Marketing Question

You know that in a challenging market, one way to increase the number of inspection jobs is to differentiate yourself from your competition.

Our experience has shown that when there’s no difference between you and your competition, when every inspector looks the same, the inspector with the lowest price wins. And that’s not good for anyone.
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Question**: How are you differentiating yourself from your competition without lowering prices?

ActiveRain and Referral Rewards Program.

Ben

Must be the great service, great inspection reports, and a lot of word of mouth, wish creates one referral after another…I don’t try to intentionally differentiate myself from anyone, I just do what I think a property buyer wants, to know exactly what is wrong, and what is not, in a report which I never get any calls asking what does something mean.

By referrals…Still getting low balled in Northern California but my referrals are my top bread and butter. AND I DO NOT LOWER MY PRICE!!!

One thing different that I do is supporting local events. Great for the kids and also gets me a lot of name recognition.

A promise…

I use my own reporting software. No one else has it. Simple, easy to read. Agents and buyers love the reports. 18 to 21 pages. I get most of my business from referrals nowdays since licensing started. However, with licensing and the economy, my business is half what it has been in the past. Go back to the basics.

Under promise/over produce!

As someone who was looking for an inspector, I chose the company/person who my sister referred me to too. The inspector we had was great and the pricing was average. I would recommend always following up with your client afterward, as this is what our inspector did. This person created a bond with my and now I refer him to other friends and family members!

I point out that I have both the construction experience and the education to help the client make an informed decision about their purchase. Not too many inspectors have 30 years residential construction experience AND over 450 hours of formal education so that does set me apart. Does it make me a better inspector? I hope so… time will tell…

I offer them 10 free defects.