Starting Your Pest Control Company File #1 | Starting From Zero | A Pest Control Podcast

In this episode Anthony breaks down your beginning steps to starting a pest control business. He grasps from personal experience along with well known strategies. 

Transcript

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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. Before we jump into today's episode, there is a link wherever you're listening to your podcast in the description. There's a link. If you click on that, you can send me a message or a voice memo or voice message, and I'll hear from you. Give me some feedback. Maybe you want to address something on the podcast or even come on here and interview. We can take phone calls, everything like that. So please reach out. I want to talk to other people in the pest control industry and hear back from you. And if you want to say I'm an idiot or anything like that, please do. I welcome all criticism. Today's series is um installment one of starting a pest control company or business, whatever you want to call it. Starting from zero, starting from nothing. Um, a lot of you probably will not do that. I don't recommend it at all. You'll probably be in a pest control company, uh, work for a while, maybe put in a good five, ten years before you start your business. But today's episode is about starting from zero in two ways. Whether you are completely new to the industry, have not worked a second of pest control, and you think maybe I want to own a company, or maybe you are a technician or a manager, and you want to go ahead and go through the process of starting your own business. I mean, a lot of people have that idea, right? You look at um how the company's ran, how much money it brings in, what they do, and then in your head you say, I can do that. Well, the answer is you can, but it's not easy. So, a little backstory about me. I own my own company. I am a business owner and an operator in you know on paper. So I'm the qualifying manager for my company. Uh, we're in California and the business is going great. In fact, I am recording this at around 9 p.m. I've been working since 7 a.m. Did not get done until about an hour ago. So that's a lot of time. Almost a 12-hour shift, right? Or a little bit more, a 13-hour shift, right? I don't see a penny of overtime because uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm the owner. I'm supposed to work a 13-hour shift, right? But I am tired, and the first six hours of my shift today, while I'm zipping around, working for this property manager, working for that property manager, doing a callback here, doing an exclusion job there, I'm getting blown up by people. Two new sales today while I'm in between stops. I was literally doing uh mice traps in a garage while closing a sale, doing a German cockroach job where I'm gonna do two services the first month, then monthly after that for a home for a property manager. And it's just it was so busy and I was so drained, and I was just tired. I'm still I'm very tired right now. But those are the things that are perks and I guess you could say obstacles of owning a pest control business. But I welcome it. You know, I just put my business up on a few of the website platforms, don't want to name names. Um, but you could kind of get the gist of it. It's the lead generating platforms and coupon platforms, things like that. So my company's now on there, and I've been getting good traction. In fact, I got a lot more traction than I thought I would get very quickly. Uh getting called left and right. So I'm happy to get the new eyes, the new business, the new income, another stream of revenue. So, enough about me and my woe is me, but by the way, I'm not. I'm very happy, and I'll work another 13-hour shift tomorrow if I have to, because I love it. I own the business, this is me. I can't fire myself. So, you want to start a pest control business, right? How hard is it? Well, keep in mind, I know a lot of the legality behind a business in the state of California. So, in terms of starting one in other states, I do not know exactly every step, but I'm pretty sure it's similar. Okay, so let's jump into it. Now, let's say you, which is unlikely, this is why we're gonna start with this first, but let's say you're not in the pest control industry. You know about it, maybe you've seen a pest technician, or maybe you're a property manager, or maybe you're a business partner somewhere else, or maybe you just want to start something, you want to be an entrepreneur, and you say, Hey, maybe pest control. My first act of advice for you is no. Do not start it from zero. Don't take out a giant loan and get your licensing. First of all, you need to know an operator. Now, in the state of California, this is how it works. It might be similar in other places, but you can own a company, but your company needs to have a qualifying manager. A qualifying manager needs an operator license, which is uh the highest end license for a branch to structural pest control board license, an operator. And in California, you cannot get that license unless you have trained under a qualified manager slash operator for at least two years. So an operator has to sign off on you to get your license. So already you're two years in, okay? You already need to need two years. Now you can rent someone's operator's license, right? But I would not recommend that because what if you have a falling out with that person and you build your entire business off of renting someone else's license? Or perhaps you know someone that has an operator's license and you want to use their license. So if you're going to own a company, now if it's a partnership, that's a different story. Let's say you and a license operator want to get into it, the uh the pest control business, then that's a different story. But this is starting from scratch. This is lone wolf, right? Uh, that's who I am. I have business partners that help me out here and there. I subcontract them, but for the most part, I am a lone wolf and I want to keep it that way because I do not want to become a giant corporation. Although I know I can. If I put my heart and mind to it, I know I could grow a giant pest control company, trust me. But that's not who I am. That's not my philosophy, that's not my mindset, and that's not my motivation. Now, you want to start from zero, I don't recommend that, which is why I'm not going to jump into the steps of doing it. I recommend, let's say, if you have zero experience pest control, apply to a company, get your license, put in about two to three years into the pest control industry before you jump into it. I know that's a long time, but a pest control business, a pest control company is not a lavish lifestyle whatsoever. No matter if you're a medium-sized company, large company, or small, the answer is yes, you can make enough money, you can pay your bills, but it is hard work, dirty work, tough, and with gas prices today, and I'm recording this in May 2026, it it's tough. Uh man, I'm I am paying out the pocket at the gas pump right now, and it's tough. So it went from, yeah, of course I'll come to wherever you are to now. I really have to hone in my routing and hone in where I'm driving because of the gas prices. So do not start from zero with zero experience, okay? Work for pest control or form a partnership with someone that you're a close friend with who has an operator's license. Okay. So that's my advice for that. Now let's jump into the meat of the situation here, which is you work in pest control. Maybe you have an hour, um, an hour, maybe you have a year, maybe you have two, maybe five, maybe ten. Maybe you're a manager and you've been a manager for a few years now. How do you start your own company? Well, the unfortunate truth is a lot of people who start their companies build a ghost clientele, right? So a long time ago, when I first started, I heard a story about a technician from the company I worked for who took like 10 apartments, a bunch of residential homes, and even stole equipment from a work vehicle and started his own company. I don't condone that at all. I don't believe in stealing clients, things like that. I believe in competition, right? So I'll I'll be up front. Um, you know, I'll reach out to some people and they'll say, hey, I know uh these five clients that want to be with you. Great. Maybe they're from a company I used to work for and they knew me. I'm not going to go out and steal those clients myself, but I have done sales flyers at businesses I've sold before, you know, years ago. Guess what? That's capitalism, that's the open market, that's the pest control business. I don't have a do not compete signing with you. It is what it is. So I don't count that as stealing. Now, stealing is where you're going behind your company's back, you're talking to the managers, you're saying, hey, I'm starting my own business. This is what I'm going to do. I need you to get started. Let's get these eight properties. When I quit this job, we'll switch you on over after I get my licensing and everything like that. I do not condone that. I do not condone stealing equipment. I do not condone stealing clients. Sorry, I had to get some water. But it's getting a little warm out here in Sacramento. And uh yeah, I'm in the Sacramento Greater Area. Uh, that's where I operate my business in California. Anyways, back to it. So let's say you're starting from zero in a similar boat like me. Now, you need an operator's license in California, and in a state where you are, perhaps you need a license, a specific license, right? Maybe you don't. Uh all power to you if it's that easy. But you need to study your law book, you need to study how business works, just little things, right? Such as like taxes. What are your state taxes, right? What are the federal taxes? At least for pest control, we cannot be an LLC, right? We go through the Department of Consumer Affairs, right? So you have to form a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a company under the Department of Consumer Affairs to be licensed. And through that, we work with the DCA, right? For things such as licensing for pretty much everything that is like all the clerical work is under the DCA. Now, there's laws, regulations, agricultural laws, right? There's a lot to pest control. Do you know it all? Well, you should because you do not want to start a business and train all of your people wrong and break the law and get hit with a giant fine and at times prison time, right? Some of those laws, if broken, they involve a hefty fine and prison time. Okay. Now, I'm not too sure of any personal experiences where people have been arrested. I know chemical trespassing is a huge one, right? That is a lawsuit waiting to happen and is illegal. It's a fine waiting to happen. And chemical trespassing, for those of you that don't don't do not know, is that maybe you sprayed the wrong house. You swore it was the right house. Oh, well, uh I I sprayed this one, or maybe you're spraying the fence line and it goes right through into someone's garden, the neighbor, right? So you have to understand these things. It's the little things that will destroy you in the long run. Build a solid foundation, okay? So at the very beginning, before you even think about your company logo, before you even think about your company name, before you even think about how you're going to have your uniform and truck looking, study. Study the laws in your state. Okay. Build your company the right way. Understand the laws, understand the regulations, and build your company that way. Because that is going to be a solid foundation that if there's cracks in that foundation, everything will fall apart. So when you're starting from zero, just start studying. Look into it. Because in California, at least getting that operator's license, that test sucks. Okay. So I have to take a class, I had to pay all these hundreds of dollars to take these classes before I can even take the test. Then I take the test, and it's just a whole bunch of questions about identification, about employee safety, rules and regulations. Right? So there is a lot to it. And you want to make sure you understand that when you build your business, now, whether you're a sole proprietor or you're doing a partnership with you and a couple buddies, or you are starting a company because you want to start the next biggest company in your state and perhaps nationwide, have a solid foundation. The next thing is money. Okay, you're doing your studying, start saving money. Do you have a loan? Do you have 10,000 saved up? Do you have a hundred thousand or more saved up? Guess what? I started my business with zero dollars. It was just saving up money from where I was currently working. Each time I would get paid, I'd set some money on the side. And just to get my operator's license, I spent about, I don't know, like $800 on the classes I need to do, the licensing, and then uh sorry. So this is operator's license plus business license. Okay, apologies. So I got my operator's license and then I started a business under my operator's license, right? So all that together was about seven to eight hundred dollars right there. Keep in mind, I didn't have money in the bank. I'm living practically paycheck to paycheck, raising a family. I set money aside and started it. The next thing I did was buy a BNG, one gallon BNG hand can sprayer on a credit card. And then I bought a flowzone backpack sprayer, right? Haven't used them, but I was like, this is these are the two pieces of equipment I'll need the most. So I started stockpiling up my equipment, bought a web pole, the little cheap one from Ace Hardware, you know, the little cheap plastic one, got a web head, bought a gallon of biphon IT, you know, just kind of stockpiling these products to begin when I'm ready to jump into the business. Now I have a small little arsenal, right? Now it's easier if you have all that money saved up, right? I don't recommend getting a loan until perhaps your business is making upward of a hundred thousand a year because uh the pest control is so brutal. None of your clients are guaranteed, you know. Uh I my success rate on cancellations is actually huge. I think I have maybe two people with legit cancels, and the rest are like unavoidable, such as like selling your home or I'm moving out of state. You just can't avoid those, right? So have the money, start saving up, okay? Before you even get your operator's license, buy a BNG, the hand can sprayer, buy a Birchmeier backpack sprayer, a flowzone backpack sprayer. Um, I know I'm name-dropping those, but those are like the industry standards, right? I'm sure there's other backpack sprayers out there that are good and hand canned sprayers, but start stockpiling, okay? Start investing. I know it's just going to sit there and collect webs at first, but you want it. You want to have those things because it takes time to build that inventory. Now, if you have enough money to just get everything in one fell swoop, all power to you. In fact, I get so jealous of people when I see a brand new company on the freeway, a pest control company, and they have this nice truck, this nice wrap, they have the cool web pole, they got the backpack sprayer frame, they have this cool chemical box. And I get so jealous. I'm like, well, where did you get the money to get all this? Man, did you get a loan? Did you save up? I am so jealous because I am in a truck with everything's compliant, like safe. The pesticides are stored safely, it's a covered uh tailgate, everything like that. Um, but it took me so long to get to that point, and I'm just sitting here like, man, that's so cool that you have that. But are you in debt for that? Right? I'm in zero debt with my company. The only debt I have is like a personal credit card, so it doesn't count for the company. So I have a company that is in zero debt, and that's huge. I would recommend you do the same. Now, to fully get started, so let's just crunch some numbers here. To get your licensing and to get a floor first wave of equipment and products, I would say you're you'd spend anywhere probably about four to five thousand dollars up front. That's all you need to start a pest control company. I'll tell you right now, I am making a lot more than four to five thousand dollars a month already for my pest control company. Okay, I'm not making my goals yet. My goals are pretty up there. I want to eventually make twenty to twenty-five thousand a month as a not a lone wolf. What is the word for it? Sorry, it's it's escaping my mind, but I want to generate twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars revenue for me, right? Because I know that that is some good profit there. You start hitting the realm of really good profit, right? So sole proprietor. That's what it is. Yeah, sole proprietor. So now let's get into your budget, okay? So I'm saying about four to five thousand dollars, depending on what state you're in or what area, could be more, could be cheaper, but start saving up, okay. Maybe you work at a pest control company and this is something you're doing on the side, right? Or maybe you have worked at a pest control company and now you're doing something else and you still have your license and you're going through the process of getting your business registered, right? So build that foundation, start studying, and then start getting your products. I don't recommend a loan, but if that's how you want to do it, then go ahead. If you want to have the brand new truck with the brand new wrap and brand new equipment, all power to you. I'm not hating on you, I'm just speaking from my experience and what I did. I didn't have the wherewithal to get a loan, could not qualify for one. So I started from zero, literally zero. In fact, in another podcast, I think I even said I started my company with three clients. It was a client I've known since forever who said, I'll go with you to every company to company, and if you ever start your own business, you call me. Okay. And then my mom and my dad. My dad was paying 20 bucks a service, my mom was paying $40 a service. And even the the even the guy was paying me $50 quarterly. So I was I was not making any money. In fact, my main job had to supply all of my I guess you could say seed money or investment money, right? So it's tough, but I went from three clients to hundreds, and I'm working with property managements that just keep giving me accounts, and I'm working now, my business is on certain website platforms, and I'm getting I got two today, right off the bat, two sales, and it's just like these are sales I would have never gotten unless I was on those platforms, so it's awesome. But as this series grows and matures, and we we get more and more episodes, I'll start to explore those avenues more. But today we're focused focusing on starting from zero, building the foundation. Okay, so four to five thousand dollars. Do you have it? Is it in your savings? Can you get it soon? Start there, buy your equipment, just buy it. I know it'll collect dust, but the BNG is not going to expire. Your hand, you know, your hand sprayer that's stainless steel and copper, it's not expiring, right? Your backpack sprayer won't expire, right? There's no wear and tear on it. Your webpole's not going to expire, your webheads won't expire. What I did was I bought slowly but surely. Now I'm gonna give them a little shout-out because they're awesome. Um, do my own pest control.com. I I don't know the exact, but do my own.com or something like that. That's where I slowly started building my inventory. Right? I would buy, like I said, a gallon of biphonite, properly store it in a cabinet, lock it up, you know, put the little pesticide thing. I was taking every precaution to build my inventory. And sure enough, I'd work five days a week at my main job, main income. And then Saturdays, I would work Saturdays and Sundays, I would work for my pest control business. Okay. So that's what you will have to do. It's hard work, it's tough. But be ready for that. Now, like I said, if you take a loan out, and and the reason why I'm speaking more off starting from zero, kind of moonlighting, things like that, is because that's what I did, and I am successful from it. So that's where I speak from. But if you have the money to take a loan, have a year of salary up in advance for yourself, have enough to get your truck, all power to you. But that's not my experience. So I'm going to speak from my experience and how I was successful. Because I believe that pest control, and this is a controversial opinion, and I'll probably do an episode on this, but I believe pest control should be 90% partnerships and sole proprietors and 10% giant corporations. That's what I believe. Um, I there's a place for giant corporations, but for me, for the most part, pest control should be a more intimate, more personalized issue. Because a lot of times you have people breaking laws, breaking regulations because they're just rushing for a paycheck and they're not happy, right? As toward me, I take my time at a stop. I make sure I price for that so you can get that homegrown feeling, that family-owned feeling of, hey, I'm not here just to collect your money, I'm here to build a relationship with you, to ask you how you're doing, to make sure that all of your needs are satisfied, right? So start developing your inventory, start building your inventory, check on your state's protocol. You can literally type it in with AI nowadays, you can they'll they'll probably print out a full sheet for you. Just give them your state and say, I want to start a pest control company in this state, this county, what do I do? Right? Start studying the laws, build that knowledge. And depending on what you on and depending on what you want to do, it whether you want to be a giant corporation or you want to be a partnership or sole proprietor, start to game plan for that. Right? How big do you want your company? What is your goal? I set myself a goal. My first year of business, I set myself a goal, right? And I said, okay, I want to make a thousand dollars a month off my business, and I want to be able to do that on Saturdays and Sundays, okay? Well, I obliterated that goal. I gave myself that for a year. I was being very generous, right? And a thousand dollars a month for a year is what $12,000 a year? That's not feeding, that's not even enough for my rent. I you know, I was paying $22 or yeah, like $2,200. So $2,190, but so $2,200 rent out here in California. Absurd. So that's that's not even covering half of my rent. But that was my goal. That's where I want to start, right? Obviously, I had a main job I was doing, that was my main income, but I blew that goal out the water. It doesn't matter that that goal was goal was small, but set yourself a goal, okay? And start with your education goal, right? Okay, how do I get my license in my state? Okay, this is how I do it, right? Then you look at okay, well, how do I register a business in my state? Okay, this is how you do it. Start with those goals, okay? Then start with equipment and inventory goals. Get yourself maybe two backpack sprayers, one main one, one backup, two hand can sprayers, one main one, one backup. I now another shout out, Vista print, amazing prices for business cards, but then start figuring out what your business name is going to be. You don't really know until they confirm it, right? The the pest control board has to confirm your business, right? Uh, the name and everything like that. So you can't necessarily buy your business cards right off the bat. You could kind of hope that you get the name, maybe, but use VistaPrint or your local. I'm sure that there's local people who can print them out for fair prices, but I went ahead and got about I think a thousand business cards at VistaPrint, and I got about 500 sales flyers from Vistaprint. And I don't know, and then shirts. You could get shirts off there, so I did get my shirts off there, and I got uh my hats off there as well. I kind of just used them for everything. The price was good, and I think my first order of VistaPrint was about four to five hundred dollars. Got about three shirts, a couple hats, sales flyers, business cards, a couple pens, you know, some just some things I thought I would need. Um, and I I've turned that $500 into a lot more. So obviously it's paid off. In fact, I have a funny story. I actually jumped the gun and bought some sales flyers from VistaPrint thinking I was gonna get one pest control company name, and I didn't. But the funny thing is, I was like, wow, well, I think it knows like $120. I ended up buying a whole bunch of them that I had to just end up throwing away. But I actually gave one out at a pizza party for one of my kids' um football, it was the end of the football season pizza party, and I gave one out and I just said, Hey, you know, um it was a great season. By the way, if you ever need pest control, here's the flyer. Um, and sure enough, like four months later, that person calls me and says, Okay, let's do the pest control. And guess what? I got a sale, so now the flyer has paid for itself. Um but you're gonna take losses sometimes. That's just you know, there's times where you drive out to a home and they're like, Oh, can we reschedule or whatever? And yeah, it doesn't go good. You're just like, I guess I just wasted all this gas money to you. But start to do that once you get your pest control company registered. It's not a rush, okay? It's not a race, it's a marathon. Think long term, okay? Everyone always says the first five years of business. After five years, you're set. Now, I feel amazing because after my first year, it it's absolutely amazing the goal I've hit. And I don't want to get too personal into it of all the numbers. I'll give you loose numbers here or there, but I've hit is my website up. But I know I talked about sales numbers and everything like that. Nope, it's not up, but anyways, so I destroyed my goal my first year, and now my second year is about to grow it half the size of what I've already grown it. Now, maybe I might double it, right? Maybe I'm going to have to upgrade my business to a corporation. I don't want to do that, but the growth has just been absurd. And it's just honesty. I'm charging a great price and I'm honest. And I'll get more into that as, like I said, the series continues to grow and everything like that. But today we're focusing on the foundation. So take it slow. You might get fast results like I did, or maybe you don't, right? Like I said, I don't condone stealing clients from companies. I don't do that, never have. And it's funny because um someone actually it it will there's probably if if he listens to it, one of my old bosses and and owners of the company might say, You're a you're a liar. I I have clients that I know when to you, blah blah blah, right? And technically they did, but it started with one conversation with a friend I had there, and you can have friends, right? It doesn't and he didn't work there anymore. But the gentleman said, Hey, um, I don't work there anymore, but I have a bunch of people. I heard you're starting your own company. There's a bunch of people who love me, I'm not in the industry anymore, but hey, they don't really like how I was treated at that old company. Then I got eight more people, right? I didn't steal them. Hey, and hey, if it if you're listening to this, you want to come on, we could talk, man. I have no bad blood toward you. So that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes, okay? So I do not condone stealing clients, and also, I want to add don't steal equipment, don't steal products. I do not condone that either, okay? Sadly, people do that. Gosh, probably 80% of companies I've heard that have been started, there's always a horror story. Well, yep, this guy who started the business stole, you know, 30 clients from us and and some product. So don't do it. I don't condone it, but sadly a lot of companies do that. I personally never the closest I've ever gotten to stealing from companies is using some glue boards in my kitchen or spraying my home. And most companies are okay with that, right? Most of them are okay with that. But I took it the legit route. I bought, and you could even ask close friends around me. I ended up buying all my own stuff. It probably wasn't smart, right? But that's what I did. And I was sitting on it for a long time before I even used any of it. And I was I would just come home into my garage. I'm just like, wow, there's like two thousand dollars of equipment and products there. Am I ever going to use it? Keep in mind I'm already thousands of dollars into my licensing and and into the uniforming and everything like that. So it's just it can add up quick. And like I said, four to five thousand dollars is probably how you're going to start one. Given you already have a vehicle. Now, if you don't have a vehicle, I mean, oh gosh, you you need to get one. Luckily, I had a vehicle and I was able to store the products in it properly, and then I upgraded to a good truck, uh, an awesome truck. Oh man, it's great on gas, it has a shell cover, everything, and it's just it's perfect for everything I need. And start there, right? I just have a you obviously you need a vehicle. I kind of over overlooked that one, didn't I? Just assume everyone has a vehicle, and it essentially episodes about starting from zero. So make sure you have a truck or make sure if you have a van or uh a vehicle where you could properly store your products. I know some guys that have jimmy-rigged, you know, their trunks of their cars to properly store your products as long as it's not in the cab area, it's legal, right? Um, my whole thing is luckily I've had trucks, so I've always been there. Now they're not paid off, so I guess technically the business is is in debt for trucks, right? Or your vehicle. But start there, right? And then get your first clients. How do you do that? Well, you need to work somewhere else, right? Now, are you working for a pest control company or are you working for you know Walmart or warehouse, UPS, FedEx, whatever you're doing, right? What are you doing? Where are you working? Is it paying your bills? Now your Saturdays and Sundays have become growing your pest control business, right? That is what you have to do. How do you get your business going? Well, do you know anybody? Guess what? Like I said, I had one client who his words stuck with me. He said, Whenever you start your own pest control business, you call me, right? So he was there, one, and then my mom and dad. And guess what? I don't even service them anymore. They kind of canceled, they cancel on me. I do still service the client that first started with me. He's client number one. He gave me my first dollar, and I have it. Um I have it hung up, everything like that. But I don't even so those two first clients I had were just kind of seed money, right? My my uh mom and dad. But start there, families and friends, charge them, you know, low, whatever it is, right? You can get away with charging friends and family low because it's seed money, it's going to start helping you pay off all the equipment and products you bought, but it gets uncomfortable, but you have to go out there and conversate. Uh, go ahead and check out uh there's an episode where I talk about sales, and most of it's about cold calling and cold dropping in and things like that, right? And then you just have to be ready for it, you have to be a salesman. Now, unless you already start with a hefty amount, maybe $10,000 a month, because you're essentially hemorrhaging from another company. I don't have experience like that, so I can't speak on it, right? I could speak on starting from zero, and it was simple. I'll never forget my first sale. I went to a carniceria, which is for those of you that don't know, that's like a meat market, a Mexican meat market. And I walked in, it was about eight o'clock at night, had just got done working, about a 10-hour shift from my main job, right? Keep in mind I only have three accounts right now, three clients. I walk into this gentleman's establishment, talk to him, give him my sales flyer, tell him what I could do. And he said, Oh, uh, okay, let's do it tonight. I said, What? Let's let's start tonight. Can you do it right now? And I'm I'm only about five minutes from home. I'm like, yeah, I just have to go get my products. He's like, okay, cool. Yeah, that'll give us time to clean and then just come right back. So right then and there, I get a client, I set them up on monthly service, and then down the road, that client has led to me getting his brother's restaurant and then me getting their cousin's restaurant. So I have three accounts all monthly from that one conversation. And my goal, and this is probably the best bet, would be if you're starting from zero, you have to get monthly accounts. They're not the most lucrative. In fact, your best bet would be to overload quarterly accounts because you could fit more on your schedule, you could fit more in your grand scheme of routing, but it's hard to because you're going so long without getting money from them, right? So I highly recommend you start monthly. And who needs monthly service? Who needs monthly service? Restaurants and commercial buildings. They need it. The health inspector wants to know that. In fact, I got a call today from a client. I actually do him twice a month. And I just started, it's crazy. I just started his service last month, and he just calls me today. Hey, buddy, uh, the inspector's here. Um, where do I get my service notes? And keep in mind, like uh all my service notes, I leave a little flyer, but the main meat of the service notes come into the email, right? And so I walked him through it and he said, Okay, thank you so much. I'm just talking to the inspector. She wants to see your service notes, make sure I have a company. Restaurants need service. Okay, they need it. And guess what? Monthly income is the best income when you're starting out. My philosophy is you get a bunch of monthlies, and sadly, half my darn route is restaurants, and I kind of did too good at it, and I'm starting to run out of like time frames where, like, if I don't get you on this day, it's hard to plug you back in because I have so many darn restaurants. So that's a good problem to have. I am not complaining, trust me. But start with monthlies. In fact, all of the residentials I would sell, I would always push towards monthly. I'd give them a little discount because you need that money, you need to have that monthly money coming in. Yeah, every 60 days, 90 days, it comes in. And obviously, if people don't want monthly, they can't afford it, or maybe they just don't want that frequency or they don't need it, then I get that, right? You're you're going to have that because I have a bunch of quarterly clients. I had clients doing twice a year, which uh yeah, I don't know how they talked me into that, but they yeah, they did. Um, and I have someone doing one a year too. Pretty crazy. But, anyways, is he doing one a year? I don't know. We don't got to get into all that. But start with monthlies, go drop into your restaurants. It's very simple. When I used to train guys on sales, listen, I don't even care if you're in my area, if you use my tactic against me. I know people do it. I've been told I'm the best one doing it by restaurants. They say, Yeah, other guys come in here, they're all cocky and mean and and and aggressive. You come in here, it's like have it's like I'm talking to my friend. Guess what? I am your friend. And I always if I eat out, I eat out places I service too. Um, I always do. I believe you do business with me, I do business with you. You know, the connoisserie I service, every time I do a barbecue memorial day, anything like that, I am going to get some marinated meat from you, some carne sada, you know, some uh chicken, things like that, tortillas, the cheese, everything, right? Salsa. So that's what I do. And it's just things like that go a long way. Like there's a cafe service, he was my second sale. Got him the next day after I got that carniceria, got this cafe, got him on monthly service very next day. It's just having conversations with people, right? It's just getting out there. Okay, start building your business, get monthlies. I always bundle it. I always tell my clients, or you know, soon-to-be clients, hey, a cool perk with me. I'll treat your restaurant, and then I'll go, I'll throw your home in as well, and we'll give you a huge discount. So the quote I gave you now, we're gonna knock off $5, we're gonna knock off $10, and we're gonna do your home for this much, right? So it's a win-win. A lot of my restaurant clients, I do their homes as well. And a lot of restaurant clients I've gotten have also given me other people, whether it be commercial buildings, things like that. Have conversations, right? There was a lady that I talked to. I just pull up, you know, I'm doing sales in downtown Sacramento, and I just strike a conversation with her. And she's a caregiver or a nurse, I believe. And we just talk and she says, Oh, you do pest control. I was like, Yeah, and she's like, Oh, okay. And so I just gave her my business card. I said, Well, if you ever need it, give me a call, I'll give you a great deal. You know, I'll make sure you get taken care of. She ends up calling me. Um, I get her onto uh service. It started off monthly, but now it's every 60 days. And then about six months in, she says, Hey, I actually have my aunt who needs service. Great. I go talk to her aunt, get her on service. Now she's on service. Her neighbor was in the garage and she said, Hey, this guy does service. Uh he does really good. He said, Man, I'm having issues with black widows. Lives right down the street. Did them that day. So off one lady, I got two more sales, right? And to this day, I still service all three. Um, that's just how it works. I signed up a client, uh, her restaurant. She calls me, you know, eight months later, hey, I bought a new restaurant. Great, let's do it. Right? And now, just recently, not only have I started serving servicing her restaurant, but now she said, Hey, I have a friend that owns a restaurant in this area. Can you give her a quote? Of course. That's how it works. If you're good, if you're honest, if you could do your results right, and I'm assuming you do good service, that'll be the next episode. I've actually, you know, are you how are you going to set yourself apart, right? Because you're going to lose some money in the beginning. You're going to stay at somebody's jobs a little longer than you'd like. Because that's how you build your clientele, client referrals, things like that. In another episode, I said about 25% of my route is client referrals. That is huge. Huge. That's people who believe in me, people who feel confident that, hey, he's been doing a great job for me. I know that my friend, my family will not be disappointed in him. So let's do a quick recap before I end it. But starting from zero, I don't recommend you do it if you're not in the industry. I already talked about that. But let's say you're a route technician or manager. Use AI, use Google, whatever you want to do. Check your state's laws, regulations, start studying them. Okay? Start there before you do anything else. Okay. We all want to come up with a with the clever name, with a cool scheme, a cool color scheme, a cool logo. Study first. Then, once you're studying, add in, okay, how do I get my license that's going to make me be able to own a company? And then how do I own a company? How do I register one? Start there. Then make your moves, start your company, right? And maybe you might be working somewhere else, maybe another company, or maybe uh another pest control company, or maybe for someone who's outside of the industry, right? And figure it out then, right? Okay, this is I work here Monday through Friday, or maybe I work here Sunday through Thursday. Whatever it is, then set days for when you start to do your sales that you can have those days, right? That's how I did it. Family and friends, they're will be your biggest supporters and tell them, please, I need you to support me. I'm gonna give you the best deal around. You know, a lot of times families and friends won't do unless, but or you might get lucky. I didn't get lucky, or you might have people saying, No, I'm gonna pay the premium. Man, I believe in you, right? Start the easy, low-hanging fruit first, right? Get your clientele, start building your products, your inventory. And then once you're licensed and you're a fully registered company, you already have your equipment, you already have your inventory and your products, you already have seed clients that are ready for when your business is registered, then start doing sales. So that is starting from zero. That is what I recommend. Now, if you can get a loan or if you're doing a partnership, all power to you, it's tough. So, next episode, we're going to kind of delve into how you do your service, how you start fitting in your sales regimen. Okay. And we're going to slowly help build a company. All right. So thank you so much for listening. I hope you all have a great day.