From Pastor to Pest Control President

I asked Joe to tell me about his journey because I know he's been in pest control and marketing for the majority of his career, but he actually started out as a pastor.

Out of college and in his early life, he was really passionate about that space. Loved it. Found a lot of fulfillment in it. He helped grow a church to be pretty large.

At some point along the way, he had to make a decision for his family to move into a different space. So he was looking at different industries and which way to go. He kind of fell in love with the pest control space. He thought it was a super stable industry that he also felt like he could make a difference with some of his leadership background and some of what he knew on the marketing side. He felt like he could make a difference there.

So he found a company that had a great reputation, and he knew a couple people from it. He started having those conversations. One thing led to another, and he fell more in love with the industry and dove right in.

I asked him how exactly he found the company and what exactly about pest control.

Catseye Pest Control has been around since 1987. In the area, it happened to be the area he grew up in. It was kind of a household name. The founder of Catseye, his name is John G, has a passion for marketing, a passion for branding.

They were that company in the area that had the jingle on the radio, had the jingle on TV, had TV ads. Anywhere you go, you kind of saw the brand. So it was a well-known brand in this area. He's in Upstate New York, but Upstate New York, they service New York and all of New England as well. They're in five states.

He knew the brand. He happened to meet a couple people who worked there. They seemed like they loved it. He met the former vice president of Catseye, thought he was a great guy, built a relationship with him, and waited for the moment for him to onboard.

The Jingle That Made Kids Sing

I asked Joe to tell me what makes Cat's Eye so good at branding.

There's a few things. The founder, John, had an idea, probably the late 90s, that the brand should be more appealing to families and children. His idea was, hey, these kids, if we make a fun, family-friendly brand, now these kids will be the next homeowners. He's definitely played the long game, and it really paid off.

Joe remembers when he was first in a sales position, he would pull into a neighborhood. Like all the sales people and all the team, they'll have little mascot dolls in their car to give the children.

"I would pull into a neighborhood and and kids would literally be singing the jingle when they'd see my car pull in like I was the ice cream man or something," Joe explained.

They'd have their mascot in a big suit showing up at local Little League games, Pop Warner games, minor league baseball games, throwing out the first pitch. So they really focused on that family-friendly approach.

When pest control, by nature, doesn't seem very family-friendly. It seems very sterile. So his approach of really focusing on the families and the kids made a big difference and made the brand very approachable.

I told Joe that is actually genius. I don't think I've heard of that before. That is something else.

They did a bunch of things with it too. They even made like a 2D, you know, Super Mario Brothers type video game. It was that whole approach of like, okay, how can we be a very accessible brand?

I asked what it started out as. Did it start as radio ads or the Little League games? What kind of started it?

It started in the old phone book era. Then they'd have some basic graphics, and then they did full animation commercials for TV. They would blast traditional TV for the better part of a little more than a decade. Just blasting TV. That was very effective back then. It was definitely the most effective back then.

At the same time, they would work with radio DJs and do long-term relationships with them. They would service their house for free. They would install their exclusion system, which is a big differentiator for them as a company, on their house. The DJs would rave about how they did. Then they would always make sure before they would talk and after they would talk about Catseye that their jingle would be the bumpers.

The Shift to Digital and Programmatic

I asked Joe from then, how has it evolved to now, present day in 2024? What are your main marketing and advertising strategies?

Definitely heavier on the digital for sure. They'll still do, they'll find some key traditional partnerships that make sense and resonate with their target customer. Some radio DJs work really, really well.

But definitely more on the SEO, fresh good content hosted on multiple platforms, not just their website. Also backlinks, programmatic is something they're always working hard on and dialing in. Big opportunities there, programmatic and getting on streaming. Making sure they're where eyeballs are. A lot of times these days, eyeballs are on their device, on their cell phone or on their laptop or something like that. So making sure they're blasting the digital streaming services.

I asked him to explain more about that. What platforms are you talking about, like Instagram Live?

Not necessarily Instagram Live. He's more talking about things like ads on Hulu, ads on Peacock. Programmatic. More like media streaming.

I asked what has been kind of the biggest shift. It seems like you guys are almost all in on digital. When did you kind of make that transition?

He wouldn't say they ever made a decisive transition. They've always been kind of going how the market has shifted. They watch really closely the trends, so they can kind of gauge their return on investment.

As they started to see less viewership on TV, they started to scale back their budget there and add more into the digital side. It's definitely by far outweighed on the digital side today.

The Cat Guard Exclusion System: A Game-Changing Differentiator

I asked Joe about the exclusion system because I've never heard of that, and he said that was a differentiator. Maybe some people could find some value in that. What exactly is that?

The founder of their company is definitely a visionary. He had a thought before it was even a thing in the pest control industry that pest control companies should become experts in sealing up structures because you can keep the pest outside. Seal up the house to protect the home or the business.

It makes sense from a less use of rodenticides and other products, and it provides a lot of value to the customer. If you can tell a customer, okay, let's stop the problem at the root cause and seal up the home, let's do that.

They developed a whole construction division. He found some very high-level contractors that he brought on board, and they developed what they call their Cat Guard exclusion system.

That has evolved over the years. It's been a great way for them to enter new markets because it's a different thing than most pest control companies out there. So they can enter a market with a differentiator, kind of make a splash quickly.

Now that's evolved into a pretty huge division for them. They have all these certifications that the guys and gals go through to become certified to install the product and keeping their quality up and all that. So it's been a good thing and a big differentiator for them.

Just to be clear, what exactly does it do?

If you imagine like a vinyl-sided house, one of the main places that a mouse would get into a vinyl-sided house is under the siding or under the corners. So their Cat Guard team would fabricate a metal guard that would cap off the bottom of that siding and cap off underneath the corner post.

It can be a lot more than that. It could be mortaring the joints between a stone foundation stones. It could be caulking around a chimney. It could be getting on the roof and sealing where two roofs meet, a roof intersection with flashing or something.

So wherever the pests are getting in, it's sealing off those things with something that is a construction-grade material that the pest can't breach again.

And I'm guessing that's fairly high ticket?

Yep, yep. Definitely drives the revenue.

From 0 to 100 Employees in Boston in 7 Years

I asked Joe about his journey. He's been with Catseye for 12 years. I believe they opened up in Boston.

Back in 2017, they decided to expand into new territory. Up until that point, they were always just in Upstate New York and Western Massachusetts. They decided, you know what, let's take on Boston, an area that they didn't have any brand value. They didn't have any recognition. They didn't have any employees, nothing.

He met with the marketing team. He assembled a small group, a small team as well. They went out to Boston. They started deploying some of their digital assets, videos, graphics. They started building all of their backend SEO and more local references to Boston on our website, blogs, etc. And they just started from nothing.

From nothing to about 100 employees. That was from 2017, now seven years.

I asked if that's 100 employees just in the Boston location or total.

Just in New England, and that was from zero to about 100 in a matter of seven years. So they're pretty lucky. The marketing was such a critical piece. It was something that they would talk about every day. How do they, whether it's through digital means, traditional means, how do they get the brand out there, make it strong, make sure their site authority is strong, make sure everything's built right?

Definitely it's been a work in progress. Now they've taken a good chunk of the pest control market in New England, and hopefully they'll continue more like that.

The Three-Stage Hiring Process: Character, Competency, Chemistry

I asked Joe what advice he could give about hiring and getting good people in your company.

They have a three-stage process to the interview process. Each stage kind of tackles different questions. The first stage might rule out, okay, this person doesn't qualify for the following reasons. The second stage might dive a little more deeper into character or competency.

"So you know those are the the three things we're really looking for is do they have the character that we want do they have the basic competency or the uh enough competency to to get the knowledge and the uh know how to to do the job um and then we also want you know chemistry right uh how do they fit within the within the team how do they gel," Joe explained.

A couple phrases that they use is sometimes they have to, they're looking for why. Is there a reason to say no to this person, not a lot of times when they're recruiting, they're trying to, people are talking themselves into why to hire somebody, and they tend to make a lot of desperate hires that way.

So they try to be really disciplined to not make desperate hires but try to make the hires that they know from a chemistry standpoint they're going to get along great with the team. From a character standpoint, they're going to do the right thing whether they're in front of somebody or by themselves. And from a competency standpoint, they really like those types of guys and gals that they like to troubleshoot, they like to solve problems, they get excited about being the hero, the savior for the customer's problem.

If they feel those three traits, then they know that they probably have something good in their hands. But then the next stop is the onboarding. The onboarding is just as important as the hiring process.

In that onboarding, those first few weeks, the customer, not customer, the new employee, they're really thinking that whole time, they're assessing us. In those first three weeks of employee, maybe more, they're asking questions of themselves. Is this somewhere I want to be long term? Do they have their act together? Is this the type of culture I want to be a part of?

So they try to put a lot of focus in those first three weeks and beyond, but those first three weeks of making a really great impression on that new employee and making sure they know what's expected of them, who to go to for what, and making sure that they have all the safety training and basic things to make them feel comfortable to be an employee here.

Why Onboarding Employees Like Clients Changes Everything

I told Joe I think that's a really good point, almost like treating your employees like clients or customers. I feel like everyone is super dialed in on the client or customer journey and onboarding. Like, okay, we have this nailed process. We're going to send them a gift basket. We're going to do all this stuff and we're going to make sure that we keep them, eliminate churn.

But then no one does that for their employees, and now all their employees either aren't a fan or maybe they don't want to stay. But yeah, I think that should be the goal too, is we want to, just like we want to find amazing clients, we want to find amazing employees that will be with us for life.

Joe said employee priorities have shifted and changed a little bit since the pandemic. He's seen a lot more value, which he thinks in many ways is a good thing, a lot more value placed on their time with their family at night.

He remembers when he first started this industry, it was such a workhorse industry. Everybody wanted as much overtime as possible. If they could work every Saturday, they would. That was kind of the culture of the industry. He thinks that's kind of course-corrected or changed, especially since the pandemic.

So they've had to acknowledge that. They've had to put more focus again on that onboarding and making sure that they're the right fit and that they're the right fit for them.

The Hub and Spoke Model for Scaling

I asked Joe what the balance is within the company of the employees. Obviously, you've got the C-level, vice president, president, founder, maybe CEO. How many technicians, how many salespeople, how many of each role do you need, and what's kind of the balance in the whole company?

The most important people, not to downplay anybody else, but the most important people are the people that face customers. Their technicians and their sales inspectors because they're the ones interacting with the people who give them a paycheck and people who grow the company.

Right now, a bulk of their, the greatest bulk of their employees are the people that are doing the work. The technicians, their Cat Guard installers, the exclusion system, and their sales inspectors.

Then for each division, they have managers assigned. They like a ratio of between six and nine people, 10 people per supervisor. So beyond that gets a little bit harder. It depends on how seasoned those technicians or whoever are. If they're highly, highly seasoned, that service manager might be able to handle 10 or 12. But if they're not highly seasoned, six to eight is all they can handle.

So those are some of the ratios they look at. Then each branch has a branch manager that kind of oversees everything, makes sure everybody has what they need, everybody's cared for, customers are serviced.

Then they have a back office, kind of like a corporate office. There they hold all of their customer service team, all of their BDC. If you can think of it like a hub and spoke model, they have a hub where all of their HR, finance, IT, customer service, inside sales or business development, all of that happens in their New York office, and they serve everything that happens in New England and wherever else they are.

The Review Strategy That Works

I asked Joe what their review strategy is.

They kind of pepper the customers with review invitations. They do it in a few ways through PestPac, and then they also use Podium with an API integration. So basically, every time an invoice is generated, they're served a text message to leave them a review or through email.

I asked if that's working well.

It does. It does work well.

They also use one thing, a bulk texting platform which can be really helpful for confirming appointments. Let's say you build schedules for the entire next couple days. You can just dump it to a CSV file, upload it in, and in a matter of two, three minutes, send out a thousand confirmation text messages. Hey, we're looking forward to seeing you tomorrow between 2 and 3 PM. Please reply confirm. That sort of thing. That's pretty helpful from an efficiency standpoint instead of them making calls all day.

The one they use is called Avocado. They also use Avocado to integrate into their website so that instead of using a web chat that if they click off that page, the web chat's gone, they use Avocado to text them through the website. So that way, if they do click off the page, they can still continue that conversation via text.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Joe is that family-friendly branding got kids singing the Cat's Eye jingle like Joe was the ice cream man. The founder, John, had an idea in the late 90s that the brand should be more appealing to families and children. His idea was, hey, these kids, if we make a fun, family-friendly brand, now these kids will be the next homeowners. He's definitely played the long game, and it really paid off. Joe would pull into a neighborhood with little mascot dolls in his car to give the children, and kids would literally be singing the jingle when they'd see his car pull in like he was the ice cream man. They had their mascot in a big suit showing up at local Little League games, Pop Warner games, minor league baseball games, throwing out the first pitch. They even made a 2D Super Mario Brothers type video game. When pest control by nature doesn't seem very family-friendly, it seems very sterile, this approach of really focusing on the families and the kids made a big difference and made the brand very approachable. That's genius-level branding most pest control companies would never think of.

The second takeaway is that the Cat Guard exclusion system became a game-changing differentiator that drove high-ticket revenue. The founder had a thought before it was even a thing in the pest control industry that pest control companies should become experts in sealing up structures because you can keep the pest outside. Seal up the house to protect the home or the business. It makes sense from a less use of rodenticides and other products, and it provides a lot of value to the customer. They developed a whole construction division and developed what they call their Cat Guard exclusion system. That has evolved over the years. It's been a great way for them to enter new markets because it's a different thing than most pest control companies out there. So they can enter a market with a differentiator, kind of make a splash quickly. Now that's evolved into a pretty huge division for them with certifications that the guys and gals go through to become certified to install the product. It's fairly high ticket and definitely drives the revenue.

The third insight is that they went from 0 to 100 employees in Boston in just 7 years using marketing as the critical piece. Back in 2017, they decided to expand into new territory. Up until that point, they were always just in Upstate New York and Western Massachusetts. They decided to take on Boston, an area where they didn't have any brand value, didn't have any recognition, didn't have any employees, nothing. Joe met with the marketing team, assembled a small group, went out to Boston, started deploying some of their digital assets, videos, graphics, started building all of their backend SEO and more local references to Boston on their website, blogs, etc. And they just started from nothing. From nothing to about 100 employees just in New England in a matter of seven years. The marketing was such a critical piece. It was something they would talk about every day. How do they get the brand out there, make it strong, make sure their site authority is strong, make sure everything's built right? That's how you enter a new market with no presence whatsoever.

The fourth thing that struck me is the three-stage hiring process focused on character, competency, and chemistry. They're looking for why, is there a reason to say no to this person. Not a lot of times when they're recruiting, people are talking themselves into why to hire somebody, and they tend to make a lot of desperate hires that way. So they try to be really disciplined to not make desperate hires but try to make the hires that they know from a chemistry standpoint they're going to get along great with the team. From a character standpoint, they're going to do the right thing whether they're in front of somebody or by themselves. And from a competency standpoint, they really like those types of guys and gals that they like to troubleshoot, they like to solve problems, they get excited about being the hero, the savior for the customer's problem. Then the onboarding is just as important as the hiring process. Those first few weeks, the new employee is really assessing you. Is this somewhere I want to be long term? Do they have their act together? Is this the type of culture I want to be a part of? Put a lot of focus in those first three weeks of making a really great impression.

The fifth lesson is the hub and spoke model for scaling across five states. If you can think of it like a hub and spoke model, they have a hub where all of their HR, finance, IT, customer service, inside sales or business development, all of that happens in their New York office, and they serve everything that happens in New England and wherever else they are. Each branch has a branch manager that oversees everything, makes sure everybody has what they need, everybody's cared for, customers are serviced. For each division, they have managers assigned. They like a ratio of between six and nine people, 10 people per supervisor. If they're highly, highly seasoned, that service manager might be able to handle 10 or 12. But if they're not highly seasoned, six to eight is all they can handle. That's how you scale without everything falling apart. The most important people are the people that face customers: their technicians and their sales inspectors because they're the ones interacting with the people who give them a paycheck and people who grow the company.

If you want to learn more from Joe, you can find Cat's Eye on LinkedIn, USX on LinkedIn, and they're on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. You can find Joe personally on LinkedIn as Joe Dingwell. That's where he lives most of the time. Joe's journey from pastor to pest control president leading a $15 million company across five states is proof that leadership background, marketing knowledge, and family-friendly branding can build something truly special in an industry that most people think is sterile and boring.