By McMillion Stemann

Six new appointments booked on average each week. $140,000+ in commissions. Prospective clients reaching out to you first. Recruiting the best talent to grow your team and revenue.

These are the possibilities that are waiting for you on LinkedIn.

After training thousands of professionals for nearly a decade on how to leverage LinkedIn as a revenue-generating business tool, it is critical to give those I teach a solid foundation to ensure their future success on the platform. We will dive deeper in upcoming PCT articles, but let’s kick off with the basics so you can unlock the power of LinkedIn for your career and business.

MINDSET MATTERS. First, you must squash the notion that LinkedIn is “just another” social media channel. When the company was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2 billion, it was clear the massive technology company was here to stay. In fact, LinkedIn is older than Facebook. The company’s vision is to “create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce” — meaning, they want every working person of the 3.1 billion global population to be represented on their platform.

With a mission of “connecting the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful” in mind, LinkedIn is taking a unique approach to marketing, selling, hiring and recruiting. Do you want more business opportunities, more money or more freedom? Do you want to continue to be known as the best in your field?

If you’re not a LinkedIn “believer,” keep reading and have an open mind; take LinkedIn seriously, if not for you, then for your team. If you have already experienced success through LinkedIn, keep reading because you have a responsibility to share your knowledge with your colleagues and you still have a lot to learn.

INVEST IN YOUR REPUTATION. In a job interview or a potential client meeting, you put your best foot forward; LinkedIn is no different. Your personal profile is foundational to the potential success you can have on LinkedIn. A few best practices include: an approachable and recent headshot of yourself (just you and no selfies), write in first person, and include a way for people to reach you outside of LinkedIn. (Note: Companies should be represented as pages, not personal profiles.)

With nearly two dozen sections, take the time to build out each applicable section of your profile; you are increasing your opportunity to be found when someone is looking for a professional like you or a company like yours. Just like Google loves keywords, LinkedIn does too. Remember, there is no draft version of your profile, no spellcheck and no formatting. Use a Word document to catch potential misspellings and grammatical errors.

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital footprint — make sure it reflects your outstanding offline reputation.

21^ST CENTURY ROLODEX.  You might remember when your desktop Rolodex collected dust. Gone are the days when a business card became outdated the moment it landed in your hand — new phone number, new job title, new employer. Today, that important information is immediately updated by professionals on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the 21^st century Rolodex.

Your LinkedIn network should be full of connections that you know professionally, like clients, prospects, vendors, current coworkers and past colleagues. You also can connect with friends, family and alumni.

It is acceptable to connect with people you do not know, yet. However, the intention should be that you want to know them and will use the invitation and new connection as a way to start a conversation. The idea is that you are bringing your offline relationships online by connecting with them on LinkedIn and then taking them offline periodically to have real conversations via phone, Zoom, in person, etc.

Here is a quick rundown of how the LinkedIn network is structured:

• 1st degree: People who you are immediately connected with.
• 2nd degree: People who are connected to your 1st degree connections.
• 3rd degree: People who are connected to your 2nd degree connections.
• Out of network: People who fall outside of the above categories.

To get greater visibility into your extended network (second and third degree), a healthy first-degree connection number to aim for is above 500. However, LinkedIn says it is not just a numbers game (i.e., the goal is not to have 30,000 connections). Who is in your network is more important than how many first-degree connections you accumulate. The more authentically you know the people you are connected with, the more valuable of a resource you can be to them (i.e., introducing them to other people you know, sharing relevant content they would be interested in, etc.).

SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE. As your professional experience evolves, you will periodically update your profile and consistently grow your network. Additionally, sharing your knowledge is essential to guaranteeing you do not get left out on LinkedIn.

Do you blog about your expertise? Do you read articles that could help others? Share this information on LinkedIn by posting articles and publishing your own authored content on LinkedIn. You will be seen as a valuable resource and someone who provides important insight.

TAKE ACTION. First, fix your mindset to believe in the potential you have waiting for you on LinkedIn. Then, invest in building out your profile so that it reflects your full story. Once you lay the foundation with a complete profile, intentionally build your network with connections so you can stay in touch and top of mind with those you care about most. As you build your network, be a valuable resource and subject matter expert by sharing professional and informative content.

Lindsey McMillion Stemann (connect@mcmillion consulting.com), founder and principal of McMillion Consulting, is a speaker, prospecting trainer and writer. She has spoken at industry events, including PestWorld and NPMA Academy. She welcomes PMPs to join LinkedInsider, a free weekly email with tips, courses, webinars and news to keep you in the LinkedIn loop.

Stay Connected with Lindsey

LinkedInsider: www.linkedintoit.com/linkedinsider

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/mcmillion-consulting

Instagram: www.instagram.com/linkedinlindsey

For the insect pests that PMPs most commonly deal with, the main categories of pheromones are sex pheromones, trailing pheromones and aggregation pheromones. For the sex pheromone, one sex (most often the female) puts out her perfume of pheromone, the male senses it and hones in on his new girlfriend. This is common in moths like Indian meal moths.

Trailing pheromones are used by insects like ants. They lay down a chemical trail that other ants can easily follow to a good food source and then straight back to the nest.

Aggregation pheromones are emitted by both sexes, particularly in some stored product beetles. This is a pheromone that says, “Hey, there’s a bunch of us over here and (likely) a good food source, come join us!” Sex pheromones are typically much stronger and put off by short-lived insects while aggregation pheromones are weaker and produced by longer-lived insects. Trailing pheromones vary by species.

Pheromones are important because if we can use them to our advantage, we can disrupt some aspect of the pest. It’s basically using their own biology against them. We can use them in traps to capture and monitor pests, and we can use them to control insects when we disrupt their mating.

TRAPS. If we use the aggregation or sex pheromones on traps and monitors, we can pull in more insects. Having a pitfall or glueboard is merely a blunder trap: you are waiting for an insect to “blunder” into it as they are wandering around. You can improve the chance of catching something in a blunder trap if you put it in their potential path. Adding an aggregation or sex pheromone to that trap now greatly increases the chance of actively pulling in a nearby insect, instead of passively hoping it will encounter the trap. However, many factors can affect how well a trap can work.

• Sanitation — Think of this situation: You have a plate of doughnuts in front of you and someone two rooms over starts making cookies. Are you going to abandon those doughnuts to go get the cookies? Likely not. If insects have a good thing going in one spot, the pull of the pheromone in the trap may not be strong enough to pull them away from where they are. Good sanitation increases the attractiveness of the traps.
• Placement — Consider the previous example, but now put those cookies on a high shelf that you would have to get a step stool out to actually get to them. Makes it even less appealing than sitting there eating those doughnuts, right? Same thing with a pheromone trap. They still need to be placed near to where the pest may be and they need to be accessible. Putting a dome trap intended for crawling beetles doesn’t do much good when you put it on the top shelf — it will do a lot better on the ground. Placing a sticky trap for flying insects a foot off the ground will be out of their main flight path and not likely to be effective.
• Exclusion — Keep in mind the doughnuts and cookies, but now add two locked doors between them. Even if they are the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, they just aren’t worth the effort when you have doughnuts right in front of you. However, this can work in your favor. If there are “locked doors” (good exclusion) between the traps, you can more easily identify the areas they came from. If there is a solid barrier between a storeroom and a bakery floor, you know traps in the storeroom are monitoring just that storeroom. You don’t have to inspect other areas, unless other traps show captures!

The key with these pheromone monitors is to actually use the data that is collected. Knowing how many flour beetles in a trap is fine. Knowing that the population numbers are increasing or decreasing, and knowing what particular areas the pests are in, are all pieces of information that can lead a pest management professional to apply targeted and more effective treatments.

DISRUPTION. For insects with a short adult life span, finding a mate quickly is important. That’s why sex pheromones tend to be stronger than aggregation pheromones. Some of these have been replicated and are used as control methods. The Indian meal moth and other stored product moths can be controlled using this technology. Imagine this: You walk into a room and someone has perfume or cologne on. You can pretty easily find that one person. Now imagine someone liberally sprayed that scent all over the room. Can you still easily find that one person who was wearing it? Putting a dome trap on a top shelf doesn’t do much good since it is intended for crawling beetles — it will do a lot better on the ground. A confused male can’t find a female to mate with. No mating means no eggs and no next generation of hungry little larvae.

The downside to this is it won’t control the feeding larval stages. As soon as they become adults though, the mating disruption will hit and they will be controlled. Pheromone monitors are still important to ensure the treatment is working properly and identify when new infestations may be brought in with raw products.

Whitney Cranshaw, Bugwood.org

FINAL THOUGHTS. Scientists continue to work on new ways to use pheromones to specifically target species of insects. Pheromones have long been used for agriculture and forestry pests.

Researchers are looking at the pheromones for ants, stored product insects, termites and other urban and structural pests to devise new ways of managing them and new products to help control them. The currently available pheromone products can help you and your team monitor for and control a number of pests, as long as they are used correctly. Keep in mind the insect’s biology (are they a crawler or a flier?), their food preferences (place traps near those), and the conditions at the site for the most effective use of pheromones.

Smell you later!

The author has been working in the pest management industry for more than 10 years and is a Board Certified Entomologist. Email her at chellehartzer@yahoo.com.

Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Pinto & Associates.

Certain homes with unusual elements of construction are especially susceptible to infestation by wood-destroying pests and are often difficult to inspect. Some “built-by-owner” homes can be a challenge with hidden areas where pests can enter and infest. Don’t assume that these homes are up to code. You can expect almost anything in a built-by-owner home as the following partial list shows. It’s your job to look for variations from the norm.

Form boards left in place — Untreated wood form boards might be left in place around the poured slab. These form boards provide direct access for termites into the walls and floors of the structure. If the slab is not covered, you may be able to see the boards.

Voids under ground floor with no access — Occasionally you will find an area similar to a dirt floor crawlspace under a wooden floor of a house but without any access. You will need to be observant enough to identify that this space exists and then list it as inaccessible on the inspection report.

Unsupported load-bearing walls —Generally, load-bearing walls rest on top of the foundation to transfer the weight of upper floors to the ground. Untrained builders may install a load-bearing wall on a slab without foundation support below. This can lead to a cracked slab (or worse). A cracked slab can provide direct access for subterranean termites.

Concrete overpours — Amateur home construction may include a slab overpour where a slab is poured over existing elements of construction, often to create a new slab floor at a different level from another slab. When you inspect this home you will have no idea that there may be sealed spaces, wood and other elements that may support wood-infesting pests under the slab.

Inadequate slabs — Nonprofessionals may not prepare correctly before pouring slabs. This can result in slabs of varying thickness. They may not adequately reinforce the slab with wire or rods. If they mix the pour themselves (for small slabs), they may not get the proper mix for the conditions. Mistakes like these leave the slab liable to crack when subject to stress.

Wood sleepers embedded in slab — Amateurs often embed wood sleepers in the slab where they plan to install a wooden floor or to build up flooring to provide space to run pipes and wires under the floor. Embedded sleepers can provide termites hidden and easy access through cracks in the slab (partially embedded) or directly from the soil below (completely embedded).

Direct wood-to-soil contact — Common examples: grade stakes left in place through concreate slabs, joist supports in crawlspaces, wood siding extended below ground and vertical wood beams running through a slab from the soil below to support floor joists above.

The authors are well-known industry consultants and co-owners of Pinto & Associates.

Kurt Scherzinger had a problem: There was a termite infestation he did not know how to treat. Beneath his feet, underneath a road, were millions of termites invading the foundation of a nearby street corner building. Tasked with eliminating the colony, Scherzinger was up against a situation made nearly impossible by the uniqueness of the infestation. “You don’t want to be the technician who scratches his head and says, ‘I have no idea,’” said Scherzinger, president of Cincinnati, Ohio-based ScherZinger Pest Control. “You want to say, ‘It’s going to be a little different, but we’ll knock it out for you.’”

Fortunately, Scherzinger has dealt with a number of difficult termite treatment scenarios throughout his career. He has mastered the art of the “nightmare scenario,” and has advice for pest management professionals who want to improve their pest control game.

IDENTIFYING ‘ROAD’BLOCKS. Sometimes barriers to treatment are straightforward. Other times the difficult situation is a literal road — a slab of asphalt and concrete that prevents a pest management firm from treating termites altogether. “That creates a challenge where you’re not able to drill or core the road,” Scherzinger said. “We have a hard enough time drilling public sidewalks, let alone streets.”

This is not the first time Scherzinger has encountered a significant challenge in providing treatment. Two additional challenging infestations at this location involved mud tubes in the mechanical room of an underground parking garage, as well as an infestation in the concrete slab beneath a carpeted office complex.

“Those situations were difficult, too, but not surprising,” Scherzinger said. “Termites love dark, damp areas where warmth and moisture are present.”

When determining which type of termite treatment to perform, Scherzinger studied everything about the account and considered various treatment options. “We couldn’t do a liquid treatment in the parking garage — if we did, we would cut right through the concrete and pour into the lower level of the complex. And in the office building, we didn’t want to rip up the carpet to drill and core the slab beneath,” Scherzinger said.

TERMITE TOOLBOX. To tackle the termites beneath the road, Scherzinger needed new tools. He decided on the above-ground component of the Sentricon system, the Recruit AG FlexPack. The above-ground stations offered immediate access to termites and were easy to install, he said.

“For these scenarios, we couldn’t use in-ground bait stations — how do you put an in-ground station underground?” Scherzinger said. “The above-ground stations, however, were just what we needed. We placed them on exposed mud tubes in the basement of the building beneath the road and were able to eliminate the colony.”

Recruit AG FlexPack bait stations were used for the other infestations Scherzinger encountered at the location as well. Stations were placed in the mechanical room of the parking garage and in the interior of the office complex.

“We saw immediate results. That’s good for the customer — these days, we try to apply above-ground stations wherever possible because they work rapidly to address areas of concern.

“Think about all the tools in your toolbox,” Scherzinger said. “We used one option, but you have so much at your fingertips. If you can’t tackle it, ask your manufacturer — it’s likely they’ve heard of the scenario you’re dealing with, or can provide you with research.”

In fact, this is how Scherzinger learned to treat the structure beneath the road: The ScherZinger Pest Control team contacted their Sentricon representative, who helped find the solution to the problem. “People are as much of a resource as a product,” Scherzinger said.

BUSINESS SUCCESS. Successfully treating a difficult termite infestation isn’t just a technical “win.” It’s good for business, too.

“Solving these kinds of problems restores the customer’s confidence in you,” Scherzinger said. “You can maintain confidence that you’re their go-to problem solver. When you say you can solve anything they throw at you, they believe you.”

A strong reputation follows your firm. Successfully treating difficult sites can lead to increased renewals and help achieve higher retention rates among customers. For Scherzinger, all three contracts — the road, the parking garage and the office building — have led to renewed pest control services. Some of these customers have even expanded their contracts to include general pest control services.

Finally, Scherzinger benefited from the advantages of Recruit AG FlexPack. For both challenging and common infestations, Scherzinger said the above-ground stations have helped his company streamline equipment checklists and optimize service technician routes.

“We’ve definitely reaped the benefits of smaller equipment checklists with Sentricon,” Scherzinger said. “On our residential side, our universal technicians have all the tools they need to perform both termite control and general pest control in the same route. There’s multiple benefits there: It’s nice for customers to see just one person, and we’ve cut down on the number of trips our technicians have to take.”

The author is a market development specialist at Corteva.