Blue Collar Builders Episode 10: Garbage Man Turns Pest Control CEO and Software Developer with the Help of AI

Dalton Mills co-founder, Todd Saunders, meets up with Jeff King in today’s episode of Blue Collar Builders to discuss his journey from garbage man to CEO of a pest control company bringing in nearly $5 million in yearly revenue.

Jeff sheds light on everything, including how he created ComboScience, his AI coaching tool performing internal call auditing, which even drew the attention of a large software company.

From Garbage Man to Owning a Pest Control Business

Jeff King started as a garbage man in Wilkes-Barre, then transitioned to truck driving and, eventually, the golf course, where he started learning the ins and outs of pesticide usage and pest control. It wasn’t long before he started doing pest control as a side job, which eventually grew into a full-fledged business in 2008. 

By 2015, Pest Rangers, Jeff’s pest control company, was bringing in around $400,000 yearly, which turned to almost $5 million by 2026. Jeff attributes this growth to simply acquiring more knowledge about the business itself, as well as expanding to different locations like Philly and New Jersey.

But, above all else, he believes technology played the biggest role in his business’s success:

“Honestly, technology runs your business and, without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” Jeff admits.

One piece of technology that changed how Pest Rangers operates was AI.

Jeff’s Problems with Standard Software in Pest Control

Jeff quickly realized that software tools are essentially the heart of the business. Whether it’s CRM or field-service software, these tools helped him manage every aspect of his business, from customer support to inventory, financials, and basic estimates.

The problem was that, as the business was growing, Jeff had to constantly swap the older software tools for newer and more capable ones. Which, as he puts it, was a pain to begin with:

“Every time we switch software, I always tell everybody, it’s like marriage – You either make it work or you get divorced and every time that happens it’s, like, such a pain, right? Switching software isn’t something that is fun to do”.

The problem Jeff was facing is the same that many other blue-collar businesses experience – the lack of a customized piece of software, tailored to their specific operations. So, he turned to AI to find solutions to a problem that traditional software couldn’t solve.

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The AI Solution that Changed How Pest Rangers Operates

The first problem Jeff solved was the lack of technician quality control. Jeff simply had no way of assessing a technician’s performance objectively, so he used AI to monitor customer calls and extract transcripts recording sold vs. no-sold calls, customer service development, complaints, and much more.

Among other things, this allowed him to understand which technicians were praised vs. complained about. To fix the problem, he created an AI coach based on his best-performing sales employee, which helped technicians improve their job-related and customer skills. This is how ComboScience, Jeff’s trademark call-auditing and coaching tool was created.

Another problem was lead conversion being too low, which ComboScience solved by mistake. Simply put, call transcripts revealed that positive customer reviews were the main lead generator – up to 90% of converted leads invoked the positive reviews as the deciding factor.

So, Jeff trained his sales agents to direct potential customers to the review section, which ended up massively increasing his close rates. This is what prompted Jeff to admit that his custom, AI-built software is “solving issues we never knew we had”.

The results were so impressive that an engineer working for one of the software companies contracted by Jeff’s Pest Rangers took notice and brought ComboScience to their leadership’s attention.

The Dalton Mills Solution to the Problem Standard Software Can’t Solve

As Jeff King himself realized, there’s one problem that standard software can’t seem to be able to fix: keeping up with a business’s changing needs. As businesses grow, their needs grow and change accordingly, which often creates problems that standard software tools aren’t designed to address.

For Jeff, those problems were poor lead conversion and subpar technician performance. He had to use AI to build ComboScience, a custom piece of software, to fix those problems.

Dalton Mills is made for precisely the type of problem that forced Jeff to search for solutions outside of his standard software tools. Rather than offering contractors like Jeff pre-made software, Dalton Mills allows them to build their own tools instead. 

Custom-built, tailored to their businesses, and made to tackle problems unique to their operations.

You can use Dalton Mills as your AI-powered work bench to create any piece of software just the way you want it. The AI can also help you customize the software to fit your business’s growing needs, recommend solutions to unexpected problems, and even identify problems you didn’t even know were there.

Most importantly, using Dalton Mills requires no coding knowledge or software engineering experience. We’ve designed our platform for blue-collar businesses and contractors with no coding experience, meaning that anyone can use it. The AI will handle all the coding.

If your current software tools don’t live up to your expectations, give Dalton Mills a try and build your own CRM or field-service software yourself. You can sign up for early access on the official page.