Pest perspectives EP 23 - ⁠Tom Holmes⁠ - Tom Holmes Consulting - Pest Perspectives

Hello and welcome to Pest Perspectives episode 20.

That's it. 23 on this fine sunny day.

It's a bit colder than it has been recently, but this week we

will have no problems because last week it kept putting out on

every podcast. But I found out there was a bug

in the software. I have to have the green screen

not on until they fix it, but it will not cut out and if it does,

it's just jinxed. It will just do it just annoying

me it will. But this week we have on Tom

Holmes from Tom Holmes Consulting.

How are you doing? Very good.

Yeah. Great to be here.

Thanks ever so much for asking me.

Honest. It's a real thrill.

Never done a podcast before so looking forward to.

It there she is on queue, there's Jasmine, good evening.

And there's the person that got you on the podcast.

She was like, you need to get to my mum.

And also I want to say shout outs to Laura Hugh, have you

have you got something on? Have you got a funnel or

something? It might just be the fun in my

laptop it's pretty warm where we.

Are I can I can hear it a little bit.

Don't worry about it, it's fine. Thanks to Opticatch for

promoting this podcast on their LinkedIn.

It was nothing to do with Jasmine.

I found out it's Laura Hughes, the Opticatch marketing lady.

So shout outs. I think you're doing great work

on the on the social brands with all the content I've been

saying. So you're doing a good job.

I'm sure Jasmine's impressed with you.

But yeah, or shout you out. But yeah.

So Tom, do you want to give people, if people don't know who

you are, it's a brief description, then we can go into

your whole career, just a brief of who you are basically.

Yeah, well, so let's start with where I am now.

So I'm, I set up Tom Holmes Consulting, you see what I did

there back in October, early October of last year.

And perhaps we'll come into the detail of what I do, but I

provide services to not just the pest management industry, but to

wider field as well. But that's where my, my

expertise is because I've spent almost all of my career to date

within the pest management sector.

I had a two year stint, probably something different, but the

type of work I was doing was not dissimilar to what I've done

previously, which is new product development, what I guess you've

classed as product management or marketing.

And it's it's truest form of what I believe marketing is.

And again perhaps we can cover that.

So that's what I'm doing now. I have a small number of clients

that I spent my time working with which for, for now that my

situation works perfectly for me enjoying seeing some businesses

that I've known for many years from the outside.

And now I'm working with him on the inside.

And that's always a fascinating, fascinating thing to, to, to

see. I say I've been in the industry

for, for for over 20 years now. Most of that time I spent with

the company PAL System manufacturing distributor, which

when I started was the small family run business P&L Systems

and I joined P&L oh, back in late 2000 as a product designer.

And that was my, that's where I, I came from, that's my trade.

I studied industrial design and product design and joint PNL and

grew with it, grew with the business through from being

family owned to being private equity owned, acquiring

businesses and what it became in the last years.

I learned something there I didn't.

I didn't know Pelsis was owned by a big company.

I learned something there. Right.

But yeah, thanks for that. So how did you, obviously I know

you said, but were you, were you ever on the ground as in were

you ever a technician or no? No, it's, it's an interesting, I

think one of the sort of listening to some of some of the

podcasts and the guests you've had in your, yeah, your, your,

your podcast here. And, and very so the testimonies

I've heard, it seems to be two approaches to when you ask

anyone, how did you get into the industry?

There's either, well, I, I was always interested in bugs or

entomology or, or, or life scientist biology.

And that was take or the standard answer is, well, I kind

of fell into it by mistake. And I'm definitely the latter of

those two. So as I said, I was a part

designer, industrial designer by trade.

I, I studied at Northumbria University, which which

certainly at the time is what I'm talking, 25.6 years ago, I

had a really good reputation as a degree course.

And some of the big names that went until the course I was on,

there was Jonathan Ives who went to Apple and he responsible for

the iMac iPods. All that's cool and Rob Law, who

was actually the year I was in the same year as as as me and he

he's the guy who came up with the idea for Trunky.

Then if you know that one, it's the yes ride along suitcase 5.

K choose to have form nearly broke but.

There you go. Well, he recently said about

this. So I'm sure those two now as

well as they've done, are now looking back and thinking how

envious it must be of me having found my way into pest

management. But as I said, I joined PNL

systems as was they, they manufactured at the time

products, it was predominantly in satellite trucks and they

needed someone to help them do the design in housework with the

manufacturing teams. And that's that's what started

it off. But for years I was, I always

said look, I'm a product designer who happens to be

working in pest management industry.

But I realised many years ago now, now I'm embedded into the

pest management industry now. So there was a definite point

where it shifted. Oh, that's good.

Days you know you know when you're going through design in

the let's say in the early days, how do you how do you make like

a insect trap? Would you have to like have

experienced or going into places that have got infestations or do

you have testing flies or how does it work to build a?

It sounds hard to build 1. It's, it's, it's, it's a really

good question actually, because I, I would go backwards and I'd

say, look, the fact that I ended up in, in pest management is, is

one thing. And to be honest, I in the

business of work for we learnt as we went, we learnt as we went

and we absolutely improved our sophistication of research and

development as as we went. But the theory of designing any

product is that you it's a similar process for anything,

whether it's a in satellite trap, whether it's a rodent

station, whether it's a trunky suitcase, whatever it is, my

view is understand the problem or define the problem you're

trying to solve and then put yourself in the shoes of the

users who are going to be using this understand their needs,

understand their wants. And once you do that and define

your problem, agree what I saw called the brief, what it is

you, you want to create what they must have.

And then you start that development process and it's,

it's never a straight line. It's always up and down.

There's some curveballs along the way, but if you truly

understand the needs of that user, that's when you get those

moments of of real, real genius, real, real joy in in in

developing something new. That's true.

Do you listen to a lot of podcasts to talk about finding

problems and like leadership? Do you listen to a lot of them

kind of podcasts? So I feel like you you might be

the kind of person that does because I do.

So I listen to a lot of progress where it's like you need to find

a problem in like most successful businesses, you find

a problem, they build the product and they put it out to

market. Like Trunky that did well that

did you do you listen to a lot of podcasts like that?

A. Little bit a little bit, but

also keep up to date on through there's some best practise and

ways of thinking through through other sources.

There's, you know, there's millions of different resources

out there for how you can do that.

I don't help identify their problems or process or journey

you take take to to find solutions.

But are we back to where what we originally started with once

once I got serious within the industry, I realised I needed to

to understand the industry better.

You know, and I say this to everyone.

I say this to some of my clients.

Now that you can sit in a bright shiny office and contemplate

about it wouldn't be great if we came up with this or found this

solution. But in our case, until you've

been out with a service person, with a technician, seen seen it

for yourself, being on your hands and knees with a torch,

dealt with the problems that they're facing, there's no way I

believe you can find understand what their problems are and then

find a great solution. It's a great point.

It is because you're not. You're trying to solve

something. You're not 100% sure what the

actual problem is. You you think you know, but

until you visually see it, you don't really know, do you?

Well, exactly. And, and equally if the, the,

the joy about arming this dragon is the same as most.

But we, I always used to say, well, look, we have when I, when

I was working for a manufacturer distributor, we had our

customers, the, the people we sold to.

So pest controllers, which could be small sole traders through to

nationals, through to multinationals and they all want

slightly different things. But then of course, we're also

trying to provide, we're talking a physical product, we're trying

to provide a solution for them to give to their customers, the

end users. And in fact, ILTS and satellite

traps are a great example of that with LED technology, which

perhaps we'll come on to because that provides benefits to both

the service company in terms of reduced servicing, longer life,

all of that good stuff, but equally to the end user in terms

of low running cost, sustainability.

So if we could find solutions, problems that existed for both

the service complete and the end user, that was a win win for

everyone. Oh no, it definitely is.

It's yeah, we will get on to that subject.

We will, because it's quite, quite good.

There's Yeah, it's quite interesting because now people,

what I'm doing, I'm asking people that come on the show if

they've got anything they want to talk about or passionate

about a certain subject. And Tom's come up with quite a

good, good one. He has.

So was he, but your whole way through pulses, was you just

creating fly, fly units or did you, did you do anything like

were you involved in any kind of technical training for the fly

department, fly trends and all this?

Kind of, Absolutely. Yeah.

So that was so when I joined and I joined us, I said it was a

small family run business, manufactured, manufactured and

set light traps, but that was that was all we did.

But this was in many businesses. The idea was how do we

diversify? Fast forward to 26 two thousand

and six 2007 and the business became private equity owned.

And then it was a case of what we've they've got a war chest of

of capital. What other businesses can we

invest in and and buy and bring in?

And that really started to change the game a little bit

because then suddenly by then I had a small team of, of product

engineers, quality engineers and also going to pass a little bit

further, entomologists, biologists and we, we will start

to. So between us over a period of

tennis over 1015 years, we developed rodent stations, bird

management products. We had some consumer goods for,

for DIY pest controllers. We some washroom products as

well from small part of the business.

So the the range of products that we dealt developed was was

became pretty vast. But what became crucially

important is back to where I started.

We needed to understand the problem.

So pretty quickly, what 2002 thousand and nine 2010, I

started to to get more involved in the business in the industry.

So that for me meant going out with our customers, getting up

at 4:00 AM, going out on there, the the site, the jobs with it,

with those guys to really understand the problems, the

good and the bad. Because because equally it was

fascinating. You could speak to medium to

large size pest control businesses and the their

managers, the district managers or the leaders would say one

thing to speak to the the boots on the ground pest technicians

and they will show you a very different picture.

So so understand. It's all, it's all roses when IT

managers, yeah, it's all roses. And then on the ground, it's a

different matter. Exactly.

And so ever I think that you learn very quickly what matter

technicians that you have a solution that is simple and

quick to use, that does an effective job so that it can

limit, limit on callbacks and scheduled visits.

Commonality of consumables. Again, IoT is particularly

important. The insights you've got from

from working closely with people using the products was critical.

But then I, I started to, to represent the business on, on

different industry bodies. So I represented the business on

crew when, when that was opened up to the stewardship regime

was, was first coming in. I, I represent a business there.

So that was a bit of an eye opener.

And then I found my way on to the BBCA, into the BBCA

governance structure, initially as part of their manufacturers

and distributors committee as they had at the time.

And then also, so again, that was a terrific experience of

hearing different perspectives about, about the industry, what

was working, what wasn't working.

So a really good journey there. So you must have been quite

respected within the industry because to get the president's

role is quite a big title. Is that voted for or was that

something you were offered because you were?

It's quite a big title, to be fair, to get the president of

the BBCA it. Wasn't it wasn't it wasn't

something I took on lightly. You know, there was, I'll be

lightly if I said there wasn't times that guy from what we the

association got an MND and manufacturers and distributors

background. Is this right?

But what's yes. So John, to your question.

So I've joined the board initially and whatever that was

14 or so people and the the, the then president was going to be

stepping down after then the the 2 two year term and I was sort

of suggested I could put myself forward.

I did. There was a vote and I was

looking if to get on, but I was very lucky as well.

The board at the time was very strong.

It was a lot of well known or strong experience and there are

real people that are really good blend between small, large

service companies, the manufacturers and distributors.

So Paul Westgate was on there, Mark Williams from I know you've

had him on the show, Bob Williams, 3 Club, my Cares

position, Rupert Broome, Martin Cobold, Alan Morris from ENVU

and Alan was one of my vice presidents, as was Phil helping

Countrywide who so tragically lost his life what, a couple of

years back now, which was absolutely gut wrenching.

But lovely man, very talented man.

So there's a lovely mix between small and large service

companies and the manufacturing, the distributors community all

are there to, to sort of try and move us forward.

So lot of, lot of great robust discussion.

We made some policy changes. We hopefully moved the

association forward. There were moments when there's,

there was a lot of strong characters in the room where

that we got quite tasty at times.

But that was my role to try and wrestle it back.

And I think, you know, hugely proud of what we did, what we

achieved together. Yeah, No, it's it.

It's good because obviously I'm still, I'm still new to being on

the obviously I'm on the MPTA board and I couldn't pretty much

imagine that we've been in the meetings.

It's kind of the same kind of structure.

I'm learning how things work and I'm still new.

I'm learning how to help with Pestech this year.

Did you help with the BPCA events as well?

Did you? I've been the president.

Did you? I contributed and I would be

well reeled out to to cut the ribbon and.

Maybe say I can't remember. That's cool.

But I mean most to be honest, the I'm sure it's this.

I know, I know the structure is slightly different, but the, the

BBCA had a quite a large, but I have to say absolutely fantastic

staff team as well under the CEO.

So, so we would set set direction as a board, but these

guys would do a phenomenal job of executing it.

So, so a little bit of involvement, but it was

generally run to those that team to to run it.

It's good to hear it's. You enjoy.

Are you enjoying it? You've been part of a, you've

been part of an association. As in from the board

perspective, you mean? Yeah, Yeah.

Do you enjoy it? I I do.

Obviously you can't talk about the majority.

We can't talk about any of it on the board, obviously, for for

obvious reasons. But yeah, I am enjoying it.

They're very, they're very good with me because I'm not

somebody, whoever, I'm not the kind of person that you'd look

at and think he's, he's a board director for the MPTA.

I'm not, I don't come from a corporate world.

I was never in any of that. And I thought, I applied for it

and I thought, no way they're going to go for me.

And then in the end they did. It was a vote and I got offered

a position. But that day, oh, I was

panicking so much. I was like, if the day was

getting later and later by the by the end of the day, I'd

convinced myself I've not got it.

No way, no way. Then Kevin called me just before

I picked the kids up from school and he's like that we'd like to

offer you a position. I'm not pretty cool that was,

but I am learning. I am learning the way because a

lot of them are teaching me the way.

You've got to organise events and you've got to budget and

find out what costs and how it works.

And it's not as simple as from the outside looking in.

Everyone thinks it's easy to organise things within the

industry. It's not.

It's not as simple as it looks or sounds or you think it is in

your head until you you're behind the closed doors and

you're involved in the conversations.

Well, I do. I do enjoy being part of the

conversation. It's it's it's good to try and

help push things forward. It is.

Well, exactly. I'm just picking up when you

said there about, you know, you never thought you'd come from a

corporate world or whatever. For me, that's that's it's not

irrelevant, but that's not the point.

The point is the analogy I use. If you were putting together a

sports team, football, you don't want 11 strikers on the pitch.

You need a blend of different skills, backgrounds,

experiences. Hopefully we're pointing in the

right direction. But, and that was my view with

the boards that I was part of. The ones that work well were the

ones where we have some small service companies, medium

multinationals and equally some people from consultants there

and manufacturers and distributors, all with different

backgrounds, all with different expertise.

It has to have that that that blend.

No, it does. Jasmine's in agreement.

She put, I agree, corporate or otherwise, the more diverse the

perspectives, the better because she's obviously she's she's on

the committee he's got she's actually the leader of the the

women in pest control committee and on the board of directors as

well. So Jasmine's going through it

with me. She's learning about it all the

trade body side. But but yeah, it's it's good to

have a good mix. It is, it's, it's something I

always, it's something I always wanted to do ever since I

started to get more active in pest controls on socials and

that I was like, I wanted to, but I didn't think you could

apply for them. But it's something when Kevin

took over, he wanted to put it out there to see who was

interested in, in giving it a go.

And yeah, they picked me for some reason.

Who knows? Well.

You they would only pick you if they thought you could bring

something to the to the party, and I'm sure you are.

Well, yeah, yeah, I am. Bring the spice only if needed.

But but yeah, it's good to get your view on what it was like to

be the BPCA president. Did it?

Did it because you were the president?

Did it give Palsis any more prestige within the industry

because you were like the press? What he's saying is more

prestigious because you were on, you were the president of the

BPCA or or not. What do you think?

I'd I I'd possibly possibly I I I view as two days.

First of all, the BP say, right, you were always very clear that

listen when you walk through that door of that that

boardroom, you are here representing bringing your

experience, expertise and knowledge.

But you're here with the BPCBPCA hat on and you leave your

commercial hat at the door. And if you know looking around

that room, there were times when I could see somewhere better

than others are doing that. But for me, I stand by that.

I think that's the way it has to be.

But without doubt, you know, I got a huge amount from it in

terms of contacts I made, opening my eyes just a little

bit to, to, to some of the other areas of the, the industry.

I just didn't have a vision visibility on.

And without doubt, did it help Peltus my, my employer?

I'm sure it did. I'm sure it didn't.

But equally, I in the business had to give up time for me to to

do that properly. So, so I think it was some of

the work for everyone. But I've come back to when

you're in that room, you have to be there with your association

hassle. No, we're definitely sure it's

the same with the MPTA. It's all about the interests of

the trade body over everything else, not about your, your

secret agenda. That's not that's not what it's

about. It's about furthering the

industry, trying to make it better.

That's what both, that's what both associations are for, just

to try and make the pest control industry better.

In reality, that's what it's all about.

It is. Absolutely.

And you know, let's we'll come on to it.

But you know, it's, it's such a rich, fascinating industry, but

it's not without its challenges. It's not without its challenges.

And we need strong leadership at a local, national, global level

if we're going to outcome those challenges.

Yeah, it's not, it's not there is.

There is a lot, a lot. The the biggest challenge at the

minute I'd feel obviously not because I'm AI work with my dad,

I'm in a small business. But I do know that the the

recruitment element of it, it's a massive problem because they

say statistically half the industry is going to retire in

the next 5 to 10 years. So that's a challenge that both,

I think both trade associations are trying their best to push to

get to turn because it's like you do want young people in the

industry, but you've got to get them at the right age so you're

at the right temperament. So it's like you want young, but

sometimes when you say young, you mean someone who's 30, not

always 17 coming in. But anyone, any age, if they've

got the right mindset and they want to do it, can be in it for

life. They can.

It's just trying to get the right people in.

It is. Exactly.

I got like it's similar to we're just discussing.

I think I think you need a blend.

So when you, but if you're building a small service teams

so that you want that blend of experience, reliability, sort of

middle of the road and then perhaps some newer heads that

you can train up in your image to, to, to do how, how, but then

also equally bring new ideas to it.

So, but without doubt the the ability for our industry to

attract and retain talent is, is a real challenge.

And I think there's some ways ways I think the industry can

can start to address that. And perhaps we come on to some

of those with, with recruiters, specialist recruiters with

digital technology, one of the big hot topics I know we're

we're all talking about. So they can all play their part.

They can all play their. Part they can, they can.

It's got to be different. It's got to be the right kind of

person. It has, but it's not it's not an

easy challenge because it's it's just the thing with both

associations are trying we've regards to the BPCA president.

Well, like when you were were you when you were the president.

Is there a time frame when or is it like you could be it forever

or is there a time frame when you're asked to stand down?

I don't know how it works. Yeah, it's, it's a two year

term. It's a two year term.

So I mean, it may well have moved on since I was there, but

it was certainly when I was there, it was a two year term

and sort of structure was typically you had two, I think

you have up to three vice presidents.

The theory of being one of them was being would have been in the

shapes become the the next president.

But I think in in exceptional circumstances, someone you one

could have stayed on, but that was that was the typically the

play 2 years. OK.

I just thought I'd ask. I didn't.

I didn't know if it was. Once you're on, you're on.

That's it. I didn't know, but that's fair

enough. That is all right.

Do you want to? Do you want to mention this

topic then with Fly killers? Yes, can.

Absolutely can do do. You want to go into it?

Yeah. Or not.

Yeah, happy to, more than happy to.

It's, I think the reality is, and I joke about it, my two

boys, my children are at an age now where they sort of see what

I'm doing and they, they sort of take the Mickey at me a little

bit. Because as I said, as my career

today, it's, it's been about understanding customer needs,

finding great solutions for that, mostly in the pest

management sector, spent time looking at product selections,

spent time delivering and writing, delivering and

organising training. But a lot of what I've done has

been product development. And as I said, whilst we've done

have been poverty that's done bird management, rodent control

a lot, most of what I did over my career has been the

development and promotion of of flying insects or insect light

traps. So it's I have to accept it's

probably my 1 area of real expertise.

Well, that's why we've got the main man on.

I have, I have insect. So, so obviously you, you've

heard the podcast when Jasmine was on and there was lots, lots,

lots debunked and talked about then it's like there was

obviously faults where obviously LED upgrading is quite costly.

So imagine if you had a site where I don't know, that's some

of that some of these big sites have got like I know 3060 and.

The rest and the rest coming. Right.

So if you were to tell them, tell them, Oh no, you've got to,

they're being banned or whatever, you've got to upgrade

that. You're talking thousands upon

thousands, aren't you? So you so like obviously that in

itself, because obviously to get recycle them properly and

safely, not cheap, is it? So and a lot of them just

honestly, we'll just throw them in the normal way.

So you're not supposed to. But a lot of people do, don't

they? You know, I'm not saying that

they do that, don't they? A lot of people just chuckle in

the bin, but obviously if you had a site like that, that size,

they wouldn't get away with that, would they?

They wouldn't quite. Yeah.

But it's quite costly as well because everyone's going, you

must do just that. Obviously certain companies have

suggested that you need to do it in a in a timely manner as well,

but. Well, let's, I mean, let's,

let's, we start with the basics. You know, I, the first thing is

back to my principle. What, what are we, what are

those, these IoT, what are the tools?

What are they there for? And, and I actually just wrote a

piece for BBC magazine on it's that, that for me first, let's

start right at the top. I call them insect light traps.

And, and it's personal preference.

I'm comfortable with anything. It does sound better, I'll give

you that it sounds better. Well, this is what is the fly

killers, fly lights, fly traps, all fine, I've heard them all.

But the problem I have with the term fly killer is that we're

not necessarily looking to kill. That's not what they're to do.

I would argue we're fundamentally there to monitor.

But equally we're not just talking about flies, we're

talking about stored product insects.

We're talking about moths. We're talking so insect like

traps. Where I've landed is not

perfect, but that's the term I tend to use.

So ilts, what are they for? I think yes, they can be used

for controlling flying insects. They can be used for reducing

population. So if you think wastesides,

you're never going to get rid of insects, but we'll just try and

keep the numbers in check. And the truth, the sad truth is

they can also be used often cheap nasty ones that are there

for a tick in the box for a. Compliance, OK all the time.

I'm not very good at selling them but I often say to the

customers want a decent one, let me know at a good price but then

certain places and that's to say they're not interested.

They even tell them it's not working.

Not bothered A. High Street store the health has

done they need an ILT OK fine 31 from.

No, I'll take. Funny enough they don't.

The EH OS do not tell them the fly trap an insect trap they

don't. Now it's not a requirement.

The weird thing is, oh, like I've said to a lot of customers,

not a problem with the AHO until it's a problem.

Until then, flies are everywhere and they're going, where's your

fly unit? So I said they're not bothered

until there's a problem. OK, OK.

Not an actual within like pubs and restaurants.

It's not a natural legal requirement to have one.

I think it should be. I try and talk.

Again, depending on which standards we're we're talking

about, but most of must have appropriate measures in place to

control or manage the risk of flying insects.

Now that's pretty open. How do you do that?

So typically best practise of course would be to have a insect

light trap and some screening so for doors, windows, etcetera.

But so those those are the ways that I believe that that in

satellite traps can and typically used.

So the question then is which are, which are the best ones to

use? And you know, obviously I worked

for a manufacturer for many words many years now as an

independent, I have the joy of reviewing everything from the

market to to get our perspectives on it.

And what I would say is all those years of my team and I

spent trying to find subtle differences for fluorescent lamb

ILT used to make them more efficient, more improved

efficacy in terms of insect cats, quicker and easier to

service, more cost effective. We were tweaking small details.

The biggest significant change that orange tree is facing is

the move from fluorescent to LED without doubt because there are

so many factors at play here and there's no necessarily right or

wrong answers. But I don't know we supposed to

had it with Jasmine Anderson when she was on.

But as you said that the big point here is let's be clear on

what legislation is saying. So the latest as I understand it

and keeping the reason the rest of it is that so to confirm that

the Roche directive you use Roche directive fluorescent

lamps were across Europe. So we're just talking Europe

were banned white purpose lines UV lamps got an exemption.

So they said, yeah, there's no real alternative for for UV

lamps. So we'll give a five year

exemption and then we'll review it at the end of that period to

see whether what we want to do there.

Now that exemption expires in February 2027.

So what, 18 months away. So the European Commission, of

which the UK still piggybacks on regards to this has to make a

decision. Do we, do we extend that

exemption for 1/3 or five years or do we say, no, there's now

appropriate technology in place, we're going to now ban you

fluorescent UV lamps. So when someone says are they're

going to ban them, it's a subtlety, but it's they might

not, they might not renew the exemption.

What I'm hearing from some of the big lamp manufacturers is

that the, the Europe, the UK lighting industry has put in a

request to, to have the exemption renewed.

And by just putting in that request that automatically

pushes it back one year. They need more time to review

it, which means we have at least across Europe, at least until

February 2028 with for for us and lamps to be available and

then they may choose to extend it.

It's a. Long game.

Absolutely. So that's the sort of the the

legalities of it. But then there's certainly more

dynamics about the benefits to back to where we started with

gentleman Last as well benefits of transitioning to LED for

service companies and for end users.

So again, you've covered it previously, but everything from

maybe? We can cover it no problem.

Always refresh people we can no problem.

I know you. I know you're a really good

expert in his in his field. So let's talk about it.

Definitely. Yeah, well, I mean, this is it.

I mean, you, you could, you could have me going for days on

this, but So what have we got? So what are the benefits of

moving to, to, to LED? Well, fundamentally for, for end

users, there's the benefits are that they get absolutely get

improved sustainability. So fluorescent lamps, all

fluorescent lamps include a small amount of mercury, which

is a toxic material easily when, when recycling still finds its

way into the, the rivers and streams and waterways.

So we can remove all of that. They draw significantly less

power to run, which by the way gives end users huge,

potentially huge power cost, energies and energy

requirements, lower energy requirements, therefore much

lower running costs. And as you say, sure, if it's a

large site. So I mean, you said 3040, I mean

I've worked with sites where they've got 200 ILTS in.

I've never been to that level. I think think of a supermarket

chain that might have might have what 8000IL TS across their all

their stores and distribution centres across the UK.

So I mean we're talking huge numbers.

So if we can save 5060, £70 a year on the running cost times

567-8000, you can do the maths. So real benefits, real benefits

there and they last for up to three years as well.

And this is where it starts to get interesting what different

manufacturers are claiming now. But up to three years is what

I've seen rather than one year life of, of fluorescence.

And that gives a number of different benefits because for a

start, the manufacturers are and it's a real dilemma for

manufacturers and service companies because they are using

less, less lamps because they're lasting for three years.

So firstly, for manufacturers, they're not have, they're not

selling as many physical lamps, which is part of the reason why

they're charging more, I believe for the, for the LE DS, but also

it means they're not having to ship them around.

So wherever the lamps are produced, and I'm, I may be

wrong, but I'm not aware of any lamps that are produced, UV

fluorescent lamps or UV LED lamps that are produced in the

UK. So they're coming into the UK,

have been shipped around and then service companies are

having to ship them around to sites to install them.

There's a lot of moving stuff here which is costing money,

taking people's time but also pumping out.

CO2 into the environment, so we can reduce all of that.

And then in terms of the service company, it's got us work out

for their business model, of course, because if, and again

you've mentioned this previously, but if, if a service

company is charging their end user, their customer for the

LAMP change, that's a problem for them.

Yeah, that's, that's what I, I, I spoke to a lot of people and

that's like, like I can't really charge them for a visit just to

go and just to go and clean it. They won't because I'll have to

charge them a lot less. It's not, Yeah.

I think, I think the way to look at this is look there the the

lamps, yeah, cost a little bit more to buy upfront, there's no

doubt about that. But they last for last three

years. So with a little bit of simple

calculation, we can work out for the service company the cost

over a three-year term and we can certainly do that for the

end user with with regards to the the running costs.

So then what we've we've got to talk to you about is the service

company's business model. And this is something that

actually is much bigger subject when we talk digital products

because that really potentially tears that that business model

off. But if a service company is is

leasing the ILT and providing a service to the to their end

user, they then have to package up.

Well, this is what it's costing me to do it.

This is what I'm going to charge these guys.

But if the service company is selling the ILT and possibly

selling the replacement LAMP, then they've got to make that

business case stack up when they change it to once every three

years. So there's a lot of dynamics

that are at play there, which my recommendation to all, all the

technicians or businesses, service companies would be think

about how that will affect with your business model depending on

whether you lease products or whether you you sell them.

Yeah, wouldn't affect it wouldn't affect us really,

because we, we, we replaced, we had the Killjerm Titan, you

know, you know, the Titans. Yeah, we replaced it for the a

Bower LED the ones that do clusters.

Right. OK, but we but we don't actually

service. We only it.

It doesn't. We're not the kind of company

that goes around servicing multiple multiples to make money

out of it. So I was switching to LED.

Literally makes no difference to us at all.

What's your, what's your model, Shawn?

Then do you sell the ILT to that customer so they pay you

whatever or do you do you pay for the ILT and then your

service contract pays you back for the cost of the ILT?

How's it work? They just paid.

They just paid us for it. They did.

It's a place we do monthly, monthly servicing, mainly for

rodent, but it's like a big Manor house and they have they

they they have it for flies, but we it's it's done its job.

The LED has ever since It's not something we we make massive

money out of. We make with the fact that the

other we've still got to tighten up there, but eventually we will

replace the other one with an LED.

We will, but it's not something that we a big into.

I'm not very good at the talk of selling how he's how you sell

them. You know, I haven't got the gift

of the gap when it comes to that yet.

I have. I wish I could because one of

our friends, he sells flying machines like the sweets.

Honestly, it's at some. Point.

What else? Yeah, yeah, I mean there's

definitely salesmanship to it, but I think, I think comes back

to what is the problem you're trying to sell.

So if your client, your customer, if they're a food

processing food production, then then you're quitting because the

story to say you need to monitor the amount of flying insects in

your facility. And the best way to do that

probably a glue board and set large and then you can get into

the detail behind that. But if it's small, small

establishments, maybe not particularly sensitive in terms

of food processing, food production, then the need for

the IT it's, it's more down to causing distress in a pest,

flying insect pests or possibly damage to, to, to goods.

And that's probably more hard to sell without doubt.

So it very much depends on your customer base as to as to how,

how effective you're going to be putting those units in.

Yeah, I haven't got anywhere that are like proper food sites

and anything like that. I haven't a lot of got 1-2 farms

and mainly pubs and restaurants to be honest and they're never

whenever I mentioned about a good flying machine and never

that that. Maybe it's me not selling it

well enough, but they don't seem that interested.

Those sort of environments, they're, they're almost

certainly not going to be interested in monitoring flying

insects activity. They just don't want flies

flying insects around, yes, to land on their food, but also to

be a pest to their customers. So it's a very different kind of

use of those products. So, so I think so we could talk

seem to talk around there, but I think the two big change, the

two big implications of moving to LED then for for everyone is,

is I think the first one absolutely is pretty much

everyone used all the keynotes were moving towards using A50

mall 18 inch lamp. So the the fluorescent lamp that

went into most units and I could buy that lamp from manufacturer

or distributor ABC or D and I could put it into my 30 Watt

inset light trap. And whatever those availability

of the way, who had best pricing, who you had a

relationship with, you could use that.

And if I went to a site and I inherited a site and it had 20IL

TS in there and somewhere from manufacturer A, some of mansion

B, but they're all 30 Watt units.

I could put my 50 Watt fluorescent lamp into it.

With the manufacturers now moving to LEDs and exploring

what is possible with form direction, how to produce UV to

attract insects with, with, with a lamp, with, with LEDs, we're

getting all these different forms now of, of LED lamps.

And what that means that if, if I buy an ILT from manufacturer A

in three years time to get the replacement LED lamps to go in

there, I'm pretty much going to have to buy them from that

manufacturer. So you can, you can find other

sources, I'm sure, because that manufacturer will sell to other

sources. But if I'm so in, in three years

time, six years time, nine years time when the ILT starts to need

to have their LEDs replaced and I need to, I've got a site, an

inheritor site that's got 20 ILT S1 and three are from

manufacturer A, three are one mandatory B7 in manufacturer C

There's a good chance that I'm going to have to work out right.

I need 14 of those LED lamps. I need six of those LED lamps,

nine of those LED lamps, and it's going to become a real

nightmare. The service please.

So what you're saying to me, because I didn't know this, what

you're saying basically is fluorescent.

You could buy basically any bulb you wanted an LED, you cannot do

this. You have to make sure it's

specific to that machine. That's not that's not in all.

In all the case, not all the time, but a.

Lot of the big. Manufacturing distributors that

you'll have heard and I'm not going to talk brands and

business names, but for reasons I understand, you know, when you

look at the research and development they've done and the

sales arguments, I get it. But there, there is now a

uniqueness to what used to be that circuit.

That's a tube form that was 450 millimetres long, 18 inches

long, 50 watts. That lamp, no matter what source

I bought it from, would fit into pretty much any 30 Watt insert

light trap. Now, if I buy an IoT from them

or from them or from them, when I replace that LED lamp, there's

every chance I'm going to have to get one that's dedicated for

that unit. And that is unfortunately going

to massively complicate things for service companies.

Oh, no, I, I, I didn't know this.

So it's quite, I hope, and it probably will be for a lot of

people because obviously a lot of pest firms haven't moved into

LED yet because it's, it's a minefield.

It's like, obviously you listen to the podcast Paul Jasmine on

and for me it's, he was telling me about the manufacturers.

Flycatch is better than others. And it's hard to know exact,

like if you're not an expert in the field, it's hard to know

which is the better one value for money.

You've got to kind of ask what flycatch and then get the

flycatch research from each one. And it's it sounds like a

minefield to me to get the best one it does.

It it sounds like you need an industry expert consultant to

help. You.

I don't know why. Oh yeah, yeah.

Well, but actually that lead, yeah, I see she's made made a

point there. Yeah.

So I mean to sort of building or what I suggested that you know,

historically I could buy 15 Watt, 18 inch lamp from any

manufacturer and it would fit into the ILTS I've got in the

field. But if there's a shortage of of

stock from one particular manufacturer or a problem, then

it's it's much harder work for me.

Yes, it's. So that, so I think that's,

that's my observation concern. And I don't think that's getting

anywhere near the the press coverage, the talk that that it

needs to because that's going to really be a challenge for

service companies going forward. The fact that you know, for, as

I think I mentioned right at the start, my observation, having

worked in 20 years in industries, people want to

standardisation common consumables.

I have a question about this. Perfect.

So I'm not a massive fan of the EU, but they made a great thing

for the mobiles. They made it so every phone had

to have a universal cable now save on wastage.

Would the EU be happy with all these different bulb sizes and

the confusion trying to trying to get people know what to do?

They'd rather a universal standard.

I don't think they would be very pleased by this.

Not I might, I might not know, but I just think it's a

standard, like a standard cable for your phone saves a lot of

wastage. But I was thinking maybe, maybe

they they wouldn't be too happy about that because they'd want a

standard, standard size that anyone can use any bulbs.

But it's not like the world works, is it?

No, but for me it comes back to where we start when we're

talking about my background in product design, product

development that understand the problem you're trying to solve.

And if the if the problem we're trying to solve is there's a

risk around fluorescent lamps, either legislation wise, they

may be banned or more likely the availability will become less.

Perhaps the costing is going to go up as less people are dealing

in fluorescence. We've got to find an alternative

LE DS perfectly sensible way to go, but where you could argue

we're solving one problem, but creating another problem,

solving the problem of we need an alternative UV source, but

we're creating the problem of non common, non standard parts.

That again is on the chat. I see, but there's also higher

value costs more. So that's more stock that people

potentially would be will be holding.

So I think that's that's that's something that I believe is

going to become a bigger issue for service companies in the

years ahead. And then final thing just that

we have to mention we haven't touched that yet is yeah, we can

yeah, yeah is, is, is efficacy. So insect Cash and I've been

there, I've done it with, I remember those years when we,

when we business, I was with Pelson, we were starting to

develop LED technology and we had 15 years expertise and it's

my team in developing ILTS. And we, we had the labs where we

would rear flies and test products and we had equipment to

measure the UV commit. We were confident we were going

to have pretty quickly some really effective LEDILTS.

But the word, the development word that was required to get

ILTS using LEDs that were at least as effective as

fluorescent lamp ILTS was incredible because there's so

many variables of direction. What, what angle do we put

these, these LE DS are? I know there are some available

now where they are 360° output, which is quite a nice idea.

What intensity do we have 8 LE DS?

Or do we have 12 or do we have 30?

So many, so many challenges there, so many variables and it

took the team as it took us years to get that what we

thought, thought was right. And I guess what I'm saying is

it's, it is so important that as an industry we get this right

because if we're not careful, and I'm hearing it already,

there are ILTS in the market now, LEDILTS that aren't

performing as well as fluorescence fluorescent LED

fluorescent ILTS. And if the concept of LE DS gets

tarnished because of one or two units that aren't working so

effectively, we're in real trouble.

And the trouble is this you touched on earlier, Sean, it's

then so almost are we saying that it's down to the individual

service companies to be dissed, all enlarged to do the research

and check that those ILTS really do work.

There's only the RTS really work.

So the bottom line is this, I think the term I use is less

forgiving fundamentally. All those years we could put a

fluorescent lamp into a metal box with a glue board and it

would attract and catch not only a good number of flying insects,

but a rate of species of flying insects.

With LE DS, it's much, much harder.

So absolutely my recommendation to to to any user service

companies around user would be, yeah, do check with the

supplier. They should have, they should be

able to provide some, some form of test results or some sort of

evidence. But there's nothing like putting

a unit into the field and seeing how it performs as opposed to

the fluorescence. Because in the real world

environment, that's when you know is it catching the range of

different insects that mild fluorescent unit used to cat.

Yeah, has to, has to brilliantly cases where someone's gone out

and upgraded to LED and the flycatch is worse than what they

had with fluorescent. I can imagine that that's

probably happened. Maybe, yeah.

So I need to carry out this answer with with absolutely no

have a phrases in terms of the industry as a whole.

So not with my personal background, but the industry as

a whole. I've absolutely heard of

multiple examples of that and often there may be reasons

behind that. So how people are testing Ilts

in the real world needs some thinking.

So you can't put 2 units next to each other and test which

catches more for whatever. The LEDs just don't seem to work

like that. So it's a case of test, you

know, maybe it's one week with a fluorescent, second week with an

LED, repeat that and then take it out.

So the test protocol is important.

Temperature has a massive effect.

So you've got to get your testing right and sensible.

But to answer your question, absolutely.

I've heard repeatedly are examples of some IL TS that are

in the market that just aren't catching either as many insects

as a fluorescent or the range of species of insects that we would

expect to to catch in terms of stall products, insects, moths,

etcetera. See.

That's got to worry people because imagine if you you're a

business and you've gone and said this is the latest and

greatest and they've gone and spent that money with you.

Technically they could say you're full of it and that could

damage your reputation saying we've bought all this, that

we've got worse results. So it is, it's not a good thing

if that has happened it it's not a good look for LED, is it

really? No.

Exactly. And my, my worry is that if, if

the industry continues to have bad examples or bad, bad

experiences with, with some LE DS either in a particular

environment or with a particular new model of LED unit, that is

it. Then will the industry turn

around and go, you know what? All of this LED stuff is

rubbish, just crap. I'm not going near it.

Then we've got a real problem. Yeah.

So I mean, what I'm giving my views some some food for thought

here based on my experience, but equally, if you just if you have

strong relationships with your suppliers, just have the

conversation. You know, I'm, I'm a bit right

about this. Can you help me out, show me,

prove to me that that it's going to work or can you support me

maybe with a sample which I can put into one of my trusted

customer sites and trial it. See, just so you as a service

company and ultimately as an end user can gain that confidence.

I guess to summarise, I'd say probably don't assume, don't

assume that it's going to work just as good as your old

fluorescent. You need to get that confidence.

You are, I mean, I'm, I'm going off foot you.

You've given out some valuable advice that you have because I

would, I would in the future, I'd love to be.

My aim is we're having the website rebrand for our company.

And my aim is to be able to be one of these people that can

actually put the message across to you and sell LED fly units.

But there's the goal. Eventually, you never know.

Yeah. I mean, we, we've talked around

many of the many of the themes there.

So, you know, the think, think benefits I was used to, you

know, used to use to go out the basics.

What are the features, advantages and benefits to both

service companies and to end users and speaking with the

manufacturers, you know, they're all, they're all like their,

their claims. And there's some really good

stuff out there. So speak with your supplier, ask

them to help you out. You know what, what do you think

the advantages are and benefits to end users?

And it'll be sustainability, it'll be proved.

Longer life, it'll be reduced CO2.

All of this running cost of course, is the big one.

So they can help you. They should be able to help you

create that story that you can then pass on to to your

customers. OK.

Thank you for that. But yes, there's some great,

great advice for the LED. You know when the bulbs, why is

it in actual LED? You know what we'll say that in

cars they blind you. They do is there any reason why

they all blind you on the roads? It's I don't I don't like LEDs

in cars because they like blind you they're.

Much. They're much more intense,

aren't they? I guess fundamentally in that

communication, it's it's a good thing we're getting brighter

light to light up the road and. We'll be blind eventually.

I remember, I remember years ago, years ago, when she came to

say I was, I was stocked and I was a little bit over the speed

limit. So I stopped by Her Majesty's

then police service and they pointed out that I was speeding.

But they also gave me a really useful tip, which was actually

look, it's just about the time cars were being upgraded to, to,

to LED's and brighter lights. And, and they said you can have

a look in your rear mirror. You can always tell when there's

a police go behind you because they have the bright lights.

And suddenly initially it was, it was so clear, wasn't it, the

difference between sort of traditional bulbs and, and the,

the, the brighter ones. But I think ultimately in that

application, it has to be positive that, that the roads

are clearer now. I think the interesting point,

OK, Jasmine, jumping on the chat again here, but moving it back

to to L, LE, DS and RTS. There are examples, I can think

of a couple where there's a 360° output of LEDs, but most, most

LED lamps that I've seen are directional and there's ways to,

there's positives and negatives about that.

All I say is that that's got to be managed.

That's got to be managed. And Jasmine talks about her

diffusion coating and diffusion technology.

So the idea that allowing the LED to diffuse a little bit

rather than being points, those very annoying points of LED

sometimes you see, I think that's that's it's a

consideration. But again, the manufacturers

have to wrestle with that how to get the best possible effect to

attract insects. But equally, you probably don't

want 20,000 LEDs pointing at a human which is just so off

putting. You you, you know that they want

to look at it. So there's a balance there.

Yeah, no, you're right. You know, when it comes to

testing fly units in the lab as such, do you, do you like some

pelts and companies that make them?

Do they breed or buy flies specifically to, you know, be in

the room and to test them? Did they breed them?

They breed flies specifically for just testing purposes.

Is that how? I've always wondered?

Is that how it works or? Yeah, fundamentally so.

I mean it's, it's manufactured as a different ways.

But what I understand is some of some of the manufacturers do

have their own fly test rooms or chambers where they'll either

bring in mature flies, flying insects or sometimes in pupae

form which they let emerge over time.

But equally equally a number of them will use external test

facilities. Now the benefit of that is they

don't have to manage that. And it's independent downside is

it, it costs, it costs a good chunk of cash to, to get those,

those trials done. And I think, I think it's

important. It's, it's, as I've talked

about, it's really important for all concerned that we, we build

up our collective confidence in, in insect catch.

And I've like, I think we always again with my small engineering

team as was, we always use what the three levels we would

measure the UV coming out of the UV source.

And we had some equipment to be able to do that.

We would do some lab testing. So we would pick a particular

species of insects, usually the industry standardised to the the

Common House fund, not always, but usually.

And then if that was looking good, then we'll take it into

the real world and do some real world trials.

Do companies pick certain clients?

They have to say, could you test my unit for me at one of your

sites? But was that, is that common

practise? Is it?

Yeah. So sometimes, sometimes

manufacturers sometimes will go to as you say 1 of their service

company customers and say you help us out, find a site and

we'll we'll run a trial. I've tested with you.

Other times they will, the manufacturers will source a, a

facility, a site, an end user site themselves and a trial.

So as I said, benefits are benefits of lab tests.

Often the downside there is it is by definition controlled.

So there's usually a limited number of species of insects and

it's not, it's not a real one environment, but it's terrific

for giving you data in a controlled way.

But ultimately I would, I was, we used to go for that journey.

How much UV is coming out controlled environment than real

world testing? OK, thanks for that.

I just, I didn't know how it worked because that's why I

thought that a lot of the they they breeded flies or had flies

brought in. Well, it's, it's back to it's

back to you asked early on about, you know, who, who I work

with, who have in the teams. And certainly in the last years

I had an entomologist and a biologist in in my team and they

did a lot of the training. And I think sort of one of them

has been on the other podcasts. So Sophie very good was on that

one and John Stewart was. I need to get Sophie on.

Yeah, he's come on at some point.

He's also on the book. He's also on the board of the

MPTA. Exactly.

Exactly. But she was terrific.

She was, you know, she was, she, she knew exactly how to

successfully get get insects that we needed for the trials.

So again, all important part of that of that process.

Oh, it definitely is, yes. Yeah, there's been some

interesting information with regards to Ellie.

Ellie LED and the insect fly traps.

I'm just trying to set your way. I was trying to remember that

and then he said fly. I was stopping myself and saying

fly killer. I was like trying to remember I

was. It's not, it's not a big deal,

but and, and, and I tend to adjust depending on who I'm

speaking to. You know, if they're, if they

use a certain term, that's fine. That's fine.

Yeah. So yeah, we've dealt with that

topic. Very good topic.

This will be that whole section will be clipped into bits, I'll

make sure, like Jasmine's was like.

But when there's certain interesting topics, the podcasts

will come out as normal. But I've started to when there's

an interesting section, just clip it into a clip and release

it as a little mini podcast too. And they do quite well actually,

believe it or not. OK.

If you tell people what the actual content is, you're going

to be straight into listening to a lot of times loads listen

that's. Interesting.

Yeah. Well, I guess Birmingham.

I've seen it, I've seen it with different because obviously, you

know, I listen to a lot of podcasts.

I see a lot of podcasters clipping up certain little bits

of chunks out of the podcast and doing that as well.

And it it does. All right, I'll tell you it it

does. Well, I just need to do it more

often. I do.

Yeah, it's just the time to edit it I guess.

Well, yeah, yeah, it is. So now with your when you left

Pelsis, was it were you out there, was it like a gap?

Was it a gap year or was it straight into your consultancy

business or was it you had time to have a break or?

No, Well, well, I actually, I actually left Pelsis twice.

So I. I left twice, it came back.

So I I I left, spent a couple of years doing something completely

different. I actually went to an industry I

knew nothing about but for a company of range cookers, wood

burning stoves, all all proudly produced in the north of North

of England, castings, heavy gauge sheet steel.

But the principle was the same. I spent spent time speaking,

understanding the problems of the end use of the users.

So people who you know, this and these these cookers, I think,

think I got to trust think Argos.

It wasn't Argos, it was a different brand.

It was SE those sorts of things. So people were paying 8000 lbs

or so for one of these each storage range cookers.

So I spent time speaking with the retailers who sold them,

spent time speaking with the owners of these sort of

products, aspirational owners to understand what they wanted.

And then we created a product, product strategy which we

started to develop some, some great products through and get

them through to market. So even though it was a, a, an

industry that was completely new to me, the principles, what I've

done for so many years in our industry applied.

And then I got the opportunity to go back, back to pulses,

back-to-back into the industry. And as someone said, what did

they, what did they say to me? Flies, flies are, are are in my

heart or whatever they said, you know, So it drew me back in.

Well, I think you seem very, very passionate about it, you

do. So I can definitely tell.

Yeah, I, I, I tend to subscribe to on on my my.

Both in my. Private life and professional

life is I'm kind of all the one, I think I'm into something

completely ill enough at all. And this has been where some,

you know, I think I've reasonable knowledge about the,

the, the broader industry, professional pest management

industry. There's without doubt, this is

the, the area that I've spent most of my, my, my career in.

So something that's who'd have thought I'd end up being

industry experts, specialists, passionate about flying insects.

Who knew? Well, there is Alex Wade would

be a man after your own heart. He would be He loves talking

about bugs. He does.

Have you seen it when Sean, which dawn's on the beauties and

beasties and they go. He's going to talk about bugs,

isn't he? He's slowly converting, Sean,

slightly, yes, yes, but So what do you do within your actual

business now? What is it you do and what kind

of services? Yeah, it's a good.

Question, do you do now in your current role?

What is your Michael? Yeah, so, but then Tom Holmes

Consulting, so is you might be able to gather from the sort of

the broad range of work or areas I've been involved in over my

career. It's it kind of touches on a lot

of those the services I can do provide, but I guess the

fundamentals it's boiling down to 3.

So I was, I'm very lucky. I've had plenty of you asked for

when I left Belsis to the set up Tom Holmes Consulting, I was

very lucky. I picked up work pretty much

straight away from people I've known in the industry for many

years and they were, I was very fortunate.

They said here we go. He is, he was.

He couldn't couldn't resist, he couldn't resist jumping in,

could he? I was very lucky.

The people from the industry said, yeah, we'd love to have a

chat with you Tom, and see if there's some work we can do

together. So it's fundamentally boiling

down to three things, a little bit of product development, but

not a great deal to be honest. The big two are what I'd guess

you'd classes product management or, or just to joke with former

colleagues. I, I call it marketing.

And for me, marketing is in the clue.

It's about the market, it's understanding the needs of

users, everything we've talked about previously.

So I'm working with, with some clients to try for them to try

and help help them understand what solutions they should

offer, be they service companies or manufacturers.

So that's sometimes that's creating new stuff, sometimes

that's saying we'll look, there's a huge amount of, I

don't know, take digital remote monitoring solutions, a huge

number on the marketplace, what is what is right for my business

or what sort of approach we take if we're developing our own

version. So I'm helping, helping some

clients with that. And then there's a little bit of

process development so that the stuff that that I think many

people find incredibly dull, but it's, it's the geek in me and

joys of, look, if we're going to develop a new product, how do we

get from, I've got a bit of an idea here to actually launching

a product and I'm helping some people get, get some processes

in place that that works for them in that, in that respect.

So bit of a broad brush. I've got a small number of live

clients at the moment, but thoroughly enjoying the variety

of work with a variety of businesses that I'm doing.

That's, that's, that's good to hear.

It's, it's normally when you hear consulting in pest control,

it's normally the person goes out and does field biology.

You're you've got a unique perspective within the their

pest consultancy because most of them are they off they they

don't, they are mainly in you know, they go out to sight train

people feel biology. You're you're coming from a

different angle. You are.

Exactly. I was, I was trying, I was

trying to be very clear on that right from the off.

And so if you take the likes of Alex or Alex Wade or Paul

Westgate, or I mean, they are, they're, they're incredibly

knowledgeable, talented biologists, entomologists,

professionals was, as we've talked about, I came from a

product development and process way and then learned about the

industry. So I guess to remember Venn

diagrams you drew as a, as a kid.

So 2 circles. The, the overlapping bit in the

middle is, is where the likes of Paul or Alex and I probably

meet, which is a little bit of how do we solve the problem of

public health pasts, their backgrounds for the entomology

of biology side. My background's more the product

development side, but there's that middle section that we we

probably overlap on. I know it's, it's, it's

different, a different perspective.

It's to the as consultancy it is, it's product development.

It's, it's not, it's not one, to be honest.

You're the first person I've had on the podcast that actually

that does develop products as such.

You're the first one, Tom. Well done the first one.

Yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that on the on the.

Podcast that actually develops products to disagree from start

to finish. Yeah, I mean, don't, don't

forget I, I, I, you know, what we've talked about is what I

call physical products. So, you know, road to station,

birds, pine, insect, light trap, they're physical engineered

products. And there's a process that I've

worked with for years and works for me.

If we're talking the chemical side of things, that's a whole

different ball game. And I've had some exposure to

that. And it's a different world in

terms of regulatory affairs, in terms of chemical formulations,

governance to ensure the, the chemical products produced, as

you said you were going to produce some.

It's, it's, it's, that's something else.

So one for the future, it might be interesting to be to get

someone who can talk in a little bit more detail then I about

that side of product development.

That'll be an interesting one. Was actually because a lot of

the a lot of the products in that world, it's you have to

you're talking years for some of these products to get clear,

don't you? You are with these chemicals, a

lot of them are. It could be, could be, you could

have been working on a product five years ago that's just been

released now. Oh, and the rest?

I mean 10 years, 10 years and. And I've heard recently that any

new products they want to make that it's 5-6 years some of

these products to get cleared or even if they they get meet

approval. So yeah, I'll see if I can get

someone on. It's not not always that easy,

but I will, I will try. I will because I've obviously,

yeah. Get into your, you know, I'll do

it off offline from this, but I can suggest a few names for you,

but equally within your network. It's the association.

You know, they'll they'll be able to point in the direction

of a few people. Well, Alex is working for for

one of the chemical manufacturers now as well.

So there's, there's plenty of folks out there who you could,

you could reach out. To one thing I'll tell you in

the podcast world, you can't get everyone you want on.

I've hit roadblocks with certain guests because of big, big, big

companies don't like people. I'm not on about Alex.

He's coming on soon, but it's all about weightlifting and

fitness. That podcast will be but the

certain people I would love to get on in their capacity, but

I've been told no, not they can't get cleared, but I.

Didn't know that. I didn't know that until I

started the podcast. I've had this whole list of

other people I can't. I've not been cleared for the

beauties and beasties yet. I was like, Oh no, he says.

No, I can believe it. I can.

Believe it, but I will try. I've never thought of actually

trying to contact anyone about chemical like on the chemical

side of development. So I will try.

I will. That will be interesting.

It would be, obviously you'd have to get them.

They would never go into the Pacifics.

But more how the process works, because it's a lot, it's a lot

more red tape, I would imagine. Yeah, I know.

And in recent years, certainly getting worse and again, without

starting a new new strain of conversation, particularly, but

you know, the reason we are losing in as an industry, we're

losing so many sort of mainstays of of chemical solutions that

with with how those years is, is on one hand, rightly the

regulatory requirements to be able to use and sell these

products is getting, it's a harder bar to hit.

But equally, the costs to both develop, register and then

maintain those, those dossiers is just getting ridiculous.

And certainly don't want to get political, but Brexit hasn't

held that. So that's that's a real problem.

Oh yeah, no, you're not wrong. It's it's it's same recently to

me that it's a fast moving world when it comes to losing

chemicals and new chemicals coming on.

But recently there's been a few leave and a few come back as but

we seem to be losing. But I'm not one to moan about

losing chemicals. But we've just got to get on

with it, haven't we, To winch about it?

But I don't do that. Yeah, I think we can be

pragmatic, but you know, our challenge here is we're all in

the industry that's here to maintain public health.

And I What does the world without professional pest

management look like? Pretty scary.

It is, but people don't realise that until until something big

happens and then they will soon realise.

And This is why the, the associations and the legislators

have such an important job to do to, to raise the, and I know

both associations are in the UK, but to raise the awareness that

sort of the PR of, of our industry.

And as I said, what it would look like without it.

So it's it's crucial that we do that.

It would look scary if you imagine just like tomorrow,

everyone, every pest control that was disappeared, all the

bait, everything was gone. Oh, it would be frightening.

It would be people don't realise it'd be like, be like, and in

the end it'd be like an apocalypse.

It'd be like quite eventually it would be.

But yeah, but no, it's, it's been a good, a good podcast.

Tom, is there anything else you wanted to cover?

Have we covered most of it or? Plenty more I could talk about,

but I think that's a good, we've covered a lot there.

I think we'll, we'll leave it, leave it there.

I think what I would say do to yourself, to to the, to your, to

your drivers listeners, if anything that I've said

resonates and you'd like to a little bit more just reach out

to me. Or if you've got a different

differing view, I'd love to hear from, you know, a different

perspective, the name of the podcast, different perspective

that I've not considered. So do do get in touch I.

Know that's yeah it's I'll probably have you back on for

something else we can always come up with some kind of topic

or if you haven't fancy. Coming back on the future.

In the future, who would you, who would you like to see on

that isn't in the chemical companies like you said, you'll

mention that offline, who would you mention that you could

mention? I'll give you, I'll give you 2,

I'll give you 2. So and the both what they have

in common is they're both ex colleagues of mine who are now

doing something different and I've got a lot of respect for

both of them. So first of all, Mark Wenman,

who's now one of the technical training managers at MBTA.

So you should be able to have the conversation with.

Him. Well, he has, I'm sure.

Is he? Yeah, I'm sure.

I've already asked him. OK.

I think I I'm, I'm asking how many messages.

I can't remember which one I asked.

I asked. One of the new technical is

either Mark or Duncan, but I want both of them on Yeah, I

don't know. Duncan but but Mark I've worked

with for many years and he's a, he's a great guy.

So he'd be good value. And the other one, the other one

is former colleague who we talked earlier about one of the

challenges we're facing industry is, is retention and recruitment

of, of people, high quality people.

And a former colleague of mine, guy called Richard, Richard

Ardron has set up a company who is specialising in recruitment

for a little bit wider. So it's yes, pest management,

but also into crop science as well.

But he's he's got a portal, he's got a website and which she uses

as best to help. So it's in viral career.

Right. I know.

I've read it. Yeah, I know you're all about

now. But he he would be fascinating.

He's got a 25 years plus experience in the industry.

But also now as I said, is is moving into trying to help solve

that, that recruitment crisis that our industry is facing.

So it'd be fascinating to get his perspective on that.

Oh yeah, I will get both of them.

I will definitely be able to get Mark.

I'd have to ask. I'd have to ask.

I'm sure he'd be interested in coming on about the recruitment.

I am. Well now, now I've thrown him

under the bus, you know I can, I can help twist his arm if

needed. Well, there you go.

There you go. But yeah, thanks for coming on,

Tom. It's, it's been a good, good

one. Thanks Jasmine for the

recommendation. Good.

We really appreciate that. It's so lovely to meet you.

Lovely to to have this opportunity and yeah, being like

I said, more than happy to have another go at in the future at

some point. Thanks for coming on.

So I'm going to setups this week.

I'll set up the CPD for people on the British press register so

people can get seat. It'll be 1.5 points because

nearly an hour and a half and I can't get any more points for

basis prompt for this year. So and if you're with the BPCA,

you can self register this podcast with the BPCACPD diary.

I think it's called. You can as well.

I just want to do a couple of shout outs quickly because I

haven't done any for a few weeks.

Shout outs to beauties and beasties podcast.

Please check that out if you if you don't check it out, it's

really good. Check out the check out the

pestogen podcast, my my friends from America.

You can you can decent Jenny. That's a good podcast.

I've been on that one and Brad and Jack from tales from the

crawlspace. 2 point O you want to hear gruesome stories, Tom

funny ones want to listen to They often make the stories

anonymous as well. But I want another shout out to

Brad because everyone kept it a secret that Jenny from the

Pestering podcast has a new job. She left Orkin and now she's

working for Trio Pest Control and Brad's a boss.

So well done, Jenny. I'm proud of you getting into a

family business now. And you've stopped working for

Big Box. So yeah, well done, Jenny for

doing that. I'm sure you'll be great.

But yeah, thanks for coming on, Tom.

I've not done these shout outs in a few weeks.

I thought I better do it because they shout me.

Out all the time. They do.

But yeah, thanks for coming on and we'll see everyone next

week. But yeah, thanks.

Thanks, Tom. And I think I will put Tom's

link in the description. It probably already is in the

description. Well, I will double check it

once it goes to all the podcast platforms.

And thanks, Alex, thanks for the chat.

Very enlightening listening to Tom.

There you go. Some praise.

It's it's been good. It's been good.

Tom talking to you. All right.

Those those consultants got to stick together.

OK, very good. Appreciate that.

Thank you, everyone and I'll see you all next week.

Thank you.

Tonight's Episode