From Lawn Care Dreams to Pest Control Empire

Jonas didn't dream of owning a pest control company, but he did dream of owning a lawn care company by age 10 or 12. He liked cutting grass back in the day. He'd make his dad pay him to cut grass, then on weekends he'd cut his neighbor's grass and his grandma's grass.

It's funny how many successful business owners started this way. Cutting lawns as a kid, realizing they could make money doing something physical, building up a small customer base. That entrepreneurial spark started early for Jonas.

After college and time in the Carpenter's Union, he saved up money and started his lawn care business. When his oldest daughter was born in 2010, everything changed. He was working out of town four, five, six hours away and didn't like being gone. The lifestyle wasn't for him either. Everyone was drinking at the bar, most were divorced. Good trade, but not the life he wanted.

That moment when you become a parent changes everything. Suddenly the priorities shift. Making money matters, but being present for your kids matters more. Jonas made the hard call to leave a stable union job with good pay and benefits to bet on himself.

He quit his union job and went all in on lawn care. He built it up to $2.9 million, adding landscaping, snow removal, fertilization, weed control, and eventually pest control. This is important because he didn't just do lawn mowing. He expanded into complementary services that increased customer lifetime value.

COVID Forced Him to Start Knocking Doors in Wisconsin

Then COVID hit. In Michigan, they were deemed nonessential and couldn't work. But pest control was still allowed, and Wisconsin was more open.

This is one of those moments where external circumstances force you to pivot or die. A lot of businesses went under during COVID. Jonas saw an opportunity.

In June, Jonas started driving to Green Bay every day at 4 am. He'd never knocked a door before. He went to YouTube University trying to figure out how to knock doors. This shows the power of just figuring it out. He didn't have experience. He didn't have training. He had YouTube and determination.

His first door was terrifying. He walked up, turned around, walked away. He was about to throw up he was so nervous. But he walked back up. The lady's dog was actually allergic to wasps. He sold the first door he ever knocked on for pest control. That gave him the confidence that he could actually do this.

I love this story because it's so relatable. Everyone's terrified their first time doing something new. Sales, public speaking, launching a business. But once you get that first win, everything changes. Jonas got his first sale and thought okay, I can do this.

That summer, he sold about 400 accounts and built up cash in the bank. Think about that. Zero door knocking experience. Drives four hours round trip every day. Sells 400 accounts in one summer. That's the grind that builds businesses.

The Pivot from Lawn Care to Pest Control

The next year, Jonas was running two businesses side by side. But he saw the scalability and profitability of the pest control company. He liked getting in, getting out, doing a good job. He wasn't the type who loved landscaping jobs.

Lawn care is tough. You're dealing with weather. Equipment breaks down constantly. Margins are thin. It's labor intensive. Pest control, on the other hand, has better margins, more recurring revenue, less equipment maintenance.

At the end of the year, he decided to sell his original company. The new pest control company had borrowed a lot of money from the old company but still had more money in the bank than the original company had after 10 years. That was the signal.

When your one-year-old business is more profitable than your 10-year-old business, you pay attention. Jonas made the smart move.

He sold off the mowing, landscaping, and snow plowing. He kept the fertilization, weed control, and pest control sides. These were the higher margin, more scalable parts of the business.

Fast forward to 2024: Pest Badger is at technically seven locations, opening three more in spring, with about 150 employees. From door knocking in Green Bay in 2020 to 150 employees in 2024. That's absolutely insane growth.

The $797 Academy That Changed Everything

During the come up, Jonas found a mentor through lawn care software. He signed up and stayed up until 4 am entering customers. He was grinding, doing everything himself, trying to figure it out.

The next night, there was an academy for $797 a month. He didn't have that much money. Maybe 10 or 12 grand in the bank. His fiance said no. He bought it anyway since it was month to month.

This is a critical decision point for entrepreneurs. Do you invest in education when you can't really afford it, or do you try to figure everything out yourself? Jonas bet on himself.

"I found like my tribe, like they're all having the same issues that I was having and like there's just a guy telling us how to fix it all," Jonas said. "And I think my very first training program was Google My Business which was pretty new back then and to this date that thing's probably made me millions of dollars."

That mentor is now one of his best friends. This is what happens when you invest in the right communities. You don't just get the information. You get the relationships, the network, the accountability.

The $80,000 Door Knocking Consultant That Paid Off Immediately

Jonas's first big hires were people he already knew. But the next year, he needed to figure out door knocking properly. He was doing okay, but he knew there was a better way.

He hired a consultant for $80,000. Put it on a credit card and hoped it worked out. People thought he was crazy. When you tell people you're putting $80K on a credit card for a consultant, they think you've lost your mind.

The next month they did $150,000 in revenue from just doing it the right way. It definitely paid for itself. That's a 10-week payback period on an $80,000 investment. Show me a better ROI.

What did he learn? "Getting the contract in place, teaching me how to do recruiting, how to actually sell it the right way, recurring revenue," Jonas said. "I mean just simple things like that. I didn't come from a door knocking company, I'm not Mormon. I was just out there trying to figure it out on my own."

The Mormon comment is funny but real. Door knocking culture is huge in the Mormon community. Lots of the best door knockers in industries like pest control, solar, and security came up through Mormon mission work. Jonas didn't have that background. He had to learn from scratch.

He also reached out to Lanny Gray and Sam Taggart, two of the biggest names in door knocking. Two weeks later, he was on a plane to Utah. When you want to learn something, you go learn from the best.

Running 150 Employees Requires the Right People

I asked how Jonas went from essentially solo to 150 employees.

The key is finding the right people and not waiting too long to delegate. Jonas's biggest mistake in the beginning was holding onto tasks too long. He thought he was the only one who could do it right. Every entrepreneur goes through this phase.

The breaking point? When you're working 80-100 hour weeks and everything falls on your shoulders. You realize you can't scale like this. You have to find people who are better than you at specific tasks and let them run with it.

Jonas has a full leadership team now. A CFO handling all the finances. Operations managers running different locations. Marketing people crushing content. He's transitioned from doing everything to focusing on vision and strategy.

This is the hardest transition for founders. Going from being in the weeds to being the visionary. But it's the only way to scale past seven figures.

Why Facebook Ads Crush for Pest Control

I asked Jonas about his marketing mix and what's working best.

"Facebook ads have been the best thing for us," Jonas said. They're running lead gen campaigns constantly, feeding their sales team qualified leads.

The secret? Good creative, consistent testing, and proper follow-up systems. Most pest control companies run boring ads. A photo of a technician with text that says "Call us for pest control." Nobody stops scrolling for that.

Jonas's team creates content that actually stops the scroll. They test different angles, different offers, different formats. Maybe it's a video of a crazy wasp nest removal. Maybe it's a before and after of a rodent infestation. Maybe it's a special offer for first-time customers.

And here's the critical part: they have the systems in place to actually call those leads back fast. Within 5 minutes ideally. That speed to lead makes a massive difference in conversion rates.

I see so many companies spend money on Facebook ads, get the leads, then take hours or even days to call them back. By that time, the lead has called three other companies and forgotten about you. Speed matters more than almost anything in lead follow-up.

The YouTube Strategy: 120K Subscribers Didn't Happen Overnight

I asked how Jonas built such a massive YouTube following in pest control.

It's all about consistency and providing actual value. They started posting educational content. How to identify different pests. What to do if you have a wasp nest. When to call a professional versus DIY. This is content people are actually searching for.

But they also mixed in entertainment. Behind the scenes at the company. Crazy pest stories. Day in the life content. Anything that makes pest control more interesting and relatable. You have to remember that YouTube is both a search engine and an entertainment platform.

The breakthrough moment? When one video went viral and brought in tens of thousands of new subscribers. That showed them what type of content resonates. They doubled down on that formula.

Now they're posting multiple times per week. Each video is optimized for search. They're targeting keywords people are actually searching for in their service areas. Things like "how to get rid of wasps in Michigan" or "best pest control Green Bay."

The compound effect of YouTube is incredible. Every video you publish stays on the platform forever, ranking in search, bringing in new viewers. A video you published two years ago is still working for you today. Compare that to a Facebook ad that stops working the second you turn it off.

Jonas has essentially built an asset that generates brand awareness 24/7. People discover Pest Badger through YouTube, binge-watch their content, and by the time they need pest control, Pest Badger is the obvious choice.

TikTok Videos Hitting 10 Million Views

The TikTok success is even crazier. Videos hitting 10 million, 8 million, 7 million views. In pest control. That's almost unheard of.

Jonas's approach is different from YouTube. TikTok is more raw, more authentic, faster paced. They'll film quick clips of technicians doing treatments. Crazy pest finds. Before and after transformations. The editing is minimal. Sometimes it's just a 15-second clip filmed on an iPhone.

The algorithm loves it when you hook people in the first second. Their best performing videos start with something shocking or intriguing. A massive wasp nest. A weird bug nobody's seen before. A pest infestation that looks unbelievable.

They're not trying to go viral. They're just consistently putting out content and letting the algorithm do its thing. Some videos flop with a few hundred views. Some videos absolutely blow up with millions. That's just how it works.

The beauty of TikTok is the reach. Even with zero followers, your first video can hit a million views if the algorithm likes it. That's very different from YouTube where you typically need to build an audience first.

Jonas is smart about repurposing too. A video that works on TikTok gets posted to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook. One piece of content, four platforms. That's how you maximize ROI on content creation.

Content Marketing Builds Trust Before They Ever Call

Here's why Jonas invests so heavily in content: by the time someone calls Pest Badger, they already know the company, trust them, and are ready to buy.

They've watched multiple videos. They've seen the expertise. They've gotten to know the team. When they finally pick up the phone, the sales process is dramatically easier. The person isn't saying "tell me about your company." They're saying "I've been watching your videos, when can you come out?"

This is the long game of content marketing. You're building an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you. When they need pest control services, you're the obvious choice. You're not competing on price because you've already established value.

Compare that to cold calling or door knocking where you're starting from zero trust. You have to convince someone who's never heard of you that you're credible, that you're not going to rip them off, that you actually know what you're doing. That's a much harder sell.

Content pre-sells people before you ever talk to them. It's the ultimate sales tool that works 24/7 without you lifting a finger.

Social Media Awareness Drives All Other Marketing

Here's what most people don't realize about Jonas's social media strategy: it makes everything else work better.

When someone sees a Facebook ad from Pest Badger, they might check out the company. They find the YouTube channel with 120K subscribers. They see the TikTok with millions of views. Suddenly that Facebook ad has 10x more credibility.

When a door knocker shows up, the homeowner might Google the company. They find professional content everywhere. Again, massive credibility boost that increases close rates.

Even SEO benefits. Google sees Pest Badger has a strong brand presence across platforms. That factors into rankings. The YouTube videos show up in search results alongside the website.

This is what integrated marketing looks like. Every channel supports every other channel. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Biggest Lesson: Invest in Yourself and Your Business

I asked Jonas what advice he'd give to someone trying to scale from $500K to $5 million.

The biggest lesson? "Invest in yourself and your business," Jonas said. Don't be cheap with education, mentorship, or hiring the right people.

That $797 academy? Made him millions. That $80,000 door knocking consultant? Paid for itself in a month. The people he's hired? Have allowed him to scale to 150 employees and multiple locations.

Too many business owners try to do everything themselves and never invest in getting better. They stay stuck at the same revenue level year after year because they won't spend money to make money. They'll drop $50K on a new truck but won't spend $5K on a coach who could help them add $500K in revenue.

Jonas is the opposite. He's constantly learning, constantly investing, constantly surrounding himself with people who are further ahead. That mindset is what separates companies that stay small from companies that become empires.

Here's the thing about investing in yourself: the ROI is almost always higher than any other investment you can make. Better equipment might give you a 20% efficiency boost. Better training might 10x your revenue. There's no comparison.

Why Most Pest Control Companies Will Never Do This

I asked Jonas why more pest control companies aren't crushing it with content like he is.

The honest answer? It's hard. It requires consistency. It requires being willing to put yourself out there. It requires patience because the results don't come overnight.

Most pest control owners are technicians first, business owners second. They're great at killing bugs. They're not comfortable on camera. They don't want to post on social media. They think content creation is a waste of time.

Jonas saw it differently. He understood that attention is the most valuable currency in business. If you can get attention at scale through content, you can build a massive company. Traditional advertising is expensive and temporary. Content is cheap and permanent.

The other factor? Most companies don't have the vision to see what's possible. They look at their small YouTube channel with 500 subscribers and think it's not worth it. Jonas pushed through that phase. He kept posting when nobody was watching. Eventually, the algorithm caught on and growth exploded.

The Compound Effect of Content Over Time

This is something I really want to drive home: content compounds over time in ways that other marketing doesn't.

That Facebook ad you ran last month? Dead. That Google ad you turned off? Not working anymore. That billboard you rented? Gone when the lease ends.

But that YouTube video you posted two years ago? Still ranking. Still bringing in views. Still converting customers. That TikTok that went viral? Still getting views months later. That blog post you wrote? Still showing up in Google search.

Jonas has hundreds of videos working for him 24/7. Each one is a little salesperson that never sleeps, never takes a day off, never asks for a raise. The cumulative effect is massive.

And it gets better over time. As your channel grows, new videos get more traction faster. As your brand becomes more recognized, conversion rates improve. As your back catalog expands, you dominate more keywords and topics.

This is the content flywheel. It's hard to get started, but once it's spinning, it becomes incredibly powerful.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Jonas is that content marketing works even in "boring" industries. Pest control isn't sexy, but Jonas has built massive social media followings by being consistent and providing value. If it works for pest control, it can work for literally any industry.

The second takeaway is that investing in yourself and your business always pays off. Whether it's an $797 monthly academy or an $80,000 consultant, if it helps you grow faster, it's worth it. The companies that win are the ones willing to make bold investments in growth.

The third thing is that you can't scale to 150 employees by doing everything yourself. You have to find people better than you at specific tasks and give them the freedom to execute. Jonas's biggest mistake early on was holding onto tasks too long. Once he started delegating to the right people, growth accelerated dramatically.

The fourth lesson is speed matters. Whether it's calling leads back within 5 minutes or being the first to adopt new platforms like TikTok, the fast movers win. Jonas didn't wait until everyone else in pest control was on social media. He was early, and that gave him a massive advantage.

If you want to learn more from Jonas, check out his podcast Pest Control Millionaire or follow Pest Badger on YouTube and TikTok to see how they're crushing content in pest control. You can also find him on Instagram and Facebook.