1 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:11,860 Dan Suiter: All righty. Appreciate that, Richie, and welcome everybody to our inaugural 2026 webinar. 2 00:00:12,310 --> 00:00:19,300 Dan Suiter: And it's a big one. At last count, we had almost 370 people online with us today. 3 00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:25,640 Dan Suiter: today. So it's a big one. So this is always a great way to kick this webinar series off. 4 00:00:26,470 --> 00:00:32,740 Dan Suiter: Dr. Ron Harrison has been with, working now for, is it 30 some odd years, Ron? 5 00:00:33,450 --> 00:00:35,520 Ron Harrison: A little bit under 30, just almost right at 30. 6 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:41,960 Dan Suiter: I first met you, I think I met you at probably an MPMA or GPCA meetings before that. But Ron, 7 00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:46,900 Dan Suiter: Dr. Harrison got his PhD here on the UGA Griffin campus. And at one point was a 8 00:00:47,500 --> 00:00:52,320 Dan Suiter: Many folks don't know this, but it was a tenured professor at Mercer University in Orkin, 9 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:54,260 Dan Suiter: lured him away from Mercer University. 10 00:00:55,860 --> 00:01:00,900 Dan Suiter: And he's been just an outstanding trainer and educator with Orkin ever since. 11 00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:06,700 Dan Suiter: And the years I've known you, Ron, you've gone back and forth between a national technical 12 00:01:06,940 --> 00:01:07,580 Dan Suiter: director now. 13 00:01:08,219 --> 00:01:12,840 Dan Suiter: chair of the international franchising groups and you travel the world. 14 00:01:12,979 --> 00:01:19,759 Dan Suiter: And I fully expect to have you and Frank Meek write a book one day about your international experiences in pest control. 15 00:01:20,539 --> 00:01:22,780 Dan Suiter: It'd be I think it'd be a that'd be fantastic. 16 00:01:23,340 --> 00:01:25,899 Dan Suiter: So I'll go ahead and turn it over to you, Ron. 17 00:01:25,979 --> 00:01:27,119 Dan Suiter: Tell us a little bit about yourself. 18 00:01:27,500 --> 00:01:30,000 Dan Suiter: You folks can read it here, but I'm. 19 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:37,980 Dan Suiter: And just, you know, Ron is highly decorated in the pest control industry and is asked to speak all over the country and all over the world on his experiences. 20 00:01:38,340 --> 00:01:40,680 Dan Suiter: So I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Harrison. 21 00:01:41,300 --> 00:01:44,940 Ron Harrison: Thanks so much, Dan. And it's a privilege to be part of this. 22 00:01:45,100 --> 00:01:47,640 Ron Harrison: And for the 20 years that you've been doing this. 23 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:51,300 Ron Harrison: It really is a privilege to, I think, from the very first. 24 00:01:51,940 --> 00:01:54,240 Ron Harrison: We first had these kind of in person. 25 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:59,780 Ron Harrison: And so everyone would come down to the Griffin campus and now we've graduated to remote. 26 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:01,979 Ron Harrison: So it's been fun to see what you've done. 27 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:04,640 Ron Harrison: I think the class had 20 or so in it. 28 00:02:04,820 --> 00:02:07,780 Ron Harrison: And now you said close to 400 are viewing it today. 29 00:02:08,119 --> 00:02:10,720 Ron Harrison: So what a wonderful program that you put together. 30 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:20,739 Ron Harrison: So, yes, I did finish my PhD with Dr. Gardner at the University of Georgia there on the Griffin campus. 31 00:02:20,980 --> 00:02:25,880 Ron Harrison: And then I did a couple of postdocs and got my first academic position at Mercer. 32 00:02:26,739 --> 00:02:35,920 Ron Harrison: And then after about 10 years with them, was recruited and decided to help Orkin do some of their technical things and training and like it. 33 00:02:36,380 --> 00:02:41,480 Ron Harrison: And as Dan mentioned, probably about six or seven years ago, then the company started 34 00:02:41,660 --> 00:02:42,700 Ron Harrison: to expand globally. 35 00:02:43,580 --> 00:02:45,740 Ron Harrison: And I took that opportunity to help with that. 36 00:02:45,900 --> 00:02:48,360 Ron Harrison: And we have grown exponentially. 37 00:02:48,620 --> 00:02:52,680 Ron Harrison: This is kind of many of our franchise, their 10th year, because that was kind of when we 38 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:53,280 Ron Harrison: got started. 39 00:02:53,720 --> 00:03:10,739 Ron Harrison: So we have multimillion dollar operations in Kazakhstan, Republic of Georgia, and in Egypt, in Indonesia, and Chile. So I just want to start with that, not just from an introduction standpoint of who I am and what I do, but what the opportunity in pest control really is. 40 00:03:05,900 --> 00:03:05,980 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 41 00:03:11,580 --> 00:03:13,320 Ron Harrison: And I've seen that. 42 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:18,740 Ron Harrison: I've seen small little operations in Egypt where there was really no major pest control 43 00:03:19,070 --> 00:03:25,640 Ron Harrison: provider and then Orkin can come in with their IPM philosophy and service-based approach and 44 00:03:25,650 --> 00:03:30,660 Ron Harrison: just see it blossom into hundreds of technicians in Egypt when there were none. 45 00:03:30,750 --> 00:03:34,940 Ron Harrison: And same in a very small country, Republic of Georgia, with 3.7 million people. 46 00:03:35,410 --> 00:03:36,940 Ron Harrison: They also have over 100 technicians. 47 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:44,879 Ron Harrison: The point that I guess I want us to think through is the opportunities in pest control, I think, are endless. 48 00:03:40,459 --> 00:03:40,980 Ron Harrison: So... 49 00:03:46,060 --> 00:04:00,500 Ron Harrison: And I was, I don't know if I read it, but Shark Tank, I think her name is Lori Greiner, has made comments to, you know, what's the best business to be involved with? 50 00:04:01,260 --> 00:04:04,140 Ron Harrison: and particularly I think there were women that were kind of asking this question, 51 00:04:04,239 --> 00:04:10,040 Ron Harrison: and she said that the pest control industry is one of the best industries to really get started. 52 00:04:10,819 --> 00:04:14,720 Ron Harrison: The reason is the model is reoccurring revenue, 53 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:20,320 Ron Harrison: meaning that the customer, if we service them properly, the pests are not going away. 54 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:23,660 Ron Harrison: We're just keeping them at bay, and we have to continue to do that. 55 00:04:23,819 --> 00:04:36,180 Ron Harrison: I've heard stories that the highest number of millionaires are from an industry standpoint are from the pest control industry because of those. 56 00:04:36,270 --> 00:04:38,819 Ron Harrison: And this is not a financial discussion that I'm trying to get into. 57 00:04:38,949 --> 00:04:41,900 Ron Harrison: But I think if you do it right... 58 00:04:41,919 --> 00:04:44,340 Ron Harrison: the opportunities in pest control are endless. 59 00:04:44,770 --> 00:04:46,400 Ron Harrison: So let me give a story. 60 00:04:48,180 --> 00:04:50,419 Ron Harrison: In, I think, Greenville, South Carolina, 61 00:04:51,460 --> 00:04:54,160 Ron Harrison: we have a great operator up there and manager. 62 00:04:54,830 --> 00:04:57,320 Ron Harrison: And so I had the opportunity to ride with him and 63 00:04:57,620 --> 00:04:59,740 Ron Harrison: I said, "You're doing a great job. 64 00:04:59,920 --> 00:05:00,980 Ron Harrison: What's your story?" 65 00:05:01,140 --> 00:05:04,760 Ron Harrison: And he said, "Well, I was just back from the military. 66 00:05:05,020 --> 00:05:10,440 Ron Harrison: So I had two or three years in the military, just got married, and my wife is pregnant and 67 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:12,000 Ron Harrison: I had to get a job." 68 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:13,440 Ron Harrison: And so Orkin was hiring. 69 00:05:14,020 --> 00:05:20,160 Ron Harrison: started out and he said, look at me now. I own my own house. My two kids are in college. 70 00:05:21,070 --> 00:05:25,680 Ron Harrison: You know, I've taken advantage of this and my whole life has changed. I would have never dreamed 71 00:05:25,820 --> 00:05:31,180 Ron Harrison: that a poor kid that went off to the military to try to find his way now is a very secure life. 72 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:37,500 Ron Harrison: And so I think, well, I know that. I see that over and over again of the opportunities that 73 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,320 Ron Harrison: the pest control industry gives folks. 74 00:05:40,470 --> 00:05:48,360 Ron Harrison: And so wherever you're at, whether you're in as a technician or in sales or admin or 75 00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:53,160 Ron Harrison: in management or leadership, there really is a phenomenal opportunity. 76 00:05:53,390 --> 00:05:55,920 Ron Harrison: And so I'm going to kind of talk in detail some of these opportunities. 77 00:05:56,840 --> 00:05:57,720 Ron Harrison: I, I, I, you know, 78 00:05:57,819 --> 00:06:00,879 Ron Harrison: I would like to kind of just put some perspective. 79 00:06:01,819 --> 00:06:10,419 Ron Harrison: And Dan, you might be able to give, there was a talk that Dan was involved with, you know, the pest control industry in the future, what opportunities were in Orlando a few months ago. 80 00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:18,199 Ron Harrison: But when we look at the pest control industry, some of the numbers that come up is that in the U.S., 81 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:24,260 Ron Harrison: maybe 12 or 13 billion dollars is what is the revenue for pest control. 82 00:06:24,500 --> 00:06:28,560 Ron Harrison: And then when you look globally, you're talking about double that. 83 00:06:28,820 --> 00:06:34,180 Ron Harrison: Now, we only have a small fraction of the 8 billion people on the planet, 300 million. 84 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:37,640 Ron Harrison: I guess not a small fraction, but a fraction of the amount. 85 00:06:38,220 --> 00:06:42,840 Ron Harrison: But we still have a great opportunity here in this country to grow. 86 00:06:43,570 --> 00:06:52,520 Ron Harrison: And so I don't think it is just as, you know, I'm going to try to steal customers from other pest control companies. 87 00:06:53,300 --> 00:06:55,300 Ron Harrison: We still have a potential to grow. 88 00:06:55,300 --> 00:06:58,780 Ron Harrison: The last I heard was maybe 25 to 30 percent. 89 00:07:00,140 --> 00:07:03,700 Ron Harrison: of residential homeowners have pest control in the United States. 90 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:05,800 Ron Harrison: Why is it higher than that? 91 00:07:06,620 --> 00:07:13,320 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, how do we market ourselves that most women would say, 92 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:16,560 Ron Harrison: I go to the hairdresser every month or something like that. 93 00:07:18,060 --> 00:07:21,780 Ron Harrison: It isn't just a haircut, it's a style and all this other things that go with it. 94 00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:27,580 Ron Harrison: Why is pest control that only maybe 25% of us feel like for our homes that that's required? 95 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:32,440 Ron Harrison: Now, commercially, it's better, mainly because government requires that. 96 00:07:33,210 --> 00:07:39,780 Ron Harrison: So I just kind of like to start with that philosophy that this industry, I think, is 97 00:07:40,410 --> 00:07:47,620 Ron Harrison: potentially, I mean, is apt to grow significantly more and not to tell company secrets. 98 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:56,280 Ron Harrison: But Orkin, which is now a $4 billion, Rollins or Orkin, which is a $4 billion company, has 99 00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:57,039 Ron Harrison: set a goal. 100 00:07:57,740 --> 00:08:15,420 Ron Harrison: That in five years, they want to double. And that was set last year. So, you know, they're seeing opportunities and the way that we grow is that we organically grow, meaning, you know, helping people understand the value of pest control. And then we build by companies as well. 101 00:08:16,220 --> 00:08:34,200 Ron Harrison: And so those of you there that maybe have your own businesses, if you run a really good, solid business, then I hope at some point and you get tired of it or you don't have family to pass it on to, companies like Orkin or others certainly are there if you're a good company to buy you. 102 00:08:34,300 --> 00:08:35,680 Ron Harrison: Now, I'm not involved with that. 103 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:37,800 Ron Harrison: I can put you in direction with those. 104 00:08:37,900 --> 00:08:43,260 Ron Harrison: So I think that the pest control industry is strong and has great potential. 105 00:08:43,460 --> 00:08:45,280 Ron Harrison: And we're expanding globally. 106 00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:51,280 Ron Harrison: We're in 75 countries, but I was in a meeting in Malaysia of the 107 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:57,680 Ron Harrison: Asian Pest Control Association. And I mean, thousands of people were attending this meeting 108 00:08:58,010 --> 00:09:03,760 Ron Harrison: and discussions of pest control and scientists were discussing, you know, every area that we're 109 00:09:03,880 --> 00:09:08,640 Ron Harrison: in in the world has opportunities. Cambodia, we have over 100 technicians in Cambodia, 110 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:12,660 Ron Harrison: small country that, you know, had a lot of challenges politically for a long time. 111 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:32,120 Ron Harrison: So, so my first discussion, what is the value of pest control? And I think I've kind of related to that. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. But this is kind of my outline that I'd like to cover for the next few minutes. And, and we'll go to, you know, somewhere close to a little before four, and then take a 10 minute break and then come back and wrap it up. 112 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:35,279 Ron Harrison: I'm happy to answer questions throughout. 113 00:09:35,740 --> 00:09:39,320 Ron Harrison: Sometimes that's a little bit tricky because I may not see all of the questions come through. 114 00:09:39,420 --> 00:09:44,680 Ron Harrison: But, Richie, if there is a question that's legitimate and you'd like to interrupt me, that certainly is fine. 115 00:09:44,980 --> 00:09:49,680 Ron Harrison: The second bullet point that I'd like to talk about is what are the opportunities that, 116 00:09:49,540 --> 00:09:58,620 Ron Harrison: that are available. And I just was thinking, you know, this came across my desk, but, you know, 117 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:05,440 Ron Harrison: it's a flashlight and this one has an Orkin. Let's see if I can shine it up here. Yeah, there we go. 118 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:12,480 Ron Harrison: You know, it has an Orkin diamond on it. It has an LED fluorescent and inflorescent light on it. 119 00:10:13,900 --> 00:10:34,080 Ron Harrison: There you see the blue light or black light. And so if you're into electronics or into light, we got to have a good flashlight. So the point that I make is, well, and just another little side note, bed bugs came along. And so a very good friend of mine, Will, was into the mattress or into bedding. 120 00:10:34,860 --> 00:10:42,680 Ron Harrison: And so he actually came up with a bed bug mattress encasement that could be put on mattresses, therefore to protect the mattress and such. 121 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:48,940 Ron Harrison: So here you have who would have thought that fabrics would be part of pest control. 122 00:10:49,020 --> 00:10:51,160 Ron Harrison: So there are many, many opportunities. 123 00:10:51,620 --> 00:10:57,620 Ron Harrison: And, you know, whether and unfortunately, sometimes we get customers that are not happy and they want to sue us. 124 00:10:57,640 --> 00:10:59,700 Ron Harrison: So we've got a legal department. And how do we market? 125 00:11:00,260 --> 00:11:01,380 Ron Harrison: you know, sales department. 126 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:05,120 Ron Harrison: My third bullet point will be kind of concentrating on some of the challenges. 127 00:11:05,500 --> 00:11:06,400 Ron Harrison: And I'll go through some of that. 128 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,100 Ron Harrison: And then my thoughts on the future. 129 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:11,880 Ron Harrison: You know, you look at Danny looks young. 130 00:11:12,250 --> 00:11:16,600 Ron Harrison: You know, at some point we, you know, we sit back and hopefully we're still working and enjoying it. 131 00:11:16,630 --> 00:11:22,740 Ron Harrison: But we kind of reminisce a little bit of where we're headed and what's going to, what does the future hold? 132 00:11:22,860 --> 00:11:24,680 Ron Harrison: So I'll share with you a little bit of those thoughts. 133 00:11:25,340 --> 00:11:27,540 Ron Harrison: And at the end, I'll put up my information. 134 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:28,400 Ron Harrison: You're certainly welcome. 135 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:30,420 Ron Harrison: to get a hold of me. 136 00:11:30,899 --> 00:11:31,800 Rich Braman: Hey, Ron. 137 00:11:32,180 --> 00:11:32,580 Rich Braman: Yes. 138 00:11:33,019 --> 00:11:36,420 Rich Braman: I think I stole the slide share from you. 139 00:11:36,959 --> 00:11:38,720 Rich Braman: Can you go ahead and share it with us again? 140 00:11:39,399 --> 00:11:39,620 Ron Harrison: Okay. 141 00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:41,720 Ron Harrison: I certainly will. 142 00:11:42,700 --> 00:11:44,100 Rich Braman: Sorry to stop you right in the middle. 143 00:11:44,140 --> 00:11:45,180 Ron Harrison: Oh, that's a good point. 144 00:11:45,899 --> 00:11:49,320 Ron Harrison: I'm going to, I think we went to managing access, right? 145 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:50,779 Ron Harrison: Was that on the share? 146 00:11:51,820 --> 00:11:52,180 Ron Harrison: I think. 147 00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:52,700 Ron Harrison: so 148 00:11:53,700 --> 00:11:54,400 Rich Braman: it should be 149 00:11:54,430 --> 00:11:54,720 Rich Braman: that share 150 00:11:54,930 --> 00:11:55,280 Rich Braman: button right 151 00:11:55,330 --> 00:11:55,760 Rich Braman: next to the 152 00:11:55,950 --> 00:11:56,500 Rich Braman: react heart 153 00:11:57,940 --> 00:11:58,500 Rich Braman: might have to 154 00:11:58,590 --> 00:11:59,000 Rich Braman: click on the 155 00:11:59,160 --> 00:11:59,540 Rich Braman: zoom window 156 00:11:59,770 --> 00:12:00,240 Rich Braman: can you 157 00:12:00,500 --> 00:12:00,780 Rich Braman: can you 158 00:12:00,940 --> 00:12:01,260 Rich Braman: see me 159 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:02,940 Rich Braman: I cannot 160 00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:03,540 Rich Braman: see you 161 00:12:03,900 --> 00:12:04,040 Rich Braman: so 162 00:12:04,180 --> 00:12:04,240 Rich Braman: okay 163 00:12:04,900 --> 00:12:05,140 Rich Braman: am I 164 00:12:05,420 --> 00:12:05,820 Rich Braman: I'm not 165 00:12:05,950 --> 00:12:06,220 Rich Braman: showing up 166 00:12:06,300 --> 00:12:06,520 Rich Braman: for you 167 00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:08,900 Ron Harrison: just a second 168 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:09,560 Ron Harrison: thank you for 169 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:11,180 Ron Harrison: Let me see what I need to do here. 170 00:12:11,740 --> 00:12:15,160 Rich Braman: It might have tried to auto hide your zoom window on ya. 171 00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:17,220 Rich Braman: It does that at me sometimes too. 172 00:12:19,040 --> 00:12:21,660 Rich Braman: So if you hover over your zoom icon down at the bottom of the screen. 173 00:12:21,899 --> 00:12:22,899 Ron Harrison: Now I see you. 174 00:12:23,259 --> 00:12:23,440 Rich Braman: Okay. 175 00:12:24,279 --> 00:12:28,279 Rich Braman: On that window, you should see the react heart and then the share button should be right next 176 00:12:28,519 --> 00:12:28,720 Rich Braman: to it. 177 00:12:29,279 --> 00:12:29,680 Ron Harrison: Okay. 178 00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:30,800 Ron Harrison: So I've got that. 179 00:12:32,220 --> 00:12:32,740 Rich Braman: And then if you. 180 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:34,180 Ron Harrison: Fish on share. 181 00:12:34,940 --> 00:12:35,340 Rich Braman: Yes, sir. 182 00:12:35,940 --> 00:12:38,480 Ron Harrison: And I will come to my PowerPoint. 183 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:46,460 Ron Harrison: Where did it go? 184 00:12:53,180 --> 00:12:55,680 Ron Harrison: Guys, I'm so sorry that I had this. 185 00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:53,800 Ron Harrison: Okay. 186 00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:00,899 Ron Harrison: So my presentation is gone. 187 00:13:01,220 --> 00:13:06,600 Rich Braman: If you scroll, can you see that where it popped up that little window there? 188 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:08,820 Ron Harrison: Blight window or the colorful? 189 00:13:08,820 --> 00:13:11,100 Rich Braman: If you scroll that down, does it pop up under recent? 190 00:13:13,339 --> 00:13:16,019 Rich Braman: Can you roll that down at all with your mouse? 191 00:13:17,380 --> 00:13:21,120 Rich Braman: Because I'm seeing that sort of drag bar to the right of it. 192 00:13:22,260 --> 00:13:22,779 Rich Braman: Oh. 193 00:13:26,980 --> 00:13:31,380 Rich Braman: So you move your mouse over to the right-hand side of that box. 194 00:13:33,340 --> 00:13:35,140 Rich Braman: So keep going to the right. 195 00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:36,920 Rich Braman: Date modified? 196 00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:39,940 Rich Braman: To the right of that, there's that sort of gray bar. 197 00:13:40,260 --> 00:13:40,300 Rich Braman: . 198 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,200 Ron Harrison: Okay. So that's where this is. 199 00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:45,900 Rich Braman: Hiding underneath something else. 200 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:47,000 Ron Harrison: Over here? 201 00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:49,320 Rich Braman: Yeah. Go ahead and click that. 202 00:13:51,260 --> 00:13:51,580 Rich Braman: There we go. 203 00:13:51,900 --> 00:13:52,660 Ron Harrison: There we go. Okay. 204 00:13:55,899 --> 00:13:56,060 Ron Harrison: Okay. 205 00:13:57,389 --> 00:13:58,240 Rich Braman: And so I want to... 206 00:13:58,860 --> 00:14:00,579 Rich Braman: I think if you just go into... 207 00:14:00,579 --> 00:14:02,240 Rich Braman: Yeah, just click your slideshow button. 208 00:14:03,110 --> 00:14:06,660 Rich Braman: Yeah, I hate how they hide that from you when you go to share stuff. 209 00:14:07,180 --> 00:14:07,420 Rich Braman: Beautiful. 210 00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:09,019 Rich Braman: Thank you so much for your help. 211 00:14:09,220 --> 00:14:09,660 Ron Harrison: All right. 212 00:14:11,139 --> 00:14:11,560 Ron Harrison: All right. 213 00:14:11,589 --> 00:14:14,800 Ron Harrison: So we kind of got that... 214 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:17,880 Ron Harrison: Oh, just a second. 215 00:14:19,620 --> 00:14:20,200 Ron Harrison: Well, I'm sorry. 216 00:14:20,399 --> 00:14:21,899 Ron Harrison: That was the wrong slide. 217 00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:22,760 Ron Harrison: That was the... 218 00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:26,300 Ron Harrison: I got to go. 219 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:30,760 Ron Harrison: Oh, God. 220 00:14:33,279 --> 00:14:33,480 Ron Harrison: Okay. 221 00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:37,640 Ron Harrison: So let's see, what did we, we went over here again. 222 00:14:39,460 --> 00:14:40,380 Ron Harrison: I don't know where I'm at. 223 00:14:43,400 --> 00:14:44,140 Ron Harrison: More things. 224 00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:47,060 Ron Harrison: I don't want to do that. 225 00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:50,580 Ron Harrison: I'm sorry, Richie, now I'm completely lost where I'm at. 226 00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:52,080 Ron Harrison: See, this isn't what I want here. 227 00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:55,440 Ron Harrison: Okay, let me come back. 228 00:14:57,400 --> 00:14:59,480 Ron Harrison: So it's not in that. 229 00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:01,000 Ron Harrison: Oh, here we go. 230 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:02,380 Ron Harrison: Okay, well, just a moment. 231 00:15:04,220 --> 00:15:04,940 Ron Harrison: Let's see. 232 00:15:09,100 --> 00:15:09,300 Ron Harrison: Okay. 233 00:15:10,820 --> 00:15:11,420 Ron Harrison: Yeah, there we go. 234 00:15:11,860 --> 00:15:12,100 Ron Harrison: All right. 235 00:15:12,310 --> 00:15:14,680 Ron Harrison: So I'm going to, let's see if this does it. 236 00:15:17,340 --> 00:15:18,200 Ron Harrison: Folks, I'm very sorry. 237 00:15:18,300 --> 00:15:18,760 Ron Harrison: Okay, very good. 238 00:15:18,900 --> 00:15:19,520 Ron Harrison: This is where we're at. 239 00:15:19,790 --> 00:15:19,880 Ron Harrison: Okay. 240 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:25,459 Ron Harrison: Great. Thanks. Okay. So this was, okay. I'm sorry. Can we see it? Is everyone with me? 241 00:15:25,540 --> 00:15:27,000 Rich Braman: Yeah. No, it's looking good, Ron. 242 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:30,860 Ron Harrison: Okay. Thanks so much. So those are the four bullet points then that I'm going to cover 243 00:15:30,030 --> 00:15:30,120 Ron Harrison: Okay. 244 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:33,800 Ron Harrison: kind of the value and we've kind of covered that opportunities in the way. 245 00:15:34,700 --> 00:15:39,560 Ron Harrison: Okay. So I wanted to start out with this. This happened a couple of years ago, but I think it is 246 00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:41,800 Ron Harrison: important for us to 247 00:15:41,839 --> 00:15:44,959 Ron Harrison: look at the opportunities that are globally. 248 00:15:45,100 --> 00:15:49,360 Ron Harrison: And here we might be interested in some of the invasive species that we sometimes see. 249 00:15:50,019 --> 00:15:56,040 Ron Harrison: The lantern bug, bed bugs, of course, a few years ago, and then even before that, fire 250 00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:57,019 Ron Harrison: ants and such. 251 00:15:57,519 --> 00:16:03,820 Ron Harrison: But in during the Olympics, the summer Olympics, that there was some indications that bed bugs 252 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,700 Ron Harrison: were sweeping all over Paris. 253 00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:15,500 Ron Harrison: Now, many of us were kind of concerned about that data and comes out that it was really most of it was fabricated for someone from Germany. 254 00:16:11,220 --> 00:16:11,779 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 255 00:16:16,079 --> 00:16:21,480 Ron Harrison: But the point is, the pests that we deal with are of great concern to people. 256 00:16:22,620 --> 00:16:29,399 Ron Harrison: And, you know, I don't know about Dan, but we're entomologists and, you know, we know we work with bugs. 257 00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,600 Ron Harrison: But, you know, I'm not going to sleep in a bed that has bed bugs. 258 00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:43,520 Ron Harrison: And so even an entomologist like myself that works with bugs and is done it now for 30, 40 years, we still all have our limits. 259 00:16:44,270 --> 00:16:45,380 Ron Harrison: And the same with rodents. 260 00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:50,640 Ron Harrison: In my neighborhood, there's some roof rats kind of running around. 261 00:16:51,490 --> 00:16:54,220 Ron Harrison: And one time, one found its way inside, and I wasn't happy. 262 00:16:55,340 --> 00:16:58,100 Ron Harrison: So I think that this concept... 263 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:05,480 Ron Harrison: that rodents or pests whatsoever are very frustrating and concerning to most people. 264 00:17:06,179 --> 00:17:09,980 Ron Harrison: And so it isn't a phase that people are going to get out of. 265 00:17:11,059 --> 00:17:17,120 Ron Harrison: And also, it's an interesting commentary about pests and the like, 266 00:17:17,299 --> 00:17:19,880 Ron Harrison: that there's so many factors that feed into it. 267 00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:22,000 Ron Harrison: So let's just talk about for a moment... 268 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:26,880 Ron Harrison: the greatest plague that from a percentage of people's deaths, 269 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:34,800 Ron Harrison: we probably all happen to say that the black plague that hit Europe and Asia in the 12, 13, 270 00:17:34,980 --> 00:17:41,400 Ron Harrison: 14 hundreds, probably was the biggest single impact of mortality. 271 00:17:42,580 --> 00:17:49,840 Ron Harrison: The earth had hit 25 to 30 percent of all people died because of the plague. 272 00:17:50,500 --> 00:17:55,520 Ron Harrison: Now, we all probably know, you know, what was the cause of that? 273 00:17:55,780 --> 00:18:00,660 Ron Harrison: Well, it was fleas that were on the back of rodents. 274 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:04,860 Ron Harrison: But what led to the solution? 275 00:18:05,780 --> 00:18:07,400 Ron Harrison: And it was really our industry. 276 00:18:07,580 --> 00:18:13,160 Ron Harrison: It was the pest control industry, and though maybe it wasn't officially the industry, but it was folks that had figured out, had done the science. 277 00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:19,520 Ron Harrison: that had said or had determined that if you can keep the rodents away from your village, 278 00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:26,580 Ron Harrison: you don't get plague. And so therefore there was great work and effort put into ensuring that 279 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:31,880 Ron Harrison: rodents weren't on some of the carts that were delivering food and other belongings into a village 280 00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:36,160 Ron Harrison: from maybe the farms or something like that. And so if you could protect yourself, 281 00:18:37,780 --> 00:18:40,919 Ron Harrison: from rodents, you reduced your risk. 282 00:18:41,559 --> 00:18:43,039 Ron Harrison: Well, that's only one part of the story. 283 00:18:43,380 --> 00:18:48,760 Ron Harrison: And I like to brag on that, that it was the pest control industry that had a major impact 284 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:53,580 Ron Harrison: on reducing the spread of plague and reducing mortality. 285 00:18:54,020 --> 00:18:56,320 Ron Harrison: So we might say, well, doctors were important. 286 00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,620 Ron Harrison: No, it was pest control folks that really, because doctors never really had a solution 287 00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:00,060 Ron Harrison: for it. 288 00:19:00,230 --> 00:19:02,840 Ron Harrison: They didn't even understand what was going on, but we knew keep the rats away. 289 00:19:03,060 --> 00:19:07,920 Ron Harrison: Now, at that point, I don't know if we were completely had figured out that the fleas that 290 00:19:07,980 --> 00:19:10,940 Ron Harrison: were being carried by the rodents, but clearly fewer rodents. 291 00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:13,760 Ron Harrison: Now, that leads to another interesting question. 292 00:19:14,300 --> 00:19:19,880 Ron Harrison: Why or how did that happen that the rodents had become such a bad problem? 293 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:22,700 Ron Harrison: And that's an interesting point. 294 00:19:22,700 --> 00:19:29,540 Ron Harrison: And that's how pest control merges into culture and people's experience. 295 00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:39,480 Ron Harrison: So before that, unfortunately, the church had said that black cats were of the devil. 296 00:19:40,520 --> 00:19:46,900 Ron Harrison: And so there was a concerted effort, particularly to eliminate black cats, and 297 00:19:47,140 --> 00:20:03,520 Ron Harrison: Well, I'm going to spend a little bit of time on integrated pest management and how that kind of functions and what we do. But the point that I want to get through is that the first component of a good integrated pest management program is biological control. 298 00:20:04,659 --> 00:20:11,880 Ron Harrison: And so here the church had discouraged people from utilizing and not that they even thought about it being an impact on rodents. 299 00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:16,700 Ron Harrison: But if you reduce the cat population, then you increase the rodent population. 300 00:20:17,559 --> 00:20:23,179 Ron Harrison: And we know that that happens on the cyclic prey versus predator approach. 301 00:20:22,820 --> 00:20:26,480 Ron Harrison: chart that it's a bell curve, you know, so, 302 00:20:26,840 --> 00:20:30,600 Ron Harrison: so all of a sudden the rabbits start to incline and they get very high and now 303 00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:33,060 Ron Harrison: there's a big supply of rabbits. So then what happens? 304 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,040 Ron Harrison: The Fox population follows it. 305 00:20:35,420 --> 00:20:40,100 Ron Harrison: And then at the peak starts eating all of the rabbits and then that plunges and 306 00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:42,820 Ron Harrison: And then fox plunges and it kind of goes up and down. 307 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:47,179 Ron Harrison: Well, that same concept was happening, you know, particularly with cats. 308 00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:58,980 Ron Harrison: Once you're getting rid of all the cats and the rodent population increases, the rodents, which traditionally probably had a few fleas on them, therefore were exposing more people that therefore got sick and caused that mass issue. 309 00:20:59,020 --> 00:21:05,380 Ron Harrison: issue. So here we have an example, not with bedbugs, but with fleas in which the church was 310 00:21:05,580 --> 00:21:11,320 Ron Harrison: involved. Now, let's talk about some other issues. So as Dan mentioned, my opportunity in my job is 311 00:21:11,380 --> 00:21:20,420 Ron Harrison: to travel globally. And the pigeon population in Saudi Arabia and in Oman is some of the highest 312 00:21:20,990 --> 00:21:27,600 Ron Harrison: of anywhere in the world. Well, which countries are the 313 00:21:27,620 --> 00:21:34,039 Ron Harrison: the most i guess you could say orthodox or religious well of course saudi arabia which 314 00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:42,059 Ron Harrison: has mecca and medina that would be and so when i go there to help with pest issues the um many many 315 00:21:42,340 --> 00:21:45,640 Ron Harrison: everywhere i go people are feeding the pigeons why are they feeding the pigeons because the 316 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:51,400 Ron Harrison: prophet muhammad recommended and said that you should specifically take care of pigeons 317 00:21:52,140 --> 00:22:06,320 Ron Harrison: And so two of the most conservative countries in the area, being Oman and being Saudi Arabia, they're right next to each other, have a serious problem with pigeons because from a religious end, that was the same thing that was happening in Europe. 318 00:22:06,860 --> 00:22:15,080 Ron Harrison: with the black cats. So the point that we're getting at is that culture, attitude impacts 319 00:22:15,900 --> 00:22:24,780 Ron Harrison: what our industry. And are we ready then to see the next introduction or the next pest problem 320 00:22:25,420 --> 00:22:29,320 Ron Harrison: that would be on the way? So let me step back. 321 00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:44,900 Ron Harrison: I started out with a story about pest control industry solving the plague problem in the 1200s, 1300s, 1400s. And that seems pretty valuable, pretty important to me. 322 00:22:45,420 --> 00:22:54,540 Ron Harrison: But what are we looked at as a whole? Are we compare, you know, when your kids are growing up, 323 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,660 Ron Harrison: do they think about being a pest control professional? Is that, you know, or is there 324 00:22:59,780 --> 00:23:08,280 Ron Harrison: another profession? So I have some friends that I, that I go to church with and we had a, 325 00:23:09,660 --> 00:23:16,700 Ron Harrison: Halloween, I think they call it trunk or trunk or treat at the church. I didn't go. But, you know, 326 00:23:17,179 --> 00:23:21,559 Ron Harrison: rather than the kids going door to door houses, everyone would park their cars and then the kids 327 00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:24,220 Ron Harrison: would go from trunk to trunk of the car and, you know, 328 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:25,120 Ron Harrison: get candy. 329 00:23:25,710 --> 00:23:27,180 Ron Harrison: And so some parents dressed up. 330 00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:27,380 Ron Harrison: Anyway, 331 00:23:27,380 --> 00:23:28,300 Ron Harrison: I saw the pictures after. 332 00:23:28,590 --> 00:23:29,920 Ron Harrison: So these two good friends of mine, 333 00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,740 Ron Harrison: I'm dressed up as, 334 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:33,420 Ron Harrison: as Orkin. 335 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:34,800 Ron Harrison: And one was, 336 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:35,920 Ron Harrison: had to sign the other one. 337 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:36,340 Ron Harrison: Anyway, 338 00:23:37,300 --> 00:23:38,100 Ron Harrison: they certainly, 339 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:39,580 Ron Harrison: but I think in general, 340 00:23:40,140 --> 00:23:42,180 Ron Harrison: it may not be the, 341 00:23:42,220 --> 00:23:59,380 Ron Harrison: the top profession because people may not look at it positively when we really are a major impact on people's lives and health of lives. And that's certainly proven during the pandemic. 342 00:23:59,820 --> 00:24:05,300 Ron Harrison: because the pest control industry was considered an essential service. 343 00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,140 Ron Harrison: And so when I was, 344 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:11,680 Ron Harrison: when all of my neighbors were kind of stuck in their house and couldn't drive 345 00:24:11,700 --> 00:24:12,600 Ron Harrison: or couldn't leave their house, 346 00:24:13,260 --> 00:24:16,780 Ron Harrison: I had the form that was sent to me from the government that we were in 347 00:24:16,860 --> 00:24:17,340 Ron Harrison: essential service. 348 00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:19,440 Ron Harrison: So I could come into the office and, 349 00:24:19,260 --> 00:24:23,100 Ron Harrison: Any day I needed to, I could go out and service customers anytime if they needed some support. 350 00:24:23,780 --> 00:24:32,300 Ron Harrison: So I would say we need to flip that upside down and that we are should be looked at extremely high and very valuable. 351 00:24:33,900 --> 00:24:38,820 Ron Harrison: I do think that last bullet point that I'd like to kind of just, you know, kind of touch on for just a second. 352 00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:54,380 Ron Harrison: Are we professional? And we do dirty jobs. You know, we're in crawl spaces, we're in annex. In fact, so not two or three months ago, I was in Guyana, South America. 353 00:24:55,300 --> 00:24:57,980 Ron Harrison: and Orkin has a huge operation there. 354 00:24:58,620 --> 00:25:00,180 Ron Harrison: And we were in a mall. 355 00:25:00,500 --> 00:25:01,480 Ron Harrison: We had the whole mall, 356 00:25:01,660 --> 00:25:04,200 Ron Harrison: but some of the tenants of the mall didn't use our service. 357 00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,800 Ron Harrison: And so we were trying to help them realize that it's a good idea. 358 00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,100 Ron Harrison: And so I went to one restaurant and... 359 00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:14,580 Ron Harrison: you know, looking around and expecting like all of you know that we do. 360 00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:17,200 Ron Harrison: And when I walked out, I had grease. 361 00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:19,559 Ron Harrison: I mean, I had to throw the clothes away. 362 00:25:20,179 --> 00:25:22,080 Ron Harrison: So it is dirty and it's nasty. 363 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:27,400 Ron Harrison: So I get the point that we're doing, but do we appear... 364 00:25:27,900 --> 00:25:35,180 Ron Harrison: professional. And, you know, Dan, I don't know if you remember this, but it was way back the first 365 00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:41,240 Ron Harrison: 20 years ago that some folks came to the training, a couple of guys had been around a long time. 366 00:25:42,100 --> 00:25:45,860 Ron Harrison: And I don't know if they came for CEUs. I don't even know if we had CEUs back then, but 367 00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:51,140 Ron Harrison: 20 years ago, we probably did. But anyway, I kind of, I posed the question, you know, 368 00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:55,220 Ron Harrison: what are we thought of? The same question, are we professional? What do people think of us? 369 00:25:55,940 --> 00:26:03,420 Ron Harrison: And one guy at the back, I'll forget, I think he had been in the Atlanta area, but I think he lived up north somewhere in northern part of Georgia at the time. 370 00:26:03,940 --> 00:26:09,880 Ron Harrison: I said, what have we thought about? And he said, dumb and drunk were the terms that he used. 371 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,960 Ron Harrison: And that wasn't 20 years ago. It was maybe before that. But the point is, 372 00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:17,720 Ron Harrison: you know, we really need to concentrate on how do we present ourselves. 373 00:26:18,260 --> 00:26:22,640 Ron Harrison: And it's very common for the Orkin salesperson to wear a suit. 374 00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:26,980 Ron Harrison: You know, do we look dirty or do we look straight? You know, I mean, 375 00:26:27,060 --> 00:26:31,080 Ron Harrison: even when we go into someone's houses, do we put on booties on our shoes? 376 00:26:31,180 --> 00:26:33,340 Ron Harrison: Do we take off our shoes? You know, 377 00:26:33,420 --> 00:26:54,060 Ron Harrison: Are we professional in it? And I think as we continue to show our value, that becomes part of a little bit of what we do. And I hope that people look at our profession as valuable, essential as the government deemed us to be, and as well as that in all of our actions and behaviors, you know, we are professional. 378 00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:11,299 Ron Harrison: So then what do we do and what is our involvement? And so I want to start out with this because we support good health. And, you know, there's kind of this term that kind of goes around about 379 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:26,780 Ron Harrison: What health or the concept isn't just pest control, but it's healthy living and it's the environment and all these things lead to pest controls a component of that, of an overall health for people. 380 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:36,480 Ron Harrison: But let's, I mean, we can go to the extremes, but what animal is the most dangerous to human health? 381 00:27:37,380 --> 00:27:39,100 Ron Harrison: And, of course, I think everyone would jump. 382 00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:40,120 Ron Harrison: Well, of course, it's mosquitoes. 383 00:27:41,540 --> 00:27:48,320 Ron Harrison: We have a big operation in Kenya, so I get to go over and service them a bit and, you know, be able to do some safaris or go out in the bush. 384 00:27:48,460 --> 00:27:53,040 Ron Harrison: And, you know, you've got your elephants and rhinoceroses and hippos and giraffes and stuff like that. 385 00:27:53,100 --> 00:27:56,600 Ron Harrison: And buffalo, the Cape buffalo animals. 386 00:27:56,740 --> 00:28:01,260 Ron Harrison: But none of them are as impactful on lives of people than the mosquito. 387 00:28:02,220 --> 00:28:07,580 Ron Harrison: The World Health Organization tells us that, you know, we have one to two million people 388 00:28:07,660 --> 00:28:10,160 Ron Harrison: that die because of mosquitoes every year on the planet. 389 00:28:10,300 --> 00:28:14,460 Ron Harrison: And that's because of a variety of diseases that they transmit. 390 00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:20,840 Ron Harrison: But malaria, chikungunya, dengue, Zika was a problem a few years back. 391 00:28:20,940 --> 00:28:23,000 Ron Harrison: It doesn't seem to be a big problem now. 392 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:24,900 Ron Harrison: Dr. 393 00:28:25,790 --> 00:28:26,240 Ron Harrison: Kobe Shah, 394 00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:28,860 Ron Harrison: him in Orlando, 395 00:28:29,430 --> 00:28:29,820 Ron Harrison: and, you know, 396 00:28:30,120 --> 00:28:31,620 Ron Harrison: he's done a lot of work with asthma 397 00:28:32,360 --> 00:28:34,100 Ron Harrison: and breathing issues associated 398 00:28:34,150 --> 00:28:35,760 Ron Harrison: with pests, particularly cockroaches. 399 00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:36,760 Ron Harrison: And I think he's done some stuff 400 00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:37,640 Ron Harrison: with rodents as well. 401 00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:39,760 Ron Harrison: And find out that 402 00:28:40,590 --> 00:28:41,640 Ron Harrison: inner city housing, 403 00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:43,980 Ron Harrison: that cockroaches 404 00:28:43,980 --> 00:28:45,960 Ron Harrison: are one of the leading causes of asthma 405 00:28:46,180 --> 00:28:47,260 Ron Harrison: that impact people. 406 00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:48,900 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, 407 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:51,800 Ron Harrison: most of the fire ants 408 00:28:52,720 --> 00:29:03,760 Ron Harrison: You know, unfortunately, there are a variety of people that were severely harmed, but some people died in nursing homes because fire ants found a patient. 409 00:28:53,260 --> 00:28:53,780 Ron Harrison: are 410 00:29:04,419 --> 00:29:06,440 Ron Harrison: The patient couldn't express themselves. 411 00:29:06,460 --> 00:29:08,620 Ron Harrison: The fire ants were attracted to it. 412 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:09,880 Ron Harrison: some of the odors and 413 00:29:11,540 --> 00:29:12,720 Ron Harrison: people who soiled themselves 414 00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:14,180 Ron Harrison: and then started biting people 415 00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:16,640 Ron Harrison: and actually the number of bites ended up killing people 416 00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:18,800 Ron Harrison: so mosquitoes and fire 417 00:29:19,060 --> 00:29:20,400 Ron Harrison: ants and flies 418 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,020 Ron Harrison: variety ticks in the United States 419 00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:24,680 Ron Harrison: ticks are the number one 420 00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:26,500 Ron Harrison: disease transmitter globally 421 00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:28,640 Ron Harrison: it's mosquitoes and flies and flies fit into 422 00:29:28,700 --> 00:29:47,679 Ron Harrison: So clearly what we do, and I think from a marketing standpoint, we need to lead with that. Now, I don't know about you, but for me, my biggest investment was buying my house. And, you know, unfortunately, termites and beetles, carpenter bees and others can be highly destructive. 423 00:29:48,520 --> 00:30:05,600 Ron Harrison: You know, actually, in Kenya, when I go out and visit the bush and some of the native tribes, if they use wood whatsoever, every five years you got to replace it. It isn't because of weather, it's because the term have eaten all of the wood that was associated with it. 424 00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:16,460 Ron Harrison: So protecting people's investments, their structures, buildings, whatever, certainly a big issue that we are involved with. 425 00:30:16,460 --> 00:30:19,940 Ron Harrison: Now, let me kind of stop there for just a minute and kind of think about this. 426 00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:28,980 Ron Harrison: It's not as big an issue now, but if you go back 25 years, 20, somewhere in that 26 years, 427 00:30:30,100 --> 00:30:37,300 Ron Harrison: the government in the United States had said to us that chlorinated hydrocarbons could not be 428 00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:43,300 Ron Harrison: applied to the soil anymore. And even then after that was organophosphates that couldn't. So 429 00:30:43,420 --> 00:30:49,820 Ron Harrison: chlordane would be a good example. So Orkin at that point took the initiative to say rather than 430 00:30:49,820 --> 00:30:58,200 Ron Harrison: to be completely forced into it, we approached scientists and others. Are there other products on 431 00:30:58,980 --> 00:31:04,899 Ron Harrison: And so scientists and our own research indicated that we could use other products. 432 00:31:04,909 --> 00:31:06,480 Ron Harrison: And so we started using other products. 433 00:31:07,159 --> 00:31:13,639 Ron Harrison: Unfortunately, the process, the methodology of using these products were very different than chlordane. 434 00:31:14,660 --> 00:31:19,120 Ron Harrison: And termites in general didn't detect chlordane, would go through it. 435 00:31:19,450 --> 00:31:25,620 Ron Harrison: And so you could be very haphazard in your application of chlordane around a house and would give very, very good control. 436 00:31:26,260 --> 00:31:32,860 Ron Harrison: Well, unfortunately, the newer products that were on the market, the scientists and pest control, excuse me, manufacturers, 437 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,500 Ron Harrison: had sold us on were not as forgiving. 438 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,019 Ron Harrison: That if you didn't do it exactly right, 439 00:31:39,659 --> 00:31:41,580 Ron Harrison: you would have termite problems. 440 00:31:41,740 --> 00:31:43,740 Ron Harrison: And so therefore we gave people guarantees. 441 00:31:44,340 --> 00:31:46,880 Ron Harrison: If the termites damage your structure 442 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:48,019 Ron Harrison: after we've done the service, 443 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:49,279 Ron Harrison: then we will pay it out. 444 00:31:49,399 --> 00:31:50,760 Ron Harrison: Well, the reason I tell this story 445 00:31:51,519 --> 00:31:54,480 Ron Harrison: is when it comes to how you approach pest control. 446 00:31:55,380 --> 00:31:57,100 Ron Harrison: Orkin at one point, I think one year 447 00:31:57,220 --> 00:31:59,700 Ron Harrison: had $25 million worth of claims 448 00:32:00,679 --> 00:32:03,159 Ron Harrison: that our service was, 449 00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:05,720 Ron Harrison: was not protecting against termites. 450 00:32:05,770 --> 00:32:08,360 Ron Harrison: And that was the time that I came to work at Orkin here, 451 00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:10,240 Ron Harrison: and we built our big learning center. 452 00:32:10,460 --> 00:32:13,540 Ron Harrison: And the first purpose for the learning center was to train our people 453 00:32:13,930 --> 00:32:17,120 Ron Harrison: to ensure that we could reduce that claim issues. 454 00:32:17,470 --> 00:32:20,360 Ron Harrison: Well, so, you know, these claims are high. 455 00:32:20,510 --> 00:32:23,100 Ron Harrison: And I recall being in a meeting with Mr. Rollins, 456 00:32:23,340 --> 00:32:26,160 Ron Harrison: he was the owner of Orkin, and he said, 457 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,820 Ron Harrison: $25 million, why are we in the termite industry? 458 00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:36,500 Ron Harrison: you know it's just killing us and um and he just said that kind of facetiously out loud 459 00:32:37,020 --> 00:32:42,860 Ron Harrison: but can you be in pest control if you don't are a full service pest control company if you say oh we 460 00:32:42,900 --> 00:32:48,340 Ron Harrison: don't do bed bugs but we do cockroaches we don't do termites but and so therefore what where do we 461 00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:52,600 Ron Harrison: stand and in your experience those folks are listening to me today 462 00:32:52,900 --> 00:32:57,580 Ron Harrison: you know, is, does that need to be part of your offering or can you be selective? 463 00:32:58,020 --> 00:32:58,880 Ron Harrison: Let me give an example. 464 00:32:59,100 --> 00:33:07,140 Ron Harrison: So I just got back at Christmas time from the Port Said or the Suez Canal and Orkin 465 00:33:07,220 --> 00:33:08,039 Ron Harrison: services that. 466 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:14,760 Ron Harrison: And, you know, they had cafeterias and housing and offices and all this, which Orkin is really, 467 00:33:14,940 --> 00:33:15,460 Ron Harrison: really good at. 468 00:33:15,980 --> 00:33:17,400 Ron Harrison: But they had two pests. 469 00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,760 Ron Harrison: that are causing us a bit of a challenge. 470 00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,960 Ron Harrison: For instance, stray dogs. 471 00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:29,240 Ron Harrison: Well, in the U.S., if you've got a dog, 472 00:33:29,340 --> 00:33:32,400 Ron Harrison: you call the pound, the county pound, 473 00:33:32,500 --> 00:33:33,260 Ron Harrison: they come and pick it up. 474 00:33:34,260 --> 00:33:35,700 Ron Harrison: Well, there is nothing like that in Egypt. 475 00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,940 Ron Harrison: And so then you say, well, I guess it would be a little bit like in Jordan. 476 00:33:42,470 --> 00:33:49,760 Ron Harrison: We have a huge refinery there, oil refinery or shell mining is what's used for oil deposits anyway. 477 00:33:50,380 --> 00:33:52,260 Ron Harrison: And wild dogs were a problem there. 478 00:33:52,289 --> 00:33:53,419 Ron Harrison: And then all of a sudden they disappeared. 479 00:33:53,820 --> 00:33:56,740 Ron Harrison: And one of the new contractors that came in was from Asia. 480 00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:15,040 Ron Harrison: They ate the dogs. And so therefore the population completely plummeted. Well, in Egypt, the challenge is no, you cannot. No one eats the dogs. And so that wouldn't be helpful. And the government says you can't kill the dogs. Well, okay, you trap the dogs. What do you do with a trapped dog? 481 00:34:05,970 --> 00:34:06,080 Ron Harrison: And... 482 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:34,600 Ron Harrison: You know, and so then do you just relocate it? Well, dogs will come back several miles to where they came from. And so here we put in a contract. Yes, we'll take care of the stray animals or the feral animals, dogs and such, but can we really service it? The other problem they had was crows. 483 00:34:35,379 --> 00:34:42,899 Ron Harrison: well what do you do with a crow can you poison the crow can you shoot the crow crows very 484 00:34:43,179 --> 00:34:48,020 Ron Harrison: intelligent bird and so they learn pretty quickly that who's doing this and so then they learn to 485 00:34:48,100 --> 00:34:52,240 Ron Harrison: completely avoid them and so now you're stuck with this so so the pest control industry when 486 00:34:52,250 --> 00:34:58,100 Ron Harrison: you think about it a little bit yes we protect health on the other side can we always protect 487 00:34:58,380 --> 00:35:01,200 Ron Harrison: investment are we going to be involved actually in that 488 00:35:01,940 --> 00:35:03,680 Ron Harrison: public health, what are those pests? 489 00:35:03,710 --> 00:35:05,339 Ron Harrison: And I started up at the top of cockroaches 490 00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:06,960 Ron Harrison: that Dr. Kobachan has done a lot with. 491 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:09,880 Ron Harrison: When we come, if I was to ask you, 492 00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,780 Ron Harrison: what are the top five pests that you deal with? 493 00:35:13,619 --> 00:35:17,460 Ron Harrison: I think you're probably going to talk about cockroaches. 494 00:35:17,670 --> 00:35:18,820 Ron Harrison: I think that will be up there. 495 00:35:19,390 --> 00:35:20,680 Ron Harrison: In the summer, maybe mosquitoes. 496 00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:26,720 Ron Harrison: You probably will say rodents are a problem, but you may get into occasional invaders. 497 00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,920 Ron Harrison: You may have earwigs that come in or centipedes that are a problem. 498 00:35:30,720 --> 00:35:36,360 Ron Harrison: But globally, with my experience, houseflies are right up at the top. 499 00:35:37,820 --> 00:35:39,840 Ron Harrison: And particularly, you might ask why. 500 00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:46,260 Ron Harrison: Well, some of the sanitation or cultural issues that are associated with countries outside the United States, 501 00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:48,700 Ron Harrison: it's very different than the United States. 502 00:35:48,730 --> 00:35:49,240 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, 503 00:35:49,900 --> 00:35:50,819 Ron Harrison: because a bit of a problem, 504 00:35:50,900 --> 00:35:52,460 Ron Harrison: I just got back from Cairo, 505 00:35:52,579 --> 00:35:53,119 Ron Harrison: like I mentioned, 506 00:35:53,799 --> 00:35:56,200 Ron Harrison: and Cairo is one of the fastest growing, 507 00:35:56,359 --> 00:35:57,579 Ron Harrison: has the highest birth rate, 508 00:35:57,670 --> 00:35:59,260 Ron Harrison: I think second to only Saudi Arabia. 509 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:04,900 Ron Harrison: And so before all of the... 510 00:36:05,700 --> 00:36:07,359 Ron Harrison: population was along the Nile. 511 00:36:08,140 --> 00:36:11,119 Ron Harrison: Well, then the whole rest of the country was just desert. 512 00:36:12,079 --> 00:36:14,260 Ron Harrison: Now they're able to expand that out. 513 00:36:14,420 --> 00:36:17,020 Ron Harrison: They're desalinating water, the ocean water. 514 00:36:17,180 --> 00:36:18,079 Ron Harrison: They're using that water. 515 00:36:18,150 --> 00:36:19,000 Ron Harrison: They're doing a lot of things. 516 00:36:19,069 --> 00:36:22,260 Ron Harrison: And so when you would go 10, 20 miles away, 517 00:36:22,380 --> 00:36:24,880 Ron Harrison: that's where the garbage was put out in the middle of the desert. 518 00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:26,200 Ron Harrison: No one would ever be there. 519 00:36:26,690 --> 00:36:27,440 Ron Harrison: Made a lot of sense. 520 00:36:27,510 --> 00:36:31,500 Ron Harrison: Well, now as the population increases, it expands out. 521 00:36:31,529 --> 00:36:34,200 Ron Harrison: So we're building developments that, 522 00:36:34,820 --> 00:36:36,599 Ron Harrison: where the garbage was. 523 00:36:37,119 --> 00:36:39,520 Ron Harrison: And then we wonder why are there so many houseflies? 524 00:36:40,700 --> 00:36:42,820 Ron Harrison: The same thing is happening, not so bad as in Egypt, 525 00:36:43,020 --> 00:36:46,040 Ron Harrison: but in UAE, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, 526 00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:50,200 Ron Harrison: is on the outskirts of the main towns was farms. 527 00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:59,080 Ron Harrison: And now as we continue to grow and expand, we're getting very close to these farms, camel farms and others. 528 00:36:59,220 --> 00:37:01,360 Ron Harrison: And so people say, I've got flies. 529 00:37:01,540 --> 00:37:07,780 Ron Harrison: Well, of course you've got flies because your house is right next to a camel farm or a sheep farm or something like that. 530 00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:13,960 Ron Harrison: So I list these pests from a public health standpoint because the previous slide was on human health. 531 00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:19,960 Ron Harrison: But a lot of work on cockroaches, clearly the asthma that they cause coming out of droppings. 532 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,380 Ron Harrison: And there's a lot of interesting good research with that housewives. 533 00:37:23,100 --> 00:37:27,460 Ron Harrison: Fleas have had a reoccurrence, particularly for some resistance that we've seen with fleas. 534 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:34,080 Ron Harrison: rodents they transmit diseases in fact if you go to the cdc's website i assume with all the 535 00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:41,000 Ron Harrison: government issues i i hope it's still up to date but they recommended that women pregnant women 536 00:37:41,420 --> 00:37:47,460 Ron Harrison: never come in contact with rodents and you know some people have pet rodents of course there's 537 00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:58,240 Ron Harrison: wildlife. We just heard a story here in Atlanta that somebody got bit, I think it was by a coyote 538 00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:03,780 Ron Harrison: or a fox, and they found out that animal had rabies, and so therefore they had to go through 539 00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:09,480 Ron Harrison: shots and all sorts of things. And so all of these can be serious problems. And let me just 540 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:14,200 Ron Harrison: touch on the wildlife. That has just ballooned now. 541 00:38:14,020 --> 00:38:21,740 Ron Harrison: now and in in one of our customers in uae in dubai we have to collect camels they are one they're 542 00:38:21,780 --> 00:38:27,000 Ron Harrison: wandering wild all camels are chipped and so when we collect a camel then we find out who owns it if 543 00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,600 Ron Harrison: they don't come collect it then we then they slaughter it for food but you know how do you 544 00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:37,260 Ron Harrison: define wildlife and as i talked earlier about the dogs that are a problem on in the port of saeed in 545 00:38:38,299 --> 00:38:57,140 Ron Harrison: So all of these are specific public health risks. And of course, we're heavily involved in taking care of those property. I alluded to that termites, beetles, ants, all of these fit into that and can be serious problems that cause us issues. Of course, this fits into that. 546 00:38:43,900 --> 00:38:43,980 Ron Harrison: egypt 547 00:38:58,940 --> 00:39:11,140 Ron Harrison: Okay. So my first goal was to help us understand the value, the importance, the impact that the pest control industry has and the opportunity. 548 00:39:12,700 --> 00:39:19,099 Ron Harrison: From my perspective, there are a few opportunities out there where one can. 549 00:39:19,700 --> 00:39:22,940 Ron Harrison: For instance, who is Orkin's competition? 550 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:25,599 Ron Harrison: Now, we think we're the... 551 00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,180 Ron Harrison: one or two of the largest when Rentokil and Terminix combined, 552 00:39:29,340 --> 00:39:31,460 Ron Harrison: I think they globally are a little bit bigger, 553 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:33,360 Ron Harrison: but who are, 554 00:39:33,740 --> 00:39:34,720 Ron Harrison: who is our competition? 555 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:36,300 Ron Harrison: And, 556 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:36,720 Ron Harrison: you know, 557 00:39:36,720 --> 00:39:37,740 Ron Harrison: we can talk about the big guys, 558 00:39:38,860 --> 00:39:40,420 Ron Harrison: but in general, 559 00:39:40,740 --> 00:39:42,320 Ron Harrison: it's the little guy is our competition. 560 00:39:42,660 --> 00:39:43,580 Ron Harrison: And this came to light. 561 00:39:43,580 --> 00:39:44,640 Ron Harrison: We had a, 562 00:39:45,460 --> 00:39:52,360 Ron Harrison: branch manager, northern part of Atlanta years ago, and he left. And so he'd been kind of a friend. 563 00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,760 Ron Harrison: And so we kind of checked in with each other. And I said, what happened? And he said, well, 564 00:39:55,460 --> 00:39:55,580 Ron Harrison: a, 565 00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:04,880 Ron Harrison: I can run my own pest control business in three days and earn as much money as I was earning as a manager with Orkin. 566 00:40:05,700 --> 00:40:08,080 Ron Harrison: And he said, my wife works, so she has insurance. 567 00:40:08,250 --> 00:40:09,560 Ron Harrison: I don't have to worry about that. 568 00:40:10,240 --> 00:40:14,720 Ron Harrison: But there's a huge opportunity to start your own business. 569 00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:21,940 Ron Harrison: And so overall, I think now within that, there's a lot of separate opportunities as well. 570 00:40:21,950 --> 00:40:23,300 Ron Harrison: So let me kind of chat with those. 571 00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:29,680 Ron Harrison: I had an employee, an Orkin employee from Pakistan that just immigrated to the United 572 00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,200 Ron Harrison: States, married an American, and never got a... 573 00:40:33,940 --> 00:40:51,200 Ron Harrison: And so he was hoping to work for Orkin. So I was talking about opportunities and, you know, you got to sell the product. And so Orkin has different ways of selling. We have commercial salespeople that call on salespeople. 574 00:40:51,220 --> 00:40:53,140 Ron Harrison: the Four Seasons here in Atlanta 575 00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:57,180 Ron Harrison: or call on the Atlanta airport or Delta and whatever. 576 00:40:58,300 --> 00:41:00,079 Ron Harrison: We have learned from our perspective 577 00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,960 Ron Harrison: that commercial, excuse me, residentially, 578 00:41:03,700 --> 00:41:06,900 Ron Harrison: most people will happy to buy that over the telephone. 579 00:41:07,700 --> 00:41:09,140 Ron Harrison: So then we have call centers. 580 00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,160 Ron Harrison: Now, that's an interesting story. 581 00:41:11,240 --> 00:41:14,040 Ron Harrison: So out in Covington, Orkin had a huge call center, 582 00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:16,200 Ron Harrison: hundreds of people there that were taking calls 583 00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:17,060 Ron Harrison: throughout the United States. 584 00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:18,820 Ron Harrison: And when COVID hit, 585 00:41:20,180 --> 00:41:23,440 Ron Harrison: we shut it down within a week and everybody was doing sales from their own 586 00:41:23,620 --> 00:41:26,220 Ron Harrison: home. And so here you talk about an opportunity. 587 00:41:26,290 --> 00:41:30,280 Ron Harrison: So we had to go from a central location in sales to homes. 588 00:41:30,890 --> 00:41:32,960 Ron Harrison: And then now you're all probably saying, well, 589 00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,220 Ron Harrison: are people coming back to work? And, and so some are, 590 00:41:36,780 --> 00:41:40,080 Ron Harrison: some cannot work from home. So sales, whether it's commercial, 591 00:41:40,260 --> 00:41:42,160 Ron Harrison: whether it's residential, whether it's termite, 592 00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,900 Ron Harrison: lots of opportunities on the sales, service service. 593 00:41:45,480 --> 00:42:05,700 Ron Harrison: And that's what my friend from Pakistan, is the service strategy and importance the same as it is in the United States? Is your philosophy that you just spray or is your philosophy you want to do the service right? We've got to administer this. And so we have administrative people that take care of things. Then we have our leadership teams. 594 00:42:06,420 --> 00:42:10,940 Ron Harrison: You know, all of these are different opportunities that are needed. 595 00:42:11,940 --> 00:42:13,820 Ron Harrison: Now, I want to just touch a little bit on that. 596 00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:27,160 Ron Harrison: If any of you have had experience with Orkin, when I came with Orkin forever ago, so this is almost 30 years ago, we would have four or five technicians to one service manager. 597 00:42:28,340 --> 00:42:31,540 Ron Harrison: And that's way back. 598 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,720 Ron Harrison: Now we have eight to 10 technicians for a service manager. 599 00:42:36,900 --> 00:42:42,460 Ron Harrison: So when you talk about leadership, think of back then, you know, managing a few people, you know, expanding. 600 00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,080 Ron Harrison: The other thing is, is I remember I went to Arkansas. 601 00:42:46,340 --> 00:42:48,100 Ron Harrison: I don't know if I have anyone from Arkansas. 602 00:42:49,020 --> 00:43:01,100 Ron Harrison: And we were saying to the technicians, we think we know that we can increase the amount of revenue that you generate each month. 603 00:43:01,900 --> 00:43:06,980 Ron Harrison: And we were pushing to say it should be $8,000 to $10,000. 604 00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:14,800 Ron Harrison: And I remember one guy raising his hand and says, you know, my wife works at Walmart or somewhere like that. 605 00:43:15,420 --> 00:43:21,060 Ron Harrison: If my customers can give me $6,000, I'll get 20% of that, I'm going to be okay. 606 00:43:21,860 --> 00:43:24,600 Ron Harrison: So he didn't want to work any harder or have more customers. 607 00:43:25,700 --> 00:43:38,740 Ron Harrison: Well, I don't know what you're, you know, with Orkin, but we are now 15 to closer to $18,000 to $20,000 per month. 608 00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,700 Ron Harrison: Our technicians are able to generate. 609 00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:47,900 Ron Harrison: three times, you know, and that's all leadership that has been able to, 610 00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:45,280 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 611 00:43:48,380 --> 00:43:52,700 Ron Harrison: to help us realize that if we tighten our routes, if you're more, 612 00:43:52,700 --> 00:43:54,140 Ron Harrison: more efficient in it, we can do that. 613 00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,520 Ron Harrison: So leadership has given us great opportunities to be more efficient. 614 00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,280 Ron Harrison: Ownership, as I mentioned earlier, there's now, 615 00:44:02,300 --> 00:44:05,520 Ron Harrison: let me get in on that a little bit because several people have come to me and 616 00:44:05,620 --> 00:44:06,780 Ron Harrison: said, Hey, Ron, you know, you, I was, 617 00:44:07,100 --> 00:44:09,760 Ron Harrison: you know, I get a franchise with Orkin or, you know, 618 00:44:09,780 --> 00:44:11,160 Ron Harrison: why don't you start your own pest control business? 619 00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,840 Ron Harrison: and I am really, really happy on the science side of things, 620 00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:18,080 Ron Harrison: the technical side of things, the training side of things. 621 00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:22,700 Ron Harrison: You know, I don't know how good I'd be if I had to do all the HR stuff 622 00:44:22,900 --> 00:44:23,900 Ron Harrison: and all the financial stuff. 623 00:44:24,060 --> 00:44:27,000 Ron Harrison: So I do say to you, you know, all of these opportunities 624 00:44:27,240 --> 00:44:28,880 Ron Harrison: that we're talking about are available for you, 625 00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,640 Ron Harrison: and to get outside your comfort zone, I think it's good at times, 626 00:44:32,820 --> 00:44:34,000 Ron Harrison: but sometimes we're just miserable. 627 00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:55,920 Ron Harrison: Marketing. Now, I have been given the opportunity. So I get to see Dan, or occasionally here in Atlanta, but I get to see him at the professional meetings. I get to see him at the Entomological Society of America meetings and at Pest World meetings. And my company pays for me to go to these meetings. 628 00:44:41,380 --> 00:44:41,480 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 629 00:44:57,099 --> 00:45:03,319 Ron Harrison: And it doesn't directly, but when I come back from the meeting, then I send a letter to head of marketing. 630 00:45:03,619 --> 00:45:09,520 Ron Harrison: And I said, these are all of the things that might have marketing impact on our company. 631 00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,000 Ron Harrison: For instance, some of the work that Dan has done. 632 00:45:12,380 --> 00:45:18,299 Ron Harrison: For instance, he's done some spectacular work on imported shipping products. 633 00:45:18,539 --> 00:45:25,020 Ron Harrison: So he did some groundbreaking research and looked at containers that were brought into the United States through the Port of Savannah. 634 00:45:25,420 --> 00:45:35,640 Ron Harrison: and found a high percentage of foreign, whether it was plants or animals, particularly insects and the like, that were brought. 635 00:45:35,690 --> 00:45:39,180 Ron Harrison: Now, some of them were dead, some of them were alive, but huge amount. 636 00:45:39,859 --> 00:45:47,099 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, what a great way for a company to market, particularly to ports and other things like that, to be very cautious. 637 00:45:47,980 --> 00:46:03,380 Ron Harrison: We talked about opportunities, whether it's a flashlight or a sheet that's going to protect us bed bugs. So, you know, I still, and Dan, you may be ahead of me on this, Richie, but we still don't have a good monitor for bed bugs. 638 00:46:04,539 --> 00:46:19,579 Ron Harrison: And what I mean by a good monitor, if I have some type of a monitor in a hotel room and I find a bed bug, what does that tell me? Does that mean that I caught the only bed bug that was there? Or does it mean I have a bad infestation? Or did it get introduced the night before? 639 00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:43,660 Ron Harrison: I don't know what it tells me. All I know is I have a bed bug on this thing, this, you know, pitfall trap or on this glue board or, you know, whatever. And then it was interesting, you know, there were, I think this was Dr. Canada that did some of this work, but the bed bug would come to a glue board and be repelled by it, can stick his finger in it and go away. And so therefore, glue boards certainly early on were not, you know, the best method to... 640 00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:49,839 Ron Harrison: utilize to figure out. So creativity, I know if you had a, this is kind of a challenge, 641 00:46:50,420 --> 00:46:55,180 Ron Harrison: and I've been working on this for 15 years, but if you had a relatively inexpensive 642 00:46:56,799 --> 00:47:02,960 Ron Harrison: bed bug monitor that would tell you to 95% that if there's nothing on that, 643 00:47:03,279 --> 00:47:06,819 Ron Harrison: you don't have bed bugs. And if you find one on it, this is what it means. 644 00:47:07,900 --> 00:47:12,480 Ron Harrison: every hotel room, every home probably in the United States would have this little monitor 645 00:47:13,099 --> 00:47:16,480 Ron Harrison: if it would give you good data that could, I mean, even if you do a bed bug service 646 00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,640 Ron Harrison: and someone goes out to the front desk and complains that they're getting bit, 647 00:47:21,500 --> 00:47:25,720 Ron Harrison: how do you know if it wasn't mosquitoes or fleas or ticks that they got outside? 648 00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:27,119 Ron Harrison: And it is bed bugs. 649 00:47:27,579 --> 00:47:31,500 Ron Harrison: But if there was some type of a monitor that, look, we have complete... 650 00:47:31,860 --> 00:47:38,300 Ron Harrison: confidence that those bites on you are not bed bugs because we have nothing in here you would 651 00:47:38,300 --> 00:47:42,960 Ron Harrison: be a millionaire tomorrow so creativity unfortunately legal issues you know this 652 00:47:42,970 --> 00:47:48,740 Ron Harrison: comes up a bunch that you know you did termite job and now three years later they have termites 653 00:47:48,770 --> 00:47:52,920 Ron Harrison: eating up their house and who's responsible and you know those uh 654 00:47:53,980 --> 00:47:55,800 Ron Harrison: a lot of legal issues that we sometimes run into. 655 00:47:56,730 --> 00:47:58,180 Ron Harrison: And of course, how do we deal with government? 656 00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:00,660 Ron Harrison: I think this is a very good question. 657 00:48:00,730 --> 00:48:01,680 Ron Harrison: Are they helpful to us? 658 00:48:01,730 --> 00:48:02,760 Ron Harrison: Are they harmful to us? 659 00:48:03,540 --> 00:48:06,980 Ron Harrison: There are every state, most states, 660 00:48:07,030 --> 00:48:08,640 Ron Harrison: I think maybe there's one or two exceptions, 661 00:48:08,900 --> 00:48:11,360 Ron Harrison: but have an organization or, 662 00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:17,680 Ron Harrison: department that manages pest control, agricultural and urban pest control. And 663 00:48:18,420 --> 00:48:22,120 Ron Harrison: ASPCRO is actually their name. They have an annual meeting and pest control 664 00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,360 Ron Harrison: companies like Orkin and other ones are there talking to them, interacting with 665 00:48:26,460 --> 00:48:30,700 Ron Harrison: them, trying to determine, you know, how can we better support? Because they're 666 00:48:30,700 --> 00:48:34,220 Ron Harrison: going to come in and monitor what we do in the different states that are 667 00:48:34,359 --> 00:48:40,320 Ron Harrison: that we do business. So government certainly is. The science side, so this is Dan's specialty and 668 00:48:40,540 --> 00:48:48,260 Ron Harrison: the great work that he and his team and program has put together. I was kind of fortunate, 669 00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:53,800 Ron Harrison: the way that I got into Orkin and the recruiting was, is that Mercer University 670 00:48:54,660 --> 00:48:59,980 Ron Harrison: had decided that there was a huge opportunity with non-traditional students. 671 00:49:01,100 --> 00:49:15,940 Ron Harrison: And though I worked on the campus as well, they asked me, would I be involved with kind of setting up some programs for those that may want to go back to school, that they're working full time, but they want to get their degree. They maybe got a couple of years and then had a baby or whatever happened. 672 00:49:16,579 --> 00:49:27,220 Ron Harrison: And so I worked on my skills of working with non-traditional students, not that 18 to 22-year-old that graduated from high school, had a great time, loved it, and go off to college. 673 00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:32,200 Ron Harrison: But these were working people. These were folks that didn't have a good experience to start with. 674 00:49:32,260 --> 00:49:35,119 Ron Harrison: And so that kind of fit the model that Orkin had. 675 00:49:35,420 --> 00:49:42,160 Ron Harrison: And so I was able to get involved from that education side and try to customize the learning center that we worked on, but also methodologies. 676 00:49:42,900 --> 00:49:45,119 Ron Harrison: There's a lot of quality assurance. 677 00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:50,559 Ron Harrison: So Shell Harcher runs a pest control 360 program that she's a private consultant. 678 00:49:46,060 --> 00:49:46,180 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 679 00:49:51,260 --> 00:49:57,339 Ron Harrison: And that's all she does is she has companies, Nabisco, Campbell's Soups and whatever. 680 00:49:57,630 --> 00:49:59,400 Ron Harrison: She comes in and does quality audits for them. 681 00:50:00,300 --> 00:50:01,540 Ron Harrison: evaluates what we do as 682 00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:02,540 Ron Harrison: control professional. 683 00:50:03,119 --> 00:50:04,859 Ron Harrison: And as well as we'll have an 684 00:50:05,099 --> 00:50:07,099 Ron Harrison: or can have a quality team and the 685 00:50:07,119 --> 00:50:08,740 Ron Harrison: like. So there are 686 00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:10,180 Ron Harrison: numerous opportunities 687 00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:12,700 Ron Harrison: that are available to us. 688 00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,300 Ron Harrison: And so if you have an inclination 689 00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:16,720 Ron Harrison: of marketing or sales 690 00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:18,320 Ron Harrison: or whatever, any of these, 691 00:50:18,940 --> 00:50:20,680 Ron Harrison: the possibility of there is 692 00:50:21,020 --> 00:50:22,320 Ron Harrison: It's to expand your wings. 693 00:50:22,340 --> 00:50:29,140 Ron Harrison: It doesn't just have to be going to someone's house and either convincing them to have pest control or to take care of the pest control. 694 00:50:29,260 --> 00:50:31,520 Ron Harrison: But there's a lot of opportunities that come along with it. 695 00:50:32,860 --> 00:50:38,000 Ron Harrison: So I want to talk about some of the challenges that we face. 696 00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:44,400 Ron Harrison: And this isn't all inclusive. These are kind of my viewpoints a little bit. 697 00:50:45,500 --> 00:50:47,060 Ron Harrison: But let me give you an example. 698 00:50:47,609 --> 00:50:58,760 Ron Harrison: So we have traditionally, if you had a pest control route, if you were a technician, we call them Orkin pros now. 699 00:50:59,580 --> 00:51:01,340 Ron Harrison: then you would do your service 700 00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:03,180 Ron Harrison: and you would fill out what 701 00:51:03,340 --> 00:51:04,640 Ron Harrison: pest you saw and 702 00:51:05,180 --> 00:51:07,120 Ron Harrison: what conducive conditions were there you might take 703 00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:09,240 Ron Harrison: a few pictures and then 704 00:51:09,380 --> 00:51:11,100 Ron Harrison: you would do the service 705 00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:13,060 Ron Harrison: listing the different products that you 706 00:51:13,260 --> 00:51:15,160 Ron Harrison: used and then 707 00:51:15,220 --> 00:51:17,180 Ron Harrison: in turn have the customer sign 708 00:51:17,340 --> 00:51:18,160 Ron Harrison: off and go on your way 709 00:51:18,620 --> 00:51:32,180 Ron Harrison: Well, not too long ago in Egypt, we transferred from these paper tickets, if you will, to electronic tickets, which is, I think, probably the standard for most pest control companies now. 710 00:51:33,980 --> 00:51:36,320 Ron Harrison: And these reports came back electronically. 711 00:51:36,580 --> 00:51:37,600 Ron Harrison: We'd send them to the customer. 712 00:51:39,100 --> 00:51:41,400 Ron Harrison: And the customer... 713 00:51:41,980 --> 00:51:44,460 Ron Harrison: the service wasn't what we wanted it to be. 714 00:51:44,460 --> 00:51:45,200 Ron Harrison: And we were upset. 715 00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:45,799 Ron Harrison: We were concerned. 716 00:51:45,859 --> 00:51:46,760 Ron Harrison: We went and looked and, 717 00:51:47,039 --> 00:51:48,660 Ron Harrison: and what was on that report, 718 00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,000 Ron Harrison: that electronic report wasn't what we thought would happen. 719 00:51:52,140 --> 00:51:52,279 Ron Harrison: Well, 720 00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:53,799 Ron Harrison: we, 721 00:51:54,260 --> 00:51:58,839 Ron Harrison: these electronic methods is you go up to a customer and you pull up their 722 00:51:59,079 --> 00:51:59,359 Ron Harrison: account. 723 00:52:00,500 --> 00:52:03,079 Ron Harrison: And then you will go to different pieces of equipment. 724 00:52:04,420 --> 00:52:04,799 Ron Harrison: And, 725 00:52:05,599 --> 00:52:20,520 Ron Harrison: Take a picture of that barcode and then, okay, this is a fly ILT at this location and how many flies are on it? What species are there? Was there a rodent bait station? Same thing. 726 00:52:11,260 --> 00:52:11,380 Ron Harrison: you, 727 00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:40,240 Ron Harrison: So what we found out was, is that the clever technicians were making copies of all of the barcodes. So they would sit at McDonald's, pull up the account because there was no GPS associated with it, and just take pictures of 100 barcodes and sit there and not even have checked them. 728 00:52:41,300 --> 00:52:53,520 Ron Harrison: And so I start out with that example and that wasn't happening everywhere, but a few technicians, kind of shady technicians were ending up doing that, that now our new system doesn't allow for that. 729 00:52:53,760 --> 00:53:02,420 Ron Harrison: There's actually a little chip that's associated with that. If you're not there, it won't even allow you to take information that's associated with that barcode on the backside of the barcode. 730 00:53:03,119 --> 00:53:06,940 Ron Harrison: So I guess I would say our first challenge is technology. 731 00:53:07,960 --> 00:53:10,839 Ron Harrison: It's the direction that we're going now. 732 00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:22,880 Ron Harrison: So as we've revamped our technology there in Egypt, then Adam Ramsey, who's the owner and manager there, said, well, can I use AI to help? 733 00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:38,920 Ron Harrison: And so now he's able to, you open up the bait station, you take a picture of the bait, there's a dropping there, and it tells you what rodent was there, tells you how much was fed on. 734 00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:43,100 Ron Harrison: actually therefore says you need to order more bait because you've used up all of this. 735 00:53:43,220 --> 00:53:48,400 Ron Harrison: So AI is really making some of the stuff that we traditionally thought we had to know 736 00:53:48,620 --> 00:53:52,780 Ron Harrison: or a technician had to know in their head to something else doing it. 737 00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:57,880 Ron Harrison: And I think we all think, you know, what professions are going to be most impacted by 738 00:53:57,980 --> 00:53:59,640 Ron Harrison: or are already being impacted? 739 00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:18,780 Ron Harrison: And, you know, customer service is being impacted by that. Here at Orkin, we have our big call center. And much of that, when someone calls in, you've got an AI generated response going on. And a lot now the customer can always say, well, I really want to talk to a real person. Okay. But 740 00:54:19,220 --> 00:54:25,500 Ron Harrison: How much of that can be done by AI and therefore not having to have that as an issue? 741 00:54:25,740 --> 00:54:31,240 Ron Harrison: So I think our biggest challenge is the technology that's coming our way. 742 00:54:32,180 --> 00:54:35,220 Ron Harrison: Now, having said that, maybe that's our biggest opportunity. 743 00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:47,400 Ron Harrison: Last year, a group of friends and I went on a safari in Kenya and the main animal tracker who had been with us for the week, 744 00:54:47,980 --> 00:54:55,400 Ron Harrison: we said, you know, we'd love to have kind of a fireside where, you know, we had a fire there and kind of asked him questions. 745 00:54:55,620 --> 00:55:00,500 Ron Harrison: And so one of our, my group raised their hand and said, or the group that I was with, 746 00:55:00,720 --> 00:55:07,940 Ron Harrison: He said, what are the biggest challenges that Kenya is facing, particularly here in the Maasai and the Maasai tribe and whatever. 747 00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:11,800 Ron Harrison: And so these were the two things that he said, which I think fits into this industry. 748 00:55:12,540 --> 00:55:17,020 Ron Harrison: And this challenge was he said, number one is religion and number two is education. 749 00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:19,420 Ron Harrison: and, you know, 750 00:55:19,540 --> 00:55:20,780 Ron Harrison: it kind of hit me 751 00:55:20,980 --> 00:55:22,119 Ron Harrison: because I think I consider myself 752 00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:23,119 Ron Harrison: a bit of a religious person. 753 00:55:23,300 --> 00:55:23,900 Ron Harrison: How is religious? 754 00:55:24,619 --> 00:55:25,760 Ron Harrison: You know, so I kind of 755 00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:27,200 Ron Harrison: pushed him a little bit 756 00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:27,680 Ron Harrison: and he said, 757 00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:29,240 Ron Harrison: before when some, 758 00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:30,440 Ron Harrison: a person would die, 759 00:55:31,060 --> 00:55:31,640 Ron Harrison: first of all, 760 00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:32,359 Ron Harrison: you know, 761 00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:34,360 Ron Harrison: That was part of life. 762 00:55:34,950 --> 00:55:40,020 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, the village would carry the person out into the bush 763 00:55:40,660 --> 00:55:44,580 Ron Harrison: and it would therefore be recycled back into the environment 764 00:55:44,700 --> 00:55:45,940 Ron Harrison: by the animals eating it and whatever. 765 00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:49,720 Ron Harrison: He said now with the Christian attitude coming into place 766 00:55:49,830 --> 00:55:51,500 Ron Harrison: or even some of the Asian attitude, 767 00:55:51,850 --> 00:55:54,280 Ron Harrison: we're supposed to cremate them or we're supposed to bury them. 768 00:55:54,980 --> 00:55:57,780 Ron Harrison: And all of that leads to bigger challenges. 769 00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,500 Ron Harrison: And so when you think about some of the... 770 00:56:03,540 --> 00:56:07,160 Ron Harrison: particularly Western religions that are quite different from some of the 771 00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:10,420 Ron Harrison: traditional African religions. So, so that was the one point. 772 00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:14,880 Ron Harrison: Then of course I was, you know, education, you know, 773 00:56:15,180 --> 00:56:19,240 Ron Harrison: I spent my whole life involved with that and getting my own education and 774 00:56:19,340 --> 00:56:20,440 Ron Harrison: stuff. And that, 775 00:56:20,940 --> 00:56:26,760 Ron Harrison: but he said that is impacting our way of life because education therefore 776 00:56:26,940 --> 00:56:32,000 Ron Harrison: tells us things that isn't the way that it's been for all these years. 777 00:56:32,580 --> 00:56:40,800 Ron Harrison: and he said that will impact who the Maasai are and the direction so is that good or bad so as we 778 00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:47,440 Ron Harrison: go through some of these industrial challenges you know is technology harming us or helping us and 779 00:56:47,900 --> 00:56:54,860 Ron Harrison: i hope we come to the conclusion that it certainly is helpful well as i mentioned earlier 780 00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:58,000 Ron Harrison: So competition can be a challenge. 781 00:56:58,460 --> 00:56:59,700 Ron Harrison: And let me tell you how that is. 782 00:56:59,780 --> 00:57:05,400 Ron Harrison: As I gave the example of my friend in Northern Atlanta that had left Orkin and started his own business. 783 00:57:06,140 --> 00:57:08,500 Ron Harrison: What does it take to start your own business? 784 00:57:09,980 --> 00:57:13,380 Ron Harrison: In pest control, okay, so many of us have a truck. 785 00:57:13,740 --> 00:57:14,940 Ron Harrison: So you already have a vehicle. 786 00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:17,260 Ron Harrison: You may need to get a little camper over it. 787 00:57:18,020 --> 00:57:23,700 Ron Harrison: many of us have taken whatever licensing or registration that's required just to be in pest control. 788 00:57:24,420 --> 00:57:29,380 Ron Harrison: So, you know, here in Georgia, you know, to be a registered technician, you take a test. 789 00:57:30,090 --> 00:57:37,860 Ron Harrison: But every operation, every office, there has to be a licensed pest control professional there that holds that license. 790 00:57:38,030 --> 00:57:40,380 Ron Harrison: And to get that, that's a really intense thing. 791 00:57:40,980 --> 00:57:46,440 Ron Harrison: So if I'm the license holder and I decide to go out on my own, the company, Orkin, has already provided information. 792 00:57:46,220 --> 00:57:51,560 Ron Harrison: me as a registered technician and as the licensed. And now I have a truck. And if you have that 793 00:57:51,730 --> 00:57:57,440 Ron Harrison: license, you can buy chemicals or products and whatever. And so you can get into the pest control 794 00:57:57,579 --> 00:58:03,339 Ron Harrison: industry pretty inexpensively, particularly if you've been in this industry for a while. 795 00:58:03,980 --> 00:58:11,079 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, how do we separate ourselves? How are we different? And, you know, 796 00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:24,060 Ron Harrison: I think a good example for us globally is that many of folks that have been in the United States or know a brand, recognize the Orkin brand. 797 00:58:24,270 --> 00:58:30,100 Ron Harrison: And so they are appreciative when they buy that franchise saying that I'm Orkin. 798 00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:32,920 Ron Harrison: So there are impacts. 799 00:58:33,390 --> 00:58:38,960 Ron Harrison: And let me talk about this competition because Terminix and Rentokil joined forces. 800 00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:56,200 Ron Harrison: And we know that sometimes when you combine, you're more powerful. We buy companies, Orkin does, Rollins does, and therefore they sometimes can utilize the resources that are already at Rollins and therefore it makes their expense less. 801 00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:04,060 Ron Harrison: competition is real. Sometimes it's beneficial. I think, I don't know if anyone here is from 802 00:59:04,180 --> 00:59:08,480 Ron Harrison: Rentokil Terminix, but it'd be interesting to say, you know, you combine your competitors at 803 00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:09,480 Ron Harrison: And so... 804 00:59:08,580 --> 00:59:12,240 Ron Harrison: one point, now you've combined what are some challenges or what are some of the issues that 805 00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:19,620 Ron Harrison: are associated with it. So competition, I see now many of my global franchise, they get started 806 00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:24,720 Ron Harrison: and then all of a sudden others come into the market. What are we going to do? We got to stop this. 807 00:59:25,500 --> 00:59:26,840 Ron Harrison: but in general competition 808 00:59:27,220 --> 00:59:27,680 Ron Harrison: makes you better 809 00:59:29,460 --> 00:59:30,920 Ron Harrison: I'll tell it's a funny little 810 00:59:31,220 --> 00:59:32,100 Ron Harrison: story and it's silly 811 00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:34,660 Ron Harrison: but it's crazy that I even remember it 812 00:59:35,260 --> 00:59:36,740 Ron Harrison: but I was in high school 813 00:59:37,220 --> 00:59:38,100 Ron Harrison: and I was wrestling 814 00:59:39,620 --> 00:59:40,760 Ron Harrison: it's a funny story 815 00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:42,660 Ron Harrison: I had a big meeting 816 00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:44,700 Ron Harrison: with some folks in Jordan that wanted to buy 817 00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:46,700 Ron Harrison: Orkin Jordan, all these hot shots 818 00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:52,720 Ron Harrison: And so then I met them and they said, oh, my word, you're smaller than what we thought. 819 00:59:53,039 --> 00:59:55,760 Ron Harrison: And I said, well, I can't do much about that. 820 00:59:56,180 --> 00:59:59,200 Ron Harrison: But we're getting ready for the wrestling season. 821 01:00:00,359 --> 01:00:03,559 Ron Harrison: And the coach wanted us to have a base team. 822 01:00:03,700 --> 01:00:10,980 Ron Harrison: health or strength test. So how many pushups can you do? How much weight can you bench? And 823 01:00:11,220 --> 01:00:16,760 Ron Harrison: all these silly things. Well, all of the team had gone on a different day. I think I was working 824 01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:22,240 Ron Harrison: hauling hay or something like that. So the day I went in, I was getting what my base was. So 825 01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:27,840 Ron Harrison: you know, I wasn't stupid. I thought, well, if I have really high, then it's going to be harder to 826 01:00:28,260 --> 01:00:32,180 Ron Harrison: improve. So, you know, I just kind of, and finally the coach realized what I was doing. 827 01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:39,920 Ron Harrison: And he said, you know, you're the weakest on the whole team. Well, that alone caused me to work a 828 01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:45,580 Ron Harrison: lot harder. So I think competition is very good. You know, branches at all can compete against each 829 01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:50,900 Ron Harrison: other. So I think competition. Now, what about labor costs? 830 01:00:51,880 --> 01:01:11,220 Ron Harrison: And, you know, where do we stand? Can you make more money as a school teacher? Well, that takes four years education. Can you make more money as an Uber driver? So I think that is a challenge that we face is what is happening. 831 01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:17,579 Ron Harrison: the labor market, how do we fit into that? How do we make it interesting? So I was in 832 01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:24,740 Ron Harrison: Republic of Georgia, a customer had called huge poultry slaughtering facility, and they wanted 833 01:01:24,809 --> 01:01:30,420 Ron Harrison: our service. So we went out there, I was in town in the country and, and to do an inspection. And 834 01:01:30,599 --> 01:01:34,319 Ron Harrison: so I don't know if you've ever been to a poultry slaughterhouse. 835 01:01:35,579 --> 01:01:38,460 Ron Harrison: but you know, the chickens come in and one person, 836 01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:43,140 Ron Harrison: they get boiled and pull the feathers off and another and slits them open and 837 01:01:43,140 --> 01:01:44,180 Ron Harrison: the guts come out. And yeah. 838 01:01:46,799 --> 01:01:51,180 Ron Harrison: And we're in there trying to figure out what rodent species they have, 839 01:01:51,279 --> 01:01:53,520 Ron Harrison: where the rodents are coming in, where they're nesting. 840 01:01:54,270 --> 01:01:57,099 Ron Harrison: We're trying to figure out what vegetation on the outside is attracting them. 841 01:01:57,220 --> 01:01:58,640 Ron Harrison: And I said to the guys that were with me, 842 01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,940 Ron Harrison: I said, you know, what job do you want? 843 01:02:02,260 --> 01:02:10,760 Ron Harrison: Do you want to be on a robotic type of assembly line where you're doing the same job for eight hours or this other job where? 844 01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:16,820 Ron Harrison: And most of them said, you know, this detective type of work is much more fulfilling than. 845 01:02:17,060 --> 01:02:20,400 Ron Harrison: And I don't want to downplay people that do work on assembly lines. 846 01:02:20,660 --> 01:02:24,620 Ron Harrison: But I think we have some advantages over other positions. 847 01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:31,460 Ron Harrison: And again, in the Republic of Georgia, several of our people came from delivering Coke or Pepsi-Cola to locations. 848 01:02:32,300 --> 01:02:47,400 Ron Harrison: And they came to us because of the opportunity of having a more diverse job and more of a detective job than loading up my truck with Pepsi's and then driving all day long, delivering them to different locations, restaurants, hotels, and the same. 849 01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:49,840 Ron Harrison: So I do think it's a challenge with labor. 850 01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:52,200 Ron Harrison: Now, let me mention one other point. 851 01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:57,240 Ron Harrison: Orkin at one point decided that we didn't have enough women. 852 01:02:57,799 --> 01:03:01,619 Ron Harrison: And so therefore we went to our marketing department and our marketing department is 853 01:03:01,740 --> 01:03:02,099 Ron Harrison: mainly women. 854 01:03:02,619 --> 01:03:08,059 Ron Harrison: And so we came up with this initiative and plans and rollout of how we're going to get 855 01:03:08,059 --> 01:03:08,500 Ron Harrison: more women. 856 01:03:09,260 --> 01:03:13,940 Ron Harrison: And so as we rolled it out, the women in our marketing department, who I knew were kind 857 01:03:13,940 --> 01:03:18,180 Ron Harrison: of behind it, I leaned over to them and I said, I guess you want your daughters to work 858 01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:20,660 Ron Harrison: as pest control professionals for Orkin. 859 01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:42,380 Ron Harrison: And they said, no, I don't. So there certainly is still a stigma for certain. And it's not an easy job. Pest control is not. But could we make what we do more attractive to other groups of people, not just men that like to kind of blue collar, kind of more physical in nature? 860 01:03:42,620 --> 01:03:47,600 Ron Harrison: I don't know, but it is a challenge everywhere I go in the world is how do we find labor. 861 01:03:48,380 --> 01:03:52,280 Ron Harrison: In some markets like Egypt and Jordan, all of them are engineers. 862 01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:53,920 Ron Harrison: We only hire engineers. 863 01:03:54,300 --> 01:03:59,300 Ron Harrison: And so these are college educated folks in other markets that we don't even consider that. 864 01:03:59,520 --> 01:04:01,640 Ron Harrison: So labor, I think, will be a challenge. 865 01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:05,020 Ron Harrison: We talked earlier about opportunities in government. 866 01:04:05,820 --> 01:04:21,260 Ron Harrison: But I think government is a challenge for us. And globally, because that kind of is where I'm, that's my playpen right now. I was, again, Egypt's on my mind, because I just got back from there. But we were talking about products. 867 01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:23,260 Ron Harrison: and how you use the label. 868 01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:27,340 Ron Harrison: And so, and I don't want to put words in dance about that, 869 01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:29,620 Ron Harrison: but I really like insect growth regulators. 870 01:04:29,820 --> 01:04:31,340 Ron Harrison: I think they have a big place. 871 01:04:31,500 --> 01:04:36,080 Ron Harrison: I think some of the pheromones now are very friendly in their approach. 872 01:04:36,920 --> 01:04:40,580 Ron Harrison: We know that they are now in stored product pests, 873 01:04:40,640 --> 01:04:43,320 Ron Harrison: that they are control tools, not just monitors. 874 01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:49,460 Ron Harrison: I like silica as a method of managing pests as a desiccant. 875 01:04:50,860 --> 01:04:57,220 Ron Harrison: And so I said to my folks in Egypt, I said, let's get an IGR. 876 01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:02,180 Ron Harrison: Well, to register an IGR is very expensive and takes many, many years. 877 01:05:03,040 --> 01:05:08,020 Ron Harrison: And so then I says, well, if you use it, what's going to happen? 878 01:05:08,780 --> 01:05:16,520 Ron Harrison: So if you use a product that is not registered in Egypt, bring it in however, what's going to happen? 879 01:05:16,820 --> 01:05:30,360 Ron Harrison: Well, in the United States, if I use a product that is opposed to what the label says, even if the target pest isn't on there or the location isn't on there, then that's a crime. 880 01:05:30,410 --> 01:05:34,740 Ron Harrison: And there can be financial as well as prison punishments associated with that. 881 01:05:35,630 --> 01:05:37,200 Ron Harrison: In Egypt... 882 01:05:37,820 --> 01:05:50,540 Ron Harrison: He says, well, nothing will happen. So, so government in the US is very strict and, you know, lets us know exactly what we can do. On the other hand, in other countries, it doesn't have the same, same impact. 883 01:05:52,579 --> 01:05:58,500 Ron Harrison: So what about pests? So let me kind of talk about my dirty laundry. So many 884 01:05:59,220 --> 01:06:05,240 Ron Harrison: And Dan and I talked about this and he gave a really nice presentation in Orlando about it. 885 01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:10,680 Ron Harrison: But invasive species, how do we worry about them? 886 01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:15,680 Ron Harrison: And so marmorated stink bug, it's probably been 10 years. 887 01:06:16,369 --> 01:06:19,280 Ron Harrison: I think Pennsylvania is where it was actually first introduced. 888 01:06:20,140 --> 01:06:26,560 Ron Harrison: You know, it was a big concern was getting involved with agriculture and, you know, getting in people's houses. 889 01:06:27,560 --> 01:06:28,980 Ron Harrison: Kudzu bug was another one. 890 01:06:28,980 --> 01:06:30,260 Ron Harrison: We had these invasive species. 891 01:06:31,339 --> 01:06:33,780 Ron Harrison: And, you know, do we need to worry about them? 892 01:06:34,440 --> 01:06:39,880 Ron Harrison: Will they therefore become part of the environment and population go down or will they become very serious? 893 01:06:40,300 --> 01:06:47,599 Ron Harrison: In general, I have noticed that it seems like there's this big concern, and then sometimes it kind of levels off. 894 01:06:47,599 --> 01:06:48,579 Ron Harrison: I mentioned this to Dan. 895 01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:56,060 Ron Harrison: There's the Carolina Wren, I think is what it is, around my neighborhood, and they're just eating the Marmorated stink bugs like crazy. 896 01:06:56,980 --> 01:07:03,560 Ron Harrison: And I think that has managed my population of stink bugs, in Atlanta area anyway, around my house. 897 01:07:03,609 --> 01:07:04,260 Ron Harrison: I live in Atlanta. 898 01:07:05,100 --> 01:07:09,100 Ron Harrison: Dan I don't know if he talked about it but someone was talking about the needle ant which is an Asian 899 01:07:09,220 --> 01:07:14,820 Ron Harrison: ant which is very common in Atlanta area and I used to be able to go my backyard I have this 900 01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:23,640 Ron Harrison: wooded backyard and any day any time find termites and now I can't but the needle ant population is 901 01:07:23,640 --> 01:07:24,740 Ron Harrison: just I mean I find them everywhere 902 01:07:25,460 --> 01:07:29,540 Ron Harrison: Are they kind of now that they kind of invaded? 903 01:07:30,050 --> 01:07:31,560 Ron Harrison: And I know they've been in Atlanta longer, 904 01:07:31,630 --> 01:07:33,020 Ron Harrison: but I don't think every neighborhood had them. 905 01:07:33,350 --> 01:07:34,220 Ron Harrison: But my neighbor has them. 906 01:07:34,480 --> 01:07:35,000 Ron Harrison: My neighbor does that. 907 01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:38,140 Ron Harrison: So how do we approach the pests? 908 01:07:38,560 --> 01:07:40,660 Ron Harrison: Do we need to worry about all these invasive pests 909 01:07:40,780 --> 01:07:43,540 Ron Harrison: and the potential, or will the environment 910 01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:44,740 Ron Harrison: kind of keep them under control? 911 01:07:44,980 --> 01:07:47,340 Ron Harrison: So the dirty laundry that I wanted to tell you, 912 01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:50,020 Ron Harrison: my mind was, look, give things about 10 years, 913 01:07:50,510 --> 01:07:52,000 Ron Harrison: and then they'll kind of get into equilibrium 914 01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:53,000 Ron Harrison: and it won't be so bad. 915 01:07:53,460 --> 01:07:58,760 Ron Harrison: And so many of the Orkin folks said, should we get into heat treatment? 916 01:07:59,220 --> 01:08:05,240 Ron Harrison: Because it's $100,000 cost to get into the big heaters and vehicle to get it around and all that stuff. 917 01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:08,140 Ron Harrison: And I said, well, just a moment. 918 01:08:08,760 --> 01:08:10,800 Ron Harrison: You know, I don't know how long this bed bug... 919 01:08:11,220 --> 01:08:14,420 Ron Harrison: epidemic's going to go is it going to kind of flatten out and therefore we'll have products 920 01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:19,620 Ron Harrison: and maybe there'll be some i mean they use a fungus up in canada that they like we we have it 921 01:08:19,700 --> 01:08:24,880 Ron Harrison: in the united states but it hasn't taken out anyway the story that i'm telling is is i told 922 01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:29,460 Ron Harrison: my guys to be hesitant and then every year that we they get back with it hey ron this keeps going 923 01:08:29,620 --> 01:08:30,859 Ron Harrison: up the bed bugs keep going up 924 01:08:31,500 --> 01:08:47,100 Ron Harrison: So I don't know. Will some pests increase, others decrease? Of course, that probably will happen. But what is going to be the next big pest? And as termites seem to decline, I think particularly from the treatment methods that we were using with some of these non-repellants, 925 01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:54,300 Ron Harrison: then bed bugs came up and the stink bugs came up and kudzu bugs which kind of a stink bug group but 926 01:08:54,800 --> 01:09:01,220 Ron Harrison: the lantern fly so there's a variety of pests that continue to be here I think that will continue to 927 01:09:01,370 --> 01:09:06,359 Ron Harrison: happen how we approach it what we do about it I think that's a little different and then 928 01:09:06,520 --> 01:09:08,760 Ron Harrison: methodologies I think it's something we have to think about 929 01:09:09,799 --> 01:09:29,000 Ron Harrison: What are the skills that are needed? And I would love for you to be here and I'd be able to ask questions and you could immediately respond back to me. But I think the biggest weakness from skills that we're getting into is those personal interactions. 930 01:09:30,380 --> 01:09:37,180 Ron Harrison: So just today, I sent out just to two or three friends and I put one of my sons on this. 931 01:09:38,210 --> 01:09:42,700 Ron Harrison: Today is Christmas Day for Orthodox believers. 932 01:09:42,950 --> 01:09:46,820 Ron Harrison: And so Georgia, Ukraine, part of Russia, they celebrate Christmas today. 933 01:09:46,830 --> 01:09:50,340 Ron Harrison: So I was sending out Christmas greetings to my friends over there. 934 01:09:51,080 --> 01:09:55,140 Ron Harrison: And somebody sent back to me a typical Georgian Christmas dinner. 935 01:09:56,260 --> 01:09:59,000 Ron Harrison: And so I sent it out to a few friends and said, 936 01:09:59,060 --> 01:09:59,980 Ron Harrison: "Ah, this is what they would have." 937 01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:01,520 Ron Harrison: There was a small little piglet 938 01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:02,940 Ron Harrison: that they had cooked and sent it under. 939 01:10:03,660 --> 01:10:07,340 Ron Harrison: And I mistakenly sent it to my son who is in his 20s 940 01:10:08,020 --> 01:10:09,120 Ron Harrison: with some other friends. 941 01:10:09,620 --> 01:10:11,200 Ron Harrison: And he just started, you know, 942 01:10:12,220 --> 01:10:14,880 Ron Harrison: It wasn't really quite appropriate what his responses were. 943 01:10:15,540 --> 01:10:17,980 Ron Harrison: And I thought, yeah, what does he do all day? 944 01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:20,440 Ron Harrison: You know, he's interacting on his phone, 945 01:10:21,100 --> 01:10:23,420 Ron Harrison: not seeing the reaction that people are having. 946 01:10:23,880 --> 01:10:24,940 Ron Harrison: I didn't grow up with that. 947 01:10:24,970 --> 01:10:26,640 Ron Harrison: I mean, this is new to me. 948 01:10:27,130 --> 01:10:31,220 Ron Harrison: And so that personal skills, I think we're lacking a bit. 949 01:10:31,740 --> 01:10:32,980 Ron Harrison: You know, how do we smile? 950 01:10:33,080 --> 01:10:34,420 Ron Harrison: How are we personally involved? 951 01:10:34,620 --> 01:10:35,480 Ron Harrison: How do we listen? 952 01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:38,760 Ron Harrison: Those are all skills that I think we're partly losing, 953 01:10:39,500 --> 01:10:40,800 Ron Harrison: which many of us learned, 954 01:10:41,920 --> 01:10:43,380 Ron Harrison: you know, through our interactions with people. 955 01:10:43,580 --> 01:10:46,300 Ron Harrison: And now that we do so much on social media 956 01:10:46,540 --> 01:10:47,600 Ron Harrison: where people don't even know, 957 01:10:48,100 --> 01:10:50,159 Ron Harrison: I'm always amazed at how you'll, you know, 958 01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:52,560 Ron Harrison: on some social media people, Facebook even, 959 01:10:52,679 --> 01:10:54,340 Ron Harrison: they're telling all these personal things. 960 01:10:55,679 --> 01:10:56,480 Ron Harrison: And what? 961 01:10:57,000 --> 01:10:57,980 Ron Harrison: I don't know these people, 962 01:10:58,540 --> 01:11:00,400 Ron Harrison: but some people are comfortable with that. 963 01:11:00,460 --> 01:11:01,820 Ron Harrison: And so I think those are some of the issues, 964 01:11:02,020 --> 01:11:04,440 Ron Harrison: some of the skills that we need to work on. 965 01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:07,060 Ron Harrison: It isn't just the technical skill, 966 01:11:07,260 --> 01:11:09,400 Ron Harrison: but it's the people skills that, you know, make us, 967 01:11:10,660 --> 01:11:28,020 Ron Harrison: Now, I wanted to touch on this time issue. First of all, when do we do our service? And, you know, it used to be everyone was on the same schedule. You work eight to five, and you're off on the weekends. And now that's just not how it is. 968 01:11:28,699 --> 01:11:35,500 Ron Harrison: You know, people work, they have a three-day work day and they're working Friday through Sunday. 969 01:11:35,790 --> 01:11:38,300 Ron Harrison: And so when do they want service? 970 01:11:39,159 --> 01:11:41,719 Ron Harrison: We have many different religions now. 971 01:11:41,929 --> 01:11:44,159 Ron Harrison: And so some people worship on Friday. 972 01:11:44,540 --> 01:11:46,140 Ron Harrison: Muslim and Jews are more Friday based. 973 01:11:46,210 --> 01:11:48,060 Ron Harrison: And then some are on Saturday. 974 01:11:48,920 --> 01:11:50,020 Ron Harrison: So when are they open? 975 01:11:50,170 --> 01:11:50,760 Ron Harrison: When are they free? 976 01:11:51,640 --> 01:12:01,520 Ron Harrison: And I know Orkin has had to adjust and basically we'll kind of service whenever anybody really wants us, particularly in certain areas and cultures, religions. 977 01:11:58,250 --> 01:11:58,380 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 978 01:12:01,970 --> 01:12:07,280 Ron Harrison: So I think that becomes then time is money. 979 01:12:07,890 --> 01:12:15,280 Ron Harrison: And so we will say to our customer or in our heads, you know, if we're going to come for this like the time, it's going to kind of be this much money. 980 01:12:15,940 --> 01:12:35,020 Ron Harrison: And so therefore, it does become so I think time is, is certainly how do we manage it properly? How do we utilize it? And then training, I think we we missed the point that we kind of say to someone, well, good luck, you know, here's your route. And we don't understand that this is new to them. 981 01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:52,160 Ron Harrison: You know, this unfamiliar on the pests and the service and the products and the chemicals and things like that. So, so I think those fit into and then let me just, if you're a big company like Terminix, Rentokil or Orkin, Anticimex, we have training departments. 982 01:12:53,320 --> 01:12:54,600 Ron Harrison: but if you're a small business, 983 01:12:55,000 --> 01:12:55,340 Ron Harrison: so you, 984 01:12:55,580 --> 01:12:56,440 Ron Harrison: you work for Orkin, 985 01:12:57,440 --> 01:13:00,160 Ron Harrison: decide to start your own business and you're growing. 986 01:13:00,480 --> 01:13:01,380 Ron Harrison: So your son joins, 987 01:13:01,520 --> 01:13:04,020 Ron Harrison: your wife joins and your nephew joins, 988 01:13:05,240 --> 01:13:06,680 Ron Harrison: but the customers keep liking you. 989 01:13:07,620 --> 01:13:07,700 Ron Harrison: Well, 990 01:13:07,840 --> 01:13:08,780 Ron Harrison: then you get to a point. 991 01:13:08,920 --> 01:13:09,000 Ron Harrison: Well, 992 01:13:09,300 --> 01:13:10,500 Ron Harrison: now I've got eight employees. 993 01:13:10,860 --> 01:13:12,240 Ron Harrison: Who's going to train these two new people. 994 01:13:12,980 --> 01:13:14,140 Ron Harrison: And now I have 15 employees. 995 01:13:14,320 --> 01:13:14,560 Ron Harrison: Do I, 996 01:13:14,980 --> 01:13:16,520 Ron Harrison: and so figuring out, 997 01:13:17,120 --> 01:13:19,600 Ron Harrison: do you therefore designate an HR person to do more training? 998 01:13:19,800 --> 01:13:20,080 Ron Harrison: How do you, 999 01:13:20,410 --> 01:13:21,520 Ron Harrison: so as you grow, 1000 01:13:22,120 --> 01:13:30,240 Ron Harrison: All of these issues, which when you're a small company, seemed, you know, you're on top of it, kind of changes a bit. 1001 01:13:31,440 --> 01:13:38,100 Ron Harrison: And so let me just touch on for the next few minutes that I have with you is just a little bit of train. 1002 01:13:38,300 --> 01:13:46,540 Ron Harrison: Dan mentioned that I kind of started out in training with when I came to Orkin and I've been able now to do some expansion and more technical and global type of work. 1003 01:13:50,760 --> 01:13:54,900 Ron Harrison: there are certainly skills technically that are not familiar to people. 1004 01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:52,080 Ron Harrison: But... 1005 01:13:56,260 --> 01:13:59,179 Ron Harrison: But I think with AI, it changes things. 1006 01:13:59,540 --> 01:14:02,020 Ron Harrison: So I go in and there's a pest or there's a dropping. 1007 01:14:02,840 --> 01:14:06,119 Ron Harrison: I can get through that when before I didn't have those resources, 1008 01:14:06,480 --> 01:14:09,579 Ron Harrison: but now snap a picture, it tells me everything I need to know. 1009 01:14:10,199 --> 01:14:13,679 Ron Harrison: But even then understanding the technical skills to be able to do that. 1010 01:14:13,780 --> 01:14:15,239 Ron Harrison: But insect identification, 1011 01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:32,460 Ron Harrison: insect science identification. And then with that, those technical skills, then you can pull up what products are labeled for this pest and what location you're going to apply it. So I really think that this technical skills is getting easier, but clearly 1012 01:14:33,220 --> 01:14:38,660 Ron Harrison: we are not a pure, just friendly industry. 1013 01:14:39,170 --> 01:14:40,360 Ron Harrison: We have to know things. 1014 01:14:40,750 --> 01:14:41,920 Ron Harrison: We have to know our pests. 1015 01:14:42,130 --> 01:14:43,300 Ron Harrison: We have to know their biology. 1016 01:14:43,490 --> 01:14:46,500 Ron Harrison: We have to know what products that we use, 1017 01:14:46,920 --> 01:14:48,140 Ron Harrison: how long those products will last, 1018 01:14:48,210 --> 01:14:50,000 Ron Harrison: the severity of those products to humans. 1019 01:14:50,200 --> 01:14:51,420 Ron Harrison: I mean, there's a lot of technical 1020 01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:54,140 Ron Harrison: that has to be learned in this industry, 1021 01:14:54,720 --> 01:14:56,720 Ron Harrison: which is a little bit different than some industries 1022 01:14:56,960 --> 01:14:59,760 Ron Harrison: where it's really pure customer service. 1023 01:15:00,300 --> 01:15:02,360 Ron Harrison: We have a pretty big technical support. 1024 01:15:02,520 --> 01:15:16,700 Ron Harrison: Which therefore this customer relations skills, as I mentioned earlier, I think is something that's often lacking that is important for us to get our heads around. How do we train that? And let me kind of touch on this for a moment because I think it's important. 1025 01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:34,200 Ron Harrison: So, generally, our technicians, and I fit right into it, so I'm no different, are kind of Walmart shoppers. And I don't want to use Walmart as it is, but that's our experience. 1026 01:15:35,540 --> 01:15:40,020 Ron Harrison: And what kind of customer service do you get at Walmart? 1027 01:15:40,159 --> 01:15:42,440 Ron Harrison: And I don't want to pick up, but maybe Target or whomever, 1028 01:15:42,579 --> 01:15:43,820 Ron Harrison: I guess the camera's not around anymore. 1029 01:15:44,540 --> 01:15:46,800 Ron Harrison: But you don't get much. 1030 01:15:47,380 --> 01:15:50,059 Ron Harrison: It's a little bit like Aldi's. 1031 01:15:50,280 --> 01:15:51,000 Ron Harrison: I love Aldi's. 1032 01:15:51,000 --> 01:15:51,739 Ron Harrison: The prices are great. 1033 01:15:52,020 --> 01:15:56,320 Ron Harrison: But there's a difference between the customer service that I get at Aldi's and a Kroger. 1034 01:15:56,650 --> 01:15:58,100 Ron Harrison: At Kroger, there's a butcher there. 1035 01:15:58,320 --> 01:15:59,280 Ron Harrison: There's a baker there. 1036 01:15:59,460 --> 01:16:00,520 Ron Harrison: There's all of these. 1037 01:16:00,650 --> 01:16:03,060 Ron Harrison: And there's people that, you know, can tell you what aisle. 1038 01:16:03,410 --> 01:16:04,480 Ron Harrison: You don't get that much. 1039 01:16:04,870 --> 01:16:09,360 Ron Harrison: And so if you're a Walmart shopper, you're an Aldi shopper, and that's your customer service 1040 01:16:09,740 --> 01:16:18,500 Ron Harrison: experience, and then you go to Four Seasons that I talked about, or Ritz-Carlton, or, you 1041 01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:36,260 Ron Harrison: Do you have the skills, the customer service skills to manage that? And we didn't at one point. And so we had to put into place, how do we help? And what we realized is we needed our technicians to be able to have those experiences where they see what is really good customer service. 1042 01:16:37,340 --> 01:16:39,140 Ron Harrison: And I mean, I'll give you an example. 1043 01:16:39,290 --> 01:16:40,600 Ron Harrison: I flew back from Cairo. 1044 01:16:41,120 --> 01:16:43,580 Ron Harrison: Two of my bags were landed in Atlanta. 1045 01:16:43,900 --> 01:16:45,160 Ron Harrison: I still don't have my third bag. 1046 01:16:45,300 --> 01:16:46,620 Ron Harrison: And that was on the 23rd of December. 1047 01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:51,780 Ron Harrison: And so, you know, each time I call Air France to find out where it's at, they say, well, 1048 01:16:51,920 --> 01:16:53,420 Ron Harrison: just don't worry, we'll email you. 1049 01:16:54,200 --> 01:16:56,260 Ron Harrison: And I'm like, you have never emailed me one time. 1050 01:16:56,370 --> 01:16:57,280 Ron Harrison: Today, I got kind of frustrated. 1051 01:16:57,290 --> 01:17:03,440 Ron Harrison: I said, don't tell me that because for this entire time, no one has ever emailed me. 1052 01:17:04,219 --> 01:17:10,579 Ron Harrison: You know, even you tell me you found my bag in Berlin, which I don't know what's doing there, but no one emailed and said, hey, good luck. 1053 01:17:11,199 --> 01:17:12,619 Ron Harrison: Excuse me. Congratulations. We found it. 1054 01:17:12,980 --> 01:17:18,520 Ron Harrison: So if those are the experiences you have in customer service, how are you going to treat anyone else any differently? 1055 01:17:19,219 --> 01:17:25,900 Ron Harrison: I alluded to the fact earlier that of professionalism and I, you know, how you wear, what you dress. 1056 01:17:26,619 --> 01:17:32,739 Ron Harrison: How clean, even your vehicles, you drive up in a dirty vehicle, what impression does that actually give? 1057 01:17:33,119 --> 01:17:36,239 Ron Harrison: Your hands are dirty, your shoes are just out in the mud. 1058 01:17:37,139 --> 01:17:41,540 Ron Harrison: I think that that certainly is a valuable and important cut. 1059 01:17:41,940 --> 01:17:45,840 Ron Harrison: Also, what it means if you don't comply to what the laws say on the label. 1060 01:17:46,660 --> 01:17:50,860 Ron Harrison: And what impact could that have on the company? What impact could that have on you personally? 1061 01:17:51,920 --> 01:17:58,080 Ron Harrison: Like in Egypt, they're saying, well, you know, if we use an IGR, even though it's not registered, nothing's going to happen. 1062 01:17:58,300 --> 01:18:00,780 Ron Harrison: Well, in the United States, it clearly will happen. 1063 01:18:01,470 --> 01:18:11,780 Ron Harrison: And we have state auditors that are going to come in and look at what we do and therefore evaluate and see if we're actually in compliance. 1064 01:18:12,699 --> 01:18:19,400 Ron Harrison: Now, I want to talk about this for a moment because this is a serious issue. 1065 01:18:20,070 --> 01:18:23,500 Ron Harrison: How are we keeping our employees and what impact? 1066 01:18:24,320 --> 01:18:30,000 Ron Harrison: And if you think about it, if an employee leaves, what does it cost the company to replace 1067 01:18:30,260 --> 01:18:35,739 Ron Harrison: that employee or what revenue was lost because customers not being happy in the future? 1068 01:18:36,440 --> 01:18:40,960 Ron Harrison: We find out, this is the data that, of course, we don't want customers to cancel. 1069 01:18:41,420 --> 01:18:44,480 Ron Harrison: but they are prone to cancel, number one, 1070 01:18:45,040 --> 01:18:47,320 Ron Harrison: three to four months when the pest is taken care of. 1071 01:18:48,420 --> 01:18:51,219 Ron Harrison: That's number two, when they're, 1072 01:18:51,610 --> 01:18:53,280 Ron Harrison: usually we sign an annual agreement. 1073 01:18:53,469 --> 01:18:55,940 Ron Harrison: And so when that comes up, they're prone to cancel. 1074 01:18:56,840 --> 01:18:59,600 Ron Harrison: But the biggest one is, is when their technician calls 1075 01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:06,580 Ron Harrison: either quits or leaves. So you could say, well, yeah, I have to advertise for a new employee. I 1076 01:19:06,580 --> 01:19:10,460 Ron Harrison: have to train the new employee and all this other, and they're not as efficient at first. 1077 01:19:11,030 --> 01:19:17,140 Ron Harrison: But there's a big downside when customer cancellation that is impactful. 1078 01:19:18,360 --> 01:19:22,159 Ron Harrison: So, and what are some of those big training issues? 1079 01:19:23,280 --> 01:19:26,760 Ron Harrison: And this is what I would like to kind of think about a little bit and, 1080 01:19:27,219 --> 01:19:30,179 Ron Harrison: and, and get us, you know, before we wrap up with some, 1081 01:19:30,179 --> 01:19:30,980 Ron Harrison: a few conclusions, 1082 01:19:33,260 --> 01:19:36,139 Ron Harrison: how do you take your average performer, 1083 01:19:37,500 --> 01:19:39,079 Ron Harrison: and turn them into a top performer. 1084 01:19:40,960 --> 01:19:45,559 Ron Harrison: And so sometimes we have a flat out training protocol, 1085 01:19:45,790 --> 01:19:49,559 Ron Harrison: but we forget this is what our goal is, 1086 01:19:49,920 --> 01:19:54,020 Ron Harrison: is this salesperson is selling $50,000 a month 1087 01:19:54,150 --> 01:19:55,500 Ron Harrison: rather than the average of $20,000. 1088 01:19:55,920 --> 01:19:56,719 Ron Harrison: What are they doing different? 1089 01:19:57,120 --> 01:20:18,500 Ron Harrison: This technician has zero cancellations, no bad debt. What are they doing? And so therefore, grasping, understanding what that is and closing the gap is really our goal when it comes to training methodologies. And so therefore, we know that when we train, we have to target different types of learning styles. 1090 01:20:20,280 --> 01:20:29,020 Ron Harrison: Okay, so I'm going to go quickly through this because I wanted to get to just an assessment from my perspective of what the future holds. 1091 01:20:30,059 --> 01:20:41,139 Ron Harrison: And are we ready to adjust to new regulations, new paths, new goals? 1092 01:20:41,960 --> 01:20:44,900 Ron Harrison: And what's going to happen with that? 1093 01:20:45,000 --> 01:21:01,280 Ron Harrison: You know, will we therefore continue to raise or fit the need of where professional is part of what we are? So when you hear Dan give a presentation, there's no question of his professionalism. 1094 01:21:01,520 --> 01:21:16,560 Ron Harrison: Do we therefore take all of the work that he does in solving, figuring out what products are the best ones to use for what pests are actually out there? Or do we go back to our typical methodology, which is just to spray? 1095 01:21:17,920 --> 01:21:28,620 Ron Harrison: So IPM or integrated pest management really requires us to only use products or spray technology at the end. 1096 01:21:29,070 --> 01:21:35,300 Ron Harrison: If cultural control methods, excuse me, biological control, cultural, physical, and then chemical. 1097 01:21:35,710 --> 01:21:37,380 Ron Harrison: And so I was in Kazakhstan. 1098 01:21:38,280 --> 01:21:41,320 Ron Harrison: I think I actually did one of these trainings for Dan when I was there. 1099 01:21:41,720 --> 01:21:57,420 Ron Harrison: And we did a big training for the technicians, talked about integrated pest management, talked about chemicals being the end. And when we finished this four hour training, they said they had some customers go visit. I went with them to go visit. And they pulled up to the customer. I'm just watching. 1100 01:21:57,720 --> 01:22:01,080 Ron Harrison: and they immediately pull out their B&Gs and they immediately start spraying. 1101 01:22:01,740 --> 01:22:04,120 Ron Harrison: And I'm saying, what did we just talk about? 1102 01:22:04,540 --> 01:22:05,620 Ron Harrison: We didn't do an inspection. 1103 01:22:05,660 --> 01:22:06,440 Ron Harrison: We didn't identify. 1104 01:22:06,640 --> 01:22:07,380 Ron Harrison: We didn't target. 1105 01:22:07,760 --> 01:22:08,380 Ron Harrison: We just started. 1106 01:22:09,100 --> 01:22:12,160 Ron Harrison: And sometimes the response is, well, the customer expects that. 1107 01:22:13,040 --> 01:22:13,180 Ron Harrison: Well, 1108 01:22:14,140 --> 01:22:19,720 Ron Harrison: You know, if I go to my doctor and I walk in and say, hey, doctor, give me this medication because I expect it. 1109 01:22:19,780 --> 01:22:21,260 Ron Harrison: I hope the doctor says that. 1110 01:22:21,280 --> 01:22:23,740 Ron Harrison: She says, I don't even know if you need it or not. 1111 01:22:23,880 --> 01:22:25,540 Ron Harrison: I'm going to do a complete physical. 1112 01:22:25,740 --> 01:22:26,600 Ron Harrison: I'm going to do blood work. 1113 01:22:26,760 --> 01:22:27,940 Ron Harrison: I'm going to check you out. 1114 01:22:28,480 --> 01:22:29,440 Ron Harrison: And then we'll determine what. 1115 01:22:29,560 --> 01:22:34,960 Ron Harrison: But, you know, our customer doesn't dictate what our service strategy actually is. 1116 01:22:35,320 --> 01:22:52,599 Ron Harrison: And as I started this discussion, I kind of like the global impact of pest control. First of all, if I am staying at a Marriott here in the United States, and I go to Egypt, Cairo, I expect... 1117 01:22:53,620 --> 01:23:00,320 Ron Harrison: the same service, the same cleanliness, the same experience. 1118 01:23:01,360 --> 01:23:06,400 Ron Harrison: And so as we expand globally, as people travel more, had that opportunity. 1119 01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:12,220 Ron Harrison: Now, I know there's been a little bit from a political that the U.S. is restricting some countries from coming here, 1120 01:23:12,260 --> 01:23:14,560 Ron Harrison: and they, in reciprocity, did the same thing back. 1121 01:23:15,119 --> 01:23:22,020 Ron Harrison: But I do think that the world continues to close in, which means that the expectation, the standards are similar globally. 1122 01:23:22,610 --> 01:23:27,739 Ron Harrison: And so I think that becomes an issue that we all kind of pay close attention to. 1123 01:23:29,219 --> 01:23:35,000 Ron Harrison: So at that point, at this point, then, I think that our industry is... 1124 01:23:35,020 --> 01:23:42,120 Ron Harrison: is healthy and strong. I think the opportunities continue. I think that those that want to hustle 1125 01:23:42,480 --> 01:23:48,240 Ron Harrison: and evaluate the direction that they want to go and be successful in pest control, 1126 01:23:48,260 --> 01:23:53,460 Ron Harrison: the opportunity is actually there. And so I'm happy now to kind of open this up for any questions 1127 01:23:53,620 --> 01:23:57,880 Ron Harrison: that anyone might have about what we've talked about or any other points that I might be able to 1128 01:23:57,920 --> 01:23:58,300 Ron Harrison: help with. 1129 01:23:59,540 --> 01:24:14,040 Dan Suiter: Always good stuff, Ron. I've got all these recorded throughout the years and I've listened to them over and over again. You always throw some different stuff in there. It's always a really good discussion topic. 1130 01:24:14,540 --> 01:24:18,420 Dan Suiter: I had a question, Ron, about I'll go ahead and kick this off. 1131 01:24:18,840 --> 01:24:22,620 Dan Suiter: If anybody has questions, type them in the you can either do the what is it? 1132 01:24:22,620 --> 01:24:27,120 Dan Suiter: The Q&A. There's a Q&A or in the in the chat box. 1133 01:24:27,320 --> 01:24:37,060 Dan Suiter: But, Ron, talk a little bit about you had mentioned early in your presentation, kind of some of the top pests and house flies kind of bubbled to the top. 1134 01:24:37,440 --> 01:24:56,900 Dan Suiter: Talk a little bit about what you see sanitation wise around around the world in terms of the relationship between housefly problems and sanitation and these cultural issues or what what I'm just reflect a little bit about why you think houseflies are such a problem worldwide. 1135 01:24:57,920 --> 01:25:17,480 Ron Harrison: Yeah. So, yeah, thank you for that question. And I certainly don't want to sound negative about any country or their sanitations, because I really enjoy the people and the experience. But, and even in more developed countries like Europe and places, you'll see some flies sometimes crawling on some bakery items and things like that. So, 1136 01:25:07,199 --> 01:25:07,380 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 1137 01:25:17,960 --> 01:25:22,120 Ron Harrison: So I think, first of all, people's standard may be just a little different. 1138 01:25:22,590 --> 01:25:32,360 Ron Harrison: I use the example of I was doing a training in UAE and I had a lot of expats there, people from Philippines and Pakistan and India. 1139 01:25:33,480 --> 01:25:35,640 Ron Harrison: And my topic that day was bed bugs. 1140 01:25:35,770 --> 01:25:38,660 Ron Harrison: And I said, hey, guys, I usually carry a vial of bed bugs for you to see. 1141 01:25:39,140 --> 01:25:39,820 Ron Harrison: Sorry, I don't. 1142 01:25:39,880 --> 01:25:42,700 Ron Harrison: And one guy raised his hand and said, oh, this guy has a bed bug on his back. 1143 01:25:43,600 --> 01:25:45,820 Ron Harrison: And nobody screamed or hollered. 1144 01:25:46,160 --> 01:25:48,880 Ron Harrison: They said, oh, well, we have bed bugs in our country all the time. 1145 01:25:49,680 --> 01:25:54,980 Ron Harrison: So I think, first of all, there is sometimes a cultural thing that it's not that big a deal. 1146 01:25:55,340 --> 01:25:59,140 Ron Harrison: But second of all, city planning. 1147 01:25:59,920 --> 01:26:07,740 Ron Harrison: has been much better in certain locations than others. Even wealthy countries like Dubai and 1148 01:26:07,960 --> 01:26:12,360 Ron Harrison: others, I don't think they've always done good city planning. And so therefore, as they expand 1149 01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:16,740 Ron Harrison: and grow, you're just right next to where there are sanitation issues that are a struggle. 1150 01:26:17,180 --> 01:26:21,640 Ron Harrison: We were in the slaughterhouse and helping them, but the flies were just 1151 01:26:22,020 --> 01:26:24,940 Ron Harrison: crazy, but it was right around residential areas. 1152 01:26:25,390 --> 01:26:27,740 Ron Harrison: So I would have to say, I think, you know, 1153 01:26:28,400 --> 01:26:30,560 Ron Harrison: cultural issues that people may not be as concerned about it. 1154 01:26:31,200 --> 01:26:33,420 Ron Harrison: But I think the other one is no question. 1155 01:26:34,280 --> 01:26:34,820 Ron Harrison: It's a sanitation. 1156 01:26:35,670 --> 01:26:38,380 Ron Harrison: And, you know, I remember when I first started with Orkin, 1157 01:26:38,960 --> 01:26:40,540 Ron Harrison: the comment, you know, flies aren't the problem. 1158 01:26:40,700 --> 01:26:41,820 Ron Harrison: They're a symptom of a problem. 1159 01:26:42,220 --> 01:26:49,960 Ron Harrison: And I think with house flies in general, we would have to say that, that there are sanitation problems that cause. 1160 01:26:50,140 --> 01:26:59,520 Ron Harrison: And I was in Cambodia and they had this big marriage house, a marriage building where, you know, hundreds of people would come to see their relatives get married. 1161 01:26:59,920 --> 01:27:05,000 Ron Harrison: and you have a big banquet, you have food, and across the street was the grocery store which we 1162 01:27:05,060 --> 01:27:10,719 Ron Harrison: were servicing, and there had been a strike against garbage collection. And so this big 1163 01:27:11,780 --> 01:27:16,460 Ron Harrison: wedding facility had cooked for all this. The food was just sitting there just across the street. 1164 01:27:16,500 --> 01:27:20,540 Ron Harrison: The winds were blowing from the ocean in, you know, and the customer was furious. Hey, 1165 01:27:20,620 --> 01:27:23,360 Ron Harrison: I've got all these flies in my grocery store. Help me. You know, and you're like, 1166 01:27:24,160 --> 01:27:28,840 Ron Harrison: so i would say that in general some of the sanitation issues are well and then you have 1167 01:27:29,000 --> 01:27:32,700 Ron Harrison: stray dogs and cats in egypt and so they're wandering around defecating and then you've got 1168 01:27:32,700 --> 01:27:39,080 Ron Harrison: the flies there so i think a lot of it has to do with sanitation or culture that impacts that fly 1169 01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:45,980 Dan Suiter: pro yeah it's it's not it's not unique to anywhere in the world flies your house flies will take 1170 01:27:46,280 --> 01:27:47,500 Dan Suiter: advantage of 1171 01:27:47,740 --> 01:27:54,600 Dan Suiter: a sanitation problem in New York City or in Griffin, Georgia, just as they would, you 1172 01:27:54,600 --> 01:27:55,640 Dan Suiter: know, anywhere else in the world. 1173 01:27:56,460 --> 01:27:59,920 Dan Suiter: Talk a little bit about termite issues the world over. 1174 01:28:00,060 --> 01:28:05,200 Dan Suiter: Is that, are subterranean termites unique to North America in your dealings around the 1175 01:28:05,280 --> 01:28:10,920 Dan Suiter: world or what, where do you see drywood termites or even subterranean termites being more of 1176 01:28:10,920 --> 01:28:12,200 Dan Suiter: a problem worldwide? 1177 01:28:13,059 --> 01:28:26,159 Ron Harrison: Yeah, that's so with with subterranean, you've got even and we have some all over the states, but but often the most serious is where they have a little more moisture. 1178 01:28:26,980 --> 01:28:32,059 Ron Harrison: You know, you see in in Arizona where we built structures and stuff like that. 1179 01:28:32,179 --> 01:28:34,219 Ron Harrison: And I know there are desert termites and stuff like that. 1180 01:28:34,260 --> 01:28:41,079 Ron Harrison: But where you have tropical type conditions with a lot of moisture is where we see mainly our subterranean termites. 1181 01:28:41,660 --> 01:28:48,320 Ron Harrison: Now I've seen Formosan termites in many areas because of commerce where they've been relocated. 1182 01:28:49,720 --> 01:28:53,620 Ron Harrison: So like in Egypt, we don't see very many subterranean termites. 1183 01:28:54,640 --> 01:28:56,640 Ron Harrison: I've seen it a couple of times in Saudi Arabia. 1184 01:28:57,200 --> 01:29:01,400 Ron Harrison: But most of the time, that sub is associated with moisture conditions. 1185 01:29:02,080 --> 01:29:04,400 Ron Harrison: On the other hand, the drywood termites... 1186 01:29:04,420 --> 01:29:10,120 Ron Harrison: We see those, but then again, they kind of have some ranges that they like. 1187 01:29:10,340 --> 01:29:14,820 Ron Harrison: And so if it's too hot or it's too cold, then they're not so happy. 1188 01:29:15,020 --> 01:29:19,260 Ron Harrison: But yes, if I go to Egypt, we don't have any termite. 1189 01:29:19,400 --> 01:29:20,820 Ron Harrison: Really, we don't have a protocol there. 1190 01:29:21,280 --> 01:29:27,420 Ron Harrison: Saudi Arabia a little bit, but all of the islands, most of South America, we have termite 1191 01:29:27,989 --> 01:29:29,159 Ron Harrison: issues and challenges. 1192 01:29:30,120 --> 01:29:37,080 Ron Harrison: In general, as Orkin, who's expanding, we first encourage, get involved with commercial pest control. 1193 01:29:33,409 --> 01:29:33,540 Ron Harrison: Mm-hmm. 1194 01:29:37,480 --> 01:29:46,380 Ron Harrison: Do those restaurants, the hotels, the government facilities for commercial, and then expand out from termites. 1195 01:29:46,410 --> 01:29:52,720 Ron Harrison: So the 75 franchise stand that we have, I would say about half of them are doing termite work. 1196 01:29:52,790 --> 01:29:54,820 Ron Harrison: The other half is just not a big enough issue. 1197 01:29:55,050 --> 01:29:56,820 Ron Harrison: And the risk is so high, they don't do it. 1198 01:29:57,000 --> 01:29:57,380 Dan Suiter: Yeah, yeah. 1199 01:29:58,420 --> 01:30:05,300 Dan Suiter: We had a question here, Ron, about AI and residential pest control and things like robotics. 1200 01:30:05,860 --> 01:30:12,820 Dan Suiter: So this comes from Philip. He says, how will AI change residential pest control services and will robotics be involved? 1201 01:30:13,820 --> 01:30:20,580 Ron Harrison: Yeah, I like that question. As I mentioned earlier, no question that identification is. 1202 01:30:20,300 --> 01:30:23,340 Ron Harrison: you know, discussing what, giving us information, what we should do. 1203 01:30:24,150 --> 01:30:26,320 Ron Harrison: The robotic one, I'm just not sure. 1204 01:30:26,820 --> 01:30:31,560 Ron Harrison: There was some talks in Orlando, a little bit about, you know, the future. 1205 01:30:34,820 --> 01:30:41,040 Ron Harrison: So this is what, so it makes a lot of sense to have some robotic help. 1206 01:30:41,290 --> 01:30:46,240 Ron Harrison: If you've got a food processing facility and you've got 50 bait stations around the outside. 1207 01:30:47,860 --> 01:31:07,820 Ron Harrison: So how can that help? And so will you have a robot that's able to open up the bait station, be able to evaluate and determine what's going on inside of it, whether it's snails that are eating it or whether there's some stored product pests that are eating it, then clean it out because we always want to have them clean. 1208 01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:11,719 Ron Harrison: determine whether a new bait goes in or the old one is good enough, 1209 01:31:12,940 --> 01:31:14,500 Ron Harrison: mark whatever's happened on that. 1210 01:31:14,579 --> 01:31:18,619 Ron Harrison: So therefore they've got to do some type of reporting on it and then close it. 1211 01:31:19,300 --> 01:31:21,820 Ron Harrison: I don't think we're quite there yet. 1212 01:31:22,260 --> 01:31:25,679 Ron Harrison: Those bait stations, you know, moving, they get kicked, they get, you know, 1213 01:31:25,860 --> 01:31:27,119 Ron Harrison: will it be able to handle that? 1214 01:31:27,520 --> 01:31:43,660 Ron Harrison: I think maybe it down the road, but I think currently AI to you physically open it up and give you information, no question that's going to be doing it. But the robots or drones or things like that... 1215 01:31:37,320 --> 01:31:37,440 Ron Harrison: Yeah. 1216 01:31:43,220 --> 01:31:44,660 Ron Harrison: I just haven't seen it. 1217 01:31:45,660 --> 01:31:50,460 Ron Harrison: I still think we're going to be there doing our work because there's the inconsistencies and the difference. 1218 01:31:50,860 --> 01:31:53,760 Ron Harrison: It's not like putting a car together that everything is exactly the same. 1219 01:31:53,980 --> 01:31:54,700 Ron Harrison: Everything gets put there. 1220 01:31:55,300 --> 01:31:57,500 Ron Harrison: There's too many changes that can occur or happen. 1221 01:31:59,080 --> 01:32:00,620 Ron Harrison: Anyway, currently, we're not seeing it. 1222 01:32:01,050 --> 01:32:01,540 Dan Suiter: Great question. 1223 01:32:02,300 --> 01:32:06,100 Dan Suiter: Those are tools that maybe they're added on. 1224 01:32:06,620 --> 01:32:12,500 Dan Suiter: I have some operators here in Georgia who, years ago, were using drones to... 1225 01:32:12,520 --> 01:32:21,500 Dan Suiter: you know, to fly around a warehouse and stand there with the owner or the person in charge of 1226 01:32:21,980 --> 01:32:27,720 Dan Suiter: fixing things and looking at places where rodents could get in, standing in one place, 1227 01:32:27,840 --> 01:32:31,240 Dan Suiter: flying around the entire warehouse and looking at places where, you know, 1228 01:32:31,560 --> 01:32:33,200 Dan Suiter: rodents might be able to get in from the outside. 1229 01:32:33,330 --> 01:32:40,000 Dan Suiter: We had another operator here in Fayetteville who was using YouTube. He would take a 1230 01:32:40,400 --> 01:32:46,200 Dan Suiter: You know, whenever he got a hit on a termite station, he would show, you know, the client was never there. 1231 01:32:47,120 --> 01:32:53,600 Dan Suiter: But, you know, he would take a little YouTube video, post it to that YouTube channel for that client. 1232 01:32:54,580 --> 01:33:02,940 Dan Suiter: And they could go, you know, that evening when they're sitting down watching TV, sit down and look at the termites coming out of the bait station that day. 1233 01:33:02,840 --> 01:33:07,020 Dan Suiter: that evening. So those are all tools. It takes a little bit more time, I guess, to use some of that 1234 01:33:07,180 --> 01:33:12,940 Dan Suiter: stuff, but I think we'll continue to see some of those things creep into. You may see things like 1235 01:33:13,360 --> 01:33:18,720 Dan Suiter: termite inspections, cameras going into crawl spaces, and I'm sure there's probably people that 1236 01:33:18,720 --> 01:33:19,460 Dan Suiter: are doing that now. 1237 01:33:20,660 --> 01:33:25,820 Ron Harrison: let me just jump down because this is 20 years ago there was a company from germany that came to 1238 01:33:25,880 --> 01:33:32,400 Ron Harrison: me and said we've got a monitor that you can put on a tin cat or a rodent bait station and it's 1239 01:33:32,400 --> 01:33:36,500 Ron Harrison: going to help you you know see what's going on inside of it and you know i get real excited about 1240 01:33:36,530 --> 01:33:43,300 Ron Harrison: it and then this tin cat that costs five dollars has he just turned it into thirty dollars 1241 01:33:43,699 --> 01:33:46,300 Ron Harrison: and every tin cat had to have this piece of equipment on it. 1242 01:33:46,300 --> 01:33:49,760 Ron Harrison: And I just say, yeah, some of these technologies are really, 1243 01:33:50,239 --> 01:33:52,119 Ron Harrison: but our margins are way down. 1244 01:33:53,920 --> 01:33:56,420 Ron Harrison: And so I guess I'd also have to say is, 1245 01:33:56,820 --> 01:33:58,460 Ron Harrison: can we afford some of these things 1246 01:33:58,920 --> 01:34:08,380 Ron Harrison: And so with that, when all of these monitors were coming out, all these companies were saying, yeah, you will save because you don't have to go out anymore. 1247 01:34:09,300 --> 01:34:10,900 Ron Harrison: Well, I don't know about the rest of you. 1248 01:34:10,960 --> 01:34:12,140 Ron Harrison: I'd like to take a poll. 1249 01:34:12,469 --> 01:34:16,460 Ron Harrison: But about 25 to 30% of our work is rodent work. 1250 01:34:17,100 --> 01:34:19,260 Ron Harrison: Well, what about the other 60%? 1251 01:34:21,060 --> 01:34:24,500 Ron Harrison: Someone's got to look for the flies and someone's got to look for the beetles, the roaches. 1252 01:34:25,480 --> 01:34:27,440 Ron Harrison: So I'm still going out there anyway. 1253 01:34:28,040 --> 01:34:33,580 Ron Harrison: So I think we have to look at economics as well to see how we can incorporate some of these new technologies. 1254 01:34:33,800 --> 01:34:36,540 Dan Suiter: Oh, it's the same story with all the termite detection tools. 1255 01:34:37,260 --> 01:34:37,840 Dan Suiter: There you go. 1256 01:34:38,110 --> 01:34:41,900 Dan Suiter: You know, eyeballs and a flashlight and a screwdriver are... 1257 01:34:42,340 --> 01:34:44,320 Dan Suiter: You always get back to that kind of thing, right? 1258 01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:46,320 Dan Suiter: You hit on it. 1259 01:34:46,730 --> 01:34:50,420 Ron Harrison: And so how can we afford the termitracks? 1260 01:34:50,580 --> 01:34:53,980 Ron Harrison: And they work. 1261 01:34:54,760 --> 01:34:57,880 Ron Harrison: But I know Orkin has said maybe one per region, 1262 01:34:58,360 --> 01:34:58,920 Ron Harrison: some of these new, 1263 01:34:59,140 --> 01:35:00,920 Ron Harrison: because it just doesn't make economical sense. 1264 01:35:01,080 --> 01:35:01,940 Ron Harrison: Every branch has something. 1265 01:35:02,420 --> 01:35:17,600 Dan Suiter: I had another question here, Ron, about changing gears a little bit about what types of pests are commonly expected in hospital facilities and how does Orkin go about, do you have a program for managing pension hospitals? 1266 01:35:18,300 --> 01:35:21,240 Ron Harrison: Yeah, that's considered a very sensitive environment. 1267 01:35:22,160 --> 01:35:27,540 Ron Harrison: And of course, the last thing you want to have is a pest causing problems with a sick person mentally. 1268 01:35:28,280 --> 01:35:30,160 Ron Harrison: So yes, we have a scolpice. 1269 01:35:31,020 --> 01:35:33,000 Ron Harrison: You've got to have that protection. 1270 01:35:33,620 --> 01:35:41,460 Ron Harrison: I think our biggest challenge has become emergency rooms, psychiatric rooms, and maternity wards. 1271 01:35:42,059 --> 01:35:45,159 Ron Harrison: Because those tend to be, you come directly there. 1272 01:35:45,679 --> 01:35:49,079 Ron Harrison: You know, it's not something that you prepare for. 1273 01:35:49,280 --> 01:35:56,880 Ron Harrison: You know, like if I've had an accident, I start an emergency room, then, you know, they're basically taking my clothes off, moving me to surgery or something like that. 1274 01:35:56,969 --> 01:35:57,079 Ron Harrison: Mm-hmm. 1275 01:35:57,500 --> 01:36:03,540 Ron Harrison: So what we have to be, you know, the last thing a surgeon wants is a fly flying around inside of surgery. 1276 01:36:04,580 --> 01:36:06,140 Ron Harrison: And we've had those problems. 1277 01:36:07,340 --> 01:36:10,360 Ron Harrison: The nursing station is right next to the surgery. 1278 01:36:10,800 --> 01:36:14,699 Ron Harrison: And so the nurses are in there relaxing, bringing food from home or garden vegetables. 1279 01:36:14,920 --> 01:36:15,820 Ron Harrison: And then the flies move in. 1280 01:36:15,960 --> 01:36:17,560 Ron Harrison: So I think you have two things. 1281 01:36:17,880 --> 01:36:23,280 Ron Harrison: You know, what are we doing to keep the side areas as sterile as possible? 1282 01:36:23,960 --> 01:36:26,320 Ron Harrison: But you got to have pest control in those locations. 1283 01:36:26,480 --> 01:36:28,880 Ron Harrison: And then, you know, what do our technicians wear? 1284 01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:31,780 Ron Harrison: Do they wear scrubs or do they just go in on their regular clothes? 1285 01:36:32,020 --> 01:36:34,240 Ron Harrison: And yeah, it's a huge opportunity. 1286 01:36:34,640 --> 01:36:39,520 Ron Harrison: We're grateful that, you know, we have contracts with some of the larger hospitals here in Atlanta and throughout the world. 1287 01:36:39,760 --> 01:36:41,520 Ron Harrison: But it's a whole different approach. 1288 01:36:41,560 --> 01:36:45,000 Ron Harrison: And I think that question goes to, is your technician... 1289 01:36:45,340 --> 01:36:46,700 Ron Harrison: able to do the switch. 1290 01:36:46,960 --> 01:36:50,140 Ron Harrison: They're going into kind of a bar restaurant and do a service. 1291 01:36:50,370 --> 01:36:52,240 Ron Harrison: And then they go to Emory hospital. 1292 01:36:52,660 --> 01:36:52,740 Dan Suiter: Yeah. 1293 01:36:52,790 --> 01:36:52,920 Dan Suiter: Yeah. 1294 01:36:53,340 --> 01:36:53,480 Ron Harrison: You know, 1295 01:36:53,620 --> 01:36:55,360 Ron Harrison: how do you change your attitude, 1296 01:36:55,450 --> 01:36:56,860 Ron Harrison: your philosophy to make sure that, 1297 01:36:57,340 --> 01:36:57,740 Ron Harrison: you know, 1298 01:36:57,750 --> 01:36:59,180 Ron Harrison: that the results is the same, 1299 01:36:59,320 --> 01:37:01,120 Ron Harrison: but that your approach to it's different. 1300 01:37:03,340 --> 01:37:15,160 Dan Suiter: All right. I think that's about going to wrap it up, Ron. We always appreciate your, you know, your, we were both younger, younger men when we started doing this 21 years ago. 1301 01:37:19,000 --> 01:37:19,440 Ron Harrison: So. 1302 01:37:19,460 --> 01:37:19,600 Ron Harrison: So. 1303 01:37:21,600 --> 01:37:24,940 Dan Suiter: but it's been a, it's been a, it's been, it's been, 1304 01:37:25,120 --> 01:37:27,440 Dan Suiter: it's been a great 21 years. And as you said, you, 1305 01:37:28,110 --> 01:37:31,180 Dan Suiter: you were one of the originals and we have another original next week. 1306 01:37:31,320 --> 01:37:33,220 Dan Suiter: Jeff Dunn is going to, or next month is going to, on, 1307 01:37:33,730 --> 01:37:37,100 Dan Suiter: what did I say that date was it's February, February 11th. 1308 01:37:37,150 --> 01:37:40,020 Dan Suiter: Jeff Dunn's going to talk about principles of sales. 1309 01:37:40,070 --> 01:37:43,340 Dan Suiter: He always changes his talk up. He's been doing it as long as you have. 1310 01:37:43,420 --> 01:37:46,640 Dan Suiter: And Jeff will be talking about sales and technology in the pest control 1311 01:37:46,860 --> 01:37:47,040 Dan Suiter: industry. 1312 01:37:47,980 --> 01:37:56,159 Dan Suiter: So I just want to remind everybody, fill out that sign-in sheet, take a picture of it or scan it and send it to gtbop at uga.edu. 1313 01:37:57,119 --> 01:38:04,139 Dan Suiter: And we will get on the process of processing these credits for everybody in all the states that you need it. 1314 01:38:04,440 --> 01:38:06,300 Dan Suiter: So, again, thanks, Ron. 1315 01:38:06,760 --> 01:38:08,500 Dan Suiter: And everybody has a great evening. 1316 01:38:09,400 --> 01:38:09,619 Ron Harrison: Okay. 1317 01:38:10,000 --> 01:38:10,099 Ron Harrison: Thanks. 1318 01:38:10,380 --> 01:38:10,719 Ron Harrison: See you soon. 1319 01:38:10,940 --> 01:38:11,440 Dan Suiter: Thanks, Ron. 1320 01:38:11,980 --> 01:38:12,400 Dan Suiter: Bye. 1321 01:38:15,620 --> 01:38:16,180 Dan Suiter: Bye, everyone.