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The real story behind Mount Lawley Pest Control.
Hi, my name’s Glenn, and I’m the owner of Mount Lawley Pest Control. I always knew as a teenager that I wanted to be in business. So here I was, a young teenager, 12, 13 years of age, I knew that working for other people for the rest of my life wasn’t what I wanted to do. I know there’s many happy people doing doing that, working for other people, and my dad, God bless him, he worked his whole life—99% of it—working for other people, and it put food on our table, and gave him a comfortable life, and gave us a comfortable life, educated my family, my sister and I.
So, I went out to work, and I worked for other people from, you know, I worked many jobs as a teenager, from working in a liquor store to working in a petrol station, I was coaching squash, I worked as a laborer on civil construction projects. And then I went to university for about six weeks, I studied geology at Curtin University in Perth, and after six weeks, I decided that I didn’t want to look at rocks for the rest of my life, and and off I went. I went and got a job with FAI Insurance in the city, and I got that job by opening up the White Pages and started to call people on the phone, and within a couple of hours, the guys at FAI Insurance said, “Why don’t you come in for an interview?” So, I popped in for an interview that that day, and then I started with them the week later. So, that was my first full-time role working in insurance in Adelaide Terrace in the Perth CBD.
From there, I realized that making $187.50 a week wasn’t going to cut it, and I gave my dad a call and asked him to see if I could get a job on the construction project that he was on. So, he said to me, “If you can get yourself to Brisbane Airport by such and such a day,” and I think it was only about a month away, “get yourself to Brisbane Airport at this time on this day, I’ll give you a job.” So, I sold my car, resigned from my job at the insurance company, and jumped on a bus with my Sony Walkman with the best of Cold Chisel cassette, and that was the only cassette I had at the time, and I played that thing to death all the way to Sydney, and then from Sydney up to Brisbane. And I got that got that job on that construction project, and that was that was fantastic. Went on to save a lot of money in 12 months working on that on that project. I came home with quite a lot of money, but money just went through my hands, you know. I went out to all the nightclubs and bars with my mates that I went to school with, and all that money was soon gone.
I went to work for AMP selling life insurance at the grand old age of 19 19, and that didn’t work out too well for me either. From there, I ended up getting a job at the casino and had a fantastic time working at the casino on and off for about 18 years. Did a few other things in the meantime, went back to construction to save some money and and really push those savings forward.
I met the girl that was to become my wife, my darling Anne, I met her in 1999, and then we were married in 2000. We moved to Sydney together in ’99 and then were married in 2000. Then in 2021, my wife fell pregnant with our daughter, Tyler, and we came back from Sydney to Perth to be close to family. I went back to work in the casino in Perth, which was which was fantastic to get some stable income.
I always felt like I wanted to do something else, though, so I had done some computer studies and got a job with a computer company in Leederville, West Leederville—oh, Leederville—called Unisys West. So that that didn’t go the way I really wanted it to go, so I ended up leaving there and sticking with the casino for about 10 years.
The you know, the call of construction, I really enjoyed working in the construction industry. I got to work with men, and I I do enjoy working with men. So went back, studied the Diploma of Diploma of Builders Registration at Leederville TAFE. I did that for two years full-time while I worked night shift at the casino full-time, so that was quite a busy couple of years there. In that time, we had our son, Clayton, and then we had our son, Hudson, as well, so being very blessed to have three happy, healthy kids.
Moving forward, you know, I worked in the construction industry for 13 years. I moved around to a few different employers and also moved to Sydney for a while. I don’t know if you remember, but back in sort of 2012 to 2017, the Perth construction market was really in the doldrums, and we had three kids in private schools, and the the money I was making in Perth just wasn’t going to cut it. So, I knew that they were paying higher wages in Sydney, so off I went to Sydney and and worked there and flew back to see Anne and the kids every month or so. So, that was for three years I did that fly-in fly-out from Sydney, and that was a really tough time. It was really hard on Anne and the kids to start with.
It got easier, and then when when COVID happened, my employer graciously allowed me to to work in Perth doing working from home. So, that company was called Growthbuilt. They’re a Sydney contractor; they do design and construct contracts, and I had a fabulous time working for Peter and Colin, the owners of the business—great guys. And, you know, I remember the day that I left, Peter shook my hand, and I said, “Peter, I’m leaving to go and have a crack at having my own business.” Always wanted to do this. I was 53 years of age then, and Pete I said, “I’m not going to one of your competitors, I’m going out to have a crack myself.” And Peter shook my hand and said, “Glenn, thanks a lot. If it doesn’t work out, mate, give me a call, and we’ll have a position here for you.” And I must say, it was a very it was fantastic to actually have Peter say that to me. I thought that I’ll You never know the sort of reaction you’re going to get when you leave a company, so, you know, I’ve had many different reactions, most of them negative, but, you know, when when Peter shook my hand and made that offer, it was fantastic.
Fast forward, I did some training, I went to the Jim’s Group and joined Jim’s Termite & Pest Control, and and I was I’m very great grateful that I got my start in pest control through the Jim’s Group. I had a lot of fear about being in business all through my, you know, from being a teenager all the way through to my 50s. I had this great big fear of being in business that I’d go and do it and fail and lose lose a whole heap of money and be embarrassed, and
So, I got started with the Jim’s Group and struggled along there for about a year or so, and then I started listening to these podcasts from these guys in America called Mike Stewart and Hal Coleman, and they, you know, it was like a light bulb went off in my brain, and I just I devoured these podcasts that these guys produced. They made made them for a few years, and I listened to every single one of them, I think, in the first in the first couple of months of listening to them. And I realized pretty quickly that I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve in my life by staying with the franchise system, and so I relinquished my franchise and paid my exit fee and and went out and formed Mount Lawley Pest Control.
So, fast-forward now, we are—how long down the road? So, I started Mount Lawley Pest Control in March 2025. We’re now in August 2026, and I’m I’m loving it. So, if I was to look back now, if I had a chance to sit across the table from Glenn as a 20-year-old, I’d I’d say to Glenn as a 20-year-old, “Mate, go out and take some risks. Don’t just sit there working for other people if you’ve got a burning desire to go and run your own show and be your own boss and have your own business. Go and do it, go and do it now before life gets too serious.” And so I spent, you know, 30 to 40 years working in other people’s businesses as a cog in their machine. So, I’m running my own show now. I live and die by the performances that I put in with my clients and the way that I respect them and treat them. So, I love being in business.
Yes, there’s been some tough times, but I’ve followed in the path of people that have been successful. So, I haven’t just gone and done I haven’t gone and picked up any old book and just read that and thought that I could apply that to the pest control industry. I’ve read the information from people that have been successful in pest control businesses, and a lot of that a lot of that’s been from people in America. They I think they’re more advanced in the way that they market their businesses. They’re certainly different. There’s some things about the way that Americans market their businesses that doesn’t sit well with Australian people, and so I I don’t follow everything they say, but I certainly mold the lessons that I’m learning from these American masters to the Australian culture and way of life, so.
A one-man band at the moment. I have an administration assistant called Teagan. She works on the Gold Coast, so she’s got her own phone number that I’ve purchased through the business, and she makes outbound calls to my clients to see how the last service was, see if they have any questions, and just a general chat about their pest control service that we’ve delivered to them. So, if any of you receive a phone call from Teagan, you’ll know who I’m talking about.
So, I think it was an important step for me to make is to get some administration assistance that way because I knew that I do love my clients, and I wanted to make sure that they knew that I cared about them, and I cared that they were getting their pest control services performed regularly, and I I wasn’t just doing one service and then then not following up on them again. So, yes, everybody in all of my clients will get follow-up calls from Teagan to see how things have gone, and so certainly, if you get one of those calls, feel free to have a word to Teagan about what you liked about our service, what you didn’t like, if there’s anything, because Teagan sends me these emails every day with information on the what the clients have told her during the follow-up calls. And I, once I finish my pest control work for the day, I come home and read those emails from Teagan, and then, if need be, I’ll make follow-up calls or I’ll give Teagan some instructions on what to do next with that client.
So, that’s it for that. So, where’s the future of Mount Lawley Pest Control? Well, we’ve purchased our second vehicle now, so we’ve got two vehicles that are fully kitted out and got the vehicle wrapping on them. I’ve got one of them in the northwest. I’m shooting this podcast from Onslow in the northwest of WA. I’m up here doing a bit of work and hopefully getting in the water for a bit of fishing tomorrow. So, yeah, I’ve got some clients up here as well, which is lovely, and looking forward to getting back home to the family and getting back stuck back into some work at home next week.
The the busy period for pest control is generally the warmer months, but I’m finding that those our business’s busy period is certainly lengthening all through the year, so we had a very strong July, and I’m expecting August to be quite busy as well.
So, if you If there’s anything else you’d like to know about Mount Lawley Pest Control, or me, or what we’ve done in the past, feel free to give me a call or drop me an email. The phone number is 0410 581 108. Email is Glenn, G-L-E-N-N, @mountlawleypestcontrol, so that’s m-o-u-n-t-l-a-w-l-e-y-pestcontrol.com.au.
We are looking for some new team members, so I’m looking to employ some guys or girls. So, I’m looking all up, I see the business as having about four utes on the road over the next few years. I’m 56 at the moment, 57 coming up this year, so I can’t be crawling through roofs and subfloors for the rest of my life, and I’d like to be able to help coach some young men and women to join the pest control industry and hopefully they can get out of it as much as I’ve got out of it.
So, that’s it for me. Have a great day, guys. See you later.