Randy Lambert Owner of Lambert Home Inspections

Speaker 1: 0:30

So tell me a little bit about your business. I like the Chiralla logo up there with the Lambert Home Inspections and how you got into it.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Are we starting?

Speaker 1: 0:41

We might, we might be.

Speaker 2: 0:44

All right, so I'm ready with. Lambert. Home Inspections Started our business in 2017. I basically was a commercial building engineer for 13 years before Home Inspections and, like, randomly fell into the trade. So I went to school for four years for heating and air conditioning and worked my way from an apprentice engineer as a commercial building engineer all the way up to a chief engineer In that process, working for a management company. Over the 13 years long story short, I ended up getting laid off. That was in January of 2017.

Speaker 2: 1:21

At that point in time, I realized that I no longer wanted to work for the man and be able to be released so quickly. So I started basically on indeed basically searching for any type of other career path. I was also looking to be a building engineer, but if I wanted to continue being a building engineer and be union, I had to go into Washington DC. So I didn't want to make that drive because I grew up in Falls Church. But I slowly started working my way west and at this time I was in Bristol and I didn't want to make that drive down 66. You know how the traffic is.

Speaker 2: 1:54

So I ended up randomly running across an ad to become a home inspector and I knew I didn't want to work for somebody else to become a home inspector. I already had a lot of things, characteristics that need to take place to become a home inspector, so I tried to figure out OK, what do I need to fill in the gaps? And I ran the idea past my wife and she said I think you should run with it. So, needless to say, about two months, three months into after being laid off, I started Lambert Home Inspections.

Speaker 1: 2:26

And you became the man.

Speaker 2: 2:28

That's right.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I love that In terms of some of your biggest challenges or struggles in terms of starting launching your business. What are some of those?

Speaker 2: 2:42

Well, you know, especially like established real estate agents, they have their go-to home inspector. Most of them have been through multiple, so a lot of real estate agents have been in the field for a long time and so it's hard to kind of dig your way into getting that business Normally with a home inspector. It's somebody that's been in the field for quite some time. They have developed that relationship with that agent, They've they trust them and so forth. So trying to really get that business from the very beginning with somebody that they've already been established with was very tough.

Speaker 1: 3:17

How did you overcome that?

Speaker 2: 3:19

So it kind of started with a lot of newer real estate agents at first and then, as the name started to get referred, you know, further and further down the line, there's always a time where a home inspector, especially if they're one man, show they're not going to be able to make it at some point in time.

Speaker 2: 3:36

It's either a busy season and they only have so many slots and with home inspections you have to get to that home inspection within anywhere from one day to typically 10 days max, sometimes 14, but that's not very common. So there's going to be a time where you might be able to, if they have your information, as a second or third string guy, you might be able to sneak in there. And then I started sneaking in there here and there, or when those guys went on vacation, and then they started to realize the difference in service, the difference in our report system, and start to really develop that relationship with them. And they started to realize, okay, this guy actually knows what he's doing and I like how much value he actually brings to the table. So then they started using us from there on out.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Pretty good strategy. What are some of those values that you brought to the table, or some of those differences?

Speaker 2: 4:24

So you know, early on it was always the conversation okay, we know you do home inspections, everybody wants to say how thorough of a home inspector they are, but what do you actually bring to the table that adds value for our clients? So then we started trying to dig in deep and say, okay, what is there that we can do? So at first we started offering warranties and we had a five year roof protection plan and we did a recall check on all the appliances and we included a 90 day warranty with their inspections. Then we moved in and started getting relationships with other contractors and saying, okay, if we need an additional inspection, can you provide this for us free of charge to our clients, so that way you can possibly get more work done.

Speaker 2: 5:03

The road Pest inspections we were starting to include free insect spray treatments. Then we started to kind of become a more one stop shop for our real estate agents. They want to be able to, you know, not have to call 10 different people and schedule all these different appointments for them to come over to a house. So we started adding an additional ancillary services that we provide and we started just going across the line so that way they could go on to our online scheduler book to schedule an inspection, and then they could literally click to book all the rest of the things that they needed, and they loved having just the one stop shop.

Speaker 1: 5:39

That's huge.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Yes.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Like that's serious value.

Speaker 2: 5:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Like I love, just even just if you were to stop right there at the home warranty of the roof inspector. You know the roof and all the other things, and then the bug Control spray stuff right right like wow.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Yeah. So it wasn't just at that point. It wasn't just okay, this guy's gonna come out here doing home inspection and then tell my clients, get out of the way, and then that's it. They get the rapport. Yeah, we were also during the inspection bringing them in. We wanted them to be there. We would give them a full spiel of how the inspection process would go. We would stand with them for 15 20 minutes in the utility room and educate them on everything there, and then we included infrared scanning with every single inspection plus all those values. It was just a one, you know, a great package all from the very beginning now you said we do, you have most people in your team.

Speaker 1: 6:36

We do so. You're no longer at one, that's correct.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Yeah, over the past few years. So we have my wife in operations, we also have a virtual assistant that works in operations as well which basically runs and answers our phones or scheduling and everything. So my wife and her kind of tag team it throughout the day. And then we also have after hours coverage and we also have weekend coverage. So that way we don't have to have a call center like a lot of other larger home inspection companies. We want that more personal touch. And then we have three inspectors under myself in the services division. And then we also have a growth division to where we have Our director of growth who basically runs everything on a day-to-day basis, who covers all the marketing, all the networking groups for us to get our name out there. She attends all the real estate offices, cold calling. She does all that stuff as well.

Speaker 1: 7:23

So we have every division covered all the important divisions, like you've got somebody helping grow, somebody making sure all the phones are called, and then yes, at one point in time you kind of realize that you can't wear all the hats.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Yeah. And once you start getting so busy in the field, having to physically perform home inspections, I no longer I'm not. I'm not able to get out to these real estate office, I'm not able to attend all these networking groups that we want to do to continue to expand the business.

Speaker 1: 7:49

So you have to hire those people, bring them in you know, I think it's interesting because what I hear is a lot of business owners will go from being the person doing the thing, whatever the thing is, taking pictures in the home inspections or whatever and then they may graduate on to being the growth Person, doing the networking, building the relationships, and then Hiring people to do the Inspections or the other pieces. But it sounds like you said no, I kind of want to say as the home inspector, and I'd rather hire somebody else to do the Marketing. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 8:28

So I consider myself very good at doing the home inspections. However, as far as like doing speeches in front of 30 real estate agents and getting out there on a daily basis, that wasn't really my go-to. I didn't like doing that right. So as I've developed the business, I started to hire these people that are better at doing those things than myself and stick with the things that I'm best at doing. So even though I say like I'm doing home inspections, now I have actually kind of gone back to my roots and now I'm doing commercial property inspections. So I'm doing mostly on the veer towards mostly commercial inspections, having my guys do the residential and then I'll fill in a residential to fill in the gaps.

Speaker 1: 9:11

That's cool. That's cool that you kind of stayed in the trade, the craft of it yeah, kind of a big circle. Yeah, Now who are you outside of work?

Speaker 2: 9:23

So I am a I love a lot of different hobbies. So my family, we go down to a Bay property that we have in Southern Maryland. We do a lot of crabbing fishing. We love to be on the water. So if you try to get ahold of us during the summer months, we're somewhere on the water, whether it be Ocean City, maryland, our Bay property in Maryland or Lake Gaston, we are on the water on a boat somewhere. So I like to do that, like to hunt anything outdoors.

Speaker 1: 9:54

What do you?

Speaker 2: 9:55

hunt Mainly white tailed deer.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Okay, alright, here we go. Yes what do they mean? What do we have going on?

Speaker 2: 10:05

Well, this is the outdoor version that I told you about. So this is actually a lighthouse near our property when I've I've craved my entire life. Then I have the blue crab, of course, because we love crabbing been crabbing my entire life and then this entire side here is basically Vegas themed. We love going to Las Vegas Not that I'm the biggest gambler in the world, but we love doing a lot of different things in Vegas. We've been to the Grand Canyon we actually just got back from Vegas last week. We were visiting family that lives there and doing our Christmas with them during that time, so it was nice to.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Hopefully you've won some money along the way.

Speaker 2: 10:39

I've won money. If I say I won money. It was more like I broke even. I don't know that. I've never hit no like crazy jackpots or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 10:49

But yeah, we have a good time. What is your business heading in the next 510 20 years?

Speaker 2: 10:59

20 years is hard to. That's pretty far out, I don't know. 20 years I want to say I'm retired, but I'm never gonna actually be able to retire. I don't think I'm that type of person that can just say, okay, I'm out of here, but five years right now. We have a lot of things in the works. Right now. We expect 2024 to be a great year and so in five years I want to I I should probably have four to five different businesses by that time that can Should be able to basically organically grow just from the leech that the home inspection business provides to the other ones.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Sounds like you're very strategic in your growth plan trying. What about ancillary business?

Speaker 2: 11:44

like you said, yeah, kind of everything that we are starting. It kind of stems from the home inspection business and is all completely in. You know, we'll help the real estate industry.

Speaker 1: 11:56

That's great have so. Things have not slowed down for you, okay, okay.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Yeah, ever since the last couple years, things definitely slowed down, but Kind of like I explained earlier, we started to add a larger you know a different amount of ancillary services, to be more of a one-stop shop, and we've continued with our growth plans and Haven't heard get out there and do all all the marketing stuff. We haven't let up. A lot of people let up and a lot of people kind of shut down and it's like no, this is the time where we can try to gain more market share and Then, when things actually get back to normal and take off, we're gonna be full steam ahead. So we've just kept the pedal to the floor and kept on pushing that'll to the metal, that's right.

Speaker 1: 12:44

So I love that you're doing that, because most people do. They hit a wall and they just keep doing this and they're like, oh nope, got to turn around and go back home, I'm done right, whereas actually it's the more like a maze where it's like, no, you might hit a couple walls, but you got to turn around and figure out yeah, you hit this, you hit the ceiling at some point in time, but you just got to try to push through it.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Yeah, so the ancillary services is so smart, because then people are gonna need those services. Anyway they're gonna need that, so you might as well, one client be worth 10x versus just x, exactly, you know yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:13

So I mean, even though you know a lot of people were waving home inspections and things went down the last couple years, our goal was is okay, if we can, if we only were going to get so many tickets, you know, for home inspections and we get the exact same for next year, how can we actually make more money at the end of the day? And basically, you know, trying to have a higher average ticket price, and so that's why we brought those ancillary services on.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Now, where did you learn all this business savviness?

Speaker 2: 13:39

I'm actually in a business coaching group and really didn't start to develop all that until I went to this, this group there.

Speaker 1: 13:45

So it's basically.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Yeah, it's basically all based for home inspectors across the united states, and so I've developed some a lot of great relationships through that and it's really taken me to the next level.

Speaker 1: 13:58

So what is the name of that, the coaching group that you're in?

Speaker 2: 14:01

Sure, I'm in inspector empire builder Um, and that's uh iebcoachingcom. Um, but they, they help, uh actually Starting to expand. So they help home inspection businesses throughout united states, canada, mexico, so anywhere they can help in the in you know, in the world Um, but they're actually starting to expand into the pest control industry as well, um, and then they're going to venture out as well. So it's a it's a very tight community. It's uh, they do mastermind, they do online zoom calls, we do a unite conference, uh, so it's very well put together.

Speaker 1: 14:39

I love that. I believe in coaching so much, absolutely Because what you just said. The idea is like when somebody tells you, you're like well, duh, that makes sense. Why didn't I think of that? It's like for whatever reason you don't because you just you see the same thing. You need that new, fresh energy. Or hey, I've tried this completely, maybe unrelated to your business. You're like I could borrow an idea from here or from here.

Speaker 2: 15:03

It's all about the golden nuggets, yeah that's right.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Did you use to do? Have you ever done networking locally?

Speaker 2: 15:10

Oh yeah, a lot of different things. The.

Speaker 1: 15:12

B&Is and that.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Yeah, I was part of all that.

Speaker 1: 15:15

You said that and then you think of my days in B&I. You just need one golden nugget. So, in terms of like your biggest lesson to a business owner, if they're starting their own business they're in the first year, two years, three years what advice would you give them, especially since it's not just your idea, as you're surrounded by other very smart people as well?

Speaker 2: 15:48

Trying to pick one thing. If I could go back, it would have been getting into coaching much sooner. That being a small part. The next part would be if you're going to do it on your own without a coach would be just strategically plan everything. Focus in on the things where you're going to have the biggest return on investment.

Speaker 2: 16:14

Back when I early started with my business, I was throwing money and a lot of business owners do this. You're throwing money at every single angle. Somebody asked you to sponsor this. Sponsor that You're probably not going to get a majority of your return on investment on any of that stuff, but as a small business, you're really just trying to get your name out there any way that you can. So really focus in on the things that are going to propel your business to the next level. Sure, getting your name out there in the community and being a part of the community is important, but also just don't be throwing it at like I did. I was doing Angie's List Home Advisor Thumbtack. I was doing all the things. Just really focus on game. Plan where you want the business to go, game plan how you're going to get there and what's going to take you to that level, strategically basing it on what you have money-wise to get you there.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Now, how did you know that the coach sorry to ask one last question how did you know that that was the right coaching group for you? The reason I ask is because there's a lot of mentorship programs, coaching programs that I don't feel are legit or good resources, mostly because they didn't do it themselves. They're just coaching based off of book tax versus hard-earned lessons that they went through themselves. How did you know that this group that you're in was the right fit for you?

Speaker 2: 17:39

Well, there was a couple in the home inspection industry, but I leaned towards this one because of the stories of the owners that physically taught it. And so at that time, when I even started to look at coaching was there was a lot of business going out the door and I wanted to grow my business but I didn't really know how to. And they kind of had a story of what I was going through at the time, where it was during COVID and we were going gangbusters at the time and we were doing inspections like crazy, three inspections a day. We were booked 10 days out for six days a week and we really got burnt out. And so at that time I was starting to look into everything and the owners kind of had the same story they have gotten injured, so it's like, okay, now I have no money coming in.

Speaker 2: 18:24

How do I grow my business? Yeah, how could I make the business work for me and still have money coming in if I was to get injured or fall off a roof or anything like that? So that's kind of why I steered towards this. And then, digging a little bit deeper into that, there was people that were in this coaching group that were still to this day 20, 30 times larger home inspection companies than I am. So I knew that if they were in it and I could pick their brain alone, it was worth the monthly fee and the coaching things that I would be going through to have that experience, to just run those ideas through them.

Speaker 1: 18:58

So what I'm hearing is successful case studies, like you saw people that were doing well, or the stories, as well as people that you knew were actually successful and they were also in that group. So I think that's like the lesson for anyone who's listening is how important is it for case studies and success stories and testimonials? Because people need to see themselves in the success story to be like well, if they're doing it, then I can do it too.

Speaker 2: 19:31

Yeah, it's to me. I mean, it's not always a case, but to me like that kind of goes with everything. So if I want to look a certain way, if it's bodybuilding or something like that, I'm typically gonna steer towards the person that I'm like oh, that's the type of body that I kind of want you know, teach me how to do that. I'm not gonna go to somebody that's complete opposite. So that was kind of you know, that's kind of my path is. I see where I want to take my business. I see these businesses are already there. Let me be with these people to pick their brain on how I can get to that point.

Speaker 1: 20:04

Follow their path, because they obviously don't have to get it and they're from their mistakes, so I don't have to have as many along the way. Yeah, I love that. Anything else, any other stories you'd like to share, anything on your heart?

Speaker 2: 20:18

No, not necessarily.

Speaker 1: 20:19

No, you're good, Yep. Thank you so much for being here on the show and giving your time and expertise. I so appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 20:28

No, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.