Ryan Marshall on Service Managers, Technician Upgrades and Cutting Route Miles in Half

00:00 Dan Leibrandt

Hey everyone and welcome back to Pest Control Legends. I'm your host Dan Leibrandt and today I'm with Ryan Marshall. Ryan is the founder and CEO of Vinx Pest Control, a multi-state operation headquartered in Utah with offices across South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia servicing tens of thousands of homes. He got his start in door-to-door sales at a security company and has now spent the last 11 years building Vinx into one of the top players in the industry. Today we're talking about how he went from one shop to multiple locations in three states, transitioning from a sales guy to an owner, and how he plans to scale in the future. Now without further ado, Ryan, welcome to the show.

00:39 Ryan Marshall

Thanks, appreciate it Dan.

00:41 Dan Leibrandt

Of man. So walk me back to the beginning of your journey, Ryan. How did you initially get into this whole pest control thing?

00:50 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, I got I got into door to door sales. Back while I was going to college and was selling alarm systems for a little bit and had had some buddies that convinced me to go over and sell pest control and went out started selling pest control. I liked it. But the thing that I didn't love is was working for other companies and as a sales guy, I you promise certain things and you hope that the company delivers on them. And unfortunately, the company I worked with didn't really deliver on a lot of those promises, didn't do a great job. So I chatted with my wife and decided it was time to you know, be able to fulfill on the service side as well. So we started up.

01:31 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome, so that was 11 years ago, right?

01:35 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, 2015.

01:37 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, cool. And did I see that you had a marketing company too?

01:43 Ryan Marshall

We do have, we have a Shift Marketing and that's just kind of our door to door side of the business. And so it's just our own door to door sales reps that go out and work with us. So it's not, it's not marketing per se and that we're doing marketing for other people, but we just kind of, created that, that barrier, I guess, or that separation from the pest control company.

02:04 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, cool. So talk to me about the first few years of Vinx. What was that like?

02:10 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, dude, was it was fun and wild. I started it actually in Utah and Costco had just given me a brand new credit card with ten thousand a ten thousand dollar limit. And I already had a white truck and I ordered some stickers online. I wouldn't pass the state test in Utah, which was super simple back in the day and got started from there. And so it was it was interesting because I think I'm sure a lot of guys who've done sales can relate to this. I mean, you. Initially think like, sales is the tough part, right? Like I can get the customers, it's got to be easy to service them. And I remember, you know, I learned very quickly, I knew nothing about the service side. So I'd go tell promise somebody we could take care of their ants and then go sit in my truck and YouTube how to take care of ants and see if I could figure it out. So that's kind how it started out. Ran some small teams in Utah and just recruited some local guys and really it was kind of the Wild West, think for, you know, as far as starting a business and there's so much that you don't know that you don't know. Right. And all of sudden you get in and you have to deal with, you know, payroll and payroll taxes and QuickBooks and, you know, software and collections and all this kind of stuff that as, as a sales guy, you're, know, my eyes weren't really open to yet, but they got open pretty quickly.

03:32 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, so you were really solid in sales, but not so much on the service side. Now fast forward to now, how has your service evolved and how has it changed?

03:43 Ryan Marshall

Yeah. I mean, I think a big part of that was, know, we, really, initially we kind of tried to handle it on our own or we'd get somebody that had a little bit of experience. Now we're to the point where, you know, when we go hire service managers in a location, like we're, hiring really sharp people that have been in the industry for awhile. And we have people here at the company that know way more about the specifics of pest control and you know, the service side and all that kind of stuff. So. So we've come a long way. We've definitely come a long way on that.

04:20 Dan Leibrandt

Interesting. Yeah, talk to me more about what you're looking for in service managers.

04:23 Ryan Marshall

So a service manager with us is really like we're pushing to have service managers that drive really high performance. And you know, that's probably one of the biggest changes I think in hiring that we made from early on. And this is going to be a long answer to an easy question, Dan, but like,...

04:46 Dan Leibrandt

No, please.

04:48 Ryan Marshall

Our first service manager, remember down in, like here in Utah, we really didn't have like a service manager, right? We just had a few technicians. We did, we did open a branch in Dallas and I remember when we opened that, and we, sold that branch a year ago. So we're not, we're not down in Dallas anymore, but the first summer we opened that branch, we found a service manager and he was making 16 bucks an hour. And man, you get what you pay for, right? We were, we were tied on cash trying to bootstrap everything and, you just, you don't think you have the cash for it, but the service manager makes a huge difference and it just service of quality turnover and technicians, turnover and technicians creates a lot of, attrition, right? It's really hard to keep things consistent for customers. And so fast forward to now, you know, we're, looking for service managers that number one, know that it's not an office job. Right. We really push the idea with our service managers that you can have up to an hour of office time per day. But outside of that, we want you in the field. We want you in the field teaching the technicians how to get upgrades. You know, get, bring up to the customers that they should get termite protection or recommend, you know, rodent exclusion or any of the other packages we have. So service managers are very active. They're, they're out in the field. They're working alongside the guys. They're coaching them up on how to interact with customers, making sure that, you know, they're being safe drivers, getting good reviews, all that kind of stuff. So if I had to simplify it, I mean, we're, really looking for somebody who's really hungry and. And I'd say hungry to work alongside the team, drive performance and a service manager that's, you know, they.

06:42 Ryan Marshall

They've got a really good drive to create a high performance team with really good customer service. And, I know the service side is really important, but sometimes that almost outweighs the service side is, being doing a really good job, taking care of customers and interacting with them. So somebody that can kind of lead from the front on that.

07:01 Dan Leibrandt

Mm, okay, got it. And you said you want them to be super experienced as well?

07:08 Ryan Marshall

I think somebody is experienced probably in the industry so they know, you know what they're doing, but leadership is a really, really big factor to that. Right. Like just because somebody has been in the industry for 20 years, if they haven't had the opportunity to lead people and to, you know, to, figure out how to coach them up and to hold them accountable, it's going to fall apart really quickly. So and we've made some of those mistakes along the years where we've hired guys that had a lot of experience, but you know, maybe didn't have the type of service manager experience we're looking for. And I would say this, I mean, you have the traditional managers that are, know, some of them, it looks so different at different companies. Some of them, a service manager at their company is very much, you know, Hey, you're in the office half the time and the other half the time you're checking on quality of service and. And really just... Kind of making sure people stay in line as opposed to, you know, now that I'm thinking this, man, we ought to change it to service leader, right? Somebody that's out there leading from the front and educating guys and Hey, I noticed you interacted with the customer this way. Let's, let's kind of polish that up a little bit. So that's really the goal. I think, I mean, I think, I think, you know, one big thing we're pushing for, and this kind of ties in with the door to door side. And I know I'm going off a little bit on a tangent here, but...

08:14 Dan Leibrandt

Mmm.

08:36 Ryan Marshall

When it comes to door-to-door door-to-door companies are kind of notorious for attrition Right you go out we're really good at convincing people to switch over from another company or give us a shot and a lot of times lack on the service side and so there's a lot of fall-off but If we can really elevate that service side and make customers feel like we're taking really good care of them we've got good communication and good processes and that's really where I think we bridge a lot of the gaps on a lot of the door to door that may not be as refined on the service side. And we actually get to keep a lot more of what we bring on.

09:13 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. So you mentioned the importance of leaders. I mean, I kind of an interesting question here. Do you think people are just born natural leaders or can you also train them up to be a leader?

09:26 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, I think a little bit of both, right? Some people kind of have that drive. But for some people, that drive is, you know, you need to kind of harness it a little bit. And they need some guidance on that, whether that's, you know, learning how to work with people. I think if you know, a big thing with a leader is that they're out there, they're willing to get their hands dirty. They're willing to do what they're asking other people to do. So I think that work ethic and leading from the front, think that's something that they're kind of born with, right? They want to do that. They recognize that. But then the other side of leadership is I think really helping connect, with your people and what their, what their motivation is, what their why is. Right. And that's a big thing. I probably have more experience with that on the door to door side, because you got these kids that leave home to go get door slammed in their faces and cops called on them and you know, told no a bunch and. One of the things I've learned over the years as a leader is that they're not out there for me, right? They're not out there for my motivations. I've got to figure out what makes that person tick. And I think service managers, you know, are similar, right? Like we can do, we can push, you know, a big thing we started pushing was upgrades and getting, you know, technicians to recommend Sentricon. That was a big like rebrand amongst the culture of our technicians. And it was tough. Right? Like it was really tough because you have guys that are like, dude, I don't want to do this. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to talk to people. And some of those guys, we had to go sit down and have conversations with them and, almost help them see how this is going to benefit them. Right? These are guys that are trying to save up money to buy houses. And it's like, Hey dude, what if, what if I can show you a way to save up, you know, an extra four or 500 bucks a month? And all of sudden, if we can find something that, that motivates them, it becomes a different game. It's not us pushing them, but it's us kind of leading them into it. And so I think that's super important from a leadership standpoint. I think that's something that, that we really push to find in service managers, but also to continue to train them up in that. Because I think that they're really the people that are out there interacting with the technicians every single day and helping to kind of elevate the tribe, I'd say.

11:50 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. Yeah, I interviewed Preston Peterson a few days ago who owns Alta Pest Control, massive company. And we were talking about the same thing. And for people that might not be clear, what Ryan's talking about is, maybe you can clarify that you're talking about paying your technicians more for them to sell more services. So they upsell and they get a commission on that.

12:17 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, we're really careful not to say the sell word or the upsell word because a lot of technicians get panic attacks. So we call it upgrades.

12:21 Dan Leibrandt

Hahaha...

12:27 Ryan Marshall

But yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, that's a big thing we did and really helping the technicians reframe it as the customers are already expecting you to notice that kind of stuff and let them know. Right. Like one of the, might be a cheesy example, but one of the examples we gave is, man, if you take your car to Jiffy Lube to get an oil change, like without, without fail, right? They come in and they're like, here's your, here's your air filter. It's dirty. And they're showing you all this other stuff. Well, imagine you go get an oil change at Jiffy Lube and you have a flat tire and the guy doesn't tell you anything. Right. And you leave there and you're like, dude, I have a flat tire. And you go back to Jiffy Lube and you're like, Hey dude, I have a flat tire. Did you not notice that? And he's like, well, I noticed it, but you didn't hire us for that. You hired us to change the oil. Right. And so we kind of helped our technicians see that, Hey, this is our expertise, whether they're hiring us to look for termites and recommend termites. It doesn't matter. They're hiring us for pest control and we're the experts and we just got to keep our eyes open and make sure that, you Hey, Mrs. Jones. I noticed you don't have any termite coverage. Got a wood pile right next to your house. Most of our, customers have termite coverage. You might be asking what you're doing, right? Just, training them and getting them to see it a little bit differently. And I think when it, when it comes to leadership, that's a big, that's a big. Challenge and a big push as leaders that we need to make and we need to get our leaders to make is once again, how can we get people to be motivated for their own reasons, right? Not for mine. Cause I want to get my override and I want to get my bonus and I want to get it's, you know, and I think it's Brian Tracy. I think it was him that said this or Zig Ziglar, but they, it said, if you can just help enough people and this isn't sales, but if you can just help enough people get what they want.

14:14 Ryan Marshall

Then you can get what you want. I think that applies a lot to leadership.

14:20 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Zig did say that. I interviewed one of his top mentees, Howard Partridge. And yeah, the analogy I like there is, same way as Jiffy Lube, going to the doctor, most people go to the doctor for a checkup maybe every six to 12 months, kind of like pest control, just come in, make sure everything's okay. But imagine if you had cancer and the doctor didn't tell you that you had cancer. Mean, wouldn't you be devastated that now you have like stage four cancer and they didn't tell you and. Same way, maybe it's termites in your house, and now they've done irreplaceable damage. They have a right to know the problems that they have, and you have the expertise to diagnose. So around that, what are your top things to upsell or upgrade customers on?

15:51 Ryan Marshall

Yeah. Man. I think I think first and foremost, you do need to help them reframe that right. And I've already talked a little bit about that. And helping them. A lot of the technicians just break the mindset. A lot of technicians like doing the technician work. And they don't I mean, they think of like sales is kind of like, dude, I don't want to be pushy. I don't want to give people something and try to convince them of something. And so they kind of psych themselves out and talk themselves down from that. So I think that's a big one is just breaking, breaking that mindset and seeing it as something is like, this kind of does fall within the expectation, right? The example you gave about the doctor. And I think the next one is you need to make it really easy for them. You need to give them the tools that they feel like they're qualified to go out and talk about that. And so, Instead of making it overly complicated, we need to just dumb it down and make it really simple. Not because, not because they're not smart enough to handle it, but it's just the more simple that something is, the more they can grasp the idea of it. And so for a long time, the push was, Hey, listen, we don't care if you get any upgrades, but you have to everybody who's home, you have to talk to them. And so in meetings, we're role playing, we're not role playing this big sales pitch. We're just role playing and saying, Hey, Mrs. Jones, just got done doing your service. By the way, I noticed you don't have any termite coverage. Most of our customers do. Do you mind me asking what you're doing? Right? Like it's, that exact little simple phrase. And if we can get them doing that enough, then they're going to get comfortable with it. And then from there, you know, they'll have customers be like, well, I, yeah, I don't have it. How much is it? And then they don't know where to go from there. Right? So then we got to get them, we got to bridge the next gap and show them how to explain pricing a little bit.

17:48 Ryan Marshall

Or say, Hey, listen, if you ever get stuck, call your service manager, right? Your service manager is a little bit more, you know, can, can push on that. And, so I think it's enabling them, giving them some of those tools to be able to do that. But then Dan, a really big part of it is where we really started to turn the corner on that is when we has had guys going out and getting, you know, five, six, seven, eight, 10 a month, on a team.

18:14 Ryan Marshall

All of a sudden it's, the Roger Bannister effect, right? Roger Bannister is the famous guy that broke the four minute mile. I love that story. That's actually one of our core values is be the Bannister. Cause I think that applies in our lives or business, you know, work any, you know, relationships anyway, any area. But once we have people on the team that are going out and doing it, they're like, dude, Joe got 10 last month. Like Joe, Joe's a bum. Like if Joe can do it, I can do it. And,...

18:20 Dan Leibrandt

Mmm.

18:40 Dan Leibrandt

Hahaha...

18:41 Ryan Marshall

And so that, that kind of becomes the, you know, the pack mentality, right? If nobody's doing it, nobody's going to want to do it. And then the, don't know how many numbers I'm on a third, fourth part of that or whatever I think is accountability and just making sure that we're talking about it. We're talking about the meetings. We're shouting people out. You know, somebody goes and gets some upgrades, you know, Hey dude, you got three last week. Like, dude, give us your pitch. Tell us about it. Hey, by the way, this guy just made an extra, you know, 350 bucks or whatever it was. Right. So kind of making a dig. Big deal about it and it's really just focusing on it I think over time that helps to kind of correct that.

19:23 Dan Leibrandt

That's awesome. Love that. And I love that story of the four minute mile too. It's so infamous for people that don't know. What was his name? Robert Bannister? Roger Bannister. Broke the, no one could break the four minute mile and as soon as he did, then all these other people followed after and it shows that a lot of success is kind of just a mindset or a mental barrier thing. And you mentioned that that...

19:33 Ryan Marshall

Roger Bannister. Yep. Yeah.

19:48 Dan Leibrandt

Was one of your core values. What are your other core values?

19:52 Ryan Marshall

Dude, you're to put me on the spot like that.

19:54 Dan Leibrandt

Ha.

19:55 Ryan Marshall

We, have a row together, win together. I'm a big fan of Boys in the Boat. And, we talk a lot about how here, here at, you know, a lot of people say at their company, like we're a family, family. I did a training with our team and, know, I talked about, man, what's, what does it mean when I say we're a family, everybody got all excited and the next slide had it crossed out. And I'm like, that's the F word guys. We don't, we don't use family here. We're a team. And, we've got a big saying on the wall that says tryouts are every day. So, or sorry, tryouts are today. So, man, the other, the other core values, I should know these, I think integrity's on there. I've got a poster with them right outside my office. And now that, now that you ask me and put me on the spot, dude, Dan, I don't remember him. This is embarrassing. I gotta get these things. Okay.

20:43 Dan Leibrandt

You're all good. I've asked people that before and the same things happen. So no worries. No worries I want to pivot here I want to ask you about door-to-door since that's kind of how you got your start So are you guys still doing door-to-door?

21:01 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, so how big is that in terms of your growth? You guys are growing fast, big company. Is that a big part of where you're getting leads in sales?

21:11 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, it is. It is. And, you know, we're making a big effort to kind of diversify that. Personally, I feel like door to door is one of the best ways to open up a new market just from a route density standpoint. I mean, you know, you start pumping SEO and pay-per-click stuff. Like, dude, you might get a call from, you know, on one side of the city and then 20 miles away on the other side of the city. And it's kind of hard to... To do that super fast. And so, yes, we are still doing door to door, but we do hope within the next year or so to transition to where our door to door really goes and opens up markets for us. And then we're trying to make a big push to learn how to do more of what you do is growing these brands organically and figuring out the marketing side of things.

22:04 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely, yeah, no, a lot of the top owners that I've talked to specifically mentioned that strategy as well. When you're opening in new markets, that's the main use case for door-to-door. So what has worked for you guys in door-to-door? Like what are your keys to success there?

22:19 Ryan Marshall

Man, it's a door to door is just a numbers game and a mindset game, right? Like it's, if anybody does door to door, I mean, it's kind of similar to getting technicians to get upgrades, right? Like we need to change the mindset and kind of get the tribe to buy into, we're, knocking late hours. We're, you know, we're, doing role plays. We're practicing. When the team is excited and one guy's selling really well, it's easier for the other guys to sell well. And success really breeds success on, on a good door to door team. So I mean, I think it's, do door door to door is fun. Like I really do love that side of it. Like I actually missed going out for full summers. Say that. And if I was out there for a few weeks, I'd probably, I'd probably remember how hot it is and how exhausting it is, but...

23:11 Dan Leibrandt

Haha...

23:12 Ryan Marshall

It's just a rush, right? And to be able to go out and go to war with everybody and go, you know, go rip some some pest control deals is just kind of a fun thing. So I think leadership is a huge one there. Training, getting everybody really prepared. Sales is just, you know, the more prepared you are, like you say dang near the same thing on every door, right? People have the same four objections. And as long as you have your responses like memorized to the point where they're just reactions Then you can get really good at it and so I would say that leadership and just making sure you have guys that are really prepared And finding ways to keep them motivated...

23:58 Dan Leibrandt

And you mentioned that obviously there's a good amount of attrition that comes with door-to-door. You mentioned a little bit of how to prevent that attrition and people churning out. Let's go deeper on that. How do you prevent people churning out, especially on something that's higher attrition like door-to-door?

24:16 Ryan Marshall

Yeah. I think the biggest thing, the biggest predictor, I would say from like on an attrition standpoint, I'd say probably two things. One is expectations, right? If somebody's expectations are, Hey, you're never going to see another bug again, man, we're going to fail as a company. We're not going to live up to that. And so if we can, if we can kind of rein in what the door to door reps say and one of the best things we found we use Apruv and I don't know if you've heard of them or know what they are But they do these AI welcome calls. So as soon as a customer gets a sales rep signs up a customer They have an app on their their iPad that they hand over and it just AI kind of welcomes to him You know says hey Dan I'd like to welcome you as a customer to Vinx Pest Control and it just kind of goes through the details of the contract, right? It's 12 month agreement. You're paying this much every month this is what is included. This is what's not included. If you cancel, this is how the cancellation fee works. And by doing those, I think the sales reps know that that's going to happen at the end of the sale. And so it makes them be a lot more careful about what they're saying. So I'd say that's one. Another one that we found a long time ago, we did kind of a saying it's a study is probably too official of a term, but we found out that our, customers that paid I think it was under like $69 on their initial service Or if they paid like over 99 or something like that We did two categories and the customers that paid more were way more likely to be good customers It was like they were like three times more likely to be a good customer at the end of the year So we actually started doing bonuses for our guys. So basically we'll take a floor and say hey anything you charge over I think it's over 75 bucks on the initial service. They actually get to keep all of that. So if they charge If they charge 150 bucks, I mean they get that extra 75 as a bonus And the upside for us is that we get better customers, right? They've got a little bit more skin in the game and it's just like if you go to buy a truck And you got no money down and then six months later, you can't make your payment You're like we'll take the truck. But if you put 20 grand down In six months, you know, you're gonna find a way you're gonna beg borrowers still to make that payment to keep the truck to not lose that equity. So I think that's a big thing that we've done is, know, pushing guys get a little bit higher pricing on the initial. And then the next thing I would say is, you know, and this kind of goes along with expectations, but just making sure that our technicians really deliver on that. They're making sure to read the notes. They're making sure to communicate really well with the customer. You know, email sequences that are going out. We just, you know, that's a big thing that we're building out now and getting more detailed with is just email sequences of, are you seeing bugs? Call us. We do free reservices, reminding customers about that kind of stuff. But those are some of the things that we've done to kind of keep sales reps honest and give us our best shot at taking good care of people.

27:30 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. I think I actually have heard of Apruv. That what the U-A-P-R-U-V? Okay, okay, that's right. Okay, so you use them. What other software do you use?

27:47 Ryan Marshall

Well, we use yeah, so we use that Man, I'm trying to think we have we use a software called Pronto It's pretty much like Slack but for pest control companies and that's been really good just to keep everybody kind of on the same page and service team You know sales guys office staff managers like yeah, we have all these different channels. We use FieldRoutes. We've like that maybe a little bit more on the Apruv side, they, some other stuff. So we do the welcome calls, but they also do, this has been huge for us is they do, KPIs for our technicians and we actually do bonuses off of those KPIs for our technicians. So they have four, four things that it tracks on there. It tracks their upgrades every month, which, we push for them to get five a month and it tracks their reservice rate and they get a bonus if their reservice rate falls below a certain amount. It tracks our driving score and that's been a huge thing for us. Like we've, our driving score has gone way up since we put it in our technicians hands, which hopefully our insurance comes down a little bit because of that.

28:55 Ryan Marshall

And then the fourth one is proof of service. And this has been, this has actually been a pretty big one that we've, we've done over the last maybe six months. And, basically, we're recording a video every time we go to a customer's house. It's a selfie style video. You know, pest control is something interesting because Dan, we're selling the absence of something, right? We're not selling anything tangible that the customer can put in their hand. And so I think a lot of customers, they're not home during the day. They don't see us. They might, you know, they haven't seen us for a year because we come while they're gone. They haven't seen any bugs. And I think it's easy to look at that charge every month on their, on their card and say, maybe we can cancel the service.

29:20 Dan Leibrandt

Mmm.

29:39 Ryan Marshall

And so what those proof of service videos have helped us do is, you know, it's selfie style video. Hey, Becky, Ryan here with Vinx just got your service done. They'll flip the camera around, go show them some stuff they did on the house. And man, we've gotten great feedback from that because customers were like, thank you so much. Or, Hey, you had a massive wasp nest here. I knocked it down and took care of it. Like they may not have even known, but now we're, kind of building that value as time goes on and they're, they're almost being reminded. Right. Every single time we're out there of what we're doing, what we're taking care of. Cause I doubt many customers go into their email and, or log onto the FieldRoutes thing and read the notes that the technicians leave. They probably don't see that. So those are some of the main ones. I don't know. I don't have any softwares. We use Smarter Launch. That's been pretty good for our technicians or the inspectors to go like, you know, do some really good proposals for exclusions and, some of the other services we do, but that's kind of our tech stack, man. It's not, it's not too in depth.

30:43 Dan Leibrandt

Cool, no, that was helpful. I always like to ask that. I feel like I ask it on most of my shows just because people are asking me and I'm curious. So want to get the consensus like, is everyone using this for reviews? Is everyone using this CRM? So yeah, that's definitely helpful. And something you said, which I've actually never heard it articulated this way and I've never articulated it this way, but you're right, pest control, you're not marketing anything tangible. And me, especially as a marketing guy, I've found it makes it kind of harder to market. Because maybe you have like a dealership, a car dealership. You can show, hey, here's this new Maserati, here's this new Mustang, it looks super good. But it's kind of hard to market pest control because there's not, like you said, you're actually marketing the absence of something, not something tangible.

31:32 Ryan Marshall

Yep. Yeah. Mean, with, mean, somebody buys it for peace of mind, right? They buy it because how they're going to feel not having to worry about bugs. And like I was saying, if they haven't seen bugs for a year, cause you're doing your job really well, it's very easy to kind of be like, maybe I don't need that anymore. Right? Like I hate to say it, but from a, from a pest control company standpoint, maybe I could argue that it's maybe okay that they see bugs, you know, every once in a while, the occasional bugs. So they still are like, I do need this, you know,...

32:03 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no definitely and I also like that you were having Your text to selfie style videos. I've heard I've heard some people do like a picture after the service just something to be there with a note But I think selfie really takes it to the nth degree Especially I think like you were saying if the person isn't home, I mean, it's like what am I paying for? I don't see this person. I don't see bugs so it gives them a reason to keep paying. I really like that.

32:31 Ryan Marshall

Yeah. You know, something interesting that I didn't anticipate being beneficial about those videos is we got to see how our technicians talk to our customers. And it, there were a lot of technicians that I was like, my gosh, like that's what you're saying to customers. This is awful. Or, Hey, how did, how did this guy get high? This guy can't even formulate sentences, you know, like on some of these videos and so that's been something really good for us to be able to see, guys, we don't mention this. We don't talk about that. Like, you know, just once again, we need to set the expectations right and have that consistency company wide. And that was, that was kind of a fun, you know, I remember watching those first few videos, just like, I was just wincing. Was like, my gosh, I can't believe that guy just said that. So I think we've cleaned it up since then though.

33:20 Dan Leibrandt

Nice. Something fascinating you mentioned there and also earlier in the show. For example, you said that you don't say the word sell. Can you talk to me about like the importance of words and which ones you guys purposely don't say or do say?

33:36 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, I mean... So like in door to door, right? This is a big thing that we train all our guys on, right? We don't say contracts, we say agreement, we don't say kill, we say take care of, we don't say chemical, we say products. I mean, I think we all have associations with words, Like, I mean, take somebody that has, you know, they're scared of spiders, they got arachnophobia. Like you say spider, their heart rate's probably gonna go up a little bit, you know? Or we all have the images that kind of come to mind. And so it may not affect everybody the same, I think, you know, we've got to be conscientious of the fact that. That words do affect people, right? When we're talking to customers and they've got pets and they've got kids, if we're saying, you know, yeah, we're going to put a bunch of chemical all over your yard and it's going to kill all the bugs. Like, you know, nobody's going to love that. And so applying that to the technicians, you know, once again, I mean, they, a lot of those technicians are, you know, they've been told that other companies, hey, you need to do sales. You know, we really had to, you know, and I hear the technicians say it sometimes, I got four sales. I got whatever. But initially, you know, we really pushed it that way because, you know, yeah, people are just upgrading the service they have. That's it. You know, we're just we're just educating them on, know, there's a little bit more. We have an acronym that we've actually used with our technicians. It's CARE and it's the four steps for termites. You got to check, you got to check the yard around the house, you got to ask them. You've got to... You gotta ask them about it. Man now I'm drawing a blank on this one check ask Dude this is gonna drive me nuts Dan. Let me look this up Dude we have we have these on the wall. This is funny that I don't remember these but I know the last one's explained pricing, but...

35:45 Ryan Marshall

Anyway, dude, I'm not seeing it right now. We can just keep going. I'll just strike out twice on remembrance stuff,...

35:48 Dan Leibrandt

No, you're all good. I get it...

35:56 Dan Leibrandt

Good, now I get it. When you're on the show, it's just sometimes you draw blank.

36:05 Ryan Marshall

Recommend dude there it is check ask recommend and explain pricing gee whiz that was driving me nuts...

36:07 Dan Leibrandt

There we go. Okay, cool got it so that's you said that's for termites...

36:17 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, for termites.

36:20 Dan Leibrandt

Gotcha. Let's see. Okay, yeah. So something else I wanted to ask, we'll pivot again. So you guys operate in three states. You were operating in four and you've got five locations right now. Talk to me about managing all those different locations because obviously you can't be in all places at once. So placing those managers and kind of doing top level managing of your staff and the hierarchy.

36:49 Ryan Marshall

Yeah. I mean, so one thing that we've really done, I think, going back to the Boys in the Boat analogy, Like row together, win together. What I love about that movie, and we've talked a lot to our team about that, is if we're all in the boat, we've got to be on the same team, at the same cadence, going in the same direction. And so one thing we've started doing, we've been doing this for maybe the last 10 months, is we do a monthly team huddle. And it's all the service managers and their location, know, we bought them a griddle, they, cook breakfast for the team. And then we do a company wide thing to just kind of get everybody on the same page. We do a lot of shout outs. We recognize, you know, the technicians, top technician of the month, top branch of the quarter. I think that's done a lot to kind of make it not feel like we're so scattered and separated. And then, you know, I think Pronto is also really helped because. You know, I'm part of a lot of those chats though. I don't, I'm not involved in all of them, man. It's, great. Like we've gotten to the point where we've got branches saying, Hey dude, we're going to take you down this week. We're going to get more upgrades than you. And it just kind of fosters that sense of team. Right. So I think that's a big one that, that helps kind of keep that accountability and keep everybody going in the same direction, keep everybody on the same page. And then another thing we did is we implemented L10. Or sorry, EOS, which you do your L10 meeting or your level 10 meeting every week. And we do that at a company leadership level. And then we do that. We've got our director of field operations out in South Carolina, who he does that with all the service managers just to keep them all on the same page. And it's kind of embarrassing to say how long we went and how big we were before we really instilled weekly accountability meetings.

38:47 Ryan Marshall

But we hired a guy to come in and help us implement EOS and man, that's been, it's been a world of difference just as far as it's crazy to look back over the year and the things we've been tracking, like just because we were paying attention to them, how much better they got. So that's probably, you know, just to having those, that, that cadence set up and that accountability and structure, and then really trying to keep the communication open, whether it's the monthly meetings or the company wide chat, just to keep everybody kind of going in the same direction.

39:20 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. Yeah, for people that don't know, EOS is probably the main operation system. Think from the book Traction, they have super well known, I know tons of businesses that are on it. I want to ask, especially to make this relevant to the audience, when do you think it makes sense for a company to implement something like EOS?

39:36 Ryan Marshall

Yesterday like it's...

39:38 Dan Leibrandt

Hahaha...

39:39 Ryan Marshall

You know We waited until we were pretty big and so I mean it's the whole idea right of you know, the Titanic Couldn't really turn quick because it was such a big ship, right? If that was such as that was a smaller ship. Could have turned quicker and so If your organization is smaller geez do it do it before it's harder to correct everything right like there was there's definitely collateral damage when you start doing it when you're bigger. Like we didn't push our service managers and our technicians to get upgrades for a long time. And, when we really started pushing that hard, we lost some people because of it, because they're like, this isn't what I signed up for. And you know, from EOS, like, I mean, if you're a one man operator right now, or you got, know, two or three people at your company, it might be easy to say, it's not that important, but it is, and it's going to help you. And it's going to be like the training wheels that you want to have there while you go. So you just get in the habit of looking at KPIs, right? And that's stuff that for a long time, we were just like run and gun, throw accounts on with door to door. You know, we didn't have all our QuickBooks and accounting stuff figured out. And it was just like, Hey, there's money in the bank. That was kind of my barometer. And there's a lot of bad habits that unfortunately at the level that we're at, we're still having to undo. I know that when I was smaller, when we were smaller as a company, always thought, those bigger companies, they've got it all together. They don't, right? Like every company is still going through those growing pains and trying to figure it out and trying to clean things up and undo bad habits. Yeah, as far as EOS, I would say get the book and just get in some sort of cadence. Even if it's just you, just go look at your numbers.

41:31 Ryan Marshall

Right. Just it'll make sense. And it's just like your dashboard in your car. Right. It tells you how fast you're going. If the, if the engine's overheating, if you have gas, right. Like just some simple stuff I think is well worth making time for.

41:45 Dan Leibrandt

What are the top KPIs you're looking at and are there any that you track that probably many others don't?

41:55 Ryan Marshall

We do I need to pull this up so I don't look like a look like a goober again We look at the some of the top ones we look at operationally We talk in terms of subscriptions So we're you know, we're counting how many subscriptions we have that's just a customer. That's You know a quarterly customer whatever right or you know somebody on the mosquito subscription or termite subscription so we track subscriptions every week we track subscriptions sold from You know are added Right. So hey, here's how many we added we track cancellations And then Those are kind of like our higher level ones and then from there it kind of falls off to different departments like for our for operations You know field operations department a big one that we started tracking was how many points per day we call it points per day, we kind of standardized it to where like if you're doing a Sentricon check an annual inspection, well, that's going to take longer than if you're doing a quarterly service. And so like the Sentricon check is two points, the general pest services one point, but we push our technicians to get 15 points per day. So if you're doing quarterlies, you're doing 15 quarterlies a day, but we want it to at least be above 14. That's a big one that we track. We also track average mileage per route. And that's one that since we implemented EOS, it's been insane to see how much we've improved. Used to be, you know, probably in the fifties, 50 miles per route. And now a lot of weeks, man, we're down to the low to mid twenties on average miles per route. Right. Part of that's a product of us being a little more strategic on scheduling. Part of that gets helped because of some door to door, just route density stuff.

43:55 Ryan Marshall

You know, we're obviously tracking, you know, accounts lost. Might've mentioned that already. Another big one is we've made a lot of strides with, we have a specific retention department and we're tracking their success every week. We're tracking all the technician upgrades. So those are, those are some of them, but the first ones I told you were kind of our big like key indicators. And then down below that are just kind of like different departments throughout the company.

44:24 Dan Leibrandt

Gotcha, cool. So to be clear, you guys cut your drive time in half?

44:30 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, yep. And it was man, it's...

44:31 Dan Leibrandt

Wow, that's incredible.

44:33 Ryan Marshall

Yeah, it was a huge undertaking because I mean, you really have to get strategic and you've got to have people that that are doing the scheduling that understand right like, hey, I might be able to push this service out a week and then the routing is a little bit better. You know, if you've got people going in there saying, all right, well, who's due for service over the next three days? Well, your options are going to be look like one thing versus if you say, who's due for service over the next two weeks? Well, now all of a sudden I can be a lot more strategic with the routes that I build. You know, some other things that we've implemented is if let's say somebody calls, you know, text the same day and says, hey, I know you guys are supposed to come today. Today actually doesn't work. Can you guys come later? Well, now we have we've got a gap on the route. And so being able to set it up to where we have customer service reps that get notified of that immediately. And they're going to go start calling, Hey, John's in this area. Let me go start calling some customers that we might not get to till next week, but just say, Hey, we had an opening come up. Do you care if we actually do your service today? Right. So that's a way to pack one more in and inevitably that's happening, you know, a decent amount of times on routes because people want to be there or plans change or whatever. So. Yeah, that's been, that's been a huge win that we've had is, know, that the scheduling department has made, you know, we shout them out a lot because. Technicians are more excited. They're making more money, especially the production guys.

46:03 Dan Leibrandt

That's awesome. That's a really good insight. And I feel like most companies don't put much focus or any focus on route density, which obviously we know is key. Cool. We'll start to wrap up the show here, Ryan. I've got one final question that I ask all my guests, and that is, what is your message for the pest control owners out there? What do you want to tell them? What do you think they need to know?

46:27 Ryan Marshall

Man. I would probably say that... A combination of things either you're you're the bottleneck or don't be the bottleneck. And in the sense of, you know, I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we like to do things our way. And we get so particular about things. And this is still a challenge I have is and I'm trying to learn more about this is delegating stuff, right. And it I might be able to do something 100 % how I want it. But I spread myself thin. And so if I can get somebody else to do that for me 80 % of the way that I would have done it, that needs to be 100 % okay, right? And I need to step out of the way and not be the bottleneck. And kind of a flip side of that would be I need to continue to elevate or as operators, you need to continue to elevate your capacity, right? So reaching out to people in the industry, networking. Learning from other people. Like that's one thing I've got a lot of mentors and people that I've connected with that, you know, Hey, can I buy you lunch or Hey, can I just pick your brain and, being humble enough to say, I don't know this yet. I don't have all my crap together. I don't have this all figured out. And I want to, I want to hear from other people and learn from other people and educate myself. So you want to raise your capacity. So you're not, you know, so you're not as much of a bottleneck, but you also want to get out of your own way. And, you know, I'm a big Alex Hormozi fan, like, dude, I love his stuff.

48:17 Dan Leibrandt

Me too.

48:18 Ryan Marshall

And he talks about, I don't remember the exact, know, but he talks about like, dude, hiring B talent or A talent, might pay A talent 50 % more, but they're going to get double the output that then B talent would. And that has been probably one of the harder lessons for me to learn because as we're growing our companies, it's like, we don't have all the cash in the world, right? And we're looking at finite resources. Hey, I've got 60,000 I can spend on a service manager. Or back when we started, it's like, dude, 15 bucks an hour. That was kind of 16 bucks an hour, whatever it was. That's kind what we could afford. But when you hire some of those A-plus people, it is such a breath of fresh air. It's like, you know, and I remember some of the people that I've hired along the way that almost it's like, my gosh, why didn't I do this sooner? And it's so fun to be able to have those people on the team and just say, hey, I need you to take care of this and I don't have to worry about it anymore. So that's probably a big one is being the bottleneck and getting out of your own way and finding the right team and people and then really leveling up.

49:34 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. No, that was really good. I appreciate you sharing that. I pulled, you're probably the bottleneck and you need to fix that. You need to become a student of the game and you need to learn as much as possible. And then you need to hire A players because it is worth it every single time. You're gonna get disproportionate returns. So cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Ryan. This has been great. And yeah, I just really appreciate your time. And where can people find you?

50:04 Ryan Marshall

Man, just email. If you guys want to shoot me an email, have any questions, happy to connect. It's just [email address removed]. And I'll try to make sure I find it, man. I got 100,000 emails on my inbox that haven't been read. So.

50:18 Dan Leibrandt

What about us social media are you on any platforms?

50:22 Ryan Marshall

I am on Facebook, yeah. I'm on Facebook and I think that's it, that is it. So you can find me on Facebook, feel free to add me. I'm in the Pest Control Group, so happy to connect. So appreciate you having me on here, Dan.

50:37 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, of course. So yeah, make sure you guys go follow Ryan on Facebook. The link will be the link to that will be in the description and anything else you'd like to plug or promote Ryan.

50:48 Ryan Marshall

No, no man. I'm just looking forward to an awesome busy pest control season this year, which we're getting ready to start.

50:56 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome, for sure. Well, cool, man. Like I said, thanks again for being on the show. This has been a pleasure and hope you stay in touch.

51:03 Ryan Marshall

Okay, thank you Dan. Have a good one.

51:04 Dan Leibrandt

Course.