Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Sean Steele: G’day, everyone, and welcome to the ScaleUps Podcast, where we help first time Founders learn the secrets of scaling so they can fulfill the potential of their businesses, make bigger decisions with greater confidence, and maximise the value and impact they can create in the world. I'm your host, Sean Steele, and my guest today is Ryan Robertson from Bittn. How are you, mate?

[00:00:18] Ryan Robertson: I'm going very well, Sean, yourself?

[00:00:20] Sean Steele: Yeah, I'm very good. It's nice to see your smiling face and for those people who end up watching this on YouTube, or actually Spotify these days, you know, the full video version on Spotify as well. If you like the video version, you'll see Ryan has a beautiful on brand background, which very few guests have, so I'm very impressed, Ryan. You are one person that cares deeply about your brand, and I love it.

[00:00:39] Ryan Robertson: I do have a love for all things branding and I can say I've been a bit of a fan of the show, so I feel very honoured to be here with you this morning.

[00:00:47] Sean Steele: Well, it's great to have you. I love getting to spend time with you. As the audience knows, maybe just to up a bit of context for today, I interview Founders who scaled experts on scaling, but I'm also starting to follow a group of Founders who are striving for scale. So far we have had, two of my other clients, so we've had Hitesh from Tech Force who'd grown to about, they're about 80 team members in four years or so. Wayne and Scott from the Backroom who've just gone live, I believe, and who will hit 500 team members in their fifth year, going strong, different kind of resourcing model. And you are the focus that we're going to follow over the next three years. So, interviewing you a couple of times a year to follow along with the highs and lows as you continue to scale. Like a fly on the wall, reality tv - podcast style.

[00:01:29] Ryan Robertson: Look forward to sharing the story. I'm sure there's going to be plenty there.

[00:01:32] Sean Steele: There'll be plenty for us to discuss for sure. And so, yeah, context for our audience. Ryan is a client of mine. I provide mentoring advisory services to you, Ryan, to help you and your leadership team develop growth strategy, execute it, and build the foundations of your business so that you can continue to scale successfully. But with that context, let's talk about Bittn and what you have learned so far on this journey so people can get their heads around who's this guy I'm going to be following over the next three years. So talk to me about, can you give us a bit of an overview on what Bittn does, customers you serve, problems they have and the solutions you provide, so we know what you do.

[00:02:03] Ryan Robertson: Yeah, absolutely. So, Bittn was founded as a company back in 2013, so we are a pest control company. I guess we describe ourself as anything but the traditional pest control company. And when we talk about the business, we're using science combined with the latest technology to get rid of bugs. So, I guess that's the point of difference and that's what we do in the business. I guess as for the company, um, stereotypical startup, you know, started with a couple of mattresses on floors in an apartment back in 2013 and things have changed a fair bit since then, as we've scaled pretty quickly.

[00:02:36] Sean Steele: Actually, you posted on LinkedIn. Sorry to jump in. You posted on LinkedIn the other day, I think with pictures from like the days in the garage, which was yes, everyone wants to follow Ryan on LinkedIn, you'll see that photo was excellent to kind of see the, you imagine like the Michael Dell in his garage kind of model. You'd see Ryan there with just like papers everywhere and stuff all over the place.

[00:02:54] Ryan Robertson: It was an embarrassing post, but also one I was really proud of at the same time, I'm sitting there with a backwards hat in a bedroom, starting to talk about what we want to do as a business. But yeah, look, it's been a really exciting journey and I think we're about to take the next step in our growth trajectory. So, yeah, really keen to talk to the audience about what that looks like.

[00:03:12] Sean Steele: Yeah. Love it. So, just…

[00:03:14] Ryan Robertson: Sorry to answer your question, in terms of customers, in terms of what we do, currently servicing about 50,000 sites across Australia and about 60,000 customers. Everything from, we work really closely with the construction industry providing termite management services into homes, right through to commercial businesses and hospitality, health and aged care, but also just your everyday consumer household service.

[00:03:42] Sean Steele: Beautiful. Thanks, Ryan. When you started this business, and by the way, you know, when people hear pest control, even the first time you and I met and you say, “oh, we do pest control, but we're really different.” I was thinking, how different can pest control be? But as I've got to know you, I've realised actually you guys really do approach this in a different way, which is why your business is growing, and most of the mom and dad operators are saying where they are. Tell me a bit about the genesis of the business. Like, you go back to 2013, you're there in the garage of the bedroom. What was the vision for the business at the beginning, and you are now 10 years later, right? How has that changed in terms of how you're looking forward?

[00:04:20] Ryan Robertson: Look, I'd probably even go a step back from that. I guess the evolution of why we started the business probably goes back to my heritage. So, my grandfather started in pest control in the 60s, and it's something as an 89-year-old that he's still extremely proud of in South Australia and had his own business in Adelaide. And I guess growing up with a family in pest control, it was probably the last thing that I wanted to. So, I guess I'm certainly not a person that's going to sit here and say I had a hell-bound dedication to becoming a pest control expert. But I guess with that heritage I did find my way into it, and I guess what I realised really early on in my career was that technology had continued to move most businesses and most industries forward. And pests and most pest control companies had just stayed exactly the same. So, I guess Bittn was born to harness, making sure that we were doing something different, bringing something to the industry that we knew it was ready for, and offering something to our consumers that, I guess, was anything but the stereotypical pest control experience. I guess pest control, I think about it, and I look back at the 80s and 90s, it's a bit of a dinosaur of an industry sometimes. And I felt particularly starting Bittn, and something new for what pest control should look like in 2022, 2023, it was something that was completely fresh and new. So, gave us an opportunity to do it fairly differently.

[00:05:44] Sean Steele: You know, actually it really, as you were talking, it reminded me of Richard Branson, his kind of whole model of the world, right? Like, you look for industries where there are dinosaurs, where there's a couple of monopoly players and they've got significant market share, but they're doing the same old thing, same old tide way, and that's very much your market, isn't it?

[00:06:01] Ryan Robertson: Oh, absolutely. And I think I was openly frustrated as a young person joining the industry about how stale it was. And I guess the, the fact that it's looked at as a boring industry, a dirty industry, and thought that we could bring a fresh new take on that. So, it was something that was really exciting and something that, I guess as a young person growing up, thought we could bring some new things to really shake it up and bit of a responsibility too, you know, to provide something and help grow an industry that we felt needed a little bit of in the shove in right direction.

[00:06:33] Sean Steele: And would it be fair to say market context wise that you've got, there are two really massive players, which I won't name, but they're like, you know, sort of a hundred-million-dollar type businesses. And then there's you guys, and then there's this sort of long tail of small mom and dad kind of operators, is that a fair kind of market structure?

[00:06:51] Ryan Robertson: Yeah, I think that's really accurate. I think it's the way that we interpret it and it gives us a really niche spot in the market where, yes, we have some global companies that I guess are quite large and have dominated the industry for a certain period of time. But they're still doing things the way that things were done when we started, in the 80s and 90s, and I guess it gives us the opportunity to be that new player on the block that is bringing something that is purely consumer centric. It is all aimed at what the modern-day consumer wants. Uh, and they don't want a down and dirty pest control approach with some orange overalls and some dirty chemicals around the outside of the house. So, yeah, certainly I guess the opportunity to bring science combined with the latest technology to get rid of those pests, it's something that we actually coin and we call it smarter, safer science. And that's our approach to getting things done in, I guess, that modern world.

[00:07:43] Sean Steele: I'm going to ask you some more about that, but just gimme a sense of, if you could just go back just in terms of numbers to give people a sense of the trajectory. You gave us some numbers of where you're at today. You might just need to repeat those numbers, but then go, okay, three years ago, what do you think those numbers probably were? And if you go three years ahead from now, what do you think they're likely to be? Just to give a sense of people for the sort free run.

[00:08:02] Ryan Robertson: Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I think kicking off, obviously, it's the smallest number you've got. It was zero. We started with a blank canvas. We haven't grown by acquisition at all. We're purely organic growth. Every year since we've started trading in 2013, we've been trading at 30% year on year growth, which is something we're really proud of. It's probably also one of our biggest challenges, in making sure that we can scale and continue to keep the foundations and our infrastructure current to support that growth. But in terms of customers and clientele, so 50,000 properties or sites across Australia that we're working on, and 60,000 customers that we look after and support, is the database size that we are working on now. So yeah, 30% year on year. And a lot of people that look to us to make sure that they remain pest free.

[00:08:51] Sean Steele: And you know, 30% year on year means, you know, you've got a business that's doubling every three years. And so, or yeah, actually a little bit more by the time things compound. Yeah. So amazing trajectory. And then for of course, and this incredible sort of position three spot, and almost go back to the general, was it Jack Welch who has said, you know, you have to be one or two. “If you can't be number one or two in the market, then just don't bother.” Like, you need to get to that size. But you've actually got interesting market dynamics to go, well, I actually don't have to take that much off behemoths with a hundred million business for my business to grow successfully because actually I don't have much competition beside me. I have plenty beneath me and I have a couple of big ones above me. That's really interesting. mechanics. What are some of the… go on.

[00:09:32] Ryan Robertson: And I think just on that, Sean, I think the other thing that we really respect in the market is there's some fantastic small local businesses doing great things. And I guess, you know, kudos to them when they're at that size and they can apply their trade. You know, it's them, they're doing it. However, we reached a point where we're in that middle ground, and I guess you, you're taking that step towards; “okay, how do we maintain what we've done really well when we're a smaller company” into “okay, how do we apply that and make sure that it's consistent when as we're growing and as we're scaling.”

[00:10:01] Sean Steele: I love this. This is the inevitable challenge of every services’ Founder arise. Like, how do I scale quality? How do I make sure that things that got me, you know, the things that got you to here when people say; “You know, the things that got you to here won't be the things that get you to there.” That's true in many respects. Often mindset, strategy, you know, styles of leadership, organizational structure and systems, processes, however, the things that got you to here in terms of the way that you show up with your customers, and the things that actually got customers to refer you to other people and to continue to come back and so on. Those things actually have to be scaled and they have to be brought forward into the future, and it's much more difficult to do that at scale. So, what were some of the big challenges that you faced in the early days?

[00:10:44] Ryan Robertson: Oh, I'd say, I mean, the first ones, one that most Founders out there will appreciate is that, it was purely funding. So, we started the business completely self-funded, and I would say openly underestimated, the investment required to do and to achieve what we wanted to achieve, not so much to get a business up and running. I think we had that well and truly covered and we were quite considerate of that. But to achieve the heights of what we wanted to do and what we set out to do. Yeah, we probably underestimated the level of funding required for that, and that has remained a consistent challenge. So, I would say, in overcoming that we haven't at this stage. So, I think that's the honest answer. We've just continued to remain self-funded. We haven't taken on outside capital. We have continued to make sure that we're, I guess, delaying the gratification that comes with our returns and reinvesting that into the business at every turn. And that's been challenging because you are 10 years on business is a lot bigger and we've built an amazing company that we are really proud of, but it's taken a lot of our own reinvestment along the way.

[00:11:52] Sean Steele: Yeah. And because you are also dealing in such a high-volume transaction style business, probably a lot like, you know, Brad from BMT tax depreciation where they've got significant high numbers of small transactions that are up to a large pipe and therefore your systems and processes really have to be solid. And, you know, you can't do 60,000 transactions a year in a spreadsheet. You know, and like a dog's breakfast kind of CRM, like you guys are making major investments in technology because you want to keep scaling and you're already having to do things at scale because of the business model.

[00:12:27] Ryan Robertson: We are absolutely high volume, low dollar value. Our average sale value might be somewhere between three and four to a hundred dollars per transaction. So, making sure that that is efficient from the moment that that lead comes into the business to the moment that we are at an invoice stage, and that we are obviously renewing those clients on a year to year basis efficiently is crucial.

[00:12:48] Sean Steele: You talked about differentiation before in the smarter, safer science. Can you give people an example of like, how that is different? Like, you know, I think they can hear in your tone and your style, the leadership and your orientation, your mindset about doing things differently and providing a better customer experience, but like, how does that sort of turn out to be different in front of a customer, whether it's on the technology side or how the service person shows up, or…? Tell me about that.

[00:13:10] Ryan Robertson: I would probably start by saying, our aim is to make it as easy as possible for people to do business with us. I think that, you know, when you think about Pest Control in modern day society, half the battle is just organising it. It the necessary evil. It's the insurance policy that you need to take out. It's the every year annual transaction that you know you need to do, and everyone does, but the process behind it generally is really clunky. It's very manual. It's just something you don't enjoy transacting with. And I think our philosophy is to change that, is to make that an experience that people will actually enjoy, as much as you can enjoy getting pest control done. You know, we understand that as an industry, it's not a sexy industry. But at the same time, our goal is to, I guess, show people that it can be a really nice experience, and it is to, I guess, paint a picture and show people how lives can be, when they are pest free. So, it's to take the stress away from that experience because it can be quite stressful. If you've got termites in your house, and you've got termites eating walls in your home, it's an emotional experience. So, making that, I guess clean and simple, and the experience really quick also is something we're working on. But even then down into, I guess the science and technology piece. So, you're talking about dispatching work in an uber style fashion, so the consumers can literally see their operator coming to them, how far away they are, when to expect them, removing all the pain points that you have with modern trade businesses, or probably non-modern trade businesses, then you go into things like, IOT technology and back to the base monitoring systems, which we're investing heavily with, to make sure that we can reduce, I guess non-essential monitoring, and reduce the amount of visit to still achieve the best outcome for the client.

[00:15:04] Sean Steele: Wow. So, just to kind of unpack. That would look like, I've got technology in my home that is alerting Bittn as to whether there is activity that needs to be addressed. So, I don't have to necessarily, you guys don't have to, and I don't have to assume that we're just going to rock up every 12 months and have a look and see what's there. It's actually going to be alerting you that; if six months’ time I've got a problem, you guys are on it. You're out here, you be solving it.

[00:15:29] Ryan Robertson: And I think that's probably one of the biggest complaints we heard when we went down a path of ethnographic research with our customer base was, you know, if you don't need to be here, don't be here. If we can do things in a smarter way that is relying on data driven technology to supply the information we need. Fantastic. So, I guess it's letting the consumer carry out their life. But fixing the problem behind the scenes generally, while they don't even know that that's happening, that's a big focus for us.

[00:15:59] Sean Steele: What about some of the mistakes that you've made? What's the biggest mistake you think you've made so far in growing the business, and what have you learned from them?

[00:16:05] Ryan Robertson: It's sickening that I smile when we start talking about the mistakes that have been made. But look, there's been plenty, and I think, um, you know, as the CEO of the company, it's one thing that I make sure that we are really open with because we're a young, aggressive growing company and we want to own those things and we want to learn from them. I think in terms of mistakes, look, I would probably speak to one of my own personally. I'm a man that probably commits to taking on too many things and as an organisation, you know, being a really aggressive with growth, we just commit to too many things sometimes. And I guess that's something that's one of my key learnings in the last few years. Definitely in the early days.

[00:16:44] Sean Steele: Oh, by the way, that's definitely like in my DNA. I know you guys, you and I share that desire.

[00:16:49] Ryan Robertson: Absolutely, and I think that sort of transcended into over diversifying the business as well. Yeah, the type of work we were doing, I guess when we started the business compared to maybe year three or four, it became so vast and we were into areas thar you wouldn't even think existed because we were trying to be everything to everyone. And I think that even into what markets we were in and what states and across Australia we were trading in, so probably expanding before the business was ready and into markets before the business was ready to do so. So, there's certainly been a lot there around running full steam, and taking on things. And I even think, you know, we've been doing a lot of strategic planning lately. You know, I would almost call it running hot, and making decisions that weren't in alignment with our strategic plan. You know, so whatever the hottest new hire was, whatever the hottest new product or software tool was, we had it and we were grabbing it, and they were all huge mistakes for me, looking back over that first 10 years in business.

[00:17:56] Sean Steele: I wish, I'm actually going to have to capture that, stick it on my wall, put it on all of my websites because this is something that I end up talking to Founders about all the time. Is this risk that happens and it usually happens around as people are kind of leaving seven figures. It quite often happens, there are people that are leaving seven figures, going to eight figures. And why does that happen? It happens because you're building a machine and the machine gets hungry, and so you're always feeling like you've got to feed us. Like, oh, we need more leads, we've got more sales people. Like, we've got to keep everything going. Okay. And someone goes, “But there's an opportunity over here. Why don't we go after that?” And all of a sudden you end up diversifying all of your effort, all of your focus, you take on too many customer types, too many industries, too many segments, and as a result, you just can't do everything all that well. And so there's always, whether or not, it sounds like it happened a little bit earlier for you, but this happens regularly with clients. For people who want to hear another podcast on exactly that same topic. Listen to the one I did with Roby Sharon - Zipser the CEO of Hipages. They're exactly the same issue where they just, they diversified too much. Kind of forgot who their customer was, had to really come back because the business had plateaued, got refocused on the customer, they knew they could serve, and all of a sudden the business doubled in three years. And so this happens constantly and it's something I'm always talking to my clients about, about how to… You got to have courage, right? To be brave to, to niche down. And you've got to know that there's enough market size there. So, there's enough customers to serve. There's enough growth in there if you do it really well, but all of a sudden you become expert at something. You become the one that people want to go to because you're expert, because you've niched down, because you've doubled down on a segment or a customer or a couple, but not too many types where you just get stretched.

[00:19:38] Ryan Robertson: I think you're spot on. And it was hugely evident. I would say from year one to year five was probably where we felt that the most. And it was, I think it's a blend between survival as a young business where you want to grab everything, you want to be everything to everyone, and you're grabbing any piece of business you can because you want to survive in that period. But I guess where we started to feel it the most was probably around that year five mark, where we only had so much resourcing in the business. We only had so much time and so much resourcing. And the more that we took on the lean that that resourcing was, and probably in the last two years, it's become more of; Okay, what are we well class at here? What can we be the absolute best at for our consumers? And that's what we focus on. And if we can't be world's best or work to be world class at it, we don't do it. So, we start to open that up as the resources are there.

[00:20:30] Sean Steele: And actually, I'm just going to, so there's two things I need to draw right now from that. First is, they're almost two different styles of issue. One, in that kind of year one to year five point, you're actually trying everything because you actually don’t know what's going to work. You're just shooting a lot of bullets, hoping you figure out which one's going to be the cannonball. So that's, it's kind of a different problem in that early stage as opposed to it being the machine's hungry and you just need to keep diversifying because I've got to keep feeding it, which usually happens a little bit later. But the second thing that you said there was world class and this topic has been coming up for a while now. I think it's something that we easily forget about as Founders to actually set a benchmark. So, whether it's you want your sales leader to figure out how to make your sales function world class, or your marketing leader, or your finance leader, or your people person, or whoever it is, there's an opportunity in every part, even in every function of your business to figure out what world class looks like and work backward rather than just constantly doing incremental improvement. Because the problem with that is you end up with exactly that incremental improvement. You never end up with step changes because nobody is looking far enough into the future to work back from what actually the best looks like. And so when, I love that you have doubled down and gone, in terms of our core value proposition, which customer and which problem can we solve in a way that we can be world class? And let's just really absolutely nail that because it just builds a huge moat around you where you become bigger, you become known for it, you clearly become the brand leader in that. And people are like, I'm just not even going to try. These guys are so far ahead of me, why would I try and do exactly the same thing?

[00:22:04] Ryan Robertson: And I think seeing the impact of being able to almost like, pivot and refocus the same amount of resources on a smaller number of things, and seeing the output from that has just been incredible. And it's still an everyday thing. It's still an everyday project, decision making situation, which we're self-checking ourselves, do we really need to be doing this, is this a part of our core values is this? And it does. It goes back to purpose and values. It goes back to why did we start the business? What are the foundations that we set out, what do we want to achieve? And back to strategic planning, you know, is it in our strategic plan? Is it something we want to work on? Was it agreed? Does it take us a step towards our greater goal? If it doesn't, cut it out.

[00:22:49] Sean Steele: I think it's fair to say it also helps you attract great people because great people don't want to work for average businesses who are just everything to everyone and a bit sort of boring and generic. They want to work for someone who really like owns a space because that's exciting. They're like someone who's setting the benchmark for the rest of the industry, that's the kind of business you want to work for, because that's somebody who's taking excellence to another level. What, Ryan, would you consider your biggest fear as a business owner? And how do you…?

[00:23:15] Ryan Robertson: Personally, as my personal fear, my personal greatest fear in business? I would say openly, fear of failure would hands down be my biggest, I would say biggest fear, but also biggest driver. Like there's no doubt that that's what drives me every day. And something that I think about a lot and I'm very transparent with because I like to think even as an organisation, you know, we're a young, enthusiastic, aggressive company and we've got some really big goals. But I still lose sleep at night on the basis of; okay, am I doing the right things? Am I leading well? And I guess that fear of failure is something that is always in the back of your mind. It's not something I'm, I'm ashamed to speak about at all because I think if every Founder or every CEO doesn't have that in the back of their mind, there's probably something wrong. So yeah, it certainly drives me. I guess I focus on now what I can control, and there is a little piece there that after 10 years it starts to, I guess, resonate that you're doing some things right when you're getting to the point that we're at now, and we're talking about the next steps, but that is probably my biggest fear.

[00:24:31] Sean Steele: I love that. And so, number one, thank you for sharing that because there's plenty of, I know every Founder, and particularly every first time Founder, you're constantly feeling like you're an imposter because you've never done this before and you've never done it to the level that you've done it before. So, you are absolutely still having to make it up as you go along and trying to learn and applying things. So, there's that element of it. But to your point, also can be a significant driver. And I'm not sure that it ever needs to go away. I remember interviewing Ben Thompson from Employment Hero, you know, CEO and Founder of Employment Hero. You know, one of Australia's unicorns. And I asked him about how he thinks about kind of risk and fear. He said, well, I basically wake up every Monday morning and I think about what are the things that could absolutely scuttle my business? Like what could destroy my business this week, because there's always this underlying sense of something could go drastically wrong that I haven't been thinking about. I need to think about it. And he spends that week trying to get movement on that problem. And by the end of the week, he's starting to feel successful because he's made some progress and by the time he gets back to Monday, he's back into like sort of healthy anxiety, I think is what he called it or something like that.

[00:25:31] Ryan Robertson: And I think if you look for me, it was all always about, and it still is about challenging it in the right direction. So, you know, I could be driving to work and generally it's very early in the morning and it's dark and I can just be smiling as I'm driving to work because I know that I'm out working my competition and no one's working as hard as what we're doing in the business here. You know, my car is in the downstairs basement car park pretty early most mornings. And I just know that, that is a driver for me, making sure that we're taking the steps necessary to take the business forward. So, that's definitely a big one for me. I would say probably maintaining the culture too. I think you alluded to it earlier when, you know, we're in such a strong growth phase and we just haven't got off of this growth phase since we started, which is, you know, it's quite humbling that I guess what we're doing is resonating with our consumers and we've got some amazing customers out there, but just ensuring that as we grow that the business culture remains as infectious as what it was on day one. You know, that that Amazon philosophy, that it's always day one, is just something that I absolutely love, and it should feel like that at every stage in the journey. So, that's certainly something that I lay awake some nights thinking about where is it, is it a sound other people that we're bringing into the organisation, channelling our values in the right way, are they aligned with our purpose, are they moving in the right direction and are they inspiring other people in the business as I would've been in day one of the company?

[00:27:03] Sean Steele: Thank you. So, that's fear. What about risk? Like, what are some of the biggest risks, you know, biggest punts you've had to take in your business and did they pay off? Did they not pay off?

[00:27:14] Ryan Robertson: I think, I guess as a CEO in 10 years into the business, I can probably speak to this one pretty clearly. I'd probably say risks in the business. Probably remaining self-funded, I would say is probably was a real risk. I sometimes talk about the business, like it's my baby, and it's been a baby and it's been a very hungry baby over the journey as we're growing. And it takes a lot and it needs a lot to feed it. And I think remaining self-funded through that phase has, I guess, to an element served as well in terms of control and having impact. But it's been very difficult, and at times very challenging. So, I think that was definitely a risk and a conscious decision, you know, not to look at external capital to help support our growth at that stage in our journey. That's definitely a huge one. I think as a secondary to that, the investment we've made in technology, albeit, we believe it's the right investment and the right strategy. I mean, I think we've spent near on 2 million in the last 18 months to two years in system development to make sure that we can support the growth roadmap we've got. But huge decisions and huge investment for young self-funded businesses.

[00:28:34] Sean Steele: Big time. Big time. Yep. And you know, there's a lot of people listening who, like you will have put their houses on the line. This is all coming out of equity loans against their homes or cash that they've sold another business or they've had their inheritance or they've just made it over time, or they're just reinvesting all of the cash flow. And it takes a lot of belief, right? And you're taking a lot of risk. But if you really believe in the future, then you're trying to make these sensible investments knowing that it might be a longer term payoff, but at some point that return will come and always try and balance it to make sure, of course you don't run out of cash.

[00:29:06] Ryan Robertson: And there's always that sneaky driver that, you've got everything on the line. You know, everything that we have in the world is in the business. And when you're in that situation, there's not too much that you won't work through.

[00:29:18] Sean Steele: Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, that is full skin in there. And that's why, you know, quite often when I hear Founders say, they're like, you know, people will never, they just won't act like owners. Like, they just don't take enough accountability. And I'm like, their house is not on the line. They're also not getting dividends. They're not going to sell the thing in the future. They're just getting a wage. So, you can't expect them to act like a Founder when they're not a Founder. They don't have the risk there, and they don't have the reward. What about some of the ethical considerations you've got to think about in pest control, Ryan?

[00:29:46] Ryan Robertson: I think, look, we certainly have a huge, I guess, ethical consideration in a number of areas. When it comes to, I guess that point, we talk about the smartest, safer science that we employ in the business. And there's a clear safety consideration there, and it's a real balance for us, because if you think about the safety and we're using chemicals on a daily basis and we're using products that we need to handle safely, but the balance is there between making sure that we are using products and chemicals and systems that are going to kill the pest because if it doesn't kill the pest and it doesn't resolve the problem, it's worthless. But at the same time, making sure that it's as safe as it can possibly be. And for us, that's the balance that we need to, and it's treading a really fine line between making sure that it's highly effective. But extremely safe for the client. So that's sort of where we find our sweet spot on that ethical consideration. The other one, of course, is the environment. And for us, you know, it's a really key consideration in every product selection that we make and the way that we deliver services. We want to deliver services in a way that it, again, provides the life that people want and they deserve, but with the least impact to the environment possible.

[00:31:05] Sean Steele: So, what do you do to bring that about?

[00:31:07] Ryan Robertson: Well, I think a lot of it comes to product selection. So it comes down to product selection, even comes down to the way that we dispose a product after use, whether you're talking about chemical containers and the way that we are doing that in the business. So, I think that there's a couple of clear pieces that we look to in what we are using, how we are using it, what our operating procedures are to make sure that that's consistent in the business and as safe, but effective as possible.

[00:31:39] Sean Steele: When your business gets to your size, one of the challenges that many CEOs face is that they can get a bit disconnected from the customer. And therefore they kind of lose that sense of like the pulse of like what's going on, what the problems are, what's changing in the industry because they're just not as connected to it and they've got all these extra people to manage and then leaders to lead and all the rest. How do you try to stay connected to customers and make sure that you've got an appropriate sort of feedback loop so you know what their needs and expectations are and that you're all constantly agile and addressing them?

[00:32:15] Ryan Robertson: Sure. Look, I think, first of all, I mean, at the size that we are, I am still actively involved with a lot of our customers. I guess, I on the flip side, still get really jealous as I walk through the middle of our office and I hear, whether it's our sales team on the phone to a client or our customer care team on the phone. I missed those days and, and having those direct points of contact. But one of the key things that we did a few years back, in conjunction with our branding was actually carry out ethnographic research for customer insights. And it was the most invaluable process that we could have gone through. So rather than designing our brand around, I guess what we thought people would like, it was, let's go to the market and find out exactly what people want. You know, what are they after in terms of the way that the product's delivered. You know, what level of service do they want? Are they looking for an economical approach? Are they open to a premium level service? You know, do they think the technology plays a key role or do they just want someone to come out and spray their bugs? So, we went to, I think it was somewhere in the tune of about 10,000 customers. And we reached out via technology and we actually spoke to them about here's all the things we're considering in our business, tell us what you think is important to you. And I think that process was really valuable.

[00:33:34] Sean Steele: You used an external party to do this, right?

[00:33:37] Ryan Robertson: We did, yes.

[00:33:38] Sean Steele: And how did they, you know, because everyone goes, that's all great, but I don't know how do I incentivise people to respond? You know, there's always a big question that comes up when people are thinking about doing any kind of survey, and you're not talking about like a four question survey Monkey survey. You're talking using a proper external agency that specialised in market research that knows how to do this. But do you know how they got people to respond? Was there, did you have to give them anything to give them discounts or giveaways or anything?

[00:34:05] Ryan Robertson: Yeah, it certainly was. We did it through, as you said, through an external consulting company that specialise in customer insights and data driven analytics and marketing. And it was done through another global business that do offer incentives and I guess rebates, whatever it might be for the consumer to give good feedback. But it wasn't company centric, so it wasn't us actually directly going to them to say, “If you answer this, you'll receive a free service.” It was a part of another global organisation that do it across a number of different industries. But it was absolutely incredible. I remember the first day that I sat down because not only was it responses in writing, we actually heard from the customer, face-to-face, live video, and seeing their expressions when they talk about maybe the experience that they'd had previously, with a similar service or just even what they thought of our industry. It was mind blowing to go through and some elements validated what we thought we needed to deliver for the consumer. Other elements completely changed our course and the direction of what we thought was the most important things to deliver for them.

[00:35:14] Sean Steele: What was one of the surprises?

[00:35:16] Ryan Robertson: I would say one of the biggest surprises was that people didn't think that pest control and termite control were the same people. So, one of the first things that we realised was that consumers thought that people, the person that does their pest control, their spiders, their cockroaches, just in a household environment, they was a completely different business or type of contact point to someone that would treat if they had termites. That was huge. They also felt that, um, local operators had an increased knowledge of the type of pests that they have in their area. Which I thought was fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And you know, at the end of the day, that's now our job to educate the consumer and make sure that that is well articulated through all of our marketing communications, and just our communications in general with the consumer to make sure that we're touching on those points and resolving them, but couldn't speak highly enough of the process. And for anyone going through rebranding or strategic planning, the first thing that we would do is give the customer a seat at that table.

[00:36:22] Sean Steele: Yeah, I think, and one of the things you said they really jumped out at me, which is the video experience. When you actually get to, and I know this is where, Nehal Advani, who was a guy I interviewed some time ago who I probably need to get back on the podcast and get a better of update from him, they had technology that they were using that was sort of video based for, I think it was like virtual travel or something like that. And then they realised it was kind of being wasted there. But they realized the FMCG market know these big, you know, Nestle and Coca-Cola and you know, all the big people do sell toothbrushes and all this stuff in the supermarkets. They weren't getting real-time feedback, they were getting survey-based feedback. So, they built a model that allowed, um, you know, customers in real time, like whilst they're using the washing brush, whilst they're doing their teeth, like, you know, to actually talk about it, to have video, to have that uploaded and then to have all the insights kind of aggregated. But yeah, to show it back to a client and go, here's the data side of what they're telling, but here's the humanity side. Like, listen to the tone in which they say this. Listen to how much this annoys this customer. Listen to how confused they are about these things. Like that video experience I think is really powerful.

[00:37:29] Ryan Robertson: I think the video, sorry to jump in there. I think the video is key. the other aspect for us with feedback and communications with customers has been the real-time aspect. So, we deployed years ago now, NPS feedback, directly at the point of service. And our guests then took a step further and actually built our whole compensation model for our field service team around what the level of service is in the field. Because at the end of the day, you take it all back; qualifications, training, experience. Does the customer think that you've done an amazing job? If they do, you are really valuable to our business. And that's where we build the compensation model around that NPS feedback and results.

[00:38:13] Sean Steele: Awesome. And for those who haven't used NPS. NPS is as Net Promoter Score and people use lots of different kinds of survey tools, but NPS, you know, I think NPS certainly in the States as well, you know, is well accepted in Australia. I don't think people still don't really understand the scoring. Because it's not like out of a hundred in the way that it was sort of presented to people. Like, you know, when people go, “oh, I got a 47”, and business owners are go, “geez, 47 is not bad”. Okay. Like, 70 is pretty good and you know, above 70 is like, unbelievable. But I think Apple’s is like 45 or something.

[00:38:47] Ryan Robertson: It's crazy because I think my one of the favourite moments I have each week is on a Monday morning. I receive our feedback from the on the week and not only a score.

[00:38:56] Sean Steele: Yeah.

[00:38:57] Ryan Robertson: But real time customer commentary on what they're telling us about our services. And you know, for I think the last three months straight, we've been running it around 90 as a Net Promoter Score, which is, I'm so proud to say is world class and a real testament to the field service team that we have out there delivering services because they do an incredible job.

[00:39:17] Sean Steele: Yeah. Amazing. It made me laugh because I used to do exactly the same thing. That was the favourite email that I got every day, or not every day, every week, was my NPS summary with all the commentary in it, which I would read every single one of those because it's just so insightful. The good stuff and the bad stuff, because then you can do stuff about the things that you're getting feedback about that you need to change. Fantastic. At least it's coming through, to your point, in real-time.

[00:39:38] Ryan Robertson: Yeah. Can be daunting. But yeah, definitely a good email generally to receive on a Monday morning.

[00:39:43] Sean Steele: Definitely worthwhile to do. Couple of questions left for you because I know we're sort of running out of time. What is the best bit of business advice you have received and how has it helped you?

[00:39:52] Ryan Robertson: Well, I've received some amazing advice over, particularly over the last 10 years. I've received some prior to that, you know, as a young guy growing up in the industry. But coming to mind now, I think of late, the one that probably sings true to me the most is actually; I would say it's probably not advice, it's actually from some readings I always did. I just finished. I know you're a big Jim Collin’s fan, as well, but I just finished Good to Great in a break I took recently. And I think the advice there on people first, then strategy, that to me was, I remember sitting there thinking, that's an absolute revelation because I've always been a big person, particularly in the last few years of, okay, I've got to make sure that this is what we're doing and this is the direction we're going in, and I've got to communicate that to our team. But a good, and as the book reads, “A good team's going to work it out when you've got the right people on the bus.” So, for me it was, as I said yeah, a real revelation to just get the right people on that bus, they're going to work it out. And the strategy piece is really important, but it comes secondary to having the right people around you. So, I think, that as a piece of advice, I think has really, and thank you to Jim Collins out there, for that piece of advice through readings. But yeah, it was incredible. Another one which…

[00:41:06] Sean Steele: And sorry, that also, I mean, if you just think about the time that we spent together, which I don't know how long we've been working together for now, maybe six months or something like that.

[00:41:15] Ryan Robertson: Probably feels like a bit longer for you, I'm sure.

[00:41:17] Sean Steele: No, it's been great. But we've been absolutely trying to get that balance right, like, okay, we need the right leadership team in place, and let's do strategy secondarily, but actually our priorities earlier have been, let's get the right leaders on board in your business. What was the second on that, sorry, I cut you.

[00:41:33] Ryan Robertson: So, the second one's probably one that talks to, I guess the things that we were chatting about earlier in terms of not taking on too much and getting the foundations right. And it was, someone once sat with me and said, look, you need to slow down to speed up, get your foundations right. Make sure that, that, I guess, you know, the business processes and your systems are ready to scale. So it's always one that, uh, slow down to speed up that ranks true in my mind when I know that I'm taking on too much or potentially we're about to go through another growth spurt, which seems to be continuous over this journey. But yeah, I always go back to that one also.

[00:42:14] Sean Steele: That's really insightful. And if you, for those listening, if you listen to Wayne and Scott Finlay from the Backroom, that's exactly the same thing, and they invest heavily in people who are accountable for getting the systems and processes right, so that they can continue scaling because they don't want to be focused on the systems and processes, but they need somebody else to be to make sure that actually they're coming together so they can stay focused on strategy and growth. Last question from me, Ryan. If you could go back in time and give the younger version of Ryan, a bit of advice about sort of starting and growing this business, what would you say?

[00:42:48] Ryan Robertson: Oh, I'd like to sit him down for a few hours, probably. Probably wouldn't be a brief chat. I'd probably spend a bit more time with him. Look, I'd probably say; invest more time in the strategic planning. I think as, again, as a younger guy, I was pretty gung-ho and just get out there and get it done and that has a lot of impact and it does get some results, but can cause some pain later in the journey. So yeah, strategic planning earlier, more time planning, less time implementing, would definitely be one. I'd probably say don't try and be everything to everyone. So, make sure that you know what you're doing. Don't try and have everyone as a customer. It's probably not a wise decision would be something that I would tell myself. And I think the last one, I mean, I got into business really early on and I probably would tell myself, just be yourself and enjoy it and have fun, because the first few years were amazing. You know, those first, you know, everyone says, how hard was it? It was extremely hard, and probably be harder than I ever thought it would be. But have some fun and enjoy it and just be yourself because you don't get those years back. And they were looking back some of the best years.

[00:44:01] Sean Steele: Pretty precious. Ah, I love that. Well, whilst you're talking about strategy, what a lovely segue to let people know that if you want to focus on getting your strategy right, then you should be joining. So, the next ScaleUps Roadmap Program, perfect time to plug it. Because I work with Founders, including Ryan, to help them build a kick ass grass strategy for the next three years just as we're working on with Bittn. So, the doors are actually open in early May for the first time. So, if you want to find out more, you can just head over to ScaleUpsRoadmap.com.au. Stick your name on the wait list and we'll give you all the details as we get closer. Ryan, I have really enjoyed the conversation today as I do with all of our sessions, but thank you for sharing so openly. One of the things, I just really want to acknowledge the way that you are building this business, because it does actually take a lot of courage to, and you probably, I'm sure, question yourself along the way to take an industry that, as you said, is maybe not all that sexy and try to make it current and technology enabled and consumer friendly with nice branding and cheeky tone of voice. And you're turning an industry that people would say is boring into actually something that's quite fun and fun to be part of as a customer and I'm sure for your team members. And I just think that's really a credit to you and the way that you are creating change and creating value for our customers and your team. So, well done to you.

[00:45:19] Ryan Robertson: I really appreciate that, Sean. Thank you so much. It's a lot of fun and I think for the people that we have joining the business and we've got some incredible talent that I guess we're chatting to and obviously coming on board at the moment. But yeah, being part of that journey and doing something differently in an interesting space, is something that we're all really enjoying.

[00:45:39] Sean Steele: Big time. How would you encourage people to get in touch with you or to follow along with what you're doing with Bittn? How do they sort of stay on the journey?

[00:45:48] Ryan Robertson: Yeah, absolutely. I think, as I said to start today, I look really honoured to be part of it. Happy to share the journey as we go. It's something that we like to talk about because, we want to share our story. Follow me on LinkedIn, reach out via email, um, just [email protected] for anyone that wants to shoot me a private email. But yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not the most socially, I guess sharer, big social sharer. But I'm certainly going to try and do it more as the journey continues. So, feel free to reach out.

[00:46:20] Sean Steele: Beautiful. Thanks Ryan. Well, folks, I really hope you enjoyed the show today. Huge thank you to, Ryan Robertson from Bittn. Please subscribe on whatever the podcast player is so that you make sure it hits your feed for every episode, and of course, helps get into the hands of more people. Leave us a review or share the episode with someone that you know would love it. We're in the top 15% of most shared podcasts globally, which is amazing, which means you guys are doing an incredible job of telling other people about stuff that you think, which means you're trying to serve other people, which makes me very happy. You have been listening to ScaleUps Podcast. I'm Sean Steele, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week. Thanks again, Ryan. Really appreciate it.

[00:46:54] Ryan Robertson: No worries. Thanks Sean. All the best. Talk soon.