Chaz Estrada on selling without the hard close, working PestWorld and getting hungry

Almost 12 years ago, a Terminix rep came out to Chaz Estrada’s in-laws’ house for a bad earwig problem and quoted them around $340. Chaz remembers thinking that if you can kill bugs for a living and charge that, it’s a really viable career. His in-laws never signed up, but he asked the rep about the company, looked it up online and sent in a resume. Today he’s the regional sales and marketing manager at Nisus Corporation.

At PestWorld, I only got a glimpse of Chaz. He gave a speech to a group of 15 to 20 people, everyone was shaking his hand, and a handshake was all I got. So I didn’t expect him to tell me he’s such an introvert that, left alone, he’d binge his shows, play video games and hang out with his kids.

I’m a big introvert too. Most of this conversation was about how he sells and networks anyway.

Who is Chaz Estrada?

Chaz Estrada is the regional sales and marketing manager at Nisus Corporation, where his main job is developing the Arizona and Utah territory. Nisus is a privately held manufacturer in Rockford, Tennessee. Its pest control line is built around borate products like Bora-Care, and it also includes baits and Web Out for spiders. Because so much of it supports ancillary or one-time services, Nisus is known for its technical training.

He was the bug kid who froze insects and tried to keep harvester ant colonies. He got his start at Antimite, a Terminix acquisition, in Upland, California, then worked as a termite inspector for a local company that went on to start True Heat Solutions. Back then, heat treatments had a reputation for melting windows and buckling floors, and True Heat still grew from 1 or 2 jobs a week to 6 or 7 a day and added an insulation division that subcontracted for pest control companies.

Chaz also spent 4 years in distribution with Veseris and was vice president of marketing at True Heat before joining Nisus. On the side, he’s a macro insect photographer, which Pest Control Technology featured in a video interview.

Get the customer into the attic with you

Chaz doesn’t sit people down at the dinner table for a hard sell. To him, selling means you aren’t afraid to tell someone you’ve diagnosed their problem and this is the solution. He compares a good field rep to a doctor who lays out the treatment options and weighs what the customer can afford.

“If I could get a customer to join me on an inspection, that was a sale every time. Didn’t matter what I was selling.”

Plenty of reps tell the homeowner they’ll be back in 20 minutes. Chaz wanted customers to hear his thought process, so they’d trust him over whatever Google had told them. He also wore a crawl suit to keep his uniform crisp, covered his shoes and put a drop cloth under his ladder, and customers noticed.

In California, people would greet him with “just so you know, we’re not fumigating.” He’d say no pressure and promise to lay out their options after he looked. He fumigated every one of those houses, and he’s sold maybe 2 localized treatments in his whole career. If other companies were scheduled to come quote too, he’d offer to cancel those appointments for the homeowner.

Your customer list is full of unsold work

At Antimite, the list of existing pest control customers was called the “loser list.” Chaz loved it. On a light day, he’d call those customers to offer the free “healthy home inspection” that came with their service. Even if he found nothing to sell, he could tell them something about their house. To make the point, he’d mention an attic he’d been in where the HVAC duct had come off and it was 55 degrees up there in the middle of summer.

At True Heat, when pest control companies said their customers weren’t buying insulation or heat, he’d go sell a job in front of them. He once closed a roughly $4,000 insulation job that way, and when they asked about his commission, he told them there wasn’t one.

“Now you know how much money you’re not making by not offering this stuff. And that’s really it. There’s no trick to sales.”

A customer who has had the same tech for 3 years already trusts him, so all you have to do is offer. A no today can become a go-ahead on some random Tuesday 6 months later. If a tech doesn’t want to sell, Chaz suggests sending the lead to a teammate who’s better at it and working out a commission, which fits what Lenny Gray told me about techs who just want to be techs. My PCM partner Jonas Olson has his own rules for upselling and cross-selling existing customers.

Every class should make you money

California’s state association (PCOC then, CAPMA now) holds district meetings, and Chaz used to attend 6 of them a month. He went to network, but the speakers turned out to be the best part. He took notes in every class and wrote a LinkedIn post about each one. Over 4 or 5 years, that added up to a lot of knowledge and a lot of exposure.

The classes paid off in the field, too. He worked out why homeowners didn’t want to fumigate, then used what he learned in classes from Douglas Products, the maker of Vikane, to answer their objections.

“Even if it’s just one thing, every class you sit through should help you make more money in some way, form or fashion.”

A lot of people come only for their continuing education hours, and Chaz rarely sees techs taking notes. He’d rather you skip events without speakers you want to hear and ask your distributor who’s worth bringing in. He thinks manufacturer and distributor reps are usually more qualified than the average tech or sales rep, so lean on them.

Be solid

Chaz wants to leave behind a legacy of “Chaz was solid.” He tells himself and others to be solid and stay solid, and the rest will work itself out.

The best advice he got going into distribution was to answer his phone and return calls, because so many people don’t. If he doesn’t know an answer, he says so and connects people with someone who does.

He takes photos at every event, then asks people for an email so he can send them the pictures. It gives him a second touch, and the next time they see him, he’s the camera guy. This industry is small enough that even little things on social media make a big impact, because almost nobody else is doing them. Some of his best friends came from the industry, and they’ve been to his kids’ birthdays.

PestWorld happens after hours

Chaz has been to about 5 PestWorlds. If you’re a vendor and want to get the most out of one, he says, head to the lobby bar at whatever hotel you’re staying at, even if you don’t drink. That’s where people’s guard comes down and they stop selling, and he thinks those conversations are what justify spending tens of thousands of dollars to exhibit.

New products already launch through state associations and distributors, so he wouldn’t go to PestWorld to see one. If you aren’t going to meet people, he says PestWorld probably isn’t for you, and you’d do better to cut your teeth at NPMA’s Academy. It puts you on a random team, often with high-level decision makers who don’t know anyone either. The same people go to PestWorld, so next time you’ll already have friends there.

“If you’re not leaving PestWorld with some new contacts, with some new friends, with some new acquaintances, you didn’t do PestWorld right.”

My second PestWorld went the same way. I didn’t go to a single session, because I’d already been talking with so many people online and wanted to meet them in person.

Hunger is what’s missing

Chaz thinks the industry suffers from a lack of motivation. If you work in pest control and aren’t making the money you should, he says, it’s no one’s fault but yours, because the resources are out there.

His own drive goes back to when he was about 20. He and his wife lived paycheck to paycheck on ramen and frozen burritos, and he kept promising to make her “the Range Rover mom.” She’s his biggest supporter, but back then he could tell she didn’t fully believe him, and he’s used that as fuel ever since.

In his first week at Antimite, he saw the Univar rep drop off a truckload of product and said he wanted that job. The service manager laughed in his face. Chaz later spent 4 years as a rep for that distributor, which is now Veseris.

His advice to techs is to go find someone already doing what you want. If you love wildlife and you’re only spraying houses, go learn from someone who does wildlife. In his view, good owners would love for their people to stay, but not if they hate the job, because that shows up in reviews and retention.

My take

People think I’m an extrovert because I do so many podcasts and conferences, but as I told Chaz, I’d spend most of my time alone if it were up to me. But business is all about people, so I paid attention to how Chaz handles it. He thinks about future Chaz, who will either regret staying quiet or be glad he said hello. As an introvert, I can actually use that.

I said on the show that a lot of owners probably have a few hundred customers they could be helping more. If you offer heat, insulation, exclusion or wildlife, list those services on your Google Business Profile and give each one its own page on your website. A customer who doesn’t know you do insulation will search for it, and your company should be what they find.

Chaz’s LinkedIn habit is a good model too. He turned meetings he was already attending into steady posts, and since so few people in pest control post consistently, it got him known across the industry. If you’d rather meet people online before your next PestWorld, the way I did, the Pest Control Millionaires Facebook group is where I post regularly with my partners, Jonas and Jake Sheldon.

Where to find Chaz

Chaz pointed people to LinkedIn first, where he thinks even his phone number is listed. His Facebook and Instagram are public now, and he answers every message, spam included. For product questions, any Nisus rep in the country can help. He also mentioned that Nisus was launching an insulation product, and its site now lists Pro-Shield Nsulation.

• Website: Nisus Corporation
• LinkedIn: Chaz Estrada
• Facebook: Chaz Estrada
• Instagram: @chaz_estrada