As new business owners, we can’t help ourselves; we’re always trying to find out the secret to becoming successful. Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of opportunists who are happy to sell us those secrets, for a price. Over and over, we keep falling for their sales pitch. We’re hopelessly optimistic, praying that there really is one secret, that, once we know …

It’s hard not to get sucked into all the knowledge that we accumulate as a professional home inspector. We learn so much stuff, about so many different things, that we’re often able to pick out the smallest deficiency in the middle of the biggest, most complicated picture. But even more impressive than our amazing powers of deduction is our ability …

There are three problems that we often encounter when starting a new business. The first is that when we start, we’re really not that good at what we’re supposed to be doing. No matter what our job is, this is an inescapable fact. There’s no sense in pretending otherwise. We’re really not that good, and it’s doesn’t make sense for …

It’s often said that competition drives innovation. What would happen to our business if we decided to skip the competition and just go directly to innovating? We’d be able to set our own price without worrying what other people are charging. We’d be able to attract the exact type of client that we want. We’d be setting the bar instead …

Most professions require some type of continuing education, to help keep their practitioners up to date on the advances in their industry. Staying informed on the changes in our field is one of the best ways to provide quality service to our paying customers. Yet, some people seem to be upset that they have to keep learning things. They argue …

It’s cheap and easy to avoid problems before they happen by going out of our way to do good work. Doing the right thing and getting out of a problem situation before things get sticky is almost as good, and it’s far better than getting stuck in a big battle later on. Freaking out about an issue that’s hanging over …

No matter where we look, there are plenty of people waiting (impatiently) to correct us, happily telling us what we’re doing wrong. There’s plenty of bosses, coworkers, friends, family members, boards, panels, advisory committees, clients, and competitors, falling all over themselves to tell us how we’re not fitting in. This world is great at doing one thing: reinforcing the status …

Whenever things aren’t going right for us, we’re quick to point the finger, trying to figure out what’s causing us to fall short of expectations. We hardly ever stop to consider that the issue could be closer to home. Maybe our biggest problem is right between our own ears. Could it be that we’re the thing that’s causing us the …

When we meet our clients’ expectations, when we do our job according to the standards, there’s no surprise. Everyone says “Good, you did what you were supposed to do.” But what if we did something different? What if we invested in ourselves, learning new things so we become smarter, practicing to make ourselves better, spending money to make our product …

We’ve done all the work. We’ve got the license. We’ve bought our insurance. We made a cool looking logo. We’ve designed our business cards and brochures. We’ve got our website up and running. We’ve figured out our software. We’ve been shaking hands and kissing babies. Now, we’ve just got to wait. They’ll come. Sounds great, but it’s not right. Author …