The Real Estate Inspection Model That Changed Everything

Blake Williams (00:00)
lot of investors forego the home inspection and especially if they’re buying ⁓ houses that need rehab. You know it’s like we know the foundation shot. I know I’m going to already replace the air conditioner on the roof. I don’t need a home inspector to come out and tell me that. And I get that.

those investors that works for them and that’s, I understand. So we do have a couple of investors that do rehab houses and what they do, their main pain point is after they’ve rehabbed the house and they get a buyer, the buyer hires a home inspector,

Michelle Kesil (02:10)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Blake Williams, who’s been making serious moves in the home inspection space. So excited to have you here on the show today, Blake.

Blake Williams (02:32)
Thanks, Michelle. Glad to be here.

Michelle Kesil (02:34)
Yeah,

I think the listeners are going to take something away from how you’re servicing homes with inspections, HVAC, pest control, all of those things under your umbrella. So let’s dive in.

Awesome. So first off, for those who are not familiar with you and your world, can you give the listeners the short version of what your main focus is?

Blake Williams (03:01)
Yeah, so we started in the home inspection industry, started my company in 2009, really started expanding in 2013. Of course, you remember 2009, that was the bottom of the 2008 crash. And so we struggled there for the first couple of years. 2013, we decided it was time to start building a company and my wife joined our company at that time, hired our first inspector and to work under me in 2014.

We hired two that year and we did about 550,000 in revenue in 2014. We continued to hire and expand and so then by 2022 we hit 10 million dollars now annual revenue and we currently have about 80 employees members, team members I like to say on staff. So in in what was that eight

eight short years we were able to build a pretty strong company brand across multiple markets and multiple services. It’s been a great journey and you know I think we’ve had a positive impact in the real estate space especially we’re able to you know we’re the first company to offer or to include wood destroying insect reports with every home inspection in our market as well as the first company to include

foundation elevation surveys, thermal imaging. And then we made a big splash with the sewer camera inspection that we added in 2019. was not legal for inspectors to do that. so we pushed to get that changed. And we were, I think, the second company in the state to offer the sewer camera inspections. And that’s now becoming more and more becoming a standard with every home inspection.

because of the types of problems we find there.

Michelle Kesil (05:50)
Awesome. And what markets do you operate in?

Blake Williams (05:55)
Yeah, so we operate. We started in DFW, so we cover that market and beyond that all the way into East Texas, the Tyler area and out west towards Mineral Wells up north to Gainesville and south. All the way we cover Austin, San Antonio and Houston as well. We made some acquisitions along the way, so we have a home inspection company in the Maryland, Virginia, DC area, ⁓ Salt Lake City area and the Las Vegas area.

Michelle Kesil (06:24)
Awesome. And yeah, I know that you have multiple verticals under your business. Can you expand upon all of the services that you’re offering?

Blake Williams (06:35)
Yeah, so this really came about as we started to grow and get noticed by ⁓ vendors within the industry. We started getting calls from alarm companies and other companies wanting us to give them our leads and then they would either pay us want to pay us for leads or pay us for closed business. And we tried that a couple of times with a couple of different vendors and although the money was relatively good, the experience for our clients was not great.

So we started getting complaints from both realtors and our home inspection client.

Hey, you sold my information. Hey, these people are calling harassing me, calling me at dinner and that kind of stuff. And so we stopped it all together and we began to brainstorm about, it really just turned the light on to us about how valuable the data that we collect in the home inspection, not just the customer data, but data about the house too and how valuable that data is. And so how can we leverage that and have a great client experience?

And so we said we’ll just start our own company that will ⁓ help clients to get the home services that they need with vetted vendors and that way we can qualify whether or not we’re going to send the lead to somebody only if they want us to send the lead. And we went down that road

And then along the way it’s like, well, if we’re going to send leads to a pest control company, why don’t we just start our own pest control company? And I had been in the pest control business ⁓ first with my father’s pest control company and then one that we owned.

that we sold in 2011. And so in 2019, we started the what we call the concierge service. And then we also started the pest control service. And then we thought, well, there are a lot of verticals where we can we can get our clients services they need under our own umbrella. That way we know that we have we have control over the client experience, make sure they have a great experience with a customer with a company that they trust. And so we started the

HVAC

company in 2023. We’re looking at other verticals just for the right opportunity to possibly get into plumbing or foundation repair or we’re even looking at septic pumping so just things like that.

Michelle Kesil (09:06)
Awesome. And what has been the key to keeping your business running smoothly with all of these moving pieces?

Blake Williams (09:15)
Yeah, so a couple of different things. Number one is having the right people in the right places doing the right things. Right. That’s a that’s a mantra that comes from a book I read back in 2016 called ⁓ Good to Great by Jim Collins. That that book really kind of shaped my my thinking on business

And then so we took some training on recruiting and hiring people through a company called Bergflow. ⁓ And we use a behavior assessment along with a cognitive ability test to help us identify people that fit with not only fit with our company, but fit with the position that we’re interviewing for. ⁓ Also joining a mastermind community. We joined a mastermind community back in 2017.

a community of inspection company owners and having that community around us to really ⁓ collaborate with and talk about ideas I think really made a big impact on our business and so I think those two things identifying that we that the number one the number one component most important component of your business is the right people.

And I tell our team now that ⁓ for every single problem that you’re having right now, the answer is the right person. If you’re having a problem in a certain area, then more than likely, it’s you don’t have the right people in that area.

And so we really focus on that. And that’s that’s part of what I mentioned earlier, one of our strengths when we were talking is is our culture. And so by putting the right people in the right places, you begin to build a culture of high performers, a culture that people that hold each other accountable. ⁓ When you have a lot of high performers on the team, they don’t like to tolerate ⁓ mediocrity. And so if you have a mediocre performer on the team, the high performance people are

going to be happy with that and so you know got to move those people out or coach them up one or the other or else your high performers start leaving. So we always say you have A players B players and C players. A players do not like B players and C players. B players like don’t like A players or other B players they like C players because they the C players make them look good.

The A players feel like the B and C players make them look bad. And the A players certainly make the B players look bad. So we always try to hire A players. We’ve worked out systems and processes to try to identify A players. It’s not 100%. We make bad hires all the time. But we try to correct that as soon as we can.

Michelle Kesil (12:39)
Awesome. Yeah, the people in your surroundings really make such a difference.

Blake Williams (12:46)
Yeah, and we’re in the people business. Like our products are our service technicians, right? They have to go out in front of the customer and do a great job and make a good impression. And so in the service industry, it’s the most important thing.

Michelle Kesil (13:00)
Absolutely. So what are you most focused on solving or scaling next in your business?

Blake Williams (13:09)
So right now, you know, with AI coming into the industry and becoming more and more functional, we’re seeing how we can incorporate that into our processes to improve productivity per person, per technician that’s out there, which is going to really give us the… ⁓

what we need to scale more rapidly. extremely difficult to scale a home services company because it is so labor intensive and it requires building relationships with ⁓ homeowners and referral partners. And once like we’re talking about real estate agents, we have a lot of great real estate agent partners. And ⁓ if they already have a relationship with another company, it’s hard to get in there and break that relationship. Something

has to happen in the relationship for them to be open to a new relationship.

And so, trying to make sure that we are building those relationships. And then if we can increase our productivity where it’s not as much, I mean, we can never get people out of the equation. But if we can get more productivity per person using some of the more advanced tools that are starting to come on the market, then we can scale more rapidly. Because the…

the process of identifying talent ⁓ becomes ⁓ not as ⁓ stressful because we don’t have to hire as many people.

Michelle Kesil (14:47)
Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. what, like, do you only work with new home buyers? Do you work with investors? What kind of people are you serving and supporting in your business?

Blake Williams (15:44)
So we target ⁓ first time home buyers as well as new construction buyers, luxury home buyers and farm and ranch buyers. And we will serve anybody in between there.

But as we reach out into the marketplace, that’s where we target our marketing. ⁓ New construction inspections are essential to making sure that the home you get is put together correctly so you don’t have problems down the road. See all kinds of problems with new construction inspections. And then first time home buyers, they need a lot of hand holding, which is great. We love that. We’d love to be able to talk to them about how to maintain their home.

how to ⁓ protect the equity in their home so that they get the most out of it when they go to sell it again. ⁓ We have some unique ⁓ ability to service luxury home buyers because we have an HVAC company and a pest company. When we do a luxury house that has

six separate air conditioning systems. ⁓ We’re going to send a licensed HVAC tech out there with our home inspector to check those systems. We’re going to send a licensed pest control technician out there with the home inspector to do a full pest evaluation on the house, including termites, carpenter ants, and other wood destroying insects, as well as rodents and things like that. And most home inspectors are not capable of doing that. They can do it through

parties we’re able to do it in-house and so we think that’s a competitive advantage for us ⁓ and it also adds to our bottom line because we’re able to charge more for those services. ⁓ And then the farm and ranch we have a lot of expertise in the area of water wells, water quality tests, and septic systems and for real estate agents being able to get all those services with one company really saves them a lot of time so they they don’t have to

I got to call the home inspector, now I got to call the septic inspector, now I got to call somebody to look at the water well. And that takes a lot of time out of their day, so that’s less time that they can spend on the things that really impact their business at a high level, like prospecting or lead generation. And so that’s kind of the way we market to real estate agencies. We can save you two to three hours on every transaction because you only need to call one company.

Even if there’s a service that’s needed to inspect a house that we don’t have in house, we’ll arrange that through a third party contractor and take that off the realtors plate as well. So for instance, in some cases we want to pump out the septic tanks and so we arrange that through a third party for our clients and that saves the real estate agent time.

Michelle Kesil (18:39)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s super convenient to have all those services wrapped in one. ⁓ I know a lot of the listeners here are in the investing space. Are you working with investors or supporting them in any way?

Blake Williams (18:58)
Yes we do. So we have a few investors that we work with.

lot of investors forego the home inspection and especially if they’re buying ⁓ houses that need rehab. You know it’s like we know the foundation shot. I know I’m going to already replace the air conditioner on the roof. I don’t need a home inspector to come out and tell me that. And I get that.

those investors that works for them and that’s, I understand. So we do have a couple of investors that do rehab houses and what they do, their main pain point is after they’ve rehabbed the house and they get a buyer, the buyer hires a home inspector,

then the home inspector comes in and picks the house apart and the investor’s sitting there going, oh my gosh, why is the inspector doing this? I’ve got to fix all this.

A couple investors that we work with, the way they work is they go ahead and buy the house without an inspection. They rehab the house and then they call us and we come in and inspect after the rehab. So now they market the house as being pre-inspected and they don’t fix everything on the inspection report but they pick out the major items ⁓ that they know their buyers are going to be interested in getting fixed and they go ahead and fix those things. And so now they’re marketing the house as

pre-inspected and they have a list of items that they repaired as a result of the home inspection report and then they offered the home inspection report to the buyers or to anybody that looks at the house. They just send them the report and then what that does is ⁓ oftentimes they get buyers that will waive the home inspection. They’ll say I’ve already got a report I can see what you fixed I don’t need to have a home inspection.

And so it saves them a lot of headache within the transaction. The problem with home inspections is they come right in the middle of the real estate transaction. We’ve already got people under contract and then here comes this home inspector causing all kinds of problems. And we don’t like to do that. We tell our guys, look, don’t cause a problem where there’s not a real problem. And also, ⁓ you know, don’t minimize major issues either. But at the same time, too many home inspectors come in

and everything is a problem, you need to get further evaluation from a professional on all these items and ⁓ it leaves clients and buyers and buyer sellers and agents wondering why did I hire this guy if I’ve got to bring in all these other professionals.

So we try to be very pragmatic about the way that we the way that we present the material so that it’s not causing unnecessary problems for anybody in the transaction, but at the same time not minimizing issues that really do need to be addressed. And I think that’s what the investors that use us like. We’re able to put that that into the report. We’re one of a few companies that will also put in building code references where we think they’re important so that

that the investor knows, okay, this is a building code item. I’m gonna need to get this fixed and he has the code right there in the inspection report so he knows what to do, he or she.

Michelle Kesil (22:20)
Amazing. That’s super helpful. what are some of the top reasons that clients come to you and what do you see the most commonly in your business?

Blake Williams (22:39)
So most of our clients come to us from an agent referral. Real estate agent will refer the client to us. And then that’s reinforced with our reviews. have, I think, over 7,000 five-star reviews on Google. ⁓

The most reviewed inspection company in the state of Texas, not even close to anybody, nobody else is even close to us. I think we have like 2,000 reviews on Facebook, five-star reviews. So, you know, I think that’s one reason why people feel good about calling us. So an agent might refer them. Usually an agent gives a client a list of three or four inspectors, say, here’s some companies that I’ve used in the past.

and they’ll look at that list and they may do some research on them and they see that we have all those reviews and so they call us.

Michelle Kesil (23:35)
Love that. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, collaborate with you, where is the best place for them to find you?

Blake Williams (23:47)
Yeah, you can find me at superteamservices.com. That’s our website address. Anybody can call me. My cell phone number is on my Facebook page. I don’t mind giving it out. 940-231-4307. ⁓

And if there’s any home service companies out there, we do have a mastermind community ⁓ that we partnered with some other business owners helping small business owners scale their businesses and that’s multiservicemastery.com.

Michelle Kesil (24:19)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story and perspective. We need more people in this space doing things in this right way. So thank you for being here.

Blake Williams (24:29)
You bet. Thank you for having me.

Michelle Kesil (24:31)
Yeah. And for those of you tuning in to the show, if you got value, make sure that you have subscribed. We have more conversations coming with operators just like Blake, who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you all on the next episode.