are you doing that? What's that switch for? Right? What are put a meter on that for? And so I've learned a lot as well.

Corey Berrier: 30:56

So I'm curious whose job that, you know, when we bought our house, like I was that person, I had no earthly idea. I had, I can't remember, I should really probably know this, but it was the the valve, it was, it's not a shutoff valve, but it's the sensor that if something goes sideways with the hot water here, if it starts leaking, I can't remember what it's called, but it essentially,

Jim Klauck: 31:17

it'll automatically shut it down. Yes. And so I

Corey Berrier: 31:20

didn't know where my main water was. I had absolutely no idea. So is it the realtor's job to tell us that? How are we supposed to know that?

Jim Klauck: 31:28

The home inspector. So when you buy a home, follow that home inspector around. The home inspector works for you, the homeowner. And sometimes the home inspector will ruin a deal because they don't really care if the deal goes through, they get paid either way. Their job is to make sure you, the homeowner, the one paying them. Is doing a job to determine whether or not you should go through with this sale. So I always follow the home inspector around and they will find everything and they'll say, Hey, by the way, you know, a good one will say, Hey, by the way, this is where I. The main shutoff is here's the electrical panel for this part of the house, but actually I found another one over here. This one appears to be for the pool equipment, and they'll explain things to you, and it's really important to have a good home inspector. Actually, on that point, do not skimp on the home inspector. First of all, always get a home inspection when you're buying a property. And number two, Don't go necessarily with the best price, go with the best individual. Some people don't wanna spend over$500 or$600. When I bought my ranch, there's barns and so forth. That was 10 years ago. I spent around$1,600, which at the time was considered a lot of money. But this guy wasn't just a home inspector, he was also an engineer. So he knew a lot and he came highly recommended, and I got my money's worth because I followed him around. He spent a day on the property with me and we found some stuff we wouldn't have found because it's an extensive property.

Corey Berrier: 33:06

How much do you think that saved you find in that stuff beforehand by having a good

Jim Klauck: 33:10

inspector? Who knows? Because there's been some times I've had to turn the, you know, the water off or wondered why the pool pump. Tripped and where are those breakers? So would've had to hire someone to come in, like an electrician to do that. So for me, it's really hard to say over the decade that I've owned the property, thousands and thousands. But I have peace of mind too, because this isn't the guy who was just checking off boxes. It's really not his responsibility. You know, two years later, if the house falls down, what am I gonna do? Right. It's done. You really need to have someone that you can trust. And you know what's interesting is one of my. Podcast clients that we do videos for is a home inspector in Southern California, and he has cool stories because he, he does a lot of high-end properties, millions of dollars. And so he's got some really cool stories, but he likes to do these videos as well so he can tell people upfront the importance of it, what happens if we find this, that type of stuff. So it's yeah, it's important to get a home inspection and to have the right inspector. Yeah, it's really

Corey Berrier: 34:19

not that much more money, right? Even if it's you're talking 500 to 1600, that's not a massive amount of money for what you could save. What you're probably gonna save in time, effort whatever. It's gonna cost you to have somebody else come out.

Jim Klauck: 34:34

Well, sure people are buying half a million, or even today, over$1 million properties in a flash. Everything's gone up so much. I mean, years ago when someone owned a million dollar home, they were rich. A lot of people own million dollar homes now. So if you're spending half a million to a million dollars, why aren't you spending$1,500 to make sure that it's a good buy? You gotta be crazy. But people just want it to go through and and the realtors especially, they don't want any problems. They want it to go through. One of the biggest problems realtors have is the home inspector.'cause a home inspector can kill a deal. Absolutely kill a deal because he'll say, you know what? I found mold done over, the homeowner's probably not gonna buy it. Or, you know what? The structure's not that good. It's gonna cost like, you know,$80,000 to shore this thing up. And the homeowner, I mean, and the buyer says, I'm backing out.'cause that's why they had that inspection period. That is a way for them to get out of the deal. And it happens. And realtors hate that because they want. The deal will go through obviously, so they can get paid, right? That's right,

Corey Berrier: 35:38

a hundred percent. Do you, would you normally recommend you know, getting that inspector from the realtor? No. Because that seems like that could be a slight conflict

Jim Klauck: 35:46

of interest. It is a conflict of interest. So generally what I do when I hire a home inspector, I independently go out there and hire someone and I'll often spend extra money for them to drive an hour to an hour and a half in, so they don't have relationships in my community. So they don't, so there is no conflict. So if they're driving an hour and a half in, I'll pay for the extra drive time for the fact that I don't feel they have any interest in that marketplace. Does that make sense?

Corey Berrier: 36:18

That makes total sense, Uhhuh. Yep. Yeah, that makes total sense. Fascinating. Okay. So surely you've got some pretty funny stories about some of the people that you've worked with. You don't have to say the names, but what I'm just curious. Like, there has to be somebody maybe that sticks out in your mind that was just quirky or interesting to work with or maybe even hard to work with. Can you tell us a quick story about that?

Jim Klauck: 36:50

I'll first start by saying I no longer work with people that are not easy to work with. So I've gotten to the point in my career where I only work with home service professionals that I can see eye to eye with and they can be quirky'cause everyone's a little odd. I'm strange, I'm sure. Everyone's a little odd. Gosh, to answer that question, I mean, everyone's a character and one thing that I'm blessed with, Is the time I've been on Earth. The longer you've been around, the more you see and the more you realize that everyone's not the same and everyone needs to be managed differently. So I do a pretty good job of understanding who the character is that I'm interviewing and putting forth to the homeowner through the videos. And if they are like really, like strange and have, you know, a strange tick or they seem odd, I try to smooth that out the best I can during the interview process. So they don't seem too strange to the viewer. And sometimes I'll, you know, sometimes I'll say I don't think you're the best person to represent. To the community. Do you have a partner or someone else in your organization that would really be good at this? And often they'll come to me and say, you know, I'm a little strange. I'm like, okay, I don't wanna be the one on the video. I like to have someone who works for me do it. If you believe that's the best thing, then fine. But in the home service world, there are some interesting characters. No question

Corey Berrier: 38:22

about it. No question about it. So, alright. So I. I asked you about your book, I think at the end of the day or at the end of the show, I should say. I think'cause we are getting close, you were wanting to, you were wanting to give a few books away. Yes. And I would ask that people go in addition to whatever your ask is, that people would go and check out, like I said before your podcast and then maybe one step further, maybe throw a review out there.'cause I think you're gonna give some pretty cool

38:54

stuff.

Jim Klauck: 38:55

I'm gonna give some cool stuff to everybody. So Corey, if you do me a favor in the notes of your podcast, do make sure that you put my email in there so people can email me. And so like I do as the radio pitchman on the radio, I'll say, this is a limited time offer and the first five people to contact me, we'll get the following. I'm gonna give you my book, okay? I am gonna sign it for you. I'm gonna give you Tom Decker's book called, When can you do it? Awesome book. I did write the forward to the book. Tom has signed this book and my friend Tommy Melo. Has given me some signed copies of his latest book called Elevate. So the first five people who contact me via email, my email address, f y i is jim@theradiopitchman.com. jim@theradiopitchman.com sign book by Tommy Meow. Sign book by Tom Decker and I will sign my book. Read this first'cause it's the quickest one to read and if you have any questions let me know. I often, Corey will help people. Over the phone or a Zoom call because they'll say, Hey look, I'm doing my own podcast. I've been doing it for three months. I'm kind of, you know, floundering a bit. Can you gimme some tips? And I will. What I do isn't for everybody, it's kind of like home improvement. Some people insist on building their own, you know, let's say their own porch. Okay. Or their own shed in the backyard instead of hiring a contractor to build it for them, that's fine. But other people are like, I don't wanna build my own shed. Right? So I'm the kind of, you know, I'm for the guy or gal who wants it done professionally with our system. But if you're already doing something and you insist on doing your own podcast, which is fine, I can give you some tips on what to do and what not to do, including some really inexpensive. Camera options, microphone options, lighting options, because it's important that you sound good. Corey's using a really good microphone. That's important. It's important to have a camera. So some people say, Hey, do you have a camera, man? I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, well, the camera follows you around. I'm like, yeah, it's$150 camera. So I can tell you about that too. So reach out to me.

Corey Berrier: 41:07

Yeah, a hundred percent. I love the camera that you used. I think we used the exact same camera. I. It's a game changer.

Jim Klauck: 41:13

It is, yeah. A

Corey Berrier: 41:14

hundred percent. Well Jim, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate you, my friend, and

Jim Klauck: 41:19

have a great day. Thank you, Corey. I appreciate it. Yes, sir. I.