Meet David Royce: The founder of pest-control company Aptive Environmental talks going door-to-door.

AuthorHaraldsen, Tom

David Royce is founder and chairman of Aptive Environmental, a Provo-based pest-control company that ranks among the nation's leaders in the industry. It's the fourth pest-control company he has owned--he built and sold the other three--and by far his largest enterprise. In less than three years, Aptive Environmental has grown to having hubs in 27 states and a workforce of over 3,000 employees. His first taste of success came after returning home from a Mormon mission when he got a job working for Moxie, a Texas-based pest-control company.

"I became the company's top seller working in the summer months between BYU school years, and the owner asked me to write their sales training manual," he says. Mr. Royce was also promoted to Vice President. It was Moxie's owner, Jason Walton, who told him to drop his plans to go to study investment banking in school. "He said, 'Why put in 80- to 100-hour weeks when you can start your own company,'" Mr. Royce recalls. When Mr. Royce graduated and left Moxie, Mr. Walton sold that company to Terminex for $11 million.

LET'S BUILD A DOOR-TO-DOOR BUSINESS

"That gave me a great blueprint [proving that] I could do the same," Mr. Royce says. "There are many, many returned LDS missionaries who are used to the door-to-door approach we have used to get new customers," he said. "And moving to Provo was [a] no-brainer. There are tens of thousands of college students within driving distance to Provo, and a large percentage have missionary experience." Using an employee benefit...

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