An "Off the Record" interview in which host Paul Giannamore talks with twins Jeremy and Jason Julio about their transition from PE teachers to entrepreneurs in the mosquito and pest control industry (Last Bite Mosquito, Viking Pest). Topics include starting the business, branding and customer service strategies, running a seasonal business, community involvement, team dynamics and leadership, and their successful business exit. # Channel Identity Observations: Julio Twins Interview Video ## Observable Video Format - **Interview format, on-location**: Hosted in Puerto Rico; host references travel and guests arriving — *"[host]: welcome to Puerto Rico fellas,"* and *"I'm glad you guys made the boat yesterday."* - **Casual, conversational style**: Opening banter and jokes (*"this is going to be the special episode for the ladies"*) suggest an informal, relationship-driven podcast tone. - **Long-form guest discussion**: The interview spans founding story, scaling, exit, personnel, marketing, and personal life — indicating an in-depth, hour-style conversation format. ## Intended Audience (Demonstrated) - **Service business owners and entrepreneurs**, specifically in pest control and residential services: - Host asks industry-specific questions: *"[host]: on the day that you guys sold that business how many employees did you have… how many of those were in the office?"* - Discussion of acquisition dynamics, PE firms, Rollins/Orkin market perception, and cross-selling strategies. - **People interested in business acquisition and exit strategy**: Extended discussion of why and when the guests sold (*"[host]: why did you guys decide to sell that business now when you did"*). ## Claimed Scope / Self-Description Evidence - The host is named **Paul** and the guests identify his show: > "I listen to The Boardroom Buzz often… and we do listen to your podcast all the time." - This is explicit evidence the channel is **"The Boardroom Buzz"** (or closely tied to it), a podcast about business leadership in the service industry. - Host positions himself as an industry insider with deal experience: *"[host]: I remember when we went through the process you remember the looks on some of the faces of like the acquirers that you guys talked to"* — suggesting the host works in or around M&A for service businesses. ## Content Themes Demonstrated - **Founder origin stories**: Teachers-turned-entrepreneurs narrative (*"gym teachers you started this"*). - **Growth, hiring, and delegation**: Discussion of key employee Margot and team structure. - **Marketing and community involvement**: Yard signs, parades, funny commercials, local sponsorship. - **Exit rationale**: Regulatory risk, commoditization, bundling pressure from big players like TruGreen. - **Personal side of business owners**: Parenting, teaching careers, fitness, role modeling — the show extends beyond pure business into guests' lives. ## Notable Presentation Patterns - **Host shares his own opinions and experiences** (e.g., his frustration being on hold with a lawn company; referencing industry contacts like Ryan of Mr. Mister and Jim Mel), reinforcing an expert-peer interviewer persona rather than a neutral journalist. - **Explicit purpose framing by host**: *"you guys are great role models for those kids being able to do what you love but also start a business… I just really love everything about it"* — the show celebrates entrepreneurial service-business stories. # Delivery Observations: "From Gym Teachers to Service Leaders: The Julio Twins' Story" ## Overview This is a **three-person conversational interview** (a host, apparently named Paul, interviewing twin brothers Jason and Jeremy) recorded in Puerto Rico. The delivery is casual, story-driven, and marked by frequent interruptions, shared storytelling between the twins, and a host who actively injects his own anecdotes. --- ## Tone - **Casual and jovial throughout.** The interview opens with banter: *"this is going to be the special episode for the ladies out there"* followed by laughter and *"we're not going to go there."* This light register is established in the first 15 seconds and persists. - **Warm and affirming host.** The host repeatedly validates the guests: *"it's really one of the coolest stories… I'm always amazed by it"* and *"I just really love everything about it."* - **Brief serious/reflective moments.** When discussing the lawsuit, the tone darkens temporarily: *"scare the crap out of me"* — but the overall arc returns to upbeat storytelling quickly. --- ## Vocabulary & Register - **Plain, colloquial speech.** The guests use informal constructions like: - *"how the heck did you guys get into the the mosquito and pest business"* - *"and it just kind of really took off"* - *"super upset… fired up cuz he was getting bit by mosquitoes"* - **Light industry jargon, always explained in plain terms.** Terms like *"respray rate," "chemical trespassing,"* and *"bifenthrin"* appear, but are immediately contextualized (e.g., *"what's your respray rate"* sits inside an otherwise everyday question). - **Business-cliché vocabulary appears but sparingly**, e.g., *"we wanted to make sure we mitigated that that problem"* and *"sell when you're on top."* --- ## Recurring Phrases & Verbal Habits - **Heavy use of "you know" as a connective filler.** This is the single most frequent verbal tic in the transcript, appearing dozens of times: *"you know we talk every day you know," "you know I think that has something to do with…"* - **Repetition of words mid-sentence for emphasis** (a stammer-like doubling that functions as a processing pause): - *"the the mosquito and pest business"* - *"that that business that threw a magnet"* - *"I I believe in like utilizing your resources"* - **"Uh" and "um" fillers are pervasive**, consistent with unscripted, conversational speech: *"it's uh it's awesome to be here it really is it's uh been some time and uh uh I'm excited."* - **The twins finish and hand off each other's sentences.** E.g., *"and then we started doing the funny commercials right"* — one brother completes the thought the other began. This happens multiple times (the Facebook/parades/marketing sequence around the [316–364] section), suggesting a stable pattern of shared storytelling rather than isolated moments. - **Recurring emphasis via "super":** *"super important," "super upset," "super friendly," "super active."* This is a repeated adjective choice, though not high-frequency enough to call a signature — moderate confidence this is a habit for at least one speaker. --- ## Teaching / Communication Patterns - **The host uses a funnel questioning technique**: broad openers followed by narrow follow-ups: - Broad: *"what were some of the biggest lesson you learned"* - Narrow: *"do you guys remember like anything profound that you learned from them"* - **The host frequently self-deprecates and interrupts himself**: *"this is a long rambling question but…"* — an observable habit of flagging his own question length. - **The twins teach by concrete anecdote rather than abstract principle.** Nearly every lesson is anchored to a specific story: - Customer service → the Fourth of July voicemail story (*"the fact that you called me 10:00 on 4th of July… says enough"*) - Networking → the cold call to Ryan's wife Beth - Lawsuit lesson → being served papers while leaving the house - **Recurring theme framing by the guests:** the phrase *"giving back to the community"* and variants appear repeatedly: *"that's why we always gave back to the the communities," "giving back being part of the food drives," "I'm giving back to the community they gave to me."* This is a stable rhetorical through-line in how the twins describe their motivations (as expressed, not inferred). - **The "if I can do it, you can do it" motivational formulation** appears when discussing students: *"this is where we were we were sitting the same seat as you… if I can do it you can do it and it comes down to just like great and working hard."* Single instance — cannot confirm as a habit, but it aligns with their teacher framing. --- ## Structural & Discourse Patterns - **Long anecdote cycles with late returns to the question.** The host often asks a question, the guests riff through two or three stories, and the answer arrives only near the end (e.g., the multi-story detour on Ryan before circling back to lessons learned). - **The host layers questions with his own opinions pre-stated:** *"it's kind of speaks to your willingness to go out to find people in other states so how did that happen"* — embedding conclusions before questions is a repeated host pattern. - **Uncorrected speech errors are left as-is** (transcript shows *"you the Mexican asked me," "Last Bite"/"last fight"/"BL bite" variations), consistent with a minimally edited, naturalistic recording. - **Asymmetric participation between the twins.** One brother (apparently Jason) carries noticeably more of the narrative detail and lessons-learned content, while the other contributes shorter confirmations (*"it's a lifestyle it's it's super important"*) and handoffs. This is observable across multiple segments and appears stable, though speaker attribution in the transcript is not labeled, so confidence is moderate. --- ## Uncertainty Notes - **Speaker attribution is not marked in the transcript**, so individual-specific habits (e.g., who says "you know" more) cannot be reliably separated. - **Timestamps are unavailable**; bracketed line markers are used above only for locating passages, not as time references. - Patterns with only one or two instances (e.g., the "super" adjective, the motivational phrasing) are flagged as low-confidence habits. # Observation Document: From Gym Teachers to Service Leaders — The Julio Twins' Story ## Video Metadata - **Title:** From Gym Teachers to Service Leaders: The Julio Twins' Story | Last Bite Mosquito, Viking Pest - **Setting:** Interview conducted in Puerto Rico; host is **Paul** (identified by name in transcript). Guests are the twin **Julio** brothers, **Jason** and **Jeremy** (spellings approximate from transcript audio). --- ## Business Origin Story ### Entry into Mosquito & Pest Control - A friend involved with a mosquito franchise asked one brother to join; he declined but resolved to start his own business, promising not to enter the friend's territory. - **Jason** (as transcribed): "I promise I won't ever enter your territory but I'm going to start this on my own." - At the time, "there wasn't any real such thing as Mosquito Control in our area" (speaker: one of the twins). - **Jason** raised the idea with his brother at his house over cocktails; the brother initially resisted the franchise model: > "I don't like the franchise model... you have royalties, you got a certain area you have to be locked into." - They instead created their own brand name and website. ### Timeline - First truck and first employee arrived **within roughly six months**. - Season started in **April**; they were teaching until mid-June and managing beach clubs during summers for the **first 3–4 years**. ### Financing / Reinvestment - They did not pull money from the business for the **first three years**, reinvesting in team, employees, and marketing. - Host **Paul** suggested their teacher salaries enabled this; one twin agreed: "I agree with you 100% that was definitely part of... the reason for our success." ### Positioning - They explicitly avoided being "that business that threw a magnet on the side of the truck"; priorities were **branding and customer service** "whether or not mosquito control would work." --- ## Twin Partnership Dynamics - The twins did everything together: school, sports, same college, similar-aged children; they lifeguarded together and ran adjacent beach clubs ("Little Monmouth" and "Big Monmouth" as transcribed). - One twin claimed the business brought them **closer** rather than apart: > "I think having a business together created us to get closer... it pushes some families apart, but for us it was definitely difficult at times." - They grew into distinct roles organically without competing for roles, and talk every day. --- ## Key Personnel: Margot - Hired around **year three or four (~2016)** as a part-time call-answering employee. - Became central to operations: handled **upset customers, upset employees, HR problems, payroll, hiring, firing**, and routing. - Daily end-of-day conference calls were used to walk her through decisions. - One twin: "She was our eyes and ears during the day" — confirmed with "100% yep." - Office staffing model: Margot recruited **part-time mothers** (children now high-school age) working ~4 hours/day, which the twins credited for high-quality staff. --- ## Scale & Exit ### Size at Sale - **Seasonal maximum: 75–80 employees**, of which **~12–15 in the office** (one said 12–15, earlier estimate "about 15"). - Owned the business roughly **10 years** ("give or take"). ### Reasons for Selling (multiple stated drivers) 1. **Peak timing:** "You always want to sell when you're on top... I felt like we're kind of at the peak" (one twin). Rapid scaling into and after COVID, then numbers "started to flatten out a little bit." 2. **Commoditization concern:** Pest companies bundling cheap mosquito control (e.g., TruGreen cited by host) could "water down" pricing. 3. **Regulatory risk:** Restrictions on gas-powered blowers in some New Jersey towns; New York banning a product ("bean" as transcribed — likely a product name); expectation New Jersey would follow. Concerns about **chemical trespassing** complaints and hard-to-regulate spray practices. 4. A "good number" was being offered. ### Pest Control Acquisition - They originally referred pest calls to **Turner Pest Control**; when its owner wanted to sell, **they bought it**. - Decision: kept **two separate brands/businesses** — Last Bite for mosquito/tick, and the pest brand (Total Home as transcribed) for general pest — with two offices, cross-selling and bundling between them. - One twin explicitly wanted the separation: "I wanted us to really focus on the mosquito and tick... we were the professionals at mosquitoes and tick." --- ## Peer Learning & Industry Relationships - Strong stance: learn from others' mistakes rather than your own. One twin builds relationships across the industry nationally and asks peers for guidance, noting some people are surprised he asks for help. - Advice given to new business owners: reach out to others in the same industry in another state. - **Ryan (Mr. Mister, Georgia):** One twin cold-called the office, spoke with Ryan's wife **Beth**, and Ryan called back. Ryan was "a year or two ahead" in size, roughly same age, young family. Ongoing relationship with hundreds of text exchanges on business problems and strategy. - **Brian Hopkins (Quick Pest Control, Georgia):** cited as a close, helpful friend on the pest side. - Host Paul noted he was introduced to the twins by Ryan and Matt. - They sent a crew (Margot, Marissa, Anthony) to Georgia for a weekend to observe operations. ### What they adopted from Mr. Mister - **Yard signs** (Mr. Mister deployed thousands) - **Video marketing** with humor that holds viewer attention - **Team/team-leader structure** ### Mr. Mister anecdote (host Paul, corroborated by twins) - Matt Brill placed yard signs near the homes of **Rollins corporate executives** in Atlanta to inflate perceived market presence. - When the business was taken to market, **Rollins thought Mr. Mister was doing $50 million in revenue** — "they were quite a bit smaller than $50 million." Paul attributed this to market presence. --- ## Service & Product Details ### Tick Services - **Year 1:** mosquito only; **Year 2:** added tick advertising. - Mosquito treatment was effective against ticks, but treating grass required service — an **upsell** using a **granular product** vs. liquid. - **Neighbor precautions:** technicians check over fences; skip or adjust treatment if neighbors are out, to avoid chemical trespassing. ### Natural Product ("Nature-Cide" as transcribed) - Used in sensitive neighbor situations; more expensive; serviced **every 2 weeks vs. every 3 weeks**; **respray rate ~3%**, "just as good." - One twin believes more customers are leaning toward natural/safer products, though "you have those people who just don't care." - Host Paul offered a counter-anecdote: Rollins executives told him over a decade ago that customers talk about green products but ultimately ask "what works the best" and choose "the good stuff." ### Customer Service Philosophy - Same-day callback treated as essential. Anecdote: a missed call at **10 p.m. on July 4th** from an upset customer; the immediate callback so impressed the customer he said "the fact that you called me at 10:00 on 4th of July says enough." - The twins deliberately **did not outsource** phone answering — they tried briefly and rejected it because call-center staff "didn't know our values"; instead they hired and trained in-house. - Host Paul cited Jimmy Mell (as transcribed) on answering within one ring to win business. - One twin acknowledged personal frustration being on hold with a lawn-care company and dropping them. ### Lawsuit anecdote (learning moment) - Around year 2–3 of the business, a customer sued claiming property damage (transcript renders a garbled phrase, possibly "foliage"); described as a **$100,000 lawsuit scare**. - Outcome: "we figured out that it wasn't our fault" — but the stress taught him "that's what insurance is for." --- ## Education Careers - Both are **PE teachers in Long Branch, NJ** — currently their **19th year**. - One teaches at the **high school**; the other at the **middle school** (grades 6–8). - Middle school curriculum: sport-specific skills, small-sided games, knockout; health covers nutrition and body systems. High school goes deeper, including reproductive health; school has a "state-of-the-art weight room" (ellipticals, squat racks, spin bikes, rowers) with a supervised ~45-minute after-school program. - They refused to leave education during acquisition talks; some PE firms "essentially look[ed] for us to kind of leave education and that was something we weren't necessarily willing to do." - Motivation stated: teachers and coaches helped them when young; they want to give back to the community. - Both hold **administrative degrees** but declined that path for now: - One: administration "wouldn't... give the same feeling... The Joy from it." - Other: may pursue administration "at the end of my career... if ever," preferring time with family now. - Students know about the business; the twins speak at school "shark tank" events and share their story: "if I can do it, you can do it... it comes down to just being great and working hard." ### Views on student health (19 years of observation) - "It's sad": **terrible diets, not enough exercise, sedentary screen time, up till 3 a.m.** playing video games. - Fitness test lowered from a **mile to a half-mile** — "we're not raising the bar, we're lowering the bar." - Strategy for kids with poor home environments: give them **tools** for future self-directed decisions (portion guidance, food knowledge), before/after pictures, scale check-ins, no peeking until year's end. - Students frequently ask for help with weight — "all the time." ### Youth strength training - Position: weight training for ~12-year-olds is fine **if technique and form are taught properly**; no maxing out. ### Their own children (ages 12 and 10) - Very active: lacrosse, soccer, CrossFit gym (lifting, rowing, running). - Internal tension expressed: "I question myself... is this too much for them at this age or am I creating a routine... the last thing you want... is to burn them out." Resolution: ask "are you having fun?" — kids are eager and friends join. - On career guidance: model behavior and hard work; one introduces the host's podcast (*Boardroom Buzz*) to his kids. Tension preserved: they want kids to **attend college and get degrees**, while also believing "there's something to be said for entrepreneurship" and hoping they might own a business — explicitly not wanting to "pigeon hole them." --- ## Background & Motivation - Upbringing: **single parent, Section 8, welfare**, first in family to attend college. - Their original benchmark of success: "our PE teachers... that was rich to us... having a house... a $100,000 a year salary... that was the goal." - Pre-business plan (one twin): beach club GM ($70k) + teaching ($70k) + eventual administration = "I'm doing great... one vacation a year." - The business revealed "there's an opportunity to actually really make some money." - No prior plans to go into business together before the franchise conversation. --- ## Community Involvement (advice to service businesses) - Activities cited: networking events, parades (St. Patrick's), snow-jump social media challenges, holiday gift baskets, food drives, a scholarship at Long Branch (as transcribed "w branch"), Little League sponsorship done **genuinely** — attending games, bringing donuts, ice cream — not just a $500 banner. - Qualification: "it might not be for everybody" — harder for larger companies (e.g., $20M) to focus on many towns. --- ## Open Items & Qualifications - Names, spellings, and some figures derive from an auto-transcript and may be imprecise ("Jer/Jeremy," "Jason," "bean" product, "foliage" lawsuit claim, "Turner/Total Home" branding). - The twins did not specify the sale price, buyer, or exact sale date. - Tension remains between stated views on natural products (customer demand growing) and the host's Rollins anecdote (customers choose efficacy/cost) — both positions recorded, neither resolved. - Reason for southern peers being more forthcoming is speculative on both sides: one twin suggested "less chance of competition"; host wondered if Southerners are friendlier; twins acknowledged "not everyone's like us." # Speaker & Provenance Observation Record ## Video Identification - **Title:** From Gym Teachers to Service Leaders: The Julio Twins' Story | Last Bite Mosquito, Viking Pest - **Video ID:** `01a168c8-9282-7259-b020-1e68b9c048ef` - **Format:** Interview conversation, recorded in Puerto Rico (per dialogue: "welcome to Puerto Rico fellas") ## Identified Speakers & Roles ### Host / Interviewer - **Paul** — identified by name in transcript ("thanks for having us Paul"; "I introduce my kids to Paul"). Serves as interviewer and host; references his own podcast **"The Boardroom Buzz"** and his experience selling his business. Also references prior dealings with acquirers and PE firms with the twins. - Note: Transcript does not explicitly state Paul's surname or company affiliation. ### Guests (Twin Brothers) - **Jason Julio** — guest; co-founder of **Last Bite Mosquito Control**; high school PE teacher (transcript at one point attributes the high school role to "Jeremy" — see uncertainty note below). - **Jeremy/Jerman Julio** — guest; co-founder of Last Bite Mosquito Control; middle school PE teacher (6th–8th grade). - **Uncertainty note:** The transcript's speaker labels are not separated; the names "Jeremy," "Jerman," "ger," and "Jason" appear inconsistently, and one passage ("are the students... I mean Jeremy yeah I'm in the middle school") creates ambiguity about which twin teaches at which level. Attribution of specific quotes between the two brothers is therefore uncertain throughout. ### Third Parties Mentioned (Not Speakers) - **Margot/Margo** — key employee (joined year 3–4); managed operations, HR, payroll, customer/employee issues. - **Ryan** and **Beth** (Ryan's wife) — co-owner of **Mr. Mister** mosquito business, Georgia. - **Matt Brill** — Ryan's partner at Mr. Mister. - **Brian Hopkins** — formerly of **Quick Pest Control** (Georgia). - **Jim Mel / "Jimmy"** — cited for first-ring phone-answering practice. - **Franco** — referenced ("Franco's not here"), no role given. ## Referenced Sources & Third-Party Claims - **Rollins / Orkin (Gary Rollins)** — twins claim Rollins estimated Mr. Mister at ~$50M revenue when it was "quite a bit smaller"; claims about yard-sign targeting of executive neighborhoods attributed to Matt Brill. - **Turner Pest Control** — company the twins purchased after referral relationship; owner reportedly wanted to sell. - **Terminix (TX)** — Ryan reportedly still involved ("I think he's with TX still") — stated with uncertainty by speakers. - **TruGreen / "TR green"** — cited as offering bundled, cheap mosquito control. - **NJD / state regulators** — referenced re: gas-powered blower restrictions, chemical trespassing complaints. - **New York State** — cited as having banned a product ("bean"/bifenthrin — transcript ambiguous) — claim unverified within source. - **Products mentioned:** bifenthrin; a granular tick product; "Nature Side"/"Nal siiz" (transcript-ambiguous name) all-natural product. ## Promotional Segments - No explicit promotional/advertising segments detected. Indirect promotional references include: - Guests' stated listenership of **"The Boardroom Buzz"** podcast (host's program). - Repeated favorable naming of **Last Bite Mosquito Control** and their service practices. - These are flagged as potential soft promotion, not paid placements per source. ## Comment Availability - No transcript or metadata indicates whether comments are available or restricted. ## Provenance Boundaries - All business figures (employee counts 75–80 seasonal / 12–15 office, 3% respray rate, 6-month launch-to-first-truck, 10-year ownership, lawsuit amount ~$100,000) are **speaker claims** from the twins, uncorroborated within the source. - Transcript appears machine-generated (frequent misspellings: "jman's," "jman," "raap," "fette," "mommoth"); names and technical terms should be treated as approximate. welcome to Puerto Rico fellas thanks for having us Paul this is going to be the special episode for the ladies out there you the Mexican asked me to make sure that we do this interview with you guys taking your shirts off we're not going to go there um good to see you guys down here it's uh it's awesome to be here it really is it's uh been some time and uh uh I'm excited to do this good so twins in business together um let's talk about that how the heck did you guys get into the the mosquito and pest business it's interesting um so ger and I we both teachers and someone that I'm close with started a franchise uh well didn't start a franchise but was part of a franchise and he asked if I wanted to get involved with him at the time and there wasn't any real such thing as Mosquito Control in our area so I was like you know what I promise I won't ever enter your territory but I'm going to start this on my own and I remember bringing it up to my brother in jman's like mosquito control yeah we were at my house I remember just like yesterday we're having a couple cocktails and he brought up mosquito control to me and brought up this franchise idea and I was like I don't like the franchise model I don't like the fact that uh you have royalties you got a certain area you have to be locked into I was like it's interesting mosquito and take control wasn't around there um but uh I said sure I like we'll come up with our own name uh we'll start our own website and that's what we did what why did you guys I mean you guys were both PE teachers and that's I mean you're Twins and then you also decide to go down the same career path how did that happen I mean we like you said we're twins we've done everything together our entire lives from uh school to sports to we went to the same College our wives look like they can be sisters um same age children you're lucky Franco's not sting here in like that's all I'm gonna say yeah and we ran a beach club I ran a a beach club called little mommoth he ran a beach club called uh big mom with we lifeguarded together and uh and I think to be honest I think throughout the years we've done everything together uh but I think having a business together created uh us to get closer actually you know I think pushes some families apart but for us it was definitely um you know difficult at times but uh throughout the years we kind of figured out each other we figured out each other's strengths and weaknesses we didn't need to compete for certain roles we just kind of organically grew into our own Y and uh it worked out to be the best and uh you know we talk every day you know and I think that has something to do with having the business together so it forced us to kind of create and build on that relationship which is which is awesome cool so you roll over to Jery's house and say let's do this you say I don't want to do a franchise and then how long did you guys noodle on this idea before it you actually it really wasn't that that long we just knew that we didn't want to be that that business that threw a magnet on the side of the truck we said that if we're going to do this we're going to do it the right way I want to say within 6 months we had our first truck um I remember on Christmas time we had the the Christmas uh we had we knew that we wanted to focus on branding and customer service that was our main priority and whether or not mosquito control uh would work people were still going to love us in our service um and fortunately it worked right yeah um so yeah within six months uh we had our first truck first employee and from there it just kind of really took off but did you either of you do any Services were you doing Services yourself in earlyer at first very minimal yeah if someone like called out or uh a job added on and or a respray because we wanted to make sure we mitigated that that problem with the customer and it was usually at the end of the day because like you said we were School teachers you we uh the season started in April we were teaching until mid June so and then we also still had our summer jobs managing Beach Clubs so for the first three to four years of the business our summers were really busy because we're managing beach clubs and we're growing this business you know uh it struck me as strange when I first talked to you guys I'm like how are these guys full-time teachers and do this but then it kind of made sense that you guys had an income so you didn't even have in those early years you were able to just literally dump it all back in it and just I don't think we we pulled money from from the business for the first three years we continue to reinvest into it reinvest into uh our team into our employees uh into our marketing and uh we got to a point where we were finally able to start uh paying ourselves but I I agree with you 100% that was definitely part of our the reason for our success okay so you're teaching PE you're growing this business and you guys actually scaled it quite quickly what and I I remember seeing all the videos of all the shenanigans you guys pull out in public so when did you start doing that sort of stuff well in the beginning we started with simple things Facebook uh uh raap and um St Patrick the parades the parades and then we started getting uh who was our first um no then one of the first ones was uh we jumped in the snow and made like a was like a challenge yeah so we would play off of the different um things that were actually popular on social media and kind of tied in and you know utilize our family our families for these different promotions and kind of get people to support us and like us and have a certain feel for us that Media company and then we started doing the funny commercials right do you think the fact that you guys were ripped twins helped you and that sort of stuff I think the the twin aspect of us just growing up in a a great Community us being on the beach um you know me sometimes having no shirt on could have definitely helped it could have yeah um but we were so the community where we grew up uh just they wanted to support us and uh we we always had that support and that's why we always gave back to the the communities and when we gave back to the communities let's say for instance the Little League teams we weren't just giving them $500 for a banner and walking away we would go to the games we would support them we would end up you know bringing them Donuts or bringing them out to ice to go get ice cream you know we would take it a step further and be a little bit more genuine behind it you know you had a very important team member over there in Margot right and so when did Margo come on Marvel was incredible she was very important uh for us want to say it was what 2016 year three year three or four she came on um she came on just as a parttime employee filling you know some time answering calls routing some some routes and uh turned out she was just incredible you know she was that person that we we could call on at 7:00 at night 9 o'clock at night ask questions she would sign people up and she had some real buyin um so throughout the years you know she continued to work hard we compensated her well and uh you know she became a real important part of the team yeah as we grew we I mean still if we want to continue we knew that if we want to continue teaching we needed someone like Margot to step up uh in a role that she played so what did Margot I mean Margo had she was managing the administration of the business she had all your csrs reporting to her um you guys were actually working full-time jobs and she was really a lot of ways your eyes and ears during the day right 100% yep I mean what what was her main role there at the business her main role would she dealt with operations she dealt with uh upset customers she dealt with upset employees she dealt with um HR problems whatever that our business had to offer she had her hands on uh payroll uh hiring firing um at the end of my day I would reach out to her on a conference call every day and we would talk through the different things that she had to deal with and we I would walk her through it and help her with the different decisions that she had to make but uh she had her hands and everything on the day that you guys sold that business how many employees did you have and I'm talking about like the seasonal Max seasonal Max I would say 75 to 80 yeah and how many of those were in the office I would say about 15 say 12 to 15 and what did you guys you know you you started as a mosquito business you ultimately had a small Pest Control business that was part of that was smaller than the mosquito business how did you get into pest whenever we had someone call the office and had a pest issue you know people would call us because they Lov their service like do you take care care of ants um we referred them to uh turn turn P control a relationship that we built and she got to the point where she wanted to sell she just didn't want to run a business anymore and uh we ended up buying that company Turner pest so how much interplay was there between that Pest Control business in the mosquito business and were you ultimately cross- selling mosquito services to those customers that you bought we were cross to those customers but we at first it was a hard decision for us to what to e to either uh have our business be last by mosquito control and Pest Control uh or we wanted to have two separate businesses and you ultimately kept it as two separate business we did yeah and uh I wanted us to keep it into two separate businesses because I wanted us to really focus on the mosquito and tick and have that just that's what we're KNN we were the professionals at mosquitoes and tick with last fight and then uh Pest Control was pest control and we essentially had two offices two office staffs that did both um so and then we cross sell to both and if there and we bundle we made bundles uh for for U you Total Home Total Home had mosquito bundle with everything else termites and uh general pest control and then with the last by side if anyone wanted Pest Control we would refer them over to toal home and it worked out so you guys are full-time PE teachers you get this idea one brother goes over to the other brother next thing you know you're in the tick mosquito business what were some of the biggest lesson you learned over what it was roughly a decade that you own that business is that right 10 years give or take yeah yeah so you're you guys weren't business owners before that what were what were your biggest kind of learning lessons that you had maybe learn the hard way type of things well let me start so all of a sudden now you guys have some I believe in like utilizing your resources I built a lot of really close professional relation ships with people within our industry across the country and through conversations with them uh and their guidance it really helped us tremendously in the different directions that we went and the different decisions that we made so uh if you if someone made a mistake somewhere I'd rather learn from their mistake than have to make it on my own and people look at me like ah but they're surprised that I'm able to ask these questions or reach out to people for help but I'm it's it's worked for me you know so that's one big lesson or one reason why I feel like I'm we're able to be successful but when I give people advice about people who are going to business I tell them what he said I tell them that you know don't be afraid to reach out to someone in the same industry in another state and pick their brain tell them what you're doing tell me you're new at this because that's how I learned I just like Jason you know uh I out to a couple people in Industry I remember you telling me you know I'm want to reach out to a couple people I need you to reach out to a couple people in the mosquito and tfield and build a relationship and definitely you learn so much that way and you also learn by by doing um I remember just like yesterday I'm leaving the house with my family and I get someone walk on to the door serving us papers was your wife was divorce papers it was a divorce um we were being sued by one of our customers saying that we killed all this Foley John's property and I was so stressed out about it I'm here new business owner I think we were in a business for two or three years um and this was like a $100,000 lawsuit scare the crap out of me um but I mean I learned that that's with insurance is for I we figured out that it wasn't our fault but um at the same time it was still stressful now you guys rais a great point because I think how I met you to begin with was from Ryan um one of the co-owners of of Mr Mister another mosquito business down in Georgia and you know they intro I think it was Ryan and Matt introduced me to you guys spoke very highly of you which kind of speaks to your willingness to go out to find people in other states so how did that happen which one have you tracked those guys I reached out I was at the beach club over the summertime and somehow came across his business so I called the office line I essentially ended up speaking to Beth his wife uh Beth took my name information and said she would let Ryan know Ryan called me back and we kicked it off you know he was I want to say about a year or two ahead of us in terms of size at the time so it kind of worked out perfectly because he was in those different benchmarks before us and we were able to follow roughly same age group too same age group uh young family great guy so we're B bounc things off of each other I was just going through our text messages the other day and hundreds of Texas you know just going over different you know business situations and problems and strategies and you know that was a learning uh tool for me you know and we still talk to this day about different things yeah I mean I I think that's a it's a great way to do it obviously you reached out to some good people because Ryan is super friendly and he's very willing to help everyone um he's a smart guy and they built a great business down there and I think he I know he was in that pooper scooper business rough stuff I think it was called R stuff rough stuff y I think they finally got rid of that they did and then he did a pool business and I think he's out of that and you were saying yesterday he's still part of termin I think he's with TX still yeah yeah I think so too so you did that on the mosquito side did you do that in the P control side as well I did um awesome close friend of mine Brian Hopkins he's he was with quick Pest Control much smaller company down in Georgia and you know another going to lifelong friend and uh very helpful so was there a reason why like guys from the M Atlantic we calling the Deep South friendlier to they more patient with you guys like that could be one thing and less chance of uh competition you know but I I wonder though like do you guys get the feeling like the southerners actually might be easier to deal with than like New Yorkers or New Jersey guys calling up asking for help or maybe maybe that's not the case from my experience cheers and you guys are very helpful you're just like Ryan right right but I don't see everyone being like you guys no not everyone's like us um know we would be more than happy to talk to anybody but it doesn't always go it's not always the other way around yeah okay so you called up mosquito companies you called up and what kind of stuff were you as like in the early years when you track Ryan down was it like Ryan like I don't know what I'm doing or like hey Ryan we're a couple years into this like what are you guys doing compar notes yes exactly we would be compar notes so how you guys doing with employees uh how many jobs a day are you guys doing uh what type of products are you using how often you servicing what's your respray rate uh what's your marketing techniques what's working for your marketing um so those are the conversations that we would have because it' be change it would change all the time um we even sent a crew of people down there oh you did to check out how they do things Margo Marissa Anthony y we team down there for a weekend do you guys remember like anything profound that you learned from them like where you're like shoot we need to do this they were actually one thing that I remember them being very very good at is they were great at at the marketing and the advertising that's one of and and and I always tell the story to people like when when we were selling that business um they would use all these yard signs and they for years they'd put thousands of these things out they were like everywhere and I remember when we were getting ready to sell it and before we started the process Matt Brill who's Ryan's partner got the bright idea he's like you know Oran will be part of the process and they're based right here in Atlanta we need to find out where all the corporate Executives live from Rollin from Gary Rollins on down and put all the yard and like go out there and get as many clients as we can in their neighborhood so their our yard signs are everywhere so they think were huge they did a ton with Billboards when we took took that business out to Market Rollins thought they were doing 50 million in Revenue 5 50 they were quite a bit smaller than 50 million in Revenue um but that was a testament to their presence in the market so I'm just curious of what you guys may have picked up from them we we definitely did uh the yard signs the yard signs I remember watching their their marketing material with the videos they did a really good job that um you know making you watch them and finish the videos and they're funny and uh great humor and uh I wanted to implement that with BL bite yeah he also did a nice job that one another thing that we implemented that did that they did was was uh they create teams team leaders and so we we implemented that into our business yeah I'm sure there's other things just can't think go off the top of my head of exactly what but uh it was definitely a great relationship that was beneficial to us what you guys why did you guys decide to sell that business now when when you did from my experience from speaking of people they always want to they they always said you always want to sell when you're on top and uh I felt like we're kind of at the peak uh we scaled really quick after Co well leading into Co we scaled quick and then Co really bounced us up there and uh I think our numbers started flatten out a little bit so I was like I think this is the time for us to exit it was a it was uh we're being offered a good number and you know I think that a lot of pest control companies are offering these bundles for mosquito control and I think it's going to lower the the price of services I think people are going to just go into a general pest control company and and utilize their bundle Services right uh so it seems prolific now like even TR green is offering the bundle like fer super super cheap mosquito control so I thought I think I thought that service were was going to start to get watered down so regulations too regulations was another thing uh I know in New Jersey towns are they're Limited in gas power blowers in certain areas uh I mean you pivot right and you get electric which is fine yeah uh certain New York State they got rid of uh bean and they can't utilize that in in New York and I felt like it was only a matter of time before that happens in New Jersey a lot of companies are are blowing pesticides everywhere yeah and the DP that njd keeps getting calls about and I understand chemical trespassing and people being in their yard and pro chemical coming over to them and them not wanting that and it's hard to regulate that or to control that type of service so before you know the state comes out or someone comes out and says you can't do this anymore apply it this way I figured let's try and capitalize off of this good deal and uh move on how does that work in the state of New Jersey when you know a house right here wants it the next door neighbor doesn't want it do you have to do neighbor notification or or I mean what happens like could they call the municipality and get you guys banned from doing it because there's blowover or no is it just we train our technicians to to look over fences making sure that neighbors aren't out and if they are you know you you you miss a a certain area or you uh treat it a different way um that way you don't have that chemical trespassing so you guys were doing services that were effective for both mosquito and tick did you always start thinking about both I mean tick and mosquito typically goes together because you're using bifenthrin or those types of I I believe our first year we only did mosquito then we started advertising tick our second year y because you were actually what you were doing for mosquito was effective against tick absolutely but we weren't we weren't necessarily treating the Grass either though so in order for us to treat the grass where the ticks were we would have to service it so it was an up sell and we used a granular product versus a liquid treatment essentially they the same thing but it just shows a different method and that you're offering something different right and another thing we also did too back to your question before about if you had a neighbor outside we also have used a product that called the um well nature side it's all natural product we could use that as well in those situations I say was it effective yeah it was it was a good product Nal siiz good product we we would we would service um once every two weeks versus once every 3 weeks uh and our respray rate was just as good it was 3% resay rate uh and uh it was good it worked out did you charge more for it oh yeah it's a it's a more expensive product yeah yeah um people willing to pay for it though do you feel like there'll be more of that in the future of people going to more inert type products and safer I think they're uh aware and I think more and more people are leaning that way definitely then you have those people who just don't care yeah you know I I remember years ago talking to the Rollins guys down Atlanta and they were just like you know everyone always talks and and this may be this was year this was over a decade ago they you know I remember the conversation was like customers always talk about it but then when you actually spend time with them and they're like okay what what works the best and like how much does it cost and when they start doing that calculated calculus are like okay are you going to guarantee me no no no bugs okay yeah just give me the good stuff yeah so you mentioned like now was an opportunity time to actually do it you guys were growing like crazy the business was was really doing well um there were some potential threats on the horizon right you've got regulatory environment you've got the potential competitive situation with you know sprays becoming Commodities um had you guys decided to stick in was it ever contemplated like leaving your day jobs to do this I mean at some point would you have been like we have to do this or would you always have been you know I the reason why I asked this question this is a long rambling question but it was interesting to me because using the trajectory things is like guys like you have to be really active in the early years and then at some point you could become more of an investor and so what we see is like a business owner toils in the P control Vineyards for many years and then finally is's able to be like okay I don't need to be active I've got a great team and kind of step back you guys almost did the res reverse of that like I I I really have never seen anyone in this industry start a business from scratch while having a full-time job doing this so it's it's really an amazing and I remember when we went through the process you remember the looks on some of the faces of like the acquirers that you guys talked to they're like gym teachers you started this I mean potentially keeping you guys away from the business allowed it to not get screwed up that's one way to look at it right yeah uh we had like you mentioned before Margo she brought in an amazing group of women to to work for us also so you know we had a great team and the these companies that are 12 15 20 million who are who are able to step away at that point yeah uh they have great leadership they have great teams in place so Margot was that person who who surrounded herself with um middle-aged women who who were moms who left their profession to be parents be a mom and their kids are now high school and they're looking for something to do we hired these women part-time where they're working 4 hours a day were they able to kind of be involved in something be professional at do a really good job and then go home and be a you know a wife and a mom uh and we had a lot of women that did that uh and I think that's why we had really quality women working for us um in terms of leaving education leing education uh when we interviewed uh with the PE firms a few of them that's what they would essentially look for right us to kind of leave education and that was something we weren't necessarily willing to do because we're kind of vested we're passionate about education and you know Jeremy mentioned earlier our community and how how much they did for us uh when we were younger and was our teachers and our coaches and I think that's why we're so strong minded or so tied into education now is because of the the people that helped us when we were younger so we didn't want to necessarily walk away from that and there was never a need to walk away from right because because of the people we had in place right we had a system down that it worked in terms of your participation and education you guys are PE teachers I mean what sort of impacts are you having on the lives of these kids well I think fette is a place where students come to unwind and relax you know and and I think it gives us a better opportunity to connect with the students and kind of help them and direct them in certain ways joury teachers at a high school where we grew up in law branch and the different situations and problems that these kids go through uh are terrible right and if there's a a leader in their life or a role model that they they could look up to and Trust uh that's really important right uh I I I walk around town and and ger people think I'm Germany all the time student you know I'm at the cash register hey Mr Julia what's going on I'm like hey I am Mr Julia I'm Jason but uh he's like H tell tell your brother you know thanks so much and I'm like was he a good teacher you know did he teach you anything was he helpful he's like yeah and they'll go into the different uh because Fitness as you know is a lifelong yeah um it's a lifestyle it's a lifestyle it's it's super important for your mind uh it's a distressor you feel good and we're able to teach these kids how to kind of de-stress and and and take care of their bodies motivate them I mean you can speak on it I mean it's it's it's amazing I really do enjoy it um I have fun with it I'm giving back to the community they gave to me these kids are uh everything to me and uh I'm passionate about it let me ask you guys so so how long have you been at this being teachers this is our 19th year 19th year so what have you noticed over the last two decades with regard to the state of the students that you're teaching the physical state oh it's sad it's you uh their diets are terrible yeah uh they're not getting enough exercise remember being a kid me uh our physical fitness test was to run a mile the physical fitness test is to run a half mile now right so we're not raising the bar we're low in the bar so that's not necessarily a great thing uh so I think it'd be important to kind of get into the parents' ears you know get them to buy in and you look at some of the parents and you you you understand why their kids are out of shape or they live a sary lifestyle right they're just they're watching uh they're in front of the screen all day long playing video games and not getting outside they're up till 3:00 in the morning it's it's it's tough I mean look when you guys got started I mean obviously cell phones existed back then but there weren't iPads and that sort of we had we had beepers yeah those I had a beeper too we shared we shared a beeper and a cell phone and a car yeah so I mean you know a lot of things have clearly changed but I I do feel like back when we were kids we had run outside would there's I mean maybe if you were lucky somebody had like a Nintendo in the neighborhood right yeah but that was about it you just go outside and play yeah and that's I guess is relatively non-existent now compared to what what it was fortunately not now and how do you guys I mean how do you guys you find a a student who's obese who like has parents are the best role model who you know is eating garbage at home parents aren't exercising so how do you help those kids to actually change their lifestyle I just try to give them the tools so that one day when you know they can make their own decisions and cook their own food and go food shopping that they know what to do um I try to tell them all you know if your mom's giving you a cheeseburger and you know you won't just maybe eat the burger you know uh if you're getting a full plate maybe eat a portion of the plate um just trying to give them the tools do kidss ever come to you guys and say like I'm overweight I don't like it help me all the time all the time I've had people tell me they would come up to me when they graduate and thank me for all the way to I'll take a they'll I make them take a before and after picture from the beginning of the year to the end of the year step on a scale now and then you know we're not going to look at until the end of the year and if they buy into it they're going to do they're going to do well so you're at the high school Jeremy yeah I'm in the middle school the middle school so that's what seventh and eighth grade sixth seventh e 6th 7th and eth okay and so what would the I'm just curious It's been a long time since I've been in middle school you know what would a PE curriculum how would it differ from a high school curriculum at at the middle school level our our our physic curriculum is um more like uh we're we're teaching Sports rules we're teaching uh let's say we're doing soccer uh how to dribble a soccer ball got it uh how to a proper throwing or soccer uh and then we do small sided games and then we'll go into basketball we'll do dribbling drills and shooting drills and uh go over different techniques then we'll play small-sided basketball games we'll play knockout or um just different games to kind of incorporate the different skills that we're teaching them uh in the different units but uh and then in health is where we go over nutrition and body systems and all that fun stuff that Middle School's kids will be experiencing going through gotta and then H to High School level is just more in depth pretty much the same stuff you go nutrition but you dive more into it you you're going over uh reproductive Health but you dive deeper into it the nice thing is you also have the fit the fitness room to a weight room a gym for them to actually you know extra oh yeah we have a state-of-the-art weight room you name it we have it in there from uh elliptical to squat racks to um spin bikes to rowers we have we have it all are the students allowed to use it like after school if they want to we have an afternoon program yeah yeah is it like supervised by somebody or like it's not like a free-for-all I can just go in there and lift no it's I want to say it's about maybe 45 minutes after school a couple days a week okay what do you guys do with your own children in terms of physical fitness our kids are very active between my my daughter's playing lacrosse uh she she trains through days a week for that she's got soccer and then they they go to our our CrossFit gym and they they're lifting weights and they're rowing and they're running and they're super active and how old are they 12 and 10 okay and I question myself I'm like is this too much for them at this age or am I creating a routine for them that they're going to hold on to the rest of their life um cuz the last thing you want to ever do as a parent is to burn them out also and my question to them is are you having fun and and they're both asking me are we going to the gym to you know they're excited to go because we we get their friends to go and they're competing against each other and they're working out together and it's a place for them to kind of uh hang out at and get better yeah I think it's a fine balance of everything uh know they and they they really do enjoy going to the gym and playing sports but that's not all they're doing they're also you know they're going outside and playing going to the park with their friends um so find balance and we don't make it so all right this is what you're doing you know they want to do it um well you guys are clearly setting an and that's the big thing too right you got to model the behavior right we model the behavior all the time so it's good is it appropriate for a 12-year-old to do free weight lifting so they're not they're not lifting heavy weights they're going over Tech I'm not talking about your kids I'm just talking about kids in general in general no is 12y old is it too young for a 12-year-old to I don't think as long as they're you know doing it properly and they're being taught properly and they're not really we're going over technique and form yeah which is I think at this level is important they're old enough to learn good form yeah right um I'm we're not having a max out you know yeah have either of you two thought about um getting in into other aspects of Education whether it be on the administrative side or is it just really the direct the direct um contact with the students is what's I think I'll be doing that that's a totally different job I was if I went that route it would it wouldn't be the same I wouldn't get the same feeling uh uh The Joy from it I do have my administration degree I could go that route but I don't think I want to pursue that route yeah I have my administrative degree and prior to starting uh our adventure in Pest Control I was my mind was set that was going to pursue Administration uh throughout the years I've worked with my Administration team I help them with whatever they need I like being in a leadership role and being part of a team but kind of like what Jeremy saying at this stage in my life now where we've allowed our uh created an opportunity for ourselves not to have to work 12 months out of the year uh and be able to spend more time with my my family and my friends I'll wait till the end of my career to possibly get involved in that yeah uh if ever what do you think is a good way for resi and Commercial Services businesses to get more active in the community I mean I have a lot of these conversations and I don't know much about this sort of stuff you guys were talking about like the sponsorship of the Little League teams that you would do but it wasn't just like writing the check and like putting up a poster it was active you know being actively involved in that what are some other things that folks might think about doing if they really want to focus on being supportive to their communities some of the things that we've done we went to uh we did a lot of networking events um we did the parades I'm always searching for things on uh the community pages on Facebook and if it's a run if it's uh delivering a gift basket with run the holiday yeah around the holidays Thanksgiving Christmas uh giving back being part of the food drives I think that's really important uh we have a scholarship at w branch that we participate in that we give back to them that way so there's a lot of different ways um but it might not be for everybody you talk about a company that may be you know $20 million like how do they focus on all these different areas yeah um but we were fortunate enough that we we wanted to focus on at least a couple of the different uh towns that we were pretty tied into throughout the years yeah so we've talked about your business we've talked about your professional career and fizzed you guys are also parents and you're attempting to be great role models for your kids when you think about it from you know guiding and directing these little ones into their own careers they're starting to get to the age right now where it's like what do you want to be when you grow up what sort of discussions are you having with these guys and how are you trying to to direct them so I listen to The Boardroom Buzz often yeah and I introduce my kids to Paul okay and say this is who you want to be like when you get older yeah you want to be like Paul no I just try to live my my life every single day getting up in the morning and being a good person and have my kids see that and I work hard and the kids see that and hopefully one day they'll work hard and and I we do listen to your podcast all the time and I wanted I think that'll teach them uh and they hear me and Jason talk about business all the time and if business is something they want to get into one day then I think all this is going to help them yeah yeah I don't necessarily want to pigeon hole them into any one thing or tell them that they can't do one thing uh but I do believe that there's something to be said for entrepreneurship you know and to have their own business one day would be phenomenal I would like to see that uh but they had also it's really important for for us to make sure our kids are going to college getting a degree um and see what's out there and um but yeah essentially like Jeremy said they're watching us engage in business all the time yeah you know between the conversations that we have between the different meetings that we have they come to events they come to meetings they've been on to all those things but you guys must not have been I mean everyone wants to make as much money as they can but know getting into fed you're you're clearly not waking up one day and being like yeah I'm going to get rich in fette right no so the mindset Jason and I we didn't come from much at all we had a single parent growing up Section 8 welfare the whole nine yards uh you know first to go to college and we saw our PE teachers and that was rich to us you know having a house um having a $100,000 a year salary whatever it was uh that was like that was the goal and then when we got and you know we had like five jobs I was teaching I was coaching I was bartending I was running a beach club I started the business and I was like wow then you really see the opportunity what you can actually have um but in the beginning it was like this is I'm doing good I'm not I'm not on section8 I'm not on welfare and I knew that's not I I always wanted to make sure that that wasn't going to be the case I always wanted to make sure that you know I was going to have beautiful wife at home I was going to have kids I was going to have that white figure of fence yep and but I was never that next thing and when that when the business started I was like oh there's an opportunity to actually really make some money Jason when you came over and started talking to Jeremy about like this whole franchise idea I mean had you guys been toss around the idea of doing business together we couldn't because uh that franchise was bought in our territory so it automatically forced us to kind of go out but I mean were you just talking about doing business together in general even like no prior to that I don't think no we were just focused on my my goal was I was a teacher coach manag Beach Club I my goal was to become I was the assistant manager of the beach club I want to be the the manager general manager of the beach club make $770,000 do that make $70,000 teaching uh oh and then become an administrator got it so then I would yeah I'm doing great that you know I'm able to go on One Vacation a year you know but yeah this came along this opportunity came along um I really appreciate the person that brought it up to me I'm very good friends with that person so and it just took off yeah yeah I mean it's it's really one of the it's one of the coolest stories you know from our personal dealings with clients what you guys were able to do actually I'm always amazed by it the fulltime teachers doing this people are always shocked when they hear that oh you had you you guys run last bite and you teach how how's that possible and I've met a lot of people have the same reaction that I did is like why do they still teach why they still teach that's the follow that's the following question yeah why are they still teaching but it's actually that you really love teaching because you actually impacts you guys and you're able to impact the students it's not like you had to do it you just really want to be there which I think is a great story actually I really think and I think you guys are great role models for those kids being able to do what you love but also start a business I just really love everything about it and the students know that we have this business and they always ask us questions and um we've done some uh they have like a shark tank thing at school and they have us on and I've talked to the students about the business and it it shows them there is opportunity for them to kind of get out of where they're at because we share our stories with them we tell them Hey listen this is where we were we were sitting the same seat as you and then you know this is what we went through and this is how we did it you know you could do it as well if I can do it you can do it and it comes down to just like great and working hard uh you you mentioned like about us teaching the kids you know proper nutrition and exercise and we can only show them so much they're going to have to really do it right I talked to other business owners and they asked me for advice or how did I do this or uh what can I do to you know increase revenue or sales and I tell them what I think they should do and whether they do it or not it's on them right uh working at first when you start a business seven days a week all day long you're always on you can't take a day off you can't ignore a phone call I remember one of the first uh customer complaints that we had it was 4th of July 1000 p.m. the business land rang uh I missed the call somehow and it went to voicemail the guy was super upset doing like fireworks or something I super upset fired fired up cuz he was getting bit by mosquitoes I called him back immediately introduced myself said he said stop right there the fact that you called me 10:00 on 4th of July and it says enough call me tomorrow morning we'll figure it out you know uh but having that type of care in what we were doing is super important so uh that's the type of drive that someone needs to have when they're starting a business or when they're trying to do anything but how were you able to keep that up that sort of attention to the customer as you scaled that business so at first we were both doing that one day he would be on and I'd be on and I'd be doing the same thing I've had those calls late at night I'd call the person back and custom me would be super happy about it but uh I mean you can only do that for so long yeah um and hire morgo and the rest of the people you know and then you implement that same they implement the same philosophy to them and you know that's what they did you know Marg would make calls at 10 o'clock at night to upset customers I mean if you're calling somebody back 10 o00 on 4th of July that implies that you're also doing it at Tuesday at T on a random Tuesday is that what you guys were doing yeah yeah so was getting back same day was important to you guys I think customer service is important one of the if not the most important thing and when you do things like that it goes a long way and then they'll they'll never forget you for it customer service uh having an amazing team uh having a good service there's there's there's a lot of things that go into it but I think that we were able to kind of implement all those things you know you know I think when people think about good service in our industry they think about like technically good service but what you're talking about is man it's Fourth of July this guy has a problem let's get back to him so he knows we care M at the end of the day so yeah people can't get in touch with owners or company anymore nowadays yeah landscapers you can't get in touch with them pest control companies you can't get in touch with them yeah you can't get to who you want to talk to immediately you got to you got to wait you got to be on hold right I mean what was your situation that you were was it uh shrim green or Lawn Doctor you were just like you had to give up you're like screw it yeah it was got put on hold and I had to wait and then I finally got on somebody and then all of a sudden the call drops and you're just like I just wasted so much time and then you say you know what I'm not going to use these guys anymore that's what how I feel at least I I was talking to Jim Mel once and you guys know Jimmy he's like we just picked up the phone he's like we picked up the phone he's like I instituted like we pick up the phone on the first rank I don't care if I I have my business over staff to do that somebody calls one ring we answer it he's like because then you know they just called five other people that pick up the phone you were the guy that actually answered the phone you're going to get the business they're not calling anyone else right and you're paying for that phone toing also right so it's not answer then you're losing money I guess my last question on this whole entire topic is how did you guys I mean you're in a seasonal business when mosquitoes are out like your phone are inundated especially like during the co era I know you guys have a lot of people working in the back office but I mean did you Outsource any of that phone answering to anyone or you just did it all in house and if you couldn't get to the phone you called them right back no we looked into it for a hot second and we realized it wasn't going to work the way we wanted it to work yeah you were you were getting someone at a call service that didn't really truly know the answers didn't really care about your business didn't really care about the business didn't know our values um so we decided we were just going to hire someone and train them and making sure that they were doing it the right way good guys I really appreciate you coming down Puerto Rico I'm glad you guys made the boat yesterday I'm happy thank you for waiting yeah yeah that was great uh We've enjoyed it this place is beautiful awesome I look forward to dinner with you guys tonight m