Mat Rogers on Winning Digital Marketing in 2026
Table of Contents
I just had Mat Rogers back on the show, and he has been on more times than almost anyone. We sat down to talk about one thing: how you set up next year right now, before the busy season hits. I came away with a full page of notes, and here are the lessons that stuck with me most.
You win the off season
Mat kept coming back to a line he loves from Tom Brady. “Football’s not won in the off season. Games just reveal what you did when nobody saw you.” That is the whole idea, and it is true in pest control too. The owners who blow up next year already started planning a month ago, and the ones who wait will get left behind.
He hates when guys treat the slow months as time off, and his dad used to call November and December the national screw-off months. Mat does the opposite. In October he looks at the first three quarters and projects where the year will land. Then he builds a budget for everything: salaries, chemicals, gas, and marketing. He even sent a mass text to his clients offering to build their forecast for free.
I run my company the same way, pulling all the partners in to set goals and budgets together. Our CFO runs the numbers on every line, from customer acquisition cost to ad spend. We also build vision boards each year, one for the company and one for each person.
A new marketing partner needs time
This is a big one: if you switch marketing companies, give them room to work. Mat says his paid search team needs a solid 90 days to dial things in, and his old mentor wanted 120. Google does not know who you are on day one, so someone has to teach it.
This is where his horror story comes in. Last year a group of about five companies came to his agency at the same time. They all showed up well into the season, in April and May. Then they got mad that the leads were not great right away.
One owner came in May and quit around day 50, and Mat did not sugarcoat it. “Of course it’s not working. You came to us in May.” All five left for the same reason every time: no plan, started too late, and expected magic. That is why you start in October, not May.
The plan is your measuring stick
Here is the part people get wrong. Mat has never hit a forecast dead on, not once, and that is fine by him. The plan is not a promise, it is a way to check your progress month to month. As he put it, “You will never reach a goal if you don’t order your steps.”
The goal should sit just outside your reach, and his dad used the carrot picture to explain it. Not so close it is boring, but not so far that you give up. I call it a big goal worth chasing, and I would rather set a huge goal and hit 80% than set a tiny one and crush it.
Plans and people beat spend
This one hit home. Mat’s agency runs the same team for all their pest control clients, doing the same work, yet the results are all over the place. Why?
The answer is what happens inside each company. Take Eric, one of Mat’s longtime clients. Last fall Mat’s team listened to 430 of his calls and built him a big spreadsheet. Eric used it to fix his sales process and move his spend to what worked. “His average cost per qualified lead was $74,” Mat told me, and that is cheap when the contract is worth $700 a year. Another client across 10 markets sits around $94. The same team made both leads, so the difference was the owner.
Close rate matters too, and we track ours every week by location. Most of our offices land between 60 and 70%, and if one drops we dig in and find out why. Mat’s point is simple: you need real salespeople on the phone, not just a nice voice. His old company was the priciest option in their market and still grew to 34,000 clients. You only pull that off when your team can beat price objections.
Answer your phone, because Google watches your answer rate. Miss too many calls and you get fewer leads. We run at 98%, but Mat saw one company with offices answering 73%, 64%, and even 60%. That means 40% of calls went nowhere. For local service ads, miss more than 10% and you get penalized.
Saving money is a goal too. One company he worked at set an 11% efficiency target, which meant tighter routes for less gas, better chemical deals, and smarter staffing. Spend is only half the plan, and how much you keep is the other half.
AI already changed your buyer
We talked AI again, and it has moved even since last time. Mat was blunt: “I’m done saying this is where things are going. This is where things are.” People plan their whole Thanksgiving on TikTok now, and they find you the same way.
So the game is being the answer, which he calls answer engine optimization. Ask ChatGPT where it pulls its info from, then make sure your company is one of those sources. AI looks at four things: experience, expertise, authority, and trust.
That changes where you show up, so TikTok needs to be in the plan and so does LinkedIn. Mat said AI pulled from LinkedIn eight times more than Google for some answers, and Reddit matters now too.
Reviews tie in here. If you have under 100 reviews on Google, you will struggle to serve local service ad leads. Use a review tool to grow them. But grow them slow and steady. As Mat said, “Artificial intelligence cares about consistency, not this great big spike of reviews and then you just kind of abandon it.” Do not dump a pile and quit.
AI helps inside his shop too, because they transcribe every call. Then they feed it back to learn what is working and to coach owners on weak spots, like missed calls or price problems.
Stand out, then go win
The last thread was standing out. The companies winning my market do not look like everyone else, and their brand is sharp. With us, every single job has to include one act of kindness, and I do not care if the customer ever sees it. Mat’s old crew did the same. They pulled trash cans up from the street and planted flowers for old ladies who could not, and he called them the Chick-fil-A of pest control.
Here is the takeaway: if you have a real plan, you are already ahead of most owners out there. So make it now. Build your budget. Pick partners you trust and commit to them. Get on AI, then go win 2026.
Full transcript
Every word of the episode, from the video captions
And we are live with another episode of Pest Control Millionaire. This guy on the podcast. He's a familiar face. Good friend of mine. This guy got be three or four times. If you count Orlando, it's probably like five or six times on the podcast. I think you might actually like you might be the most like I think you have the most episodes on the on the podcast. Got to be I think so.
Really your most returning guest. I'll take it.
Yeah. Between you, Jake, Dan, all the OGs. But yeah, super excited about this one. We connected when we were in Orlando. To say, "Hey, we want to talk about this subject as it get closer to the year because I think it's just really smart. A lot of people do not do this. Love talking about this." but Mat, super excited to have you back here. Wealth of knowledge. You're fun. Lots of energy. Fun to be out hanging around with. You're just, you're good people. And that's I just love talking to people like yourself. So, Mat, welcome back to the show.
Oh, thanks, Buzz. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I love talking to you about this specifically because your platform has the ability to there's a lot at stake in 2026 when it comes to PCOs' getting prepared and doing 2026 right because a lot of things have changed in 2025 and I'm really optimistic that this conversation that you and I are about to have is going to be one of the things that helps these PCOs get their their ducks in order so that they can hit the ground running in 2026 as opposed to kind of get left in the dust in a lot of respects. There's a there's a big possibility for both for pest control owners and operators. So, I'm glad to be here with...
Yeah, it's cool. Right now it is I don't know what date is. It's the 20...
It's this is the only reason I know this. Okay. It is the No, it's the 25th. The reason I know this is because Stranger Things starts tomorrow at 8:00. I got a big ass watch party at my house and we're making chicken and waffles.
Someone just told me about Stranger Things yesterday. I was like, I've never even heard of this show.
Jonas, what the [ __ ] you when you get off this podcast, you begin at season one episode.
This is why I don't because I know what...
Jonas. It is like the per It's a love child of the Goonies and Stephen King. It's a perfect series. I hope they land it right. Like, I hope they don't Game of Thrones this [ __ ] at the end and just ruin it for everybody. I hope the Duffer brothers like really do this thing right. But it is a perfect television show. It's perfect.
I believe you. I just know how I operate, Mat. If I go watch one episode, like I'm not going to bed until I finish this damn thing.
You shouldn't and you and you shouldn't.
My eyes peeled wide open and [laughter] I'm just going to watch it.
I can't even tell. You can Don't skip season two. You'll probably only watch season two once. Season 1, season 3 are extraordinary. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched those seasons. Season four is all right. I hope they build on it in this last one, but it's over. This will be television history. Jonas, don't don't miss it. Don't be that guy.
Don't be that guy that doesn't know how to talk about it when it's...
Over [laughter] and I'm going to work on some sort of muscle instead. I don't know.
But like I've talked about this a lot. I just don't watch a lot of TV. Don't I just don't. And I used to, funny enough, like I back I'd say 10 years ago, like if you wanted to talk movies and DVDs, I had walls full of DVDs. Like I had to buy like three to four DVDs a week. This is what I would do. Now it's just like h I don't have the time or energy to go do that. I'd rather just sit behind a book. Maybe it's cuz I'm old. I don't know.
No, it's not cuz you're old. I know we're replacing your time, okay? And I love you and I can say this. You're getting a in the group chat. You're kind of getting there's a specific emoji that we all use, okay? You're you're maybe investing too much time in some places. Your body needs to rest, Jonas. And when you rest, I just recommend turn on Stranger Things and catch up. Don't...
But then but at the same time, I have people like you telling me that you're coming for me. So that means I got to work even harder at the gym.
If you if you rest, I'll have a shot. But if you don't rest, it's I'm just playing. I'm just messing around talking [ __ ] in the...
On my rest days, I'm just going to just work out lightly. Maybe I'll just walk 17 [laughter] miles.
That's insane.
But yeah, like so it's November 25th. The season, this season's just coming to an end. We have spring rush right around the corner.
Right around the corner.
I told you this when you talked about it, like it drives me absolutely insane. Whether it's PCOs' or lawn care guys,...
Both of the same. It's like, oh, what are we going to do the rest of the year? Like we just get to hang out. You see it like I'm just going to go travel. I'm going to hang out. It's slow. I'm like, yeah, don't have much work. Blah blah blah blah blah. It's like, no, dude. This is not how this works.
Nope, not at all.
So, like our downtime is like, it's like maybe downtime in a way, but it's it feels like it's way busier all the time,...
Bro. Tom Brady said, "Football is one in the off season. Games just reveal what you did when nobody was looking." Right. What I that I've got horror stories even from this year of clients that have worked with us, clients that tried to come and work with us this year that I had to say no to that waited until either season already began or until we were close to mid-season. You So you tell me which horror store you want me to start at for people like, "Oh, I should think really seriously about digital marketing." [ __ ] you should have been thinking about digital marketing for 2026 in November, but I at at Killingsworth and Anticimex, we think about it in October, right? You project your fourth quarter according to your average growth for the first three quarters. You predict where you think you're going to land from a gross revenue perspective, right? You think about how much bigger we want to get next year. You go ahead and add that to the top line and then you have to create a budget for everything for salaries and wages for chemical costs for gasoline for digital marketing.
Right? The my biggest pet peeve the thing I keep saying I'll say no to and I've gotten better at it over time. You know, Lizard is working on its fourth year now. And in the first couple years, you know how it is when you're starting a business, you say yes to everything. You'll take something that's like complete [ __ ] just cuz you got to keep the lights on, right? We're definitely thankfully, thank God, getting to a place where we can be like, "Hey, this doesn't sound like this would be a good match, right? We're only getting there now...
And I will do better in 2026. Yeah, I will do better in 2026 of being like, hey, I don't know if this is gonna it's not it's not me, it's you,...
Right? It's 100% you." yeah. So that really sticks with me. Football's not won in the off seasonason. Games just reveal what you did when nobody saw you, right? The PCOs that are going to activate and destroy even the big players in 2026 have started their planning for everything, not just digital marketing, for everything about a month ago, right? And they are already thinking about how from a month-to-month perspective they're going to accomplish their goals in this fourth quarter of 2025 that and that has to do with strategy for planning but Jonas that also has to do with preparing for how they're going to use we've talked about how many times this year artificial intelligence to their advantage in 2026 that's a conversation that people need to be having now right and so those are the PCOs that are going to take off next year.
And I have hitched my wagon to several of them, thank God. But there are definitely plenty of PCOs that aren't taking their 2026 planning seriously, right? They're just they're just still like bootstraps and work work and head down until they get to Christmas vacation. And then maybe they'll think about it in the last week of the year, right? And slap something together that's horrible and have no plan for how they're going to use artificial intelligence because at the end of next year, Jonas, more people are going to catch on than have already. You know, we've been talking about it for a while. More people are going to catch on than have already and then it's going to stabilize the advantage that PCOs could have if they would take that planning seriously right now. So,...
Hold up, quick pause. If you're on a pest control company or fertilization weed control company, you're not in our Facebook group. You're choosing the harder path. Every operator that's in there skipping years of mistakes because people are actually sharing what's working right now. So, stop trying to brute force your way through growth alone. Search Pest Control Millionaires on Facebook or click the link below. And now, let's get back to it. Yeah. Back when I was building houses with my boss, he used to tell me cuz they did a lot of planning. It's construction, right? And this is the first time I heard it was like proper planning prevents piss poor production. Proper planning prevents piss poor production. Because there's so many P's, I don't think I can forget that now. Proper planning prevents piss poor production. That's fantastic. [laughter] I'm going to put that on our website.
Honestly, we have this very specific...
It's so true. We've got I try to even for the our clients that aren't forward thinking, I try to help them build forecasts. I started I sent out a mass text message to all of our clients last month. We will build your forecast for you. Hit us up. This isn't about getting more money for us. We don't This is for free. This is so that you can have a vision for what you want to do in 2026. This is how we did at Killingsworth. This is how we do it at Anticimex. I will do this for you. Right? And then when they step in and either they're in front of or behind, they've got this benchmark that they can keep measuring themsel against at the end of every single month. Are we there? Are we not there? What's not working? Right? So they can hit their target. Some of these guys, Jonas, I want to turn the table in just a second. Some of these guys don't have targets. They didn't make a plan, right? And so they don't know where they're going. They just hope that they get bigger. And they hope that whoever they're cutting the check to is going to be the catalyst to help them get bigger.
But the truth is, they'll get bigger because of what they did when nobody was looking. Not not when the season starts, not when the swarmers hit. Not when the calls should be coming in. Because the people that were planning are taking advantage of all that preparation as soon as the moment hits. So, how do you question for I mean, you've you've run multiple companies, right? Launch and so I'm curious from your perspective, like how does that resonate with you when you're looking at 2026? What are you doing right now to get...
And that's kind of what I told you was it yesterday, day before. I was like I had to push off this podcast because that's actually what we spend doing all morning long. And I just I had to swap what I was doing and get over to back to this. I was like running a minute later or whatever. That's why I was late because the last yesterday and then today that's all we've been doing is prepping for 2026. So I told you we get together with the team, we bring all the partners and we do this all together, right? So we set our goals, we set our budgets, CFO comes in, he's helping us with all of our projections for like you said chemical cost to a marketing cost to ad spend to I mean every single item on the P&L like this is what it's going to cost.
Okay, you want this many customers. Cool. Here's our customer acquisition cost. This is how much it's going to cost you to grow. It's really the math just has to math. It's not that hard, but it does take time...
Doing it right now. It's like all of our ad spend is done for next year already. It's already budgeted. It's already in our spreadsheet and it's and it goes back from the last well three years I think now. Three years for sure that all of our ad spend from last year the year prior where we actually spent versus what we spend what we did spend. So like actuals versus budgeted it's all every single piece of the item is there. And then of course we have big goals too. So we're talking about our goals. We're creating a vision board every single year as a as a company. And then we create one as a company and we all like we have a picture of like they're upstairs in my room right now. We have a picture of the place that we are at pictures of like us there like what we did then like our goals we'll name it. Last year was surge the year before that was focus. This year I think it's going to be expand.
So but then each single person builds their own vision board too what they want their personal and their business career to look like for 2026. Like we go that deep.
That's crazy. [snorts] One of the things...
I freaking love that like honestly it gets people their minds moving in the right direction. I can give you a great example not from Killingsworth actually from Anticimex one of so it's not just about spend a lot of times when people hear especially I hear a digital marketer talking about this they think oh digital marketers just want more money right when you do this kind of planning you can also consider where you can become more efficient right anti-immix had efficiency goals so they would have their budgets ready to go for the next year right and then they would also say okay but we want to created an efficiency goal. I think the last one before I left there was 11%. Right? We want to try to bring 11% of spend back to our net revenue, right? So h how does this play out in terms of routing, right? Let's get our routing tighter so that we bring down our gas costs, right? How does this play out in terms of chemical purchasing, right? Let's, you know, shake down our vendors and see if we can get some deals, right? How does this play out in terms of salaries and wages?
Ho how far booked out are we can do can we go down a technician at a particular branch to maximize efficiency there right and then we measure this month over month we compare to the previous year's data right and so I didn't even learn that particular skill...
The part that I left out was the people part that I even got there yet you know...
Heck yeah heck yeah I didn't we didn't even learn that skill I never learned that skill until I worked for Anticimex it's not just about excuse me how much you're planning on budgeting to spend it's also about how much are you trying to keep for yourself business owner right h have a goal for that you want to grow your personal wealth by 11% in terms of your net revenue make a plan how are you going to do it you should be doing it while things are getting quiet they are getting quiet my dad always called November and December national screw-off months right no he's such a bah humbug right my dad was such a such a like a Scrooge McDuck right that anytime people weren't like working He's like, "Oh, they're just screwing around." You're just like, "My god, man." Did you say screw or did you say something...
Was it actually that...
Oh, he said [ __ ] around. Can I say that on this podcast?
Yeah, of course. I [laughter] thought that's what you said. Cuz your dad no. Allan doesn't like me to cuss on his podcast.
I don't know, Allan.
Those mornings.
[laughter] but...
We're a little bit edgier over here, I...
Little bit. Little bit. I appreciate that, man. I would make an excellent co-host for you. I'm just saying. But this is the time while things are dying down. The off season that you're heading into is when you make this plan you and I have a horror story if you're ready for it and I won't use names. But when...
Love stories because I think real stories resonate with people though.
Like oh [ __ ] I've been there before.
Yes. Well I have a gaggle of clients that we took on at the same time. Those who and then I have this one in particular client that we took on at the same time. There was a slew of people that came into Lizard last year. They all came in through the same door, I guess I can say gently. And they all came in as the season was beginning. Okay, they were all trying something new. Digital marketing for pest control is not new to me. Okay, I've been doing this [ __ ] since 2012. All right. So they were all attempting to use this new particular vehicle. They were all getting started with digital marketing with lizard like we are into the season. We are past the first quarter. We are heading into the middle of the second quarter. Okay. Now this people hate this. I mean I can tell you Jonas, we're When somebody wants to come and work with me, my team from a paid search perspective and from an SEO and AEO perspective, SEO and AEO is a little quicker now than it used to be.
But my paid search team needs a solid 90 days to get your [ __ ] dialed in. Okay, solid. My digital marketing mentor, everybody look him up if you're listening to my podcast. Michael Pinckney, Pinckney Harman Marketing here in the Queen City, right? Fantastic. Brilliant. Took Killingsworth from 8 million to $28 million. Okay.
Was he full-time there?
Yeah. No, no, no. He ran he was he was the Mat Rogers for Mat Rogers, right? I had a counterpart at a digital marketing agency and it was Mike Pinckney. I give Mike Pinckney a shout out every meeting. Mike, you should give me some royalties or some [ __ ]
I think so.
[laughter] but there was no we had one partner for those six years, one digital marketing partner, and Killingsworth wouldn't have made it to position number 36 on the PCT top 100 without this guy's help. Would not have happened, right? And we had, a digital marketing counterpart that we worked with the entire time. This gaggle of he told me, the reason I brought that up is he told me he needs 120 days to get your paid search dialed in to get it perfect. Okay, so think about what I'm about to say. This I think it was a little collection of five companies that were coming over to Lizard. All coming in at the same time. All well into the season. And all expecting us to hit home runs every time when the season has begun. And we need 90 days at least to optimize. This is why you start your [ __ ] in October, okay? We need 90 if you're starting from scratch with a new digital marketing company. They need time that the first leads that they're going to generate for you not great, right? Because Google doesn't know who you are when you begin with a new digital marketing company and it's my job to teach it, right?
So, these guys are all coming in. They're not happy. They have got lots of problems with the with this company that they're working with. Attribution problems predominantly. But, they're not happy with lead quality. I'm like, well, yes, we were very clear with you. Do you remember in our first meeting when we said it's ideal that you give us 90 days to dial this [ __ ] in, which is why the fact that you started in late April, early May is a problem, right? And they're like, "Well, yeah, I know that I said that, but blah, blah, blah." And you're like, "All right, lost cause. Here we go." So, we roughed it out with these guys for the season, and they all had really shitty seasons, right? They had high acquisition costs, right? Their their sales situation was not great.
But even on a micro level, I had one client that came in worked with us. I This is one of them that I should have said no to. Okay. He this person had a reputation for bouncing around between digital marketing companies already, right? You know, the vendors behind closed doors talk to each other, too. You know, I'm friends with lots of guys, friends with Clicki, friends with Pest AI, lots of friends in the industry, right? So, this guy's already getting a reputation of steam steamrolling through all these different relationships, right? He comes to me late in the season, right? I think he came to us in May, I'm pretty sure. Had to start a lot of stuff from scratch. Brought us a lot of things that were broken, expecting big results. But it's May. It's [ __ ] May, right? That the phone should your phone should be ringing vigorously and getting more vigorous with each passing day, right? Comes to us in May. Makes it I think 50 days through the optimization process was this isn't working. And I had to have be like point blank with him, of course it's not working, [laughter] right?
You came to us in May, right? You should have been to us in October of 2024, right? You need to stop getting in these like speed dating relationships with these partners and you need to commit with people that you trust and that you're going to make a plan to. Jonas, I'm telling you, I'm getting saltier and saltier the older Lizard gets. Don't call me unless you are committed to this because my team's going to go through hell to try to make sure that you're climbing the ladder and that your sales team's got plenty of...
Work. Your name on the line, right?
It's it is it's 100%. So that you're either going to commit to going through hell with me while we try to figure this out for you, which all of our successful partners have have done, right? Eric Bet being one of them, or you're going to find this to be really challenging because I'm not going to pull any punches with you. I was straightforward with you upfront and I'm straightforward with you when you're losing your [ __ ] too. And so here we are. What do you want to do? Right. [snorts] And so, that partner moved on. I'm quite frankly I'm happy to see them go. I'm done. I'm done chasing people around these days. I'm feel very lucky that I don't have to do that. But yeah, it all of those relationships are a result of people with poor planning to get back to your and did not get what they were hoping for in 2025. Not one of them, that's six, six different PCOs with the same results, right? No plan.
Trying all this [ __ ] out, not having zero preparation, and then it doesn't work out. No [ __ ] You should have been having these conversations in October and dialing in your processes, your SOPs, your plans, your budgets, your efficiencies before the year began so you have something to benchmark us to. That's my soap box though cuz that [ __ ] was crazy. 2025 was crazy.
Of those six companies that came over, did any of them stayed or they all go just the one go?
No, all five went at once. No spoilers. They all left for the same...
For sure. Right. So give me give me the other side of the coin though. The people who did start like give me maybe Eric good example.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Eric is a great example. So Natura you know Natura is a great example for a lot of reasons because both Jake Jana and Eric and my whole team we've been committed to each other for a very long time. Right. And so and we had a rough a rough spot where we couldn't really figure out what wasn't working for about eight months. I won't spill any tea there. But my account manager now Eric's I guess this is right hand for digital marketing. His name is Cameron. He's fantastic. He ran a real extensive audit for Eric last October, right? So 20 end of 2024. Eric used that audit. He's so keen on taking data and making informed and informed business decisions. He's brilliant. Okay. He's somebody that I love working with. I love working with PCOs that are working with him, right? So if you if you're working with Eric Bassett, shout out. You're in safe hands, right? But he makes really informed decision based on this audit, this audit of like 430 leads. My account manager listened to 430 leads, took extensive notes, built this big ass spreadsheet for Eric, gave him the spreadsheet.
And Eric made crazy a Eric Jac and Jenna made crazy decisions. Eric's average cost per qualified lead this year because of those decisions to beef up his sales processes and his SOPs to adjust and modify his digital marketing spend where he was allocating resources to what worked, what didn't work. His average cost per qualified lead was $74. You know how many PCOs would pay $74 to get to opportunity to close down a $700 annual pest contract? I don't know anybody that would.
Every single time. Every single time.
Every single time. Proof's another another great example. I think the last time that I checked in, their average cost per qualified lead was $94, right? And they're across 10 markets, right? We go through this forecasting process with them from a digital marketing perspective every year. Everybody's got their own there. This is a this is a great example and I would love your feedback here Jonas how you deal with your sales team here when you're creating your 2026 goal. Let's say your sales team closes at 36%. That's shitty. If your sales team closes, got if your sales team closes around there, what is your goal that you are going to push them towards in 2026? You've got to have that in mind. Then at the end of each month, you've got to push them on their sales numbers. How do you deal with your sales team when you're thinking about stuff like that? Is that something you guys...
We actually track that on a c on a weekly cadence. So we go back through every every single week, every single location. We track every single data point like that and we see what the office is closing at. And if there is a and so but they all typically honestly they're all roughly the same averages between like 60 and that 70% mark. So but we track that out. So if there's one week where it's like a 30%. We'll we'll dive deeper into that. Okay. What happened in what happened in this location that that week? Well, an up an upsell went out. So there was a massive amount of leads that went from an email campaign. Of course, they're just not going to close close as as high. So we'll we'll we'll sort through all the source codes like okay this makes more sense of the qualified leads that came in that were you know through Google or Facebook or whatever marketing campaign we're running like okay that makes sense that week.
So it's not it's not really an anomaly. It's just like things were pushed out to that client base. They're just not go close as high. So but we track that on a weekly cadence all the time. But if we were if we were at 30% every week like I'm not joking you because we're we have such a big sales force. I'd probably fire everyone.
Good for you. Good for you. That was just one big one. This is why I was...
Right? Like, and they're they're qualified leads. They're good leads. Like, they're going to close. You just got to...
Close them down. But again, I would say if it was that bad, it's probably more of a training issue more than anything. And so, I probably put the onus on myself to realize that we have to train our team better. But we're not there. Like, thank God. Jonas, you would have no idea how many PCOs that are in my client database that either don't have a plan for their sales team, don't have salespeople in the seat. They'll just have somebody nice with customer service to take the call. Not understanding Killingsworth. Me too, man. My god, it is like my biggest pet peeve. Killingsworth was the most expensive pest control contract in our market, right? When we were done, we had 34,000 clients, okay? With the most expensive pest control package. And the and the only way that you can do that to grow to that size is to have salespeople answer the phone. Why? Because sales people have to overcome price objections when you're going to offer the most expensive product on the...
I actually created a YouTube video about this specific topic today. It released end of the week, but the best companies out there are charging the most money. They're getting the most clients and they have the best equipment and the best people. Why? Because there's margin to work with.
Raise your damn prices. Look professional. This is not an industry that's hard to win at.
No, it's not. It's so easy. Listen, bro. I had somebody this person that that we don't do business yet, but we're we're trying to figure it out.
You're that Yeah. We're not going to call you on the podcast, but we're not doing business yet. I we'll kind of see where this goes, but they're scared to grow is kind of where they're at right now. Okay. They're scared to grow because they're afraid that they will lose quality as their company increases. But Killingsworth was renowned for quality and that's a training issue. Okay. Our technicians were pulling garbage cans up from the street. Our our technicians were planting flowers that were sitting on the front porch for sweet old ladies that couldn't get around to it, right? Our technicians were the Chick-fil-A of pest control. And that was a weekly every Monday morning 7 o'clock. The reason that you can charge money like that is because you offer a service that cannot be offered anywhere else. Period. End of...
Even with us, every single every job that we do has to have one act of kindness. And I say I say this all the time till I blew in the face. I do not care if the customer ever sees you or not. That's not the point.
Yes. Yes. That is...
So then like our our branch managers, regional managers, that's their job is to make sure that they're doing spot checks. Make sure that they are doing these thing type of things, you know, but again it takes a while like as you know Mat like...
It takes like a lot of these operators are smaller. They're learning and we can teach them to be blue in the face but they have to go execute this right like you can you can watch all the podcasts in the world. You can read all the books in the world. You have all the information in the world. The way you're going to learn is to go out there and do it yourself. Get your face kicked in. If you want to grow, yes, there going to be some growing pains because you're going to grow. But you have to break what you've already built to make sure that it can scale to the next level. And things are just going to break. Be okay with it. But you have to break them to see if it's scalable.
So that's a question that I ask my team every single night now when they change things like, "Cool, I love the change. Is it scalable?" Yes or no? Well, no. Cool. How do we make it scalable? Perfect. Let's do that. And it's like every decision that I ask now.
And it starts it starts with your plan, right? That it's not when PCOs' do work on their plans in this fourth quarter. I've never we my team builds forecast. We talked about the beginning. Builds forecasts for partners all all the time. We always overperform on our p I'm knock on wood. We have always overperformed and underspent on our forecast, right? We have never hit our forecast right on nail on the head. Never. It's not not been done. The reason that you make the plan is not because you're going to execute on it perfectly. Right? You make the plan so that you've got a way to benchmark and measure your progress. You will never reach a goal if you don't order your steps. You will never do it right. It's not just going to randomly happen. And you can't bounce around from vendor to vendor.
And you can't listen to all the podcasts and not make a plan. And you can't just shell money out hoping that something works until you take the time, invest in yourself with your own mental equity and your team's mental equity. Invest in your company and make a plan to what goals you're trying to achieve for the next year and the steps that you're going to put in place like an act of like that's a part of the plan. An act of kindness has to be executed at every single stop. That helps you with retention, right? When you are when you're keeping clients on board, you can hit your net revenue goals. When you're losing clients because you have shitty service, problem, right? But the same thing is true for digital marketing. My team, this is what's what kills me. Think about this, right, Jonas, you and I do not work together from a digital marketing perspective, but one day I'm going to give you a digital marketing company run for their [ __ ] money.
But u very clear like they're they've been so good to me. Like I've had this conversation with you. I love you, Mat.
I'm gonna shake them down.
I know. I love I love you. Look like they've been very very good to me. Like...
I send them I send them dirty emojis on Instagram. I'm just with a specific emoji that represents you. I hope they I hope they're picking up on it. Not just think I'm a weirdo. I'm kidding.
Okay, [laughter]
Has a back. [laughter]
It's perfect. But even when they're thinking about their digital marketing strategy specifically for the next year, this kills me. You I can say this to you without because we don't do business together and it has zero impact on you. I have the same team that works for all of our pest control companies, right? Like all of them, right? Same team making the same paid search leads, similar, but they fluctuate from market to market. For example, an Ohio lead is going to be cheaper than a Florida lead, right? Generally, right? An Arizona lead is going to be more expensive than a Mississippi lead, right? That so there's some variation, right? Same team making the same leads for paid search, same team talking to the AI overviews for organic search, right? Same team, different results every single time.
What is the variable? You remember that old formula from our math? I think it was our algebra class. A square plus B²= C^2. There are the I'm in control of the same thing every time. When it comes to my paid search team, I'm controlling the same variables. When I'm over my organic search team, same variables. I do the we do the same thing. It's like waking up, check the boxes, do a good job, knock it out, right? We have some clients like Eric that have a $74 cost per qualified lead. And we have others that have, you know, 112, $115, $130 cost per call. What is the difference? Right? The difference is what's happening inside of that company, right? The people like Eric who have made a plan, who have got sales goals, who have got efficiency goals, who have got spend goals, who have got thresholds for salaries and wages, all these things, they get better results than the people that don't. For...
And it's not even just that like Google tracks how like how often you're answering your phones.
So if you're not if you don't have a good answer rate, they're just going to ding you and send you less leads.
So you guys are paying for leads that don't have anyone answering the goddamn phone. Like what do you expect? You don't getting less leads because you don't answer the phone. I had to surprise it was an unfortunate surprise yesterday. One of our PCOs who is having trouble with their results, their team, I'm not going to exaggerate. I'm going to look at the numbers. I won't say the cities, but I can tell you one of their offices only answered 73% of their phone calls. Another one 64% of their phone calls. Another one 60% of the phone calls. Meaning 40% of the phone calls were not getting answered. Okay.
I lose my mind...
Cuz we're at 98% answer rate and it drives me crazy. Like Jonas, you're never going to get 100 ever. [laughter] It's not possible.
It's not. But listen, for all the PCOs that are listening to you, for local service ads in particular, if you are not answering 90% of the phone calls, you're getting penalized. End of sentence. Your cost per lead is going up and the number of conversions that you get are going down. I have a something a freebie for you guys that are listening as well. And this happened maybe in like the last two months. We've kind of been sorting this out with our PCOs. If you have if you're a newer company and you have less than a hundred reviews on your Google business profile, you're gonna str start to struggle to serve local service ad leads. You're not going to hit the quotas that you're looking for. So, if that's the case, if you don't have a hundred, you need to use something awesome like applause, like baton, like any of those kinds of things to beef up those reviews. I don't know if you can I mean, do what you need to beef up those reviews. I don't know who your sponsors do what you need to do.
I don't have any sponsors. That's why we can swear, Mat.
Applause. Baton. Call my boy Jonas. What's the other What's the other one with Clicki? Kendall's version.
Yeah, Clicki. Clicki. Kendall. I hope Kendall's parents are doing okay. Got on. Good on you. Kendall's parents. I hope you guys are doing great. But, use one of those things to help get you. Yeah. And make that a part of your plan for 2026, right? Also, another freebie for that, artificial intelligence cares about consistency, not this great big spike of reviews and then you just kind of abandon it. You need to invest in Applause or Clicki or Baton or something like that because and just do a low frequency grow slow growth like a nice ramp up in terms of your reviews because AI cares about consistency. They don't care about a big dump of reviews and then you just stop doing it because you're cheap. Stop being cheap. Make a plan. Have a budget, right?
Yeah. And I think like got a couple things that I wrote down, too. And it goes a little bit further than that. Like you should have your entire year mapped out of like your cadence for your email campaigns, your text campaigns, for your when you're going to get your trucks wrapped. You're going to have to like, you know, when events are coming up, like what events are you going to be at, what sales guys you going to send there. Like you have to get have everything mapped out before you even get there. It's a whole marketing calendar. And if you guys were in our Facebook group, you guys would have access to that. But you're not sorry.
Get in the group, guys. What the hell are you doing with your lives?
But then I wrote down another thing that you brought you talked about Killingsworth and I told you before the podcast started that I interviewed someone the other day who's in your market and he's like, "Dude, we were up against Killingsworth and they were everywhere. It was like a pain in my yeah. [laughter] And they're like, they're like, they're on TV, they're on billboards, like their trucks are everywhere. And so that's what we were competing against,...
Yeah, I was everywhere, bitch."
Not messing around. We owned the market, right? And we didn't own the market on accident. We owned the market because every October we made a plant, right? We grew from six.
The answers are in the book. The answer...
In the book. Get the book. Get it. I'm not that that's not like a plug. I don't get anything from saying that. Read, educate yourself, and you're not going to do it right.
Yeah. It just like everything that you need to know is in the book. And I don't ever plug the book ever. I don't se I don't self-promote myself ever, but like it just tells you how to like overcome own every goddamn zip code. And it teaches you how you have to be everywhere. Everywhere. Every You have to be everywhere. You're not going to do it perfect. That's not what the plan is for. The plan is not so that you land exactly where you think you're going to land, you know, 16 months from now. The plan is so that you've got a way to measure yourself and you are constantly moving towards that goal. That goal should always be just outside of your reach. My dad would say that carrot needs to not be you shouldn't be able to get it right but it can't be so far that you are completely disenchanted with the idea of growing your company right but it can't be so...
You have to have that BHAG right like the big hairy audacious goal that you can chase after you shouldn't...
You should not be able to get it in a year ever I'd rather have a massive goal and hit 80% than a tiny ass goal and crush it by 50% because that just means it's our goals high enough...
Okay now you got to tell me who Who was I competing against? Who Who was it?
I probably shouldn't mention it. I told you before the podcast, but he's in your you talked You talked to his brother last night, you said.
Okay. Okay. Just text me. Oh, yeah. No, they were competing with us. But I was watching those guys when they came into my market like a hawk. I knew when they came into my market. And you know why I knew? Because their branding was solid. So, a thousand%. And I don't think Christian His podcast come out after this one anyway. So, Christian stud of a guy that literally we talked about for 45 minutes was just...
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They were excellent at it. I had lunch with Solomon two days...
And they're like that. They're like, "But Jonas, that's why you're winning." Like because your brand is different. Like it stands out. It's like it breaks the mold of PES.
That's why Nice is winning.
It's why Nice is taking over. It's why Green Shield up in Ohio is going to take over. They have a plan. They're not just winging it, right? They're they're thinking critically about how do we not do what everybody else is doing. And when you do that, you're going to you're going to stand out in all the right ways in your market because the rest of the PCO world, this makes it easy for you guys if you're listening. If you have a plan, you're miles ahead of most of the PCOs out there.
Yeah. Not the big players, can't take them off the table, right? But all the people that you're actually competing with that are of like size or bigger than you that are not one of the big four, you're already in better shape. And if you're considering how your brand like what you just said at the beginning, I freaking love that. I wish I'd have thought of that. If you are considering things like you will not leave a customer's house until you've done one act of kindness, right? If you're considering how your brand will stand out in your market in 2026, it's going to be like fire. If you do these things that we're we're telling you guys and you are actively investing in how you're going to engage with artificial intelligence because the consumer has already changed. I'm done saying this is where things are going. This is where things are, right? The consumer has already changed. How they find what they're looking for has already changed, right? You need to be on TikTok. You need to be in places where AI is sourcing information. If you're having these kinds of thoughts and putting these kinds of plans in place now, you're going to rocket through and past your competition in 2026, I guarantee you will destroy your competition.
I wrote down AI. We talked about this a lot in the last podcast. But it's evolved even since then. So, we're like two three months prior. And AI is just kind of a buzzword at this point. Like everything's just AI. So, like I want to make it very simple for the listener. PCOs, lawn care operators, what do you consider AI and what can they do now to besides how you're Mat Rogers to start showing up on AI platforms? ChatGPT, Perplexity, all this stuff, you know.
Yeah. The when PCOs need to be asking themselves, I use chat all the time now. All the time.
You need to ask yourself, you can ask chat where do you get this information from? Right? Where does where did you find this? Right. And what PCOs need to be doing is working with the digital marketing company that will help them make sure that their company is an answer for people that are looking for services like yours, right? That's what the name of the game is for formerly SEO, now AEO, answer engine optimization, right? Where does the language learning model ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini get its information from? How do I make sure that I'm positioning my company to offer those answers? Right? That is the name of the game for 2026. I' I've preached it till I am blue in the face, right? But I can give you an internal example of how AI has changed digital marketing for the better. Hopefully, your digital marketing company is doing this.
One of the things that we're doing at Lizard because of artificial intelligence because we can process so much information so quickly is we're transcribing every phone call that we generate for our clients, right? Every single one SEO calls, LSA calls, PPC calls, Google business profile calls, all of them, they're they're getting transcribed they're getting stored and at that information is getting fed back to artificial intelligence to process and it's teaching my paid search team how to do their job better and it's teaching my account managers how to talk to Jonas on the other side of a weekly meeting like, "Hey, Jonas, your sales team is missing 30% of the phone calls we found out this month. What can we do to help you?" Right? Or, "Hey, Jonas, it sounds like your team is struggling a little bit with like price objections. This is the approximate percentage of the calls that came in that were not overcome because of price objections or not followed up on after they were what can we do to like participate?" Artificial intelligence has changed a lot of things for the better, a whole lot. But that's one of them from inside lizard from from the outside when you're working with a digital marketing company.
They need to be able to make sure that they are positioning your company to be an answer for the AI overview. And if they're not talking to you about that and they're not reporting to you about that, you need to get make a plan and get a new [ __ ] digital marketing company before 2026 because everyone else will have left you in the dust at that point.
Yeah. Cool. You talked about TikTok, talked about being doing videos. What about that? Like talk about what a PCO can do in that side of the world.
Yeah. So your brand is important. I'll give you a great example of this isn't complete yet, but it's on its way. The generation just behind us who are starting to come into their fiscal prowess, their spending abilities as as consumers and even some above us, right? Because it's a it's a spectrum. It's not there's not this one person, one target that we're looking for. As people, we move as a pack. Consumers move as a pack. I planned my entire Thanksgiving dinner on TikTok. People are finding the things that they're looking for on TikTok first.
Yeah, we did kind of the funny the same thing. We just we meal prepped all week this week because we prep every Sunday. And...
From TikTok,...
You if you're making a brand message and you're putting your stuff out there, TikTok needs to be a part of it, right? We found out early this year but artificial intelligence sources care about four things experience, expertise, authority, and trust, right? One of the ways that you can create content that u is touching on those four things. So it's offering your business as a solution. Hopefully your digital marketing partners are talking about this is using things vehicles like LinkedIn, which we thought were out of date, right?
Such a home run right now.
I know. AI sourced LinkedIn eight times higher than it sourced Google for some of its information. Okay. And also Reddit, right? Reddit was huge on Semrush's report that they published in I think it was either May or June. But that needs to be a part of your strategy, right? You need to be working with a digital marketing company that's making a plan themselves for where AI is taking us. You've got to have a plan as the business owner and your digital marketing better have a plan, too. Because things are changing fast and we're either going to do what we can to try to keep up with it or we're just going to be like, you know, irrelevant. And I talked to so many PCO owner...
Not to stop doing video.
Yeah, bro. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, those are things that PCOs can definitely do to make a part of their plan for 2026. Please do those things. TikTok needs to be a part of the plan. LinkedIn needs to be a part of the plan. Reddit needs to be a part of the plan.
I love all that. Anything else that we should chat about with the PCOs? I know I don't know how long I have before you hard stop. So, it's already one o'clock our time. So, is there anything that we need to hit on real quick before we jump off? And...
I would just tell these boys in closing and girls, I really do love you guys. It is my I grew up in this industry. I have mad respect. I didn't grow up with respect for it. Right. I gained respect when I realized how much of an absolute baller my dad was. When I thought, you know, growing up he wasn't. Right. Yeah. And so I have mad respect for for you guys and how hard you work and what you sacrifice to try to reach your goals, right? I want to be a voice whether we work together or we don't that is constantly pushing you in the direction to find your goals and to hit your goals, right? And I love working with PCOs and helping them get on top of that PCO top 100. I know what that means, right? I know what it means when you get ready to sell. I know what it means to organize yourself to get ready to sell.
So when when PCOs are tuning in to this podcast, that's what I hope they hear from us, right? We have a real desire for you to be successful because we I at least it's true for me. I hope in some part, no matter how big or how small, something that I have said or something that you've picked up along the way from Jonas, from Allan, from Eric, from whoever, right, has been a reason that you've been able to reach your goals. It's more available and accessible to you now than it ever has been. So, I'm hoping that you guys find the right partners and that you're making the right plans to have a successful 2026.
Love it. And then we have to talk about the house.
The house. Ooh, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro. We've got some big some big boys coming next year. [laughter] When a couple people are like, I want to come, I'm like, holy [ __ ] what are we gotten ourselves into? I...
I what can what can what can the listeners expect for 2026 on a high level? Not in detail, but...
I'll keep it zoomed way out. We our vision for the real pass world is you can't compete with us because we want you to win. Truly do. Everybody at the Real PestWorld House with the exception of one PCO that was there were PCOs that I don't work with personally. Okay. I was dishing out pearls of wisdom as quick as I could. Right. Everybody that was there was staying up late doing what they can. And next year we're going to be more organized. We're going to have more resources available than we even had this past year. [snorts]
And some people were waking up early, hitting the gym. Some people. [laughter] I'll go with you next time, Jonas. I promise. I can't speak for Billy. You know, I feel like you really let you down there. But it's going to be bigger. It's going to be crazier for sure in all the right ways. And yeah, our goal is to help you become successful. We want, again, it kind of touches on what we just said. We want to be one of the reasons that you get to hit your goal. We want to be able to say, "I remember this from this moment that I stayed up at three o'clock at night and talked to Jonas and Allan Draper about my business who was like a tenth of their size and they told me I could do this. If I go back and put this in place, it's going to and it did." Right. We want to be the catalyst for your business's growth. And so, it's going to be it's going to be wild. The house is almost two times the size. I think the opening party is going to be two times as big.
And we've got lots of people that are pitching in and wanting to get access to this little concentrated unit of PCOs. It's going to be pretty wild, I think.
Yeah. And not to mention how much fun we...
I had so much fun. I was dog tired. That last podcast that we did for you, Jonas, I look like absolute [ __ ] [laughter]
I mean, I've never I don't think I've ever worked that hard in a week in my life. I think we were all pulling I think we all pulled like 80 90 hours or something like that. Like it was wild. And so yeah, bigger better and more PCOs for 2026. It's going to be pretty wild.
Yeah. And we made a statement. We put ourselves on the map. We got noticed which is cool by some heavy which is...
You know why this is to you. I give you all the credit for this honestly cuz you're right. You came from an industry where people shared resources and it was normal, right? This industry, Bug Bux, your group, this podcast, all that stuff. These are the new voices that are stepping up. You're like, we want to help you. Let's talk to each other, right? And that's uncommon in the pest control industry for sure. And so, we are definitely, we didn't get a lot of doors open to us for this first house, right? We had a lot of people tell us no, right? But then, we just did it our freaking stuff. And I think that according to Travis's math all in we had over 1.1 million views across all of our platforms for all of the content that we put out which is crazy for the vendors that were participating with us for the PCOs that were present and participating for interest in next year. I mean it was it was wild. And so yeah, we don't need anybody's permission anymore.
We're just going to do it our goddamn self.
That's right. That's why we're at its finest. Like they don't want to let us. Let's just go win oursel.
That's right. That's...
I'm actually looking really forward to it even more than I was this year. I had some prior commitments that I had to go to. So, I show up a day late, but like I was so excited to get there and it was better than what I thought it was going to be. And so, like...
I feel like the core group needs to get there like a couple days before this...
Yeah. And so, like it's cool because like we literally have leadership meetings mapped out every single month where we're connecting together. And talk planning for 2026 already. We have a year and we're already planning which is super awesome.
And I got to give you mad respect cuz you're the one who put it all together. You're leading it. It's been it's been fun.
Man, I just can't believe this came together. Not many things come together like that particular thing did. So many times you bust your ass for something and it doesn't work right. So I was just I feel very honored and blessed to be hanging out with all you guys. Again, most of us don't even do business together. But to get to kind of create something where nothing like this existed before is freaking wild. So...
Yeah, but at the same time I think each and every single one of us is helping each other win whether we work together or not. Like way more eyeballs like it's a win for the entire industry in my in my opinion.
I agree. I 100% agree. We don't need anybody to give us attention. We're going to take it for our damn self.
Right. All right, brother. We'll end with that again. I know you have a hard stop. Appreciate you being here. Appreciate your friendship. You're a stud. I appreciate everything you do.
Yes. I'll stop sending dirty emojis to your digital marketing company. Okay.
Ah, you kind of got to keep them on their toes.
You're the best. Thanks for letting me hang with you, buddy.
All right, buddy. See you.
Yeah. See you later.
Hey guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Pest Control Millionaire. We don't charge any money for the show, but the podcast isn't free. Please like and subscribe and give us a five-star review in your favorite podcast app. This makes a huge difference for us. If you have any specific questions about your business or your personal life that you'd like answered by me or any of my podcast guests, please send an email to And if you want to get in touch with me about our marketing class, we do a live version every Thursday night. Check out our website at Thank you guys for listening. I'll see you guys in the next one.
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