How a Simple Pest Control Idea Turned Into a Real Business | Matt Deroest | Mobile Podcast Trailer | Ep: 12

What happens when someone accidentally becomes a business owner?

In this episode of the Mobile Podcast Trailer, host Jesse Fitton Smith sits down with Matt Deroest, owner of Ultimate Pest, to talk about building a pest control company from the ground up.

Matt shares the real story behind why he started the business, how he grew it in Arizona, and what it’s actually like running a home service company. From unexpected opportunities to powerful networking moments—including a lunch with the former CEO of Blue Origin—this conversation dives into the mindset, risks, and lessons that come with entrepreneurship.

This podcast is for creatives, builders, and business owners who started something small and suddenly realized they were running a real company.

If you've ever wondered:

• How to start a pest control business
 • What it takes to run a home service company
 • How entrepreneurs build networks and opportunities
 • The realities of small business ownership

Follow Matt: https://www.instagram.com/ultimatepest/ or https://www.instagram.com/deroestmatt/

This episode is for you.

The Mobile Podcast Trailer travels around Phoenix interviewing entrepreneurs, creators, and local business owners who are building something meaningful.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And he kind of sat there for a second and he was like, oh. Okay. And he was quiet. And then he said, you know, can I get back to you on that? I was like, really? Okay. He's like, I just don't want to give you a BS answer. I want to, I want to like actually think of who you should know.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Okay. I appreciate that. That's good. Out of the blue, like two or three weeks later, he texts me. He's like, hey, I found the person. It's like, really? And keep in mind, I don't have any agenda. Right. I don't care if it's for business. I don't, I just who's somebody that I should know. Right. And he said, hey, I'm I'm vacationing in Belize right now. I said, yeah. He said, I ran in to the CEO of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos rocket ship company. I was like, that's cool. He's like, yeah, he agreed to have lunch with you. I was like, what? He's like, he lives in Phoenix. He just retired as the CEO, moved down from Seattle. He lives in Phoenix. And I was telling him about your pest control company. I was like, really? Where does he want to have lunch? I'm there. Yeah. So I gotta spend two hours. I bought lunch, and I gotta spend two hours uh with Robert Smith, the ex-CEO of Reward.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

So my name's Jesse. Welcome to the mobile podcast trailer. I am here with my friend Matt. And I don't even know how to say his last name. De Roost. De Roost. Yeah, like Rooster. Yep. De Roost. The Roost is on fire. I'm sure he's heard that before. That's right. That's right. Um hey, uh, thanks for joining us today. Uh, Matt is the owner of Ultimate Pest. And if you've never watched or listened to this podcast, this podcast is for dreamers, risk takers, those who started something creative, but ended up realizing that they own a business. They didn't have any intention of being an entrepreneur, but we've ended up here. If you are one of those persons that all of a sudden found yourself running contracts creatively or even uh home service-wise, and you're like, How the heck did I get here? This podcast is for you. And so we've been talking for quite a while. Um so maybe this is where we'll start the podcast, but we've been going for a half hour already. Um and man, I'm all I'm already pumped about this conversation. Um and honestly, like we could have just kept going. And I didn't even need to interrupt what we were already doing. It's all good, man. But like so you moved here six years ago. Yep. Um at that point, you had one kid? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chandler. Um, which is funny because you didn't have Chandler in Chandler.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

No, we didn't know there was a city called Chandler.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

So you you then moved to Arizona close to Chandler. Yeah. Um, and all right, that's clear.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

That was one of the prerequisites. We were like, we can't live in Chandler. We can live in Gilbert.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

We have to live in Gilbert. Um, we can't live in Chandler. Yeah. That's funny because he was born in Chandler and so is my oldest daughter. Oh, that's amazing. Um but um at Chandler Regional. That's funny. So let's go with um this. So we're we're gonna talk everything that Matt is open to. He says he's an open book, so which is rad. Um, but we're gonna start pretty simple. I'll do a softball question for you. Um, where did the desire to start a pest control company come from?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I I'll give you a short answer and then I'll I'll go back to it a little bit. Uh it's a lucrative industry, it makes a lot of money. I have no interest in pests whatsoever. Um, so the desire came out of owning a business that we can grow in scale and eventually not be an active owner in. So that's like the short answer.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Active owner meaning you're not going on the day-to-day spraying jobs.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

I not even operationally in the office. I don't want anything to do with it long term. Like I want to own it and I want nobody to know that.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Everybody, you want to put everybody else in control.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah. Eventually. Like that's long-term goal. Um, I'm not a great operational manager. Um, there's a lot of people that do that way better than I do. I I just am an entrepreneur at heart. And so I want to be able to have something that that writes me a check every month that I can go have fun, go start other businesses, do something. But um, pest control. The the the long answer is I was always in landscaping in Idaho. I had an expiration date at every job that I ever had before I even started. Like either, you know, 18, I don't know, can I cuss on here? A little bit. I'll keep it, I'll put it mild. Keep it to a mile. I'll keep it mild. You know your son's here. Um, but either they would get sick of my crap at 18 months and and fire me, or I'd get sick of theirs and kick rocks. So 18 to 20 months was about that time frame. Okay. And so I'd always had side gigs where I just, you know, I would fix sprinklers, I would mow lawns, whatever I could do. And going through high school, I had 80 residential mowing accounts. So, you know, most of my teachers in high school, I was making more money than them. And I had a hard time listening.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

I was like, Bro, you and me both. Yeah. I just I just wasn't making money. I was just trying to play music.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

You know, same same as a result. I was just like, why am I why am I listening to you when when I'm working after school and making, you know, 60 grand a year or 80 grand a year? So I had a hard time with that. Um, you know, I graduated with a 1.8 GPA.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Um, I think I was pretty close to you.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, right. Like they they made me take a test, and it's called an option two test in at the voices school district. They said this is called an option two test, Matt. And we can't graduate anybody that has less than a 2.0. But if you take this test and you pass with a like a 90% or above, we will we will let you pass whatever your GPA is. And I was like, oh, challenge accepted. I missed one question on the 100 question test. Passed with a 99. And they were like, all right, we'll we'll pass you. Um and so like I just always been mowing lawns, didn't really care about school, was not going to go to college because I couldn't stand pain for four years of what I just went through. Yeah. So I mowed lawns, you started working at a landscape company, still doing my stuff on the side again. That 18, 12 to 18 months, 12 to 24 months like work somewhere, uh, quit get fired. And and then quite honestly, it was like getting fired. Like because I I could stay somewhere and bear the pain. Yeah, you could do the bare minimum. Yeah, I could do the bare minimum and just like go do my own thing. Yep. Um, so I get fired most of the time. And then I I got fired from this job. And this is the only job that like I quit right as he was telling me I was fired. Okay. Like I I walk in one morning, I'm like four minutes late. I'm a manager, my team's waiting on me. My boss is like, Matt, come here. I'm typing up my email before he could pull me into his office, letting all my clients know that I quit and I didn't got fired, didn't get fired. And he's in the office. He's like, Hey, Matt, you're I'm like, hey man, I quit. And he was like, get out of here. I'm like, yes, that's good. So um long story, long story. So I went to go work by myself, just doing like sprinkler repairs. Run into this guy named Gordon. I love him to death. He's a great guy. Still do work for him once a year. And he had a son named Matt that owned a utility company. And he needed somebody to come do the landscaping for the utility company. So when they come in and they do J-U-T joint utility trench, they would mess up all the landscaping that's already there. So he was like, I wanna, I wanna own something where we can come and do the landscaping afterwards, but it's our company. I was like, I'm your guy, I can help you. So he hired me on at like 48 bucks an hour hourly, not salary. Okay. And had me come run this landscape company. Well, I don't know about you, but $48 an hour at like 26 years old is a ton of money. Yeah. So I was just, I wasn't stupid with it, but I probably had bigger of a head than what I should have. Yep. That lasted about five and a half months, and I got fired the day after Christmas in 2019. And um, he said, Hey, I just think I made a mistake. I probably paid you too much money, and I just realized I don't want to be in the landscape business at all. It's like, yeah, fair enough. Sounds good. So I looked at my wife. We had one kid, she was 18 months old at that point, or just over a year old. And I said, Well, we've been talking about moving to Arizona. You want to go? And she had a job at uh Reliable Credit, which is like uh high interest audit loans. Okay. She's like, Yeah, let's let's go. So within three weeks, we lived here and I didn't have a job. She got a job, Chase, and um, I started Crown Lawn and Pest as soon as we moved here because I knew whatever we were gonna do, I was gonna eventually own my own thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Like working for somebody else is just not in my blood. So I started Crown Lawn and Pest, and I named it that because in Idaho, people care about what their lawn look like. Uh, and I just didn't realize the whole situation here. Nobody, nobody has a lawn. And if they do have a lawn, they don't care if it has weeds or not.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Right. They just something's they they just want the the weeds not to be there. Yeah. And they're but they're not gonna do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Right. And if you have grass, like that's just a blessing to have grass. It doesn't matter what it looks like. So I uh so I started that and then I started working at Caretaker Landscape, big red trucks, huge company, largest privately owned landscape company here in Arizona.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yep, I see them all around.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, and so I started working there as an account manager, and then fast forward four and a half years, I I make it up to where I'm running their water tree and their spray department, all three departments. I'm running that, and um, like the time had come.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

I was just like, hey, you had lasted the longest.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

It was four and a half years. Yeah, like every month, me and my wife were looking at each other like is this okay? Like have have we gone too far? Yeah, like is uh are they talking about like getting rid of you? Like, and I'm like, no, I'm the I'm the poster child. They love me there. And just because like I knew what butts to kiss. Right. So you knew how to do it. I knew how to do it to where they would leave me alone about doing my own thing. So I had built Crown Loan and Pest up to maybe seven or eight thousand dollars a month consistently in gross revenue. And they were paying me really well at Caretaker. I think my base salary was 130 and then bonuses on top of that. So the fact that we were making eight grand and then I was making more than that at my job, life was good. Life was good, but the time had come, like I we did a cruise to Alaska, just to guys in my truck in my family, and I came back and my boss had a British accent, and he was the reason why I would leave. And he came into my office talking his British accent, and I was like, oh, today's the day. Like, it's it's today. So I like as he's leaving my office, I'm typing my resignation. Uh, I gave him 30 days, they let me work the 30 days. But September 6th of 2024 was my last day employed. And then we went up to Mount Rushmore, had a nice weekend with the family, and then we started full time in in pest control. So that's kind of the long story behind it. Love it. But it's it's been great, man. It's it's a whirlwind. My my wife stays home. You know, we were talking earlier about how she she homeschools. We have four kids. We got Chandler, who's seven, uh, Maverick, who is turning five in May, and then we have Morgan, two and a half, and then Micah, who's eight or nine months. So um, Chandler's the only one that is actively in school, but Maverick's right there.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

So yeah, just about to to get it started.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Exactly. So she's able to do that. She's been able to stay home since Maverick was a couple months old. So that's been a super huge blessing. Um and yeah, that's I mean, that's why we started doing our own thing is so we could have more options, you know. Right. Um, jobs don't pay you what you're worth, jobs pay you the least amount to replace you. Yep. And you know, I wanted to be able to control a lot of that future. And the only way you're gonna do that in America or anywhere is like own your own thing and and and make your own destiny. And so that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

That's rad. I love it, man. Dude, so um with a home service, is it is it safe to say it's a home service? Um with a home service business, there is a cap for each truck that you have. Sure. Yeah. Um, because an individual could can only service so many accounts each day. Um what's your cap per truck? And you know, what's what's kind of the the um the breaking point for each of your like how many employees do you have?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Currently we have four.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Okay. Yeah. Um full-time.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Uh uh, three and a half. So three and a half. One guy's part-time. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah. Um, and so does that mean you have four little um uh mavericks running around? Yeah. Which by the way, I think is the mavericks like one of the coolest trucks because it's a zippy little thing. It it's so fuel efficient from from what I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

And it's pretty powerful. I actually think that it probably could pull this trailer.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

It might be able to. It it's it's uh rated for 2,000 pounds. The problem is the tongue weight. The tongue rate is only weighted for 200 pounds, and you can get 200 pounds on a tongue real quick. So yeah. Uh, I've looked into it because I was gonna buy a trailer instead of another vehicle. And uh, but yeah, they're they're nice trucks, man. I like them. So I uh I have two Mavericks, one tundra and one van.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

And you you just recently got the van, or you just recently got it wrapped?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah, a couple weeks ago we just bought it. So we bought that one cash and just bought it from Cox Communications. Um, they were they cycle out their fleet like every seven years. So that's cool. It's uh 2018 Ram ProMaster. Um, I've never had one of those little vans, and it's it's got his dings and scrapes and issues, but it it'll do the job for you. Hey, you wrapped it, it looks good.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah. Um, so like what's what's the cap rate on I don't even know if I'm using the right word for that, but like what's the max that you know what's let's start with that.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah. So grow gross revenue last year I had one technician and he was able to do 375 grand. So if you you know that's about 30 grand a month. Um, that's very high in the in the industry in pest control. Yeah. Um we we typically try to get 1500 bucks a day on that truck. And again, that's that's higher than than most pest control companies. But we offer a different service offering than most pest control companies. We do a lot of pigeons. Pigeons are very lucrative. Nobody wants to do them. Right. There's pigeon poop, there's issues with that. So um, because we we do those other offerings, termites, pigeons, rodents, we can increase that daily ticket average pretty high. Um, but my goal out of the truck, like I want to see it. If I can hit this, I'm good, is $25,000 per truck per guy.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Okay. Per per month.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Per month.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

$25,000. And that'll put me at the $300,000. Yep. Yeah, per year. So if I can hit that, I'm good. And so we have one technician that does all of my weed control right now, and and he's a little bit higher than that. And then we have one technician that does all of my general pests and birds, and he's right about the 25. And then I have a part-time guy um who's doing weeds, and he's, you know, he's probably on the lower end, he's probably about a thousand bucks a day. And then I have one office staff. So we got four trucks, but three technicians out there doing all the work.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

That's awesome. Yeah. And so is there, is there a um a point where you go, okay, I need to add another person? How many accounts? I guess I should ask it this way, how many accounts are you running monthly?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah. So I'm not going to give you the answer you want because of the business model. We only run about 300 monthly accounts, 300 stops. Because we do pigeons, rodents, termites, and the probably 40% of our business is weed control. So, weed control, we have two avatars. We have residential weed control at homes, and then we go after landscape companies that can't do it all in-house. So, because I have a background in landscape, I was able to kind of talk their language and I know a lot of the people in the industry. So, I could go to a big company like a caretaker that's doing 50 million a year and say, hey, when you get busy, call me and I'll just send my guy to come help. You don't have to hire a whole nother guy, get a whole nother truck, just utilize me as you see fit when when needed. So what's the point that we need another guy? You know, this month we're going to be running Reddit 95,000 in gross revenue. If we can duplicate that again next month, we need another guy. Yeah. So, because we're we're just, you know, if you're hitting 25,000 per person at three people, that's 75 grand. I'm running 95 this month, and it's just a little, it's a little too much. It's a little bit too much. Yeah. So if we can if we can duplicate that again, we'll put somebody else in the truck.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

So you'll buy another truck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yeah, it's it's kind of nuts. It's, you know, I think most pest control companies, you know, are are probably running 15 to 20 grand per truck per month. And once they get probably close to 13 to 15, they're looking at buying another one. Um, but again, it it all just depends because there's two different types of companies. There's ones that want volume and are the cheap guys, and then there's ones that don't, and they're they're, you know, 150 bucks on a on one service and they only do eight stops in a day, versus this other company might do 17 stops in a day and they're 60 bucks a service.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

So it it all averages out, yeah. But it's it's dependent on what type of company they are.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, for sure. And we're definitely the the red-headed stepchild in this industry. Most companies are just trying to get residential doors. How many doors can they do? Um, and for the most part, if you can get a quarter of a million dollars a year per truck, they're pretty happy. We we want to see, like I said, we want to see that up to about 300 just because of our extras.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

That's crazy. Yeah. So um if you had to close up shop on your current business, yeah, and let's just say you had um let's say you sold it off. Yeah. And within the cell, you had an agreement that you couldn't enter into pest control again. Sure. Um, what what other business because you you you said it earlier, you're you're an entrepreneur and you want to be able to exit, you know, basically the day-to-day at some point. So what's what's another thing that you would go and do?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I really like um light industrial real estate. So stuff that's like, you know, uh metal buildings, metal buildings, 2,000 square foot shop with a small office. Yeah. I'd probably start investing in some of those. Um, if I had to do something that was more, you know, service-based, I would probably, you know, I I don't know here in town. There's a there's a couple different things that have floated through my head. Um landscape companies are great, but they don't make a lot of money. I've thought about that. And and here in town, there's a lot of just know-name guys that make bare minimum. Um something in home services is is always good. Honestly, if I had to start over, I would probably start like an electrical company, like an electrician for home services. Um, but I wouldn't be the electrician. Right. Because I just think there's gonna be such a need for it. Everything is electric nowadays. You know, everything in your house, everything like data centers, industrial buildings, like, and I think there's gonna be a huge shortage of that. Yeah. So I think that would be really good. But you know, I've always liked real estate. Real estate's been a lot of fun. Um, I don't own anything right now other than a house, but you know, the light industrial or storage, storage units, I think, have always been a great thing. Yeah. Um, and then apartment complexes, I think, are great.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Yeah, I think I think one of the things that I would like to do is um like uh raw land and then throw like connex boxes on them and and use those as storage facilities. Oh yeah, that'd be cool. So building out like you know, adding doors to let's say we can get 20 connects. Boxes on there that are 40 or 50 feet, and then you just section them off in you know 10 square feet capacities and do that doors on them.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Have you seen what U-Haul does?

SPEAKER_02 22:14

No.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

U-Haul.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Well, maybe I have, but I haven't realized it.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

U-Haul will take their old box fans and they'll take the box off of them and put them on ground and sell that as storage units. Oh. So if they're not worthy for the road, but they're worthy to just sit there, that's what they'll do.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah. It's like there's one in Idaho that I know specifically that's like a whole section of their lot is just extra storage and it's just the box fans.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Oh wow. Yeah. So crazy. That's insane. Yeah. But you U-Haul is one of one of the great companies that you they're they've always been there. Yeah. And you don't really realize how much money they're actually making. Oh, it's bizarre. But it's so much money. I don't even know the numbers. Yeah. Um, give me give me the top five tasks that must be done in order to have a successful business.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Okay. Um I think you got the hire the right people. Uh you need to you don't know everything, and you need to realize that pretty quick. So hire the right people that that are smarter than you. I think a lot of people hire people that are just dumber than them, and that's not the right move. Like, hire people that know how to do the things that you want to get done better than you. So that's definitely one. Um I think you need to know you need to know your numbers and you need to be diving into them. So many people see this a lot with Facebook ads. People will run ads and be like, oh, I got a sale. It's like, well, how how many leads did you buy? What's your conversion rate? What's the booking rate? What's the cancellation rate? What what's all of the numbers leading up to that sale? Yeah. Oh shoot, you you lost a hundred bucks. It's right, you know, right. So I think knowing your numbers is critical. Um as a as a business owner, another thing you need to do is you need to be everywhere. Um networking is important, but it's it's super important. If one of the biggest compliments I can receive is when somebody calls me and says, Hey, you know everybody.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Where's I actually saw one of your posts that you said that you um you spoke about being a connector. Yeah. Um, which I I I am that person too. Um, I know, you know, I like knowing people. Yeah. It's like, you know, the coffee shop that we're at today. Yeah. Um I know the owner. Right. I've known the owner for, you know, probably the better part of 15 years. Right. Um he lives in my old neighborhood that I grew up in. Yeah. Like, um, that's so great. It's but that's the thing, is like being a connector, you know, is is an important piece. The part that I don't do is network enough. Yeah.

unknown 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

So I think if you can be everywhere, and it goes back to a little bit about what we were talking about with my social media strategies. Like, when you open your phone, I want my face to be the first thing you see. Um, but like in person too. You know, after this, I have a happy hour with commercial property managers. Commercial property managers like happy hours. I just need to be there. Like, yeah, you need to be there shaking hands and kissing babies because that's that's uh people need to see you. And and networking is that, you know, just going out and and not not networking to I love people when they network and they have this stack of business cards and they think they're gonna get rid of them. That's not networking. Like go go be out there and just have fun, be yourself, provide more value than what you're taking. And when the situation arises, make something happen. But don't don't be out there just trying to get 17 names and cards and you know, so I think that's critical. Um repeat the question one more time to make sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

So you're on three. Okay. Um uh the the five must-do tasks.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah. Um, you need to make sure that you're you anything that's regulatory by the state is done properly. Like if you're not setting up your taxes properly, not setting up your payroll properly, you don't have your correct insurances in place, uh, that like that's critical. You have to get that stuff done. Yeah. If uh if God forbid something happens and something's not in place, you're screwed. Um, we had a guy fall off the roof back in August. And the first thing that went through my head outside of his safety was, oh gosh. I remember getting a letter saying, hey, we haven't received your payment for your workman's comp insurance. And it was a mix-up with what account it was coming out of. So the first thing that went through my head was like, Do I have workman's comp insurance? Because if I wouldn't have, I would have been stuck with like a $300,000 bill with him falling off that roof. Right. And so just knowing, knowing your your stuff with that, I think is critical. Um, and then last thing, I think you need to have a vision that's bigger than yourself. I uh this is a tough topic for me. You follow anything Hermozzi does, Alan?

SPEAKER_02 27:34

A little, yeah. I know who he is, and I have the offer, the $100 million offers book.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Okay. So he he, if if if anybody follows him closely, he is just like, do more, work all the time, very much just like go get it, no matter what it takes. And if you're not at the office at four o'clock in the morning and nine p.m., what are you doing with your type of attitude, right? Right. So he sat down and did a podcast with um Tony Robbins recently. Yeah. Did you happen to listen to that? I've I caught some clips of it. I came away, I don't know Tony Robbins very well. I I know of him, I know what he does, but I haven't followed him. But I followed Himozy. And I came out of that so depressed, that podcast. Because here I am pretty much putting everything on hold except to build my business because it's my duty to build the business. Right. Because making a million dollars a year or making $10 million a year like is the goal.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And I have Alex Ramosi, who just made $106 million in 30 or 60 hours selling books, looking at Tony Robbins, saying, like, all right, coach, what's what now? Yeah. And what's the purpose of all of this? And I just came out of that and I was like, oh shoot. What is the purpose? You know, like if if he made $106 million in 60 hours and he's looking at Tony saying, I'm not happy, what's gonna happen when I hit a million dollars in revenue, $10 million in revenue? I look at my wife that is maybe there with the kids. And I'm like, hey, look what I did. And oh shoot, no, you you left.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

You know, and so that hit me really hard. So I think your vision has to be bigger than just making money. Yep. Um, and I'm going through that right now. Like I don't, I don't know what that is for me, but but having a crystal clear reason why you're doing the things that you're doing, because business is hard. Yep. And the problem is it's way harder than it is than you think it is. And it's harder in different ways than than you think it is. You think working all the time is hard. Uh it's worse. Yeah, it's worse than you think it is, I promise. And you know, um, Tommy Mello, who's here local, right? Yeah, yeah. I one garage. Yeah, he just he had a little short clip. He said, I wish people would stop promoting being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yes. Because three Oh, did you listen to that on my first million? I think yes, yes, I did. Yeah, yeah. And I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

And he and he just he was just like, it's for three or four percent of the population, and it is not glamorous. Yeah, you know, and so having something that's pulling you instead of you put you pushing to get there, I think is important.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Well, I I think that this is a good time to something something that is kind of like my my mission in this you know, mobile podcast trailer, the the podcast arm of it is like reminding people that like you are a miracle already. Yeah. Um I always say, you've already won the race. Like being born is is like one of the biggest miracles. Like, you've watched four kids be born, right? Right. Um I watched all four of my kids. My oldest daughter uh came out purple with her umbilical cord wrapped around her head three times. I had the scissors in my hands to cut the umbilical cord, and the doctor grabbed them from me and was like, sorry, not doing it this time. And well, and she, you know, she never showed any signs of distress in in all of the 22 hours of you know, birth. Yeah, right. Um and then you know, he came out like lightning. Um it was the fastest one. Still, you know, he's the fastest at everything in our in our family. Um and then I I watched my wife without any meds um birth or third. Yeah. Um, and I thought that I was gonna end up alone. Yeah. Um, and so like I I I tell you that like you're already living a miracle life just because you've made it this far. And I the the most important thing, and this is actually like one of my biggest faults is I am first a dad and first a husband and then a business owner.

SPEAKER_04 32:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

And so when I have clients that reach out to me and they're like, hey, you know, can you come right now and film? No. Right. No. Uh it's like three o'clock by the by three o'clock, we'll be home. Right. And my my work day is done. Yeah. Um, I'm not, I I work between the hours that like we went and worked out for two hours this morning, and then we're here, and then we'll be home. Right. And I'm done. Right. Um, and I know for a fact that Alex Hermosy would look at me and go, What do you think you're doing? You think you're gonna make a million a year? Right. And guess what? I actually don't think I want to make a million a year. Right. I'm pretty sure that I'd be pretty happy with 375,000. Right, right, right. Um, I think that I if I end up walking away from a year making, you know, my my best year, we've made all, you know, we made almost 200 grand. Yeah, right. Um, and it's just me and a couple of dudes making videos. Um it doesn't mean that I banked all that money. Oh, sure, sure. Um, it just means that I figured out how to get over a hundred grand. Um but I'm first theirs. Um, you know, I'm only gonna have one wife. Right. That is that is the commitment that I have made. Um, and so if I have to get a W-2 job at some point, right just to keep the the wife and the family happy and my wife home, then that's what I'll have to do. Um but the most important aspects of my life is being a dad, being a husband. Yeah. And I I admire those who strive for millions a year, but the only way that I'm gonna get to millions of a year is if I'm not doing that day to day.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Well, and I appreciate you bringing that up because it's I yeah, can I tell a quick story about that? So talk, you know, you know we're an hour and five in, but tell a story. So my my wife's from Georgia. Her mom is back there, and so is her sister. So her sister called her up Saturday, what today's Thursday. So this was Saturday afternoon. Left her a couple like voice memos, and it was just very obvious that she probably needed to hug her sister. So I looked at Gabby and I said, Do you do you need to go to Georgia? And she said, Yeah. Yeah, I think I probably need to go to Georgia. I said, Okay, well, you can leave leave the three older kids with me. You can take Micah, the young one, if you want. She was like, Well, they would probably really want to see their cousins and grandma and stuff like that. I said, Okay. I said, I I think I got too many commitments with work. I think I gotta stay here. And she was like, No, that's that's fine. I was like, I sure you can want to take four kids to drugs by yourself. She's like, it'll it'll be fine. And and my wife has always just been like, I'll do whatever it takes. It's fine. And I'm not gonna complain about it. Like she's great. And so I said, Okay, well, well, if you're gonna do that, I'm gonna work from the time that I wake up until I go to bed, and I'm just gonna get so many projects done.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Because as a business owner, you know there's like the urgent stuff, the the people emailing me. Yeah, and then there's the list of like, this needs to be done, but it's not like this week, right? So yesterday, I'm looking at my whiteboard. Now, keep in mind, so that was Saturday. She left Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

So flew out at five o'clock in the morning. With all the kids. With all the kids. And from Mesa Gateway or from Phoenix. Oh, Skyharbon. Okay. So like it it was interesting because it was at 5 p.m. that I bought the tickets and she was gone by 5 a.m. Yeah. So very interesting. But you know, that's quick turnaround, but but it was okay. So she's she was able to surprise her mom and sister, and her sister just bawling, and like she videoed it and she was like, Hey, I came to deliver a hug. And her sister's just like, like, it's amazing. Like, it's great. Like it, like, if money can buy anything, it's more experiences like that that I would. So so, but I'm here by myself, and I have this whiteboard in my office. And I was looking at my whiteboard and I was like, I haven't been able to get any of these projects done. I was like, with with the wife and kids here, I have all this extra time. I can work from the time that I wake up until I go to bed. And then it clicked. I do that anyways with them here. So what time did I get?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Yeah, you didn't get any.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

They're just not here. Yeah. And I told my wife that, she's like, I've been telling you that for a while. Okay. I I see it now. Yeah. You know, there was no extra time with the kids not being here because with my wife and kids at home, homeschooling, you know, I'd leave at seven in the morning, come home at 5 p.m., have dinner, and go back to work in the office until I go to bed. So what time did I gain with them not being here? The 30 minutes for dinner? That's it. So something's strange.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

So let me ask you this. Um how what what are your kids interested in? Uh and what is your wife interested in? So Gabby.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Gabby likes anything that involves just the family being together. Whether that's going to a zoo, going on hikes, going to the movies together, whatever involves just the family being together, she's excited about. And then, you know, my kids, uh, Maverick really likes monster trucks, race cars, dinosaurs, all that stuff. Um, Chandler's really in uh just to anything girly. We just started her on horseback riding lessons. Um, she loves that. And then we started uh Do you take her to that? We've done it once so far. And I was there. Yeah. Yeah. So we're we're making an effort. I'm making an effort, not we. I'm making an effort to be there, like homeschool co-ops and stuff. Yeah. Uh I've done a real crappy job at being there once or twice a month, but that's something that we're gonna we're gonna implement.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

So we um what you guys so you guys do a co-op?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, Gabby does a co-op every Thursday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

What's it called? It used to be called Branches.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

No. It's in the Southeast Valley. I couldn't tell you the name of it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

And that's an issue in the Maybe maybe figure that out. Um so we we do a homeschool co-op uh once a week on Wednesdays. Um and for the last seven years, yeah I've gone every week.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Um and we we uh we go all the way out to surprise for ours. It's called Branches. Okay. Um so there's there are several branches in in in the valley. Okay, but um there used to be one in Chandler, um, but they they broke off and started their own name. Like they created their own, they they divided, they broke off, they were pruned, we'll say. Um but they um so we, you know, my wife and I teach uh worship band class every week. Um, and our two older kids are in it with us. Um and I've just made it a point to be there. Right. Um, and if I could encourage you, like treat it like this. You're only gonna get one wife.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

And it sounds like your wife's pretty rad. Yeah, she's awesome. So don't screw it up. Um and the way that you don't screw it, screw it up is you just be there. Yeah. Um and and I I need to do a better job of this, but um make it, you know, you said anything that you're that involves the family doing something together, like it doesn't have to be big. Right. Right. You could even have um Friday night movie nights where the family gets together and you're responsible for cooking. Yeah. Right. You probably like to, you know, eat meat or make pizzas or something. Fi, you know, buy if you don't already have one, buy a a little pizza oven where you can make pizzas as a family and then sit down and watch um a movie. Yeah, I don't know if you guys have that kind of time. We certainly don't, but like make it a point to because you're already doing like a bang up job at running a company. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you said you wanted to get to a place where you're not involved in every element of the day-to-day. Let that be a challenge to you to step into, okay, how can I, you know, even if it starts on, you know, just Fridays where you're like, you know what, I'm done at noon.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Or, you know, like for me, like, dude, I I make comparative, we make such little money compared to what you guys do. Um, but I don't I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

That's fair. Um That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Because like, yeah, I do want to make I want to make a lot of money just so that I can say yes a lot. Yeah. Um, but my wife and kids are a lot more important to me than the money that comes and goes. Yeah. Um now will you know will more busy work help? Absolutely. I would, you know, we're we're about to onboard a new client that's gonna be a pretty a pretty big deal. Sure. Um, because we have a we have a lot riding on it. It it'll be our biggest production level um contract yet. Um but they have they already have 24,000 YouTube subscribers.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Oh nice.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

But they post like 30 second videos. Oh and I'm like, bro, you guys are doing it wrong. And they do YouTube, they do auction and memorabilia. And I'm like, there's so much you guys could be like I go for me, you you talked about like the educational piece not working super well. Well, bro, I've taught so many things on YouTube that that crush.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

I I think that's the platform for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Like if you're gonna do a lot of educational, I think that's and I think that like there there is there's a niche out there for everybody that if you're you if you're willing to put the time, energy, and effort into it taking time, right because it it's not like AFT construction, we have 10,000 subscribers. We just crossed 10,000. I've I've produced 1,500 videos for them. Yeah. Right. Like if if if you know Mr. Beast saw that, he would be like, what are you doing? And but here's the thing. I don't focus on getting the right hook. Right. I don't focus on getting the the right, you know, angle and the top nail. I don't I don't produce I I produce an authentic experience. So when we're on a job site, you might get a less cinematic experience because guess what? We're on the freaking job site. Right. Yeah. You know? And so for me, I I cut my like I don't I don't film after three o'clock. Right. Um I'll wake up at whatever time you want me to, but the reason why I'll do that is because it doesn't impact my wife and kids. That's a good point. I love that. It but three o'clock comes, if I'm not home, like on Tuesdays, I have to be home at before 2 30 because my wife has tap. And my wife being able to go to tap class on her own, right, without me, you know, without the kids, right, without anything, that's that I will do everything in my power to get there. So guess what I do? I make sure that I'm not filming at that time. I love that. And so great, because the most important piece of our lives as dads is for us to be there for our kids and for our wives. Yeah. And if if husbands would stop thinking that money is what's gonna make them stick around, it's not. Oh yeah. It's your time.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Oh, a hundred percent. Well, and I I'll see that subtly where I'm like, you know, hey, let's go to Great Wolf Lodge for the weekend and it's like $1,500 experience. Yeah. And I'm like, I could have I could accomplish that with a hundred bucks at home.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

You know what I mean? Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

So Well and that and that's why, and that's why I brought up like the movie nights and making your own pizzas. Like just figure out something like if you're if your wife and kids love sushi, figure out how to make it at home. Yeah, make it a fun experience. Like it, you don't have to spend a ton of money. It's the time that we want to spend. Um, which this has gone in a completely different direction.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Oh, I love it, man. This is great. Like you're helping me.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

You're you're all you're already doing things successfully. Yeah. So it probably would, you know, be advantageous just to find somebody that can take off take over something in your, you know, day-to-day work schedule. Yeah. And and you just put them in that position.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

I've gone from having part-time office help to March 2nd having a full-time office. So that's gonna take off a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Yeah. I, you know, I'm I I need to do a better job of marketing this and marketing my own company. Um, but like my my thing, I think really what it is is I just don't network enough.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

You know, with that, with that being said, do you know um State 48 Roofing, Jason Payne?

SPEAKER_02 48:15

Um, so what's funny is I think through Jason, um I don't know him. Okay. Um, but I know his content.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

And because of his content, I think I found you.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

And then I there's also like Dino Turf. I texted him about you. Really? He's my best friend. He's your best friend? Yeah. I love Anthony. Yeah. I love like so I I always go, okay, what if I what's funny is like the the close-up shop question kind of comes from a point of like, okay, if I have to pivot, what else do I go and do? Sure. Yeah. Um, and in my head, you know, service-based businesses, you know, pest control. My my friends own EcoGuard. Oh, yeah. Um, so competitor to you, um, maybe. Is that Mike Lee? Um so Shane. Shane. Yep. Yeah. Shane and Derek. Um, I don't know if they have another business partner, but maybe they do.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Mike Mike Lee's the guy who founded it and brought in Shane and Derek.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Okay. So yeah. Um, so I know I know Shane real well. Okay. Um, and for a long time I was always like, bro, you guys need to start a YouTube channel. Yeah. Because my whole thing is just start YouTube. Yeah. Um, even if you don't, like it will always be a complement to what you do, whether you make, you know, you know, add revenue from it or not, it just complements. Yeah. It adds another layer of the no like and trust. That's the part. Yeah. That's the part. I like that. Um, and and you can't quantify that piece. Like you the the no like and trust is the the piece where like for AFT, I've I've been you could you could say that I'm a drain on the company because it it there's no quantifiable way to go, yes, Jesse has made us lots of money. But the thing is, is we can go, all right. When I took over YouTube, they had seven contracts. Right. And when we look at their contracts today, they have like 35 on their books.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Yeah. It's like billboards. Yeah. Billboards, there's no way to say, oh, I saw your billboard. It's just omnipresence.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Right. It's just like you said earlier, like, I just want to show up when you open your phone. I don't care where it is. I want to show up on your feed somewhere. Right. That's that's if now that we've talked about AFT a million times, you'll finally I know my phone's gonna pick it up. Yeah, you're gonna hear see AFT. But that's that's the key is like every time you open up LinkedIn, right? My friend Brad is there. Every time you open up um Instagram, Brad is there. Facebook, Brad's there. Yeah, you will always see his content. Yeah, um, and that's and he's got you know 270,000 followers on Instagram. Yeah, and so like it's funny because you know, Jason and um the Dino Turf and all of these guys that subsequently have a much smaller following than my friend Brad. Sure. Um, they're all like, here's how you do it. And I'm like, bro, I've yeah, this is yes, I know that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

I was with with Jason. He's he's a connector, he connects a lot of people, but he did um, he's getting ready to do his third one. I don't know if I'll be a part of it or not, but the rap and chat? The wrap and chat. Yeah. This at the wrap and chat would murder just for the networking. Don't you don't even have to have people in here talking.

SPEAKER_02 52:11

Just pull it up and and be there.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Just park it and be there. The last two he did, it was free to free to park your truck and just be there. Um, I would I would get in contact with him. And I I can give you his number after this if you want. But like thank you. Like, I would get in contact with him, and I think he's gonna charge for the next one. But even if it was like a hundred bucks to park this trailer there, he's you're gonna have Coconut Cleaning, you're gonna have Green Mingo, uh Braven Grant with Gaines, you're gonna have all, and then you're gonna have a hundred. I think at the last Rap and Chat, there's 225 business owners that cared about their presence on social media there. And so, and I bet you out of that 225, I bet you there was 15 or 20 people that had a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

Like that I could think of.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

Yeah. I think um my friend Tommy Hunter with Hunter Winter Watch was was there.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Um, and that I think that maybe how I learned about the rap and chat.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Um I I was like, oh, I should, I should go to that.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Oh, it'd be great.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

But it's at night.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

And I'm like that's that's that's the three o'clock rule. I think that's why I haven't implemented that. Like my my happy hour today starts at three.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Well, I you know, and I I think that I think that there are days where my, you know, if I told my wife, hey, you know, I'm gonna do this thing because it will benefit the business, she'll be like, okay, we'll figure it out. Yeah. Um I guess funny, but um m Eli and my oldest, well actually, my all of my kids are very theater driven. Okay. Um, my youngest son, he's six. He he is not in theater yet, but he will be. Um we've done several plays, um, but I've never done a play. And I always tell my kids that like I was the theater kid that never did theater. Okay. Because I was so worried about being cool. Yeah. Um, that I wasn't willing to sacrifice my my coolness for and so I was in a band, you know. And it wasn't it wasn't, you know, marching band because that's not cool either. Right. Um and so dude, that's awesome. I played drums in the band for a little bit. Did you? Yeah. So Eli plays drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, dude, that's amazing, and ukulele. Um, which he's pretty proficient at all.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

That's a job, man. I yeah, I I I had to focus on just beating things. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Well, he started on bass, and then um we actually lost our drummer for the worship band at our homeschool group. And so we were like, all right, now you have to learn drums. Yeah, good luck. And so we pushed him there. Um, his mom's a drummer. That's actually how uh my wife and I met. No way. Is we were playing uh music together. I play bass and she plays drums. That's amazing. Um, yeah, we and she's she doesn't practice or play as much as she you know used to, but she's an amazing drummer, and it would be fun. It would be fun if someday she reignites that yeah, that area of her life. But you know, she's got we've got four kids to teach. Yeah. Um absolutely, man. But I so I got this text message from uh an acquaintance, and she was like, Hey, we're doing this play called Newsies, and I was wondering if you would want to be in it. And I thought that she had texted me accidentally, yeah. And so I didn't I didn't respond to it. And then a week later she texted me again and is like, hey, just following up on that idea I had, and I was like, Oh, you're you're serious, you're serious about me. I thought that you had accidentally text me, and so I was just like playing it cool, like, nah. And so I didn't tell anybody, I didn't tell my wife and kids. And she goes, No, I think that you would be really good uh for this part, and we'll we're offering you the part. And I was like, like I don't even have to audition, and she goes, You kind of don't like it would be cool if you sent in uh a self-tape, but really you don't, you know, all we need is a is a yes, basically. And I I told, you know, Stephanie and the kids, and my kids were like, You have to do it. And I like looked at my wife and I was like, Do you do you think that I could? And she's like, You've you've said for years that you know you never got to do you know theater, you know, because you were too concerned. Are you concerned now? I'm like, well, I'm mainly concerned about time, right? But like, do we have the time to do it? And she's like, Well, it's right before we get really busy with other things. Yeah. So like theoretically, like, if you want to do it, now's the time. And so I'm in this play doing it. And again, like I just I had to I had to make the time to consciously do it. So it's like, give yourself, you know, like you're probably systematic about how you do things. So like pick a couple of days a week where you know you can hit the exit job. Right. Yeah. Hit the little eject button. Yeah, that eject button, and and you'll be good. Yeah. Um, I I think that that's like the biggest piece is especially for us as business owners, our brain, we're not gonna be able to disconnect that. Sure. But what we do need to do is figure out how to disconnect um enough where you're spending time with the wife and kids. Right. And I need to do a better job of taking my wife on dates. You and me both, brother. Um all right, so let's see. That actually kind of um this is a long pause because I'm trying to figure out what's the best um thing. So, how do you separate yourself or your business from other pest control businesses? You've spoken a little bit about you know what you guys do differently. Um expand on that.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Well, here in Arizona, there's 1,500 registered pest control companies in 1,500 state. Which by the way, I almost owned one. Yeah. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

Well, maybe we'll get into that.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Yeah. Um most of those are solo operators. Okay. So the guy wanted to start a company, goes out and starts it. Um I definitely started that way. But but on the other hand, uh, another majority of those are people that want to just go get residential doors. They're interested in selling reoccurring revenue uh pest control. Private equity has gotten into the pest control realm, home services in general, but pest control specifically, um, most notably green mango, selling for 17 times Ibita, which was a hundred million dollars. Local company. And you know, you think of Cam Bodden, local guy. He owns coconut cleaning.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:10

And did he own Green Mango too?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

Yeah, he was sole owner of Green Mango. Yeah. I think his dad was an investor and then he had Dusty, but yeah, I think he bought Dusty off.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

I don't know the I need to know I need to know that guy too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Yeah, can't Cam Bodden's a great guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

Um which I think I've because he knows Jason.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

Yeah. Yeah. They're yeah, they're good buddies. So um, but with with all this money of private equity getting in there, a lot of guys are just focused on recurring revenue. I don't want to do anything that I'm not charging every month for and servicing that residential home. Um we're we we are not like that. I will take the one-time bird job that's just doing alcos and we'll do the one-time termite treatment. We'll go to your house if it's bed bugs, like we'll we'll do those one-time things that these guys uh are so attracted to right now that that we'll do the things that the guys are not attracted to um just to earn the business. Um so that that's one thing that sets us apart. And then the other thing is is we again, we really focus on weeds. Weed control this month is over 50% of my business. It's weed season, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

So you're just just spraying spraying weeds, spraying a pesticide or whatever that that knocks it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

Yeah, exactly. So we're we're mixing a post-emergent, which kills weeds that are there, with a pre-emergent, which helps prevent weeds from popping back up. We sell it as a twice-a-year service um for residential homes. But for for these landscapers, you know, there's there's so much demand out there. What happens is the you have an HOA, that HOA hires the property management company to manage their affairs.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

That property management company reaches out to all the vendors, landscaping doing one of them. Within that contract, that landscaper provides tree care, uh lawn care, uh grass mowing, trimming the shrubs, taking care of the weeds, doing the trash cans in the common areas. And so within that one contract, they already pay for weed control and they pay for pre-emergent. So the problem is, is you only do pre-emergent twice a year. So, how do you staff your spray department as a landscaper for something that peaks like 10x two to three months out of the year? Yeah. How do you staff for that? You don't. You staff for the bare minimum and you tell the crappy clients to kick rocks when you get busy because they're on the end of the list. So when I quit Caretaker, I went to landscapers that I knew and just said, Hey, I know that this is what you're going through. I just came from this.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Um, let me help you. And there's not a lot of pest control companies that have done that. There's a handful. Like you're, you know, we probably count on one hand how many really are good at it. But um, we really focused on that. And so and and it's been great because it's higher revenue stuff. Like we got um the landscaper for Intel. We're their only spray company. They don't have a spray partner. So they hire out all of their spray to be us. So I we're talking tens of thousands of dollars a year is being spent on weed control at Intel. We're we're doing that because we have that relationship. So that's kind of what sets us apart from most pest control companies. Um, and then I'm a nice guy. Like I I'm not a I'm not a jerk. The amount of pest control companies that I talk to that like want nothing to do with people blows me away.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

Um, you know, it's any any home service uh business. Yeah, blows my mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Yeah, you so I I'm a personable guy. I I'm not well rounded. Um, you know, outside of this podcast, I I cuss uh a lot. Thanks for controlling it. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I just I'm I'm rough around the edges, but I'm a really nice guy, and I got your back. And so it's it's just one of those things that most most companies aren't like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

Yeah. Dude, that's awesome. Yeah. Um, I think that that I'm I'm learning, you know, for for years I always was like, well, I'm just a nice guy. Like, I'm not a jerk.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Um, so like owning a business is kind of left up to jerks, you know? And and and I was always like, well, golly, um like my experience at that point was like, you know, people that were, you know, poor quality individuals making millions of dollars. And I was like, I was like, well, I'm I guess I'm never gonna make millions of dollars because this this dude's an you know a huge a-hole. Um and he's crushing it as far as money goes, but he can't keep a wife and you know, his kids hate him. Yeah. Um, so I'm just gonna go with I'll probably just not make a whole lot of money. Um But you know, I've I've actually learned over the last few years that actually, you know, there's there's a a place for nice guys. Yes. Um, and those nice guys can make a fair amount of money. Yep. And I've I've befriended a lot of them. Yeah. And I like being friends with uh with people. Like it's I think kind of the part where this could be a successful model. Yeah. Um, where it's like if I if I make the right connections with the right people, and you know, I don't, you know, we talked about the price points earlier. I don't necessarily need a um a person to go, yeah, I I want. You every month to do this. Right. If I can get 25 clients to come in here um 25 days a month at $800 a day, then then I'll be fine. Yeah. You know, like you know, I'll I'll be making decent enough money, not you know, not a a million, but yeah, let's, you know, let's say that if I had if I had 25 clients at $3,000 a month, which is kind of like the base package, yeah, um, then that's that's $900,000 a year. Um, which I would I would have to have another trailer or two. Yeah. But at least some help behind the scenes with that. I would I would be happy to do that. Right. You know, but if even if it's not that, if I can get to eight or you know, eight hundred to a thousand dollars a day with this, yeah, that would be that would be a a reasonable thing, even four days a week. Right. But if I can get somebody else in here that drives the trailer to another place and and runs the operation, then then we're off to the races. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

It's a it's a it's a good opportunity there, man. Yeah. I I will say one thing when you're saying, you know, you used to have this belief about money. Uh I do feel like if you I I feel like money is completely detached from who you are as a person. And I I for whatever reason I've always had that belief. And there's bad apples in each situation, right? But like money just amplifies what you already are, right? And and unfortunately, there's a lot of a-holes that you know, and so when you get money, it it amplifies that. Yeah. Um, but then you can look at that, you know, other people, and you know, we're not even talking extreme wealth, just looking at other people that make $300,000 a year, um, which is which is a good living wage. Yeah. You know, it it's it's just gonna amplify what you already do. So if you can handle $50,000 a year, uh, you know, you can handle if you can handle $50,000 a year and be a good person, you'll be just fine at $300,000, $500, yeah, as long as your morals stay good, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:14

That's the thing. I think I think that um I think out of this conversation, the one thing that I'm gonna take away from it is I need to find a good network to connect with. Yeah. Um, not just for the sake of this making money, but like just for the sake of like in general, helping people realize that content is an important piece. It doesn't have to steal all of your time. Yeah. Um, you know, uh do you know Brett Knoll? Name doesn't sound like uh owns a solar company.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

Uh his Oh, uh he owns United.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:57

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

Yeah, uh Beard, Redbeard. Redbeard. Yes, yes. I don't know him, but I've met him a couple times.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:04

Okay. Um I I so Eli and his son Cash used to um do BMX together.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:18

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

And uh Brett started a team called Lions Not Sheep. Um, this is all around the 2020 mark. Okay. Um, and a couple about a year ago, we went I went over to his office and positioned him with a YouTube contract. Yeah. Like, hey, I'd really like to run your YouTube channel, and I really think that it would be beneficial for you. And he was like, dude, that would be great. Like you could come over to my house and um and run, you know, like video me with my family, like cooking and doing stuff in the pool and running around the yard. And I was like, I'm not that guy. Yeah. Like, if you want that guy, I think that could be cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:10

And go for it, but I'm not that dude that's gonna do that. Like, I've got my own wife and kids. Like, I'm I'm gonna go be with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

Um, now if you want me to put one of my guys on it that is young and doesn't have a family to be home with, then we could do that. But I think you could probably, you know, find somebody to do it for you. Right. You could even take your son with you to be your camera guy at times. Right, right. Um, and so we didn't end up working together, but he is producing a lot more content now.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:47

Um, and I'm proud of him for that. But it's like you draw the line, like Brett's a nice guy. I would love to spend more time with him. Sure. I think he's he he would be very, very much valuable um to spend time with. But like, bro, you can't can't steal me away from my family. So that's great, man. That's the point.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

I love that you're strong on that. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

Uh uh to a fault. Yeah. Well, dude, um, I know that we've been chomping at this. Maybe we'll make this two um different uh podcasts. I th Eli's gotta go potty. So go ahead. Go ahead, bud. You can go out. I'll I'll hit the record button or the stop button here soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

Yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:32

Uh I've I've gotta go potty too. I'm sure you also no worries, man. Um so let's see. On this last question, I want people to, you know, like there's you talked about earlier, entrepreneurship is not for everybody, but it's it's pushed in so many ways. And you know what? To a certain extent, um, I I 100% agree with Tommy Mello. You know, like not everybody's supposed to be an entrepreneur, and I struggle to call myself an entrepreneur all of the time. Yeah, yeah. Um because there's a lot of weight that comes with that. Um, and I just don't carry that much weight yet. Got it. Um, I carry a lot of weight for my family, obviously. Right. So that's why I, you know, would put family man or, you know, dad or husband first before I say I'm an entrepreneur. Sure. Um what's some knowledge that you would like to pass along to, you know, our friends out there that maybe want to be entrepreneurs or they want to run their own company? Um, what would be like the most important piece of the puzzle that you would say is like the knowledge that you would want to pass on?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:01

It's a good question. I I feel like you have to love people to really succeed in business. And you don't have to love everybody, but you need to you need to be, you know, out out there shaking hands. And like I said earlier, like you need to be in front of a lot of people. I I don't think if you dislike being around people, you can't build a business. It's you're just gonna have other hurdles that people that like being around people are not gonna have. Um I'm a lot of I'm a part of a lot of organizations in the commercial real estate um realm. And I think my biggest benefit there is just people like me. You know, people don't people know me because I've I've gone up and to somebody I don't know and been like, hey, let's take selfie. Yeah. And like just going out there and just kind of being goofy and and and and liking people has has been amazing. Um the other thing I would say is, and and Gary V says this, and I love it. The the world is not red or blue. The world is purple. So a lot of people, a lot of people I personally know, people that I've talked to this week, will go and be like, I will never do that. And it's not a moral issue, it's not a legality issue, it's just something that they've claimed to never do. And I just encourage everybody, like it's not black and white, it's gray. Like, like, you know, and we we've talked a lot about like pricing within the pest control world, right? Man, I would never do that service for that. Well, have you thought about the guy that has no expenses? Uh the guy that uh is is going out there and just trying to provide from his for his family, right? He's doing it for 25 bucks. You might not do it for less than 100, right? But he's gonna do it for 25 bucks, and that's okay. Yep. And knowing that like there's so many nuances to everything that you don't have the full picture. Yeah, and that's okay. Like the people are gonna do what they want to do. Stuff is stuff is gray, stuff is purple. Um, it's just to think that you have all of the information to say whether or not somebody can do something or can't do something, or somebody should do something or shouldn't do something, is pretty arrogant. Yeah. And you probably shouldn't do that. As I'm telling you not to do something.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:25

Yeah. Well, you know what what's interesting um about that is like what you could you could even ask it like, what level of entrepreneur do you want to be? Yeah. Um, because for me, you know, I I have these strict guidelines. Sure. So um if I'm gonna start a, you know, let's let's say a porta potty company, you know, like then there are a lot of things that I'm not gonna do within that business. Sure. Um, because one, I'm not gonna go, you know, vacuum out all the junk from there. I'm gonna pay somebody else to do that. I'm not gonna go drop them off. Right. So like all of these different things, like what level of involvement do you want to have? And what what's the timeline on your strategy? So, like, you know, do you are you okay like for your for your situation? Like, okay, we're two years into building this business at a full-time level.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:43

I know that I want to be out of the day-to-day by this point. Sure. Um, and I want to be doing another business at this point. You know, like that, you gotta have those those guidelines. And for me, you know, do I do I want to run a million dollar a year, you know, content agency? Right. Or do I want to do weed control? Right. Like, you know, that that's part of pest control that I don't ever think of. Sure. But I know that a lot of pest control companies do it. Yeah. Um, and to kind of land the plane, I'll I'll end with this. And if you have anything else to say, it's totally fine. But when I was in my early 20s, um, I had just maybe mid-20s. I I can't remember if I had just come back from being on the road with my band, but it was I had a friend put me in contact with a small business owner um through his dad. And this guy owned a pest control company, kind of a one one dude operation. And, you know, we met and he sat down with me and was like, I want somebody to come in that's eventually gonna take this over. Sure. And I want that person to come in and basically run the entire operation and then I'll hand it to you. He didn't have the kids to that wanted it, that wanted it to be passed to them or something. And and so I met with him and he interviewed me and he liked me enough where he was like, okay, I'd feel comfortable passing the company to you at some point. Let's let's get started. And so, you know, one morning he said, be at my house at 5 a.m. And so I got up at, you know, whatever time it was, and I went to his house, and he handed me a shirt and um a hat, and he said, All right, go ahead and put those on and I'll be right back. And I I stood there and I had them in my hand, and I was like, I could I could own this company someday. Do I want to?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

Do I want to spend the rest of my life waking up at this time every day? And I stood there and I just my hands dropped to my side and he came out and he looked at me, he goes, What's up? I said, I'm so sorry to waste your time.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:36

I really, I really want you to find somebody that can take this over. Yeah. But it's not gonna be me. Yeah. And I'm I'm sorry, you probably hate me. Um because I've I've I have wasted some of your time. And but I'm I'm not ready for this. And I don't know if I'll ever be ready for this. And it's true, because I'm you know 44 years old and I still don't like waking up at 5 a.m. Yeah, right. And I very r very rarely do it. There are times where I'll do it. Yeah. Um, and it's for very important people. Um, but it's a rare occasion. Right, right. Like today, I told Eli that I wanted to leave the house at 6 30 to go to get to the gym. We both woke up at 7. Yeah. So um the most important piece was getting here uh to spend time with you. Yeah. Um so I I I tell that story because like we have to choose what what type of person we want to be. Um being driven looks different uh from person to person. Um I'm just driven to try to be the best dad and the best husband. And sometimes that means that I don't get certain contracts, yeah, and I'm alright with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:03

Well that and that's great. I think I feel like success looks different for everybody. And every single one of those those visions is correct.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:13

Right. Like whatever you think success looks like, uh that that's what it is. Yeah, you know. Um I have one story about networking because you you had mentioned it. Yeah, you cool if I say it. So If you ever listen to John Maxwell, he's a faith-based leadership guy, like the foremost leadership guy. Yeah. So I saw him live a couple times and he he would say uh in person, he'd say, Who do you know that I should know? And I just I love that question because you never know what you're gonna get from it. It could be, I did she really meet my wife, she's the better half. Yeah. Or it could be somebody amazing, like somebody crazy, somebody uh high up that you'd have no idea. And so I got into the habit of asking people that question. If I was sitting down with a businessman for the most part, because I'm I'm interested in business, yep, I would pass in that question. So I got introduced to the owner of Transcend Security. Um and uh um Chris Vedder is his name. He's one of the owners. And so I got I had lunch with him, and a mutual friend had introduced us. They're they're like best friends. Okay. And I at the end of the lunch, I asked Chris that I said, Chris, you're very well connected. Yeah, you you own a multimillion dollar company. Who do you know that I should know? And he kind of sat there for a second. He was like, Oh. And he was quiet. And then he said, You know, can I get back to you on that? I was like, Really? Okay. He's like, I just don't want to give you a BS answer. I only I want to like actually think of who you should know. Okay. I I appreciate that. Let's get it. Out of the blue, like two or three weeks later, he texts me, he's like, Hey, I found the person. It's like, really? And uh keep in mind, I don't have any agenda. Right. I don't care if it's for business. I don't, I just who's somebody that I should know. Right. And he said, Hey, I'm I'm vacationing in Belize right now. I said, Yeah. He said, I ran in to the CEO of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos rocket ship company. I was like, that's cool. He's like, Yeah, he agreed to have lunch with you. I was like, what? He's like, he lives in Phoenix. He just retired as the CEO, moved down from Seattle. He lives in Phoenix, and I was telling him about your pest control company. I was like, really? Where does he want to have lunch? I'm there. Yeah. So I gotta spend two hours. I bought lunch, and I gotta spend two hours uh with Robert Smith, the ex-CEO of Blue Origin, and just ask him about Bezos and asked him about where raw rocket technology is going and like all of this. And I sat there and I was just like, this is the best question ever to ask anybody because you never know where it will go, and you'll benefit almost every time. So if if you want to network more, ask people who you should know.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:11

Well, I'm going to turn it right back to you. Oh, shoot. Who who do you know that I should know?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:17

Uh, you should get to know Jason Payne. All right. Here locally, he's he's he's one of the best connectors with home service businesses. He's very connected social media-wise. And I bet you he could pull 30 people out of his phone that have a podcast that would love this idea. Sweet. That's usual.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:38

All right. Cool, dude. I love this. Thanks for spending time with me. Like, seriously, I did not know Matt before. Um, you know, I I almost I almost thought that we should kind of position it like the school of hard knocks. Oh yeah. Dude, like, hey, you know, you you you know, how how did you make your first $12? Uh, you know, whatever. Um, and like, you know, kind of, you know, position it like you just randomly walked into Sozo. That's um, I thought about doing it that way because I think that that would be like a fun hook for the podcast because people would it would catch them off guard. Um, that disrupting piece. Yeah. But I'm like, I talk myself out of it. You ought to try that sometime. I think that'd be great. Yeah. Well, dude, thanks for hanging out with me today. We this I lately the podcasts have been long, and this is officially the longest we've gone. Um I wonder I wonder what that will do for my Buzz Sprout um four-hour a month limit. I wonder if I get charged more because of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:55

Is that the platform you use for it? Yeah, Buzz Sprout. That's great. I um I've not you, you know, this is like an amazing setup. Thank you. And uh like very professional and it's very well put together. Dude, when I decided to do a podcast, I was like, hey, let's do a podcast. And it was like the next day. I have my iPhone on a tripod, and I'm just recording that. I don't have microphones, nothing. And so I I saw something that you had posted uh, you know, I don't know, however long ago, and you were like, people think that doing a podcast is easy. Yeah, there's a lot to it. Boy, it couldn't be any more true. I'm like, I'm pulling up Riverside, and I'm like, how do you how do how the heck do I edit this? And like, yeah, I can't get that to load. It's over an hour long, and it's on my iPhone, and oh, I need microphones, and gosh, the lighting's just not right. And why why do I hear why is there like reverb coming back? Oh, the wall. So much.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:53

Yeah, there's there's actually one piece of our operation here that is a little bit weird that you wouldn't really notice because we are able to edit it out. But there's a really weird hiss that we get uh when we're recording, and I can't get rid of it anywhere. Um interesting. But through some AI software, uh we're able to cut it out. Yeah. Um, and and you just load it into the system and then it pushes it out and it cleans it up. That's but it you you really don't know until you like so many people are like, yeah, I want to destroy a podcast. It's not just loading a a YouTube video. A YouTube video is so freaking easy. Um yes, there are techniques to to make the videos operate better and perform and stuff like that, but like, dude, podcast, like you have to have a podcast host and you have to have a you know basically its own website. So that that way there's you know a storage facility for it. It's not like you can just plug it into YouTube and YouTube is like Yeah, we'll we'll put it here for free. Like well it takes a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:13

And like I didn't start a podcast for any other reason than it was a networking tool.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:19

This is yeah, you know, and so like I've I've had a couple property managers on the podcast that I just wanted to have the clips of me talking to the property manager so I could become the authority on, you know, oh, he's talking to to that guy. Yeah. Interesting. He must be somebody. Right. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so just doing that, I'm a I'm a very much like measure once, I'll cut it three or four times.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:45

Yep. Well, dude, I you know, we've done we we released the 10th podcast this week, uh uh which a lot of a lot, you know, um statistically speaking, uh most podcasts don't make it to 10. Yeah. Um, which is crazy to me. Um, but I also know why. Yeah. Because it's, you know, luckily like I have an editor that I'll send this to and he'll chop it up and get it back to me uh quickly. Um, but I I've recently pushed the clipping to another guy. Um, so I'll get the podcast back and then I'll send it to my clipper and he he clips it up into you know five, five or so uh clips and then sends it back to me. And then I just go, okay, I need to post this. Like I don't even care. I don't even care how it looks. Yeah. I need to, I need to just get it up right because it's all about awareness. Oh yeah. And so it's like, do I do I post 10 times a day, or do I post once a day, or do I post five times a week? Yeah, you know, what do I do? And it's like, you know, just figuring all that out is yeah challenging.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:56

I bet you I bet you the right answer, it's gonna be different for everybody. But just I would post as much as you can see fit. Yeah. Whatever that number is. Yeah. You know, for me, I I'm trying to post four or five times a day, and it seems to be working.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:09

Do you post in stories or do you post in reels?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:11

I try to do reels most of the time because reels are what get the views. Like I just posted one two days ago, and I think it's at 125,000 views.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:21

And it's dang, dude. All it is, I I'm I get all psyched about a thousand.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:26

Well, me too. Me too. But like this video here, I just had it up. This is this is the video. Oh, yeah, that one. So it's at 115,000 views right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:41

Dang, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:42

Which is like not unusual. Like that it I I get like a thousand or two thousand views, but like we're like, we'll go, my kid, this one's at 213,000. He just like down a bottle of sprinkles.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:57

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:58

So I'm like, dude, what do you got going on here? But like, if it has anything to do with kids, like are we uh so he's just like mouthful of sprinkles, dude. I'm gonna get in trouble. Yeah. So like, dude, you you gotta open all the way up. So, like, you know, he had a video. I gave him an orange, like a little cutie. Uh-huh. And the night before he was giving me these cuties, and I was unpeeling them, and like 30 seconds later, he'd bring me another one. I was like, where are you putting these? And the next day I'm at the I'm in my office, he comes into the office here, open a cutie. I'm like, okay, sounds good. So I get my phone out, I hit record. Here, I peeled it for you. Eat it. Eats the whole cutie. And then I videoed it and watching him like chew it and be like, ah, all gone, like 10 seconds later. And I was like, my goodness, five and a half million views. Well, you crushed it on that one. I just have no idea. Like he he's he's definitely getting more views than Ultimate Pest. I need to put him in some ultimate pest gear.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:08

Yeah. Yeah. No, we have um I did a video um with my younger kids.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:17

Let me see.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:21

Um I think that this is the shorter one.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:27

This is today we're making carrot cake muffin. What the hobby? All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:40

I love this video. This is great.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:54

Two scoops. Like uh not you.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:07

Like even all the editing in this way beyond me.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:16

Eat a little bit further. I love it. We are gonna eat it today.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:24

Yeah, exactly. That's good. You want me to help you? We're ready.

unknown 1:33:30

You don't need the paper. We had three thumbs up. Can you bring your thumb up? Three thumbs up. Thanks for watching.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:40

Dude, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:41

Yeah. That's great. But that, you know, that got 698 views.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:45

Yeah, I think there's something in the algorithm for like I should probably post it again. Absolutely. Well, and I think something like that's edit the pretty edited. Um, something is just like just having the phone and the legit continual video and not editing anything has always worked better for me than editing any part of it. The only thing that I'll do is I'll throw captions on it because nobody watches stuff without captions. But yeah. Well, cool, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:13

Well, you got more you to do. No, dude, thank you so much. And thank you guys for sticking around. We're at two hours. Peace. Awesome.