In short
Dave Royce discusses making money through door-to-door pest control, scaling via “asset deals” (selling the customer book), investing after large seasonal earnings, and giving to charity/purpose. He also shares a “40-40-20” investing framework (low/medium/high risk) and argues inflation makes excess cash in savings lose purchasing power.
Guest background
Dave built four pest control companies and a solar company; he became the third-largest residential pest control company in the U.S. He started as a minimum-wage college student selling pest control door-to-door in Sacramento, learned sales via daily reading, rose to sales manager, then scaled and exited repeatedly for ~20 years.
Key claims
Top reps can earn up to ~$1M in a season; first-year reps ~$25–30k, second-year ~$40–45k, sales managers up to ~$100k. Training boosts next-year sales by ~70%. Investing should match investor type, cash needs, and inflation protection. Charity can be time-based, not just cash.
Notable examples
Recruiting/operations across 34 states and 5,000+ cities; 25% quit early, half transition to technician roles. He cites S&P 500 long-run averages (~11% over 93 years) and a “four years of expenses” cash buffer. Charity examples include United Nations “Nothing But Nets,” Trina’s Kids Foundation, and Child Alive (sex trafficking).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VODave's Journey in Pest Control
0:48 to 2:46
Dave Royce shares his background in building pest control companies and his innovative asset deal strategy.
“Dave, give us the quick two-minute bio so we and get straight to the money.”
Sales Success Story
2:46 to 3:40
Dave recounts his early struggles in sales and how he became a top performer.
“So we cover these different topics of how to make money, invest money, give it away to charity.”
Recruiting Young Talent
3:40 to 4:28
Discussion on recruiting college students for summer sales roles in pest control.
“And because college students are out in the summer, it's just kind of how the industry originally started, or at least this specific marketing technique started.”
Building a Sales Organization
4:28 to 8:34
Exploration of how to manage and motivate sales teams and the financial incentives involved.
“And really from there, then it became like, okay, well, how can we recruit?”
Innovative Sales Techniques
8:34 to 12:36
Dave shares his unique experiences with door-to-door sales and how it transformed his career.
“And us, it's like, hey, we've got a solid schedule for you guys to work.”
Financial Responsibility and Investments
12:36 to 14:00
Advice on how young salespeople can manage their income and invest wisely.
“He just made a hundred thousand dollars in one summer.”
Understanding Investment Strategies
14:00 to 15:10
Learn about different investment strategies including low, medium, and high-risk options.
“But yeah, clearly investing into like a S &P 500 index or into like a tax loss harvesting vehicle like that, probably the safest thing you can do.”
The Importance of Risk Assessment
15:10 to 19:10
Explore the significance of understanding risk levels in investments and how to manage them.
“And if I get it wrong or just takes a long time, I hope that the medium risk and the low risk covers the high risk.”
Navigating Investment Options
19:10 to 21:50
Discover how to navigate various investment options and the importance of liquidity.
“Everything else, I'm like, let it ride, baby.”
Philanthropy and Personal Impact
21:50 to 24:20
Learn how personal experiences shape charitable contributions and the impact of community involvement.
“You spending eight hours there is the same concept of doing value.”
Show all 17 chapters
Finding Your Charitable Passion
24:20 to 28:05
Understand how to identify and engage with charities that resonate with personal values.
“And so almost a million people a year might die from malaria.”
The Impact of Finding Purpose Through Charity
28:05 to 29:13
Discover how supporting charity can transform your mindset and life.
“When you find something that you can put your passion and energy to, it literally changes your mindset, your actions, and your entire daily life because you found a purpose.”
The Legacy of Wealth and Purpose
29:13 to 30:28
Explore the philosophy of leaving wealth to children versus instilling purpose.
“So there's only one question that I ask on every single episode and I've never gotten the same answer ever in history of, I don't know, three, 400 episodes now.”
The Importance of Purpose in Life
30:28 to 31:31
Learn how finding purpose prevents destructive behaviors and fosters fulfillment.
“You know, it's like, let them go out and earn that.”
What’s Next for Dave Royce?
31:31 to 32:46
Hear about Dave's transition from business to a more philanthropic focus.
“A dog can be one of the most amazing things in our lives.”
Discussing Money: Breaking the Taboo
32:46 to 34:34
Understand the importance of open conversations about money and finance.
“private but on i'm on linkedin all my you know professional stuff's on there very cool yeah i'm kind of the odd duck where i my instagram's like for me and my family and my very close personal friends.”
Discussing Money: Breaking the Taboo
34:39 to 35:15
Understand the importance of open conversations about money and finance.
“Fanbasis.com is a company I actually use for my entire backend.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:05Dan Fleyshman:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. Our guest has built a humongous company in a very unique category that every one of you has dealt with. Things that happen inside of your household or right outside of your household, you might be thinking, what is he talking about? Is it my alarm system? Is it the pest control situation? Is it my roofing, my garage? What is it? We're going to dive right in. What I want you guys to keep in mind, these podcasts are under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure because the average workout is 45 minutes.
0:43Dan Fleyshman:The average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 36 and 40 minutes for you guys. We're going to dive right in. Dave, give us the quick two-minute bio so we and get straight to the money. Yeah, so I built four pest control companies and a solar energy company. Four. Yeah, yeah. And part of that strategy was I figured out this thing called an asset deal where I could sell off just the customer base, basically the book of business. I could sell that off, take all that money, and throw it into the next company. And so it was a way to basically get investment and still being able to have all the control and all the equity on my own.
1:14Wow. So I did that for about 20 years. Roughly every four years, the first four years, I would sell, get money, rinse and repeat, same thing over and over. And then, yeah, became the third largest residential pest control company. The third largest. Yeah, in the United States.
1:28Dan Fleyshman:So how did it start? Were you working in the space? How did the first one start? Yeah, so I was a starving college student working minimum wage. And I had a friend come to me and he says, hey, I made$25 ,000 last summer selling pest control services door to door. Just knocking on doors. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I don't really even know what that is, but I'm in. Sign me up. Yeah. Yeah, so I drove out to Sacramento, California and started selling. And there was a big problem. I sucked at sales. I went for five days with zeros. Everybody else around me is selling one to four per day. And it's a commission-only job, so the only thing I was getting out of it was free cardio.
2:03Right. Yeah, so I went to a bookstore that weekend, got like half a dozen sales books. And then I said, I'm going to read 90 minutes every day and just keep learning and try to learn how to sell because this is my best opportunity at this point in my life. by the end of the summer I was the top rookie of the whole company I'm a sales people I went on and I went with a different company the next year became a sales manager and when I got there they didn't have any training manuals and so I actually asked my boss is that can I write a training manual for you and he was super impressed ultimately he said I'm gonna give you if you'll keep doing this every year because we sold twice as much as his other location cool if you can if you keep coming back I'll pay you a cutoff everybody and so by the time I I graduated college.
2:42I was making 225 grand a summer.
2:44Dan Fleyshman:A summer. Yeah. And that's 20 years ago. So it's like almost half a million. At least. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So we cover these different topics of how to make money, invest money, give it away to charity. On the make money side, you're saying that these 22-year-old, 25-year-old kids can go make 25 grand, 50 grand plus in one summer? That's right. We have a few that even make a million dollars a year. A million dollars in one summer. Yes. Oh, my God. Just knocking on doors. Yeah. They're freaks of nature. but you know if you have like say 3 ,000 sales people you start to get these anomalies where some people are just really really amazing and almost all the sales managers are at like a six figure income for the summer time but there's a few guys where they'll do it for maybe they'll expand their summer to maybe five or six months and they'll make a million bucks and then they'll you know go surf the rest of the year.
3:32Is it summer because of the
3:33Dan Fleyshman:weather or is it because that's the right time to do it? It's kind of the right timing like that's when pest pressure is the maximum is in the summertime. And because college students are out in the summer, it's just kind of how the industry originally started, or at least this specific marketing technique started. Is anybody going out in December in the rain? There's a few. Yeah. But most people, if they do that, they're probably in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona. Where it's not that heavy on the weather side. So it's not quite as intense, right? Wow. Okay. So how do you get 22-year-olds to 25-year-olds to show up and work and stay consistent all summer?
4:05Yeah. So we recruit them. I was originally recruited. There were probably only 500 salespeople in total in the entire pest control industry when I got into it. And the idea had been around for about a decade. But what I noticed is that the training just wasn't great. Like there was still a lot of room for improvement. And because of my really bad experience, I didn't want my friends to go through that. And so we just started developing that. And really from there, then it became like, okay, well, how can we recruit? So I got really good at recruiting, I had about 100 people coming out to work for me in the summer times.
4:39And then from there, it was my boss that said, why on earth are you going to go do investment banking? Because I had a finance major. He's like, you really should go do your own pest control company. And I'm like, yeah, sorry. It's embarrassing to say, but it just wasn't impressive to me. I thought, I'm going to be a college student. I'm going to go to New York, wear a suit, all that kind of thing. Work on Wall Street. Yeah. But he's like, by the way, I'm selling my business for$10 million. And I was like, wait, what? And he's like, yeah, I'm going to sell it to Terminex, and I'm going to take some time off.
5:09And, yeah, I put a few hundred grand into it. He was like, you should really go do the same thing. And that's when the light bulb kind of came on for me. I thought, huh, well, maybe if I went and did this, if I didn't like it, I could go back to MBA school. It used to be my experience or whatever. But, yeah, I just never stopped. It just kept going and going. It's kind of like each level of business. The first one was really figuring out what is the business, how does it operate, I understand the financials the metrics the second business I did it was okay how do you scale how do you go into different states you know and scale with lots of people the third one was like how do you make it a really cool unique business and recruit you know thousands of people with unique talents and so that's when we got like you know crazy headquarters and you know NCAA basketball court golf simulators ping-pong foosball that kind of stuff
5:57Dan Fleyshman:with our toy drive there like two years or three years you would drive in your on the basketball court. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. Okay. So let's say 100 sales reps show up. Let's call it Salt Lake City. Yep. 10 or 20 of them, they suck and they fade away. Like they're not cut out for it? Yeah, usually about 25 % of the reps go, this is just too hard. It's, you know, long hours. You know, you're in the sun all day knocking doors. Tons of rejection. And then of those 25%, we usually get about half of them to stay, but they'll transfer into a technician position. and then the others just are like you know what i'm out sure yeah and then we'll get apartments for them you know all across the country oh cool uh we knock over 5 000 different cities uh throughout the country and 34 states yeah we're in 34 different states uh there's over 5 000 cities that we actually knock doors on oh my gosh yeah so we get apartments in every single state set it up for them and then literally they just can move out stay in the apartments and you know work six days a week.
6:57Dan Fleyshman:All right. The middle tier guys, that 25 to 80%, what are they doing? How much are they making? What's the general concept? Yeah, first year rep, maybe it's like 25, 30 grand. A second year rep, someone who's already done it, has experience, they might be around 40, you know, 45. And then a sales manager, if they're recruiting friends, they can make a cut because they're recruiting and training all their friends and they manage them over the course of the summer. They might be around 100 ,000, just like for averages. And then your superstars, that top 10 or 20%, what happens there? And then those, yeah, some of those guys make up to a million.
7:31It might be like if someone's just on their own and they're not managing a company, but they're going to sell like a thousand plus accounts, they might be at half a million or something. But then what the guys will do is they'll, if they're a sales manager, they'll try to create other sales managers underneath them. Like a pod? Yeah, to create like a region. Yeah. And then they'll try to create a division. and then if they've got several hundred people underneath them, then ultimately they...
7:54Dan Fleyshman:So they're almost making their own company under your company. Yeah, I mean, it's similar how most companies would operate with the sales force. But yeah, it's just like they're able to make a little bit. We really stick it to numbers. It's just easier to calculate as opposed to just giving people some sort of a salary or whatever. They're much more incentivized if they can really... It's almost like owning a piece of the company or owning a piece of the business. So with a lot of other brands that are out there, other competitors, what first what attracts them to your brand and then what makes them stay when they're probably getting headhunted and recruited by competitors yes our sales training program by far is the best to give you an idea of how good it was when sales reps would come to work for us if they'd work somewhere else and then they came to work for us the next summer they would sell 70 percent more than they did at the previous company right and part of that is it's sales training part of it is work ethic when you're surrounded by other people like on the winning team let's go let's go yeah They're going to want to work more hours, whereas a lot of the companies is kind of like, you know, maybe we'll get out there and work.
8:52Dan Fleyshman:Maybe we won't some days. And us, it's like, hey, we've got a solid schedule for you guys to work. You know, ultimately, you can choose whether you're going to work it or not. But when everybody else is doing it, it's a lot easier to do. So I have a fun story. There was a tech company called MoPro many years ago. My dear friend, he was like, I want you to come join the advisor board with me on this company. I just raised like$18 million. I said, no. What do you mean no? We're like dear friends. Like this is like a brother. Yeah. I was like, no. And he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, we don't sell anything yet.
9:22Dan Fleyshman:You're like an artist that just keeps painting for seven years. You're doing all these different things. You've got all these different divisions. Like, yeah, let me build a sales division. And if I hit a certain number, five million bucks in revenue, then I get double the equity and I'll give the other half the equity to charity. Nice. He's like, okay. So me and my girlfriend at the time, we go hire 40 sales reps. literally just posting on the Facebook. This is a long time ago. Yeah. Posting on the Facebook. That's right. And hundreds show up, 40 get picked. And we put them in the guys in doctor's outfits and the girls in nurse's outfits, and they're your digital doctor.
10:01Dan Fleyshman:And I had to invent door-to-door. When I say invent, I'd invent the industry. I mean, I didn't know it. I just heard about it for years. Sure. And so on weekends, I would get them convention booths at the doctor's convention, the lawyer's convention, the restaurant convention. and we made like digital doctors. You'd walk by, we're like, hey, can you give us two minutes to give you a checkup on your website? It's fair, right? Yeah, that's great. They walk by, they stop in, and it's just like a bunch of like 22-year-olds to 28-year-olds, same concept. And they would just look at their website, and I taught them like, find out if the email address is wrong, find out if the date is wrong, find out if the address is wrong.
10:35Dan Fleyshman:Does the link not work? Is it not connected to their Facebook? Like just basic things to find us. Sure. If you find two or three problems, they'll pay us. and so and then on the weekdays we'd go door to door and we'd go but again I didn't know the industry or what was legal or not we'd like show up to strip malls and just walk into businesses you know soliciting we're probably why they created soliciting signs and so we created 1100 accounts at five thousand dollars each so I hit my 5.5 million in sales and how long it took you to do four months not bad jeez but I had no idea I had no context of any of this stuff I just knew people needed websites yeah and we'd walk in and say for uh 200 bucks a month five thousand dollars over the course of two years we'll fix your website we'll make you three videos blah blah blah like it's quick quick spiel nice and easy and people just got it and uh that company went on to raise 70 million dollars and then the rest is history and so i say the story because that door-to-door experience was like changed my life watching these people go and go visit 20 to 30 accounts a day try to get 48 appointments close one to four of them that was my like basic math for them i said if you do that i'm gonna pay 200 bucks commission per so you can make 200 800 bucks a day it's good money yeah and i just broke it down that very simply to them they could so they could get it and they just some people faded away and some people crushed it sure there's one kid rodrigo i still talked to today he sometimes he would outdo everyone at the same convention There'd be 15 reps.
12:06Dan Fleyshman:He'd outdo all their numbers combined in one weekend because he would just morning, noon, night. When he'd get back to the hotel room, he'd call every business card, every single one of them. Hey, come back over tomorrow. Could you bring any of your friends or associates over? So he'd show up in the morning, and there's a line waiting for this guy. That's tough performers, though. They eat, breathe, and sleep sales. And the beautiful thing about sales is you'll never go hungry. Once you go out and sell and master it, you realize, you know what? at any point in my life, I can always come back to this and make money and survive.
12:36It's such a beautiful thing.
12:38Dan Fleyshman:All right. The investing side. Yeah. You got a 24 year old kid. He just made a hundred thousand dollars in one summer. How do you prevent him from not just going and buying another Tesla, two Rolexes and going into the nightclub and buying his girlfriend a purse? Like how do you prevent the hundred grand to just get lit on fire? Yeah. Part of it, like for us at the company, we had a much more thrifty mindset. We would actually have people come in and teach them about investing. Oh, great. And we would pitch to them like, hey, this job, pay off your schooling before you graduate. So you don't even have to have school debt.
13:14Save money for a wedding ring or for a house. Don't go blow it all on a car. And I certainly have people who blow it all for sure. And part of it, they might justify it like, oh, this is part of recruiting. People see the car you know they want to know more um but i was super thrifty myself i think you got to live it right in order for people to want to follow it uh but i just save save save because in my mind i wanted to graduate debt free i wanted to go to mba school um i got married towards the end of college believe it or not i married my college sweetheart and uh yeah she was going to go to law school and so i'm like i got to save for that so we put i saved up about 300 grand before i graduate amazing way of that yeah and then when I got pitched this idea of hey you should go start your own company that's when I was like okay uh I actually have money right now yeah I have it saved so it's kind of like being prepared for the opportunity to know when to take it yeah but as far as investing for me it took me a while to invest because I was the bank right and all the cash I got I kept thinking I'm going to throw it into the next one because I don't want to have to go get investors and lose equity on it and then I can maintain the control.
14:22But yeah, clearly investing into like a S &P 500 index or into like a tax loss harvesting vehicle like that, probably the safest thing you can do. And we've got a lot of guys too where they're all about the Magnificent Seven or just AI as that's coming up.
14:40Dan Fleyshman:Very cool. So you guys have heard me talk about it, I'm going to give you the quick synopsis. It's called 40-40-20. I like to recommend 40 % low risk. You're just trying to make between 5 % and 9 % for the year, like the S &P 500 he just mentioned. Medium risk, I want to make between 10 % and 30 % for the year. This is real estate, stock market, cash flowing businesses. High risk, this should be about 10 % to 20%. This is my shot at glory. If I get this right, I want 7x or 12x or something crazy to happen. And if I get it wrong or just takes a long time, I hope that the medium risk and the low risk covers the high risk.
15:16Dan Fleyshman:On the low risk side, the S &P 500, you might think is medium risk. Over the last 93 years, has returned 11 % on average. Over the last 20 years, has only actually had three losing years. Can the S &P 500 go down this month? Of course. Can it go down this year? For sure. But over the course of time, 93 years or 20 years, it survived depressions, recessions, and everything crazy that's gone along wars etc and has fought through an 11 average if you take a compound calculator and put in 11 and you throw in a thousand bucks five grand two grand ten grand whatever every single year it'll be staggering what happens 20 30 40 years from now okay it's like that thing on the golf course right like you start out and you say hey you know why don't we play each hole for a dollar.
16:03Right. You know, and we'll double it each time we go up. And then by the end, you're like, uh-oh, 18th hole.
16:10Dan Fleyshman:So with so many different options now, right? Take off the 25-year-old cap. Now build up all these companies. We've had multiple exits. You could invest in crypto, real estate, stock market, private companies, the SpaceX IPO, private companies. There's so many things that could be boring, medium risk, and high risk. How do you decide for yourself with unlimited options what to invest into. Yeah, so what I learned is it's all about access, getting access to the right things, right? So like SpaceX is about to IPO, right? I have friends who invested in SpaceX, you know, years and years ago, right?
16:45Because they had money or they had access through somebody.
16:49Dan Fleyshman:Right, a fund. You know, and they're going to 40X their money. Like it's wild how much they're going to make. Yeah, 40 times anything is a lot. So I realized, you know, that's really the key. And you have to have a certain amount of money. Like, for example, this group I use, Iconic, you have to have$100 million just to even get in with them. But they have pulled together a bunch of different people. Like Mark Zuckerberg was the original person who worked with these guys. And then I think Jack Dorsey and Reid Hoffman. But they have a lot of the tech guys there. But basically they pool their money to be able to get access to whatever it is.
17:21So, like, I've invested in the last three series of Anthropic, you know, because I had access. In any other instance, I never would have had access to that. So it's a it's a little rough, right? Because the rich get richer in that sense. But you have to have a certain amount of money to do it. Right. It's the same amount of legal paperwork for them to do. So they need bigger checks. But yeah, it'd be interesting to see if somebody actually put together something clearly like in the puppet markets, they have that. But if there was a private way to do it where people could put in lots and lots of money to fund something and then, you know, everybody could participate in it.
17:54What if there's a good business idea there?
17:55Dan Fleyshman:Right. So as someone is sun setting right there towards the end of their door to door career, now they've got one point three million dollars saved up. They bought their house. They got their two cars and a wife and the picket fence. You know, like they got everything set up now. They're bombarded by options. What would you say that they can try to learn or figure out for themselves? The way I describe it is to figure out what type of investor are you? Like when I talk about low risk, did you like that? When I talk about 10 to 30 percent? Yeah. Is that what's got you excited? Or you're like, no, no, no, I got to have 8X or 12X.
18:28Dan Fleyshman:What would you say to someone that's trying to figure out their life for the next chapter after they're done? They can't knock on doors anymore. Yep. Maybe they're becoming a manager, et cetera, about how they can find out what they might want to invest into. Yeah, the question is how much money do you have and how much do you need on a monthly basis? Yes. Right? So especially as you get older, you may need more security. So you might have more fixed income at that stage than you would have when you were 18 years old. So if you need a certain amount, you have to really think if the stock market goes down, I need something like I need an inverse relationship maybe between fixed income and S &P 500 index.
18:59Whereas for me, it's different. Like I don't need that much money. So what I do is I put away four years of what I actually need in case we have another great recession. Great recession, when it crashed, it took three and a half years for the market to come back. And so I've got that cash there. Everything else, I'm like, let it ride, baby. all S &P 500 tax loss harvesting funds or alternatives, right? So private equity, direct investments, real estate, private debt, whatever.
19:27Dan Fleyshman:I'm going to say something to you guys very bluntly. Once you've saved up 12 months in your piggy bank, let's say you have five grand a month overhead. Once you've saved up$60 ,000, the cash above that, you are physically losing money on the value of that cash sitting in your savings account. Now, I'm not saying go invest into SpaceX and buy Bitcoin, etc. and take risk with the money. Let's say you've got 200 grand saved up, but you need five grand a month. So 60 ,000 is your core base for 12 months. The extra 140 ,000 spends like 128 ,000 next year. It spends like 114 ,000 next year. It spends like 102 the next year.
20:05Dan Fleyshman:Four years from now, it spends like 92 ,000. It still says $140 ,000 in your savings account extra, right? It still says it. You still see the number, but it spends like$128 ,000,$114 ,000, et cetera, because of 9 % a year inflation. That isn't a theory. That isn't political. You try to buy a Ford truck that was$50 ,000, and now it's$54 ,000, and then it's$58 ,000, and then it's$63 ,000, then it's$67 ,000. Go try to buy muffins right now. Muffins are$6.50. Five years ago, they were$4. bucks. $4 becomes$4.40. $4.40 becomes$5.00. $5.50. Do you think they're going to go decrease the price of muffins?
20:45Never.
20:46Dan Fleyshman:They don't. Go to your local hotel and pay for parking right now. It's probably$35. Remember when it was$30? It was$25. It was$20. It was$15. So I say this because the extra$140 ,000, I'm not saying you have to go buy a bunch of crazy things, invest in a bunch of crazy things, but at least fighting with inflation. CDs at your bank that'll pay you 4%, 5 % for the year, that$140 ,000 making 5%, that's a lot of money. It's$7 ,000 a year that you're now have some fight in you because you're 140. Now it says 147, 155, 162. This is very important. A lot of times we have this goal, like I'm going to save up all this money and I'm going to put it away into my savings account.
Read the full transcript
21:28Dan Fleyshman:Please. You're already ahead of most of society. I want you to do that except at least have it doing something low risk or no risk so you're fighting with inflation definitely all right on the charity side of things you made money door to door you sold your company or let's say someone becomes a manager and they start to become an executive for your company they got some stock in the business now they've got a liquidity event one of your exits for example now they're thinking about philanthropy and along the way they could have done it as well right i want to keep in mind we're inside of hubble studio now where we created the trina's kids foundation 12 years ago our first events were eight volunteers there wasn't a bunch of money involved you can do charity with your cell phone your social media power rolling your sleeves up and showing up or your time and energy you going to a children's hospital you going to a senior citizen's home you going to a homeless shelter is just as good as him and i putting in 10 grand to that charity.
22:28Dan Fleyshman:You spending eight hours there is the same concept of doing value. So don't feel like you have to donate money to do charity. There's plenty you can do without cash. So someone's making money within your company. They've had liquidity event. They've got over a million bucks saved up and they want to donate 25 grand this year, split up amongst different charities. How do you feel for someone to decide if they're going to have a charity component to their life, what matters to them? You know, I once heard somebody say that it doesn't matter what charity you're after. It all goes in the same bucket, that concept.
23:02And really what that means to me is everybody's different in terms of where their passions are and where they want to help. For me, education's really my thing. In fact, when I die, the majority of my money right now is actually going to the United Negro College Fund. I've never liked the idea that so much of your success depends on where you're born, the zip code that you're born in. and so wanting to give people a chance who you know maybe they didn't have the same mentors you know or the same access or the same financial means but if they've worked their tail off in school i want them to be able to love that you know i mean to me that's like evolution like people we want the smartest people rising to the top uh other things too just uh i do the same thing at my my kids school at a private school there's certain people where they need access They're very bright kids, but maybe they don't come from the same financial background.
23:57Dan Fleyshman:I lived in Pacific Palisades. So now. Fires? Yeah. So now it's like reinvesting in the community. How are we going to fix this and rebuild it and build it back even better than it was before? So, I mean, those are things that are very personal to me. For some people. Another thing, too, this is probably a random one, is the most dangerous animal in the world, believe it or not, is the mosquito. because it passes malaria to people. And so almost a million people a year might die from malaria. It's not like a lion or a shark. There might be a few hundred deaths from that. This is a quick... Yeah, so at my company at Aptiv, we would donate a certain...
24:38In fact, at all the different companies we've had, we would donate money. And we had days with the sales guys where we'd get them excited about going out and getting people to donate. We eventually got to a point where on the app, when people were checking each customer out and signing them up, there was literally a place for them to say, yeah, I'd like to donate X amount to this charity. And we raised millions of dollars. It was the United Nations Nothing But Nets group. They donate bed nets to people because most people, like, for example, Africa or South America, they get bit while they're sleeping.
25:12Dan Fleyshman:So to find out what charity you're going to be passionate about, it's typically going to be something that either impacted you or someone you're close with. What will happen is if you are passionate about it, you are going to put in more energy like we talked about for social media, rolling your sleeves up, putting in time and energy into it because it impacted you or someone around you. If someone in your family went through breast cancer or someone was homeless or someone had leukemia or Alzheimer's, etc., you're going to be much more passionate about that topic. So think for yourself, it doesn't have to be overnight, what's something that might have been impactful in your life or it could be a family member or friend and you know that it hurt them or it's impacted their lives.
25:51Dan Fleyshman:You might dive right into that subject and then you're going to be more passionate when you're talking about it, when you put the effort because charity is not overnight. When you find the right charity that you're passionate about, you're typically going to be involved for the rest of your life. Okay. Do you think it's important for companies to have a charity component for their employees, customers, vendors, et cetera, to see them active in charity. Yeah, I think it's a good thing to do culturally. I think trying to find something, too, that resonates for the majority of those people who are there is great.
26:25I've just seen so much camaraderie be built around it. Is it every company's job to take care of everybody else? Some people have differing opinions on this, where it's like, hey, at some point, maybe it's too much, it's too intense. But yeah, we loved it. We had a lot of fun with it. We got involved too with human trafficking, which is a very difficult subject. But I don't know. I guess the idea of exterminating pests, we like that idea. I felt like that fell in with our culture. But it was ironic because we've been doing the Nothing But Nets group forever. And when we added this other component, that raised more money than I'd ever seen before.
27:06like triple quadruple to what we would normally get and people were very passionate so i think it's it's important to listen to your employees like what are they passionate about because then
27:15Dan Fleyshman:that's how you're going to have the most success last night i went to a charity for sex trafficking actually on the front seat of my car right now is the the big folder from last night's dinner it's a group called child alive and it was intense it's so intense oh my gosh the numbers were staggering like i couldn't like i thought about it all night like gut-wrenching too uh It's mind-boggling what is happening, especially overseas, but and also here in America, but Yeah, it's when you find something like that and I could hear the voices of the people speaking and they had the girls from UCLA that went through the huge Olympics trial thing like the gymnast Yeah, I'm not not teacher but the gymnast physician right had the largest case of all time And then the attorney John Manley was there who's the number one sexual trafficking sexual assault attorney in history Wow, and so the three that were speaking like it's burning my brain.
28:07Dan Fleyshman:It literally was last night and Watching them speak and then watching the people that create the charity tear up on a charity They've been involved in for 10 15 20 years and still get emotional on a random Thursday night like It makes you want to support them because you know they care right when you guys are thinking about charity find people that care it will change the way you look at charity it will change the way you act it'll change the way you post about it on Facebook and Instagram it'll change the way you want to show up on a Saturday morning to that place where people care if they care about homelessness or they care about child trafficking or they care about Alzheimer's leukemia I promise you once you find that thing it adds purpose into our lives and sometimes we go through the hardest times in your life and you might be down and out on your luck financially, finding something that you can put some passion and time into will literally change the outcome of your life.
29:01Dan Fleyshman:When you find something that you can put your passion and energy to, it literally changes your mindset, your actions, and your entire daily life because you found a purpose. If you want to be happy, serve others, right? It's one of the key components for me. I found it's growth and serving others. So there's only one question that I ask on every single episode and I've never gotten the same answer ever in history of, I don't know, three, 400 episodes now. Many, many, many years from now, when it's finally time that Dave passes away. But you've built four pest control companies. Now you've built 40 zillions of dollars.
29:35Dan Fleyshman:What percentage of your net worth do you leave to your children? Mine is going to be pretty much zero. Yeah. I'm very committed to giving it all away yeah uh part of that has to do with again it probably goes back to like i want there to be this great equalizer i wish education was that great equalizer for everybody and i've also seen it be crippling to a lot of people where the kids get the money and they go well it doesn't matter what i do in this life i will never make this much and uh i see people get you know fall into addiction you know depression all kinds of different things i want my kids to have look for a sense of purpose I want them to find that passion that thing that really drives them whether it's in charity whether it's in something in the private sector public sector whatever it might be I just think it's a better way to live nobody gave me money so why should I give them any money I don't think most people think it's fair either I think a lot of people I remember when I was in college I might see somebody and they roll up in this super nice car and I'm like I'm not sure the parents It's like, I'm not sure it's the right thing for the child.
30:46You know, it's like, let them go out and earn that. Yes. You know, don't take away that joy from them about going out and working.
30:52Dan Fleyshman:Yeah. The concept of trust fund babies and trust fund kids, like, it's very real. Yeah. I've, you know, I throw 200 events a year. Sorry, I travel 200 days a year and I throw 42 events a year. And so I'm seeing people in every city and state and all different tiers and price points of events. and so I see a lot of the trust fund kids and what happens with drugs and traveling and the purpose part that we talked about earlier is really important. There's a famous theory about like in the backyard if a dog doesn't have purpose what does it do? It digs holes. Right? It digs holes in the backyard. Runs around like a crazy person.
31:27Dan Fleyshman:Yeah because it has no purpose and so when it has a purpose a dog can be an amazing creature. A dog can be one of the most amazing things in our lives. When it has no purpose, it digs holes. Humans do the same thing. That could be addiction. That could be gambling. That could be porn. That could be depression. Things that they're just digging, digging, digging because they're not on purpose. They're trying to find something under the ground. I say that because oftentimes we go down to the same things as people where charity could be that thing that solves that. Just by dedicating yourself to going and helping senior citizens, children, homelessness, et cetera.
32:08Dan Fleyshman:Okay. Last question. What's the next chapter for you? Right. You've had these multiple companies, you've built these thousands and thousands of employees working with you. What's the next chapter for Dave? Yeah. So the last company I did, I'm a hundred percent out and I'm done. I just said, you know what? It's been 20 years. I think I've learned everything I'm going to learn from this industry. I'm good. And so for me, I've taken a year off to really think about why I did what I did. What do I want to do next? And I think the next phase is something more creative or more philanthropic uh it doesn't have to be just about money sure you know if it can be that's great too but uh i think it's gonna be more passion oriented at this point where can people find you on social are you active on social uh i'm kind of private but on i'm on linkedin all my you know professional stuff's on there very cool yeah i'm kind of the odd duck where i my instagram's like for me and my family and my very close personal friends.
33:03Dan Fleyshman:All right, guys, these podcasts, usually I say this at the very beginning, are not just for you. It might be for some of your friends, family, and followers. It might be for someone from your past, present, or future. They might say something that you heard here, and they're like, oh, I want to get into solar or pest control or door-to-door. You're like, oh, wait, you should listen to this episode. They might say, oh, I'm really thinking about charity stuff. I don't know what to do. How do I figure out what I want? You might be like, oh, listen to this clip. There's four minutes where they talked about X, Y, and Z, about charity and finding your purpose.
33:34Dan Fleyshman:These podcasts are not just for you. The reason that we have such a large listen-through rate is people find topics that they care about and they listen all the way through. And some people go back and listen multiple times because there might be something Dave said that you might want to show to your husband, your girlfriend, your dad, your kids, etc. Those moments are important. We have to have discussion about money. We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think that's ridiculous. Money is not the root of all evil. Is there a small percentage that do evil things with money?
34:04Dan Fleyshman:Of course. There's a small percentage that do bad things in every category, in every industry, medical, music, television. Everyone has that small percentage. But the other 99.9 % of money is for your bills, for your food, for your travel, for your parents when they got to go to the hospital, when they want to just pay for normal things. It's a tool. It's a utility. We have to be able to have these discussions about salary, credit, finance. Should I lease? Should I rent? Should I buy? We got to be able to talk about it without feeling like it's rude to talk about it. So I appreciate you guys. As you guys know, we are sponsored by Fanbasis.com.
34:38Dan Fleyshman:I'm not going to read some long affiliate code of that. Fanbasis.com is a company I actually use for my entire backend. And Go High Level, multi-billion dollar company, Go High Level has powered all the things you see with the Money Mondays. They are the backend system that powers all of that. So check out Fanbasis. Check out GoHighLevel. Check out Dave across LinkedIn. And if you're thinking about maybe you want to work in the door-to-door space, or maybe it might be your son or daughter that might be getting to that 18, 19, 20-year-old, maybe they should research it because you've heard someone could crush it, making$25 ,000,$50 ,000 in just one summer.
35:11That's right. Aptiverecruiting.com. Aptiverecruiting.com. A-P-T-I-V-E recruiting.com.
35:17Dan Fleyshman:It is a powerful company. Obviously, you've heard they're in tons of cities all over the country. Appreciate you guys. we'll see you guys next monday here at themoneymondays.com
From the publisher
In this episode of The Money Mondays, Dan Fleyshman sits down with entrepreneur Dave Royce, who built four pest control companies and a solar energy company while helping scale one of the largest residential pest control businesses in the United States.
Dave shares how he went from a broke college student struggling to make a single sale to becoming a top rookie, sales manager, founder, and multi-time business builder. He breaks down the door-to-door sales model, how young reps can earn life-changing money in a single summer, and why sales is one of the most valuable skills anyone can learn.
Dan and Dave also dive into investing after a big income year, how to avoid lifestyle inflation, why access matters in private investments, and how to think about risk, savings, and long-term wealth. The conversation closes with a powerful discussion on philanthropy, purpose, education, charity, and Dave’s commitment to giving the majority of his wealth away.
This episode is for anyone interested in sales, entrepreneurship, scaling teams, investing smarter, and building a life with both money and meaning.Like this episode? Watch more like it 👇Watch ALL Full Episodes Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k---The Money Mondays is a business podcast here to teach you how to make money, invest money, and donate money by showcasing some of the world's most successful people and how they do the same. Hosted by serial entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history, this money podcast gives you an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the wealthiest celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes and influencers make, invest and donate money.If you want to learn more business and investing while you work to improve your financial life, you're in the right place! Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneymondays?sub_confirmation=1Dan Fleyshman,The Money MondaysLearn more here: https://themoneymondays.comWatch all the podcast episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6kLet’s Connect...Website: https://themoneymondays.comPodcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-mondays/id1663564091Twitter: https://twitter.com/themoneymondaysLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-money-mondays/about/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@themoneymondaysFB: https://www.facebook.com/The-Money-Mondays-110233585203220/