Real Estate Blog - Soaking the Home Inspector

Home : Blogs : MC2 Home Inspections Indianapolis Avon Plainfield Brownsburg Indiana : MC2 Home Inspections, Indianapolis Indiana

Soaking the Home Inspector

I just read a recent post here on A.R. that prompted me to write this.

Does it ever seem to any of you that EVERYONE and their mother is out to soak the home inspector? Surely it cant be just me. I am bombarded with phone calls and emails everyday from solicitors offering me everything from top placement on Google and Yahoo for 359.00 (which are all total scams) to offering me marketing cd's and tapes for 485.00. Where does it end? I have had actual Real Estate offices call me and act like they are all interested in me and my business only to find out they just want me to fork out 600.00 just to be on their list. (Keller Williams in particular). I have had people contact me telling me they will put together an email marketing plan for me at the mere price of 850.00.

Quite honestly I am afraid to answer my phone anymore. It is absolutely ridiculous. I actually did a search on Google just 15 minutes ago for "home inspector marketing" 853,000 hits came up!! WOW!! Even here on A.R. They are all over the place, just trying to squeeze every dollar out of our wallets. Calling themselves "coaches" or "Marketing strategists" guaranteeing to increase your business by a thousand percent for a thousand dollars. It amazes me how saturated this industry is with these kinds of people. It is sickening.

Now I am not saying that some of these programs don't work, I am sure some of them actually do, but good lord almighty, whatever happened to old school, balls to the wall self marketing?

Posted by MC2 Home Inspections Indianapolis Avon Plainfield Brownsburg Indiana on 03/27/2008 03:03 PM

Comments (14)

home inspector, marketing, scams, inspection, coaches, money, soaking, inspectors

Post is included in group: Home Inspections Q & A
Post is included in group: Independent Thinking Inspectors
Post is included in group: Home Inspectors
Post is included in group: Ethics and the home inspector
Post is included in group: Home Inspectors across the country

14 Comments on Soaking the Home Inspector

MAR

2008

I never trust a home inspector just because they advertise. I look at the type of work they do. I currently work with a home inspector who does an honest and fair job. He doesn't work for "ME" he works for the buyer who is paying him. He tells the truth in a non-alarming way and does his best not to kill deals. I love him and wouldn't use anyone else.

Thanks for the comment Sara, although it was a little off subject. I mean we all have to advertise somehow, someway. I am sure even you do.

I was just wondering how many other inspectors out there are being bombarded with these types of harrassing salespeople.

As a side note, I am glad you love your home inspector, for those on here who know me, know I have the warm and fuzzies all over right now.

Hi Mike, I get a few, I am holding out for the one selling me more time:) Don't really need the other stuff----just say "NO" (and please take me off your list)

Hi Mike, I get a few calls also. I think because of the "Free" local web listings available that I have signed up for, not sure if it's worth it yet or not. I'm trying to get a mix of Internet exposure, which AR seems to be the best for that, and visiting open-houses to market myself to agents. Both are challenging sometimes. I hear your frustration though, it can be very irritating. I just hang up on all telemarketer anymore.

MAR

2008

Hey Charles, YES sell me some more time!! hahaha good one. I could use a bit of that myself right now.

Hey David thanks for stopping by. Yeah I hang up too. I have even went to the extent of labeling the "known solictor" numbers on my cell. I have also signed up for several of the free web listings also, you are right, I bet a lot come from those. So in reality there really IS a price to pay for those :-)

Yeah, I get calls from telemarketers from having my number all over the internet.

BUT, I also get customers calling from having my number all over the internet.

If a telemarketer can't get my attention in the first sentence, I don't even bother saying goodbye anymore, Just click. All three of my numbers ring to my cell phone. I no longer feel the need to waste time being nice to telemarketers. Even when I did tell them I wasn't interested, they'd still call back a week or so later.

Have you encountered their newer trick. Calling and hanging up as soon as you answer. You call back to see who it was and they try to sell you on your long distance (not really an issue with my cell service) dime.

I always return those type of calls because I've scored several inspections from doing so. But I hang up, NOW, when I find out it's a dang telemarketer.

I'll keep returning those missed calls though because it pays well when I get an inspection out of it.

Hey Erby, yeah I sure have done the very same thing. And yes I do get a lot of inspections from call backs, it does pay. Like you, as soon as I figure out what they are doing....click.

One company in Florida really had me for a while. They called and left me a voice mail saying they really needed a home inspector ASAP in the Indianapolis area. I work with quite a few investors, so I thought it was one of them. So I called back and got em on the phone. They started out saying they needed someone quick, asked me about my qualifications, how much I charge, talked about the weather etc. I started getting a little suspicious after about 5 minutes of all the small talk, and then they hit me with a schpeel that for 189.00 they could get me top placement on the Internet. I was so P.O.'d not only because they wasted my time, but I am pretty good with my website also, so I told them, go ahead and type in Home Inspections Indianapolis on Yahoo and tell me what you see (I am currently the first one underneath all the paid local ones) then hung up.

Thanks for stopping by :-)

MAR

2008

I get calls all the time as well. I always tell them let me get your number cause I am on my way out to a job. Then I call back around 10:00 P.M. Pacific time and ask for them. They r usually not there. So they call the next day. my response everytime after that is I am on my way to a job. They call every couple days I give them the same response " I am on my way to an inspection" After a few calls they always say wow you do a lot of inspections I tell them only when you call. LMAO.They usually don't call back.

MAR

2008

hahaha good one Mark, the Seinfeld of home inspections :-D

APR

2008

Howdy Mike

I have been geting 12 e-mails a day, and 5 or more calls

a day by solicitors.

Telling me, they can get me evem business.

One e-mail that I got, they wanted to sale me a least of cold call leads.

Now is that fun or what.

Have a good one Dale

APR

2008

I now use my cell phone number for my business contact number and that has eliminated 90% of the 'salesmen' calls. I still get a lot of email. I guess we should feel special that we're getting all of this attention.

The ones that frost me the most are other inspectors trying to sell me their sure-fire way to get more business. It seems that if you can't be successful being an inspector, the best thing is to sell success to other inspectors. What a crock!

APR

2008

My favorite has been a company that calls asking for a price on an inspection. Then they inform me that they have many clients looking for home inspections in my area, and in the end it is for internet advertising. I cut them off at the first sentence now. The firm that is really bugging me is Bank of America. They have been calling me four times a day on average to buy protection for my business accounts. Oh, you are not FDIC protected I ask. Yes we are they respond. So the fifty dollars you want would cover your loss if something happened to my account, but you would be collecting it each year. Well, we offer much more. Nothing that I cannot get for free. Still, they will not stop calling.

Not to get off topic but I was just curious how the first poster's HI does this:

"He tells the truth in a non-alarming way and does his best not to kill deals."

This blog does not allow anonymous comments