[Business Management] All aboard!

“There are plenty of potential pest control customers out there. But you don’t get them by sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring. You need a sales strategy.” That’s the opinion of Harden Blackwell, a veteran pest management professional who knows what he’s talking about.

Blackwell, president of a Terminix franchise in Greensboro, N.C., has developed a sales strategy that keys on the fact that pest and termite control technicians, along with office people, can — and should — be trained to sell in addition to performing their “regular” jobs. In recent years his company has done just that and has done it successfully, generating $17 million in revenues in 2007, up from $15.8 million in 2006.

Blackwell’s Terminix Company covers a 17-county area in North Carolina with 1.7 million inhabitants. He has 190 employees in 12 branches, three of them in Greensboro.

In a presentation at NPMA PestWorld 2007 in Orlando titled “Generating Sales Enthusiasm at All Levels,” he discussed the advantages of turning front-line technicians and office people into salespeople.

“For some years our sales had been inconsistent,” Blackwell said. “We couldn’t reach our sales goals with the full-time salespeople we had on staff. We employ about 15 full-time salespeople, but the sales that they generated usually fell short of our expectations of them. We found that it’s hard to find and train good full-time salespeople.

“And our phones didn’t ring enough, even with the name recognition that Terminix gives us. We were also aware of the fact that less than 30 percent of our customers had both termite and pest control contracts with us and saw that as sales potential. So we realized that we had to go out and aggressively find new business and more heavily involve our service technicians and office people in sales. Nothing happens until a sale is made,” he said.

SELL, SELL, SELL. According to Blackwell, there are three “battles” going on in the pest control business all the time: The battle for the employee, the battle for the customer and the battle for profit. “In our company, we feel if we can win the battle for the employees, our employees will find the customer and generate the profit. We urge them to do so,” he said.

“Killing the bugs is the easiest part of our business. The toughest part is recruiting, managing and motivating people to do the work. But it’s management’s job to help people reach the potential they have locked up inside of themselves.”

Initially Blackwell’s company had trained salespeople, technicians and office staff only about their respective areas of expertise. Now, however the firm trains all of its employees to be aggressive about finding and selling new customers. Management spends an equal amount of training time on both sales and technical subjects, he said.

“Pest control technicians should know that they can earn more money selling in the same amount of time that it takes them to service a house. And they can earn more money selling one termite contract in two hours of selling than they can make in a full day of servicing accounts,” Blackwell said.

“We know that money is the single biggest motivator in getting everyone to sell, so we pay a 15 percent commission to the sales person, whether he or she is a technician, or a full-time salesperson.

“We can make a profit if we have new customers, and our employees can earn more money. We expect all the people in our branches to sell, not just the full-time salespeople,” he said. “We thought, if every fast food store in the country can get their minimum wage people to always ask ‘Do you want fries with your sandwich?’ we should be able to get all of our employees to ask our customers ‘Do you have both a termite and pest control contract with us?’”

Today, Blackwell’s sales and motivational training is designed for the whole branch office team. Terminix’s training is designed to provide its technicians with a broad knowledge of sales and service of all aspects of pest and termite control, which in turn creates the greatest opportunity for cross-selling. Office personnel are trained in telephone sales, as well as the basics of pest control.

“We learned we can’t exhibit steady growth with only full-time salespeople generating revenues. So we try to generate sales at all levels and expect everyone in the branch office to sell. That fact is communicated to candidates before they are hired.”

And don’t let employees tell you they don’t have the time, Blackwell said. “Some technicians think they are too busy with their service work to sell, but this is not true. If an employee tells you he or she has no aptitude for selling, we believe that’s not true, either,” he said. “Those attitudes can be overcome with proper training. If you consistently and patiently keep working with your employees, eventually a light will go on in their heads and that will result in sales.”

The author is a freelance writer based in Milwaukee.

Terminix Case Study: A Quick Response to a Crisis Situation

Imagine coming to work one day to a call from one of your largest accounts with an emergency infestation that, having been dormant over two years, seems to have reappeared overnight. Now, picture that account is a hospital and the pest infestation is in a highly sensitive area — the intensive care unit. This is the situation in which Burns Blackwell, director of operations, Terminix Company, Greensboro, N.C., found himself one morning.

The team at Blackwell’s Terminix franchise had been fighting Argentine ant populations at an area hospital for six years. For two years the dormant population was seemingly under control until it returned suddenly, and with a vengeance. The pest management technician treating the account received an emergency call from the head of hospital environmental services reporting the presence of ants in patients’ rooms and other sterile areas of the ICU. Understanding the urgency of the situation, the technician brought the complaint up the chain of command to Blackwell.

What did Blackwell do in this emergency situation?   

“There was a lot at stake here so I contacted our Syngenta Sales Representative (East District) Manager Berry Cothern,” Blackwell said. “Berry has always been able to help us and he was the first call I made to find a solution.”  

Cothern brought the situation to the attention of Syngenta Technical Manager Bob Cartwright, Ph.D., who happened to be in the area and got in touch with Blackwell to discuss possible solutions.

Within two hours of getting the call, Cartwright was on site with the Terminix team with Optigard — used as a thiamethoxam foam wall-void treatment. Cartwright and the Terminix team inspected the open rooms of the ICU to uncover ant entry points, then they targeted Optigard foam applications to possible intercept points along the outer wall and surrounding sink and lavatory spaces.

Hospitals do not allow chemical placement inside ICUs, which eliminated the option of general crack and crevice treatments. “The Optigard foaming method contains each application within voids in walls, a common site for ant trailing and harborage. It was the perfect solution for this sensitive environment,” Cartwright said.

Cartwright demonstrated the Optigard foaming method to the technicians on the first room, then the Terminix technicians took over and made the applications with Cartwright’s supervision. The team focused on rooms without patients and developed a plan for treating occupied rooms in a similar fashion as they became available.

For Cartwright, it was all a part of a day’s work.

“The former professor in me gets excited when a concept clicks and our customer learns something new,” he said. “This is why I do this job. When there is an urgent problem with serious implications, I get to work side-by-side with our customers to demonstrate innovative solutions with some great products that help them solve problems.”

The speed and thorough nature of the Terminix response was impressive to the company’s customer. An upset hospital staff was relieved to see a prompt reaction and the number of professionals addressing their serious problem. The hospital said it appreciated Terminix bringing in a manufacturer to consult on the best solution.

“By the time we left, the staff couldn’t be anything but pleased as they saw the effort we were making to alleviate their ant problem,” Blackwell said.

For Burns Blackwell, the hands-on assistance and technical know-how offered by Cartwright and the Syngenta team is a major reason he continues to do business with the company.

“This is priceless,” Blackwell said. “When you are in a panic situation and your manufacturer is willing to dive in and get their hands dirty to help, it builds your confidence in the company. Syngenta didn’t have to do this — they especially didn’t have to drop everything and come out — but they did, and they looked happy to help.”  

There have been no reported ant problems at the account since the first application. Still, the Terminix team is maintaining a proactive treatment plan developed with Cartwright’s help. The team keeps two B&G VersaFoamers and a supply of Optigard at the commercial branch for ongoing control efforts at the hospital and other commercial accounts.

“One of the benefits of working with a basic manufacturer is taking advantage of their technical resources and gaining input on challenging accounts,” Blackwell said. “With Dr. Cartwright’s help, we have developed a rotating plan for the ICU units on that side of the building to be treated proactively with the foam. There hasn’t been an ant issue at the hospital since we did the first treatment, and we intend to keep it that way.”