Florida PCO Adds A Blooming New Business

Many PCOs are looking for ways to add on to their businesses. Such industries as weed control, moisture and odor control, and air sampling and radon testing seem like natural companions to the pest control industry.

In addition, diversification has seen such service-related industries as waste management, office cleaning and maintenance, and security teamed up with pest control, forming mega-sized and multi-faceted interior service companies.

Interior options growing. Lately, though, a new option has been added to the selection. Rentokil Group, a pest control company based in England, purchased two interior landscaping firms: A.C. Rentaplant, a British giant, and Tropical Plant Systems (TPS), the largest such concern in the U.S. Orkin’s parent company, Rollins Inc., is also exploring this option, according to spokesperson Judy Donner.

What the mega-companies can do, the little guys, and their bigger cousins, can emulate. Interiorscaping, as it’s known in its own ballpark, is a natural companion to pest control. Take it from a recent entry into the race, Arrow Environmental Services, Sarasota, Fla.

Arrow’s George Pickhardt says that he went into interiorscaping because it is a service business, where routine calls are made on a periodic basis and customers are dealt with in the same way. "It is very likely direction for us," he says.

One-stop shopping. Pickhardt’s firm had already succeeded in providing pest control and lawn care services, he says, including mowing, edging and irrigation. "We are heavily into horticulture," he says, "and interior plantscaping has a lot of similarities. Most customers serviced by interiorscaping are also serviced by pest control. It’s one-stop shopping for them. And the more services we offer them, the longer they will remain a client. With all three services - pest control, lawn care and interiorscaping, we may keep them for life."

Arrow entered into interiorscaping by taking on the Sarasota branch of a thriving business, Foliage Design Systems (FDS), Ocala, Fla., the nation’s third largest interiorscaper and its first franchiser of interiorscaping contractors.

FDS President and Director of Marketing John Hagood notes that his company became interested in linking up with the pest control industry several years ago, especially in light of Rentokil acquiring TPR. "Plants and pests are a winning combo," he says.

In fact, he adds, he has been approached by some large PCOs to acquire either franchises or his entire company, but he’s not selling the latter.

New Florida law. Another reason for the natural tie between pest control and interiorscaping, says Hagood, is that the State of Florida recently passed a law that interior application of pesticides to plants, a process involved in a quarter of all plant care, has to be done by an individual licensed to do so. This makes interiorscaping and pest control a "perfect marriage," he says.

"Pest control is a necessary portion of the interiorscaping business," adds Pickhardt. "Other interiorscapers in Florida have to subcontract their pesticide work out to PCOs."

The two entities, Arrow and FDS are run as separate companies, he says. However, its workforce is trained to do double duty - but not on the same trip. "It’s difficult to control pests and take care of plants at the same time," he says.

Both the pest control/lawn care business and interiorscaping take from three to five weeks training, he goes on, "but it’s a good career path. Our trainees can learn a lot of different facets and so have more of a choice in a career. And they all sell the service, so the more they know, the better of we are."

The right stuff. Although Arrow is not actually a franchisee, since it took over an existing branch of FDS with an established customer base and ongoing cash flow, Pickhardt is just the kind of person FDS looks for as a franchisee, says Hagood: financially sound, with the right educational background, a success in his current business, which has good market penetration, and with a commitment to his community. "It’s not just a monetary criterion, just profit and loss," he says about choosing new franchisees.

Arrow’s owners have the correct educational credentials: Pickhardt has a bachelor’s degree in entomology, plus a bachelor’s and a maser’s in horticulture and he’s working on his Ph.D. One brother has a horticulture degree, another a marketing degree.

For those not as expert in plant care, Foliage Design offers up to three weeks of training at the Florida facility in plant care and design: an operating manual and system, along with computerized record-keeping; sourcing assistance and the economies of group buying and operating a supply company: and support services such as meetings, workshops, publications and a toll-free hotline.

It also offers national advertising, marketing services, protected territory, and a chance to service national accounts, says Hagood, adding that FDS is represented at five national shows, including the Building and Office Managers Association, the American society of Landscape architects and NEOCON, the premier contract show. Interiorscape magazine noes that interiorscaping’s growth in the last decade was 25 percent. It notes as well that FDS was listed as one of the best franchise opportunities in the country in Ray Bard and Sheila Henderson’s Own Your Own Franchise. Meanwhile, Nursery Business’s Dick Morey said the firm’s buying assistance was "perhaps the single most important feature of the franchise system" and that "if I were considering getting into this business, I would look seriously at what they have to offer."

Positive image. Plus, interiorscaping carries with it a positive, healthy "green" image that PCOs would do well to ally with. A two-year NASA study has determined that green plants can help create cleaner air and battle "sick building syndrome." This might be a way of reaching clients who worry about interior chemicals. Plants can attack real indoor air hazards, says NASA, such as benzene and carbon monoxide.

Diversification into new environmental services such as interiorscaping is one way PCOs can add onto their businesses in a slack economy without taking away from their competitors. And interiorscaping, with its similar client base, dependence on routing and reliance on rained employees able to work with chemicals, is a "natural" way for PCOs to offer ever-expanding services to their customers and retain their loyalty.

___ Cindy Grahl

The author is managing editor of PCT.