Home Paramount Hosts Leadership Conference

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Earlier this year, branch managers and service managers from Home Paramount Pest Control, Forest Hill, Md., joined forces with the company’s corporate and technical staff for a two-day leadership conference, a key component of  Executive Vice President Butch Tilley’s long-term plan to drive company growth.

In his opening remarks to managers at the Westin Alexandria Hotel, just outside Washington, D.C., Tilley said Home Paramount plans to leverage its market position to enhance the company’s reputation throughout its six-state market area. “We are extremely optimistic about our position in the marketplace and we feel confident that as one of the remaining family-owned regional pest control firms in the country, we will be able to compete vigorously against the largest national firms as well as the small operators,” he said.

Towards that end, Home Paramount has taken a number of steps to ensure its future growth, including centralizing its back-office operations, upgrading its computer systems and installing GPS systems in all of its vehicles. Yet even with these costly capital improvements, Tilley said, “we still realize that our most important asset is our co-workers.” But to maximize employee performance and build camaraderie throughout the organization requires an investment in training, according to Tilley.  “We felt there was a need for our managers to have some leadership training. Historically, we’ve done a good job of teaching sales training, but we wanted to give our managers the tools needed to lead and develop our people as we implement some of these major changes. The conference was one way to do that.”

The two-day meeting, the brainchild of Director of Marketing & Technology Officer Andrew Bartels, also was a way to enhance communication at all levels of the organization. “He came into my office one day and said, ‘We need to do this for the good of the company,’” Tilley said. 

“It’s a big investment,” Bartels added, “but when you’re geographically dispersed, like we are, you need to know you’re a part of something bigger. The conference was an opportunity to bring people together and make them feel like they’re a part of the Home Paramount family, to create a sense of teamwork. Ultimately, pest control is a people business and I’m excited to work for an organization that has people at its core.”

Four months in the making, the leadership conference featured a cocktail reception, as well as a keynote address by Yuval Brisker, co-founder of TOA Technologies, Beachwood, Ohio, who spoke about “Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience.” The goal of every pest management company, according to Brisker, should be to “create a process that respects the customer.” From the time the customer calls your company to the time the transaction is complete, every aspect of customer interaction requires care and attention. “Focus on the whole process, not just the outcome,” he said. “Effective customer experience management demands a revolutionary approach in thinking, planning, process and communications.”

Prior to Brisker’s remarks, Bayer National Sales Manager Pete Comis awarded a variety of prizes to trivia questions relating to the company’s product line. “Home Paramount is a quality company where the door has always been open to us,” he said. “We value the relationship.” Also in attendance was Bob Rosenberg, vice president of government affairs, National Pest Management Association.

The next day, managers participated in a series of interactive training sessions, led by Home Paramount executives, focusing on the five key principles of leadership as presented in The Leadership Challenge, a best-selling book authored by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. The five principles include:

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

Tilley, who has an MBA from Loyola College, encouraged managers to get actively involved in the breakout sessions, pointing out “there are no wrong answers. We are asking for everyone to be an advocate for this initiative and we need everyone in this room to push down their knowledge to our technicians, sales inspectors and clerical staff,” he said. “Home Paramount is made up of dedicated, loyal individuals and we need to work together as a team in order to achieve the distinction of being a visionary company that in 20 years we can all look back and say we were a part of something special.”

The company’s two-day leadership conference was the first step in that process, according to Tilley. “We feel in the next three years we’re going to have tremendous growth,” he said. “Large regional, family-owned businesses are a dying breed. You lose a lot when family-owned businesses are sold, but we’re in it for the long run. That’s why we’re investing in management training and other areas of our business. We can compete with large companies and we can compete with small companies, but our greatest competition is ourselves.”