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Go To Where The Water Is

Posted by James Kantorowicz on July 9, 2009 at 9:14am in Business Growth, Expansion, and Current Opportunit

I still shake my head when I read in our industry trade magazines how business is way down and store fronts closing across the country.We were all warned through numerous news articles from our trade magazines that it's time to change the way we are doing business, or simply you won't make it. Now thats a paraphrase of what I call a prophetic utterance., but how true has this unwanted prophesy has become.This brings me to why I choose the title that I did. About 25 years ago there was a comedian by the name of Sam Kinison who had a very edgy and raunchy comedic sketch concerning feeding the hungry people who live in the desert. He goes on to explain how we should stop sending them food and water and instead send them Uhauls and luggage. His thought process was crudely correct when he said " Instead of us bringing the food and water to the people in the desert, lets move the people out of the desert to the food and water" He proceeded to proclaim that "what is this ? ( as sand was pouring from his hands ) this is sand. What's it going to be a hundred years from now? Sand nothing grows in the sand".It's time to move out of the desert and go to where the business is. Open yourself up to new products and services.For right now energy conservation is the green pasture of every industry and I recommend you check into some of the great companies in our industry that can really help your bottom line.I invite anyone to list any product that has help you keep things moving for you in this discussion and lets help each other out of the desert.

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  • Merry Wise July 20, 2009 at 9:25am
    Oh, we survived the oil bust too in Texas. My thought is that we need to be aware of changes in our local markets and what people are demanding and respond to the needs as well. One way we responded in the previous "bust" was to emphasize price over "premium" products- we brought in a cheaper line of chemicals and loss led the things people generally compare price on, and in today's market this is equally apropos. Make a loss leader on a most-used product, like three inch tabs, and put a simple little sign on it saying something like "cheaper than Sam's" in your store!

    Also be aware that some people may start cleaning their own pools and instead of worrying about loss of pool cleaning business, shift your emphasis to be the educational "go to" store to teach them how- offer free instore seminars, free computerized water analysis, knowledgeable store personnel and sell them a good pool care book and videos to help them. Focus the cleaning business on the high end customers and sell deluxe services with specialty porducts included.

    For pool construction, focus on the higher end market as well. Be the top designer in your area and the business will always come to you.
  • Bruce Hudson July 17, 2009 at 7:50am
    Hey James, I've got a couple experiences that might provoke thought.

    In 1986 in Texas we had an economic crash centered around Savings and Loan institutions,Real Estate, Oil and man, the phone did not ring. I spent a year out of state and returned in '88. By then the banks were able to begin foreclosure on abandoned homes and there is were we found opportunity. We introduced ourselves to the banks and realters asking that as they are able to foreclose a property, we will drain and clean the pool and maintain it untill the property sells. I've never worked harder in my life! Alone I was doing 2 D&C's per day. It's coming again to parts of the country. I would be happy to share more if anyone is interested.


    After Hurricane Andrew marched over So. Florida, I was asked to come down and lend a hand by an old friend. Once things got cleaned up a bit and returned to normal, it was once again time to find a way to stay ahead of our competition. Some companies in So. Florida treat pools with a bleach only program as we did. I wanted to do something different and seized on the idea of capitalizing on the fact that we were surrounded by marine sanctuaries. We changed from DE to cellulose,used chitin(sp) clarifier, tablet chlorine to reduce daily chlorine levels, and put over 300 pools on sodium tetraborate. We called it "Environmentally Freindly" water treatment. It was so appealing to the owners that we were able to charge 30% more than our competitor and still draw business away from him.


    I know there are some bright minds out there that can improve on what we did back then. Looking forward to the discussions.
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