Courtesy of Envirocare
WATERTOWN, Conn. — “The pest control industry saved me,” said David Bisaillon, owner of Envirocare Pest Control, celebrating 30 years of his involvement in the pest control industry and 25 years owning Envirocare Pest Control, located in western Connecticut.
Bisaillon worked as a salesman for Terminix in the early 1990s and “took to the industry like a fish to water,” quickly finding his place in the field and growing passionate about helping people keep their homes pest-free.
Nearly seven years later, looking to take the next step in his career, Bisaillon announced to his wife, Danielle, that he was opening his own pest control company. While supportive, he said reality sunk in knowing he was responsible for supporting two kids and a house, which necessitated him to work eight-plus hour days, seven days a week.
“I didn't go to college, so I don't know what I would have been doing had I not found the pest control industry,” he said. “Whether I stayed at Terminix or did my own thing, the pest control industry was the place for me.”
Bisaillon said he had to overcome customers and other pest professionals taking him seriously, ascribing he “was just a kid when starting out at 25 years old.”
“Once [customers] started to take me seriously, you always wondered ‘Are they were going to call again?’” he said. “I have two guys that have been with me in business for 25 years. Once I got the company off the ground, it was getting everybody on the same page, making sure everybody had adequate training.”
Twenty-five years into business, he credits the company’s growth to his strong employee retention and making sure they’re allotted one-on-one time with him when problems arise and to bounce ideas off.
“Our training meetings are once a month with the entire staff, but one of the good things about still being a smaller company is that my guys rely on a lot of [one-on-one] time with me because I'm in the office every day at 6 a.m.,” Bisaillon said. “If I see something on their paperwork that I think we need to have a conversation about, these guys actually have a chance to speak with me.”
Heavy Rodent, Carpenter Ant Pressure. Certain areas of Connecticut have heavy termite pressure, but not in Envirocare’s service areas, which include New Haven, Fairfield and Litchfield counties. In turn, this has helped the company find its own niche of providing a lot of rodent, carpenter ant, mosquito and tick work, Bisaillon said.
When customers were more reluctant to leave their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bisaillon said this made them more aware of what they’re willing to tolerate in their homes and being more observant to pest problems.
“We added employees during COVID, but those two years that people were home, I think they really took a look around whether it's furniture or painting, but people are less tolerant of things in their homes,” he said.
Envirocare does a lot of baiting and targeted applications, focusing on the areas where pests are active, conducting heavy inspections and then performing full exterior perimeter treatments. Bisaillon said he’d rather use less product and conduct more in-depth inspections to pinpoint from where issues are emanating.
Over the course of his three-decade career, Bisaillon credited professional products for making technicians’ jobs easier and allowing his company to conduct smarter services.
“I don’t think that there’s a [pest control] owner out there that wouldn’t tell you the [product] chemistry and the way that the products that we're using are working; They make our technicians’ jobs a lot easier,” he said.
Add-On Services a Plus. Besides conducting detailed inspections and treating for pest problems, the company has learned to continue adding services, which has led to organic growth. One such service is removing basement insulation, sanitizing the entire basement and reinsulating with foam at the perimeter after an exclusion has been done.
“The add-on services that we offer are the reason why we have a robust customer base that knows, likes and trusts us, and if we can offer a service that they're going to probably want anyway, there's no reason that we can't learn it, perfect it and then build on it,” he said.
There’s no question for Bisaillon that add-on services like insulation removal and installation have helped the company grow, but other add-on services, like lawn care, were not as beneficial for the company. Once technicians can successfully sell these add-on services, the rest of the work is up to the 24 employees at Envirocare to continue delivering quality services, Bisaillon said.
“We tried lawn care, and that did not work for us,” he said. “We stay with the services that our employees have the capacity to not only learn and master, but to be able to talk about because if your employees can't talk about it and get the word out to customers, it's not much good.”
10 to 15 Percent Growth Projections. The company plans to reach its 10-to-15-percent revenue goal in the next five years by not only continuing to service their long-term customers but also to reach a new customer base with marketing tools like Google reviews and email campaigns.
Bisaillon encourages his employees to promote company reviews when working with customers, which is something that has played a role in organic growth of new, recurring customers.
“We reward our employees every single month for the reviews,” he said. “I send out a [marketing email] every quarter and let them know about all our new services. We have built-in price increases, so our revenue is going to grow solely on the price increase.”
Bisaillon’s fortunate to have about 15 technicians who have been with the company for four to five years, who have taken the time to perfect their craft, he said.
“Sometimes people just think it's a job. It's not just a job,” he said. “You have to learn the craft. If you don't know the craft, you're going to struggle and you're not going to like it.”
