Jonas Olson on A-Players, a Day With Alex Hormozi and the Jump From 7 to 8 Figures

00:00 Dan Leibrandt

Hey there, my name is Dan Leibrandt and welcome back to Pest Control Legends. Today I am with Jonas Olson for the second time on this show and for actually the third time I had him on my other podcast, Local Marketing Secrets as well. It's crazy to think that was, I think it was like 10 months ago at this point and you had me on your show. We've known each other for a good amount of time now. It's been great knowing you Jonas and you're just such an inspirational figure. I'll talk about some of the things you've done. You've grown your pest control company Pest Badger from zero to $10 million a year in less than five years, which, you we're going to jump into that in the podcast. I think we've covered it a little bit in the other shows, but I just want to get clear of like, how are you growing so fast? You know, you're projected to do like 15 million next year, you know, 30 million in the next two, three years. Like how, how are you hitting, you know, such a fast growth, growth rate. Also some, something crazy that I guess I'd say doesn't get mentioned enough is you have such a big your company in particular has such a big following on social media. You guys have like 150K on YouTube, I 70K on TikTok, 40K on Facebook. That's just, almost no one else is doing that. Who wants to follow a pest control account? So that's another wild thing, but we'll probably touch on in this show. So excited to be with Jonas here today. And actually part of the reason why we're here together in person is because we've been filming some course material for our course and really program Pest Control Millionaires and to film some book promotion stuff, which we're so excited to release our co-authored book, Zip Code Kings. So that comes out October 20th, depending on when you're watching this, the book may have already actually come out. And we're talking all about how to grow your pest control company. It's really framed as the ultimate guide to growing your pest control company. So definitely get that book. The pre-order link or actually just the order link will be in the link in the description. And also our program, which we've been working ruthlessly on. Spent like the whole first portion of this day just making courses and you know, talking about how to create an offer and mindset stuff and what is the roadmap? Like what does it look like from zero to 250 K all the way up to a million to 3 million and beyond. So we've been making a ton of content free and paid. So excited to be here with Jonas and thanks so much for coming.

02:13 Jonas Olson

Yeah, it's been fun. My brain's shot.

02:17 Dan Leibrandt

No, it's so exhausting filming so much content, but it's so worth it, so.

02:21 Jonas Olson

You must have had a rough morning.

02:23 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, definitely. So one of the things I wanted to cover first, which I, was funny. We went to Starbucks this morning and I don't want to like ask myself, but it was such a good question. And we were like, all right, let's save that for the show. Let's not even talk about it right now. So the question was essentially, and I'll give a little preface here. I was talking with one of your partners, someone who owns several of your locations. You guys are at 15 now, which is nuts.

02:40 Jonas Olson

You...

02:50 Dan Leibrandt

One of your partners who's an absolute killer. Was talking to him earlier today. He's 27 years old Really inspiring story and it seemed like and kind of the background is that you used to be his wrestling coach And it seemed like he wasn't doing too much with his life, you know, he started drinking a lot He started kind of going down the wrong path and what I found so interesting I like what I was telling you is I think this is a really unique town of yours that I don't hear anyone else talk about is despite him being in really bad place, you most people would be like, ah, you know, that guy is just going nowhere, whatever. You spent like six to nine months chasing him down. You're like, I need you to work for me despite him, you know, having, having these problems. So first off with this guy, like what made him an ape?

03:40 Jonas Olson

Player.

03:41 Dan Leibrandt

What was like so attractive about this kind of person?

03:45 Jonas Olson

Yeah, that's a great question. We got to spend some time with him yesterday, we got to spend some time with him today. He's 27 years old, big things at school. We can rewind back to when he was a freshman in high school. I mean, knew before that, knew his parents really well. So when I said that, took me six to nine months recruiting. I was recruiting his mom, I was recruiting his dad. For him, like I'm literally texting his mom and his dad and they're like, yeah, we know he'd be good. So whatever. But going back to like early when he was a freshman in high school, I was his wrestling coach. He had a crazy good work ethic. Obviously he's really talented, very sharp kid, very smart, intellectual, very well spoken, fun to be around. His energy is electric. And he's always been that way. His dad's kind of the same way. He's just a good person to around. And then, yeah, so he, you know, he graduated, worked his tail off, awesome wrestler. And then he went and played collegiate soccer. He was a collegiate athlete. Again, you might have came over, doesn't matter what college you went to. But I played four years of college there and then got his bachelor's. Degrees and bachelor degree in like human resources or something like that. And so after after graduating, moving back home and then yeah, this is a rate for COVID, maybe for COVID. And he went and got a job being a bartender. And that's just kind of the lifestyle. His sister was working there. So you kind of watch these kids as they come up, what they do during high school and college, and they come back to small town USA and everyone's doing the same thing. They're drinking, they're partying, they go to the bars, whatever. And so you kind of watch these kids come up and it's like if you could just help one kid, you know, see the right direction. So I still reach out to him and he goes to me and say, yeah, then goes to me again. And then I just kept trying and kept texting mom and his dad, but I always knew that had him. And so if you're watching today and you talk to him and he's like, I always knew that I'd be, I'd do, I'd do something big. He's like, I was just waiting for that first person to give me the opportunity. And I saw that a long time ago.

05:52 Jonas Olson

Like I knew he was something special. And so yeah, I was going through a phase, but he's young, he's 21 to 25 years old. And everyone kind of goes through that phase. For the most part, not everyone, but a lot of And so yeah, I got to get him out of that phase. And when I met him, he was still drinking heavily, but then COVID ended up happening. And towards the end of COVID, the bar was like, we're gonna get shut down completely. So he finally gave me the opportunity. And so... I actually took, so we met here, this house, the basement wasn't finished. We had like an old table, it was new, but like it just looked, yeah, was a small little table, a card table. Basement's not finished. And then like I had this big vision and he just sat there and hung out. Was him and Matt, couple of other guys down in the basement. Told them what I wanted to do. And they're like, yeah, let's go do it. So cool. So we ended up flying to Arizona and they had never knocked doors before. I go to Utah first. They go to Arizona. And they're doing like a booth there for another company. And we just practice pitching down the basement, practicing sales. And they go there, I go to Utah, I go to Sam Taggart's event. And like two days in, they're there and they get their tails kicked in. Just their faces get kicked in, zero sales. They're there with another company. Their team doesn't have any sales. They brought in these managers that just weren't very good. And so I ended up flying from Utah, I like a whole lot from Utah, Arizona. And so... James at this point, he was like bagel for like a couple of days straight. And then I went there and I went to knock him with him and Matt had got a sailor too and he just had a lot of experience. And then, so then I just, I went on a knock with James. He had this guy in the ropes. I went there and I closed for him. As soon as he saw me close, he's like, Oh, I'm going to go do this. So the next door, I moved three horses down. He had them sell another one. But I think at that point he had bagel for two weeks straight. Like he said bagel, like zero sales.

07:46 Jonas Olson

Back all day long, never got to sail for two weeks straight. Then he's sent him to Arizona, his face kicked in there, but he had grit. It's a wrestling grit. The wrestlers just have a lot of grit. Know what it takes. Athletes in general, it goes a lot of hard times. They just take some losses here and there. And yeah, you just learn how to deal with it. So he's super competitive, lots of drive. Then again, he fast forwarded to today and that kid can drop 20, 25 sales in a day. He's a killer now. He's an awesome recruiter. He's a good kid. He's a great leader. Everyone that is around him, like anytime you're in the boxing story, everyone just feels so much better. He just has that personality and he's a winner too. He was a state champion as wrestler. You can't teach that kind of Very competitive, super smart. And yeah, I saw that in a young age, but then as he up, up, they go through that phase and I still believed him. Yeah, mean, he owns multiple branches, building a brand new business. Yeah, crushing it. Know, buy a couple houses around the area and use the stuff.

08:43 Dan Leibrandt

No, he's crying. Okay, so it seems like it's kind of intuitive then. You just once you're around enough people, it seems like especially young guys, guys might be, you know, 16 to 25 years old. If you're around enough of them, you can kind of spot out like this guy's talented. This guy's good.

08:51 Jonas Olson

Good.

09:03 Jonas Olson

And I think it just takes being around enough people. And you get around that winner's mentality. Can just, can tell just by the first 30 seconds of talking to you. Lot of people just are really good at getting to talking and then those people who actually go out there and prove themselves. But he was different too. So, I don't know if we talked about this before, but the first year, almost full year, he'd come to my house every single day. Yeah. And he would just say, can I come over? Can I your hot dog? And so he'd come and on my hot dog, we'd chat. We'd about business, we'd talk about work for me, what we did it, like how I started to become successful and what I was doing. And he would take that stuff and he'd apply it to what he was doing. And so like every time he'd come here, he'd learn something and go apply it. And he can't teach that. And was really cool to see. And that's like my first real mentee that like literally crushed. And so once he found that wand, it's like, now you're just trying to find more guys like him. And then he goes through hundreds of people and like. Don't fight very many of them. Yeah, but even the Dillon's the Mats the Jacksons and a bunch of guys that I've come through now But they're from day one. You can almost know. Yeah...

10:07 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. No, he was telling me that story as well that he would just come over every day for a year or so and just pick your brain. And it seems like there's two components there. One is the like willingness and obsess. Obsessing over learning. And then the other part which you talk about a lot is the implementation because some people will be really obsessed with learning. Some people will be really obsessed with implementing just whatever they come up with random ideas and they do it. But learn from the best and then do what the best are doing. Right.

10:38 Jonas Olson

There's nothing crazy new that's out there. Mean, since the dawn of ages, like, archmages have been out there, like, just copying what they do. There's so many books and podcasts at this point. YouTube, there wasn't the stuff that I could come up with. I just to read the book back Yeah, yeah.

10:53 Dan Leibrandt

And would you say for this kind of person, is it worth giving them equity in the business or equity in a location or does it depend?

11:01 Jonas Olson

I think it depends on the way your business is set up. Back then, was like doing what I could offer. He was really talented and I wanted to see him succeed and he obviously has. So it's the best decision that I could make at the time and I'd still do it again for person like himself. But I'm not saying he could get back with me right now. There's multiple ways to spin a cat.

11:22 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. To kind of switch gears here, something else I wanted to cover was mindset. So you just did like a whole big video on this and I wanted to touch this topic at least a little bit because I know you're passionate about it.

11:36 Jonas Olson

Gonna on my efforts.

11:38 Dan Leibrandt

That's alright. So I guess one thing that you were really touching on in that video was work-life balance and how a lot of people are like, you need work-life balance, you need to, I don't know, spend X amount of time working and then just, you know, watch Netflix or just go fishing. Is work-life balance BS or what do you think?

11:59 Jonas Olson

I mean, a lot of people are going to watch this and think I'm crazy. And you hang out with me. I just don't believe there is, especially early on. I say early on, but even still, I watch my mentors and watch what they're doing to this day. There's different levels of business. You wouldn't eat to their level. They're still all in. They're crushing every single day. Yeah, you have to give up some stuff. You got to stop hanging out with your friends that are partying. You got to stop. You know, hanging out with people who are negative, you still want to be around, get into some relationships, right? That could be toxic. I've through all of those. So it's a lot of sacrifice too. Like there's one thing that I don't sacrifice. That's the times of my girls. Like, know, I'll stop what I'm doing for an hour. I'll listen to it with me or whatever I'll be on a meeting, but I'll still be at their events. So there's some things that I have to give up, but I'm not usually working all the time. So as far as work like balance, just, think it's bullshit. Early, especially early on. Like everyone just has, like, they always have an excuse. Oh, it was opening day of bog season or it's I gotta go fishing or it's an advert, whatever. The grandpa's 50, whatever the thing may be. There's just every weekend at something, every Saturday, every Sunday, or it's 4:59 o'clock and on the part of the 4:59 club. Don't buy into any of it. Am I saying that you need to every ounce of your energy at work? No. You have to make time for your kids. If you don't have kids, don't do your excuse or anything. You don't have to go the bar. You don't have to go spend money on dumb shit. You just don't need to. So as far as work-life balance, just don't believe in it. You don't have any money. If you don't have any money, like...

13:42 Jonas Olson

What are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah. You know, like go knock the doors, go send out the emails, go send the text messages. Like you have to put in the work. And the more work you put in, it seems like the luckier get is because you put in the work. Yeah.

13:36 Dan Leibrandt

No, definitely.

13:56 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. Something that relates to that and regarding sacrifices, a big one that you've taken is becoming sober, not drinking. I know you recently had five years, which is huge, and also that office manager slash partner that we were talking about, he just hit four years. So it seems like he's kind of taken after you in that way. And I wanted to ask you, what has the impact of that been for you?

14:20 Jonas Olson

I didn't know that that was gonna happen. I had no clue. But again, if I'm the leader, I gotta set the example, I be the example. So if I'm out there drinking and partying and I look like an idiot, that's what I'm gonna try. And I did it selfish reasons, I wanna get healthier, I wanna lose weight, I wanna be more clear, I had a big vision, and I wanted to execute instead of spending my time and extra money on alcohol or hanging out with my friends on the weekends, I made... Decision to not drink anymore.

14:51 Dan Leibrandt

Was there like, did anything make you make that decision?

14:55 Jonas Olson

So yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's a thing. So I was out at, I was in Utah, but it's a Mormon country. They don't drink anyway. But we were at this event. All Topgolf. We were all golfing. I had, like, I'm so used to going to events, right? And after the events, we're all just go party together. And so it was just like where we were used to. And then I went to this event and there were like very successful people. They were all Topgolf, hitting balls and they brought a big tray of drinks. I grabbed my beer, went and hit the balls, came back, set my beer down. And all those standard drinks were still there. And I was looking around and I'm oh shit, I'm literally the only one drinking. I mean, yes, I was in Mormon country that don't drink regardless. But still they were still there. They were networking still. They're learning from each other. They're like, you know, successful CEOs. Like I spill my beer down. I did grab the next one, should say. And then that's kind of when 75 Hard was starting too. So it was like a big thing back then, still is today. So I decided that was going start at 75 Hard and there was like 75 days where you have to go alcohol free. Not that I had drank a lot because I didn't. I was drinking like maybe once at best twice a month. But if I had one, it wasn't like, if it's like anything in life, I'm like all in or nothing. So I had one weird, had 10 or 12 and that's a lightweight. So yeah, I did 75 Hard and it had been 75 days and then like I felt so good and I was eating clean and I was like. Oh, this is really like how I feel. And then it was like a game against myself. I went three months now, like I'm going to go six months.

16:31 Dan Leibrandt

Thanks,...

16:32 Jonas Olson

And the six months turned into, I'm going to go nine months. The nine months turned into a year. And after a year, I'm like, why would I ever go back? Then now, like I spoke with some conferences and people come up with me afterwards and ask me how I did it. I'd be lying if I didn't say it once or twice a week. Someone reached out to me and said, Hey, how did you get sober? I'm like, I just stopped. I mean, I could get help, but it wasn't like that. It just decided to be done. But turning back to the answer to question, I didn't know the rest of that was going to happen. I didn't realize the people around me were getting healthier. I didn't realize the people around me were going to stop drinking. I didn't realize my friends were going to stop drinking. Like, some of my best friends that were at those events with me, they all quit drinking too. Really? I didn't know that was going to I mean, I don't think that the...

17:19 Dan Leibrandt

Because of you or just...

17:22 Jonas Olson

I mean, I was probably a big influence. But I mean, every single, I'd say again, twice a week somebody reached out to me like, how did you do it? Or how do you feel now? Would you ever go back? And the answer was never go back. I'll never drink again. And now I have nightmares. I had dreams, but nightmares that I like wake up drunk. Had like a nightmare like three weeks ago, like in my car driving backwards, like crazy stuff. And you wake up and yeah. I didn't realize that the people stopped smoking and people started going to the gym. But again, just looking back on it now, I understand why, because again, I'm the leader. I'm the set, I set the bar, right? Yeah, definitely. And like my kids have never seen me drink. Even my oldest, she's 15. I stopped drinking five years ago. So she'd been 10. But even when she was coming up, I never drank around her. My little kids, like Kinza's nine and Laney's six, they've never seen me drink. So we're just like, well, f***.

18:03 Dan Leibrandt

No, that's really...

18:19 Dan Leibrandt

That's awesome. The point of when you are a leader, you have so much influence over people. And also, like you said, the people you attract. If you are the CEO and you're not hitting the gym, you're not being healthy, you are going out and partying all the time, like you said, you're going to attract those people. But also, it seems like the people in your company are almost going to digress to that mean. It's like you set the standard, which really kind of seems stupid in a way. It's like, you know, the whole company should be the standard, but you set the bar and everyone else kind of follows that. They're like, okay, well, Jonas hits the gym every day. Maybe I'll hit it five times a week, but you still, you still set that standard.

19:04 Jonas Olson

Yeah, and so like Lots of change that we saw videos of me from like three years. Yeah, like I have a hard time looking. Yeah, you look so different Yeah, I look the same I lost about you know 20 30 pounds I was packing a bunch of muscle and then I shaved my head and again, it's cool Yeah, so it's hard to but look you should like right then you look back at your old self like you should You should feel that way. Yeah, do you know that there's been a lot of growth there? Yeah...

19:31 Dan Leibrandt

Now, kind of a rule or standard I've set for myself is if you're not cringing at yourself six months ago, you're not growing as much as you should. Like definitely when you look back like three years, it's like, who even is that guy? But even six months, it's like if you're the same person you were six months ago, I don't think you're...

19:48 Jonas Olson

Yeah, that's what Patrick Bet-David says. Have to recruit yourself like four times a year. Yeah. I 100 % believe in that. Like we talked about it in the last video that I did. Like when there's a problem in my business, I can't get it to go out of my head. Yeah. I will sit there for a month straight, 12, 14 hours a day and figure this problem out. This is how I operate. Yeah. Until I figure that thing out.

20:13 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, you have to be a problem solver. Related to Patrick Bet-David, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, I believe. You've gone to several of his events and I didn't even know this, but you went when they were super small, you were like playing basketball with him. It was like you and a hundred guys. What have you learned from Patrick Bet-David and the conferences you've gone to of his?

20:33 Jonas Olson

Yeah, his were like, yeah, go back to like, this is again, four or five years ago at SLS, there were maybe a hundred people there. Of those hundred people, there's probably like 20 of us playing basketball and Adam was in there, Adam Sosnick. And PBD was in there. And again, it's just a, you know, like close group of guys where I was hanging out playing. So like they remember me to this day because we were playing basketball together. So it was way different. Even at the Vault there was like 400 people, 500 people, and now it's like 14,000. It was way different. PBD is a rock star. The Hope group is... As far as what... There's so much that I've learned. Like I don't even know how to unpack it. What I will say though, is for PBD it's the level of standard that he has within his team, like it's through the roof. Like every detail matters. It's pretty incredible to be honest. Everything is just, it's going to the next level. Their team is amazing. They use that one really sharp. I mean, they give you a playbook. It's a three day conference at the, at the, at the Vault, immediately goes to this three day conference all through the booklet. Lots of unpacked there. Last year I the CEO version where I go to a private room with him with maybe 100 other owners. It was like 10 or 12 grand for those tickets. The owner sat right up front next to him, next to Andy Elliott, those guys. Because what I found was at the back, it was like standard seating or whatever. And we'd get into these groups, right? They'd do like these group sessions and they'd put a problem up on the board. Then as a group, we'd solve the problems. So in the back of the room or even in the middle of the room, we'd get in these groups and I'd be in the groups of these people and then they're all just like trying to solve this problem and I'm just sitting there listening. And I was like, yeah, we're not doing that. And I'd solve the problem. And they put the answer from there and they're like, yep, this is the right way.

22:34 Jonas Olson

So what I didn't want to happen again is when I figured that out in the back of the room, I was willing to solve the problems that I need to in the front of the room where I could learn. Because the back of the room I was learning, I was going to teach you. So I would say, make sure you're in the room with the smartest people, which they're in the same room they're just at the front. They're willing to spend the extra money. So I was willing to spend the extra money to get up front, get in those same circles with high level people. Definitely. So yeah, there was a, there's probably a lot, even like SLS, like there's so much stuff through the sales leadership program, like competitions and trips and how to, uh, through strategies, through sales, there's so much to unpack just in that alone.

23:08 Dan Leibrandt

Give me something in sales. Cause I know Patrick Bet-David super big in sales. I've watched a lot of his...

23:13 Jonas Olson

He had like 11,000 agents and of course he's running a competition against universities agencies and so he goes through the competitions that they run, the awards that they give out.

23:24 Dan Leibrandt

For his company, between sales guys.

23:25 Jonas Olson

Between sales guys in offices. Okay, so we have like different types of competitions the trips that they go on Another big thing that we took away from him. It's like every This is a change of the business, but instead of going out on New Year's Eve We all come together as a team and we do our yearly goals. Mmm. Dang So we ever buy a bunch of magazines you order a bunch of magazines bring them in we have read our goals down if you go from my room you'll see like two framed things with like vision boards. So we do our vision boards every New Year's Eve instead of going out drinking.

24:02 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, I know because everyone on New Year's Eve is usually out partying.

24:06 Jonas Olson

So he would do that and then on New Year's Day, he'd have a sales meeting at 8 a.m. Because he knows sales guys, maybe you don't. They're fun, they're outgoing, they're rambunctious. They want to have cool shit, but they're partying and drinking. So he didn't want those guys getting in trouble, they didn't want them getting hurt, they didn't them getting killed. So we'd have a meeting at 8 a.m. On New Year's Day, make sure they'd be there for work. So things are bad that I took away from him that I implemented. Yeah, love that. So if you go to James' house, you go look up on his walls, like he has his vision board the last couple years up on his walls. It's really cool to see, watching, like if you go look up the ones from this year, like things I've checked off the list already.

24:48 Dan Leibrandt

Oh no, it's such a good feeling too when you have a plan for the year you just...

24:53 Jonas Olson

Check.

24:54 Dan Leibrandt

It's awesome. Something else I wanted to mention, which I actually forgot to bring this up, I just wrote it on my phone, is you spending the day with Alex Hormozi. This is such a crazy thing, I can't believe I even forgot to write it in my notes for the show. So you, I think this was like two, three weeks ago, you spent basically a full day with Alex Hormozi. It might have been like eight hours or so. And for the people that are watching, hopefully you know who Alex Hormozi is. He's released some killer books, some of the best books in marketing, in my opinion. And I've personally watched over a hundred hours of his content, consumed all of it. And Jonas is a big fan of him too. So, I mean, I showed it to my friends actually. Dude, he met Hormozi. Like there's no way. You even spent the whole day with him. So I kind of want to unpack that a little bit of like, what did you learn from that? Coaching session, spending the whole day with him. Actually, maybe where we can start is like, how does Hormozi operate and think now that you spent some time with...

25:52 Jonas Olson

He's on another level too. This could be an hour show. Just talking about him. There's so many big takeaways, but I would say that what you see on video is who he is in person. He's probably even a little more chill in person. Super funny. Just a genuinely really good guy. Again, I sat right next to him and saw my pictures. Got anything else on him? I wouldn't say that we're friends, but he knows the way. I know he is. I really like him. I think he really likes me. We had a lot of good conversations. You get outside of that. I'll be back there in December. Working really close to this team. So there's like level one to level three, and it's their portfolio company. And so we're at level three, just before it's portfolio company. We could, but we're not. We're gonna go do that. I wanna, again, I love marketing, I love sales. He's the best sales guy that I know.

26:49 Dan Leibrandt

And say.

26:49 Jonas Olson

As far as marketing goes, mean, there's no one that's ever done it better.

26:54 Dan Leibrandt

No, I mean, he made $100 million in a weekend.

26:57 Jonas Olson

105. Yeah. 105 million a day. Said, he said that he would make 200 million over the weekend, but he said he's a man of his word. He was shutting up a minute. There are so many sales that were coming through afterwards. Like the level, level of detail with him too, I'll talk about this later on, but the things that they had to go through to get to where they're at today. Uh, the one question that I will say on this channel is we're like, what is the biggest surprise that happened to you during the book launch? And it was that nothing broke.

27:31 Dan Leibrandt

They don't want to...

27:32 Jonas Olson

According to plan. He's like, it was kind of boring, actually. I mean, the massive team hired a call center for backup phone calls. His dudes that are making a half million dollars a year are literally answering phones live. Like it took like 400 and some calls. Like it's pretty incredible. The entire team was bought in and he's got some really cool things.

27:55 Dan Leibrandt

And what personal takeaways did you take away for your business? Was there any like, I know he said, if you want to get into this stuff like.

28:03 Jonas Olson

Yeah, his gym was really cool. He, I feel like I work a lot, you work a lot. He works a lot and it's like, he still finds more time. Yeah. Uh, and he's got an awesome team around him. I got to watch how they record content. I got to see how he operates even in his gym, like the level of detail in his gym. Everything's got its place and order. Yeah, it was super cool. Yeah, obviously it was a good time to be there. Back in December, we'll report to work with him again next year. So yeah, it's definitely that maybe one time thing for me. But again, if you want to be at that level of Alex Hormozi, you have to pay to play. He paid Russell Brunson like a million dollars to be in his course. So I paid a fraction of that to be with him for eight hours and he spent 20 minutes with me. Yeah, like one-on-one with me for 20 minutes. Yeah. You know, I spent a lot of money, but it's worth it for me because that one thing that we talked about will probably change my business forever.

29:07 Dan Leibrandt

Dang. Yeah, so anything you're going to implement immediately is...

29:11 Jonas Olson

I was literally at lunch on the phone calling to do changes. That's how my brain works. I'm a high implementer and so when get ideas, especially a big idea like that, had to make changes.

29:27 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, I've noticed that with a lot of successful business owners, particularly in the home services, but I assume all industries. Even from Tommy Mello, I went to his event, Home Service Freedom, think it was like two weeks ago or so. And this is like one of Tommy's main things too, is like, as soon as he hears a good idea, maybe it's from someone he trusts, or maybe it's a new industry innovation, whatever, he's on the phone with his team right away. And I've spent enough time with you that I've realized you're the same way as well. That leads me into my next question here, which is you are at over eight figures with your company, Pest Badger, and you know a lot of other eight figure guys. You just interviewed Jeff Davenport. Mean, you're even hanging out with Alex Hormozi and these other big guys. What is the difference between someone who's in the eight figure range? Even you could say like 10 to $30 million versus someone who's in the seven figure range, kind of just at a million dollars or so, a few million.

30:22 Jonas Olson

Yeah, we all start there, right? Yeah. To that like zero to 250, 500 or two million. And honestly, it's more mindset. Having that learner's mindset. Like always be willing to fail. Get comfortable, it'll be uncomfortable. That's just part of business. Again, if you're just expecting the new people to say congratulations, you might as find a new fucking job. If people, you're just not going to hear it, they just expect it. Honestly, it's just, it's not, it's what you know, right? Who you hang out with. So if you're hanging out people who are doing 500,000 a year, that's all you know, that's probably where you're gonna end up. Now if you hang out with people that are doing, like we've had this conversation, like man, if you have such a big company, you should leave it saying this. I'm like, I just don't feel that way. I feel like we're still so small. Yeah, because I hang out with people who are like Alex who's doing 100 million a day, and to me it's like, we're nowhere near that. Yeah. So like we have a long ways to go, and so I'm still the same way. I'm constantly learning, trying to get better, constantly growing, and so that's just part of it, right? You just gotta learn. Some people just have a really hard time letting go, trusting other people with their business, can be hard in delegating. You can't do all this on your own. You have to start creating a big team. You have to willing to spend the money. Because here's good example, you're doing a million dollars a year. You go bring in someone that's doing, let's just say you're doing a million dollars, you average just 10 % profit margins across the industry. So you're making $100,000 per year, now you go school spending $60,000, $80,000 as manager. Most people see that like, don't have the money to go pay for it. You find the right person, that person will take it from a million to 1.5, 1.6 and pay for it himself. It should 10x himself really.

32:06 Dan Leibrandt

Talk a little bit more about that because you were actually talking, might have Trisha or someone else. I forget the exact story, but essentially if you hired her, you'd have no money left over. Why did you do that and what was the result of that?

32:22 Jonas Olson

Yeah, mean, so we were like, this was a year or two of Pest Badger. We were doing like three million somewhere in there. Yeah, somewhere in there. And the profit margins, you where you grow that fast, you don't put a lot in the marketing, a lot in the sales. So as you scale, profit margins come down, which I'm totally cool with. And so I got to go spend, you know, a hundred plus thousand dollars on this person. It's like, well, shit, I don't have that money. I got good profits, I'm willing to trade that $100,000 profit for a person. Of that caliber and to me the answer is always yes because every time you hire that person they're going to tax themselves. What's your role? She's the director of operations. So she came in, we were good at sales, we were good at marketing. But the operations I had, we weren't so great. I mean to be honest, that's just not where I'm strong. I'm strong in operations but not like she is. So paying people who are much better than what you are, and I feel like again that's probably an ego thing. Like, oh, I'm better at this than anyone. Like, I don't want to be the best at finance. Like, I know enough. I know what I'm talking about. I can read a P&L really well, but I'm never going to know as much as Brian knows that I went to school for. You know, so paying these people what they're worth and then some more. They're so good at their job. And every time it's like a big lever that you can pull, right? Yeah. It's a massive lever to pull. You bring these people in and they shoot you from, you know. 3 million to 7 million. Literally it's been a year and it's like operations are much tighter, the churn rate reduces, everything has SOPs, everything's standardized and yeah, it's been great.

33:57 Dan Leibrandt

It seems like almost the role of the business owner is mainly to just be the visionary, be super ambitious, and to build a team around you. It's not really about you, but it's about how well you can find people. Like I said, that's really strong trait of yours.

34:13 Jonas Olson

Yeah, and again, I know where my talent lies, is building a team in marketing is what I'm good at. And so... Building the rest of the team around me that I know I have to do that. And we're not done building, we're gonna have to hire more C-suite executives and I love doing it's so much fun. I really enjoy it and it's not like one of those hires that are super fast, I hear really like get to know them, know, three to six, seven months, hang out with them, get to know their family, their backgrounds like, find out where they're at in life, right? If they're, like we're still in growth mode, like I feel like we're still like... We're still building, like we're small business still. So I just kind of figured out where they're at in life. And so like two, no, maybe three, so maybe a month, we were hired a regional manager to go out and travel, really just tighten things up even more, make sure everyone's just kind of doing the same thing. And he's 55 years old, super smart, he's very excited to work here. And he knew the role was 80 % travel, and I said, hey, I want you to be honest with me. Like where are you guys in life? You're 55. Is this something you really want to do? Because there's not. I'd just rather you be upfront with me now. Because this is where we're out of business and we're not stopping and we're not slowing down. As long as I'm at helm, we're going to work Saturdays and we're going to work Sundays. That's just who we are. We've always grown because we're to do things if most people are. We're call center open basically 24 hours, 365. So we always have to have that covered. And so. I had this discussion and he's like, you know, that's a really good point. I had this discussion with every single person. Like I set the expectations up front. Yeah, in a way I'm kind of scared in my life because I don't want them to come in here and think that they're going to be lazy. I'm honest with them. Like this is probably going be the hardest you've ever worked no matter where you come from. It's just how we are though. This is how we've been able to grow up.

35:57 Dan Leibrandt

And that's how you track targeting.

35:58 Jonas Olson

Exactly. So he came back the next Monday, he's like, Jonas, I love what you're doing. It's like, I'd love to be at some capacity, but you're right. I'm not that point in my life. I'm like, perfect. Thank you. We'll find the next person. But I have that discussion every single time.

36:14 Dan Leibrandt

Really? Well, that's so powerful. I had another question, kind of unrelated, that I also wanted to ask you, which was, just kind of in general, you can take this wherever you want. You guys are growing so fast. I don't know of anyone growing this fast. I know, I'm sure some people are, but it's really insane, especially because you don't have like a, I don't know. Someone pushing a lot of capital towards it or anything. You guys aren't taking out loans or anything. But you guys are growing so fast. I mean, you got on the Inc. 5000. I think you guys were like 1,187 maybe.

36:52 Jonas Olson

We didn't break a thousand stuff this time. Yeah.

36:55 Dan Leibrandt

No, but still you guys are totally crushing it. And I just want to again take this wherever you want. How are you guys growing so fast?

37:04 Jonas Olson

There are so many pieces of that puzzle. And I you're probably like, oh, that's super cliche. And you're probably not gonna say it's the people. It really is. Yeah, we're good at marketing. Yes, we're good at sales, but without the people we would be anywhere right today. It's like, it's not just one person. It's like a collective team. And like, we're all pushing really hard and we do work hard. We really do. Like when I'm telling you that I'm on the phone till 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night, cause my CFO's and Pacific time zone. It's eight o'clock his time. It's midnight here my director of operations. She's at Eastern Technological. She's worked till 11, 30, 12 o'clock at night. This is what we do every single day, seven days a week. Whether we're traveling or not, Trisha will be traveling to Seattle, constantly working. She'll go overseas with her family and she's constantly working from her computer. So it's like a collective effort of all of us for sure.

37:59 Dan Leibrandt

Does it ever feel like you're demanding too much of people or is it like they're...

38:03 Jonas Olson

I think, I think yeah. But again, going back to that conversation we just had, like I tried to scare them away from beginning, but I the expectations upfront so that they know what they're getting into. Yeah. And not everyone in their gear makes it. They really can't handle it. But you might demand it for sure. Think everyone that's listening to this podcast or knows me very well, they would say, yeah. But I'm super easy to work with too, as long as you work hard. Definitely. There's a few things that drive me crazy. It's laziness in people who don't take care of my stuff. You know what mean? It's not that hard. Yeah, definitely. I still miss you like that. But I actually be able to go into any one of my vehicles at any time of the day and go trade it in. Not worry about how clean and dirty it drives me. Bunkers.

38:50 Dan Leibrandt

I get it. Can tell. One of the last things I want to cover here, which we actually mentioned in the book, is you are a big proponent of EOS. You guys use EOS in your business and some people don't even know what it is and a lot of people don't have it implemented. Can you just briefly talk about what it is and why it's so powerful?

39:11 Jonas Olson

Yeah, it's just an Entrepreneurial Operating System. And there's so many different types of models like this. But it's just a framework that I got taught maybe five or six years ago from my mentor. Just having meeting cadences and meeting with the team offsite and just really dial in your KPIs, meeting with weekly cadences every single week. We didn't hire an implementer. Because there were so many people that went around in BFE. So it's just the closest one was at the time was Milwaukee and then drive up here like six hours and just didn't work. So yeah, we just felt really closely. We do like, we do a meeting every single Wednesday at 11 and then we do like a mini EOS meeting with all of our other branches. On Thursdays. So we start, it's like a 20 minute meeting, we start at 8.45 and I think my last meeting is like around noon or one o'clock, so every 20 minutes I'm on a new meeting. Really? Yeah, but it's just tracking all the KPIs that we go through at a company level down to the branch level, making sure that they're hitting their KPIs to stay on that trend. Mean, cancellations, production, COGS, another good one, reviews, another good one. See what else. There's ARs on there. Payable. Sales in general. Go through leads. Closing percentage for branch. So that's on the top of the top of my head. We go through everything we.

40:18 Dan Leibrandt

And just real quick, what are some of those top KPI?

40:48 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, and by the way, all the things that we've covered on the show and much more is all in the book. So we cover KPIs, we cover partners, hiring A players, literally all the stuff that we've covered here. It's much more in depth. So I'd seriously recommend you can just go to Amazon, search up Zip Code Kings and either the pre-order will be in the description or if you're watching this a little bit later, then you can just go ahead and order it right away. But I think it's been a great show. Thanks for tuning in. The last question I have for you, is what is your message to pest control owners? What do you want to leave them off with? What do you want to tell them?

41:24 Jonas Olson

Think bigger.

41:27 Dan Leibrandt

Think bigger. You said that's what your mentor, Jonathan Potosny. Really?

41:32 Jonas Olson

There's so much potential out there. There's so much money. And like Grant Cardone says, who has my money? Just go get it. Who has the money? There's so many, there's so much potential. Don't have limiting beliefs. Like it's hard to get it, especially at first. I wasn't always that way either. But now that I see the potential of what we've done, and it's such a short time, even what I'd done in the first place was pretty cool. And like we're still so small, but we have big aspirations to take down. Yeah, a lot more.

42:02 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, when you keep hanging out around these big players, it's just like, how am I any different from him?

42:10 Jonas Olson

I could go on a tangent there too. Yeah, no, do it. It. That's where I struggled. Like I'd go meet with these, I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone. That's not it. But I'd go hang out with these people who were throwing off some big revenue numbers. Was like, dang, it's a big company. And then I'd go hang out with them. Wait, that's just a random guy. And we'd it and like all these people, all these people were super excited to go meet this guy, Patrick Bate, that David met last year.

42:29 Dan Leibrandt

Random guy...

42:40 Jonas Olson

Doing big numbers of revenue. We went sat down, we're having the discussions. Like what I'm telling you, every single person wants to go by this guy, everyone wants to go sit by this guy. So we were all, I there's 12 of us at the table. And this, again, I'm not patting myself on the back. At the of the conversation, he was telling me, don't ask me, you just ask Jonas. So I told Jonathan, who's my mentor, the situation that I was in. I was like, John, I don't know if it's because of you that every time I hear of a big business, it's going to be a Jonathan Dockett. At the CEO level. And they're not. And so I've been around him for so long and I've gained so much knowledge from that guy. So that's just what I expect. When I hear people do those big numbers, I go sit by them like... That's not what I expected. So I know where our potential lies. My potential, my team's potential. We're capable of some big things for sure.

43:37 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, I've noticed that with the high level people that I've met too. Like, how's there any difference between me you? Like I definitely see a difference between like me and Elon Musk, but...

43:45 Jonas Olson

Yeah, I've never met you. I've been just listening to him. Yeah, yeah.

43:51 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, but a lot of these guys are doing eight figures, even nine figures. Like, I don't... It's totally possible. Yeah, exactly. Well, great. This has been a great show. Thanks for tuning in, guys. And Jonas, where can people find you on social media?

43:57 Jonas Olson

I've been doing it for 30 years.

44:04 Jonas Olson

Yeah. At this point, just search my name, think. Yeah. Again, you can find us on YouTube, multiple channels on YouTube, multiple channels on TikTok, Facebook. When you type my name, I'm pretty much going to pop up at this point. Yeah.

44:17 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. So yeah, make sure to go check out his podcast. Actually forgot to mention that at the beginning of the show, but that is the Pest Control Millionaire podcast. I think he's done over 150 episodes or so. Totally crushing it. Number one podcast in Pest Control. Also follow him. Make sure to follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, all the platforms, like he said.

44:37 Jonas Olson

Instagram.

44:41 Dan Leibrandt

And also I'd like to give a quick shout out to the new channel that we're starting, which is at Pest Control Millionaires on YouTube. That is at Pest Control Millionaires on YouTube. We're going to be posting a lot of content out there. We have a 72 part video series that we're going to be releasing there. We're going to be posting some of the case studies from our group. We're going to be posting, you know, some private coaching calls that will end up going on there. A lot of fun stuff. We're just going to stack that channel with tons of free value. So, If you guys are interested in learning more, growing your pest control company, definitely go check out that channel. Go check out all of Jonas's socials. All those links will be in the description. Thanks again so much for tuning in guys. It's been a blast.