“My advice would be don’t wait until you think you can afford it. You won’t even miss the money once you start using (PCO Bookkeepers). You’ll be able to run your business a lot more efficiently.” —Anne-Marie Tulp

Anne-Marie Tulp, president of Adam’s Pest Control Port St. Lucie, Fla., and her husband, Michael, have bootstrapped their business from the beginning. They founded the company, named for their son, in 1990, and have grown their business steadily over three decades.

In recent years, the Tulps have positioned their company for faster growth. To help their expansion plans, they elected to sign on as a client of PCO Bookkeepers.

Anne-Marie, a former Florida Pest Management Association president, says she’s known PCO Bookkeepers Managing Member Dan Gordon for years from industry events.

“We always knew we needed him but we weren’t really in the growth model,” Anne-Marie says, adding she knew a lot of other pest control operators (PCOs) who were clients of PCO Bookkeepers. “They were all bigger than me, so I thought I had to wait, but I really didn’t have to wait. We got to the point where we took the leap, and it has made all the difference in the world.”

Before becoming a PCO Bookkeepers client, Adam’s Pest Control worked with a local accountant.

“It was OK, but the information just wasn’t drilled down for the industry like it is now,” she says. “You need to know how much you should be spending on chemicals, and how much should you be spending on vehicle maintenance. We had no idea what the ranges should be because we had no idea what the rest of the industry was doing.”

Now, as a client of PCO Bookkeepers, Adam’s Pest Control receives monthly financial reports about its performance in addition to benchmarking reports showing how the company stacks up to others in the pest control industry, including key expense categories and other indicators. In addition to the detailed data provided in the reports, Anne-Marie appreciates the charts and visuals that indicate how her company is performing at a glance.

To stay on top of her financials, Anne-Marie meets with PCO Bookkeepers Managing Member Anthony Pepe every month to review the entire report.

“Now that we’re more focused on growth mode, we discuss how much we need to grow month to month, how much we’re spending on marketing, and so forth,” she says.

Marketing expenses have been a key focus area for Adam’s over the past three years. Anne-Marie says working with industry-specific accountants has given her and her team the confidence they need to move forward with their growth plans and not feel like “she’s flying by the seat of her pants.”

“It’s all about knowing your numbers and someone telling you, ‘You’re doing fine,’ ‘Don’t worry about what you’re spending on marketing,’ ‘You’re more than covering your costs,’ and ‘Keep it going,’ which is the encouragement I need to feel comfortable spending the money,” she says.