Growing a business is every business owner’s aspiration. But unfortunately, not everybody can achieve that. Growing a business can be challenging, and the pool service industry is no exception. You face much competition over providing a service that relatively few clientele need. Because of this, you may find your service area to be quite large, depending on where you are based.
Here’s a list of the ways you can take your pool maintenance business to the next level. Be sure to note them and do them one by one to ensure that your business will scale as you intend.
Table of Contents
- Eliminate Bottlenecks in Your Service
- Ask for Referrals
- Incentivize Your Customers to Write Reviews
- Engage with Customers and People on Social Media Platforms
- Send Direct Mail to Everyone in the Neighborhood
- Make Your Vehicles and People Roving Billboard Ads
- Reach Out to Another Market
- Add Merchandise to Your Business
- Expand Your Service Area
- Strengthen and Utilize Your Partnership with Local Businesses
- Create a Quality Website
- Invest in Your Online Presence
- Get Your Site and Business Listed
- Manage and Maintain Your Clients
1. Eliminate Bottlenecks in Your Service
Everyone loves a quick and snappy service. Because of that, you must ensure there are no bottlenecks in your processes. Some common bottlenecks in pool services are scheduling issues, invoice processing and generation, and traffic holdups.
More and more companies are turning to business management apps like Jobber to help them solve these daily and routine challenges.
Jobber and other similar innovative software solutions have been developed specifically to address the needs of pool service businesses in the way that they feature estimate and invoice generation templates; a scheduling manager; route optimization; and automated customer notifications.
2. Ask for Referrals
In trade businesses, you need to rely heavily on word-of-mouth marketing. So don’t forget to ask your clients for referrals every chance you get. Know that 92% of people trust referrals, especially if the one that gave it is close to them.
If they give you one and the referral agrees to take your services, don’t hesitate to reward your client with a discount or incentive that would make them happy. This incentive can also set them up to do business with you again—a win-win situation.
3. Incentivize Your Customers to Write Reviews
Aside from referrals, encourage your clients to give your company some sweet reviews online and on social media platforms. Positive reviews can significantly help improve your online presence and reputation. Also, these reviews can raise the chances of people hiring you. After all, it’s typical to read reviews before buying a product or getting a service.
In addition, you can educate your clients on where and how to leave reviews for you. After all, not all your clients will be tech-savvy. Educating and helping them to post reviews for you can also help you influence them to give you positive feedback for your company.
Almost everyone is on the internet nowadays, mostly online on their social media accounts. Use this to your advantage. Engage with them and work hard to demonstrate you are the go-to when it comes to pool servicing.
Thankfully, there are many ways to go about social media marketing (SMM). The most common and inexpensive way is to market organically. This entails creating a dedicated page for your company. Then, you’ll need to post content on your accounts consistently. Also, reply to anyone who comments or interacts with your post. Being interactive counts toward your engagement and can even help your social media presence organically.
Another way to do SMM is to take advantage of paid advertising. Most social media platforms offer businesses and organizations the chance to reach their target audience through personalized and targeted ads. Create a dedicated landing page for them and decide what you want them to do when they arrive. Optimize your page for whatever this is. Ensure you then measure these conversions so that you can monitor how successful your campaigns are.
5. Send Direct Mail to Everyone in the Neighborhood
With the advent of short message service (SMS), email, and social media, many companies have abandoned traditional marketing methods. One of those forgotten methods is direct mail. However, as a skilled trade business, direct mail effectively works in your favor. One study found that 70% of people believe direct mail is a much more personal form of advertisement than online interactions with companies.
After all, you and most people under your employ will always work in the neighborhood. You can always take a few minutes of your time to leave flyers and postcards to your clients’ neighbors to advertise your company. Walking around the neighborhood can also allow you to interact with the people there. You can hit them up with a conversation and persuade them to hire you for their pool.
Also, sending direct mail can allow you to survey the neighborhood. After all, not everyone has a pool in their backyards. Knowing who owns one can let you know whom to target and market. Of course, it doesn’t mean you should give the ones who don’t own a pool the cold shoulder. Still, give them postcards or flyers as they may know someone with a swimming pool, and they might even recommend you.
6. Make Your Vehicles and People Roving Billboard Ads
Don’t just let your vehicles stand idle on a random sidewalk. Instead, make them earn their keep by advertising your company. To do that, you can cover your service vehicles with an ad decal stating your company name and contact details. Do this so that passersby and other homeowners who’ll get a glimpse of your vehicles will know your business exists and potentially contact you in the future for a job order.
Say you have some extra budget for advertising. You might want to go all the way and acquire advertising stickers and decals for your business. After all, they can benefit you in the following ways:
- You can stick them anywhere you want people to see them. You can stick them on your tools, merchandise, and flyers.
- You can let family and friends stick them on their vehicles, effectively giving you a free advertisement for your business.
- You can even sell them as merchandise.
Aside from your vehicles, think about how your team can become adverts for your business. Is there a simple printed shirt they can wear with your company name and contact details?
7. Reach Out to Another Market
Currently, you might be limiting your business to only serving residential customers. However, for example, suppose you’ve acquired all the residential clients in your area. You might want to add another line of business to your company, say, commercial pool maintenance.
Because of that, you might need to prepare your business to get the equipment for this new line of business and try reaching out to commercial property owners.
8. Add Merchandise to Your Business
A pool maintenance business can be lucrative, but you shouldn’t stop there. If you want to grow your business, you might want to find new avenues where you can earn some extra money. One way to do that is to sell and upsell pool-related merchandise such as pool chemicals, accessories, and furniture. In addition to selling those items, you can use them during promotions and marketing materials when you sign up for trade fairs.
9. Expand Your Service Area
As mentioned before, not everyone has a pool. So at a certain point, you will need to expand your service area to grow your business. However, this is not as simple as you may think. After all, you’re probably not the only one in the industry in the vicinity.
You’ll collide with another company’s service area as you expand your service area. When this happens, you might need to get in touch with them and see how they’ll react to your presence in their territory. For example, some might strike up a deal and ask you to buy some of their routes. This means that in exchange for a certain amount, they can hand you a part of their service area, including their customers.
However, be careful with these deals. They might hand you off to problematic customers and hard-to-maintain pools. You might receive more business, but these customers can put you at a loss. So, practice due diligence and make sure to survey the area first before you make a deal.
10. Strengthen and Utilize Your Partnership with Local Businesses
Indeed, your business may be relying on other local companies for you to operate. You may have partnered up with the local hardware or pool supply store. If that’s the case, you may want to strengthen and utilize your partnership with them.
For example, you may want to request your supplier to hang or stick some of your company’s flyers or ads in their shop. Of course, you’ll do the same in exchange and upsell their products to your clients.
11. Create a Quality Website
In today’s digital age, having a website is no longer an option but a necessity for any business to succeed. A well-designed and functional website serves as the foundation of a company’s online presence, and it can make a significant impact on the success of the business. Here are some reasons why a business owner should invest in a quality site:
Establishes Credibility: A website is a digital storefront that showcases a business’s products, services, and brand. It helps establish credibility and legitimacy for the business, as potential customers are more likely to trust a business that has an established website.
Increases Visibility: A website increases a business’s visibility by providing a platform to reach a wider audience. It also allows businesses to optimize their website for search engines, making it easier for potential customers to find them.
Enhances Customer Engagement: A well-designed website can enhance customer engagement by providing a platform for customers to interact with the business. It can also provide valuable information to customers, answer frequently asked questions, and provide support.
When it comes to building a website, there are several technology options to choose from, including Squarespace, WordPress, Webflow, and React. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the choice depends on the business’s needs and goals. For instance, Squarespace is a user-friendly platform that is ideal for small businesses, while WordPress is a more flexible platform that can accommodate larger businesses.
Regardless of the technology platform, there are some essential features that a business website should have to optimize for conversion. These features include:
Easy Navigation: A well-structured website with easy navigation helps visitors find what they are looking for quickly, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Fast Load Times: Slow website load times can drive potential customers away. Optimizing a website for fast load times can improve the user experience and increase the likelihood of conversion.
Clear Calls to Action: Clear and concise calls to action help visitors know what action to take, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Mobile-Responsive Design: A mobile-responsive design ensures that a website is optimized for all devices, including mobile phones and tablets.
Testimonials and Social Proof: Including testimonials and social proof on a website can help establish trust and credibility with potential customers.
12. Invest in Your Online Presence
Your website will do a lot more for your business if you’re getting 10,000 visitors per month rather than 300. This is where content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) come into play.
In addition to the content on your website, you also need to consider what your target audience sees online when they read about you on others websites. To ensure there is nothing off-putting, run a Google search for your business partners’ names and your company name. If you see any information that you would rather not be public, you can take steps to remove personal information from Google. This way, only the best of you will appear on search engines.
With an improved online presence, you can attract customers online more effectively so you can grow your business.
13. Get Your Site and Business Listed
Aside from building a website, you should also ensure you get your business’s name and website out there in the open. One way to do that is to get your site and business name listed or registered in local search and business directories. Doing so can help your online presence and allow people looking for the service you offer more ways and locations to find you on the web.
14. Manage and Maintain Your Clients
Growing a business doesn’t only mean that you should try and find more customers. It’s also vital that you manage and maintain your current customer base. After all, adding customers will be useless if your business continuously loses them.
You can effectively manage and maintain your clients in multiple ways. Some of them are the following:
- Make sure that you follow your client’s special instructions. For example, if they say you need to leave the gate open once you finish your work, leave it open.
- Make sure that you respect their schedules. Be flexible as you can. However, make sure to set boundaries and don’t just bend over backward unless the customer deserves to be treated a bit more special than the rest.
- Use business management apps to make your business operate as seamlessly as possible. Aside from that, use business management apps to collect and accumulate data and information about your customers. Doing so will allow your team to remember previous special instructions and the demeanor of your clients. This can also allow them to personalize your service more, resulting in more satisfied customers.
4. Engage with Customers and People on Social Media Platforms