086:From $100 to 600 Contracts: How He Built & Sold a Pest Control Business | Robert

0:00 hello and welcome to pest perspectives episode 86 if you all see the new layout i think it's looking good you will also notice there is a new sponsor on the right hand corner it really varies how it comes out obviously we've got powered now which i think is up to the matter And what I do is wrong. They're powered now up there. But we've got a new sponsor this year. So we've got a second sponsor on board. So this episode and podcast is proudly sponsored by Periscope CFO. Branded by Dan Treanor. Periscope CFO helps pest control business owners better understand their numbers, improve profitability manage cash flow and plan for future growth whether you're looking to grow your business or simply make smarter financial decisions periscope cfo can help so i will try and drop a link in the description if you want to check dan trainer out he has previously been on the podcast so if you want to actually scroll back and go and watch the podcast he's also got a book I might say that I'm actually in it as testimony at the front so it's quite nice but yeah and we've also got powered now um if you're running a pest control business spending too much time on paperwork quotes and invoices that's where powered now comes in but managing your diary custom record selling professional quotes pest control reports etc it's an all-in-one-out help you grow your business and take less time on the paperwork.

1:53 It cuts time down. So there'll be a link in the description, as always. But this week we have on a new podcaster, well, to the podcasting game. We have Robert from The Best Pest Podcast. How are you doing? Man, I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm okay, thanks. That's one that tests the pop filter. The best pest podcast. Best pest podcast. Exactly. Exactly. So I know it's good. We've been talking for a while. It's good to finally get you on. It is. You're not in the studio this time. You're at home, I reckon.

2:34 Yeah, I'm at home. I just moved into a new place. Actually, this is going to be my new studio when I get through with it. But it's vacant right now. But we've been moving last week. we've been moving to a new place so i'm excited this is i don't have to spend all that money on rent in studio and have one in the home exactly it's uh much better i'm in my living room so it doesn't really matter see no do it anywhere but yeah it's uh it's good it's good to get you on finally so do you want to tell people your background within pest management industry because you've been in it well longer than me i'm a baby so i started with a larger company like working pest control i don't know if y'all have heard of it over there but we have got we have actually got orkin owned companies over they're actually expanded into acquisitions in the uk as well they're everywhere yeah they're everywhere so i started with them in 2016 i think yeah somewhere around 2016 and then um you know over here getting licensed and stuff's a little bit different it takes a little bit of time so i was with them for about a year and a half or so and then um decided to open my own company uh ran my own business for i don't know six years or so a little bit less than six years and then i ended up selling it i took a little break after i sold the company and then um the company that actually bought mine uh called me and then offered me a deal to come back and run

4:04 their pest control division um you know they offered me a deal i couldn't refuse so here i am almost a year back into it with them uh so i i i work uh i work for the people that bought me but i run i'm run the whole uh pest control division now so yeah so been almost about 10 years i've been in the industry and uh got about almost every license you can imagine there's still some that i don't have but i don't need them so i don't go get them but uh yeah yeah we've had a lot of that's really good though like you sold your company and now you're working back for the company yeah they've been good to me i'll tell you um they've been good to me from the whole through the wholesale and then you know now they're they're they're good to me uh really good people so you know i i believe in what their what their vision is and uh you know i'm on board with it um that that company does a lot of other stuff it's not just pest control we do housekeeping and remodels and and construction and stuff uh there's they have a whole whole lot of it uh different stuff but uh you know i run the pest control division and then i see where that company is going and i agree with them and i really like uh like working for them so yeah that's a nice

5:21 status without a obviously as you mentioned there is a big divide between how things are done in england and how things are done in america yeah if you've heard any of our previous podcasts we have gone through it um yeah you can literally get pest control be up and running and do a day course and you're good to go yeah you're gonna take anywhere from a year to two years before you can run your own pest control company so when you get started for example we have the apprentice uh then you have to go through your apprentice program then you have to take a state test this is in texas uh take a state test to become a technician then you have to have that license hold that license for the same company for like six six months or so um and then once you have that year experience and hold that license for six months then you can go take what they call your certified applicator test.

6:19 There's two parts to that test. And if you want to take termites or weed control, then you'll take in three or four tests. Once you pass that, then you can apply for your business license and then run your own company. Other than that, you would have to have a two-year degree. I can't even think what it's called, but yeah, you'd have to have a two-year college degree if if you wanted to uh do it without going through the the the apprentice program no i mean don't get me wrong there are pathways that they're starting to make in the uk there's a lot of the trade bodies are working together to like get a framework because currently there really isn't a proper framework it's like you can do this day course if you want do rat control you can do this day course if you want to do insect control and that's the basics but a lot of people go higher than the basics obviously there's the standard rsph level two awarding pest management which is like probably three days but then you've got training on top and exams there's still not nothing on what you guys do but there is a lot of debate in this country about should we license it i'm actually in the camp of i wasn't in the camp of licensing but i'm actually in the camp of maybe it should happen but i know in reality it's never gonna happen because they make a lot of money from um i would say that in order to do that if they did do that the uk they'd have to remove the sale of um all chemicals and all redenticide to the public i just

8:08 cannot see it yeah and here they um so most of your homeowners can buy the same products can they oh yeah i mean you can buy a lower dosage i mean lower but yeah and they may not sell it in quantity uh to them uh and it may be a little bit lower dosage but for the most part the homeowners can buy most of the products now there are some products you have to have that license for uh but the thing is those homeowners they can use those products on their personal house but if they go out and um and try to sell pest control or do it on somebody else's house i mean it it's big time fines and even prison time if if something happens bad enough yeah yeah i hear this you got is it the agriculture department yeah so here in texas is the texas department of agricultural and they're the ones that regulate all of us um and that's where we we you know we have to go through certain hours of class every year to keep our license upheld uh renewal fees and all all kinds of stuff so they get a lot of money off off of it but uh to me i think it's worth it because i don't want some homeowner that doesn't know what they're doing or somebody coming to my house and that don't know what they're doing with the products uh and making you know somebody sick

9:29 or or hurting animals or something like that no you're definitely right i mean i i do think that it would be good to have it here it would make the profession step up because like when it comes to like tradesmen's i mean if you bring a plumber or an electrician or something like that you're looking at 100 pound call that to start with uh things like that but we although we're not seen as higher but we should be seen as higher you see what i'm saying yeah and over here uh the pest industry is definitely a trade uh definitely it's in that yeah because of the license and the regulations and things like that so i mean it is it's here in texas i mean it's it's still almost 90 degrees outside it's uh like hot you know fahrenheit i don't know if y'all go by fahrenheit or y'all go by celsius i go by celsius okay so it's fahrenheit so oh i wish it was that hot here yeah and this is we're entering the uh autumn we're in autumn now and i would definitely say it is not 30 it's basically 32 degrees where you are yeah it's not that here yeah and we're actually starting to cool off and we you know we're going into fall and then winter but uh before that you know you're you're looking at the 38 42 degrees celsius over here

11:05 all summer probably five six months out of the year so it's 10 degrees uh fahrenheit here at the minute oh wow so so that would be what it says there okay so is that right yeah it says it's 50 degrees fahrenheit oh yeah so that's 10 celsius but that's that 50 degrees fahrenheit sounds real hot to me it's a bigger number oh no to me that's cold man like we're we're in the the 80s and 90s right now fahrenheit which is whatever that 32 to you know 28 32 celsius but we're wearing jackets over here just uh because we think it's cold because it stays so hot all almost all the time and the bugs and insects and rats i mean they're they go wild year round over here so we don't really have much downtime now we'll have some like two january and february february we'll get like real cold for a couple weeks here and there but uh other than that man there we're we're spraying uh year round we are if it's inside we don't spray outside generally we don't yeah um because yeah we're not but we're not allowed to you know oh really yeah most of the pests we have like because i'm not saying you do it but i know a lot of american companies they're allowed to just spray around the house outside just in case just in case

12:54 you can't do that you can't do that here i don't actually believe we've got any that we can just spray outside generally i i don't i don't use any products that are outside because like if you get ants they're not generally deemed a pest until they're inside here so you have to physically see the ants and then you can do a treatment usually you're better off for your gels with ants to be fair yeah you are uh it's been a big year for that i've never done so many ant jobs this year you should get like two a year that's funny you say that because ants here have been going crazy too i mean like i don't know what's going on this year with ants but it seems like all like 90 of the calls i've been getting like the last month or two is just all ants yeah it's been a lot a lot of calls because you have loads of i mean you've got a lot more variety of ants over there you are yeah well we do yeah we do we got we got a lot of ants yeah i think we've got obviously your normal like garden ants fair i've never dealt with fairer ants but we have got them in this country i believe we've got ghost ants i've never dealt with them um i've only done i've only dealt with your common ones that you're used to getting yeah the fire ants we got household

14:14 ants and feral ants and i once thought i found fire ants but i don't know if they were i like took a photograph and asked ai if it was fire ants but i didn't know if it was yeah usually the fire ants build the mound outside in the ground wow there wasn't none of that it was probably ai being wrong but normal yeah it would be i'm not saying it couldn't have been because i've seen them on like uh concrete and stuff the fire ants trailing uh without the mound but uh i've heard they're notifiable in america aren't they certain parts uh fire ants is that right or wrong or they're what it now notifiable is that is that in america i thought they were notifiable we have to tell the authorities you've got fire ants no no not in your state no i read something somewhere no i'm completely wrong no i mean but i'm going to tell you and and it's possible that uh in some parts you do i know in texas you don't but uh because fire ants are killing everything man they're killing they're killing everything like we got some lizards and and what they call horny toads uh they hop they're not they're not frogs but they're like it but uh they're they're going extinct right now they're on the endangered list because fire ants killing them wow killing frogs

15:29 yeah interesting i want frogs but they're called horny toads and they have little spikes on their back uh they're like a lizard but they kind of shape like a frog but i haven't seen one in years they're yeah they're like on the endangered list um okay a wonderful answer be such a threat well the fire ants they're crazy i don't know they're they're killing a lot of stuff no i wouldn't say they're here then after that battle it was ai making a mistake it was yeah as if they were here they'd be doing a lot of damage they would be yeah yeah by the sounds of it they would be so so when you obviously started out in pest control what did you start out as a trainee did you how did it work what was it general pest or how did you start out when you So I started out on a military base, actually, Fort Hood, which is one of the largest military bases in the world.

16:26 I think it's like the second or third largest here in Killeen, Texas. But anyways, I got hired on with Orkin. They had the military contract. And so when I first started, I stayed on that contract for almost a year. And all we did was sprayed medical facilities, hospitals, clinics, and then dental offices and then rodent control. I mean, they had we had big boxes around all the buildings. There was we were I was probably checking probably 200 big boxes a day. Yeah. And and then once that contract ended, I got put on to a residential route and then I was just running a residential reoccurring.

17:09 general pest route. And then every once in a while when I had some slow days and stuff, I would go help out with termites and bedbugs. Nice. Cause like that, that there is one of the biggest differences. Like the average person homeowner does not have a pest control contract. It doesn't, it's not a thing. I've got some houses on the books that are every month and your one that's every quarter, but it's not a big thing here. It's not like if you went door knocking about pest control, you might get yourself a slap maybe.

17:49 They really would look at you and discuss thinking because people would probably think you think their house is dirty or something. We're more of a reactive, unfortunately, over here. It's more of a reactive need, not a proactive need where they think I'm getting all these holes sealed up in case I get anything. It's normally after they've had a problem. That's when they want the issue. That's when they want, say, the drain surveyed or the common areas filled up, proofed up, exclusion. We mainly call it proofing, but it is exclusion.

18:27 Yeah, exclusion. Yeah, we do a lot of exclusion. Yeah, when I sold my business, I had 600 contracts. and that was and that's small i mean you know i had me and then uh two other two other technicians at the time and that was just us three doing 600 clients and uh and those clients were being done every two months so um so so they each each of those 600 clients were getting uh six services a year so um yeah and but that was small that's what i was getting that was that's small compared to a lot of other companies like like i know when orkin when i worked at orkin they had we had 12 14 technicians um and each each technician was doing um 200 to 250 clients per month and then that's not even counting like your termite technicians and then your exclusion work and all that stuff so oh no definitely i mean when you were learning and what was the you know when you were like progressing through flipping back to when you started what was the best way you found of learning i know you had to do the qualifications but did you prefer learning off a more experienced technician and watching their ways or did you find there was a lot of bad habits and mistakes by doing that as well i actually got lucky in my opinion i feel like i got lucky because i got put with um i got put with the guy that just would

20:00 never shut up like that's all he did was talk right okay but he would only talk about pest control like from the time i got into his truck from the time that we left and uh he was in the military he was retired from the military and he was a trainer in the military so his mindset was just strict that's why they put people with him for him to train them and he just embedded that stuff in my head and uh and then we were out in the field too you know uh so I'm getting to watch it and then it's getting embedded in my head and then we would have to go do classroom training um uh you know once or twice a a week and uh yeah man um all of it together was was um you know it helped me big time i mean it helped a lot good good because it's it's it is a practical industry isn't it yeah there's a lot of these exams they're all just exams they're not there's nothing practical but they're looking at trying to in the uk some of the exams um i don't know the ins and outs but there is talk of them trying to add in a practical element as well they may happen it may not happen yeah before so over here if say um say i hired somebody a new person that's never been in the pest control industry yeah they have to have um

21:24 they're almost 30 hours of classroom training and 40 hours of on-job training before they can actually even get into a work truck and do it theirself okay and it's good from a perspective because then they should know what they should i mean i'll tell you like i think you know when i first got into the pest control industry i didn know if i was going to like it or not i was working another job somebody offered me this It was closer to home And I just took it But honestly like the first week or so into it I fell in love with it.

22:02 And then, you know, that was in 2020 or 2016. And it has literally been my passion since then. I focus on it. I'm driven for it. I love the way the industry is. I love sales. I mean, I'm just, I'm in it. And then I think that's, you know, that's what kind of pushed me to start my podcast because I just, I could just sit here and talk about it all day and it doesn't bother me. You know, that's good. That is good. That is good. Cause you're, you're rather, I mean, obviously I'm new to the industry, but that's kind of how, I didn't start out that way.

22:35 I just, over the years, I got that way.

22:41 AI found something. Did you used to run a podcast by yourself? a different podcast did you me you you no i never did i got that wrong then it said you used to run a solo podcast you did well i mean honestly i'm a solo podcaster now josh hasn't been with me and i put in ai that i am the i am solo uh oh that's where it's probably where it was at josh is a good guy i've known him for a long time he actually used to work for me when i owned my business and me and him at uh at working like he was working there at the same time i was um and he owns a business now too so he's been on the podcast i listen to every time you were talking he was very busy with what he was saying he'd been doing yeah yeah and he stays busy and uh you know he's got a big family wife and and stays busy so he can't put as much time as it in it as I can.

23:41 You know, with my new position, I took them off on the weekends. Like, very rarely do I work on Saturday or Sunday. And if we do have work those days, then my technicians are out working them. Oh, nice. No, I just thought that's why then. I just wondered. Yeah. I know. But obviously, with all the experience you gained, obviously saying that practical and having someone highly trained with you all the time, talking about it all day long. I would say though, if you hated press control and you trained with that guy, that guy would know, wouldn't he?

24:17 This guy don't really like it. Oh yeah, you'd probably quit your job, honestly, if you didn't like it. Yeah, for sure.

24:27 That's probably why they put if you can survive this with this guy, you must like press control. And the funny part about it is me and him, he's older now. He's like 60. He's at least 65 now. I haven't talked to him in about a year or so. But when we both worked at Orkin, we both quit working at the same time. He opened a company and I opened a company in the same month. Did you talk about it or just happened? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked on the phone every day. Like he ended up being one of my good friends and we would talk and discuss through stuff and we were actually going to go in partnership together.

25:07 But, um, I, I backed out on him. Um, I, I don't know why, but, uh, I did. But when I sold my business with, when I, at the time I sold my business, but like I said, I had almost 600 right at 600 contracts. He had a hundred contracts. So like he wasn't, you know, he, he was getting older, but he wasn't pushing as hard as I was. And I think that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to go on business with him because I, you know, I didn't want anybody holding me back. That's fair. I mean, I've got an idea for you.

25:40 You're still in contact with him. Ask him to come on your podcast. He sounds like a person who would be great guests. Yeah. You might have to do an extended version. You know what's funny? I say it's been a year ago, but it's probably been two now that I think about it because I'm almost two years I've had the business sold. Man, the time went by fast. but once i sold the business he hasn't answered my call since then oh okay and uh i mean i have him on facebook and stuff and you know but i try to message him he don't answer i'm texting he don't answer so yeah i don't know why maybe he's mad at me i don't know i don't know at least what it is internet yeah so we've we've um when you left orkin why did you start your own business because I imagine that was a massive learning curve.

26:30 Oh man. It wasn't, it wasn't easy at all. So, man, I'm going to get, I don't, I don't know if I shouldn't really talk about this, but I'm going to tell you anyways. Right. So when I was young, everybody can, this is, this is going to give people motivation in my opinion but when i was young from like um 15 to like 20 years old i was uh i was a drug addict honestly i was on i was on uh meth real bad and i got off i've been clean almost 20 years now so yeah now you're gonna miss when when i worked at orkin my uh wife at the time she worked at a hotel and she uh she found a bag of meth right and she didn't know what it was because she never had been on it and she brought it home and I was like oh my god uh it was the first time I seen it in years and I looked at that stuff forever and then I just I flushed it all down the toilet and then uh I prayed to to to my god and thanked him for that and I said if I can do that I can do anything in my life and at that point I don't know what brought it up but it just clicked in my head.

27:45 Like you should just open your own business and just go at it. And from that moment, it has, it's just never, I never slowed down. And then, but it was hard though, because I had to quit working because I had a non-compete cause that I had to set out. And then, so I had to get another job, do another stuff. And then I opened the business and the story is kind of crazy but i opened the business and uh i was working a full-time job and then on my lunch breaks and on the weekends i was spraying houses for my business and just let's hold it just for a second now that there what you told me is a big thing to say yes and it's nothing to be ashamed of it happens it can happen you turned on the you you you turned your life around and it's been the making of you by the sounds of it yeah so just be proud of that and i'm taking not taking the best but you did you could have oh man never been here to this day you could have not turn your life and i'm going to tell you i mean besides the immediate people around me nobody's ever heard that story uh so first right here at this podcast man but no no one will judge you because they will respect you because you turned your life around because anyone can turn their life around if they want to if they've got that it's motivational it is great what you said there i know obviously you're in a bad place and you turned it around yeah that is massive inspiration anyone can turn their life around but some people don't don't some do and you're well done not taking the piss just honestly

29:33 So you opened up there, and I think that's really good. Yeah, man. And then I'll tell you another strong thing that I had to jump hurdles over is when I opened my business, when I was right to get to open my business, my wife filed for divorce. And that's why my old company's name was Standalone, Standalone Pest Control, because at that point I was like, I don't need nobody. That's where it got confused. ai said that was a podcast standalone podcast oh yeah yeah no that was actually my uh that was actually my pest control company that i sold um oh say right okay and when i was when when that happened i was living in a hotel room uh because she had kicked me out of the house or we had to leave the house i had i had paid up for three days on that hotel room and i had a hundred dollars in my pocket and i had three customers three contracts at that point and uh and then six years later i sold the business with 600 contracts so you had to basically you had to go not door knocking and get more work stay in that hotel and see that there that there could have been another moment when you went down again but you didn't you rose above that's right yeah so i ended up in that hotel for like a week or so uh and uh my dad my dad's hard you know he's a he's a hard head he he called me or i called him i said man i need a place to live and he said uh i will give you can come stay out here but you have 30 days to get out of my house and that and me my dad have a good relationship but that's how he's been with me in my whole life like hey you're doing you're a man now you're at the time i was 30 something years old he was like hey you know if you're gonna do

31:26 it you need to do it but uh and you know what three weeks later um i had you know i had to get another job and i was still spraying on the side but i had my own place and was out of his house that's that's that yeah you did it yeah like that's reminiscent of how my dad started our business he was a but he was like a maintenance guy on a posh manor place right and you know the places that have loads of workers and stuff. And he actually did pest control on the side at night and built it up over time until he got enough work to leave.

32:03 That's how he started it. So it's kind of the same, roughly. Yeah, yeah, no. Like, you're going to do it or not. Exactly. So I've never had no national experience, nor has my dad. So he started the business and I joined him. I've never worked for anyone else. So I don't actually, when people talk about the work for Orca and the work for here i've never actually worked for any of these companies so it's i'm less experienced than anyone but i can use any product i want to if we buy it use it we can yeah so i don't know what it's like to be told you can only use this you can only use that i imagine that you've had that experience obviously you know yeah yeah and then i went through uh uh almost a two-year class it was probably a year and a half uh course for in at um purdue university for urban pest management operations um i got all kinds of different certificates and and uh things like that so i've had a lot of a lot of training over the years that's good so what what does that that involve is that road is that right is that rat control mice control no that was everything road it's all it's all included if you have a pesticide license here you can you wrote it uh rodenticide and all that's all in tied in with that yeah in your state you know you do do you have gray squirrels do we have uh rules what do you mean no do you have gray squirrels gray squirrels oh gray squirrels oh yeah yeah i hate gray squirrels so can you only trap them we can uh we can but we have to release them ah so here's the biggest here's the biggest thing

33:45 here they're actually a non-native species so we if we trap them if we like you just said we have to shoot them or kill them so they have to be so basically we use they come from america most of the ones we use we use these things called wcs tube traps and they're they're very good they go in and you know you basically go in and traps them but yeah they're non-native here and i just wondered because uh yeah what are y'all using to trap them because i never had luck with them so what i do peanut butter peanut butter and nuts in it yeah i mean that's i've tried it a thousand times so what i do is i figured out what traps though i've tried good nature traps and i never have any luck with them at all yeah i don't we put it up and you might not bother because other people have success but the wcs tube traps we do have good success with peanut butter and nuts in them yeah you can't re-release peanut butter and nuts it's gonna get everywhere they they love that protein you know exactly yeah but you can't re-release them it's like someone puts on facebook oh i found this injured squirrel and someone's like you do not put that in your car why it will attack you and then like they showed the screenshot i didn't get involved before i'm

35:07 not going to get involved somebody else put a screenshot if you take it to a vet they will euthanize it because it's illegal it's a wild animal you're not allowed to transport wild animals it's good like that you're not allowed to re-release them it's like the Norway rap non-native you have to get it you do huh interesting but you know now now uh what I've what we do here now we don't really trap them we uh have the one-way doors um so we figure out where they're getting in, like in their house and stuff.

35:39 Then we put the one-way door on where they can exit out of the house, but they can't get back in. And then we come back and we seal the hole up. It's like a rat valve, that is. But the rat valve only allows – the drain rat valve only allows them to get out and not back in. Yeah. Yeah, it's something similar to that. We do it with raccoons and possums and all that stuff too. it's a lot easier i mean we'll trap raccoons uh and we we can relocate raccoons um if we have certain paperwork signed and stuff by the state and other people but uh most of the time it's just release like you'll move you'll catch them you'll take them out of somebody's house yeah you'll seal the hole up where they were at and then you just let the raccoon or whatever back out of the it okay i'll tell you what the the variety of pests you guys have it's unreal we don't have raccoons and possums and i'll tell you what i called for once and we didn't believe the person they had to send a photograph it was a skunk you know skunk and uh we don't generally have skunks and i looked it up and apparently years ago people used to be allowed to have skunks as pets so when they banned it and everyone was supposed to hand them over rather than handing them over they just released them into the wild and obviously they've survived but it was an actual it was in Corby like 20 minutes away my dad was like you're joking you're winding me up he's not I'll send you a picture on WhatsApp and it was real I was like not going out there mate it wasn't in your house it was outside it bugged up in the end

37:28 oh wow we definitely have skunks here yeah and people do keep them as pets they they what they'll do is take them uh to the vet and then uh and they'll have their their pouch uh where they spray removed yeah so i would imagine at first you'd have to darting because it would kick off wouldn't it yeah i don't know i mean i'm not the type of person that i don't even own an animal you know what i mean so i'm not the type of person that's gonna bring a skunk or raccoon in but I'll tell you, they do it all over the place here in Texas for sure.

38:03 I had a lady at one of the apartment complexes says, hey, if you find those raccoons out there and there's a baby one, let me know. I want to take it home. I was like, you're crazy. But no, I don't mess with none of that. No, that's fair. That is. It is.

38:21 So honestly, when you owned your own business and were building it, was most of your growth through knocking on knocking on residential doors was it like was that kind of how you grew the grew the business pretty much quarterly and like monthly servicing was that well so of course facebook uh had a facebook page um did some advertising there i mean still put you know videos up back then i'll be videos up door knocking has really uh help me out um and then you know we have property management places that uh manage people's rental properties so um that's a big business here and so getting in with a couple of the property managements that would send me work orders for jobs you know two three four times a week um and then you probably have it over there is bni business network and international being i they're always trying to get me to go they can man i love that that's what kick-started my business is bni and i'm actually in bni now you know i mean i'm i just rejoined uh for for powerhouse uh that's who i work for now powerhouse home and commercial services but um that i actually uh i'm in bni now for them you find it but so it was beneficial when growing your company oh man it was great it they've tried to get me to join or come to a session

39:51 but i've heard that basically you're trying find jobs for other people in the group the whole time yeah and they had then the motto is givers gain right yeah it's a referral group so it's it's definitely a referral group like when i'm out and i'm with customers doing pest control uh for example there's there's a ac guy in mine uh if they say hey man my ac's not working or it's hot in there then i'm like hey i got a perfect ac guy and then i give him a referral and then the same and same with them the ac guys and uh they're really good referrals for me because when they're up in attics and stuff they're like hey this place has got rats so it's givers gain you're definitely it's a referral group you're helping other people uh get jobs and they're helping you get jobs and honestly how i look at it is uh we have a our group is like 20 17 people and they're all in different industries uh you seal that you lock that seed in and then um and it's to me it's like i got 17 sales people that i don't even have to pay no that's perfect if it works i mean i have heard of a lot of people mention it or similar groups yeah i'm just i it's like a free networking morning where i go um and it's loads of they give you like lessons on how to like uh stuff

41:20 like forecasting and stuff like that i'm just crap at talking to people you know you're supposed to network i'm i'm i'm rubbish in that room because everyone else there is like you know i'm say i'm I'm a mortgage person. Yeah, mortgage broker. Computer security person. And I think, well, I'm the only one here that's actually on the toes. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, in our group, we have a lot of mortgage brokers. We have a realtor. We have a realtor. We have like IT guys. And, you know, me, in my opinion, I mean, me personally, it's going to be really hard for me to get them guys' referrals.

41:59 I don't know if I'm looking to buy a house. You know what I mean? Exactly. or needs a mortgage. I mean, but, you know, the realtor is really good because we do termite inspections before buying and selling houses. So they send me referrals and things like that. To be fair, we do do quite a bit of work for the state agents. We don't call them realtors. Realtors. I know exactly you made the same thing. We just call them estate agents. We do. Oh, do they work for the state or? they're private companies okay sell and rent house houses yeah everyone calls them estate agents that's the way yeah what's the what's the reasoning behind calling them a state agent is it like a joke or is that just what it's called everyone calls them estate agents interesting whether that's the real term and then but that is actually what most people call them the estate agents so when i'm in the uk and somebody says there's a state agent i should know it's a realtor yeah that's basically what they are yeah yeah we don't call maybe they're real estate management but that's what the people call them real estate agents but now you say it i can see what you're saying the state sounds like like a bigger state you look after yeah it seems like they work for the state because over here you know we got government state stuff like that so it seems when you say if we say a state agent it's somebody that works for the state of texas or the state of california or somebody like the state of florida uh when we have you know and we do have state agents uh does a lot of different things sorry a state agents a state isn it oh east state agent oh Oh okay Estate agent It my English accent I rushing saying it

43:54 Estate agent. Well, I probably have a southern accent too, but estate. Okay, estate agent. Estate agent. I'm probably saying it too quick for you. Like real estate. Basically, yeah. So we do a bit of work for them, different ones. but any other ways it helped did you find did you advertise or did you go on Facebook groups trying to offer value you know where you say you do tips because I see a lot of press control even in this country and they slap a little logo on, call Dave do your wass nest I think that's not going to work sometimes it does I do a lot of videos where I'm doing moss nests and the reaction after gets a lot of views.

44:44 I get a lot of work out of it. But you've got to do it differently nowadays. People don't like being sold to, do they? Apparently. They don't. I don't know, man. I'll tell you, I did. I did it all. I pushed the limits. I pushed it until people either filed charges on me or hired me. No, that's just a joke. I used to tell people that all the time. I used to tell them they're gonna they're gonna uh you know they're gonna put a restraining order on me or they're gonna hire me because i'm gonna not stop until one of the two happens but that's always been a joke of mine like that's how hard i push or i did push for a while um but no i would go door knocking i had people shut doors in my faces i've had i've done cold calls i've had people cuss me out uh but i've gotten jobs that way as well and then facebook um so you gotta get thick skin you've got to have thick skin to do door knocking and cold calling you have one now you've got to have thick skin not be offended you have to and i got it real quick and i didn't realize uh i had never knocked a door in my life until i opened my business and then i started hitting neighborhoods just knocking doors knocking doors and it seemed like about every hundred doors you knock you would get one customer so uh you would just hit them and in in the other 99 uh people they would cut you out or tell you to get off their property or they're not interested or don't come back but um okay we've started to do or not but not residential commercial but it's yeah a lot of commercials is so much easier and i started doing that uh i got to the point where i'm like i'm not

46:22 knocking no more residential doors because you can just walk into a business and hand somebody your card and talk to them right exactly and i'll give them some free pens and they'll even if they're not interested they'll smile at you we're being contacted and they don't they don't they're not normally get out of my building they're not normally like that they're not and i've had people do that like you said i'll hand a card out or a free pin or something and then they'll a year later they're like oh hey um you came by it's probably been a year ago and now i have a pest issue so just putting it out there just because you don't get on today don't mean they won't call tomorrow you know we've got one like that and uh email i followed up an email and she says we'll keep you on file but you never know at some point she might decide that she wants it or she has an issue start so you never know do you yeah you never know one of our contracts i had it for a few years and that got his call off his company where are you from and like he quoted like six months ago and never heard anything and six months later he said yeah we'll go ahead so that's right yeah you never know it can take a while it can but i i got i paid somebody to do

47:39 a website as well and then advertising and i got up my google listing uh and i got everything and all that together it uh it all came together it took it took a good um two years before i actually was like i mean i was one year into it i ended up quitting that job that i was at and going full time in my business uh but i was struggling i struggled for another year but about the second year i was i mean i was i was taking trips to the beach you know but anyways you know it was i could do pretty much i wasn't rich by no means but i could do a lot of stuff that i i've never experienced in my life just from working hard and and dedicating my life to uh that business no definitely it sounds like you work hard because knocking that that does sound hard we're still knocking doors today we still get out i bet it's not you knocking them anymore is it i do get out there and knock them okay and you know what i i you know why i do is because i always hated knocking doors and i just like have to overcome that i just need somebody to yell at me i guess it sounds weird but you know i gotta get that fear over but no man i i'll meet um when my technicians during the day they get done early um they'll be like hey we're done i'm like well what are you gonna do now you gotta make some

49:02 sales right and they're like oh i'm gonna go hit this neighborhood i said i'll meet you over there shoot i'll get in the car i'll go meet them over there they'll walk one side of the street i walk other side uh and we'll knock doors we do it probably once a week once in a couple weeks that's that's good that is it's uh yeah i mean people cannot commercial here you know if you want to try out it in the uk people please let me know how you get on after your research and lock it on the doors do you want pest control see if you things yeah people might say i'm I'm ringing the police, go out, you know, but to be fair around, police wouldn't show up.

49:42 Well, you know, in America, I've seen, you know, with these YouTubers that do free law, you know, that help people out. I've seen people ring police over them and I'm thinking, I really wish they'd just shut, they'd, they'd find them for literally wasting police time. Yeah. This guy's cutting his grass for free. Oh, he's criminal.

50:05 Man, I've seen some videos of some of that stuff. But here, you know, if people don't want you knocking on the door, they usually have a sign out in front of the door. There's no solicitating. There's some whole neighborhoods over here that will have it. But in the entrance of the neighborhood, it's like, hey, no door knocking. So, you know, as long as you're old Biden by those signs and stuff like that, nobody really says anything. And if they don't have any of that on their door, then we're going to knock it.

50:33 That's fine. I mean, here, you can door knock if you want, but the rule is that if someone asks you to go, then you've got to go. Oh, yeah, just go. I mean, we just go. But, you know, we'll meet some good people, talk to them. They may already have a company or maybe tied in a contract, but they'll ask questions, and we'll get out there and make our presence in the neighborhood. It's good. You know when you're, like, saying you're auditing, say a pest control business did you ever like do free audits where you'll say you audit the business you know like if they've got pest control see if they're happy with them you ever do that kind of thing did i ever do what now say that again i'm sorry do you ever do auditing where say they want to try you out and you walk around see what you can offer them while they've still got pest control in place do you ever do stuff like oh yeah yeah uh you keep it professional don't say what you think about the other company you keep i'd never say anything about that about another company good i've heard so much about people doing that that's not the way to do it yeah that's not the way to do it but i saw didn't it because they could be offended because they took on the company and then you're saying that and in that way they'll think this guy's saying that i'm the the reason it's wrong but well and i'm going to tell you too and it's not in it all and over the years i i realized this uh but it's not it it may not be the companies the reason why they're getting bad pest control because you have bad technicians that make companies look bad because we had

52:16 technicians orkin was the the best training company in the world at the time when i was there They had facilities in, I think, in Georgia or Atlanta somewhere that they had bugs and built homes to do training, right? And we would have bad technicians and people would be like, oh, I don't like working. Well, it wasn't pro-saving working. working it's part of that though i've been amazing training but it's part of that them sticking 19 jobs a day in is that part of it because i hear that yeah because i hear that they all have amazing training but they they ram their days at full so they struggle to get through the day and they have to rush through it and then they get blamed for being terrible as well yeah and you know that it It amazes me because when I worked at Orkin, I was probably doing 12 to 14 jobs a day.

53:16 And when I got my business, I was like, how was I taking care of those customers at 14 jobs a day? Because I was working 9, 10, 12 hours doing 8 to 9 customers a day. But in my business, I made sure that I took my time and took care of these customers. and uh and you know there was a point was like there's no way that you can be good at what you do and do 18 customers a day it's it's impossible exactly i think i exaggerate on the 18 customers but no you're not you're not though because um i'll tell you i worked after i sold the business i went and worked in the sales department at another big pest control company in houston and those technicians were running 17 18 customers a day wow i mean maybe it's different if they were all in a row next to each other but i don't imagine they were not always i mean they try to keep them in the same neighborhoods and a lot of them were only doing exterior sprays uh so it makes it a lot quicker but still eight it's it's a lot it is a lot it is and sometimes because it used to be i'm not mentioning company names but there was a job role i don't know if you have them in america and they were called escalation managers so what they were is just another name for a salesperson so they make the technician looks so they wouldn't give the technician and i'm not mentioning company names or anything but i hear they used to not give the technicians enough time so in comes the cape and the escalation manager to solve the issue

54:58 to sell them the the solution they need so that was part of it apparently i hear on the grapevine and a lot a lot of these companies don't have them anymore yeah it's uh uh it's it's wild um how they make, how many customers they do. I mean, they're not doing a good job in my opinion. Maybe some of them are, but you'd struggle to do it in 18, 19 jobs a day. So obviously when you sold your business, what kind of position do you have to get into to be able to sell it? I mean, do you have to have your books in tick-tock shape?

55:41 Do you have to show your recurring revenue, recurring customers? because that's what they're really buying, isn't it? Yeah, they bought the contract. They didn't buy the LLC. They didn't buy the business name. They bought the clientele. Yeah. So, yeah, yes. All that has to be in, you know, you have to show all your finances, your profit and loss statements, your reoccurring customers, the contracts, the service agreements that you have them in. I never really had contract contracts. They were service agreements.

56:14 they could they could cancel at any time and as long as they um gave us a 30-day notice um a written notice um and if if they didn't then you know you i would say that we would you know you're gonna charge you to get out but you know there really wasn't that um it's not worth it it's no no it's not worth it i mean i hate being in contracts i hate phone contracts i hate tv you know contracts i hate all that stuff so i didn't want to i didn't want to hold anybody of that but yeah you have to have all that in place so now i just wonder because someone did ask me to get a guest on or whether it's relevant say someone had a one-man band business what would how would somebody sell a business well have all the contracts in place i like that because i do know that if you're mainly domestic like because we have contracts but I have nowhere near what you said you asked.

57:10 But most of our business is one-off domestic jobs, not recurring. But we are growing the commercial. But I have no intention of selling. My son's going to take this. When I take over officially, hopefully one day my son will take over too. Yeah. But it was a question that was asked to me, say you're a one-man band or you want to sell it on. or you what's that is that the kind of thing so you're talking about like you're just like a one what like you get one-off jobs or you get one-time services and things like that with no contracts or or or if you're a solo so say you were doing so say you were like a business that just was one person and you had a number of contracts and you had a lot of one-off one-off business you wanted to sell your business how would you go about it well i mean then that's kind of how i was i mean i had a couple technicians but um and we do we had you know we had our contracts too but uh we had a lot of of jobs that was on the books i mean not on the books but that was part of that revenue that were just one-time services so when um when i went to sell when i when josh and when they bought my company, it was just me.

58:30 The other two technicians actually left because they didn't want to, they got wind that I was selling the business and they didn't want to, they wanted to do whatever they wanted to do. But so what happened was they ended up buying it. And then we hired somebody and got them in there and, and you know, they ran it and I still had to stay around for a while and I helped out and moved around. okay okay it's just a question i was asked so it's it's it was a question that got asked to me it was yeah a lot of times when somebody's buying it it's going to be other pest control companies buying it so they already have people in place and stuff as well that they just stick in there no that's true that is i just thought i'd ask the question because obviously you you went through it then you rejoined for a good fee.

59:23 Yeah. We did. That's nice. That is. Did they buy you a new Lamborghini to come back? No. I'm joking. They, yeah, no, they did. You don't say, I was joking. Yeah, no, I'm not going to. I'm still, you know, I'm active in it. So I tell people all the time, I was like, yeah, I can't say none of that. But no, they're treating me well. They're treating me well. I'm not struggling. That's nice. that is um would would you say that we've um how you know you exited your business what did it feel like when you exited because i hear on a lot of podcasts that when when you've had your baby your business and it's in your thing and all the time you love it but when you exit it you kind of feel lost is that did you feel oh yeah no 100 because you lived and breathed it you went from you went from 100 miles an hour six seven days a week yeah to sitting at home like what am i gonna do you know so So, yeah.

1:00:40 And then, of course, that's why I'm back. You miss it. And I'll be honest with you. I wish I would have not sold. I wish I would have held out longer. But it got to the point where I was working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. I would work. My wife is in Mexico. We've been working on her. Well, she's got her papers now. But we worked on all her papers. But so what I would do is I would work seven days a week for like two months straight. And then I would take four days off. I would go see my wife and daughter in Mexico and then I would come back.

1:01:15 I would work seven days a week for two months straight. I mean, I did that cycle for for two or three years.

1:01:24 And and then you go from nothing. Yeah. Well, then and then you get burnt out, right? Like, I mean, you're burnt out and you're tired and then I sold and that's what I sold. You think you're burnt out and then when it all stops, I miss it. Yeah. You know, I recommend not selling. If you're an owner, operator, or small pest control company, unless you got health issues or you're going to retire, I would hold on to it as long as possible. I love that because I don't like the MMA work. I don't like it.

1:02:09 I don't like, I'm not going to mention any names or anything. This is my personal opinion. So just, if you listen to the podcast, this is my opinion and it is not the opinion of the National Pest Technicians Association, the NPTA, just me. So just to get that out there, in case anyone hears this, I'm not a fan of it I'm not I like small to medium sized businesses to stay independent there's been a massive interest in the UK pest control market and there's been small to medium sized businesses bought up and everyone at the start was like this is great, this is great but there's been knock on knock on effects from what I understand companies that were supplying these businesses like bait boxes etc well these companies that are now been acquired they're buying all their stuff from somewhere else don't go to them so there's a there's a knock-on effect down down the scale but i don't think a lot of people realize that was coming out i knew it was because a lot of these big firms that buy up they know what they're doing they can buy i don't know bait boxes straight from sourcing china they can buy this that and the other from other sources so yeah i'm not a fan of it personally just get out there there we go yeah well and i'll tell you i just did a podcast uh a solo podcast about companies buying companies up and it and here i've got to watch that yeah it's uh it it's happening um here like these bigger companies are just trying to buy as much of this medium to small businesses as possible

1:03:55 they're just you know they're just taking over but it's low to them here i've never i always thought it was a big america thing but then a couple of years ago it started happening here uh because obviously at one point they used to rent rent to kill in america they're called rent to terminex rent to kill aren't they yeah rent to kill or something like they bought terminex made them the largest company in the world so in the uk terminex doesn't exist anymore it's gone so it's the it's rent to kill right or what what is it not in the uk they they weren't allowed to call it that in the uk the uk uh regulator said that rent to kill and terminex would be that would be a monopoly so they told them within the uk they were not allowed to own terminex so it got sold and then he got it got turned into a company called virgo it did yeah they still own it somewhere down the line, I'm sure.

1:04:53 No, Renekal don't. They've got nothing to do with it. No. Interesting. But yeah, there's a CMA, the Competitions Regulators, I think. They said that if that was to happen, that would be classed as a monopoly within the UK. And they were not happy. So they sold it. Do you think they sold the UK entity off? They did.

1:05:17 Oh, the CMA loved to stop being. I had no clue. but they're no they're here uh they are there just say the uk they don't they don't own it and it's not brand is and i haven't looked into it lately but i think they're the largest company in the world now oh yeah they are they rent to kill in america it's called rent to kill terminex and old terminex rent to kill yeah i think in america they still have the terminex trucks and then on the back of uh the truck it say uh powered by or or something rent to kill or something like that it's just massive isn't it yeah but you know it's funny though because i haven't seen a lot of terminex trucks or or those vehicles in a while i don't know why they probably prefer the rent to kill brand maybe i don't know maybe maybe i need to start the one brand that no everyone slags them but at the end of the day they are who they are because they built up that reputation a long time ago yeah and although everyone can say what they want about what they think about them and all the small press controllers do at the end of the day they have done a great job to i mean to be in the position they're in they're one of the most valuable press control companies in the world.

1:06:28 Yeah, they did that. I'll tell you that. A lot of pest controlers in the UK do start out working for them. Get all their amazing training, stay with them a few years, then go and set up for themselves. I imagine they do it in America too. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's like I did with Orkin, which I didn't know I was going to start my own business when I started Orkin, but I'm glad I did get into Orkin because they're right there. They're probably the third largest, uh third or fourth i'm not sure exactly how how big they are i haven't checked lately but um yeah so they they has good training they all do they all do from what i gather and that's a lot of people say although i think this and that you can't knock their training because it's amazing all of them say it they do and if the technicians that work for them and they're not doing a good job or they don't know it's because they don't care because they didn't listen during training obviously because the training was there it was this that's the one thing that gets mentioned i listen to loads of podcasts and they all even in uk they all say the training was amazing that's what they all say uh they do um but yeah we brought up mma there didn't we a bit of mma there we talked about you you've been mma too your company has you've experienced it but not on a global juggernaut i don't think i don't think rent to kill bought you Not even close.

1:07:55 Not even close, but... You know, half the deals out there, I never believed. I got X amount. I never believed half of the prices I hear, unless it's a really big firm. I don't believe a lot of the prices. Some of them go, I got this amount of million. Yeah, right. Yeah, I got a good chunk. I'll tell you that right now. I was pretty... Yeah, but you're not claiming I got million. Oh, no, no. Some of them do. Yeah, I know. Some of them do. I'm like, yeah. you can actually look that stuff up sometimes you can't but but no it's um crazy world of pest control and uh it keeps growing it does it's a it's a i think it's a service that is recession proof although people cut down uh it will always be needed it will in the age of ai an AI app won't be able to replace the boots on the ground unless they make millions of robots some of these bad technicians I've had I may hire one of those robots to go spray I'm just playing honestly when I quit my full time job it went 100% in my business was in the middle of COVID and And yeah, it was, I mean, I had already been in the business a year or so, but when I quit it, I made the decision to quit in the middle of COVID.

1:09:23 So that's how confident I am that it is recession proof. I'll be honest with you. I know, I know, I'm not saying where it came from, but I know that during COVID, a lot of big, big, large entities in pest management were struggling. because you know how most of them take payment monthly yes well all the companies started cancelling their direct debits because they they closed down right right i i heard but yeah i'm not sure i know that i didn't i was i was growing and i was making money at that time so um it's an interesting time though it was because that's when i started pest control in 2020 started then yeah and i seen some things that opened my eyes i was like what people were scared of and we were doing a rat job at a lady's house and literally she was through the window at me it was sad lovely lady and she was just for talking at me she was scrubbing her hands right because she was talking to me through a double glazed window i was like what what are you doing but you know i kept my distance but i didn't actually and then i had the people where we were doing boss nests and they would go on they'd look to tell you on the phone high risk i'm high risk so i get there you said you were high risk oh yeah why you stood next to me oh good move yeah a bit late now isn't well i used to get it all the time i love people love to tell me how high risk they were and they'd stand there like he said you're a high risk on the phone

1:11:13 oh sorry that's not my fault you told me yeah you're the one higher isn't that me yeah exactly but um but no it was a crazy time it was it was but i was just starting then i i didn't know much i'll be honest with you i wasn't experienced at all i was learning that i was learning then i was didn't know a lot at all very not experienced basically then i didn't know a lot but i did my training all online in covid basic training was done online past them i did uh but yeah no yeah let's not end it on the Covid note yeah no no let's not end no no Covid yeah no but no it's been a good chat I reckon people might probably learn a lot you've given a lot I think you've given a lot of ideas even if someone hasn't set up, just started their own business you know the networking groups and all the social yeah no the door knocking the door knocking i think that could help a lot of people listening to grow their businesses yeah i mean i did everything um and i i lost a lot of money doing some stuff but but it was worth it to me because i needed to learn right i needed to figure out what's an experience it's learning experiences i'm quite social when it comes a lot of our work not all i get a lot of work on next door app believe it or not i'm very well known on

1:12:49 there actually yeah yeah i get tagged and everything and a lot of the groups they recommend me um and things like that so i have brand awareness wise done quite a lot and it has played off with work i can't tell you which every job but someone i did a job for a customer And, oh, you're the next door celebrity. I would be a next door celebrity. Oh, you're always on next door. I'm not a celebrity, but I'll take it. Yeah, no, I used to get jobs off next door too. We were definitely on there. Next door is great, man, getting into those communities and things like that.

1:13:25 And if you can get a couple of good referrals on there, then it spreads like fire, man. Got 62 faves on there. Nice. And we won the next door. we won we won actually brought back the next door business awards oh we won we won the divorce that's congratulations um home service business 2026 finally won an award that's good i'll be honest with you they haven't brought it back for two years i kept going on linkedin asking the person on next door why have you removed the business awards and i was like if it comes back I'm going to try and win.

1:14:05 You know, I just asked people if they wanted to vote for me. Yeah. They could, but we won it. I was like, yeah. That's great, man. That is great. Never won an award before.

1:14:20 Yeah, it works, though. I mean, the Nextdoor works. Facebook groups work. I mean, it all works. And then when you start getting, you know, two or three new jobs from this and then two or three new jobs from that. And then all of them together can really, really work well for sure. They can. So let's end it on about the best pest podcast. So why did you really start the best pest podcast? Because I love pest control and I like to talk about it. So, and then, you know, also some of the training videos I do with like the termites and stuff But when I'm doing training with my technicians, I can just put it on there, and they can watch it, and then I can go over kind of what we're going over too.

1:15:08 But mainly just – I just did – one day I was like, man, I should just do a podcast, Pest Control. And, yeah, and then I just did it. And then we're still slow. We're still growing. We're growing more on Facebook, and a lot of people are interacting. i'm getting a lot of facebook it's like i know you've got over a thousand followers please people get me to a thousand followers on facebook please yeah i think uh 1 600 as of today you might find though like although my i've got like not even 500 followers facebook's weird isn't it get to reach the channel i've got over 400 000 views on the channel i know it's crazy huh right i bet You've got even more than that.

1:15:58 You will have if you've got all of us. Man, I haven't even looked. You know, I have a – I'm one of them people, though. I look at everything. I have a lady on the back end that does all my social media. Oh, nice. She's done all the posting. She does all the emails. She does – I mean, I'm with her every day on all the decisions she makes and stuff like that, but she does all that. She does all the Facebook stuff. Let's just clarify. that was my stats for Pest Perspectives, not my business. I wish the business stats was that.

1:16:32 Well, I mean, yeah. The more followers you get on the podcast, the more followers you're going to get on the business, for sure. I don't link them, you see, because I don't actually link. It is linked online. If you look up who Pest Perspective is, it will say that I am the director of Open Pest Control, but that's as far as it goes. it is when i first started it they did the company did fund the podcast uh that's how it was paid for but not anymore but you're amazing sponsors as you can see help pay for the podcast but another reason i wanted best pest podcast too is because you know i i don't have a business i mean i work for another company now and i and i and i do well but i wanted something you know it's just in my head that i just wanted something that i could build that's mine again you know without having without having to go try to start another business or whatever like you know another pest control company because i where i'm at in in life is i'm happy but this gives me something to build also and and i got with them and and let them know what i was gonna do and made sure it was okay with them because i'm in contract with them and uh and they were okay with it and so i know come on man yeah no i mean i i didn't want to break any contracts or you know have any feelings or anything like that so i you know before i even started i was like hey this is what i want to do when you know on the side and you know for fun and and uh i want to get a podcast started and this and that and uh they were they were on board with it they were like yeah not a

1:18:04 problem we're not going to stop you from doing that so this gives me a peace of mind and start you know building something that's uh mine again that's good that is good reasons and uh like a lot of the stuff you talk about i probably will never need but it's interesting to learn I do think termites will eventually make it to the UK, though, because there has been cases in France. So it may be a future industry, maybe. Oh, man, here termites is game. It wouldn't necessarily affect the entire house.

1:18:40 It would affect the roofs. So all the houses are built with wooden frames at the top. Oh. So it would affect that. It wouldn't affect the rest of that. It would just be there. That would really affect the loft area. So your walls and stuff are concrete. Yeah, brick. Brick. Brick. So it would be a problem because it would be, yeah, the roof could fall. Yeah, yeah, the roof could fall. And so everything, you know, you probably know this. It would be a problem. Everything here is a wood frame. Yeah.

1:19:15 Here in America. So they're a very lucrative business. Very lucrative business. yep from what i gather especially what you were telling me on whatsapp one now i was like wow yeah exactly exactly but uh i hear that across the board though and people mention what termite jobs cost damn yeah yeah but people in america are used to that it's normal for termite jobs and i imagine it's part of everyone's home insurance it's not they don't the home insurance don't cover it and most of them don't unless they have extended but i will tell you one thing though the product that we use over here termidor it'll protect their home from termites up to 10 years so it sounds like it's expensive but you're getting years and years and years of protection i what i meant was i mean to get house insurance in america surely you'd have to be protected by free termites surely to get house insurance well i know that you have to have termite inspections when you're buying and selling houses for most lenders.

1:20:15 And if they does have termite activity, they have to be treated and taken care of before they'll loan you the money to buy the house. Oh, nice. And it's not a requirement, but there are some lenders that do require it. Okay, that's fair. I mean, when people sell houses in this country, you'll laugh. If the inspector goes in a loft and sees a little bit of mouse poop, he will announce there's a mouse infestation or a rat infestation even if it's historic they will announce it yes because on the paperwork they feel like they've got to find something wrong with the house you see i've seen a bit of mouse poo i think you might have a some mice a lot of time it's just historic and that's all it is but we get a lot of work that way sometimes it generally is an infestation it is um we do woodwork treatment woodworm treatments as well but not so much but we do get them every now and then we do um but uh yeah so what are your plans for the best podcast you got a website now yeah you have yeah yeah so we got a website it's uh bestbestpodcast.com We're an associate with an affiliate for Amazon right now.

1:21:36 So we get a percentage of anybody that goes to the websites and buys anything on there. I got it geared around all the professional gear that we use. We don't just buy on Amazon. We have our actual real suppliers. But a lot of the products that I have on that website are less expensive to purchase. If you just do it through Amazon than it is to go to our supplier. So we do purchase some of that. I am going to get into getting our own products on there, getting some shirts and things like that. And some, you know, I'm not sure exactly.

1:22:09 I don't want to say too much, but we are going to have a lot of products that are ours that you can just purchase through there that we'll ship to you. And yeah. And it just helps with the podcast. It helps get, you know, grow, you know, It costs money to buy equipment and do everything you do with the podcast. You know that. So, yeah. And then moving forward with the, you know, as far as the podcast goes, yeah, we're just going to continue to put information out there to help homeowners, to help small businesses or people that want to think about opening a pest control company.

1:22:46 they're going to have full full of information on on our uh youtube channel to help them get that started here mainly in texas i mean a lot of it is is is uh united states but a lot of the laws and regulations differ per the the you know agricultural um uh division but yeah so i'm already getting a lot of questions and people come or you know messaging me hey how do you do this or what do you do that really helps like you know your bed bug your bed bug one did you get a lot of views on that i did uh i'll tell you now this year all the podcasts i've done that were specifically aimed at bed bugs and bed book treatments honestly they've been massive this year it's like like between me and the other uk podcast beauties and beasties there's been a lot of content in the UK for bed books.

1:23:41 The landscape's changing in the UK. Yeah, into desiccant dusts and it's like a physical mode of action with a product called Chin Chicks. It's really good. I don't think it's in America. What? Chin Chicks. Chin Chicks? Yeah. I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe I've never heard of it. It's basically non-toxic. oh oh oh it's a it's a product yeah it's a product okay yeah it sounds a bit like a chinese or some food yeah i know when we're with all of ours is toxic we kill them all this one this one is specifically yeah you don't need to it doesn't need to be licensed and it is causing a stir within the industry and i hear on the grapevine that a lot of the big boys in the industry that are suppliers and chemicals are not happy i'm not saying names i just hear on the grapevine yeah it must be the product must be good but we use it now we don't buy chemical but we don't buy chemical products for um book jobs no more um we offer steam and we offer the chinchicks but we call it desiccant dusts we don't actually put the product name on the website um i seem to be getting a bit more of an uptake but that just tells me that this product is taking over if you get what i'm saying yeah so i'm guessing that some of these firms that ain't happy are seeing a dramatic reduction in their bed book chemical products i would say because that's normally when they start kicking up a stink they're not bothered till that point so that's all rumor.

1:25:28 Don't know if any of it's true. Just so if anyone is listening, I just heard. That's all.

1:25:36 So, yeah. But yeah, thanks for coming on. Do you want to tell people where you can find your podcast? Yeah, I mean, we're Best Pest Podcast. We have a Facebook page. We have a YouTube channel. We're on Spotify. We got blogging.com. We do blogs on there. um yeah you can find us uh instagram tiktok so we're on we're on all that um didn't know you're on there but follow you yeah yeah you're on them too there yeah so i don't put the full-blown podcast uh on on facebook those those full-blown podcasts if you want to listen to them um is going to be either on youtube or spotify i would rethink that decision I would rethink that Decision because Facebook Is a very good platform And we'll have a talk after But About that but yeah Please go and follow if you're a regular Listener some of my records Have already started listening to your podcast Because I mentioned You last week I didn't think a few of them would go and find your Podcast but after mentioning it I was like I'll tell him he'd be well happy I will But hopefully you get a bump in viewers and a bump in followers on Spotify, et cetera.

1:26:56 Yeah. Hopefully that will help that well. But yes, thanks for coming on episode number 86. And yeah, so, so thanks. So everyone go and follow the podcast, listen to it, drop five stars, subscribe to the best pest podcast. And you can always follow best perspectives as well. You fancy it. but uh thanks everyone i'll just end the recording and then i'll have a chat to you but yeah so uh thanks everyone can't remember who i've got next week but it'll be good so thanks everyone see you next week