What do you use in your daily course of business to promote your business? (Biz card, magnetic cards, pens, calendars, etc) Trying to nail down the top 5 items that may help others get a jump start.

Fly swatters.

I can picture the advertising on that flyswatter now: "Since we failed to remove the dead raccoon from your wall, please use this utensil to battle the blow flies by hand. Have a nice day!" Sincerely, Your Wildlife Guy

Thanks Robb - I hadn't thought of fly swatters.

Paul I worked for a third generation pest control family that began giving away fly swatters in 1943 and has never stopped. I have been to houses to replace lost flyswatters. I had customers who were beat by dad in the 50's-60's-70's by one of the companies flyswatters.

Flyswatters alone have sold many new accounts because we were the pest control company that gave away flyswatters and people remembered us for flyswatters. . This was a pest control company but it was easy to sell door to door when you have something to give away. I would see obvious yard damage from armadillos, coons, gophers, moles or skunks and walk up and sell a a job and or give a way a fly swatter.

Paul if you do it right your wildlife customers may end up asking you who to call to apply pesticides. You never know!

To answer your question Mike .

Pens are useless they die out and are made of cheap ink and end up in the trash but refrigerator magnets have about the best chance of staying.

I was taught to always give away at least three business cards , a magnet and a fly swatter.

The first pest control company I worked for was very aggressive in sales.

My only job was to sell door to door and over the phone. We used these tools with good eye contact, clean uniforms, and a smile to get the first 30 seconds of the prospects time. I was the front man and built new routes for a large franchise company.

You can really make a difference promoting your business if you can get yourself out in front of customers to honestly give away anything .

I agree that the cheap pens are short term items but I buy the better pens that are given to customers when they sign the service agreement. (I like the Zebra pens for personal use). I use the cheap stick pens to pass out like candy to the lawn guys. Magnetic cards or calendars are great and I can attest to this by looking at my own refrigerator! I also like yearly pocket planners which they retain for 1-2 years. I've tried a lot of promo items and the planners seemed to have hit a home run. Of course these are given to a select group of prospects and customers as they are a bit pricey. I am going to give the fly swatters a try this year as well.

Robb, I actually thought that of all the gimmicks that have been tried, and a flyswatter would be something that I would keep. I just didn't want all of my lurker competition to think it was a good idea.