We just visited branch number three down in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This partner has a story I think every operator needs to hear. Six years in the military, then built a seven-figure pest control company without even having an office. Here’s how it happened.
I get this call from my old office manager. She says, “Hey, there’s this guy who’s in the Marines. He says he wants to come in for an interview.” I’m like, okay, sure, let’s test it out.
Dylan shows up in a shirt and tie, all dressed up. First of all, he didn’t know what pest control was. Second, he’s looking at me like, “You’re going to sell pest control door to door?”
But let me back up.
From the Military to Knocking Doors
Dylan spent six years in the Marines. His first couple years were active duty, and the last four were reserves. He was driving from the UP of Michigan down to Grand Rapids every single month, gone for weeks at a time, and it was starting to interfere with family and everything else going on in his life. So he got out.
After that, he did construction for a bit. Plowing snow at three and four in the morning in the UP, going out to measure if there were two inches on the ground. He told me he looked at that and thought, “I’m not going to do this my whole life. There’s no way.”
Then he found a listing on Indeed for something called RJ Distributing. Didn’t know what it was. He shows up, and this guy named Ryan pulls out a vacuum and starts doing a presentation. That’s how Dylan got into sales. Door to door, selling Kirbys.
He knocked his very first door with zero sales experience. The guy opens the door and tells him to get lost. That was his introduction to door-to-door sales. February of 2020, about a month before the whole world shut down. He did that all the way up until he ran into us.
Day One: Six Sales, Zero Bagels
Dylan’s first day in pest control was April 14th, 2021. He remembers the exact date. He walked up to that first door and could feel his heart beating out of his chest. His throat was closing up. He could barely get the pitch out. He messed up his first door.
Second door was a sweet old lady. He told me, “These are my people.” He’s always been a grandma’s boy, knows how to talk to older people. He sold her.
Then he finished the day with six sales. And from that day forward, he never bageled. Not once.
Year One: Learning Together
We went down to Green Bay Appleton that summer. That’s when we officially opened up down there. Looking back, that was probably our favorite summer together, 2021.
The thing is, we were still learning too. We didn’t have the training that all these other big companies had. We were brand new, just getting our feet wet. But we took over down there. It was crazy.
Year Two: Building Leaders
Year two was Dream Team versus A Team. We really pushed each other. We each had about 10 guys on our teams. That’s when Dylan had to step up and become the leader. He was already a leader, but that’s when he really had to step up with James.
I wasn’t used to running meetings the whole first year, and then it was like, okay, now I need to get these guys to start stepping up. I gave them a little more autonomy, a little more freedom to go start building their own teams and their own success. I started showing up once or twice a week rather than running every single day.
Dylan and James didn’t sell as much as they did year one because they were more focused on helping their guys and their team than actually performing. That’s the thing about moving up to a team leader or manager role. Your numbers are going to go down because you’re teaching, recruiting, knocking doors with your guys, helping them close deals.
And here’s what I’ll say about that: you can’t go out there and close a deal yourself and expect to keep someone. You’ve got to lead from the front. You have to be out there. Dylan’s still out there knocking doors today. Does he technically need to? No. But he wants to. He loves it.
When Everything Changed
There’s a lot of stuff we’re going to leave out of this, but here’s what matters. At the end of year two, Dylan found out his mom’s cancer came back. That was August of 2022. He was very emotional. I remember how emotional he was at that morning meeting. He finished his month up in Green Bay Appleton, finished out the year.
And that’s when we ended up partnering up as our first actual business partner. I still remember that conversation: “Dylan, whatever you do, we’re going to figure this out. Go spend as much time with her as you possibly can.”
He moved to Grand Rapids in October 2022. He was going back and forth to the UP where his family is, and he lived with his mom from December of 2022 until she passed in May of 2023.
Here’s what people don’t see. His mom died May 7th, 2023. He had 10 recruits showing up May 8th, 2023. That’s the reality of building a business through the hardest moment of your life.
He told me he’s glad he was able to spend those last five or six months with her, being her caretaker, helping her through it. We had always planned to open Grand Rapids. It just happened sooner than expected because of the circumstances.
What Most People Don't See
May of 2023 was Dylan’s first real month running Grand Rapids. It wasn’t easy. It takes a lot of work and mental toughness to get through all of that. Losing your mom, running the business, driving six or seven hours back home on the weekends to go see your girls.
And this is what most normal people don’t see. All they see is you after three to five years running a successful company. They’re like, “Oh yeah, must be nice.” They have no idea how much work and dedication and heart and grit it takes. The mental toughness to drive seven hours back and forth to see your daughters on the weekends because they can’t be down there while you’re working.
But it’s the ones who show up every single day. They’re consistent. They work through their stuff. They still show up. They do their job. They execute. Those are the ones who win. And Dylan is a prime example of that person.
Our first year in Grand Rapids, we finished around six to seven hundred thousand. Obviously not our greatest year, but Dylan was mentally going through a lot of struggles. He was also learning. Grand Rapids was the hardest market we’d been in yet. Green, Eco Shield, Green X, they all had teams of 60 to 70 guys down there. It was a whole new ball game in a truly saturated market.
What's Next
Dylan just opened Detroit this past year, and he’s in the process of two more locations. Right now he’s technically at four locations. His goal in three years is to have at least two more, putting him at six. Then in five years, probably another two after that.
A pace of two every couple years, because we’ve learned the hard way that if you grow too fast without leadership in place, you start losing that leadership in certain locations.
The Bigger Picture
I asked Dylan if he ever thought he’d be where he’s at today. He said, “Hell no.” He grew up as a poor kid. He didn’t have money. The fact that he can provide for his family without asking anyone for money, that he can get his daughter enrolled in travel soccer because they didn’t have the money for that when he was growing up, that stuff matters to him.
Dylan’s a stud. I’m glad to call him my friend and business partner. It’s been a fun five years, and the future looks bright.
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