Allan Draper on How He'd Start a Pest Control Company Today

00:00 Dan Leibrandt

Hey there and welcome back to Pest Control Legends. I'm your host, Dan Leibrandt, and today I'm with Allan Draper. If you don't already know Allan, he's the co-founder of Proof Pest Control, which has 14 locations in seven states, along with hundreds of employees and sales representatives. As of now, Proof is currently valued at approximately $100 million, which is just insane. Congratulations on that, Allan. He's also the founder of Lizard SEM, a marketing agency for Pest Control and other service businesses. Additionally, he's the founder of Bug Bux, a podcast and community helping pest control owners grow their companies. Overall, Allan owns over 25 businesses, many in pest control and home services, and he's built multiple companies past the million dollar mark. So if you wanna build a million dollar pest control company and beyond, this episode will give you the exact mindset and strategies Allan used to build his pest control empire. Now without further ado, thanks for coming on the show, Allan.

00:56 Allan Draper

Hey, happy to be here. Thanks, Dan.

00:58 Dan Leibrandt

For sure, man. So the first thing that I wanted to cover is if you were going to start a pest control company today, where would you start? So I believe you started Proof about 20 years ago. I'm sure the landscape looked different. I believe you were really heavy on door to door. How would you start a pest control company today? What would that look like?

01:17 Allan Draper

So I started Proof 10 years ago.

01:19 Dan Leibrandt

Ten years ago, okay, my bad.

01:22 Allan Draper

No, that's okay. So where geographically would I start it?

01:28 Dan Leibrandt

No, no, like, how would you start out? Maybe what would the first 30 to 90 days look like?

01:38 Allan Draper

I mean, there's got to be an emphasis on marketing, right? Early on, we got to figure out how we're going to get, you know, get sales. A lot of people that start businesses don't realize that that's how you get your company going. And it's weird because a lot of entrepreneurs, people starting businesses, they think... They almost feel guilty about it. They're like, why should we focus on sales? We should focus on our service and providing the best customer service and the best service at their house and all these things. And it's like, no, you have to have revenue or you're going to fail. Yeah, so in those early days, it's like, I don't necessarily believe in business plans. I think they're fine, but they have so much fluff and so much guesswork. But I do like marketing plans. That's gonna be the focus. I'm gonna look at controlling costs. It's gonna depend how much money I have. Do I have five grand? Do I have 100 grand? Do I have a million? It's like, those are completely different scenarios and my strategy is gonna be way different. But, you know, I think the logistics aren't too complicated, getting a license, getting a website set up, stuff like that, but I'm gonna be really asking questions about... What does a marketing plan look like? What are the strengths that I as a business owner add? And, you know, what are the things that I can leverage to get this thing off the ground?

03:10 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, cool. So let's say you have about $10,000 to play with. Where should you be putting your money to generate leads?

03:18 Allan Draper

So if I have $10,000 for marketing.

03:21 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, yeah, sure, let's say that.

03:24 Allan Draper

If I have $10,000 for marketing, I'm gonna spend it on AdWords, most likely. That's not enough to get like my referral campaign up and going. You probably don't wanna mess with SEO at that stage. I'm probably just gonna, I need every marketing dollar that I spend turn into some ROI on the top line.

03:46 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, awesome. And would that just be AdWords or were there, you know, maybe you're doing Yelp or LSAs, would there be anything else going into that?

03:54 Allan Draper

There are some people that do, I mean, sorry, I consider LSAs like they've become one in the same for us. LSAs, although LSAs are more expensive, but they're better leads. So it would definitely be between Google AdWords and LSAs. There are some companies that do well on Yelp, but it takes a lot to get that stone rolling down the mountain, a lot of effort, and I would not recommend that. Early on. That's not where I'm going to spend $10,000. You need a bunch of reviews. You need a really strong profile, good response system. I think there's just too much, too many cracks early on for that type of marketing.

04:40 Dan Leibrandt

Interesting is that the same with all lead generation platforms like that? Thumbtack Angi HomeAdvisor house all those other platforms probably not worth it to start out...

04:51 Allan Draper

I mean, I don't like those other platforms period. Thumbtack is okay if you're at the very bottom in terms of pricing and somebody can respond immediately. Those aren't great leads. Angies, I don't even know. I'm not familiar with them anymore. We used to use them and I don't think the volume was there. The quality wasn't there. Don't, early on especially, don't spread yourself too thin. And this is true even further down the road. Like get really good at one, two, three tops marketing strategies. Don't try to do everything everybody else does just because you're hearing they're having success with it. Because it's most likely that they're having success because they've put the time and resources into it to become successful. So I would really just limit it to AdWords and you know, I would get some help. $10,000, man, that's not a lot for marketing. Early on, marketing's like the black hole of a company. You need to go through a learning process with Google and your cost per customer acquisition, your cost per lead's gonna be higher early on and you really need to trust the process and continue to invest in it. And it's over the long run where you see those returns.

06:19 Dan Leibrandt

So maybe for some context, what was the growth like for your company? So you started Proof 10 years ago. How long did it take you to get to maybe that first 100K and then that first million and then 10 million?

06:34 Allan Draper

So it's not really fair, but my company did door to door. So there's a lot of folks out there that are, they don't have a door to door team. So we spent a lot of time recruiting door to door reps and we didn't have a huge team. We had, I don't know, eight or nine guys our first year. We opened our doors in March of 2015. In Detroit, and people that are familiar with Detroit know that March is still cold. That year it snowed on Mother's Day, if I remember correctly.

07:11 Dan Leibrandt

Ha...

07:11 Allan Draper

So it's still, but from our official opening of March 17th, which I think is what it was, till the end of the year, I think we did between $600,000 and $700,000 in revenue.

07:25 Dan Leibrandt

And that was mostly door to door, was there anything else?

07:27 Allan Draper

We did start doing AdWords early on and we were using Angie's List at that point and we've always been focused on referrals, but I would say, you know, 80 to 90 % of that is door-to-door revenue.

07:44 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, awesome. Do you still recommend door-to-door now and do you still use it for your company?

07:48 Allan Draper

We do, but we do most, it's been a few years since we've hired a marketing company, so an outside marketing company, which we have done in the past, but our teams, they're smaller now than at our peak, but we still do it. It's honestly like any other type of marketing, you gotta take the goods with the bads. Door to door, the benefits of door-to-door are a few. One is your risk is fairly low because you have these, your compensation structure is based on them meeting certain criteria. They don't just need to sign them up. They need to receive a certain number of services and be active as of a certain date in order to receive a commission. And if they're not, they get zero commission on that. Now we try to treat people fairly, especially our returning reps and folks that have worked hard. But it's not just, hey, they take a service, you pay out 100%. So that's one thing. Your risk is fairly low in losing money. You get to choose where your customers come from by sending reps to a specific area. You have some controls with Google AdWords and geo-fencing and other things, but... Man, we'll have somebody that's driving through one of our markets that are driving through Detroit on their commute back to Chicago and they'll call us because they searched pest control near me or whatever. So there's some issues there. So you get to be more specific with your targeting. I think the other thing is just route density. Nothing better, obviously. Like you're literally going door to door. And the more customers you get in a neighborhood, the more easy it is to sell a door-to-door account. So there's that. The volume is fantastic. We see these companies blow up with door-to-door. The downsides are, they can be pretty expensive. If you hire a marketing company, you're gonna be spending 90 plus percent of the first year's contract value on it. And some companies can't.

10:11 Allan Draper

They don't have the finances for that. And you can't just rely, if you're paying 90%, obviously you can't rely on the revenue that's coming in to pay the sales reps. It's just, it's not enough because you're paying for all your fixed expenses, right? And then you also have your variable expenses that don't include the cell, you know, the vehicle, the, you know, cost of gas, the products, all those other things. So that's one of the downsides is how much it costs. It's hard. Door-to-door is hard. Door-to-door reps will say crazy things that people don't like getting their doors knocked on. And if you don't have an experienced sales rep, something that could be de-escalated turns into the cops getting called and the neighbors being warned and all these things. So there's definitely some goods and bads, but we're going to continue to do it for the foreseeable future for sure.

11:07 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, sweet. I'm curious, what trends have you seen in the pest control industry in the past 10 years or so? You know, LSAs have become a big thing. Most people are using those. What trends have you seen overall? Is it getting more competitive? Tell me all about it.

11:23 Allan Draper

I think where it's getting competitive is with technicians. I feel like hiring and retaining top level technicians and technical help, I think that is one of the most difficult parts of the game right now. At least it's something that we really struggle with, to be frank. And in terms of marketing and finding customers and closing them, I'm noticing trends and contract values are getting higher. LSA is, I think LSA is gonna reach a tipping point. They're getting really expensive. Everybody wants them and Google's gonna have to find another solution. They're getting so expensive in some markets that it's, they're getting to be up there with what it costs on the doors for revenue. So you really have to focus on close rate. What else in the industry? There are, feel like it's more saturated, but I feel like pest control is becoming more well-known than it was a decade ago. You know, I saw a huge change when COVID happened. The demand went through the roof. That year, AdWords dropped through the floor. Despite everything that was going on in the world, crazy time, pest control industry absolutely smashed it. So...

12:52 Allan Draper

But those changes have kind of eased. Inflation really affected the pest control industry like it did every industry. Fuel was more expensive, products were more expensive, costs of labor went through the roof. And so in order to keep up with that trend, you had to consistently make price increases, which some smaller companies aren't doing. We have two types of price increases. We have a price increase that will happen every year for a certain percentage or group of our customer base. And then we also have a kind of reactionary price increases like what happened post COVID when vehicles were more expensive, everything was more expensive to make sure to keep up with that. And we're seeing that across the board in all sorts of industries where it's like stuff's just way more expensive now. So I feel like there's a trend with limited marketing. Right now. Feel like, and I don't think it's a demand thing caused by competition. Think it's larger companies wanting more. So I feel like the same number of companies are fighting over probably an increase in leads, but I feel like there's a little pressure from the larger companies, the $100 million plus. Companies.

14:21 Dan Leibrandt

Interesting. Okay. And then I'm also curious, where do you think brand plays into all of this? Do you think people, like especially, let's start out with a smaller company. Should a smaller company that's at, you know, 10K a month even be worried about brand? Or should it just be, you know, they get to that, you know, 50, 100K a month and then they can start worrying?

14:40 Allan Draper

They shouldn't worry about it except for two things. Their service, because that becomes part of their brand. We don't have really a storefront. And so our storefront is, what does the technician look like? What's the service like? And what does the truck look like when they show up? I'm not a fan of blowing a bunch of money on wrapping full wraps and spending all this money early on. Simple decals that look nice and clean. Don't spend, I was talking to this guy and he spent $50,000 for a logo and brand development. Plan from a designer. I was like, okay, you just wasted that.

15:13 Dan Leibrandt

Haha...

15:14 Allan Draper

So you just make it up with your service and the types of people that you're hiring, how they're taking care of your customers and online reviews. Make sure you're getting, this is super important, especially early on. One of my markets has thousands and thousands of five-star reviews and it has a five-star overall rating on Google. There's not much that somebody could do, even if you got a hundred one-star reviews. I still don't think it would do much. So make sure that you're building that base of five-star reviews. Those are the only two things until, I would say until at least a million in Rev that you're worried about with brand.

15:54 Dan Leibrandt

How should people go about getting reviews? What have you seen works best?

15:58 Allan Draper

What works best is a technician face to face with a customer. But the company needs to create a program. And a lot of times we're talking to folks that they're doing their own services, right? Solo operators. And so what you need to do is you show up, you say, hey, I'm Allan, here to take care of the service for you. Walk through a few things, see if they have any questions. Hey, know, Susan, when I'm done, if you feel like I did a good job on your service? How would you feel about leaving me a five-star review on Google? It would mean a lot to my small company." And very few people are gonna be like, no, I'm not gonna do that. You will have some weirdos out there, but then Allan does the service, comes back, hey, Susan, took care of this. I noticed there's a wood pile up next to the house. We might wanna watch that for ants or get that removed, whatever, right? I'm including some pictures in the service report. Here's a link right here. What's the best phone number for you? Text the link over and stand right there. Walk them through it. Hey, you go to my profile, see that button right there that says leave a review. Can you click that for me? Just early on, I know that seems like a lot of time and it is, but you need to get that base of five star reviews because one star review causes a lot of damage at that level. Once you have a base of, I'd probably do that till I have at least 50, then I would start using more automated forms of asking for reviews and doing internal technician programs where they're rewarded or incentivized for getting good reviews.

17:44 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, yeah, that's typically what I recommend when I'm talking to companies. I usually recommend 100, that's a pretty good threshold, and there's a proven boost that you get at 10 and then 100. So there's also just like a kind of a psychological impact. I've seen that a lot of companies are. Stuck at like the 25 to 50 range. So if you can separate yourself out from those and you don't have to be in like the thousand, 5,000 review range, but if you can just separate yourself out from the small guys, then that makes a big difference too. So yeah, like you're talking, let's continue with that. Once you're starting to grow bigger and now maybe it's harder to maybe do the face-to-face or whatever it is, but what does that look like of now review generation becomes more automated?

18:29 Allan Draper

So we're, I mean, we're running programs with the technicians. There's, you know, there's campaigns where they get incentivized and we have competitions and every five star review that we get goes out on whatever text or communication platform that you have with all the technicians. We want to make sure that we're celebrating that. I mean, good reviews are awesome anyway, because you know, it separates what we're doing with our jobs from the monetary aspect. Look, we all got to make money and put food on the table, but high performance comes from non-monetary purposes. And I know most people would disagree with me, and those people are just wrong. Studies show that once you make a certain amount of money, your performance no longer changes based off of making more money. So, I would definitely make that part of your culture. But then there's review systems out there that help aggregate reviews. But we've always done it with just a focus on it, campaigns with technicians, and then review links in pretty much every communication that we send out, whether it's a reminder email, a text follow-up, a service report. We're asking for reviews and we're asking for referrals.

19:58 Dan Leibrandt

Love that. And you said there were rewards. Like what does that look like? Like a gift card at the end of each month or something like that?

20:05 Allan Draper

Yeah, so early on, we have stages and I need to check with what Proof is doing now, but this is years ago. I'm not super involved in the day-to-day and most of our branches, we're not really running review campaigns anymore because we don't need to. We're still requesting them via all the automated tools, but we're not. It's a different type of intensity when you have over a thousand reviews, which I don't think all of our offices do, but all of them are several hundred. But what we would do is they would get paid a certain amount up until we got a certain number of reviews. And we would pay, and I think you have to be careful, especially with Yelp, because you're not allowed to incentivize them for reviews or something stupid. So 10 bucks until the branch hits 50 reviews, and then after that it's $5, and then after that, actually I think it's still $5, I don't know. So something like that where it's like this emphasis on getting us to that threshold of 50 or like you said, 100, which you would know better than I do. So getting to that threshold and just continuing that culture of celebrating those reviews, even though they're making less per review or there's all sorts, that's how we did it, but there's all sorts of things. You could have drawings, you could buy larger prizes and give them away at. Company meetings, there's lots of cool things that you could do just within the culture to acknowledge and celebrate getting reviews. There's this thing called cognitive dissonance, and what it is basically we try to act consistent with who we are. So what happens when you give a company five-star review? It's important for the public aspect of it, the social aspect, but it's also important for retaining that customer. Because if I give somebody a five-star review, the next time something happens, I'm not just gonna cancel because it's like, dang, I gave these guys a five-star review. And you'll see sometimes in the reviews, like people updating a review or whatever because of this issue. It's also a great, don't think of it just in terms of brand, think of it in terms of, which I guess could kind of be related, but think of it in terms of I'm using this as a...

22:29 Allan Draper

I'm retaining my customers, right? This is a retention tool for my customers because the more reviews they give me, the better reviews, the better details, the more likely they're going to not just stick with my pest control company, but also refer us.

22:46 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, it's insane. I keep getting reminded of how important reviews are and how they play into every single aspect. It helps ranking, it helps conversion, it helps retention. It's like every single aspect, the reviews just help so much. So I'm a big advocate for those as well. Again, for the ranking aspect, but also for all of the lagging indicators as well. Another thing I wanted to cover is, I know you've got tons of companies and home services and pest control.

23:13 Dan Leibrandt

And that you grew your pest control company from nothing. And I know you're also fairly familiar with other pest control companies in the space and kind of what they're dealing with. What would you say is kind of the main problem that pest control companies are dealing with and maybe not getting right? Is there one thing like they're not hiring right or they're not doing marketing right? What would you say is the main problem?

23:36 Allan Draper

If there's like a main problem. There's a lot of commonalities that I see. A lot of pest control companies don't know their numbers. They don't keep books. They don't think it's important. That's one thing. I think liability, I think their agreements with their customers and their waivers with their customers aren't solid enough. Pest control companies make mistakes with their personnel a lot. They lose really good people. Money management, cash management, they don't know where to put their money. All of these, by the way, are very complicated issues. So it's not like some type of indictment on certain owners. This is next level stuff. In the business world. I mean, you get those things right in marketing, making sure that you're getting an ROI. You know what your cost per customer acquisition is with a specific marketing strategy. Those types of things are, I think, common problems that companies have and struggle with.

24:54 Dan Leibrandt

Talk to me about getting your books right. That was the first thing you mentioned. What does that look like? Is there a specific software you need to use? What exactly do people need to do?

25:04 Allan Draper

I mean, there's not a specific software. There's a few that are common. QuickBooks Online is a great tool. It's not the most sophisticated thing, but I think it does the job. The most important part is getting your chart of accounts set up correctly early and then making sure that the transactions are categorized correctly. Early on, that's something that an owner could handle. And it's not a bad idea for them to do it because they'll see like, hey, where's this money going? They'll see a charge and catch mistakes. But after a while, after you get fairly large and you're spending several hundred thousand to millions of dollars a month, it gets to be too much. But number one, find a tool. QuickBooks is cheap. There's inherent limit in there. There's things that it can't do, but QuickBooks, get your chart of accounts set up properly, and then make sure that stuff's being sent to the right category. And I think the fourth step would be making sure that you understand how to read them. There's three basic reports or financial statements that people talk about, the P&L or cashflow statement. Your balance sheet and sorry, sorry, and your cashflow statement. Those are the three. And I spend most of my time on a P&L and balance sheet. So the P&L is just like, hey, you know, over whatever given period of time, if it's the last month, it shows you how much money you brought in minus all of your expenses. And then your bottom line is your net revenue, not complicated. And then your balance sheet is gonna be your assets. Your liabilities and your equity. So assets minus liabilities equals your equity. It's just like personal net worth, right? So if we take everything that we own, our house, and we minus our liabilities, we get our net worth. It's the same thing for a company and that's on the balance sheet.

27:17 Dan Leibrandt

Got it. And what margin should pest control owners be looking for? I've heard about 20 to 25%, but what are your thoughts there?

27:26 Allan Draper

Yeah, probably in that range is really healthy. It depends on growth. There's this rule of 40, right, where it's like, if I'm growing at 20%, I should be net profiting 20 % or some mixture, right, 30, 10 or whatever. I've seen better numbers than that. I had a branch one year that profited over 50%. When you profit that much, it's not always a good thing because you could be not sufficiently investing in your company, updating equipment, vehicles, investing in your personnel that you won't see that year, but you'll see it in subsequent years. So, you know, I think it depends on the goals of the company, but yeah, 20, 25%, that seems kind of about standard. If you're growing at a nice clip, don't beat yourself up if you profit at 10 or 17%, especially if growth is your goal. You wanna be careful. So you have enough cash for a rainy day and that you don't grow yourself to death. But yeah, I would say in that range, but I like to see our branches over 30%.

28:37 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, awesome. And then let's cover hiring. So you've hired many people at this point. I'm sure you have some great insight into it. Maybe let's start with technicians. So what technician should you be hiring? What are you looking for in technicians? What's the hiring process? Just give me kind of like a overall summary of that.

28:56 Allan Draper

So generally with people you're looking for somebody that's just a good person, that's not bouncing from job to job. So you wanna look at their work longevity. A lot of people in our industry are so focused on their experience and their knowledge. And that's important, but it's not as important as them being a good person and just doing what they say they're gonna do. We've found some of our best technicians outside of pest control. We've trained them on the pest control and a lot of them have become our leaders. One of our best leaders is a former police officer. So you have to think outside the box. It really bothers me when they're like, yeah, this technician has 10 years experience. So I'm gonna keep putting up with the bull crap, not showing up on time, being rude to customers. It's like, bro, you got this all wrong. You got this all wrong. Now keep in mind that my company is generally recurring revenue, residential, single-family home maintenance. We have some commercial jobs, we have some termite stuff, but we're not out servicing the World Trade Center in downtown New York for rats or whatever. So we do have issues, but it's not... Some commercial jobs in New York City and we...

30:10 Dan Leibrandt

Haha,...

30:20 Allan Draper

One of our branches is on Long Island. We don't service the city though. Some of those, man you need those, you know, those rough guys that have 30 years experience using different chemicals and baits and traps and stuff. So it really depends on your business. But focus on that person. Try to find out what type of person they are. Cause you can help them become a better pest control technician, better with customer service even to some degree. You're not gonna change too much the type of person that they are.

30:53 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. And then what about other positions that might be, you know, office manager, that might be sales rep. What about these other positions? What are you looking for in those? Is it the same principle of good people or is there something else?

31:05 Allan Draper

No, I mean, that's across the board. But then we're starting to look at like, what's the skill set? Am I trained to cram a round peg into a square hole or whatever the analogy is? And we've done that. We hired somebody as an outside sales rep that was, you know, he liked to keep to himself and he struggled putting pressure on people and closing deals. You do want to make sure that, and some people can be trained, but you want to make sure that they have that personality. And I think the bigger thing is, and this is also kind of a general recommendation, is that you make sure that there's a match between, there's this crossover between what the company's trying to accomplish and what the individual's trying to accomplish. Not enough companies do this. So I like the question in interview, you know, hey John, how does Proof help you to get where you wanna be personally, on a personal level, over the next five years? I love that question. And sometimes they'll give you an answer that they think that you're looking for. And once you hire them, you continue to ask that question. Like, hey, how does Proof help to get, it's not just like a sales pitch, it's, you know, how do we continue to align interests? And that's how you get. Good people to stick around and they work for more than just money. They work because they have a purpose. It's hard to work for a company that's getting a bunch of one star reviews, customers are always complaining. You don't wanna do that. It doesn't matter how much money you make. It's like, man, I wanna work for a company I believe in and trust and that has similar values. So make sure that there's some discussion about that. We also make sure that we lead talking about our core values. What are some of the things that matter to us above all else and do their interests and their, you know, do their characteristics align with those core values and those, you know, that culture of the company. It sounds cheesy, I know. It sounds like wishy washy or whatever, like I'm just saying this because there's a camera in front of me, but that's what we do.

33:21 Dan Leibrandt

Haha what are your core values for Proof?

33:27 Allan Draper

So we have a few, we try to keep them simple. So number one is our safety. I can sleep at night if I lose money, if I don't have a great month marketing, whatever. I struggle when I have a technician that got hurt or they got in an accident and hurt somebody else. So safety's important to us. Making sure that we're...

33:42 Dan Leibrandt

Mmm.

33:55 Allan Draper

We have this attitude of gratitude that people are enjoying what they're doing and that they're thankful for everything that they have. We have a 501(c)(3), so we have a nonprofit portion of Proof called Proof Gives Back where we engage in different types of community volunteer work, so that's part of it. So yeah, we kind of keep it simple and I'm sure I'm forgetting. I think we have four and I mentioned two, but they're kind of eluding me.

34:28 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned reviews again, because again, part of reviews is also hiring. Like people want to work with a great company. If you have horrible reviews, then no one wants to work with you. And I know a lot of people like to put emphasis on like the logo or the word mark or the banner, but the reviews, I mean, I'd say that's at least half of branding. That's who you are. You could have like the worst logo in the world. And we actually talked about on our last podcast, like, you know, we're... Talking about, you don't have to have a great name, like Rentokil doesn't have a great name, they're a billion dollar company, but it's more so about what you stand for. I mean, what you stand for is very, very clearly demonstrated in your reviews. So love that as well. And then what does that look like as you start to grow? What positions are you looking for? So obviously you have your first initial technicians, but what are some of those other positions that you're looking to fill?

35:21 Allan Draper

So I always say that when you're growing a company, first you do what you have to do, then you do what you're good at, then you do what you want to do. So when you're starting a company, your job is to replace yourself in those categories. So the first step would get from what you have to do to what you're good at. So if you come from a technical background and you're good at solving complicated problems, then you're gonna want to... Hire technicians and office staff so that your focus can be solving those problems and then whatever other tasks that you have. When you start a company, you do everything. And so you have to decide, hey, how is my time best spent? And try to find time to do those things. The book, Michael Gerber's book, The E-Myth, talks about this. Right? He has the analogy of the local baker and she's the best cupcake maker in town and starts a business and ends up not ever spending time baking cupcakes because she's busy paying bills, ordering equipment, hiring people, marketing, all these things. Right. So, you know, first hires a technician, no doubt. I guess there could be some scenario out there where that's not true, but most likely it's a technician. Get yourself out of the truck. At least limit the time that you're in a truck, limit that windshield time. And then the second would be some type of administrative help that can juggle quite a few different things. That administrative person, we need them to be able to run payroll, answer phones, maybe order supplies and chemicals or what have we need them being able to do quite a few things so that you can focus on growing the company.

37:15 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. Now, I'm curious, what's... So we talked about what software for books and you said QuickBooks. What about other software that you're using? Is there like a go-to CRM or other platforms that you're using?

37:27 Allan Draper

So Proof uses QuickBooks. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. There's times that I love FieldRoutes. There's times that I really, really don't.

37:41 Dan Leibrandt

Ha...

37:43 Allan Draper

It's better. You wanna make sure that it fits with where you want to be. A lot of people are, there's some cheap options out there that focus on smaller companies, even have free versions. And actually I think FieldRoutes does, but it's, you know, very low level. Like you're, I don't, you have a hundred customers or less and I don't know what it is, but switching platforms is so difficult. We did it, six years ago, eight years ago, and it was a nightmare. And we were a fraction of the size we are now. So don't just try to pinch a few pennies. Like base it off of like, Hey, am I going to be able to grow my company with this? And even though it's a more expensive platform, you might be able to make that make sense. If there's, because that switch cost us in terms of downtime, in terms of issues and had to have cost us a hundred grand. So we'll never switch again unless something catastrophic happens. Keep that in mind. Don't just go for the cheapest software. Go for the software that you wanna use the rest of your company's life. That's way to think about it. And I know that sounds like dramatic, but those types of systemic changes in companies, they're so difficult. Dude, I don't even like changing bank accounts anymore. It's such a headache. So just be really careful about that and commit, right? Be able to solve problems with your vendors. Don't just think, I'm the one that writes a check, I'm out of here. You're gonna cause more headaches than problems you're gonna solve.

39:28 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, sweet, got it. And something else I wanted to ask, which we touched on a little bit earlier, is the difference between residential and commercial. Do you think that people should be pursuing commercial accounts or just residential? What's kind of the split there, what do you think?

39:46 Allan Draper

I mean, it depends on their model. There's some commercial companies out there that absolutely crush it. I am not interested. The commercial accounts that we have have pretty much fallen into our laps, which we're happy to have and we do a great job taking care of them. But commercial can get really crazy. Like if you start getting into like food handling businesses or schools or daycare, stuff like that, regulations change and you know. So in pest control, people think, I'm going into pest control, I can do everything in pest control. It's like, no, you can't. Like, I own a law firm. We don't practice every area of law, of course. Like, how do you get good at something if you're trying to do everything? And that applies to pest control too. So find out, in his book, Good to Great, Collins talks about, he talks about, this intersection of three things, and it's what drives your economic engine, what are you passionate about, and what can you be the best in the world at? And the intersection of those three circles is where you want your business to be. So that's where I would start, and you can always add lines of business later, although I wouldn't until you're doing several million. Everyone starts a business, not everyone. Most people start a business. They have shiny object syndrome, grass is greener. Hey, I'm gonna add commercial now, I'm gonna do mosquito, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. They're just creating more problems for themselves, they're not growing. Or I'm gonna add a branch in a different location, and it's like, just grow where you're at and do the thing that you're good at. And that's the best way to grow. Don't turn away the stuff that you're getting referred or whatever, as long as it's not too complicated and out of your league. But...

41:42 Allan Draper

Focus on one thing and do it and you'll build a nice company for yourself.

41:47 Dan Leibrandt

You've got a niche down and don't fall into shiny object syndrome. That goes back to what we were talking about with marketing of everyone trying every single different marketing channels. Like, no, dude, just like pick one, two, maybe three things and go all in on those. So absolutely love that as well. I'm glad that you brought up Good to Great, because I actually wanted to ask you about books as well. I see that you have a huge shelf behind you of all kinds of books. What books would you recommend to pest control owners that are just starting out or maybe in the growing phase now?

42:16 Allan Draper

So if we're talking about just business books, I have a few favorites that I like. Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, which was sold to Amazon for billions. And by the way, Tony Hsieh created the idea of free returns because he created an online shoe company. So that's called Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. What else? Good to Great. Rory Vaden wrote a book called Procrastinate on Purpose. Dan Sullivan wrote a book called Who Not How. I already mentioned Michael Gerber, the E-Myth. Yeah, I think that's a great start. I'm missing some, but yeah.

43:05 Dan Leibrandt

Also, no, that's a good list. And overall, and kind of to wrap up here, how important has learning been in your growth? Have you been, because I mean, you've got all the books behind you. Are you spending a lot of time learning or do you think people should start out more acting? What is the kind of the differentiation between those two?

43:27 Allan Draper

I mean, I think it's the chicken and egg thing a little bit, but as a business owner, you're either gonna learn on your own or you're gonna be forced to learn through negative experiences. And there's probably both of that going on, both of those two things going on at the same time. So I always say that a business will never get above the level of its leader, which is usually the owner, especially for small businesses. So the more you grow individually and as a human, the more your company's gonna grow. But, you know, early on, I don't know if you like fake it, right? I don't know if you fake it till you make it, because people can sniff that out. But you almost need to have this attitude of, you know, hey, Susan, I don't know. That's an amazing question. I don't know. But you have my word that I'm gonna find somebody that knows and we're gonna solve this problem for you. So it's not so much faking it or acting as it is confidence. Like have that confidence, not in your ability to know everything, but in your ability to figure it out. That's a great trait of an entrepreneur because you're gonna have things that happen to you that no one has had happen to them before. And if you have this attitude of, may not know everything, but I have the determination, the confidence to figure it out, that'll take you a long way.

44:52 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. And yeah, I guess we'll wrap it up there. Do you have any final thoughts, maybe just like some closing words, any advice that you just want to give to any pest control owner out there that's looking to grow their company?

45:05 Allan Draper

You know, my mom always used to tell us to enjoy the journey and it used to drive me crazy, right? But it's so deep, especially for people starting businesses. And I'm the same way, trust me. It was always like, and as soon as we get to a million in Rev, I'm gonna be happy. As soon as I start making a million dollars a year, I'm happy. As soon as I, it's like, no, man. Like the good days are the days that you're going through right now. Those early days and the reason why they're good is because you're growing and learning so much. So there's nothing wrong with having goals and ambitions. That's not what I'm saying. But enjoy the path because I used to think that the destination, as cliche as this sounds, I was always like, yeah, the destination, that's what I'm after. Then I realized like after I got there over and over again, it's like, man, it was actually really cool. Like those people that I crossed paths with that, I may not talk to anymore for one reason or another, we split ways, they went to different industry or started their own business or whatever, whatever. Like that journey, those hard moments, those hard conversations when you're like sometimes even in tears trying to figure out if your business is gonna survive, trust me, in five, 10 years, you're gonna look back on those experiences and realize that that was the good stuff. The hard stuff is the good stuff. And it doesn't get any easier, your problems just change. So whatever step you're at, whatever level, don't give me this once I get to blah, blah, blah, blah. I can't stand when people say that because nothing is gonna change. Your level of happiness will not change when you make more money. Trust me, that's not what changes your level of happiness. So I just love the process of building companies, that's why I do it a lot.

46:58 Allan Draper

Those early days, you know, filled with growth and that's where the magic is really happening. You're coming up with stuff. We all love looking at, you know, Jeff Bezos with the spray painted Amazon in that little office, right? Early days, losing money like crazy or Mark Zuckerberg or all these stories. Why do you love their early stories, but not your own? So that's, you know, don't miss out on it. In some ways, your business is like your children. They're going to turn 16, 18, 25, 30, 40 someday, and you're going to miss them when they were three.

47:22 Dan Leibrandt

Mm, dang.

47:38 Dan Leibrandt

Dang, that is so good. Wow. Awesome. Well, thank you for that, Allan. That was a great kind of parting speech right there. And yeah, we'll wrap it up here. So where can people find you, learn more about you, and potentially work with you?

47:51 Allan Draper

Yeah, so I'm pretty easy to find, but I have a website, allandraper.com, and I'm active on social media. My handle, Instagram is at realallandraper.

48:03 Dan Leibrandt

Cool, and anywhere else people can connect to you, know, I think LinkedIn, Facebook.

48:08 Allan Draper

Yeah, all socials, I'm there. So, yeah.

48:11 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, awesome. Okay, cool. All of those will be linked in the description and anything else you'd like to plug or mention.

48:18 Allan Draper

No, I do have a book that's being released in a few months that I talk about all the sacrifices that are required to build a successful business that nobody told me about, and each one of the sacrifices has a corresponding blessing or benefit. So it's great for entrepreneurs that are thinking about starting a business or those that have recently started, because you'll notice them. You'll notice these sacrifices that are required. If you read the book, that will give you motivation like, okay, I'm on the right path. Like, I thought my company was doomed and this is normal. I didn't know that those things were normal. I thought I was the only one going through them. And then I realized over and over again, them happening to me and to my partners and to other people around me. And so this is, it's a motivational book, like, hey, you got this, keep going, that type of book. It's just designed to help. Young entrepreneurs, scalar companies.

49:19 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome, perfect. So everyone listening to this podcast should definitely go check out the book. You said it's gonna be released in a few months, or do you have a date?

49:25 Allan Draper

Yeah, it's gonna be released. Think it's already done, but we're shooting for like an August 1st release date. It's called Pack Your Lunch. We'll be on Amazon, on my website.

49:37 Dan Leibrandt

Perfect, awesome man. Well that's so cool, congratulations on the book and just congratulations on all these success, man. You're really crushing it in the pest control space. You're just doing so many cool things and it's really cool to watch you grow into, it's really an honor to have you on the podcast here.

49:51 Allan Draper

Thanks, Dan. Appreciate that,...

49:53 Dan Leibrandt

Course man.