Unlocking Potential through Neuroplasticity, Avoiding Outcome Bias, and Embracing AI in Business

Ever wondered how you could turn rest into a competitive advantage? What about looking at business growth as an extension of your personal growth journey? Join me and Mark Hummel, the CEO of IEB, as we traverse through the fascinating concept of neuroplasticity and its vital role in overcoming biases. We discuss the power of rest in fostering new thoughts and habits, and how it can drive business growth. By understanding your brain's capacity to change, you can unlock a whole new world of potential.

Diving deeper, we question the notion of outcome bias: How can understanding your successful processes juice up your results? Can you dodge the trap of outcome bias by being more thoughtful about what's working for you? We bring in insights from both large and small companies, and stress the importance of applying and testing for outcome bias across various operational aspects, from systems and processes to business models and marketing plans.

Finally, we dissect the often-overlooked aspects of business - transparency, vulnerability, and community building. Hear straight from Mark about the power of building real relationships in the inspection industry, and how seeking advice with an open heart can bring about a sea-change in both your personal and business growth. We conclude our dialogue with a peek into the future, discussing how AI is already easing up our lives and business operations. And yes, we also chat about my Substack blog and the upcoming Fall Masters Mind event. So gear up for an enlightening exploration!

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


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

Transcript

Matt Williams: 0:00

On today's episode we're hanging with Hummel and we're going to talk about neuroplasticity and how to overcome your bias.

Intro: 0:09

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: 0:46

Welcome to the show. I'm so glad you tuned into this episode. Today we are hanging with Hummel. Mr Mark Hummel, the CEO of IEB, is with us today. Hey Mark, how are you doing this afternoon?

Mark Hummel: 0:59

What's up, brother? I'm doing awesome and just excited to dive into some of this stuff with you.

Matt Williams: 1:06

Yes, so I love. There's a few things that you say. There are like phrases that you say that are like Hummel catchphrases, and one of them that you say that I love so much is that business growth is a product of personal growth. So let's talk about that for a minute. What are you learning right now? What's going on in your personal growth space that affects business growth?

Mark Hummel: 1:28

Yes, man, I just absolutely love that concept that your business growth and we're all here to grow business in some form or fashion we get stuck right and when we start to analyze that, it's usually because there's not a lot of personal growth going on. So your business growth is always a product of your personal growth. And, to answer your question, like one thing I'm just kind of obsessed with right now is understanding the human element of growing a business, right? Okay, the truth is is there's a lot of things that happen that if we could just take ourselves out of the equation, it would probably be easier.

Matt Williams: 2:08

Oh yeah, I get my own way, so much.

Mark Hummel: 2:10

Yep, yep. Well, we can't do that. And so one thing I've just been kind of diving really deeply into really for this whole year. Actually, I'll back up a second and I'll tell you guys, one of the ways I keep myself growing is I pick a few topics and stick with them for the year. And so for me this year it's CEO development, it is team development and it is behavior and habits. Those are the things that I'm diving deep into in my daily studies and different things like that. Okay, so that's the backdrop. So what I'm learning right now is the idea that neuroplasticity big fancy word for simply saying growing new ways to think or growing new habits right, changing your mind, changing your brain more precisely only happens when we're resting. So neuroplasticity, or new thoughts, new habits, new behaviors, only happens in periods of rest or sleep. And so here's what I've kind of concluded from that and what I'm kind of using and coaching and exploring with people. Rest is a competitive advantage, okay.

Mark Hummel: 3:21

And a lot of people are not taking advantage of it.

Matt Williams: 3:25

So neuroplasticity that's a fancy word I like that. I'm gonna add that to my vocabulary. Yeah, and so neuroplasticity, you're making new pathways in your brain and rest is the advantage. So what is the impact? Like, why does rest do that for your brain? Because I would think, like, exercise helps you build muscles, exercise helps you grow, so doing activity is what would help you grow in this area. But you're saying rest is what helps you grow in this area.

Mark Hummel: 3:53

Yeah, well, I mean, it's one factor, right, and so the truth is is when we're very passionate about growing a business or when we're just super busy for any reason really us you know, these go getter types of entrepreneurship and newers and all of us out here in the industry who really wanna see something grow out of what we're doing essentially we all kind of, in some form or fashion, apply the same model, which is I'm going to push as hard as I can for as long as I can and make things happen, right, yeah, and that's the best case scenario for a lot of people Below.

Mark Hummel: 4:27

That would be the people that are not very clear and they don't even know where to push, but we'll save that for another episode. So a lot of times, what people do is they end up redlining, as we call it. So think about your engine. Right, like on your car, you're just pushing the gas as hard as you can, whether your car is actually moving or not, and at some point the RPMs are gonna be so high it just starts to rev out, it's gonna redline, and you know what happens if you do that for too long, right?

Matt Williams: 4:54

Yeah, you're gonna break the car or the engine or burn it up. I mean you can't run that level of heat for that long.

Mark Hummel: 5:00

That's true 100%.

Matt Williams: 5:02

But, man, I've got to tell you, when I started my company, there was a season where I was redlining it, like I was pushing hard by myself, trying to get enough money together to be able to hire a team, and I was building systems and processes in the background, and sleep was not something that I spent a lot of time on, I was just pushing and pushing and pushing. Like you say, it was like brute force, it's like I'm gonna make this happen, and it was just kind of that process. So I'm interested to hear what you're talking about, because I know that what I did. It was actually I was on the edge of burnout at one point, a couple points in time in growing the company where I was not able to sustain it and I was having a hard time. So talk to me more about this, because next time I get into a growth phase I don't want to burn out. So what?

Matt Williams: 5:49

is this the plastic neurology of all this.

Mark Hummel: 5:53

Yeah. So the first thing I'll say is what you just explained is normal, right, and we do have seasons where we need to push really hard, and that's okay. We are going to have seasons where we get a little less sleep and have to push hard and retired and those kind of things, but it needs to be a season. It's not the model that you follow all the time, right, and so I've had seasons like that too. One that comes to mind is in a previous life I was an operations manager for an EMS agency and lots and lots of high level responsibilities, 24 hour operations, and I was a full time student earning my MBA, and for about almost two years I got about four hours of sleep per night and it was not a time that I remember a lot of details from.

Matt Williams: 6:43

Yeah well what's funny is, I think, like we can make comments inside of our own industry now and be like it's not like you're saving lives, come on, man, but in EMS you're literally saving lives emergency medical services, right. So I think it's probably easier to justify even like well, no, if I don't do my job, people are going to die, like literally yeah, whereas like as an inspector, I mean yeah, okay, maybe somebody might die, I don't know. But, like with EMS, I can see how the justification for that is so easy to do. Yeah, I did it without justifying it. I was just didn't sleep much and got stuff done, yeah.

Mark Hummel: 7:19

Well, the truth is, is both of those have meaning, right? Whether it's running systems that ultimately save lives or it's running an inspection company, whatever is meaningful is meaningful. So here's the thing, man, we redline, we push really hard. And then there's a point of diminishing returns right, and we all know what this feels like, where it actually takes more work to get less results. But we're stubborn creatures, so we just keep pushing hard, keep pushing hard, force it, trying to force the outcome and get less and less return.

Mark Hummel: 7:56

And that's when we start to find ourselves in burnout. That's when we start to find that we are unclear about things. That's when we start to sometimes even hate what we do, and it's typically a product of pushing too hard for too long without some purposeful rest. And just to add one more layer here, when we're talking about the mind, the science is saying that neuroplasticity that fancy word, or the ability to create new neuro pathways, or new ways of thinking, new habits, new behaviors, only happen when we're resting, right? We kind of mentioned that. So if that's true, then we're pushing all the time, we're getting new experiences, we're being inundated with input and all kinds of data and information and different things like that. But if our mind is not slowing down and does not have the ability to actually do something with that, then we kind of stunt our growth, right? Oh interesting, we get into these little burnout loops where we start to sense that we're burned out get frustrated.

Mark Hummel: 9:07

Maybe we get a little bit of a break, or maybe we step away, or maybe we just lead with anger. A lot of people actually do that. They start getting results through anger and frustration.

Matt Williams: 9:16

Yeah, that's where you get that grumpy home inspector, that grumpy electrician or that grumpy whatever technician you're working with, right? Yeah, they're probably kind of burned out and like forcing it for so long? Yeah, come on, we've all been there at some point in time. Yeah, we start pushing it out and we will be again.

Mark Hummel: 9:33

Right, right, yeah, and we will be again, but armed with the knowledge that what we're supposed to do is really focus on what we refer to as the rhythm of creation. There's a rhythm to creation, and that means thought creation, that means business creation, that means apply this concept to anything. There's a period to push hard and work. There's a period to rest. We're designed that way in our mind, so our mind literally needs to be turned off, slow down, step away from what we're doing, so that it can begin to process and build new things. And that, my friend, is the competitive advantage if you can bake that into your normal routine, because a lot of people are just simply not doing it.

Matt Williams: 10:21

And so is there like a scientific number, like percentage or time, or like what's the sweet spot on rest, yeah, Good question.

Mark Hummel: 10:34

Yeah, I mean we could get into all kinds of specifics like how much should you sleep, I mean, how many days should you work, like there's a lot of things like that, but the truth is it's a lot less than people want to admit. As far as how much you should be working, here's an example. The conventional wisdom is that people really have the ability to focus, like deep level focus, for about 90 minutes twice a day. So if you're looking at the average worker and you're kind of doing some math and you're getting some return on the worker, it's like oh, wait a minute, so only three hours out of an eight-hour workday. Are they actually even capable of being productive with thought? And then when you layer on top of that all of the distractions and tasks switching and things that happen, the actual productivity time is much lower than that for most people.

Matt Williams: 11:28

Well, and it's not three hours straight, right, like, correct. Yeah, I don't think it's possible to focus that hard on something for three hours. So what is it like? An hour at a time or an hour and a half at a time is what you're saying.

Mark Hummel: 11:40

Yep, 90 minutes is what they say. So the truth is, you can learn to extend that, like you can train your mind to be able to focus for longer periods of time. But again, if you're exhausted and you've got a lot of things going on, you're focusing on a ton of things that all feel important. I mean, it's just another way to kind of redline and burn yourself out really quickly. Yeah, so this is like a really high-level view of some very detailed conversation, right, right? So when I get into these kind of conversations, I always want to kind of circle back to what the heck do you do with this information?

Intro: 12:16

And I mean we're talking about building home inspection companies.

Mark Hummel: 12:18

We're not brain scientists here, but the truth is this information is valuable for building a home inspection company because as you're going through your business building journey, you had a lot less roadblocks. If you're growing through insight rather than growing through pain, yeah, yeah, that is very true, yep, and yeah, okay.

Matt Williams: 12:42

And so one thing I was like to talk to you about, too, every time, is, like what is your mindset shift? Right, like we, if people have noticed the hanging with Hummel episodes have a few common themes, and that's one of them too is what is a mindset shift, because that's something we're always talking about inside of IEB. What is the mindset shift that you're currently seeing in the industry, or you're having conversations with some of our members and groups?

Mark Hummel: 13:04

Yeah, well, it's something actually that we're trying to bring into the industry Excuse me, bring into the industry and it's a concept called outcome bias, right? So outcome bias is this psychological concept from psychology, this concept where we kind of get fixated on the outcome of something, and a lot of times it could be a relationship or what have you in the psychology side of things. But we're seeing it in home inspections tied to things like sales, like selling inspections, getting more business, bringing in more revenue, and so, as we went through the last couple of years, we saw a lot of companies with outcome bias. Okay, here's an example of what that looked like Everything is going well, money is coming in, so things must, we must be doing things Right. The outcome is what I want, so the process must be perfect. You know, maybe it's not perfect, but I'm happy with it either way, because the results, yeah, the outcome is what I want. So, yeah, yeah, who cares about how I got here right, that's right.

Matt Williams: 14:09

Or you think that my outcome, my path, is the best path because I'm getting the results that I want? That's a big one.

Mark Hummel: 14:13

Yeah, yep, and we actually you could apply that for people who are looking for a way to do it and we actually. You could apply that for people who are looking at larger companies. Thinking that we see that a lot too is wow. I mean, they're a big company, so they must be doing everything right. Their outcome is this they must have all that nailed down. No, most of them don't. They don't right. Works in progress Yep.

Matt Williams: 14:41

Well, and then even then, when you hang around other companies, sometimes you're going to be a mentality with bigger companies where they look down at a smaller company and they're like, well, they're not doing it right. Hmm, yeah, I don't know. I mean like there can be like comparisons of the size of the company and think, well, it's bigger, you must be doing it right, and if it's not as big, then you're not doing it right and that's not necessary. And that can come from both sides, like I've seen it on both sides of the aisle on that conversation.

Matt Williams: 15:04

And I think we can relate to like the outcome, bias and desired result of what we were talking about this a while back about. You know marriage, right, like in relationships, so it's easy to be like well, I met my wife in February, I proposed in July, got married October 20th, all in the same year. I've been married for 21 years. You know that's fantastic, right? Oh my gosh, the outcome is what I want Everybody should meet and get engaged and married in less than 12 months. You know, because obviously the outcome is the same. But but then you go and you look and like well, some people have much longer processes of dating and then getting engaged and getting married and they also have very successful marriages that last a long time. Mm, hmm, so I think it's easy to, yeah, like, I can easily be like oh, yeah, just do it quick because that's the best way, and I know it's the best way because it works so well for me, and like I have a successful marriage, right Because of that.

Matt Williams: 15:57

And somebody else would be like, well, take your time, you know. And it worked for me because, and same thing it's. I think it's the same thing. Like I think in my inspection business, right Like I, my marketing strategy is different than everybody else's right now, you know why? Because that's my personality, that's who I am, that's what I like to do, and I could tell everybody just go do what I do, and you're going to get the same results that I'm going to get. It's not necessarily true, because what works in Albuquerque, new Mexico, where I'm located, may not work in Phoenix, and it may not work in LA and it may not work in Denver, you know. So it's like, yeah, I think I think you're right, like I can look at my outcomes and say, well, my processes are just better than everybody else's and that's why. But that's not true.

Mark Hummel: 16:35

Yeah, yeah. And it's one of those places, too, where, if the outcome is not what you want, you are already looking at the process and it's like okay well let's change it, let's fix it, let's do this Like all the work goes into it.

Mark Hummel: 16:48

It's where we really get in trouble is when the outcome is, where the outcome is the desired outcome, where it's not prompting us to go take a look at the process. And so what we've been doing in IEB is we've been talking to our larger companies and asking them hey, can you go test for outcome bias in your company? And this is really interesting, actually, and I'd encourage everybody to do this with their own level of thinking wherever they are in business, right, single man shops all the way up to the largest inspection companies in the history of the world are in IEB, and all of them have different levels of outcome bias in different parts of the business. And so first is, we have to just acknowledge that it exists, and that it can get us in trouble right, yep, yep.

Mark Hummel: 17:37

Where it can get us in trouble the most is where we just love the. We fall in love with the outcome and we don't spend time understanding what we're doing right. So, matt, for example, you have an awesome marketing plan that fits your personality, fits your market Yep, but that's cool, that's great. But if you didn't understand why it was successful, then as soon as there's a market shift, or maybe a certain percentage of your agents leave the market and new people come in, like something's going to go downhill in a hurry, right? Yep, absolutely. You need to go back to the drawing board and try to figure out. Oh my gosh, what happened. We thought we were doing everything right, and we see this all the time. People don't understand what they're doing well, and then, when there's a shift, it's no longer working, so they don't know how to pivot. So outcome bias can get you in a lot of trouble. So how do you test?

Matt Williams: 18:29

that, because you mentioned going back and testing it. What are some ideas on that?

Mark Hummel: 18:35

Yeah, so here we go. So outcome bias is easy to test for, super easy to test for. So I would encourage people to apply this to their systems or processes, or even their business model, their marketing plan, anything you want to kind of better understand in your business or in your life you can apply this to. So the way we know we're tied to the outcome more than we are. The process is if we can explain to you the desired result, but we can't explain how to get there. So and I don't mean like, my desired result is 100 inspections, so I'm going to pick up the phone or go places and try to get inspections.

Mark Hummel: 19:18

That's not the level of detail I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is you need to be able to completely deconstruct your process in a conversation and then build it back up so that somebody can understand it. If you can't properly do that, if you don't understand your own processes to that level, then there's a good chance that you're more focused on the outcome than the process. And that's test number one right Is can I properly explain what it is that we're working on to somebody who wouldn't understand it?

Matt Williams: 19:53

OK. And so then, what's the danger? Right Like? Help me understand that. The danger of like, you know what I'm getting, the outcome I want. Who cares? I don't care about my processes. Like, I'm happy, their numbers match on the revenue. My balance sheets look good, I got my like everything's why. Who cares on my processes? I'm getting the right outcome.

Mark Hummel: 20:11

Hey, if there's somebody listening to and they're thinking like that, first off I applaud you for everything going well, but we want to keep it that way, right, and what we know is that the markets don't stay the same forever, and so, just like we want to understand how to do things properly and get the desired outcome, sometimes we find that we just kind of get lucky and get the desired outcome, and so imagine a world where you could kind of be 60% to 70% efficient with your processes and get your desired outcome right. Yeah, ok, so that's the inspection industry a year, maybe 18 months ago. Ok. Now imagine a world where everything has shifted and it now takes you 80% efficiency with your process to get the same outcome.

Intro: 21:01

Mm.

Mark Hummel: 21:01

OK, ok, well, there's less volume, so now we need to be more efficient, catching less inspections. Yep, that was a big shift in our industry. And when that happened, people suddenly went oh my gosh, I'm doing the same things that we're working before, but I'm not getting the same result, even adjusted for the market. And the truth is they probably didn't have a good process to begin with. They were just happy with the outcome, ok, and so they had the great outcome. They focused on that. They didn't understand why it was a good outcome and then, when things shifted, it no longer had the effect. They couldn't explain why.

Matt Williams: 21:39

So for me, if someone maybe not me, maybe there's somebody else I'll say somebody else. So let's say there's a listener right now. That's like hey, listen, the outcome's great. Like I don't care about the process, I'm getting there, I'm getting there. But I think what I kind of hear you saying is that that's great as long as it's working, but when it breaks, you don't know how to fix it because you don't know what got you there. Right, Like when your outcome starts dipping if you don't know your processes, you don't know how you're getting there, you don't know what to change, you don't know what to work. Right, yeah, like when it's working, it's working, but when it breaks, you're stuck, Because you're like well, I don't know how I even got it to work the first time. That's it.

Mark Hummel: 22:14

Yeah, the truth is, man, this is a really easy concept to understand, right? Like OK, yeah, dumb Mark, I get it. Like, so if I'm focused on the outcome and don't really understand my process, maybe I need to do better with that. Like, that's super easy to internalize. What's not super easy is putting action behind it.

Mark Hummel: 22:33

Like spending time writing out your process and looking for the pivot points or the fail points in your process, and so this is called systems level thinking. Right, when I get away from outcome bias and get towards systems level thinking. So when we're thinking growth, for example, get more inspections, get more inspections well, OK, that's cool, but more is not a real goal. So we've got to actually have a good goal there, and if we've gone that far, we've got to have a good process for reaching the goal. What a lot of people do in small businesses is they just start trying things rather than writing out the entire process from start to finish and identifying the pivot points where things could fall apart. When we do that, if you're not getting your desired outcome, or even if you are, well, let's start with the first one first. If you're not getting your desired outcome, then you can take a look at your system and just analyze the pieces of it instead of throwing out the whole thing.

Intro: 23:33

Right, yeah, here's an example.

Mark Hummel: 23:36

Something we teach in IEB is prospecting, relationship building. I don't mean like bar sales kind of tactics, I mean like make one-on-one relationships with agents that lead to repeated business for a long time. Prospecting, and so there's a system to it. If I want 10 inspections a month, I probably need to have, let's say, 20 meetings with agents if my conversion rate is 50%. If I need to set 20 appointments, that means I'm probably going to need to call 40 agents if my conversion rate for that is 50%. If I'm going to call and talk to 40 agents, I probably need to have something like 80 leads if my conversion rate is 50%. There, right and I'm just using simple math here it doesn't actually have that Right.

Matt Williams: 24:20

So if you have 80 leads come in and you get 40 of those things, and then 40 get down to 20 and then 20 get. Yeah, absolutely Makes sense, makes sense, because it's not everybody's going to like you. They're going to want you, right? Yeah?

Mark Hummel: 24:29

So if we don't get the 10 inspections, if we don't get the goal, then we can go back and take a look at the system and just see which piece needs the work, instead of throwing the whole thing out and starting over. So do I need to work on my conversion rate with my conversations in the meetings? Do I need to set more meetings? Do I need more leads in the funnel, et cetera? Yep, so that's cool, we can wrap our minds around that. But what if we're always getting the desired result? Okay, so the same concept applies, but we tend to skip all of that thinking. We tend to just say, well, it's working well, so it must not need my time, energy and attention. But the truth is, yeah, it does, because you still want to refine and maximize the results in each piece of the system and if you're just kind of okay with the outcome without understanding the process, you're probably leaving money and more inspections on the table.

Matt Williams: 25:23

That's so true, right, and you might be happy where you're at, but it's like, well, with the same amount of energy and effort, things could be even bigger or different. Yep, yeah, because you're running at 40% efficiency instead of 60.

Mark Hummel: 25:36

That's it.

Matt Williams: 25:37

Yeah, I love that. All right. You speak to 10,000 inspections a day. Inspectors a day is that right? 10,000 inspectors every day.

Mark Hummel: 25:44

Every single day, usually by my hand. Every single day, that's right 10,000 inspection.

Matt Williams: 25:49

This is the segment of the show we say what is the word on the street from 10,000 inspectors? Because you not just you, but you and everybody in IAB are constantly speaking with inspection company owners and people, and so I think we covered this last month in our episode where we said we were going to put 100,000 inspectors but then we realized that that might be a little ambitious. So we've settled it down to 10,000 or tens of thousands of inspectors. So, word on the street 10,000 inspectors a day or not a day, I don't know. So, our 10,000 inspectors section what are you seeing, what are you hearing in that? Because you have exposure to a greater market share, like a greater market than I do or anybody else, really because of your position.

Mark Hummel: 26:33

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you, man, there's a real hunger in our industry for relationships, and that might sound a little out of left field, but what I'm seeing a lot of is people are operating as a silo in their markets and they feel like they can't really connect with their competitors sometimes. We all know how lonely it is in business in general, right, and when you feel like you can't call up your competitors or have relationships and talk to people who are doing what you're doing, it's even more lonely. And, to be fair, some people have great relationships with their competitors in their markets and I encourage that. I wish everybody did.

Matt Williams: 27:17

But I try my best.

Mark Hummel: 27:18

Yeah, yeah right, and that's IEB culture too. It's like if we all win by improving our businesses together, the whole market improves. Yep, absolutely.

Matt Williams: 27:30

Rising tide raises all boats right, that's it. Yeah, that's it.

Mark Hummel: 27:35

So there's this hunger in our industry to feel connected to something and, truth be told, I think that's actually just human nature. Yeah, but people in our industry want to connect with like-minded home inspection company owners. Yeah, I mean, the truth is, that's why IEB exists is because of that desire. We didn't create it right. We didn't create the desire for home inspection company owners to come into community with each other and help each other, cut out the trial and error of building businesses and creating a big life. We just happen to say, hey, let's create a platform for it and help people. And the people are getting.

Mark Hummel: 28:11

So one of the things to speak to the 10,000 inspector thing is it always circles back to something like that hey, mark, I'm working on getting more inspections, or I'm working on hiring somebody, I'm working on this. And when we start to strip away all of those things, what we find is they don't have people around them to help them through those things. And so the real question and I find this to be so fascinating and coaching the real question that people ask is oftentimes not the one they verbalize. So when somebody says, hey, I want to get more inspections, I want to learn to be a better business owner. I want all these things, and they're looking at IEB because of the content that we teach. A lot of times, what they're really seeking is connection with people who care about that content.

Matt Williams: 29:00

Yeah, that's so true. I think people show up to a mastermind group like IEB because there's maybe a challenge that they're facing in their business that it might be very specific. It might be like I need a better sales funnel or I need a better sales process, or I'm having a scheduling routing or my internal organization chart is all screwed up and I need to help figuring out or straighten that out or whatever it might be. But I think people come to solve a problem but they stay because of the relationships, because what you end up finding is it's so hard to find like-minded individuals, especially in your own industry and your own city, where you can be open and transparent and vulnerable with.

Matt Williams: 29:43

Yeah, and that's just so hard to find and to be-cause I hang out with my other inspection companies in town and then sometimes they'll ask me questions about stuff in my business and I'm like I don't know if I feel comfortable with that, but because I don't know if I want to share that level of detail, I don't know. There's times where I'm like I don't know, but it's easy to do when you're out of town in another conference and you're like these guys live in another city and it's so easy to get into it. That's actually helped me become more confident and more transparent, even in my local market with people, yeah, and just realizing like there's really no secrets, like nobody's the unique snowflake that we think we are, like we're all redoing the same thing that everybody else is doing.

Mark Hummel: 30:21

It is pretty rare to hear something in our industry that somebody else isn't already trying somewhere in the country. Yeah, absolutely yeah.

Matt Williams: 30:29

I came up with this really brilliant idea and then like I found out that like there's 10 other companies in this, in IEB doing it already, and it's like oh, I'll never mind, yeah, it's not that brilliant.

Mark Hummel: 30:38

Well, well, the truth is, is those 10 other companies there's? There's a thousand of them. There's a thousand other companies in another industry doing the same thing? Yep, Absolutely yeah.

Matt Williams: 30:48

And what I did this time is I actually went and sat down with them and picked their brain. Last time I was at Unite I was like, oh, you're doing that already. Can we talk, you know? And I found them afterwards at one of those mixer sessions at the conference and like just pick their brain on how they're doing it and what's working well and what isn't, and so I don't know. I think it's great to have that community inside of IEB. Yeah, 100% man.

Mark Hummel: 31:07

Yeah, and I'll roll that into one other thing I'm hearing, which is there's a real hunger right now to just nail the the the life cycle of an agent, in your sales funnel, right.

Mark Hummel: 31:19

And so, with this relational piece, what we're seeing is people are coming in and they're getting quick traction with cutting the trial and error out of getting their, their, their lead generation going all the way through to conversion and then having a great follow up with agents so that they're not reacquiring and we talk about this all the time but we don't want to reacquire the same business all the time Like we want to start the relationship and keep the relationship. And so when you're just surrounded with people who care about those things, all of it instantly becomes easier. Right, and I'm not going to say it is easy, but it becomes easier to do those things.

Matt Williams: 31:57

That's true, and so the life cycle of a realtor, you know. Is there a number on that, do you know?

Mark Hummel: 32:04

Like how, like what is the life cycle?

Matt Williams: 32:06

I got what's the life cycle of a realtor.

Mark Hummel: 32:08

I can tell you some numbers that I've heard recently is that on average, you know an agent might use you something like two to two and a half times a year, and so if that's the case, then you could you could do a lot of things with with that information alone. So if you want to have a certain number of inspections, like you can start adding that up. Like I want 100 inspections, that means I'm going to have something like 50 agents using me, right, yeah, if I want to grow by 100% and I'm going to have to double the number of agents using me, or and this is where it gets, in my opinion, more efficient or you could focus on the relationships and get more, more inspections from each agent, right, like, increase that number, yep. So there's all kinds of tactics and strategies and things like that. But one thing we're really focused on in IEB right now is like nailing that whole process. Like the concept starts the sales cycle, if you will, or the life cycle starts at the very first moment of contact, yep, and it goes all the way through until this agent stops selling houses. And this is another place where we want to apply systems level thinking and we actually draw this out on a line and on the starting point of the line it says like day zero, that's when you meet them. And then what we'll do is we'll say, okay, seven to nine usually something like seven to nine or maybe 10 touches before they become curious, on average, before they become curious about using your company. So how can we build in those seven to nine, up to 10 touches really quickly and use some sales techniques to shorten the sales cycle? Okay, then after that we say, okay, we should have converted at some point within that spectrum of emails, texts in person touch points, that kind of stuff.

Mark Hummel: 34:07

Once they get to conversion, then we want to draw on this line that we're talking about. Okay, when are we going to check in? What's the cadence? How often? What medium? Is it going to be? A text? Is it going to be swinging by? Is it going to be checking in? Is it going to be, you know, telling them happy birthday, like all the different reasons to contact somebody, and that has to happen indefinitely.

Mark Hummel: 34:29

There is no end date to that until they tell you hey, I'm not selling houses anymore, it could bother me, right? That's true, because the truth is is we just don't want to reacquire the same people all the time. We want to make sure we get them and keep them. Yeah, and that's it, man. So like if I had to tie all that together 10,000 inspectors they're looking for information, like what I just said. Okay, how do we create a life cycle sales funnel that keeps people with us for a long, long time? That might be the starting question, and what they're really looking for a lot of times is to be surrounded with people who care about that.

Matt Williams: 35:06

Yeah, yeah, they don't want to. Yeah, absolutely, and they don't want to reacquire. I mean, I remember before I, well, I knew better. Right, I knew better, but I was chasing down a very top performing team in my city. Right, it was a realtor team that sells a lot of houses, and a lot of higher end houses, and so, rather than you know, putting my effort and spending a lot of time and energy and chasing down the realtor who maybe isn't selling much, I was targeting specifically this group, and so I eventually convinced them to let me take them out to lunch, and so, of course, they picked a pretty nice place and they all ordered whatever they wanted to and drink whatever they wanted to, and at the end of this thing, I had this massive tap, which I paid, of course, but I remember walking out of there, I had a smile on my face the whole time. He kept everything up and it was great.

Matt Williams: 35:53

I remember walking on there, climbing into my truck and being like you idiot, you just spent so much money they're going to have to send you so many inspections in order to like even pay off this tab that they racked up at this restaurant for you. And I remember thinking that now I will say they did come through and we ended up getting working together. They love us and they're working with us all the time and it took a few months but they finally sent sort of 100% of so much work our way. It paid for itself and then some, but I don't want to pay that again, like I don't want to go and take that team out and rack up and know it and $1,000 lunch tab, you know, for their team, because now I got to go sell 10 inspections to make this thing even worth it.

Matt Williams: 36:30

Again, you know, but like it's, I don't want to do that again. I did that once with the team, right, and so now you're right. It's like maintaining those relationships and I've found that real estate is very much a relational business. Yeah, most businesses it's not transactional, it's very relational, and so I'm trying to keep that straight and keep those relationships kindled and moving along. That's a lot of work, that hover attention sides, a lot of work.

Mark Hummel: 36:54

Yeah, yeah, it certainly is mad. And then we get into the like let's automate as much as we can, side of things, right, sure. And then with AI coming, that's a, that's a whole.

Mark Hummel: 37:04

Nother episode like AI coming into the industry and helping us with things and, love it or hate it, it's here, it's here. I use it all the time Yep, chances are, whoever's listening to this, chances are you were affected by AI at some point today already, yep, and, and that's just the case. It's going to be more and more the case in in the future. In fact, aaron, with Wolfpack, one of our friends, comes out to our IEB events all the time. I love a line that he said at his conference I think it was earlier this year I'm getting the months mixed up but he basically said hey, ai is here and right now. Today is the worst that it will ever be. That's so true and that oh my gosh, that blew my mind. He's like, oh my gosh, that's true and it's so exciting right now, like how it's helping you with you know, writing stuff and all that kind of stuff, and this is the worst it will ever be. Well, yeah, that's crazy.

Matt Williams: 37:58

So the show notes right. The show notes on this episode right. I run it through AI and so AI analyzes this. It actually breaks down the transcript. So when you go look at the episode, you see a transcript. Ai created the transcript. So if there's any spelling errors or grammatical errors, it's the AI right so that they do the transcript and then they actually do chapters in the notes and you can see what time signature and when we change topics. It creates the outline. It creates the titles. It does.

Matt Williams: 38:24

I run it right through an AI engine.

Matt Williams: 38:26

I edit it because I got to make sure that, like it's not too far off, but still AI is such a powerful tool even right now that we can do this, and then later I just I hit upload and then I come back later and just review it and make sure it all looks like it's supposed to, but like yeah.

Matt Williams: 38:40

So AI is a tool that I use every day, both in podcasting but in my other businesses, and today I had to send an email to somebody that needed to be worded very carefully, so I typed up the gist of what I wanted, dropped it into AI. It came back and its phrasing was so great that it allowed me, to minimal edits, to send out an email that wasn't going to cause problems. It was going to help, not hurt, the situation, and so I use AI all the time and it's something that can really help, so it's a great tool to help along. Now, eventually, at some point, like this, amount of change is going to be scary, but I think AI is something that is is a very important tool that we can all use.

Mark Hummel: 39:14

Yeah.

Matt Williams: 39:16

Completely agree, man.

Mark Hummel: 39:17

I really think we should probably get back together and have a whole episode just about AI and the home inspection industry.

Matt Williams: 39:22

That would be amazing, cause I yeah there's some future things that are going to come down the line, that are going to make a big big impact.

Mark Hummel: 39:29

They're already cooking, man.

Matt Williams: 39:30

They're cooking and happening. That's right, all right. So we talked about neuroplasty having an outcome, bias and sales funnel and lifecycle of the realtor.

Mark Hummel: 39:40

Wait, wait. Neuroplasticity. What did I say? Neuroplasticity, which is more in line with surgery, oh, neuroplasticity.

Matt Williams: 39:48

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I can tell you about your water heater, but this is like you know, I'm just kidding. I'm just neuroplasticity. I love this. Yeah, you're right, I said the wrong word. All right, what are you going to do with all this? When someone's listening to like okay, we went all over the place today, what's?

Mark Hummel: 40:03

the call to action.

Matt Williams: 40:04

What are people going to do with this information?

Mark Hummel: 40:07

Yeah, so you know. The truth is, I really believe what we said at the beginning, or toward the beginning, which is that rest is a competitive advantage. You're taking good care of yourself, you're getting enough sleep, you're planning in periods of time where you can unplug. You have a competitive advantage if you're using that time wisely. So if it's not already on your calendar, like, this is your time, this is your call to action, like sit down, get your calendar out, use the two week rule, which is don't change anything on your calendar inside of the next two weeks, because it's just too stressful sometimes, but look far out and start putting stuff on your calendar where you have checkpoints and you can unplug, disconnect and rest.

Matt Williams: 40:48

I love that. Alright, as always. How do people get a hold of you if they want? To follow up on this conversation.

Mark Hummel: 40:55

Yep, so I love connecting with people. I do answer questions when they come my way. I love to even just jump on the phone with people, have conversations too, so the easiest way to get in touch with me is through social media, so people can connect with me on Facebook, linkedin, instagram, whatever. I'm not on Instagram as much, but I'm on all three of those. I do respond to the messages, though, so if people want to send me a message, they can do that.

Matt Williams: 41:18

That's fantastic, and I saw you on your on Substack now too. We talked about that last month, but you're on Substack again and and that is something that is incredible for maybe those who missed last month Explain what is Substack and what are you doing on there.

Mark Hummel: 41:33

So Substack is a platform where people can write. Right, it's essentially a blog, probably, to put it plainly, but for me, I decided to start writing on Substack so that things that are that I'm learning and things that are impacting me, I can, just as quickly as possible, pass that impact on to other people. And so a lot of what we talked about today, a couple of things that I'll share, you know, as I'm learning about behavior change and habits and goals and business building and CEO development and all these kind of things, usually in a story format, and so it's part of me practicing writing and also getting things out of my mind and sharing them with people, hoping to just share the impact that I'm receiving.

Matt Williams: 42:16

That's awesome. All right, and one last thing before we leave here Fall Masters Mind is coming up in November. I think it's eighth, right Number, eight through 10th.

Mark Hummel: 42:26

That's right. Yeah, so Fall Master Mind is our second largest in person conference of the year. We have two of them. This is going to be in November, as you said, eighth through the 10th in Austin, texas. Super excited, so the.

Matt Williams: 42:40

Lakeway Resort. Is that right?

Mark Hummel: 42:42

You got it, we do.

Matt Williams: 42:43

IEB there a few years ago, the Unite one. We've been there a few times, yeah, okay, yes. So I've been there my first time out of Unite with IEB. My first time ever, exposure was actually at that resort for Unite and it was a beautiful facility, yeah, and there's all kinds of great pools and activities and stuff, so you don't want to miss it. That's going to be a lot of fun. Nice, all right, mark. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, until next time.

Intro: 43:29

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.