Starting a Pest Control Business? or Exterminating Business? (Do This First)

hey future badass business owners so you're thinking about starting a pest control business and pest control can be huge and it's very wide-ranging because you have bugs you have critters you have rodents you have all kinds of different things that you can be a pest control specialist in you don't have to do them all in the beginning which makes this a great business to start but in this video what we're going to do is we're going to walk through the steps you need to take in order to get your new business off the ground now first thing you need to do is to make sure that this is the right business for you i know it sounds really weird to ask this question in the first place but here's why you are going to be spending a lot of time doing this business you're going to be living breathing and eating inside of this business no not eating the bugs you don't have to do that but you will be spending a lot of time in it and it's very important that before you even start that you do your research and part of the reason is it's going to save you so much time and money and those are the two most precious commodities that you will have in your business at any given time now you're probably wondering what you need to research well today we're going to walk through four key areas that you need to watch one is going to be your competition two is going to be the legal requirements three is going to be the money that's needed to start the business and four is marketing how are you going to let people know that you even exist so let's start first with competition and what should you be doing before you even start your business well whether your competition is small or big if you think about the pest control business you have other single guys out there or gals who are doing what it is that you're doing up to these bigger companies that have trucks all over the place you want to know and really dive into what are they doing poorly and it's really easy to pick apart a business but here's the thing i also want you to make sure you know what they're doing really well because there are some things that they're doing really well that you can steal and copy really early in the beginning of your business so don't just focus on what they do wrong but i want you to focus on what they do well how can you stand out this is what you're gathering by finding out what they do well and what they do poorly because this is going to help give you a secret sauce that you're going to be able to combine all of that and be able to solve things now some other things you're going to be looking at is the quality of the products or services not all treatments for pests are the same some will do it organically some will do it non-aggressively some will animal free stuff you just need to figure out how are you going to do it what kind of quality of products or services are they using what do they charge you know everything is going to be different by the way a lot of times bigger companies can do a cheaper price in some cases because they can do it in volume but other times they're going to be way more expensive because their expenses are way much higher than yours are ever going to be but make sure you know what they charge for all types of services so that you can charge correctly remember this is not a race to the bottom i don't want you to be the cheapest out there that's not why you're trying to find out what they charge what you're trying to do is find out what they charge for the different types of services so you can be competitive a lot of this has to do with the simple fact that i don't just want you to be another pest control business i want you to focus on what the pain point is that you plan to solve for your customers and how you're going to stand out by really understanding your competitors and what their advantages are it's going to give you some insight on how you're going to be able to stand out amongst them now the next part you're going to look into is the legal requirements first off an llc versus a dba doing business as an llc is a legal entity yes you own it yes you are the business but it for the law and for taxes there are going to be a couple different things the law it's a legal entity on its own because you're a single owner probably it's going to be a pass-through for taxes which means you're still going to pay the taxes so it gets kind of confusing for people doing business as is just as if you go out there and you say hey i'm tom jones and i'm doing tom jones's pes control business you're not going out getting an llc uh and there's a lot of states are going to have different rules with what you have to do so it's really important that you dive into your city your county and your state to find out which one are you legally required to do most people do the llc for more protections that it gives you because it protects you as an individual versus you know the whole entire business but some states especially because you're using some chemicals and stuff like that you need to find out what you have to be doing at each state is going to be completely different so it's important that you look into that as part of this now some other things from a legal standpoint that you need to look into is are you required to have a license sometimes the city will require a license the town um the county the state you need to look at the licensing and there's definitely licing that's going to be tied to being a pest control person do you have to have any kinds of permits what type of insurance do you need to have sometimes you have to have a certain amount of liability general liability insurance you need to find out what you need to have for that once again the city county and state are going to be very great resources for you in these early days in order for you to find out what it is that you need to have plus don't forget you can always ask some of your competitors if they're a little bit more open especially if you go a few towns over where you're not competing with them the third area we want to look at is going to be the funds that are needed for you to start the business now i'm a big fan of being as debt-free as possible but there is a bunch of stuff that you need but i think that you can still be debt-free because sometimes you already have some of this stuff and sometimes you can borrow it but sometimes it's going to be a minimal investment remember you do not have to come out the chute buying everything under the sun you can start small and grow and bootstrap would just put more money back into the business in order for you to group more things but you need to know what kind of tools what equipment vehicle a lot of times you can use your own current vehicle in most cases you don't have to go out there and buy a 20 000 truck and or hire some people to get the business going you can always work your way to that training and certifications is huge for this business you have to be certified to use a lot of the chemicals so please make sure that you are using those uh as needed that you are getting exactly what it is that you need to do and when it comes to the advertising there's gonna be all kinds of different things that you can do a lot of it's gonna be word of mouth getting things out i really recommend you getting with as many real estate companies as you can and agents and letting them know that you exist and also there's going to be some money tied to the licensing and the llc the different uh things we just talked about under the legal requirements so make sure you have the money needed for that as well all right now we need to make sure that you get paid by the way so we're going to work this one in in order for you to make sure that you're going to get paid you need to have a good invoicing and bidding system in the very beginning uh you know can you use a notepad kind of i think yeah it's not going to be as professional there are some cheap ways to be able to do invoicing and bidding by the way a lot of these new programs quickbooks uh freshbooks a lot of the ones that are online they now have ways that you can send invoices directly from them it does cost it's like 20 25 bucks a month it's not bad uh believe it or not it's going to save you tons of headaches and it's going to help you stay organized but it'll help you with your bidding and your invoicing and plus as you get more money there are specific things that are dedicated to people in the pest control business but you don't necessarily need that right away you can use some of these other ones that are going to be a little bit better on the pocketbook if you will you need to have an accounting system remember there are two different things there's bookkeeping and there's accounting with the taxes the taxes are something completely different your bookkeeping is just being able to capture all the expenses and all of the bills that you have coming in all the money you have coming in and it's the act of watching that versus where uh taxes they're going to look at all that information and then find out what's the best text situation for you so sometimes people have the same person sometimes people have separate people so make sure you have a really good bookkeeping system because at the end of the day you want to get paid and i cannot tell you how many small business owners fail to send out invoices and don't get paid like they'll go out they'll do the treatment and then they'll sometime in the next week get the bill out you're just increasing the odds that you're not going to get paid so it's really important that you have a system in place that either right before you do the service or right after you do the service or monthly that you send that bill out depending upon if you're going to have monthlies or if you're going to be doing one-offs you want to make sure you have a system on how you're going to do it now let's hit marketing and branding really quick how are people going to know you even exist what's going to be your marketing plan how are you going to get the word out there that you even exist and keep in mind there's free and paid we talked a little bit about this before free absolutely is going to be word of mouth the more people that you touch and talk to and let know what your business is google business definitely get online and claim your business on google being yahoo all of those first thing people do is they grab their phone and they google it so it's important that you are in those places a facebook you can be part of the community and just let people know that you know you have a this business don't be spamming them on facebook telling them every time they turn around but you just make it part of the conversation maybe one out of five posts or six posts but just be engaged in the local community trust me those people will pick up that you're a pest person and they will turn around and definitely recommend you because they get to know you i've already talked about realtors several different times make sure you're part of any networking in your local community now there are some paid things paid facebook ads postcards flyers stuff like that try to stay on the cheaper side in the very beginning until you build up some bankroll and then you can have an advertising budget that you use the biggest thing is the return on that investment but honestly you can really get your business up and running by using free advertising because once you get that word of mouth going it's really going to help you especially if you can work in with some of those realtors like i was telling you earlier are you going to have to hire people it's an important question to ask yourself because if you're hiring a team you want to make sure you have the best and that you're going to train them and on board them correctly and how you plan to do their payroll most of you are not going to hire people in the very beginning but your business will start to grow so make sure maybe if not in the very beginning but shortly when you start feeling that need to hire people that you start doing your homework when it comes to hiring the team and how you plan to do it the right way versus just spinning people like a lot of people do a lot of people go through a lot of people because they just don't ever figure this piece out so it's important that you do that now you need to take all that information and you put it together uh a lot of people will ask do you need a business plan i say you need a business success blueprint is what i always say because at the end of the day you just need to take the information and turn it into something something that can be a roadmap for how you plan to run the business traditional business plans are used when you need to borrow money with the bank or you're gonna get a franchise you don't need a perf uh per se a professional business plan but you need need to create something that's going to help you take all that information uh and put it together with a success plan you still get to put that plan together and it just gives you a place for all that research like i said and more importantly gives you something to come back to when you kind of lose your way you just go back to that success blueprint to get some of those ideas that you had early on one of the most important things that you can do in this new business is learn your business numbers i can't tell you how many people come to me years after having their business because they are clueless on their business numbers and they're trying to figure it out you want to make money from the get-go remember this is not a sales game this is a profit game so it's very important that you learn your business numbers there are so many things that are out there but you don't have to learn them all you need to know the basics how to price correctly what the difference is between markup and margin you need to understand your profit and loss statement just to name a few i tell people all the time sales minus cost of goods mine six months is equals profits that's probably the most number one calculation that you need to know in order to be successful so it's really important that you know the basics of your business numbers from the beginning and then you can grow and you know like i said your profit and loss statement this is something that comes out of that bookkeeping and it is the report card of the business and it tracks the money in your business it tracks the flow in and where it all goes so if you take in a dollar where are you spending that dollar how much is going to cost goods how much is going to expenses and what is going to your profits at the end of the day because it's really important that you remember this key thing you are running a business you are not creating a job okay a lot of people wake up and they've created a job for themselves and they really haven't figured out how to run a business yet business owners know their business numbers if you're just creating a job you're just kind of going day to day and just pocketing the money and that's not what we want you to do you're trying to run a business but i want i've got some tools out there to help you out don't forget you can always subscribe to the channel there's other youtube videos on here that are going to walk you through the business numbers how to read a p l all those different things and i've got a couple courses to help you out one is to help start a business and the other one is to know your business numbers better that's a huge one uh know your business number's better it's affordable it's for everybody my main goal is just to get you more information but then again you can watch everything on the youtube channel as well let's get you some information so you can be a great business owner from the get go now if you like what you see don't forget to hit that subscribe button like button let people know that they should watch this video as well and get out there and go open a successful pest business

Channel: Be a "PROFITABLE" Badass Business Owner

Views: 12,758

Keywords: Business owner wages, paying yourself as a business owner, how to pay yourself as a small business owner, profit and loss, how to price your products, how to price services, small business tips, how to grow a small business, know your business numbers, learn your business numbers, understanding business numbers, how to start a business, pest control business, pest control technician, pest control, starting a business, starting a new business, exterminator pest control start up

Id: pBi-Y92kOFs

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2022