Shane Lawson: from police force to the go-to pool safety guy across QLD and northern NSW

On episode 13 of Raising the Bar, we sit down with Shane Lawson from North Coast Pool Inspections. From 24 years in the police force to the go to pool safety guy for Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Northern NSW, Shane joins us to talk pools, process and playing the long game 🏊

We cover:

- Pool compliance 101 (for sellers and buyers): no-climb zones, self-closing gates, CPR charts, window restrictions, timelines, and real-world costs, plus why getting a certificate or at least a quote before you list can save a deal 💧

- Referrals over billboards: how Shane built a prestige agent network by showing up fast, communicating clearly and delivering same day reports, with a VA and tight systems doing the heavy lifting 😎

- Breaking into the prestige market: from door knocking top agents to delivering seamless service, Shane shares how consistency, professionalism and strong communication turned one job into a network of high end referrers 🤝

This is a goodie, you won’t want to miss it! 🙌

Contact Shane: https://northcoastpoolinspections.com.au
Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empirelegal/
More podcast episodes: https://empirelegal.com.au/podcast/
Check out our blogs: https://blog.empirelegal.com.au
Website: https://empirelegal.com.au

Transcript

Shane Lawson. Mate, thanks for coming on the podcast today. Thanks for that George. Much appreciative.

Shane, your business is North Coast Pool inspections? Correct. And you operate across multiple states? Correct.

All the way from Ballina to North Brisbane, and everywhere in between east and west of the M1. And we're going to unpack that. Actually, it's one of my questions is mate, you live a bit of a double life, don't you?

Between Northern New South Wales and Brisbane. Correct? You sort of float between the two quite regularly. 

Yes. I live in a beautiful place called Casurina Beach, but I also live in Coorparoo. So, do a couple of days down there. But because the market is really growing in Queensland in general I do a lot of work up here.

Yep. Yep. So yeah, let's just car park that for now and we'll come back to it. My fun fact for you is you spent your career in the police force, is that correct?

Welcome to the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland Property. I'm your host, George Sourris from Empire Legal.   

Correct. I did 24 years in Byron Bay. Finished up in July this year . I saw a lot of things that were crazy.

I was going to say, mate, you probably, you've seen some things over the years, I would imagine, and, and dealt with everyone from the Chris Hemsworth's, down to the homeless person, and everyone in between. One thing it did allow me was to learn how to talk to everyone, but also provide really good customer service.

So two and a half decades of doing that. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Wow. And you saw the place evolve, obviously from what it was 25 years ago to now. 

Yeah. 

I call it North Bondi now. Because obviously the migration of Sydney and Melbourne coming up. Can't blame because it's beautiful. Brisbane as well.

There's a lot of growth - people moving up because it's, it's so good up here. 

Well, mate, I was just reading some stats this week. The Gold Coast now is second most expensive for housing values in Australia, after Sydney. 

Yeah,I believe it. 

What I think a lot of people don't realise is how good Brisbane is, in that you can go from the city to Manly in 20 minutes. You can go to the north side. The infrastructure's really good up here, and I'll be the first to admit, it's really opened my eyes 

of how beautiful the city is. Born and bred here, grew up here. We used to call it Bris-boring, but man, not anymore. No way in the world.

Brisbane's unreal. Yeah, it's  definitely evolved. hugely. Mate, let's jump into it.

First question I've got for you is, let's talk pools. All about pools. So for buyers and sellers, maybe we can split this into two different sections. You live and breathe pools, doing the inspections every day of the week.

Maybe if we look at it first through the lens of a seller, what tips do you have for sellers in the market? So you're preparing to sell a property, you got a pool, what do you do? What's the journey like? Where can you add some value to the listener? Definitely for the sellers, 

they need to, landscape their properties, as in cutback trees that are, you know, going over the barriers. Obviously just simple things that'll save them time and money. Make sure their gates are working, CPR charts. A big one though, as I said, going back to it is cutting back as much possible in your property.

And the reason I say that is people don't realise how much work a garden is. 

The Greeks did mate, that's why we concrete everything. Yeah, exactly. No, no trees, concrete, everything. But are you saying from a compliance perspective as well, is that called issues? Well, so there's 

a thing called all barriers are 1.2 meters.

So your fences are always 1.2 meters. And there's a thing called "no climbable zone". So you go up 900 mm from the top of the barrier, out 900 outside the pool fence, and also 300 mm on the inside of the  📍 pool fence. So basically any trees in there with branches and whatnot, they basically claim that people can climb over, young kids.

Right, right. 

That'd make it not compliant. Non-compliant. Yeah. So 

cleaning up all of your trees that are right up against the barrier. And a lot of times when people build pools, they're not thinking when they're going to sell in 15, 20 years time, or five years time. So a lot of times they build gardens and put trees up against the, the fences.

Unfortunately, when I come along, I say to them look, you've got to cut this back. Sometimes you've got to have some tough conversations with vendors and just go, look, it's not compliant because of this, this, and this. Yes, it's not the end of the world. Basically if you cut it back, you can still have the stuff there, but just not as "bushy".

I wouldn't have even thought about that as a problem. And you're right, there's no way in the world that your average Joe is thinking about that. So, when does that become  📍 apparent? It could be if they're not diligent, It's when you rock up to do the inspection and you have to have that conversation with them.

Correct. A lot of times I have a battery operated chainsaw in the back of the van, and I'll cut things down for people right there and then. But because we live in an environment that, it's quite warm, it rains a lot, and things grow so much. Suddenly, three, four years later, the tree's five 10, 15 feet high.

That's Beyond your scope. I get you got the chainsaw in the back and you're just doing that as a, I'm just going to help you out type thing. Yeah. You can't remove a whole tree. Correct. You can just chop a branch off or something to help them out. Yeah. 

So basically it's just maintaining the trees that are very close to the boundary or the barrier.

Just so people can't climb or kids can't climb over them. 

And you said gates as well, is another common one? Yeah. What, just not closing or not being compliant? 

They're supposed to self close from all positions. So basically, a couple of inches out, halfway out, and fully out. A lot of the times, hinges, they rust internally, so it's a bit of a nightmare. I'd be the first to admit and, they make numerous different types of hinges. So as an example, I'm doing one at the moment on a riverfront, and just to get the hinges, I've got to get them from Melbourne. But, it's not self-closing. So it is an issue, a lot of people don't realise that.

They just think, oh yeah. My pool is compliant because it's got a fence around it, but it's all these little one percenters that actually make it not 

compliant. And, and this particular example with the hinges that's obviously time delay problem. If it's not a standard, you'd fix it today. You've got to order this part, wait correct.

For it to come. Because you can't sign it off until it's compliant, right? Correct. Yeah. So do you do your inspection and say, hey, here's the issues we've got to address. And until they're all fixed up, you can't sign off and finish the 

Correct. So what I do is I go out there, do an initial inspection, do, do up all the reports basically then send it obviously to the owner.

They may want to do it themselves, otherwise they'll get me to do the works. And then I'll reinspect the property and then issue the certificate to the solicitor vendor and the owner. 

Gotcha. Okay. Is it a, a common thing that the inspector will also do the works, or is that a unique point of difference for you?

In your experience? 

It's, I won't say it's a common thing. Some people like to do, you know, one and not the other. I do have other guys work for me for scopes of works that are a lot bigger than I can do. Yep. I've got a a builder that raises, fences, puts in new fencing for me.

It just depends on the 

job. Okay. So if it's like a quick handyman, easy job and you can do it in the moment, you usually offer that as a service. Correct. I won't charge for it usually. What a great value add. But if it's a big job, obviously you say, Hey look, this is beyond me as the inspector, but these blokes can give you a hand. Correct.

To get you sorted out. I'll get 

them quotes, give it to them. Yeah. It's a little bit unique. A lot of times people go out there and they'll literally just do the inspection, but I sometimes you might deal with an owner who hasn't got the money, and I say to them look, if you don't have the money to make it compliant, at least get a quote, put it in the contract.

And then that way, as a potential buyer, they can see how much it's going to cost and they can discount off the asking price. As I always say, we don't have a housing crisis. We've got a 

trades crisis. Mate, we could do a whole other episode on that. I reckon. We definitely, definitely do.

Yeah. Question then - because again, I just don't know personally. Rough cost, what's the price range to get compliant pool safety done? Does it vary? What's like a rough range that people should budget if they need to get this done?

It's $250 plus GST. Yep. That's for the initial inspection. That's providing it's tidy, right? Correct. If there's not all this other dramas and got to fix all this stuff. I have seen properties literally have got no pool fencing whatsoever.

Yeah. That's thousands, thousands, tens of, who knows? That's big money. Yeah, that's, yeah, big money. 

Most times properties, it can be $500 to $1,000 to make it compliant if it's got, you know. Let's just give an example. Hinges that are not working, no CPR charts, they might need screens on their windows CPR charts.

So is that, you must have them? Have to have it. You'd be surprised. It's probably one of the most common things that people don't have. 

Are we talking for Queensland and New South Wales? 

Everywhere Because, and the only reason I say that is. A lot of people just don't like look at them. 

I was going to say they're not aesthetically pleasing.

Correct. Are they? Like, I'm thinking about my pool at home and there is a CPR chart just sort of sitting down below there in the, underneath the shelf. Yep. And I was wondering like, oh, because it's not mounted. I'm like, oh, do I even need this? Yeah. So like for compliance purposes you do? Correct. Right. And screens, you were just saying, is that window screen, is that so kids can't jump through a window and then jump into... Correct.

You've gotto have either

a secure mesh, or you restrict the windows so they only can open 100mm. And that's obviously so kids can't get through. Makes 

sense. Gotcha. Okay. So that's on the selling side. Say we're now flipping over to the buying side.

Is there anything in particular that you look for beyond, I guess those are obviously all the same principles apply if you're acting for a buyer. Do you act for buyers? 

I do act for a number of, buyer's agents have contacted me, you know, said, hey can you go out to here? 

Yep. 

Have a look at the pool and tell us what you think of the barrier.

Is it in good condition? Because sometimes you can have a, a barrier, it will pass, but really, It's in pretty poor condition. Fences, you know, 

rot out. Yeah, it might pass the the actual tick and flick, but in terms of, oh, is this a good setup or is this going to cost my client money later?

Which a buyer's agents looking at down that angle. Correct. Yeah. So you can come in and go, this is garbage, or, yeah, this is Mickey Mouse and we're all good. Yeah, a hundred percent. 

Yeah. 

Okay. So is there anything in particular on the buying side just from your experience or any stories you've got?

If you're a buyer out there and you're looking and there's a pool, unless you've got a buyer's agent, I reckon most buyers wouldn't even think twice. They just go, is there a compliance certificate? Yes. Okay. And they just move on. They wouldn't even think again about a.

Most people don't even realise they need a compliance certificate until they actually sell. Then the agent or the solicitor's like, hey. and even as a buyer, they would be like, oh, okay, is this legal? As in the certificate, they don't know what it actually entails. So it's bit of an education on their behalf, as in realising that when they go in, that you know, gates need to shut.

Yes. They need to have screens. I remember doing one, and it's quite a common thing, unfortunately, as you're walking out the front door, some of the rectification works are being taken down by the seller. Definitely not legal. 

Yeah. 

No one would even realise it until, you know, the next time they 

sellit.

Okay, so maybe the tip for the buyers out there would be - a pool safety certificate's required. And at least here in Queensland, if the seller doesn't provide it, then the buyer has an obligation to get one after the fact. You were giving that price range before of, up to say, a thousand dollars for basic stuff.

But if there's big problems, say you are a buyer, you're buying this property, it's got a pool. You go, oh, don't worry about it. I'll get my own later. You could be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars potentially. That example you said, if there's no fence, or the fence isn't compliant, so maybe the, the conversation here is - you need to do your due diligence, you need to make sure that you have that certificate. At least get the vendor to provide it, or at least give a report of what's wrong before you go ahead and buy that house. 

Then that way you can cost it out. You can still sell a house with a non-compliance. Just, the onus goes onto the buyer to fix it up within X amount of time. And people just don't realise, how much stuff costs. Most people are tapped out when they're buying houses. They bought the best possible house they can.

They, they haven't budgeted for a pool repair. Yeah, they haven't budgeted for that extra bit. Yeah. You might have Brisbane City Council knocking on your door going, hey, you've got to fix these issues up. And then they start to go, oh my God, it's how much? That's why I say to people, if you're not going to get a compliant certificate when you sell, at least give them the invoice of what a quote is. Then the potential buyers know what it's going to cost them to...

Yeah, then they can make an informed decision. Otherwise it's just going to stall the deal, isn't it? A hundred percent. Like any, any savvy buyer, or at least the buyer's solicitor, their advice will be there going, no, no, no. Go ask some more questions.

And then, the deal just stalls until you get out there and you can actually do that inspection and quote it up. 

Yep.

Yep, yep. Gotcha. Alright, I reckon that's good for point number one, mate. There's some good value for the guys listening out there.

The next question I have for you is a little quick fire around how long have you had your business?

Four years. Four years. If you had to start over tomorrow, what would you keep doing and what would you not do? And you can have a second to think. Keep doing 

would be - just getting in front of the agents and solicitors. That's your bread and butter. Because that's where your business comes from, right?

Referral business. Correct. I would say 90% of my work is referrals. 

Wow. Yep. Yep. So you rely on these guys to, to put your name out there? Correct. 

I had a phone call the other day from an agent who got my details from one of the best agents in Brisbane, and they said, we want to be on board.

We've got a whole section on that actually, we're going to talk about is how you grew your profile in particular with the more prestigious properties. So I might just car park that for there. Yep. So keeping in front of referrers. Yep. Mate. Boots on the ground. That totally works hey? Building relationships with them. Hundred percent. Yep. There's not much I wouldn't change because everything's worked, and it's grown exponentially. When I first started, I was doing just a couple a week, and it's grown over the years. 

Yep. 

And that's your full-time gig obviously. You're not doing the policing anymore, so this is you now. 

Loving life. Yep. 2.0. You see some amazing places. The only thing I probably wouldn't do would be, it's not all advertising for me. So certain things work, but there's a lot of advertising doesn't work for me.

As in, are we talking like, paid advertising or? Right. Paid advertising, print. I've had a number of people, ask me to do print advertising and I have done it a couple of times, didn't work. Are we talking like in magazines? 

Yeah. Yeah, mate, we've done stuff like that.

We've done Google Ads, we've done all sorts of stuff over the years. Similar to you, we are predominantly a referral based business, and I'd say more than 50% of our work comes from the referral network, mainly real estate agents, mortgage brokers. Yep. And yeah, we've tried Google ads, we've tried sponsoring all this stuff and nothing works as well as

having a good referrer that trusts you and passes your name on. 

Correct? Yeah. So it's the 

same thing. Hey, yeah, that, that's it. All that other stuff I found, mate, no one's clicking on us from a Google ad, and no one's going to give us a cold call off a magazine ad. The 

amount of times people do, it's like, yeah, minute.

No. You just got to be in the, in their front of their mind when they want it, want you. 

They go, you know what, here's the thing. Oh, who's the pool guy? Oh, it's Shane. 

Yep. 

Yeah, that's exactly, that's what you want 'em to think. Same as us. If they're buying or selling a house, oh, empire Legal.

I'll give those guys a call. 

Correct. 

And that just comes from repetition, repetition, repetition. We were saying off air before, that you were literally going through a shopping list of contacting real estate agents at the start, hey? Where you just ring them and make friends with them, and get in front of them. 

Correct?

I must have, don't even know how many emails I did. God, I did a lot. 

Like, not, not 10 or 20. We're talking like we're talking thousands. We're talking. 

You know, 500 plus emails easy. Yeah. 

That takes a lot of grunt work, to send 500 emails. 

Well, as I was telling you, I was in hospital having a hip replacement, this is when I first started my business. I had two weeks in hospital, and I literally was on the laptop from dawn to dusk, couldn't do anything else. and I was just calling people. 

Well, mate, from what I know about you, you are here, there everywhere doing appointments here, New South Wales. I could imagine you in hospital for two weeks, you would've been gone crazy, sitting still like that. So you had to do something to Yeah. 

Climbing up the walls. Definitely. 

Yeah, we're cut from the same cloth mate. Yeah. I struggled to sit still for a long period of time, let alone two weeks.

Correct. 

But how you turned it into a positive right? Off the back of that you started building your brand. 

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. You quickly realise what works and what doesn't. And as I was saying to you before, what got me my biggest if you want to call it "in", in certain areas.

Did his pool inspection for a very good agent, Will Phillips in Byron Bay. Couple of years ago, and I literally had not slept for 14 hours because I did a night shift, in the police. And Will was like, if you are that keen to work for me I want you on the books. And another one was, which I can't sort of believe I did

it, was I went to a open home where Sarah Hackett was doing a property. And I went up to her and I gave her the details and I said, I want your work. I think she was a little bit shocked actually. She was like, I've never had a trades person come in front of me. And and I did that to Simon and Courtney Caulfield as well.

Those guys are running so fast with their properties, and they're doing such a professional service, I want to be involved with those people. Because they are the best of the best. 

The Sarah Hackett's of the world, the Caulfield's, those guys need reliability and they just need a good job done.

Correct. Right. At the end of the day, they just want to know that if they call you and say, I need the pool done that, you will go, yep, I'll be there and I'll get it sorted. 

That's all those guys want. Basically, it's just trying to do the best possible service, because you don't want a property to stall whilst it's going through the negotiation phase. Because, oh, we haven't got a pool certificate, we haven't got this, we haven't got that.

You want it a seamless transaction. Because you're dealing with people going through a divorce, death, all sorts of stuff. Yeah. All sorts of stuff. They are on the edge, and it's quite stressful for a lot of people in the transaction. So you've got to try and provide a professional service.

Seamless. 

Yeah. And look, those, those kind of operators, I'd imagine they would have a process built. Correct. So they wouldn't be waiting until, end of a building and pest for example, to even consider a pool safety inspection. I would imagine that straight after they've signed that form six and they've been appointed, they'd have a checklist and one of them would be, is there a pool?

Is there a certificate? If not, let's get that sorted, long before it's even open for inspection. A hundred percent. And that's why they're good operators. Correct.

Yeah, it's got to be. Like I said, seamless and quick. There's some agents out there they're selling a hundred plus properties a year, running 

at an incredible speed.

And I've got Aaron Woolard on this afternoon actually in Sarah Hackett's office there. And yeah, Aaron sells well over a hundred properties a year. Well, him and his team. 

He's a prime example, really professional. 

They're so busy.

Yeah. But you know, he's been doing it for, gosh, well over a decade and he, he's ironed out a process, and he's built that up over time. When I started working with Aaron, it was just him and, Anissa. There was two of them. And now I think the team's like seven or eight people. Yeah. Yeah. So they've got that process built, right? Correct.

Let's keep chugging along. Next thing I've got for you is - you live a split life. We touched on this briefly. I want to understand, how do you manage it? What's it like living between two cities? What tips do you have for anyone out there?

I guess, you'd work out of your car almost. I know we've sort of spoken about this a bit in the past. I. 

I don't sleep, but you know what, I love it. I have a passion for it. I basically can do anywhere and any time sort of thing for the pool inspections.

Like as an example, this afternoon, I'm going to Manly. Yep. On the Bayside? Yep. Greenbank. By the end of the afternoon, I'll be on the Gold Coast, doing a number down there. Wow. Back up on Wednesday doing inspections up here and Thursday around here. So it's just being organised. I've got a a VA that helps me with just organising where I'm going to be.

A game changer. Saved a lot of time, and I've just got a really good process on the back end. You just got to be organised. 

Really organised. That's the word that's popped up a couple of times. Organisation. Yeah. Yep, yep. Because I, I live on the northern end of the Gold Coast actually.

That's right. Yep. But I work up in Brissy here. So I'm up here every second day. I get up early and hit the road early because of traffic and all that jazz. I couldn't imagine that extra layer of organisation you'd have to have, to come from where you come from. because you're what, another, at least another hour south from Hope Island,

aren't you? 

Hour and 15 to Coorparoo. That's pretty good, on a good run with 

a clean run. 

Yep. And I, oh man, that's 

way better than I thought. 

I make sure that I come up really early in the morning, 

yep

or late at night, when there's no traffic. 

Yep. 

I can't believe that if you get a clean run that it's only an hour and 15.

Oh, we 

came up last night was an hour and 20 minutes. 

Geez. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. That's, 

that was on a public holiday. 

But if you get it wrong, it's like, yeah, it could be three triple. Triple that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. 

But it's just organisation. 

Okay, so that organisation, let's just dig a little bit deeper into that then.

I imagine you've set everything up so that you can do the whole job from start to finish from your car, like laptop all your tools. Correct. Everything you need. So you don't have to go back to base. You're mobile? 

A hundred percent. I literally have done many reports on the side of the road.

You know, 15 minutes after I've done the inspection. Because, they have to exchange Yeah. That day. Time sensitive. Time sensitive. And literally they can fall over. 

Organization. If there's a listener out there, that's maybe in a similar boat to you. You're a bit of a lone shark, I guess, cruising around, doing your thing. Over the last four years, if you reflect back from, say, day one to now, four years along the line, is there anything that stands out to you where you've gone, man, I've had such great traction by doing this. Simon Caulfield, he 

said 

to me, tell me more.

know Mr. Caulfield very well. Simon said to me one day, same thing, turned up to an open home. He goes, get a VA. That was game changing. Yep. I had so much more time. 

I do everything on my phone. I've got an app that I've set up, specific to me. Everything I've put in there is from my design. And then being able to do all the reports. The VA will organise it, and then when I get back, I can just check it off and then send it straight away. So rather than having to do all the reports, she puts it in place, then I send it off.

Yeah. Cool. So there's no way you'd be able to get as many jobs done without that help that you've got. Correct. Yeah. And that's off the back of a convo with Simon saying, do yourself a favor and get this done. Yeah. I 

watched him doing an open home and he was talking about VA's and he's like, do you have a VA? And I was like, no. He said, said to me, look into it. It'll save you a lot of time. 

Well, there you go, shout out to Simon. Yeah. That's a huge tip out there I guess, that we're passing down the line now, isn't it? If you're doing this on your own, there's ways to go and be way more efficient, that's cost effective. A hundred 

percent. It's a little bit tedious getting it right, 

but you know what? It pays off. You've inspired me, mate. Yeah, I've actually been thinking about the VA route for myself for a long time, and I still do all my own stuff.

Yep. But yeah, I've been thinking about it for a long time, so maybe I should actually take the plunge and do it. Yeah, it's definitely worth it. Yeah. We're nearly there.

We sort of touched on this before, but a bit of a different angle. If I was to say to you, what's one thing that keeps you sharp 24/7? Can be, gym, nutrition, anything mate, anything. What springs to mind for you that keeps you going? 

I don't know whether you knew, but I was a professional surfer as a kid.

No, you've done, you've done everything. 

Yes. So I was very fortunate. I got paid to surf when I was young. How good is 

that? Professional surfer. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. 

Love the ocean. It's very therapeutic. I think I did 52,000 kilometers. I'm deadly serious in the last year of driving, which is a lot. To be able to run, eat healthy. I have a nighttime routine, go to bed at a certain time, I'm up early in the morning. I wouldn't be able to do it unless I looked after myself. And whether that be surfing, eating healthy, you know. You got to bring energy to the table. Positive energy. because it attracts. 

Yeah.

The power of positivity. I find now I'm a bit allergic to negative Nellie's. I call them. I just have no interest in it. I want positive people. You want to be around 

people that are going to enhance your life. I've got a good mate. His godfather was one of Australia's richest men. And he said to him on his deathbed, whatever you do, spend it with people that enhance your life. Look after yourself, eat healthy, do stuff you love. 

Yeah. I say I like to break bread with good people. Yeah. Yeah. If You're not breaking bread with good people, go find good people to break with.

Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Simple as that. And that was from one of Australia's richest men, did you say, that advice? Yeah. There you go. Yeah, mate. That's perfect.

Let's go into this last main point. You gave us a bit of a teaser before, but I want to dig deeper on that angle of how did you break into working with luxury agents?

Because you've done it. Your social media presence is, in the pool safety space, mate, no one else is doing it. And I'm not just saying that because you're sitting in this chair. It's true. I follow probably, every real estate agent with a profile in Brisbane and Gold Coast, and I consistently see Simon Caulfield, other people in that Place Kangaroo Point office resharing your posts with the pools. Yep. And it put you on the map like I knew you from before then. Yes. But now I see you pop up more and more and I'm like, oh, he's onto something here. No one else in your space is doing it. So yeah, let's just talk about that a bit. 

I remember pinching myself when I first got that first property from Simon and Courtney, or the first property from Sarah Hackett or you know, Tony O'Doherty, Amanda Becke, all big names.

Number of the Queensland guys, even Northern New South Wales. Michael Kollosche. I remember making sure that I did the reports, like literally I was walking out the door literal about with Sarah's, I was doing the report like five minutes later. 

Yeah, just straight back to your car.

I want to get more of those. So every time I do an amazing property, take a happy snap, tag the agents in. They're helping me, so I've got to help them. I'm not saying I could sell a property off my social media, but it just gives presence.

A lot of the agents, they obviously talk to each other. 

The high performers, they all know each other too. And they're all keeping tabs on each other. A hundred percent for sure. For sure. They're all in that field and they're all going, oh, what, what are they doing?

Like, as an example, I had a, call from Drew Davies at Ascot. We work with Drew as well. Drew actually, Drew's a legend. Yeah. So I got a call from Drew's EA the other week and she said, can you do an inspection? And like, I've been wanting to do Drew's work and their agency's work for a while. I called in there, you know, and it's just like you keep knocking on the door and it eventually opened.

So for me, doing those good posts on social media, it definitely has slowly but surely organically grown.

Well, especially if you've got a Simon Caulfield resharing your stuff and then, a Drew Davies might see it, a Sarah Hackett might see it. That's part of the strategy, right?

Yes. So when you go and door knock these guys, oh, I've seen this guy before. Yeah. Yes. And I 

don't think I know, I don't know if I'm, if it's that unique or not, but, I really don't care to door knock. It's not that hard. It's like, you know what? Hi, how you going? I'm offering a service.

I can tell you right now, even if you've got someone else, just give me one pool. And then I will show you how good and how quickly it can be done. That in itself, because time is of the essence in these transactions, is what saves them money. 

Let's double down on this. This is where the magic is. This. I think this comes back to other people's fear of rejection. What you're talking about with this point, and most other people probably aren't going to walk up to one of these ho pro high profile agents at a inspection and have a chat with them. And I think it's stupid that they don't. Like, why wouldn't you? If you've been waiting to get in front of a high profile agent, and you are at a pool inspection, why the heck wouldn't you try and make friends with these people and ask for their business?

A hundred percent. I mean, if you just ask the question. All I can say is no. You took the words out of my mouth. What's the worst thing that'll happen? Is they'll tell you to bugger off. Yeah, a hundred percent. And then you go, all good man. No stress. That's it. Your life goes on, doesn't it?

Yeah. You're in no worst of a position. 

It's not that difficult, but customer service is something that a lot of people are not good at. They can't gain rapport. And I don't know if it's this generation, but it's really easy to, be helpful to people, and it will just come back. 

When you've got a good product as well, and you add that value, it makes it really easy to refer someone. But if you bang out these quick inspections and everything's good and you communicate properly, why wouldn't they want to keep using you? 

You just got to be very clear and transparent, and like you said, communication is key. 

So, is there even a secret sauce for this point? If you were to look back and go, how did I break into the prestige market, what do you boil it down to? Was it just going and just having the chat with them? Having 

the chat with them, just telling them, this is what I can do for you.

It's not rocket science what I'm doing. The agents trust me, I might have to have a difficult conversation or there could be a husband and ex-wife going through a marriage split. That's one thing that I've learned, I can navigate a very tight situation 

really easy. Especially when they're selling at home, like we said earlier, like that divorce situation, or death. Getting ready to sell mum's home and she passed away. Correct. You know? Correct. The emotions are high.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The fact that you can help diffuse that situation, 

that's, that's, that's gold. A hundred percent. If there's one thing that I learned from being in the police for like 25 years was how to talk to people. show them respect and be able to navigate it with the least resistance.

You want to make everyone's life easier and get the result. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Definitely make it, make it easy for 

them.

One more quick fire question for you. We're a Queensland based property law firm up here. Correct. Queensland versus New South Wales. Is there any major nuances between? Obviously QBCC manages the Queensland pool safety stuff here. I imagine it's the similar body down in New South Wales. Is there actual weird compliance differences between the states or It's pretty much the same? 

The laws are a lot better in Queensland. As better as in 

stricter or...? 

As an example, you would've seen infinity edge pools. 

Yeah. 

So in New South Wales you can't use the pool wall as the barrier.

You've got to have another fence below the infinity edge pool. So aesthetically it actually doesn't look any good. Queensland, their laws are definitely better. I would say Queensland is better for everything, for pool certification. I mean, even just, you know, your Form 2's nowadays.

The agents are a lot more organised. You don't have to have a compliance certificate in New South Wales until you actually selling. See, a lot of times in Queensland they're 

lot more organised at that form two stage. So whether that's the seller's disclosure, so we're talking at that seller's disclosure point, which usually is right after the Form six is signed.

Correct. That question's coming up now. Yeah. And it's being caught then, so I guess you'd be engaged early. Whereas you're saying in New South Wales it's later down the path. Correct. The rules are 

similar, you know, pretty much. But a number of issues in New South Wales, you've got to have a, your boundaries have got to be 1800 millimeters high.

So majority of pools in New South Wales are not compliant. If they're an old property, the pool fences are like 1200 high. 

Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, so does that mean when it comes time for you to inspect, you're like, no, we've got to put new fencing in because it's not compliant.

Well, you've got to increase the fencing, the height. Height to make it, yeah. To 

make it compliant. So it can actually, can be quite, expensive. Yeah. Right. And it's probably the last time that people want to dip in their pocket and actually hand out some more money. 

Yeah. At that point they, yeah.

They're just like, oh, how much more is it going to cost me to get this house listed? I wasn't expecting to spend this on Bill. Correct. But, correct. Yeah. But 

I, overall Queensland rules are really good. Okay. Yeah. 

And sounds like it's pretty quick from when you finish providing it's all compliant, is it just a matter of you.

Generating that certificate and you have to upload it to like a QBCC portal? Correct. Because that's how we view them on our side of things. 

All my reports are done the same day. 

Wow. 

So if you, as an example, if you have a inspection even at four o'clock in the afternoon, wow, you'll have that report that day.

Nice. 

So everything is done. It doesn't matter what it is, I'll make sure it's done. That's what I stand by. That's my, that's how you're generating your work, mate. Yeah, that's, that's just, 

that's the, the product speaking for itself. Yeah. Yeah. 

That's a, you know, my, if you want to call it, not law, but you know, like it has to be done that day.

We adopted a similar thing when we were growing our business, Abi and I, where we said, and now our team does this too. We will respond to every email, that day, even if it is, "hey Shane, got your email mate. It's five o'clock now. I'll come back to you tomorrow with some more details, before lunch".

Yeah, cheers, George. And then you feel validated. You know, he's seen it. I feel heard and I've got a plan that he'll come back to me by this time tomorrow. Whereas if I respond at 9:00 AM the next day, depending on what it is, you might be sitting there from five o'clock freaking out if you really need to chat to us or whatever it might be, in the dark.

Whereas if you just communicate, we find it's just such a better mouse trap. And we say that to the team. You don't have to fix every problem today, but you at least need to communicate as to what's going to happen next. 

Yeah. And I remember Alex Phillips telling me, you know, like the Alex?

The Alex, yeah. Yeah. And he just said, answer your phone. He goes, it's not rocket science. Or go back on an email, answer the email. Yep. The quicker you can do it, the quicker you can actually get their business. And then it's just a trust. 

It's so ironic.

It's always the simple things. You go to AREC and you hear all these guys talk, and all these killers, all these one percenters, it all comes back to doing the basic stuff, properly. Like answering the phone, prospecting, all that stuff. They've got their little plan and they don't miss it, and they just do it consistently.

Everyone I've noticed, there's no, there's no shortcut. 

Yeah. You might be a 15 year overnight success. I admire a lot of these agents that are running really fast and selling a lot of properties, and they, 15 year overnight success, 20 years overnight success.

They're killing it, but they have got systems and procedures, and I learn a lot from a lot of these agents of what to do, just different industry. Putting it into my industry and making it work for me. 

Yeah. Going, what Can I take out of this that can help me succeed in my business?

Yeah. Yep.

One more question for you, and then we're done. It's called the Golden Nugget. Not sure if you've heard of it. I have heard. Great, you're primed for it, so. One golden piece of advice. Again, you can zoom out from your business and pool inspections, and just we can talk generally in life here, and you can have a second to think. That if you were to give one piece of golden information onto somebody else, what would that be? 

Be a good human being. It'll come back tenfold. Just be a good human being. Because life's freaking tough for a lot of people at the moment. And if you help them out, don't expect something back in return.

Be gracious. When I worked in the police for 25 years, it was to be bluntly honest, a toxic environment. Saw a lot of bad stuff, but since I've left, someone told me, just be gracious, be gracious, be gracious. And I remember trying to put that into every day. Wake up, be gracious for three things every day. It's going to come back. And you know what? Your life is just so much more happier. 

When you said not expecting it in return? I even think about when we first crossed paths, it was through a mutual friend of ours, Thomas. He said, oh, give this Shane guy a call. Give him a call. And I looked you up and I'm like, oh, I've seen you kicking around on Instagram, seen a few posts and whatnot.

And I remember we met, and I said, mate, look, where the conveyancing sits in the journey of where you pop up doing pools, we're usually right at the end. The reality is, and I said this to you when we met, I said, look, you're probably going to be able to introduce my business to more people in your network that I can to you.

But when I get the opportunity to, I will. And then, hey, this popped up, for example, and then, you know, hopefully a few people will watch this and see, and give you a call and can do some more work. But you haven't been saying, "oh give Empire a buzz", expecting me to give you one for one back or anything like that.

And that's where it comes full circle with that golden nugget you just gave mate. You didn't do it because you are like, oh, George is going to give me something. You're like, oh yeah, I can, I can help them out, and then in perpetuity, something good will come back. 

Exactly. There's just not enough of it in the world at the moment, I reckon. Just being gracious for what you got. Little things, big things, everything. 

We're in Australia, man. Yeah. Best country in the world. Yeah. 

We are so lucky to be here. A hundred percent. Yep. 

I will pop in the show notes here all the social media channels, your number, email address for people to get in touch with you.

Thank you. So if you are anywhere from.... how far north do you go? What? Brissie? 

North Brisbane. 

So North Brisbane all the way down to Northern New South Wales, correct? Yep. 

And as far out west, you know, like half an hour, 45 minutes out west. 

Yep. Beauty. So basically if you've got a pool and you're in the greater Brisbane, Gold Coast, Northern New South Wales region, we've got your man.

He's happy to help. Call me. Beauty. Mate, Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for letting us have a chat.