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Can you believe that the new Millennium is already upon us? In our household we took all of the precautions by unplugging our computers when the hour was finally upon us. I have to admit, after watching the midnight hour come and go in the different time zones before us, when the hour did arrive here in Utah, I wasn't really all that concerned. Five of the Leavitt's were out on the sidewalk banging pots and pans as well as sending off some fireworks skyward, while the littlest slept soundly through the mayhem. Since that night I have had a hard time adjusting to the new century...... 2000? It is such an odd number. It is difficult to write 2000 on reports, checks, etc.
1ST MILLENNIAL NEWSLETTERNOTE: The following is a personal Leavitt Family newsletter. I consider all of you my friends so I am including it as part of the MMM. If you prefer not to read personal stuff, then skip to the next section of the MMM.
Hello Everyone! Let us be the first to welcome you into the New Millennium! We didn't want our yearly newsletter to get lost in all the other Christmas letters you received so we decided to send this out (and start it) on New Year's Day! It has nothing to do with procrastinating and not getting it done in time for Christmas...really!
1999 is now over and we are starting a whole new millennium...thankfully the Y2K crisis was addressed sufficiently because we awoke this morning to normalness! Here's to no more Y2K news stories!
We hope that your Christmas and holiday season was very joyful and filled with people you love! Ours was filled with Shelly's side of the family joining us for Aaron's 2nd Birthday (on the 21st) and Christmas. The living room was jam-packed with people and presents...just the way we like it!
1999 saw Michael taking Jessica and Adam skiing almost every week through the end of March. They even went skiing on June 5th!! A record in most people's books. This has been the fulfillment of a lifetime dream of Michael's to go skiing with his kids. He even was adventurous and took Haily once in April to get her feet wet and then was able to see it payoff when he took her again in November. He said she was much better this last time. They've only been that one time this ski season...but hopefully they will be able to go once a week again starting this week. In fact, it's the main reason why Jessica switched her school schedule from 9:30 - 3:30 to the much earlier 8:00 - 2:00. She wanted to get out earlier so they could hit the slopes sooner! (This makes Dad so proud!)
Jessica also was in a theatre group which performed the musical, Annie, in May. She loves to perform! She continued with her baton lessons and was in 3 parades this summer. She started taking ballet lessons in September and is a natural with those long legs she inherited from her dad! She doesn't enjoy it because it is so regimented but we are trying to talk her into continuing. She would rather take Jazz dance--we're looking into a compromise. Jessica is a wonderful big sister and helps out the family in so many ways. She is very responsible and independent and does very well in school. All of her teachers love her and her enthusiasm for learning. She will be representing her class in the school's Spelling Bee in January. Jessica has become quite a good baker and enjoys learning how to cook new things. Her cooking skills include: scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, and gingerbread cookies (from scratch). She also likes to draw, read, sing (she performed a duet with a family friend in the Primary program), and playing with her friends.
Adam turned 5 this past year and that can only mean one thing....Kindergarten! He has really enjoyed going to school and his teacher hasn't sent him to the principal's office yet! All kidding aside, he is a bright kid who doesn't need much academic help and says he enjoys recess the most where he can best others in soccer on a daily basis! When you ask him about school, you usually get a recess soccer report of how many goals he scored or blocked. You have to ask specific questions to find out about actual school!! As we already said, Adam loves to ski and is an adventurous skier usually opting to head straight down the mountain instead of back and forth. He loves all sports and played soccer in the spring and baseball in the summer. Unfortunately, his mom forgot to resign him up for soccer and so he did not play in the fall. Don't think she didn't hear about that constantly! She did redeem herself by signing him up for a 4 week basketball clinic. The last week was a mock game and he definitely found his sport. Basketball kept his attention like no other sport (except skiing). He was a defensive monster and an offensive scorer. Adam knows his seasons by the sport he is playing. Winter is too confining because he can't play outside in the backyard, jump on the trampoline, ride his bike or skate or any number of outside stuff that he loves to do so much. Staying inside is a challenge for him... and his mom. She wishes that the backyard could be in a "dome" so that weather would not prevent her active son from getting worn out outside. The inside of the home suffers through his sliding, jumping, running, throwing and all around rough housing. Heavy sigh! We also discovered that he has quite a good voice and we love to hear him sing. It's a good thing because he can usually be heard singing a song constantly.
Haily turned 4 on the "last day of the year" -- yesterday. This past year has seen her grow and mature into a very cute 4-year-old. She is very kind and loving. She is often heard saying, "I just love you so much I can't stand it!" She enjoys being with other kids and everyone is her best friend. She cannot only give you one hug and kiss ('I'm gonna give you a hundred kisses.") She is the perfect mixture of a tomgirl and a prissy girl. Because Adam is her older brother and the one she plays with the most, she can hold her own in a "wrestling" match and loves to play outside with Adam and his friends. Thankfully, she also loves Barbies, Winnie the Pooh, anything pink, playing dress-up, and going to her dance class. She took a music class last spring and loved the interaction with other kids and performing (something she has in common with her older sister!) We hope to get back into the music class again this year but this fall was just too hectic! Haily loves to help (except when it comes to cleaning her room) and likes "helping" (sometimes known as bossing) her little brother.
Aaron, our last (take that as an announcement, if you like), is every bit of 2. He has been for the last 4 months, even though he didn't actually turn 2 till the 21st of December! There is a definite correlation between our two boys and throwing...they love it. Everything is seen as an object to throw...so look out! His verbal skills have really developed these past few months and you KNOW what he wants. He also enjoys Winnie the Pooh, Blue's Clues, balls, all kinds of music, playing outside, dancing, cheese, yelling, candy, hitting, peanut butter, shoes (everyones except his), screaming, chocolate, and laughing. The latter is what we enjoy the most about him. He has a very contagious laugh. He loves to hear others laugh and will join in the fun. Michael thinks he is ready to learn how to ski...Shelly is doubtful...we will let you know if that happened.
Now for the boring parts....Michael and Shelly. Michael has been running his home inspection business for 4 1/2 years now and it continues to be successful. It is the perfect outlet for his detail-oriented eye and his public-speaking ability. He continues to produce a weekly home inspector newsletter online for fellow home inspectors. He has every electronic toy, errrr, computer equipment, a guy could want-- all in the name of keeping ahead of the other guys! He is the guy everyone calls with home inspection software and hardware questions. He also spent 1999 as Elder's Quorum President but will enter the new millennium as Scoutmaster--the calling he loves second only to Varsity Scoutmaster! This way he can have an excuse to go on hikes in the Uintahs again! His other hobbies this past year have been skiing (he never did go by himself), basketball (some say he looks like Jeff Hornacek of the Utah Jazz), wake boarding (neighbor's boat/his own customized wake board), a white water rafting outing with Shelly, and playing with his kids.
Shelly has spent this last year catching her breath. The last baby (do I have to mention this again or do you understand that Aaron is the last one!) has thankfully just turned into a toddler and she is trying to get her home organized and her life in order. Shelly loves to have her kids active and spends a lot of time taking them places and watching them. Maybe the new year will find Shelly able to do more hobbies, but in the past, this was an impossibility. Shelly organized a family reunion last June for her side of the family at the beach in So Cal and spent almost the entire summer either driving to, packing and moving, or driving back home from her parents house 10 hours away. It was very hectic driving with 4 children by herself but she was glad her schedule allowed her to help her mom and dad. After 26 years in the same home, there was A LLOOTT of stuff to pack. They now live 3 hours away in Cedar City and the closeness allowed them to drive up for a quick, one-day trip to celebrate Haily's birthday. This is one of the benefits of living much closer.
With all of the joys of 1999, the compilation of this year's events would not be complete without telling of the sadness as well. This year has brought sadness into our lives like no other before it. Our niece, Jocelyn, was killed in a car accident in March. Grieving has never been so difficult. We are grateful for the knowledge that we will see our loved ones again. Were it not so, life would be difficult to continue. This summer, two of our grandmothers also passed away within 2 weeks of each other. For all of you who have also suffered pain and grieving this past year, our hearts go out to you. We hope that the closeness of family and friends can help ease the pain and that the Lord will comfort you when it is too much to bear.
Which brings us to the most important thing to remember as you start the new year, new decade, new century and new millennium....Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, loves us and has suffered all for us. May you live your life with this knowledge surrounded by people you love and who love you.
Love, The Leavitts
Michael * Shelly * Jessica (Alpha) * Adam * Haily * Aaron (Omega)
Marketing tip for 20002000 is here and your business and marketing plans should be in place to ensure success in the new millennium.
How will
you advertise in 2000?Most of the successful Home Inspectors that I know relied highly on fliers to originally spread their name and fame. Some of them don't need to pass out fliers anymore, while others have continued to find it critical to their business' success. Most of the unsuccessful Home Inspectors that I know rely highly on their expensive Yellow Page ads to get their business phone ringing.
Fliers can bring sure success if they are delivered in a timely, well-planned manner. I'll share with you my plan for attack with flier delivery in 2000. I have about 1,000 agents in the county where I do 99% of my business. I don't like to drive very far, so I prefer to stay in the central and northern parts of Utah County. The further south I go in the county, the older the homes get and the less money people have. That means that in the south part of the county, only the piece-of-junk, old homes get inspected, and as you know, they are a lot more work for about the same fee. There are times I feel like, "The Old Home, Piece-of-Junk Home Inspector," and I don't want to specialize in that area! Therefore, I concentrate my efforts closer to home.
I take advantage of a Real Estate delivery service which delivers 500 fliers a week to any office with more than 5 agents in Utah County. The fee continues to be $25 a week for the service. That means that I make the fliers and deliver the reams to them. I use the brightest color paper imaginable for my fliers, so that it will wake up the agents when they see it each Thursday morning. For those of you without your own copy machine, the copying fee at Kinko's runs about $100 for 2,000 astrobright fliers. To use this marketing strategy will set you back about $50 a week, or about $200 a month. Multiply that by 12 and You'll be looking to spend about $2,400 on flier deliveries for 2000. I have reduced this amount by leasing a digital copy machine on which I do all of my advertising copies at home.
$2,400 sounds like an awful lot of money to spend on printed paper that finds about 98% to 99% ending up in the trash can. That is why most Home Inspectors make about 6 to 10 flier deliveries in a year and think they are really doing something special. My competition all feel like flier delivery is a total waste of time. I want them to continue thinking that way because I'm making a successful go of it while they increase the size of their Yellow Page ads.
Now let's get down to the hard figures....98% to 99% of the fliers that are delivered are trashcan bound. That is a pessimistic outlook! I prefer to think that 1% to 2% will be of use. That means that 5 to 10 fliers out of each week's 500 will be utilized. That means 20 to 40 of them a month, and 240 to 480 a year. Being totally optimistic, 480 times an average fee of $250 is $120,000. I don't know how that number strikes you, but $120,000 in my marketplace is quite respectable. Even the pessimistic view of 1% success will work out to $60,000 for the upcoming year. All of this from a measly $2,400 expense is really an outstanding return on my investment.
CONSISTENCYThe only way that this magic formula will work is if you are consistent in your delivery. The return will not be immediate if you have not already established your business name, but the fruits of your labor will not be long in the making if you start now. Remember that out of small things, great things will come to pass.
I used to try and do all of the flier deliveries myself, but I soon found that I was only getting to about half of the locations about half as often. If I had no inspections lined up and nothing but a full tank of gas and a day to kill, then I would do it myself. After all, while personally delivering the fliers, an inspector could get lucky and actually talk to somebody in the Real Estate office. Wait a minute, that could be a self-delivery personal goal....
Each time
I enter an office to deliver fliers or deliver reports, I will
not leave without talking to an agent about my business!!!I'm certain that fulfilling that goal will bring certain success, but remember....The goal will never work unless you DO IT. I'm even more certain that there are those of you reading this message, scoffing at what I've stated as though I am just puffing smoke. "Prove me wrong...try it for the 2000 year. I know that you will be out $2,400 dollars.... but without a shadow of a doubt, your bank account will be much richer. The fruits of your hard labor will reap success.
DISMAL
DECEMBER 1999This past month is one that I prefer to never repeat. We have had several topical discussions regarding Y2K, and I can only hope that the housing market gets back to normal. December 1999 was my worst month since February 1997. Business is off by 50% over the preceeding Decembers in 1998 & 1999. My wife is very good about documenting the inspection totals. Historically, December is our 6th best month of the year. This year it was our worst by over $3,000. Take away a big$1,375.00 EIFS inspection earlier in the month and it makes the numbers pathetic by any full-time operation's standards.
It is very strange because we will historically inspect 15 to 20 nice homes during December. These are usually related to tax investments to avoid penalties. This December we inspected none of these types of homes. It seems that all of the normal flow of middle and upper management jobs were frozen and/or on hold until after the new millennium arrived. Our area is filled with computer related start-up companies that were all bracing for the unknown. As a result, there was no hirings or firings or sales of nicer homes.
Homes that did continue to sell were all of the low income, first time FHA starter homes. Buyers of those homes would move anytime that somebody would give them keys to get in. These, for the most part, are your "Price-Shopper" clientele going through the phone book looking for the cheapest inspection in town. As most of you know, I purposefully "Priced" myself out of that caliber of client. I found that I still did a number of those type of inspections in the dismal December 1999 for those buyers who were directly referred to me.
I also found that
I lost quite a number of inspections because I personally did
not answer the office phone. I felt like Scott DeWitz in Northern
California. Scott says that the agents have there 3 favorite Inspectors
speed dialed into their phones. If you don't answer, then they
just call the next one in their machine. As a result, Scott has
his office phone forwarded to his cell phone and he is extremely
prudent about answering the calls. Scott says that if you miss
a call while you are in the attic, its too late. Calling the agent
back even 3 or 4 minutes later is too late.... They have already
booked with the next Inspector.
It may be a pride thing.....(I'll ponder that), but I have become so accustomed to clients calling me knowing that I was their Inspector before we have even spoken, I have lost all interest fighting the "Phone Booking Wars" with those perspective clients wanting to compare Inspectors on "Price Only." I received a call two weeks ago from an Agent who threatened me with...... "We really want to use you, but you are more money than the other Inspector. If you refuse to lower your fees, then we will have to send all of our business to him." I say it was a threat because it was as though he had my neck on the chopping block. In 4 1/2 years I have yet to do business for a client of this agent so I felt like I was okay to play the "Commission Percentage" card. "So you think that the best Inspector is the cheapest Inspector?!?....... How would you like it if I demanded that you drop your customary 3 percent commission to 2 percent. I'm sure that it would leave an extremely bad taste in your mouth because you know that you are worth every bit of that 3 percent commission. The same is true of my business. We are worth every penny of our fee. Our inspection process is superior. Our report is the finest in Utah. Our credentials are impeccable. Our insurances are the best. In short, we are the most complete Inspection company in Northern Utah. And by the way,...... We do NOT negotiate fees!"
It felt good to lay down the law with that agent just to reinforce this belief within myself. Needless to say, I did not book the Price Shopping agent's inspection. It was good to be faced with a little opposition. This was especially a good test because of the dismal month I was experiencing. It would have been easy to say all that when I had more inspections than I could do. Opposition lets one know what they are really made of. Take a tree that never experiences an ounce of wind. It will probably grow tall, but with very little need of developing strong roots. Afterall, roots are not really needed if the wind never blows. Then when the first wind storm does come along it flattens the tree because of a weak foundation. Compare that with the tree that feels wind each and every day. When the occasional 100+ mph microburst comes along it can withstand the force.
I view the numerous start-up Inspection businesses that come and go each year as being without a strong root system. They are in it for the short run quoting low fees to cover their non-existent overhead. A company with no business license, no insurances and little advertising can make it with significantly cheaper fees, while a legitimate business like mine has a base monthly overhead to cover the standard operating expenses. This is really driven home in a Dismal December 1999 where the same bills are due even if the inspections are not performed. After a month like that you might consider dropping down to the bottom feeder level and competing with them, but I know better. Joe Blow's AAA Inspections has little or no operating expenses, to them it is just a part-time side business to their normal flow of contracting work. They are doing legitimate home inspection businesses a disservice by undercutting the inspection fee process.
Now for the positive note. I am full of optimism for the New Year. I have 3 mansions on the books for this coming week and the week hasn't started yet. I think that the market will resume its incredible upward climb. The Y2K scare was just that. Even though there were not widespread computer glitches and failures, the fear amongst the Utah home buyers was real. We still have tons of people wanting to sell their properties, and even more who would love to upgrade their current domiciles. And when they do...... I'll be ready to perform their inspections.
ALTERNATE TRANSPORTATION - Not On My Life!!!Now here is a not too serious moment. Thanks to Ken Ives, we can all chuckle and make a few wisecracks questioning his overall masculinity. My real question is...... Why would you place your plackards on the side of this pink dream??? Here is the intro by Ken.......
Hey Ya'll, What happens when your Mom and Dad call and ask if they can borrow your Ford Explorer. They are going up into the mountains to Lake Tahoe for a New Years celebration. You say "Sure", but that you'll need to use their car while they are gone. Well, here's how it turns out.......
Happy Y2K!!!!
Ken Ives
(p.s. - Yes, it is pink!!!)
(p.s.s.- I will be playing a tape at the highest volume on the
stereo of Aretha Fanklin singing.... "We'll all be riding
on the freeway of love.....etc....")
QUOTABLE QUOTES: "None
of the business success help aids and programs work UNLESS YOU DO!!!"[Michael Leavitt's Home Page | Back Issues of the MMM | Current Issue of the MMM]
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