I just got off the mic with Scarlett Nolen, and I’m still thinking about it.
Scarlett runs Truly Nolen, one of the oldest names in pest control. Her grandfather started it, her dad grew it, and now she runs it. The company is in more than 60 countries today, and that kind of run is rare. I host a lot of these talks, and this one had a ton of gold in it. Here are the lessons that stuck with me.
Scarlett’s grandfather came out of the Great Depression and moved down to South Beach. He said yes to almost any home service back then, and he even offered to flush toilets for rich folks who had a third home. But one service stuck with him, and that was pest control.
Here’s why that matters for the rest of us. People cut back hard when money gets tight, but they don’t cut back on bugs. As Scarlett put it, “you might hold off on painting your home, you might hold off on upgrades, but you’re not holding off on pest control.”
That’s the whole industry in one line. It held up through the 2008 market crash and again through the COVID shutdowns, which makes it about as steady as a business gets.
2. Ask what breaks when you leave
This was my favorite part of the whole talk. Scarlett asks her franchisees a simple set of questions when they want to grow. “What breaks in your business first when you leave for a day. What breaks in your business first when you leave for a week? What breaks in your business when you leave for a month?”
Whatever breaks first is your weak spot, and that’s exactly where you need backup and another person trained to carry the load.
I run 20 locations now, and none of them can lean on just me. Scarlett said it plain: you don’t get to 20 if any one of them needs you to show up. The real job is pulling yourself out of the work.
3. Stop switching your software
A lot of operators change their software every single year while they chase the next shiny tool. Scarlett warned hard against doing that.
Truly Nolen ran an old system called the AS400 for about 30 years. It was a black and green screen and felt very old school, and she even said she kind of liked it. But old systems build up what she calls IT debt, so at some point you have to switch, and the switch hurts.
Her warning really stuck with me. A switch “is going to take way longer than you could fathom, way longer than vendors are going to tell you it’s going to take, and it’s going to be a tremendous distraction for your business.”
So don’t make it worse by jumping around every year. Pick a system and let the business grow on top of it. Plan your next big change three to five years out instead of doing it on a whim.
4. Hire for values, not just skills
Scarlett’s dad had a firm rule about hiring. Don’t bring people in from the outside, because they show up with bad habits. Train them brand new instead.
Scarlett broke that rule a little, and she likes a mix. She promotes from within most of the time, but she leaves room for outside hires too. The reason is fresh eyes. “Some of our best hires have been people from outside the industry that don’t have biases or don’t have years of bias that come and challenge things that have been status quo,” she told me.
Her real filter is values, not the resume. Get the people skills and the values right first, then plug in the rest. Skills and process you can teach, but character you can’t.
5. Build a feedback loop and test small
Scarlett’s best ideas come from the front line, not from the office. The technicians and the customer service reps answering phones see the real problems before anyone in management does.
So she made the feedback formal instead of leaving it to chance. She’s building an AI committee right now, and here’s the smart part. It isn’t just IT people on it. She wants someone from operations, someone from finance, and someone from the field so she gets more angles and makes better calls.
She also runs pilots before any big rollout. A new idea gets tested in a few branches for a month or three, and people volunteer to be part of it. An exec stays close and gathers feedback every week, and if it works, then it spreads to everyone. That beats forcing change on the whole company at once.
We started something like this too. We built a small internal board this year with marketing, sales, and operators on it. There are seven people on it, so the big calls don’t just come from me anymore. They come from the group.
6. Aim for 12%, not 30%
I asked Scarlett to describe the perfect branch, and her answer was fast. Twelve percent growth a year.
She doesn’t want 30, because she’s lived through those 30% years, and they are hard to sustain, they burn people out, and they get volatile. As she said, that steady “12% growth golden goose just growing at a steady rate” is the real win.
She added one more thing I liked a lot. Once a branch clears the $3 million mark, the money really opens up. So grind to get past that hump, then hold a steady pace.
7. Liability is the real threat
I asked Scarlett for my blind spot, since I want 100 locations in the next five years. Her answer was quick. Liability.
“Don’t underestimate the impact of liability,” she told me. “That can change your world in a day.” A fender bender today is not what it was ten years ago, and the bigger you get, the bigger the target on your back.
This is part of why so many owners sell to private equity, because they want the cash and the cover. But Scarlett gave a real warning here. She said PE firms have great salespeople and a lot of shiny tools, and they sell it really well. The value they promise may not be the value you actually get, and she hasn’t met many owners who love that choice.
8. Cut churn with great service
This last one might be the most useful of all. Scarlett built something she calls the yellow standard, and she took it from the Ritz Carlton’s gold standard. The whole idea is bringing hotel-level service into pest control.
Why does this matter so much? Churn. Scarlett and I both got fired up on this one. It costs far more to win a brand new customer than to keep an existing one, yet most companies pour all their effort into the sale and forget the customer afterward.
She put a real number on it. Move your churn from 20% down to 15% and it’s a game changer. That small drop can swing a big chunk of your bottom line.
We’re chasing the same thing on our end. We both pointed to the book Unreasonable Hospitality, so if you haven’t read it yet, go get it.
That’s what I took from Scarlett. Build a business that doesn’t need you, hire for values, and grow at a steady pace. Watch your liability, and treat your customers like the Ritz would. Three generations and 60-plus countries don’t happen by accident.
