Commercial Property Inspectors Roundtable Meeting #32: Let’s Talk Commercial

• ComSOP 2026 Audiobooks
• International Standards of Practice for Inspecting Commercial Properties (ComSOP)
• Variable Air Volume (VAV) Boxes in Commercial Buildings
• HVAC Zone Controllers
• What is a Cost to Remedy?
• Cost to Remedy Reporting Fast-Track Course
• Inspecting Large, Complex Commercial Buildings: The Three Keys to Success
• Business Development Resources for Commercial Property Inspectors
• Understanding Commercial Property Inspection Client Types Online Course
• Commercial Property Inspection Sample Reports

Rob Claus (00:05)
It is right at the top of the hour. Welcome everybody to another another, I don’t know, I guess, episode or another monthly round table for the Certified Commercial Property Inspectors Association. I want to thank everybody for taking time on this ⁓ on this Tuesday. ⁓ a lot of sessions that we do, we we have guests and the guests industry that could be

a new product or or new service. And and this month I wanted to kind of pull the reins back a little bit, wrap our arms back to to the fold of what we promised right at the very beginning of these building your businesses of an opportunity for for you to communicate and and share ideas with other inspectors. And so I wanted to spend today

Just talking about commercial. whatever you got in your mind, whatever ideas you have, whatever problems you might have or successes you might want to share. ⁓ and I wanna open it up ⁓ to to that conversation right here at the very beginning. So does anybody does anybody have anything that’s ⁓ that’s pressing on their minds?

I’ll start out, you know, since ⁓ since we got a lot of a lot of a lot of hands sitting. just at the beginning of the call, you’ve probably heard Vernon and I talking that ⁓ w Holly and I are sitting down in the next ⁓ month or so and we’re gonna start looking at our calendar for twenty twenty seven of what our goals are, what we’re planning on doing for for classes. ⁓ you know

all kinds of classes, whether they’re they’re they’re one day classes, two day classes, or the full three day introduction to commercial property inspection classes. And our challenge has always been the mock inspection, getting something that’s exciting, getting something that’s fun, and getting something that’s challenging for us to test our skills on. And and that we rely on so much of our of you, the members, to say, hey, I’ve got to build it.

And if you’ve got a building, we’ve got a class. you know, for instance, in in July, on the ninth of July, ⁓ we’re going to do a very special cost to remedy class coming up at ⁓ an American Legion here in the Chicagoland area. It’s going to be a unique class because this com this particular American Legion has two complete independent commercial cooking areas.

And so during that class, we’re going to inspect two full kitchens, plus two banquet halls, plus three outbuildings. And then when we’re done, we’re going to assemble back and do the second half of the class just on cost to remedy. The philosophy of how to and then practically taking our findings.

for what we discovered doing the inspection in the morning and actually assigning a remedy and a cost for that remedy in the afternoon. So it’s gonna be a it’s gonna be a pretty fun class ⁓ and a pretty well-rounded class. So that that links up on our website if you’re interested in in that. It’s just a one day in and one in and out on a on a Thursday in in the Midwest. So that that’s kind of what we’re talking about.

you know, is if you’ve got a if you’ve got a building, if you’ve got a an opportunity, we can build a class around it. We’re also gonna do the same thing, not with cost of remedy, with just the building inspection portion in Milwaukee in September. And so there’s another opportunity for you to to sharpen your spear.

But we’ve got a few more on the call. Again, this is let’s let’s talk about commercial business. and any questions or any comments you might have on those.

speaker-4 (04:28)
Hey Rob, Brad here. Can you hear me? Hey, I have a couple questions for you and for the group in general. ⁓ one is ⁓ for ⁓ variable error volume units or variable error terminals. I recently did an inspection on an office building that ⁓ had these and you know I I’m just now starting to kind of begin to understand those, but what

Rob Claus (04:30)
Yeah, Brad.

speaker-4 (04:58)
I was overwhelmed with and my question for you is is, you know, I’ve got the the boiler and the condenser units and the heat pump model, serial number, age, but what just seems ⁓ overwhelming and and I wonder about the practicality is ⁓ how significant is it to have a schedule for each of those air volume.

Units. You know, they were everywhere through the building and they’re in the ceiling. That’s my first question.

Rob Claus (05:32)
So to create a schedule of those, probably not as necessary as you want it to be. In other words, it’s a good chance, Brad, you’re not even going to locate all of them. They’re they’re up they’re up in the suspended ceiling. They’re up above the T-bar. And you’re going to be migrating through the building. They’re basically assigned

to the opposite side of every thermostat in the building. And so and so you trying to do you trying to do an inventory of those, because remember, the key term is readily accessible as it’s defined right there in the comSop in the definitions. And that’s not a readily accessible item. And then you can go even further in through the comSop and look at look at in doors, windows, and interiors where we’re not required to move

ceiling grids. So basically your pseudo inventory, if you want to call it that, of a VAV, a variable air volume box, or let’s just call it a distribution box is I exercised the thermostat because that’s a normal operating ⁓ device and I’ve got activity

Coming from the register up on the ceiling. Now that activity could be heat, that activity could be cool. And using a a simple IR camera or a infrared thermod ⁓ thermometer to shoot it, going, yep, I asked for heat, I got heat, I asked for cool, I got cool, is really all that’s required. Anything that you can do beyond that.

Well, that’s beyond the that no, that’s beyond the standard operating procedure, the the SOP, but a bonus for your client. Does that make sense? Cause your real key, you looked at the boiler, you looked at if access to the air handler if you had it. You looked at the split system if you had it. You looked at the package unit if you had it. That’s that’s what the schedule would be.

And then if I was writing the report, here’s the nice thing is is the new ComSop from January has that appendix. And the appendix says what’s best practice for writing the report, then I would write in the HVAC section that the distribution system is provided through the use of variable air volume boxes located throughout the suspended ceiling.

and and associated with each thermostat and that’d be just a period. And I just I’d just leave it alone. ⁓ and then and then possibly if I had the you know if I saw issues ⁓ here or saw issues there or I exercised a thermostat and nothing happened, then that’s when I’ll call attention to it. And if that thermostat’s not labeled

you know, maybe VAV five package unit three or whatever, then I would just call attention to the thermostat located in the northeast corner of the building, ⁓ did not activate any VAV boxes or very variable air box ver variable air volume boxes ⁓ upon activation period. And then be done.

speaker-4 (09:15)
That’s great. Thanks. Appreciate it. Real helpful.

Rob Claus (09:18)
Yep. I mean you could get down in Brad, you could get into the minutiae. I mean, you’ll I’ve been I’ve been in office buildings ⁓ well ⁓ for those that were with us in Arkansas, we had twenty three air handlers. And each air handler had between fifteen and thirty VAV boxes. I mean, for us to create that inventory almost impossible given the time period we were in.

speaker-4 (09:48)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that well that’s that was kind of what was going through my mind. The second question I had it is for opinions of cost or or cure. And I I recognize that a lot of people don’t offer that. I I do. The basis of why I do is it gives ⁓ an indication of the scale of a repair. For instance, if ⁓ a section of fence needs to be repaired, is it a

thousand dollar repair or a ten thousand dollar repair and and so ⁓ it from that standpoint the challenge that I have sometimes is like let’s just say looking at carpet flooring and there’s a stain on one square foot ⁓ section of carpet and there’s you know five thousand square feet of carpet well you can’t really just replace that one square foot so ⁓

I’ve been using an allowance. I’ll give an allowance or if stucco is damaged in one area on a retail strip mall from previous signs, I’ll just create an allowance because I I just I mean, how how can you replace just one little square foot of carpet or one square foot of stucco without it matching? I wonder what your thoughts are. ⁓ Yeah. Thanks.

Rob Claus (11:09)
The key is, I believe, Brad, is you you when you talked you said a key word in there and it was allowance. Cause the key to me is you can’t you can’t accurately portray a cost to remedy without having a an in-depth conversation with your clients. What is their

comfort threshold and then set that stage. And there could even be, and and this is this is where you’re going to have to make that that discretionary decision of, and I’m going to pick the carpet alone.

Carpet’s very much cosmetic. 100%. And through the ComSop, unless it’s a material defect that causes bodily harm, like a rip, a tear, a trip hazard, it’s loose, there’s a ribble, etc., which which falls into the barrier to accessibility c area, then that stain is just a stain.

And and s and s and writing on my report of this carpet is heavily stained, slightly stained, moderately stained, or there is a stain approximately two square yards in the dead middle of this room, then that’s enough for them to decide, let alone you sitting there trying to calculate the cost of carpet because

When you when you really think about the cost of carpet and the different layers and grades and and and all those other things that go into, is it do you know if it was glued down, tacked down, laid down? Is it is it and that’s why most commercial buildings don’t even use roll carpet anymore. They’re they’re they’re they’re using carpet squares so that they can remove a square here, a square there, and a square there based on w the level of damage that occurs.

So

For me, it’s much more plausible to create a cost to remedy on non-cosmetics.

material defects and you know versus going down into the in the cosmetic, but you’ll have to set that stage with your clients a long before you start the inspection so that you can make sure whatever you’re providing meets that expectation. Does that make sense? Because I mean I I know I I I think a carpet now stucco is a different thing. I mean stucco you could repair you know five square foot, ten square foot, thirty square foot of stucco

Here is stucco there. There are there are certainly craftsmen that can do that. And that’s more of a that’s a a stucco problem is a material defect. But you know, a a drywall hole here, ⁓ a stain on the carpet there, that’s that that would that would lean into the cosmetic world. And I probably wouldn’t even note those on my ins other than a photo ⁓ on my inspection report. I tackled that in a video that we did.

in the mock inspection courses. I believe it was mock inspection course two, building two, that that the carpet was very badly stained throughout the entire office building. And but there was not a single rip or ribble in the carpet where it was worn out from traffic pattern. So there was going to be a trip hazard. So my comments on the report strictly were it it’s it’s a badly stained carpet.

With just a period.

Great question.

Anybody else w a have anything to share this morning?

speaker-2 (15:14)
Can I throw my two cent opinion in a whole minute ago?

Rob Claus (15:15)
Absolutely.

I got a quarter.

speaker-2 (15:19)
Because going back to ⁓ specialized devices, not just only in commercial, but we’re gonna do those in residential too over the years. But ⁓ what what I find is can and I have to always get my guys to to calm down with this kind of stuff too, because they always want to delve in further. And many times what people will what what inspectors will do is they’re afraid to say that.

They either don’t understand what the device is or we’re not required to to dig in further with that device. Because what you have to be careful of is when you’re digging into that w if if you t attempt to dig into that device further, you might wind up damaging that device. ⁓ and then and then you’re into a whole nother ball ball of wax. I always tell my guys, and I do the same thing, you know, if if if I don’t understand something, I explain to people, look, I don’t understand. I’ll certainly find out if I can, but

It’s not i if it’s not operating by normal operating controls, which is what which is how the comms that protects us also, then it’s just some further evaluation or I’ll do a little bit more research and I’ll put that research into my report. But this is just my opinion and just my experience that I I I tell my guys do do not go any further because you get into into these commercial ⁓ systems and you can talk you you can create thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damage by hitting the wrong switch or opening up the wrong compartment.

Rob Claus (16:40)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it and that’s probably my favorite part about this transition between residential and commercial is there are so many unique things, but they’re very unique and dependent on the building that they’re placed in. Things like ⁓ air compressor dryers.

speaker-2 (16:41)
Just just my opinion. Just

Rob Claus (17:07)
you know, that’s not part of our inspection, but there’s there’s a lot of newer commercial inspectors that will get hung up on ⁓ an independent tenant tenant or building owner’s build-out that is not part of the of the true condition of the building. So they’ll end up touching things and messing with things or or

Errantly flipping a GFCI off that shuts off GFCI ⁓ receptacle that’s gonna turn off a computer that’s running a piece of equipment. you know, so so we we really have to remember as a commercial property inspector, it’s the tools that we’re using are be are behind our eyes and between our ears. And and not necessarily the 10 digits that we’re running around with.

And we are a very thorough, educated observational inventory. That’s why it’s called a visual inspection. And and and we don’t have to take tools and dismantle. And that whole conversation to your point, Vernon, of that inspector that wants to start dismantling a package unit on the roof. Once again, I’m gonna go back to the conversation.

I had with the with with the Lennox company where where I’m talking with the national engineer in the marketing department and and I’m trying to explain to him what a commercial property inspector does and and I say and we don’t take any tools on the roof. What do you mean you don’t take a tool on the roof? Well we don’t dismantle the covers. What do you mean you don’t dismantle a cover?

I I said, well, there’s no door interconnect, so if I take a cover off, the blower’s still running. Yeah. Well, just shut the system off. Well, no, I can’t shut the system off because it might not recharge back on without having to to pump the lever. well, then then just go rela reset it over here. I said, We’re not technicians. He goes, That’s why you don’t take them off. Thank you. ⁓ yeah, yeah, and that’s really the key is is is

Is it takes a bit of effort to make your brain say I’m not taking that screw off because I could dismantle or break something. Where on the home inspector side, you know, there’s there’s so many conventions out there and and and even some of the some of the adopted rules that are set up with some of the states that say you have to take the dead front cover off of an electric panel. Well, according to the

NFPA 70, only qualified ⁓ electricians should ever take a dead front cover off. And most of this industry are not qualified electricians. ⁓ So it’s it’s really tough sometimes to pull those reins in. ⁓ some of those old habits that we have as a home inspector can can really ⁓ dive in and and and make it make it difficult for us as a commercial property inspector.

Great point, Vernon.

speaker-2 (20:27)
Find that setting the ground rules from the very beginning help out considerably, making people understand exactly what we’re doing and exactly what they’re not doing. What I usually do when I tell my guys to do is explain to people that look, we’re kind of like we’re we’re your we’re your generalist doctor, you’re kind of not feeling well. So you go see your generalist guy. He kind of looks you over and sees what’s going on. But with his experience, based on what he’s seeing, he might suggest you go over to this specialist, you might go over to that specialist.

Those people are specialists. I’m not a heart surgeon. I can I you know I I can tell you whether or not the blood’s pumping through your veins, but I can’t tell you any more than that. And if and if I see other issues, then I’m gonna suggest going here and there. But my my my two cent opinion is just I just think if you if you if people say if you set the ground rules, because people don’t understand what we do, and we ran into the same situation on the Resley side over the years, people have no idea what we’re doing.

So you to explain to them what they’re doing, and it just cuts down on a lot of confusion on their part, but it helped it helps us out considerably also if they understand where we’re going from here and and the things that we’re finding, we’re gonna be, you know, I tell people we’re gonna there’s gonna be a situation where you’re gonna need to pull in one one additional person. You know, if if I can help you with that, I’ll help you with that by pulling that additional person in. But we’re not gonna be we’re not gonna be ⁓ accomplishing everything here. It’s not that’s not what we do.

Rob Claus (21:51)
Nope. Nope. Hey, I wanna I wanna switch ⁓ from the technical side. How’s how’s everybody’s conversions going? Conversions being ⁓ you know amount of phone calls to the jobs booked. They they they’re pretty successful or or you are you you’re finding you’re getting beat up a little bit?

I asked that. I asked that because you’ve heard me say this in classes and other things we’ve done. ⁓ I was pretty successful batting about ⁓ somewhere between 75 and 85 percent. I I landed 75 to 80 percent of all the jobs that came into my office, and I landed them because of two to three.

speaker-6 (22:48)
Really?

Rob Claus (22:49)
good things that I always thought of. First, my job

As ⁓ as the manager of of this commercial division was inside sales. I know that I had to sell the inspection. There’s nothing more valuable than you understanding intimately everything that goes into what you’re going to do for that client on this particular inspection.

So I’m gonna take for example, and I’m gonna pick on my buddy Devin, who landed this this nice big 300 just short of 300,000 square foot office building. And before he even talked to that client, he and I had a conversation and we basically inspected the entire building over the phone. We looked at the building, we knew exactly.

Right down to probably the mowing pattern or the plow pattern they’re going to use in the in in in in in the parking lot for clearing snow. We knew exactly how the heating was being distributed. We knew the office patterns. We knew the exit routes. We knew all of this. So that when I called the client back, I not only knew my fee, and my fee was fair to my company.

Now I’ll go, I’ll talk about touch on fees in a half a second. But I knew exactly my process. So that when I’m having number two, my conversation with the client, I’m finding out what their specific expectations are. What do they need me to do? What are they asking for me to do? What what pain points do they have? Because here’s the thing in sales.

If I can fix the five pain points that they have in the purchase of this building, or five questions that they have, the only thing that’s gonna separate me from getting this inspection is what

Price. Everything else is neutral. I’ve told them, you know, I’ve got a question about the roof. Well, excellent. Well, when I inspect this roof, I see that your roof looks like it’s a modified binamin roof with an access over in this northeast corner. As I walk through this roof, I’m gonna be looking at the northeast corner and moving myself around this building, making sure I’m gonna look at those trees that are overhanging. Now he’s seeing that I have this visceral connection.

To his building. Now I’m bringing down that that distance that he and I or she and I had a little lower and a little lower and a little lower, so that if I fixed all of those points, and maybe even earlier in the conversation, I had to ask them, have you ever had a commercial property inspection before?

Okay. ⁓ I’m buying a and I’m gonna use ⁓ I’m I’m gonna use Kevin’s question. I’m buying a 10,000 square foot restaurant. Well that is awesome. Now in a restaurant, you know, it’s really important, and I’m gonna even go into how I look at restaurants. This is this is creating a connection. And then I’m gonna say, have you ever had a a restaurant inspection before? No. Well, do you do you do you are you aware of

Some of the pricing that goes into it. Yeah, I’m thinking this is gonna be about 500 bucks, right? Well, on a ten thousand square foot building, I’m gonna be in this restaurant for the entire day on this project. I’m gonna do the inspection and create your inspection report. It’s gonna it’s gonna take an entire day’s worth of process. For then, I’m typically he said five hundred on the phone. I’m gonna p I’m gonna say what my price is. And in Kevin’s case, he he he quoted

Sixteen hundred. Well if they’re five hundred and you’re sixteen hundred. That’s like eleven hundred dollars difference.

And if you’re losing that work, they called you to give you money. So you have to know and and and we just did a a a job costing course online a few weeks ago. You have to know what your val what what your expenses are. And let’s say your break-even on that job was 600. So if you did it for for 500, you’d lose 100. So maybe you gotta go.

All right. I either break even at five at six hundred or I’ll tell you what. ⁓

If if we book this on Thursday afternoon, when I I have a hole in my schedule, ⁓ I’ll I can do this inspection at at twelve hundred dollars. So I came down a little bit, they’re gonna come up quite a bit more, and then I’m gonna spend Thursday afternoon inspecting. Friday, I’ll write the report, and then I won’t do any other inspections and I’ll take the weekend off. I’ve made my money.

And I’m going to spend the rest of the after rest of the afternoon on Friday building my business. I don’t send proposals to my clients that I don’t already know my success is almost guaranteed. By the time I’m writing the proposal, it’s already been codified.

with my client. We’re gonna do it at this price. That’s why my success was so high. I’m not just okay, I got five I I got I was I was averaging forty five to sixty inquiries a month ⁓ b when I was still working and and out of those I’m I’m scheduling like I say seventy five to eighty five percent but I’m s I’m already know before I get that proposal back.

That they’re a yes or a no. And the typically the no’s that weren’t immediate were because they had to go to like a a house of worship’s board of directors or a business had it had to go upstream because I was not dealing directly with this the the decision maker. So to Kevin, your question you know, i in in months you’ve been getting passed over for inspections, maybe you gotta really dive deep.

Understand your your break-even point, which is fabulous. You know your business, and then figure out your where your margins are. And okay, so if I did this at a 20% margin over break-even, I’m at this price, and a 30% and a 40%, or whatever your goals are, I rarely I would rarely set my phone down.

without already having that job booked. Maybe you gotta turn the the the killer instinct up just a hair. Does that answer your question, Kevin?

He’s on mute. Yes. Perfect. Yeah, I mean, competition, you know, here’s our challenge. Is on on a lot of buildings, and I’m gonna take a 10,000 square foot restaurant, there’s a lot of home inspectors that are wanting to do that work that aren’t qualified in that. And I throw them right under and I’m gonna say this with all respect because I do carry a home inspector license. Yeah, I I will tell my clients I s I you know, point blank.

You know, you they want a five hundred dollar inspection. I’m at sixteen because that’s where my math came out. Well, and I would I would tell them, you’re gonna get a lot of comp you’re gonna get a lot of inquiries out there that probably aren’t certified commercial property inspectors. I will say that. You’ve heard me say that in class when when I when I when I’ve when I’ve played my my fun video.

You’re you know, we are a certified commercial property inspectors association. I know commercial kitchens. When I’m gonna look in your commercial kitchen, I’ll be verifying you have a type one hood. I’m gonna say those words in a type one hood with with with with with a suppression system installed. ⁓ and I will say those words right to them because maybe I’ve got sprinkle a little secret sauce on top because the other inspector they’re gonna call.

that’s doing it for half the price is probably gonna give them half the service. That ten thousand square foot restaurant, let’s see, what’s a ten thousand square foot restaurant?

I guess that’s even bigger than like a BJ’s brew house. That’s even bigger than a a Friday’s. I mean, that’s a decent sized place. I mean, 10,000 square foot is probably just probably smaller than a Dave and Buster’s. I mean, that’s a lot of square footage in in in in a space like that. And so I’m standing back going, you know, I’ve got I’ve got host stations and I’m just gonna go through the whole litany of everything I’m gonna do. So at the end of the day, they’re gonna know that I know.

that building. I do the same for industrial. I do the same for car wash. I do the same for any of those buildings. I’m gonna put myself ground zero in the middle of the building and help them understand what I’m gonna do for them. And then I don’t lose the job.

speaker-2 (33:09)
I’d agree with that one thousand percent. I I think too many times what people will do when it comes to pricing is they’re try they’re trying to compete with the price. And if you’re gonna compete with the price, you’re gonna lose all the every single time. And you need to you need to build value. My experience has been over the years, most service industries ⁓ people are very good at what they do within that industry, but they’re if they don’t understand sales and marketing, that’s where they fall down.

You have to understand sales and marketing. And it’s not even a bad idea idea or or I should re rephrase that. It’s a good idea to take some sales training courses. Because anybody that’s successful in a service industry or just in business in general, somebody somewhere has a has a sales background. And and because I know myself, I have a sales background and my rese side I started 15 years ago. And when my very first year in that

starting on the resie side, my inspector at the time w my ⁓ teacher at the time was was shocked at how many inspections we did in our very first year. And it all comes back down to understanding people and sales. And it’s no different on this commercial side. Yep. And and what and what w what Rob was saying earlier is also very true. They don’t have any idea what the heck you’re talking about, but you know what you’re talking about and you’re saying things that the other

the the resi guys don’t have any idea what you’re talking about either and and don’t have anything to relate to. You have to you have to you have to hold your ground, go for your price, because you’re gonna get it and ⁓ make them understand the difference of the value. Just

Rob Claus (34:49)
The and and this is exactly what Devin is saying in the chat where he’s in Idaho and he’s getting a lot of clients that are that are going low ball and getting multiple bids and just going with the long lowest bidder. And it’s it it’s it’s time to put your experience to work. And put yourself in that building and beat them over the head with the you’re the best. Yeah, you can

You can you know and ask them point blank. I mean I I will tell you that I I will ask my clients if they’ve got other bids. And and if if if ⁓ let’s I’m gonna give a a great example is I might I might be on this building eight cents a foot and somebody else said six cents a foot. I’m gonna go, that’s excellent.

At six cents a foot, I really can’t do that job. I can’t do that job at six foot. I’m gonna lose, I’m gonna lose money on the inspection. My experience is too valuable. I’ve been doing this for for this long, and I’ve done you know, and I’m gonna p I’ll pick some number ⁓ of buildings. The best I can do is seven fifty. Seven seven and a half cents a foot. If you’d like me to do this, I can certainly do this next Monday. Otherwise

You know what? I would go with the six cents and six cents a foot. And if you got any questions, feel free to call me. And I’ve had those clients call me back and go, Yeah, I had that inspection and I got a question. You said you’d answer a question. And I’m going, Yeah, you should hired me in the first place. But yeah, yeah, Joe, you had a you wanted to chime in.

speaker-3 (36:38)
All right. So I’m off mo y mute. I’d like to add in too, you know, when it comes to pricing and the competition part, sometimes you have to know your value. And the reason I say that is, you know, sometimes people are just price shopping around and they don’t care about the value. So I’ll always ask, are we you know, are you looking for an inspection based on price alone?

And then you can kind of get a feel for your client as you’re talking to them because they’re just going to call the next guy and the next guy and the next guy.

Rob Claus (37:11)
Yeah.

speaker-3 (37:13)
And so, you know, and then if you do decide to go forward with it and you drop your rates too much, then you’ve devalued yourself because they were like, Well, what was he doing in the first place? So sometimes you have to stick close to your guns. Not necessarily at your guns, but close to it, in my opinion.

Rob Claus (37:31)
100%. You need to be flexible. You know, you you need to know you need to know what your value’s worth. You’re absolutely right. There was a there’s a funny statement that I heard God 20 some years ago. ⁓ these two the the the inspector answers the phone and the client’s on your side, and the client says, Yeah, I I called I called Bob and Bob said he’d do the inspection for 43 dollars and and and and you’re at eighty four dollars.

You go, yep. And Bob truly knows what his inspections are worth. And like, well, that could be one of the greatest backhand slaps to the head I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I’ll remember that one forever. Is is people are you know, it’s human nature. You want the best deal. ⁓ but at the end of the day, you want the best work at the best deal. And

Best work will always trump best deal. Everybody’s gonna have a complaint over the lowest bid. And ⁓ you know, and Larry said the race to the bottom, you know, you’re you’re gonna you’re gonna le you’re you’re they will leave you at the bottom. That’s when you you’ve always heard me talk about pricing. And I always talk about pricing with you know on a five scale, you know, one being way down here at the bottom basement.

you know, bottom market world and and five up here at like, you know, the most expensive world. I always like to be like a three and a half or four. I can go up when I need to go up. I can go down when I need to go down. And when I when when I do that, then I’ve got this capacity to to always make sure that I’m competitive. And and that’s really the key. You know, is is

Is it to summarize all this? Remember your sales, your inside sales. And so ranch it up your sales a little bit without being pitchy. And and to take ownership of it. Take ownership of your price. Like I say, on the other side of that call is somebody trying to give you money. Decide if you want to take the money or let somebody else have the money. And but

But don’t be greedy. I hear so often of somebody going, well, and you’re gonna get that client that’ll pay anything for anything. Fabulous. And then you’re gonna get five clients that are that that don’t want to pay the highest price. Well, I would rather work for the five clients and make honest money than work for one client and make a lottery win.

And the reason is is I’m dropping seeds. I’m making five new friends, five new referral sources, and I’m making predictable or predictive income and value for my company versus I work twice this month. That’s all. I worked twice. I won these two big jobs. I ⁓ it’s just too much of a porpoise or too much of a sign curve. I just like to be just

Keep on going, do my two or three a week. ⁓ be very happy, be profitable, and and make more friends, be more sustainable, and grow a nice sus nice book of business. I’m gonna really encourage everybody to really deep dive. We’ve got a couple of really great classes out there. ⁓ we just did the P3 profitability job costing that’s being converted into an online course and a book right now.

That’ll that that’s that’s coming out ⁓ soon. ⁓ I believe it’s November. I’m we’re doing a a ⁓ a a course on sales and looking at your sales funnel and your sales process. I would really encourage you to, you know, especially in that third, fourth quarter, think about that. Devin’s looking at the market slowing down. Is anybody else seeing

slow down, yeah, the economy’s tough tough everywhere and that’s where it’s really important to to to when you’re out to to land these fish. Don’t rat ratchet up your marketing, ratchet up your sales. Look at your website. Engage in your website. ⁓ you know, I I was just on a call with with a member yesterday talking about how he can engage in his website a little bit more with with add some photos, add some blog,

Add some things that don’t cost money and make your website more searchable to the internet. ⁓ this particular inspector commented that there’s ⁓ an attorney in his marketplace that has been suing companies for not having an accessible website. I’m like, really? He says, Yeah, by not tagging things for for the visually impaired or these other things.

And he’s been winning. I said, Well then put tags on your pictures. You hover over a picture, handsome inspector wearing a certified commercial property inspector’s hat behind a a white background. Yeah, done. Then that’s what that’s what it means. but I I I will tell you that to Brad’s point, to Devon’s point, this is the standard slowdown time for commercial.

Second into third is always slower because this is this is when people’s ⁓ fiscal years are usually ending. And it’s the third and the fourth when all the exchanges are going on that the market’s gonna start turning and you need to be ready for it. ⁓ we’ve got we’ve got articles, we’ve got things, we could pull things out instantly that’ll show those statistics. ⁓

So so know that.

Anything else? This is this these are nice.

speaker-4 (43:58)
To that point, Rob, Brad here. ⁓ at the risk of sounding like a shield for Paige with ⁓ tree. let’s see what ⁓ we did you did a webinar a while back. Paige, trying to think of her last name. Yeah. ⁓ I I engaged her to design a proposal for me and it worked out really well.

Rob Claus (44:00)
Yeah.

Yep, page wise.

speaker-4 (44:27)
I I was really excited and and in the process had such a great experience without paying a whole ton money. ⁓ but was willing to pay for the time for sure. I was really excited though with the outcome, a real positive outcome, so much so that I’ve engaged her now to build out my website. give gave her a document with some specifications of things that I’d like to see and

She’s turned out to be a really great ⁓ resource so far, ⁓ with real positive outcomes. So thank you.

Rob Claus (45:04)
Yeah, we’ve Paige, I just look at some of the things that we’ve done in the last twelve months, you know, with with with ORIP and and the software providers. ⁓ you know, we’ve we’ve we’ve got ⁓ yeah tree ring digital, we’ve got our costa. ⁓ there’s really been some really good alliances ⁓ communicated out to y’all.

that we’re hoping you’re using some of these resources, some of these knowledge points, because the at the end of the day, we’re here to support you, ⁓ the CCPIS, any way we can. Then then to build the industry on top of that. And we all live, myself, obviously Maggie, Holly, the rest of the team, we live vicariously through your successes. And so when we hear you you’re

your success you know then we just go yeah high five ourselves you know so so great for you to do what you just did. ⁓ and then that’s what’s that’s what’s cool ⁓ on on our side. ⁓ coming up we’ve got ⁓ we just did ⁓ an online course for concrete parking garages and parking structures. We’re doing a full concrete structures course coming out that’ll that’ll handle

architectural and structural concrete. We’ve got a maintenance course coming. We’ve got the ⁓ the pricing course online coming as well. So there’s a there’s a lot of great things in in our pipeline that that are being fed out to you guys to to help you or give you more arrows in your quiver. That’s for darn sure. ⁓ our next session that we’re going to do, I really want you to put your heads together. I’m going to give you some homework.

The next time we meet, we’re gonna take July off. ⁓ July is typically ⁓ a a busy month for most inspectors for for just being with their families. and so getting together on a on a Tuesday morning in July. We’re gonna we always skip July, but our next time we’re together, you’ll see all the links and everything else. I wanna have a conversation with you about inspector efficiency.

How do you maneuver through buildings? What’s your speed? What’s your experience? How long does it take you to write a report? What what what what are you doing? Things like that. So it’s almost like we’re going to have a mini round table. It’s gonna be a round table, but kind of a ⁓ a query, so to speak, on on how you’re able to do this. Because here’s here’s my goal on this.

is we can get this out there published. So when somebody goes to to to ⁓ to Drew and says, yeah, Drew, it’s it’s a 10,000 square foot restaurant, well geez, if it’s 1500 square foot per hour, then I know exactly how many hours I’m gonna be inspecting and then how much time it takes me to write the report

And if that’s an ind you know, and and that’s gonna be pretty much across the board for that level of experience of inspector. And now we’ve got a really much an apples to apples comparison be you know between all of the inspectors coast to coast, and that’s gonna help us all not only be more competitive, but able to have a story to tell our clients.

So it’s gonna be fun.

Anything else anybody wants to bring up before we say goodbye on this th on this Tuesday?

speaker-2 (49:05)
I have a question. Yeah. ⁓ so I’m pretty new to the commercial stuff. I’ve just started going through some of the ⁓ certification stuff on the website. ⁓ I’ve done a couple of commercial over the years, but you know, more of the home inspector doing a commercial thing and I want to get away from that. so I’m kind of going off on my own, away from the company I was with before.

Rob Claus (49:07)
Yes, please, Connor.

Well we’ve got a twelve step program to help you. Awesome.

speaker-2 (49:31)
Awesome.

⁓ I was gonna ask, I’m in Arizona. I saw you had ⁓ a c in person class in Arizona maybe a year or two ago. do you have any plans for anything else in person in Arizona?

Rob Claus (49:43)
We we do not have anything scheduled for Arizona, but in October we are going to be in Boulder. And and and that’s depending on where you’re at in Arizona, that’s only a an eight to fourteen hour drive.

speaker-2 (49:58)
Yeah, it’s not too bad.

Rob Claus (49:59)
Quick

or a quick plane ride.

speaker-2 (50:01)
Yeah. I’ll check that out. ⁓ one other thing I had to add would be for those value add when people are price shopping and stuff. One of the things that’s helped me a lot on the residential side is my sample reports. So I have a sample report for you know what my product is and then I also have a sample report of what my competition product is and I just made both of them myself. So

Hey, this is, you know, how how many times have you guys done a property or something, seen a report from a previous inspector, and you know yours is gonna be much better. ⁓ so when I get those people doing that, I talk into them on the phone, but I also, hey, let me send you an example of what, you know, my product is versus that guy that’s $200 cheaper.

Rob Claus (50:54)
I think I think that’s fabulous. And I’ll go one more step. On our website, ccpia.org, in one of the resources, we actually have sample emails that you can place as an email to your clients for each type of building. ⁓ thank you for calling landmark commercial property inspections and and asking us to help you with your industrial.

your your your retail, your multifamily, and then it’s got a specific email tailored for that type of building. So now your client really because they’re just gonna read the email, they might not read the link or they might not and they’re gonna get something that’s very specific, granular to their topic. So between your ⁓ sample report and contrary report and then a tailored email

you’re going to have a better conversion rate than this, my proposal’s attached, sign it and return it, and we’ll schedule the inspection. There’s no visceral connection between you and the client.

Thank you everybody for taking time. We’re we’re we’re getting up close to the hour. Remember, we have coaching calls opportunities throughout the week. We have we have ⁓ two field classes scheduled, the one the cost of remedy in Chicago, the inspection in Milwaukee. We also have the the three day introduction of commercial property inspections gonna be in Boulder. And then in ⁓ in later in the year, in no in November, we’re just doing a systems online course.

⁓ that that’ll that’ll help you with that as well. Till we talk next time. Remember, think about your efficiencies and I look forward to seeing everybody else on the next round table. Stay safe everybody. Remember to follow the ComSOP It’s there to protect you and help you.

speaker-2 (52:58)
Thanks, Rob. Thank you.