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The Asbestos Surveyor's Handbook

Published: 5th September 2022

Running a profitable asbestos surveying company is challenging without the right tools, especially as you grow.

On the one hand, you need to manage your jobs and a distributed workforce – enter the dreaded whiteboard covered in hastily scribbled work opportunities. It's a mess.

On the other hand, your client's expectations are higher than ever. With more competition in your industry and large companies driving everyone's prices and timescales down, you're under more pressure to deliver high-quality reports quickly.

But it doesn't need to be a race to the bottom. We believe that technology is the doorway to a lucrative and stress-free surveying business – allowing you to focus on a better quality of life for yourself and your staff. 

One area where technology can significantly impact your business is reporting writing. Modern report writing software can reduce report writing time from two hours to ten minutes; it's the urgent and important problem we solve with Flow Mobile Surveying and the reason we started our business.

But how you run your business matters too. We want to share our insights with you – gained over several years of working with asbestos surveying companies. We feel it's important to share these insights with you and the rest of the asbestos community.

In this surveyors handbook, we'll look at common causes of stress in a business like yours. From improving your finances to finding and retaining staff, we'll give you practical strategies to overcome your daily challenges and accelerate your business.


Handbook Chapters

Improving Your Finances

Stress comes in many forms, but financial stress is particularly menacing - because of its potential to cascade into other areas of your life. In this chapter, we'll look at common causes of financial stress you might experience in your asbestos surveying company and strategies to prevent and overcome them. None of these strategies are rocket science, so you can start implementing them in no time.
  1. Improving Your Cashflow
  2. Increasing Your Profits

Winning More Work

How do you win more clients? It's the golden question I'm sure you ask yourself on a daily basis. A strategy that worked for another asbestos surveying company might not work for you, and it's important to play to your unique strengths. In this chapter we'll look at some basic techniques you can use to win more work.
  1. Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
  2. Create a Marketing and Sales Strategy
  3. Marketing 101
  4. Using Your Website Effectively

Growing Your Company

In the competitive asbestos services industry, how do you go about growing your team and business, and what additional challenges will this bring? In this chapter we'll talk about how to attract the best staff, how to kick-start company growth, and how to build the right systems to support your business as it grows.
  1. Recruiting Staff
  2. Working With Recruitment Agencies
  3. Diversifying Your Services
  4. Optimising Your Systems

Managing Your Workload and Team

Scheduling jobs efficiently is challenging as your team grows. In this chapter, we'll explore how you can use modern technology to remove the burden of scheduling from your administrators and keep jobs moving so you get paid faster. And how to get the most from your staff.
  1. Scheduling Jobs
  2. Team Communication
  3. Working with Subcontractors

Staying Compliant

Asbestos is the second most regulated industry in the UK (after nuclear), so industry regulations should be taken seriously. And if you decide to become UKAS accredited, it can open up doors to new work opportunities. In this chapter, we'll help you stay compliant with your local standards.

Creating a Robust Business

Once you've built a successful business, you need to make sure it's robust enough to survive and withstand whatever challenges the world throws your way. In this chapter, we'll give you some actionable tips to make your business strong when times are tough.
  1. Retaining Staff
  2. Spreading Your Risks
  3. Using Reliable Technology

Working to a High Standard

Many people in the asbestos industry feel like it's a "race to the bottom" with clients pushing down the cost of surveys and still expecting high-quality outputs. This leads to money and time constraints for site workers and industry cowboys with low standards, who do the bare minimum of what's required. On the other hand, there are companies like yours who pride themselves on the quality of their work. In this chapter, we'll give tips to improve on-site data collection and the reports you issue to clients.
  1. Efficient Data Entry
  2. Asbestos Survey Reports
  3. Staff Competency and Training

Using Technology Effectively

Technology is considered to be very important by 79% of asbestos service companies. It's unsurprising, since technology can solve many of the daily challenges you'll face when running an asbestos surveying company, from scheduling jobs to creating reports. In this chapter we'll explore how you can use technology effectively to increase your profits and make your life easier.
  1. Signs that You Need Better Technology
  2. Getting Started with Technology
  3. Asbestos Reporting Software
  4. Floorplan Drawing Software

Delivering Value to Clients

How do you deliver exceptional value to clients, so you get tons of reviews and recommendations? In this chapter we'll put ourselves in your client's shoes. And we'll suggest ways to exceed their expectations by producing timely, clear reports, and supporting them every step of the way.
  1. The Client Experience
  2. Delivering Exceptional Value

Optimising For Happiness

So far, we've shared our thoughts on how to build a successful asbestos surveying company. But there's more to life than money and success. In this chapter, we'll look at ways to protect your time, improve your work-life balance, and do enjoyable, fulfilling work.
  1. Protecting Your Time and Work-Life Balance
  2. Doing Enjoyable Work

Thanks for reading, folks

You made it this far, awesome. Thanks for reading our guide to creating a profitable and stress-free asbestos surveying company. I hope it was valuable for you.

Do you have any suggestions you'd like to include in this guide?
‍Get in touch, we'd love to hear them!

The King Brothers

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