Charging More For Pool Services
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This is an article that I have wanted to write for a while now but just never seem to have time. This article will not get many views. I will not make any appreciable money from this article at all despite the fact you may see an errant ad here or there on this website. Largely I barely keep the lights on around here with www.SwimmingPoolSteve.com as blogging in non-technology related fields is years or even decades behind the mainstream. Currently with my Youtube channel and website I am able to reach just under 2.5 million people per year which is great but there is a ton of room to grow to reach more people. When I write an article to pool company owners or managers like this I am ignoring 98% of my audience (pool owners) to do so. So I hope you appreciate this advice which was given to me when I was early into business within the pool industry. My family were pool builders for decades before I came along so I had the benefit to learn from others and now you have the benefit to learn the same lesson from me.
If you own, operate or manage a business within the pool or spa industry I am going to tell you my secret to success in this industry. I will receive no reward for sharing my secret with you, other than any potential loyalty that this alone may generate between myself and you, the reader. Please, if this article helps you, and you enjoy reading articles like this and wish to continue to do so, like and share this (any of my content) through social media such that I may grow this platform and reach more people. So how am I going to help you today? Why, in the best possible way of course...I am going to help you make more money than before, while doing less work, and I am also going to remove almost all of your problem clients from your portfolio. Sound interesting enough to read more? I hope so. Let's jump right in (pun intended):
Are you good at your job? - This article and my secret to success presumes that you are a hard working person who invests time into learning more about your job and how to do your job better. My secret to success also requires that care about the results that you produce at work. I would rather work two hours of free overtime than leave a client with the feeling that I really did not deliver on my promises. I over deliver on the jobs I take and I suppose you can take that as the first step in this secret to success in the pool industry plan. Always deliver as much or more than your customer is expecting, as fast or faster than you say you will do it. Sounds easy. So does working out every day. If you want your business to be lean, and mean and in the green then this all starts with your willingness to learn about your job, get good at it, then deliver reliable and consistent results. I have never missed a meeting with a client. I would rather be 30 minutes early than five minutes late...and now, so do you.
Communication is key in keeping clients well informed and happy. You have a supercomputer in your pocket. Use it.
Swimming Pool Steve's secret to success - Enough dancing around. Here is the bottom line. You need to charge more for your services. This is largely true across the board for any person who has been in business for a few years already. Have you been increasing your rates at 5% per year or more every single year? No? Well then you are making less today than when you started. Except it should be the opposite of that. You are more skilled and experienced now than you were five years ago so why the hell would you be worth less per hour now than the day you started? Inflation alone demands that you increase prices every year. On average, based on what I see people posting about online in the pool professionals groups, most small companies are lucky to increase their prices once or twice per decade. This is your problem right here. Unless you still go to the store for bread and cigarettes and milk with a quarter and get some change back, then you need to accept that inflation is real. It is so real in fact that it is arguably even worse than it officially being addressed right now as people might start to riot. My grocery bill is more than 20% higher than it was one year ago for the same items, if I can find those items any more. This is from a single year. I would bet you are experiencing something similar right now.
Price increases from distribution and suppliers - I have received more price increase notices from pool and spa suppliers in the past 18 months than I have received in the prior 30 years total. I would not even be able to implement a price increase before the next price increase notice would be received. Until recently when they were all compiled into one giant tome from my supplier titled "war and peace price increases". Some increases as high as 70% or more. That is not a typo. For relative context in previous years a 7% increase would be cause enough to question brand loyalty. So what does all this have to do with you, the swimming pool professional? It is time to increase your prices. By a lot.
The price paradox that scares people away - No Swimming Pool Steve I can not change my price to be a living wage commensurate with increasing material costs and costs of living! My customers will all complain and hire someone cheaper! Well, this is a risk certainly. Price too high and you might lose too many clients. However you need to accept that this industry is a technical monster. You literally need to know chemistry to do your job, and the thing you build/repair/maintain costs as much as a luxury house in many areas of the world. You must accept that this is a hard job, and you really have to know what you are doing to do it well. Plus you have to work hard. It's not even enough to have the knowledge as you literally need to work the fingerprints off your hands in this line of work. Your bank manager never works this hard, I assure you. So here is the crux. You will lose some customers when you increase price. The ones that you lose are the ones you want to lose. The ones who do not value your service. If someone wants only low price then let them find it with someone who does not have your knowledge, does not have your commitment to your customers or respecting their investment in a swimming pool. From now on you cater to people who understand that there is more going on with a pool that dropping pucks into the skimmer basket once per week (please do not put chlorine pucks in your skimmer basket). It is a fallacy that people only want low prices. Certain kinds of people only want low prices and those people can get bent. Why work for free for someone only to have them not even appreciate you being there? It makes no sense at all.
Form letter for price increase:
Hi Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Swimming Pool Steve here. I am just letting you know that effective on the next billing cycle will be an 11% increase in pricing. Please note that this increase does not even cover the actual cost increases I have experienced recently as a business owner due to inflation and increased material costs to operate my business. I am very interested to retain you as my client. I enjoy taking care of your pool and I wish to continue to do so long term. This price increase is not negotiable, and represents the absolute lowest increase that I can absorb while maintaining a stable, long term business plan. This will ensure that I can continue to provide you with the same quality of service now and in the future. I hope you understand and agree.
Thank you
Swimming Pool Steve
Something as simple as this is enough to remove any person from your portfolio who is on the fence about your value. Any reasonable person will agree that things are more expensive now than in recent years and absolutely every area of our lives are experiencing price increases. Being a pool worker takes more education, more knowledge, more experience and more hard work than most other jobs and you absolutely should be charging appropriately for this. Who cares if someone undercuts your price. You know as well as I do that they do not understand the technical nuances of how to properly care for and maintain a pool. It takes serious dedication to learning and re-learning everything you thought you already knew. The people who do not do that are the ones who can pick up the bottom dwellers.
When you are good at what you do and work hard at your job the best thing you can possibly do is increase your prices with the confidence that this is a good idea and you are worth what you are charging. When prices go up again then you should start crunching numbers on your costs. Track where your expenses change and you will know exactly when to increase your prices and just how much they need to go up. It is your responsibility to run the business in a sustainable long term way and you can not claim to be doing so when you make less money every year despite taking on more and more business. Trim the fat from your portfolio and start to track your costs. Increase prices every one to three years as inflation drives down your profit margins.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool specialist from Ontario Canada and one of the most trusted voices in the swimming pool industry. With over 20,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the Pleatco Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print. Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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