Maximizing Business Efficiency: Growth Strategies and Diversification Insights from the Inspection Industry

What if your business could run as efficiently as a nuclear research facility? It's time to hear the stories of Randy, Lee, and Katie, as they share their personal experiences and growth strategies within the inspection industry. This episode is packed with fascinating connections between the atomic bomb, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and scientific research facilities like Y12, K25, and Sandia Labs, providing us with powerful insights on achieving maximum business efficiency.

Have you ever felt hesitant to ask for help in your business? We get candid about the importance of networking, learning, and embracing the power that comes with borrowing brains. It's not a sign of weakness, but a strength that can lead to an abundance mindset, growth, and opportunities. Our guests also share how diversifying services and creating reoccurring revenue streams can increase your ticket prices and margins. We dive into discussions about the benefits of running a home service company over a home inspection company and how promoting exterior pest services can provide a profitable business model.

Finding the right team for your venture is paramount, and we're here to guide you on how to create an environment that allows your team to thrive. We cover the importance of leveraging acquisitions and networking for strategic growth and how to set up effective systems and processes for success. Additionally, we focus on the significance of investing in staff training and finding the right 'Who' for your business. This episode is chock-full of advice, insights, and personal stories that you won't want to miss!

Contact IEB -
- web: www.iebcoaching.com
- email: support@iebcoaching
- social: @iebcoaching


Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
- IG: @the.matthew.williams

Transcript

Intro Pre Roll: 0:02

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 Helping 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: 0:37

Welcome to the show. Today is a great day, a fun episode. I've got a few guests on the show. I know our intro says it's for the inspection industry and beyond and today we are going to get into the and beyond just a little bit. So I'm super excited about that. But first things first. I was going to go around the room here and let's do some introductions. I'm going to start over here on my right with Randy. Randy, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Randy Cottrell: 1:02

Yeah, my name is Randy Cottrell, Blue Crab Inspections Hopefully with the name you guys figured it out From Baltimore, Maryland. We've been around since 01. Current inspection size or organization, if one will. We currently have a total staff of 10 full time, that's six full time inspectors with ancillary assistant running around like right on pickups, things like that, operations and client care and then growth things like that. Additionally, we have one full time pest control operator as well.

Matt Williams: 1:35

Oh, that's fantastic.

Lee Rubel: 1:36

Yeah, all right, so, lee. So I am Lee Rubel from Oak Ridge, tennessee. It's a suburb just outside of Knoxville. We started in September of 2019. Right now, we are a single inspector shop me, and we also have a pest control business, and then we have one office personnel, and I'll let you introduce her.

Matt Williams: 1:58

Well, your office person is your better half, from what I understand.

Lee Rubel: 2:01

She is. She is my best half.

Matt Williams: 2:03

The best half, that's right, and that is your wife, katie. Katie, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Katie Rubel: 2:07

Katie Rubel handled both the operations for Benton Ale and Q36. And yes, we are out of the Oak Ridge, Knoxville area.

Matt Williams: 2:19

Nice, all right. So Benton Ale is your home inspection company, and Q what Q36. So why Q36? That's a little bit of a unique name.

Katie Rubel: 2:28

It's a nod to the atomic city that we live in the Y12 facility that is there and the K25 facility that is there, that create, helped create the atomic bomb.

Matt Williams: 2:41

Okay.

Lee Rubel: 2:41

X-Tan is also there, yeah, national labs.

Matt Williams: 2:44

Okay, so I'm in Albuquerque, new Mexico and Los Alamos and all of that area is also connected to the engineering and then White Sands Missile Range, where they did some of the testing of that as well. That's crazy. I didn't know we had that connection.

Lee Rubel: 2:57

Yeah, yeah. So we did all the uranium work and then we sent it out there to test.

Matt Williams: 3:02

Oh wow, so I have not seen that movie. There's a movie Oppenheimer that just I have not have you guys seen it yet?

Lee Rubel: 3:06

I haven't seen it yet. It's coming out. I can't wait. Oh, it's not out yet.

Matt Williams: 3:09

Maybe that's why I haven't seen it. I saw the previews and I was like I want to see that because, like it's kind of in my backyard and it's in your backyard as well, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

Lee Rubel: 3:17

So what was the movie where they did the? I forget who was starring in it. They did the bomb test, but if you've seen when they shipped the uranium out there on the side of it it says Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That was the only non-to Oak. Ridge in the movie, but that's where they enriched all the uranium.

Matt Williams: 3:36

Oh, that's incredible. I didn't know that there was that connection there. That's amazing. Yeah, that's, my wife actually works at Sandia Labs there, which continues the further development of those types of engineering, of those weapons and stuff. All the stuff we all hope, no, we never have to actually use. Yeah, yeah absolutely, and they also do all kinds of the scientific research out there besides that. But yeah, the bombs that were dropped in World War II, yeah, that was a globally altering experience.

Lee Rubel: 4:05

Yeah, and I know some people that work in the nuclear industry and they're doing some health work from some of the spent products and it's pretty cool some of the stuff they're working on Unbelievable.

Matt Williams: 4:18

Yeah, it's amazing with this technology stuff, all the stuff they're doing out there, that's amazing. I didn't know we had that connection until right now, so that's really fun. So this is an interesting one because I know that we have different sizes of companies who are doing different things. We're trying to. All of us at the table are companies who are growing and have been growing and want to continue to grow, and so we were having this conversation. We're actually at the IEB Unite conference right now. So I got a question about this. Have you guys picked up anything so far that you've been like, wow, that is a really impactful moment that's happened for you at the conference?

Lee Rubel: 4:58

I'll throw something out there, two things. One was something Mark said, and it was talking about the. Let me get a flip here and look, the quality of your life is dependent on the questions, the quality of the questions you ask. That was so good. I love that one. And then also Rob Maloin threw out there. He was talking about complexity kills.

Intro Pre Roll: 5:26

And so.

Lee Rubel: 5:27

I'm like, okay, so you know. Then I leveraged Mark and I'm like, okay, what have I made this too complex, that I need to make simpler.

Matt Williams: 5:34

Do you think you have a tendency towards making it more complex? Some people do, you do Okay, and then some people have a tendency to try to make it too simple sometimes. And, katie, what are you more complex?

Katie Rubel: 5:46

Much more simple.

Matt Williams: 5:47

So maybe, to combine, you come up with a perfect mix.

Lee Rubel: 5:50

She's my rails. You know I'm the blue sky. You know 80% launch and my 80%, maybe 20%.

Intro Pre Roll: 6:00

No, no, no, no no stop there, stop there.

Lee Rubel: 6:04

And if you have somebody like that to keep, you keep your rails going or you just throw it out there.

Randy Cottrell: 6:10

Yeah, I tend to get a little crazy.

Lee Rubel: 6:12

You know if I feel like that that line in a house in Wonderland.

Randy Cottrell: 6:16

it's like I want to have like 100 crazy ideas before breakfast or lunch or whatever. That's definitely where my mind goes. And then I have those conversations and someone goes hold on, you wanted to do what it sounded right in my head when I said it out loud.

Lee Rubel: 6:35

I'm like you. I have those hundred crazy ideas, man, they just fly out.

Matt Williams: 6:39

Me too, and then I have to have somebody that goes, hey, that's a really dumb idea.

Katie Rubel: 6:45

Not, yet not yet way till next year?

Matt Williams: 6:47

Not yet not yet and way till next year is a super kind way of being like that was a really dumb idea.

Randy Cottrell: 6:52

But I think that mindset is not just important, but I'm going to say necessary. To be an entrepreneur, You've got to be able to think a little bit different or just not. Either not care about the risk or not even realize that there is risk.

Matt Williams: 7:09

Yeah, it's either totally ignorant or willful, like risking. Yeah.

Randy Cottrell: 7:14

Yeah, or because, again, if you are over, I don't want to say you don't want to hedge against it, but you do. But sometimes not knowing isn't too bad either. Yeah, ignorance is bliss. It's always hard.

Matt Williams: 7:26

Oh man, that could have gone really badly. Good thing it didn't so, randy, have you picked up anything at the conference so far that was impactful?

Randy Cottrell: 7:37

I'll tell you our special guest speaker, pat, and his last name.

Matt Williams: 7:43

Flynn, pat Flynn, I think yeah.

Randy Cottrell: 7:47

He was legit and honestly he showed up. He was very genuine, very open. I felt that the culture we have here at IEB and abundance mindset. He showed up with that mindset and everything. It was good to see someone sharing their experiences and it being very similar with our experiences, even in our industry and I don't know our listeners. You know he's yellow.

Matt Williams: 8:17

Yellowbird is a property investment group, right, yeah, I loved how he even shared his failures with like brutal transparency. Like he's like here's the numbers and he puts it on the screen and you're like whoa, Like you just put that on the screen.

Lee Rubel: 8:32

That was a big hit. He took a big hit.

Matt Williams: 8:35

He took a huge hit and he was like here's what happened, here's what went wrong. And he says people who walk around peacocking all the time are probably you know they're not telling you the whole story and like for him to be. I mean, you know he's talking like tens of millions of dollars worth of like stuff and, like you know, for us here sitting at the table it's far beyond what we're currently working with and yet he's so brutally transparent. I loved that about it.

Randy Cottrell: 8:57

You know, but you asked me the question. I don't want to dodge it because I obviously think it's important for our listeners to know who Pat was. But the cultural video that he shared with us game changer you know, on multiple levels, because I feel that, as we are building things right, you know, what I'm building is just an idea in my head. How do I get this idea, get this picture out of my head and get other people to be able to see it? You know, and that was helping. I could see that. You know, the video that he shared with us, that really was like a too many video. Here's what a yellow bird is all about, and you know this is what we're trying to make happen. I could see that being leveraged in recruitment of talent or just, you know, recruitment of referral partners, you know investors yeah, 100%.

Randy Cottrell: 9:50

I feel like it would. You know, that's something that's definitely going to be executed in my organizations. I can tell you that right now, I felt it to be impactful to where we are now telling our own story, if that makes sense.

Lee Rubel: 10:01

Yeah, absolutely so. I liked his website where he put up there and he had his mission and vision, as well as the video, and I've already sent something to our website. Guys, hey, you know, here's our mission, mission values, and you know in VVC, and you know, hey, I want to put this on the website. Here's what this guy looks like how can. I get this up there quick.

Randy Cottrell: 10:19

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it was yeah.

Matt Williams: 10:25

Katie, what did you find? Anything that stood out to you that was impactful so far at the conference?

Katie Rubel: 10:30

Yeah, to take care of yourself. Usually, you're the last person to worry about yourself. You have all these things pulling at you, and if you can take care of yourself, then you have the ability to grow your business or take care of your employees, or to get to put into the next venture. Yeah, so yeah well, even physically.

Matt Williams: 10:56

There was that gal that even shared her story and she was like I lost a hundred pounds and she's probably a hundred pounds now, like you know she she lost a hundred pounds last year over that exact principle. She's, like you know, I've been neglecting myself and then she was like you know what I took care of myself, my brain fog was better, I was clear minded, she had more energy to give and like, took care of herself, allowed her to be able to help and produce better for her own life and even the people around her. That was such an inspirational three minutes or whatever that she shared. But it's like man, that's such a driving point that taking care of yourself really does matter.

Randy Cottrell: 11:30

Yeah, there's a reason. The flight attendant says put your air mask on first, then help someone else, it's so true, yeah, it is so true. She's in.

Matt Williams: 11:38

They say that, yeah, absolutely. Cause you got to like the lifeguard or whatever, you got to be strong and for your stand and so that that gal that shared that story was like last year's IEB Unite influenced her, impacted her in such a way that life changing changes she made.

Randy Cottrell: 11:50

How are you going to help others if you're not helping yourself?

Matt Williams: 11:53

Yeah, absolutely, you got to be a little bit selfish in that sense you know of like, no, I'm going to take care of me. So I'm strong and take care of others. Cause if you give away all your energy and all your time and focus and to everybody else, then you got nothing left for you. And then, yeah, man, you're not. You don't have anything left to give cause you gave it all.

Lee Rubel: 12:08

Is that really being selfish? No, I don't think it is.

Randy Cottrell: 12:12

It's being selfless. I think it's being yeah, it's really being a servant mindset.

Katie Rubel: 12:16

Just like you want to find a balance with your business, between sales and operations and service, you want to find a balance with your life, you know, family, friends, business, spiritual, whatever.

Matt Williams: 12:29

Yeah, you've got to find that. Yeah, you got to have that balance. That's really good. So what has IEB done for you guys and your company? And when you look back over the past time, I know that you know the Rubell's you guys joined IEB in 2022. Randy, I think you said you joined in 2017. So both of you guys have been here for a few years. You know, over the last few years of being part of this community, you know what, what, what. What has this impacted you guys?

Lee Rubel: 12:59

So I'll start off. So I think when we started, you know I had I always had a bunch of harebrained ideas. You know, okay, here we go and you know I, you know I started looking at the inspections and what we we subcontract to a termite inspector and so I'm like you know, this is crazy. I can make another hundred bucks if I bring the inspect the termite pest control in his house, yeah, and so then it's, you know, talk with the Department of Agriculture, figure out how to do it, and I can't do it. So and up.

Lee Rubel: 13:29

You know we ended up going out and looking for a pest control company. But you know, when I go into IIMB, you know I have this idea of how to, how to expand the business into different realms. And and then see, and you know, being the placebo and the pond, you've got all these big companies, and these big companies are starting to do that and some are already doing. It Really validates your ideas and it gives you a sounding board. You know, hey, what do you think about this? And you know a lot. You know Rob and Michelle, rob Maloin, and you know they've all been really good about sharing and saying no, you probably shouldn't, don't want to do that. You might want to look at this though, yeah, and you know. So that's great. It's a real validation of what we're doing.

Matt Williams: 14:12

Yeah, I love that. It's being able to have someone a few steps ahead of you. Yeah.

Lee Rubel: 14:16

Yeah, it's great.

Matt Williams: 14:17

Watch out for this pit. Watch out for this, this pothole.

Lee Rubel: 14:20

Yeah, I stepped in that and it messed me up oh yeah, okay, that's been great because it's kept us out of a few holes, yeah.

Matt Williams: 14:28

And you know, oh, it saved my bacon a number of times just running some things by some people and they were like yo, that's a dumb way to look at it and I'm like, oh yeah. Then we're like you're about to lose a lot of money.

Lee Rubel: 14:41

It's you know, if Katie misses it that you know they're pretty good at telling me.

Matt Williams: 14:45

He's like no, absolutely.

Randy Cottrell: 14:47

I mean, we only know what we know or what our imagination can let us conceive of. So I feel that one of the biggest things that I get out of IEB is that. I don't want to name drop play, but let's just say there's a lot of other organizations that aren't abundance mindset. You know they are quick. Anyone ask anyone who I don't think it's weak to ask for help or ask a question, and I I mean I think that that is, I think it's more strong.

Matt Williams: 15:17

I think it's takes more strength to humble yourself enough to ask for help. That's a stronger move.

Randy Cottrell: 15:22

That is the one thing that, honestly, like I feel like 44 years old, I shouldn't have to realize that asking for help, like I feel like I should have picked that up a little bit more. But again, there's a lot of other organizations in our industry that I, honestly, I don't even like associating with because, you know, when they get around, someone raises their hand or asks the questions on the social media, like they just get shit on and I don't think that's proper, like that's not okay.

Matt Williams: 15:47

It's not okay, and not okay.

Randy Cottrell: 15:49

Because no one got like you didn't get where you're at without someone helping you. But if you try to help someone else up like that, just so, I, I love the community, I love the abundance mindset, I love being able to you know, network with you. Know again people in Tennessee and, hey, what are you doing in your market that I'm not doing, that I should be doing?

Intro Pre Roll: 16:08

Yeah, right Like to me like.

Randy Cottrell: 16:10

I didn't even think of that. Let's just that word.

Katie Rubel: 16:14

And call me, I'll give you some help 100% Right.

Matt Williams: 16:17

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that a lot. I've backed those. Conversations happen in the hallways. I gotta say the content from the stage is always great, but I think I get more out of the hallway conversations at these events, chatting with people and making connections. And then you figure out like, oh, you're doing something, I'm trying to do, and then normally, like around here we have that abundance mindset, people to share the content, that, like here, we'll try this out, try this out, I tried this, it didn't work, but maybe it may work for you. And that everybody, all of a sudden the ideas are flowing and yeah, yeah, that's, you know.

Lee Rubel: 16:46

it's like five by five calls, you know. It's like who wants to write the script? It's like oh geez, this is the worst thing in the world.

Matt Williams: 16:53

Yeah.

Lee Rubel: 16:53

And you know so. I talked to a couple other inspection companies. They're like oh, here's our script.

Randy Cottrell: 16:57

Yeah.

Lee Rubel: 16:58

You know, and so it's like okay now, what excuse do I have to not do these yeah?

Matt Williams: 17:10

That's funny. And so both of you guys have mentioned this and this is interesting to me because I'm not doing this is pest control. Both of you guys are in the pest control space and you know, and, and so I teased we tease about it and in the beginning I said, hey, and beyond of just home inspection, both of you have pest control companies or pest control operations. I've often looked at that and wondered I see other companies around here doing it. So you guys are sometimes it's easy to look at, like the mega corp companies that are doing you know they have 100 inspectors and they're like well, yeah, of course you added pest control. You know, right, you can add whatever you want.

Matt Williams: 17:45

But let's, let's be real, like all of us sitting here at the table are in the average bracket size of of inspection companies. Most of them are like they're the typically one to four, maybe five inspectors, and that's the average company size in America, which means we know that the average audience listening is is think is that same bracket, and I think it's easy to discount great ideas that we're like well, that's what the big guys do. I'm not a big guy, you know, and right like oh, I'm just a small fry. I'm a placebo in this pond full of anacondas, you know and like massive machines we're chucking a truck.

Lee Rubel: 18:21

Yeah, right, yeah, you got two. So you're trucks and trucks, chucks and trucks.

Matt Williams: 18:24

You have a man in the van and a truck and a truck. Yeah, the man in the van who just handles past, yeah, and then I'm chucking the truck and you're doing the home inspection, right, yeah, so talk to me about this, because I think this idea of adding pest control seems like for a smaller company like all of ours seems out of reach. How did you guys get there? What did that look like? I need help.

Lee Rubel: 18:43

How do I do it? I like Katie talk to it. She's, she's really. I'll be honest with you, tell you she's the brains behind the pest control.

Matt Williams: 18:50

Okay, yeah. So Katie, tell us all those secrets and the ways.

Katie Rubel: 18:55

It's all about who you come across. Who comes across your path.

Matt Williams: 19:00

Oh, that's so true.

Katie Rubel: 19:02

It really is. And then when, being ready to move on an opportunity that is in front of you, even if you're not ready, because it's there.

Lee Rubel: 19:17

I think I was ready and she wasn't.

Matt Williams: 19:20

You're down for whatever though.

Intro Pre Roll: 19:27

Do you want?

Lee Rubel: 19:27

to yes, I started a negotiation. She's like I got a thousand ideas.

Matt Williams: 19:34

You're like pulling out the checkbook and she's like, hey, I heard about this idea.

Katie Rubel: 19:37

Yes, yeah, so we were doing home inspections and we were using we had this one termite inspector and he was great, he was available and he was also ready to retire, or seem like it, and it took a lot of courting him to let us buy his company.

Katie Rubel: 20:02

He really liked us and he wanted to sell his company, but it just took so much time. The other piece of that puzzle is that he had a technician who we knew and had gotten to know, living in small town America, who was very knowledgeable and wanted to do more and be more, just like us.

Matt Williams: 20:24

Okay.

Katie Rubel: 20:25

And so, putting all that together and us wanting to be a full service home inspection company, that that just led to the obvious Okay, how do we do this? How do we get him to sell his company to us and how do we start it off and make it profitable so that we're not just pulling in the home inspection financial money stream? We have more than one egg in our basket.

Lee Rubel: 20:55

Yeah Right, I kind of look at it as a stool, and you know, each business that we bring in, whether it's the home inspection, pest control, whatever it's a leg on the stool and so if one's down, you know the other businesses will help support that, and so that's the. I'm like okay, the market's going down, the market's going to crash, we're all going to die and you know all these chicken littles out there going we're going to do a recession.

Lee Rubel: 21:23

You were going, you know, and it's like what am I going to do? You know, I've got a wife and two kids to support.

Intro Pre Roll: 21:29

You know yeah.

Lee Rubel: 21:30

Yeah, so you know, I never envisioned myself outspreading for pests, but you know, I got certified and I do it now every now and then.

Katie Rubel: 21:38

Right, and this tech was just like us. He was willing to flex and pivot. Yeah Something we've learned in IEB and to pivot with us and flex with us. So yeah, that's awesome.

Matt Williams: 21:52

And so you have the guy that was retiring, or as the older gentleman, and you have an attack in addition to that.

Lee Rubel: 21:58

We have a tech in addition to that. His name is Zach. He does great work, phenomenal work. We met him just out, a few minutes ago, just a few minutes ago. Yeah, oh yeah, okay, he's here, I do too, yeah, so we wanted to bring him here because he's moving from a technician mindset to a to an owner mindset, because he owns part of the company now. And he's making that shift, great, but it's like, okay, so how do we give it even more momentum?

Lee Rubel: 22:25

You know that that rock is rolling down the hill, let's, let's, let's kick it and make it roll faster.

Matt Williams: 22:30

And so you know, the best way is to I be the conference and oh yeah, so yeah, this will throw some gas on your fire. Oh yeah, we hope we plan on it. Every time I hang out with these people there's gas on my fire.

Lee Rubel: 22:41

That's why I that's why I wanted to do it. You know I needed. I need my cup refilled.

Katie Rubel: 22:46

Yeah, you can apply everything that we get from here to almost any business. You really can.

Randy Cottrell: 22:52

So I kind of have a follow up question with that, because you started off saying you know it's important to recognize when people are coming into your world and you know being aware of potential opportunities. Do you think you would have recognized the pest control opportunity if you hadn't already been a member of IEB?

Matt Williams: 23:14

That's a good question.

Lee Rubel: 23:15

So yeah, because I tell there's a long pause there.

Matt Williams: 23:19

When there's that pause linger, you're like oh, I did a good one.

Lee Rubel: 23:22

I had to take about the timeline because, because I figured out, because I'm a numbers guy, so I have 20 some years IT background, so you know I'm a geek. So I, even before I jumped into IEB and so forth, I was what's my market share, how many? What's our transaction? What's our average cost for inspection? You know what are we getting and so you know I realized that I could get that extra 100 bucks. Well, you're 70 bucks because we're charging 100 and keeping 25 and giving the inspector 75. So you know good margin.

Lee Rubel: 23:56

Yeah right, yeah, so you know I could pull in another $75. Okay, so you know that takes that $567 inspection average fee and okay, so I'm not giving it all away now.

Matt Williams: 24:07

Right, yeah, you're keeping it.

Lee Rubel: 24:08

Yeah, and plus one way. The other thing that we found and I don't know if you found this, not because you have pest control is we have agents that come to us because we are full service. They call on the. Yeah, actually we have some that just text us. Here's the address, here's the customer. Yeah, set inspection up and they love it. You know, we just do everything.

Matt Williams: 24:27

Yeah, that does make a difference in my business too, so yeah. So, Randy, you got into pest control. How did that happen with that? Look like.

Randy Cottrell: 24:34

So yeah, I obviously increasing your ticket price is always important. You know, increasing your margins is always important. And we we subbed it out for about three, four years to two different companies again. And then there was about we kind of always had the idea, I mean we were subbing it out like 60, 65% on a home inspection we're getting a termite, but there's no margins on that.

Matt Williams: 24:59

Like there's right, there's, there's no, you sub it out. No, you're not really nothing there. You're doing it as a convenience, right yeah.

Randy Cottrell: 25:04

Even on the, the, the termite or you know, or WDI or even a pest inspection right, the margins are pretty low there. And the biggest challenge that we have and this is good, I'll get on a soapbox here real quick- I think there's a significant difference between a home inspector slash home inspection company and a home service company that focuses in on inspections.

Randy Cottrell: 25:29

I think there's a massive difference between that and we were really growing into a home inspection service company, if that makes sense. So, yeah, we wanted to diversify our income, exactly like you guys were saying, and we wanted to create more opportunities and and again, we, we the fact that we did sub it out. We, you know we kind of had a pretty good idea on what those margins would look like. But on the home inspection side, currently, as we're somewhat structured that people are only calling us for a home inspection or any other inspection related to the transfer of real property when, when they need us, when the house is actually you know. So then a client, what seven times? You know we were really relying on a lot of our referral partners or, you know, people who find us on the Google and things like that. We wanted to find a way to get reoccurring revenue Like that. Right, there is, I think, the missing key or whatever you know insert term here. You know that is still missing from that home inspection service industry.

Randy Cottrell: 26:29

You know there's no direct reoccurring revenue.

Matt Williams: 26:32

No, you're one and done with your every inspection. And they buy another house five or seven years from now. Yeah, five, or whatever your name.

Randy Cottrell: 26:37

No, but I want them to call me when they got spiders six months later.

Matt Williams: 26:40

Yeah.

Randy Cottrell: 26:40

I want them to call me when they you know, two years later, when they've got mice or whatever that challenge they might be having.

Lee Rubel: 26:46

So now, one thing that we've done is we offer a tell me what the wording here, because it's not free, it's promotional exterior pest services.

Katie Rubel: 26:56

a mouthful Thank you, katie.

Lee Rubel: 26:58

So yeah when we don't call it free, because then they don't, they're more likely to reject it. Yeah, but if it's free it's cheap. It's free, it's cheap, there's promotional, so there's some, some logic behind that and we got that out of PEB.

Matt Williams: 27:11

I mean, that's you know, the oh yeah, okay.

Lee Rubel: 27:13

So you know I plug for PEB because they've been great to us Pest empire builder.

Randy Cottrell: 27:17

Yeah, yeah very much.

Lee Rubel: 27:19

So yeah, so you know that residual income is huge, and, and, and we have a free lean source right there.

Randy Cottrell: 27:27

Does pest control care that interest rates went up? No, do you think pest control cares that there might be an inventory challenge in your market?

Lee Rubel: 27:35

So what I've said is people may not be buying houses, but they're going to want dead bucks. Yeah, it's so true.

Matt Williams: 27:44

It's a little more. It's not as cyclical as a real estate market, a little less dependent on recession. Now, now you know, if there's a hard recession they'll people will cut bills. They might cut the pest control and go like try to do it themselves for a little while yeah but they can't buy the same level of equipment and chemicals.

Katie Rubel: 27:59

So they don't have the same level of knowledge.

Matt Williams: 28:01

Yeah, the knowledge and how to handle it and do it. So you know. But it won't take long.

Lee Rubel: 28:05

They'll be like, okay, you might the pros back again, but yeah, what happens is they try it for a little bit one, and then they end up calling us back for a one time, and which is that's really nice, because it's it's a lot more expensive than monthly or quarterly, right?

Matt Williams: 28:21

So yeah, yeah so yeah, it hurts it hurts them in the long run.

Lee Rubel: 28:26

So we try to tell them that, but that's what happens.

Matt Williams: 28:29

That's what happens, yeah, so.

Lee Rubel: 28:30

Randy, I have a question for you. So the way that we did it is we bought the company and and Zach works with us, he handles the license. How did you overcome your state's license challenge?

Randy Cottrell: 28:43

I. It's a great question knows a guy?

Intro Pre Roll: 28:49

No, I know the answer.

Randy Cottrell: 28:50

I just wanted. I just need to find the right words on how to answer it. You know I would again.

Matt Williams: 28:55

You know I love a few honey on the. How about the Benjamin you like? I got a whole family of Benjamin's for you.

Lee Rubel: 29:04

In Tennessee. You have to be a certifying person and work under a no charter.

Matt Williams: 29:09

That's how New Mexico is. Yeah, for two years. Yeah.

Lee Rubel: 29:12

I'm like I'm 54 years old, I can't do that. I have a wife and kids, you got a kid have a college degree and I need that for pest control.

Intro Pre Roll: 29:19

Yeah.

Lee Rubel: 29:20

Yeah, I'm talking to the state ag and they're going. Oh, yes, that's, that's correct. You do, sir? Yeah, so the best way in is acquisition, like what you did, really, and and you know, fortunately we were friends with Zach already and and Zach was like yeah, man, I am on your bus. Yeah and you know, now he's, he's holding on the steering wheel, helping the steering.

Matt Williams: 29:37

Yeah, that's great, that's awesome.

Randy Cottrell: 29:38

So once upon a time I used to be in the field, right, yeah, and again, you know, like, sometimes crawl spaces get tight. You make friends, like you know, yeah, I did bump into a guy back in 2019 and again, the idea of having a pest control company really started to come into my head at that point in time. You know again, and I didn't execute till years later. Right, how we did, it was I myself and my operations manager. We went and and were able to get the barest minimum of licensing, all right, so, even if the things go sideways, we can always and do a pest inspection. Yeah, like, I don't have, like, the pest treatments or any of that stuff. Again, we didn't get those licenses. I at least want to be able to inspect because, again, the home inspection thing, that is priority number, that's my one thing, right, yeah, that's that we can't. Like, you know, we can't take too much off the ball.

Randy Cottrell: 30:29

I off the ball for that. And then, yeah, again, we hired a technician with 13 years of experience and we created an environment, you know, and said, hey, here's an opportunity for you to grow and build and develop. And you know, again it. So, again that was. But yeah, we wasn't really much of an acquisition, yeah. So, yeah, you found your who, 100% yeah.

Lee Rubel: 30:51

That's what it takes. We found out, we found our who you know. Well, it's the same concept growing your inspection business if you're gonna have an inspector.

Matt Williams: 30:57

You got to find the right who to but you can put out in the field and you got to find the right who in your office to run Operations. You gotta find the right who's and so the pest expanding into pest isn't really that much different, except there's a separate license, so you got to find a who with your licensing ready to go. I guarantee you that for the people who are listening, talk to your current pest inspector.

Randy Cottrell: 31:15

You're single. The two person shops yeah, they would might have a partnership opportunity.

Intro Pre Roll: 31:19

Wow, you really you really should be thinking again like If the people who you should be thinking.

Randy Cottrell: 31:25

This is a business conversation here. You know what I mean. This isn't a technician conversation. You should be looking for those opportunities. Like Kate was mentioned, yeah, you're not gonna see him unless you're unless you're actively trying to look for that. So, as you're driving down the road and you see the pest, truck.

Lee Rubel: 31:41

You look over in the driver's window and if he's gray hair and appeared, you know. Following Offered a buy him a cup of coffee, have a conversation. Yeah, it looks like he's like 65, 75, like if he's probably done working like.

Matt Williams: 31:53

He's like, well, I'm not sure, I'm still doing it, my phone keeps ringing. I had a friend of mine's landscaping company that way. It's like his phone just kept ringing. He's just like, well, I guess I keep doing it, you know. But then eventually he's like I don't want to do this anymore. And his phone kept ringing and so eventually eventually got old enough and tired enough. He's like, yeah, forget it. He hung it up, and then just there's guys in pest control that probably in the same boat.

Matt Williams: 32:10

They're kind of near the end of the like I don't need to do anything about it. I don't really want to do this, but the phone keeps ringing, so we were in. The opposite is.

Lee Rubel: 32:18

The guy that we purchased and we bought the company from. He didn't want to manage the company way, and he, you know he didn't want to manage the company and so, but he wanted to work. Yeah, so he actually still works when this, he's 70 years old and crawls in the crawl spaces. Wow, I'm like dude, you can have all those crawl spaces.

Matt Williams: 32:34

You want, I mean my 40s.

Lee Rubel: 32:35

I don't want to get in those.

Matt Williams: 32:39

A technician doesn't.

Randy Cottrell: 32:43

Doesn't have an entrepreneurial mindset at times. Yeah, you're actually Giving them a huge blessing by taking all of that off of their plate. Yep, if you don't want to have to worry about business development or you don't want to have to worry about, you know, some type of service recovery or any of that stuff, I got you. I'm gonna create a nice home for you and you're gonna be very comfortable and you're gonna make some money.

Matt Williams: 33:04

Yeah, yeah, that's a great partnership to get into. I love that.

Lee Rubel: 33:08

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's worked out great for us.

Matt Williams: 33:11

That's so good. I now I want to start a pest control company now. I'm inspired by this episode right here.

Katie Rubel: 33:17

Call katie, katie. Katie'll teach me everything.

Randy Cottrell: 33:19

I didn't know. Well, are you looking for an accountability partner? Is that a commitment? Oh man?

Matt Williams: 33:28

There might be a follow-up show. Hey, Matt, how'd you do on that?

Lee Rubel: 33:34

Yeah, you'll know, so so what's your next step? What are you gonna do today for your 90 day goal?

Matt Williams: 33:42

You guys turn it on me. No, no, no, I'm the one that asked the questions.

Intro Pre Roll: 33:47

That's how this goes.

Matt Williams: 33:50

Oh man, you know what I'm actually inspired. I'm actually gonna go look and see is there maybe somebody who in my market who is in that position where they're maybe at a place where they're ready to kind of take it back a seat, or maybe they don't want to keep working as hard as they are? I mean that have the licensing and everything. Man, I'm, I'm, I'm actually inspired by that and maybe there's some, but maybe there's just some a single man operator that is Very technician-minded, that's like, well, I want something different. So, yeah, I'm actually inspired to start looking for that. So, um, I'm gonna start looking, see what pops up, so I will.

Lee Rubel: 34:20

I will say that you know I couldn't do it by myself. I couldn't do it without katie. Oh yeah, she manages the operations for both sides and you know um without her and and not throwing zaks saying all jacks are doing. No, zach runs our pest control, katie runs the office and schedules and manages both our schedule. I follow the purple line and that's what's that. You know we joke about it.

Matt Williams: 34:43

Right your gps purple line.

Lee Rubel: 34:44

Yeah, gps purple line. Yeah, that's it.

Matt Williams: 34:47

No, that makes sense, right. I you have to operate. I have a great operations team.

Randy Cottrell: 34:50

So yeah, I would 100 piggyback on that, that. Oh, and I'm gonna tell, do not Take anything also on pest control or whatever, enter x unless you have operations Lockdown to some capacity.

Matt Williams: 35:04

Yeah, you got to have that running smoothly, yeah, because otherwise the customer experience is going to be terrible. Doesn't matter what your quality of product is, if, yeah, if your ops are are dialed in, then right, without the katies of the world. Doesn't matter how good of an inspector or sprayer you are, I don't matter, you're not even gonna get there. Yeah, because Katie, yeah, yeah, then if you don't have a good katie helping you, then you're, you're messed up. I that's.

Lee Rubel: 35:23

That's exactly right.

Matt Williams: 35:24

I got a michelle on my team. That's that way like I have a michelle that like if, if, if, if michelle doesn't do what michelle does, like we're all really gonna be hurting bad. I have a fully yeah right, we all got somebody in our team that's like got the the gears, and they understand dialing that in right. So kudos to the katies of the world and all the ops people in the world that help these companies run.

Katie Rubel: 35:43

I'll shout out to pee be an IE be because I was not a home inspector type person. I was not. I had no knowledge of pests at all whatsoever um. But when I, when we first joined IE be, um, everyone was so extremely supportive I was afraid it was a cult, but it was not.

Katie Rubel: 36:08

And being a woman in this industry too. Um, and and not having any knowledge of the two areas, you know, um, we've had so much support and encouragement from other people to do, um, whatever we've, you know, set our minds to do, or whatever lee has set his mind to do, and it's really just let it's. Let me find myself a little bit amongst all of these things that aren't in my um realm of Normality. So, um, we've learned so much to how to do it, how to make it easier, how to make it fun, how to look at it in a different way, how to look at it at the same way that we looked at home inspection. So I will definitely say that I don't think I would have felt so comfortable taking on starting a new business like Pest without the support of a large group of people like this.

Matt Williams: 37:10

Sure it takes a tribe. It does take a tribe. And this community, it's very encouraging and helpful and I mean I can't say I would have grown as big as I did as fast as I did without it Two years ago. It was two years ago. I came to IAB and it was me and my wife in the back row with a laptop computer running our company while nobody else was in there doing it.

Matt Williams: 37:30

And I was like you know, I'm laughing, I know, because that's what happens and I'm answering phone calls and text messages and booking stuff and we're running the whole show from the back of the thing with our laptops open and nobody else is doing it. And we're like, what are these guys doing? And I was like, and how do I get on board with that? You know, yeah, and so now my wife sits out by the pool, you know, and I'm in here doing podcast recording and I got a whole team of people running operations and inspectors out in the field and everything else. And it's only really because I don't know. I know that I could not have gotten as far as could in the last two years without a community of people cheering me on and holding me accountable, even on this stupid podcast. But that's what it takes. It takes people like I go and hold on and next time Randy sees me he's gonna be like where's your pest control company?

Lee Rubel: 38:13

And I'll be like uh, I'm still waiting on that thing you're gonna do today to set yourself up for your 90 day goal for your pest control company.

Matt Williams: 38:20

I know, I know, I know.

Katie Rubel: 38:22

You gotta have us back in 90 days.

Matt Williams: 38:23

Yeah, I know sounds like we're gonna have to have a reunion and talk about how we launched our pest control company.

Intro Pre Roll: 38:29

Oh goodness.

Matt Williams: 38:29

Ooh, all right, guys. Well, I'll tell you what this has been a fantastic episode. I've really enjoyed this, and so we're gonna wrap it up here before you try to hold me accountable to anything else. So let's go around the room real quick and we'll just start with you, randy. Randy, if someone's getting in touch with you, what's the best way to get a hold of you or your company?

Randy Cottrell: 38:46

Yeah, obviously I'm on the social medias.

Matt Williams: 38:50

Yes.

Randy Cottrell: 38:51

You know again. You can easily find me that way, but email is always the best way for me. Okay, randy, at bluecrabinspectionscom, or feel free to call I don't mind If I don't pick up, just leave me a voicemail or 443-356-6605.

Lee Rubel: 39:08

All right, lee, so I'm on social media as well. Bentnailtn, you're always welcome to email me at lee at bentnailtncom. All right, you can grab my cell phone number, text me. It's probably the easiest way because I'm generally doing home inspection or pest control.

Matt Williams: 39:25

Gotcha, yeah, all right, and Katie.

Katie Rubel: 39:28

Yeah, probably text or phone call 865-482-4452.

Matt Williams: 39:35

That's awesome. All right guys. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks, Matt, appreciate you.

Katie Rubel: 39:39

Thank you.

Intro Pre Roll: 39:40

Thank you. 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.