The Route with Landon Daines

Landon Daines
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Biweekly

Welcome to The Route, hosted by entrepreneur, coach, and former pest control founder Landon Daines. After scaling and selling his first company, Landon now helps pest control business owners grow beyond and build companies that actually give them freedom.

  1. 9h ago

    Stop Building Your Pest Control Business Backwards

    Stop Building Your Pest Control Business Around What You Already Have Most owners build their company based on the people, skills, money, and resources they already have. That can quietly become the ceiling on how big the business can grow. Landon calls this "cooking with what's in your fridge." You look at your current technicians, office staff, bank account, software, experience, and skill set, then decide what kind of business you can build from those ingredients. In this episode, Landon explains why owners should reverse that process. First decide what business and life you actually want. Then determine what people, skills, systems, resources, and investments are required to build it. The goal is not to ask, "What can I do with what I have?" The better question is, "What do I need to become and acquire to get where I want to go?" Why your current team and skill set can become an invisible ceiling on growthHow to build your company from a future vision instead of today's limitationsWhy the skills that got you here may not be enough to reach your next stageHow to identify the gap between your current business and the business you wantThree ways to acquire skills and capabilities you do not currently haveWhy getting the right people into the business can unlock faster growthWhere Landon believes owners should reinvest in their companiesWhy hiring, marketing, and capacity planning should happen proactively instead of reactivelyHow to work backward from a revenue goal into customers, sales, hiring, and capacityWhy you should not copy every strategy, tool, or tactic you see other companies usingEpisode Chapters 00:00 Stop Cooking With What's in Your Fridge00:23 How Owners Build Businesses Around Their Current Limitations01:28 Your Skills and Resources Can Become Your Ceiling01:55 Start With the Business You Actually Want02:23 Build the Team, Resources, and Skills Required for the Goal03:01 Stop Defining Yourself by What You're Bad At04:01 Your Current Team May Not Be Your Future Team04:25 Believe Your Business Can Become Much Bigger05:04 Step 1: Create a Specific Three-Year Vision06:13 Compare What You Have With What the Future Business Requires07:00 Build Your Business Shopping List07:43 Three Ways to Acquire Missing Skills08:00 Option 1: Learn the Skill Yourself08:38 Option 2: Contract the Skill Before Hiring Full Time09:42 Option 3: Hire the Right Person10:00 Build or Upgrade the Team You Need10:49 Reinvesting in Talent and Brand12:00 Stop Making Reactive Hiring and Growth Decisions13:24 Do Not Buy Every Ingredient You See14:11 Buy the Right Ingredients in the Right Order15:04 Work Backward From Your Three-Year Goal15:41 Breaking a $3 Million Goal Into Daily Numbers16:39 Connect Growth Targets to Hiring and Capacity17:12 Identify the Most Important Missing Ingredient17:54 Decide What's for Dinner

  2. 6d ago

    6 Systems Every Pest Control Business Must Have

    The 6 Systems I’d Build First in a $1M Pest Control Company If I took over a million dollar pest control company tomorrow, there are six systems I would make sure were in place before focusing on anything else. Most owners hear the word "system" and immediately think about software like FieldRoutes, GorillaDesk, PestPac, or QuickBooks. But software is not a system. A system is a consistent way to produce the result you want, regardless of who is doing the work. In this episode, Landon breaks down the six systems every pest control business needs, the five components that make a system actually work, and how these systems can help a company grow without everything depending on the owner. What You’ll Learn Why having software does not mean you have systemsThe five components every real business system needsHow to create a repeatable sales and marketing processWhy financial management needs to become a system instead of something you occasionally reviewHow to build a hiring process that can consistently produce strong candidatesHow onboarding, training, scorecards, and accountability drive employee performanceWhat an operations system should do for the customer experienceHow leadership systems keep the entire company aligned around its goalsWhy many employee, lead, and operational problems are actually system problems

  3. Oct 22

    6 Bottlenecks Stopping Your Pest Control Growth

    Why Your Pest Control Business Isn’t Growing and What to Fix First If your pest control business doubled tomorrow, what would break? That question can tell you more about your next move than another marketing tip or software recommendation. In this episode, Landon shares how identifying a demand problem, not an operations problem, changed where he focused his time in his own pest control company. Instead of continuing to improve systems that were already working, he concentrated on recruiting the door-to-door sales reps the business needed. He breaks down six possible growth bottlenecks, explains why more leads can expose problems rather than solve them, and walks through five questions to help you identify what to fix next. Demand: How empty routes, available technicians, and too few incoming opportunities can signal that attracting more customers should be your priority.Sales: Why you need to evaluate both your closing percentage and your pricing, not just how many leads are coming in.Capacity: How to assess whether your technicians, office team, trucks, and equipment can support more customers.Delivery: How service quality and re-service problems can affect your ability to charge more, retain customers, and grow.Retention: Why constantly replacing lost customers makes growth harder, and why keeping more of the customers you already sell may deserve attention before adding more sales reps.Cash: How weak collections, unnecessary spending, and poor margins can leave you without the money to reinvest in growth.Where am I trying to get to? Define a specific goal rather than simply wanting a bigger business. That could mean revenue, customer count, profit, or take-home pay.What needs to be true for me to get there? Work backward into the customer numbers, pricing, leads, conversion, retention, collections, and staffing needed to support that goal.What’s stopping me today? Identify the biggest obstacle, not every problem you could work on.If I doubled my business tomorrow, what would break? Use that answer to pressure-test whether you need more demand or stronger capacity and systems.What is the one constraint I need to attack? Write it down and make the improvement you’re pursuing specific.The next priority is not automatically more leads, new software, or whatever is working for another company. It is the biggest constraint in your own business. Landon’s advice: focus on the issue that is actually limiting growth, not the one you enjoy working on most. Solve it, reassess the business, and then turn your attention to the next bottleneck. What You’ll LearnFive Questions to Find Your Next PriorityKey Takeaway

  4. Oct 14

    5 Pest Control Sales Tactics That Close More Deals

    Want to close more pest control sales without sounding pushy or constantly overcoming objections? Most pest control companies lose sales because they're approaching the conversation the wrong way. They jump straight into explaining services, quoting prices, and trying to convince customers to buy before building trust or understanding the actual problem. In this episode, Landon breaks down five practical sales tactics that can make selling easier, help customers feel more confident, and improve your team's ability to close deals at higher prices. Whether you're selling over the phone, going door-to-door, or training your technicians to identify sales opportunities, these strategies can help you create a more effective sales process. Unselling: Why recommending a less expensive service can build trust and make customers more comfortable buying from you.Exposing the Pain: How asking better questions helps customers recognize the full extent of their pest problems before you present a solution.Option Closing: How giving customers two clear choices can reduce hesitation and make moving forward easier.Bandwagoning: How real examples of other customers dealing with similar problems can build confidence and encourage people to open up.Price Anchoring: How presenting the value of your service before offering a legitimate discount can make your pricing more compelling. Great sales conversations aren't about pressuring customers into buying. They're about building trust, understanding the problem, helping customers recognize why they need a solution, and making the buying decision simple. You don't have to master all five tactics at once. Start with one, practice it consistently, and gradually incorporate the others into your sales process. The goal is to create a repeatable sales system your entire team can use to close more customers without relying on aggressive pitches or constant objection handling. What You'll LearnEpisode ChaptersKey Takeaway

  5. Aug 21

    Get More Recurring Customers in Your Pest Company

    Episode Overview In this episode of The Route, host Landon Daines tackles a major source of burnout for pest control owners: doing too many one-time services. Landon breaks down how to rewire your mindset, restructure your pricing, and implement a simple 45-day follow-up process to effortlessly convert one-time jobs into highly profitable recurring contracts.

  6. Aug 14

    36 Questions Every Pest Control Owner Should Know The Answers To

    In this massive Q&A episode of The Route, Landon Daines tackles the most common and critical questions pest control owners face. From the strategy behind hitting your first million to the exact metrics you need to track, Landon provides rapid-fire, no-nonsense answers across marketing, sales, hiring, and operations to help you stop guessing and start scaling. Key Discussion Points The Path to Growth & MarketingHiring, Pay, & Team BuildingMastering Your Operations & MetricsSales & Pricing Strategy

  7. Aug 7

    How to Price Properly in Your Pest Control Company

    Episode Overview In this episode of The Route, Landon Daines reveals that your biggest bottleneck isn't a lack of leads or external marketing—it's your pricing model. Most owners are unknowingly playing the "cheap game," suffocating their profit margins and keeping themselves trapped in the truck. It is time to shift your mindset, charge what you are worth, and unlock real growth. Key Discussion Points The Revenue MythThe True Cost of "Cheap"The Premium Shift

  8. Jul 31

    Don’t Hire Another Tech Until You Fix This

    In this episode of The Route, Landon Daines issues a stark warning to pest control owners: hiring another technician might be the exact wrong move for your business right now. While growing your team feels exciting, adding payroll prematurely can actually destroy your profit margins. Landon breaks down how to view your business as an efficiency machine and squeeze every drop of capacity out of your current setup before you even think about posting a job ad. Key Discussion Points The Premature Hiring TrapBuilding an Efficiency MachineScaling Profit, Not Payroll

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About

Welcome to The Route, hosted by entrepreneur, coach, and former pest control founder Landon Daines. After scaling and selling his first company, Landon now helps pest control business owners grow beyond and build companies that actually give them freedom.

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