Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Hawes.
Hi Joe, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I did door-to-door sales for 15+ years, all over the country. Eventually I opened my own location here in Minnesota, built it up, and sold it to Terminix. Good chapter, but it left me wanting to build something that was actually mine.
Here’s the thing: I grew up in Crystal. Most of my family is still here. Minnesota’s in my blood. So I didn’t want to slap together another pest control company. I wanted something homegrown — the kind of company your neighbor tells you about, the one that actually picks up the phone.
And I’m not gonna lie to you to win your business. If something won’t work the way you’re hoping, I’ll tell you straight. I’d rather lose the sale than set you up with the wrong expectation. What we say is what we do. What we promise is what shows up at your door. That’s it, honest, hardworking people who earn the trust instead of just putting it on a truck wrap.
That’s why we’re “who the locals trust.” That’s not a slogan to me. Building something my own hometown can count on? That means everything.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Ha, no. Definitely not.
We started out of my buddy Keith Reznechecks garage in Coon Rapids. Real humble beginnings. We were small, and we were taking accounts all over the Twin Cities, which sounds great until you factor in the traffic up here. Half the time, the drive ate us alive. A job across the metro could cost us way more than it should have.
But here’s where it got hard in a way people don’t always see: we refused to cut corners. When the competition was raising prices, we held ours. We kept upgrading what most companies charge extra for, and we kept the pricing fair, good work for an honest dollar. Staying true to that top-tier service when the easy move would’ve been to trim it back? That hurt sometimes. Profit took the hit before our quality ever did.
But that’s the whole point of Valor. I’d rather feel the squeeze than hand a customer something I wouldn’t put in my own house. We held the line, and we’re still holding it.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Valor Pest Solutions?
We’re a homegrown Minnesota pest control company, locally owned and operated out of the Twin Cities. We handle the everyday stuff like ants, mice, wasps, boxelders, and spiders, plus the bigger wildlife an commercial jobs.
The thing that sets us apart is how we price and what we include. A lot of companies give you a low number up front, then tack on a fee every time a new pest shows up. We don’t do that. The things other guys treat as add-ons, like extended granules, web and nest removal, interior crack and crevice work, we just build into our regular service. That’s where “our basic is their upgrade” comes from. It’s not a slogan, it’s just how we run the job.
We also know this state. Minnesota’s seasons are all different and all rough, so we inspect the property first and treat for what’s actually there. A house by a lake has different problems than one in the suburbs or out in a farm town. We’d rather do it right than spray the same thing everywhere and move on.
What I’m proudest of is pretty simple: people trust us. We’ve earned over 2,000 five-star reviews, and every one came from showing up and doing what we said we’d do. That’s the whole thing. We don’t cut corners, and we treat your house like it’s our own.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
The one I keep coming back to is the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. I’ve read it more than once. People remember Jobs for the products, but what stuck with me is how obsessed he was with two things: quality and simplicity. He’d rather make one thing great than ten things that are just okay. That’s exactly how I think about pest control. Don’t bury the customer in a dozen confusing plans and upsells. Do the core service exceptionally well, make it simple, and don’t cut corners to hit a price point.
The big one for me though is the Founders podcast with David Senra. The guy reads biographies of the greatest builders in history and pulls out what actually made them work. A couple of things from that show have stuck to me like glue.
One is this idea that the best founders had one idea and built everything around it. For us, that one idea is trust. Every decision runs through it. The other is something Senra hammers on constantly: focus and simplicity win. The greats kept things simple and refused to water down the quality, even when it would’ve been easier or more profitable to do so.
There’s a great example from his Estée Lauder episodes too. She built a giant company starting with basically nothing, and she got there by being fanatical about the quality of the product and the personal touch with every customer. She didn’t grow by cutting corners. She grew because people trusted what she handed them. That’s the same lesson, just from a different industry and a different era. Whether it’s Jobs, Lauder, or Phil Knight at Nike, the ones worth studying never traded quality for a shortcut.
So that’s my resource list, really: study the people who built something that lasted, take the lessons on trust, quality, and keeping it simple, and apply them to a guy spraying a foundation in Coon Rapids. Different scale, same playbook.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.valorpestsolutions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valorpestsolutions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ValorPestSolutions/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/valor-pest-solutions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@valorpestsolutions
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/valor-pest-solutions-eden-prairie-4
