Carmen Reino on growing a $120K pest control purchase into an eight-figure company

Carmen Reino used to fix Bloomberg terminals and routers for Wall Street trading firms. In 2005, with no pest control experience, he paid $120,000 for a small local company. He built it into Anchor Pest Control, based in East Brunswick, New Jersey, which now covers the whole tri-state area and was on pace for eight figures when we recorded.

I remembered Carmen posting about reviews in the Pest Control Millionaires Facebook group, but the number still surprised me. Anchor has close to 13,000 Google reviews across 4 locations.

He didn’t hide his mistakes either, including 2 acquisitions he calls disasters.

Who is Carmen Reino?

Carmen Reino is the founder and president of Anchor Pest Control. He worked in IT on Wall Street for firms like Citibank and Bear Stearns until a friend asked him to go in together on a retiring owner’s company. Carmen passed on the partnership and bought it himself. The seller trained him for about 30 days and moved to North Carolina.

For the first 6 months to a year, Carmen did most of the technician work himself. He grew through networking and by copying friends who ran plumbing and HVAC companies, and Anchor reached $2M pretty quickly. Before the show, Carmen put Anchor at about 65% commercial, much of it apartments, condo associations and HOAs.

Low bids and a $10,000 bed bug dog

A lot of the early growth came from low-bid housing authority work, where bids are public record. Carmen learned fast that you end up bidding your way to the bottom, and as Anchor’s expenses grew, he moved away from that work.

Early on, he saw a dog working one of his accounts and asked what it did. It found bed bugs. About 2 weeks later, Carmen flew to Florida and paid $10,000 for his own, and it opened a ton of doors. Anchor eventually had 3 dogs, but COVID wiped out a lot of their preventive inspection work. After 8 months without inspections, properties realized they didn’t have a billion bed bugs.

Residential pays better if you can fund it

Until about 3 years ago, Anchor was roughly 99% commercial, because Carmen could add a $100,000-a-year account quickly, even at a smaller margin.

“I don’t want to hear Mrs. Smith’s phone call on a Tuesday afternoon about an ant on the kitchen counter.”

Once he learned his numbers, he admitted the people pushing residential were right. A good commercial margin for Anchor is 15% to 20%, 25% at best. On residential, you can get 40% “all day long.” I usually hear about 20% for a whole company.

Part of that comes from triannual service, which he learned from Viking, one of the biggest companies in his area. Winter visits make cancellations spike, since nobody has bugs in December, and 3 visits instead of 4 give you a third better margin. Anchor bills monthly and services April through October. At $650 for 3 visits of about half an hour each, Carmen figures that’s close to $400 an hour.

Fast residential growth can drain your bank account, though. When Carmen spent heavily on Google Ads, he might pay $275 for a customer who paid $150 upfront and $50 a month. On a family vacation, the person handling his money called to say they were almost out.

Ask for the review in person

The year before last, Carmen spent a ton on marketing. Then he hired a CFO, who told him to stop, and last year Anchor spent almost nothing. The company still grew 25%. When I asked where those customers came from, he said, “Reviews, man.” So many people search for Anchor by name that his lead cost stays down.

He has tried the review programs, which all work well, but nothing beats asking in person.

“What we realize works the best is standing in front of someone with a QR code. Scan a QR code, goes right to my Google My Business.”

Anchor doesn’t ask for an email or phone number, because some customers assume that means spam. The tech just asks for a review because it helps him out, and a lot of people say yes. Don’t just leave the QR code behind, Carmen says. Be in their face and ask, and send them straight to your Google Business Profile.

Some of Anchor’s technicians earn $1,000 to $2,000 extra a month from reviews, leads and other little things. One planned to put his toward a car payment, and it ended up covering his rent. His CFO has asked if he’s watching the payouts climb. He is, and with Anchor growing and profitable, he’s fine with it.

Hire people who like to win

Anchor’s review culture starts in the interview, where Carmen asks if you’re competitive, like to win and like making extra money. He tells new hires they can out-earn someone who’s been there 5 years just by doing the little things, because everything has a number. Some older technicians just wanted to do their job. That’s fine, Carmen says, but not in a shop that asks every day how many reviews and leads you got.

He used to laugh off core values, when all he wanted was people who showed up sober and didn’t crash his car. Now they’re one of Anchor’s engines, starting with “strive for excellence.” Another is always finding the positive.

One of his outside sales reps, almost 65, had been fired by another company and joined when Anchor was almost all commercial. Last year he sold over $1M, mostly residential and without one giant account, and he practices sales roleplays on the bike at the gym.

Your brand is cheapest on day one

This year Carmen rebranded around the company’s original bed bug dog, Anchor, who was named after the business. They’re rewrapping almost all the trucks and replacing the clothing, and in the 4 or 5 months since, people keep telling him they love the logo and trucks.

Carmen thinks pest control does a poor job at branding. He has learned a ton from Dan Antonelli of KickCharge Creative, a fellow Jersey guy who has numbers showing that branding works.

Carmen also went “a little crazy” with billboards, and he measures the rebrand by direct searches for Anchor Pest Control, which are really up from last year. After a roofing conference, he ordered pallets of branded water bottles and donated them to local Little Leagues and sports programs to sell. Over the winter, people at the hockey arena were walking around with them.

What it cost to strip and rewrap trucks was eye-opening, so he tells smaller owners to get the brand right early.

“If you do it from the beginning with a strong brand, I think it’ll go a long way instead of doing it where I’m unwrapping 30 trucks and rewrapping 30 trucks.”

If you’re starting fresh, see my guide to pest control branding.

Don’t buy a company for the multiple

Carmen paid dollar for dollar for Anchor, and if the price is right, buying still gets you going faster. But small sellers now hear about 3-times-revenue deals and expect what $5M to $10M companies get. He has bought 2 companies since, both disasters. The pitch he kept hearing was that if you pay $2 for each dollar of revenue and your own company is worth 4 times revenue, you make money automatically.

“You’re actually automatically bringing on lower paying clients that at a two-man operation is profitable, but in your company, you’re actually not making any money because it’s underpriced.”

The first was a wildlife company, bought for the skill set, since HOAs want wildlife work. All 3 full-time employees were gone within 6 months, none of them culture fits, and most of the work was one-time. The second, from a nice local owner, had pricing that didn’t work for Anchor, but Carmen figured it would be worth more on Anchor’s model. The 2 techs servicing those accounts posted terrible production, and when Anchor raised prices on customers who’d paid the same for 20 years, it started losing them. PCM’s acquisition integration checklist covers a lot of what tripped him up, and Paul Giannamore explained on the show why revenue multiples don’t set the price.

Getting past $2M comes out of your paycheck

An owner at $2M can make $300,000 or $400,000 a year, and Carmen thinks a lot of them don’t want to give that up. Getting to $5M means paying people six figures. From $2M to $5M, he didn’t make much more himself, because he put it all into people who could take him out of the day-to-day. On his episode, Jonas Olson broke down the revenue levels where owners stall.

Service managers are still his hardest seat, because most struggle to lead people. At about $4M, while implementing EOS, he was referred to a sales manager who was too good to let go. He’s now Anchor’s vice president, a type A who keeps Carmen in line and runs with his ideas.

EOS also got rid of the gray. Anchor had been organized chaos, and now every position is measured. Carmen’s company app shows the day’s reviews, average call length, booking rate and production per tech, and he says booking rate is the one pest control owners overlook.

Borrow tools from HVAC and roofing

Carmen goes to other trades’ events on purpose, because HVAC, roofing and plumbing are where a lot of the money is, and technology companies go there first.

Anchor’s reps use Siro, which records in-person sales conversations and coaches reps on closing and objections. A newer feature lets a rep check his phone mid-appointment for the customer’s pain and the words to use. In about 4 months with that feature, Anchor’s closing rate is up about 12%, in winter. Anchor pays around $200 a month per user. Carmen said pest control tickets could never support $1,200 a month per user.

He borrowed rehash from HVAC too, meaning automatic follow-up with customers, one-time services and lost leads. Hatch does it by text, and Carmen figures it takes 7 to 10 touches to close someone. Hatch also plugs into Angi, “which everyone hates, which I love,” with an AI agent that answers leads.

His staff hates him after trade shows, because he comes back with 15 new things to do. Plenty of owners go to show after show and do nothing with what they learn, so his message was to adapt, implement and not be afraid to make mistakes.

My take

Direct searches are the right scoreboard for a rebrand. A wrapped truck or a water bottle at a hockey rink rarely gets a phone call by itself. It gets someone to search your name, and they land on your Google Business Profile and website. Anchor greets them with close to 13,000 reviews.

On the show, I told Carmen his review bonuses pay off on the SEO side, in rankings, conversions and brand. His operations people used to argue the payouts were really a marketing expense, so Anchor moved them into the marketing budget. That’s where I’d put them.

His branding advice works outside pest control too. When a buddy of mine was about to start an HVAC company, I showed him Dan Antonelli’s work. He got a little obsessed and is launching with a really solid truck wrap, so he won’t have to rewrap a fleet later.

Where to find Carmen

Carmen says he’s an open book. He’s happy to give advice to any owner who asks, and just as happy to take some, because nobody’s perfect.

• Website: Anchor Pest Control
• LinkedIn: Carmen Reino
• Facebook: Carmen Reino
• Instagram: @carmenreino79