Welcome to Astute Insights, our podcast interview!
Offering tip and tricks to small and medium sized business owners.
This month we are chatting with asbestos removal expert and marketing motivator Jason Spaull of Coastal Asbestos Removal. Jason has been in the industry for over 20 years and has built a successful, award winning business in that time. We discuss his concepts around marketing and his thoughts on how to market a business, both new and old.
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Astute Insights Show Notes
Soonah Walkom:
Morning, and welcome to another episode of Astute Insights. Today, we are talking to Jason Spaull from Coastal Asbestos Removal. I’ll do a little intro on Jason. So Coastal Asbestos Removal has been a reliable asbestos removal company since 2000.
They have serviced Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales for the past 18 years. They are a multi award winning business and I’ll read them out. We’ve got the Gold Coast Business Excellence Award in 2019 monthly category winner for emerging business, [00:00:30] Housing & Constructions Award 2020 regional winner and the Queensland Master Builders Gold Coast 2020 winner for work place health and safety, which is, I think is an awesome one for your industry. So let’s welcome Jason.
Jason Spaull:
Thanks, Soonah. Thanks for having me over to the podcast.
Soonah Walkom:
Aw, thank you.
Jason Spaull:
Appreciate it.
Soonah Walkom:
Not only are you asbestos removal, I often refer to you as my marketing guru. So that was kind of the preface of today was to talk about your business, how you got into business [00:01:00] and your concepts around marketing and how to market a business, I guess. So we might start, if you just wanted to give us a bit of background on yourself and how you got into asbestos removal.
Jason Spaull:
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Soonah. So I spent most of my adult life working as a metal roofer and we built to a roofing business and I sort of got to the stage of my life and I think a lot of people might recognize this where I just couldn’t face to do it anymore. I couldn’t stand it. I hated everything about [00:01:30] it. And I really had to sort of dig deep and find out how am I going to live the rest of my life? I’ve got children, I’ve got mortgages, just like everybody else. And I look for all the stuff that we did. And 2011, we did a lot of, even though we’re a roofing business, we did a lot of asbestos removal for the Queensland floods. The insurance [inaudible 00:01:51] we were working for said, we need you to do this.
At the time, we weren’t even sure whether we could do it. And we just applied ourselves to the challenge. And [00:02:00] a couple of years later down the track, we sort of thought, “I can’t do this roofing anymore. It just doesn’t…” I think at the end of the day, I wasn’t satisfied with it. We were just doing jobs and we were doing great workmanship and all these kinds of things, but it was like a hollow victory.
So we sort of looked at what have we done? What do we enjoy doing? What can we do? The asbestos stuff, even though it was a flood thing, it was really good because we were part of something bigger than what we were doing. And we were helping people [00:02:30] get their lives back together. We were keeping people safe. I still had all the asbestos gear and a trailer in the corner of the factory and we thought, “You know what, let’s do this.”
It’s something, an area that we have expertise in and we really needed a why, we needed something to push forward because without any sort of true north or focus, it’s really hard to get through the good times and the bad times and the worst times, because they’re all coming, don’t kid yourself. So we started with [00:03:00] two sort of mantras.
One was I was going to be in the business of building an asbestos removal business and I wanted it to be the best. And number two, if we can’t keep people safe, we’re not going to do it. And that’s what gives us that sort of that moment when even if we’re making money or not, if we keep people safe, it’s okay because that’s our purpose. So that’s how we sort of had to reframe my mind. We sort of focused and we [00:03:30] just doubled down on that and stopped doing everything else and just got right into the asbestos and made a real fist of it, got some business training and here we are years later, the best decision I ever made.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah, because often, my initial thoughts, I guess, when I was trying to grow my business was I don’t have anything glamorous to say or to sell. And asbestos removal [00:04:00] is definitely not a sexy purchase by any means.
How do you or what’s your mind frame around getting the message out about your business and promoting an asbestos business?
Jason Spaull:
Yeah. So I think every sort of business owner that might have that at some stage where if you listen to the Gary Vees and all the gurus and all this, it’s got to be amazing. It’s got to be engaging and all this kind of stuff. Maybe it just has to be cool to you. Maybe you [00:04:30] just have to believe on some really deep level that you’re connecting with what you’re doing and you really believe in it.
That’s a really hard thing to do. And I feel lucky that I found it. But once you get that in line, it’s really easy because I’m really passionate about building the best asbestos removal business on the Gold Coast. I’m passionate about every part of the business, but I didn’t start with a mindset of, I’m going to be the best guy that’s ever removed asbestos that’s [00:05:00] ever lived.
And I don’t want people to think that I’m not interested in doing a good job. It’s just that for myself, to be able to build a business, I had to find something that was cool to me, that would give us longevity because it’s easy to have quick little thoughts and things go wrong all the time, but you need something to get you through the worst times. And if you think that… It’s a great saying, I was walking around for months saying it and people were looking at me like I’m an idiot.
[00:05:30] And they go, “What are you doing now?” I say, “I’m in the business of building an asbestos removal business.” And people would just look at me, but I had to change my mindset to achieve it. And it’s really powerful. It’s something that you can repeat over to yourself all the time so that it keeps you on track because the worst thing that can happen, I think in small businesses, you’re going to get to a stage where you’re just going to be doing the stuff.Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:05:56] And I think that’s the same as you’re reading books, knowing your why and being passionate about your [00:06:00] why and this is kind of like your why. I know for me, once I hone down on the I love what I do. But the part that I love is I actually help people and I streamline and make their lives easier. Which sounds corny, but at the end of the day, I love looking at the person that I’m working with and seeing just the calmness come across their face once we’ve implemented a few things that have changed their business.
I think for me, that’s something that I never want to lose track of. And that’s now the focus of what I try and get the message across. So I guess [00:06:30] it’s really not… That knowing your why and putting that message out there or sticking to it so that your message is clear, that that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re not selling this, you’re not promoting asbestos removal, you’re not promoting asbestos testing. You’re actually promoting your business.
Jason Spaull:
Yeah. Which is keeping people safe. That’s what we do and that’s what we… We get to go to work every single day and keep people safe and help them achieve their dreams with their renovations that we even get them out of trouble. [00:07:00] The amount of times we have “My idiot husband started ripping out our bathroom on the weekend.” And we can go and help those people and keep them safe and put everything right.
I’m much more invested in that than putting another roof on another house but I think it’s one of the things that I’ve learned, that’s been the biggest advantage for us in the business over the years is actually not doing the stuff, is stepping back and [00:07:30] having a look at what we want to achieve and what we want to do. So there’s massive power in taking a few days off or a day off and go, I’m just going to, I don’t know, plot, scheme, plan, what I want the business to look like, and then trying to implement that because you can’t do it on the run. There’s always another fire to put out.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. There’s always something. And this is why I wanted to have you on here because I look up to you as my marketing mentor. And I got the definition of a mentor [00:08:00] before this and I just wanted to read it. So a mentor shares with their mentee information about his or her own career path, as well as providing guidance, motivation, emotional support, and role modeling.
And that’s something that I feel you’ve done exceptionally well with me, just getting me to get out of my own head or step out of my own head of, I was that real resistant of marketing that people didn’t want to hear that, or people already knew what I’d done or people didn’t [00:08:30] want to hear about that. And you said to me, get out of your own head. You don’t know what people know or don’t know about your business. Just think about all the things that you do and get that message out there.
Jason Spaull:
Yeah. It’s so true. Thanks for that, Soonah. But it’s so true. We’re all and [inaudible 00:08:48] the asbestos is an extreme example of that because 99% of people walking around, not even thinking about asbestos. People who love [00:09:00] renovation, love watching renovation shows, they don’t talk about asbestos. So-
Soonah Walkom:
No, it’s not on the list. If you’re renovating, it’s not look up asbestos removal. It’s [crosstalk 00:09:10] wall colors. Yeah.
Jason Spaull:
It’s glossed over. It’s like the only way you’re going to find out about asbestos on a renovation show is pretty much like on the back of a Mars bar, it says may contain nuts. They’re just going to gloss over it really quickly and just move straight onto the fun stuff. [00:09:30] And it doesn’t make you a bad person because you don’t know about it, but it’s my job, if I want to keep people safe. One of our things that we’ve developed is our mission is to eradicate asbestos disease in Australia. And we do that by education.
All of our marketing, the message is always educational. The messages aren’t we’re the best, come and deal with us now, it’s did you know that before 1990, a house could contain asbestos? Did you know that you can get it tested at [00:10:00] now 100%? You know what I mean? That’s what we talk about because we just think that’s what people need to know. We’re being helpful with our marketing, which is more important than trying to sell, sell, sell, because nobody is sitting there with their tax [inaudible 00:10:13] and going “You beauty, let’s get some asbestos removal done.” It just doesn’t happen like that.
Soonah Walkom:
No. And it was a good point that you said just getting that message because I was going to ask you what’s the bare bones of the marketing that you recommend for people? Whether that’s how to start or just to start and what that kind [00:10:30] of initial thing looks like.
Jason Spaull:
I guess what you’ve got to do is… Nobody’s against you, but they’re for themselves. So they don’t care. All these people go, “We give great service, we give great results. Guess what, you’re supposed to.
Soonah Walkom:
Yes.
Jason Spaull:
That’s not point of different marketing. I think you sort of got to look at your target market. One of the things that we do is empathy mapping for our clients. [00:11:00] And so we try and figure out what do they want? What do they really want? And our clients want to know how the hell, if they’ve got asbestos or not, what it might look like and what they can do about it. So they don’t care that we’re multi award winning or we’ve been around for [inaudible 00:11:17] stuff like that. They just want to know pretty much how to find out if they got it, how it can be removed and pretty much what it’s going to cost.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. So empathy road mapping. That’s good. Do you do roadmaps for different segments of your business rather than grouping [00:11:30] it as one? Or do you just more have a basic one and then tangents off that?
Jason Spaull:
No, they’re all the same. They’re all different, sorry. So we do a builder pretty much. So they will want us to do a good job. Okay. A builder is more interested in that you’re going to stick to your price and the deadline. A homeowner, usually the mother of the home that we talk to all the time, she really wants to know that we’re going to keep the house and the family safe. [00:12:00] That seems to be her main concern. Real estate agents, they just want the job done.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. And that’s sort of then you’re targeting those messages to those people. So you’re pulling at what, I guess their pain points are with this. And that’s the message of the marketing, not, “Hey, look at us. We’re great. We’re brilliant.” It’s “We get in, we get the job done. We keep you safe.” That’s the message.
Jason Spaull:
Pretty much, yeah, because that’s all they want to know. So many people have you see… [00:12:30] Like our sign writing on our vehicles, right. It just says if you’re renovating and your house is built before 1990, you may have asbestos [inaudible 00:12:37]. We could have, we remove roofs, fences, bathrooms. But do you think anyone cares about that? I don’t think that helps anybody and that doesn’t make us stand out.
Soonah Walkom:
But even reading that, you’re not going to look at it. You’re not going to go, “Oh, I might check my fence when I get home.”
Jason Spaull:
Yeah, yeah.
Soonah Walkom:
It’s not something you say, is it?
Jason Spaull:
So our clients, they want to know about asbestos, I guess, you [00:13:00] know what I mean? So if you’re renovating, that’s when you’re going to find asbestos. That’s what we’re lead with. And then we tell them how to find out and let them know we can help them. So that’s our sort of that point of difference with the marketing. Everything that we talk about, well, could we do radio ads? And we talk about asbestos could be in your home.
One of our ads is a role play of two women having a chat at a coffee shop. So it’s engaging and bringing people in. And we’re just trying to get the message out. Well, we are getting the message out. [00:13:30] And then our social media stuff just follows all that. And it’s sort of marketing is like a spider’s web. You can’t just have one stream, but the best policy is probably get good at one thing and then move on to the next thing and the next thing because-
Soonah Walkom:
Which is something that you told me as well. I think I was a bit overwhelmed and I got prices of people, marketing agencies about they were telling me I needed to do this, this, this, and this. And I think it [00:14:00] was too overwhelming. I couldn’t justify the cost. I knew I needed to start. Also, I knew I needed to do marketing. And I remember you saying to me, just focus on one, get that right. Move on to the next thing. So yes, in an ideal world, you want to do all of it and have it across all your little webs.
At the end of the day, you just have to start and just pick one that you want to start with and you can simulate that across several platforms as well. It doesn’t have to be different across all mediums, but I guess it’s more just starting. And I think from the discussions [00:14:30] we’ve had, we could just start getting your message out there, really nailing down on your why, and then put that why message out there on any medium that you have, or that you’re using.
Jason Spaull:
Yeah. And I think a lot of life is thresholds too. I’m a bit worried about this and you go from doing Facebook posts and then you get confident or you sort of craft your message because really, I mean, who’s looking at your Facebook posts, your mom, your uncle, your wife, and the neighbors, and probably your [00:15:00] competition.
So it’s okay to learn to fail and just sort of see what sort of engagement you get and use it for practice because we live in a world where the next post is two seconds away. You’re going to be at the bottom of everyone’s feed by the end of the day. So take a breath. It’s going to be okay.
Soonah Walkom:
And I think that’s it. The videos that I started doing, which you pushed me to do, I didn’t like doing them. It was just something that I resisted for so long and now I just bang them out. [00:15:30] We get comments on them all the time, which has only grown in my confidence. Not the confidence in myself in doing them, but the confidence that they’re working and people are actually engaging with them and people actually want to know what I have to say. So it’s compounding. You just get them out there and then they just sort of move on and you initiated this podcast as well. So this was more to help people learn.
Everyone in small business faces the same problems, but we really find it hard to ask for help or to get help [00:16:00] or where to go to find that information. So it’s quite interesting. And I wanted to ask you how do you apply your messages in your marketing? You’ve got your message now and you’re very clear on your message. How do you mix that up across your marketing?
Jason Spaull:
I’m not really sure how to answer it properly, but we would have… See, we’ve got a YouTube channel. There’s over 100 videos [00:16:30] on that. So there’s one that goes for 10 minutes. I kind of remember what it’s about, but that’s a long form stuff. And then there’s a lot of short form stuff. Just pictures. One of my favorite ones is take a picture of an old bathroom that it’s like, you don’t have to keep living like this. So I’m trying to make an emotional connection. Another one we had is for people are doing things that they probably didn’t think were stupid at the time, [00:17:00] but it’s like, don’t be this guy. You know what I mean?
We might say that sort of stuff. So we’re just constantly saying be aware, be aware, have a look at this, have a look at that from just about every angle we can, just to try and get that conversation to spark it. The thing that sort of probably would make me the happiest if someone said, and we had some guy ring today, he goes, “We didn’t know that decramastic roofs had asbestos in them.” We’ve been doing it for years. And they saw one of our ads. [00:17:30] That’s for us-
Soonah Walkom:
I seen one of your posts. I’m not sure what platform it was on, but tiles. Asbestos is in tiles.
Jason Spaull:
In the underlay. Yeah. But how are you supposed to know that?
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. I would not have known that. So yeah. Your messages are all about education and awareness, not selling.
Jason Spaull:
Yeah, no. We shouldn’t have to sell. I like to say we only work for really smart people because people get the message and go, “Yeah, there’s something in this. Let’s just get him in.” It costs nothing for me to come over, [00:18:00] to have a look and do a quote for you. And we do samples, obviously, and we do reports and we do commercial registers as well. So basically, we set ourselves up as an information center for all things asbestos.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. I guess for you, I’m talking about now the flip side of marketing, which probably doesn’t apply for your business because once you’ve gone in, you’ve cleared out the asbestos. I guess, people really don’t need you again. But do you have a process at the backend to keep your [00:18:30] business at the top of their thoughts once you’ve been and dealt with them?
Jason Spaull:
Yeah. So the Mailchimp, we use that program so that we send out a monthly newsletter and that sort of keeps us just front of mind because once again, I mean, a lot of our work for the public is a one-off and once we’ve done the job, it’s over, but they can still refer us to their friends.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. That’s what I was going to say. You’ve got to be front of mind that when they’re talking to someone [00:19:00] that you’re there, that you’re-
Jason Spaull:
That they remember you.
Soonah Walkom:
… in the back of their minds. Yeah.
Jason Spaull:
And they know it was Coastal Asbestos, not that guy that we had. I mean, looking at my email feed [inaudible 00:19:12], we’ve all got stuff in our email feeds that we haven’t deleted or sent to junk for some reason, you know what I mean? And it constantly sort of ticks over and over and over. We have a referral program as well, where we offer incentives and we tweaked it a little bit. So we offer an incentive for you [00:19:30] and for the person that you refer to try and give people a little bit more motivation to refer us. But for the type of business that we have, we’ve got 53% return business rate, which is pretty good, I think. For a one-off purchase. So we’re obviously doing something that works.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. And again, your referral program, we’ve put into my husband’s business, because again, we use them. And the lifespan of that business is generally three to five years. If [00:20:00] we’ve done something for them, they don’t come back to us for a long time. So it was trying to get the most out of that client, which is the referral program. And again, we adopted what you said as in giving something to the person that’s referring and then also the person that you’ve given it to. So yeah, I think some cool tips. We kind of hit 20 minutes, which is kind of what I like to keep them condensed down to. But do you have anything that you wanted to add or share in relation to all the information that you have?
Jason Spaull:
[00:20:30] I think people just need to take a breath and not just get overwhelmed and be wary of experts that tell them that they need to do everything and be worried multifaceted. [crosstalk 00:20:40]Soonah Walkom:
You know what, I liked what you said before, sorry to cut you off. But you said to take a day off, take a day, sit back, write down what it is that you want to achieve because you really get clarity. There’s no point in coming in and smashing out the work, but you’re actually your message and whatever you’re trying to convey is just disjointed. So really step back and plan it out. [00:21:00] And that plan can be for the next week, that plan can be for the next month. It can be for the next three months. But to really, as you said, take the day to clearly define your message and what you want to get out there.
Jason Spaull:
Yeah. And just pen and paper is fine. Don’t spend seven hours looking for an app or… I don’t care if it’s crayons on beer coasters. You’ve got to find clarity. What you think about and what your thought process will be pushed out to the market. [00:21:30] If you’re all over the place, that’s what your marketing is going to look like. You’re better off just marketing one service. That’s it. And slowly get good at that and then bring in other stuff, don’t go, “We do everything.” Just do little things that you really like the most that makes you the most money.
Soonah Walkom:
And that’s another thing, market what you like to do. In that marketing day or that day that you take off, write down all the facets of your business, the things that spark joy as such, the things that you enjoy doing and start there because they’re the ones that you’re probably [00:22:00] going to be more encouraged to actually do and promote. And then you build it out to the other aspects as well. So I think that’s really cool. You did mention beer and I know that you are an avid whiskey drinker. What whiskey are you drinking at the moment?
Jason Spaull:
I’m in the whiskey club, so I get a bottle a month. So what I like to do is taste a couple together and pick a favorite. But at the moment, I’ve got this bottle of Octomore, which is the peatiest whiskey you can buy [00:22:30] on the planet. When you take the lid off, it sounds like someone’s burning tires in your lounge room. That’s probably my favorite at the moment. But if you don’t like peaty whiskeys, you won’t like it. It’s very polarizing. But I like it.
Soonah Walkom:
Okay, cool. I’m going to do a couple of rapid fire questions to you.
Jason Spaull:
Oh.
Soonah Walkom:
Sorry. I’ve got to end it on a light note. First CD that you ever purchased?
Jason Spaull:
Barnesey.
Soonah Walkom:
[00:23:00] Oh, nice one.Jason Spaull:
Working Class Man.
Soonah Walkom:
Current book that you’re reading?
Jason Spaull:
I’m actually reading, great book, horrible title, Surrounded by Idiots. It’s about DiSC profiling.
Soonah Walkom:
Okay, cool. I’m going to ask you something about the book, but I’ll do these rapid fire that are turning out not so rapid. Your worst habit?
Jason Spaull:
Getting up early.
Soonah Walkom:
And what’s [00:23:30] the best thing that’s happened to you, this could be personally or for business, since COVID has hit?
Jason Spaull:
We moved offices, I guess. We combined three properties into one. That was pretty cool.
Soonah Walkom:
Yeah. I know that you read a ton of books. What one would you recommend people to read to get started on their marketing or what one had the biggest impact on you?
Jason Spaull:
It’s easy, 1-Page Marketing Plan.
Soonah Walkom:
I knew you were going to say that. Thank [00:24:00] you. And I have read it. And also, how can people get in touch with you if they are to have asbestos, unsure whether they have asbestos or just want to get in touch?
Jason Spaull:
Just www.coastalasbestos.com.au. Ring the office, 0-7-5-5-7-0-3-7-0-6. And we’re on every platform. We’re even on TikTok.
Soonah Walkom:
Oh, look out. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for spending the time with us today, Jason. Really appreciate it.
Jason Spaull:
[00:24:30] Thanks, Soonah. Thanks for the nice words.
