How to start Pest Control Business
In this article, you will get to know about all the steps and details for a successful start.
Perhaps, you have been providing pest control services for a long time, you have vast experience in this field, but you’re just tired of working for someone else without a guarantee for tomorrow. Or maybe you have been working for many years in a completely different industry and now have decided to change your specialization. Everything is possible. However, we should say that before going down this path, you must have a firm knowledge of this industry from A and to Z. To do this, we will tell you all the nuances and secrets. If at the first step you will decide to stop, then do not despair. We have many cases to start.
Let’s look at all the pros and cons of a pest control business. This will allow you already at the start to understand whether you are ready for this or not.
Pros:
You will have a permanent employment guarantee. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that employment in this area will be constant from 2014 to 2024, so you will be safer working for yourself than for someone else. Moreover, the success of your company directly depends on you and your specialists, because if you provide services of high quality, then customers will come back to you again and again.
Cons:
Unpleasant working conditions will accompany you periodically. For example, hot summer weather. What can We say, you are fighting against parasites, there is not much pleasant to find in this. Plus, there is always a chance to bring this parasite to your own home. Also, you constantly need to handle chemicals very carefully, as they can seriously harm you.
We would like to note an important point, based on the above pros and cons: this business is not just a business for making money. You must have other reasons to begin this journey. For example, you like to take care of your environment.
But knowledge and skills are only a small part of what will come in handy in future work. For this, we have created for you our mini guide for a successful business.
Step 1. Prepare everything you need to get started.
Any business cannot be opened without a prepared business plan, marketing strategy in advance. Calculation of expenses, predicted profits, preparation of lists of provided services, its cost, lists of tools and equipment, research of a niche, and market.
Before you start, check your niche and decide what specific services you will offer. See what territory and type of services provided by competitors.
In order to evaluate all the possibilities of a pest control business, we recommend you to check some numbers and indicators of this industry.
How does a pest control business make money?
Many owners of houses and residential premises prefer to constantly take care of their environment and order such services 2-3 times a year. The rest prefer to use these services only if there is a problem.
How much do pest control services cost?
A typical pest control service costs between $ 250 and $ 550. You can offer termite removal services over a large territory. This service costs about $ 1,000. From $ 100 to $ 200 will cost service to destroy just one pest, for example, a mouse. Basically, the cost of the service depends on the size of the territory and the extent of the infection.
How much profit can be made in the Pest control business?
Most likely, in the first few years, your company, as a beginner, will receive about 50,000 to 75,000 dollars per year. With the expansion of business and territorial coverage, your profit can jump up to several hundred thousand dollars, and if you will decide to provide services at the national level, then it is more likely that these numbers will increase to millions of dollars per year. But everything needs time.
After you have checked all the numbers, decided on the list of provided services and their cost, you can proceed to the list of necessary equipment and facilities.
A sample list of what you will need may consist of:
- reliable truck for your materials (we recommend not to buy a new one, but to limit yourself to a used one, it will cost you much cheaper)
- chemical preparations and means
- protective equipment (gloves, rubber boots, respirators, etc.)
- traps, cells, and more.
Step 2.Learn and gain experience.
This business industry requires deep knowledge. With the provision of services and doing business over time, you will have to make various kinds of reports to federal and local environmental authorities. As a result, we should note that you need education and experience in this field. Pest control specialists must have licenses, but to get them they need to study a lot of information about chemicals, labels, pests, equipment, and even the law. Don’t skip this step. It will be a pity to crash without starting.
After you have gained enough knowledge and experience, or maybe you already had it, you can proceed to the next step.
Step 3. Register the company.
For the start choose the right business structure. You have many options. Below you can see the most common variants:
1. Sole-proprietorship. You are the only one in your company and are responsible for all assets and liabilities personally.
2. Limited Liability Company (LLC). It provides limited liability for the business owner and also involves some tax benefits for him and other members of the company.
3. Corporation. This is a more successful and ambitious option. As a rule, it involves taxation of employees.
In the end, remember that your business, particularly in the USA, is temporary and you can change it from LLC to Corporation at any time.
The name of the company is an integral part of registration. Take this quite responsibly, because that’s exactly what will distinguish you and describe what you are doing.
To simplify the process and speed up the creation of the name, we suggest you answer a number of questions:
- How will this name presented at documents, business cards, cars, etc.?
- Does the name clearly define the activity that I plan to engage in?
- Is it unique?
- Are there any negative expressions that may be associated with this name?
- Is the name memorable and can it catch potential customers?
After you have decided on the name, make sure it is free. If you intend to register your company in the United States, you can check the name with the US Patent and Trademark Office. If you are targeting Canada, then the Intellectual Property Office.
Next, you need to register a business at the national level.
First, determine if you need to submit a “Doing business As” form. You will have to fill it in if the name of your company is different from the legal name.
Secondly, you should provide the full structure of your company to the appropriate authorities. This will allow the state body to check whether there is such a registered name. It also allows you to enter your name so that no one else could use it in the future.
Thirdly, if you want completely to protect and secure your company name, then register a trademark. To do this, you will need to contact a special agency. So, in the USA – this is the only way to protect your name.
Step 4. Tax registration.
For further legal actions, you have to register your company with the tax authorities. For the registration, you will need to apply for an EIN (employer identification number). The application can be submitted online, by phone, fax, or mail absolutely free.
Step 5. Get insurance.
In any business, insurance is required. This allows you to protect yourself from all sides. The price of insurance for companies justifies itself in the following areas:
- You will have financial protection if you harm someone else’s property (for example, the chemicals that you used in your work caused harm). This insurance will cover recovery costs.
- You will receive more orders. It has already been proven that up to 84% of people order services from companies with insurance.
In this step, we would like to tell you about all the types of insurance that you may need in your future work.
General liability insurance. This type of insurance covers the most general and basic aspects, including damage to your company’s property, damage caused by your employees. The advantage of this insurance is that it is common to all business lines. Therefore, if at the initial stage you do not know exactly what type you need, then you should start with this. The cost depends on many factors such as the number of employees in the state, location, and others and varies from $300 to $1000 per year.
Professional liability insurance. Also known as mistakes and omission insurance. This insurance is developed to protect professionals in the workplace. Sometimes employees can make mistakes. If the customer has suffered damage and blames your company, this insurance covers this damage. The cost ranges from $500 to $1800 per year.
Employees’ compensation insurance. Developed to protect your workers from the injury at the workplace. This insurance can also protect your company from a lawsuit if the employee claims compensation for personal injury. The cost of this insurance in almost all states is $ 0.47 per hour for one employee. So, for example, if you have a staff member working on a standard schedule of 40 hours a week and 2080 hours a year, then the cost of this insurance will be $ 978 per year.
Commercial auto insurance/Vehicle insurance. It works on the same principle as your personal car insurance.
Business Owner’s Policy. This insurance includes a group of policies designed to protect small businesses. These policies include general liability, business liability, and business interruption insurance. The cost of this type of insurance depends on the same factors as other types of insurance and varies from $700 to $3800 per year.
Step 6. Get all the necessary permissions and licenses.
To begin with, we would like to note that you do not need any special license to conduct a lawn mowing business.
In this area, a license is required only for the use of a certain type of fertilizer and drugs that you use in your activity. To find out if you need a compulsory license for a particular type of fertilizer and pesticide, contact your Local Ministry of Agriculture.
To find out which license is required from you, simply follow the link and read the requirements of your state government.
For the information on local licenses and permissions, click on the following link.
Remember, you will work with potent chemicals, so getting a license always takes time for red tape.
Step 7. Automate your business and go online.
Before starting a busy job, you should not miss this step and be prepared for all possible options. In order not to get lost or torn between phone calls, implement an automation tool in advance. Do not wait for a certain moment in the future to automate all routine processes. Indeed, believe us, with further development, you may not have free time and will constantly find excuses.
We offer you our indispensable tool of any service company – the Everis platform for automating business in the industry of services. It consists of 3 parts: admin panel for you and your operators, the mobile application for specialists, and the mobile application for your customers. With these three tools, you will be more than ever close to both your specialists and your clients. This platform is good because you do not need a thousand-page guide to understand the functionality.
Imagine, yes, this tool is so intuitively simple that right after registration it is ready to work. Within a month, you can determine that you saved 80% of the time due to the fact that all the orders you accept, distribute, and track their execution online. Taking into account that most likely your staff will expand over time. Using the analytics section you can easily analyze their productivity, workload, and employment.
The online payment tool will help you no longer mess with cash. No paperwork and writing invoices for the provided services. Everything is simple: after the completion of a certain order, the client receives an invoice with the cost of the work performed by mail, you receive it too. You can find this invoice at any time attached to the order in the admin panel, as well as print it.
Step 8. Advertising and potential customers of your business.
First, determine at which area you will provide services. Will it be just neighboring houses or territory covering nearby areas, or maybe the whole city and state?
Next, determine how many orders you are ready to accept. It all depends on whether you are the only employee in the company or whether you already have a selected staff of specialists.
Then you can safely start to advertise your business. This approach is extremely responsible. To get started, create business pages on Facebook, get twitter, Instagram. A huge plus for you will be the development of a landing page (a kind of business card in the online space). Do not despair and think that for this you will need to pay a tidy sum of money. On the Internet, there are many cheap and simple designers to create landing pages. For example, the most popular is WIX. The basic tariff for creating a site will cost you only 4.50 dollars.
In order to find potential customers without posting expensive ads, just drive around your neighbors, acquaintances, friends and ask if they might want to be your first customers, and they can also recommend you to someone they know. Nobody has canceled “word of mouth”, and, as practice shows, often it works better than any advertisement.
At this stage, over time also do not miss the item of flyers, business cards. They must be memorable.
For more detailed information on finding clients, follow this link.
During service provision, always remember that your customers order not just a service, but a service of the highest quality. We will not lie that 40% of the quality of service often depends on the specialist, so do not neglect the rules of communicating with customers, take an interest in their expectations, do not be afraid to ask for feedback and recommendations, they are the same people as you.
Do not forget that more and more of your potential customers go online day after day. And soon, companies that accept applications for telephone services will remain in the distant past. Do not waste time and provide your customers with a new simplified way to submit orders through the Everis User application. Payment online, the exact time of the specialist’s arrival, detailed ordering with the addition of a description of the problem and photos, reviews. All this will be an additional plus for your customers among the choice of the service provider. Give discounts and advantageous promotions and be sure that they will come back to you again and again.
If you have successfully completed these steps, we can only congratulate you and wish you and your business prosperity and huge profits!