Get better clients. If we stop to think about it, this simple three-word sentence should be the ultimate goal for anyone running a small business. Better clients offer many different benefits for the small business owner. Better clients are easier to deal with in our business. Better clients force us to produce a better product. But, arguably the most important …
The Value of Providing Value
While I’m certainly not an attorney, it’s fairly easy for the average person to learn almost everything they need to know about the law from a small amount of quality internet research. While doing a bit of investigation to see if there were any ways that I could improve my current home inspection contract, I came across a site where …
Action, Not Just (Paying For) Words
One of the biggest hurdles a small business owner faces is figuring out how to get clients through the door. Whether your company has an actual front door in a building, or you operate a service-based business without a physical location for customers to visit, the goal is still the same: to get customers to call on you so that …
Am I Doing My Job or Am I Working?
It can be said that what we do for a living can be described in two different ways: what our job is and the work that we do. While those two words can, and often are, used interchangeably, that doesn’t mean they represent the exact same thing. Being a home inspector may be our job, we identify deficiencies and potential …
Networking 101
Networking is a term that’s often thrown around in today’s interconnected business world. According to investopedia.com, networking is the exchange of information and ideas among people with a common profession or special interest, usually in an informal social setting, and often begins with a single point of common ground. We can easily reason that networking is something that we participate in, …
Nine Ways to Sunday
One of the most exciting things about being a home inspector is the range of personalities that we come across in our business. While most people we meet are fairly even keeled and down-to-earth, we occasionally cross paths with someone who really makes us appreciate all those “normal” people we encounter in our business. I recently had a client who …
That’s Just How It Works
Humans are wired for comfort. Almost everyone enjoys it when things in their life are predictable, when what’s going on around us follows a well-worn path. That’s not to say that we don’t enjoy the occasional surprise, but we’re quite content when our lives play out exactly like we expect. There’s comfort in familiarity. We know what’s going to happen …
The 7 Pitfalls of Small Business (conclusion)
This article is the second part of a two-part series. Click here to read part one. Running a small business can be a wonderful experience, bringing with it a sense of excitement and fulfillment when things go right. At the same time, things don’t always go the way we’ve planned. When things do go wrong, those feelings of happiness can …
The 7 Pitfalls of Small Business
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this article, the odds are pretty good that you’re running your own business, quite likely as a professional home inspector. It’s also likely that you’ve held down at least one “real” job before becoming a small business owner, spending your valuable time working for someone else. You’ve probably felt the frustration of …
Working on Your People Skills
Think about the last time you spent an evening at a restaurant with some good friends. Was it an enjoyable experience? Can you remember all the details? How nicely was the food presented? How professional was the service? How clean and comfortable was the restaurant? Was the noise level acceptable, enhancing the meal? Overall, did you have a pleasant experience, and will you …