ThinkBiz Podcast
ThinkBiz Podcast is your go-to show for real conversations about building and growing your business. Hosted by Garrett Hammonds of Hammonds Media and Nolan Rogers, we dive into the challenges, wins, and strategies that matter most to small and startup companies. Tune in for expert advice, inspiring stories, and actionable tips to take your business to the next level.
ThinkBiz Podcast
The House Whisperer: Mike McDaniel on Decoding Property Inspections & Entrepreneurial Leaps
Prepare for a wild ride as Mike McDaniel of National Property Inspections (NPI) Oklahoma City, reveals some of the most ridiculous and memorable inspections he's encountered, including houses with rattlesnakes, an entire church in the backyard, and extreme hoarder situations. Beyond the bizarre, Mike offers invaluable advice for anyone at a career crossroads, emphasizing the importance of doing your homework and not being scared to jump into a new venture. He also delves into the critical role of investing in a good marketing firm for business growth, detailing how NPI's amazing marketing team tailors strategies to individual personalities.
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Podcast is produced by Hammonds Media. For assistance with you digital marketing needs, visit https://www.hammondsmedia.com
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SPEAKER_00:should next time you're doing a sound check run some hildegard von bingen
SPEAKER_02:oh yeah we use that yeah oh yeah to to check like low frequency stuff
SPEAKER_00:so hello everyone welcome good morning garrett how are we We, Mike, have been surprising our guests by starting the podcast because we're silly. So I've just been hitting record the last few episodes and we're goofy, goosey ganders over here. Welcome, welcome. We have Mike. You know what, Mike? I actually don't know if I remember your last name.
SPEAKER_02:It's McDaniel.
SPEAKER_00:McDaniel. Mike McDaniel. To my shame, I did not remember. That's all right. It's early. That's why my name is Garrett. My name is Robert the Bruce. Here we go again. Here we go again. And of course, we have the infamous Nolan with us this morning. Don't bother, we're infamous today. But Mike, so happy to have you. Thank you for being on the podcast. Yeah, you're welcome. This is actually our second time having Mike. Technical difficulties. Stand by. Yep. If you have been thinking to yourself after hearing that, I haven't heard Mike on the podcast before. That's correct. That is correct. We totally botched the audio the last time. We fixed it. Everything's better now. We think- The technology works. Yep. So take two, action. Voila. Mike, tell us about yourself. Who are you? What do you do? And give us like just a fun fact about yourself.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm Mike McDaniel. I am- The lead inspector and market development person for national property inspections for Oklahoma City. We have a multi-inspector firm. There's three of us. And we service Oklahoma City and the southwest part of the state, like Lawton, Fort Sill, you know, Duncan, Marlowe, Chickasha, and everything in between. So... Yeah, it's very busy.
SPEAKER_00:And this is fairly new with the natural property inspection. But you're not new to the game at all. No, not at all. You've been doing it for a long
SPEAKER_02:time. So I spent the last 28 years in the oil and gas industry. I hit that mark where I could retire, and I did. And, you know, through... extracurricular activities. You know, I've known Mark for a while and.
SPEAKER_00:And Mark is your partner.
SPEAKER_02:Mark's the partner. Um, and Dustin, we're all partners really. I mean, you know, it, it makes a team, it takes a team to, to, to make this crazy thing go around. So, um, it's more like three brothers, uh, working together and, you know, wrestling in the dirt after it all said and done that way we can figure out who was right and who's wrong. Yeah. So that's fair. It's, it's really a lot of fun. Um, being a part of this is, you know, definitely, uh, in the long run was, is going to be a very good move for all of us. So, um, you know, Being out on your own, and you guys know how that is, it's a little taxing sometimes. But coming into this MPI family, you've got support, you've got marketing folks, you've got coaches, you've got all of this stuff at your fingertips now that makes life a little bit easier.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Well, I... I love that there's people out there doing exactly what you do because when I was buying my first home, it was, I mean, I was... I had no idea what I was doing. That's a good way to put it. And so there's a lot to learn when you're buying a house. And when you can bring in an inspector who can tell you exactly, hey, here's some things you need to pay attention to before you pull the trigger on this property, gives you a little bit of extra peace and assurance that you're not making a terrible life decision. Yeah. On something very
SPEAKER_02:expensive. One of the things we pride ourselves on is making it not scary. Because I have a friend of mine that has a saying, and I've kind of latched onto it. Imperfect houses are built by imperfect people. People are going to miss things. People are going to... have off days, you know, and that's why we're there to find it. As good or as bad as a home might be, they're typically not that bad. And when you look at a home inspection report, I mean, it can scare, you know, the biggest, baddest, you know, investor on the planet. But we pride ourselves on, you know, being impartial and really being thorough on it. And as we go through those reports with our clients and realtors and stuff like that is to make it not scary, but state the facts. You know, a lot of people are in this industry are just kind of matter of fact, and what it is is what it is. We take the time to, you know, set and talk and go through reports and, you know, make sure that, you know, you, you as a, as a buyer understand what you're, what you're purchasing. Um, so, you know, it's a little different with us. Um, we kind of feel like we're going above and beyond in some of this stuff and for the right reasons. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So, um, Which is really important inside of an industry like, you know, properties in general. It's just a huge, huge investment. But I do have to digress because there was a bit of conversation the last time that we got together. And I won't ask you for the specific story that we talked about, but I will ask you, do you have any fun inspections that you have done? And by fun, do I mean, ridiculous. He's like, what can I share on a podcast? Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:because I'm going to share some of it here in a little bit. You know, we work down in Lawton and Oklahoma City, and you guys know how the southwest part of the state is. What's down there? Rattlesnakes. Yes. All right.
SPEAKER_00:That's a trick question, Mike. Yeah, I know. I know.
SPEAKER_02:I hurried up and answered that question for myself. I was about to say Texans. Yeah. Don't start with that either. Inevitably, Dustin. for whatever reason, I don't know if he's not living right or what, but that dude finds more rattlesnakes and sends them to Mark and says, look what I found, you know, um, Mark, the other day we were talking and when he first got into this, uh, you know, Mark was a fire captain down in Lawton. He was, he was inspecting a house and, uh, He said he got done with our typical processes. We do the outside, do the roofs, get all the main components outside, then we go inside. Mark was coming out of this house, finishing it up. And he said, I looked next door and there was smoke bellowing from the house next door that had caught on fire. Oh, goodness. Oh, no. So it's just like you see all kinds of crazy stuff. You know, I was with Jan the other day. And this house needs to be on whatever craziest properties website you can find. It had a train room, a church in the backyard. It was the craziest place I've ever seen. What do you mean it had a church in the backyard? It literally had a, the guy was pretty eccentric. Okay. And what was it a cult? No, no, it was just a guy. Okay, yeah, fair enough. And it literally had four outbuildings in this backyard, and it had a church in the backyard. And when you walked into this church, I mean, it had a bell tower the whole nine yards. Whoa. It was crazy. It had a laundry room, a shower, and the dude was just... that type of guy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, Jan and I, you know, and he was, he was an older gentleman that has passed away. And so you can imagine living in a house for 60 plus years, what you're going to find in this house. You've collected some things at that point in your life. Had to meet Jan over there on a Saturday to, uh, get into the attic and do some of that stuff. And we found tax returns and all kinds of stuff, like just stacked in a corner of this attic. And you're like, you know, why is that up here? Like, what do you hide? You know, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of a little bit interesting going into some of these houses. It's, you know, we do some, We do some inspections for investment companies, and those can be rather interesting. For one, you get into a lot of hoarder situations. Oh, sure. Yeah. I did an inspection on one investment company was buying, and it was literally stacked in an eight-foot high room with magazines, newspapers, and they had trails. So you could just kind of... Follow along
SPEAKER_00:through the... Game trails. You've now partnered with Marie Kondo to be able to... No, no. But I mean, apart from finding churches in backyards, rattlesnakes, who knows where, taxidermy in closets, what actually got you into inspecting before deciding... To leave the oil and gas industry, Mike.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's one of those deals. You know, I grew up. My grandpa built houses, was a handyman type of guy, you know. We fabbed, welded, you know. It just kind of was like, yeah, that would be fun. You know, it's 180 degree difference from oil and gas. And, you know. When you work for these large corporations, helping people is out the window. And that's what drew me there is, you know, I get the opportunity every day to go out and help somebody and make, help them make the right decisions. And like Garrett said, you know, as a first time home buyer, you don't know. You don't know. And you need somebody there that's going to be impartial and walk you through that along with your real estate agent and help you make an educated decision on whether this is a good investment purchase or not. And that's one of the things that kind of drew me to this. That and... I just like digging through houses. It's like, I mean, it's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00:I think we have a decent number of listeners just because we have so many entrepreneurs that listen to the podcast that, you know, maybe it's not a story where they got to the end of one career and decided to be able to start another, but there's so many where... people were dissatisfied with a career and they decided, I have to do something different in order to be able to be happy. If there's somebody out there who's listening, who's kind of at that fork in the road, what's advice that you would give to them on how to choose their path forward?
SPEAKER_02:The biggest thing for me, I probably would have done this 10 years ago, if it hadn't been for the comfortability aspect of, you know, being in a career that long, you know, by all means, I think, you know, really, really dig into what you're thinking about doing, but don't be scared to jump into it either. I think that's what held me back and kept me Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Don't just jump into something and come home and say, hey, look what I did. Surprise. Hey, we have no money anymore. I don't have a job. No. You know, if you're thinking about getting out of the corporate setting, definitely do your homework. Talk to your financial people. Talk to, you know, anybody that's done that before, because it's not for the faint of heart. Um, you know, like for me, when I left, I was in, you know, leadership, I wasn't in the field anymore. And, you know, you get a little too comfortable in life towards mundane and it's, you don't realize the stress that you're under until you make that decision to leave. Um, I think that's been the biggest reward right there is, is even though, you know, I'm navigating a new venture and a new career and all that stuff after spending most of my adult life in one industry, it's, uh, it's definitely been a whole lot less stressful. Um, And, you know, the money is one thing, but the stress, you know, the ability to go out, make your own schedule, do your own thing and help people out by far outweighs everything else. Yeah. And, you know, don't get me wrong. Money's important, but. Money's not everything.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And aside from the practical considerations of starting to work for yourself, a lot of people often forget that you still get to have the life that you want to live because you're a certain kind of hobbyist, aren't you, Mike? Yes. You've got a couple few things, including possibly being a musician.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Something like that. You know, it's one of those deals. I have a little bit more time now. Well, not right this second. I mean, we're pretty busy trying to figure all this stuff out. But, you know. We should have had you bring your instrument here for the
SPEAKER_00:podcast.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know that. I'm pretty sure it would have overdrove all these mics.
SPEAKER_00:A little bit, yeah. It might bust these little basses.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it would have. We'd have had some audio difficulties with that one. But, yeah, I mean, it gives me a little bit more time to play bagpipes, to golf and set up sound equipment for people. Yeah. So, which I enjoy all three. So splitting those up, my wife just rolls her eyes at me. What are we doing this weekend? I think I'm playing golf on Saturday.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and it's another thing to consider as well, because you doing this for yourself a little bit. Now we've got national property inspections going on. What's a hiccup as far as enlarging your practice? that you would recommend to other entrepreneurs that are actually trying to expand and grow their own business?
SPEAKER_02:Say it. Do it. Sorry. You all didn't see what happened in that window right there.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no. We have a window into the podcast studio. Shenanigans occurred. Apparently shenanigans. Dark walk by. Fearless leader shenanigans. Excellent.
SPEAKER_02:I would say, you know, with trying to grow your business, you know, it's one of those deals. You've got to have that marketing base. You know, you may have great ideas, right? Nolan may come to me one day and say, hey, I've got this great idea. It's going to just triple your income. You know, triple your business, going to triple the flow. And. Garrett, you know how this works. You look at him and say, yeah, that's great. That's a good idea, but it ain't going to work. You know, I would I would advise anybody that's really wanting to. You know, grow and, you know, build a bigger footprint in whatever field they're in. is find you a good, good marketing firm and be willing to push out the funds for it. That's going to be the big deal. That's the hardest thing is figuring out what direction is best for your company and finding you a marketing firm that will listen and understand truly dig in and try to understand your industry. Fortunately for, for us, you know, with national property inspections, we have an amazing marketing team. They're all over it, you know, and Mark and myself are trying to, you know, really ramp up the, our footprint here in Oklahoma city. And yeah, I've talked to our marketing team more in the last three weeks than I talked to our marketing team at my old job in the last 20 years. Um, they're on it. They're listening. They really dig into mine and Mark's personal, you know, strengths and weaknesses or personalities like that matters. Um, And, you know, I'm pretty outgoing. I can talk to anybody. Like I don't have, I don't think I've ever met a stranger. Mark's 180 degrees the other way. Right. And the marketing thing. Yeah. He gets up and talks to people. He teaches classes. He does all that stuff, but it's a little out of his wheelhouse. So having that yin and yang, um, thing with this marketing team with us is really a good fit for us. So I can set and work with them and come up with stuff and go back and say, hey, Mark, here's what we're talking about. And you can tell whether or not it's going to be a good thing, whether he's comfortable with it or not. And you know, getting up, you know, he's just Mark's very reserved and I'm not, and that's perfect for us. Like I'm the, you know, me and my wife are the same way. Like I'm the outgoing one and she's not, you know, you know, and it, it works. So, you know, and it's, it's, it's great. You know, Mark's Mark's kind of the introvert in the group. Me and Dustin are not, you know,
SPEAKER_00:And, you know, I would presume that some of the nifty little gifts that you brought us here today are some of the marketing team's brain children. Could you talk to us a little bit about some of the literature that you brought us today and how some people can possibly get some value out of it?
SPEAKER_02:So these books that I brought to you guys this morning, that's a national property inspections, you know, basic home systems for new homebuyers. So– You know, we give these out to new home buyers, right? And as you look through these, like, it gives you, you know, utility services, garbage recycling, you know, gets into depth on asbestos, radon, carbon monoxide, you know, carbon monoxide testers, heat and air conditioning. Like, it is basically a manual for the systems that are in your home. Um, and it's, I don't know how many pages it is, like 70 pages. And I mean, some of it even gets into, you know, siding brick structural stuff, you know, for people that like Garrett said that don't know, um, you know, we deal with this every day and we kind of, as you're in an industry, um, for a certain amount of time, you just take it for granted that people know what you're talking about. Well, they don't. Um, and that's, that's why, you know, we have these and we give these out to new home buyers. You know, there's valuable information in here that makes you an educated, maybe not an expert, but at least you're an educated buyer at that point. Um, So, yeah, we have lots of stuff like this that, you know, we'll we'll drop off or as we're completing, you know, an inspection or something like that. Like we will give these to homebuyers or if we're doing a homebuyers, you know, conference type deal or, you know, something like that. Like we will we'll have these available for people. Excellent. So
SPEAKER_00:you've got everything set up. really well. You're expanding. You've got some great stuff for your clientele. But then what's the bigger picture for Mike? What is this business trying to serve you now as you've changed careers? We're in a different industry. We're still growing and expanding. But what does your business do for you?
SPEAKER_02:It gives me that fulfillment of helping people. I mean, that's the top thing. You get into the grind of it. And it's just like any other job. Right. But at the end of the day, when you look back at it, whether a buyer takes the house goes forward with the, with the purchase or backs out, you've, you've helped them either way. Right. Right. Um, that's the biggest thing for me. And I, you know, like I said, I didn't have the availability, um, at my old job, right? It was, it was very much a corporate driven deal and just a cog in the wheel. Well, we're not just cogs in a wheel. We're cogs in a wheel in a greater sense of that whole real estate transaction thing. Like we have our part, but educating people on what they're actually looking at and you know, the purchase they're fixing to make, I think is the biggest thing for me. Excellent.
SPEAKER_00:Wonderful. Well to, uh, to kind of, you know, bring things around, we've covered a whole lot of ground inside of this episode, which is fantastic, you know, from having a church in the backyard, which is now the recurring thing I'm going to be thinking about this week. Yeah. How does that get there? But truly helping, uh, people be able to solve problems that they don't know how to deal with on their own and giving them peace of mind to taking the leap into something new even though it's not easy Yes. You did a good job. Thank you. And then at the end here, just kind of touching on the education piece and how it's so important to help educate the people that we work with. I don't think so. Mike, where can people find you then to take advantage of your excellent company that you've built?
SPEAKER_02:So you can find us, hang on, because we're changing stuff. Let me get it pulled up. I knew you were going to ask that.
SPEAKER_00:That's all right. We always like to bring a couple surprises. That's right. Yeah, you did, too. And while you're pulling it up, maybe I can just tell a couple jokes. Oh, excellent. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Where's my drum kit? Oh, yeah. Hey, there you go. Here, here's one for you. Don't bother. It's about communism.
SPEAKER_01:Excellent.
SPEAKER_00:Bringing it right back around to the McCarthy joke I made at the beginning. I don't know how there were so many people who during World War II struggled jumping in with the Nazis and communism. Yeah. Just seems like there were so many red flags.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's wrong. That is wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_02:man. Oh, good stuff. Oh, gosh. I'm a consummate professional. All right. Here you go. You can find us on the web at mpiweb.com backslash NPITexoma. You can reach out to us on... We've got a Facebook page.
SPEAKER_00:Call the office. All right. Thank you so much, Mike, for being here. And our tradition is to have our guests say the second part of our slogan. We always say, stay sharp and think biz. Would you say the think biz for us? I will. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the rest of your day as you've been listening. Remember to stay sharp. And think biz.
UNKNOWN:Thank you. So,
