Pest control for a new generation: insights from one of Yelp’s Top 100 Local Businesses

Left to right: photo from Nadi Spasibenko and photo from Pest Brothers on Yelp

Pest Brothers in Miami, Florida, earned a spot on Yelp’s Top 100 Local Businesses in 2025, an honor determined by Yelp reviews and rankings.

Check out the rest of the local businesses that made this year’s list.

Jose and Michael Rodriguez, the owners of Pest Brothers, think of themselves as pest control for a new generation. At 35 and 26 years old, the brothers and business partners made a conscious decision to continue in the family business, powered by fresh marketing strategies and audience insights.

“Once we all got together, we all said: ‘Okay, look, this isn’t necessarily our generation’s type of industry. Our competitors are not millennials, they’re not Gen Z… We’re all young guys and we’re just going after it,’” Jose said.

After being awarded as one of Yelp’s Top 100 Local Businesses 2025—a list highlighting standout local businesses, ranked by reviewers—the brothers saw their online presence skyrocket. Views of their Yelp Page increased by 576% in the month after the announcement, as Michael watched the requests pour in. “That’s viral, if I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “It’s just been tremendous for us.”

Despite their vast ambitions, they’re a local business at heart—and they have the most pride in their impact on their community. After Yelp’s Top 100, Michael said he was most excited to share the news with the staff at their former elementary school, where they now provide pest control services. “We’re kind of an emblem for the community, right? Something to be proud of as a community,” he said. “We’re growing, but hopefully we continue to maintain that local piece.”

Yelp has helped them do both: grow and build a reputation for excellence that reaches wider audiences, while still remaining true to their Miami roots and the community that’s uplifted them for generations. Get to know these trailblazing pest control pros and uncover the secrets to their Top 100 success below.

Meet the Pest Brothers

Born and raised in Miami, brothers Jose and Michael bring different strengths and perspectives to the same family business—and more recently brought their brother-in-law, John, into the fold.

Jose, 35, is a seasoned pest control pro with 15+ years of experience in the industry.

Business owner journey: Followed in his father’s footsteps by training as a termite inspector at Orkin Pest Control, a large home service brand, then charting his own path as a co-founder of Pest Brothers.

Biggest motivation: “In our industry, service is everything… I learned that from the big company that I worked at before. Sometimes I’m a stickler for how we get jobs done because I know how it’s supposed to be done.”

Michael, 26, is a marketer bringing new insights and technology to a family-run business.

Business owner journey: Studied business at University of Pennsylvania and consulted for Deloitte, the world’s largest management consulting firm, before joining Jose in the family business.

Biggest motivation: “[Jose] was my best friend before I even knew what a best friend was. I don’t think there’s a lot of options where you get to work with your best friend and your biggest cheerleader. For me that was, that was really the most important thing.”

A journey in four steps: Jose and Michael share how they went from founding a business in 2023 to becoming one of Yelp’s Top 100 Local Businesses in 2025.

Step 1: Building a foundation of customer service excellence

When Jose founded Pest Brothers in 2023, he wanted to be known for one thing: exceptional customer service. At the time, the business didn’t have a financial safety net or a large budget for marketing, but Jose had seen enough of the industry to know that customer service can be the competitive advantage you need to get ahead.

“It was one of those things where you have to kind of just be looking for the next dollar. I didn’t come with a huge influx of cash,” he said. “You have to understand what got [us] there, which is great customer service. You’re not just another number. That’s another way of differentiating yourself from the big dogs.”

Consistency was a crucial part of Jose’s customer service playbook: He set a standard of always being present, solving customer problems as soon as possible, and providing a personal touch. “When you first start, that’s the stuff that differentiates you from others,” he said. “What are the expectations? That you’re there on time, that you say exactly what’s gonna happen, and you set the [standard] of what customers [can] expect.”

For example, many customers expect zero pests after just one visit, but every pest control pro knows it’s not that straight-forward—it might take a second visit or even a recurring service to achieve. By explaining this to customers and giving them a service plan ahead of time, the Pest Brothers can avoid missed expectations down the line.

Jose calls this “showing them the map.” “How we plan on doing it, and just following through on your promises—you gotta give ’em the whole spiel because otherwise they’re gonna call you saying: ‘What the heck, man? You just came out here, and we’re having these issues and we kind of expect it to be gone.’”

And when mistakes happen (and they always do), Pest Brothers has always been committed to doing whatever it takes to satisfy their customers—for example, returning late in the evening to accommodate the rare missed appointment. “Do I want to be there at six o’clock at night? Obviously, no, I have kids. But we messed up. We have to make it right,” Jose said.

Step 2: Opening a new customer pathway via Yelp

Traditionally, pest control companies advertise by sending mailers to new homeowners in the area. But Michael and Jose wanted to do things differently, so they started thinking like their target demographic, who mainly search for home services online. “I’m thinking, look, we’re trying, we’re selling to folks that are me and my brother’s age… so we’ve gotta get with the times. And I think one of the ways to do that was through Yelp,” Jose said.

As a longtime Yelp user himself, Jose noticed early on that customers rarely said they found Pest Brothers on Yelp. But he and Michael didn’t see that as a deterrent—they saw it as an opportunity. If people weren’t finding them on Yelp, it meant there was likely an entire stream of home service customers they hadn’t tapped into yet, which would allow them to carve out a niche in the pest control industry.

“What we thought was, ‘Okay, maybe there’s a new potential pathway that we can create by generating more views and putting more money and investing into this platform…’ Because it didn’t seem like it was something that a lot of other pest control companies were doing,” Jose said.

They started with a free trial of Yelp Ads in February 2025. Almost immediately, new leads began pouring in. “We tried out the free trial and it was an absolute success—almost like we flipped a light switch,” Michael said.

Another thing that attracted the brothers to Yelp was its commitment to trust and safety. Whereas on platforms like Google, the brothers noticed other home service companies paying for inflated reviews, on Yelp, Michael saw an opportunity to compete on an even playing field.

“I thought of Yelp as an equalizer, as a way to say, ‘Let’s start from zero and see who actually does the best job every single time,’ right? Because I think a Yelper is more likely to review you, period, regardless of whether you actually did a good job or not. That’s a report card—for Yelp, for Yelpers. And that’s why we love serving them, because we wanna do a great job. We want you to review us. And I think they appreciate that.”

Step 3: Mastering quality customer responses and efficient scheduling

Thanks to Pest Brothers’ strong Yelp presence, the business consistently receives requests for pricing and availability from leads via Request a Quote. When it comes to responding, the brothers have a clear strategy: “It’s about speed to lead,” Michael said. “The more quickly we can reach out, the more quickly we can get to that house, the more quickly we can service it and win that lead.”

This strategy resonates with customers who want their pest problems solved, fast. But it also helps the Pest Brothers stand out from the first interaction, making a positive impression that can blossom into a recurring customer relationship. “It’s important to us not just to win the lead in the moment, [but in the long term.] Typically with pest control, these are recurring customers. These are folks that if you do a good job, they’re gonna reward you for a long period of time,” Michael said.

About 25% of Pest Brothers’ monthly revenue comes from recurring clients. They start the week with those clients already scheduled out in Google Sheets and then add in new customers or urgent requests as they come, taking note of the lead’s contact information and address.

The first [place] I check when I wake up is Yelp because I wanna make sure the time it takes for us to respond to a quote is as minimal as possible. To me that’s indicative of service, of professionalism.

— Michael Rodriguez, co-owner of Pest Brothers

To move things along efficiently, Michael aims to provide a specific time frame and get customers on the schedule as soon as possible. “We get a call, we book it on our schedule,” he said. For example, saying “Let me know when you’re available” probably won’t get you a response, but if you say, “I can be there tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.,” you’re more likely to secure that spot.

As Pest Brothers’ high response quality shows, it’s also worth taking a moment to slow down and personalize your responses. Customers appreciate when you call out specific details from their request, rather than copying and pasting a generic response.

Michael said he’s learned from experience that canned responses can lead to mistakes: “I don’t like doing that because what happens is you’re on the go and you might mess up the customer’s name or [service], and ultimately these first impressions count. So I wanna sit down and take 30 seconds: What’s your name? What’s your problem? When can we be out there? Sometimes it’s not the most efficient thing, but that’s how you provide good service and a good impression.”

Pro tip: Enable emails and app notifications from Yelp so you never miss a request from a potential customer. 

Step 4: Coming full circle: giving back to their community

Although the Pest Brothers officially came on to the Miami scene in 2023, the Rodriguez family had been doing pest control in the area for much longer, starting with Jose’s dad, who inspired him to start door-to-door pest control sales in high school. “Ultimately, we’ve been Pest Bros for two, three years. But this journey started a long time ago, and there’s a lot of [customers] that we have today that we owe a lot of gratitude. They were stuck with us for a long time,” Jose said.

In all that time, building connections with the community has been their most long-lasting and important contribution. They frequently advertise in local media outlets and look for opportunities to sponsor community events, such as a recent golf tournament at Jose’s son’s school.

Ultimately, those are the folks that have fed us when we weren’t necessarily getting to Yelp Top 100. You know what I’m saying? So we appreciate that. We appreciate all those folks that saw what you guys, what everyone sees now.

— Jose Rodriguez, co-owner of Pest Brothers

Since being awarded one of Yelp’s Top 100 Local Businesses, the brothers have also seen increased interest from people looking to join their team—so much so that they plan to expand from six to 12 technicians. “Hiring has been much easier for us because we have that designation,” Michael said.

Being able to give back to the community through employment is especially gratifying for the brothers. “We’re creating economic output that’s ultimately helping to feed folks in the neighborhood,” Michael said. “As we grow… we’re interviewing folks, and a lot of these folks are from our area. They’re in our neighborhood. They have kids, they have families. And it’s really, really rewarding.”

“Honestly, that’s the part as an owner that’s super exciting: We’re increasing our footprint to the point where we’re helping create jobs, and that’s really exciting to me.”

Photos from Pest Brothers 

These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Listen below to hear more from Jose and Michael, or visit the show homepage to learn about the show and find more episodes.