/// BUSINESS GROWTH

Focus
on Your

Services

Do what your pest

management rm is good at,
and do it a lot.
BY JimMCHALE

onsider your pest management programs development from a marketing perspective. Use the slower winter months to nd out what your clients
pain points are and set up a service program that addresses those clients needs by
applying your core services. The main idea
is to stick to what youre good at and promote it to the masses in need.
The rst step in attacking the pain
points of a hungry market is to consider
how to identify the share thats relevant to
your business and its service offerings:
 What is the customers problem (pain
point) and what does that customer
want?
 What solution can you provide to end
your customers pain and what is the
value you offer?

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| DanGORDON | JonathanYEE

 Seek out villains in your industry. A villain doesnt have to be a guy with a mustache dressed in black. The villain can
be a person, an organization, a thing or
even just a concept.
 How large is the market for such a program? Size up your hungry market to
determine how much money there is to
be made.
 How will you sell this program?
DEFINING PAIN POINTS. Dening pain
points and identifying a hungry market
is a great approach to building a business. There are a lot of good examples of
pain points in different industries. For
instance, in the accounting profession,
paying too much tax is the general pain
point. The hungry market is anyone who

completes a tax return. And the villain is

the Internal Revenue Service.
This concept really lends itself well to
the pest control industry. The reason people call you is because they have a problem. For instance, termites are eating away
at their house, bees have created a nest on
their deck, or perhaps a little animal is
running around in their house.
These pain points are very easily communicated to your clients. They know
what the problem is. The idea is to identify those pain points and provide peace
of mind solutions to your customers. As
always, remain focused on the results of
the service and alleviate any fears that the
client may have.
SELLING PEACE OF MIND. Once your

/// BUSINESS GROWTH

hungry market is dened, you need an
approach to attack that market space.
Create programs that offer peace of mind
in terms of continuity of service. You are
putting an end to your clients sleepless
nights. Be results oriented and earn the
trust of your customers by delivering high
quality pest control services that are both
professional and effective. Just remember
that a worried public is your target market and peace of mind is your product
offering.
Most customers dont have half of the
covered pests that most programs protect
against. The client might have carpenter
ants or bees or mice or whatever. But they
probably dont have all of them.
What youre trying to do is sell your
customers the entire program and get
them to sign on for an all-inclusive standard treatment plan. Most customers are
really just interested in getting rid of a
specic type of pest that they have. But
by packaging it and stacking one service
on another, the perceived value is a lot
higher and you can get a lot more money
for it.
MARKETING INTANGIBLES. Pest control services are an intangible product.
They cant be packaged or put on a shelf.
The customer cannot hold it or touch it.
So, heres the most effective approach to
marketing your companys pest control
services. What you have to do is sell pest
control services based on their perceived
value and the end result that you offer.
Focus your marketing efforts here: on
the results of the delivered service. If you
can convince your prospective client that
you can put their worries at ease, then
youre on your way to making the sale!
And what are you offering here? You
might think that you are offering professional application of chemicals. But,
what you offer is something way more
important and extremely valuable you
offer peace of mind.
TIERED PRICING. Develop different tiers
of pricing levels and packaged services to
create perceptions of value to drive them
towards a certain pricing level. You have
to develop different pricing strategies and
price points according to the services you
offer and the market you intend to sell to.
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There are a number of factors that come

into play when determining your pricing
strategy.
Some things to think about when setting your price strategy are:
 Total value of service
 Customers perception of value
 Cost of service
 Market price (what your competitors
charge)
 Price ceiling (the maximum price the
market would bear)
 Overall comfort level
 Mix of services offered (this is where
tiered pricing will come into play)
FUNNEL SERVICE. When you strategize
about your pricing tiers, think of your
portfolio of service offerings as a funnel.
You want to drive each customer through
the funnel to the point that maximizes
your prot from that specic client.
When you have several different programs with different levels of service you
are offering a choice of service options.
This is important, since every client is
different. What your pricing accomplishes is it helps you guide your customers to
take on the desired behavior that you desire. This desired behavior is of course the
very point where you capture the maximum prot from that customer.
CAPTURE THE PERCEIVED VALUE. In
some instances you may nd that if youre
not charging enough, the customer may
not believe that you are qualied to do
the job. Your pricing has to reect the
perceived value your customer places on
your service. Interestingly, price and the
perception of value are linked very closely, as each will clearly have an impact on
the other.
If you price your services below your
customers perceived value, then youre
leaving money on the table. The key here
is to survey your market and try different pricing schemes. Of course constant
adjustments will be necessary once you
have read the marketplace.
FOCUS ON YOUR CORE. Do what youre
good at. Set up a service program based
on your companys core competencies.
You want to spend your most time playing
the games that youre good at. In doing so,

you are better positioned to dominate the

competition.
Be sure to stick to your core competencies. If you have a really popular service
program thats really taking off, promote
that service even more and set up your
business to deliver that service protably
and efciently. If you have a bread-andbutter service, then you want to be the
king of that type of service program and
rule that market space!
Take a look at Michael Jordans basketball career with the Chicago Bulls. You
couldnt have asked for more in terms of
skill and accomplishment from this basketball legend. Now contrast that with
Michael Jordans attempt at baseball
career in the Chicago White Sox minor league organization. It was a dismal
failure and he never even made it to the
Major Leagues. It turns out that, despite
Jordans incredible athletic ability, playing baseball wasnt one of his core competencies.
BUILD AROUND YOUR PROGRAMS.
When growing your business, stay program-centric. The thought chain here is
as follows:
 Your wealth is (either fully or partly) dependent on your business value.
 Your business value is based on how
much renewable work you perform
year-in and year-out.
 Your renewable work is reliant upon
how many service contracts you have
sold.
So, get your clients converted to your
program-centric model of service agreements. This is a key part of your business
success and will be critical to your ability
to build wealth.
By the way, its ne to sell add-on services, but be careful to not dilute your companys core image or core presentation.
In order to offer add-ons you will need to
work towards developing additional competencies within your business. Be clear
about what youre offering your clients.
All in all, do what you can do, and do what
youre good at.
Dan Gordon is a principal at PMP Wealthbuilders,
Newton, N.J. He can be reached at dgordon@giemedia.com.