Greg Woodfield Founder and COO of Via Software was born and raised in Utah.Studied business at Weber State University where I served as the student body president.Sold as one of the top reps in multiple companies before embarking on my current business venture.I am the co-founder and CEO of Via Software and it is my goal to bridge the engagement gap between small to medium-sized businesses and their customers.Throughout our years of service, we’ve found most success in helping pest control companies increase their customer base and engagement.

Recently the generations have moved more towards a technological approach when searching for a service. The first thing most people do when looking for a service is jump online and search for something like: “pest control near me.” At that time if your pest control company hasn’t built a competitive online reputation, you are automatically out of the race. The customer journey doesn’t end there.

After you’ve caught the attention of a potential customer, you want to be able to turn that online traffic into actual leads through some type of chat box. Form fills have been out dated as a chat box results in quick engagement and answers for your customers. Once you’ve engaged that customer and have helped them with their bug issues, you want a way to stay connected. That way they never have to face a bug issue ever again as they consistently use your services.

The best way of staying engaged with your customers is through non-invasive SMS messaging. Most people have four or five different emails and have trouble hopping on each different email to stay in contact with your company. That’s why a non-invasive SMS messaging and marketing technique is the best way of engaging with and helping your families. Now that you have a loyal following established through you engagement process, your physical reputation along with your online reputation match and excel that of your competitors.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/via-software/

https://www.facebook.com/ViaSoftware1/

Today’s topic is going to be on an interesting question, and that is do pigeon droppings damage limestone buildings? Well, of course, they do. It’s not quite that simple. At least as far as the researchers were concerned. Certainly, there is no doubt that pigeons, Columba livia terms their scientific name. You know, the common pigeon, the rock dove. This question is whether the bird droppings themselves, particularly those pigeons. Damage the limestone itself, like cracking it or etching it, integrating it at a chemical level. That has been the question.

Stephen M. Vantassel, CWCP, ACE

Wildlife Control Consultant, LLC

http://wildlifecontrolconsultant.com

http://kingsdivinity.academia.edu/StephenMVantassel

Helping people resolve conflicts with wildlife through teaching, training, writing, and research

Links to all Sources

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2019/01/22/terminix-manager-sentenced-12-months-prison-familys-poisoning/2643153002/

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2018/04/13/man-indicted-using-pesticide-poisoned-delaware-family-vacation-st-john/514704002/

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2010-12-10-hc-pesticide-penalties-1211-20101210-story.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1534012/pdf/1476-069X-5-15.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/06/20/thirteen-bald-eagles-were-found-dead-in-a-field-this-is-what-killed-them/

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/pesticides/animatedmap.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405156/pdf/amjph00206-0080.pdf

https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/showPesticideTracking

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31752545

https://piper.filecamp.com/uniq/op8yK0HrOC738v8L.pdf

https://piper.filecamp.com/uniq/1VwYDWByTRmlideZ.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/63/wr/mm6355a2.htm

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2757789?fbclid=IwAR0fME9VO9yOnMS00K5aiB46bmXM9pUWTFJzqqaPdKdbui1iD8-DG57EJB0

...

Stephen Vantassel here Wildlife control consultant, bringing you another episode of Living the Wildlife. I want to talk today about being an expert witness, what is an expert witness? Well, an expert witness is an individual that is contracted by typically by an attorney to provide superior background, knowledge, and insight about a particular discipline that the lawyer thinks will help his or her client, win or defend themselves in a specific legal proceeding. Wow. That sounds like a lot. It is, but in shorthand, as an expert witness, you are bringing your expertise, your knowledge, your background to help a defendant or plaintive make their case.

An illustration of being an expert witness in wildlife

control

Let me give an illustration that might be the easiest way to

go. Let’s say, you’re a homeowner and you hire X, Y, Z, wildlife control, to

come to your property to control what you believe to be a raccoon or something

in the attic.  You don’t know X, Y, Z,

wildlife control company comes out and says to you, there’s nothing you don’t

have anything in your property, but you do have a hole in your vent up there.

And we’re going to close that off for you and charge you $200.

You say, great. I don’t want anything getting in there, so

you hire the company, and they go up there, and they close it off for $200

bucks you pay them, you’re on your way. Well, later that night, all of a

sudden, you hear like sounds like a holy war occurring in your attic, the place

is banging out so you go outside and your pajamas and you’re looking up, and

you shine the light at the vent and what do you see? It’s a raccoon sticking

her head out the vent that just got trashed that you paid $200 for and not only

that there’s damage to the siding of the house now and so it’s even worse than

before, but you also have a damaged dent vent and a damaged siding.

So you call the company X, Y, Z, wildlife control company up

and you say, hey, you know I had a raccoon in the house, and the guy blows you

off now you’re mad. Let me make a little side note here the fact is folks many

lawsuits occur because the contractor failed to resolve the problem. After all,

sometimes, the contract was a jerk. I’m not claiming that’s always the case;

there are customers who simply set up contractors as a way to sue them and

extort money, that indeed happens. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen; I’m just

saying that many times I might even argue the majority, although I don’t have

the stats on that.  I would probably

suggest that many times lawsuits occur because the contractor failed to resolve

the mistake that the contractor made.

Most people don’t want to go through the trouble of having a

lawsuit;

It’s a pain in the butt. But they do it because they’ve

suffered significant losses or extremely angry at the way they were treated.

Treat your customers fairly and the likelihood that you ever have to deal with

a lawsuit pretty small. I’ve had situations in my career where I’ve made

mistakes.

You fix the problem folks you want to avoid court, just fix

the problem. Anyways, so now you the person, the customer felt shunned by the

contractor and calls their lawyer and starts a lawsuit. The lawyer is now going

Stephen Vantassel here wildlife control consultant. Giving another episode of Living the Wildlife. Hey, I just recently passed my — drone license. Yeah. I am now eligible to get licensed as a for commercially flying drones, so I thought I would talk a little bit about that today because some wildlife control operators, maybe even pest control operators, or thinking about using drones. These are flight drones, not not the ones that move on the ground. I’m not talking about those. I don’t think those are under FAA rules because they don’t fly. So I’m just referring to the drones that would fly in they’re called small on manned aircraft systems. So UAS is kind of the technical term for them.

So you have to have a license to fly drones commercially.

So let’s talk a little bit about the process here, I’m not

going to talk about what drone you should purchase or whether you should have a

drone. I’m just merely saying if you’re looking to use a drone in your

business.

What’s the process for how to get licensed that’s what I’m

talking about here because I’m still learning on the side, but I’m learning it

firsthand. And it has undoubtedly been an exciting journey to be sure.

So anyways, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA,

they regulate the airspace in the United States. So, if you’re in Canada, you

would need to deal with your Canadian counterpart of that agency up there.

I’m only talking about American airspace when we’re talking

about drones here, so if you’re listening from outside the U.S., my apologies.

What I’m going to talk to you about today doesn’t have much relevance for you.

So we’re just talking about people that are looking to fly

drones commercially in the United States. The first question you have to ask

yourself is, are you going to use your drone commercially or as a hobby?

I’ll let you decide how that works out primarily. But the

point is if it’s part of your business and you’re getting paid for doing the

work even if you’re not explicitly paid for using the drone. But still part of

your business, it’s a commercial drone.

You just don’t want to play around with this. I mean, if

you’re playing with a drone, you know, you’re with the kids, and you’re just

out, you know, joyriding around, taking pictures of things, and flying around.

That’s a hobby. If you’re using it as a business and it’s

part of your business model that’s commercial, you need to have a license.

So step number one, if you’re going to get a drone, everyone

at least at this time and I’m talking in 2019 everyone who has a drone whether

it’s a hobby drone or a commercial drone you need to register your drone with

the FAA.

It’s for five dollars. I think it lasts for two years. You

have to go to the FAA and register your drone, whether it’s a hobby drone or a

commercial drone use for commercial use. OK, so that has to be done regardless.

I’m sure many people aren’t doing it. But if you’re going to

be doing it commercially, you’d better do it. OK.

Drone Pilot Certification

So now, if you’re looking to become a pilot, you have to

pass what is called the 107 certification.

Now,

Hey, welcome back. Welcome back to this edition of the PestGeek podcast. I am Frank Hernandez. You’re pest geek. Hey, we’re going to be discussing pesticide bans. And this has been something that I’ve been talking about since I started this podcast over five years ago and I started talking about this, and when I talked about it, I was ridiculed, I was so chastised, I said you got you’re crazy what you’re saying isn’t going to happen. And I said guys; we’re going the way, OK of Europe and Canada where you’re going to lose the majority of your pesticides, and you’re going to lose a lot of active ingredients. Not only are you going to lose the chemical, but it is not going to be through the legislation of losing the chemical that you’re going to get the restriction it’s going to by bee by cities, passing bans on pesticide use in cities and in communities and in counties and in possibly even states.

The state that is leading the way is California.

California is banning pesticides, and more cities and

counties are putting bans on pesticides like rodenticides. They’re banding all

types of organophosphates, even in agriculture, and California is one of the

largest agriculture producing states that we have.

So they are dealing with this and there is federal

registration stuff going on that they’re going to be banned. But look at what I

did back in 2015, Let me show you here for a second, go to 2015 here’s the

podcast that I did on October 12th a pesticide ban is coming to a city near

you.

Yet people told me, oh, that’s not going to happen. I said

guys, I’m starting to see it. I know what’s coming where this podcast was on

one city that banned the application of pesticides to lawns on residential

properties. Still, they didn’t exempt themselves from government property or

parks and recreation.

Yet you were not allowed to apply the pesticide to your lawn

because they banned it in that city, and everybody chastised before it when I

put this out, and I got more hate mail on this than anything. And if you look

now, if you go to nontoxiccommunities.com non-toxic cities, you would have to

see an entire list look at this of, city after city after city after, the county

that has banned pesticide use.

Over 75 Pesticide Bans Are In Effect In The US

Look at this, is not a joke over 75 bans are in here right

now, you can count them there over 75 bans. We got a band here in Miami-Dade

County on the use of glyphosate roundup because, supposedly, It causes cancer.

That has been demonstrated that is not the EPA is finding,

and we can have a debate all day long about what the EPA is doing. Let me

switch over here so you can get a better look at me on what the EPA does.

Reality is that bans are going on everywhere across the country, and it’s not

something that is happening in California.

This is happening in the northeast, and it just happened in

my backyard, where we got banned. I had the privilege and the honor of teaching

about 75 Miami-Dade County employees that are going to be using the new

herbicide.

The new label demonstrates how to properly apply this

product and the challenges they’re going to face with the new amount of labor

they’re going to need.

The effectiveness of this new product. When I asked the

question, how many of you have been applying herbicides have been doing ...

Jeremy Lyle of Set Sale Marketing  https://setsailsolution.com/exterminator-accelerator/ discuses online marketing and social media marketing with Wildlife Control Consultant Stephen Vantassel.

Stephen M. Vantassel, CWCP, ACE

Wildlife Control Consultant, LLC

http://wildlifecontrolconsultant.com

http://kingsdivinity.academia.edu/StephenMVantassel

Helping people resolve conflicts with wildlife through teaching, training, writing, and research

Out of the 32 Insecticidal Modes of Action on IRAC list only 13 Available For General Household Pests

1 ACETYLCHOLINESTERASE (ACHE)

INHIBITORS Carbamates / Organophospate

* Acephate Orthane PCO Pellets

2 GABA-GATED CHLORIDE CHANNEL

BLOCKERS Fiprols

* Fipronil

Termidor,

Maxforce FC

3 SODIUM

CHANNEL MODULATORS Pyrethroids / Pyrethrum- Pyrethrins 16 out of 30

* Allethrin Allethrin, the

first synthetic pyrethroid, was introduced in 1949

d-cis-trans

Allethrin, stereoisomers ThermaCELL Mosquito Repellent

* Bifenthrin

Talstar* Cyfluthrin Cy-Kick

CS* beta-Cyfluthrin Tempo

SC Ultra* lambda-Cyhalothrin Demand

CS* gamma-Cyhalothrin  Scion* Cypermethrin

Demon Max, Cynoff EC* Alpha-cypermethrin

Fendona CS* theta-Cypermethrin

 Triple Crown T&O Cynoff, Dust Sevin* Deltamethrin

Suspend, DeltaGard* Esfenvalerate Onslaught* Etofenprox Zenprox

EC* Phenothrin Bedlam

Plus Aerosol Precore 2000, Steri-Fab* Prallethrin Onslaught

FastCap* Tetramethrin Zenprox

Xtend 5 actives* Permethrin

Tengard

4 NICOTINIC

ACETYLCHOLINE RECEPTOR (NACHR) COMPETITIVE MODULATORS (NEONICOTINOIDS) 4/6

Acetimedaprid

Transport GHP

Insecticide

EndZone

Insecticide Sticker

Transport

Mikron Insecticide Combination 3/4 bifentrin

Clothianidin

Crossfire

PestXpert

Premium Bed Bug Killer

Clothianidin 4%

Metofluthrin 0.1% Piperonyl butoxide 10%

Maxforce Impact

Roach Gel Bait

Vendetta Nitro

Cockroach Gel Bait

Imidacloprid

Temprid FX

Insecticide 3/4

Imidacloprid

21% beta-Cyfluthrin 10.5%

Temprid Ready

To Spray

Imidacloprid

0.05% beta-Cyfluthrin 0.02%

Lava-Lor

Granular Bait

Hydramethylnon

1%, Imidacloprid 0.5%

InVict Xpress

Granular Bait

Imidacloprid

0.5%

InVict Blitz

Ant Granules

Imidacloprid

0.5%

Invict Gold

Roach Bait Gel

Imidacloprid 2.15%

Termidor

Fipronil 6.6% Imidacloprid 21.4%

Premise 2 Termiticide

Imidacloprid 21.4%

Premise Foam

Termiticide

Imidacloprid

0.05%

Premise Granules

Imidacloprid

0.5%

Maxforce

Granular Fly Bait

Imidacloprid

0.5% cis-9-Tricosene 0.1%

Maxforce Fly

Spot Bait

Imidacloprid

10% cis-9-Tricosene 0.1%

Maxforce

Quantum Ant Bait

Imidacloprid

0.03%

Bedlam Plus

Aerosol

Imidacloprid

0.05% MGK 264 1% Phenothrin 0.4%

Imidacloprid

0.5G merrit

lmidacloprid –

0.5 %

Thiamethoxam

Steven Vantassel here Wildlife control consultant bringing

another episode of Living the Wildlife Aid today, I wanted to talk about

scalability.

What is scalability.

Well, scalability is the ability or the power to expand your

business in a manner that you can earn more money without costing you a great

deal more time and effort and expense to harvest that extra income. Yep. Kind

of a rough definition there, but that’s the concept of scalability. How

scalable is your business? And so let me explain how that would work.

If you’re an author, for example, you put in all of these

all this effort to produce a book once the book is completed, you as an author

do not have to continue pouring energy into that book to sell more of it.

I mean, you have some marketing things and stuff like that,

but you’re not going to be the one printing it. You simply can now have that

book published and submitted to a variety of wholesalers or bookstores or even

have it sold online. And it’s not costing you time to have that book sold. You

can even have people process the payments, collect the money, package the

print, the book, package the books, ship the book and then send you a check

that allows you to be scalable. The other words you eat, the more the more

books you sell, you’re making more money, but it’s not costing you more time.

Here’s the problem with wildlife control and pest control in general, we really

only have three ways to increase our revenue stream way.

Number one, charge more money. Way number two, reduce your

expenses. Way number three. A combination of both.

The factor that’s killing this industry, among other things, is that we don’t have the ability to create more time in the day. In other words, you can one of the ways you can earn more money is just simply work more hours. That’s not scalability. That’s just you burning the candle for a longer portion of that day. And that’s all well and good when you’re young and maybe you only have a girlfriend and but you don’t have kids or you’re becoming a workaholic. So there’s a lot you’re paying a price early on. Now, some people are willing to suck that up in the hopes that they’re going to get to a place where they can get stable. But for many people, that doesn’t happen until the divorce and loss of kids and that sort of thing. So this is something that’s serious. How do you or how do we as an industry find scalability?

Scaling Up Your Wildlife Control Business

How are we able to scale up our business in a manner that we

can increase revenue, stream our revenue stream our income, our wealth without

breaking the bank in terms of the time and investment and equipment needed to

sometimes achieve those skill abilities. So I don’t I’m not coming to you today

with like a list of answers. And you know, me walking down from Mt. Sinai,

handing you the answer to all of our business problems.

That’s not my point today. But what I’m asking, wanting to

do is stimulate your thought about how to sit back and evaluate your business.

What are you doing? Is it working? And so let’s evaluate.

Can we squeeze out more revenue for yourself?

Because here’s something that I think a lot of wildlife

control operators and I would suspect pest control operators forget.

And that is we like to be busy.

Hey, welcome back. Welcome back to another edition of the Pest Geek Podcast. I am your host, Frank Hernandez, and we’re discussing all things pest and we’re going to be discussing on this issue of the Pest Geek podcast customer Wow. Being memorable. And we’re going to be talking mostly to the technician here, not the marketing part, not the sales part, but the technician. As a technician, you are the face of the brand. You’re what people see As far as what the company is in, pest control is all by the technician. Yet when I look at the industry and I look at not only this industry, I’m talking about also every other service industry.

In Pest Control Customer Satisfaction Is Job #1

I’ve been in several service industries in I.T., lawn care and installation of windows and doors and siding and Decks, pool service, you name it. I’ve been in just about every service industry and I’ve dealt with many, many, many, many different types of technicians throughout my life. And one of the things that I know is how technicians think. They think differently than salespeople. They. They tend to think differently than customer service people. They think differently than anybody else because they’re usually technically minded. Technicians have a. They’re notoriously marketed as or known to be crabby. You know, we did the job, we did the service. You know, we’re out of here. They’re not. They don’t tend to be particularly extroverted. They tend to be more introverted or more in the middle part. So they’re not really very extroverted or very introverted. Most people that are technicians and regardless whether you’re an H však, whether you’re in pest control, whether you’re in plumbing, you know, they don’t tend to have, you know, like most doctors, very good bedside manners and social skills and communication skills.

And I want to talk about it because I’ve been having conversations with people, regardless of where the industry is going. Is the industry dying? Are the people who are older in this industry? Basically, what’s left to 50 and 60 year olds who have that? Old school mentality on customer service. You know what is happening, what’s going to happen when we are just focused on now generation? I and most millennials who tend to have a big problem with communication and with with with being able to communicate effectively with an older generation.

Pest Control Training In Customer Service

And it comes that we’re going to have to do a lot more training. We’re gonna have to if we’ve had this problem in the past and now I’ve been in the service industry for way over thirty five years. I’ve seen a lot of different changes and we’re going to have to do a lot more training. Reality is, we’ve got to do a lot more training in customer experience management than we have to do an actual pest management. You know, somebody mentioned in a group that, you know, the reality is that the most technical skills a technician gets, it’s in his first year and then he really doesn’t really grow much as an average technician for the next 30 years. And that is pretty much true for about every profession. Most of what people need, which is that 80/20 rule to learn about what they’re going to be doing, they’re gonna get it within the first few years. And then by year 6, they really are not learning really anything dramatically new.

I mean, we’re always learning something new. People are always growing. You know, we’re learning this little thing here. They’re a new product comes out. We have to train on a new product.