I’m Jonas Olson, CEO and founder of Pest Badger. We went from zero to a nine-figure business with 14 locations in less than five years. In this post, I’m going to walk you through exactly how to get your first $300,000 in revenue.
I’m going to assume you already have a business license, insurance, certifications to do pest control, and the equipment to service your customers. You have a business. Now we need to go from zero customers to your first 300K.
Just know that your first $300,000 in revenue is basically going to be done all bootstrapped and by yourself, unless you have a lot of cash from some other investment. For those of you who don’t, keep reading.
Your average contract value is going to fall somewhere between $150 to $250 per service, which is once a quarter. Doesn’t matter if you bill monthly, bimonthly, doesn’t matter how much you service for the most part. Let’s just say average contract values per year land between $600 and $800.
That means you’re going to need 400 to 500 clients all paying you that $600 to $800 per year to hit $300,000 in revenue.
That all sounds good, but now what do you actually have to do to get those first few clients? Because you’re under a million dollars in revenue, really no one just knows who you are. Your job is to get as many clients in the door as fast as possible.
The big challenge at this level is that you need a lot of clients, but you don’t have a lot of money. Everything I’m about to walk you through is going to cost you zero dollars.
Facebook Groups
The first thing I’d do is go on Facebook and find all the local Facebook groups. You have to remember that on Facebook, people are typically looking for a deal. They don’t see a lot of value right away. So make sure you’re creating value-driven content, not just posting your business on there. You want to provide value.
What I mean by giving lots of value is showing people how-to videos. If they want to go do it themselves and not hire you, they could go out there and treat it themselves if they wanted to.
Get into all your local Facebook groups. Find 10, 20, 30 of them, depending on the market you’re in. A lot of the mom groups do really well. Just start posting content a couple times a week to get your name out there.
Posting on Facebook is all free. You’re not going to run ads. You’re not going to boost your posts. That does nothing. Don’t go hire a team. Don’t have a videographer. You can do this all yourself pretty cheap these days. Yes, you can go get a fancy camera, but you do not need one. My most viral videos have all just been shot on an iPhone.
Google My Business
Before you even get a website, get a Google My Business. Is a website important? Yes, you can go build a cheap website off Wix. But I think a Google My Business these days is way more important.
When you’re searching for anything, whether it’s pest control or brand new shoes or anything you need, the first place you’re going to go is Google. As a customer, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to type in “pest control” or “pest control near me.” The businesses that have a Google My Business are going to show up. You’ll have your phone number on there, your website if you have one, pictures, and a place where customers can leave reviews.
The next thing I’d do with my Google My Business, also free, is get a Google Guarantee. It takes a little bit of time and effort to set up, but Google will take you through the entire process. You have to take pictures of your trucks, show your business license, make sure you have insurance, all the documentation.
What’s going to happen is when people search “pest control companies near me,” you’re going to show up at the very top with that little green check mark that says “Guaranteed.” That simply means Google will track the calls that come into your office and record them for you. And if for some reason the customer has a bad experience, Google will actually pay that customer their money back.
Knocking Doors
Next, I’d start knocking doors in the neighborhoods you want to service. I’m going to go knock doors and tell people what I do. I’m not going to be salesy. I’m just going to say, “Hey, I’m just in the area. This is what I’m doing and this is how I can help you.”
Offer them a free service in exchange for a five-star review. Yes, you’re going to sell them the entire program, but those first 50 reviews we have to get onto Google My Business as fast as possible so we can rank against the other pest control companies in our area.
The types of neighborhoods I’m going to look for are obviously high-income or upper-middle-class areas. People with disposable income who can afford your services, who typically have pest issues, and who don’t have the time to deal with it themselves.
Second, I’m looking for proximity to my other clients or where the office is, so I can start building out route density and I’m not traveling all over God’s green earth trying to service customers.
Referral Bonuses
Now we’re going to offer each one of those customers a referral bonus. I’m not going to credit their account. I’m actually going to give them $50 cash for every single person they refer who signs up.
What makes referrals so valuable is that people trust their neighbors, friends, and family. When someone they trust had a really good experience with your company, I know I’m going to close roughly 80% of those referrals.
If each customer gives me three to five referrals, I’m going to get at least two new customers per person. So I know I’m going to go from 50 customers to 150 customers just from those first 50 clients I got.
And referrals don’t have to stop there. When you get those next 100, that same 100 is going to give you three to five referrals as well. You can see how fast you can scale the referral part of your program. In a way, this is amplifying and tracking your word-of-mouth strategy.
Strategic Partners
Next, I’d find a strategic partner or multiple strategic partners in my local area. Think of other service-based companies that have the same avatar as you. Avatar just means the specific type of customer you’re going after. We already said it’s higher-income, upper-middle-class homeowners with disposable income.
I’m going to look for lawn care companies that don’t do pest control, HVAC companies, plumbers, any service-related company that works in the same neighborhoods. I’m going to sit down with the owner and talk about more than just referrals. I’m going to figure out a way to get his customer list and give him my customer list so we can upsell both lists and everybody wins.
Let’s say you go into a medium-sized company and they’ve got a base of 1,000 clients. If you can get 10% of their customer list, that’s 100 quotes sent out, and you’re going to close 50% of those. That’s 50 new customers just from making one strategic partnership.
And you don’t have to stop at just one strategic partner. You could get multiple. All you have to do is start forming a little community with all of them and start working together to really grow each other’s businesses off of referral strategy. Again, just another word-of-mouth strategy that actually has some fuel behind it.
Become a Local Celebrity
Lastly, become a local celebrity. That just means posting free content. We talked earlier about posting in Facebook groups, but post on all social media platforms. LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, all the major platforms.
Post religiously. I’m talking once a day. And if you can’t do that, start out small. Do once a week, then go to twice a week, then three times a week until you get to that daily cadence.
Make sure everyone in your area knows exactly what you do. Any time anyone has an issue, they’re coming to you. What you’ll also notice is that when other people have pest issues, your followers are going to tag you when someone posts on Next Door, Facebook, anything like that. They’re going to tag you in it, which really helps your brand grow organically.
Last year, using this strategy alone, we created over 100 million views, which generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales just from this one strategy that didn’t cost a lot of money.
Putting It All Together
You don’t necessarily have to do these strategies in the same exact order I listed them. But it’s going to be a combination of all of them that gets you from zero to your first $300,000 in revenue.
