Competing with Gift Cards Do you have one of those pool or spa salespeople who think that giving a discount is the easiest way to make a sale? They may be right, but what about you’re lost profit? If your product has a profit margin of 40% and your salespeople give a 10% discount to…
Handling Hard to Please Customers How you and your staff handle hard to please customers in your pool and spa business can make or break whether they are a returning customer or someone who will bad mouth and complain about your company. One of the meetings and training sessions that I like to have with…
Play Ball! A few years ago I was trying to think of what would really motivate my pool and spa staff. What could I offer them that would really excite them to increase sales? They all work on commission, but I wanted to instill a fun atmosphere that drove them just a little but harder.…
Know Your Margins You can have a growing pool and spa business, but without adequate profit margins, your growth efforts really take you nowhere. It is important you know your margins and know them by product or service type. You want to be sure you are promoting and selling your highest margin products and services…
Take the Work Out of Getting Paid Don’t fall behind in both procedure and technology in your billing process. Create a solid billing process that makes it easier and more convenient for your customers to pay their bills. At the same time add tools that make billing easier, less expensive and less time consuming for…
Wheel of Success For many years, I have run my pool and spa business and my software company based on my own variation of the Balanced Scorecard strategic planning and management system. My version adds inventory to the other four components of my vision and strategy. I personally feel that inventory has a life of…
Build Your Email List Everyone in business needs to understand the importance of email list building. You need to stay current and relevant. This means building up an email database of people who are potential and actual customers and who are willing to receive information from you about your products and services. Sending promotions and…
Why Creating a Marketing Plan is Important Companies that are successful in marketing invariably start with a well thought written marketing plan. It may be half a dozen pages or three dozen pages, or more. Things change, markets evolve, and customers come and go so your plan should be done in advance for one year.…
How To Have Fun With Training Consumers will be more apt to choose your store before purchasing online or at a big box store if you have a knowledgeable staff and exceptional customer service. To implement a complete training program you must commit to a written plan to coordinates dates, various locations, trainers, topics, presentations,…
Hiring Seasonal Staff For many pool and spa companies, it is impossible to employ full time adults for all positions because there is simply not enough work year round. Part time college and high school students are the answer. You need the summer help and they need the work. Because teenagers have busy lives, one…
