Eric explains how he runs his pest control company with an imaginary customer named Sally. “If Sally calls and I showed up, I try to be that person in three to six months when they call again,” he says.
At ProShield Termite & Pest Control in Freehold, New Jersey, the person who treated a house the first time is meant to be the person who comes back. Most often that is Eric. He owns the company and is also its applicator. “I would say I do more than half of the work for the company,” he says.
He did not want an office job. “I like getting my hands dirty,” he says. “I’m not necessarily an office type of person.” He says a day that wasn’t monotonous appealed to him. He also knew a lot of people. “I knew a lot of people and had a lot of contacts, so getting licensed was very advantageous for me,” he says.
The work splits about evenly between commercial and residential jobs, and much of the commercial side comes in as subcontracts. “We get subcontracted a lot of commercial work,” he says. One day can include a stop at a bank and another in a homeowner’s driveway. He says he doesn’t care which kind of work the company is known for, as long as it earns people’s trust.
Termites are part of the residential work. The company’s site lists soil treatments that put a barrier around a foundation, bait stations set in the ground around a house, and the wood-destroying insect reports lenders often require when a home is bought or sold. Eric remembers one woman who called about termites knowing nothing about the treatment. “She couldn’t tell me the first thing about how it’s conducted, so I took the time to explain to her what it entails,” he says.
He keeps contracts loose. After the first visit, he says, customers get a set rate without having to sign anything. He would rather let the work speak for itself than lock people in.
ProShield is a family operation. Eric says his brother works with him on a small crew, which helps keep the same people going to the same homes. “We try to keep a familiar face in familiar houses,” he says.
Sometimes the familiar face arrives before the homeowner does. A newer owner of one house noted in a review that Eric had treated it years earlier, under its previous owners, and still remembered the property’s layout and history when he came back.
That is the point, Eric says. “Then we know the history of the house,” he says. “So when I come back, I know where everything is. It saves time and it builds a lot of comfort for everybody.”