Marketing and advertising. These terms are often used interchangeably, but have different meanings. Merriam-Webster defines marketing as “the process… of promoting (and) selling… a product or service.” Dictionary.com defines advertising as “the act… of calling public attention to one’s product… especially by paid announcements…” While advertising is typically thought of as a campaign, specifically developed to induce the viewing public …
Late To the Party
I have been extremely fortunate to find myself in a very unique position in the home inspection industry. I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of a multi-inspector firm with my friends and business partners. I started doing inspections, growing my business to 40 inspections a month, and then hiring and training my replacement for those …
A Birthday Impostor. How to Defeat Your Own Thoughts
I hope that this post finds everyone happy and healthy. I am writing this post on the evening of my birthday, so I have spent the day reminiscing about my past and looking forward to my future. I have been fortunate enough to find some level of success in my life and I appreciate all of the opportunities that this …
Easy Steps to Make Your (Business) Life Less Stressful
Recently, I was writing some information for a website, creating some FAQ’s about the home inspection process. The article was intended to explain to potential home buyers the importance of getting a copy of the Standards that their home inspector adheres to during their inspection process. I explained that this document outlines exactly what the home inspector was and was not going …
Setting yourself up for success, and Avoiding Client Zero
I am going to start today’s post talking about the one subject that you don’t want to hear about: problem clients. Yes, I know: you already deal with problem clients enough in your business; you don’t want to read about them too! Let’s just pretend they don’t exist, and maybe they’ll magically go away… The reality is that we all deal …
Always Use Your Superpowers for Good!
It’s difficult to run a small business, and even more difficult to start one. New business owners often hope that they can hold on long enough to reach their personal goal line of success. They erroneously think that once they have become well established in their industry, the problems that they experienced when they first started the business will simply …
Answer Before They Ask the Question
We will start out today with a quote from author Shawn L. Anderson’s book “A Better Life.” He says that “Preparation is what allows the teacher to truly inspire. Preparation is knowing exactly how the lesson plan will flow. It’s in knowing what questions to ask and what answers to give.” The author is speaking about teachers, but this sentiment …
This Post is Open to Interpretation. An Ounce of Prevention is the Cure
Interpret. The word is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org) as “(deciding) what the intended meaning of something is.” And interpreting what you mean by the language in your business materials and inspection reports is what opposing attorneys do for a living. So, what’s a small business owner to do? Can you match wits with an experienced plaintiff’s attorney, in their natural …
You Want Me to Do More? Fitting More Into Your Overbooked Schedule
This morning I listened to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Smart Passive Income (http://smartpassiveincome.com/session317). (By the way, if you are not already listening to podcasts to increase your business knowledge, you should.) The episode focused on ways that busy individuals could work new things into their already over-filled schedule. This really resonated with me, as I’m sure …
Becoming a Business Ninja
We will start today with a slight distortion of a quote from author Nick Hornby’s 2005 Novel A Long Way Down: ‘A business is hard to build yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.’ Hornby’s original line was about the difficulty of rebuilding yourself, but …