Stephen Pelphrey on Growing a $10K a Month Pest Company to $20K
Table of Contents
- Nine months in and already at $10,000 a month
- The ads that got 172 page views and zero leads
- Put the ad money into LSA, once you can answer the phone
- His prices have room
- Record every call and keep every lead
- Let the new tech fly, and keep checking on him
- More partners and more groups
- The action plan
- Frequently Asked Questions
Stephen Pelphrey owns Slade Pest Solutions in Fort Worth, Texas. He found pest control about 14 years ago, when he was between jobs and a small family-owned company advertised for a technician with no experience necessary. He fell in love with the work. He spent the next 10 years at another family-owned company in the area, starting as a tech and working his way up to operations manager. He’d wanted his own business since he was a kid. He once ran a barbecue food trailer, but getting back into restaurants takes a lot of capital. So he asked himself why he couldn’t start his own pest control company, and in January 2026 he did.
He’s a Pest Control Millionaires member, and he came on the show nine months in so I could break his company down live. He’s doing about $10,000 a month and wants $20,000. We found a lot he’s doing right, a few leaks, and one ad campaign that needed a phone call first thing Monday morning.
This episode is part of the PCM Podcast. For another live breakdown of a small company, read Mark Meijer on the $5,600 a week left on the table.
Nine months in and already at $10,000 a month
When we recorded, Stephen had about 128 recurring customers. If he made no new sales the rest of the year, he’d close 2026 at about $122,000, and over the last four or five months he’d averaged about $13,000 a month. About 80% of his customers are quarterly and 20% every other month. He started heavy on bi-monthly and switched midstream after hearing how profitable quarterly can be.
He hasn’t paid himself since he started. His wife’s income pays the bills, so everything the company makes goes back into it. That’s how he could hire a technician about a month before we recorded, earlier than most people would.
His Google Business Profile already had 72 five-star reviews. That’s great for a few months in. Keep asking at every job.
Most of his customers came from one place. A local VA posts for him in eight to 10 local Facebook groups a day, Monday through Friday. His best week brought 23 leads, mostly from Facebook, and he tracked a close rate of about 55% that week. I love that. If you want to do the same, here’s how to turn Facebook group posts into customers.
The ads that got 172 page views and zero leads
About three weeks before we recorded, Stephen started paying a company to run Meta ads, about $600 a month. They built a landing page on his website, and form fills were supposed to come to his email. The ads looked professional, with four or five versions for everything from rats to fire ants to mosquitoes.
Then he read me the report the agency sent him. “We generated 25,567 impressions, 200 link clicks and 172 landing page views.”
“I have a bad feeling about this already,” I said. I don’t care about impressions or clicks. How many of those turned into leads? Not one.
Something’s not mathing. I have a bad feeling there are leads sitting somewhere nobody is looking. When Stephen opened his ads manager, the only campaigns there were the ones he’d tried himself early in the year, all turned off. So the agency is probably running the ads through its own account and sending him the leads. I don’t love that either. I want the actual data, where I can see it all the time.
Here’s the fix, in order:
- Find the leads. Call the agency first thing and ask where they are.
- Connect the forms to the CRM. Stephen already has GoHighLevel (the NextGen Desk white label). Connect the lead forms to it so every lead gets an automatic reply the second it comes in, and he gets a text at the same moment telling him to call. Waiting for an email to pop through doesn’t work when you’re in the field all day.
- If there really are no leads, look at the landing page. If 172 people landed on it and nobody filled out the form, the page is the problem.
I’m also not a fan of sending Facebook traffic to a landing page. I test both all the time. A landing page gets you more qualified leads, but it adds friction, and you can build some friction into a Facebook lead form instead and keep your cost per lead down. And honestly, if it were me, I’d shut Meta off for now. Running five campaigns and tracking them all while you’re servicing is almost impossible as a solo guy unless everything is automated to a T. At his stage, every dollar has to have a return. “Every dollar I spend needs to have an ROI attached to it,” Stephen said.
Put the ad money into LSA, once you can answer the phone
Stephen tried Local Services Ads around his third month. It didn’t work, and the reason wasn’t the ads. A lead would call while he was in the middle of a roach cleanout, he wouldn’t feel his phone, and by the time he called back three to five minutes later, they’d already found somebody else.
Speed to lead is everything. The last study I saw said that after five minutes, your chance of closing drops 70%. And Google records every LSA call. If you’re not answering, your answer rate drops and Google gives you fewer leads until you fix it. So until you can answer, I wouldn’t spend money there.
That’s about to change. With his technician taking over the route, Stephen can answer every call. LSA is super high intent, you only pay per lead, and the cost per lead is relatively cheap. Move the Meta budget there, at $1,000 to $1,500 a month, and pick up the phone. If he lands five deals a week at a $500 contract value, that’s $2,500 a week, about $10,000 a month in new contract value he’s leaving on the table right now. My guide to Google Local Services Ads covers the setup.
His prices have room
Stephen charges $129 a quarter for a home between 2,000 and 3,000 square feet. His average contract value is about $510 a year.
I could see $129 as a bi-monthly price. As a quarterly price, it’s on the low side. Anyone good in his market is probably at $150 to $180, and with his experience he can get $150 to $189 all day long. I’ve sold in warm markets, in Texas and in Florida, at those prices. I don’t like to see any quarterly or bi-monthly plan under $600 a year. PCO Bookkeepers did a cost study of about 250 pest control companies, and the average contract value across the country was about $515. That’s really low. I see $1,000 to $1,500 all day long.
Rip off the band-aid on new customers. Don’t raise prices on the customers you already have. Grandfather them in and raise them 3% every year. And with a $500 contract value, a one-time service should start at $250.
Stephen pushed back on one thing, and it’s what every owner in a crowded market says. Around Fort Worth there are a lot of small operators, some maybe not even licensed, charging $450 a year or less. In the month before we recorded, he’d lost five sales to people who told him another company would do it for $35 a month when he was at $43.
That’s just not your customer. I would rather close at 50% at double the price than close at 80% with the cheap price. If you’re closing above 70% or 80%, your price is too low. Those customers are paying for 13 or 14 years of your hard work and experience, not some new guy who isn’t licensed. Everyone gets price objections. We get them all the time, and people still sign up.
It’s a mindset shift. “Damn, I am good. I should charge more than everybody else.” Cutting prices to be the bottom of the barrel is the Walmart model, and in a service business that only works with hundreds of thousands of accounts. You haven’t paid yourself yet. Raise prices, sell fewer and still make more profit. More on how in my guide to raising pest control prices.
Record every call and keep every lead
Stephen answers his own phone, mostly from the truck. He leads with the recurring program, gives the price and stays silent. He only talks about a one-time service if the customer asks for one. That’s right.
Here’s the leak. When he’s driving and someone wants service, he can’t stop to put them in GorillaDesk. So he asks them to text their name, address and email after they hang up. He said 98 to 99% do. A few never text back, and he’s lost a couple of sales that way.
His phone app is Quo (formerly OpenPhone), at $25 or $29 a month. Call recording means upgrading the plan, which he guessed is about another $10 a month. Do it. Say you lose two of those customers a month at a $500 contract value. That’s $1,000 lost to save $10. With recordings, he closes on the call, then at the next stop he listens back and puts everything in GorillaDesk. The recordings also become training. When he hires his first sales rep, that rep can listen to 150 of Stephen’s calls and get up to speed fast.
Then keep the leads that don’t buy. Right now Stephen only puts customers in GorillaDesk. Put every lead in, with where it came from, and connect GorillaDesk to GoHighLevel so the ones who didn’t close get a nurture follow-up, twice a month, once a month or once a quarter. You already paid for those leads. Maybe they’ll be unhappy with the company they picked and call you back. It also gives you real data. If you only enter the customers who buy, your close rate always shows 100%. Tag every lead by source, track your close rate by channel, and you’ll know where to spend. My guide to pest control lead management goes deeper.
Two smaller things on the same theme. Website form fills come to Stephen as an email. Send them straight into GoHighLevel instead, so there’s one less place to look. On payments, most customers pay by card through Stripe with a card on file, and two prepay for the year. I’d move the few cash payers to a card or ACH before he has techs collecting money. Cash gets lost in trucks, and then nobody can find it. Zelle is fine, as long as someone finds and records it in the bank account.
Let the new tech fly, and keep checking on him
Stephen’s technician had no experience when he hired him about a month before we recorded. He’s licensed, and for about a week he’d been running jobs start to finish while Stephen shadowed. Speed and attention to detail were still coming along. Stephen was hoping to have him on his own by the middle of October, or the end of October at the latest.
My advice is to start testing him now. Give him a job or two a day on his own, then check them the next morning. Pick a firm date when he goes out on his own and stick to it. After that, keep doing ghost inspections on a few jobs a day, and talk to the customer. “Hey, I’m the owner. I’m just stopping by. Did he do a good job?” Customers love that, because they feel like you care and they’re not just a number. The tech knows you’re still watching, so he does good work, and if he doesn’t, you catch it fast.
Some of this is a control thing. When you’ve done every job yourself for nine months, letting go is hard. But one of Stephen’s biggest problems is lead flow, and before the hire he was spending almost no time on it. It’s like owners who tell me hiring is their biggest problem and then spend 30 minutes a month on it. Getting out of the truck is what frees him to fix the leads. If you’re about to make the same hire, read how to hire your first pest control technician.
More partners and more groups
Stephen met a carpet cleaner at a networking group, and they became friends. The carpet cleaner handed him his customer list, and Stephen texts them, about 50 a day, all automated through GoHighLevel. Over four months it brought him six or seven sales. Even one sale a month for no work is great.
So go get more of them. Go to more networking groups and line up a partner in every home service, home cleaning, lawn care and the rest. And give value back. On every pest control job, the customer mentions some other problem. Send those jobs to your partners. Here’s more on strategic partnerships for pest control.
He can also find more Facebook groups. The catch, which a lot of people run into, is that many of the best local groups don’t allow business posts. Message the admin first. Tell them what you do and offer to take care of their pest control. If they still say no, post as yourself, not as a business. Ask a question, like “has anyone seen a bug like this?” with a photo of what you’re dealing with right now. If you’re dealing with it, so is everybody else, and the comments tell you who has the problem.
The action plan
Stephen’s goal is $2 million in five years. Right now that feels like a big stretch to him, and that’s how it should feel. I’d rather have a moon shot. “I have the confidence that if I continue to push as hard as I need to push, I can definitely reach that goal,” he said.
Getting there starts with the foundation. At a $500 contract value, he needs twice as many customers to reach $2 million as he would at $1,000. Most of this list costs little or nothing, and it fixes the foundation. Here it is, in order.
One more thing I’d add, since it’s Texas. Track callbacks on quarterly customers against bi-monthly ones. If a quarterly customer keeps calling you back, move them to bi-monthly at the same price per visit. They get better service, you stop paying for re-services, and the account is worth more.
Stephen is only nine months in. We all want it to go faster. We’re in our sixth year at Pest Badger, and it’s still never fast enough. He’s doing a great job.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Stephen Pelphrey?
Stephen Pelphrey owns Slade Pest Solutions in Fort Worth, Texas. He spent about 14 years in pest control, starting as a technician and working his way up to operations manager at a family-owned company, before he started his own company in January 2026. Nine months in, he had about 128 recurring customers and was doing around $10,000 to $13,000 a month.
Why would Facebook ads get clicks but no leads?
Stephen’s ads had 25,567 impressions, 200 link clicks and 172 landing page views in about three weeks, and not one lead reached him. Usually the leads exist and are sitting somewhere nobody looks, like the ad account or an inbox that isn’t connected. Connect every lead form to your CRM so leads get an instant text, and if there really are none, look hard at the landing page.
What should a quarterly pest control service cost?
Stephen charged $129 a quarter for a 2,000 to 3,000 square foot home in Texas, about $510 a year. I think $150 to $189 a quarter fits his market, and I don’t like to see any quarterly or bi-monthly plan under $600 a year. Raise prices on new customers and grandfather the old ones with 3% a year.
When should a small pest control company use Local Services Ads?
When you can answer the phone. Google records Local Services Ads calls, and if you miss them your answer rate drops and Google sends you fewer leads. Once Stephen’s technician can run the route, he can answer every call, and LSA becomes the best place for his ad money.
Should you track pest control leads that don’t buy?
Yes. Put every lead in your CRM with its source, whether it closes or not. You already paid for that lead, so keep following up, and it’s the only way to know your real close rate by channel.
Full transcript
Every word of the episode, from the video captions
I have a bad feeling about this already.
She sent me an ads performance and this is what she got. She said, "Uh we generated 25,567 200 link clicks and 172 landing page...
Don't care about that either. How many of those converted into leads? Something's not mathing still. First of all, I don't love that they're sending them to your to a landing page. Your cost for leads going to be a lot higher on Facebook, but you'll get less leads because of it. More qualified leads through dropping a landing page, but I don't love it cuz there's a lot of friction. And they say that they don't punish you for leaving the website from Facebook. That's what they claim. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. I'm thinking to myself, like do they really want people off their website? If you own a pest control business and want to grow, this show is for you. We break down how to get more customers, build their team, and obviously scale your company. I've grown my pest control company to a million dollars a month and helped over 400 people grow their company to over 100k a month and larger. Today we're looking at how to take this company to the next level. And Stephen, and welcome to the show. I know it's Sunday. We had to work around your schedule, but thanks for being here today, man.
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me. Look forward to it.
Yeah, I'm excited to go through this. Yeah, I'm excited to go through this with you today. So, can you just give me the rundown? Like I know we talked before, but give me the rundown of how you got into the industry to begin with.
Yeah, so it was about 14 years ago. I was in between jobs and you know, I love spending time outside and just doing something new every day. And I'd never thought about pest control and I was just happy to be looking online for different jobs. And it just so happened I ran across a local family-owned small small pest control company looking for a technician. No experience necessary. And I was like, "Well, hey, I need a job. If this pays pretty good with no experience necessary and it seems like I'm going to enjoy it." So, ended up getting that job and the rest is history. I fell in love with the industry and just doing the day-to-day And yeah, that's about it.
Awesome. That's really cool. And then how did you or when did you start your own company?
So, I started in January of 2026. So, about 9 months ago.
Brand new. Got a newbie on our hands. I'm sure you're learning a ton.
Oh, absolutely. I will I will tell you what has sort of helped me out though is for the previous 10 years after I left that company that originally hired me, I worked for another family-owned company in the area and started out as a technician and worked my way up to operations manager. And so, and I did that for about the past 6 or 7 years. So, for me personally, coming into this, I already had pretty good experience on obviously the operational side as well. Love that. What made you decide to finally go on your own?
Man, I've just I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I've always ever since I was a little kid, I'd tell my parents that I want to own my own business one day. And quite honestly, it's not funny how I got here, but I've always wanted to own a barbecue restaurant. I love cooking. I love barbecue and doing all that. And I did actually have a barbecue food trailer about 6 or 7 years ago. And then I went through a divorce. I lost it. And to get back for anybody that has done it before, to get back in the restaurant industry, takes a lot of capital. And I just didn't have that at the time. In early 2025, the bug hit me again like, "Hey, I need to start my own business." I knew the restaurant deal was out of the question. And I then I really got to look in and just obviously, once again, loving the pest control industry, I'm like, "Well, why why can't I do start my own company?"
I know it's a little saturated market a little bit here in DFW, but yeah. Yeah, that that is true.
It's saturated everywhere.
It's a good thing, though. It's a good thing. So, kind of So, just kind of give me the you know, where your revenue's sitting right now. How many recurring customers is that today?
Yeah. So, right now based on what I am seeing in if I was to not make any new sales the rest of the year and continue to keep my customers, I would close out the year at about 122,000, somewhere in there. And then recurring customers, the last time I looked, honestly, it's been a couple weeks, but I believe I'm sitting at around 128, 129, somewhere in there.
Cool. So, you're doing about 10K per month, right?
Yeah, I'm Yeah, and then over the past noticed that over the past 4 or 5 months, I've been averaging about 13, somewhere in there.
And you're selling all quarterly or do you bi-monthly? What are you doing down...
I do a mix. I still when I first started, I was real heavy on the bi-monthly. I just got to listening to a lot of different other people, other podcasts, and whatnot, and talking about just quarterly, and just how profitable quarterly can be over every other month. And so, I sort of midstream sort of switched, and I'm like, "Well, I'm going to just start selling more quarterlies." but to answer your question, I do both. Like, I just sold one yesterday. He's on it every other month cuz he's in a brand new development, having a lot of issues. So, but for the most part, most people that I talk to, they want...
Cool. What would you say your split is from bi-mos to quarterly? Do you have a...
Out of your 122 customers?
Yeah, I would say 80/20. 80 quarterly, 20 every other month.
80 quarterly? And with the I'm just asking questions, I'm curious. With the quarterly's are you getting any callbacks?
I mean the occasional here and there.
Recently over the past month or so it's been ants, of course. Ants getting in the house. You know, it's been quite dry here for well over 2 months. I'd say nothing I mean nothing in out of the ordinary.
Yeah. Do you see any more and I don't know if you track this and maybe you could, but maybe you should. But do you track of your callbacks from your quarterly versus your bi-monthly?
No, I don't I don't track that. No, and you're right. I...
The reason I'm curious because I know Yeah, because all the reason I'm asking is cuz I know where you're at. You're in Texas, right? It's hot, you know, dry this time of year. I could see callbacks increasing. So my thing would be like, if you start to see an increase of quarterly, you could always upgrade their service and do a bi-monthly service so they get better service and charge more money. I don't hate bi-monthly service where you're at. Obviously that I believe that the most profitable. But if you start having more callbacks in your area, it might be smart to start just upgrading those services and do a bi-monthly program. Maybe it may be to specific area, maybe it's along the lake, maybe it's near woods, something like that. You know what I mean? Maybe it's a specific customer you notice is having a lot of callback issues. Maybe you just upgrade their...
Something to think about as as we're going through this. You know what I So basically you just crossed over 150k for the year. But you've been sitting at like you said 12 to 14k per month roughly.
What do you think is holding you at that spot right there?
You know, I believe for me and once again, I know it's not a just a me thing. It's everybody. But it's consistent lead flow. I mean that that's what it is. And once again, I don't want to act like even when the phone is ringing and I have leads coming in, I don't want to act like I'm selling 100% because obviously I'm not. But no, that there's some days...
It's not real life, yeah. Honestly, where my phone will ring, I don't know, 10 20 times a day with people looking for service, and then there's other days, I promise you, I have went 6 days straight where my phone is not ringing a single time.
Yeah, we'll get to that, too. But I know you said that one of your You want to get to 20K per month, right? Roughly? Is that what your goal is? Why do you think...
What do you think Yeah, my question there is that you want to get to 20 20K per month here shortly. My question around that is like, what would you have to do different that you're doing today to get you to 20K per month, in your opinion?
In my opinion, it is doing exactly what I've already done. So, and what I mean by that is even though I'm not at a monthly revenue that a lot of people would be or feel comfortable with hiring a technician, I did hire somebody about a month ago. He's still in training. The reason I've done that, though, at the where I'm consistently seem to be month after over month is because honestly, I haven't paid myself since starting this business.
Luckily, my wife makes good enough money to where she can pay the bills. So, everything that the company makes, I can reinvest back in it. And so, get being able to get me out of the truck, just like you've talked about and you know, Alan talks and all these other people, get me out of the truck to allow me to get out there meet people, introduce myself, so on and so forth. That's going to help, for sure.
Yeah, when do Do you have an official day that he'll be on his own? As we were just talking about this last week. I am hoping by the middle of October. Definite If not by the middle of October, definitely by the end of October, without a doubt. He's doing...
Just because he's waiting for his just waiting for his certifications or...
No, it's just no, he I just want to make sure that he's comfortable with it. He has obviously no no experience whatsoever. And I just want to make sure that he's comfortable to a certain point. But like I told him, it's going to take months upon months before he is 100% comfortable with it all and I completely understand that. That honestly that that's just what I'm waiting on.
Hold up. Quick pause. If you're running a pest control company or fertilization weed control company and you're not in our Facebook group, you're choosing the harder path. Every operator that's in there is skipping years of mistakes cuz 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. If you put him in the truck right now by himself and you walked away, like not walked away in the business, but just step back into the office right how do you how do you think he would do?
Right like right this very second, he would be able to get the majority of stuff done. But he still I've got a feeling and there's obviously nothing wrong with that. I've got a feeling my phone would be ringing constantly because he would you know, keep having questions after questions on stuff that typically should just be, you know, common knowledge once you are trained within the pest control itself. That That's just my thought.
Yeah. So, if you send him out there to do a quarterly pest control, just one job, right now, you think he'd call you a bunch of times?
No, for one. No, but if I send him out to do, you know, eight or nine in a they And that's another thing we're working on is his speed, of course. It's taking up quite a while.
As you get better.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But to do one or two, no, I'm I think he would he would excel just fine. Not saying he wouldn't call me once or twice, but I think he would be able to...
It's okay. Yeah. When you guys go do jobs together, do you let him do a job from start to finish by himself?
Absolutely. I just started that last...
Cool. Cool. Any issues so far?
A little bit here and there. Attention to detail is one of them. Which that could be something that I'm imposing on him myself just because that's the kind of tell my mind works and that's just how I am. But other than that, for the most part, it's been going pretty well so far. Like I said, we're only about a week into it, so...
So he's been doing a ride-along for a week or No, he's been with you a month, right? And you said you've been letting him go out on his own kind of where you haven't been.
Yeah, well, no.
Himself, but you're just kind of...
Yeah, yeah. I'm just stepping back and I'm just letting him take the reins. And I'm just shadowing.
Cool. I like that. Yeah, I think that's smart and I think that if you let him go do his thing, he'd probably do all right. I'm not saying to walk away. I would definitely do an inspection on every single job. Still talk to the customer still. Just make sure things are going good. But if he knows you're going to keep checking on him, like he's going to do a good job. That's just how you can kind of start delegating some of that. You know what I mean? Maybe it's more of a you mindset.
And you're having to give up a little bit more control that you're not used yeah, but keep an eye on him. You know what I mean? Keep an eye on him.
Very true.
We'll move on. But I think it's I think it's you should start testing it. You know, maybe you just give him At the end of the day, give him a job or two to go do by himself then follow up the next morning, go check his jobs out, you Yeah. No, it's a good idea.
I mean, the middle of October, you're talking one or two more weeks, you know what I mean? It's not It's not far out. And I'm not saying that he doesn't need to keep training cuz he does, but I'm just saying give it start giving him a little bit more responsibility each week. Testing him a little bit stronger, you know what I mean?
So yeah, that's all going good. So he's already licensed, good to go there. You said as cliche as it sounds, leads is the biggest thing holding you back. It's really not enough leads or is it you're just not seeing them all? Cuz I have some questions to follow this up. Cuz I know you were you were getting a lot of leads, but then you had to kind of had to shut them off, right? I'll go I'll dive a little bit further. But do you think it's just a lack of consistent leads or what do you think it is?
Yeah, I think it's a lack of consistent leads. Because like I said, some days and maybe that number I gave was a little little high. Some days my phone might ring 10 or 15 times of people actually looking for jobs or people just having questions. And then like I said, I've gone many days in a row to where my phone hadn't rang once. Now there could be something said if okay, well, if the day before your phone rang 15 times, if you could make at least 12 sales, you know, 10 to 12 sales that day, then that those following days where the phone hasn't rang shouldn't be that big of a deal.
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Stop having your customers send referrals. Build a system that makes it what do you mean?
How often do you work on deal flow? Like how often do you How much time of the day do you spend on marketing? Well, that That's the issue and Yeah, I can't It's hard to give you a number on that because there's weeks that I'll go in nine nine have a chance especially before I hired the my technician. There would be weeks go by to where I can't really do much because I'm so busy in the field.
Now, I will come home in the...
It's fine. I want But one of your biggest problems in your is lead flow.
But you're spending zero time on it. Well Well, Okay, I see exactly what you're saying. I will tell you that like for Facebook and stuff like that, I am paying a VA.
Yeah, I'm getting into that next. Yeah, I'm Trust me, I'll get in there. I promise. I'm not leaving you hanging.
It's the same thing though. It's the same concept as "Hey, my biggest my biggest thing here is I can't hire when I see all the time, right?" My biggest problem is I can't hire. And then I'll ask people, "Cool, how much time do you spend on hiring?" They're like, "Well, I pasted a I posted an ad on Facebook and on Indeed, right?" I was like, "So, your biggest problem that you have currently to scale your company is you're saying is recruiting, but you spend 30 minutes on it a month?" And then they're like I used to get like this big. They're like, "Oh yeah, good...
It's the same thing with marketing, right? If no one has their eyes on it, which we know we do cuz it's coming up, right? But if no one is working on that at least part-time, it's hard to create consistent leads, right? So, that brings me to my next question, actually. You said 80 right? Of roughly 130 returning customers came from posting in local Facebook groups, correct?
And how often are you still posting? And how many groups are you in?
So, I'm posting every single day. And when I say I, once again, I've got a VA that's doing it. Well, I mean, she's local here, but she offers VA services. So, I got her doing it. She's posting Monday through Friday. And she is posting to eight to 10 groups per day.
Awesome. I love that. Love that. That's really cool. It's smart. I really like that. Really, really like that. So, you said, you know, some days you'll get like 15 qualified a week or maybe someday, then it's 4 days, then there's kind of nothing, right? What do the strong weeks look like? On a really strong week, where would you say you average?
Sales-wise or lead-wise?
Lead-wise.
I'd say a strong week I mean, now that I think about it, that number might have been high per day, but I would say a strong week I've had so far has been 23 And that was a few months back.
Of those or and those are those all from Facebook, would you say? The majority of them. Yeah, that that particular week, the majority was. No problem. Do you know what your close rate was on the Facebook leads?
Yeah, it was right at around yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That that week I was tracking, and it was right around 55%.
Have to If you don't know, it's okay.
5% cool. And the other leads that came in, were those just from you know, referrals or SEO stuff?
Yeah, I'm actually, and I'm glad to see it obviously with my customer account what it is now. I'm actually starting to get I don't want to say a lot but I'm definitely getting more referrals than obviously I was starting out. So yeah, so talk me through the sales process when a Facebook lead comes in or referral lead comes in walk me through the process who answers the phone walk me through the sale and then how you get it scheduled in GorillaDesk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously the call comes directly to my cell phone and then I just most of the time they'll they'll tell me what the issue is what they have going or they'll just say hey I'm just looking for a quote for pest control and then I get into if they're having any specific issues talk to them a little bit about that you know where they're seeing roaches at or where they're seeing ants And then make sure obviously that they're in my service area and then I just go into talking to them. I do not and I've gotten better about this. I do not lead off with trying to sell one time service. I lead off automatically talking about my recurring and talk about what that entails then obviously go over pricing and then I stay silent. You know wait to see what they say and then sometimes they will come back and they'll say well I'm not interested in a program I only want a one time service.
Well I wait till they say that. Once they say that then I'll go in talking about my one time service and then yeah I try to give them as much detail as I can sometimes that's to my detriment because I know a lot of people they don't want all that detail they just want to get them scheduled and be done. Yeah. So that's it and I've will tell you one thing also that I need to get away from, and I talked to you about this previously, is because I've been on the road when most of the time my phone's been ringing, I haven't had time to if they're if they're like, "Okay, yeah, I want to get on service." And I don't have time to stop and get them put on my schedule and get all their information put in GorillaDesk.
So, I'm asking them, "Hey, when we hang up, this is a textable number. Text me your first name, last name, address, email address, and I'll get you put on the schedule for Wednesday at 1:00 p.m." And thankfully, so far, I would say 98 to 99% of people have done exactly that. As soon as we hung up, they text me that info. There have been a few in there where I guess they just didn't feel like doing I don't know what the deal was, but they never text me the info. I follow up with them later on in the day, and they never respond back to me.
I got I have lost a couple of sales because of that reason.
Yeah, is there And you're just driving down the road. Good. So, this brings me to my next question, actually. This is a perfect segue. Do you have an app on your phone that like Let's say they hit the website, is it your Is it your phone number that's on the website, goes directly to you?
Yeah, it's my business number. So, I use what used to be called OpenPhone, but now it's called Quo, Q-U-O.
And that's where when people dial my business line, that's it comes to my cell phone. So, yes, it is an app.
Now, my next question, with following up with that, does it record the phone...
It can. I've not upgraded my plan. I need to upgrade my plan in order for it to do that.
Got you. What is What is What does it roughly cost per month?
I'll be honest with you. I haven't looked at it in quite a while. I know it's something that they offer. That's why I was talking about upgrading, but I don't know...
Know how much more Like, right now I think I'm paying 25 or $29 a month for what I currently have. So, I would assume upgrading the plan is probably an additional 10 bucks a month. Probably somewhere in there.
Yeah. So, like the where I was asking is like is just any other you know RingCentral or 3CX or line phone or whatever. Like their programs are usually like $99 a month. So, a little bit more expensive, but if you can upgrade for yours to 10 bucks and I don't know what that price is for sure. I just definitely recommend that cuz if it's a 10 $10 a month, which kind of leads me to my next segway. What is your ACV on the contracts down there for your average clients?
I mean for me and of course you can correct me if I'm wrong, but for me it's kind of hard only being 9 months you know, how can I figure out what Oh, yeah. You know what? I'm so sorry. I was thinking that you were asking about lifetime value. ACV average about 510.
So, roughly like 90 900 bucks per application or...
So for so I'll just tell you. So, like for a quarterly for a house that's in between 2 and 3,000 square feet for a quarterly is $129 a quarter.
So, your average contract value is closer to is yeah, it's like 550 like you said. I think you have some room to move there honestly. I could see your 129 being a bi-monthly price, but at a quarterly price that's little to me is still on the low side. You call anyone else that's good, they're going to be probably closer to the 150s to 180s. And because you are a and because you have so much experience, you can get that price all day long. Typically honestly they want to work with guys like yourself. They're willing to pay more for for a better quality like you're other you're grinding by yourself, you're doing the work like you can you can pretty much pitch it every you want to. And I still think that 150 is probably on the low side but I think down there you're probably in a good spot 150 to 189 you know what I mean? I could do some research. I've sold in warm markets I've sold in Texas I've sold in Florida and we were selling like that all day long.
So that's why I'm telling you got some room to move. I don't I would not like to see your your any quarterly or bi-monthly under $600 at all like minimum. I know that PCO Bookkeepers love those guys shout out to those guys. They did a study cost study of like 250 pest control companies and the average contract value across the United States like $515 and it's just really really low. I mean I see all day long for a thousand to $1500 or So I think you could you could rip off the band-aid to your new customers don't raise your price on your old customers grandfather those in start raising those 3% every single year. Leave that be. Then start raising your prices on your new customers. So let's just go I'm going to go with for this example I'll use your 500...
So let's just say once a month right once a month you're missing two calls from like hey they answered you talked to them on the phone they didn't close or you they closed but you said hey just text me your phone number right? Just after this call and let's say you lost two of those people Those two people just cost you a thousand bucks to not upgrade your subscription to another $10 a month. Because you could just go back through you could ask them all those questions when you get to the next job you could just go through your call recording write down all the information and just get them on the schedule. No you're right.
I'm just I'm just trying to you like I'm just trying to show you a different way of doing things you know? And I wouldn't and I wouldn't suggest your VA answering these calls I don't want that I think you should still be answering them. I know you're almost out of the truck so a lot of these problems will be solved once you're out of the truck because you answer these live you know that you won't have to go that route. So I but for now maybe it's just a quick Although I even think that even when you even when you do get into, you know, just taking the phones full-time, you're still going to want all those calls recorded because you can use it for training in the future when you hire your first year sales rep.
It's not that you can listen to 150 calls of you, right? You can sit there next to you and you can listen as he's training, listen to recorded calls so he sees what it sounds like to get him up to speed fast. So those recorded calls are really really good good for you. And if you're like, "Oh dang, I missed something from the you know I forgot I put in the wrong information." You can go back and listen to it again. It's very very valuable information you have. And then let's just say you get to the next job, and you get all the information in there. You put it into a GorillaDesk, I'm assuming at the next job or whenever you get home, correct? So what happens to those people you know say they don't close? Do you still put those in GorillaDesk?
No, I do not. And I know that's something I need to be doing. And be- besides also putting them in GorillaDesk, I also think it would be a great idea for me to put them in I have the white label version of GoHighLevel, NextGen Leads. I think it would be a good idea for me to put them in that funnel as well.
I think so too and you connect the two with API keys and have follow-up. The reason I'm saying that because you like let's just say they came from Google or Facebook or previous referral. It don't matter. But you've already paid for those leads, right? At some point they were interested in your service. So you could still put them like even though they didn't close, they didn't take you back, put them into this into the system and start the automation follow-up process. Maybe it's you hit them twice a month, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's once a quarter, whatever you feel is important But you're just constantly nurturing that customer, showing them value. So maybe they're not happy with their next person, they call you back. You stay in front of them. You know what I mean? So just because they didn't close doesn't mean you want to keep that information. Going back to the recorded calls, you got those recorded calls, you still put them in the system. Just say the lead didn't convert. That way you can actually track your real data of how many leads you got that were won versus closed because right now let's just say you're only putting in the one lead it's going to show 100% all the time.
But you know like hey, I know I got 10 calls yesterday, right? But in your head you know the answer but on the data it's hard to show. So just put in all the information in there as much as you possibly can. More information the better. Like the people with the biggest customer list, I mean that's what people are buying like when you go to sell this thing that's what people are buying. Get as much of the data as you possibly can cuz you're already paying for it.
And then inside GorillaDesk, do you have any of the you know like are you are you doing ACH, doing credit cards? What do you do for payment wise?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I've got I'm connected to Stripe. So that's how the majority of everybody pays is by credit card. I have a few pay with check or cash. But also I do I do subscription billing. So I do monthly billing. So I obviously require credit card to be be on put on file...
Mhm. Do you ever push for pre-paids or do you always do monthly billing?
I wouldn't say I push for pre-paids. I a few people ask me if I accept it. As of right now out of all the customers I have, I do have two that they pre-paid me for this year and that's what they'll want to do every year going forward. But the other the other ones they're monthly billing.
Cool. And then the people who pay cash and sure there's just a few of them. The only reason I don't like it there's already three reasons why I like it but the reason that I don't like it is cuz as you know get a few more technicians, now your technicians have to deal with cash.
And so I don't love that all the time either. And so I like eventually like maybe upgrading those to ACH or just charge your debit account, you know. That way you don't get hit with credit card fees and stuff like that, version fees. But just don't try to take any more cash only because now your technician has to grab cash and they have to remember to leave it truck or give it to you. Then it gets lost and they're like, "Oh, but I paid you and you didn't enter it in the system." You can't find the money. Like it I've been there, I've done it, and I'm just telling you from experience, I don't recommend it.
But I know why I know I Trust me, I'm well aware of why we love cash.
Your website leads, those go direct Go ahead.
Oh, I was just going to say I've had a lot of people ask me when they're asking about like how I accept payment. A lot of people want to pay with Zelle. Zelle or Venmo. And I don't I don't know if they if they if they think because I'm a smaller company.
Yeah, it's just what people are accustomed to, and so Zelle is actually like through Chase, isn't it?
Yes, I believe so.
I think Zelle is through Chase Bank, so I could see them paying through Zelle. Again, there's nothing wrong with that part. I don't I don't hate that. But then just remember going in, finding the payment inside your Chase account or your your bank account, tracking that, and then you can bring it back, you know, so the more you can automate the thing, the better, you know what I so when when website Your website looks really good, by the way. When web leads come in to GorillaDesk, hit your automations. Do they go So your web leads like do they go directly into your GorillaDesk or directly into GoHighLevel or do they go right now?
No, I get an email, and then saying that somebody submitted the form. And then, of course, I'll reach out to the person, and then go from there.
Yeah, cool. I think you could probably tighten that up a little bit, too, having it go straight into GoHighLevel, right? From a form built in behind the website that goes right directly into GoHighLevel. Again, it's just another spot that you have to look.
So we're going to get on to, you know, some LSA stuff, some Facebook stuff, and talk a lot about pull this all together. So I know that you're running LSA. You ran a test for like a thousand or fifteen dollars for a walk me through what happened when you were when you were doing that.
Yeah, so you know, like we discussed, when I was doing that, it was I think I maybe was like my third month in the business and it just so happened it's not like I was crazy busy every day, but it just so happened that my luck that I would be busy on a certain day or busy with a few jobs and I would have LSA lead come in. And of course we all know that it's speed to lead and I may be in the middle of doing a roach cleanout or something and I didn't feel my phone go off and by the time I looked at it 3 4 5 minutes later even immediately dropping everything to contact that person at least for me those leads they were already gone.
They had already found somebody else they'd already talked to somebody else.
Yeah, I think the last study that I saw was after 5 minutes the chance of you closing an account drops 70%. Just in 5 minutes. So you have to answer calls. The problem and then the other problem with that is like Google tracks every call that comes in. They record every call that comes in and if they show that you're not answering your answer rate will drop and they'll just stop giving you leads. And maybe not completely but they'll just be like hey you've been warned to give you less leads until you start improving that. So until you fix that I probably wouldn't even spend any money there. But I'm not I'm going to get there here shortly too. Let's talk about Meta a little bit cuz I know you just started running Meta ads. Correct?
Yes, sir.
And that's been like what a week 2...
It's almost 3 weeks now.
3 weeks?
3 weeks on Meta. Okay. And what happens when someone fills out a lead form...
So I've So here's here's the thing. So I'm not the one doing the Meta ads. I know I should be. I am paying I'm paying...
No, it's okay. No, it's okay.
Paying a company to do it for me and what they did was they created a landing page on my website. So when someone when somebody clicks on there it takes them to the landing page and then they fill out a form in that just like with the GorillaDesk forms, I get an email and then I'll immediately reach back out to them. Now, in these 2 and 1/2 3 weeks that my ads have been running, I have not gotten any leads from it whatsoever.
However, just...
You haven't got any leads? You haven't got any sales?
I haven't gotten any leads from it at...
Zero? Not one lead?
Not one at all. And which which blows my mind because I mean, I see it when I'm scrolling through my Facebook, I see those ads. They look to me, they look good and professional and there's multi- They got like four or five different ads out there, everything from rats to fire ants to mosquitoes. And she just sent me on Friday. Let me get this pulled up. And I can read exactly what she sent me.
I have a bad feeling about this already.
She sent me an ad's performance and this is what she got. She said we generated 25,567 impressions, 200 link clicks, and 172 landing page views.
Don't care about that, either. How many of those converted into leads? Something's Something's not Something's not mathing still. I don't love First of all, I don't love that they're sending them to your to a landing page. Your cost per lead is going to be a lot on Facebook, but you'll get less leads because of it. Not that not Trust me, I test both these all the time. I still do it and we you'll get more qualified, I say, more qualified leads through driving to a landing page, but I don't love it cuz the there's a lot of friction where you can build You can still build friction on Facebook forms and reduce your lead cost. And they say that they don't punish you for leaving the website from Facebook. That's what they claim. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. I'm thinking to myself like, do they really want people off their website? Probably not. But maybe they don't. But that's just me. Like I'm trying to keep them on the Facebook form. But I have a still have a bad Where do your leads go to right now?
They come directly...
They're losing leads.
I mean, according to them, they're just supposed to come directly to my email. Every time somebody fills one out, it's supposed to come to my email.
I would check because I have the bad feeling that your leads are sitting right inside your business account right now. I think they're just sitting there and they're not being responded to. So, what I would do, cuz I know you have NextGen Leads, is call them ASAP tomorrow morning and get forms connected to your your NextGen account. Cuz that way they're as soon as they come in, fill out the lead form, or that's from your landing page, or from from your lead form, I don't care which one they choose, you guys can test that. But there's probably leads sitting there. But if they go into your GoHighLevel NextGen account, they're automatically responded to instantly.
And then you have a text message, right? That's that texts you at the same exact time saying, "Hey, you got a lead." So you know you can call immediately. Right now, you're just kind of guessing, like waiting for an email to pop through. You don't have time to sit there and look through your email all day long. And if you want to talk about speed to lead from LSA, Facebook's even harder. If it's me, dude, I don't Did you sign an agreement with them currently? Are they kind of doing more stuff with you than just Facebook Do they do more than Facebook ads with...
Got you. Okay, so if it's me, I don't know if it's month-to-month, but whatever, right?
Yeah, it is.
First off, I would fix that. But second of all, second of all, I probably wouldn't spend any money on Meta right now. I would If I would If I'm you, I'm going I'm going back to LSA and I'm answering my phone. Cuz right now, you At least with LSA, it's super high intent, and the cost per lead is relatively cheap, and it's only a cost per lead. It's just a It's not a search campaign, right? It's When they click on it, they call in you directly. And they the earphone. You have your phone on you. You're working with the technician. You can kind of track your phone right now. You have a little bit more time with cuz you have a technician with you. Just answer those calls. If you're going to spend any money, that's what I'm doing it first. I would just shut Facebook off right now. It is so hard, especially as a as a solo guy, to have five different campaigns running and try to track all of them at once while you're just servicing. It's almost impossible unless it's everything's automated to a T. So, but if you're in If right now if you're in an agreement, I would make sure that you get your GoHighLevel NextGen Leads connected with your Facebook so that all links together so you can have auto-response messages on.
I have a really bad feeling that you have leads sitting like honestly sitting in your inbox right now that you just don't Can you Can you look for me? Can you go to your your ads account? Yeah, go to your ads manager. And then you should be able to see If you click on and go through and just see to the like the middle of your campaigns, you should be able to see your lead cost. I have a bad feeling that you With that many impressions, that many landing paging like clicks, I have a bad feeling there's leads sitting in there that you just don't know. And this is the problem with Facebook leads, If it's not connected, they're just sitting in your inbox...
This thing's running slow as can be. I don't know what's going on with the...
That's okay. We don't have to do it right now, but I just have a feeling...
Well, I'm then okay, there's something weird Yeah, there's some weird going on here because I'm looking at my campaigns every campaign that's on here is campaigns that I attempted to do myself, you know, early on in the year, and all of them's turned off now. Like it's not showing me any active campaigns right now.
So, they might be running it through like their own You know what I mean? They may be So, I've seen this before, too. They'll just run it through their own platform. And they'll send the leads to you. I don't love that either. I want the actual data that I can see all the time. So, things that you can talk to him, you know what I mean? You know, ask where the leads are cuz there probably is some. And then I would say get your GoHighLevel connected ASAP. Like that's the that's the first thing that I'm going to do Monday morning is get that connected ASAP so you can get the automatic text as soon as you get a lead come in. And I know you don't have a huge budget to spend. I think it's like $600 a month right now, right?
And so, that's okay, but again, if I'm with you, I'm and hopefully it's just month to month thing, I'd probably just going to shut that off. I'd do it myself before I did had them do it. And just put all that money into LSA the where you're at in business right now, you can't just burn money to burn And your highest return is going to be LSA right now. And the only issue with LSA before is that you just can't answer the phone, but now you know that LSA is going to be turned back on cuz you're about to jump to $1,000 to $1,500 a month and answer your phone. Close at 80%, put them on some recurring, increase prices. You know, you even if you land five deals a week, right? Which we're assuming you could probably easily do that.
You know, that's 2,500 bucks at that $500 contract value that you're just leaving on the table. So, it's let's say $2,500 a month times four, 10,000 bucks a month, right? Just by turning LSA back on and answering your phone. And that's at that $500 contract value and I think you closer to 7, 800,000, I really do. I honestly believe that. So, if like again, you don't have money to burn, go ahead.
Yeah, exactly. And I'm I am 100% on board with what you're saying because every dollar I spend needs to have an ROI attached to it.
Let me and I know in previous podcast you've touched on this and I can't remember all what was said, but...
And I don't I don't know that there's anything that could be done about it, but here in DFW, I'm in Fort Worth specifically. I don't service there are so many of these little mom and pop deals where these guys maybe just be doing or doing pest control on the side, maybe not even licensed, you know, all that typical stuff. And they're only charging like 450 bucks a year. You know, or less.
Yourself to the wrong person.
Yeah. Well, well Well, I'm not saying I'm comparing myself. What I'm getting at is there's so much of that going on around here when people are calling different companies to price shop. They may call these people before they call me. And then when they call me and I'm telling them, "Hey, it's 600 bucks a Then of course naturally they're going to say, "Oh, well, you're way overpriced." You know what I'm saying? When in when in reality we know that I'm not overpriced. It's just they reached out to these other people that aren't charging lowest to me.
Are you speculating or do you know do you have real data on that?
On the pricing?
Yeah. Are you speculating or now or you have real data they that...
Yep. I've got real data. I have...
But you also just told me that they weren't licensed.
Well, no. Some of them may not be licensed. And I'm just throwing out examples, but I do know that there have been within the past month there have been five sales that I've not been able to make because people have told me just that, "Oh, well, the company I called you before instead of being $43 a month cuz I live in a 2,500 square foot house, this guy said he's going to do it for 35 a You know?
That's just not your customer then. You know what I mean?
That's okay. I would rather close at 50% with double the price than close at 80% with the cheap price. You're leaving money on the table still. You don't have to close at 90%. If you're closing above 70 80% it's a price issue. Like your price is too low. You're closing on everyone they talk to. And all the people that you aren't closing they call you back.
And that's okay. Like they're paying for your experience. How long you've been in pest control?
About 14 13 14 years.
So they're paying for 13 years of your hard work and your experience. Not some new guy that isn't licensed. That's how you sell it, man. Like every everyone's going to get a price objection. We get price objections all the time. And they still sign up cuz we're still so damn good.
And I had a I had a person yes- I had a person I don't even know what day it was. It was that Sunday. I had a person on and I did the same call with on last And I don't know if he just didn't believe me, but he called my office. And he sent me and I saw his number come through on my phone. Like cuz I get text messages to my phone like I told you do just to keep a pulse on things that are going on. And I seen it was his name and I screenshotted it, sent it to him. He's in our He's in our PCM group. And I was like and that's all I said. I screenshotted it, sent it to him. He says, "Yeah, I just want to I just want to just see how you guys, you know, sell and blah blah blah."
He says, "Like you knew you weren't kidding. Damn, she was And you were also weren't joking about your pricing." She wouldn't budge for him. And that's okay. You know what I mean? That is okay if you don't if you lose one or two customers cuz Joe Schmo down the street isn't licensed and charging $23 a month. Like I can't compete with that guy. Sorry, I got a business to run here. Like you said, you haven't paid yourself yet. Well, how do we fix these things? We raise our prices by double, sell half, still have more profit to pay yourself.
Like I've been here so many times. I've been I've you know, started multiple businesses or multiple locations. I've talked to hundreds of business owners and it's the same thing all the time. But it's literally just a mindset thing for you. It's a paradigm shift in your own brain that you have to make. Like damn, I am good. I should charge more than everybody else. Not cut slash prices to try to be the bottom of the barrel so I get more jobs. You're looking at it wrong. That's like Walmart. We're in We're in a service business and it's really really hard unless you have a hundreds of thousands of accounts to pull that off. And you just don't. So I'd rather be in the up top side of that of that profit margin, right? So I'm making really good money every time I go there. Even if it's a Like it's to say easy numbers for your numbers. If you're doing a $500 $500 ACV, your one-time minimum should be 250.
I know you don't like to do one-times. You don't start off with one-times, but I'm just saying that, you know what I mean? But, it's just a paradigm shift that you have to make in your brain saying, "Hey, I am really good. I need to charge more than these guys." These guys don't Like you said, maybe they're not licensed. Maybe some of them are. Maybe some of them don't have 14 years experience. Some people aren't trying to grow their companies. They don't want to hire a technicians. They don't have to pay for their insurance, where you do. You want to have a really good company, and the only way to grow a really big company is to have profit margin at the at the end, you know what I mean?
So, if you're doing a $129 service, which is still not bad. It's not, trust me. It's not bad. I'm just saying you have a little bit room to go. I wouldn't like to see it below 600 at But, let's say $129 service and I 10% profit margins, you know what I mean? It's $12.90. So, maybe you're doing 20%, it's $24. So, every time you go service a house, it's going to be 24 bucks that you put in your bank account. And it's more than that cuz you're doing it yourself, but I'm just saying. But, as you start to scale up, you got to start thinking about these, right? The faster you start change your prices, faster you start changing your model just a little bit. Maybe it's the re-services. People are calling you back for you upgrading their program to a bi-monthly, increasing the price just a little bit or keeping the price the same. Like you said, the $129.
Like, "Hey, does my price change?" No, it doesn't change at all, but I'm just still I'm just going to upgrade your service to do it bi-monthly. In the winter, if you want to go back to quarterly, fine. Do one quarterly visit, go back in the in the summer, you're treating it five times in the summer, one time in the winter. Whatever, you know what I mean? So, that $129 per service still stays the same, but you're just going out there an extra two times a month so you don't have to go pay for the re-services yourself, you know what I mean?
Yeah. No, that makes sense.
You have a strategic partnership, which is really cool. I like that. It's your first one. You said you were sending about 50 texts a day, roughly, with the carpet cleaning guy. How's that coming together so far? Talk me through...
I mean good. I've gotten I'd say over the past 4 months I've gotten seven sales, six or seven sales off of it.
Heck yeah.
But yeah, yeah, it's once again just, you know, like we talked about it's all automated through NextGen of Leads. So I'm not having to do anything. So even if I only get one sale a month, hey, awesome, you know?
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's great. Good job. Is there anything holding you back from getting a couple more or did you know that guy personally? How did that work out?
No, I just reached out to him and me and him became friends and next thing I know yeah, he's just like hey, I'll hand you all my customers.
Good for you.
Now the issue with him they're early on in the beginning was he was one of those guys that didn't have a CRM. So everything was still...
Of course, yeah.
Paper and pen, but then he hired somebody to start using like Excel and uploading everybody into Excel. So there was a little bit of a challenge there to begin with, but things seem to be rolling right now and I have definitely obviously want to do more strategic partnerships, but once again it's going back to me not having enough...
But now that I do or I'm going to I plan on pursuing that more.
Cool. I like that. Good job getting your first one. That's really cool. And where did you find him at? Just ran into him? Did you go Are you in any any networking groups or something like that?
Oh yeah. Yeah, it was a networking group I went to and he just happened to be there and yeah. We just got talking.
Awesome. Yeah, I don't see, you know, if you go to more networking groups, network with a few more people and you could have one from every service level, you know what I mean? From clean carpet cleaning to home cleaning to lawn care, whatever, right? That way you get seven deals a month from each of them. And of course you want to give value back to those guys, too, right? You try to get get them as much job which you know all the time like if we're doing a pest control job someone always has issues that the customer is telling you about, right? And give them a referral which is really cool.
I looked at your Google My Business. That looks really good. You have 72 five-star reviews already in a few months. Like that's great. Good job. Keep pushing those in every job you go to. I know when I first looked it up I told you I was like Wait, why is there two of them right here? I was like are there two different...
But it sounds like you already reached out to Google and trying to merge the two. That I am.
Is it Is it the same Is it the same address that you use as well?
No, which is the funny thing. So when I went in there before I reached out to Google earlier this week that the address for that one which I have no idea where it came from is a city like 40 miles south of me. I don't know I don't know what in the world I messed up when I first started setting all this up but yeah, it's not even the same address.
Funny thing The funny part The funny thing The funny part though is it's...
I don't know I mean so I don't necessarily think that I would shut it off if I were you. Now if it was the same address as the yeah, absolutely combine them.
Well, the problem is from what Once again, what I've been told and I understand this goes back to also something that you said in the past where if you're going to pay somebody to do your marketing and stuff like that, you also need to you need to be in the know what's going And so like the company that I'm paying now for my marketing I've been speaking with him especially a lot over this past week or so and he said well, it appears that when people are going on searching for pest control near me, it's actually Google's pulling from your other profile and not your real profile. So he is the one that highly suggested hey, you need to contact Google and you need to just either...
Is it Is that because you don't service that area currently?
Yeah, that's right.
How far is it away?
It's about 40 45 miles south.
Got you. I just like I think like strategically in the future you're going to want that. You know what I mean? But if you're getting a lot of calls coming through there right now that you don't service, I get it. You know what I But I know it's a lot more work, but like to me it's like could you work with a strategic partnership with a pest control company over there? Just thinking out loud, you know what I mean? Maybe that wouldn't work. The I want to go back to the impressions and website stuff with Facebook. I'd like to look at your landing page like if all those How many people that you say that converted that went to your landing page and clicked the link through there?
172 landing page views.
And not one converted, hey? I have a feeling that again, I have a complete I have a feeling that you converted leads for sure that you just don't see them yet. And maybe they have going to some email that you don't have access to or that I haven't connected, but just make sure Monday morning you just go call them first thing. See what see if you got any leads and if you didn't, why, right? If you had 170 people that went to your landing page, not one person filled the lead form, then I'd like to look at the what that landing page looks like, right? And then from there I'd just tell them maybe to test form fill, right? And then obviously get your GoHighLevel put back together and like connect to the API keys, too.
To your Facebook. Absolutely all day long. Like 100% is the one of the first things you do cuz you're just blowing money for no reason right now. You just don't have the money to go do it. None of us do. Even the size company we are, we don't have enough money to go spend on branding dollars. It has to have an ROI.
So the goal is 2 million in 5 years from 115k this year. Does that This is a serious question. I just want to see where you're at. Does that Does that seem like a stretch to you? Or you Do you think that's...
Oh, it I at this very at this very moment, yeah, that seems like a like a big stretch, but...
That's how you should look at things. I'd rather come up with a short of a moon shot, you know what I mean? But I have enough confidence in myself that that once again, once I can be out of the truck and do what I do best, I have the confidence that if I continue to push as hard as I need to push, I can definitely reach that goal.
Awesome. I love it. I know you can, too. How did you find How did you find me? How did you find PCM?
Oh, man. I can't even I can't even tell you how many years it's been, but I just once again, once I really got involved in the pest control industry and going to a lot of different events. So, that was one thing about the previous company I worked for, especially as the operations manager, is I would get sent or in want to go to a lot of different pest control expos, events, stuff like that. And anyways, I just I One I can't even remember how I came out. I just came across one of your videos on YouTube. And just started watching you and just learning more about you and your business and what you have to offer. And then, of course, when you came out with the Pest Control Millionaires program, I joined it, and that's where I've learned a lot about Facebook and the strategic partnership, stuff like that.
So, my last question for you for the day. We're We're already over an hour, which is awesome. Over after, you know, kind of covered a lot of stuff today, but what is the first thing you're going to do that you'll do this week to fix? And then, I have a I have an exact list in order that I already have prepared for you, but off top of the dome, what do you think that you're going to work on?
Oh, well, you've already said it. Of course, tomorrow morning, first thing I'm going to be contacting the marketing agency that's doing my meta ads. Get a GoHighLevel connected to that. Figure out what that landing page looks like and try to figure out why, like you said, 172 people and not supposedly not one something yeah, just doesn't seem right So, definitely need to get that fixed. I need to I need to start giving my technician a little more and really letting him start to try to run stuff on his own. See how he does with that. Once again, I'm not going to be out of the truck completely that by the end of this week, but then how things go, who knows?
Say that either.
I know. I know. I know. I'm just you know, maybe by the middle of next week really start letting him fly solo on a couple of jobs and then just go from there. I mean, just see what happens as far as the...
Yeah, I like it. Because like I said, if you know, again, telling you what I said before, I'd probably shut off Facebook ads and turn on LSA ads. Now you have a little bit more free time to answer the phone, text out there doing the work. Even if he Even if you are still in the field, you can answer the phone, but he can still keep That's a That's almost immediate shift, too. Yeah, confirm meta ads are running. Make sure they're connected to like NextGen Leads. Again, I'd probably shut them off, but since you're not, like just make sure that that they're done that way you have can follow up immediately, right? And then make sure you just enter in every single lead inside GorillaDesk. That you just keep that data. You're already paying for it anyway. You can keep following up with them. You know what I would look at upgrading the service subscription to call recordings. So you can get that data so you don't have to ask say, "Hey, text me." So you don't lose those customers, close them over the phone. Cool. Then just close them over the phone, go back, next stop, listen to the call call, put all the into GorillaDesk.
And then just kind of I know you kind of already said it, but just pick a firm date with your technician when you're going to step back and let him go do his Say this is the date you're going to go out in the field on your own, XYZ, start testing them, you know. Obviously, still do start keep doing ghost inspections, following up. Keep continuing doing that, like check on a few jobs a day so he knows that you're constantly And talk to the customer, see how he did. Say you, "Hey, I'm the you know, I'm the owner." Which most people you probably already know by now. But they see your technician, "Hey, I'm just stopping by. Did he talk to you? Did he do a good job?" You know, and people will love that.
You're even if you're a bigger company and your general manager stops by and just checking in, make sure the technician did a good job. They absolutely love that cuz they feel like they're not just a number, like you actually care, right? And so just continue to ghost inspections and constantly checking in. And again, it'll make him know that you're you're highly aware that you're still around watching. So he's going to do a good job. If he doesn't, you're going to catch it fast and the customer is going to love it, too.
And then just start tracking like your close rate by channel, right? If it was me, I'd just stick to one channel currently, right? Obviously, I wouldn't stop doing the Facebook. I'll get to that in a little bit. But just start tracking by my close rate by source. So when you go into your GorillaDesk, make sure you put tags, which I'm sure you are, where they came from so you know where to start spending your money. And then I already talked about Facebook. That's going really good. But could you expand that groups? Or is that is that the most max groups in your area?
Yeah, I could definitely spend a little bit of time and try to find some more local groups. The issue is and I know a lot of people run into this when they're trying to post in local Facebook groups is a lot of these groups, even the like the really good groups in my area, like they specifically have something on there, like on the rules, that says, you know, no business posting, none of that, no and so that makes it kind of hard.
Yeah, but I would what I would what I would do there is just I would just reach out to the admin, say, "Hey, you know, this is what I do. Would you like to you take care of your pest control for you? If he says no, then just go in there and ask questions. Hey, has anyone seen a bug like this?
And post the bug that you're dealing with right now. Cuz if you're dealing with it, so is everybody else.
And then you'll get a bunch of comments. Well, guess what? Now you have a bunch of comments that people have those problems and you deal with them. But I would still start off with, you know, talking to the admin, you know, get his approval. And I wouldn't I wouldn't ever post my business in there ever anyway. I just post myself, my what I'm doing, you know, the issues that I'm dealing with, giving lots of value. That's all you want to do. Don't be a business there pitching out every day, cuz that's you again. Once you get out of the truck, I would turn, you know, turn LSA back on. When you can, that's what I would recommend, but you already told you that. And then talking about, you know, quarterly touch, you know, quarterly you know, if you start seeing those callbacks, you know, with the, you know, maybe go through and track that data. You know, your callback from quarterly's versus bi-monthly's. You talk to him, the next person calls in that's on a quarterly, upgrade their service, same price, into a bi-mo. And then, next would just be raising prices going Things that I wouldn't Do you say that you Is all your selling done over the phone or is more on site?
Here, it's mainly been over the phone. I have a couple, like tomorrow I'm actually going and doing a couple in person tomorrow, but the majority is over the phone.
Awesome. Cool. No, I was curious, I love that. And then, you know, the next gen carpet cleaning, that's going really good. I'd probably get a couple more of And then, that's pretty much all I have for you. You know, there's a lot more we can go through, but those are just a few things you can fix today, tomorrow, that are easy. Don't really cost any money other than LSA, but you can save money on Facebook. And most of the things we're talking about today don't really cost any money, but it'll fix a lot of just the foundation of the company moving forward. If we want to get you from, you know, 150k a month to 2 million in the next 2 years, we just got to fix the foundation right now cuz you can go sell a $1,000 contract, right? And so if you're only selling $500 ACV versus $1,000 ACV, it's going to take you twice as many customers to get that 2 million. So I would just I would start thinking about raising prices. We can talk about that off, you know, we can do some more data research, call around. And that's what I would do, just call your competition. The Not the little guys, call like the more reputable companies to see what they're You should always be doing that.
But that's thought I'd share for you. But again, thanks for being here. Do you have any questions for me before we jump off?
No, not really. I mean, I've got a good list of once again, not to go over everything that I that you said. I got a good list of things that I can really start working on to really start being able to build up to what I'm trying to accomplish. So, no. I can send you this list if you didn't write it down. I can send you the top things to do. Just shoot it over to you. And if you have any questions outside of this, don't ever you know, don't be afraid to hit me up.
Yeah. All right. Sounds good.
All right, brother. It was good chatting with you as always.
You're a stud. Keep it up. You're only 9 months in, right? We all want it to go faster. We're on our sixth year and it's still not fast...
It's just it's there's never it's never enough. But you're doing a great job, so keep up the good work.
Well, I appreciate it.
Yeah. All right, talk to you soon.
All right. Thank you.
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. Give us a five-star review on 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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