A Podcast | Landon Cooley

Pete Neubig: [00:00:04] Welcome back everybody. And as promised, I have the dynamic CEO of Pest Share Tom Clements here. Just kidding. I got Landon Cooley here. All right. All right. Landon.

Landon Cooley: [00:00:17] Hey, Tom would probably be more exciting than me, but you're stuck with me.

Pete Neubig: [00:00:21] Well, thanks so much for for joining today and I know we've had, uh, we've had a lot of time to to get to know each other over the years. We had sushi, uh, a couple weeks ago at NRHC. So thanks so much for making time today, brother.

Landon Cooley: [00:00:34] Yeah, man. No, it's a pleasure, love, hanging out with you. See you on the road. And, you know, I know we haven't done a podcast together yet, so it's fun to get on here. We love NARPM, love supporting, you know, the industry, the association in any way. And it's it's a pleasure to be here.

Pete Neubig: [00:00:48] Yeah. So most people listening are going to be either not members or thinking about joining or just into single family property management. So for those folks that have may have not been to a national conference, tell a little bit about what c does, and then I'd love to hear a little bit of the story of how you guys, you know, developed Pest Share. And then we'll talk a little bit about what the benefits are on for for property managers.

Landon Cooley: [00:01:11] Well, first and foremost, for anyone that is not part of NARPM this is, you know, the invite to join. It'll be the best, best investment you've made so far in your property management company. And so we hope to see you at our upcoming conference in October, our national conference. But yeah, passengers, you know, we're a NARPM official partner now. We've been involved with NARPM since we came to the national market in 2021. And frankly, our company is really kind of founded amongst, uh, amongst NARPM property managers. Um, actually, Melissa Sharon, now our national president this year, she's a long time friend of mine. I met Melissa. Gosh, at least, you know, probably almost ten years ago now, her and Jim, um, her husband and, um, you know, back then, my co-founders, Justin, Tom and I, we owned just a traditional pest control company here in Boise, Idaho, where we live, where we have a phenomenal NARPM chapter and a strong property management industry locally. And, you know, I've met the Sharons back then and they, uh, we I was just their pest control guy. I was their pest control vendor, basically. And fast forward 2018, 2019, they started reaching out because they were having a real pest control problem. They had, um, you know, just several different instances where they were dealing with, with and not just them. I mean, several of our, our clients at the time, things like bedbugs, cockroaches, things that were making people move out. But yet there was like a deeper issue of I've got bedbugs, per my lease agreement as a tenant, I'm responsible, but I don't got $1,500 to pay for bedbugs. So what am I going to do? Well, I'm not going to tell Melissa and Jim about my cockroaches or my ants or my rodents. I'm just going to wait till my lease ends and I'm going to move out and, you know, whatever, I'll lose my security deposit anyways, to the carpet and the paint and everything else. There's just gonna be their problem to deal with. And that was really kind of the core of the problem is it was just this, this annoying, technical, ugly pain point alongside also, you know, was this upcoming of resident experience, resident benefits and this desire to include more value in the resident offerings. And they had a real initiative to try to figure out how can we include pest control in our resident benefit program. And so, you know, fast forward to today. Through the years, what we've developed is a very low cost pest control resident benefit offering. Um, that is, you know, what we call on demand pest control. And we've built out a whole technology platform. Um, you know, the best way to think about it is like Uber for pest control, your tenant has a subscription. When they have a pest issue, uh, they go right onto our form request service and quickly, within a matter of a couple of days, receive professional pest control service and in most cases, the cost of the subscription. The cost of the treatment is all taken care of through our low cost monthly subscription that's included in your resident benefit program and paid every month, typically by the resident. And so it's a real win-win. The residents are getting pest control, sometimes 70% cheaper than industry standard offerings. The property manager is making significant ancillary revenue off of our product. But best of all, we're reducing churn. We're increasing NOI and making your your properties a place where people want to stay and live, and you'll give them a healthier environment, a place they can enjoy by proactively handling pest issues through our technology. And so there's kind of jumbled the story and where we are today. But I will just say that we're the only company, um, in the space, in the, in the world that has developed a technology based pest offering for rental homes. And that's totally where we're laser locked.

Pete Neubig: [00:04:54] So you basically taken a traditional service based industry. Right. So in the old time, the before Pest Share, your resident would contact your maintenance team. The maintenance team would then try to push it back onto the resident, because in most cases it's a resident, um, type challenge. Right? It's not an it's not a, a an owner responsibility. It's a resident responsibility in a lot of cases, not all, but in a lot of cases, in most cases. Uh, and then what you're saying is if they have a big enough issue there and they don't have any money and they know it's going to get pushed back on em, they just move out, right? They just they just they just, you know, or they won't renew.

Landon Cooley: [00:05:34] So, Yeah, like, so we have, uh, you know, hundreds of thousands of units on our platform at this point across. Uh, let's say we have markets in 46 states. So we see what tenant landlord law is and what how pests are handled across all different types of management companies, different asset classes, you name it. And typically pest control is the tenant's responsibility with some exception. And then the other thing we find is this that the industry, rental homes, the demographic tend to deal with certain types of pest problems, and they are the most expensive pest problems and the most impactful pest problems. Again, think cockroaches, think bedbugs, think fleas. Rodents. Those are the type of stuff that we really deal with, the space and the things we really care about. Because as a property manager, you probably don't care if they got a spider. Like if a tenant calls and says, I have a spider, you're like, get your shoe and kill it and you'll survive, you know? But um, and rarely do we see just insane infestations of spiders or beetles where their life is truly, you know, their health and wellness is in jeopardy. But these other things, that's a whole 'nother story. Like, if I was a property manager, I don't want cockroaches like German cockroaches infesting all the appliances, especially if it's adjoined to other units. Like, that's a gift that just keeps on giving long after that tenant is gone. And so just like you said, traditionally, it's this tension of I'm a tenant, I have a problem. I typically don't know if I'm responsible or not. I kind of like, am hesitant because I think I might be. I call the property manager and that's where kind of hell just breaks loose. Like you're now either arguing with them to get them to take care of it, or maybe like really rarely, the property manager just send someone out to take care of it. But usually even when that case, they're going to backfill you for it. We see this in multifamily all the time. Oh, just take care of it. They tell the pestrol guy, and they just turn around and backfill you for it. And in all these cases, we're talking about pestrol expenses from hundreds to even thousands of dollars, which just and I think the rule of thumb we've learned is if it's under 100 bucks, tenants probably like cool paying for it, depending on what it is, over 100 bucks. They can't really can't afford it if they don't have that cash just readily available. And so that's what we're, uh, that's kind of the ballpark, the arena. We're playing ball in here.

Pete Neubig: [00:07:44] Yeah. So you literally just took out the friction between the property manager and and the resident, because now the resident can call any time they they bypass the property manager with this, with this product and and then a pest control guy comes in, knocks it all out and the property manager is none the wiser. Is that.

Landon Cooley: [00:08:02] Yeah. So high level. You sign up with pest. Um, you know available. We'll do an API integration with your property management software. We have, uh, you know, several we've built, several we're launching. So we're actually able to actively manage all of your, your data directly right in our platform, our team can log in and get it with restricted access if for some reason we can't do our API integration. And um, and then yeah, and there we can monitor which stores have pressure which don't. From there we help you incorporate the benefit into your lease. Every time a tenant signs a new lease renewal, we activate. And then from there, yeah, every time they have a pest problem, all they do is come to Pest Share and they can do it right on their phone. We can build an integration with your maintenance landing page. I mean, really there's several options to just make this as frictionless and easy as possible. And we set it up in a way where you really don't have to be involved from there. Um, if you, uh. Whatever. Yeah, they got termites, let's say, in the report, it that red flags and our client success team is going to reach out to you and let you know. Hey, they said they got termites. It's not necessarily covered on the plan they're on. That's really your problem. Flip side is, you know, they they've got spiders. We don't want the property manager getting bugged with stuff that's not that big of a deal. We'll give them options and they can pay for it themselves. And then of course, we have kind of the pest we typically cover in the middle, where it's just very streamlined, very smooth. We get them right to a solution and we get service in any case, fast and effectively without the property managers involvement.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:27] Right. So I was actually going to ask about termites because termites typically is the owner responsibility, not the resident responsibility. And so if they call about termites then you're you're letting the property manager know. And then the property manager can create a ticket and then they can send it back to you guys. But they're going to take the bill. Is that is that kind of the right deal to handle all of that?

Landon Cooley: [00:09:45] Yeah. You've got to realize that we have a whole team dedicated to managing a nationwide vendor network where we have multiple vendors within single markets, even per zip code within our platform. And their job is to drive highest quality cost at the fastest speed possible for the best rate possible. And and then they track post service satisfaction. So like we feel very confident in our ability no matter what the pest control problem is, we have a connection to the best solution possible that hits all those main marks. Um, yeah. Like as property manager, you want to run around and like, deal with that yourself. Sure. We could just let you know you you might have a termite problem, but the reality is, is that our clients want us to just handle that for them. And so this is actually kind of one of the exciting things we've recently released or is testing coming out about to be released is our full marketplace where any past issue wildlife, termites, things that are typically the landlord's issue. We can capture that through, you know, whoever reports it, we can leverage our vendor network for best price, execute service, payment everything straight through our platform and we can do that ultimately on your behalf as a as a property manager. And so, um, it is meant to truly be a very integrative one stop, uh, for all things pest control that involves the property managers is really as little as they want and little as they need to be.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:07] And if it's over a certain threshold, you guys will reach out to the property manager. And if it's under a threshold, you guys can just take care of it based on whatever the property manager wants.

Landon Cooley: [00:11:15] Yeah, our whole system works on NTEs, just like property managers typically do. And so there's definitely some level of customization there that we can set up on the back end. Um, you know, even stuff like, uh, we can get very granular, like you're in think Colorado, Colorado. And tenant landlord law specifically calls out bedbugs as landlord landlord responsibility. So we can take specific.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:38] I love Colorado. 

Landon Cooley: [00:11:38] Yeah, we can, but we can take that because again, the goal is to reduce effort. And so we can set up on the front end and say, hey, let's say you're a multi-state company, let alone a single operator in Colorado. This branch in Colorado, here's the pests that they're covered for. We just want to have taken care of. Here are the things we're going to notify the property manager about. Here's all the things that the tenant's responsible for. We'll offer them options directly to pay for. And um, and then yeah, like bedbugs, we just make sure that goes in the landlord bucket and we can, you know, help you stay in the clear in that regard.

Pete Neubig: [00:12:12] Awesome. And now so if I'm, if I'm a resident, do I have to call somebody or I just go online, just like I just like I would with a property manager, just enter in a work order and then you, your team would just handle it from there and contact the right people or do whatever needs to be done based on the based on your onboarding call?

Landon Cooley: [00:12:29] Yeah. Since ours is a, you know, mobile ready online web application. Um, you just go straight on your phone to access it. It's very smooth. Uh, you go on typically and, you know, something to note too, in this is our platform is agnostic to the user. It can typically it's the tenant. They're kind of the typical end user. But maybe you're a property manager, you're doing a turn and you find cockroaches in the place. You can get on our platform, on your phone right then and there. You plug the address in and that's what we're matching on the back end. But then we take you through what we call like a self-guided pest control inspection. We call it pest ID and we're taking pictures. We help you nail down exactly what pests you're dealing with. Um, asking a few key questions to gauge how severe the infestation is. And then from there, yeah, it creates a work order out of that. That zip code matches to our best provider in the area, and we roll forward. And so we have some integrations we've built some of our larger clients have actual like proprietary, um, you know, like software with like the maintenance coordination piece built into it. We've built in some cool integrations. Um, a lot of people like us to just have something on their landing page where they kind of funnel for maintenance, or they can just type in pestshare.com and their their way with it. And so it's a lot of options there that we set up in our onboard process to make sure it flows best for our clients needs.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:48] So how do most of your clients. Well, I want to. Before I get into this, I want to ask, do you have any kind of nightmare story, any any like anything that comes to mind? I was like, yes, one client. What's what's some what's one of the worst things you guys have had to deal with over the last few years?

Landon Cooley: [00:14:04] You know, it's funny, when people talk to us, they talk about us like as if we like pests. Like like, what do you do? You know what this bug is? I'm like, I don't know what this bug is like. I can tell you, we can probably kill it. Yeah. But in that, the other side of it is, yes, we do see awful situations where we have to figure out how to get rid of them. And oh, man, the worst one. I mean, most of these stories come back to my days as an actual pest control operator, you know, for call, you know, five, ten years, I was the actual technician in the pastoral company doing property management work orders. I mean, we really have some unique experience and understanding how you know what this is like for all parties, but there's one in particular. And I was caught off guard because the neighbor or the house was in like, like decently nice part of town, 300 zero square foot single family house. Like it was actually not in the same, but close to a neighborhood I used to live in even and driving up. Other than the weeds being pretty bad in the lawns, like it looked like a great house. And I walked into this place and it was awful, like it was apocalyptic. There were flies galore because there were so many dang dead mice in the place and and live mice.

Landon Cooley: [00:15:16] I mean, they were. But you can tell the people living there just completely annihilated the place. You know, the carpet was disgusting. The whole place was gross. But I will say, like in the movies, you see mice. I think that movie Mouse Hunt, when I was a kid who watched that movie and the. The mice are digging holes into all the baseboards, and there's that stereotypical thing you see in the movies. It's not really true. Like, mice rarely are actually chewing holes in baseboards or into the floor, they find gaps that are already there to go through. Not this place. It had straight up holes through the carpet, into the crawl space, into the baseboards, and the mice, it was just like a race there running through this place. Yeah. I mean, then

Pete Neubig: [00:15:54] They built their own maze.

Landon Cooley: [00:15:57] Just every bug you could imagine was in that place. Cockroaches, mice. There's, as a result, flies. This place is so gross. It's the middle of summer, which you can imagine the smell. And then. But end result. We end up catching. I think it was 87 mice in this one house. And it was just, I mean, the amount of extermination that had to take place. It was at burn it down point in my book. Like, who wants rehabbing this place? This is beyond disaster cleanup. But, uh, rehab.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:25] Call the bulldozer.

Landon Cooley: [00:16:26] Oh, man, that I don't know. I can't remember who was managing that property, but, uh, I can use professional use NARPM property managers. There you go. I don't think our NARPM property managers would never, ever let a place get like that. It was awful.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:41] So if I'm a property manager, I'm listening to this. I'm like, okay, this sounds this sounds great, but this sounds expensive. So talk about how you guys, because I think one of the most unique things that you guys did was how you price it and how you build it into, you know, a benefits package. So talk a little bit about what most of your clients do. I know there's lots of different ways to kind of slice this bad boy up, but let's talk about kind of like the 80% rule.

Landon Cooley: [00:17:05] Yeah, yeah, 80, 85, 90% of people, when they sign up with us, that they are agreeing to roll out our product, um, into their portfolio. Now, this can be included in existing resident benefit program, you know, with the other different products that are out there. Or a lot of our clients use this as a standalone product. Again, it's pest control. Like every market calls out in your tenant-landlord law calls out warrant of habitability, which is going to refer to pest control, like everybody has a liability here to ensure they're taking care of their properties that pertains to pest control. And in that it very much stands on its own feet. As far as a product goes, a single line item product. And so but whichever way works, we can easily bundle right in. And um, and yeah, you're going to include this as an addendum in your lease. And then uh, and typically it's going to be a resident paid offering. Um, and so yeah, every time the tenants over the course of a couple of years, they sign a new or renewing lease, we're going to activate. And we manage all of that for you, the activation process. So outside of that, you know, our product is is tremendously cheaper than traditional pest control. Traditional pest control. You know, you're looking at 50 bucks a month, 600 to 800 bucks a year. We have a product that's $5 per month. Our most popular product is $15 per month. And these are products that are these are subscriptions that are covering some of the most expensive pest issues. So that 600 to 800 bucks a year you're going to spend on on traditional pest control, that might buy you some recurring service spray around the outside, but it's not going to cover you for bedbugs, cockroaches, rodents would be an upcharge. Like, you go down the list of things that are really problems for property managers, and that service is not typically including that. What Pest Share does is we take, like I said before, an on demand approach. So this is not a recurring spray around the house. Again, think of Uber. I'm not going to pay to have a driver here all the time to pick me up and take me wherever I need to go. I'm going to hop on Uber for a fraction of the cost, and I'm going to get it when I need it, and I'm going to get it fast and affordable. And so we use these subscriptions as almost like a warranty to say we're going to cover these parts for you at this price point, anytime a request comes through, Pest Share is going to pay for that service to be done. And and you know, you can make multiple requests per year per unit. It's it's meant to almost kind of emulate that quarterly reoccurring service in a way, but cover you for, um, much more extensive, expensive pest issues and end result. I mean, we have an 87% CSat score with our tenants. Our tenants love this because I don't. I forget I'm even paying for this as a tenant. It's bundled into my monthly lease payment and I just had cockroaches, which would have cost me 500 bucks at least. And I paid $0. I literally in two minutes made a request for Pest Share. In three days the guy was out servicing and it's done and it was so easy. And that's the beauty of Pest Share. I mean, does that tenant love you more as a property manager? Yes, because although they had a pest control problem, it got taken care of fast, which makes them it's it's not about the problem. It's about how you handle it and how quickly you handle it. That's what makes you a great property manager. Problems are inevitable. And so I think for such a sensitive problem and pain point, that's where pressure becomes very important.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:22] So if I was a property manager and I wanted to roll pressure out, um, most people do. They do it at the at at a lease renewal. And then do you guys help with that lease? Addendum. Do you have the the language where they can go ahead and just add that to their lease.

Landon Cooley: [00:20:37] Yep. Yeah. So your, your dedicated sales person and your post-sale client success person are going to totally help you with this. This is this is an easy lift. I know we say implementation people squirm in their seats and this is not one of those implementations. Um, usually within a couple calls we get everything we need and that we're also providing you with just run of the mill language, like, yeah, lease the addendum language that you can implement right into your new and renewing leases. We fully encourage people to do both new and renewing leases. Um, again, the the your tenants are going to love this. This is going to really drive value into their experience. Um, I you know, funny enough, I rent a property. I rent a property right now for one of our clients. And one thing that stood out to me is I got on Zillow looking for rentals. Sure enough, there was one in my neighborhood that was one of our clients and it had advertised includes pest control of the property. And I was like, that is like, that's cool. Like I see sometimes lawn mowing or whatever. And so it's a true valuable amenity there. But yeah, all your marketing materials for your tenants, um, integrations, everything we handle for you.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:43] Yeah. So it helps getting the property leased up. Right? It helps with...

Landon Cooley: [00:21:48] 100%.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:49] Right? It helps with customer satisfaction score, which helps with retention. So if I'm a property manager. And so I roll this out on all new all new leases. And then when leases get renewed, I like that. You said the charge typically is is back to the resident. But I'm getting as a manager because I'm doing so many of them. I'm getting a bulk pricing like you talked about.

Landon Cooley: [00:22:10] Um, yeah. And I'll speak to that too, of like think of our price points advertised as wholesale rates. You have plenty of margin there to mark up. You know, I won't throw out specific amounts.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:22] So how how can I is there a way for the manager to offer a great service for the owner, for the resident, and also make a little bit of money on this thing? Is that typically what you're saying?

Landon Cooley: [00:22:33] Absolutely. And I would say it's best in class in terms of the amount of ancillary revenue you can generate off our product, while also the value you're delivering to the resident. And again, we're still living in the world of ancillary charge for online portal access. No offense to everyone that does that. But like we're we're getting squeezed out of those kind of benefits in this market. That's the red tape that's getting cut. So that's why I love it. And we're so supportive of of others to other companies that are bringing offerings like ours that is real value that can still generate meaningful revenue. I mean, multiple dollars for sure, per, per, uh, per unit per month and ancillary revenue, that's pure profits for you. And, um, and it's not only that.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:15] Right. That's the main thing. Right. Because, uh.

Landon Cooley: [00:23:18] Oh yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:18] There's a lot of, uh, buzz going on about junk fees, right? Charging for portal access might be considered a junk fee. Um, but offering Pest Share on demand Pest Share our services is not really a junk fee because you're actually getting something of value.

Landon Cooley: [00:23:34] Don't even think about Pest Share as a fee. Think about it this way I have a responsibility to my tenant and my owner to properly maintain this property and to provide a habitable property. That's why my lease says something about pest control. Pest Share is our way of ensuring that that is being done in the best, most affordable, most effective way possible with an industry standard solution.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:57] And one more piece of potential litigation that you just never have to deal with.

Landon Cooley: [00:24:02] Yeah, you're bringing clarity. You're making something that's super gray, black and white and out of and again at a very reasonable cost. I will say this, that your rate to your resident is going to be 50 to 60% cheaper than what they would have to pay out on the market, assuming they're doing professional pest. Like we don't count the can of Raid that doesn't actually work. So. But let me throw this in there too though, just for those that aren't in like, uh, you know, an LA or New York, like it's thinking of major metros. You can't charge your residents for pest control, and you have the flexibility of Pest Share to go to the owner's side. We even have clients that split charge this. They'll charge a portion to the owner, a portion to the resident. We accommodate all of that. So it's it's, um, there's really no restriction in any market and turns to us rolling out, um, the the price points are palatable for whoever is going to pay for it. And we can we can help you get it there despite, again, whatever regulation you're up against.

Pete Neubig: [00:24:55] So tell me when. Uh, so, Joe, residents been paying, you know, he's with his lease. His lease is up. He's going to move out. He changed jobs, moving. Moving to a different city. Uh, there's the there's that cost for that property? Does it end or does it flip over to the property manager? Uh, until that property is re-leased? How does that work typically?

Landon Cooley: [00:25:15] Yeah. So typically we leave it in place and we do leave the flexibility. If you're going to have a property that has a an extended vacancy period. Yes. We can come in and and pause that charge for you. However, what we find is is still and this gets probably gets better with time as part of the intention with pressure. But still, you're going to find most of your pest problems when that tenant moves out. And there's just a bare minimum. Again, because I don't want to track the fact that we're solving that problem with pressure, but inevitably it's going to happen or whatever. You see some ants in there, just a couple scurrying through the kitchen. It's not a major infestation, but I don't want my new tenant to move into that, eat the ten bucks or whatever. Like, it's it's it's a piece of mind. You're still going to be profitable if you have your owner pay for it. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:03] Process. Right. I mean, if you're a property manager, a turn like when I owned Empire, it was just part of our turn process. We did pest control. That was it. The last thing you need is somebody moving in on day one and seeing a mouse or a roach or a spider or a bunch of.

Landon Cooley: [00:26:18] Oh, it's.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:19] It's just I'm.

Landon Cooley: [00:26:20] We're we're actively collecting the data to show how pest control impacts experience and churn ultimately because and it's you know, it's going to be a long no one's actually collecting this kind of data. We have to go find it. But it's common sense to. Yeah. Like frankly, I will say when I moved into my rental here within the first week, I it was just so funny. I have like such a funny experience with my own product that we the first week we had ants in our master bath, in our in our garage and I just yeah, it is like a.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:53] You didn't go into the portal, you went to the office and you told somebody, go to my house and. Right.

Landon Cooley: [00:26:59] So funny enough though. So I told my wife, I said, I said, you have an opportunity right now. You can get on your phone and in two minutes make a request for Pest Share, or we can call the office and get. And she's like, I don't want to call anybody. I just got my phone. It'll take me two minutes. And so it was still like, we own a pest control company. It was still easier just to get on Pest Share, do it herself. So I, uh, but yeah, that just you feel invaded when you have bugs in your house. It feels gross. It doesn't feel healthy. It doesn't feel clean. Um, all those things. And so, by the way.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:29] If you ever call me at Empire, bugs always had a newborn or a 90 year old lady that lived there. No one's ever just normal people, right? It's like there's spiders and they bite. In my newborn, I'm like, you had a newborn since you moved into that place five years ago.

Landon Cooley: [00:27:43] You hear Johnny running, running across the room in the background.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:47] Johnny getting the keys to his car. Little Johnny's old enough to drive now, but he's still a newborn. Yeah.

Landon Cooley: [00:27:53] No, Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:55] I'm gonna flip the script here because, um, most people, if they go to a national conference, um, they see these orange shoes and and Pest Share, I gotta tell you, I think it was a brilliant marketing plan. And so tell us a little bit about the birth of the orange shoes, and then how can how can a property manager, you know, do something like that, like because it brings incredible brand awareness, like when people see orange shoes, they know Pest Share, They think Pest Share right away. I personally like the orange Tic-Tacs myself. 

Landon Cooley: [00:28:28] Oh Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:29] I have a I have my orange. I Pest Share Tic-Tac right here handy all the time, but the orange shoes is where it's at. So talk a little bit about that. Like how did that come to play. And then how can property managers emulate something like that.

Landon Cooley: [00:28:43] Oh man. Yeah. It's so awesome. And and you know, we've never prided ourselves as far as like me, Justin, and Thomas, co-founders of like being the best marketers in the world. But we did nail it pretty good with the orange shoes. And but it's from such a genuine place too. So it all started. You know, orange has always been our color. We have the big neon lit LED back, you know, lit up backdrop in our booth if you've seen our booth and, um, but pretty early on we realized, like we need to differentiate ourselves. And so the orange came in and then it we I had actually started buying a bunch of shoes from a brand called Noble and um, which has grown more and more popular now. And there was there's these orange neon orange shoes. And I give all the credit to Tom because I saw him. I'm like, Tom, I dare you to start wearing those orange shoes to conferences like, man, look at those clown shoes. And he was like, are you kidding me? And anyone that knows Tom, he's a big, boisterous guy. He's a big linebacker. And oh, he was all about it. And he started strutting those things around. And me and Justin were like, oh my gosh. But people loved them. They always, hey, love your shoes, love your shoes, you know? And so we're like, well, crap, we got to get orange shoes. And then it was our team wore orange shoes and then it was clients. How do we get orange shoes. And so it always had this natural natural flow. And for a while we were just buying orange shoes for people and getting them to wear in the conference as well. Pretty quickly we were like, hey, how could like, this is a thing, how can we make this more meaningful? And we knew, you know, that NARPM an hour from national time every year coming out of Q3 and Q4, every NARPM national presence starts stressing, because they always have a goal to raise a certain amount of money for their charity. And um, and they're always, like, jamming at the last minute to try to raise money for it. And we thought, how cool would it be if, like, we could get everybody to wear their worn shoes to Broker Owner in NARPM national. And we donated on their behalf on behalf of the orange shoe movement? Not not so much. Just pressure like this is about us as an industry coming together to support a meaningful cause. And, um, like, we would totally do it, you know, and, and I just wonder if people would join us in it. And. Yeah, that's where we've come to today. We just have broker owner. We have 75 pairs of shoes worn at, at uh, broker owner. And we donated 50 bucks per pair of shoes straight to Pat Tillman Foundation. And I think we had almost 100 or we had just over 100 at NARPM National last year, which obviously bigger event. And um, yeah, it is, it's, it's I just want to say that like, yes, our brand obviously gets a lot of benefit from it, but it is such a genuine pleasure to be able to support, I mean, communities and schools last year. Pat Tillman this is awesome, incredible charities and do that together as a group. And that is what it is about more than anything else. And um, so it's a pleasure for us. And you're also building community.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:33] You also build like you're building a community that you're giving back. And so if you're a property manager listening to this, you can do this in your own community. It may not. Oh cool. Yeah. Cuz, uh, there is a, there's a I forget the guy's name, but I heard this, uh, b1g1 concept that one give one. And so the concept is anybody that buys from you, you give something. Right. And I, I think one of the biggest, um, one of the biggest companies that do this is that Bombas, you know, you buy. Yeah, buy a pair of shoes from Bombas or a pair of socks. They donate a pair of socks. And it's very similar. At Empire, we we took this idea and we, um, we, um, uh, we partnered with a group called Camp Hope. And it's a PTSD for, for, for, um, you know, armed forces that will actually see in action. Right. And so these guys have PTSD. But what we did is we donated a meal for every person that had. If you had a meaningful meeting with us, you didn't even sign. If you just had a meaningful meeting. And we and we, you know, we we sent you a, you know, a PMA to review. We then would track it and we would donate a meal and a meal for those guys. Only five bucks. So it doesn't have to be super expensive either. Like the $50 is great. That's a lot of money that a lot of PMs can't afford. But you could do for five bucks. And I'll be honest with you, we've actually had people sign with us just because of that. Not a lot. It wasn't a huge percentage, but we had a lot of people give us the opportunity as well because of that. And then a fair number of those converted. So you can take that whole concept that Landon and team is, is made. I mean, just what you guys did with is just ten. And now.

Landon Cooley: [00:33:18] Oh, well.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:19] I gotta tell you, if I see orange shoes in the city of Houston, I'm like, you know.

Landon Cooley: [00:33:24] It is, you know, funny stories with all that. But I will say this, uh, I do just gotta say where I've been. Boise. And we have a big, you know, client base here in Boise. Boise State, Broncos. Orange is part of the color. So you go to Boise State games, you can easily pick out the Pest Share customer because they're wearing orange shoes to the Boise State game. But I will just say this to your point of, uh, yes, everybody. I always say like people ask me like, you know, what's a cause or charity that you're passionate about? And I always say it like just I'm all about the cause of just loving and helping my neighbor. And the. Yes, I know there's huge organizations out there that are great in so many great causes, but the most impactful thing that you can do is just help those that are around you, whether your family, your friends, the guy you met at the grocery store, yeah, your neighbor you don't even know. And I it is that sense of community that's most important. It's the most impactful thing you yourself can do. I think what happens in Pest Share and with the orange shoe movement is, you know, at the end of the day, yes, we know we're raising money for a great cause, a great organization. We don't really ever see that. What happens with that money? Honestly, we don't see the impact directly. But the best thing that gets to happen is us helping people come together to do a good thing together, like us helping our neighbors in the industry come together, rub shoulders in a great cause by wearing a pair of orange shoes together. And it's it is by far the most fulfilling thing I've done in my career. It's just totally helps us connect as an organization. And it's awesome. I, I will we'll keep doing it forever. We're trying to get more associations and more people to do it. And it's, uh, it's just about that.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:00] So I took a page out of your book and we created the Gold Glove experience. And...

Landon Cooley: [00:35:04] Yes.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:04] ...At our first conference that we rolled this out, we gave everybody we had 50 pairs of gold boxing gloves. So between the the orange shoes, the gold boxing gloves and the purple blazers that everybody's wearing from second nature. Uh, NARPM now looks like a clown show, right?

Landon Cooley: [00:35:22] We just need some red noses. So red noses. That's it. No, I love it. And, I mean, you guys hit on such a great thing about it. You know, experience again, is our industry gets the stigma of being slumlords of, you know, poor experience. I feel like there's. So that's so not true. A B so many people are on the vendor and property management side are are working hard to drive experience. And I think, um, you know, we need to be very aligned behind that as an industry for sure.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:52] And the Pest Share product offers a great experience for all three parties. So to steal another thing from Second Nature, it's a win.

Landon Cooley: [00:36:01] Win win win. Yeah. Triple win. It's a.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:03] Great experience. The manager gets less turnover. The manager doesn't even have to worry about what's like everything is being taken care of. They can actually make a profit off of it. And the owner client. As long as that property is leased by good people, they're getting they're getting a win as well. And if there is a turn, the Pest Share is is a fraction of the cost with the with with the with the yearly with the yearly rate that's going on.

Landon Cooley: [00:36:27] Yeah, I know everybody hates warranty products in this space, but like home warranty, you know, think of like a Pestrol warranty product where they actually come and do everything they say you're going to do. Like it is an easy way to think about it. And uh, and yeah, I'll, I'll throw a little shameless plug in here if people ever want to hop on with you. On our sales team, we've actually built out a very robust, in-depth ROI calculator where we can show you the kind of, uh, of overall monetary value Pest Share drives across, not just the ancillary revenue, all of the operational line items, all of your opex categories, like everything we touch an impact. Um, and it's a calculator. So you put in your number of units, we make some minor adjustments, and it will spit out the actual financial impact that we're going to have on your organization as just our one offering. And it's at bare minimum, it's it's built by industry professionals. It's very in-depth, and it gives you a real picture of everything we're going to alleviate for you.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:25] And let's be honest, you know, when I get management fees, you know, if I if I'm running a 20% profit margin, which most property managers are not, they're running less than that. That means for every dollar I'm making $0.20. But on these ancillary fees, at least at Empire, when I owned, when I owned Empire, my ancillary fees, I was making about $0.90 for every dollar.

Landon Cooley: [00:37:44] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:45] You know?

Landon Cooley: [00:37:46] For sure.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:46] This is a great way. And again, it's, it's a it's a value. Right. So it's I'm not just charging so I'm just a charge. It's I'm charging something and there's value there. So appreciate what you're doing for the industry and for property managers. And we're going to get into all your contact information. But we're first before we do that we're going to take a quick commercial break. And then we're going to hit the the lightning round. Are you nervous put you in the lightning round?

Landon Cooley: [00:38:09] Nope.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:09] You're not?

Landon Cooley: [00:38:10] Maybe a little nervous.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:13] We'll Back after these messages.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:17] All right, Landon, we'll put you in the hot seat. The lightning round. Are you ready for it?

Landon Cooley: [00:38:20] Let's go.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:21] Here we go. All right.

Landon Cooley: [00:38:22] I've heard some of your lightning rounds. I have no idea what I'm going to get. So everyone knows this is, uh. I've not been prepped by Pete here. It's on the spot.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:32] On the spot. What is one of the silliest or stupidest things you've done when you start? When you first started your business?

Landon Cooley: [00:38:37] I bought orange shoes for a bunch of people. Just kidding. Oh, my gosh. I, uh, one of the silliest things we've done. You know, just honestly, I think.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:50] You made just a mistake you made when when you build.

Landon Cooley: [00:38:52] Gosh, uh. Okay, I'm gonna be for real. Like, this is going to make me this. This probably may or may not be a great answer, but it is the truth. The biggest mistake we made is, like, do too much ourselves. And I mean, you silly, stupid, like, you name it. Not hiring people quicker. Not delegating faster. Like getting in the way of ourselves. And me especially. Like my co-founders would totally attest to this. Like I struggle with micromanaging and just letting things go. And so I just I look at I look at property managers in the space all the time. They're, you know, got 200 units and want to get to 500. They need to hire a BDR or a BDM, like hire the BDM. Like you're going to spend waste more money sitting around like losing out on the opportunity than you are just hiring the BDM and failing and finding another one. And so I just I mean, there are so many dumb things too, of like ways we've wasted money and made mistakes. I, I'm not trying to save myself from that humiliation, but I, uh, get out of your own way, and just a great go for it.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:59] On top of that, do you use remote team members?

Landon Cooley: [00:40:02] Oh, 100%. Second dumbest thing waiting for so long to use remote team members. So we know. Yeah, we've got I'd say we have 60 people on our team and probably 60% of them are our remote team members, something like that. We have a substantial amount of them. And um, holy moly. Yeah. No brainer. Total no brainer. And some of the best people in our company for sure.

Pete Neubig: [00:40:24] What is one piece of advice you'd give someone starting out in business?

Landon Cooley: [00:40:29] Oh, man. Um. Uh, I would say for my role, thinking about that, uh, establish a vision and think big, like, think whatever you think is whatever you think is big, think bigger. Ultimately, and eventually you end up this place far down the road of, like, maybe wrangling that in a little bit. But everyone always limits themselves out of the gate. And the thing that is going to drive you through the hardest freaking moments, which that first 3 to 5 years is always so that first ten years is always so hard. Is that vision and like, and and, uh, just unbridled conviction that you can hit it now also throwing a plug for my favorite book, The Dip. Read The Dip. It'll teach you that if you do not believe you can be the best in the world, uh, ditch it and go find something else. Now, that could be. I believe I can be the best property manager in San Antonio, Texas. Like, if you figure out how to build a vision around you being the best property manager in San Antonio, Texas, I guarantee you you can be like wherever you are. There's great, great ones in San Antonio. But I, um, so it can be specific. But for us, like we want to dominate pest control in the rental home space, we want to take on Terminix. Like we have this really big vision. And man, when it's freaking awful and everything's on fire, that's what keeps us pushing through.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:01] I'll tell you a funny story about vision. When I first started my PM firm, my vision was to get to 300 single family homes to manage 300 single family homes.

Landon Cooley: [00:42:10] Dude. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:14] And the vision was because we heard that's when you're profitable.

Landon Cooley: [00:42:17] Oh my gosh.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:18] And of course.

Landon Cooley: [00:42:19] 3000, my friend. Yeah. You know, I'll be the first day to, like, running a 3000 unit property management company isn't necessarily for everyone. You can have a phenomenal business at 300 units. 500 units that there's no there's no numbers, right? It usually takes into account not just business, your personal life, your family, all of those things. And there's a place where you are, you feel fulfilled and you're happy financially. You feel good. And that's that's where it is. And just think a little bigger.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:49] What was your first job?

Landon Cooley: [00:42:52] Oh, so funny enough. So I'm fourth generation in my family in the Pest control industry. One would think my first job was doing pest control, my first official job. However, when I was 15, My parents had a rule if I wasn't playing sports, I had to have a job, and I. I wasn't busy enough that summer. So my dad said, you can't come work for me. You need to go get a job. And my my, uh, my my best friend, his dad owned, uh, food franchises Qdoba, Mexican Grill and Jack in the box. So that was our option, you know, work at Jack in the box or Qdoba if you want to work for me. And I made, you know, my my dad, again was like, I'm not going to give you a job. So I had to go to him. It linked me to this manager at a Qdoba, and I was in there cutting ingredients and rolling burritos all summer long for my first job. So it's, uh. But yeah, I always had a little bit of an entrepreneurial bug. I, I just funny little side businesses when I was a kid. And then pretty quickly after Qdoba, I started working in my dad's pest control company and, you know, started that's where I kind of dove in, uh, 17, 18 years old.

Pete Neubig: [00:43:56] Here's the staple question does pineapple belong on pizza?

Landon Cooley: [00:44:00] You know, my wife ordered Hawaiian pizza the other day, and I literally thought of you asking this question, and. I would actually say yes with a lot of caveats, because I do not like Hawaiian pizza. I like pepperoni and pineapple, and that's probably the only pizza I like with pineapple on it. So I wouldn't be honest if I said no because I will eat pepperoni and pineapple. Yeah, I just.

Pete Neubig: [00:44:27] Ordered a pineapple. I'll just pull it off and then we're fine.

Landon Cooley: [00:44:30] Hey, but I was in New York last week, and when I walked in to grab a slice, it was cheese and pepperoni. And there's no way I would touch anything with pineapple, that's for sure. That's right.

Pete Neubig: [00:44:40] All right, what's up? What is one thing that most people don't know about you?

Landon Cooley: [00:44:45] Oh, um. Well, most people know I. You know, I'm married, have four kids. Um, you know, a funny one is when I was 11 years old, I got a black belt in taekwondo. And so I also stopped doing karate when I was 12 years old. So don't like come in and like try to fight me and expect me to keep going.

Pete Neubig: [00:45:06] You mastered that at 11?

Landon Cooley: [00:45:09] Yeah. No, that's my fun fact.

Pete Neubig: [00:45:12] Out of all right. Last one. Dogs or cats?

Landon Cooley: [00:45:15] Oh, I'm a dog guy. Yeah, I got a bernedoodle. Remy. She's a sweetheart. We had another long time lab, a yellow lab for her that passed away, but, uh, not not a cat guy. I'm allergic to cats, too. So total dog guy.

Pete Neubig: [00:45:28] All right, if somebody wants to wants to learn more about Pest Share, what's the best way to contact you guys over there?

Landon Cooley: [00:45:35] You know, I, uh, hit me up. Feel free to just shoot me an email anytime. landon@pestshare.com. Hopefully, I'm not, like, throwing myself out to be crucified there, but, uh, for real, though, I almost every conference send out a blast email to try to meet people for 15 minutes. I there's nothing I enjoy more than talking to people in the industry and just understanding. You got ten doors that you manage. Like I want to understand what your world's like. Like it's. It's so helpful to me, let alone you have 10,000 doors. I want to understand what your world is like. Um, so, yeah, I'm total email guy. Shoot me an email. And then, of course, like, you want to ask about our product to a demo or whatever, just pestshare.com schedule our demo. Our salespeople are really nice. They're not overly pushy. People like a lot of you probably know them. So just feel free to hop on a call and just shoot the ball with us. We can talk about the industry and whatever.

Pete Neubig: [00:46:27] All right. And if you want to join NARPM or learn more about NARPM, go to NARPM, narpm.org or call them at (800) 782-3452. And if you are interested in, uh, in virtual team members, please give VPM Solutions a try. vpmsolutions.com. Or you can email me at pete@vpmsolutions. Landon, it's a great show. Thanks, man.

Landon Cooley: [00:46:50] Awesome. Thanks, Pete. It was great.