Add-On Services

While the majority of PCOs are content with keeping their noses to the pest control grindstone, there are those who are ambitious and adventurous enough to take on added service. These auxiliary enterprises cover a wide spectrum and have met with decidedly fixed results. Some have bought PCOs enough success to appreciably contribute to company profits - even outperform their primary pest control operations. There are others that can be put down to little more than ego-gratification on the part of individuals who fantasize about being empire-builders. And more typically, many have either caused deep disappointment, or have unceremoniously drowned in a sea of red ink.

WHAT’S THE ATTRACTION? In certain cases there is logic in undertaking add-on services. To be sure they can fill the ‘financial gap" experienced by PCOs in the fall and winter, complementing pest control services that are seasonal in nature. Then, too, in a labor intensive pest control operation with established routes servicing a wide variety of structures, it is often possible to train and convert technicians to perform supplemental work. A well-established pest control company enjoying a solid reputation also has a certain amount of leverage in the marketplace. When, for example, a popular, firmly entrenched operation adopts an additional service, it enjoys more customer confidence as opposed to a brand new, relatively unknown start-up business offering the same service. Finally, there are a few ancillary services that so closely supplement pest control operations that PCOs are in a position to more knowledgeably and successfully perform them than anyone else. Rodent proofing, bird proofing and interior caulking and sealing to eliminate cockroach harborages immediately come to mind.

Our examination of add-on services concentrated more on the unusual and unconventional as opposed to those closely supplementing pest control operations. We questioned PCOs who for the most part have adopted, designed or built ancillary, out-of-the-ordinary programs - all of them successful.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE… Bud Rogin, president of Economy Pest control in Chicago, wears two hats. When he wears his hunter’s cap, he’s out stalking pest control accounts. When he wears his fireman’s helmet, he’s out servicing customers on behalf of his highly successful add-on service, Martin-Mack Fire Equipment Co. Martin-Mack has fire extinguisher routes in which servicepersons, in accordance with City of Chicago regulations, annually check the effectiveness of extinguishers the firm has installed in commercial establishments. These extinguishers that Martin-Mack has leased to its customers are weighted and evaluated, those that are spent are replaced and refilled, and the work is authenticated by the serviceperson with a tag. Subsequently the tag is check by fire inspectors on their routine building inspections throughout the city.

"Our fire equipment service is a year-round business with a built-in repeat feature," Rogin said. He also alluded to the fact that in addition to the inspections and rentals, his company sells fire equipment. In Chicago, fire equipment services require a separate license and operator certification, and Rogin pointed out that Martin-Mack is an entirely separate division in which employees are distinct from the pest control crew.

THE COLOR OF MONEY. The obsession for greenery in executive offices, shopping malls and hotels led to gold for Vernon Pickhardt of Arrow Pest Control in Sarasota, Fla. Interestingly, Arrow had been operating in Cleveland, Ohio, when the Pickhardt clan decided to pick up stakes and head for Florida’s gentler climate. It so happened that Vernon’s father and brother had graduate degrees in horticulture which led them to focus, in Sarasota, on spraying plants for insect control. Almost immediately, it became apparent to the transplanted pest controllers that the lush foliage in entrances, atriums and individual office complexes around Sarasota could benefit from tender loving care. Pickhardt next bought out an existing plant care firm and proceeded to form his own add-on service known as Foliage Design Systems specializing in "interiorscaping."

Pickhardt explained that his company makes weekly visits to its accounts watering plants, dusting leaves and, when needed, feeding the greenery. "The client doesn’t have to do a thing but enjoy the beauty of happy, healthy plants," Pickhardt explained. While he uses separate personnel to perform the horticultural services, Pickhardt says interiorscaping customers sign on for his pest control services and pest control customers increasingly use Foliage Design Systems. At the present time his business is broken down into 70 percent pest control and 30 percent interiorscaping. "Our goal is a 50-50 mix," Pickhardt said.

A JACK OF ALL TRADES. Richard Roller, of GO Pest Control and Groomers Own Inc., a dog grooming operation in Los Angles, is a firm believer in offering his clientele a choice. In addition to dog grooming - he started out as a professional dog groomer - Roller currently offers wild and live animal trapping, dead animal removal, deodorization of buildings, rodent proofing and carpet cleaning. While the canine coiffeuring part of his operation has been winding down, Roller’s other add-ons are prospering, and he stresses that each service helps the pest control business in that clients of the ancillary programs are prone to go to him when they need routine pest control work done.

A NATURAL FIT. When the media headlined radon warnings to homeowners, Ron Porte, head of Aerex Pest Control Services in Chicago, saw a natural fit for an add-on service. "We do a fairly big residential business and what we found particularly intriguing was the fact that radon testing works best when done in the winter months. This is our normal down time," Porte remarked. He researched the field thoroughly and set himself up with a testing laboratory and several outfits specializing in mitigation, or performing structural corrections to buildings where test readings revealed radon problems. Aerex offered a crash course in radon testing to its pest control staff and office personnel, and sent out a blanket mailing to all residential customers.

"The results initially are encouraging," Porte said. "However, it should be pointed out that radon detecting services are only as good as the publicity generated by the media. When the headlines point to radon conditions plaguing homeowners the phones ring steadily. But when the story is buried or ignored, everyone forgets about radon," Porte added.

RAINING PROFITS. To hear Phil Clegg, president of Clegg’s Termite and Pest Control, Durham, N.C. tell it, living in the Carolinas can mean coping with year-round moisture problems. He explained that there is ongoing high humidity, and heavy rains prevail which spell dual problems - termites and water damage. "Unfortunately many of our contractors build homes in an area without proper venting, and many times vents are blocked by vegetation. Also, a lot of people close down their vents in the winter and forget to open them when the weather warms up," Clegg said.

As a well-established termite control entity, moisture control was a natural sideline for the company, and Clegg said that his firm successfully offers this add-on program both in conjunction with termite jobs and as a free-standing service. "We used to install standard vents until the Temp-Vent models came on the market. With the automatic temperature control feature Temp Vent gave us, our sales increased and customer satisfaction jumped," Clegg said.

THE RIGHT "STUFF". Most PCOs recoil when it comes to retrieving and disposing of dead rodents that have met their just reward. Not Andres Mata of Andre Pest Control in Chicago. Offer Mata a dead Norway rat, or a deceased house mouse, even a dispatched squirrel in "workable" condition, and he’ll welcome the cadaver with open arms as fitting subjects for stuffed reproductions to be sold for big bucks. Mata’s add-on is taxidermy.

As a PCO-taxidermist, Andres Mata divides his business between pest control and restoring deceased animals into life-like models. He sells the transformed results to biological supply houses, schools, pest control suppliers and PCOs. Says a modest Mata: "I share the credit for our success with my partner, Hector Terrazas, who was a practicing veterinarian in Mexico with a thorough grounding in animal anatomy."

SANITATION PAYS. With Tom Witt, president of Witt Pest Control in Pittsburgh, Pa., it was a case of hearing opportunity knock and opening the door wide. Witt, in tandem with his pest control business, had been conducting a maintenance and sanitary supply business. Supermarket chains in Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia were among his best customers. One day, in a meeting with officials of supermarket chains in which integrated pest management was the topic of discussion, the store officials confessed they had sanitation problems. Lights flashed in Witt’s mind, and the upshot was that the Pittsburgh PCO designed a model program that solved bacterial control problems in supermarkets and succeed in saving food chains thousands of dollars.

"I soon found out that nobody in the supermarket industry really understood what sanitation was all about," Witt said. In no time, Witt Pest Control became the prime supermarket sanitation consulting service in its tri-state area. Training a special staff of inspectors who became certified following a Cornell University sanitation program, the food service sanitation division quickly became equal in size to Witt’s well-entrenched pest control service business. At last year’s National Pest Control Association convention in Miami, Witt presented his program to PCOs by kicking off a new licensee-distributorship arrangement especially designed as an add-on for pest control operators with supermarket accounts.

HOME INSPECTIONS. In addition to its 80-year old pest control business, Griggs & Browne Co. of Providence, R.I., currently markets a home inspection program, radon testing and basement waterproofing services.

Executive Vice President George Cardoza enthusiastically explains that all of these add-ons evolved out of a strong residential market enjoyed by the company. "When a person buys a home," Cardoza explained, "they hire us to go out to see that the home they’re buying is the home they think they’re buying. We check everything from the roof to the basement and give the client a 12 page report." Cardoza pointed out that his company was practically pushed into the service. "Local realtors got tired of calling separate parties for building inspections and termite inspections, and they urged us to combine them," Cardoza said. A separate staff of people with construction experience handle this service.

While Rhode Island leads the nation in the number of homes being tested for radon in a part of the country that has significant amounts of the underground gaseous substance, Cardoza admitted that currently the business is slow. He attributes this to the lack of current publicity on the dangers of radon. When radon testing is performed, the regular pest control technicians do the job.

Griggs & Browne’s basement waterproofing add-on is, in Cardoza’s words, "doing fantastically." He says termite control technicians employ a unique system involving plastic baseboard which is epoxied to cement flooring in basements and channels excess water out of buildings. He claims it competes successfully with french drains and is less costly. Adds Cardoza: "People who do basement waterproofing in our area have not enjoyed the best reputation. Whizbangs come and go. We’re finding that when we advertise our basement waterproofing service people come to us as the kind of company they have been waiting for."

KEY QUESTIONS. Clearly, add-on services are not for everyone. As has been suggested, many PCOs have tried them and failed - we’ve only singled out success stories. And there remains the strong argument for sticking with and improving upon pest control - the one service the PCO knows best. But, if you simply can’t resist the temptation, ask yourself some important questions before taking the plunge: Is there really a market for that add-on? Will it drain off capital that could be more profitably applied elsewhere? How about added liability and insurance? Will it divert too much time and attention from my principal service? Is my present work force capable of comfortably plugging in, or will I have to hire and train new people? Am I reasonably sure there will be no conflicts?

If you can satisfactorily answer these questions, good luck.

Bob Berns is staff correspondent for PCT magazine.