065:Family Pest Control Business: Systems, Staff, Drains & Growth | Ladybug Pest Control

0:00 hello and welcome to press perspectives episode number 65 and this week i have on lady i called the lady victoria and she came on the podcast you've been on once before haven't you yeah yeah about that one though this was back in honestly we're episode number 65 now this was early in the early days of the podcast it was and uh different software etc but so it's been a while since she's been on but not many guests to get not many people come on more than once or twice or three times or some people do but this week i've got on victoria and casey from ladybug press control how are you doing i'm all right thank you how are you good i'm all right cheers just uh holding along trying to uh i don't know do the podcast i do too much honestly if you ask me what i'm doing i do too much okay yeah well that or the podcast the mpta stuff all sorts the board meeting tomorrow so it should be fun but yeah so um a monthly catch-up with it because i'm part of the bpca committee oh yeah the outreach um committee and uh we've got our monthly catch-up on thursday morning nice did you go to that week did you go to that week thing there was a week thing in derby was recently committees that was the volunteers oh the volunteers okay i couldn't

1:44 make it that day because I'm still waiting for Casey to come back off the maternity leave. So I couldn't leave. There's no one else. No, exactly. Yeah, so I couldn't leave. Unfortunately, but by all accounts, it was a really, really good successful day. So hopefully I'll get to go next time. That's good then. I've never seen anything like that before. I haven't, so that's good then. And we've got Natalie coming back as well. Yeah, I heard about this at Pestex. Yeah, that's when I asked about it.

2:17 And then I heard, it was Sean Mooney on the podcast, he said, Natalie's coming back. And then, well, you know, I think that I'll be honest, she, with the BPCA, she may not have been, but I've seen her as the face of the BPCA, to be fair. 100%. I don't know if that was her job, but that's the way I see it. But she was very, she's very, I find her extremely helpful, very clear, you know, never too much trouble, you know, if you message her or call her up, something like that, you know. Yeah, I'm really pleased she's coming back.

2:58 I'm really pleased she's coming back. Well, that's good. She'll be a total asset to the BBC, eh, she will. Yeah. She was before. I've never spoke to her, but I do know she did a lot for them. when she disappeared from the BPC and moved over to Pest Force it wasn't a like constant figure she was always there you know in the socials etc but no it's good she's coming back or is back I don't know one of the two so the reason you come on the podcast is because I put a post out about linkedin or facebook i think it was linkedin i put one on face link on linkedin too um um what's going on there comments i can't see the facebook comments um but it was about people having to work in businesses and having to potentially lay off people within businesses and has anyone experienced this or had to do this what wasn't it specifically family members that was it yeah family members family that was it around that but i think i generalized it as well but i i do prefer to talk to family businesses i'm in one too i am so before we get to that bit do you want to tell people that don't know who you are who you are and what you both do in the business when you're at when you're back from maternity leave what you do exactly as well casey me first so i'm vicky and i am the founder of ladybug pest control um and uh i set up pest control literally it's been 10 years now so i've been going 10 years so 2016 um i set up the company i think it was around april may kind of

4:56 time. I should have a 10 year anniversary. You should. Yes. And I mean, that has just flown by if I'm honest with you. But yeah, it's been amazing. It's been a hell of a ride. I've got to say, but yeah, we're still, we're still getting by actually. So yeah, it's good. Yeah. It's not as busy as I hoped it would be at the moment. And I think it was not a lot of people have that disposable income um and so they're trying to save money and stuff and that and also when you get fake reviews on google don't bloody help either which i've just talked about so yeah that's that yeah that's really cheaped me off but anyway we won't go down that road and then uh we have casey okay so i'm casey and i'm ricky's daughter and i've been probably working for ladybug probably around the same amount of time it's been open but really just like on and off like that but I've been involved with the pest control industry my heart wins right now background noise yeah because we obviously had another business with the ex like Casey's dad that was set up in 2000 no I came on board in 2011 and And Casey used to help out in the office after school or whatever.

6:27 She used to come in and she used to pick up the phone. And pest control is just second knowledge to her. I didn't really need to train her. She just picked up. You know, kids, they just absorb all of that. They do. And I've been really lucky with Casey, if I'm honest with you. Yeah. I mean, we've had our ups and downs in the business. I think when you're running a family business, I'm very good at sort of like separating. I am your boss when it's work time. I'm not your boss. So, you know, you kind of have to try and separate that.

7:07 And Casey, if I was to tell her something and it wasn't going down well, she would take that more personally rather than seeing me as her boss. she would still see it as I'm a mum having a go at her. Oh, okay. So, yeah, so you found that quite difficult, didn't you? Yeah, when it first started, yeah. Because I thought maybe they'd be a bit more lenient on me because I'm the daughter, but no. Actually, get it ten times worse because you should be more focused. You should be more, I don't know, loyal to it, basically.

7:46 You should know more. yeah i have a lot of arguments for my dad as well a lot of arguments so i'm obviously i'm trying to push the business in a different well i'm trying to push i'm trying to push into doing audited sites brcgs sites so i've got something to price up but yeah i'm we do have a argument just a lot of the old boys use use terms they shouldn't use sometimes i don't i don't i don't mean i think bad i just mean like say you're doing a uvl bogging and a lot of people yeah it's a few negation a lot oh no yeah yeah yeah i call it fumigation and it's not a lot of people do that exactly yeah yeah even customers ask if you do fumigation and you have to try and explain the difference because that's what they all think a lot of them think it is yeah well they just see mist coming out of the that's it and they just assume that it's called fumigation yeah but yeah any little things but in general i do like working with him i do um he's a good taxi driver as well because we work together you see we go around together rather than him him being in the office he he doesn't work fridays but um yeah so it's just the way we operate the idea is i take over fully when he retires yeah um so who wants the phone

9:14 when you're out on the road you have someone in the office answering the phones no that answers it on the on the phone yeah see when i when i got when i started out on my own um i was doing i was answering the phones booking in the jobs you know i was doing absolutely everything and in the end i just couldn't cope with the workload and all the calls that were coming in and you you if you don't answer the phone uh and deal with the customer straight away i find that they then go and find someone else um because they would just assume that you're too busy for them yeah what season our peak boss season i agree with you yeah so i had i had to make the decision to like take someone on to answer the phone um and i think it was the best decision i ever made if i'm honest with you because the pressure that it takes away from you um it is it's quite immense if i'm honest with me it just allows you then to focus on the job in hand that you're you're going to rather than worry about trying to rush the job so you can quickly call that customer back and you know put them in and stuff that was back then when we used to have the paper diaries you used to write the jobs in that that was then i'll tell you one thing because when um that was a big bit of contention

10:40 it was um with we used to be paper diary only and when i did my level rsph level two award pest management i said to debbie you know debbie wilson i don't know if you know her we'll always be paper well yeah and and then that was in 2024

11:03 yeah and by that was it yeah and i think by the that time by november i think we'd been to pest tech and yeah we were powered now we're all digital yeah when it comes to that and it's so painful now i've got one contract that wants me to write a treatment report out on paper and she won't accept the digital i was like i go there once every three months i said all right i will but this is painful really painful i said it's painful it's so much easier on digital because you've got all ai and stuff you can make it sound nice and stuff real fast yeah especially if you're not very good at spelling or etc makes it so much easier yeah and uh yeah they just did my dad's all for digital because it he said i would be harder but once he got used to it we rolled it out we forced everyone there's no question yeah you're going digital the contracts most of what we said was we're being more sustainable

12:18 well i said if you want to print out the paperwork still you can yeah yeah yeah but he was surprised at how many people willing to hand over the emails etc to do it i'm waving sorry everyone's saying hello and i feel really bad that i'm not jason back yeah i feel really bad hello hello jackie lucy's there yeah you still do i know you're i know you're still paper there jason i think you always will be jason yeah i bet he's still paper yeah he's met he's met you two he told me before he came honestly he met you at an event up north somewhere both of you Yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:00 He bought you some beers, he said. He what? He said he bought you some beers. He did, yeah. Hello, Shane. Shane's hello. Hello, Shane. Shane is Casey's other half. Oh, okay. He's going red now. He's looking after all the kids. Yeah. Yeah, so... So, yeah, so we've got that. So what is it like now running the business? With, like, I say now, but what was that period like when you had to lay, well, I'll say lay Casey off. Yeah, right. so a few years in I ended up stacking Casey because she didn't turn up for work for a week now bearing in mind picture the scene I worked from home so literally Casey lived with me did you live with me at that point?

14:10 because all you had to do was roll out of bed and roll into the living room you worked from home sorry i couldn't help but laugh there sorry you didn't turn up to work for a week didn't even tell me nothing absolutely nothing so i just got to the end of my and i just lost it and i said right that's it you can't be bothered to even tell me that you're not coming to work then don't come to work anymore i'll let you go that's it you're sacked and that was it did you think you were did you think you were joking to start with i don't think so no she knew she knew she knows when i'm being like you know mum has that that known her my whole life yeah she knows when i'm joking about when i'm being serious so anyway i paid her off and and that was that um and then fast forward a few years casey grew up she became a mum she became settled she was in a nice relationship it was going well um i had someone else uh in the office again another family member but it was piddy's family okay yeah i did also have nilly in as well but she she left because obviously um she had a baby and she never came back she tried to come back off maternity leave but it was just too much to handle um a baby and working from home um so then i with um pg who's my technician i employed his

15:44 auntie um she was going to come in to cover um millie's maternity leave um but i ended up sacking her as well but yeah um i mean you know i remember the day like it was yesterday i was over at my brother's house and you came around and he was going i've just had to fire i just had to fire out and it's horrible i could tell that she was trying to ask me do you want to come back do you want to come but i wasn't going to say anything because i was like no no i'm not going to ask like just in case he doesn't want me back but then i remember she was like so what are you doing then so i think that maybe you could do a few days and then that's when i came back yeah so So then Casey came back.

16:32 So in the end, it works out well. There's no ill feelings between me and Pidgey's auntie or anything like that. You know, I gave her a reference to a next employer and stuff like that. So, you know, you do have it is very, very hard when you employ family members or even your own partner. I mean, I've enjoyed Pidgey, who is my partner now. and he was very much worried about being in a relationship with me and working for me. He didn't know how that was going to, you know, turn out. But actually, it turns out very, very well and there was nothing to really worry about, you know.

17:17 So, yeah, but, you know, it's been great having Casey back on board. She just knows the industry inside and out, you know, and she's great with people. I mean, she's a little bit fiery like me sometimes and we have a rotten customer. You know, we all get them. Yeah, we do, yeah. But, you know, she does try it. And also working from home and trying to look after free young children as well. I mean, she only works part-time, so she's only done for 16 hours. But that 16 hours allows Casey to feel like an adult again rather than constant mummy all the time like mummy mummy mummy mummy and doing everything like that so you know just gives her that little bit of break and now shei shei who's my oldest granddaughter casey's daughter goes to school and then we've got the two uh younger babies so we've We've got Aria, who's two.

18:17 She's two now. She just hopes. And then we've got Harley, who's done six months? Seven months. So, yeah. So, she manages to judge it. I mean, I couldn't do it. I mean, I couldn't. Do it very well, really, because I remember that period. Mine are. She does it really well. I don't know how she's. Eight and 11 now, I know. Oh, eight and 11? Oh, one of each. That's it. We're done. He's just got all three girls. Yeah. That's the way I like it. Yeah. That's good. That's nice, that is. Yeah, but I think, you know, you hear different stories about family-run businesses and stuff like that.

18:59 But Casey's very much now more on board now than what she did back then because she's in a totally different place now. She's in a much better place now. She's much happier with her life and her partner and her children and stuff like that, you know. So then she's able to enjoy the job a lot more. Yeah, I think it settles you more, doesn't it? It obviously makes you, it can make you grow up, it can, because obviously it's like when someone becomes a mum for the first time or like a dad, but it doesn't the difference is with a dad the reality changes when the baby arrives you see, whereas they've been carrying the baby for you know, like nine months and then it really hits you when baby arrives, I loved it though I did, I thought it was amazing you know, I was there for both neighbours, I was well done, you yeah but no, it's it's good to hear it is so did you answer do you answer the calls is that your kind of job when you is that kind of what you do day to day i basically do everything in the office okay you need i'll be there so i answer the phones i do the emails yeah probably some invoicing chasing the payments i'm good at that oh yeah you're a bit fiery with that Knitting, booking in the jobs, writing novels, chasing the technician for notes, you know, everything.

20:43 Nice. So are you digital as well with the reporting? Yeah, so we've all got, we've gone paperless. We went paperless a few years ago now And like myself I just sent an email out and said that we go and pay for this but everyone wants the book don they they want the physical book so uh what we do is because they still want the folder we give them the booklet and email them the report so the booklet has all the standard stuff in it um and then the book the actual report will have what happened on that particular day on that visit and then they can print it off um and then they can put it in their folder i don't actually give anyone books anymore yeah only if they want it because you can put all the relevant documents in the in the portals you can yeah how do you do it on yours then cool so when environmental health comes in they can just hand them the the booklet rather than getting them to log on to a portal they seem to prefer them because i have said we are looking at getting in a portal a customer portal and i go no no i don't want that i just want the book so see with um time we're powered now so even if somebody is a one-off you know i say one-off i mean you know a mouse job three four visits they still get a portal so the minute they're booked in then they click on they can see all the information and they can message us from the

22:20 portal as well so everyone every customer we've ever had gets a portal there's no limit basically even domestics get a portal oh no i only give the booklet to um my commercial no sorry i mean they don't get a booklet i just mean they can access the portal there's obviously not as much info in the domestics as there would be in a commercial yeah no yeah we we're not gone down that route yet but the clients are not really they don't really want it i'm honest domestic clients that we have they they like receiving the report um whether it's free or not you know we we try and bulk it out as much as possible that's where gpt can help yeah so you learn how as long as you learn how to use it i've seen many many people yeah you can always tell when someone's not that good with it when they make posts yeah no i i always cross-reference everything make sure that it sounds like me if you like not too sort of like robotic in its wording yeah it's it's how you do the prompt to chat gpt exactly you can also talk it like when you're on site you can you can actually talk to it as you go around and it it will i copy and paste mine in it's what i do um but i don't always talk but a lot of people i know like my mate who comes on the podcast a bit sam tricky he was never

23:53 into it but he's really into it now he did he said he doesn't use it on his his major aggro sites he says he uses it on a lot of them because the way he sees it as he's on digital he was like would a customer know if you were using ai or would say he says say you spend hours writing a report out and you're really happy with it and you know it was you but what the customer actually think he'd say i'd that and you spend hours doing it so he said you might as well use it because they might think you're doing it anyway yeah yeah yeah yeah no i find it really helpful um because i know what i want to say um but what chat gbt does for me is that it it kind of um makes it sound more professional it does and it kind of it puts it down onto the paper what i want it to say and how i'd like it to sound it's very good for setting terms as well isn't it yeah black and white what what what is you know yeah very good at that it is because it knows what it can say and can't say it's supposed so i put it on thinking mode so it double checks itself i do there's a thinking mode not the quick one you put thinking on and it will cross reference like it It will cross-reference websites like Crew, BPCA, MPTA.

25:24 It will cross-reference loads of sites just to check, if it will. That's really good. As well. It's really good. But, yeah, I do check it every single time. Yeah, I do. You always should. Yeah. Yeah. No, I use it quite a lot. It helps me out. Oh, definitely. so do you ever do you do any of this um going after contracts like you know you go door do you do any like trying to get contracts you know where you go door knocking or anything or calling people or stuff do that do you know what i'm not a lover of do you know what i don't have the experience of doing sales calls or any i'm frightened you know what it is i know what it is it's i'm frightened of the rejection that that's what it is and i and you know one of my best mates is is top in sales she could sell anything and he said to me she was like dick it's not personal it's not about you it's you know they're just not ready to you know change the contract or whatever and stuff like that but i don't know i just don't feel comfortable doing it and i i hate myself for doing that because i wasn't i'm starting to delve into it i am i'm starting to delve into that i am trying to get more contracts i am um but it's it's the good contracts not the ones where you know it's it's higher i'm trying to get a few higher end ones yeah you know where it's like you know like sites where you're not there just not long but more like you know you could be there two or three hours them kind of sites yeah i mean i've got quite a lot of block management companies who

27:14 us to do like big projects uh like that which is worth quite a few thousand pounds but they're not they're not a lot you know what i mean they're as and when that's needed yeah and stuff so i'm trying to focus on getting more block management companies and letting agents and stuff like that so i've devised the brochure with the health and um i've issued out um a brochure not only my plot management companies and letting agents that i've got on my books already give them sort of like a better idea of this is the services that we actually do because i don't think it's good to sort of like they you you can't sit there and think they know what i do when actually they're not they may only think you just do the general you do a lot i went on your website and you do cleaning and all sorts you do yeah yeah well so your website says anyway it says you do needle pickups do you do any of that do you actually get any work for it yeah i'm trained crime scene cleanup i went um uh quite a few years ago i went one specialist training on crime scene cleaning so yeah so we can do that as well um i don't much cause that but that's because i don't actually advertise it if i'm on it i'll say only my letting agents and block management companies

28:41 know that i do that so the idea of uh doing this four-page brochure yeah sort of like remind them that i actually do do these specialist services uh and and you know what i picked up and then i went around and I got a new, I've done about 10, and it doesn't sound a lot, but I've done, I emailed 10 new ones, and one of them has actually come back for me to fill in a questionnaire and put me on their book, so one out of them, I thought that was really quite good, and they have quite a lot of properties that they actually look after, there's quite a few thousand that they actually look after.

29:22 So there you go, see I imagine in the area you're in, like a block management or a Latin agent could have thousands of properties. We have one where, as they did. I see him, I see him.

29:41 Yeah, no, there's one block management company that I have and they've got thousands of properties and they're up and down the country, so they're nationwide. So that's why I sort of like I'm really pleased that I know quite a few pest control companies that I can sort of like subcontract that work out to as well. So, you know, it benefits everybody, really. Yeah, because I think you put one on Facebook probably once. I think I'm on it for this area. I was on it. I don't think you get much call for that.

30:21 No, I have a trusted pest controllers list. Probably an update if I'm honest. But, yeah, I do have a trusted pest controller list that we sort of like done. But sometimes it's quicker to just put a shout out on the British pest control page and ask, you know, is anyone that covers this particular area and stuff. It is quicker. When you're getting new contracts and stuff with block management companies, they take ages and getting back to you uh and stuff so yeah but it is what it is isn't it you you get it in me yeah i do a water waste place and when we actually got that um i don't even think i can't remember i'll be honest and um i think it was six or nine months later but dad actually had to ask him what was the contract price because i cannot because obviously you all pay bc then yeah yeah yeah remember and he was honest he literally told us the price and we got it but we've been with them ever since we have yeah so always every time we do like a survey also oh when you go there because it's water waste some days it absolutely stinks yeah they've got all these things around the side they'll puff out um nice smelling it nice smelling water vapors all around the site.

31:49 Usually getting it out without it stinking, usually. Do you sell them those air fresheners? No, that's a thing they have to have. The council make them do it because their site stinks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. But no, it's a thing that's on a pump. It constantly goes around the site. They're like everywhere. I just take the press control. I do. Do they do flies as well? Do you do all the flies there? don't have any you you'd be surprised but i've never seen a plot i've never seen a fly issue there really yeah yeah i've never seen one wow weird i know but yeah i've never i i don't do very well with like loads of people like you know like mark porter and that people like they sell yes pay units fun I'm terrible at selling a FK units I'm terrible extremely good he's hungry I've got better up selling at houses when they do mouse and rat jobs now we offer a free site survey where we do proofing and a lot of people been taking us up on it now so I got better at that just a lot of people don't want to buy efk units but you know i imagine you've got to be a bit more confident in yourself and do it yeah so this is where the reports really help us because we have a recommendation section and then we put that in there um and that saves me well we are upselling but we're kind of putting it in in the report so that i put them in but don't listen to that half the time that's the problem we put the price in as well so they're fully aware of the price and how much it is and and then it's up to them if they want to do it but then when they call you back and they're like oh the mice have come back and then you look at their notes and then you

33:47 you pull up their report and you can say well we did offer to do the proofing that has that been done and then they will they go well no you go well you know you got the mice back again you know you need us to do that exactly it's true yeah you are right because yeah we've got more in I didn't used to like it because I used to feel like, oh, well, there's a lot of proofing jobs. I felt like people are just taking your money, but it's not. You're offering a solution, but when you offer proofing, you don't offer it in a way that you'll guarantee you'll never get an issue ever again because you know how rodents are.

34:27 They can find a different way in. I just say it helps reduce the risk of you getting infestations again. I don't say you won't get anything again because they'd be on the phone to you every time, wouldn't they? Exactly, yeah. But there are things out there that guarantee their service for like two years or some even do a lifetime. And I think, well, how can you guarantee them? I'm not mentioning his name. I know who you're on about. I'm not mentioning their name. They've got a YouTube channel, haven't they?

35:02 Well, I wasn't thinking of them, but yeah, I know exactly who they were. But you know, I've had customers that ring me up and they say, do you offer a guarantee? And I'll say, yeah, I guarantee to get rid of your current infestation, but I can't guarantee that you're never going to get a pest ever again. You can't guarantee that. And then they say, oh, well, you know, I rang up so-and-so and they said that they could guarantee for, like, whatever hour long it was. Go ahead then. and i said well i said go with them if you want to but i guarantee you that if you call them up in say six months time telling them that you've got your mice back again i guarantee you that they will not be coming back and they might even ignore your phone call i think what a lot of them do as well is they probably write something out in the recommendation saying if you do not do these these things we won't guarantee it yeah clever wording yeah yeah i don't like to threaten customers or you know tell them no i i would never do that i wouldn't yeah no they either take my advice or they don't i mean you know see people are not thick are they really nowadays and you you know you explain to them that a mouse can get through the size of a you know the size of a thick pen so you're never going to be able to prove every single hole in a property it's just impossible to do that um you know so it's hard um you know but you know some people will go with you some people won't so um jody that's good to hear you've started a pest control with your and cool and you're loving it thanks for watching the show and that's it early days yet jody it's early days but thanks for following the podcast i noticed you followed recently cheers for that

36:56 but yeah that sounds nice to hear that is you have to keep us updated as as if you still like it i just want to ask casey because i've never really asked him this yeah when i sacked you how did it make you feel yeah i forgot to mention that question i was gonna i was gonna ask because imagine at the time you were probably really fuming you were you were you were wondering that happy um without getting too much into it i was in like a really really crap place in my life and so it was just another thing you know so i was like oh of course like of course it's just another thing so it did have really affected me as much as it should have i'm guessing because everything was just too much anyway yeah yeah if you fired me now oh i'd be fuming yeah i wouldn't go back

37:52 like no you've had your chance

37:57 yeah you'd set up lady buggy best control yourself

38:04 yeah yeah yeah i think you would feel different i think you'd feel really hurt about it wouldn't you but you care now you're in a place where you seem like you care about the company you love the industry and it would annoy you because you kind of like it's like i'll be honest before i got into press control i was in a job for 16 years that i hated i worked in a crap factory but he's shouting years old school i hated it but i love what i'm doing now yeah if i had got sacked from that job i wouldn't have really cared but now i'd be i'd be mortified i was eating something that's fine

38:45 i worked um i was working in a pub i worked in nando's and i've never felt really like happy all the time okay like i know a lot about where i was working there etc but like with pest control i know so much about it that is like it's just easy for me really no that's good that is because obviously i'd imagine that because you know a lot about pest control when customers ring you and you you know what's involved in a job yeah and how to answer the questions because that helps a lot have you ever been on the tools for your mum doing actual pest control yeah yeah i like to do a bit of both i mean if she offers me to come on a job then of course i'll say yeah i used to go on jobs when they when my mum's dad doing that other business i used to be on the roads a lot then me and my mum done like a really horrible bed bug job and all right day I can still smell the smell and it was just horrible it was really sad though because it was in a bedsit and it was this old lady and she was just completely everywhere in the whole entire flat inside this cupboard and inside all of her little memory books and inside her photos it was so sad it was just horrible yeah there was that job but yeah I can do

40:14 I can do anything really I don't like squirrels I don't like going into the loft No Well they usually don't they You know on the WCS traps I hate squirrels Remember that loft squirrel job When the little babies came out Oh right It was right by the loft hatch Oh I see And the baby squirrels were right there Oh And I was like quickly shut the thing back up i'm like oh i'm gonna deal with this i told the customer to um shut all the doors and just so and leave the front door open so if it jumped down it would have to run out oh i see yeah that that was quite scary yeah no they are i've been up in lofts when when when squirrels are up then i'll be honest with you i mean i'm a big guy i don't I'm not the biggest fan because they can jump for you and attack you.

41:12 They can go for you. They can. Whereas a rat would just lay there hiding. Never had it happen to me.

41:21 Does he want to come on the podcast? No, Pidgey won't come on the podcast. Literally watching Pidgey. Hello, Luke.

41:32 Yeah. But no. She did tell me about a really bad bed bug job that was an elderly person but it's quite sad because it was really bad. It was really sad and I'll tell you what was really sad about it is just that she had Alzheimer's and it caused her second blood transfusion Now the bed bugs have been in the property for years there were millions in there um there no word of a lie they were in a handbag they were in the shower they were absolutely everywhere and uh the uh the bed remember the single bed the bed i can still smell it so the the bed it makes me now even thinking about it i got a knife and i cut open her divan bed the smell it just hit you didn't it we just ran out into the air and we were like being like we were heaving it was disgusting I've done bed book jobs but I've only ever seen little amounts of them I've never seen none of these like Mark Porter level or these jobs you're talking about never seen anything like it I haven't What was really sad is that we had to dispose of quite a lot of her belongings, and she had diaries and stuff like that.

42:59 The bed bugs were in the spine of the diary. You know the book where you've got a spine? They were all in there. They were in all of her pages in her handbag. Remember the handbag? The handbag. They had photo albums and everything. And I had to ring up the son and I said to him, you know, I will try and save as much of mum's stuff as possible. But this is, I mean, it was awful. We wore three layers of our protective suits, three layers of the shoe covers, our hat. We literally, all you could see was our eyes.

43:38 We was just so, oh, it was horrible. And the hoover, oh, my God, the hoover. Oh, my God. I mean that was terrible I do have videos of that somewhere but I think it's on the old KNO pest control page that I used to make it's on there yeah it's got to be about yeah it was the worst was the worst ever yeah I've never had nothing like it I've only done little ones where I can just see them I've never had anything like that ever second blood transfusion you can imagine how she must have been getting sucked alive like the blood every single day and night i mean how much blood have they taken from her to be on a second blood transfusion but what annoyed me is that the social workers and the health care were having a go at me telling me i needed to sort this out and i went hang on a minute you you're it's like you're blaming me and telling me to rush this job have you seen it in there oh shit you've got carers going into this poor lady it was a warden controlled um block yeah i had carers going in where's the family family didn't want to know i had a partner with son i said how often did you come and visit your mum because it once they started on me then there was no going back I'm not having this I'm trying to help You're there to help We ended up getting the sniffer dogs in

45:13 Because it was a block Of flats over in Robber Eye It was a warden Controlled block For elderly people There must have been about 150 one bedroom Flats in this And we ended up Getting the sniffer dogs in to do the whole lot because everywhere was being so because i said that obviously rule of thumb is you should really do you know you've got her and then you've got one below one above and either side but it turns out the bed bugs have spread quite wide over the number of years that she had them so the bed bug came in sorry the bed bug detection dogs came in to sniff out what rooms definitely had them and they were quite sympathetic actually um and then we've done all the communal areas needed to be treated i mean it was a massive job um and then we got you remember thermo kill with the heat the heat people i've heard of them i've heard of it i've heard of them thermo kill in uh because obviously they needed to do their bit and you know he when he came in he went, I have never seen a job like this in my life of doing bed bugs.

46:30 He went, I've never seen anything so bad in my life. I mean, even he was shocked. He just knocked down the whole building. But you know what? We've done it. I did have to come back. I mean, after Thermicule had been in and done their bit, I still had to go back because bed bugs were still being seen. I had to go back and then do an insecticide treatment on about 10 of the flats that were treated. Okay. So, yeah. That's crazy.

47:03 Including the communal areas. So, when we done the communal areas, we done those overnight. So, we had to wait for everybody to be in their flats. And so, we then turned up late at night. we've done a insecticide treatment and all three floors and the stairways and every i mean it was a huge job it was it sounds like it sounds like it we've done it um you know yeah but i mean yeah it was uh getting the i'll tell you what those bed bunk detection dogs are fantastic they're another yeah i really enjoyed watching them and that the guys who we got in they even done a demo with the residence as well which was really nice yeah yeah yeah so do you do you do you choose um but heads but heads in the business at all nowadays not anymore we used to but we don't anymore we kind of you know casey you know sees where i'm coming from see where she's coming from and I always say to her like if there's any improvements that you can see in the business let me know you know I'm always happy to trial your system or I'm always happy to trial something you know anything different because you know that's a really good like pro of working as well is that you can implement changes it's like this isn't really working for me, I'm like, oh, okay, well, how would you like it to work then?

48:41 Say, if I work for a different customer, they'll be like, well, that's just the way it works and that's it. Yeah, it's true. You know, you can be a bit more, well, I think we should do it like this. Should we try it this way? Yeah. And I think being in a small business as well, we can make those changes very quickly. We haven't got to go through a manager and then another manager and then another manager before it can come back down a year later and say, oh, yeah, just give it a go. yeah that bothers this feeling's gone now yeah no it's no you are you are right it's the same for us because you know because i was on the course with loaded technicians that work for other people basically and they were saying that they had only certain things they could do or certain baits they had to use only but really she's yeah we're not not allowed to change course you know things like that yeah i mean i do have um you know for my rat um jobs we do have a process and that process has been trial is trial and it you know that has been trialed so many times but so you kind of find a process that actually works oh yeah to that process so now we've rat with our rat service we have to do an investigation first regardless so we you know we can't say this is what's going to happen you're definitely going to need a drain survey or you're definitely going to need this because we don't know so you're right you have to hack we have to carry out a rat investigation first to determine how we believe rats are entering that property yeah and then we go from there so i have a an a b and c package deal for for my clients on on rat services no it's good it's it's the way it should be it's like we we obviously when we start we check where we think

50:34 they're coming in etc but you're right you gotta knock it down because you are right there's no point in actually just having a drain because it's not cheap is it a drain survey no but again i've got my own camera it still don't work half the time i've got my own drain camera and i haven't successfully got someone to pay for it yet oh my god we use our camera all the time we're always probably probably because you know imagine if i got it out and said i won't charge you they'd probably go yeah yeah yeah no i mean obviously we don't charge what a drain engineer or drain to this with child because we don't have that knowledge and we always tell people you know we are pest controllers that are just doing a very not a basic survey because that's the wrong word to you but obviously we're still carrying out a drain survey of the branch lines to try and determine how how rats are exiting the sewer network and sometimes it's easy and you go bang yes look we're on the money here look at that you need someone's kitchen you know you can go through and it's generally normally it's with um extensions people that have had extensions uh and they're lovely built over uh an inspection chamber came up a lot on davy's course that

51:53 his main quote of the day was lazy builder he is lazy builder and i always say to a client you know you could pay for the best builder ever but if they want to cut corners they will because you can't see you can't see that they've cut corners no because yeah it's true because there's a lot of laws people don't realize but you know it's like you you're supposed to ask for permission to build the actual drain if you don't own it but everyone thinks they own the drains they don't in the trains yeah no but and sometimes it's you it people find it very hard to understand how rats exit the sewer network and they go well how does that happen then and then i'll say right yeah you see that tree out there so i always use the tree analysis i think you've got i find that people can visualize it better and you see the trunk of the tree that's the main sewer network that's 10s that belongs they're all you know that's 10s that's the design that's the main waistline it's big it's fat blah blah because obviously the main 10s line is six inches i said then you see those branches that are coming off of that main line that main trunk that's what we call your branch line that belongs to you you're responsible for that i said um and you see like you know you've

53:25 got several of these branch lines that come off of your main trunk um and that's how the rats come come i said so if you've got a branch line that is redundant because you've had an extension or you've moved your kitchen sink to somewhere else or you've you know got rid of your outside toilet that branch line is still there on the trunk but it's no longer in use and builders never cap off the sewer end they always cap off the top end so therefore you've probably got about two meters worth of height branch branch line that's dry um and mr ratty will go up and have a little look start gnawing you won't hear any of that because it's underground yeah because you know it it breaks off of that branch line and up and into your cavities and they go oh right and then that is a good explanation that is it's a bit but it you know sometimes you have to talk dumb in order to get them to visualize what you're trying to understand and i say like you know when we do the the drain survey watch it because the camera never lies the camera you see see do you call it that because the way i've listed it on my site and the way i call it i call it a cctv drain inspection so they don't get the wrong idea i do yeah i i it depends um who i'm talking to so we

54:56 will call it a cctv drain camera survey yeah let's call it so they know that there's a cctv camera going on and carrying out a survey because you're you're you are doing a survey well yeah i suppose it is you know it's just to look it's just to look for it's it's like a look see into it just have a look it is you're not mapping it or anything are you you're not mapping it except no and that's a little look i can't map it i don't have that knowledge to know the mapping kind of way that the system works is it's a whole new weld underground you'd probably need a new camera for that level of detail you know and i say to people you know i can tell you what the meterage is and you know and stuff like that the cameras will tell me all of that but i can't i can't map it yes we're going around corners and stuff like that you can't have a rough guess i mean we've been doing it long enough now to sort of like have a rough idea of where we're at at what point we're at and then when we say oh you know that's kind of over there next to that soil vampire that pops in in and they go oh right yeah that's where we used to have such and such and it's like it kind of falls into place yes yeah i can't not i i enjoyed the uh the the drain survey you

56:21 do have to you know you can miss it as well you know if you survey the launch too quickly with your camera there are you can miss it a lot of people i think look for you know rubble and stuff in the sewer lines but you don't always get to see that straight away and it could be a branch line that's fared off and actually the point could be there rather than going straight on and that that's the downside of of us doing it um because you know we don't have that sophisticated equipment that can round and you try and flip it round but i don't have that no you're right i know exactly what you mean yeah yeah i mean davy brown's very good with yeah but he's got he's got a serious wrist action for the camera but i'm not yeah but yeah it might i don't think you'll find that it's the camera he's got he's got like a you know it's 20 grand plus camera in it no but there is a special technique yeah you can do you can flip it and it will pop up you know it will go down the corner that you're struggling because obviously you have sort of like junctions where they go like that and and you you try and do that flip i i i just can't do it i can't do it my technician can't do it we do try you're gonna do it and you just and you just think oh it's annoying yeah yeah it is i need to get more

57:55 i need to get some jobs doing i mean i might ask offer it for note i might get more people interested then i can make some videos couldn't it yeah i mean what you do i mean you learn every single time you do it you learn every single time we still learn now even as many years as we've been doing the yeah the surveying in the in the drains we're still learning you're still kind of like oh my god look at that you know there's still all those kind of moments and you know what i feel absolutely fantastic when i actually find the the the route that those racks are going in and they're because then i'll call the customer out go look look at what we found and they go oh my god look at that you know and depending on the damage of the um of the branch line depends on whether they need uh the drainage specialist in or potentially just put in a temporary non-return valve like a rat gate as a temporary measure it just depends on the how damaged that is and is it a redundant line does it really need to have that money spent on it or will a non-return valve be okay uh for now yeah customer the option it's up to them maybe that's why i don't get as much because i don't i don't call it a trained survey i word it differently that's maybe why i've not got a lot of interest in

59:25 it i word it differently it's when you do your um your survey your initial survey now what i mean is on on my website i've not listed it as drain survey it's down as cctv camera you know inspection it is i suppose i won't show up as much as other companies would because they've all got drain surveys up don't they i don't know i suppose i don't know but we we upsell it more when we go up to the job and that's where you know not everyone's going to look on the website and go yeah that's true i need a brain i should probably do that more probably should offer it more i should are you checking the drains are you lifting up the um oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i do lift it up and don't always see anything actually you know sometimes i do sometimes i don't but sometimes it's like you know they're not going to spend the money on the proper drain survey so that was why we got it but like we didn't we got it through a business growth grant we did the council paid for it effectively and we had to pay the vat all right yeah got a business growth grant yeah and you've never used it i have used it on my own drains

1:00:44 i think it's just about um how you upsell it that's probably it probably doing it wrong Well, it's not that you're doing it wrong. It's just that by the sounds of it, you're not doing it at all. But what I would do is that obviously when you go there and you suspect the drains, even though there might not be that initial evidence in the drains, if there's not obvious ingress points around the perimeter of the building, then I would say, look, this potentially could be stemming from the actual sewer network.

1:01:16 and I believe that you're going to need a CCTV drain camera survey. Oh, you're right. Obviously, we're not going to charge as much as a drainage engineer will charge. We're just pet controllers and we can do the camera and this is how much it's going to be to carry out the CCTV drain survey. You could try that. I think I'll try that. That's probably why. It's like Jackie says here. yeah i don't think the customers know they need a drain survey until you tell them exactly yeah maybe that's it that's me not being as yeah because if you if you have exhausted all areas like if they're coming up from like you pull the kickboards off and you see a hole that's still underground so how are they getting underneath that particular point how are they getting there there's got to be an exit point around and they're not coming from ground level like surface level they've got to be coming from underground and that in especially if they've had an extension um nine times out of ten it'll be draining ladies i guarantee it like like they we always said lazy builders they pay they pay pay us well i say them ladies them builders can carry on being lazy exactly no i will take that invite i say look i've come onto my own podcast and i learned there you go every day i know how to sell it now every day you learn it is at the end of the month you done at least one drain survey Yes I want you to feedback Yes I will I shall hold you accountable Yeah.

1:03:00 Accountable. Yeah. I will ask. Yeah. Yeah. I'll message you on the 30th and I'll say, how many drain surveys have you sold? Yeah, I've done 50. Okay. No. Just getting one would be good. I think once you get used to having a conversation with the client about the benefits of having a drain survey, don't forget you can survey the main line as well. We always survey all the lines. So if you suspect one, we survey every single one of them. So that, you know, Thames Water, they will only survey their lines.

1:03:38 They won't survey the customer's branch line. They won't do it. No, but they don't tell them that, do they? No, because the customer says, oh, well, I have a train survey. I'll tell you something. Oh, yeah, it was a train survey. Oh, it was a train survey. Yeah, well, they won't serve your lines. They won't survey. You know, they're always going to come back and say there's nothing wrong with their lines because they don't want to do the work. That is true. And we've got our thoughts in TEMPWATER line and we write a report we take photographs and we say right get in contact with TEMPWATER they've got to come do that for free Yeah, you're not wrong I'll be trying this I will I will feedback to you both I'll let Vicky know and let Casey know Yeah, definitely We're looking forward to that, I can't wait now I'll have commission though by the way it's been a good podcast i think we covered a bit didn't we about family business we didn't have to you have to dive in too much did we you know but i think i think you think the pros and cons are working for a family business oh the pros would be yeah because obviously i've got kids and you like they're your grandkids you're not you're not going to not go and sort them out you know like with the normal i need to go and do the school run but oh well they should you should get someone else to sort out whereas my mum would be like well go on then go and get them yeah no it's like more leniency in that kind of way I'm allowed to be involved as much as well I want really the con's probably I don't know if I get something wrong which is very rare if I get something wrong then obviously I know that oh shit it's not going to be

1:05:47 going to get in trouble for that or if I go on maternity leave which is not going to happen again And if I do, that's not good for you because you don't like being in the office. Yeah, I hate it. I hate being in the office, yeah. I've hated it covering the office. But, you know, but, yeah, I think I'm very family-friendly focused anyway. So regardless, I don't want to knock cases for this, but regardless of whether she's my daughter or not and they're my grandchildren, even if I took someone on with children that can work from home, I would knock them for them ringing me up and say I've got a real emergency here, is it alright if I slope off and pick up my child from nursery or whatever it is, and I'll go yeah that's absolutely fine, I can cover the phones for you and the office for you are you going to come back to work or do you want to take this time off as holiday or what are we doing, and I'm quite flexible like that, and I think if you are flexible with your staff, if you look after your staff your staff will always look after you and your customers that's the way i look at it so my technician i've got him a set wage so he's he's employed from um uh eight to four

1:07:09 and he's in talk to an hour off but nine times out of ten he finishes um early because obviously we haven't got the workload at the moment. So I'm still paying for him regardless whether he comes home early or not. But if there was an emergency call out, I know that he would then just go and do it and not expect me to pay him any more. So it's kind of given that you get that kind of flexibility with your staff as well. yeah no that's a good perspective that is because obviously it's um hi it's good that you can give that i'm just going to say hello to my son hello hi son hello mate hello mate his mates are watching all turned up it's not in the chat on youtube though because you can't see it so Jackie's asked the question how much training did you have to give the person who answered the phone well Jackie I was very lucky because obviously Casey has learnt pest control throughout her whole life so we only had to teach her the basics really but when i did take on someone millie who didn't think about pest control what i done first of all and i would highly recommend this to everybody who takes on any office staff is that to spend two weeks on the road with your technician so then they get the they get the uh technician's perspective and what they have to go through and then um you will then learn about pest control, the processes, the day-to-day struggles, if you like, of what the technician faces on the road.

1:09:09 So like roadworks, traffic, customers, things like that. And I think anyone could come in and pick up the phone and type an email and this, that and the other bit i just think that any office staff that i take on goes out with my technician for two weeks to learn uh their kind of role they don't touch any poisons they don't do anything like that it's purely to kind of see and learn about what pest control really is because you don't unless you're going out on the job you don't really understand what that technician has to deal with on a daily basis.

1:09:50 So that's what, and they will pick up so much. And then when they answer the phone, the person on the other end of the phone will be so much more helpful to your client who's asking loads of questions about pest control. And also, I would also put on anyone new on a basic training course for office staff. They used to do one purely for office staff. One EMV used to do it. I think, yeah, I'm not sure what it was called now. It was years ago. Dean Levy, if you remember, do you remember Dean Levy? The old school will know Dean Levy.

1:10:29 He's left in history now. But he came and trained up my office staff, and that was really beneficial. But the initial one was to actually go out with the technician for two weeks, and I found that very beneficial. and even the office staff said that is i don't i did not realize that that's what you have to do as a pest controller that it just gives you a real insight yeah no i think i think you're right i think i think that would really help that would um some firms actually go go the extra mile and get their tech get their office staff trained up like their technicians do you know but but you can do a basic course can't you don't have to go the whole hog no yeah you can do a basic um but i think there's nothing more better than actually going out on the jobs and actually learning exactly what what we actually do as as a technician i still class myself as a technician um i'd rather be out doing uh that work rather than in the office i hate i'm you know i'm very much customer focused then I get more enjoyment out of the job on the ground.

1:11:46 But it's harder to run the business.

1:11:50 Yeah, that was a great question, Jackie, that was. Yeah, thank you, Jackie. I enjoyed that question. I give the customers so much info, etc., and education on whatever, I find it difficult to ask someone else.

1:12:06 Yeah, so I used to be like that, Jackie. I used to sort of give, you know, verbal diarrhea and give them all of my knowledge. And I used to do free site surveys as well. I'd never do that. I'd never recommend that. A lot of people who are new in the industry will go out and give free site surveys. And what I found was is that I would go there, give them all of my knowledge, you know, what I would do on the job, etc., etc., to then find out that they will then go and do it themselves or they'll find someone else who's cheaper than me to go and do it.

1:12:38 I'll tell you what though, there's been a lot of people recently ringing around and they want you to tell you basically what you're going to do on the job and then it's just so they can do it, try and buy some stuff from the shop and do it themselves. and i get it because we're in a hard time at the moment i totally understand that but actually i think where the industry lets us down is that we're not we're not classed as um being professional and specialized in what we do because um you know you can buy quite a lot of the products um you know in the diy store all right the poison's not as strong but you know you always get calls that say oh i want the strong medicine can you give me the strong medicine no but um yeah and i get it that you know people are struggling and it is a hard um time out there for us at the moment even businesses are struggling and you know and this is what i say to people you know i get it that you're trying to save money but i'm i'm trying to earn the money so i can keep going on you know i've still got the pay and stuff but yeah i if i've got one tip i would always say don't do free site survey i mean it's your choice at the end of the day but i i learned a very valuable lesson by not doing the free site surveys anymore and actually one of whittles out those um customers who are there just to kind of take the mick out do you mean in domestics in everybody in commercial i'd never do a free site survey unless i know they're going to be having a job how are you going to know that unless you

1:14:27 how do you know that how do you know that they're going to take on your services i only charge a small survey fee yeah because at the end of the day it's my top my expertise my fuel you know time is precious it shows them being serious it does and like I say it just gets rid of all those time wasters that are there to take the mick out of you and go you know when you go in there they're not telling you how to do your job because A you charge them I mean some people will charge the initial survey fee and then they will take off the survey feed from their actual treatment price i don't do that but some people do um so yeah i mean it's up to people how they want to do it and you know you learn a lot in this industry and they're you know if people um will take the mick out of you then they will take the mick out of you they will um but we're always up front with our you know when it comes to payment like in our software it does say that you're paying on the first visit at the door and the only time it happens is when i let them pay after is if the uh car machine's gone wrong and it's not working i do it differently so i used to do that um but now what i do is is that probably i um we invoice the customer on the first visit.

1:16:05 So once we've been there, we know exactly what we're dealing with and what the service is going to be, then we'll invoice them. Sorry, what I mean is when I'm on the job, they pay there and then. That's what I mean. Yeah, we used to do it like that. The card payments, you know, the machines and that, are very expensive now. So that's an added-on cost. you're not really getting your full price of that job. To say if you charge, I don't know, 200 quid for free visit, my treatment, and you're taking a car payment, you're losing a percentage of that.

1:16:40 You're not getting all of that money. 1.5, I think. Yeah, so I've stopped doing that. I have taken car payments for months now, and I just issue more prices now. Actually, after watching your videos on TikTok, I see why. Yeah. What do you mean? You've done a few TikTok videos, haven't you? Yeah. I think it was about you were moaning about the verification of limited companies as well. You were... You made a few though, haven't you? You've made a few, haven't you, on TikTok? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:17:16 I do a few TikTok videos, yeah. Three months ago this was. I think you were kicking off about having to verify your ID. Oh! Oh, yeah. Yes. No, yeah, that was just having a moan about digital ID. Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah, that was about digital ID, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we digress. We have. The problem is you two are so easy to talk to. I think, you know, it's... We've gone over our time again. Look, we've gone over an hour again. Yeah, I'll bet you go anyway, because you've got to go home, Casey. you haven't you you have all the little ones are being bed asleep and she can just sneak in and have a nice relaxing cup of tea you never know but yeah so thanks for coming on again second time yeah you never know it might be a third time in the future you never know we'll have to see but yeah no thanks for coming on Vicky and Casey you're very welcome do you want to promote anything or not I hope thank you to everybody that's watched as well this time very kind it's the only thing I want to promote yeah only pest control is watching this you see isn't it really it is No, I don't think so.

1:18:46 I can't think of anything at the moment. Next time round, you go on this morning, you're going to take Casey, is it? She won't come. No, she won't come. I don't know. Isn't that quite daunting? Because people said to me, well, she's holding cards. This is because, I said, she's on live TV. You don't want to make a mistake in front of people, do you? That's what the cards are about. Yeah, well, I wasn't allowed to have cards this time. Oh, wasn't you? I was thinking about the first time round. The first time you gave me cards, this time I wasn't allowed them.

1:19:26 You just had to go with the flow, and I made a line. Well, they said you weren't allowed cards then, did they? Yeah. I said, oh, but what, you know, I need to be on you. because I blab, I just, I talk for England, but, you know, I said, oh, I need to have this structure, otherwise I'm just going to go on and it's not going to go to plan. So I went, oh, don't worry about it. I mean, it was so totally different this time around than when I was on it first time. Yeah, it was so much more relaxed this time.

1:19:54 And Pat and Ben were absolutely lovely people. It was so nice. But I made a right boo-boo, didn't I? It squeaked, the rat. I didn't realise they were at the streets. And I was like, ah! You know, it was good. But then another producer from ITV, they asked me to go on a new show that's come out. But they wanted me to be away for three weeks. I said, I can't commit to that. I said, I've got a business to run. I can't do that. And it was the, I'll tell you now, because obviously I've turned it down.

1:20:32 and i don't think they're going to do another series so i'm glad i turned it down it was good what was it called the neighborhood the neighborhood you know the new one with um graham norton in it on tv yeah it's called the neighborhood or something like that i thought now i think and when i watched it i'm glad i turned it down yeah it wasn't really great i mean it wasn't really that entertaining if you want me on wheel of fortune or something like that i'm quite happy to do that chase catchphrase get us on oh yeah i'm really good at catchphrase yeah that'd be good yeah everyone says that until they get on the show like the freeze i was all right in front of the camera um you just have to ignore that i mean they're big massive cameras in your face and and there's about four of them around you so they can get all angles um but i tried to focus on just cat and ben sitting there i didn't look at the cameras because if i had i would have just but yeah i just i i kind of spoke to cat and ben yeah they were clients and that's kind of how i channeled that in my life but yeah but that that was fun it's quite nice to be asked to go on there Do you ever get an uptick in customers on TV?

1:21:59 Do you ever get an uptick in customers that have seen you on TV and wanted to have your pest control? Yeah, I mean, I've got a few inquiries from there and stuff. Yeah, I've got a few, but nothing sort of like spectacular, you know, nothing like inundated or anything like that. But, yeah, no, I had quite a few calls after that. Okay. But, yeah. And I did get paid, Eva, to go on it. You didn't get paid? And you're not allowed to... What you should have said about a neighbourhood, say, I'll do it, 200 grand, three weeks off.

1:22:35 Yeah. And you're not allowed to wear your branded uniform, Eva. You're not allowed to... No, you're not allowed to wear anything branded on there. Oh, is it classed as advertising? Yeah. It's all about their advertising laws that they have. I don't know. yeah yeah thanks for coming on no problem and i'll keep you updated i'll let you know it's on spotify etc yeah i want you to email me when you've sold your first drain survey i will i will definitely you've got this you've got i'm sure i can do it it's not that difficult just picture the tree with the trunk yeah the tree i like that i like you know i might go back and listen to that no your explanation of the tree is great it really is yeah it is i'll try the tree explanation yeah you just have to put it down so people can try and understand where you're coming from no it's good that is but yeah thanks so uh yeah thanks for coming on no problem casey no problem i'm in the stream now oh yeah bye everyone thanks for watching all right and thanks everyone