Let me say that again because it’s important. You can’t focus on growth if you’re focused on day to day tasks.
And that’s the reality for most pest control owners. You’re already busy. You’re doing the servicing. You’re answering phones. You’re wearing all the hats in the business.
The last thing you want to do is marketing. And some of the marketing tasks can get pretty technical.
That’s why delegation is so important. Especially for marketing.
I’ve built agencies in the past. I’m a fractional CMO for service based companies across the country. And I can tell you that the pest control owners who scale the fastest are the ones who learn to delegate marketing tasks effectively.
But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Let me show you exactly which tasks to delegate first, how to ensure quality, and why most agencies end up burning their clients.
Why Delegation Is So Important for Marketing
A lot of pest control owners are already doing a bunch of tasks. You’re servicing properties. Sometimes you’re answering phones. You’re managing techs. You’re doing billing. You’re doing everything.
The last thing you want to do is spend hours learning Facebook ads or trying to figure out SEO or editing videos for social media.
That’s where delegation comes in.
If you’re already doing a bunch of tasks, you need to start delegating the marketing stuff. Because marketing is critical to growing your business, but it doesn’t all need to be done by you.
The key is knowing what to delegate first and how to do it without losing quality.
Which Marketing Tasks Should You Delegate First?
Okay, so before Jonas could even ask me the next question, I already knew what I was going to say. Because this is the most common question I get.
Which marketing tasks should you delegate first?
Here’s the priority order.
Task One: Social Media Posting
Your social media posting is the first thing you should delegate. This is really easy. You can get a virtual assistant to handle this task very, very fast.
They can schedule posts. They can respond to comments. They can engage with your followers. All of that can be delegated.
You shouldn’t be spending your time posting on Facebook and Instagram every day. That’s a waste of your time.
Task Two: Video Editing
The second thing I would suggest you delegate is editing your videos.
I don’t edit my videos. Jonas doesn’t edit his videos. Why? Because it’s a task that someone else with more experience can do a lot quicker than we can.
If you try to edit your own videos, you’re going to spend hours learning the software, trying to make cuts, adding graphics, fixing audio. It’s a time suck.
Delegate it to someone who knows what they’re doing. They’ll do it faster and better than you ever will.
Task Three: SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The third thing I would suggest delegating, and shout out to Danny here, is having someone do your SEO.
Now, you can learn SEO if you have the time. If you’ve already delegated some of the other things in your business and you have more time, you can learn it and do it yourself. We actually teach SEO in our Pest Control Millionaires class.
But the reality is, some of the tasks for SEO, especially off page SEO, can get difficult and technical.
There are some things you can do yourself. Like managing your Google Business Profile. Dan talked about that in previous videos. That’s pretty straightforward.
But the deeper SEO stuff, like building backlinks and optimizing site structure and doing technical audits, that can get complicated. So if you can afford to delegate it, do it.
What About Ads?
Now, ads are a little different. Specifically Facebook ads.
Most owners can do Facebook ads themselves. It’s a pretty simple setup. You can learn it in a couple hours just from our course. And honestly, it’s pretty simple to manage once you get it set up.
Of course, depending on the size of your company and what you can afford, you can delegate Facebook ads to a virtual assistant. But I actually still do the ads even in my business. And I have a large company.
I like doing them. I’m good at them. That’s why I’m a fractional CMO. So I haven’t delegated that yet.
But here’s the thing. Ads don’t take a lot of extra time once you know what you’re doing. So it’s not a huge burden to keep doing them yourself if you enjoy it.
Local Service Ads and Google Ads
Local Service Ads are really easy to set up as well. That’s something you don’t necessarily have to delegate. You can learn that from our class.
Google Ads, also known as CPC ads, you could delegate those to a virtual assistant quite easily. Someone who’s efficient at running Google campaigns.
Just like we talked about in previous videos, you can find people on Upwork, Fiverr, anything like that. You can find some pretty effective people to run your Google Ads.
How to Ensure Quality and Consistency After Delegation
This is a really good question. Because delegation is great, but only if the person you delegate to actually does the work well.
So how do you ensure quality and consistency?
Checks and Balances
You need checks and balances. Just like we talked about in previous videos, you need to be checking your numbers and your KPIs.
That’s one of the big things. Make sure your numbers look good. If you delegate Facebook ads to someone and your cost per lead goes way up, that’s a problem. You need to catch that.
Use Software to Track Virtual Assistants
I use a system called Hubstaff to check all my virtual assistants to make sure they’re actually doing their work effectively and that they’re not just sitting there on Netflix all day.
What’s great about that software is you can go on the platform and actually see what they were doing throughout the day. You can see screenshots of their screen. You can see which apps they were using.
It’s accountability.
Use Training Platforms to Track Progress
On our training platform, we can actually see where team members have made it in the videos.
Let’s say they’re like, “Yeah, hey boss, I watched module three training. Good to go.”
I can actually go in there and see if they’ve actually watched module three training. I can see how far they got. I can see if they passed the quizzes.
That’s part of delegation too. Making sure you’re tracking your KPIs and making sure you’re tracking your assistants through systems like Trainual or Hubstaff.
And at the end of the day, it’s about whether they’re executing on the task properly and getting you good results.
Should You Outsource to an Agency or Keep Everything In House?
This is a really good question. And I think there’s a time and place for everything.
Just like we talked about in our class, a lot of things can be brought in house, and that can save you literally tens of thousands of dollars.
If you learn these things yourself as the owner, I think every owner should know a little bit about everything.
Number one, so you know you’re not getting screwed by a company. And number two, so you have a general knowledge of everything that’s going on in your business.
However, I do think there’s a time and place for agencies.
When Agencies Make Sense
I would say specifically with SEO, agencies can make sense. Search engine optimization can get pretty technical, and it can be difficult to find someone in house to do it well.
The advantage of hiring an agency is getting someone who’s specific in that field and who’s done a lot of it.
In my opinion, the only real advantage is if you find a company that’s like, “We only do SEO for pest control companies. That’s it.”
I actually know a perfect guy for that. Someone who specializes exclusively in pest control SEO. That kind of specialization is worth paying for.
What If You’re Just Starting Out?
Jonas pushed back on me here with a good question. What if you’re just an owner with two technicians and you don’t have a lot of time?
Here’s what I’d say.
Number one, figure out how to delegate some of your tasks. Get to the point where you have a little bit more time to do high leverage activities like we always talk about.
But here’s the reality. Some people actually may not want to learn any of the stuff we teach in our class or in these videos.
For those people, getting an agency to do the Google Ads or Facebook Ads might actually be a better use of their time.
So I think it’s all dependent on the individual and where they’re at in business.
My Personal Opinion
But this is my personal opinion. I think everyone should at least learn a little bit about the basics.
That way, when you are hiring an agency, you know what they’re talking about.
If they’re talking to you about click through rate, customer acquisition costs, dollar per lead, impressions, organic versus paid, backlinks, whatever, at least you have an idea of what they’re talking about.
You don’t want to be completely in the dark when you’re paying someone thousands of dollars a month.
The Problem With Most Agencies
Let me be real with you. I ran an agency in the past. And I’ve seen a lot of agencies burn their clients.
Here’s what happens.
Negative One: They’re Not Specific to Your Industry
They might not be specific to the pest control industry. So they don’t know what works.
I hear this all the time. “Man, Jake, I had this agency and they said they were going to bring me XYZ results and it was just a crap shoot. They didn’t bring me anything.”
So before you hire an agency, make sure number one, they have a lot of client results and testimonials. Number two, they have some sort of guarantee or insurance policy.
Because they could charge you $2,500 a month for Google Ads, but you don’t know if you’re going to get any leads from it.
I would say with agencies, it can be a little nerve wracking if you’re not hiring a reputable company that has results in your specific industry.
Just be careful. There are some really, really good agencies out there that do a great job. But there are also a lot of ones that burn people.
It’s Not Always the Agency’s Fault
But I also want to say this. It’s not all the agency’s fault either.
Jonas and I talked to a guy the other day about his sales funnel. The agency was getting him a ton of leads. But he didn’t have a good sales process to follow up fast enough. Or at all.
We went through his sales process and we’re like, “This is the majority of the reason you’re not getting results. You haven’t called your customers back in the last 48 hours. Let’s start with that. You’re sending out quotes before you’re even talking to them on the phone.”
When I ran my agency, we would run into instances where the client would be like, “Your leads suck. I’m not getting any results.”
And I’d be like, “Okay, well let’s go back and look at it.”
Just like Jonas said, we’d look at their sales process. And I’d be like, “Hey John, looks like you haven’t called your leads in four days.”
He’s like, “Oh yeah, well that’s because the leads suck.”
I’m like, “Well, how do you know if they suck if you haven’t called them?”
And I know that sounds silly to a lot of people listening to this. But it happens. People literally think leads suck even if they don’t call them.
They call them maybe once or twice and they think that’s optimal. Then they blame it on the agency. “It’s the agency’s fault the leads didn’t close.”
That’s why we go over follow up in our program. Because you can have the best marketing in the world, but if your sales process sucks, you’re not going to get results.
How SOPs Help in Scaling Your Marketing Team
You need SOPs. Standard operating procedures.
You need standard operating procedures in place before you can scale. Because if you don’t have them, there’s no congruency as you grow.
As you bring on more team members, just like we talked about in a previous video, things start to get away from you if you don’t have standard operating procedures in place.
A Perfect Example
Let me give you a perfect example.
Say you have a CSR that comes on and you’re like, “All right, so we sell pest control service, mosquito control service, and termite service. This is how you’re going to sell it.”
That sounds great. Hopefully they figured it out. Hopefully they know how to say your script after you told them a few times. But they don’t have a written script.
Now let’s say you bring on a second person and you tell the first person to train them. And the new person asks, “So how do you sell this?”
Well, now it’s like the telephone game. How do we know what’s being taught if we don’t have standard operating procedures in place?
You want a standard in your company. You want everyone to do the same thing the same way. Pitch everything the same way too.
Building an Agency on SOPs
When I was building my agency, SOPs were everything. Literally everything.
Especially with our agency, if we’re going to build Facebook ads for a client, we wanted the Facebook ad to essentially be copy paste. Because we knew it worked.
We’re going to build it the same way. The targeting the same way. The copy the same. The headline the same. Everything has to be the same.
When the SOPs are broken or systems are broken, everything else falls apart. And there are fires that you have to put out.
Building standard operating procedures for every position was everything. Because if you don’t have systems in place for every position, you’re running around with your head cut off because you have to do ten different things all in the same day.
And you can’t focus your energy on growth when you’re focusing on day to day tasks.
I’ll say that again. You can’t focus on growth if you’re focused on day to day tasks. And that’s why SOPs are so important.
What Metrics Help Assess Your Team's Effectiveness on Marketing Tasks?
This is pretty simple. You’re mainly looking at the numbers and your team’s performance.
Your ad performance. Your click through rates. Your conversion rates.
But ultimately, your cost per acquisition is really what you’re looking for. That’s what I care about most as an owner.
Your return on ad spend. That’s what matters.
If I’m running an agency, I need to make sure my clients are all getting a return on their ad spend. If they’re not, then we’re doing something wrong.
There are a million different ways and KPIs you can look at. All the platforms are different. But at the end of the day, it comes down to, are you getting customers profitably?
If yes, keep doing what you’re doing. If no, fix it.
The Biggest Mistake When Delegating
The biggest mistake when delegating is not having standard operating procedures.
With anything. Not just marketing. Everything.
Make sure you have those standard operating procedures in place.
And one thing I’ll say about that. Make sure it’s at a third grade level. And I don’t say that in a demeaning way. You just want things stupid simple with everything you build out.
If you’re going to have a CSR come on, you want them to know exactly what they’re going to be doing.
If you’re going to bring on a sales rep, have all the scripts laid out for them. Everything.
You want everything to be so simple and so laid out when delegating anything that if you were to leave tomorrow and go to Italy, they would know exactly how the position is run and exactly what to say in any scenario.
That’s the goal. Build systems so good that the business runs without you.
Start Delegating Your Marketing Tasks Today
Look, delegation is the key to scaling. Especially with marketing.
You can’t do everything yourself. And you shouldn’t try.
Start with social media posting. Then video editing. Then SEO. Delegate the tasks that are either time consuming or technically complex.
But make sure you have SOPs in place first. Make sure you’re tracking performance. And make sure you understand the basics even if you’re delegating it to someone else.
That’s how you scale your marketing without losing your mind or wasting thousands of dollars on agencies that don’t deliver.
If you want to learn more strategies for building a million dollar pest control business, join our free Facebook group, Pest Control Millionaires. We’ve got over 2,000 active members sharing what’s working every day. And if you want the complete playbook, grab a copy of our book, Zip Code Kings.
Now go build your SOPs and start delegating your marketing.
