The owner
Tim Iten, Director and General Manager
Client story · Gate automation · Perth
“Very basic, but super effective.”
How AGM Automation turned finished jobs into its best marketing, and why we had to slow one campaign down to match what the team could deliver.
Tim Iten, Director, AGM Automation · about 2 minutes
The business
Automatic gates: supply, install, service and repair since 1996
Working together
About five years
What we do
Strategic, content and email marketing, B2B collateral
The result
The best work stopped being invisible, and demand outran the vans.
5 yrs
Working together, and in Tim's words "strength to strength to strength"
1 form
The team fills in after a job. We do the rest
3
Social channels every published job story is cut for
12 mo
Maintenance cycle the business rebuilt around the demand
The situation
The best work was invisible.
AGM has been automating gates in WA since 1996: homes, strata blocks, farms, commercial sites and power stations.
Here's the problem with that kind of work. A sliding gate at a regional power station is some of the most technical work AGM does. Once it's finished, it lives as a job sheet and a few photos on a technician's phone. Nobody outside the company ever sees it.
Meanwhile, the buyers AGM wants most, facility managers, strata managers and commercial operators, want proof before they pick up the phone.
We are targeting specific areas where we know there's a lot of work. We're not wasting time targeting things that we don't need.Tim Iten, AGM Automation
The diagnosis
What Tim thought the problem was, and what it actually was.
What Tim thought
AGM needed to be seen more.
What it actually was
AGM needed to be seen by the right people, for the right work. Not more noise. And every job the team finished was already a piece of proof. It just never left the job sheet.
What we did
Aim, capture, publish, repeat.
Ongoing
Aim at where the work is
We focus AGM's marketing on the areas and customer types where there's a lot of work and AGM has an edge, and ignore the rest.
Predictable GrowthOngoing
A job-to-story pipeline
A simple case study form the team fills in after a job: the site, the problem, the gear, the photos. We turn each entry into a published case study on AGM's website, then cut it into posts for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. The owner supplies the facts once.
Predictable Growth2026
A maintenance campaign to past customers
An email reminding past clients their gates were due for a service. It worked so well we had to change how often it goes out (more on that below).
Sales & Pipeline System2026
Collateral for commercial buyers
A capability statement for commercial, strata and government buyers who need to see a track record before they shortlist.
Predictable GrowthThe twist
The maintenance email worked too well.
Tim called the results impressive. The demand was big enough that AGM rebuilt how maintenance runs: every client and site in one register, spread across a 12-month cycle so the workload stays even.
Then bookings outran the number of technicians on the road. So we slowed the send from monthly to quarterly to match what the team could deliver, with a plan to step it back up as AGM hires.
Marketing isn't growth if operations can't absorb what marketing creates.The lesson we now take into every business
Some of the published stories
Finished jobs, now working as proof.
What's next
The constraint isn't demand. It's vans on the road.
As the team grows, the maintenance campaign goes back to monthly, and the case study library keeps building the proof commercial buyers want to see. In Tim's words, the job is to make you "be seen, be heard and get the phone calls in. Then it's up to you."
Sound familiar?
Your best jobs are already your best marketing.
Most of them just never leave the job sheet. If you're running an established trade or service business, start with a 15-minute call. We'll show you where the work is, and whether your team can carry it.
Book a 15-minute Growth Audit15 minutes. No pitch deck. You'll leave knowing the one thing to fix first.- Your proof is sitting on a technician's phone.
- Marketing is something you do when it's quiet.
- You've never checked if operations can absorb more demand.
- Growth comes in waves: flat out, then chasing work.
More client stories
