The First Pest Control Company That Failed

A lot of people don't know that Allan's first pest control company failed. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in psychology. His brother was knocking doors for Insight Pest Control in Columbus, Ohio, doing really well. His brother called saying they should do this together. The brother would handle sales, Allan would figure out the technician and admin side.

Allan went out and teched. He didn't even last the whole summer. Lasted like four or five weeks. Then they tried to start Freedom Pest Control. He and his brother couldn't get along. They didn't have enough money. They weren't mature enough. It just crumbled. They didn't even get it off the ground.

His brother stuck with door-to-door sales. Allan decided to go to law school. He practiced law for a few years. Then his brother was exiting one of his companies in 2014, and Allan suggested they give it another shot. That's when Proof was born.

The going joke in pest control? Nobody chooses to go into this industry. We all just fall into it. Everybody has their unique path. That's Allan's.

I related to this completely. I never thought I'd be in the pest control space either. People joke: did you dream of becoming the pest control marketing guy? No, not really. But this is where I landed.

Why Brand Matters More Than Name

Allan shared how Proof got its name. Some high school buddies created a company making wood-framed sunglasses. They pitched on Shark Tank and got a deal. Their company was called Proof.

Allan was watching a rerun when they were trying to think of a name. They kind of ripped it off. Allan took trademark classes and knew there wouldn't be confusion between a sunglass company and a bug killing company.

One reason I love the name? It's unique. I've looked at thousands of pest control companies and haven't seen another Proof. I've seen tons of Advanced Pest Solutions, Complete Pest Control. So many identical names.

Allan remembers being 10 years old explaining to his little sister why Disneyland is called Disneyland. He said it's just a dude's name. It could be called Draper Land. She said no, that sounds dumb, it has to be Disneyland.

That's a brand. You can have stupid names but it's more important what you do with it. Look what Disney did with his last name.

"That speaks to the brand like What's the culture of your brand what are you doing what do people think about when they hear your name um that's so much more important," Allan said.

Early on when consulting pest control companies, they'd obsess over names. He'd say those are good, take 5-10 minutes, pick one, then work on the business.

Look at Killingsworth. They bought that name from somebody, built an incredible brand, had an exit. Look at Rentokil. Not a great name. Allan thinks it's terrible, especially now with the woke movement where they don't like "kill." Rentokil has received backlash but still built a very large company.

The brand is more important than the name. What are the color schemes? What does it look like? The association to the brand, the goodwill attached to it, is even more important.

Come up with a name you're comfortable with because you'll spell it a lot, repeat yourself a lot. Allan has said Proof and answered where the name came from thousands of times. He likes short, simple, powerful. He's not into cheesy names like Kill Them All Pest Control, but those work for some companies. It's more important what you do with it.

The Reality of Zero to $600K in Nine Months

I asked Allan about the initial years of Proof. Were things hard or did they hit it off the bat?

Everybody who's started a company kind of knows. The path was different but the story sounds familiar. Days where you don't know if you're going to make it.

Allan moved from Phoenix where he was practicing law, quit his job, moved to Detroit Michigan where they started their first branch. He swears they don't make it if they open in Phoenix. There were days he quit. Wasn't getting along with his brother, having issues. He'd say "I'm done." It didn't last very long, few hours maybe till the next morning.

If you've started a business and haven't considered quitting, there's something wrong. Either something's wrong with you or you're not pushing yourself. It's weird to him when people coast through the startup phase. Startup is supposed to be hard.

It's like learning anything else. His kids just started tackle football, learning how to hit and wrap up. They look awkward. After five or six practices they're already getting better. That's like business times 10.

Those early days were tough. They scaled Proof pretty quickly. Their first year was truncated, starting in March with first revenue around March 15th or 16th. They did $600,000 in revenue that first year.

They were doing door-to-door, a mix of marketing, using Angie's List and Thumbtack (learned those weren't working well), some pay-per-click, but a lot of door-to-door. The faster you scale, the more difficult it is. Pick your poison.

They saved up for a long period so they didn't have to take money out of the company to pay marketing expenses. A lot of people aren't willing to do that.

Allan loves startups and those early days because that's where growth occurs. As soon as you're starting to feel comfortable and things are going smoothly, the reason they're going smoothly is because you're not changing and not growing.

When I said it sounds like he didn't have it too rough if he did $600K the first year, Allan pushed back. Go find somebody else who did $600,000 in their first year and ask them if it was difficult. It was way more difficult than doing $50,000.

Way more difficult because look at the people he had to hire. His first technician was an alcoholic who never showed up for work. Managing people at that growth rate was insane. That's collected revenue, not contract value. Contract value was over a million dollars.

"I think it's easier to go I think it's easier to go from 5 to 10 million than it is from zero to 600,000," Allan said.

When you're at $5 million, you have a bunch of techs, systems, you've figured out a bunch already, you have support. When you're at zero, you have nothing.

The Three Stages Every Owner Must Go Through

Allan talked about evolution in the owner's duties when scaling a company. There are three stages:

Stage 1: Do What You Have to Do For Allan, it was HR, customer service, sales, working with vendors. He was Proof's first technician, first HR person, first buyer, first accountant. All those things.

Stage 2: Do What You're Good At You want to free your time so you're focusing on things you're good at. Allan was good at building teams, hiring people, managing money. As they grew, he hired strategically and always thought about what's the next move.

Stage 3: Do What You Want to Do Some people want to be in a crawl space. Some people never want to go in the office again, they want to review financials monthly.

A lot of people try to skip from day one doing what they have to do to day two doing what they want. Good luck with that company. Allan's not investing in it.

Get Out of the Truck

This was one of the most powerful pieces of advice Allan shared. People call him saying they're trying to scale their pest control company, asking what they need to do.

A lot of times his first question: "What did you drive to work today?"

They're confused. He asks again. They drove a pest control truck with their name on the side. Allan's response: "First thing you need to do is get out of the truck."

They argue that they don't do very many services, only upset customers. Allan says did you call me to argue? If you want to scale your company, get out of your truck.

You can't build a pest control company in a truck. Allan knows this because he used to be in a truck taking customer service calls, calling the marketing team. It's so difficult.

When you get out of the truck, what should you be doing? Depends on goals. If trying to scale, probably focus on marketing and sales. But you need to look at the bottleneck in the company.

When you get out of the truck, you start finding bottlenecks. Do I have the technical capacity to handle more customers? If not, hire a technician.

A lot of people struggle because they don't have the customers yet. Why hire the technician? The answer: customers aren't going to come until you have the technician. If you put money into marketing with nowhere to put those spots, you're screwed.

Barbara from Shark Tank talked about how when scaling her real estate brokerage, she'd always have extra office space with empty desks for hiring agents. If she had that availability, she'd naturally fill them.

Put pressure on yourself. Invest in marketing and personnel. Make the new hire earn their own way. There's going to be a 2-6 week gap where you have to cover their salary, but it will eventually catch up.

Once out of the truck and hired a technician, work on scaling the business and plugging holes in the boat. A hole pops up, you plug it, then notice another one. Keep going around eliminating bottlenecks.

Fire Bullets Before Cannonballs

I asked Allan about diversifying marketing, not having all eggs in one basket. He referenced Jim Collins' book "Good to Great." Collins talks about firing bullets first to hone in on your target, then cannonballs.

With marketing, depending on price point, branding, and goals, you want to fire bullets. Put some money toward different channels. People underestimate how much digital marketing costs, especially to get a nice program up and running.

Allan noted how archaic old advertising was. People used to pay to advertise in phone books with Yellow Pages. Now somebody types "pest control near me" on Google. That's incredible.

You want to hone in on your target, then launch cannonballs (plural). You'll have a couple huge marketing efforts. Proof does a lot of door-to-door, a lot of AdWords, a lot of acquisition.

Rentokil doesn't advertise. They only acquire companies. Live by the sword, die by the sword. At their scale it's different, but Allan definitely recommends having different options, especially if some are susceptible to market conditions.

Look what COVID did with digital marketing. Look how much leads cost now. You have to have other things out there just in case something changes. Social media algorithms change. Organic social posts used to get traction, those days are gone.

The Surprising Truth About Referrals

Allan shared fascinating insights about referrals. A customer referred to you by another customer will stay longer than the customer who referred them.

Both are great customers, but if you get a referral from another customer, price does not matter. You should be closing 99% of those.

Customers who refer stay longer than customers who don't refer because of cognitive dissonance. We don't want to be inconsistent with who we think we are. If I just referred somebody, I'm not quitting right after. Referrals are huge.

You start with incentives but need to be consistent. Don't overwhelm people, but you're asking for referrals, talking a lot about it. This is the very beginning phase.

Allan has a buddy who owns a company across the Southern United States doing 20,000 customers a year through referral. Just referrals. He's spent the last 15 years developing it, longer than Proof has been in business. He has a very sophisticated program.

The other thing? You have to be a referable company. Don't be doing crap service, charging people when not doing a good job, arguing with them on the phone, not doing re-services when they call, and then ask them to refer your company.

Baby step. Ask for a five-star review. Ask them to rate your company. Then get into referrals. But be a company that is referable. Develop your program. Fix your scheduling if someone calls for a re-service and you're scheduling out a week. That's not a referable company.

Continue to talk about it, continue to evolve. There's a lot of options there.

Why Allan Started 28 Companies

I asked Allan about these other companies he's started. Did he just get bored? Were they hard to start or easier now that he's already built a successful company?

Allan talked about how he really likes the startup phase because that's where growth occurs. That's where you're questioning whether it's going to last. He's had more failures after Proof than before Proof. A lot of that's because he's moving faster now.

He had Freedom Pest Control which failed before Proof. But he's had multiple companies fail since Proof. He doesn't think it's easier. That safety net might help, but he's not sure. Scaling them is easier. Understanding what it takes is easier.

He owns a bunch of companies: a credit monitoring company, a law firm, a product company that pitched to Shark Tank with 3-4 patents. It's an epoxy product they paint around the stem wall of a house that scorpions and insects can't climb.

It was developed for scorpions because bark scorpions nest in dirt. To get into your house, they have to crawl (they don't fly). They painted this epoxy around houses. Really cool product with patents so no one can infringe or you can sue them.

The problem? Now you have to educate people about it. If Allan tells people he's a bug guy who kills bugs, that's simple. They understand. But explaining why you need this product, if it will work, what you do to maintain it, how much it costs—there's a lot of education.

He's had quite a few startups. Owns Bug Bux, which is a pest control community. Everybody listening needs to join their Facebook group. They have different groups for owners, technicians, office staff. Just search Bug Bux on Facebook.

They're developing this community to help pest controllers. A lot like what I'm doing. A few years ago Allan realized it's not a zero-sum game. It's not I win, you lose. That's what Bug Bux is all about. How do we help other pest control companies replicate some of the things they've found successful?

He has a software company that failed. Investments that have failed. It's just part of it. Some of those bullets aren't going to land.

Replace Yourself with People Better Than You

One skill Allan has mastered: finding really talented people. He doesn't know that much about digital marketing, but he found one of the best pest control digital marketers in the world. His buddy who grew up in the pest control industry. It's just a different skill set than Allan has, and he's okay with that.

A lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that. There are people better at running your company than you are. Allan realizes he's a visionary, not an operator. He has a guy that runs Proof who just talks circles around him. That guy ran a market for Rentokil doing like $200 million in revenue in his market. That dude just knows stuff Allan doesn't know.

One of Allan's skill sets is finding really talented people. When he hires somebody and is doing their job, one of them is unnecessary. It's just not a way to scale a company.

The Lesson of Being Approachable

Allan shared a powerful story about vulnerability. One time there was a borderline disaster and he was so mad because nobody told him about it till like 2 weeks later.

He went to the customer relations manager and asked why didn't anybody tell him. She said they handled it, it wasn't that big of a deal. He kept pushing, saying he needs to know about these things.

She finally said: "Fine Allan dude you're not approachable you very difficult to talk to when things go wrong you you say that you have an open door policy but you don't."

Allan went back to his office, shut the door. This entire time he thought he was this great manager, really approachable. He realized he had to get better at this. When people tell him something, he needs to listen and give them the opportunity to fend for themselves even if he thinks they're not choosing the right path.

He changed. Or at least got better. He doesn't know if he's perfect at it. That was 6-7 years ago and he's still trying to get better.

That's the unique opportunity entrepreneurs have. Our life comes under a microscope. Customers, family, employees see us making mistakes, doing wrong things with money, getting upset, losing good people.

The good thing? You have the opportunity to turn weaknesses into strengths. Allan's companies have tens of thousands of reviews. Every one is an opportunity. We love the five stars, but it's those one stars that teach us. Not the ones where they're just pissed saying it was too much money. It's the ones you hear over and over: "Tech wasn't at my house long enough."

"It's a gift take it," Allan said.

The Instagram Effect and Being Vulnerable

Allan brought up what he calls the Instagram effect. We only post the highlights. But if you follow his Instagram, he talks a lot about his failures and mistakes. His upcoming book is about sacrifice and the things he learned that he did wrong.

Businesses fail. Not all businesses are meant to last forever. Some people are better at running your company than you are. People have a really hard time with that.

Allan realizes he's a visionary, not an operator. Some people say no, it's my company, I started it, it's my baby, it's my kid. Okay, say whatever you want, but there are people better able to run it.

That's fine if people love the nuts and bolts, love learning and growing, and know there's somebody who could run it better but don't want to step aside. But that's another part of scaling: you have to replace yourself with people better than you. You have to be okay with that. You have to celebrate them and give them credit.

Don't get out of their way and then get back in it. A lot of people do that. They hire a manager and won't let them do their job. If you hire somebody and you are doing their job, one of you two is unnecessary. It's just not a way to scale a company.

Why Most People Don't Maintain Their Business

Something Allan emphasized: people think they can coast. They're doing $200K a year in revenue and think they're cool with the gym, cool with business.

That's not the way it works. There's a concept in physics and chemistry called entropy. The idea is that over time, chaos happens. Things get disorganized. You have to be proactive about cleaning your room, cleaning your house. Stuff gets dusty, dishes pile up. That's just the way it goes.

It's the same with your business. Those people who are quote unquote coasting can't completely take their foot off the gas pedal, otherwise they get smaller and smaller. Just like a car will start to slow down if you take your foot off the gas pedal.

Eventually you're going to wake up and wonder what happened. You were doing $200K a year in revenue and now you're doing $180K.

You can choose not to scale crazy, but it still requires effort. You're going to lose 10-15-20% every year just from people moving, dying, losing jobs. Stuff like that. So if business is good, you still have some work to do to maintain.

The Power of Community

Allan emphasized how incredible the pest control community is. There are so many resources. He has friends that are his competitors who would do anything for him.

He's called on competitors when he's run into problems. He's called on competitors to hire an employee that wasn't the right fit for Proof but might be the right fit somewhere else.

People who do the best are the ones who give the most. The quickest way to get what you want is to help the most people get what they want.

Allan and I were sitting there talking for about an hour. We both own pest control digital marketing agencies. He doesn't look at it as a zero-sum game. If I end up with a client that he doesn't, best of luck. He hopes I do well for them. That's just his approach.

Community has been really helpful. Legend Lenny (Lenny Gray) has been a great role model and mentor. Eric Bassett was on my show, he's one of Allan's business partners but also somebody he looks up to. There's just a lot of good people. You have to go find them.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Allan is that you can't build a pest control company in a truck. If you want to scale, get out of the truck, hire a technician, and focus on eliminating bottlenecks in your business.

The second takeaway is the three stages of business ownership: do what you have to do, then do what you're good at, then do what you want to do. Most people try to skip from stage one to stage three. That doesn't work.

The third thing is that risk is less scary than regret. Once you have an idea, you can't go back to neutral. It's not risk or nothing. It's risk or regret. There's an immediate opportunity cost attached to every idea you don't pursue.

The fourth lesson is that scaling fast is actually harder than scaling slow. Going from zero to $600K in nine months is harder than going from $5 million to $10 million because you have nothing at zero. No systems, no team, no support.

If you want to learn more from Allan, check out his website allandraper.com where he has two 15-minute slots weekly for questions. You can also find him on Instagram at @realallandraper. Join the Bug Bucks Facebook community to connect with other pest control professionals.