Why is pest control the best industry? Each tech can service >$400k in a year Quarterly services cost $125 and take 20 minutes to complete Compare it to trash pickup where they charge $40 a month and service weekly. Labor is cheap Products are cheap Margins are insane

Everyone says hire slow and fire fast. We do the opposite. We hire fast and do our best to develop people and give them every opportunity to be successful. Last month, a new tech had a tough first day on his own and didn’t show up for day two. Most companies would fire him immediately. We talked to him, said we believed in him, and wanted to work together. He’s been a great employee and addition to the team. Yesterday after the team bbq, he thanked us for treating him like a human being and gave me and my business partner a bunch of plants. Firing slow has given us some headaches but it has also been one of the most rewarding parts of running our business.

We had a company bbq today to celebrate a record month in May. 87% year over year increase means ribeyes for everyone. Smoked in the traeger then seared in the grill. We made 18 of these bad boys for employees and their spouses at our first location. Also broke out the old school coke cooler. We’ve doubled revenue every year for 4 years. Year 5 looks to be no different.

When we were doing less than $1 million in revenue we were getting calls from searchers and PE companies every few weeks asking if we wanted to sell. We haven’t had that happen once in the last 8 months. Has the market cooled off or have we just successfully told enough people we are asking $12 million? And that is true. We are for sale for $12 million. When we get that offer we will accept it. Whether that’s tomorrow or 10 years from now.

The new company in town knocked this street yesterday. Our rep had 3 sales before anybody even mentioned her. There’s levels to this. It’s a bad day to wake up and compete with us.

On my 6th day of posting reels on instagram, one of them popped off for 25k views. I have been chasing that high ever since. Very different algorithm. Anybody seeing success posting reels? I am posting similar type of content as I do on this app without recycling content. Just seeing very little traction.

This is an honest question. What makes us different from the company in town that charges $75 flat fee any size property? They are using terrible, old equipment which makes the job take longer. A plastic pump can has a 1 gallon capacity. Our battery operated backpacks put out 3-4 gallons by the time we walk around the house. We can do that quickly and knock down cobwebs and wasp nests while junior across the street is still pumping his jug. They use old trucks that break down and are unreliable. That means rescheduling or showing up late. We show up on time. Our office is staffed and we answer the phone. Mr $75 bucks has one office person and she’s overwhelmed and missing half the calls and taking two days to respond to emails. They don’t offer a warranty. We come out within 48 hours if you need a warranty service. We have licenses for wildlife, termites, and general pests. We’re trained to identify issues and we can handle other pest problems in house and quickly. We use better products. We have the resources and the energy to stay up to date on the newest products and equipment. Our software allows us to put in notes, upload pictures, and send reminders/reports before and after services. Part of our value is what happens during the time we are on site. A lot of the magic happens the other 89 days 23 hours and 40 minutes between services.

My business partner finally came out of the anonymous closet! And to do it during #pridemonth makes it even more special. He’s been a great business partner and has some fun stories about D2D sales, owning the company, and handling customers that smell like cat piss and cigarettes. Give him a follow!

I walk the walk and talk the talk. A door to door salesman came by selling books. We bought them. Small price to pay to support essential workers.

The absolute best thing I have done for the business is find a local mobile mechanic. He’s a young guy that has great availability. Our vehicles are fairly new and don’t have a ton of problems but when they do, I don’t have to tow them to the shop. He comes to our office or meets us in the field and gets them up and running. Every shop I’ve ever called says stuff like “it might be two weeks before I can even look at it.” I called our mobile guy yesterday at 5 and said a truck was overheating. He’s in our parking lot right now getting it fixed. We also have a backup vehicle so we will miss $0 in revenue. I’m also pretty sure we are his biggest client so when I call him he clears his schedule to get our trucks worked on.

People will hate on this kid but I can promise he makes 6 figures in between May 1st and August 15th. Sounds like he nailed the pitch. Bandwagon effect - everybody is doing it. Creates urgency and fomo. Double option close - gets the customer to choose between yes and yes rather than giving yes/no options Assumed the sale - if you’re timid and assume nobody wants to sign up, they probably won’t. Assume they want it, and they do Followed up - came back the next day and tried to close again Resilience - believes that every no gets you closer to a yes and moved on the next house. I have 6 reps on my team that are on pace for 6 figures. One has already cleared that amount. Door to door salesman are the backbone of the economy. They create local jobs and boost GDP!

Over the next 12 months our company is going to need changes that honestly are outside of my realm. I may need to find a real mentor or pay a consultant or something. Simple things that will have a big impact: - emails - currently we have one office email but I am seeing a growing need to split into general, sales, and billing. Will need to navigate the best way to do this and how to have office staff monitor it - similarly, need to start hiring specialists instead of generalists but need help deciding when and how. - cyber security - need a better system to allow everybody to login to these emails and software but not have to change all passwords every time we have turnover - need better ways to not be so severely over or understaffed in the office especially if we start hiring more specialists - starting to do more project work and need to find better ways to integrate that into scheduling around recurring work A lot of good problems to have. If we made no changes and kept rolling how we are we could keep growing to $10 million in revenue but it would be terribly inefficient and a bigger headache than it should be.

Mathematically, renting and investing makes more sense. In reality, 50% of Americans couldn’t pay a $500 emergency out of pocket. They don’t have the self control to invest any extra money. Buying a home is forced savings. Homeowners on average have a net worth in the end of $430k while renters only $10k. Social security is also forced savings and without it most Americans would retire with absolutely nothing. Buying a home is the better decision for most people even though mathematically they could see a better return elsewhere.

Had some family in town so we made lunch for everyone.

All of our office staff make a good hourly wage for the area ($20 ). On top of that, they get a commission on all sales. We used to do 5% on recurring sales only. That led to office staff only pitching recurring deals and killing the sale if the customer wouldn’t sign up. We switched to 3% commission on all sales and it has properly aligned incentives. Most of our staff is making $700 every month on commissions which equates to ~$4 an hour.

Pest Control Magazine dropped their top 100 list for this year. A lot of exciting acquisitions have happened this year shaping up the top 100. In 2002 the lowest company in the list did $2.6 million in revenue. This year you had to do $9.5 million to make the list.

Last year we did our workers comp insurance and made our best estimate on how much we’d do in payroll. Then we grew super fast and acquired 3 companies and went way over that estimate. We got our audit this spring and paid the difference. My question is this: Is it a sound business practice or insurance fraud to understate payroll estimates and just pay at the end of the year. What we did was not intentional at all but the insurance company basically insured us all year and let us pay at the end.

We had a customer twist a story a little bit and feel they were wronged. They left bad reviews on Google, Yelp, and bashed us on Facebook. Several customers sent me this post on a Facebook group and made me aware of it. The majority of the comments were our customers saying we are a good service and backing us up. Feels good to know that the community has our back and we are making a positive impact in most homes.

Just got word a competitor is moving their sales team into our market very soon. Little do they know we’ve been preparing for them to come here since 2024. They’re a regional company. Good size. Lots of resources. They are going to hate it here. I was feeling a little burnt out/bored recently but this gives me new life for the summer. I live for this competition.

The property management company I tweeted about earlier today actually just emailed us and added all 12 properties. $50k in recurring revenue added today. We will also do at least that much revenue in bed bug and German roach services each year. All from a cold email.

Following up on this! Initially, they added one building to test us out. ARR- $2100 This week they added two more buildings that need weekly services. Total ARR- $12,396 As they get familiar with us, they will likely add most of these buildings which will end up being over $100k in annual revenue. I paid a kid on fiverr $50 to scrape these emails for me and send 3 total blasts. We will be leaning into this method a lot harder over the next 12 months.