At Inspection Fuel in New Orleans earlier this month, The Ride Along podcast hosted a live session that hit the heart of business growth for inspectors. Hosts Brad Lowery and Matt Brading were joined by Brent Fletcher (Fletcher’s Home Inspections, CO) and Travis Jones (Smart Roof & Home Performance, TX).
Brent’s story – from roofing to foundation work to leading his own inspection business – showed how curiosity and broad experience translate into trust. Travis, meanwhile, offered the outside perspective inspectors need to hear. As a roofing and performance expert, he’s the one clients call after an inspection reveals issues. His advice: inspectors who use building science, communicate clearly, and connect with specialists build stronger reputations and relationships.
The discussion didn’t stop there. The panel dug into social media and content creation too, because sharing your voice is how inspectors stay visible, build referrals, and grow. The takeaway? Growth happens when you stay curious, lean on your community, and know when it’s time to call in backup.
Watch The Ride Along live replay here and subscribe to The Ride Along newsletter for more growth-focused content delivered straight to your inbox.
Transcript
Brad Lowery
All right, guys, first of all, thank you all so much for being here. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know so many of y’all from a few years in the industry. know, good friends, Khurram and Gabby walking in, the Patels down in the front, just good people. And the whole point of this podcast, of starting this podcast was to build community within the inspection industry. Some of the bits that we do on the show, for those of you that follow, actually kind of stem from these conferences where we all get together. Cause I don’t know about y’all. But my favorite part of these conferences is getting together after the classes, sharing some drinks, sharing stories, getting to know everybody. It’s less about the liquor. It’s more about the wonderful people, right? And so we have some bits that kind of stem off from that, but this is going to be like, like Mark was saying, this is a live recording and we’ve got my cohost down here. We but we’re going to, have to actually like start the podcast because you guys are about to participate in a live podcast. All right. Usually, you know, it’s just the two of us and our guests that are kind of talking, but we’ve got so many guests here today. So I’m excited. We’re going to involve you guys, but, we need y’all to, kind of count us in cause we have an intro, but it’s not a podcast without starting the intro. You’re right. Okay. This is the ride along inspection fuel live episode. I need y’all to count us in for the intro. Ready? Three, two.
Matt Brading
That’s right, yes.
Brad Lowery
Why? All right, everybody, welcome into The Ride Along You guys excited today? I’m excited. All right. See, I’m glad you guys cheered because, Matt, I was going say we’ve got electronics up here. We can make cheers happen.
Matt Brading
Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. Just hit a button. Yeah. We have all these beautiful people
Brad Lowery
Yeah, that’s it. you know, we don’t. It’s awesome, man. I love it. It’s we get to kind of bring the show from off air and here in front of this massive little studio here. But we’ve got some awesome guests. Let’s go ahead and introduce Stone yourself.
Matt Brading
To my left here we have Brent Fletcher of Fletcher’s Home Inspection out of Colorado.
Brad Lowery
And I’ve got Mr. Travis Jones over here from Smart Roof and Home Performance. How are you?
Travis Jones
Doing good.
Brad Lowery
All right. So guys, we’ve got an interesting topic that we’re going to be getting in on that. Tell them a little bit about it. Well.
Matt Brading
Okay. So we were having this conversation just a little bit ago with that’s when we came up with the concept actually, most of these podcasts are just us kind of riffing, right? We, we like it to be organic. and I was talking to Travis and he was talking about, well, you know, in our inspections, there’s something that comes up sometimes. That’s like, stay in your lane and your scope of work, stay in your lane. And, then we were thinking, or don’t. And so, Travis, you kind of came up with the concept. You want to give just kind of a brief idea of what that meant.
Travis Jones
Yeah. So I’m not an inspector, but I follow you guys a lot because I’m in roofing and insulation. So I get the call from the realtor that the inspection inspector said you need to have your roof evaluated by a qualified roofer. So I’ll go out and look. And I had a realtor recently tell me, now just you’re just looking at the roof. I don’t really want you to look at anything else. I want you to kind of stay in your lane. I said, well, that’s not what I do. I’m going to inspect the property. And if I see something, I’m going to say something and it’s for the benefit of the buyer, for homeowners. I think that’s kind what we should be doing is doing the best we can for them.
Matt Brading
Yeah. And it’s all about just kind of working and like you said, encompassing as much as possible. think as inspectors, we are kind of always pushing the boundaries of our land. think most of us, at least most people that I know, you know, we work in states that have a standard of practice. are not just meeting those standards of practice, but it’s inspecting a little bit beyond them. There’s some things you have to be aware of and doing it, but I feel like we are trying to do that to bring a more, helpful and a more thorough report to our clients.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, and then we’ve also got another kind of a bent to this conversation with Brent, bent with Brent. I didn’t mean to do that, but it works. with Brent Fletcher. So obviously you and Matt both have huge social media followings and we want to talk a little bit about how not to stay in your lane when it comes to making content that’s relevant and promote yourself and benefits others.
Brent Fletcher
You know, I see stuff all the time when I’m out doing an inspection and it might be the neighbor’s house that has something that’s kind of out of whack, know, leaky swamp pool or whatnot. And that’s, know, I’ll go over there and I’ll knock on their door and let them know and kind of give them that whole insight, you know, just because you’re on one inspection can’t make you, can’t mean you can’t do more to help out. And that makes for great content within itself.
Matt Brading
Definitely. I’ve done that before. I’ve done it a bunch of times. Actually, I’ve knocked on the neighbor’s door and said, Hey, you know, your dryer vent is clogged or something like that. One time I knocked on a door next door and the lady shunned me away. She thought I was selling something or something and she was like, no, thanks. I was like, hey, I’m not selling. just want to and she goes, no and slammed the door and I was like, okay, well, then you don’t get that information.
Brad Lowery
He’s lost out. that’s what we’re going to be getting into today. you know, there’s, there’s something that we usually do on the show.
Matt Brading
Right, right, right. I tried to jump the gun on that earlier.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, it’s okay. we’re going to, know, actually, can’t really, it’s called the drink of the day. That’s the bit that really kind of stems off of these conferences and hanging out and partaking together. But did y’all bring anything?
Matt Brading
I didn’t bring anything. I didn’t get the memo.
Brad Lowery
Hey, let’s go. Maybe a little bit, but we got we got side by side here from social side. What do you got for us here?
Matt Brading
This was not planned at all. She got a
Brad Lowery
bag.
Matt Brading
And a bag, some free merch.
Brad Lowery
All right, it’s a good bag too, but I like what’s in that thing. my goodness, look at this brand new bottle of Buffalo Trace. We get to do a drink of the day here, guys.
Matt Brading
We’ll just go ahead and pour.
Brad Lowery
So usually, we’ll kind of talk about the drink, but there’s a sponsor usually that we do, and in the past it’s been Inspection Fuel, but today it’s Social Sci. So thank you guys so much, seriously. Give it up for Social Sci, everybody. All right. And here’s where it’s going to get a little bit of fun. We’ve got these Q &A boxes up here. Actually, Mark, could you help out with the talk boxes? So usually, we partake our drinks throughout the show, we’re actually gonna give a toast to you guys. And we have these three hats up here. Matt, we want to do a little bit of a giveaway and a toast to some people in this room.
Matt Brading
That’s right. That’s right. So, you want to say who we’re giving these to? Yeah. What I’m looking for here. so one of these hats is going to go to the person that has been the inspector, an inspector, the longest.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, give him the and then one’s going to be to the newest inspector. go ahead.
Brent Fletcher
The last one is going to be for who has done the most inspections individually this year.
Brad Lowery
So let’s do that. Everybody stand up real quick. We did this. No, no, but we’re to be sitting down, right? that’s it. All right. Sit down if you have been an inspector for, let’s see, less than five years. All right. Sit down if you’ve been an inspector for less than years. Sit down if you’ve been an inspector for less than .
Matt Brading
They’re like, we already did this.
Brad Lowery
Oh man, we’ve got a few left standing. How about less than years? years. Oh man, right. , years? Okay, we’re weeding them down. , , , less than years. Oh my gosh, he’s, Mike’s still in the back. That’s cheating, man. We’ll mail you a hat.
Matt Brading
You
Brad Lowery
He’s a friend of the show already. Yeah. Okay. How many years? How many years you got? . . Oh, Mike was, Hey, you know what? We’ll send you. Can we send you a hat, Mike? And all right. Perfect. Yeah. What’s your name? Dave. Dave. Thank you, Dave. That’s awesome. All right. Round two. Round two. One more time. Oh yeah. We got to cheers to that guy.
Matt Brading
Up again.
Brad Lowery
Cheers to Dave. All right. Cheers, Dave. All right, crunching on ice is terrible.
Matt Brading
You can just avoid the ice.
Brad Lowery
Let’s see, sit down if you’ve been an inspector for over years. This is gonna wipe out so much of the room, right? Over seven years. We’re counting backwards. Sit down if you’ve been an inspector for over six years. Over five years. Over four years. Over three. Over two. Over, let’s see, months? months, , nine months, eight months, seven months, six. How many months have you been inspector? One. One. All right. How many? Six weeks. he just beat you. So, all right. Hey, what’s your name? Barrett. Do you want the camo hat or do you want the gray hat? Okay, buddy. Let’s go. All right. Hey, cheers to Derek. All right.
Matt Brading
See that coming.
Brad Lowery
Wait, was there one more? You know what? Let’s see. What’s that? We’ll give him a bite. Okay, here we go. I’ll give you the one off my head. It’s just gonna look real funny the rest of the show, okay?
Matt Brading
All right. Thank you so much.
Brad Lowery
Alright, we will do most inspections, but I think we got this here, yeah. Alright, thanks guys. That might be my favorite drink of the day that we’ve ever done.
Matt Brading
Yeah, I mean, that was a good one. No doubt. We don’t usually get to give things away. It’s hard to throw things at people.
Brad Lowery
When you can’t see them half the time with these bright lights. Okay, but let’s jump right into it, guys. Let’s talk about exactly what we were talking about before, which is, when do we know to stay in our lane as inspectors and when do we know to venture outside of it? Some of this can come down to standards of practice, when we exceed those. But, Travis, why don’t you lead the discussion on this? What are ways that you think are most important for inspectors to consider stepping outside the box?
Travis Jones
Yeah, so I’m doing a class here shortly talking about resilient roofing. And one of the big topics I’m going to cover is ventilation. I think that’s one of the, in my market, I’m in Dallas, Fort Worth, so we’re in a humid, hot, humid climate and attic ventilation is just almost never right. We’re in a huge hail markets or reroofing all the time. So I can say I’ve yet to reroof a house that I think the ventilation was actually to code when we got our hands on it. So we do the calculations, we figure it out and we reroof it. But the things that I see when I’m following an inspector that has said, they never say anything about the ventilation in my market. You guys might do it. I hope you do. How many of you actually, does anyone call out if you think the ventilation is wrong? Good for you. That’s why you’re here. But when it’s wrong, you have to decide how much you can say, what you’re willing to say about it. And I’m going to go over five different points in my class, but about – Do we have balanced ventilation? Do we have the same kind of ventilation? Those kinds of things. Being able to call that out because there’s a phrase, I know you put this in your reports, I read them in the reports, it’s like, you know, recommend seeking the advice of a qualified roofer. And at least in Dallas, Fort Worth, qualified’s doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence because there’s just not a lot of roofers who even take the time to do the calculation. So they may be seeking advice from someone who they haven’t done their homework, they don’t know. So I think it’s one of the things that has inspired me. It’s been as Matt and I have gotten to know each other. We met through building science type of events.
Matt Brading
Yeah. And that’s what that’s really where our relationship started because we were studying building science and learning from each other and learning from other people. And I think the, having an idea or having a knowledge base in building science as an inspector is one way to step out of your lane. Not necessarily just calling the problem, but kind of learning why now, I don’t think we should tell people how to fix things, right? Because that’s not our job, right? But knowing why the problem might happen. It’s, sometimes not, sometimes it’s, it’s about guiding them to a better way to figure out exactly what the problem is. It’s going to get them closer to getting something fixed. I’ll give you an example. I find a lot of homes that have, let’s say for example, one, maybe a multi-story house, two story house, one HVAC system, multiple thermostats, one upstairs, one downstairs, sometimes maybe one in another bedroom or something like that. I find those to be not working correctly a lot. And what I mean by that is like the upstairs will work the downstairs or the downstairs will work the upstairs. go into these people’s houses sometimes at months right before their builder’s warranty is going to expire. And they’re like, I just can’t be comfortable. We’ve had the HVAC company. They come out multiple times and they can’t find a problem. Why can they not find a problem? It’s because they go there and they check the different, the Delta, but across the coil, the Delta is fine. And so then they leave telling them that everything works fine and the people are still uncomfortable. Meanwhile, because they’re getting the wrong temperature on the wrong floor of their house. And, but through my inspections and I figured it out one day that this was happening, just by, you know, happenstance and then out of curiosity and wanting to find out how often this is happening, I changed my process and the way that I operate the thermostats lets me identify that problem that most HVAC companies aren’t going to find because they don’t know to test that way. They just go in and turn on the system, check the Delta and that’s it.
Brad Lowery
So did you come to that conclusion on your own, that method of testing, did you learn that from someone?
Matt Brading
Yeah, no, I came. It just happened one day. I was actually wrapping up an inspection with some clients and a realtor. was upstairs and I had the thermostat off upstairs and I knew I had it off and the one downstairs was still running and whatever it was, cool air, hot air, something was coming blowing right on my head and I was like, wait a minute, this isn’t right. I know I had this one off. I went and I checked the thermostat. Sure enough, it was off. The downstairs one was on and that’s when I realized it was happening. Prior to that, I would just go in, turn on both thermostats and take my temperatures that way. But from that day forward, I run them individually to try to identify which where each thermostat actually does operate because there’s several different things that can go wrong there with zone systems like that. And I was able to figure that out. And I swear I find it in about % of the homes.
Brad Lowery
Now that’s huge, but Travis, mean, you do more than just inspections now. And yeah, I kind of want to talk about why you’ve decided to branch out just beyond just that anyway, and how you kind of incorporate that knowledge from expanding your education and your knowledge back into the inspection side of things.
Travis Jones
Well, a few years ago, I was just doing roofing and we had our big snowmageddon event in Dallas, Fort Worth. And it got me interested in solar as a, maybe an idea of, when the grid is down, maybe solar would work. And as I kind of learned a lot more about that, well, you need batteries. There’s it doesn’t solve every issue, but kept asking questions. And it comes back to what and with my teams, I say one of the most important character traits you can have. In our field and I think in your field is curiosity and just being willing to keep asking questions about, why is it that way? so noticing from a solar standpoint, why are houses using so much energy? Why are we having to put so many solar panels in order to meet their annual demand and finding out a lot more about building science and the building envelope and how we can, not just from an energy standpoint, but I see it as how can I help make a house better, which for me is more comfortable, healthy, durable, and really those houses tend to be very energy efficient. So that’s what we do. I’m in the attic already looking as a roofer. that’s kind of where our insulation and our air sealing business grew out of that. Just continuing to ask questions about how can we do this better. And so I sort of try to address that in every inspection whenever I’m at a house. How’s the whole house as a system? What’s our part in fixing that, making it better, and how can I kick it over to other people.,
Matt Brading
I think that’s the deal as inspectors, like we are the only ones that are looking at the whole thing. Everyone else is staying in their lane and we are looking at all of this stuff and seeing how it works as a system. So I mean, think inherently in our job, we are kind of veering in and out of lanes. That’s just what we do.
Brent Fletcher
So when you all do inspections in attics, does anybody ever take a meter up there to check the temperature and the humidity levels? You can get so much information out of that when you’re seeing that attics degrees hotter than the outside temperature. I do a lot of new builds out in Colorado. One thing that I run into more times than not, everything looks fine. You got enough vents on the top, you got the soft vents, you got everything. More times than not, they’re blowing the blow-in insulation and covering up all the baffles. And now you have no intake in there. So that’s one little thing maybe outside the lane is I’m going to that extra mile, try to figure out what’s causing the improper ventilation and relating that.
Matt Brading
I think that’s what kind of, you know, going out of your lane or what was it? Stay in your lane or don’t or don’t. think that’s really what it means is just kind of going that extra mile.
Brent Fletcher
I think another thing is like when you’re doing these defects, lot of people are going to write, know, what’s the problem in the correction? You know, obviously, know, improper evaluation in the attic recommend further evaluation, right? What’s the problem? Why is it a problem? There you go. That’s what you need to know. That’s a key in there.
Brad Lowery
Understand of the why yeah now Fletch I want to ask you when it comes to inspecting in Colorado. That’s not inspection regulated, right?
Brent Fletcher
Yeah, there’s no certification requirements to be a home inspector in Colorado.
Brad Lowery
How do you then, I mean, if you’re, if we’re talking about staying your lane or don’t, there’s no clear lane, you know, as far as like state standards of practice. How do you, how do you define that? Your scope of work.
Brent Fletcher
Right, so I’m internationally certified master inspector, so I do go heavily off of that standard of practice, but it does give me a lot of freedom and we can always talk about code and all that good stuff and I appreciate the code inspectors for what they are, but without being a code inspector, I’m allowed to have an opinion. I’m allowed to see something and elaborate on it and kind of go off on why I think it could happen and your best course of action from.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, that’s huge. one other thing, Travis, bringing it back to you, We talked about this on a previous episode that we did. For those of you all that aren’t subscribed to the show, this is actually a good place to say, ahead and do that. Take out your phones, wherever you listen to a podcast. Look up the Ride Along Show or the Ride Along Home Inspection Show. You can look on YouTube. It’s actually live streaming there right now. But anyway, we had an episode that we did with Travis previously, but there was a comment that you made back then that I think is super important and relevant now, which is that you really look for ways on how to advise people to make existing homes better. So what are ways that you do that during your inspection?
Travis Jones
Yeah, wow. I first, I think the whole idea that it’s exciting. A lot of the content we see out there is about new homes and there’s going to be a lot more new homes. But I heard a stat recently that at a building science conference where he said that in , % of the buildings that will exist in have already been built. now. So in the next years, we’re only going to see % more buildings, which means we’ve got to figure out how to fix the existing buildings, existing commercial, existing residential. And so I think it all starts with approaching a house as a system and saying, this house is supposed to be durable, comfortable, healthy, and efficient. We have to manage our control layers. That’s a big concept in building science. We’re trying to manage water, air, vapor, heat. And so as I’m looking at a house, that’s kind of what’s going through my head is how, what’s my part in that? And then if I see something that – so I kind of deal with the envelope, if you will, the building envelope, the insulation, the roof, which is obviously a huge part of shedding water. And then the mechanicals, I’m trying to educate myself more and more about that so I can give a better handoff and referral to the HVAC guys that I’ve built relationships with. I’m not trying to do their job, but I want to be able to set them up and help identify the real issues.
Brad Lowery
Now that’s huge man and I feel like you guys have probably heard those two words a lot this this week building science. I don’t want to just throw it around the same way that that people use a hashtag or you know kind of a buzzword on social media. It’s this I want to kind of pivot to talking about how we can go outside the box in terms of expanding our education. Because for me, I wasn’t even aware of that term, that field of study, what it meant, because I existed as a home inspector for several years as just a guy that checks the boxes. I understood a little bit about this system, a little bit about this system, but never, it wasn’t until, actually she’s sitting right over there, Tessa Murray. It wasn’t until I went to Ashy Inspection World in . Listen to her presentation and I didn’t even understand that this was an entire all encompassing field of study where you think of the entire home as a system rock my dang world and changed how I look at everything. But Matt, what was the kind of that aha moment for you when you started to think of things differently and as far as expanding your education outside of traditional maybe inspection methods?
Matt Brading
I don’t know. I mean, it’s all been so fascinating. I’m still learning, you know, and it’s one of those things I think we should always kind of be learning. But I mean, I think just like the concept of heat moving to cool. Tessa, you were talking about it yesterday. And when we start to understand that, it opens up a lot of doors. And that’s, think, where it really started for me.
Brad Lowery
That’s pretty big. How about free track?
Travis Jones
Man, my kind of wake-up call, I was putting together a solar proposal for a neighbor. And these solar proposals are kind of geared towards get them to % of their annual electricity and put every panel on the house you possibly can. And as you look at, step back, it’s a little ridiculous. They’re in the shade. They’re on the north side, which is not good. Unless you’re in Australia, then panels go on the north side. we want south, side facing panels, or east or west, but not north. And so was looking at this and evaluating this person’s bill. I just happened to see that a few months before their monthly usage dropped by kilowatt hours. That’s a pretty significant amount. And I said, Angela, what happened? What is going on? And she said, that’s when our pool pump broke. Cause it died in our freeze of . thought your pool pump uses kilowatt hours a month. That’s crazy. That’s a lot. And so, and then I learned about variable speed pool pumps, which if you’ll take a variable speed pump, you can run the same amount of water through the filter. And if you run it for twice the time, but half the speed, it uses one eighth of the energy. And I was like, wait a minute. And so that was really kind of my entry into the building science rabbit hole was like, this is important. This affects people. then sadly, of course, people will put variable speed pool pumps and they’ll just run them full like they’re.
Matt Brading
That’s huge.
Travis Jones
Like they’re a single speed pump and they won’t get the benefit of that. But I run my variable speed pump hours a day. I run it fast for a couple of hours, slow it down and then run it really slow. And it helps keep the water fine, but it’s a lot less electricity.
Brad Lowery
You’re saying that you have a pool and you never invited us over?
Travis Jones
Yeah, come on. Let’s go. Pool party? I’m from Dallas. We all have pools. Okay.
Brad Lowery
from Florida, we just have the beach. But we got pools too, yeah, but we got to put cages over them and then they blow away and back to back hurricanes. Ask how I know. But no, this is huge. But here’s the cool thing too. Like for those of you all listening, Matt, there’s ways that they can start getting involved in communities that are kind of rallying around these bits of information. Because in classic contractor form, we’ve taken an educational concept and then added beer.
Travis Jones
Yeah.
Matt Brading
Yes. You must be speaking of BS and beer. Anybody familiar with that? Anybody know what the BS stands for in BS and beer? I know you do. It’s building science. Go figure. yeah, building science and beer. So all across the country and actually in Canada as well, there are communities of people that are coming together to, that people that want to do things right, to build things right, to learn and to continue to learn from each other and to help lend knowledge.
Brad Lowery
Talking about beef.
Matt Brading
And, and so they get together usually at brewery or a, or someplace that has some, some good beer. And, I’m a part of the community in Houston. Travis, you, are the, the, the head of the community up there in the Dallas area. that correct? Unofficially unofficially unofficially. So there’s communities all over. If you don’t, if you’re interested in this kind of stuff and it’s not just contractors, it’s not just HVAC people, it’s inspectors. It’s, it’s, you know, a big community. I’m a true believer that, you know, as inspectors, we come to these type of conferences and we learn from inspectors or we learn, you know, electrical, this, but I actually think that learning like outside that, right? Learning about construction, it helps us get, you know, it helps us further identify problems within a home and do a better job for our clients. Okay. We might not get credit hours for some of the stuff that we do outside of, of, you know, interNACHI, NACHI or outside of, you know, inspection fuel conferences, stuff like that. Yeah. We’re getting credit for some of this stuff, but if we continue to study, whether it’s actual courses that we don’t get credit for, or you just connect with some of these people online and listen and learn from what they’re putting together or BS and beer type get togethers, there’s just so much to, knowledge to gain from stuff like that.
Travis Jones
I’ll say this too about BS and beer. Well, first, how many of you are familiar with fine home building magazine? Have you all ever seen that? So they’re, they’re a part of the BS and beer podcast. And there’s also a fine home building podcast, which they’ll get these listener questions and they’ll ask, where do I find a contractor who’s willing to do these better steps? And they’ll often say, well, if you have a BS and beer in your community, go visit it. But the thing is, if you’re looking to fill out your roster of people, you know, if you want to be able to give here’s three. Plumbers I recommend three HVAC people. you want to, if you do that for your clients, a great place to meet some of those contractors is at a BS and beer because there you have contractors. And the reason we’re there, it’s at ours. We will do networking for an hour. We’ll have a presentation for about minutes. Last month we talked about Rockwell installation. This month we’re doing a builder’s round table and it, but it’s a great place to meet people, like-minded people. mean, we know you’re here bettering yourself, so I know I’m talking to the right people. Like it’s another place where it’s full of people like that. So if you have one in your area, just, and there’s tons of handles on Instagram, if you just go search BS and beer, you’ll find probably one near you.
Matt Brading
And if you don’t have one, maybe you should consider starting one. but, but also you were talking about like these places being great places to meet contractors. I mean, he just said earlier, like, you know, finding a qualified roofer or actually, you know, qualified anything for that matter can be very difficult and stuff like that can get you in touch with people. That’s how I met Travis. That’s the time I met him.
Brent Fletcher
Yeah, don’t forget about social media as well
Matt Brading
Social media for sure. was about to say that I met Travis, of course, through social media, but through that community. But social media can be absolutely huge because that’s the reason I met Brent and how I Brent.
Brent Fletcher
Yeah, when I first started a home inspection company, didn’t know, I never did an inspection before I owned my company. The first inspection I did was under my own name. I didn’t train anyone. I, a lot of the insight that I got on how to do it was just by following different home inspectors on social media, like Matt here. And I watched his videos so much just to get all that insight. So I really appreciate it. do that. I didn’t copy him at all. But yeah, don’t forget the connections that you can make from it as well. It’s just been phenomenal. I’ve met home inspectors across the whole US and it’s just been phenomenal. So, but what you can learn from that is just, yeah, astounding.
Brad Lowery
But Brent, that’s actually a really good pivot there because we also wanted to talk today about how you can stay in your lane or don’t when it comes to content creation. And you are an absolute master of this in your own right, in your neck of the woods. So talk a little bit, if you will, about ways that for inspectors either who are not yet creating content or are trying to really think of a way to kind of establish themselves, find their own voice. What’s your advice and how they can go about doing that?
Brent Fletcher
You know, think when I really started changing my content that I really saw a difference is, you know, people are looking for someone they can trust and they want to know that they know you. So when I stopped treating social media like, you know, hi, my name is Brent Fletcher with Fletcher’s Home Inspections and I treated it more like I was FaceTiming a friend and I just started talking into the phone. Like I was talking to do a quick cut, don’t edit it, just send it. And before I knew it, people started to connecting with that. And then I noticed that when I get to these inspections now, when people hire me from they see me on TikTok or Facebook, wherever it may be, they come up to me like they know me and I have no idea who these people are. And they’re talking about all these videos they saw. So they’ve connected on that level and it built trust before I even met them. So when you’re doing that social media, that’s the direction I’d recommend going. It’s treated like you’re just talking to a friend on the phone.
Matt Brading
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in terms of social media, I mean, we’re advertising, right? But if you treat everything like an advertisement, you lose people. I mean, yeah, I mean, that happens to me. whenever I’m watching content, if it looks like some type of ad, then, then I go past it. like personality really has to play a part there and you really got to kind of showcase yourself as much as what you do. If you just walk on there and say, hi, I’m an inspector, hire me. That’s not going to do it. Right. And so we try to employ things. I mean, I think some of my stuff is funny. I think some of your stuff is funny. My wife does not necessarily think.
Brad Lowery
I don’t.
Travis Jones
haha
Brad Lowery
No, it’s seriously though. It’s you know not being salesy I think is huge Matt that you said it that way which is really kind of one of the ways that we have I guess to find the voice of this show Try going to a publicly traded company telling them that they need to produce content and when they say cool What are we gonna sell on it? You say nothing and they like excuse me what? And it’s like, no, listen, we need to be adding value outside of just that. Yeah. Like, look, I would certainly recommend, because this is by porch, go check out the ISN table, go check, talk to the guardian guys about flex fund, but that’s not what we’re here to do. Right. We’re here to give value to you guys, to build community there and, and just provide a means of connection. Right. So when you think about, providing value to your, your audience, Brent, what are ways that you look to do that specifically?
Brent Fletcher
Repeat the question one more time.
Brad Lowery
What are ways that you look to provide value in your content to your audience?
Brent Fletcher
I try to be funny because if you can’t pull people in with being a little joke here and there, it’s not interesting. then I try to just say every fourth or fifth video, I’m trying to actually put something very educational in there, break it down, and actually make a little bit longer of a content. So now you built the trust, and now you can actually explain. Because when I first started doing it, that’s all I wanted to was to educate. But educate after educate after educate got little repetitive now, didn’t it? So when you start throwing a few jokes in there, being a little bit more personal, now you can hook people and get a little bit more education out you wish.
Matt Brading
Well, varying content, right? Cause I mean, I have, had people that they, they, they, a lot of times people come to social media because they’re buying a house. Right. And so they find me, they find you because they’re, they’re in the market to buy a house. I passed that. Like, why would they even watch our content? We’ve got to give them a reason to, know? And so, we either have to do things that are going to hook them to.
Brent Fletcher
The algorithm just kicks that.
Matt Brading
Somehow, some way, whether it’s funny or we bring a little bit more of our personality or other things that we do. like to vary my content. So I’ve got some, lot of what I do is, you know, just me on a job on a home inspection, but there are other aspects to the content that I put out there too. try to kind of push the envelope all the time because I want people to stick around and continue to be entertained. if they’re not buying a house.
Brad Lowery
There’s also an element though where, know, Matt, you were talking about, you know, thinking some of your stuff is funny. You create for you too, a little bit, right? Like if you don’t enjoy it, where’s, what’s the point?
Matt Brading
Absolutely. I mean, it took a long time to kind of like figure out my voice and like what I, what I wanted to be or do. And it’s really just being myself, you know, but, but yeah, it took a long time to find that, but yeah, I have fun doing it. I mean, it’s brutal. I spent hours doing this stuff guys. I mean, like it’s hard, but totally funny. we were talking earlier today and you posted something. I think it was this morning. I, happens to me all the time.
Brent Fletcher
You don’t
Matt Brading
I have something like it. have tons of videos on my phone. You guys come up and look there in files, ridiculous amount of video, right? And, and I’ll have stuff that I sit on because I’m like, well, that’s terrible. Nobody’s going to like that. And then eventually you post.
Brent Fletcher
Yeah, so I had this video I took on a few months back and I didn’t like the video. I don’t like what was about it, whatever. And I kind of just scrolled past and always went to a different video to post. And this morning I was just, you know, kind of just bored. So I was like, you know what, let’s just give this one a shot and I’ll throw it out there. So I posted about eight this morning right before we walked in here. It’s at about a half a million views across platforms. I like it. Oh, yeah. So yeah, just post it. Don’t be scared. Put it out there. Even if you don’t like it, somebody might. So.
Brad Lowery
Dude
Matt Brading
you
Brad Lowery
That’s huge. when you were talking about finding your kind of your voice, it’s I feel like it’s easy with social media to find trends and then maybe duplicate it. But, you know, what are ways that you kind of look for an original spark? Because that’s really seems to be the content that does the best.
Brent Fletcher
So the don’t do that Yeah, yeah, that’s phrase, you know that one kind of happened out of nowhere I made a video and I just said it because I was just bored and you’re just firing off content every day and I saw that one hooked and I saw the amount of views and the comments I got on so I was like, let me just try it a couple more times They tank they didn’t do anything but I just kept with it all of a sudden boom I skyrocket and that became the catchphrase I’m known for now. So you
Brad Lowery
You just didn’t throw that baby out with the bath water. Like you just kind of.
Brent Fletcher
No, I gave a little bit more try because it worked once and then it didn’t work out. let’s keep trying. Let’s keep coming back a little bit and playing with it, trying some other ideas until you really zeroed in what is working for you and what’s not.
Brad Lowery
Now that’s huge. Travis, what are ways that you look to do that?
Travis Jones
Yeah, so if you haven’t gotten into social media yet of posting your stuff, you should. You don’t have to be hundreds of thousands of followers like these guys. I’ve got a few thousand followers and social media does amazing things for me. My first goal was to educate my market because I know this is true everywhere, but people are price conscious. They don’t understand why is my price higher? And so it was a way to get that out there. do I? Because we do more steps. My scope is not the same. You don’t know how to do apples to apples comparisons, you know, when this next roofer, next insulator gives you a quote. So I’m like, well, I’m just going to put out there what I do. Sometimes I’ll say, hey, go watch this as like a, kind of my own little mini commercial to my one customer. But it also then, because I’ve, you know, have this kind of niche crowd that of followers, I get some good engagement on it. And I’ve gotten some good referrals and calls. And it’s also been a way, you know, to build relationships. Just like I was talking earlier about the BS and beer is a place you kind of meet colleagues that are like-minded. It’s been a great way to connect with guys like Matt and, and some others that, know, we now we’ll just call each other. mean, Matt FaceTime me the other day from an attic to be like, Hey, what are you, what am I looking at? You know, so that it’s just been also a way that there’s a lot of benefits to it other than, you know,
Matt Brading
Yeah. Mayor of an attic.
Brent Fletcher
I’m not thinking how can I monetize this. thinking how my purpose is to educate and entertain and then to continue to grow my business that way. connections. I called this guy on a two hour drive the other day. We talked for an hour. It great. It was just all about business and how we’re doing with it and whatnot. It’s great.
Brad Lowery
Now that’s awesome. But let’s talk about like growing that audience, right? Like you found kind of things that were definitely a hook and a big hit with people. But when you were starting out, kind of trying to define that target audience, because we kind of get into the weeds of marketing here a little bit when it comes to being a business owner. Did you start creating just to create? Were you looking at kind of marketing to realtors first, buyers?
Brent Fletcher
So when I started the company, I also had my son. So young kid at home and I didn’t really have the opportunity to go out and do a bunch of networking that I wanted to, but I knew that I had to be loud. I had to get my face out there one way or another. So I was like, no matter what, I’m posting every day because if I can’t see people in person, I need them to be able to see me as best I can. So every platform I could, every day I put out a post and that’s what it was. It’s the grit, constantly keeping your face out there so people recognize you. So by the time I did get to those networking events, everyone was coming up to me, I knew who I was, they’ve been watching my content.
Brad Lowery
No, that’s huge, man. But I do want to, Matt, let’s talk about this kind of thinking outside the box in terms of who you’re reaching out to. We actually had a conversation with a guest on the show here earlier today. There’s a little bit of a difference of opinion on this where it’s like, where does social media marketing fit into your overall scheme? You could kind of think of things one way. All right, I want to use my content strictly to reach buyers. For example, here’s one of my favorite realtors over here used to do all of her teams inspections. She spoke earlier, Kristen Francis. I hope you guys saw her presentation. Anyway, my whole thought when I was starting out with social media was trying to reach realtors. Which tack do you take and when did you start to think outside of that box of it’s just this or this?
Matt Brading
I mean, you know, I think trying to reach realtors on social media is a good place to start for an inspector. Because, mean, they, they are going to feed you business. And if, if you, just like you were saying, like you’re transparent about your work, right? They can actually see you. It’s not just sample reports on the website, but they can see what you’re doing a little bit and, they get to your personality a little bit – think trying to reach realtors, that’s where I started. That’s why I started doing it. It changed, but I mean, it changed because. I didn’t know how to market to consumers directly. I couldn’t figure out how to do that. mean, I didn’t know how to, mean, yeah, I put videos out there, but nobody was really seeing them, but I could target realtors, right? I could, I could go and follow them and hopefully they follow me and, you know, just, I could talk to them at events and things like that and get them to follow my social media that, that I knew how to do that. But to get just a general public to, to listen to what you were saying and to follow you, that, that was hard. I didn’t know how to do that. And honestly, through the grit and resilience and just continuing to do it. Eventually it happened, right? It got large enough and it doesn’t have to be super large for this to happen. But I mean, like I just had enough of a following that it started to make an impact on my business. Now, a majority of my business actually comes from social media and a lot of it is just direct to consumer. It’s the person sometimes they don’t even have a realtor and they are calling me for the inspection. I think a lot of us as inspectors, I mean, we have a love hate relationship with realtors, right? They give us business. But it is nice to know like that the client has chosen us specifically, or that we don’t have to worry about whether or not we’re killing a deal. mean, you know, stuff like that comes into play with realtors and how we, of course it’s never like affected the way I do my job, but it’s, it’s hard not to think about, you know, if you’re relying on that realtor to send you business, it’s hard not to think about what your inspection, the market leaves the impression that it leaves with that realtor, but what if, what if you weren’t marketing to them? Right. And so that’s just what happened to me. All of a sudden I’m just marketing to people directly. And so it changed. At first it was realtors and I think still that’s a good place to start.
Brad Lowery
You mean you don’t have , realtors following you in the Houston area? yeah, there you go. But no, let’s say, let’s actually guys, you want to pivot to the crowd here and kind of see what they, let’s take a survey here. Yeah. Guys, we want to hear on both of these fronts. What are some things that you guys are doing to not stay in your lane when it comes to doing your job in the field? And then let’s also ask the question.
Matt Brading
Maybe .
Brad Lowery
What are some things that you guys are doing thinking outside the box in terms of marketing, be it what you’re doing for outreach or social media? Let’s talk to you guys. Who wants to be on a podcast? Whoa, man. Will, I know you do, dude. Come on. Yeah, you were wanting to get on the show and you’re going to this afternoon. Let’s go. Yeah, we’ve got a box right here. Yeah. Ha ha ha. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Hold that real close. So what do you think some things that you’re doing to kind of be outside the box?
Matt Brading
I’m just going to talk on the outside of the box for networking. Sure. Because I think that’s the best I can explain for what I’ve done. So utilizing Facebook to tag realtors in the posts that I’ve met at networking events and become friends with. And it gets their exposure out. They’ll end up resharing your post from your page. That’s good. They’re tagged. so that was one way that I was kind of the first in our area to start and kind of like what you said, I’ll go to these events. Hey, I’ve seen your stuff. I’ve seen your photos I’ve seen. And, so the feedback is real. That’s a great strategy. So another strategy was, sports using sports like, NFL or NHL or whatever you want to do, but you, you learn what sport teams people like. You can do watch parties where you’re like a sponsor. When raffles. So we’ve expanded into that world and it’s that’s the non-relator world. That’s where you’re bringing in people and they’re like, you’re local home inspector. And this is all just, you know, what we’re trying to presenting sponsor of today’s watch party at this brewery, you know, and
Brad Lowery
Dude, that’s actually a great guy.
Matt Brading
It’s been good. That’s worked out really good.
Brad Lowery
Will. Dude, that’s awesome. Hey, give Will a hand there. It’s actually really great, man. So and keep your box right there because I got a question for Dave since he’s been doing this the longest here outside of mine. That was Mike. Yeah, it was Mike. Yeah. Which we’re getting you a hat, dude. We will. you know, longevity. Let’s talk about that. What are some things that you’ve done or ways that you’ve grown and kind of expanded the way you go about your business in the plus years that you’ve been operating?
Audience member
I started originally with a company, got trained for about three years and decided I want to go out on my own. I wanted to be more of a boutique and not a volume based business. And I just stayed that way through these years, tried to be true to myself, true to my clients and just give them the best job and to go outside the lanes a lot. In other words, this SOPs are great, but you can say more, you can help people more.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Audience member
Don’t worry about being sued all the time. Everybody’s like, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to get sued. You’re probably not.
Brad Lowery
How many times in years?
Audience member
How many times?
Brad Lowery
You don’t have to see it.
Audience member
I was threatened two or three times. I had to hire an attorney one time. They dropped the case because they were just pissed at the seller and I was just brought into the mix.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, so it really wasn’t that big of a threat at all, Yeah, there you go. There you go. I love it. So no, those are both awesome testimonies. Give a hand for Dave again. That’s awesome.
Audience member
Cost me money.
Matt Brading
I have a question for Dave, actually. Yes. So in the time that you’ve been doing this, which is considerably longer than a lot of people in the room, what is one of the biggest things that you’ve seen that has changed in industry itself?
Audience member
Technically, it’s gotten a lot more advanced. I mean, from NRC paper when I first started to all the computer programs, people are getting a much better product, you know, the reports, but we’re getting more technical with our knowledge that what we’re giving them. The building science is huge. I would advise everybody to learn more about that. These houses are complicated.
Brad Lowery
That’s awesome. grand. Awesome. For sure. you know, well, I was actually thinking, I want to touch on something that you said too, which is thinking outside the box when it comes to networking. I actually met, haven’t talked about this. wanted to actually, hopefully we can do an entire podcast episode on this at some point. I had the privilege of sitting down with, the marketing lead from a title agency, north of Tampa, which has nothing to do with home inspections, except that I did immediately get a lead out of it. But, that worked, but my question to them wasn’t really about, you know, how can I partner as an inspector? I followed them on social media because very little of what they actually post is title related. A lot of it is showcasing the social media work that they do for realtors because their target audience is realtors. Even though all of, could talk, you know, till they’re blue in the face about what they had to offer as a titling agency.
Matt Brading
Who’s gonna watch that?
Brad Lowery
Exactly. Yeah. So they’re like, Hey, how about this? These realtors need headshots. They need content. Let’s actually put together a little media house that they can use. And then now it’s a captive audience, right? There’s just a cool way of thinking outside of the box and getting outside of the Cool. Yeah, definitely. we’ve got one other, you know, voice of reason I think we should tap into down here. sitting in the front, Kal Patel. we’ve, we’ve had an episode with you before, man, about, franchising and the benefits of it.
Matt Brading
That’s real cool.
Brad Lowery
But if there’s anybody in this room that has a tendency to habitually think outside of the box and swerve betwixt lanes, I’d say it might be you, man. So from launching an inspection company to franchising it, give us some steps that kind of made you think that big.
Kal Patel
So I didn’t think that big at the beginning. So the only thing that really inspired me to go into the franchising was I had read a book called E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. And it’s all about setting up systems, right? Having systems that you can replicate. And then obviously, I think a lot of you know this, but my first year, I was up on a Roof Dona inspection, slipped off the ladder, fell eighteen feet onto concrete, shattered my right arm, couldn’t do inspections anymore. So that’s when I started franchising. So it was accidental, right? But because I had the intent of trying to create systems, right? And I think all of you should be setting up systems. So that way when you hire someone, you can continue on with giving them a playbook, right? On how to grow and continue that success.
Matt Brading
That’s great advice.
Brad Lowery
Now that’s huge man, definitely appreciate that. Now you’ve got a book out too right? Do you want to plug it real quick?
Kal Patel
I do. I actually brought a copy for you. It’s Fueled by Purpose is the title of the book. And it really goes back from my journey, starting with where I was actually born in India, two years old when I left, came here, and just started working through different businesses, different jobs. And it kind of goes through how I
Brad Lowery
man! So, yes. Dig it.
Kal Patel
The thought process of how I did what I did, why I’m doing it, and all of it begins with purpose, right? So when you guys think about why you’re in the business of doing home inspections, what was the true purpose that got you started, right? And if you can stay true to that purpose and continue with the grit, perseverance, all the ingredients that you need, you will be successful. Surround yourself with people like this in this room.
Brad Lowery
Exactly.
Kal Patel
Very important, right? So yeah, that would be, yeah. So if you guys want a copy of the book.
Matt Brading
Awesome. You have them here? Thank you.
Kal Patel
I do. have a few copies.
Matt Brading
I love that though, because when I started and I did the same thing as Brent, like I started my company right off the bat. I got licensed in Texas. We have to go through this pretty long process of licensing. I got licensed and I started my own company right off the bat.
Brad Lowery
Ha!
Matt Brading
I would not have actually don’t advise it to most people. It is a lot. It is hard. It took a long time to gain traction. And there’s an awful lot of risk involved too. I really, don’t think it’s a great idea for most people, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I didn’t surround myself with what I feel like are just the best people, the best support system. And how I met them was, you know, through events like this or classes, you know, it’s not always about whatever certificate or whatever it is that you’re learning from whoever’s speaking. You get that, but the added benefit of networking is building a network around you of people that you can trust and lean on when you need them.
Brad Lowery
That’s awesome. And when it comes to community and surrounding yourselves with good people, I just want to say, I’m thankful for every single one of these people here, Absolutely. Yeah, this is huge. Give yourselves a round of applause for being here. Truly, this has been awesome. But there’s one more question I want to throw out to the audience, because we don’t do this just to spit into the wind here to flap our gums. This is for you all, right? We want to benefit you all and put out content that you guys want to hear and that’s meaningful to y’all. So if you want to pass the QA box, the microphone here and share, what are some topics that you guys would like us to cover coming up as people who listen to the show?
Matt Brading
And if you think of something later, like, write right into us.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, seriously, come stop by a booth outside. Do we have somebody in the back there? Yeah. Go ahead, man. Yeah.
Mark audience
Hi, name is Mark. Just feeding off of what you were saying about surrounding yourself with good people and having that network. When I started, it was really helpful for me by joining a local chapter and feeding off the knowledge of inspectors like Dave, who’s been, who’s doing a lot longer than I was, we’re in the same chapter, but getting active and trying to help educate other inspectors. I would strongly encourage any inspector to try and get into that kind of a network, whether it’s a local or an online chapter or whatever. It really can pay dividends.
Matt Brading
It’s crucial. Thank you for that.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, appreciate you man. Other topics or things that you guys want to hear about in the next year ahead?
Matt Brading
Any guests that you want us to have on. Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Actually, I’ll tell you, while y’all are thinking about it, there’s a way that if you want to, you can submit some information or you can actually leave us a voicemail. You go, there’s a website for the show called The Ride Along.show and you can leave a voicemail on there. We would love to hear from you guys and we’ll feature that on the show in the future too. It’d be pretty neat. But this has really been awesome. Guys, let’s give one final quick pro tip to everybody here as far as thinking outside of the box. Travis, what you got?
Travis Jones
Well, since I’m not an inspector, I think what I will say is how much I appreciate you guys and say, collectively as a society, we need you. You’re the person out there that’s, you’re not the builder. You’re not, you’re, getting paid for information. There’s a saying kind of in the home performance testing world, like people hate paying for just information. They want to pay for outcomes. But with, your case, oftentimes they have to pay for that information. So as, as you make it better, more educational teach people about, how our homes are becoming a little bit more fragile as we get more airtight and have to deal with it. We’re really counting on you guys to help people, because a lot of people just have no clue what their home is about, how their home is a system. And we need you guys and all the inspectors to help us kind of raise the bar.
Brad Lowery
That’s huge. Brent, what you got?
Brent Fletcher
I’d say get to know your clients. Individually as you get there on the inspection, get to know who they are as a people and it will help you be able to convey what you’re finding to them a little bit easier in a way that they can understand. A way that you can walk them through it and just work with them better as a home inspector overall than the knowledge that you can provide them.
Brad Lowery
That’s big. Matt, take us out.
Matt Brading
So I think for me, it’s, managing expectations from, the client, right? figuring out what their needs are, what their concerns are, and how you can better help them is huge. So managing expectations is, really huge for us as, inspectors at Texas edge.
Brad Lowery
And I’m going to say, don’t be afraid to think big and be inspired by people who do. We’ve got a bunch of them on this stage here. Real quick guys, where can they follow you? Because honestly, use what they do as inspiration for something that you can do.
Travis Jones
Yep, mainly just on Instagram, @Travisbuildsit is my handle.
Brent Fletcher
You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Most of them are on @Inspector_Fletch or Fletcher’s Home Inspections.
Matt Brading
I’m Matt, @texas.edge.inspect. You can find me at Texas Edge Inspect.
Brad Lowery
Fantastic. Honestly, and that’s going to do it for the first inaugural, the ride along Inspection Fuel. This has been great. Thank you guys again so much for being here. Thank you, Travis. Thank you, Brent. And Brent actually changed his flight so he could be here. So take a hand for Brett. That’s awesome,
Matt Brading
Thank you guys so much.
Brad Lowery
Truly, thank you, we appreciate you. We’ll see you next time right here on
Matt Brading
The Ride Along!
Brad Lowery
Reminder we have a QR code. Please let us know what you think.