Episode 199: Increase Productivity and Profitability by using the Tools of Modern Pool Professionals
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Episode Summary
Today, we bring together Skimmer’s marketing head Kevin Embree, Riptide Pool Vacuum System’s co-founders David Sargent and Matt Lopez, Primate Pool Tools’ co-founder Joe DiAnna Jr, and Piranha Pool Products’ owner Eric Resh.
We discuss the newly co-branded Tools of Modern Pool Professionals which brings all of our guests together through their innovative technologies in the world of swimming pools. Determined to modernize the industry, Kevin had the idea to have a discussion between himself and these other company leaders to discover whether there was customer company value overlap between them and how their respective products have been game-changing.
Today’s conversation revolves around the keys to constant innovation in the pool industry and the limitations of the (still widely accepted) substandard pen-and-paper system. Our guests also share how they have been raising customer awareness to get their products in more hands, and how adopting modern tools inevitably attracts high-quality labor, increases productivity, and profitability.
Topics Discussed
01:19 - How the Modern Tools idea came about
04:40 - Why these products are game-changers
15:29 - The keys to innovation
20:36 - Spreading the word and raising customer awareness
28:03 - A new way to look at “competition”
35:08 - Becoming a customer-service oriented company
39:15 - The best compliment you can receive from a customer
47:39 - Identifying the tools that make you more productive
53:42 - Staying on the cutting edge as the company behind the product
Connect with Guest
Key Quotes From Episode
Whether you’re using Skimmer or a Piranha net or a Primate carbon fiber pole or a Riptide pool vacuum—if you’re only using one of those, you should really be using all of them. It’s not just about getting a little bit better. It’s about being a game-changer to your business. ~Kevin
We’re a customer service company as much as we are a pool vacuum company. ~Matt
It’s not just about trying to be more professional. It’s trying to be more productive. When our products enable that, our customers are able to be more profitable. That’s why we’re in business. ~Eric
We are not competing with each other. We are educating the larger market to actually try one of us. [...] We’re not competing with each other. We’re not competing with market competitors. We’re competing with an old mindset. ~Kevin
You can run a profitable business using substandard tools and substandard processes. You really can, and by the way, a lot of companies today are. One of the reasons we’re on this podcast today is to say, “You don’t have to anymore.” ~Kevin
Every single tool on the planet exists to help you become more productive. Identify the tools that make you more productive, and take the time to understand them so that you can use them to their fullest. ~David
Using all four of our brands is not a huge change—it’s two millimeters. It’s a two-millimeter shift in the way you work; but, you get a 10x return on investment. ~Kevin