This blog post is a recap of a recent Q&A held during a Skimmer Webinar with Casey Graham of Yummy Pools. Watch the full webinar on demand here.
When Casey Graham started his own pool service business in 2022, he realized one thing very quickly: The pool service business is not like other businesses.
This is true for many reasons. Not only is the industry as a whole less standardized than others, but there’s also much more variation from company to company where customer service, branding, and operations are concerned.
Despite the vast differences that exist in the field, Casey has become an expert in growing pool businesses during his relatively short tenure in the industry. In fact, he recently collaborated with Skimmer on an ebook about how to build and run a successful (and profitable) pool service company, which he also discussed during a webinar co-hosted by Skimmer’s Director of Marketing, Niki Acosta.
In this webinar, he touched on a number of growth-related topics, such as deciding how and why you want to grow, discovering your owner’s intent, and the five stages of pool business growth. There was also a lively Q&A section at the end, which led to some excellent pieces of advice from Casey. We’ve recapped the best questions—and the advice they generated— below.
Q: The way our company is structured, we require our customers to purchase our chemicals as part of the service. Some customers don’t seem to like this. How would you handle this situation?
A: Get rid of that customer. They don’t fit your business.
Q: How and where can I start with being able to streamline the use of Skimmer? My husband is a Solopoolneur and I’m trying to take over the business side to help. We need to get it organized to be able to streamline the use with work orders, shopping lists, invoicing, etc., but I don’t know where to start amidst the chaos.
A: Find someone who’s already set Skimmer up before and get them to help you. Try a pool pro community on Facebook. And don’t just go on there saying, “Can somebody help me?” Say, “Hey, I have a budget of $3,000 to do these specific tasks.” There’s someone out there who’s looking to make that money as a side hustle.
You could also email Skimmer support to get set up with someone who can help. They’ll be able to do it 10 times faster than you could, since they’ve done that before. Skimmer’s support team also has resources they can provide you with.
Q: How do you get customers on board with equipment checks?
Do it in a way that’s visible to your customer. There’s a real power in being able to show your customer a salt cell that needs to be cleaned instead of saying, “You need your salt cell cleaned twice a year.” If they can see it, the price won’t matter.
The same goes for showing them a filter that needs to be cleaned, or having them hear a motor that sounds like it’s about to go—these are all super helpful ways to get the customer on board.
Q: Any tips for building culture?
My biggest tip is establishing a consistent meeting rhythm. Find the cadence that lets you get together to talk about the vision of the company, hear from different people in the company, and do consistent ongoing training or technician training. Culture building happens when people get together. What do all religions have in common? A weekly meeting.
When it comes to building culture with your leadership team, it looks different for scaling companies than it does for companies that have scaled. Before you’re at scale, this can look like a weekly leadership meeting at a local coffee shop. You sit down and talk through leadership items point by point.
When you become a scaled company, create a quarterly/annual meeting rhythm off-site with your leadership team. This is one of the most important things you can do as a leader to continue to shape your culture. Everyone needs a chance to reset.
Finally, never take yourself too seriously as the owner. Show your people that you care about them as people. Ask about their families and their lives. When you put distance between yourself and your employees, culture suffers.
Q: What are the top services you’ve added to your business that have the best profit margins?
There are a few. Heaters in Atlanta in the winter have done well for us. Besides that, the biggest repairs and the smallest repairs are where most of the margins are. There’s always less margin in the middle.
Overall, focusing on daily and weekly financial numbers has allowed us to stay profitable. We made our business healthy by focusing hard on those numbers.
Pool business growth is an ongoing conversation
Casey’s never done talking about how to grow a pool business—and it’s a conversation he wants to keep going. “I see this topic as a conversation that will take place over the next few years,” he said at the close of the webinar.
His ebook, From Skimming to Scaling, is another extension of the conversation. You can download and read it (or listen to the audiobook) here.
