Tony Carder on the 24-Month Branch, 4-Cent Door Hangers and Starting Over With His Kids

00:00 Dan Leibrandt

Hey everyone and welcome back to Pest Control Legends. I'm your host, Dan Leibrandt, and today I'm with Tony Carder, who is the owner of TruNorth Pest Control. Tony got his start at Active Pest Control, the company his father founded in 1985, and grew it into a 15 branch operation, doing 24 million dollars a year before selling the company in 2019. After 34 years in the business, he's back at it, now running TruNorth alongside his two kids, Cody and Kaylee. In this episode, we're going to talk about how he scaled Active through acquisitions, what it takes to sell a pest control company, and why he chose to start over and build TruNorth as a family business. Now without further ado, Tony, welcome to the show.

00:42 Tony Carder

Thank you, Dan. Appreciate you letting me be on here with you today.

00:45 Dan Leibrandt

Of course, man. So Tony, the show is called Pest Control Legends. I think n almost no one better than you to be on the show. You are truly a Pest Control Legend. I knew a good amount about you and I've seen you in our Facebook group. I knew that you had the crazy exit and now you're building up this new company super fast. But we were talking before the show, and you have all these other crazy ventures and all all this stuff that you're doing. I first off, I just wanna say I'm so impressed and so honored to spend this time with you. And I wanted to ask, how did this all get started? Walk me back to the beginning of when you first got into pest control and business.

01:27 Tony Carder

So born into the family in the business through the industry, my dad was the founder of Active Pest Control in nineteen eighty-five. So probably in my tenth grade year when most kids were going to school and enjoying life, I was getting out of school at ten twenty every day, meeting my grandfather at eleven, at the local McDonald's there in town, and then we would work every day till about six doing terminate work. So I was the grunt guru kid back in the day, doing all the block drilling the brick drilling trenching tree, doing the slabs and my grandfather would do all the liquid application. And so we would do one or two termite jobs a day. I did that my tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade year. And then after that just started moving my way up through the business. Did pest control for six years, did sales I think for five or six years straight. And then I s kinda went into the leadership business role with my dad as we the business kept expanding and growing. And then from there just learned the tricks and the trades along the way, how to treat people, how to network with people, how to build relationships. That was the logo and the slogan for Active all those years was where relationships matter. So that's how we got in the business. How I got in the business, I should say. My dad was my coach and mentor for almost 17 years of it and enjoyed every second of that with him. And then it was a blessing to be able to do that.

02:50 Dan Leibrandt

Mm, definitely. So your dad started it in nineteen eighty five, I believe. W when did you get involved exactly?

02:57 Tony Carder

So I involved in eighty seven. So I was seventeen years old, sixteen years old, and I would j once I got my license I could drive. There was a local program at your high school that you got out early and you went to work. So I couldn't do anything but the actual physical part of the job on the termite side. So just did that for several years until nineteen ninety when I graduated from high school. Then I went to work for the business full time.

03:21 Dan Leibrandt

Hm, awesome.

03:25 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. Did you go to college?

03:25 Tony Carder

No. Did not go to college, opt for working. When you're sixteen, seventeen years old and you're making twenty, twenty five thousand a year back in the er late eighties, you're making some money. So for me it was just about cars and enjoying life and blowing a lot of money that I wish I had still today, So that's what the outline was every day.

03:47 Dan Leibrandt

Mm, definitely. Yeah, I didn't even make it through one year of college myself. It just it wasn't for me. I feel like that's the case with a lot of entrepreneurs. And especially when you're already making good money. I there's of course we could go down a whole rabbit hole of like why you shouldn't go to college and all of that. I guess I can ask you, would you recommend people go to college or who should go to college?

04:09 Tony Carder

So for me, I've been blessed since I've sold Active in 19 to speak at some colleges around the country and this it's a torn subject, right? If you're gonna go to college and waste four years, I would recommend you not go. Especially if you pick up a lot of debt. If you're gonna go to college and apply it and get something out of, I'm encouraging you to go. I think it shows a sign of completion for entrepreneurs like us, people that know that people can start a task and finish. That's one thing I'm a big component of. But at the end of the day, if you're about making money, go find somebody to mentor you, work under, and just go to work. And don't blow that money. I when I speak to kids, I think I like to target 18 to 25 year olds. Because I know that's when I wasted the most of the money in my life. And if I could have that seven years of money back, instead of retiring at 47, I probably would have retired at 37. So that's why I think about it from that angle a lot. So it's just I tell people every day it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep, right? That slogan's been around forever. So that's why I wouldn't encourage it. If you're going to be a doctor, an architect, an engineer, of course you got to go to school, there's a reason. But just to go to go or to get a marketing degree or a business degree, go learn under somebody. One thing I tell people all the time is if you are truly successful, you want to help other people be successful. You want to encourage that, you want to see that, and you want to coach and mentor it yourself. And that's probably what I enjoy most now about the life I live.

05:35 Tony Carder

Is like get to help other people be successful and then watch it happen. Which is pretty cool.

05:40 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Yeah. No, that's a good point. I totally agree. I feel like most people go to college now just because everyone else goes to college. That's the norm. But I was always thinking about it from what do I want to do? And I think especially for the entrepreneurs out there, it's like if you know that you want to start a business, well, you don't need a degree for that, right? I don't know. In some cases you do, like you said, but oftentimes you don't. So cool. Yeah, I totally agree there. So didn't go to college, you finished high school, was working full time at the business. So walk me through how you progressively became the owner of the business.

06:24 Tony Carder

So at the when I really started getting involved in the business on the leadership side, we had just two locations on the south side of Atlanta. So we had Feb Hill, Georgia, and Newnan, Georgia. And in that, my dad wanted to continue to grow the business. And I started learning more and more about the business, seeing the potential and the income you can make in the industry. And you gotta remember, this is in the early 90s. So you're fast, you're 25 years ago plus. So it's like, okay. How do we expand and grow the business? And my dad was getting to the age where he didn't want to do it anymore. He's like, look, my life is good, I make good money, and that's where we are. So I took over the day-to-day operations in the business in 99 and 2000. And he retired officially May 31st, 2004. So from 2000, 2004, I ran 100% of the operations. He would come in about three or four hours a day, pay all the bills. Check in to see how things were going, if I needed his help, and then he would go home every day. So during that time I opened our third location, built the business and was growing it, and then had a group of employees leave to start their own company at the end of O four. So I reset a little bit, didn't panic. I called my dad and he was like, Hey, you got it. You'll figure it out. So I went on to open our fourth location that same year and just kept pedal to the metal, and then from 06 on to 2019, we were able to put on 12 more locations. I was actually, through the crash of 2008, sold part of the business to restructure the debt. Got out of that, sold the commercial division to Gregory's out of South Carolina. And then so we stayed out of that market for five years through a non-compete. And then we got back in it probably around 13 or 14 is when it was when we got back in that business.

08:18 Tony Carder

So and then just kinda continuing to grow the business every day. So it was just learning sales, learning marketing, dealing with the yellow pages back in the day, and then coming into the world of the internet, how that process was, building your websites back in when it was long before social media and things of that nature, paper clicks and LSA. Yeah.

08:38 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So when you took over, you guys were around four million dollars, I think.

08:44 Tony Carder

Yes, when I purchased the company in six we were doing four point four million. And I acquired it june first of six.

08:52 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, sweet. So I really want to go through how you scaled from around four million to twenty-four million, because I feel like a lot of companies don't even get to the four million range, but I'm sure and anyone who's watching this, of course, that they want that actual scale where we they can get to 10, 20, 30 million dollars and they can get that huge exit. So walk me through that. What were some of the key things that you're doing in order to grow that big and that fast.

09:21 Tony Carder

So we did multiple things. So number one we did was it's a belief. The number one thing I hear when I talk to people in coach, it's they don't think they see they can do it. Once you start believing that you can do it, I think that's the first step. The second step for me then is actually action. Jump out of the plane and build the parachute on the way down. You can talk about it, you can plan it, you can negotiate it all day long. Boots on the ground, shaking hands and making relationships is the number one thing you can do. Just go out and tell people what you do. So, what we would do is we would go to an area, and Metro Atlanta is pretty big, right? So back then we would go to Athens, Georgia. We had one guy in a truck. He would go up and just start going out, soliciting business. Go to all the local real estate offices, join the Chamber of Commerce, just the old 70s and 80s and 90 model of doing business. And that's what I still do today. So we go out, we meet every person we can possibly meet. Realtors are a good avenue because what are they? They're in the people business. So they're always getting asked by people who should they use for different services. Well, if you have a great relationship and you have a and you support your local realtors, they're gonna tell people about you. And it's the same with the new construction market on new construction pretreats. Get involved with builders, do new construction pretreats, even as a lost leader cost-wise, and then attack those the new homeowners aggressively to get that business from the new buyer, because now you know who it is, and you already have the turnway coverage. Then you grow that service platform that way.

10:53 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm, yeah. And I believe I heard on when when you were on Jonas's podcast that with the new company that you're building, TruNorth, are you guys did you say you're spending thirty thousand a month for realtors?

11:06 Tony Carder

Yeah, so our budget for our five locations is around thirty thousand dollars a month in realtor marketing and support. And that could be open houses, we could be doing lunch and learns in different real estate offices, we can be doing a trolley. So we'll rent trolleys and take agents on open house tours. So you'll get twelve to fourteen agents in a trolley or in some some kind of a van or vehicle, and then you have them for three or four hours to build that relationship, figure out what they need. To help them grow their business and their brand, support them. If they're doing an open house at one of their own off houses, say from eleven to one, drive by and give away a fifty dollar gift card as a raffle. Shake everybody's hand that comes in. So it's a great way to do boots on the ground on that side. It's the old fashioned, I like to tell people like a politician almost. It's hugging and kissing babies and shaking hands is what we're doing.

11:59 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's getting in front of as many people that are qualified prospects as possible and also getting business through trust. So these realtors are trusted individuals. So then of course, when people maybe ask them or the realtor talks to the customer and says, hey, you definitely have to use TruNorth for pest control, they're like, Okay, I'll use them. There's no even question.

12:25 Tony Carder

Correct. Yeah. Yeah, because we have a relationship with the agent. We probably service their own personal home, take care of their termite needs, and then it goes from there. And it and it just works well. And it's the same with whether you're doing the Chamber of Commerce or the BNI groups in your community. All you're doing is networking and building friends. You're making them, right? You're just going out meeting people that you would associate with, you would go to dinner with, you'd have lunch with, maybe go on a vacation with. And that's what you're doing. It's just a long-term play. It's a lot slower at times, but I like to tell people it takes twenty-four months. So when we open an office at Active, we would hire that individual or they would already be on the team and they would want to be in leadership. Okay, well go we're gonna start a new office in this territory. We're gonna go start it together. So we would go start that office and we would know it would be twenty-four months before they started turning. But and we did it six or eight times from scratch. And every time we knew you could see the pendulum when it started swinging the other way, is around the 23rd, 24th month, and then you knew year two and three, they would start getting gained in traction. We've done it with TruNorth right now. So we move, I live on 30A down in the Panama City, Destin area. Beautiful community. We go down there, my son does one truck by himself. He spends, he's been there 17 months now. He did $80,000. He'll do $80,000 in June. Last year in June, he did $22,000. See what saying? And it's, but that isn't a very aggressive approach. And he's 26 years old. No door knocking. One thing people don't realize is we're not a door knocking company. We don't do door knocking. I'm not a component or a believer of I like the model. I just spent two or three days with some guys. That's how they built their business. So I was learning from them, they were learning from me. So I do believe in the opportunity with door knocking. I just think there's a few things you got to tweak with it, in my opinion, to get the retention you want from the customers. So we're a year into this, we're s like I said, seventeen months into that branch down there and he'll do almost a million year or two. So...

14:28 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. So yeah, I'd like to fast forward to that because I think that might be more relatable for people watching. I'm sure a lot of people watching maybe they're just starting, maybe they're at a hundred K a year, two hundred K a year, five hundred K a year. So how did your son take that branch from twenty to eighty? Hey guys, Dan Leibrandt here. Real quick, if you're a pest control owner looking to grow, I have two amazing resources for you. Number one is our free Pest Control Millionaires Facebook group. We have over 4,000 owners just like you in our community and would love for you to be a part of it. Go search Pest Control Millionaires on Facebook and request to join the group now. Number two is our book, Zip Code Kings. This was authored by me, Jonas Olson, and Jake Sheldon to be the ultimate guide to pest control marketing. We discuss everything from branding and traditional marketing to local SEO and Facebook ads. Go to Amazon and search zip code Kings to get your copy today. Now that being said, let's get back to the show.

15:26 Tony Carder

So the well they started off with zero in November of 24. So in that $3,100, I think he did his first month. It's actually going out meeting every person you can. So I tell people every time, you gotta find a BNI group to get involved in. Number two, you gotta go join the Chamber of Commerce and then you gotta do real estate. But the other thing you gotta do is you gotta get out of that service vehicle. Everybody that says they're still on their business and they're still doing service, what are they doing? They're taking the energy away from what they do best. And that's tell people what they do for a living. Nobody's gonna sell the service of their company better than the owner of the business. So when you're out with that passion and desire and telling people who you are, the caliber of service you're gonna give them, you can hire somebody to be a technician and you need to go out there and be the person, be in the face of the business. And I tell people all the time, for the Walton County Chamber down there, they probably do six to ten activities a month. Well, that's six to ten appointments you need to be at. And again, it goes back to repetition and time. So they'll see you come in month one, month two. Well, if you disappear on month three or four, well, they knew you're just another fly by night. They see you month six, seven, eight, nine, all of a sudden a year goes by and all they see is you at every event. Well, now there's you're building trust, right? You're building consistency. And then you start building relationships. So, and I talk to people all the time, you don't date an individual on the first date and marry them. You build a relationship, and it's the exact same way it is in business.

16:39 Dan Leibrandt

Ha...

16:53 Tony Carder

Think about the people you do business with now, the people you're working on different coaching projects and different things, the relationship's gotten better, stronger, and more consistent, right? And it's the same in business. Same when you're out doing your pest control business. And I've had people ask me all the time, Tony, if you started over tomorrow, what would you do? I would do service for about the first month, get me a few customers on, whatever I did and do it myself. And the second month, I think I'd be out of the truck. And me and Cody talked about it with those two guys that we went to dinner with the other night. He came on in November. He was full time sales February first. He did November, December, and January. And then we knew, okay, he's gotta have a the only way to grow this business is every day he wakes up with nothing to do but go make friends. I ain't got nothing on my calendar today. Well no, you yeah, you do. You got ten real estate offices you can visit. You can go by any and get the new permits for new construction from the county. New business license that were applied for for the previous month, you can get that list from the county. There's so many ways you can grow the business. Now it's a W O R K, right? It's fifty plus hours a week to get it to where it's to get it off the ground and going. But I tell people every day, if you do it long enough, it goes the other way. The pendulum swings back. You have great staff, great salespeople. And if you want to go play golf at two o'clock in the afternoon once a week, nobody's gonna mind, right? You wanna go fishing or you wanna take your wife out for the afternoon or take a Friday off. That's what you do. But during that time, those first couple of years, it's intense consistency for twenty four months to get it where you need it to be.

18:32 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. I love that. That is so good. And I feel like almost no one talks about this aspect. There's a huge craze right now in digital marketing and AI. And especially maybe that's me projecting because I'm like a digital marketing guy. But I feel like so few people talk about this aspect of the business. And I think this actually in a way might be more rare than ever because you think that maybe, 30, 50 years ago, this was one of the only ways to market your business. Yeah, yeah.

18:59 Tony Carder

It was the only way. It was yellow pages in this. There was only two options. You put your name in the yellow pages and you went out and started handing out business cards. That's all you had back then. Now I tell people I love what y'all do and it works well with my business, the digital side. So what happens is when I meet somebody and that night they're sitting on the sofa and they're scrolling through Facebook or they're on Instagram or somewhere and they see the TruNorth logo and brand, I met the owner of that company today, or I met the sales rep today. Or they came by my house today. Perfect example. I'm looking at some real estate investment down in Florida. I'm reaching out to the agent, talking to him about the house that I want to buy. And he goes, Okay, great. I said, I'll schedule a time to come by and look at it. Two days later, he circled back and go, hey, you're not gonna believe this. I asked a guy that's gonna do the property management on the property. He said, I need to reach out to this guy, Tony, about doing the termite pest control on it.

19:54 Tony Carder

And I went, perfect. I said, I'll come by and see the property too. So it worked out great. So I'm looking at buying, and he's already being told by somebody else that this is a company you need to use an individual to take care of the termite puss control. And I'm like, this is a six million dollar house sitting on the beach. So you love that credibility that comes with that. That's what I think happens. See how we're connecting the dots? And I tell people the reason we can grow a business so fast is we do seven to ten components. It's not just one.

20:07 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. That's so awesome.

20:24 Tony Carder

But if all seven to ten are being done consistently for a year, it just starts booming quickly. The Florida office is number one in pest control sales in our business right now. We have five locations, they're outpacing everybody. They have the last four or five months. I get tired of hearing about it because it's my son and he's doing such a great job. So I'm having to eat a little crow on that side with everybody else. But at the same time, if you don't know what to do and you follow the rules that somebody gives you and says, hey, if you do this, you'll be successful, it proves that it works too.

20:29 Dan Leibrandt

Hm, definitely.

20:54 Dan Leibrandt

Hm, definitely.

20:55 Tony Carder

My COO's been with me twenty years and we ask all the time, what is Cody doing different? And Devin always says real simple, he's doing exactly what we tell him to. He don't know any other thing. So he's following the rule book that we've given him to build the business. And it works.

21:08 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. Yeah. And like I was saying, I think probably now people are doing that strategy less than ever. Everyone is obsessed with the digital stuff, which like you were saying, it shouldn't just be traditional or it shouldn't just be digital. You should have a mix of both. But this is a definitely a huge opportunity. And yeah, we've seen this in our our program too. Just overall strategic partnerships, it could be realtors, but it all could also be a local HVAC company, a lawn care company, whoever, that is one of the biggest opportunities. And that that comes to relationships as well.

21:45 Tony Carder

No, I agree with you. I agree. And I just I love the fact that it you make good you meet good people and you make good friends along the way is what I love. I've met some of the nicest people doing this my entire life, people that I've known for twenty-five years. That I met years ago, walking in their office, handing out business cards, saying we do termite letters. And now twenty-five years later they're friends. I've bought properties with them, investments with them. So it's weird how the whole thing has just kept circling. And it was so easy 'cause when they got back in business, they're they know who they were going back to doing business with. Cause they already had a relationship.

22:18 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. So cool. Yeah. And something else I really like that you mentioned was the timeline. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone explicitly map it out, but that totally makes sense. And you'd have a better perspective on this than most people. You said it's about 24 months. And I think for people that might be going super hard on marketing in their area or relationship building, whatever it is, for maybe they've been at it for a year and it still feels like they haven't really cracked the surface. And you're just saying, look, it takes two years. I like that's just what it what it takes, right?

22:52 Tony Carder

Absolutely. It definitely does. And weeks like I said, so I did seven offices that Active from scratch and I've done one here already. And I'm doing another one next year. So we do one every other year. We will pick a new territory and start a what we call our scratch office every other year. Cause we know, boom, and that gives them time. So the second year they're getting up and getting some revenue in, then you're not carrying two locations at the same time. So for me it's like we're in Atlanta, we're gonna go to Nashville. The market or Tennessee market, we're gonna go to the Carolinas and more locations in Florida in the near future. So we know we're already planning where are we going to next, looking within the organization to who might be somebody who's willing to move or wanting to move up in the company and willing to move. And those people are ready to go and they're excited. Plus they already know how you want to do it, what to do, and understand the program.

23:45 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. Love it. On Jonas's podcast, you said that if you were to do it over aga I might be getting this wrong, but I if you were to do it over again, you would have less locations. Is that right?

23:58 Tony Carder

Correct. And I'm not gonna yeah, so at Active we had fourteen locations in Atlanta and one in Houston, Texas. I think now you can do it with the technology. The great side of it is you have the technology and the capability, cameras in your vehicles and iPads and all that stuff. I don't think you need the physical presence like you need before. We don't require everybody to come in the office every day. We're two days a week a company now. So we have come in a couple days a week, check on them, their trucks, make sure they have everything they need. Make sure their appearance is to the level that we want it to. One of those two days is a big training day for us. So we are in the process of going through EOS right now, starting the beginning of that. So implementing that in our business. So as we continue to do that, there's no need to have that many locations. You don't need as many brick and mortar as you do. I would rather take that same money and pay for another person that is the relationship builder in the business.

24:55 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Awesome. And then another really big way you grew, and you've done over the course of your entrepreneurship, 30 let's see, acquisitions and sales of businesses. So walk me through how you were acquiring companies with with Active and what you learned from.

25:21 Tony Carder

So for me, and it's always worked out perfect. We let's say Columbus, Georgia is an example. We go down there, we start with one truck, we're down there for about a year, and the guy that's our branch manager slash sales guy in that market is out looking to acquire a small business to help double our customer base. He calls me, hey, I've got somebody I went by and shook their hand, gave them a card, told them if they were ever interested. Well, the guy reached back out to us. I drive down, we have lunch with the guy, four months later we're closing the deal, we own the business. So then we pick up another three or four hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue. One or two route acquisitions are the best. As I like to say it is you give me a $300,000 company, I can make it a million in 12 months. Because we take that customer base, we work that customer base for every service we can, and then at the same time, we do our door hanger program with our yard signs, social media, and then our realtor game. And next thing we're putting on another $25,000 or $30,000 a month in revenue.

26:19 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Wal walk me through that more. Cause like I said, I know a lot of people want to scale from something like 300 to a million. So you said the first one was working them for more services. Explain that.

26:21 Tony Carder

So we...

26:33 Tony Carder

So, first of all, you take all you customers that got pest control and you solicit them for termite and mosquito. All your customers that got termite, you solicit them for pest control and mosquito. So you work everybody that you're not offering every service. The easiest sell is a customer that's already got a relationship with you. So you have multiple services in the market that you can do. I know you said your business was based in Chicago. Don't have a lot of termite pressure up there. But in Florida and Georgia, we have significant termite pressure. So we almost get the termite business first and then we sell the pest control. If we can do it. That's the ultimate game for me. After spending a couple of days with the guys from Peaks Pest Control, I want to go more. I'm honestly looking to reevaluate myself and my game. And are we doing we need to go after the pest control more and then pick up the termite? Because it's easier, it's more cost effective for a homeowner to spend $50 a month for a $150 quarterly pest control than it is dropping a thousand dollars for a termite treatment. So you can add more customers and then solicit the termite. The other thing to that is would you want to scale your businesses? The biggest expense to our business is payroll and vehicles. And what I mean by vehicles is moving it around. So if I drive out to Mrs. Jones' house on Smith Street and I'm already in that driveway taking care of that service, well now there's three or four houses around it. We require every technician to hang a door hanger on each side of their existing service. And then we put the yard sign. So if we come to their house, they get four door hangers a year. We change those door hangers a couple of times a year.

28:02 Tony Carder

And then, of course, our yard sign stays here every time we do the service. So at Active, literally at the end when we sold the business, you could drive in neighborhoods and see 25 and 30 yard signs where we'd been there that day and did the bake termite system check or the pest control on all those houses. And a lot of people are like, well, the HOA don't allow the yard signs or this. We only want the customer to keep it there a day or two. Mrs. Jones, throw the thing away after 24 hours. We applied a product on the exterior of your home. We want to let everybody know that that was done to keep you and us in compliance and keep us out of trouble, but let your neighbors know in case any of them have any allergies and the kids running over in your yard or something. So it's just a great way to sell that service and let people know that we were there.

28:45 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. I've heard people say before that door hangers, yard signs, things like that don't work and it's a waste of money. So what do you say to those people?

28:52 Tony Carder

I hope they keep saying that.

28:56 Dan Leibrandt

Ha.

28:58 Tony Carder

That's the cheapest form of advertising you can do. What does an average LSA lead cost today?

29:04 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. A hundred bucks or so.

29:06 Tony Carder

A door hanger cost me about four cents. So if I drive to that house and I already have to go there, so I'm not going just to hang a door hanger, I'm going to do a reoccurring revenue service. And it takes me two minutes. Anything two minutes or less, according to the book Atomic Habits, do it right then and there so you don't forget it. Right? So in two minutes or less, I can hang two door hangers for eight cents. So if I can get one of those people to buy, look at the cost savings over an LSA lab.

29:35 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. So awesome. Yeah.

29:36 Tony Carder

And the other thing too is, and you got the neighbor as your referral, as your reference. Mrs. Jones has been using this for two years or three years or this is her second service and we've gotten rid of her problem now where she's on maintenance program. So there's a lot of avenues you can do with that to help out.

29:51 Dan Leibrandt

Hm. So but you guys do door hangers, but you don't door knock. Would do you mind explaining why you don't why you don't door knock?

30:00 Tony Carder

I just I don't know, I can't grasp that part yet, right? And I'll be honest. So do I believe it works? Yes, because if you look at the top one hundred pest control companies, there's five or seven or ten of them, however many on it, and all they did was door knock, right? And I even know Rentokil, as big as they are, are looking into door knocking or maybe even doing door knocking this summer. So I know that they're even changing their mindset. So for me it's just been about the manpower to do it and understanding the game of how the extremely expensive.

30:12 Dan Leibrandt

Many of them, yeah.

30:29 Tony Carder

I've heard it's 80% to 110% of the annualized contract. So, and but it's density, so it works well, and you grow the business fast. You do unfortunately have from what I understand you can have a higher cancellation rate. But at the same time, if I go to a new market in the future, will I try door hanging? Maybe so. I may hire a team to go in there to give me the first year to give me a little bit of customer base. But one thing I've learned in the last year that I've had to take a deep breath on is what race am I running?

31:00 Tony Carder

What is the race to grow my business be? There's not. The race in life is for me to glorify Jesus Christ, number one. Number two is to take care of my family. So growing my business, as long as I'm growing it and not going backwards, it means I'm successful. Because you got two options. You're either brown and dead or green and growing. So if you grow your business three to five percent a year and you're happy and you're doing the things that you love about life, then why kill yourself to try to grow your business fifteen or twenty percent? But my ego and my expectations of myself says we gotta grow my business twenty to thirty percent every year. And I've done it very successfully for a very long time. At the end of Active, I had an earnout in there. I had to grow the business by X to get a big payout, and I hit it. And they didn't think I could. But hey, the goal for me was to prove to them knowing I could do it. But it was the same thing we've been doing the previous five years before we sold the business. So TruNorth, we've only been in business a little over twenty-four months, we'll do almost eight million this year. Our goals nine. But I think we'll get to eight. I think I think we yeah,...

31:54 Dan Leibrandt

Hm, definitely.

32:03 Dan Leibrandt

Whew. Wow.

32:06 Tony Carder

I think we'll get to eight. Yeah.

32:08 Dan Leibrandt

That is awesome. And I love that you tied it back to goals because I feel like sometimes it can almost feel like you're on a hamster wheel, just chasing money, fulfilling your ego. And I really like that you said that number one is glorify Jesus Christ. And I feel that same way. I'm a fellow Christian. I'd like you to talk about that a little bit. How did you find Christ and what why is that your number one priority?

32:32 Tony Carder

I found Christ at a young age, but I say young age, probably in my mid-20s. And for me, unfortunately, I wish I would have kept the in life you can find Christ. You don't ever lose him, in my opinion, and that's for another day. But at the same time, the more sin in your life, the further you get away from Christ. Right? So sin got in my life, caused me to do some things I wish I'm not proud of. But in that as you get older, I tell people it's not because I'm smarter than you, I just live longer, which means I've been through more. So I've seen all the good I've done and all the bad I've done. And them as my kids are at the age they are now, to me, the most important experience I can give them is my testimony to Christ, right? And my relationship with Him. Everything else when I'm dead and gone doesn't matter. They can have the money, they can have the cars, the boats, whatever that's left, if there is anything, right? But at the end of the day, nobody can take my testimony. So where relationships matter was our slogan at Active Pest Control. TruNorth, our slogan was. Your superhero pest control, but now we've actually are launching July 1st, we're people focused. Because I'm to me it's more important to have a relationship with people than it is to have the business. Cause you know what? They may not need pest control, but they can need my prayers.

33:48 Dan Leibrandt

Amen. That's good.

33:48 Tony Carder

You know what I mean? So that's just and you know what you make enough mistakes, you don't try handle such certain situations correctly, and then you have the hindsight and the conviction, that's when you're Christ's followers. When God is convicting you to show you're wrong, you're a follower. Because he's letting you know, hey, this is not what I expect of you. So in that, seeing that, recognizing it, and that's why I told my team, I said, hey, right after July 4th, we're all meeting, and there's a new wave coming, new change on how we're gonna do things.

34:16 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. That's great. Yeah.

34:18 Tony Carder

Yeah, and it's gonna be fun. And that's whether it's about me now. I just wanna have fun.

34:22 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. Yeah. Well you've it's so impressive all these different businesses you've built. I'd like to like okay, so you had let's you had a security business, you had an HVAC business, so some of these other companies. Walk me through maybe first, like something you said before we started the show was that all home services are basically the same. Is that true?

34:48 Tony Carder

To a degree of getting the business and taking care of the customer? Absolutely. One day I'm gonna write a book and it's gonna be called Answer the Damn Phone. I believe VAs and AI is gonna help us in our business. I do not think it ever takes the place of human beings talking to human beings. People are already pushing back on they can tell when it's AI and things like that. Will AI get better? I do believe so, yes. So, in that process, for me, it's all of them are the same because we're just in the relationship business. Whether it's you need your trash picked up, I was in the sanitation business. So we just gotta pick up your trash. Gotta pick it up every week at the same day, around the same time, and make sure we put the can back in the same spot. Pretty simple business. We can check your we can empty your trash 52 weeks in a row, and I was always shocked to how people would get so upset if you missed it one time. We could have a truck breakdown, the route guy could have just missed a turn, whatever the reason is, but people only remember as you're good as your last service.

35:49 Tony Carder

So for me, it's all the service businesses are the same. It's you get the business all the same way through relationships. So being in the pest control business, I didn't own a security company. I helped out with one for a little bit, but I've been in the heat and air, been in the sanitation business, own multiple restaurants, a lot of real estate. So in all of those things, have a lot of tenants in the real estate I own today. And my number one thing is we answer the phone, get out there as quick as possible to resolve their issue. I don't have tenants leave, right? Because they know if something goes wrong, boom, Tony's out there. So Tony's getting somebody there to the air don't work or the refrigerator's acting up or whatever the issue is, we're resolving it quickly. And I think that's all customer services. Finding out what their issue is and resolving it quickly, professionally and at a fair cost.

36:36 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. You make it sound so simple.

36:39 Tony Carder

One thing I agree, it is. As the guys that were with me this week, I said, guys, don't complicate it. My dad used to always say, as my mentor and coach was, it's just bugs. It's just bugs. Why are we complicated? It needs to be so simple. Customer calls, you answer the phone, you go out there, you do the inspection, resolve the issue, and you take care of them there on out. Don't make it any harder than it is. It's just bugs.

37:02 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Well, you said the you're gonna write a book, Answer the Damn Phone. I would you say and f I know this, but I want to hear your opinion because you speak of these universities, you coach up other people. Would you say that's a big problem that people don't pick up the phone?

37:17 Tony Carder

I think the reason the Florida market's doing so well for us is we answer the phone. The biggest problem I hear from every previous customer of Active, because I live I have a small house here in the town where Active was our corporate office was, and we've picked up a lot of their business. And the number one complaint we hear is not that they couldn't kill their bugs, they couldn't get nobody on the phone. So how easy is it when you call the office, boom. And they hear that friendly local southern person on the other side going, It's a great day at TruNorth. This is Michelle. How can I help you today? Boom.

37:40 Dan Leibrandt

Ugh, wow.

37:52 Tony Carder

Hey Michelle, we've got rodents. Or hey, Michelle. Joe couldn't get in the backyard when he came and did the service, so I just want to call and schedule that. But I love the fact that these people going overseas and answering all these phones, keep doing it. I did the same thing I did at Active. I'd always say we live off the crumbs of the mega companies. I'm building this brand. On the crumbs of the mega companies again. Just one or two customers at a time. Their volume of mine is different. We do we grow fast? Yes. But we're not in it for profit. That's another thing a lot of people don't understand about me. This is where a lot of people be like, Tony, you crazy. I'm gonna make my money someday. I want to make enough money along the way to pay the bills and keep the business open. So we run a little lighter. Our technician routes are not maxed out. We try to keep a capacity to about 80% of their workflow. Now in the winter it'll get full because we'll work all summer to fill them back up and we won't split them again until spring. So we want everybody to be a little less on their route so we can end if it's sold before 12 o'clock, we try to get there the same day if the customer needs it. If not, we're there the very next day for them. So a lot of people are like, I'm not my routes are $25,000. Well great. But I can't grow my business. I've been at the same $600,000 the last two or three years. That's the law of the lid. The law of the capacity. You've reached and you're bumping the ceiling every day and you wonder why. You gotta have the room for expansion. Because every time we split routes, they fill up. It's not because we did anything special, because we believe in the system and the approach. Because if somebody calls you and goes, hey, Dan, we need you to come out and you go, I'm sorry, we ain't got appointment until next Thursday. Well, that's a week from today. You think I'm gonna wait on the ants in my kitchen for a week?

39:39 Tony Carder

Okay, Dan, let me think about it, I'll call you back. Boom and they're calling three other companies until somebody can get out there.

39:45 Dan Leibrandt

Yep. Hmm. That is so good. And it seems like that along with the networking with people is it's actually don't fully stack your schedule and your technician schedules. There should be some room so that you can go to networking things so that you can pick up extra jobs.

40:03 Tony Carder

One hundred percent. My number one sales guy in my business will tell you he feels like he spends fifty percent of his time entertaining. He is a master on the grill, we'll do cookouts at all these open houses. And a couple weeks ago before he went on vacation, he Tony, I did 14 straight days of events. He said, I don't even know how I had time to do inspections. He was doing inspections on Saturdays and Sundays for realtors to get closings to be ready to close for the next couple of days later. So it is a balance, right? It is a balance between the two. But the old saying goes, you gotta strike while the iron's hot. Catch lightning in the bottom. So when you're doing those services and the momentum's on your side, it's like in baseball. You hate the Bulldogs lost last night. Coming into the College World Series, they're probably the hottest bats in baseball. They get in the College World Series and they struggle. I believe the Braves lost the series last year, the year before, but it was a year before. Because they had that week off. They won their division, they sit around for a week. It's all about momentum. Business is the same way in my opinion. It's about momentum. So when that momentum's going good, you don't want to stop. I don't know if you've ever done sales in the industry, but you get a sales guy that sells $2,500 by 9 o'clock, he don't want to go home. Because that's the day he sells $10,000. Because if he goes home, he's done. He wants to, hey, how many more can I get in a day? I hear these kids that are knocking doors selling pest control, selling 12 to 14 accounts in one day. And they're like, I don't wanna go home 'cause this is the day that everything's perfect. Every word that flows out of my mouth, every door I knock on, they're a potential buyer that's having an issue and I just happen to be there at the right time.

41:40 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. So good. Yeah, this is something I forget if I heard this from someone or just came up with it, but essentially you always wanna either be trying to find momentum and then keep momentum. That's like the whole game of anything, whether like you said, whether it's a sport, business, anything.

41:56 Tony Carder

And I agree a hundred percent because think about this, it's the same with growing your business. The reason I've always had a big budget to growth is because once we hit it one time, it's like we hit it every time. Think about it, once you hit $100,000 a month in pest control and your business in revenue, it seems like forever to get to a hundred thousand a month. But when you get to a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand comes, three hundred thousand. I can remember an Active, it took us forever, it seemed like to get to five million. But when I got to five million, ten million came quit. Then it seemed like forever to get to 15 million. But we went from 15 million to 24 million in three years. So yeah.

42:31 Dan Leibrandt

Oof.

42:32 Tony Carder

So it was like we had a bunch of small offices that all took off at the same time. And it was a difficult decision to sell the business in 19. Because I had great staff, great people. I have a great staff now. We've got five branch managers fixing open our sixth one on July first. And we have a great leadership team in our corporate office. So it's a lot of fun. It's there's a good group core people helping run this business every day.

42:58 Dan Leibrandt

For sure. Yeah, an analogy I really like that kind of ties to this is like the airplane analogy, how it takes so much force, so much momentum to get an airplane off the ground. But then once it's at cruise altitude, now it's just cruising. It's very easy to stay up in the air once you're up there.

43:14 Tony Carder

Hundred percent. Absolutely agree with...

43:16 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, definitely. And...

43:17 Tony Carder

You. And you look at it in all aspects of life. Whether you're losing weight, getting in the gym, saving money is a big one. Once you have to start, the old same was just start, right? Just start. Start saving a dollar a week, two dollars a week, three dollars a week. Next thing I tell people all the time, I use this little app called Acorn. And I've been using it for years. My son taught me about it when he was in 2019. Hey, just put $50 in there, $100. Well, I teach every kid I speak to how to use that out. $5 a week to start with. If you're 17, 18, 19 years old, got a job, put $5 a week in there, then $10 a week. Now I think I put $2,000 a month in mine. I don't need to, but I do it because it's still good practice. Constantly saving money, constantly little little small wins, little stacks is what I like to call them. I'm just stacking victories on top of each other. Momentum. The more stacks I get, it seems like the momentum is getting better and better.

44:13 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, definitely. It applies to every single aspect. Something else I want to jump back to too, which I really like that you said was you're picking up the crumbs of these big companies. And this feels really r relevant to me too, because I've been thinking and talking with some some bigger pest control companies on digital marketing, SEO stuff. And I realize that just naturally as a company scales up, and particularly I founded an SEO, but I realize that it applies to everything else. As you scale up, more things break and more things fall through the cracks. But I didn't think about how that applies to other people and you take advantage of that happening to big companies because when you're a small company, you can be pretty lean. You're you're fairly organized. But these big companies that have 50 locations and they are dealing with maybe several CRMs and they're constantly doing acquisitions, they have so much complexity to deal with. Whereas customers are gonna fall through because there are just bound to be things to break with that, right?

45:21 Tony Carder

Yes, and I think of it this way too. They route manage themselves almost. They're getting so much new business. If a customer calls and complains a few times, I don't want to deal with her, she's complaining too much, I'll just cancel her. Or we'll just not respond or don't respond. And I'm not saying it's all companies, but you have that mentality that you can get in your head. So that's like you're saying, falling through the cracks, get into business. Where if you're a smaller company, you're starving for every new customer. So you have attention to details better. And that's what I like to tell my staff is we business is detail. And if you're not into the details, you're not into the business. So the little things matter. If you can't do it, God's word. If you manage a little, I'll give you much. Right?

46:03 Tony Carder

Every principle in business is in God's word. John Maxwell says it best. Every lesson he's ever thought of or taught of, he's the basis of it has come through God's word somewhere in scripture that he can tie it back to. And it's like, wow. It's just absolutely amazing. And when we do that in our own life, in our own situations, then it works out well for us.

46:23 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. Yeah. The parable of talents where, three different guys were given a certain amount of talents, which was money. And God wanted to see that people that when they were given talents, which now we actually you think of talents as like skills or something that you're you're born with now, but it was money, doing the most with what you're given. So, you're given if let's say if someone just has a hundred customers, do the most you can with those hundred customers.

46:52 Tony Carder

100%. Go love on them, take care of anything possible. And as we were talking earlier this week, Aspen and Kai, my approach to them was the little things matter, right? So rolling the trash can to the house for a customer, picking up the old days we'd pick up the newspaper, all the different things you could do, those little simple things that didn't cost a dime while you were at Mrs. Jones' house. It's the same concept in business. Those same things there. Any of the little things that you can do along the way, I think go a long way for you.

47:24 Tony Carder

As an individual and your company.

47:24 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. So someone like an owner can take full responsibility of that when they're doing it, but of course you want to scale up and you want to have technicians doing it. So is that something you can train in people for them to pick up the newspaper, move the trash in? Or is it more that they're just they're a an inherently good person? What is that?

47:46 Tony Carder

I think it's about expectation. And even at TruNorth, we've are revamping through this EOS system. It's we're defining the expectation up front. And I'll give you the example of Chick-fil-A. Went by Chick-fil-A, I knew we were gonna be eating a meeting around lunchtime, grabbed me a little early lunch, and it was perfect customer service. Guy greeted me, what's your name? What would you like? Goes the process, and at the very end it's my pleasure. They don't beat those kids into saying my pleasure. They expect them to, they coach them to, they train them to. And my new philosophy is this going forward. I'm going to teach, I'm going to educate, I'm going to mentor, and I'm going to coach. That's how I'm gonna do every aspect of my life with my people. So in going through that four-step process, and at the end, if I can coach them and mentor them and get them to where I need them to be, wonderful. If I can't, then we have to unfortunately make a decision in a different direction. But I want to give everybody that same equal opportunity every single time. But we got to do our part. And I feel like even myself in my business, we're not doing it to the best of our ability. So we're all sitting down, re-going through it, bringing in the expectation to be higher. For ourselves and in return for our clients or customers or employees to our customers. So I think you can teach people to do it. It's just about the expectation you set. And then it's the one you inspect too, right? So if you go out and pull up on guys, I'm not one of those people I want to go out anymore and pull up on a guy and catch him doing wrong. I want to go out and catch him doing right and say, hey, here's some money. Here's $20, go buy lunch on me. Thank you for putting the yard side. Thank you for doing the door hangers. Not know you didn't do it.

49:25 Tony Carder

No, it's encouraging with the right things and they'll see more right they're doing and they'll eventually quit doing the things that they know they shouldn't be doing on that side.

49:33 Dan Leibrandt

Mm, definitely. Yeah. I've been watching a lot of Alex Hormozi lately. And I've watched a lot of him. If you've I'm sure you're familiar. And one thing that he says, he gets so tactical about things, and he brings everything back to behavior and how people are rewarded for behavior. So j just like you were saying there, when someone does a good thing, reward them somehow, or at least reward...

49:38 Tony Carder

Yeah. Yeah, me too.

49:56 Dan Leibrandt

Them occasionally. A lot of people tend to just punish with bad things, but I think very few people take advantage of the other side, reward people when they're doing good stuff.

50:08 Tony Carder

For me, this year has been an outer because I believe everything in life, because I've talked about being away from Christ and the you let sin get in your life and allows you. It's everything is self-inflicted. Nothing we do that we didn't cause. You could do something today that may not r impact you for five years. But it back then when you did it's when it happened, right? Consequences to your actions. So it's the same approach with that. People love just to hear thank you and you're doing a wonderful job and I need you. I can't do this without you. And every day I have to wake up telling myself and reminding myself, none of this vision is built without them. Period. It's not. So for me, it's I've got to continue to remind them every day, I cannot do this without you. I need you to help me get this done. Without you, we're not gonna be able to this. Big component we take every employee on a cruise every year. It's our gift back. Can't do anything else. Hey, we're gonna take you and your spouse or significant other on a two-night or three night, four-day cruise, and we're all gonna just go be together as family. It's a great trip, it's a great reward. We do it in February every year, so it's right before season begins to get everybody energized and love on them and let them know how much we appreciate On that side. Yeah.

51:18 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. So awesome. And something that comes to mind, I interviewed Preston Peterson a few months ago. You probably know him. He let's see, what was it? He said that the key for him to grow his company super large was losing his ego and being as selfless as possible, which it almost sounds counterintuitive. You think well, the ego is gonna get me to the next step, but actually it's when you lose the ego. I don't know if you'd agree with this, but when you lose the ego, yeah, and you put all the credit towards everyone else and now you're just willing to do whatever is best for your people and the business.

51:49 Tony Carder

I do.

51:59 Tony Carder

Correct. And when I look at what we've done at TruNorth in the last twenty-four months, I didn't do any of it. Now, was I the visionary and the person that helped leading us? Yes. But it was the staff and the people that did the work. They went out and built the relationships, made the friends and made the contacts to get the clients on to be on our on with us. So that's exactly right. You I tell people all the time, look at your two hands. They can only do so much. So if you got to learn to trust people, teach people, educate them, coach them and mentor them into where where you want them to help you be and where you want to go.

52:31 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Absolutely. I wanted to circle back. So you said fifteen million to twenty four million in three years. How?

52:45 Tony Carder

It was perfect timing. We had had a lot of smaller branches that we had established in areas and we had hired a sales manager to come on full time, who did a phenomenal job to help us with the business. And so he helped dial in the sales guys, the ones that were not pulling the they were doing good but they wasn't doing great, right? So you do that, you have great customer service. So now you're not losing clients and the machine is so big, it's just throwing them on so fast. And then what we did was we had great training coordinators. So we had it down the last three years. We were buying three brand new trucks every month and they were rolling out on the streets every 90 days. So we had three months to train those people. Every month we would hire three new people and they would start the process. And we knew they would be ready in 90 days. We knew there would be a route somewhere or somebody would leave the company that we would need to plug. And once we had that down and focused on that customer service, focused on that training, it really, really did a great job. So and it was just when you have that many locations.

53:45 Dan Leibrandt

Hm. Dang. Okay, so you've you found a really good flow.

53:48 Tony Carder

Yeah. And when you have that many locations and you can grow them all by 10 or 15, 20%, our budget was 20% minimum, growth, well, man, it expounds quickly, quickly. Just start stacking, stacking, stacking. And that's why I tell people about saving money. If can start at eighteen, well, that's why I like to speak to the eighteen to twenty five year olds, that's that seven year period. If you gain that one seven year period and you fast forward four more periods, so now you're thirty five years later, that seven year compound has drastically reduced that last seven years. So if you don't start saving until twenty five, you missed one of the most important ones to how money doubles over seven year period.

54:24 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Definitely. Yeah, yeah. Actually expand upon that more. I feel like I've heard of it, but where's that from?

54:32 Tony Carder

So basically if you have a dollar, seven years later it's two dollars. Seven more years later it's four dollars. Seven more years later it's eight dollars, eight dollars turns into sixteen, and then sixteen turns into thirty-two at thirty-five years. But if you have a thousand dollars a year one, and then at the end of year seven, you have seven thousand dollars, you save a thousand dollars a year, which is not much, it's a little eighty dollars a month, twenty dollars a week, and so you seven years you have seven thousand dollars. Year 14, you have $14,000, and that twenty-eight, see how it starts compounding, and that number blows up quicker. It's the same in business. That's one reason why we like to do the startup locations. We'll go start an office from scratch because we know that business is gonna help our overall growth percentage. Our Panama City branch grows by six or eight hundred percent every month over last year, same month. See how it helps? Because if you're doing fourteen thousand one year and the next year you do sixty thousand or sixty six thousand. I think is what he did in yeah, so May he did sixty or seventy-one thousand. I get the months confused. Might have been March sixty six thousand, May 71, or April and March. But you see what I'm saying? So and then last year you did fifteen or sixteen thousand. Well those are huge percentage growth, which helps the overall growth of the company. Our Orlando office is growing at a tremendous rate. Forty, fifty percent growth year over year. So over month over month from previous year. So it really starts expounding on the business. And then your bigger branches grow 12 to 20% and that helps you hit your overall goal.

56:07 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm, definitely. And to the investing point, I heard this recently. I forget who it was from, but a quote is time in the market is better than timing the market. You I just stay in it long enough. So you guys built Active Pest Control for a long period of time. People didn't see the first 10 to 20 years and they go, you're a twenty million dollar company. It's like it happened overnight. It's like, no. There's so much, so much time that went into that.

56:22 Tony Carder

A hundred percent.

56:42 Tony Carder

Think about all the things you've seen driving around. You'll drive around and look at a company, you're like, man, I've never seen this company before. And next thing you look at it, they've been in business since 1964, but they were in all these states. In-N-Out Burger was all on the West Coast. They're finally making it to the East Coast. Well, they've been around forever. Chick-fil-A's been around forever. Now they're doing $30 billion a year. They add on one billion a year in revenue. And they're a debt-free company. It's the exact same over time. Over time. People always ask, do you regret selling Active? Probably the only regret to selling it to me was I lost the time. The years that we're talking about. But I also gained so much wisdom it's allowed me to build this company quicker. I'd all the mistakes I made, I don't even deal with them. I took all the good the last three years that we ran that business and compounded it today, just with TruNorth. We only do those things. Keep it very simple. Took us a long time to get it simple.

57:38 Dan Leibrandt

You actually that I was going to ask you that. Did did you regret selling the company? So you don't regret selling the company. And what I mean, what made you want to sell?

57:44 Tony Carder

No. I didn't. Took him three years to convince me to do it. And then honestly, the check just got big enough you can't say no. And I guess you could have, but I went to my dad, who was the founder of the company. I owned 100% of it. I'd bought it from the family in 2006, and I'm like, hey, what would you recommend I do? And he looked at me and he said, What is your legacy gonna be? And as clear as I could be sitting here today, I said, It will be my two children. He said, Then you know exactly what you're supposed to...

57:53 Dan Leibrandt

Ha.

58:18 Tony Carder

Because it's never going to be the business. I don't want ever to be my legacy to be my businesses. I want it to be the results of the effort of my two children. And hopefully my grandchildren someday. And if I'm lucky, I might get to see some great grandchildren. That's where the legacy's going to be. It's never going to be in a company or a dollar. And that's when we decided. All right, it's time to sell it. And I can remember the day we closed on the business. I was asking my son who was graduating from high school. He looked at me and said, We can always do it again. And the part that I love most about this journey is he's built that office down there by himself. Just like I had to with my dad. There wasn't no, hey, you we're we're a thirty million dollar company and you're gonna come in and you're gonna go into the C suite and we're gonna teach you how to run the business. It's no, I'm gonna be a tech for a while, I'm gonna be in sales for a while, I've been doing turbine treatments for two years now. I'm doing whatever it takes to grow the business. I know every aspect of the pest control business. So someday if he sits behind this desk and says, I'm the CEO, and hopefully he will someday, well nobody can question that he knows how to do it. Because he can say, I founded one of the first offices in this company from scratch.

59:23 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. That's so cool that you've given your son the same opportunity that your dad gave you. And I've seen many stories where maybe some guys or girls born into a super rich family and they end up becoming super depressed because they never had to work hard. They don't understand the value of things or just blowing money. So I think you're doing it the right way, where it's like, Hey, I will give you all of my wisdom and I will help you out and mentor you. But ultimately this is your thing and I want to see you crush it.

59:54 Tony Carder

Yeah, exactly. And that's the same with my daughter who runs our contact center. Both of them have expectation requirements. They have the same vacation period as everybody else. They don't get any more benefits. I didn't with my dad. They drive company vehicles and they are taught to manage money and respect the employees and help grow the brand. And I love the fact that they're younger, just like I was. I can remember being young and I'm like, Dad, why won't you do this? Why won't you do this? Because he was already set. He was making the money he wanted to make. He didn't care if the business ever really grew. He had already done it for the last 15 years, hard. So for me now it's with them, they're the energy that helps keep me motivated. Plus, meeting with all these other owners, all these younger guys that are starting these companies. A lot of guys that are knocking doors or have been reaching out to me going, hey, we know how to grow the business. Now we need to know how to run the business. The aspect on the inside that we didn't know about because we did great at selling, so they're on the back side of those things. And you're just giving them purpose and drive. There's no free rides. I love Shaquille O'Neal's statement every day. I'm wealthy with all the money. Your kids are broke. My kids are broke. They're gonna have to go earn the same approach with me, right? I've got all the money. Y'all gotta come and help me. You gotta come and learn and earn your pair share of the money.

1:01:01 Dan Leibrandt

Ha.

1:01:09 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, definitely. No, it builds character. And what I want to ask you too, and I like to ask all the owners I talk to after they've sold and started again, is what are some of the top lessons that you took from the previous company into this new company, which I know you guys have massively skilled. You said you're gonna be at eight or nine million. So are there some key mistakes or key lessons that you took and put into this one to build faster and better?

1:01:37 Tony Carder

The energy the first b is the is the belief, knowing that we could do it. I can remember at thirty four years old taking over Active. I wasn't sure how big I could get the business. When I tell people all the time today it's like I believe this company will be a hundred million dollars. When I sold Active, I would have told you I couldn't run a hundred million dollar company. But after being mentored and coached and going to a lot of great conferences, meeting a lot of great people over the last five years and understanding that it was really I just didn't have the belief I could do it. Knowing that I can now is number one. When you leave a company or a decide to start your own pest control business, there's something that pushed you out the door to do it. Well, now it's okay believing how big you can grow it. And then as I tell people, figure out where you want to be in 10 years and work backwards. Have a one-year, five, three-year, five-year, ten-year plan. Put that 10-year number out there and work all the way backwards, and you'll find out it's not that big. The daily number is all you need to worry about. If you do the daily every day, you'll achieve the biggest. So for me, it was a doubt system. And of course, always taking care of your people. I'm still learning that every day. You always got to take care of your people. You've when you think you're doing a good job of taking care of they may not receive it the way you think you're they're receiving it. So you've got to break it down and make sure that they're happy and that they're doing a wonderful job and they're on board to stay in. So to me, it's that one right there is probably the other one. I'll always say learning how to take care of your people better.

1:03:07 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. You've mentioned mentors several times. Who who are the some the biggest mentors in your life?

1:03:12 Tony Carder

So of course my dad was number one. Helped me for 16 years. If I had his people skills, I probably would have been 200 million and Active years ago and not at 24 million. Unbelievable people skills. Outside of that, John Maxwell, I've read just about every single book John's ever wrote. I love the Atomic Habits book, Good to Great. John Maxwell's 360 degrees in leadership, learning in a different perspective, Failing Forward by John Maxwell. So other mentors have been Grant Cardone I love Brandon Dawson and what he does more than Grant. Grant's on the real estate side. Brandon's more about belief and ex systems and processes. So those guys are very I listen to them a lot for that s part of the stuff. Other mentors in the business itself, Minds drawing a blank. There was quite a few great guys. Eric Frye out of Alabama and his business that they had. And Steven Splawn, those were great guys back in the day. Al Foster was a mentor of mine up in Nashville. I think his daughter runs the business now, American Pest Control up there. So those were people that poured into me when I was younger and said, Hey, these are some things you need to tighten up, look at on that side of the business. So those were good mentors to me and people of that age. Yeah.

1:04:32 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, cool. And you've also mentioned real estate several times. Do you think other pest control owners should be involved in real estate and at what level?

1:04:42 Tony Carder

100%. If you have more than one location, create an LLC and own those buildings. Own that rent, because that's a great way for you to start building wealth in other areas. My dad taught me that when we sold Active, I think I owned 12 or 13 of the physical locations the offices were in. I just bought a big new corporate building under my LLC that we didn't even move into. When we moved into it with Rentokil, they owned it. But I'd already signed the lease on paper and also I'm like, y'all gotta move in it. I own the building. It's part of the it's not part of the it's a not an option. So yes, I think that's everybody wants to go, Tony. Well, yeah, we make great money in the pest control business, but how do you stack wealth? Well go find it in other avenues. And real estate is the safest and easiest one. Buy some rental properties, put in a management company, and it's a long term play, right? There's nothing get rich, quick scheme about it. So I definitely love the fact that I just the we're moving out of the building I'm in now. To our corporate office right after July fourth into a new building I bought for us. So we'll go to six thousand square feet, big training facility already, nice new call center room for our staff. We actually even put a nursery in the new building so when our staff has babies, we have a lot of young females in our office, they'll be able to bring their baby to work with them for the first six weeks after they're born, after they come off maternity leave. So they'll be able to keep their baby at home with them longer and they'll just work from in that room. And they'll have all the cares of a small little daycare and a nice desk in there for them to work at. So I think that's good for retention. So yeah, definitely owning real estate is very important.

1:06:18 Dan Leibrandt

Hm, awesome.

1:06:24 Dan Leibrandt

Hm. And it's clear to me that you really understand wealth. Is there any other wealth building advice that you'd give to people?

1:06:35 Tony Carder

It's no get rich quick scheme. Like Acorn, there's an app called Acorn. I mentioned it earlier. I just sent it to three or four people asking me about it. Open that app or one like it. There's several companies out there that offer it and start putting five or ten dollars a week in there. And then when you can afford to put twenty in there, you put twenty. And as your salary grows, it grows. So the more you make, the more you put over there and just rat hole that money away. And the number one thing I tell people is you need to tithe. First fruit, go to him. If you want to ask for a blessing, remember the more you're given. The more responsibility is going to come your way. So if you'll be able to manage a little, you can manage a lot. So I believe part of that is you tithe. You tithe back to Jesus first. And to the and the old saying goes, people go, Why worry about what the church does with the money? That's not the intention. Your intention is to give because you gave with the right heart. They'll be judged separately if they don't manage the money correctly. That's the way I look at it.

1:07:30 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Love that. Yeah, I was talking with my partner Jake, which we run a Pest Control Millionaires together with Jonas, and we were joking around, but seriously saying, one of the best investments, because what we always talk about marketing strategy and getting super deep on this. He's like, one of the best marketing strategies is actually tithing, because God will bless you for doing something like that.

1:07:56 Tony Carder

Absolutely. I can tell people before I ever, once I became a believer, went through some discipleship training and all that and understood the blessings, I knew God had already blessed me years ago. I became a millionaire at 34 years old. I knew never and I still to this day I tithe religiously. And it's not religiously, it's because I it's my belief. He's given to me more than I could should ever deserve and ever ever. So why would I not? I look for opportunities all the time to bless people. All the time. Went to dinner the other night with some friends and seventy-year-old couple in front of us was there at eating at the same place we were. They said something about it was their anniversary. We're like, I want their bill. If they're buying my bill, let me bless them with a bill. And they didn't even know it. I said they can't know about it, but it was like they were seventy something years old with their fiftieth wedding anniversary, I think, and I'm like, Why not make that night even special for them? Those are the other kind of things. Being involved in the community, going back into the business. Get involved in the community. Find the local charities in your community. Support them. They'll see that you're not just about making money, you're about giving back to the community. That's a big brand thing that TruNorth and Active both do. We contribute heavily to a friend's house here, Haven House, all the different things that really I drive toward children because children don't have a choice. An adult has a decision, right? Self-inflicted. Everything you do is an action. Child they're they're just in the middle of a situation. So I love giving money back to that side helping those type of...

1:09:34 Dan Leibrandt

Mm. That is so cool. I really respect that. And I think I that's the right way to use your money. I see all these people just hoarding their wealth. They have hundreds of millions in the bank. And it's just like I that could be used for so much good, but yet it's not.

1:09:50 Tony Carder

I think people miss. They want to bang on the billionaires of the world that that are billionaires, but a lot of those people don't walk around boasting how much money they give away. And a lot of them do. And I go back to this. If you're truly successful, and I don't mean one of those that walk around acting like you're successful, flashy cars and watches, if you're truly successful, you're gonna want to help everybody you come in contact in life. Because you've already arrived. You don't need to tell nobody. You just need to encourage other people. That's the reason why I like going to speaking s small colleges and young adults. It's because look, I'm trying to guard you against some stupidness in my life. And if I can get one person not to do half of the stupid crap I did, then hey, then that's what Jesus asked for me to do. I'm discipling them. And I don't pound Jesus on anybody. I want that to be a reflection of who I am. And I'm still not perfect, trust me, by any stretch of the imagination. And we all understand that and how that works. But at the end of the day, I still get up every day going, I'm going to give 100%, try to be the best person I can.

1:10:57 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Amen. Well, this has been a great podcast, Tony. I've learned a lot from you, man. I really respect you. I think you're an awesome businessman and just a great guy in general. I've...

1:10:57 Tony Carder

Так і...

1:11:03 Tony Carder

Thank you.

1:11:03 Dan Leibrandt

Got one more, one more question for you. And that is, what is your message to the pest control owners out there? What do you want to tell them? What do you think they need to know?

1:11:17 Tony Carder

Ooh, that's a that's a big one. So I'm having about 30 seconds to respond and think it through.

1:11:19 Dan Leibrandt

I know. Yeah.

1:11:22 Tony Carder

Honestly, I think it's the same one I've been telling myself a lot in the last six months. It's take care of your people. You know what? Again, back to your hands can only do so much. So I think it's to me, it's we are in a great industry. It's a growing industry. I joke all the time and tell people that waste management does more in one company than our entire industry does as see, you don't believe me? Yeah. Google it later. You'll be like, man, Tony was right. It's scary.

1:11:49 Dan Leibrandt

Really?

1:11:54 Tony Carder

Their revenue, I think, was 26 billion last year. The pest control industry was 22 billion for the United States. Insane. So in that, think about it from that standpoint. We have such a great opportunity in front of us. I think our industry continues to grow. I think we need to pull as many people as we can in, love on them, teach them, take care of them, and then give back to...

1:12:19 Dan Leibrandt

Hmm. Amen. Well, thanks again so much, Tony, for for coming on the show. Where can people find you and connect with you?

1:12:23 Tony Carder

Yes, sir. So on social I'm driven for success 85 on Instagram or Tony Carder, C A R D E R on Facebook. And then it's [email address removed]. I tell people all the time if you ever want any help, I'm I do it. I do it because I love it. I don't charge anybody anything because I want to I want them to be successful, right? I want them to I want to see the fruits of their labor to know that hey, I guided them in a direction to help them out. And some people will be like, hey. Without him I kinda cleaned this up, did this, or he just to flat out encouraged me. So it's a lot of fun.

1:13:03 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. Okay. So go follow Tony on Facebook and Instagram. Both those links will be in the description. And anything else you'd like to plug or promote?

1:13:12 Tony Carder

Just thank you for having me on the show today.

1:13:14 Dan Leibrandt

Of course, man. Yeah, it's been really good connecting and yeah, I hope we stay in touch.

1:13:18 Tony Carder

Yes sir, thank you.

1:13:21 Dan Leibrandt

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