Why You Probably Suck At Report Writing!

In This episode Skip Walker and I talk about home inspection report writing and you probably suck at it! Yes this means you! The report is your product and thats what your selling to your client, so consider each and every report to be your masterpiece. Fine tune your reports or risk having a potential legal issue with your clients. 

A well written canned response for a system defect written in 1980 is probably not going to cover most of todays homes so remember to proof read your canned responses before sending your final reports.

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home, don't panic, just listen to the rest of this podcast

Skip Walker: 0:10

report writing is, is a is the real challenge. I think that most people that are inspectors really have problems with because you can have all the technical expertise in the world. But if you can't communicate it to somebody that has no idea what you're talking about, and make them understand it enough to be able to make a purchasing No Go Go decision. That's, that's your job.

John Laforme: 0:36

Is that as adjusted, that is the filter

Skip Walker: 0:39

out the techno speak, and make it so someone understands the implications, and that they can make a decision.

John Laforme: 0:48

Yeah, so you know, what I wanted to say next would be, you know, like the report writing is, you know, you just, you just spent 234 hours on someone's house, depending how big it was, and you gathering all this, you're there to collect information, you know, now, you have to follow your standards, inspect what's in your standards, you know, report on it. And now you gotta go home and create your Mona Lisa, you know, you need to go home and, and really, like send this thing home, this is this is what you're being paid for right here. This is the is the end game right here. So if you mess this up, you're gonna get a lot of phone calls, like skip mentioned already. So if you find yourself still getting a lot of phone calls, and it's always about the same thing, well, then you want to open up your report writing software, look at your canned response, and rethink it. And kind of use what your use what your customers are saying to you and what they're asking. And that's going to shed some light on because that still happens to me to this day. And I'm 10 years in on this doing home inspection, 10 years and now and it's in like you like you skip, I don't get too many phone calls when it comes to trying to understand the report.

Skip Walker: 1:58

Anybody that says they don't make changes their report software, I think is a candidate for litigation. I still to this day, right? And modify comments. And, you know, and the scary part is left some comment that I you know, for the last 10 years, I've been using something like at night find a typo. It's just that drives me nuts. I mean, I try Yeah, I you know, I spellcheck and grammar check, and my wife looks at it. It's like, all right, my wife is not technical. I use her simply because she is the client. She's like the filter. And if she doesn't understand it, and she says, This doesn't make any sense to me.

John Laforme: 2:40

I had I remember, I can't remember who it was. But I remember an inspector telling me years ago. He said he had it. He put in the heading of his report. There will be typos in my report. So deal with it, basically.

Skip Walker: 2:59

Language to that effect. Yeah. And

John Laforme: 3:01

I'm like, agree. I looked down like, Look, if if you're saying that because you just don't give a shit. That's one thing. But if you're saying that because you don't know how to write, that's all.

Skip Walker: 3:12

Yeah, exactly. But the reality is spellcheck doesn't work on a lot of what we do. Yeah, it's true. No, it doesn't know what some of these words are, you know, what's a weep? So weep screed? Right,

John Laforme: 3:25

right. You

Skip Walker: 3:26

know, so it's, you know, it. It's like, there. There is no spellcheck for this book. I mean, they're, you know, for the basic words, yeah. But if I was I was proofreading code, check combo towns today. And I Douglas has been through it. He's like, lived and breathed this the book for months. redwoods looked at it. Another guy, Glen Matheson, who writes textbooks for ICC, he's looked at it. We've had a professional editor, look at it, and I'm finding typos. And, and when I'm done with it, I guarantee you there will still be typos in it. We we we call them. I'm trying to look for it. They're called see if that'll actually focus. They're called our Rata. Right. So for every one of our books we put together in a Rata sheet and Arad is a nice way of saying we made a mistake. And here's a list. And this that list is got 12345678 items on it. That's updated in August of this year, and it's called check complete third edition. That's a book that just came out and it's got 350 pages, and I almost guarantee you There's more typos that we don't know about. So it's not for lack of trying. It's just the complexity of the document is so high on inspection reports, and these books that they're so technical in nature, by design that you've got to be really on your game.

John Laforme: 5:22

I know you're involved in the Nhi, you study group. I've actually, I've actually been trying, I have been trying to download those and catch up with what you've been doing. I'm

Skip Walker: 5:36

actually not be clear, I'm not in the CREIA NHI II study prep class, okay, because I can't, I'm actually the people that write test questions for Nhi, ie the national home inspector exam are called subject matter experts. I'm an SME, so I actually write test questions and edit the test. So I'm not allowed to teach a class on Test Prep. Okay. So I've been involved in HIV for about 10 years. And it's a blast. I mean, we get we sit in a room and there's, you know, there's 15 to 25 people, and these are all like, really top notch people, but but they're also part of the NHI II Test Prep. Test construction requires that we have people that are new inspectors. So we want people that have just taken the test and passed, as well as people that are old and gray and broken down like me. Because we want that next. And back to your point, you know, clients ask you questions about reports, and you've never really looked at it from that perspective. The same thing happens with the new guys that have just taken the test. It's like, well, you know, I, I, you know, I didn't get that, you know, the questions related to that I didn't pass and because I didn't understand and so it helps us put the put the test in, in a language that is easier for people to understand. Because the intent of the analogy, I see comments all the time online, where there's tests that test questions or trick questions, or they're asking all this irrelevant stuff, or, and and the reality is there, there are certainly bad questions in the nhg. In a Nhi. There's no intentionally trick questions. That is a matter of fact, we're not allowed to write questions that way. There's these professional test construction design people called psychometricians. And they're in the room. And they right heard over us psychometrician psychometricians. And they the guys that NHI uses, they do college entrance prep exams. They're like the same company that does the AC T exam. Right? So serious money. I mean, these guys are really, really bright.

John Laforme: 8:22

Well, I remember taking, I remember taking the NHI e about I think it was probably about eight, nine years ago. And I got my I didn't pass my first time, I think I was off by like three or four points. And then I had to go back and did it again. And I was like, over, like I passed the, you know, the minimum requirement by like five points. I've never been good at tests. I've never been good at test my whole

Skip Walker: 8:46

life. And the thing is, most people aren't, they're scared of them. And the thing I always tell people is they're, you know, no one's trying to make you fail. But the kind of an embarrassing point is, when I took the initial CREIA exam, it was not the NHI it was actually a CREIA real exam. It was their own exam and they switched to NHI II not because of any other reason, then it was so expensive to maintain a psychometrically valid exam that it was cheaper to just use the analogy, I mean it. So, I took it the CREIA exam before there was a national home inspector exam and at that point, Ashy and CREIA had reciprocity. So if you pass the CREIA exam, you could become an Ashi member without taking the FE exam which was not an HIE it was pre that and vice versa. So it actually member could become a CREIA. We we looked at each other's tests as equivalent. So for years I was an SME on the NHI E and I'd never taken the exam. So, end of last year, they finally said, look, you've got to take the exam. And so I got the books, I read the books, and I took the exam. And I passed, and I was sweating bullets, because it would have been so embarrassing to not pass the exam the first time.

John Laforme: 10:27

Yeah, a lot, a lot, a lot of pressure there. You know, I took I took I took the exam to get my CREIA certification. That's why I took the exam. Did I learn anything from that exam? Absolutely not. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't learn anything from that exam. Honestly, I didn't learn a thing from that exam that helped me with my home inspection career. Well, what was there is what was in that quiz, the basic stuff that the basic stuff was just simple, you know, common sense construction stuff that I already knew, because I had, I had a construction background. So that that was easy. So I'm not saying I'm not saying it was a waste of time, I'm just saying it was, I didn't take anything away from that, when I after I took it

Skip Walker: 11:13

was here's the here's the rationale behind the test, it's what's considered to be a high stakes exam. So there's 35 states that use that for licensure. So it has to filter out people that don't know the baseline information. And if the fact that you passed, meant you knew the baseline information, the the ideas and what they drill into our heads matter of fact, the every one of the SME stash session starts out the same way they they run us through why you're here, and what the goal is. So NHI is not an SOP exam. It is not based on XP, it's not based on CREIA. It's not based on InterNACHI. It's not based on picking picking an organization. It is an exam based on what inspectors do in the field. And every five years, there's what's called a role delineation study. And if you remember, back, about a year or so ago, you got to quit probably a questionnaire in the mail and the email rather. And it took about 30 minutes if you if you actually filled it out to go through and it would ask you questions like, in the course of an inspection, do you do this sometimes, always, never. What you know, not applicable, whatever. And it runs through that that questionnaire generates the content outline for the NHI II. So if 95% of the inspectors always put in how many amps is the electrical panel, the main service, then that's going to be on the test. And that's a that's an item that's got to be included on the test. And if you look at the content outline, if you go to the energy in HIE website, and you look, there's a study guide, and it'll say 30% of the stuff in under electrical is going to be panels and services. And 20% is going to be on wiring, those percentages and the percentages breakdown amongst these high level silos are all based on that role delineation study. So and there's been some problems with that when I first the first time I, I was on RDS committee for NHI II. I know it's a lot of like, gibberish kind of stuff. acronyms. We were sitting in New York, and the previous RDS had asked a question about pools. And the way that question was worded was actually pretty poorly done. And so it generated our response, that forced pool questions to be included, because we can't edit those responses. If people say 100% of the time, I look at pools. And that's not what happened. But then then pools are going in the exam. That's simple. And so they asked a question that elicited a response that was erroneous, and for the next five years, there's questions on something and everybody's going, I don't do this, why am I getting asked questions on it? So we had to fix that. And the same things happen on some other stuff too, so that the process is kind of iterative, and we've we've narrowed it down to where this last time there were really very few content outline, high level changes that got made there were Review. But the point being is that the test is constructed in a way. One of the one of the psychometricians explains it this way. He said, if you get in an airplane, and you're sitting in the back, there's a pilot and a co pilot up front, the, the copilot, and the pilot that could this could be their first flight. And they are, they have just passed their FA exams. And, you know, this is their first time goes on up in the air. So they are not the same as the people in the back. They've they've met the baseline, to be able to fly that airplane. So their level of knowledge is way higher than the people in the back of the plane, assuming there's no pilots back there. But their level of experience is relatively low compared to other pilots, the same thing is true of a home inspector going out for their first paid inspection. They know way more than they think they know, they wait no way more than their clients as a rule. And certainly the agents in general. But they may not know anywhere near as much as other inspectors that are working in their market because they don't have the the flight hours that that that those senior pilots have. Right. So that's the that's the kind of the methodology that the rule we operate under when we do NHI II stuff is that those test questions have to be written to filter out people that do not know, the baseline information. And the rule is that somebody that passes the test should not be through ignorance able to do harm to the public or the profession. So we want, you know, we don't want them to miss some big hanging safety issue, or an issue that would cause financial harm to the clients. There's a big difference, as you pointed out, rightfully so, between somebody that has just taken that test and somebody that has 5000 or 10,000 inspections under their belt. Hopefully there should be a big difference between them. Yeah. So you know that that's, that's my NHI II spiel. So I think it's worthwhile. endeavor here, but it's it's really a filtering mechanism. The questions are written. And, and this gets drilled into our heads when we're writing test questions. The answer should be obvious to anybody that knows the source material. There should be only one right answer. And the distractors, the other, you know, there's four alternatives. One of those is a right answer. The other three are considered distractors. The distractors have to be plausible to somebody that doesn't know the source material, and is guessing.

John Laforme: 18:24

So my, let me give you my opinion on the whole training in the NHI E. versus actual, on the job experience. To me, look, like I said, if you've never been around this type of, you know, if you've, you were born in a house, but you don't know how a house works, that's understandable. That's most of the population. In my eyes, you know, a lot of people just don't understand what how houses function and what's how to avoid problems. It's just because it didn't teach us that in school, you know, that that should be Hey, you know, what, why, why are we going to school? Well, let's, I'm going to back up a little bit. Why don't we go to school? To get an education? Okay. What's that going to teach us? Probably get a job, a good paying job. And then what do we do with that money? Well, we buy a house. So why didn't they teach us about the house in school? You know, this, I think some things get skipped. And I always say that it's like, you know, having a driver's license does not mean you know how to drive a car. It just means you, you passed a minimum requirement test to get that license. That's a fact. There's a lot of horrible drivers that have licenses. So, so anyway, well, my point is, what comes first the cart of the horse. So to me, if someone was going to ask me for advice today, John, what do I do? Do I just go inspect as many houses as I can following my standards, and get that experience under my belt? Oh, do I waste money going into an online school or something like that or You know, what do I do first? What would you say? Well, what I would what I would say is to, like I said, Call all your friends, all your relatives, volunteer to inspect their houses, using your standards get as much hands on and to actually get the experience of what a house looks like when people live in it. Because you got to find stuff stuffs gonna be blocked. There's so many obstacles when you're actually dealing with a home that somebody lives in. As opposed to taking a course and looking at photos of nice clean panels. When you get there, it's falling apart. There's cobwebs everywhere, you can't see anything, you know, there's just so much to it. So when it comes to the option of getting your certifications, certifications, I don't think it's a bad thing. But understand, that's not what's getting you hired. That's I think, see a lot of guys make that mistake. They just they just think that's going to get them a job because they took a certification class. That's not how it works.

Skip Walker: 20:58

There's most people don't get they they aren't comfortable with the sales and marketing part of inspecting, if you're going to if you're going to be a sole proprietor, which I did I, I looked at it. And there's some markets like in San Diego, you almost don't get hired unless you're a CREIA. Inspector, from what I understand. I think that's changed a little bit. But there's some markets where the realtors understand the differences.

John Laforme: 21:29

Around where's this? Would you say that? Well, San Diego

Skip Walker: 21:33

used to be if you weren't a CREIA. Inspector, you basically couldn't get a job. Wow, job. Oh, kid. I think that's changed a little bit.

John Laforme: 21:43

I think so too, because I know a lot of guys were not CREIA inspectors that are down there. Yeah.

Skip Walker: 21:48

And that's, that's not the way it used to be 15 years ago. Around here. I think it's less than what I would like it to be. But I think the the agents do look for credentials, because they, most of them actually realize that we're not licensed now. And so I still have an occasional newbie that will say, Oh, yeah, on skips license. It's like, well, yeah, I've got a driver's license, but that's the only one I've got. But think the credentials have value. I looked at it. When I first started. I, I did this, I looked around and said, Okay, so who are the really good inspectors in my market? And then I went, Okay, so what organizations do they belong to? And they were all actually in Korea guys. So I figured, okay, so that's what I'm going to do. And what I did in that process, though, was I did just a hellacious amount of education. I, when I first started out, I didn't do any inspections until I got my my CCI. And the reason was I, I looked at it like, do you really want to get in a cab with somebody that's got a learner's permit? Or do you want somebody that's got kind of a full real driver's license? So I did go the credential route. But one of the things I did was, I went to, we've got at that time, we have three ashy and CREIA chapters in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay area, I would go every month to all three of them. And every time somebody had a toolbox, which are weekend, usually Saturday, six to eight hour deals, I would go to those I've still got.

John Laforme: 23:53

Yeah, like I like go into the toolboxes. Some of those are pretty good. I've been to some good

Skip Walker: 23:57

ones. This, this was a book I got. I was gonna ask you about that. It was a tool box that I went to that Jerry McCarthy taught before he was up in Sacramento, and you went up there. And he spent eight hours going through the 1997 UPC, which was what California adopted as the 2001. Right, California Building Code, and we highlighted and tagged the book. One of the most useful things I ever did, because it went through like guardrail heights and stairs and smoke alarm locations and all that kind of stuff. But that was one of my first toolboxes probably was more important than any other thing I did. I mean, I'd already gone through at that time ITA. inspection training associates, which is now defunct, I got sold to Kaplan Kaplan ran it into the ground. But my instructors were Kevin O'Malley and, and my Casey Mike Mike actually almost had hair at that point. And Kevin was, was still doing serious education. And so I learned a lot from that. But I learned enough to know that I didn't know a lot. And I did will you recommend it, I went and I inspected every house for every person I could beg, borrow or steal from. And, and even then, once I got started, and kind of had my insurance, and whatnot, I took a couple of inspections, where I actually didn't feel comfortable doing the house show, what I did is I called somebody that I knew. The first one I think was actually Jim couple who is now retired, but he's he was over in the East Bay. And I told him, I said, I will give you this inspection because it was in his neighborhood. If you let me shadow you, and if you review my report, and you let me review yours when we're done, and so and so I did that for a couple three inspections, until I felt like okay, I can do this and probably not screw it up to the point where I get sued. And that's when I started doing them on my own. You go a little different path and you but I, you know, I'm I'm with you, I You can't, whatever

John Laforme: 26:28

works for you. You know, whatever works for you. Some people take

Skip Walker: 26:32

a class and just go into spec. No, you can't it. Well, you can. But I think that's a recipe for

John Laforme: 26:41

a lot of phone calls from people. more phone calls, maybe letters

Skip Walker: 26:45

from people with things like JD after their name.

John Laforme: 26:49

Yeah, exactly.