Gerry Edtl’s ServiceMaster Story

Mr. Edtl began his career with ServiceMaster in 1973 as a full time production crew chief. He worked for his father and mother in their franchise in the Portland, OR area. After two years he injured his back and knew he needed to find a new line of work, but what?

He learned he could not only clean, but he could sell add-on services and soon learned to sell door to door. This gave him the opportunity to open a new branch office for his mom and dad in a neighboring community. Selling didn’t come naturally to him, but he learned from his dad who was a top door-to-door salesman for the Fuller Brush Company prior to his purchase of the franchisee in 1970.

After running the new branch office for several years he had the opportunity to go to work for the ServiceMaster Distributor, Bill Emberlin as a support coordinator for the local franchisees. There, Gerry developed his sales training skills under the mentoring of Bill Emberlin.

Several years later he was asked to join the home office team in Downers Grove, IL as the West Coast Regional Manager. His role was to support the Distributors and franchisees in sixteen western states. His teaching skills continued to develop as he participated in Distributor training events, and teaching at the Academy of Service in Downers Grove.

When the company bought out Terminix, in Memphis, TN, he was asked to relocate from the Pacific Northwest to Memphis. Having a young family he made a difficult decision to leave the home office team to become a partner with his old friend, and mentor Bill Emberlin, and began buying out the Distributorship.

Within a few years, ServiceMaster Clean decided to exercise an option in their contract with Distributors to buy them back. After a mutual decision with his partner, Bill and Gerry agreed to sell their Distributorship to ServiceMaster Clean and end their partnership.

However, Mr. Emberlin owned ServiceMaster of Portland and was in need of a new General Manager. Gerry accepted the position and began the task of turning a large business around. This is where he developed the Continuing Education Sales Marketing Program. The business went from having a handful of adjusters sending them their work, to having over one hundred agents sending their work. The business became profitable, cash flow issues were resolved, and now a half a dozen years after Gerry’s work there, they are still profitable, and in the top ten ServiceMaster franchisees.

In 2002 Mr. Edtl made his final move with ServiceMaster Clean by accepting a position at the home office in Memphis, TN, and relocated his wife and daughter with him. There Gerry developed the MasterMoments program for DR, the Water & Fire Recovery Guides, several new Continuing Educations classes, the DR Marketing Portfolio with the “Iron Chief” DVD, and last but not least the Mobil Service Manager for Packout service (AKA, the MSM).

In October of 2007 Gerry retired from ServiceMaster Clean with honor, and now owns his own consulting company teaching business leaders how to get work from the Local Insurance Agent and offer coaching on Best Business Practices.