Show Notes

This week, Dan and Donnie analyze the available data for the first quarter of 2026, including the Pest Index, unemployment figures and fuel, labor and material costs. They discuss the impact of this winter's cold snap, how the industry is holding up against the March energy spike, thoughts on price increases and AI's impact on marketing.

This week, Dan and Donnie welcome Nick Bartolo, CFA, CPA, founder of Essential Partners, a wealth management firm specializing in post-exit planning. He shares strategies for maximizing after-tax wealth, including Roth IRAs, company retirement plans, and diversification of investment portfolios, with emphasis on preparing businesses for potential sale at any time.

This week, Dan and Donnie discuss why 80 percent of businesses fail to sell when they go to market, and they explore what it takes to maximize a company's value over several years using a proper discover/prepare/decide model, rather than exiting at a disadvantageous time.

In Part 3 with the Pest Control Business Coach team, Rick Bell, former VP of government relations at Arrow Exterminators, joins Dan and Donnie to discuss why smaller companies need to engage with regulators and participate in legislative processes. He provides successful examples of industry advocacy and outlines the primary issues PMPs should monitor.

Dan and Donnie welcome AJ Treleven, executive vice president of Sprague Pest Solutions, to the show. He covers the history and philosophy of the 100-year-old family business and shares how Sprague has grown to $50 million-plus with a stewardship mindset and a commercial focus.

This week, Dan and Donnie address the best way for leaders to encourage healthy conflict to ultimately improve their companies. They share their mistakes, signs you may have a problem and recommendations for getting great results, including training your team to speak up effectively.

This week, Dan and Donnie welcome Andy Architect (COO) and Megan Striegel (Senior Director of Public Policy) from NPMA to discuss the 2026 Legislative Day event, March 15-17 in Washington, D.C. They share priorities for this year's hill visits, including state pesticide preemption and legislation related to credit card swipe fees and wildlife services. They also cover practical advice for industry members who cannot attend Legislative Day in person.

This week, My Pest Pros Co-Owner Brett Lieberman joins Dan and Donnie to share his company's real-world experiences with AI implementation. He discusses his firm's AI voice agent that books jobs and handles customer inquiries, what he learned from analyzing 1.3 million lines of call transcripts and how he created an AI board of directors to provide feedback on business decisions.

This week, Dan & Donnie welcome Mark Ruff, a pest industry attorney with MHR Law, to the podcast. They discuss a recent incident in Florida, where officials shut down an illegal door-to-door pest control sales operation and issued a $36,000 fine. Mark discussed how two firms violated Florida regulations, while Dan & Donnie explored the implications of this case for the industry nationwide.

In Part 2 of 2 with Pest Control Business Coach, Laura Corbin joins Dan and Donnie to discuss tools and methods pest and lawn firms can implement today to ensure office and admin teams support growth as companies scale. She also shares the one step she would take now to control chaos and avoid owner burnout.

This week, in Part 1 of 2 with Pest Control Business Coach, Sheri Spencer Bachman joins Dan and Donnie to discuss achieving your next million dollars in revenue. She covers the challenges firms face at key milestones, including making your first hire, defining your culture and core values and establishing systems and processes to break through to the next level.

Charlie King joins the podcast to discuss his experience building and eventually selling his lawn care company, King Green, to private equity firm Plexus in 2025. He shares challenges and lessons learned throughout his career and the exit process, including working with family, structuring the business, the decision to exit and building a brand.

This week Dan and Donnie welcome Jeff Davenport to discuss his experience selling Official Pest Control in California to Anticimex in 2021. Jeff discusses his experience in the pest control industry and shares insights about the sale process, why it's important to think about what comes next and his current role running Prize Pest Control and providing lead gen services to pest control companies.

David Billingsly joins Dan and Donnie to break down the biggest pest control trends for 2026. As a consultant and PMP Industry Insiders peer group facilitator, David gets behind-the-scenes access to how dozens of companies really operate. Hear his take on the industry’s No. 1 struggle, the push to cut indirect costs and whether pest control could one day become obsolete.

This week, Coalmarch Marketing CEO Jeff Davis joins Dan and Donnie to discuss how pest and lawn businesses should be shifting their marketing strategies in response to AI-driven consumer behavior changes. They cover results of the 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report, how search is evolving and what changes Jeff sees on the horizon.

In this episode, Donnie and Dan sit down with PestSure's COO Todd Burke and Director of Safety Linda Midyett to share what effective safety training looks like in pest companies. They share the results of their cell-free zone distracted driving initiative and cover other strategies to reduce claims, strengthen culture and lower insurance costs, helping owners build safer, more profitable operations.

This week, Voice for Pest's Raymond Kidwell joins Dan and Donnie to discuss X-Rai, a call analytics dashboard for pest control and lawn care businesses. He explains how the platform uses AI to prioritize leads and manage customer interactions based on data from more than 1 million calls per month, and he details its approach to AI agents.

Jeremy Ecker, CEO of Rest Easy Pest Control, joins the podcast to discuss his experience doing 16 M&A deals over 13 years, mostly self-funded and structured with earn-outs. Jeremy shares how he started as a bed bug canine inspection company and eventually pivoted to full-service pest control, and he details the challenges and opportunities of both acquisitions and organic growth.

This week, Dan and Donnie dive into AI updates, including the debut of the Atlas brower and rise of ChatGPT's "agent mode." They demo several examples of what this new technology can do for pest and lawn companies, and they discuss how marketing strategies must adapt as consumers move away from standard Google searches toward AI research and task execution.

This week, Dan and Donnie reflect on PestWorld 2025 and the podcast's 250th episode. They cover the buzz around the show in Orlando, including a rant about vendors who don't support the industry. They also reminisce about why they started the podcast and how it's evolved over five years — and thank their sponsors, guests and listeners for all the support.