Natura Pest Control: A Family Trifecta

Watch the exclusive video interview here.

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Natura Pest Control in Vancouver, Wash., co-owned by Jake and Jana Claus and Jana’s brother Eric Bassett, has made the business a family affair, creating environmentally friendly principles and a family-first approach with Natura team members and customers.

As leaders of their family-owned and operated business, the trio have actively worked together to find their unique roles in the company. While all three are similar in many ways, Jake said their similarities give room for their differences to shine in the business.

“In order to have a good business that flourishes and functions well, you have to have different people in different roles,” he said. “Since the beginning of our business, the idea was we are the business. It’s our identity, so we don’t want to put out anything that masks who we are.”

Bassett — having prior pest control experience as a door-to-door sales representative and working his way into management before joining Natura as a co-owner and vice president in 2019 — said his segue into the company was a natural fit, previously evaluating and measuring success of other pest control businesses.

“Jake will come into the room with 1,000 ideas, and 995 of them could be bad, and that’s OK,” he said. “He brings all of the ideas to the table, and Jana brings to the table the resources we need to make the project happen.”

The Natura Way

Jake’s pest control journey started in the early 2000s. He said that he learned from his experiences working in the field that when customers are seeking pest control services, they’re most likely going to choose a responsible company that will keep the environment, their kids and pets top of mind when doing the service.

Natura employees learn on their first day to not spray anything that blossoms or blooms, Jake said.

By not spraying anything that blossoms or blooms, using selective products when working near bees, providing customers with educational content for healthy bee practices and working with bee-keeping organizations to preserve active colonies, Natura’s “Bee” Careful Campaign initiated buzz on their environmental commitment to protect honey bee and native bee populations in their service area.

“We want to make people more aware — whether they’re a consumer or business trying to control pests — on what they are putting on their lawns and rose bushes and what we can do to very easily help the population of pollinators, because it’s so important,” Jana said.

As business owners and educators for their technicians, Jake and Eric earned the Associate Certified Entomologist (A.C.E.) credentials for continued education in pest control and hold higher standards for themselves and their employees.

“A lot of people assume we’re a green-services pest control company, but really what we are is a family of entomologists trying to teach the science of pest control to all of our technicians in the field so they will know how it’s done properly,” Bassett said.

Marketing Matters

For the first seven years of business, the company played into its strength of door-knocking, which proved to build a solid customer base and push growth. Every summer, a group of college students would come to work for the company, learning the ins and outs of how pest control works.

“Anytime you have a high-pressure sales situation with someone who is less than forthcoming with honest information, it affects a community in a really bad way,” Bassett said. “We always put emphasis on our employees that when you leave, whether you made the sale or not, you leave on a good note and have a good experience with them.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it wasn’t feasible for the company to door-knock anymore, and the trio were “forced to find new ways of marketing,” Jana said.

“We had to figure out something else to do, so we weren’t dependent on just one style of marketing,” she said. “That’s when we really focused on digital marketing, training our office staff, helping technicians to figure out how they could help grow the company.”

The company continues to build its more than 2,000 Google review-platform, as well as compelling social media content that shows the authenticity of who they are as a business and the family dynamic, Jake said.

“We had all of these costumers from a Fourth of July parade, and I’m in a mouse costume, sitting on the counter eating Cheerios,” he said. “The videos got tens of thousands of views; one got half a million views. The more that we are who we are in front of our customers and show our colors to them, the more they can identify with us.”

The family has also found success in marketing their business practices and experience within the industry to help other owners and operators rapidly grow their companies. Hosted by Jake and Bassett, the Bug Bux Podcast offers advice on inside sales and customer service training, organizational leadership development and business strategy. 

“We don’t lose anything by sharing on our podcast, we only gain,” Jake said. “By letting all of that go and wanting to help other people, it’s been amazing to see the people that have come into our circle.”

Planning Ahead

With eyes set to the future, the company plans to reach a goal of 10,000 customers, open branch offices, make acquisitions and expand the commercial line of the business.

“When you’re growing your business, you don’t want to hire for positions, you want to hire to replace yourself,” Jake said. “Our service and office manager are two of the most qualified executives and we’ve been able to put them into those positions, so they are replacing things that we do.”

Bassett said his goal is to make sure the quality of growth matches the rate of growth. “The 25 employees we have now will most likely become branch managers down the road,” he said.