Transcript 

00:00:00 

The Western mass business show WHMP. 

00:00:02 

Hi, this is IRA Brick and I welcome you to the Western mass business show where every week we just take a look at another company in the area. And just here how and why they started, how and why they grew, how and why they changed and basically what it feels like to be your own boss. 

00:00:22 

And today, I'm glad to have. 

00:00:24 

Brenda and Glenn Olesak I knew Brenda because one of the partners of the family Business Center is Myers brothers Kalika, where she is the head of operations and development. So nice to have you here, Brenda. 

00:00:37 

Thank you. Thank you very much. 

00:00:38 

And then you are in also in business with your husband. Glenn. Nice to have you here. 

00:00:42 

Absolutely. 

00:00:43 

Glenn, good morning. Thank you for the invitation. 

00:00:45 

And. 

00:00:46 

And the business is graduate pest solutions. So this is the pests have graduated from what to what? 

00:00:49 

Correct, correct. 

00:00:54 

Alive today, yeah. 

00:00:56 

You know, you got me tongue tied there because they just always been here and they always will. 

00:00:59 

Yeah, we were called in for a Caterpillar problem, but now we have. 

00:01:00 

Be you know. 

00:01:02 

A butterfly problem? Yeah, yeah. 

00:01:05 

Very good, very good. I. Yeah. I haven't had one of those. 

00:01:07 

So. So let's just go back to the roots. How did you become this? I I had mentioned to you that I've given talks a couple of times. 

00:01:13 

The pest Control Technology Conference and it is a certain kind of person who. 

00:01:19 

Decides to become an entomologist. Yeah, yeah. 

00:01:21 

Absolutely. And I actually, I came in kind of through default Brent and I have known each other since high school since we were 15. 

00:01:30 

And her father needed some slave labor for a cross country trip because he was a school teacher. I got into this because I volunteered to be a driver for him, and we went to a bunch of national parks. 

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Uh. 

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Out. 

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West and with a lot of camping. So without going into a lot of detail, I at that point decided I wanted to go into forestry. 

00:01:43 

Hmm. 

00:01:50 

Uh-huh. 

00:01:51 

During the course of my education, I had, as we all usually do, have some mentor or someone within the your educational framework that will give you some sage advice. And I had a professor who didn't want to squash my forestry dream and said if you study bugs and rodents, you'll always be employed so. 

00:02:02 

Right. 

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Uh-huh. 

00:02:11 

At it. At that point, as I graduated looking for a job, Brendan and I decided to get married. 

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Yeah. 

00:02:18 

And I realize that if I want to be gainfully employed, I need to go into the pest control industry. And I just kind of fell into it. So that's the precipitous of this. And then going through the careers, us raising our children at a certain point, we said, you know what we could do this ourselves, you know, and 10 years ago, we decided to do that. 

00:02:21 

Yeah. 

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Yeah. 

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Uh. 

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So you you had worked for a larger company before you started your own. 

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Many, yes, exactly. And actually in Chicago, because at the time when I graduated from Syracuse. 

00:02:46 

She was living and had a career in Chicago, so I wound up moving out there. We got married and I took a job out there and I learned from a very good company what commercial pest control was like. I also learned that classroom training about bugs and rodents is not necessarily move well. 

00:02:58 

Uh-huh. 

00:03:05 

Into the business environment. Technical knowledge is 1. 

00:03:08 

Part. 

00:03:09 

People skills is a much bigger part of of being in business and. 

00:03:11 

Right, right. So, so we don't know each other well, but the thing that surprised me in doing a couple of these conferences in is how. 

00:03:20 

Much. 

00:03:21 

People in the pest control business love pests. 

00:03:24 

Yes, that's true. 

00:03:27 

Well, you, you you have, that's your initial love. My mom used to. I don't know why, but I've always loved the outdoors. And my mom would get upset with me when I'd have frozen grasshoppers in the freezer and had a magnifying glass and was. And I don't know, I was I. 

00:03:40 

Had a fascination with bugs. 

00:03:42 

And and just being in the outdoors, so we we just get into that and you have a lot of people in our industry that have a lot of technical knowledge. The ones that really grow into the bigger companies are the ones that reach, as I'm saying beyond the technical stuff. But when we get together, we kind of default. 

00:03:51 

MHM. 

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To that, instead of beating up on each other, or you know it and and have conversations about what's working for you to take care of bed bugs, what's working for you to get rid of the ants? Is this working? And because you go as you know, with the trade show, you got the exhibit halls and they've everybody's got the next best thing that's going to just wipe them out for you and and you get a lot of money. 

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Uh-huh. 

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Uh-huh. 

00:04:07 

Yeah. 

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Yeah. 

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Right. And you not only need to kill the pest, but you need to be careful of what you're doing to. 

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The people. 

00:04:24 

Correct, correct. Ohh yeah. 

00:04:26 

But I just want to follow up on your comment because you're 100% right. The thing that I have always been so impressed with and kind of love. 

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Yeah. 

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Plan is his passion, his passion for the work that he does, and you wouldn't necessarily think of that for pest control yet he, he he loves the bugs, he loves the service and he just brings that to the business. And I'm attracted to that. 

00:04:46 

Mm-hmm. 

00:04:53 

Yeah. You know our, our, our, our industry just to give the big picture, since you've spoken to us a lot of a lot of people, a lot of a lot of people look at us as an individual that you're an exterminator. You're you know you're kind of on this. 

00:04:59 

Here it goes. 

00:05:05 

Hmm. 

00:05:08 

This level that I don't quite understand why anybody would do. 

00:05:10 

Fixing a nuisance, yeah. 

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That. 

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Right. But our industry exists because we protect people's property and health and that's why people will spend the money that they spend for, for our services. 

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Uh-huh. 

00:05:17 

Yeah. 

00:05:19 

Right, my sister got flying squirrels in her attic and she designed this modern house that there was no access to the attic. So, you know, that's not a problem that you can. 

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Right. 

00:05:28 

Take on yourself. 

00:05:30 

Correct, correct. And that's and there are people with skill sets that are very good at that and solve your problem fairly. 

00:05:36 

Actually, but it's not usually inexpensive to handle that. But those services are available and our industry, that's what our industry does keeps them from chewing up your house and messing up your house and making the House and healthy. 

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Yeah, yeah. 

00:05:45 

Right. 

00:05:46 

Right. And then the other one where I had a children's clothing store, I'll never forget the day that I pulled out a $200 boys suit and there was a cockroach crawling on it. And you know, as much as I didn't like the smell of the exterminator, you know, the chemicals. But still, that was the bigger. 

00:05:54 

Right. 

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Right. 

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Pain. 

00:06:02 

There's a balance, yeah. 

00:06:05 

Being able to take care of past, it's not all the technical, yeah. 

00:06:07 

Without without the odor. Yeah, most of our materials don't have older odors anymore, you know. 

00:06:13 

Right. So I mean it's an industry that must have changed a lot in terms of customer service and also awareness of active health. 

00:06:20 

And you know, we we complain, everybody complains about regulations affecting their industry and what you do. But for just to give an example of where regulations were beneficial. 

00:06:32 

Is with schools and school children and and application of pesticides in schools. Some things happen that applications were made by people that weren't knowledgeable enough and so forth and caused the problem, and regulations come down and say you can't use this, this, this and this. Our industry responds by finding things that are. 

00:06:47 

MHM. 

00:06:52 

Much more. 

00:06:54 

Acceptable and not odorous and actually kill the insects because they're baits instead of sprays. So we moved away from the sprays and went to a bait in our industry, innovate it to give US products that actually solve the problem and minimize the exposure in that. 

00:07:01 

You become an innovative right, right? 

00:07:09 

Yeah. And, you know, my house is in what was a field, one so right the the mice have not found out that there's it's a neighborhood and. 

00:07:13 

Nice. 

00:07:17 

OK, Nadia. 

00:07:18 

And for and. 

00:07:19 

For a while, for a few years I actually had a snake that I would kill them. I would put them mice in the snake. 

00:07:23 

What's your name? 

00:07:24 

And the snake would take care of it. So. So you had a. 

00:07:26 

Fascination there. Yeah, well, you know, it's. 

00:07:29 

The things fit together. I don't. I didn't have to go to Dave Soda and pet food. 

00:07:30 

Yeah. Yeah, OK, yeah. 

00:07:32 

City and buy. 

00:07:33 

Mice to people because when you bought from Daves, they said the snake won't like these mice unless you rub them on dead fish. I said I'm too busy. I'm just going to. 

00:07:34 

Oh my goodness. OK. 

00:07:41 

Oh. 

00:07:43 

And so anyway, the point is when I called in about mice, they didn't give me a new poison. They actually just put steel wool in all the holes and you. 

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Yeah. 

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Know. 

00:07:53 

Correct. Correct that our industry is offering more and more and more of that. 

00:07:56 

That's actually. 

00:08:02 

And it is very helpful. So it's just another way of we trying to use less chemicals, less poisons and go to something that's more of a long term prevention, so. 

00:08:12 

And that's called integrated pest management. So it's less focused on the chemical, more focus on the structural and then a greater use of. 

00:08:19 

Mm-hmm. 

00:08:22 

So there are large companies I want to get into the whole business environment, but there's large companies and small companies. And so you know, I would imagine the large companies. 

00:08:32 

From where? TV commercials and more of a national presence, how do you? 

00:08:34 

Correct, it's greater SEO. 

00:08:37 

Wait. 

00:08:38 

How do you fight that fight? And as they say, be heard in the noisy world. 

00:08:44 

Well, one of the ways you can be successful with your spouse when you start a business is we delineated who has final say in what areas of the business I'm operations. She's admin and marketing, so. 

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Yeah. 

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Uh. 

00:08:57 

She and another person. And so I'm going to let her answer that question because that's how that this is. 

00:08:58 

And that's my background. 

00:09:01 

Yeah. Good. OK. 

00:09:03 

How we compete? 

00:09:03 

Right, right, right. So yes, that that's an excellent point and being a small company, it is a lot more difficult. We've we've gone down the road of improving our our, our CEO and and you know getting involved with Google Ads and and. 

00:09:18 

A lot of digital marketing and it's so clear that the larger companies can outspend you easily. But you know, we're strategic. We are are very committed to using technology. So we probably use some SEO oriented programs that maybe other small companies. 

00:09:20 

Mm-hmm. 

00:09:37 

Mm-hmm. Right. 

00:09:37 

Owned that have given us an edge to go. Maybe where other? 

00:09:43 

Organizations don't go, and I think we're having definitely impact. We have a Facebook presence and we try to bring our personality to social media as well as to all of our digital marketing people respond to it and. And so I just think by kind of being. 

00:09:44 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:09:46 

Right. 

00:10:00 

MHM. 

00:10:03 

More of who we are and and trying to. 

00:10:07 

To access people in ways that others don't, I think we've been more successful than that. 

00:10:14 

Hmm. 

00:10:15 

Right, right. Well, plus your local, you know, you're not trying to appeal to everybody in the whole country. 

00:10:19 

We are focused on the. 

00:10:20 

Local. Yeah, it was. I was going to add to that one of the ways we grow the most is through referrals. Yeah. So that doesn't require any of what she's doing in that arena other than to provide good service to people and their family and friends, you know, reach. 

00:10:23 

Yeah. 

00:10:34 

Right. 

00:10:37 

So is it hard to get somebody to help you with word of mouth where they have to admit that they have mice or roaches? 

00:10:37 

Out to you when they. 

00:10:44 

In their. 

00:10:44 

House. No, you know, most people, it's usually family members. So they've talked about that and it's usually. 

00:10:49 

We're four neighbors. 

00:10:50 

Right. It's usually a referral from a family member or a friend that says I use these guys to get rid of my aunts. Once you call them, you know, and that's just been a huge part of our growth since our inception. And I just can't say enough about that. 

00:10:55 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:11:01 

Mm-hmm. 

00:11:04 

Right. 

00:11:05 

This is the. 

00:11:05 

Other one of the other leg of the stool is the SEO. So people will find you and so we just recently had a giveaway on Facebook for our for Big E tickets which was actually very successful. Yeah. 

00:11:09 

Uh-huh. 

00:11:12 

Yeah. 

00:11:16 

It was huge. 

00:11:18 

We got a lot of response and a lot of engagement, so I think I think we're going in the right direction. 

00:11:21 

Uh-huh. 

00:11:24 

Yeah, that's great. OK, so I am here with Glenn and Brenda Olesak. They are the owners of graduate. 

00:11:32 

Pest solutions and this is IRA brick. I have the western mass business show what I'm doing now, but my full time day job is the family business center of Pioneer Valley. I'm proud to say that Brenda is associated with one of our strategic partners, Myers brothers Collica, counting firm. So I've known you through that for many years and we put on. 

00:11:50 

Yep. 

00:11:52 

Excellent events if you'd ever like to find out more, you could look at our website at FAM Biz PV FA MB IZP v.com. We have a lineup of Ivy League professors speaking on all different. 

00:12:04 

Topics this fall, but we do every kind of thing, so it's a lot of fun and. 

00:12:10 

Good learning too. 

00:12:11 

I will be back right after the break on the Western yes business. 

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Hi. We're back on the Western mass business show. I were brick also of the family business center of Pioneer Valley. I'm here with the owners of graduate pest solutions. It's a married. 

00:14:31 

Couple as many businesses are Co preneurs as they say. Glenn and Brenda olesak. So nice to have you here. So my next question is my wife is, you know, an Earth Mama and her first cure for anything is going to be put out mint for this and. 

00:14:51 

Yes. 

00:14:52 

What? What do you think of all these home cures? Are they effective or? 

00:14:56 

Or. 

00:14:56 

As they say in Yiddish promiser. 

00:14:59 

You know, it's it's hard to gauge that because clearly if it worked, they don't call me, but I do go on on to these calls where where people have been trying that and they get overwhelmed with the cockroaches or and they finally say I need to call a professional. So there's something to it because it's been passed down for. 

00:15:03 

Uh-huh. 

00:15:16 

You know many years, but I haven't seen any home remedies myself that are an absolute home run. A lot of times that you catch it early. 

00:15:17 

Yeah. 

00:15:20 

Huh. 

00:15:22 

Yeah. 

00:15:25 

And you can solve problems. Sometimes it coincides with maybe something else that's going on. You know the whatever the bug came in on got taken out. And so. 

00:15:26 

Uh-huh. 

00:15:37 

You know, sometimes like actually I just I use have a heart traps and the killer traps and I I like the killer traps better because it if I don't catch the have a heart it's been starving in there and feel like I'm not doing them any favors. 

00:15:37 

It's it's gone. 

00:15:41 

Yeah. 

00:15:49 

I think it's a lot. Yeah. It's it's less cruel if you will, to just simply be quick, yeah. 

00:15:52 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:15:54 

Yeah. So I'm just wondering how many mice are in my house if I'm seeing two or three, are there, huh? 

00:16:00 

It's. 

00:16:02 

It's. 

00:16:03 

It's hard to tell because because as you look around, we all know the little things they leave around. I mean, they leave those things stick around for a long time. So you may be looking around, I'll go in and do an inspection for somebody and see a lot of droppings. But when I actually set traps and put poisons. 

00:16:14 

MHM. 

00:16:22 

About I catch one or two and the problem's over because they've just been sitting there for, so this is the only way to tell is to to run some traps and some poison and see what. 

00:16:25 

Uh-huh. 

00:16:31 

Results. 

00:16:31 

You get and then and then I go from there so. 

00:16:32 

Yeah. 

00:16:34 

So do you normally get called in after I? I would imagine House and business. You do both. So so business probably is more diligent because there's just you don't want mice running around your restaurant. 

00:16:39 

Correct, right. 

00:16:45 

Correct. 

00:16:46 

But but you get called into a house more often after somebody's tried it. Or are you the first resort? 

00:16:50 

Well, so you know there are, there are folks that hire us for a seasonal agreement and then we come in, we call it our Grad care agreement and we come to the home three times. 

00:16:55 

Uh-huh. 

00:16:59 

During the course of the season and it's proactive, you know, and but that's usually the person who's tired of dealing with it, who lives in the woods or in a wooded area or an area that just is prone to a lot of rodent activity and or Ant activity. You know, what if if if we come to your home and get ants out of your wall, those folks usually have us do preventative. 

00:17:00 

It's. 

00:17:02 

Yeah. 

00:17:07 

Yeah. 

00:17:11 

Yeah. 

00:17:15 

Yeah. 

00:17:20 

Nervous for the following years, as long as they own that home for a long period of time. So. 

00:17:22 

Right. 

00:17:25 

Homeowners many homeowners are pretty proactive with this because they've seen the damage that the ants do or the termites do, or the the mice. I mean, you have fires from, from mice chewing on wires and things like that. 

00:17:36 

Yeah, I had that once we we, our stove electric stove broke and when he took the stove apart, there was a mass that looked like it was cartoon. It had gotten into the wire. 

00:17:38 

Or. 

00:17:41 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:17:44 

Yeah. Ohh. 

00:17:45 

She could stand the wire and it. 

00:17:46 

Was like all stretched out. 

00:17:48 

And brick and mortar it was. 

00:17:50 

Disgusting, which was funny? 

00:17:52 

Some of the funniest experiences I've had are with with the the the wife, if you will it. It wants the husband to do something about the mice and. 

00:17:58 

Yeah. 

00:18:01 

Done with that and then so when I show up, I'm usually dealing with the husband who's there and he doesn't really want to hire us. I can handle this. I can handle this. But the biggest believers I have in having an ongoing service are the husbands who've had the mice chew on their toys, their motorcycle in the garage or their car in the garage. 

00:18:09 

Uh-huh. 

00:18:20 

Yeah, right. 

00:18:21 

And do damage to that. At that point I just I. 

00:18:23 

Needs. 

00:18:23 

Want you to make sure right you know. 

00:18:24 

Get ahead of the. 

00:18:24 

Problem and how large? 

00:18:27 

Of pests, do you get into? 

00:18:29 

Well, question. 

00:18:29 

This is one of the one of the things I this public service announcement here, a lot of people think if you're have a exterminator license, quote UN quote, you also do raccoons and squirrels and. 

00:18:32 

Yeah. 

00:18:36 

Uh-huh. 

00:18:38 

Right. 

00:18:39 

And it's actually two different departments in Massachusetts. My license comes from the Department of Agriculture. Nuisance wildlife comes from the Department of Wildlife. So you've got two different licenses. Most pest control companies. Right. I can do mice. I can do rats. But when you get to the bigger furry creatures. 

00:18:42 

Uh-huh. 

00:18:45 

Yeah. 

00:18:49 

Uh-huh. 

00:18:51 

Right. 

00:18:52 

So you know where yours ends, yeah. 

00:18:59 

You have to have a different license for that and and we just usually refer that out to someone who has that expertise, all right. 

00:19:00 

Huh. 

00:19:04 

To a private company, not to a town agency or. 

00:19:09 

Right. 

00:19:10 

Most of the, you know, federal cats, maybe. 

00:19:11 

I just had the largest skunk on my front porch the other day. Got it to what I thought was. 

00:19:15 

Yeah. 

00:19:15 

A very secure bird feed thing. 

00:19:17 

Yeah. 

00:19:17 

Yeah. 

00:19:18 

And luckily I had a little vial of fox urine. Don't ask me why I had that around. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I perfectly aimed it. And I threw the vial. So that now there's a little puddle of facts here and right at the nose of the skunk. And he just looked at me through the window. And he's like, what the hell are you? 

00:19:23 

That's interesting. 

00:19:30 

Yeah. 

00:19:34 

Yeah. 

00:19:36 

Trying to do. 

00:19:37 

You are in the woods. 

00:19:38 

Yes. 

00:19:39 

Well, I'm on a I'm on a street, but it's in a field, but. 

00:19:42 

Did he respond appropriately? He didn't. OK, yeah. Yeah. 

00:19:43 

He left finally. 

00:19:46 

So anyway, I was I was sure I was going to have a skunk smell any minute. So how does your business compete in this area? It's different question than before. You have other small agencies. You have other large national companies. How do you? 

00:19:47 

Yeah. 

00:20:05 

Just. 

00:20:06 

Keep a toehold. 

00:20:07 

In the in the business and. 

00:20:10 

Well, actually this you might speak to. Glenn has a background in commercial contract work that very, very strong deep background in that. So one of the things that we did do or we do do on an ongoing basis is we respond to commercial bids and going back a number of years ago. 

00:20:17 

Uh-huh. 

00:20:27 

  1.  

00:20:30 

State of Connecticut had, you know, their pesticide bid came up, Glenn knows. 

00:20:37 

Out of. 

00:20:39 

Process those bids and respond to them and we are actually the one vendor for the state of Connecticut in Hartford County. So everything from the Governors mansion to the prisons and everything in between is something that we do. So you know, that certainly is a good way for us to grow our business. 

00:20:52 

Hmm. 

00:20:54 

Mm-hmm. 

00:20:58 

That's right. 

00:21:00 

Yeah, bidding is because we're small and lean. We can compete on an hourly rate level, right, regular business and all of those employees are potential customers and we get calls from them to do service work and we offer discounts to employees of the state or or a location that. 

00:21:03 

Right. 

00:21:05 

And that's regular ongoing business. You're not getting clothing for a little emergency, everything. 

00:21:12 

Right, right. 

00:21:14 

Right. 

00:21:17 

That's great. 

00:21:19 

And do you have a a team of any size of people that go out and spray or are you actually on the? 

00:21:20 

We should. 

00:21:24 

Oh yeah. 

00:21:25 

Ground doing it? No. Well, I'm. I'm an owner. Operator. I mainly focus on the sales and the bids and so forth. And during the busy season, it's all hands on deck for that. But we have a crew of. 

00:21:26 

Oh. 

00:21:28 

Yeah. 

00:21:34 

Uh-huh. 

00:21:36 

Three full time guys that are just constantly doing that and we do a lot of spring during the Ant season, but it's a lot of the I PM work that we do where we're not. It's not all chemicals, that's the rice integrated pest management. 

00:21:38 

Yeah. 

00:21:41 

Right. 

00:21:43 

Yeah. 

00:21:48 

The integrated presidents, the non chemical. Yeah. So what? What are the qualities of a good employee? Yeah. 

00:21:54 

That's a great question. 

00:21:57 

Good people skills, #1 eagerness to learn, eagerness to be coached. Yeah, you got to have a bit of this, hunter, if you're out. If you're. Yeah. I mean, you have to think about where they living. Where if I'm an aunt, where am I in this House if I'm a mouse, where am I living then? There's. 

00:21:59 

Uh-huh. 

00:22:06 

Need to hunt. 

00:22:06 

Hunt up the herd. 

00:22:07 

Of ants, yeah. 

00:22:12 

Uh-huh. 

00:22:14 

It's it's just a different mindset that we coach the guys on and and then being able to deal with the customers in terms of their fears and their their customers, especially people have bedbugs. We got to kind of walk them off the ledge because this is just another aspect of my industry where like every industry, you know, if you got a problem and you go on the Internet and research it. 

00:22:17 

Yeah. 

00:22:23 

Uh-huh. 

00:22:32 

Yeah. 

00:22:37 

All you see are horror stories, and that's not the norm. Yeah. 

00:22:38 

Right. And that's you know I we we don't have bed bugs in our house, but a friend was sure that we did, but he was wrong. But when we research it, it's like thousands of dollars for a trained Beagle that can smell them or heat the room up to 140° of these. 

00:22:46 

Right. 

00:22:52 

Right. 

00:22:54 

Right. There's a lot of. 

00:22:55 

Were thousands and thousands. 

00:22:58 

Tactics. Yeah. Glenn has really developed his own approach, which really includes resident education, and it's been actually very cost effective and and our customers are very satisfied with it. So we, 

00:23:01 

Uh-huh. 

00:23:12 

Mm-hmm. Right. 

00:23:14 

Those can be effective, but I think that Glenn's approach with you know, customer education. 

00:23:21 

And correct use of materials is is good, it's worked well. 

00:23:26 

It's an interesting aspect of the dogs because everybody loves the dog, is they, they have a niche in our industry really, and the niche is. 

00:23:29 

Yeah. 

00:23:31 

Hmm. 

00:23:34 

Mm-hmm. 

00:23:37 

Bedbugs are hitchhikers. If you own a motel H1 of the big hospitality industry, people are coming and going. And if these things are hitchhiking, that room could be fine today and tomorrow somebody left a bug. If you get a dog, they'll run through 20 rooms at a time, 30 rooms at a time and say there's no bug in there. 

00:23:38 

MHM. 

00:23:50 

Right, right. 

00:23:56 

Uh-huh. 

00:23:57 

If you're the owner of that hotel restaurant, you go, that's a good value. I know this way I catch it early and when you catch it early, it's a much easier fix than when it gets out of control. And the extremes that you see on the Internet, the heat is another one. If you think about it, heat is. 

00:23:58 

Yeah. 

00:24:06 

Right. 

00:24:15 

Excuse me. Heat. Heat is a situation where if I'm going to apply heat when I leave and I'm done with that job, there's nothing left to kill the bugs, even if they're reintroduced. And so I rely mostly on pesticide applications, because that leaves a residual for you. The heat was sold to our industry. 

00:24:21 

Hmm. 

00:24:25 

MHM. 

00:24:34 

As kind of you know, the hoarder situation, there's a lot of stuff and you can't get people to. 

00:24:36 

Mm-hmm. 

00:24:39 

Inputs though it gives you an opportunity, we can just kill and it just it doesn't work for water situation. 

00:24:43 

So you can heat it up to 451 of the person that holds newspapers is gonna? Yep. 

00:24:46 

And and the bugs all go hide under all the, all the blankets and the clothes and come back out when the heat's taking off. So. 

00:24:49 

Right. 

00:24:51 

The reason why they came in the 1st place could come again and then it doesn't solve it. 

00:24:55 

Right. So I've always heard when you're in a hotel to just pull back, especially if there's a upholstered headboard pull it back and just see if there's blood in the piping. 

00:25:03 

Blood spots or actual bugs and most of your major high end hotels have got this figured out, you know, but the dog is that missing? 

00:25:05 

Yeah. 

00:25:09 

Uh-huh. 

00:25:11 

So you think it's safe because I always resent paying hundreds of dollars for a hotel and then. 

00:25:14 

They still look. 

00:25:16 

I still look when we travel, I still look, but I'm a lot more comfortable because we've been dealing with them long enough that we've got a lot of that figured out. 

00:25:16 

With myself, yeah. 

00:25:19 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:25:23 

So in the minute we have left, why don't you just do a little in commercial? How do people find you and get into the right conversation? 

00:25:30 

We're out of Hampden, MA. Gradual pest solutions. You could Google us, obviously, if I graduate pestsolutions.com, any local search will will show up even in, you know, for the Springfield. 

00:25:31 

Uh-huh. 

00:25:42 

In the area and we stick with our core pests, I don't offer a lot of ancillary services like we do. What we do well and that and there's a lot of people that need help with that. 

00:25:46 

Uh. 

00:25:51 

Right. 

00:25:52 

So if you go and look at a house and just to. 

00:25:54 

Give a diagnosis. 

00:25:55 

Yeah, yeah. Depending on what it is, if you've got ants, I don't necessarily need to come to your house to to look at it. Some folks want that, but most people are just how much is it and what's the warranty on it and when can you get here? OK. 

00:25:59 

Uh-huh. 

00:26:07 

Uh-huh, very good. 

00:26:08 

And and we serve residences and commercial. 

00:26:13 

Accounts from Hartford all the way up to Northampton and Amherst and East and West of that. We go out quite a bit as well. And in addition to residential work, which we do an awful lot of, we also focus on property managers, schools and and educational facilities. 

00:26:29 

Yeah. 

00:26:32 

So you're staying busy? 

00:26:33 

Yeah, definitely. That's great. It's great. 

00:26:33 

Yes. 

00:26:35 

OK, well, it was so nice to talk with you both Glenn and Brenda Allison have graduate pass. 

00:26:37 

Thank you. Thank you. 

00:26:40 

So this is the Western mass business show. If you have a business and a story to tell, please give me a call at 413-835-0810. And if you want to hear past episodes including this episode again, just go to www.hp.com and look up shows and questions business show. 

00:26:59 

So thanks a lot. 

 

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