Change: How Not To Become A Dinosaur

It has been said that the only thing we can count on in life is change. No truer words were ever spoken, especially now. It seems like the world is spinning faster and changes seem to jump at us. With the advent of cyberspace, we have instant access to people and information around the world. We are affected by money markets in Asia, Europe and the Middle East right now, not tomorrow or next week. These changes have affected the way we do business today, no matter whether our businesses are large or small.

So how do we remain competitive? How do we stay ahead of the changes that hit us from every angle? To accept these challenges, we as business people in the 1990s must adapt to the changes we are confronted with or we will surely perish. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed and confused, but there is hope.

COPING WITH CHANGE. In 1985 our industry lost its most valued termiticide, chlordane. I know people today, a full 10 years later, who still hold out hope that chlordane will return like some white knight to save them. In fact, I know people who have gotten petitions signed and have written letters to state and federal regulators in an effort to give chlordane a reprieve from its death sentence. Of course, these efforts were a lesson in futility because other countries are following our lead and are discontinuing chlordane's use. Let's face it chlordane is gone forever, and we have to move on or we will go the way of the dinosaurs. That's a scary thought: Gone. Extinct. Unemployed. Now that I have your attention, let's see whether we can figure out how to cope with the changes that are inevitably going to take place in our lives, and even succeed and prosper because of change.

In the past, many Americans have been content to rest on their laurels. We have gone to work each day knowing what would happen because our days were predictable. I remember watching Leave It To Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and even The Partridge Family on television. Boy, was life simple then. Somehow during the last two decades, we have managed to move into the computer age (some of us kicking and screaming), and in spite of ourselves, we are better as a result. We can now purchase a computer with a complete encyclopedia installed on the hard drive for less than the cost of the books alone 10 years ago. Have World Book, Compton's and Encyclopedia Britannica been faced with change? When was the last time someone tried to sell you a set of encyclopedias? If these companies weren't willing to change the way they do business, they wouldn't be in business today.

We in the structural pest control industry have some interesting times ahead of us. When President Richard Nixon created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, it sounded like a good idea. Pollution was ruining some of our finest cities, acid rain was becoming commonplace, rivers were burning, and trees were dying because of toxicants in the environment. Now, a quarter of a century later, the EPA is almost as powerful as the Internal Revenue Service. Because of the EPA and the environmental movement, we lost chlordane.

You may have heard of NCAMP, the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides. This organization is intent on eliminating the use of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. If this group and the overall environmental movement persist, it is likely that we will again have to change our business practices.

Because of the EPA and organizations such as NCAMP, we've had to change the way we service our clients' homes, offices and lawns. Are these changes bad? Our gut-level reaction is usually "Yes, these changes are bad and we don't want them." But when we look deeper, we find that these changes aren't really so bad after all. Without them we wouldn't have synthetic pyrethroids or any new bait products to control everything from cockroaches to termites. We would still be using DDT and other highly toxic materials. The products we routinely use every day would not be available to us because the manufacturers would not have been forced to adapt and introduce them to us, but would have been content to do business as usual. If we do business as usual and don't accept change, we will miss tremendous opportunities for profit and personal satisfaction.

I can remember when I started my pest control business and I insisted on computerizing my "office," over my wife's protests. One of her remarks was, "Why do you need to computerize your business? You don't have any customers." She was right, but I had the foresight to know I didn't want to schedule, bill and route my customers by hand. I also wanted to give everyone the impression that the company was bigger than it actually was. A year later, my wife was glad I'd had the vision to automate our office, because now she was the busy one, doing the scheduling, billing and routing. I was too busy servicing the client base. Because of automation, I had more time and energy to do what I was good at selling and servicing customers.

Now, 10 years later, we have outgrown the first computer and software package. Two people are needed to keep up with the scheduling, billing and routing for 10 technicians through a local area network of computers. If we were to attempt these tasks the old way, by hand, there would be little time to do anything else.

To be sure, office automation was a large-scale change. Would my company be as successful today without computers? Perhaps; but it certainly wouldn't be as profitable because more manpower would be needed to perform our daily tasks.

EMBRACE NEW TECHNOLOGY. Termite work is also vastly different today than a decade ago. We have different materials available to us and different treatment techniques to utilize. Foam technology was unheard of 10 years ago, and termite baits were unnecessary. If we as an industry had not changed, termite work would be impossible. If we could see into the future, I am sure we would see many changes.

If we fail to embrace new technology and new ideas, someone else will. If we fail to progress, we will regress, because we cannot stand still. We will only wallow in self-pity as the competition outdistances us and our income drops.

Our customers offer the most forceful impetus for change, because without demand, change will never take place. In the early 1970s we were faced with an oil embargo. Gasoline became expensive and scarce. America's "Big Three" automobile manufacturers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - offered large gas-guzzling cars almost exclusively. The Japanese automakers, with their small, inexpensive, gas-saving cars, stepped in with perfect timing. The Big Three thought they could continue with business as usual. It took five years for Detroit to even begin to compete with the Japanese.

Clearly, Detroit's Big Three were unwilling to change the way they did business. They had grown accustomed to big profits from large cars that Americans replaced every three or four years because they wore out. Quality control was practically unheard of in automobile manufacturing in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It was common to buy a new car, then return to the dealer the next day with a long list of complaints.

When we purchase a new vehicle today, we expect perfection because the level of quality control has risen dramatically. Twenty years later, American consumers finally have a choice between a quality Japanese automobile or a quality American automobile.

This was a case in which American industry was forced to change the way it did business, and fortunately, we as consumers came out the winners. The oil embargo is long gone, but its effects are felt every day. Could something this dramatic happen in our industry? Yes, it can, and in fact, such a major change is probably inevitable. Will you be prepared to alter, perhaps drastically, the way you do business?

BE A VISIONARY. I sometimes tell people that I used to be an inventor. I invented a device to be installed in kitchens that would confuse cockroaches by turning the lights on and off every 30 seconds. I thought I could run them to death. Is something like this absurd? Of course it is. But who would have thought we could place cockroach baits in our customers' kitchens, and, like magic, the insects would eat these baits and disappear? Are inventions such as my imaginary light device or cockroach baits impossible? Of course not! We need to be visionaries in order to remain competitive in today's changing marketplace.

We need to research new ideas, try new products, and never be afraid of failure. Daily, new ideas are presented to us in newspapers, television, radio, professional publications, and of course, the Internet. By accessing these and other avenues, we have at our command ideas from all over the world.

Will change come easily, or with some growing pains? The answer to that question lies within each of us. Success in changing times requires an open mind as well as a desire to be more than simply mediocre.

Every businessperson must ask him- or herself this question: Am I willing to change the status quo, or am I willing to let my competitors change the way I do business? If you have a vision of a better industry, and are not willing to let the competition get the jump on you, then you place yourself in a position to be a leader in the pest control industry.