AI vs Automation, and Why Process and People Come First | Anthony Lawlor

[00:00] Cold open

Kane: I think you told me once that you built a PC in a water tank or a fish tank.

Anthony: The most valuable skill. That skill is transferable across any industry.

Kane: Between AI and automation.

Anthony: Do you want to be working on your business or in your business?

Kane: That's always been so important to us from the start.

[00:20] Meet Anthony Lawlor from Nimbus Tech

Kane: Today on the podcast we have Anthony Lawlor from Nimbus Tech. Tell me what you do.

Anthony: So we are a managed service provider. We look after IT and security for businesses where they want to outsource all their support and direction for IT.

Kane: And when did you start?

Anthony: Oh, it's going on about two, three years ago now. Previously I'd been working in the IT industry for a bit over 10 years, working in the MSP space for coming up to five. And yeah, ran off to do my own venture now.

[00:47] Why he started his own business

Kane: So why did you start your business in the first place?

Anthony: So funnily enough, back in school, at the end of year school books you'd say a couple of things about yourself. You'd say what you want to do. I actually had a line in there, so it said, what do you want to do when you grow older? I said, have my own computer store.

Kane: Oh yeah.

Anthony: So the actual end result of being a managed service provider has changed from the idea I had back then. But ultimately, still doing something for myself with some form of business ownership is still coming through. Years ago I even almost went into building a company doing like car restorations. So I've got this drive of actually building something for myself with a business. I think the love and passion for IT, combined with wanting to do a business, really just went hand in hand for me. And the other side is I wanted to actually build something and see it through from start to finish and have all the involvement, rather than just being one piece of the puzzle. So that's probably the biggest drive for me there.

[01:53] How a family computer started it all

Kane: Yeah, okay. So why did you have a passion for IT in the first place, do you think?

Anthony: I remember my dad bought a computer, it was for Christmas, and

Kane: A big computer?

Anthony: Yeah, the big old CRT monitor. I remember waking up to it, and I was just very curious about the technology. Like, how does it work? You turn it on and it just powers up. I think that just fascinated me, and honestly, from that day forward I've just always had that interest. At primary school I was always going into the library with all the computers, like, oh, what can I do to help? And I remember at the end of the year we used to reset the computers before the next year, and I was helping out in IT. So I've just always had that interest in tinkering with it. I want to know how something works, so I'd open it up and go, whoa, this is cool.

Kane: Would that have been a Windows?

Anthony: Yeah, always Windows. I never really went down the Mac path. The schools where we went were always on Windows.

[02:52] Building a PC in a Mac and in a fish tank

Kane: Is that partly because you can't really pull apart Mac systems like you can with a traditional one, I guess?

Anthony: Yeah, definitely. In high school I ended up wanting to build a Windows PC in a Mac, and

Kane: Secret agent.

Anthony: Yeah. My teacher at the time was like, all right, do what you want. So he sourced all the stuff. We got an old Macintosh tower machine and I pulled it all apart, refitted some back plates to make it all work, and put some traditional Windows machine parts inside of it. When you opened the guts we'd put little LEDs and stuff like that in it, so it was like a Frankenstein build.

Kane: Yeah, that reminds me. I think you told me once that you built a PC in a water tank or a fish tank?

Anthony: Yeah, that was the mineral oil computer. Mineral oil is a non-conductive liquid, so the idea was, instead of just having water cooling with pipes and radiators, we'd have the whole thing submerged in a fish tank. That was really cool, and I've still got a video of that.

Kane: You had fish in there?

Anthony: Nah, you can't have fish in there. I'm pretty sure we had like fake fish plants and gravel and a little bubbler, which probably helped with cooling, but it looked really cool.

Kane: It worked like a functional PC?

Anthony: Yeah, and the temperatures of it were really good as well.

Kane: Yeah, right.

Anthony: Yeah. I've still got the video of it, and it was running Windows XP and showing it off.

Kane: Yeah. Was that like a gaming spec PC or was that just a little bit

Anthony: Nah, that was just a very basic computer. This was stuff in high school, so it was basic equipment that we were able to play with, so if it did get damaged, no worries.

[04:28] Lessons from a bigger business: process and people

Kane: So just before you started your own business, I think you worked at a bigger business beforehand. What were some of your key takeaways from that into starting your own thing?

Anthony: I think probably the two parts of it are process and people, and I think they're the two starting foundations to really build off. If you can get that right, the rest of it will come through. Building that team, that core part of the business, is super important.

Kane: So when you say process, what do you mean by that?

Anthony: Process, from how you operate along with the tool sets that you use. I guess that process word is a bit of a loaded gun, so there's a massive amount: how you deal with your staff, how you deal with your customers, the tool sets you use, how you handle certain tasks, having a standard, making sure that what you're doing is able to be replicated so the same standard is upheld for everyone. So it's not just a cowboy doing hit and miss here and there. So, consistency.

[05:24] Setting up like a big business from day one

Kane: Yeah, that's sort of the same with me, having those things set from the start to make it seem like you're a big business. You're as professional as a big business is, but you just do it for yourself.

Anthony: Yeah, 100%. So when I set it up, in the IT MSP world they call them PSAs, where you have all of your ticketing, invoicing, customer CRM. And you can set it up with your own email address when you're emailing from support tickets, but I set it up with generic stuff like support or accounts and sales, because the intent was, okay, well, I want to grow this. I'm not going to sit there and have everything under my name. And when I was dealing with some of the vendors, they turned around and said, "Oh, you've already set this up like this. That's great. That's a good start." Because I do know of other companies where they have done it the other way around, and trying to change that is obviously not as easy. So really spending that time at the start to set that up.

[06:25] Why your mobile shouldn't be the business number

Kane: Yeah. So I had a couple of calls this week with some of our new coaching clients, and they've got their personal mobile number as their main business number. I was like, honestly, I did it at the very beginning, but then I quickly changed. Back in the day I had my landline home number.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: So I just used that, but I diverted it to my number. I said, long term, you don't want everybody calling you, because everyone's going to save your number. It needs to be your office number just in case you grow and you have admin staff, or

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: you go away, then you can divert that number to someone else.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: Obviously these days, with the soft phones on computers, it's so easy to set that up, hey?

Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. And I obviously fell into that trap as well, having my mobile number out. So it's something where I'm trying to make that change. And like I said, with the soft phones it's so easy. We've got a direct office line. I typically just say, that's the direct office line, that's where you need to call. Our team will be able to divert the call to me, and I'll still be able to see calls coming through that I can grab as well. And I've also got a soft phone which has a direct line, but honestly, the office phone's the easiest way to do it.

[07:34] Growing the team to two staff

Kane: Yeah, okay. And how many employees do you have now?

Anthony: I've got two employees now. I got the first employee just over 12 months ago, and then six months after that I got the second one. They're fantastic, great set of heads on them, and they definitely help build out the team, and I still want to keep expanding from there.

Kane: Yeah, so what's your goal? How many people do you want in your team long term?

Anthony: I think my initial long-term goal was to have at least another five to seven techs in the team.

Kane: On top of what you've got now?

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: Yeah, okay.

Anthony: Yeah. So when I worked for another company, we had a bit smaller than that, and it felt like a really good team where you almost felt unstoppable. Any of the technical work that came through was no worries, we'll get it done. There's no problem too big. And I'm not saying I have that now, but we do have that. I have no doubt in the technology and the confidence we have in our understanding and skill set that we'll be able to make anything work. But having that bigger team kind of just expands that feeling, and really gets more of that social growth with each other.

[08:43] Specialists vs all-rounders

Kane: In your field, do you have guys that are really good at certain things? Do you have your own niches, or is it quite broad, where most people can do most things?

Anthony: Yeah, some of our guys are more skilled in certain elements, but what we typically find with the MSP space is that it's so widespread. You're not just dealing with networking, you're not just dealing with servers, or whatever it may be. You do need to be across all the skills, and you kind of fall into that jack-of-all-trades type of mark. But I think it's a great place to be. I see a lot of techs that get pigeonholed in specific niche companies.

Kane: That happens at bigger companies, hey?

Anthony: Absolutely, yeah.

Kane: And stuck.

Anthony: Yeah. I see so many people like, "Oh, I've never dealt with networking, because all I had to do was this." So they miss out on all this opportunity of growth with their skill set. And they might be really good at that,

Kane: Mhm.

Anthony: but then when something changes, and technology is changing every day. For example, networking is so much easier now. Before, you had to remember all of the command lines, and there are a lot of networking technologies now where you don't need to do any of that and you still achieve the same type of outcome. So getting pigeonholed into a certain technology, in my opinion, is not fantastic. I think being a jack of all trades is good, and being really skilful at them as well.

[10:08] Why apprentices at big companies can miss out

Kane: Yeah. So to relate that to trades, we were talking about this the other day, actually. That can happen with an apprentice as well. If you go and work for a big company that just does new build housing and you're an apprentice there, you're probably going to be chipping out wall boxes for like two years, then you might get to do something else. Whereas if you go and work with a one-man band or a smaller business, you usually get a lot more experience with installing power points and lights and switchboards and testing and random things. But when you work with bigger companies, I feel that's not always an opportunity.

Anthony: Yeah, I guess they would never get the experience of dealing with things that are not working. They're just installing new stuff.

[10:50] Customer service is the most transferable skill

Kane: And dealing with customers is a huge thing for us. Sometimes we get young trades that come through Smartfix and they may never really have had to deal with customers. When they come to us, obviously we can train them with that, so they can go out with the tradie and start to learn how to communicate with people better.

Anthony: Yep. I think customer service and communication is probably the most valuable skill. That skill is transferable across any industry, whether it's communication internally within a business versus with a customer base. It is probably the best skill anyone can have.

Kane: Yeah, and it's not even just work related. It's out of work, in life in general.

[11:29] How Nimbus Tech uses AI

Kane: How much AI do you use in business now?

Anthony: So yeah, there's a lot of AI slop that comes out of it. There's a good part of it that we do use, and we try to make sure that we don't use too much of it, so that's not all that we're doing. With keeping the communication and how we deal with our customers on a personal level, we're still very much on the fact that if someone wants to pick up the phone and have a chat with us, we'll do that. And I love to have a chat with someone on the phone. Sometimes it's much easier than conversing back and forth over email. In the IT world, a lot of it is not so much even about the AI, it's all about automation. So

Kane: That's my next question.

Anthony: Yeah.

[12:16] AI vs automation: what's the difference?

Kane: What's the difference between AI and automation?

Anthony: So automation is a predefined set of tasks that will do the same thing over and over again.

Kane: Mhm.

Anthony: Whilst AI is more adaptable. You're putting an input in and it can come back with more generative, creative type of information. So we do a lot of AI when we're trying to automate the basic, boring tasks that no one really wants to do, and we can get the turnover of the work quicker. So customers are happier that they can put a request in, whether it's an application deployed to their machine, a new user setup, or sensitive stuff like "we want this account locked out" or "we want certain permissions changed", that type of stuff. No one wants to manually do that stuff. Get the automation to do it. And we might use a bit of AI to help us build that automation as well. So there's a bit of an element of crossover between the two.

[13:14] Is it safe to put business data into AI?

Anthony: But yeah, we're really careful with the AI, because obviously the concern is what you're putting in there as well. And I think that's where a lot of companies recently have definitely queried with me: oh, is it safe that we put this information into these AI models?

Kane: What's the general answer? No?

Anthony: If you're not comfortable with having it out there where anyone could see it, the consensus is no. If you are putting something in there that is financially sensitive, redact the information or put in some dummy information.

Kane: That's like a hypothetical.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: Hey, if this

Anthony: Yeah. So if it's financial, put some dummy figures in there and put some stuff in there that the AI model can work with. Because ultimately you're putting it in there to work out something for you, whether it's a calculation or a template, and then it can spit it out and you can modify it from there.

[14:03] AI chatbots for customer enquiries

Kane: We are using it a fair bit now. We get a lot of enquiries within Smartfix. We use an AI chatbot for the majority of our incoming enquiries, and then when it gets to a certain level it will escalate to one of our team members. For us it's been amazing. Even for writing content and SEO.

Anthony: Yeah, with the writing content, you just can't write or think as quick as the AI model does. And I was dealing with a company recently. I reached out to them about something and they didn't answer the phone call, but it said press one to leave a message or to receive a text. So I started doing that and I was messaging them, and I'm like, they're quick in responding. I thought it was a person. Then my wife goes, that's an AI model. I'm like, you're right.

Kane: Were you happy or not happy with that outcome, though?

Anthony: Honestly, I was happy, because ultimately it was able to capture the information. So it was asking, hey, what was the quote number that you were dealing with? I gave them the quote number. Okay, let me know what I can do and we can pass that over to the team and they'll give you a call back. So I'm like, well, that's not a bad thing, because instead of the back and forth, or having someone call me without knowing what they're calling me about, they've got all the information.

Kane: Mhm.

Anthony: And this was late in the afternoon, so I didn't even expect a message back. I was giving them all the information and it was cool, no worries. Then I got a call back: yep, calling about this quote. I'm like, perfect. And they didn't have to dissect all the information out. They were able to be ready and prepared.

Kane: And you didn't have to wait until potentially the following morning, or if it's over the weekend, to the Monday, because that's one of the biggest benefits we see as well. It is 24/7. So there's definitely pros and cons. I do think that's a big question: does it annoy people that it is a robot, or are they happy because they've potentially got their solution really fast?

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: We haven't really had many complaints, if any, that we have a chatbot that helps them to a certain level.

Anthony: Yeah, I'm not surprised. With the new chatbots I don't think you'll have much of an issue. The old chatbots back in the day, and I know a lot of the banks use it, where you call and press one for this or say what you want, they're rubbish.

Kane: Are they AI, or is that like an old-school NVR, like a pre-recorded thing?

Anthony: Those old chatbots were just predefined. So it says, which one of these answers are you looking for? Press one, two, three, four, five. So there's no AI. It's not conversational, it's very specific. So it is basically like an NVR, which one do you want to go down? Sorry, IVR.

Kane: IVR.

Anthony: And you're very limited. There was no open adaptability with the conversation, whilst with an AI automated chatbot model, I'm almost just talking to someone, because they're speaking like a person.

[16:47] Is AI voice ready to answer your phones?

Kane: Have you dabbled with AI voice, other than what we just spoke about? Like actually conversing with it?

Anthony: That's something I haven't done. I'm pretty sure I had a chat with you and you've done that a lot. And I've got a friend that's done that a lot. What he does is, he'll be driving home. He's got a fair bit of a trek, and he'll just speak back and forth to it, asking things. So

Kane: Really?

Anthony: Yeah. That's something I haven't really gone down the path of doing.

Kane: Yeah, I've tested a few. I don't think the technology is good enough yet.

Anthony: Okay.

Kane: To have it answer phones as a virtual receptionist, I think that is a little bit far away.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: I know in America it's better. I think most of the stuff's getting made in America, so I think their Australian accent is a bit dodgy. And as soon as the AI slows down, like, "Hey, welcome to Smartfix."

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: "How are you doing?" As soon as the customer interrupts, because they're like, "Are you there?", it throws the whole thing off and it starts to get confused.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: It's not worth it.

Anthony: Yeah, sorry, I thought you were talking about when you're just talking back to your phone with the AI.

Kane: That's another thing I was going to ask you about. I'm not very good at typing. I don't like it. So for me, I just voice to text into ChatGPT or Claude.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: So much easier for me.

Anthony: Yeah. I struggle with that, because when I hit record I feel like, ooh, I've got pressure to speak, and then I start saying all the wrong things. But I think the more you use it, the better and quicker you'll get with it. But yeah, you're 100% right with the AI call centres. It's just too slow. And I believe either in the US or UK, it might just be the US, there's some regulation where they're trying to make it illegal, so that you can't use AI call centres.

Kane: Oh, really?

Anthony: Yeah. I don't know how true that is. It might be true.

Kane: I don't know how they would manage that.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: But maybe what could be a thing is it has to clearly say at the start,

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: this is an AI chatbot.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: Just so the customer's aware.

Anthony: Yeah. But you've seen how quickly the technology of AI is growing now. So what voice AI is looking like today, in 12 months' time, even less than 12 months' time, it's going to develop much quicker. It's just a matter of time.

Kane: I know some people are using it now in WA. I know there are businesses that we used to call, and they're AI.

Anthony: Yeah. Some of them are good, some of them are terrible.

Kane: Yeah.

[19:20] The biggest early challenges: belief and focus

Kane: What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in the early days of starting your business?

Anthony: I think the biggest thing for me was probably believing that what you're doing is going to come through, and trying to break through that part. And the other side was knowing where to focus your energy, because when you start a business there are so many different avenues, and you can really deep dive into one element of the setup when your focus should be on something else. Trying to understand where you should be focusing your energies is probably the hardest part. You can get really excited with all the tools out there, all these shiny new tools, like, oh cool, I want to set this up. But that's probably the hardest part.

[20:08] How long it took to make the jump

Kane: How long did it take you, from when you first thought about starting your own business to when you actually made the jump? How long was that?

Anthony: That was a while. I had it on and off going for years as well.

Kane: Yeah.

Anthony: And honestly, for me it was timing. I was luckily in a position where financially I could take the jump and do it, and my wife supported me. Actually, she was the one that said do it, and I know I spoke to you and you said do it. I think that's something that's been really good, to have that support from friends and family. And like I said, I was just in a lucky position.

Kane: It's definitely exciting when you first start, as you said. There are so many toys that you can buy, and obviously you're a computer guy, so you get to set up your own computer and

Anthony: Yep.

[20:59] Office or remote, and trusting your team

Kane: your whole workstation from home, because you work from home, hey? So you said earlier about potentially wanting another seven people in the team. Do you think you would get an office, or would all of your team work remotely from home?

Anthony: Good question. I think ultimately, at a certain point, I'm going to need to get an office. I do have the office space to have the guys currently come in. Obviously with the expansion that I want to get to, that's not going to be

Kane: A full house.

Anthony: Yeah, that'll be a bit tricky. So having an office space is good, because it also gives both myself and the team a place where they can actually disconnect from home. I personally don't have too much of an issue with it, but not everyone's going to be the same as me, so I can't expect them to be the same. And it's also part of the team growth and building. You can only do so much remotely. Being in a room with people, you just can't beat that. Simple as that.

Kane: Yeah, I agree. That was always important to me from the very start, having an office. Again, we don't need it with what we do, because it's trade, and most guys take their vans home. They'll go to the wholesaler in the morning. But a big part was the culture, and in the early days it was me and my brother Fin in the office. So it was fun. It added to the excitement, and sometimes the tradies would come there. So for someone in your field, you could have a smaller place. Be a bit of a LAN.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: Have like one day a week where everyone needs to be in the office. Other days you can work from home, or have it a bit

Anthony: That'd be fun. And that's kind of really what we do at the moment. We've just got flexibility on the day that they come into the office here, and they work either one or two days a week here and work remotely for the rest of it. There's no hard written rule about that as well. And the beauty about being in our industry is that it is flexible. So if there is something where they do need to be at home, for example one of our workers has just had their first kid,

Kane: Oh, yeah.

Anthony: being able to allow them to work from home during that period, being there for their partner and supporting their newborn when they need to, I value that. I think that's important, because I would like that if I was in that same position. So I want to make sure that we can give them that same flexibility. We're just lucky to be in the right industry where we can do that now.

Kane: Yeah, I think that's a super good benefit of being in that industry.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: I suppose on that same note, do you have to have a lot of trust in your team that they are working when they're at home, or is it easy enough to manage with your software systems?

Anthony: Yeah, look, a lot of it is trust. And again, it's coming back down to my first thing about the people side. We've got the process for the tool sets, but the people side is important. So are we getting people that care about what we do and the customer? Are we looking after our customers, and do we stand by our values? So if we've got the right people, then the trust kind of falls in hand with that. And at the end of the day, if the work's getting done, that's all I can be happy with. If I'm not getting people coming back to me saying, "Hey, what's going on? This is not the type of service we expect," if that's not happening and the work's getting done, that's all that matters. There's definitely no big brothering going on, so to speak, where we're

Kane: Like micromanaging kind of thing.

Anthony: Yeah. The technology and tool sets are obviously out there and available, but having the right people in place, we don't need to go down that path.

[24:39] A five-year plan and working on the business

Kane: Do you have a time frame in mind to grow to that size? Like, what do you have to do, I suppose, to get enough work to feed that many people?

Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. I guess the time frame I'd like is within five years, that would be nice. It has grown very quickly. The first year was really just getting it all set up, getting things going, and then it really started to roll organically. Like I said, we got the first guy on at the start of the year. Then six months later we were already getting the next guy on, and now, eight months later, we're at the part where we're ready to look at the next stage of building that expansion. So far everything's been organic, just word of mouth and referral. Obviously that's going to dry up at a point in time, and that's another section of the business that I'm going to need to focus on.

Anthony: So, building my role where I can build the business. A lot of the time, what I'm saying to these customers that I deal with is, do you want to be working on your business or in your business? That's the trap that a lot of business owners get stuck in, where they're working in their business rather than on it. Whether that's getting the right people and processes in place, because that's what's slowing you down ultimately. Focus on that. And then obviously getting the expansion of an additional customer base, which in turn helps with expanding the staff. Every time I get a new customer where I can afford another staff member, I straight away reinvest that into the business. Every time.

[26:11] Why IT clients rarely leave

Kane: So with your field, you're saying most of your work is organic or referral, or I assume repeat clients, because obviously we've been a customer of yours from the very start. If you get a customer and they're easy to deal with for you, in theory they would never change. Should they really?

Anthony: I mean, yeah, in theory they shouldn't, especially if you're supporting them and directing them in the best ways throughout the process of their business. But businesses do change. They can change how they operate completely. Their whole industry could change as well, and it impacts there. So it's

Kane: They always need that IT, though. Like, I suppose a lot more stuff is going down the AI path now. The majority of jobs probably need computers, so even if they do change, surely they still need you guys for

Anthony: Yeah, the requirement of IT has fundamentally changed, but the requirement of IT itself is still the same. The setup of computers, people can plug a computer in nowadays and that's fine, and that support isn't really needed. But managing them from a security and compliance point of view, that's huge. The cloud space now, there are no servers in buildings anymore, in offices, I should say. And then they're like, "Cool, it's all in the cloud. Now I don't have to worry about it." No. Who's going to manage it there? So

Kane: Yeah.

Anthony: And that part is going to get easier, and it has. Like I said, networking has got a lot easier than it used to be.

Kane: Mhm.

Anthony: But someone's still going to need to look after it, unless you've got someone internal that is being trained in the industry, because there are a lot of companies that have internal IT staff.

[28:03] Should IT need certifications like trades?

Anthony: Are they being trained in the industry? Are they getting certified in the industry? Right now there is no enforcement for any certifications. Anyone can do IT work and there are no requirements.

Kane: So you could hire anyone and chuck them on.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: Plumbing, though.

Anthony: You've got certifications in plumbing, you've got your plumbing or electrical licence. There are a lot of these certifications, even in chartered accounting.

Kane: Do you think there should be for your field?

Anthony: I think so.

Kane: Yeah, okay.

Anthony: Because you've got a lot of

Kane: There's a lot of, I suppose, cybersecurity and all those things alone, and data is such a big thing now, and

[28:44] Explaining risk without scare tactics

Anthony: Yeah. There's a lot of negligence in IT. And it's hard, and I understand it from our side: you can put all the recommendations in front of them, and if they're not being accepted, then where does that blame fall? But I think it still comes down to the MSP, or whoever is in charge of that IT role, to make sure that they're communicating effectively what the risks are, rather than talking too technical. I don't like the scare tactics, that you're going to lose everything if you don't do this. I don't think that's valuable. That's like a last resort card. But explaining the risks is important. And then if the customer wants to accept the risk, that's fine. Sometimes it's low risk.

Kane: Yes, that's a very good point. And again, to relate it to trades, it's the same thing with what we do. We might recommend safety switches or something in the switchboard to make the home safe, but as long as we've explained it and we've put it in writing and sent it to them: hey, you don't have to do this, just letting you know these are 15, 20 years old, I'd recommend replacing them, or the switchboard has asbestos. As long as we give them that information. And again, there's no real black and white regulation, but we will always put it in our invoice or quote down the bottom, like, hey, this is what we've said. So if anything happens in the future, we've clearly explained it. And I suppose that's the same with you guys. If you do offer the protection and they decline it, at least you've got a record that, cool, we did offer it to you.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: And obviously with the risk of "you might lose everything", I think that can be a scare factor. But as long as they're aware. You don't have to say that specifically, but if you say to someone it's a risk that your data might get attacked, they can draw the rest of the picture themselves.

[30:34] What if your business lost its technology for a day?

Anthony: Exactly right. And I know one of the things that starts to click with people is, all right, what's the impact if none of your staff could operate with technology for a day? And at that point, either it's, we'll be able to make it work, and some companies obviously will, and for others it might be, no, that's a huge disaster, we cannot have that happen. And then it's, okay, this is what we need to put in place to protect you.

Kane: That's a really good question. Even with us being a trade, if we lost internet for one day, or the tradies lost their system, we're completely stuffed.

Anthony: Yeah. And then you go back to phone outages as well, when you've got carriers with a whole outage. How do you communicate with the guys on the road?

Kane: Was it last year?

Anthony: It was around then, yeah.

Kane: Yeah, that was a nightmare.

Anthony: And I remember it happened years and years ago when we were working together a long time ago, and it happened for a whole day as well. The guys were going on the road blind. How does that happen with technology these days?

Kane: That's a good realisation, like, oh yeah, okay.

Anthony: Yeah. So businesses are putting a lot into IT, and they don't understand how much is riding on IT until it falls down. And then there's the whole investment of how much they're budgeting for IT and for IT security, and they are two very different things. So you need to have a budget for how much you're going to spend on IT security, and on IT support, ongoing, and building there.

[32:10] Advice for someone starting out in IT

Kane: What advice would you give a young entrepreneur who wants to start their own business, who works in a big IT company now and is confused? What advice would you give them?

Anthony: I think the best thing is, probably going back to it, don't get bogged down on all the shiny tools. And believe in yourself, that what you're doing is going to come through, because that's one of the parts I struggled with, second-guessing myself. Can I do this? Am I going to be able to do this? Have that confidence, because the confidence will shine through if you believe in what you do. And the other thing is, do it. I have not looked back. I've enjoyed every step of this from the absolute start, building it up, getting the business built, getting the customers onboarded. It's been an absolutely fantastic journey.

[33:05] Gut feel vs proper planning

Kane: How much of it do you think is gut feeling over proper planning?

Anthony: A lot of gut. But planning has to be in there. You can't just run with gut forever. Gut will only get you so far, and if you don't put the planning in place, you'll fall apart. Planning for absolutely everything is, I think, still absolutely crucial. And I'm still planning today as we grow as a business. If you've got to a point where you go, cool, we're happy, and you're not trying to grow, then that's fine. But if you're trying to grow and you don't continue planning and really adapt from that,

Kane: Ever.

Anthony: You're not going to grow. Yeah.

[33:47] Hiring the second staff member and three weeks off

Kane: Was there a specific moment when you realised you had made the right choice?

Anthony: Yeah, I think it was probably around when I got the second guy on board.

Kane: Because that's a big risk, hey?

Anthony: Yeah, because all of a sudden we've got two mouths to feed here, and they've got families that they need to look after as well. Before I made that decision, I went through all of the information that we had internally, making sure that, yep, we'll be able to cover this, there's no problem here. But once we got him on board and I needed to step away for a bit, I could. Even recently I was away for three weeks, and prior to that I'd never really taken a holiday that long in my life.

Kane: How did that go?

Anthony: Fantastic.

Kane: Was it scary leaving your business behind?

Anthony: It wasn't, because I had technology still available at my fingertips. I knew if anything really went pear-shaped, I could be available and still work. For the first couple of days I was keeping an eye on how everything was looking. Honestly, it didn't take long to get to a point where I was able to switch off.

Kane: Yeah, okay.

Anthony: And I did not think about it for the majority of the holiday, which is fantastic. My team was able to look after it. And again, this comes back to the people and process. The process of how we operate was there. The people were there. And they were able to keep things going.

[35:19] People, Google Ads and the shift to AI search

Kane: So much of business is about the people, hey?

Anthony: Yeah, 100%.

Kane: Everything's about the people. Even customers, your customer service team, the level of customer service you provide, the trades going to site or your techs dealing with customers, everything is about the people. That's always been so important to us from the start, two things: staff retention and customer service. We obviously worked at the same company a long time ago. And Google reviews are so important. Keep customers happy. Repeat customers, referral, organic is the cheapest way you can get work. As you know, we're heavy on Google Ads for Smartfix, and it's so expensive.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: It's so expensive.

Anthony: It's a tough market to break into with Google AdWords, yeah.

Kane: So I think this year I was doing a lot on social media. We're starting to try, but SEO has completely changed. It's changing every day as far as I'm aware, with AEO, GEO,

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: SEO, all that stuff. So we're trying to use AI to help us write stuff to suit AI.

Anthony: Yeah, perfect.

Kane: I don't think anyone knows how to master that yet.

Anthony: No, not yet at least. And if they do, they're keeping it a secret so they can get ahead.

Kane: Yeah, or they're charging for it as a service, which is tricky.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: I know a lot of tradies want to use it, but they don't know how. Even us, it's taking us ages to start really looking into it, because you need time. Most small businesses don't have the time to even try and play around.

[36:46] A rebrand idea from AI in 10 minutes

Kane: I was talking to a guy last night over Messenger who's a client, and he wants to do a rebrand. He wants to rebrand his logo and business name. I was like, okay, maybe just leave that for now, we have all these other things to focus on. Then I'm like, actually, hang on. I put his website into ChatGPT.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: I was like, can you give me some rebrand ideas? I think there were like 20, 25 ideas. I screenshotted it and sent it to him. He's like, "Yeah, right. That's insane."

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: And he's like, "Those two are great." And I was like, "I agree, they're actually really cool." So I'm pretty sure he's just going to go ahead with one of them. That would have cost him maybe hundreds, probably thousands. Because now if he chooses that logo and puts it back into AI and says, "Cool, give me all the variations of file sizes and file types, JPEG, PNG, whatever," it can probably do that. I don't know. I'm assuming it can probably do that. Can it?

Anthony: It cuts out so much of the work. I don't know how good the quality of the rendered file output would look.

Kane: That's my thought. I was like, I wonder if it can do that.

Anthony: It's given, ultimately, the idea and concept, and even just the baseline design. You're going to spend at least thousands of dollars with a designer, and there's a lot of back and forth.

Kane: Yes, the time element. This was, I think, 8:30 last night, and this was over a 10-minute conversation. Whereas if he

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: had to put out an email enquiry to two or three different graphic designers,

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: and then you get quotes,

Anthony: Like three.

Kane: it's going to take a week before they get back to you with any of the concepts. And then when they do, you can say, "I like that, but can you change that?" They're not going to get back to you in a minute.

Anthony: No, they're not.

Kane: No, it's going to be very helpful.

Anthony: Mhm. It's a great tool.

[38:34] Where to find Anthony, then flipping the table

Kane: Where can people find you online?

Anthony: You can reach me on LinkedIn, Anthony Lawlor, or email me direct at anthony@nimbustech.cloud.

Kane: Cool. Anything that we've missed that you wanted to chat about?

Anthony: I think we covered most of it.

Kane: Let's flip the table.

Anthony: I'll take my water with me.

Kane: Yeah, I might as well take my own.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: All right. Just flip the table.

Anthony: Hello.

Kane: Now you're the host. Do you have any questions for me?

[39:00] What helped Smartfix grow: learning from bigger businesses

Anthony: Yeah. Obviously I've watched you scale your business in what felt like overnight. In reality it wasn't overnight, but you scaled super quickly. If there were a couple of key points that really helped you build your business, what were they, that you would recommend? Without letting out all the secrets.

Kane: It has felt like overnight. I suppose we are about eight years in now, but yes, it has been fast. I've learned a lot. The last couple of years have been the biggest learning curve for me. Which is also the reason why I wanted to start the podcast and the Hypotential business coaching model. I never really spoke to anyone in business that was a similar size to me, like ever. I just thought it just didn't happen. People didn't want to give you their information or share their secrets. But I actually met a guy who flew over from over east, who was super friendly, and he told me, "You've got to go and see big businesses." He's from over east, so he's like, "You've got to go over east and come into my office."

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: "Go to New South Wales, go to these other states, and go into the biggest businesses and sit with them for a day." I was like, "Really? Is that a thing?" He's like, "Yeah." He's obviously pushing it, and they do it. So I actually flew over there and went to one of their two-day seminars, but it was more of a networking event.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: And I couldn't believe how open people were to talk about their business, and how many similar stories there were. I obviously didn't think I was the only one, but I didn't realise people were just so happy to talk about it. So I probably learned more in those two days than I have in a couple of years.

Anthony: Wow.

Kane: And they're big businesses as well. So it was really, really cool for me. That's sort of why I wanted to do this, because there are no tradie-specific networking events in WA. I actually met a couple of guys over there from WA, and I've caught up with them twice since.

Anthony: Okay.

Kane: And then I just started messaging big businesses over here. I've had a catch-up with a couple of other businesses, and we had our first event here, and it went really well. So I thought, wow, there's actually huge potential here.

Anthony: Yeah, I definitely agree. Peer group is huge, and you're not really alone in the battle of doing your own business. I've even got another customer in the electrical trades industry that actually went over to a seminar in Sydney, and they're from down south as well.

Kane: Oh, really?

Anthony: Yeah, I wonder if it's the same one. I know in the IT space it's the same thing as well. It's funny, because in your business it's all your trade secrets, but people are so open to sharing, because I think ultimately, if you're going to help someone, they're going to help you back. If you have that really good community, a nice peer group where we're here to help each other, we're not trying to attack each other, you'll all grow together.

Kane: Yeah, I think there's enough work out there. There is enough work out there for everyone.

Anthony: Yeah, there is.

Kane: Without that competitive side.

Anthony: Perth is small, but it's not that small.

Kane: Well, yeah, like I said, the guys I met over there, I actually know of them from here.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: I actually know of them, and since then I've actually sold them some of my old plumbing equipment that we needed to get rid of. So again, just having that contact helped me massively. Another piece of equipment that I was selling, I had a guy come to buy it, and he had worked for the same guy I'd met from over east. So he came to buy this thing and I really liked him. We both had a connection straight away, because he used to work for him. I actually offered him a job there and then, and he started with us about two weeks after.

Anthony: Wow.

Kane: It's just weird how things work. Perth is small, but I think Australia is actually quite small as well.

[42:47] Hiring through referrals and promoting from within

Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. How did you go with your people, and building that up and hiring them? Because I know you've got quite a big company now, and it seems that your team are really well fitted to each other. They all kind of slot in, at least everyone that I've dealt with. How has that gone for you?

Kane: It takes time. Definitely takes time. We're eight years in now and we've got a really solid team, but we've got some of our best staff through referrals. So if we've had a really good tradie here with us for a certain amount of time, we'll say to them, hey, we're after another electrician. We do pay for it, because it just puts extra motivation there: hey, we'll pay you X amount if you can find us a tradie that's good enough. So they're obviously not going to refer people that aren't very good.

Anthony: Yeah, because they're putting their name on it as

Kane: Yeah, literally. So that's how we got a lot of our good tradies. And some of the management as well. My brother still works for the company. He looks after the electrical team. Josh looks after the sales team. He's been with us for like five or six years. So I think having these people over time, and helping them grow as well. They've all started out, like Fin was an apprentice and now he's the manager, and Josh was on the road and now he's in the office. So helping people grow through everything, even the customer service team. Our HR operations manager started here on the phones. So I think training people, they really respect that, rather than having them just as a number and never progressing. I think the progression is huge.

Anthony: Yeah, definitely. Career path opportunity, growth of knowledge. That's what keeps people excited as well, versus going in and doing the same thing. If they've got the opportunity to grow or learn new things on the job, that keeps things exciting at least.

Kane: Yeah. And I think you knew of your guys, hey? You didn't just look on Seek. You actually knew of them, which is already a benefit, hey?

Anthony: Yeah. And there are a couple of other guys that I speak with that I've got in mind. I've had chats with some of them, and they would love to come. So when I'm ready, I would love to grab them, and I know they were pretty keen as well. So I think they're the people that I can already have that trust in. I know they're going to do the right thing. I know they're capable. And once I'm at a point where I can get them, I'd be running after them.

Kane: Do you think it'd be a risk in that scenario? Let's just say you know two people that would be keen, but you're not ready. Do you think there'd be a risk that they might move on from where they are, get another job, and then not be available for you?

Anthony: I mean, absolutely, and I wouldn't hold any of that against them. If an opportunity comes up, what am I to say to hold them back from it?

Kane: Yeah.

Anthony: As much as I'd love to take them now, I can't stop them from accepting an opportunity.

Kane: And you don't want to take them too quick if you're not ready, because it'd be risky for you and them.

Anthony: That's right. So I think you've just got to be humble with how life works with that.

[45:47] Why you should never burn bridges when staff leave

Kane: Yeah, that's actually just reminded me. This happens a lot. Sometimes when we hire people, when they resign at their previous company, it's crazy how funny employers get. Like toxic. They shout and scream at them and tell them to walk out straight away. I find that really, really odd. Whenever someone leaves us, we literally help them. One of our first coaching clients used to work for us. When he left, we'd catch up with him every now and again, and now I'm helping him to do his own thing. So I think it's crazy. Again, Perth is so small.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: I don't see why people would burn bridges. I find that really interesting.

[46:23] How I got into electrical and why I didn't start straight away

Anthony: Yep, 100%. Couldn't agree more. Have you always wanted to start your own business?

Kane: Not really. When I left school, I did my apprenticeship because I heard that electrical was the cleanest and best paying trade. And I don't think it's the cleanest, but

Anthony: Yeah, climbing through roofs.

Kane: Yeah, climbing through roofs when it's like 40, 50 degrees. I couldn't do it. But I didn't really plan on it, to be honest, from the start. I think maybe towards the end of my apprenticeship I definitely got the idea, but I wasn't sure, hey.

Anthony: Mhm. Was there one key part that made you decide, yeah, I'm going to give it a shot?

Kane: Yeah, I think it was when I wasn't too happy where I was at the business. So I did my contractor's, which is the licence that you need to run your own business as an electrician here in WA. I did that maybe two years after I finished my apprenticeship. I went to work for a bigger company for two years, I did my contractor's, and I was going to leave, but I got offered a job to stay there and run the electrical side. I spoke to my mum and dad, and my dad's like, "You've got to take that, because you're going to learn so much of the office side." And if I had started then, it definitely wouldn't have gone as well as it did, because I learned so much there.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: I learned a lot of what to do and what not to do.

Anthony: Yeah, definitely. I think having that experience and exposure. I know I wanted to start my business years and years before, and I look back now and think I'm glad I didn't, and that I was able to get the exposure and experience in other businesses that were already at that level. Because knowing what to do and what not to do, there's only so much you can think of about how to run it until you actually see it done.

Kane: It's experience.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: It's the experience of working with them, seeing how they do it, and starting to, I suppose, put things together for when you're ready to make the move.

[48:17] Keeping Smartfix sustainable

Anthony: Yeah. Do you have a goal path? I know a lot of people, like my dad always had, what's your one, three, five-year plan? Do you have something like that, or do you always have to have a plan, or how do you work?

Kane: Honestly, planning's never been my strong point. I'm starting to now that I'm getting older, and Smartfix has been around for eight plus years, and my goal is just to make sure it's sustainable. The last couple of years for us have been quite difficult. We grew to like 140 staff, and now we have scaled back. So for me it's longevity, making it sustainable, making sure staff aren't overworked and stressed. So we're at a really good size now. And I don't have to be involved in the day-to-day, which I am because I love it, but I'm also going to be doing a lot of work for Hypotential, which is business coaching for tradies, and doing the podcast. I do like helping people and having conversations, because people that watch this might pick up on a few things, which is awesome.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: So I don't really have a long-term goal from now.

Anthony: Yeah. So I guess you've been able to grow it to a point where you're happy with it, and you're in more of a maintain type of model.

Kane: Yeah. So my way of growing it now is reducing our Google spend, reducing the advertising spend, and figuring out how we can get more repeat work, how we can get more referral work. We've almost finished the app that we've had developed,

Anthony: Mhm.

[49:45] HomeShield, home maintenance and smoke alarms

Kane: which will be the first in the industry, which will be really cool. So keen to launch that. And we're trying to put together HomeShield, which is a home service subscription model. Like you pay for Netflix and other apps, it'll be like that, but it's to maintain your house, because a lot of people don't actually maintain their house like they should.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: And then they get the big fees when they have the reactive maintenance, which a lot of our work is, going out at short notice, after hours, and doing things which are expensive.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: Whereas if you maintain your house, you will prevent a lot of those things from happening.

Anthony: Yeah, it can be a big shock to a lot of families, an unexpected bill like that. And sometimes if they're not at the financial point in time to be ready for it, they either have to do a dodgy small fix, which is going to lead them to more costs in the future. So being more on top of things is peace of mind.

Kane: It's just different. I don't know why not many people are doing it. It's like a car service.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: How could you not service your car?

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: For most people, their biggest investment is their home.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kane: And there's nothing that says you need to service this. I know it's April Fool's Day today, actually.

Anthony: Oh, is it?

Kane: That's like your smoke alarm battery replacement day.

Anthony: Oh.

Kane: That's like a thing, but there's so much else that needs to be checked. Your switchboard, if you've got a water filter, if you've got a hot water system, there are things you've got to check there. It will prolong the life

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: of the equipment.

Anthony: Yeah. I guess there's that longevity, but also life safety as well. Because there's a lot of the home batteries now,

Kane: The lithium ones.

Anthony: Yeah. My dad just got a smoke alarm fitted in the garage that then feeds into the smoke alarm in the house.

Kane: Like interconnected.

Anthony: Yeah, and I didn't know that was even possible. I thought that's a great idea, Dad, because if that had caught fire and started burning, the way the property is set up, you're really locked to that side of the house, short of just going through the window. If that happened, by the time they actually knew about it, they'd be really trapped at the back of the house. That's scary, not being able to protect your lives and pets and things that can't be replaced. Of course you've got insurance, but there are things that are irreplaceable.

Kane: Yeah, that's a good point. Even that alone, new houses built now have to have the smoke alarms interconnected.

Anthony: Mhm.

Kane: And it's something that we do recommend if we are replacing someone's smoke alarms. You don't have to do it legally, but it's our recommendation, because if you've got your kids' bedrooms at the back of the house with a smoke alarm down there, and you've got one in front of the master bedroom at the front of the house, which is the most common scenario, if there's a fire at the back, you might be able to hear it, but if your smoke alarm's going off at the front, there's a significantly higher chance you're going to hear it.

Anthony: Yeah. Get on to it sooner, before it's too big of a problem. If it's something small, you might be able to tackle it, but once it gets to too big of a situation, that's it.

[52:51] Wrapping up

Kane: So yeah, we're in a good place now. Keep it sustainable, try and save costs on big spend.

Anthony: Awesome. Keep going.

Kane: Yeah. It's a good motto.

Anthony: Wrap it up.

Kane: Excellent. Cheers.

Anthony: Thanks for having me on your podcast.

Kane: Thanks, mate.

Anthony: Cheers.

Kane: If you found some value in today's episode, subscribing on your platform of choice is the best way to support the show and to make sure you don't miss anything. New episodes drop fortnightly and we have a lot more ground to cover. These conversations don't happen often in the trade industry, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm Kane Tyler Smith. I'll see you on the next one.