Kyle Nielsen
Appearances
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
We're currently the fifth largest residential pest control company in the nation. Wow. So we're in 80 plus markets nationwide. And we just recently went through a transaction and brought in a private equity partner. Between our corporate, our Salesforce, and our day-to-day remote office employees, we've got, I'd say, about 5,000.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
The stethoscope.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I'm so glad you said malls at the end of that. Sorry. Just, just.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
The best set of knives I own.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I mean, I think it's, to me, it's, it's very grounding. Um, I mean, I didn't come from, from money either. Like I'm one of six kids. My dad worked as a, owned his own plumbing company. And then, you know, that wasn't working as well as he would have liked it to work. And so we worked as a, as a. got a job as a foreman and worked our way up through like a plumbing company and stuff.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
But being a plumber, making a six figure income with six kids in California, even back in the 90s, didn't really go very far and things. And so we grew up, if I wanted to play baseball, You know, I had to sell chocolates door to door if I wanted to go to scout camp and I had to sell pancake breakfast tickets.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And, you know, and so I didn't really if I wanted a pair of shoes and a backpack for the next year, that wasn't the hand-me-down ones for my older brothers. I had to go out there and drum up money and things. And so for me, I...
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I think that everybody has, whether it was a longer period of time in their lives or a smaller period of time in lives, or at least the fear of not having, everyone can relate to that. And I think that it's important to give back. And yes, donate with your dollars, but more than that, give with your time and your energy.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And if you don't have dollars to donate, you don't have to donate with your dollars. You can give, honestly, as simple as a smile or a hug or going to a shelter and serving up meals. Charity, I honestly think that charity is as good for businesses and for the economy as sales is. Charity also cures all. If you're in a bad mood or you're dealing with your own sorrow and your own grief,
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
go serve somewhere, go give. And like, it is so like, it's funny, like, cause I throw an elf costume on for, I wear this more than I wear my normal clothes from Thanksgiving to Christmas every single year. And, and putting this on, like, I can't be like an angry elf. Like, you know, like I put this on and like, I have to smile.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
But what I've realized is that like this really, this elf thing is really just an outward expression of, of a feeling that I feel inside that the world needs more love. Yes. Needs more smiles, needs more goodness, needs more grace, needs more empathy, needs more forgiveness. Like, I want people to feel that through me. And yes, sometimes that is with dollars.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Sometimes that's with, you know, a plate of cookies to your neighbor's house. Sometimes it's with donating some old clothes you don't use anymore. The two years too long thing that you do. Like, I think that, I mean, I honestly, I think that to give is to live. Like, if I'm not giving, I don't feel alive. Wow.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah. So at the great elbow is my kind of my primary one. Okay. Wait, you got to explain that. What is the great elbow? Um, so, um, yeah, so it's, it's, uh, a nickname or I was told I had an elbow on my face, uh, a lot of years ago and I didn't let it really bother me. And then kind of my circle of friends was like, Hey, elbow, this elbow, that the elbow, that, and, um,
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And so, yeah, so instead of letting somebody, you know, make fun of my big side profile nose that I eventually grew into, now it became the great elbow. And back when I started my Instagram account, it was when it was made for just, you know, hey, my friends and family are going to see my pictures. And that was it. And then, you know, fast forward to...
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
me getting, you know, selling sneakers to NBA players and like a few shout outs from, from some, some big influences on my birthdays and stuff that kind of have amassed a little bit of a following. And like, I mean, one of my, one of my buddies on the jazz, like he knows my name's Kyle, but he calls me elbow.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Like, like, so like if I was to change at this point, it's, I don't want to get lost in the, you know, in the ether with that. And so I'm kind of stuck with the great elbow on that one for at least the, the foreseeable future. Got it. So yeah. My nose is that. And I think Mark Birbiglia has like a comedy bit from like back in the early 2000s about a nose on his face and stuff too.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
No, I dress up like this during the holiday season. Quick version of that is that it started at a toy drive almost 12, yeah, about 12, 13 years ago. When did the movie come out? It's 20 years old now. I think they have their 20th anniversary. Fact check me, whatever. But if I get it wrong in the comments, call me out. But yeah, it's about 20 years old now.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So elbow on his face. And then also the NBA elf is kind of what I'm leaning into around the charity side. And it won't just be like I'm active on it during the Christmas months. I'm going to be pumping content into that throughout the rest of the year as well. So those are my two. And then obviously LinkedIn, Twitter, all that kind of stuff.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So, I mean, honestly, I want to hit up a lot of, I mean, any sports arena anywhere. So if anyone has any type of event or arena-based thing or just some sort of charity event that they want an elf to show up to.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I'm happy to be here.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And so about 12 years ago, I threw the elf costume on, wore it to a toy drive sub for Santa for my company.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
and uh the next year my employees were like are you gonna wear it again what's going on with that so i rented the costume again threw it on and when we were in the checkout line at target one of the target checkers was like you were here last year buying toys for all these families and we talked about how the elf just was so happy and so i was like a whole year later i was like this made a difference and then so i kind of just started wearing it to the toy toy drives charity events and then i threw it on in an nba arena
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
and it went viral when Rudy Gobert stole my hat, put it on Donovan Mitchell's head after the game instead of pouring water on him, and then I was like, well, let's just keep the ripple effect growing bigger. When I'm not elfin' around, I kill bugs.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I'm in the pest control industry, and I run sales teams for Door-to-Door Pest Control, and we're currently the fifth largest residential pest control company in the nation. And we just recently went through a transaction and brought in a private equity partner. Explain what that means. Yeah. So we see I'm going on my 18th year now in the pest control.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So different brands. So same ownership group. We originally were part of a franchise called Moxie. Our ownership group sold that franchise off to Terminex.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
rolled that money in started a company called eco first sold that off after a few years to terminex again they bought our customer base and then uh we started coming called altera altera again terminex came in and not only bought our customer base but bought the brand and every single year i mean every single three to four year run we would build it up uh more and more and then back in 2015 we were like we're done kind of selling customers off our let's build the next one to be the brand that we live and love with you know we love love with we live live in love with forever
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
We've had multiple reps that have done, done over a million dollars in new customer revenue.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And so that was active in 2015 and we're going on our 10th summer. So we're hitting a decade with that brand and it'll be active for, you know, for as long as it goes, which is which has been fun. And so we built it with the intention of bringing in a private equity partner at some point or having some sort of strategic exit.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
In one summer?
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And after a lot of years and a lot of EBITDA ups and downs and struggles and learning and profitable years and fun, we found a great partner in Citation Capital and they came in and we struck a deal and we're running the next three to five to whatever years it is with them to see what we can do with it.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah. So they, yeah. I gotta go. I'm going to start working. Yeah. Let's go knock some doors.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah. So we're in 80 plus markets nationwide. And yeah, between our corporate, our Salesforce and our day-to-day remote office employees, we're about, I'd say about 5,000.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for every big success story, there's also the guys that go home with nothing because of their work or their lack thereof, typically. But yeah, I mean, it's very, very possible for anybody.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I mean, we had a 44, 45-year-old guy come out this year as a rookie salesman, had never knocked doors before, had worked in the pest control industry for quite a few years, and then transitioned off into something different and was like, I know pest control.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
But I also want to try sales that he came out and made I think 200 like 150 200 thousand dollars in a summer in a summer Yeah, I mean really to break it down you make Commission off of every sale that you make a good rep can be putting on eight to ten new customer accounts a day Rookie can be putting on like one to two accounts a day. I
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
for a rookie to sell two accounts a day, they have to talk to about 60 people. To talk to about 60 people on the doors, you're walking door to door to door, knocking on doors saying, do you need pest control? And it's not as simple as that, but there's art to it. But they're having to talk, they're having to knock about 150 to 200 doors.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So, you know, the fun thing about, or I guess the thing that makes it so hard is that to get to two people to say yes, you have to be rejected 60 plus times. So most people can't deal with that. And I tell people when they're interested in the job and they hear about the success stories and they come in, I say, look, like if this job was easy, everybody would do it.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
If everybody could do it, it wouldn't pay what it pays. Right, of course. So like you have to take rejection and you have to get, it has to, you know, it has to be like water off the duck's back. Like you just have to be able to roll off that and get through it. And you knock enough doors, eventually doors can open.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
A good rookie that actually really wants to see results, 150 to 200 doors.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
We start, yeah, I mean, probably closer to 10. So every morning we get together for a morning meeting. We talk about the sales skills from the day, what were the challenges. We go through the team's goals. We get on the doors by about 10, 15, 10, 30. We work till about 3.30, 4 o'clock, take a quick lunch break, bathroom break, get out, get back on the doors by 4.30 and work till dark.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So in some markets at 8.30, some it's 9.30. We typically don't want people knocking on doors after 10 o'clock at night, obviously. But yeah, the people that do it really well
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
can schedule other return appointments so when when they catch the husband or wife at home earlier and they come back and talk to my husband they schedule those ones into the dark so that way it gives them a purpose to be there at dark so when they're knocking on doors they're knocking on people's doors that are expecting them to come back by not you know not super late but yeah no they're they're long 10 to 10 plus hour days when you add in the training and the drive time back and forth and then we train at night we train in the mornings like it's a very
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
intense day to go out there and you know but again for a rookie 18 19 20 21 21 22 year old kid in college to come out and make 20 even 30 grand in a summer that's massive that's life-changing
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Buy real estate. Make sure you set up your tax strategy right. So you create your LLC. Don't get paid as a sole proprietor. Create a structure with that. invest your money and be smart. Obviously it's, you know, you can go buy yourself a nice car. You can buy yourself, you know, something to reward yourself for the hard work, but don't just blow it.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Like it's, it's tough to not want to burn through it. And what I see some, some people do in the industry is that they're, they're not from a leadership standpoint, they're not educating their sales force on the tax burdens. And they're not really real kids aren't realizing that taxes aren't coming out of my paychecks. And then at the end of the year, they Uncle Sam's locking on their door.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And what that sometimes happens if a company doesn't train and educate the reps properly, then that rep is now left with a pretty big tax burden. And their company is not going to throw throw them a bonus or something. So what happens is they start shopping themselves around. And they look for a signing bonus from somewhere.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
But then that rep perpetually ends up just jumping from company to company to company and they never build anything from themselves. And so we've taken a really smart approach. Like I do a call in my partnership in my region at the company called Wealth Wednesdays.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And we bring people on, talk about crypto, talk about real estate, talk about branding, talk about tax strategy, talk about all those things to these younger kids to give them opportunities to learn how to be smart with what they do. But I mean, I think real estate's an amazing one for them to get into at a young age.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah. I mean, luckily we have markets nationwide. Like there's no stone on the ground in Miami, you know, Phoenix, Arizona, Tucson, Vegas, St. George, a lot of Texas. So there's a lot of markets where they can go knock doors. They can work 12 months a year around if they want to. I prefer like the compartmentalization kind of approach. A lot of them are students.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
A lot of them are still going to school for something, whether it's doctor, dentist, lawyer, they're like really trying to,
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
um you know build something in the future but i i think that if you if you think about it you have your four to five month summer where you go knock doors and then you have if they've done really well like say they produced you know 125 or 150 000 in new customer revenue that's kind of our benchmark at the company for them to come back and be like a manager leader recruiter
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Then they spend September through January recruiting and building their team, their own team for the next year, where then they can be the leader of that team. They get an override stack and bonuses for recruiting and running a good team so that then they get their own income off their own sales. Plus they can pull in another 150, 200 grand from running a good, successful team in their org.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So they spend that next chunk of months building that team, recruiting and building, and then they spend January through April or March training that team and training them and getting them ready. So it's almost like you have, like any high competitive sports team you have, you're you're in season, there's not a lot of time to make a lot of changes once you're in the NBA season.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
You can maybe make a trade here and there. The time to rebuild is kind of in the off season. So then you build your team, you train your team, you put your team out there and see if you did it right. You build your team, you train your team, you put your team out there. You build your team, you train your team, you put your team out there.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
I prefer like the compartmentalization where it kind of builds it into blocks. And once you get to like the management level where you're these 150 plus thousand, you know, in a year new customer revenue leaders, you're making enough in the off season or in that one summer to kind of live off that money. And then and that kind of gets you through everything.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And the way that we, I mean, the way that we pay our, our kind of our back ends and our bonus structures out is they're kind of getting checks in the off season monthly anyways. And so there's not this big draw to go and do a blitz here, be gone for a week, come back for two weeks, be gone for a week, come back for two weeks. I would much rather they build their salespeople.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So we had, we've had multiple reps that have done, done over a million dollars in new customer revenue.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
In one summer?
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah, so they, and what they're, so yeah. I gotta go, I'm gonna start working.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah, let's go knock some doors.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
No, so, so yeah, I mean, so there's a few that come to mind, but, but Aubert, so Aubert, Les Brontes, Jake West and Ryan Smith were three of our million dollar guys this year. And the crazy thing on that is on our comp scale is, you know, because the company makes their money year two, year three.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
And so we want to bank on the fact that we're putting on good accounts and that they stick and that our service is there where it needs to be. And we're there. But Ryan Smith, for example, put on a million, over a million dollars in new customer revenue. His commission chunk of that for the first year is 80% commission. So he'll probably have 15 per 10 to 15% of those customers cancel.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So he's going to make 700, about 700 grand in a summer, in a summer. Uh, Ryan, don't, don't hate me around. I forget this wrong. Like he's like late twenties, early thirties. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, he's making, give me your camera.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
You're going to go work through the door.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Hey, I might actually get Murphy on the doors this summer. Why not? Um, no, but, uh, I got, I got 700,000 reasons.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
No, but I mean, and that's, and it took him, honestly, it takes those guys. I mean, O'Bear did it in like four, four-ish months, like four months, because he's in school and he's, you know, in town or in the U.S.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
on a student visa and has to like... Remember that scene in Wolf of Wall Street where he's like, you show me a check for $74,000, I quit my job right now. And Jonah Hill calls his boss and quit his job.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it takes, I mean, for those guys, it's an unheard of industry, but it's difficult. Like the mental drain that you have out there and like the solitude you feel, like there's no one out there watching you. There's no one out there watching the clock. There's no one out there, you know, did he clock in, did he clock out? You gotta be David Goggins out there.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah, no, you really, really do. You really do. Like the only person watching you is yourself. Wow.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
Yeah, I mean, I think those are the those are the Mormon missionaries. No, but no, no, but which there is some overlap. A lot of the LDS Mormon missionaries come out and do really, really good at this job, but because they've knocked doors for free for two years.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
But no, they we typically put them like a car partnership or a car group and they head out and they park the car and they kind of each go their own way and then they kind of meet back up and and things. But I mean, we've done stuff with our software to be more sophisticated than most of our other competitors.
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
So we have actually pre-scored and pre-qualified most of the homes across the US based on a look-like model, based on what customers we've put on that have stuck with us, based on which ones we've put on that didn't. And we almost recommend
The Money Mondays
Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen 🎄 EP 101
areas and certain homes to sell and reps can still sell kind of anything they want but they the the houses have kind of a color coding on them that if you sell this one it'll most likely retain if you sell this one it most likely won't so choose wisely and they do make a higher commission on the ones that that that are the higher likelihood of retention too so i have a story i never talked about before