Finding Your Sweet Spot
Posted on | November 7, 2007 | 2 Comments
I will warn you up front I’m a little wound up tonight.
I’d like to get off the interior inspection topic just for tonight and talk a little about money and business. I don’t know what you would like to get out of this business but I am fortunate to have phone conversations with about fifty or so reps a week and I know what they want out of this business – they tell me.
Everyone has a different objective. There is always plenty of talk about money and I’ve heard pretty much the same discussions and complaints about fees for the last nine or ten years or so. The talk continues but I feel a lot of it is from reps that have yet to find the “sweet spot” some other field service consultants talk about.
Since everyone wants to talk about money, let’s look at what one rep did today. You decide for yourself if she had a good day. She did thirty-four occupancy inspections in four hours. Thirty-four is a very slow day. Thirty-four inspections at six dollars and fifty cents each equals Two Hundred Twenty One dollars. Lets subtract a realistic vehicle expense of thirty-six dollars for the day. Most people think that is high for vehicle expense but it is not when you factor in all the relevant expenses. Here’s a site for you to figure your real auto expense.
Now we have one hundred and eighty-five dollars. Now lets subtract a terribly high daily office expense of fifty dollars. This will be way to much for most field service reps but it’s the figure we use in our office but we have two internet connections, three phone lines, two cell phone lines, one wireless modem account, business insurance, health insurance, utilities, etc.
Now we have only one hundred thirty five dollars left. OK, not exactly wealthy. The reps mileage today was 92 miles. Uncle Sam is going to let her deduct thirty-four and one half cents per mile. That’s thirty-one dollars and seventy four cents she won’t pay tax on today.
One hundred and thirty five dollars a day is a lot of money to some people. If you do mortgage inspections part time in addition to another job or just for a little extra income to add to the social security check, it can make all the difference in the world.
As long as there are people happy with an extra one hundred and thirty five dollars a day, there will always be people to work the six dollar and fifty cents inspections. All the complaining in the world is not going to change these fees. There are plenty of people that are very happy with them. So what does a rep do that is not happy with the fees for mortgage inspections? Well, to put it simply, do something else. Go find your “sweet spot”.
I wanted someone to back me up on this so I called Spencer at RR Donnelley and he gave me his blessings to mention his name and his company. He even sent me this email:
Here is a list of inspections we perform with corresponding fees.HUD REAC – must be UPCS certified – $300 per inspectionFannie Mae – must be ASHI member, NAHI member, Architect, Engineer or UPCS certified – $90 to $125Freddie Mac – we offer training to our inspectors – $75Standard – these are done on an annual basis to verify the condition of a property – $55Capital Improvement – no certification or license required, verifies repairs – $40Drive-by – surveillance only – $35 to $45Inspections vary per area since we only perform commercial property inspections. Most of our inspections are performed in metropolitan areas. We are in need of inspectors in the following areas:Minot, NDBismark, NDAlbany, NYValdosta, GARapid City, NDSanta Barbara, CAThe website is www.officetiger.com or you may apply online at http://cims.mortgageramp.com/cims-mr/application.Spencer Quistberg | Manager | Recruiting & Training
RR Donnelley Global Real Estate Services1245 Brickyard Road | Suite 600 | Salt Lake City , UT 84106
Direct Dial: 801.303.9609 | Toll Free: 800.742.2185 x2156Fax: 866.337.5032 | Email: squistberg@officetiger.com
I guess you can see that we are no longer in the mortgage inspection game now. Spencer assures me that five or six standard inspections a day are common. How about free training in order to do Freddie Mac inspections at $75 per. Do you know how hard it is to get ASHI or NAHI certified? Not very. They even have online training. Once you’re certified, you are qualified for inspections at $95 to $125 per!
I try pretty hard to get people to look at this business through rose colored glasses. There are some real cruddy companies and some awful people out there, but there are some really good companies and really good people too.
I can’t say too much, but there’s a company owner that hangs around TheRepReport just kind of getting to know people and seeing how they participate. This owner is looking for people to invite to free training for some very serious money making inspections. A highly specialized inspection. It’s by invitation only but I thought you might want to know.
I guess I’ll step down off the soap box for the night. I just wanted to get some of this out to you. Maybe you’ll see now that you should not take even my complaints too seriously. I might be complaining about something that would be the ideal “sweet spot” for you.
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January 11th, 2008 @ 3:30 am
Hi Terry,
I have preformed commercial inspections for Mortgageramp
for several years the last one being yesterday, I called
one of the girls for help,She tryed to get on the web using my login and it did not work for her, We decided
to wait a while and I try again, At 2:30 AM I try again
and find to get on the web site and I find Terry, Very
interesting,I want to know more about online traning and
other types of inspections. I am taking my wife to hospital early Friday and don’t expect to be back until
late afternoon. I will try to get my inspection in then.
I am near the deadline on this one.
Thanks
Edgar
January 26th, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
Hi Edgar. I do not have much to offer right now as far as online training, but I work on it practically every day.
It’s easy to spend a whole weekend working on a training session and still be months away from putting it online.
I have been talking with several inspection service companies that would like to put their training on http://www.WebExam.us. If it all works out, you can be sure I will talk about it here. Just hang in there a bit longer.