Interview with Jeremy Ecker, CEO of Rest Easy Pest Control, recorded at PestWorld 2024 in Denver. Paul Giannamore and Ecker discuss Ecker's 12-year growth of a pest control business in the New York Metro market, including 16 small-scale acquisitions and integration lessons, pricing, payment, and service-frequency models for customer retention, digital marketing and local SEO strategies, recruiting and retaining employees, and reinventing service offerings such as subscription and annual plans. # Channel Identity Observations: PTOC TV / Paul Giannamore Interview (#PestWorld2024) ## Explicit Self-Description by the Host - **Channel name and host identity stated directly.** The host introduces himself: > "hi I'm Paul jamore I wanted to welcome our new subscribers to the channel" and refers to the channel as "pomac TV" / "ptoc TV" (apparent transcript renderings of the channel's name). - **Stated historical focus.** The host explicitly claims the channel's scope: > "historically pomac TV has been focused on business and operational information and interviews for residential and Commercial Services business owners." - **Stated new content direction.** He announces expansion driven by audience demand: > "after the publication of the cide m&a master class last month my LinkedIn inbox has been inundated with a variety of different requests so Dylan and I will be sitting down filming more extensive m&a master classes both focusing on the sell side as well as the buy side." - **Claimed future topics:** "the choice of process," "m&a psychology," "buy side practice approach and due diligence." ## Stated Intended Audience - **Residential and commercial service business owners** — per the host's own description of the channel's focus. - **Viewers actively requesting content** — the host states the channel is "largely driven by you the viewer" and invites comments: > "feel free to put a comment below on the types of things you want to see." - **Subscribers and email-list members** — explicit calls to subscribe and join the email distribution list, indicating an audience-building objective. ## Observable Presentation (Demonstrated Patterns) - **Interview format with named industry guest.** The episode is a one-on-one conversation with Jeremy Ecker, a Long Island pest control business owner, covering his career history, acquisitions, and marketing. - **M&A and operational depth demonstrated.** Topics include deal sizes ($60K–$600K revenue, ~16 deals in 12 years), non-solicitation agreements, customer retention post-acquisition, and integration lessons — consistent with the claimed business/M&A focus. - **Host demonstrates domain expertise.** The host asks detailed questions about valuation, retention contingencies ("you didn't have any other purchase pricing contingent upon the retention of that key customer"), and industry consolidation (Anticimex, Rollins, Terminix, private equity entry), supporting the claimed scope of expert business content. - **Industry-event context.** The title references "#PestWorld2024," and the transcript's end ("glad you're being able to escape the Mexican now") suggests the interview was recorded at or around an industry conference. - **Audience-solicitation guest segments.** The guest uses the platform to recruit (a "beast of an outside salesperson in New York City") and solicit acquisition targets ("anyone up to a million dollars"), suggesting the show serves as a networking venue for industry operators. ## Distinguishing Claims from Demonstration - **Claimed:** Business/operational focus, M&A master class expansion, viewer-driven content. - **Demonstrated:** A long-form operator interview with substantive M&A, marketing, and pricing discussion, plus a mid-video subscriber welcome — the latter being an **observable presentation habit** (direct audience engagement, cross-promotion of email list and prior "master class" publication) rather than a claim. ## Notable Absences - No channel-wide mission statement, sponsor mentions, or subscriber counts appear in the transcript. - No curated metadata was supplied, so observations rest solely on title and transcript. # Delivery Observation: #PestWorld2024 — Jeremy Ecker Interview (Paul Giannamore, Host) ## Overall Format - **Two-person interview structure**: host Paul Giannamore leads with structured questions; guest Jeremy Ecker responds with extended narrative answers. - Cold open is a **teaser clip** from later in the conversation (the technician/non-solicitation story), followed by a channel welcome segment. --- ## Tone - **Conversational and informal** throughout; both speakers use casual filler and asides. - Host: *"yeah I mean you gra a you raise a really good point"* - Guest: *"it hasn't come to bite Us in the ass but this time it did so learn"* - **Humor and self-deprecation** recur, especially from the guest: - *"I'm a master integrator um no I'm just kidding"* - *"don't sell it to anybody else of course that was not true shut your booth down"* - Occasional **in-jokes and off-mic moments**, flagged explicitly: - *"I mean there's a funnier story to that but not for the show"* - *"just trying to give you some hope yes it's Tuesday Wednesday what day is it"* (apparent editing/aside moment) --- ## Vocabulary & Recurring Phrases ### Guest (Ecker) - **Business-growth framing dominates his vocabulary**: "acquisitions," "integrate/integration," "organic growth," "annuities," "annuity." - *"it's all about how many annuities you have and then you can increase the annuities"* - **Repeated metaphor cluster of experimentation**: "test," "played with," "toyed with," "throw grenades." - *"if I'm allowed to just continue to throw grenades all day like crazy ideas"* - *"we played with that a little bit... we tested it"* - **Quantifies almost every claim with concrete numbers**: - *"anything from 60,000 to 600,000"*, *"we went from 15 accounts to like 700 accounts"*, *"$100 average that's $1,600 a day per technician"* - **Repetitive verbal tics**: heavy use of "like," "just," "kind of," "you know," and repeated words ("we we," "I I I"). - *"I I I don't want to delve too deep in this"* - **Favorite recurring idiom — competition as games**: "chess match," "home runs," "floodgates." - *"that's the chase right that's the chess match that I've been doing for 12 years and I've hit a couple home runs"* ### Host (Giannamore) - **Restates and checks understanding** — a signature interviewing habit: - *"so you basically took the K9 inspection business added pest to it is that what you did"* - *"okay so you're just spilling them as you go"* - **Plays devil's advocate** with the customer's perspective: - *"if I'm a customer at my house why would I prefer say I have the opportunity to buy Tri anual service from you why would I prefer every other month"* - **Teases future accountability** of the guest's claims: - *"remember you're on the air here the people going remember you saying this"* - Uses **"yeah" and short affirmations** frequently as backchannel (*"yeah," "correct," "got it," "mhm"*). --- ## Teaching / Communication Habits - **Anecdote-driven teaching**: nearly every lesson is attached to a specific named or situated story (the Poconos acquisition, the NYC management company, the Amazon Local deals, Google Guarantee at a trade-show booth). - **Lesson-then-principle structure** from the guest: story first, then the takeaway. - Story of the technician → *"that's something I learned even in the small businesses... they get their house in order a little bit before we buy"* - **Host extends guest lessons into general advice** for the audience: - *"you want to get that thing signed as soon as you possibly can and make sure that there's a transferability clause in it"* - **Explicit honesty about failure** — the guest repeatedly names things that did not work: - *"we built out like 400 micro websites... and was complete failure"* - *"so we tested it... I didn't see was the pop"* --- ## Patterns vs. Isolated Moments ### Stable patterns (multiple instances) - Numerical specificity in guest answers (many instances). - Host comprehension-check restatements (multiple). - Guest framing ideas as experiments/tests (multiple). - Informal register with profanity-lite asides ("bite us in the ass," "sell the out of that business" — likely censored). ### Isolated / uncertain - The **"what day is it" aside** appears once; unclear whether it reflects a habitual on-camera mannerism or a one-off edit. - The closing *"glad you're being able to escape the Mexican now cheers brother"* is a single unexplained sign-off; no pattern of similar closings is observable. - Occasional speaker-attribution ambiguity exists where the transcript interleaves overlapping talk (e.g., the transition pricing exchange), so some quoted attributions carry **moderate uncertainty**. --- ## Structural Delivery Notes - Interview follows a **chronological then thematic arc**: origin story → acquisitions → lessons learned → marketing innovation → pricing-model experimentation → market outlook → closing pitch. - Guest periodically addresses the **audience implicitly** through the host's framing (e.g., the guest's direct recruiting message: *"we're looking for a beast of a salesperson... doesn't have to be from pest control"*). # Position Record: PestWorld 2024 — Paul Giannamore Interviews Jeremy Ecker ## Speakers - **Paul Giannamore** — Host, PTO TV (potentially "Pomac TV" per transcript); M&A advisor - **Jeremy Ecker** — Founder/owner, pest control company based in Nassau County, Long Island, NY *Note: Transcript speaker identification is based on conversational context; some names (e.g., "Paul jamore") are rendered inconsistently in the transcript.* --- ## Background & Business History (Jeremy Ecker) - Started in pest control **with his uncle in high school** doing termite work; returned in **2001** and worked for him **nine years**, calling him "an amazing Mentor." - After leaving, founded the **first and only independent K9 bed bug inspection company in New York City**, ~6–8 months before the bed bug epidemic — "right place at the right time… we crushed the market for about 18 months." - Transitioned to full-service pest control (~2011–2012) when inspection prices and media hype fell. Lost a client representing **25% of his business** when he announced he'd start competing. - Business split roughly **50/50 between the five boroughs and Long Island**; home office in Nassau County with satellite offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan. - Admitted limited hands-on pest control knowledge at transition: > "I could talk to you about how to do an ant job… have I ever done that job? No." ## Acquisitions Strategy (Ecker) - **16 deals in 12 years** (since 2012), revenue range **$60,000 to $600,000** (smallest stated as "about 160" — transcript contains an internal inconsistency with the stated lower bound). - Deal flow via **word of mouth**, not postcards; learned acquisition and *integration* working with his uncle. - Target sellers: **boomers retiring** — he identified this wave early, mirroring what institutional money (Anticimex, entering ~2016 per Giannamore) did at larger scale. - Ecker's pitch to sellers: local ownership, keep the name, keep the staff, treat clients like a small business would. - **Ceiling of ~$1 million revenue**: > "once you get up to a million they're going to be talking to guys like you… I can't compete with the big guys." ### Lessons Learned (Ecker) - **Non-solicitation lesson (biggest burn):** A technician at an acquired company refused his offer (~$200/week gap between $1,000 offered and ~$1,200 wanted); lacking a non-solicitation agreement, "he stole business." Ecker called himself "penny wise pound foolish" and now requires sellers to "get their house in order" pre-close. - **Integration difficulty scales:** Small deals once easy to absorb ("I would take anything"); now 20% of a $150–180K book may be low-revenue customers he expects to lose, so he values differently than dollar-for-dollar a decade ago. - **Retention is better than feared:** Only "a very small percentage" leave automatically; they manage transitions with staged retirements, letters, and phone calls to at-risk accounts. - On acquired pricing: some small 50-year one-man shops are "significantly underpriced" and must be factored in; keeps acquired customers on same schedule/pricing initially. ## Commercial Customer Anecdote (Ecker) - Bought a NYC commercial business where 25% of revenue came from a management company the seller hated. Ecker priced the deal assuming that revenue was lost, then tried to fix the relationship. He upsold rodent control ("you have glue boards… we're going to have to do this") — "they got the bills and then they fired us… within weeks." No purchase-price contingency was needed because he'd already factored it out. ## Digital Marketing Positions (Ecker) - **Philosophy:** "trying to stay one step ahead of Google before Google it was Yelp before Yelp it was the Yellow Pages." - **Microsites failure:** Built ~400 micro websites in Long Island with a seven-person marketing team at large cost — "complete failure." Reason given: hyper-local search behavior was the right thesis, but execution was wrong ("I'm not a technology guy"). - **Wins:** Early Google reviews adoption; early adoption of **Google Local Services / Google Guarantee** via Search Kings, met at a Northeast/Eastern conference booth. Claimed he "owned New York for one season at $25 a lead," driving "ridiculous growth." - Currently testing a new SEO company (engaged February, 18–24 month or longer test) doing what he attempted 10 years ago. ## Sales Model Reinvention (Ecker) — central theme - **2014 shift to monthly billing:** First in his area; advertised "$29.99/month with $99 startup" instead of annual prepay. Grew from 15 accounts to ~700, invoking the **gym membership model** ("everyone joins a gym they never use"). - **Current claim (tentative):** "I have an unpopular opinion I think that the subscription model is dead not today but it's dead and dying." Immediately qualified: > "I'm not doing away with it… I'm not doing it yet." - **Proposed experiment:** Move from monthly-billed tri-annual service to **every-other-month service with per-service billing** — six visits, similar total dollars. Logic: production density — two stops/hour at ~$100 average = **$1,600/day per technician**. - **Motivating problem:** Monthly customers cancel when the pest problem is gone despite satisfaction; he's scrambling to create perceived value (photos, cobweb removal, gutter cleaning). - Evidence from the **Poconos acquisition** (different seasonal model): sold jobs at ~$125 for 20–25 minutes — "this is easy… can this translate?" Tested in March; **not yet adopted**: > "I'm not saying it's definitive but it's definitely in the realm of possibilities." - **Acknowledged internal friction:** Staff and advisors push back ("I'm getting a lot of kicks in the ass saying you're crazy"); also self-aware: > "I'm not even convinced that it's the right thing." He jokes he "throws grenades" of crazy ideas and gets told to stay away. - **Other tested packages (did not pop):** - $29.99/month plan where customers must call to trigger up to three visits/year (banking on non-calls) — tested, concern: customers control the schedule. - Auto-renewal $99/year + ~$100–125 per service call ("Amazon Prime model") — ran 2–3 months, awaiting results. He wanted "400 in a month" and didn't see it, so killed new sales; legacy customers kept until "we just kick them off." - **Giannamore's counterpoint:** Selling six-times-a-year service may cause customers to question whether three-times-a-year works; also warned that getting "too far out left field" makes future integration harder for acquirers. Ecker partially conceded (bi-monthly/tri-annual is fine; the short-tested packages "would be difficult") while joking "I'm a master integrator." ## Service Frequency & Customer Perspective - Ecker transitioned some customers from quarterly to **tri-annual** on the advice that customers wouldn't care: > "the majority of customers don't care… they don't know the difference between the three or four." - His assessment: tri-annual "helps us run with the crowd… not going to help us grow 25%." - On why a customer would prefer every-other-month: pitch would emphasize more frequent protection, cobweb removal, proactive checks; tri-annual could remain an A/B/C option. Admitted: "it hasn't been hammered out yet." - On growth definitions: Ecker notes "organic growth" is debatable — "you're paying for growth no matter what" — responding to Giannamore's framing of organic vs. paid vs. acquisitive growth. ## Commercial vs. Residential Focus - Ecker: "I would love to be 90/10 commercial… easier business, less headache, more money." Currently **~55/45 commercial**; would be happy at 70/30. - **Hiring commercial salespeople has not worked**: > "the last few did not work out." Not ending the effort — publicly seeking "a beast of an outside salesperson in New York City," need not be from pest control, to sell into apartment/commercial buildings. Goal: "quadruple the amount of business we're doing," via sales hires and acquisitions. ## Industry Consolidation Views - **Ecker:** NY-area private-equity acquisitions "really haven't been train wrecks like some other areas." Credits Anticimex's approach of **keeping acquired company names** (Arrow still Arrow, Suburban still Suburban, Magic still Magic) versus Terminix/Orkin's 1990s–2000s practice of rebranding on day one, which he says drove customers away. - **Giannamore (agreement):** Notes Rentokil acquired many Long Island businesses and left them standalone with same management; branding them as one "would have been a foolish decision." - On whether PE sophistication changed competition: **Ecker — no**: "no… still all killing bugs." ## Closing Notes / Unresolved Tensions - Ecker's subscription-is-dying claim vs. his repeated qualifications that he hasn't abandoned it — tension preserved as stated. - The every-other-month idea remains **untested as a rollout**, debated internally, and explicitly not a settled position. - Transcript contains garbled segments (e.g., a mid-sentence lapse: "if you need to be a dream just trying to give you some hope… what day is it") — recorded only as present, not interpreted. # Speaker & Provenance Observation Record **Video ID:** 01a168c8-2cd8-7ed5-8809-f0418dd4948a **Title:** Reinventing Pest Control: Jeremy Ecker's 12-Year Quest for the Perfect Twist | #PestWorld2024 ## Identified Speakers & Roles - **Paul Giannamore** (transcribed as "Paul jamore") — **Host / channel creator**, PTOAC TV ("pomac TV" in transcript). Conducts the interview, provides M&A commentary, welcomes subscribers. - **Jeremy Ecker** — **Guest**. Pest control business owner (Long Island / New York Metro), acquisition-focused operator, subject of the interview. ## Promotional Segments (Flagged) - **Channel intro/outro by Paul Giannamore** promoting: - Subscriptions to **PTOAC TV** channel ("click below and subscribe"). - An **email distribution list** link "in the description." - Reference to a recently published **"M&A master class"** and upcoming sell-side/buy-side master classes with **Dylan**. - Request for viewer comments on future content. ## Third-Party Entities & Claims Referenced (by speakers; not independently verified) ### Companies & Acquirers Named - **Terminix**, **Orkin** — legacy acquirers criticized for name changes on day one (per Jeremy). - **Anticimex** ("Anthony sex" in transcript) — entered the market ~2016; credited with keeping acquired company names. - **Arrow, Suburban, Magic** — named Long Island pest control brands said to retain standalone names post-acquisition. - **Rentokil ("rill")** — said to have acquired Long Island businesses and left them standalone (per Paul). - **Anticimix-acquired "Scientific"** and a company "out east" — mentioned with speaker uncertainty on details. - **Select** — cited as acquired by financial sponsors/private equity (Northeast). - **Search Kings** — marketing vendor Jeremy met at a conference; early Google Local Services / Google Guarantee engagement described. ### Business & Deal Facts Asserted by Jeremy - ~**16 acquisitions in 12 years** (starting 2012), deal revenue range **$60K–$600K**. - First independent **K9 bed bug inspection company in NYC**; transitioned to full pest control ~2011–2012. - **$29.99/month** billing model introduced ~2014; growth from ~15 to ~700 accounts claimed. - Failed **~400 micro-websites** marketing initiative. - Google Local Services ("Google Guaranteed") at **$25/lead** for a season, described as a growth win. - Acquired Pennsylvania (Poconos) business on a seasonal/tri-annual model; commercial customer retention anecdote in NYC. - Non-solicitation lesson: technician without a non-compete/non-solicit "stole business" after an acquisition. ### Speaker Opinions / Unverified Judgments - Jeremy's view that the **monthly subscription model is "dead and dying"** — explicitly labeled as his opinion ("unpopular opinion"). - Proposed **every-other-month service model** — discussed as an untested idea, not implemented. - Deferred anecdote: *"there's a funnier story to that but not for the show"* — content withheld, unavailable. ## Availability & Limits - No curated metadata supplied; speaker identification rests solely on transcript (names phonetically transcribed, e.g., "jamore" for Giannamore). - No timestamps present in transcript. - Comment availability: host explicitly **invites viewer comments** ("put a comment below"); actual comment presence not verifiable from source. - No cited external documents or sources beyond verbal references listed above. one of their technicians didn't take the deal I offered them which would have been sign the paper you work for me non-solicitation noncompete he didn't take the offer and I didn't up my offer cuz he wanted let's say $1,200 take home and I was offering 1,000 and I Penny wise pound foolish he stole business hi I'm Paul jamore I wanted to welcome our new subscribers to the channel you know historically pomac TV has been focused on business and operational information and interviews for residential and Commercial Services business owners but after the publication of the cide m&a master class last month my LinkedIn inbox has been inundated with a variety of different requests so Dylan and I will be sitting down filming more extensive m&a master classes both focusing on the sell side as well as the buy side I intend to talk about the choice of process delving deep into m&a psychology uh as well as extensive by side practice approach and due diligence for those of you who have not subscribed you can click below and subscribe to the channel furthermore we've provided a link here in the description where you can get on our email distribution list and if you do that you'll receive an email right in your inbox with our latest Publications feel free to put a comment below on the types of things you want to see I mean this channel is largely driven by you the viewer and what you want to see from us again thanks for joining us here at ptoc TV Jeremy it was great to have you here on the show thanks thanks for having me yeah I I was particularly interested in getting you on here cuz I want to talk about New York Metro business and I guess in order to get started let's go back a little bit into your history here how did you get started in the business so I got started in the business with my uncle um I worked with him when I was in high school doing termite jobs just kind of doing some extra work on the side through college and then did my own thing went to college and came back and worked with him in 2001 and worked for him for nine years an amazing Mentor really successful guy working in the New York area I learned a tremendous amount from him and uh after about 9 years just kind of was time for me to go on my own and just took the next step so when you when you left your Arles on did you start rust easy from scratch I actually started a canine inspection company so we were the first and only independent K9 inspection bed bug dog inspection business in New York City about 6 to 8 months before the ep the pandemic of bed bug started or the epidemic of bed bug started so right place at the right time and uh we crushed the market for for about 18 months after about 18 months we saw the writing on the wall as prices for inection started coming down the hype in the media started coming down and I was like okay in that 18 months I got married bought a house and had a kid so I was like all right I need to kind of start taking care of my family and go back into what I know which is pest control so that was around 2011 we started 2012 so you basically took the K9 inspection business added pest to it is that what you did 100% yeah so we went from a completely nonre occurring reoccurring business model with a full staff of four dogs and and handlers office staff to a a full service pest control company and lost my biggest client which wasn't my uncle but it was another client in New York City because before I went and did P control the the day before I started or maybe a week before I started I went in to speak to all my clients cuz I had to tell I was no longer independent right I was going to start competing with them in the marketplace and that guy dropped me they were out done 25% of my business out the door okay so you get into pest at that time when when you added the pest control how many people were on the team was it just you doing this now no cuz I I I still kept a lot of the people right so we had like a a good amount of business still coming in it was you allocated those guys to P I started to allocate well we still were doing a lot of bed bug dogs so we're still very big into the bed bug dog business but the pest control was super small at that point like non-existent and also we didn't know how to do Pest Control cuz I came from the office side of things and I was I had very limited knowledge on doing pest control and a lot of knowledge on how to talk about doing pest control so I could talk to you about how to do an ant job I could talk to you out how to get rid of your mice in your house but have I ever done that job no have you ever done that job not really I mean a little bit okay A little bit so the business is based in you guys are in Long Island what in naso County Nassau County yeah that's where we started it the office has always been in Nassau County although we have satellite offices in Brooklyn Manhattan and other areas like that I've always been either in Queens we actually started in Queens and now we're in nasau county is the home office um but we cover a pretty vast area but how much of your business is in the five buroughs versus out on the island i' say it's about 50/50 oh really yeah about 5050 you were more Long Island heavy no it's like about half the business in Manhattan half the business is in Long Island okay you know one of the things you and I have talked about over the years is Acquisitions I know you've done a lot of small deals to help you build that business absolutely how did you get into that so again my uncle and working with my uncle for a long time he was really big into Acquisitions um we used to send out postcards um we'd go out to events and meet people so I I cut my teeth working with him not only being involved in the meetings of negotiation but also integration which is a key part of the Acquisitions um when I left him I just kind of went the same route right so now I was doing my own thing gaining my own business and I and just looking for opportunity and that's always kind of helped me like whenever I open my eyes to opportunity it's kind of presents itself kind of sitting here with with you yeah I remember the first time we ever chatted some years ago the first thing you said to me was like if you ever see any New York Metro Acquisitions that might be too small for you to deal with don't throw them away yeah call me I want to talk to these guys how many you know since you started that business how many deals have you done so I'm glad I did some research cuz I thought about I can never remember I think we've done 16 in 10 years so 2012 12 years it's about 16 and 12 years and what are the size range of these deals in terms of Revenue anything from 60,000 to 600,000 okay so the biggest ones we've done is about 600,000 the smallest ones about 160 yeah and you met these guys by going out to the meetings did you send postcards like your uncle no okay it did not you just raised your hand to somebody who's looking to actually make Acquisitions I did what I did with you right everyone everyone that I know that that I talk to and I speak to knows that I love Acquisitions it's how I grow my business I'm I'm really good at it um the owners that I work with um have great relationships with them so just I think through word of mouth it's it's helped a lot over the years so as as it gets started I think in the beginning it was just it's just talking to people hey do you know anything I'm not looking for anything expensive just just trying to grow my business yeah what are some of the the learnings you've had from do and Deals some of the dos and don'ts because I'm sure you you you've seen both sides of it yeah the biggest so I've I've only done great deals and I'd say almost one of the last few deals that I've done with was my biggest burn where there was one technician who was they had two technicians so most of the companies were small so they have a few technicians they had two and one of their technicians didn't take the deal I offered in which would have been sign the paper you work for me non solicitation on compete he didn't take the offer and I didn't up my offer cuz he wanted let's say $11,200 take home and I was offering a th000 so now Penny wise pound foolish he stole business um um because he did not have a non-solicitation with the other companies so that's something I learned even in the small businesses when the next time I do my deals we're going to make sure that before I go in and before like as we're going through the uh process is that they get their kind of uh their house in order a little bit before we buy so that's one of the big lessons I've recently learned yeah I mean you gra a you raise a really good point I mean what we would typically do in order to get a client prep for a sale is one of the first questions I ask is do your technicians your employees have non-solicit agreements right correct you know nowadays non-competes are a little bit more complicated but if you have a non-solicitation of employees and customers you want to get that thing signed as soon as you possibly can and make sure that there's a transferability clause in it that way ultimately if you sell your business somebody like you buys it you can get that assigned to you right yeah um it's it's a it's a lesson that I didn't know before but now I do know again the deals were have been so small and we've been so successful um with with what we've done it hasn't come to bite Us in the ass but this time it did so learn yeah it's obviously a lot easier to get the owner to get that signed in advance and when the technician has a ton of Leverage right correct yeah 100% yeah what are some other I mean that's a great lesson actually to learn what are some unfortunately you learned it the hard way but what are some other lessons you might have learned I think again as I as we get bigger some of the what we're learning now is even integrating the smaller compan companies are getting more difficult in the old days it was really simple I would take anything in the old old days I would of Amazon Local if you remember I don't remember what that was we would do a job for $29.99 and give half of it to Amazon so I'd make 15 bucks to do a job just to get my truck and someone's drive by so we would take anything it was very easy to integrate anything to our company because we didn't have any business y now as we're getting bigger what we're learning is a lot of the small you know if you're buying 150 $8,000 R 20% of it could be very low Revenue generating which in the old days was fine You' go with it and you deal with it and kind of raise them as you can so as we're what we're learning right now is as we're as we're getting to that next level is it's harder to integrate those customers so how do you value them ver today versus 10 years ago is a lot different for us 10 years ago I could have offered dollar for Dollar on that now on something like that I have to be more careful because I know I'm going to lose it a lot sooner and I'm just going to be wasting money what do you see with pricing on some of these smaller guys versus what you do uh what they're charging yeah I'm talking about customer pricing depends there some of them are really underpriced um we went and did a job in the Poconos that was a completely different business model from us so that's in Pennsylvania and their pricing model was completely in line with today's pricing right different model they do e seasonal type stuff where we don't do that over in the Long Island area the Westchester area but well I think with a lot of the smaller smaller companies that have been around for let's say 50 years where it's a one if it's a oneman shop the prices are going to be somewhat significantly lower so you have to factor that in how much of this you know with these smaller like A1 $200,000 business how much of this is much of these customers stick around do their relationship with the owner versus I mean because I hear it all the time like it's like I me personally I have an accountant that I outgrew a long time ago but I've had a long relationship with them so I keep them yeah but I should get rid of them and so if I left my firm for example The Firm would get rid of that account so I kind of think to myself sometimes the customers of these smaller guys are loyal to this particular guy they might not even like his work but they're like I've been working with Fred for 20 years Fred goes away right the customer says I'm out of here it it's not as high as you would think but there are certain people that unequivocally the day it happens they're like he's not there we're not we're not staying stuck around because of him right correct so what we what we typically do is we we like wh lie the transition we we finagle it so that we're basically saying that um you know Franco's retiring he's going to be working on the back end he's not going to be fun freeing anymore if you need to be a dream just trying to give you some hope yes it's Tuesday Wednesday what day is it um so we try to kind of explain that they're still involved in the business they're just not going to be in there anymore and we send letters that explain that from them and then from us and then if need and if need be for the higher for the good customers or the ones that we're worried about they'll probably make phone calls to them I'm going try to keep them so but I would still say it's a very small percentage that leave automatic and are you typically then just are you are you attempting to keep these folks on or are you just taking the customers and integrating them into your current routes at least where the acquisition is in your geography we're typically leaving we what I try to do is not change anything so same service schedule same pricing and go in there and do what we have to do if it's a complete loss let's say we're it's a commercial facility and it's 40 bucks a month we'll go in we'll assess it we may do a service or two to kind of just get get it going and then say uh okay you need to do uh X Y and Z and it's going to cost X Y and Z so I have a good example of that too with a commercial commercial business we bought over 10 years ago now in New York City the uh it was he 25% of his business was was was with one management company and he hated them they were like he's horrible they're terrible we hate them and and he's like I should raise their price I'm like don't don't raise prices just let me let me go in there we'll just account for that not being there if they're there we'll figure it out but like let's just assume we're going to lose them but like let me try cuz you obviously have a an interesting relationship with them let me see if I could re if I could fix it up so we went in and similar type big building in New York City for like 60 bucks and then they would get mice I'm like yeah because you don't have any roting control you have glue boards like somewhere like we're going to have to do this so we started building them and building them and building because you want to do it yes yes yes yes yes until they got the bills and then they fired us they booted you out oh yeah yeah got within weeks I mean there's a funnier story to that but not for the show it's different story so you didn't think about this prior you you you didn't have any other purchase priceing contingent upon the retention of that key customer right we factored that when I when I made that deal I factored that piece of the business out got it okay yeah cuz it was a loss in addition to doing deals how I mean you guys are growing at a very fast clip I mean you're one of the bigger private businesses on Long Island in the industry now right I would say a lot of these have been gobbled out so thatly helped your yeah with the with the Acquisitions that have been going on over the last 10 years we're we're medium to uper I don't know exactly but yeah so how besides doing deals I I know that you're very very heavy in digital marketing yeah and that's kind of your stick too don't you have that sort of background yeah so yeah I mean again just trying to trying to stay one step ahead of Google before Google it was Yelp before Yelp it was the Yellow Pages right like there's you know how many companies out here that um that are selling SEO and services like that and they're all very similar and they all sure to do a great job but trying to always say like one step ahead of of the technology is a just a key piece of it and at one point I had like a seveners marketing team we built out like 400 micro websites in Long Island it cost a lot of lots and lots of money and was complete failure that was one of the things that didn't work okay but we've done a lot of things that have worked over the years you know getting reviews on Google was a big big win for us um early adopting to things like Google local services or G with a company like search Kings who I met at an event at the Northeast conference or the Eastern Conference one year was a huge win for us I walked by a booth I saw what they were doing I identified I'm like I know it I get it I want it it's called Google guarantee like right before it came out except it took a while to get Google guaranteed so I was like I'm in I love you I'm in I want it I was the first I was like don't sell it to anybody else of course that was not true shut your booth down but no but no one else was in a no one else got it quickly quick enough because I owned New York for one for one season at 25 bucks a lead per call sorry not per call sick ridiculous growth that year ridiculous and I've had a couple of different events in my life digital marketing and just marketing and just doing good business that have kind of translated and propelled my business to like different levels like 50% at different times why did the micro sites fail because I'm not a technology guy and and what we were doing was right it just being was done the wrong way like the idea so I'm a big believer that in the home service especially past control people buy like hyper local right so if you're here like Long Island's pretty it's a lot of people it's a lot of people but actually quite narrow so from one side to the other side let's just to say it's 5 miles from one side to the other someone who lives on the upper north side of Nassau County versus someone who lives on the upper uh Southside naso County when they Google Pest Control they're not going to get the same companies nor would you buy from someone on the upper north side if you live on the west on the on the South Side it just you don't buy that way they it's a hyper local feel so what I was trying to do with that I I was trying to create and and show up in a in a in an organic way when people searched for pest control so that they would find us and call us so you wanted the guy in Smith town to think you're were right there correct and it just didn't work now the now also so so the office again so we do have satellite offices but the technicians that we have so let's say we have 30 or 40 technicians they all take their trucks home so in reality they we do have offices in Smithtown in all these different neighborhoods although Google won't let us say that we do but we do that's where they live and they literally leave their house they go to work and they come home I mean that could be defined as an office as far as I'm con as far as I'm concerned but so we are we are Super Hyper local to our customer base just the office may not be so you spent a lot of money you tried that it didn't it didn't work yeah that didn't work okay yeah what are some what are some other things that you know if you think back historically what are some other areas you think you've been Innovative V of what some others are doing some innovative ways I mean definitively Google reviews was something that we jumped on really really early but now everyone does that right now everyone's doing that so what are we doing now um right now honestly just we're trying to Fig we're trying to change it so we just we signed up with a new um software comp uh new SEO company that does exactly what I was trying to do 10 years ago that that are doing it now so we we engaged with them back in February we just launched so that's something that's an 18 to 24 month kind of test maybe threeyear test to see if we can actually get to perform where we want to perform but otherwise it's just staying one step ahead of Google and that's an impossible thing right you're you're competing against the Monopoly you're competing against the giant who can literally smack you at any time and say you're out of business so what are we doing just trying to figure out what the next step is for us and just trying to figure out what the next Avenue is and then also potentially changing the way we sell that was another thing we did um and that's that's Pro that's probably what we're trying to do so I have an unpopular opinion I think that the subscription model is dead not today but it's dead and dying when I when I when I started pest when I was in pest control for 2 years we were selling Pest Control the same way everyone else was which was an annual agreement up front or a fee and quarterly not many people maybe Terminex were charging on a monthly basis and on the quarterly you were doing like a service charge of the time of service or just building them on a quarterly basis yeah but most of the time at least I was charging annually so you either let's say pay 300 to start or 700 or 600 for an annual you would get your quarterly visits at on demand so we were going buy and selling a few here and a few there but we were nobody we had no pull I couldn't spend a lot of money on Advertising so what we did was we shifted the game and I was like all right why don't we change it instead of making them pay up front just make them pay monthly so we started advertising pest control for little as $29.99 a month and it was $99 fee to start up this is going back to 2014 so you're pretty early on that train I I was the first in my area for sure and we went from 15 accounts to like 700 accounts I don't know I could we could pull the numbers in pass back a significant increase that we just saw climb and climb and climb and climb it was and it's the gym membership model right that was my theory and I was like oh gym membership model like everyone joins a gym they never use a service it's perfect what could be better right more money for you exactly um now fast forward how many years later now we're 12 years in and everything is a monthly payment everything's a monthly payment so what are we dealing with value oh they're leaving cuz they're they're happy they love us service but they don't have a press control problem anymore so now we're trying to create ways to create value say hi take pictures clean the gutter you know clean the thing bring the paper which you want to do anyway from the service perspective but the question in my mind is like if we can if we were able to to move it like this right cuz that's all we did we just changed the way we sold the same product and Bam we open the open the floodgates so the question now is if we could just do it a different way now and do go against the grain of what other people doing and instead of going monthly we change quarterly to Tri anual right cuz everyone wants to make more money to squeeze that extra visit out well what happens if we go back to an every other month model it's weird right that's like a weird thing to say CU now you're doing double the amount of services but if the pricing is right and as you we had that conversation that Italian restaurant 2 years ago and your density is good if you can get two stops done it an hour at $100 average that's $1,600 a day per technician you could sell the out of that business yeah but I guess so you're just talking about changing the service frequency you're not change talking about changing the subscription model are you saying I'm just yeah well right well the subscription model I I'm calling the subscription model the the monthly bilding that's called that's what I'm calling the subscription so you suggesting to do away with that I'm suggesting that I'm I'm not I'm not doing away with it remember you're on the air here the people going remember you saying this so goe I'm not doing it yet and I'm getting a lot of well basically I'm getting a lot of kicks in the ass saying like you're you're crazy like you don't do it and and then I'm sure we could talk about why it's such a dumb idea the question would be is if we do it can we get better retention and can we blow our numbers up by offering a different service than everyone else is offering now because everyone's offering the same thing at the same rate but I but I just to make sure I'm clear you're suggesting forget the monthly billing and payment now you go back to service charges but on an eom basis on every yeah so you're just spilling them as you go so you're basically charging them but you're showing up six times a year six times a year but for the same for almost the same amount of money but you're doing more work but again it all goes back to production right production per technician $1,600 a day in production per technician you would salivate I would hope I would I do I I 100% get what you were saying about you get these guys on monthly billing uh you're doing trianal services and then you're trying to do all these other things to demonstrate value because there's no pest in the house and you don't want the customer to cancel I get that I'm wondering though if you know one of the issues I think folks especially in colder climates always face is they tried to pull in the mind of the customer disassoc iate the actual service with the billing from the standpoint like you don't want the customer thinking I just paid $150 for this guy to spray so instead what you're saying it's it's 500 bucks a year and you're pest free call us any time and if you start billing going back to the old school day yeah of what you're saying is more frequencies so they're seeing more fre they're seeing more frequency it's basically changing it from a monthly to a to a b monthly so it's different than what other people are doing mhm and then showing up more often which is different than what other people doing I'm not even convinced that it's the right thing but you're talking about like how are you Reinventing yourself like this is like it's it's it's difficult to continue to Reinventing yourself in a marketing way like I'm doing it like I'm I'm always thinking about different ways and how I could do it differently but the ideas aren't always there they just constant thinking and and motivating and and doing but this is also a way to do it it's like if you can change the way that you present the offering to the customer so that you could you can increase sales and retain them for longer because you become part of their family I I guess I see your point because when you first moved to monthly billing no one was really doing it correct so that was a point of differentiation then when everyone does it now everyone's doing the X upfront x a month correct the customer doesn't care about the service frequencies they they don't no no and some customers you can get away with forever the question is is how can you grow it right CU people will be like well how much did you grow your organic growth well is that really organic growth or PID paid growth very difficult to grow 30% without spending a lot of money well I guess when I think of organic growth I think of non- acquisitive growth so you're you got to pay for it you're paying for growth no matter what right corre so I don't know I don't know that it's right but it's something that we're talking about right now and it's debatable like it's debatable that even if we'll do it I can tell you that when we went into the Pok do that's the model that they're using which is kind of what I when when when I went to the Pokemon I went I brought one of my guys in and I was there doing the migration and when we were selling the jobs I was like this is this is easy I'm like good Lord I'm like this is and we're getting good money how long are we spending 20 minutes 25 minutes 125 bucks that's good money for residential pass control and they they ate it up they loved it so I was like hm like can can this translate to other areas that was March let's say we haven't done it so I'm not saying it's definitive but like it's it's definitely in the real of possibilities well couldn't you just test it could you have that as an offering keep your core as it is and yeah well as you know as a c as as the owner if I keep if I if I'm allowed to just continue to throw grenades all day like crazy ideas like Hey we're going every other month and I do that sometimes and then I get yelled at and I get told just please stay away and let us run the company and do our job um so could I do that yeah will I do that no but raise another point so on the resi side of Long Island you're doing triangle Services as opposed to quarterly quarterly and triang we have a we have a mix a mix yeah and you were always Cordy in you're transitioning to change some of them over yeah why people told us we could make more money and service less and customers wouldn't care and they don't typically a lot the majority of customers don't care they they don't know the difference to the three or four um we've tried it out and seems to be working but again it's working in the sense of what everyone else is doing it's not it's not like a long-term solution like that's not going to help us grow 25% this is not that's going to help us maintain it's going to help us run with the crowd the question is is what can we do differently so that either marketing wise or selling wise where we're selling the same thing to the same customer that we sold the day before but a little bit differently just twisting it just a touch to make a pop h that's that's that's the chase right that's the chess match that I've been doing for 12 years and I've hit a couple home runs you know where I've done stuff and not all not all that's been great but more more successes than not I I I don't want to delve too deep in this I just one question pops into my mind like why would a customer if I'm a customer at my house why would I prefer say I have the opportunity to buy Tri anual service from you why would I prefer every other month why would you prefer it if I'm a customer I'm just a residential guy I don't know like why I care yeah so no it would be it's it's the sale well we're going to come out every two months we're going to make sure that we keep the bugs over we're going to be taking the cobwebs down we're going to be we're going to be taking a look in your house make sure the Crickets aren't there and the Boos that are doing it three times a year are not servicing you right you don't even have to say that because that could potentially be a second offering right we could that could be part of the offers like we have a b or c sorry we have a b or c right that so trianal could be still an option um I mean it's like you're pest free or like extra pest free like I mean that's the thing that kind of confuses me because I think I do think if you start selling this six times a year then people start questioning well does three times a year work you're you're telling me I know it hasn't been hammered out yet so like I can't I can't give you we're just talking this yeah so one of the things that we did that I threw out there I think it was at the end of last year that did not really take off was I started I was like well we got to start like we want to put on a lot of accounts right cuz it's all about how many annuities you have and then you can increase the annuities so I'm like let's let's offer like a couple different packages we're going to offer one for $99 $29.99 we're going to go back to old school but with that one you get if you get three services a year but you have to call us so we're couldn't collect 90 bucks a quarter $29.99 a month we'll do the initial basically as a loss leader to get you in the door yep and and then you have to call so so hopefully they don't call us and now we're getting 30 bucks a month which sounds again counterintuitive to the industry doing that now we tested it it makes me concerned that if you're not in control of the schedule they'll be in control of your schedule well they can call us up to three times a year yeah for 360 bucks 100 so you're banking on them maybe calling you once as opposed to yeah and then another one that we toyed with was every time that you bought a an initial you automatically got renewed into our renewal program for $99 a year where're where you can call we recharge your credit card on renewal $99 and then a service anytime you call us is 100 bucks or 100 let's say it was 125 whatever it was just to kind of automat so even a one time became an annuity we played with that a little bit not again it's almost like an Amazon Prime model right you're paying that and then you get a cheaper yeah so we played with it we we did it for like 2 or 3 months we'll probably watch the results of it in the next year or two to kind of see like what happens with it see if we get any traction on it but again you can't just keep going back to them and to the staff and just telling them to sell differently that's the problem right because then it's just really confusing they don't know what's going on they're not they can't sell it properly and you're going to not close at a high rate have you thought about uh one time per anom service what was that have you thought about once a year what do you mean one service per year well that's kind of what that was that last one was you know you paid the initial and then we automatically Des Ry your credit card for 100 bucks you didn't call us we charge your credit card 100 bucks every year so you're assuming you're going to come out once and they if they called us they got that one visit yeah you know the the one problem that you have though Jeremy is if you get I know you're trying to differentiate your yourself from the industry but sometimes when you get too far out left field it becomes hard to integrate your business when that time comes when your wife's like sell this no it won't be you don't think no I'm a master integrator um no I'm just kidding I'm talking about like you're not going to be doing the integration it's going to be these acquirers that are all running up in your neck of the woods three times per anom I think if you if you're going every other month or you have a triangular basis it's it's not so hard it's there's not that big of a leap but the other the other ones that we tested for just like a month or two those are a little bit those would be difficult this is why we test it just kind of see if it worked listen if we could have popped what what I didn't see was the pop so that 99 $29.99 what I wanted to see was 400 in a month yeah but I didn't you didn't so I was like is not going to work quick test so are you just going to keep those guys on that program then you you're not offering it anymore though they're on a legacy no they they would be on a legacy until we want them off and then we just kick them off hey we're not doing this anymore we're doing that yeah if if if certainly if they're abusive of the P of any anyone that's abusive of of any program we just change what's your focus Now resi versus commercial business-wide I mean I love commercial I would love to be 9010 commercial it's just easier business less less headache more money in terms of like the dollar volume per customer yeah um but we take what we get you know we're we're we're focused in on both so I would say you know if I if I could be 7030 I'd be happy commercial what are you now probably 5545 commercial God but I mean you you could be 9010 commercial like guess you hire a bunch of commercial sales guys I scale didn't work no why I it didn't no it didn't work um I've hired different sales people over the year the last few did not work out the way that we wanted so that doesn't mean we're end we're ending um we're I just tell someone else we're looking for you know a beast of an outside salesperson in New York City New York City is open right it could could be 5 10 million as that one big company that sold a few years ago probably was doing 20 million just in New York City there's a lot of money we made in New York city so right now we're putting it out in The Ether we're looking for a beast of a salesperson doesn't have to be from P control just anyone that can sell into apartment buildings or or um commercial buildings in Manhattan like that's kind of the focus in my head nowhere else just kind of putting it out there at everyone that I talk to cuz that's what we're looking for we want to quadruple the amount of business we're doing just a minut that so you're going to do that by finding commercial sales guys potentially doing acquisitions absolutely so for guys that are in kind of the New York metro area that might be interested in selling what's what's your typical I know you've done historically but what would be your who would be a guy you would want to talk to in terms of size I would say anyone I mean probably anyone up to a million dollars depending on the size depending on what type of business it is I think once you get up to a million they're going to be talking to guys like you um which means that I'm out of the game I'm I'm out of that game I can't compete I can't compete with the big guys be stupid too yeah I I just can't do it um we did again what all the what do you call it the hedge money uh the what the hedge fund money what is it called what institutional money institutional money so the you know what Anthony sex came in what 2012 right like right around 2012 they came in 16 16 right so so I I we we both identified they did it on a much more massive scale that boomers are are are no longer going to be working right they're going to be selling out their businesses we probably still have what like another 5 to 12 years of that of like the the end of the Boomers kind of running their businesses that's right and and so when we we identified that early on so we're looking for those types of guys who like want to leave their company to someone that could take care of their staff right um that's not going to fire them right away that can hold on to their name and build out their name in their legacy treat their clients like a small business can whereas like a larger one maybe can't and um just kind of just continue working in the area you know like we're we're local people and we hire local people we're managed by local people so we're we're local companies even though we have a company in Pennsylvania it's run by people who live in Pennsylvania in New Jersey we're run by people who live in New Jersey I don't live there but people who run it do let me ask you you've been in Long Island and in New York Metro a long time how has the business if we think back over what basically since 2017 you've had like assured was acquired Suburban was acquired magic the list goes on right a lot there was a lot of deal done Arrow so how has has business changed much for you and light of these Acquisitions have you been able to pick up good people due to the Acquisitions do you feel like you're getting or not so much no a little bit no no no I mean in a lot of areas of the country some of these Acquisitions have been disasters and actually New York these Acquisitions really haven't been train wrecks like some other areas right I think prior to anti-six figuring out not to change the name of the company right and like creating the platform companies which they did with what scientific out in like I think that was their first one in no not scientific there was someone out east that they started with before they bought someone else and now M they brought Mel in um but keeping the names of the company I think is is was a major change which is why they haven't been such a disaster like Arrow still Arrow Suburban still Suburban magic is still magic in those areas I think um whereas prior to that when Terminex and Orin would go in this is goes now to back to the '90s and the early 2000s change the name on day one they would change the name in day one and everyone like we saw a lot more business coming in those days when Terminex just flew in now even though Terminex may be buying them now when they keep the same management and they they change their their model it the is less yeah we've seen yeah no you're right I mean you know it was rill that acquired a lot of those business in Long Island and they've left him run Standalone right they've kept the same people in charge yeah yeah and their names are still there which is which again that it would have been a foolish decision to to to Brand it all as one like if Arrow Arrow has a huge name in Long Island Suburban has a huge name magic has a big name right they were all like three these massive companies why wouldn't they have them all calling into the same database who cares yeah when the people call us we don't we just answer pess control that's it P control how can we help is this s and so yeah this is s and do you feel like it competition has changed in any way with regard to like the financial sponsors of private Equity firms getting into it you know they bought select right um there's been some other Investments there in the Northeast has that changed the game at all do you think it in terms of adding sophistication or no no I don't think so no still all killing bugs yeah okay well good listen I appreciate you joining me today it's always a pleasure talking to you Jeremy thanks both glad you're being able to escape the Mexican now cheers brother you