Sales in the Pest Control Industry | A Pest Control Podcast

In today's episode, Anthony talks about his experience in sales and a few tips on what to do to generate sales consistently. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the show. Welcome to the pest files. As always, I'm your host Anthony. I am a business owner and operator of a pest control company out of the state of California. Today's episode, very simple. Sales. Or maybe not so simple. Are you good at sales? Do you close every lead or estimate you go to? Do you generate brand new revenue? Creative sales from zero? Door to door? Cold calling? There's a lot to it. Right? And it's the breathing component of any pest control company. Are you selling? Not clients don't stay with the company forever. They might stay for a year, maybe two, maybe three. Then you get the rare bunch that stay for 10 plus years. But for the most part, those clients are going to eventually leave. And it's up to you to continue to build that safety net of sales, new clients, new revenue. Keep the route building. Continue to grow your company. So do you need advice? Maybe you do. Are you the best salesman at your company? I'm proud of you. But today's episode is my point of view on sales. Maybe it's going to be useless to you. Maybe it's going to be everything. Who knows? I have experience in all forms of sales. I've done leads, I've done cold calling, door-to-do, restaurant to restaurant, whatever you want to call it. In fact, a little backstory for me is that I've grown my business from zero to where it is today. I'm not a millionaire, but I pay all my bills. And that's what I like. And I do plan on growing it more. In fact, I got three sales just between today and yesterday. Nothing to brag about. But keep in mind I'm not only the operator, I'm not only the office personnel, I am also the route runner and the salesman. So I'm everything. So it does start to add up. But I think in April, it was definitely a slow month, but I generated about I believe seven or eight sales. March I had about five. And this month I are I am already at I think six. And the month has literally just started. At the time recording this, it's May 4th. And I have six sales lined up already. Already. And it's been four days. Now, two of these were creative, which I call from zero, and four are literally from other clients, client referrals. So I know a thing or two about sales. Let's jump into it. Now, first of all, what position are you? Are you a salesman? Are you a route technician that is sustaining a route, running a route, and you're in charge of growing it? Are you just someone who gets leads? Perhaps you're a technician, but you get fed the leads and the estimates. Are you someone who does rodent estimates? Are you an office personnel who gets calls and people asking questions? How do you close these sales? Well, in pest control, it's very easy. I've done sales for a numerous amount of companies. I even done the worst sales gigs you could ever think of. I've done sales gigs with 100% commission, and you don't make a dollar outside of that. I don't think that was legal, but I was a 19-year-old kid, or no, I was actually 18, fresh out of high school. I was an 18-year-old kid being taken advantage of, doing 100% commission sales. So I know a thing or two about sales. In my pest control career, regardless of which company I was at and position, I've always done excellent in sales. I've never been the best, but I've always been up there. I've never had a hundred percent closure rate, but I probably have topped around 90%, if not better. And that's hundreds of leads over the eight years I've been doing pest control. Probably a lot more. Now my business, I've yet to pay for a lead, I've yet to pay for advertising, and I've grown it completely off of a simple methodology. And that is you have to go out and generate your paycheck. You have to go out and feed your family. If you don't, then what you're doing is a waste of time. So, for example, owning my own business means that I'm the salesman, I am the operator, I am the route technician, I am the office personnel, I am the accountant. And when the customer's upset and they say I want to speak to the manager, that's me. But with that mindset, I've been able to accomplish my dream, which is build my own company, run my own company, and live off my own company, which that's what I do. And it's amazing. I love it. So now imagine if you take my mindset or similar and you translate that to your route, or you translate that to your sales position at your company. Or heck, maybe even you start your own business and you follow a similar path, or maybe you're forming a partnership with a few other people and you want to be the main salesman. Well, where do you start? Any good salesman knows that your first impression and your presentation is key, along with is the client even shopping? Those are key, okay? So does your client have a problem? Now, if it's a lead or an estimate, the answer is yes. But if you're doing a cold call, door to door, or anything of that nature, the answer is probably no. It might be yes, but that's why you're stopping by. You're trying to generate those accounts. So where do you start? As I said, presentation is key. That's for both your work vehicle, your uniform, and your person. What does that mean? Well, let's put put yourself into a client's shoes. Let's say you're shopping, and a salesman pulls up to your home, and they open their door, and monster cans and fast food bags fall all over the street, and the salesman jumps out with an untucked shirt, a huge stain on their chest, their hair is half combed, and it looks like they have not had their coffee yet. Well, you might say you'll still feel confident in their sales, or if you're like me, I'll say, Well, I don't know about this company. But for the most part, that will leave an impression. You're already starting off on a bad footing with this person, right? So why would you do that to a potential sale, a client, a potential client, right? So I'm not saying go get a haircut, go get makeup done, I'm not saying anything like that. But look presentable in both your vehicle, inside and outside of your vehicle, your uniform, and yourself, right? There's times where I let myself go and I let my hair grow out too long and my beard grow out too long, and I'm like, okay, before I even start to do sales, I need to get a haircut. So make sure you look the part. Because for some clients, I agree, it will not matter, not one bit. They probably wouldn't care if you pulled up in a tank top. If they're having an issue, a severe issue, they're going to use your service. Okay. But that's not what sales is. It's not about the what-ifs. Sales is about numbers, it's about chronic, not acute, right? We know a thing or two about chronic in our industry. We hear about it. The chronic effects of a pesticide, which is what? Long term. Okay. Sales is all about the long term, the long game. Okay. Sure, a sale is okay, I got it, I need to close it right now, today. But it doesn't end there. Sales continue. How many times do you do an estimate and the client refuses to say yes to you that day? It happens a lot. Right? Especially if you're co-calling or doing door-to-do. But if you leave a good enough impression, the client will call you. In fact, last month, I believe it was last month, if not the month before, I had a client call me and inquire about pest control services from a sales flyer I left a year ago. A year ago. And then I remember, I'm like, oh yeah, I remember talking to you a while ago. And they finally called me. And I tried my hardest. I just dropped into this place, gave them my sales flyer, introduced myself, gave them a pricing, told them, you know, what I offer, what services they can expect. And they said, okay, thank you. We might call you. And I said, okay, you know, I forget. Like I said, numbers. On to the next one, right? Well, they end up calling me. And that impression, along with the pricing, and along with the company values and what we provide, secured the sale a whole year later. And that is a creative sale. That's a sale from nothing, right? So that is the biggest thing. Don't think short term. I understand everyone wants to close now. You want to close and get the contract signed and get the service done today. Everything. I don't blame you. Because until you go and do that service, and then that client writes a check or that card gets ran and that service is paid for, and their signature is on a contract, then it doesn't count, which is true because you don't get paid sales commissions for what ifs or almost atoms, right? You don't, your boss is not going to say, Well, you almost closed that sale here. Let me give you 5% of what they might have paid for the year. So that is not what your company is going to do. They want numbers, they want sales that are going to give you quotas. Now, if you're a salesman or a route technician, regardless of who you are, you're going to have to do sales. Very few companies will hire a route runner, a technician, to operate a route and not expect them to do any sales at all. That is very rare. Now, the most comfy position, in my opinion, would be you get a route and you get fed leads. Great. But guess what? A lot of companies have salesmen. Who gets the leads? It's their salesmen, right? So how do you generate new sales? How do you start from nothing? Now, whether you're trying to start your own business, you're in a partnership, you're a manager of a current company, an owner of a current company, or a route runner, office personnel. How do you start new sales? It's something I had to do. In fact, like I said, 95% of my business comes from creative sales, generation of zero from nothing to something. Well, the key thing, like I said, is presentation and then it's numbers. I get said no, or I don't get an answer to more than I can count a day. I don't go out and get a sale every day. I try, right? But I'm also very busy. I still have to run the route that I've sold. It's funny, just on the side note, you know, like when I first started my business, I just had all day, five days a week to sell. And that's what I would do. I would just go out there for, you know, three hours here, take a break, four hours there, sell, sell, sell, you know, door to door, going to restaurant to restaurant, commercial building to commercial building, looking up property managers, everything like that. And then I started selling quickly, very quickly. And now I've grown myself a pretty awesome route. And and now I'm like, well, what now I'm running out of time to sell. So I have to really start consolidating my route to build time to sell. Now there's tricks to that too, like cloverleafing, where if you have, let's say, residential door tags and you're at a stop, you can go and hit the neighbors, and then the three people across the street. They call it cloverleafing, right? Now, I I have mixed reviews on leaving door tags. I've been more and more I've been getting calls. Now, when I say more and more, this is only happening to me twice in my current company, but overall, probably like 10 times in all of my companies I've worked for. But sometimes you'll just get a call call from an angry client. Well, they're not even a client, just someone angry and upset, a homeowner, and they're just like, hey, you're leaving this tag, it's letting every robber in the area know I'm not home. And so I understand that. Um so not because of that do I shy away from door tags and clover leafing, but just be careful, right? Um, maybe if you could sneak it in a certain area, do so. That's still visible to the homeowner. But yeah, I understand the gripe of those people because yeah, they they're right. Um, if you go and tag a whole neighborhood, then essentially you're saying they're here or they're not here. Right? So starting sales from nothing. Well, very simple. What's the easiest thing you could think of? Well, when you're doing your route, let's say you're a route runner, or let's say you're a salesman. People walking on the street. Hand them a business card, give them a flyer, right? Let them know, hey, I treat, you know, I treat in this area. I'm here all the time. Every day, I'm out in this area. Nice to meet you. My name's, you know, Anthony. Here's my sales flyer. I take care of your neighbor here, and if you ever need pest control services, let me know. Right? Or you can even say, if you really want to try to close it, engage in conversation. You can instead of saying and de escaling the conversation and saying, let me know or give me a call, or you can say, are you having any issues at your home? You sing any cockroaches, wasps, ants. Those are little words to keep the conversation going and to see if the client is available. Maybe you can give them a free estimate. Let them know the perks of your business. Does your business offer free estimates? Is your business doing a special? Were they giving half off their initial? What is your company doing? Maybe be creative. I'm not saying be dishonest, but one thing we used to do with uh when I did sales, it was the job with the 100% commission is that us uh salesmen, we'd get together and we'd all pretend we were each other's managers. And so when someone would walk away, or if they're out doing sales, you'd whisper to the client. And if this is if the client was iffy, you're not really closing them. And so you'd lean in, you say, Hey, you know, that's my manager over there. Um, he's helping someone else. If you don't tell them, I'll tell you what, we can do this deal. I really need this sale. I'm gonna give you 50% off. But the sales pitch is built in, so you're not losing money. The client thinks they're getting one off. They're like, okay, yeah. We call that the impulse sale. Um and just the terminology and the psychology behind sales is just so funny. There's a lot to it, too. So I'm not going to give you a class or a lecture on the psychology of a human, but one thing I do know is that Mondays and Tuesdays are the best days to sell. That's from my experience. I'm not saying don't sell on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. I'm just being honest. When it comes to cold calling, cold dropping, door to door, my best experience has always been Mondays and Tuesdays. In fact, in my business, I have it logged that for a month straight, this is in the early days of my business, all of my sales for two months came on Mondays. Maybe it's me. Maybe I was on a better, maybe I don't know. I I it it's a very eerie pattern. Um, obviously, other sales down the road came from other days, right? But all of these where I just drop in or talk to a person walking or things like that, they've all been on Mondays. So I kind of, and I have people, uh, I know one of the co-hosts, Bryce, knows this because I told him about it a long time ago. But yeah, Mondays and Tuesdays seem to be the best days. That's just from my experience. Maybe because people are in the mindset of getting a good week going, starting fresh. The week hasn't caught up to them yet. They're easing back into the work week. Not too sure what it is, but there's something there. And I'm sure that there's some genius individual out there that is selling seminars and you're paying $10,000 for that says do your sales on Monday. The reason why is this. So I'm sure there's something to it. Um, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you because I don't know, but it's all about the generation of zero to something, right? That's the hardest part about sales. Anyone can sell a lead or an estimate, but the hardest part is from zero, right? So just practice, have conversations. Now, if you're route runner or manager, next time you're on the field, you see someone walking their dog, or you see a family walking, say hi, give a business card, maybe clover leaf. And if you see the neighbor out, just talk to them. Now, if you want to go the next step, door to door. I know that a lot of people hate door to door, and it's getting, especially out here in California, it's becoming harder and harder to do door to door. Um, so but hey, if you've been doing the area for years and you know it and you're comfortable, maybe you've talked to the neighbor. The neighbor sees you a lot, right? After the eighth time you've done a home for the past year and a half, you're gonna see people on a regular basis. They're going to recognize you, they're going to recognize your work vehicle. So don't be shy, right? Drop into restaurants. That's key. The restaurant game is very competitive. It's not the most lucrative because um, and I can't really give a company name. I know a lot of people know about them, but they do they bundle their pest control with soaps and towels and things like that. Um, cleaning products, everything like that. Very big company, very prominent. I respect their game. They're an awesome company. So certain restaurants, they bundle it in. It's tough to break into that, such as franchises or um, you know, bigger restaurant chains, they are hard to get. So maybe mom and pop shops. Maybe there's a grocery store that's in the area, a little market. Maybe there is a dance studio or a smoke shop. Maybe it's your favorite pizza spot, right? Or maybe it just it could be anywhere. Anyone could be dealing with issues, and the worst thing that's gonna happen is that someone's gonna tell you no. That's all. Just someone's gonna say no. Or they might say yeah, and now you have more money, right? And now you're gonna help take care of someone's issue. So conversate, talk to people. That is what sales is all about. Make sure you're presentable and make sure you figure out if they have a problem or not. In our industry, it becomes very easy to sell when they have a problem, right? Ask them right off the bat. Now, another huge one that is very lucrative, although Lot of hard work is apartments. How many of you go to apartments and you talk to the manager? Maybe you have a little apartment flyer and you say, Hey, what kind what company do you have? Are they here weekly? Are they here bi-weekly? Are they here once a month? What how many units do you get each trip? Are they taking care of the webbing? Do they have enough base stations out? Right? Hey, it's competitive because you have to do it. You know why? There are so many salesmen that are going from apartment to apartment trying to take your sale or trying to take your client. So stay on top of it. I'm not saying go steal people, but go see. If there is a company that's not taking care of their clients, they don't deserve them. It's that simple. Sorry. That's the beauty of capitalism, right? That's the beauty of it. If you're not doing your job, I will. I get so many people reaching out to me. Like I said, I have sales lined up already. It's the fourth day, and I have six sales. And I'm doing an estimate Thursday. I'm doing two of the sales tomorrow. And then I'm doing another one next week, their initial service, right? And that's how confident I am that on Thursday it's just an estimate, but I already know it's a sale because it's a client referral. I'm not screwing that up, right? She told me, hey, I have this restaurant. Do you do this area? I'm just like, yeah. I mean, you'd have to tell me it's in a different state for me to say no. Although California is pretty big, so obviously I have a barrier. But it's just it's very simple. She just says, This is a friend of mine. She owns this business here. It's a restaurant. Uh, she would like an estimate. Okay, cool. I'll be there when you're ready. Tomorrow, I'll be there the next day. So that is from a client that I sold a year ago, and now she's referred me to another client. About 25% of my company's client referrals. That's huge. Because you start from these clients from nothing, and then they generate you income, they generate your route with production, and then they get you more people, right? In fact, two of my six sales is this is it two? Well, right off the top of my head, that's two of the six, they're referrals. One is a residential client who said, Hey, I have a family member in this area, can you take care of them? And one's another restaurant. So look at that. These are people I sold last year, and the production and the money is still coming in. So that's the importance of sales growing, and it all starts with conversation. Just have them. I'm not sitting here and saying I'm the greatest salesman of all time. I'm not. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, if I were to come to your company, I'd probably be middle of the pack. Because my sales is not the best. I just have conversations. Right now, I will beg to differ. If you give me leads, I'll close. I'm closing leads left and right. But we'll get we'll get to that here at the latter part of the episode. But I'm not the best salesman. I just have a lot of conversation. Remember, sales is the long game. Sales is chronic, right? The chronic game of the pest control industry. It's numbers. You're gonna get 20 no's before you get a yes. You're gonna get 40 no's before you get a yes. Sales is not getting 10 yeses in a row. Some people might. Very lucky. You'd have to be very lucky, along with, I'd say it's about 40% luck, 60% hard work. And I feel like that's for all sales. Lately, I feel like for me it's been 50-50. Um, because I went to I went through a slump in February. I feel like most companies go through a slump in January and February. You know, everyone spent so much money on Christmas and the holidays and the new year. So I feel like across the globe, sales period, unless it's e-commerce or um shopping, is down. And I got hard on myself. And I'm like, man, this isn't looking good. I have no sales February, or I had like one or two, but to me, that's like none, you write. It's just like, man, I gotta, you know, pick it up, pick it up. Uh, I need to keep growing because you know, I lost three clients in the last two weeks. One was they sold their home, another one was they sold their restaurant, and another, the third loss. What was it? They just said no, I don't need it right now, but I'll call you if I need it. So to me, I'm like, man, so if I lose three, I need to get four to in my mind break even because I don't want to ever go on a downfall. I don't want my company to ever spiral down to start losing more than it's gaining. So I need to stay on top of it. And luckily, I did great in March. I did great in April. Um, although last April I did better. But given I had a lot more time to sell in last April than I did in April, and I only missed it by probably three sales. And now in May, let's see. I don't want to get too much into the numbers because it is personal. Let me just see how I'm doing so far. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, we we did great last. Well, I did a lot better in in March than I thought. So here's my sales, let's see. Two, four, six, eight, ten. I had ten sales in March. Two, four, six, seven sales in April. And I have, let's see, six sales lined up for May. And these are confirmed, one's an estimate, but these are like confirmed initial services scheduled, and these all happen between Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today. Two of them came today, literally just uh getting texted for the client one last night, like 10:30 p.m. So that's amazing, right? Now I know to a lot of you the 10 sales in March and seven sales in April is tiny, which it is. I'm I'm not when I worked for a company and I was doing the route and doing leads. I mean, I got some, I probably get 20 to 30 sales a month. Um, but some months you get zero. But that's from a small, this is you know, very small company. Now about 80% of these are monthlies that I sell. Uh right now I'm in my monthly craze. My methodology, and I'll do an episode eventually about building a pest control business. Uh, I know a thing or two about it, obviously. Um not to try and toot my own horn. Uh it's not as lucrative, though. So if you're trying to do it to get rich, don't do it. You will not get rich off it. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of stress, but very rewarding in certain ways. But sorry. Anyways, I went off on a tangent. Just give you guys some numbers there. So that is the key, right? Something from nothing. Just have conversations. It's all about the numbers. Go out there, talk to people, talk to apartment managers, restaurant owners. You know, a company I worked at before, there we had like 10, it was a restaurant chain, a pizza spot. They had 10 restaurants, a simple conversation to their manager, and they say, Oh, we actually have 80 locations up and down California. And you say, Okay, let's figure something out, right? And from like one salesman talking to one having one conversation with someone goes from a few restaurants to 80. You never know, right? I had another, you know, restaurant owner that says, Hey, a body restaurant. Great. And another one of my sales, and I, oh my goodness, I feel so bad because I was supposed to talk to them on Friday. I never physically talked to the owner, but the old owner of the restaurant said, Oh, he'll be here Friday. I was supposed to be there. And then the new owner calls me and says, Hey, uh, I need pest control. I'm like, Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm supposed to talk to you. And now I'm doing their pest control from the owner. So even if a restaurant owner sells, try your best to say, here's my business card, please give it to the new owner. And ask the old owner when will they be here? I want to be the first person to talk to them. But okay, so it's pretty simple, self-explanatory. Be presentable in both your person, your uniform, your vehicle, right? And have conversations. It's that simple. Now, this is the cold calling aspect, this is the door-to-door aspect, this is the restaurant to restaurant, apartment to apartment, however you want to call it. This is the from nothing to something aspect. It's not easy, it's terrible. I don't like it at all, but I'm pretty decent at it. And it it's the long game. That's how you play the long game. Now, mix this in. Now, hopefully you do, but if you continue to do that, and then you get leads, nothing will stop you. Leads are easy to close and pass control. And that's why I didn't talk about a lot because it's very self-explanatory, it's very black and white. The customer is going to say yes, or they're going to say no, and 80 to 99% of the time they will say yes. Be presentable, understand their issue, interview your client, just like IPM, right? Inspect the situation, then offer a solution to the issue, and then give the pricing. And offer obviously offer to do the service right then and there. Close it out, right? So leads are simple. They are not rocket science. They do get a little bit more complicated if you're doing rodent exclusion or rodent inspections because you need to do a grid sheet or you need to do, you know, a more thorough check in the attic or the sub-area. I understand that. But leads and estimates are very simple, especially if you're paying for leads or if your company is generating you estimates. You show up, have a good attitude, be honest, don't be sleazy. I don't know I have to say that, but sometimes people you'll be surprised what some of these uh people I talk to. What some of these salesmen out here are saying it's just insane. But conversate, talk more, ask your manager if you need help. Build if you're a manager, build a training program where you just practice. Nothing breaks the ice more than having a meeting. Your weekly meeting, do practice sales pitches, follow a loose script, give a little sales prep sheet, right? What breaks the ice more than doing an embarrassing sales pitch in front of all of your coworkers to your manager, right? It's going to help you out there on the field. It's the little things that will help you. So that's what I have to say about sales. Very simple, right? It's numbers. You're going to get a lot of no's. Then you'll get yeses. And then yeses will come when you didn't think they would come. Maybe a year later, maybe months later, maybe a week later, maybe that day. But guess what? You will never get a met yes if you do not go out and talk to people. Go and talk. Conversate. Practice. Give your information. Give your company business card. Give a sales flyer. Clover leaf. Put door tag hangers on the neighbors' homes of where you're servicing. Or talk to the neighbor. You see someone walking down the street, or if you see the neighbor out doing yard work, be polite. Give them the card, respect their time, talk to them, ask if they're having any issues. I always would joke around because you know, clients would do it to me, but they would say, Oh no, now I'm gonna have to get pest control because you're gonna push all of Jack's you know bugs to me. So I always just build into that joke. I buy into it. I'm like, well, you better call me now. Uh we'll get you we'll get you going. So conversate. Go and talk to people. Don't be afraid of no's. Pest control sales is very simple. Just continue to talk. And when people have issues, let them speak. Oh, I am dealing with a lot of black widows. Oh, where? Let them talk. Then when they tell you, say this is what we do for black widows. I actually guarantee no black widows, which I do in my personal business. I'll guarantee no black widows because I take them serious. But hey, thank you for listening. If you made it this far, there is a link now down below. If you click it, you can send a text or a voice voice message to me if you want to give feedback or if you want me to address anything in the podcast or even come and do an interview. Go ahead and reach out down there. But hey, thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.