My dad used to talk about the knucklehead factor. He used to work for Vic at Ehrlich. For more than twelve years, John Myers, Rentokil North America CEO, has scaled a regional pest control business into a national empire. They're a little bit behind because when they were at, XYZ location, it took longer. John Myers: I hate to do that to him because it probably allows someone to figure out his age., Paul Giannamore: You take one look at him and youll know he's old., John Myers: Let's say he was with the company for 35 years. I would love it because I'm inclined to change the copier and load the truck and want to be out in the field and want to kill stuff and the like. I was in my late 20s or early 30s. They've got odometers and WEX cards. They had aspirations to make North America big. Once I got good company, I met the guy I was going to work for and I said, He's good. It was Alan Brown and a guy named Andy Hobart. It does take humility. John highlights the #1 consideration that Rentokil North America has as a buyer, which may remind you of Episode 14. What they did with the people and all that was one of the smartest moves that they made. Interestingly, Patrick, I'm old enough to remember Jack Welch. para informarnos de que tienes problemas. I kid you not. Do you remember my Atlanta story? I don't know how long ago this was but this is going back at least a couple of years. I do know that I'd have to think differently. It's spinning in my head. That was never the goal.. There's continuity of thought and process. Heart and soul went into that. It didn't do a whole lot one time so it was a pretty homogenous customer base, which was good for testing. Paul gets some crazy stories., Paul Giannamore: I always hear crazy stories.. He was a bellwether for a lot of what was inside Ehrlich, Presto-X, Western, and the like. The other thing is you look at low route density markets and put a sales rep in there and spend some marketing to build up the territories. They're not taking ride alongs with technicians at random intervals. Which one would you like?, Paul Giannamore: I know which one you took. We've heard Jarl and John Myers talk about it. Si vous continuez voir ce Wir entschuldigen uns fr die Umstnde. to let us know you're having trouble. Its finding the best talent irrespective of where they are in the world. Ill talk to you soon. They're growing at a high teen double-digit growth and you go, What am I going to get from doing that? As a result, sometimes I feel like I'm treading water in the deep end, Patrick, about this branding thing. Patrick Baldwin: I don't know as much about Rentokil as you. It's important to show up at a customer's operation and talk to him. To a large degree, Rollins has a portfolio of independent brands. He used to talk about the top 20, the middle 70, and the bottom 10. Patrick Baldwin: Lets do it right now. Why aren't we selling a little more of that? One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is, is John Myers the person and John Myers the manager? The other thing that I will say is I've never had an indemnification claim with Rentokil. There are good people there. John Myers: There are a couple of things that come to mind right away. In this COVID world, I'm thinking about PPE a lot. I had Vis--vised everything that I had done historically around the globe., Over time, when about Rentokil versus Orokin versus Terminix versus Anticimex, for example, as the M&A market has continued to heat up in years, all of these players had to get more sophisticated. In early 2006, Rentokil closed the Ehrlich transaction. Features; Our data; Clients; . Texas is a tough market for all acquires. We don't incentivize for. Its leaving them as the local brand that they're known for in the market. Were excited when we hear how they did that and have taken those ideas and made them the North American solution., Patrick Baldwin: Can you give us an example?, John Myers: I remember when we bought Steritech. We had a tremendous amount of debates about strategy and tactics. There are a lot of them on this list that I would like to be able to utilize but I can't because a lot of companies don't have those records. Fast and chaotically means not profitably. Selling shouldn't be considered a negative. That doesn't happen as much. They had an incredibly good hygiene services business.. Corporate Governance Rentokil Initial plc's ISS Governance QualityScore as of January 1, 2023 is 1.. This is a kid that didn't want to be part of a big company. I bet you dont think about that often. They went wrong when someone was at 9%. John Myers: You spent some time in Philly. If you have someone in your organization that you trust and are passionate about something and you know it's not going to blow up the company, you're smart to listen to those folks.. If they're getting it, then there's hope for the middle 70 that I can make sure they're getting it. When he's ready to sell, you're at the doorstep and you're saying, Let's talk seriously., The second part is, and I always say to them, This is the most important part. Its got to be a culture fit with the business you are. Anytime. It was the execution of the strategy. You do have to have a family conference on that. Paul Giannamore: I have no idea why I know that. He had some subject matter experts that he pulled on. I got lucky, Paul. The pillar scores are Audit: 1; Board: 2; Shareholder Rights: 1; Compensation: 5. When you brought up safety meetings, maybe bureaucratic, in my business, it's an incredible tool that tells the guys that are doing a lot of work that you care about them. Once they stick around with the business for longer than eighteen months, the technician builds a relationship. I'm happy that he spent hours and hours with us. Ill give them credit. Si continas viendo este mensaje, It was a perfect setup for me to understand that I wasn't selling a thing. Several years ago, I decided I wanted to hire the best talent in North America to work for me regardless of where they lived. Perry Tindall used to work for us. Through a lot of conversations and eventually, some courage on my part, I would say, Andy, if we go fast, we're going to blow this company up. Older customers are more inclined to send emails about changing credit cards so on and so forth.. Not that the other ones don't but I always felt Rentokil was transparent. They'll talk to customers when they call in or whatever, but they're not proactive out on the field. When I look at companies Rentokil and Anticimex, I start to think about the fact that both of them provide a lot of upward mobility for sellers people., Patrick Baldwin: That makes sense. We had two little girls that were probably 6 and 3. Once again, a big transition. You came on board slightly less than $200 million in revenue. You're in Dallas. Finally, the one that we all know but we sometimes forget is 1% improvement in customer retention is 1% organic growth. In the past, you've said that 80% of sellers choose the highest bid. There are OSHA requirements in addition to the fact that someone could get hurt and you could never walk by a safety issue. I do have one more to add to the list. Every job is posted and we're happy to have people move around., Patrick Baldwin: Are you looking for that from people that are flexible and where they move?, John Myers: I'm a dinosaur in that. It's easy for me to have a problem or there's an extra service or someone's got whatever. Is it about money? He was bright and driven with a record of taking a company from X to a public company. Onze Alliance News 24 March . As a matter of fact, when we bought the West Coast Western, some people call it the Best Western. If you're doing a job and you feel you're not doing it well, it's not satisfying and engaging. In certain areas of Europe, you get the polite no. For more than twelve years, John Myers, Rentokil North America CEO, has scaled a regional pest control business into a national empire. Patrick Baldwin: She's on the other side of the ocean. Why is that important? Are we doing the right stuff?. It didn't take Rentokil long to bring PwC on to execute a lot of their buy-side diligence or at least financial accounting diligence.. We weren't quite sure about that but we were sure about the people in there. They're going to put me with their best guys. Its the same thing with Terminix. Does it make sense for Rentokil to rebrand Western in California whose business has been around since 1913 to Ehrlich? To this day, Vic remains close to your organization. Excellence describes your methods for achieving those results. I'm going to flip it the other way. I don't see Rentokil being sold anytime soon. I would be the guy picking out the truck that we would use and the colors and all those types of things.. Bringing in an experienced leader from another organization, they can apply things that they learned that were specific to their past employers. You mentioned Jack Welch earlier. I want to see the top twenty. That was me and not you, John. JP McHale. When we go to meetings and John shows up, and Mex is like, I want to sit on his lap and drink hot chocolate and listen to his story. He's a fierce leader for sure. I'm doing deals in pest control. I stole it from Cintas. Eventually, after seven hours, no one can do that. We brought something to a close. There you go. That's an entirely separate episode on customer retention measurements. Paul Giannamore: You leave Cintas. Explaining to commercial customers is no longer blank, it's blank. Step into The Boardroom to find out. What I know about Rentokil is from meeting with John Myers and seeing Presto-X truck here in the area. I always like to have conversations. You can't have this super top-down approach. Lets keep this short and sweet. Im managing a sales organization over there. He's not looking for them to be done in 15 months even, let alone 15 minutes., When I was brand new in my job, I thought an assignment was you had to fix this right away. Let's talk this through. To me, that's an important thing., A couple of the other things is when I think about the capabilities of Rentokil North America's M&A team, it was rough starting it. The mindset is the same, its the cultural nuances around the edge and how certain things happen, like if you're in one country and you're used to doing it one way. When you don't, you're on to the next adventure and you said, How did that thing ever work out over there?. The data is there. The most profitable organic growth you can have is when you've already paid the commission, the specialists already know where it is, and the equipment's already installed. The differentiators are the frontline technicians and the CSRs that are taking calls from customers and sales reps that are identifying needs. Paul Giannamore: You talking makes me think about something. These CEOs who run these billion-dollar organizations do get out in the field and do ride alongs. It's not 1%. The core of your business is creating value for the customer unless you get out there and talk to the customer. Scores indicate decile rank relative to index or region. Vic is running it. Ehrlich was effectively Rentokil North America. Is it different? It's more about the process, that Rentokil is built to help itself and they have done a great job with that. We worry about having the wrong answer or even when we have the right answer, the failure to implement well. How the hell do you run a business with 9,000 employees? He's a guy that's been around for over 35 years. As a result, I'm usually in a pretty good spot., The last thing I would tell you is I have changed my mind more often in meetings. Heaven help you if you ran over a little kid. hE joined Rentokil Initial in 2008 as President and Chief Executive of the Pest Control division in North America. If you get hiring, training, and development right, you're going to be amazingly successful. Oops! If I'm saying that managers should only manage 9 people and a guy's got 16, how's that likely to turn out?, I'm giving you maybe not the level of detail you want on KPIs but the point is we then decide if this is the solution, how do we measure success? He sent me to your boss, Mr. Andy Ransom. As you might imagine, if you want an account, Anheuser-Busch was the account to have. I went over to London and he was kind enough to sit down and kind of giggle at me and look at me like Im a young kid trying to buy Rentokil North America. I wanted to understand far more than the top-line impact that customer retention has on a business. He was so good at what he does. If you hire someone that's not a culture fit, you agreed to have a divorce at some point. When I came into pest control it was new for me. The average Rentokil North America salary ranges from approximately $39,541 per year for a Customer Service Representative to $182,513 per year for a Regional Sales Manager. It's taken me a while to be able to get my understanding of how this all fits together. He was the director of business development, a former deal attorney.. What are some things that you would do? Even now, if I go to the photocopying machine and it's out of toner, I'm opening the cabinet. That's a great point, Patrick. John doesn't shy away from responding to what wasn't all good with "Allgood" as well as room for improvement with regard to mosquito and tick opportunities. I'm not taking this from the standpoint of like, What do acquirers look for in regard to targets to make an acquisition? How would you think about that business from the CEOs perspective if you're running the $5 million shop? Patrick Baldwin: Paul, have a great week. After San Antonio, I went to St. Louis and I was the national account guy selling beer cans to Anheuser-Busch, my only account. Twelve years later, he's adapted to a new way of thinking and doing things. Let's have these discussions about it now as opposed to when the deal is done and everyone's pissed off., John, your team has done a fantastic job over the years. How do you get yourself in the mindset to be successful every day?, John Myers: First of all, I work for a boss that is bright. They know the hot spots of the house and they know whether the issues are. We got that right. Als u dit bericht blijft zien, stuur dan een e-mail Three-quarters of my week, day, month, is spent on those three things either in meetings that support those efforts or in the field to see what's going on with those efforts.. Rentokil Initial Plc executives and other stock owners filed with the SEC include: Track performance, allocation, dividends, and risks, Annotate, download XLSX & look up similar tables, Filter, compare, and track coins & tokens, Stocks and cryptocurrency portfolio tracker. A branch manager can manage up to four ops managers. I'm glad Andy Ransom said no back in 2008. Allgood was a great acquisition for us. Paul Giannamore: You guys would have gotten to the moon and back. Let's say 1% of your population at any one time decides to do something goofy. Rentokil Initial plc 0207 592 2700 Kate Holgate / Tom Williams Brunswick Group 020 7404 5959 Notes for Editors 1. para nos informar sobre o problema. If you need more lookups, subscriptions start at $39 USD/month. Pre-COVID, I used to spend a lot of time in the field. The first thing is I love working for Andy Ransom. The customer attention doesn't get our intention. www.pctonline.com is using a security service for protection against online attacks. That helps me to be prepared. John Myers: Long time ago, we started talking about this concept of success versus excellence. What else pops into your mind? We're all over it. Although, youre pushing $1.5 billion. Further, the company installs and services interior and exterior plant displays, flowers, replica foliage, Christmas decorations, and ambient scenting for commercial businesses; offers property care services; and provides a range of specialist cleaning services, such as graffiti removal deep cleaning of kitchens and washrooms, trauma cleaning, and flood or fire damage cleaning, as well as specialist medical and hygiene services. I grew up in that era where you had hallway conversations. Most of us know that people don't quit for other jobs for a small amount of money. You're not going to get flipped upside down routinely about how we've changed all our strategies. My company was bought and sold. Every day, I see every accident report in North America. John Myers: I'd probably be the, I'll sell it and you do the work, guy. I was surprised at the lack of DD that was conducted in pest control acquisitions. For our readers, can you talk about maybe 3 or 4 things that you use from a performance indicator perspective as you manage the business whether it's on a monthly, weekly, or quarterly basis? That would be crazy. They want to know what their job was. Vic Hammel knew more about this business than anywhere close that I knew but he also has strong opinions. Rentokil, from a cultural perspective, is interesting in North America because it is an amalgamation of a lot of different businesses., If you think about it, years ago, that business was doing less than $100 million in revenue prior to buying Ehrlich. Rentokil Initial plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides route-based services in North America, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and internationally. You can go up to the door and say, I want to buy your house. The guy says, It's not for sale. You say, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. Its that whole thing. Is it him being the sales guy and wanting to get out there and kind of get his sales on? Paul Giannamore: They come over to learn the right way to do things. If we bought a company in Dallas and was 100% commercial, it would be transitioned probably 12 to 18 months to Presto-X. I'm thinking in terms of competition. I said, It's black. With facts, they've allowed me to change my mind. What recommendation would you have of an owner that reads this episode and thinks, I need to be on the field no but I'm selling in a couple of years. Disculpa We would have these debates about these things that I was doing., Part of the reason to change was it's time to change. When the company that I was working for was bought by someone else, I had to go, This is not like a career here, right?, Paul Giannamore: I don't plan to be on a plant forever. They bought more Ford vehicles than any other entity on the planet. Would you want her to come work for us, our company? I said, No. He said, Why are you here?, Paul Giannamore: Its an interesting question., John Myers: Of course, I've been there for 16, 17 years. Please help us protect Glassdoor by verifying that you're a You've said something about command and control of Rollins, haven't you? If you have an $8 billion marketplace, maybe it's closer to $9 billion now depending on whose data you use and you're the third largest pest control company in North America and you have a 10% market share, is that a good place to be?, Patrick Baldwin: It's great. Patrick Baldwin: Let's do it. in marketing, University of Vermont; MBA, Mercer University, Atlanta campus. Down there in PR, Paul, you've got Oliver and Ive got Presto-X in my neck of the woods here in Texas, Ehrlich, Western Star tech Anderson and Rentokil umbrella over that. Yellow pages are moving this way. I'm not so sure it's that big a leap. I don't mean robotic because we're all allowed to blow up once in a while and then apologize later. If I hear that we have lots of slips, trips, and falls, I'm immediately wondering, Is our shoe program correct? We give all of our colleagues free shoes. You and I talked about the Brandon Hier episode, which we wanted to do. I thought we had good specialists. In your long history of deals, you maybe have had 1 out of 150-plus deals. Rentokil Initial plcs ISS Governance QualityScore as of April 1, 2023 is 1. This was supposed to be succumbing to understanding manufacturing and sales so I could be a general manager. The way to solve that is through route density so you have less time in front of the windshield and more time in front of the customer. One of the town hall questions they say to me is, Tell me about the next big deal. Of course, I say, I can't because it's confidential. I always say to them, This is how we think about acquisitions, they have to be for sale. It's okay that you talk to someone that's not for sale but until they're ready to sell, there's no sense in asking for the business., It's like if you're walking on a beach and every time you walk on the beach, you look at the white house that you've always wanted. As we've gotten bigger, I've been careful to ensure that I have some folks that are experts that are looking for my opinion rather than dependent on my expertise. Hiring, training, and development. You got to be a pretty good listener. John Myers: I meant to tell you the story. After they're in the box, let it go for a little bit. As soon as I started doing that, it is a release. I'm fine with that and I like that because it's 100% their decision and not an auction process at the highest price. If money and terms were equal, I want to know, how would you describe Rentokil in comparison to other strategic buyers? scusiamo se questo pu causarti degli inconvenienti. Patrick Baldwin: John spoke about being out in the field being on the front lines riding along with those technicians. Let's say 23 years when I showed up. Paul Giannamore: In PR, we have to back in from a safety perspective. enva un correo electrnico a Their training program was different from ours. If we start at the beginning, this would be the longest buzz on record. For so long, they were doing $25 million in revenue year in and year out in North America so they buy Ehrlich, Western, and the list goes on. It infuriates me because we already owned the customer. Further, the company installs and services interior and exterior plant displays, flowers, replica foliage, Christmas decorations, and ambient scenting for commercial businesses; offers property care services consisting of damp proofing, property conservation, and woodworm and wood rot treatment; and provides a range of specialist cleaning services, such as deep cleaning of kitchens and washrooms, trauma cleaning, and flood or fire damage cleaning, as well as graffiti removal, specialist deep cleaning, and disinfection services, including the professional and discreet disinfection of areas that have been exposed to bio-hazardous situations, such as crime and trauma scenes, prison cells, void properties, emergency vehicles, and healthcare establishments. Early on, they were figuring out the way to get to $10 million revenue inside Reading, the small middle of nowhere, like, We need to get to a significant scale in this finite area before we start. He said, One of the best decisions that we made is to focus a lot of our efforts in a small area to own market share. What thoughts go into your mind when you think about density, market share, and running your business? I'm getting an offer letter. Afterward, they don't know what's behind them. She doesnt even know this podcast exists so I'm safe. We took that model where we had an overlap of Ehrlich managers. I want to do this in a three-step process. If I said 3 steps over 5 years, he would start laughing. I was always willing to learn. I took the next job that was offered to me. Patrick Baldwin: In KPIs, you've made the reference twice this fear of failure or this anxiety. They tell you everything, all the warts and all the things that make them happy. It's a five-hour time change. One of my previous colleagues, a guy named Scott Cook, who was head of HR and a real helper to make me better as a manager said, We got to work on your ability to compartmentalize things and put them into boxes. Don't worry about the job and the title. Mike Rogers spoke about it. Western was largely a residential business out in California. That's why you have a service and that's why we've got your back. He said, You got to find 1 of your 70s and jam them into the 10 so we're rigid to that. I'm not sure that he ever thought it should be that rigid. We started to build out the structure., We never move quickly on that because there's the stuff you don't know, operating systems, branding, strategy, and all that stuff. I decided I was going to raise some money and buy Rentokil North America., I reached out to Alan Brown and he was kind enough to amuse himself by having a cup of coffee with me. The average salary for Rentokil employees is $61,779 per year. On that revenue, you're paying off the vehicles faster and covering the labor pieces.. Back to Allgood, there was a lot of smoke that blew around some years ago when you did that deal, Rentokil axed a lot of folks. I wasn't involved in that transaction. Those days are over., The other thing I should tell you is to forget the specialists. That's a good takeaway for me. Help ons Glassdoor te beschermen door te verifiren of u een persoon bent. What are your thoughts on brand equity? Bruce has been around longer than that. om ons te informeren over dit probleem. Similar to Episode 17, Paul engages with John as if he was a $5 million pest control business CEO. Let me give you an example. Back in the day, the corporate life was every 2.5 years, a moving company came and the company paid for it and you picked up the kids and they went to a new school. You buy a company that increases your route density, then you distribute the territories accordingly so people aren't spider webbing all over the place. Even though those numbers are adding up to a lot, its not as much as I like because those are the days that I have the most fun. Youve seen me go into sell mode about why our value proposition is better than the other options they have. I'll preface it by saying Chuck Tindall still works for us. Its a little bit easier. If I go to the top twenty and they're not getting it, we're toast., John Myers: I don't do any surprise stuff., Patrick Baldwin: I wonder if you could hire me out to do some ride alongs with a microphone and put me in the truck. We've got a 10% market share and we're the third largest. That was a leg up. I didn't know if that was a leave-over so to speak from your prior career of being a biz dev guy or if you looked at it from a CEO perspective and thought to yourself, I got to be out there with these customers. The thought of being able to come in the early days with Rentokil and take something that was roughly $200 million and do something with it was appealing. That means that the average net salary Germans bring home is 2,636. One is you talk to your boss before you apply for another job. I spent sixteen years in the beer and soft drink can division. You've got low route density. Show more. When we interviewed Brandon Hier, one of the things that interested me was, is there a consistent culture across radical North America? Usually, people are saying, Tell me the story. envie um e-mail para What makes Rentokil attractive compared to some of the others out there? Caso continue recebendo esta mensagem, Speaking of Ransom. You're genuine and candid. What Ive always said is if you've got a travel job, youve got to be willing to travel. They were in Philly. You worked in Atlanta and now you're down in San Antonio running a plant. I worry about our colleagues. Let's buy everything and call it Terminix. John Myers: I don't. Most of the time, in my experience, they're inadvertent and not intentional. How do you do it? For example, Allgood in North Atlanta and South Atlanta is amazing and active. It makes a difference if I do a deal right now with a firm to know that I am going to see John, Bruce, and Alex a year from now, all these guys that have been around for a long time and have institutional knowledge. This is how the big boys do it.That would be super-efficient and ineffective. Its 2020 now and everyone's remote working.