I recently sat down with John Stopka, the founder of Liberty Pest Control out of Western Kentucky, and honestly his story might be one of the most impressive we’ve had on the show. John started his pest control career at 19 years old, and just a year and a half ago he launched Liberty Pest Control. In that short time, he’s grown the company to over 1,700 accounts and just crossed the million dollar mark. And he’s only 27. The guy moves fast, delegates early, and has built a brand that people in his area can’t stop talking about. We sat down and talked about how he did it, what he’s learned, and where he’s headed next.
Getting Started at 19
John got into pest control the same way a lot of people do. By accident. He was 19, working management at Wendy’s, and had his second kid on the way. He knew he needed to make more money, so he walked into the local Orkin office looking for a job. They had a sales position open, commission only. He went home and told his wife, and she thought he was crazy. But they went for it anyway.
“I just always had a be obsessed or be average mentality. That’s just kind of the way I live my life,” John told me. He spent about six and a half years at Orkin as a residential sales rep, selling pest control services, termite treatments, bed bug accounts, and crawl space work. And he learned how to sell.
When I asked him what the biggest lesson from that time was, he didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t some fancy sales technique or script. “Just talk to a customer like they’re a real person and you’re just there to help them. You’ll sell a lot doing that,” he said. A lot of people overcomplicate sales by trying to implement all these tricks and tactics they find online. John kept it simple. People have a problem, you have a solution, and you provide real value. That’s it.
Starting Liberty Pest Control
John always knew he wanted to own a business. He spent years consuming content, reading books, and listening to podcasts to prepare himself. When the time was right, he partnered up with someone he’d met through a local BNI networking chapter and they launched Liberty Pest Control together.
The timing was intentional. John started the company in the middle of winter on purpose. He wanted to spend those cold months building a name and creating an image before spring rolled around and the phones started ringing. So he hit the pavement door knocking, and he kept it genuine. “Hey, my name is John with Liberty Pest Control. I just started. Is there anything I can do for you guys this spring?” No scripts, no tricks. Just a real person having a real conversation.
The Power of BNI and Networking
John credits a lot of Liberty’s early growth to networking, specifically through his local BNI chapter. If you’re not familiar, BNI is a networking group where about 20 to 30 business owners and professionals meet weekly to refer each other business.
John’s advice on networking is pretty straightforward. You get what you put in. He’s seen people complain that nobody at BNI wants to refer them or talk to them. And his response? “Did you talk to anybody when you were there? Did you come to them and say, hey, I’ve got a referral for you? Did you refer this one person? Did you send them five or 10 customers? If the answer is no, then why would they do business with you?”
That’s how John met his business partner in the first place. He saw him at a meeting, approached him, and said, “Hey, let’s get lunch. Let’s see how we can help each other.” He took the initiative, built the relationship, and it turned into a partnership that launched a million dollar company.
Getting Known
One of the biggest lessons John learned, partly from Grant Cardone, is that you have to get known. “If people don’t know your name, they don’t know your company, they don’t know who you are, how can they buy from you?” So John set out to make Liberty impossible to miss in Western Kentucky.
First, the trucks. All of Liberty’s vehicles are wrapped, and they get a ton of attention. John’s take on what should be on a wrap is refreshingly simple. “Your logo, your name of your company. It should be the biggest thing on that wrap. That’s what people are going to remember.” He’s got a giant eagle as a mascot on the side of the truck with Liberty Pest Control in big letters. No need for a QR code or a website URL that nobody’s going to remember. People see the name, they remember the name, and when they need pest control, they search it up.
“You can’t do a pest control service in a neighborhood and not see Liberty in that customer’s driveway,” John told me. It’s a moving billboard, and it works.
Then there’s the social media strategy that really stood out to me. When Liberty signs up a new commercial account like a restaurant, John asks permission to take a picture of his truck in front of the place. He posts it with something like, “Thank you for choosing Liberty Pest Control to keep your restaurant pest free.” Then he gives away a $25 gift card to the new customer, and people share it because they want to win. Every time someone shares it, they see the Liberty truck and the branding. It builds the social media following and creates loyalty with customers at the same time.
Joining Pest Control Millionaires
John joined the program back in March after reaching out to Jake Sheldon for help with marketing. He’d been doing his own marketing for a while, but he wanted to get better at it. Jake told him about what he and Jonas were teaching, and the value was obvious. John signed up right away.
The biggest win from the program has been Facebook ads. Before joining, John was running ads on his own and paying over a hundred dollars per lead. Some leads were costing him $150. He was ready to give up on Facebook entirely.
Then he learned how the algorithm actually works. How to make an ad that stops people from scrolling instead of blending in with every other corporate ad. How to set up a lead form the right way so people actually know they’re signing up for something. And the results were insane. “We were averaging somewhere between $10 to $15 per lead,” John said. That’s a 90% drop in cost per lead just from learning how to do it right.
He’s also learned how to spot ad fatigue. In smaller markets like his, around 25 to 30 thousand people, the same ad can get stale fast. When he noticed leads slowing down and cost creeping back up to $25 or $30, he knew it was time to swap out the creative. Still incredibly cheap leads, but he stays on top of it.
Creating an Offer People Can't Say No To
John’s a big fan of Alex Hormozi, and one of the lessons that stuck with him is the idea of creating an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no. But he’s quick to clarify what that actually means. “It’s not saying create an offer so cheap that people are like, oh yeah, I have to have it. It’s saying pack so much value into your offer that people feel stupid saying no.”
Liberty does this through the details. While competitors come out and do a quick spray and leave, Liberty does de-webbing, brings a trash can to the garage door, picks up newspapers. The technicians are friendly, they love their jobs, and customers notice. They also offer bundled services and monthly billing, which a lot of older companies in the area still haven’t figured out. “When they call in and you tell them it’s 45 bucks a month, we’ll come out every three months. Yeah, that sounds great,” John said. Monthly billing makes the value obvious and removes any hesitation.
Building a Team People Actually Want to Work For
In just a year and a half, John has grown to seven employees. And here’s the cool part. He hasn’t had to do a ton of recruiting because his employees keep referring their friends and former coworkers. Nobody’s getting a referral bonus or anything. They’re just referring people because they genuinely love working there.
John’s philosophy on employee culture is simple. It’s not always about money. “They want to feel appreciated. They want someone that’s going to say, hey, you did a good job today.” He holds a weekly breakfast meeting every Monday where the team eats together and goes over topics for the week. On birthdays, he surprises people with a $25 gift card to their favorite restaurant. He makes sure they have good equipment, good sprayers, good poles.
“If you take care of your employees, they’re going to take care of the company. They’re going to take care of the customers. They’re going to want other people they know to come work here because they love working here,” John told me. And that’s exactly what’s happening at Liberty.
Where He's Headed
John’s not slowing down. His start technician is moving into a full-time service manager role so John can focus on growing the business instead of getting pulled into day-to-day operations. They’re planning to open another service location next year, and another one the year after that.
The end goal? $25 million in revenue and an exit. John’s been pretty open about that. “If I shoot for 10 million, that’s the max of what I’m going to hit. If I shoot for 25, I’m either going to hit 25 or I’m going to get pretty dang close to it,” he explained. And at that level of recurring revenue, the exit multiple becomes life-changing money.
There’s also a more personal reason behind the drive to build something big. John thinks about what would happen if something happened to him. A knee injury, something worse. If he’s a sole operator and the sole income for his family, everything falls apart. “That fear drives me that I have to create a company so large that I can make sure my family is taken care of no matter what happens to me,” he said. That’s not just ambition. That’s real purpose behind the work.
Key Takeaways
John’s story packs a lot of lessons into a very short time in business. First, delegate early and often. John has delegated from almost day one, sometimes even before it felt necessary. That’s how he’s grown so fast. He’s not stuck in the truck doing services. He’s working on the business.
Second, get known before you need to be known. The wrapped trucks, the social media posts, the networking. None of it pays off immediately. But when you stack it up over months, you become the name people think of first when they need pest control.
Third, keep sales simple. Don’t overthink it. People have a problem, you have a solution, you provide value. Talk to them like a real person and you’ll close deals.
Fourth, take care of your people. Both your employees and your customers. The little things add up. A birthday gift card, a weekly breakfast, good equipment. When your team feels valued, they show up, they do great work, and they bring in more great people.
And finally, set your goals high. John is 27 years old, just crossed a million dollars, and is targeting $25 million. Whether he hits that exact number or not, the mindset behind it is what’s driving everything. If you shoot low, you land low. If you shoot high, you might just surprise yourself.
From Wendy’s management to a million dollar pest control company in under two years, John’s story is proof that the right mindset, the right systems, and the willingness to move fast can build something incredible. And he’s just getting started.
Want to connect with John? You can find him on Facebook. Just search John Stopka and send him a friend request. And if you’re looking for the same kind of program and community that helped John cut his cost per lead by 90% and scale to a million dollars, that’s exactly what we’ve built with Pest Control Millionaires.
