You’re an entrepreneur. You’ve had a dream of opening a restaurant ever since you received your first Easy Bake Oven. You have put in 80 hour work weeks, on your feet the whole time, running around making sure every detail is perfect, and your customers get an incredible dining experience. Your hard work and dedication have built a thriving business with a loyal customer base. You have won “Best Local Restaurant” two years in a row, and you’re finally starting to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Then it happens.
A cockroach, a filthy remnant of an ancient species of vermin that has survived countless eons, is now scurrying and burrowing through a plate of chicken marsala, unseen by the waitstaff that is delivering the dish to a table. Which just so happens to have the local newspaper food critic hungrily waiting for her meal. This is not good.
Pests can utterly destroy a business. And no business is immune to the threat. There are many ways in which they can be destructive, but here are just a few of the worst examples.
1. Property Damage:
People always think “termites” when you mention structural damage, but many other pests can destroy your sticks and bricks business. Carpenter ants, while typically not quite as severe as termites, still accounted for nearly $22 million dollars in damage nationwide in 2015. Carpenter bees, powder post beetles, and other wood boring insects can all be destructive, costing you and your business untold amounts of money. Your hard-earned money.
That doesn’t even mention the damage caused by rodents. Bats, rats, mice, squirrels, and all sorts of other wildlife can chew holes in your structure, chew through electrical wires causing fires, and create a bio-hazard of stench and decay when they die in your walls. Not good for business.
2. Damaged Reputation:
Having a mouse scurry across your dining room floor is unsettling to be sure, but the ripple effect can completely destroy a business. Word of mouth, newspaper or TV reviews. Or getting blasted on Trip Advisor, Yelp or other online review sites can have a massive impact on your business. Some companies never recover from bad reviews, and bad reviews about pests are avoidable. Having an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plan in place as a preventative measure assures you the highest chance that you will never have to deal with any of those unpleasant and potentially career-ending situations. Being proactive in your approach to this investment is one you will never regret.
RELATED: IPM For New England Businesses
3. Losing Your People:
Great companies are built, on the backs of great people. However, excellent people tend to leave companies when they are forced to work in and around fleas, bed bugs, spiders, ants, cockroaches, rats, mice, or any one of a thousand possible undesirables.
According to a recent study, the average cost of replacing an employee in this country is a shade north of $30,000. Imagine if you lose 4 or 5 good people because you didn’t want to spend some money on ongoing preventative pest management. The dollar figure is staggering, yet every year many companies choose to ignore the simple solution to losing good people, usually because they don’t want to incur the cost of a good program. Pay a little now, or a lot later when your people leave. Then pay to find their replacement. Then pay to train them. Then suffer the lost production while they’re stumbling through the learning curve because they aren’t as good as your superstar that just left. And now do it all over again, because half of all new hires don’t usually make it through the 90-day probationary period. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Prevention.
Shelling out for a comprehensive pest management program may seem like a waste of money, especially if you don’t see a lot of pest pressure at the moment. Or you have a brand new or very clean facility. However, once you start factoring in the cost incurred by the three points above, the cost of a pest management program becomes insignificant. This doesn’t even include the intangible damage that can occur if pests continue to remain unchecked and run amok in your business. Lower morale of your employees leads to lower production, more sick time, and turnover. Some businesses can lose industry accreditations if they don’t have a comprehensive and effective plan in place. Some businesses lose not only customers but vendors or strategic partnerships, due to their lack of controlling pests. So as you can see, the cost of NOT having a preventative pest management program to protect your business far outweighs the price.
The Modern Difference
Modern Pest Services – a leader in innovative pest management solutions for commercial accounts – understands the importance of proactively keeping your business pest-free. Partnering with Modern is a wise investment to ensure your business is protected against damaging pests year round. Our ecocare commercial programs include inspection, pest identification, structure and sanitation consulting, customized treatments, monitoring, reporting and preventative measures. Contact Modern Pest Services today for a FREE inspection!