TOPIC: What do you give your clients?

I am in the process of changing over from franchise to independent and am curious as to what, if anything, you offer your clients.  With the franchise, I gave out a pretty nice binder which included a "How to Operate Your Home" booklet, separate dividers for the report, contract etc...  Suggestions? Ideas?

Thanks and have a great year ahead.

Rob

I always give out my business card!  ;D

I don't hand anything out like that.  Everything I have ever found is too expensive to hand out every inspection.  Now I know someone is going to say $5 isn't too expensive, but when you add it to all the other advertisement stuff we do it starts to add up.

Having said that, if your interested in handing out booklets, I think NACHI has some you can order for your clients.  Also they are in the works to create a emailing system to send out quarterly home care tip emails to your clients.

I hand out my business cards as well. I haven't had anybody want a hard copy of a report yet. They just ask for it in e-mail form. If I were asked to provide a hard copy of the report I had purchased some clear report covers for that purpose. Sure saves a lot of money in ink & paper only having to e-mail them.

I give my clients a lot of materials. Some are free to me and some I have to pay for.

These are some of the materials.

1/2 Binder. (I buy in bulk) About 1.50
Maintenance Manual (Cost about $3 to 4 each)
Printed info of remarks and a lot of other related materials. Cost of ink/paper/time
Angie's list survey and brochure -Angie is good to me.
BBB information
EPA guides (Free) Just call the EPA. Mold/Radon/Radon Reduction
Bug info. (Got flyers from Terro) Free
If I do a pest I add info from Ohio state university.
Contract
General Info.
How to operate your home. Basement and service checklists (Free)
I also print out special info if applicable. Like FPE. recalls, weeps, GFCI required locations, AFCI

Print cover page from HIP
I have more as well.

Realtors like it, Clients love it!!

Need to go the extra mile!!

If you want send me a PM and I will send you anything you may want. (Except my competition, I have helped enough guys around my area)

David, that's awesome, you have mail.

I give card and homeowner manual.  Me thinks my next client will get much more!

I'm thinking about also offering it on a disc, if you have a burner you can buy 100 discs for about $12 that's .12 / dics.

I learned this from the Small Business Development Center in my area.

Here's a good way to make sure you set aside the money you need, keep in mind this is just an example:

Figure out what you need to set aside per inspection it will be a rough guide line because you never know how many inspections your going to do in a year.

Say you make roughly $300 / inspection.
you pay yourself $150.00 / inspection = $150.00 to the company
$150.00 - $15.00 towards insurence = 135.00
$145.000 - $15.00 gas = $120.00
$120.00 - $1.00 to association fees = $119.00
$119.00 - $0.50 to 1-800 number = $118.50
$118.50 - $2.00 for the web = $116.50
$116.50 - $20.00 for advertising = $96.50
$96.50 - $20.00 for office misc. = $76.50
$76.50 Inital profits

If you do 200 inspections a year:
$30,000.00 / year before taxes to the Inspector
$3,000.00 / year for insurence
$200.00 / year in association fees
$100.00 / year for 1-800 number
$400.00 / year for the web
$4,000.00 / year for advertising
$4,000.00 / year for office misc.
$15,000 / year to the company
$11,700 in write offs.

This is just an example.

If you ever written a business plan this should be in your breakdown and a portion will be in your forecast.
Just figure out what you plan to make in a years time and what you need to pay in a year or a month and adjust from there.

Aim lower than what you think that way in the end you overshoot your forecast and don't come up short.

And write a business plan its the best thing you can do, it will help you set goals for your business and follow them.

Contact the Small Business Development Center in your area it's usually free, they might charge $25.00 now for paper charge because they give you a lot of handouts.