Tony Carder on Entrepreneurship, Faith, and Building TruNorth Pest Control on the Florida Panhandle

In this episode of Panhandle Pulse, Chuck Asbury sits down with Tony Carder, a seasoned entrepreneur who previously built and sold one of the top pest control companies in Georgia before starting a new venture, TruNorth Pest Control, right here in Florida.

Tony dives into what really fueled his success—not just smart business decisions, but a strong emphasis on relationships, exceptional customer service, faith, leadership, and deep community involvement. Now based along the Emerald Coast, he’s applying those same principles to grow his new company while building a meaningful life in the Panhandle.

This episode also explores:

• How Tony approached scaling and eventually selling his first company
• His perspective on business acquisitions and long-term growth
• The importance of mentoring young people and developing future leaders
• What it takes to build a brand from the ground up in a competitive market

It’s a great listen if you’re an entrepreneur, a business owner, or someone interested in the culture and growth of the 30A and Emerald Coast area.

https://trunorthpest.com/

https://www.facebook.com/trunorthpest/

https://www.instagram.com/trunorth.pest/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to the Pain Handle Pulse, the show that dives into real challenges and honest conversations shaping the Florida pain handle. I'm your host, Chuck Asbury. Each week we sit down with the people who make our community strong, sharing real issues, real conversations, and no filters.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Okay, sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Hey guys, welcome back to the Panhandle Paul. So I've got a great guest today, and Tony Carter. He is a seasoned pest control entrepreneur, right, from uh Atlanta. Yes, sir. And you've been in the area a little over a year now. Correct, almost 18 months. Good. So what uh drew you to the area? How did you find the place?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Been visiting like a lot of people for the last 25 years, every vacation, every long weekend, every opportunity you could get to come down and hang out. Um just enjoying it. My first place was in the Emerald Grand, probably back in 2009 and 10. Okay. That I had in my own place for several years. And then uh just kind of migrated up and down the panhandle between Destin to Panama City Beach.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah, and that's where we tell everyone we live between Panama City and Destin, because you say Santa Rosa or watercolor, you it's not really well known yet around everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yeah, because I say Inlet Beach and they're like, where is that at? Yeah. You know, you have to give them the speech.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

It's you know, close to Alice and Rosemary or, you know, 30A across from the all the landmarks of the area down through here. So how did you get uh into uh the pest control business in Atlanta? So you had the fourth largest uh pest company in the uh country, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

No, well I wish it was that big. The 34th largest. 34th. Yeah, it's more like the number. But uh no, born into the business. Okay. Uh my dad started our company originally back in 1985. And from there we uh grew the business one location at a time, and I took over the business in 2000, uh, running the day-to-day operations, and then in 2004 he retired. So and then 2006 I purchased the company.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

You know so did you always know that you wanted to be uh an entrepreneur or what type of Oh, entrepreneur for sure, because you know, even when I was younger, I did pressure washing on the side, I would cut grasses on the side, I would work for my dad until I got old enough. Just anything I could do to make money and just be out on the side. Yeah. Just love, knew I didn't want to ever be in an office full time.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Yeah, wanted to be out, not uh not go to the nine to five, wanted to set your own rules. Exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Nice and and just being in the people business. Yeah, tell people every day that's what I do. I'm in the people business. Bugs is just the avenue of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Right. Yeah. And no matter what business it is, people business is always it with sales and communication skills uh is the way. Correct. And just building relationships. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

That was the tagline for our previous business was where relationships matter. Nice. I tried to keep it, but they wouldn't let me and when I sold the business. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

So you ran it from uh 2006 until when did you sell it?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Sold it in 2019. Okay. So we were we were able to uh be blessed with a good run from 06 to 19. We grew it probably from four locations to 16 between here and Sugarland, Texas, or I should say Atlanta in Sugarland, Texas. Okay. And in 2019 sold to the largest company in the world called Renekill. Um they had their North America division. So they came in and bought the business in 2019. I worked for them another year, and then after that, I kind of just semi-retired for a while.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah. And then uh how did you go about growing it uh from that big? So when your dad had it, uh again, my dad back in the day set and sort of yours probably was set to doing what they continue to do. They don't want to expand too far outside their skis. So how did you go from taking it over to growing it to that big?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Well, that's you know, the funny story is because I remember sitting down with my dad one day and saying, How big do you want the company to be? And he said, I really don't care as long as you send me my check every month.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

You know, he's like, first day of the month, your mom wants her money, it don't matter.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

So we just actually just going out and start making relationships. Okay. And a big one for us is through realtors. You know, we love realtor relations and and uh new construction uh market for pre-treats for before the home is built, you do the treatment for the termites. Yeah. So built it that way, one customer at a time, and then we would just start doing well in one location and we would expand and open another location.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

And uh I'm one of those I like to start an office from scratch. You know, I've bought some companies, but at the same time I've bought opened a lot of locations with just one truck and an individual.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

And going out shaking hands, making friends, making relationships with realtors, local businesses in the community, and uh growing it from there.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah. And so when you started those uh businesses, one truck, one person, did you go and help set them up every location that you did there? Or how did you go about building the teams and uh every new expansion?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, that's what we did. So I can remember being in Atlanta. Um we had four locations at the time, and I wanted some on the north side of Atlanta. So we were on the south side. So I would go up there and we would just hire one individual with a truck and go up there and start marketing. And I would ride around with them every day and we would start marketing, then we'd hire a technician. And that would lead to the second technician, the third technician. And then, of course, we did that in Columbus, Georgia, Rome, Georgia, Athens, Georgia, and a couple of those places we were able to buy small local competitors to give us more customer base to help us grow quicker. Nice. So and I just felt like we had the background on how to grow the business through customer service and answering the phone. That's what I always like to joke about. So when we answer the phone, you get the business. Right. And uh we would just keep growing one at a time, one customer at a time, and recruit good employees in and help us build the brand.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

I think that's key. It's one thing uh uh being here in the area as somebody picking up the phone uh is the person that's gonna get the business. Because down here, we have tons of service businesses, but majority of them don't want to pick up the phone or they're too busy to take on other services and that.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

But it's it's amazing how many people don't take on new clients. Yeah. Like I know my pool guy will not take on new clients, my lawn guy will not take on new clients. Right. When I moved into my neighborhood, I went through three lawn companies calling, they're like, nope, we're not taking any new clients, not taking new clients. And I'm like, we're always able to buy trucks and hire an individual to take on the new business. Right. And then uh, or we would give the new business to our old business to our new employees, and the new business came to our seasoned employees that knew exactly how to take care of them and get them on the books and keep them happy. And the business model is if you can keep them 18 months, you can keep them. You just got to get them through 18 months of taking good care of.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

And once you do that, then they'll continue to stay with you.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

No, and that's a good strategy. So how did you come up with bringing on your new customers, putting your experienced people on it, and then training your other team? Is that something you've learned through the process of trial and error?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Or 30 years worth of trial and error, but the biggest one's probably being I'm old school. I like hanging door hangers at uh regular services, the door hangers on each side of the new customers or the previous a current customer. And then we like doing small yard signs, letting you know that we came out and did the current service with that client. So that's helped out. Okay. And then um social media, of course, now today you can't live without it. So you use uh Facebook, Instagram. Um we're we're launching a bunch of YouTube stuff coming up here soon. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that side of it, kind of being more involved in the videos myself. I wasn't in the past, but I'm going to this time.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Right. And I'll become more social as everything is nowadays. So we'll start seeing some uh new. Face and a name. Yep, that's right. Face, name, TikTok, advertisements all trying to get to you the virtual clicks these days. Yeah, exactly right. Good. And when you're building out your business to get to the scale you are, I'm sure you had to have some kind of mentor or leadership program for your your members to keep uh teams and keep uh employees around.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, so for me, my biggest mentor was my dad. You know, he taught me a lot about business and uh he would always joke if I had his people skills, the company would have been twice as big. You know, because he had amazing people skills. Short story, I was in Costa Rica back in December and ran into a guy and he first the question was he asked about my dad. Hadn't seen him in 30 years. But he's like, Your dad made such an impact on me. I and I said, Well, the good news is he's at the time he was still with us, and I said he's not doing as well as he could be, but I'll let him know that you know you asked about him and all that. So that stuck stuck to me big time, going, wow, somebody 30 years later still asking about him and what he did for him in their life. And he just had amazing people skills. So I'm working on the people skill side more and more every day. You know, I still not perfect, but I'm a lot better than I was, is what I like to say. Yeah. You know, on that side. So if you get good employees and take great care of them, they'll uh they'll help you do anything.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah, and that's good. I mean the people skills and that the social aspect of it is uh everything. It's key. It's taking that. And I think us as as men, and I'll speaking for all men, we have a hard time processing keeping that same social skills or or the response that our our wives are that would have. They know everyone's birthdays, all the kids' parties and all that, and we're we're keyed into the fixing the problems portions of it. But that is uh huge for nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Oh, and it is, and I just told somebody yesterday, I said, there's a reason God done what he did.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

There's a man and a woman. I said, the woman is loving and nourishing and you know totally side, the man is disciplined and and strong and strength and holding accountability. So we as men we have that desire just to hold people accountable, and sometimes it doesn't come across the way it should.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

So you gotta learn to tone it down when you're addressing people and issues that they might need to be a here a little softer to start with.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

You know, and kind of so that's something I've really focusing on more these days than I have in the past. It's just as my dad says not what you said, it's how you said it.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

That's uh that's huge. Uh I've a tone is the thing that we've got with our teenage son that I've learned over the years of growing a teenager, like my tone uh and presence may not be what he's receiving it as, but I'm not being disciplined. It's just the tone that he's getting it uh is not the communication that we need to be on the same level. Uh no, that's great. So you sold the company in in 2016, you stayed on there for a year, and then uh uh now you come down here and you have a new pest control business going.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah, so what we did was we had a five-year non-compete. Okay. So uh we built a sanitation company up there in the Atlanta area, and uh we were just we knew it was a five-year exit plan. So it came to the end of the five years and we decided to sell it, and we were like, okay, what are we gonna do next? So we were gonna get in the pest control business again. So the non-compete was up, and my son, who I both my kids tried to beg him to move down here in 19, yeah, was like, hey, uh, I think I want to move to Florida now. And I'm like, okay. I said, if we're gonna do pest control, we're gonna do it in Florida. So we launched, uh, we were able to buy three small local companies in the area. One of them had a location in Florida, in Orlando. Okay. So we acquired that business, and then we liked the name True North. We loved the meaning behind it and what it represented. And there were three former employees of the three companies I bought. Okay. You know, so they had all gone out, started their own businesses, and uh built good brands. And then uh we decided to come here with the one truck trick. Yeah, we come here to Santa Rosa Beach, uh Inlet Beach area, and start an office with one truck and my son. So he started out every day by himself down here after we trained him and got him up to speed, and now we run six trucks right here in town and we've been blessed. Yeah. It's been very receptive of the people coming to us, so we're very grateful.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

And so six trucks in the area now, and so since True North has been up and running from Orlando, total uh size of what you guys are doing right now?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, so we're probably just over six million a year in revenue already, and we have probably have close to 70 employees. Wow, that's great company wide. So we're doing very well in less than 24 months.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Yeah. And so you took the most of the nod that you had from the pest control in the last 30 years and just translated it down in here to a new business that's uh underserved. And again, just picking up the phone is a huge uh aspect.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, absolutely. And the I guess the biggest thing is you have 30 years of trial and error, so you take away all the trials and the and the errors, and then you just do the things that were. So it compounds quicker. Now the things that you did right, you keep remembering those quicker. Right. You know, um, as Tom Brady said, you know, I got to hear him speak, was he said, I don't remember the wins as much as I do the losses. Right. The losses stick in your head, the things that you know you're not gonna do again. And that's what mistakes do in your life, right? They if you didn't have them, you wouldn't know not to do them again.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

And that's and that's what I kind of focus on now.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah, and you wouldn't learn to grow from that. If you just everything was uh success, success, success, you would have no idea what you're doing right or doing wrong. It's just all supposedly working.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yeah. So what's the uh the meaning behind uh true north?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

True north is uh the the founder of the company was my old CFO, so he was a huge Delta guy back in the day, and he's always loved flying and being on a plane. But it comes down to true north is Christ. Your true, true north should be Christ in your life. And I tell people every day when I get I get now I do some public speaking, and mostly to young adults in colleges, and and I tell them there's two roles in life that you gotta remember. The one, first one is you should have Jesus Christ in your life, and the second one be is the person you marry will be the most important decision you'll ever make in your life on this earth outside of Jesus Christ. Because they will either lift you up or tear you down, they'll bring you to the next level and they'll be with you to the end. So um after having a life of learning lessons there, uh realize that now and realize how important that is and just seeing uh where you go when you have the right person with you every day.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah, that's uh absolutely amazing. I mean, we uh we use that uh through ours at anything as possible uh through Christ and our our vision and try to teach our son the same way. It's and you have to have the right support team that's there around you, your wife is is definitely behind that, and then uh instill that back into your kids. So that's all amazing that you've taken that story, put it into your business, and now continue to run that through everyone that works there.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Absolutely. And and it's been fun, you know, it really has. Because the the process now is is not as much about growing the business as is giving back to the people. Right. You know, we the money's not the issue anymore. That that's not the goal and the prize. The prize is how many people can we help along the way.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

You know, and that's the part that I'm loving more than anything.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

No, that's a great story. Yeah. And you can bring it out to not just your employees, but your customers as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We're taking care of their needs, applying for them, supporting the community, getting involved in different charities locally, and you know, supporting the kids in the schools. So that you know, it's it's a lot of fun. Getting to meet a lot of great people in the process.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

So your son came down, wanted to start the business in here, so he's moving to Florida before you. You said, All right, I'll do it, we'll follow you. And now they're down here as well. So uh how did you get to the process of you he's vacationed all the way down here too. Our son's looking to move outside, he's graduating high school uh this year, so he's trying to figure out where else to go in Florida. But uh you're you're blessed to be able to follow him to where he wanted to come to.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah. So when we decided we were going to do the pest control business, he had to learn the industry, and Florida's totally different than Georgia. Yeah. So we had the Orlando location, so he went there for the first year. Okay. So he spent nine months there, and he realized in that we were thinking of Tampa, we were thinking of um Clearwater. We even looked at um Jacksonville. We looked everywhere because we wanted to be on the water. We knew we we love boating. Right. So we knew that was he's not a big beach guy, but he loves the boat and the water. So um, but then he realized I didn't want to be in a big town. That's why I left Atlanta. And that's what he kept coming back to me was I don't want to live in a mega town. And uh so he's like, I want to move back to I want to move to the panel to where we had the house, because I had a house here that we would come to all the time as a weekender. And that's why he's like, No, I want to go live up there. Yeah. And uh he'll tell you he's not going back. He's here for the long haul. He he absolutely loves it. He's met a ton of great people, made a lot of good friends, and just enjoys, you know, he said the funny thing is he's moved here and it snowed. Yeah, and then we've had freeze the temperature. And he's like, every time you're the cold weathers, you're not here. He's I'm like, Well, I'm watching the weather and I'm like, I'm out. You know it's too cold. I don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, you know, that's what happens. Last two years it snowed here. We're like we had four inches of snow last year. The crowd uh beautiful. It was and it was good, it only lasted a couple of days. Yeah, it did.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

And then now we had a little bit of snow dusting this year, and everybody's like now requesting snow every February at Liz Radio.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

It's like the craziest dig. Everybody likes that change of season. That was another reason why South Florida wasn't gonna work because I do like cooler temperatures.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

I just don't want it to be New Jersey or you know, any of those places up north where, you know, Wisconsin or some friend of mine sent a video yesterday and they're up there and I'm like, no, because it was beautiful here yesterday. Yeah. You know, on Saturday. I'm like, no, you can have all that.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Yeah, they got over two foot of snow in Green Bay the other night. Yeah, you don't want to do any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah, I have no desire to wake up to that every day. I love it a little bit in the winter, you know, go out there and go out west and have a good time. But after about three or four days, okay, I can take the plane ride back. Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

That's the great part. We can go visit the snow now and when we want to do that. So that's great. So buying um a business, was that easier coming into Florida buying a pest control business than going through the process of trying to start and getting all the required licenses and well that's the difficulty thing about any business is you gotta look at the regulations.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

You know, I've been blessed to buy and sell over 30 companies, whether it be the sanitation, heating and arrows in uh or the many pest control companies I've acquired. So, yeah, so if you can get somebody that has the license, you can start, in my opinion, is it's easier because you're getting, you guaranteed what you're getting.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

You buy a business, you don't know how the cleft customers are, how the employees truly are. So it's you know, it's one or the other, right? So there's devil in the details. Yeah. If you're very detailed, you can probably catch a lot of things and um save it. I would recommend people, you know, just no matter what business it is, get out and get in business. For me, it's like there's no greater joy, and I tell people this all the time, it's the greatest job in the world when things are great. Right. It is the loneliest place when things aren't good. Yeah. Especially because you don't know who to go to, who to talk to, you know, who's helping you make the decisions when you got to make them. Yeah. You know, so uh, but yeah, uh buying a company is absolutely can be done and it's not a difficult task. I think most people get overwhelmed and think it's harder than it really is.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah. Yeah, especially in if you don't know what you're looking to buy. I had a guy on here a couple weeks ago talking about the acquisition of buying businesses versus not buying businesses. And one of his main advice was if you're buying a business, don't go in and start changing the entire recipe immediately because you're gonna lose all your customers or you may think you're in employees. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

You know, and that was another reason why we got back in the business was I had quite a few former employees after five years reaching out. Yeah. Very disgusted with how pay was changed, operations was changed. So it wasn't hard, you know, out of our close to 70 employees now, over 40 of them previously worked for me at my other business. Yeah. All I'd do was post on social media. We were back in business, this is what we were doing, and my phone gets texts and rings all the time of people wanting to come back.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

So no, that's an amazing testament to you as a as a leader versus like you said, a big corporate buying it and coming in with a corporate structure and changing everything.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, being blessed.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

And we're in a unique area right now. I mean, the majority of our business is tourist. There's a lot of uh homes down here, but we do have in and out. So there's all kinds of opportunities to be an entrepreneur in the area that we're in right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Oh, and the growth of the people coming to the panhandles, it's the you either gotta you're either gonna love it or hate it. If you're old school and been here your whole life, you may not like it as much as people that are coming from parts of the country that they don't ever want to go back to. Right. And they get here and like, wow, this is paradise. You're blessed. The views, the sunsets. You know, out on the beach last night with my dog watching the sunset was just pretty amazing. Yeah. You know, and his first time ever being on the beach and was just blown away by it, you know. He was like, This is freedom. Yeah, you know, he had a blast, you know, so it worked out good. So I think, you know, if you want to be an entrepreneur, I definitely think coming to the panhandle is gonna be a great spot to be in. Right. Definitely do agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, I think it's amazing, especially we're teaching uh uh our kid, and it sounds like you did and still in your son as well, the different opportunities out there instead of going to look for your normal uh college degrees or educations now, which is is great for some in some avenues and people, but entrepreneurship and engineering and other skills are out there is just as valuable and needed today.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Absolutely. So my daughter and son both elected not to go to college, both of them went into business with me. And then my son, he had a good group of kids he went to high school with. I probably did one or two or three deals with five or six of them in the last five years. Because they all didn't want to go to college. They all wanted to go get in business of some kind or some kind of a trade that they knew they could grow something into down the road.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Right. And so your your sons and your and your daughters got to see that. What kind of advice would you give to any of the high school, college students in the area that's listening to start thinking about different avenues they would like to pursue uh out there? And and at this point in time, and my my advice that I always give is look, you're young enough to take those risks and gamble and fail right now, to go out and try something before you get set up with a family and have responsibilities and needs, take that time to go learn and experiment what's gonna make you happy in life.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Aaron Powell Well, the one thing when I go to these colleges and speak to these kids, so many of them are coming out of there with so much debt. Right. And I talk to these kids today, it's like I call it the American merry-go-round. Don't get on it. Because if you do, you're gonna get on it, and you're gonna get you a car payment, and then you're gonna get you a house payment, and then you're gonna get married, and then you're gonna have kids, and then you're gonna wake up at 35 years old in debt, and you can't do anything to be an entrepreneur or do those things. So I like to speak to kids because I know from 19 to 25 years old, I wasted a lot of that money I made. Yeah. I just nobody was guiding me. No, I think we ought to stay at home enough. If your mom and dad's doing your your mom's doing your laundry, you're eating for free, even if they're charging you a little a little rent, stay there as long as they'll let you. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying homestead till you're 30, but it I my goal is I tell kids $50,000 is your first mark. If you can get $50,000 in the bank, then think about moving out because you'll never get that opportunity again. Yeah. So by doing that, stay at home, be responsible with your money, be a responsible adult with your parents, and then go out. And I would tell every kid that wants to be an entrepreneur to go meet every politician, commissioner, and a successful entrepreneur in their town. Because people like me want to help younger people. If you're truly successful, you want to help others. When you look at some of the wealthiest people in the world and how much they give away, it's because they want to help.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Money becomes not the issue or the target and the goal. Now it's becoming what kind of legacy you want to leave. What can you do? So go out and meet people that you know where relationships matter. Right. You might build a relationship with somebody and they may want to partner with you and do a business. You know, and that's how I wound up in the sanitation with my son and his best friend. They were partners in it with me. They built the company, I didn't run it. I wasn't going out picking up trash. I'm gonna be honest. I wasn't driving a truck, I wasn't doing any of those things. But by doing that, you build relationships. And I tell people every day uh collaboration is a new currency. It's go find somebody to get with, have be like-minded, and go build something that you can sell someday or you can walk away from and hire somebody to run it for you while you travel or be with your kids and things of those nature. So just relationship building as quick as you can and and stay out of debt and stay at home as long as mom and dad lets you.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

That's good advice.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Tell them all that. Yeah. I'm sure all the moms will tune into that. Like that's a 22-year-old or we're trying to get the leave. No. Yeah, they're like, no, they can stay as long as they want, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

And as a parent, you think that your mind is the first time they're not with you for two or three weeks, you start realizing, okay, what are they doing? Are they okay? I'm not a big warrior. Right. The name of my boat is not stressing.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Oh, it's nice.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

I yeah, I just don't. I mean, I can control it or I can't. Right. You know, and I'm one of those people that, you know what, it's seen God's timing and plan, and if I can fix it, I will. But if I can't, then you know what? There's nothing, there's no need to lay in bed at night and stress over it. So, in that with these kids, is this just let them go out and kind of learn. Like you said, they can take a risk at a younger age because they don't have any expense, keep the expense low and try different avenues or businesses. Go shadow different companies. Yep. Hey, I want to come to work for you for 90 days and see if I like your industry. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Come on. I'd I'd let a kid do it in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Right. And it gives them the opportunity to figure out if they like doing that, if they want to go scale from that. That's a great great advantage.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

But it also gives me an opportunity to see if I like them and I can entice them to come and help me build my brand.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

You know, on that side, which works out wonderful too. So that's why I love going to speak to the schools, you know, uh, because I'm I'm I'm making a relationship with young entrepreneur mindset people that are gonna come out and want to do something. Well, they need two or three years of job experience before they maybe take that leap of faith. Or they may have an idea and I'm writing a check to help them do it.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Right. And by coming to work for you, they may get an idea just sitting there having conversations and collaborating on something different. Now you could be in the same world or like sanitation thing that you were just explaining. Absolutely just by having that uh meeting or dinner or connection. Uh you never know where ideas are gonna take you.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

And they got the fresh set of eyes. When you're younger like that, they haven't seen the things we've seen and they look at things differently. And that's why I love working. A lot of the staff I have right now is a lot younger than me. And and it's nice to hear their perspectives. Yeah. Because they'll tell me when I'm not communicating correctly too. Hey, you've said it, but we didn't understand it because of the way you were saying it. Oh, okay. Well, let me reword it to make sure everybody connects on what's being said.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

So that's been very good on that side as well.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

No, yeah, that's great. Because our communication skills from uh our age group to our younger generation are totally different uh via text and phone calls. And I encourage our my son and everyone to get on phone calls and talk to people versus just texting everyone. But uh their real world is text message communications.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Oh yeah, I'll text them and I'm like, did we call them and leave a message? Did we how many times did we call them? One time and leave a message and it's been three days, or you know, you gotta call them a couple of times a day if it's somebody that wants to do business with you. You know, so there's those approaches that you're you're teaching them and they're teaching you at the same time on that side.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah. So it's great uh you hit on a point. You go to the schools around the area and uh and talk to the students. Have you hit uh South Walton and some of the other places? What schools are you? Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

I mostly have done colleges. Okay. So uh I do a lot at Mercer University. I've been blessed to go up there. They have a couple of um leadership programs that come out of there and entrepreneur classes. So I have a couple of professors that bring me in uh twice a year and speak to all their kids. So it's been fun. And then I mentor them afterwards. I probably at one time had about six or eight at one time. I think I've had as much as twelve. Now I'm down to about three or four that I talk to on a weekly basis. Just give them advice. They're getting ready to get out of school. Either that or they're they're wanting to they're working on their resume and how do they how do they talk in an interview and things like that? Because there's a lot of things that people they just don't know what they don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

So they're getting it from the lens of a guy that's gonna hire me. What what are what are they looking for? What what are the what attracts them to, you know? And so you get to go over all that stuff with them and you get to encourage them. You know, that's the thing about it is it gives me a lot of hope when I go to those schools and see some of those kids and how hard they've worked and where they want to be and what they want to do.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Right. Yeah, that's great, especially from uh the that generation again working for it. So they have a different mindset and different uh goals than we have, but uh at the end of the day, a lot of them do want to work for it.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yes, yes, they do.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Yeah, yeah. One of the things you touched on earlier being down here, and it seems to be a just a a pattern within our area, which is an amazing thing. Uh all new businesses or businesses start giving back and support e supporting charities and and and local um local groups here. Have you always had that mindset? So you just brought it with you when you came back into the area? And uh I think that's been huge an impact for especially the area that we're at.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah. So ever since I've been in business, I was taught by my dad to give. Yeah. So I have been supporting the same uh orphanages in Albania for over 20 years. I've supported a bunch of folks down in Honduras for the last almost 20 years, and then I get I'm big into the local community. So in the area I came from, I still do the Haven's house, a friend's house, all the different things. I'm really big into children because an adult can make their own decisions. A child has no choice. Right. So the I want to help them because they don't have a choice and they need somebody to help them. Yeah. So and it's biblical too, you know, so it works good for me that, you know, because put some people go, why aren't you over here? Well, I'm over here and here's why. Right. You know, so that goes with it. But uh, and then I love getting involved in the schools because it's back to the kids, right? And then, you know, we're not funded as much as we used to be on the the program side in the schools either. So giving back to that side helps out a lot. And it just connects you to the community, lets people know that you're not about just making a dollar. You're you're about willing to give back to the community. True North sponsored the uh South Walton Academy at South Walton High School. Yeah, you know, their booster club and all that stuff this past year, the first time around. So it was a lot of fun. Then we did the Destin one as well. We donated some money to them, and it's just because we want them to know, hey, we're here. We're here and we're willing to support and give. I'd love to go speak at the high schools and talk to those juniors and seniors leaving. Yeah. You know, set them up for success. I've spoken at um Water Sound Beach Club. They have an entrepreneurial little group over there. I've spoken over there and those kids and mentored several of those young men in the last uh year. It's been a lot of fun seeing their results and what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Yeah, that's great. I mean, we have so many different schools in the area and opportunities for our kids in the area, which is uh an amazing blessing. So uh to be able to speak to some of those outside of just the South Walton, you got coastal seacoast, you got Ohana there, we got the the STEM school, um, the STEAM school right up the road here. So we have uh a whole different opportunities for schools down here. It's sort of a really little blessed area.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

And they're great schools too, which is uh parents have gotta be ecstatic about that. You know, to know when you have a good school system that you're into, which really helps out and draws gonna continue to draw people to the community.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Yeah. On that side. Yeah. For sure. So no, that's good. Um circling to some of your fun activities in the area that you like to do around here. So So for me, it's there's there are all too many, they're too good.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

So food, number one, I love to eat. There's a lot of great food here. I love to cook, but um, being on the boat is is is a big plus. Um being on the beach with a bunch of friends, you know, the bonfires at night. Last year we got invited to several of those. Those were a lot of fun. Um just hanging out with people in general. Uh I love going to the church I get to. I go to Destiny over in PCB. Okay. So I love it. And then uh I have a great group of guys I Bible study with every Friday morning down in Grayton Beach. Nice. Been doing that for over a year now. So yeah, just so many opportunities and things to do here. And that's I don't watch TV. Right. And I didn't. I did a little bit, but now I don't at all. Unless it's dark outside. The time change was a little rough. Now I ain't gonna lie to you.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

That 4 30 thing was a little challenging. Yeah. But I was able to get through it, you know. Hopefully we fix that so we don't have to go through that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, I'm hoping they don't change the time back and we're good, right? Yeah. But uh, yeah, and I love doing podcasts and meeting people, you know, in the community. Um, hanging out at the beach club has been a lot of fun as well.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

So uh but I've not met anybody that I didn't like. That's the great part about it, too.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Everybody down here is so nice, everybody's so helpful, everybody wants to help you succeed.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

So you're in return wanting to do the same for them or their kids and so on.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Right. It's sort of this unique little bubble that you have that uh you try to explain it when you're out traveling uh different places, and there's no real way to explain it. You're like, it's got all the restaurants that you have from the major cities, it's got the all the great food, you have the connections, it's got a whole melting pot of different uh social lives, social classes, but everybody down here is normal. Like everyone wants to help. Everyone will talk to you anywhere you're out to. Like it's that unique little uh what we call it, uh Mayberry back in the day uh TV show. If anyone's watched that, sort of how it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

I love watching, I mean, in my neighborhood where I live, everybody's walking their dogs in the evening or in the afternoon, or there's kids all over the place without parents flying around having a good time, some of them acting a little foolish, but for the most part, you can't do that in certain cities anymore. So you I excite me to see that where other people kind of get, yeah, those kids don't need to be doing that. As long as they're not tearing up anything and and they got to pay attention to the road and the signs, I'm okay, I'm 100% glad they get to do it. That's what I did when I was a kid. Yeah. I left at daylight, didn't come back till dark, right? You know. That's so we knew we were back, like now, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Or if our parents weren't able to track to find out where we were to make sure we were safe. You're just like, they'll return. They'll return at some point.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

They came to the plot spot where all the bicycles were piled up. You've seen that, you know, where the little picture of all the bikes I brought. We know where everybody's at. Yeah. You know, they're out playing ball somewhere. So that is kind of it's awesome. It ain't kinda, it's awesome here to see that. And uh being out, you know, being outside is my another thing that drew me to here is there's so many state parks. I got me on mountain bikes, I've been riding it a lot lately. Uh that's been a lot of fun too. And then I'm sure I'll make a lot of connections there. Guys already going, Hey, you want to go ride?

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Plus it helps you stay in shape. Right. You know, which is good too.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Especially through the, I mean, again, all the state force that we have, I just make a recommendation. When we moved down, we did mountain biking and driving, riding through the state park in July, which was a bad idea when it was 110 degrees and humidity.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Oh, I could imagine.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

I hadn't done that yet, and I'll make sure I I probably won't do it then. My goal would be to be in Montana in July. I figured I'd let everybody stay here and celebrate the fourth. I want to do it in Montana.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah, yeah. We went through uh Point Warship State Park and we were uh red, yellow, blue, password. We thought we were taking the short one. We had taken the long one in July.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

It was like Didn't think you'd ever get back. No. Did anybody bring a bottle of water? Anybody think about this? No. We all brought one, but it didn't make it through the trip. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Especially when it's that hot. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, no. So that that's a lot of fun. I just and the like I said, going back to the food here. There's not just one favorite place. Right. There's a favorite meal at every one of them, is what I've kind of come to. And so my goal this year is I'm trying to go to a different little beach every weekend.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

And I still want to get out to Navarra Beach because I've been there many times and I just hadn't been lately.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

And go back toward Mexico Beach. I used to go there all the time. We fish out in front of Mexico Beach a lot. Yeah. Uh on that side. So and then you hear all the great things going on up in Freeport and Niceville. So you're like, then Fort Walton. So yeah, there's just so many great places. Right. And when you meet somebody, they're like, yeah, we're from here. We just came down for the day or the weekend. And so it's it's definitely a great place. Yeah. A lot of opportunity to see a lot of cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah. And especially for uh businesses or or our younger generation that want to build something there. It's definitely a place. Yeah. Yeah. One of the questions I like to ask too is favorite restaurants in there, but it's hard to name any of those without putting them out there. We have our famous famous food spots that we like to go to just for certain dishes, just like you said. It's great. Um and there's still tons of them. We've been here 10 years and probably haven't been to all of them yet. That's uh the hard part is getting out of your your routine and going somewhere different. So I like your beach idea of going to a different beach each weekend.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Yeah. Just think about it. There's 13 just right here on 38, a little little spots, right? And then then you get to Destin, then to Miramar, and then you kind of keep going that way. Then of course Panama City, and then you go back the other way. And then I love d I love what they're doing in downtown Panama City Beach right now.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

That's a lot of fun over there. Harrison's a great little spot on the water. And so you just there's so many places you can do so much with. You know, one thing I love about being in the pest control business is you s get to see all that because you're moving around all the time.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

And you're like, well, I didn't know that was here. I didn't know that was there. Or somebody asks you, and you're like, oh yeah, that's right down the road here. You can tell people where a lot of stuff is too. Right. You know, so that is uh that's the neat about being out and meeting a lot of people to where they're from, you know, what drew them to the area as well. You know, uh, so it's good.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Yeah. And especially being in different areas, you're see also seeing the different developments in those areas too. That's a lot aspect to see. Different house designs. Yeah, yeah. How it's changed from uh just being, I mean, Freeport's the next big thing it's building out there with the new golf courses out there, the medical center going off of 79 near Margaritaville.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

So that's gonna be amazing for the whole community and the whole area. Yeah. You know, to have that.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

You know, and I imagine that thing's just gonna continue to grow over the next 10 years. Right. To what other buildings and offices they build over there for it to help us in the community.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah, it's definitely something that's needed, especially from the little rural hospital systems that we have versus that big uh and I think it's gonna be an education unit from what I heard too, as well. So that'd be helpful to get students over there for nurses and doctors into the area. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. One of the things I like to wrap up some of the show on here is like again, it can't be just one thing or just something that you've been in the area that you see as a big challenge that uh we could work on focusing, uh, whether it be the community or anyone in the area that we could try to solve uh a problem with the area.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Problem solving area. Of course everybody tells you traffic.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Yeah. You know, that was always annoying. They went in Atlanta or DC during heavy hours, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, so they're all the same, right? You know. Um there's not been a lot, in my opinion, that other than the traffic, but I think it's um it'll be interesting to see what happens. Um, but I've not had any challenges. I've been here, I've moved car titles over, everything over. Um I love going to the post office when I used to not love going to the post office. You're greeted with people smiling and glad to see you. Yep. So um probably it's gonna be controlling the growth of the education side would be the thing after being in Atlanta all those years and the uh county uh that I came from, had a great school system and drove it down into the highest per capita taxes in the state of Georgia with the lowest education.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

So that's the probably the biggest challenge is how do you control that? How do you one, you gotta pay staff well? I think you gotta if you want to keep the bar high, bring the best teachers in. Yeah. So that would be mine is if you want to keep this the way it is, gotta keep the education system where it's at. They've done a great job, we just gotta keep it there.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Right. No, I think that's a great point. I uh coached over at Freeport while my son was playing baseball here at the high school and coaching through baseball and they completed the middle school. As soon as they completed it, it was completely full. Like because of all the growth that we had in here. So that's that's a huge thing to look at for keeping the school systems as good as they are in the area, is something that we really need to focus on.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah. And and uh if they do that, I think they'll they'll help control the the ever the the environment around here and how it works and and they'll deal with the traffic. Of course, they're gonna they're working on the roads. And the good news is the the bad news is there's a lot of state parks, so you're not building a lot of roads in places you can't, you know, just because the state owns the land and I don't see anything going there. But I think you know they're expanding some roads back toward Destin's gonna help out. And uh if you just know where to go and not to go certain times of the year. Right. You know, you learn where to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same way it was in Orlando. I've been down there working in that office many times, and there's certain times of the day you don't go to certain areas or you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

And there's plenty of roads. It's just that many more people. Right. You know, so you gotta kind of take the good with the bad. You get the parks and everything down there, but the bad is you get all the people that come with it. Right. Well, we've got this amazing beach. Well, the bad is all the people want to come see the same beach. Yeah. You know, so it's and a lot of people have to have that income to live off of down here too. You know, you're either a realtor, you're either in property management, you're in the restaurant industry, which drives through the vacationers as well. So it it's it's good. I'm I'm excited to be here. I'm none of this bothers me at all. I mean, I look forward to it every day waking up and Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

I mean, it's a blessing place to be here. You can't if you wake up and you have complaints about like the traffic is your main complaint at the point in the time of the day, then what that's not a big uh headache to really worry about, right? Because uh three more minutes you'll be sitting at the beach or on the bayside.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Well the other thing is there's people out there battling problems that we can't control and that you they would be that would love to only have that to gripe about. You know. Um so I'm trying to be more curious and less judgmental.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

That's good for the year. Yeah. Is that your uh goal for the 26th?

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Yeah, that is for two thousand. It is. That is uh I you know read the book uh The One Word. Uh-huh. I'm a big reader. I do love to encourage kids, younger adults to read. Uh, but in that book, it talks about every year pick up something. So this one was a little bit more, and I took it from the show Ted Lasso, but we all can be a little bit more judgmental than we we ought to be more curious. Right. So, and that came from somebody famous. It's not on the tip of my tongue right now. But in that, it's like now I try to look at situations like okay, what's causing the problem instead of being judgmental about it and how can I help solve it if I can do anything. So, especially these younger kids, they received that real quick.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

They want to know, hey, here's what we got. Let's figure out how to fix it. Not well, who did it? Who cares who did it? Let's fix it first.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Solve the problem. Let's uh not worry about that, let's get it solved and then fix it and move on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

So that that that's fun. But I I think we're in a great spot. If you're here, I think you're you should be excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Same. So you talked about being on social media, you're getting ready to post some more YouTube videos. So how can our listeners follow you or uh true true north pest control?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

So I'm driven for success, 85 on Instagram and uh Tony Carter on Facebook, and then uh true North Pest.com and True North Pest is all of our uh social handles. So um, yeah, we've working with an individual to come in and start doing a bunch of real content and you know, some DIY stuff for homeowners that may want to do it themselves, but then some educational stuff, and then we're gonna get crazy with some funny stuff uh on that side. Um so you know, just make it community involvement. You know, we want to get the community involved and let them know what's going on and how to take care of their home if they want to, and if they don't, they can hire a licensed professional with us that can come in and do it for you as well. Yeah. You know, so it kind of works on both sides. Yeah. It's kind of our target with that.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Well, perfect. I'll post all those links uh in the episode here, so we can just click on uh the hyperlinks when we're done. But uh thanks for being on the show today.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Oh, I greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Thanks for listening today's episode. If you liked it, be sure to follow and subscribe. I'll leave you with this what's the biggest issue you see in the pain handle right now? Join the conversation with me at Chuck Asberry IINX. I'd love to hear your thoughts.