Josh Fleenor runs Pest Pros Pest Solutions out of Sacramento. He started from scratch, and now he has 55 people on his team. We talked for over an hour and I left with a full page of notes. Here’s what I keep coming back to.
This episode is part of the Pest Control Millionaire podcast. For another grind-it-out growth story, hear how Jared Lajaunie made the slow climb from zero to $25M.
Most owners slow down in winter, but Josh does not. He told me his team just thinks about it the right way. As he put it, “They say that but we’ve kind of developed the mentality that there is no slow season. We just have to make adjustments.” The bugs change and the work changes, but the work is still there. You just have to go get it.
Own it, even when no one helps you
Before Josh started his own shop, he took over a branch for another company. It was worth $55,000 in accounts, it had no systems, and the team had no fire. He even took a pay cut to do it. At the time he had a family of five and was the only income.
He thought his boss would hand him a plan, but that plan never came. So he made his own choice. “I’m going to own this and I’m going to make this successful regardless of the level of support that I do or don’t have,” he said. He called it a burn the ships mentality.
Three years later that branch was doing $500,000 a month. He swapped out weak people, drove reviews, and even fought to get a Yelp page when the company said no. The mindset is the whole thing, because you own the result whether you get help or not.
Multifamily was his blue ocean
Most pest pros in his area hate multifamily work and see no value in it. Josh saw it different. Nobody had real rules or standards for it, so he built them.
His way in was simple. He matched the price the property manager was already paying, then he showed them who he was. He found that more than 90% of them were unhappy with their old service, so they gave him a shot.
Later he raised prices once he proved his worth. Some managers laughed at his numbers at first, but now those same properties pay him more than his first quote. He built the value, so the higher price made sense.
Don’t chase every customer
Josh picked his brand colors on purpose. Green stands for problem solving and blue stands for long-term relationships. He stayed away from red, because red makes people buy fast but may not keep them.
He calls the people he serves clients, not customers. As Josh put it, “Customer to me is a transaction where a client is a relationship.” He is not trying to win every job, he wants people who want a partner.
Leads come from a lot of places, not just Google
Josh has no marketing background, so he learned by digging in. Early on he studied what was working online and copied it. Now he runs Google, billboards, social media, and a Sacramento Kings sponsorship.
But he warned me not to lean on one source too much. “Google gets all the glory, but it’s not always Google,” he said. People may see your truck or a billboard first, then search your name and find you later.
His trucks are simple on purpose. A lot of wraps are too busy, and you can’t read them until you’re right next to them. Josh keeps his clean so people can spot them from far away.
Run your team like a dynasty, not a family
One of his core values is “love people,” but love means holding people accountable too. He used to call the company a family, and now he says it works more like a high-performing sports team.
“High performing sports teams, they love you, but they’ll cut you if you’re hurting everybody else,” he said. He hires, fires, and promotes off his core values. Every time he drifted from that it hurt the company, and every time he stuck to it good things happened.
Build real leadership development, not a book club
Josh hired a guy named Frank with a master’s in education. Frank now runs a leadership program for the whole team. The first lesson is learning to lead yourself, and everyone takes it, leader or not.
Do not call it a book club around Josh. “It’s not a book club. I promise you it’s not a book club. We are digging into this stuff,” he said. They read a few books, but they also use podcasts and articles, and each class ends with a real project.
Protect your cash while you grow
This one hit home for me. A few years in, Josh hired someone who turned out to be toxic and was not doing the work. Around the same time his mail stopped forwarding after a move, so bills he was owed never showed up.
He fell $300,000 behind on collections, and at five years in he wasn’t sure he could make payroll. At the last hour he got some cash. He told his team to pay everyone else and skip his own check. Then they got in and ground it out.
His big point is that growth eats cash. He keeps a thin margin on purpose so he can pour money back into his people and his marketing. He is not managing a business, he is growing one.
Say your goals out loud, then go get them
This story was wild. Josh was at a Kings game with his young daughter. He pointed at the scoreboard and said Pest Pros would be up there one day. The very next morning, the Kings called his office about marketing.
He jumped on it, and later that season his ad went up. He took his daughter back to a game without telling her, and she pointed and yelled, “Daddy, Pest Pros.” He said it made him feel like he could do anything.
He does the same with people he wants to meet. He names a goal out loud, then a connection shows up and he moves on it fast. Josh does not just dream, he says it and then goes and gets it.
A few books Josh swears by
Josh reads a lot, and so do I. He keeps going back to Traction by Gino Wickman, and his team runs a loose version of EOS from that book. He also loves Legacy by James Kerr, which is about the New Zealand rugby team and their standards. For brand new owners, he points to The E-Myth Revisited.
My takeaway
Josh built something real by owning the result and caring about people. He treats his team like a team, his clients like partners, and his goals like plans. If you run a pest control company, steal these ideas, because they work.
