Pest Control Legends

On this episode of Pest Control Legends, Dan Leibrandt interviews Brian Lunsford, owner and CEO of Kingfish Pest Control in Jacksonville, Florida. Brian is a second generation operator who, in 2005, bought his dad's Atlanta pest control company with his brother Brandon when it had only a couple of employees. They grew it into a 100-person PCT Top 100 business and sold it to Terminix in 2019. Brian then started over with Kingfish, alongside a home inspection company and a holiday lighting company called Joy Lights.Brian shares how the Atlanta company got its name out there by running loss-leader deals on Groupon and Angie's List, responding to every review with class, and answering the phones themselves until the chaos forced them to figure out hiring. He explains the spending rule he and his brother used to settle disagreements, why Google Ads is the engine behind Kingfish's growth today, and what five years as an official partner of the Jacksonville Jaguars actually did for the brand, from the "Swat That Kick" chant at the stadium to the bucket list moments on the team plane. He also makes the case that radio and other branding do work, and that owners who judge them by the source codes in their CRM are measuring the wrong thing, since most of that traffic shows up as "Google."The conversation then turns to hiring and culture. Brian explains why a red flag in an interview is almost always right, how every email, text, and meeting builds your culture whether you mean it to or not, and why he puts faith and family ahead of the company. He tells the story of a technician who offered to give up half of his commission to support a coworker going through a serious health situation, and how simplifying his portfolio this year, including shutting down a handyman business and turning a 12-month lighting company into a six-week one, reenergized his whole team. He closes with his message to pest control owners: there is no magic bullet, big results come from small actions repeated over a long period of time, and you are in the right industry.Brian Lunsford, Owner of Kingfish Pest Control:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brianlunsford21/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-lunsford/Website: https://www.kingfishpest.com/Dan Leibrandt, Host of Pest Control Legends:Facebook: https://facebook.com/DanLeibrandtOfficial  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/danleibrandt/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanLeibrandt   Website: https://danleibrandt.comPest Control Legends Platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PestControlLegends Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/46XRaco5nPWcqHWIoQ2eZ5Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pest-control-legends/id1768175212Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b060991d-e5d5-4683-b83f-8db469714ba7/pest-control-legends Podcast Chapters:0:00 Intro0:50 Leaving TV to take over his dad's pest control company3:47 The first year: Groupon, Angie's List, and loss leader deals7:26 Biggest mistakes: hiring anyone and overspending on radio10:10 Partnering with his brother and the 2019 Terminix exit13:06 Do those growth strategies still work today?16:12 Becoming an official partner of the Jacksonville Jaguars19:57 How important is branding?21:26 Does radio actually work?23:00 "Swat That Kick" and why branding shows up as "Google"25:00 Trusting your gut in hiring27:11 Red flags to look for in interviews29:20 How to build culture37:24 Faith and leadership42:25 Simplification: cutting companies to focus on pest control48:24 Using the realtor channel to drive pest leads49:54 Lessons from building and selling the first company54:16 Brian's message to pest control owners56:36 Where to find Brian#pestcontrolmarketing #pestcontrolbusiness #pestcontroladvertising #pestcontrolleads #pestcontrolads #pestcontrollegends #danleibrandt #pestcontrolowner #pestcontrolpodcast

On this episode of Pest Control Legends, Dan Leibrandt interviews Kyle Turner, founder and CEO of Pro Active Pest Control in Roseville, California. Kyle grew up doing landscaping for his dad and always assumed his own business would be a landscaping company, but after watching a cousin and a friend succeed in pest control, he took a pay cut to become a technician, got his California license before anyone would hire him, and spent two years in the field before launching Proactive in 2014. Twelve years later the company runs multiple locations in California and Arizona with more than 140 employees serving over 30,000 customers.Kyle is honest about how rough the start was. The first six months brought lawsuits, self-doubt, and a plan to sell his handful of accounts back to his old employer and ask for his job back, until one day on one street he sold and serviced ten accounts and the momentum never stopped. He explains why Yelp was the engine of his early growth when there were no ads on the platform, why it is still his second biggest lead source behind Google even though most owners in the industry hate it, and what it actually takes to win Yelp leads when you are competing against four other companies on every message. The second half is about people and culture. Kyle hires on attitude rather than resumes, promotes only from within, and runs the company on one simple question: what would I want if I were the employee? That thinking produced the annual top performers trip to an all-inclusive resort, the spring kickoff, summer picnic, and Christmas party, and a team that hangs out on weekends. He walks through how he stepped out of the day-to-day with just three weekly direct reports, why he still calls his own office most days posing as a customer and as a new lead, why every manager should do a ride-along when they run out of things to train on, and where he lands on profit margins and the Profit First model. Kyle Turner, Founder of Pro Active Pest Control:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-turner-260208b0/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/turnerkyle12/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turner.kyle.7Website: https://www.beproactivepestcontrol.com/Dan Leibrandt, Host of Pest Control Legends:Facebook: https://facebook.com/DanLeibrandtOfficial  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/danleibrandt/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanLeibrandt   Website: https://danleibrandt.comPest Control Legends Platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PestControlLegends Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/46XRaco5nPWcqHWIoQ2eZ5Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pest-control-legends/id1768175212Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b060991d-e5d5-4683-b83f-8db469714ba7/pest-control-legends Podcast Chapters:00:00 Intro00:50 From Landscaping to Getting Licensed Before He Had a Job03:11 The Brutal First Six Months and the One Street That Changed Everything05:06 How Yelp Built Proactive Before There Were Ads06:28 Why Yelp Is Still His Second Biggest Lead Source10:03 Google LSA and GMB, and Why Door Knocking Stopped11:23 Why Most Owners Get Stuck at One Technician and Kyle Never Did14:39 A Players, Hiring on Attitude, and Promoting From Within20:34 The Top Performers Trip and Building Culture Every Quarter27:48 Residential vs. Commercial and the Accounts to Avoid31:07 Scaling Past $1M With Territory, Specialty Services, and Arizona36:21 Stepping Out of the Day-to-Day With Three Direct Reports38:41 Secret-Shopping His Own Office and Doing Ride-Alongs43:45 What a Good Profit Margin Looks Like44:43 Setting Your Pride Aside47:42 Kyle's Message to Pest Control Owners49:02 Where to Find Kyle#pestcontrolmarketing #pestcontrolbusiness #pestcontroladvertising #pestcontrolleads #pestcontrolads #pestcontrollegends #danleibrandt #pestcontrolowner #pestcontrolpodcast

On this episode of Pest Control Legends, Dan Leibrandt interviews Paul Giannamore, managing director of The Potomac Company. Paul is recognized by institutional investors, Wall Street analysts, and the largest companies in the industry as the top global authority on pest control valuation and M&A. He started his career as a tech banker at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse before moving to the buy side at American Capital, then founded Potomac at 25 years old. He fell into pest control almost by accident when a friend asked him to sit in on due diligence for a deal near his home, and two decades later his firm has advised on hundreds of transactions and more than $10 billion in volume, handling more sell side pest control deals than every other advisor in the world combined.Paul walks through the full history of pest control valuations, from the duopoly era when Terminix and Orkin were the only buyers and companies changed hands at four to five times EBITDA, to the arrival of Rentokil's North American strategy, Anticimex entering the US in 2016, and the flood of private equity that pushed premium assets past 15 times. He explains why revenue multiples are a resultant number that describes a deal rather than drives it, why cash flow is the only thing that actually matters, and why multiple expansion in pest control has flattened in a way it has not in other industries. He breaks down what separates a premium business from a cheap one, including 80% or higher recurring revenue, top line growth at double the rate of inflation, and gross margins in the high 50s to high 60s, and he is blunt about the fact that the 2021 window where anything would sell is closed.The conversation then turns to the part of the job Paul says now takes up most of his time, which has less to do with structuring processes and more to do with preparing owners emotionally for what a sale actually does to them. He explains why selling a company you built is closer to a divorce than a transaction, why the team that feels like family stops feeling that way the moment you are no longer signing the checks, and why he has watched sellers leave millions on the table to protect people who were, from their side, doing a job. He also shares what separates the leaders who scale from the ones who stay stuck, why the owner of a $5 million company can genuinely know more than the CEO of Rollins, and closes with his message for 2026, which is to stop letting your organization arise by accident and start designing it on purpose.Paul Giannamore, Managing Director of The Potomac Company:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulgiannamore/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@POTOMACTVWebsite: https://potomaccompany.com/Podcast Chapters:00:00 - Intro02:07 - From Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse to Pest Control06:57 - Why He Went All In on One Industry10:25 - Why Owners Were Selling for Far Less Than They Should15:05 - What EBITDA Actually Means17:31 - Why Bigger Companies Don't Always Get Better Multiples20:25 - Scarcity Value and the Platform Acquisition Trap23:19 - Where the Market Is Right Now25:32 - The 2021 Peak and What Killed It28:30 - Why High Valuations Cut Both Ways33:32 - The Biggest Mistake Owners Make36:20 - The Recurring Revenue Debate, Settled40:42 - Why M&A Advisory Became Psychology44:25 - Your Team Is Not Your Family48:12 - Preparing Yourself for the Divorce52:30 - What the Biggest Operators Do Differently57:18 - Paul's Message to Pest Control Owners1:01:58 - Where to Find Paul#pestcontrolbusiness #pestcontrolacquisitions #mergersandacquisitions #acquisitions #pestcontroladvertising #pestcontrolleads #pestcontrolads #pestcontrollegends #danleibrandt #paulgiannamore #pestcontrolowner #pestcontrolpodcast

On this episode of Pest Control Legends, Dan Leibrandt interviews Brandon Sizemore, owner of Mint Pest Control. Brandon is a licensed CPA who spent 12 years in accounting before walking away to start a pest control business in 2020. He pulled the equity out of his home, took a line of credit, and bet everything on it. Six years later, Mint is a $7 million company with four locations growing through door to door, inside sales, SEO, and one of the most recognizable brands in the industry.Brandon walks through the journey, starting with the three weeks he spent knocking doors in college and deciding door to door was not for him. He explains why he chased a partnership after being rejected several times, why failed partnerships and cash flow are the two biggest risks to a young business, and what it was like launching in the first weeks of COVID with cops called on his reps daily and a 15 person sales team cut in half. He also makes the case that his growth came far more from focus and effort than from capital.The back half gets into what the CPA lens actually gives him. Brandon explains why benchmarking your gross margin against another company is usually meaningless, why the real work sits in the leading indicators rather than the KPIs everyone already tracks, and how he thinks about door to door acquisition costs. He breaks down why the branding investment behind the mint truck was worth the risk, closes with the PRIME framework Mint uses to hire, and makes the point that what this industry really sells is trust.Brandon Sizemore, Owner of Mint Pest Control:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-sizemore-cpa-a6a3173a/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.s.sizemoreWebsite: https://mintpest.com/Dan Leibrandt, Host of Pest Control Legends:Facebook: https://facebook.com/DanLeibrandtOfficial  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/danleibrandt/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanLeibrandt   Website: https://danleibrandt.comPest Control Legends Platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PestControlLegends Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/46XRaco5nPWcqHWIoQ2eZ5Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pest-control-legends/id1768175212Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b060991d-e5d5-4683-b83f-8db469714ba7/pest-control-legends Podcast Chapters:00:00 - Intro00:46 - From CPA to Pest Control05:30 - Betting the House on the Business10:33 - Why Focus Beats Funding15:58 - Why He Chose a Business Partner22:49 - How a CPA Looks at a Pest Control Business29:00 - The Numbers Most Owners Get Wrong35:05 - Getting to the First Million During COVID40:15 - Why the Mint Truck Works43:41 - Making the Numbers Work on Door to Door54:33 - Hiring and the PRIME Framework59:48 - Brandon's Message to Pest Control Owners#pestcontrolmarketing #pestcontrolbusiness #pestcontroladvertising #pestcontrolleads #pestcontrolads #pestcontrollegends #danleibrandt #pestcontrolowner #pestcontrolpodcast

On this episode of Pest Control Legends, Dan Leibrandt interviews Jeff Stafford, president of Innovative Pest Solutions. Jeff has been in the industry over 40 years, starting in the field the day after his 18th birthday. In 1994 he launched Bird Solutions International, which has handled some of the largest bird jobs in the country including 1.2 million square feet of netting at SeaTac Airport, the San Onofre nuclear plant, Pearl Harbor, and Petco Park. He ran the same specialist playbook again with Bed Bug Solutions, then rolled everything into Innovative Pest Solutions, a family run company serving Southern California that grows about 30% a year.Jeff explains why niching down is the single thing that blew his company up, from choosing bird control when almost nobody was doing it to naming a division Bed Bug Solutions so it would stand out next to quotes from Orkin and Terminix. That division outproduced his entire pest control company within three months. He also makes the case for commercial over residential, and gets candid about selling his first company out of panic in 1999 and why debt is the biggest thing he warns new owners about.The back half goes tactical. Jeff breaks down his ten dog canine program and warns that most companies who buy a detection dog end up with a $15,000 pet. He walks through the $750,000 West LA VA contract and the phorid fly investigation behind more than 90 canceled surgeries. He closes on how his partner wins entire property management portfolios by asking for all of them up front, and why industry consolidation has created more opportunity for small and mid sized companies than ever.Jeff Stafford, Founder of Innovative Pest Solutions:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-stafford-48b624/Website: innovativepestsolutions.com Dan Leibrandt, Host of Pest Control Legends:Facebook: https://facebook.com/DanLeibrandtOfficial  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/danleibrandt/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanLeibrandt   Website: https://danleibrandt.comPest Control Legends Platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PestControlLegends Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/46XRaco5nPWcqHWIoQ2eZ5Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pest-control-legends/id1768175212Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b060991d-e5d5-4683-b83f-8db469714ba7/pest-control-legends Podcast Chapters:00:00 Intro01:12 Growing Up in the Industry and Learning From Bob Keith05:31 Starting With $1,500 and Betting on Bird Control07:07 Why Commercial Is a Necessity and Selling Out of Panic in 199910:52 Splitting Bird Solutions Out and What It Did to the Books15:15 Don't Make Decisions Out of Fear, and the Case Against Debt18:21 The Numbers Jeff Tracks and Paying to Keep Good People21:41 How Niching Down Blew Up Innovative Pest Solutions24:41 Why the Name Bed Bug Solutions Beat Orkin and Terminix27:49 Rocket Growth, Miguel Garcia, and Pivoting Through COVID32:16 Ten Detection Dogs and Why Most Companies End Up With a $20,000 Pet39:28 Inside the $750K West LA VA Contract and the Phorid Fly Mystery47:29 Winning Big Accounts, Multifamily, and Building Real Relationships54:07 Jeff's Message to Pest Control Owners58:03 Where to Find Jeff#pestcontrolmarketing #pestcontrolbusiness #pestcontroladvertising #pestcontrolleads #pestcontrolads #pestcontrollegends #jeffstafford #danleibrandt #pestcontrolowner #pestcontrolpodcast