Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Unconventional Business Ventures: Turning Challenges into Opportunities
Ever wondered about the untapped business opportunities lurking around every corner? On this episode of Standing Out in Ohio, Laura and I share personal stories from our recent adventures, including the whirlwind of moving and an uptick in commercial inspections. You'll discover how one seller has carved out a lucrative niche by coordinating trash pickup for restaurants—a venture we never imagined could be so successful. We also look back at a clever COVID-era startup where a former kitchen worker found his calling in cleaning restaurant deep fryers, a service that became essential when staffing shortages hit.
Join us as we uncover these fascinating entrepreneurial stories that showcase the creativity and resilience of business owners who turn challenges into opportunities. By understanding and addressing unique market needs, these innovators not only fill niches but also stand out in their industries. Laura and I hope these examples ignite your imagination and inspire you to think outside the box in your own ventures. Don't forget to share and subscribe for more insightful discussions and updates!
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Two-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Course listings
Facebook Page Facebook
For home buyers: What to expect from a home inspection. YT video for home buyers
Homebuyers, Help Protect Yourself When Going Commando (buying without the home inspection) – Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
Heartland Commercial Property Inspections
If you would like to be a guest on the podcast contact us and let us know. You can visit Home (jimtroth.com) and go to the podcast page or message Habitation Investigation.
Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim. Hey, everybody share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host.
Speaker 2:Jim. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Standing Out. How Podcast Jim here and, of course, laura the office. Goddess Hi everyone. All right. So it's been crazy, insanely crazy, insanely crazy. We have not been able to do a podcast for a little while because we've been moving. Schedule has not worked out well in order to do this, which is it's a good problem. It's yet a problem. We've had some time, but, man, by the time we're done moving, getting done inspections.
Speaker 3:We're butt ass tired.
Speaker 2:I am tired and she is tired. So anyway, been doing quite a few commercial inspections lately.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We'll get into that in a little bit.
Speaker 4:But first let's listen to this. Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs, from radon to mold to warranties For a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit homeinspectionsinohiocom.
Speaker 2:Okay, so did some commercial inspections the other day, and this is kind of good. I kind of go off my email I sent out to everybody the other day. Those are on the email list. It was regarding a inspection of this building. The seller was there and let us in. It was a very locked, secure building.
Speaker 3:It was actually in decent shape too it was. It was nice, Anyway, secure building it was actually in decent shape too.
Speaker 2:It was. It was nice. Anyway, just to make a conversation, he tells me that he started this business and there's things I never thought that would be a business and what he did was he coordinated trash or waste pickup for restaurants. I never thought that would be an actual thing. He built this to a nice size business.
Speaker 3:It was good you would think like a rum key or something like that would be the ones that would do it. I wouldn't think of that as a niche market.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and here's another niche market that I found out a couple years ago. This is right, this is during covid. I always talk to people hey, what do?
Speaker 2:you know, yeah, I talk and he, during covid, started a business where he would all right, you worked in a restaurant before you ever done that, laura. No, all right, I, I tables. That's how I paid for college. I got tired of waiting tables, so then I worked in the kitchen for a while. Okay, because it actually was more fun. Didn't make as much money, but it was more fun.
Speaker 3:Now, when you're in high school, college, that's what you care about. It's fun.
Speaker 4:It is, it is at some point, so anyway there's the deep fryers that need cleaned out.
Speaker 2:Okay and I can't remember if it's once a week or once a month they need.
Speaker 3:That would be very scary if it was only once a month, just saying.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, anyway they get emptied. The grease gets strained. Get rid of the chunks of the fries and onion rings. Anything else that you're frying gets dropped in there. They're nasty, but anyway they get clean. We'll say once a week.
Speaker 3:Just to make Laura feel better, I'm sure Make you feel better.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, restaurants during COVID. They had a hard time getting client I'm sorry their employees to come in Right. So this guy started a business where he would go from restaurant to restaurant cleaning out their fryers. Oh, that's all he did, and because he used to work in the kitchen, he knows it's a hassle, because you'd have to do it either early in the day you actually had to do it early in the day because Otherwise it'd be hot. It'd be hot, so it was only done on days that the restaurants closed or super early, super early in the morning.
Speaker 1:It was a hassle.
Speaker 2:Nope, he would come in the evening late and do them for them, which is a business I never thought so. Anyway, that kind of started me thinking like because with us with habitat investigation we have added lots of services over the years?
Speaker 2:yes, a lot and they're all based upon somebody asking for help we could do, or help with something, or if we did this. So my thought was there has to be some type of service or system that the real estate agents, their clients, would like to have, like the home buyers or home sellers. And I was thinking about our recent experience with moving. We haven't moved in like 22 years. Yeah, this was so much worse. Wow, wow, yeah, wow. We live in this house 22 years.
Speaker 1:We're selling now.
Speaker 2:Live there 22 years, two kids, their stuff, the stuff they leave behind. I mean it's so much more, but anyway, my thought for a service that real estate agents could provide is moving coordination.
Speaker 3:God, I would have loved that.
Speaker 2:Right? I don't think it might be that, because I'm thinking wedding coordinators Right. First of all, wedding coordinator. It's a wedding, not a big deal In my mind. I've served some people.
Speaker 2:it's a huge, massive military operation of the sequence and time being, everything done like for us moving and we were not experienced movers it's been a long time now, it's painfully obvious but if we had somebody go oh, you're gonna be moving, oh, xyz, do this, do the at sequence that would have been fantastic, because we know this house right now, the new place, it's a cluttered mess, yeah.
Speaker 3:I feel like a hoarder, because there's just boxes and we have to walk around them until we figure out where we're putting everything.
Speaker 2:Yes or getting rid of stuff or whatever. I want to get rid of it. I want to donate a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh, I've got stacks started.
Speaker 2:We need to put stacks. Can we put it in one stack so it's all organized?
Speaker 3:I know I need to get a box for it and put them all in a box, and then we'll just run them down as we go, so that could be part of the system.
Speaker 2:If you're a real estate agent, listeners I would say, hey, this is a system that you could share with your clients. Yeah, as a as a extra bonus just for listing or buying a house with you, through you, that you have this moving organ organizing system that helps them reduce their stress, their frustration, saves their time, energy, money.
Speaker 3:And partner with a company that you know will do a good job. I have heard so many warnings about not using moving companies this past month that if you were to have a company that you worked with that would take care of things for people, you'd be golden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you'd offer a special deal. Offer a special deal if they do it for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like the real estate agent can get a discount for their clients, because that's all they refer to and they're part of the system and the whole thing's all set up.
Speaker 2:Well, you and I, we had no system. No, we didn't, we kind of knew, but no system. So we looked at renting movers to come move some stuff. We're still going to do that because we've got some pianos and things like that that need to be moved.
Speaker 3:Do not physically have the ability too heavy, too bulky, so anyway.
Speaker 2:So we're pricing things out, and because we didn't have all of our stuff together at the same time to move, it made no sense to try and hire a mover, so we ended up just buying ourselves a box truck because when we looked at renting one, it was over a thousand bucks a day. It was yeah that's crazy, which is insane to me because they don't do it like they did. When we looked at renting one, it was over a thousand bucks a day.
Speaker 3:It was yeah, that's crazy expensive, which is insane to me, because they don't do it like they did when we first Two decades ago, two decades ago, like they've changed it and it's now per mile what you put on the odometer instead of unlimited mileage, and you have it for the day and here's your flat fee. Oh no, let's gouge everybody that's moving because we know they've got the money, not because you know they're moving.
Speaker 2:They've just purchased a house or done whatever, there's not much extra cash no, like it was crazy but I do know some agents say, hey, if you move, buy a house through me, use my moving truck like which, which is cool.
Speaker 3:But and, if you want, we may have one here in a couple of weeks that you can buy from us for this.
Speaker 2:We'll see. We'll see about that one, but that can be part of your whole system. Here's how you First, you need to declutter and figure out where you're going to donate and start this off six months before, Because we didn't. Two months before you move, stop going to the grocery store, Start using all the canned goods and the right Laura oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Start eating that stuff that you're not going to. That won't like your eggs, milk cheese. You got to use that stuff. You got to buy that stuff as you need it. But canned goods, you know, pasta things, dude, just don't buy any more stuff, you're just going to have to move it. You're going to have to move from the grocery store to your house and you've got to move it from the old house to the new house. Why, why do that? So there should be. There's a whole sequence. I don't know what it is, because we're not experiencing this. This is one of the things where all right, home inspections. We have a good system for inspecting, reporting, doing everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got our sequence all down, that's not a problem.
Speaker 2:But this moving thing. Heck, no, I got no good sequence for moving really.
Speaker 3:And at this point I don't want another sequence for moving, because my happy ass isn't moving from here ever they're going to find my cold, withered body in this house.
Speaker 2:Or out in the woods.
Speaker 3:Or out in the woods because I'm I'm done, I'm never, I am never moving again oh, no, uh no, I haven't moved ever again, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So if you're a real estate agent or some other, uh, you work in some other capacity. Think of the people that you meet. What problems are they trying to solve? Because I easily would have paid money for somebody to take care of everything, but we were so busy. Well, we're getting ready to start moving some stuff. I was like bam, I got six, six commercial inspections to do.
Speaker 2:Six commercial inspections that I needed to do and they're so spread out. It didn't really make sense to have the inspectors go do them, because some of these were Cincinnati, antwerp, canton, and then One was in Columbus.
Speaker 3:Dayton, middletown, dayton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they're kind of all over. And I like to keep the inspectors Local for them, local for themselves, so they can do a second one that day.
Speaker 1:Right, and they wouldn't have been able to with this.
Speaker 2:So no, so I did those, I did extra drive time, but and while you drove.
Speaker 3:I painted.
Speaker 2:Yes, and Laura prepped the house, yeah. So, anyway, my idea, my thought for this whole podcast is hey, keep your eyes and ears open, ask questions, look for other ways you can serve your clients.
Speaker 3:Make a niche for yourself and make yourself invaluable to clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that'll help you stand out. Because, all right, look at this, every home inspector does home inspections. Right, and every inspector in ohio is licensed. At least they should be. If they're not, do not use them.
Speaker 2:But anyway, and they should also have the same not the same system, but the same reporting information on there, because it's all state mandated well, yeah, they're all yes, which is the minimum standard which is minimum standard doesn't mean it's the best, but so my thought is everybody does inspections, they do it by the standards, but some homeless people will stand out because they also do radon, they also do termite, they also do gas line checks.
Speaker 3:Mold inspections, Mold water quality. Chimney scopes, sewer scopes yes.
Speaker 2:So adding certain things that you can do makes that company stand out, and especially when they have, like, thousands of reviews.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:That helps as well. Valid, that's social proof that, hey, this is a good company, right? Every good company, well, every company, even good ones, will have bad reviews, because some people are just.
Speaker 3:Unpleasable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good way to put it Unpleasable. No matter what, we had one bad review not too long ago where the person was upset because our inspector would not exaggerate issues for him to get a deal. Yeah, so our doing the right thing gave us a better view because we wouldn't exaggerate issues. So you can't please anybody, and this guy wouldn't be pleased if we weren't going to lie and exaggerate for him.
Speaker 4:So we're done, screw that guy.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, that's really my thought on this one. I want to make sure we get a podcast out. It's been a little while and actually I'm doing this on a different system, in the new house, in the new office. It's not where I want it to be. We'll get it all set up here, but it's getting there.
Speaker 3:Getting there.
Speaker 2:Alright, everybody have a great rest of the week, take care and bye-bye.
Speaker 3:Bye.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast. Until next time. Learn and go do stuff.