We are a franchise owner of a seasonal outdoor pest control business specializing in mosquito, flea, and tick control in Wisconsin, in our third year. My husband and I purchased our franchise territory (Mosquito Joe) in 2019 after using the services for our own use. The products really work and we fell in love with the concept of enhancing people's lives while operating our own franchise, with the goal of turning it into a family affair. We opened in mid-May 2020, just after the country mostly shut down due to COVID.
Despite the challenges of starting in a pandemic and struggles with finding technicians to perform the work, we gained a loyal customer base of about 200 that first year. Outstanding customer service is our number 1 priority, and we treat every customer like a part of our family, as is evidenced by our recent Google reviews and current net promoter score of 82. There are other mosquito control companies, but no one beats our service. We strive to know every customer by name, every dog, every child, every change in landscaping on a property...things anything to personalize the experience. We offer a premium, life-enhancing service by ridding our customers' yards of these pests and giving them their outdoors again. Our service is guaranteed and we never argue if a customer isn't getting the results they expect, we just fix it, at no charge (and our respray rates are within a very normal percentage). We operate on a recurring service basis but do not lock anyone into a contract.
Year 2 we started out strong with a high retention rate, lots of local marketing presence, a second vehicle, and plenty of returning technicians along with office assistance. Unfortunately, our area experienced a drought, which prevented the normal mass hatching of mosquitoes, so our new customers were not enough to break past that 200 mark and we ended the year exactly the same in revenues, but with higher expenses.
This season we have seen plenty of rain and are expecting a hefty hatching of mosquitoes with the onset of warm weather. To help attract new customers, as well as increase our revenue, we switched our product to a botanical product, based on essential oils, applied every two weeks. Prior years were a synthetic product applied every three weeks. The new botanical is just as effective as the synthetic we used but is so much more environmentally and technician-friendly. Our customers (and techs) are thrilled with the change.
We have two sons who occasionally work as technicians, and we are currently training several others. We currently have two service vehicles. We have an absolutely outstanding office manager who runs most of the day-to-day and some additional part-time technicians who truly believe in our company and our customer service values. Franchise corporate support is top-notch and all the franchise owners across the country offer immeasurable knowledge and support.
Our customers are mainly homeowners with annual incomes over $75,000, with some commercial properties and event venues as well. We have about 250 customers at this time, with a goal of reaching 350-400 by the end of this season. As with much of the country, it has been hard to find people to work so I as the owner end up being a technician, which is completely fine, we do what we have to do to service our customers. But it does limit my ability to be out doing local marketing (farmers' markets, parades, local festivals, etc) and networking (chambers of commerce, local groups, social media) which is needed to help grow the business during the best time of customer acquisition.
Because we are a service provider, we don't have much in the way of fixed assets. We currently run the business out of our home. We have two leased vehicles, 5 backpack blowers, a VoIP-phone system, a laptop and printer, and whatever inventory we have on hand. We try to use a just-in-time methodology for inventory so that we don't have to hold much over the off-season. Our biggest expenses are labor and the marketing we are required to pay for as part of our franchise agreement. This consists of postcards and some online presence at an annual cost of $35,000. Also required are various other fees plus royalties of 10%.
In the off-season, we run a pre-pay campaign to generate some cash flow to cover expenses, but we want to limit that as much as we can so we have enough incoming payments during the season to cover all those expenses. Our initial SBA loan is expended, and my personal financial contributions have kept us afloat this far. Getting to 400+ customers will be the tipping point in this business between a constant struggle every week to make expenses and payroll, to being able to focus on efficiencies and marketing to increase revenue and focus on growth, both in and off-season. I truly believe this can be a very profitable business - our neighboring franchises in the state have proven that. Mosquito and tick control is a booming business here without much competition (yet). We just need some working capital to keep it going, get our name out there, and make it happen. Thank you for your consideration.
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