Scaling Up: How to Build a Bigger, Better Pool Route

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm going totalk a little bit about growing
your pool service business asyou gear up for the upcoming
season.
Or if you're in the midst of theseason in your area, here are
some ways you can actually growyour business, and I'll give you
some tips on how to do this themost effective way, of course,

(01:23):
based on the competition and theavailability of service accounts
in your area.
Are you a pool service prolooking to take your business to
the next level?
Join the pool guy coachingprogram.
Get expert advice, businesstips, exclusive content, and get
direct support.
From me, I'm a 35-year veteranin the industry.
Whether you're starting out orscaling up, I've got the tools

(01:44):
to help you succeed.
Learn more atswimmingpoollearning.com.
I often get asked if buying apool route is a good idea, and
I'm going to say that yes, undercertain circumstances, it's
actually a great idea if donecorrectly.
The ideal with national poolroute sales, that's the broker

(02:06):
that I prefer to work with, andI've been working with them
probably for five or six yearsnow, maybe even longer.
I think longer than that, Ishould say.
And we have a somewhat of apartnership, it's not really a
huge partnership.
Basically, I'll allow someonewho buys a pool route to join my
coaching group for six monthsfree, and they had the benefit

(02:29):
of having my coaching whilethey're kind of learning the
ropes.
Of course, they're trained bythe seller, and the seller
should be communicating withthem to help them out.
Sometimes sellers just sell itand leave, and that's part of
what happens.
And so I step in there and I'mjust kind of like a little bit
of a support for them.
And it's something that you haveto think about when you buy a

(02:52):
pool route.
You're investing a large amountof cash basically, or funds
you're getting from maybe anequity line of credit, because
you cannot fund a pool route anyother way.
You can't get an SPS loan orsmall business loan because
there's no physical, unlessyou're buying a store, of
course, or pool route with astore, there's no physical

(03:14):
location to the pool route.
And so no bank is gonna lend youmoney for something that's not
really tangible.
You don't have an address togive them except your home
address, and this is not gonnawork out.
There's no banker on earth who'sgonna give you$150,000 to buy,
you know, a pool route ofintangible assets, really, the

(03:35):
bank can't secure anythingagainst.
So the money has to come fromeither the cash you've saved up,
investments you cash out.
I mean, if you have a 401k andyou cash out some money there,
it's probably not superadvisable.
And home equity line of creditis probably the easiest way to
access money to buy a poolroute.
So you're all in basically ifyou do this.

(03:57):
It's like if you become, if yougo to school to become a doctor,
you're spending$500,000 tobecome an MD.
And if you become a doctor for ayear and say, eh, I don't really
like it, I'm gonna go dosomething else.
I think I'll I'll, you know, I'mgonna do, you know, I'm gonna
become a professional fly fisheror whatever, you know, or I'm
gonna race cars for a living, aNASCAR.

(04:20):
You have a$500,000 debt, you'renever gonna pay that off doing
kind of these other thingsunless you're like really good
at it.
And it's something that you haveto think about.
That investment's never gonnapay off if you don't become a
doctor.
Same thing with the pool route.
If you invest$100,000,$150,000into it, you have to be all in

(04:41):
to make this thing work.
And so it's something toconsider, but it's something
also to realize that you maywant to buy just a partial route
in that case.
You know, get started.
Most of the pools you're gonnabuy through a broker are at 12
times the monthly income.
Logically speaking, you're goingto pay off your investment in 12

(05:02):
months, 12 times, 12 months, andthen after that first year, that
income is gonna be yours.
Let's just say you're buying a20 route pool route, they're
getting 180 dollars per month,that's 2160 per pool then per
year times 20, that's 43,200.

(05:25):
So you invest$43,000 in yearone, you have zero income
because you're gonna if you lookat it as just a straight, you
know, purchasing the route, notgetting any money the first
year, and then the second yearyou're gonna get that income.
So it's actually not a terribleinvestment.
It does take a lot of activityon your part to do this.

(05:47):
Now, with natural with nationalpool route sales, if you lose
two of these accounts, and ifyou if it's not your fault
within their their 90-day safetynet period, they'll give you the
money back for those accounts,so they'll credit you back, you
know, 4,000 to 300 and I'm doingquick math in my head, 320 if

(06:08):
that happens.
So that's the benefit of abuying it from a broker, is you
have that safety net.
Now, of course, if you're atyour supplier and a pool guy has
like 10 pools for sale andyou're selling them really
cheap, you can't buy those.
The risk is probably low becauseyou know you're only buying 10
pools and you're getting adiscount, you don't have any
safety net, but you probablydon't need one if that's the

(06:30):
case.
So there is some benefit withpurchasing a route because you
have kind of an instant route,and you if you look at it
mathematically, of course,you're investing the cash, so
you are getting income.
Now, I did say that at 43,200you're getting nothing that
first year, but you're actuallygetting that money every month,
I should say.
You know, let me break it downmonthly here.

(06:51):
So 43,200, you are getting 3,600a month gross from those 20
pools.
I just said you're not makingany money because you're paying
off that debt basically thefirst year, but the money's
coming in, so you're havinginstant income with those 20
pools, and then you can build onthat and you know get pools here
and there in that area byadvertising, you know, door
hangers, you you know, get youknow, direct mailers, uh, Google

(07:14):
ads, things like that.
And so that's the second way togrow.
And so I'm kind of morphed intothe second way to grow by
talking about the first way togrow, which is buying a pool
route or a partial route.
So the second way to grow isjust organically.
Now, of course, if you'respending two or three thousand
dollars a month on advertisingon Google Ads and Yelp and Home

(07:38):
Advisor, Thumbtack, I don'tknow, maybe you can buy pools
cheaper than spending that moneydepending on how many leads you
get.
So it's all mathematics.
Can you buy 10 or 15 poolsversus advertising and hustling
and getting out there?
Now, all those services I justmentioned, except for Google
Ads, they're not quite asaggressive.

(07:58):
They email you, they're notgonna bug you as much, they may
call you, but Yelp, HomeAdvisors, Thumbtack, all those
are sales-driven marketingcompanies that will really hound
you to expand your services,expand your area, and they all
cost money, real money to getinto to help you build up your

(08:22):
route.
Now, some of those are moreeffective in areas than others.
Some people really like them.
I have a few people here thatreally like Yelp, it's been
really helpful for them.
Some people here also found Yelpnot helpful, so it's hit and
miss and home advisor.
Some people love it, some peoplehate it.

(08:43):
Same thing with Thumbtack.
Thumbtack seems to be successfulfor certain service companies.
Like, for instance, I found alot of companies on Thumbtack
that I use as vendors, likehouse cleaners and things like
that, and it seems reallysuccessful for them.
For pool service, it can be, butyou really have to realize that
there's a lot of tricks to thetrades in these things.

(09:03):
Like, for instance, my carpetcleaner had a hard time breaking
in the certain some of theseapps because people would be
advertising$20 per room, andthey get to the house and
they're like, Well, yeah, thecarpet's actually really dirty.
It's gonna be like$100 for thisroom, but they get the lead
because they're advertising for$20.
In pool service, it's harder todo that.

(09:24):
You can't really advertise, youknow, pool service for you know
$80 or$90 a month and get thereand say, Well, yeah, it's gonna
be$150 for your pool.
You're not gonna get that leadin most cases.
So it's harder for us to kind ofadjust our our marketing to get
in your foot in the door, Ishould say.
So be careful of that, thatthere are people out there that

(09:44):
are gonna undercut you and gettheir foot in the door before
you with some of these services.
Google Ads is relatively safe.
You know, basically, it'll justput your pool service out there
on online if someone's searchingfor pool service in your area.
It does cost a lot of money.
I think per dollar, Google Adsis probably more expensive than
the other services, but it's alittle bit safer in the fact

(10:08):
that you know you're competingagainst maybe three or four
other companies advertising onGoogle in your area, and it's
something to consider, dependingon again, some marketing
strategies are more effective inyour area than others.
You just kind of have to trythem and see which ones work for
you.
Now, if you have zero pools andyou're trying to build
organically from that, youreally have to work hard.

(10:31):
This is your full-time jobbasically.
If you have a full-time jobalready, you're gonna have two
full-time jobs basically if youwanted to do this this way.
So be aware that growingorganically is not something
that you can be like, well, I'mgonna spend$500 on Google this
month and see how many pool hitsI get.
It's really an aggressive thingthat has to really be done

(10:55):
correctly to be successful,otherwise, you're wasting all
that advertising dollars.
Now I mentioned door hangers alittle earlier.
This is actually fairlyeffective still.
Certain areas won't let you walkaround the neighborhoods if
you're you know in like a gatedcommunity.
Some gated communities have anHOA pool, so that's kind of out
anyway.

(11:15):
But door hangers are prettyeffective.
Just go on Google Maps.
You can actually uh use mailingservices.
There's a service that I thinkit's called, let me pull it up
here so I can give it to you.
Here it's a pretty catchy name,so I should have remembered it.
It's called pool list usa.
So they'll actually even do themailings for you, so it's pretty
it's pretty cool and effectiveway of doing it.

(11:37):
You kind of just have thiscompany do everything for you.
Uh pool pool list USA.
So they make pretty good flyerstoo.
You know, again, you got to doyour dollar per cost.
So let's say you spend, let'sjust say you spend a thousand
dollars with this company to getthese mailing lists out, and you
get two service accounts.

(11:57):
That's a pretty good return onyour investment, right?
There, you know, out of athousand, you get two service
accounts.
You may not think that's a lot,but if you just do the math, if
you bought those pools and let'ssay you're charging 180 a month
times two times 12, you know, itwould be$4,320 to buy these two

(12:19):
pools using the math to buypools with.
So spending a thousand with thiscompany to get two pools, not
terrible.
If you get, of course, five orsix pools, then you're golden at
that point.
Now with Google Ads here in myarea of Southern California, the
San Gabriel Valley, InlandEmpire, Orange County, Los

(12:40):
Angeles County, you can probablyexpect during the summer to get
about two leads every to capturetwo service accounts every week
with Google Ads to be effective.
It varies by area, but someareas more people are looking
for servers in other areas.
But we're not in the supercompetitive area here.

(13:01):
There's a lot of poolsavailable.
There's you know, there's afinite amount of pool companies
doing pools out there, and soit's not like some parts of
Florida.
You know, I've heard that otherparts of the country, like
pockets in Florida, like aresuper competitive, and the only
way you can get a route is bypurchasing a partial route.
And that's okay if that's theway the math works for your

(13:23):
area.
There really is nothing wrong,again, with purchasing a partial
route, if you can handle it.
You know, if you let's just sayyou grew your pool route to 20
pools organically, and you wantto kind of jumpstart your
business by buying 20 morepools.
I say go for it.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's actually a really good gameplan because you already have 20
pools that you've been servicingand you kind of are familiar

(13:45):
with it.
So when you buy those 20 pools,you're gonna know right away
which pools are good, whichpools aren't good.
You can kind of remove those andsay, you know, I don't want this
pool.
Can you give me another oneinstead?
That gives you kind of a leg up.
There was a a person in Florida,um, his name was Orlando that I
interviewed several years backon my podcast that the only
thing he would ever do is buypool routes, and that's how he

(14:07):
kind of built himself up, and hebecame really successful doing
that because he knew exactlywhich routes he wanted to buy.
Another guy in Florida that wasa group member for many years,
he actually got so successful atdoing this that he was able to
get people contacting him,wanting them to sell pools to
him, and they sold them poolsreally on the cheap, basically,

(14:30):
you know, like four times orfive times the monthly rate,
because he was doing this somuch that he was out there doing
it, and people were just sellinghim these pools, and he would
just buy them all up.
So there are there are ways ofdoing this successfully by
purchasing routes.
You can, of course, buy themthrough a broker or buy them,
you know, with a sign at yoursupply place.

(14:50):
Just be aware that there's noguarantee and no safety nets
that way.
But there's all different waysof doing it.
You know, I think there areroutes for sale on Craigslist
too.
I've seen those too.
So just be aware of what you'redoing, of course.
If you're starting out fromscratch and you want to buy a
pool route, I do recommend yougo through a broker because
you'll have that safety net andyou'll have some owner training,

(15:14):
and it's a little bit easier ifyou're not in the industry.
But if you're already in theindustry, there are many
different ways to build up yourbusiness organically, buying a
partial route, buying a fullroute.
All these things are ways ofdoing it.
Now, there is a hidden referralsystem that you can activate
with your customers that areexisting.
I should say your existingcustomers is probably a better

(15:35):
way of saying that.
I'm not sure why I said it theother way, but you can do this
by offering them a$200 Amazoncard if they give you a referral
that you keep for three months.
I wouldn't give them the moneyfor someone they refer to you,
and then after a month theydon't continue service.
So tell them that there's youknow maybe a two-month or
three-month time period whereyou'll give them this$200 Amazon

(16:00):
card after a certain period oftime.
And believe me, if you're givingpeople two or three hundred
dollars in Amazon cards, they'regoing to be telling everyone in
their neighborhood about you andtheir friends at parties and
relatives, and it's a great wayto get referrals.
You pay for them in a way, but200 bucks versus$1,000 on Google
Ads or$2,000 for an account is amuch better deal in my book than

(16:24):
anything.
So those referrals really payoff.
And of course, you have to begood at surfacing their pool to
get the referral.
You can't like, hey, can yourefer me to a uh for$200 and
their pool has like algae in it,and you skip it every other
week?
Probably not gonna get goodreferrals at that point.
But if you're doing a great job,which you should be doing,
you're gonna get thesereferrals, and you can build

(16:46):
your entire business onreferrals at some point, which
is really golden.
There are many, many companieshere in my area that don't
advertise one bit, one penny,not a dime goes into it, and
they keep building up theirbusiness because of these
referrals that they get fromexisting customers, new
customers referring them.

(17:06):
All these are great ways ofgetting customers.
And the last one I'll touch onhere, and this one I think is
really lucrative in certainareas, is to partner with the
builder and start doing theirstartups.
You know, give them a prettygood discount on what you're
gonna charge them for thestartup, and start doing
startups for the builder.

(17:27):
Get in the people's backyards bystarting up their pools, and
startups are pretty easy.
You know, don't get scared ofthem.
There are things that can gowrong, but the majority of times
you can do this.
And if you learn the startupmethod that's effective, just go
to the National Plaster Counciland National Plaster Council,
just Google that, and then theyhave the startup that they

(17:48):
recommend there.
Follow that, and you can startup just about any pool
effectively using the NationalPlaster Council startup method,
and then you can, you know, ofcourse, be in the backyard doing
the startup, and the chances ofyou getting that service account
are much higher because you'realready back there doing the
startup.
So I think that's a great way toget accounts as well.

(18:10):
And the nice thing about the newbuild accounts is that all the
equipment is brand new,everything is brand new, and so
these are usually sweet and easyaccounts to maintain.
So don't neglect networking withbuilders to do startups, even if
you have to offer some prettygood discounts to the builder.
I would do that because you'rein the backyard and you're going

(18:31):
to get your foot in the door,foot in the gate, foot in the
pool, however you want to putit, and you're gonna be the
first one there.
And that's usually the personthey're gonna hire.
They're not gonna be going tothe you know online looking for
another pool service company.
If you're already there in thebackyard and you're doing a
great job with their startup,they're probably gonna hire you
nine out of ten times or ten outof ten times if they are looking

(18:53):
for a pool service company.
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can of course find
those on my website,swingingproollearning.com.
Just click on the podcast iconon the banner.
There'll be a drop-down menuwith over 1800 podcasts there
for you.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atpoolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have a rest of your week.
God bless.

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