Franchising Today - Summer 2016 - 66
CRITTER CONTROL Approximately 80 percent of the franchisees' business is residential, with the rest in commercial, industrial and municipal. CERTIFIED SPECIALISTS Critter Control has developed a "Certified Wildlife Specialists" certification that approximately 300 of the company's 500 employees possess. The program provides initial training, ongoing support, annual meetings, conventions, recurring training, marketing support through social media and Yellow Pages advertising and discounts on supplies based on combined purchasing power. For its franchisees, Critter Control seeks out "motivated and highly focused people," Clark emphasizes. "They have to be well-informed and articulate individuals that are dedicated to providing a world-class service." The company visits personally with each potential franchisee. "They may ride in the truck with a local franchisee in their area or fly into a regional office to see how the business is run," Clark says. Critter Control's training centers are located at headquarters in Traverse City, Mich., and in Fort Lauderdale, Dallas and Atlanta. Critter Control analyzes potential franchisees' marketplaces for popu66 franchising-today.com SUMMER 2016 lation density and per capita income. Based on the region of the country, Clark can provide information on the wildlife they may deal with and the seasonality of the business - summer in the North and winter in the South. "In the summer in the Deep South, it is hot and the animals are not as active," Clark points out. The types of animals a potential franchisee would have to deal with vary by region, too - alligators and scorpions in the South, wild boars and snakes in Arizona and raccoons and squirrels in the Northeast. "Based on our experience, we can typically provide guidelines for potential revenue in a given area," Clark maintains. The density of franchisees varies by population. Critter Control uses eight different market sizes varying by 300,000 people each to determine the size of its franchise fee. Some franchisees have several franchises, some in the same market. UP IN THE WILD Clark got the critter control bug when he was working as a chimney sweep. In the course of making a clean sweep, he would occasionally come across animals that were occupying chimneys. When he discovered that pest control companies would not remove them, he developed his own animal removal techniques and asked the pest control companies for referrals of customers with animal control problems. Eventually, he was doing more critter control than chimney sweeping. The critter control business ties in with Clark's experience growing up on a farm in Michigan and spending summers in northern Minnesota around bear, moose and wolves. His great-grandparents had homesteaded around International Falls, Minn., about 100 years before, and his family would visit other family members there over those summers. "We spent our time ranging around creeks and rivers, fishing and trapping animals," Clark recalls. "I guess you could say I was self-educated. I grew up spending time outdoors and probably had more hands-on wildlife experience than a lot of people." For the future, Clark foresees achieving deeper market penetration around existing offices and expanding with new franchisees. "We are in 90 percent of the top 100 metro areas in the country," he notes. "So that means we're limited in the places we can go. We typically have a dozen franchises available. There are currently existing business opportunities." Ironically, places like Alaska or Montana that have an abundance of wildlife are not always the best locations for a Critter Control franchise. "Those are places where people still have the skills for hunting and trapping and can take care of their own problems," Clark declares. "There's just not enough people to support our activities on a large scale in Alaska."
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