A panel discussion recorded at Pest World 2024 in Denver, featuring Paul Giannamore, Nick Bartolo, Jonathan Pototschnik, and Jonas Olson, on scaling service businesses in the pest control industry. Topics include market density versus geographic expansion, route density and profitability, strategic branding when cross-selling pest and lawn services, measuring market share and customer acquisition costs, retention for door-to-door clients, growth tactics such as LSAs and social media, municipal pressure on door-to-door sales, leadership and rebuilding, people versus systems, and emerging trends like bundling, AI, and robotics. Jonas Olson shares his growth journey from a small Wisconsin lawn business to leading multi-branch Turf Badger - Appleton, and private equity perspectives on service industry acquisitions are discussed. # Channel Identity Observations — "Scaling Up Smart: Perspectives on Market Strategy and Growth | #PestWorld2024 #Entrepreneurship" ## Explicit Self-Description (Creator Claims) ### Channel identity and name - The host introduces himself and the channel directly: **"hi I'm Paul jamore I wanted to welcome our new subscribers to the channel"** and refers to the channel as **"pomac TV"** / **"patomic TV"** (transcript spelling varies). - He states the channel's historical focus: **"historically pomac TV has been focused on business and operational information and interviews for residential and Commercial Services business owners."** ### Announced content scope expansion - Paul claims demand-driven growth into new topics: after publishing **"the cide m&a master class last month my LinkedIn inbox has been inundated with a variety of different requests."** - Planned content: **"Dylan and I will be sitting down filming more extensive m&a master classes both focusing on the cell side as well as the buy side"**, covering **"the choice of process delving deep into m&a psychology… extensive buide practice approach and due diligence."** ### Stated audience-engagement model - Paul invites subscriptions, email list sign-up, and viewer-driven content: **"this channel is largely driven by you the viewer and what you want to see from us."** ## Observable Presentation (Demonstrated Patterns) ### Intended audience - The material demonstrates an audience of **owners/operators of residential service businesses** (pest control, lawn care, fertilization), and **industry investors/M&A observers**: - Discussion of route density, branch strategy, market share, and valuation: **"if you've got like a 10% market share versus 20% versus 30%… your margins increase dramatically."** - Repeated references to acquirers and private equity: **"Oregon didn't want to buy… they didn't want the lawn care."** - The title hashtags **#PestWorld2024 #Entrepreneurship** indicate an event-based (PestWorld trade show) recording aimed at pest industry entrepreneurs. ### Claimed scope vs. demonstrated scope - **Claimed:** interviews and operational info for residential/commercial service business owners. - **Demonstrated:** matches — the video is a long-form multi-party interview featuring: - **Jonas**, a multi-branch pest/lawn operator (states **"8 and 9 million"** revenue, **"10"** branches, goal of **"100 million Revenue"**). - **Jonathan**, a coaching/business educator (describes selling a coaching program: **"it's like $500 a month… paid 500 bucks on a credit card and now the rest is history"**). - Paul, acting as interviewer and M&A/strategy commentator (e.g., advice on cross-selling: **"I always advise folks against that… of running like a lawn and pest company"**). ### Demonstrated expertise areas - **M&A/valuation perspective:** Paul cites cases — **"Scots was doing 250 million in lawn care Revenue back in 2011 decided to get into pest… that was an utter disaster."** - **Market/geography strategy:** **"focus on a tighter area… give that to your competitors."** - **Operator-level tactics:** Jonas covers door-to-door recruiting (**"started off like 75 and… ended like 40 some"**), marketing channels (**"LSA for sure"**, TikTok, Facebook), retention metrics, and AI welcome-call tools. ### Format and tone - Conversational, multi-guest roundtable/podcast style recorded live at an industry event, with casual banter (**"so once the student now sitting next to the Master"**) and audience-question segments (**"I'm curious for someone listening your opinion…"**). - Content mixes high-level strategy (NPV, contribution margin) with tactical operator detail. ## Distinguishing Claims from Demonstrations | Type | Evidence | |---|---| | **Claim** | Channel is "focused on business and operational information and interviews for residential and Commercial Services business owners" | | **Claim** | Viewer-driven content direction: "this channel is largely driven by you the viewer" | | **Demonstrated** | Actual interview content on pest/lawn scaling, market selection, cross-selling, M&A | | **Demonstrated** | Host functions as strategy advisor, not just interviewer (proactive valuation analyses of guests' businesses) | No private motivations were inferred; all observations rest on quoted transcript passages and title metadata. # Delivery Observation: *Scaling Up Smart: Perspectives on Market Strategy and Growth | #PestWorld2024* ## Format & Structure - **Multi-speaker panel/interview format.** At least three distinct voices are observable: a host/interviewer ("Paul"), a mentor/coach figure ("Jonathan"), and a founder/operator ("Jonas"). Delivery patterns below are attributed per speaker where identifiable. - **Cold-open hook.** The video opens with a teaser of a key argument before any introduction: > "when you're small and you're growing like you'll do anything for the sale right you'll drive 50 m you'll do whatever you got to do" - **Channel plug inserted mid-stream.** A scripted welcome segment appears ~43 seconds in: "hi i'm Paul jamore I wanted to welcome our new subscribers to the channel," including a subscribe prompt, email-list pitch, and comment solicitation — delivered in a noticeably more rehearsed cadence than the surrounding conversation. - **Circadian structure:** the cold open's argument is repeated nearly verbatim at the end of the conversation (~[2425]–[2458]), creating a **bookend structure**. ## Vocabulary & Register - **Finance/MBA-flavored vocabulary from the mentor speaker:** "Net Present Value," "contribution margin," "cash flow basis," "TAM" (referenced by host as "kind of gives you your Tam"), "transaction multiples," "arbitrar[ily]," "abberation." - **Industry jargon used casually without definition:** "LSA" (defined only on request: "like local service ads"), "CAC" ("your cost of acquisition"), "door too" (door-to-door), "P control" (pest control), "fertilization we control" (fertilization and weed control). - **Plain-spoken register from the operator (Jonas):** concrete numbers, brand names, and anecdotes — "260,000 in Revenue," "10 physical locations," "we're at like 99.8% total for the year." - **Colloquial intensifiers throughout:** "whopping 260,000," "murdering it," "slam dunks they're softballs," "that's stupid." ## Recurring Phrases & Rhetorical Habits - **Reframing and defining as a teaching move.** The mentor repeatedly stops to re-anchor terminology: > "he said churn so we need to Define things here so how do you measure" > "let me rephrase that for a second" > "I'm not talking about lawnmowing business I'm talking about fertilization" - **"I always say / I always encourage" framing** — signals reliance on stock advice (mentor): > "I always say what's wrong with me what's wrong with me" > "I always encourage people to really think about market share" > "over the last 20 years I find myself saying more times than not to everyone focus on a tighter area" - **Iterative self-correction while speaking** ("word searching"), especially under uncertainty: > "I mean I I I literally see companies that have you know 70 80% market share" > "I'm I'm I've got a higher margin Core Business" - **Rhetorical question sequences** used to build an argument: > "why can't I be like him why can't I build something big why can't I make more money" - **Analogy as a primary explanation tool:** > "if you're a really Savvy Financial investor... you don't wake up and say well happen to live in this little town I'll buy $100 million worth of residential homes in this market that's stupid" ## Teaching Habits - **Named case studies as evidence.** The mentor repeatedly grounds claims in specific companies and figures: "Scots was doing 250 million in lawn care Revenue back in 2011," "true green and Terminex owned by service master they didn't do any cross- selling," "Orin splits up the United States into quadrants." - **Explicit caveat on rumor/secondhand info:** > "I don't want to spread rumors but I heard the same thing about Wisconsin" > "I didn't read the complaint it just somebody sent it to me" - **Assigning follow-up work:** the interview ends with a data request treated as a teaching moment — "I'll have that data for you next week thank you please do." - **Emotional-arc storytelling from the operator:** personal history told as narrative beats ("paid 500 bucks on a credit card and now the rest is history," "it was like a light switch"). - **Empathy hedging when giving hard advice:** > "it's very difficult easy for me to sit here and say this I'm not trying to put food on the table" ## Uncertainty Marking - **Explicit uncertainty is a recurring honesty signal**, especially from the mentor: > "I don't know if that's a long-term trajectory" > "now when none of us know the future" > "and this is more of a question than a statement I just kind of Wonder" > "maybe I should challenge that concept" - The operator also self-corrects numbers live: "N9 out of 10... maybe it's wrong maybe it's seven out of 10." ## Stable Patterns vs. Isolated Moments - **Stable:** the mentor's finance vocabulary, case-study citations, definitional reframing, and uncertainty hedges recur across multiple topics — these look like durable habits. - **Stable (operator):** concrete figures, brand-name specificity, and narrative retrospection appear throughout Jonas's turns. - **Isolated:** the mid-video scripted channel welcome and the closing banter about garage-door stickers ("I'll find out I don't think he knows but I'll ask him") do not recur and appear to be one-off segments. No strong conclusions can be drawn about normal delivery from these alone. # Position & Reasoning Record: "Scaling Up Smart" — PestWorld 2024 ## Speakers (as identifiable from transcript) - **Paul** — host (introduces himself as "Paul Jamore"), runs the channel focused on residential/commercial services business content; M&A expertise. - **Jonathan** — referred to as "the professor"; ran a coaching program / Service Autopilot Academy; Jonas's original mentor. - **Jonas** — founder of a pest control / lawn care company (brands Turf Badger / Pest Badger); former Academy member. --- ## 1. Scaling Discipline & Turning Down Bad Revenue - **Paul's framing (opening and closing):** Small growing companies "do anything for the sale"; as they scale, many keep bad habits (sending crews far across town). His advice: - Get comfortable **turning down work**; evaluate on **cash flow contribution** and **Net Present Value**, not revenue. - Growth over a wider area is "easier" and, he says, "almost demonstrates laziness" and an inability to engage in tradeoffs. - Acknowledged qualification: it's "easy for me to sit here and say this — I'm not trying to put food on the table." - **Jonathan's complementary point:** Most companies plateau at **$350K–$500K revenue** because they don't outrun **burnout**; spreading across many locations, clients, services, and equipment adds complexity and exhaustion. --- ## 2. Jonas's Business Trajectory - **Jonas's stated history:** ~$260K revenue when he joined the Academy (~2019–2021 era, "5 years" ago); sold his lawn company in **2021**; started the pest control company the same year; now ~**$8–9M revenue**, **10 active branches** (4 more planned spring), ~90% pest / 10% fertilization & weed control overall, ~50/50 in the original branch. - **Aspiration:** "20 plus locations… 100 million revenue… a 20-year run" — a goal he says he set from day one. - **Mentorship impact (Jonas):** The first training he watched (Google My Business + reviews) "probably made me millions of dollars." Also cites Jonathan telling him he was one of few people who said they'd do it and actually could — "changed my life forever." - **Jonathan's assessment:** Jonas was an implementer; "he really doesn't need me that much… he did it all." --- ## 3. Market Selection & Geography - **Paul's thesis:** Many skilled operators fail because they're "simply in the wrong market" — analogy: a sophisticated $100M investor wouldn't deploy capital wherever they happen to live; they'd go where the opportunity is. - **Jonathan's elaboration:** Look for **demographic tailwinds** (net importers of people); he personally likes **colder climates** as a natural barrier to entry (seasonality forces cash-flow discipline, fewer competitors, higher prices — e.g., ~$70/quarter in Atlanta vs. $125+ in Michigan). - **Jonas's counterpoint (preserved tension):** The cold-climate advantage eroded — once big players (Hawks, Greenix, Orkin, Terminix) noticed his revenue, "we have just as much pressure as anyone." He still likes **smaller markets** (50K–100K people): a branch can hit $2M with a self-sufficient technician rather than needing a strong leadership team. He also strongly likes **Tulsa/Southern markets**: "9 out of 10 people have pest control" (later walked to "maybe seven out of 10"), so you only sell differentiation, not the category. - **Paul's skepticism on Southern pricing:** More pest pressure = more competition = compressed pricing and profitability. - **Startup entry:** Jonas doesn't see many zero-startup entrants up north — mostly franchises/corporate locations moving in. --- ## 4. Pest + Lawn Cross-Selling Debate - **Jonathan:** Historically advises **against** integrated lawn + pest: - Examples: TrueGreen/Terminix (ServiceMaster) failed at cross-selling; Scotts' ~$250M lawn business entering pest via Ortho was "an utter disaster." - Adding lawn to pest means adding a **lower-margin service to a higher-margin, capital-light, recurring core**; margin profile degrades, growth decelerates, and the acquisition pool shrinks. - Killingsworth example (via Mike Rogers's father): adding HVAC, plumbing, carpet cleaning, lawn dragged down the business. - Current PE appetite for integrated home services "might just be an aberration… more of a fad" — though he concedes in the present market PE "will buy any integrated home services business if the margins are right." - **Jonas's practice:** Runs both — deliberately, partly as a **defensive play** (bundling lawn + mosquito makes switching harder) — but agrees cross-selling is "the same challenge" either direction and that customers see them as two different industries. His workaround: **separate brands** (Turf Badger trucks vs. Pest Badger trucks). - **Jim Mel's counter-claim (relayed by Jonathan):** The lawn piece made pest *less* sticky — visible lawn problems caused customers to cancel everything. Jonathan: "I would agree… I haven't seen the data, but that would be my assumption." - **Retention data (Jonas, with definitional clarification):** Initially cited "99.8%" — clarified as **current-cohort-year churn**; actual 12-month retention year-over-year is **~72%**, which he considers good for door-to-door. --- ## 5. Route Density, Market Share & Exit Geometry - **Paul:** Density is the key driver of margins in route-based recurring revenue businesses; margins "hockey stick up" from 10% → 20% → 30% market share. Operators should: - Set **market-share hurdles** (~35–40%) before opening new branches rather than arbitrary revenue targets. - Estimate TAM via postal data (residential/commercial units, ~20% consumer pest penetration, ~70% commercial). - Cut peripheral unprofitable routes; "hand it to your competitors." - Pushback he hears from operators: manager location ("Chuck lives an hour and a half away"), ego/wanting statewide scale. - **M&A/exit logic (Paul):** Acquirers prefer **contiguous geography**; multi-state scattered branches are a weakness (Orkin's division-president territories complicate cross-territory deals — he's seen deals die over this). - **Jonas's confirmation:** Almost all his branches are in Wisconsin ("take over Wisconsin first"); the two outliers were accidental — one exists to relocate a sales manager near his mother with cancer. **Paul's response:** Deliberate tradeoffs like that are acceptable, even if not profit-optimal. --- ## 6. Sales, Marketing & Retention Tactics - **Jonas:** - All door-to-door teams are **internal** (no Utah-recruited crews; doesn't pay "the crazy commissions"); ~75 knockers starting summer, ~40 remaining; next-year goal of 200 (requires recruiting 400). - Local origin of reps is the differentiator ("Wisconsin accent"). - Over **$1M marketing spend**: Google **LSAs** are the top performer, Facebook close; runs promoted YouTube and organic TikTok. - **AI welcome-call tool:** after contract signing, an AI video call reads the terms and the customer must repeat them back — recorded accountability for both rep and customer; done on the iPad at the door. - Believes neighborhoods increasingly prohibit **door hangers**, so he prefers knocking ("I'm going to get more deals"); expects *more* municipal pressure on door-to-door (Paul agrees). - **Trend Jonas flags:** Everything sold as a **bundled monthly subscription** ("Netflix model") even when serviced quarterly. - **News items (unverified, flagged as such):** LA city/county suit against Hawks (Paul: "I haven't read the complaint"); rumor of similar in Wisconsin ("I don't want to spread rumors"); Tommy Mello (garage doors) door-knocking and placing stickers near garage buttons/motors as a future-call trigger. --- ## 7. People vs. Systems, and the Trapped Operator - **Jonas:** Biggest learning is the **leadership team** ("super cliche"); rejects "I don't need good people, I have good systems" — "you have to have both"; "good systems, crappy people — high turnover and crappy life." - **Jonathan on the plateaued majority:** Owners trapped by wrong pricing never fixed, no margin to breathe, hire, or attend events; breaking out requires cutting back income temporarily and "a really hard conversation with your spouse" — "most will frankly not do it." --- ## 8. Technology Outlook (AI vs. Robotics) - **Paul:** AI outreach/notification systems are already deployed; within ~5 years "you're not going to be able to tell" it's not human. He's "a little disheartened" by robotics pacing — **regulation lags technology**, possibly by a decade; won't restructure a business model around speculative tech ("keep playing the same game"). - **Jonathan's counter-nuance:** Current AI failure rates (~8%) block real deployment, but investment scale means accuracy will iterate quickly. Robotics in lawn isn't new (Husqvarna, European solar-field mowing, crop-dusting drones) — adoption and legislation are the bottlenecks. A GM robotics veteran told Jonas a robot exists that could do pest control. - **Consensus:** AI will outpace robotics; change is incremental, not transformational, for now. --- ## Unresolved Tensions (preserved) - **Cold vs. warm markets:** Paul/Jonathan's barrier-to-entry thesis vs. Jonas's lived experience of big competitors arriving anyway. - **Integrated vs. pure-play:** Jonathan's long-term skepticism ("fad") vs. his own admission that today's PE market buys integrated businesses freely; Jonas operates both. - **Does bundling help or hurt retention?** Posited NPV benefit (Paul's open question) vs. Jim Mel's stickiness claim — no data settled it; Jonas agreed to segment retention by service line "next week." # Video Attribution & Provenance Record ## Video - **Title:** Scaling Up Smart: Perspectives on Market Strategy and Growth | #PestWorld2024 #Entrepreneurship - **Video ID:** 01a168c8-2dd8-7eec-80f1-243006f90851 - **No curated metadata was supplied** — all provenance facts below derive from the transcript only. ## Identified Speakers & Roles | Speaker | Role | Evidence in Transcript | |---|---|---| | **Paul Jamore** (transcribed variously as "Paul jamore" / "Paul") | **Channel host / interviewer** | Self-intro: "hi I'm Paul jamore I wanted to welcome our new subscribers"; references "PestControl TV"/"Patomic TV" channel and a prior "M&A master class." Channel name appears garbled in transcript ("pomac TV" / "patomic TV" / "PestControl TV" renderings). | | **Jonathan** (referred to as "Jonathan," "the professor," "the Master") | **Guest — mentor/coach, former owner of a coaching business (Service Autopilot Academy context)** | Jonas describes joining his program; Jonathan recounts selling out his first coaching conference, prebuilt "done for you" systems, monthly live episodes; sells M&A/investment perspectives throughout. | | **Jonas** | **Guest — pest control / lawn care business owner (Turf Badger / Pest Badger brands, Wisconsin)** | Describes ~$260K revenue when joining the Academy, sold a lawn company in 2021, restarted in pest control, now ~$8–9M revenue, 10 branches, ambitions of 100M revenue. | | **Dylan** | Mentioned, non-speaking | "Dylan and I will be sitting down filming more extensive m&a master classes" (Paul speaking). | | **Trish** | Mentioned, non-speaking | Jonas: "Trish is in there Trish's here with me." | | **Rob Greer, Lenny, Jim Mel, Tommy Melo, Matt Rogers, Garrett Matthews, Jordan Web** | Mentioned, non-speaking third parties | Referenced in discussion; not present speakers in this transcript. | ## Speaker Attribution Notes - Dialogue is unattributed in the raw transcript; roles inferred from context, self-identifications, and conversational turns. **Attribution confidence: moderate** — Paul, Jonathan, and Jonas are distinguishable, but a few short interchanges are ambiguous. - Opening lines (tradeoffs/NPV commentary) are a cold-open excerpt later repeated verbatim by Jonathan mid-transcript. ## Promotional Segments (Flagged) - **Channel subscription promo** (Paul): subscribe link below, email distribution list sign-up via description link, comment requests for future content, upcoming M&A master classes (sell-side and buy-side). - **Service Autopilot Academy / coaching program references** (Jonathan and Jonas): origin story of the coaching program, $500/month membership, "done for you" systems — functions partly as promotion of the coaching business. - **Brands named:** Turf Badger, Pest Badger (Jonas's companies). ## Referenced Third-Party Sources & Claims - **Companies cited as examples:** Orkin ("Oran"), Terminix, TrueGreen ("TR green"), Scotts, ServiceMaster, Aptive, Hawx ("Hawks"), Greenix, Husqvarna ("hus verna"), GM (robotics). - **Legal/regulatory claim (unverified):** LA city/county reportedly filed suit against Hawx; speaker notes rumor of similar action in Wisconsin against a pest company. Speaker explicitly states: "I don't want to spread rumors" and "I didn't read the complaint." - **Industry statistics cited by speakers (unverified):** Atlanta pricing ~$70/quarter vs ~$125–150 up north; Scotts ~$250M lawn revenue in 2011; residential pest market penetration <20%; typical churn/plateau figures ($350–500K revenue plateau). - **Named individuals' businesses:** Jim Mel's pest/lawn business (Greenwich, CT customer anecdote); Matt Rogers / Killingsworth (father's multi-service business); Tommy Melo (garage doors, sticker strategy). ## Referenced Media & Channels - Paul's podcast ("I had this conversation [on] the podcast a couple weeks ago"). - Jordan Web's video (Service Autopilot Academy member). - Marketing channels discussed: Google LSA, Facebook, TikTok (organic), YouTube (promoted videos), door hangers, door knocking. ## Comment Availability - **Explicitly available:** Paul invites viewers to "put a comment below on the types of things you want to see." (Actual comment state not verifiable from transcript.) ## Uncertainty Flags - Speaker-name spellings ("Paul Jamore," "Jonas," "Jonathan," "Dylan," "Trish") are best-effort normalizations of garbled transcript text. - Channel name rendering inconsistent in transcript. - All quantitative claims are speaker assertions with no cited documents. when you're small and you're growing like you'll do anything for the sale right you'll drive 50 m you'll do whatever you got to do you got to make money I get that but then what happens over time is as you scale these businesses sometimes people stay in the same bad habits because I've always done that since day one and now I'm sending my guys way across town and so you really just have to start making the tradeoff and you have to get comfortable with turning down don't think about Revenue just think about what is going to contribute to your business on a cash flow basis and turn things that are not profitable on a Net Present Value perspective and this is very easy math to do and it's stuff people don't want to think about 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 cell side as well as the buy side I intend to talk about the choice of process delving deep into m& psychology uh as well as extensive buide 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 distrib ution 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 patomic TV so once the student now sitting next to the Master this is what I want to talk about the professor you're you're trying to make that stick I'm trying to make it stick yeah we'll see if it does so Jonas you were in his program when oh man like I think there was did you join right away it was sa 2 so 16 to the end of it or two years ago yeah 21 into 21 yeah yeah so call it 5 years and how big was your firm back done we were doing uh whopping 260,000 in Revenue that year okay murdering it now were you guys on service a pilot is that how you know Jonathan yeah I had signed up for service autopilot that night and at that time he still answering the phone maybe oh so that would have been really early yeah and so went online I saw Jordan web's video which is another Academy member he had won the service auto Academy event or like the year before and so I watched the video I'm like oh what's this thing and I go check that out so I watched that video looked at the wife and I was like hey they have this Academy thing but it's like $500 a month I can't really afford it I'm like let's just go ahead and do it like month to month if it doesn't work out I'll cancel it and then paid 500 bucks on a credit card and now the rest is history now 10 years later and the guy that everyone looked up to is now one of my best friends so it's pretty cool so how did it help you that's what I'm curious about ah man I don't you know where to begin with that one the very first the very first uh training was uh Google my business yeah that would have been that was the first before you had joined yeah yeah so that was the very first uh playback that I got to watch was Boog my business that was relatively new back then so just that one thing that I can remember changed my business forever get Google my business profile set up getting reviews I mean that that one strategy from that day forward probably made me me millions of dollars at this point so just that one thing alone like paid for everything I mean we could go like into I man there's so much but that was the very first thing that I learned so wait so it was a video that you watched basically there was a training that you had already done yeah so the backstory is I decided I'm going to do this coaching thing and it's a big lift to figure out what you're going to teach and all the and I have no clients and what if you only get two and you've created all this content so we threw our first what became our service autopilot conference to get an audience in the room to be able to sell them into the coaching program and so I didn't actually pre-create anything at that event I said hey here are the systems we're going to give you done for you systems that we'll give you and you can Implement them in your business so we sold that thing out in 30 days and we just record we do a live episode every month and we record it we'd have prebuilt materials that go along with whatever so like let's say it was a door knock or a door hanger session I'd have door hangers created for you I teach you the whole concept in 5 hours give you the done for you material you implement that in your business so what he's referring to is those sessions were originally done live I teach him and then when he came in because he came in later he watched that as a recording so he was then able to go back through the library as well as get all the new sessions I was teaching every month got it so where was Jonas on the implementation scale in terms of like you know some guys they listen Jonathan you're the man you're teaching us such great stuff dud they don't implement it where was Jonas I don't remember like right away it but I remember he was one of the individuals that did everything you know within you don't you shouldn't actually Implement everything that's too much but he was he was moving fast and so that's how I think we initially became friends and I paid closer attention to him and then we hit it off because you appreciate anybody that they hear something and then they go take action and they get result you're like okay well I'm going to invest my time in that person and you just kind of as you get to know the guy you're like okay he really doesn't need me that much like I just kind of gave him the initial ideas and the spark he met a bunch of cool people he became friends with them I didn't do any of this he just he did it all and uh and you know so pretty quickly I figured it out so Jonas your business was like 250k a year at that time I know you've sold off some assets since but what are you doing now uh this year we're across 88 million so anywhere between 8 and 9 million so we did that in like the last four years yeah but that's with a full restart so yeah was a full restart so yeah buildup sold uh sold by long company in 2021 started a pess control company in 2021 same year so what's the breakdown of your business now as far as Revenue split yeah like we about 80 to 90% P control 10% fertilization be control it and that varies between branches too but as overall so like my original branch like where I was born and raised it's probably about 5050 there we started out the lawn care company there and everyone just knew our name so we just kind of ran with it there but as a total how many active branches do you have right now not projective but active 10 10 you got 10 locations right now and then launch and four in the spring 10 physical locations yeah why cuz our markets are just it's a little bit different it's not like we're in a metropolitan area like Green Bay is only 100,000 people and then we have all the smaller markets too which end up I kind of liked I was just talking Jonathan I kind of liked it because what I liked about the smaller markets is that you know technician go to$ 250 $300,000 Revenue so you can go spend up a branch in a smaller Market due to million dollars a lot less pressure there you don't have to have a really good manager to manage four people so you can have a decent technician that doesn't have a whole lot of leadership skills that can self-sufficient run that Branch so I actually really like that instead of going into metropolitan area having a $20 million Branch having to scale a leadership team is is another skill you have to learn too so I actually like that model A lot it was never it was never intentional though either but you'd still need a leadership team above all the branches so so you still have the challenge of building out the leadership team you're just saying because the branch is smaller I need a less skilled individual to run a three truck operation than a 20 truck operation that's what I liked about it and but it it was never really intentional it kind of happened because Co hit I had was I had this grand plan of going to like these five smaller markets but Green Bay was always like my dream to go there and he's like well said no one ever yeah right exactly we come from a 14,000 populated uh area go to one game there yeah for real and then so he's like well if if if Green Bay is the end goal why don't you just go right there first and like yeah that's a good point so that's what it did went there first and so that's our biggest Branch now and then we're actually we're going to shift to Madison that next year and we said we're going to pull back and stay a little bit closer to home and move to Second Branch to Stevens Point and we went from zero to like 1.4 million in like 18th or 16 months so it went fast so what are your aspirations for this business I mean t you ask if you ask me like I want to have 20 locations I don't care 20 Plus locations 20 100 I want to do 100 million Revenue that was a goal from day one I told him that was the goal with this thing and I said I want to go on a 20-year run so that put me at 60 years old and I mean a lot could change then from then till now but that was the goal from day one and I knew I had it in me and I always had these dreams of doing this thing and I knew that I could do it but like believing in yourself that you can do it and then you look at Jonathan he's like he's like I've met very few people who actually said they were going to do this that actually could go do it and you're one of those and once I heard that it was like a light switch and it was it just took off but it's like it just Happ like your Mentor there at your back and just saying that one thing changed my life forever and she probably doesn't even know that you told me it does make me feel good yeah so I mean it was that a a mindset shift for you then I had never been anywhere really i' just come again come from a small town never really been anywhere and he was the first person that pulled me out of there sitting in Dallas and I was like holy man it's a big world out there and he and through his talks he would always say like there's just a lot of CEOs out there I always say what's wrong with me what's wrong with me what's wrong with me it was never really what's wrong with the person it was more like the market that they were in or the services that they were offering he never would tell me that directly but I felt when he was saying it to me like he was looking at me every entire time he was saying it so I like I just I kept hearing it over and over again so I knew when I started back over what I was going to do so yeah my argument there is there's a lot of really talented and skilled individuals that are I always use the coming from Dallas they used the Arkansas example they grew up in this little town in Arkansas they're building whatever their trade is and they're saying they're looking at me and saying why can't I be like him why can't I build something big why can't I make more money and their problem is they're in the wrong Market they may have the willingness and capability and intelligence and work ethic to go get the thing but they're simply in the wrong market and I like to associate it to like if you're a really Savvy Financial investor real estate investor and you live in some little town you got a 100 million bucks you don't wake up and say well happen to live in this little town I'll buy $100 million worth of residential homes in this market that's stupid if you're sophisticated enough to build a nine figureure net worth you say where in the United States or the world is the very best place to deploy this capital and I'm going to go there and build who cares where I live and that's what I think a lot of people are facing they're they are feeling bad about themselves and like something's wrong with them and they're just in the wrong spot and I feel strongly about this well I mean I think you and I chatted about this before that's the difference between the door-to-door companies that actually look around and say okay what Market do I want to be in where do I to deploy teams versus pretty much everyone else that's in this business it's kind of an accident like I grew up here like I work for AT&T and I hate working for AT&T so I'm going to start a lawn care business or a pest control company or what have you because I'm here not a lot of thought goes into the actual Market that's fine to get you in the game but if you want to be serious then you've got to change the thinking and say where's the best opportunity I'm going to go ride that Trend that wave that opportunity that Market whatever the case might be I mean clearly there are you know it's like number one you should look for kind of demographic Tailwinds right areas that are net importers of people well Southeast is great you and I chat about the fact that I really do like the I like colder climates because it's a natural barrier entry for competition but it's harder for folks to to compete in colder climates right so you have much less competition I would imagine in your area than yeah we started out that way and then I think everyone kind of heard what we were doing and they showed up pretty quick so like once the they heard like hey these guys are put on the revenue like all the big companies showed up so Hawks was there the next year greenex is there like everyone's there now so we have just as much pressure as anyone else um I would say we have as many companies total but all the big guys showed up for sure Oran Terminex they're all there you know so it's a great Market I'm not going to lie that's an interesting point do you have any Southern locations Tulsa how's Tulsa compared to Northern location and and maybe it's too early to answer no it's not I Tulsa's awesome I mean everyone has Pest Control I mean n N9 out of 10 people have Pest Control N9 out of 10 I would say yeah what n out of 10 I mean come maybe it's wrong maybe it's seven out of 10 people home people have Pest Control I think Market penetration is less than 20% on the residential side I would guess really low but we're at we're on the doors everyone has pest control so it's like you don't have to sell them on Pest Control you just sell them on why they're just trying to get rid of you yeah sell them mind why P Badger is different as compared to you go up North and you have to sell them on pest control because every two out of 10 houses have pest control then you got to sell them on yourself too so again I really really like the southern markets I've sold in Florida I've sold in Arizona I've sold in Texas I've sold it all over the place and also is a good Market I sold in Oklahoma that when I was down there too so it's a good Market it might also just be higher Dem higher income areas that you're trying to sell into the penetration feels higher as and I think that going in with lawn care too is just a kind of Paul you know I had this conversation the podcast a couple weeks ago maybe been longer than that now but uh going in as a la care company because everyone's going as a pest control company so the first thing that they're going to say he oh we're good you know like Yeah we actually not here for your Pest Control here for your long care like oh so it's just a foot in the door to get that in the door start with long care then upsell in the pest control side can you elaborate a bit on what you said are you saying there's less competition up north cuz everybody thinks the southern states are better is that what you were insinuating yeah I mean like if you even talked to the financial sponsors of private Equity firms they're all looking in the Southeast because that's where the bugs are right and so it is true there's more pest pressure in Georgia than there is in Michigan no doubt about it there's also a lot more pest control companies in Florida there's way more lawn care companies than there are in Michigan for example and the way that I size up the market is number one mother nature is a natural barrier to entry so in a cold climate um you got a lot of seasonality and you've got to be better at managing cash flow in order to keep the business afloat so that naturally knocks people out um when you have less competition that's what drives down pricing right is competition like in the Atlanta metro area you've got people are selling pest control for like 70 bucks a quarter whereas in Michigan you can sell it for a buck 25 a buck so you you've got that disparity um and and so competition definitely drives down the prices um but I do think you know when you think about Pest Control in general it's largely preventative especially in termite areas right as you well know I mean people will get the service irrespective of where they are the competition in my mind makes a big difference I mean Southern markets are horrible from a pricing perspective that impacts profitability that picks the business's ability to reinvest back into the business yeah yeah and I don't disagree with you at all like you said I sold out in uh Georgia we're selling like $79 B monthly or quarterly I can't remember what it was we're selling $149 to $189 up by us so yeah definitely like so we're be more profitable the technicians are making more money because they're get commission pay everyone's just happier and there's just more money to go around for sure I agree with that I would imagine also because of the cash flow issue in the in the uh Northern markets that you don't see as many startup from zero companies versus the larger companies coming in um as new entrance is that true or no or do you see a lot of like uparts I I don't actually I really don't I don't see a lot of startup companies like a lot of the bigger like franchises and corporate location move in but yeah not a lot of startups actually I think but I don't pay attention a little smaller I I typically don't but I don't see a lot either good good good point though you mentioned something we've talked about this before I found it somewhat difficult to take a lawn care business to p and I'm not talking about lawnmowing business I'm talking about fertilization we control R were any of these services are you finding it easier to take a pest to lawn or is it the same exact challenge I think it's the same challenge okay again we talked about this for a long time and it's not just us it's not just it's every company across the country I think Paul that was it um Scots they spent like a couple million dollars trying to figure it out they still cross up so it's it's a tough sell no matter what they look at you as two totally different Industries like they just don't think your long gu should be doing anything Pest Control related and vice versa where we have gotten really good with it though is on the doors explaining exactly what we do cuz we went in as Turf Badger but we're still a pest control but they're thinking that we're long care so that was one advantage that we went into and we thought well you can't do a lot of these termite jobs that they getting down south uh so we had to be a little bit different and we also use it as a defensive play cuz we have these big door knocking companies coming in like yeah they might be able to switch over our pest control and do it cheaper or whatever but we're tying our Long Carry in and mosquito in it's like it's a tough switch now so that was a defensive play that we did too but you know on the whole I always advise folks against that uh of running like a lawn and pest company yeah because you're you know life is a series of tradeoffs and you've got allocate resources and you're far better off running a becoming the expert the Prof the you know the specialist in one specific area and ramping that up because a cross cell is never as easy as it sounds you and I talked about this true green and Terminex owned by service master they didn't do any cross- selling think about it like both billion plus dollar businesses at the time they couldn't pull it off they tried um Scots was doing 250 million in lawn care Revenue back in 2011 decided to get into pest they began to build that Ortho brand out that was an utter disaster uh so it's actually really hard to do so why try to do it I I I in most cases I advise against it I say stick with your knitting stick with your core and focus on that and also it makes exit opportunities easier I mean there was a long period of time where you're in a pest control business that does Lawn Care people didn't want to buy you like Oregon didn't want to buy your rill didn't want to buy they didn't want they didn't want the lawn care and then like the lawn care providers like Trin didn't want that it's p that's not in their business so it was more complicated yeah and I think you and I talked about that too on the podcast and you said like you just really really like where the lawn care was going cuz I had asked like well what would you do would you sell off the LA Care like no I don't think I would anymore cuz a lot of private Equity money is coming in and they're not looking for just pest or just or just lawn like the private Equity just cares about cash flow so if you can get this very profitable machine whether it's pest law or both like I don't think they'll care but will it minimize your the players like the oran r kill Terminex for sure but private Equity deals like you know more than that than I do but would it you're saying doing both would it yeah like does it matter if the pr if the private Equity guys see really strong margins in a fertilization we control combo pest company so one is not dragging down the other would they would private Equity still be interested or are they trying to buy pure plays because they think they'll exit to strategics no I I I think at the end I think right now in this present Market they'll buy any integrated at home services business irrespective of what they do if the margins are right and the you know there's high visibility on cash flow and all those sorts of things but I just I I you know sometimes when I think about like these various different things in the market unless it's like some sort of an innovation it it might just be an abberation and so we might just be in that time period like postco where Financial sponsors that are flush with capital are focused on integrated Home Services business and it's more of a fad than anything and I don't know if that's a long-term trajectory of these integrated businesses because traditionally they haven't worked very well um and so I I just say like if you have the ability to say okay I'm a pest control company or I'm a lawn care business and just kind of stick with your knitting you're you're potentially putting yourself in a less risky situation now when none of us know the future and it might be great to have an integrated company at some point in the future I just don't know and so I I just say like if you're faced with that decision if you run a pest control business today and you're thinking about adding lawn ask yourself why why you know you're adding like I always had a problem with going from pest to lawn because my problem with going pest to lawn is I'm taking I'm I'm I've got a higher margin Core Business it's Capital light I've got higher visibility on cash flow it's slightly more recurring but there's definitely higher gross margins and operating margins and now I'm adding on a lower margin service now if I had a lawn care business I would be more interested in adding on pest but then you have like kind of the markets reaction to that which is like hey this is a green industry business can they really do pest but I always you know whenever you think about up you know the problem I think a lot of guys have and you know Matt Rogers is running around he and I always talk about his father running Killingsworth Mike had an awesome Pest Control business and then he haded on like HVAC and then he added on like plumbing and then he haded like carpet cleaning and Lawn and like you know the margin profile kept decreasing and it actually dragged the business down and it slowed down the growth rate on the pest control side so growth decelerates he's got a bigger business cuz he's cross- selling but that Pest Control growth rate slowed down and now I've got a bigger business that's lower margin have I actually improved my business from a valuation perspective he has it because what he's done is he hasn't grown margin uh and he's Diversified a business thereby reducing the acquisition pool like the pool of acquires that can buy it so I would argue that that's the exact wrong thing to do and so I just encourage people to actually think about I never you never want to invest thinking about like what the market looks like today you never want to think about like what transaction multiples are today you want to try to anticipate industry fundamentals of where they'll likely be in the future and I just encourage people to do that when they think about these businesses strategically that's a I think that's a really good dissection of that issue with private Equity the one thing I would add and maybe just apply it specifically to your business Jonas is that if we were to take your business and break down the drivers of the net present value of each customer I wonder if some of those variables are being bent in a effective way because of what you're doing so let me give an example you're on the doors you're bringing in a lot of business I wonder does the retention increase because you're doing pest day and Lawn right does the customer penetration we know this like customer penetration and revenue per customer goes up because you're doing has and Lawn so I'm wondering if those variables are actually being inflected in the correct direction question is does it does like there's all this you know not a lot of companies actually measure this you know Jim Mel was just here a minute ago Jim had a large Pest Control business but they also had like a three or $4 million lawn care business he would always make the argument that the lawn care business actually made a p control less sticky because people could see lawn and if they were irritated with it they would cancel that and just get rid of everything so he always viewed those customers as a greater Flight Risk and impacted his retention negatively now I I don't know I mean even though I sold that business I remember being in the numbers that was years ago um but I think it's important to every Market unique every operator is unique and how they run the business I think it's important to actually do the math I think that 100% is a strong argument I would believe that what he said is exactly correct you're more likely to get fired because they pull up in the driveway and the lawn has weeds in it and when they fire fire you they don't just fire you for the one service they take you out completely so I would agree I just I haven't seen the data but that would be my assumption I can also tell you that Jim Mel's company sold my wife every service under the moon when we were his customer in Greenwich Connecticut I mean I came home had the most beautiful crawl space imaginable thanks to Jim but you ultimately canel it didn't you that was a one time job yeah we moved got we were talking about this actually he didn't do our lawn though he what's easier to self what did you say fertilization we control or Pest Control well for us it's easier so fertilization we control but in general much easier but in general what would you think and I think it's more Market specific are you asking me what do I think is easier to sell yeah I think fertilization we control yeah that was my argument I think there's more buyers of the so that's where I would have and the data may be wrong I would have said more people buy fertilization we control at least in my market than they bypassed I think as a percentage but I don't know I so what retention like if you have a customer that is only past or only lawn where's your retention higher so as a total this year I know we're at like 99.8% total for the year 9.8 what we so like 80 you're churning 9% Ching 9 yeah that's good yeah it's really good that's and so have you segmented that with just past customers just yeah that but I should could be interesting yeah yeah I'll have that data for you next week thank you please do yeah I mean that would actually be a pretty good guiding policy for you actually looking at your own data yeah I agree I'm curious for someone listening your opinion let's say they already in the game of fertilization we control and Pest and it's called a 65% mix towards past they are feeling some struggles growing the past side I'm sorry 65% towards lawn so pest is the smaller service they're feeling the struggle of ADD the past client they're identified as a lawn business would you tell them to separate the businesses would you tell them to see it through separate as into two Brands how would you think about that if they want to keep if they're saying hey I I'm a $7 million company and I want to go to 20 strategically how would you advise them it's a good question I mean I I personally don't see any real benefit of keeping both of those Services Under One Roof because you could still let me rephrase that for a second I think there is a benefit to having a specific pest brand and a specific Lawn Care brand for example you could still use all the same back office and you know all of that sort of stuff but I do think that that makes a lot of sense because I think one of the problems that TR green had when they started to do like the perimeter Pest Control treatments is everyone kind of looked at it and said well this is a lawn care business these guys aren't aren't pest experts and so I I do think that hurts green industry businesses and I would probably use two Brands I mean hell the big players use I mean think about Orin they'll use five different brands for Pest Control in one market let alone so and that's kind of honestly what we did so all our lawn care trucks they all say Turf badger on them still and all of our pest control trucks they all say pest badger on them because you can still get the benefit across cell right like you got a Lawn Care customer you know using City Turf for example you could still you know and then like let's say you have City pest it could be a sister company but it's a specialized specializ I've tried to buy that for a long time I've given up well I mean I I think that's probably a good way to go actually yeah and that's what we did so uh yeah we again and you think there's enough differentiation in the brand where the buyer doesn't still think they're really just the same brand again that's a really good question I don't know if it really matters what the actual like here here's the thing it's like if it's your current customer that has lawn care and you want to sell them pest do they really care from a cross cell perspective it's it's getting those new incremental customers that are going to be out searching for pest specific companies I'm and this is more of a question than a statement I just kind of Wonder um I see your point though they might say well wait you do a great job with our Lawns but you really know how to kill pests but again we have so many friends in the industry that are in the lawn care specific that run decently sized companies and every single one of that has done really well with it has rebranded a separate Branch like a division of that that's the ones that I've done most of their rebrands have been completely different though a complete Rebrand where in a completely different name the name doesn't overlap the previous vist pest inista Turf like roughly the same brand they did yeah so they did really well with the like Garrett Matthews and things like that there's a few that have done really well all because they created a separate brand so I agree with you so what's next year look like for you where are you going talking markets yeah markets whatever what's exciting to you about what you're working on and what's coming yes we'll get you all charged up we're open up four more offices for sure like said we already got those locations picked up put you 14 put us at 14 uh so that'll be fun real quick before you head on when you think about the 10 you have now and you think about the revenue you're driving out of each of those 10 locations do you say this location could do 100% more Revenue yeah like absolutely so like we look at Market penetration to like where those markets are at so we have a couple people that I'll actually hold back a year because they want to go open up new markets cuz they're quick starts and want to run forward but like we haven't hit that market saturation yet so we're going to hold here for a year and then the next year you guys can go some money cuz I just know they can do way more Revenue than they already do we'll still come back to my original question but how do you think about 14 next year versus staying with 10 and just going all in on the 10 I just don't know if like so if we if we shifted everything to like a bigger location like a Milwaukee or Madison we could probably pull that off but again there's just there's a lot more door too companies there so again going back to like and I could be wrong like how what we've done to this point that's worked really really well is just those smaller markets 50 70 100,000 people like there's not a whole ton of pressure not it's not like the Milwaukee where you have the Hawks run through with teams of 100 you have apptive teams of 100 you e all of them they're all there so like we're kind of stayed away from all that uh but if we do go into those markets if we do really well I think it'll be on the longterm side actually and I could be wrong what I'm curious about and you may not know yet it's still pretty early when you look at an established Branch are they growing at 10% a year 30% a year what kind of growth does that get still pretty early so I could go back to like um Apple going to be our biggest Branch so we start off zero in 2021 now we're up to about 5 million so it's been doubling pretty much every year but we're getting to that point where that branch is going to slow down because there's just not enough people out there so I'm going to come back to my question if he were selling how would 14 locations be perceived versus eight or I mean d how would this be perceived right now and he's not ready to sell so he's going to build into what he's doing I I don't know how to think about it so like the majority of all of our markets are all in Wisconsin we have two outliers but the rest are all in Wisconsin okay I see I don't picture it that way I picture you in multiple States no we're all basically in one we have one in Iowa kind of is its own little gem but the rest of them are like right in the outskirts of other states we have licenses to go in to Minnesota Iowa Illinois and things like that but most of our locations are all great in Wisconsin yeah I mean uh at the end of the day almost every one of these guys is looking for operations that are in contingent Geographic areas those multi-state operations always have problems no one wants a bunch of small branches all the hell over the like a door to door business I that's one of the major weaknesses that these guys have is they might have 15 offices in six different states that's not helpful you know and from a growth perspective obviously you know you do get um density obviously is your best friend in route based service businesses right because the impact on margins and from a branding perspective it's just way better to be in a finite area and just double down on density that's the way to do it everyone I always talk about everyone in this business wants to be have a massive fom like I operate from like New Jersey to Western Ohio well that's stupid you don't need to unless you're doing 700 million in Revenue but if you're doing 10 million bucks you can be in a couple contingent Metro areas that's the way to do this would you say it also becomes problematic for an acquirer if you have an operator that's in multiple States multiple jurisdictions for them to look at it and say okay we're going to increase our route density in each of those areas and oh by the way we happen to have operations in each of those areas to make that first statement true versus if you are in a more concentrated area it's very easy to find that one acquirer that can pay the most price because they know what it's going to do to the economics of their business profitability achieve through that greater route density yeah sense yeah and that's what I thought of to like before we went anywhere else I want to make sure that we had Wisconsin fully taken over yeah I think one of the problems like historically in this business whether it be lawn or pest now lawn had much less on the national acquirer side but one of the problems with businesses that are spread out is that let's say orin's going to come in and buy a business and Orin splits up the United States into quadrants so have a division president of the Northeast the Midwest actually it's I think it's split up to five or six now but what happens when you've got one brand and they're like hey it goes across three division presidents territory and so now from a geographic perspective they have to split that up and that gets complicated and so I have seen Aire ERS look historically and say well we're just not going to do that deal because it goes across too many different territories and it's just too messy for us to deal with based on based on their territory structure yes so that's kind of hard to optimize though for because you don't know who your buyer's going to be well you can't but like if you intend I mean look if you keep it as tight as possible like I mean if you really I don't see any benefit like sure you could become you can go that business across the state of Wisconsin for example um but what's the Brut benefit of going to Illinois and Indiana in Ohio unless you're doing 2 or 300 million in Revenue I just don't see the point yeah I agree with you and that's why simp like like we have a couple offices are just right on the border so like let's say the town is 50,000 people but 30 minutes away in the Minnesota side there's another town of 100,000 right there you know I always encourage people to have like think about having from a corporate policy perspective you know Everyone likes to split branches or open up a new Branch but really put some thought into like what sort of re do we need to do in a specific Market before we start a new operation but more importantly what sort of market share do we need to have because the the margin chart hockey sticks up you know if you've got like a 10% market share versus 20% versus 30% I mean your margins increase dramatically as your market share goes up due to the density effect and so you know sometimes people will talk in arbitrary terms and like hey we get a branch to 2 million then we want to open up another branch I say get sophisticated about how much market share you actually own because every area obviously has a different level of population and understand what your Market it's like what sort of penetration does that particular Market have and it's sometimes you have to do broath because it's not like there's reports on that but you can kind of figure it out I mean look you can get on like the postal service and look and say okay here's how many residential units are in this particular area here's how many commercial units and then you can kind of back on the napkin like okay okay X percentage of these Comm you know we know that 70% of the commercial will have it you know on average 20% of consumers across the board will have Pest Control if we're talking about pest control services La Carro but then you can kind of figure out your market share and then you should give yourself a hurdle and it's almost like a driving goal it's like hey I want to get to 35% or 40% market share in this particular area before I even think about opening up in another area now you got a go with shoot for instead of some sort of arbitrary number so I I think some thought can be put into that and I think as if people start to measure I always encourage people to really think about market share actually really think about how many customer units are here and how many you can actually go after and then measure your own cash flow on a contribution basis or your margins on those particular territories and you can see how that that that shoots up because the density effect is for real and it gives you more you know the more dense the higher the margins the higher the the margins and the more you can do cacks and grow the more you can open up new offices and my biggest over the last 20 years I find myself saying more times than not to everyone focus on a tighter area think about areas where you're sending trucks out to service homes and businesses where you're at at best not making money and at worst losing money and give that to your competitors like hand it like sell it give it away shut it down whatever and really think about the contribution margin coming into your business based on the customers in the periphery and tighten down it's like hey I'm in Three Counties now well how could we be in two counties and be extremely more profitable it's just some thought exercises I think that's exactly right but what's the push back you typically hear from operators on why they're not doing that because it is rare well there's a million like you know one would be like um you know Chuck my best manager lives an hour and a half away and like we're going to open up a place where he is um most of it is really just ego wanting to have the scale right like you want to be Statewide um is that easier like growing across the state growing in a wider area it's easier because it's easier to grow in a wider area because it's it and I don't want to be offensive but it almost demonstrates laziness to a certain degree and an inability of an operator to actually engage in tradeoffs because like when you're small and you're growing like you'll do anything for the sale right you'll drive 50 m you'll do whatever you got to do you got to make money I get that but then what happens over time is as you scale these businesses sometimes people stay in the same bad habits because I've always done that since day one and now I'm sending my guys way across town and so you really just have to start making the tradeoff and you have to get comfortable with turning down don't think about Revenue just think about what is going to contribute to your business on cash flow basis and turn down things that are not profitable on a Net Present Value perspective and this is very easy math to do and it's stuff people don't want to think about hey I'm spending money on Advertising I know it's not so profitable but I'm going to you know we're going to service that no okay it's a some cost you've already spent it doesn't mean you have to double down on it right and so I do think thinking about I mean look almost all of the segments and all the industries we deal with are literally route based recurring Revenue businesses right whether they be gutter or PES or lawn or landscape and so at the Forefront of what you're doing is geography am I in the right geography is a net import or people like am I really managing to make my business as dense as possible am I smart enough am I brave enough to make the hard tradeoffs to forego that dollar today um because by doing so I'm going to actually grow a denser more profitable business tomorrow that's the way that I tend to look at it and it's very difficult easy for me to sit here and say this I'm not trying to put food on the table and get done I get that but I do think as you mature in the business after the first couple of years yeah I'll give people to pass the first year or two you got to do it right I get that but once it starts to mature I think you got to make those trade-offs otherwise you end up in a bad spot I don't know what you think about that Jonathan yes yes oh God what do you think about it Jonas I think it's super obviously going to agree with him and that's why strategically we weren't going going anywhere just my whole goal was to take over Wisconsin first the other two just happened one of our sales managers mom got cancer originally was from Grand Rapids and we wanted to move him back there so he could be closer to his mom and that's just what happened we moved him closer and he started a brancher yeah and you know I mean you know I say these things and I say these things based on the fact that you know it's depends on what you're stated purposes I I I'm always operating under the under the thought process that you want to grow the most profitable less risky business that you can in the shortest time possible and all those sorts of things but there are there are decisions that sometimes are important to make where like you've got somebody whose mom's got cancer and you want to keep this guy and you've got the opportunity to do it is it the most ideal situation no but it's a trade-off that you make and you say hey I'm going to open this Branch here but it's really just about I think for me people sometimes just fail to recognize the tradeoffs it's a if you make it deliberately it's okay but you're talking in terms of profit I'd bring another side of this conversation in and that is what is the majority of any of these industries pest lawn you name the trade what are they fighting they're fighting burnout why does everybody we'll use a lawn example because I don't know the pest number 350,000 to 500,000 take Topline Revenue takes out the majority of all companies they Plateau there they get stuck there why does that happen I think it's highly because they don't run out burnout they don't outrun burnout what are contributing factors to burnout surfing 90,000 different locations tons of different clients tons of different employees offering lots of different Services different types of trucks and Equipment mix it's exhausting it's always one more problem because it adds so much complexity so there's the profit element and then there's just the plain and simple how do you position yourself so you have the longevity to have your foot on the gas and go to build past these really challenging phases in the business and that 350 500 those are very very difficult times inside an organization and you're just making your life suck and odds are you're not going to be one of the people that gets past that phase you know I I wonder what your thoughts are you know when I see a lot of these smaller businesses you know it's like you start from scratch so again you're trying to put food on the table like you need to do everything yourself and I feel like sometimes you know unless you have like specific goals of what you're attempting to do with your business some guys will grow $500,000 business and that's what they want and that and they're happy with that and that's great it's a lifestyle business but like the guys that really get frustrated the ones that want to grow large businesses but really haven't thought through like how do you get out of that scarcity mindset from the early years where now you realize that every expense is not just an expense it's also an investment so how do you actually leverage your time how do you you know appropriately delicate those sorts of things I find that's a m it's a one of the it's like the business gets to that certain level and the owner just hasn't gotten to the point where they can hire those folks or replace themselves or thought through that I mean do you see that a lot in your coaching clients that never break through yeah I think that's the majority and it comes from a lot of different places they were trying to scrap together whatever they could from a business you know just piece together lots of different work cover the cost pay for the next employee you know you need to hire whatever what what are the problems work was priced wrong we didn't fix the pricing and you know you could go down the list of examples of just pricing that never get fixed and so they wake up one day in a situation where they're essentially trapped they don't know why they're trapped but they're trapped because there's no margin to actually fix the problem there's no margin for them to even take a deep breath and go to an event and and be inspired and see like what everybody else is doing say wait the story I've been telling myself that this industry sucks and there are no good employees hm maybe I should challenge that concept because there's a whole lot of really large companies here and there's a bunch of people that seem to be making money maybe the problem isn't the industry maybe it's something else like you don't you're so consumed you can't even see the forest from the trees and then you're so consumed there's no ability to upgrade the team members because there's no margin there's no money and so unfortunately like most of us humans learn is through pain and usually you have to reach that point and some number of people will eventually hit that point and then they'll go seeking an answer and and then they have to make the next really hard decision which is all right my family might have to make a little bit less money for a while I'm going to have to have a really hard conversation with my spouse we're going to have to make some really hard decision to get this to cut back from where we're at so that I can get breathing room and then rebuild from there and most will frankly not do it but that is the hard truth about what's required and the people that you did it I mean not that you were in trouble or you weren't having the financial trouble it's just like if you wanted to get to Next Level that's exact you had to cut back and to go forward and that's what a lot of people are facing and it's a brutal conversation but that's honestly the answer for most I got another question so I'm going to use me as an example in my market in the Dallas Market north of Dallas we're not in the downtown area when I think about market share as you described it you know think about what the market is now think about the percentage of buyers that kind of gives you your Tam I just make up numbers I think we could take 23% of them I have no idea I just make stuff up somebody says in the company do we need to go to a new market no I think we can just keep building how do I not make up that number or may maybe I've always thought the way you somewhat live in reality is if you have a strong brand and you're really actually marketing you start to look at your CAC so your your cost of acquisition to acquire another next client and as that number really starts to move up it's telling you that it's getting more and more expensive to go deeper and deeper into the market and take more market share and maybe at some point mathematically it tells you we might be wise to start a branch over here that's the best way and I've not hit that point but that's the best way I've known to think about this as you've met lots of people over the years what and you find dominant Brands maybe not our big Nationals but the dominant brands that are running 70 million hundred million companies what kind of market share do you see them eventually achieve in their best markets I mean I I I I literally see companies that have you know 70 80% market share and small urban areas yeah I mean this plays very well in like tertiary markets like Syracuse udica Harrisburg the Dallas Metroplex is a different beast when we talk about major urban areas um we would talk talk about like if we were talking about Dallas and I don't know the geography of Dallas but I would imagine like there's like the geography is flat there's an area of Dallas that's maybe I know where you're operated 10 square miles or whatever you know you're focusing on on that sort of stuff I think it's interesting uh when you talk about certainly the deeper you go in on the um in Market penetration you might see customer acquisition costs going up and I and I I think there's a yin and yang there's a balance to that because it it even if as cat goes up in a market it the density is the denominator to it right and so that I think works for a long long time I agree yeah I agree okay I want to talk about a a statistic that you threw out Jonas that we kind of just like plowed through but to me is a eye popping statistic and that was your retention or your C you used it as you know customer loss so retention was like over 90% And what I'm curious about one that's really high retention especially considering how much door too you're doing could you talk a little bit about that like how what the heck are you doing teach us uh there he said churn so we need to Define things here so how do you measure so those the customers that had signed up this year that have canceled so far it was like September 1st so it's not taking into account churn of clients that would have been in the prior right calendar can it's only curent C all right so it's basically one cohort yeah yeah okay but total we were less than we were like 28% from last year to this year okay as door to door which is really good for a door to door company that makes way more sense to me okay yeah it does yeah it does so hold on 28% still within the same calendar year it would be from last year to this year yes okay all right so over a 12 month period retention is 72% I'm with you which we still we're still really happy with that that's still yeah that's still good for door to door but that it makes a lot more sense and I think just selling again they're sales guys they're going to try to get the sale anyway that they can we understand that but as a company you have to put you know like guard rails in place so that they can't do certain things which we still have to get better at but there's so much uh AI stuff out there now that they can't get around certain things like like what like there's there's like a there's forms where it do like does like a welcome call for you where you go through the the agreement and after the agreement signed the agreement it goes to the customer then like it does an AI call and it says you realize that the terms are this this this this and this so you're saying it's it's not a live individual it's a computer no but but the video turns on so it's got to be facing the customer they have to repeat after everything that that they go over to hold the sales rep accountable and in fact the customer as well so it's not he said she said stuff anymore no now there's a recorded call that was AI done that holds both parties accountable does that work it seems like it'd be challenging to get compliance from the customer like that they want to do that yeah well that's what they have to do okay and they do it it it doesn't create a bunch of returns where you sell them at the door and then they fall out but they do it at the door with them on the iPad wow okay and just it does a screen record and turns on the video and things like that and then just do like welcome calls welome have the technicians do a welcome that's relativ new for this year but still like even just going to the with a technician and have been doing a welcome packet with like go back to the strategy from welcome packet back in the day having that put together but then also going through like the agreement one more time with the technician make sure the customer understands it's still something that every door to door company needs to improve on including us but it's think that we would try to do different better so how do you manage your door too teams is that internal teams external teams about that alln all internal all internal okay so we didn't recruit out of Utah we stay away from that arena for sure we don't play those games we can't we can't afford to so I just keep my guys away from it and spend good stff we're not paying the crazy commissions that they are they're just we're a little bit different is there much of a client acquisition strategy around marketing meaning actual marketing or is it all a door knocking strategy at this point through the office alone just to year we put over a million dollars in Revenue just in marketing marketing yeah how effective was that do you have you know any data on it or or maybe a description of what you were doing yeah I mean I don't know the breakdown of each but from Google to Tik Tock to okay so you're bringing in the social yeah so total marketing spend I'm with you so you're doing marketing spend on Tik Tok uh actually Tik Tok just all organic YouTube yes Google L say is Facebook we're doing all of it so you're promoting YouTube videos yeah really okay yeah yeah just it's just like any other platform you can you know run ads to current people that live in that current area you so you take a video that's doing really well you go in the back end and you can just Target those customers that are in that area that'll watch it of all your marketing strategies other than door knocking what would you say is probably working the best I would say LSA for sure and then Facebook's pretty close what's LSA like like local service ads oh from Google yeah okay that's where we drive most of our revenue from and they're they're I mean they're local they're they need the service they're calling you like pretty easy like those are pretty much slam dunks they're softballs for sales guys in your Market in California how are you being sold pest control and Lawn Service what's the predominant not at all quite frankly we're not having people come on the doors in our neighborhood not that I'm aware of anyway and we have service but other than that no we're not really being sold P control yeah what about Lawn Care same same does anybody mail into your property at all I mean do you get no we don't we don't you're enough do you want to let them know what your neighborhood is so that the companies yeah when uh like I don't know if you're much of a Facebook or anything do you see ads running on your Facebook I don't I mean only I mean I'm pretty much only friends with people from the pest control and Lawn and Lawn industry on Facebook and so I don't really get served any ads that I'm aware of but I'm also not a great person to ask because I'm not a big social media a person like for my personal consumption and I'm probably not paying that close of attention we get door knocked all the time at our place it's either a yeah a girl SC selling something for cheerleading or it's Pest Control I mean we have Gates that might they don't let us have Gates where we're at that's the secret sauce so you got to mail into your Market your neighborhood it's interesting so like cuz I have some friends that live in California and they have crazy budgets for Google and they say does really well so yeah isn't that for people that are actually searching for it yeah yeah so I'm not that right so I'm just not searching for it I just saw last week the was it Los Angeles county or city filed suit against I think Hawks oh I heard that too did you see that yeah and I again this is I don't want to spread rumors but I heard the same thing about Wisconsin well that's going to be a problem no but not it was Fox just a pass control compan oh and so what's the nature of the complaint I didn't read the complaint it just somebody sent it to me and I haven't had an opportunity to look at it I mean there's always these sorts of things but it was a big entity this time it wasn't like BFE Iowa town of 7,000 it was like Los Angeles either the city or some County out there which seemed to be soort of be more you know it's clearly interesting like the pressure that you know you got a lot of companies law p there's a variety that use door to door and interesting to see there seems to be a trend now me even Tommy melo's doing it garage doors now like Lenny's been working with them so they're door knocking garage doors yeah yeah they tested that like two years ago huh are they just selling a maintenance package you know cuz there's not a problem at the moment potentially when you knock on the door that's interesting he you know when I was out there in Arizona a few months ago an interview and he was telling me something about stickers they put they put the stickers and I don't I don't understand the the relevant I've never had a garage door they put stickers by the garage door button and then they put stickers by like the garage door uh motor so that way when there's a problem they just oh there do that in irrigation you do that in a bunch of stuff yeah it's just what they do they just sticker so they have they have some door knockers that I just go around just putting stickers up they door knock and say hey can we put a sticker in your garage y fascinating I've not heard that so I'd be like no way go away yeah I can't imagine how many people say yeah go ahead sure go in my garage and put a sticker dude I don't know exactly okay wow good for them they they're they're clearly killing people give him five bucks what's give you five bucks I can put a sticker Rob Greer yeah he's here see ask him he would know yeah he would know yeah is Lenny here I don't think Lenny's here well Rob will know the answer I'm going to have Rob on stage later this we there you go yeah that's where the stickers going I'll find out I don't think he knows but I'll ask him see from the client standpoint he stick you hang this stuff up if they're your client but that's fascinating so but I think bottom line here is that you know I think there's going to be more Municipal pressure on door to door actually which yeah I agree with you it's door hangers I don't see it slowing down like I see nothing but speeding up okay yeah I was going to say CU door hangers now it feels easier to door knock than it does to do door hangers and one is vastly more intrusive than the other so it does well why would you say it's easier to do door knock them door hanging not easier as a business all the cities are in neighborhoods are prohibiting door hangers these days okay more and more it's can't do that neighborhood can't do that neighborhood same door knocking I think you batter reviews with door hangers as you do door knock and doors okay so I'd rather just knock doors I'm going to get at least I'm going to get more deals yeah what do you think you do differently on the doors versus competitors I think just having more of a local presence knowing that we're not from know that we live right there most of our guys are from the era it's probably the biggest thing it's the Wisconsin accent probably maybe so if you knocked on my door how do you open that conversation like you I'm just going to walk in well I wouldn't answer the door if you knocked on my door so no when guys gar anyway yeah how did they how do they engage me from the beginning so i' some of these guys do a really good job yeah they're really good and you know what they're saying do you have any yeah I mean I know the pitch really well but they're going to ice break you first they're try to try to find commonality so like I know shoes if you have cool shoes like I'm going to go with shoes you have a nice car which I you have a nice car in the garage we pick one like we'll talk about the car so try to break you know break give report like that and then just bring down the tension of the just to get you to realize I'm just a human being out there and then from there I'm just going to start pitching there yeah and it's p control it's not hard I mean you guys have a problem you already have a company qualify you quick if you have one of those you don't know where to push a little harder and move sale forward yeah how many guys did you have knocking doors this past summer I think we started off like 75 and I think we ended like 40 some you know uh next year goal is have 200 but again to get 200 people you have to recruit 400 cuz half of them won't show up and there half will quit so what month do you start recruiting now yeah we already started yeah it's a it's a yeah it's a lot it's so like you said the door docking is not hard yeah I mean door nogging is not hard door knocking I think would be brutal I meant it felt harder to put out a door hanger these days in a neighborhood than it does door knocking I don't know if there's truth in that but feels like so many neighborhoods are prohibiting door hangers that's why that's all I meant yeah now as we everyone going a lawn sign everyone's that's just where it's going so going back to what I started to say earlier you cut the business I'm going to take it a different direction actually you cut the business all the way back to nothing and then you rebuilt you gave an example of you had to go through this mindset set shift to even get to that place but moving this quickly and building to I think you said around 8 million what are some of the very biggest learnings you've had in being able that have made it possible for you to accomplish this that would be helpful for anybody listening I mean it's going to be super cliche but there the team around me like Trish is in there Trish's here with me got a lot my leadership team coming um sales guys really good partners like that was the biggest thing that moved in need like just showing them the vision show what can be done like I I did it myself so they they watched me go do it first I proved it could be done now they had to copy what I did and so uh this cliche is the sound is like yes of course you got to have all the skills the marketing you got to have it all dialed in you have every website just it's the easy stuff and then just building team around you cuz there's a lot of mov Parts going that fast from the sales side to the market side to operations to everything all so just having a really good leadership team is probably the biggest biggest thing for me what do you think of the argument that I don't need good people I have good systems that's I don't think I don't like that advice myself I think you have to have both yeah um cuz you have people to have good people to manage a good system in my opinion so I think you have to have both that's my personal that you guys can push back it suck to work in a company with crappy people and good systems I mean good people make for a company that I'd want to continue to own good systems crappy people high turnover yeah and crappy life I got a question for you too anything interesting that you're seeing in the industry that you think will be transformational in the next 5 years a trend something that's happening something that people should be paying attention to what I see is like all everyone's packaging like that's the biggest thing that's changed over the past couple years like everything that's getting sold is sold as a bundle and sold on a monthly reoccurring I I see that I don't see that going away see that being more prevalent but people are just packaging is that moving away from a per visit or a quarterly I always used to thinking quarterly quarterly but they're they're they're servicing quarterly but they're bill in months so more of a subscription model trying to model the Netflix yeah that's see that outside of that I have the same thing like I always asked Paul the same questions like what are what are the big Acquisitions that happened like who went where who got recruited from where like I want to know these things in the industry to see like where people are going and why and he answers those but um what do you think I I mean one of the things I've been paying very close attention to is a the AI influence and all of this sort of stuff you know like not only from I mean nowadays like they have systems that literally can call out and it's not a human and we have that notifications surve questions all sorts of stuff and um you know obviously that makes the Bish business dramatically more efficient um I think it's just it's not quite it's there but people that aren't as receptive to that are a little bit older they call inar at or within 5 years you're not going to be able to tell it's not a I agree if you're projecting I think the failure rate's still pretty high where it's really hard to implement some things in your business if 8% of the time it's going to fail you can't actually roll that thing forward so but if to the question for projecting 5 years out you can see how this technology Roll It Forward is going to have a much higher level of accuracy because of the amount of money being deployed to invest in it and the number of large companies are investing it we'll iterate and iterate it's going to get figured out a good topic cuz I was down in Florida a few weeks ago and I ran into a guy though who built robots for GM and he was the head of the department he said he knows a robot right now that could do our job do pest control and then they already have the drones out doing fertilization week control so it's definitely coming yeah those are tough conversations because I think the tech is going to massively lead regulation and so I've often made the mistake of thinking we're going to see a tech outcome that's going to be a market shift and I misunderstood how far behind the government is going to run first in confirming safety and the studies are going to have to go into that but then just pure legislation like you can see some of these techs could proceed the tech could proceed by a decade the implementation of great technology so it's really gets difficult to project there you're close to this world yeah and I just gave you my opinion being close to it I'm I'm a little disheartened by uh how slow I think some of this is going to happen and in some cases for good reason you take a robot and put it in a house house or you take a robotic Mower and give it full blades and let it run and do its own thing I don't want to be the dad that got his kid leg cut I mean I it's for good reason but it's just going to take a a long time for some of this to progress so I think the AI side is going to massively outpace the robotic side is my theory um but who knows cuz I Cas T already like like crops are turning into like crop dusting they they're already running to drones so and we've had Tech in those areas forever it's the same in we do a know most people care about lawn per se but it's we've had robotics running in lawn on solar fields and you get away from the humans away from people this stuff has been happening for a long time like the robotics thing in lawn is not new they've been running this in Europe forever yeah hus verna's been 15 plus years already this stuff isn't new that's just a perfect example of you're fighting adoption and you're fighting legislation there's just a lot of things we're fighting to see these Technologies truly implemented I don't and I'm and I'm optimistic and I just continue to think it's really hard to make a bet on business model around these Technologies so you just have to keep playing the same game see how it progresses but you can't really change anything about your or structure or your business model just yet in anticipation of something that somebody is saying might be here in 3 years I agree with that I mean I for me it's always more incremental it's like around software that you tried to do that 15 years ago it was impossible 20 now it's it's everywhere and because of Google it was a money driven thing I mean it's finally somebody came in that was capable of solving the problem and so yeah yeah and now it's created dramatic efficiencies and you know I think we'll see these incremental things yep you know it's exciting just unfortunately going to take a bit Yeah well that I think we'll call a wrap on today do it thanks Jonas thanks for joining us thanks guys thanks brother oh