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Welcome to the Barter Edge Podcast—your insider guide to smarter business, bigger networks, and better ways to trade.
Whether you're a seasoned member or just getting started, we're here to share real stories, expert tips from different industries, and fresh ideas to help you grow your business using the power of the Bartercard ecosystem.
BC Andrew Csabi 21-Aug-25
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Barter Edge Podcast, your insider guide to smarter business, bigger networks, and better ways to trade. We are here to share real stories, expert tips from different industries and fresh ideas to help you grow your business using the power of barter cart. Well, welcome everyone to another episode of the Barter Edge, . The Bartercard podcast.
Today we are here with a very special guest. We got Andrew Chave from a GC ProTech, which is a fully licensed and accredited security company operating nationally since 1990. So that's an amazing achievement already there, Andrew, uh, with, uh, over 30 years of it. Experience behind them. A GC ProTech is now one of Australia's largest security organization.
But not only that, Andrew has been a Bartercard member for also over 30 years. So you're a bit of royalty here [00:01:00] on the Gold Coast in the Bartercard team. Um, so welcome Andrew. Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about your security company? Yeah. Thank you very much. So Andrew Chubby.
I'm the director of a GC ProTech Security. We've been in business now 37 years. It's a national company. We also work internationally in barley and atu, installing cameras, alarms, uh, access control monitoring back to base. So it's a, it's a great dynamic company. Got great staff and, uh, our clients include national brands.
Like McDonald's and we've got restaurants, pharmacies, et cetera. And uh, yeah, that's taken us overseas now installing alarms and cameras. Uh, that's so amazing and security is such an important part of not just business, but life, isn't it? It is, yeah. Look, the recent trends in the last two decades I've seen outta my 37 years in business has been that crimes on the increase.
It's been unfortunate statistic that, you know, [00:02:00] innocent people are being caught up in either home burglaries. Forced entries to dwellings, which is, uh, on the rise at the moment. Car thefts a big one. Mm. And youth and juvenile crime. So, you know, it doesn't have to be, uh, a person that is, is invited that violence to their premises, workplace home.
Um, it, it's been an unfortunate statistic. One outta 20 people will be broken into possibly every two years. Wow. That is a huge statistic and that's why we need people like you in the Bartercard community. Can you share how Bartercard has impacted your business and what success that you've achieved since being with Bartcard pretty much since the commencement. And, uh, we've done a million dollars plus business with Bartercard. So more recent jobs we've done with Bartercard has been, you know, homes, um, shares, factories, installs, et cetera. But Bartercard's been important to us where we've actually used our [00:03:00] Bartercard dollars to grow our cash business, uh, in the crypto cryptocurrency world.
So Bartercard's been an integral part of our business to grow our business and, uh, and our client base nationally. That's great to know. So on that, what strategic or innovative ways have you been able to use the trade dollars you've earned in your business and life? Yeah, that's a great question too, because we've managed to do functions.
We've managed to hold lunches with our clients on. Full Bartercard of restaurants and then we split them over a couple of weeks was one of our initiatives to get all of our clients to come and have lunch with us, to reward them and also to showcase our business. So we chose a really nice restaurant and we just made a campaign to that over a couple of weeks to get all of our clients there.
Obviously people can't fly in from overseas, but yeah, we had all of our clients from Queensland, uh, new South Wales, and mainly from Melbourne as well. Flew in and all had lunch with us on Bartercard. That's amazing. Um, now from your experience in security, you've just given us [00:04:00] some pretty alarming statistics.
What, uh, trends or opportunities should business owners be looking at at the moment? Yeah, well, Bartercard's integral part of our business. So we could accept Bartercard to be monitoring or to install alarms, cameras, access control, and the like. So those electronic products we, we mainly install now and, um, Bartercard's a great way to utilize those dollars.
And then, you know, we can also attract our own customers on referral basis via Bartercard customers as well. Huh. Fantastic. Now you've been in business for over 30 years. Yes, 37 years. Wow. Uh, what are three practical tips that you could give our listeners that that's helped you with your longevity in business?
Yeah. Practical. Well, you know, when you get a lot of opportunities given to you, it comes from hard work. So you've, you've gotta be ethical, you've gotta be real, you, you've gotta have [00:05:00] ethics in business. And that, that then goes to credibility and longevity for me, uh, personally running this business now.
So I'm old, but I'm unexperienced. There's a reason and um, you know, sometimes for me, in the early days when I was going around and knocking on doors personally, it was a 48 nose. It was the two yeses that you got that made the difference. So don't be deterred by receiving a no from a potential customer.
That customer may realize their, their value in a year or two years, or down the track, but it's the relationships that we've built. So, you know, as I said. A, it's your credibility. Know what you're doing, um, then your longevity and then keep trying. Don't give up. It's my attitude. I have the will to win, I'll win.
And then the last thing is have a great product. So it really goes in a triangle. People, products, services. That's a fantastic answer. I'm sure a lot of people will get a lot of value from hearing your tips on [00:06:00] that. What's kept you motivated all of these years? Well, I mean, I'm, I'm a very competitive person.
I have to say that being competitive in the sporting field, which I was playing a FL contact sport sailing, um, I've maintained that, uh, that will, and that drive and that ambition to actually, I think businesses like sport. So I've always maintained that where you have. The attitude you have the will to win, you'll win.
I might, you might not be globally successful, but on a small scale that I've got in Australia, we're completely successful in our business. So I just applied those attitudes and attributes sport in my early sporting career, um, to business. And, uh, it's worked for me. Amazing. Andrew, can you tell us about some of the key products and things like that that you highly recommend businesses look into?
Like coming through you? Um, is it [00:07:00] enough to just have like security cameras or are you going to need more than that at your home and business these days? Once again, it's a great question because the answer to that specifically is that you need a holistic approach when looking at a property. When I go into a, an audit, a security audit for a business or a residential property, so I look at the foliage, the, the, the layout of the property, the lighting.
Then we look at, okay, if there's offenders gonna enter the property, which way are they gonna come from? They're gonna come from the waterfront. Where they're gonna come from the street over fences. So look, cameras are gonna show you what happens after the effect, even though you can monitor your cameras and have them mow over to your phone.
But intrusion motion detected alarms is a key to protecting your property, whether it's a factory or residential property. And you can get pet immune sensors, they'll ignore any pets under 28 and 48. Um, sorry, 28 kilo, 14 kilo. So if you are [00:08:00] installing pet immune sensors for your property, you can leave your pets inside.
Oh, that's incredible. Has, how much has the technology changed just in the last five years? What big differences have you noticed? Yeah, plenty. Um, the difference in technology, mainly in the last five years has been, yeah, the motion sensors allowing you to have your pets in the house. Um, the cameras that are two-way cameras.
Flashing lights, audio, two way, giving off sirens, giving a warning, a verbal warning to leave the premises, and then having that push notification to our control room as a video verification of an offender being on site or you're having it push notification to your phone. So it's been incredible now that the cameras are so far advanced, even in the dark now, they're color cameras and motion activated.
That's insane, isn't it? I remember, uh, my dad was riding to security when we were growing up and we just had, you know, that big alarm thing, but it wasn't hooked up to the power because if it was hooked up to the [00:09:00] power, they could cut the power and still break in. And like, there wasn't even really much in the way of security cameras.
Like now you can get a, a camera on your doorbell. Correct even to see who's at your front door. Whereas back then it was just this big siren and when it went off, everyone in the street. Yeah. You know, they went crazy. So you would've seen and had to keep up with a lot of the advancements, wouldn't you? In the security space at what is the latest technology, what is best for the individual premises as well?
Yeah. Well, advancement in technology is incredible now. So you look at the computers that we had 20 years ago, now you can run your office on your phone. So the advancement in technology on alarms as cameras, it's been amazing where the, the, the resolution of the. The identifying an offender. So facial recognition, number, plate recognition, all of these things are available to the actual public now, not just to government.
[00:10:00] We sell cameras that are approved by governments and um, forces, and they'll do. Video verification, they'll do facial recognition, number plate recognition, and you can track an offender automatically through a shopping center from the time they enter, from the time they exit. So it's incredible. Now, the technology that's available to the average business or the average residential home.
How often with how quickly the technology is moving, how often should people revisit the security systems that they've got? Because is it a, a set and forget or is it this is something we need to continually evolve? Definitely evolving. The products are evolving all the time, so technology is changing rapidly.
Where previously, you know, everything was stored on a tape. VHS, you know, now we have hard drives. Now we have the cloud, so everything's internet driven. And, um, the technology's so crystal clear. [00:11:00] So I could be sitting watching a person from a control room in a shopping center committing an offense, eeg, shoplifting, and the like.
Auto track that person from the time they entered the shopping center to the exit, and then save that footage, give it to police, and then hand the police a video verification of the offense that occurred. So Andrew, being a Bartercard member for over 30 years, what advice would you give someone if they were thinking about joining the Bartercard community?
Well, it's helped my business. Bartercard's been integral part of my business and now it's re-energized with Andrew Roski. Got a great team, brought back some previous staff. It's energized the whole business, so I can see that. It's gonna grow. I've heard radio advertising. Um, I've been to functions now with Bartercard, so it's getting back to the old school of doing business, um, face-to-face handshake and, um, in the cryptocurrency world or in the Bartercard world, I think it's gonna have a huge amount of success [00:12:00] going forward.
Fantastic. Well, Andrew, once again, thank you so much for being here. It's great having you in the studio with us today and, um, we wish you all a success in the rest of your career. Thank you very much and thank you Bartercard. Thank you for being with us today and sharing. Stories and expertise. If you wanna find out how Bartercard can help your business, or if you wanna be a guest on our future podcast, contact our team at hello@bartercard.com.
Make sure you tune in for our next episode of the Barter Edge.