Ian Robertson
Buck, how are you buddy? Good to have you on the show.
Buck Fleming
Good, how about yourself, man?
Ian Robertson
Hey, I'm doing good. I'm happy because I get to talk to you today.
Buck Fleming
I heard that.
Ian Robertson
Well, I'm really happy to have you on the show. We've been talking about this subject for a while. You actually brought it up a while back, and I thought it was a great subject. Somebody mentioned something in a podcast, and then you made some really great application of it for this episode, which is on setting boundaries, which I think is a great subject, because one of the things we look after very little of as home inspectors and business owners, is our own mental well being, and we usually let it go too far, and then we're like, I'm stressed, and we don't know why, and a lot of it comes down to not setting boundaries. So before we get into that, Buck, I want the audience to know who you are, what you do, where you're located, social security numbers, credit card numbers, things like that. So if you can lay it out there for us, that'd be great.
Buck Fleming
I'll give you my wife's social security number.
Ian Robertson
There you go.
Buck Fleming
So I own Integrity Inspection Service in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'regoing on eight years of business. I was one of the guys that came in from the trades, and when I look back like I'm one of those honest guys, like I have failed at more businesses than probably most people have started, and as I've learned and grown in business over the years, I think a lot of it comes down to poor boundaries have led to burnout over and over and over again. Andso I came from the trades, burned out as a home improvement contractor, and I was looking for a way to provide for my family, and that's how we ended up in home inspections. I was just looking for something to do. And so that's where we are now,
Ian Robertson
Wow. Okay, well, you've made a success of the home inspection industry. Your company does very well for itself, and we've worked together. We do your website. We've worked together for many years now, and you guys have done very well for yourself. You're good at what you do, good inspector and good at running your inspection company.
Buck Fleming
Well, we fake it till we make it.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, right. I don't believe that, but I know what you mean. We want other people to learn from our mistakes, right? And I like how you mentioned that you burned out as a home contractor. I remember being in my early 20s as a, as a home improvement contractor, easy to burn out when you don't have boundaries. There's a contractor friend of mine. He's never burned out. He's in his 60s, still building additions and all this other stuff, and he loves it, but he has great boundaries. Even with me, I know him. We're close. All his kids are, we're close with them. And even him, he's just like, I'm done, I'm going home. You know, I send him an email and he responds to me, not like, nine o'clock at night. It's like, okay, next morning, I looked over your email during regular business hours, and here's what, here's the response. It's beautiful, but that's led them to a happy life. So Buck, you watch the Facebook groups, you work with home inspectors. You've burned out yourself at times. What boundaries are we letting slip in our industry?
Buck Fleming
First off, I would say one of the biggest boundaries is time. For me, like weekend inspections. How much, how often are we allowing people to push us into a weekend inspection, and then we don't ever take the time to actually refresh and to refuel. And so for me, I remember, it's been four years ago. I've always wanted to buy a boat, and my wife came to me and said, hey, I'll let you buy the boat you want if you, if you agree not to do any more weekend inspections. And I'm like, man, and I was scared, to be honest. It scared me because I'm like, how much money am I going to lose if I shut down my company on the weekends and take time to refresh, but it was, but my wife knew how to get my heart on that, and I agreed, and that's been four years ago, and we've just learned how to, to manage and to schedule, not schedule things on weekends. And so now, like none of my inspectors work weekends, and there's so much freedom there.
Ian Robertson
You know, it's funny you mentioned that, that was the first thing, that was the first boundary I did in my inspection businesses. So when I was a brand new inspector, first year, I initially, I did a weekend inspection or two in my first couple of years, and I'm just like, no, I'm done. Because, listen, I don't work all week, to work all weekend, to work all week, because we all say, well, what if I take Mondays off if I work weekends and that'll be my day? It doesn't happen. Let's be honest, Buck. You know, it's just like, we'd end up working seven days a week. We wouldn't do that for an employer. We'd say, heck no. But yet, we'll do it for ourselves. We'll become a slave to our own company instead of somebody else's. But I remember the same thing other home inspectors would tell me, you have to work weekends. You're not going to survive. That's where I get the bulk of my work. Here I am, nearly 20 years later, I did pretty good. I did really good. Half of those guys telling me that I wouldn't work out are out of business. I'm not. I mean, look at you. You're still around, right?
Buck Fleming
Yeah. And there was a Facebook meme going around a while back that said entrepreneurs are the only people that will work 70 hours a week so they don't have to work 40.
Buck Fleming
And at some point, that's not a life, and when we don't have life, we're going to burn out, and we're going to hate what we do, and it's gonna show up in absolutely everything, everything we do. And I call it grumpy inspector syndrome, that. And you see it, the longer somebody is in this business, the grumpier they become. But it's like I have learned to actually respect the grumpy inspectors, because what I see as grumpy is actually people that have set boundaries, and they've learned how to set those boundaries. And for me, that is something I've always struggled with in my entire life, every aspect of my life, because I don't like to disappoint people, and I don't like to tell people no. So, you know, for me, I've had to come up with creative ways to set boundaries that, you know in some aspects, even making it the client's idea to set those boundaries by letting them self-select out of different things that then allow me to have boundaries around work so that I can be more effective and do a better job for them, and be in a better mood when I'm dealing with them, and we're in a better mood when I'm dealing with my other inspectors.
Ian Robertson
Yeah.
Ian Robertson
Nice. You know, it's, um, it's funny I wrote down as you're speaking, become a grumpy inspector. So I think I'm well on my way there, Buck, thank you for the advice.
Buck Fleming
We don't really want to be grumpy.
Ian Robertson
I know, I know.
Buck Fleming
But you see it everywhere, like the old timers are grumpy, or they come off as grumpy. But really, I think a lot of what's perceived as grumpy is just strong boundaries, and they set strong limits, and that I think that proper boundaries are the only way you can survive long term in a business that will suck every ounce of life out of you that you allow it to suck. So we have to, that sounded really bad, but you have to build fences around what's most important, and it comes down to the preferred values versus practiced values. So for years, I started my first business in '05 right out of college. And so for years, I would have this preferred value of family and spending time with my wife and spending time with my friends, that's a preferred value. I'd preach it till I was blue in the face. And then at the end of the year, I'd look back at the previous year and say, man, I hung out with my friends like twice this year, you know, like I went on one date night with my wife all year. And it's like, so while that's something that my heart longs for and that I truly desire, that's not something that's actually happening in my life. And so and then when you say, okay, so if my actions reveal my values, which they do, then it's showing that my highest value is making money and going out and running a business, and so I am sacrificing every other aspect of life on the altar of financial success, because I'm not building those fences around the values that I claim to have.
Ian Robertson
That's awesome. I wrote down preferred values versus practiced values and what we make time for, and what we build fences around, is actually what we value the most. Oftentimes, I think we find ourselves inadvertently building fences around our business to keep our family out, instead of the reverse building fences around our family. You know, it's it's funny, this isn't in this industry. I'm trying to think of a outside the industry, so I don't put anybody under the bus here. But there was an older guy that I knew, and he was he was always talking about family first, family first, family first, but you talk to his family, and they don't talk with him. He works seven days a week, and he's 70 something, and he's just like, yeah, but this is how I, this is how I provide for my family. And his family is just like, we were fine with half his schedule. We'd be financially more than fine, and anything above that, and they're just kind of like, he likes to work. You know, we do, we make time for what's in our heart, and if our heart is on work. We're going to make time for working. Because, let's be honest, work is easy. It's easy validation as a human being and as a man, we go in, people think we're awesome, because we find all this stuff. We do our job, write a report that we're proud of. We have all these certifications and badges on our chest and on our website. We don't get that as easily from our family. So it's like getting our nutrients from a bowl of sugary cereal instead of, you know, mashed potatoes and some lean meat, it takes a little bit more effort to get it from our family.
Buck Fleming
Oh, man, nothing truer has ever been said. Trying to get validation from a wife is like the hardest thing ever, but you can go out to a house and inspect a house and save someone 1000s of dollars, and they think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread and so, so there's this trying to get validation, and it's, I think a lot of times we pour ourselves into what we can control, and it's a lot easier to control a three to four hour relationship than it is to control the long term relationships, and a lot of times it's about relinquishing the control. So that's probably a whole other topic, control issues.
Ian Robertson
Dang. That was deep, man, that's true.
Buck Fleming
Anyway. Sorry.
Ian Robertson
No, that was, that was deep, that's very true, and that's the heart at setting boundaries. You know, we set boundaries in our business, especially in the home inspection business. It's, it's a very, listen, if we're a contractor and let's say we're remodeling a living room, it's just like, how many phone calls and people and emails are we dealing with hanging sheetrock on a ceiling? You know, it's like, okay? Home inspections, every four hour client that we have represents two agents, two attorneys, mortgage companies, and sellers and buyers, buyer's uncles, cousins, dads and sisters. You know, there's a lot that goes on, so setting boundaries is important. One thing I'll say to your point that you just made about family and stuff too, someone said, one time, don't sacrifice what isn't yours. None of us would, would take our kids favorite toy or our wife's prized possession and give it to somebody else to advance or whatever we're doing at the moment. That, people would be shocked, but we do it in life. We belong to our family, and when we're sacrificing things that aren't ours, our kid'sbedtime, our weekends with the family, our attention, our emotional support. You know that, that's a big deal, so where else do you think that we need to set boundaries, Buck, you actually mentioned something pre-show that I thought was interesting.
Buck Fleming
So, and I'll mention this, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to talk because I come talk to you, because one of the things we started doing is I got to the point that I realized that the more access I give to people, the more of me gets sucked out and the same with my other inspectors. And I have this, my other main inspector is also a pastor, and we have all these deep, philosophical conversations, but and he's realizing the same thing about himself. And I'm like, what can we do? Well, how can we set a boundary around some of our time, because one of our biggest things is getting reports done in a timely manner. And what I found is, when we have clients following us, and this is such a huge debate in the industry, but when you have clients following you, it's harder to get the report done on site, because you're talking about things, explaining things, and then you're not able to get the report done on site, then you're taking work home, and that bleeds over into the family time. And so how can we do that? And my wife, and this was, this was totally my wife's idea, but she used to be a dance instructor, and what she said is, that they would have three levels of packages. And so what the three levels of packages, the top level of package was designed to be too expensive and too costly to the person, to make them choose the package under it and to make the package under it look like a better value. So I'm like, how can we apply that to our business. So we started something we call a guided tour. And what the guided tour is, if when someone calls us and says, yes, we want to be there, we want to see everything you inspect, we want to follow you, we want to ask questions, I will immediately say, okay, great. That's awesome. We actually offer a package for that. And they're like, really? I'm like, yeah, so what you need to do is you need to take the entire day off work. We're gonna be on site for five to six hours, maybe seven hours. Pack a lunch, because we're not gonna, we'll stop, we'll eat. I'll pack my lunch that day, we'll stop. We'll eat real quick, but we've got to get through it, because we're in somebody else's house, and so we're going to be there for five to six hours minimum, and I'm going to be going through and explaining absolutely everything with you as you go. Now, because that, because we block schedule, so we have a morning appointment and an afternoon appointment. Now that is going to take up two appointments. I'm not going to charge you for two full appointments. I'm going to charge you for like one and three quarters appointments. So where that inspection fee is about 600 bucks, you're looking at closer to $1,100, 1000 to $1,100 for that guided tour. But we have found a lot of people love following us, so we offer that, and at that point people are like, whoa, whoa, I don't have that much time. I don't want to be there for five to six hours, like, whoa, what? What was that other package you were talking about? Oh, that's our inspection with a summary at the end. So what we do is we're going to be there for about three hours, and then you can show up about three hours in, and we'll tell you about what time, because we've automated our system where all my communication, I try not to communicate with clients what time the inspection starts. I communicate with them what time the summary appointment is. So, and I've done that, we use, well, I won't name the company for you, but we've set up a custom field where we cannot, where we can just communicate the summary time. And so that's been one of the biggest, for me, that's been one of the biggest boundaries we've set. So now every text message, everything they've got, tells them that if it's an 8:30 inspection, we've got an 11:30 summary appointment. And so now the agent communications, both the listing and buyer's agent, we're communicating the client will be on site at this time. For the listing agent, we're telling them what time we get there, and it's even, there are so many phone calls that this whole system has stopped. So it's allowed, because we're communicating a different time, and that has allowed so people aren't showing up at an 8:30 inspection saying, well, the inspection was at 8:30 and I just wanted to be here. And so if somebody says, well, I was wanting to measure something, I'll say, okay, well, that's fine show up about half an hour before your summary, and you can measure things as I'm finishing up, but it allows me to then be able to offer more time, and it allows them, and we call it the onus, but it's that onus of control. It puts the decision to not come early on them. So because I'm a Southerner, I'm in East Tennessee, we don't like being mean. We like being hospitable. It is our culture, and to me, it offends me when I'm being, when I'm setting hard boundaries with somebody else. So I even find it like it hurts my soul. It hurts my heart, man. So what I have done is I have allowed other people, I've set up systems to allow them to self-select out, and by them self-selecting out of following us. And we even do things like, I'll say, at the inspection summary, and we rarely ever enforce this. Will say the summary is 30 minutes. If, if we go over that summary, you know, anything over that summary can be billed at $100 an hour. You know, a follow up phone call is 30 minutes. If we go over that, we can bill it at that. So what it does is, when we start pushing those people that are just more, more, more, more, that, then those are the hardest people to deal with, too that, what you can casually say is, hey, by the way, we're 45 minutes into this conversation. You know, technically we only do 30 minutes, but I can give you about another 15 minutes before I have to start charging you, and that's in our contract before I have to start charging you, you know, $100 an hour. And what that does is it allows them to self-select out. It allows them because we're assigning value. And one of the things I'll say, and I'll tell my other inspectors, is if we don't value our time, and if we don't assign value to our time, nobody is standing in line to assign value to us. So the beautiful thing about being self-employed is we get to assign our own value to our time, and I'm assigning value to my inspectors' times. I'm assigning value to time, and if I don't assign that value, nobody else is going to assign that value for me. So we're very upfront and very clear and so, and I know this probably sounds cringe to a lot of people, but we're, we're not like dumping this on people on the back end. We're very upfront. And I've actually had people that, some feedback I've gotten on some of the stuff, like some of these things we do, is I actually had an attorney telling me, he goes. He goes this, you're the closest thing I've ever seen, he goes, I can tell in your business, your contract, and the way you assign value to your time. I want to do business with you, because if you don't value yourself, why should I value you? If we don't assign value to ourselves, why do somebody want to do business with somebody that doesn't have value? And to me, it was like, when he said that to me, I was, it just like, wow, we're doing something right here. And it was powerful.
Ian Robertson
You know, there's a lot, there's a lot of good stuff to unpack there in what you just said. There's perceived value, and there's also setting, setting monetary fence posts around your, around your time. Setting monetary fence posts around your time is important. So for instance, say we're having a hard time getting out of weekend inspections. People smell desperation, even when it's not there. So say we're just like, we're killing it. We're the best inspector in the world, but we work seven days a week, four inspections aday. We don't eat, we don't sleep, and our family has left us. So now we're like, yeah, I can do the inspection in two days. I even, when I was slow first in my business, I would never tell people my earliest time slot. I would always give myself lead time because it would give the perception of, we actually talked about on a scarcity perception like, oh, if I want this guy, I need to get this time slot now, whereas if you tell him, I could be there tomorrow morning, because we think that's what they want, and guys will always tell me, oh, that's what they want. I'm like, I don't want that client. And to be honest with you, they probably don't want that either. I mean, what's the actual number that you actually keep by telling them that? But then, if we're having a hard time getting rid of weekend inspections, raise the price on those. Say I charge time and a half for a weekend inspection, or I charge double time. So my $600 inspection is now $1,200 if you want it on the weekend. So if you're gonna have to do it, heck at $1,200 I'll work all weekend and then take, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, off. Okay, cool. You have to actually do that, though. You can't just burn yourself out that way, but setting monetary fence posts around our time and assigning value is extremely important. People want, people want those that value themselves, like you said.
Buck Fleming
And I hear what you're saying, but the problem is and that my kids don't get to take Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off of school.
Ian Robertson
And that's a valid point.
Buck Fleming
Like, so what I started doing because I really struggled with the weekend thing, like, but I'm like, I get a boat, you know? So what I started doing is I started going to my schedule and putting family time on my schedule, and I would book family time. Then when somebody calls me, and I would book family time six months out on my schedule, right? And then when someone calls me, well, can you do it this weekend? I'm sorry that appointments already booked, my weekends fill up first.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, I get what you're saying. I guess maybe what I was saying was how to transition out of the weekend thing. And to be honest with you, I did what you did. I just cut it out. I'm like, I don't want to work weekends. I guess I'm just trying to find middle ground, because I hear that argument a lot. Weekends is where I make my money, yada yada yada. But I get that, I see what you're saying.
Buck Fleming
And I think that part of that is it comes back to, the people want to be there to follow you. So people want the weekend inspection so they don't have to take off work.
Ian Robertson
Yeah.
Buck Fleming
And so they want to be there to follow you. And that's another reason why I'm so happy to cut out weekend inspections, because when you cut out the weekend inspections, you cut out the person that's following you the whole time. So when we start setting the boundaries around someone following us, we realize that that's why, that that's the big deal about the weekend inspections. The other thing I found about weekend inspections is a seller was, you know, much more likely to be home.
Ian Robertson
Which is a pain.
Buck Fleming
So, so I'm showing up at nine o'clock on Sunday or Saturday morning to do an inspection. And one morning I had a gun pulled on me. The realtor forgot to communicate I was going to be there. The cars are in the garage. All the lights are off. 9am on a Saturday morning, I ring the doorbell. Nobody comes to the doorbell. I let myself in with the box, and I announce my presence. I start walking through the house, and some guy comes out of his bedroom in his underwear with a gun, wondering what the heck I'm doing there.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, that's never fun, yeah. So, so obviously, we don't want to get shot, and we want to spend time with our family. So there you go, people, don't get shot, spend time with your family. But no, I've actually had a gun pulled on me too. I was up on a roof. There's not supposed to be anybody there. Agent didn't tell anybody. She thought it was hysterical when she got there, haha. I'm like, yeah, that's not funny. Here's something that I think you might be able to help us with, Buck. Something that I find is the hardest boundary to set, is the phone. Do you find that to be a hard boundary to set?
Buck Fleming
Okay.
Ian Robertson
I opened a can.
Buck Fleming
Oh man. So I'm going back to, I had left the call center. I had tried another call center. Won't get into that story. That other, that second call center lasted about a month. I'm going back to my original call center. I had to set some boundaries with them about data, because I don't want to share data, and that's why I left them to begin with. But call centers, I'm not big enough to hire an admin or to hire somebody and the call center hours, the fact that they'll answer the call center, so that that's big, right? Not, just not having to answer your phone. And it's pretty easy when the attitude I think, around the phone is, if I don't answer my phone, I might lose business.
Ian Robertson
And it's true, technically.
Buck Fleming
That is, that's very true. But what I have found is, if I answer my phone and I say, hey, I'm at an inspection, can I call you back in an hour? People are always like, oh yeah, that's fine. Same thing with a call center, if there, if there's a question or something they can't answer, it's really easy for them to say, hey, I don't have the information for this. Let me have Buck call you back in about an hour. Let me have one of the guys call you back and they can answer all your questions. So when that's a fear. So a lot of boundary setting has to do with fear and that kind of stuff. If someone is so pushy they can't wait an hour for a return phone call, you know, sometimes that self-selects them out of who I want to work with. Okay, so that's a big part of the phone. The other thing we're getting ready to implement now, this is something we're working on right now, is clients calling and saying, hey, I have a question about that report, and it's just verbal diarrhea, like, and you can't even cut them off, they for five minutes, they just go on and on and on, and you can't even stop them from talking. And you've got them right, you got somebody else right in front of you, and you're just like, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, I'm sorry. I'm with the client. Let me call you back. So we're generally set up. I'm setting up a system right now to stop that to some degree. But one of the other things I've started doing just in the past, is I tell people, and I set this expectation up front. If it's a five minute phone call, you can call me. If it's going to be a 15 to 30 minute phone call, we have to schedule that. So shoot me a text and I'll schedule it. And so then when someone calls me, and then I call them back, I'll generally say, hey, I've got five minutes right now. Can this be handled in five minutes, or do you need more time? And generally, a five minute phone call is going to last 15 minutes. If I tell them five minutes, I've really got 15, if I tell them 15 minutes, I can probably go 30. But I set those boundaries and those expectations on the front end so that then when I give them more time than I promised them, I'm over delivering. But as we're going back to the call center, what we're getting ready to do is we're going to set up Calendly. We're going to set up Calendly for all of our inspectors, including myself, and then we're going to put appointment slots. And so then in the automated text messages, it's going to say, if, if you have questions for your inspector, here is a link, go schedule it. And so my hope is that if we can schedule those follow up calls in advance, then we can be in control, but it gives the client the sense of access, this sense that they have access, and that now it's being scheduled so they're important, so we can allow that client to feel important, because we're setting up that access where they can go. They have control over what time they call us and when, so that way, when they're calling us or texting us, it doesn't feel like they're constantly being pushed off, that we're trying to avoid that phone call. And, and I've had clients tell me that, like they call me and, and I'm like, hey, I'll call you back, and then I don't call them back within an hour because I'm still with somebody, so they're calling me back. And then you get that feedback from Blipp, where it says they wouldn't answer my phone call, and you're like, I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with them, but I just couldn't answer it when it was convenient for them. So now let's give them that onus. Let's give them that sense of control, where they can go in and schedule that time.
Ian Robertson
I like that. There's a lot, there's a lot of good in that. I like the Calendly idea because now it's like, okay, so you have, you finish your morning inspections around noon, and your next one is at 1:30 and you eat lunch, so you leave a Calendly opening at 12:30 and one at like 4:30, your inspectors aren't overwhelmed, and they still have spots where they can schedule a phone call. Here's what I find for the fence when it comes to phone calls. I am a big fan of call centers, and people don't like them because they're like, oh, they don't answer like me, or, you know, even getting a VA, whatever. It sets a level of boundary that it basically knocks out the stupid stuff. So one out of five clients, I would estimate, actually get to us through the call center that call for extra, extra stuff, not to schedule an inspection, but like, I have questions about my report, or my agent said this, or my cousin's uncle said he learned something about how we're supposed to inspect the foundation. What happens is they call the call center, the admin says, okay, like you said, we can schedule a time to talk or this and that, and they're like, never mind. And then they, off they go. Never hear from them again. They figure it out on their own. A lot of the times, like they're like, oh well, I just had a question about this, but now I see it in the report. That saved me a phone call, instead of them saying, oh well, I see it in the report now, but while I have you on the phone, that's the worst. But while I have you on the phone, let me give you some verbal diarrhea, as you put it. Great word picture. So one out of I say, one out of five makes it to us, because then they'll send us a message. Say, hey, can you call this person back? Now here's where it matters. Our cell phones, our actual phone numbers, we do not give out to people. Agents do not have it. Clients do not have it. I do not want them calling me or anybody else directly. I want them to go through the call center to weed out all the stupid stuff, because the call centers or the admin, they can answer things like, oh, hey, I didn't get charged for this. Yes, you did. I can see right here. Oh, okay, that's what that $200 charge was. Thank you. And they take care of all the basic stuff, saves us time. So I like to funnel through that. I don't like people texting because, for some reason, people have a lot more gumption when they're texting you. And there's an inspector I know, I had a conversation with him recently, he goes, oh man, my phone was dead last night and I missed three text messages. I'm like, what? I'm like, who's texting in the middle of night? He goes, oh, agents do it all the time. Sometimes a client, I make myself always available. I'm like, he's getting up in the night when his phone buzzes, no joke. So we're all probably not that extreme, but how many of us check our phone and text messages at dinner? It's like, it's, it's like a reflex. I have found myself picking up my phone and looking without even realizing I'm doing it. I don't want those text messages coming through. So when we call them back, I want my number blocked, and then if they need to call back, they have to call back through the call center. I don't want them to know what our cell phone numbers are.
Buck Fleming
And so I've made the mistake of allowing people to have my phone number over the years. Yeah, and so what we're and we're going to be implementing some of this too, as we get the call center back online. But I've downloaded an app. It's called Smarter, and it's text auto response app, and it's a phone call auto response app. So if someone calls me, or let's say they call me after eight o'clock at night, it automatically tells them, hey, we're not answering the phone after eight o'clock at night. But so you can set up different parameters, and you set up different parameters in it, like, so I've got auto responses, and I'll go in as we get the call center like, if you're texting me, if you want a faster response, you need to text this other number to schedule. So as we get the call center set up and going, we're going to be pushing everybody towards the other number. And so that's going to be a big deal. But that autoresponder, like, even if someone calls my phone to schedule an inspection, if I can't answer it, it immediately texts them back and says, hey, I'm on a roof or in a crawl space. You know, classic home inspector thing there. But, but it immediately acknowledges their call, because people want to be acknowledged, but it also says, I'll call you back as soon as I can. And so that app, and this one's called Smarter, but it's, it's, I use Android because I'm smarter.
Ian Robertson
You just took a jab at Apple.
Buck Fleming
Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so, but just an auto response text app, and I think I pay 50 bucks a year for the app, so it's really cheap, but that's allowed me to set that expectation. And then if I'm on the boat on the weekend, or because it has different you can set up different time frames. If I'm on the boat on the weekend, it says, hey, we acknowledge or we've received this, you know, and I've actually, at one point I even said, I know we have availability this week, like, I'll put that in the text, we have available, so that way they're not calling around looking for people to have that have availability, right? I know we have availability this week, but I'm tied up currently. I'll call you back as soon as I can, and then, you know, I'll step away for a few minutes and return a few phone calls, but that still steals time from my family, so that's why we're going back to the call center so I can go camping with no phone service and not freak out all week.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, and there's other routes. Not everybody likes call centers. VA, we've had Rocket Station on the on the program before here on Inspector Toolbelt Talk, we have clients who use our home inspection app and scheduling software that use VAs and call centers, and, you know, just having that layer is another extra section of fence around our family, and even maybe we don't have a family. Maybe we're listening to this, and we're like, oh, man, I'm 67 years old, and kids are not, aren't at home, and whatever, I can work whenever I want. Do we really want to be even if we enjoy our job? Wouldn't we want to have an afternoon off and not have our phone blowing up? I don't know about anybody else, but I get this weird, tingly feeling when the phone rings sometimes after a long, stressful day, and it's just like, gah, why is it? Why's somebody calling me? And it could be something benign, but it's just like, you're pretty stressed. I like, I like having that boundary of, okay, if the phone rings, it's my wife, my daughter, you know, somebody that I know and I want to talk to, not somebody asking me about, why was our radon test, you know, 3.7 picocuries, and we didn't flag it. You know, it's like, all right, just move on, people.
Speaker 1
You're exactly right. And I think what it, what it all comes down to, and what it came down to for me was the preferred versus practiced value.
Ian Robertson
Yeah.
Buck Fleming
And then when we, you know, we we have a heart, and our heart tells us what our preferred values are, and there's a disconnect. And a lot of times that disconnect is fear, and it's just we're afraid we're going to lose business. We're afraid things are going to slow down in a couple months, so we've got to make as much money, you make hay while the sun shines. That might be a southern saying, but, but, you know, there's all these fears and all these what ifs constantly going through our mind, and at the end of the day, we let life, you know, we let life just slip through our hands because we're living from fear instead of living from our values. And for me, it's when I realized how big of a disconnect there was between my preferred values and my practice values and that I was constantly just sacrificing my family, kept sacrificing life on that altar of financial success and success in business, I realized I've got to change something, you know, why am I pissed off and stressed out all the time? Why am I, you know, ready to snap? And what I realized is it, I wasn't living life in a way that was healthy. I wasn't mentally healthy, physically healthy. Because when I get busy, I start grabbing Mountain Dews and going to Taco Bell.
Ian Robertson
Oh man, that's a scary combination, dude.
Buck Fleming
It's because I'm in a hurry and I'm trying to get to the next thing. So I'm not taking time to meal prep, I'm not taking time to work out. I'm just go, go, go, go, go. And, man, I really get into that. And that's one of the reasons why we've been successful, is because I can get into that, go, go, go, go, go, but then I realize that that's operating from fear, and it's not operating from from a place of victory. It's not operating from who I am and who I'm called to be, and when I operate from that. And then I sit down and say, these are my values, and wrote down my value statement for my business. It made it real easy to then fence in those values, and to put a fence around those values and start protecting and actually practicing the values that that I preferred.
Ian Robertson
Nice. Listen, Buck, I've really appreciated having you on the show. You had some really pointed information for us, good information and practical things that setting a fence around our preferred values and making them our practice values is one I'm going to take home myself. But listen, we got to have you on again. I think there's probably about a million points that you can talk to us about, but thank you for being on today, Buck, we really appreciate it.
Buck Fleming
Yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on. And I just want to say that, you know, my name is Buck Fleming. I mean, most of the Facebook groups, if anybody has any questions, if anybody just needs someone to talk to, if anybody needs anything, shoot me a message, reach out to me. I'm happy to talk to anybody, because my heart is really supporting other people. Like I love that, I think more than I love my business, and so if anybody needs anything, I'm happy to help anybody answer any questions, or even help people walk this out. And I'm not a business coach, so I'm not going to charge you for it, but yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on.
Ian Robertson
Thank you, Buck.
Buck Fleming
And Ian, I just want to say, thank you for what you do because you've challenged me. You've challenged me in my faith, the way that I run my business. You provide excellent service. You know, I try to hit you up every time I get a chance in the Facebook groups when people are asking for a website, but I have people come to me and ask me about my website all the time, like, like, you're trying to get my business, and I'm like, you can't touch this guy. You can't touch his values. And so that's one of my core values, is I want to do business with people that I share values with. And so even that, knowing that I share that, I feel like we have shared values. Just it makes me want to do business with you, because I know I can trust you, and I just appreciate that, and I appreciate everything you do.
Ian Robertson
Wow. Thank you. Thank you, Buck. That's really kind of you to say. I really love working with you, and we do have shared values, and that's what I appreciate about you, and that's, that's why you fit with the people that we have on the show here. So you take things seriously, even your offer to let people hit you up on Facebook. That's a beautiful thing. Thank you, Buck. You're awesome.
Buck Fleming
Well, I don't know about that, but we try hard. Appreciate it, man.
Ian Robertson
We'll talk soon and have you on again.
Buck Fleming
All right, thanks, man.
Ian Robertson
Bye.
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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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.