Ditch the paper and get your job management software RIGHT! Guest starring Chief Operating Officer of AroFlo, David McDonald

Andy
I really do because streamlining your trade business through systems is what officially helped me get off the tools and one really important part of that is implementing a job management software and that’s why I’m so happy to introduce our very special guest for today. David McDonald, Chief Operating Officer of Aroflo Job Management Software. How are you going mate?

David
I’m bloody good, mate. Yourself?

Andy
I am awesome. Who? Who wouldn’t be good on this amazing day, like this world, the life we live with, it’s just incredible.

Ange
David, it’s such a pleasure to have you on our show today. I remember what our plumbing business, Dr. Drip was like before we implemented a job management software. Everything lived in Andy’s head and nobody else knew what was going on.

Andy
Yeah, I, I do remember it like yesterday. It was an absolute nightmare. We had a team of 17. All of our paperwork was handwritten on these yellow job cards, and they’re coming in and outta the office, and I’d look at it and I’d go, I can’t even read the tradies handwriting. So I’d ring the tradie up, I’d get on the phone go, Hey mate, remember that job you did? No, I can’t remember yesterday. I’m like, you are killing me.

Ange
So David, for our listeners who might not be familiar with Aroflo, I’ve got a couple of questions for you, which is, would you mind explaining your role and the evolution of Aroflo and what it does from a trade perspective?

David
Oh, wow. Bang. Hit me, uh, bang, the eyes.

Ange
Don’t stop at anything.

David
Light Speed Yorker tailing in on middle stump for the first question.

Andy
Nice. Nice.

David
Let’s, you know Ange, that’s three questions.

Ange
I know. So sorry.

David
Anyway, we’ll discuss the evolution of Aroflo. Aroflo started more than 20 years ago. Yeah. All right, so the boss guy, Aero Smith, who’s the man that started the business. Yeah, he had a back injury and needed to be completely off the tools and he decided to, Look at a different way to help trades run their business. So he went and did a business diploma and a software diploma at that, and he decided to come up with a system that was gonna help tradies. And that’s really where Aroflo started and where it is today. Evolution over the last 20 years, it’s developed into one of the most trusted products on the market.

Andy
Yeah, it’s huge how far you guys have come. I remember chatting with you, um, you know, probably a good 10 to 15 years ago, an absolute superstar and what you guys have done has been absolutely incredible.

Ange
So, David, I’m gonna go back to that first question of my one of three and, and ask, can you explain your role inside the business?

David
Yeah. Okay. So you know people here, you know, COO or Chief Operating Officer, you know, what does that mean? In a business of the size we are now with nearly 90 staff, what it means is constant stress.

Andy
It does, mate.

David
I work very closely with our CEO Guy Aero Smith, and Carl Stocker, who’s our CTO. So he’s in charge of the whole software development side. So the three of us form what we call, executive, the brains. Um, yeah. But basically we set the strategy of where the business is, what the business is doing, how we’re gonna deliver updates, deliver the product, look after our customers. Yeah. That’s what we do all day, every day, and in between we are hit with, you know, there’s this problem, there’s a staff problem, there’s, you know, just like every business, you know, you have somebody that’s being a pain in the ass and you gotta deal with it and you know, you’ve got people who, their dog’s sick and they’ve gotta go home and there’s just, just life.

Ange
Yes.

Andy
So yeah it is.

David
That’s what, that’s what we do. We, I deal with life in the business. . Yeah. Yeah.

Andy
It’s, it’s funny. It doesn’t matter what business you are in, we all deal with the same issues when it comes to staff.

Ange
I agree.

Andy
And teams and everything we do, and we all have a level of stress. Doesn’t matter what it is. Everyone has, and you have your good days and you have your bad days. It’s just part of business.

Ange
So I wanna come back to Aroflo and ask you, what does a software like Aroflo do with respect to helping trade business owners?

David
Oh, well, that’s one big question that starts out very small. Aroflo is a huge and comprehensive product. And it can be used for, you know, small operators right through to enterprise size businesses. But what it does for everyone is it helps them systemize things. Yes, it helps them get things organized. And if you can’t get yourself organized, no system is gonna help you. You have to get yourself organized to get the system in place.

Andy
I just wanna touch on that, mate, because I’ve had people, you know, there’s, there’s different softwares out there and we’ve been using you for a very long time and love Aroflo. But, you know, people come to me and go, oh, that’s no good and that’s no good and that’s no good. I’m like, well that’s definitely not the case. You are just not using the system or the software’s right, program the right way. And that’s a, you know, people join up to a software company and I just think the company’s gonna change everything, just for their one or two man show business, you know? And it’s just crazy how tradies, us tradies think out there as well. And that’s challenging on your end as well, isn’t it?

David
Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s a team approach. You know, our customer service guys will do absolutely everything and bend over backwards to help people get their business running. But if people don’t put the effort in to put what’s in their head, like you said before, you know there’s this job here, that job there, what? What did I do yesterday? If you don’t put that stuff in the system, you are never gonna help yourself.

Ange
Yeah, a hundred percent.

Andy
That’s it.

Ange
Adopting a job management software inside a trade business is something that everyone, to me, this is like history, right? We’ve been doing this with Dr. Drip for over a decade and have been teaching, well, it’s been like 20 years, I suppose, and we’ve been teaching this for trade business owners for like over 12 years. And I’m still astounded actually at the number of tradies who still do not have a job management software chosen for their trade business. And they wonder why they do these really long nights and stay up late and don’t spend time with their family. And to me, this is something that is so critical to implement inside their business because it gives them back time, it streamlines their business. It takes away all the chaos because finally there is one location online so that boys out in the field can actually utilize this information about data for their customers and capture all this information and complete an entire job with collecting money. And you know, now you can see so detailed from a reporting perspective, actually down to how much profit margins you have made on that one job that I just think, you are crazy not to adopt a job management software and understand how to use it really, really well.

David
Yeah. It’s not just getting the information out of your own head as a business owner or a business manager in a, in a, in a larger organization. It’s getting the information out of your staff’s head. Cuz if they just keep everything in their head or everything in a piece of paper, you have no idea what they’re doing.

Ange
Yeah. I remember back in the day when we had a team of 17 and they were doing like eight jobs a day. You times that by five days. Think about how much paperwork that was coming back inside our business before we adopted a job management software.

Andy
Now I can remember those days I’d have a pile of invoices, these yellow job cards I mentioned earlier, and I have a pile of them and I had to go through and check it and I, the boy’s handwriting was messy. You couldn’t understand it and the girls couldn’t read it. So then I’d look at it and try to decipher it. Then I had to go back to the tradies and then they’d forget what was going on. Then it’d come back, and then the team, the girls in the office would rewrite it for. And then I’d look at it then and go, yeah, that read like it was just triple, quadruple handling everything.

Ange
Well, the boys didn’t even remember a job that they even went to yesterday, and that’s what I love about Aroflo as an example, or job management softwares in general is that you can capture so much information as you just said, David, out of everyone’s head. So it doesn’t matter how big your team is, whether it’s you or your team is bigger, or you are going back to multiple customers, you uh, all the information’s all in one location.

Andy
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how we ever ran a business back then. You know, we’ve been using Aroflo in our plumbing business since 2014, and I have to say, It has been an absolute game changer for us. It has changed the way we do everything, and it has, it’s helped me and I’ve been off the tools now for a good 10 years and this is all because we connected with the job management software. We put the right systems in place, but you’ve gotta have the right people and the right team to make the systems work. Isn’t that right, buddy?

David
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, Aroflo, as you know, we’ve been around for a long time. Yeah. I think I was the guy that happened to sign you two up.

Andy
You were mate, I, we all that early You were back doing that sort of stuff. You’re just a big dog now, mate. You don’t have to do that anymore.

David
Yeah. Back when, the days when, uh, yeah, life was fun and I got to talk to the customers every day and have a good time. It was actually, I absolutely had a ball dealing day to day with customers, hearing their journeys, hearing what they’re up to. But anyway, answering your question, why Aroflo when there’s so many other things in the marketplace. Yeah. You know, we’ve been around for 20 years, you know, apart from that, we’re awesome. Um, and you are, we’re a, we’re a trusted product. Everyone has heard of Aroflo. Everyone knows who we are in the marketplace. We’re a complete end-to-end solution. We’re not a piecemeal product. It’s a system that can be run by small businesses that, you know, might have 3, 4, 5 guys up to companies that have 200 plus. We can, we can, you know, have people that do service maintenance, you know, periodic jobs. We have people that run projects, you know, huge construction, civil work. So you can start at the ground floor, build your business. Not have to change, not have to change systems, not have to look at something else. Basically, you start from one end, you move to the other, so you get your first inquiry, you do your quote, you do the work, you record your purchase orders, everything that you’ve used on the job, you invoice, I mean, you get paid, and then that goes through to your accounting package. And everything is only done once.

Andy
A hundred percent.

Ange
And that just removes any chaos, right? I just,

Andy
It does.

Ange
And feel free when you say that.

Andy
It’s fair to say, David, there’s probably over 500 different job management softwares out there. Like there’s a new person ringing me every single day, you know, oh, we’ve got this new product and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I reckon there’s about five on the market that we recommend, you know? And obviously we are with you guys and you guys have been incredible for us, but you know, there are different things that are quirky for different people. And at the end of the day, everyone needs to make a decision they’re comfortable with. But as I said, the data, the structure, everything that we get is totally above a lot of the programs that we see these days. And, what I love about what you just said was you can go from a one man show, you can go to a big building company like you, you do a bit of everything.

Ange
And to that point you just highlighted that it doesn’t matter the different types or even sizes of trade business that you are, that Aroflo will work for you. What I actually wanna ask you is more about the development of, uh, of your product, because I can imagine you get hit with requests about how to make improvements cuz everyone wants what they want. Right? So how do you decide what’s next to develop?

David
Oh wow. The requests.

Ange
Yeah. I’ve got a tough one.

David
They come in their thousands. Then obviously we can’t do them all. Yeah. So how do we go about it? We have a fairly structured process, so we have customers that are asking for new functionality, new features all the time. They’re asking our customer service guys, they’re asking our sales guys. So we record every single piece of that information and we have a team that goes through and reviews that all the time, and they look for stuff that is common cuz the questions that come in are never exactly the same, but you gotta get to the bottom line, what is the outcome the customer wants to achieve? And so we find out what the outcome is that they want to achieve, and from there we work backwards and we find a whole bunch of things that people are asking for. And it’s the same thing. So we put those and they get put into a triage list of, yeah, these are things that are really gonna help a whole bunch of our customers. That list then comes to a little, you know, we’ll call it a committee if you like. Yeah. But a group of us, and there’s myself, a guy who’s still very involved. Yeah. Carl, who’s the CTO. Our sales manager, a customer service manager who’s, you know, obviously very important. So we’ve gotta hear what Yeah. Our existing customers want. Yes. And our, you know, technical manager and we go through that list and we’ll also our product manager, and we go through that list and we look at how many people is it going to benefit? How many customers? What’s it gonna achieve for them? Is it worthwhile? Is it something that we even want to put in our product? Because you, if we make our product too broad, it’s gonna be too complex for anyone to use. So yeah, there’s a whole bunch of stuff. And then we have to look at what the market’s doing, what our competitors are doing, what’s going on out there. And so it’s, it’s actually really a complex thing to work out. And at the same time, we have to think ahead and put some strategies in place of things that we are going to put in there that are going to be useful that our customers have never even thought of. Yeah. So we, we, you know, so there’s so many, you know, if we could do everything, it would be great.

Andy
Yeah. But the thing is too, you know, everyone. They hate change. So there’s all these great ideas, but then you actually change it and you might even think it’s a good idea, but then you have people come and go, oh my God, I was so used to it the other way. Now I’ve gotta reinvent the wheel and change. So it’s really tough, but I just wanna talk about most tradies and people listening out there. They will say to me, I am so time poor, you know, there’s not enough hours in the day. I run around like a chicken with my head cut off and there’s not enough hours. How does Aroflo help tradies out there to get their time back?

David
Really, it’s about efficiency. Yeah, it’s doing things once, you raise a purchase order, and the materials that you’ve purchased automatically get put on the job. So the blokes don’t have to remember to do that. All right? So they wander out to Reese or they, you know, wander out to MEM and pick up some materials, what you, whoever their wholesaler is, they raise a purchase or say, I want A, B, C, D, E, F, G. You know, so it’s a sparky. They want some GPOs, they, they want some twinkle on earth or you, you want to go out there and get some PVC pipe, whatever it is you want to get. Yeah, you order it. You can have the system automatically import that invoice from the wholesaler. Everything’s automatically put on the job, plus that invoice is already in your system to go across your accounting package. So, I mean, I could go on for hours about, yeah. Yeah. There’s, they’re all the different processes through it. Each one of those things is efficient. You do it once. And it’s done.

Andy
Yeah, and I think that’s what made,

Ange
I wanna, I wanna touch on that. What I wanna highlight for the listeners is it doesn’t matter what industry you are in, it doesn’t matter how many guys you have. It doesn’t matter what geographical area you are located in. One flow of a job is one flow of a job, and you need to perfect that process with efficiency, with productivity so that you are profitable and if you can tighten that process, if you think about one flow of a job and I, I know where Aroflo touches at so many points of that, from the moment that phone rings where typing directly into Aroflo the information about that customer and it pops up immediately if it’s been a repeat client and we know everything about that, that client, even down to their dog is named Fito, and they’ve got three children, as an example, and the boys out in the field have access through their tablets and right through the flow of a job, Aroflo is utilized as a base. So it’s not the answer to being a successful business necessarily, but is fundamentally a piece of technology that assists in finding control inside your business and streamlining a process so that not just you as a business owner have control but all your boys, your entire team, plus your office manager knows exactly what is going on at every single point of the day. And this is the basis for me, is ensuring that Aroflo is working so perfectly inside a business so that we’re efficient with this one job. Because then you multiply, right? You can do it with one job, you do it with every job. You just keep repeating the process.

David
Yeah, one, one thing that repeats when I was in a sales role that I would hear all the time, I’d talk about workflow, I’d talk about process, I’ll talk about systems, I’d talk about systemizing what they do and organizing themselves, and I’d get Dave, I’m a bloody tradie mate. Yep. . I don’t understand that crap. And I go, look, all it is is it’s about just organizing yourself. You just show us how you do your job day to day, and we’ll show you how to put that into Aroflo. Don’t worry about the, you know, the fancy terms, you know, workflow is just, How you operate.

Ange
Correct.

David
How you start your day, how you put your stuff in the job, how you do stuff. So terminology sometimes frightens people.

Ange
Yeah, that’s a good point.

David
Um, you know, because we’re in a trade business and it’s really hard because we do systems not, you know, to speak the language that we talk and it sometimes frightens the guys and goes, oh yeah, I don’t understand this stuff.

Andy
Yeah. I agree there’s certainly a level of people out there that is just too hard and they haven’t grown up that way. And their boss and their bosses have not done it. And it’s just like a huge step, you know? But then you’ve got young guys coming through and they’re just like, whoa, you’ve gotta have this. And they’re flying. We just had an episode just recently talking about KPIs and, and you know, and making healthy competition within a trade business. And obviously we’re just talking. You’ve got a pretty big team and we know it’s hard keeping all the staff happy. How do you keep your team motivated and happy?

David
Okay, so we’ve got a process in here. One, one is we are always looking at the people fit. Make sure they, when we hire people, they need to fit into our business as part of the culture. We have so many different initiatives to keep 90 people happy and excited. We’ve got a thing internally, we call one team. All right. And it’s broken up into four, four different areas. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, this is probably something for a bigger business, not, not a small business, but we’ve got one section where we look at how to eliminate silos. So silos are in our organization, in different departments. So you’ve got sales, you’ve got marketing, you’ve got customer service, you’ve got hr, you got admin, I’ll keep, I can keep, can keep going and people often get comfortable and they sit in those roles. So we are doing things to remove that and make it so people communicate with each other and it makes them feel like they’re not such a structured beast. We do things called open meetings where we have meetings that are advertised that anyone can attend. It’s like if, you know, so it’s a sales meeting, who cares? Someone from customer service can attend or we have yeah, people from the tech area and they wanna sit in and hear what the customers have got to say and that helps them understand what’s going on. It makes them feel, it’s all, if you feel part of the team, you feel happy to come to work. Companywide collaboration, so everyone is part of the whole conversation. And we’ve got a whole, we’ve got a team that looks at doing social events, right? So we’re looking at doing things. At the moment, everything’s been virtual. We did a, um, we did bingo the other Friday night.

Ange
That’s awesome.

Andy
Awesome.

David
We did, we did online bingo, all fun . It was a whole bunch of fun. But, you know, we’re doing things like, you know, when, when people are back here or have things like, you know, a group can take an hour and a half and go and do yoga. Uh, you know, for lunch. And we’ll have another group that might another day go and do indoor soccer and we’ll have another group that does it. So just stuff that gets people from different parts of the company to all be part of the same team.

Ange
Yeah. You do actually seem to have this really strong sense of humor, a lot of fun inside Aroflo. Is that something you’ve specifically tried to cultivate in the team or is that kind of just naturally developed? Um, with the team culture?

David
I, I think it all comes back to our number one thing when we interview people to come into the business, number one, if they’re not a cultural fit, if they’re not gonna be part of the team, it doesn’t matter how good, doesn’t matter how smart they are, they’re not gonna fit the team and that because everyone, you know, we have a whole bunch of people that are practical jokers, do all sorts of crazy stuff, and it creates an atmosphere where everyone enjoys their day.

Ange
I think that’s a really good point for every listener that, although you might be going, yeah, but they’re Aroflo, they’re a totally different business. They’ve got 90 people. It doesn’t relate to me. I wanna highlight how important, what David said was so important. Culture and creating a really strong culture inside a business and allowing your team to form bonds and friendship. Have a laugh, you know, especially with, especially with this industry, your team are out on the road often alone, and or they could be lucky and be on projects and have a team on site. So the banter is really critically important and it’s, you’ve gotta start with those values, don’t you? I like the fact that you said, we’ll interview a lot of people and sometimes we say no, even though their skill sets are really strong. They just culturally don’t fit. And, and that’s gotta be the, always the starting point is employ the right people that fit inside your business because you’ve honestly gotta hang out with them every single day. And you wanna be able to help develop them. And cuz you can obviously teach skill set, right? Can’t you? You just, you can’t make someone have a good personality and be kind.

David
Yeah. That’s it. It’s all about people. People have to be the right fit for the company.

Andy
Like every trade business, it’s become, it’s on everyone’s lips out there about building this good team culture and looking after your staff and making sure everyone’s happy. And you know, it has been unprecedented really. And especially down there in Melbourne. You guys, I think you were just saying, mate, you get a team of 90 and there’s only like a couple of people walking around that huge office of yours. But you know, it, it’s, it’s tough times. You gotta make sure people are happy. Mate, how long have you been involved? You started in the sales as you said, you signed us up. How long have you been involved, um, with Aroflo yourself personally?

David
I hit my 10 years in October last year, so almost 11.

Ange
Oh, congratulations.

Andy
That is awesome.

David
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It just makes me feel old. Older. Older.

Andy
I just, um, like with a lot, lot of different programs out there, you know, there’s, there’s, as I said, there’s a lot of programs coming out, um, on the market, but you guys, guys started it down there in Melbourne and, and from, you know, you are still a hundred percent Australian owned, don’t you? And that that can make a real big difference when the core center’s in Melbourne and so forth give, gimme a bit of a rundown about that.

David
Yeah. We operate a hundred percent in Australia and it’s just normally we are all here in the one building at the moment. It’s a little difficult because everyone’s at home and trying to do the best they can. I would suggest that everyone’s doing the job, as hard as they possibly can. , but we are not able to collaborate the same way. And this is the beauty. If, if we. , like all over the globe. We had a, you know, team of programmers overseas, you know, and we had customer service in India or somewhere else. Yeah. You just couldn’t get that same feel and, you know, happy family company feel that we have now. So I think the main benefit is that we are here. We’re Aussies, we’re jokers. We muck around, we understand the trade. You know, there’s a whole bunch of guys who get up to all different stuff. They like the four-wheel drive. They like to fish, they like to do stuff that Aussies do.

Ange
I love that Aroflo is, it sounds like your company is like a community, like a true family and everyone really gets on like really well, which sounds epic.

David
Yeah, and like every family you’ve got your little groups that are always hanging around together, but that’s just part of being a family.

Ange
Absolutely.

Andy
It is, it is. So, mate, what I do with all my guests, we play this little game. I’m gonna ask you three questions, buddy, and uh, hope you wanna play this game with us. But you can answer these questions, but you can take up to about 30 seconds at tops on each answer. Um, are you up for the challenge?

David
I’ll give it a crack mate.

Andy
Ah, good on you buddy. Okay, let’s get started. So, what is your number one tip for tradies when they’re setting up their business?

David
Actually use the system.

Andy
A hundred percent.

David
That it’s simple, mate. That’s it. Yeah.

Andy
Can I just elaborate on that?

Ange
Yes. I like it too.

Andy
The amount of tradies I talk to, they say I’m using this program and I say, rank yourself in a percentage, how much you’re using it. Yes. And most people are under 60%. Some are like 30%. They just have a schedule system and they don’t even use the product. It’s crazy.

Ange
They don’t understand the product. Yeah. It’s, you don’t know what you don’t know. So my advice,

Andy
Well they know they need it. Yes. So they get it because they’ve been told by everyone they need it. Yes. But then when they get it, they dunno what to do with it.

Ange
Yes. And then they’ve ticked the box too hard to ask it then. So, so I’m gonna add to that cuz this is your 30 seconds David, but I’m gonna help you answer the question, oh, and my, my additional for the listeners is, you might have ticked the box that you have a job management software implemented inside your business, but Aroflo, as an example, has great updates with regards to what is going on and you can actually book meetings with them to ask more, like to show them how you’re using the product and therefore get advice about how to use it better. So use them, ask questions, go into the Facebook groups and ask questions. Ring them directly. So yes, to your point David, use it and use it properly.

Andy
And mate, so number two, what is the biggest challenge you guys have faced in business?

David
Oh, I don’t reckon that it’d be too hard for anyone to work out. It’s been Covid, , really covid and looking after and helping, you know, 90 odd staff working from home in Melbourne, like nearly 270 days.

Ange
You guys have been slaughtered for the last 13 months.

Andy
And, and I’d have, I’d have to say you guys have done it very well. The mindset, and I know you guys are a bit over it at the moment, but you guys have done a pretty good job over these last, what would you, would you be classified nearly 18 months, wouldn’t it?

Ange
And David just said, what’d you say? 200 and something? What’d you say?

David
Uh, about 270 days we’ve actually been in lockdown.

Ange
Wow. 270 days. Yeah. Yeah.

David
And from the last 18 months, we’ve had the majority of our staff working from home. We’ve had periods where we’ve been allowed to have people come back in and we’ll get 25% people here, and then all of a sudden there’s another lockdown. And then everyone’s back at home again.

Andy
Yeah. Yeah, mate, it’s been a challenging year for every trade business out there. It, it’s been tough, but you know what? It’s gettin it better. We’ve gotta focus on the positives and I’ve got no doubt we’re gonna come out the back end of this year really strong in 2022. Look out. So mate, number three, what is Aroflo’s biggest selling point for trade business owners?

David
Well, that’s a really big question. Yeah. I don’t think we can talk about features because, you know, we’ve got probably more features than any other product out in the market.

Andy
A lot. Yes.

David
Um, the biggest selling point is our team. Our team can help you and help you implement the system to get your business, get what’s in your head, get what’s in your guy’s head into Aroflo. And make your business more efficient. That’s our biggest selling point, is our team.

Andy
A hundred percent. And I think that’s a lesson for every trade business owner out there. You are only as good as your team, so you need to make, your team is at their very, very best when they’re out there dealing with your customers. And if you can do that, they’re gonna make you better as a business as well.

Ange
And as a trade business owner, our job is to ensure that our teams succeed. So we’ve got to be able to arm them to ensure that they can do that. And to your point, Aroflo now ensures that every tradie can pull this stuff out of their head. Because as a business owner, we’ve gotta think about the fact that, well, what happens when those particular team members leave? Well, the knowledge goes with them. So that knowledge about those customers or those past jobs or whatever. So, uh, I a hundred percent agree with you. Let’s get everything out of everyone’s head. Let’s remove the chaos. Let’s replace that with control. And I think everyone will be on a really good path if we were to do that. So Overarchingly, I’m so stoked that you came here today. Aroflo and having a job management software is critically important for every trade business owner. Uh, and I really wanna thank you so much for actually joining us today. It’s been very insightful.

David
No dramas, all happy to be here, but I wanna throw it back on you guys.

Andy
Oh, hang on.

David
And, and ask you a question.

Ange
Okay. Go ahead.

David
Why do you love Aroflo and why do you keep using it?

Andy
That is a great question, and I’ve had a lot of people mention that to me over many years, you know, and I think with technology, everything changes as you go along. When I first decided, we wanted to stay with Aroflo, the deal in my head was I wanted something that we’re gonna stick with long term. And at the very start, if you can remember, Dave, I, I’m, I just want it done and I want it done now. And it took us a little bit of time to get it going, but we had a big team. We had a big team then, but once we’ve put it through there has not been any other rivals that are arriving with you anywhere near why we would change, and I still think for certain levels of what we do in our business, there’s nothing that can do exactly what you guys do. So, You guys are doing a really good job there. Um, I’m not saying that Aroflo’s the perfect job management software system for every business, but it definitely is for us and we’ve absolutely loved the journey and the support and everything we’ve got from you guys and Guy has been amazing and we’ve just loved working with you. And it is like a family and that’s why we know the product. We know you guys and I can’t see us changing anytime soon. Let’s,

Ange
I’m gonna, I’m gonna add to that. Yeah. Which is, there’s power in data. Yes. Uh, and the data that we can pull out of Aroflo, because it’s been set up right, you’ve gotta know how to set up right. But the power of the data that comes out the backend from KPIs with our boys, from looking at business KPIs, overarchingly with turnover, profit margins, down to every single job. To be able to cut that with average dollar sales based on market segmentation, based on campaigns of marketing, based on geographical areas. Like I’m super detailed, so I love this stuff, but data that comes out of Aroflo for us is so important. So that’s one of the, that’s definitely one of the reasons why we love it.

Andy
Yeah. I love that you threw the question back at us, mate. Yes. How do I, to, we just wanna say a very special thank you for joining us. Obviously we’ve been a part of your team and, and you are a part of our team as well. And um, it’s been really good having you here today and I’ve got no doubt the listeners out there would be like, oh my God, if you haven’t got a job management system, you definitely need to get one.

Ange
Absolutely.

David
No, it was awesome to reconnect with you after seven years from that first phone call when you asked.

Andy
Yeah, it’s been a long time, mate. You, you didn’t have a beard or anything. Especially not that big last time.

David
No, that’s what Covid does.

Ange
Covid. Covid growth.

David
Yeah. Yeah, COVID. Growth. .

Andy
Okay, mate. It was great chatting with you today. We’ll talk to you soon.

Ange
Well, that’s all from us today. Join us for our final episode of season three, next week.

Andy
It’s gonna be an absolute ripper plus we’ll be dropping some hints as to how Season 4 will be released, so stay tuned. Until then, hell yeah.