Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Jeff Jones, and this episode is a really interesting topic because it's something you may have heard me talk about on other podcasts.
One of the desires I have, whenever we talk about home services, is I have a desire personally for home management for homeowners.
We often think about property management for people who invest in real estate, but if you own a house, you're the property manager for your own property. Anything that goes wrong or anything that needs to be done; ultimately, you're the one responsible for it.
I've been thinking about this as a category for a long time, and the way I describe it to people is 'I want to live in my house like I'm a guest in your house'.
I want someone who can be the responsible adult and do all the things a responsible adult would do, proactively, to take care of a house, and I would happily pay for that service.
Well, Jeff has heard me talk about that, and he's taken it on himself to put this kind of service together.
So this is a great conversation to brainstorm what it might look like, the implications of a service like this, and how to start the process and leverage the referrals form people who already know, like, and trust us.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 174
Dean: Jeff Jones.
Jeff: Hi, Dean Jackson. The headphones work okay? Or do I need to go directly to the phone?
Dean: No, I think you sound okay so far.
Jeff: Okay, good. How are you today?
Dean: I'm fantastic. Podcast Friday. -.
Jeff: So you're just in your evil scheming chair, evil hatching, scheming chair, and talking all day.
Dean: That's exactly right. It's almost like you know my routine. This is good, I've had a couple of great calls already today. And this is more of the same. We'll continue.
Jeff: Okay, good.
Dean: Yeah, I'm excited to hear what you've got going on. And what you're-
Jeff: Okay, well, we've talked before, and actually I'm doing this again with you in a couple of weeks for the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, a follow up from last year's conversation. But listening to you over the last couple of years, and some others, some of the experiences I've had as a realtor, I've been hatching a plan for probably the last six or eight months, on a home concierge business.
Dean: I like that.
Jeff: I've heard you talk about it a whole lot. You want to live in your house, like you're a guest in mine.
Dean: That's right.
Jeff: The 20,000 foot view is, an additional stream of revenue as a realtor, not doing property management, but basically property management for the home owner. And being a lead funnel to the real estate business down the road, when they decided to sell
Dean: I think that's a great idea.
Jeff: So it's marrying the two together. It's its own independent, standalone business that operates ongoing, constantly, but over time of building relationships, and from the concierge perspective of being able to provide pretty much anything a homeowner needs, that includes helping them sell their house when they're ready.
Dean: That's exactly right. I like where you're going with that. And that's the process. When I talk about the before unit, the during unit, and the after unit, I look at that, originally, the conception was of that being an after unit business, where you've got homes under management, let's call it, where you're the incumbent. You're the one who's helping them with the service, you're being a hero to homeowners. So I think there's a lot to that.
Jeff: I heard of a podcast a couple of years ago from another agent that our state just made available for us to listen to. And on theirs, they made their website be the go-to place where they had the list of dog walkers and pediatricians, if you needed something, they had that, but it was a service on their website. So I've had that, my father was a contractor, I have some construction background, and so it was just marrying all of the stuff I enjoy doing, even though I'm not going to actually be the one out being the concierge doing the work.
But putting those ideas, and I know enough to give guidance for that to make that happen, and marrying those two. So I'm still the resource, as a realtor, I can be the resource for them, but also, instead of watching all these people on social media going, "I need somebody to pull weeds. I need somebody to fix a wobbly fan. I need somebody who can paint the house." Well, okay. You don't have to worry about filtering those people out, or finding some lists online that you can go through. We'll take care of it for you.
Dean: Well. And the good news is, that all of these services are... So many services, like HomeAdvisor, and Angie's list and all these things that do already, that, filtering down the things, but what they don't do is, they still don't go to HomeAdvisor and find the contractors, and schedule the contractors, and manage the project and do all of that stuff. And that's another level of convenience that people will be willing to pay for. We're never going to go wrong betting on the appetite of people for convenience. And it's not something, because you're selling time, is what you're giving people, time and hassle.
And ultimately, I think if you played it right, if you look at it from the right perspective, you're actually going to save people money over the long run, in that if they're... I think the greatest scope of this is to imagine, you may have heard me say, thinking of it as a responsible adult owning my house. That's what I say often. I would love nothing more than a, a responsible adult to own my house, and do all the things that you know need to be proactively done. And so, I think if you take it from a standpoint of absolute to that level where they're living in their house, like a guest in yours, what would that mean?
That would mean, I think how it starts is, that somebody is going to come and do a home inspection and get the lay of the land, in terms of what's going on with the house right now. And check all of the things to make sure that there's nothing looming right now, that there's nothing, a growing problem, that's about to become a problem, that you might find if you did a thorough and full inspection and get that laid out, and then lay out the actual projections of what's going to need to be done. If you think about the regular maintenance on things, or replacement or inspections or what are the things that are going to... What would you do if you were taking one house, and truly making it a delight for somebody to live in without any way-
Jeff: I have my HVAC service handled, service, once a year, but I've put a tankless water heater in four years ago, and I've never had that done. So let's put on the check list the things that have to be done on a regular basis, and it's like the quarterly pest control, "Hey, it's time for us to come out this week. Would Tuesday afternoon at three, be a good time?" So the homeowner doesn't have to worry about, "Oh did I get the AC cleaned, did I get the heater done?" We'll put it on the schedule, and we'll let you know and we'll set it all up, and if we have to be there to let them in, then you pay a little extra. But we will actually even do that while you're at work, if we have to.
Dean: Right. That's exactly right.
Jeff: But it's all set up, and it's like the home warranties that we sell from real estate. You can add extra things if you have a swimming pool, if you have a sprinkler system, if you have a septic tank or a second refrigerator. So there's a basic service to this, but if you've got extra things, if you have pets, maybe you need an air filter changed out more frequently than once a quarter, because you've got two big dogs in the house, and hair's constantly being sucked in. It's a once a month change.
Dean: Yes. And I think maybe the way to think about this is more in the terms of being a facilitator, more than a provider of the services.
Jeff: That's exactly a way of handling all of the monies, versus not, but even what we would do is, I've got built into it, basically we would start... My thoughts are, we start with, your basic sign up gets you an air filter change once a quarter. That also gets you, while that's being done, up to an hour of handyman stuff done that quarter. Do you need something done? Or you can bank that hour. Because if they're there for 15 minutes changing out an air filter, and I'm paying a contract, an independent contractor, to just change air filters all day long, but also can do a little bit of other stuff, if they're there 15 minutes versus an hour, I may be paying them the same amount of money just for a basic thing.
So they get that as a basic thing. And they're not my employee, but I'm handling it all, and I get paid that basic and I just pay that contract laborer for what they do for that. But then everything else, we just coordinate. It's part of the fee because you're a part of the service. I don't go cut your grass, but we can set that up for you, and all that can be handled.
Dean: Yes. Yeah, exactly. So everything to do with the house that you're thinking about it as, homes under management, and I think that's a big thing. Did you end up, I don't know whether I shared with you, the one-to-one future?
Jeff: Actually, I picked that book up last week, because I heard it on a podcast last week and I read it this week.
Dean: Okay. What's your take on that? That book was written in 1995.
Jeff: And of course, sending somebody faxes and stuff, I get the whole list for that now. But what really blew me away, and I even shared this with my wife, was the first few pages. He said that he envisioned a time that you would place an order for something over the phone, and within eight hours it was delivered to your house. And that was 1993.
And I liked the customized diaper service, where we'll go ahead and send you some samples of the time for them to change sizes and that. And basically, Amazon does that on a subscription every month. You can have this delivered to your house. So that stuff is happening. So I've tried to think through that. Even from a real estate side, or from a home maintenance, whether it's lawn care or whatever it is, it's still that one-to-one thing. So we're mass producing the potential to be a home service concierge. However, it's still a one-to-one, because we're going to customize it to what you need.
Dean: Yes, absolutely. So that goes a long way.
Jeff: Like I said, it's just been Romans around in my mind for a while, and trying to put this together, and I wanted you to help patch the steam for launching it.
Dean: So have you mentioned it to anybody? -
Jeff: With other real estate agents, and with friends of ours, and everybody's like, "That's awesome." They're like, "I would use that." And I've gone back and forth on how much we do, and how much it cost, all that stuff. I've tried to settle in on a minimal monthly fee. There's probably more room to charge more money for it, but again, my big payoff for this is, it can employ an independent contractor a good wage to basically work at their own pace, being in and out of people's homes, keep an eye on it for him, and making sure it's good. We just facilitate that conversation. And basically do some scheduling.
I had a home repair guy here in my house last week for the warranting thing, and he used a dispatching software that got me a text that said, the tech is on his way and you can follow him here. And I could follow a link, and watch his travel coming to my house. All that can be automated. So I don't have somebody in here having to be on the phone and calling. It's just all automated for a really small fee, per client, that they use it for, and it tracks everything and they can keep notes on stuff. Anyway, it was good to be able to hear that stuff is out there. Because I've thought through, again simplify this so that I work on it and not in it, and it's a system, and what is it I absolutely have to be engaged in on a face to face basis? A listing appointment last night, nobody can do that for me. Somebody else can take pictures, somebody else can put a sign out.
So from this business, what do I have to do? I've got to engage with strategic partners. So bring alliances with service providers, who are willing to come in and be a part of it, who I've gotten to know, and I've screened and can vouch for. And then the ideas of what is it, what's the offer? What do we do to get them to raise their hand? How do we educate them to get them to want an appointment for somebody to show up at our house to fully explain, or maybe sign them up, to compel them to want to have that conversation. What are those elements for this? I get it for real estate, and I think I've got it for this other, but that's where today comes in.
Dean: So part of it is, I think, it's a matter of creating what the service is actually going to be. Having an N of one where you're looking for something, you're going to have to determine what is it that you're doing. What is the actual offer going to be, and how much is that worth and how much does it need to cost. If you look at it line item wise, at the end of the year, if somebody did a pie chart on their actual expenditures, a good portion of it would be home maintenance, and a good portion of that would be surprise home maintenance. And that is where the thing is, I don't know what industry statistics are available to show how much people spend on home repairs, or home maintenance.
And it gets easier when you especially look over the span of five years say. And when you look at that, I look at the things that always happen. None of it is really expected or happy times. It's not like, I think I've shared on those things, in one situation, in one year I had to replace my roof on my house, which was $43,000 to replace the roof, which you're not expecting or looking forward to that. And then between my house and my office, we've had three or four air conditioner units that have had to be replaced. My water heater here, one of the water heaters at the office, it's always something. It's always something going on.
And then when you look at things like getting your ducts cleaned, and getting your house painted, I've still got, we have some wood on my house, and every few years it needs to be painted. I'm sitting here right now, I'm looking out, I can see in my soffit there's a crack in one of the vents that is there, that if I went around the house, there's probably five or six of those vents that need to be replaced. And so there's all these things that are going on, that's not an issue until you get squirrels in your ceilings, or whatever when they come in there. Or something like that. But it's just that what it could be. I think that what would be the minimum viable situation -.
Jeff: You mean as far as a monthly charge?
Dean: More like a minimum viable service. What could be the-
Jeff: To me, I think for the average homeowner, not the high end homeowner, necessarily, but that would be probably where I start, but for the average homeowner, I know my father in law passed away, mother-in-law's older, I'm the one that keeps the air filter changed in her air conditioner. And I know that you can have agreements with air HVAC people. I don't think, from what I know, a whole lot of people have that. So the home concierge, at a minimum, would provide an air filter change once a quarter along with up to an hour of taking care of something at the house. A light switch doesn't work. A fan. Maybe it's changing light bulbs for somebody. Maybe it is changing out windshield wiper blades, because you don't know how, and you don't want to pay the mechanic to do that. We're not going to change your oil or do that kind of thing. But we can change out...
I'm trying to think stuff that I could actually do, and that somebody with some minimal skills could actually do, to help somebody out. And especially with older folks, or even with folks that are just busy, if they've got high ceilings, they don't necessarily keep the poles to change out light bulbs that are up high, or have the ladders for that. So just a basic minimal expense, that would be a good meal going out with your spouse, and once a month you pay that to the home concierge. And we take care of this for you.
While we're there, we re-look over everything. If we noticed something, like the dentist, if we noticed something six months ago, we're going to keep an eye on it. Well maybe now it's time to care of it, or you need to schedule getting that addressed, or in the next couple of months that's going to need to be taken care of or get that fixed before winter. Those kinds of things. And so having this person keeping an eye on their house, knowing what was on the list last time, what's on the list now. Have they noticed anything they can tell us ahead of time, when they show up to change the air filter next week, I also need them to be prepared to do this.
We're not going to run and grab supplies, and that kind of thing. Because that cuts into the profit margin, it cuts into expenses and stuff. But we can schedule that to come back and do it. We can get what we need, and whether that person does it, or we pass it off to an HVAC person or a router person or a painter, those kinds of things. They've got their eyes on it, and it's like the hygienist that cleans your teeth. They pass off everything to the dentist. Now they happen to be looking right there together, but they don't actually do all the other work. They're not even the assistant, when the dentist is working on it. Somebody else comes in and does that. So we're that person that keeps an eye on your house for you so you don't have to.
Dean: I wonder what... Do you have people that would be willing to run through a backward look at what's happened over the last two, three years of their house, kind of thing? If you were to say to someone, "Can I come and spend an hour with you, and just pick your brain and get my thought around what I'm trying to understand here?"
Jeff: There's friends, and people that I have met because of Nextdoor that I've actually gone and done some of the stuff for them. It would be very easy for me to go, "You had me come in and do this. Let's talk about what was needed." I didn't replace some stuff at work, because it was going to be too complicated, but I replaced some wood on some dormer windows on the roof that needed to be replaced that were rotted, because I could, and being a new real estate agent, I'm trying to come up with money. While my Listing Agent Lifestyle is percolating, and kicking in, I'm doing some of these other things, just to help fund that for now. And that's where this burst out of is, I've changed air filters out for people that I'm selling their house, and I've done work for other people who needed some stuff done and just didn't know who to call.
I've responded to social media posts that says, I need somebody who can, and they let me come do it. I've got a half a dozen people at least that I can take them through that process of, let's look at the last five years, and would it be worth it having somebody to keep an eye on this stuff for you?
Dean: Yeah. You look at how much does it cost for them in home maintenance right now, what are they spending? There's a company in, I believe North Carolina, somewhere, and maybe in Texas, that's doing, I think they're calling it the hassle free home, or something like that, where one of the models is that they are charging on a per month basis based on the square footage of your home. And so let's say, for a 3000 square foot house, they may charge $300 a month, whatever the thing is. And what that gets is, all of the routine maintenance things that need to be done, like your air filters. They're coming every month, and they're doing some inspection, and some service. And maybe that might be like the windows cleaned in the spring, or maybe twice a year or something. The gutters done, the roof inspected, the AC and HVAC inspected, and the plumbing inspected.
So each month is a different... There's a maintenance item that's done, and there's an inspection that's done, with an eye on identifying all of the things. And then the routine things that are the... I think that's how when you look at it, there're things that are, there's known things that you know are going to have to do that are just proactive, that makes sense. It makes sense to clean your gutters. It makes sense to replace your air filters, replace the batteries in your smoke alarm, smoke detectors, those things. Check your fire extinguisher, all of those kinds of things that you might not even think about otherwise, because they're just not a problem. And let's face it, most people just go along waiting for something until it's a problem, and then they're forced to take action on it.
So I wonder, if you look through that, in terms of what it might cost to do that, and you wonder what would people want to layer on top of that? So there's the known expenses that are inevitable. Then there are the unknown ones, that could be avoided, the knowable surprises. And then there's unknowable surprises. You don't know if a tree falls on your roof for some reason, that's an unknowable surprise. But you can know if a roof tile that's cracked and leaking is going to turn into a problem. If you had recognized it early. Things that you could, if you were inspecting, see the signs. And I think that the big win is in doing the known things that definitely need to be done, and keeping an eye on the knowable unknown things to make sure you nip them in the bud, at least then you've got a chance. It's a lot less expensive to fix a leak that's just started in a roof, than a something that's been neglected and now becomes a problem.
And so I think some combination of that, but also then knowing that you've got just one phone call to make when something goes wrong. And I think there's a lot of... What I would probably be inclined to do is wrap this around a media property as well, where it's part of it that you're getting a magazine or a newsletter or a some kind of periodical that goes along with it, that is all about like enhancing the home ownership. You think about all of the... I'd start looking at this from the terms of, who are all of the stakeholders in this life, at home, in your local area there.
And that was part of the way the One to One Future envisioned, is looking at having an advocate where you're creating a group buying situation. Where if you are doing all these things... It's not an emergency to get your carpets cleaned, but if you're part of a group of a hundred people that are going to get their carpets cleaned, and you can collectively all go and negotiate a group rate for the carpet cleaning, with some flexibility, that the carpet cleaner can give you notice, but fit it into the schedule when they've got openings. That would be a win for the carpet cleaner, and it will be a win for the people. So if it starts with, instead of the facts, it's a email or whatever, that somebody can tell you what they anticipate doing this quarter.
Jeff: It's like when I had a lawn care landscaping business back in the '80s that I started. I took care of our best friend's parents' house, but they were a 40 minute drive away, and it was a small yard and not much money. So I went to the library, and I sat down with criss-cross directory, and I wrote down the street and the address of every house in their neighborhood, mailed out a postcard offering them a first free lawn cutting of the spring, not including all the leaves up, just because that got their grass cut first. It gave me an idea how long it took to do their yard. I was 27 years old. And I picked up eight yards. So I had a day in the neighborhood, instead of driving 40 minutes for two guys to be there for less than 30 minutes, and driving back somewhere, another 30, Wednesday was the day for their neighborhood. And so it worked out for me that way.
Putting together with lawn service people, or other pest control stuff, if they've got 10 properties over three streets, well, they're liable not to charge quite as much, because they re they're right there. They might even have three houses next door, that all their people are doing. So you can go with the group purchasing power for that, and then pass that savings along, because you're already a member of the service that provides that for you.
Dean: Yes, exactly.
Jeff: I pulled up some hassle free home stuff. And what that looks like is, from what I can tell on this website, from my local market, is for landlords for taking care of homes that they rent. - I want the homeowner.
Dean: Yeah, I understand that. That's the thing, is these kinds of services are already available for landlords, for people who are renting. That's why it makes so much sense that it's taking that same level of surface, but making it available to homeowners. Because otherwise homeowners have to... You got a landlord, and you get a leaky toilet or something goes wrong, they call the property management company, the landlord is not getting that call in the middle of the night. Right, exactly. And the homeowner is forced to deal with that on their own.
Jeff: Yeah.
Dean: So this gives an opportunity to have that level of service. Now it may be, when you start looking at it, that it may make sense to start with the start with the luxury end of, the full end of this service, as opposed to starting from the baseline of it. Just because... It's almost like when... Because it's going to take a lot of those people to get that up to viability, compared to starting at the premium service first, and then backing down to the entry level service.
It's almost like you watch what Tesla has done over the last 10 years has been, they started with the Roadster first, the high end, to get that top end of the market. Then the S was a high end vehicle, same with the X, because they're more profitable. So now you build that to get to a point where now you can afford to bring it down to the level where it's affordable.
Jeff: Okay. I've already picked a target audience. It's an area that has over 5,800 homes in it, that are in the 300 plus thousand dollar range. And what I've found over the last five years is, 605 of those houses sold between three 400, and 131 over 400. So I wanted to get an idea how many were in there, and then I went to the ProspectsPLUS, and just carved out a map area to see, well, how many actual homes are in this area, and most of them are going to be in that 300 plus thousand dollar range.
And so that's my target to begin with, and I figured out on ProspectsPLUS how to narrow it down lifestyle, they like golf, or they own a boat, they do equestrian, those kinds of things. And that's still, in our whole county, there's 8,000 homes that fit that. So getting somebody to raise their hands. And if I continued to mail out to that target, do I treat that like a getting listings postcard, where I continue with that target who doesn't raise their hand yet because eventually they will? And is that raising their hand a commitment for them to begin paying? Or is it some free report, is it, we will come and do a free a home inspection, and probably not the same level of home inspection that a buyer gets?
Dean: Really, I think that there's a situation where, when you look at it, part of the idea is to define what it is first. We don't know what it needs to cost until what's involved in it, and what the appetite for it is. So I think job one is really to get a sense that you're on the right track here with the people, by having those exploratory conversations about it, where you talk to look at what's the reality, because you've got a hypothesis right now. The hypothesis is that people are spending money every year on home maintenance, or home improvements, or go all the way from the emergency things to the proactive things.
Moving forward, there's a lot of money spent on home ownership in those thousand homes, let's call it, to take a thousand people. And you wonder, I don't know what the... I would start looking for some statistics on that too, just to get a sense of what people spend. But let's say, even if it's on the minimum of $5,000 a year, let's say, on home maintenance and ownership, aside from the taxes and the mortgage and all that stuff. But let's just say on the exterior and interior mechanicals and structural lab-
Jeff: Landscape, lawn care.
Dean: All of that. If you include that, it's probably closer to $10,000 a year for all that stuff. And then if you add in the things like home insurance, there's a lot of money that they spend there. But if you look at it that, if they're spending $10,000 a year, or $5,000 a year, that is five or $10 million that's being spent in just in those 1000 homes. So it's a pretty substantial economy, on a local basis, when you're talking about a thousand homeowners there.
And so you look at that, and I would look to get a scope of what that actually is. And you wouldn't know what until you're having that conversation with people, going back over the last three years, and then looking forward to the next three years saying, what do you anticipate that? Is the roof going to need to be, the roof is an inevitability. If you're in a thing where the average life span of a roof is 15 years, and you've been in the house for 12 years, there's a good chance that sometime in the next three to five years you're going to have to replace that roof. And thinking ahead of that make sense. We've talked about that, in terms of, if I were a roofer, you look at what the opportunity is there, because the roof money is big even. So you look at that.
I had mentioned on an I Love Marketing podcast that Joe Polish and I did, where you're talking about an area where I was in Toronto, just outside of Toronto, and when I was a real estate agent, this new area was being developed, and at that time then, talking about 1,000 new homes that were built over two year periods, in a new community. And all of those roofs are going to roughly need to be in-
Jeff: They're going to age at the same time.
Dean: The same window of time. So we talked about a thousand homes with $15,000 roof costs on average maybe for those size homes, you're talking about a $15 million economy that's available to somebody in that three year window that the going to have to be your place. So to start communicating with people ahead of it, ahead of the curve, is going to be a big thing. You're looking at it that you've also got your real estate business that is going to be the, now that you've got the relationship with these people, it's going to make sense that they let you know if they're going to be selling.
Jeff: Correct, yeah.
Dean: I like it. I think it's really about now defining what it is, what the scope is. Getting a sense, if you were to talk to 10 people, have 10 great conversations about it, get a sense of it, and then just do some market research. Just get a sense of what their temperature is about it, and have them describe to you what would be a dream come true. And if that's the thing, if you want to be a hero to homeowners and that's a great thing.
Jeff: Thank you.
Dean: I think that's going to be a good way to start. Because if you're offering it to them, you'd have to see what the... It might be one of those things that people are, in theory, more excited about, than actually paying for it. And that would be an issue, so you need to look at that and see what the reaction is to it, what their feedback is on it if, you were to present it to them.
Jeff: Okay. So in that case, the starting at the high end, so now I may not just be... Still may be the facilitator, but let's just say that we bundled everything in, and that you're paying a high dollar, and that means that all of your lawn care landscaping, least how much grass cutting, getting leaves up, all that stuff. Plus your HVAC service, heat once a year, air once a year, water tank, those kinds of things. So now the concierge collects all that money, and then pays all those bills.
Dean: Well, it could be. And this is where you're test driving the model. When you start to look at this, this is where the ramifications are going to come out. You start to see what's the desire. It's almost like we're creating a Venn diagram where you're creating, what's the reality of... Let's put it in this circle, everything that they're spending money on right now, with regards to the house. And of that pool of things, look for, what are the ongoing things that they're aware of, and are paying right now, and what are the things that were a surprise?
Because I wonder, if I just look back, so last year, did I have any surprises? Or was it a slow a year? No, I had a couple of electrical issues that were addressed. I upgraded our electrical outlet in certain areas to have USBs, which makes sense for a modern home. II got a Tesla, so I had a charger installed in my garage. So you look at that, every year, it's just one of those things that all of a sudden something comes up, and if I were to line item it out, it turns out to be thousands of dollars.
I've also got some tolerations, things that I haven't looked at. In my courtyard, we've got a tile roof, so on the places where the rain comes down to the gutters, there's one portion where there's something happening. When it really rains, the water is overshooting the gutter, and it's coming into the courtyard. And then that's filtering it down into the walkway under the roof that joins the garage to the house. The only time it really is an issue is when it's raining really hard. Other than that, I don't notice it, and it doesn't look-
Jeff: And it's not worth the effort or the money to have somebody come look at it to do the fix, because you're where you live, that happens two, three times a year maybe.
Dean: Yes. It's not slowing me down, but it's still something that is a toleration.
Jeff: For that day or two, you're frustrated, but then it's over.
Dean: Yeah. Yes. And so a lot of those things, if they were able to have those things done. And you've talked about the handyman, everybody probably has a lot of tolerations like that. A faucet that's sticky, or a something that's dripping or something that would be, you would replace it if you had your choice, but-
Jeff: You can't turn the water off at all, you're going to have to fix that and fix that. [crosstalk 00:51:21]
Dean: Right. Exactly.
Jeff: But a small drip? No big deal.
Dean: Yeah. I think there's going to be a lot of information in that. Or, do you think of it like AAA? Is it a call in an emergency kind of thing? Is it just the emergency that you're handling for somebody? Or just the thing where you're just doing it as a facilitator, like I mentioned. Those would be, I think, on the poles of it, and then finding the right mix. But you're pioneering something here, so it's going to be a finding the right thing.
Jeff: The ones I have found online that do this, still pretty much only focus on if I own a house on the beach that I don't have under a local property management there, because I don't really rent it out, it's just me. I live there six months out of the year. I don't live there six months. I've found some that do it in some resort areas, where they really do it just for the homeowner, and they might be in some bigger markets, Chicago up in New England, but still, there's no one shoe fits all thing. They all still do their own. A couple of them focus on the high end, a couple of them focus on the low end. They'll offer extra things if you've got a package being delivered, or if you need to have your contract or somebody meet them at the house, it's X dollars an hour, and we'll be the one to meet in there for you. It's all of those things, so it's all over the board, and I'm trying to think about this married with the knowledge of a real estate agent.
So there are pockets of these, pretty much all over, and it's married with... Because here's the thing, what if it is on a minimal level, and as a gift your first year of home ownership, I work out some deal with some local agents that they're going to give them a couple of months of the service, and here's what it would cost them to do that. So they're the hero to them. The home concierge may pick up a longterm client, because of a relationship or a partnership with a real estate agent who gave it to them. They may not need it as soon as they move in, because hopefully all this stuff now is taken care of.
But some of them, I've seen some agents where instead of, I'm just going to give you a gift card, hey, I want to give you a gift and I want you to pick of these five, what is it? Is it a photo shoot for you and your family in the new home? Is it a couple of hours of handyman service on hanging the blinds, or doing whatever you want done? Is a cleaning service to clean the house you're moving into? So instead of me just saying, "I'm going to give you gift cards to Lowe's," I'll let you pick that. So again, all of these things, -.
Dean: Do you remember the Original Wheel of Fortune, when they would play the wheel of fortune and then when you win, you get to spend your money in the-
Jeff: Oh yeah.
Dean: All the prices were all there. I'll take the TV for 300, and I'll take this for 200, and I'll keep the rest on a gift certificate. Yeah, exactly. That's funny, kind of like pick your adventure, pick your prize.
Jeff: Right. So that's all this brewing, and before I got my real estate license it was that, or probably going to construction. I'm still going back to what I enjoy and love doing. And I enjoy real estate too, but these markets go together, and as you were saying, there's property managers for landlords all over the place, but nobody's doing this for the homeowner. Or if they are, it's all under the radar, and they're not making them their selves known for it.
And again, with changes in how you can generate leads, and market to people for real estate, there's some of this, from what I can tell on Facebook and Facebook marketing, there's still some guidelines for people who do home repairs, that this probably would fit under part of a 15 mile radius and that kind of thing. But there's no overlap with, with ethics of offering a service that's not buying or selling a house, whether it's listed or not listed, or somebody brand new buying a house. Well that's a perfect person. All these houses that close, that's the perfect person to send this to. Your brand new homeowners, let's keep the value of your house up. You're going to sell it in the future. Not trying to get them as a client, but you're going to sell it in the future. So let's keep the value up. So when you get ready to sell, you're not spending thousands of dollars fixing things that could have been fixed all along.
Dean: That's it.
Jeff: So save yourself time, enjoy time with the family, save yourself money over the long haul. And we'll keep an eye on all that stuff for you.
Dean: I love it.
Jeff: And if it turns into a real estate transaction down the road, great. If not, it's its own transaction, and you're still generating leads from people who know people who own homes, and that their golf buddies with, or fishing buddies or they're at mom things together, soccer games together, they still know, "Oh, I've got somebody that takes care of that for me and I don't ever have to worry about it. It just gets done." "Well I want to know how to do that." So it's the same thing that can run independent of real estate transactions, and can be a great partner business with it.
Dean: Yes. I like it, because it's all about homeowners.
Jeff: Yes. Well thank you very much for this hour.
Dean: I can't wait to watch it all unfold. I think this is going to be a good thing.
Jeff: I'm looking forward to it. So thank you very much.
Dean: You're welcome. Keep me posted.
Jeff: I will do that. All right.
Dean: Thanks, Jeff.
Jeff: Okay, bye.
Dean: And there we have it. Another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, or go deeper in how the 8 Profit. Activators can apply to your business. Two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com, and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book. And you can listen to the back episodes, of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes.
Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the 8 Profit. Activators are part of the BreakthroughDNA process. And you can download a book, and a scorecard, and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at breakthroughdna.com. And that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about BreakthroughDNA, as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business, and immediately look for insights there. So that's it for this week. Have a great week, and we will be back next time with another episode of More cheese, Less whiskers.