Starting a home inspection business from the ground up is no easy task, particularly if you haven’t had any experience of business or marketing in the past. Over time, you will build a network of referrals as you complete more and more jobs, but that can seem a long way off. In order to get your business noticed, you need to take proactive action and create a marketing strategy. It sounds more complex than it is because essentially all it means is increasing your visibility in places where your target clients are likely to be looking. Here we outline 6 key steps to getting your home inspection business noticed.
A home inspection business will be built on referrals for the most part because a lot of people will ask for recommendations from family or friends when choosing a home inspector. This doesn’t mean, however, that you have to sit by the phone waiting. Instigate conversations with real estate and construction companies by picking up the phone and introducing yourself. Emails are an option, but they are easily ignored and somewhat impersonal. If you aren’t ready to pick up the phone just yet, connecting and interacting with relevant professionals on social media platforms. Once you have established a rapport, it’s much easier to set up a coffee meeting and take the relationship to the next level.
You will need many home inspection tools in your kit, but none quite so useful as home inspection software. You need to keep track of all your communications, contacts and potential clients in one organized place and home inspection software is the best way to do this with efficiency and professionalism. With this software, you can localize all aspects of your home inspection business and ensure you stay on top of all communications, appointments, schedules and reporting.
When you have secured an opportunity to present to a real estate agent who is looking for a home inspector to recommend to buyers. It should go without saying, but your presentation should be engaging and interesting, ideally with something memorable. You should approach the presentation from the point of view of what home buyers would want to know about your service, as the real estate agent will need to be able to explain your service to them at an early stage in the process. For example, your presentation might cover the basics of what’s involved in home inspection, how it is carried out, specialized inspections such as pest or mold, and any areas of concern which are unique to your area.
When a home buyer is looking for a home inspector, they will often head to a home inspector association and look through the directory. Here they can review local inspectors and compare their experience, so it’s important that you’re not only in the directory but that your listing is accurate and up to date. Ideally, the listing should be complete and include your logo and correct contact information. Take a look at other listings to see if you can improve yours and attract more inquiries.
You can create the most beautiful, user-friendly and intuitive website for your customers, but if Google does not rank your website against its algorithm, you will not be visible in the search engine’s results. Studying search engine optimization will help you to identify how you can make your website appear on the first page of results when people search for home inspectors in your local area. This includes making your website mobile-friendly so it is easy to view on mobile devices as well as desktop screens, using relevant keywords in your content, building high-quality links and tracking your performance against competitors.
When your business is at the stage when you can take on your first member of staff, consider taking on a marketing assistant rather than another inspector. Even if they only work for you on a part-time basis, they should be someone who is confident cold-calling real estate agents and construction companies, getting out and meeting people at networking events, able to build rapport with people quickly and has some knowledge of search engine optimization. When you have your marketing fully under control, your business’ growth will be supported by both sides, and you can focus on delivering the very best service and collecting referrals.
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