From a Garage to a Growing Brand: The Power of Social Media Leads

By Christie Slaton Zgourides

“Social Media Lead Force is a no-brainer for trades. If I didn't own a trade business, I would start one just to capitalize on what they're doing in the system. It's that powerful.”

 – Alex Randall, Stride Pest Control

As an early adopter of social media for lead generation, Alex Randall did not hesitate to join Social Media Lead Force. He and other business owners in networking groups were already tagging and supporting one another, successfully converting leads into closed sales.

Although the strategy is effective, it’s also labor-intensive, taking business owners away from revenue-generating activities. Alex also admits he was getting burned out and didn’t like being on social media. Now, with SMLF, he has all the advantages of a social media presence without having to do the tedious posting himself. “I could never do it as effectively, so signing up was a no-brainer. I highly recommend it for anybody who doesn't have anything remotely like that in-house,” Alex explained.

Since joining SMLF, Alex says Stride has been tagged in 80 posts, and their social media leads have grown exponentially. But he is still reviewing the exact volume and income numbers from social media sales. CRM tracking shows overlaps: people might find the company through a tag on Nextdoor, but say that they found the company “online.”Alex explains that he sees social media as more complex and nuanced than straightforward leads. In addition to directly generating business, he says social media provides a broader and long-term presence.

From One Post to Many Calls A Nextdoor user posts a request for pest control, and SMLF, in turn, posts recommendations for Stride. While the original poster may do business with Stride, other Nextdoor users see the post and also call. This is the exponential power of social media lead marketing. These leads can be harder to track as coming from social media, which is another reason why Alex is still processing the data.

Social Media as a Permanent Referral Directory

Not all social media users make posts asking for service referrals. Those who are a bit more social media savvy will search past posts rather than making and monitoring their own post. This means that a post from weeks, months, or even years ago can come up in a search and recommend Stride. Social media requests for services are not once-and-done posts, but permanent records of which companies people are recommending. “ Even if people never post, they search – and when they search ‘pest control,’ they see my name mentioned hundreds of times,” Alex explains.

Beyond Leads: Building a Recognizable Brand

Stride is there for the leads, of course, but Alex says, “I’m in the long-term goal of branding. It’s a branding effort. As that happens long-term, SMLF is a branding expense because eventually everyone’s going to hear Stride’s name somewhere. It’s going to come across as trusted, relevant.” Using social media transitions businesses from traditional networking to digital word-of-mouth.  Playing the Long Game for Lasting Growth

While many business owners focus on the immediate returns of leads, Alex argues that the greater power of social media marketing is long-term success, the value of remaining top-of-mind. For example, when he meets realtors, homeowners, or others he has never met, and they say, “Oh, we’ve heard of you,” he knows his long-game branding strategy is working.

From a Garage Startup to a Regional Company

Alex started in the pest control business over a decade ago as a temporary summer job in Austin. When he joined, the company operated out of the owner’s garage with only two other employees. He had always aspired to be in business, and with the owner’s mentoring, he found the work fun and exciting.

He completed a business degree studying evenings and weekends, and as the company expanded, he became the service manager responsible for operations, hiring and training technicians, and dealing with any kind of insect problems. Finally, his boss became his business partner, and five years ago, Alex moved to San Antonio to expand the company.

Part of his work in Austin included networking with chambers of commerce, BNI (Business Network International), and others, where he learned the value of making meaningful connections as a way of building business. Transitioning to social media networking was a natural progression. Many pest control companies knock on doors to generate business, but that often means they hire college students who have little to no knowledge of pest control – they are only hired to sell. They often over-promise results and sign clients onto lengthy contracts. Then the service cannot deliver or is sloppy. The salesperson has no vested interest and is gone by the time the problems occur. In some cases, a technician shows up, never exits the truck, and sends a bill.

Clients often come to Stride after leaving other companies and find that, unlike disappearing sales reps, Alex is always there, making sure people are taken care of in line with the company motto: “The best possible service in the nicest possible way.” 

What also sets Stride apart is Alex’s commitment to education. Pest control has three expertise levels: apprentice, technician, and certified applicator. Alex is a certified applicator, and he has two technicians. Many companies do not want to certify their employees at higher levels because they are afraid the employees will leave and start their own companies, and many do. Alex opts instead to invest in employees rather than fear they will leave.

As he says, “I don’t care to live in that scarcity mentality. My perspective is: I can’t be in every client’s home anymore, which is a blessing. We’ve grown so large that I can’t be everywhere at once. If I can’t be there, I’m going to make sure my technicians are better than I am at what they do, as if I were in every client’s home.”

With over 400 five-star Google ratings, Stride provides a wide range of residential and commercial pest control, including general, bed bugs, fleas, ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, rodents, and termites. They offer a number of service plans depending on the client's needs. For mosquito control, they use In2Care mosquito traps that function as controlled breeding sites, attracting female mosquitoes to lay their eggs in the water. Rather than hatching, the eggs die. Each station controls around 4,000 square feet, leading Alex to joke, “Send your neighbor a bill!”

Stride Pest Control now serves the greater San Antonio area, from Floresville and Lyle to New Braunfels to the I-35 corridor to Austin and up to Jarrell. For those outside of their service area, Alex maintains referral relationships with pest control companies he has vetted and trusts. He also maintains relationships with companies that handle cases he does not, such as bees or larger animals like raccoons.

Stride is an example of outsourcing social media lead generation to save time, reduce burnout, and maintain consistent engagement. SMLF does what busy owners can’t or don’t want to do. For any businesses, especially trades, who still doubt the power of social media to grow a business and develop a brand, Alex admits, “If I didn’t have a business, I’d delete Facebook tomorrow, but it makes me a lot of money.”