Ian R
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk everyone. And we have on my buddy, George Karampoulis, again. And I know I said your last name wrong, but that’s how I’m gonna say it.
George Karampoulis
You can actually, you, you actually have started nailing the name. That’s good.
Ian R
Nice. Okay, I’m working it. George is going to talk to us today about the driveway speech. But I’m really glad to have George on again, he’s a certified master inspector, owner of Owl’s Eye down in Georgia, and he’s from Greece originally. And I like messing with him when I put stuff into Google Translate and send him stuff in Greek. I think, I think it makes George happy.
George Karampoulis
I think that we are pretty simple as people in general in Greece, if you, if we see that you are at least try. We’re good. We are like 100% with you. We love you.
Ian R
Well, cool. I’m trying, I can’t get the language down. But I can use Google Translate as much as possible. George, it’s really great to have you on, you’re a guest before, and we love repeat guests. Because I love it when people contact me and they say, Ian, I have a great idea for a podcast. And this one is near and dear to my heart as often these podcasts are, the driveway speech. So what made you think of the driveway speech when when you contacted us here?
George Karampoulis
Well, first of all, you’ve been doing this for what? Three seasons now?
Ian R
This is four seasons, yeah.
George Karampoulis
Fourth season. So, you know, I started, I think, in the third season to hear you. And then I went back to hear from the very beginning. But since then I didn’t, I don’t remember what you have covered, because you have covered so many things. But I think that it’s very important to have the driveway speech. It’s very important. And a lot of people that they call me, they say, hey, thank you for spending so much time to explain this to me. And no one else has done that in the past, things like that. So that’s why I’m like, you know what, let’s, let’s see if we can cover that subject.
Ian R
Yeah, and it’s a great subject. And I say it’s near and dear to my heart. Because I’ve said it on the show before. We had a podcast probably three years ago, I think it was about managing expectations. And the driveway speech was a small piece of that one, but I think it deserves its own podcast like this one. Because it’s really setting the stage for how everything goes after the inspection. Forget all the marketing for a moment, forget all the legal things. Really, it comes down to taking our clients and letting them know what’s going to happen. So what is the driveway speech? Give us an overview of that.
George Karampoulis
So, I totally agree with you like, but I would add to that it’s actually it’s like an essay, you have to have the beginning, the middle part, and the ending. So it is not only after the inspection, but also before, it is the marketing. It is how you get them to really trust you and hire you and you give them a reason to do so. Then it is the actual job that you do the inspection, you write the report. But then the driveway speech also covers what’s after. What do they expect? What, what is it like? Okay, I give the report, and I’m done. I’m never going to hear about you again. from you again. So I think that it covers all of these. I have, I have splitted that driveway speech into two parts, like when Realtors call me for an inspection and when clients call me. Do you want me to start with the realtors I guess?
Ian R
Yeah. And I guess maybe just to kind of clarify, when we’re calling the driveway speech, we’re kind of giving it a broad application. So whether somebody calls you, we originally call it the driveway speech, because we’re in the driveway, talking to our clients, whether before the inspection and after the inspection, but we’re kind of giving you a broader application too of even when they call you. So yeah, let’s, let’s cover your first part.
George Karampoulis
And especially the part that I will tell you that I talk with clients about is something that you can say either in person, and it’s even better actually, but either in person or when they first call you, so that’s why, yeah, we do give a little bit more broad.
Ian R
Yeah, perfect.
George Karampoulis
So let’s say that, start with the easy ones. You know, I have like on only four I think, realtors that they use me all the time that I know for a fact that I’m their go to. But those four Realtors, whenever the clients come from them, it’s like I don’t know what they tell them. It’s like I come highly recommended already. I don’t need to say much and they know that they will be taken care of. So the nice thing is that when these Realtors call me, they say, hey, I’m about to put an offer today. If I get accepted, when is your first availability, and that’s all they need to know. And it helps them first of all, you know, to know when I’m available for that, and then it helps them put a better offer, because a lot of times they can say, hey, if you go with me, we just need one day due diligence, because they already know that I can go today or the day after. And I give the report the same day. So or they can be like, hey, if you can do it today, then I just send you the CBS code, they send you the disclosure, and you’re ready to go. Thank you. That’s it, you don’t even need to call the client kind of thing. So that’s the easy part.
Ian R
So basically, you’re saying you kind of give them a skimmed down version of your speech, when you already know that you’ve sealed the deal. And I think that’s smart. Because it’s, I know, for me, I tend to oversell, and when I already have the person, like or, like I’m ready to schedule, sometimes I’ll still be selling them. That’s like overcooking meat, it’s just gonna make it tough. You know? So that’s good. Okay, so know where our clients are coming from. And I think that also speaks to the fact that we need to know where people are coming from. I had, I had somebody contact me, they’re like, Ian, I haven’t had anybody, be on my, hire me from my website, in three months. So I’m like, that’s weird. And then I look at his traffic, and then I look at his click throughs. And then I’m like, you know, you’ve, you’ve had a lot of people. Oh, well, I just assumed. I’m like, do you ask? And he’s like, no, I don’t even ask. That’s really bad practice, know where our business is coming from. Because we make a lot of assumptions in our head, like, oh, this agent sends me 100 inspections a year, when they may only spent send us like two or three, they just talk a big game, we have to get past perception and go into actual facts of where they come from.
George Karampoulis
You nailed it right there. That is actually part of when the clients call me directly, because I always ask that, where did they find me? So I’ll get to that really soon. But you nailed it. Yeah.
Ian R
Okay, I stole some of your thunder, then. I’m sorry.
George Karampoulis
But I don’t understand that part from a lot of people, they just assume, why you need to assume when you can see, ask, like, and you get the information that you need. And you get the fact, not just an assumption, but yeah, so the second thing is that, you know, random Realtors call me, and they want to schedule an inspection. A lot of times that happens weeks, like Fourth of July, that they’re like, their inspector is on vacation. And they’re like, let’s try this guy. But when they call, the one question that I hate is when they start with, I want to know how much you charge for inspection. Congratulations, thank you very much, like that, that automatically gives me the understanding that they are not in business for too long or they don’t care for too much because okay, I started asking yeah, square footage, age of the house, where is it located? Like how far do I need to go? You know, things like that. Can you give me this information please. And then I can give you a quote, although, and that’s a key on this scenario. In this scenario, you need to tell them that hey, I prefer if I talk with, directly with the client, I know that you represent him, I know that you tried to find two or three realtors to give them, sorry, inspectors names to give them, but I want to talk to them because I can be the cheapest one, I can be the most expensive, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that I will be able to tell them what they pay for to explain to them. Okay, why am I that expensive, for example. So I let actually the realtors know that because I don’t think of just the now but also in the future they might use me again, they might call me again, at least they will know that they would call me for my quality and not for my price, and if they just price shopping, so if they just price shop, they will never call me again, and I saved myself from another call in the future.
Ian R
Let me ask you something in regards to that, George, I notice you mentioned Realtors calling you. Do you have a lot of mostly Realtors call you or do you have any clients call you directly because every, every market’s a little different, in my market it’s probably 10% Realtors calling and 90% of the clients calling directly. But I know, I would say, and again, I’m just pulling numbers out of just anecdotally, in my head, half the, half the country is one way, and half the country is the other. US and Canada, are you mostly Realtors calling them?
George Karampoulis
So, I don’t know if I was doing something wrong in the beginning. And then I started listening to your podcasts, and I started being better. Also, you know, well that you gave me some advice with my website, and you helped me and say it’s actually a little bit the game, because this is what happened. For years, I had the freebie website because I was one of the guys that I didn’t believe that I need, you know, to pay and explain, you know, excessive amounts, so I can have a website, which obviously was wrong. And I say obviously, with the facts that I have now. So during that period, I had a lot of realtors calling me but not, not clients direct, directly. When I changed the website, and I made some changes that you also told me, and all these happen, then I noticed that when I pick up the phone, and I say how did you find me? They actually say it’s like split, half realtors, half my website.
Ian R
Okay.
George Karampoulis
Yeah, through Google and website. And usually, when they go to the website, they say that I saw enough in your website, sealed the deal for me.
Ian R
Nice. Nice. Yeah. And I guess, I’m really glad to hear that because that’s, that’s a ratio we want, half and half. I mean, that’s, that’s a good ratio. But I was talking about in general, like in my market, even if it comes from the agent, the agent’s gonna hand out three business cards of home inspectors and say call all three of these, they don’t usually schedule that inspection. But sounds like in your market, it is the other way around, which is a lot of markets, probably half of them out there. So if a client calls you, do you change your speech from a realtor to a client?
George Karampoulis
Yes, I give a lot more information to the clients. That goes to, you know, try to, trying to sell some stuff, my ancillary and all these, but also trying to explain, what should they expect from me. And I only in the end, I give them the price, not in the beginning, in the end, because we want them to pay attention and hear my explanation like what what are they paying for? So when they, when they call us, I said, I just in the very end, I say the price, in the beginning, I started with, hey, how did you find me? Is it, I’m expecting answers like, I’m part of a BNI? So is it BNI? Is it the continual education class that they give? Is it the realtor? Or did you find me from the website? Like, how did you find me? So that’s important to me, and I keep also track of that, then I start with managing their expectations. Hey, there are things that most of the things that I do, and some that they are, that I don’t, like, septic, for example, I don’t do it yet. So I let them know that because I say, hey, I will do everything from the roof in the attic to the foundation of your house, exterior, interior, plumbing, electrical, I pretty much give a sphere of what I do. All these are included. Now couple of things like the septic is not included. I can’t help you with that. And that saved me from later saying, oh, why? Why you didn’t inspect the septic? Because they think that part of the home inspection is pretty much everything. Gotcha.
Ian R
I think that’s really important. I know, for me, one of the big parts of my driveway speech, and I would have a separate speech for, and maybe you’re gonna get to this, for the phone, and then before the inspection and then right after the inspection. And all of them were basically a continuation, but I would, I got to the point where I had it memorized. But I would write it down. And every time I would find some better way of saying something, I would adjust my speech and say it differently the next time, always improving my speech. But that was always my big thing. One of the things that I would always start out with, in New York State, it’s actually illegal for us to even mention building code. So it says right in the law, shall not do building code. You know, we’re not code enforcers. It’s a whole thing I used to teach a course on, actually, it’s called the letter of the law course, for home inspectors in New York. So one of the things that I would always bring up is, hi, my name is Ian, yada, yada, yada. And just to let you know we’re not doing a code inspection. We’re not going to check for building code. And then there would be the automatic gasp like, how dare you. And then I will say, but that makes sense, because the house we’re inspecting today is from the 1950s. And it’s not going to meet almost any building code out there right now. And I give the example of, you know, house built in 1969, has 2×4 exterior walls, somewhere between somewhere in the mid 80s, we switch two by six exterior walls. So we’re not going to tear down the whole house and build new walls. And they’re like, oh, that makes sense. I’m like, New York state has its own standards of practice, and we’ll follow those. But what that did is, like you said, manage expectations. So when a contractor came in said, these walls aren’t up to code, which would invariably happen. There was a yeah, we know, Ian told us that, it wasn’t buried. It was buried in my report still, I say buried, it was in my report, in our agreements, in New York state law. But what they heard was more important. They didn’t have to call me and say, Ian, you didn’t inspect for code, and then I have to retro actively explain it.
George Karampoulis
Well, I think that that leaves 90%, if not, 100% of all of us know that, they don’t read their agreements. So yes, saying that is actually important. And I do that too. I said to them, we don’t, we don’t do code, we don’t inspect for code. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t know, at least parts of the code so we can keep you safe. And that’s where we focus, to keep you safe. To make sure that you, you are safe the new house, the house, the new house is safe for you to live in. And also, you know, keep your pocket safe, too. Yeah.
Ian R
Yeah, which matters. Okay, are there any other particular fine points that you like to include in your speech that you found to be important?
George Karampoulis
Very, so I asked for the square footage, the age of the house, and the address. When they give me the address, I Google it, I see in any of the websites out there, you know, how it looks like, what it is. And that is something that I think a lot of people will find beneficial that hear us today. You will be amazed. I see the picture, even if it is just one picture that they have on, you know, on the front, like from the front of the house. And I say to the to the clients, all right, look, I am not there. So don’t take it like it’s 100% correct what I’m saying. But to give you an understanding, I will go there. And I see that from the picture online, I see that the other roof has a weird shape or there is a crawlspace. And then I give them the expectations about that. So I will say hey, there is a dead valley there. Usually these are prone to leak with time, the house is older. So I will make sure that I will pay attention to that part of the roof. Or oh, I see the house has a crawlspace, you know what, 90% of the crawlspaces here have what you will call mold. Because technically, we are not allowed to call it mold until we test it. Which takes us to an ancillary service. But put that aside. We’ll talk about that later. But I pointed already two things from one picture that a lot of times the comments come back to me they’re like, oh, wow, you could see that and say that just from a picture. Imagine what you will do in in person.
Ian R
You know, that’s a beautiful selling point. Whether it’s on the phone, or even just before the inspection I’ve always said there’s an inspector, I have always said, I can do half the inspection from the Google photos or from or even just from the driveway. Very rarely will I go in and be like, well, this was a complete surprise. I mean, there’s always going to be something like that. But you know, if you know this area is prone for termites, and there’s a sag in the roof over on the side where there’s sandy soil. It’s like okay, I’m just putting two and two together here. That goes a long ways to impressing your client. Now anything you say after that is gold, especially when you’re right. We’re like hey, there’s a sag in your roof. And I notice there’s a finished attic in their listing photos. What they probably took out the rafter ties and raise the collar ties, you know so and then you get up there and they’re like crud, you were right. Anything you say after that no one’s..Like you can’t argue with Ian or George. But it takes an extra minute or two, though, doesn’t it George?
George Karampoulis
It does. Yes. You know, it’s like you have seen my notes. I promise I haven’t told you anything yet.
Ian R
It’s just, it’s good logical stuff, when it makes sense, you don’t, you don’t, it just makes sense.
George Karampoulis
So yes, it takes an extra minute. And because the same thing you can say it on the phone, when you see the picture in your computer, or you can say it in person there when in the driveway and you give the driveway speech, right? And you see the roof and say, hey, you see that? I’m going there first. But yeah, it takes an extra minute. And that’s actually another thing that I’m telling them, I am not your typical home inspector. If I book a house for you, I will, I might be busy later with the second or third inspection or with my family. By 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock at night, I will be there to answer your question. Most of the people, they will say no, I’m not doing that to you like it’s okay, if we talk tomorrow. But if it happens, that they have a question, and tomorrow, you know, they need to have the answer. Usually, they are so respectful that it takes five minutes to say, hey, you mentioned that in the report, or I have that question about what you said to me. Can you explain a little bit about that? Five minutes. Okay. Thank you. Bye. And that made you be God in their mind.
Ian R
Yeah, you know, I guess we get too logistical on our time sometimes. And I kind of do this to myself, you know, it’s like, okay, if I’m on the phone with 10 minutes or 15 minutes for the client, talking about all their concerns. Yeah, I won that client. But that took too long, I want to win them faster. The problem is that 10, 15 minutes on the phone, or even the five minutes at the beginning of the inspection in the driveway, or at the end of the inspection, the time it saves each time. So 10, 15 minutes on the phone when we’re scheduling, we answered a bunch of their questions. So now they have confidence when we get there. So the whole, you know, who are you? Why are you good at this, all that stuff? That’s gone. Now we’ve managed expectations in the driveway with our driveway speech, here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s where I’m going to go first, here’s where we’re going to go last, that five minutes shaves 20 minutes off at the at the end of the inspection or during the inspection when people are walking the wrong way. You got to bring everybody back to where they need to be. And you know, it’s just interrupting things. At the end of the inspection, giving them a roundabout view, pre-answering questions. I love pre-answering questions, that five minutes saved us a half an hour later on. So it does cost time. Yeah. But if somebody said here, if, if you pay $1, put $1 into this machine, and we’ll give you $10 out. We do that all day long. We do that with our time, put our time in first and we get more time out of it. We get very few callbacks and very few questions because we try to pre-answer questions just like you do.
George Karampoulis
You’re correct. And remember now that, that 10 minutes that you put, like when you’re in the office answering the phone call, for example, or in the driveway speech, that’s why you charge extra. First of all, and secondly, as you said, usually the guys that they ask questions, that is very rare, but if they ask questions like 10 o’clock, as I said that night, that will text me, say hey, about that. Well, it’s the guy that was in a hurry when we were talking before the inspection.
Ian R
Yeah, do you have, do you have a special driveway speech for the end of your inspection too, like, like the final notes?
George Karampoulis
In the end of the inspection, I give them an understanding of how my report will be, how it’s set up and what to expect after I show to them. We had a brief summary of my findings. So I said to them, hey, like most of inspectors probably, I don’t know. They’re split it in three sections. You know, I have the major, the minor, and tips for maintenance after you buy, they purchase their house. Sorry. So I said to them, okay, do you remember that hairline crack that we saw in the drywall that are in the hallway? Okay, well, that, I didn’t see any other evidence further to tell me that it’s something important. I will put it in the minor, you still want to monitor it, but it’s in the minor. But do you remember the big crack in the crawlspace or in the basement? Well, guess what? That goes to the major. So now you have an idea of what to expect where and setting up your software is really important for that reason, because you set it up the way that you do the inspection, and then that drives you to give the driveway speech.
Ian R
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. I like how you’d let people know where things are going to go in your report at the end. And I found that was very important, because one of the biggest complaints that I have heard from real estate agents is that the report ends up being a surprise when they get it. So one thing I always say is, listen, when you’re going to get the report, it’s going to make it look like your house is going to fall down. That’s a home inspection report. You know what, you can fill up books of all the things that are wrong with the house, it says light switch doesn’t work, right? Or there’s loose floorboards. It’s just like, that’s a house, and everybody kind of chuckles. But then I’m like, listen, just like you just said, George, here are the three things I want you to focus in on, read the rest of the report, grab a glass of wine, and read it to your children at night. I don’t know, do whatever you want with it. But really, what it comes down to it is, here’s the three things that I want you to focus on, that service wire had stripped conductors, you know, there was a foundation issue, focus on those. Agents would actually, new agents would oftentimes thank me before they left, or in a text message or something. They’re like, thank you. Because we don’t want to report being a surprise. And we have to know where we’re going to put things. Because sometimes inspectors will be like, oh, yeah, that’s minor issue. But then later on, you get the report. And it says, oh, yeah, big major issues, like, which was it dude. Like, well, I wanted to cover myself. It’s like, okay, well, just let everybody know ahead of time. I don’t want to, I don’t want to go to the doctor and say you everything looks good. And then I get a report later on. Oh, by the way, you may have cancer. It’s like, well, alright, lead in with that. You know.
George Karampoulis
Yeah, I totally agree. And not everything is a black and white situation. Sometimes you have that gray area. And you have to tell them that gray area. So for example, a lot of times I see discoloration, something on a gap, like, well, not gap, but a discoloration, let’s say, in the attic, on the roof, so I say to them, look, I checked it, it’s dry. But guess what, having rain for a week now will lead, will it leak when it rains? Probably. Am I 100% sure? No, because you also told me that in the disclosure, it said that they replace the roof. Was it before? Was it after the replacement that I see the discoloration? Like when did it happen? I don’t know, I don’t have this, these answers. So this is also what I’m telling them, I say so, it will be for example in the minor because it’s dry at time of inspection. But it will also mention monitor with the hard rain or check it with a contractor. Like it’s not just oh, it’s minor, we’re done. So I give them the understanding of the gray area.
Ian R
I think that’s a beautiful example, I couldn’t have pulled out a better one, the one I was thinking was like an older roof. It’s, it’s like, alright, you have an 18 year old, 20 year old roof, depending on which part of the country you’re in. It’s not leaking. Or maybe it’s a 30 year shingle and it’s 27 years old. It’s like, it’s not leaking. There’s no broken shingles, it’s still sealed. It’s like, listen, you’re buying an old roof, you have to be okay with that or not. But I’m not going to mark something that’s a defect that isn’t. Yeah, but I’m also not going to tiptoe around other things. And then I’ll bring out something that I did call out, or like, oh, okay, but man, that saves so many angry phone calls later on. How much time does it take going through a lawsuit or getting demand letters? It’s just like, couldn’t you take five, taking five minutes to save yourself months of headache? You know.
George Karampoulis
Right. To me, that’s why I prefer to spend, you know, 10 minutes before, 10 minutes after, and, you know, just save all this time later. And as I said, you know, when you make yourself available to them even late at night, because you know, it used to be that you have two weeks due diligence, you don’t do that anymore. So when it’s so short nowadays, but if they know that if they need you, they can find you, most of the times, 90% of the times, they won’t need you, they will not find you. Sorry, they will not need you. But if they need you, they will find you.
Ian R
I get what you’re saying. You know, I also find that the driveway speech when people first get there on the inspection, that aspect of it, I find is good because it slows them down for a second. People pull into the driveway of a house they’re buying, typically at 100 miles an hour in their mind. You know, they’re like, what about this? What about that? My dad told me to look for this. My uncle told me to look for that. And all these things. Yeah, it’s kind of like somebody that isn’t feeling good and has 50 things that they think is, it’s like a hypochondriac thinking everything’s falling apart, they walk into the doctor, and they’re just freaking out. So what I would do is let them go and I say, hang on a second. Let’s breathe for a moment. Let me go over this, because this helps me to focus. By the time I’m done, their focused too. And it just slows them down. They’re like, oh, okay, I get it.
George Karampoulis
Exactly. And to your point, if they do bring the family, if I see that, you know, three, four cars are parked, after me. I say to them, all right, I gather them all together before I enter, and I said, look, I have no problem with all of you have being here, I’m here for you. I’m here for you, I do have a method, I have some things that I have to do in order. So I will answer your questions in the end, when I have actually seen the majority, at least of the property. One thing, do not turn on AC, do not turn on waters, do not flush, do not do anything that could actually damage the property, unless you ask me.
Ian R
You know, since we’re talking about that, here’s a, here’s a tip from me, I have actually, when there’s family there, more than just my client, I will actually write in the report somewhere that multiple people were on site and were a limitation to the inspection in some ways if they were, or that you know, damage or other things could have happened without the inspectors knowledge. Because there’s been many times. There’s one where, well, there’s two there, two that happened with sinks that just pop right into my head. I had an agent fall through a ceiling one time after I warned him, and then the client’s like, you kept telling him to get out of the attic, he’s like, oh, I want to get..then he fell through the ceiling, ended up in the hospital. He’s okay. But I remember this one girl, she, she wanted to test the sink, and she wanted to check the overflow. So she plugged it and walked away. There was, there was water pouring down the cellars. That house was vacant, but I mean, water pouring down the walls, they had to report it, I spent an extra hour there helping them clean it up. And I’m just like. Another one, I’m running water in a sink for a well flow test, big huge old farm sink. So this thing holds a lot of water. So the mom, mom was there, she was like, I wonder how much water it will hold? Puts a plug in. Or the worst is when you get, when you get halfway through a two hour well flow test. And all of a sudden people are turning off the water or running extra water, and now you have to write up, I actually don’t know how much water ran, because people were messing with the water. So I would, I would, I would always write them up as a limitation and a variable that I couldn’t control. Because if they, if my client, my client’s almost always with me. And if I don’t have them with me at any point, I write it up. Because I don’t know what they did.
George Karampoulis
Smart, I didn’t think about writing a limitation, the only thing that I have done, and it’s in your software, in the very beginning I put who like, who was present, and I just have a note. And I just put, you know, client or builder or realtor and things like that.
Ian R
Yeah, that that is key, that will save you, and I know we’re going off on a tangent. But I remember a contractor had turned off like a heating unit or something and walked away and forgot because it was busy. There’s all this stuff going on. And he just kind of forgot. And they had no heat. So I was able to write in there. I’m like, I left, and when I left. All these contractors are in there, including the HVAC guy. I’m like, and they’re like, oh, that makes sense. Save ourselves some trouble. Most of the time, I would end up having a conversation. And I say, hey, listen, because I have no problem controlling the room. So all these people running around, I’m like, hey, everybody gather over here. And just like you said, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t want to get on a plane with the pilot to go and do a different process each time checking everything right, because he’s gonna forget. So I have the same process I do in every home, so I don’t miss things. You guys are messing up that process. I love you being here, but maybe you guys can go grab some coffee, come back, and you can hear the end speech, and I’ll show you some things. 99.9% of time it’d be fine. There’d be a couple of grumpy people that would stay anyways. And I just write them up as a limitation. But oh man, I remember this one, George. There, there must have been 15, 20 people in this 1500 square foot house. And they were turning things off and on. Finally I told the agent, I’m like, we’re done. We’re, we cannot do this. There’s people pushing in front of me. I have the electric panel open. And one guy is looking over my back and reaching in and grabbing, shaking wires. And I’m like, I told the agent, I’m like, we’re done. And she goes oh, thank goodness. She made everybody leave, and we came back and did the inspection. We finished when everybody left, but the agent stood out in the yard. I could see her just stand there with their arms wide. Just telling everybody wait till he’s done. So, thankfully, most of the times I’ve had people respecting that when I told them, okay, don’t do anything. And that was it. I only have two examples. One was the guy that walked in, and he just went to the water heater in the basement, and he started pressing the TPR testing it, releasing water, I’m like, sir, like, please don’t do anything because what if that would, like, it would burn you, if it would..I don’t know..? Not shut off again.
George Karampoulis
So he’s like, okay, okay. And he understood, but it took him like that one thing to do wrong. And I’m like.. Anyway, there was another guy that he wanted to show, to ask me if something is correct in the electrical panel. And he was like, isn’t that correct, pointing towards the electrical panel with his finger. I slapped his finger. He looked at me, I’m like, you were about to touch the electrical panel, do not touch the electrical panel.
Ian R
So if we were to sum up this episode, George is telling everybody to start slapping your clients when they get out of line. So thank you, everybody, hope you start slapping people. No, I’m just kidding.
George Karampoulis
Soon you will close your business.
Ian R
No, but it’s true, though. Because you have a good driveway speech, you prep people on the phone, in the driveway before, and then after. Me and you don’t have a lot of circumstances where we’re like, this was insane because we do prep people, and I’ll tell people my driveway speech, you know, I’d like you to stick with me, or stick with the agent. I know you’re buying this house. But we just want to make sure that we show you everything and then that you’re not interrupting testing that I’m doing. 99% of the time, George, just like you said, people are like, oh, that makes total sense. You know, only in our profession, will clients oftentimes show up to the inspection or agents. It’s like, I don’t go up to my mechanic while he’s under the car and start poking at things and causing damage and and hurting them. We have a really unique profession that way. So it takes some prep time to make sure people don’t hurt themselves, us, or the house.
George Karampoulis
Yes. And sometimes, you know, it’s also as easy as, like asking the client, hey, have you seen the property in person? Like, have you been there? And they say, yes, with my realtor for the showing. And I’m like, okay, well, anything that you saw that you didn’t like, anything that you were like, hmm, I’m not sure about that, that you want me to spend more time on that. And they give you an understanding of what their concerns are. And then you know, okay, let me explain better this and that, or let me spend more time there because they worry about that. So that, that helps there too. And the disclosure, if you get it from a realtor, because you can see what was done, what kind of work was done to the house. And maybe you can say, hey, let me spend more time on that, too.
Ian R
Yeah, I do think the point you just made about being a bit interactive with our clients, you know, what concerns you? You know, what did you notice? That’s pretty important because we learn other things, too. I remember one of my competitors taught me this. He said, know where your clients are coming from because, you know, they could like, I’ve had clients that are electricians, welders, you know, they have, they can do all sorts of stuff. So I’m standing there focusing on basic electrical speech for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the guy’s a master electrician. But if I don’t take the time to find that out, you know, I can actually learn something from that client be like, hey, you know, I’m a home inspector, I’m not a master electrician. What do you think of this double tap on the square d breaker? Oh, yeah, well, and then they’ll start explaining things, I can learn something, shows respect to them. But you know, we don’t need to call out a billion different things and be overly descriptive when the guy already knows. Now we can be more descriptive on things in the HVAC unit or up in the attic, things that he might not know as much about, but knowing where our clients coming from, or we might find out, we might be like, oh, man, this is your forever home and this and this and this, and they may be house flippers, like, you know, there’s a big difference of how we, how we speak to and convey information. It’s the same information for every client, not saying different information, same information, but different than how we convey it, knowing where our clients coming from. And we only find that up by taking the time like you said.
George Karampoulis
Yes, I agree. I agree. And, you know, as you asked me, you asked me earlier if I also do something afterwards I told you, I set up how I tell them how the report is set and what to expect. But the other thing that they ask is, well, first of all, they keep asking, I think 90% of the clients, they ask, well, would you buy the house? Yeah. Or they say, okay, well, that deck that you didn’t see the support, and you know very well, like, well, what’s the solution? Is it going to be expensive? Or like, what’s the process on that? It’s important to tell them that, look, I can tell you five different ways to fix that. But in the end of the day, I am not the one that will decide how to fix it and how to continue with that. You are, and you have to hire a contractor that will do that. And we’ll give you five different options. And then you will say, according to my budget, I can go with the second one, with the first one. Now, if I would buy the house or not, that’s a very hard question still, to me, because I have to hide my logo, hide myself, and be like, you ask outside home inspections, or you ask George. So yeah.
Ian R
My favorite way to answer that, would you buy this house is, no, I already have one. You know, and I use the illustration of like, that’s like asking a mechanic if you would buy this old jalopy. Yeah. Cuz he can fix everything. He has all the tools, equipment, and experience. I’m like, the question is, would you buy it? Like, you know, everything’s fixable. And then I always end, everything’s fixable. It’s just a matter of…what’s the other illustration I’d use. It’s like finding a marriage mate. You don’t look for somebody perfect. Because you’ll never find anybody. You look for someone whose flaws you can tolerate. And everybody kind of chuckle a little bit, and I’m like, my wife can tolerate a lot. But George, this is, this has been a fantastic..
George Karampoulis
I might steal that one.
Ian R
You can steal that one. But this has been a fantastic discussion. I told you before the show, a lot of inspectors don’t have a driveway speech. They, some will say, oh, yeah, I say a few words beforehand, or whatever. But a lot of inspectors that I talk to, when I’m going through basic stuff like this, they’ll say, well, you know, I don’t really. I’m like, write it down. If you don’t have the same thing that you say every time on the phone, in the driveway, and at the end, you’re missing out on a lot of time saving tips. So thank you for bringing this up.
George Karampoulis
Thank you for inviting me again. And thank you for nailing my last name.
Ian R
Karampoulis, right.?
George Karampoulis
It’s the emphasis in the, is in the “ou”, so it’s KarampOUlis, KarampOUlis.
Ian R
KarampOUlis. Well, either way, George, I love having you man. Thank you so much.
George Karampoulis
Have a good one.
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