Curious about how technology could completely revolutionize the home inspection industry? Get a front-row seat as we welcome Kevin Wagstaff, Mike Wagstaff, and Megan Lefebvre from Spectora, the trailblazers who are changing the game with their innovative home inspection software. Discover how Mike's coding endeavors have led to a product that could potentially bridge the disconnect between home inspectors, realtors, and buyers, providing analytics that offer whole new dimensions of clarity.
We delve into how Spectora's commitment to customer service and rapid growth are driving industry trends. You'll hear about the cool new features they're developing and how they're constantly innovating to stay ahead of the curve. We also get into the nitty-gritty of potential challenges, including the dynamics between agents and inspectors, the difficulties of raising prices, and even the possibility of creating a union to level the playing field.
But that's not all. We also brainstorm how home inspectors can capture value beyond their traditional roles, with Kevin, Mike, and Megan sharing the concept of monetizing leads to contractors, to the tune of $40,000 extra income per year. We discuss the importance of building strong relationships with agents and the power of referrals. Plus, we reveal how automation can help inspectors save both time and money. If you're in the industry, you don't want to miss out on this valuable conversation!
Contact IEB -
- web: www.iebcoaching.com
- email: support@iebcoaching
- social: @iebcoaching
Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
- IG: @the.matthew.williams
Curious about how technology could completely revolutionize the home inspection industry? Get a front-row seat as we welcome Kevin Wagstaff, Mike Wagstaff, and Megan Lefebvre from Spectora, the trailblazers who are changing the game with their innovative home inspection software. Discover how Mike's coding endeavors have led to a product that could potentially bridge the disconnect between home inspectors, realtors, and buyers, providing analytics that offer whole new dimensions of clarity.
We delve into how Spectora's commitment to customer service and rapid growth are driving industry trends. You'll hear about the cool new features they're developing and how they're constantly innovating to stay ahead of the curve. We also get into the nitty-gritty of potential challenges, including the dynamics between agents and inspectors, the difficulties of raising prices, and even the possibility of creating a union to level the playing field.
But that's not all. We also brainstorm how home inspectors can capture value beyond their traditional roles, with Kevin, Mike, and Megan sharing the concept of monetizing leads to contractors, to the tune of $40,000 extra income per year. We discuss the importance of building strong relationships with agents and the power of referrals. Plus, we reveal how automation can help inspectors save both time and money. If you're in the industry, you don't want to miss out on this valuable conversation!
Contact IEB -
- web: www.iebcoaching.com
- email: support@iebcoaching
- social: @iebcoaching
Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
- IG: @the.matthew.williams
On today's episode we have Kevin, mike and Megan from Spectora. You don't want to miss this. Stay tuned.
Pre-Roll:We believe the purpose of owning a business is funding your perfect life. Welcome to the next generation of growth and opportunity in the inspection industry. This is the Empire State of Mind. Empire State of Mind Building build companies with faster growth, higher profits and more time freedom. Finally, a podcast for the home inspection industry and beyond. This is the Empire State of Mind And this is your host, Matt Williams.
Matt Williams:Well, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you tuned into this episode Today. I am so blessed to have Kevin Wagstaff, Mike Wagstaff and Megan and Megan. I already forgot your last name, Guys. welcome to the show. We'll start with you, Megan. What's your last name?
Megan Lefebvre:My last name is Lefebvre, but it's not spelled that way, so if you find me, look for Lefebvre. Oh my gosh.
Matt Williams:That's a great kickoff to the episode Lefebvre. All right, glad you guys are here today. As I say, welcome guys to the show. See, we've got some good stuff we're going to be talking about. So, Kevin and Mike, you guys started Spectora software and I'm just imagining, like a Steve Group jobs environment where, like you're in somebody's garage or basement, like hacking out code till two o'clock in the morning. Is that kind of how it went down?
Kevin Wagstaff:Well, Mike's office was actually in his basement, so maybe he has the more Steve Jobsy part of the story.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, I was in the basement and we actually were renting the other rooms in my house so that we could afford to pay for me not working and just coding for months and what turned out to be years on end.
Matt Williams:Wow, are you still coding?
Mike Wagstaff:No, no, the engineers keep me away from it now. Purpose, don't screw it up. We've got much better guys than me in there now. That's good, right Indeed.
Matt Williams:That's good, awesome. So, Kevin, what did you start doing? Because he's doing code. What were you?
Kevin Wagstaff:doing? Talking to inspectors. Okay, so I'm just going to be finding out, begging them to get coffee with us to tell us what they didn't like about their software.
Matt Williams:And you started out as a realtor, though.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yes. So I had the realtor background which helped get some of those introductions and a little bit of credibility. So I saw home inspection reports from the realtor side. Okay 80 page PDFs that no one likes, i remember seeing those as an agent.
Matt Williams:Right, yeah, okay, and so you were able to see it from that side, see what inspectors were dealing with, and then see what realtors and home buyers were also dealing with, and looking at like the frustration levels that were going on.
Kevin Wagstaff:It's still a big disconnect in our industry. I think home inspectors still don't understand how much agents and clients don't understand reports the way we do in this industry.
Matt Williams:Right, i think you're right too. I mean, as an inspector, i see that all the time where it's like man, this is crystal clear, how can you not see this? It's like you know and and yeah, the amount of time like I'll get a buyer that'll be like later on, like after they bought the house. They'll be like well, i have a leak in the roof and you guys didn't call it out. I'm like look on page 21,. Baby, there's like eight pictures and like four paragraphs, and we recommended a license roof for multiple times. Like I don't know, like oh, i didn't even see that. And it's like well, what could I have done differently?
Matt Williams:You know, it's highlighted in orange because of a spectra. It's highlighted in orange. There's paragraphs, pictures and all kinds of words Like maybe, if I just what else do we want me to do Send you a carrier picture. But so I look at the reports and I think, oh, these are crystal clear, but it's still. it's a new product to every buyer. They've never seen an inspection report.
Kevin Wagstaff:I wish we could find a metric of the seconds that the buyer actually looks at the report because it's it might be measured in seconds.
Matt Williams:Wow, are you do you guys? are you guys able to kind of look at that on the back end, like how long people are connected to the server to like look at it? or is that because I mean, and then are they downloading the PDF? Can you guys see that side of it?
Megan Lefebvre:Yeah, we have analytics on our end that track all that, so we can see it on our end. It's a little bit different per buyer, so we could see an aggregate amount of data, but it's a pretty new tool. We're really excited to dig into that more and be able to give more of those insights, even to the inspection community, that you all might not have.
Matt Williams:Right, cause I imagine on the software engineering side, like you guys see all the like I think it's like the matrix right, where they have like the green and black letters like flying through and we're all like what is this? And you guys are like, oh, look, look, what's happening. And we're like what? Yeah? So cause I love the tool, you can click on it and see people have logged in. When they logged in, who logged in, from what IP address, and stuff, which is super helpful. And people are like I never saw that. And you go, yeah, you did, you logged in from this IP address at this time, here, here and here I was watching.
Matt Williams:Yeah.
Megan Lefebvre:They're like oh my God.
Matt Williams:Yeah, so I imagine there's more data behind. That is just not turned from the matrix language into human language. So that's fascinating, i wonder. I wonder anyhow. We are like way off topic but we're just talking about specter, but I love the software. So you guys started off this thing with in the garage and Kevin was the realtor and he was like seeing the pain points And so how are you guys going with this idea?
Mike Wagstaff:Well, it kind of found us a little bit. So in 2016, Kevin and I were we were looking for a business to start together. We had just I wouldn't say failed, but we had learned a lot trying to start a clothing and apparel business. That was our practice business, We like to say, where we learn how to communicate with each other. We learned our competencies And then we thought, hey, we need to look for software, look in a space that's small enough where we didn't have to take investment, because we always felt like investment would control the. you know, it wouldn't. let us do the vision that we want to do.
Mike Wagstaff:And so we said, hey, let's find a niche market. Eventually we have to. After just talking about this with everybody that was around, a friend of ours was like Hey, my dad's a home inspector. Why don't you go check out their software, cause everybody says it sucks? So, 2016, we check it out and we're like, oh, there's folks still mailing out DVDs to install on your PC. There's not many, whoa.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:Pen and paper Yeah, there's still people with carbon copy, like tearing off the top sheet and giving it to you. And then the SAS in 2016.
Matt Williams:Right.
Mike Wagstaff:There was like one or two SAS players in the whole space And we thought how did tech just leave this industry behind? It felt like everybody was very complacent, So to us that seemed like the best opportunity and it connected with. Kevin's agent background. Around that time I bought my first house and I was like there's a lot of disclaimer text in here, like give me the meat, i just want to know A lot of C. Yeah, a lot of CYA I just want to see what's really important right now.
Matt Williams:And I think that's why people don't go off and they've got with the carbon copy paper gets sued, and what do you do in court? Like, yeah, like there's not, wow.
Mike Wagstaff:So it seemed like it wasn't maybe the. you know, sometimes tech entrepreneurs get caught up and what's the sexy idea that can change the entire world? And we were, i think, a little bit more pragmatic. Our dad was like a very practical blue collar dude.
Mike Wagstaff:He put on his boots every day and just went to work No sick days, like he was an electrician. So we had learned to be very pragmatic And you know we knew how to work hard for him. So we just found the place where we felt like we can work hard in this and do something, just the two of us. We didn't have any money. We didn't come from money. We had maybe saved up a little bit in our personal runway so that we can, you know, like work less at the jobs that we had until it got off the ground. But, like I said, i was like renting out the basement, my wife was working and kind of like feeling the stress.
Mike Wagstaff:Our first kid was on the way And so wow, She was like what are you doing in the basement all the time?
Kevin Wagstaff:You're not making any money right now.
Mike Wagstaff:No, she was so supportive, totally on board, but that was kind of the origin story. I don't know what else to forget, kev.
Kevin Wagstaff:No, the runway is really important, I think, because some inspectors get in the industry expecting instant success.
Matt Williams:Right.
Kevin Wagstaff:And I think we heard enough stories and from mentors to say plan on like a year or two of not make paying yourself a dollar.
Matt Williams:Right.
Kevin Wagstaff:So at that point we said, okay, let's. Then it allowed us to do things the right way. It might sound desperate or feel like we had to sell the next person. We were able to be patient in that sales process in that first year.
Matt Williams:And I think that was a big key.
Matt Williams:That is. That is a huge key. Well, and you just said something, mike, a second ago that you guys funded it yourself. So, like I've seen enough software startups where it takes a lot of money, and my brother is in one right now. I'm not going to mention by name because they're they're just launching right now, but I know that they had to take millions of dollars worth of investment and then they had to have software engineers designing and they have marketing people and they have a whole team of people and their cash burn is a significant amount of cash burn every week And there's their pre revenue or their post revenue. Now they just launched, but they are there, but pre revenue they're burning an insane amounts of cash, obscene amounts, because they're trying to build this software that's going to be outstanding, no-transcript, like at night in your basement.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, we each pitched in a couple hundred bucks for the domain name. I knew how to code, kevin knew about marketing, he could talk to people, and so that's how we got started.
Matt Williams:That is epic.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, it was crazy times. We were working around the clock.
Matt Williams:Yeah, you're working and sleeping.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, just that's it Exactly.
Kevin Wagstaff:Wow, like the mentality we had was if we don't know how to do it, we'll go learn how to do it, and I think by deep that's our default. Yeah, oh, we need to learn about this to get in touch with Mark. Let's go learn it and do it.
Matt Williams:Wow, And now you guys are your little like side hustle startup. Just kind of cute. I get it Like it's going good. Now I think seems like you probably doing all right. What's your market share? Do you know?
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, we're in like the 26, 27% range from a recent study that we had done. Okay, so that's from what we understand. The market leader Yeah, 52 employees. As of yesterday, we have some that go up or?
Matt Williams:down, it went up, okay All right, we had a new guy start yesterday. Yeah Yeah, we're still in growth mode. We were 53, even though we did. It happens, it does. Yeah, people move on right, yeah, yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:Serve some you know, 8,200 and something inspectors across 5,500 companies. Wow, so it's been an epic seven years, basically, since we just had a little kind of whiteboard session of how are we going to do this? What features do we need to build now? Unbelievable.
Megan Lefebvre:We'll do it later.
Mike Wagstaff:And it's been a fun journey.
Matt Williams:Congratulations, guys. Thank you. How amazing is that Like? that's the American dream, isn't it? A couple hundred bucks and an idea.
Kevin Wagstaff:It really is You don't sit back and reflect enough on it. You're right.
Matt Williams:That's crazy. A couple hundred bucks and a crazy idea and you guys worked your butts off because you slept and worked to make it happen. And now here you are, dominating in this space and you have a phenomenal product that so many inspectors love and realtors love and buyers love. Yeah, that's just incredible.
Mike Wagstaff:Thanks, man.
Matt Williams:That's really cool, megan you are. when did you start working for Spectora?
Megan Lefebvre:I came in at the start of 2020. So like right before the pandemic, three months in. So yeah, came in pretty early. We were about, I remember they showed me a chart and they're like okay, we're about to 2,000 inspectors And they were like this is going to be a really big thing. When we hit this, Yes.
Megan Lefebvre:And as the 11th employee. So it was something. We were in a little office, we were all in person. It was just such a different thing, but I fell in love with the company. It feels really the same as what we started, which is, i think, really special.
Matt Williams:That is really cool And you started on the chat bubble And so I know I asked some really dumb questions into the chat bubble back in those days because I was like trying to figure out how to like run my life, and I am sure you answered all my dumb questions.
Megan Lefebvre:Hey, that's what we're here for, and. I mean, I don't keep track, but maybe I should have a little list A tally card of like avoid these people.
Matt Williams:Yeah, you know it's funny. One of the things that blew me away was the level of customer service that spector provided, and I know that's something you guys do focus on. But I mean, i remember there was hours posted on the chat bubble and there would be times at, like you know, midnight, 11pm, i, you know, full of transparency, like I've been inspecting all day. I'm back on my couch that night on the laptop I'm a couple glasses deep, you know, into something and I'm like trying to fix my report and I'm like Sloppy is typing into the green text bubble. I'm like how do I do this thing? And then and then, like being like 11 o'clock at night, somebody respond. I was like no freaking way, like you clocked out like six hours ago or whatever, four hours ago or however long. It was like how, how did you guys do that? I just tell me I got to know.
Kevin Wagstaff:I think there was some holdover from when it was just Mike and I and it was like nope, we're going to answer every single question as soon as you have it. And Mike and I were working 12 hour days. And then some of our early employees I wonder if two of them might have sleep issues and pop on the chat bubble when they can't sleep and just answer questions. But that, that accountability to even think to do that, I thought was really special from some of those early folks who kind of took the torch from Mike and I and said no, I don't want to leave people hanging if they need their question answered, even if it is 10 or 11.
Kevin Wagstaff:So just the instinct to check our chat bubble at that time Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Matt Williams:That blew my mind.
Mike Wagstaff:And well, you know it's hard to change home inspection software. Like if you use something already, it's like you're ingrained in it And so we knew we had to offer such overwhelming value. It couldn't just be a little bit better. We had to be way better, and some of that was the support and feeling like, hey, we're part of your team, got your back, even if it's something that's kind of out of our wheelhouse, we'll make it right, we'll figure it out with you, and it's still something that we invest heavily in today. Like a good gosh, i'm gonna say a quarter of our team is still the support team that's on the chat bubble.
Matt Williams:Wow.
Mike Wagstaff:Over time, And so it's yeah, we invest there and we want it to always be the case.
Matt Williams:Megan, are you still in the chat bubble?
Megan Lefebvre:I'm not on the chat bubble. I've moved into a few roles. I started on the chat bubble, moved into our QA program and we now have a much better person doing that. So if you see less issues, she's why. But I know I'm on the product team and I really enjoy that. just working, solving problems, getting to know inspectors Really, it's all I love.
Mike Wagstaff:Can you say what product means Cause I think I was going to ask you that. Yeah, what does that mean?
Megan Lefebvre:So, basically, product is the product team. What we do is we take all the information that we get. So we look at things like inspectors What do they need? What are agents talking about? What are we hearing from their sales team? What are we hearing about from the industry? What do we think is going to be the next most impactful thing? And we figure out how to do it. So we look for pain points, we look for problems, we look for what exactly is getting in the way of you all doing more business, better business, faster business, making more money, and we look to see how we can best solve that. So we work with our developers, giving them direction into building new features. We work with our customers to communicate new features and get feedback on it. So it's kind of that whole life cycle of launching new things and just trying to make better software and solve people's problems.
Matt Williams:And one thing I've really appreciated too about Spector is that it's been growing quickly and really in a smart way. There's been because I started my company in 2019, so April 20 of 19. And Spector was the first software I used, because I did all the research and was like, oh, these guys are pretty, and so the software looked good. And so I started out and I was like, well, i'm going to start out with y'all's back-end scheduler And I thought, well, when I outgrow this, i'll switch to one of the other bigger CRM things. And after about the time, i was like, oh man, i really need this feature And it's not here. And then it's like, oh wait, they just launched it. You know, like, really, as my company was growing, you were launching the features exactly as I needed them on time. And I was like, i mean, i don't know if you guys are spying on me or what, But it just was exactly the way it was supposed to be. So I'm always still impressed at how quickly you guys are growing and adding features and launching features and putting things into place and building out the new stuff all the time. It's always impressive to me, and so I've always been very impressed with your customer service and your growth and your ideas and how you always implement new things all the time And this is something that I was talking to you guys beforehand is this is you guys have a perspective on the inspection industry.
Matt Williams:The three of you see things from an angle that no inspector sees. We are at IEB's conference this year And even at IEB the conference, even the IEB over at everybody that's here sees it from different angles. Right, you guys have a very unique angle 8,000 inspectors is that what you said? 5,500 companies Nobody has contact with that many people like that And you guys get to see what's going on. And so I'm just curious what are some things that you guys see from your perspective that maybe others don't or can't see because of the advantages you guys have?
Kevin Wagstaff:That. So we're at IEB right. So for those maybe that aren't in it, it's very. It's the most sophisticated group in the industry that's talking about how to elevate it, how to grow companies and how to be open to new ideas and possibilities. And the bigger multi-inspector companies are doing just that in this tougher environment. They're looking for ways to innovate, They're open to other revenue streams, They're open to putting more into sales and marketing. And a lot of the smaller inspectors solo inspectors, newer inspectors that's harder to do.
Kevin Wagstaff:It's a lot harder to put in capital up front to start a business And we're seeing some of those fall out of the business because of the environment and they're not sticking with it.
Matt Williams:So are you guys seeing a drop in inspectors that are using your software because they're going out of business?
Mike Wagstaff:We saw a big clean out in December of last year, like November, December, a little bit into the first couple of weeks of January. I think was when all those guys that got in during COVID, when inspections were just falling from the sky and everybody's like I could be an inspector, Let's open up shop.
Matt Williams:Yeah, we got a flashlight and a pointer finger. That's broken, and that's broken Exactly.
Mike Wagstaff:It's so easy to become a home inspector And then the times got tough and there's less transactions to go around, and so that's when people were like I was just here for the easy times, like I'm out, yeah. And then you know, since early mid January we've seen the bounce back, like some folks returned, some, you know, and we're still growing, new inspectors are coming on board, but December was that month, the one month in our history of contraction where we lost more people than we brought on, and so I found that interesting.
Mike Wagstaff:That speaks to like kind of the macro trends and people that are considering getting into this industry, like there was a lot less than thinking that and now it's kind of coming back, but slower.
Matt Williams:Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:And more deliberate assumptions, I assume.
Matt Williams:So when people are dropping out of spectra, do you guys have like a questionnaire? How do you guys figure out, like like, are they leaving because for different reasons?
Mike Wagstaff:So, we ask them why And it's almost never a competitor. It's never like they're going to another software platform, it's always going out of business or payment failure, where they just stop paying the bills because they probably went out of business Got it And so it's yeah, so we see this all the time and it's. The stats are rough. Like two thirds of new home inspectors come and fresh out of school. Don't make it in that first year, wow.
Matt Williams:It's a it's a really high washout rate.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, and it's because some states you know you don't need, there's no requirements, so low barriers to entry lead to high churn, and so so we see this happening day in and day out And and so it's scary. And then we see the ones that succeed and make it, and we kind of we get them on our podcast and ask them what they're doing and how, how to survive, and so we get some of those insights too.
Matt Williams:Well, that is. that is really interesting. So you, you see the two third washout, you see that, which is incredibly high. I didn't know it was that high. That's really really high.
Kevin Wagstaff:So I got one other trend, yeah, and a craving and an openness for automation is starting to really be big in our industry.
Matt Williams:Yes.
Kevin Wagstaff:It's kind of a rule of thumb. Our industry can tend to be like five to seven years behind some other industries, And so I think inspectors are seeing the power of automation now in terms of communication with agents, buyers, even their own team administrative tasks. And then you mix that I hate to say AI just because we're on a podcast that'll up the listens, but using AI.
Matt Williams:But that's a keyword I put on every show now. Artificial, intelligence is I put in there just for fun every time?
Kevin Wagstaff:But leveraging tools more. I think like leveraging automation is huge.
Matt Williams:Yeah, i bet it is. What role? so, just because you brought it up with AI, what roles of do you see AI coming into the report writing? Do you see any avenues where that could become a tool for inspectors out in the field when they're doing reports? Do you guys see anything like that coming?
Mike Wagstaff:There's some stuff we're brainstorming on. I think it's a little bit early for us to say with any specificity. We have no definite plans, of course, but when we think about, And I'm not saying spec tour specifically, but generally speaking, yeah. Yeah, when you have photos that are with a name and description of the defect that it's a photo of, well, that's just a gold mine to feed into an AI algorithm.
Mike Wagstaff:To say like when it's something looks like this, it's most likely this, and so can we help inspectors where they just are going around and who knows, maybe with the future of Google Glass it's just seeing things and saying, hey, this might be this kind of defect, and then they can confirm it or say, actually close, but not quite, and then that's constantly training an AI algorithm. So the future could be pretty interesting.
Matt Williams:So Megan is in charge of product. Any AI tips?
Megan Lefebvre:Well, we don't have anything. Like Mike said, it's something that there's a lot of areas that I can see it for, but I think even right now, there's a lot of ways that inspectors could be using AI. I think people have two One of two reactions to AI. They're either like, yeah, i'm going to go use that, i can be more efficient, otherwise they're terrified. They've watched all the horror movies where AI comes over takes over the world.
Megan Lefebvre:But I think, especially if you're an inspector who is in great writer, maybe you're afraid of writing content. You can use AI for that. Or you want some tone suggestions. You want to get more emails out to your agents, you want some recommendations. I think everyone should be examining how that can help their business run more efficiently. Right now, it's not about taking jobs, that doing things better, and I think that people who are afraid of that are missing out. So, even if it's not Spector doing it, i think every inspection company should be taking a look at that.
Matt Williams:That is brilliant, You're right. Like with emails, right, You can email your agents Because as an inspector, I'm like me inspector inspect your house. It's like caveman speak right And chat. GPT makes it sound all eloquent, or whatever else The most hanging fruit right there, yeah.
Matt Williams:Yeah, like, like, and you can load that into your spectra template stuff, right, so then, when you're emailing your agents as follow up and so me inspected house how you like it, you know it's like it turns it into something like yeah, definitely more refined, and so you can get your follow up emails or your ahead of time emails automation that you're talking about, kevin, like you could take the that's that stuff And like, like Megan said, like, go through AI and rewrite your stuff into something that's, you know, smarter than than me.
Kevin Wagstaff:We just did a product brainstorm. Everyone just got inside. Look at that, there we go, thank you.
Matt Williams:There we go. That's what it's going to look like. And then spectra is going to have an AI button inside and have chat GP. I'm making this up, I'm just sort of record. let the record be clear. I am not a developer at spectra, but they're going to have an AI button and they're going to hit it and it's going to clean up your stuff, and I mean, like me, inspect your house and they hit a button in there is going to make it beautiful.
Megan Lefebvre:Not a developer right Megan. Yeah, you're coming through with a lot of great ideas. Megan see if you learn how to code.
Matt Williams:Yeah, Oh, no, no, no, no, yeah, I can't even write an email. We just covered that, so I can code with my chat GPT with an AI engine. Right code for yeah. No, i don't. I do not know how to code. That is, that is for sure. I can barely inspect a house, man, it's like.
Matt Williams:I'm smart. I'm just smart enough to how dumb I am. So so, ai man, that's kind of cool to see some of that going in. And I wonder if this is me just brainstorming. I wonder is it possible to do something where you take a picture of like a data plate off of like a furnace or a water heater and have it automatically decode that stuff?
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, it's called OCR optical character recognition. It's something that we're going to put in pretty soon to make it just easy to take those serial numbers. have it automatically translate, so you're not entering in So that's somewhere on the horizon. It's on the roadmap for sure.
Matt Williams:Wow, that's amazing. I was totally making that crap up. Yeah, I mean, look at that, you're ahead of me And by the time I'm like you know what we should do And you're like, Oh, here it is Right, Like son of a gun. You guys are good, So it's on the horizon, somewhere you can actually do that. So could you okay, hear me out could you take a picture of a name plate and then backup of, like, a water heater? pack up, take a picture of the water heater and it decodes it to know what year it was made And then it uses your GPS to know which county and municipality you're in to know what the codes were to be able to go. Oh, yeah, it's missing the expansion tank.
Mike Wagstaff:Should we bring them on the product team now?
Megan Lefebvre:Yeah, i feel like, yeah, there you go.
Matt Williams:Can that be a thing? Could that happen? Technically? it could. Technically, somebody might develop a software that could do that. I'm going to develop my own and I'm coming for you, boys, i'm coming for you. I got 200 bucks, i can buy a web domain, turn my garage into a coding center, and I'm coming for you, dude. That would be sick. If that could happen, oh my gosh, that would be amazing. And then if you had the goggles or the glasses and you can like walk around, it could be like like integrated in, you're looking at a water heater, like little lights coming on and like tells you what the defects are.
Matt Williams:Terminator view Yes yeah, like Iron Man, you know where he has, like the, you know, and what's the Iron Man robot called Jarvis Jarvis? yeah, hey, jarvis, you know. And then, like, where's the defects? I see five defects, yeah, it could happen.
Kevin Wagstaff:This is all going to happen.
Matt Williams:It could happen, it could totally happen. We walk around with like Terminator suits or Iron Man suits around these houses.
Kevin Wagstaff:you know we are the drone that goes flies over the roof. What could you charge for a home inspection if you walk in with an Iron Man suit?
Matt Williams:on. I mean, no, at least $100 more dollars. At least $100 more dollars, that's right. I think so Totally worth it, totally worth it. Okay, so you guys get to see nationally like well, like average inspection price right, like it's kind of joked about that, but if they're different areas of the country that have different inspection prices, Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Wagstaff:And why? Prices of homes? typically it kind of correlates with that. And then special inspections. Like Florida is the king of all states when it comes to inspections, because a wind mitt in four points, they have to get them for insurance.
Matt Williams:Okay, yeah, and I'm not in Florida. A wind mitigation and a four points, yeah, okay.
Kevin Wagstaff:And there's no hurricanes in New Mexico. There's no hurricanes in New.
Matt Williams:Mexico. There are no tornadoes in New Mexico. There are not very many addicts in New Mexico, because we have those like Spanish style flat roof houses, and then there's hardly any crawl spaces or basements either, so it's slab on grade with no attic. Come on, bro, like how many houses of those can you do a day? You know? Right, yeah, line them up and knock them down. So I'm in the greatest state ever to do home inspections, just for the record.
Mike Wagstaff:But the average has gone up year over year or year over two years ago, like 450, 45060 now nationally, 45060 is what we saw most recently When we started back in like 2017, it was 350. So it's come up quite a bit in the last few years.
Matt Williams:I just looked at my spectra or metrics page earlier today and I'm like 618.
Kevin Wagstaff:So yeah, I know.
Matt Williams:I'm higher than national average. I like that.
Kevin Wagstaff:I would bet IEB companies if we charted it out well above 20, 30% above the national average. And then you get new inspectors or ones that don't pay attention to the data, probably well below that.
Matt Williams:Yeah, because I think, as a new inspector, you probably are trying to sell in price, right, and that's the temptation sell in price, and whereas if you sell in quality, like you can actually charge a little more, even if you're a newer guy and they don't know that, because they don't know, and yeah, you could totally have that as a thing.
Kevin Wagstaff:Did you do that? Did I sell in price? Yeah, when you were new, how did you approach?
Matt Williams:that. Here's the funny thing. So I actually called all of the guys in town, like you know he's supposed to do, and I forgot everybody's prices and I said everybody's about 350 bucks for a house up to about 3000 square feet. And so I had this really random opportunity to get in front of a real estate office, like it was actually I didn't know that it's time, but it is probably like the top real estate office in the city And I didn't know. I was just like I don't know, so I get in there and like I'm going to go up and talk to them And like, as I'm walking up to the thing you know, and that somebody asked me like what do you guys charge?
Matt Williams:And I knew like everybody was averaging 350 a price, and so the thing, and I just like I looked at him as like 375 up to whatever. Whatever I just went already went 25 higher than what everybody else is doing in town. And they're like, oh, okay, you know. And then I stood up front and I just acted like I knew what I was doing. I didn't expect it like three houses at that point in time.
Mike Wagstaff:And.
Matt Williams:I acted like I've been doing it my entire life And and I'm a good communicator and I'll stand up and talk. And so instantly they're like well, if he can talk good, he can probably inspect good, and so obviously he knows what the heck he's doing. You know, and I'm just a BS or kind of, and so, yeah, i get up there and I start talking and then people ask me questions and like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 375,. You know, and yeah, and it just worked. And so I'm from there, Matt.
Mike Wagstaff:do you think the inspector is still under charge for what they do?
Matt Williams:Well, yeah, i think that the value is the value of what we provide is much greater than the prices that we charge. Before 2020, before the pandemic and the craziness of the last two years. I would say that I saw this, but I've only been, i wouldn't been around that long, but I saw that here you are charging $300, $400 for an inspection, you know and, and then they turn around and they could beat the crap out of the seller and be like well, listen, my inspector found this, this and this, and they get $5,000 worth of concessions on the house. And I'm like, man, you just 10 extra money, like good Lord, like the value of what you just paid to have an inspector coming. Yeah, i think the value of the inspection is phenomenal And so many times we're able to go back and even just immediately in the transaction, get their money right back and then some We're always telling agent or inspectors raise your prices, because meanwhile the agents get in some percentage of the home, of the home price.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, what are they doing? Consilo and Redfin do most of the work now, right, Yeah, every time we're on a platform, those filthy agents, yeah, so everybody. raise your prices. That's right Raise your prices.
Matt Williams:I think we're going to start charging like 1% of the home price. I'm kidding, i wish I'd be sick, Maybe test it Yeah right, absolutely Yeah, and so we, yeah.
Matt Williams:So anyhow, i think I think you can get, i think the value we provide is pretty phenomenal for everyone involved in the whole thing. Inspectors also are a bit of a liability sponge for realtors, you know, because they're able to be like, well, what do you think the condition of the house is? And the realtor, like, can look around and be like this house is really messed up. But they don't say that. They're like I'm not really sure Let's get an inspection, you know. Well, the inspector says, the inspector says, and then when something goes wrong at six months later, they're like oh my gosh, i have no idea. You should call the inspector, you know, and like we're like what the heck? It's on page 23, you know. And so there's this whole thing. But yeah, we're like in liability sponge and just eating it up for them And they get the 3% and we're down there with the 300 bucks.
Mike Wagstaff:We can totally picture a future where the inspectors more empowered, they have a bigger say, they're more of a home consultant And just being an inspector. Yeah, we think that's where it should head And we're trying to, you know, make sure that we build all the tools to get us there, because, man, i think the power differential it's just vastly on the wrong side right now.
Matt Williams:I think so too, And you know I don't. I think that the realtor is providing value, obviously, And I think they work really hard for their money, And I'm not like disparaging how much money they make and what they do. I think that they're great And I work with some fantastic realtors. But I think the role of what we're providing in this transaction, I think it is undervalued And I think we could charge more money And I think people would pay more money.
Matt Williams:The challenge is that there is somebody out there undercutting everybody's prices And that's where I think if everybody just was like you know what, we're all going to charge 500 bucks now, And I think you should have like a union in the city. I'm going to make a, I'm doing that, I'm going back home, I have a coalition meeting and we're all inspectors union. We're all going to be like minimum price 500 bucks, you know, and then just overnight we can just turn it around in our city. I think that I don't know if any realtors in my city listen, but if you do, you know it's going down.
Kevin Wagstaff:That's where I think the creativity with recommending contractors or adding more value for the home inspectors. We have to be open to this because we can't triple prices overnight. No, you really can't Because everything we just said right, And so to me, the path forward is finding other ways to add value and then being okay, getting paid for it.
Megan Lefebvre:Yeah.
Kevin Wagstaff:Instead of us just bitching for the next 20 years about you know how low the home inspectors charge compared to the agent. We got to be creative now and take action.
Matt Williams:Absolutely. And so, like we add ancillary services, like we we don't just do home inspections now, right, so we are, you know, licensed termite inspectors and my company, so we do the W WI termite thing. We got we got sewer scopes, so our guys are all scoping sewers. I got an ancillary tech that's running around doing all kinds of stuff And so we've got like duct scoping is a thing in our area because if you have underground ducts on a slab on grade, just do the like basics. You have so much moisture in the earth surrounding these ducts that's underground, they deteriorate over time And so, and then with Sonotube, which was a thing in my area, they're like cardboard, so it's like cardboard ducting and the dirt underground, right, you just come on, do the math, right, like it's not even math, yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:It starts to fall apart. At first I thought you said duct scoping And I was thinking about duck hunt. You remember with the orange gun on the 80s? Oh yes, I couldn't get that out of my head.
Matt Williams:A duck duck, duck, duck.
Megan Lefebvre:Also her duck, and I was very disappointed when I learned it was duct.
Matt Williams:Yeah, that's true, it's a duct scope, right? A duct scope, that's a different thing. Yeah, that camera has to be a lot smaller, yeah, and so the duct scope yeah, underground we do that kind of stuff, we do mold and we do all the other different ancillary stuff And the, the, the. Yeah, we're adding asbestos right now. We got some guys going through asbestos training to get that done And, and so that's how we're able to get our average tickets up is because we're now adding all these extra services. But the contractor recommending thing you guys have this now built in. Tell a little bit more about that, because I've been watching this happen and I'm really excited about this. We already do a contractor recommendation thing, but we'd love to bake it into spectra. What are you guys doing on that?
Kevin Wagstaff:Well, mike can get into the conversation he had here in a minute, but we just we got requests, we got feature requests to say, hey, i want to be able to put in the contractors that I vetted, that I found that I trust that are highly rated in inspector.
Matt Williams:Cause you started out with a couple of national brands, right?
Kevin Wagstaff:Not on the contractor side.
Kevin Wagstaff:Not on the contractor side, that's on, like the insurance warranty, a home alarm system side. So that's like the marketplace that inspectors can opt into. where they opt into it, then the customers have to opt into it to be able to even offer those things Got it. So it's double opt in. That's a marketplace that's growing on one side. That's one area. The other is after the client gets the home inspection report, they say, hey, inspector, you said I have five plumbing issues. Do you know any plumbers? Yeah, and up until now our industry said I don't know. Google it or ask your agent. Yeah, to me that's like missed value capture. that goes outside of our industry. So we built a tool to be able to put in your contractors to where, once they have that defect, there's a button to get a quote and send the pictures to these contractors so they can accurately quote it. And that's a way better lead than they're going to pay for it, angie's list or thumbtack or anywhere else.
Matt Williams:Right, and so is there a tracking for the inspector to see how many of those are going out Coming soon.
Mike Wagstaff:Okay, Yeah, so it's in the early stages. So, yeah, right now, if there's like five plumbing defects, you can say, hey, here's the recommended contractors that I suggest you get in touch with And you can say request a quote. It gets sent over and they get to see the stuff that you actually wrote, so like as an investor. you're going to describe it way better than you know me, as just a dumb homeowner. I'm going to call me Yeah, it's leaking.
Matt Williams:It's leaking, right.
Mike Wagstaff:Fixed thing Yeah.
Pre-Roll:Thing broken.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, pipe loud, yeah. They're going to ask me what material and I'm like it's hard, i don't know. Yeah, not waterproof, yeah, and so then they can see the photos and the videos, so that all goes to them, and so hopefully the plumber can be like oh yeah, let me tell you I have a good idea of what this will cost, so it saves on that quoting of like oh, i got to come out and look at it, and so the hope is you're feeding leads instead of leads coming from.
Pre-Roll:Angie homeizer.
Mike Wagstaff:And then I just talked to an inspector out here. He said he's making $40,000 just this year off of basically charging the contractors and saying, hey, i'm going to send you 2000 leads on average this year. What's that worth to you, dang? They give them, they write them a check. Here's five grand, here's 10 grand, and he's just getting started. He thinks that next year he's going to make over $100,000 just from having these recommended contractor sponsors. Contractors are happy to do it because they're paying, angie. If they're not paying, you know they got to pay somebody for leads, right, Right.
Matt Williams:So they're basically what this other inspector is doing. Is they're saying I'm going to sell these sponsors, these connections, So they're paying $200 a month to be on their roofing list? You?
Mike Wagstaff:got it.
Matt Williams:And so then they get three roofers. So they get two, four $600 a month coming in off of roofers And they get another. then they have plumbers and they have HVAC and they have electricals and they have.
Mike Wagstaff:Yep. And so you build out your list and you know, eventually, over time, we're going to make sure that the contractor can like, shut off the spigot if he's like, hey, i'm full quit sending me leads, right, and then we're going to build in more stuff like tracking. We're going to build in, you know, whether people want to charge per lead or they want to charge per month. We're going to kind of make that easier over time. That's all on our roadmap for the next couple quarters.
Matt Williams:Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:But it's just really cool. This is the first time at a conference I heard somebody making that kind of money off of this feature, which it just came out of beta a few months ago, and so it's just really cool to hear some of this stuff.
Matt Williams:Oh, I'm building that out like tomorrow Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:And then you know, on the other side, like Kevin mentioned, it's well known that insurance is kind of creeping into our industry.
Megan Lefebvre:Yes.
Mike Wagstaff:They bought. Like all of our competition, we're like the last independent company, left, right, right, and What they're doing is it's not optional anymore, like if you're using certain platforms that aren't Spectora, your home buyers are forced exposed to insurance offers. We want to do it better. We want to say hey, instead of just like free software and we'll keep all the profits. We're saying hey, if you want to opt in and expose insurance leads, that's up to you, that's up to your home buyers, and then from there you get paid for it.
Matt Williams:Wow.
Mike Wagstaff:And so it's something that you know we're building out right now.
Matt Williams:So insurance is buying in like, like the Geico's and Progressive's and stuff are buying into this space because the long play is that they get more homeowners insurance.
Mike Wagstaff:They're trying to sell more insurance. Yeah, wow.
Kevin Wagstaff:Or American family insurance, i guess, yeah, right, right, right, it's specific Yeah yeah yeah yeah, and porch And so.
Mike Wagstaff:so our hope is hey, this is way more empowering. This keeps the money within the home inspection space instead of sending it to these big insurance companies, because I think they're doing all right. They have enough money, right?
Matt Williams:And so Well, if you can put that little lizard on a commercial every 10 minutes on TV, those ads aren't cheap. you know what I'm?
Mike Wagstaff:saying Exactly Right.
Matt Williams:Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:And so, and then the inspector has the ability to increase their average revenue per inspection because they've chosen to say, hey, i do want to sell. Maybe I don't want to do insurance, but I want to do home security and warranties or whatever choices that align with them ethically. We're going to build up that list of partners over time so that there's more choices within that and that it's a better experience for the home buyer So they can see options and say, oh, this one will cost me less. There's, the quotes are all right there. Yeah, because we already have all the info And then they can just choose and do it all on platform. So that's kind of the future we're heading towards. That's brilliant And building for, and we just think it's a better way than forcing it down the throats of inspectors.
Kevin Wagstaff:We want this year to look like, if you're doing 20% less inspections, that you can still make more money. Yeah, your revenue can still be up here over your down year.
Matt Williams:That's like right, that's an additional stream of revenue that can come into an inspection business.
Matt Williams:Because, you're right, i think the data that we are providing is crazy. So when someone buys a house, after they close, home Depot and Lowe's and all these hardware stores are hitting them with coupons, with 15% off flooring, because they just know that flooring is one of the top things people buy when they first move in. Or blinds, or window treatments or something like that, whereas the data we have, they could be like here's 15% off that furnace that we know is older than F and about to die, and so the data we provide is definitely specific enough that they're like I know I need to buy a new furnace. That's on my horizon. My inspector told me this thing's on its last leg, and then they're like oh look, here's a coupon for exactly what I need from the HVAC company. Then it's like that's the top of mind, and now you're targeting, you're giving them what they actually have to buy and you're giving them the deals and the discounts. So it's good for the buyer because they're getting discounts on things. Yeah, win, win, win.
Megan Lefebvre:Yeah, I think it all goes back to the value that the home inspector brings. Like I'm someone, obviously I came into the industry with Spector and I've really fallen in love with it, with the closeness, with the knowledge.
Megan Lefebvre:But, like, for example, i really trust my home inspector to bring me the right contractor. He knows the contractor, he knows his work, he knows everything about that. All these inspectors, i should say they all know this And it's just such a value add that everyone brings because you all have all this knowledge And so it's not just helping the inspector, it's not just helping the agent, it's not just helping the whole transaction, it's helping the home buyer and the whole community. I think that's the whole thing is just like this benefits everyone. It's not a money grab, it's not something where people I don't think inspector should feel bad about going through this and giving these leads and recommending this, because it's ultimately going to bring so much value to everyone in the transaction.
Matt Williams:Oh, absolutely. As an inspector, i know there's roofing companies in my town that should be avoided And I know there's some that I know that they're. I know the owners. I know that they're ethical. I know they're going to that they do a high quality work And when there's a problem, that they're going to stand behind their work and do a good job, not tell people to go kick rocks right, like I know this and the buyer may or may not, and so for me to go. I know there's three roofing companies that I know do a high quality job and will stand behind their work. They may not be the cheapest in town but like they would trust our recommendation because, guess what, we know, we see their work Like we see the HVAC companies out there.
Matt Williams:We know the ones that are doing not so great job And we know the ones that do a great job And like I'm not going to. They might not be the cheapest. I mean the people I know. I don't know if they're the cheapest in town. I don't, but that's not why anybody should. I'm not buying the cheapest roof when I put them in your house right from my house. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, like, yeah, i'm, i'm going to make sure it's the right quality, you know. And so, yeah, i think, i think you're right, megan. I think, as the inspector, we know our market and we know the trades that we see and we see it.
Kevin Wagstaff:And when I, when I was at home advisor I worked there on their SEO team many years ago so they did a study and they it would. word of mouth was predominantly the way people wanted to find contractors, and so home advisor was always worried that their, their competition was word of mouth.
Kevin Wagstaff:They worried about people talking to each other and giving each other leads, and that was their biggest competition, and so it kind of blew my mind at the time. We've been talking about this for years because home inspectors don't understand how powerful that is.
Matt Williams:Yeah, and our word of mouth is huge, more powerful than their friend down the road.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah, and possibly even the agent, because you know, you know homes. Right And so I think it's, it's so much untapped value And I think inspectors typically say well, what if they do something wrong? What if they mess up? And I've heard someone else equate it to your doctor who refers you to specialists Does that doctor not refer you to an optometrist?
Megan Lefebvre:because they're like ah, what if they mess up?
Kevin Wagstaff:Right, yeah, what? what if they don't?
Megan Lefebvre:do that.
Kevin Wagstaff:MRI right on you? No, it's implied and there's ways to disclaim these things. And so, yeah, some inspectors, i believe, think of reasons why things won't work before they think of reasons why things will work.
Matt Williams:Well, i think if you have a couple of options at least in there, like two or three options, then you're like here's three companies that I know are great. Do your own research, you know.
Kevin Wagstaff:Right.
Matt Williams:And realtors do that with inspectors.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah.
Matt Williams:Right, they. They like there's realtors that go, well, here's a and like that's kind of like what I do. I market to realtors, say, hey, i want to bound your list, like I don't care if there's two or 10 people on your list, i just want to be on it. Yeah, you know and like so. And and realtors, you know, i don't know like why would we not have people on our list?
Kevin Wagstaff:Exactly, it's the exact same thing. The exact same thing, yeah.
Matt Williams:We're like, well, what if, what if, what if? and I'm like dude, like yeah, right, i want to be on somebody else's list. Why can't I have somebody on mine?
Kevin Wagstaff:For a liability conscious industry.
Matt Williams:Yeah, just get good insurance, you're good.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah.
Matt Williams:Yeah, if you haven't been sued by now, you certainly are going to. It's like a right of passage man, like you're not in business until you've been sued, at least once.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah, and if there's a less than 1% chance, it's like are you willing to fixate on that, to pass up hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars or revenue over the next 10 years? Right, like, let's talk about probabilities here. Yeah, Absolutely.
Matt Williams:Yeah, yeah, for sure, absolutely For sure. So, and it's hard to it's hard to sue somebody for that, like it's hard to sue somebody for. You know, it's hard to sue me because a roof read at a bad job.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah, and you gave them three And I gave them. I'm not going to hold up well.
Matt Williams:No, it's not going to hold up well on court And be like I gave you some options. I mean you picked them.
Kevin Wagstaff:Oh, and you signed that thing that said I'm not liable for the quality of their work. Exactly Right.
Matt Williams:Yeah, absolutely Yeah, that's. that's incredible. So you guys get to see all kinds of perspective. bring it back right From. from your perspective, you see things. What do you think ultimately separates the companies that are successful and the ones that are struggling? There's gotta be some commonality. What do you guys see?
Kevin Wagstaff:Starts with communication, the and this is gonna maybe be counterintuitive The way inspectors communicate and build relationships, the ones that start with the people and try to get to know agents as people, not as just a means to get a job Hey, i'm new, i'm an inspector. How many closings do you have Or how many clients do you have? It's more like getting to know people in your community and actually getting involved and showing up to events and like truly putting yourself into the community, and I think that builds relationships, which builds trust, and agents work with people they know, like and trust They do And it's just a totally different approach and you can see how transactional the ones that fail are.
Kevin Wagstaff:Okay, and then they wonder why they failed when they probably haven't built one genuine relationship with someone or took them to coffee and asked questions, kind of like Mark said the quality of your questions the quality of your business and life, and so forth.
Matt Williams:So that was a golden nugget right. Yeah, it was a nuggy Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:I was talking with an inspector this morning. He was like, yeah, we can't just pride ourselves on our technical expertise, like those are table stakes. Like everybody in this space should be just doing good quality inspections. stands the practice, like what sets it apart is always the soft skills. And then I think so that's definitely number one. But I also think the like we mentioned earlier, the automation. people are saying, hey, why do I have to send manual followup emails? Why am I going through my CRM and tagging people manually? How do I make that automated? That's the stuff that enables people to grow faster. And, like our two North stars are like save people time, make them more money.
Mike Wagstaff:That's like anything that we build, it should be accomplishing one of those two things. And so the folks that are really embracing all the features that we're putting out, all the new stuff that we're building to save them time. Well, that just freed up their time to do more of that growth work, to use those people skills, to get in front of more agents, to keep talking to them and get those referrals more often. And so, yeah, we see that time and again.
Kevin Wagstaff:Let me build on that. We call it playing office at Spector when you're doing busy work, because it feels good. You feel like you checked a box you checked your email. You pushed that paper over there. Spector's version of that is tinkering with their template or like fixating on the margins or being like oh that font let me make that bold talking to more agents. And so I think, the temptation to play office to think, oh, I'll go out there once it's perfect.
Kevin Wagstaff:I hear that a lot, like I want everything to be really buttoned up and perfect and dialed in. Meanwhile, their competition is getting a drink with the top rain makers in their area and chopping it up and getting a note. So we all fight the playing office temptation.
Matt Williams:I like that, the playing office. that's really. I'm gonna use that And I'm not gonna give you any credit either. I'm gonna say act like it was my idea, for sure, Megan. how about you from your side, on the product development side? what do you see from your perspective, your success versus struggle?
Megan Lefebvre:Yeah, i think it depends on where you're at in the market too. So, like they said, like people who are open to new ideas, new innovation, automation, all that kind of stuff. I think new product lines is also part of that. Like there's people right now who are doing real estate photography There's a lot of new areas that I think are opening up, that some people are really open to learning, ancillary services, hiring for that, understanding new things, and some people they're like I'm a home inspector, i inspect homes, and I think that has its lane, but it can definitely limit growth.
Megan Lefebvre:If we're talking about just like larger markets And then more in, just like the general mindset, i think it just openness to change. I don't wanna undercut how hard it can be to change like change softwares, change industries, add more people, grow, but just that openness to new things, i think we'll really change it. And then, if you're a new person, i think it's the amount you invest that I see really improves that. Like we see that in our software. Like people who are going in and starting getting a website they're going in, they're making, they're really fully in on it and they're making points with real estate agents. They're going in, they're spending all this time on it versus someone who's like it's a low barrier to entry.
Megan Lefebvre:I'm gonna work on my template. I'm gonna do one inspection. It didn't work out and then they kind of turn it in. I think people just cause it's something that seems like a low barrier to entry doesn't mean it's easy and doesn't mean there's not competition. So people who go in with a plan and work really hard and just invest a lot, we see them succeed.
Mike Wagstaff:Yeah, we talked about those two thirds of inspectors going out of business in the first year. If somebody buys our Jumpstart package, which is like a year of software, web design, web hosting, for a year, only one third of those go out of business, so you double your chances of success if you invest in all the stuff up front, and so I'm not gonna say that's causation, but it's correlated and because it's people that are like, hey, i'm ready to invest into this business and put myself into it fully, instead of just dipping a toe in the water and hoping it works out.
Matt Williams:Right, like, i have a Spectora website and I use the Spectora platform. I'm just 100% in on Spectora personally. But yeah, i think you're right, cause if you're gonna spend that kind of money, you psychologically you're like no, i'm committed. Like, if you spend, you know.
Kevin Wagstaff:Pot committed.
Matt Williams:Yeah, you're in, you know it's like it costs you gotta buy a new website And it's like well, no, i got a really nice website, you know, and, and yeah, you're right, i don't even remember how much I spent for it, so I'm not, i'm not gonna. I feel like it was several thousand dollars, i don't really know for everything right, a year of service and all the stuff. I would think It's like 23.99 or something like that.
Megan Lefebvre:Yeah, I'm sure, when you bought it, you got a steal, though, cause you were all back in 2019. It was like a buck 50 bro.
Matt Williams:You paid me It was great. Yeah So yeah, so right, it's. 23.99 is a jumpstart package, dude. That is wicked cheap Like. the value is insane. You get a beautiful website and a year of service and the software and business you know.
Kevin Wagstaff:advice like it just feels like setting up for success And can I just say cause I don't think some people realize this.
Mike Wagstaff:Like we do everything It's not just your report writing software, it's the business tools, the automation, it's the online scheduler, it's payments, it's agreements, it's metrics. Like it's everything you need to run the business right out the gates And so you don't need to patch together multiple platforms that talk to each other. Like we'll handle all of that for you. Like we will be your tech team and we'll answer the chat bubble, apparently at 11 PM at night.
Matt Williams:Yeah, well, maybe not anymore, but you used to Yeah.
Kevin Wagstaff:Someone might try it tonight. You might. Yeah, i don't know, we'll see. Yeah.
Matt Williams:Now Kevin and Mike can be like we'll shoot Now. We got to look at it, of course, and you don't know when this is going to air, so, or when they listen to it, it might last, yeah.
Kevin Wagstaff:But one more piece, I don't at the risk of trying to sound like the home inspection industry, Tony Robbins. people have to ask themselves why they're in this industry and why they want to be an entrepreneur.
Mike Wagstaff:Ooh. And I can get too deep, i know.
Kevin Wagstaff:No, what's good.
Kevin Wagstaff:But I think after COVID we saw the flush out a lot of things that got in, either because they just someone asked them if they could do it, or they heard a realtor over. They overheard a realtor say I need an inspector versus I want time freedom. I want to build wealth Right, I want to create something bigger than myself that lives on, that gets inherited or sells someday. And it changed my life because you'll make the next phone call when that's your motivation, when you're thinking of your kids or your wife or whatever right.
Kevin Wagstaff:Versus ah, it's just kind of a side gig. You know, i'll just inspect a few houses, like you'll quit when it gets a little hard. So I tell new inspectors like what's your why? It's like there's a book called Starts with Why that.
Matt Williams:I mean, that was really good. Simon Sinek right Yeah, great book.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah, it's you to think about those things, because in those moments is when businesses are made or broken. When you're, are you gonna make 50 calls today Or you're gonna make five and go crack a beer and sell in the couch right.
Mike Wagstaff:We talked about that in our early days. It had to work Like we were putting our personal savings on the line for Spectora. We were building this thing, my first baby was on the way.
Matt Williams:Yeah, there was no failure. Burn the ships, baby You're in Exactly Yeah there's no going back.
Kevin Wagstaff:I love that. Burn the boats. There was no going back, exactly.
Matt Williams:Yeah, you had too much on the line for it to fail.
Mike Wagstaff:Right, there was no going back, right. And so, yeah, the fire under your ass it comes from that. Yeah, that's special, that's something that if you, if you can harness that the right ways, like you will make those extra calls. You will stay up those extra hours.
Matt Williams:Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:And that's powerful.
Matt Williams:It is. It really is powerful, and, and you got to have that drive and you got to find that where, where is that coming from? And you're right, it's a side hustle, you know? or is this something that like, can really be something that, like, you have a really why behind it And and and as you're growing a company, like now, i've got multiple inspectors right. So so now I'm in a place where my why is bigger than me and my family, because now I have 11 other people that are on staff and that's 11 other families that are now like, they're putting food though My inspectors. Kids are eating and putting food on their table.
Matt Williams:Now my inspector, the guy that works for me, can go for somebody else. He can do something else, but currently, like, he's not limited to this, but currently his kids food is based on. Am I making good decisions and am I driving business in the front door? You know, and and if I'm not doing my job as the owner, making sure that this thing, this tree, is healthy and strong, then then his kids are the ones that are going to suffer, and those guys kids and their spouses and and now, all of a sudden, things are stressful in their home and their marriage is having some issues and stuff. Why? Because I mean they might have issues for other reasons, but I don't want to be for me, you know. So now my why is bigger.
Matt Williams:Personally, my way is, and you guys have it to you at 50 something employees, and so for you, you have a why behind you that you're like, boy, i can, i got 50 people and their families and significant others and kids and whatever else that are depending on you guys doing your job right, and it's like, okay, my why has gotten real big and so is yours, you know, in a very short amount of time. And in beginning it's like, well, i want time, freedom for me and I want this and that. And then now it's like I want that And I have to also make sure that I'm providing for these other people. They're in my world, man, and if they took a risk and a chance to come work for me because they did come on, they all took a chance to have your employees like, well, do I want to take this job or not? You know, do I trust you?
Kevin Wagstaff:I'll do you as a leader.
Matt Williams:Yeah, and they do. they buy into leaders and they buy into people. and same thing as, like Megan, you probably have two people that report to you at some level And you have, like, other employees around you and people that are working with you and they got to buy and entrust to you too, you know, and so there's a whole trust relationship that has to happen. And so you got to get up every day and go, okay, why am I doing this? And sometimes it gets really big and really responsible.
Mike Wagstaff:You're building a culture, you're building an organization. You know, in the beginning we were just building a product, yeah, and that felt like the easy part. It's like okay, here's the software, here's it does the things, and it doesn't well and it doesn't fast. And now, now we're, we're forming a culture.
Megan Lefebvre:How does our?
Mike Wagstaff:team feel? How do people interact with each other? Is everybody positive? Is everybody supporting each other when the times get tough, like we spend a ton of money? We got the whole team together in Breckenridge. We have developers in Colombia and Brazil that flew in from East East Coast and West Coast. That flew in just to build the bonds because that's valuable, right.
Pre-Roll:Yeah.
Mike Wagstaff:People are in the trenches, that's, you know, when the tough gets going. They're going to work better together, and so it is like, uh, it feels like a lot of pressure when companies grow, and you know whether it's from one person to two or you know whatever, two to 50, it's the same stuff.
Matt Williams:It is the same stuff And, i think, the smaller inspector companies because, like the average inspection companies put between one and five inspectors or something like that, if you're going to go from one to two, right, you're going to double your company. I think there's more pressure going from one to two and two to three than there is to go from, like you know, 15 to 16. And like 40 to 41 or 42 or 40, because the percentage you're like you're literally doubling your company versus growing like like a very small percentage, and that extra hire you bring in has more influence on the culture of your business than if you have the add the 40th employee, right, that they, yes, they influenced the company, not, but just not like the third, like the third person, because they're like a third of your company, right, and that one person's attitude matters more And, oh man, it's just, it's a big deal. I think the risk is greater when you're smaller trying to grow than when you're bigger and making decisions.
Kevin Wagstaff:Yeah, you probably remember that phase because you're inspecting and you're needing to generate business to feed that inspector and the next inspector. So you're doing double duty, Oh and you also have to be customer service, sales marketing, legal HR, yep, all that stuff, taxman, all that stuff, yeah, yeah.
Matt Williams:Absolutely Right. Yeah, that's it, and it'd be very beginning. You guys have been through that same phase too. In the very beginning it's like I'm doing it all, i'm answering the phone and pretty quickly realized I can't do it all. And so then, yeah, you had to start outsourcing and adding people in and it just it becomes this huge machine. But I do think finding your motivation so you don't wash out, is because when times get tough, man, that's when you have decisions to make And you're going to make better decisions.
Matt Williams:If you are really connected to why you're doing this, i think that's really really good, really good. Guys, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been, um, this was a blast. This was great. Yeah, i've really enjoyed this. Yeah, this was fantastic. If people want to get a hold of you, spectoracom, is that where you guys are at, and you can go in the green chat bubble and type in and get to customer service right away. Can you chat bubble if you're not already signed up? You can. Okay, you can chat if you're already signed up. If they want to get a hold of one of you guys, is that just the best way to do it, or is there an email or anything else for them to get a hold of you on.
Mike Wagstaff:People. yeah, you can always email us just our first names at spectorcom. There we go. Yeah, chat bubble, of course, and then if people want to request demos, they can also do it through chat bubble. They can set up time one on one with some onboarding specialists just to see if it's a good fit. Get a demo, see if it kind of fits and needs your business Something that we're always happy to do.
Matt Williams:That's fantastic. All right, guys. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks.
Megan Lefebvre:Matt, thank you.
Pre-Roll:You've been listening to Empire State of Mind. For the home inspection industry and beyond, our passion is to elevate the home inspection industry with mindset, strategy and tools. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review For more, follow on Instagram at IEB coaching and don't forget to hit the website at wwwiebcoachingcom. Learn about IEB at no cost and have all your questions answered on our open call once a month on the third week of the month. We hope to see you there and we'll see you next time on The Empire State of Mind.