Starting Your Pest Control Company File #3 | Organizing Your Business | A Pest Control Podcast

In this episode, Anthony talks about organizing your business. Small tips that lead to large gains.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to another episode. As always, I'm your host, Anthony. I am a business owner and operator of a pest control company out of the state of California. Today's episode is installment three of starting your own pest control company. Business, whatever you want to call it. We addressed essentially starting from zero, then we approached how to get sales, build the business, build a route, build an income. Today's episode is crucial and it may be overlooked a lot. Organizing your business. How do you organize a pest control business? Well, from the outside point of view, it's pretty simple. You develop a route, you get clients on certain frequencies, such as monthly, every 60 days, every 90 days, or maybe even twice a month. And sometimes apartments are weekly, right? So that's where you start. You start all the way to the basics. Okay. Now when I started my business, I started literally with a planner. I used a planner, and when I scheduled my clients, I would write them into the day, and I would use a separate piece of paper as sort of like my job pool. So it would be okay, who is due in September? Then who is due in October? And then I would plug those clients in, and I would have a little like notepad I would use that had all of my clients, their address, their number, their email if needed, and their frequency and service type. So a lot of bigger companies use softwares. I currently use a software, and fair disclosure, I am not sponsored by any softwares, but I currently use field routes. I know a lot of people or companies in this area in California use field routes. The larger ones, Pest Pack. I've used that one as well. I've also tried Gorilla Desk, they were pretty cool. Um, but ultimately I decided to go with field routes because when I was a general manager for a company, that was the software I used. So I more so picked field routes for the sake of already had a pre-existing knowledge of it. But as I said, I'm currently using field routes, but let's start from the very beginning. Okay, now if you already have a software, then this can also correlate to you. But start simple build a client book, okay? Write them all down. And if it's in your software, then it's automated. You essentially build your clients into your software. But write their names down, their phone number, their address, and then here is the key part. What type of service do they have? How are you going to make your money? Right? A lot of companies offer a wide variety of services, or some offer one service, and that's it. They don't let you customize your service or anything like that. I'm a very flexible individual. I offer a very basic service, and then from there the client can sort of customize their service from there. But build your job pool, right? Build your service pool. What are you doing? Have everything organized. You offer monthly service every 60 days or bi-monthly, every 90 days or quarterly, right? Name your services, get creative. This is your business, this is your brand, right? Do they include web removal? Are they basic exterior interior services only? No web removal included. Is it the garage every time? Are you going to install rodent stations, wasp traps, fly traps? Whatever you're doing, make sure you organize it. Start simple, right? Offer something that is easy on the budget for a client and will guarantee results. The bread and butter of the industry, in my opinion, is bi-monthly, every 60 days, right? Because according to the label, most products will last that long. And it'll also get you long-term, I assume longer client retention, because instead of being billed monthly, um your client will uh essentially see you less, their bank will hear from you less. And sometimes it is kind of like that out of side out of mind thing with certain clients, right? But I know of businesses that charge monthly and then they come out every 60 days or every 90 days. Is that what you want to do? Maybe you're gonna charge $50 a month and you'll be out there every 60 days. So now you're getting a $100 service, your client's not getting a giant $100 bill, it's split up in increments. Your client is getting a $50 bill monthly, and that helps you out because now you're getting consistent income along with being able to spend more time at your client's home because they are paying for it, right? So start there. Okay, so I'm going to address essentially no software and how to organize your company there, and then we will translate into software similar to how I did it. So if you're already having a software in mind or you already have a software, bear with me, but maybe this can help you out. So this is essentially like starting from zero, right? So build a client notebook, okay? Or maybe a Word document or a Google Drive document, right? Or a spreadsheet. Build a client, a client pool, right? So simple. Get all the info you need. First name, last name, phone number, maybe a backup number, an email, address, and then add what type of service they have. Add any type of add-ons, right? If you offer them, and then add their pricing. Very simple, right? Make sure you document all that because it is going to make your life easier when you translate over to software, which, in my opinion, software is highly recommended for pest control. It just makes things so much easier for me. Man, it is a lifesaver, I'll tell you that. So start your client pool and then invest in a planner. Planners are pretty cheap. You could get a really nice one for about $15. Go to Office Depot, Walmart, Target, wherever you want to go, go get a planner. The reason why is because now you can have a calendar. Another thing I use actually was a desk, a desk sized calendar. That was pretty cool. Um, do that as well. The only thing though is I like the planner a little bit more because it's a little bit more petite and it's just a little bit more user-friendly. You can kind of walk around with it, but a desk size um calendar works as well. This is going to help you by organization, which is key. So let's say it's the month of May, right? I'm currently recording this May 14th. It is the month of May, and you have, let's say, 20 clients. We're starting small, right? I remember the day I had three clients, then six, then ten, and then I got up to about like 17. And keep in mind, I was working a job full-time Monday through Friday, and I was essentially being a weekend warrior for my pest control business, and it was pretty, pretty tough. Your weekends start to disappear. Um, but, anyways, so let's say you have 10 clients. Let's just go down to 10, make it more simple. I know I said 20, but let's do 10. You got 10 clients due in the month of May. Uh, a couple of them are quarterly, a couple of them are monthly, and a couple or the rest are bi-monthly every 60 days. Okay, so now you have your client pool. Reference your client book and then plug them in, right? Maybe you have four of them all next to each other. Let's make that a day. And then we're gonna go ahead and block off the rest of your day to do sales. And then the next day, we're going to let's say that there's two of them outside of the area on their own. Let's put two there and then do sales again, right? This is all you can document all this in your planner or your calendar, right? And then it is going to help you grow your business, organize it. Okay. Your clients, remember, they're how you get paid. So you have to be organized. What's worse than having a client do, and I'll tell you a quick story of what happened to me, um, where a client is supposed to get serviced and you forget about it. This happened to me once. I was at a restaurant doing the service, and the client said, Hey, I want spray for my home. And I was like, Okay, yeah, for sure. Um, let me talk to you after I'm done spraying. So I finished the service, talked to the client. He said, Hey, so come to my home. I'm off Monday this time, forgot what time exactly. And I think it was a Friday that I was treating as a restaurant. And so I said, Perfect. When I get home, I'll go ahead and uh get you all scheduled, right? So now this was before I was using a software. So usually what I do is I have an iPhone, I'll use the iPhone notes to kind of have like a checklist of the day. Forgot to put it in there. And then the Monday comes around, and then I get a call Tuesday, and I miss his service Monday, and he said, Hey, what happened? You were supposed to come service. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. So that is a lack of organization, right? If I were to do like a checklist or make sure that I added a note, or in softwares, you can have alerts, like in field routes, you can talk to yourself at home, is what I call it, right? So when I'm out on the route, I can send alerts back to the main, like the computer, and then go back and address any notes or any uh updates that I need to address when I get home. So it's like me talking to myself in the future. Uh, it's a pretty intricate. I think Pest Pack has something similar to that, and I know uh I think Gorilla Desk does too, which I actually want to give Gorilla Desk a try. Um, it seemed pretty cool. The it came it came down to either doing field routes or Gorilla Desk. And the only reason why I picked field routes is because, like I said, when I was a general manager, I used this software, and so I already knew it pretty well, and I didn't really want to relearn something, so but organization, right? Make sure that you're scheduling your clients on time, right? Maybe don't schedule them too early. A lot of clients have a pet peeve where if hey, if I'm monthly, don't schedule me anything shorter than 28 days or something, right? Some clients are a little bit more flexible. Document that, start developing notes. I called it building a file. Okay, when I was a manager, I would always call it building a file. You put little notes. What's the client's biggest concern? Well, what if it's cobwebs and spiderwebs? Add a note, make sure you're on top of that every single trip. And as you grow and as your business starts to grow, you are going to start forgetting little things like that, right? Sometimes you don't, sometimes you do. But guess what? Guess what prevents you from forgetting? Notes, documentation, organization. And it could be as simple as just adding little notes to their, you know, their client notebook or whatever you want to do, um, their service. Let's say Jane has um a fear of wasp, right? So add that. Always be on the lookout for wasp nest, right? Check around the furniture. You know, I can't even count how many times that the umbrellas for the you know, the patio furniture or table, the umbrellas that collapse and open up. I can't even tell you how many times those have wasp nests, right? Give it a check. Check in with the client before you touch their property, right? Say, hey Jane, I know you don't like Wasp. Is it okay if I uh open up the umbrellas today? Tonight, I was gonna say tonight. I'm recording at night right now. Is it okay if I check the umbrellas today, right? So it's little things like that. That is what's going to separate you from other businesses, right? That is what's going to help you become a superstar at your job, right? And it it doesn't make you any different. All you're doing is you're being organized, you're just documenting everything. Okay, so let's jump up now. Let's say we've grown to 30 clients, right? Now, when I was running a route, I would do anywhere from 14 to 18 a day of stops. Now, when I started getting more commercial-oriented routes in certain positions, it would kind of cap out at about 14 to 16 stops a day. Um now I know the sweet spot, in my honest and humble opinion, is probably about 12 to 14 stops a day. Um, I highly recommend that for two reasons. One, if you can get your production goals from 12 to 14 clients as opposed to 18, then I feel like those clients in the long run get a better service, right? But we only have 30. So are we going to do 15 and 15 one day? Perhaps we will, right? Maybe you want to do that. Will your route uh, you know, is your route capable of doing that? You don't want to, especially now, gas prices are through the roof. So maybe you want to get knocked 15 out, and this way you have one week you're doing 15 in a day, and then you have four to five more days to do sales to continue to grow, right? So you start to build your route. And as I could speak for my business, it's just amazing because I do clover leafing, which I believe in the sales episode we talked about it. If you haven't listened to it, give that a listen. Also, the Pest Academy series, uh, give that a listen. That is just sort of basic knowledge that I compile that I've you know come in contact with throughout my, you know, I guess I guess you could say, no, it's not really tenure, but in my pest control career. But clover leafing is essentially where you go and service a home or maybe a restaurant or a commercial building, and then you go ahead and hit the neighbors. You give them, you drop off your sales flyers, you strike up a conversation, right? So that is key to start tightening your route. And so there's a street, don't really want to name the street, but there is a street in Sacramento where I got a sale, one of my first sales, um, a restaurant, no, no, it was a market, and then a restaurant after, and then I would just go up and down that street because I I didn't live too far. I have since moved, but still within the area. Um, and I would just tag, and by tag, that's see that that's the tough part. I don't know how much lingo I have to explain, so I don't I don't know if I'm over-explaining things sometimes, but it's a podcast, right? So I'm just going to keep talking. But, anyways, I would drop off sales flyers and have conversations with people up and down the street. And now I have about 10 restaurants. Well, restaurants and commercials because there is commercial buildings, markets. So a mixture of restaurants, commercial buildings, and a market, a grocery store, all on one street. Now, the tough part is I wish I could do all 10 in one day, but I can't because of conflicting time frames. Now I could do, I believe, I can do about seven of them in one day. Let me, yeah. Yeah, I could do seven. Imagine that. Seven stops on one street. Right? I have another in downtown Sacramento. I have, I believe, 11 locations, a mixture between commercial buildings, homes, and restaurants. Uh, luckily, I got very lucky. Now, here's another key thing about um just having conversations is that I sold a client, he had five locations, and then he also is the owner of a building where another client was. Um, and I spoke to the owner of this restaurant, and he had three. So, right there, boom, eight, eight locations on all monthly, all fairly decent production, and then just hitting people and clover leafing. I've now added 11. And I believe I spoke about this, but I start that route at about 7 a.m. and then by 12 p.m., by the latest, and that's if I'm lagging my feet, I am done with all 11 stops, and the production is amazing. And then I have a whole nother half of the day to do sales, to do other stops, whatever it is, right? So that is the key. Organization, because once you start building your routes, then you can start adding notes for yourself, right? Talk to yourself in your business. Okay, you are your own partner. Now, if you're doing a partnership, notes is even more crucial because now that's how you communicate with your business partner, right? It is how you check all your boxes, and it is how you keep yourself honest. Now, let me explain. Let's say you're working on a Thursday, you have five stops, five clients you're doing, and then you want to say, okay, I actually want to go do sales in this certain development. There's new developments nearby that are being built, new homes being built. I want to go ahead and do door-to-door sales over there. Oh, and they have a shopping center with a whole bunch of locations. So after I do my five stops, I want to go do sales in the new developments, and then I want to go do sales in the shopping center. Okay? Just write it down. Sure, you can remember it, right? But to me, writing it down keeps you honest. It gives you that checklist, and it's little things like that that will help you accomplish things. I myself, I'm a very analytical person. Um, I don't have OCD, but maybe sometimes I approach it in certain aspects of my life. But I'm very analytical. I love little things like checklists, planners, calendars, documenting everything, right? Because all it's going to do is it just adds a tiny bit of time for a lot of relief, a lot of peace of mind, right? So now you're keeping yourself honest. So now you know on that Thursday, when I'm done with my five clients, I'm hitting sales in two separate locations. Maybe things changed though. Maybe you got a new sales, someone called you. Hey, can you come do it today? Well, fit them in. Right now, that's one thing I have an issue of is that I'm not scheduling clients soon enough or writing the note. So that's my thing that I I sort of overload myself with. Um, I feel like maybe the answer would be just really starting to set a time where I go through my checklist and I document everything. But it does start to get hectic, especially with the growth I've been having lately through sales, client referrals, through the internet softwares, things like that. Um so I just have to kind of take it one client at a time. And then the tough part is, and this is the cool thing with my software, there's like in field routes. Now, if you use field routes, you would know, but they have like appointment notes that you can add, and that's how I communicate to myself, right? I'll write everything the client wants, and they're scheduling preferences, that's key, right? Certain locations are going to want specific weeks sometimes or days, maybe Wednesdays only, right? The reason why is because your client uh is off of work that day, and that's the only day they can take the dogs and put them inside, right? So documenting all of that is key. Now, let's do a quick summary, recap of the essential, like um physically documenting through planner, through calendar, your business. So we have our client notebook, that's where you write down all of your clients' names, numbers, service types, scheduling preferences, service notes, things like that, right? And then we start to go over to the other aspect, which is the scheduling, the routing. Okay. Now, obviously, you would have to know this by the time you get your license, but you have to do monthly reporting, pesticides, um, or what is it called? Pesticide uh usage report in your county. So the cool thing is it's pretty self-explanatory. Um for California, it's called CalAc permits. Uh, essentially get a login, and then uh that's the beauty of a software in field routes. They this is kind of you know, I should call them and tell them to sponsor me. Hey, give me a month free, and I'll uh shout you, I'll do a whole podcast for you. Hey, Field Routes, if you're listening, let's let's do it. Give me a free couple months, and I'll give you a podcast, but anyways, um, Field Routes does a full uh pesticide usage report, and I just plug it into the CalAc permits, which is essentially you know my pesticide uh usage report for Sack County. Um but you would do have to do that, so those are little things on top of that. The key thing is you need to be bonded, insured. Your license needs to be up to date, your business license needs to be up to date. These are all things that start to pile up, right? I do I have a laptop and a desktop, and on each one I have like these folders, all broken down. It's like I call it a spider web of folders, where it just starts with something very simple, like business, right? And then from there I have legal documents, and then I have client documents, and then I have sales documents, right? And so, and then I have logos and things like that, right? And I so I just break it all up into like this giant pyramid of folders, so just fully organize. Um, so just when you're organizing your business, you're going to have to use technology. I know some companies still do paper only and printing, but I mean, ink is so expensive, and I always tell my clients that hey, I I want to I want to try to be a paperless company. Obviously, certain things like do not enter signs you have to put up, so I have to you know accommodate for that. But for the most part, I'm like, hey, your invoice is gonna come onto the email. Hope you don't mind, right? So we have our client notebook, right? We have our calendar. Now we're upgrading, our business has grown. We have enough clients to pay for software, shop for softwares, talk to their sales reps, they will give you trials. Gorilla Desk gives you a very intricate trial. Um, hey Gorilla Desk, if you want a sponsor too, let me know. I'll switch over. Um, but anyway, that I'm halfway joking with that, obviously. But um, I wish I tried out Gorilla Desk. I just I I've I use field routes for like four years, pest pack for like three. And so I was like, do I want to try something new? I almost did. Anyways, shop around, right? Look for the best deal. I can't really speak on how much it'll be, but it could be, you know, a couple hundred to a few hundred dollars a month. Pretty hefty, right? Especially when you don't have so many clients, but it helps you so much. I highly recommend it. Okay, it is just crucial. In fact, I claim that a ton of my growth comes from the software I use. Okay, it's great because my clients get these little emails, they get the service notes, they get the um, they get the invoicing, and what's really cool is that Field Routes offers a client portal, right? And and encryption on payments such as credit cards or uh ACHs. So it's it's huge. Although the the vendor, the merchant fee for the cards is a little hefty. I don't really like that, but I guess that's the cost of business. So if you could sort of set up your own, perhaps, merchant transaction of cards. Um, sorry, I I shouldn't get too into into the weeds with the software. That should be for you to figure out and for a sales rep to tell you. So let me keep going. But we're upgrading our business to software. I'm just gonna tell you now, mandatory. Okay, mandatory. Get a software, don't do paper only, okay. The software is going to help you automate your business, organize your business, and ultimately you are going to grow your business big time. Okay. I think when I jumped into software, I had here, I'll tell you right now, actually. See, look, this is the beauty software. Let's see how many clients I had when I jumped into. I definitely got into it a little early. It's funny because I was like, huh, I don't have that many clients. But I'll tell you right now. The beauty software. All right, I had 25 clients that I uploaded to my software. Now, not all of them are still with me, but 25. Let that sink in. That's when I jumped into a software at 25. And then from there, the growth just skyrocketed. Now, obviously, it's not all due to the software. You gotta give yourself credit where credit is due. Maybe you're a good salesman, maybe you're getting good client referrals, things like that, right? So translate all your clients. It's gonna be a little tedious at first, but do it. This is your livelihood, this is your career, this is your baby. I always say I'm married to my business, right? That's why I say because I just I take care of it, I make sure that I'm checking all the boxes, and when I don't, I run into issues. Like the example I gave you about my client, where I completely did miss his home service because I had a great conversation, told him I'll be there Monday, forgot to add it to my to-do list and my checklist, and then I didn't do the service, you know. So we're upgraded to the software. Now we could sort of organize our business a little bit better, right? We can start by adding our clients, adding our service types, our products. Now our chemical usage is going to be a bit easier, right? So let's get into that. Your software. I use my software to talk to myself. So I have a me out there on the route, and then I have a me when I'm at the computer. The me out there on the route is always communicating with me at the computer. So let's see. Let me read a note that I wrote myself. Let's see. Wednesday and Thursday. That's all I wrote for this client. So I should I probably should have been a little bit more detailed. I assume that that means that that client only wants Wednesdays and Thursdays. So be more detailed. Don't be like me. Um, especially when it comes to scheduling preferences, that is key. Um, I kind of messed up today, actually. Or what's today's did I mess up today? Oh no, I didn't mess up today. Jeez, I thought today was Tuesday. It's Thursday. Where am I living? My goodness. Wow. Huh. I need to, I've been busy. But sorry, let me get back to it. I'm getting sidetracked here. But hey, that's the podcast, right? I've kind of been experimenting with like intros and outros, and um I haven't really been having time to get the guests back on. I know that uh Donovan and Bryce, they're sort of co-hosts to this, and I want to get them back on, but it's been tough to get the scheduling right. Um but you know, we're growing the podcast. That's the whole point. And it's just something I like doing, it's fun. But enough of self-reflection and inward looking. Let's let's get back to the episode. Um, but now we are organizing our business, we're communicating with ourselves through notes, through checklist. We are organizing everything down to the finest detail. What are the client service preferences? What is the client's scheduling preferences? What frequency is this client? Is it monthly, every 60 days? What does the client like the most? Right? Or sorry, not like the most, but essentially what does the client worry about the most? Is it spiders, black widows, ants, wasp? Little things like this are going to help you cater your service to your client. Not every stop is the same. Remember, IPM, right? If you haven't listened to that episode, please do. It's a great episode, I think. No, actually, it's not. No, it is. It is, it is. I just feel like we could have been a little bit better at that episode. It was literally the first episode we ever recorded, so um, and it was me and Don's first ever podcast. But the software is key, it's going to help you grow your business, organize it, and it is going to automate a lot. Some softwares uh offer like auto scheduling, or they will automatically build you routes. And then notifications. How are you going to notify your client? Softwares can do auto notifications for you. They can call your clients, send them a text, right? I still do it the old school way. I do it a week out. I always let my clients know the week before. Um, the only caveat is that on Friday, I let my Monday clients know, and then on Sunday, I let the rest of the week know from Tuesday to Friday, and then Saturday from working Saturday. That's just how I like to operate. That's how I like to do it. Uh if I haven't had an issue with it. Um, you wouldn't really want to let your clients know that are scheduled on Monday, on Sunday. I always recommend minimum Friday. Let them know. Uh I usually send out no the sweet spot, in my opinion, is between 3 and 6 p.m. So 3 p.m., 6 p.m. to send notifications. Um Sunday, especially Sunday, I always I get great reception, great feedback. And then I do a day um a day the day before reminder, right? So that's what I do as well. So if the client did not reply to me, or if it's a newer client, I'll always remind them the day before. Because that'll save you. Remember, this is called organization, okay? Make that your business policy. We let our clients know X amount of days out, and then we let them know the day before. These are our frequencies. Clients are scheduled every 30 days, every 60, every 90, right? These are your policies. This is your business. You customize it. I know some companies now they're doing like a weird little every 45-day service. Um, which I'm gonna look into that actually. I think that's kind of cool. But and then a lot of companies are going towards like a subscription model, which I want to do an episode on that, and I want to try to get a business that's doing that, maybe a manager or an owner. Um, because I personally don't believe in that. I feel like that is not the solution. I know you can get a huge amount of production, right? And you're getting so much guaranteed income coming in, and I want to try it. I I want to do like a little I want to charge 45 a month and then do service every 60 days. So I'm getting like a 90-day a 90 or sorry, a 90 dollar production per client type of thing for like a new business special. But I don't know. I have the software to do it, I can do the charges, but I don't know if I want to do that. Um man, if you made it for this far, I know I keep going off on tangents here, but um there's a link in the the description. Sorry, I'm looking at my computer here. You can click on that link and you can send a message or a voice message. So if you want to add into the conversation or come interview, please, by all means, welcome. I want to talk to you. I'm a pest control nerd, essentially. But I'm not like an uptight one. So let's do a summary. We've been going for a minute here. Let's do an ultimate summary here of organizing your business. But build your client pools, right? Build your client list, build your service types, how you do your services, customize your client client services through service notes, preferences, scheduling preferences, right? And then make sure you're organizing your route. Route together your clients. Sometimes you'll get those clients that, oh, that day doesn't work. Express it and say, oh, well, this day works great for me. Can we can I come later in the day, earlier? Fight for it a little bit, okay? And then on top of that, with your scheduling, organize your days, communicate with yourself, add checklists, right? Add little to-do lists, right? It's going to help you grow, it's going to help you have less headache for your business, and it ultimately is just going to make you a better person. You're just you're more organized, you're less stressed. That's just that's what I recommend. So thank you so much for listening to today's episode. As always, I want you on here. If you're listening, come come interview. Come on. I want the first interview. I know I had the co host and stuff, but uh, I want to talk to someone across the nation or something like that. So thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.