Leave Something On The Bone – Sick Pay, Benefits, Medical Coverage in the Pest Control Industry

Please accept my invitation to read my latest article, “Are We Ready to Lead?,” in Pest Management Professional (PMP) Magazine’s on-line edition. This month, I talk about the need for leadership in the industry that can bring together workers, managers and owners in a win-win strategy, starting with proper health care for workers and examining the larger benefits of better benefit packages.

Go to Jail, Do Not Collect $200

Pest control is like a fun game of Monopoly. To win, I formed alliances to gain strategic leverage. We rarely finished the Monopoly game, but we had lots of fun and profit working together. Green pest control is analogous. It’s all about alliances: with employees, customers and environmental groups. The winners are always good partners and partners are always good winners.

In bygone years a macho image of pest control worked. It was all about fast kill. Without the EPA, liability was not a critical factor. Customers reinforced this attitude: “Just get rid of them. I don’t care how!” Pest control operators became enthralled with the “License to Kill,” even using it as a brand name.

If this is you, “Go to Jail, Do Not Collect $200.” You lack the credibility to succeed in the green marketplace. Today, pest control is about life, not death! The slogan, “Flower Power Pest Control” can succeed where “Fast Path to Sure Kill” flops.

If you want to win the game of Monopoly, you must consider your approach carefully. You can’t willy-nilly buy a property here and another there. As in Monopoly, you can’t simply buy a green label product, spray around, hope for a kill and sell it as green. Customers will detect your lack of sincerity, education and efficacy.

Commit as an organization, to completing quality IPM and green certification. Re-imagine your business with a total green vision. Find quality marketing talent to “re-brand” your company for the green revolution. Solicit the ideas of your employees, prospective customers, suppliers and environmental agencies, toward your goal of creating a successful green program. You may find green certified pest control professionals are happy to assist you. They know that in helping each other, we all win, without the need for a Monopoly.

Great raccoon rescue video

Here is a great raccoon rescue captured on video.

Will Barak Obama Support the NRA

President Barak Obama significantly improved his conservative credentials today, when he took swift action against an aerial attack on the White House.

Who knows, soon he may come out in favor of the NRA? Perhaps he may even turn on MSNBC and appear with Hannity on the Fox News Network.

No matter what his future political positions, based on Barak’s swift response today, I will be the first to offer him a job at Hearts Pest Management. With his manual pest control technique, he would make an excellent IPM professional.

Generational Passage in Pest Control Companies

Now that Father’s Day is coming soon, I’d love to hear from pest control companies that are making a generational transition. I have sons who may be interested in continuing the tradition… or maybe not.
Lloyds is a local company that has been very successful at transitioning. Pestec in northern California is an example of a company with a great father-son team. I hope that if we at Hearts Pest Management make a generational transition, that it will be as smooth as these two examples.
What is your experience?

Don’t assume it’s bed bugs!

I hope you will continue to follow my articles through Pest Management Professional magazine and PMP’s contemporary on-line edition . My latest “web exclusive” can be found that this link: “Killer Bed Bugs for Sale”

Please feel free to review the article and comment. I am happy to listen to all feedback.

Thanks,

Gerry

PCOC Convention in Hawaii

Would anyone like to comment freely on the PCOC convention in Hawaii this year. There has been a lot of controversy about taking the California pest control convention out of the state. In this bad economy, which PCOC did not predict, it is difficult to attend so far away. Even in a good economy it would have been difficult. So I’d love to get an update from those who were able to attend as well as those how couldn’t or refused to go to Hawaii.

Can door-to-door sales ever be quality sales?

Yes, if the critieria is revenue in the door. No, if the criteria is revenue out the door.

Too often, companies are jumping in with aggressive door-to-door sales. While this may work in building tight territories, inevitably the door-to-door salesperson, hard pressed to earn a living, battles the prospect to the sales closing. In doing so, the pest control company obtains a quasi-reluctant customer, ready to head out the back door at the first sign of false promises. After all, the customer probably wasn’t wanting to buy in the first place.

Now let’s look at door-to-door sales in a recessionary market. If break even point after all the costs of maintaining a door-to-door sales team is roughly 3 years, it is highly likely that the customer who was aggressively acquired in good financial times with an easy credit market are now running out the back door when they realize they can not manage their house bills. The pest control company not only falls short of the break even point, but they incur many other expenses, having grown an infrastructure and debt load for a now fast depleting asset. If customers are have trouble managing mortgage payments, are they really going to keep their pest service?

Woe to those pest control companies that have been feeding off new, young homeowners that were over-leveraged.

Family Business vs. A Business of Family

Family Business: Father knows best, son’s skills not to be questioned, mom is the secret weapon in the back office, non-family workers are not to be trusted, their benefits and wages to be kept to a minimum. We wouldn’t want them to think that they run this company!

Business of Family: Father may know best but is able to listen and even accept some recommendations, even from non-family members. Son recognizes that things don’t just come to you on a silver platter. Mom has her own life. If she’s in the business, she has the interests of workers’ families on her mind. Workers understand that ownership has its’ privileges, but they feel valued and have career paths and are both happy and proud to be part of a business that treats non-family members as if they were blood.

Do you work for a family business or a business run like a family?

Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die

I’m not talking here about pests, I’m talking about pest control companies. The new season is here. Some pest control companies have not survived the winter of discontent with the economy. Now, more companies than ever will realize they are not ready for 21st century competition.
The competitive playing field is getting very tough, as companies adjust to a new economic, marketing and environmental perspective. There is little time left for companies that have not moved. The wrong steps just waste precious time.
Only time will tell. This coming fall, there will be a lot of woulda-shoulda-coulda’s.