Starting Your Pest Control Company File #2 | Building Your Business | A Pest Control Podcast

In this episode Anthony breaks down the beginning steps you should take while trying to grow your business.

Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of the pest files. As always, I'm your host, Anthony. I'm a business owner and operator of a pest control company out of the state of California. How's it going? Today is the second installment of how to start your own pest control company, file two. We we went over, if you haven't heard file one, please go over and listen. It's sort of the initial step, your your leap into pest control, uh, my advice when you should do it, things like that. So let's jump into the next installment here, which is building a clientele, building up your clients, building up a route, building your business. Okay. Now there's plenty of ways to do this. Depending on what stage you are in your business, it'll vary, but I'll start from the beginning and work the way up. So whether you are a sole proprietor, partnership, you're starting a corporation, whatever you are doing, how do you plan on getting your money? It's that simple, right? Do you have clients already from maybe they say, hey, when you start your business, we'll jump over? Great. Friends and family, right? So let's do this. How do you get your route going? How do you get a route going? Maybe how do you get a couple routes going? How do you start getting money coming in so you can start aiming towards that goal of breaking even and then making profit? Well, start with friends and family. A lot of people will support you if you're starting your own business. Of course, sometimes they might be looking for a your first client special deal, but sometimes you'll have clients that will they'll you know they'll pay your premium, right? So talk to your friends and family, reach out, let them know that you'll give them a great deal. You're they're gonna be you know the first clients of your business. They are a crucial part to your growth and to you following your dream of running and operating your own pest control business, right? So start with friends and family. Then if you have clients that said, hey, if you ever start a company, you let me know. You I know a lot of you will have clients like that. Maybe apartment managers, maybe restaurant owners, maybe people with homes, or maybe property managers, right? If you have those clients, reach out, let them know. We are fully licensed, insured. I have a pest control business up and running, ready to take on business. Here's my info. This is the rate I'll give you, right? So that's where you start. Before you even do sales or do advertising, things like that, that's where I would jump in. Friends and family, then people who you knew. Now, in the first installment of this series, I talked about how I had my mom, my dad, and someone I've been working with for a while, a client who said specifically told me this was the only client that ever told me that. So it's not like I had this giant pool of clients to pull from. But this client said, if you ever start your own business, you call me because I want to be your first client. So I started with three people. And then with money I saved up from my primary job, I bought sales flyers. So I can essentially do door-to-door commercial building to commercial building, restaurant to restaurant, things like that, right? So once I got friends and family, I continue to reach out to them. Eventually, I slowly got, you know, my cousin. I slowly got a friend, and you know, now I'm at five people. Um, and then got a sale from a restaurant, and then that's where you go. You go one stop at a time, one conversation at a time, right? So once I exhausted my avenue, friends and family, and people with essential, you know, past relationships with, then I said, now I need to go and generate sales, right? Now I need to sell. So for me, I did not have the money or funding to do advertising or to go and pay for leads off Google or other areas like that on the internet. I didn't have that money. I only had enough money to buy a bulk amount of sales flyers and just to go out there and get it done. And that's the route I took. But if you have the funds, go on places like Thumbtack, Angie, Google, Facebook, pay for leads, right? Pay for advertising. You can customize your budget, you could tune it to however many impressions you want a day, right? So do that. If you have the funds, it's built in, that's it's going to help you in the long run. It'll start to help you become more of a household name. The more impressions someone sees, the better, right? Because impressions matter hugely. They just do. Now, obviously, if someone sees your company the first time, they're most likely not going to click. But if you're consistent, you're consistently paying for impressions, you're out there. First of all, impressions, I'm talking as if you understand what I'm saying, but impressions, what let's say you're on Google, right? Um, or you're on the internet and your business is listed on Google or on Facebook business. Uh, usually your ads you pay per impression or you pay for a set amount of impressions. So you'll say, My budget is uh $50 a day, right? And then the website will allocate, okay, $50 a day. This is how many impressions you get. And then we stop showing you after you hit your limit. Impressions essentially are just your ad being shown to people. So a lot of times they do you know recommended ads, right? So if someone types in pest control and then they go on Facebook, if you're paying Facebook for you know ad revenue, if you're paying for the impressions, well, they will get a pop-up for pest control, and your business will be there with your smile and your price and your free quote or whatever you want to say. So that is uh essentially how impressions work. And another thing is leads, right? So Thumbtack, Angie, Google, places like that, you can pay for leads, albeit very expensive. I know Google is a very expensive lead generator, they are far outside my budget. That's definitely for medium-size to large companies there, because you got to have a churning machine to keep up with that budget. But those are great places to start. Remember, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, right? You want to start, you know, don't say I'm only going to be paying for leads from Google and on Facebook. I'm gonna be paying for ads, and that's how I'll sell. That's not smart. Spread out. Think of like a table, right? A table with two legs is going to wobble, probably fall over. A table with three is gonna wobble, table with one is not gonna stand at all. But let's get a table four legs, it'll stand, right? It's gonna stay still, it's going to accomplish its job, essentially, being a table, right? So spread out your income, okay? Pay for leads off of Angie, advertise on Google and Facebook, all while having a salesman, maybe yourself or a salesman, go do door-to-door, and then also doing commercial building to commercial building, things like that, right? Spread it out because maybe you'll get lucky, and it seems like one avenue is bringing in all of your revenue. But will it be the same like that next month? Maybe a different avenue will be going incredibly well, and there's going to be months where they all go well, right? So for me, a lot of my initial growth came from door to door, came from just having conversations, giving out my business card and giving out sales flyers, right? So when you do the math, I think I spent close to $100 on business cards and close to about $200 on the initial wave of sales flyers. Since then, obviously, I've purchased more, but I've turned that few hundred dollars of business cards and sales flyers into tens and thousands of dollars that's coming in through annual contracts, through business, through future business, client referrals, right? I'm fresh off the route today. And boy, is it warming up? It's May. It is warming up. It takes me about a couple weeks to acclimate to the heat, and after that I'm fine. So I'm glad to be out there right now, get into the heat, get my sweat going, and be it's for the love of the game, right? It's just pest control. You the elements are what you deal with. Not only do you deal with pests, you deal with clients, you deal with the elements, right? So I just did an initial service for a restaurant, an initial service for a home today. And this individual, it's his restaurant and his home, right? So, and then you know, all your clients always say, I'm gonna get you so much business. I I know so many people, they're going to call you. In fact, on Saturday, this Saturday, I just did a stop like that where I did an initial service for a home on Saturday, and the the man promised me the world, said this person owns a car dealership, they're gonna call you about their dealership and their home. And this guy owns a restaurant, he needs it for his restaurant home, and they'll all call you on Monday. And I have not received one call yet. Um, but I don't let that get to me, right? I I say I take it with a grain of salt when a client tells me that because I'm like the clients that don't tell me that usually get me the referrals, so we'll see, buddy. But sometimes it works, right? But encourage it because client referrals are huge, because that's essentially a salesman that's not on your payroll. Now, maybe your business is a little different, maybe you have an incentive. Refer a friend, you get a free service, refer a friend, and you get 50% off a service, something like that, right? Which sort of segues me into the next uh subject. So now that you have a salesman, maybe you're paying for leads, you're paying for advertising, what's going to set you apart? What will set your business apart? Why would someone choose you? Is it quality of service? Is it pricing? Is it a sale or a special offer that you're offering? Right? What's going to set you apart? You know, one of my biggest uh sales points is essentially family-owned, right? Um, I know it's not that big of a perk, but a lot of people love to shop family-owned. And I know a lot of companies they get really big and they'll still say family-owned, which they are, right? They just become these giant corporations and they're technically still owned by the family. But to me, my idea of family-owned is hey, you might hear my kids arguing or playing games in the back, or you know, I might not be able to answer your phone right away because hey, I don't have uh an office personnel, right? Um, and I respect that because that's how I treat my clients. You know, um, today was almost a perfect day. I ran the cards for today, and I said, the only thing I'll make today more perfect, I closed two sales today, got two new clients monthly on certain on the route. And I said, when I get home, I just hope all the cards go through, please. And all went through but two. And I'm just like, oh goodness, it you know, it's starting to make me realize I might need someone to run the office to take the calls, to essentially run the office work, run cards, do collections. Because another positive that happened today was I reached out to a client, her service is tomorrow. And uh, but she has yet to pay for her service last month. And so essentially, you know, I'm very respectful about it. I say, hey, uh, your service is coming up, but just a friendly reminder, uh, you do still owe for last service. Luckily, she called me, told me that she'll have cash for tomorrow's service and last month's service available at the house tomorrow. So I was like perfect. I keep her going on her monthly program and she's paying me back. You know, I didn't send her to collections, I didn't send her, you know, hound her. I'll send a couple friendly texts here or there. But look, I get it, people get busy, right? I understand it. Does it hurt not getting the money up front? Yes. I need every dollar, every dollar counts for me, right? So, and it'll count for you. Treat treat your business like that, that every dollar counts, because you don't want people to start you know racking up this tab of oh, there are two services behind, and that's just it's not good business, you know. That's just how I see it. But back to what what separates you? Why would someone pick you? Well, here's a little perk I did that went too well, and I had to kind of alter it after I still honor it, but a perk I did was I said, hey, I have a new business special, and this special is a three-year price lock, it's a three-year price guarantee. So if you decide to go with me, now I was running this a lot in 2025, but if you decide to go with me in 2025, you'll be paying the same exact price all the way through 2028. And there's no annual fees, there's no cancellation fee, you get the same price. I honor it. It's my new business special, it is how I'm trying to build a new clientele, right? So that went far. People's eyes would get wide. They would say, wait, is it a contract? I say, No, there's no cancellation. I always tell people my contract is my good service, right? That's what I tell people. You'll stay with me because I'm going to do the best service. That's my contract. And sure enough, I have very, very little cancellations. Very little. Um, but with that said, that's how I essentially would get some people that would lock them on there. And the key thing I did as well is I would say, if you have any other locations to add on, if you own another home, or if you have a family member, or you know, if it's a restaurant or if you own multiple restaurants, or hey, if you want to get your restaurant signed up in your home, I'll lower the price of your service. Right? These were all just perks that I was adding up, and of course I quoted to be able to afford that, right? Now a couple clients got me early on. I'm not going to lie. I was very desperate early. I know uh there's a there's a gentleman who got me very early. I think I only had about nine clients at the time, and I'm just like, oh man, I just need business. And he had two restaurants, and I was talking to him, and he told me straight up, he said, okay, well, what is your price for two restaurants? And so I told him, I said, Well, let's do $60 each restaurant. Um, he's like, Well, $60 for two. I said, No, no, no, uh, $120 for two monthly. And he it didn't go well the first time, and then on the phone, he straight up told me, he said, the only way I'll do your business is if you do sixty dollars for both my restaurants, thirty dollars each monthly, which is chump change, right? And he essentially he he won because like I said, I had probably about nine clients at the time, and in my head, these are tiny hole in the wall restaurants, the kitchen's tiny, and obviously sixty dollars a pop for 120 a month for two locations would have been easy. The ride down the street about five minutes apart. And I said, Well, okay, I'll I'll do it. Okay, $30 each. Given I'm only there for about 10 minutes at each location, it's about 20 minutes total for what $60. So as long as I bundle that with a route, it's okay, right? I'll make some money off of that, but he got me, and I think he I let the desperation kind of show through me because at the very early stages of of my business, I was just so stressed out because this was everything, this was my all. I was giving this my all, right? I wasn't paying for leads, I wasn't paying for ads, things like that, and it was just it was my word and someone else's word. Is it going to be yes, right? So the biggest thing is that I don't think I gave him a price log. Did I? Because I still service him, but he canceled one of he closed down one of his restaurants anyway. So, and the what's funny is like I've grown so much since then, where I'm just like, hey, buddy, sorry, I've outgrown you almost obviously I still service his his locations. He canceled one because it's closed right now, I think due to business or something like that, but um it was just a very early time. I was stressed out. He won that argument, got me to do two locations for $60 a month, and yeah, I mean, but it was those early bumps, those early road bumps that I had to take, right? And that's the biggest thing for you is how are you going to separate your business, right? How are you going to stand out? Because pest control, in essence, is very simple, right? Pest control is not complicated, at least in the terms of solving a problem. Sure, building up to it is complicated, getting your licensing, understanding the products, the dilutions, how to mix them, understanding how to identify bugs, right? Understanding how to identify rodents, insects, right? That becomes complicated. I mean, geez, like ants, there's times where I still confuse pavement ants and Argentine ants, and I guilty, I'm guilty of sort of going to, well, if I see them in the crack of a sidewalk and they're burrowing and I see the ant debris, you know, so obviously that's not the cure all, but um it's in it's complicated but simple. Simple complications. I don't know, it's kind of a double entendre there, but um pest control, in essence, is are you I have ants, are you going to get rid of them? Yes or no? What client do you think is going to sign up with you if you say no? No, I'm not going to get rid of your ants. But here's my price. Okay, as a paying client, I am not going to choose your service, I'm going to choose someone else's service who guarantees they'll get rid of my ants, right? Which brings up a crucial foundation of our industry. Provide free callbacks, provide free reservices, whatever you call them at your job, you need to do them. It's just, it's the hard truth of our industry is we have to do free work. Now, obviously, if you build it into the price where you say, okay, even if they get a free service once a year or twice a year, we still profit, right? Make sure you account for that. Build that into your pricing. Obviously, for my restaurant where the guy is only paying $30 per location, I'll I'll, you know, although he is monthly, so the chance of a callback is highly unlikely, especially. If I stay on top of the location, but in that sense, if he does a callback, I what I'm doing $15 a trip, and that's not even including the pain it'll add to my scheduling. Am I going to be in the area when he wants it? Right. So make sure you build that into your pricing. Don't make that mistake that I did, right? Don't be too desperate for sale. Obviously, a salesman, a good salesman essentially, is going to try to get as many numbers as they can. And then the quality of the client is a byproduct because you just want to brag. You want the numbers. I just got 32 new clients this month. Well, maybe 10 of them are headaches, but you know what? Hey, you got 32, right? You can't fully control headaches. I'm not saying clients are headaches, but sometimes situations that derive from certain jobs become headaches, right? So stand out, right? Be separate from other business businesses in your area and offer free callbacks, offer free reservices because that is your way of guaranteeing your work. I tell clients that all the time, and in the early stages, I had clients who felt very guilty for trying to do a reservice. And I would tell them, please, just if you need me out here or if you have a question or concern, call me or text me. And I always make sure to tell them I'll be out there free of charge. I want to solve this for you. Because it's been proven that offering free services helps the longevity of your client, they'll stay with you longer. But also, you probably screwed up at the job, right? You maybe you didn't treat a certain area, maybe you missed some webs. Maybe you forgot to change out the little insect monitors. Something happened, and maybe it's not your fault. Maybe it's just one of those peace of mind reservices, right? You're gonna run into that. That's the biggest thing of our industry. But offer it because if you start to charge and you tell clients it's a $25 trip fee or a $50 trip fee, $10 trip fee, things like that, that's gonna leave a bad taste in the client's mouth. Now I know some clients are okay with that. They'll say, okay, yeah, that's fine, but in terms of numbers, in terms of scaling, that's not going to work. Because some of the biggest companies offer free callbacks, right? The biggest companies of California and nationwide. And perhaps just in your local area. Um there was a large company, Clark, in the California area. They were like the the golden goose of pest control in our in California. They were just huge, a behemoth, and they were like the dominant company. Um, they not so much now. I know other companies are sort of taking over, but they were they will give you a free callback, a free reservice, they'll guarantee their work, right? Given they're charging, you know, the premium, you're paying the premium for them, but they provided quality service, they provided free reservices and callbacks, right? They guarantee their work. So make sure you're guaranteeing your work. Because a client, if you're doing a pitch and the client says, Are you gonna get rid of these cockroaches in my kitchen? And you just fly out, tell them no, they won't go with you. Navigate that the proper way, guarantee your work, guarantee results. Like I tell clients, my contract is my good service, right? And I tell clients all the time, my guarantee is that they'll be gone, and this is how we'll do it. IPM, right? I follow an IPM program. So you have to build your client, right? You have to build your job pool, you have to build your route. And like I said, spread it out. Pay for ads, pay for leads, have a salesman, cold call. I got a sale one time just dropping into a property management. Um, yeah, let me talk about this real quick. I literally just walked into property, I hopped on Google Maps, typed in property management, built a little route, right? Went from location to location, dropping off my information, dropped off a little price sheet, dropped off my business card, and I went to this one location, took a lot of no's, a lot of no's, actually. So there's some luck involved, right? But talked to this nice lady, gave her my information, told her what I can offer, and she said, Oh wow, do you do rodent work? Yes, I do. This is what we do. We do full grid inspection, it's free. We figure out how they're getting in, we devise a rodent trapping program, and then from there we monitor monthly until the issue is gone. And you could either go through us for the repairs and pay us for repairs, or you can have your main maintenance team do it. And the beauty of it is she said, No way, this is awesome. We're actually looking for a new company, right? And so I said, Great. She sent me an email that day saying, Thank you so much for talking to you. I'll be reaching out to you soon. And I'm pulling up here right now, and this is from one conversation. Now, for the sake of the client, I won't say their property management name. But let's see, two, four, six, eight, ten. I now have 10 ongoing services with this property manager, all rental properties, all on either bi-monthly or quarterly services. Some were hefty upfront bills for rodent programs, some were hefty upfront initial services for German cockroaches, but that's how they operate. They want you to get rid of the issue, then do a quarterly or a every 60-day program. And yeah, two, four, six, eight, ten. Yep. So now I have 10 from one conversation. And I believe they came on with me about four months ago. And so that's 10 new clients that have come on. Oh, wait, no, there's more. Hang on. Because I forgot to add them, link them to their main. So I have 12. So 12 clients in four months from one conversation with the property manager, right? Now I didn't cash in on that, right? I didn't say this was the only thing I'm doing is property managers. That's it. That's all I'm working with. I refuse to work with anything else. No, I went to restaurants, I did door-to-door, I talked to people walking down the street, I did cold calling, I did property managers, I did apartments, right? I made sure I spread it out. And now I'm finally at the stage where I'm starting to get my business on the internet. I'm starting to pay for leads. I have the funding to do so now, right? I'm starting to be able to extend the reach of my company. So that's today's episode. Very simple, right? Start to build your client pool. Start to build up your clients. Your first sales, your first 100 sales, right? That's what I always think about. That first 100. And I thought it would take me three years to get my first 100 clients. Guess what? It took me not even one year to get 100 clients. And I'm still going up, right? And this is literally from just having conversations, not even paying for so to me, I'm like, man, if you got the money to pay for leads and and and advertising, you are going to explode. You are going to build a giant client pool. Because if you're providing excellent service and you guarantee your work, appropriate pricing, right? And when I say appropriate pricing, I don't mean the cheapest. I don't mean the most expensive. I mean what is fair for your area. It'll change everywhere. I mean, I know some companies that you know they're charging like $300 a trip. And I'm like, I might be doing it all wrong or something. You know, I might be doing it wrong. Um, you know, I'm definitely, if we were to go one through ten, one being the cheapest, ten being the most expensive, I'm probably sitting at a four. So I'm middle of the pack in terms of pricing, right? Um, unless you're that restaurant owner, then you're getting you're getting the greatest deal of your life. Uh, the guy chart and that he got me over on $30 per location monthly. So um, but do that. It this is the beginning stages of your business, right? Get out there, spread yourself out, make sure you are generating revenue in all terms. Make sure you are keeping business coming in, and even when you get sales, keep on top of it. Continue to do so, right? Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and until next time.