Jasmine Almeter runs RC Pest Pros up in the Rochester and Buffalo area, and she has been in pest control for nine years. But what got me was how she markets, building a big Facebook following and turning it into real, paying local work. Here’s what stood out.
Lots of guys want to blow up on YouTube or TikTok. Jasmine does not chase that, and she tracks every single lead with a form. She keeps a pie chart of where they all come from, and half of her customers come straight from Facebook.
Here is why she picked Facebook on purpose. As she put it, “you guys don’t make me money. My Rochester clients make me money. My Buffalo clients make me money. So I can utilize Facebook to specifically target the people that I want to talk to.”
That is the whole game. She is not trying to reach the world. She just wants the homeowners near her. She told me, “I make way more money just focusing local than I do going viral. And to go viral and to keep going viral is such a pain in my butt.”
I loved that. Going viral feels good, but it does not pay your bills when those views live in another state.
How she built the following
She did not just post and hope. When she started her page, she friend requested her family and friends first. Then she went after realtors and other business owners in town. Realtors were perfect, because they know homeowners and homeowners need pest control.
Facebook lets you have up to 5,000 friends. She filled that up with people who could actually buy from her. Now they refer her all the time, in garage sale groups and on their own posts. Simple and smart.
The algorithm rewards goofy, not salesy
This one surprised me, because Jasmine used to lean into teaching videos. She felt like Steve Irwin, but the platform changed on her.
“My educational videos are censored because they think I’m trying to sell,” she said. “But if I share something a little on the goofy side, or I’m being cutesy, then the algorithm supports it.”
So she rolls with it, and she still shares the real stuff, even half eaten rats. She just keeps it fun and human. She is not cussing or crossing lines, so she stays up and keeps growing.
Name your company for the search bar
Her company is RC Pest Pros, and I had to dig to figure out that RC means Residential and Commercial. That was not an accident.
“I was just thinking, what are people going to plug into Google that’s going to get me to show up quick without having to invest too much money into it,” she told me.
So she named the business around what people search for, then shortened it to RC because the full name was a mouthful. That is marketing baked in from day one.
The hire she keeps putting off
Jasmine is at the spot most one-person shops hit. Her May is full to the max. Her mentors told her to wait until she hits $250,000 in a year before she hires. She came up just short, so she is holding firm and not hiring this year.
I pushed back on her here, because she is so good at marketing that she could keep a first hire busy all year. If you sell the work and let someone else run it, you free yourself up to do more of what you are great at.
She heard me. “I love hearing that,” she said, “because I need the confidence of my colleagues to push me to do it.” She told me the same fear held her back from starting her own company, and that turned out to be the best move she ever made.
Stop watching your competition
Her best advice was about focus. She does not look at her competitors at all, and if a company makes her feel even a little jealous, she hides them on Facebook.
She named one local company with beautiful marketing, and she said if they tweaked a few things, they would have a TV show. But staring at them just pulls her energy away from her own work, so she looks away on purpose.
She does the same with her comments. She deletes the ones she does not like, even from other pros poking holes in her services. “I am marketing right now,” she said. “I don’t want my customers hearing your perspective. Delete.” Her page is her storefront, and she controls it.
What I am taking from this
Jasmine is not doing anything fancy. She found the people who pay her, she talks to them where they hang out, and she keeps it fun. She tracks her leads so she knows what works, and she protects her focus like it is gold.
If you are a one-truck operator wondering where to put your time, look at her playbook. Go local. Be a real person. And stop watching everybody else.
