Building Your Business with CCPIA #13: Special Guest Levi Nelson, InterNACHI^® Logo Designer and Illustrator

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Rob Claus: Hello! This is Rob Claus with the Certified Commercial Property Inspectors Association, and we’re having once again a building your business series. And today we’re lucky enough to have Levi Nelson, the InterNACHI^® logo designer and illustrator extraordinaire.

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Rob Claus: and a a. As far as our industry goes, he’s he’s the S. Supreme expert at logo creation.

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Rob Claus: So welcome. Levi.

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Levi Nelson: Thanks, Rob.

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Rob Claus: Yeah, yeah, I’ll I’ll touch you up before we kick you in the knees, or or whatever you know, build build up before we take it apart.

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Rob Claus: before we get too far along. You know people are going to be watching this, and they’re going to say InterNACHI^® . Well.

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Rob Claus: the CCPIA^® and InterNACHI^® are 2 different associations.

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Rob Claus: They’re 2 different memberships. There are 2 different entities, but we share some of the same resources, say building

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Rob Claus: same executive management, and then I get to lean on some talents of excellent people like yourself, Levi, so welcome.

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Levi Nelson: Thank you.

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Rob Claus: With that.

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Rob Claus: we’re gonna go through and talk about marketing today. And very specifically, the grasp and and first visual visceral look that you have on a company is the Logo.

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Rob Claus: and and you create a lot of Logos

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Rob Claus: for international members

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Rob Claus: and some international members are also CCPIA^® members, which is not mutually inclusive. But tell tell us a little bit about the process that an Internet she has with logo creation.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah, no problem. I actually had already set up. I’m gonna go ahead and just share my screen right away.

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Rob Claus: Excellent.

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Levi Nelson: Because I want to.

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Levi Nelson: Let’s see.

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Levi Nelson: Oh, you have to allow me to share the screen like.

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Rob Claus: I have to allow. Now, I gotta work with technology.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah, tech tech bugs.

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Rob Claus: okay, let’s see if that works.

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Levi Nelson: Alright perfect. I think that should work.

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Rob Claus: Aha! Look at this.

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Levi Nelson: I’m gonna go through my just the logo questionnaire that we send out upfront

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Levi Nelson: and I’m gonna run through some of this stuff is straightforward, like, what’s your name?

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Levi Nelson: Like the people we’re gonna be emailing like, what is your email? How do we contact you as always be important. You spell this stuff correctly, because when you have to scramble it results and delays.

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Rob Claus: So, so, so garbage in is garbage out.

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Levi Nelson: Exactly

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Levi Nelson: so. The questions that that, you might have more questions about that probably aren’t as descriptive as because they have to be short, are one of the first questions is, which style of logo would you prefer?

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Levi Nelson: modern versus more classic? For something like a commercial inspection company. I would recommend leaning more modern just because they tend to.

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Levi Nelson: They tend to be for more of a broad audience, and can leave you open for both home inspections and commercial inspections.

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Rob Claus: So you’re you’re thinking, having the dexterity of of being able to have one logo that operates both sides of the house versus I’ve got a logo that I created strictly for residential. Then I’ve got a second logo strictly for commercial.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah.

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Rob Claus: I gotta kind of be a little bit all over the board. Then.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah, if if if you wanna be in commercial inspections and home inspections, it’s better just to start with something that is more broad and doesn’t, doesn’t trap you into one specific industry. Like, if you just if you just put a house over text. What you’re communicating is. That’s that’s the thing you do. From the get go visually.

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Levi Nelson: So with something more modern, like the letter form logo, and I’ll go into the styles of Logos a little bit later, but

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Levi Nelson: With something more clean cut. That leaves you

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Levi Nelson: more open to things like embroidery. Because the logo will scale. Well, so if you’re gonna do shirts for like more than one person, the more basic the logo is, the easier it is to work with for larger scale projects.

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Rob Claus: Interesting, because most people don’t think about that.

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Rob Claus: you know, they’re thinking, oh, what’s my letterhead going to look like?

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Rob Claus: But at the end of the day. You gotta think letterhead

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Rob Claus: apparel.

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Rob Claus: and maybe maybe even vehicle wraps.

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Levi Nelson: Vehicle wraps print. If you want to print something on like the side of a PIN, like stuff you leave behind.

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Levi Nelson: How flexible the logo is with scaling will kind of define what you can do and what you can’t do pretty quickly.

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Levi Nelson: Which is always something you can ask us in the course of the process, like, How

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Levi Nelson: I want to do this with my logo. Well, how will the logo work? With this? We can answer that question in real time, because we’re always emailing back and forth with you.

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Rob Claus: But great Point.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah. So let’s see. So yeah, the the more modern logo would probably work better for something like commercial inspections. And the difference between, like a more modern logo versus a more classic logo is gonna be basically that the fonts are like these sans serif and Sarah fonts alright. So a sans is a font that just doesn’t have the funny little old caps on it, right like the old style, like little feet on letters

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Levi Nelson: that tends to be like a a more formal layout. And some of those fonts don’t scale quite as well.

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Levi Nelson: and there, and they can be less flexible. You have to be careful when you’re picking fonts. But generally that’s the difference between something that’s more modern, more classic, and depending on where you live and work.

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Levi Nelson: That’s going to feed into all of that stuff as well like the people you’re working with, how old they are, how young they are! That’s always going to inform that stuff.

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Levi Nelson: So let’s go quickly through

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Levi Nelson: just logo styles, which would be on the questionnaire as well. Like

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Levi Nelson: an emblem logo is, gonna be more elaborate. But it and and you can fit more detail into it. But it won’t hold up as well to scaling, and can also have limitations with things like embroidery.

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Levi Nelson: Just because they get so detailed and the text gets so small that the the thread can’t actually match the the letters? So while it it can be an interesting logo approach. It does have limitations that you should be aware of

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Levi Nelson: word mode. Mark Logo is great for something like commercial inspection, because it’s it’s just based on the font and the words.

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Levi Nelson: which means you’re not what you’re telling people right up front is what your name is, and you’re sort of giving that a bit of a character.

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Levi Nelson: But there’s nothing in the way that’s sort of boxing you in to to like a singular part of the profession, because you’re just using the name

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Levi Nelson: and that stuff can hold up really well to scaling. A lot of major companies will work with Wordmark logos just because of how flexible they are.

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Levi Nelson: Same goes for letter form Logos would be a good approach, for like a commercial inspection company. Because again, you’re not. You’re not stating upfront like this is what I do.

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Levi Nelson: Pectoral logos. That’s a logo that’s with a with a picture integrated into the image

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Levi Nelson: like either more or less complicated.

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Levi Nelson: And this this the pictorial logo is, will actually start to box you in depending on the types of images you use.

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Levi Nelson: With something like oak leaf, which is one of the examples I have here. That’s more open because you’re just

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Levi Nelson: like you’re kind of maybe referencing a geographic region there. But if he’s not saying it. It does say home inspections on the bottom. But if you wanted to change and to go to commercial inspections, all he has to do is take the home off.

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Levi Nelson: Any is not like Limited. There.

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Rob Claus: Yeah. So if I was in Northern California, and I called myself Redwood commercial inspections, you know, then then we could have this beautiful stoic tree.

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Rob Claus: or or or redwood leaf there, and that would that would make a lot of sense geographically.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Cause that’s that’s just another thing that can help A logo can also help define the area you work in, right? Like it can help people to know their

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Levi Nelson: right away from the image on the top that they’re working with someone in their local area.

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Levi Nelson: So it’s just a way of quickly communicating

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Levi Nelson: and the important thing, there being quickly.

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Rob Claus: Yes.

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Levi Nelson: abstract logos. Would be another good like commercial thing, because an abstract logo doesn’t. It? Kind of looks like something, but it doesn’t necessarily. It’s not a very specific thing. So it’s just like a series of shapes.

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Levi Nelson: and they’re they usually tend towards being like pretty clear and modern looking

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Levi Nelson: character. Logos are like more more personality based it. It could work they tend again, like the

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Levi Nelson: like the emblem logo that can be more complicated. So you you might run into issues with embroidery again, and some issues with scaling.

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Levi Nelson: But those those are just some of the options and approaches for different types of logo design.

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Rob Claus: And so you’ll when when you send out these questionnaires, you, you’re gonna ask.

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Rob Claus: what do you like? What’s your style? You know? Yeah, things like that, so that that you can start honing in on.

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Levi Nelson: Yes, yeah, we go through. We pay attention to all of the questions in this, because.

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Levi Nelson: yeah, every answer to this helps me to understand what it is you’re looking for. So I we pay attention to all of the information these questionnaires, and I’ll actually, I’ll walk you through like a questionnaire a little bit later, and show you kind of what the answers were and how that how it fed into the actual logo.

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Rob Claus: This is such an awesome service, I remember.

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Rob Claus: Oh, good grief! Maybe 20,

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Rob Claus: 25 years ago I used a logo service, and I had 0 communication 0 one on one it was, these are what I like. Well, then, here’s your 5 back. Pick your one you like.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

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Rob Claus: And and it really didn’t have this honing or

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Rob Claus: help with my stylistic approach, that that that this is providing. So this is this is excellent. I would I I’m hoping all the international members are taking advantage of this.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah, it’s I, I think it’s

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Levi Nelson: to work directly with a person like again, we’re sending out this questionnaire. But we’re also interacting an email. So I can in real time let you know how how things will work or won’t work, or let you know some of the limitations of different choices ahead of time.

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Levi Nelson: One of the things I’ve run into multiple times is people will try and just drop Llc off their name. And we’ve had people who had to redesign stuff in the past right? Because it it. Some states require that that Llc stays in your name.

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Levi Nelson: So they’ve had to like redesign things. So it’s better just to know upfront like your state might require this. So you don’t wanna have to reprint everything again.

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Levi Nelson: or region.

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Rob Claus: That is so, that is so absolutely interesting. It makes me think

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Rob Claus: that

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Rob Claus: when you transition between residential and commercial inspections

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Rob Claus: many times, you lose the imaginary boundary

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Rob Claus: of a State.

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Rob Claus: because most States there are a few that have it. But most States do not regulate commercial inspections.

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Rob Claus: and so I could be in beautiful Massachusetts

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Rob Claus: and and do work in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, because I can get to them in only a few hour drive.

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Rob Claus: Let’s. And so

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Rob Claus: when your logo creating.

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Rob Claus: you want to think about if yeah, yeah, can I use Llc, or can I use Llc in those other spaces

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Rob Claus: so so that’s it. That’s an interesting point that you gotta kind of think outside the box a little bit.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah, if if your if your perimeter is wider like that changes, that changes a lot of things.

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Rob Claus: Yeah.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah. So again, like, we ask, what imagery you’d like to use in the logo, and we offer an opportunity later to download images.

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Levi Nelson: I go through colors

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Levi Nelson: like I go through cool, saturated, which is, gonna be more bright sat saturated is just a a longer word of saying, something is like a brighter color versus a more muted color.

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Levi Nelson: But like cool, saturated, warm, saturated, and then cool and warm, like more muted tone down colors.

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Levi Nelson: And then down here at the bottom. Neutral.

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Levi Nelson: yeah. So let’s see.

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Levi Nelson: we also have.

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Levi Nelson: We have just some basic logos you can pick, which are close the closest to the sort of style you’re wanting for your own logo

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Levi Nelson: and we have like a pretty wide range here.

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Levi Nelson: But but these sort of visual things that we put into the questionnaire

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Levi Nelson: these are the things that are

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Levi Nelson: They say a picture is worth a thousand words right? This tells me so much more than someone trying to manually type and explain to me the kind of logo they’re looking for, because I actually have a picture I can reference.

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Levi Nelson: So I pay a lot of attention to like these, the answers that come with an image.

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Levi Nelson: let’s see what else this is. Again, this is the place where you can just drag and drop an image for reference.

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Levi Nelson: Obviously, we can’t copy anything, because everything is copyright protected.

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Rob Claus: You can’t just.

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Levi Nelson: Take an image off of Google and use that as your logo, because that’ll that’ll get you sued. So I don’t reck, recommend that approach. But

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Levi Nelson: yeah. So.

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Rob Claus: So so, creating a logo that’s got a red background with the with white script.

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Levi Nelson: Hmm.

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Rob Claus: Yeah, that that that that looks like a famous Cola brand would would not not be

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Rob Claus: ideal.

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Levi Nelson: No, that’s that’ll you probably will find out pretty quickly that you’ll get some. You’ll get a letter in the mail that you probably don’t want you don’t wanna like start out your company by like throwing everything away. That’s that’s not perfect.

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Rob Claus: Brilliant.

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Levi Nelson: yeah. So and last question is just like, what is it you about the Logos you select that you like.

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Levi Nelson: and we just say, if if you have information here, be as thorough as possible.

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Levi Nelson: And most of that is just like about all the visuals we have colors listed. You pick.

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Levi Nelson: I have words, descriptive words in here that you can pick based that help. You define how you want your logo to look.

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Levi Nelson: And then the last question, which is 13, is just like, Is there anything you’d like to tell tell us about yourself business and your goals that might factor into the logo design?

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Levi Nelson: And what unique skills do you have that could benefit your clients that can be covid and logo, like all of this stuff, is just what feeds into

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Levi Nelson: how you can help people understand you and your experience cause. That’s some of that. Like all, all is wrapped in the whole branding package.

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Levi Nelson: And a logo is trying to condense that information into like the most quickly and easily communicated thing

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Levi Nelson: which is always a challenge, but it’s it’s good to think through all of this stuff ahead of time.

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Rob Claus: I know for me.

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Rob Claus: I’m always thinking about my color palette.

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Rob Claus: Yeah. Yeah. And like, like, for me personally, there’s there’s only if you go into my closet. There’s only 3 or 4 colors.

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Levi Nelson: Yeah.

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Rob Claus: The of of of all the different shirts that I wear for for work, that I wanna make sure that I have a logo that that complements the color, or is that contrast to the color? Instead of being muted? I had a black shirt with a black logo. Oh, that’s brilliant that that worked out. Well.

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Rob Claus: Yeah. So.

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Levi Nelson: That’s that’s another thing, actually. And I can. I’ll I’ll actually just switch over to here. Now.

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Rob Claus: Yeah.

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Levi Nelson: Like, let’s see, I’ll go over to this page.

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Levi Nelson: So another thing a logo should be able to do is you should be able to swap it a well designed logo, you should be able to swap to black and white like that. It should be, perfectly clean to have the logo translate into black and white for the exact reason that you’re talking about. Like I I wear black shirts. I like my logos on black shirts great. Put a white logo on a black shirt. And it will always work

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Levi Nelson: So

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Levi Nelson: so the logo should be flexible enough that while

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Levi Nelson: the colors. Color is part of the branding. The the logo also works like when it is simplified down.

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Levi Nelson: So I sort of wanted to quickly run through. You get. You have this logo on your website.

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Rob Claus: Did, and.

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Levi Nelson: That would be a good. It would be a good good example of like a good commercial inspections. Logo

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Levi Nelson: but I can show you sort of the I I pulled a screenshot from the questionnaire. That I just ran through.

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Levi Nelson: So this guy picked like a more modern style, which was to refer back to the image you saw before is is this?

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Levi Nelson: And he picked this hosslag home logo.

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Levi Nelson: So

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Levi Nelson: All of this information feeds into how I’m gonna design and think through what his logo is gonna look like. So you can see a clear relationship between like the Titan logo that I made here in the host. Log home logo, like they have a lot of similarities.

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Levi Nelson: And he also noted that he wanted wanted it to be simple and easy to read. Which is what this is. And this t is great, because you could even take something like this

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Levi Nelson: and put it like. You know what a Favicon is.

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Rob Claus: I don’t.

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Levi Nelson: Favicon, let’s go through that. That’s super fun. So.

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Rob Claus: Yeah.

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Levi Nelson: I this icon? Can you see my pointer on the screen.

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Rob Claus: I can.

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Levi Nelson: So the little icon you have on the top here. This is a favicon like where you see, like a a little logo

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Levi Nelson: and if your logo is really simple, you can just drop it into that tiny box, and you’ll still be able to tell what it is like with. So the more simple the logo is the more it holds up to like that kind of application.

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Rob Claus: I could. I could put that on my golf balls.

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Levi Nelson: You could put that on your or a PIN right? You couldn’t.

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Rob Claus: Yeah, exactly. It’s.

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Levi Nelson: It, it becomes really flexible. If it’s if it’s really clean and can hold up to scaling. Well.

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Levi Nelson: yeah, let’s see.

00:20:04.190 –> 00:20:04.740
Rob Claus: Tip.

00:20:05.060 –> 00:20:05.660
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:20:05.660 –> 00:20:07.940
Rob Claus: New word, new word, my vocabulary.

00:20:08.280 –> 00:20:09.608
Levi Nelson: They have a con.

00:20:09.940 –> 00:20:10.470
Rob Claus: Advocate.

00:20:10.470 –> 00:20:11.960
Levi Nelson: Sue.

00:20:13.420 –> 00:20:16.500
Levi Nelson: Alright. Oh, let’s see.

00:20:16.800 –> 00:20:21.760
Levi Nelson: So I actually wanted to go through just some some basic

00:20:21.820 –> 00:20:33.300
Levi Nelson: mistakes, and that I’ll I’ll see in Logos and explain as well as I can, why, why they’re mistakes, and why they cause problems.

00:20:33.760 –> 00:20:34.480
Rob Claus: Valuable.

00:20:35.050 –> 00:20:35.730
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:20:36.570 –> 00:20:37.810
Levi Nelson: So

00:20:38.502 –> 00:20:40.950
Levi Nelson: something you don’t want

00:20:41.290 –> 00:20:44.120
Levi Nelson: in a logo is is a drop shadow

00:20:44.865 –> 00:20:49.299
Levi Nelson: like when you when you see like a text with a little shadow cast behind.

00:20:49.780 –> 00:20:50.260
Rob Claus: Yes.

00:20:50.910 –> 00:20:58.760
Levi Nelson: The reason that is a problem is because a drop shadow is always a raster effect

00:20:59.040 –> 00:21:02.470
Levi Nelson: and a raster effect just means that

00:21:02.620 –> 00:21:11.359
Levi Nelson: the effect is made with small, tiny pixels, so like little squares that go from light to dark.

00:21:11.440 –> 00:21:27.944
Levi Nelson: But in this range of colors you have you have thousands of colors. And the reason that’s an issue is a T-shirt company, needs a color, right? Cause they’re gonna burn a screen. So they don’t have 1,000 colors.

00:21:28.869 –> 00:21:32.819
Levi Nelson: So they don’t have a straightforward way to recreate this effect.

00:21:33.564 –> 00:21:35.660
Levi Nelson: So you need something.

00:21:37.100 –> 00:21:40.339
Levi Nelson: that doesn’t rely on like a drop shadow.

00:21:40.340 –> 00:21:41.120
Rob Claus: Hmm.

00:21:41.120 –> 00:22:01.132
Levi Nelson: In order to work. And the same goes for things like gradients. You can use a gradient on something like a website or or a digital print, because because they can print lots of colors right? But when it comes to other print jobs, that’s another reason why you want the logo to be able to work as a single color image

00:22:01.811 –> 00:22:05.610
Levi Nelson: is because you need to be able to drop back down. Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:22:05.610 –> 00:22:09.129
Rob Claus: So like my coffee cup, which is which is an ombre color.

00:22:09.140 –> 00:22:11.710
Rob Claus: Yeah. Would never work for a logo.

00:22:11.730 –> 00:22:14.290
Rob Claus: because it’s just you can’t reproduce it.

00:22:14.580 –> 00:22:35.270
Levi Nelson: Yeah, there’s 2. There’s like too many colors in it. Or you could reproduce it. It’s just that it would be very expensive to reproduce and what you want with. The reason people limit color, selection and logo designs. And the reason you have that single bright red for the commercial inspections. Logo with the lion

00:22:36.085 –> 00:22:51.640
Levi Nelson: is because, printing, one color is a lot less expensive than printing, you know, 5 or 6 or 7 colors. On some forms of materials like T-shirt printing. The more colors you have the more it’s gonna cost to print it.

00:22:51.920 –> 00:22:52.979
Rob Claus: Yup, Yup, but

00:22:53.370 –> 00:22:56.219
Rob Claus: and for a $9 T-shirt don’t do that type of logo.

00:22:56.440 –> 00:22:57.880
Levi Nelson: Yeah, exactly.

00:22:59.620 –> 00:23:03.579
Levi Nelson: And the other, let’s see. So like, metallic effects are still like.

00:23:03.580 –> 00:23:03.940
Rob Claus: Yeah.

00:23:03.940 –> 00:23:08.390
Levi Nelson: Right? Because they’re built out of. They’re built out of lots of colors.

00:23:09.136 –> 00:23:12.230
Levi Nelson: And while you can use them as like

00:23:12.818 –> 00:23:19.259
Levi Nelson: on like a a website or like with digital printing, you have to be aware that you need the logo to work in black.

00:23:22.390 –> 00:23:31.900
Levi Nelson: another thing like. And I just set up some examples down here on the bottom are like there. There are universes of terrible fonts online

00:23:32.050 –> 00:23:37.269
Levi Nelson: like you. There are so so many fonts that

00:23:37.600 –> 00:23:48.150
Levi Nelson: as soon as you scale them down they start. They start looking funky, or the spacing is weird, or they have things built into them that are a problem like this tiny little line.

00:23:48.523 –> 00:23:54.159
Levi Nelson: It looks fine when the logo is like this big. But the logo is going to be like

00:23:54.180 –> 00:23:59.049
Levi Nelson: this on a website. And it starts it starts looking blurry right.

00:24:00.490 –> 00:24:14.554
Levi Nelson: Cause the cause, the line. What like thin lines do when they’re grouped together? Is, they start to cause optical effects. Right? It does it does things? That mess with your eyes that make you think something is blurry when it’s it’s not blurry.

00:24:15.418 –> 00:24:24.289
Levi Nelson: Which is why it’s better to pick a big heavy, like a like a more of a bold font holds up better when the logo is small.

00:24:25.650 –> 00:24:34.339
Rob Claus: But when I sit there trying to be all Gaelic and and and have a lot of fun with, like the Bailey that you have there, which looks like I should be at an Irish pub

00:24:34.350 –> 00:24:37.900
Rob Claus: as soon as I start scaling that I’ve lost it.

00:24:38.340 –> 00:24:45.495
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah, well, the and the A is A really is is a lot larger than the B, there are just weird sizing issues with this

00:24:46.284 –> 00:25:03.870
Levi Nelson: and the L and the y here like there’s like a we. There’s a big gap here, so it just looks it doesn’t look quite right, and the funny thing is, some fonts like this particular font has a bunch of accents on the all the cap letters.

00:25:04.160 –> 00:25:05.260
Levi Nelson: Umhm, but

00:25:05.750 –> 00:25:13.690
Levi Nelson: it works fine when when you use the lowercase, it’s just that you can’t have this big swoosh on everything because it looks funky.

00:25:14.317 –> 00:25:20.799
Levi Nelson: So some fonts just not using all caps you can get around the issue. But you sort of have to know

00:25:21.587 –> 00:25:24.090
Levi Nelson: what works and what doesn’t work.

00:25:25.600 –> 00:25:32.900
Levi Nelson: with something like with something like this. You’re you’re back in the same boat where the thin lines start to make it look

00:25:33.546 –> 00:25:35.129
Levi Nelson: like kind of grayish.

00:25:35.290 –> 00:25:38.160
Levi Nelson: It starts to. It starts to blur a little bit.

00:25:38.696 –> 00:25:46.613
Levi Nelson: And this is a font for like a death metal band, so probably not for commercial home inspections like.

00:25:47.960 –> 00:26:00.339
Rob Claus: Yeah, it depends on your. It depends on your attitude. I mean, if you if you, if you’re doing something, you’re creating a logo, that. Yeah, that that’s the way you want to do it, I guess more power to you. But you’re right. You want to be able to appeal to a much broader mass

00:26:00.370 –> 00:26:01.529
Rob Claus: then, yeah.

00:26:01.700 –> 00:26:08.290
Rob Claus: than than a micro, a micro society of of just death, metal warehouses.

00:26:08.873 –> 00:26:24.169
Levi Nelson: Yeah, that’s the other that I mean, that’s the other reason I recommend like going with something more modern for a commercial inspection company because it, it keeps the audience as broad as possible.

00:26:24.952 –> 00:26:33.398
Levi Nelson: Which is, which is a good approach. If you’re working with more people, if you’re working with companies that have like boards. You’re working with larger groups of people.

00:26:34.148 –> 00:26:35.900
Levi Nelson: And so you do.

00:26:36.160 –> 00:26:46.099
Levi Nelson: People have strong opinions. So the more the more simplified the logo is, the less you have someone complain that they they think you know you have a repeat font, you know.

00:26:46.440 –> 00:26:56.749
Rob Claus: Yeah. And you’ve been helping. You’ve been helping us out because I know this year at the at the pro convention. I’m gonna do a session called the the First 5 steps

00:26:57.189 –> 00:27:01.800
Rob Claus: of building a commercial business, and one of them is your is your branding

00:27:01.880 –> 00:27:12.269
Rob Claus: and you’ve created. Thank you very much. This is the first time I I’ve been able to thank you in person some really good examples of of pro and con

00:27:12.770 –> 00:27:14.110
Rob Claus: examples.

00:27:14.855 –> 00:27:22.210
Rob Claus: This, this one works better than this one. Because it provides this, because at the end of the day.

00:27:22.920 –> 00:27:28.429
Rob Claus: in commercial inspections, we’re probably not dealing with direct referrals

00:27:28.460 –> 00:27:41.419
Rob Claus: from the traditional home inspection referral side, we’re actually dealing with with with more internet searches and and discoveries through SEO and

00:27:41.470 –> 00:27:50.169
Rob Claus: and and different online sources, and so, having a logo that is immediately creating a visceral opinion

00:27:50.330 –> 00:27:52.330
Rob Claus: in the affirmative

00:27:52.620 –> 00:27:53.720
Rob Claus: versus it is

00:27:53.830 –> 00:27:56.550
Rob Claus: Bailey in a negative, is critical.

00:27:56.980 –> 00:27:59.350
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think.

00:28:01.130 –> 00:28:05.239
Levi Nelson: yeah, the more broad ranging your audience is, the more

00:28:06.110 –> 00:28:07.610
Levi Nelson: you have to.

00:28:07.670 –> 00:28:21.609
Levi Nelson: the more flexible the logo needs to be, because the more people, more people it has to appeal to, especially if it’s gonna be the first impression that someone gets a view, right? Because they’re not ever. You’re not passing them a business card. They’re just finding you online.

00:28:21.750 –> 00:28:27.360
Levi Nelson: So the first impression they’re gonna have of you is what’s in the top corner of your page?

00:28:28.510 –> 00:28:34.191
Levi Nelson: which matters, you know it. It it matters like all the other parts of the business. Does

00:28:34.860 –> 00:28:41.090
Rob Claus: It’s it’s absolutely critical. I think you sort of at the very, very beginning, when we, when you talked about

00:28:41.110 –> 00:28:48.699
Rob Claus: what image, not name, but what image do you want? If you have a a giant silhouette of a sloped root of house.

00:28:49.273 –> 00:28:57.979
Rob Claus: and say and and and say, tighten property inspections immediately. I don’t have any confidence that Titan does

00:28:58.390 –> 00:29:00.169
Rob Claus: anything but houses.

00:29:00.600 –> 00:29:02.000
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

00:29:02.000 –> 00:29:05.639
Rob Claus: And so I wanna have something that’s got a very broad appeal.

00:29:06.240 –> 00:29:06.830
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:29:06.930 –> 00:29:11.700
Levi Nelson: and also doesn’t fence you in or or pertain to like the exact

00:29:12.115 –> 00:29:14.040
Levi Nelson: the exact thing you do

00:29:14.120 –> 00:29:32.870
Levi Nelson: so the logo isn’t necessarily to. It isn’t for showing people what you do. That’s that’s a lot of the confusion about what a logo is for a logo is to help people remember your name? It’s just to give people a shortcut to like remembering your specific company name and to have it stick in their head

00:29:33.946 –> 00:29:36.946
Levi Nelson: like. There’s a realty down the street from me.

00:29:37.530 –> 00:29:54.140
Levi Nelson: named Mary Fox, realty and their Logos a little fox, and I. I have no use for this information right? I don’t. I don’t need to hire a realty, but I remember the tiny little icon, and I remember that it the fox goes with the fox like it’s it’s just

00:29:54.681 –> 00:29:58.740
Levi Nelson: a shortcut for making something stick in someone’s head.

00:29:59.070 –> 00:30:04.049
Rob Claus: Yeah, I mean, I I drive down the road, and if I see this magic kiss

00:30:04.463 –> 00:30:08.200
Rob Claus: you know, open a logo immediately. I’m thinking I need a I need some ice cream

00:30:08.480 –> 00:30:09.180
Rob Claus: people.

00:30:09.680 –> 00:30:12.610
Rob Claus: you know, because cause of Dairy Queen people.

00:30:12.610 –> 00:30:13.220
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:30:13.390 –> 00:30:32.880
Rob Claus: Are not. Gonna drive down the road and see your logo. And I think I need a commercial inspection. I think you need to use this to to reinforce your your prominence in the society, but also to create a, a, a remembrance. You’re absolutely right. I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s a complete package.

00:30:33.400 –> 00:30:37.319
Levi Nelson: Yeah. And I mean, it’s it’s the same as like the Titan logo. Right? It’s just.

00:30:37.320 –> 00:30:37.660
Rob Claus: Thank you.

00:30:37.660 –> 00:30:44.059
Levi Nelson: Capital T, and it’s just to help people tie the T to the Titan. It’s not

00:30:44.443 –> 00:30:54.109
Levi Nelson: it’s not trying to show like a hundred tiny little pieces of property like right, every possible kind of building stacked over the top of the logo because

00:30:55.080 –> 00:31:11.380
Levi Nelson: that would get so so busy that again you would run into the same optical effects that I talked about with like this logo, where you have these thin lines tightly grouped. The more busier logo is, the more the more

00:31:11.630 –> 00:31:17.999
Levi Nelson: it can distort when it scales down. So it’s generally better to use something that’s more simple.

00:31:18.416 –> 00:31:30.149
Levi Nelson: Because you won’t have to like wrestle with it and have to have it larger than it needs to be on the top of a website. Just so that people can make out what the picture is, because you don’t want people

00:31:30.220 –> 00:31:34.480
Levi Nelson: trying to figure out what the picture over your logo is. You just want them to go?

00:31:35.031 –> 00:31:41.270
Levi Nelson: What’s this company? Name? And does this look professional and like for it to register as quickly as possible?

00:31:42.760 –> 00:31:43.530
Rob Claus: Excellent.

00:31:44.370 –> 00:31:48.930
Levi Nelson: Even with something like a yard sign. Right? That’s something that people are looking at from.

00:31:49.490 –> 00:31:57.470
Levi Nelson: You know, 20 yards away, while driving 35 miles an hour. Yeah, they’re not like gonna examine it. Yeah.

00:31:58.210 –> 00:32:01.099
Rob Claus: They won’t even. They don’t even see the spelling error in it until

00:32:01.490 –> 00:32:03.610
Rob Claus: like it half, for now they’re on. Wait a minute.

00:32:03.630 –> 00:32:06.510
Levi Nelson: That’s done. What did that say?

00:32:06.990 –> 00:32:09.831
Rob Claus: You sell you. You smell college wrong, like the bad T-shirts.

00:32:11.496 –> 00:32:14.310
Levi Nelson: That’s funny.

00:32:14.310 –> 00:32:35.499
Rob Claus: So so in in your creation, like I I I look at this type and and I I love it. I mean IAA if if this was a a, an example of of, not a real company, and you designed it just from to as an example and good for you somebody. Somebody. Better steal that quickly because it it’s absolutely awesome.

00:32:35.910 –> 00:32:38.438
Levi Nelson: This, this one actually belongs to a company.

00:32:38.720 –> 00:32:40.328
Rob Claus: That? Does it? Okay? Alright.

00:32:40.910 –> 00:32:41.430
Levi Nelson: Good, for.

00:32:41.430 –> 00:32:52.379
Rob Claus: Them because I this is in my. This is in my introduction to Commercial Inspections class that I teach every every couple of weeks, and I use this. I use this logo

00:32:52.640 –> 00:32:54.880
Rob Claus: all the time. I love it.

00:32:55.490 –> 00:32:56.070
Rob Claus: Great!

00:32:56.420 –> 00:32:59.210
Rob Claus: When when you’re doing your

00:33:00.460 –> 00:33:04.840
Rob Claus: your questionnaire, let’s call it your your intake form.

00:33:05.080 –> 00:33:07.810
Rob Claus: Are you asking questions like.

00:33:08.590 –> 00:33:14.809
Rob Claus: Are you only going to do residential? Or will you be doing commercial as well

00:33:15.010 –> 00:33:20.330
Rob Claus: to to help make sure they don’t paint themselves in a logo hole.

00:33:20.980 –> 00:33:24.459
Levi Nelson: I, we don’t. But we should actually start including that, because that.

00:33:24.460 –> 00:33:24.830
Rob Claus: Is.

00:33:25.182 –> 00:33:27.649
Levi Nelson: That wasn’t an issue before now, nowadays.

00:33:27.650 –> 00:33:44.199
Rob Claus: No, now that now that we’re now that we’re getting so large, you know, you know, and and dominating, dominating the the our market space. Because I’ll tell you, Levi, I sit there and and I’m lucky. I’m a lucky guy, because every 3 weeks I’m somewhere in the country.

00:33:44.230 –> 00:33:49.280
Rob Claus: and and I’m teaching a commercial that the introduction of commercial inspections course.

00:33:50.300 –> 00:33:53.990
Rob Claus: And and I’ll have 15 to 30 students

00:33:54.000 –> 00:34:00.079
Rob Claus: sitting in the room, and they’re all I mean. I’m telling you. Everybody is proud as peaches

00:34:00.230 –> 00:34:14.850
Rob Claus: of of their Logos, and I can. I can see all all that was one that was created by by the international team or this one, maybe not and I’ll say nice things, but so many of them

00:34:15.060 –> 00:34:16.429
Rob Claus: I’ll say

00:34:16.580 –> 00:34:17.880
Rob Claus: home inspection

00:34:18.080 –> 00:34:19.330
Rob Claus: very proudly.

00:34:19.679 –> 00:34:29.053
Rob Claus: and and they’ll get through our, you know. It’s about lunchtime on on the Wednesday class, and they’re gonna go. Well, shucks!

00:34:30.149 –> 00:34:42.230
Rob Claus: You know. Now, I’ve gotta change. You know. How do I change? What do I change who’s gonna change and and cause they painted themselves into a into a marketing corner.

00:34:42.610 –> 00:34:45.309
Levi Nelson: Yeah, and just with a word like.

00:34:45.310 –> 00:34:47.920
Rob Claus: One word, yeah. And I tell a word.

00:34:47.929 –> 00:34:52.261
Levi Nelson: I talk about the names, too, like names like the name you’re using. Can?

00:34:53.661 –> 00:35:04.579
Levi Nelson: you can end up having to change that if you do that poorly like as soon as you start using specific words like. So you’re already communicating. So it’s better to think through.

00:35:05.134 –> 00:35:18.081
Levi Nelson: What am I going to do with this company? What do I eventually wanna do with this company and just integrate it ahead of time? So that you don’t have to do the whole throw everything out, you know, halfway through.

00:35:18.819 –> 00:35:22.239
Levi Nelson: it’s just not. It’s not a great way to end up having to work.

00:35:22.430 –> 00:35:25.439
Rob Claus: I mean, I’ve been lucky enough. I I’m a knock on.

00:35:25.480 –> 00:35:28.079
Rob Claus: Knock on wood. This is my 30 fifth year

00:35:28.250 –> 00:35:32.529
Rob Claus: in in this industry, and and what if?

00:35:32.570 –> 00:35:33.610
Rob Claus: What if

00:35:33.640 –> 00:35:36.020
Rob Claus: 25 years ago I called it

00:35:36.060 –> 00:35:58.479
Rob Claus: Klaus Home Inspection House house inspection, and I spelled house ha! Us just to be literal. And and and you designed this fabulous logo. And because my last name is spelled Cla, us, you decide you wanna put a little red hat with some white fringe, and a and a little, and and a little tassel on top of the tuke, and and so here we go.

00:35:58.480 –> 00:35:59.830
Levi Nelson: Santa Fe, Logos.

00:36:00.280 –> 00:36:01.000
Rob Claus: Huh!

00:36:01.160 –> 00:36:01.600
Levi Nelson: To say.

00:36:01.600 –> 00:36:02.010
Rob Claus: But 7.

00:36:02.010 –> 00:36:02.950
Levi Nelson: Logos.

00:36:02.950 –> 00:36:09.559
Rob Claus: Yeah, you know Santa Claus is, well, there’s no trademark. We we got that one and.

00:36:09.560 –> 00:36:10.159
Levi Nelson: That we’re not.

00:36:10.160 –> 00:36:13.339
Rob Claus: To get that. We’re not gonna get that call of companies, sue us.

00:36:13.340 –> 00:36:14.934
Levi Nelson: That won’t cause problems at all.

00:36:15.200 –> 00:36:18.749
Rob Claus: No, so we we do all this. Well.

00:36:19.450 –> 00:36:23.070
Rob Claus: I never thought about 35 years. What am I going to do with the company?

00:36:23.210 –> 00:36:42.770
Rob Claus: I can’t sell it because you’re not gonna be it cause I I pitched hold myself into using my last name and in using something that was even pictured old in the houses, and then even using something that was so viscerally solid on the on the holiday season

00:36:42.830 –> 00:36:47.769
Rob Claus: that why would I wanna hire Chris Cringle to do an inspection in July.

00:36:48.050 –> 00:36:48.929
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

00:36:49.770 –> 00:36:58.080
Rob Claus: You know, so I’ve like scratched through 7 different positive boxes, and made them all negatives by just trying to be cute.

00:36:58.510 –> 00:36:59.150
Levi Nelson: The

00:36:59.550 –> 00:37:07.420
Levi Nelson: and the and especially with something like commercial inspection, where someone’s first impression of you is just like the logo at the top, like you don’t want to be

00:37:08.268 –> 00:37:16.960
Levi Nelson: you don’t wanna be doing that kind of thing. Right from the get go, cause that’s just everyone’s first impression is like the the logo they see at the top of the page.

00:37:17.250 –> 00:37:20.340
Rob Claus: Yeah, we we spent, we spent the first

00:37:21.140 –> 00:37:24.759
Rob Claus: well, we we we incorporated an 88.

00:37:25.100 –> 00:37:34.879
Rob Claus: And so all the way from 88, through 2,015 we maintained the name, and then it said, Home inspections.

00:37:35.580 –> 00:37:35.930
Levi Nelson: Okay.

00:37:35.930 –> 00:37:39.499
Rob Claus: And as soon as I, in 2,01516,

00:37:39.580 –> 00:37:44.250
Rob Claus: created commercial, all we did is change home to property.

00:37:45.080 –> 00:37:45.720
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:37:46.200 –> 00:38:09.499
Rob Claus: And because our logo was very innocuous to it, didn’t. It didn’t qualify as residential. It didn’t qualify as commercial. It was just a word, and and it worked off. I think it worked out fine for us. We didn’t really have to make a an appreciable investment, because no, you know cause half, you know, out of the 30 inspectors we had on staff.

00:38:09.560 –> 00:38:12.609
Rob Claus: but we could slowly introduce the new Logos on shirts.

00:38:13.080 –> 00:38:13.520
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

00:38:13.520 –> 00:38:16.209
Rob Claus: Nobody read that word. One word close enough.

00:38:16.450 –> 00:38:31.605
Levi Nelson: No. And I think, yeah, I mean, ha! Being having a logo that’s flexible enough to edit quickly. That can also help you right, which is the upside of like having something that’s more clean versus more integrated like

00:38:32.490 –> 00:38:33.770
Levi Nelson: like, you know

00:38:34.120 –> 00:38:35.820
Levi Nelson: the if

00:38:36.040 –> 00:38:39.690
Levi Nelson: so like an emblem logo like. Let me see if I can find.

00:38:40.747 –> 00:38:41.662
Levi Nelson: That’s landmark!

00:38:42.120 –> 00:38:43.590
Rob Claus: So the local logo.

00:38:44.238 –> 00:38:46.431
Levi Nelson: That’s on your site, too.

00:38:46.870 –> 00:38:48.400
Rob Claus: And for our fake company.

00:38:48.580 –> 00:38:49.279
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:38:49.650 –> 00:38:52.969
Levi Nelson: this is Matthews, right? So this.

00:38:52.970 –> 00:38:53.320
Rob Claus: Stop.

00:38:53.320 –> 00:39:01.850
Levi Nelson: Property inspections. But what if I had used home inspections and used the maximum amount of space in this bar to fit that word?

00:39:02.232 –> 00:39:26.697
Levi Nelson: All of this information is trapped right? So I’m gonna have to scale it. I’m gonna have to scale it down and change everything about this. So this is a more complicated change than say, you know, adding or deleting a word, which is what you would get with something like this like if I, if I wanted to say property or commercial like you, can, you can adjust something like this more easily than something like this.

00:39:27.408 –> 00:39:44.650
Levi Nelson: So it’s just again like some of this comes down to preference, but it’s good to know upfront like that some of the ways you format the logo will make it more and less flexible. And you might not know that just coming into this with no information.

00:39:44.960 –> 00:39:56.889
Rob Claus: Now when you do creating Logos Levi, are you required? is is the end user the at the interaction member? Are they required to have internally certified

00:39:58.020 –> 00:40:00.069
Rob Claus: in script on the logo.

00:40:01.256 –> 00:40:08.783
Levi Nelson: They they are. We can. Actually, we can swap that up for the commercial c ccia. Now.

00:40:09.500 –> 00:40:14.109
Rob Claus: You, so you can do that. But it it’s probably not advisable to have both.

00:40:14.790 –> 00:40:15.440
Levi Nelson: I.

00:40:15.440 –> 00:40:16.150
Rob Claus: Busy.

00:40:16.430 –> 00:40:31.940
Levi Nelson: I would pick one, I would pick one or the other just because with the logo, it’s like a it’s a smaller detail, and I try and use as an accent so that it’s not necessarily dominating the logo, but it’s present in the logo. So.

00:40:31.940 –> 00:40:51.020
Rob Claus: So for my recommendation for for those on here you you get, you’re gonna have to make a personal choice. Yeah, whether you wanna say, Internachi certified, or you can have Ccpia certified. And and it probably really gonna depend on where you get your business and how much

00:40:51.020 –> 00:41:12.150
Rob Claus: effort you’re gonna place into your into your commercial efforts. But I can assure you this on the top of our com book. I I don’t wanna grab one because it’ll look weird on my background. But on the top of our com book, it says, created by the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors.

00:41:12.760 –> 00:41:26.459
Rob Claus: And the Certified Commercial Property Inspectors Association. So you have both of them that are that are on our comms app very visually, so I don’t think, having Internachi certified, puts you in a hole.

00:41:26.803 –> 00:41:43.640
Rob Claus: I I would love to see Ccpa certified on them like you have here on landmark. But nonetheless, if you, if if you’re allowed to, you know a as in in your services, Levi, give them the choice. I think that’s fabulous, let everybody make their choice accordingly.

00:41:43.980 –> 00:41:54.151
Levi Nelson: Yeah. And I, I have had people add the Ccp onto like Logos. In the past year year or 2 I’ve had like a a handful of them so far.

00:41:55.810 –> 00:41:59.649
Rob Claus: Yeah, but this, this is the one you’ve created for us on our

00:41:59.710 –> 00:42:01.472
Rob Claus: on our company.

00:42:02.498 –> 00:42:10.289
Rob Claus: And this is the one that I use on all of our mark, on all of our collateral that I use for examples, for for our members.

00:42:10.650 –> 00:42:22.184
Levi Nelson: Oh, cool. Yeah, this is yeah, I I like this just because, like the idea that the landmark is this specific symbol. And then it just integrates directly into the world. Word is is really clean.

00:42:22.770 –> 00:42:26.244
Levi Nelson: I also like this kind of orange, warm brick color.

00:42:26.960 –> 00:42:28.910
Levi Nelson: there’s been times.

00:42:28.910 –> 00:42:36.610
Rob Claus: I was lucky enough in the in the in the mid 2 thousands, right during the crash I was consulting.

00:42:37.007 –> 00:42:39.950
Rob Claus: For a company that was based in Europe.

00:42:40.150 –> 00:42:46.489
Rob Claus: and all of their collateral 100% was all the warm orange.

00:42:46.690 –> 00:42:47.640
Levi Nelson: Huh! Everything.

00:42:47.640 –> 00:42:50.460
Rob Claus: We did was was that color.

00:42:50.590 –> 00:43:00.670
Rob Claus: and that was the first time I ever saw it, and I got stuff floating around here still, to this day. That is, that is that color because they’ve done so much

00:43:01.010 –> 00:43:03.700
Rob Claus: quantitative research.

00:43:04.030 –> 00:43:04.490
Levi Nelson: M-hmm.

00:43:04.490 –> 00:43:14.859
Rob Claus: On what clients grab to versus what clients don’t, and that was the color that they said was the number one caller for for client appeal.

00:43:15.590 –> 00:43:17.590
Levi Nelson: That’s interesting. Yeah, color.

00:43:17.590 –> 00:43:18.380
Rob Claus: Wild.

00:43:19.250 –> 00:43:36.876
Levi Nelson: Color is color is interesting. The more you learn about it. Red red, like the their associations with red where like. If you see a lot of red it just will raise. They’ve done tests where it will like raise the human heart rate, and it looks like caution right? So depending on

00:43:37.456 –> 00:43:49.473
Levi Nelson: and this can also change based on like local Logos, or like college colors. Right? The college of your town, if they use a lot of red, you probably aren’t gonna have the same kind of reaction as someone somewhere else.

00:43:49.760 –> 00:43:58.690
Levi Nelson: because it it just becomes cultural context. So, like all of all of the information around you, is always feeding into like what colors you use in the logo.

00:43:58.690 –> 00:43:59.799
Rob Claus: Is there something.

00:43:59.800 –> 00:44:01.700
Levi Nelson: Yeah. It’s just crazy.

00:44:04.370 –> 00:44:13.819
Rob Claus: But yeah, yeah, I mean this this image with the spires and and the, you know. And it’s just it, just it doesn’t give anybody any other

00:44:14.380 –> 00:44:22.949
Rob Claus: knowledge or impression that this is nothing but a commercial property inspections company that’s certified.

00:44:23.350 –> 00:44:24.120
Levi Nelson: Good. Yeah.

00:44:24.310 –> 00:44:27.760
Levi Nelson: And it’s it’s simple and architectural, and it it it

00:44:28.127 –> 00:44:41.789
Levi Nelson: it’s one color like. So I mean again, if you have to drop it back to black and white. It works just as well. Sometimes I’ll stack text like this to keep the text larger when the logo scales down.

00:44:43.230 –> 00:44:48.190
Levi Nelson: that I’m always trying to keep the important information visible.

00:44:48.576 –> 00:45:07.243
Levi Nelson: So the way I organize that information and logo is always being informed like, well, how how small can I get the thing and still read it like I’m always zooming out A lot of people when they’re designing a logo they’re doing. They’re doing like this thing right? They’re they’re they’re looking at it like this. But

00:45:07.550 –> 00:45:31.290
Levi Nelson: the only way that you’re ever gonna see a logo like this is, if you’re like standing in front of a van with your nose press to it. Most people are. Gonna see your logo, you know, it’s some about this scale like even holding a business card. Right? You’re holding it at an arm’s length, you know. I’ll you just have to remember the the thing is made to be, and to work when it is small and smaller, probably, than you expect it to be.

00:45:33.530 –> 00:45:34.879
Rob Claus: That’s that’s fabulous.

00:45:37.700 –> 00:45:38.960
Rob Claus: So, lot

00:45:39.070 –> 00:45:45.760
Rob Claus: I I I I guess I got I got 2 things, one just in case for yourself.

00:45:46.288 –> 00:45:51.369
Rob Claus: I was told, and now I I’ve had to accept it. It’s not a lion.

00:45:55.170 –> 00:45:56.630
Rob Claus: it’s a gargoyle.

00:45:56.770 –> 00:45:58.600
Levi Nelson: It is a garcoil.

00:45:58.600 –> 00:46:01.550
Rob Claus: Cause Gargard doils protect the building just.

00:46:01.550 –> 00:46:02.276
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

00:46:02.640 –> 00:46:06.060
Rob Claus: Property inspectors, protect our client.

00:46:06.650 –> 00:46:07.580
Levi Nelson: The.

00:46:07.580 –> 00:46:13.449
Rob Claus: A. And so just in case that comes up in your, in your, in your annual job review.

00:46:13.670 –> 00:46:14.520
Levi Nelson: Gotcha.

00:46:14.830 –> 00:46:17.300
Levi Nelson: It’s definitely a gargoyle who is not.

00:46:17.300 –> 00:46:25.459
Rob Claus: Now a gargoyle. I’ve that is, comically enough, probably the most common question I get

00:46:25.520 –> 00:46:28.630
Rob Claus: on the very first day of every class I teach

00:46:28.810 –> 00:46:29.690
Rob Claus: the yeah.

00:46:29.690 –> 00:46:30.150
Levi Nelson: See.

00:46:30.610 –> 00:46:36.479
Rob Claus: Is, is. It’s a gargoyle, and and now that I see it, it’s a gargoyle, it’s not a griffon.

00:46:36.510 –> 00:46:37.750
Rob Claus: It’s a dark one.

00:46:38.273 –> 00:46:47.170
Levi Nelson: We were. We were trying to come up with a symbol. And we actually, we went through a lot of different variations of that. That was, that was the thing that turned up

00:46:47.190 –> 00:46:57.030
Levi Nelson: turned out, being like the best representation of something for a commercial property inspections company. That also was visually interesting. Right cause.

00:46:57.030 –> 00:46:57.570
Rob Claus: Yeah.

00:46:57.842 –> 00:47:12.547
Levi Nelson: A building is like a big rectangle, so there’s only so much you can do with that. But like the shape of the character of the the gargoyle definitely. Not a line is interesting to look at, like it just captures your attention. So it worked pretty well for that

00:47:12.960 –> 00:47:13.770
Levi Nelson: that.

00:47:13.770 –> 00:47:17.959
Rob Claus: Yeah. Yeah. So so I I guess the key takeaway is

00:47:18.050 –> 00:47:23.919
Rob Claus: that your your your transition between residential to commercial

00:47:24.345 –> 00:47:36.760
Rob Claus: doesn’t have to be that terrible when it comes to your personal branding and your Logos, you’re set up to be able to assist that so long as you’re a member of both associations.

00:47:37.050 –> 00:48:00.424
Levi Nelson: Yeah, and I can. I can change and edit. I’ve I’ve done it before, like where I’ll just drop property in, or I’ll turn it and turn something into commercial inspections like we keep all of the logo files so I can go back and make adjustments, and they don’t take any time, and if you’ve already purchased the logo for through us, like I, I can just make those edits on the fly.

00:48:01.032 –> 00:48:06.974
Levi Nelson: If assuming like I’m around like or not on vacation, like I usually do it in the same day.

00:48:07.600 –> 00:48:08.150
Rob Claus: Excellent.

00:48:08.320 –> 00:48:12.532
Levi Nelson: So, yeah, all this stuff is quick, and we can fix it because,

00:48:13.735 –> 00:48:22.194
Levi Nelson: we work directly with you. So you have our contact, information and everything. And you can always get a hold of us with like questions or

00:48:22.540 –> 00:48:25.949
Levi Nelson: like these kind of minor changes. They’re they’re easy to make.

00:48:26.747 –> 00:48:45.360
Rob Claus: Terrific cause, as I say at the at the pro convention this year in Orlando. I’m gonna be doing the session on the first 5 steps. We have an online course called Transition between residential commercial. We have a lot of information, our website on on successful branding.

00:48:45.440 –> 00:48:48.989
Rob Claus: And I think it all begins with

00:48:49.200 –> 00:48:50.220
Rob Claus: this.

00:48:50.460 –> 00:48:54.589
Rob Claus: and making sure that that you put the first.

00:48:54.640 –> 00:49:03.149
Rob Claus: I I guess, for lack of a you know, let me throw out another name, cornerstone when you place the cornerstone on the building.

00:49:03.611 –> 00:49:13.270
Rob Claus: you know that’s the most important step to your your growth pattern. And I think, Levi, you you hold a big part of of somebody’s success.

00:49:13.840 –> 00:49:20.529
Levi Nelson: Yeah, I mean, I I hold I hold a part of it. But like it’s like anything else, right? You have to.

00:49:21.345 –> 00:49:33.962
Levi Nelson: A good logo is not gonna make you good at your job. Like all of the other compo, it’s it informs people that you’re professional that you are interested in being a professional, but ultimately you have to. You always have to do the job well.

00:49:34.220 –> 00:49:48.760
Rob Claus: Oh, sometimes, sometimes we’re sitting here, you know, we’re just a bunch of inspectors, right? So we’re sitting. We’re sitting here in wherever we’re located. And we come up with this with this great idea. And sometimes we need to be told, too.

00:49:48.800 –> 00:49:55.919
Rob Claus: It’s probably not the best. Or, Hey, add a boy, we can run with that. And I think

00:49:55.980 –> 00:50:01.869
Rob Claus: I think your experience and the the hundreds of Logos you’ve created

00:50:01.890 –> 00:50:03.270
Rob Claus: sounds like, well.

00:50:03.550 –> 00:50:05.560
Levi Nelson: Thousands at this point.

00:50:05.560 –> 00:50:06.110
Rob Claus: With it.

00:50:06.240 –> 00:50:08.740
Levi Nelson: 11 years of creating Logos.

00:50:09.400 –> 00:50:17.379
Rob Claus: Thousands at this point. Do you? Do you have any other pearls of wisdom you want to share with with our with our group?

00:50:18.309 –> 00:50:22.381
Levi Nelson: Something just quickly. And and this is

00:50:23.010 –> 00:50:30.020
Levi Nelson: this is hard with this bar, anyway. Let me go to our marketing page. We do actually have

00:50:30.460 –> 00:50:32.220
Levi Nelson: resources.

00:50:33.029 –> 00:50:33.830
Levi Nelson: For

00:50:33.930 –> 00:50:52.985
Levi Nelson: I’ve been recently doing videos where I walk through and break down like logo designs. And there are Youtube videos, where I just explain what works or doesn’t work or or like. Mostly what I’m talking about is what works with a logo design, and why I made some of the choices I did

00:50:53.984 –> 00:50:58.979
Levi Nelson: and some of that can help demystify like the process of

00:50:59.378 –> 00:51:19.589
Levi Nelson: thinking like this is, this is magic, right? It’s it’s all. It has its own sets of rules like design stuff. And since you don’t know what the rules are like, it just ends up. Being like this is this is made out of magic and in a vacuum. And it’s and so I walk through some Logos that work and explain why they work and what works about them.

00:51:20.089 –> 00:51:23.950
Levi Nelson: And we also have, like some introductions with marketing.

00:51:24.312 –> 00:51:30.959
Levi Nelson: Some descriptions on like naming like. There are just a lot of resources on our marketing site that can help

00:51:32.834 –> 00:51:37.060
Levi Nelson: Just help get started just thinking through some of this stuff.

00:51:37.555 –> 00:51:55.530
Levi Nelson: Because you should do the thinking through before you place an order, or before you name, you should name your company. Well, first cause I have to work with that like. I’m stuck with what you give me on the name like work through a good name first, and and that will give me a good starting point for a logo.

00:51:55.700 –> 00:51:58.900
Rob Claus: Well, there’s so many. Yeah, that’s it’s interesting. You say that cause

00:51:59.300 –> 00:52:02.290
Rob Claus: we’ll have somebody that might incorporate

00:52:03.520 –> 00:52:05.280
Rob Claus: close inspections.

00:52:05.490 –> 00:52:07.090
Rob Claus: Yeah, and

00:52:08.280 –> 00:52:09.430
Rob Claus: incorporated.

00:52:09.580 –> 00:52:17.149
Rob Claus: But I might, I might I might have. I might have painted myself in a corner for that, so I might have to create a dba or something.

00:52:17.160 –> 00:52:20.490
Rob Claus: You know that that that might be landmark.

00:52:20.710 –> 00:52:24.140
Rob Claus: You know. Commercial property inspections doing business says

00:52:24.542 –> 00:52:39.719
Rob Claus: so. I could have landmark on my logo now, and you know, so I might have to re rebrand or rename based on based on some other criteria. So I think those resources that you just showed again for the international member.

00:52:39.740 –> 00:52:47.239
Rob Claus: Those are available for the Ccpa. Are those available on you, on on the Youtube without being a member or those only member.

00:52:48.100 –> 00:52:51.790
Levi Nelson: I’m I think they’re just available on Youtube. They might be only member

00:52:52.170 –> 00:52:59.429
Levi Nelson: they’re on. They’re on our channel. I don’t know how, if, how our channels access. Necessarily, because I’m I’m pretty brand new at this, but.

00:52:59.430 –> 00:53:00.550
Rob Claus: Yeah, you’ll be both.

00:53:00.780 –> 00:53:05.829
Levi Nelson: The the stream of internachie videos like, it’s in the marketing.

00:53:05.830 –> 00:53:11.449
Rob Claus: Which is, which is a vast a vast bag of information.

00:53:11.450 –> 00:53:14.050
Levi Nelson: It’s huge. Yeah.

00:53:14.700 –> 00:53:20.170
Rob Claus: Videos that we’ve created in the last 2 years as being we had to create a search engine just for that.

00:53:20.610 –> 00:53:22.376
Levi Nelson: Yeah, yeah, there’s so many.

00:53:22.730 –> 00:53:26.140
Rob Claus: Yeah. So so so I guess at the end of the day

00:53:26.250 –> 00:53:27.550
Rob Claus: do your homework.

00:53:27.910 –> 00:53:39.899
Rob Claus: There’s a service out there for dual membership. If you’re a member of of Ccpia and a member of Internachy. You do have a resource available to you, and and that’s you, Levi.

00:53:40.430 –> 00:53:40.990
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:53:41.120 –> 00:53:45.959
Levi Nelson: yep, for for anyone who’s part of international like, yeah, we can design logos and

00:53:46.353 –> 00:53:52.882
Levi Nelson: you can ask us questions about names like, we’re we’re always around like I’m around all week. So.

00:53:53.570 –> 00:54:02.920
Rob Claus: Terrific. I want to thank you for taking this time and and speaking with us, because building your business is, you know, it begins with this.

00:54:03.000 –> 00:54:10.680
Rob Claus: You know, you’re building a commercial inspection business, either on the back of a home inspection business

00:54:10.710 –> 00:54:14.549
Rob Claus: or a brand new entity. And

00:54:14.640 –> 00:54:22.109
Rob Claus: frankly, there’s there’s if you’re building a business on as a brand new entity, and you’re commercial only.

00:54:23.140 –> 00:54:24.730
Rob Claus: Joining Internachi

00:54:24.790 –> 00:54:29.210
Rob Claus: is not going to be a waste of your resources. The information.

00:54:29.270 –> 00:54:32.669
Rob Claus: the the the expertise.

00:54:32.780 –> 00:54:43.469
Rob Claus: and the 30 years of experience in Anachy has is certainly going to be a valuable tool for you, regardless if you ever do a house inspection or not.

00:54:43.930 –> 00:54:44.550
Levi Nelson: Yeah.

00:54:44.750 –> 00:54:51.119
Levi Nelson: yeah, there’s just a lot of people working for every member here. So I’m one of them. But

00:54:52.130 –> 00:54:52.780
Levi Nelson: well.

00:54:52.780 –> 00:54:59.229
Rob Claus: Thank you, Levi, for taking the time. I appreciate it. We’re we’re all here for one reason

00:54:59.250 –> 00:55:01.450
Rob Claus: to build the inspection business.

00:55:02.000 –> 00:55:02.740
Levi Nelson: Right.

00:55:02.890 –> 00:55:05.280
Levi Nelson: Well, thank you, Rob. It was good talking.