Epic Entrepreneurs

Networking That Actually Works; Lessons From A Home Inspector with Michael Van Hall

• Bill Gilliland

Share episode

If growth feels random and networking feels like wasted donuts, this conversation will reset your playbook. We sit down with home inspector Michael Van Hall of Blue Mountain Home Inspections, a builder-turned-inspector who shows how stacked hands-on skills and structured outreach can turn a solo service into a reliable book of business. From farm fixes to framing houses with a master carpenter, Michael explains how real-world construction experience translates into sharper inspections and calmer clients—and why that credibility matters to realtors who need clarity, not drama.

We get specific about what actually moves the needle. Michael contrasts unstructured meetups with BNI’s weekly cadence, one-to-ones, and trackable referrals, sharing how accountability turns a room into a sales force. He breaks down a high-converting tactic any service pro can use: offer short, useful presentations at realtor offices. When agents see your process and hear your communication style, you stop being another card on the desk and start being the inspector who makes deals smoother. We also talk systems—online scheduling, easy payments, clean reports—and how lowering friction increases repeat business and word of mouth.

Lifestyle and resilience round out the playbook. Michael highlights the flexibility and strong hourly economics of home inspection, how to pause for life events without losing momentum, and how to use slow markets to sharpen messaging and deepen relationships. Anchored by the Be EPIC mindset—bring energy, pursue education, plan with intent, fuel inspiration through small wins, and commit—this episode gives service entrepreneurs a clear path: get in front of the right rooms with value, make working with you effortless, and keep showing up long enough for compounding to kick in.

Enjoy the conversation? Follow the show, share it with a friend who’s building a service business, and leave a quick review to help others find it.


Guest contact info: 

info@bluemountainhomeinspections.com

bluemountainhomeinspections.com

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!

Bill

Bill Gilliland:

Hey there. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Bill Gilliland, your host, and I am also the uh principal at Action Coach Business Growth Partners and one of the founders of the Asheville Business Summit. And today I have Michael Van Hall with me. Welcome to the podcast. He's with Blue Mountain Home Inspections. And uh hey, welcome to the call. Tell us a little bit about your business and what all you do.

Michael Van Hall:

Okay, thank you. Well, um, yeah, I'm a home inspector. I've been doing it for I'm going on nine years now, so quite a while. I've got my feet wet pretty well. And um, yeah, I my business is out of Weaverville, but mainly we call it Asheville. And um, yeah, it's a good business. I wish I had I wish I had found out about it many, many, many years ago.

Bill Gilliland:

What'd you do before you got into that?

Michael Van Hall:

Uh a hundred things. Lots of different things. Um prior to this, I was uh running a hot springs resort in California. Um I've just done a lot of things, a lot of things that uh businesses I've started, jumped in, got my feet wet, and just figured it out as I went. So yeah, I've had uh I've had restaurants, I've had health clinics, I've had uh apartment complexes, I've done house flipping, I've built residential and commercial properties. Um yeah, I've got quite a history of stuff.

Bill Gilliland:

I think all that stuff probably adds up to being helpful in the home inspection business. It really does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems like uh that's one of those businesses that you it's good to have some experience in around at least around things that get built or repaired or whatever.

Michael Van Hall:

So yeah, so I grew up on a farm and fixing equipment. That gives you a little bit of an uh that kind of thing. Then I had an apartment complex and did all the repairs on that and learned as I went. I'd call a plumber him and have him show me what he was doing and how he did it, those kind of things, and then took it from there. So um, all things like that have really, really uh played into what I look for now on when I'm doing home inspections. I I also had an uncle when I was in my early 20s that hired me for three years. He was a master carpenter, and we put up houses from the hole in the ground to the keys given to the seller. So I got a lot of experience from that. Um, so yeah, yeah, that's really helped me.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, that's awesome. So you've probably got a really good answer to this question. So if you had to start from square one, what would you do differently?

Michael Van Hall:

I don't think I'd do anything differently. Okay.

unknown:

Yeah.

Michael Van Hall:

Not that I can think of.

Bill Gilliland:

Well, you had it, yeah, you had a ton of experience. So that that you brought that. So what have what have been some of your learnings as an owner and an employer in all those businesses?

Michael Van Hall:

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that's a good question. Um, what have I learned from all that? Uh take things as they come, um, do the best you can and move forward.

Bill Gilliland:

I love that. I love that. So, what do you think the common misconceptions are about running a business?

Michael Van Hall:

Well, uh, one misconception, of course, is that well, two of them. One is that it's hard, and the other is that it's easy. And they're both kind of good misconceptions. It's kind of somewhere in the middle.

Bill Gilliland:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Uh uh, yeah, I like that. So what do you attribute your growth to?

Michael Van Hall:

Well, uh uh in this particular business, home inspection.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Van Hall:

Yeah. Well, I started out as well. I have a lot, I've always run into difficulty with trying to get a business off the ground by doing what's considered in the past advertising or going now online and all Google and all those things and trying to understand if you're getting any bang for the buck, because it's very difficult sometimes to know if somebody comes into your restaurant, if uh, you know, how they got there, they don't tell they always tell you. And it's hard to get that kind of feedback, especially you know, years ago when you didn't have metrics and everything. Now it's a little bit easier to know where they came from when somebody clicks online, you see there was a click. Those kind of things. So that makes a difference. But um, what's done the most for me, and I'm sure a lot of other people in the business would be able to say the same thing, is networking. And networking, there's there's ways to do it that work and ways to do it that don't. That's one of the things I've really learned. Networking, there's a lot of networking groups in any city you go to, and that's a lot of business people that come and they join, and then they come once a week and they stand around, drink coffee, and eat donuts, and you get little clicks going, and nothing ever really happens. That's what it's felt for me. I've never gotten much from that. But when I ran into uh a networking group that was more structured and required you to do things and required you to help the other people in the in the business, that that's probably what really took off for me. And that way, I don't know, can I you can I say other businesses?

Bill Gilliland:

100%. Yeah, as long as it's as long as it's positive, yeah.

Michael Van Hall:

Yeah, BNI, Business Networking International.

Bill Gilliland:

Yep, great, great organization.

Michael Van Hall:

That was a huge start for me because they it's expensive. At the time, I I quit maybe five years ago because I didn't need it anymore. I was in there for three or four years, and at the time it was, I believe, $750 a year. Well, that's a lot more than you pay for your maybe $25 a month to be in another networking group where they're free. But there, it's very specific. You have to go every week. You only can miss a certain number of weeks. Every week somebody stands up and promotes their business and talks about it. And when you join the club, you are required to spend, have coffee or lunch with every member separately in the group to find out what they do, to let for you to tell them what you do and how they can help you get people. Um, and so you end up kind of with if there's 25 people in the group, you've got your sales force out there stumping for you because you're also required to bring in every week um a list of who you've recommended others in your group to. And that worked for me because it was very structured. Other people don't need the structure. I needed that structure, and it forced me to go in, learn how to talk in front of people, give presentations, um, and and it really worked. It did wonders for my business.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah, B and I is great for uh, you know, it it yeah, we've I've been a member of several B and I groups over the years, and and um yeah, it's a it's a great actually we have a global strategic alliance with B and I and Action Coach to Yeah, to want to mean to stump so much for the great job for that. Well, I think one of the things that um I mean, one of the you know, it is it is hard to particularly uh for solopreneurs and people like that to have because you got to do the work and sell the work. So you you you know, as as a you know, as a business person to have a network that can work for you, I mean that you know, that's $750,000, whatever it is a year, is pretty cheap if we you know when it works. Yes. And so, yeah, I mean, if you if you break it down per lead and all of that. So yeah, I've I've I've always thought it was a good system. And um, yeah, it it it was good to me in the in the beginning as well.

Michael Van Hall:

So yeah, I like that. I I did the standard run around town, put your business cards up everywhere, uh, walk into the real estate offices with a stack of cards and hand them to the front desk and say, hey, please let's make sure everybody sees these. That didn't do anything, really didn't do anything. Yeah, but what worked for me once I got my feet wet giving presentations is to go into a real estate office and say, hey, can any way that you could set up a time for me to meet with your realtors and give a presentation? Huge difference when you can tell them what you do, how you're different. Um I've I've always had luck with that. That's been a big thing for me. Yeah, that did a lot for me.

Bill Gilliland:

So B and I's in realtor meetings was a pretty good, yeah, and all and all the realtors. If you're calling on realtors, by the way, every realtor group in the world has a meeting every week for realtors, for their realtors. Yeah, I I've done a couple online, you know, online. They wanted me to do some help them do some planning and stuff. So uh yeah, it's been it's been pretty easy. So you've been in a lot of things. You know, balancing personal life and business. What are your thoughts around that?

Michael Van Hall:

Well, that's another thing. I get one of the reasons I wish I'd found this um business many years ago, I would have gotten in a lot a lot sooner. You you can make good money for the amount of time you put in. Now, maybe you're not busy and you only do one inspection a week when you get started or a month, but for that time, you might make a hundred or two hundred dollars an hour. Right. And that's pretty hard to find without much experience and not a lot of training required to get licensed. And um, people are really realtors are very helpful, they want you to succeed. That's what I've learned. And uh, that's yeah, that's it's a such a great business for that. And if you you can be as busy as you want, you set up your own calendar. If you only want to work mornings, you can do that. You want to work three days a week, you can do that. You can work all the time if you want to. It's all up to you. So it's just such a great business that way, as far as balancing your life in whatever way you you want to or whatnot, whatever necessitates.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah. It's yeah, yeah. Well, it's one of the beautiful when you do it right, it's you know, being in business for yourself can can get can give you some freedom. So that's that's that's fantastic.

Michael Van Hall:

And I've had, you know, I'm I'm getting a little bit older, so I've had some surgeries in the last few years. I've had hip replacement, that kind of thing. You can just block off your calendar for those three weeks or six weeks, whatever you need to do, and and start coming back after that. It doesn't really hurt too much. And um, so taking time off, if you need two weeks off for Christmas vacation to go to the Caribbean, you can do it. You don't have to ask anybody. So it's really great that way when you're on your own boss.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, I like it. So this is the quick fire round. Uh, B Epic is an acronym that I came up that we came up with when I wrote a book. And so um, I just want like a couple of words or a quick fire answer to your thoughts around, and I'll give you the thing. So the B and B Epic is bring the energy. What are what are your thoughts around that? Bringing energy.

Michael Van Hall:

Well, bring the energy to your work, definitely, and especially when you're chatting with people um and your clients and your realtors.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, I love that. How about the E is education?

Michael Van Hall:

Education, that's a huge one. In all the businesses I've started, I've many times just jumped in with cold feet, not knowing much about it. I started my or I bought a restaurant and jumped into that, not being a chef, not ever having 20, 25 employees, anything like that. And then, but if you do the research, you talk to other restaurant owners, you find out what they do and take the things from that that fit for you. Um, that's kind of what I've done.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, so self-education.

Michael Van Hall:

Yeah, especially now with the internet, you can just get so much information, and it's uh it's been really helpful.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah, I like it. How about planning, P for planning?

Michael Van Hall:

Planning, yeah. Well, I make I'm a list maker, I make all kinds of lists, so everything that pops into my head goes on a list, and then I look at it later and I start crossing off the things that I I uh have done or need to do. And uh yeah, planning's huge.

Bill Gilliland:

I love that. How about inspiration? I is inspiration.

Michael Van Hall:

Inspiration comes mainly, um, I would say, from what's the word? Um, success. Every little success breeds more inspiration to keep on going and do it more.

Bill Gilliland:

I like that.

Michael Van Hall:

Yeah, that's been my and and inspiration, of course, from others that have had success. I've had inspiration from my father who was a successful entrepreneur, and um trying to uh emulate him has been a big big thing in my life.

Bill Gilliland:

I love that. How about C is commitment?

Michael Van Hall:

Oh, yeah, commitment's big, absolutely. Got to be committed to what you're doing, or it's not gonna go anywhere. Yeah, yeah, I like that.

Bill Gilliland:

So, what words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow?

Michael Van Hall:

Network. That's that's just the biggest thing. Get in front of people. Um, you can slowly move along as others uh use you, use you in their business, get to know you through your work, but to grow it, um, you really got to get out there. And it's not like I said, just handing out cards or putting up cards on bulletin boards, just it's just not gonna do it. I don't mean don't do it. I just mean it's just you've got to get in front of people, in front of realtor groups, um, network with a good organization. That's just everything.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah. People buy from people. I mean, that's just they still do. Yes, it's it's it's still a thing. So so what's the next thing for you and the business?

Michael Van Hall:

Well, I I think what we were as as many home inspectors and realtors were, we were so barraged with with uh work during COVID, which still I can't figure out, but it was super busy, and now things have slowed a little bit, and you just make your way through that, take your time, take some time for yourself during this time, work on networking and getting around people during the slow times, and then it it'll come back. It always does.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah, appreciate that. Appreciate that. So, lastly, what's the best way for someone to get a hold of you if they want to get a home inspection or just want to talk to you?

Michael Van Hall:

Yeah, um, call my phone number, 828-484-2202. And um, website, just the name, Blue Mountain Home Inspections.com.

Bill Gilliland:

I love it. That's easy.

Michael Van Hall:

And and the other again, the other thing, of course, these days too, but make everything as easy as possible for the customer. And that's with your website signing up for inspections, payment, all that kind of stuff. Spend the money you need to to make it easy.

Bill Gilliland:

Perfect, perfect. So that's fant fantastic. Listen, thank you so much for being part of our community and all you're doing out there. Uh, we know that you're gonna be a continued success. You've obviously you obviously love what you do, and that's half the battle, right?

Michael Van Hall:

Yep. I do.

Bill Gilliland:

Hey, and until next time, all the best.

Michael Van Hall:

Thanks so much. I appreciate it, Bill.