IAM1094- Home Inspector Helps Buyers Make Successful Investments

Will Whittaker is your home inspector at District Home Pro. When you’re informed about the condition of a home before buying, the odds of making a successful investment go up exponentially. That’s why he is determined to make the information you need available, and why he will take every step necessary to ensure that you completely understand the information he provides before you enter final negotiations with the seller.

• CEO Hack: Bahar Consulting
• CEO Nugget: Ask for help again
• CEO Defined: Becoming who you are

Website: https://districthomepro.com/

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Transcription

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00:15 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:43 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Will Whitaker of District Home Pro. Will, it's great to have you on the show.

00:52 – Will Whittaker

It's good. Thank you for having me. I'm very special.

00:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. You are. And you're doing some phenomenal things, so I'm super excited to kinda talk a little bit more about it. But before we jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Will so you can hear about all of those awesome things that he's doing. And Will is your home inspector at District Home Pro. When you're informed about the condition of a home before buying, the odds of making a successful investment go up exponentially. That's why he's determined to make the information you need available and why he will take every step necessary to ensure that you completely understand the information he provides before you enter final negotiations with the seller. Will, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:33 – Will Whittaker

I am, sir.

01:34 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:46 – Will Whittaker

I got my first thoughts about having a business when I was very young. My father was a district manager for an insurance company, and his job was literally to help people become entrepreneurs. Granted, it was all in insurance sales, but the whole point was to start, the idea of starting a business. And when I got out of college, I went immediately into bartending because I had an essentially, unapplicable liberal arts degree. But while I was bartending, I tried to start a laundromat business and did not succeed in that. I tried to start a bar myself and did not succeed in that. I tried to start an insurance agency and did not succeed in that. I tried to start a escape room and did not succeed in that.

But each one of those times, I learned a little lesson along the way, which finally got me to the point where I had decided to, learn a trade, which was home inspecting. And as soon as I saw that home inspecting was a good fit for me, I also saw that it was an opportunity to not just have a job, but also do that thing I had hoped to do all along, which was own my own business. So I trained at home inspecting for about three years, and then this fancy little thing happened called the pandemic.

And it was time for me to go out on my own. And, I did home inspecting as a job for maybe six months or so and decided that that was the point in time in which I wanted it to become a business. So I hired all of the help that I needed to start making sound business decisions. And, you know, here I am with this growing and thriving little company now.

03:41 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. The rest is history. And I appreciate you talking about each of the different startups or businesses that you had before this one because I think so many times people will Zoom over that, and you don't hear that story and the lessons that you learned as a result of taking those steps and trying things, I think so many times we forget about that. And I don't know if you've ever heard this quote, but I think Robert Kiyosaki said it where he said, I heard nine out of ten businesses fail, so I just started to decide to start ten businesses. So Yeah. It just reminds us of failure is a lot of times where those those secrets of success come from.

04:15 – Will Whittaker

Yeah. And it's funny. There are lots of people who will start businesses in the same field, and then fail. And then a field that's close to it and fails. And I feel that close to it and fail. People in my generation at least grew up thinking that they were gonna get a job or a career in one field and stick with it. And it took me fifteen years to finally pick a field in which I could be something like successful. Still, it's not just being aware that you might have to start ten businesses. It's also being aware that you might have to try ten different fields until you finally find one that fits for you.

04:59 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I appreciate you so much for making that point, and that's true. And I think so many times in life and business we forget about that journey aspect and not only the journey that we have and sometimes growing and building our businesses, but the journey we have as well too is finding that lane that we are going to excel in is also a process one in itself. But I think so many times people will look at that process and think that it's more about, like well, I just appreciate the action that you took in towards in terms of doing that because I think sometimes that was what gives you that information, that feedback to know if I'm in the right lane or maybe if I need to pivot into another one.

05:34 – Will Whittaker

Yeah. And it's funny because it's also easy to think that our professional or entrepreneurial journeys are just a story about how we got into business. But they are really stories of how we became the people that we are. You know, for some people, it's a more subtle journey. But for me, it actually led through a period of being unhoused, in Los Angeles. I actually lived in the parking lot outside of LAX, near a hotel eight while I was, after the the failure of my fourth business attempt and learned a lot of personal lessons and worked on some mental health skills that I didn't have.

Because it's not just the case that starting and then having to move on to different businesses is just where your money's coming from. It's also where your heart is going. Like, business journeys are primarily personal journeys. It's just incidental that the money comes with it too.

06:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that and being so transparent about that. And I think, again you don't hear of the not-so-sunshiny days you sometimes go on in life or business, and I think that that's something that, you know, needs to be said a lot more in terms of people understanding that they're not alone when they're going through those struggles. Because I think when you hear, someone that has gone through those struggles and you see they've been able to come out on the other side, a lot of times that's a reminder to us that whatever struggle we might be going through now, I guess, lean into it and understand it, but also to continue to move on, there could be that light at the end of the tunnel. So I appreciate you for sharing that.

07:22 – Will Whittaker

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, when we get into business with each other and try to learn from each other as you're trying to help other people learn from the experience of small business CEOs. You also have to know, and trust the person that you're learning the lessons from.

07:42 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

07:43 – Will Whittaker

And if you do see yourself, see your business story as part of your story, it's a lot easier to show people that you are trustworthy. So I'm very frank with people about the things that I've gone through, especially the period in which I was unhoused because I am a home inspector. So the perspective that I have on homes is, you know, not the sort of perspective that someone who spent their lives doing construction has. It's not the perspective that a real estate agent has. It's not a perspective that even the buyers have. It's like, I really do have a different light that I bring to a situation. So that when I'm talking to a buyer, the sorts of things that I raise with them are kind of more fundamental questions than, you know, what's this investment gonna look like for me? It's like, what is this building gonna do for me?

08:38 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think so many times, I I say in business, we forget about that human aspect of business. So I appreciate you for talking about that and bringing that to light. But you're right where, I think being able to have those different perspectives, what I like to call secret sauces and that unique, way to look at things is what sets you apart, and a lot of that is an extension of our story and what it is that we do. So, I know I touched on it and you did as well too about your process and what you do. Could you touch on a little bit more about that, but also do you feel like that what you just talked about is what you consider to be your secret sauce?

09:12 – Will Whittaker

It is, at least one of them. I have another one that I'm pretty proud of as well. But, that first kind of secret sauce is something that I know about homes that a lot of people don't think about. That a home is a tool, and it's a sophisticated tool, but it's a tool that we came up with, you know, in time immemorial to help us regulate our body temperature. Like, humans, it's raining here in the DMV and, there is where you and I are, Krish. Right. And historically, getting wet was dangerous. If you didn't have a place to stay dry and stay warm, if you got wet, or if you got cold, your life was in danger.

So we started having houses. It's what allowed people to start living further north. It's what allowed people to start living in deserts is you could control your body temperature, which is what our homes do. And as we have progressed as a species, we've come up with more and more sophisticated ways to make staying inside of our homes more appealing. We've added plumbing. We've added electricity so that we can add heat, and we can add entertainment and we can store our stuff reliably inside and we came up with insulation and a place to ventilate that just makes being in a home better for us, keeps us inside.

But each one of those systems comes with consequences that are specifically bearing upon what it's like to help us regulate our body temperature. So there are these weird effects that happen in homes where, condensation starts to accumulate in places, and heat and moisture start to accumulate in places. So when I look at a home and I'm trying to talk to someone about the things that I think need to be done in their home to make it more livable for them. I'm not looking at them and talking to them about building code. I'm looking at them and talking to them about what makes this house a useful tool.

11:24 – Gresham Harkless

Appreciate that. And I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

11:36 – Will Whittaker

So I'm gonna go ahead and, call out the, person who I've spoken to the most, who helped me the most. His name is Asif Chowdhury and his, assistant Lisa Wilson at Bahar Consulting, everyone should look them up and hire them. They are business advisers that have helped me move from someone who knew about home inspecting and had ideas about businesses, to someone who has the knowledge and toolset, to make business decisions, you know, because you have to do what you do best and then pay for the rest.

12:21 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, would you consider that to also be maybe a CEO nugget, which is kind of like a word of wisdom or piece of advice? I often say it might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would kinda tell your younger business stuff as well. Is it to be able to be open and ask for help?

12:36 – Will Whittaker

Yeah. No. Okay. It's to be able to ask for help again. Asking for help isn't a one-off thing. You have to keep asking for it. And sometimes you have to keep asking for the same help for months when I met with Asif and Lisa at Bahar Consulting, they told me the same Bang. For about two months. Don't forget to market. Don't forget to work. Don't forget to market. Because you have to ask for the right lessons over and over and over again until you get them right.

13:17 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And so, I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, Will, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:31 – Will Whittaker

Man, what would be in the CEO mean to me? You know, just from the history that I have, it's becoming who you are. I forget who said it, but people always tell you who they are, and all you have to do is listen. When you're starting to run a business, starting to head a team, starting to make decisions, the things that you have to do to be successful are things where you are actualizing the person that you are. You're deciding how you're gonna treat the people in your life. You're deciding how you're gonna value yourself in front of others. You're deciding how you want to present yourself. And that's becoming you.

14:22 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, we'll truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

14:37 – Will Whittaker

Sure. So right now, we are working on bringing on and training new team members. So we always like to have opportunities to see new faces and have our new faces get seen. We are easiest to look up and find information about at districthomepro.com, all in one word. So if you are looking for a home in the area and you need to understand the ins and outs of it so that you can make good decisions on offers that you're gonna make, or if you're going to make good decisions about what the negotiations that you're gonna make about the home. Look up, District Home Pro, and understand your home and invest with confidence.

15:30 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Will. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with, you and your team. And I truly appreciate you for for talking about the journey and becoming as we said we talked about as well too. I think that we sometimes can forget about that process. We always wanna jump to the finish line, but sometimes the joys in the president and becoming whoever we are and whatever our organizations will be. So thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

15:58 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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