If you run a pest control company and you’re not using your windshield time to learn, you’re leaving money on the table. I’ve built my career around the pest control industry, and most of what I know came from two things: talking directly to operators, and listening to the people who’d already figured out what I was trying to figure out.
The good news is that pest control business podcasts have gotten really good over the last few years. There’s actual depth now. Real owners sharing real numbers, real M&A deals broken down to the valuation lever, real marketing strategies that move the needle.
Here are the seven I recommend the most, in the order I’d listen to them if I were starting over today.
Pest Control Millionaire is hosted by Jonas Olson, CEO and founder of Pest Badger. If you’ve spent any time in this industry, you already know Jonas. He built one of the most recognized brands in pest control before it was cool to build a brand at all, and he’s now over 150 episodes into one of the most consistent shows in the space.
What makes Pest Control Millionaire different is Jonas himself. He’s not a host who read a few books and decided to interview operators. He is the operator. He’s still in the work, still growing Pest Badger, still making decisions every week that most of his guests’ competitors are only dreaming about making. That shows up in the questions he asks. When a guest says they grew fast, Jonas wants to know the mechanism. When somebody gives him a number, he’s already running the math in his head.
The YouTube channel now has over 3,000 subscribers, and the guest list reads like a who’s who of pest control. If you’re running a $500K shop and trying to get to $5M, this is probably the single most directly useful show on this list.
2. Bug Bux
Bug Bux is currently hosted by Allan Draper, the owner of Proof Pest Control and one of the sharper minds operating today. It was previously hosted by Eric Bassett and Jake Claus, who built the show’s foundation and its reputation as the go-to podcast for owners serious about scaling.
With over 200 episodes in the archive, Bug Bux has a range you don’t see on most industry shows. You’ll hear conversations with tech founders, exit stories, granular operations breakdowns, and marketing deep dives all in the same season. The guest variety is part of what makes it worth subscribing to. Allan doesn’t stick to one type of operator or one kind of story.
What I appreciate about Bug Bux under Allan is that he runs a real company himself, at real scale, with real pressure. When he asks a guest about hiring or retention or pricing, he’s asking because he’s dealing with it that week. That edge is hard to fake, and it shows up in the episodes. If you’ve already listened through Pest Control Millionaire and you want more perspectives and more tactical variety, Bug Bux should be your next stop.
3. Pest Control Legends
Pest Control Legends is my show. I’m Dan Leibrandt, I run Pest Control SEO, and I cofounded Pest Control Millionaires with Jonas and Jake Sheldon. I started Legends because I wanted to sit down with the operators I was already learning from in private and make those conversations public.
Every guest on Pest Control Legends runs a real business. Most of them are doing over $5 million a year, and a lot of them are well past that. I’m not interested in interviewing people who’ve never had to meet a payroll. I want the owners who have the scars and the systems to show for it.
My angle is a little different from the other shows on this list. I came up in marketing first and pest control second. I wrote The Complete Guide to Pest Control SEO and Zip Code Kings, and I spent years helping pest companies grow through search. So when I interview an operator, I tend to steer the conversation toward growth, toward brand, toward how they actually acquired their customers. That’s the frame most of our episodes are built around. If you’re a marketing-minded owner and you want the conversation to stay in that lane, Legends is built for you.
4. PMP Industry Insiders
PMP Industry Insiders is hosted by Dan Gordon, who runs PCO Bookkeepers and is one of the most trusted M&A specialists in pest control, alongside Donnie Shelton, owner of Triangle Home Services. Between them you’ve got decades of operator experience and decades of sitting across the table from owners trying to grow, sell, or restructure their companies.
The show has been running weekly for over five years and recently crossed 250 episodes, which in podcast terms is a serious archive. You can feel the difference that longevity makes when you listen. The conversations aren’t surface-level, because Dan and Donnie already know the guests, already know the math, and already know which questions actually get to something real.
The range of topics is wider than almost any other business-focused show in the industry. You’ll hear operator stories, acquisition breakdowns, tiered pricing discussions, AI adoption, tech stack reviews, and honest conversations about where the industry is heading. It’s probably the most well-rounded pest control business podcast out there right now.
If you can only subscribe to one show on this list besides the one you’re reading this on, make it this one.
5. The Boardroom Buzz
The Boardroom Buzz is a different animal from the first three shows on this list. Where Pest Control Millionaire, Bug Bux, and Pest Control Legends are mostly aimed at growth-stage operators, Boardroom Buzz is built for owners thinking about the back half of the journey. Exits, valuations, capital stacks, deal structures, all of it.
The show is presented by the Potomac Pest Control Group and was originally hosted by Patrick Baldwin alongside Paul Giannamore, who runs one of the most respected M&A advisory firms in the industry. More recently Jason and Jeremy Julio, known as the Blue Collar Twins after turning their own service business into an eight-figure exit, stepped in as co-hosts, with Paul still mentoring the show.
The target listener, by the show’s own framing, is an owner in the $5M to $100M revenue range thinking about a significant liquidity event. That said, I’d push back a little and argue the episodes are valuable well before that. If you ever plan to sell, buy, or bring on a partner, the vocabulary and the frameworks Paul and the Twins use are worth starting to absorb now, even if your exit is five or ten years out.
Expect longer episodes, more deal mechanics, and less surface-level content. That’s a feature, not a bug.
6. Pest in Class
Pest in Class is produced by FieldRoutes, which is a ServiceTitan company and one of the biggest SaaS platforms in the field service space. The show is hosted by Amanda Salvatore, who isn’t from pest control herself and uses that as a strength. She interviews like somebody genuinely curious, which pulls more human answers out of guests than the standard operator-to-operator format sometimes manages.
I want to be straight about one thing. Pest in Class is a branded podcast. It’s made by a software company, and it serves that software company’s goals. That doesn’t mean the content isn’t good, because a lot of it is. The episodes with operators like Denise Trad-Wartan, Chase Hazelwood, and Noelle and Rian Goins are worth your time. It just means you should know going in that the editorial lens is going to be friendlier to FieldRoutes than a fully independent show would be.
The format is built for drive time. Most episodes run around 30 minutes, guests cover a specific topic, and you walk away with something usable. If you’re already a FieldRoutes customer, this is probably the most directly relevant show on the list for you. If you’re not, it’s still worth adding to the rotation for the guest access.
7. PCT Radio Network
PCT Radio Network is the official podcast of Pest Control Technology magazine, which has been the industry’s main trade publication for decades. I want to be upfront with you about what this show is and isn’t, because it doesn’t fit neatly alongside the other six.
PCT Radio Network is less of a pure business growth podcast and more of an industry audio feed. Episodes tend to be shorter interviews captured at events like PestWorld, NPMA Legislative Day, and the University of Kentucky Short Course. You’ll hear from award recipients, technical services managers, researchers, state association leaders, and the occasional owner-operator talking about a specific topic like a new acquisition or a recurring service model.
If you want to understand the political, scientific, and institutional side of the industry, this is where you pick that up. You’ll hear about legislative wins, Crown Leadership Award recipients, research on rodent populations and mosquito-borne disease, and what’s being discussed at the major conferences. It’s the closest thing the industry has to a newswire in audio form.
It won’t teach you how to 10x your route density or rewrite your sales script, but it’ll keep you connected to the broader industry in a way that the operator-focused shows won’t. Worth having in the mix, especially if you plan to be active in associations or want to stay current on what’s happening at the technical and policy level.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of pest control podcasts out there now, and not all of them are worth your time. The seven above are the ones I personally recommend. Pick the one that matches where you are right now, work through the backlog, and then branch out. Most of what you’re looking for, the tactics, the mindset, the vocabulary, the relationships, is already sitting inside these feeds for free. And when you’re ready to put what you learn into action, start here.
