When I came to Rentokil a couple of years ago, I was predisposed to say, Why are you doing this multi-brand thing?, There are 3 or 4 reasons why we're where we are. You grew up in Connecticut. They had an incredibly good hygiene services business.. What makes Rentokil attractive compared to some of the others out there? Last updated: 1 January 2023 at 11:00am EST. They are focused on having everyone there in that business versus Rentokil, Anticimex, and others that have kind of been a lot more flexible. As a matter of fact, when we bought the West Coast Western, some people call it the Best Western. That's true, Patrick.. They gave me the job, which was good. What are some things that you would do? She decided to retire. John Myers: Thanks for asking that question. First of all, about 70% of this business is residential, in the US. He didn't say anything. They were in Philly. Mike Rogers spoke about it. The best way I've found to take away some of the anxiety is to get close enough to it that you can say, When I said that, they went boom, boom, boom. They gave me a blank stare and I go, That was one of those things that sounded good in the boardroom but it ain't working.. John opens up about fear of failure, a trait he shares with Rentokil Initial CEO Andy Ransom. It's not 1%. That means he's not in my kitchen saying, Where are you with the pricing strategy that we agreed to do X or the compensation strategy of Y or the marketing strategy of Z? What he does insist on and it's what I insist on my folks is, Let's decide on the strategy. Se continui a visualizzare For more than twelve years, John Myers, Rentokil North America CEO, has scaled a regional pest control business into a national empire. Patrick Baldwin: It's been days since we've interviewed John Myers so I did my research. If you think about it kind of logically, you're running your business, you get a new residential pest control customer, that customer probably has some problems, so it's more expensive to do the cleanout. They don't need to be the face of their company. Patrick Baldwin: That question came up in my head like, John does that. What about other CEOs? At the time, from an operational perspective, it was largely viewed as almost a reverse merger. Why didnt this customer take our price increase when we're providing world-class service?, I will tell you that I sleep well at night. There's continuity of thought and process. Anticimex has realized it. Its easy to move at that age. What does that strategy look like?, John Myers: There are a couple of things that come to mind. Once we've agreed on the strategy, let's then implement the strategy., What he won't allow is me to say, Yeah, while the whole time thinking, Yeah, I'm never doing that. By the way, I don't do that either because I don't have time for that debate, only to be chasing people to see if they're doing what we said we would do. One of the main issues I've had with ServiceMaster is that if I do a deal today, I don't know if I have a disagreement if those people are going to be around. John Myers: I'm going to talk for ourselves. Speaking of Ransom. You take a job for Rentokil North American. I bet you dont think about that often. In your long history of deals, you maybe have had 1 out of 150-plus deals. It was a packaging company and it was called American Can Company. John describes the nuanced difference between success and excellence as his company has grown. I made sales calls five times a year. The data is there. They seem to have a way to get accident rates down. I always like to have conversations. You brought up MCS, VDCI, VDA, and Solitude. He learned a lot at Cintas. How do you do it? Hold on to the accounts you have and you become better. With Rentokil North America, its using Ehrlich as a residential brand. The rest is history. It's only fair. That was a leg up. Let's say 23 years when I showed up. Patrick, that's the challenge. Paul Giannamore: This is the last question I'll have for a little bit and Ill let Patrick get some stuff in. Let's see if a Connecticut kid can live in New Orleans and sell to Southerners. I was kicked out of my first customer on day two on the job. My head of marketing lives in Nashville. Paul Giannamore: Are you talking about longevity or coming from Cintas?, Patrick Baldwin: Both. When Alan Brown was around, I reached out to Rentokil in the UK. Trust your instincts. There wasn't a strategy. scusiamo se questo pu causarti degli inconvenienti. I'm not afraid to do it., Andy Ransom and I were talking about this. We got our two training directors together to train newly hired specialists and then ongoing training. an. That's a safety violation. I'm not one of those who wake up at 2:30 AM and can't sleep. If you did the whole job, you wouldn't have to come back. Almost every time I would see you, irrespective of where we were in the country, you were like, I'm going to be showing up to dinner a little bit late because I'm going to go spend some time with a customer., Patrick Baldwin: Its the polite no, Paul.. I always tell people that the fact that they're not a culture fit is not a criticism of you or them. The average Rentokil Initial salary ranges from approximately $25,000 per year for Horticulturist to $100,001 per year for Senior Financial Analyst. You dont come back from that kind of stuff. I hope she's not even in your zip code. Fast and chaotically means not profitably. It had to do with some fish. What are they called now? They're googling it or something. He's always full of interesting stories. What they did with the people and all that was one of the smartest moves that they made. Paul Giannamore: In the United States, you can have one specialist choosing five different wage and hour jurisdictions in one day. After San Antonio, I went to St. Louis and I was the national account guy selling beer cans to Anheuser-Busch, my only account. In 2020, forget COVID and all this, whats a day in the normal life of John Myers like nowadays running such a large business? I came home and said, I want to work for these guys. These folks get stuff done. John describes the nuanced difference between success and excellence as his company has grown. Is it the same in the UK? I look at it and go, What problem am I trying to solve? Si continas recibiendo este mensaje, infrmanos del problema In addition, it engages in the supply and laundering of workwear, uniforms, cleanroom uniforms, and protective equipment. They said, We have two openings, one in the dog food division and one in the beer division. We get these little 2 to 3-year bursts of infusion, which is important.. When I talk to kids that are looking for jobs at a college, I say, Seriously, these are the two things. This process is automatic. For example, Allgood in North Atlanta and South Atlanta is amazing and active. 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'm talking about Rentokil North America vis--vis the other players rather than Rentokil globally because I do deal with Rentokil all over the world. Paul Giannamore: When I think about what Givilim was talking about, Certus has bought a lot of small businesses. No surprises from John Myers. 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. What does that do for him as a CEO? I've been involved in situations where John Myers guys have raised this, Paul, this is a potential issue that could result in an indemnification claim. I don't know if this is still the case but there was at least one year when Rollins was Ford's largest customer. That's first and foremost. Paul Giannamore: One of the most important things about growing the firm is a division of labor and that coordinating mechanism and having those different baskets of expertise. 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. 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. Every once in a while, I have to remind the West Coast guy, Sorry, it's an 8:00 AM East Coast call. If you don't want it to be 5:00 in the morning, move to Kansas City or something., Paul Giannamore: You're always getting up at 4:00 and 5:00 to get on those UK calls., Patrick Baldwin: I did sidetrack you on the HR. John has a diverse business background, with extensive sales, marketing and business strategy experience. Patrick Baldwin: Got you. It's a big underdog. It does take a few good listening skills as you might imagine. I was selfish thinking about The Boardroom Buzz but we wouldn't have this friendship. Ill give them credit. All of the players have gotten more and more sophisticated over the years. Is that the way of the future? Im managing a sales organization over there. If you're in marketing, you dream up brand equity. Oops! 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. I do think about wage and hour a fair amount because it's hard to be in compliance on wage and hour in a distributed model sometimes. He also holds an MBA from Mercer University in Atlanta. 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. We'll then come back in October and do these last two pieces and button it up in January.. I believe in you. It doesn't work. We're going to look at their data and see, Did they solve a problem? I don't know a lot about Rentokil outside of Brandon Ho and a couple of interactions around town., Paul Giannamore: John was a great guest. In addition, it engages in the supply and maintenance of workwear and protective equipment. John Myers's Estimated Salary Range. Paul and Patrick answer six listener questions. Youve got to have your A-game every day. I stole it from Cintas. Buy a commercial plumbing company in 2020 without any experience? I'm not saying he was chummy. I thought we had good specialists. It'll be good for my mental side of the business and my development side of the business capabilities. At that point in time, you do what you learned from Scott Stevenson. You ignored your wife's polite no every time you asked her to marry you. Patrick Baldwin: At M&A, you go into sales mode for lack of a better term. Did you know why Im glad they said no? Of course, after you've been on the job a little bit, you're always a little bit smarter. There are nine specialists or technicians. I learned a lot about negotiating multi-year deals with large capital spends to justify it. Theyre guys that I've dealt with for a long period of time. 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. Not only is it core to the business in pest but it's also the fastest growing and largest market segment. Someone's going to call up and say, I've got blank. No kidding. I'm doing deals in pest control. Asia is different. He was generous with his time. You bump into someone and you say, Patrick, good to see you. excuses voor het ongemak. He's a real specialist. Why do you get out there and spend time with these customers? I was smart enough to go down on the shop floor early on and talk to the frontline shift supervisors who had been doing this job for twenty years and did know and say, I'm here not to get in your way. Paul Giannamore: They're thin down in Texas. We have this thing called positive discontent. You've said something about command and control of Rollins, haven't you? They know the hot spots of the house and they know whether the issues are. It's a little bit of nuance but it's important to describe because it describes what I work on. They're quitting for other jobs. As you get bigger and bigger, you get some knucklehead moves so then you've got to, first of all, tighten how you hire, train, and develop those people. Part of that starts with you having to have a family structure that says, Let's do that. My wife and I moved nine times in twenty years or something like that, a bunch of places in the US plus almost a five-year stint in England. Years ago, I had a client who was sophisticated with the use of technology and had a business with around 10,000 customers. What widgets was this company making? Are we doing the right stuff?. Interestingly, Patrick, I'm old enough to remember Jack Welch. Salary information comes from 98 data points collected . Si vous continuez voir ce Paul Giannamore: Do you remember Jim? You build this knowledge of a service history with that customer., One of the things that we didn't know, and we didn't know until we tested it was I had the hypothesis that newer customers are more of a pain in the butt than older customers. It's okay that you talk to the guy that owns the white house before he's ready to sell. Some other day.. Patrick Baldwin: Mike Rogers spoke about doing 60,000 miles a week or 2.5 trips around the Earth. 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. I'll preface it by saying Chuck Tindall still works for us. Nous sommes dsols pour la gne occasionne. There's continuity and discussion. There are a lot of people at your organization that I care deeply for on a personal level. I talk to customers ten times a year. John Myers is a Managing Director, North America of Rentokil Initial PLC. John Myers: It's right around 9,000. Texas is a tough market for all acquires. Your job is to help me know what you need to do your job better. Anytime. Several years ago, I decided I wanted to hire the best talent in North America to work for me regardless of where they lived. Paul, this might be the most selfish thing I've ever said to you on the show. John Myers: You're hitting both points, by the way. As you might imagine, if you want an account, Anheuser-Busch was the account to have. in marketing, University of Vermont; MBA, Mercer University, Atlanta campus. We all learned this lesson. How will we know that we're doing the right thing? hE joined Rentokil Initial in 2008 as President and Chief Executive of the Pest Control division in North America. to let us know you're having trouble. That's pest control and that's what we're growing, particularly in North America. Take care, everybody.. Patrick, this will be the last question Ill ask. They've been around forever and ever. Inside, he said, Day one, we started with my boot up your butt. For more than twelve years, John Myers, Rentokil North America CEO, has scaled a regional pest control business into a national empire. He's been in the trenches over the years. The job was posting and he was good at what he did and the like. Currency in USD, Chief Marketing, Innovation & Strategy Officer, Managing Director of UK & Sub-Saharan Africa, Rentokil Initial plcs ISS Governance QualityScore as of. Theres some stuff that keeps the wheels going. It bounced around a little bit. What we wanted to do is follow our structure, which is we think an operations manager, which is the person that manages specialists, should have X specialists to one manager. enviando un correo electrnico a This may even have been before your time. Is my span of control right? Pre-COVID, I used to spend a lot of time in the field. If he's not ready, if it terrifies him, if he goes home and he thinks, My career is over because I was a doofus, I don't want any of those things. Even now, if I go to the photocopying machine and it's out of toner, I'm opening the cabinet. John describes the nuanced difference between success and excellence as his company has grown. That's a dangerous place to be. We're careful to make sure that we're not going in too fast and saying, X, Y, and Z. I could keep going.. Paul Giannamore: The other thing I'll say is John talked a lot about remote working. Wir entschuldigen uns fr die Umstnde. Its the same thing with Terminix. We've got a 10% market share and we're the third largest. It would be an important transition for me to remember how to be more hands-on on the stuff that you have to be hands-on when you're a $5 million business. They come back. It sounds like a little thing and we require all of our acquired companies to back into space. I can't show up and think I'm going to slide. John opens up about fear of failure, a trait he shares with Rentokil Initial CEO Andy Ransom. Youre saving 1% of the customer base from a retention perspective is equal to one percentage point in new sales. We have spent many years over here and I know I'm a pain in a lot of my clients' asses because if any of you know my clients, you'll know that I tend to use everyone's business as a living laboratory.. We're all over it. When you bring that much diversity of thought into your organization, you're going to get better ideas., Patrick, the tricky part is it would be much more efficient for me to go, Let me tell you, we're $1.5 billion. Paul Giannamore: When you're a pest control operator, and you listen to something like The Boardroom Buzz, for example, everyone wants to hear, what's the best way to advertise, market, hire people. As a result, I did well there. It turns out that in the future when asked this same question, John can reference this episode. You're running a small $5 million business. John Myers Overview CB Rank (Person) 51,917 Primary Job Title President and CEO Primary Organization Rentokil Initial Location Reading, Pennsylvania, United States Regions Great Lakes, Northeastern US Gender Male LinkedIn View on LinkedIn John Myers is a President and CEO at Rentokil Initial. How to reach: Rentokil North America, (610) 372-9700 or www.rentokil.com. We all know about that. A smart guy. 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. hE joined Rentokil Initial in 2008 as President and Chief Executive of the Pest Control division in North America. John Myers: I tried to negotiate around the edges but it wasn't much there. Si continas viendo este mensaje, One, because I was the sales and marketing guy for so many years, I'm not afraid to do it., Paul Giannamore: You like the thrill of the hunt., John Myers: I do. The differentiators are the frontline technicians and the CSRs that are taking calls from customers and sales reps that are identifying needs. enva un correo electrnico a That's incredible and I can see why safety is such a number one concern. He steps in on day one and he already has route-based service, business experience. I got to understand what they think about our organization, what they think about our competitors, what they think about our people. What was that like? I was selling ideas and trying to change minds. I don't know if there are certain KPIs that bring red flags and haunt you at night. Ryan leads DTK Facility Servicess over 1,600 employees across 190 counties. 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. John Myers: Five minutes before we land at LAX the guy said, What are you in town for? I was like, I work with a company called Western. He said, The little man with the hammer. Its the logo on the vehicle getting ready to hit the rat with the hammer. John Myers: I was 29. Amongst all the other stuff that we could be working on, why are we doing it now? Paul Giannamore: First off, sellers have a different degree of consideration when they're selling their business. He's a guy that's been around for over 35 years. Paul Giannamore: That's a great point that you picked up on from a mathematical perspective on the surface. This might be the first time they had a pest control service. There are hundreds of deals that they have done to build that business. There was a lesson there., The lesson I share with people that are looking for jobs all the time is this lesson. 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. Patrick Baldwin: That is interesting. Patrick, we are going to have to parachute into this interview. It's taken me a while to be able to get my understanding of how this all fits together. I've got a team. It infuriates me because we already owned the customer. John did on uncovering things during due diligence. I talked about hiring, training, and development before but I've made lots and lots of hiring mistakes but it's never been because they couldn't do the job. You can't have this super top-down approach. The core of your business is creating value for the customer unless you get out there and talk to the customer. 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. You want to be better, Im sure., John Myers: First of all, I didn't take it as a shot at all because it's an amazingly good place to be. My boss, Bob Kohlhepp, got promoted and there was a shuffle. I grew up in that era where you had hallway conversations. I'm happy you stopped in to chat with us., John Myers: Thank you for that. It was almost like what Nucor is to the steel industry. John Myers: I meant to tell you the story. They want to know what their job was. https://www.rentokil-initial.com Sector (s) : Industrials Industry : Specialty Business Services Full Time Employees : 58,600 Key Executives Amounts are as of December 31, 2022 and compensation. With that in mind, it didn't go as well as we should have., The good news is Chuck, Mike, Perry agreed with what we were doing. That drives me crazy., Patrick Baldwin: Arguably, disease control is from a greater extent than the general past., John Myers: This is the stuff that keeps me up and frustrated, Patrick. Good companies probably ask the second question and really good companies ask this third question, which is, Are we resourced to successfully deliver this solution at this moment in time? pour nous faire part du problme. I went to San Antonio to be a plant manager. They've got odometers and WEX cards. First of all, it's better for the customer if I'm in a zip code. They described a $200 million business in North America in an industry that was probably at the time $6 billion run by a European group based in the UK where they were dominant. John Myers: One of the things is that we are dedicated to doing it the right way, the legal way. John's been around. He's like, Paul, I'm not going to stick around for more than three months. The next thing you know, he's trying to figure out how to move up in the organization. Some people are extremely hell-bent on investigating the acquirers. Rollins and ServiceMaster have a decent footprint but Texas has largely been dominated by private businesses. The answer is they think differently but the business decision-making processes, and I know you do a fair amount of international work, Paul, are similar. We also had our Ambius business in Atlanta. We should be taking care of that better. It's more about the process, that Rentokil is built to help itself and they have done a great job with that. He's fundamentally important to your organization. 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. This episode wouldn't be complete without first discussing route density, its benefits, and the 'best new customer'. Older customers are more inclined to send emails about changing credit cards so on and so forth.. Sometimes it might even be lateral. 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. We have bought more companies that have solved problems that we've been in search of a solution for. I think of the fatalities, the accidents. That guy is not going to do 30 hours of training on that. It's both, Paul, fearless to go out there and hear the bad news and interested in hearing it so that we do better. 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. One of the theories that I had is, and I know, this is common sense to a lot of folks, but I wanted to understand why older customers are more profitable than newer customers. More revenue per hour helps you to be able to support some of the other spendings you want to make on marketing and the like. I go in thinking black and white. Paul Giannamore: Are you saying that hes doing a shabby job, Patrick? The average Rentokil North America hourly pay ranges from approximately $19 per hour for a Customer Service Representative to $87 per hour for a Regional Sales Manager . 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. 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. I have the old capital structure built out. I'd value that business. We'll go, Time out. In early 2006, Rentokil closed the Ehrlich transaction. Look at the Rollins guys. Features; Our data; Clients; . If I remember, you came on board and there was a transitionary period where Vic handed it off to you. Known Addresses for John Myers. 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.. The last time you and I saw each other was pre-COVID. I know you got something for John. Paul Giannamore: My experience coming out of Bulge Bracket Investment Banking, prior to getting into pest control, I was dealing with extremely large transactions. John Myers: When I graduated from college, I got a sales job. I was young and in my late twenties at that time. How the hell do you run a business with 9,000 employees? Never do that. John Myers: Youre a big liar. Selling shouldn't be considered a negative. It's you getting that working relationship with the customer and they become less and less expensive or inversely more and more profitable to serve over time. Patrick, I saw you taking notes over there. 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. He said, Rentokil North America is core to our business. Every time you can do a little bit better in that portion of the total eight hours, you're going to make more revenue. There was a huge push over the years to harmonize the brand. Paul Giannamore: You leave Cintas. Paul Giannamore: We've never looked at revenue per mile. 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? You mentioned Jack Welch earlier. What percentage of our specialists are within their training standards? Education: B.S. He used to work for Vic at Ehrlich. Finally, the one that we all know but we sometimes forget is 1% improvement in customer retention is 1% organic growth. John Myers: We want our technicians/specialists to back into the parking spot. Your submission has been received! I didnt know it was a scar that picks on daily. He was a bellwether for a lot of what was inside Ehrlich, Presto-X, Western, and the like. There are good people there. It's slightly frustrating for him to have 150 brands in North America., On the other side of that equation is do you care? 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.
