Ignite 2024 Live Blog
Bookmark this article and keep coming back to get all the highlights from Ignite 2024, including breakout session summaries, insights from industry leaders, and more.
» Read more about the awards and our finalists!
» See who won the Customer Awards!
Wednesday, August 28
Pest control industry showing optimism in market
While Americans continue to face rising household debt and are saving less money than before the pandemic, pest control operators remain focused on growing revenue through repeat business and seeking new ways to increase operational efficiency.
FieldRoutes partnered with Thrive Analytics to survey 1,038 companies regarding operations, staffing, resources, outlook, and challenges. Information was paired and offered with findings by the National Pest Management Association, represented at Ignite by Allie Allen, NPMA's vice president of membership and certification and the executive director of QualityPro.
"We thought that bringing those pieces together would give us a very holistic view of where the industry stands," said Dylan Henryson, market general manager of pest for FieldRoutes.
The report offered three key themes:
The pest control industry does not expect a decline in business for the coming year, with some companies anticipating adding staffing and boosting wages. Half of the respondents believe the market will improve, and 37% think it will remain the same.
New technology, primarily in software, offers opportunities for capturing value, although wearables, robotics, and similar hardware prompt hesitation. Marketing automation is seen by respondents (31%) as the most helpful technology over the next one to three years, followed by property intelligence (27%) and AI (26%).
Repeat customers (cited by 39% of respondents), referrals (19%), and marketing operations (16%) trigger the most growth, the survey found.
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Wednesday, August 28
Leadership Lessons from the Frontline: Kat Cole's Journey from Hooters to AG1
In a captivating keynote, Kat Cole, a renowned business leader and innovator, shared her inspiring journey from humble beginnings to becoming a trailblazer in the business world. Cole's story is a testament to the power of resilience, adaptability, and staying connected to the frontlines of business.
From hardship to leadership, Cole's early life was marked by challenges. Her mother's decision to leave her alcoholic father when Cole was just nine years old set the stage for valuable life lessons in leadership and resilience. Despite financial struggles, Cole's mother demonstrated unwavering strength and positivity, teaching her daughter that acknowledging difficulties doesn't mean succumbing to them.
Her innovative approach to business and ability to drive growth caught the attention of AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens), where she now serves as CEO. Under her leadership, AG1 has experienced exponential growth, projecting over $600 million in revenue for the current fiscal year - a fourfold increase from 2021.
AG1's success attracted $115 million in funding in 2020, boosting its valuation to $1.2 billion. Cole's expertise in building global brands, scaling businesses, and leading high-performing teams has been instrumental in AG1's transformation into a major player in the supplement industry.
Following Her Instincts
Cole's career began unexpectedly at Hooters, where she started as a hostess and quickly rose through the ranks. By 19, she was traveling the world, opening new franchises. This experience taught her the value of on-the-ground knowledge and the importance of staying connected to those closest to the action in business.
Her plans to pursue law school were derailed as she found herself rising through the ranks of the restaurant industry.
"I thought I was going to get my engineering degree and go to law school, but my restaurant company was growing," Cole reflected. Her managers saw potential in her and invested in her growth, training her in various aspects of restaurant operations.
At just 19, Cole was entrusted with opening the first Hooters in Australia. "I stayed there for 40 days, and it changed my life. That manager changed my life," she said. This experience set the tone for her rapid ascent in the company, opening a new restaurant every 60 days.
The Brutal Mirror of Leadership
As Cole traveled the world, managing franchises and working with diverse teams, she encountered a pivotal moment of self-reflection. "Running restaurants, traveling worldwide, and meeting and working with new teams, there was lots of friction, but the only common denominator was me. That was a brutal mirror to look at," she admitted.
This realization led Cole to develop the MMDD log - "Made My Day Difficult" - a tool for mapping friction and fixing it fast. She encouraged leaders to adopt this practice, writing down one thing each day that made their day difficult. "For the most part, there were always common themes and things I could instantly improve," she noted.
Cole's MMDD log evolved into a powerful leadership tool, fostering a culture of open communication and continuous improvement. She emphasized three key steps:
Ask. Answer. Action.
Ask: "What made your day difficult?"
Answer: Build a culture where people feel safe to answer honestly.
Act: Do something about it.
"As a leader, check-ins are critical. It makes your team feel seen," Cole stressed. She shared her go-to questions for these check-ins:
What's the best part of the last 30 days?
What's the worst part of the last 30 days?
What's one thing I can do differently to be a better partner for you?
What are you most grateful for?
What's worried you or weighed on you the most?
What are you most proud of?
Cole emphasized that these check-ins should be reciprocal. "I ask you, and you ask me. It's a two-way street," she explained, underscoring the importance of vulnerability and mutual growth in leadership.
The Hot Shot Rule: A Powerful Self-Coaching Tool
Cole introduced the audience to her game-changing self-coaching tool: The Hot Shot Rule. "I now do it every Sunday," she shared, emphasizing the importance of consistent routines in personal and professional growth.
"We are our routines," Cole explained. "Whatever we want to be, there has to be a routine that gets you there." The Hot Shot Rule is Cole's way of maintaining a fresh perspective and driving continuous improvement, even when things are going well.
Here's how it works:
Imagine someone you admire taking over your role: "You enter my company. You get my team, my customers, my product. You get it all. I step out, and you take over."
Ask yourself: "What is the one thing you would do to make the business better?" Cole stressed that it's usually the first thing that comes to mind and often something you already know but haven't acted on.
Act quickly: "I put it in motion in the next 24 hours," Cole said, underlining the importance of swift action.
Share it with your team: "We have a huddle every Monday. I have done this for 15 years," Cole revealed. "I tell them what I should have done or could have done. And now I'm doing it.”
Interestingly, Cole noted that her team's responses to her Hot Shot Rule revelations are often along the lines of, "What took you so long?” or “It's about time.” This feedback validates the importance of the exercise and keeps leaders accountable to their teams.
Overcoming Complacency for Continual Improvement
Cole highlighted how this exercise helps combat complacency: "We are blinded by our own progress. It is not natural to think about things you could do better when you're crushing it. Why rock the boat?”
However, Cole stressed the importance of constant improvement: "We need to constantly improve and be better for ourselves and others. It's our responsibility."
By regularly practicing the Hot Shot Rule, leaders can maintain the perspective of an outsider with fresh eyes, identifying areas for improvement that might otherwise be overlooked.
To maintain this commitment to growth and improvement, Cole regularly asks herself two critical questions:
Is my work done here?
Would someone else do it better than me?
"If the answer is yes, then move on," she advised. "If the answer is no, then I have an obligation to do better."
This approach ensures that leaders remain accountable and continuously strive for excellence, even when things are going well.
Cole highlighted how stepping out of routine and gaining outside perspectives can reinvigorate leadership:
It wakes you up and gets you out of your routine.
It brings back that "fresh day one energy."
It helps identify blind spots and areas for improvement that may be overlooked in day-to-day operations.
By regularly seeking fresh perspectives and challenging oneself with the Hot Shot Rule, leaders can avoid stagnation and continue to drive their organizations forward.
“Now my team members come to me,” she said.
Staying Close to the Action: Lessons from Cinnabon
When Cole joined Cinnabon, she knew she needed to get close to the action to identify areas for improvement. She emphasized that true insights often come from those on the front lines, interacting directly with customers and products.
"Merely talking to your teams can reveal invaluable insights," Cole explained. She offered a simple yet effective strategy: "Ask your customer service reps, what are we constantly saying no to? That action showcases a customer's desire. That desire is an insight that you need to listen to."
She started by asking her team two critical questions:
"What are customers asking that we are constantly saying no to?" The surprising answer: Smaller portions.
"What do I make you use that you don't use? What do you see people throw away?" To her surprise, the answer wasn't spoons or napkins but a portion of the cinnamon roll itself.
These simple questions revealed two significant insights:
There was a demand for smaller portion sizes that wasn't being met.
The current portion sizes were leading to product waste, indicating a potential for cost savings and improved customer satisfaction.
"Just talk to the team," Cole advised. "By talking to your team, you get close to the action and can identify opportunities to change the business."
Turning Insights into Action
As Cole wrapped up her motivational keynote, she left the audience with a powerful tool for gaining insights and staying close to the action. She encouraged leaders to regularly ask their teams three critical questions:
"What's one thing we should stop doing?"
"What's one thing should we start doing?"
"What's one thing you would start doing if you were me?"
"This is how you get insights," Cole emphasized. "Staying close to the action."
These questions serve multiple purposes:
They empower team members to voice their observations and ideas.
They help identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement.
They provide leaders with fresh perspectives on their roles and responsibilities.
A Continuous Journey of Improvement
Cole's final message underscored the importance of continuous improvement, even in times of success. "Even if you're crushing it, you can always find someone doing more with less. That's the next benchmark," she advised.
Kat Cole's journey from a Hooters waitress to a leader in the e-commerce nutrition industry is a powerful reminder of the importance of adaptability, resilience, and staying connected to the heart of your business. Her story inspires leaders to value frontline insights, invest in their teams, and never stop learning and evolving.
As attendees left the keynote, they carried with them Cole's words and a renewed sense of what it means to be a true leader in today's fast-paced, ever-changing business landscape.
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Building Your Tech-Savvy Team
With such competition for attracting tech-savvy talent, what does it take to set your company apart from the pack?
It requires a plan, most of all. That was the key that Tito Caceres, from Bloom Talent Solutions, stressed repeatedly during a session at Ignite 2024.
“The best companies have a path for growth for employees,” Caceres said. “The ones that don’t are going to have a tougher path forward.”
With landscaping expected to grow 10% and pest control expected to grow 8% annually, what are high-level candidates really weighing, rather than just competitive wages?
Caceres said candidates are concerned with:
» What’s in it for me? What’s the allure of the new company?
» Culture. Who am I working for? Who am I working with? This is where the quality of the interview process comes into play. If it’s a “rough” interview process for a candidate, and they get a bad feel from the process, no amount of salary will likely make up for that!
“Ask any executive in the top 10 companies on how they attract young professionals, and here’s what they’ll say,” Caceres said. “They can lay out for them — here’s your path to grow, and if you do these things, you will progress in your career. They have to know how to get there.”
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Tuesday, August 27
Foundations of Front-Line Leadership
This breakout session addressed the industry’s talent gap, focusing on developing essential leadership skills for front-line managers.
“A lot of times we have high-level individual contributors that are moved into management positions, but it’s a different skill set that they aren’t trained for,” said Jared Woodend, Integrator/COO at Decra-Scape, Inc. and Owner/Consultant at Redwood Operation Solutions LLC.
Woodend presented a framework for how to move those high-performing contributors into leadership positions and help owner/operators scale their businesses by increasing leadership capacity.
In other words, “help leaders create more leaders.”
Understanding the principles of developing effective leaders
Woodend presented the leadership framework that’s worked for his companies — core concepts of effective leadership, from building trust to fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
The 6 Essentials for Leadership Development:
Objective: Know what you’re trying to accomplish, and you will be more effective.
Content: The information needed to meet that objective. For leadership development, that’s the “Leadership Toolbox.”
Structure: Identify and evaluate what’s in place to support development. For example, weekly meetings. “Setting a dedicated structure for how you’re developing yourself and others is crucial to ensure it’s getting done,” said Woodend.
Plan: How you will work through the content and use the toolbox—the best way to connect and communicate with your aspiring leaders to help them develop.
Empowerment: Extremely important but often overlooked, this is essential to growing leaders. Woodend said, “Empower your team to make decisions. If they only follow specific instructions with no latitude, then they’re not really leading, they’re still just doing. If there’s no empowerment, you don’t have leaders you have doers.”
People: The most crucial part of creating this company culture is having the right people. “When you’re striving for growth as a company or as a team if you don’t have the right people on board, you're not going to be able to succeed,” Woodend said. “If you have a lot of people that are clock punchers, typically that doesn’t work well for a company that’s looking to grow and implement leaders in the organization.” The good news? Having the right people tends to attract more of the right people.
Building a Leadership Toolbox for your team
Woodend presented the six main tools in the Leadership Toolbox:
Connection: Build strong relationships at every level—within your role, with your team, and across the company—to foster trust and collaboration.
Communication: Clear, consistent, and open communication ensures everyone understands goals, expectations, and progress.
Delegation: Assign ownership of responsibilities to empower team members and free current leadership to focus on strategy.
Training: Ongoing training keeps team members and leadership engaged, proactive, and innovative to drive company growth.
Accountability: Instill team members with ownership of goals and provide ongoing feedback as progress is made.
Time Horizon: Planning for the long term enables leadership to consider the impact of decisions on achieving future goals.
He says connecting to your role, coworkers, and company is vital to success at each of those levels — as an individual, a team, and an organization.
“The biggest misconception of accountability is that it equals consequences,” Woodend said.
“More often than not, everyone uses the phrase, we need to hold people accountable, but we need to get away from that terminology because we’re not looking to hold people accountable we’re looking to instill ownership of specific achievable goals and provide timely feedback along the way.”
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Tuesday, August 27
Customer Panel: Scheduling Best Practices
Efficient routing can save time and make your business more profitable, so getting the most out of FieldRoutes scheduling is key to success. In this Ignite breakout session, a panel of FieldRoutes customers shared their scheduling best practices.
Breanna Neerland, Operations Manager & Managing Partner at Kwik Kill Pest Control in Wisconsin, offered up that a challenge her company faced when first implementing FieldRoutes for Scheduling a year and a half ago was navigating due dates and setting seasonal parameters, but she found she liked custom settings better. “There are so many little tweaks that you can make using different filters in how to go about the routing.”
Kye Selbach, Director of Operations at All U Need Pest Control, with offices in Florida and Texas, agreed: “There are so many ways to go about scheduling — just take the time to figure out which one works best for you and your company. Our team uses Map View with the pencil, so you can just sit there and circle and you can make the most beautiful routes possible.”
Each of the panelists agreed reaching out to others in the industry can be a game changer in the learning process. “I think part of it is trial and error,” said Brian Starnes, Co-Founder & CEO of Pest SOS, “but hands down, utilize contacts. I think the best way we learn is just exposure through our peers.”
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Tuesday, August 27
Ignite Opens in Orlando
After an amazing opening reception on Monday evening, Ignite 2024 kicked off in earnest Tuesday morning In Orlando with “Live with Jon and Mark” — a talk show with Aspire’s Director of Customer Experience Jon Gohl and Aspire and FieldRoutes CEO Mark Tipton.
Jon and Mark were joined by Juan Acosta, Director of Operations at Solid Property Services; Shandra Brannon, COO at Heritage Landcare; Scott Broaddus, VP of Expansion at Hawx Smart Pest Control; and Brittram "Britt" Wood, CEO of National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP).
A couple of reminders for attendees:
» Do NOT miss the product roadmap sessions, today at 11 am — one for Aspire and one for FieldRoutes.
» Today’s sessions wrap up with our Aspire & FieldRoutes Excellence Awards at 4:20 pm. Read more about the awards and our finalists below!
Check back here for continuing coverage throughout Ignite!
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Eddie Wooten, Scott Goldman, Missy England and Deborah Goldman contributed to this blog coverage.
Wanting more? Check out some of our other blog posts!
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