Pest Management Professional, March 2018

2018 BIRD MANAGEMENT GuIDE Success with commercial control BRUCE CARTER ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES B ruce Carter president of Farmington N M based Carter Services has been in the pest management industry for 39 years He started out in 1979 when a buddy purchased a small pest management firm and convinced Carter to buy one too A year later Carter bought his buddys firm and today services much of the southwestern U S Bruce Carter is on Copesans bird control committee which garnered him a Bird Brain MVP award along with his fellow committee members PhotoS CARtER SERVICES Four PMPs share how they make bird management profitable year after year By Jerry Mix Editor at Large W hen youve built your business to the point where it consistently exceeds expectations in general pest and termites its only natural to want to build on that success Many pest management professionals PMPs see bird control as the next logical step and become quickly discouraged when they cannot make it as profitable as their other segments But bird control is forgive the pun a horse of a different feather than other pest control segments Theres the equipment investment the training the different expectations you have to give customers looking for an elimination of their problem and the tasks put on them to make sure the problem can be permanently solved Starting on p BG4 of this section three board members of the National Wildlife Control Operators Association provide an excellent overview of technical tips for bird control success On BG10 industry marketing guru June Van Klaveren spells out how to market your bird service Now read on for advice from PMPs in the field He offered bird service essentially from the beginning but admits it has evolved These days Carter Services does approximately 250000 a year in bird control work the majority of it translating to netting jobs for the Big 3 species pigeons sparrows and starlings Overall Carter Services is about 98 percent commercial Carter says his bird work is 100 percent commercial to stay profitable How has he consistently achieved success For starters Carter is a stickler for working alongside his crew to get the jobs completed on time and on budget Indeed the first time we called to interview him in mid February he couldnt come to the phone because he and his team were working on a netting job at a warehouse in Colorado Springs Colo When we finally got the chance to talk to Carter we learned the weather had pushed the job from a one day to a two anda half day project It snowed in Colorado Springs the night before the project began and when the work started it was 4 F Work progressed but trying to stay warm during installation meant frequent breaks Thats why being flexible and considering wild card factors are so important when bidding preparing and doing bird jobs Carter says I get into the mix with my guys because I cant expect them to do something I wouldnt do he adds Plus I enjoy working BG12 March 2018 Pest Management Professional mypmp net