Our Health & Safety Training Business Now Makes $7.2M/Year [Update]
This is a follow up story for AlertForce. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 3 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hi, I’m Brendan Torazzi, the CEO of AlertForce. We are a health and safety compliance training business out of Sydney that delivers face to face and online training throughout Australia (and a little overseas also).
The main training we deliver tends to be license based meaning that they are permits for working. Things like Asbestos Removal, Traffic Control, Confined Space, Working at Heights, etc.
The business started in 2006 as something entirely different. I worked in the business on a day-to-day level until the end of 2016 when I started following some other business interests (more on that later). Training works in cycles depending on where the legislation falls and what the competitors are up to.
Since we last spoke AlertForce purchased another training business in Canberra in March 2022. Training for us runs with legislation and there were some new requirements introduced around Silica Awareness training shortly after our purchase, and our business started to rapidly expand again.
Our turnover has increased to about $600-700K (AUD) per month so we’ve literally 4x’d since we last spoke. A lot of our staff changed at the same time and we’ve built an unbelievable A-team that is punching well above our weight for size.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
As mentioned above, the Silica Training opportunity combined with purchasing a business in Canberra was very fortunate. The business purchase was made by a long term colleague who was at retirement age and their partner’s health had declined. They decided it was time to make the most of their lives and the timing just worked out.
We were just positioned at the right place at the right time. Legislation changed, making the 10830NAT Course in Crystalline Silica Exposure Prevention Awareness mandatory for most of the ACT construction industry. There were not many providers of the course and having a training centre in a part of town called Mitchell proved to be a real asset.
We serviced something like 1,000 new customers in 2023 in Canberra which provides an opportunity next year to consolidate and offer additional training services.
With GA4 coming in we finally were able to correctly measure our Google ad spend effectively so we’ve set minimum ROAS targets for web sales and corporate enquiries for training have been a bonus. The increase in Google ad spend meant we’ve been able to scale quickly and profitably.
In Oct 2023 we sold off the company that we bought as it had a legal structure that has value in other parts of Australia. So effectively that minimized the cost of entering Canberra as we got about two thirds of our investment back.
We had a little marketing hack that focussed on word of mouth promotion. At the end of the training day, most learners left with their certificates in hand. The certificate is required so they can enter work sites and not get fined.
This did several things: one it cut down on having to send them out, customers were happy and told their mates and finally, there were fewer admin phone calls asking for them.
We also handed each learner a key ring bottle opener branded with AlertForce and a training services brochure. Again trying to get them to remember our brand.
Keep doubling down on where momentum is. This is the easiest place to grow where the energy is already flowing.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
It’s going to sound funny but toilets in our Mitchell training centre. We didn’t have enough of them. With so many people coming through the doors each day, there were queues for our 2 toilets. So we solved that problem by hiring porta-loos and placing them out the back.
Covering these basics meant there were fewer complaints and we wasted less time in training breaks. Getting temporary toilets was just a quick fix and one less issue our staff had to deal with. We also had them professionally cleaned every week again just to make it all easy and doable for our customers.
We also found that many of our classes were full which meant we had to turn away some business.
Trainers were also hard to come by as there aren’t too many in Canberra and the things we are training on are very niche. We had to let go of a trainer who just could not get up to speed. We’ve recently been invited by the industry to attend a roundtable on ideas for how to attract new trainers into the industry. I have an idea around hologram training and AI - not sure how far off reality we are but it would certainly be a game changer if the training hologram could answer most questions.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
I’ve been in this position before in 2016 when training was going gangbusters and we tried to expand into an area that we were not familiar with. We won’t make that error this time and will stick to face-to-face training. Learn from the past when you get the opportunity to revisit similar situations.
Keep doubling down on where momentum is. This is the easiest place to grow where the energy is already flowing.
It’s kind of like adding petrol to a fire that is already burning, when you have inertia (something already in motion) it is very hard to stop it moving. The opposite of course is true when something is not working, hard to get it moving.
So that’s why my belief is to invest more in an area that is already working. Training in Canberra is working, so the plan is to invest more.
The ohs.com.au business also grew quite a lot in the last 2 years. In FY23 (July 2022 - June 2023) we hit almost $900K turnover. We are on track to cross $1 million in FY24. We are adding courses that have a higher value to increase revenue. This business is run by AlertForce staff.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
We are opening a new 2nd training center in Mitchell in 2024. We will keep the existing one because it works so well and the second one will be focussed on more high risk training that requires more space to do practicals.
We are growing the business by setting up a center that people talk about and will focus on 2 new courses to get numbers through: first aid and forklift training. We’ve currently been constrained by space issues.
Looking to expand organically via cash flow. We may look to buy another training business in another part of Australia towards the end of 2024 once the new 2nd center in Canberra is working well.
I am publishing a book called Safety Legends based on the podcast I host on ohs.com.au. The book is 40 easy to read short stories with different personalities. I plan to give it away as a marketing/branding tool to our best customers.
I have many business friends in the Entrepreneurs Organization (more than 18,000 members worldwide and about 200 in the Sydney chapter) who have used books as a way of promoting their brands. A friend in EO about 12 months ago suggested I already had plenty of content on the podcast and that a book might be a good idea. So I added it to my list and it all came together reasonably quickly.
The wedding business Seacliff House is becoming a B Corp certified organisation. It’s been about 6 months of work to get there. Bcorps focuses on having a social and environmental impact, as well as making money, all of those things we feel are important to have a good business balance.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
I've been an avid meditator for about 20 years (Thom Knoles) but I’m not so much into the theory behind meditation. I’ve hacked this by listening to Thom Knoles podcast on a weekly basis. Slowly picking up the knowledge that way.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Do things to stay balanced - without your health you have nothing!
Remember to have fun - the old cliche is about the journey, not the end goal.
Join a master mentor group like Entrepreneurs Organisation (google EO) to make connections and be supported on your journey.
Where can we go to learn more?
See our previous details
- Health & Safety RTO
- Health & Safety Marketplace
- South Coast Wedding Venue
- South Coast Wedding Collective
- Byron Bay Holiday Rentals
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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