I am going to start a series of blogs on how to start and then operate a pool service company. I have had a number of people ask me countless questions about my experiences in my business. I have been working with pools for 20 years and have been running my own business for 11. I have made probably every mistake that a person could make but like Colin Powell said, “There is no secret to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” So I am going to list a few of the important things that I believe are essential for starting and then running a successful pool company or any other company for that matter.
1. Passion - I think it is essential that a person should enjoy what they are doing. Everyone of us is cut out to do something. Some are better then others at certain things. You should love working with pools. You should love being outside most of the day in good weather and bad. You should enjoy working with people. Able to handle a number of issues at one time. You should enjoy a challenge and be able to trouble shoot problems. You should have some common sense about how things work and are able to find out what is wrong when they don’t. I have always been a maintenance person. I enjoy fixing things and one good thing is that there will always be a need for maintenance. No matter how far advanced we get someone has to keep it running and fix it when it is broke. So before you even start you need to ask yourself, “Am I really into this?” “Can I work in bad conditions, hot or cold. rain or shine?” So probably the best thing would be to find a job with a pool service company and see if you like the work. I have seen people come into this part of Florida and buy an existing pool company, they have no background with pools and they flounder around for quite a while and lose a lot of business until they start learning or go out of business altogether.
2. Knowledge – You should know what you are doing. Not that it is possible to know everything, I have 20 years working with pools and I still learn something new everyday. So how do you acquire the skills that are needed to operate a pool service company? The best way is to work for another pool company for a while but the down side to that is that there are a lot of companies out there that do a very bad job and you will not be learning good practices. One of the biggest complaints that we have heard about other companies is that they are only at a pool for 5 minutes. We have learned that it takes between 15 and 20 minutes to service a pool properly. Another complaint is that unnecessary repairs are done. For instance if the customer has a bad motor the service company will install a whole new pump. It seems that so many these days try to find every way possible to rip off the customer. So if you are really serious about operating a company that will have a good reputation and that will get referrals, you need to educate yourself about every aspect of the business. When I started my own company I bought a book “The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance” By Terry Tamminen. It was my bible for the first few years. In Florida the licensing requirements are very strict for contractors. Although you do not need a license to clean pools you do need one to do any repairs. The penalty is very stiff if you get caught doing repairs with out one. So at the beginning I decided to acquire my Florida license for pool service and repair. Even though it was expensive and it took some time it was well worth it. The knowledge that I acquired about the industry, business practices and practical skills was well worth every penny. Plus one of the requirements of holding a license is that every two years I have to have 14 hours of continuing education. There is training and classes held every year at conventions, seminars, local organizations and even on-line that I take that covers every subject concerning swimming pools and spas. This keeps me current on the new technologies and I am also able to ask questions about problems that I have run into. The customers appreciate having someone that services their pool or spa that know what they are doing and are able to do most repairs themselves. When they have a question you have the answer and not just a BS answer either.
3. Getting Started - So how do you get started in your new business idea? Well there are a couple of avenues that you can take. Let me share with you the one that I took. Once my wife and I decided to start our own business (it is very important that if you have a partner in life that they are in full agreement and will give you support) and went ahead and received my Florida license with the required insurance and business presence. I thought that I would take out an ad in a local paper. I was so naive, having never operated my own business before, I thought I would run an ad, the phone would start ringing and I would start working. It was two weeks and the phone never rang once. I even keep trying the phone from another line just to be sure it was working. My heart started to sink because there had been a lot of time and money put into this and it was going to be harder than I thought. My next idea was to send out a flyer. I bought a list of all the people that lived in my zip code that owned a pool. Created what I thought was a great flyer and did a mass mailing. I think I sent out over 5000 flyers. Not a single response. Now I was getting kind of nervous but not ready to give up. I got a list of all the permits that were issued each month for new pool construction thinking that I would do the same mailing to the new pool owners. That didn’t work either. I had an idea that I would send a letter out to every contractor that was building pools at that time. I introduced myself and offered my services to them. Bingo, I got a call and one of them wanted to talk to me. They wanted to have me do leak tests for them on their new pools. It wasn’t what I really wanted but sometimes you have to take what comes to you. They keep me pretty busy, I was amazed at how many new pools had leaks. One day the owner called me into his office. They offered me the opportunity to start doing what is called “Pool School”, it is the training of new pool owners on how to operate and maintain their pool. There were a lot of pools being built at that time and I was doing two or three schools a day. What I found was that a lot of the new owners had no intention of caring for their new pool and they ended up hiring me to start servicing it. I remember that my first customer was a long way from my home but with in a few months I had 40 customers and well on my way. Now I have 400 in my business and most of them have come from referrals that started with my original customers.
There are other ways of starting your business. A lot of individuals buy what is called a route. A route is a block of customers, usually in a given area. This way gives you an instant start. You do have an expense right up front but if you keep your operating expenses low then it is a doable way to start up. In talking to a lot of customers through the years most are not happy about being bought or sold. So if you buy a route then you will have to work very hard to win the new customer confidence and trust me you will lose some of your new accounts. Loyalty has to be earned. Now I pick up most of my new accounts from people who have had bad experiences with their former pool service company. It amazes me how some of the companies stay in business with all the stories that I have heard.
4. Equipment - One of the great things about owning a pool service company is that there is very little investment in assets that are needed before you can start operating. You will need a truck or a trailer in order to carry all the needed tools and chemicals. We use small pickup trucks and they seem to work the best for us, they are easy on gas and easy to work out of. Probably the only drawback is that the truck will start to rust from the chemicals that are needed on a daily basis. A lot of companies prefer using trailers just so that isn’t an issue. We use containers that we keep the chlorine jugs and the acid in which helps keep the spilling into the truck to a minimum. You will also need to carry containers for your tablets, Bicarb, stabilizer, calcium. We also carry salt for the salt pools that we have. I use the containers that the tablets are sold in but some buy special containers just for these chemicals. You will also need to have a telescoping pole, wall brush, leaf net, some type of vacuum and hose. You want to be sure to get commercial grade equipment because it holds up better. If you want to see a checklist of how to service a pool check out my web site, www.elsolservices.com ,click on Pool Maintenance and then on Pool Checklist. It is a quick step by step on servicing a pool. You will need to find a local wholesale distributor of pool supplies and set up an account. They will have everything that you need and can help you in getting the best tools for the money. Just ask them what most people are using and you can’t go wrong. But as you can see that you are not going to dish out a large sum in order for you to get started. If you want specifics on what we prefer to use just send me a comment and I will fill you in.
5. Finances - While we are talking about vehicles, equipment, tools, chemicals and vendors. I just want to give you a few words of advice. Stay out of debt!!!! Debt is the killer of any business or government for that matter. Do all your business COD. Pay cash for your vehicle if at all possible even if it means that you will need to drive an older model for a few years you will be a lot better off in the long run. Buy all your supplies COD. What I do now is pay for all my supplies with a company Visa that earns me points and I always pay it off every month. When I first started I got into some trouble with too much debt and it took years to dig myself out. Another very important thing is to find and start using an accountant from the very start. They can help you start your business as a LLC which is extremely important. This way your business and you are separated. If something happens and some one comes after you they can only come after your business and that is also one of the main reasons to always carry good business liability insurance. People are sue crazy these days and you need to protect yourself. I would also buy a good accounting program like Quick Books. That is what we have been using for years and it is probably one of the best. You need to find which method works best for you. Having an accountant handle all your books or you doing part but be sure to start off on the right foot. Plus be sure to pay your taxes!!! My accountant handles my taxes for me. I do monthly liability payments on-line plus quarterly I send my 941 plus pay my Florida unemployment tax which I also pay on-line. Be sure to start right from the beginning know what needs to be done and having a basic understanding of the whole process. I had never owned a business before and had no idea as to all the things that needs to be done. I got into trouble on the second year because I failed to send in liability payments and ended up owing a lot of money to the IRS. If I you would have had an accountant from the very start that would not have happened. If you can avoid some of the big mistakes that I made at the very beginning you will have a lot more fun with your business. Making money and having fun doing it is what it is all about.
6. Customers - Of course one of the biggest concerns is your customers and how to treat them. Let’s say that you are starting to gain some customers, you need to start at the very beginning on having policies set in place that will handle any situation that you might encounter. There are always going to be customers that will give you a hard time, that will be hard to negotiate with. So I think the best way to show you what I mean is to let you know some of our policies. One of the things that we did was create a Customer Welcome Letter. You can see a copy of it in the Oct. 2009 posting titled “El Sol Services Customers” We created this to let our new and existing customers know what our policies were in regards to daily operations, billing, rain days, holidays, vacations and etc. Through the years we have had a lot of confusion concerning these subjects and still do actually because no matter what you send out a lot never gets read and some remain in the dark as to our policies. I have been fired by customers because we took a week off for vacation. To this day some still don’t understand how we bill. A lot still are confused about holidays and how we work around them. If you would go to a recent post on the 3rd of this month you see a post, Billing Questions and you can see that I was trying to respond to some ongoing confusion concerning our billing procedures. So you see that customer relations is extremely important to the longevity of your business but also is a very complicated subject to accomplish. So I would urge you to start from the beginning with a customer letter that the customer will go over, have them sign it and return to you so you know at least they have read it and have somewhat of a grasp of what to expect from you, their pool service company. Now a lot of service companies use contracts or service agreements with their customers. These hold the customer and you to a certain time frame of service and pricing structure. I have always stayed away from these, part of my success is that I retain customers based on our performance not on a written contract. In 11 years we have only been actually fired about 6 times so I think that speaks for itself. No matter what, always treat people like you would want to be treated and don’t fall into the trap of “over promising and under delivering”. Keep you appointments, always call back within 12 hours or sooner of a call and be honest. Start a network of reliable contractors that can handle for you the repairs and installs that you are not comfortable doing or do not have the time. The most important thing is to treat your customer as though they were the only customer that you have and give them the upmost attention. Remember that everyone’s problems are always paramount to them.
7. Growth A lot of question that have come my way is from individuals that want to know if they should make the attempt to grow their business to the point where they will need to hire help. I know that I wanted to do this from the very start but it is far easier said then done. In looking back the most fun that I had in my business was when we had just enough pools that I could handle, around a 100. At that time my wife and I worked together and we were really enjoyed being together and having our own business. We were able to address issues as they came up, we were able to get close to our customers, some of them are still our very close friends. Now when we look back those were the good old days. Once I started hiring people my problems really began. I am sure that you have heard the saying “good help is hard to find” well it is true. I can’t tell you the number of people that I have had working for me. Some only lasting a day or so, some just disappearing never to be heard from again, some just plain lazy, some just not able to get the scope of the job, some not right in the head, you name it I have seen it. I am very fortunate that now I have a very good crew that are self motivated and that do not need to be micro managed but it took a long time to get to this place. Plus the money has been an issue. When it was just my wife and I and we were doing 100 pools ourselves I had more money in my pocket then when I started to hire. It was a slow process of hiring part time help until we got enough customers for a full time person. We keep repeating this process to bring us to the place that we are now. Now I am getting ready to retire and do not want to grow much more then I am but I am sure that if I wanted and had the energy that I use to have that this business could be as big as I wanted it to be. There is a pool service company in the Miami area that has 10,000 customers, now that is a business…. I planned to see the company get big enough to have a full time office person, a full time repair specialist, a renovation crew, a retail store front but I am slowing down now so that will have to be done by my predecessor. We are grossing almost $500,000 a year now so you could just imagine what the potential is. But with this much growth comes a lot of added expense.
8. Employees Like I said at the end of the last post with growth comes expense and with expense comes more headaches. There are some pros and cons in getting to the point that you need employees. Let me deal with the cons that I have had to deal with through the years. Like what was said before, finding good help is hard. But once you do find good people to work for you keeping them is even harder. Let’s face it, pool service is not the type of career that a person would choose for the long run. Most companies do not offer a lot of benefits like health insurance or retirement. So for most this is a short term position. So you have to offer what you can in order to try and keep your help. The first thing is a good pay. You know the saying “you get what you pay for” well it is true. If you want to have good lasting people working for you then you have to pay them a decent wage. I start mine at $12 per hour and then they can work up to the current of $15 per hour. I know that a lot of companies pay per pool but I think this is counter productive. It makes your people want to do as many pools as they can possibly do in a day as fast as they can and the end result is that you get sub par performance for your customers, not enough time is spent at each pool doing a proper job. But a lot of service company owners are not about providing good customer service but all about putting money in their pockets. That is why I pay per hour and then I also limit the daily number of pools to a number of pools that can be done right, usually between 18 and 20….. Another benefit that I provide is a company truck that they can take home plus the company pays for all the gas and maintenance. To me this is a great benefit, it is like adding $2 and hour to their wage. I also know that some companies require that their employees provide their own trucks but I want to be able to control how my business looks. I don’t want some rusted out piece of junk representing El Sol Services. Another benefit is that I provide them with a cell phone. It is important to me to be able to stay in communication. Workers Comp is a major expense. Right now in Florida I am not required to provide Worker Comp as long as my employees are just servicing pools and I keep my number of employees below 3. I am exempt as being the owner plus I am responsible for all the repairs which I am licensed to do. There was a time that I had more employees and I had to acquire Comp insurance and it was a BIG expense. I have never been able to provide health insurance. I have looked at it a number of times but the cost is just too great. I would love to be able to provide it to my people but so far it is out of reach. One of the biggest benefits for me in having employees was that recently I had a heart attack and had to take a coupe of months off to recover. If my business would have been just me doing pools I would have lost the business but having employees that stepped up made it possible for me to take the time off that I needed.
9. Thoughts So in summary if you want a certain degree of independence and the feeling of accomplishment then owning you own pool service company is for you. You have to remember that instead of one boss you have a number of bosses, your customers. You can’t always say the things that you would like to say, you will have times that you will be dealing with people that make no sense to you, that are totally unreasonable and sometimes you might have to let a customer go. For a lot of people it is easier to work for someone else, you do not have to be concerned with so many things that you do when you own your own business. If there is a mistake you have to take responsibility for it, you can’t pass it on. I know that very few read my blogs but if you want more info or advise on owning and operating a pool service company write me a comment or send me an email at bruce@elsolservices.com , I would be glad to help you along your path and just maybe keep you from falling into the same pitfalls that I did.
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