Yes, the economy is in the doldrums and all that, but it doesn’t mean some great companies with good business sense can’t succeed, even in a downturn environment.
Down in the Sunshine State in Fort Myers, two entrepreneurs have been controlling the pests in Lee County, Florida, on their own for the past five years, and doing an excellent job.
Clifford Daniels and Jim Lambeth, co-owners of A Better Bugman, LLC since 2007, were co-workers first at other pest control companies, big and small, since the 1980s. As they came to know the residents of the communities their companies served, and also came to know the companies, they came to the realization that despite the success of these other companies there was a certain fatal flaw in their business models, and that was the dismissal of the importance of customer service.
That’s when they decided to go out on their own and created A Better Bugman, and now it’s been five years.
A five-year anniversary “means that we’ve been able to provide good customer service for five years and our customers appreciate it,” Daniels said. “And we’ve been growing every year.”
It is interesting, and even significant, that this anniversary also comes on the heels of A Better Bugman’s highest single-month revenue in their history: in August they earned $30,574. In 2012 they grossed $186,225 in sales, year to date, a nice increase over 2011’s gross over the same period of $151,154. That is a 23 percent increase.
The partners also have a non-traditional approach to pest control in some cases. Two years ago, instead of killing bees that were causing problems, they began to capture them. Today they have 32 hives in Lehigh Acres, and collected 150 pounds of honey last year. Their aim for this coming year is to get 400 to 600 pound of honey from their bees.
“People think pest control guys are polluters of the environment,” Daniels said, “but actually we’re protectors because we regulate what’s used, where it’s used and we’re even trying to protect the honeybees.”
Perhaps their attitude, and not just their great business sense, is a contributor to the growth of their company over the past five years.
“We have been growing for five years,” Lambeth said. “We’ve been doing fairly well, so it’s only fair that you give back to the community that helped you grow for five years.”
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