Ian R
Welcome back everyone to Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We have on Michael Ortiz. Hey, Mike, how you doing?
Mike Ortiz
Good man. How are you doing?
Ian R
Hey, not bad. I’m really glad to have you back on. Always a really great discussion with you. I like the, and I mean this has a compliment, not as an insult, but I like the way we kind of sometimes think alike. And you know, you presented this idea of talking about burnout, and it’s the perfect time of year for it, because this is right about when most of us are really like, I’m feeling it, but I don’t recognize it, and it’s coming out in weird ways, and and I know you feel it because you’re a busy guy now, aren’t you? You’re having a great year, right?
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, we’re finally doing, like, triple digit numbers every month on inspections. You know, it’s, uh, it’s really now it comes down to just like, like we’re talking about time management, burnout, you know, you know, just stuff that piles on, things that you put to the site, procrastination, all those things that even, right now, whoever’s listening, if they’re listening within, you know, a couple days of this podcast being out, you’re on your first one, finishing up, going to the next one, you know, it’s just tiring, forgetting which day it is of the week. That’s pretty you know, that can affect your inspections overall, in all honesty, and your customer service. You can get short, there’s a lot of things that could happen.
Ian R
Yeah, I think it’s an important subject, because I know I feel it. I feel it actually indirectly from even my clients. Like they’ll call me and they’d be like, Ian, this logo isn’t center oriented on the 13th page of the second section. I’m like, oh, hey, how you doing? And they’re like, I’m sorry. I’m just coming in hot. And, you know, I’m just feeling it from them. And even for myself, you know, this is right around September/October is what we like to call in my business complaint season, because it was the spring rush. We did a billion inspections. Summertime we’re burned out. People get all their kids into school in September, and then mid September through October, they’re burnt out. We’re burnt out. And all these problems happen that normally wouldn’t be a problem. So yeah, it’s if we’re feeling it right now, we’re like, man, I can’t do this much longer, whether it’s from busyness or lack of busyness, or just we have a lot of cranky people out there and a lot of rough inspections, this is the podcast for you.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, you know, depending on where you are, you know, like, for example, I’m in Southern California, and it’s, I’m in the valley, high desert area, so it gets to 102, like, we think it’s a nice day when it’s only 90 out, if it’s 90 out, we’re like, oh, this is nice, okay. But man, our phones are like, our phones are burning out before we do. We’re outside, and my phone tells me you can no longer use a flashlight, and it turns itself off for safety. You know, it’s one of those things that you have to take into account when you’re doing the inspections. I think the first most important thing is, I think my thing that because I don’t trust call centers or hiring someone to do the sales, because I feel like this is something that’s my fault. I need to delegate more, but I can close almost 99% of the phone calls that come in, however I need to, and I can upsell services easily. But I think that what happens is that we get a bunch of calls throughout the day while we’re also inspecting and trying to run the business, and we’ll put on these holds for other days, right next Monday, next Tuesdays. And then by the time you figure it out, you’ve run out of inspectors to maybe meet one or two of those inspections, you know, like, here, oh well, this guy’s booked. That guy’s booked. I’m like, I’ll have to make this work to make it to this inspection, because you over booked. You double booked, you know, because you’re taking the calls and you’re not managing, like, your calendar properly, you just have you either take a note or you text back, oh yeah, we’ll put you on for Friday, and the next person calls, oh yeah, we have a Friday opening, and you, for some reason, you put it on the same spot. You know, that’s one of the things that we’re dealing with right now is just making sure we get everybody on the schedule at the right times and all that, and then, yeah.
Ian R
Yeah, and that. And that’s a symptom of burnout. You know, it’s, it’s kind of like those trucker laws that they make where you can’t drive past certain amount of time or this or that. And truckers will always be like, oh, man, I feel great. The problem is, it’s called the Black Dog effect, like they start seeing like blotches in their eyes from exhaustion, and they always claim they see a black dog run across the road, and it’s just actually a symptom of exhaustion. And you know, things happen to us biologically that we don’t recognize, and that’s usually in frustration and making mistakes. And I find for myself, sometimes I get a little snippy, like, and it hurts my business, I’ll be frank, because it’s like, hey, I’m just calling for I’m like, okay, what do you need? What do you need? You know, I get a little snippy. And, yeah, so unfortunately, burnout is real and it and, you know, it comes to from the feast or famine thing.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, exactly.
Ian R
You know, it’s like, we go, we go all winter, you know, Christmas and New Year’s. And then halfway through February, we’re like, I’m out of business. And then we’re booming. We’re like, I need to grab as much business as I can while I can. And then by the time August comes around, we’re like, I’m dying inside. Yeah, I don’t know what to do,
Mike Ortiz
Yeah. And then the thing is, is that, you, you know, the agents don’t have, in all, in all honesty, a majority of the agents that you know you work with, they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna reach out to you considering your time. So you’re a solo, so if you’re a solo guy, you’re inspecting during the day, but you’re gonna get a phone call, and that fear of missing out on an inspection is gonna make you probably answer that phone call. If you’re lucky, you have an earpiece in, and you can answer it and get somewhere, but then you’re distracted, and you’re not giving your best to the inspection you’re at, meaning, like, you know, you’re not being as, you know, not thorough, but maybe you missed one small thing here there, because you’re too busy trying to close the deal while inspecting. And then on top of that, if you’re, if you’re taking those phone calls as a solo guy, you you know you’re gonna struggle to kind of maintain that calendar, and then it’ll just end up screwing you over later on when you know you get one star reviews because you double booked, or you somebody, you canceled on somebody because you couldn’t get service that appointment, or you misquoted them, things like that. And then if you are really busy with the burnout, and then you’re not gonna do like you said. You get snippy. You’re not gonna give your best summary, driveway speed. You’re not gonna give your best, you know, walk through on the house, because you’re tired. You’re exhausted. You’re you, you’re, you just finished the inspection, and you walk up, and now they want you to go over everything, and you’re just in your mind. You’re just like, burnt out. You’re, you do get mentally burnt out. So you go, like, oh yeah, you know, loose toilet, you know, I don’t, you know. They’re like, can you go show me? And then you get, you know, and then you just like, you know what it’s all going to be in the report, in the photos. And then afterwards, you think about, you like, it wasn’t my best customer service situation. So it’s stuff like that that does affect, you know, that is a physiological thing. I think it’s just it makes it to where, you know, you’re only running on a certain amount of caffeine and a certain amount of, you know, knowledge, and everything else comes down to just have it, but all these distractions, the agents asking questions, and we know how real estate agents are, when they want an answer to a question, they want you to answer just like that. They want you to text right back. And you’re inspecting, and you got to get your phone. You got text back, or you freak out because agents like, the owner found a leaky pipe outside. Did you catch this in the report? Now you got to go on your phone, hoping you have signal, go on your, you know, software, see what the report was. See, you know this, you know. And then while you’re at an inspection, it’s tough, because if you don’t get back to them right away, they get the question mark text, what’s going on, and it’s a lot. It can be stressful, and it can really make someone who doesn’t have effective time management or effective stress management, kind of have a panic attack almost while you’re at an inspection.
Ian R
Yeah, and I mean, you talked about the physiological things, there’s things like adrenal fatigue. I’m not a doctor. Look this stuff up if you’d like to understand it. But adrenal fatigue and things like that. Basically, from running on high levels of stress, our body becomes imbalanced with the chemicals, causes things like aches and pains, headaches, weight gain, all sort of, lack of sleep. And sometimes we don’t associate all these things together. But let me ask you, I always, I’ve, this is a terrible thing to say. I’ve always used my max stress level as an indicator that I need to make change. Like, when I hit my ceiling, and then one of my, you know, David, who’s been on the podcast a bunch of times, he’ll make a comment like, I think, I think you need to, you need a break. And it’s usually at that point that I’m like, okay, yeah, something needs to change. Are you seeing for yourself a need for change in your business that you’re..?
Mike Ortiz
Oh, yeah. So I’m a very talkative, friendly person, and I’ve noticed more and more, because now that I have our team, um, they’re covering a wide area, so it’s a lot of just managing their appointments and the, you know, the follow ups and things like that, and the schedule, really to schedule time management, the inspections I go to, they’re commercial or larger properties, you know what I mean, some stuff that I can go out and do that is going to be time consuming and all that. So for me, I’ve noticed that whenever I’m at my highest stress level, I’m less talkative, I’m less, you know, not unfriendly, but I am just focused and I, you know, I try my best, I try to catch myself. But you know, and again, you know, you want. This is the difference between a solo inspector and the multi inspection firm, I think. And this is where I make a mistake sometimes. You want to always feel like, you always want the client to feel like you’re the friendly neighborhood home inspector. But at the same time, when there’s so many inspections happening, sometimes it just, it does feel like, you know, you’re working in your business, not on it, and you’re just stressed out because of it. And I think that the way it affects me personally. Okay, so, you know, you got to keep an eye on where everything is going financially. You know, you have marketing, you have websites, you have the payroll, all that stuff, whatever it is. You got to make sure you keep track of that, because when it’s busy season, it’s easy to lose track of all of that. And then come the winter, when it’s slower, you’re panicking again. So that’s one thing, is just managing the finances for even a solo guy. The other thing that happens is that you, you know, yeah, if you’re busy, which is good, maintenance on your vehicle is very important, balancing the tires, doing the oil changes, all that stuff, you tend to forget that. And not only are we out there stressed out because of people and inspections, but we’re also eating gas station food, drinking caffeine. You know what I mean? You’re not living the healthiest lifestyle. You’re sitting a lot of the time driving from one to..out here, we drive a lot. So it’s about, we drive about 100, 200 miles a day each inspector, just driving around in Southern California, gets all the inspections. So it’s a lot of driving, a lot of sitting in traffic. So because of that, it’s a lot sedentary between inspections, you know, and the weather outside, making sure you’re hydrated, all these things can affect you. And on top of that, I mean, it’s a very stressful job if you don’t manage well, because everybody’s calling you, everybody’s texting you, everybody’s emailing you. So you have to keep track of your emails. And all of this is probably giving most of you guys an anxiety attack anyways, but it’s really just about handling one thing at a time. That’s what I’ve learned. So there’s nothing that can’t be handled if you handle it one, you know, it’s kind of like the snowball effect. I think we used to do that a long time ago, my wife and I, when we were learning our budgeting and stuff like that. The snowball effect is taking care of the smallest, easiest thing first, and then kind of working your way up to the biggest possible thing it. It helps get those small things that, you know, you put in the back of your mind, like, oh, I got the registration for the car due. Let me just do it in a week before it’s late. And then you by that time, the week comes, you got a bunch of stuff going on. It’s a lot of that, managing the time. And I’m very, very much guilty of not managing my time properly. But because of that, I hope that other people can learn to not, you know, let that happen.
Ian R
Yeah, and I think for me, if anybody is listening, a couple of actionable items that I took is I looked at what I could do to delegate because things, certain things I couldn’t delegate away, certain stresses, like people, I’d like to talk about that in a moment, how people are just basically stressful to deal with, but some some things I could delegate away, and I had to take a loss, so to speak. So I have a, I have a very high close rate if I answer a phone call, it’s like a 95% close rate. If I have a call center answer, they have a high, what’s considered a high close rate, but less than mine, it might be like 85 or 90. So I had to step back when, even when I was a single inspector just starting off, and say, am I willing to give up that 5% to 10% for my own sanity? And I did the math and I counted the cost of it. And I said, yes, I am. And I actually went with the call center and took less business. And, you know, it didn’t take long. I really didn’t take a loss. They just had a lower close rate. But you know what? They were closing phone calls that I wasn’t getting to or, you know, so I had a high close rate if I answered the phone. So is that really worth our mental anguish, or even just like, follow up. Big thing for us in our area is picking up radon tests. Oh, my goodness, that is the worst. You know, if you drive 45 minutes to an inspection and you do a two and a half hour inspection, that’s great, but now you have to drive back 45 minutes, try to arrange it with the seller, try to get back in, 45 minutes back. Sometimes nobody would be there, and you’d have to drive back. So you’d spend an hour to two hours just trying to get a radon test back. So I’m like, okay, let me delegate that out. And for man, I don’t know, 10, 15 years we’ve had a guy, that’s all he does, is pick up radon tests. So sometimes, taking, when we hit our ceiling, taking something off of our plate, and saying, okay, is this really worth it to me? If, if I give this to somebody else, they won’t do as good of a job. So I don’t want to take away from, like, the quality of a home inspection itself, for instance. But can I take away from the quality, hypothetically, of you know, the number of conversions that we have, taking that off of our plate, or, like you mentioned, a website, a lot of us as single inspectors will do our own website. Okay, it’s going to cost me X amount of dollars to have somebody else do my website. But is that going to save me three hours a month or 10 hours a month? You know, the taking stuff off of our plate is very important, and I find it very, cathartic isn’t the word ,cathartic is when you let out anger. So I’m trying to think of, therapeutic, when I finally do that, when I finally take something off of my plate, even that just helps my mental condition and deal with the burnout.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I think what happens is, is that there are, there’s collateral, there are collateral issues. When you have, let’s say, if you’re a solo inspector, and you have a family, you know that’s a big, that’s a big thing, that’s, you know, our wives know about the phone calls in the middle of the night, about the text messages during dinner or lunch or when we’re home, people calling, asking about an inspection, things like that, and having that conversation with your significant other to make sure that they understand like everything you’re doing is to try to bring in as much work as you possibly can. And it’s, it’s tough, because when you are busy, it’s, it feels like you’re not, you’re not really getting that time to spend with your family that you want. And when you are spending that time with them, you’re short and you’re frustrated. You just don’t want to talk about work. And it’s one of those things that it just comes as, as being a business owner, it comes as running your own company. And I think the biggest thing when it comes to that is is communication and setting an expectation. You know what I mean? You want to make sure that you set an expectation of, it’s kind of like you’re a salesperson, and you’re an inspector. So you have two jobs, basically, and then when you’re able to have another inspector work under you, then it just becomes time management and employee care and things like that. But I think the burnout part of it affects so many different things, and some things you might not even know it does you know, because it can affect your relationships. It can affect your friendships. It can affect, you know, it can affect a lot. It can affect the time that you’re supposed to be taking for yourself, to just, you know, take care of yourself, hobbies, interests like that. You gotta think about it, if you really, if it comes down to brass tacks, as you know, as adults, in our 20s, 30s, 40s, with children or not, you can’t really believe that you’re just gonna have to work forever and then enjoy life at 70, you know? I mean, or sixty, you have to think to yourself, okay, I’m great. I’m making a bunch of money, you know, but you’re not, you’re working six days a week and you’re getting home. Yeah, you work 8am to 6pm and great, you get all that money. Maybe you get to enjoy that new truck you bought one weekend out of the month. Maybe you get to go on a trip here and there. You know what I mean, it’s just you got to really pace yourself when it comes to..because this job is very lucrative for us, not having to buy any materials, do any work. You know what I mean, there’s jobs. There’s, you know, roofers, electricians, they have to buy materials. They have to, you know, get, you know, they have to install them. They have to deal with all that. We just go in, point stuff out, leave. That’s it. As long as you do it, right? You don’t have to worry about any follow up or call backs or anything like that. So, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where, yeah, you can make a bunch of money, and I hit those, those goals and thresholds. And honestly, if I’m being honest, I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but the more money you make, somehow you use, you end up using more of it. And I don’t know why or how that happens. You just end up, yeah, you bring in more revenue. And somehow you’re like, I don’t know how I survived on only making, you know, only doing 20 inspections a month. Now, you know, we’re doing, you know, almost 200 inspections a month. And I’m, you know, I’m still, you know, trying to keep that down. But I think it’s just, just knowing you know, because you’re, you’re constantly in competition with a lot of invisible, you know, scenarios. I’m always thinking that the calls will stop tomorrow. I’m always thinking that, you know, everything..
Ian R
Imposter syndrome.
Mike Ortiz
Worst, yeah, worst case scenario. And I did listen to that where you just think, yeah, like you said that, that podcast about the imposter syndrome. Immediately after that, I just started listening to, like, InterNACHI, uh, webinars, while I’m, like, walking around and driving just to get little bits of info, you know, we do a lot of new construction inspections, so keeping up with inspections, so keeping up with code for a lot of different things. It’s always good to just know things, because I don’t like to be someone who doesn’t know something. Or even the worst case scenario, an agent knows something that you don’t know. It’s like a the biggest gut punch where it’s like, oh, I love it when, like, you find a defect, right or not a defect, but like, the stovetop’s not working. You’re like, you’re trying your hardest for the igniter on the burner for like, almost three minutes, right? And you’re like, finally, it’s not igniting properly. And then you go to the summary, hey, the right front burner, the igniter is not working properly. And an agent goes up and turns it on the first time. That’s one of those things that just keeps me up at night.
Ian R
Yeah. I remember one time I was working with one of my favorite agents, and I was just burned out. It was about this time of year. This is probably 13, 14, years ago, but me and him still laugh about it. I go up and I go, turn on the air conditioner. Air conditioner wouldn’t turn on. It was an older unit, but they said, no, it works. It works. I’m like, hey, it’s not turning on. I tried that thing, must have been 10, 20 minutes. And I’m just like, I’m marking it off because, but they’re insistent. Agent goes over, and I had forgotten to switch a little button at the bottom that goes from heat to AC because I didn’t even think about it. I’m like, why would they have their heat on right now? But yeah, somebody must have just hit it or bumped it or something, switched it, came right on. I’m just like, I’m an idiot. I need a break, and I think I took that weekend off. I’m just like, all right, I’m done, yeah, but um, you know imposter syndrome, we had that podcast that really drives us to push ourselves harder than we need to. And it’s funny, people who don’t have imposter syndrome, I get the biggest kick out of them. I have this friend. He has this state job and, you know, he has his family, and I’m just like, oh man, let’s do this. Let’s do that. He goes, No, I’m happy. And he is, and it frustrates me. I’m like, how are you so happy? Aren’t you worried the state’s gonna take away your job or this? No, he’s like, no, I’m good. They need me. And I’m just like, I don’t understand it. But our insecurities sometimes drive a good business, but then it also drives us into the ground.
Mike Ortiz
Oh, it’s all too good to be true.
Ian R
Yeah, it’s all too good to be true. The phone’s gonna stop ringing, and that happens every January and February. To me, I said in the podcast, I’m the king of imposter syndrome. I’m going out of business. This was the year that it was finally gonna happen. You know, it’s like 20 years into it, and I’m like, this is the year. So yeah, we have to get over our own imposter syndrome, because that causes us a lot of stress, it really does.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, it does. It does when you know it’s it’s one of those things that, it’s not so much, I’m a confident person. It’s different than not being confident in what you can do.
Ian R
It’s not being unconfident, yeah.
Mike Ortiz
It’s more about the reason why I’m confident is because I’m so hard on myself, you know. And it’s not, I’ve never was someone that thought about making a bunch of money, but when I started making the money, it just, it became, you know, it became something that almost became, like a hobby where, like, I have, you know, it’s a competition with myself, how much money can I possibly make before it all ends, you know? And it’s just one of those things. And then you start thinking of contingencies, right? But then you’re like, if you say, if you set yourself up for safety nets, then it makes it difficult to grow. So if you’re going around and every January, you go on LinkedIn or something, or Indeed, to look, you know, to sharpen up your resume, because it’s just that’s how much it stresses you out in January and December, when it’s slow, you’re setting yourself up, just like a self fulfilling prophecy, where you’re saying, you’re telling yourself, hey, you know, I’m not gonna make it. Let me just prep for that. And then some you know, subconsciously, you’re actually making little mistakes that’ll, you’re self-destructing. And that self-destructing behavior is, is what gets a lot of guys burnt out, and their businesses go out. You know what? I mean, it’s tough, but if you can manage that, if you can manage the burnout, you know, recently, a couple months ago, I think, or a month or, I can’t remember, honestly, I don’t know how much time has passed, but I had, I bought out one of my competitors because I wanted that extra work, and it was a really grueling process to do all the paperwork and everything like that, to get to buy another inspection company with that tail end, you know, you know, and liability and all that stuff. But it brought in a lot more work than I was prepared for, and I had to. It’s one of those things that, as a father or as a husband, you know what it feels like to say everything’s going wrong, and you just like, I got to figure it out. You know, I’ll figure it out. It doesn’t matter what’s happening. Today was the first day of school for the kids. So it was like chaos in this house, because obviously we procrastinated on every single thing to the last possible second, like we should do as adults. And it came down to once it was done and all the chaos was done, the drop offs were done. Was like, had a second to breathe, and what were we really worried about? You know, you’re gonna get 12 inspections next week. That’s great, but if you only get eight, you know, don’t stress out too much. It’s really just about and there’s guys, there’s guys that I see them, you know, I see guys on the Facebook groups, and I really don’t get it. I see a lot of negativity sometimes, but I see guys that, like, just did my just did my first inspection, or I just got certified. And you are excited for them. You’re like, that’s amazing. That’s great. You know, you comment that, you say that you you’re supportive of people, because there’s guys like, oh, okay. Like, whenever anybody mentions, oh, what do you guys do for Google ads or this and that I got, I have guys to keep busy, so I pay for advertising and marketing, because that’s what a business does. I don’t know how it came about to where you say, hey, how much you guys spend on Google ads, and then you get 50 comments. I’ve never advertised in my entire career. Nobody asked you that. We’re, we’re trying to figure out how to help other people out, and that’s what it is, is that you need that mentorship, you need that friendship, you need people that can help you out of those tight spots, somebody that can give you options and advice. Because honestly, the last thing we want to do, and inspectors are mostly men for providers. All right, there are obviously female inspectors, and I don’t know how that dynamic goes at home, but for me, in my personal experience as a provider, the last thing you want to do is bring on any of your stresses about work to your spouse. You’re not going to go with them and say, hey, I got to pay 250 because there was a leak one of my guys missed, and I got to play a plumber to go fix it. You don’t want to bring that on to your wife. She’s got the kids, the house, and everything else to worry about. So you take that on, you tack that on, and you compartmentalize it, and you take on that stress, and it comes out in different ways, and nobody knows why, because you don’t tell anybody about it. The great thing about having friendships, having a mentor, having someone that you can talk to, having local business networking relationships, is that you can talk about things like that, you can vent about them, and possibly get some good advice on along the way. And that’s really what it’s about.
Ian R
Yeah, and that’s, and I think that’s key, knowing other home inspectors, stop being an island. There’s a, there’s some home inspectors in my area that we’ll just message each other, and sometimes we don’t say anything, we’ll just take a picture, and we’ll say today’s inspection, and we’ll just get each other, you know? And it’s like, you can’t do that even, even with your, your marriage mate. I can’t go up to my wife and say, look at the picture of this flip, and she’s gonna go, okay, those are nice countertops. You know, I don’t, only, only another home inspector without words are gonna look at that and go, I know exactly what you’re in for, buddy. Let’s go for beer after this one. But I guess that comes down to, I want to talk a little bit about some positive ways that we can cope with burnout. But two things I wanted to mention. Number one, some of the burnout happens from having a lack of work and not too much work. And I see a lot of guys burning out. One guy said recently, I’m burning out, and I’m not even busy. And that stuck with me, because a lot of times the burnout happens emotionally, internally, like we want to provide for our family. A lot of us are providers. Like you said, we want to take care of things, and we wrap up our self esteem to how well our business does sometimes, and that can be emotionally detrimental to us if we’re not having a great year. But listen, a lot of people are. Second thing is, people are becoming more and more difficult. Actually, there’s a government chart from, there was a study done in the UK, and one from the mental health professionals here in the US, and they said people’s anxiety have been on a rise since they started measuring it somewhere in the 70s or 80s, and since 2020 for obvious reasons, there’s been a sharp spike. So the average person that we talk to is 10 times more anxious and on edge than they were just 20 years ago, let alone back in the 70s and 80s, and even just four years ago, they’re twice as anxious. So when we’re dealing with people, they are literally more difficult to deal with than ever before, and we could have everything going right. We have exactly 10 inspections a week. We work from nine to 4pm, we come home with no report writing, we have dinner with our family and watch TV, and we have a great life. But then, in reality, each one of those people sucks the life out of us in one form or another, and it’s cumulative. It’s not just one mosquito, it’s 1000s of them sucking the life out of us. Do you find that too?
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, I do, yeah, and, like you said, talking about a positive way of channeling all that stress. I am personally in contact daily with like, three or four of my competitors. Not like, yeah, not like, down the street, but like, maybe a couple cities down, you know, here and there, in all every direction, and we call each other, hey, you got time for one on Sunday? No, call Chris, you know, hey, how’s work been? We just call each other, like to see how busy everybody else is, and then to see if anything’s changed, and talk, you know, shoot this, you know, because we do again, like you said, there’s nobody to talk to about it. And I think that interests are very important. You know, for somebody, it might be as simple as a boat, a small boat and a fish. You know, fishing. For me, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s shooting, hunting and collecting stuff and here and there, like the things that you spend like, for example, I switched out the outside, the exterior sconce for the back patio. And I was so frustrated, because, okay, so when I put it, I switched out the old one with a new one. I put all the wiring and everything I turned on. It didn’t turn on. I don’t know what I was thinking today. I think I had a brain fart. I took it off mad, like was one of the wires loose? Did the wire not fall? And then when I put it back on, I looked up and I saw the freaking dusk/dawn sensor. I was like, oh, middle of the day. I was like, oh, wait, let me see, and the lights came on. I was like, man, just felt like an idiot. But stuff like that. You know, I like doing little things around the house as much as I can, but keeping yourself busy, doing things that interest you, spending time with your family, those are all positive ways. And I get it. There’s guys that are on this podcast, because they’re looking for, they’re looking for an episode that will help them make money. When I first started listening to your podcast, it was like, hey, I need to listen to the episodes that will help me make money. This is important, because even if you’re not making a bunch of money, if you’re doing one or two inspections a week, you have to mentally prepare yourself for what’s going to come of that we’re giving you, we’re giving you advice based on our own experience, because you will, if you work hard, you will get to those 10, 12 inspections a week. Yes, that’ll come as long as you stick with it. But while you’re, while you got plenty of time right now, use that to manage your time appropriately, to set up boundaries and procedures so that your agents that refer you know what to expect of you. If they know that you can do, if they one time, ask you, can you do a five o’clock inspection? And you don’t want to, but you’re like, I need the work and you do it now, from now on that agents like, oh, this guy can do five o’clock inspections, and they’re always gonna expect that. You’re never gonna be able to say no, because, you know, but you can ay, you can say, hey, the latest we’ll do is three o’clock or something like that, you know. And then that way you set that boundary. Otherwise you find yourself in stressful situations where you got like, a 10am inspection, then a 5pm inspection, or you just don’t want to be home late and stuff like that. You got kids and extracurricular activities, and you have agents that think it’s okay to text you at 9:30 just by saying, so sorry, it’s late. But can we change this and that. But instead of you having your phone silence notification, silenced after 8pm, your hours updated on your website so they know, oh, it’s too late to reach out to Mike because it’s past. You know, I know all of you want to be answering the phone. 24/7, you’ll wake up at midnight if somebody’s calling because people are inconsiderate. That sets up a bad precedent. And then next thing you know, you’re answering phone calls when you don’t want to. You’re taking appointments that you don’t want to take. You’re working on Sundays. If you put yourself, I’ll never work on Sundays, but somebody really needs it, and they were asking you, and they’re like, we’ll give you more work. And you do that Sunday appointment from now on, that agent will always know that you will do Sundays, you know. And it sucks, and I know it’s hard to say no or set boundaries. It’s like dating. Honestly, you’re going in and you’re like, giving your all, but that’s not how you really are, you know, that’s not what you really are comfortable with. And then they’re gonna find out the hard way that, oh, you know, I can’t really make it at five. What do you mean? You’ve been doing it for me for years and stuff like that. So just it’s about setting a precedent for yourself and what you expect. If you’re a single guy, you don’t mind doing 5pm inspections, go for it. But for me, I don’t like it all.
Ian R
You know, I think that’s a really, really fantastic point. We can cover a lot of our anxiety by setting reasonable boundaries and sticking to them. You know, it’s funny, I’ll talk to guys and they’ll be like, I’m like, I haven’t worked a weekend inspection in 15 years, nobody that works for me does a weekend inspection. Never happens, and the whole weekend thing. And people are like, that’s bad business. I’ve had guys tell me that, and I’m like, hey, dude, I don’t really mean to say this, but you’re calling me because your business isn’t doing well, and you’re just asking me how to do better. I feel like maybe you’re thinking about backwards, because think about some of the people that have been on the show, like yourself, all these amazing, successful home inspectors, some of them owning, or having owned, some of the largest inspection companies in the world, and they’re like, oh, yeah, we don’t work, we don’t work Sundays. No, we don’t answer the phone after 7pm and yet we’re saying that, oh, the only way to success to do, to do the opposite of what all these other guys who are successful have done. They did it because, like me, you probably did the same thing. You’re like, man, people are really getting to me. So then why am I answering my text messages and emails after 8pm. Okay, phone goes off. It goes on silent. I’ll deal with it in the morning when I get up, that’s it, or I have this thing now where first thing in the morning, I get up early, and if I have an early appointment, I get up even earlier. I have my cup of coffee, I read a little bit, and I sit in my sun room and I stare at the birds for a minimum of 30 minutes, and I don’t care if I have a 6am appointment, cool. I’m getting up at 5am so I can have that half an hour to get ready and half an hour to look at the birds and drink my coffee. That has done more for my mental health than anything else, because I don’t answer phone calls, I don’t answer emails, I read and look at birds and drink coffee, the more we can do stuff like that, a little bit of self care. Man, yeah, I don’t even know how I did it before I did stuff like that, setting boundaries and realizing that work is not life. Work allows us to live. Life doesn’t originate from our work, although it’s integral to who we are.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, exactly. I think that, um, and if you’ve, if you’ve been doing this long enough, you know that the most calls and text you’ll get is when you take time off.
Ian R
Yeah, every vacation.
Mike Ortiz
We went to, we went to go to somewhere where they had this pool, and we were with the kids, and we’re in the pool for a couple hours, and I go back and look at my phone, it’s like 15 missed calls, 30 with text messages. You know this and that, it’s tough, you know, you know, you sit there for like, 20 minutes trying to respond to everything, and it’s like you find yourself thinking, okay, well, you know, what kind of boundaries can I set to make sure this just doesn’t happen again, or, you know, an away message, or something like that? And I think it comes to, I’m getting to the point where, right now, I’m going to set up set standard operating procedures so that, basically, the business doesn’t need me to run it 100% and then, because of that, it’ll open up more time for myself, prepping my agents who love me for my work to expect the same amount of, the same kind of work for my inspectors, so that I don’t have to be personally at these inspections. You know, because they’re always like Mike, I want you to come inspect. Is it going to be you, Mike? Is it going to be you? You know, I want to make sure. I want you. I want to request you. You can get past, you can get past that. Even the agents that have known you forever. If you introduce them to inspectors while you’re training them, you show them the ropes, all that stuff, the agents will come to like them. And then eventually you will have that time to do what we want. All we’re doing is managing the business from a certain time to another time. And then you have the, you have the room to hire someone to manage any kind of customer service issues. And you know, there’s, it’s, it’s, now it’s about just producing the numbers. Now it’s a numbers game. Now it’s not so much, oh, I got to get 10 a week. Now it’s, you know, now that I know I’m gonna get, you know, 30, 40, a week, I need to now make sure we’re a good price point, that we’re making a bunch of money, that we’re doing the ancillary services, that every guy and everyone I got is doing, like, six, seven sewer inspections a week ever since we added them on. And it’s like, that’s that’s a lot, that’s a lot that brings in just on an ancillary service. So I make sure they’re on it, and then we had pool inspections. Like a lot of stuff that you can do to make more money with less work, like adding on sewer adding on pools will mean that you don’t have to try to stress out about getting too many inspections. The ones that you get, you can have an average ticket price of $900, 1000 whatever it is. Imagine making, you know, imagine doing two of those a day, $2,000 inspections a day. You’re sitting pretty and you’re only dealing with two clients. Well, there’s guys in my in my market, that are charging 199 for inspections, 199 for full home inspections, and their motto “will match any price”, okay? And people are buying it up, like, I had a client cancel yesterday on an inspection, one of our inspections, they’re like, we’re canceling because of the price. They signed the agreement everything, but they’re canceling is too expensive. We’re gonna try to get the seller to pay for it. And in my mind, I’m just thinking, you know, the old me when I first started, I would be like, what price do you want? I’ll match whatever budget you have, or this and that, because I was desperate back then. You know? Now it’s now. It’s like, okay, that’s fine. That’s understandable. You know, I mean, it’s like, I’m not gonna try to explain why my value is more. If you carry yourself in that way, you’re always going to be the, there’s gonna be, when I go get my oil changed, I go to the place that costs more than the other places because you want to, you get a good service. I think you talked about what your podcast. We used to have a dentist that was cheaper and more affordable for the kids, but then we went to another one. They had like this, these cool ways, these cool machines and stuff. I don’t know what any of that stuff does did, but I liked it because they looked professional, pricey, but they look like they knew what they were doing. You know what I mean? Provided a lot of value, and they were friendly, and they checked in on us, they send us automatic updates and emails. Made everything easy, right? And I could have gotten somewhere a lot cheaper, with probably more of a wait time. You know, not as great of a customer service, rude front desk people, people were willing to pay for an experience, you know what I mean? And it’s hard to sell that sometimes I get that. Yeah.
Ian R
Well, here’s the thing with that. We actually have a podcast coming up because there’s actually a psychological effect that happens with a spectrum. Basically, you want to charge more to increase your perception of value, because the worst place to be is in the middle. So there’s a podcast coming up on that. But raising our prices, I know I keep kicking this same, same can down the street all the time. That is one of the best things I ever did for my stress level, because now I know if I’m charging $1,500 for this inspection, if they’re annoying, I’m like, you’re paying for how annoying you are. But 99% of the time, the person paying $1,500, they’re not an annoying client, they’re just like, oh, cool. You do your thing. We trust you. We paid you this because we trust you. Tell us what’s going on, and then I don’t have to worry about, oh, man, I have to go and pick up that radon test and try to get in there the third time. It’s just, you know, it’s a different level of experience with the client, but it’s also just a different stress level because, you know, you’re getting paid. You don’t have to, quote, unquote, get to the next inspection. Inspector in my area is always talking about that. I remember an agent, he switched to us because he’s like, he literally left my client hanging with questions. Because he’s like, I have to get to the other inspection. And he just drove away, and the the client was just standing there. They’re like, I didn’t even get to ask him a question. I’m like, I never wanted to do that. I’m like, hey, I got two hours until my next inspection. You just paid me $1,700 and they’re paying me $2,200, let’s talk. You know, you want more time. Let’s talk outside the house. The agent can go, and we’re on the sidewalk. Ask me some more questions.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, and I think a big. Here’s something to look out for. And if you’re the kind of person that maybe does it, because it happens to even a normal, good person, where you’re doing an inspection and you’re tired and you’re not charging enough, right? And the people have genuine questions, and they are interested in what’s going on with the home that they’re going to buy, and you just are annoyed, like, internally, you’re like, just trust me on my word, I did a good job. Look at your inspection. Just buy the house, you know, who cares? And if you’re guilty of that, because I’ve been guilty of that before, when I didn’t charge enough, and you’re like..
Ian R
Me too, all of us.
Mike Ortiz
You know, yeah, you’re like, in your head, just like, just take the inspection, you know, pay your money and go. Nobody, you know, and when it comes to price, nobody questions. When we bought our house, we didn’t question the 750 we had to pay for the damn appraiser. Right? We’re just like, oh, damn, that sucks. We’ll pay it, you know, because we need it. You know, the thing with home inspections, I hope it never becomes mandatory, because it makes it difficult to compete like that. But right now, as it stands the way it is, I like it because we can stand out on value. Like, I think, I don’t know who talked about it before, but when you have, when you bring in a regulatory board, there’s corruption 1,000% of the time, like I’ve never seen it not work out that way, where something is regulated and there isn’t some kind of corruption, where people complain and say, oh, it’s not fair. The home front is got this advantage that we don’t. Can we make a rule saying you can’t do that anymore, and then it’s like you lose your competitive edge. So keep in mind that pricing it right will keep you from getting stressed about each inspection, because if you’re going into two inspections, imagine going into two inspections today, and you only charged 400 bucks for each inspection, right? You got to be there for three hours a piece, six hours, right? You’re not going to be as happy as if you charge 600 for each inspection. Make $1,200 today, and you’re like, okay, I may not want to be here, but I’m making this 600 bucks in three hours. That’s pretty good money. That’s $200 an hour. I’m happy with that. You know, you value yourself more, and that helps deal with that burnout. It gives it like a reason. It sucks. Imagine being burnt out and being the cheapest guy in your market. That sucks because you don’t feel like you get that respect and value, and you feel like you’re being undervalued, and people are paying you less than what you are hoping you’re worth. And that, that can really affect your personal feelings. Yeah.
Ian R
Yeah. And then each inspection matters so much because you have to pay the overhead for each inspection, so you want to take a three day weekend, but you’re like, I have, this is the busy season. I have to do six inspections Friday and Saturday. And it’s like, okay, well, if you had made more money the first four days..
Mike Ortiz
You wouldn’t have to do that.
Ian R
You wouldn’t have to do that. You could take a break and then be fresh Monday for your inspection. We could preach that all day. But listen, burnout is real. It affects all of us. If we’re feeling burnt out, either from too much work or from lack of work, from people, from the crazy person that calls two years later, saying, hey, we have a roof leak from the roof you said we should replace. We want you to come and fix it. You’re not alone. This is our life. But it kind of, it kind of really starts to hit hard right about this time of year. I know I start to feel it. So if you’re feeling it, listen to Mike here. He knows how it feels to, and do some self care. Take a break, start setting some boundaries. And I think that’s kind of the key points from what we’re talking about.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah, make a friend. It’s, I know it’s stupid to say it sometimes, but I have, you know, I have maybe two good friends, you know what I mean, that I can call on and vent to, and it’s important, you know, and then make sure you’re that friend for someone else. Sometimes, hearing other people’s problems can give you some perspective. You know, if you have someone, yeah, because you may, even if you’re not doing great, there are people that are far worse off, and you have to take into account that you’re healthy and alive and, you know, able to go out and take a risk and get an opportunity to be to start your own business. So be grateful for your. Don’t, don’t, don’t count, you know, what you don’t have. I really don’t like that. That’s one of the biggest killers of businesses, is that envy, envy of other people. There’s gonna be, there’s, I guarantee you, there’s a better inspector. I’m not the best inspector. Compared, you know, compared to what the inspectors are out there. You’re not the best, whoever’s listening. I don’t know if there is truly the best inspector, but I do know that you have to consider that there’s always gonna be someone that’s worse off, and you can’t really compare yourself. Compare, comparing yourself to other people is really tough unless you’re doing it in a constructive way, where you’re like, man, they’re doing this. I have to step it up. That would be a constructive way to do it. But not they’re doing this, man. They’re making it difficult for me to do my job, because now they’re people are gonna expect me to do it. Should never look at it that way. If somebody’s doing something better than you, try to learn from it. But envy, greed, these are killers, and we do get greedy. We do get envious. And you know, and when you spot that, when you see that, you know, nip it in the bud, before it becomes a habit, before it becomes something that turns into not just burnout, but you start turning into a person you don’t even like, and that would really be the worst outcome.
Ian R
Yeah, totally agree. And these are great points. So everybody, if you’re feeling it, we’re feeling it too.
Mike Ortiz
Yeah.
Ian R
We’ll get through it. Just try to take some actionable items here, and make some improvements. But Mike, thank you so much for being on especially with your busy schedule. We really appreciate it a lot.
Mike Ortiz
Thank you, you too, man.
Ian R
Talk soon.
Mike Ortiz
All right.
Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].
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