How Small Pest Control Companies Win Bigger Contracts | Mark Porter | In Focus

0:00 And, you know, we're getting referrals passed to us. And I think that's how it should be, especially amongst us smaller companies. That's nice. Yeah, he's helped you. He's saying, help me loads from a business sense. And it's greatly appreciated, mate.

0:17 It's all good. It's all good. So, obviously, I'm guessing that you built this portfolio up because you're – is it you going out and seeing clients and talking to them? do you yeah how did you go about that is it all in person is it email is it face to face so it's all in person but when i uh going back to the pro kill thing when i when i left when i when i was leaving pro kill as you can appreciate going back to the very point about people buying people um it was pretty quickly getting out there that um pro kill had been purchased by rentakill and I made it clear that I was leaving.

0:56 So quite cheekily, I stayed in touch with a lot of these people. I had their contact details. And once I knew my non-compete clause was up, I utilized it. You know, I stayed in touch with people. And because I was solving problems quite successfully when I was at Prokill, without being big-headed, it was a no-brainer for those people to come across to me when I started my own company. I knew what they was paying, and I knew what they was expecting. So it would be a lie for me to say that I didn't have a massive helping hand with my past life at Prokill.

1:30 But, you know, it's not so I read a thingy before about it's not about having good luck is how you use that good luck that really matters. And that's what we did. We maximized on that. I mean, one of my block management clients that we do a lot of work with, I think we're up to north of 150 sites with these guys now, them alone. Wow. It's incredible. and that's and we still continue to get work from them because it's all based on trust it's like we've got this site this is the problem can you please go and sort it out and invoice us and trust is the biggest element for me so with these blocks you do is it like a monthly service or is it like exactly that it is that okay yeah so we do all the common parts so essentially it's car parks service rooms boiler rooms plant rooms lift motor rooms tank rooms and then what where we bolt on a lot of added services is we we can do some bin store cleaning as well you know we do fly maintenance i mean my my fly maintenance service has gone through the absolute roof in the past 18 months um big shout out to dave haskins at bauer products on that because he came to our he come to our office and did some training on fly units and selling fly units and you know we did an internal competition with the team about who could upsell the most fly units so it's just keeping things relative and um relevant relative and relevant no no that's nice that is i mean yeah you yeah you're small business but you sound big time to me i want to i want to be big time And I think that's, I always revert it back to the sense that I'm on PayPal.

3:13 I'm uninvestable. I'm unemployable. And it's funny because I saw a company that I actually applied for an operations management role before years ago. Absolute years ago. And they turned me down and they practically laughed at me. And quite recently, they actually commented in one of my posts, like saying congratulations and whatnot. and I thought god you know they I'm kind of hoping that they feel that they missed a big opportunity there with me so it's almost a little bit like a yeah full circle you know but yeah it's I think it's just a drive I've got I've I've come from absolutely nothing I've built I've built this company with just pure determination I've had no we've got no external investors in our company is myself and my wife that own it fully So we had multiple offerings in the early years which I glad now that we declined that opportunity because we never really needed them We never really needed the financial backing It was really just people with the business acumen that we felt we might have needed.

4:14 But we've just sort of found we found our way along. You know, we've just we've done everything together. And she's sitting here with me now. I'm hoping to get her on in a second just so she can at least be acknowledged because, you know, she's been a massive, massive part of our growth. it's really it's really good to hear because i'll love my message to work in our business eventually when i take over the reins so yeah it's it's really nice it is if anyone's got any other any questions in chat they want to ask as well i can always mention them but i love to see it it's a successful family business and you say the early days of acquisitions i bet recently you've had people try to buy you again yeah well fun i i bumped into colin harrison who i love colin colin i remember i go i go way back with colin and uh you know and i know he's got his eye out there now on on companies but he you know he gave me some really sound advice actually um and he said he sort of said we've had an eye on you but we both agreed i'm only 40 years old I only turned 40 recently so I'd like to think I've got another 10-15 years before I can sit down with a wife and say look do you want me home a little bit more because uh we've had a really good offer on the table well depends if you want to pass it down to your son or anything is it yeah exactly um I'd like I'd like I mean you know what I'd be a liar if I sat here and said that I wouldn't turn down like a really really appealing offer but I think at the minute we're having so

5:48 much fun and without sounding big-headed you know we're we're really sort of turning heads where we need to be um holly is the real boss i had to see that comment uh siobhan um so yeah i think you know and i i keep reverting back to it we are having so much fun i mean we're running a business um a lot of people didn't think we was going to get past a year let alone eight years so i think the fact is we're building momentum we're getting huge clients on board and you know we're making really good solid connections with with fellow pest controllers up and down the country so you know we're we're someone now that people can turn to in london with an established reputation and you know they know that they they they can get us to do what's needed they know that we ain't gonna fail we're gonna get the job done that's what you're done that's exactly what you want it's uh it's it's good to hear and adam's saying the same i wouldn't be wearing my messes same with me the way i did the way i am now i used to work in the factory i used to be shy and everything and i'd turn my life around and uh look at me now yeah it's changed for the better much i think my kids like it more because i used to be very quiet or used to work in a factory in

7:09 that was it and now they're quite proud of me now yeah so they should be for what i've done i mean i've always been bloody loud i can't uh i don't have an off button um but again i think that's what's created the personality you know people people really like my passion and enthusiasm and i think that's the best advice that i can give to anyone that's sort of really thinking about what they can do to scale their business i think it's it's be it's be real you know you're Don't go out there wanting to try and sell someone something.

7:39 You've got to have that passion in wanting to solve a problem because if they see that passion that you're actually wanting them to solve a problem, then they see that. You know, I mean, we've sort of been on the bandwagon from the very early stages of using motion cameras for remote monitoring. Yeah, that. I love that. How did that come about? What was the Rio links? That come about by a really good friend of mine Robert Stanard of Kent Pest Services who I actually got to meet through when I was the sales rep at Lodi UK so I only met him when I was trying to sell him products and we've been really close friends ever since you know we've we've been really close and um he told me about Reolink and I sort of really jumped on it and I used it as a bit of an experiment with some of my clientele and I and I was maximizing an opportunity with it and you know we we sell it at an absolute premium you know because in London especially you can get away with that but it's not it's not it's not it's not trying to do one without the other with yes we're selling it at premium but we're offering a premium service as well which a lot a lot of my local competitors it's about knowing what your competitors around you aren't doing I know what they are doing and it is that's where I've always been quite switched on and keep my keeping my eye on the game around me and knowing how i can keep you know how i can keep evolving our business i mean we've got drones we do drone surveys and things like that as well i've seen that so you know we're constantly investing we've got two mopeds on the road now so i'm never becoming complacent and letting anyone

9:17 try and get in my mind i'm not letting anyone try and get near me because no sooner they try and do what we've done, we're then moving on to the next thing already. Well, yeah, you're very, very fast thinking. You are. Forward thinking. Yes, I try. And it don't always work. You know, I don't, again, I'm not sitting here saying that I'm an absolute legend in the game, but, you know, I'd like to think that we are building a name for ourselves and that's what drives me. If we fell flat on our face, at least my attitude would be that we tried, but we're out there and we're picking up pace.

9:55 Yeah. You know, with the mopeds, how does it, what do they do on the mopeds? Because you can't fit much on a moped. Do they have press control? What do they do? Just like surveys and like monitoring. No, so generally speaking, we use the mopeds for emergency call-outs. We're able to offer them a unique call-out time because some of our clients, you know, we deal with Michelin star restaurants. We deal with leisure centres. We deal with theatres, et cetera. So we the the SLAs that we have on some of our portfolios makes us quite unique where we can guarantee a same day attendance.

10:30 OK, well, that's good. And within London, anyone that's been to London and operates in London, it's sometimes it's just a lot easier. But to answer your question directly where what they're carrying is concerned, we try to be quite strategic because the guys do carry a Fatmax bag as well. So they're able to get the snap traps in there, the redenticides and bits, bits that will perhaps at least get a holding treatment in place if a holding treatment is needed. Or we need to just get some tracking dust down or some tracking gel down or some remote cameras.

11:03 We're at least able to do that and sort of give that client peace of mind. And again, it's almost it's almost being able to give that peace of mind immediately before we get the decision makers sort of purchase order. It's just giving that again. It's just trying to stay ahead of the game. it's good it's good anyone realize what i keep doing i'm sweating i've got a towel it's really hot you know we've just took five fans down from our loft and they're all in the kids rooms and me and my wife are sitting here we're both sweating thinking where's i think you might need to go and get the actual fan in a minute holly so what's it like working with your son do you argue but that's what i want to know do you argue at times we do and I think I mean the good thing with me is that everyone knows and can see that mine and Jamie's relationship is super special because he's my oldest son and he's been coming out to work with me since the age of on and off sort of like 10 years old you know coming out with me at weekends and seeing what I up to um and he has the highest pressure on him because he is my sun it goes one of two ways I worked in businesses where the son gets away with absolutely everything The son is absolutely useless but you can say nothing to that son because he the boss son Whereas I've been the complete opposite with Jamie.

12:25 Jamie's almost like the flagship of the levels that I expect. But he's thrived on that because Jamie runs his own business outside of our work with his boxing. He runs a boxing school. he teaches children with special needs um and he works with sort of children that have sort of perhaps fallen down the wrong path in life and are looking for some sort of escape so he does that on the side and he's a successful boxer himself so yeah i think i think that works you know because we bounce off of each other personality wise and he's very driven like me so and he's very he's very passionate about pest control as well so it i think it's easy because that's what i wanted to ask you is i'm sure when i listened to the beauties and beasties you wasn't sure if he was going to stay in pest control is he going to stay in pest control for the time being yeah definitely for now i think because you know we're able to offer him a stable income and in the sense that it's in full-time employment so you know he's 21 now um he's soon enough going to want to be leaving home and getting a property for himself so at the minute he's been working from a young age in full-time employment he's doing his boxing on the side so i'm just giving him a platform i mean it's always in the back of my mind that we might be sitting down one day to have that chat where he might want to exit the business and you know i'll do nothing

13:41 but support him i'll be heartbroken but you know for what he's given me in the time that he's been with me and the memories that we've made and the partnerships that we've built i can't be nothing but prouder really but i think it's been a big key i think it's been a big key is that we we work together all the time he's with me today actually because i think he knew that lunch was on lunch was on the horizon.

14:03 What, you were paying? Yeah, yeah, we have this whole, we have this, we have this mental note, we know who's round it is. Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. But no, it's nice to hear you like, I mean, I like working with my dad, but yeah, at times you can argue. I sometimes win, although I'm right. Not all the time.

14:27 But so um where are we so so like with the business you obviously you obviously do you do any of this um because i'm doing a trial with sygenta at the minute with um 24 hour monitoring now i know you do the real links do you do any of them boxes where they you get all if you get activations they get sent straight to your phone or tablet do you do you use any of them systems so well we are the real links so everything's directly with reolink okay and that's generally we we do reolink on our squirrel treatments and our wrap treatments essentially um i'm talking domestically we can offer that for some of our commercial clients we've got some clients commercially that pay us for a number of cameras in their premises constantly and it's the same emphasis of what you're saying with the it allows it monitors and it alerts you but um we do we just primarily use a real link i mean yeah because although it although it's good the man there here we go

15:43 that's my boy

15:48 but no that's uh that's um it's good to me i'm obviously doing this this this this the Syngenta trial because I shouted my mouth off on LinkedIn saying, yeah, this ain't for small businesses next week. Their NPTA is asking me if I want to do a trial with Syngenta. So that's how I got it. I think it goes back to the point that you said earlier. It's having that confidence. If you grow in confidence and you're able to sort of put your head above the parapet