Year 3

Year 3

I write this newsletter midway through year 3. We started in March 2022 and only 30 months have elapsed. Crazy to see what can happen when you are dedicated for 2.5 years.

Our 2024 Door to Door Sales Team

This year we ramped up the sales team. We resigned one rep from last year and pushed them to recruit reps themselves. We also hired on new reps to help growth.

Last newsletter I spoke of a rep that sold for most of the previous summer in Indianapolis for most of the summer and joined us at the end of the year. This year he came back and brought a recruit with him.

We reached out to friends and family back home and found a pair of brothers that were interested in the opportunity. One of them made the journey out to sell with us but the other brother tore his ACL in the spring and the doctor didn’t clear him to walk and knock.

We reached out to veteran sales reps that we had worked with in the past and one of them agreed to do some blitzes throughout the summer.

Another vet found me on twitter and joined our team. Somebody else reached on out twitter and referred their brother who turned out to be an absolute animal. Huge assets to the team.

We had another 6 reps that signed contracts to come out but got cold feet and never showed up. That’s the thing, it’s an extremely difficult job and many of your most promising recruits will never knock a single door for your company.

In total, we had 6 sales reps that generated nearly $500k in recurring annual revenue for our company. All of this was generated between April 1 and Sept 1. How’s that for growth?

I will devote an entire newsletter to recruiting in the coming weeks.  It is a topic that deserves its own spotlight. Sales will make or break your company.

Commission Structure

All of our reps are paid entirely on commission. If they aren’t getting sales, they aren’t getting paid. If they are getting sales, they are making tons of money.

Rookie sales reps in our program start at 32% commission. We have a transparent pay scale that any sales rep can climb. It tops out at 70% commission as reps continue to get sales throughout the summer.

Veteran sales reps (anybody with more than a year of experience) start at a higher commission rate and are still entitled to climb the pay scale with hard work.

Sales reps also get override commissions on any reps that the recruit to work under them. These reps still receive a full commission, and their recruiter gets 5% on all of their recruits’ sales throughout the year. 

Veteran reps and reps that bring out teams of 5 or more recruits get better deals and higher commissions and overrides. We pride ourselves in taking care of sales reps, employees, and customers and we pay more than other companies to get the best reps.

Acquisition

Last fall, near the end of year 2, we realized we had some cash on hand and limited growth opportunities available in our home market and started exploring acquisitions. I sent emails to dozens of companies. Every single company in our home market received an email to the extent of

“Hello, my name is Casey and I own King Pest Solutions. It has been awesome competing with you and the other companies in Grand Junction. Healthy competition is great! I can tell you have a great company. If you are ever interested in selling it, I would be more than happy to chat numbers.”

This simple email got us some great responses. Nobody was ready to sell but several owner operators said we would be their first call when they’re ready to exit.

In the future, I will continue to reach out to these same business owners year after year, but I will be much more sincere in the coming years and handwrite physical mail and send it to them. It’s only a matter of time until we bolt on a few of these great companies.

With this acquisition mindset, I kept all opportunities open. In February of this year, a BizBuySell listing popped up 4 hours from our home location. We signed an LOI, negotiated ourselves a great deal, and patiently waited for the loan to close.

We acquired Independent Pest Control in Colorado Springs, CO July 12^th and have been running 2 locations full steam ever since. I will also give the acquisition its own newsletter in the coming weeks to go over numbers, how we got creative, and how we managed to out $0 down and take control of a company cash flowing $220k per year.

Where we’re at now

30 months ago we got our first shipment of products and my parents wondered why I couldn’t just use my college degree to follow a normal path in life.

Today I am 25 years old and I’m in the cockpit of a business doing $1.3 million in revenue and growing that number every single day. 

Our goal for next year is $3 million in revenue.

If I can do it, anybody can. In fact, we sell our playbook and have helped over a dozen others start their own pest control companies. If you are interested in starting a business and gaining freedom in your life, check out our Business in a Box Solution.

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