Episode #12: How to Start a Pest Control Business (with Shaun Goulding)

Welcome to the Local Guys Business show, the show that talks about all things small business. For people who would love to learn tips to make your business more successful.

Or would like to own their own business one day, Sit down with your host, Jared Gording. Strap in and let's get the show started.

Hey, mate, how are you?

Good, Jared, how are you?

Excellent. I'm very well, thank you very much. So today we are talking about how to start a pest control business. We're going to try and add a bunch of value to anyone who's thought about starting a pest control business interested in the pest control industry. We thought that we would add value and give them a lot of the steps and the processes along to be able to start that. So we thought, who better to bring us along and talk through that than yourself, Sean? So for those people that don't know, do you want to maybe tell them how long you've been in the industry for what sort of pests that you treat and what sort of business you've got so that we know who's actually giving us this advice?

No problem. So been in the industry for about eight years now.

Yep.

Built up my own business to be quite successful.

Yep. Staff working.

Yeah, had some staff working for me, so, yeah, quite successful.

Yep.

In regards to pests that I treat.

Yep.

You name it, we treat it. Yeah. So, yeah, if it moves and it annoys people, basically we treat it. Apart from, apart from your children, of course.

Yep.

But no ants, bees, spiders, mice?

Yep. Cockroaches right up to term.

Termites, possums, birds. There's a lot.

Yeah. And termites are a completely different thing in themselves, aren't they? And that's like a whole, almost a whole industry in itself, which I will talk about a little bit later anyway. But yeah, that's a whole massive thing in itself anyway. Yeah, okay, cool. No worries at all. And now you're obviously the divisional for the local guys.

Yeah, absolutely. So tell us about that. For about the last two years now, approximately, I've been the divisional for the local guys. So help bringing on new franchise partners, guide them through their everyday life in regards to pest control, teach them the technical side of things there for support. So, yeah, basically I'm there as the support for any new guy coming on board.

Yep. So basically as soon as an inquiry comes through, whatever, yourself and Renee, your wife. Yeah, you guide them through the process and, and assist them with everything from getting licensed to insurances, registration, all that sort of thing, signing for the vehicle, Everything, everything. And then once they're all trained up and ticked off, then you support them once they're out in the field of growing their businesses. Pretty much summed it up.

Exactly. So Renee's the first point of call. So she's the friendly voice that everyone gets to talk to first. And then when we get further along in the process, I'm there for their technical side of training, guide them through that and then exactly as you said, guide them through their business and then just there for support when they're actually up and running and in the industry themselves.

Yep. So this chat that we're doing now, this isn't designed for just people that want to obviously join the local guys. This is designed for anyone that wants to start their own pest control business at all. We wanted to add value out to people that are looking at doing that and hopefully we can leave some little nuggets along the way to assist them in that process and. Yeah, I guess that's the idea of it. Yeah, no problem. So what would you say some of the pros are or the. Yeah, the pros are of, say, being in the pest control industry. What sort of interest you?

So I'd say the pros, the biggest pros for me around pest control was the diversity. So as we just explained all the different pests that we deal with, so what that actually works out to be is that each and every day is different. You're not doing the same job over and over again, which I have done in the past and haven't enjoyed. This keeps the mind active. So each and every day is different. So that's the, that's the number one thing that I really enjoy about pest control. Yep. Then you've also got problem solving. So basically a client will come to you with an issue and it's your job to try and work out why they have that issue and what you can do to fix that issue.

Yep. Yep. Beautiful. Okay, cool. No worries. So I wanted to get straight into it. Basically, don't fluff around too much. So let's say maybe start with, say, the learning side. I guess that would be one of the first stages of deciding to get into the pest control industry is obviously you need to know what you're doing. Yeah. So what, what's the, what's the. How's that? There's training. You got to be licensed to be a pest controller. How does that sort of look, how does that process kind of work?

So as you said, you need to be licensed to be a pest controller. So that's a government issued license. That is A requirement to offer pest control for. For a service at a cost. You need to be licensed to be able to do that. And the way to do that is to go through a training facility.

Yep.

So there are a few different training facilities out there that offer pest control licensing. So you go through and learn the ins and outs of pest control in regards to the makeup of insects, into the habits of insects, the life cycle, and then treating them and down and down the path that way from basically from the very beginning all the way to the end. That's what the training's about. So that you've got enough knowledge to get out there and you know what you're doing.

Yep. Okay. So as we were sort of saying before, there's two main types of licenses that you can kind of get. Can you talk to each of those?

Yeah. So there's the general pest license. So that takes care of your. It says what it does on the tin. It takes care of your general pests. So spiders, cockroaches, rodents, these types of things. So your everyday pests that people run into.

Yep.

That's what your general pest technician license take care of.

So there's like, like probably like say 20. Approximately.

Yeah, yeah. Unless you want to start getting into genus and different species of certain insects then. Yeah, yeah, basically.

Okay.

And. And then there's a timber and termite pest control license. Yep. So that's another license altogether that's required to be able to perform treatments and services in and around timber and termites.

Yep.

So any. There's wood decaying fungi that can attack timbers, there's wood borers, and then there's termites. So termites are the main issue in. Around timber and termite licensing. Yep. So that's what you deal with on a database day basis in and around that. So a very specific license because they can. It can be quite an intricate and a difficult thing to learn in regards to termites because there is no rulebook with termites. Every job can be different. So it does require a specific license to learn about those.

Okay, wow. Interesting. So generally you would say that most people tend to come into the industry and they'll start with that general pest license and typically go along with that. Is that how it. Kind of, yeah.

So there are two options. You can go out at whole hog and do the whole thing straight up.

Yep. Would you recommend that or.

I wouldn't do it if I was. Say I was going to start my own business. Yeah, that's not the way I would do it. Yeah, I would get in There with the. The basics to start off with.

Yeah.

Get your head wrapped around that before you go taking on the whole world.

Yep.

Get in there, learn the techniques and the strategies around General Pest.

Yep.

Start earning some money.

Yep.

Get the things ticking over before then heading over to the timber and termite stuff when you feel confident enough to do so.

Yeah. Because the termites tend to be a bit more of a big, bigger ticket item, don't they?

They are. So that can be the draw card for people to get straight into that.

Yep.

But just personally I would start general side of things. As I said, start with the basics, get your head wrapped around that before taking on the rest of them.

Yep, absolutely. And I know that's kind of the process we generally get people to do with the local guys is that's the format that we do. Except for. Except for Western Australia.

Yeah. Again, it depends on what state you're in and the licensing, the regulations around each and every state. But yeah, they're the little things that we run into.

Yep. Beautiful. Beautiful. And so how long does it generally take to become licensed?

So there's a couple of different courses. So in regards to General Pest License, the training facility that we actually currently use, there's a five day theory course. So that's in the classroom in front of a teacher, learning the ins and outs of the General Pest side of things. Then you'd move on to the practical. So the hands on stuff, I believe that's another four days again in the classroom, hands on. So we really like the idea of being in a classroom in front of an actual teacher. There are some online platforms, but personally I think the best way to learn is face to face.

So there's correspondence and then there's in classroom. That's kind of your two different options.

Correct.

But we kind of recommend the classroom stuff. Absolutely.

So it's a lot harder to ask a computer screen a question than it is face to face with somebody. And not only that, you're in a classroom so somebody else can be asking a question that you hadn't thought of. Everyone's learning off each other.

Yep.

And then to finish it all off, then you have the assessment and that's another two day course for that one.

Yep, sure, sure. And you know, pricing is going to vary and it's going to obviously change, you know, depending on when people watch this and all the rest of it. We've just gone into 2024 now, so obviously pricing will always go up ultimately. But what are people looking at as a rough guide? Just in A general range for. For both, sort of.

Okay. So for, for. They're actually very similar. So the general pest license on average in total is around about the $4,000 mark.

Yep.

And then again for termites, that's around about another $4,000. Yep.

Sure.

Can be up to $4,000.

Sure, sure. No worries at all. Okay, cool. No worries. Well, I think that gives some, some good understanding in that side of things. Moving on from training, let's say with insurance, obviously insurance would be something you would need to have. What type of insurance do you need to have?

Yes, absolutely. It's a requirement. You need to have insurance. In particular, if you're dealing with the public chemicals, these types of things, insurance is key. So there's your, you got public liability insurance. So obviously the insurance that protects you and the public for any accidents that may happen on a job, you then have public, sorry, professional indemnity insurance.

Yep.

So that's insurance that protects you for any advice given in and around.

Pest control and pest control need both, don't they?

They do, yeah. In particular, if you're dealing with termites, you're giving a client advice about a big asset like a home. If you got that wrong, that's what that insurance is. So yeah, definitely need both. And then there's other things like work cover to cover yourself if you had an accident, obviously cover your wage. If you're running your own business, you can't work, you're not getting paid.

So obviously another income, insurance, things like that as well. Yeah, sure, sure. Okay, cool. So moving on to say like the tools and equipment and materials and things like that that you're obviously going to need in a pest, what sort of equipment do you need to do pest control? Just where you're getting started.

Yeah, so there's a couple of different options. So when we're talking about pest control, I suppose you say our bread and butter would be spider sprays and general pest sprays.

Yep.

So there's a couple of different ways you can perform those treatments. So some of the techniques are using a trailer and a tank with like 100 meter hose on it to pull out and spray a whole house.

Yep.

But these days a lot of guys are going towards backpacks. So just something that you can wear on your back. A little bit more mobile, obviously can't carry as much liquid. You may have to fill it up once or twice to perform a treatment, but obviously a lot more mobile. And then in regards to other services, you can have blowers, so blowing dust for bee treatments, wash treatments, Roof voids, these types of things. And then there's just lots of lift little, little intricate bits. But you know, I'd say probably four or five thousand dollars would cover you for most of your. Unless you're going to get into termites.

Y.

Then again, there's a whole heap of other equipment you can buy for that.

Yeah.

On the higher end.

Yeah, yeah. And then the termite systems themselves as well and stuff like that.

So if you were installing a termite system, you'd need cores. So high, high powered cold drills. Yep. And if you're performing chemical treatments, you need hammer drills to be able to drill all the way around. Yeah. Homes. So yeah. A lot more, you know, expensive equipment. Yeah.

So there's a little bit to it. It's not. And I guess that's why again, you sort of suggest to start with that general pest and then cut your teeth, get your understanding of that. Don't try and take off the whole hog to begin with. We have some people that do that. I know. And that's fine. That wide that way and we let. We have no problems with that. But generally I think I'm the same way. I'm very simple. I mean, just give me what's in front of my face, let me get my feet warm and then sort of roll out from there.

So obviously everyone's in different points in regards to financial situations. So we say get in general pest, get that revenue turning over, build up to the bigger stuff.

Okay. Okay. And then what about like the actual consumable stuff like your chemicals and things like that? What's the sort of ongoing costs with that sort of thing?

So the main chemicals and things that we'd use for general pest. So you have your spider spray. Now there's a lot of different chemicals on the market that have different actives and perform differently.

Yep.

In different situations. So it really depends on where you're located in Australia as to what sort of chemical you'd be using.

Yep.

But on, on average most pest controllers be using the same sort of chemicals. Yeah. Those sort of chemicals could be like a hundred dollars for a 5 liter bottle.

Yep.

One of those 5 liter bottles could get you up to around 50 homes if you wanted to do that.

Wow.

Yeah. So.

Wow. Okay.

So you know, there's a bit of profit there in one bottle of chemical.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it's really good. All right, so moving on to say vehicles and transportation and things like that. Obviously being a mobile business, your vehicle is going to be very important. You're going to be spending a lot of time in there and stuff like that. Yep. What sort of vehicle is right for the pest control industry?

So there's no right vehicle but it really comes down to the individual and what they're looking for in regards to their pest control business. But the main two that we all run here at the local guys is a dual cab ute. Now the reason I run a dual cab ute with a canopy is I have a young family. I still need a back seat to be able to hold my boys around to. To football training and all their sporting events. So that allows me to do so.

Yeah.

The other option would be a van. Now a van will give you a lot more space. Yep. But obviously only being the two seat up seats up front, you're not able to take boys around.

Yeah.

So they're the main two type. There are some guys that will run just a flat tray ute with toolboxes. Lockable toolboxes on the back. Yeah, that's also an option.

Yeah.

Some guys will maybe run around in a sedan with a trailer, but that's not the way we do it here.

Yeah, sure, sure. All right. I think that gives us a good understanding of the vehicle around, say marketing and advertising and things like that. I mean, you're obviously in a bit of a unique position where obviously being part of a franchise, a lot of that side of things is luckily something that you don't have to stress about.

Yeah.

Do you want to maybe talk to that a little bit in regards to, you know, I guess why that, why that works for you in regards to. Instead of having to sort of, I guess go out there and be a marketing machine yourself and all the rest of it.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's the, the things you don't know. So I don't know how to market. I don't know how Google works. These are things I don't know.

Yep.

So to have that support and have that looked after for you. Yeah.

Is.

Is invaluable to my. Someone like myself.

Yeah.

If I had to wear one of those hats and do that side of the business as well.

Yeah.

In particularly not knowing what I'm doing. Yeah. I'd fail. It wouldn't be a question. Yeah. To be able to generate the work that comes through a franchise I could not do on my own. You rely on word of mouth. Word of mouth doesn't sort of pick up until you're established.

Yeah.

So that's why a lot of businesses will die in those early stages. So. Yeah, it's exactly that taking the stress out of not wearing every hat in the business. Yeah, that's where it's invaluable to me.

Yeah. So for some people, they like to sit on every seat on the bus and they want to be. They want to be that person that can go out and do everything and they want to build their own brand and stuff like that. So I think, like, it's probably important to talk on a few aspects of it for those sorts of people. I mean, obviously the sort of things that you're going to want to do is you want a website, you want to have a brand, you want to have a name, you want to have something that's going to be rememberable and sticks in people's minds a little bit. Yeah. So. So, you know, I think starting with, obviously coming up with the name of the business is obviously going to be something that you start off with. You've got to get it registered with asic. Yep. So that would be probably one of the first things that I would suggest for people on that side of things. As I said, website getting built, so, you know, you're probably looking at, you can do a lot of free ones nowadays. That's probably, probably an okay place to start. So there are, I think, WIX and a few other places where you can go and sort of build your own one or go out to someone and spend, you know, from a couple of thousand dollars onwards to have them build it for you. It's great to have a very pretty website, but if you have no traffic to the website, that's a whole nother thing. You can have the nicest website in the world, but if no one's visiting it, it's pointless. So, you know, then you're going to want to be looking at things like the marketing, which is, you know, there's a couple of different. I hope you don't mind me talking to this a little bit. Yeah, yep. So there's a couple of little aspects to that. There's organic SEO, so you might want to go out to an organic SEO company and build that side of things. Organic SEO is a very slow process and a long process. So, you know, you got to be in that for the long term. So that could take a number of years before you even start to rank on that in your local area. It's very, very competitive and cost a lot of money. There's also things like Google Ads, which is good but can be extremely expensive. So you're paying for every single click to your website. Might be $7 or $8, $10 just for them to land on your website doesn't necessarily mean they're going to convert. Doesn't mean anything. But Google wants their money either way. So I think there are a couple of different ways to start as far as online. I would suggest even, you know, looking at some, some of the groups that you can join bni. I was just talking to one of the people from BNI just today actually where they'll assist each other and trying to grow business for each other. That's a great way. There's a cost to that, but that's that that does tend to get quite good results. What about like on the local area marketing side of things? What sort of things? You know, because we do a lot of that stuff for our franchise partners from the support center in that regard and we provide, you know, a large percentage of the leads. But, but our franchise partners still do local area marketing. I think we've spoken a little bit for those people that do want to do everything. But what about the people that say, you know, on the other side that we would sort of do in local area marketing? We've got fly drops. Like can you talk to that sort of stuff that you've seen that get some really good results?

Yes, absolutely.

So fly drops.

So fly drops have worked really well in the past. In particular when you isolate one area and hit it heavily, continually, that's a good way to get your name out there. Other great ways of local area marketing would be to sponsor the local sports team. If they've got a charity event that maybe you could sponsor that that helps get your name out there, particularly in close knit communities.

You've been doing that?

I have been doing that, yes. And getting really good results from it.

Yeah.

And then there's other ways of simply door knocking.

Yep.

Going from business to business in your local area. Yeah. Like visiting the local fish and chip shop, just getting your name out there. Yep. Property managers, real estate agents, that type of thing.

Yep.

If you can concentrate in on your local area and build that out, that's when you have a strong base to be able to build that business. Yep.

It's hard work.

Absolutely.

You got to be in there, you got to be chopping away at it constantly day after day and keep reminding yourself to keep doing it and keep doing it, keep doing it. It's, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day and it is hard work.

As we always say, if running a business was easy, everybody be doing it.

That's exactly right. Yeah. No, no, absolutely. Okay, cool. Well I think that, I mean, I guess the other thing that you could look at is sign writing for your vehicle is a great way. If you've got a vehicle, you're driving around everywhere and stuff like that, you might as well have really good signage on there. Yeah. So, yeah, they're probably some of the best ways, I think, that work really well.

Yeah.

Friends and family, social media. Hit up all your friends and family, tell them they're going to be screaming advocates. So social media is. Contact every single person you've got on social media that you know and to say, I've started this thing, if you know anyone, please help me out. It's free.

I always say that my clients are always my best marketing tool. If you're happy with my service, please pass it on to your friends and family.

Yep.

That's how I'm going to generate business. So if you're actually happy with me, please refer me.

Yep, yep, definitely. And you start to get after year one or year two or whatever, and all of a sudden you start getting all this work from all over the place because you've exceeded people's expectations.

And maybe, maybe you'll get to that magic point one day where you don't care about market anymore. You turn it off, you've got a client list.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that will happen so much faster when your clients become screaming advocates.

You know, if they are happy with everything that's taken place from the time you picked up the phone to the end of the service, if you make it enjoyable for them throughout that time. Yeah, that's how you do it.

So you've segued into the next section perfectly, which is customer service. So how would you say that you can do that? What do you think the most important things that you can kind of do to help leave that customer a screaming advocate?

So I always think that the best thing I can do for any client is give them all the information. If you are keeping them involved in every step of the process, they'll feel comfortable, confident in yourself that you know what you're doing. You make that whole process so much easier that they'll believe in you and exactly do what we said, be your advocate for the next person.

Yep.

So, yeah, customer service is key. So being polite and friendly on the phone and as I said, just keep them involved in the process, that's the best way to do it. If you just go in, you can get caught in a rut sort of thing and just go in and do what you do each and every day.

Yeah. Very robotic.

Very robotic. Because you know what you're doing. The client doesn't just keep them involved.

Yep. And I think you can communicate with them verbally and then you can also communicate with them through the way you're dressed.

Yeah.

The way your vehicle looks.

Absolutely.

The house loppy you are. You know, one thing that I know that you're big on is taking your shoes off or putting covers on when you're walking into someone's house.

And I get told all the time, don't worry about taking your shoes off. And I say, I don't wear them in my own home, I'm not going to wear them in yours.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love that. I love that. And it's those little 1 percenters that I think people remember. People expect the job to be done 95% correctly. It's that last 5% that really separates you from everyone else at the market.

Simple little things like if I was going into the manhole and some debris fell down from the manhole.

Yeah.

I sweep it up, clean it up at the end of the service.

Yeah.

Little things like that that stand out in that client's mind, that they go, this guy's. Okay.

How many tradies are there that clean up after.

Absolutely.

Very, very few. Takes 2.4 seconds to do and separates you from the rest, Correct? Absolutely. Okay, so. So let's look at finances and income and pricing and things like that. So when you first got into the industry around pricing, how did you sort of look to establish your pricing and things like that?

So with me it was a little bit different as I started in a franchise myself. So there was a guide.

Yeah.

A guidance there. So you rely heavily on that. And if you didn't.

Yeah.

Then the best way to do it would be to call around other pest control services providers to see where they're sitting.

Yeah.

But then you also got to remember that they're a well established business. So if you come in at the same sort of pricing, not being as experienced, not having that, the rapport with the client, it can be harder to pick up that work. So, yeah, obviously a lot easier for myself being in a franchise. That's what I enjoyed about it. Those are the little things I enjoyed about it, is the things you don't know are kind of already taken care of and you can just rely on the. The technical side of things, which made life so much easier.

Yeah. I think on pricing, like probably one thing I'd like to add on to that or two things is one, don't Race the cheapest guy to the bottom because then it becomes a race to the bottom and, and there's a good chance he's already running where he's not profitable and he just wants to win whatever work he is or she, she's got. And you're just going to go, well, I saw that they were charging X, so I'm going to charge a little bit less than X. Yeah. They haven't done their numbers. They don't know if it's profitable or that or not. Yeah, exactly. And then they're out of business because the majority, 80% of businesses fail within the first five years. So there's a good chance that the person with the lowest price that you're chasing is going to be out of business soon. Probably because their pricing's too low.

Absolutely. You could ask, why is their pricing so low? Is it because they're desperate for work? If they're desperate for work, why? It's because there's no value and they're not getting enough work because they're not adding value to that.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the thing. Like, price and value are very much in line with each other. So it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be undercut. Everyone else, you just might need to provide more value. And if you've got, you know, you know what you're doing, you've, you've been onboarded correctly, you have a strong foundation of what you, what your expertise are, you're technically sound. Now, obviously that's going to be smaller at the beginning because you're still getting going and all the rest of it, but that's fine. But you're offering value in many other different ways, cleaning off after them, you know, having guarantees on your work, all that sort of stuff. All of a sudden there's extra value there that people will happily pay extra.

For a little bit. What we spoke about earlier, about keeping them involved in the process.

Yes.

If you're letting them know everything that you're going to perform that service, they can see what you're providing. Opposed to the other guy and go, that's why he's charging. Yeah, yeah. I'm getting a much rounder service.

I think people's like, meter is pretty tuned in, like, because there's so many people out there that do offer that. Yep. So people are pretty good at spotting that, like, genuine value. So I think you can't fake it. Like you've just actually got to put the value up. If you try and take it, people will see through it pretty quickly.

Yeah, I agree.

So, yeah. Okay, cool. So let's talk a little bit I guess about the financial side of like the income on, on pest control. Now it's hard obviously because we go from here to here and I always sort of tell people your income's only a result of your, of your effort and energy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. So you know, people will go, well how much am I going to earn? And I'm like, well how, how much effort and quality effort are you going to put in?

Yeah.

And it's like, because whatever that is is going to be typically what's going to come out of it. So you trying to tell me what you're going to earn is very hard question to answer.

Yeah, absolutely.

But what would you say, what would your sort of answer wouldn't be if people are sort of going to ask what, what can I earn in the pest control industry?

Well, it's exactly what you said about how much effort you're going to put in. But then it depends on what sort of stage in your life you. Are you looking for a four day a week type of job? Are you in it for seven days a week, 12 hour days?

Yeah.

That's the type of output obviously that would take. You got to take that into account.

So we've got franchise partners, we've got franchise partners. We see all different examples obviously. So we've got some at this end of the spectrum, some of that. Some people want to grow a million dollar business, take over the world, the work and flat out because money is of super, super duper important at the moment. Then you got other people that are just like, I'm cool three days a week, ticks over the bills, I make enough money to pay the mortgage, blah blah blah, I enjoy my, my couple of days off and that works for me, I don't work weekends, blah blah, blah, blah. So I guess that's a good thing. I love about the service industry is that you can do that. Coming from hospitality background myself, you're in a shopping center or on whatever site you've signed that you're here seven days a week from this time to this time someone's going to be there. So you know, we don't have to do that in the service industry.

Not at all. You can sort of hang your hat on, you know what say four jobs a day is going to provide for you. If that provides enough for you.

Yep.

And you're happy with that, then so be it. If you, if you need extra money.

Yeah.

The option to work longer Hours is there if you. You actually want it.

Profit margins wise, obviously pretty high.

When I explained about the bottle of chemical and what sort of output you can get from $100 bottle of chemical. Yeah. There's some big. There's some reasonable profits in pest control and being an industry, that's going to always be required. The work's always there. So that's something that's always going to be there, available to you.

Moving on to the boring side of finance, what do you need to set up to sort of get your accounting and your books in order when you're first starting up a business?

So it depends on how you're going to one set up your business. Yeah. So that can be a costly process if you're going to look down running a trust or an actual company. Yeah, it really depends on how you want to run it. You can run it as a sole trader if it's going to be just yourself.

Yeah.

But that'd be something for yourself and hopefully your accountant to discuss what's going to be right for you.

Yep.

And then there's obviously your equipment, your vehicle.

Yep. Sorry. So, I mean, more like on the accounting side.

Just the accounting.

Yeah, yeah. So then you would need like an accounting software.

Yeah, yeah, software. So we're in a really good day and age where we have everything on our phone these days, which makes life so much easier. There's no more keeping receipts. It's taking a picture and it's. It's up in the cloud and it's safe forever. Yeah.

So we 0 we use.

So 0 is great. You can do all your reconciling. I quite often the last thing I do at night before I go to bed is reconciling my account before I go to sleep.

Because I was going to ask you that. Would you sort of suggest like a bookkeeper in this sort of thing or what's your sort of experience been as far as.

Well, my experiences with this new software and packages that we have. You can do it yourself. Yeah, it's so much easier than it ever has been.

Yeah.

I use the county accountant for your end of year finances to make sure everything's in order. But throughout the year I take care of it myself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, we get people that are awesome. Some people go, I'm not interested at all. Don't want to touch it at all. I just want to bookkeeper. They can do my basses. I can do everything I do my end of year and they just handle everything. Here's a shoebox of my receipts. There you go. And then we get a lot of other people who, especially nowadays, as you say, and we don't have like huge amounts of like transactions every day. It's not like a retail store where you've got 100 transactions a day. It might be, you know, let's just say four to eight transactions a day at most. And then like if you're doing some termite stuff, it might be one a day, like. Yeah.

So then it's just purchasing some chemicals as you. As you need it and putting fuel in the car. That's pretty much it.

Yep. Yeah, sure. Okay, cool. No worries at all. So let's move on to finally say the franchising side a little bit more. I think we've covered a lot of the basis for people to give them some value on the actual business side of it itself. Can you explain what the process is like at the local guys getting into the pest control industry and how that sort of looks sort of some. If someone, I guess, did want to go the franchising route, how does that kind of look from. From first inquiry to rocking up on my first door. Yeah.

Yeah.

Ready to go.

Okay. So as I said, an inquiry would come in. Renee would be the first point of contact.

Yeah.

So she'd discuss the opportunity, find out a little bit about the prospective franchise partner, see if that's going to marry up their, their core values and our core values. Because I believe that's very important that we align on. On those things. Then the next point of call would be to start drawing up contracts to get into the. To the franchise itself. Yep. And then while that's happening in the background, training, getting into the training facility, you can start doing all that sort of thing in the background.

Yeah.

Getting that license ready to start from day one. Yeah. So then, then there's the local guys training where we have you learn about the back house type of things.

Yeah.

Everything that you need to know how to run a business.

Software.

Software. Yeah. Marketing. Everything you can think of is covered.

Yep.

And then basically it's get your license, have some infield training with myself. Make sure that you're comfortable and competent to get out there and the field and start performing these services.

Yep.

Then day one, in the, in the field, you're taking leads, basically. Yeah. And then it's just that, that ongoing support, that's what a franchise.

Yeah.

Is that's what the best thing about it is, is say on day one, you get your first lead and you're a little unsure about it. We have Training platforms where guys are able to look into, to research or.

Go up on their phone.

Go back over. Go back over any service. We have everything on this app that we've got.

Yep.

So every service is covered.

Yep.

But then I'm just one phone call away as well.

Yeah. You know, the other thing is as well, which is super powerful, is the other franchise partners in the network as well.

Absolutely.

Like, I think going. You know, I started up my business 11 years ago and, you know, it was just we were independent, so we didn't have anyone to pick up the photo or anyone in our area that was going along the same path and all the rest of it. We have our franchise department meetings every six weeks. The guys will catch up, they will know each other, they're all friends and all the rest of it. So you've got someone, you know, next couple of suburbs over or whenever, wherever they are locally that it's just like, you know, they scratch each other's backs and help each other out and. Oh, I know. We've just had one recently. Oh, this marketing has been working really well with my existing clients. Shares it out amongst everyone else. You can all just sort of, you know, piggyback off of each other's ideas and whatever the best ones are sort of surface to the top. So I think, like, when you're out alone, you know, you just don't have that to sort of tap into, which is really good.

Like, so you talk about those things about. So that's probably my favorite part of the six weekly franchise partner meeting is we go through and say, what's working for you?

You.

Yeah, Jared will tell me what's working for him.

Yep.

And the other guys. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. I might bring that into my own business.

Yeah.

If you're on your own, you don't have that at all.

Yeah.

You don't know what's working, what's not working until it's happened.

Yeah.

So you don't get to learn off the others that way.

Yep.

We have it quite often. The guys are bringing in new things around. Quoting. That's working really well for them.

Yep.

They bring into the system stuff that we haven't thought about here. That's the thing I love about it. They bring in ideas to us and we go. We love that. That's part of our system now.

Yeah. It's so cool. Absolutely. No, I couldn't agree more. Some of our best ideas have come from our franchise partners, which is awesome because we're just all helping each other out. All right. Beautiful. Well, I've learned a few things out of this, so. No, thanks so much for coming in and spending the time with us and giving us a bit of an understanding of on the process of being able to start your own pest control business. So. Yeah, no, much appreciated. Got a lot out of it. No worries.

Thanks, Jared.

Beautiful. Thank you.