Environmental Services and Entrepreneurial Success in Florida

Imagine moving to a new country, bringing with you the rich tapestry of your heritage. Our guest this month shares a poignant tale of their family's migration from Cuba and Spain to Miami, illustrating how their roots have profoundly influenced their life. We explore the vibrant culture and stunning geography of Miami and the nearby Florida Keys, weaving through personal stories and reflections. Inspired by a quote from King George VI, we delve into the significance of service to others and how this principle has shaped our guest's journey, both personally and professionally.

Gloria Cordoves

• Email: gloria@precisehomeinspection.net
• Website: http://www.precisehomeinspection.net/
• Telephone: +1 (305) 805-1990
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/precise-home-inspection-services/

Next, we tackle the complex landscape of wealth and financial management in the United States. How does your socioeconomic background impact your financial future? Is it possible to overcome the pressures of consumer culture and credit systems that often lead to financial stress? We provide a comprehensive look at the paths to financial success, from entrepreneurial ventures to disciplined financial practices, and highlight the unique opportunities available for various demographics, including women and minorities. Additionally, we address the severe stress and mental health challenges that accompany financial instability, offering a well-rounded perspective on financial wellness.

Join us as we support Children's Harbor this month!

Finally, we bring you insights from a seasoned entrepreneur in the real estate inspection industry. Discover how the constant demands of running a business can be balanced with personal life through strategic delegation. Learn about the critical role of environmental services, like mold remediation and radon testing, especially in regulated facilities in Florida. This episode promises a wealth of knowledge for anyone interested in business, entrepreneurship, or environmental services. 

Join us next week for part three of "Friends from Wild Places" with Shireen Botha and Tanya Scotece.

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Chapters

• 0:03 Wild Friends in Key West
• 5:38 Financial Perspectives and Tips for Success
• 18:08 Real Estate Inspection Business Insights
• 25:42 Environmental Services in Florida

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organisation every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Tanya Scotece: 0:36

So for our listeners that are outside of Florida, can you share with us, for example, like Miami itself is like a big city, right, it's a very large big city. So like how far from the keys are you and can? So, just just so we can get some geography perspective. So for the most, part.

Gloria Cordoves: 0:52

Most of the miami ends here that live in miami. Miami has a many, many, many suburbs and and smaller cities that municipalities that have broken out from Miami, the original Miami. For the most part it's like 150, 152 miles away from Miami to the very bottom of Key West, the very end of the Keys. Right, there's so many Keys on the way down so it's not very far, but because there's so many Keys or islands that you have to traverse through to get to the very point of Key West at the end it's about a three hour drive because there's not all highways. You're going through little cities and little you know, little islands and there's traffic lights and what have you. So it's kind of a. It's definitely a place that that we go to often.

Tanya Scotece: 1:42

It's very and where in Newland did you have a little uh time?

Gloria Cordoves: 1:47

near the basketball hall of fame in springfield, massachusetts near hartford yes, exactly, that's exactly fly into hartford had family. My, my aunt and my cousins lived up in springfield so we moved up there for a little bit and then came back because it was too cold. We had to come back to this hot, sticky weather, beautiful weather, so you were.

Tanya Scotece: 2:09

So your parents then are from Miami too, or they had. I mean everybody just.

Gloria Cordoves: 2:14

My heritage is my. My mother is Cuban and my father was is from Spain and they met my. Obviously, my mother left Cuba when she was young because of the revolution in Cuba and met my dad here in Miami when when she exiled over here and the rest is history. Then they got married and had me.

Shireen Botha: 2:34

I love it. That's so cool. All right, so quote of the day. Quote of the day. Okay, moving on to the quote of the day, which is specially selected for us by our very own gloria, the quote is the highest of distinctions is service to others, and that was from king george the fourth, isn't it the fourth? The?

Shireen Botha: 2:59

sixth not the sixth. Yeah, I can't even that was queen elizabeth's numerical. I can't read read that was Queen Elizabeth's daddy Numerical. I can't read Roman numerals. That's the problem here. But anyway, yes, let's say that again, the highest of distinctions is service to others, and I couldn't agree with this more. So, gloria, tell us what this quote means to you.

Gloria Cordoves: 3:24

What it means to me, and I'll tell you what it means to me, and that's what it meant when he. When he said it, he was just trying to tell his daughter that, you know, serving was the most important thing that she would ever do, right? What it meant to me, what it means to me because I came after that has always meant to me is that you know, serving others okay, for me, personally, it's the only way that I will ever succeed right.

Gloria Cordoves: 3:47

In giving and helping others, even if I have a small talent that I can give them, or I have a big talent, you know, doing that first okay, builds me okay to continue on my journey for success and I don't expect to receive anything back right. So service to me is important. You know, in my life business wise, personal wise, with my kids I tend to always gravitate to how can I help you or how can I help a person, and that's been, I think, not a secret to my success, but it's been an essence to who Gloria is since I was very, very young, and that is one thing that I've always maintained, no matter what life throws at you, I've never changed and I won't. So it's very fulfilling, it really is, and I and I I just think that's, you know, key to anybody's success.

Tanya Scotece: 4:49

I agree, fascinating. I have a beautiful quote, beautiful quote that you that you live by and it's you know that you stand by. As far as you know your mission, I want to kind of tie in your quote with what you mentioned, what your career evolved to, where you are now, and you had mentioned you spent a lot of time in the banking industry, dealing with finances and money, and money is such an interesting topic. Right, there's a book that I am about to read. It's the Psychology of Money, and there's been times that you know I share very openly on the podcast. You know the times you're up financially and I'm down financially and everything in between. So I just want your take as far as you know, obviously you shared that. You know flying, you know internationally with.

Tanya Scotece: 5:38

You know people of wealth and managing portfolios, but what are some? Maybe? What do you see objectively about? You know, if people like, why are there some people with such wealth? And other like, for example, if everybody has a job, is it the investments that are done differently? Are people living beyond their means? Is it credit card debt in the United States Like, share some just perspective as far as around this concept of money?

Gloria Cordoves: 6:07

so, as you mentioned, I, you know I do internet, I did international for a long time. So obviously, globally, you know, there's different types of economies and different types of of cultures, even on how they, they invest their money etc. But let's talk about the US specifically, right here in our backyard. So I have found that obviously, people who come from money okay, who come from you know not trust fund babies or silver spoon, but people who come from money, you know, money tends to breed money, right. So people always say, oh, it's so much easier if you have money to make more money because you have the money and you, you kind of grows naturally, right. So that's always been something that you know, that's, that's that's set out there. You know, or the middle class, or the lower classes, about the upper class, you know, in the, in, the uh, economic standpoint, I think that here in the us, you know, because we're, you know, our mentality is and is, is to capitalize everything that you can do. It's a capitalistic type of economy that, yeah, we're, we're kind of like consumer driven in the sense of you know, whatever we see on on online, or I always say tv, tv's gone in any type of marketing thing we want to buy into, we want to keep up with the joneses. That's a really big deal that happens to us culturally here in the US. I think and again in my now getting into a micro Miami, south Florida area there's certain areas that are more prone to this and others right. So it's big here, it's always been big here. It's a, it's a city that's ever changing. It's a melting pot of all sorts of cultures. It's beyond a metropolis, I think now, and people tend to get, you know, spend more than they make. Credit is a huge, huge factor. It really it's wonderful because it lets you, you know, do things that regularly you couldn't do if you had to pay it. You know cash, but eventually it catches up with you, right, and then your life becomes this huge stress ball because you don't know where you're gonna, you know, figure it out, how you're gonna pay your things off or if you lose your job, or you know economic times, they become harder, etc.

Gloria Cordoves: 8:15

I think that some people are naturally, they have it innate in them or they're the famous midas touch, that whenever they touch they turn to gold. They have the ability of, of putting together all sorts of ideas for businesses and they take off because that they've got it, almost like they were born. That talent was in there with them. Others, obviously, you know, learn it and they go to school, they go to universities or they're exposed to it from family or or previous jobs or or what have you, and they apply it and they stick to it. You know, like everything on life we're talking about when you're talking about the crime with the rust set, you know, if you follow the certain protocols and you follow certain protocols and you don't break from that and you have the ability of being disciplined enough to do it, then you can.

Gloria Cordoves: 8:59

You know, 50% of the succession on that part of the money will come away from other factors that we can't control right. So I think that that's basically what it is here. We're taught that from day one, listen, you go and you spend and you get credit and without credit, you're supposed to have more credit than cash. So that mentality is what drives people. But I've seen all sorts of people that have been incredibly success stories. I've seen, you know, throughout the years in banking and stuff, incredible stories that started from nothing and, you know, evolved into this incredible business. That were people who were just humble people who were hardworking and, you know, did it the old fashioned way right.

Gloria Cordoves: 9:43

So there's all sorts, you know. There is one thing I will tell you If you can't make it here, you just I don't know. There's so much opportunity that we have here in the U? S for people to be successful in so many programs and so many grants. And you know like different types of. You know we're women owned business. So many different programs for women owned businesses, minority businesses. You, you know we're women owned business. So many different programs for women owned businesses, minority businesses. You know that it's it. The government does respect that and there are programs to help you excel in that it does exist, you know.

Tanya Scotece: 10:19

So, as you know, like with you know my background, you know as, as being a funeral director, right, and in funeral world it's like you know, it's kind of like that circle of life, like a beginning and an end, and there were countless families that I served in the capacity of you know, for example, of suicide, death by suicide, and sometimes you know when you really you know I'm. You know, obviously mental illness is a big part of it, but there's also another. It's life stressors, right, stress, like how we deal with stress. And, if I'm recalling correctly, I remember in my grandmother's time, with the stock market fell, I guess is the correct word, back in the I think it was the twenties, I'm not sure exactly 29. And I remember, like people that she worked with, like, were like like she would describe, like, like they jumped out of a building and, you know, fell to their death.

Tanya Scotece: 11:14

So money, you know, and is such a interesting topic, you know, and I want to evolve it into your current you know business, you know woman owned business, but if into your current you know business, you know woman owned business, but if you could share, like for our listeners, obviously, if they have money and they're investing great, like I mean they you know you get with the financial advisor and you know they put together a nice portfolio. But maybe could you share maybe two or three tips from your perspective. If folks right now in Miami or elsewhere are struggling with, for example, you know, rents going up, lack of cash, you know, is there any suggestions you have for people in this category?

Gloria Cordoves: 11:56

You know it's tough, right, it's tough because it's got to do with, you know, where the geographic area is. I think the rents have skyrocketed throughout the entire country. So, focusing on that perspective instead of just Miami, right, they seem to have started to kind of like back off a little bit now. The economy has. Finally, you know, we had something happen to all of us worldwide with the pandemic that really just threw this huge wrench at us, right, and we are now going to, we're paying the consequences for what happened in 2020 and as long as it lasted. So this is something that the economists knew was going to happen, unfortunately, you know. But most of us, lay people, we don't think about that, right, we're just living day to day, so to speak, right, so what can I tell people right now that are struggling? You know, I have a, I have one of my kids who would love to buy a home, and right now the homes here are outrageously expensive.

Gloria Cordoves: 12:55

As you know, one of the most expensive places there is in the U? S. So all I can say is you know, invest your money wise, in a sense, on your daily expenses. You know, be smart. Don't hawk yourself up in credit. Try to keep yourself as debt free as possible. Try to save money.

Gloria Cordoves: 13:16

If you can't afford to buy I say this all the time you can't afford to buy the home you want. Most of us, when we buy our first home, it's not necessarily our dream home, it's just our first home, right? I see it all the time with the inspections that we do. So perhaps think about buying an investment property, a smaller home, maybe buying an apartment or maybe a duplex that maybe you'll have to move into one side and then the other side you can rent. Think that way. Don't think I need to save money and wait till I can afford to buy my dream home, because that opportunity may not come.

Gloria Cordoves: 13:48

The economy has changed so much that, whether you're in Miami or you're in Kansas, it's not going to be like it was before. And that's, I think, what people keep on saying oh, I'm waiting for everything to get back to where it used to be. It's not going to be the way it's going to adjust. Rates are going to get a little bit, you know, less, more affordable, but they're not going to get anywhere near where they were before. You know, and that's what people don't get. They don't understand the adapting to change. You know that we need to adapt and understand and accept that we need to make a new plan. So that's what I tell people all the time. You know some people are scared of the stock market. They don't have enough money. You know it's volatile, although the stock market has consistently made money over and over again. The last you know, more than 15 years on average. But that's what I say invest in something smaller, put some money away and buy something smaller. It doesn't have to be your dream home. There's a lot of opportunities for that.

Shireen Botha: 14:47

Yeah, no, I for that. Yeah, no, I agree. And talking about back to your business with precise inspection services. If I can ask you what I mean, what exactly do you do for your clients and when is it the most ideal situation for your clients to use your services? For example, like I'm trying to put you where, where are you in the, you know, buying a house? You know in in the, the road?

Gloria Cordoves: 15:07

in the cycle, in the trends in the cycle.

Gloria Cordoves: 15:09

Thank you in the cycle in the cycle, in the cycle of, in the cycle of real estate right. What triggers us to come in is obviously a person, a group of people who want to buy a property residential home, first-time homebuyers, or a homebuyer or a business that's buying a commercial property that would be a trigger. What happens is that once they make the offer on this property, they're given an X amount of days to complete an inspection. During that quote, unquote inspection period, they have the ability of whatever money they gave down to hold this offer to get refunded if they decide not to move forward. So, basically, as soon as the offer is in, we get the call hey, let's set up an inspection at site.

Gloria Cordoves: 16:01

We come in and what do we do? We check the property from top to bottom, roofing to foundation, all throughout, all the different types of parts of the home, and we focus on things that are deficiencies, major deficiencies that could be substantial monies to invest or to fix, and we give them a super nice detailed summary with estimates, in the event that they need to know how much it's going to cost so they can negotiate with the seller or for their own peace of mind, to know whether or not they can afford to move forward with the property, knowing they have to fix certain things. That's basically what would trigger a basic inspection. We do a ton of other inspections, but that's that's our go-to right. That would be the trigger for us in the cycle and then, once the inspection is done, they would move on to commit to, to more monies down and and getting their, their financing and and everything else.

Shireen Botha: 16:53

Right, I love that. Okay, so as a business owner, you've got, you've had, quite a journey, as you've been talking to us about, and you've answered quite a few of my questions that as you've been talking to us about and you've answered quite a few of my questions that I had for you. But if you could tell us one thing, one of the biggest struggles that you've faced and how you overcame it as a business owner, I mean that I think would be really beneficial for me and for people.

Gloria Cordoves: 17:18

As a business owner. I think that I can safely say on behalf of most business owners, we have a lot of struggles that we face Initially. I think the main one is the money management, the finances. When you start a business, if you don't have suffice capital to sustain you while you're growing that business, most businesses don't really take off for two or three years where they start maybe making a profit. So money is always something that to start is very important, right To have that established, whether you have lines of credit or whether you have an investor. That's your money source. But you need to have that somehow set up before you open the door, somehow set up before you open the door, so to speak. On an evolving type situation.

Gloria Cordoves: 18:08

As a business owner for 21 years there's been many challenges. I think the biggest one that is consistent and no matter how much I, you know, I try to balance it out it's the balancing of the quality you know of life and business. Right, as a business owner it's almost like you're on call sometimes. You know in the beginning, in the beginning of the business, we were on all the time. My kids were used to. You know us being on call on vacations. You know answering calls or emails or what have you.

Gloria Cordoves: 18:41

So forget about regular off hours. You know 12 midnight if you're still working on your computer and what have you. So forget about regular off hours. You know 12 midnight if you're still working on your computer and what have you. But the bottom line is that I've been able to balance a little better. But that's always a challenge for for, I think, business owners right To to know how to disconnect, and we've been able to evolve and get people in certain places. That has allowed me to finally disconnect, you know, and have my weekends back and have kind of semi-normal hours when it comes to those challenges.

Tanya Scotece: 19:11

And because it's such like a niche specific business, how did you choose to get into this specific business?

Gloria Cordoves: 19:20

We chose to do the real estate inspection business because A back in 2003, when we opened up, there really wasn't many inspection companies out there, so people were actually buying properties and they didn't necessarily do an inspection, which obviously is a big mistake, right, they would just make the offer and move forward and then find out afterwards when they closed that they had all these surprises and all these problems. So it was a great opportunity. We because there wasn't, it wasn't happening, there wasn't much in our research, there wasn't many companies doing what we were, what we were thinking of doing, and because, like I said, we were very successful in real estate here for our own personal portfolio buying and flipping homes and we felt that we we felt very comfortable with all the components that that come into a house. You know the roofing and the electrical and the plumbing and all those different areas that we inspect. We felt very comfortable in how to fix. You know how to fix those or how to direct those to a contractor, et cetera. That's basically the two reasons why, business-wise, we did it.

Gloria Cordoves: 20:17

Now the third, which I should have said first and most important one, is we wanted to get into a business that we were going to be helping people, you know, and and I had just come off that whole shock of my customers portfolios, you know, going down so much in their monies when I thought I was helping them put together for their future and their retirements, and what have you so we wanted something that was almost like a guarantee that I'm going to, we're going to bring you peace of mind, right? So your home is usually your biggest investment ever, right? For most people at least here. And so we felt that in doing this we were going to be bringing them peace of mind because they're in this big. They finally got this transaction going.

Gloria Cordoves: 20:56

They put the money down, they've, they're waiting anxiously for the inspection to be done. They're nervous, and yet we come in, we educate them about the house, you know, we tell them, you know, what may or may need to be fixed or may not need to be fixed. You know we're there to bring them peace of mind. Once they pass the inspection period and they pass the inspection, then they pretty much everything else is smooth sailing because they've already got their financing and they're closing. So that's one of the biggest things. And it goes back to my service, right, my service distinction, except for this one, I'm worried we do get paid but the service of of being able to help people and that's basically it's kind of a really cool full circle when it comes to that in in the inspection business.

Tanya Scotece: 21:41

Yeah, very cool. And as far as charging, so like there is it a like, for example, for somebody purchasing a home, I heard, or a business, then the best thing to do is to get a home inspection or business inspection before that time expires, right? So they have, like, this window to back out of the deal, correct? So is the price for an inspection? Are there variables about how much? Is it by the square footage? Is it by the location? Like how is it a range? Like how would one know from?

Gloria Cordoves: 22:15

the pricing has to do. We do all sorts of inspections. So when it comes to the real estate part of a physical, tangible property, we service from the keys, monroe County all the way up to Palm Beach County, miami-dade, broward and the west coast of Florida as well. So we have a very nice geographic area that we can service. So it depends on you know where it's located. Obviously our, because our office is out of Doral, florida. It's a small city outside of Miami, so it depends on where it's located, how big the house is.

Gloria Cordoves: 22:47

If it's occupied, unoccupied, there is a lot of factors that come into play. There isn't a set amount of money. You know a starting price range that we put on these type of inspections because sometimes people want to add, you know, additional inspections to the main inspection. You know termite we have termites here in in florida. Termite inspections, for example, the homeowner's insurance or the insurance inspections are also requirements. So we start bundling all this stuff and then that that's how the price comes into relation. If they have environmental problems, if we find mold for we do as well mold inspections and asbestos inspections. So it depends on what that particular case is. Each one is customized to each individual's needs basically.

Tanya Scotece: 23:35

And what other type of inspections? I know you've mentioned that it's brand new territory for me, so I'm trying to digest it piece by piece. So what other type of inspections would one need In a?

Gloria Cordoves: 23:47

property typically like physically okay, to make sure that the components of the home are working correctly. Here in Florida we have a lot of homes that were built, you know, before 1975, for example. We have a lot of older homes too, so anything before 1975, for example. Here they they, the builders, used to use cast iron plumbing sewer lines. Those cast iron plumbing sewer lines are are scalded and rusted and falling apart. That is a very important inspection that we can only do by by putting a scope through all the plumbing stacks in the home and looking in the internal part of the. It's almost a colonoscopy of the pipes which really is a horrible.

Gloria Cordoves: 24:30

Horrible, but I mean you get it now oh, so it's. The plumbing camera scope inspection is very important for the older homes or for a home that's new that they they tell you the the seller mentioned they had a leak or something. You want to make sure that those, those pipes are working correctly.

Gloria Cordoves: 24:47

A lot of homes here have septic tanks, so we do septic tank inspections, which is important Septic tank is a huge, huge ticket item if there's a problem with it, right, besides the environmental problems that it can bring on, with all the poop everywhere and all the you know biohazards we do. You know we have a lot of homes here in the water, so we do seawall inspections and dock inspections. That's part of our service. We're pretty much a full service inspection company, a one-stop shop when it comes to these things. We do a lot of condos and a lot of people that buy condos. They want to remodel them and here in in a couple of counties miami-dade and brower in particular before they can pull permits they have to do an asbestos test for anything that they're going to remodel over 164 square feet. So we do those as well.

Gloria Cordoves: 25:39

We find mold that we offer mold as well. You know there's. We find mold that we offer mold as well. You know there's radon. We even do radon, which you see in other parts of the US. But we do radon because radon is something that is required by the state of Florida for all you know daycare facilities, adult living facilities, hospital facilities. So we do those as well on the commercial side. So we do a ton, tanya, we'd have to sit down for like I don't know five hours and talk about it, and you'd probably be bored tune in next week for part three of friends from wild places you've been listening to friends from wild places with shireen buetta.

Voiceover: 26:17

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