My activities today certainly help confirm the flexibility of the field services business. I had three completely different routes today. My day was arranged this way in order to allow for some additional activities I wanted to accomplish today.
I started by traveling to Dauphin Island Alabama to meet with a homeowner that works nights. Our appointment was for 8:30am and I left much earlier than normally required for this trip so I could drive a little slower in the fog. I made my appointment on time and inspected four more properties along the route back home. I was back home for the telephone interview I had arranged last week. You will find the interview on TheRepReport™ before the end of the month. (1•35)+(4•7.50)
While I was driving back from the island, Vickie had scrutinized the undone inspection requests and identified an area with more than it’s normal number of sale date inspections so a route was prepared and I left after the telephone interview. Since I had another appointment I wanted to make at 1:30pm, this route was also short. (16•6.50)
I was finished with the second appointment at 3:15pm. It does not start getting dark until after 7pm now, so it should be easy to make up for the time used up with my appointments. The third and final route went extremely well except for getting pulled over by the police. The policeman saw Pakak hanging his head out the back window and since he too is a Siberian Husky fan, he did a nice u-turn and pulled me over. Blue lights, sirens and the whole show. We spent twenty or thirty minutes discussing Sibes and I was on my way once again.
Kind of proud of my accomplishments today. The last route was finished a little after sunset. (42•6.50)  Vickie and I uploaded reports and pics for about an hour and took off for our evening outings.
Time to finish the blog post and call it a night.
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4 Comments Received
March 14th, 2007 @7:38 pm
Hi, Just bought your book and it is very interesting. I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind answering them.
Has the increasing cost of gas affected your profit margin? I notice many companies are offering to pay less while the price of gas keeps going up.
Also, do you know of any training manuals out there that actually show step by step procedures on how to actually do an inspection of the various types outlined in your book?
March 14th, 2007 @10:35 pm
Higher gasoline prices are effecting the bottom line but I have decided to hold our prices where they are until we see $3.00 a gallon. My thought is that when that happens there will be a lot less reps to compete with.
I am already working on the step-by-step instructions for a future release of the manual. After you have read the manual, feel free to call me and I can pretty much talk you through the inspection steps.
April 16th, 2007 @12:36 pm
Terry, thank you for the conversation. I do agree with Barry that it seems the inspection fees are going down while the cost of gas is going up. I have a large coverage area in TN and I service Davisdon & Rutherford counties on a daily basis. I also have an extended coverage area where I charge a travel fee and I have not had any bad comments from the companies I do work for. They all understand that if I have to travel 50 miles for 1 inspection, then they have to pay an additional $25.00 travel fee.
July 26th, 2007 @1:54 am
HELLO TERRY
I CAME ACROSS YOUR SITE WHEN I WAS RESEARCHING FIELD THE FIELD INSPECTOR BUSINESS
QUESTION: WHAT IS A FIELD INSPECTOR?
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