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Trading Secrets

245. David Royce: From Pest Control to Power Moves, how being a door-to-door salesman led to selling his pest control company for over NINE FIGURES, the art of closing deals and entrepreneurial lessons

Trading Secrets

Audioboom Studios

News, Business News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Education, Self-improvement

5 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Jason is joined by a serial entrepreneur who has built four of the most successful environmental service businesses in North America, David Royce!
David is the founder and chairman of Aptive Environmental providing pest solutions to thousands of cities in 34 states. David’s companies have been highlighted in national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine. In 2015, David was awarded the Earnest Young National Entrepreneur of the Year award. 
David shares his journey from knocking on doors as a pest control salesman to becoming Rookie of the Year by mastering sales through relentless study. He breaks down the art of closing deals, why perfecting your pitch is everything, and how taking initiative—like creating a training manual—helped him dramatically increase his earnings summer after summer. David also dives into why “unsexy” jobs are underrated, how he nearly bankrupted his business before scaling it nationally, and the ways Tony Hsieh of Zappos influenced his approach to company culture. He opens up about his biggest career mistake, the importance of mastering sales as a lifelong skill, how to manage newfound wealth, what he looks for (and avoids) when hiring, and what’s next on his entrepreneurial journey. Plus, he shares his best advice for anyone looking to build a successful business from the ground up.
David reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!
Host: Jason Tartick
Co-Host: David Arduin
Audio: John Gurney
Guest: David Royce

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets.

0:15.3

Today's guest is a serial entrepreneur who has built four of the most successful environmental service businesses in

0:22.5

North America, Dave Royce. Dave is the founder and chairman of Active Environmental,

0:28.1

providing pest solutions to thousands of cities in 34 states. David's companies have been

0:33.6

highlighted in national publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune,

0:38.6

Entrepreneur, and Inc. magazine in 2015, David was awarded with the Ernest Young National

0:44.9

Entrepreneur of the Year Award. We are going to discuss David's entrepreneurial career

0:49.6

and how he transformed a small startup company into the third largest residential pest control company

0:57.5

in North America with over $500 million in annual revenue

1:02.5

in just eight years.

1:04.5

David, thank you so much for being on sharing secrets.

1:06.6

Thanks for the opportunity.

1:07.5

You know, the cool thing is my listeners

1:09.3

are gonna listen to this intro,

1:10.2

they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you just put 500 million in pest control in the same sentence? And the cool thing about this podcast for all my listeners back home is we get to explore all different industries and uncover where money's made, how it's made, and how we need to rethink what we're doing today to maybe emulate

1:27.6

someone like yourself. So I want to take a trip way down memory lane. I read and saw in an interview

1:33.1

you did. You talked about the fact you were in college. I think it was like 20, 25 years ago.

1:38.1

And you get a call to possibly be a door-to-door pest salesman, pest control salesman, right? And you're on the track,

1:47.1

you're at BYU, you're killing it at school, like you're thinking investment banker route,

1:51.2

but you take this opportunity. Talk to me about what that opportunity looked like that summer

1:55.5

and how much money you made doing it. Yeah, so, you know, broke college student, kind of paying my way

1:59.8

through school, had a buddy say,

...

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