Running a Premium Aircon Business, Sales Process and Growing in Perth | Louis Carter

[00:00] Cold open

Louis: Like, the company spoke for itself. That was pretty cool.

Louis: You will not have time for yourself.

Louis: It's crazy.

Louis: Yeah, we were going down a whole different path, but yeah, it's a crazy industry, man, when it comes to air con guys.

[00:12] Introduction

Kane: Hey, I'm Kane Tyler Smith, the founder and CEO of Smartfix and Hypotential. This is Unlocking Business, where we have real conversations around business, leadership, mindset and personal growth. If you've been getting value from these conversations, please take a second to like, subscribe and follow our channels. It helps us reach more people, bring on more guests, and share more stories. Now, let's get into this episode.

Kane: Today, we're joined by Louis Carter, the founder of WestOz Trades. I've known you for about 17 years, since we were doing our apprenticeships back in the day. It feels like we've come such a long way. WestOz Trades is now one of the biggest air conditioning businesses in Perth. How does that make you feel?

Louis: Scared, mate, to be honest, but yeah, also amazing for what we've accomplished. Back in the day, as you said, 17 years we've known each other, so it's a long time, and here we are.

Kane: How many staff have you got now?

Louis: About 22 in total.

[01:04] Team size, residential and commercial

Louis: About six, seven in the office. Up and down, maybe 13, 14 on the road at any one given time.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: Yeah, a lot to think about, for sure.

Kane: And that's a combination of, you do residential and commercial?

Louis: Yeah, our bread and butter has always been residential. Property management is how we got into the industry first of all. And I think you'd know with the Smartfix stuff, you just kind of get used to not saying no to stuff. And for us, we want to give our team the ability to grow and have more complex challenges, so we've really just grown into that commercial side relatively naturally.

Kane: So how did you get into commercial in the first place, then? Was it through your property management?

Louis: Property management, always. So a lot of the residential property managers we work for have a commercial side, and then obviously word of mouth. We start doing a good job on the resi side, the low end, then we can kind of come up the track with the commercial. And then from that it's just been referrals and working with the right commercial property managers. And then that's led into some of the bigger stuff,

[02:06] Bunnings, Domino's and commercial risk

Louis: bigger projects and medical centres, Bunnings, Domino's.

Kane: Domino's?

Louis: Domino's, yeah, a fair few bigger names. So it's been enjoyable.

Kane: That's cool. So do you have to have different trades then? Because for us, we've never done commercial, and my main reason is, if we have electricians that only mainly do residential work, it's a little bit too different just to throw them on a commercial job. So do you have to hire specifically for that side?

Louis: You'd remember, if you're a refrigeration mechanic, you should know the ins and outs of installation and servicing in terms of residential and commercial. It can be a lot different when you're working on the industrial side, your chillers, your ammonia plants, stuff like that, where you really need experience. But for the stuff that we do, they come in quite well, really.

Kane: Yeah, okay.

Louis: Yeah, I mean, for us we've always been a massive player in terms of stick to your niche and do what you do well. So we work alongside a fair few good mechanical electricians who are more specified to that kind of stuff, your VSDs, your CO2 sensors.

Kane: What's a VSD? Is that like the big commercial air con?

Louis: VSDs are your variable speed drives for your different exhaust fans, stuff like that. Stuff that we don't really do that much. Yeah, a lot of ventilation stuff. Car park exhausts, kitchen exhausts.

Kane: Yeah. Do you guys do the ductwork and stuff for that?

Louis: We do the ductwork, install the fans, commission, but in terms of the electrical side, like the sensors and the calibration, we'll get the sparkies in to do that. So we've really got a good team that we trust. By all means, we fake it till we make it, but we still have to be under the rules and regulations. Every job, our admin team would tell you, has to be a learning curve. If it's not one thing, it's another, and it's just on a bigger scale in commercial.

Kane: I suppose it's more risky, because if you do something wrong, it potentially affects the whole job in the building.

Louis: Especially like car park exhaust. You haven't got a thousand dollar cylinder repair, you've got a hundred thousand dollar repair or a lawsuit coming at you. You know what I mean? So you've got to know what you're talking about. Luckily we've got good people within the company, and people outside the company in terms

[04:10] Subbies and the split system course

Louis: of mechanical engineers and stuff as well, that help us. But yeah, our bread and butter, to answer your question, is a bit of both. We still really enjoy the resi side as well.

Kane: Yeah. What, splits and ducted for residential?

Louis: Yeah, splits, evaporative, ducted. As you know, it's hard to get boys or girls to want to install reverse cycle ducted systems. So that's been a challenge of its own, but we do have a few subcontractors that help us in regards to the installation side. But our bread and butter is troubleshooting, repairs, diagnostics, that stuff. Anything that the sparkies can't sort.

Kane: I was going to say, that's where we always struggle. I was going to ask you this the other day, your thoughts on this whole split course thing.

Louis: It's crazy. Like, genuinely, obviously we do it because we can, but as a fridgie, it's pretty ridiculous. I think we've come to the conclusion, if you can't beat them, join them. So even in summer at peak time, most of our installers will be sparkies, because I can

Kane: As in subbies? You sub it to those guys?

Louis: Yeah, we have a few subbies that we work solely with, so they know our systems, they know our checklists, they know our quality assurance forms. But what's the point of having a split subcontractor or fridgie subcontractor doing the pipe up, and then having another electrical contractor come and do the power? Doesn't make sense. So yeah, in terms of the electrical side, we normally subcontract any of our work to sparkies when we can, or when we get too busy.

Kane: Yeah, okay.

Louis: But yeah, in terms of the whole Cert II course, I mean, it's good and bad, right? We get the benefit of fixing up all the issues, but ultimately we're losing a lot of work, because the pricing that they're giving people is ludicrous.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: And for them, if they've got a system that's cooling or heating, happy days. But then when an actual experienced tech goes to have a look, you'd be like, "Wow, did you not actually use the system? Did you actually get a photo of that, pulling below 5 on your micron? Did you use black insulation? Did you tape near your flares?" There's stuff that's another level that people don't see.

[06:14] Should the next generation do the split course?

Louis: But yeah, good and bad. And the industry for air conditioning is definitely falling apart in that regard, for sure.

Kane: What would you say? Because there's so many sparkies that are doing that split course.

Louis: Yeah, I mean, I've got my young boy growing up, he's 2 years old, and if he comes to me saying, "What trade should I do?", I'd say, "Be an electrician and then get your Cert II course." Because that's going to be the shortest way for you to be a competent trade, if that's what you want to do. In our sector, the resi light commercial space, it makes sense. On the bigger stuff, for sure, if you want to be a fridgie.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: And you can still earn decent money doing that.

Kane: Yeah, it's obviously different for commercial, and even with ducted, we obviously dabble a bit with ducted. But it's actually funny, this week I called one of the inspectors from the ARC, whatever they're called. And I said, "We don't have a fridgie at the moment. So how does this work?" And they said, "With your electricians that have their restricted split course ticket, you can go out, you can install a new split, you can top up the gas if the pipe work is long enough that it needs to be.

[07:16] What fridgies are and aren't allowed to do

Kane: But if there's a leak on there, you can't repair it." So I'm like, "What? So we can handle gas, we can top up gas, we can carry gas, we can buy gas, but then as soon as there's an issue, you can't?" I was like, "That's crazy." In my opinion, either we can or we can't. Can we handle gas or no?

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Which I think is ridiculous, because you

Louis: It's a money-making thing for them, right? They're never going to change it. Ultimately, what they should do on the flip side, and I speak for every air con technician and fridgie out there, is they need to bring in more allowances that we can do as refrigeration mechanics in terms of the electrical side. So we should be able to do a week or two week course and be able to run our own circuit, our own RCD, out from the main switchboard to the outdoor unit. Something as simple as that.

Kane: So you can get a restricted electrical ticket, but that's still only straight swap replacements.

Louis: Yeah, and they're taking more and more away. Like I said, even changing an isolator, we're not allowed to do it anymore. Running more than 5 m of interconnect, we're not allowed to do it anymore.

Kane: But if you had a restricted electrical, can you do that?

Louis: No, that is it. You can't replace an isolator.

Kane: Can't replace an isolator? Really?

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: I thought you were

[08:18] Winning property management work

Louis: You can work from it, but you're not physically allowed to go and lock out the board, turn the breaker off, change an isolator. We're not allowed to do that. But obviously some of our refrigeration mechanics are smart with control cabling. We do a lot of it, troubleshooting, diagnostics, that stuff. So we should be allowed to run simple mains power.

Kane: You'd go down a whole different path for

Louis: Yeah, it's a crazy industry, man, for air con guys.

Kane: So, as I sort of mentioned before, you guys are one of the biggest in WA. Obviously I know some big people that do industrial and stuff like that. Do you have many competitors in your space doing the property management kind of work?

Louis: Yeah, definitely a few competitors. I'm definitely biased in the way that I say we are the best in that area, for sure, only because we've been doing it for so long in that niche with property managers. So our systems are really derived to help property managers, from the SMS reminders, how to deal with strata, collecting keys, that

[09:20] Why premium real estates pay more

Louis: stuff, right?

Kane: That's a whole other beast in itself.

Louis: Yeah, you get to know it. So yeah, a fair few people doing it. And don't get me wrong, we're definitely a premium in terms of pricing in that area. But for us to have capable staff, to train them well, fuel, insurances, all that stuff with regards to overheads, we've got to pay the boys as well. And that's the only way we're going to get good technicians working for us.

Kane: That's a good point, because I always assume with real estate, it's probably different, resi real estate to commercial strata, I don't know. We always just assume that they wouldn't pay our premium rate, because I know with residential, for example, the real estates are working with homeowners trying to get the cheapest price possible.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: So with our pricing as a premium service, we always assume that we'd struggle with that.

Louis: Mhm.

Kane: But do they pay a premium then for someone like you guys?

Louis: You've got to chase a premium real estate, right? If they're a premium real estate, they can't be going with the cheapest price, because it's going to come and kick them in the backside in the long run.

Kane: Mhm.

Louis: As you know, you pay the cheapest cost, pay peanuts get monkeys, as the old saying goes, and it is true. In a year's time you're probably paying double that, because you've got to go

[10:22] HighLevel, job management and email lists

Louis: back and sort all these issues. So I think for any contractor out there, trying to sell to an avatar that has money, realistically, is number one. And you want to frame your quotes and your services in a way that gives you value, realistically. You can't just say on a quote, "Replace 20 amp isolator." You've got to say what isolator you're replacing, how you're doing it, what you're taking away. You have to big up your quote to show more value in what you do. And that's how you can win, I guess I would say, better clients, more money.

Kane: What CRM do you use?

Louis: Job management or CRM?

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: CRM, we go HighLevel, and then job management, we're on Ascora. Similar to simPRO.

Kane: This is interesting, because we've been toying with this idea for a while. We use ServiceM8, which is not a CRM, which is sort of coming to light recently with me learning. So we use HighLevel now for Hypotential, we use ServiceM8 for Smartfix, but there's so many downfalls with ServiceM8 for reporting and automations and stuff like that. So Ascora, that's what your trades are going to site with, that's what they take photos with and everything?

Louis: Yeah, right.

Kane: What do you use HighLevel for?

Louis: HighLevel is more for lead nurturing. So landing pages get sent to GoHighLevel. They'll get moved to different areas if they've been contacted. More of the sales side of things. Any website inquiry, SEO inquiry gets captured in HighLevel, and they'll be automated, a little welcome VSL video, something like that. And then we use it for email marketing as well. So email marketing once a month. Not that I'm consistent at all, but yeah, it's good to catch. I think we've got maybe about 8,000 emails in there. But as you know, it's all well and good having 8,000 in there. It's just, how many are going to open that email?

Kane: Yeah. And how many are going to unsubscribe? That's the issue that we have. Because we do resi, we have maybe 30, 40,000 actual subscribers. Each time we do an unplanned, off-the-cuff, "We're quiet, let's send an email out", you get so many unsubscribes, because they're like, "Yeah, I know."

[12:28] Asset lists and tracking lead ROI

Louis: But yeah, on the flip side, back to your question about why we can charge a premium. I think having that job management software, if you're starting out and you're a business owner, you need it, 100%. A lot of people are cheap to start out. They don't have much money, but it will save you so much money in the long run.

Louis: Like for us, and you'll be the same with ServiceM8, on our invoices we have an equipment asset list. So say we go to a site and it's got 10 split systems, the boys would add equipment for those 10 systems. That will give them prompts on condition of filter, has the drain been unblocked, outdoor coil condition. All of that is sent to the real estate or sent to the owner. So you're adding value with that, right? So rather than them paying 100 bucks for a split system service, that's why we charge what we do, because they're getting so much more from it. And that's where Ascora and your ServiceM8s can help with that, right?

Kane: So with your HighLevel and Ascora, I assume they sync together. So if you have a lead that comes through HighLevel and ends up being a job, then it goes to Ascora.

Louis: Yeah, so generally they'll come through the website, it goes to GoHighLevel. We get sent an email into Outlook, and it also goes to Ascora in inquiries. So we can auto-populate them as a customer straight away.

Kane: So my question there, and this is for our actual current issues, is are you double handling, though, if it's in both?

Louis: 100%.

Kane: Yeah, but it's worth it because of the benefits.

Louis: Yeah, 100%. I think we're even double handling more. I mean, we're delving a bit deeper, but the whole marketing side, you would know more than anyone about how much money you can spend on Google Ads and stuff like that. But you need to understand how your leads are coming in, in terms of what value you're making from them. So you need to really

Kane: Your ROI.

Louis: Yeah, because for so long we've paid so much money on Google Ads and SEO, but now the leads are coming to an active Google spreadsheet. Our aim is to put, okay, have they been contacted? What was the quote amount? Has the job been won? You need to do that weekly, because you need to figure out if it's worth you spending money. At the minute we're all over the place in terms of automation, and we haven't found that perfect sweet spot. But yeah, double handling, but it's probably the only way at the minute.

Kane: So with the automation you just mentioned, is that with AI? I know

[14:34] Automation experts and writing your own posts

Kane: obviously there's automation and AI, but do you use both?

Louis: Yeah, I think it's just Zapier we use, to be honest. It's super simple. We work with a guy called Ben from Link Digital, shout out. He's really good on the automation side. And it changes every few weeks, there's an update on GoHighLevel or Facebook, and as business owners it's hard, because you want to be doing the marketing side, but you haven't got the time. So you don't have time to understand it as much. So I feel getting someone involved who knows the industry, in terms of the marketing sense and automation... Yeah, it's a different ball game, isn't it, really? Running a business as a technician, being a great tech, and then understanding business, which is what the Hypotential stuff does, and then sales.

Kane: It's crazy. Like you said, if he's the expert in those automations, and with Zapier, tying them together, I think hiring an expert in to do that is a good idea, because we've gone through lots of different phases. We tried to bring all marketing in-house at one point. We had a Google Ads guy in-house. We had SEO in-house. We tried to get tech guys in-house, but it didn't really work for us, to be honest, for most things. It's like, go external and get the expert to come in. Yes, you're going to pay them a premium, but they're not a full-time employee. There's a tax benefit with a full-time employee, but there's no tax benefit there. So there's pros and cons, but I think going external for experts is perfect. Trying to bring things in-house has a whole heap of issues. Even office space, for example.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Office space, sick leave. Are they keeping up to date with the new things that change? Like you said, because that happens all the time. Even with social media, they might change the sizing of the images that you can fit on Instagram.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: If you've prepared 3 months of scheduled posts and they make a change, you've got to then figure it all out.

Louis: You know what it's like? Even for me, I normally set aside a few hours every Monday to do literally three posts, three organic posts about WestOz, and it takes me three or four hours. And then that's posting it on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. So yeah, it is a challenge, but

Kane: And you do your own?

Louis: I do my own organic stuff, because I feel

[16:40] Mentors, masterminds and taking action

Louis: like if we outsource that, they wouldn't understand the story of us. But then we have a few guys who do more of the Australia Day posts, or we had a mental health awareness day the other day. Stuff like that is what they'll do.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: Yeah. And I read yours. I don't think you use AI, unless you do it really well.

Kane: No, I use it to brainstorm, for sure. But I've always enjoyed writing and I've always enjoyed English, and I love that about it. You can tell when they're super AI. Alex Hormozi always recommends you have to dumb it down to like a 4-year-old vocabulary. And that's literally the way that I write anyway, so

Louis: Perfect. Yeah.

Kane: It's funny. LinkedIn's tragic for it, hey.

Louis: It is, yeah, it's bad. And no one tells you the real story, right? Like I was saying off camera, you're good at doing that now with your Smartfix journey, and telling people how it is. And with social media these days, everyone's telling you a lie. I've been through a fair few business coaches and mentors that have kind of reeled you in, but they haven't lived that life. So I think if you're looking to get a mentor on board, you need to quiz them about what they've done.

Kane: Exactly, 100%. I'd never spoken to other people that have got a business either my size or bigger until things hit the fan last year, and I flew over east to meet somebody that we were with right before.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Yeah, it's interesting, the stories that they share. Everyone has done the same stuff that I've messed up. That's why we're doing Hypotential, because we have sort of lived through the majority of things now. And I

Louis: That's the thing, though, as well, isn't it? As blokes, especially, you don't want to talk about your hardships and what that's done. And especially with starting a business, you need to talk. So being in those little mastermind groups, similar to, I'm not sure what you guys do, is going to be really beneficial. Learn from everyone's mistakes.

Kane: I think it is hard. Some things are unteachable lessons, which is a new phrase I learned recently. There's so many things people told me not to do that I've done, that maybe I shouldn't have, but there's no way I would have listened without doing it for myself.

Louis: Yeah, 100%. It's like having a baby, right? Everyone says this is what you should do, but you don't know until you've actually had the baby.

Kane: Yeah, that is a very good point. It's like that, because a business is like a baby.

Louis: Yeah. And I'm really bad for delving into business books. I reckon I do about two business audiobooks a week.

Kane: Do you really?

Louis: Multiple podcasts, but it's like, what do you retain out of that? And that's the hardest thing for me. You can read all the books in the world, listen to all the podcasts, but you have to take action. And that's it. And I'm one for not taking action, for sure. I'm a visionary, so it's hard for me to put stuff to paper. That's when you have a good team around you.

Kane: That is true. I've said this previously, I've probably watched tens of thousands of hours of other people's content, but I've probably retained maybe 1%.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Yeah, it's hard, eh? When do you have time to listen to audiobooks?

Louis: When I run. Running is a big thing for me. I can't really listen to audiobooks when I'm working. I know a few people can, but I need

Kane: Really?

[19:45] Running and the Margs Ultra

Louis: to be solely focused on work. Even music, I couldn't have

Kane: Lyrics?

Louis: Lyrics playing. It has to be like lo-fi.

Kane: Yeah, sure.

Louis: And then I'm stuck in.

Kane: How often do you run?

Louis: I maybe run 80 to 100 k's a week at the minute, depending on what's coming up training wise. But it's very sporadic at the minute. You know what it's like with kids, mate. You can have a plan in mind, just like business, and it just goes out the window. So I could have my alarm ready for 4:00 a.m., and the kids have a bad night, and I'm blaming them for me not getting up.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: But yeah, I enjoy running. For me it's an escape, and that's what you need as a business owner. You need a de-stress. Because you come from a crazy stressful time at work, you open the doors and you've got kids, and you come into a circus. So it's hard, mate.

Kane: So you try to get up in the mornings?

Louis: I'm normally mornings. Lately I've been going at night time, so kids are in bed at 7:30 and I do like an 8:00 to 10:00 run.

Kane: Yeah, right.

Louis: Yeah, it's nice. Storms are coming in in Perth lately, so it's like, listen to some motivational podcasts. Yeah, it's good fun.

Kane: That's a lot of k's per week. Do you still do a marathon or something?

Louis: Just done the Margs Ultra. Yeah, that was 80 k, but you know what social media's like these days, mate. 80 k's is nothing compared to what some people are doing. It's crazy.

Kane: So I was on the 12 k HBF and I was like, that's pretty

Louis: That's a good effort.

Kane: Yeah, mate. You've got to stop that, all right?

Louis: Yeah, 80 k's. I was on the Cape to Cape, so it's a very hilly trail. I think there's about 40 k's worth of sand.

Kane: Sand?

Louis: Yeah, it was good.

Kane: Soft sand?

Louis: Soft sand, yeah.

Kane: Jeez.

Louis: Yeah, it took me 10 and a half hours. I was running for that long. But yeah, there's a few other runs coming up. I'm definitely a back of the pack runner, for sure, but it's enjoyable.

Kane: So no more football?

Louis: No more football, and that's where we know each other from as well. I love it. I just feel like, on a personal level, I'm so competitive. If I start playing football again, I would remember how, quote unquote, better I used to be when I was younger, and I'd be upset that I'm not at that level anymore. So, running.

Kane: Risk of injury.

Louis: Yeah.

[21:49] Playing the long game and Google reviews

Kane: Is there still risk of injury? Obviously there is with running, but nothing like with football.

Louis: Not major. You might hurt a hammy, but I can still work, you know? Yeah. We're more so in the office these days, but you want to be able to be there for your kids and stuff a bit. And sometimes with football, how easy is it for you to break a leg?

Kane: Like you said, you remember what you used to play like, and then being a bit older and not being as agile, one wrong move. I did my ACL like 2 years ago, like I mentioned before. I've just been trying to train now to play. Then I need to do like 6 months of return to sport physio before I can even think about playing. And again, if the adrenaline's going, one overreach and I do my knee again, I'll be like, "Oh, that's another 12 months."

Louis: It's just playing smart, and that probably relates back to business as well. You've learned from all those mistakes previously. You just have to take a step back and simplify the process. Even if you injure yourself, you want to go in full steam with your rehab, but you've just got to take your time. Play the long game. That's it. And generally, the people who play the long game are the ones that are successful, right?

Kane: Mhm.

Louis: As you know, all these little one-man bands starting up, it all sounds good on paper. Give them a year, they're probably not going to be there. So I mean, on the flip side, that's helped us as a business, in terms of educating the people that do charge on the lower scale. When there's a stuff up in a year's time, you give them a call, they're not going to be there. So we've been here for 7 to 8 years, and same for you guys, but we're trustworthy. That's what you pay for.

Kane: I looked at your reviews yesterday. You've got 900 and something five stars.

Louis: So close to a thousand. Yeah. So we went through a real rough patch with that. We actually paid a company who tried to get reviews for us, but it wasn't via Google, so he could distribute the reviews himself. It was a fraud kind of system. We didn't know how bad it was. So we got up to like four, five hundred reviews through doing it the way we thought was the correct way, and within a day, completely wiped out.

Kane: Oh.

Louis: So we had to rebuild the structure for reviews. And I mean, you're massive on Google reviews at Smartfix, aren't you? What's your system these days? Still incentivised to an extent?

[23:56] Review prompts, checklists and incentives

Kane: Yes, sort of. So obviously, because we do residential, a lot of our jobs are like one or two hours, so we get through volume. In my head, I'm like, we have nowhere near the amount of reviews that we should do for the amount of jobs that we do, but customers don't go out of their way to do it. So you obviously have to prompt them quite a lot. So if we finish a job, our trades on site are supposed to go through a checklist of, have you cleaned up? Da da da. Go through the job with the customer. Have we missed anything? Are you happy with the work? That's so important. Trying to get the guys to do that is hard.

Louis: They can tick the box.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: But have they done it? That's the thing.

Kane: And then they just say, "Hey, if you don't mind leaving us a review based on the work we've done." QR code, it's literally on a plate for the customer if the tradie has followed the process. And then yeah, we incentivise our tradies. Basically, just do the job properly in the first place, and then they get name dropped. We've incentivised them. It goes towards their performance.

Louis: It's hard as a business owner, though, because you're paying them to do the job anyway. So it's like, that is part of your job, to give a five star service. So it's hard. The more you give them, the more they want, in terms of your team. And I get it. We're in a competitive landscape for employees and team.

Louis: But it has to come to a point where you are paid to just deliver a five star service anyway. But yeah, on the flip side, we incentivise as well, and that's been a game changer for us.

Kane: Yeah, it is, for sure.

Louis: Yeah, we

Kane: Obviously we use ServiceM8 and we use Podium.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: You know Podium, the SMS service thing? That is good. The ones that call you every week. They're good at sales, but to be honest, their system is amazing for us. All our emails, all our SMSs, Facebook, LinkedIn, any message platform goes to the Podium platform.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Then we obviously have AI systems in place, which can respond instantly for that level of customer service, and then it escalates to a human.

Louis: Yeah. Is that what GoHighLevel can do, if you're into that? Similar to them?

Kane: Did I look into HighLevel's one?

Louis: I think they do do it, but I think it's just, as you say, the time to set it up.

Kane: So I think HighLevel can manage it, but I don't think you can SMS from them. I think you have to have an add-on.

Louis: Or yeah, like Chirp.

Kane: Or Podium, or something that has the SMS, because I think that licensing is different. I could be wrong. Like I said, with ServiceM8 you can SMS from it, but it's the whole automation. So every job we complete,

[26:01] Reddit, AI search and reviews

Kane: the tradie will ask, and then the customer will get an automatic thumbs up or thumbs down kind of prompt.

Louis: Yeah, and it's hard because, realistically, you want as many Google reviews as possible, to be fair. If you're in the residential kind of space, that's the first thing anyone looks at, really. For me, I jump on there and

Kane: Funny you say that, because we've been doing some research with AI. So we're finding that people are unsure about our reviews. I don't know how this came about, but we're looking into AI, and we pop up on

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: So then we're getting people questioning our reviews because we've got so many. I'm like, this can't be a bad thing now. That's ridiculous.

Louis: It is. I think we had one on, I'm not sure, it's like a podcast brain here. When they go to discuss stuff online, the forums. Oh, Reddit, that was it. And someone was like, "Is WestOz Trades still legit? Their reviews don't look normal." I was like, "Come on, man."

Kane: Total win.

Louis: But then someone obviously on our behalf, and this is what was so amazing to see with our client base, responded on our behalf saying, "We've used them multiple times, they're great." No one even needed to get involved. Like, the company spoke for itself.

Kane: Mm, that's good.

Louis: That was pretty cool.

Kane: That's cool. Yeah, Reddit's huge for AI citing.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: It's huge, which is scary, because we were talking about this this week. It's like, do we need to do our own Reddit posts? But then you've got to manage the threads. Then you have to stay in there, and you'll get into

Louis: Where do you draw the line, right?

Kane: Literally, where do you draw the line? At the moment, no, we won't attempt to do our own, but a lot of stuff is popping up sourcing Reddit when people are searching AI.

Louis: Yeah. And then ChatGPT as well. That's obviously where the searches are, Claude. Loads of people are using that as a reference. "Best air con company in Perth", and then that will kind of... So your SEO guys have got to be having that in mind now.

Kane: Hello.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Which we sort of mentioned before the podcast. So obviously we've been through a lot of changes. We're in the process now of changing our name from Smartfix Multi Trade and Services to Smartfix Electrical & Air Conditioning. Main reasons, obviously we don't have all the trades anymore, but

[28:05] Business names, soak wells and Bundy

Kane: again, AI, we're not popping up. If you search "electrician near me" in any AI platform, we do not pop up, because it's not in our name. So going back to your sticking to your niche, for us, we've had so many downsides from trying to do multiple trades. The whole idea was customer service. We'll come in, we can do your kitchen renovation, electrical, air con, tiling, cabinetry, da da da da da, convenience. Which obviously did work, sort of, not as much as I thought it would, because customers are like, "I've got my own plumber, I've got my own this, I've got my own that," which was fine. But then we were really relying on that work.

Louis: Mm.

Kane: Yeah. And the whole AI overview and SEO, there's so many downfalls with not having what you do in your name. I looked at your LinkedIn this morning. So your website is, is it WestOz air conditioning?

Louis: Yeah, well, we're the same. Our name is WestOz Trades, right?

Kane: That's why I was asking you.

Louis: We should have rebranded years ago, but we kind of missed the boat. We already had the brand name. It was 3, 4 years in. It was too hard for us to rebrand, I feel.

Kane: Didn't you do soak wells anyway?

Louis: I first started doing soak wells. That was my bread and butter when I was an apprentice, a HVAC apprentice. I could make more money installing stormwater soak wells on the weekend than I could in a week's work as an apprentice.

Kane: So that means hard work, hard labour.

Louis: Hard work, but that's been drilled into me from an early age, I think. And that's what this generation needs a bit more of. There's some good ones, there's some bad ones, but yeah, speaking from my perspective, my old man and my mum, they're hard workers. So you're digging soak wells Saturday, Sunday by yourself with a shovel.

Kane: [laughter]

Louis: I used to do it. Used to make the money.

Kane: Is that why you had the name? Because you had WestOz Trades from quite early. Is that because you weren't just doing air conditioning?

Louis: Correct, yeah. We actually were WestOz Trades, and our original sign was so cringey. Obviously me and yourself know each other from way back when anyway, which we'll kind of touch base on. But yeah, it was air conditioning and soak wells. That was the stuff. [laughter] And it had a picture of my old mascot at the time, Bundy, a cartoon picture of him.

Kane: The mascot.

Louis: At the time I thought, this is the sickest logo ever. Looking back at it now, I was like, how unprofessional was that? We couldn't go to a commercial job these days, or a high-end real estate, with that being our thing. But in my mind I was like, well, we're busy in summer, perfect. We'll be busy in winter with the soak well stuff.

Kane: True.

Louis: So for the first few years we still did do that a little bit. And then, as you said, you've just got to stick to your niche. So air con was what we were good at. Soak wells were okay in terms of money, new builds, that kind of stuff. But the longer we got into that, the more advanced we'd do. So then we started doing commercial concrete soak wells, and we were going to be buying excavators. So I was like, "Where do we draw the line? We need to choose one."

Kane: That kind of work would be hard to get staff for as well.

Louis: 100%. Yeah, and in terms of the gas stuff, you've got to know where you're digging. There's a lot of big impacts that can happen if you're not on the ball, for sure. But yeah, that was WestOz. And by all means, it could be a play in the future, but as me and you have discussed, that's not what we're going to come up with.

[31:14] Your friends in air and renaming Smartfix

Kane: But it is hard. There's so many pros and cons, hey?

Louis: Yeah, so we're WestOz Trades, Innovative Air Solutions, that's the little under name, but our slogan is "your friends in air". That's what we're driving at.

Kane: Yeah, I like that. And at least having that on your shirt, Innovative Air Solutions, still tells you what you do. With ours, we've not had that for a few years now. If you see our van, it just has Smartfix Multi Trade Services. Like, what does that mean? Obviously we're tradies, we'll have an idea, but if you're the general public client, is that commercial maintenance? Is that any trades at all? So yeah, we might have to rebrand our vans.

Louis: I remember you came to me. You said, "I've got a great name for your business." You remember? It was Cart Air, because my surname is Carter.

Kane: Ah, yeah.

Louis: I was like, "Oh, it would be good." But if you could rebrand Smartfix, if you were to start again, and I know we're probably getting ahead of flipping the seats, how would you name yourself?

Kane: Actually, literally, Smartfix Electrical & Air Conditioning. Yeah. I always had Smartfix from when I did work with Nigel back in the day. We sort of borrowed the name from a business we used to work for. It was just Smartfix. I just loved the name. Always loved it.

Louis: Yeah. See, I'm not sure what I'd change WestOz Trades to if I could do it again. It would definitely have something with air in the name. Whatever your industry is, you need to have that in the name. So when you're searching on Google, on your vans, as you say, it speaks for itself. I think you'd have to keep WestOz and just be, potentially, WestOz Air Conditioning, if it was that niche, and depending if you don't want to do the trades. I mean, how many WestOzes are there as well, you know what I mean? It's such a diluted name. We're in Western Australia, so it's like, what a stupid business name. But look, it is what it is, and we've got a brand name now, we're going with it.

Kane: How many years have you been in business now?

Louis: Coming up to 9 years. I think 2017 is when I first started, and that brought me back to when I was doing the side core stuff.

Kane: Half, pretty much the same as us.

Louis: Yeah, I mean, we know each other from, I think it was you and Fin were our sparkies, and it was me doing it. We both didn't have a clue, mate, to be honest, did we?

[33:18] Commercial quoting and Monday toolbox talks

Kane: There would be one memory, going to one job, I think I was working on it with you, and it was like a two storey, a split back to back down the wall.

Louis: We've got to start somewhere, and I definitely don't know it all. Every day I'm learning something different, for sure. It's just different levels.

Kane: That'd be very interesting. Commercial for me is so scary. Everyone says to me, "Why don't you just go and do commercial? You get big contracts, da da da." I was like, "Yeah, but it's such a different business."

Louis: Yeah, you've got to make sure your systems are on point, your checklists are on point. For us, the perfect amount for a commercial fit out is 100, 200 grand. There's not a lot that can go wrong. But when you start quoting a mill plus

Kane: You can't even make mistakes with materials and quantities.

Louis: Yeah, you can't.

Kane: Do you have to use quantity surveyors for jobs that big?

Louis: We have done in the past. I think we've just done so many kinds of quotes that our take offs are kind of accurate. My team are probably watching this and being like, "Louis, you're talking rubbish."

Kane: "20% out, Louis."

Louis: Yeah, I mean, 100%. But every job where we do stuff up on the commercial side, we're not stuffing up in terms of, "Oh, you haven't done something right." We're stuffing up on not including something.

Kane: So you're copping the loss?

Louis: We're copping the loss, but for me as a business owner, that's a lesson learned. As long as you can learn from the lesson, that's the biggest thing. So after those bigger jobs, we'll always sit down and talk about the job. What went wrong, what went well, how do we change it? And we do that just in general anyway. Every Monday we have a toolbox talk about the week gone and the week ahead, bacon and rolls.

Kane: Every Monday?

Louis: Every Monday.

Kane: Whole team?

Louis: Whole team.

Kane: Really?

Louis: Yeah. Whole team from 7:30 to 9:00. I know that's probably not a great thing to have as a business in terms of making money, but it just gives everyone a good chance to talk. That's the biggest thing, coming from an old school HVAC company, is no one talks. So everyone just lets it boil, and all of a sudden, "Here's my notice, I'm leaving." I'm like, "Well, we should have had a conversation."

Kane: We've been talking about that so much recently.

Louis: So yeah, Monday's our time to have the weekly toolbox. And we have Jake, the service supervisor, who runs weekly one-to-ones, depending on who's on the list. And that's a chance for them to see how they're going, what they want to achieve, growth mindset in that area, and just a chance for them to vent if they're not happy with someone, or get it off their chest.

[35:21] SOPs, Loom and team structure

Kane: Do you use a HR system like Employment Hero for that kind of stuff?

Louis: We use Ideagen OpsCentral for all of our processes. It costs a lot of money. I think it's 800 to a grand a month, but every single process you can imagine, similar to, I guess, what you use, is on there. How to input a work order,

Kane: SOPs.

Louis: SOPs, how to carry out a split system service, how to take payment on site. As you know, you need to create a sellable business. Even if you're not going to sell it, you want to make sure that anyone can come in and run the company. That's what you want.

Kane: Is that the whole training thing? We've only just started in the last couple of years with trying to put in standard operating procedures for almost everything, because if someone does leave from the office base, we're not scrambling trying to work out what they actually do in their day-to-day. It was like, oh no, we need their R&R, their roles and responsibilities, documented, so that when we do rehire, at least you have a starting point.

Louis: 100%, yeah. And the biggest thing for us is you can have all the processes in the world, but you need to update the processes. Stuff changes so fast. You can have all the systems in the world, but you do need to update them. And it's making sure your team in those roles, who are accountable for that role, update their own processes. Because otherwise you'll be the one who ends up going in there and changing the process.

Kane: If it's not what you do day-to-day. Because I do this now. I might look at a process and go, "Why are we doing that?" And then I'll go and speak to Fin and be like, "Oh, that's because it's this way." Oh, okay, makes sense.

Louis: Yeah. I mean, for us, most of the processes that we have, we use Loom to do them. The video recording process, you're literally just recording yourself. And that's got an AI function on there as well now for your SOPs, so you can generate an SOP from the video, and then you can just upload it to OpsCentral or whatever. And for us it's good. If the boys aren't following a process, and we've mentioned it to them multiple times, we'll say, "Boys, we've flagged you on the process for how we want deck ties to be installed. You're still not following it. We've told you about it a few times. We've now sent you the link again on OpsCentral about the process and how to do it." And there'll be a read receipt through there.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: I think for us we've got like a 90% compliance on OpsCentral processes. Like if a PO process changes, the team have got to monitor it.

Kane: That's cool.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: So is that the same thing where you monitor their performance? If you have those weekly one-on-ones, and he has a discussion with someone that's got these issues, it gets logged in there?

Louis: On there, yeah.

Kane: So that does sound similar to Employment Hero, I think.

Louis: Yeah, and you need it, right? You 100% need it.

Kane: Yeah, we only onboarded that system within the last 12 months.

Louis: Yeah, I think as a business owner, you need to get it out of your head. I'm not saying all of it is completely out of mine, and out of yours, but if you don't get it out of your head, onto paper, into a process, you can't grow the business, ultimately.

Kane: What is it? If you've got to say something more than once, document it.

Louis: Yeah, 100%.

Kane: I wish I'd done that from day one. That would have been probably so much easier.

[38:27] Teams, roles and getting stuck in

Louis: Yeah, mate. Definitely.

Kane: So yeah, definitely recommend having a system like that. What about communications with all the guys? Do you use Microsoft Teams, or

Louis: We're all on Microsoft Teams. So all the boys have got Teams. It depends on how big you are, right? For us, we've got a few different areas. I feel like we've got fingers in every little pie, and eventually we'll find out what pie works the best and we'll maybe niche it down slightly. But for us, our setup is, we've got a service supervisor who looks after the boys in the vans in terms of invoicing. He does the ready repair quotes. I think we're a lot different setup to how Smartfix are.

Louis: So he'll look after all the boys, check their invoices, check their reports, photos, and he's there to troubleshoot a little bit. And then we've got John Dre, who's part of the warranty side. He's the real training instigator. I think we touched base before, off camera, about the training fundamentals that we were trying to implement for WestOz. So he is the go-to for the boys to call.

Kane: For technical advice?

Louis: For technical advice, yeah.

Louis: People not even within WestOz Trades will call him for advice, because he's just a bank of knowledge. So we're very lucky to have him. So everyone's got their own kind of section. I feel like you've got to keep them accountable in those roles, for sure.

Kane: So does he work on site as well?

Louis: He's hybrid still. If we could have him in the office full-time, we would, but he enjoys getting out in the weeds with the boys.

Kane: And the guys will like that, on the road.

Louis: The guys like it. And you still need that. For me, I mean, we've got all these different roles and positions, but if one person leaves, generally that falls back onto someone else to replace. And at the minute, that might be me. So there might be an estimator role that has fallen, and I've got to jump in that role to deliver. But that also gives you a chance as the owner to see what is stuffed up, what is working, what isn't working, to change it.

Kane: Yeah. I do like that. I do the same with quoting specifically. I'll go out and go through our new sales process and get my opinion, then get the other guys' opinions, because I'm like, "I've done this for 2 days. I need you guys to give me your feedback so we can update our sales process." Because again, I don't want to jump in and say, "Oh no, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that." And the guy's like, "No, we've been doing this for like 3 years. You've done it for 2 days."

[40:32] Seasons and the reality of ownership

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Have faith in your team.

Louis: 100%. And when you start hiring your team, it's not like, "Oh, I work in the office now." You still want to show your team that you get stuck in. Go to the jobs, and you should be doing the worst part of that job. That's what I do, anyway, to show that I'm not bigger than or better than anyone. I'll still get stuck in and work and sweat, for sure.

Kane: Other than that, are you in the office most of the time?

Louis: Office primarily, yeah. I'm in the office, I'd say, 4 days a week. I try to have Fridays at home if I can. So I'll work hard the 4 days, and then Fridays are generally my day to kind of reset, get stuff done around the house.

Kane: How often does that happen?

Louis: Yeah, not very often.

Kane: [laughter]

Louis: Yeah, so, you know what we said off camera, you can have the perfect calendar in the world.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: And I think the thing to know with that is there's just seasons in life, and that's a good takeaway from this podcast. You can't do it all at once. You can't be the best leader within your business, the best business owner, the best dad, the best husband. You can't do it all. The best athlete. And I feel like I'm struggling, and I'm having to try, and I'm being too much to everyone. You've got to pick your season. So if the business needs you, focus on the business. If your family needs you, focus on your family. It's hard for you to do bits and bobs of each.

Kane: Mhm. Spread yourself too thin. Start saying no to things.

Louis: You need to. Yeah, 100%. I mean, we're a little bit easier now with our kids of similar ages, where we don't have to do as much, but you still need to be present for them. But I guess if you've just had a newborn, you want to make sure that you're family focused.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: If your business is going through a growth spurt, you've got a big tender or contract, you need to be there for your team. So I feel like you're starting to say

Kane: It is hard, balancing. Last week we had AJ on. He's a personal trainer who I've worked with over the years, and he's like, "Yeah, for people like us, it is hard to stay consistent." Very hard. Like at the moment, my routine's terrible. I'm supposed to be in the gym at 5:30 every morning. Sometimes I go, because I've got a granny flat, so I'll go down to my gym, and my office is in the same house.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: So then I just go to my computer. I just work for like an hour. Then I go up, and the wife's like, "Oh, how was your gym session?" I didn't, I just actually worked.

Louis: Mhm. So you're working, and then

Kane: Then I go up to the house, try and help with the kids when I can and have the time. Then she goes to work, then I go to work anyway. Then I do 8 hours on top of the hour and a half I've already done at home.

[42:39] No work life balance at the start

Louis: [laughter] Yeah, and I know we had a few questions, but I think that is the biggest thing for business owners. It may look glamorous. You may work for a company like Smartfix, or an air conditioning company, whoever. You see how much they're charging, but you don't understand the ins and outs of business. One, the overheads. It might look like you're making a lot of money, but once you've got to pay ATO bills, pay wages, BAS, all that stuff, insurances, it's a completely different ballgame. And then people also think, "Oh, I'm going to have more time for myself." I can tell you right now, you will not have time for yourself. If you want to be a subcontractor, be average, yes, maybe. But if you want a successful business, you need to put the work in. That's it. As you know.

Kane: The work life balance thing.

Louis: There isn't work life balance. You build the business first, and then you can have your balance, because it's hard to do it to start. Work life balance. Do you feel like you've built Smartfix having a good work life balance?

Kane: No way.

Louis: Maybe you can

Kane: I don't know about the whole work life thing, because it is your life, really.

Louis: Mhm. Yeah, there is a balance. It is your life, but what you're doing now is creating that life for you, you know what I mean? So in 10 years time, you can take a step back. You can do the stuff you want to do. Your business is running itself. Both. It's hard to have both. There's different ways you can think about it, and we could ramble forever, but I think we've created monsters, and it's hard to keep them tame.

Kane: Yeah, for sure.

Louis: Let's turn the table.

Kane: Yeah. All right, we're flipping the script.

Louis: Flipping it.

[44:42] Flipping the script: Kane's sales process

Kane: This is Kane from Smartfix speaking. I feel stressed already.

Louis: [laughter] Okay, so my question for you. Obviously we've known each other for a long time. I've seen you guys go from strength to strength. You're definitely honest, I think, on LinkedIn these days, with the business you had and created, and what you had to scale back to make it successful. That would have been hard for you to do, 100%, because I think, as we touched base on, it's an ego thing. But for me, you've always killed the sales side of things. And as you know, for technicians and tradies like us, sales is a big, big thing. Can you walk me through your sales process? Kind of what that looks like from Mrs. Jones calling up saying she wants an air con installed or a price. What does that look like for you guys, start to finish? On site, what you're saying, what you're presenting?

Kane: Mm. Yeah, so for us, customer service has always been the number one priority. Like the whole Google reviews thing we already spoke about. So for example, if someone calls us now, what is it, 10:15? There's like a 99% chance we can get there the same day. So someone calls us right now, "Hey, my air con stopped working." It's pretty cold this time of year.

Kane: So we can get one of our site assessors. We don't call them sales reps. This is where the whole word sales has got a bit of a stigma behind it. So we have site assessors, who are qualified electricians. They'll go to site for free, no call out fee, free quotes. They go there the same day, if not the next day. They'll go through the job with the customer. We do have a formalised process now. As I mentioned, we just went through a sales training process.

Louis: Mhm.

Kane: A lot of money to go through that, which is worth every penny.

Louis: Is that external? Someone's come in?

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: Yeah. Australian business?

Kane: Yeah, Julia Hewitt. She does sales and negotiation.

Louis: Amazing.

Kane: So she came and did it in person. That was important to me. There's obviously loads of overseas ones which you can do online, but it's not the same. So she came in to do our training, which was great. So we've got a process now, which is, for example, you rock up, you build rapport, go through the job with the customer.

Kane: Obviously we quote on site, so we'll go through our ServiceM8 and we'll build it up. You need new air con, pipe work. Like you mentioned earlier, you've got to build it up. So we have pre-filled out templates that the guys can use to write it down in ServiceM8.

Louis: Yep.

Kane: Photos of the jobs, obviously. They will present the price at the end. "That's going to cost you $3,000 to replace this air con. We've got availability tomorrow or the next day." So our turnaround time for installs is usually within 2 days, which is pretty crazy.

Louis: 100%. And that's why you can charge a premium, right?

Kane: Yeah, we obviously charge a premium because, sometimes, like, we're busy now, but sometimes we might have no work on for this afternoon. So we have to pay to have guys on standby, but when we do get someone that needs an air con replaced urgently, we can provide that fast turnaround time.

Louis: Yep.

Kane: And we win 60% of all our jobs, which I think is quite good.

Louis: Amazing, mate.

Kane: We'd be good to get to 70. That'd be the goal.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: So when they present the price, if they don't win it there and then, they will arrange, and this is important, and this works really well since the sales training, depending on what the customer says, if

[47:49] Locking in the follow-up call

Kane: they're like, "I need to speak to my partner tonight, da da da," "Okay, no worries. Do you mind if I give you a call tomorrow between 12:00 and 4:00?" Locking in that time makes a huge difference. Is it BAMFAM? It's in a book I'm reading. BAMFAM?

Louis: I've not heard that one.

Kane: Yeah, look into it. You have to. For us, that's made a huge difference. We're winning so much more from follow-up.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Follow-up in itself is hard to get tradies to do. But now they're winning some jobs. For example, I think last week Bailey, who's quoting ducted for us, won four ducted from follow-up, and obviously our ducted pricing is quite high. And yesterday Louis got a 7K job from doing follow-up, and he called the next day. So it works really well. But if you don't book a time and you call the customer, it's easy for them to just ignore it. They don't know if it's you calling, because obviously different phone numbers, blah blah blah. But if you tell them a time, they're expecting it.

Louis: Yeah. I love that whole thing that you're talking about. And in terms of you presenting, is it on an iPad? Was there an online app, or

Kane: So this is where I think we can improve. We just work off iPhones. ServiceM8 only works on Apple, which is annoying. We don't present it. So I think one of our downfalls is we don't show them too much. When I was going out, I had a clipboard, and I would write down options, which is another whole beast in itself, giving options. But now it's all verbal, so I think we could improve on that.

Louis: You could get the 70% for sure.

Kane: Yeah.

Louis: I'd be happy with 60. Yeah, I think that follow-up is critical, and I think that's what's missing in Australia, that sales process. Trying to get the sale on the day is awesome, you're already in front of them, but what we struggle with is the kickback of, "I'm not really ready to go yet. I've got to speak to my partner." So having, like you said, that follow-up phone call.

Kane: Especially for high value, like ducted, for example. It's such a high value. People should be getting multiple quotes, in my opinion. It's like, what, 10, 20K for residential ducted most of the time. They should be getting multiple quotes. And if no one else does follow up, if we turn up when we say we do, on the same day or next day, we give them the quote there and then, we send them the plans that day or the next day, and then we follow up. No one else does that process. You're already two steps ahead of them. Then they start looking at reviews. If we've got way more than them, every little thing helps.

Kane: If they email us with a question and the tradie doesn't see it, the sales coordinator will pick up on it. And if they haven't replied within a couple of hours, she will prompt the guys to respond. So we have backup. Because there's nothing worse than not replying, or not doing what you say you'll do. If you say, "I'm going to call you tomorrow between 12:00 and 4:00," and you don't, then you're behind the competitor, if they've done no follow-up, in my opinion.

Louis: And if from that 12:00 to 4:00 call they're still saying no, can you book another call, or then go to SMS, or

Kane: We're working on that.

Louis: Yep.

Kane: It depends on what they say. If they say, "Oh, we're sitting on it for now, we're not sure," I don't think we're pushing for the next one. Again, it is quite time consuming for the guys to do it. So then it will fall into our

[50:55] Automated follow-up and personal SMS

Kane: automation. So at 7 days they'll get an automatic email and SMS.

Louis: Yep.

Kane: Then at 14 days they sort of get the final email and SMS. But we're working on that process now. We're not sure what's best. Automated, that kind of stuff isn't great.

Louis: Agreed.

Kane: We used to not follow up with phone calls, and it was all automatic, and that was rubbish. People know. People know it's automatic, so they just ignore it.

Louis: Yeah, I definitely think that's for any business owner wanting to scale, for sure. I mean, that sales thing is a crazy beast, as we know. But just the organic follow-up, like a phone call, or even an SMS, I find does work pretty well. "Hey, it's Louis from WestOz Trades. Lovely to meet you."

Kane: Personalised.

Louis: Personalise it. You're so much more likely to get the job.

Kane: Yeah, SMS is good. A thing that annoys me is when people don't respond, and then they get annoyed. We used to have it all automatic. We'd have a 2-day SMS, 5-day email, 7-day both. It gets to like 20 days and people are like, "Why are you messaging me?" Just say no. If you don't want to do it, just reply and say, "Sorry, no, all good." Because that automatically cancels our whole automation process if they do that. And then obviously our managers will look at it, and they will close out the job.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: People are lazy. Everyone's lazy. So customers just won't respond, and it's awkward for them. It can be awkward. So make it as least awkward as possible for them to say yes or no. Like, we don't care. If you don't want to do the job, just tell us. It's easier for us then. We don't have to think about you. We don't have to follow you up, blah blah blah.

Louis: You know what I mean? How many times have you filled a form out, about to put your bank details in, and just got off the page? You're like, "Nah, I'll leave it." But if you had that follow-up, which a lot of companies do with a lot of online stuff, you're so much more inclined to. So yeah, that was one of my questions, the sales process, and hats off to you guys for what you've done. Marketing plan, I know we kind of touched base on. You've got Riley and stuff in here now with your marketing side. Is that structured in a way for you guys in terms of the Smartfix side? Because I know you do a lot of onsite stuff, and

Kane: Yeah, the whole marketing in general has been a whirlwind for

[52:59] Marketing, lead costs and door knocking

Kane: us. Like I mentioned earlier, we tried to bring everything in-house, including SEM, a paid marketing specialist, in-house, which was okay. But my concern is, are they keeping up to date with AI? Are they keeping up to date? They're not working in a team with other people that they can bounce off. So it's hard to say whether it worked or didn't. For us, we decided to not go ahead, and we met Jeremy, who's our Google Ads expert.

Louis: Nice.

Kane: And he's done a better job than... We've worked with a lot of agencies. I don't want to slag them off, but they're big agencies. They're a big business. You don't speak with the business owner. You're speaking to their team members, who are just employees of someone else. So I do think that sometimes you get forgotten about.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Unless you're paying crazy money for them to manage you on a daily basis. For example, every morning Jeremy will message us on how he went the previous day, because our work is so seasonal, especially for air con this time of year. Last week, for example, we had one day where one quote cost us like $1,200 for an air con quote, and it could have been a split service.

Louis: Mhm.

Kane: Which is like $220.

Louis: Yeah. Just the cost to acquire that lead.

Kane: One lead, yeah. But then this week so far, because it's been really cold, it's gone down to like $250 a lead, which is good for us.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: So if we're working with an agency that's looking at our account once a week, it doesn't work. If you get $1,200 air con leads for three or four days in a row, that blows the whole budget for the week. The whole business is cooked instantly.

Louis: Final question I've got for you, and this is what I get asked quite a lot from people who are starting their own thing: what advice would you give them in terms of how to get their name out there? I think for me it's just dedication, to get stuck in, not be scared, and not be scared of the noes, in terms of being rejected. But I guess it depends on what avenue you want to go in. But say if you were to start Smartfix again, where would you go in terms of trying to get your name out there?

Kane: Like branding for the business?

Louis: Branding for the business. Would you go straight door knocking, like, this is what we do? Say if you were in a whole...

[55:08] Door knocking with $100 to spend

Louis: Let's just say you had no money at all. Say you had $100 to spend. What would you do to get business in the door?

Kane: The thing that comes to mind, which every single person does, is go to real estates.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: Every single person goes to real estates, which is why I think, from my experience, real estates are quite hard to work with. Because every man and dog that starts their own business goes to them saying, "Hey, I'll do all your work, blah blah blah." They underperform because they have no business experience with real estate. The real estates get annoyed, and they jump between people, and it creates a whole shemozzle. So, oh, I don't know. If I had no money

Louis: I thought door knocking isn't dead. I think we should be door knocking. I think that is a sales tactic that we could use a lot more.

Kane: For sure. It's a beast.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: I mean, cold calling, probably not, for trades like what we're doing. Door knocking, obviously Complete Home Filtration, it looks like they've killed it by door knocking. Modern Shutters, back in the day those guys used to door knock, and solar. Obviously there's some people that are a bit dodgy with door knocking. You have to be very careful.

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what I would do.

Louis: The biggest thing is just say, "All right, I'm walking around the area. This is what we're doing," and just sell them with honesty.

Kane: I think the honesty part is big. We had a door knocker last week who was a window cleaner.

Louis: Mhm.

Kane: And I wasn't home, so they spoke with Lauren, and she was loving it. A really nice guy. He said he was doing a house on the street. Whether he was or not, I don't know. But if he was, she would use him 100%. And for him, if he's got two houses in the same street, window cleaning is a recurring client. If we did end up going with him, like once every two or three months, for him that's gold.

Louis: Yeah, I think it's just not being scared to get stuck in, literally.

Kane: Door knocking would be scary. I can't say I've ever done it, but I know it works for some people.

[57:13] Where to find WestOz Trades

Louis: Yeah.

Kane: That's like the OG sales. Door knocking.

Louis: Yeah. I would love to do it a bit more, personally. Just to better yourself, to talk to clients.

Kane: That'd be good content.

Louis: It would be good content. We should both do one.

Kane: Do it together.

Louis: Yeah. What should we sell?

Kane: Oh, [laughter] ducted aircon.

Louis: Ducted aircon. All right, and then have a win ratio battle.

Kane: Ah, no. I give up. You can do it.

Louis: [laughter] That's all the questions that I had in mind, but yeah, thank you.

Kane: Thanks for coming on.

Louis: Thank you, mate. Appreciate it.

Kane: Where can people find you?

Louis: We are all over socials. WestOz Trades is our company name. If you're on LinkedIn, WestOz Trades is on there. Louis Carter on LinkedIn as well. But just search WestOz Trades, and get us to 1,000 reviews. Hopefully we can get

Kane: Five star.

Louis: Keep it five star, get close to Smartfix. And yeah, let's just get everyone talking in the industry, mate. You're doing it perfectly. Everyone needs to talk, I'm sure. And that's, I guess, what you're trying to create, and why it's so beneficial. Thank you, mate.

Kane: Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Unlocking Business. If you've enjoyed this conversation, please take a second to like, subscribe and follow our channels. It really helps us to bring on more guests and have great conversations. If you'd like to connect with today's guest, their details are in the description below. I'm Kane Tyler Smith. I'll see you on the next one.