Posts

How to Communicate More Effectively with Clients

June 20, 2023

By Kimberly Stevens, Marketing & Business Coach Running a successful service-based business requires a significant amount of technical skill and knowledge. As such, the sorts of people that tend to be drawn to these industries tend to have a highly analytical disposition and a preference for structure and detail. In the property inspection industry, these traits are particularly beneficial since missing little details can lead to big problems down the road (and part of why we’ve found veterans are such great home inspectors). While these traits are beneficial on the technical side of inspecting, they can sometimes come at the cost of being a good, empathetic communicator. Property inspectors have to communicate with a lot of people, so owners who might struggle in conversations with clients would be wise to invest in some introspection. To get started with upgrading your interpersonal skills, let’s take a look at the basic pillars of client communication in business. Prioritize Clarity EarlyWhen coordinating a home inspection, it is crucial to establish an open line of communication early between the inspector and client. A significant amount of negative reviews or otherwise dissatisfied client experiences can be traced back to misunderstandings, assumptions, and a lack of

Surefire Strategies To Increase Your Market Share

June 13, 2023

By David Stamper, NPI, Inc.’s President & CFO Running a small business is a lot of responsibility to take on. Owners need to not only become experts in their field and in their industry, but they also need to stay up to date on key market research if they want their business to succeed. When it comes to building your small business and tracking market research, there are few concerns that outrank your business’ market share. Market share is, simply put, a percentage of your business’ earnings compared to the total business done within your market over a particular period of time. While a business owner’s goal should always be to build their business’ percentage of market share, there are many benefits to tracking direct competitors’ market share as well. To learn more about how to build your market share, let’s review some strategies on how to get started. Perform a Competitive AnalysisThe first step to increase your market share should be to gain an awareness of your business’ position in your market compared to your competitors. Although it may be difficult to find hard numbers that break down your competitors’ exact market share, you should be able to check

Essential Steps For Setting Your Home Inspection Business Up For Success

June 6, 2023

By Celeste Black-Harr, NPI, Inc.’s Recruitment Coordinator Becoming a home inspector is a great profession that allows for incredible flexibility and the potential for impressive profits, but many enter into the industry unprepared and uninformed. Starting a home inspection business requires an investment of both time and money, and too many start up while missing key details that cause their businesses to stagnate or even fold prematurely. Don’t let a lack of research end your entrepreneurship dreams before you’ve started! Avoid these pitfalls, and your home inspection business has the opportunity to meet its potential. Understand the ProfessionAlthough this may sound surprising, one of the most common mistakes that new home inspection business owners make when setting up their business is that they do not fully understand what the job entails. Business owners who start out inspecting homes themselves need to be aware of the physical nature of home inspections, for example. To examine roofs, home inspectors should expect to carry and maneuver ladders, as well as climb up and down them on a regular basis. Additionally, inspectors should feel comfortable with navigating attics and crawl spaces. Some newer technologies such as drones and crawl bots enable those who might

5 Strategies to Get More Reviews for Your Small Business

May 30, 2023

By Zach Vesper, Senior SEO & Marketing Strategist Let’s say you’re heading out to eat in an unfamiliar city. You want to try something unique and high-quality, but searching online leaves you with an endless list of options. Mood and taste will certainly come into the picture, but how do you make your final choice? Check the reviews. Across all industries that rely on pulling in new clients and customers consistently, online reviews are crucial for instilling confidence in service quality. Adding positive reviews on websites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp improves where small businesses rank on Google and increases overall visibility through SEO. According to marketing analysts at Entrepreneur.com, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. To start improving upon your online advocacy channels, here are some great strategies for getting more reviews online. For more help building your online marketing strategy, reach out to your Omaha marketing team. today! If you’re interested in learning more about franchising with NPI, get your free info packet.

Expanding Your Online Following with YouTube

May 23, 2023

By Sydney Bailey, Director of Marketing Successful small business owners know the incredible value that a fully optimized online presence brings to their business. Facebook, Google Business, and LinkedIn all work alongside a professional business website to direct and convert visitors into clients. Depending on the industry, business owners might prioritize some of these platforms over others, but it’s clear that each plays an important role for small businesses. One platform that might get overlooked more often than it should is YouTube. Receiving billions of new views and videos every single day, YouTube’s international footprint is astounding. Present in over 100 countries around the world, the video-hosting website is also localized in 80 different languages. But with that said, small businesses usually aren’t interested in reaching an international, or even a national audience. Small business owners are rightly more concerned with reaching clients in their own cities. So this begs the question: How can YouTube be a benefit to small businesses? How Can YouTube Benefit Businesses at a Local Level? Out of all social media platforms on the market today, YouTube is perhaps best known for its intensely competitive nature. Vastly popular creators tend to dominate attention, and often leaving

From Rookie to Asset: Tips for Training New Employees

May 16, 2023

By Stepha Vesper, NPI, Inc.’s Senior Communications Strategist In the home inspection industry, it should be every business owner’s goal to expand their team. New employees can expand marketing efforts, allow for more property inspections to be completed in a shorter amount of time, and improve on client satisfaction due to increased efficiency. Both in the case of adding a very first employee and when adding to an already large team, owners cannot overlook their training processes. To build your home inspection team the right way, let’s discuss the importance of training, and review a few tips on how to help transition your new employee into an invaluable contributor to your team. Highlighting the Importance of TrainingAll business owners understand to a certain extent the value of a solid training process. New employees are an investment, and the quicker that these team members can get up to speed with the rest of the business the better. Business owners are incentivized to make their training processes as quick and efficient as possible in order to get their new partners contributing. Though these goals are understandable, business owners who are only focused on the speed of their training schedules are missing out

Level Up Your Digital Marketing with LinkedIn

May 9, 2023

By Zach Vesper, Senior SEO and Marketing Strategist We’ve previously discussed best practices for getting set up on LinkedIn as a small business, but as new features and opportunities become available, it can be difficult to know how to navigate through LinkedIn’s tools effectively. LinkedIn stands out from the crowd due to its focus as a business-oriented digital networking platform. As such, LinkedIn should not always be treated the same as platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok. If you are looking to expand the use of your LinkedIn Business Page, it’s important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of LinkedIn as a platform. To optimize our efforts, let’s take a minute to explore LinkedIn’s unique features and how you can use them to strengthen your business’ presence online. Reviewing the Strengths of LinkedInIn many ways, LinkedIn is set up similarly to other social media platforms. LinkedIn allows users to post content and build an audience over time, it promotes engagement, and it invites users to interact with relevant content based on what their interests are as determined by LinkedIn’s own algorithm. The main distinguisher of LinkedIn is its intended function as a social platform for businesses and business owners

Diversification In Small Business: Why It’s Important To Try New Things

May 2, 2023

By Chris Bates, Vice President of Sales & Development When entering into a new industry or starting a small business, sometimes it can take time to find your footing. It’s important to learn the business, establish relationships in your area, and refine your service quality, but sometimes breaking through can still be difficult. With that said, one of the most frequent mistakes business owners make when they’re slow is avoiding trying new things. Opportunities frequently come knocking at the door, but a fear of losing what little market share they have, or concerns related to their ability to recoup from an unsuccessful investment too often lead to inaction. One of the biggest benefits of owning a franchise is access to a network of industry professionals who are plugged into the latest trends, technology, and business strategies that can help you pull ahead of your competition. Additional add-on services and opportunities to access new leads come up every day. The only way to guarantee that things stay slow in your business is to refuse these new opportunities. If you find yourself stagnating in your business, then the time is right to take action. Whether you’re busy and looking to expand or

Technologies That Are Innovating Home Inspections

April 25, 2023

By Jon McCreath, NPI, Inc.’s Training Director The home inspection industry is a far different animal than it was just a decade ago. With new toys and tools designed to provide more thorough and precise services, home inspectors have the potential to elevate their product to higher levels than ever before. While adopting new technology can be viewed as intimidating or overly expensive compared to the value added to a single inspection, home inspectors should consider how much these tools can separate themselves from their competition. Many trending home inspection tools not only add increased accuracy to their inspection reports, but they can cut down on the time it takes to perform an inspection considerably. As any small business owner knows, additional time means more opportunity to market or book additional jobs, leading to more revenue. Read on to learn more about some of the advanced, industry-changing tools that every home inspector should consider adding to their toolset. Drones, Robots, and ScopesThe first major category of tools that can elevate a home inspector’s value are those that offer increased access and mobility. Tools like aerial drones and crawling robots give home inspectors the ability to view areas that were previously

Watching For Wildlife: How To Add Value By Inspecting For Animals

April 18, 2023

By Jon McCreath, NPI, Inc.’s Training Director Good entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to pull ahead of their competition. In the property inspection industry, business owners often will achieve a larger market share by expanding their add-on services, or through emphasizing their own unique strenghts that separate themselves from the crowd. These strategies are great things to build upon! However, the best thing an inspector can do to establish themselves is to deliver the best primary product possible. This can mean writing an unmatched inspection report, or consistently catching things that the other guy misses. A great way to add value to a property inspection that other inspectors might skip out on is to inspect for animals. What To Do When Inspecting For AnimalsSome property inspectors may feel the instinct to shy away quickly from anything related to wildlife during a property inspection, and this is understandable! Property inspectors are trained to evaluate key home systems and aren’t experts on animal species or the best wildlife defense strategies. According to InterNACHI’s Home Inspection Standards of Practice, a property inspector is not required to determine “…the presence of evidence of rodents, birds, bats, animals, insects, or other pests.” Property inspectors