What the big box franchises don’t tell you about startup costs and franchise fees?
They don't tell you that there are already enough home inspectors, and so you do not bring something new to the table that differentiates you from every other home inspector out there. You're just another home inspector with a business card and a truck and a flashlight. Being trained to do a home inspection is about 18-20 percent of the requirement to grow a large home inspection business. Marketing, customer service, clever little drop-offs that you can leave its offices. The big-box home inspection franchise companies are going to give you a business card and a flyer. While that feels new to you, that is not new to the real estate world, it's just another card. If you're just going to be the home inspector that drops off a bowl of candy to the real estate offices. "Hey, please use me." They're going to set you down next to the other 18 bowls of candy, next to the other 18 business cards, and the other 18 flyers, and there's nothing compelling about working with you.
How do you support new franchisees in the day-to-day of building their business?
There is a lot, there's a lot of moving parts with a new business owner and the home inspection industry. I would say that the best way for me to answer that is by telling a story. The story would be, you've taken all of our advice, you've done all of the LinkedIn messaging, you've done Google My Business, you maybe became a preferred partner with a real estate office. You finally got your first opportunity to sponsor breakfast and get your first sales meeting. You call me, you call us, our team, whatever. We will literally walk you through everything you need to do to have a super successful sponsorship meeting. When people see us talk, they go, "That is not what I thought the home inspector was going to say in front of 25 realtors." You get a meeting, 25 realtors, you show up, what do you do? What food do you buy? What food do you not buy? How do you make sure you get everybody's business card? I'll tell you really quickly, stick with breakfasts. There are a lot less expensive than lunches are. You've got little fruit baskets, you got donuts, you got coffee. We are inspectors over coffee. It all ties in together. Then you bring, say, a bottle of $13 Prosecco. You say, "Hey, everybody, I'm going to collect all of your business cards and I'm going to give away a bottle of wine." You already have some orange juice in the back because you brought breakfast, and you go, "Now I want you guys to make those while you're having your sales meeting." Then you get 20-25 business cards, and then you give away a bottle of Prosecco. You might talk for 6, 7, 8 minutes and answer questions for five or 10 minutes. But they're going to remember you as the person who gave away a bottle of wine at their sales meeting.
How is Home Inspections Over Coffee different from other home inspection franchisees?
You are a business in a box, meaning that we cover every single aspect of owning a small local business. It's not the thing that you would think about when it comes to home inspection. It's how to sponsor sales meetings. It's how to become a preferred partner of a real estate office. It's how to do Google My Business, how to do Instagram, how to do LinkedIn, how to do Facebook, how to do Twitter. We talk about every single possible aspect, how to price things, how to deal with complaints, how to use your phone instead of an iPad, how to get the inspection report done on-site instead of back at your office at nine o'clock at night. Lastly, every system we use to run almost $2 million per year business is the exact same system you will get when you begin your brand new business out of the game.