Growing a home inspection business is hard work.
Not just physically demanding, but also mentally. Afterall, you’re not just an inspector. As an entrepreneur, you’re also juggling the role of accountant, head marketer, family man, etc…
So when building a home inspection empire, it’s vitally important to embody an entrepreneurial-mindset.
One of the best personal development books to develop this mindset is, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey.
The book has transformed thousands of people’s way of thinking about their work and life.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to apply the transformative power of its ideas to help grow your home inspection business.
I’m confident that if you follow these 7 habits, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a “highly effective home inspector.”
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Home Inspection Business Owners
Below you’ll find a quick description of each of the 7 habits taken from the 7 habits website. Under each habit, I’ve included simple action steps you can apply to grow your home inspection business.
Habit 1 – Be Proactive
Being proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. Proactive people recognize that they are “response-able.” They don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they can choose their behavior.
Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather.
How you can apply habit 1 to your home inspection business:
1. Don’t get comfortable in your business. Always seek to innovate what you’re doing. Seek new ways to surprise and delight your customers. Proactive home inspectors make calls, go to network events, and get out of their comfort zones. They don’t blame “the market,” they CREATE the market they want.
2. Go through your realtor list and invite them out to lunch or coffee.
2. Go through your lists of past clients (home buyers) and send them a handwritten thank you note. Thank them for their business and ask for referrals (you do have a referral program, right…?).
3. Choose one of the ideas in my FREE eBook, “50 Ways to Market Your Home Inspection Business,” and go ALL-IN on it.
Habit 2 – Begin With The End In Mind
Begin With the End in Mind is based on imagination—the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint.
If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It’s about connecting again with your uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.
One of the best ways to incorporate Habit 2 into your life is to develop a Personal Mission Statement.
How you can apply habit 2 to your home inspection business:
1. Develop a Personal Mission Statement for yourself. You can do that HERE.
2. Develop a vision statement for your home inspection business. You can do that HERE (Free AI tool).
3. Once you’ve completed action step 2, post your vision on your website under your about page.
4. Examine the foundation of your home inspection business. What do you want to be known for? What do you want people to think of when they see your brand? Reverse engineer it and start there.
Habit 3: Put First Things First In Your Home Inspection Business
Habit 3, Put First Things First, is the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered.
This habit is the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2. Habit 1 says, “You are the creator. You are in charge.”
Habit 2 is the first mental creation, based on imagination, the ability to envision what you can become.
Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation.
This habit is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment-by-moment. It deals with many of the questions addressed around time management. But that’s not all; habit 3 is about life management as well—your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. What are “first things?” First things are those things you find of most worth. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities you established in Habit 2.
How you can apply habit 3 to your home inspection business:
1. Use the 80/20 Rule to determine which home inspection activities are bring the most value to your business. You can use this tool to figure it out.
2. Once you’ve determined what’s bringing in the most value, DOUBLE DOWN ON IT and focus all your energy there.
3. Use a time-management tool to manage your day-to-day home inspection business activities. Franklin Covey has an excellent guide you can download here.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Think Win-Win isn’t about being nice, nor is it a quick-fix technique. It is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration. Most of us learn to base our self-worth on comparisons and competition. We think about succeeding in terms of someone else failing—if I win, you lose; or if you win, I lose. Life becomes a zero-sum game. There is only so much pie to go around, and if you get a big piece, there is less for me; it’s not fair, and I’m going to make sure you don’t get anymore. We all play the game, but how much fun is it really?
Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. It’s a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. With win-win, agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!
How you can apply habit 4 to your home inspection business:
1. Think of the realtors you’re trying to work with. Ask yourself: What value can I add past promoting myself and dropping off donuts like everyone else?
2. Lead with value: Consider creating something for realtors that adds tremendous value to them. Maybe a presentation on home inspections that focuses on bringing in new leads for them (something different than other home inspectors). Or, for new realtors, maybe a welcome letter introducing yourself along with free book that you like. When you give people value, working with you become an easy win-win scenario for everybody involved.
3. Add strategic partners to your home inspection business. Think pest, pool, sewer, landscaping, moving, etc. How can you partner with them and bring more value to your customers? Tons of easy win-win options here to play with.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Empathetic communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read, write, and speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being? Probably none, right?
If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. In doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen?
Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. Your mind filters everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. Consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before they finish communicating. Do any of the following sound familiar?
You might be saying, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m just trying to relate to the person by drawing on my own experiences. Is that so bad?” In some situations, autobiographical responses may be appropriate, such as when another person specifically asks for help from your point of view or when there is already a very high level of trust in the relationship.
How you can apply habit 5 to your home inspection business:
1. When hiring new inspectors, take time to listen and understand their motivations. When you can align the goals of your business with their personal ambitions, you’ll achieve win-win (habit 4). Win-win will help grow the size of your company and keep key employees around for years to come.
2. Start giving your realtors and homebuying clients feedback surveys. Use these surveys to UNDERSTAND their point of view so you can deliver even BETTER service. Google has a free survey maker that works. Learn how to set it up in the guide here.
3. When it comes to your marketing, start doing research. The best place to do this is your own reviews. Look for what people really liked and what could be improved upon. Include this in your brand messaging if one message stands out in particular. For example, if someone really happens to like how through your reports are, and see you this over and over again, you might say something like: “Quick, through home inspection reporting that makes home buying a breeze.”
The marketing possibilities are endless here. You can even look at your competitors’ reviews for inspiration.
Habit 6: Synergize
To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn’t happen on its own. It’s a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table.
Together, they can produce far better results than they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty—you name it.
When people begin to interact together genuinely, and they’re open to each other’s influence, they begin to gain new insight. The capability of inventing new approaches is increased exponentially because of differences.
How you can apply habit 6 to your home inspection business:
1. Take time for personal development and reading. Look towards other industries that are succeeding. Look for ways to integrate their business methods (marketing, sales, processes) into your home inspectoin business.
2. Ask your team members for their ideas. Have meetings with your staff and ask them what they think you should do to address problems in the business.
3. Meet with your realtors and ask them how you could improve your home inspectoin business.
Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw
Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.
As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?
You can pamper yourself mentally and spiritually. Or you can go through life oblivious to your well-being. You can experience vibrant energy. Or you can procrastinate and miss out on the benefits of good health and exercise. You can revitalize yourself and face a new day in peace and harmony. Or you can wake up in the morning full of apathy because your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. Every day provides a new opportunity for renewal—a new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill.
How you can apply habit 7 to your home inspection business:
1. Read inspirational material. Study the greats of business. Start with these books.
2. Spend special time with your family. Turn off your phone and don’t think about your home inspection business for the day.
3. Practice gratitude by sending out thank you notes to your home inspection clients.
Become A Highly Effective Home Inspector
By applying the 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People in your home inspection business, your business will change. But more importantly, YOU will change.
Because success as a home inspector means more than just climbing ladders and scaling rooftops. It means climbing over the mental barriers that block you from reaching your full potential. Take care of that, and your success as a highly effective home inspector is sure to come.
Have book recommendations or thoughts on the 7 habits? Leave a comment below and let me know.
To your success, Seneca.