Lessons from Other Trades: What Pool Pros Can Learn

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm going tocan kind of give you an idea of
some things that you can learnfrom other industries and kind
of apply them to your poolservice business.
And I deal with a lot of vendorsand other in other fields, and I
think this is very applicable inyour pool service business.

(01:24):
Some of the things that they doright really translate well
directly into pool service.
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(01:45):
to help you succeed.
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And I think the number one thingthat you can take from this
would be the fact that companiesthat answer their phones and
return messages are the onesthat actually are very
successful.
You probably have seen this ifyou go online and you're looking

(02:06):
for maybe a new plumber or anelectrician, and you go to Yelp
and you see these one-starreviews, and a lot of them are
like, Yeah, I called the placefive times and never answered,
or they said they were gonnacall me back and they never
called me back.
Don't do business with thiscompany.
And a lot of these, of course,you have to take with a grain of
salt because yeah, I mean,giving a business a one-star

(02:29):
review because they're notresponding to you, is that
actually legitimate somethingthat you should be doing?
Probably not, but people do itand they are up there and then
they can't be taken down.
And so you'll see all these overthe internet, these one-star
reviews for companies that arenot responsive.
I think this is an importantfactor because you may not be

(02:51):
able to compare this to poolservice companies.
A lot of them aren't listed onYelp or Google reviews, and so
there's no way to kind of gaugeyour competitors or what they're
doing right, what they're doingwrong.
And so you have to kind of goout into other industries that
do have a more vigorous onlinepresence, like plumbers and
electricians, and you know,landscapers, because there's a

(03:14):
lot of pool companies that areunder the radar.
So, what do these othercompanies do well that you can
apply to pool service?
Well, number one, answer yourphone, return messages, even if
it's a generic, I'll call youback later.
Um, out in the field right now.
Anything like that is importantto keep that communication

(03:35):
window open.
Another problem, I think, is youhave to realize that when
someone's looking for a newvendor, they want to get a hold
of that person right away insome form of connection.
In other words, if they'recalling your company, you know,
let's just say you're Sky BluePools, and they get your number

(03:57):
off the internet and they callyou, and the phone rings, and
you they get a message, hi, thisis Sky Blue Pools, and we're not
available right now.
They'll hang up the phoneninety-five percent of the time.
I don't know if that's anaccurate statistic, but I do
like 95% of the time hang up andI'll call the next person, you
know, Crystal Clear Blue Pools.

(04:18):
I'll call them and they'll pickup the phone and that hi, I was
just wondering if you can giveme a bit for pool service.
Now, I know that that soundsreally harsh that because you
missed the call, your competitorgets the business.
But that's just the reality of acustomer looking for a vendor.
They just don't have thepatience, and this is kind of a

(04:41):
bad thing with the way societyhas gotten nowadays.
I mean, I grew up in the 80swhen there were no cell phones,
there's no way to get a hold ofyour friend except like leaving
a note on the front door.
It's like, hey, I stopped bytoday at 1230, you know, come
over to my house and you know,or whatever.
And you can call them, I guess,but you know, then you have it's

(05:02):
really weird.
You have this answering machinewith this cassette tape in it,
and you gotta kind of rewind itand hit play.
This is like ancient technology.
The note on the front door, youtell your friend's mom, hey,
have Billy come by.
That's kind of the only way toget things done.
And so you just sit there andwait.
But we can't do that nowadaysbecause if you text somebody and

(05:22):
you don't get a response withinlike five minutes, you would
like re-text them with aquestion mark.
It's kind of irritating whenpeople do that, by the way.
But they want instant results,and so if you don't answer your
phone or find some way tocapture those calls.
Now, a lot of these vendors thatI deal with, they use their
spouse or relative that answersphones for them.

(05:45):
Highly effective.
Answering texts text messages aswell.
It's a highly effective way tocapture business.
And I think my my uh appliancerepair guy and my handyman use
their spouse, and every time Icall them or text them, they
text me back or they answertheir phone, like 90% of the

(06:07):
time they answer their phone,and if not, they text me back
within like five minutes.
Really great business models andsomething that's highly
effective.
And if you do that in your poolbusiness, maybe a relative,
someone who can actually bethere to answer the phone.
Now I'm not talking, you know,for them to answer the phone
after business hours like eighto'clock at night or six in the

(06:28):
morning, but during normalbusiness hours when people are
actually calling you, which ismost people will try to call for
service during your businesshours, or most business hours
are from 8 30 to 5 p.m.
And most people are going tocall you at that time, and so
being able to capture that isgonna move your business to the
next level in a lot of cases.

(06:50):
And the reason I spent fiveminutes on this topic is because
it is the number one way tocapture leads, in my opinion.
If you're advertising and youpeople are calling you or
texting you and you're notgetting a response, then you're
never gonna capture that lead.
It sounds logical and simple,but I find that a lot of
businesses fail to do this, evenyou know, outside the industry,

(07:13):
and especially I think in thepool industry, if you're trying
to expand, be proactive andanswer those calls.
Another thing that I talk abouta lot is looking professional.
Now, this is something that youmay not think is a big factor or
a big deal to people, but putyourself put yourself in this
situation.

(07:34):
You call a plumber, the firstguy shows up in a truck that
looks like it's from the A-TeamTV show, you know, back in the
19, I guess 80s, that's whenthat was out.
Or maybe yeah, I think it was80s.
And you know, the van's all beatup, it's like black smoke's
coming out of the tail, out ofthe exhaust, and the guy gets
out in a t-shirt, it's allfilthy, you don't know what's on

(07:55):
there.
He's like, Hey, yeah, this isMike's plumbing, you had a
problem.
And then the other guy shows up,you know, he has a really nice
service truck with his logo onthere, he's wearing this
uniform, name tag, he looksclean.
Which plumber would you hire?
So I don't think it'sappropriate to say that looking

(08:15):
good or your image doesn'tmatter in full service.
It matters a ton, and it'ssomething that people aren't
gonna say anything to youbecause it's not polite, but in
reality, if you look disheveled,they're gonna think that you're
not doing a very good job doingpool service.
I remember that I was talking toone of the Hayward reps, and he

(08:36):
told me that at the headquartersthere's two things that they do
when they're looking for apotential employee.
This was way back in the daywhen they had that they had a
single owner, old school guy, hedidn't even have a cell phone.
Hayward's, of course, he passedaway, and so it's not the same
owner.
But he would do these things tokind of gauge employees.

(08:57):
Number one, there's like a apath on the on the entrance way
to the Hayward headquarters, andthere's grass on both sides.
And the easiest way to get thereis just to walk across the grass
and go through the front door.
So whoever walked across thegrass and not walked on the
cement path, they would get acheck mark off right there to
begin with.

(09:17):
And then they would walk you outto your vehicle, to your truck,
or wherever your car.
And they would do this just tocontinue the interview and
conversation, but they wanted tosee how your vehicle was, you
know, was it messy, disheveled,dirty, you know, bugs on the
windshield, the interior haslike fast food cups from like
three days ago or differentrestaurants, and they would

(09:39):
gauge you that way also.
And this is kind of how theypicked their employees, and it's
actually sounds really effectiveto me because you come in there
with your suit and you'relooking good, but how's your
vehicle?
Or do you cut corners?
These are all aspects of lookinggood for the customer.
So, one of the aspects, one ofthe things that a lot of
companies do really well, theyhave clean trucks, they don't

(10:02):
have fast food cups in there,they have a nice uniform, and
you can actually replicate thisin your pool service.

(10:28):
Now, I'm not saying that youshould go to the car wash every
day, and you know, but your carshould look good.
Newer model, you know.
I don't think you should bedriving a 25-year-old truck
that's all beat up, that's notgonna get you a lot of
customers, or customers that youreally want to retain, I should
say.
And getting a uniform is reallysimple and easy.

(10:50):
You can just about go anywhereand get uniforms made, and it's
something that's going to setyou apart and make you more
professional with the client,and it's gonna make you give you
the ability to get serviceaccounts much easier than if you
didn't have that image that alot of these good companies
portray out there.

(11:11):
HVAC companies, plumbers thatlook good for a reason.
And I was recently talking toSkimmer about this aspect that a
lot of these other companieslike HVAC plumbers, landscapers,
don't have a robust softwareability or the availability, I
should say, of software likeSkimmer to do routing and you

(11:32):
know, send messages and do theinvoicing through.
And they rely on a lot ofdifferent old school
technologies of invoicing, butthere are some people that do it
really well out there, and sothe reason I bring this up, this
is also one aspect that you canreally take your business to the
next level.
It's how you invoice yourcustomers, how you present bids

(11:53):
to the customers, and theservices that I use or the
people that I use really givegood bids and they look really
professional.
And I'm not saying that if youdon't have professional invoices
and or professional bids drawnup, you're not gonna get the
job.
I think it gives you the edgeover someone else for sure.
Once you get to know the person,maybe you know you overlook

(12:16):
these things.
But if you don't know thecompany at all and you're
getting a new vendor, it's kindof important that their bill and
their invoice and their bid issomething that you can easily
digest and it's something thatlooks good to you.
I mean it it just is clear ifsomeone gives you like a carbon
copy invoice and it'shandwritten, you can't even read
what they're writing, andsomeone else has a computer

(12:37):
printout with so much detail,that company with the detailed
information is going to, ofcourse, win.
And that's why I have like aservice agreement.
It's a one-page, really simpleservice agreement.
You can actually get a copy ifyou email me.
It's David at swimmingpoollearning.com, and I can send
you a copy of my one-pageservice agreement.

(12:58):
And I think it's a really clearway of showing a professional.
It's not really a contract necktechnically, but it does give
the customer ideas of whatyou're going to do at the pool
or what you are responsible forand what they're responsible
for, and it just makes you lookprofessional.
Now, when you're doing a bid,you of course want to maybe type
have a template where you couldtype stuff up and submit it to

(13:20):
the customer so that everythingis kind of easy to read.
I used to use a contractor, hemoved to Arizona, but he his
bids were so detailed that heeven had like the price of the
screws he's using.
It was like an incrediblydetailed invoice, and I kind of
miss him.
You know, he he was a greatcontractor, and the way he wrote
everything up was justspectacular.

(13:42):
And this is something that youcan do in your business pretty
easily.
You know, you can createtemplates, you can create your
logo on there, different things,and just make yourself look like
a professional company withreally good paperwork that makes
sense.
And again, it's really difficultto gauge your competitors out

(14:02):
there because a lot of poolcompanies don't have a really
huge online presence, and sothere's no way of seeing, you
know, if you know Bill's poolservice or splash pool service
is doing a good job and if youcan kind of cut into their
market.
But one thing you can do, andthis is something that I think
is also critical, is people likeit when you show up, when you

(14:24):
say you're gonna show up for abid and show up on time, it just
shows some respect for thecustomer's time.
You know, if in you're you'rethe same way, if you're in a
waiting room for your doctor ora dentist and you have an 11
a.m.
appointment and you're sittingthere and it's like 11.30
already, you feel agitated.
Not because you're waiting pastyour appointment time, but I

(14:46):
think a lot of that is the factthat you feel like they don't
respect your time.
Like 30 minutes of your day iswasted waiting for them and they
don't care about your time.
And that's kind of the same waysomeone feels when you say, I'll
be there at 11 a.m.
to do the bid for you, and I'lllet you know how much service
will be.
And it's 1110, 11.15, you'restill not there.

(15:07):
Now, if you're stuck in traffic,messaging them is fine, you
know, I'm gonna be a few minuteslate, that's appropriate.
I've had vendors do that before,and I've had long-term
relationships with people thatwere late for their
appointments, and they let meknow they're late for a good
reason.
But if you are consistently latefor appointments, or if you say
you're gonna do something forthe customer and don't do it,

(15:30):
don't follow through at acertain time, that's a problem,
and that's a problem that'sgonna affect your business
because people have people arebusy and you have to be a
respecter of their time.
And so if you're late, it's notthe fact that you're busy, it's
the fact that you don't respectthe other person's time.
And companies that say they'regonna be there at 11 and they

(15:52):
show up at 11 are the companiesthat I hire.
When I'm when I'm making anappointment for a tenant and
they say they're gonna be thereat one o'clock, they usually are
there at one o'clock becausethey know that that's what I
expect of them to work for me.
And the same thing for your poolservice.
Any kind of thing that you'redoing, any kind of appointment
you set with the customer, youreally should be cognizant of

(16:13):
your time and of their time.
And if you're late for a bid,you're already off to a bad
start.
Everything kind of adds up tohow they perceive your company,
whether you answer your phone,whether you look good or
presentable, how your paperworklooks, and if you show up on
time.
These are all basic things thatif you look on Yelp for a

(16:34):
plumber electrician, you'regonna see all the reviews of
them, and you're gonna seepeople saying, hey, they didn't
make it until like half an hourlate, and or they didn't, you
know, the invoice I couldn'tfigure out what they were
billing me for.
All these things are markedagainst those companies.
And if you do these thingscorrectly, you can really expand
and you can basically you knowconquer a market in your area

(16:59):
just by doing these basic thingsthat other successful companies
do in other industries.
Like a successful plumber orHVAC company is going to
implement all these things Italked about here, and you can
do exactly the same thing inyour pool service business.
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find those by
going to my website,swimmingpoollearning.com, on the
banner, click on the podcasticon.

(17:20):
There'll be a drop-down menu ofover 1800 podcasts for you
there.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atpoolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have a great rest of your week,and God bless.

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