Home Watch = Your future!

Greetings and Salutations.

I have been in the business world for a long time. I have worked in NYC, right down 34th St. from the Empire State Building. I loved the electricity of the city, but it wears on you after a while. I changed gears and went into sales management in the auto industry. I worked for General Motors, Toyota and Nissan over a 25-year period. I made a good living, raised the kids, and lost my hair. So I decided to start a new chapter of life in the Low Country of South Carolina. The impetus for starting Coastal Carolina Home Watch was the fact that I needed a Home Watch type service for my vacation home, and I couldn't find anyone to work with. I had no peace of mind whatsoever, because there was no one looking out for me, and I felt helpless being 700 miles away. Yes, there was property management, but they were concerned only with the "common areas".  When I started  researching  Home Watch, there were maybe a handful of companies with websites. I spoke to one or two of them to try to get some advice. One owner in Arizona actually wanted to charge me $300 per hour for consultation. (She still does, by the way....) My point being that there was no help back then, and even today there are people looking to charge you heavily for information. As a businessman, I am certainly not against being paid. Nor do I disagree with being compensated for certain things. But, just starting out, I figured that I could just figure things out as I went along. (More later....)

Home Watch is a great business to be in. Go ahead and do an online search, and without trying very hard you will find way over a thousand companies--a ridiculous amount of growth since I started in 2005. Why is it so popular? Lots of reasons: it's relatively inexpensive to start; no special training is required; low overhead; income potential is limitless (based upon your effort and investment in marketing); and getting a lot of satisfaction from doing a job that is appreciated. And best of all, you set your schedule.

Let's get back to me learning the ropes as I went along. You know what I learned immediately? There were NO ropes!  This business is learned by trial and error. There were no books to study from, no courses to take. As savvy as I thought I was from all of my years in business...well, let me just say that I got seriously bruised up from all of my trials and errors. If I knew then what I know now. Hey, wait a minute. I do know now, what I know now! Am I an expert? Does my brain hold the key? As much as I would like to think so, the answer is, probably not. But just maybe, if you know what I know now, maybe it can save you from learning the hard way what I know now, and not having to not know what I didn't know then. Understand? Knowledge is power. And so is the ability to share ideas with colleagues.

The National Home Watch Association is comprised of companies from across the nation, and hopefully from Canada. Our number is growing stronger by the week. Because of the tremendous increase in the amount of Home Watch businesses, and because there are no "ropes" or standards to adhere to, our membership has decided to take their businesses to a higher level. They want to be ahead of the curve should there come a time when Home Watch is regulated by government. Members hold themselves to a higher code of ethics than non-members. They receive qualified leads directly from the NHWA website, bypassing competitors and distractions alike. They display the NHWA logo proudly. But as important as their marketing is, it does not compare with the knowledge they will gain, and the sense of accomplishment knowing that they are being proactive with their personal and company's future. If you look at the big picture, you'll see that our industry faces many challenges now and will in the future. We can do more as a single voice. We can negotiate and lobby national concerns more effectively as the NHWA than we could with a thousand different voices. And we can protect our futures by distancing ourselves from un- or under-insured businesses who don't share our passion and commitment to our customers that we do.

Home Watch is a great business, with endless opportunities. I highly recommend it for your future direction in life, if it makes sense to you. But, as with all things worthwhile, if it was easy...everyone would be doing it. My thanks to future member Troy W. of Wisconsin for inspiring me to write about this subject.

Have a great weekend. I wish you all

Much success,


Jack