Todd Gustafson has enjoyed many milestones since he started building his company, Cool Pool People, in 2008. But one moment sticks out as the one that “made it all feel real,” he says: the day the Cool Pool People sign went up on his warehouse building.
At the time, it was a scary feeling. “It seemed like more than I should have,” he says. After all, he’d built the business through word-of-mouth, one pool at a time, without ever buying routes or leads. To see it become something so professional-looking felt strange at first.
Todd has long since shaken off the impostor syndrome, though he still uses the same growth strategy he’s always relied on. “Just take care of that one client with everything you’ve got, and then you’ll have two,” he says. It’s a simple strategy, but over the years, it’s grown Cool Pool People into a 1000-pool company.
Todd stopped by the Between Two Stops podcast to chat with Niki Acosta about the lessons he’s learned from building his company from scratch.
Lesson #1: Say yes to everything—at least for a while
The most successful pool businesses have a well-defined set of strengths that they can communicate, both to their own employees and their customers. In the early days of Cool Pool People, Todd took his time figuring out the business’s strengths with an unconventional approach: saying yes to everything.
Being able to experience a range of clients, locations, and circumstances helped Todd get crystal clear on exactly the kind of business he wanted to keep growing. “You learn a lot by walking through the weeds,” he says, and “It helped me define what I want to do.” Before long, he was able to turn his “Yes to everything” approach into “Yes, if it’s right for the business.”
For Todd, defining the business meant tightening up Cool Pool People’s service area to a single city (Frisco, Texas). “I picked one city [to operate from], and year by year, kept selling the routes that weren’t in that city.” For Todd, this was another advantage of having said yes for so long. By the time he started narrowing his business, he could profit off that decision. “I’d get $5,000, $8,000 by selling off those routes, which helped me grow,” he says.
Lesson #2: Don’t discount the value of teamwork
Finding the best way to manage Cool Pool People’s team took some time.
“When it was just me and a small team,” says Todd, “I didn’t have that team mentality. We were out in the elements. It was hard work. People worked when they were sick or hurt. That was just the way it was.” While he credits this strategy with developing some “really strong individuals”, it wasn’t sustainable.
“I was against teamwork back then, but now it’s what makes us strong and propels us,” says Todd. “It gives us longevity.” Today, rather than having a small group that does everything, no matter what, Todd has grown the team and steered them towards supporting one another. “We have people who want to do extra work,” he says. Now, if someone is hurt or sick, “Someone will come fill in in a matter of minutes. We’re getting less turnover now that there’s a bit of reprieve.”
Todd keeps his team informed with 30-minute, twice-weekly team meetings every Monday and Friday, which also took time to perfect. “When you’re pool cleaning,” he says, “Every second matters. To take 30 minutes to talk is really painful for a pool cleaner.” For that reason, he was opposed to meetings in the beginning, but without touching base, he says, “people went astray.” After a brief overcorrection of daily meetings (which everyone hated), the twice-weekly rhythm finally feels like one that satisfies everyone’s needs and schedules.
Lesson #3: Hire the people you’d want to see in your own backyard
If there’s one thing Todd is most proud of, it’s his employees. “We attract fun employees,” he says, which in turn attracts fun customers
When Todd is hiring, he looks for the kind of person he’d want to see in his own backyard. “I want [to hire people that customers] feel comfortable going out and saying hello to,” he says. To him, that looks like a happy and polished person who can express what they’re thinking and feeling easily (“Not everyone can,” says Todd).
It seems like a simple checklist, but it’s worked. Our team members have an attitude of wanting to step in and help.” Cool Pool People’s customers take notice, too. As Todd says, customers regularly tell him how much they enjoy talking with technicians when they see them.
Lesson #4: Learn what your ideal customer looks like
It’s one thing to know what kind of person you’d like to hire. Finding your ideal customer can take some more time and false starts. For a while, says Todd, his business was trying to serve two distinct types of clients: the more self-sufficient ones who mostly wanted to save money, and the ones who really appreciated when things were done proactively.
Realizing that he didn’t have to serve both groups was a lightbulb moment. “It made everything so much clearer,” he says. “When we [were trying to please] both, we just worried about what we should or shouldn’t do.”
He elaborates, “If someone wants to clean their own filter or buy their own bags, we say, ‘That’s great, but we’ll do it too.’” He’ll always go the extra mile to take care of everything, and his best customers are the ones who appreciate that effort. “To us, pools are really important,” he says, and “We get along with the families that are really into their pool.”
Lesson #5: Find the technology that will help your business grow
For a long time, Cool Pool People was paper-based by choice. “I have an architecture degree,” says Todd, “So I feel very comfortable with sheets of paper.” Eventually, he had to admit this wasn’t the best way forward for the team as a whole. Ultimately, he says, “I don’t know what I wrote on that sheet of paper.”
Finding Skimmer was a game-changer. “It’s helped us become team-focused,” says Todd. “You have a copy [of your work] as soon as you send it to [the customer]. On paper, we had no access to that.” This helps keep everyone informed and streamlines service so that, no matter who’s looking after a pool, customers get a consistent experience.
Todd knows that staying with Skimmer will help Cool Pool People continue to grow. “There’s a lot of power built into it,” he says, and for a team that plans to continue growing steadily, that power is important.
Don’t forget to catch the full conversation with Todd below.
