Pest Perspectives – Episode 48 Gabriel Bustos | Co-Founder of Hector Home Services Marketin - Pest Perspectives

Hello there and welcome to Pest perspectives #48 the first one

over the year. So happy New Year to everyone.

And if you have, if you're tuned into Pest Perspectives for the

first time, Best Perspectives is a podcast where we try and

entertain and educate at the same time.

It's all to do with the pest control industry and related and

relating things to business. It's all it's all tied into

being a pest control, but technician and running a

business as well. So we try and get on a variety

of different guests. Today's guest is somebody that I

haven't actually had anyone on that's got expertise like this

before. So this week for the first

podcast of this year, a year, we're a year old now a year old

we have we have Gabe Bustos from hold on a minute.

It's kind of like along the screen.

There we go. Gabe Bustos, Co founder of

Hector Home Service Marketing. How are you doing?

I'm doing great John, thanks for having me.

Congrats on a year and I'm I'm honoured to be the 1st guest of

2026. No, cheers.

Nice. Thanks for because you're games

one of the people that emailed me to ask to come on.

I do get a lot of people e-mail me, but they don't all fit.

And I thought you had a fit. You did because obviously with

your marketing experience and what you do as a job, it does

relate. Because I'll be honest, I've

been to a lot of pest control shows.

You know where they took it's like workshops and unless it's

just a nervous thing, a lot of people they said, they actually

said who has Googled my business?

And I think 5 people understood what it meant.

And I thought they hand up and actually just they didn't, they

didn't want to put their hand up.

Maybe that, maybe it was that, but there's a lot of things that

people could learn. So how did you get into the mark

marketing side of the business? As in, is it something you just

worked out over years of experience and set up yourself,

or was it how did you get into it all?

To start with, yeah, no, totally appreciate the question.

Yeah, so I had, I've been an entrepreneur now for about 15

years and for the 1st 10, which is the 1st 10 years of my

career, I was, you know, founded and was a, a key part of four

different businesses of different, different kinds.

And they all, you know, we, we cared so much about providing a

great service, right, which I'm sure a lot, a lot of our

audience can, can relate to. And we and, and they all didn't

work out because they didn't focus on the marketing And we

never found somebody that we trusted.

We didn't know it ourselves, right.

So we could provide a great service, but we couldn't find,

we couldn't consistently get people to find us.

So I, I, and it was hard to find people.

Like we tried to hire people and it didn't work out.

Not to say they don't exist, but we didn't find the right ones.

And then after, you know, four times going at it and failing as

a business owner, I said enough. So I got into learning marketing

myself. And then about two years into

that journey, I was doing marketing for, you know, all

different industries, whoever would hire us.

And that was a mess. So we were trying to make

everybody, you know, trying to do everything for everybody.

And we were like Nah. And we had had some success with

home services. So we were like, let's just say

no to everyone else and focus in.

Oh no, it's it's because it's it is a minefield because obviously

it changes from week to week day-to-day.

And a lot of this stuff the no one really knows the algorithm.

They will tell you, but I don't believe anyone who funny knows

it. You can try your best, can't

you? No, no one knows it.

You keep changing it, but totally a lot is is all of them

things. But so obviously you wanted to

come on to offer some insights in into what you do.

So what what would you say is? I'm going off some questions and

topics you provided because they seem fitting.

What is the most important to your audience?

What did you mean with that? I think.

No, I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you what was

most important to your audience of, you know, related to

marketing, kind of where you know, different businesses of

different sizes have different challenges with marketing,

right? So I think generally it's a lot

of people don't understand how a lot of them don't understand how

to get work as such, because obviously you've got Google

click, ain't you? But you click, you paper click,

you've got Google guaranteed and you've got like social media

just cover the whole let from breath.

Because I know the fact I know it's it's changing and and it is

about Google search still. That's the main thing.

But I do know and I've tested recently on all the AI apps that

my business is, is ranking in my area on a ice, which is that's

the thing now ChatGPT, you've got to try and get all your

services to show up in AI because a lot of people now are

just asking AI. So EG I live in Oakham, Rutland,

UK, what's a good pest control company?

And and it will tell you, but that's probably going to

frighten the head out of people that will because it's not like

Google, Google search. Yeah.

Well, well, you know what one thing that I had on here, right,

is, you know, you and I had talked about this and we get

this question a lot is how is AI changing search marketing and

and whatnot, right? So I'll talk about search

specifically. When I talk about search, I'm

talking about you said it, I'm talking about Google and I'm

talking about AI search when people ask for recommendations,

right? And while AI has, is obviously

having a big impact, it hasn't really changed the fundamentals

of, of what of, you know, So the the same things that like if you

do the same things to rank at the top of like Google Maps,

like you're talking about your local SEO, right?

If you're doing it right, you'll also be ranking in AI, right?

I mean, there's some, there's some technical differences and

whatnot, right? But like fundamentally it hasn't

really changed that much in terms of what to focus on,

right? What has changed is like the

speed and the volume, right? So whereas like, let's say, you

know, creating content for your website is a big part of, of SEO

and search marketing, right? Whereas before maybe you needed

to do 2 pieces of content a month and now you have to do 4,

right? But the AI tools allow you to do

4. You know what I'm, if you're

using them, right? So it's kind of like it's speed

things up, you know what I mean? It's kind of raised the stakes a

little bit, but kind of when you look under the hood, the

fundamentals haven't changed all that much that I would say the

other key component that that is big, which again, it's, it's not

really a change. It's just a doubling down.

But like in the age of AI, you know, reputation, authenticity,

trust is more important than ever, right?

'cause now, now people know that you can just like make stuff up

and make up videos and things. But you can't make up like

getting on screen at your job, you know, being a, a real person

on screen and just telling your story on the, you know what I

mean? So can't make up Google reviews,

right? Google reviews are as as

important as ever. People see, Oh, somebody else is

saying that about them. I trust that, right?

So a lot of the fundamentals haven't really changed, right?

It's just kind of the, the volume of things have turned up

and speed of things have turned up.

OK. Because even in, correct me if

I'm wrong, even in a normal Google search and most searches

even in normal, I believe AI is running it anyway now.

But it's not as common in local searches, right?

So if you're looking for a pest control company in Oakham or you

know a pest control company near me, a lot of times the AI

overview on Google does not show up there.

It shows you the Google guaranteed ads.

It shows you the pest, the the pay per click ads, and then

it'll show you the maps, the Google Maps where people see

your reviews. And that's really where you want

to be. Because whether people find you

on social media or they find you through an ad, most people are

going to go to that reviews section to look at to at least

check your reviews. Who's got good reviews, right?

So for local for local search they the AI overview is really

not as common as it is for most other kinds of searches.

Yeah, no, you are right, because we're not.

I obviously test mine because I we use, I don't know if it's

still called Google Guarantee, but we use Google Go, but where

the customer clicks it and it rings, rings you and it says

Google 1st and connects that. But you see you are right, it

doesn't AI it doesn't show up there, but in other parts it

does as such. Well obviously reviews.

Oh I wish they'd just be nicer. They would because I built my

reviews up to 87 now from the previous year because I got

loads of reviews and Google wipe loads off.

They did and backup days and it's not easy to get people to

actually leave a review even if they're happy.

Doesn't take doesn't take very long to do 1.

Totally. And obviously you can't incent.

You're not. I don't think you're supposed to

incentivize people because there's laws on that kind of

stuff. There is.

Totally, totally. It's like paying for reviewing

it is we get enough, we get enough.

I think I'm the highest in my local area currently by second.

57 yeah, that's huge. It's one of the big biggest

pieces for and again, this plays into AI recommendations, right?

Like your reviews, Google reviews specifically are one of

the biggest pieces that's going to get not only Google to

recommend to you when somebody searches for your service in

your area, but also ChatGPT, Gemini, like they look at that

and that's one of the biggest things they use to recommend who

to call. That's good because it's that

part of the trust and authority. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah.

And so, you know, I always tell people like the, that Google,

like the Google Maps, right, is like a billboard, right?

It's, you know, it's just visibility, but it's a billboard

where it's a, it's better than a billboard 'cause it's billboard

like in front of people when they're searching for your

service, right? And same thing with an AI

recommendation. Every time Chachi PT recommends

you to somebody, like that's way more valuable because they're

recommending it in the moment that somebody is looking for

your service, right? So reviews are big, that's

definitely for sure. And then another thing that's

kind of been interesting about how AI has, you know, changed

things is like, it's almost been this like kind of horseshoe

effect, where like before having a bunch of website content, you

know, blogs and pages on your website and whatnot was

important in the early days of SEO.

And then it started to become a little bit less important

because people weren't really reading blogs anymore.

They were watching videos and things like that, right?

And now it's becoming important again because even even if

humans like don't read, you know, the, the tonnes of pages

and blogs that you put on your website, these AI tools, when,

when somebody asks chat chief BT can you recommend me a pest

control company, the AI tool is definitely reading every word on

your website. You know what I mean?

So it's weird because it's like, and, and that's part of the

thing that's hard about doing, you know, marketing, especially

through the algorithms is like you have to both speak to the

algorithms who are recommending you and getting you in front of

people. And of course also the people

who are actually reading your stuff and you know, have have

their phone in their hand. Yeah, it's, it's because like

obviously I do. I start, we've got a new

website, I start to do blogs and like, obviously you have to do a

lot of messing around with SEO and the way they want you to

make it sound isn't always what you think reads the best.

It's like this would sound better.

Rather, it's like the five top ways, you know, I think you've

got to put a number in it and get your SEO math score up and

things like that. And it's it's not easy, but it.

Definitely can help. It definitely can help.

And yeah. And then you know what one other

thing that's important, that this is a common miss, a common

misconception is like, you know, a lot of people focus too much

on blogs and a lot of times when you think about a blog, it's a

general topic. It's not like specific to a a

certain area. So it'll be like, you know,

should I use heat or chemicals to kill bedbugs, Right.

People searching for that are like searching from all over the

UK, all over, you know, the US. It's not like they're not in

Oakum. You know what they're not in

your versus getting in front of people who are searching for,

you know, termite control in my city, right.

So as so like creating content on your website is as important

as ever, but we always recommend people to focus on creating

content that that's going after searches for your services in

your area, right they. Just start changing things then

obviously. As a cause, yeah, right.

We see it all the time. We're like, we'll, we'll, we'll

meet a new business and like, they'll be getting lots of

traffic to their website, but that traffic's not actually

turning into leads because most of that traffic is coming from

people all around the country that are not actually their

people, you know what I mean, in their area.

So that's a, that's an important, you know, thing

that's good to remember. If you have a, if you have an

agency or a marketing professional working with you,

you always want to prioritise local searches for your service

over like general informational searches about your service.

You know what? I obviously do get in the blogs

and stuff. I do put search terms as in I do

mention local areas within the post, but I think, I think

they're, I think they're aiming for your title should have the

town in it as well. I'm not right now, so I've got

to put that in. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it isn't like wincing

repeat because, but you could have.

If you got to do that, you might have to make six different

versions of it. You're exactly right.

I'll say, OK. You're exactly right.

And like that's what, that's what we often do is like for the

first, you know, six months of working with somebody, we'll end

up creating 10 different versions of their termite page

because it's all targeting different searches in different

areas. Now you can't just, you can't

just like copy it. You can't just like copy the

page and like change out the location.

Like Google's smart enough and AI is smart enough to to

recognise duplicate content, right?

And they'll penalise you for that.

So, so you do end up having to, you know, rewrite a lot of it.

Of course, AI tools can help you do that.

But you know, you have to get new images, you have to write

new content, right? It's very similar, but it can't

be identical. Otherwise they'll penalise you

for that. OK, that's another good tip.

That is because now I've got some jobs to do.

I have, but yeah, it's I just did a couple of faithful in

chat. Thanks to Jason from Ask Pest

Control for popping in and Graham on LinkedIn.

Thanks for popping in. OK, I mean, sorry, yeah, we have

got a couple of the listeners, watchers, whatever.

But yeah, no, that's, that's that's a good round up on AI.

He said. You just basically got to do a

mix of everything basically, because I get a lot of success

on not website related, but over the past year or year or two,

I've built up a bit of a following on the next door.

I've actually been called the next Door celebrity to

customers. I've turned up because I post

under my personal name, but I have linked to the company and

then I have got tonnes. I've never paid for an advert on

there, but I've built up a lot of weed.

So I do personal branding till LinkedIn, etcetera, but I've

done that. It's not always sales focused

and then they kind of that kind of works.

I'm not saying it's 100%, but definitely in the Wasp season it

gets me some work. Definitely it does.

Awesome. Yeah, I don't have first first

hand experience with the next door, but it's something that

it's been on our radar for a little bit.

Well, some people have good experience, some people have

total bad experience. I've had good experience with so

far. That's great.

I haven't had no one calling me all sorts.

Apparently that's what a lot of people.

It's so toxic, but I don't react to people like that.

When someone replies often I kill them with kindness.

It's like there's a chap who tells me off every year for

killing Wasps and they always say I made it into public health

to keep people safe, to call me out.

And I always thank him, but every time he does, I love it

because the views on the post rock it right up.

They do. But I know how to react to

people. I know when someone's after the

ones I wear and know that they really want to fight, I don't

reply, right. I don't.

You can. I can tell.

But I've learned that over time, right.

I have. But yeah, Next door was probably

on your radar, but it's probably not a big thing.

You know, it works or don't. It's.

Yeah, it's harder to, I know. That's the thing about Google

that and, and, and search like AI search, right?

There's nothing that replaces getting your name and your

reviews in front of people when in the moment that they are

searching for your services, you know what I mean?

So that's why we just doubled down on on on Google and AI

Search because it's just predictable and it works.

And you can really focus in on where you know, you can see

where the search traffic is. You can see how many people in

Oakham are searching for termites versus rodents versus

you know that the town next to 1.

Thing I know it's the example but a bit miracle we don't have

termites here. Oh wow.

No, no, we don't have term, but we, we, we, we.

Most of our buildings are all but maybe brick too.

Oh wow, that's great. Termites are awful.

They're. I know I've had loads of pick up

on the podcast because obviously to see I do have people from

America and people from all over the world, I do.

But yeah, they can't get over it.

We haven't got termites. That's great.

Termites are a nightmare, man. Like, I mean, yeah, 50 grand in

renovations and repairs because of termite, you know, like it's

crazy. It is.

It is. Well, I bet it's big business

when it comes to SEO marketing and stuff, I imagine.

Yeah, bed bugs. Yeah, bed bugs are a big thing

here too. You know, people pay a lot of

money. Now we have bed bugs, right?

It's not an area I seem to get a lot of cold, but there are a lot

of people that get a lot of work when you're watching.

He gets a lot of work in it. He just hate treatments as well.

But even with bed books, we mainly do rats, mice, things

like that. But we don't seem to get a lot

of work for bed books. But it it, they are here, you

know? Yeah.

Well, you know another thing that could be helpful.

So you know, you had mentioned the the Google guaranteed,

right? And now it's called local

services ads, right? So.

Yeah. So to anybody listening when you

do a local search on Google, like if you know you can test it

with any local serve, it could be dentist right in your area,

any local business search to an area, right?

You're usually not going to see AI overviews.

You're going to see 4 sections. The first section is the the

Google guaranteed local service ads.

The second section is the pay per click ads.

The third section is the Google Maps where it shows you the

people's reviews and whatnot. And then the fourth section is

all the websites, the, the, the organic listings, right?

And I thought it could be helpful, Sean, I've, you know,

we're working with a couple pest control companies right now.

One of them we're doing all, you know, local service ads, pay per

click and local SEO. And I can just go through like

kind of what the cost per lead on each one of a real.

If you want. To a real example.

If if you're allowed to, yeah, that's fine.

Oh, I'm not going to say their name, but they're a, they're a

pest control. They're a real company obviously

in, in, in Pennsylvania, in, in, in the United States and family

owned business, right. And so anyways that they're

currently running the, the, the local service ads the Google

guaranteed and they're getting about they're they're getting

leads at about 4340, five U.S. dollars a month, not a month a

lead, sorry, a lead they're getting.

So in in October, they got 53 leads.

This is the one I last pulled this data.

They got 53 leads at $45.00 apiece.

OK. That's from that local services

ads. OK, that's cool.

Wow. OK.

Yep, the this company actually also focuses on a lot of bedbug

work and heat treatment to somebody who said was listening.

And so they have us do PPC, the pay per click for bedbugs, their

bedbug service. It's a bit more expensive

because bedbug leads are more expensive.

They're higher value jobs, so we're currently getting them

bedbug leads at about $110 a lead.

OK. So you know a little more than

twice the price. Because I asked you something

about that in general if you were a competitor.

Not saying I've ever done it, but can you actually click your

competitors off by just keep click click clicking or does it

not work? Yeah.

Does AI detect someone's messing around?

Yeah I just, I just wondered. I've heard about it.

No, it's definitely a thing. 1 of this client actually we had,

they were like we had to deal with that.

I don't know, halfway through last year.

And yeah, no, there's, there are tools where like, I don't know

if it's native to Google. I don't know if Google does it

unless you do something about it.

We had to install a tool, like a software tool on their website

that essentially tells like when that's happening.

So it'll tell like if somebody from the same IP address keeps

clicking an ad, right? Or, or it'll, you know, there's,

there's different things it does to block spam and to block

attacks like that. It's called click cease, like to

cease clicking, click cease. That's what we had to install

for them. And, and and yet that's what

stopped that. That's good then.

Sorry, carry on. Just forward ask that was.

All no, it's true. It's that's actually, it was

actually a learning curve because they were they were

getting a lot of spam and like this kind of like competitor

attacks. And so there were a couple

months there where we were like, we got to figure this out like

fast, you know, anyways. And then, and then they do local

SEO, right? So when people find them just

organically not paying to be at the top, right?

And they got in the couple months, we still work with them.

But I just pulled this data a few months ago.

So in the month that we did this, it was $35.

They got 62 leads for $35 a lead, right?

So with, with organic, as I'm sure many folks know, it takes

time to kind of build up to the, to get up to, to the top of the

rankings. But then once you're there,

you're not paying for each of those leads, you know, directly

like the same way you do from an ad or what not.

So each the local service ads, the Google guaranteed has its

pros and cons. The paper click as a marketing

strategy has its pros and cons and the organic SEO has its pros

and cons. And really they're, they're

useful in different situations. But the organic piece, you know,

if you're really have a, you know, it doesn't even take that

long if you do it right. But it might take three to six

months to get to the top. A little bit of an investment,

but then you can see they're getting leads for 35 bucks a

piece as opposed to 45 or $100 a piece.

You know, it depends on the, with ads, certain services are

more expensive than others, right?

But just to share, you know what's possible out there?

No, that's good. Obviously I'm watching.

Google knows how I look because of each service is and they

charge accordingly. Not much exactly like.

Roofing clicks are super expensive, you know what I mean?

No, that's some good shared, some good day today you have.

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, there's pros

and cons to each. I'm happy to go to go through

that. I'm, you know, I'm happy to go

through what what you think would be most valuable for

folks. Obviously there are a few people

that I've had a few people on my last podcast last year, someone

asking it was about Google. I'll keep calling it Google

Local then and Google clicks and I was and I recommended Google

local the one that used to call but I'm not an expert but I said

I know one thing that if you do pay per click you will get work

but you need to know that you will be paying for it as well.

Expensive. Yeah.

So I said, I said that's to risk.

It says, but that's business. Well, and I I also always

recommend people to start with the local service ads that

Google guaranteed because with pay per click, it's like it sits

in the name you pay per click. So you could have 20 people that

click your ad and not a single one turns into a phone call.

You know what I mean? If you're if, if you know

they're not the right people or your, your messaging is not

right with the local service ads, it's pay per lead.

So the one you're talking about the Google guarantee, right?

You only pay, you know, you said you have experience with this,

right? So you only pay when your phone

actually rings and when Google system detects that it's

actually a real lead and not just spam or solicitation,

right? So it's really good starting

point for two reasons. One, it's low risk, right?

It's paid per lead, meaning that you know, again, you're not

going to waste money because you only pay when you actually get

real leads. And two, there's it's not that

hard to set up like you've done it right?

Like you have to upload some documents and you have to prove

your. Say it, say it is now because

we've been established over 15 years, you see.

So, but I do know people that I don't know if it's same in

America, but there are people that are having to get their

mobile phone. And actually obviously a lot of

these people as whole traders that they do it from the home.

They're having to make a video of them at the house walking

down the street to the street sign to prove that they live

there. And you, I've had a lot of

people telling me about that. I mean, having to make a video

to prove that's where they actually live and they're

actually on the street. And that wasn't a thing when we

we first started doing it. Totally, totally.

And and that's for it's similar, right?

It's that is for that is for having a Google business profile

like a verified address, which is also really important.

I mean it's really important. So you're right, like in order

to have like a verified address for your Google business

profile, which is which is very important.

Now, they make you take a video and you know, show your signage

and show where your mail comes in and things like that.

And it's, you know, it's to prevent people you know, from

the consumer end, like to prevent people that are fake or,

you know, aren't actually, you know, aren't actually who they

say they are. No, I totally understand it,

just I I've heard it from a lot of people.

I know they. Weren't happy I was on wiki

video walk down the. Street, I know one of our but

from before we switched to doing home services, we were working

with a bunch of local businesses and one of our clients then was

a Co working space. You know, like a we work kind of

like wasn't we work but like that and and they had you know

so they had people that had offices there 2020 some

businesses that had offices there and they all wanted to

like get verified their address at the Co working space and it

was like it was a whole mess that they had exactly what

you're talking about. You know what I mean?

Doing the video and making sure the signage is right here and

making sure the mail, they show the mail here and their logo is

there and it's like it was this whole big mess of trying to get

people verified at this Co working space that we need to

help them with. Did it work in the end?

For some of them, for some of them, yeah.

So yeah, it's pretty interesting.

But you know, for for Google that that Google business

profile piece is super important.

You don't necessarily need to have a a verified address.

You can have a service area business, right.

So like, you know what I'm talking about your, you can work

out of your house. You can have a Google business

profile and still get reviews and all that and have it rather

than it shows your address, have it be like a service area.

It doesn't work as well, but it's still way better than not

having a, a profile at all. So that, that's actually the

first thing I always tell people to start with, and you don't

have to hire anybody to do that, is to complete your Google

Business profile, right? And you mentioned this earlier,

right to you, you can use tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to help

you write the content for it so that you've got some of those

key phrases in there, right? Like if you're trying to focus

on rodents and Ocum, as you're filling out your Google Business

profile, you want to make sure that you're including those

phrases in there, right? Yeah, I mean, I I've actually

used it for the Google, Google Business profile.

I've used it for the website, but obviously you've got to

adjust to make sure that information is correct because

it can mess up, it can mess up that line.

That long line isn't in there because that's how people, a lot

of people. That.

Long line hashes. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

No, I know. Yeah.

Every time I'm writing with AI, like literally every single

time, I specify like no hyphens, no dashes.

And like if I don't do it once, it gives me the freaking dashes.

It's like every time. I'm like, no, you just have to

keep reminding it. Yeah, hasn't, hasn't.

Keep your mind on the wild, but just got to keep playing with

it. Yeah, but you have.

Really. But so those are the three like

filling out your Google business profile and putting keywords in

it, right? For your area, your services in

your area. Super important #2 getting five

star reviews. We talked about that, right?

Super, super important #3 is setting up the local service

ads. And for the each of those three

things, you don't need to hire anybody to help you with that

stuff, right? Like all three of, you know,

getting reviews is a pain in the butt and it's hard in its own

way. But even if you were to hire

somebody, like, they can't really do that for you anyways.

I mean, they can set, they can, they can set up text messages

that go out. But that doesn't replace like

the technician being in the home doing a good service, getting

the review before they leave the house, you know?

Oh. No, it's definitely true.

I get. We get emails everyday son.

I can get your reviews. I'm not.

Don't want your reviews. Thanks.

Exactly. Hard enough to be on Google

without someone offering to fake review you.

Oh, I know. They annoy me.

I know, don't know, don't. Reply to most, it's hard enough

as it is valid. When we work with people or, or,

or deciding whether or not we want to work with people, it's

like that's one of the biggest things we look for is like, do

they have good reviews? Because we can't fudge that for

you. And if you don't have good

reviews or you can't get good reviews, even if you bring us on

to do our work, it's still not going to be enough to beat your

competition because the reviews are such a big piece, you know?

Oh. No, they definitely are because

I didn't realise until like I always asked a lot, a lot of

them. How did you find?

There's a lot of them. They say Google reviews.

I read your Google reviews because now on the website,

we've got them on the website now they all the latest hot

ones. They all roll, roll through

exactly looking or whatever it is.

But they are quite important. I know a lot of people that

don't have many Google reviews and they're well busy, but it's

it's how it, isn't it? So I'm for.

Sure, for sure. And, and and they, well they

probably get a lot of their business through referrals and

word of mouth and repeat business.

I mean, how do they get business?

My my actor got a friend who's been on the podcast.

I've shot him, I've shot Sam Tricky and he does mainly just

farm work. He doesn't even have a website,

but he's got that much work. It's unreal, but he hasn't

actually got a website or a presence.

How's he? How's he get?

How's he get leads? Farmers because he works for

farmers, right? All all the farmers recommend

him and that's he's honestly got that much work.

Well, that's awesome. That's the power of

specialising. That's that's a testament to the

power of specialising. I said to him, it says you've

done well. It says we're in 2020, well last

year, we're in 2025 and you haven't got a website.

Well bloody done as you went. He's taking the mix.

It says, well no, not really. I said it's unheard of.

Most FIFA have a website, but no, he's a good lad to get on

from really well. But he's he's in, he's in

farming mainly, but he does all right.

He does. Well, that's a, you know, I

mentioned that up front. It's like even for our business

when we were working with everybody, it was hard going.

And once we decided to just start focusing on one type of

business, you know, everything got so much easier and our, our

work, our results for people improved so much because now

like that guy's the expert on farms, you know, he's the best

at far. Yeah, it's pest control.

He's, he's, yeah, he's got like dogs and stuff as well.

Right. So it's like what you're going

to hire? Yeah.

But yeah, I said to him, I said no, I'm really not.

I said you've got no marketing, you've got no nothing to pay

for. I said it's it's great.

It is, but it's not. It's not.

It's quite unheard of, but it can happen.

Yeah. And yeah, like I said, I chalked

that up to specialising. You know, not everybody wants to

do that or, you know, right, but.

I'm not into having loads of farm contracts, I can assure

you. Right, right, right.

I do too, and they're not they're OK.

They're not like farms get muddy in.

But also, sorry there, Jason says.

That's pest control. But he hasn't got a website.

He mainly has word of mouth on the local trading standard site.

But you can't do it. You can.

Absolutely, Absolutely. But obviously Jason's been

around a long time. He's got a reputation.

I'd say if you're starting out, you'd struggle a bit.

You wouldn't, right? Right.

And, and, you know, really like when I think about Mark, when I

think about what it makes for good marketing and are like,

what, what the result is like even before growth, it's really

about predictability, you know what I mean?

It's it's about like, do you, you know, do you know, you've

got enough flow coming in each month, right?

In order to make bets, in order to make decisions in order to,

you know, And so if you've got that after being in the, in the

industry for a while and building up reputation like that

counts, you know what I mean? But if you're new to the game,

you know, you need predictability, right?

Otherwise you're going to get chewed.

I mean, as I've never run a pest control company, but I've run

several companies before about that and I got chewed up, you

know, and I burnt out. That's, that's fair.

That is, do you do anything with, do you deal in any social

media aspects of the business or not?

We don't just because you know, we specialise in our lane, but I

know people that run social media ads like Facebook ads and

Instagram ads and, and find success with it.

You know the generally you can get leads cheaper on social

media, but the, the lead quality is not as good.

You know what I mean, 'cause you're interrupting like people,

people are watching cat videos and then they see your ad as

opposed to searching for a pest control company.

So it can't, it can work, you know what I mean?

But it's like, I know that it's, it's going to, it requires more

resources from your sales team or, you know, as a salesperson,

because you've got to chase more leads, you've got to qualify

more leads, you know what I mean?

But if you're looking for volume, it's cheaper than

Google. It's just at the at the end of

the day, I don't think it's as efficient.

No, I mean, yeah, it worked. Some people have made success.

Yeah, some people don't. It's it's not, it's not easy

because I don't know if you've ever heard of I watched a lot of

Gary Vee stuff, he said. Gary Vee.

Of course. I think he said a lot of people

give it a month for say, Gary Vee.

You're wrong, he says. You've got to be doing it a

years got know what you're doing.

You know, I'm not telling you you could be overnight success.

Totally. Totally.

Just get better, get good. Yeah.

But you know, it's, it's part of it.

It's a brand. A lot of people do it for brand

presents for. Branding, but.

Yeah, but you're there. For sure.

Yeah. And what was I going to say

about, you know what? I lost what I was going to say.

It'll come back to me about social.

It's because he said that if you've got a good organic video

that gets high reach, but then take that advert and put it into

paid, paid right adverts as it will work better.

Totally. Well, but he because he works

for companies like Cosy Controller, etcetera, yeah.

No, that and yeah, Gary V's audience is different.

You know, it's huge and it's different than local pest

control, you know, family run pest control business.

Like exactly but that. That you know, like even for

local services, right, like we find that if people like if

you're in a competitive, if you're in a really competitive

area, right, at least in in the in the United States, there are

some huge I'm sure you have them too.

There are some huge pest control companies turning this and

Oregon and whatnot, right? And like they do dominate, they

do dominate some big markets, like in the, in the big markets

where they are, right, there's only a few spots at the top of

Google and it's going to be hard to to beat Terminix, you know

what I mean? In Google rankings.

So where social media can be good is if it is, if you're in a

really saturated area and a really competitive area on

Google, then you know, you can look to social media ads to get

leads and it'll be a lot less. It'll be a lot more affordable

than trying to go up against these big budgets of Orkin and

Terminix and whatnot, you know? Oh, yeah, but some of the some

of the big boys are here. We've got Rent to Kill, right?

We haven't got Terminix anymore. Terminix were quite well.

They were part of Rent to Kill. But because they got acquired.

Yeah, but in America, but the UK, the UK mergers and

acquisitions department were not happy and they called out

monopoly. That's a good.

They made they made them sell it off.

Another company bought them and they kind of the name doesn't

really exist anymore, just they got sucked into another big

company. Right.

Well, I think. Virgo, I think, I think Virgo

bought them and they kind of. You don't see Terminix bands

anywhere. You guys don't have termites and

and you have good antitrust laws.

That's a good thing. I wish, I wish there was more of

that here, honestly. But, but, but, but, but you

know, you know, I say that about the big guys and like, you know,

it's, it's true, of course. And, and you'll be able to speak

to this better than I can, honestly.

But there's so many customers, customers out there that are

looking for a family owned, they're looking for like a

neighbour or family owned thing. Like they'll, they'll scroll

past Terminix and like, or because they know that they're

just, they're just going to number, they're just treated

like a number, you know what I mean?

So like one of our, you know, in the, like the, the pest control

client I was sharing about earlier, the one in Pennsylvania

here in the States, they've got Terminix and Orca in there, you

know what I mean? And like, they're not, they're

not above them in terms of the rankings.

They're, they're right below them, but they're still getting

lots of flow because people are, you know, they want a local

family owned company, you know, so.

Yeah, that's kind of I know, I know there's a lot of a lot of

family owned ones out there. I know a lot of them have been

bought up. I know that's a big thing in

America. We.

Definitely. But a lot of the big American

companies have been have been coming here and trying to buy at

firms here. It's getting a bet as well, but

it's Cazorkin here. But they're not, they're not

under Orkin. They're like they buy a company

and it would say so and so company and it would say owned

by Orkin. It will.

But. They are here.

They're obviously there must be some kind of money in it, but

they are, they are starting to buy them here as well.

You know, I read or I sorry, not read.

I went to a conference, a pest control conference here once at

the NPMA actually, I saw that you're involved with some pests,

forget what what it was called, but.

Yeah. I'm, I'm a board member of the

National Pest Technicians Association, OK.

So it's kind of probably like that.

I I've had somebody on that is part of is, is part of that as

well MPMA. I go to these events sometimes,

you know, here and, and I said, I remember hearing this guy

speak and he was talking about the res like the reason why it's

such a good business is because of the residual, the recurring,

you know, if you get people on the quarterly contract and

whatnot, right? It, there's a lot of

predictability in it, you know, as as opposed to like doing

kitchen remodels where you might get one big job this month, but

next job next month you, you know, so.

See, there is there lies a difference, Gabe.

They're talking about residential quarterly contracts

homes, aren't they? That was that was about

residential. Yeah, that was my guess.

So I'll tell you something now that doesn't happen in the UK.

People do not door knock. Then you need pest control.

We have a few quarterly contracts, not much, lots of

people we've serviced, but we did an issue and I've wanted to

keep some monitoring stuff down for a period.

But in America, it's every man for himself.

It is when it comes to these areas, but it's not a it's not a

thing. You you, you'll probably get

told to where to go if you knocked on someone's door and

said do you need pest control? No, no, no, I mean you.

Might get a. You might get a slap on the face

so. Door knocking is the worst.

I mean it's. Massive in America and it's.

Super annoying. It's super annoying and I don't

think it work. I mean, some people make it

work, but no, it's not what I recommend to people at all.

But but, but like a lot of times people will call for a, for a

service A1 time service and then you know, they'll, they'll turn

them into a monthly visit or a quarterly visit.

Quarterly, usually quarterly, but, but no, not door knocking.

I hate door knocking. You knock on your door and

you're like, I don't want to pay for you now.

You're like I need pest control but I could do you a favour,

give me free pest control. I know, I know.

Whenever I need work done on my house, I'm like, I'm doing

research ahead of time, who's coming over and I'm like, they

need some help. I can tell.

Thanks KKR passed away for joining the chat.

You'll find this episode quite interesting.

I know you've joined a lot of way through, but if you watch

this one, especially towards marketing, getting yourself out

there, you really find the information valuable.

This is the chap that was asking me about what to do.

He's not been going very long, so you can roll back and there's

less information there. Google profile five star

reviews. Google guaranteed local service

ads. Great place to start those 3.

Great place. That's right.

That's exactly the one. But is there anything else you

wanted to cover? You'll cover quite.

Just, you know, I guess just the just to, to go on that last bit,

right? We, I talked about kind of the

first three things to do if you're trying to get more

visibility on Google and AI search, right?

That's a, you know, complete your Google business profile,

get 5 star reviews, set up those local, those local service apps

which are pay per lead, meaning that you know, it's you're,

there's not much risk 'cause you're only paying when you get

leads. The other thing is that it only

takes a couple hours to set up yourself.

You don't need to hire an agency to do that for you, right?

So you save money from not having to hire people and you

can still get leads through that local service, Google

guaranteed, right. If you want to kick it up to the

next level, right, then the next most important thing you can do

is to get a website a local and and to have it locally

optimised. So to make sure that the the

information on your website is speaking to your services in

your specific area, right? Yeah.

And then you can look at doing like ongoing content, you know,

creating new web pages and blogs.

And then the other big piece of of SEO is it's called off, it's

called backlink. So it's getting other websites

that Google already trusts to link and reference your website.

You could think of it like press, but for Google purposes.

So anyways, those are more technical, those are more

advanced, they're more like ongoing services.

That's to really grow, right? But.

If you're in an area where it's not super, super competitive and

you're like you're not in the heart of London or something

like that and you've got a, a strong Google business profile

that's filled out well and has some of your key phrases in

there. You've got lots of great five

star reviews. You've got local services ads

running and you've got a locally optimised website, right.

Those four things are going to be they're going to get you off

to a great, great start. Yeah, no, cheers.

I've got a question for you. So do you think it's worth me

mentioning or in my pest control business website about my

podcast, do you think it's worth doing putting on in a blog or do

you think it's worth me mentioning it?

I know it's I know it's an industry focused 1 but someone

told me that that would make it would help or something.

I don't know if it. It would definitely help, again,

it would help the out like you mentioned this earlier, that

trust and authority are a big thing that the algorithms look

for when they're looking to recommend someone.

And so if you've got, you know, I wouldn't put it like front and

centre, but you know, a page about it or a blog about it,

even a page about it that you can link to is it would be good.

And it would tell, it would tell the algorithms the search

recommendation that you know, your company is an expert in

this industry, right? And you, you know, and if you're

like, another thing you can do is you can take the, the

transcriptions from the podcast, you know what I mean?

You can use AI to turn it into a transcript.

And then you can put that in the ChatGPT and say, can you just

write a short little blog from this transcript and put that on

your site? You know, it's not going to tie

directly to people searching for your service because we're

talking about all kinds of things.

And we're not talking about Oakum right now, right?

But it is something to have to show Google and the algorithms

that like, you're an active business, you're constantly, you

know, putting out new content. You're an expert and a trusted

authority in your industry. So it's not, I wouldn't say it's

like the highest priority thing you could do, but given that

you're already doing the podcast, I think it's worth

adding, adding on to the site. Oh, cheers.

I'll, I'll do that because someone told me it would help.

But yeah, I'll do that. I will.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the other thing I would

recommend you may already do this is in your descriptions of

your podcast, like when they go out on Spotify and Apple and

whatnot to link to your website. Because again, that's another

one of those signals when Google and search algorithm see that,

that's another thing that that that that they use to say, OK,

like, you know, this many different people and this many

different authorities are linking to Oakum.

They must be, they must have something going on.

You know, let's let's look at them more, you know what I'm

saying? So would you say link that to

the blog post on my oakum pest control?

I haven't actually got a pest perspective website yet.

No, not a pest. Yeah, no, you don't have to link

it to the each blog post. No, just just you know, in the

description of your podcast link to the Oakum Pest control, you

know at the bottom. OK.

Yeah, yeah. All right.

I will try that then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I have obviously linked, I've got the associations I with

and the CPD bodies I have to have backlink to them.

That's as well. Yeah, I have as well.

Yeah, it's funny how much you know, again, you think of Google

as a recommendation machine, right?

Think of chat CPT. It's just a recommendation

machine. And if you think about what they

look for when recommending to people, it's similar to what

people look for when recommending to other people,

right? Trust, authority, reviews,

reputation, authenticity, you know what I mean?

X, are you a, a leader in this industry?

So it's the fundamentals, you know, haven't changed that much.

It's really about trust and reputation authority, right?

Both for the algorithms, for the people, it's just the

algorithms, just a bit more of a technical.

There's got to do, you got to do more technical stuff to, to do

it right. But at the end of the day, it's

saying to them, like, look at all the different trust signals

we've got, right, You should trust.

Us, yeah, no, I've got some really good advice to be honest.

You're giving, you're giving some.

Is there anything else you'd like to cover on this?

Any any kind of subjects or I don't.

Think so? I really appreciate you having

me on. No, it's been a long time in the

making because, because at first we were in contact when I forgot

to reply. Then we got back and sorted it

and I wasn't sure whether this podcast could happen.

I don't mean today, I mean because I know I normally I'm a

lot more prepared. I don't know.

We put the events up on the day. I don't have it advertised but

that's my fault for not emailing you.

Oh man, no worries. The end of the year, you know, I

always look forward to this new see, you know, like the end of

the year is always a million things going on.

And I feel like by the end of January, it's still January,

you're recovering and getting the new year set.

But then by like February, March, things really start

picking up and people lock in so.

So if you wonder what that code is at the bottom, I've just put

people in the UK that do BPDA scheme called the British Press

and use that that system go to CPD training, click on this

episode and you'll need it will ask you like different codes.

You need to type this one in 2309 and you'll get your it'd be

one point with nearly an hour, but it's all learning towards,

you know, helping people. I'll leave that up till the end.

But yeah. So thanks for coming on.

I will link you in this your website in the description.

It's on your LinkedIn isn't it your your website?

It is, yeah. You're not.

You're not as active. You're not as active as I

thought you'd be. I know on.

LinkedIn. I was like, I was like, oh, no,

you. You did.

You did, actually. You.

Are I posted? Four hours ago you did.

Actually. Four hours ago.

Then it was three months ago. Come on, sort it out.

I know I don't. You know, we get most of our

business from referrals and also SEO people find us through like

people call me through they because the chat CPT recommended

us to them, right. So we get a lot of our business

from SEO and right. If you, I mean you're this

though, if it works, it works. I mean, I've never got an ounce

of work off LinkedIn. Never.

You know, yeah, it's a different thing.

But it has got me the contacts within the industry really

helped us podcast. And so it has.

It has benefited me, just not in the sense of pest control work,

but in, in terms of the industry, yes, massively

benefited. Yeah, yeah.

No, it's a goal of mine this year to do more LinkedIn, you

know, just to at least just start sharing a bit more and

connecting a bit more on LinkedIn.

You know, there's so many different things to do and so

many different things competing for your attention.

I'm trying to just focus in on a few things that I know will work

best for me. Exactly, but I asked the right

thing to do that is but no, I've got a cough a cold at the

minute, but thanks for thanks for giving up your time on this

Tuesday night. Absolutely and thanks.

And if you need, if we need to get hold of Gabe, I will put

once it's up, I will change the description and put his website

in and your contact details and put a few more links in, get it

back linked. That's right, I will.

But, but please check out all the information inside tonight's

podcast because this was a new angle for the podcast so.

Awesome. Thanks for reaching out in the

first place. Thanks for having.

Me. Yeah, all.

Right. All right.

Yeah. Cheers, John.

Thanks everybody for listening. And thank.

You OK? Take care y'all.

Tonight's Episode