PROFFESSIONAL/TRADE ORGANIZATIONS

Because I perform several types of inspections involving homes and businesses, I’m faced several times through out the year with the decision to renew/continue my membership in various Inspector organizations that pertain to those different inspection types. Each membership is usually several hundred dollars and it is always a mental battle of mine whether I can justify, especially in these tough times, cutting a check to stay a member in the group at hand. I usually start out each decision process taking the easy way out and tell myself that there really is no reason to be spending that kind of money on something of such little value and I set the renewal invoice to the side. This, of course, leads to the inevitable reminder renewal notice a few weeks later, which starts the thought process all over again, only now with some urgency as I’m about to be dropped from the organization for non-payment.

Because there are many Inspector organizations out there vying for my participation and money, I have been very selective as to which ones I felt would benefit me and my business model the most. Actually, the underlying question that I must have an answer to is: Which Inspector organizations will benefit my clients best interest and my particular business model. To me, it is all about quality education opportunities provided by the organization and support of the Inspector for information when needed at a moments notice. Many organizations are really just glorified marketing and referral services for their Inspector members and is their main reason for existing as they are profit generating machines that care little if at all about the home selling/buying public. The organizations that I have searched out and have finally decided to join and participate in are the ones that do offer me every chance to participate in continuing education and learning events that allow me to constantly be honing my inspection skills to provide my client with the very best, most thorough inspection and report that I can give them. I am sure that I spend in excess of a hundred hours a year in partaking of continuing education to better my service to my client. I am extremely proud to be the member of the Inspection organizations I am involved with and always end up renewing my membership as a result.

Which brings me to the question; have you ever thought about the efforts people you deal with on a day-to-day basis take to better themselves and their service/knowledge to serve you as a client? Have you ever asked the people that you do business with and put your trust in to do a good job or supply you with a product to you actually keep themselves abreast of all of the new advances and methods that are constantly being ‘uncovered/discovered’ so that you feel confident that you are getting the best there is for the dollars you are spending? Or, do you just listen to the sales pitch and ‘hope for the best’ because you don’t want to put out the effort to do the ‘hard’ question asking. Today, more than ever before because of the vast array of information (misleading many times) available on the Internet, slick ads and tricky TV spots, a person just has to put forth more effort than in the past to make sure you will get what you have been lead to believe you were to receive. Most of the time that means developing a good one on one business relationship with those that you are going to spend your hard earned money with. I’d like to hear from you how you go through this process!