Good Neighbor Podcast: Frisco

EP #232: Beekeepers to Pest Controllers: Mitchell And Monica Walters Journey With Home And Hive Pest Control

• Sophia Yvette

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What makes Mitchell and Monica Walters with Home and Hive Pest Control Good Neighbors?

Meet Mitchell and Monica Walters, the dynamic husband-and-wife team behind Home and Hive Pest Control, who are revolutionizing pest management in Frisco and surrounding communities. Their journey began in 2014 with a specialized focus on live honeybee removals, drawing from Monica's childhood experience helping her parents with beekeeping. What sets them apart? A customer-first philosophy that transformed their niche service into a comprehensive pest control company when clients kept asking for more.

The Walters bring refreshingly different backgrounds to pest control—both come from sales careers in unrelated industries, giving them unique perspectives on relationship building and customer service. Their approach challenges industry norms by focusing first on exclusion techniques rather than chemical treatments. "A lot of times we can solve customers' problems without using any chemicals at all," Mitchell explains. Their commitment to environmental responsibility extends to their 100% natural mosquito fogging service, protecting the honeybees they care deeply about while effectively eliminating pests.

Taking the entrepreneurial leap wasn’t easy. Mitchell left an 18-year IT sales career at Apple to join Monica in building Home and Hive Pest Control in 2023. Working together as spouses brings its challenges—Mitchell jokes that Monica has "fired" him about a hundred times since they started (and he's returned the favor twice). Yet this partnership has strengthened both their business and relationship. Their success stems from understanding what customers truly want: transparency, communication, and personalization.

What makes the Walters a good neighbor? It’s their belief that business isn’t just about transactions—it’s about trust. They show up with integrity, treat each home like it’s their own, and genuinely care about the families they serve. As Monica puts it, “Our customers' trust is everything to us.”

To learn more about Home and Hive Pest Control, go to: https://homeandhivepestcontrol.com/

Home and Hive Pest Control

972-439-6037

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Sophia Yvette.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a pest control company? Well, one may be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbors Mitchell and Monica Walters with home and Hive pest control. Mitchell, Monica, how are you guys doing today?

Speaker 3:

good doing good.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having us on today yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on and we're excited to learn all about you in your company. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I would love to so. Like you mentioned, my husband Mitchell and I we own Home and Hive Pest Control. We service the Frisco area and surrounding communities. But we're not just your average pest control company. We actually, before we got into pest control, we both came from sales backgrounds in completely different industries and really learned a lot about the importance of building relationships rather than just selling a service. And so we came at pest control kind of with that in mind and asked ourselves you know, what would we want as pest control customers and sort of build the company around that. And so we focus on problem solving rather than just, you know, kind of applying the same service for every house, and really focus on customer service.

Speaker 2:

Amazing, and how did you guys get into this business?

Speaker 3:

So we actually started Home and Hive back in 2014. And at that time we only did live honeybee removals. So growing up my parents kept bees as a hobby. We had a couple of hives and I was kind of out there helping them, you know, just interested in that whole little ecosystem. And then just some shifts in how people you know were dealing with bee issues and people started realizing that extermination of honeybees is not good for the environment and not the best solution for your home either.

Speaker 3:

So there became like a real need for live bee removal and so back in 2014, opened Home and Hive doing just that and we found a real niche market of people that did not want to exterminate the hives and we offered a exceptional level of just customer service communication, just really ran the business how we would want to be treated and got a reputation for doing really great work in the bee removal area.

Speaker 3:

And then people just started asking, while we were there treating their beehives, if we could help them with their pest control. And enough people brought it up over long enough that we talked together and Mitchell had the idea of coming and joining the company and opening up a pest control branch, because pest control sometimes doesn't have the best reputation for customer service, and that was the biggest complaint that we were seeing is just, you know, people weren't getting the information they wanted or the communication that they needed, or even knowing what was being done to their house, and we just felt like, with our backgrounds, we could bring a whole new level of service to that. So in 2023, he left his 18 year IT sales career and we kind of jumped in to pest control.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's amazing. And so what is the most common myth or misconception you both typically come across?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'll take that one.

Speaker 4:

So the biggest one I think, even coming to this industry from our background that Monica mentioned, was just that exterminators come and spray a bunch of chemicals all over your house and then kill.

Speaker 4:

You know everything in sight and so what we've actually found after doing a lot of research over the past year or so around different chemicals and different ways to apply pesticides and there's a lot of natural ways out there as well that that's really not the case With us.

Speaker 4:

Specifically, we take a very targeted approach. A lot of times we can solve customers' problems without using any chemicals at all, even just doing simple exclusions on garage doors for rodents getting in your garage or squirrels getting in your attic, doing exclusions there and just general bugs coming in through weep holes. You know exclusion's a big part of this and really the chemical piece is kind of the last defense that we that we apply um just to make sure that your home's safe from any bugs that could come in and harm your family um or cause, you know, undue stress, and even with our mosquito fogging that we do that's 100% natural. So we're not spraying, you know, a bunch of chemicals all in the air and harming the honeybee population, which is a big part of our business. We're really applying natural products in that area as well, so our goal is really to always take the safest and most efficient approach, for both our customers and the environment.

Speaker 2:

So who are your target customers and, in terms of marketing, how do you attract them?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll take that one.

Speaker 3:

So our target customers are typically people that have used other pest control services in the past and just not been satisfied, for whatever reason, with that service.

Speaker 3:

So you will not see us, you know, out knocking on your door offering, you know, the cheapest service possible.

Speaker 3:

But we really focus on exceptional value in what you're getting, and we found that if we could come in and have a professional, courteous, you know tech that comes to your door on time and performs a really thorough service and informs you about everything that was done, people become a lot less focused on getting the cheapest pest control that they possibly can when they feel good about they're actually getting what they paid for, and so that's really been our selling point. And so, unfortunately, the people had to have kind of a bad experience to see some of the value in what we bring. But luckily, most people have tried a pest control service at some point, and so those are really our ideal customers. And then, as far as getting new customers, I mean word of mouth is huge for us and that's our favorite way to gain new customers, just because you know it Google AdWords through some print advertising, lots of social media and apps, you know like Nextdoor and Street Fair are huge for us too.

Speaker 2:

Let's go ahead and switch gears for a second. Can either of you describe a hardship or life challenge you overcame and how it made you better and stronger today, what comes to mind for you?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'll take that one. So I think the biggest thing for us was you know, monica and I've been together for probably a pop quiz, but like over 20 years now.

Speaker 4:

So we've we've kind of done life together, but I think our biggest thing that we had to overcome was really starting this business. Like Monica mentioned earlier, I had a really stable, great job in IT sales. I was actually working at Apple at the time as part of our healthcare and life sciences team and phenomenal company. Great career, great people that I was working with. But we really felt this need to you know I was traveling a lot and felt this need to for me to be home more. We had a son, so we were wanted to spend more quality time with him. But I think just taking that leap of faith and starting this business was huge for us.

Speaker 4:

Also, being a husband and wife duo makes it adds a little extra layer of challenges there. Monica's fired me I don't know a hundred times probably since we started this together and I think I've her twice. But, um, you know we're, we're in it together and it's been fun. It's been a great growing experience for us and, um, it's really been one of the best moves that we've made. Um, so, like with any hardship, there's always good to be found in it and we've definitely found the good and, uh, it's been, it's been a fun little journey.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's amazing, and it sounds like through the journey, it's certainly strengthened your marriage too. So that's, please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about home and high pest control.

Speaker 3:

I think probably the most important thing if you get one thing from this podcast is just how much we truly care about our customers. It's not just a list of names to us, we really get to know our customers and tailor our pest control services for them. We're constantly thinking about how we can make each experience better. So every time that we leave a job or we talk to one of our techs, you know it's how could we have done that better, smoother, make it more efficient, add a more personalized touch. You know that's really what keeps us up at night. It's not you know, it's not so much the financial or the operations side of the business. It's really what is our customer experiencing and how can we make that better. And our customer's trust is everything to us and we work really hard every day to gain that trust and then to keep it.

Speaker 2:

And where can our listeners go to learn more about Home and Hive Pest Control?

Speaker 3:

So we have a ton of information on our website. It's just homeandhivepestcontrolcom. The best way if you have questions is email or phone. We love talking to our customers and we probably spend way more time than we should on the phone going over all kinds of questions about bees and other bugs. And you can also find us on social media. We have Facebook, instagram, tiktok, and so we try to post as many videos there as we can and basically anywhere you look, you should be able to find us.

Speaker 2:

Well, Mitchell and Monica, I really appreciate you both being on this show. We wish you and your business the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, it's a pleasure being here.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPFriscocom. That's GNPFriscocom, or call 469-221-9345. © transcript Emily Beynon.