John Speed on Building a $13M Pest Control Company in Hawaii

00:00 Dan Leibrandt

Hey everyone and welcome back to Pest Control Legends. I'm your host, Dan Leibrandt, and today I'm with John Speed, owner and president of Kilauea Pest Control. John founded Kilauea back in 2002 with his wife Jennifer. And over the last two decades, he's built it into one of the largest pest control companies in the country, projected to do $13 million this year with a team of more than a hundred across Oahu, Maui, and Molokai. Kilauea is the only local Hawaii-based company ever ranked on the PCT Top 100. And in this episode, we're going to talk about how he built this company into a eight-figure top 100 company in Hawaii from the ground up, how he's grown through acquisitions and expanded across the islands, and what it takes to build a team and culture that can grow with the company. Now, without further ado, John, welcome to the show.

00:49 John Speed

Hello and Aloha. Dan, good to meet you and good to see you.

00:55 Dan Leibrandt

Good to have you, John. Man, I'm really excited to interview you, man. I think what you've done is incredible. And also it's super unique building a company in Hawaii. Mu pretty much all the owners I talk to are in the mainland, what it's called. So I'm interested to hear your story because I know you're from the States. I think you're from Texas.

01:19 John Speed

Yeah, I'm from Texas, Southeast Texas, near Houston. Little town called Beaumont,...

01:19 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, cool. Did you get into pest control or go to Hawaii first?

01:27 John Speed

Great question. I went to Hawaii for school at BYU Hawaii and my, I guess my first introduction was before the summer before I went to Hawaii. My brother, Paul went in and sold pest control in California and I went to go visit him. And I remember being by, at a pool with him and I was like, dude, I will never do that. That, that sounds horrible. And, he, was such a good sales guy that he got us into the business, me and a bunch of friends. And just every year after that I was like, I'll never do this again. And then I always did it again. Here 30 years later, we're still doing it. Yeah, so I came out to Hawaii and then the next summer I went and sold pest control in Orange County in Southern California. Yeah, yeah.

02:17 Dan Leibrandt

Okay. Interesting. And then w when did you move to Hawaii full time?

02:23 John Speed

It was 98, 98 is when I went to school here. And then we started the company in 2002. So about four years later. Yeah.

02:34 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. So w what made you or go to school in Hawaii and what made you stay there?

02:41 John Speed

Why not? It sounded like...

02:44 Dan Leibrandt

Ha.

02:44 John Speed

A great idea and coming from Texas and Texas is great and I love the people and it was a wonderful place to grow up. But if you get out and you see what's in the world, I like to travel a lot and I didn't want to go to a church school. And so I was in Idaho at school and it was either Provo or Hawaii. And so It wasn't too much of a decision for me. Hey, let's go check this out. I had a cousin that had gone to school out here. My brother had lived out here as well. And so when we got out, I can just remember getting picked up from the airport and driving up to Laie and just seeing the mountains and it's the best. We love it. My wife and I love it here. She does not... Ever wanna move and I could live somewhere else for a year or two, but it's always amazing traveling and then coming home to Hawaii. It's just the best.

03:47 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. Yeah. So okay. It's it sounds like everything fell into place. And yeah, I went to my sister's wedding in I think it was Oahu about two years ago. And yeah, it is stunning. It is literally out of a movie. It might be like a little bit too humid for me and some other things, but we went to the Jurassic Park place, if you've ever been there, that that was really cool.

04:09 John Speed

Yeah, yeah, cool. A little ranch. Yeah.

04:14 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, definitely. So yeah, it's really spectacular, beautiful. And so you started your company in two thousand two. Did you always know you were gonna start it or how did it come about?

04:24 John Speed

No, that was the hope. Had definitely, my father was an entrepreneur and I had seen my younger brother, Paul, start a pest control company. And he grew up pretty quick and I knew that I wasn't a door to, I was a door to door guy, but he was very talented and I was not as talented. But I knew that it was a good business model and that I didn't ever think it would get as big as we've gotten it. But definitely it was something that you could eke out a living. In Hawaii, which is definitely a difficult thing to do. It's very expensive to live here. But we just decided we'd do that. We decided we wanted to live in Hawaii first, and whatever we needed to do to make that happen would happen. So that was kind plan A. We wanted to move to Hawaii. Plan B was I was set up for graduate school in San Diego. And I was living in Orange County for a little bit after we graduated from BYU Hawaii. And so because I was able to get a license out in Hawaii, we moved out here and did it. But otherwise, I probably would have gotten an MBA, done something with Asia. And because I lived in Asia for a bit, and I'd probably do import-export, and we'd probably still live in Hawaii. Either something like that or my degree was actually an information system. So networks and that sort of thing and the tech side of that. But whatever path it was going to be, I hear a lot of people they'll go to some random market. They'll go to Tulsa or they'll go to the East Coast because that's where they think the untapped market is. That's to me, that's real entrepreneurship.

06:25 John Speed

For me, I wanted to live in Hawaii. And so the lifestyle of that, whatever, if I was homeless or if I was working in tech or import export, whatever, we'd make Hawaii our home. Every day, I can't get enough of it. But I had seen pest control work. And I knew it was a good model. Didn't realize how good and back in those days, the valuations were dollar for dollar, you have a million dollar businesses, you can sell it for a million, a million to something like that. And so fast forward 25 years and, Wall Street's caught up to it. We have a much better understanding of why, especially, acutely with AI, how home services is pretty AI resistant. There's a lot of real tailwinds and real steadiness with that model. And recession resistant, it's just an amazing model. I'm so thankful. And frankly, when you say success is, how much luck is involved in success, it's just like flopping down into this industry is so lucky.

07:49 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm, totally. Yeah. No, I'm the same way as I told you b before we started recording here. I fell into the pest control space too. And I didn't realize truly how AI proof and how needed of a service it is. But now I'm like, dude, I am staying in pest control. I there's so much opportunity here. It's incredible. And I want to ask you, because you have a neak you have a unique perspective on building a company in Hawaii, but you've also I think you said your your brother has a company in the States. Also, I believe you're now building another company in California. So walk me through the pros and cons of having a company in Hawaii versus in the mainland.

08:34 John Speed

Hawaii versus the mainland, the market is very small here, which is good and bad. And I was talking to some guys at the PCT Top 100 Awards event we had last week in Chicago. And I heard people with billion dollar companies say, we should come out to Hawaii and start a little branch. Everybody wants to do that. People have been to Hawaii. They're like, there's a lot of bugs. Why wouldn't I start? But it's a commitment to be out here, The cost of living is nuts. It's not for everybody. I go to a church with some folks that come, military spouses maybe, and they're young and they don't have any family around, and they have a rough experience here in Hawaii sometimes. And then say you can stay. We have a real great friend group. There's about five of us families. And most of them moved away earlier because you can either rent a condo here in Hawaii or you can buy a house on the mainland, for the cost of living. And so they move away and almost all of them have moved back and just taking it on the chin. Hey, we're going to, we're going to live the Hawaii lifestyle, but it comes at a cost. Again, the schools are very expensive, the private schools, and then the public schools are sometimes rough. So not everybody can do it. And you really do need to be here. It's hard to run things remotely.

10:18 John Speed

You can, but you need somebody here and invested in the community, the people. Have eyes on what's going wrong and be able to quickly address those things. And I would think most places, you need somebody. As to all the guys that are going in all these new markets, you need a great operator. And for a lot of years, I just did my own thing. I've grown a great team that frankly kills it. They're the secret sauce of Kilauea, I would say. But then finding an operator to run either a new department or something on another island or on the mainland is very challenging. It sounds good and you can, I'm an optimist and so, everybody I meet I like, right? So it's like with employees like, this could be awesome. And then six months later, it's like, you can see. Who wants to work, who doesn't, who's engaged, who is proactive and can add value to what you're doing and to what they're doing, know, frankly making it a fit. But those are things I'm learning now that are super interesting, valuable, and I love learning. I love learning about the business and I'm in that middle. I'm not ready to retire anytime soon. But also I've seen a few things. So to be able to learn about different aspects of the business, you have to try new things. And some of those things are gonna be failures. Some of those things are gonna be, okay, we could have done this better this way, regardless, you win some, learn some.

12:13 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm, definitely. I think that's definitely a good point on the recruiting aspect. You need someone there in person. And you see it with companies on the mainland that might be, hey, you send a guy from Wisconsin to Illinois, but to send someone all the way to Hawaii, that is a major life change. You are out super far away from everybody. It's I think maybe a six or eight hour flight just to California and then even farther across the state. So it's a big ask. I feel like be pretty hard to get someone to move from the mainland to the to Hawaii full time. Yeah.

12:54 John Speed

Yeah, and even if you can, will they stay? Because who doesn't want to move to Hawaii? Mean, anybody would move to Hawaii, know, thereabouts. You have to get, I was in a thing at ACQ at Alex Hormozi's office and I was talking to them about that and they were like, yeah, definitely get somebody that's not married. A single guy, as a salesman, say a sales manager, somebody that has a lot of experience, but then you can go nationwide, get the right person, but bringing out the right person that, could conceivably stay fit and, again, add value to what you're doing. So, I that was pretty wise.

13:18 Dan Leibrandt

Ha ha.

13:39 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. That makes sense. Yeah. I want to circle back to that because I love Alex Hormozi. I probably watch hundreds of hours of his content. First I wanted to cover, the first few years of the business. What was it rocky? What was it like? Hey guys, Dan Leibrandt here. Real quick, if you're a pest control owner looking to grow, I have two amazing resources for you. Number one is our free Pest Control Millionaires Facebook group. We have over 4,000 owners just like you in our community and would love for you to be a part of it. Go search Pest Control Millionaires on Facebook and request to join the group now. Number two is our book, Zip Code Kings. This was authored by me, Jonas Olson, and Jake Sheldon to be the ultimate guide to pest control marketing. We discuss everything from branding and traditional marketing to local SEO and Facebook ads. Go to Amazon and search zip code Kings to get your copy today. Now that being said, let's get back to the show.

14:33 John Speed

Wasn't rocky. I was rocky. Didn't I wasn't growing it. I was about surfing, watching movies. Know, the ROI of time to money was like I was optimizing for time for sure. Was like if I can and I had I had done that when I like whatever it was sold pest control. Door to door, it's during the summer, right? And your ROI is pretty high. You can make those sales and then you can work X amount of hours and the next year you can work less hours and make the same amount and less hours and make the same amount and less hours and make the same amount. Same for when I taught English in Korea, I could do the same thing. I got better clients and can do less and less and more goofing off, more personal fun time. And I did that for a lot of years with the business. Wanted to grow. Could see that how I'd seen my brother grow within two years to 10 technicians. And it probably took me 10 years to do what he did in two years with that. But it was, it was more stable and it was way more fun. So contrasting that to now where I'm so boring. I don't serve. I rarely watch movies. I am so over indexed on business, which is so fun to me. It's not fun to anybody else, but it's fun to me. And so it's like, man, I, when I go back and change, if I'd worked a little bit harder in my twenties, how much farther would I be? And I don't regret it at all. That's what I wanted to do. I was winning at that time. Right. And so my twenties, I got to travel, we didn't have a lot of money, but with a young family, with a great wife that supports me, she's fine either way. As long as she feels safe and financially that we're doing okay, as long as we're spending less than we're making, then she's very supportive of me, which, you is a good and bad thing, depending on where you want to take a business. But I think for me, was lifestyle first and working through that. And then of course, you see at some point the goals and you understand the structure or the system and how to get to the next level and that there's always the learning and education. Then when you get pretty good and you have everything in place, you're to me, I'd look at it as for so many years, we had more time and less money, and now we have more money and less time that if you're not spending the money, if you're not wise and thoughtful about the investment, then you're really leaving money on the table because we have the best reviews out here. We have an amazing team. We've never had such good people as we have right now. People that are staying on many years, that know their craft, that love Kilauea, that are recruiting their friends and they're good friends. They know, hey, I have 10 friends. I'd only refer one of them because they're, this is the one that fits this culture and we'll succeed here. And so when you have that, it's like, it's that ROI thing that it's in the back of my lizard brain that, okay, what can we do with this?

18:24 John Speed

And are we being responsible with our resources and with the time? And are we being the best that we can be? So that's my thought there.

18:38 Dan Leibrandt

For sure. Yeah. I yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with I don't know, maybe spending a few years just, going and surfing and having fun. I the common topic that's come up on this topic is just figure out what you want to do with your life and then reverse engineer that, optimize for that. So then for you, now that this company is massive and you're even expanding into other industries. What made that switch for you? Wha w when did you start going like hyper entrepreneur optimization, all that?

19:12 John Speed

I think just getting a bigger vision of what, I always ask what can be done? What can be done in this market? Well, my market's probably 100 million. And I think Terminix, my guess is it's 30 to 40, 36 million something like that. And so can you get that big? And it really has to do with the timing of what we want to do with the business. So if it's generational, then, It's not just pest control. You need to do different things. Now, if I was optimizing just for an exit, you 100 % even in Hawaii, that's my big question. Everybody says, just do pest control, just scale that. And it's true, you're gonna get the best ROI with the team you have and just doing more and building upon that. That's absolutely true. However, over the long term, could you get to 60 million in Hawaii? You could, you can, and that will still take some effort to get there. But if you have this plate spinning really well, can you do some other things and can you see other opportunities that ROI thing, can you make that work giving what you already have and peel off a little layer or a little bit of your effort here? To grow something else that possibly you could have an exit in another little business or find a great operator, a good person that you can build with your team. As, mean, that's just how we're built as entrepreneurs. There is always the lady in the red dress. There is always, the shiny thing that you can, that we're built to do that, right? And so it's hard. You wanna keep it laser focused on what you can do but my thing is in Hawaii, you can't just go to the next city or the next county or the next state, right? Even going to the next island, it is very difficult to one, have people there and well, have your people there, right? You're uploading somebody, know, uprooting somebody and then getting talented people on some of these smaller islands is just incredibly difficult. And so we've done it with Maui.

21:42 John Speed

Um, and the company we come up, we bought a company on Maui. Had, they had a, uh, a guy on Molokai. So we have, we have, we have representation on Molokai, but it's not, it's 80,000 people. So you're not ever gonna really do anything with it. It's just more of a fun side project and making sure that the people in Molokai have quality pest control. Uh, but even Maui is, uh, it's much easier doing work on Oahu, getting business, uh, growing that. So yeah.

22:13 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I heard you mention this on Jonas's show that you're you're expanding into other home services. And now now that you've explained it does make sense. Hawaii's only so big, in the US you can or on the mainland you can infinitely expand. So what are those home serv other home services and like what walk me through expanding into those?

22:36 John Speed

Well, anything that's reoccurring revenue and route-based, I'm interested in. So the obvious thing would be lawn care. I don't necessarily want to get into lawn care right now. I would even take a minority position in a lawn care company. But I think it's important that we do that. And just because we have, for Hawaii, it's a pretty good customer base. That if we are working with a quality, I'll give you an example. We do not do fumigation. Hawaii is very, very heavy on termites. A lot of termite, dry wood and ground termite work here. There's a lot of great companies in Hawaii that do fumigation, tent fumigation. Know, put the tents on the house and we have never done that and we don't necessarily want to do it. And so we subcontract that, which is not unique, almost every company in California does that because there's only three massive companies. But in Hawaii, we have these small mom and pop shops that actually do fumigation. Fumigation's, I don't know how much harder, but it's harder to do here in Hawaii with the elements, with the volcanic soil under a house that's porous, with the wind that we have every day that they wouldn't even tent the house in California because it's too windy. But here, it's just windy all the time, so we have to do it. That way. And so they're very good. I would say Hawaii probably has, the best fumigation people in the world because of the conditions that they have. I don't want to get into it. I don't want it doesn't fit our model of we want to be the trusted choice, to come into your home and take care of that. Fumigation crew, that's, six people, guys that get on a roof and, can carry a hundred pound tent on their shoulder up a ladder. That's not the same kind of person that we're hiring. So we partnered with somebody that does a great job and we sub the work to them and it's a great relationship. And we make great money off of it too. So then don't have to get into the headache of that. But that's the same kind of theory with some of these other.

24:58 John Speed

Some of these other home services that if we can partner with them, great. If we can just be affiliates, terrific. There's some things that don't quite fit, but I think for a lot of companies, they have customers, you have customers. If they're trusted, then you should be able to do something together, do some co-branding, help them out, support them, market for them. Take some sort of equity position or a loan to them, or just work something out for businesses. But there's a lot of opportunity. And then in Hawaii, we're so far removed from the mainland that you do get a bit of a lag on what's either acceptable customer service-wise or technology. Mean, technology itself is making things, the world a lot flatter, obviously, but there's still, In Hawaii, one thing that made me successful is just because my competitors saw what their dad did or what was available there. And it was very small. And it doesn't take Hawaii.

26:11 John Speed

Mean, people do that. People grow massive businesses in these random areas. Mean, when you think about Jonas and he's in this small town and he's done what he's done. That's pretty unique, the lawn care company in his same town is not doing the same thing.

26:30 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's something I've learned across successful owners. And like you said, it doesn't matter where you're from, but it matters who you're comparing yourself to and where you're taking inspiration from. So if Jonas with his company was only talking to the owners, other owners in Escanaba, then he wouldn't be very far. But because he had a mentor, Jonathan Pototschnik, big company, and now he's interviewing all these other owners, which obviously interviewed you and a lot of other people. It's like, well, now you begin to expand your horizons. Now you start thinking beyond whatever you were taught. And I feel like I hate to continue bringing up mindset, but so much of this is just mindset where people don't think it's possible. Yeah. People don't think it's possible to grow a big company. So let me ask you that. You guys are going to do around $13 million this year. Did you think that would ever be possible when you were just starting out?

27:17 John Speed

It's 100%. It's 100%. Yeah.

27:31 John Speed

I didn't think about it and I for sure not. I always thought... Read Rich Dad Poor Dad in college and I always thought, I had this pest control company that will throw off money and then be able to buy some real estate. And the real estate in Hawaii is just incredibly expensive. And so we were able to cobble together like a small rental, but even that is like something I wasn't passionate about. So this goes back into why, John, why are you doing different things now? And it's just this thought of well, I really don't like real estate. I'm really not good at it, frankly, but I love business. I love people. I love building teams. And so as I see the opportunities for acquisitions in the home service space in Hawaii, say, okay, well, this is my little neck of the woods that may or may not be a fit, but if it is a fit, let's explore some of these fragmented markets that we can cobbled together and leverage our brand essentially.

28:48 Dan Leibrandt

Mm-hmm. For sure. And I want to get clearer on your journey, 'cause it you were mentioning that start out pretty slow, you're just having fun. So when did you hit your your first million dollar year and really start scaling this thing?

29:03 John Speed

So we started 2002, 2003 is our first year. So I'd say 11 years after that. Whatever that is, 2014, 2013, 14 was when we hit our first million dollars, took 11 years, right? And then from 14 to now it's been 11 years later now, 11, 12, 13 years later now we've gone to from one to 13, one to 13 million. The second half of the business has been pretty good. I would say peer groups, EOS, and then what you said is just mindset, just being able to see the vision of what's out there, who's doing what. Some of these very talented business owners that I work with that I can see, man, we... We do pretty well compared to them because of one, we're in this unique space in Hawaii that there is lot of competition, but there's not a lot of strong competition. They're very happy with where they're at. And the whole thing of growing big is getting over the fear, right? Of, hey, spending the money on marketing, spending the money on great people that is taking out of your pocket as an entrepreneur. We call that the terror barrier. The terror barrier. The terror barrier.

30:40 John Speed

And so if you can break through that at all the different levels, then you'll succeed and you'll have the ability to succeed. Obviously you can make some choices that take you south, right? That can crash a business if you go too fast or if you don't have all your ducks in a row. Or if you're following somebody else's path, that is not yours and, he did this, okay, let's do that. And then what I've seen with a lot of the acquisitions that we've done is not pivoting to, I take an account for the challenges that come up. You're a good size company and then you lose two or three of your people because COVID hit and people are jumping ship. Rode this market all the way up, but then other people are getting into the market. And so you're losing market share, but you're not letting people go or you're not reducing the costs of labor. People are still, you have a manager that is being paid a large amount, but isn't doing much because they don't have enough people. And so. Not making those hard decisions. I've seen kill businesses and it's super sad and I'm not. To... I guess I say it could happen to me. I always think it could happen to me. I'm not smarter than those guys, right? But I've seen enough where that hopefully all of us that we're learning from other people's mistakes and being able to make those decisions that would either crash your business or putting yourself in such a safe position that you can take those bumps that will inevitably come along. In business.

32:43 Dan Leibrandt

Hm. Yeah. I like that term that you use, terror barrier. I've never heard that before. Could you maybe give me an example of a terror barrier terror barrier that you've overcome across your journey?

32:58 John Speed

Sure. As much of a barrier as it was, I, like I was saying before my life, mean, I run on ROI of what is, what works for my lifestyle, right. And let me think. I will say the biggest. The biggest bumps in my business have been an outlay of cash that was not, that was, it was a measured bet, but it was a bet, right? And usually it's people, As I think about bets on acquisitions, I know going into an acquisitions, I'm not a finance guy, but I can, I can get a feel for the owner where their heart is, where they're trying to do, but they might have a financial issue or whatever, but they have the bones of their business is good, right? But it does take loans, does take living, maybe a cut in your lifestyle or your finances to make that happen, right? But you see opportunities. Probably the best example I can think of is, and I've told this one before, but basically hiring my termite manager was only possible because I had my first big job that at the end of that job, we had about $20,000 of extra cash that year. And I put it all towards, I put it on top of my offer to get a termite manager that I knew him, but to pull him back from the mainland. So he had lived in Hawaii, moved to the mainland with his family. And to make it worth it for him, I had to put the money out there. And it was a gamble for him too, to come back to Hawaii, bring him and his five kids. Of course they wanted to move back to Hawaii, but taking a bet on me and Kilauea was probably hard for them. So, but that's that terror barrier of hey, that $20,000 would be nice to either bring home to the wife or to invest in this other part of the business. But this person, I think we can do it. And that's all businesses is, taking great people and growing them and giving them the right people, the right opportunity.

35:54 John Speed

And it should work out for everybody. And it's definitely worked out for me and him working together the last 12, 13 years.

36:05 Dan Leibrandt

It reminds me of a funny quote, scared money don't make money. And it's like so true that you need to basically what you're saying here is you have to be willing to expend capital, and especially in those those earlier days, below a million dollars when it's tough. And I see a lot of guys that maybe they have one tech, they're doing 500k a year, and they're making 300k a year profit and that they're just taking that home. It's like that's pretty nice. That's it's hard to give that up. And some people may maybe you just keep doing that. But if you really want to scale to the level like a level that you've gotten to, you're saying you've gotta reinvest in the business, right?

36:35 John Speed

Yeah, that's a great lifestyle. Holy cow, yeah.

36:53 John Speed

Yeah, yeah, well for sure. And it starts of course with investing in yourself, And so I spend a lot of money investing in ways to grow my mindset, to be around other people that are doing way bigger things than me. And to me, it's not only growing the business, it's making it more stable, right? It's making a more solid, secure. For me and my family and all my employees' families, The more secure and bigger the business is, as long as we're responsible with how we're deploying capital, it's just making it more safe, right? So that's, to me, security is super important. Now, at some point, you're like, well, if you're in your seventies and you have all these, yeah, these trucks flying around the island and, the potential for, for downside. Yeah. You might want to take some of that. The security might be taking chips off the table, diversifying, your assets, selling your business or whatnot. But in, but until then just. Well, like we were saying, if you're growing yourself, you're, you're seeing how to make your business more stable, then that's what I'm into right now, is just learning and growing, And then helping others learn and grow. So I'm doing it so that I know that my business is stable, but it's very satisfying to see managers and other leaders come up in to Kilauea. And be better people for their families and be able to provide for them and to be able to, frankly, have more time off and not have the drama that comes with stressing about finances and about some of the things that, frankly, most people have to worry about.

39:12 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm, for sure. You mentioned hanging out with people, doing bigger things than you, networking, that kind of thing. I wanted to ask you, since this is relevant, you went to the PCT Top 100 meeting, I think you said about a week ago or so. And this is where the top hundred companies, or least the public top hundred com companies in pest control gather. Pretty much everyone in pest control knows about it. It's a big deal, and of course you're on the list. I wanted to ask you. Did you have any key takeaways from that, like connecting with the these other big owners?

39:46 John Speed

Oh yeah, several I can think of. One, I was at Door to DoorCon for the first time this year. I've had Door to Door guys for, and I was in Door to Door. I've never been to Door to DoorCon. So I went this year and there was some heavy hitters, like the 60, 100 million dollar guys, I think three or four guys that were on a stage. And one of them was a fellow up in Canada. And so I ran into him at the PCT Top 100 with a couple of his guys. And he was so generous with his time and super nice and really enjoyed talking with him just about the scene. And they had even done pest control door to door cells in Hawaii with some of the people that I knew. And so we were able to get together about that. I'll give you another example. So we bought some pool routes last year. So we're getting into the swimming pool. Service space. So, during the actual word ceremony, I was sitting next to the new, I believe is the CEO of, ABC Pest Control in Austin. So that's, definitely over a hundred million dollars in revenue. He's, I think he's the third generation. So he's a younger fellow. And so, after the awards, I turned to him as like, hey, it's just started up a conversation and of course he had seen me go up and Hawaii and he asked me about Hawaii. But I happen to know that they do lawn and HVAC and plumbing and pools and all this stuff. And so I was able to ask him about, hey, know, pools versus HVAC and even some of the numbers that go along with that. And it was probably a 10 minute conversation, but it was super valuable. For me to understand how they look at different services in their market. Yeah, those are a couple, I know. And then just some personal things. It was pretty cool to meet the guys from Banner Pest Control. Aaron and his team, and when I was talking with them, I was like, hey, Kilauea Pest Control, we're on Hawaii.

42:12 John Speed

And then after a little bit of the conversation, they're like, you run, you help with Oso Pest Control down in Southern California, which is another company that we're just starting up. And they're like, we love your trucks. And I was like, that's cool. They've seen the marketing and the branding that we've done with that. So very high quality, very different from the Kilauea side. But it's a different play, it's a different, we can not practice, but try some interesting things out in a new market. And we've been able to take some of those things that don't frankly work for Kilauea over here, that we've been able to take from each other and learn from, this works, this doesn't work, and add some of the managerial. That we have over in Kilauea to help support those guys. But yeah, being in those same rooms for PCT Top 100, it's very unique. Yeah, I was able to hang out with quite a few people. But the person I most enjoyed hanging out with was my son who came with me. He's 23 years old, he's a college student. And it was just like the, two or three days before, I was on my run, I was listening to a podcast, I was like, hey, I need to take my son to this and he's here for the summer.

43:48 John Speed

He just got married, so took him and so he was able to sit down with some of these really heavy hitters and learn, talk about mind expanding. We were able to talk to people that have worldwide businesses going on and that the travel and what that looks like. And so for me, as much as I like to educate myself, I just, get giddy just like being in some of those rooms. And so the same thing, we were in Stockholm last summer with my family vacationing. And so I just called up a friend in California and it was like, hey, can we get a tour of Anticimex while we're here? So Anticimex is based out of Stockholm and a of calls were made and within less than 48 hours, I had a meeting with the CEO of Anticimex. So was me, my two sons, and this guy that runs a $600 million company. And we just were able to sit down with him for a couple of hours at his office and just kick it. And so for me, it's fun, but to have my sons there and to see, know, and just out of high school and in college and to have that exposure and just to, again, expand their minds, see what's out there is super fun so that if they choose to, they can take this thing to the next level and they can, have a better idea of what is not only good, good business for us and our family and our employees, but possible for Hawaii and globally if they want to do something like that, but at least they have a frame of reference for that.

45:41 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. That's so cool you could do that for your sons. And I my mentor did something similar for me. I he took me to a conference and I was one guy I was talking to did sixty million dollars a year, another did twenty million, maybe fifteen million, ten million. Just like, geez. I know some people that are maybe worth a million dollars across friends, parents, and stuff, but having a $60 million a year business, or especially in this case, you're saying 600. That is wild. And it just getting that mindset shift as early as possible, I think, is really key.

46:16 John Speed

Yeah, yeah, yeah, wish. Frankly, the biggest thing for me was just seeing my brother do it, And he was doing something that I felt and I still feel like I can't do. He can recruit people to do door-to-door sales and actually be on it. And that's something that I've never been good at and has frankly, I met Jason Walton at the PCT Top 100. And I think they're gonna do 300 million this year, or they did 300 million this year. And we probably started our companies at the same time, and we both have the same background working for Eclipse marketing back in, not 2000, 1996, 97, 98. And that's fine. And it's two very different, paths and whatnot, but just to be... Anywhere where you are at the top of your game and to have the, and just to see, frankly, just to see other people successful and how they did it and to have those relationships, whether or not you learn from that or find, it's super interesting, right?

47:32 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. Yeah, totally. Totally agree. And then adjacent to that, I wanted to ask you, which I didn't know about this, but you said you went to an Alex Hormozi event. What was that?

47:44 John Speed

So I went to the L1 and L2 so just the workshop which is about 70 people and it was it was really good I made some some connections there of very very bigger businesses that This one guy I met up just his hotel after before dinner, but we were going to dinner but I met up for an hour and just talked with him and super nice guy. He's really into real estate and he does some construction. And on his Insta, he's driving the Lambo and everything, but, is whatever, that's standard. But I was talking to him about Tommy Mello and he was like, Tommy Mello. And he was like looking at his phone, it was like this guy? And he had Tommy Mello's phone number in his phone. They were buddies, they had broken bread and hung and I was like, okay, that's a flex. You're hanging out with the billionaire top guy in his space, probably in the world, that's pretty cool. Anyway, was the one, the workshop that basically they go over what your business is worth. And then introduce you to some of their top leaders. So that was really cool. The main takeaway from that is just to see what world-class leadership looks like. And because, day one, they're teaching and then day two, you're broken out into these workshop groups. There's maybe 20 of us in this boardroom and then they come in and you get to ask them whatever you want about your business. And they break it down for you. Then later on you have some time with Alex and he's in this big room and answering questions. To see Alex, it's just like on the videos, he is just free form, answering these questions that as you're sitting there listening to it's like, it makes so much sense, right? Okay, it's just numbers. This is how you do this to get to this to get to this.

50:10 John Speed

And then, I wanted to do the next one. So there's three levels, right? Jonas has done the third level where you're sitting down and talking with Alex for a day. The other one is where you're sitting down and talking with their team about your specific business. And so they're going deep dives and they give you three or four key takeaways for your business. And it ain't cheap, but. There's a lot of value. And at this point, I'm in five different peer groups right now, which is completely ridiculous. It's like way too much. And I'm having to shed some of these things, not because they're not great. It's because I love taking in all this content and I find myself like the execution on this stuff is very low. And so I'm in a peer group Entrepreneurs' Organization where I actually have to produce to do stuff. And it's a it's really good for me because I'm the boss. Nobody tells me what to do. I don't I'm supposed to hold people accountable. Right. But whether or not that happens is completely up to me. And so it's really cool to work with other entrepreneurs on projects that you're a peer. Right. And then you have to work with your other peers to get some traction on stuff for our Hawaii chapter. And so that's a value to me to get my butt out the door and to actually accomplish things instead of just listening to books, listening to podcasts, attending some meetings for my business where it's like, okay. And then the other side of that is learning on these other businesses, It's harder than you think. I knew it would be, but you don't know how that manifests. And so when you learn, hey, this is why this is hard, then you're like, man, that's super hard and the ROI is so small. Where I just took this time and put it in the real business, the ROI is massive. And so just getting that perspective, that education has been super helpful for me in the last year or two.

52:37 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Awesome. You mentioned Alex Hormozi's team gave you three to four key takeaways. What were those if you don't mind sharing?

52:48 John Speed

Well, let me tell you, I'm gonna give you the $35,000 experience on this podcast.

52:54 Dan Leibrandt

Let's go.

52:55 John Speed

You ready? You ready? Okay. And some of these things were things we were going to already do, but it was really good to hear from them. It's like, one was the playbook on how to hire a sales manager. One was pulling money forward, which I thought was pretty good on door to door because the cost of door to door is so incredibly expensive right now. They suggested getting the whole year upfront and then going on the monthly recurring billing, but pulling that money forward on that. And then some things on checklist for the technicians to cross-sell, which we cross-sell a ton. And we're always looking at how to do that. Having, these guys that have done a hundred million dollar businesses have, worked for Goldman, doing the consulting and whatnot to look at your business, your issues, your financials, and be able to pull these things out of. And there's, those aren't, those aren't the only three things. There's 3000 things, right? But those are the highest and best. Things that they could pull forward for us to, and they're pretty simple, but again, they're simple and then there's executable. And so getting through that, what that looks like for our business. And so, but I learned lessons from it. So in the L2 workshop, there's what is it? Probably 10, 12 people. And they did presentations for those 12 people. And so you learn on their businesses what that looks like. And on some of them, they were smaller businesses. And so one, it's like, wow, you're doing a million five and you invested $35,000 into this one day. That's a terror barrier right there. Good for you, And then as they were talking to this one fellow that, I guess I can say it in his name, but he's in the wedding space, right? Catering and that sort of stuff. What they were telling him, I knew was right because I'm at another level, right? I can look and see, okay, what they're telling this guy is right and it seems so scary. I can see, if I were him, I'd be scared to do it, but having seen what it looks like, it's like what they're telling you is right on. So when they're telling me the most important things, I'm like, okay, well, is that really I know, because I saw it with this other person, And it was really interesting. All the different people in that cohort, they had different things for each of them, different playbooks. And then they're like, yeah, we'll give you that playbook and whatnot. Know, obviously everybody gets a lot of value out of Hormozi's content, right?

56:09 John Speed

I was just like, okay, well, let's try this next level. And it was five grand, it's a lot. It's not like an $800 two-day thing with Tommy Mello or one of these other guys. It's a lot, but you walk away and you're like, okay, the value was there, And then you go to the next thing. It's like, okay, well, crap, that was pretty valuable, right? And so. And so at a point though, it really does come down to can learn it. There's a lot of valuable information out there, but are you going to execute on it? Right. What does that look like? What does it look like for you on a day to day breaking it down and just running with it making it, making it happen and making it happen for your team and what that looks, looks like, And so, and you can get a lot of this information for free. There's tons of great podcasts. Luke Lewis was another one I met. I don't know if you've had an opportunity to interview him, he's doing massive stuff. I don't know, he's had a business, I don't know, 10, 12 years, and he's at 20 plus million in Florida. And I was listening to a podcast with him on it that he did a week or two ago. And... Yeah, just learned a lot of very interesting things from that podcast. Was like, okay, I can absolutely use that in my business. But I had met him over breakfast with another colleague. And so I'm like, okay, well, this is a guy that I can connect with and drill down into that a little more.

57:51 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Definitely. One thing that I'm gathering here across the podcast, and especially what you're just talking about here, is it's all about ROI at the end of the day. Find out where you can get the highest returns, whether that's you can pay Alex Hormozi five thousand dollars to get a hundred thousand dollars worth of value to your business. Obviously you want to do that. So it seems like that's how you're thinking about things, right? It's all ROI.

58:18 John Speed

It's ROI and then it's where you are personally too. I've got a daughter that's like, I only have two more years at home with her, And so right now it's like, yeah, I could I'm actually in these peer groups that are like, that you have to be referred into, right? You can't go search for this stuff online. And so it's like the network of the network. And I have to say no right now because right now the priority is along with building the business is like, I just wanna be home with my daughter. And my wife's cool with it, my daughter's cool with me traveling, but I'm not cool with me traveling. I want to be here in the home with my daughter as much as I can while I can. That's like, this is life. The business is not, and ends in itself.

59:10 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. No, that's awesome. I love to hear that. And at the end of the day, who really cares if you're at fifteen million or twenty five million? Is there that big of a difference? It's like, you'd rather have that time with your daughter and your family. So I totally get that. And may maybe the last topic I want to cover on this show, since I know you're pretty big on this, is acquisitions. So I think at least when I was watching you on Jonas's show, you've done nine acquisitions so far. Is that right?

59:25 John Speed

Down.

59:39 John Speed

Yeah, I think seven pest control acquisitions over 20 years. And then we did three last year in pools. And so, yeah.

59:51 John Speed

So I love it. Yeah.

59:53 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, so talk to me about s some of the biggest lessons you've learned through doing these acquisitions, maybe if the if there's been anything that's gone wrong and what you would do for future acquisitions.

1:00:06 John Speed

Hmm, that's a good question. I love that. What's gone wrong? So this is a pretty basic one, but of course timing is everything and making sure that the cell is happening. As soon as you can to when they're leaving, right? There's a few things on that actually. So I had my first acquisition ever was one year into my business and Excuse me, a guy had stopped his pest control business moved to the Big Island and so and excuse me, he had actually referred me a customer and So I got on with these customers. They're like, what was the deal? He's like, he just went to the Big Island. So I call him up I'm like, hey, really like to buy your customer list or whatever and I don't know he's busy or whatever, but then I followed up with him a couple of years later, or a couple of months later, excuse me. I was on the big island and I called him I was like, hey, let's do this. And he probably needed some money at the time. And so I was able to pick up the customer list then and I had him sign an NDA and everything. But by the time I started calling around, I was only able to get maybe 20 % of the list on to, because they had It had been two or three months they had already called other companies or whatever. And it was still totally financially worth it. It was one of the best ROIs I've had. And then the other thing is something I've heard a lot from Paul Giannamore is just like, well, not heard, I have heard it, but just how Paul is just being cool and just not, I'm pretty transparent. How I see it, you can see that, right? You can see it on my face. And so when I'm talking to an acquisition, it's blood in the water. Can't help it. I'm excited. And so we had an acquisition here a few years later where I actually had to get my general manager to have the relationship with the target because I was like, we were talking on two different levels and she was in the room with us.

1:02:32 John Speed

And she knew me and she knew this other guy and she was like able to translate almost and be able to pull out of what he needed. I needed the, know, and I needed and to make that work. So just, and great guy. I honestly haven't had really any problems with any acquisitions. They've all been really stand up people that I've... I've gone through these processes with. So when something wrong comes up, we want to over-delivery, we want to make sure everybody's paid correctly, we want to add value to the new employees and things like that. But I think just at the very beginning, just the relationship side, I could tone it down a little bit, I guess is a takeaway for myself.

1:03:24 Dan Leibrandt

Gotcha. So for the other pest control owners out there, everyone wants to grow and people wanna know should I do Facebook ads, should I do Google ads? I So in regards to acquisitions, is acquisitions like a good way to grow in your opinion?

1:03:40 John Speed

I think it's an amazing way to grow. The cat's out of the bag and a lot of pest control owners have a half a million dollar business and they want $2 million for it. That's not reality and that's not gonna happen. Frankly, I have an acquisition that I've gone through process right now. It's $200,000. It's not in pest control. It's another home service. And they want more than I'm willing to put out there. And so I literally emailed this lady and was like, you probably need to get a broker and go see out there if you can get more for this because we're still interested, but we're too far apart. And so, and I can see that she's using ChatGPT to do these responses to me and things like that. It's worth this amount and this amount. It's like, it might be to somebody, I hope she gets it.

1:04:29 Dan Leibrandt

Ha.

1:04:38 John Speed

She's been running this business for 15 years, so I hope you get it. But for what we need, there's two parts to the business. We only need one of the parts and so, hey, figure it out. You can probably get a broker and sell this thing for more, and so either she will or she may come back to me and be able to negotiate from a more reasonable in my view point of what the... The valuation is. Everybody needs to make their money and they need the highest and best use. But yeah, just building those relationships, I'll say I had one acquisition that was probably, until we met the first time, it was probably three or four years. And my longest was 15 years that I met, talked to the people about buying a company. And then it was probably 15 years later, it might've been a little longer, and I talked to them at 15 years, at nine years, and then year one that we sold, or that we bought them. So that was a super long play, but it's just relationships.

1:06:01 John Speed

And it was a great buy.

1:06:04 Dan Leibrandt

Dang, awesome. So you have to continue building relationships with everyone, but especially with other potential pest control companies you can buy. Cool. And so something else I wanted to ask about real quick since I was asking about lead generation. So you guys do a good amount of acquisitions. What else is working best in terms of getting leads and sales?

1:06:25 John Speed

Leads and sells, this is, everybody knows this. Our best lead is, our best lead generation is our Google reviews. Between Google reviews and Yelp reviews, very hard to come by, but especially when you've been in business as long as we have, there's companies with similar reviews, the amount of reviews, but you can't hack, hey, I've been with this guy for 15 years and they've been amazing this whole time. And so for these older companies to access some of the technology out there that helps promote these reviews is, unless you have a junk company, it's a no-brainer. So, yeah.

1:07:13 Dan Leibrandt

Mm, totally agree. And I know that as an SEO person, that's the main recurring thing that you do on your Google Business Profile. And it's much easier than all all the stuff you do on the website. So yeah, totally agree. Reviews is like a great free way to get more people there. So cool. We'll wrap up the show here, John. Last question for you that I like to ask all my guests is what is your message to the pest control owners out there? What do you want to tell them? What do you think they need to know?

1:07:42 John Speed

I guess all I can say is do what, know, not do what I did, but just I did what I did. You do what you do. If you're comfortable making $300,000 and a $500,000 business, that's success, right? If you are, if you wanna live in the middle of Montana and have, a route that feeds your family, and that is success and you get to hunt, know, know, four months out of the year, then terrific. I guess don't let anybody else's, success or what they think is the win, make you feel any different about, about what success means to you and your family.

1:08:32 Dan Leibrandt

Amen. Well, John, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been great. It's been really nice connecting with you. You seem like such a good, nice person. And yet you run this massive company. So you have that juxtaposition. Where can people find you and connect with you online?

1:08:40 John Speed

Thanks, Dan.

1:08:47 John Speed

I'm pretty active on Instagram. John Speed, John F Speed. If you can spell it, [email address removed] is my email. Yeah, between that and then, yeah, just look me up any of you PCOs that are vacationing out in Hawaii, let me know and we'll go grab lunch.

1:09:10 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. Cool. So that link will be in the description. Everyone make sure to go follow John on Instagram. And thanks again for coming on, man. This has really been nice connecting with you.

1:09:21 John Speed

Yeah, same Dan. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

1:09:23 Dan Leibrandt

Course. YouTube has this crazy feature where its algorithm knows the perfect next episode you should watch. So click right here and watch it now. Just click it. Click, click, click.