Recent Executive Reports From Techletter.com

• Use Demographics to Position Your Business for the Future. The demographics of the pest control marketplace have been changing rapidly in recent years. They will continue major change over the next few decades, and this will in turn alter what people are looking for from pest control services. Full story
• How to Make Your Meetings Short, Sweet, and Effective. Bad meetings seem to be ingrained in our business culture. We all know what a bad meeting is like. It drags on and on, wanders from topic to topic, bores everyone, and results in no decisions. Here are some suggestions to make your meetings short, sweet, and effective. Full story
• Getting the Most Out of Customer Complaints: Parts 1 & 2. A customer's complaint is a blessing in disguise. In fact, you should consider yourself lucky to get a complaint. A complaint gives you a second chance to turn a dissatisfied customer into a satisfied one, and perhaps to save an account. Full Story
• Protect Your Business from Wrongful Discharge Lawsuits. Nowadays, if you fire someone you may wind up in court, defending an action you were sure none could question. A wrongful discharge lawsuit can cost you many thousands of dollars...and that's if you win! If you lose, the average jury award is well over a half-million dollars. Full Story
• Don't Wait Until Too Late to Raise Your Prices. If you don’t raise your prices regularly to reflect both the erosion of the dollar’s value and your ever-increasing costs, your profit margins will drop year after year. You could find yourself in financial trouble, forced into drastic cost-cutting measures and an immediate 20 or 30 percent price hike. Full Story
• Delusory Parasitosis and Pest Control-Introduction. Anyone who has worked for long in pest control has faced customers who insisted that pests were biting when no pests could be found. Such a customer usually demands treatment. Full Story
• Pest Control's Role in Classic Delusions of Parasitosis. Once in a great while, you will come face-to-face with a customer with a full-blown case of delusional parasitosis: an unshakable belief that bugs, parasites, or worms are crawling, biting, and burrowing into and out of his or her body. Full Story
• Dealing with "Paper Mites," "Cable Mites," and Other Mystery Bugs in Offices. The computer operations manager won't let up. He says spray. But spray what? You still haven't seen a mite or a flea, or any pest that could be biting people in the telecommunications area. Full Story
• Pest Control Companies Should Not Treat for Head Lice When head lice infest children in a school that you service, the principal or school administrators may pressure you to spray or "fog" to eliminate wandering lice. Parents, teachers, and even the principal of the school often assume the school is infested, rather than the children. Resist the call to apply insecticides. Full story
• The Facts of Lice. General information about head lice for nonprofessionals. Full story
• Should Your Company Have a Formal Policy for Dealing with Pesticide Spills? With any pesticide, even a spill that appears minor can endanger the environment, other people, and even the technician himself, especially if the spill is mishandled. And a company's reputation can be ruined if a technician makes a poor response. Full Story
• Last Resorts for Debt Collections. When a slow payer evolves into a no-payer, and all your letters and phone calls prove fruitless (or worse, the phone is disconnected), it's time to get tough. After all, it's your money! But you must also accept the fact that you will likely be losing this customer permanently. Full story
• ...more articles coming soon.