In this interview‑style segment, Jarrad Goulding probes a small‑business owner (Speaker B) about the practical, low‑cost tactics he used to grow a test‑and‑tag service from zero to a profitable operation in nine months. The conversation walks through a real‑world door‑knocking example, the exact ice‑breaker that secured an immediate job, and the subsequent use of phone calls. The core growth engine emerged from leveraging existing professional relationships—particularly electricians and real‑estate agents—who regularly need testing and tagging but lack the capacity or desire to perform it themselves. By positioning his service as a win‑win (electricians off‑load low‑margin work, real‑estate agencies receive compliant reports, and the test‑and‑tag business gains steady work), Speaker B built a referral pipeline that delivered multi‑day weekly contracts. He also emphasized treating each job as part of an ongoing maintenance program rather than a one‑off, which allowed him to upsell and raise his average transaction value (ATV) to roughly three times the division average. The segment highlights the mindset shift from chasing individual small clients (e.g., a fish‑and‑chip shop) to targeting “industry partners” that generate repeat, higher‑value work, and it underscores the importance of adding extra value (observations from his facilities‑management background) to differentiate the service.
Chapters
One thing I do want to touch on though, because I think it's a unique opportunity with your background and your experience, and you've obviously brought the results already only in 9 months. I was, I want to get into that local area marketing side of things. Because again, you are very unique with your background and I feel like you've probably leveraged off of your 20 years in the facility management side of things to be able to kind of go after some of those clients. Do you maybe lay that out for anyone that's looking to start their business? Because in my eyes, it's just as difficult to win the local fish and chip shop as it is to win a larger site. And sometimes quite often it's easier to win the larger site. But I think people, especially when it's the brand new and they're starting a business for the first time, they go, oh, I can't, I'm not skilled enough to be able to go after that or go after that yet. I'll just go after the little fish. But what they realize is it's just as hard. So do you mind talking on that a little bit?
Yeah, and I completely agree with everything you just said. And I guess my experience has been that. So when I first kicked off, I think it was the 6th of May or something like that from memory, literally drove to the local area shopping center, a little sort of neighborhood center, grabbed a coffee and, you know, knocked on every door in that particular area, which was probably 30 or so, um, that, that morning, uh, and I was actually just about to move on and I noticed there was a childcare center around the corner, um, and went and bumped into the, the director, uh, out the front. She was putting a sign out and, um, she said, actually, yeah, we need a plumber. So day one—
can I pause you quickly there? What did you— what was the exact word you said? Because some people who struggle with, you know, that, you know, you're a friendly guy and all the rest of it, confident guy, but, but how did you approach that? What, what what was the things, the icebreaker? What did you say to actually do that? Do you remember?
Yeah. If I remember correctly, I started with a comment about the weather. It's quite a warm day for us down there as you do in Canberra. A bit of a chat. I think she actually asked me what I was out sort of doing. I mean, I was dressed like this anyway.
Yeah.
And I just said, look, I'm actually just looking to see if there's anyone in this area that's needing testing and tagging in the next few months. I've got some opportunities to sort of come along and do the work. And she actually said, we're due right now. The last guy hasn't called her. So when can you do it? Right. Yeah. Beauty.
We're on here.
So, so that was that kind of experience. But then, I mean, that's relative, relatively difficult way, I guess, of getting things, literally knocking on doors and that sort of stuff. Yeah. I definitely tried the phone calls as well with, with mixed success, uh, I wouldn't say no success because I've still got some contacts there I follow up. Um, but the best I've had has definitely been my previous network and in particular, um, electricians that I've worked with, not necessarily deeply, but had a good relationship with over a number of years on a personal level, to be honest, as much as a, a business level. Um, and they frankly, they get better value out of not doing testing and tagging with their staff. So it, it. Genuinely is a win-win situation. So one in particular had a fairly decent size contract with a health organization. So there was monthly, first 5 months I was there, not every day, but I was there every month for sure. And it probably filled up on average, say 3 days of every week. So that, that was fantastic.
That's great.
Yeah. And then I've got a couple as well through real estate, more sort of more residential real estate where I've been before. They're a bit more. A tenuous link to the network, but it came through from that way as well as referrals from that referral.
So, so real estate agencies?
Yep.
Yep. So, okay. Yep. So you got an agent or whoever. So this is rental properties or is it?
No, they're, they're actual agencies. So, um, they're not huge jobs. They tend to be, say, 100 items or thereabouts, depending on the size of the agency. But, um, In terms of the effort to get them one commercially, right? These would, these were both actually. So there's been residential and commercial.
Yeah, sure.
Yep.
Wonderful. Wonderful. So, so what I'm hearing you say, and this is one of the things that we, we train with our new franchise partners when we're going through training, it's finding those, those other experts in the industry. So like-minded industries, and we talk about electricians for Test and Tag division. Every division's got different ones. You've got the real estate agents there as well, which hits all of our divisions actually. And the reason why I like those so much and what you've obviously found is they've constantly got work coming up. So it's not like I just find one client, I service them once a year or whatever the number of frequency is, and then that's it. It's much better to try and get in with one sparky than it is to get in with one client, obviously, because that one sparky could be 3 days worth of work a week. He doesn't want to, or she doesn't want to do the work. So quite often they're too busy wanting to focus on solar or focus on, you know, being an electrician. And they say, I didn't go to, you know, do a trade for 4 years to want to go and put stickers on things. So we'll happily do it for them. That's not a problem. No, no worries whatsoever. But I was the exact same as you. I think I had 3 or 4 electricians that would be constantly giving me work, which was, which was fantastic. And it's a win for them. They don't have to deal with it. They can palm it off to us. A couple of them, sometimes I had like a kickback to them where I'd give them a percentage. A couple of them said, don't worry about it. You just take it. We're super busy. We'll just take it off of my hands. So I think that that's, that's really good. Now you had those relationships previously, but that's not to say that you can't form those. Like if you were to recreate the whole success of your business again, I'm assuming that would probably, and you didn't have any contacts previously, that's probably going to be one of the first things you do. Is that right?
Yeah, I think it's a good point, Jarrad Goulding. I think if you haven't been in the industry, it probably sounds a bit too good to be true that someone that's got the ability to do it themselves decides not to, but they hand it to you. Well, it's more than hand it to you, but you know, it's probably one that people dismiss a little bit too quickly. I think there's tremendous value in it and I I genuinely think there's a win-win-win there. So they, they win, as you say, maybe they get a, a little markup on it or something like that. That's still competitive. Yeah. I think the client wins as well because, you know, we are doing this day in, day out. It's what we do. And I'm sure the rest of the guys are the same. I try and add a little bit of value around commentary of what I've found, things outside of test and tag, particularly with the FM background. I'll, I'll point out, you know, observations for them to sort of think about. And it's a, not to take away from the electricians, but it's a different focus and I, I guess a higher level of service on some things they may not look at while they're there as a sparky.
So are you talking about adding value to the client and to the job? So is that offering extra services or things like that? The reason why I bring it up is because your average transaction value is 3 times our average for our division. You know, typically we sit around $555 as an ATV. I think you're sitting at around $1,600. Which is way higher than I was. I think I used to sit around $888 when I was, I would like to say on the tools, but I got told once by Sparky, I'm not on the tools, I'm on the stickers. So when I was back on the stickers, that was mine. And I had a few bigger ones as well. So is that part of it? Is it continually trying to add value to all of those clients that you've been able to increase it by so much?
It's probably got a little bit to do with it. I opt to be like perfectly honest, I think I got a little bit lucky with the size of the jobs that I was able to get working with this electrician, which, I say lucky, but I mean, do a good job, you get invited back.
So you create your own luck.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So some of the, the early ones were decent sized jobs and, and also just noticing that this other building over here needs to be done next month. So it starts talking about that and looking at it as a program rather than a one-off transaction.
